Notes in November 15

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Ninth and Hamilton

As I told a friend recently, it is taking me so long to complete the first part of Notes in November that I should change the title to Notes in December. I am now 72 years old, so there is not much leisure left to ponder the events that marked my last year in Pennsylvania. It is a critical moment in my story and if my descendants in particular are to learn about how they became Puerto Rican, it is essential to tackle it before it is too late.

Memory is a miserable miser. The more you beg for its largesse the less it yields. Instead of a river flowing with images, it is a rivulet darting behind rocks and only occasionally reflecting flickers from the sun.

Here I was back in Bethlehem—ensconced in the attic of my beloved sister Shirley’s house, a floor above the noisy rooms of her tow-headed and scrappacious (I made it up: it means rambunctious) kids: Ricky, Chucky, Tommy, Larry and Mark. Her only daughter, Jennifer, was to come along a little later.

As so often has happened in my life, I was at the right place at the right time. My brother-in-law Earl was the most kind-hearted and even-tempered man I have every met. He was like a papa bear to his brood and he adored my sister and easily tolerated me. My negative role model had been my father; it was a delight to have a positive one. I may have been slightly burned out by my Poet in New York period, but I was soon cured by the love, energy and joy in that house.

Which allowed me to concentrate on my goal. Go to college. Go to grad school. Become a professor. Take sabbaticals. Write books. Live in Puerto Rico. The first step had to be college in Puerto Rico. To reach it, I had three objectives:  formally complete high school, learn Spanish and figure out how to fund this project. In reality, I had no plan, just a dream.

In this dream state I wandered into the library of Lehigh University one afternoon, soon after returning to Bethlehem and taking up residence in my sister’s attic. From the time I was a boy and an inspired teacher took me and my classmates to a performance of Bizet’s opera Carmen, I considered Lehigh utopia--especially contrasted to the dystopia of my parent’s bookless home.

In the sunlight of my memory, Lehigh is a perpetual shady glen, the lawns dappled with golden rays filtered through maple trees, the gray stone buildings and pebbled trails peopled with handsome young students, the lawns filled with well-dressed families seated on blankets listening to Handel’s Messiah wafting from the college theater and flowing up South Mountain and down to the Lehigh River.

Sorry, about that. I am a romantic at heart, I suppose, and since the college is in south Bethlehem, the weather (and the setting) could never have been that idyllic. But who is to account for the vagaries of memory? That was the way my impressionistic young mind saw the place (I later realized the absurdity of it. Lehigh was mostly known for jocks and engineering students at the time and the music festivals and opera were most likely rarities.)

The library had open stacks and I enjoyed going up and down the rows and letting books grab me and startle me--sometimes by their titles, sometimes the authors, sometimes just the binding. It was an eclectic way of educating myself, but it was one I had always enjoyed. It was in this way I came across the catalog of the University of Puerto Rico and learned that the tuition was incredibly low—$75 a semester (this was more than half a century ago).

In one instant that serendipitous discovery converted the impossible into the possible. Certainly there was a way I could make enough money in a year or two to pay for tuition and a modest room and board! The flight, I knew from experience, was $62 and I only needed a ticket one way.

I don’t remember how I heard about a special program of the J. Walter Gapp Extension School of Moravian Prep in Bethlehem. It was designed for qualified students who were determined to attend college but had not taken (or passed) the required courses. I was on a roll! I applied, took the entrance tests, was given a scholarship and was soon taking Spanish, science and, because I wanted it, an advanced English course.

Much of my time there is forgotten, but I will never forget my Spanish teacher, Mrs. K., who became a major figure in my life. Mrs. K. was a small woman with bright eyes on a broad face, who walked with a slight limp from a childhood illness and who was married to Peter K., a large, affable, German man. The couple had two very bright and very blond little girls. They enjoyed the kind of family life that I envied and admired.

I know all this, because first she was my teacher and then she was my friend. When the formal course was over and it became obvious to everyone that I was really going to go to Puerto Rico to study, she took over my instruction in Spanish, giving me private classes in her home. Not only did she not charge me, she often fed me, recommended books for me to read, encouraged me and at one point when I was studying in Puerto Rico helped me pay dental expenses. She eventually recommended me to the school administration and I spent a summer teaching Spanish in the very classroom where we first met. I will always be indebted to her and I hope that I have been able to inspire my students as she inspired me.

I wish I could say that the objective of earning money was also quickly reached, but life--even a life as permeated with good fortune as mine-- is not as neat. It was not for want of trying. At first I could only manage a couple of minimum wage jobs (I think it was $1.00 an hour at the time), but one of them brought major changes into my life.

The first, though, was a dud. Through a want ad I found a job at a men’s clothing store in Allentown, about an hour’s bus ride from my garret at my sister’s. My brother in law worked in Allentown and he would take me in the morning and I would usually take the bus home in the evening--often so engrossed in a book or my studies that I forgot to get off and had to be picked up at the end of the line.

Traffic in the store was excruciatingly slow--one person could have handled it, and there were three employees. After a few boring weeks I moved on to a coffee shop off Ninth and Hamilton in the heart of the business district. Noel’s Coffee Shop was a one-man operation and I became the owner’s right hand man—a short order cook when we were busy and both the counterman and cook when we were not. It was here that I met—at different times—two customers who became great friends, Carl W. and Michael V.

Carl was from a local Pa. Dutch family and was raised in their old farmhouse a few miles from town, but you would not know it if you had met him. His family—I eventually met his parents and siblings—retained German customs and accents, but Carl was a model of elocution and refinement—learned, I believe, from his contacts as a buyer in New York for Hess’s of Allentown.

He worked for Hess Brothers, an upscale department store that was located right on Ninth and Hamilton Streets, about a block away from the coffee shop.  At the time Hess’s was a magnificent store, with huge display windows that were famous for their Christmas decorations, a massive red neon sign outside, elegant chandeliers, beautiful clothing, elegant customers, and frequent celebrity appearances by the likes of Johnny Carson, Barbara Walters, Gina Lollobrigida and Rock Hudson. It was a big deal and Carl and his mentor Gerry G. were an important part of the team that kept it glamorous and stylish.

Carl was just branching out into his own interior design business; Gerry and the mayor of Allentown were among his first customers. During our conversations at Noel’s counter, Carl learned that I painted and, after seeing some of my work, commissioned a painting for a game room that he was designing for the mayor. I painted a large sylvan scene in oils, lots of greens and yellows, influenced by Frank C. and his palate knife techniques (and probably not a little by my impressionist idyll, Claude Monet). The mayor bought it as soon as he saw it—my first sale and a nice improvement over my minimum wage scale!

Carl later began a major redecoration of Gerry’s palatial home (where Hess’s entertained its special guests) and I was hired away from Noel’s to assist him with the project. But more on that later.

Michael was a short order cook at a large modern diner, also nearby on Hamilton Street and came over on his break to get away from an ongoing war he was waging with the waitresses. We started hanging out together—and with Carl after they met—at Rube’s, a club around the corner, where I learned that he was suffering through a difficult divorce. Michael obsessed about traveling and when he heard about my plans to study in Puerto Rico, he vowed that he would find a way to join me there, especially if he got custody of his daughter and could take her.

I understand that Ninth and Hamilton is white collar now. Hess’s was torn down in 1996 and a PP&L office building stands in its place. Across Hamilton, Rube’s is gone, replaced by another new office building in 2006. Noel’s Coffee Shop is likely history – it doesn’t appear on any restaurant lists in Allentown. I don’t remember the name of the diner on Ninth across from Hess’s where Michael worked, but it is unlikely to remain. But for a short time, Ninth and Hamilton was the center of my universe.

I enjoyed my new life there, but it was taking a toll on my studies. I was making a little extra money working for Carl, but I wanted a steadier income and a job close to Moravian Prep in Bethlehem. Once again, luck came my way when I answered an ad for a cook at The Maples, a popular restaurant in Bethlehem. My sojourn around Ninth & Hamilton sadly came to an end.