josh pincus is crying

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “forward”.

When my parents gave me my first box of crayons and a blank drawing pad, they had no idea I would turn it into a career. I majored in art in high school and attended a vocational art school after spending a year in the retail world and realizing that I was better suited for a more creative profession. After earning my degree, I became the art director for a small chain of ice cream stores in the Philadelphia area. This was a great opportunity for a young graduate and I was anxious to let my imagination and school-acquired skills loose on the world. After a year, the company eliminated their in-house art department (of which I was the sole member) and I was out of a job. I soon began the gruelling course of a freelance artist. I filled-in at a few production houses* doing paste-up for newspapers and other various publications. In between jobs, I concentrated my efforts on finding full-time employment, as I was newly-married with a child on the way. I checked the “Help Wanted” section of the newspaper on a daily basis, but the “artist” listings were usually short and limited to painter’s assistant jobs and counter help at quick-copy service stores. I maintained contact with some classmates and my art school’s placement office for job leads, but the pickings were slim.

One morning, I circled an ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It seemed an ad agency on the prestigious Main Line section of suburban Philadelphia was seeking an artist/designer. I called the number and spoke briefly to a female voice who made arrangements for me to come in for an interview this upcoming Saturday evening. I thought it was an odd day and time for an interview, but who was I to question? I needed a job. With only one car, my wife drove me and my small portfolio of printed samples of my work out to — what would hopefully be — my new job location.

After consulting a map (remember, this was the days before the Internet and the GPS), we navigated the streets. Surprisingly, we arrived in a residential neighborhood, not an office building as I had expected. Checking the address again, we pulled up to the curb in front of a modest house surrounded by other similar-looking houses. I, in my suit and tie, walked up to the front door and rang the door bell. I half-expected that I was at the wrong location, but when an expressionless woman opened the door and greeted me with “You must be Josh,” I knew this must be the place. I entered her home and was directed to the dining room table. The woman introduced herself as Zimra Chorney — slightly older than I with unkempt, curly hair and clipped, bird-like features — and asked to see my portfolio. I had been on many interviews since my recent entry into the art business, but most (if not all) had been conducted in an office or a working design studio. I unzipped my small leather case and opened it to face my inquisitor. Silently, she turned the protective plastic pages of newspaper ads, ice cream promotional flyers and the occasional illustration. She examined my work through squinted, judgemental eyes set in her vacant face. Zimra reached the final page and closed the back cover. She then turned to a shelf and removed several folded pieces of solid-colored card stock. Her claw-like hands opened one of the folded pieces to reveal a black-and -white printed advertisement for, what appeared to be, a bakery.

“This,” Zimra began, “is the sort of promotional work we do.” and she gently tossed a few similar pieces in my direction. (“We,”  I thought as I cautiously looked around, “Who is ‘we’ “? ) I opened one of the cards and skimmed the content. The outside of the brochure was solid, glossy magenta with no type or art whatsoever. Inside, it was very wordy with some small illustrations of birthday cakes and cupcakes spaced throughout, failing in their attempt to comfortably break up the over-abundance of descriptive text. I could tell the other brochures that I left unopened on the table were similar, the outside color being the only variance. I feigned a smile at the brochures and nodded, but offered no comment or criticism. That was good, because Zimra had plenty to say in the criticism department.

She stood across the table from me and expounded on the lack of professionalism of my work. She explained that my work was weak and of poor quality and content. She displayed one of her brochures, looked lovingly at the piece and, injecting a haughty tone into her speech,  said “This is more along the lines of the type of high-quality and professionalism we seek and expect.”  As she spoke, she caressed the folds of the brochure and ran her bony fingers along the glossy ink of the cover.

“In a few years, if your talent and abilities are more developed, we may be interested.,” she said, using the royal “we” once again. Zimra escorted me to the door and showed me out. I don’t even remember walking down to my car. My wife asked how things went and, by the bewildered look on my face, her question was answered.

Jumping forward a few years, I had produced a body of work of which I was quite proud. I had redesigned the mastheads of several newspapers and magazines. I had created adverting pieces for such varied companies as Motorola, Holiday Inn, an East coast chain of turnpike rest stops and some major area department stores. I worked closely with an advertising agency, where I single-handedly designed and produced an annual plumbing supply catalog. I briefly entered the publishing industry, where I maintained a roster of no less than twenty-five newsletters and dozens of books. I ran the creative end of a real estate ad agency. I returned to the world of retail advertising and became the art director for a local chain of carpet and flooring stores whose headquarters was on the Main Line.

One day, on my way to work, I stopped for coffee at a Wawa convenience store on Montgomery Avenue. (Wawa is a very popular spot in the Philadelphia area for a quick bite, great coffee and that forgotten quart of milk or loaf of bread on your way home. And it’s much cleaner and friendlier than 7-11.) The coffee service area was bustling and crowded, as is normal for a workday morning at Wawa. I filled a 20 ounce cup with java, cream and one Sweet ‘n Low. I dodged a female employee who was wiping up a spill at the counter with a dingy, gray rag. As I made my way to the checkout to pay for my purchase, the same female employee jumped behind a cash register to help handle to overflow of customers. She wore the standard Wawa-issued visor to corral her unkempt, curly hair. The dark brown of her apron could not adequately hide the stains that peppered the front of the garment. She looked familiar, too. The name badge affixed to her apron’s shoulder strap was emblazoned with ”ZIMRA” in big. black letters.

As the customers before me, one-by-one, paid for their selections, I fixed my gaze on the woman who once belittled me for my lack of talent and professionalism. This woman, who just a few short years ago insulted the quality of my work, was now wearing a dirty apron, sopping up spilled coffee and running a cash register in a convenience store. The last time I held a job in the same range as this, I was eighteen years old.

My turn to pay had come and I happily tendered a buck to Zimra — who didn’t acknowledge me, just as she didn’t acknowledge me those many years earlier.

I walked out of that Wawa and I never saw Zimra Chorney again. My career as a professional artist has continued to flourish and I have learned, grown and improved with each subsequent job I have taken. My initial meeting with Zimra taught me a lesson, but not the lesson she wanted to teach. My second meeting taught me more. Do I ever wonder what ever became of Zimra Chorney? Honestly, I don’t give a shit.

* In the days before computers, desktop publishing and the Internet, printed materials - such as newspapers, books, and brochures - were produced and assembled by hand, in a tedious, time-consuming process called “paste-up” that involved X-acto knifes, heated adhesive wax, typeset galleys, rulers, border tape and non-reproductive blue pens.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “highlight”.

When I was a kid in the early 1960s, a trip to the family doctor was a dreaded thing. I did my best to hide every sniffle or stomachache, lest I be subjected to some poking and prodding from that creepy, bespectacled guy with the stethoscope around his neck and the unnaturally cold hands. A hard tongue depressor down the throat or the possibility of some sort of needle didn’t add favorably to the experience. The only glimmer of joy involved with a doctor’s visit was the promise of a few minutes perusing the pages of Highlights for Children.

While my mom thumbed through an old issue of Good Housekeeping  or Redbook,  I would eagerly select a copy of Highlights for Children  from several strewn across a low table in the waiting room. Then, I would happily bide my time trying to figure out “what’s wrong with this picture” in a drawing on the back cover. Inside, the issue was jammed with jokes and riddles, a page of hidden objects camouflaged throughout a jungle scene, the continuing adventures of the oddly-drawn Timbertoes family and my favorite — Goofus and Gallant.

Goofus and Gallant were two young boys who offered lessons in manners and responsibility through their contrasting actions. As their descriptive names indicated, Goofus was the self-centered, selfish sneak with no consideration for family and classmates. Gallant was the cheerful, helpful little priss who regularly earned praise from adults and was often named “Teacher’s Pet”. The lessons that Goofus and Gallant taught in the 60s were geared toward completing homework or sharing your toys.

I haven’t seen an issue of Highlights for Children  in nearly four decades, as my wife usually took our son to the pediatrician when he was little. (He made it a point to get sick after I had already left for work.) I imagine the subject matter for Goofus and Gallant had to change with the times, while becoming more direct in its approach. Here’s how I envision Goofus and Gallant today…

Click illustration  for a larger version.

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A footnote to this post:
This time last year, I made a resolution to create one million illustrations in 2011.
I fell 999,851 short.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “separated”.

My mother’s parents ran an antique store not far from their home at Fourth and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia. In the summer months, they operated a bath house on the boardwalk in the seaside resort of Wildwood, New Jersey. In addition, eighteen years separated my mother from her oldest sibling. Needless to say, “family time” was a rare event. While the three older brothers were out doing “adult things”, my mother and her older sister were left in the very capable hands of Minnie Ellis, or as my mother affectionately called her “My Minnie”. Minnie was technically “the housekeeper”, but she was much, much more. She was cook, baby-sitter, playmate, disciplinarian, teacher and friend. With my grandparents’ overwhelming responsibilities of running one business (and five months out of the year, two businesses), Minnie was the perfect parental supplement. She earned the love and respect of my mother and her family, so much so, that she was viewed as part of the family herself.

One day, my mother at around eight or nine years old, arrived home after school. She found Minnie in the kitchen preparing that evening’s meal. My mother spoke right up and caught Minnie by surprise.

“You’re black.”, my mother said.

“Am I?”, answered Minnie, not at all flustered by my young mother’s assertion, “Who told you that?”

“A boy at school. He said that you’re black and I’m white.”, my mother continued.

Minnie produced a bleached white, cotton dishcloth and draped it across my mother’s arm. “Hmmm”, she began and stroked her chin, ” this rag is white and you don’t look white. You look pink to me.” Then Minnie took off one of her shoes and aligned it with her own arm. She continued, “I sure don’t look like the color of this black shoe. I look brown.”

My mother observed the demonstration and understood Minnie’s message of how ridiculous the statement was. She momentarily felt ashamed, but then hugged and kissed Minnie and went on her way.

Years later, when my parents were dating, my mother met her future in-laws. My paternal grandparents were two textbook bigots, pure and simple in their ignorance and disdain for all people who they saw as “different”. After my parents’ wedding and brief honeymoon, they visited my father’s parents for the first time as husband and wife. Over dinner, they talked about the wedding and the guests. Then, my grandfather - my mother’s new father-in-law - said to my mother, “How could you bring yourself to kiss that…” and he used a horrible word, one that was at one time excised from copies of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer  but features prominently in the lyrics of many current rap songs. A word that is euphemistically known as “The N Word”. A word that made my mother cringe and nearly throw up. She looked at her father-in-law, staring at him with eyes like twin lasers, and through clenched teeth, slowly and deliberately said, “Don’t you ever  speak about ‘My Minnie’ that way. Ever!”  She pronounced each syllable as though each one was its own word. My grandfather, that ignorant man, got the point loud and clear. My mother had little to say to him (but plenty to say about  him) for the remaining fifteen years of his life.

In 1959, two years before I was born, my parents and my brother drove to Miami, Florida for a vacation. They loaded their packed suitcases and traveling provisons into my father’s brand new orange and white, tail-finned sedan and made their way South on Route 1.  (For years, my mother joked that my brother stood up in the back seat for the entire trip.) The journey predated the sleek concrete highways of Interstate I-95. Route 1 snaked though tiny, quaint burgs along the eastern seaboard. The pre-Josh  Pincus Family eagerly sampled the simple offerings of a culture that moved at a slower pace from the big-city bustle of Philadelphia. One afternoon, they pulled the car into Jessup, Georgia, as my mother was intrigued by the promise of authentic Southern cooking advertised on a sign several miles back. Since the area of commerce was fairly small, locating the eatery was easy and the Pincuses went in and prepared for a Dixie feast. According to my mother’s recollections, the “authentic” Southern cuisine consisted of small, dried-out pieces of chicken, canned vegetables and Pillsbury biscuits (recognized by Mom since she had made them countless times herself). During the meal, a large spider descended from the ceiling on a single strand of web and wiggled its many legs just inches from my mother’s nose.

Her appetite ruined, my mom sought salvation in the fresh air. My father unhappily paid the tab and followed my mother and brother to a gas station across the street. Figuring he’d fill the tank, he parked the car adjacent to one of the pumps and asked the attendant to “fill ‘er up”. My mother spotted a water fountain by the station’s office and felt a cleansing drink would wash away the remnants of the awful lunch. She pressed the button on the spout and leaned down, bringing her lips closer to the stream of water. Suddenly, a scream pierced the air.

“What are you doing???” A windburned man in overalls was rushing out of the office and yelling at my mother in a dry Southern accent.

“What am I doing?”, she asked, bewildered, “I’m getting a drink.”

The man pointed to the base of the fountain, specifically to two lines of words stenciled on the front. “That’s for colored only”, he said.

My mother stepped back and - sure enough - in large white letters, the words “Colored Only” were painted on the tank, reinforcing the same angry, hateful directive that the gas station man initiated. My mother was horrified. Horrified that this situation existed in her world. She said nothing as the man watched her back away from the fountain. She joined her family in the car and sat silently in the passenger’s seat for a good portion of the drive.

These incidents stayed with my mother her entire life and she related these stories quite often as lessons to my brother and me. The most important lesson my mother taught me was not to waste time giving an audience to stupidity.

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This week’s Illustration Friday inspirational word is “silent”.

“Now hurry down, baby she’s the hippest street in town!” - South Street by The Orlons (1963)

The Orlons sure knew what they were talking about in their 1963 hit “South Street”. By the time I started hanging out on Philadelphia’s South Street in the 70s, it was still  the hippest street in town. Compared to the mundane sameness of Northeast Philadelphia (where I grew up), South Street may as well have been on another planet. Weekdays on South Street, the unofficial southernmost boundary of “Center City Philadelphia”, were nothing special or even out of the ordinary. The street was lined with businesses and a moderate amount of shoppers and browsers strolled the sidewalks. Weekends were a different story. After struggling through class after boring class all week long in high school, South Street was the perfect destination for blowing off some steam.

At George Washington High School, in the hallway chaos between classes, plans were made with friends for the weekend. Someone was given the task of securing the use of Dad’s car for the night. As night fell on Saturday, that car would make the regular stops at the predetermined time and an unsafe amount of passengers would pile into the vehicle for the 30-minute drive to our local Xanadu.

South Street glittered under the streetlights. The few municipally-placed trees were laced with twinkling lights. Storefronts were lit with harsh neon giving the store’s window displays an ethereal glow and loud, cacophonous music blared from each open doorway. A peculiar blend of smells drifted from the varied eateries, mingling into a fusion that was alternately enticing and nauseating. The narrow, uneven sidewalks were packed with people — in a weird approximation to Logan’s Run— none under the age of 30. It was an all-out assault on our sheltered, Northeast Philly senses — and boy!  did we love it.

After storing the car in a relatively safe parking garage (where we all chipped in for the fee), our first order of business was food and our first stop was Frank’s Pizza at the 2nd Street corner of South Street. This cramped, unassuming joint was jammed with a knot of patrons that was “in the know”  about Frank’s oven-baked tomato and cheese manna. This was not the assembly line shit I was served from any number of mall food courts. This was a time-honored, secret recipe masterpiece that Frank’s nonna had perfected in the Old Country many years prior to her waving “Hello” to Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. We could have stayed all night at Frank’s gorging ourselves, but there was plenty to see out on South Street. Once sufficiently stuffed with pizza, we’d peruse the risque greeting cards (giggling at the overtly homoerotic images) at Keep In Touch  right next door. Then onto Zipperhead and Rosebud to marvel at the fashionably-ripped leopard-print pants our parents would never approve of our wearing.

It was on South Street I got my first taste of that unique form of entertainment — the busker, or street performer. South Street was dotted with its share of  wannabe musicians and singers. A barefoot guy in a floppy hat banging on an out-of-tune guitar would be wailing for handouts just a few feet from a waif-like young lady doing her best a capella  Joni Mitchell and a pony-tailed young man waving a fanned deck of playing cards urging passers-by to “pick one, any one”. Each had an upturned hat or unlidded cigar box placed before them for donations and each was having a modicum of success. There were even some performers, like local legend Waco Smith, who had some notoriety and a small fan base. (Waco, who passed away in 2001, encouraged a young G. Love to sing). In addition to the musical entrepreneurs, there were others who used other methods to hustle a buck or two. One in particular was Flower Man.

Flower Man was a mysterious figure of slight build, clad in a ratty, secondhand tuxedo. His face was daubed with stark white greasepaint and contrasting ruby red lips. He had a wooden tray strapped to his front, that displayed his wares — a surplus of deep red single roses and an unruly pile of pale yellow tissue paper. He prowled the corner of 4th and South, in the shadow of Copabanana and Jim’s Steaks, silently — almost telepathically — offering his floral commodities to the sidewalk-clogging crowds. Usually my excursions to South Street were dates (sometimes double or triple), so, for me,  a purchase from Flower Man was standard. Flower Man made a little spectacle for each transaction — carefully selecting the perfect rose, snipping stray leaves from its stem and wrapping it in tissue with exaggerated flourish — all the while leering seductively at the female half of the purchasing couple.

I made plenty of purchases (for plenty of girls) from Flower Man. When I was in art school in the early 80s, I used Flower Man as my inspiration for several projects. In an Experimental Medium class, I cut, glued, scored and folded a variety of papers into a colorful paper sculpture using Flower Man as the subject. In a Silk Screening class, I hand-stretched a screen and fashioned several stencils for each color of a print, again, with Flower Man as the focus. I was so pleased with the final results of the screened prints — a vivid, six-color, hand-pulled design enhanced by its presentation on black paper — that I gave a few as gifts to family members. I even gave one to Flower Man himself.

I got married almost immediately after graduating from art school. Our first few years of married life were spent in a two-story rented townhouse in Northeast Philadelphia. Soon, we were able to move into a beautiful, old twin home with hardwood floors and loads of character, just outside of the city. Mrs. Pincus and I filled our home with an array of quirky antiques and kitschy reminders of our youth. My wife frequented numerous flea markets and thrift shops searching for that elusive thing  that would look perfect in that empty corner of whatever room had an empty corner. One day, Mrs. Pincus went to idly examine the new arrivals at a Salvation Army store near our home. After roaming the aisles, she noticed it was approaching “pick-up” time at our son’s school, so she gathered her selections and proceeded to the cash register to pay. The customer ahead of her was discussing a large framed piece of art with the cashier.

“Do you know anything about this?”, the woman asked the volunteer cashier, as she held the frame out for inspection.

“No. No, I don’t.”, the cashier answered.

The woman turned the frame over so the art faced her and, sequentially, my wife. Mrs. Pincus’ eyes widened and she was hit by a jolt of recognition. The frame, in this woman’s hand, in this arbitrary Salvation Army store, held a print that I had created years earlier. It was a silk-screened print of Flower Man.

An “Oh my God” involuntarily slipped from my wife’s lips and then she said to the woman and cashier, “I know the artist. It’s my husband.”

The pair were dumbfounded (as was my wife). “Really?”, asked the woman, now quite intrigued, and she re-examined the piece with the assumed eye of a seasoned art collector. Then, she quickly turned to the cashier, paid for the framed print — my  print — and hurried out of the store.

I don’t know how that print found its way to that thrift shop. I don’t know why that woman anxiously purchased it and made a hasty exit.

Who knows? Maybe I’m a really famous artist.

Finally, my story must be told.

I have ranted… I mean, related  many anecdotes from my nearly thirty years as a professional artist. There’s one story that I have told numerous times, but have never put into print… until now.

I was employed for almost five years in the advertising department at the main headquarters of a major after-market auto parts retailer whose mascots are three big-headed Jewish guys, one of whom used to smoke cigars…. y’know which company of which I speak? Well, I worked with a group of other artists in a large, moldy, poorly-ventilated studio. We were a happy (and mostly) fraternal group. We were expected to be human machines, cranking out various versions of full-color weekly advertising circulars at unrealistic breakneck speed. The ads, which were essentially the same each week with the same three hundred products rearranged, were tedious, time-consuming projects. High importance was placed on accuracy and alacrity. Compensation was minimal in comparison to expected output. Our decisions were constantly undermined by the advertising executive committee who — as they say — didn’t know shit from shinola. But, we were artists and we were used to it.

One day, one of my co-workers had his lunch resting at the top of his desk, waiting for the noon hour to roll around. His choice for his afternoon repast was a selection from the Betty Crocker “Bowl Appetit” line of microwave meals. This was a relatively new product (at the time) and several of us artists were admiring the package design. The disposable plastic bowl was slipped into a cardboard sleeve. The front of the package — the side that would entice the customer when placed on a shelf — was split across the middle. The top half bore the familiar “Betty Crocker” logo and the words “Bowl Appetit” in big, friendly, italic letters. The bottom half featured a full-color photo of the freshly-prepared product; glistening noodles, velvety sauce, flecks of vegetables and just the slightest suggestion of steam. The two halves of the design were bisected by a rippled block of color with the specific flavor of the meal written out in the same, friendly type as the product name. The back side of the package depicted other available flavors (Fettuccine Alfredo, Three-Cheese Rotini, some chicken something-or-other) and a small sample of each one’s packaging, all immediately identifiable as part of the same product line.

Turning the package over again to the front, we saw something that caught our attention almost simultaneously. At the top, near the “B” in “Bowl” was a large, gaudy, blue banner trimmed in yellow. Within the banner, the proclamation “Great For Lunch” was emblazoned in searchlight yellow, in a typeface not used anywhere else on the package. It was blatantly out of place and downright ugly.  After some discussion, we artists theorized as to how this blemish made its way on to an otherwise well-designed, cohesive package.

We surmised that the creative packaging team at Betty Crocker were given the task to come up with an innovative design for a new product line. The group — layout artists, designers, computer graphics experts — all worked diligently. After several weeks and hundreds of designs, they emerged with a series of layouts and several prototypes. Each package was brilliant in its stand alone qualities as well as working as part of a series. Proudly, they made their presentation to the executive board in charge of research, development and some such bullshit. Suddenly, some out-of-touch, pencil-pushing, number-crunching dickhead stood up and questioned, “How will the consumer know you can eat this for lunch? It doesn’t say it anywhere! They may eat it for dinner or breakfast, but how will they know this would be good for lunch?” The other board members conferred, as this asshole looked at the artists and smiled smugly. Immediately, the design team was instructed to add the aforementioned, offending banner with the additional demand to “make sure it’s big”. The design team worked long hours to incorporate the new directive into their beautiful design.

And that clueless fuck went home and told his family, “I did package design today”.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “mysterious”.

On Saturday, I went to meet my son at a free concert at the Great Plaza on the Delaware River’s waterfront. Instead of driving and fighting for a parking space on a busy holiday weekend, I took the train into downtown Philadelphia. I disembarked at the Market East station and headed toward to 11th Street stop of the Market-Frankford subway. I passed through the turnstiles and waited on the platform for the next subway train to arrive. The station slowly welcomed more passengers — an interesting array of humanity, the majority of which I would, most likely, never ever see again for as long as I live. One man paced the tile floor — the full length of the station — several times with his head down and a determined gait. He muttered unintelligibly under his breath — the only word I could understand was “fuck” and each utterance rang out clear as a bell. He also looked straight at me on several passes of his confined journey. Two women in their twenties argued loudly and bitterly about “taking my fucking money, you bitch”,  but I didn’t hear the outcome, as they moved to the very end of the platform and their disagreement became muffled echoes. Finally, the train clattered along the tracks and hissed to a halt in the station. The doors whooshed open and, after a number of riders exited, I boarded with the other commuters.

The train rattled and shook until it rested briefly at 8th Street, its next scheduled stop. The doors opened and two men entered and sat down in a nearby double seat. One man was obviously older, and by the looks of his leathery, wind-burned skin, I’d say by about two hundred years. He was a husk of a human and it was as though his entire, intact skeleton had been extracted. He was bent over like a palm tree in a hurricane and a dirty T-shirt hung loosely from his withered upper torso. His pants were just as ill-fitting and rivaled his shirt in the cleanliest department. He did not wear a green and mesh Notre Dame baseball cap, so much as it was perched on the dome of his cranium. He sat and stared at a spot several inches in front of his crooked nose and his toothless mouth drooped agape at the base of his head.

The old-timer’s traveling companion was destined to evolve into a similar state as the old man in a few years time. His skin — or more precisely, his hide — had the appearance of scabby beef jerky. It was deeply wrinkled and looked like it belonged on a man twice his age. His hair, although close-cropped, was matted and unkempt and undoubtedly filthy. Upon first glance, his shirt displayed a pattern, but closer inspection merely revealed it to be an accumulation of stains. His shorts were threadbare and equally as grubby. His sinewy legs ended at a pair of lace-less sneakers. He fumbled with a bag from FYE (a nationwide chain of entertainment media stores, specializing in CDs and DVDs) and withdrew the last possible thing anyone would ever have imagined.

A DVD box set of a complete season of Little House on the Prairie.

The old man continued his blank stare into space, as the younger man methodically unwrapped the DVD. He removed the outer cardboard slipcase and carefully placed it in the bag. He opened the plastic box that housed and protected the DVDs. He examined the top disk, admiring the likeness of Michael Landon emblazoned on its surface and lifted the small descriptive booklet that accompanied the set from beneath the two clips that held it in place. He snapped the box shut and, as if he was about to study some fantastic literary tome, began to read the booklet from page one.

As I stared incredulously at this mysterious pair, a stream of questions poured into my head, including, but not limited to: “Where do these guys live?”, “Where do these guys work?”, “What did they wear on their job interview and how did they pass the interview process?”, “Which season of Little House on the Prairie  did he buy? The one where Mary went blind? The one where Almanzo has a stroke?”, “Which season did he love so much that he must own?… or perhaps he just heard about the show and this is his introduction.”, “Where will he watch the DVDs? At home? Does he have  a home? Does this guy, who can’t even keep his clothes clean, even own  a DVD player? … and, if so, what the hell kind of priorities does he have?”

The subway stopped at my destination. My questions remained unanswered. The mystery remained a mystery.

My wife’s grandmother turned 101 this past July. When I met her nearly thirty years ago, she was a feisty, strong-willed woman who called things as she saw them and took no shit from anyone. She came from humble beginnings in Russia and lived an even more humble existence upon her arrival in the United States. She single-handedly raised two children – and by “single-handedly”, I mean that she got absolutely no help from her perpetually out-of-work husband. Eventually, her husband, through some shrewd maneuvering, became prosperous and his latent financial success allowed her to enjoy the life she always longed for and certainly deserved. She doted on and cared deeply for her children, their ensuing spouses and subsequent children. She hosted elaborate Sunday dinners and made sure everyone was abundantly satisfied. She was generous to a fault, but she also enjoyed frequent gambling excursions to “the casinas” — as she called them — to win more money with which to be charitable.

My wife’s grandmother always held a special place in her heart for her grandchildren and that place grew larger as offspring multiplied with progeny of their own. With the birth of my son twenty-four years ago, the family welcomed the first great-grandchild of the generation. I began referring to my wife’s grandmother as “GG”, short for “great grandmother”. She approvingly responded to the nickname.

GG lived on her own until well into her 90s. She currently resides in a gracious assisted-living facility. Although her memory is failing with each passing day, her spunky spirit still regularly surfaces. She was lively and animated at her 100th birthday celebration last year, cracking wise in front of an audience of extended family and friends. More recently, she wandered into another resident’s room late one night and demanded that she “get the hell of my bed!” Lately, though, her pace has slowed, her recognition skills have diminished and her demeanor wavers between happy and terribly sad. After all, she is 101.

My wife’s cousin Cuz went to visit GG this past week, as she is his grandmother, too. He hadn’t seen her in a long while and arrived to find her in bed, quiet and melancholy. He brought her some ice cream — an all-time favorite — and it seemed to perk her up a bit, but GG was still despondent and detached. Cuz concluded his visit, kissed GG goodbye and went out to his car. On his way home to see his own family, he called his sister. Sis answered the phone in a harried manner, obviously preoccupied with plans and activities concerning her own two children. Cuz reported on GG’s status and suggested that Sis pay her a visit of her own. Sis hesitated, then said, “You mean now?  Can’t it wait until Friday?”

Cuz was silent for a moment, and then answered, “I don’t know, Sis. I’m not a doctor.”

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This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “obsession”.

Regular readers of my blog (all four of you) are already familiar with my obsession — the one aside  from drawing.

I love old movies, Hollywood scandals, obscure actors and actresses and stories of untimely demise. So, how do I satisfy all of those interests at one shot? I visit cemeteries, specifically the ones that are the eternal home to the famous, infamous and almost famous.

It all started on a trip to Cleveland to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After a full day of touring the museum (jammed with its share of tributes to famous dead people), my family and I ate dinner at the Cleveland branch of the Hard Rock Cafe restaurant chain. As is the case with touristy restaurants, the friendly waitress asked us the standard questions posed to out-of-towners —where we were from? how long are you in town? what have you visited? Then she recommended an unusual spot for sightseeing - Lake View Cemetery. She told us that it is the final resting place of James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States and one of eight presidents from Ohio. We finished our dinner, paid and headed back to our hotel - all the while intrigued at the thought of visiting a cemetery.

On our way home to Philadelphia, we stopped at Lake View. Without a map or guidance of any kind, we blindly drove the narrow, winding roads through the grassy expanses of headstones. Garfield’s grave is housed in a huge terra cotta decorated structure that stands tall above the grounds. In addition, Lake View is home to John D. Rockefeller, G-Man Eliot Ness and Ray Chapman, the only baseball player killed as a result of an injury received during a game. It was very cool.

And so it began, my death obsession became even more intensified.

You can see where my obsession has brought me (with my poor family, in tow) at these links:

• Things to do in LA when you’re dead - my first California cemetery trip
• Things to do in LA when you’re dead; part 2 - another California cemetery - one year later
• Things to do in New York when you’re dead - two cemeteries in upstate New York
• Thousands dead in The Bronx - a trip to one of New York City’s largest memorial parks
• Buried in my own backyard - two of the Philadelphia area’s oldest cemeteries
• A grave situation in Los Angeles - more celebrity graves in the Hollywood Hills
• How do you follow a Pez convention? - another large New York cemetery
• What’s buried in Vegas, stays in Vegas - more than just gambling in Sin City
• Yea, tho’ I walk through the San Fernando Valley of the Shadow of Death - a visit to one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Los Angeles
• Other Magic Kingdoms - visits to three of Orange County, California’s burial grounds
• Day (off) of the Dead - killing some time on a free day from work

Enjoy! I know I did.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “perennial”.

In the long-ago days when a band called Led Zeppelin still existed, when the mention of  The Rolling Stones entering a recording studio did not evoke an exasperated “eye roll” and Cat Stevens was singing about the joys of moonshadows instead of Jihad, a local stop on your favorite band’s concert tour came with the perennial regularity of Daylight Savings Time, the swallows triumphant return to Capistrano and a visit from Saint Nick. The unwritten agenda the majority of popular rock groups followed was to release an album and embark on a national publicity tour. Bands maintained that schedule until a founding member resigned or adoration waned. Before the ubiquity of the Internet, obtaining tickets to said concert was a grueling task. Today, a few clicks of the mouse or taps on your iPhone will effortlessly yield a pair of front-row seats. Back then, the quest for concert tickets was a rite of passage.

From the time I discovered Queen in 1974, you could set your watch by their annual itinerary. Like the larger part of their contemporaries, Queen would release an album and follow it with a multi-city (or possibly multi-country) tour. When I first saw Queen live,  in support of their 1976 effort A Day at the Races,  admission tickets, purchased from the Ticketron service at neighborhood sporting goods store, banished us to the upper level of the Philadelphia Civic Center.

 Along with other counter-culture innovations, the 1960s introduced a ticket-purchasing phenomenon known as “sleeping out”. Tickets for an announced show would be available for purchase on a particular morning at 9 o’clock. Wiley fans would arrive at the venue the night before and sleep in their cars all night guaranteeing a choice spot in the queue when the box office displayed its “Open for Business” sign at sun-up. As the 1970s rolled around and “sleeping out” was hitting its hey-day, fans, anxious to get a jump on their compatriots, would appear earlier and earlier. Usually the first person to show up in the evening would become the unofficial list-keeper. The main responsibility of this unelected position was to compile and maintain a list of the subsequent ticket hopefuls in the order of their arrival. As the group of interested patrons increased, their names would be added to the list and, in the cases of a particularly desirable concert, roll calls at regular intervals throughout the night would be enacted. Sometimes, a band’s fanbase was — shall we say — less patient and orderly.  Sometimes, the existence of several, conflicting lists would cause heated disagreements as to which was the true “unofficial” official list. The venue itself steered clear of the miele and let the crowd duke it out on their own. After all, they were only selling  tickets and they didn’t care who  they were selling them to.

In 1978, my older brother offered to purchase my tickets to Queen’s upcoming News of the World  Tour, as he and a friend were going to “sleep out” at the Spectrum, the now-defunct and demolished, premier concert facility in Philadelphia. He returned home the following afternoon with a pair of tickets for me in the center section fourth row. I was ecstatic, until I saw that he kept the first row seats for himself. (I was back to “ecstatic” when, the night of the concert, his seats butt up against a twelve-foot bank of speakers.)

The following year, Queen toured in support of their seventh release Jazz  and, just like clockwork, the announced Philadelphia date was the approximate anniversary of the previous years’ show. Rather than relying on someone else’s efforts to secure tickets, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I knew that Queen did not command the same level of popularity among my peer group as other bands, so the competition for excellent seats would be minimal. Since the majority of local fans would patronize the local Ticketron outlet, it would be to my advantage to “sleep out” at the Spectrum. I proposed the plan to David Schwartz, a fellow Queen fan and the only one of my friends with his own car. He was in. He’d pick me up Friday evening at 11 PM and we’d sleep in his car in the Spectrum’s parking lot to wake up first in line Saturday morning and nab seats within spitting distance of Freddie Mercury (actually better than that sounds!)

David’s car horn honked outside my house at the designated hour and, grabbing a few sodas and a bag or two of chips, I ran out the door and into his awaiting front seat. We sped down I-95, pleased and contented by our ingenious scheme to outsmart every Queen fan at Washington High School. It was smooth sailing as Dave navigated his Datsun down the Packer Avenue off-ramp and turned onto Pattison Avenue, now desolate under the orange glow of the streetlamps. The Spectrum stood just a few blocks away, quietly looming in the darkness, the curve of its roof blending into the near-midnight sky. Dave hung a left into the parking lot…. and screeched to a halt.

The lot was packed with cars and vans and campers. It was alive with dancing and music and the unmistakable reek of patchouli. A group of people possessed by a sort-of tribal energy swayed and twirled around a raging bonfire at one end of the lot. Another cluster of folks congregated beside a brightly painted former delivery truck where several inhabitants were dishing out translucent shreds of cabbage wrapped in tortillas in exchange for a few coins. Still another collective had formed an impromptu jam session, some strumming out-of-tune guitars while others slapped their bare thighs and chests in percussive accompaniment. Every vehicle was plastered with stickers displaying skeletons and roses, lightning bolts and colorful bears. Several shirtless individuals wandered aimlessly in circles. Others slept under the landscaped trees that dotted the parking area.

Dave rolled his car into one of just a handful of unoccupied spaces and we slowly got out, baffled by the spectacle playing out around us. Suddenly, a voice cut through the incessant din of guttural yelps and plucked guitar strings. “Roll call!” screamed the voice. The lion’s share of the crowd shuffled off and formed a semi-circular wall of humanity around a long-haired, dirty young man standing on the rusted hood of a beat-up car of indiscriminate make and model. Caught in the onslaught of the troupe, I asked one of the stragglers, “Hey, what’s going on?” “Dead tickets, man!” was the answer I received from the tie-dye wrapped, barefoot object of my query. It seemed that tickets for the Grateful Dead’s upcoming show were going on sale the same morning as tickets for Queen. Dave and I were at Ground Zero of the ”sleeping out” event, since it was practically invented by so-called Dead Heads.

We didn’t bother adding our names to a list, since we weren’t going to be purchasing Grateful Dead tickets. But, we assessed our situation and, as they say,  ”when in Rome”. Dave and I mingled through the crowd laughing and shaking hands and joining in the sing-alongs of the few Dead songs we knew. We gratefully declined the many offers of food from our new friends, remembering the horror stories depicted in fifth-grade films about “hippies putting heroin in candy bars” and “drug pushers forcing LSD-laced stickers on unsuspecting children”. Dave even borrowed a guitar from one fellow, but his musical selection was met with frowns when he plunked out a pizzicato  version of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” on the pot-leaf emblazoned instrument. For the rest of the night, we wandered in and out of the makeshift circus that filled the otherwise unassuming Spectrum parking lot. We got no sleep and had a blast.

When the black sky gave way to streaks of orange and yellow sunlight, the masses assembled for a final roll call and to claim their spot in the queue. Dave and I gravitated towards a second ticket window. We were accosted by several suspicious Dead Heads leery of our possible attempt to buck the line. We had to explain multiple times that we were not buying Dead  tickets. We were buying Queen  tickets. Our affirmation was at best satisfactory, however we were still on the receiving end of a ton of dirty looks as we approached the other ticket booth. The time spent pleading our case and protesting any wrong-doing cut into our window of opportunity, cooling our plan to “strike while the iron was hot”. We managed to score seats in the seventeenth row for the concert, but we had a once-in-a-lifetime experience for which one couldn’t buy a ticket — an experience that has been totally eliminated by the Internet.

Footnote: By the time the date of the Queen show finally arrived, I had contracted a horrible case of pneumonia. Sick as a dog, I went to the concert anyway.

The Illustration Friday website suggests “midsummer night”  as this week’s inspiration.

My son and I experienced Niagara Falls for the first time at the same  time. My wife, whose parents took their three children on numerous family vacations, saw the renowned natural spectacle in her youth. I went on my last furlough with my parents at the age of seven, and Atlantic City, New Jersey is severely lacking in the waterfall department. When I became a father, I was determined to travel with my own family as much as time and money would allow. They would need not be extravagant, cultural excursions — just good, old-fashioned family fun time. So, in the summer of 1993, the three-member Pincus family loaded our typically-domestic minivan with suitcases and snack foods and headed in the direction of our neighbors to the North.

Niagara Falls, in all its majestic aqueous glory, is truly breathtaking. However, after staring at an enormous wall of furiously rushing water, one’s sensibilities tend to shift from awestruck to bored to “I really have to go to the bathroom”. The Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce is obviously aware of this emotional phenomenon. That has to be the reason that one of the most glorious displays of natural wonder and beauty is surrounded by kitschy souvenir shops, wax museums, arcades, miniature golf courses, spook houses, fast-food joints and budget motels. The average traveler might be turned-off by such vulgarity but this was right up the Pincus family’s alley.

Once past the brief, yet friendly, interrogation by the international border patrol, we crossed the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York and entered its bright and sparkly Canadian namesake on the other side of the Niagara River. As our son E. peered out of the backseat windows at the flashing lights and colorful building facades of frantic Clifton Hill, Mrs. Pincus navigated the Plymouth Voyager to the Quality Inn that would be our accommodations for several midsummer nights. We  pulled into the Victoria Avenue driveway of the Quality Inn and my wife let me out by the front office entrance to check in. The motel was standard, no-frills lodging consisting of a two-story, horseshoe-shaped structure encircling a small in-ground swimming pool surrounded by unassuming chaise lounges and enclosed by a chain-link fence. The rooms were nondescript and served their purpose in cleanliness, convenience and affordability.

Our first evening included a search for restaurant food that didn’t contain meat — evidently, a fairly difficult task in Canada. Afterwards, we strolled Clifton Hill, its surreal promenade alight with exuberance that spilled out of every open door and into the streets. E. was amazed and excited and we capped the night with a stop for ice cream before turning in. As we made our way back to our motel, we noticed a large group of Amish* teens — the boys in straw hats and dark vests with dark colored shirts; the girls in solid color dresses and starched white bonnets — heading in the same direction. As we walked, the population of the Amish youths steadily increased. When we reached the Quality Inn, the Pincus family proceeded to our first-floor room and the faction of Jakob Ammann’s young disciples climbed the open-air staircase to the second story and retired to three adjoining rooms.

Our next day was spent doing all the activities that tourists at Niagara Falls do. We donned disposable rain gear for the the famous , yet drenching, Maid of the Mist boat ride. We retained our slickers for the equally waterlogged tour of the tunnels behind the Horseshoe Falls. We snapped photos along the guardrails protecting us from the hundred foot drop to the churning river below. Our whirlwind expedition sapped our collective energy, so we retreated to our motel for a rejuvenating dip in the pool. We hurriedly changed into swimming attire and started toward the small oasis in the middle of the parking lot. I laid claim to several recliners and accompanied my wife and son in the humble, water-filled cement tank. A few laps and splashes later, we were toweling off and relaxing.

Soon, two boys emerged from the second floor rooms where the Amish assembly had disappeared the night before. They joined the small congregation of hotel patrons at the pool and commenced to splashing and cavorting and doing the playful things boys do in a pool. While the usually sheltered youngsters amused themselves, two attractive, bikini-clad young ladies sauntered across the far end of the hotel property with their sights on the same midday refreshment the swimming pool offered their fellow guests. The girls idly chatted to each other as they dropped their towels on some chaise lounges on the opposite side of the pool and absentmindedly kicked off their sandals. The two Amish boys froze in mid-movement, their bodies rigid, their eyes transfixed. The young ladies, unaware that their every move was being observed and tracked by two innocent and bewildered 12 year-olds, continued their conversation. It was obvious that these two young men had never, ever, in their short lives, witnessed anything that remotely resembled the figures now on display before them. The female members of their traveling contingency sure as hell didn’t look like these… these…. females.  Suddenly, one of the girls rose from her seat and strode to the edge of the pool. The boys’ eyes widened. The young lady pointed her leg and slowly and precariously dipped her toe into the water. At the exact same pace, the two boys slowly and precariously backed out of the water, never once taking their gaze away from the girl. It was as though Satan himself had chosen this small, man-made body of water to cool off his cloven hoof. The girl lazily stirred the water around with her extended leg, then withdrew it and patted it with a towel  — never once glancing in the boys’ direction. By the time the young girl returned to the seat by her friend, the two boys were, no doubt, on their knees in their room praying and repenting for whatever they had done to have been subjected to the Devil’s temptations.

Sometimes, vacations yield more sights that just the ones for the average tourist. And that works on several levels.

* For over fifty years, my wife’s family owned and operated a general merchandise store in a farmer’s market located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish population, so we are well-acquainted with their practices, observances and attire.