Sepia Saturday: My Daddy Made All of That!

My dad was a master of many trades. Though a CPA, he was also a farmer, auto-mechanic, carpenter, welder, blacksmith, roofer, plumber,mason, painter, backyard griller, and a list of another dozen trades. He couldn't carry a tune and had two left feet, but that's beside the point.

That's the house I grew up in, and he built every bit of it, including the flagstone chimney and fireplace. He also built the playhouse for my sister out of the remains of an airplane engine box he brought home from Douglas Aircraft when he worked there and he felt it was a waste to discard it. It later served as my tree house where I held court with my secret club and stored my personal childhood library.

That's my sister Nanette in the middle, cousin Glen on the right, me in the sock cap and glasses, and my grandfather's dog Buddy, probably around 1959 or 1960.

Learn more about Sepia Saturday here.

Who Do You Think You Are?

"Who do you think you are, Miss Philadelphia?" Mom always asked Bop and Zizi.

This wouldn't have burned so much, except Mom had been Miss Philadelphia. She would tell Bop and Zizi that if they were good she just might drive them down in the Wagoneer down to Van der Kamp's The windmill frightened Zizi, and she was always certain that one of those paddles would reach down and spank her or pull her up and swing her around for circles.

Bop, however, was fascinated by it, thinking of it as a symbol of flight, like the propeller of a Pan Am clipper, and she dreamed of one day becoming a stewardess, staffing the first class section -- non-stop from New York's Idlewild Airport to Paris. The very name of the airport evoked glamor and abandon -- running both idle and wild. Bop would pull out a Fiestaware platter from the kitchen and would walk down the hall with a Dixie cup on her had and pretending that her flannel robe was a tailored blue wool uniform. "More coffee, sir? Why it would be my pleasure. And how about an almond wafer? They baked exclusively for Pan Am by Van der Kamp. What, oh, you're going to Amsterdam after Paris? How fitting."

Such a Shame About Little Ouida

Standing in line with her bottle of Chardonnay at the Valu-Rite Market in Nyack, Ouida was reminded of that old line “A bottle of wine has as many calories as three cups of gravy.” Which doctor was it that always said that? Or was it from one of those wretched encounter groups with the promise to empower you to "take charge of your life"? Of all the abuse Ouida had endured in her life, nothing was worse than these groups where she had to sit in a circle and hear a bunch of self absorbed losers recount the tedious details of their boring, pointless lives. She started to turn and take the wine back to the refrigerated aisles with rows of Samuel Adams and enormous bottles of Kenwood but she halted. Maybe she might go back and grab some Easy Gravy Mix just out of spite.

Perhaps we should go back to where it all started at Dr. Baumgartner’s clinic in Utica where he studied Quida and Frieda for four years. Having written extensively about sibling confliction, Dr. Baumgartner said nothing equaled the Vogle sisters. Quida would turn scarlet red when Frieda was introduced as her “twin”.

Storming out of the room, Quida would scream “We are nothing alike!” And, indeed, only into his third year of research did Dr. Baumgartner learn that this was, in fact, true and that Ouida and Frieda were not twins but surviving triplets, their sister Lita having died mysteriously in a bathing incident involving choking with multiple rubber duckies.

Determining Ouida’s role in this was always murky, and Dr. Baumgartner chose to overlook it and instead focused on trying to break through Ouida’s rages and hysteria. When she took up an interest in gardening, it seemed there had been something of a breakthrough. The fact that her two favorite flowers – foxglove and oleander – were potently poisonous seemed to escape Dr. Baumgartner.

Mrs. Vogle took it as a sign of great progress at the girls’ ninth birthday party when Ouida burst onto the dance floor with Dr. Baumgartner in a joyous twist as “Under the Boardwalk” played at full volume. Mrs. Vogle was less excited, six months later when she found Ouida snuggled next to the doctor in his bed.

Things took a turn for the worse when Frieda turned violently ill after drinking a cup of hot chocolate Ouida had prepared for her. Only after returning from the ICU and noticing freshly cut oleander by the sink – and no vase in sight – did Mrs. Vogle start having doubts.

But Frieda’s sudden death after three days at the hospital put the family into such a spin there was no time nor energy to ask questions that probably should have been raised. And, after four years of intensive analysis with Dr. Baumgartner and no progress nor answers, Mrs.Vogle was ready to stop asking questions and just let mysteries rest.

When Ouida turned 15, the Vogles had reached a point of having lost the will to object when Dr. Baumgartner asked for the girl’s hand in marriage. In an unexpected turn of events, he left his practice and opened Godiva Vineyards on the outskirts of New City. The label on the bottle of a nubile nude nymph on horseback resembled Ouida too much for her mother’s comfort, but at this point she was happy just to have peace in the house so she and Harry could watch “Sing Along with Mitch” on TV trays, chewing their Stouffer’s Salisbury steaks and sipping Godiva Chardonnay in Dixie cups.

Dr. Baumgartner was found dead in the vineyards four years later, by what the authorities -- likely too distracted or too tired of hassles -- determined to be natural causes. Ouida sold the vineyards back to the Valduccis at triple the price she and the doctor acquired them for but with four times the production. She lived briefly in Montreal and then opened a small photography studio in Binghampton before settling in Nyack where she has lived quietly for the past 35 years. She can be seen strolling the streets in her Burberry coat, checking out books on Catalan culture at the library and buying brass tipped walking sticks at the flea market.

For years she was a regular at the Ebb Tide Lounge on Herman Street until her weight got out of control and her looks began to sag. Now she can be seen every afternoon at precisely 4:38 p.m. (except Tuesdays, an oddly sacred night when she drinks only filtered water) in the line at the Valu-Rite with her signature bottle of wine. As the checker scans the bar code and glances at Lady Godiva on the label, does he see any connection to the woman swiping her Chase debit card and raising her collar before punching in her four digit PIN?

Screaming Eyes, Ice Screaming

I make no apologies for having a great love for Eddie Cantor. His 1934 opus Kid Millions tops both versions of Willie Wonka in my book. It's amazing that three strip technocolor looked this amazing in that year, and even more odd to see Ethel Merman looking so young and girlish.

And Which of the Three Did You Choose?

Back in the mid-1960s, Oklahoma City's youth had an enormous dilemma -- which of the three amusement parks should you favor?

First, there was Spring Lake, the stalwart Beatles-esque playground for the young that, by the 1980s, would be converted into a vocational educational school. I remember my sister going there with her best friend Karen Brown in 1966. They entered a "make-your-own-record" booth where ever witty Karen opened their recording with "This is Mrs. Brown's Lovely Daughter, " appropriately referencing a top 40 song of the era.
Across town, just north of the Northwest Expressway was its rival, the upstart, short-lived Wedgewood that would be converted into a similarly named apartment complex during the Carter administration. Its cheeky approach was the Rolling Stones to the more mainstream Spring Lake.

Who would have thought that bland Frontier City would soldier on into the 21st Century? I remember my dear friend Molene doing "Who Can Stop the Rain" in drag in the mid-1970s down the block at the wonderfully raunchy trannyshack named The Road House. These memories branded on my brain like a rose tattoo that will neither forgive nor forget.s

Once I Was

One of the oddities of being the family guardian of photos and other memorabilia is that I keep coming across little surprises from the past. Fortunately most of them are pleasant. Tonight while going through some old cards and letters, I saw something slip out that I thought was a random scrap that should be tossed. Only after picking it up to realize that it was a piece of paper in plastic did I realize that these barely two inches of paper slipped across my arm more than half a century ago.

Harmony

The three pets of my childhood (from left) Julie, Nina and Sugarplum.