Hot Rods and Old Mags

I once had a friend who used to say that F.I.B was a teenage boy trapped inside a woman's body (except I dig guys) in that my interests are of a boy from the early 1970's. Cars, comic books, record collecting, you get the idea. So, that being said my inner teenage boy was stoked to find these books lying out in the frigid cold this Sunday. In DIFFERENT locations! The "Customized: Art Inspired by Hot Rods, Low Riders and American Car Culture" is in MINT condition and AWESOME! The Dune Buggy Handbook has some great Rat Fink type dune buggy cars in it and is a fab reference manual should I ever need to get a spare part for my dune buggy, and the Consumer Report mag featuring cars from 1980 is pretty cool despite the fact the most of the cars sucked that year. The teenage girl trapped in my woman's body who actually WAS a teenager in 1980 appreciated these New York magazines from around that time. (I found these at a secret spot that always provides on Sundays.) No talk of development, condos or losing landmarks. It was all about the arts back then. Can you imagine that New York was once one of the centers of cutting edge theater, music and art? I actually used to read New York magazine in the late 1970's and all through the 1980's because my grandmother had a subscription. I have to say that the magazine made me never want to leave New York. They had the listings for all the clubs and ads for places like Fiourucci's, where I bought my first tube of green mascara. Yeah, the city was dirtier then but you didn't have to be as well off to live here as you do now. I only left New York once. I moved to San Francisco and lived in Marin County (beautiful but boring) and Haight Ashbury (I dug it except for the teenage runaways and cracked out hippies). I drove back to New York in my 1977 metallic celery green Pontiac Ventura (Nova with a nose job) with the white interior and white racing stripe. Drove her across country and moved into this very apartment 15 years ago and never left. The car, LaRue was her name (named after Gidget's friend) was a fixture on the block, people still ask me "what happened to that car?" She's in hot rod heaven now baby!

Found in Queens

We are still not done clearing out Oma's apartment in Flushing but we are getting closer. Look what I found in her medicine cabinet. Moist Spock or Captain Kirk towelette anyone? I had NO IDEA she was a trekkie!This is a picture I have known my entire life and my Mother has too, hence it's an oldie. My Mother doesn't like it because she has alway looked at it as the dog was missing a leg. The leg is there just very faint, no one else in my family wants it. I guess I'll be the one to take it. I think we are getting to the sad part now. We have been saving the pictures for last as it would be depressing being there with the bright spots on the walls that a picture leaves after being hung in the same place for years.What should I do? Take them because I know that she would probrably be pissed if we threw them out (guilt!) or not? By the way, this is another old picture she had hanging up forever.

Found in Queens

In today's installment of "Found in Queens" I find my mother's old hair as I am clearing out my recently departed Grandmother’s apartment in Flushing, Queens. Yup, twelve years of her hair growth to be exact. I found it at the bottom of a cedar chest in her bedroom, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. I knew these long dark blonde braids were my mothers, because, like everything else in the apartment they were labeled and dated.Ernas's Braids-Cut 1946-Age 12 Years

My mother's response to me shrieking and running into the kitchen to show her?

"Get rid of them! I couldn't wait to get those cut off so I could look like everybody else!"

One of the stories my mother would tell about her childhood in the Bronx was about getting teased and getting her hair pulled. These braids are about two feet long. Now I understand why she was such an easy target!

I've never felt disembodied human hair before. It is an eery experience to touch them. The hair feels alive, it feels like what a twelve-year-old girls hair should feel like. It’s smooth, thick and shiny. It even has a little curls on the ends.

I asked my mother, "Is this normal?" She answered,"No! Just get rid of them!"

She had absolutely no interest and barely even looked at them.

I threw them in the vintage 1960's Pan Am flight bag which was found in some other cluttered corner of the apartment. The apartment is now looking more like a "pack mouses" apartment, it is slightly less cluttered. It took me four days to clear out one small closet, two dressers, two side tables and a chest. Four days!

And, by the way, she didn't want her old dolls or just about anything else to do with her childhood, so it all got toted home to Brooklyn in the Pan Am bag.

Related posts:
Note to self:Do not be a pack rat
The Pope

Found in Queens

I took another trip out to Queens where I spent the day attempting to clear out my Grandmother's apartment with my folks. I just want to say, everything that Queens Crap says about Flushing is absolutely true. I believe it all started 20 odd years ago when U-HAUL put their giant sign in front of the old clock tower building, obscuring the clock. You see it right before you go into the tunnel to Main Street and I curse it every single time. It's criminal. It's like Flushing's bad feng-shui beacon of doom.

Anyway, as I mentioned before about the situation at my Grandmother's apartment, the woman was a total pack rat. I spent about five hours in one corner of her bedroom. it looked a little different when I left, but not much! I didn't find an unused Merv Griffin ticket like last time but interestingly enough I found a postcard of my local beer supplier Thrifty Beverage Center in Cobble Hill. It's still there on Court Street & Kane. It looks like it's from the early 1960's. I am beyond asking why she had this or anything else in her apartment. I'm imagining she probrably was in Brooklyn for jury duty and took a stroll down Court Street. She saw the Thrifty Beverage Center and just had to go in and of course bring home a souvenir of her visit!Here are some other great postcards I found. She had tons. I imagine she went to these places on weekend bus trips or something.These are two of the "Three Little Bakers", that's Nick and Hugo, Al was probrably dead at this point if you are wondering why there are only two. They scare me a little, my grandfather was pastry chef and he never felt the need to incorporate baking and dinner theater!The "Famous" Smorgasbord at Woodloch Pines Lodge in Hawley, PA!This scene looks scarey and cold, note the mean looking woman is wearing a full on coat and fur hat.And of course, The Pope! I mentioned before that I was finding newspaper clippings and photos of the Pope everywhere. Didn't matter which Pope, as long as he was The Pope. There was definitely an obsession there. I guess if she were born in a different era she would she'd be worshipping rock stars instead.

Note to self: Do not be a pack rat.

The daunting task of clearing out my Grandmother’s packed to the gills apartment in Queens has begun recently.

My parents and I worked non-stop for hours and didn’t even make a dent. I think we all started having panic attacks at the seventh hour when we realized that this could take months. She kept every cancelled check, every receipt, every letter, every postcard, every birthday card and every Valentine. I learned that she had several male Valentine’s in her older years that all seemed to be nuts about her (very sweet). She actually remarried when she was in her 70’s to Francis, a U.S. W.W II veteran of the Normandy invasion whom was also an immigrant to NY from Europe. He was from Lyon, France.

I found drawings I did when I was two years old, maps of the 1964 World’s Fair, programs to every concert she ever went to, egg noodles in a suitcase, cereal boxes in the TV cabinet, newspaper clipping of the Pope, tons of issues of the “Queens Courier” and this!Merv Griffin passed away the same day as Oma so it was a bit ironic to find this mixed in with all the papers. “Gentlemen” were required to wear a jacket and tie and “Ladies” were to wear dresses in order to attend the show. I wonder why she didn't go?

Gone to that great opera in the sky.......

Maria Therese Weidinger
October 6, 1913 - August 12, 2007

As I mentioned in a previous post my grandmother or “Oma” as my family called her was nearing the end of her life, she passed away this past Sunday afternoon. They say you can’t pick your family but if I could I would have most definitely picked her. She was one of those groovy older women that you see in NYC at concerts and events. She took me on many adventures throughout my childhood and beyond and it was not an odd thing for a friend to tell me, “oh I was at that concert in Central Park and saw Oma” everybody called her “Oma”, related or not!

She arrived here alone at the age of 16 speaking no English, her first home was on Carroll St. in Park Slope at a school to train girls to become nannies (I think it might have been the Berkeley Carroll School) and then lived in every borough of NYC except Staten Island. She spent the last 55 years of her life in Flushing, Queens in her own apartment. More than a grandmother she was a friend to me and I will miss calling her up and talking about the news of the day both politically and culturally. She loved New York City and kept her subscription to "New York" magazine and her german accent until the end!

This is something my mother, Erna Cunningham has written about her. Oma was "Mama" to her.

My mother, Maria, was born in a hospital in Munich during turbulent times. War was brewing as European nations were building vast armies and setting up allies. The young couple settled in the nearby village of Planegg where two subsequent children were born at home but died in infancy. The loss saddened her since she would have enjoyed having a brother and sister.

The deprivation of the war years on 1914-1918 made a lasting impact on young Maria. As a 5 year old, Maria remembers walking 8 miles from Munich where her mother and she were visiting her aunt, where a political crisis caused the trains to stop running. When inflation being rampant, she remembers her father bringing home his pay in a shoebox. The Quakers from America supplied them with lunches of turnips and oatmeal when there was little food.

Nevertheless, Maria developed a cheerful nature, a deep faith in God plus an energetic personality, which gave her confidence to be capable of anything. She grabbed the opportunity to come to America when a cousin of my grandmother’s offered the sponsorship.

My mother was aboard ship, crossing the Atlantic on October 29, 1929 when the stock market crashed. She arrived at a time when jobs became scarce and immigrants were definitely not wanted. Undaunted, she conquered numerous obstacles and reached her goal of becoming a nurse, then helping my father in their chocolate business and eventually retired from a 30 year career from Chase Manhattan Bank at 1 Chase Plaza in Wall Street.

During that time she greatly enriched my life by taking advantage of the many wonderful places of New York City: parks, museums, historical sites plus attending plays and concerts. During the summer while I was a preteen, Maria worked as a nanny to suburban families while the parents took a vacation. She was able to get me out of the city in this way. Dedication to the USA was demonstrated as we rarely missed a New York City Parade – The grandest parades being a WAR Bond Drive with numerous celebrities participating and the Welcome to General Eisenhower at the end of WW II.

Pope John was a favorite of hers – she saw him coming to the 1965 World’s Fair. Our family shook hands with David Rockefeller when Chase had a 10th Anniversary Party at 1 Chase Plaza.

Since my father was a pastry chef working weekends and odd hours and we had no other relatives, my mother and I became a very close team. “Where there is a will, there is a way”, was her favorite dictum”. Maria’s social contacts developed into lifelong friends and she still corresponds with schoolmates in Germany and now even their children. She reveled in the progress of her 4 grandchildren, 6 great grandchildren, in-laws and extended family.

They all no doubt have their favorite story to tell about Maria or Oma.

In closing, I’m sure Maria would like to say “thank you” to each of you for the special pleasures you have given her. Her sharp interest in life never waned.

This is my Oma in my apartment on Bond Street this past Thanksgiving, yup at age 94 she climbed that long steep flight of stairs!

My work ethic is out of control.

Can I talk about my day? This day that there was a flood somewhere and the subways were not running (I still haven’t listened to the news about the WHY this happened).Can I vent?

I had to be at work fairly early at 8 am. I awoke to rain and it felt cool but I checked the weather and it said it would go up to 95 degrees! So I dress loose and comfortable, head up to the Carroll St. station and notice way more people waiting for the train than usual. I learn that here is no train. Not one to wait for a crowd I notice the bus coming up Smith Street and it’s pretty empty so I jump on it. I make it to Jay Street and still “no trains”. I decide rather than wait for the trains to run in Brooklyn to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. People are streaming in both directions. I get to the subway directly across from the bridge on the Manhattan side, still, no trains. I continue walking. I get to Canal Street. The trains are running. The trains are hot and packed. I get to work late, but I am there by 9:30 am. I had an early start. I am basically a slave to people from San Francisco who are just here for the week. I set up and manage their “home textiles” showroom, which is a large space with about twenty beds set up. The beds are piled high with comforters and decorative pillows that the "bed stylists" spent an entire week prepping to make them look this way. I want to lie down but can't. They have no concept of what my morning was like. They are all upset that they couldn’t get a cab 15 blocks from their hotels. Any person from NYC (i.e.: all the “service people”) that I tell I walked in the heat this morning from Brooklyn are like “your kidding, your crazy!” (they are working overtime from the nightshift because the day people haven't gotten in yet due to the transportation problem) The Californians don’t touch their catered lunch because there are too many carbs and I distribute it to all to all the maintenance people in the building, the UPS man, the Fed Ex guy and the to the people on the street when I leave. They have no idea. They are in their bubble of pampered fabulousness. After work I take a bus downtown dazed. I watch all the overheated people sweating on the street from this air conditioned box. Buses can be great for zoning out if you are not in a hurry. I had time to kill. I was meeting a friend in the east village I hadn’t seen in ages. I was supposed to do my “thing with the kids” tonight (I teach art to “at risk kids” in the east village) but it was cancelled due to the MTA madness.

SO I got a pedicure cause my feet were on fire, it was more about soaking them in hot water than anything else. They were still on fire afterwards but they look good and it’s still hot as hell outside. I had a drink at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark's and First Avenue.It was cool and dark in there and all the booths are empty. Exactly where I needed to be. The old Polish man is still there from when I was a teenager, God bless him, he doesn’t look good, but after my hellacious day it was great to see him.

Anyway I haven’t been posting lately because my “Oma” (aka Grandmother) is deathly ill. She is 94 years old and has been living alone in her apartment in Queens up until this point. She is in a hospice and is taking it day by day. She is still lucid but her body is shutting down. I find it hard to be interested in all the happenings in Brooklyn at the moment. The developments keep on developing but I am glad that the city has FINALLY questioned just what the hell Joe Sitt is planning for Coney Island. Relief.

I was visiting Oma the other day and my sister Eileen started telling her about what is happening in my neighborhood. 94 and all my Grandmother totally got what is wrong with the situation, “where will people live?” she said, meaning the REAL people, The people who made the neighborhoods the reason the condo people want to move here. Where are the "service workers" like me and like her before me going to go? I am getting weary of worrying about stuff like this. It's a very real situation that I can't seem to get away from.