The War Winds Down

First born Carter Kathleen (Aunt Kay), and her husband, Claude Amidon (Uncle Bus) were my godparents.  During her mother's terminal illness, Kay had been the major caretaker for the younger children with seemingly endless stroller and carriage rides around the block. After mother Elizabeth died, Kay went to work as a paralegal for her uncle, Leo Rover, a prominent Washington attorney.

There are several stories about the first meeting between Kay and Bus, but the one that Kay told me is something like this.

Bus was this handsome man, a smooth talker, and was wearing a white uniform the first time I met him. I thought that he was a medical doctor--an intern riding an ambulance. He let me believe that. Later I found out that he was working on a Bergman's laundry truck. 

After we had a few dates, I brought him around to meet the family. A few weeks later, Granny asked me "Kay, are you going steady with that Bus Amido." (Granny had become confused about the name Amidon and thought that it ended with a vowel. )

 I told Granny that I wasn't positive, but that I did like Bus quite a lot and that I probably would go steady with him.

Then Granny said "Kay, why would you want to go about marrying some old Italian fellow?" 

But, grandmother, the pope's Italian!

Granny replied, "But, Kay, you won't be marrying the pope!"

Kay and Bus had eloped in the mid-thirties using a three year old marriage license (which says something about patience in the old days) and it was they who initially acquired the one bedroom apartment at 912 Quincy Street that would be a permanent dwelling for various members of the family for the next 15 years.

Kay and Bus both worked hard. Not having a child gave them the opportunity to save their money. After a few years, they moved on to a one story brick rambler in Maryland, about a quarter of a mile beyond the northern boundary of the District of Columbia. The house had a yard surrounded by a white picket fence. Kay was an avid gardener with golden delicious Apple trees, pears, and riots of roses growing along fences and over trellises. My first memory of her is outdoors. She is dressed in a hat and old clothes and is using a silver tank to spray her plants.

The house always smelled  sweet, liked baked goods--cakes and cookies.  I remember that Uncle Bus used tooth powder instead of tooth paste and an after shave lotion that he let me apply to my face from time to time.

The truly magical parts of the house were a sliding swing and a hammock. I tried unsuccessfully to climb into that hammock on my own for years. Kay and Bus always had dogs, big dogs. When I was a child, it was Herman, a large German Shepherd. There are pictures of me pursuing Herman with a streamer of toilet paper. I imagine that toilet training must have been one of my issues at the time. It was war time and the dog's full name was Herman the German.

Another remarkable item at the Amidon household was waxed fruit. I could never quite believe that it wasn't real. There were little tooth marks around the apple that evidenced my inability to accept reality Was it optimism or was it an early example of denial? Seeing that beautiful red, wax apple takes me immediately to another recollection from about 1962. John Robson and I are in the University of Maryland parking lot and talking about the Surgeon General's warnings about the association of cigarettes and lung cancer. I said to John, "I don't think that I have anything to worry about. With the advances in medicine, by the the time I develop cancer, I'll just take a pill for it."

With all of the other men  in the service, Bus was doing civilian work in D.C. I once asked my mother if Bus had been in the service. She said he tried, but wasn't able to do it emotionally. His occupation was that of a driver. He drove streetcars, buses, limousines and taxicabs. During his career he was the government chauffeur for Sargent Shriver and Donald Rumsfeld in the 1960's and 70's. He had a very pleasant, soothing voice and a jovial manner. He was the only one in the family who wore glasses which left large indentations on each side of the nasal bridge from the nose pieces of the spectacles.

Bus and Kay were childless for the first decade of their marriage...I was a surrogate son and major beneficiary of their temporary infertility.  I was fascinated with all things automotive. Bus used to let me pretend that I was driving a car. There was frontage road next to the railroad tracks parallel to 10th Street. There was no traffic. I recall the big steering wheel and the suicide knob that Bus always had until these items were outlawed. I would stand on the seat between his legs and grab the wheel as the car rolled slowly down the road toward Taylor Street. They were wonderful times.

I was such an indulged child, surrounded by loving aunts and Granny on Quincy Street and having another set of parents who had a house and a yard and a dog...not to mention a swing and a hammock. I was certainly living large.

Here is a picture of my Aunt Kay. I thought that she was the most beautiful woman in the world.





The four women of the cave, (Eleanor, Ginny, Shirley, and Granny), and I were part of a clan that was in transition. Our "cave" was a one bedroom, ground floor apartment at the intersection of Quincy and 10th street in Northeast Washington, D.C. There was seldom a car to be seen on Quincy, but there was traffic on 10th. It was common for my mother to spread a blanket on the little hillock that sloped from the apartment down to the sidewalk that paralleled 10th street. From that vantage point, one could see the car and foot traffic on 10th and also see the happenings that were occurring in the park, named Turkey Thicket Playground, which took up the two blocks of between 10th and 12th street. In days before Television, Turkey Thicket Playground was the happening place.

The Streetcar Terminal was just east of the playground, on 12th Street. I spent the part of many mornings waving goodbye to the women as they walked across the playground toward the streetcars.

These gathering women of the Carter clan made regular visits to two churches within our territory, St. Anthony’s on 12 Street, and the Franciscan Monastery. Both churches were filled with stained glass and mysterious statues that caught the eye of a child. Various renditions of the crucifixion included “stations of the cross” that portrayed 14 different scenes depicting last few hours of Jesus’ life from the time that he is condemned until he is buried. The Franciscan monastery even had a mock up of Roman catacombs and in this area of the basement of the church was a memorable item for children, a statue of St. Stephen depicting his martyrdom and death from arrows piercing his body and causing a fatal hemorrhage. These images were scary...particularly the one of St Martin who is being roasted alive for refusing to renounce his faith. Instead of screaming at his torture, he is telling his executioners that he thinks he is "done" on one side and recommends that they turn him over.

Both churches also had a smell that was heavy with remnant aromas of incense. My favorite part was the tray of devotional candles, which for me, as a young hunter-gatherer was the celebration of the mystery of fire. Oh! the early pleasure of in the ritual of lighting a fresh candle. My interest in learning to create and control fires would continue for the next four or five years. Sixty years later in 2004, on the day the death of my daughter, I took comfort in returning to that same monastery and lighting a candle to commemorate her passing and that of my mother Eleanor 8 days prior.

Also in our Quincy Street territory were two grocery stores. The one on 12th street  was a much older structure with massive, slowly turning ceiling fans, and scores of large, loudly buzzing flies that gathered near the plate glass windows at the front of the store. There was a movie theater, the Newton, a High’s Dairy Store, where we occasionally got ice cream cones and hand packed quarts, and a bowling alley that was of particular interest to me because of all the movement, the loud smashing sounds of the pins bouncing, the laughter and shrieking of adults having fun, and the wonder of the pinsetter boys who could be seen at the end of the alley sitting above the pins and avoiding the mayhem.

My Aunt Shirley, the youngest Carter woman was about 14 at this time and knew many of these boys. I couldn’t imagine a more daring occupation than pin setting. These were my home front heroes. Shirley was occasionally my babysitter and sometimes took me around with her when she visited friends. I recall being in the bedroom with Shirley and one of her friends one day while they were dressing. Shirley’s friend had the same kind of crack in her chest that my mother had but I was too shy to ask about it.

The streetcar was the magical vehicle that transported the clan from Brookland “downtown” to the center of Washington, D.C. It was a two-block walk to the terminal. The electric wires were overhead in Brookland and remained overhead along Michigan Avenue. For streetcars going downtown, a left turn was made at North Capitol Street and the car began a straight shot south for about 2 miles. Shortly after the turn there was an opening into the roadbed that revealed men at work--like the oil changing pit at Jiffy Lube. It reminded me of the pinsetters at the bowling alley, seeing men in unusual places or circumstances. The streetcar stopped directly over the enlarged open manhole. There was a cranking sound as the long electric boom was retracted from the overhead wires and there were strange noises from under the floor of the car as it was rigged to run off of a power line under the street. After a stop of a half a minute or so, the streetcar edged forward and got up to speed and resumed its run.

As the streetcar ran south it was traversing the major north-south arm of a large cross that was the central geometric design of the city. The Capital City was meant to be a square of 10 miles to a side. On a map the square can be seen to have its diagonals aligned with the directions of the compass. Maybe it is simpler to say that it is diamond shaped.

There are two central boulevards, running North-South and East-West. The Capitol Rotunda is at the center of the cross made by these major arteries. The arms of the cross are North Capitol Street, South Capitol Street, and East Capitol Street. There is no West Capitol Street. Instead it is called Constitution Avenue. In general, the organs of government were housed along Constitution Avenue.

The Central Boulevards divide the city into triangle-shaped quadrants, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest. The Potomac River enters the city from the west and forms the actual boundary of the Southwest with a substantial reduction in the expected area for that quadrant. Across the river is Alexandria, Virginia.

The idyllic world of my early childhood was about to end. My sister was born one day before the end of the war in Europe. It was also about the time that “Granny,” my mother’s maternal grandmother, left the cave on Quincy street with her last illness. I believe it must have been heart failure. I remember that there was swelling of her feet and legs. I now know that such massive swelling is “anasarca” in medical jargon. She went to live with her wealthiest daughter, who was married to the D.C. district attorney, Leo Rover. They lived near the Franciscan monastery and I recall helping my mother push my newborn sister’s carriage up the hill on at least one occasion for a visit. Granny was cheerful and was lying in a bed that looked very much like a crib. I remember offering her a piece of candy that she declined.

Shortly after the war in the Pacific ended, the hunters returned, my father Bill from Europe, my uncle Bill from the Pacific. I am unaware that the winds have changed. It is a bright August day and I’m standing on the hood of an automobile parked on Quincy street. I have learned how to start at the running board and crawl forward over the slope of the front fender. From the fender it was an easy step up to the hood of the car and access to those magical sticks that could be controlled from inside an automobile. Fascinated by windshield wipers in general, I am about 30 months old and I’m pulling and twisting the wiper blade.. Without warning my left arm is gripped in a tight hold and I’m lifted in the air and swung in arc above the green lawn bordering the street. My confusion is increased by a rapid series of hurtful jolts to my rear end and the back of my thighs. I am suspended by my left arm and being spanked at the same time. Then I am placed on the sidewalk by a large adult male who has been administering this whipping. I’m really not able to distinguish his features through my tears. My father has just entered my life as a social presence.

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Friday was a busy day. It started out with a conversation with Kristi Ross, a close friend and neighbor in Morro Bay. She and her husband Tim are Social Workers and do workshops for parenting and maintaining relationships. They are kind enough to put up with my big mouth which frequently has my right foot protruding from it.

When I told my friend, Mark Ward, that my mouth was out of control, he pointed out that I really didn't truly know what was going on with me. I still don't have a tissue diagnosis. He said, "You know, Eric, you might have to live a long time with the consequences of these kind of intemperate remarks." I told him I was looking forward to doing so.

I had an MRI of the brain late on Friday. The women were wonderful and insisted on giving me big hugs when I left.

I find myself tearful at strange times, like getting on the elevator with Jasmine at the imaging center and when talking with Adrian  at the mortuary who encouraged me to tell her an off color joke that I heard from one of the fishermen on Smith Island...maybe I'll recount it later if I'm brave enough.

Son Brian called later in the evening...I so love talking to him...it feels like honest conversation. I remember waiting around for the last year of my father's life hoping for honest conversation that never came. I'm going to do my best to shoot from the heart.

The pain intensified today. It had always been left sided but now there are twinges in my right back as well. After a bout of coughing, I have pulled some muscles in my left chest and back that hurt a little with deep breaths. Each new pain is scary because I don't know what to expect, how bad it will become, whether I will be able to maintain my dignity, etc. At some point I expect to have to say f*** it to my dignity, but I'm hoping that is down the road a piece.

I feel loved. What's not to like about that.