WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

“Hoppy Easter”

Artwork by Maggie Rust

No hopping down the bunny trail for this gal today.  Rain showers put the kibosh on this morning’s walk, so, instead I stayed curled up, content as a cat, under the covers and listened to the news of the day on my headphones.  I was so comfortable that I hated to get up, so I ditched the headphones and dived deeper under the covers.  The furnace kicked on warming the house and soon I was fast asleep again.  I love lazy mornings – they are a treat for me.  While I sipped a frothy cup of cappuccino  later, I let today’s blog percolate in my brain while I enjoyed my steaming brew.  I heard rain droplets hitting the windows and pinging the metal blinds, and though I missed my walk, it felt good to be sitting on the inside looking out.

You might recall my post this past January 28^th where I reconnected with a classmate, Maggie Rust, after stumbling upon a Facebook page about our grade school.  I wrote at length about renewing our childhood ties, some fifty years later, and I posted a picture of our kindergarten class, where it turned out Maggie and I were standing next to one another in that long-ago photograph.   (https://lindaschaubblog.net/2015/01/28/on-this-cold-january-day-i-took-a-stroll/)

Well, Maggie and I have kept in touch, and I discovered she is an accomplished artist.  She has two websites – one of her own, and a “Craftsy” site where she posts her completed and in-progress paintings and drawings.  They are all beautiful and so I asked Maggie if I could share them in my blog posts sometimes.  This was one of my favorites, so today’s post features a drawing Maggie done in water soluble wax crayons for a neighbor who was having a baby.  She entitled it “Hoppy Easter”.

Besides the fun and frivolity that surrounds this Easter day it is also a holy time as well.  Though I don’t attend church on a regular basis anymore, I still go into a nearby Catholic church to light candles.  I was christened, but never made my First Communion nor was I confirmed.  In fact, I had a rather unusual upbringing insofar as attending church.  My parents, both Catholics, never attended church services when they were adults.  My father said he got up early six days a week for work and wanted a morning to sleep in; my mom did not drive and there were no churches close to our home in Canada.    My parents wanted me to go to church services, so I attended Sunday School with my friends.  In Canada I went to a Presbyterian church and when we moved to the States, I attended a Baptist church for many years.  Whenever we went to Toronto, my grandmother and I would walk up to the top of the street to attend the one English-speaking service at St. Helen’s Catholic church.

I guess when it comes right down to it, it does not really matter in what church pew you occupy and are present and accounted for, or, if you are only there in spirit and have devotion from afar, for that is between you and God.

Many Easter and Passover blessings one and all.

I left for my walk early this morning, clad in a down coat, big hat and warm mitts – it was, after all, only 27 degrees when I departed.  There was ice galore in big puddles in the street, and, as I neared the Park, I noted that two solid days of rain had taken its toll on the worm population.  There were worm bodies scattered along the sidewalks, either washed out of the grass from the downpours, or they had slithered across the sidewalk and frozen stiff in last night’s cold temps.  It buoyed my spirits that maybe Spring was here (though I really have my doubts) when I noticed a corner house with a long row of daffodils, standing staunchly, their blooms resembling yellow frilly Easter bonnets.

As I wound my way around the trail at Council Point Park, I had to pay attention to the asphalt because black ice had collected at every bend, especially where the path runs parallel to the Creek.

I had stuffed some peanuts into my coat pocket for my furry friends, although I considered they might be confused about the cold weather and try to sock that cache away somewhere for the leaner days ahead.  Three or four of my peanut pals bounded over to see me, which of course made my day, and they were content to munch their treat right there at my feet, instead of dashing off to squirrel those nuts away for later.

As I strolled along, I recalled some Easter weekends when the outside temps felt like a Summer day.  When I worked on site, I always took Good Friday and Easter Monday off to make a mini-vacation.  Most of the time it was warm enough for the initial raking up and early pruning and all that fun yardwork that has to be done come Spring – you know, the kind that leaves you stooped over for three days and nursing blisters where you grasped the rake handle to thatch the lawn.  Many an Easter weekend you’d find me outside working just in my sweats, not even a light jacket.

But, not this weekend – far from it.

There isn’t even the slightest hint of Spring at the Park either.  The occasional cheeping of a small bird interrupted the stillness of the morn.  It was a rather austere setting there since it’s too early for goslings and ducklings to ooh and ahh over and there are no bullfrogs a croakin’ in the Creek yet either.  Just the still barren-looking, yellowish-brown landscape and alot of bare trees.

As I strolled along, thoughts of Easter past churned around in my brain.  Though some of the days are long gone from the pages of the calendar, they are still fresh in my mind, a treasure trove of memories, to be sure.  I always know I can cherry pick the best vintage memories and put them front and center for safekeeping, with a few recollections to be left behind, as they are considered duds.

The way I see it, that myriad of memories is like a cheery Easter basket filled with delectable goodies.  The sweet pickings and tasty treats are beautiful in their gaily wrapped foil – almost too pretty to unwrap.  Beribboned chocolate bunnies beg you to “try me first” and jelly beans are scattered on shiny cellophane grass that sticks to your clothes and tracks around the house.  You may choose to savor the best of the bunch, but know that the second string goodies shall keep, languishing ‘til later.

Sorting out those vintage memories as I strolled along, I vowed to share them in my Easter Saturday post, so here are a smattering:

My early Easter memories were good and stick in my mind.  I always got a chocolate bunny which I’d stick into the fridge after the holiday to preserve it until one of my parents would accidentally on purpose drop it so it would break and we’d have to eat it.  My mom always made Easter cookies – sugar cookies shaped like chicks, eggs and bunnies, icened white and sprinkled with pastel sugar.  There was a new dress, bright-white knee socks and fancy, often uncomfortable, shoes to wear to Sunday school, and sometimes a new coat and hat as well.

I recall a grade school classmate who was Romanian.  For show-and-tell she often told about her country’s customs and brought in items from home to talk about the native culture.  One time near Easter break, she brought along her mother whose hobby was creating beautiful Easter eggs.  The teacher lined the eggs up along the front of her desk, each on its own pedestal, glimmering in the sunlight streaming through the classroom window.  The eggs were gilded and embedded with tiny rhinestones and beads and very pretty, and my classmate’s mother hovered nearby her creations.  When the teacher reached to pick one up she cautioned in broken English “must just look at – mustn’t touch, alright?”  That statement made me glad for our family’s simple Easter traditions.

As I detailed last year in my post about egg decorating, growing up, I might not have had beautiful or ornate-looking Easter eggs buried in my Easter basket from my parents, nor my grandmother, but I wasn’t hard done by either.  We always went to Easter dinner at my grandmother’s house in Toronto.  We would take a ham and some side dishes and dessert – usually lemon pie.  Nanny supplied the hard-boiled eggs for the holiday.  She would collect her onion skins in a canister and hard boil a few dozen eggs on Easter Saturday.  They looked a little pitiful; some were rust-colored, others a pale brown, depending on how they  moved around as they bubbled away in the big cast iron pot.  Had Martha Stewart been on the scene, she’d have wrinkled up her nose in disdain, but so what.  There was no searching for eggs out in the yard, so no fanfare about egg gathering.  One just opened the fridge and grabbed one or two of those brown-colored eggs out of the nondescript Tupperware bowl on the top shelf.  You peeled your egg, then shook a little salt into your open palm and dipped that egg into it.  A dozen eggs usually went home with our family after Easter dinner so we were relegated to eating egg salad sandwiches for a few days afterward.

My grandmother would empty out her wicker sewing basket, its contents bagged up and hidden away for a day, and that old receptacle would become resplendent with a beautiful tall bunny gracing the middle of the basket and plopped down on the bed of Easter grass.  There were chocolate eggs, which were a treat as I rarely was permitted to eat chocolate or hard candy growing up.  Around the rim of that basket those fuzzy yellow chenille chicks would be perched, their delicate, orange wire feet gripping between the woven wicker strands.

One Easter we visited my Uncle Bill at his farm and he gave me my first pet, a white rabbit named Scratch.  His white fur was so soft, and he had a pink velvet nose and a wonderful disposition.  He lived in a bushel basket in the basement and I had him several months, when we decided it was inhumane to keep him in a basket all the time with no exercise so we took him back to the farm.  I was heartbroken that day.

After we moved to the States it was a quiet Easter setting for us.  Depending on how late in the season when the holiday fell, we’d sometimes go to Toronto, but if Easter was in March, we rarely travelled due to the bad weather.

I spent Easter break the year I graduated high school, 1973, with friends of the family in Puerto Rico.  He had a teaching position there for a year so I went down to visit them for ten days.  They both spoke fluent Spanish and we had great weather the entire time.  I got burned to a crisp the first day while we walked around El Yunque, a huge tropical rain forest, despite wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat and glasses.  We visited a casino in the Condado beach area and when we left the resort, just as the car pulled up for us to get in, a large tarantula dropped from a palm tree onto the car roof and walked right into the car via the open window.  Alfonsa and I screamed, and we refused to go home until a carcass was produced, so instead we took a lengthy, and expensive, cab ride back home.

In 1975 I went with five fellow students to the National Model United Nations Conference in New York City.  We represented Egypt and my partner and I had to participate in the International Monetary Fund.  We spend alot of time prepping for the conference, learning every fact and figure we could about Egypt and the IMF.  We had our afternoons free and spent them roaming the City.  It was uncharacteristically hot that week and I remember we climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty in temps which were well over 100 degrees inside that huge copper Lady.  We felt as if we’d pass out by the time we got up to her crown.  Easter Saturday we treated ourselves to an evening at a big multi-level discotheque.  Disco music was all the rage at that time.  We danced the night away in the City that Never Sleeps and woke up a few hours later, and fueled on black coffee and Peeps, we raced downstairs to join the crowd which lined the streets to watch the Macy’s Easter parade.

The vintage Easter memories get a little tarnished as the years rolled by.

Some holidays were just so-so, others memorable for last times gathered with loved ones.  My mom and I made an impromptu trip to Toronto to visit my grandmother and aunt for Easter 1985.  It was totally a surprise when we arrived on Good Friday mid-day.  I went to church services at the end of street with my grandmother.  My aunt sneaked out to the store on Saturday and bought fixin’s for Easter baskets for all four of us.  It was the last Easter we would ever spend together.

In 1986 I started a massive landscaping project in the front and back yard … it took me the entire Summer beginning on Easter Sunday, which found me knee-deep in clay trying to yank out old, overgrown bushes and small trees in the front garden.  My neighbor, a Southern gentleman, returned home from church services and came over with his big axe and finished off the big roots, which I could not tackle.  Over the course of the Summer, I enlarged the perimeter garden in the back, lugging home 40-pound bags of soil, 8-foot landscape ties and bags upon bags of bark.  It was an exhausting effort and it wore me out and broke the springs on my AMC Pacer.

In 1997, one of my coworkers made extraordinary-looking (and tasting) Easter chocolates.  She did made-to-order novelties and her specialty were huge pastel chocolate suckers shaped like bunnies or chicks, which she sealed with cellophane and adorned with a matching bow.  She parlayed this creativity into quite a business for Easter and most holidays.  Those suckers were so darn cute but I had no kids or relatives that I could buy them for.  However, there were two cute little boys that lived at the top of the street and I passed their house on my way home from the bus stop each day.  They were just a year apart in age, and not yet in school, or on half-days, and every night when I passed them, they’d wave and shout “Hi Miss Linda” and I’d wave back and respond “Hi ya guys”.  This went on most every day in good weather, so I decided to get two of those big suckers for my admirers.

Well, I stopped that day and tendered my treats and got big thank yous and hugs as well.  They wanted me to go inside and see their rooms, and their trucks and assorted treasures, which I did.  As the only grandchildren in the family they were so spoiled, with toys spilling out of toy boxes and teddy bears lined up along shelves in each of their rooms.  I remarked that I’d been collecting teddy bears for years and also had them on a shelf, a dresser and chest of drawers, and that those teddy bears threatened to overtake my room if I let them.  Well, their mom laughed at that comment.  A few days later, on Easter Saturday morning, I opened the door after hearing a rather timid knock on the screen door.  I saw a pair of towheads standing there with huge grins on their faces.  One of the little boys thrust out a gift bag to me and said “Happy Easter Linda” then they both ran as fast as their short legs could carry them to where their mom was waiting at the end of the driveway.  I peeked in and saw a little brown teddy bear in a pink rabbit costume.  I went out the front door, gave that bear a little hug and said “I love it – thank you so much” … well, they were all gleeful then and went skipping down the street, ten paces ahead of their mom.

They moved from the city a few years later, and I continued to get Christmas cards with the annual school photos of the boys tucked inside.  I marveled how they grew so quickly from year to year.  And, then they moved out of state and got older and we disappeared off one another’s holiday card list, as often happens.  On a whim, one day I looked up Kurt and Kyle on Facebook and those little towheads were all grown up.   They were tall and tattooed and each a diamond stud in their ear.  One had a buxom blonde hanging on his arm.  I guess I thought they were always going to look like those cute little boys at my front door that day … I’m kind of sorry I looked them up, but I’ll always remember that day every time I see that little bear and every Easter as well.

In 2006, my birthday was on Good Friday. A knock came at the door that morning – it was a driver for Ed Lobb Florist who asked if I was Linda, then handed me a huge long box as my mouth gaped open.  There was nothing on the outside of the box to indicate who sent the gift, but inside, was the largest group of Springy looking flowers – a whole mess of tulips, daisies, and wildflowers, so many that I didn’t even have a vase large enough to put them in, and had to resort to a coffee jar or two and borrow a vase from my next-door neighbor Marge.  A note inside said “hope this puts a spring in your step as you turn 50” – it was from my boss, to whom I had bemoaned turning 50 a few days earlier.

The sad memories are there as well, but for now I’ll leave them up in my mind, and not share them today … perhaps I’ll just leave those sorrows tucked under the Easter grass with the Cadbury Crème Eggs (sorry Cadbury, they’re not my favorite).

Well, we turned the calendar page to April.

It certainly was a long time comin’ wasn’t it?

But … it is a positive step in the right direction as to warmer temps and a “real” Spring.  Of course, I would be lion if I said we whisked out of the month of March like a lamb as that old adage goes “in like a lion, out like a lamb”, but that old line didn’t work out so great this year.

Speaking of steps in the right direction, I headed out this morning keen on getting four miles done to commemorate “National Walking Day”, which always falls on the first Wednesday in April.  I wasn’t sure I’d be walking since last night the weather folks said potential freezing fog or black ice might be lingering because of the several inches of snow we got yesterday.  But, I peered out before lacing up my shoes and that snow was “long gone” as the late Ernie Harwell used to say.  Poof!  It was like that snow never happened.  Now, that’s my kind of snowfall.  And, it was 33 degrees out so no ice, which was nice, because … after all, who wants to wipe out on the sidewalk on April Fool’s Day?

In the early morning today something peculiar happened.  I was startled out of a dead sleep to a songfest, reminiscent of a sunny Summer morning.  And, no – it wasn’t Buddy serenading me.  And, no – I wasn’t dreaming.  It wasn’t a full moon, but perhaps the big light in the yard behind me caused the sparrows to gather on the window ledge just behind my head.  They were joyous judging from the chorus, and, believe me –  it wasn’t just the occasional tweet or chirp either.  Until I fully opened my eyes and saw it was still pitch dark, I thought I might have overslept.  I reached over to grab the clock and pull it up close to see what time it was, and it was straight up 5:00 o’clock.  I soon fell back to sleep listening to this sweet symphony, but not before I made a mental note to search online for sparrows singing in the dark, because silly me – I thought that all our feathered friends slept in the dark, huddled together on a branch or a wire, their head tucked under a wing.

When I got online later, I Googled (wondering for the gazillionth time what we did without Google and didn’t have ready access to an encyclopedia).  I discovered someone else, besides me, had asked the question “are sparrows nocturnal?”  Someone else had their sleep interrupted I suppose.  I found out that sparrows migrate at night and also like to come out in the dark to look for food.  Nice!  Please don’t make the ledge behind my window your all night café!

I added four miles to my total today, leaving only about 450 more miles to supersede last year’s goal.  I’d better get crackin’.

Tonight, from 8:30 to 9:30 is “Earth Hour”, an international event organized by the World Wildlife Fund.  The event asks you to “join hundreds of millions of people around the world and turn off your lights for one hour to show your commitment to climate change” … nearly 60,000 people have committed at the WWF site already.

Well, the climate is a’changin’ here on our planet, that’s for sure, and the past two years Mother Nature has given us plenty to yak about, especially during the Winter.  We’re already a week into Spring, and while I was running errands this morning, the snow flurries were flying and it was freezing.  Yikes!

On my “to do” list, I scratched off taking the Winter coats and hats to the cleaners for a couple of more weeks at least.

I parked a good deal away from the grocery store to get some fresh air and add some steps to my trip.  Then, I racked up another two miles from shopping and schlepping groceries from the car into the house.  Today the miles driven and walked are the same for 2015 – 46 miles to date.

The store was bursting at the seams with Easter goodies and paraphernalia, even though folks were bundled up in heavy coats, and warm wool hats and gloves.  The frosty temps seemed absurd once you saw the array of pastel frilly dresses for young girls and the brightly colored baskets, towering white chocolate bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs sitting on vibrant shades of plastic Easter grass.

At 24 degrees, with a wind-chill of 12 degrees, who can think of next week’s big holiday, no matter how many treats you tossed into your cart?

Those Saturday shoppers and their peeps crowded around the aisle where those sweet and sugary marshmallow “Peeps” were displayed.  “Peeps” continue to corner the Easter market and have squeezed out the other seasonal items, even the perpetual favorite – jellybeans.  There were boxes and boxes of pastel marshmallow chicks and bunnies, sure to please every palate.  And, if that sticky marshmallow sweetness isn’t your shtick, you can always buy “Peeps” cupcake wrappers and cake decorations.  Did you know that now you can even get “Peeps” Easter milk which is inspired by these marshmallow treats?  If your kids swigged down a glass or two of marshmallow eggnog, or chocolate marshmallow milk, they’d be bouncing off the walls for sure.

Tomorrow afternoon, the City-sponsored Easter egg hunt will take place, hopefully not at the same time as the one or two inches of snow the forecasters are now predicting.  That’ll put a kibosh on this annual event.  Can you imagine the little nippers scrambling around Memorial Park in the snow, clutching their baskets and taking a booted foot to part the white stuff and find those plastic eggs packed with treats and fast-food coupons?

At least the tall guy dressed in his furry bunny costume and posing as Peter Cottontail will be warm.

Perhaps the parents, as they clamber to get up close with their cameras, will make some warm and fuzzy memories to share with friends and family as well.

Though I cancelled my cable and haven’t parked myself before a TV for many years, occasionally I hear sound bites or follow the online chatter about the AMC cable show “Mad Men”.

I worked in an ad agency for 18 months after graduating from Wayne State University in June of 1978. The show “Mad Men” would have you believe that all ad men are ruthless and self-serving like Don Draper.

Having been immersed in the world of advertising for that year and a half, that’s not really a true statement … not for all ad men anyway. A couple of special ones stand out in my mind, but one in particular who held, and will always hold, a special place in my heart. He was a mentor to me and a friend as well.

Back in ’78, as a sentimental, stars-in-my-eyes recent college grad, I soon found that writers and art directors, even producers, were rather a transient bunch. While they seemed content on the outside, inwardly they were still seeking the ultimate arena in which to use and exhibit their creativity. They were wont to update their résumés and pack up their typewriters or easels and markers and take off in a heartbeat. I can’t tell you how many going-away luncheons I attended during the 18 months at Young & Rubicam as our 40-person department dwindled.

I wrote this post this morning as the rain incessantly pounded the windows and the wind blew gustily. A walk was out of the question for me. That’s okay because I had a story to tell anyway.

A blogging buddy in my Patch.com group recently wrote a poem and accompanying post on the topic of friendship. I read it, then commented about keeping in touch and renewing old friendships, even after decades had passed. Since joining Facebook back in 2009, I’ve reconnected with several high school friends after many of them were scattered to the four winds.

That impromptu online chatter with Jeanne Claire Probst got me thinking about the plethora of people that I’d lost touch with through the years. I jotted down a few of their names and told myself that when I got a chance, I would indeed see if these folks were on Facebook or Twitter, just to see what they were up to and possibly renew old ties.

Social media was not around for some of these old schoolmates, coworkers or travelling companions, and the letters and cards dwindled during the years, so I’d lost track of many people. So, it seemed like a good idea to reconnect with the past and let the decades just fall away in doing so.

However, treading onto the far reaches of the internet to make those connections ended up being a rather painful foray when I discovered that a beloved boss passed away on March 10th, a mere two weeks ago.

His name was Gerald M. Apoian, but he was just plain old Jerry to all who knew him.

He was the first person I considered my “boss” after I graduated from college and ventured out into the real world beyond the diner, where I worked while attending college. Hoping to rise through the ranks to a junior copywriter position someday, I joined the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in the Summer of 1978 as a secretary.

Technically, Jerry was not my only boss since I worked for a team of copywriters and art directors.

But he was my favorite of the bunch.

He and I had both graduated with degrees in Mass Communications.  His was from Michigan State.

Only he had landed a job in that chosen field and I did not. But, it was not for lack of trying. There weren’t even opportunities after my WSU internship. I worked for a wire service writing “shorts” or little blurbs about Detroit for six weeks, which was required to graduate. Though I scoured the newspapers for a job, even as a stringer at $0.25 a line, I heard the same thing over and over: “the market is flooded with reporters due to the Watergate scandal – you’ll have to use your degree elsewhere” … sigh.

If I close my eyes, I can see Jerry in my mind just like it was yesterday, though it has been 35 long years. I see him hunkered in the corner of his office, hunched over the typewriter, his thoughts conveyed through those long, nimble fingers as he typed fast and furiously, the bell signifying the push to the carriage return was in order.

Jerry’s typewriter, a rickety old black Royal, was tucked in the far corner of his small office, right next to the window. He’d be banging away on that typewriter, with a cadence and speed that would just as easily match mine as I sat at my desk outside his office, my own fingers flying over the keyboard of my bright blue IBM Selectric typewriter.

Occasionally, I’d hear him ripping out a sheet of yellow foolscap paper from that Royal typewriter when a thought was aborted and soon that piece of paper was crumbled into a ball and tossed into the circular file, or sometimes littering the floor with others. Then he’d open the drawer for another sheet of paper which he’d quickly roll into the platen before the next thought escaped his mind; in seconds he’d be typing along at breakneck speed once again.

Soon, he’d run out of his office clutching his draft, eager to have me retype it on official bond Y&R script paper, to be presented to the creative group, and eventually the client.

He was a character and full of life and fun.

He had a wacky laugh, a long and loud howl that would erupt from that mustachioed mouth whenever he thought something was really funny. His laugh was infectious and could bring a smile to your face.

He had a shock of wavy auburn hair that he slicked back, but that was prone to frizzing out when it rained.

And then, there were those unusual-looking eyebrows that looked like two bristley caterpillars, half-hidden behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

He was a big guy, with admitted love handles that hung over the waist of his blue jeans, but were camouflaged by the beige safari-type shirts that he liked to wear.

His buddies called him “Large” but I called him “Grade A” to his face and laughingly suggested others use that moniker as well. I do believe I made him blush sometimes.

He didn’t just write the commercial scripts but went on scene with his sidekick, his art director, Larry Carroll. They would fly to California to oversee the shoots with the likes of Hal Linden touting the Newport, and who could forget Ricardo Montalban and his smooth voice as he caressed that Chrysler Cordoba’s Corinthian leather? It was Jerry who wrote the scripts for those commercials that were so well known in the late 70s. When the shoots were finished Jerry used to fly to New York to finalize and produce the commercials as well.

But things were not so rosy when Y&R lost the Chrysler account in 1979. It was a black day indeed as we were one of three advertising agencies that serviced Chrysler-Plymouth; one day President Lee Iacocca decided he wanted new blood creating ads for his products and he fired all three agencies.

We were several months without a major account before landing the plum Lincoln-Mercury business. But, as mentioned earlier, advertising folks are prone to bouncing around from one agency to the next, and the ranks of the Creative Department soon dwindled. Jerry stayed, but Larry strayed to another agency. Then Jerry was paired with a new art director named Dan Hughes. He was nice enough but the magic of the new duo’s relationship was not the same.

And other things were not the same. The new client wanted control of all the shoots and post-production taking most of the creative control away from Jerry.

There was a large lack of morale in the Creative Department and around the ad agency in general.

Before the loss of Chrysler, there were often long lunches with our whole department at “The Pontchartrain Wine Cellars” and ice cream Hummers at “The Chop House” to celebrate a completed ad or just for the heck of it.

There were impromptu guitar sessions where the creative honchos sat around collaborating on scripts and storyboards and playing their folk guitars … their version of “Classical Gas” was one of my favorites.

But, when there was work to be done we all hunkered down and did it.

To boost morale, Y&R formed a baseball team and we had that to occupy our minds and fill the voids for our friends who had left. Jerry told me to volunteer to be the editor of the new company newspaper. He worked tirelessly with me, shooting pictures, laying out the first issue and even going to the printer with me. He was somehow determined he should be my mentor and help me along up the corporate ladder to aspire to advance beyond the typist position that I currently had.

Then one day Jerry asked me to come into his office and announced he was going to J. Walter Thompson. Before I could interject “can I come too?” he said “no, I’m sorry, but I can’t take you along” … I was heartbroken and refused to go to Jerry’s going away party, knowing it would be too painful for me.

As friendships or relationship go, especially in the workplace – well you win some and you lose some. Sure we kept in touch for awhile. We talked a few times on the phone to catch up about business after he left, but this was long before social media keeps the world in touch at your fingertips or just a mouse click away. E-mail and cellphones were all non-existent back in 1979 – to ordinary people anyway.

After a year or two, even Jerry’s creative Christmas card which in the past featured his writing and Larry’s photos, failed to show up in my mailbox anymore. So much for Jerry’s description of a Summer sky as “marshmallow pies and blueberry skies” or Larry’s exquisite photos. Jerry moved to New York and I’m sure Linda Schaub became the furthest thing from his mind.

I’ve thought about contacting him through the years just to touch base and say “hey”, especially since having the World Wide Web at my disposal. Jerry got semi-famous and was “Google-able” with an e-mail address, but I resisted reaching out, thinking perhaps he would be disappointed that his mentoring had stopped dead in its tracks and I’d not pursued a writing career. I left Y&R a few months later and began a career in the legal field in February 1980.

So, I never tried to contact Jerry, but I thought about him through the years from time to time.

I know he went on to bigger and better things; he directed films – won some awards at Cannes Film Festival and worked tirelessly with a company named Advertising Production Resources, or APR, his last job. I read all these achievements last night.

The funny thing is, I was concerned that he would be disappointed in me and gave that more consideration than my parents who paid for my whole college education. Perhaps that is because my father often told me “I could have bought your mother a mink coat and myself a Cadillac or a T-bird with the money I spent on your college education” and every time my father said that, it hurt, but in the end I shrugged it off.

But, yet I didn’t want to disappoint Jerry.

Funny how your priorities get all screwed up like that sometimes.

So, last night I noodled around Facebook and Twitter looking to find Jerry and Larry and to catch up with them, if they were so inclined.

Jerry was not on Facebook, but on Twitter as my search revealed a memorial fund in his memory. A memorial fund?! I opened the link, and my eyes misted up and I am sure I must have said “oh my God – oh no” over and over while my brain processed that information.

I exited out of the article, as if that would make the story untrue.

Then I went back and re-Googled and re-read the story a few more times and an obituary notice as well. Yes, it gave his birthdate which I knew, and the picture above. Yes, it was so.

On Facebook the APR, which he was associated with, said his death was unexpected and left his colleagues reeling in disbelief.

I was in shock as well, decades after I’d wished him goodbye and good luck and he said “there is no good in goodbye” … well, 35 years later it is even more painful.

So, of course I wonder now why the h*ll I didn’t reach out and say “hi” before this?

Maybe I could have sent him the link to my blog and said “will this pass muster; will this do because it’s probably not what you hoped for, but it is me and my life and my meanderings?”

He might have laughed heartily at that question and said “you did okay kiddo – you’ll be fine” just like he told me so many times before.

(Image of Jerry Apoian from Snipview.com)

Good thing this is not one of those years when we have an early Easter and the kids are off school this week. It was barely in the 20s when I bundled up and left the house for my walk.

I was determined to go despite the dithering by Mother Nature as to this March weather.

The temps are up – the temps are down. One day it’s warm, and the next day you freeze. Wednesday will be in the 60s with rain most of the day.

The old gal is indecisive to say the least.

I am not a feminist by any means, but I have to admit that I usually take exception when someone utters the phrase “it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind” … it doesn’t seem complimentary in the least to women.

But I have to admit … Mother Nature has been pretty ambivalent this past few weeks.

On this frosty morn, as I trekked to the border of Wyandotte and Lincoln Park, I noticed the mishmash of holiday décor in the neighborhoods where I walked. There were still some Halloween pumpkins and Thanksgiving turkeys adorning the landscape and lots of Christmas decorations as well. Hearts and cupids for Valentine’s Day and leprechauns for St. Pat’s Day are still hanging around, but very few Easter decorations.

I don’t have my Easter wreath up either because it is so cold that the big fuzzy bunny sticks to the screen door and his flattened face is not such a good look to the outside world.

The cold air made me hungry despite my over-sized portion of oatmeal I had this morning. After I returned home, while eating a container of Greek yogurt, I was wishing I was eating something warm and tasty instead. It got me thinking and soon I was remembering hot cross buns from my past – way back in Canada. After we moved here to the States, every Easter my mom would bemoan that the American hot cross buns lacked the oomph of their Canadian counterparts, like a liberal saturation of allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon as well as a bounty of candied fruit. In our family, we always gave up sweets for Lent, so that when we were allowed to indulge our sweet tooth once again on Good Friday, hopefully the treat we had long hankered for, lived up to its expectations. Good Friday was always the entire day off from work and school so our breakfast treat was oven-toasted hot cross buns, slathered with sweet butter and topped with English sweet orange marmalade. The smell wafted through the house and somehow those long weeks of going without sweets were quickly forgotten.

That’s because today was the long-awaited return to Council Point Park. Unfortunately the trip back in early February was marred by mounds of snow and not a very doable walk at all.

I slipped out the screen door quietly on a still Sunday morn.

But soon the silence was broken by the unmistakable screech of a seagull traversing the morning sky. And, what a gorgeous sky it was … a pinkish palette mixing it up with hues of pale gray. While the morning sky certainly didn’t rival the recent Northern lights, it was peaceful looking.

I watched the seagull in that serene sky. That big bird almost blended in, but for its bright yellow bill which was moving up and down with each screech. Was he telling me that my presence had interrupted his train of thought, or, was he calling to his brethren that there were goodies galore in the street? Well, I don’t “speak seagull”, but I know on the weekends the cross-streets are often littered with drinking cups, or fast-food wrappers and bags, the remnants of a carload or two or three making a midnight foray to Mickey D’s and then tossing the dregs from that trip into the street.

He kept circling overhead and I was glad he was not a buzzard as I might have worried. After all, I thought I looked perky enough, having dragged out my pastel pink sweat suit in an effort to look Spring-y looking and I donned a grayish-colored London Fog jacket, neither particularly known for their stylishness, but I was comfy. In fact I briefly mused that I resembled the sky at that particular moment, though in my fascination with Mr. Seagull’s gliding and swooping maneuvers in the pink-and-gray-tinged Heavens, the sky seemed to be lightening up quickly and becoming blue.

The screeching continued and I tried to tune him out as I walked along. After all, this walk was not only to pump the heart and lift my soul, but to reboot my brain as well.

Finally, he soared higher until he was a mere speck in the sky which was now a robin’s egg blue with a few puffy clouds which resembled cotton balls and they scurried quickly across the ever-changing canvas.

A mere 24 hours after seeing the robin enjoying his ablution in that puddle of water in the street, I came upon him once again. I watched him fly down from the tree, hop over and pause by “his puddle”, where I think he was perplexed by the icy glaze. I watched the antics from afar, and when he saw the thin veil of ice, he angrily pecked a hole in it with his beak and soon the thin slivers of ice just parted and floated away down the street. Like before, he plunged right into the icy drink and I figure it was like diving into a Slurpee. He made me cold just watching him since it was below freezing with a wind-chill in the 20s.

My feet were on auto-pilot as I wended my way through the neighborhoods enroute to the Park. I kept crunching down on rock salt that was still on sidewalks and streets, and there were chunks of asphalt that the City had piled into potholes and it had been dragged everywhere. A few industrious gardeners had already fertilized their lawns, and those nuggets that had escaped from the spreader were all over the sidewalk.

I arrived at the Park and there was only one other walker. We stopped and greeted one another, then went our separate ways.

I had a welcoming committee of sorts – a few squirrels who saw me and bounded right over. I wanted to believe they remembered me from last year, rather than seeing me as a mere meal ticket, but I pulled out my Ziploc bag and treated them to some peanuts and so they were happy.

The robins were plentiful, hopping and bopping around, and a cute little Downy Woodpecker flitted from tree to tree while I walked along and delighted me with his drilling practice which reverberated through the Park since it was so quiet and peaceful.

A pair of geese decided to stir up some commotion just as I walked by and I sidestepped them just a bit, then the pair walked over close to the trail and one started hissing and flapping his wings loudly. They had been sitting down and suddenly got a little too rambunctious for my liking, but they were harmless.

It was windy and there were alot of ripples in the Creek on the side that is more open, and on the opposite side, there were still patches of snow along the marshy edge and in some places, ice covered parts of the water. The ice appeared to be so thin, that it looked like the skin that forms on the top of pudding within a matter of minutes.

As I peered through the bulrushes I saw a beautiful male wood duck. I recognized the crest and the colors right away. He was nibbling on some dried-up reeds and I was sorry I didn’t bring my camera with me to capture his photo. I thought he was all alone, but then a drab-colored duck swam up next to him, probably his mate. I wondered if they had migrated from a warmer state and this was a stopping place for them, or if they’d spent the Winter here in Michigan.

Next, I rounded the bend and a group of mallards were preening themselves and looking for food as evidenced from several duck tails sitting straight up in the water.

I finished my first loop of the trail for the year and headed home, and though I was cold, I lingered just a little longer, happy to have some sunlight on my face.

I passed a huge bush filled with buds, probably a forsythia, and then it did my heart good when a few minutes later I saw a group of snowdrops under a big tree, their blooms weighing down the tiny plants.

At that moment, I decided that all the technology in the world cannot surpass the miracle of these plants, bushes and trees which re-emerge every Spring after a brutally cold and snowy Winter season, especially like those temps we endured for nearly two months.

Those tiny snowdrops are just a preview of coming attractions.

I am glad I made the trip and rebooted my brain today – my system status is now A-OK.

Today marks the first full day of Spring.

I decided I must get myself back into a regimen in conjunction with the walking, but it has been so difficult after several months of being sedentary – no, make that almost sloth-like, which was pitiful in lieu of the 565 miles I walked last year.

Sure … I said I’d go downstairs and ride the exercise bike every morning, which sounded good on paper and made for a terrific New Year’s resolution. Every morning that alarm would ring and I’d consider the idea – really I would. But, the thought of peeling off my warm polar fleece jammies and traipsing downstairs to the cold basement in shorts and a tee-shirt versus curling up as content as a cat under the covers – well, you do the math on how many bike rides I took.

So, no more excuses, and now I need to atone for all those mornings that I stole a few extra ZZZZs and merely trudged out like an automaton to run the car, which trip substituted as the exercise for the day.

This morning I forced myself to be up and at ‘em, and ready to go and hit the three-mile mark if possible.

However, first I had to resort to a trick with the alarm clock to get me bouncing out of the bed, like it was a warm Summer day. Instead of a snooze alarm, I have two alarm clocks, set about 15 to 20 minutes apart. You might recall one of them broke when we had to spring ahead a few weeks ago. My new alarm clock, a different model, has a rather obnoxious ring to it. It is loud and would wake the dead. So, I put that one in the kitchen last night, and when the first alarm went off this morning, I hightailed it to the kitchen to shut the second alarm clock off, and then just stayed up. Perfect! I was feeling smart to have come up with this plan, rather than just rolling over for forty more winks and falling asleep again.

I headed out, and, just as I closed the screen door behind me, I shot a glance at my next-door neighbor Marge’s big thermometer – yup, the needle rested right at 40 degrees, just like the weatherman said. Nice! Marge is hopeful that Spring has sprung because I noticed her two gliders out on the deck, complete with pillows. Now, that’s a positive attitude. The squirrels and birds, however, are left scratching their respective heads, wondering where she will strew their goodies now?

It was windy out but that is the way March is supposed to be, right? March is all about those winds, followed by April showers and the promise of May flowers. It was also quite humid this morning and wet patches were all over the streets and sidewalks. Someone close by was burning wood in their fireplace and the smell seemed to carry and land on my clothes and stayed with me the balance of my trip.

The snow has not all melted and every so often, in bushy areas where the sun can’t reach, there is an occasional pile of snow. The rest of the landscaping is rather lackluster with brown and yellow grass and bare trees and bushes everywhere.

The chalk artists have already been out – those youngsters wielding a big, fat pastel stick which gets whittled down quickly once they start drawing on the bumpy sidewalk. I saw some chalk drawings with flowers that resembled hippie VW van artwork circa the 60s or 70s. There were also alot of pictures of stick people with no clothes on – brrrrrrrrrrr.

Those pastel chalk sketches were not the only telltale signs of Spring on my walk today. I also saw the perennial harbinger of the season, robin redbreast, who crossed my path soon after I left the house. He spied a puddle at the end of a homeowner’s driveway and hopped over there, eager to try it out. Into the puddle he plunged, and squatted down until his full body was immersed in the murky water. Then he flipped his wings and water droplets flew everywhere. There was mud in the street, so his bathwater wasn’t the cleanest, but he was content and splish-splashed away, totally oblivious to my presence. Seeing that robin, I made a mental note to start coming up with a plan to keep the pesky robin at my house from trying to build a home in the coach light since he and I have an annual battle over his nest-building the entire month of May.

I decided to walk to the border of Lincoln Park and Wyandotte, a familiar route when I first began my walking regimen. I paused at the bridge over the Ecorse Creek, which separates the two cities, and looked for ducks and geese. There were about a dozen or so, and they were tucked away on top of the occasional patches of snow which outlined the fringes of the Creek. They appeared to be roosting there, but a few brave souls had paddled out into the Creek and were enjoying a cold swim.

On my return trip, I took a different route and saw a sign of life in a dirt garden at a corner property. Since the last time I passed by this house, someone had raked the leaves and yard debris from the garden, exposing dark green shoots, which were already about 2 inches high … they will be tulips one day if the snow or icy temps, or even the bunnies, don’t zap ‘em first.

I came home with a little spring in my step after my brush with Mother Nature’s visible signs of this newly minted season.

I’ve called this post “Spring Bling” because crystals and diamonds are on my mind today. No, not that pretty Swarovski crystal, but instead crystals of snow, those beautiful frilly flakes, that were supposed to be fluttering down to the ground in the early hours of this, the first day of Spring. But yeah – the predicted snow flurries never materialized here, so I guess those intricate crystals whirled and twirled their way to parts unknown – probably Boston. So, with crossed arms and tapping a foot, I await Spring which doesn’t officially arrive until 6:45 p.m. (which is not soon enough in my humble opinion).

I set out for a walk on this cold morn, with the earworm of the day, “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond is in town tonight. It’s been déjà vu all week for me. Every time I heard a snippet of one of his most-famous songs it took me back … way back … and suddenly I was awash in the memories and the music, just like it was yesterday.

When I was a teenager, I had the biggest crush on Neil Diamond, he with the dark wavy hair, brooding good looks and mellow voice. I loved all his songs and never tired of listening to Neil singing “Solitary Man” – I wanted to pat his hand and say “there, there” or maybe “wait for me – I’ll make it right for you” … all wishful thinking on my part.

Though I had a collection of 45s, my very first record album was a promotional LP gleaned from cereal box tops back in 1972. The double-sided album entitled “It’s Happening” featured The Supremes on one side and Neil Diamond on the flip side. I had my favorites “Brooklyn Roads”, “And the Grass Won’t Pay No Mind” and “Long Gone” memorized in no time, and I played them so often, it’s a wonder the needle still stayed steady in the grooves of the vinyl.

I saw Neil Diamond twice, but it was many years ago.

The first time I saw him in concert was in the Summer of 1976 with a group of college chums. We had lawn seats at the former Pine Knob Music Theatre on a beautiful June night. It didn’t matter if you were up close or far away, he stirred the crowd and everyone jumped up and swayed as one while they sang to “Forever in Blue Jeans”.

The second time was in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena. It was April of 1983 and Neil kicked off the “Heartlight” tour not far from where we worked. He was here for five shows; we were there for the first night. I went with two co-workers who had a similar affinity for Neil Diamond’s music and we splurged and got great seats. It promised to be a perfect evening and my birthday was that week so we celebrated with a special dinner beforehand.

Though the memories of each of those concerts lived on long after Neil Diamond exited the stage, the remembrance of the concert in Detroit still leaves me a little sad.

The above picture is appropriate for Flashback Friday and this post. It was taken on my sixteenth birthday. Some friends of the family were invited to dinner at our house and they brought a card, a cake and a corsage. To commemorate turning “sweet sixteen” my parents bought me a pretty gold filigree ring. There was a diamond set in each of the two loops in the letter “L” which signified both the April birthstone and the first letter of my name. I opened the jeweler’s box and excitedly slipped the ring onto my finger, but it was so loose I removed it immediately lest it slide off my finger and get lost. I didn’t even include that gift in the picture but it was sitting on “display” on the table. I went with my parents the next day to the jewelry store to have it sized. I treasured that ring and wore it everywhere, with no other jewelry on my hand until I got my high school and college class rings.

The evening we attended the Neil Diamond concert in Detroit, it had been a chilly Spring day. It was downright cold in the large auditorium and my hands were cold. I remember pulling my coat around me, and putting my gloves on briefly, but soon removed them when everyone kept giving their favorite singer a standing ovation. But, one of those times that I was fervently clapping to keep up with the rest of the concertgoers, to my horror, my ring flew off my finger and disappeared into the crowd. “My ring” I cried out to no one in particular, but who could hear me? The music was loud, the speakers cranked to full capacity and the crowd noise was deafening as they crooned along together to so many tunes they knew by heart.

During each concert, Neil Diamond took very few breaks – a few shirt changes and that was it. So, having trained my eyes on the very seat where the ring appeared to have bounced off and landed, my friends and I went to search for it after the concert was over. Down on hands and knees in the dim auditorium, we searched under and around each seat in that area, but my ring was not to be found. We went to report it missing, hoping that the janitorial staff would find the ring and return it to the front office so I could retrieve it.

Ever hopeful, I even called into the J.P. McCarthy Show on WJR the next morning, hoping J.P. could pull some strings and have someone scour the seating area with extra diligence. I lamented that I’d lost a diamond at the Neil Diamond show, and through that clever wordplay, I appealed to any of the listeners who might be attending one of his concerts over the next four nights at this venue. Well, J.P. listened to my story then said “anybody out there who can help this young lady out?” The radio station took my name and address, but my ring was never found.

The old adage is “a diamond is forever”, but sadly, in my case, I was only borrowing mine. I’ve always wondered if that ring was ever recovered or if it languishes, still wedged in a little crevice, nook or cranny somewhere, just waiting to be discovered someday.

Well, I left the house with a spring in my step, after listening to an assortment of Irish tunes in the wee hours of the morn. But, all the mirth and merriment immediately stopped short once I stepped beyond the screen door where I verified that, nope – Spring had not yet arrived despite that balmy and beautiful day we enjoyed yesterday. Old Man Winter refuses to let this season go from his manly grip, and will probably hold on ‘til the bitter end when we exit Winter and welcome Spring on Friday. The wind was gusting and it was blustery and John McMurray, WJR’s weatherman had mentioned that our Michigan weather mirrored that of Dublin, Ireland today.

I’m still keeping the walks somewhat abbreviated for now because I basically had to start my walking regimen from scratch since more than a month had passed since my last long jaunt. I’m not yet ready to travel to Council Point Park for even one lap, which is 3 ½ miles altogether round trip, and, I doubt the snow and ice have disappeared from there anyway. I will set my sights on three miles by the first day of Spring – hopefully anyway.

As I passed beneath some still-bare and gangly looking trees, I heard a bird or two cheeping as if to call out “Top of the mornin’ to you lass” so perhaps they, too, had a sense of the usually festive mood of this holiday. I still had “The Unicorn Song” coursing through my brain and out my ears, having heard snippets of it as I flipped up and down the dial on my stereo headphones while eating breakfast and trying to get my Irish on. As I walked along, I failed to see a unicorn, nor a single green alligator, so I suppose most of those gators are either relegated to the front of the Lacoste shirts or running rampant on the golf courses in Florida these days. There weren’t any long-necked geese flying overhead either, and, if there were leprechauns toting a pot of gold, they were absent as well.

I was glad I didn’t totally abandon my hat for the season – well, you know me … too many years of riding the bus, and I don’t always give up the gloves nor hat ‘til May Day sometimes. But, the wind kept trying to whisk my hat off my head and I shivered a time or too and felt like doing a jig to warm up. But, in the end I didn’t want to ruin my credibility, with someone thinking perhaps I’d slurped down some Irish coffee instead of Nescafe in my cup. So, no … the Irish whiskey didn’t make me frisky and any wiggling around might have been attributed to that second cup of coffee I shouldn’t have had before departing on my walk.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day one and all.