Happy Father's Day

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One of the hardest things I’ve ever done is help lift my father’s body up and off his rented hospital bed and onto the stretcher belonging to Salas Brothers Funeral Chapel. I don’t remember much about the moment – a moment I thought I would never forget. I think my brothers were there, helping. But I don’t know. What I’m left with is an impression, a sad sense that suddenly there was a before and an after, and that the after had started in a rush.


When the men from the funeral chapel left the house that Monday morning, when they wheeled my father to the hearse – was it a hearse? Of this simple fact I am also unsure. I know he was covered with a dark blue wrap. Something soft. That image is indelible. But again, can I even swear to that? Those moments – from Dean’s early-morning phone call telling me my father had died. My race home to Modesto, desperately wanting to be pulled over so I could yell at a Highway Patrolman, vent my anger and loss at someone. On anyone. Then parking outside the house on Sherwood Avenue. The only home I’d ever known in Modesto. My parent’s house. Hugging my mom. Holding her while we both cried. Then walking into that quiet bedroom. Those men outside, waiting quietly, respectfully. Waiting with their dark blue wrap.

My dad, especially there – close to his end. He had spent more and more time in the bedroom, at the back of the house. I will say nothing more than it was too hard for him to move, to join us in the family room. To sit on the couch, or at the table, where he had sat so often before.

My point? My point. I have a point. It’s right there. It’s that my dad – even at the end, even when he wasn’t with us, chatting and laughing and marveling at his grandkids – even then, my dad filled that house. And I was unaware of it. We’d sit there, in the front room, when he was resting in the back, and we’d talk. Of course much of the talk was about my dad.

Dean. Dean asked me, he said, “Did Dad ever yell at you?” My dad’s Greek, we’re all Greek, so we’re used to raised voices. Used to the get-togethers where Metaxa was poured, and spilled, and voices. Ah, those Greek voices. To hear those voices again, what I would give to hear those loud, Metaxa voices again.

But my dad? Not my dad. Mad? Of course my dad got mad. But he didn't yell. Dean said, “Dad got mad at me one time. Not counting when I got the earring. The one time was when he picked me up from football practice. Pop Warner. He picked me up at the parking lot at Davis High, you know, there near the baseball diamonds? I told him,” Dean said, “that I was embarrassed to be picked up by him because he was driving that ’63 Chevy Impala. Can you believe I’d tell him that? When I was in eighth grade? That I was embarrassed? Shoot me. I’m an idiot. But yeah,” Dean said, “Dad got mad at that.”

Me? I gave my dad plenty of reasons to get mad. The main time, I told Dean, was when my Dad thought I was doing cocaine. I helped out during the summer at his pharmacy. His pharmacy was unbelievably cool. There was an attic full of old magazine racks, paperback book racks, adding machines. Full of dust and that old smell that attics have. But the pharmacy itself? Behind the counter, where my dad worked – further coolness. There was a poster he got from the Modesto Police Department, showing what the most common handguns looked like when viewed head-on. He’d had to glance down more than one barrel during robberies, and the coppers thought it would be helpful if my dad knew what kind of gun had been used.

The crazy thing is, that’s something my dad was able to tell them, after. Me? I’d have been on the floor, throwing my wallet over the counter, absolutely unable to later tell the police, “It was small, probably a .25 caliber.” As if.

But there was so much else that made the pharmacy cool. Like my dad’s mortar and pestles. Back then, pharmacists actually “made” some of the prescriptions they filled. I thought it would be fun to grind up some Bayer Aspirin – just grind it up in a pestle. Maybe when my dad was in the bathroom so he didn’t know what I was up to. And what would make it extremely cool is if I then took the powder and put it all in one of the glass vials at my disposal, there at the pharmacist’s counter in the back of Rogers Drug Store. A clear glass vial no bigger around than my pinky, with a black plastic screw-top.

What was I going to do with the ground up aspirin? I don’t know. Go ask some twelve-year old what he’d do with it.

What I did do with it was to hide it, at home, in my bedroom, in my bottom drawer, under some pants, inside a travelers chess set. This little magnetic job, with a black and white game board that folded over, hiding its tiny magnetic chess pieces – and my stolen glass vial filled with ground up Bayer Aspirin.  My parents would never find it there.  Never.

They found it.

Dad confronts me, I tell Dean. I’m trying to explain to my dad that I’m a nerd, a geek, that a requirement for that is no use of illegal drugs. He’s not buying it. I tell him it’s aspirin. He asks if I really expect him to believe that.

I do, I really do.

Then my dad does this cop-show thing. He unscrews that slim glass vial, wets the tip of his little finger, dabs it to the powder, and licks it. He does that twice. Dean’s laughing a little bit. “He really did that?” Dean asks. “He really did,” I say. “Thankfully,” I say. Because that cop-show move finally – praise Jaysis! – convinces my dad that I’m not Modesto’s first preteen medhead.

So for that, yeah, my dad got mad. And I get it. I mean, he’s a pharmacist. He has this respect for drugs. This enormous respect. And if his son had abused this product, this thing that he studied in school, and then had worked with for thirty years, would work at for twenty-five more, for his entire life – until that terrible January day in 2009 when he collapsed at work – I mean, yes. Yes. I get it.

And that was it, really. The one time he raised his voice. Hell, Dean and I decided we can’t get to 8 am without raising our voices.

I’m getting back to my point, I am. I promise. I can hear you now. “Nick,” you’re saying, “what’s your point?”

My point is that my dad filled that house even when he was in the back bedroom. We felt him even when he wasn’t next to us. And I know this because after – after the men took my dad away, after they covered him in soft blue and drove him away – when we sat there, my Mom and I and Dean and George, I felt – we all felt – his absence. We had gotten used to not having Dad around, talking about Utah, the Giants, politics. But that morning, when the men drove away – the emptiness in the house was palpable. The void he left – I could reach out and touch it. I don’t care what you want to call it. His soul. His aura. His spirit. I’m just telling you that something was gone that had always been there before.

Just gone.

Later, at some point during the after – after he died, but before his funeral – we started going through his stuff. My dad had this bureau in that back bedroom, my parent’s bedroom. Four small drawers on top – two over two – over four big drawers underneath. The small drawers were just full of Dad stuff. Great dad stuff. Nametags. His money clip – holding $24. Pens. Oh my god, the pens. If my dad had a weakness, if was for pens. And not the good ones. Karen and I bought him a pen from Tiffany’s one Christmas. Blue box and all. I thought he might use it. Could I have gotten it any more wrong? He wore it a few times, my mom said. To some weddings. Maybe a baptism. But then it got put back in that blue box.

The pens my dad did like?  Promotional things from pharmaceutical companies. Pink. Fluorescent green. Clean white.  Pens advertising drugs with names like Qvar, Actonel, Nitrolingual.  I’ve got this picture of my dad, in my head, clicking a pen – whichever was newest – staring at it as he clicked onetwo onetwo.

Just like that - clickclick clickclick - my dad watching it, then swiping the pen across a scratch pad.  Swipe. Smiling at the fresh line it made.

Smiling.

So we’re going through that drawer. Well, Dean, mostly. And we’re marveling at the cool dad stuff. And that’s when Dean laughs. Dean’s got this thing where he laughs and shakes his head at the same time. If you know Dean, you know what I’m talking about. So he laughs, and he’s shaking his head, and I say, “What?” And Dean says, “You’re not going to believe this.” And he keeps shaking his head, laughing, and he holds up, in that dark back bedroom, a slim glass vial with a black plastic screw-top. Full of ground-up Bayer Aspirin.

And Dean’s thinking what I’m thinking, and we don’t have to say much of anything. We both just look at the vial. This vial I hadn’t thought about in more than thirty years, this vial that I’d just told Dean about.

And we didn’t say much of anything.

What I would like to try to do, if I can, is emulate my dad. Is to try and be more like Tony Petrulakis. To remind myself that Elizabeth is six, and Kristina three. That if Karen knows it takes them more than five minutes to get ready in the morning, I should know it, too. That if we’re late, it’s my fault, not theirs. That if it’s easy for me to raise my voice, easy because I do it often, that I need to recognize that. That I need to ask myself, if Elizabeth and Kristina are having a quiet conversation in some future dark bedroom, and if Elizabeth asks, “Did Dad ever yell at you?” Do I want Kristina’s answer to be, “Always,” or not?

I’m thinking I would prefer “or not.”

My point. I keep trying to get to my point. My point really is – I miss my dad and I wish he were here, that I wish I could tell him, “Happy Father’s Day, and many many more.”

There. That’s my point. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.

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Thank you, Dad

My dad died a month ago, on March 1st.

When he was diagnosed with cancer in January of 2009.

When my father was diagnosed with cancer.

When Tony Petrulakis was diagnosed, I realized I had never said "Thank you."  I manage a bookstore.  I thank people for buying People Magazine, but I had never really thanked my dad.

Because there were so many things I wanted to say, I started writing my dad a letter - and finished writing it the week before he died.

My mom read it to him on a Saturday night in February.

He was quiet.  He cried a little.

My dad doesn't cry.

This is that letter.


*  *  *


Thanks for carving the letter ‘N’ into the peanut butter of my sandwiches. I do this now for Elizabeth and Kristina. Elizabeth swears it makes the sandwiches taste better.

Thanks for playing catch with me. Those are my best memories as a kid. Playing catch with you.

Thanks for taking me to the doctor after I dislocated my elbow while playing catch with you.

Thanks for getting lost on road trips and showing us more of the American West.

Thanks for driving us to Carmel for Easter at the Kastros’.

Thanks for always stopping at Casa de Fruta on the way to Carmel.

Thanks for getting closer to the majors with every telling of your baseball exploits in Carbon County, Utah.

Thanks for making spaghetti for the boys that one time when Mom was in the hospital. Really, once was enough.

Thanks for making wine with Nick Kondarakis.

Thanks for looking at my swollen ankle, broken since early afternoon when I fell off Mark Arnold’s bike, and saying, “The boy’s ankle is broken. We need to get him to the hospital.”

Thanks for giving me my first real job.

Thanks for showing me how to stop a quick-change artist during the first week of my first real job.

Thanks for teaching me not to lean on the counter, doing nothing, while working at my first real job.

Thanks for indicating to me and Cousin Peter that our argument about music was pretentious.

Thanks for taking us to Santa Cruz for summer vacations with our cousins – Peter, Stella and Mitch – even if Peter was wrong about the Doors.

Thanks for holding my hand when that big wave hit. I was underwater, feet flailing, choking on seawater, panicking, but your hand holding mine was so strong, so big. So big.

Thanks for keeping the best Christmas presents hidden until we thought we were done, like the Daisy BB gun behind the couch or the three bikes, one for each of us, waiting in George’s room.

I loved that Schwinn with its banana seat and green and white tassels streaming from the handlebars.

Thanks for teaching me to ride that bike.

Thanks for not getting upset when I crashed the Schwinn into the Garcia boy’s beautiful blue Impala the same day you taught me how to ride. Riding was easy. Stopping, not so much.

Thanks for getting me Twiggy – from the pet shop at the Village – for my fifth birthday.

Thanks for hiding her in a box in the back of our green station wagon.

Thanks for buying that station wagon.

Thanks for teaching me how to get Twiggy to stand on her hind legs by teasing her with bologna.

Thanks for being able to whistle for Twiggy.  Do you remember how, wherever she was - down the block, around the corner, at the park - she'd come running, low to the ground, legs churning, her fur swept back?

I wish I could whistle like you, two fingers and loud.

Thanks for getting me my first haircut, a slicked back 50’s hairdo.

Thanks for letting your barber be my barber.

Thanks for not telling Mom what Donny and Jimmy really named their dog.

Thanks for picking out a different shade of shag for every room in the house. Every room. Thanks that mine was named “Candy Stripe.”

Thanks for letting me drive Elko to Winnemucca, past Battle Mountain, 125 miles. When I was too young to be behind the wheel of a car.

Thanks for picking me up from Somerset Junior High in a brand new car.

I won’t mention that the car was a maroon, two door, Chevy Citation.

Thanks for letting me and Randy take that car to the Prom, when it wasn’t so new, after we killed his dad’s car battery by listening to the Giants’ game on the Lebaron’s radio all afternoon while we detailed it. For the Prom.

Although, since my date to that 1983 Prom was Karen, maybe the Citation wasn’t so bad after all.

Thanks for lighting the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Thanks for taking me to San Francisco Giant’s games.

Including Ed Halicki’s no-hitter in August of 1975.

Thanks for taking the San Mateo Bridge, making us drive up 101, so we, the boys, could always call out when we first saw Candlestick. George always winning, Dean not caring, me getting mad.

Thanks for taking us to an entire season of Modesto Reds games.

I don’t know how much baby-holding you did when we were little. Different times, different times. So – thanks for remaining calm when Karen and I handed a week-old Elizabeth to you.

Thanks for holding her.  So gentle.

Thanks for selling your 1963 Chevy Impala just before I was old enough to drive. I probably would have wrecked it and myself.

Thanks from all the people who came into Rogers Drugstore, people with questions, people who were intimidated by doctors, or nurses, thanks for taking the time to talk to them. Kindly. Cordially. As if their question was the most important question you’d field that day. Thanks for letting me see that courtesy, your unfeigned politeness.

Thanks for letting me discover the Saint books – lifted from the mass-market rack at Rogers – while I ate lunch at the back counter in the drugstore.

Thanks for driving me to San Jose to buy my first Nikon camera.

Thanks for not rubbing in my failure to catch that fly ball to right during the invitational tournament with the Roadrunners in 1977.

Thanks for not letting my grounding – from Karen – last more than a month. When I got grounded, senior year, for bringing donuts into physics class.

Why did I buy those donuts on the day of parents’ back-to-school night?

Thanks for driving us to Utah all those summers.

Thanks for starting in the middle of the night so we could sleep in the back of the wagon.

Thanks for letting Dean sing along, mile after mile, to Ride-along-cowboy. George and I would have shut him up.

I know – it was Rhinestone Cowboy. But not when Dean sang it.

Thanks for taking us to Hiawatha. For showing us your brother Dean’s graffiti scratched into a column of your school. For allowing me to take foundation stones from all that was left of your house.

Thanks for all the Hiawatha stories – stories about the Goose ratting you out, Papou catching you from behind when you were sure you could outrun him, all the Greek-town tales.

Thanks for not losing your cool when those hippies busted out the window of the wagon when we visited Yosemite.

Thanks for buying me those huge jawbreakers when you took us to Columbia.

Thanks, when I was three, for carrying me in Disneyland. Everywhere. When I refused to walk. Anywhere.

Thanks for agreeing to George’s request – the last time he flew home from Harvard – that we go well out of our way and drive up 101 through San Francisco so he could get the most dramatic effect, that view of the SF skyline, for his last trip home after graduation.

Thanks for not getting too mad when I inveigled all your boys to buy the same program that accompanied the Modesto premier of Star Wars at the Briggsmore Theatre.

Thanks for driving us to Christmas Tree Lane in Ceres.

Thanks for driving us to Sambo's after church.

Thanks for driving us to church.

Thanks for driving.

Thanks for not buying that two-story house. Even though I cried when you didn’t. Your house has been the best house imaginable. Even when you demolished George’s bedroom to make a dining room.

Thanks for not demolishing my bedroom.

Thanks for coming into my bedroom in the dark of night after I called out ‘Dad’ about 700 times in a row. Called out ‘Dad’ the night after you took us to see Jaws at the Drive-in. In the wagon.

Thanks for patiently explaining to me that we were 100 miles from the ocean. No sharks in Modesto.

Thanks for being early every time we went to the airport.

Thanks for being early.

I’m sorry Tony-Time never rubbed off on me.

Thanks for letting Mom go with me to Greece for an entire summer.

Were you ever apart before that? No. No, you weren’t.

Thanks for having my Koumbaro John sign his name over the almost-hole he almost-slammed through the living-room wall the night the Greek dancing got a little spirited on Sherwood Avenue.

Thanks for all the Dad stuff you keep in the top drawers of your bureau. Pens, knives, matchbooks.

Thanks for always busting out the Metaxa when we had visitors. Like Pavvy. I think Pavvy appreciated it the most.

Thanks for using All Spice when I was a kid.

Thanks for always saying thank you when I bought you All Spice as a kid.

Or soap on a rope.

Thanks for pulling the covers as high as I indicated - chin, ear, or forehead - when you tucked me in.

Thanks for working so hard, for us, all your life

Thanks for driving Mom to our house on those Wednesdays when Karen and I needed you both to watch Elizabeth. And then Elizabeth and Kristina.

Thanks for loving Karen like a daughter.

Thanks for being the best Papou ever.

Thanks for loving Mom, so much.

Thanks for being the best man I have ever known.

Thanks for being my dad.

I love you.

.

Where Have You Gone, Ted Hemenway?

104

Whiskey Cobbler

(Use large bar glass)

2 wine-glasses of whiskey.

1 tablespoonful of sugar.

2 or 3 slices of orange.

Fill the tumbler with ice, and shake well. Imbibe through a straw.

* * *

Don't leave - even if you don't like baseball, because this isn't about that, not really, but it has to start there, on a diamond in Modesto.

If you knew me, you'd know I like baseball. If you asked why, I'd credit my Dad. When we played catch with Tony - 'Wheels' to his friends and family from Hiawatha - he'd always tell his three boys that the further away he got from Carbon County, Utah, the closer he got to the Major Leagues. But playing catch with him? The pleasure of that? Even that time in sixth grade when he had me shagging flyballs at Woodrow Park - no one hit flies like my dad - even then, when the day ended with a dislocated elbow because I tried to throw the ball as far as he could hit? Those times with my dad, the baseball slapslapping into our gloves, did a lot to make me fall in love with the Game.  But there was another man who played a part, too.

Ted Hemenway.

One of your options - if you watched television in Modesto, in 1972 - was, if you were so inclined, to tune into Bingo With Ramona. I was inclined. Broadcast in black and white, I watched it and played it and one great afternoon, I made Bingo. Instead of calling it out, you had to call the station and read off your numbers. I thought I won the cash first prize. But someone dialed faster than my five-year-old fingers, and I had to make do with season tickets to the Modesto Reds.

Baseball tickets instead of money? carped my little self.

My parents, though, they knew better, and so from April through August, we traveled across town and watched a team on its way to winning the title that season.

The Reds were a Class A farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals, and that year they were great.  You wouldn’t have known how good they were going to be based on their ballpark. Del Webb Field was not state of the art. Bleacher seats, one concession stand. One drinking fountain near those concessions, its white enamel stained rust-red near the faucet. But that fountain would become more beautiful than the Trevi on the day I wandered, alone, under the bleachers. Wandered through the skinny crossbeams holding up the seats. Crushing peanut shells, looking for foul balls, instead discovering my first tossed away – but still lit – cigarette. Dragging on it – once, strong – sent me running for Del Webb’s beautiful, rusty fountain.

And sorry, I don't mean to dwell on Del Webb Field, because this is supposed to be about Ted. But the field was so important, and also the people we met there - what was the name of the vendor selling popcorn and crackerjacks, that man who always had his hair slicked back, fifties style? Those stands he stalked were like pews, and we his congregation.

To get to his stands, you walked past the Red's dugout, then up a few steps - the stands were to the left, third-base side. But that landing there? At the top of the steps? You could look right into the Red's dugout from that magic spot.

There was always a player sitting in the dugout, at the end nearest the magic spot. The same player every game. A pitcher named Hemenway.

Ted was a lanky righthander. About my dad's height. 6'2", maybe 6'3". But probably no more than 170 lbs. We went to so many games that year. The year George Wallace was shot. The year of Watergate.  Of the signing of the SALT treaty. The year McGovern chose Eagleton to be his running mate. The year Eagleton withdrew. That all happened during that great season for the Modesto Reds, with Ted Hemenway sitting at the end of the dugout, and me sitting on the other side of the chainlink fence separating us. Me yakking away to a real, live ballplayer. That real, live ballplayer listening.

I started to bring food to the games, food to share with Ted. Sunflower seeds. Oranges. Whatever was handy. And all that time, Ted paid attention, chatted back. Can you imagine? Taking the time to pass the time with a kid, not even six?

During the seventh inning stretch, they'd roll out this target to the mound - plywood, with a catcher painted on it, a hole cut through the plywood where his mitt would be. They'd call numbers - from the programs - and if your number was called, you got the chance to throw from home plate up at that painted catcher. My dad got called once. So close - but his attempt ricocheted off the rim of the hole.

Baseball programs.  My mom kept score in those.  Does anyone keep score these days?

Through all that - the keeping score, the wins and losses - Ted talked to me about Baseball. About how hard the Game was. How great. His worry that he didn't have the stuff to make it to the Bigs in St. Louis. But who cared? I had his ear, he had mine. I even had the nerve to invite Ted to my birthday, right in the middle of the season.

And Ted said yes.

Picture asking a Baseball Player to your house, when you're turning six, and having the Player accept. Imagine that Player coming, and enjoying a meal cooked by your mom. Chicken and pilafi. Meatballs. If you're lucky, you'll get to taste my mom's meatballs someday.

Ted gave me his cap, for a present. Not a new one - his own. He had all his teammates sign it. Over the years, their signatures have faded - but not the HEMENWAY. Printed on the underside of the bill, all caps, black sharpie against green. His sweat staining that green with a salty wave of white.

I love that hat.

And I love baseball, for a lot of reasons. Because it's where I went with my family when I was a kid, traveling in our station wagon to watch Mays and McCovey.  Foster and Kingman.  Marichal and Bonds.  Me and my brothers in the back of our Chevy wagon on the way to San Francisco to watch those guys play, pointing at other kids in other cars when we'd slow down at the San Mateo bridge - they waving their Dodger caps, dreaded blue, we waving Giant black right back. The three of us trying to be the first to spot Candlestick as we headed up 101. George always winning, Dean not caring, me getting mad.

So I love baseball for that, and for how great it sounds on the radio.  And because a baseball player talked to me when I was five, and then six.

What do you think persuaded a man talk to a boy? Why do you think he took the time to answer my questions? To come to my house? I think about Ted a lot. Think about the friendship he shared with me during that season. I keep coming back to the fact that Ted Hemenway was one of the good ones. One of those people you meet, if you're lucky, who impacts your life. Who leaves an impression. Footprints on my beach and all that.

This all came back, in a rush, because I was in Modesto last weekend. My godson was getting married. The rehearsal dinner was at the SOS Club - the Sportsmen of Stanislaus. And Del Webb Field's been demolished, but it was replaced by John Thurman Field, and it's where it's always been, right by the SOS. I hadn't been by that way in years. And all those memories came back. I remembered Ted, and told our story that night at dinner while we drank good, homemade wine.

When I got home, I decided to see if I could track Ted down. Why hadn't I done that before?

Baseball's beautiful because there are stats for everything and everyone - even a minor leaguer who played his first game for the Cardinals farm system when he was 17. I found out Ted was born in August of 1950. Which means he was only 21 that spring and summer. Somehow I always thought Ted was older. That meant Ted would be 59. Not old, not old at all.

Would be. Except.

Ted Russell Hemenway died last February. He was 58. Services were held for him on the 16th of that month at St. Peters Episcopal Church, in Ladue, Missouri. I wish I had tried to find Ted Hemenway earlier. I wish I had the opportunity to say thanks. To ask him some more questions, to hear his answers. To let him know that I treasure the time we spent on the steps of a field that now exists, like him, only in memory.

*   *   *

Some of Ted's friends set up a Memorial Fund. In their words:

"Throughout Ted’s life, he constantly gave more than he took, with countless examples of Ted volunteering to help others when nobody else would.

"With Ted’s sudden passing on February 12th, some of the family’s friends now believe it is time to return the favor and give back to Ted by establishing this foundation.

"This Fund will help pay for the remaining educational costs for Ted's children during this difficult time.  If you would like to support the Hemenway family, please click on the "Donate" button below and you can use Paypal to donate online.  If you would prefer to write a check, the mailing information is listed below.  This foundation’s goal is to raise over $25,000.  Every contribution, whether large or small, will make a difference.

---

"If you would prefer to write a check, please make it payable to and send it to: Ted Hemenway Memorial Fund, 10130 Bauer Road, St. Louis, MO 63128.

"Thank you – Friends of Ted and the Hemenway family."

*   *   *

I'll be making a donation - if you could, too, I'm sure his children would appreciate it.

Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

When I look up from the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, I see a street sign, “The Poe House,” with an arrow thataway. I actually didn’t know that Poe’s house still stood. I knew he was buried in Baltimore; that’s all I knew about Baltimore, really.  But his house? That was news.

I tighten my laces and walk, thataway, leaving behind Poe’s quiet gravesite in the grounds of Westminster Church - the church all brick, bloodred and gothic - but taking with me his collected works and the flowers I had planned to leave on the grave.

Roses, they have to be roses.

At the corner of Fayette and MLK, horns blare and a sunglassed Baltimore cop directs traffic. I call out, “Is the Poe House this way?” and he calls back, after waving an Audi on by, “Not your kinda neighborhood.”

I'm here for a wedding. It’s a sunny Saturday in May. The little eagle on the cop's badge glints carefree in the sun. I couldn’t ask for a better day, so this traffic-cop isn’t going to dissuade me from a pilgrimage to Poe’s house. I mean, we’re talking about Poe. Edgar Allan. “It's ok," I say.  "Do I keep going straight?”  Again he says, “Not your kinda neighborhood.” I think he’s looking at me, but it’s hard to tell because of his mirrored shades. So I just keep looking at him until finally he says, “Yes, that way.”

The surroundings change, fast. The further I walk, the more abandoned buildings I pass. An apartment row teeters, ready to fall like the House of Usher.  Apartment #13 is boarded up, and stenciled words warn, “No Loitering. No Trespassing. If Animal Is Trapped Inside Call 396-6286.”

I turn from the sign and a guy approaches me, a guy with holes in the toes of his shoes. About the time he notices the flowers in my hand, I notice his eye. Like the old man’s eye in the “Tell-Tale Heart,” it’s clouded, grey. When he asks if I can help him out, I reach for the change jingling in my coat pocket, leftside. So then he wonders if I have any smokes. Yes I do. Coat pocket, rightside. I don’t smoke, not really, but if someone asks, I like to be able to oblige. “Marlboro Reds!” he says, all excited. I flick open my Zippo, light the Red, and he puffs, happy.

“I’m searching for the Poe house," I say.  I'm thinking that since he's happy, maybe he won't mind a question.  "Any idea where it is?”

He looks at me with his good eye. And looks at the houses all around, the one there with a windowpane, spiderwebbed with cracks, another with a door that, behind the nailed plywood, used to be bright green.  “Shoot,” he says, “you can take your pick.  All the houses around here are po’ houses.”

I hold it for a second before I laugh. And then he laughs, both of us just laughing on a beautiful Baltimore afternoon. After I thank him for his time, he puffs again and says, “God bless you, my man, and good luck.”

At Fayette and Schroeder, another “Poe” sign with another teasing arrow. As I search Schroeder, I pass this family - mom, grandmom, and two little ones - sitting on a stoop, in the shade, sipping lemonade. The mom says to me, “You looking for the Poe House?” When I nod, she hoots and the grandmom hoots. “I told you,” she says. “The only reason for a white boy to be in this neighborhood,” and mom and grandmom clink lemonade glasses, “is that Poe House.”

The kids are smiling, too, and the younger one? His smile would stop a truck. He sparks that smile and the entire block shines. His mom squeezes his shoulder. “It’s about time we were getting home,” she says to him.  Then to me, “We pass that way. C’mon.”

The boy’s sister stands taller than he does, and she sports a pretty dress with yellow daises. Although it’s Saturday, the dress is looking like her Sunday best - all crisp and ironed. So starched daisies lead the way. And the Poe House is down the street but then you turn left and it’s over on the other side, on Amity Street, and I would never have found it so I say, “Thanks,” and daisies wave and a smile sparks and the mom says, “Take care.”

The mystery visitor.

There it is. The Poe House. Not gothic at all, not like the church where he’s buried, the church where for more than seventy years a Mystery Visitor, the Poe Toaster, in the darkdark of predawn on every January 19th, left roses and a bottle half-full of cognac on Poe’s grave, leaving the gifts to toast the day of Poe’s birth.

Poe’s house. Just a little brick house with a little brick chimney.

Poe’s house. Home to the man I read and reread. Too many times when I was too little, probably. Poe who invented the mystery story. Poe whose poems still tintinnabulate through my head.

We all have icons, and he's one of mine.

Poe’s house. And in front of that little brick house three boys play like my brothers and I used to. Three boys, climbing the lightpost outside a simple house on a plain street. I look at the kids as they scramble around; I think about Poe and his words. Just whiling away some time on a Saturday afternoon. One of the boys - almost lost inside a Baltimore Ravens t-shirt - laughs loud and so I laugh, too. Then I lay three roses on the steps, touch red brick, knock on the white door and go.

*   *   *

On my way back, I'm about to pass the same cop, and though you can never walk into the same river twice, it feels like the same traffic I'm about to wade into even though a few hours have passed.  He looks across the intersection my way - I can't tell if he remembers me, but he hesitates so I call out, "Hey, it was fine!"

And the cop doesn't say a thing.  He turns away, holds up one hand, stopping traffic that way, and motions with his other hand for that traffic to proceed.  Then he looks back at me.  "What?" he yells out, kind of clipped, kind of harsh, but maybe it's just so he'll be heard above the traffic.

It's a good moment to cross so I step off the curb.  I'm about to call back, "The neighborhood, Poe's house, it was fine!" I don't have time to tell him about the considerate people I met, the boys I watched who reminded me of my brothers...

Actually, I don't have time to tell him anything because as soon as I step off the curb he reaches for his gun, lightly places his hand on its holster.

"What?" the police officer repeats, eyes hidden behind those mirrored Ray Bans of his.

I step back, onto the safety of the sidewalk.  "Nothing," I say.

And I watch as he removes his hand from his gun and stops some more traffic.

I'll detour back to my hotel while thinking about neighborhoods and those judgements people we make all the time - sometimes snap judgments, sometimes considered - I'll think about that, how perceptions can lead to bias and what that can lead to.  I'll think about feeling welcomed when apparently I was supposed to be afraid; about feeling afraid, unexpectedly, under sunny Baltimore skies, where I was supposed to feel safe.

Then I'll reread some Poe from the book I touched to his grave, seek out my family, and then get ready for a wedding. Because I can, because I can retreat to the shelter of my hotel, of my friends.

Not my kinda neighborhood, indeed.


***

Addendum #1, January 19th, 2010:

This was written years ago when I visited Baltimore for the wedding of my godbrother.

Unfortunately, the trips of the Mysterious Visitor to Poe's grave appear to have stopped for the first time in seventy-five years.  Nevermore, quoth the raven.  Today there was silence in Baltimore.

I liked the tradition of the Poe Toaster, his mystery - so as not to forget, I'll raise a glass of cognac to Poe tonight and to his Visitor, and if you'll join me, I'd appreciate it.


***

Addendum #2, January 19th, 2011:


Now, for the second year in a row, the Mystery Visitor has not appeared.  There were impostors early this morning.  One man arrived in a white, stretch limo - hardly the Visitor who, for 75 years, under cover of darkness, dressed all in black, would pay his respects in a manner as unostentatious as possible.

Poe is Dead.  Long live Poe.


*  *  *

From Jerry Thomas'  Bartenders Guide:

213

Brandy Straight

(Use small bar glass)

In serving this drink you simply put a piece of ice in a tumbler, and hand to your customer, with the bottle of brandy.  This is very safe for a steady drink, but though a straight beverage, it is often used on a bender.

Daddy Days

16

VANILLA PUNCH

Use large bar glass

One tablespoon of sugar

One Wineglass of brandy

The juice of one-quarter of a lemon

Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, ornament with one or two slices of lemon, and flavor with a few drops of vanilla extract.

This is a delicious drink, and should be imbibed through a glass tube or straw.

*  *  *

Friday is Daddy Day, which means I've got my daughters until Karen comes home from work and we're back deploying a two-on-two formation.  I love Daddy Days because I get to be the focus.  I realize that when Karen's around, she's #1.  There's nothing easier to keep an ego in check than to have a two-year-old burst out crying when she sees that it's you entering her bedroom in the dark of morning and not the favored parent.

Or when you say, "Ok, kids, I've got to go to work," and they respond, quick and easy, "Close the door behind you."

It's like when, more than five years ago now - our oldest was still a newborn.  Karen asked me one of those questions.  You know the kind.  It's not like you're being tested, but you are, and it's not like anything hinges on the answer, but lots does.  So Karen's holding our daughter, and she looks up all kind of misty-eyed - new moms can do this look really well - and Karen asks, as she looks back down at our slumbering daughter, all wrapped in pink, "Do you love her more than you love me?"

I thought my answer was ok, especially since the question came out of the blue, or the pink, I guess - and I answered that my love for our daughter was a different kind of love than what I felt for her, and so it wasn't possible to really compare them.

Karen laughed and said "Really?  Because I love Elizabeth more than you."

And yes, yes, there was laughter in Karen's voice.  But truth, too.  My girls, all my girls, have something special going on.  I get that, and it's ok.  To hear my daughters chant "Mommy's home, Mommy's home," as Karen walks into the house after her workday, to hear the girls yell out "Mommy rocks" after Karen comes up with some delightful project to get our daughters happy and occupied - can you say biscuits cut out with our Christmas cookie-cutters? - makes playing second fiddle sound terrific.

After all, Karen has to deal with having three Tauruses in her house, all against her lonely Capricorn, so I've got that.

Anyway, Daddy Days are great, with Music Class and walks to count cats and detours to the bagel shop - but they can be tiring.  People who raise kids by themselves, without a partner?  I have no idea how they do that.  If a Daddy Day turns out to be long, and after almost six years, sure, we've had some long ones, but if that happens - just the knowledge that Karen is going to be coming through that door at some point, that's often all the support I need.

That and the fact that a good, stiff belt may follow soon after.

This last Daddy Day was a good one.  Our youngest got to watch the painters outside for long stretches.  "Pepito.  Pepito.  Over here," she'd call, trying to get the attention of one of the men outside.  And then big fun was had at the Nob Hill picking up sandwiches for the guys, the lady in the deli asking if she could have my daughter's pink, fluffy coat.

But then the other aspect of the day was trying to figure out how to use the lemons that Maria had given us, winter lemons fresh from her tree.  The Professor answered the question, with Recipe 16, above.  The only problem was that while I had the lemons waiting to be squeezed, I didn't have brandy.

Ah well, make do with what you have, yes?  And since I'm Greek, I had plenty of Metaxa.  Metaxa would be a little sweeter than brandy, but easy enough to cut down a bit on the sugar.  I also was feeling lazy, so I didn't shake it all with ice, I just served it over.

The Professor really has it going on.  This drink is indeed delicious.  I'm not very good at describing wine with the terms that come easy to oenophiles - oak and leather and chocolate and cherry - but when you add sugar to lemon to Metaxa and drop in some vanilla, hey, even I can identify what I'm tasting.

So I mixed that up, took a sip, marveled at the meld of flavors, and placed the drink on the coaster from the set that my good friend Jenn bought me years ago.  I have seven coasters to choose from - the Whiskey Sour one is broken or lost - but I always use the Side Car coaster.  And drinks taste better in crystal, they just do, ok?  So I placed my Vanilla Punch, cold in crystal, on Jenn's coaster, savored the flavors - the lemon chasing the Metaxa chasing the sugar, with vanilla slipping in and out.

Thanks, Professor.  A fine end to a Daddy Day.


ps.  Jenn's coasters come with the recipes:

JENN'S SIDE CAR

3/4 oz. brandy

1/2 oz. lemon juice

3/4 oz. cointreau

shake with cracked ice

strain into glass rimmed with coarse granulated sugar

Hunting for Jerry Thomas' Bar-Tenders Guide

5

SCOTCH WHISKY PUNCH

Steep the thin yellow shavings of lemon peel in the whisky, which should be of the best quality; the sugar should be dissolved in boiling water.  As it requires genius to make whisky punch, it would be impertinent to give proportions.

*  *  *

We began this endeavor, you and I, after grabbing a copy of Jerry Thomas' book from my shelf.  Do you remember the book?  I know there's been some drinking between now and then, but really, it has just been a few days.

Still foggy?

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.
 

To refresh.  Professor Jerry Thomas was a colossus of the 19th Century, striding behind and presiding over the most famous bars in the U. S. of A.  Today's slow-fooders would appreciate the Professor because he was interested in creating drinks using only the freshest, only the best ingredients.  And local was always better.  So he was a giant, ahead of his time, grew wealthy behind his bars, attended to Kings - but his concoctions still would be lost to us except for one amazing thing - the Professor wrote it all down.  And then in 1862 it was published.  The first bartending guide in the United States.  I have a facsimile of the book, reprinted a few years ago.  It's just brill - copied word for word as if by a monk transcribing a gospel.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.
 

Such a splendid trove of treasures.  I mean, check out Recipe #5, above.  The Professor was fond of punches, he was, so he includes the Scotch Whisky Punch - and while he lists the wonderfully spare ingredients, he has the cheek to not list the proportions.  If you didn't have the genius to figure it out, woe was you.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."
 

But then I think, 1862?  What was the Professor thinking, devoting a book to the devil's drink, in all it's forms?  Weren't there other issues to focus on in '62?  Like our Civil War?

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.
 

Of course, the Professor was in New York during the war years.  That meant Tammany Hall, with its Overlord, the corpulent Tweed.  We flatter ourselves with our righteous pillorying of the Madoff's of our time, as if their corruption was somehow novel and our indignation somehow exalting.  But there was Ponzi before him, and Tweed before them both, and Tweed's thievery wasn't even disguised.  There were no schemes involved, just good old fashioned American theft.

Whoops, sorry, little help?  Lend me your hand?  Fell off my soapbox.

*dustdust*  Ok, back now.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.
 

So yes, it was 1862 when the Professor's book was published, just a few months after Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic was also seen for the first time on the cover of the Atlantic Monthly.  And while the bloodshed continued (we are rightfully horrified when three soldiers die by a roadside bomb in Iraq; picture then the horror of hearing that eleven thousand men died in the two-day Battle of Seven Pines; that battle led to Robert E. Lee assuming command of the Army of Northern Virginny during June, the same month the Professor's book was first advertised in Harper's Weekly) so while blood continued to be splashed over newspapers, maybe The Bar-Tenders Guide was the tonic the country needed to get them through parts of that hot summer.  More battles would be waged.  Years more.  Half a million lives lost.  Maybe...

...maybe the Professor's fortunes, linked so strongly to that little book, maybe they rose only because it was something so superfluous.  A celebration of the American cocktail?  Really?  But another American war rages while a pretty bauble like Avatar reaps rewards all out of proportion to its worth.  And while we are fortunate enough to still have the option to buy the Atlantic or Harper's, it's instead People and Us Weekly that are purchased more frequently.

Lord, how much longer do you think we'll be able to buy the Atlantic?  Or Harper's?

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.
 

*stumble ouch*

*dustdust*

Sorry, soapbox again.

*dust*

Really, all I meant to say was, wow, what a cool little book.  And also, well, here's a little something I know you know about me.  My book problem.  And it's not so little.  When a book calls, it's impossible for me to turn away.  So when we grabbed the Professor's book from my shelf, you commented on what a pretty copy it was.  And it is.  Hesperus, in London, did a fine job.  And at only £9.99, a bargain.  But still.  It's a copy, and you know how I feel about copies.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Our God is marching on.
 

I don't know why I need first editions, but I do.  Just like you need that thing.  You remember, you were talking about it again just a month ago - but I didn't understand.  Couldn't get the attraction.  You remember, right?  You can feel the allure right now.  Just bringing it to mind makes you realize how much you want it.  To own it.  That thing you desire - whatever your thing happens to be.  Mine's books -you know that.

What you don't know is this - New Year's Day, I found one for sale online.  A stunning edition of the Professor's book.  Published in 1887, two years after he died, it was the last updated edition of his book ever produced.  Such a glorious little beauty.  So I bid on the book.  And for a heartbeat, I had the high hand.  But just for that moment.  So I bid again.  And again.  Each time, with the auction's end coming ever closer, I could feel the thin volume in my fingers.  Could see it in yours.  Imagined the highs we could reach, you and I, if we held an original of the Professor's book.  Bid, damnit, bid again.

And we did, and we did, but in the end - we lost.  The quarry escaped.  Jerry Thomas' Bar-Tenders Guide, published by Dick and Fitzgerald, sold for $307.88.

We should have bid in London.  £190.46?  We could have offered that.  Doesn't sound so dire in pounds.

So anyway.  That's really what I wanted to tell you.  That I caught sight of the Guide on the very day after we agreed to go on this journey together with the Guide as our guide.  I don't believe in coincidences, and I know you don't, either.  And yet - it eluded us.  Such is life.  We'll still make do, yes?  Make some more delectable drinks, even if we refer to a copy.

But, you know, eyes and ears open, ok?  That rustling sound you hear might be another original edition creeping along.

Barely.

Out.

Of.

Reach.

So let's get ready to pounce.

For Erin, a Tom and Jerry

#134

TOM AND JERRY

Five pounds of sugar

Twelve eggs

One-half small glass of Jamaica rum

One-half teaspoon ground cloves

One and one-half teaspoon ground cinnamon

One-half teaspoon ground all-spice

Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and the yolks until they are as thin as water, then mix together and add the spice and rum; thicken with sugar until the mixture attains the consistency of a light batter.

To deal out Tom and Jerry to customers:

Take a small bar glass, and to one tablespoon of the above mixture, add one wineglass of brandy, and fill the glass with boiling water; grate a little nutmeg on top.

(A teaspoon of cream of tartar, or about as much carbonate of soda as you can get on a dime, will prevent the sugar from settling to the bottom of the mixture.)

* * *

My New Year's Eve did not include a Tom and Jerry, but a good bartender always takes requests - and I had a request for the Professor's version of this drink.  Happy to oblige.

By the way, if you ever see a mug in an antique store emblazoned Tom and Jerry, it wasn't intended to advertise the cartoon cat and mouse - it was meant to hold this lovely winter drink. Try substituting bourbon for the brandy and hot milk instead of boiling water.


New Year's Eve for me did include margaritas, with the limes squeezed the night before by Harry, our host. I usually don't go in for tequila drinks, but Harry has a wonderful hand, and he casually omitted the salt on the rim (at my request) then finished it off with a dash of Grand Marnier. Inspired. The liqueur really smoothed out the drink, and I won't have another margarita without this splash.

Then we rang in the New Year when it was Midnight in Manhattan, meaning we drank and kissed at 9pm our time, allowing us to walk home under a beautiful blue moon and get the kids in bed by 10 (home being only a block away). And then we tried hard to stay up till 12.

God, we're getting old.

Our staying up was helped by a call from Athens - my Theo Niko wishing us hronia polla. It was after 8am his time and he probably hadn't hit the sheets yet. But while he's got 30 years on me, he can stay up as late as he wants and show no ill effects.

That's the magic of Greece.

More good news? The sounds of east-Oakland gunshots didn't ring across the water as they have done for the ghosts of many New Year's past. And then the neighbor's kids happily took up the pot-banging tradition handed to them by Karen and me. They weren't inclined to do the bangbang in the driveway of the neighbor who thinks I'm a jerk - THAT'S another story - but they did provide a happy clamor and clangor early on that Friday morning.  I mentioned that there was a second party, the Fondue Shindig?  These kids are from that house, so I moseyed on inside after them.  John didn't even blink, just disappeared into his kitchen and reappeared with a shot of some lovely 12-year-old scotch.  Happy New Year, indeed.

Tomorrow's Monday, which means that 10 is really here. It's started off tasty and smooth - let's keep it that way.