Month: September 2016

Forty-nine years ago September 20, Judy and I were about to set off on our honeymoon.

My in-laws helped pay for our honeymoon. Not, as in “here’s a check, go knock yourselves out.” They were shrewder. “Here’s a check for the wedding. Whatever you don’t spend, you can keep.”

Dad was a minister. So, the church came free. The church ladies put on a reception. A friend’s mom made the wedding cake, complete with a bride’s cake. My wife made her dress as did her bridesmaids. Another friend got a deal on flowers from the florist where he worked. My groomsmen and I wore our dark Sunday suits. We had money left over.

We planned six nights away, fitted between the last day of my summer job and the first day back for our senior year in college. Those last days of my job would mean a little more cash for the trip.

We planned to drive to Monterey, up the famous Highway 1, taking in, at a leisurely pace, the scenic splendor of the rugged coastline. Our first night would be at Motel 6 in Santa Barbara. We would splurge on a cabin at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and Motel 6-it back home to Riverside. The trip would be our first experience together where we would make ourselves available for whatever fun thing might pop up, in this case in the Monterey area.

Motel 6 cost $25 a night, plus tax. Gasoline cost 22 cents a gallon. With our plan and our cash, we were set for honeymoon bliss. This became our first lesson about plans and God laughing.

We got to our apartment in Riverside at 5 p.m. to get ready for an early start the next morning. Waiting for us at our doorstep was the college psychologist with a friend of ours in tow. He looked depressed.

“He’s threatened to harm himself. Can he stay with you until his roommate gets here?” she asked.

People of a Certain Age, have you ever noted how easy it is to answer a question when there is only one possible responsible response?

That evening he and I walked around town for three hours. He barely spoke. The next day, the three of us drove to my sister’s house, thinking that a change of scenery might help. For two days, he talked more, telling me a few things that bothered him, none of which seemed too horrible to me but were to him.

Then, we drove back to his apartment and left him in the company of his roommate. Our obligation was over, for now.

The next morning, we raced away, as fast as greater metropolitan Los Angeles morning traffic allowed anyone to race anywhere, even in 1967. We needed to be back in three days, so we by-passed our Santa Barbara reservation and stopped at the Motel 6 in Santa Maria. Along the way, we called the state park, hoping that a cabin would still be available. One of their rustic cabins was open. We booked it.

Thus, we were committed to a faster drive up Highway 1 than we intended or was advisable. Each stop at a scenic overlook was on the clock. We took pictures and moved on. What I remember was pretty but I can’t be sure that I remember the actual scenery or just the pictures.

After dinner, we arrived at Pfeiffer Big Sur and got our cabin. It was at this point that we realized that rustic meant the woods were really, really dark, and there was no heater in the cabin. The air outside was coastal September foggy. It was cold enough and dark enough to make us appreciate the warmth of another human being cuddled up beside you. I don’t think we slept much.

At first light, we were off to Monterey for the highlight of our trip, an abalone sandwich at the restaurant at the end of the Monterey pier. We couldn’t spend much time around town because we needed to be back at the Santa Maria Motel 6 in order to make it home on time to register for classes. This time, we drove U.S. 101.

We slept better that night.

The next day we got back without incident, in time to get the classes we wanted, a little more money in our pockets than we had expected.

Three postscripts. Our friend recovered fully, served one career in the military and a second working in IT. We have never spoken about those darker times. He was the first of several friends who have found refuge at our home over the years.

Secondly, we dutifully transported the bride’s cake with us to graduate school to eat on our first anniversary. It had spoiled. We just laughed.

Third, years later, we ended up buying the psychologist’s home in Riverside; she and her husband were retiring and moving. We suggested a discount on the price, given her role in changing our honeymoon plans. Didn’t work.

Forty-nine years later, we still laugh.

Dan White

September 20, 2016

Have you ever heard of Henry Cuyler Bunner? I hadn’t either until I read his story, “Our Aromatic Uncle,” copyrighted in 1896, the year of his death. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is that he was, for a time, editor of “Puck.” I haven’t read that publication, though at least I have heard of it.

The short story is in a volume called “Short Stories for English Courses,” edited by Rosa M.R. Mikels. Her Preface begins:

“Why must we confine the reading of our children to the older literary classics? This is a question asked by an ever-increasing number of thoughtful teachers. They have no wish to displace or discredit the classics. On the contrary, they love and revere them. But they do wish to give their pupils something additional, something that pulses with present life, that is characteristic of today. The children, too, wonder that, with the great literary outpouring going on about them, they must always fill their cups from the cisterns of the past.”

Reading these words, I was hooked. They might have been written by any of the fine teachers of English with whom I have worked in my teaching career. What made Rosa Mikels’ words stand out is that they introduced a volume published in 1915 and re-issued in 1920. Obviously, it was intended as a textbook, and somehow I have come to think that the Los Angeles City School District might have been one to adopt it.

I bought the book for two dollars at an antique store in Los Alamos—California, not New Mexico. Its stories kept me affixed for a long enough time to allow Judy a thorough scouring of the shop. Thus continued a long-standing feature of our years of happiness together; as long as I have a book, she has the time she wants to browse.

The story is simple. A bakery boy of small stature idolizes the son of a judge in Boston, early 19^th century. The bulk of the story is the narrator’s account of how the grand-daughter of the judge, now the story-teller’s wife, received an ever-increasing number of gifts of an increasing value from China, where the judge’s son has established a prosperous business.

After many years, this “aromatic” uncle (so dubbed because of the fragrances of many of the gifts), comes to visit. The three form an affectionate bond, amplified by the evident joy the couple’s baby finds in the uncle’s arms.

One day, the uncle’s sister, an unpleasant woman, comes to visit. When she first sees him, she cries out “That ain’t him.” She produces a picture of her brother taken years ago showing him with one arm. Beside the brother in the picture is his business partner, the man now visiting from China and called “our aromatic Uncle.”

Auntie storms away, never to be seen again. This is viewed as a blessing by the couple. They, in turn, embrace their visitor warmly, continuing to regard him as their uncle.

The man explains himself. He is, in fact, the bakery boy of old who ran off to sea to be “body-guard, servant, and friend to the splendid, showy, selfish youth whom he worshipped, whose heartlessness he cloaked for many a long year, who lived upon his bounty, and who died in his arms, nursed with a tenderness surpassing that of a brother.”

The judge’s son had made no attempt to maintain contact with his family so the bakery boy, now business partner, began pretending he was the uncle. He kept up the ruse throughout the lives of all the judge’s relatives; only the narrator’s wife and the haughty aunt remain. The hero-worshipper had become the hero, wrote editor Mikels.

The unmasking unnerved the uncle, and one day he disappeared. Some time later, he sent a note telling of another shipment of gifts. He concluded by saying that the couple would probably never hear from him again, except when they received the proceeds from his will. Once, in the company of the couple, he had complained that the only thing in life he could do well was to make money. So we assume…

I felt warm inside when I finished the story. It was as unexpected a treasure to me as were the proceeds of the will to the couple.

People of a Certain Age, how many times have treasures come to you unexpectedly? I wonder if, in order to feel like a treasure, whatever it is, it needs to be unexpected?

The treasure came to me by chance. I was in a new place rummaging through old things, looking for an interesting book with no specific desire regarding the kind of book. The volume is nondescript, like most texts. There was no particular reason why my hand should have rested on it as I scanned the jumble of books in the shop.

I have been blessed with many unexpected treasures in my life. Many involve people. Others have been places, Still others are books or musical compositions or plays.

What treasures come to mind for you?

Daniel E. White

September 6, 2016