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Thursday, November 3, 2016

Hershey ― Chocolate, Bears and the Arena

How old were you when you remember the first time you experienced something or ate a particular food? As a high school freshman, I remember eating cheesecake for the first time on an Easter break vacation in Fort Lauderdale. My grandfather told me I’d like it and I’ve been eating cheesecakes ever since, but like that first time, plain, not smothered in strawberries or cherries. I think my preference for a cheesecake without toppings, but creamy, heavy as a brick, sink-to-your-toes cheesecake dates to that first dessert eaten in the land of palm trees.



Hot chocolate always reminds me of hockey games in the Hershey Arena and the Hershey Bears. Their uniforms, you see, were chocolate brown. Five minutes outside town, the smell of chocolate permeates the car windows. The street lights are made to look like giant Hershey Kisses. As a child, I always wished I could have a Hershey Kiss that big. How appropriate the local hockey team is chocolate brown, the exact same shade as a Hershey bar?





My earliest memories of Hershey Arena was a hockey game and my Dad getting me hot chocolate between periods. The Hershey Arena had its own version of hot chocolate―not so milky and a bit watery―to this day that is how I like to make my hot chocolate―not the Swiss Miss, saturated, sweet version. I drank hot chocolate at the source. Anything else is just not hot chocolate. How appropriate to drink my first hot chocolate in the Hershey area―during a hockey game? Chocolate, for me, doesn’t get any better than that.



Of course, Hershey has its competition and detractors. The British moon over Cadbury and the Swiss and Europeans think Nestle is the best. I prefer American chocolate. The first chocolate tasted by Europeans was brought back over the pond from the Americas, so isn’t everyone else an imitator, or certainly a Johnny-come-lately? I also learned recently that Hershey, when he was developing his chocolate, kept it low sugar so that it retained a slightly bitter taste. That made it different than the European variety, distinctive and a taste that had to be acquired. He defined the taste of American chocolate.

My parents bought those bags of chocolate bean shells that Hershey sold and used them in our flowerbeds as mulch. As a kid, how great was that when it rained and your whole house and yard smelled like chocolate?

Playing those games at the Hershey Arena was special. For starters, the boards had Plexiglas. We were used to the smaller rinks with chain link fences above the boards. In our tiny rink in Reading, there was nothing but a pipe just above the boards. The rink was in a cinder block building that had once been a garage. The smallish windows in black iron frames were protected by Venetian blinds. In the heat of battle, during those Sunday night league wars, errant pucks found their way through the Venetian blinds. Considering that glass was cheap at the time, and those windows could not be larger than eight inches by ten inches, we must have destroyed a lot of glass because I remember reading the annual expense report and marveling at the $144.00 expense for the season in glass pane replacement.



(above) The rink today on Essex Street in Reading. The side windows have been cinder blocked in.

There was one game during the year set aside for fathers versus sons. The fathers were telling us the week leading up to the game that they had uniforms. I suppose it got into our heads that they must be good and we were a bit worried. At game time, the fathers came out in their “uniforms.” Our coach was wearing his red striped pajamas. The owner of the rink, short “Tuffy” McKellen, all 5’ of him, (he just made the 5’ minimum height requirement of the army and was assigned to the Military Policeyou’d think that’s where his name came from but the real reason was that he fought for his corner to sell newspapers and earned the name “Tuffy.”) was dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit complete with ridiculous hat. 


One friend’s dad wore diapers. Just diapers. I remember thinking what would happen when he got checked into the Venetian blinds.

The Hershey Arena games were also special because they were played before games of the AHL (American Hockey League) which was one level below the NHL and had the Buffalo Bisons, the Springfield (MA) Rifles, and the Quebec Aces. People were filing in for the NHL game and for once we had a crowd watching us play. The arena held more than 7,200 hockey fans although when our game ended there were probably only a few thousand in the stands. But it was a thrill to play in an arena with Plexiglas, real official NHL nets, and doors to the players’ bench.





Yankee fans remember the steepness of the seats in the upper deck of the old Yankee Stadium. I’d bet the seats in Hershey Arena were steeper. After our game we got to stay and watch the Bears play. I remember one of our team members spilling a Coke and it showered out about 10 rows. I never remember spilling any of that precious hot chocolate.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Where Did I Leave Those Guys II

   Some time ago when I was between writing projects, in a blog article, I wondered out loud where I left several characters. The two I used then were from a magazine short story that was published about two years ago. I submitted a draft from some exploratory writing for a possible future novel and the magazine ran it. The scene was from the Revolutionary War.

   Living in Ringwood, I am aware of the strange historical connection among three places, four if you count West Point. They are Ringwood, Ho-ho-kus, and Tappan, New York. Ringwood was the home of Robert Erskine, Scot immigrant who took over management of the then world-famous ironworks. Soon after the war broke out, Erskine double-crossed his British investors and supplied the Revolutionary army with cannons, munitions, and was one of a few local ironworks to cast the giant iron chain that was stretched across the Hudson River to prevent the British traveling north. Running through town is the “Cannonball Trail” the Ho Chi Minh trail from Ringwood to West Point, the secret munitions highway supplying the army.

   Robert Erskine was not only a close friend of George and Martha Washington, he was one of the general’s secret agents who also worked on the logistics of moving the army and most likely his reports passed from Washington to General Henry Knox, Revolutionary army quartermaster.

   Benedict Arnold fled from the Hermitage in Ho-ho-kus where he was staying when Major John André was captured carrying plans of Arnold’s to hand over West Point. He was tried and hanged in Tappan, New York. Washington wanted to make an example of him because, earlier, the British insisted on hanging Nathan Hale instead of exchanging him. André was higher ranking, more popular, accomplished and the British master spy for New York. The very day André was hanged, 
Washington was at Robert Erskine’s deathbed. Erskine was dying of pneumonia he caught, riding on a rainy day.

   I’m willing to guess short stories lend themselves to leaving characters out there walking around and doing what they do. Even in a finished novel, the story ends but presumably the lives of the characters go on doing something other than getting themselves into the predicament that your novel resolved. And since I write fiction and nonfiction, a supposedly career no-no, I have an almost unlimited amount of wanderers out there.

   The thing is, they might be done in your short story or expository writing but, in the back of your brain, they are still doing all sorts of stuff. Your brain’s subconscious occasionally breaks into the conscious with a request to find them or wonder where are they?

    A quick and incomplete roll call of my guys is hilarious. They are spread out everywhere. I have guys on horseback returning from Ho-ho-kus, I have two young newlyweds waiting for their home to be built, an entertainer in a bar watching his guitar career slip away, five guys in a rock and roll band traveling across China on their way to the Chinese version of Woodstock, two Princeton researchers trying to figure out the handwriting, possibly Erskine’s, written on some letters they found in a trunk lid, and several grad students looking for the missing moon rocks brought back from the Apollo missions 11 and 17. What a collection.

   I know at least what Bruce is doing right now—relaxing now that his world tour is finished. That also reminds me—I wonder what Ciu Jian is doing and where exactly he is right now, Beijing, Lijiang, a guest at NYU, who knows? 

Thursday, August 11, 2016

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL BE WALKING DOWN THE STREET

There is currently a popular TV show called Pawn Stars where the hook line in the introduction is Rick explaining why working at a pawn shop is interesting. The line is “…the best part―you never know what’s going to come through that door.” I usually feel that way walking down any street in Manhattan.

I’ve already written about coming out of the subway and having El Exigente, himself, hand me a free cup of coffee. That was weird, funny and memorable.
On the street in Manhattan I almost never bump into celebrities. People tell me all the time, “Yeah, Robert Redford walks his dog over on Park; I see him all the time.” I could probably trip over the dog leash before I’d recognize The Natural.

I did accidentally run into Simon and Garfunkel but it wasn’t too much of an “accident.” The night the duo reunited for a concert to benefit a deteriorating Central Park in New York City, I was making my way towards the grassy area where the audience would sit. The area was north of the stage and we entered the park from the south. After cutting across an open field we came to the road system which brought vehicles to the back of the stage. As we crossed the narrow macadam stretch, a limo pulled up, almost running us over. The door opened and out popped Simon and Garfunkel. They looked in our direction and smiled at us; we were the only humans in evidence.

On the other side of the structure they were entering 250,000 fans waited for that night’s concert. It had rained much of the day but stopped in time for the concert that September 19, 1981. The Mutt and Jeff duo immediately proceeded up a steep embankment towards the stage. We walked in parallel to them about 20 feet away. They went into a stage opening, while we followed the fenced off area around to the front for the concert.

A few years before that, Harry Chapin nearly collided with me on a Central Park path but he was walking towards the Wolman Rink for a concert and I was alone on a path to the back of the stage area. I said “High Harry” in surprise and he smiled back and said “Hi.”

For whatever reason, I missed the performance of Jackson Browne, James Taylor Joan Baez and Bruce when they attended the disarmament rally in the Park on June 12, 1982. This wasn’t too far removed from the No Nukes performances so I guess I assumed it would be the same cast of characters and I must have had something important that day. My memory escapes me.

But New York streets remind me of the Pawn Star’s adage. Except I’d change it to New York City is exciting because you never know what might be coming down the street.

When I worked at 90 Fifth Avenue, the nearest cross street was 14th. It was one block north of the old Lone Star Café. I worked there in the Chelsea section from 1994 to 2000 and the Lone Star closed in 1989. I did make some excellent salads at the bar that replaced it. From the vaulted ceilings, I could imagine how good performances must have been there. The bar was immediately at the entrance on the right as you entered the cavernous hall. At the end of the 40-foot bar, the vaulted opening divided into an upstairs level that wrapped around the open space, providing spectacular views of the band which was set up across from the bar.

That particular day, I was walking south on Fifth Avenue looking for lunch, noticing a stiff breeze blowing north from Greenwich Village. The sidewalks are wide there, maybe 30 feet, and tumbling over and over, as I got almost to the door of the former Lone Star, and rolling towards me was a piece of paper. I remember crouching like a sort of shortstop and fielded the piece of paper like a baseball as it tumbled into my grasp. It was a twenty dollar bill. That was an “only in New York” moment for sure. Lunch money coming to me, a pure definition of “found money.”

But, back to bumping into celebrities―the one time I could not have cared less about a celebrity was when Fabio did a commercial shoot in the Vidal Sassoon salon on the first floor of my office building. I remember several women saying how they didn’t care at all for Fabio, his flowing hair, his amazing physique, whose various poses adorned the covers of all the romance, bodice-ripper paperbacks, but that still didn’t stop them from crushing themselves at the large windows trying to get a glimpse. I suppose if Giselle Bündchen walked down the street in a silver dress I’d probably be there.

In one of those other-world street incidents, I was walking down a street in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, Peru, on a clear April day in 1988. My wife was pushing one of those twin canvas baby strollers. We had just adopted triplet infant baby girls. They were so small that two took one side of the twin stroller and another along with those mounds of baby necessities took up the remaining space on the other side. They were tiny, even at three months old. The street was pretty much empty when we saw four young men, most likely in their young twenties, walking side-by-side up the walkway. They greeted us and were passing when we all realized we spoke English and immediately they stopped.

I asked them where they were from and they answered “New Zealand.” They knew immediately from our American accent where we were from but politely asked anyway. So I said “New Jersey.” A very happy, excited surprise crossed their faces. “Do you know Bruce?” Note, not “Springsteen” but “Bruce.” My wife rolled her eyes again. No matter where we went, there was some sort of Bruce magnet. Sometimes I did the magnetizing myself when conversations turned to music. This time, I was completely innocent. We were an 8-hour flight, more than 3,500 miles from New Jersey and serendipity brought fans of the Boss together in an unlikely place. I told them some of my concert experiences and how my roommates in college knew him at his early stage. I could have spent the entire afternoon there but the squeaking wheels of the baby carriage announced that the fun was over.