I'm missing Sam this morning, and I'm trying to define exactly what meaning he gave my life.

My favorite thing at age 16 was to snarl "How phony", and leave it at that.

Sam showed me the truth is usually there underneath the horse shit So now at age 61 I still spot it easily...I'll demonstrate: Page one of today's NYT (but one could look any day of the week and find similar) thrills over a new show of photographs...."Some of these pictures will be on view at a new show at KMR Arts in Washington Depot, Conn., juxtaposed with an anatomically resonant series on sidewalk cracks that she produced in the ’70s. "

The sidewalk cracks may have merit, but Is this writer an idiot?

Bell Island

Creepy people lived there. People we did not know, or whose fathers were "away", people who didn't have the right number of digits on their hands or people who lived by another set of rules, like the Ripleys, Chip (off the old block or on the shoulder, either would apply) and Bobby? Billy? and unknown other brothers who terrorized the grade-schoolers and coated their black hair with grease and combed it in ducks ass Elvis styles . I wasn't old enough to know whether certain girls found them attractive, I would guess yes, very much so . They stood out in a classroom full of healthy skin and chestnut-haired girls and flat-top, buzz cut little boys. Their faces were pale, and even in fifth grade I feel that they smoked.

Entering Bell Island, visitors crossed an old WPA sytle bridge, where usually a mean-looking adult was drowning a pillowcase full of kittens, or teenage boys were dropping rotting fish on boaters on their way in or out of the cove that connected to Farm Creek. On the right, you'd see a creepy little house, a miniature cottage with a spooky wishing well and a sign singing "Sponsored by the Bell Island Garden Club" . It was red, and year-round it had blooms in its window boxes. Something made it ominous and the last place a little kid would want to break in and vandalize. Very Hansel and Gretel if anyone had asked me, of course no one did..... this was all going on in my mind.  The streets were so narrow, and cars were parked bumper to bumper along the sides, unlike in Rowaton proper where it was quite unacceptable to park anywhere but one's garage or personal driveway. Unless attending a large party....then the cars were everywhere and our local cop, Vinnie Velotti, patroled and directed  drunken guests  toward home if needed. 
Adding to the foreignness of Bell Island was the size and height of the houses.  They were generally tall, 3 story Victorians built right up to the sidewalks, and in my ignorance they screamed "Brooklyn" or "The Bronx" or "Newark", all crowded and evil and undesirable locations in my little mind.  How naive I was!  Only now do I know the island was exclusive and the homes were for the rich, the crowding and oldness had cachet and  to be packed into such close proximity with the neighbors meant the Ammerican Dream had been Achieved! 
Now I look on the iinternet on a hot North Carolina afternoon and I see that Bell Island's house are priced in the multi-millions, that tear downs have occurred and the new structures are fake Nantucket style mansions. I'm certain all the frightening things I noticed as a child are gone, the brown and tan Victorians if they still stand are painted unthreatening gray with dark green shutters.  Everything nice and normal.  No more little girls will lie in bed at night and wonder what it would be like to touch the white flesh of Chip Ripley, or even his younger brother Bobby......

Hot June Friday afternoons always bring memories of happy family picnics at Baily Beach. Mom would get home from teaching around 3:30, have a short gin and tonic with a twist or mabe a sprig of mint from the garden, then, if the tide was going to be high that evening, drag out the scotch kooler and shove it full of those blue plastic ice things that sat in the freezer year round and stunk to high heaven. She'd pack all the fixin's for martinis...shaker, gin and vermouth....dixie cups, and... oh yes, some meat and salad and french bread. When Dad rolled in at 5:30, he'd change to shorts and get the charcoal and newspaper and lighter fluid and away we'd go. There were always 3 or 4 other gin-drinking families doing the same thing at the Bailey Beach picnic area (NO Food or Drink on Beach under penalty of death) and pretty soon the party was going full blast. Booze, food, dimes for the kiddies to go to the concession and buy popsicles. The fire had to be started and then there were false starts and smoldering newspaper and black smoke. When it did start, at least one hour had to pass for it to become a white hot pile of coals, so that dad could burn the hell out of whatever protein he was cooking. It was usually steak...marinated flank steak as tough as an old leather belt and dripping with red wine marinade. Never a hot dog or even a less proletarian hamburger. Never a bottle of ketchup or A-1. Nothing. We didn't know what was good, and we were reminded of that on a daily basis. I'd beg to go home, beg for dimes and nickles, beg to be allowed to start a little campfire on the ground. Sometimes if the sun was far enough over the yardarm, I was allowed, and once in a blue moon there was a bag of hard, deformed marshmallows that I could impale and incinerate, and finally scrape out of my hair the next day. Each summer, nothing changed. The alcohol, the scotch koolers, the crusty old lifeguard Art Ladrigan, the high tide picnics. Until 1960. With 24 hours notice, all plans were changed, and I was put in the back of the barely-running 1950 Ford convertible with my dog and rabbits, and driven to New Hampshire where Mom and I hid out and snarled at each other for 2 and a half months. What was that about? To this day, no one's mentioned it. The month we returned, the "family" what was lefty of it..moved to West Norwalk.

I only have these 10 miutes, but do you know about the women in the Rowayton Art Guild? Well it used to be called that, they were so so artsy craftsy, -ish women who did things at fivish and sevenish.. they always had Phil Booth "Hang Their Shows". He was one of the only men in Rowayton who knew how to operate a hammer, or a generator, or do anything more useful than screw in a lightbulb...the majority of men were in our little hamlet were, their wives cried, "just useless"....He was the man they ran to in Rowayton Estates when their husband, say, may have kicked the lawnmower blade while the machine was running, to loosten the clodded grass, and were lying on the lush green lawn gushing blood from a severed artery. He painted garish 10 x 12 foot murals of naked women reposing in front of mirrors to decorate the annual Fireman's Ball at Roton Point, and Mom always burned them the next morning because her son's little friends wanted to hang them on their 11 year old bedroom walls , next to the Little League pennants.
But one activity that Dad refused was the annual cleaning of the cannon. On the traffic triangle in front of Winthrop House, at the intersection of Rowayton Avenue and , a Revolutionary War cannon said, muzzle eternally at half mast.. black and sooty and corroding in the salt air. The -ish women mounted the cannon every April, and gripping with their thighs positioned themselves astride for most of a morning while they scrubbed and rinsed. It never looked any cleaner, and Mom would always drive by and out of the corner of her mouth hiss that they'd be better off with a man at home than perched on a phallic symbol on Main Street. I had to get clarification from Becky of course. She knew everything.....

More About the Gulls

Quite a few of the older gulls aspired to be writers, artists, or in the theater. Or really just screwing men who were in any of the Arts would be fine... One was snickeringly admired as working "under" a famed director during the summer of 1959. Another was atonishingly told by an editor of the Saturday Review, after declaring sadly that she "wanted to write", "then....write". One rebel at heart went to Katie Gibbs to learn shorthand and get a secretarial job on Madison Avenue in order to meet "the one" without the bother of going to Wellesley.
The younger ones plotted organizing and attending mixers to meet boys from St. Lukes and King School. But the faculty and administration's less than frenzied mission was to prepare them...for what, no one really said. The curriculum consisted of French, Latin, Algebra, biology (using hairpins from Mrs. Lee's long, low graying braid dangling down her back as dissection instruments), geography, ancient, medieval, and european history..American history was not mentioned...and English literature...forget anything written after WW I or by an American. The lower school read the Song of Roland, Pilgrims Progress, and roman mythology, along with Booth Tarkington and Shakespeare's comedies. The older gulls acted out dramatic readings involving incestuous greek families and cried "Give Us Barrabas!" as they strolled to class. In other words nothing was taught that had any bearing on reality. Nothing was real, including the recent suffering inflicted by World War II, ending only 15 years before, or the deeds of Adolph Hitler and Joseph McCarthy, affecting so many of the faculty, or activities occurring in any part of America other than Broadway or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The gulls knew of no states located to the south or west of Manhattan.
I stayed two years. When mom and dad requested an increase in my scholarship assistance in the spring of eighth grade, the trustees offered them $200 . Seeing the handwriting on the wall and recognizing it as the same that had appeared before my sister's descent into the land of Hallbrooke "no post-secondary education", I was enrolled in Ponus Ridge Junior High School in August and I left behind the unhealthy complexions, sexual speculation, and all the other priveliges and advantages that a private school education offered. I couldn't wait!

Ok, I'll tell you more...

Thomas had a few problems. For one thing, some of the older girls were "precocious", undoubtably a result of years of single-sex education. They spent hundreds of hours speculating on the romances, sex lives, sexual orientation, and coupling potential of the faculty. They nicknamed teacher of french Miss Anita Darling "Ineeda Darling" and wrote one-minute round robin stories about she her roomate Pearl Searles having lesbian sex in their model T, which they chugged around Rowayton in and drove to the liquor store once a week. Each was almost 80 years old, so.....They created passionate love scenes between Mr. Emerson, the faux-bohemian, thirtyish, sloppily dressed drama teacher who always had a cigarette pinched between his index and middle fingers, , and Leslie Latham, divorced and horny english teacher and mother of Louie Latham, who hung around the wooded paths between buildings when he was on break from his third-rate boarding school in Maine. They created improbable yet innumerable triangles, usually two women battling over one man, since men were scarce. They nonchalantly changed out of their gym blouses in the back of algebra class, enjoying the sweat popping out on Mr. Cunha's forehead as he stood at the blackboard and did not make eye contact. They were encouraged to read the beat poets and cultiivate that unhealthy look, ("The gulls look So Natural!") and then everyone was surprised when they went to New York on the weekends and found lovers who were old enough to be their absent fathers.

Where wuz I?

Let's leave the chair and Winthrop House for a few moments and mosey on over to the Thomas School. Thomas School BRRE, that is...BEFORE Remington Rand Estate....back in the crumbling former mansion of Miss Mabel Thomas, founder and first headmistress of dear old "TS", letters its gray sweatshirts were emblazoned with until a few of the more worldly and cynical parents attended a Trustees meeting back in 1958 and had a word with Mrs. Opie.
Thomas at its peak was a very motley assortment of instructors (you really couldn't call them teachers since they were strictly uncredentialed), "gulls" from Southport and Greens Farms, westport, Darien as far south as Noroton, Shippan Point and sometimes including a couple of Jews from New Canaan who couldn't go anywhere else( but definitely no one from Greenwich) faculty dogs, famous spouses, veterans of HUAC investigations, and depending on the year, various schoolgirl tragedies.

My sister enrolled in 1957, repeating ninth grade when a deficiency in foreign languages, history, English, and general knowledge was discovered at the time of her graduation from Center junior high in Norwalk. Her 17 classmates were pale and unhealthy looking, partially due to the prohibition against wearing any type of makeup. And the school day lasted until 4:30, so the gulls enjoyed very little sunlight during the winter months.

I eagerly arrived in the fall of 1960, ready forall of it..the pale and unhealthy complexion, the instruction in french and latin, the distance from Rowayton girls and boys (who wanted to tan and didn't want to play sports), and the proximity to the intellectual world I imagined resided on Bluff Avenue. What fun I had. There were 26 girls, and our homeroom was the boathouse which extended into Wilson Cove and floated away shortly after I left. We were seated in alphabetical order...Booth, Brown, Carey, Carillo... (don't worry...a blonde of Spanish descent who wore only Black and Orange woolen scarves in honor of Daddy's alma mater.) We studied Algebra under Mammy Steelbags, our homeroom teacher who was named for her huge tits that she was constantly adjusting inside her over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders (bra). That was it...what I loved....there were words and nicknames for eveything...and everyone... Rencie for Florence Farwell, Winky for Suzie May's younger sister Winifred, Chicky for Catherine Matthieson. They all wanted to shed grandma's name and be a gull who was just a tiny bit common and have a language outsiders wouldn't know. I caught on fast...to the vocabulary, at least. I ate it up.

I arrived on the first day (walked) on my own..no mummy, no car, not streaming out of the Greens Farms bus with the lower school. Previously I had appeared at the entrance testing alone, with no pencil, no adult showing me which room to find and where to sit.
My sister had given me one warning...Do Not say "Hi" when introduced to Mrs. Opie. Of course, my nerves were shot and...
I blurted "hi" when she lifted her two fingers slightly toward me and nodded...She knew what I was still to find out...Although I was the highest scorer ever on the TSl entrance exam, I was a failure from the first day.

Tuesday

Shelly's office was in Winthrop House, a huge bright aqua blue stucco building on the left as you came into town from Darien. So out of place in Rowayton. What went on there besides him chasing teenage mothers helpers and dental assistants around the chair? It was one of the few places in town I had gathered no information on as I pedaled around snooping and staring..Later I find out from Chris Davis that apartments were for rent there, and I assume as the town became hot they were converted to condos. Shelly and Dr. Rose built an office building on the river where one of the marinas used to be in the 70's, and ladies whose husbands rode the train had studios there. But before all that there was me shrieking out the window for him to "Lemme Alone!"

Shelly. He had a little round bowl next to the Chair. Water swirled round and round before zipping down the drain. You were supposed to spit into the tide and your bloody plaque would instantly disappear. "If you're good". he'd whisper, "you'll get a card from my girl out front. It's good for a free ice cream cone across the street at the pharmacy. Any flavor. But only if you're a good girl." I moved my eyes away from the spit bowl. The windows were wide open, the chair faced Rowayton Avenue, and later my mother said she could hear me scream as she sat in the parked car sullenly smoking. He practiced dentistry on children without the benefit of Naovacaine or gas, and his drill was loud and slow and sounded like a mixer suddenly slow,hitting the bread dough. Grrrrrrrrrr grinding that cavity until it was just a hole waiting to be packed and filled with silver. "Number 4 times 2" he'd command, and Judy Silverman would smile as she turned on her white nurses shoes. 'Yes sir!" she says and bounces away to mix it up.
I don't remember the rest of the appointment, whether he scolded me or ignored me or later told my mother how badly I'd behaved---as if she didn't already know. I do remember his deep tan face and the black curly hairs on his arms and how tight around his neck the green dental jacket was buttoned. Why wasn't that collar choking him? And that skin and those hairs..well one thing I knew. He was not like any male I'd ever seen before...ehhhh.
Not long after we switched to Dr. Weinburg on that avenue up in Norwalk facing the green. Even for cleanings, he used gas. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Me like!

It's just another Friday and I'm waiting for 5 pm. I should mention that when I pictured myself years ago in my gray suit with my hair flat and straight and pulled back in a somewhat severe knot, I never transitioned from that person in her 30s to the one in her 40s and 50s and now, 60's. From Little Bo Peep to the gray suit.
Son of a bitch!
I spend my days plugging away and my nights and weekends thinking about my life. Once in a while a meteor lands nearby, giving me something new to look at. For example last week, I open the New York Times and learn by reading the last page of section 1 that Shelly Trubowitz, DDS of Rowayton Connecticut has died. So much information contained in that one fact! I'll begin at the end, tho there's plenty left for the events of 50 years ago. The obituary painted a purring portrait of Shelly, dental artiste extrordinaire and bon vivant, the toast of Rowayton's 4 tennis courts, lover of a good breeze coming off the Sound and lithe dance partner. Well he loved a lot of lithe partners, most of them below the age of 18. He died in Savannah Georgia. Clearly one of his seven kids had drawn the short straw and had to pack him up and find him a rest home down in Dixie. Then, on his "Memory Page", provided free for 30 days by Legacy.Com and thereafter for 29.95 , there were only 10 or so posts..and all of them from friends of the unlucky offspring who plainly KNEW NOTHING ABOUT HIM! He was a drooler by the time they pried him out of his tennis shorts and stashed him in Savannah. "Our prayers are ewith you Amy and Irv". "Love ya Aime" "All your friends from Temple Goombah offer condolences".
So much information..........
To Be Continued.