My family lived on South Avalon Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. They call the neighborhood Burnside. Mom and Dad raised us in a small house, with a porch across the front. The property was small, only twenty-five feet wide, and one-hundred twenty feet long. It was a typical city lot. Our house was a small, wood framed, two-story with seven steps that led from the porch to the city sidewalk. Between the porch and the sidewalk, was a narrow bed of flowers, and a patch of grass. The parkway between the sidewalk and the street had grass. Sometimes there was a tree there too.
All of the houses were very close to each other. The narrow space between houses called a gang-way was only wide enough for one person to walk through. On the end of the gangway, at the back of the house, Dad installed a gate to close off the back yard. At the back of the house we had another porch which Dad walled in to make a three-season room. Behind the house, was Mom’s farm. It extended between a very small lawn surrounded by flower beds, and vegetables that extended to the garage and chicken coop.
At the end of the lot stood Dad’s one car garage. He built it directly on the ground without a foundation. It had a dirt floor. Ma’s chicken coop hung off one side. Together the garage and the coop stretched across the lot. The chickens roamed in a small space in front of the coop.
In this precious plot of ground, Mom and Dad squeezed a front lawn with a flower bed, a three-bedroom house, a back lawn and flower bed, a good-sized vegetable garden, a chicken ranch, and a garage.
Mom grew most of what she needed to feed the family right in her backyard. The garden produced tomatoes, onions, kohlrabi, cabbage, corn, beans, peas, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers and more. What we couldn’t eat immediately, she preserved, by canning. The chickens provided fresh eggs, and meat for Sunday dinners.
Mom grew flowers from seed she got from friends or by taking cuttings. In Spring she had tulips, and by Fall the same bed was a sea of chrysanthemums. Mom had roses, snap dragons, petunias, dahlias, bleeding hearts, marigolds, zinnias, carnations, and pansies to add a mix of color. She planted any flower that she could get, and propagated them to keep it going.
My love for flowers, came from watching Mom’s delight at seeing things grow. She loved bright colorful flowers, and grew as many as she could. Mom kept a garden on her father’s the farm too, but there it was mostly vegetables, fruit, and berries, as opposed to flowers.
Her knowledge of plants came from watching other gardeners, and by experimenting with seeds. She never turned down an offer of new seeds or cuttings from friends. Her trial and error approach, taught her the best methods.
Mother kept her gardens going until she was into her eighties. When her heart began to slow, so did she. She began to lose her sight, and memory. Her gardens became smaller and smaller. The loss of energy killed her desire for the garden, and the city farm was no more.
My friends know that I am into gardens. I have a page dedicated to my Garden hobby. I often show photos of flowers and my garden in my posts. During the winter, I write about my indoor garden.
This weekend, I had occasion to scour through a couple of thousand old photos. I came across some that I had forgotten about. They are of my first real garden adventure. Prestwick is the neighborhood I lived in during another lifetime. The properties were large and there was room to make some nice things happen. There were trees, shrubs, lawn, and flower beds too. Previous to Prestwick, I didn’t really get into gardening, but Barb did. She was the master planter and color coordinator. I helped her with shovel work. When we moved to Prestwick, I got the bug, not for the horticultural aspect but for an aqua-scape. I fell in love with the idea of a pond. I told people that I always wanted to own lakefront property, but couldn’t afford it, so I built my own lake in the back yard. The idea became a reality and the rest developed from there.
I told a fellow engineer at work about my ideas for the pond while we were on a twenty hour flight to Singapore. A few months later he asked me when I would get started. “Soon,”I replied.
“How soon?” he asked.
He basically chided me to “s_ _ _ or get off the pot.”
“I can be there tonight with a backhoe.”
“Okay.”
I got home from work at my usual six-thirty and had supper with Barb. In the middle of our dinner the dishes began to shake on the table. “What is that?” she asked.
“It is probably Delmar coming to dig the hole.” Just as I finished those words a blue tractor with a back hoe stopped at the end of our drive.
“What is going on?”
“We are digging the hole for the pond.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Now.”
That was the beginning of my love affair with the garden. It took several years to develop a pond and the surrounding landscape. Each year, we changed it to make it look better. I had a new vision of what it should look like after I finished the last one. Of course, each vision built on the last.
During the first five years I installed a little pond with a waterfall spilling into the big pond,. That wasn’t enough, I added a second waterfall to spill into the little pond. After that, I was unhappy with the water clarity, so I designed a filter. A pump moved pond-water underground to the filter-aerator. Clean oxygenated water returned via a stream to the big pond. A little complicated, but it all worked pretty good, and it looked okay too. The fish were very happy and growing along with a variety of bog, and water plants. There was the sound of trickling,and splashing water to soothe the soul.
All the time I was playing hydro-engineer, Barb continued to plant a variety of perennials. She mixed annuals in between to add color and textures. The garden was shady, so she learned to plant only those things that grew well in shade like hosta and Impatiens.
We went to the Farmer’s market in town and discovered a vendor who specialized in hostas. He gave me a history of all the possibilities and varieties of hosta plants. Before long there was a collection of sixty different hosta varieties.
One year we were on a vacation trip to Michigan, We loved to stop in small towns and look at the shops. Out of a hundred shops, maybe one turned me on. This time, we found a shop that sold G-Scale Trains made by the Kalamazoo Toy Train Factory. These trains are commonly used in garden railways. I never heard of a garden railroad before, but the idea was intriguing. Barb let me buy an 1850’s steam locomotive with a tender, a passenger car and a flatbed. It was on display around our christmas tree for the first few years before I got the bug to add a new feature to the pond; add the train as an item of interest in the garden. What that translates into is track, and a train. No buildings, or people, just track, plants, and trains. The garden became animated.
It took a complete year to develop the 100 foot road bed with trestle, a bridge, and a tunnel. The effort was worth it.
Here are some of the photos that started this long-winded piece of personal history.
Today was a day that chilled my bones. The temperature was relatively mild, but the dampness was gross. It started with a meeting of Lions this morning, and moved to an appointment with a doctor, then on to the grocery store for provisions. My plan was to come home and cook up a batch of chicken paprikas. By the time we got home, I was so chilled, the act of cooking warmed me over. The anticipation for the meal was building and I recalled memories of when I helped my mother make the same dish.
The recipe is so simple anyone who knows how to read and turn on a gas stove can make this stuff. The ingredients are spelled out in a photos below. The main ones are chicken, onion, sour cream, and some simple spices. Combine them in the right order and you get a dish to die for.
When I began cooking I was not hungry. By the time the dish was completed, I was ravenous. Between the aroma, and the flavor, my stomach sent signals to my brain that shouted “Feed me.”
I had to have a wine to go with it, so I went down to the wine rack and picked out a bottle of red. The wine turned out to be as great a winner as the meal.
I had problems making the spatzle. It certainly wasn’t as good as Mom’s. This is the fourth time I have made spatzle as an adult, and I need more practice doing it. Mother’s was uniform in size, and firm in texture. My dumplings were rather random in size, shape, and texture. Oh well, another day, another dollar. If I don’t wait another seven years between attempts, I should be able to improve.
The paprikas smelled great, looked great, and tasted great. The spatzle tasted great but looked like hell. The appearance did not deter me from attacking it with appetite.
The chosen wine was accidental. It was the last bottle in the rack. I love Cabernet Sauvignon which is full bodied and flavorful. This one called “Dynamite.” was exactly all of that. It made a great pairing with the colorful red and rich paprikas.
If I were in a restaurant and had to rate this meal, I would give it four stars. If the dumplings were uniform in size and texture I would have rated the meal a five.
Last night was make up night for our theater subscription. Normally, we go to Steppenwolf with friends, but when Grandma Peggy and I got the flu we had to reschedule. So, it was solo date night for the old folks. We bundled up and drove the thirty-five miles to North Halstead Street in Chicago to the Steppenwolf theater. We left early because sometimes we get into a traffic jam that takes thirty to forty minutes to get through. This evening we sailed without any jams and made it from our door to the theater in forty-eight minutes flat.
I pulled up in front of Trattoria Gianni’s and valet parked the Death Star. Gianni’s is across the street and four houses down from the theater. We enjoyed a four-star meal. I would have given it five stars except for the ambiance. The place was cold, and a bus load of women came in for dinner. They made the place so noisy that I had to shut my “state of the art” electronic ears off.
The play was “Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” I had never seen it before, but Peggy saw the movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. This production of Edward Albee’s work starred Steppenwolf’s ensemble members. Directed by Amy Morton who also starred as Martha. Her husband, Tracy Letts played the part of George.
The story is a riot at times, but also filled with dialogue reminiscent of a marital fencing match. It is obvious that this wife is totally disappointed in her husband’s ambition, and he in turn feels she is a nag. They drink copiously to numb their brains from the ho-hum of their lives.
The characters became real, and I couldn’t picture the actors as anybody but George and Martha. They left me wondering if they were as screwed up in real life as they portrayed on stage. This is a very long play and we almost left when the second intermission arrived. I thought the last scene was rather a strange ending. It turned out that there was another act.
I took the opportunity to run out and retrieve my car from the valet. The valet service ends at eleven, and I had visions of my car being towed by some aggressive towing company for being in a place it didn’t belong with me wondering where the hell it was and how was I going to get home. The valet was right there. My car was parked on the street immediately across from the theater doors. I paid him, got my keys, and made it back to my seat before anyone knew I was gone.
The final act started out being just as conflicted as the first two. The plot had us believing that George and Martha had a son. At the very end George plays one of his games and reveals to Martha that the son is dead. She keeps screaming “why did you have to make it end this way?” That got me to wondering if the son was real or did they just create him to make their lives more fulfilled, or was he a character in one of George’s novels. I left wondering if the couple was nuts, or were they in deep grief over the loss of their only son. Now, I have to do some reading to determine if the son was real. Maybe someone will tell me.
Grandma Peggy and I gave the performance five stars, but next time we will wear long underwear so we can give Gianni’s the fifth star.
The Detroit auto show is showing off new car designs with the hope that sales will pick up. I remember a time in my life when I wanted to be a car designer. My grammar school notebook dividers were filled with doodles of new car designs. Years later I reviewed some of the sketches to realize that some of the actual car designs resembled my doodles. Today, I can give a rat’s behind about what a car looks like. I’m more impressed by how little I have to get it fixed.
The Avalon Death Star is a few miles away from turning seventy-thousand miles. (I always thought old guys drove less.) That number began rolling in my mind as I recalled some of the cars I have owned.
The very first car that I bought was a 1959 Volkswagen bug. That was during my “green period.” Gas was eighteen cents a gallon, and I was worried about mileage. I also preached about conservation, and pollution. Today, I choose to drive a car with the highest horsepower, and the best overall economy.
After the Bug reached sixty-thousand miles, I fell in love with the VW Karmann Ghia. I bought a brand new one for $2750.00 at a time when you could buy a new Cadillac for $2500. I owned the car for ten years. Style wise it was fabulous, but not a good family car. It was a maintenance nightmare in spite of all the cute VW ads that pointed out how many ways they had improved the car. I spent many a cold evening in a frozen garage changing shock absorbers and mufflers. Why is it that these things always fail when it is zero outside? Eventually, the head lights fell out of the fenders because of a severe rust problem. I don’t know how many miles it had on it, because the speedometer failed several times, and I was tired of paying for new ones. Besides, the superior attitude of the German mechanics who refused to believe that a German car could break always ignited my furor.
We needed a family car, so I bought a used 1960 Ford Falcon for Barb. It was an unexciting car, and we piled a ton of miles onto it. I remember hooking a baby seat over the top of the bench seat to give my kids a better view of the steel dashboard. In today’s world, I’d be arrested for that. This car was so unexciting, I have completely forgotten what we did with it.
In 1967, we got the camping bug and bought a brand new Dodge van. It was bare inside except for a bench seat. I built a bed, and storage area behind the seat, and Barb made privacy curtains to shade the sun. This little truck served us well, but it too required lot’s of maintenance. I remember teaching Barb how to lift the hood to remove the air cleaner to tickle the butterfly so the damn thing would start. (The hood was inside the truck between the front seats. You could drive and change spark plugs at the same time.) This little van is etched in my memory as one of my all time favorite vehicles. It deserves a separate story to chronicle all we did with it.
In 1969, I became the proud owner of a brand new Toyota. It was a cute little red Corolla station wagon. It had a front engine, with water cooling, which meant it had heat. As opposed to my VW which had air cooled engine, and never had enough heat to clear the fog off the windows. Within six months of owning the Toy, I detected an engine knock. The dealer never heard the knock, and my complaints went unheeded. Finally, I decided to run the car until the knock got audible. It did. Within a few short weeks, one could hear the car from a block away. I drove it to the dealer and asked the service guy if he could tell me what the strange noise was coming from the engine. It had nine thousand miles on it. I started it up. Within a second, he waved furiously to shut it off. I left the car with them to be fixed, they finally admitted to a problem. It took ten weeks and daily harassment to get my car back. My kids wonder why I hated Jap Crap so much. I sold the Corolla wagon with twenty-six thousand miles on it.
I chose to keep my Dodge van as my commuter car, and bought a 1973 Dodge van to serve as the family vehicle and trailer tower. We were a two van family.
The seventy-three van left Barb dangling many times with a stuck choke, but the hood was outside and she wasn’t able to tickle the carburetor anymore. The driver’s side floor rusted through after three years, making me a very unhappy camper. Water leaked through the rear doors and rolled forward under the mats to settle under the driver’s feet. We kept the green van until 1978, when I switched to a GMC van.
The GMC had horsepower to spare. We pulled a very heavy trailer and didn’t even know it was behind us. It was more reliable than the Dodge, but it too had problems with rust, and changing spark plugs required as much work as an overhaul.
One evening, Barb and I were returning home from a visit to my Dad’s house. We waited at a red light when a hot rod pulled up beside us. “Watch this,” I told Barb. The light turned green. I put my foot into it, and bam. We coasted across the intersection. I blew the damn transmission. Luckily for me, I still had second gear to limp home with.
In 1985 I became the proud owner of a Mercury Sable. What a sexy car. Ford was improving quality and I gave them a chance to show me how good they were. The Sable was a good car, but it too had moments. I told people that it is the best car I ever owned. When I really thought about it, the best car would not receive a Christmas card from the towing company. I replaced the transmission three times, and a switch failure earned a tow job three times. I was on the way to get the steering arm replaced when I slid off an icy road and hit a six by six mail box post. I totaled the Sable at one hundred and twenty-thousand miles, and after serving me for twelve years.
Barb persuaded me to buy an Oldsmobile Intrigue. The was hands down the best car I owned until it reached one hundred and twenty-thousand miles. At that point, I became friendly with the tow company again. Twice, within a year, I paid hundreds of dollars to have an intake manifold replaced. Researching the problem on the internet, I learned that the GM engine had a known problem with manifolds for years. Did they do anything to fix it? Hell no.
This saga brings me to the 2005 Avalon. I knick named it “Death Star” when Toyota had to recall them for run away acceleration problems. So far, knock on wood. This is the best car I have ever owned. A far cry ahead of the 1969 Corolla, and the UAW counterparts. I have seventy-thousand miles on it, and I expect it to go for three times that amount. That is if I live long enough to make it happen.
As I write this, I realize that each car had its own history, and each one deserves individual reflection.
There are a few I left out of the history, like the VW Scirocco, Buick Sky Hawk, and 1980’s vintage Corolla.
