Oh Where Oh Where Can It Be?

            With my tail too short and my hair too long

          Read on and on and you shall C!

Ask Mr Google www Oh Where–and you’ll find the ‘real’ text

I started this unfolding of my life because I was told it  would be permanent.  I want my great, great, great-grandchildren to read it soon. At the same time I wanted to share my favourite moments– shuffling, stomping and shotin’ with my jazz. My little life taught me serious lessons  about the other half of the Homo sapiens–girls, of course, at least 76 years ago . So, I’ll continue ‘my little life’ along that theme.

In my kindergarden I was a quiet, fatty boy . Each playtime we raced out to run, dance and  pretend our PE activities. Henry and I snuck off, if we could reach it, to the sand box in a corner of the playground. Many days we were chased all over the space by ‘Amazon girls’ until we ran inside the school to hide behind the teacher. Thos–my first she-enccounter blotted my existence for 24 years! 

Shakespeare said “Woman, thou art the [or ‘an’ –your choice] architect of humiliation”.  He must have said it because he said everything else in the English language. Anyway, I was sent to a Kindergarden. The school room was bright and full of light. There was a large wooden block house in which we played various games–moms & dads, cowboys and indians, etc. Our teacher who seemed three stories tall liked ‘group games’.

      ‘ Alright children. Take your chairs and line them   around  the room.’  Which we did. I was sitting between two girls.

     ‘ Now, how many of you can tie your shoes?

‘ So many of the others raised their hands that I felt it was the thing to do. I raised mine. The real reason was that I DID NOT know how to tie my shoes but I wanted to plaster over this empty crack of knowledge.

      ‘Wonderful’ she said. Now lets ALL tie our shoes.’

 I fumbled knowingly. When everyone else had finished and I was still all thumbs, fingers and loose laces my embarrassment started.

   My tall teacher [by then five feet tall] said with what seemed like a snile in her voice. 

         ‘Oh, Susie, show him how to tie his shoes’

.  She knelt in front of me and while the WHOLE class watched showed me how to tie my shoes [Velcro wasn’t available in the children’s shoe market then]. What  Humiliation!!! Spelt with a capital haish!! I have never forgiven that she-experience and I wear velcro today.

A  few years later in the third grade we had penmanship lessons. Picture a barren classroom with chairs spaced out and with armdesks on the right side for practicing handwriting. Miss Jones with her grey hair knotted on the back of her head used to warn us  

        ‘Point you pen-top towards your left ear’.  

        ‘Roll your hand over, Jacobs.’ [Never once did she say ‘Mr’ or ‘ Please’!] For hours , it seemed, I made circles on my pen notebook. I guess it was to develop a rhythm in our joined-up writing. But she never played any Jazz! It  would have helped us to make some amazing  letters. Imagine a Louis Armstrong C [for cornet] which started at the top and swirled about with lots of  ‘moneybusiness’ [as Louis called it] until it came to the end of the C with an extremely long top note to link to the next letter D for Dixieland or Dizzy G. She would have had some inspirational letters for Erroll Garner, Dave Brubeck, the cool Chet Baker and  my favourite Oscar Peterson.

But I digress–More like a ‘road up’ escape from my experience with the other children with long hair and no tails at all!

My writing teacher walked with a cane. It had no rubber tip. She used it in two ways–as a psychological weapon to arouse fear and as a  knuckle knocker — if you forgot and made  two Salvador Dali  ‘hanging watches’ for an ‘M’. So, she used to bang the floor with her cane as she approached us from behind.  If  the noise stopped, then  everyone sucked in air. When she continued down the row between the chairs, many pens went astray, out of control. One day she rapped me on the sensitive joints of my writing hand  and positively ruined my style forever.

I grew from Fatty to almost 6 feet during the next three years and was ready, so I hoped, for my next encounter with the fairer {ha} sex. Constance was her name. One day after school we were the last ones to leave our ‘classroom for final year students’. Having avoided my biological lessons and not been allowed to join the playground discussions which were bursting with information about skill development in this subject area –I advanced toward Connie. Equally fast she stepped backward. This game  turned into a race around the classroom with an occasional hurdle over a chair which had been pulled into my path.  She escaped.  ‘She doesn’t want me’– I philosophized and added the event to my list of she meetings with  the dangerous sex.  It so happened that my class had a Declamation Contest. We memorised a declamatory speech like say Edmund Burke or more like The Declaration of Independence. Our contest final was held in our classroom and my declamatory form was good. But Connie WON. Pow, Pow, Double Pow –yet another piece in the jigsaw puzzle  of women. To add to this we were to declaim before an audience in a Parent’s evening. It was suggested that we should not look directly at the audience. ‘Look over their heads’. Wonderful. So after our practice  rehearsal I went to the middle of  the back of the auditorium and put a large chalked X on the wood patricians between the windows. Confidently, I had dinner at home. The auditorium was buzzing in anticipation of our performances. I was looking forward to standing on the stage [I still do] and  startling  them with wonder. The wonder was mine! When I stood up– My X was gone!! Who removed it? Too late to ask anyone. I knew –as one does with accurate assumptions–it was my woman teacher.

The final determining factor in my developing attitude about women occurred on a glorious sunshiny day when I was about 14. I believe that my mother had said to my dad–‘Allen, you should talk to our son about sex’.  What a dangerous suggestion!. We lived in a large wood framed house which had four ancient Oak trees in the front lawn. I used to lie [or lay, if you prefer] under them on the humid, extremely hot August afternoons when there was no relieving breeze on the ground. I could see a gentle movement of the large Oak leaves. Beside the house was a crabapple tree which taught me that I should not take a large bite out of a crabapple while I was thinking that it was a sweet apple.

This was a positive house to live in. I learned a lot. On a day of explorations, Susie [ a different Susie] looked at me exposed and said  ‘What’s that THING?’ I don’t recall my explanation but I did notice of the fact that she did not have a THING. Well, I deduced that that was why girls acted the way they did. I was O.K because I was not alone as I had observed in the post match shower rooms. Another positive in our house was that I learned to play golf which is still my favourite game. With my parents I played many golf courses–Boca Raton in Florida where I had a caddy from Puerto Rico whom I could not understand a word, Banff in Canada where the first green was 75 feet below the first tee and a challenge to judge  what flight  to make, In Vermont the golf course had been designed with a mountain in view from each tee. One hole was called ‘The Old Man’ because when it snowed his beard became white Also. I played the golf course in California where the Bing Crosby Tournament is held [Pebble Beach Golf Club].  It had a hole where the golfer shot out over  water to the green on a small bit of land. When the wind blew in from the sea it was almost impossible to reach the green. I’ve seen professionals drop into the water. At the same time, I was a teacher and warden in a very small private school in the 17 mile drive. I used to take my little boys out to play on this famous course. The school had a cutting in the pine trees where we played soft ball. It was well cared for and the three bases were set so there was plenty of out field for our ‘long hitters’. One sunday afternoon I looked out of my window . Cars full of women with picnic baskets and ground cloths and men all dressed in white drew up. What ever is going on? This is OUR baseball field! I’m afraid they spoiled the out field by cutting a long strip of grass and playing an incomprehensible game which I later learned was cricket.

Another informative moment at this time took place in my singing teacher’s lesson. He had a very small room with an upright piano and an outside window. He was teaching me to breathe.

    ‘Take a breath as if you are smelling a rose. The pressure in your lungs is less than the air pressure outside. It will push its way in and fill yor lungs without you raising your shoulders and gulping it in.’

     ‘Now, take a breath and sing a note without making the flame on this candle move. That will be an efficient tone.’

I tried–many times.

During our stay in the wooden house I learned to play the piano. My teacher had a studio with two grand pianos in it. My claim to fame was that one afternoon before a concert with our symphony orchestra I met John Browning who was an up and coming pianist. He practiced in our studio.  I had another experience when I visited my piano teacher years later in Arizona. Her house  had grapefruit trees in the garden. The area had been a fruit farm. Around the house was a small earth mound about 18 inches high. During the night it flooded and the next morning we walked out of the front door, picked a fresh grapefruit and ate it for breakfast.

My last digression in our wonderful wooden house concerns my mother’s father. Grandfather Groth was a large man and very good to me. He used to allow me to go to the basement of his store.  I used to take out a small toy van and sit in front of the elevator. When the door opened  my toy raced in and sent the customers fluttering. He had set up and managed an exclusive women’s clothing store. 

A lot older but still she-shy I had another encounter. As training, I was asked to stock-take the nylon stockings behind the hoserie counter. This was during the war and stockings were a luxury. I enjoyed my responsibility and my examination of the different styles. One style had artificial pearles sewn in a pattern above the black heels of the stockings. One day a lady came to the counter and complained that her stockings were faulty and had a runner in them! ‘Yes, Madam’ I said. However, there must have been a tone of disbelief in my voice. She came the break between the counters and raised her skirt far too high for proof of faulty stockings. I was so startled that I very quickly handed her a new box –hoping that she would exit happily. Whew!

As a hobby he had three small farms nearby. One had an American Guernsey herd; one had belted Hampshire pigs and the third raised the feed for cows and pigs. Grandfather Groth had farm sales. There is a picture of fatty Jere with a piglet under each arm and sitting on a hay bale which was used as advertising. But what I remember is that he gave a box lunch to each attending farmer. After the sale I was asked to pick them up. The boxes had sandwiches, fruit and a chocolate/nut bar. My reward was to keep as many chocolate bars as I could find. The farm taught me a few things. One day the pig herdsman brought a guilt and a boar into a passageway in our timber barn. He did not tell me what was happening. The boar mounted the guilt and entered. You may not know it. but a boar has a corkscrew applicator. The guilt was not having it and ran forward stretching the corkscrew out to the full length of the boar. This did not seem to bother any body least of all the boar and the herdsman encircled the withdrawing applicator with his hand to clean off any dirt that might have been picked up. This brings me back to my story.

Finally, in our back garden there was a very old apple tree which was leaning and rotting  from the inside outwards. Next to this tree was a small wooden bench. pn this momentous day, my dad beckoned me to sit down and look out over the fields and our V for Victory vegetable garden. He started to talk in ‘fatherly tones’. I’m afraid I do not remember the details which he might have given to me [which I had already learned in the after match shower rooms anyway]. However, I do remember very clearly his parting advice

     ‘Remember, Jere, always treat girls as you would treat  your mother’ .

 This warning stilted my ‘Him’ development for many, many years! It seemed to round off my She-experiencce diary and to isolate me from the excitement and real joys of my life until I migrated to Great Britain; my dad’s advice had territorial boundaries.

I must say that my whole life was changed when I met Carole. I realized that my American she-attitude had been a misinterpretation. My she-learning experience since 1963 has been my most treasured revelation for over the past 50 years. Carole has understood me better than I do myself and she has been a partner, wife, mother to our children as well as my manager and confidant.  She has sacrificed a very promising teaching career to do as she was taught–‘follow your husband whatever’. She followed me into a hair-raising, naive attempt at farming when I was 45. She lost herself in our farming life and created at the same time a loving, comfortable. very clean home and escape from the cities for our children and grandchildren. Throughout our life together various kinds of love have been enjoyed which now is reaching an ideal almost poetic quality. I have been enriched by her creativity as a poet, painter and conversationalist on all topics. Our life together is so wonderful now that I am coming to believe that what I have written as my ‘she-experiences’ has been subsumed in a literary context and is hardly believable.