Except for the moon landing, everyone would agree looking back, that it was an uneventful summer, it's petty pace is lingering and ordinary. There is the summer we remember, and the sumer that was. We remember mostly the good things. If you were to paint it on canvas, it would be a pastoral. Nothing but grass green, sky blue and lemon yellow. Just that simple. Just the way you’d expect summer to be. Not a very interesting painting.
Nothing much is happening in our little neighborhood this summer. The corner of Garfield and Richmond is a quiet intersection that directs people wishing to get home and little more. The Riordan’s will close in their back screened porch. Mrs. Murphy’s will become livid when she learns that we (the kids) have snuck a wild tom cat into their basement. The cat is pregnant and cannot be moved. The litter of six kittens will plunge us (the kids) into fits of hysteria, not to mention the damage they do to Mrs. Murphy's silk shantung drapes that she purchased on her honeymoon. The Mastrangelo’s have planted pink and yellow snapdragons beneath the rhododendron’s that line their side yard. My family have replaced the living room wall paper to a garish silver foil and gray flocked Renaissance print. The sour apple tree in our back yard will have it’s largest yield ever. So far it’s shaping up to be another banner summer.
At some point we (the kids) will all get sick from eating warm mulberries off of the Heber’s sidewalk. Our tongues and lips are stained purple. So there will be no denying it. We receive little sympathy from our mothers who have repeatedly warned us to not to eat those mulberries. They angrily wash off our mouths with a damp dishtowel. I suppose it does serve us right. We (the kids) will complain incessantly to our mothers that there’s nothing to do, despite the endless hours playing in the sprinkler, or an inflated pool. We build and dismantle a dozen club houses. We make lanyard after lanyard. We go to Jack’s Candy Store to buy Pixie Stix, Sweet Tarts, and Bazooka. Our parents will be appalled to be charged a whopping twenty-five cents for the privilege to watch us lip sync to the entire score Mary Poppins. It is quite an elaborate production. There are costumes, choreography and props. We are a theatrical crew. We serve popcorn and pink lemonade for additional fee. We (the kids) can be totally insufferable. This is the summer that we (the older kids) are allowed to ride our bicycles in the street. Our emancipation has arrived with the onset of puberty. I am twelve. We feel like teenagers, almost. It is our first taste of adulthood, freedom, liberation. Every day we venture a little bit further. It is quite exciting to travel all the way to Maplewood Village all by yourself.
It is June, the summer of 1969.
Can you hear it? A cowbell is ringing. Every family has a cowbell. No one has a cow. Our mothers, a very clever lot, have developed an intricate system to call us home without having to raise their voices. Our mothers are ladies. Ladies are often ingenious. Each family has acquired a cowbell. Can you hear it bellow? We (the kids) have learned to distinguish subtle nuances in each of the cowbell’s ping or bong. It's Pavolovian. Each bell has a specific timber that is well known to us (the kids). It is virtually impossible to escape it’s siren call. Like our mothers, the cowbell cannot be ignored. Our mothers have mastered the cowbell like virtuosos. They exercise such finesse and control over the instrument that we can distinguish when they ring it in an angry, frantic, or lethargic way, and God help you if they have to ring it twice. The cowbells can be heard as far North as Underhill Field, as far South as Summit Avenue, as far West as Coudert Place, and when the atmosphere permits it, as far East as Parker Avenue. The cowbell eradicates all distance between us and our mothers.
Our mothers are housewives, not homemakers. Remember, it is a long time ago. They chair committees on the PTA. They belong to the Rosary Society. They have club activities and are an asset to their communities. Our mothers are known by their husbands names, Mrs. Ronald Knoth, Mrs. Adrian Riordan, and Mrs. Angelo Mastrangelo. They came, so the remind us, from families with “names”, Balantine, Fox, and Mulcahey. Still, they help maintain the status quo. They provide the equilibrium in our erratic households. Our mothers are not reading “The Feminine Mystique”, they are reading Peg Bracken and Erma Bombeck. Our mothers are only in their mid to late thirties, but seem frightfully old to us (the kids). Our mothers smoke cigarettes while they drive with us in the car, naturally the windows are closed, because it is summer, and our new cars are air-conditioned. No one wears confining seat belts, and the baby is in the front seat near mother, in case she has to stop short. It is a different time. Sometimes when they are feeling very wicked, our mothers have luncheon, they eat crustless sandwiches, play bridge, and drink daiquiris. Our mothers wear house dresses, called shifts, or sometimes coordinated slacks. They do most of their own housework, but have help come in one day a week. Our mothers polish the mahogany coffee tables with lemon scented Pledge. Our mothers iron all our clothing, all of it, including our pajamas. Our mothers labor like MD’s over our scraped shins and knotted shoelaces. They get us (the kids) ready for church on Sunday. By ready, I mean dressed up. Yes, we dress up for church. They discuss with each other what they plan on making for dinner. Our mothers pour over recipes in McCall’s like witches studying alchemy. Our mothers are given a household allowance by our fathers on payday. Somehow, I still don’t know how, this seems to work for them.
There is a great economic distance between our mothers and fathers that no one seems aware of. Equality is not a word we use in our homes.
Our fathers work in the city. They work in offices and carry briefcases. They have secretaries, and drink Martinis at lunch. They have desks at home that we (the kids) are not allowed to sit at, because there is important stuff there. Our fathers wear three piece suits. They wear Oxford shirts with light starch in the collar and cuffs, French cuffs. We (the kids) are told to be quiet when our fathers come home because they have had a hard day. On Saturday our fathers play tennis in sparking whites, then come home to mow the lawn. They spend more time mowing the lawn than they do with us (the kids). By afternoon the whole neighborhood smells of freshly moan grass deliciously baking in the sun. It is addicting. Our fathers cool off with ice-tea poured by our mothers. Our fathers do not really know us (the kids), and we in turn do not know them. Our fathers believe whole heartily in the notion of women’s work. Our father’s feign ignorance in the kitchen, and claim to not know where anything is in the house. They simply do not know how to work the washing machine. Our fathers are breadwinners. Our fathers are trophy winners. They are mostly self-made men. They are the providers. Their competency, and skill is self-evident. Still to us (the kids) they are at times as foreign to us as aliens from outer space. We cannot make sense of them.
In our neighborhood, our homes, like the people who inhabit them, are as nuanced as the cowbells, English Tudor, Queen Anne, white clapboard, Arts & Crafts, shingled Colonial and red brick faux Federal. Our homes are the physical embodiment, the projection of our parents marriage. The manifestation of an ideal. They seem perfect. They are immaculate. We feel safe in our homes. Yes, we lock our doors at night, but we sleep with the windows wide open. We are upper-class suburbanites, the privileged. The picture is now beautifully framed.
Our parents are a social lot. They enjoy each others company. We are at times an extended family. So in our neighborhood we have cookouts every Saturday. Our parents feast on lobster and barbecued chicken. We (the kids) will gorge on hot dogs and hamburgers. We will claim an empty lobster claw as a prize to terrorize our irritating siblings. Our parents tolerate us. There will be macaroni and potato salad, corn on the cob, a green salad consisting of nothing more than sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and iceberg lettuce with Hellman's French dressing, and maybe a Jell-O mold. There will be watermelon, fudgesicles and popsicle's for dessert. Our parents will let us taste their freash peach ice cream from Grunning's. Mrs. Mastrangelo will make a yellow cake with mocha icing, her favorite flavor. All our mothers will ask for a sliver only. They are watching their weight. Our parents will eat trifle ripe with rum. They will drink beer ‘till they are light-headed, and get quite loud, and silly. They might have a water fight if sufficiently soused. We (the kids) will play duck, duck, goose, hide and seek, and freeze tag. We will run like hellions until dark, ‘till our cheeks are red and flushed. When the sun sets, citronella candles are lit. A transistor radio will be turned on to an AM music station. We wave tiny flags and sparklers. The balmy summer air is "close". I do not know how air can be close.
Now it is July, the summer of 1969.
The world and all it’s foibles does not reach our front doors. I don’t think it could. I don’t think it would dare, even if it could. It is too difficult to penetrate such carefully composed beauty. The events that shape the world don’t seep into our neighborhood. We watch the news on TV, but TV is what separates us from the world. It is difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy on TV. After all, reruns of Mr. Ed follow the six o’clock news.
This is a seminal summer, but we are blithely unaware. Woodstock is dismissed by our parents who can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to camp out in all that mud with no toilets. Let alone listen to all that loud music. Judy Garland, our Dorothy Gale, a fictional character, will overdose, “what a crying shame” our mothers will say. The Stonewall Rebellion falls completely beneath the South Orange/Maplewood radar. President Nixon outlaws chemical weapons, as Napalm falls, and vows to bring the war to an end, but no one really listens to him. Charles Manson and his tribe begins their killing spree plunging the country into fear of all the “flower children”. Yikes! Ted Kennedy will drive his car off the Chappaquiddick Bridge and kill Mary Jo Kopechne. Drunk, he will leave the scene of the accident. He claims he went to church to pray. “What a shame he just didn’t call the police” our mother will say. “That poor, poor family”, meaning the Kennedy’s, but all of that is far, far away. Bad things happen far away. Certainly nothing like that happens in our neighborhood. All in all, it is a quiet summer for us.
Still our parents do have spirited debates on the issues and literature of the day. Our parents are urbane. The suburban chic. Our parents are liberals. Catholic Democrats. Here is a typical litany of topics that they will discuss over the picnic bench. Will miniskirts last another season? Are they just a fad? The war on poverty, the riots and the slums. Isn’t it deplorable to see women wearing pants suits at church? "It’s just disgusting". They read “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” and debate Indian rights with authority. Should Millicent Fenwick, a woman, run for NJ State Senator? And what are the social implications? How wonderful “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” is? Our parents loved “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid”, but would never see “Easy Rider”. They are vehement about the stock market. What did you really think of “Everything You Wanted To Know About SEX, But Were Afraid To Ask? My parents took the cover off the book, so that we (the kids) wouldn’t see it. They discuss civil rights, conspiracy theories, permissive parenting, hippies, how certain elements are changing the neighborhood, the new morality, the pill, (for and against), legalized abortion, God forbid, what’s next? They watch “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”, and ponder how great the Andy Williams Special was last night? He is so talented”. “I missed it, I was watching The Doris Day Show”. They deliberate the issues of pollution, the population explosion, and the ecology with great ease.
But even all of that is remote. Just opinions on things that happen out there... in the world. Someplace we are not. It is esoteric gobbility-gook. So far everything at home is in place. There are fresh flowers on the dining room table. Everything is just where it should be. The curtains are artfully drawn back letting in just enough sunlight. All is right in the world. At least on the corner of Garfield Place and Richmond Avenue. This summer is just like last summer. It is bliss, but we’re unaware of it. We have no concept of just how lucky we are.
Now it is late July. It is a balmy night. We (the kids) have been remanded to the second floor with two plain pizzas from “The Cat’s Meow” Pizzeria. The neighborhood is converging in our living room. There’s a party. Mixed drinks, and hors d’oeurves have been passed around for hours. The guests have been plied with shrimp cocktail. Sloppy Joe sandwiches from the Town Hall Deli have been devoured. Something very special is about to happen.
Our mothers are all suspiciously dressed up. Their hair has been coifed at The Academy Street Salon. Their hair is quite large. It has lots of volume and wiglets with bologny curls. Our mothers look like different people with lipstick on. They smell of Shalimar and Chanel #5. They are intoxicating. They look like women. Something I find difficult to comprehend. I can’t get over the fashion parade. My mother is wearing a paisley print caftan with gold rick-rack braid. Mrs. Fisher is wearing a fluorescent tropical print Mou-Mou from her recent trip to Hawaii. Mrs. Moson is wearing a Pucci, in hot pink and lime green. Mrs. Riordan is wearing her black chiffon, it’s several seasons old, but shows off her legs to great advantage. Mrs. Mastrangelo is wearing a white A-line crepe that was purchased from Else Summer’s. “It’s designer!” whisper our mothers covetously.
Our fathers are fashion plates too. Perhaps to a lesser degree, but still suburban style pervades. Some of our fathers have grown their sideburns longer this summer. They are wearing flared pants, at home, not at work! White belts. Wide watch bands. Several are donning shiny short sleeve nylon mock turtle necks in avocado green and orange. There is an absence of anything tie-dyed, but Fred Moson is wearing a white Nehru jacket. Our fathers have splashed on Gray Flannel, Old Spice, Brut, and Hi Karate. My father is wearing a medallion. Not a peace sign, that would be too, too much. It is a German Iron Cross. My mother rolls her eyes into the back of her head, she has forbade him to wear it. He wears it with even greater pride. My mother curses him under her breath. Mr. Mastrangelo has his butter colored polo shirt unbuttoned, exposing his hairy chest. His religious medal hangs loosely from a silver chain. He is quite masculine without trying to be. The women are all agog. Can you feel the alcohol is setting in?
The hour approaches ten o’clock. The TV set is turned on. The ceremony is about to begin. Walter Cronkite blathers on about the space program. Technical information is exchanged. Graphics and animation illustrate the distance between here and there, between the earth and the moon. It is incomprehensible. Silence falls in the living room. There’s a hush quieter than the silence at church after communion. You can barely detect breathing. A grainy black and white image frames a voice-over “Houston…The eagle has landed”. Our parents applaud wildly. It is a cathartic release. The static in the TV reception adds to the excitement. Our eyes are fixed on the screen. After what seems like an eternity later, a small hatch opens on the capsule, and out saunters a man in a space suit. He glows white. He lumbers like a bear treading through soupy water. Soft dust spills up like so much tissue paper. John Armstrong prayerfully states “ This is one small step for man, (static) and one giant step for mankind”. Hither to unknown patriotism sweeps through our living room, and our lives. How proud we suddenly are to be Americans.
One of our mothers makes a momentous pronouncement “We are watching history!” This seems unfathomable to me. History is in books. We are not in a book, this is real life. Regardless, our parents are euphoric. Some women begin to cry. It is sentimental, but there is no sadness. Our parents are thinking about their generation. Yes, their generation. The post war generation. It is after all, they who are responsible for contributing to this grand accomplishment, but I’m not really certain how. The men are misty eyed too, but curtly dismiss the women, shushing them to “quiet down”. Our fathers are envious of the unfolding adventure. They glower at the TV set watching men who have escaped. Escaped the rat race, escaped convention, their families, their wives and children, escaped gravity for Christ’s sake! Maybe our fathers feel small in the presence of such greatness. They are not much older that John Glenn, Alan Shepard and Neil Armstrong. Our fathers are not hero’s, and will never be.
For the first time in our lives we can see out our window, what we can see on TV. We cast our attention to the ever constant moon. It is in a quarter phase, barely perceptible. We look at it so far away, half expecting to see Neil Armstrong waving back to us. The moon seems different from this time forward. It has transformed us. Or we have transformed it. I’m not sure which. For the first time in our lives something that was always unattainable, now is possible. Now nothing is so far away. Nothing! It’s a little bit frightening to have a dream realized. What's next? Soon it will be 1970, the future.
Now we (the kids) are sent to our bedrooms. It is far past our bedtimes. It is a night of living dreams. It is past midnight. A magical time. The moon even in its quarter phase casts it’s spell. From the seconding floor landing I peer over the banister. I see all the parents dancing in our hallway. The furniture has been pushed aside. The lights have been dimmed. Candels are lit. Adults sway back and forth, barely moving. The back of my mothers neck is damp with perspiration. Nancy Wilson is singing “The Nearness Of You". Her voice is sultry. Mrs. Mastrangelo has taken her heels off, she is dancing in her bare feet. She is now only a few inches taller than her husband. I think this is so romantic. Our parents are just lovely, as perfect as the moon. I take for granted that they might actually love one another.
Interloping, but not wanting to be caught, I scurry back to my bedroom. “Yes, the party was splendid” from my bedroom window I hear the tail ends of conversations. Everyone says good-night. The gas streetlights glow yellow as couples walk slowly home hand in hand. Everything is just the way it’s supposed to be. I press my face against the window screen. Wives nuzzle their heavy heads on the crook of their husbands shoulders. It’s been a perfect summer. A perfect night. All seems right in the world. At least the world of Garfield Place and Richmond Avenue. I fall asleep in utter contentment. Knowing that this summer is the mirror reflection of last summer. How blessed we are.
The end to the summer of 1969 is slowly drawing to a close.
Now it is August. There is only one month left to the summer. Summer is escaping, disapearing like a cresent moon. It is time for vacation. Our families will head down the shore, (a New Jerseyism) some to Belmar, Lavalette or Spring Lake, us, to Avon-By-The Sea. Some go up state (New York) to Lake George. We come home two weeks later with tans, peeling through our freckles. Our mothers have slathered Coppertone and baby oil on us, because they believe sunlight is healthy. After all, it has lots of vitamin K.
We pick up in the neighborhood, right where we left off. How nice it is to know that nothing will ever change. To have so much confidence. This is after all the summer of the man on the moon. Life seems utterly perfect.
There is no harvest moon this year. There is a blue moon instead. This is the summer one of the Heely boys will be diagnosed with Leukemia. Joan Kramer a local girl from Wyoming Avenue will leave her engagement party in a red polka dot dress, she will call her fiancée from the pay phone outside the Village Drug Store beside Grunning’s. Then she will disappear. She will be raped, and murdered by one of our neighbors, Mr. Neilson. He missed the party the night of the moon landing. My father will tell my mother that he has fallen in love with his secretary, a black woman. My mother’s drinking will begin to escalate. This is the last summer that the neighborhood will be sprayed with DDT to get rid of insects. We will play outside gleefully ignorant as it is washed all over us. La-De-Da. Ade Riordan Jr. will begin to descend into mental illness. He will insist in sitting outside in the pouring rain, sitting conspicuously in a yoga position on the front lawn, much to his parents consternation, and embarrassment. By the fall he will be fully schizophrenic. Mark McGurty will try to kill himself by jumping of the garage roof because Leonard Bernstein has molested him. He will instead break his arm, and derail his violin career instead. Bobby Moore will be drafted into Viet Nam. A mere week later one of the Henry boys will be drafted. Everything will change that summer, and yet nothing will seem different at all. Like so many things, all of that too will seem as distant as the man on the moon.
