MOTHER, CHILD, AND CYCLONE

"If we don't do this this summer," Justin said, "We'll miss this parent-child experience." At thirteen, he was aware that his childhood was expiring.

The experience was riding the Coney Island Cyclone. Justin and I collected roller coaster rides, in an unsystematic way: If a roller coaster crossed our path, we rode on it, including those at Riverside Park in Agawam, Whalom Park in Lunenberg (as soon as the authorities declared him tall enough), and Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire.

I had recently seen a magazine article that ranked the ten most spectacular roller coaster rides in America. The Cyclone had been nosed out of first place by something in California that was modeled on the Cyclone, but more so. We weren't going to go roller-coaster-chasing to California; but New York, Coney Island, and the Cyclone were within reach. When my mother offered to stake us to a tour to New York City offered by a bus company in East Templeton, we accepted, first verifying that the Cyclone would be open for business during that October weekend -- its last for that year, it turned out. It also turned out that the Cyclone had its own telephone line. There's something very New York about that, I'm not sure why.

So Justin and I piled onto a bus in East Templeton and rode to New York City, arriving in time for a couple of hours relaxation before supper at the hotel. While others relaxed, we fell to figuring out how to get to Coney Island. Knowing nothing about New York -- I could count the number of times I've been there in my life and have a bunch of fingers left over -- I considered springing for a taxi.

It turned out to be startlingly easy to get there by subway. During the forty-five minute ride each way I had ample opportunity to be glad I had decided against the taxi. At the end of the line we hurried over to the Cyclone -- it was easy to find, towering over everything in sight -- and joined the queue at the entrance.

Once on board, we experienced the familiar sinking sensation in the mid-digestive system as the car jerked up the slope, and held our breath as it plunged down that legendary first drop; rattled and lurched and shivered around corners; and eventually rolled to a stop. We thought about going around again -- but my arthritic old neck didn't appreciate being jolted and shaken quite that much; $3 each for a ninety-second thrill seemed a bit steep; and anyway, we wanted to get back to the hotel to the dinner that came with the tour before it was too late and we had to spend money somewhere else. So back we rode on the subway, arriving just in time.

During the next day or two we saw the usual New York sights: the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, New York harbor from a tour boat, and some shopping center that we could have done without. We had a delightful time, especially the parent-child experience that had inspired us to go to New York.

ERRATA

"Aghast, and months after the number was printed, I saw that I had called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive Newcome is the hero of another story by the reader's most obedient writer . . . . But there is that blunder at page 990, line 76, volume 84 of the Cornhill Magazine and it is past mending . . . ." [William Makepeace Thackeray, The Roundabout Papers, "De Finibus"]

Anyone who has ever produced anything, which must be nearly the whole human race, has known the sinking feeling of discovering something that isn't up to standard when it's too late to fix it. Writers and editors cringe at such blunders; so must carpenters, artists, software developers, quilters, sewers of clothing, bakers of cookies, and plastic surgeons.

I once worked for a company that produced maps. Upon discovering an error in a published map, my supervisor muttered about how "we try so hard to get things right -- how did this happen?" and then, in tones of ironic resignation, declared that the person preparing that map had been distracted by the lunch wagon at coffee break time, left his or her post to grab a snack, and upon returning failed to get back into the groove. "Coffee and . . . a cheese Danish, that was it. Cheese Danish." Pinning the error on a hypothetical Cheese Danish seemed to sooth his perturbed spirit.

The publisher of lecture notes for whom I worked in graduate school knew that that in this imperfect world errors could creep into the most meticulously edited publication. Still, he tore his hair (figuratively -- he was nearly as bald as an egg) when a mistake turned up in a set of published notes.

One of my hobbies is interviewing individuals who have done things I think are interesting, and transcribing and editing the material. Four or five of these projects have resulted in rather elaborate booklets that I have copied and given to as many as fifty people. They are seldom reviewed by anyone but me. Going over the same material again and again is tiresome beyond expression. I have to sympathize with Edward Gorey's fictional novelist (Amphigory, "The Unstrung Harp: Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel"), engaged in "the worst part of all in the undertaking of a novel, i.e., making a clean copy of the final version of the M.S. Not only is it repulsive to the eye and hand, with its tattered edges, stains, rumpled patches, scratchings-out, and scribblings, but its contents are, by this time, boring to the point of madness. A freshly-filled inkwell, new pheasant feather pens, and two reams of the most expensive cream laid paper are negligible inducements for embarking on such a loathsome proceeding."

There comes a point in my projects where I mutter something impolite and decide this will have to do; load myself and my work into the car; and proceed to White Dog Printing. When I distribute the copies I emphasize that if anyone notices a mistake, I don't want to know about it. I'm not alone: Edward Gorey, quoted above, once told an interviewer: "I refuse to read anything I've done."

Small Claims Court

I came out of work at Stanford University to discover that my motorcycle had a flat tire. I summoned Danny, my husband at the time, who appeared on his own motorcycle with one of those kits for patching bicycle tires. Motorcycles don't carry spares.

He cobbled the tire together. We knew it wouldn't hold; but after a heart-in-mouth drive down the peninsula on El Camino Real we arrived at Santa Clara Motor Sports, the local BMW motorcycle dealership. As we knew, they weren't open. We left the bike there and called them the next day about the tire and some other minor things it needed.

A week or so later they wanted $300-odd for their efforts. That's in 1974 dollars. We paid up -- what else could we do? -- and then sued them in Small Claims Court. Their head honcho threatened a countersuit. Danny wasn't impressed. I was sure the guy would sue, and that he would win and ruin us. I can't imagine what he would have had against us that he could have made a case of; but at the time I knew nothing about things legal and, as always, assumed the worst. He didn't, of course, have any kind of a case, and he didn't sue.

Danny is a bulldog. He went over every item in the bill, asked questions of motorcycle shops and the local BMW car dealership, even managed to get samples of the kind of seals Santa Clara Motor Sports should have installed instead of the ones they had in fact used. When the time came, we were by far the best-prepared litigants in the courtroom.

We had always been suspicious of the Santa Clara Motor Sports guy, a middle- aged man with a bald head, a skin-deep smile, a habitual demeanor that was meant to express sincerity and didn't, and a talent for running up bills. We took the bike to him because we hadn't been in the neighborhood long and didn't yet know about Rich Davis in San Jose; but that's another story.

When we saw Mr. Motor Sports outside the courtroom that morning, he wasn't smiling. His phony sincerity had given way to what I think was supposed to be an air of quiet menace. He was still bald.

Small Claims Court was an interesting experience. It seemed to be Finance Company Day -- or maybe there are finance companies in court every day. (Do finance companies still exist, or are they deservedly illegal?) One hapless Filipina in a white hospital uniform had been hauled in over a loan she had co-signed for a friend and her boyfriend so they could buy furniture. The payments had not been made and the friend and boyfriend had disappeared, as had the furniture.

The finance company showed minimal interest in their whereabouts. With a solvent victim in their net, they weren't about to concern themselves with the beneficiaries of the furniture.

"Why did you sign this loan?" the judge asked the defendant.

"Because she was my friend." "You know that I have to enforce this?"

"Yes."

Then the judge turned to the woman representing the finance company. I have the impression that judges can get as tired of finance companies as of divorcing fathers who don't want to support their kids.

"I'm continuing this case for two weeks. By that time, I want to see a real effort made to find these people."

I think it was the same finance company lady who had a guy in court for a couple of missed payments. He admitted that he was behind: he'd been sick, or lost his job, or something. He was trying to be conscientious amid his difficulties but didn't think he had missed as many payments as she said.

The judge asked her a few times what the exact amount in dispute was. She went on about the March payment and the April payment and the May payment but seemed unclear on the total.

"How can I issue a judgment if you don't even know how much you're suing for?" asked the judge in exasperation. "Case dismissed!"

When our case came up, dead last, our friend with the bald head tried to make much of the fact that the bike had been found lying on its side, presumably indicating carelessness on our part. The judge accepted our contention that the flattening tire had caused it to tip over. He was impressed enough, particularly by the seals, to award us a small rebate.

Danny was ticked off that it wasn't more. I was content to get anything, and not to be successfully countersued. I pointed out that we had had an interesting experience, which I had to suspect was not novel or interesting to the defendant; and if nothing else, we had tied him up all morning and prevented him from ripping off anyone else.

UPON A SUMMER'S DAY II

God, it was hot. The peaches in the paper bag on the front seat, bought beside the road somewhere, had lost juice and flavor and become mealy and uninteresting. In the absence of air conditioning -- not standard in the summer of 1971, especially in older cars, which this was -- the three of us draped ourselves out the open windows. The air was as desiccated as anything else on that August day north of San Francisco; but at least it was moving. Then, on a barely-two-lane road through the hills, traffic ground to a halt and we sat in the sun and toasted.

We advanced a few yards -- uphill with the dropoff on our right -- halted, advanced again, halted again, over and over. Clearly, something was obstructing one side of the road ahead. Observing the pattern of stops and starts and the traffic coming the other way, and thinking about it as is my way (not that there was much else to do), I concluded that the obstruction was probably on our side of the road. When I said as much to the two guys in the car, I was greeted with a chorus of "Oh, you're so negative, you're always looking at the worst side of things."

It was too hot to argue. In that time and place a woman who ventured to point out anything to one man, let alone two, could expect to be put firmly in her place by tactics having nothing to do with the merits of her position (in my experience, the East Coast was better in that respect; but that's another story). I mentally shrugged my shoulders and, reflecting that the guys probably knew more about traffic patterns than I did, receded and went back to enjoying the heat.

In due course we rounded a corner and passed the obstruction: A huge logging truck bearing two or three redwood trunks had failed to negotiate a curve and, half on the road and half off (California never heard of guard rails), was firmly blocking our side of the road.

Nobody said anything about it. The guys probably didn't even remember the mini-conversation of half an hour or so previously, and reminding them would just have annoyed them. But I made a large mental note to the effect that when men make those "Oh, I don't think so" remarks in that conversation-stopping tone, they don't necessarily know anything I don't know.

OUTSIDE THE BOX

Late one night in a remote parking lot in the early 1960s, Sheldon's clunky old American car wouldn't start. The car was equipped with a standard shift, of course. Automatics probably existed when it was built, but they weren't common. For want of a better alternative, Sheldon pushed the car to the top of a gentle declivity at one side of the parking lot, with an eye to clutch-starting it.

It's not difficult to make a car move on the level, but the slightest slope changes everything. It took all Sheldon's early-twenties strength and stamina to push the car to the top. He started it rolling downhill, jumped in, and at the optimum moment -- when the car was rolling just fast enough to have a chance of starting, with still enough hill in front to maintain momentum -- put it in gear and popped the clutch.

The car wasn't buying any. It chugged, spluttered, and shuddered to a stop.

In the absence of any obvious alternative, Sheldon and the car struggled up the hill and rolled down again. Heartbreakingly, the car fumbled and jerked to a halt again.

In those days before cell phones, the option of a tow truck may not have been available, even in the unlikely event that Sheldon was prepared to pay for one. There was nothing for it but to undertake the weary trek up the parking lot yet again. This, Sheldon realized, would have to be the last attempt of this kind; he wouldn't have it in him to push the car up a fourth time.

With a flash of the kind of insight that can come in a desperate corner, Sheldon noticed, or first took seriously, that it was a windy night, and the wind was blowing down the hill. He opened all four doors to catch the wind, and tried again. This time the car chugged, spluttered, spluttered again, and caught. Sheldon was saved.

THE HOUSE OF USHER: Great Was the Fall Thereof

(with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)

In my late teens, I aspired to produce a cake in the shape of a house. Such a thing is supposed to be assembled out of rectangular sheets of cake, gingerbread or cookie, nailed together at right angles with toothpicks and further glued with frosting. That approach left me entirely cold. I had taken it into my head that I wanted a solid house-shaped cake.

I actually found a pan for producing such a thing at the local hardware store. It was in two pieces, constructed so as to stand on its roof and be filled from the bottom. Such directions as it came with didn't tell me how much batter I should use or how to adjust the cooking time and temperature. With next to no information to go on and with the misplaced confidence of youth, I forged ahead.

Anything that thick baked at the 350o usual for cakes would turn black and crisp on the outside and fill the kitchen with smoke, while retaining a raw liquid center. I set the oven low; but a more serious problem, as it turned out, was that I dramatically misjudged of the amount of batter appropriate to this large and odd-shaped object. Ten minutes after the house-cake went into the oven, the unmistakable odor of burnt cake filled the air as the batter expanded, rose, and overflowed. Knowing better than to open the door on a cake prematurely, I put off the evil moment as long as I could restrain myself.

When I declared that the cake was as done as it was going to be and took it out, batter had spilled all down the sides of the pan and formed big, charred cookies on the bottom of the oven and stalactites dangling from the oven racks. The center of the cake had collapsed into a five-inch Great Depression.

My father, a foodie's foodie, never met a dessert he didn't like. He enjoyed dense, heavy, pudding-y concoctions and actually had a certain fondness for fallen cake -- but even he wouldn't eat this one. The house-cake may have been the only dessert our family ever threw away.

DUCK SOUP

One Sunday in early spring, Mother and I stopped for lunch at the Old Mill in Westminster. A restaurant for many decades now but originally a mill, it is picturesquely situated at the edge of the mill pond. A long porch faces the pond; the walkway into the building and the dining room windows offer views of the brook cascading over the dam and rattling and foaming over the rocks on its way to Fitchburg and points east. Ducks, a few swans, and a passing goose or two thrive on a diet of whatever grows in the pond supplemented by leftover rolls, including the Old Mill's signature pecan rolls, from a basket of discarded baked goods maintained for the purpose. When Justin was six or seven, he was pecked soundly in the foot for not being quick enough in dispensing alms. The Old Mill's birds must be among the world's most prosperous water fowl.

On this Sunday afternoon, the ice on the pond had turned to a slab of slush that looked like ice but wasn't, quite. Our attention was attracted by a duck that, through force of habit reinforced through the winter, began from a floating position near the dam and, with great flapping of wings and (I suppose) stomping and clinging with its feet, attempted to scale the ice floe -- now more of a slush floe. Away from the edges, it was firm enough to hold a number of ducks. At the comparatively thin edges, it gave way steadily before the bird's frantic thrashing and flailing.

Eventually, the duck either caught on and flapped hard enough to raise itself out of the water, or arrived at a thicker place towards the interior of the ice. The last we saw of it, it was sitting on its chilly perch enjoying a well-earned rest.