A JERSEY GREETING

“Hello,” I said, answering the phone. It wasn’t very original, but usually gets results. “Hello,” a gruff voice growled. “This is Velma. Rocky will be there to get you at five-o’clock.” “I’ll look forward to that,” I replied. “Thank you very much,” and hung up the phone. “Who’s Rocky?” I wondered, and, “Do I owe him any money?”

I quickly called and left a message for W.S. “Who are Rocky and Velma and why are they out to get me?” Twenty minutes later, he called back and told me that Rocky and Velma are fellow graduate students. “They are a very nice couple. Don’t be afraid of them. They aren’t much bigger than you.” “But she sounded so tough,” I replied. “That’s just her New Jersey voice”, he said. You’ll like them. Sorry I forgot to tell you about dinner at their house, but Rocky offered to pick you up. I’ll meet you there.”

Rocky was certainly a misnomer, because the man who picked me up was a gentle, studious fellow. His mother probably named him after her contractions rather than his disposition. He and Velma had met while they were dance partners in a college campus production. “Unfortunately, I dropped her; but I picked her up, and we’ve been together ever since,” he said.

So began a lifelong friendship with two of the dearest people I have ever met. Velma apologized for having been crankier than usual on the telephone, but earlier that day, when she had returned home from class, she found a strange man sitting in her living room, reading the rough draft of her dissertation. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “I’m waiting for the dentist,” he replied.

“Look around,” she said. “Does this look like a reception room?” “Well, he said, looking around. “I think so. Will the dentist be long?” “This used to be a dentist’s office. It isn’t a dentist’s office anymore. It is now an apartment,” Velma said. “Can’t you tell the difference?” “Do you know the dentist’s new address?” he asked. “I do not!” said Velma. “Don’t you have anything else to say to me?” “You could use some better reading material,” he replied, on his way out. “ I didn’t understand that stuff at all.” The living room wasn’t arranged like a reception room, but I must admit that their narrow little kitchen did suspiciously resemble a dental laboratory.

One day as W.S. and I were walking across campus, we passed a man who immediately got my attention. He wore a green-checkered shirt, a purple bow tie and orange trousers. “Is there a golf course around here?” I asked. “No,” said W.S. “That’s Velma’s major professor, the brilliant Dr. Emmett.” “As in Kelly?” I asked. “No!” he replied. “Dr. Emmett never clowns around. He is world-renowned in his field. “Which is?” I asked. “Spacial Perception,” said W.S. “What does that mean?” “I think it involves shapes and colors,” he replied. “Well,” maybe he’s wearing his research,” I surmised. Why else would anyone look like that on purpose? I don’t know if brilliance breeds’ oddness, but every professor we encountered had nurtured his own quirk.

Rocky’s major professor was a---I’m-going-to-write-every-other-word-on-your-thesis kind of guy. Professor Bodkin was a micro-manager of the worst kind. Not only did Rocky’s work need the Bodkin stamp of approval, but it would also bear his fingerprints, his footprints and probably a bit of spittle to seal the deal.

Rocky told us that one-day when he mailed a letter (which Bodkin had approved), he found out that his professor had waited at the blue drop box for the mailman, because he wanted to change a word. I’m not sure if a wrestling match ensued, but I do know that unless you have a stamp on your hand, you are to keep it out of the drop box---which happily proves that---even the Bodkins of this world are not in control all of the time.

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006

INVENT-A-JOB JOB (Part 2)

Although “Sick Bay” was not in my job description, I knew that as attendance counselor, I needed to keep as many healthy kids in school as possible. Consequently, when I received a phone call informing me that, “Jimmy is sick today,” I had to wonder why Jimmy has a father whose voice is changing. With deep compassion, I called back to check on Jimmy’s state of health.

“What do you mean?” Jimmy’s father said, this time in a deeper voice. “Well,” I replied, “when you called me fifteen minutes ago, you said that Jimmy had the crud, and I just wondered how he’s feeling.” “I didn’t call you,” said Jimmy’s father. “Isn’t he in school?” “No, he’s not.” I answered. “I hope he’s not dying. “He’s going to wish he had,” was the reply.

Shortly after our conversation, Jimmy or Betty, or any other hooky player, would appear in my office, appropriately chagrinned, and I would always say, “I am so glad you experienced a miraculous recovery. Welcome back.” I honed my investigative skills and became the best bounty hunter the school had ever had. After several weeks of keeping attendance records, bandaging cuts and dispensing tissues, I was confronted by my most challenging medical emergency. A 15-year-old lad came into my office clutching his bleeding nose.

Stunned, I offered, “Your nose is bleeding. I mean it’s really bleeding!”  “I was bitten by a rat,” he said. “Ah-Hah!” I responded. “Go lie down and press a damp rag on your nose. Do you know what happened to the rat?” “It’s in the Science Lab,” he said, offended that I was more concerned about the health of the rat than his swollen nose.

“Well, you just lie there, while I go check out the rat,” I said. In a few minutes, I returned, greatly relieved that the lab rat was isolated and was clearly healthy. The teacher informed me that the boy had been playing with it, and had let it run up his arm. When the rat ran into an obstacle (he didn’t know it was a nose) he nipped it on his way down the other arm. The rat was lab raised, healthy and posed no threat for anything worse than loss of dignity.

I prayed that the boy’s mother wasn’t the hysterical type when I called and told her, “Your son had a small accident. A rat ran into his nose.” It was the best I could do. After she finished screaming, I assured her that the rat was healthy, but she insisted on talking with her son. By now, the bleeding had stopped, but his nose was swollen and red, so I suggested that she take him to be checked out by his doctor.

He wasn’t happy, because he was going to miss frog dissection, but I couldn’t be concerned about that. After all, there were 10 kids tardy because of flat tires, and none of them had arrived in the same car. 10 cars—10 flat tires. I figured it must be an epidemic, so I picked up the phone to alert the school nurse.

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c 2006.

THE INVENT-A-JOB JOB (Part One)

Finding a decent job in a small college town is almost as challenging as finding an affordable apartment, but since all of the good positions on campus were already taken, I was determined to find the least noxious employment available off campus. After searching in vain for several weeks, I knew that if we wanted to eat more than canned soup, I would have to devise a new strategy. It came to me in the middle of the night.

“That’s it!” I said, sitting up in bed. “What’s it?” W.S. mumbled into his pillow. “I am going to invent a job,” I replied. “Tell me about it in the morning,” he said. My husband had studied late into the night for an upcoming test in statistics, so by the time he got out of bed, I had already made an appointment, and was on my way to meet with the principal of the local high school.

Mr. Freund was an unassuming, rather rumpled little man who peered at me over his eyeglasses as he said, “I’m really sorry, but we have no position for you at our school.” “Do you have an attendance counselor?” I asked.

 “A what?” he replied. “An attendance counselor,” I said. “You know, the person who checks your attendance every morning to be sure that students are sitting at their desks when the bell rings.” “Unless, I added, “they have a pretty darn good excuse for not being here.” “No,” he replied. “We don’t have one of those.” “And,” I said, warming up to my impromptu idea, “the attendance counselor also keeps track of the students who are tardy---the late ones.” “I know what tardy is,” he replied. “Isn’t it true,” I added, “ that the more students you have in school, the more money you get from the county?” I took a wild guess that attendance records were tied to the money allotted to the school---the more kids attending, the more money available.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but that sounds right to me. We’ve never had an attendance counselor before, but if I can find the money for a salary, would you consider starting on a part-time basis?” So that’s how I became the first attendance counselor at the local high school. The regular counselor was buried somewhere under college applications, and I don’t think I ever saw him come up for air during the two years I worked at the job.

Mr. Freund found me a little alcove/office. It was located in front of a door marked, School Nurse, so any student wanting access to the nurse had to first step around my desk. Unfortunately, there was only one school nurse, and she was assigned to serve four other schools at the same time. Therefore, whenever a health emergency arose, I was not only the closest person to her office, but I was the only person available.

At first, I just advised the coughing and sneezing young people who knocked on her door to take a tissue and call back in the morning. However, when a football player vomited into my wastebasket, and a pale young woman fainted onto my desk, I knew it was time to invest in a book on first aid and pray that no one would sue. I set jammed fingers on Popsicle sticks and called parents to get permission to dispense aspirin. I knew that high fevers meant, “Go Home!”  I also knew that rashes indicted, “Don’t scratch! Go Home!” And definitely, no matter what---“Don’t touch me!” (To be continued---)

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld, c 2006 

ONE MORE TIME

Two years can make a big difference with a population in flux, and that’s exactly what we found when we returned to campus. Most of the faculty was still all there, in a manner of speaking, and except for a few new buildings, the campus itself hadn’t changed, but the graduate students we had known were gone. Many of them had sent themselves through school on veteran’s allotments and had lived from hand to mouth.

This new group of scholars was young, rich and cocky. They were smart, not smarter, but smart, and had immediately matriculated to graduate school after graduating from various universities. A few students had been awarded scholarships and assistantships, but many were subsidized by the folks back home, and had few financial concerns. Also, this time, dynamic women had entered the mix and competition was keen.

Good jobs at the University were almost unobtainable, and I swore that this time I would find a job in this little college town rather than get stuck working for another Futzel. But first we had to find a place to live. Again, we were on a limited budget, since most of our savings had to go toward school. W.S. was awarded a graduate assistantship, which helped, but he could have earned more money raking leaves. Other than rent increases, the apartment situation hadn’t changed in the two years of our absence. However, we lucked out when one of the graduate students told W.S. that his place was available since he was getting married.

The apartment was on the ground floor of an old wooden house, and we were told that a single lady named, Mabel was moving in upstairs. The landlord put a fresh coat of cheap, glossy, dark gray paint on all of the walls, so it was kind of like living on a battleship without the booming canons---that is until Mabel finally arrived.

Our first encounter with Mabel was when we heard her dragging her grocery cart up the 20 stairs to her apartment. Early on, W.S. had opened our door and said, “You look pretty saddled down. You need some help?” And Mabel responded, “Certainly Not!” He closed the door, turned to me and asked, “What’s her problem?” “She probably thinks you called her a horse,” I replied.

It was then that the upstairs furniture began to slide across our ceiling. “She’s probably getting settled in,” I shouted as I straightened the pictures on the walls. However, two weeks later, as soon as she got home, Mabel began moving her furniture again. “What do you suppose she’s doing up there?” W.S. asked. “I haven’t the foggiest,” I replied. “I guess she can’t make up her mind.”

Then the stomping began. Every night, first we heard the sliding furniture, and then the stomping. “What the hell!” was W.S.’s nightly response. After two weeks of scraping, sliding and stomping, W.S. said, “I can’t take this anymore. Please, work your magic—Take Her A Pie!” I decided to follow his suggestion, more out of curiosity than neighborliness. So the next evening, when she came home, I took her a chocolate pie. When I knocked on her door, Mabel opened the door a crack and asked, “Who is it?”

“It’s your neighbor from downstairs, I’ve brought you a pie.” ‘What kind?” she asked. “Chocolate,” I answered. “I’m allergic to chocolate,” she replied, but she opened the door. “Sorry,” I lied. “I certainly don’t want to make you sick.” “That’s okay, I’ll take it to work tomorrow,” she said. “Those people will eat anything.”

When I entered the apartment, I saw that all of the living room furniture had been pushed to one side of the room, and on the wall, on the other side, hung three floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I spent just enough time with Mabel to get the scoop before returning downstairs. “So what’s the story?” asked W.S.

“She clogs,” I replied. “Does that have something to do with her pores or her kitchen sink?” he asked. “She takes clogging lessons,” I said, “You know, that stomp dancing. That’s why she moves the furniture to one side of the room every night.” “Why can’t she just leave it that way?” he groaned. “Because,” I said, “She doesn’t find it esthetic.” I told her that it was very disturbing. “And?” he asked. “And, she said that moving the furniture doesn’t bother her at all and we will just have to get used to it.”  

Shortly after my visit, we were no longer bothered by the overhead cacophony of sound. Turns out that Mabel threw out her back. It must have been the furniture. Surely, my pie wasn’t that heavy!

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006 

A MOVING EXPERIENCE (Part Two)

We didn’t miss the noise from downstairs---the shouting and falling bric-a-brac. No, we didn’t miss it one bit! Now the two brothers were our landlords. We got along with them just fine. The problem was that they couldn’t get along with each other. Consequently, the older brother, Angel lived downstairs, and Erik moved into the basement. It was a bit awkward, because every time I’d go downstairs to do the laundry, I’d have to yell, “Are you decent?” But, I got used to it, and most of the time he was.

I never saw Angel, because he had a night job and slept during the day. However, I felt sorry for Erik, the basement dweller, and would periodically take him leftovers, so he wouldn’t starve to death before my clothes dried. He was so appreciative, that one morning he left an unidentifiable blob in front of our door. His note said, “It’s a pecan pie, and I baked it myself.” I was glad he told me what it was so I wouldn’t have to guess. His creation was floating in grease. This was one movable feast that would never touch my lips. I wouldn’t even feed it to W.S., and he would eat almost anything.

W.S. took one look at it and said, “How do you suppose he did that?” ”I don’t know,” I said, “but I have never seen anything quite like it.” We watched with fascination as Erik’s labor of love began to coagulate. “How are we going to get rid of this thing?” I asked. We didn’t have a garbage disposal, and we shared the garbage can with Angel and Erik.

“I know,” said W.S. He found an old box and some gift wrap and advised “We simply wrap it up, and throw it away.” When it got dark, I snuck outside, and buried the pie under some pizza boxes. I prayed that the pie wouldn’t leak and corrode the can before the garbage men arrived in the morning.

We spent a blissful six months in that apartment. We had adjusted to the peculiarities of our landlords, and we had finally found a place we could stay for a few years.

One night we drove into the city and went to The Black Orchid. It was a famous club and it was closing. “Nothing is forever,” I sighed wistfully. “You’re right,” said W.S. “I have something to discuss with you. How upset would you be if I didn’t renew my contract the end of the year, and we’d return to cow dung country so I could get my PhD?”

“How did this come about?” I asked. “Professor Taser was invited to speak at a meeting that I attended, and I ran into him today in the Men’s Room. He suggested that if I were going to get my degree, I’d better “shit or get off the pot.” “Did he know who you were?” I asked. “I think so,” said W.S., “I stood on the right side of the urinal.”

“What do you think?” said W.S. “Do you mind moving again and going back to working at a menial job for a few years?” “I married you for better or worse,” I replied. “I just have one question---Which part is this?”

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006