In my last post, I took exception to an article blaming British baby boomers for their children forsaking gardening. I still stand by my point that each generation is different from every other generation, but I also note that certain interests and talents are passed along. A case in point: the pleasure I get from taking care of the garden I certainly got from my father.
When I was a young girl, my father spent his free time in the backyard planting and weeding. He grew beautiful roses and peonies, placing cucumbers among the flowers, so they would not be noticeable. He cultivated tomatoes on the far side of the detached garage, frequently checking on them, as they turned from green to red and ripe.
I recently went back to the family history my husband and I had written for my parents’ anniversary to see what we had said about my father’s favorite pursuit. My mother remembered that he “spent from early spring to late fall out in the yard blissfully gardening.” I recollected a few incidents, including one spring, long after I had left home, when he had discovered that a migrating bird had laid her eggs in one of his larger flower pots. What could he do, despite his lack of patience, but wait for the ducklings to hatch and fly the coop? My dad, a hardworking businessman, never mentioned his outdoor activities at all.
Do you spend your time in the garden? Do you have a favorite flower? What about your parents? Why not write about it? As English author P.G. Wodehouse remarked, “Flowers are happy things.” And they bring back wonderful memories.
© 2016 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
A recent article from The Times, a British daily newspaper, deplores the state of the English garden. It seems that younger generations have never learned the joy of weeding and planting. Their gardens, if a patio or barbeque pit hasn’t replaced them, are neglected. A spokesperson for the Royal Horticultural Society is quite concerned about the situation, as well she should be.
Photo in public domain.
English gardens have a long and illustrious tradition. Landscape gardens, designed to represent an idyllic pastoral environment, date back to the early eighteenth century. They incorporate rolling hills, green grass, possibly a lake, and a scattering of classic structures, such as bridges and sculpture.
Cottage gardens, hosting vegetables and herbs, as well as flowers and perhaps a beehive and some livestock, originated even earlier, dating from Elizabethan times. Over the centuries they became more decorative than practical, informal rather than structured, and populated the countryside. Roses tied to wooden trellises were a common sight. Honeysuckle added its sweet scent to the mix.
Why are English gardens dying out? One explanation is that renters, rather than owners, don’t invest in the property where they reside, and there are a lot of renters these days. Another explanation put forth in the article from The Times lays the blame squarely on baby boomers for their failure to teach their children, now in their twenties, thirties, and forties, to nurture nature. “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade,” wrote Rudyard Kipling.
Still, why blame baby boomers, if a drive in the country isn’t what it used to be? I maintain that each generation, shaped by the social, cultural, and political events that occur in its lifetime. is different from every other generation. We shouldn’t forget what made us who we are, but the past shouldn’t dictate who we become.
© 2016 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
A few years ago I worked with Marie Rudisill on her life history. If the name sounds familiar, Marie has a couple of claims to fame. She was the aunt of Truman Capote, and she helped raise him in Monroeville Alabama, whenever his mother dropped him off on her way to New Orleans. She is also known as “The Fruitcake Lady” from her appearances on The Tonight Show in Jay Leno.
Marie’s book is labeled a memoir, but it is also a personal story, a family tale, an account of all the places Marie laid down roots after she left home.
Photo by: Daniel Mennerich
Wherever Marie lived, she found a community. During the 1930s, she lived in New York City to be near her older sister Lillie Mae and her nephew Truman. Of the Big Apple she comments, it “didn’t have one of anything. My goodness, no. There was not just one square, skyscraper, movie house, art museum, science museum, park, playground, hotel, restaurant, deli, diner, dance hall, concert venue, night club, racetrack, bowling alley, outdoor market, or department store, but lots of everything to suit just about everyone.”
Marie made her home in Greenwich Village, of which she writes, “Greenwich Village, in particular, was a real melting pot of Italians, Germans, Poles, Africans, and Jews. They were mostly of an older generation who had immigrated to American through Ellis Island, but they peacefully co-existed with the painters, writers, and intellectuals of the next generation. Into the mix were young, single, working professionals who were attracted by the neighborhood’s low rents and Bohemian lifestyle. In the summertime everyone gathered on the front stoop looking for a breeze to cool off, but there wasn’t much relief from the humidity, even after the sun had set. When the weather turned cold and nasty we took refuge in the tearoom and coffee shops.”
On a personal level, Marie notes, “The best thing about the Village was its friendly atmosphere, and it attracted lots of Southerners. With my pronounced Southern accent, as strong as it ever was, I had always felt like I stuck out. In the Village I fit right in.”
When she married, she moved with her husband to the Carolinas. Of Charlotte, she writes, “Another thing about Charlotte is that the people are so damn nice. They truly are…. Neighbors know each other and talk to each other… In Charlotte, when a new family moved into the neighborhood, we welcomed them with a fresh meringue pie. That custom is still true, unless we’re talking about Northerners who haven’t learned to mind their p’s and q’s. Them we’ll ice up. Southerners can be very clannish.”
Marie saves her bon mots for Florida, where she retired to be near her son. She never really appreciated the Sunshine State, and she writes, “It is not a Southern state, not to me. It has no history, no civility, no gentility. It’s all flip flops, short shorts, and hairy legs.”
What is community? One simple definition is that it’s a social unit that shares common values, resources, and preferences. Those in a community take risks together, and they benefit from taking those risks – together.
Community can be a part of a life or family history. It says something about where you lived and when you grew up. Why not write about it?
© 2016 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
Photo by: Susan Marg
I’m awash in nostalgia, thanks to my local newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. First, it was an article on pay phones, which they called a “relics of a not-so-distant past.” Another article noted Elvis’ decline on the Vegas Strip.
When I was doing research for my book Las Vegas Weddings, I can assure you that Elvis impersonators or, if you prefer, tribute artists were everywhere. On one trip to the City of Lost Wages, my husband and I saw a different Elvis performing five nights in a row – downtown, on the Strip, headlining concerts, and doing stand up in casino lounges. They were all terrific. So, too, were the guys in the wedding chapels.
While the number of tribute artists in town has been constant over the last several years, there’s a lot of competition for fewer gigs. Elvis-themed shows aren’t pulling in the crowds. Viva Elvis, a Cirque du Soleil production, closed in 2012 after two years at the Aria. In comparison, Mystère, the original Cirque du Soleil production, is going strong at Treasure Island two decades after it first opened. “Graceland Presents: Elvis the Exhibition” closed less than a year into a ten-year contract.
It’s not clear what is causing the fallout in fandom. It’s possible that there was not enough Elvis and too many acrobats in the first show mentioned above, and a landlord/tenant dispute disrupted the later at the Westgate Las Vegas. By the way, Westgate was originally the International, where Elvis began his long-running comeback in 1969.
All is not lost, however, unless you’re a runner-up at the three-day Tribute Artist Contest at Sam’s Town on the Boulder Highway this July. Rooms are still available.
© 2016 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
I’m so glad that my post on pay phones stirred up some old memories. Here’s a comment, another post, really, from my friend Brian G. Be sure to check out his links, especially the YouTube video on the last visitors to the Mojave phone booth. Once located off the beaten track and miles from any building, Pacific Bell removed it in 2000.
Photo by: Thomas
Hello, Susan:
When I was a junior and senior in HS, I worked at Al’s French Fries in Essex Junction, Vermont. It was started by Al and Genevieve Rusterholz immediately after WWII. They converted the lower part of their house into a burger joint. Until McDonald’s came to town in the late 60s, they were the only local fast food place outside of Burlington.
Well, we had a phone booth nearby – the type that had the nickel, dime, and quarter coin slots on top. Earlier I learned from a friend that you could get a dime call for a penny dropped in the nickel slot. Immediately after dropping the penny, the trick was to slam the coin return plunger with the palm of your hand. Sometimes it took 3 or 4 tries to get the familiar “Ding-Ding,” but it worked!
That came in handy one night after I closed at 10:00 pm and cashed up. Unfortunately my Dad had fallen asleep and neglected to pick me up and it was now midnight. As I walked across the RR tracks, I found a penny. Shortly thereafter, I made that call and the rest is history.
Thanks for the memory! For a western twist, check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_phone_booth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aor3edQpaDk
Brian G.
PS – The original Coke tabs were a bang-up substitute for dimes in the parking meters. The raw inventory was everywhere. Simply separate the ring from the tab, quick file the corners, and you were good to go for hours and hours…
We all pay for our phones. And, boy, do we pay. But in the not so distant past, there was a special type of phone called a pay phone. These phones were coin-operated: you put your dime or quarter or dimes and quarters in the appropriate slot, and dialed. A telephone card or a credit or debit card worked, too.
Photo by: Mark Mathosian
These phones were everywhere – airports, train stations, and bus stops. On street corners they were housed in phone booths, making them the perfect place for Clark Kent to change into Superman.
Well, their time has passed. Yes, they’re still around, but their number is not even close to their peak when there were over two million in service as recently as the turn of the century, that’s this century, sixteen years ago. Today, the number is just a quarter of a million.
An article in the San Diego Union Tribune this past Sunday brought on this nostalgia. When I was at AT&T, a colleague of mine was responsible for creating awareness of pay phones, and I think of her often. Billboards in airports across the country announced their availability. AT&T got out of the business in 2009, canceling their pay phone contracts and disconnecting service.
Thank goodness for cell phones, no matter how much they cost.
© 2016 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
Charles de Lint writes novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, and lyrics. He has a distinctive style, incorporating American and European folklore into his urban fantasies. I want to thank Chris White at Routine Matters for inspiring us with this great quote.
The Fusco Brothers by J.C. Duffy
I’m looking ahead. We’re now into March, and April showers (we hope, here in Southern California) will soon be here. There are lots of things to celebrate this time of year.
For example, April is National Humor Month. Seriously. It’s also Stress Awareness Month. That’s perfect, isn’t it, as laughter can help relieve what ails you. Just don’t let anyone make a fool of you on the first.
During the month there are special days to honor school librarians, Girl Scout leaders, and barbershop quartets. There is an entire week for administrative assistants.
We also recognize some of our favorite foods, including peanut butter and jelly, jelly beans, pretzels, prime rib, and shrimp scampi.
May is Personal History Awareness Month, a personal favorite of mine. So you have some time to think about what makes a day, a week, a month special to you. Then write about it!
© 2015 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
Photo by: Lumeimages.com
Patricia Arquette has had an interesting life. While growing up, her family lived for a time on a commune. As a child, she refused braces for her teeth, as she thought her flaws would make her a better actress. From starting in the movies in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) to winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among other awards, for BoyHood (2014), she also has had star turns on television in Medium (2005-2011) and now on CSI: Cyber. Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all performers, and her siblings are in the business. Now she’s going to write about it.
Arquette has inked a contract with Random House for her book, although a release date has not yet been set. Of her new endeavor she says, “Writing a memoir is a lot of different things. It’s illuminating, painful, interesting and strange. … It’s very personal and a big challenge.”
Are you up for the challenge?
© 2015 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
Photo by: © lucidwaters
Is it too soon to look back at the Eighties? I don’t think so. It was an interesting time, a period of ups and downs and ins and outs through thick and thin. And we survived. How did you survive? Why not write about it?
- Off to a good start. Minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President on January 20, 1981, Iran released the fifty-two Americans who had been held hostage for 444 days.
- But there was a recession. With the Federal Reserve tightening money to curb inflation, which had peaked in April 1980 at 14.76%, the U.S. recession began in July 1981. Unemployment was 7.6%, rising to 9.7% before the recession ended the following year. Still, we made money. The Dow Jones Industrial average began the decade at 838.74 and ended at 2,753.20, coming out way ahead of Black Monday in 1987, when the market lost 22.6% of its value, falling 508 points to 1,738.74.
- Dirty little secrets always come out. The decade had its share of scandals. The Iran-Contra affair reeled the Reagan Administration. The Gary Hart/Donna Rice affair shook politics. The ban of Pete Rose from baseball hit the sports world hard. Milli Vanilli’s lip synching rocked music fans. Coca Cola kept secret its recipe for the syrup that is the basis for its soda, but deigned to change it to “the new taste in Coke.” It fell flat. Pepsi had its own calamity when Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire while filming a Pepsi commercial.
- Moonwalk to the music. Of all the music videos we watched on MTV, and there were a lot of them from our favorite musicians, Michael Jackson moonwalking to “Billie Jean” from his Thriller album got into our heads. From the same album Jackson danced to “Beat It” and “Thriller.” The zombie sequence from the later has been reenacted from Times Square to Hollywood and Highland. We learned Jackson’s moves and recited his words, so we’d always be in step. While Frank Sinatra wore a hat with style, no one did more for a black fedora — or one white glove — than Michael Jackson.
- More stations, more of the time. We watched a lot of television in the Eighties, and not just MTV on cable. Dallas was the first of the primetime soap operas, spawning Knots Landing, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest – I watched them all. In the fall of 1980, the resolution of the Dallas cliffhanger that had ended the third season generated 83 million viewers, more than the number of voters in that year’s presidential election. Just about everyone wanted to know who shot J.R.
- Talk a little. Talk a lot. In 1987, the National Association of Broadcasters bestowed the Peabody Award on Johnny Carson in honor of his 25th anniversary hosting The Tonight Show. Joan Rivers, David Letterman, and Jay Leno were favored guest hosts, going on to their own late night talk shows. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey’s show went into national syndication in 1986 and soared in the ratings during daytime.
- Tennis, everyone? It didn’t matter if baseliners were playing serve-and-vollyers on hard court, clay court, or grass court. We loved rooting for our favorite tennis player of the decade, of which there were many greats of the game, as they came out swinging, taking on their rivals, wooing crowds, and becoming household names. Leading the men, there was Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, and Ivan Lendl. The women were just as popular and included Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Steffi Graf. And then along came Monica Seles.
- Here come the brides. A lot of famous couples got married in the Eighties. Some of them are still together, including Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan. Others didn’t make it, such as Madonna and Sea Penn, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. And then there was Prince Charles and Diane Spencer. An estimated global television audience of 750 million watched their 1981 fairytale wedding. Yet for sheer spectacle, nothing was more remarkable than the mass wedding conducted by the Reverend Rev Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church. The gathering of 2,075 couples, brides and grooms dressed in identical outfits at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1982, was a sight to behold. Moon matched the couples himself, often pairing differing races and nationalities, in his belief that all of humanity should be united. A church spokesman puts the divorce rate for the blessed at a mere 25%, which, if true, is better than the national average.
- Women first. The Eighties saw a number of firsts for women. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. Geraldine Ferraro, as Walter Mondale’s running mate, was the first woman on a national ticket. Aretha Franklin was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- The walls come crumbling down. “Tear down this wall,” President Reagan pronounced in 1987. And two years later the Berlin wall came down. Back at home, unemployment was at 5.3%, and inflation, too, had decreased dramatically, falling to 4.65%. And we cheered.
© 2015 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved
Your Biography 2 