‘Hey, pick up, are you there?’ I asked.
‘Pick up?’ she asked back. ‘I’m sitting in a psychologist’s chair with a computer screen in front of me, and a smart phone at my side. Neither are ringing.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ I reacted. ‘Oh, you just did. I was wrong. Start again. Are there, are you there?’
‘Yes, evidently,’ she replied.
‘Good,’ I continued. ‘You’ll never guess what I found.’
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Do tell,’ she said, with a slender amount of mirth.
‘Good,’ I said again. ‘A bunch of yearbooks I found on the internet. Yours, mine, the year after me. The one that has photos of the spring sports from my senior year, because they didn’t have time to publish them when they logically should. I didn’t look at the class in front of you. I wasn’t interested. Plus, the year in between, their senior singer was Paul Anka. At that, I said “this stops now.” Did you keep yours?’
‘Of course,’ she twittered. ‘It’s in a box somewhere. I never look at it.’
‘Neither would I,’ I noted. ‘If I still had mine, from my senior year. I should have the rest, I don’t think they drowned in the flood, but if so I don’t know where they are. On the internet, they bring back memories, and the definition is good, is that the word, but I miss the inscriptions. They’s be tacky, they’d be tacky, but I would like to read them, to see what various classmates wrote to me, for me, to see whether it would make me feel nostaligic, nostalgic.’ Note: I had completely forgotten mentioning this a few months earlier, and I think so had she. What happened to our mind’s memory foam?
‘Nostal-i-gic sounds better,’ she said, laughing at my temporary mispronunciation. ‘That’s what us psychobabble specialists would call a Minsky Moment,’ she declared, and half-laughed half-giggled.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘but which Minsky?’
‘Marvin Minsky,’ she stated. ‘The cognitive psychology professor,’ as if this should have been evident to all. She wouldn’t have known who Hyman Minsky was, and Marvin looked more like Harpo Marx than an economist regardless. The funny should have been funnier than it was.
‘Nostradamius didn’t predict that,’ I said. ‘Well he didn’t predict anything.’ I used to work with someone named Nestor. His name has the same root as nostalgic. He was anything but nostalgic. He once called me a storyteller when I claimed I didn’t start drinking whiskey before 11:15 AM. Well, not whiskey I didn’t. Nostradamus didn’t predict that either. If he believed me he’d have said “first time for everything,” because that would have been the first time. Japanese whiskey. It was at a Japanese restaurant where he said that. Japanese whiskey is good. We’ll get to that. According to Ziggy, there’s a 59% chance the nostalgic “he” was Nestor, a 31% chance it was Nostradamus and 11% chance it was Suntory-san, though due to rounding the total may not add to 100%.
Each yearbook was different. Subsequent student editors, or the advisors, had different ideas about content. That surprised me. I thought the format would be the same year in and year out. But that’s not what I was going to say. ‘What amused me was the advertising at the end. I overlooked that too.’ Three photography studios advertising yearbook photography. One was called On the Top. In someone’s infinite wisdom or personal hah-hah, it was the bottom of four ads on its page. Here are some more I recorded. Listen:
‘The Steer House Dining Room and Lounge
For anniversaries, business or club meetings, and any kind of parties
Good food – relaxing atmosphere
Capitol Tennis
Custom racket stringing and fully stocked pro shop
Try our restaurant overlooking the tennis courts
Tacoma Realty Company
“Buy, Sell and Trade with Confidence”’
‘That sounds like an excerpt from a Thomas Berger novel,’ I commented, breaking the sequence a little.
‘Thomas who?’ she asked.
‘Thomas Berger,’ I repeated. ‘He wrote the House Guest. You should read it some time.’
‘Hmmm,’ she commented back. ‘Maybe.’
I picked up where I left off. ‘I’ll continue with a couple more and that will be enough.’
‘First Consumer’s Savings Bank
We put your interest first
Chernowsky’s
We make you look great’
‘Chernowsky’s did make people look great,’ she said. ‘Their clothes were awesome.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Very classy, though out of place on Water Street. It had its clientele, though for women and children, clothing for them, those two groups. Not much I could do with that.’
‘Farrell’s for you then?’ she asked.
‘Yup,’ I said. ‘Blast from the past.’
‘What happened to Chernowsky’s?’ she asked. ‘What is there now?’
‘Not sure,’ I admitted. ‘Last I heard it was a bar or restaurant, having changed names and owners two or three times, and before that a recording studio, or mineral shop and something else on the other side. And or. Upstairs I don’t know. I will go back and see some time, and report back to you,’ I promised. ‘As long as it’s not become an Old West theme bar.’ I could picture her silently agreeing.
We paused.
‘The Steer House, that was legendary,’ I said.
‘Even better, iconic,’ she said. ‘And ironic.’
‘I concur,’ I seconded. ‘I could talk about the phases of going to the Steer House all day long.’ It could be its own trinity, along with Batman and the Bee Gees.
I recalled cocktails at the Steer House one Saturday in January, legal drinks, because although half of us were 20, the drinking age had not been raised to 21. The state legislature compromised on a short phase-in period to balance the lobbying of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving with the Drunks Against Mad Mothers.
I was sitting next to an out of shape Tommy Rudder, over the hill and depressed about life. Too much was expected of him, and the burden of not blubbering all he knew by the age of 23 was on his shoulders. He was the third of three sons but had all the expectations. He was TR Jr, after all. He was too cerebral to be the son of a high school principal with a crew cut in the 1960s and 70s, who grew up in a grange town in Alabama, and who opted not to hang up his southern drawl, in a locality where the defining accent was lobsterman or apple orchard warden, or yokel. He was a great guy, Tommy, I understand that now.
McGrath, with his brown fingerling volunteer fireman moustache, was also there, a ripe old 27, informing us how young we were compared to him, though he had a sister who was 19. What the hell happened to him?
‘Me too,’ she said, ‘but let’s write down some notes, compare them next time, or the time after.’
‘OK,’ I said, and changed the subject. ‘What was different about our senior year yearbook was that we had a separate section, plus the Class Will. Favorite songs, sayings, color, etc, food, nickname, future plans.’ Can you say Egg McMuffin?
‘I don’t care about the other keywords,’ she said, ‘but what were some of the favorite songs, and what was your future ambition?’
‘Ah,’ I began, ‘I’ll look it up.
‘And did you?’ she asked. ‘Achieve your goals?’
‘Nope,’ I confessed. ‘Not yet. None of mine. Not yet. Here’s a good one. Richard Cobb. Future plans. Drug dealer. That’s truth in advertising. How’d he get that “plan” past the beady eyed censor?’
She laughed, picturing Baker as the beady eyed censor, because the English teacher yearbook co-showrunner Mr Barnes was too absent minded to notice something like that. ‘Anyone else try to pull a fast one?’
‘Someone chose Panama Red,’ I remarked. ‘Although liking that song is not illegal. Cuz even if you are in a business distributing legal drugs, it’s not called dealing.’
‘What were some of the other tunes?’ she asked.
I was quick to respond. ‘By far Stairway to Heaven. Followed by Free Bird and Southern Man. A few selected Fleetwood Mac or Barry Manilow. Nothing too surprising. But. I’m surprised no one chose Carry on Wayward Son, or Freeze Frame, or was it even released by then? Mine was Doctor My Eyes. I guess I did like that song, though I’m surprised I didn’t write down Dream Weaver, because I played it every morning, or Carolina in the Pines. No, that was the year I took off for tax reasons. I didn’t lose that yearbook. That volume was creative. I liked their sayings also. One was “This is a good place, it keeps the teachers off the streets …” I can’t remember many of the rest. Or, “When the beat brings a beer it’s hard to get parted,” or “Scientists have been dispensed to address the corn rot. Has no one thought to dispense anyone to address the brain rot?” A few of the girls should have become comedians. Thought-provoking stand up.’
‘Fascinating. What was your brother’s tune?’ she asked.
I paused to flick back a page or two on my open window. ‘Um, it was Stairway to Heaven. He didn’t know about Ziggy Stardust yet.’
‘True,’ she acknowledged. ‘How about Steve?’
I flicked back another two pages. ‘He wrote “anything but classical or opera.”’
‘Once a Steve always a Steve,’ she commented, and I laughed. I laughed anew because Terry wrote down Seekers in the Sun rather than Seasons in the Sun. Heart on sleeve Terry. Casey Kasem loved that hit too.
Anthems such as Stairway to Heaven and Iris are labelled “wedding songs” because of their popularity at such events, and often abhorred by the bands that popularized them because fans and critics ignore their self-styled better material at their peril. They spawn “he said it” or “they sang it” moments, as with Steely Dan and “Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car.” If Nirvana were alive today, they’d refuse to play Smells Like Teen Spirit and would wheel out a rearrangement of the Jeopardy! theme as an encore – or, better still, a rap metal version of Chasing Cars.
‘Hey, speaking of songs,’ I abutted to change the subject faintly, ‘can I jog your memory about Lemon Tree, Very Pretty?’
‘Of course,’ she replied swiftly. ‘By Donovan, by that flower child Donovan?’
‘That’s what I thought at first,’ I continued, ‘but his went “first there is a mountain.” Those are some of the lyrics. I’m not sure of the title. Anyway, it was written by Will Holt, and many singing groups covered it, but the single by Peter, Paul and Mary was the best known. How about now?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said. ‘Now it’s familiar, but Will Holt doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘It will in a second,’ I insisted. ‘The track is reworked from a nursery rhyme, a Brazilian nursery rhyme. I won’t repeat the Portuguese title, but it translates as My Lemon, My Lemon Tree.’
‘Actually that is fascinating,’ she said.
‘Will Holt was a leading folk singer in the 1950s and 60s,’ I indicated. ‘He’s associated with Portland-’
‘Sounds it,’ she said. ‘Portland, Oregon, like Portlandia?’
‘In fact our Portland,’ I stated. ‘Portland, Maine. He’s associated with Portland, but he’s actually from Bridgeton!’
‘Of course he would be,’ she rebutted. ‘No one has heard of Bridgton. Except people from Bridgton! People from Western Maine, anyway.’
‘Of course,’ I indicated again.
‘Just like the TV doctor from, from the medical drama, can’t recall which one,’ she began.
‘Me neither-’ I continued. ‘Associated with Lewiston, but actually from Buckfield, and Turner, like the egg farm. I scored against them, Buckfield that is.’
‘Both cities maybe, well one small town and one city,’ she said. ‘I read that he attended St Dom’s high school, being the good Franco-American girl … and good for you.’
‘That’s plausible,’ I acknowledged. ‘We didn’t beat them. We didn’t beat St Dom’s. They had a good team. They were not chicken farmers, like in Buckfield. Springsteen played in their auditorium, in Lewiston. Everyone else loved the band, but to me it was an anti-climax.’
‘You didn’t like the Boss?’ she asked. ‘How is it possible a 16 year old-?’
‘I had seen David Bowie the year before,’ I indicated, ‘and he had more than two pieces I recognized.’ Plus someone threw up in front of me at the Springsteen concert, and I didn’t mention that I associate this singer-songwriter with Southern Comfort tinged teen vomit.
‘I see, I understand,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it would have been different had you seen the E Street Band a few years later. When they’d had more hits.’
‘I’m sure too,’ I confirmed. ‘However, my top tune from that year was Fly Robin Fly.’
She drew a blank.
‘By the Silver Convention,’ I continued.
‘You lost me,’ she confessed.
‘Look it up some time,’ I recommended.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Sometime.’
‘Say,’ I transitioned. ‘It’s too bad the Senior Information Pages were not replicated by classes after us. It would be interesting to compare and contrast,’ to which she approved, and reluctantly signed off. ‘TBC,’ she said. We were both in much better moods on this day.
‘TBC,’ I repeated. I didn’t have to ask the title of her conjectural Senior Information Page ballad. Free Bird all the way.