Archive: Vic's Photos #6

My siblings Steve, Vicki, and Peter on the frozen Menominee River (circa 1957)

Dear George,

My dad, Vic L., was a talented photographer, and he chronicled our family life from the late 1930’s to the mid-60’s and beyond.  Starting in 2001, my brother Peter began creating postcards from Vic’s negatives and mailing them to family members.  Peter’s multi-year project, along with images taken from family albums, are the sources of the photos shown here.  I’ve been posting these once a week in the righthand column of my blog, but, because those individual items get deleted every week, I’ve been saving batches of them in this series of archives.  This is the sixth of the series.  The previous five can be accessed by going to the righthand column, scrolling down to “Labels”, and then clicking on “Archives.  The photos are nearly all taken at various locations in and about Menominee, Michigan, many at our family home on the Menominee River.

Love,

Dave

This family Xmas card looks to me like a professional photograph that was probably taken at Conant Studios in Marinette.  From the left, my brother Steve, myself, my dad Vic, and my mother Doris.  I would guess it’s about 1946 when Steve was 5 and I was 9.  Usually Vic did his own Xmas cards, but this seems to be a special edition. 

Steve and I are with our mom on Xmas morning after opening presents.  Probably 1943 or 1944.  Xmas was the most exciting day of the year in our family.  Santa brought presents, and so did our parents.  We were thrilled to get new toys and games and played with them for days and weeks on end. 

Here’s my brother Steve, around age 3, manipulating one of the floodlights that my dad used in his photography.  Vic enlisted our participation in his photo projects, most notably by having us help develop pictures in his darkroom space.  I’m going to guess that this was taken in our house on Sheridan Road during the war.

This is my parents and myself, probably in 1938 when I was about one year old.  It’s nice to see my parents when they were so young   Vic would have been 30; Doris, 28.  It was the midst of the Great Depression, a hugely difficult time for couples and families, but they look happy nonetheless.  

Carnivals and traveling circuses visited Menominee every summer, and they were highlights of the year.  The merry-go-round was exciting, if somewhat scary, for little kids, as were the pony rides and, later, the bumper cars.  This is me, toughing it out, around 1940.  

My dad is reading to me (left) and my brother Steven.  Steve joked about this photo, saying that Vic had never read a book to us in our entire childhood, except for the purposes of taking this picture which chronicles an imaginary family scene.  That might well be correct.  The photo does look quite idyllic, though, and that’s how we like to remember things. 

My Mom and I are checking out what’s probably a photo album.  More idyllic family life.  I look a little younger then than our five-year-old kindergarten grandchildren,V and L, are right now.  That’s mysterious.  

Here’s my dad and myself, circa 1940.  It’s sort of an unnerving image – e.g., two generations facing an uncertain and potentially harrowing future.   My dad’s looking quite formal in his suit and tie.  It’s a fitting father-son image from the depression/pre-war era.

Here’s my dad at the helm of a sailboat, probably Bob Hood’s, somewhere on Green Bay or Lake Michigan.  Menominee, of course, was and is an important Great Lakes port in the U.P., a destination for boaters from Milwaukee and Chicago as well as the home base for local boaters.  My parents regularly went on watery expeditions with friends to the Mackinac races, to Door County, and elsewhere.

Family friend Dooley Worth sent this photo to me.  It was taken at her parents’ hunting camp at Cedar River.  My dad, Vic, is in the middle.  I think the man at the left may be Judge William Hupy, a U.P. friend and lawyer colleague.  Margaret Worth is at the right.   The men are pretty solemn-looking.  I think they were having some fun by putting on faces.  

This is a view of the Menominee River looking west from our front lawn.  The sunsets were often spectacular there.  We made swimming rafts out of dried out logs from Pig Island across the river.  Then, when we were teens and thanks to the construction skills of my friend Bob A., we started having real rafts made with oil barrels and planks. 

This is myself, my brother Peter, and my brother Steven at YMCA camp somewhere near Green Bay, Wisc.  I was about 13, Steve 9, Peter 5.  My parents sent me off to YMCA camp for two weeks every summer.  I hated going, and it put me in a state of deep despair for weeks beforehand.  Once I got there, it wasn’t quite as bad as I feared.  However, when families came to visit on the middle Sunday, I still prayed they would take me home.  But they never did.  

  

This photo was also taken at YMCA camp, probably a year or two before the preceding one.  My brother Peter is in the tires, Steve is at the right (with big pants cuffs), and family friend Tom Caley is at the left.  I think Steve was the YMCA camper the year that this picture was taken.  He was more comfortable about going away to camp than I was, though none of us were thrilled about it. 

These are such representative facial expressions from my sister Vicki (left), her chum Kevin (Kiera), and our brother Peter.  Peter looks very impish, which in fact he was as a child.  I don’t remember the hand puppets, though they look like fun for the young people.  

This scene is at my eleventh or twelfth birthday party.  Participants from the left are my brother Steven, Frank S., Skipper B., Jim J., Bill C., and Sam W.  Birthdays at this age were a mixed blessing, since you got a lot of presents but you also underwent a lot of hazing, e.g., running the gauntlet while others spanked you.  I do look happy enough here.  

This is my mom and Circuit Court Judge Ernie Brown who lived in Iron Mountain.  Peter sent us this photo as a postcard and wrote of Ernie:  “He would make me sit on his lap while he sang ‘Bye low my baby.’  He loved me and threatened to kidnap me on every visit which filled me with terror.”  

Peter was the sole high school football player in our family.  He was on the junior varsity at Menominee High, and he might have progressed to the varsity as well.  Steve was a high school basketball player and golfer, I played #2 singles on the tennis team, and Vicki was a junior high cheerleader (cheerleading being the only athletic option available for girls in the early sixties).  

The Chicago Northwestern Railroad ran north from Chicago through Marinette and Menominee, and each of the twin cities had its own depot.  In the late 1950’s I’d take the C&NW railroad train from Marinette to Chicago and then transfer to another line to Springfield, Ohio, in order to get to college.

Our family’s social circle would enjoy frequent gatherings at people’s houses, cottages, and hunting camps.  These are some of the regulars of the group.  Standing, from the left, are Jean O’Hara, my brother Steve, Muriel Sawyer, my mom Doris, Bill Caley, and my dad’s law partner, Dick Sawyer.  Kneeling from the left are Michael Dennis O’Hara, Mike O’Hara, Florence Caley, and Tom Caley.  This was taken in the early 1960’s.  Our lives were all so intertwined that a photo like this brings back many memories. 

G-Mail Comments

-Linda C (2-28): What a wonderful set of pictures, I met Vic when he was old, but love the dapper look on him when young.

-Phyllis S-S (2-27):  Dave,  Loved the photos of your family - I can see your current face in your child's face…  Phyllis  

1953: Such a Good Pop Music Year

Dear George,

Years ago Katja, our young adult son J, and I were driving from Cincinnati to New York City.  Approaching Pittsburgh, we happened upon a radio station that was playing hit songs from 1953.  The singers included favorites like Eddie Fisher, Kay Starr, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, and a host of others.  Katja and I started singing along with the tunes.  We knew the lyrics to every song that they played.  J was astonished.  He’d hardly heard of the songs, and he couldn’t believe his parents’ memory powers.  Though he listened to lots of contemporary music himself, there were very few songs of his own era that he knew all the words to.  Those fifties pop tunes were a lot more singable, often told a story, and had more memorable lyrics than much of the music that came later.

I know more songs by heart from 1953 than any other year.  It’s because I was in tenth grade, and that’s when pop music first became an important part of my and my peer group’s lives.  We all turned 16 that year, and along with that came driver’s licenses, increased freedom from family, and the start of dating and teenage romance.  The girls in our crowd led the way with pop music.  At first pop songs sounded sentimental and yucky to the boys, but, as our interest in girls grew, so did our interest in music. We listened to the DJs on our local radio station, WMAM, Marinette and Menominee.  It was the only daytime radio station we could get in our Upper Peninsula/Northeastern Wisconsin area, though at night we’d receive more distant broadcasts including WLW from Cincinnati.  My friend Bob A. had a car radio in his Model A Ford, and a bunch of guys would cruise the Loop through the twin cities, listening to the hits of the week. The top rated show was “Your Hit Parade” which aired on NBC on Saturday nights.  Frank Sinatra and Doris Day had been co-hosts, and regulars included Dorothy Collins, Snooky Lanson, and Gisele MacKenzie.  We listened faithfully and rehashed the Hit Parade results with friends on Sunday or Monday. 

Pop music was also important because of high school dances.  The girls learned to dance first, mastering new steps from a teen magazine.  Sally H. had dance parties at her house in which the girls taught the boys how to foxtrot and do the jitterbug.  At first the tenth grade boys just stood around at dances in groups by themselves while the girls danced with one another.  Eventually we got up our courage and started getting out on the floor.

Patti Page was the top female singer of the day.  She had endless hits.  I loved “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window.”   Also “The Tennessee Waltz,” “Cross Over the Bridge,” “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” and “Let Me Go Lover.”  Some of my other 1953 favorites were:

Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, Perry Como

Till I Waltz Again With You, Teresa Brewer

Oh! My Pa-Pa, Eddie Fisher

Your Cheatin' Heart, Joni James

You, You, You, the Ames Brothers

Three Coins in the Fountain, Frank Sinatra

Vaya Con Dios, Les Paul and Mary Ford

Elvis Presley cut his first recording at Sun Records in August of 1953, and within a couple of years rock and roll had taken over and traditional pop music was on its way out.  Patti Page and Frank Sinatra never disappeared though.  Nowadays, when I work on the computer, I go to I-Tunes, click on the Radio link, and then go to “Golden Oldies”.  Some listeners think that “Golden Oldies” refers to the sixties or the seventies.  However, I go straight to one of the 1950’s stations on I-Tunes.  That’s where the real Golden Oldies live on.

Love,

Dave  

My OLLI Anxiety Dream

Dear George,

I probably had my first academic nightmares in grade school, though I remember them most clearly from college and graduate school.  They even persisted for decades after I’d finished school altogether.  One of my most common dreams was that I’d registered for a difficult course, but then completely forgotten it and never attended class.  Suddenly it was time to take the final exam, and I didn’t know a single thing.  When I became a college teacher  myself in adulthood, this scary dream morphed into an alternate version.  I started dreaming that it was the first day of the semester and that I’d forgotten I’d been assigned to teach a course in a field that I knew absolutely nothing about, e.g., geology.  I had to go and face a classroom full of skeptical students and publicly reveal my incompetence.

Katja and I have become students at the university again, but now it’s in what’s billed as an anxiety-free atmosphere.  We’re enrolled in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), a program which offers 80 plus courses per quarter for people age 50 and over.  This term we’ve been going to “Behind the Scenes in the Arts,” “Hebrew Union College: The Pride of Clifton Avenue,” and “Writing Down Your Life Stories,” a class in which members take turns reading a personal story that they’ve written that week.  OLLI involves no tests, no grades or quizzes, and usually no homework.  Thus, you get all the perks of interesting content and new information, but with few of the pressures of a regular college education.

I thought that OLLI was anxiety-free until I had a brand new academic dream last week. I dreamt I was in an OLLI singing class.  I was sitting in the second row, and the teacher asked the woman across the aisle from me to sing the song she’d prepared for this week’s class.  The woman proceeded to sing an aria from a famous opera.  She had a beautiful voice.  I realized that she was enrolled in the class because she was an accomplished singer who loved to sing.  In fact, everybody in the class appeared to be a great singer except me.  I was taking it because I’m a terrible singer and hoped that I might get just a little bit better.

When the woman finished, everyone clapped, and the teacher asked if I would like to go next.  I paused for a moment, then said that I’d like to tell a story first.  The teacher looked surprised but said o.k.  I said, “When I was in fourth grade my teacher, Miss Hunnefeld, started a glee club at our school.  Every week we met after school to practice so we could perform for the Lion’s Club at the end of the year.  One day Miss Hunnefeld walked up and down the front row, listening carefully to everyone in the group.  She stopped right in front of me and said that I was out of tune.  She asked me to sing a line by myself but, even with three or four tries, my voice sounded flat and off key.  Miss Hunnefeld said I seemed to be tone deaf.  She said I could stay in the Glee Club and be in the Lions’ Club performance, but I had to promise never to sing out loud again.  So I went to practice after school for the rest of the spring and mouthed the words as my classmates sang.  Every now and then I would sneak in a note out loud, but my singing career had essentially come to an abrupt end.”

That, of course, is a true story.  My singing class teacher smiled sympathetically.  Then she asked what I was going to sing today.  My mind started racing.  I couldn’t think of a single song I knew.  The teacher handed me her songbook.  I scanned the titles, but I’d never heard of any of them.  Finally I remembered my favorite song from grade school, so I sang that.

Centa, Sweet Centa

Refuses her polenta

Don’t scold her

Don’t hold her

She’ll eat never a bite today

Gather buds, yellow and red and blue

Twist a knot yellow and blue and red

Patience, lad, cheerily bide your time

Girlish moods are quickly fled

When I got to the end of the song, the teacher gave me a funny look and started to say something.   I never found out what she was going to say because that was the moment I woke up.  I realized immediately it was all just a dream.  What a relief!  I wasn’t in a singing class at all – there is no singing class in OLLI.   Then I realized that the singing class in my dream was pretty similar to my writing class, since students in that class take turns presenting stories they’ve written to the whole group.  I wondered if my dream were really about my writing class.  How could that be?  It’s true that I’ve suffered some writer’s block recently and have been apprehensive about reading material in class.  But it can’t be as bad as having to sing in front of a group.  I am objectively horrible at singing, and everyone would agree about that.  But I’m certain I can do better as a writer.   I guess my unconscious mind doesn’t see any difference though.  It’s interesting how our inner insecurities gnaw away at us, whether or not they have any firm grounding in reality.  I also decided that my OLLI class must be important to my emotional life since it’s now taken a central place in my rich collection of anxiety dreams.

Love,

Dave


G-Mail Comments:

-Judy J-K (Feb. 22): Hi David,  I enjoy your stories about our 4th grade teacher.  I'm not sure I've spelled her last name correctly, but she certainly made an impression on me.  I was a few years (49-50) behind you in school, so it is not surprising that some things in her class were different from  your experience--though it is possible that I've forgotten a lot.  As I recall in her classroom management technique, we all were lined up around the room and responded 'perfect' or 'not perfect' with respect to a relatively short list of rules written on a small bit of blackboard on the southeast side of the room.  I don't recall any other way a person got ahead and advanced in rank.  As an over-scrupulous, 'good Catholic' girl I never achieved any rank.  My memory is that only Don ( Deetce? I've never spelled it before) Hofer and I ended up the year at the bottom of the class.  I even played Jacob's Ladder on the piano for the class as well. If going to church would have earned me points I should have achieved some rank!  I'm convinced that my fear of lightening was heightened by her stories of God punishing sinners with a bolt of lightening.  Have other former Washington  students sent you stories?  I'd love to hear them.  Judy Johnson Kropf

-Ann B (2-20):  Thanks for posting such a nice  picture of my mother.  Just wanted to let you know that you had a horrible music teacher, I would have never treated you that way and of course I would have taught you to sing in tune. John has 6 more days to work!  He is going to do some contingent work in March, then officially done.  Love, Ann

-Phyllis S-S (2-19):  Dear Dave,  So will you read your life story out loud?  Ah the nightmares the night before......    Phyllis

On Matters of Life and Death

Dear George,

My friend Linda and coworker K. died from cancer a week ago Thursday at 1:30 a.m.  That was a totally sad happening for many people.  It was Linda’s 43rd wedding anniversary, and her adult kids had implored her for days to hang on till that special day arrived.  It was just like Linda to persist until she reached her goal.  She was one of the two administrative staff members in Sociology for many years.  I worked with her closely because I was the Director of Undergraduate Studies for much of that time, and Linda did all the undergrad record-keeping and administrative tasks.  She went way beyond the call of duty, creating personal files that she used to keep track of every undergrad major’s progress toward graduation.  While all of the students are assigned to individual faculty advisors, Linda informally did a vast majority of the undergrad advising in the department – far more than all the faculty combined.  The students were much more comfortable with her and stopped into her office whenever they had any questions.  Linda occupied the main department office, a hectic location.  She was beholden to a dozen faculty members, grad students regularly arrived with this or that request, she answered all the phone calls for the department, and undergrads made her office their first stop.  In the face of chaos all around her, Linda maintained a cheery, friendly, and welcoming demeanor.  It wasn’t a forced thing – it was her basic nature.  She was the central person in making the department a warm and welcoming place to be, and she helped hundreds of students navigate their ways through their college degree.  Shortly before she retired last year, I told her that I had more daily contact with her than with anyone else in the department.  Linda smiled and modestly admitted that many people had recently told her the same thing.  Her positive impact on people and legacy will continue for a long time.

Funerals are powerful occasions.  One’s community gathers, and loved ones share their grief.  I still remember struggling with the concept of death as a child.  It’s horrendous, mind-shattering.  If there’s anything permanent and trustworthy in the world, it’s the presence of one’s parents, and the idea that their lives will end is intolerable.  Not to mention the notion of one’s own death.  I think by adulthood we more or less come to terms with this.  However, I think the child’s naïve responses are the most authentic and valid.  Death is simply beyond acceptance and beyond comprehension. 

My most direct personal experiences with death have been with my parents and my in-laws.  My siblings and I were summoned to Menominee in April, 1986, when my mother, Doris L., was hospitalized and judged to have only a few days left.  My brother Peter and I were in her room toward the end, and she was in a great deal of pain.  She said she wanted to be alone, so we went out into the hall.   Then we decided we should be with her since so little time was left, and we came back in.  Doris looked up and softly whispered, “I’m grateful.”  I think those may have been her last words.

My dad, Vic L., continued to live at their beloved Birch Creek farm for the next five years.  Eventually he was unable to sustain that, and he moved to a residential facility in Cincinnati.  Toward the end, when his quality of life had sharply deteriorated, he told me not to worry about him.  He said he’d had a wonderful life, had been surrounded with magnificent friends, and had enjoyed more rich experiences that anyone could ever hope for.  He said he had no regrets whatsoever.  I admired the peace and contentment that my dad achieved and think it a rare thing.

My father-in-law, Buck, was in a lot of pain toward the end of his life at age 88, and he was cantankerous throughout the process.  He was angry with the hospital, the doctors, and the technology; irritated by family members; and generally upset about his dire circumstances.  Knowing that he was going to die, he said he didn’t want to be left out.  The rest of us would go on doing fun and interesting things, and Buck was most distressed that he would no longer be a part of it.  My mother-in-law, Helen, lived for six more years, but mourned Buck’s death throughout the remainder of her own life.  She felt Buck to be present in their apartment and sometimes carried on a conversation with him at night.  Helen said she was ready for her own death to occur so she could be reunited with her beloved husband.  It was difficult for her to go on without Buck, and she seemed to have no trepidation about the end of her life at all.

All of this, of course, is pretty heavy stuff.  What strikes me is that people each come to terms with the end of their lives in their own unique ways.  In the case of our various family members, the last stages of their lives seem consistent with and a product of all that went before.  I hope Katja and I have many years to go.  It will be interesting, though, to see how we go about this.  I think I’ll document as much of it in my blog as I can and see if I can come up with a joke or two.

Love,

Dave

G-Mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (2-15):  Dear Dave,  What a lovely, thoughtful and touching essay.  I am sorry about Linda's death…  How are you doing with all of the new snow?  We haven't seen our sidewalk for a week or two.  We have to climb up and over little ice hills to get to the street.  Stay warm.  Phyllis

-Donna D (2-14): david this is wonderful

-JML (2-14):  Thanks Dad, that was great

Where Did Those Fun Winters Go Anyway?

Doris L. with Steve & Dave on the Frozen Menominee River (circa 1944)

Dear George,

I’d say winter was our favorite season as kids.  We’d build snowmen in the yard and big forts from which we could have snowball wars.  Most years we’d try to build an authentic igloo.  The walls would go up o.k., but we never could keep the roof from caving in.  Instead we’d use packed down snow to build a slide off the riverbank, sprinkle it with water overnight so it would freeze, and use it to sled down and coast for twenty or thirty yards out on the river.  As soon as the river ice was six inches thick, we’d walk across to Pig Island and explore the woods, looking for deer antlers and other stuff.  One year we tried ice fishing by chopping a hole through the ice, but, without a shack, it was too freezing.  At nighttime Steve and I would play basketball on our snow-covered driveway with the hoop on the garage illuminated by light from a desk lamp.  When we begged him, our dad would tie the family toboggan to the back of our Lincoln V-12 and pull us up and down Riverside Boulevard.  Sometimes after a storm we’d run barefoot through the snowdrifts in the front yard. All in all, winter was great. 

I don’t know what’s happened over the years.  Maybe it’s because I quit doing fun things, but winter has definitely become a drag.  This year has been the worst – temperatures dropping to 10 below, wind chills of minus 25, three times the normal amount of snow, and sidewalks that have been icy for over a month.  We’re just trying to last it out. 

The sheepdogs look like they’re well-equipped for cold weather, but they get ice and salt in their paws, and I’ve temporarily cancelled their daily half-hour walks.  Mike and Duffy don’t miss it.  They’re not very drawn to exercise, even under good conditions.  So instead of longer walks, we visit the front yard five or six times a day.  Even that’s hazardous.  Last week I walked cautiously down our driveway with Mike and Duffy on their leash, slipped on a glassy patch of ice, and fell flat on my back.  My shoulder and arm ached for a couple of days, but nothing was fractured.  Now I’m ultra cautious.

Driving, of course, is a hassle.  After a bad January storm I backed the SUV out of the driveway to go to my office.  The car seemed to have difficulty moving forward, and it was jiggling on what I took to be icy ruts in the road.  After about five blocks I pulled over to see if the axles were encased in ice.  Instead I found that my rear tire was flat and completely twisted around the rim.  The tire pressure had dropped because of the cold, and then the tire had come loose from the wheel.  It took AAA two hours to come.  Amazingly, the downtown tire service reattached the seemingly mangled tire, pumped it up, and said it would probably be o.k.  The car still was not running well the next day, so I took it into the garage.  They found that the power steering hoses had broken, probably because of the subzero cold, and fluid had spurted all over the engine.  Just another winter mishap, this time for $1000.   

Our house has been cold too.  We have separate hot-water furnace units in the basement and the attic, and the upstairs temperature has been stuck well below the thermostat setting of 70 degrees.  I told Katja it’s because we have a brick house and that nobody’s’ furnaces are able to keep their houses warm with these extreme temperatures.  She asked why the downstairs was warm, but the upstairs was cold.  Drawing upon my expertise as an Upper Peninsula native, I said it was because the upstairs is higher in the air and more exposed to the wind, plus it has a roof rather than a protective basement floor.  Being cold upstairs is perfectly normal, I said.  There’s nothing to do about it, and we just have to wear warmer clothes.  I don’t think Katja believed me since she called the furnace people an hour later.  The guy arrived later that day, “bled” our upstairs unit to remove an air blockage, and the second floor quickly heated up to 70 degrees.  I still feel I was correct about brick houses, roofs, wind, and second floors being inevitably cold, but I have to admit that we’re more comfortable now.

I’ve been trying to figure out how winter could be as much fun as it used to be.  I thought about playing basketball outdoors at night behind Clifton School or going tobogganing.  Then I decided it would make most sense to embrace winter vicariously by drinking more red wine and watching the Sochi Olympics on TV.  So far, that’s helped.  It’s only three weeks till March.  We can’t wait.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

Gayle C-L (2-10):  David,  Looks cold in the photo :)    And I cant wait until March as well...  Stay warm..;)     G

The Seasons of Burnet Woods Lake

Dear George,

Our immediate worlds are pretty much made up of the physical and social places in which we hang out.  For me nowadays these include home, our neighborhood business district, campus, the fitness center, the movie theater, the art museum, city and county parks, the grocery store, etc.  One of the most visually pleasing natural settings is Burnet Woods Lake.  I walk along the lake shore several times a week on my way to and from the office, and for a while I’ve been taking a photo or two as I pass by.  Burnet Woods was established as a city park in 1872, and the lake was added in 1875.  As the photos below illustrate, the lake’s views change dramatically from one season to the next.

Love,

Dave

G-Mail Comments

-Donna D (2-8):  david, these are gorgeous photos!

-Jennifer M (2-5):  These are beautiful photos of Burnet Woods lake. And the spring and summer images are exactly what we need today. I am so tired of this winter!