It's Halloween and the treats have already started. My neighbor rapped on my front door last night bearing gifts of caramel apples. "I just couldn't wait!" she giggled handing over the candy fruit. There is something about Halloween that makes everyone act like a kid.
Maybe it is the sheer nonsense of the holiday, and the freedom to indulge in pretend silliness - a healthy activity according to late breaking studies.
Halloween has always been my personal favorite; less about costumes than about candy and more importantly, of safely indulging in heart racing acts of terror. For what is Halloween without a good haunted house, blasting soundtracks of ghostly moaning, piercing screams, and thumping heartbeats?
When I was at St. Anselm's it was the purview of the 8th Grade class to block off the raised gymnasium stage and create a maze of frightful pit stops for our younger classmates. We went to town, boiling pots of spaghetti for guts, opening cans of olives for eyeballs, and squishing jiggly jell-o for I don't know what. It didn't matter as long as it made the younger kids squeal.
We all had a part to play, dressed as the living dead, witches, ghouls or executioners, and we were going to play our parts well. We turned out the lights, turned up the cassette player and waited anxiously for our prey.
We took sadistic delight in blindfolding the excited youngsters, spinning them around until they were dizzy and then leading them up the back stairs - pulling more like - to guide them through the transformed stage. We made sure they tangled themselves in the crepe paper strips dangling from the ceiling, took silly string blasts full in the face and when they hesitated, shoved their hands into the bowls of disgusting and absolutely inedible food.
We knew we had succeeded when they finally made it through the other side, not quite as brave and smiling as when they started. And we made money on the deal. 50 cents a head if memory serves.
When the lights finally went up and we surveyed the mess that we had to clean, there were no regrets...only longings of our own. If only WE had upper classmen to scare the living daylights out of us! And the longing never ends.
From now until Oct. 31st I will be on the hunt for a good horror flick and I won't be satisfied until I find one that makes me feel just like those poor unsuspecting innocents felt all those years ago.
Musings and Memories of Growing up a Marin Kid.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Harvest Time Harkens the Past, Present and Future...and it is All the Same.
Fall is here. My favorite time of the year, anywhere, but especially here in Marin. Not only do we get our lovely Indian Summer, but things start to slow down. Frenetic summer activities have given over to quiet mornings; kids trudging to school through the crinkly leaves collecting in the street gutters. Soon, wood smoke from afternoon fires will hang in the air.
I am more myself at this time of the year than any other. Maybe more reflective because of the coming holidays, but also because harvest time seems to make the world close in on itself. There are less distractions because everywhere, the pace is slowing down. Even Mother Nature is snuggling down, setting the sun early and pulling the blankets up over her head for her long winter's nap.
I often hear East Coast transplants complain that it doesn't look like fall out here. It's nonsense that we West Coast babies do not get seasonal colors. Just look to our gorgeous hills turned the color of a lion's mane. And our bonus is that in a few short weeks they will be luscious emerald green.
Of all the changes since my childhood, indeed, since my fathers' we've at least done a good job preserving our open spaces. And I don't just mean Mt. Tam to the south and Mt. Burdell to the north. In spite of the hillside homes, there is still plenty of Marin left that my grandmother would recognize if she were still alive.
I had the fun of looking through a book of Marin history recently with pictures of long skirted women and waist coated men standing on dirt roads beside their trusty Model T's. But then I lifted my eyes to the hills behind them and saw my own backyard. My beautiful Marin - the graceful waves of hills dotted with our gnarled and stoic Oaks. It was unmistakeable!
And then it hit me. I feel the same warm afternoon breezes scented with the dry wild grasses that blew over their faces. They heard the same gentle songs of the chickadees and the spirited squawk of the blue jays that greet me every morning. When they turned their faces to the late October sun and let the rays warm them opening their eyes to survey the then wide open spaces, they loved the place just as I do.
They did have more of the original Marin than we have, but how much else has actually changed? Have WE changed? In that same Marin history book I stumbled upon a chapter describing the educational concerns of early Marin.
A 1975 researcher studying issues impacting the public school system since 1891 found close parallels between concerns voiced at School Board meetings, including, Lack of Funding, Class Size, Poor Curriculum, Outdated Facilities, Drug Abuse, and the only one I did not recognize, Segregation/Integration.
I'd like to think that even if we don't solve our educational woes in the next 100 years, my great grandchildren will look wonderingly at pictures of me, standing beside my trusty Volvo station wagon and recognize behind me, the same lovely backdrop of Marin and understand that as important as it was to me and to my grandparents to preserve what of Marin we could, that it will be just as important to them, and their grandchildren.
I am more myself at this time of the year than any other. Maybe more reflective because of the coming holidays, but also because harvest time seems to make the world close in on itself. There are less distractions because everywhere, the pace is slowing down. Even Mother Nature is snuggling down, setting the sun early and pulling the blankets up over her head for her long winter's nap.
I often hear East Coast transplants complain that it doesn't look like fall out here. It's nonsense that we West Coast babies do not get seasonal colors. Just look to our gorgeous hills turned the color of a lion's mane. And our bonus is that in a few short weeks they will be luscious emerald green.
Of all the changes since my childhood, indeed, since my fathers' we've at least done a good job preserving our open spaces. And I don't just mean Mt. Tam to the south and Mt. Burdell to the north. In spite of the hillside homes, there is still plenty of Marin left that my grandmother would recognize if she were still alive.
I had the fun of looking through a book of Marin history recently with pictures of long skirted women and waist coated men standing on dirt roads beside their trusty Model T's. But then I lifted my eyes to the hills behind them and saw my own backyard. My beautiful Marin - the graceful waves of hills dotted with our gnarled and stoic Oaks. It was unmistakeable!
And then it hit me. I feel the same warm afternoon breezes scented with the dry wild grasses that blew over their faces. They heard the same gentle songs of the chickadees and the spirited squawk of the blue jays that greet me every morning. When they turned their faces to the late October sun and let the rays warm them opening their eyes to survey the then wide open spaces, they loved the place just as I do.
They did have more of the original Marin than we have, but how much else has actually changed? Have WE changed? In that same Marin history book I stumbled upon a chapter describing the educational concerns of early Marin.
A 1975 researcher studying issues impacting the public school system since 1891 found close parallels between concerns voiced at School Board meetings, including, Lack of Funding, Class Size, Poor Curriculum, Outdated Facilities, Drug Abuse, and the only one I did not recognize, Segregation/Integration.
I'd like to think that even if we don't solve our educational woes in the next 100 years, my great grandchildren will look wonderingly at pictures of me, standing beside my trusty Volvo station wagon and recognize behind me, the same lovely backdrop of Marin and understand that as important as it was to me and to my grandparents to preserve what of Marin we could, that it will be just as important to them, and their grandchildren.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Where have all the Fruit Trees gone?
When I think of Marin, I think of a Marin before I was born. A time when Marin was almost back woods, known for its dairy farms and for being a thoroughfare for the railroad bringing coastal lumber to a booming San Francisco.
It is every generation's prerogative to bemoan the loss of its familiar past and idealize "how it used to be when I was a kid....". I listened acutely to stories of my father's youthful days in San Anselmo, and even though things had definitely changed, there were vestiges of the past kept alive on the street where my grandparents lived and I was absolutely aware of my luck to be living some of what my father had always taken for granted.
My grandparents built 4 modest houses on a San Anselmo cul de sac in the 30's and my great uncle built 2 others. That street is actually known on town parcel maps as the Lavaroni plot. No fences separated the properties. Children and their canine companions roamed the yards freely, playing long games of hide and seek or tag late into the evenings, and helped themselves liberally to summertime snacks of ripe fruit bursting forth from trees planted in whichever yard they happened to be traipsing through at the time. Women hung laundry to dry in the sun and popped in and out of back doors to swap recipes and neighborhood gossip.
These were the days when families set a stake in the ground, built a home and raised a family in a house in which they expected to live and die. Because whole lifetimes were to be lived in the same house, a very personal and intimate relationship resulted between these homesteads and their occupants. Greenhouses were constructed, vegetable gardens planned out and fruit trees planted for all the holiday pies to be baked for years to come. Rose bushes were tended lovingly to provide blossoms and sweet garden scent. There was no thought of trading up. No aspirations for "bigger and better". The land, however small the plot, was a source of sustenance, not a perfectly coiffed object designed to display status.
Two of the things that "sold" me on my own home in Novato were the 30 year old Peach and Apple trees in the back yard. They reminded me of the trees in yards on Hampton Avenue. THIS was a proper home. One in which I could raise my family with old fashioned values. We anticipate the developing fruit every Summer and Fall, watching the buds turn to flowers which wilt away only to reveal the nub that will grow into a the tasty seasonal gift. We gorge ourselves on fruit freshly picked, baked into cobblers or folded into ice cream. There is always more than we can ever consume from just these two wise old trees and neighbors know they are welcome to wander into our yard to help themselves to our bounty, whether we are home or not, as if no fences separate us.
If you are lucky enough to have an old fruit tree on your property, I implore you to take care of it; love it and it will reward you as it has undoubtedly rewarded past wardens of the land on which it lives. Doing so, not only honors the original planter, but bonds you to this precious land and keeps the memories of Marin's simple past very much alive.
It is every generation's prerogative to bemoan the loss of its familiar past and idealize "how it used to be when I was a kid....". I listened acutely to stories of my father's youthful days in San Anselmo, and even though things had definitely changed, there were vestiges of the past kept alive on the street where my grandparents lived and I was absolutely aware of my luck to be living some of what my father had always taken for granted.
My grandparents built 4 modest houses on a San Anselmo cul de sac in the 30's and my great uncle built 2 others. That street is actually known on town parcel maps as the Lavaroni plot. No fences separated the properties. Children and their canine companions roamed the yards freely, playing long games of hide and seek or tag late into the evenings, and helped themselves liberally to summertime snacks of ripe fruit bursting forth from trees planted in whichever yard they happened to be traipsing through at the time. Women hung laundry to dry in the sun and popped in and out of back doors to swap recipes and neighborhood gossip.
These were the days when families set a stake in the ground, built a home and raised a family in a house in which they expected to live and die. Because whole lifetimes were to be lived in the same house, a very personal and intimate relationship resulted between these homesteads and their occupants. Greenhouses were constructed, vegetable gardens planned out and fruit trees planted for all the holiday pies to be baked for years to come. Rose bushes were tended lovingly to provide blossoms and sweet garden scent. There was no thought of trading up. No aspirations for "bigger and better". The land, however small the plot, was a source of sustenance, not a perfectly coiffed object designed to display status.
Two of the things that "sold" me on my own home in Novato were the 30 year old Peach and Apple trees in the back yard. They reminded me of the trees in yards on Hampton Avenue. THIS was a proper home. One in which I could raise my family with old fashioned values. We anticipate the developing fruit every Summer and Fall, watching the buds turn to flowers which wilt away only to reveal the nub that will grow into a the tasty seasonal gift. We gorge ourselves on fruit freshly picked, baked into cobblers or folded into ice cream. There is always more than we can ever consume from just these two wise old trees and neighbors know they are welcome to wander into our yard to help themselves to our bounty, whether we are home or not, as if no fences separate us.
If you are lucky enough to have an old fruit tree on your property, I implore you to take care of it; love it and it will reward you as it has undoubtedly rewarded past wardens of the land on which it lives. Doing so, not only honors the original planter, but bonds you to this precious land and keeps the memories of Marin's simple past very much alive.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Summer Sweet San Anselmo
Summertime and the living is easy. Especially when you are 12, with an over active imagination. Anything could happen when school was out, and the sun didn't set until 8:45.
The summer of 1976 we were between homes, 6 of us living in a two bedroom, 1 bath, 800 square foot house on a San Anselmo cul de sac waiting for the Ross house my parents were building, to be finished. Fitting really since I had an in between situation of my own - that awkward preteen age when you felt your world changing, and hanging on to familiar things was pretty comforting.
We had spent the last 5 years in Greenbrae, having outgrown the San Anslemo house I had started life in. It may as well have been the next county for the disconnect I felt to my best friend who was left behind. Even though we went to the same school, when the afternoon bell rang we quite literally went in opposite directions and parents weren't as willing slaves to children back then as they are now. It was a rare afternoon when she and I were together. And so, the pain of having to share a tiny bedroom with my brother and twin sisters was completely offset by the fact that my best friend lived on the hill directly above the cul de sac, and the Ross house didn't look to be finished before summer's end.
By way of a moving in present, my very industrious friend, constructed a fort out of bamboo in our back yard; A real Gilligan's Island style wonder that hid us from mother's prying eyes. This same friend was the source of Laurie Partidge's keyboard of plywood and black marker, and the most fabulous dress up barrel filled with frilly frocks from generations past. Playing pretend games with a best bud who submerged herself in the same fantasy without question is freedom personified.
Summer was a feast for the senses and set our imaginations spinning. Heat dryed wild grasses scented the still air and the high pitched buzzing of cicadas signalled mid day heat. I always assumed that droning ring was what summer sounded like as if summer itself existed as an entity in its own right.
There was a lot of freedom that summer, running barefoot, back and forth between our houses, lost in our make believe world. When we bored of our pretend games, there was always the hike to Redhill and Swenson's Ice Cream Parlor. A blast of cold air brought relief from the stifling heat as we pushed through the glass door. I had my first taste of Bubblegum, Mocha Chocolate Chip and my personal favorite, Cherry Vanilla ice cream sitting beneath the turn of the century photos of San Francisco.
Trudging home across the baseball fields of Memorial Park, we would pass the requisite run down house we were convinced was haunted, or at the very least occupied by a murderous, old, mad woman. We would slow as we approached, trying to get a glimpse inside, daring each other to get right up to the windows. Giggling nervously in case the other would actually do it, we would pull each other away towards home. Once there, shoes tossed aside, and bolstered by the sugar rush, there was a game of tether ball to be played, and played and played. I nearly never won, being a full foot shorter than she.
The Firehouse horn bellowed across the valley signalling 5pm and the sound of summer days was soon replaced by the sound of summer nights...crickets chirping as the air finally started to cool. Still we played on even as night fell.
At last the piercing whistle would come. My friend's father beckoning her home. Even after a full day of childish pleasures I would sometimes sit gazing up at her house on the hill, lights blazing in the windows longing for tomorrow. Those waning days of youth when you could not spend too much time in the company of your friends. There was always another story that could be acted out, another game of tether ball to lose and way more ice cream to eat.
The summer of 1976 we were between homes, 6 of us living in a two bedroom, 1 bath, 800 square foot house on a San Anselmo cul de sac waiting for the Ross house my parents were building, to be finished. Fitting really since I had an in between situation of my own - that awkward preteen age when you felt your world changing, and hanging on to familiar things was pretty comforting.
We had spent the last 5 years in Greenbrae, having outgrown the San Anslemo house I had started life in. It may as well have been the next county for the disconnect I felt to my best friend who was left behind. Even though we went to the same school, when the afternoon bell rang we quite literally went in opposite directions and parents weren't as willing slaves to children back then as they are now. It was a rare afternoon when she and I were together. And so, the pain of having to share a tiny bedroom with my brother and twin sisters was completely offset by the fact that my best friend lived on the hill directly above the cul de sac, and the Ross house didn't look to be finished before summer's end.
By way of a moving in present, my very industrious friend, constructed a fort out of bamboo in our back yard; A real Gilligan's Island style wonder that hid us from mother's prying eyes. This same friend was the source of Laurie Partidge's keyboard of plywood and black marker, and the most fabulous dress up barrel filled with frilly frocks from generations past. Playing pretend games with a best bud who submerged herself in the same fantasy without question is freedom personified.
Summer was a feast for the senses and set our imaginations spinning. Heat dryed wild grasses scented the still air and the high pitched buzzing of cicadas signalled mid day heat. I always assumed that droning ring was what summer sounded like as if summer itself existed as an entity in its own right.
There was a lot of freedom that summer, running barefoot, back and forth between our houses, lost in our make believe world. When we bored of our pretend games, there was always the hike to Redhill and Swenson's Ice Cream Parlor. A blast of cold air brought relief from the stifling heat as we pushed through the glass door. I had my first taste of Bubblegum, Mocha Chocolate Chip and my personal favorite, Cherry Vanilla ice cream sitting beneath the turn of the century photos of San Francisco.
Trudging home across the baseball fields of Memorial Park, we would pass the requisite run down house we were convinced was haunted, or at the very least occupied by a murderous, old, mad woman. We would slow as we approached, trying to get a glimpse inside, daring each other to get right up to the windows. Giggling nervously in case the other would actually do it, we would pull each other away towards home. Once there, shoes tossed aside, and bolstered by the sugar rush, there was a game of tether ball to be played, and played and played. I nearly never won, being a full foot shorter than she.
The Firehouse horn bellowed across the valley signalling 5pm and the sound of summer days was soon replaced by the sound of summer nights...crickets chirping as the air finally started to cool. Still we played on even as night fell.
At last the piercing whistle would come. My friend's father beckoning her home. Even after a full day of childish pleasures I would sometimes sit gazing up at her house on the hill, lights blazing in the windows longing for tomorrow. Those waning days of youth when you could not spend too much time in the company of your friends. There was always another story that could be acted out, another game of tether ball to lose and way more ice cream to eat.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday Drives, The Cherry Tree and Occidental
We left Marin for the windy roads of Sonoma every Sunday that I can remember. No questions asked, no protestations allowed. Right after donuts at the 9am Mass, the 6 of us piled into the Buick Station Wagon and headed up 101 into farm country.
And it was ALWAYS north. Never East, West or South. There was a purpose aside from getting 4 fidgety kids from under my mother's feet. Simple pleasures, for it wasn't the chic destination it is today. More orchards and cows back then than grapes. And truthfully, as long as you had a window seat, the drive was far from a tortuous affair, and I am not waxing lyrical 30 years hence. A Nancy Drew in hand, watching the golden hills roll into one another, daylight drawing long shadows from the gnarled Oaks as afternoon waned, making up ghost stories on the way home to entertain my 3 younger siblings. I actually don't understand why it wasn't a tradition I carried on with my own children.
As far as I can remember, we pretty much took the same route: Highway 37 to Sonoma Square where we stopped at the Cheese Factory for Sandwiches in the park, then to Napa and up the valley to Yountville, and finally, back to Sonoma along the Russian River to Occidental where I am sure THIS was the principle purpose. Occidental. Every Italian family from Marin ate supper at Occidental one time or another. It was either Negri's on one side of main street or the Union Hotel directly across the way. And you had to choose. Once you did, you never crossed the road.
The Lavaroni family landed squarely with the Union Hotel, an old fashioned family style restaurant with red checkered table cloths, drippy candles and obscene amounts of food, including, the BEST minestrone soup EVER.
Yesterday was Father's Day and it felt like the right thing to do to take a Sunday Drive of my own, the children spending the day with their father and my own Pater, now strangely devoid of the desire to ramble along country roads, even with the enticement of the Union Hotel's warm apple fritters.
I might not have recreated the exact route, but the feeling was the same. Freedom from the cares of the week to come, lost in the beauty of a dwindling afternoon sun on acres of translucent grape leaves. I even spotted an apple orchard holding its own amidst a sea of pinot vines.
The most evocative sight on my nostalgic tour was The Cherry Tree, a ramshackle hut, long boarded up, tucked into a bend on Hwy 12 just as you begin to climb a bluff.
I remember the question, always for naught. "Can we stop? Pleeeaaase?" There was something hard to resist about the rows of ruby liquid filled jugs that lined the fence in the dirt parking area, teasing us as we passed. The answer was always the same. "Maybe on the way back." I don't know why we never caught on. The way back was always through Occidental.
It must have been the hawk that caught my eye, circling languidly above, or the baby ducks at the Sonoma Square pond with which we shared our Cheese Factory sandwiches.
There was so much to capture the imagination on those long ago drives, and the promise of a comfortable table, a Shirley Temple served ice cold (it LOOKED like Cherry juice, after all) and a plate full of creamy raviolis from the Union Hotel at the end of it all.
And it was ALWAYS north. Never East, West or South. There was a purpose aside from getting 4 fidgety kids from under my mother's feet. Simple pleasures, for it wasn't the chic destination it is today. More orchards and cows back then than grapes. And truthfully, as long as you had a window seat, the drive was far from a tortuous affair, and I am not waxing lyrical 30 years hence. A Nancy Drew in hand, watching the golden hills roll into one another, daylight drawing long shadows from the gnarled Oaks as afternoon waned, making up ghost stories on the way home to entertain my 3 younger siblings. I actually don't understand why it wasn't a tradition I carried on with my own children.
As far as I can remember, we pretty much took the same route: Highway 37 to Sonoma Square where we stopped at the Cheese Factory for Sandwiches in the park, then to Napa and up the valley to Yountville, and finally, back to Sonoma along the Russian River to Occidental where I am sure THIS was the principle purpose. Occidental. Every Italian family from Marin ate supper at Occidental one time or another. It was either Negri's on one side of main street or the Union Hotel directly across the way. And you had to choose. Once you did, you never crossed the road.
The Lavaroni family landed squarely with the Union Hotel, an old fashioned family style restaurant with red checkered table cloths, drippy candles and obscene amounts of food, including, the BEST minestrone soup EVER.
Yesterday was Father's Day and it felt like the right thing to do to take a Sunday Drive of my own, the children spending the day with their father and my own Pater, now strangely devoid of the desire to ramble along country roads, even with the enticement of the Union Hotel's warm apple fritters.
I might not have recreated the exact route, but the feeling was the same. Freedom from the cares of the week to come, lost in the beauty of a dwindling afternoon sun on acres of translucent grape leaves. I even spotted an apple orchard holding its own amidst a sea of pinot vines.
The most evocative sight on my nostalgic tour was The Cherry Tree, a ramshackle hut, long boarded up, tucked into a bend on Hwy 12 just as you begin to climb a bluff.
I remember the question, always for naught. "Can we stop? Pleeeaaase?" There was something hard to resist about the rows of ruby liquid filled jugs that lined the fence in the dirt parking area, teasing us as we passed. The answer was always the same. "Maybe on the way back." I don't know why we never caught on. The way back was always through Occidental.
It must have been the hawk that caught my eye, circling languidly above, or the baby ducks at the Sonoma Square pond with which we shared our Cheese Factory sandwiches.
There was so much to capture the imagination on those long ago drives, and the promise of a comfortable table, a Shirley Temple served ice cold (it LOOKED like Cherry juice, after all) and a plate full of creamy raviolis from the Union Hotel at the end of it all.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)