Lunch with Helene - Gail Hope Baldwin, memoir writer, speaks at Upper Moreland Hysterical Association

It's been awhile since I visited my friend Helene at Rydal Park. Arrived exactly at 12 noon, out of breath, after walking up 6 flights of stairs to her two-bedroom apartment.

Gave her two copies of The Compass. Why does it look different, she asked. Well, I said, we always have a different cover each year, plus it's 8 more pages than last year.

 2015

 2014

The home is having an interesting guest speaker in about a week. Helene will not be attending. She prefers to isolate herself in her apartment and miss all the fun. She was not like this when she lived in her own home. I told her she needs someone to pick her up and walk her to all these programs.

 She's eating bagel and lox. "Horrible," she pronounced it.

The handsome man in the distance walked with a cane - couldn't have been more than 65 - and his whole body shook as if he was dancing the cha cha cha. Motor neuron diz of some sort.

My salad, applesauce and tuna fish were delicious. Someone at the next table had left their stir-fried broccoli, which I plucked from the plate and ate.

Very healthy lunch but I forgot my insulin pen.

Helene is reading some good books. I'd never heard of the late author Batya Gur, who lived in Jerusalem. Read about her here. And remind me to check out some of her mysteries.

Wonder if she's related to Raquel Gur, MD, PhD of Penn.

When Helene worked at Art Matters, we used to critique each other's work. I brought her my newest short story - The Missing Book - but when I printed it out, one page was missing. Will mail it to her tomro.

 
Gail Hope Baldwin gave an excellent presentation on her new book. Read about it here on the website of the publisher. Gail grew up on School House Lane in Willow Grove, about five minutes from my street. She now lives in Ocean City, NJ, and knows the publisher, which is why she went with them.

Here's my friend Freda's memoir.

Gail said memoirs have been very popular for about 25 years and it was easier to write than she thought.

The title comes from a game her family played in the car.

Mr. Brown goes to Boston and on the way he packs.... some underwear... some books... the next person must repeat what everyone has said and add their own item.

Gail graduated from Upper Moreland High School in 1968. I graduated Shaker Heights High School in 1964.

     We used to play hockey on the front lawn in gym class. Gym was my favorite subject. Ground sticks, ground sticks, ground sticks.

Many of Gail's relatives were in the audience. Her 93-yo father, who's in good health but frail, now lives in the Briarcliff in Doylestown. I remember it's the old Doylestown Hospital.

What a great father he was!

Excuse my blurry photos. When you take close-ups from the last row, they tend to be blurry.

The family vacationed in Ocean City, N J. Her dad made them a sand castle in the shape of an automobile.

She's sitting with older sister Bonnie, who was very creative, but didn't learn to ride a bike until she was in her forties.

Here's her dad, Jack, sitting at the piano. He had many jobs - worked as a produce man at Penn Fruit for 90 cents an hour - and was also a piano tuner. Someone in the audience said he tuned their piano.

Just pretend it's pouring now. Dad built the kids a playhouse on the back of the house.

He filled up the back of his 1955 Chevy pick-up with used lumber he got. The two doors fit perfectly.

Bonnie and Gail and Jill - there were four or five girls - would pretend there was a flood outside and save people, reeling them in with a broom.

Then they would warm them up, provide them with warm clothes and feed them.

Dad made a kitchen for them. In the mini-fridge are milk bottles.... real bottles of milk, empty, but painted white. There are also empty soup cans.



The parents let the kids name the third girl. She was named after



the curvaceous Jill doll, made by Vogue. 

I liked Madame Alexander dolls with their pouting mouths.

In the summer, the family would travel to Willow Grove Park. Gail always wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel with her dad.

What she didn't know was that he was scared to go up. He decided to conquer his fear by riding it by himself. He worked nearby and could get in free after hours.

It took him three tries before he got his nerve up to ride the Ferris Wheel. Going up was easy. But it was going down that made your stomach do flip-flops and make you queasy.

He figured out what to do. Don't look down. Scan the grounds and enjoy the view.

  Oy, I'm so dizzy I almost fell off the couch.

WRITING TIPS

Free write. Don't worry about punctuation or grammar. Simply write.

Write 'snapshots' - little anecdotes of memorable things, such as birthdays or holidays.

Get out old photos and write about the events behind them.

Kron order gets boring, so skip around.

In the book Gail has a photo of the family Bible - her mom now has it - dating from her great great grand-parents. Born in 1820.

  Look at this beautiful book cover!

A friend who she plays tennis with is an artist and painted the cover. Her dad loved sweets so there are some cakes on the cover, chocolate, of course.

You'll see a Phillies' player, no. 6. I thought maybe it was Peter Rose, but, no, it's none other than Johnny Callison - who dat? - a famous Phillies player who lived in Glenside, PA, and died in Abington.




Callison was only 67 when he died.

She also has a section on  DADISMS.... quotes that Dad used to say:

- It's a beautiful day for a ride to Mount Penn. That meant let's go for a drive.

- If you have gas in your tank and a tongue in your mouth, you'll never get lost.

- You can never be too full for ice cream. It fills in the spaces where the food lies.

It took Gail two and a half years to write the book. There were two hurricanes in Ocean City, where she lives, that she had to deal with. The house was partially destroyed.

Also, she took on another project, building a doll house for Bonnie's daughter.
And, yes, she said, it was a big one.

She encouraged us to email her dad, Jack Alexander. Should I? I'll think about it.

 At the start of the meeting, we all stood up and said the Pledge of Allegiance.

Dyou know it?

Then we sang Happy Birthday to Gail. One of the women brought out a huge cake.

See my red-headed friend Carly up there? She and husband Charlie came. Enjoy your cake.

They got a really good crowd. That's Jack who sends out the emails. I sat next to a nice woman named Sandy from Huntingdon Valley.

Gail talked about the possibility of their house getting burglarized.

Her dad said, Why would they come here? Huntingdon Valley is right around the corner.

Oops, I better make sure my door is locked.

It is! This way they won't take my

A Night at the Samuels Hotel

Wanted to do some writing but am airing out the allergenic carpet, so I stayed with Freda and Bernie Samuels. They live in Legacy Oaks in Warrington, PA.


See website here.  

They pamper me. "We love you, Ruthie, come any time," says Freda.

 Bernie is a master chef.

He picked up this corned beef at Rednor's. We don't have one around here.

 I ate my corned beef with spicy mustard. Bernie also made roasted taters, which I had to decline b/c they're high in carbs.

Bernie also has diabetes, but it's under control. Every time he took his sugar it was between 80 and 120. He told me the 'high' number can be 125.

His mother died of the disease at age 42. Bernie had just come home from the Navy in World War II and his mother had died 10 days prior.

Mamela!

He told me nuts are really good for the person with diabetes.... nuts that grow on trees. I eat peanuts which are underground legumes.

Bernie eats pistachios which I gave up for vanity's sake. They chip off my nails and nail polish.

Flowers on the window sill. The Samuels are so popular, people bring them gifts. I brought a tin of one of my fave teas

Hot cinnamon spice.... they loved it.

For dessert..... hot zucchini bread, fresh from the oven.

I dunked it in my tea.

Let her eat cake and then go on the exercise bike, which I did for half an hour. It's a recumbent - the best! - and in the mirrored basement. I read my library book club selection

  Book of short stories about Nigerians flight to the USA and the life of violence they endure in Nigeria.

If I could only remember the author's name.... Adichie  adichie adichie.

Freda is an amazingly beautiful woman.

And, as we know, an author of memoirs.

 The tireless 89-yo Bernie roasts his own raw almonds.

Bernie is the best storyteller I've ever met.

He was telling me stories about when he joined the Navy at age 18. His memory is flawless. He can remember everyone on his ship and ones who hated Jews. "Hey Jewboy" one of them would say.

He was challenged to a boxing match by one of the antisemites.

What do I know? he says. He's 18 yo and had never boxed before. Quickly knocked out. Undaunted, he worked with a punching bag on the ship.

Then one of the black guys on the ship - the blacks' job on the ship was to 'serve' their 'masters' - wait on their every wish - saw Bernie working out and taught him how to fight.

POW!

A black guy taught Bernie the rudiments of fighting.

Bernie, who grew up in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philly, talked for a couple hours while I sat entranced.

I recommended that he get in touch with the Abington Free Library War Veterans series and mailed him the info.

Three years ago, I heard the great Ted Heck, 90 at the time, a columnist and tennis player.

BTW, I just ate a delicious dinner. Vegetable soup, made in the slo-cooker, with the usual suspects with Asparagus as the guest star, and, as you can see, a side of Corned Beef that Bernie gave me.

I had to dine with Princess Helena the Unicorn since my sister Donna stood me up.

Marcy, too bad you don't live closer.

Well, now it's time for bed at the Samuels Hotel.

They sleep on the first floor. A HUGE staircase leads to the second floor where I use the computer, the baffroom and the bedroom. I weigh 134.4.

They loved my PJs, which I bought at the same garage sale around the corner as where I bought tonite's dining commpanion - pretty sad when you have to pay someone to eat with you.

I read a lot of Adichie's short story book. HEY, the exercise paid off and I remember her last name.

You've heard of high ceilings.... these are high ceilings. Freda loves her hardwood floors.

Bernie has always loved to cook.

 Here's my bedroom.

Wedding photo of Freda's b'ful daughter Sharon and her then-husband.

 You'll never guess what Bernie made me for breakfast..... an omelet with lox! Scrumptious. Just the egg itself was delicious.

Why is that, I asked Freda.

He's got a magic touch, said Freda. Everything he makes turns out wonderful.

 The Samuels had crackers and peanut butter for breakfast.

 Always thinking, always talking.

Ah, he's making a call on my behalf. I'm reading the Intell.

The Intell is a great paper, I said to Freda.

It's a wonderful paper, she said. Better than the Inquirer.

They get both... tossed inside plastic bags in the driveway.

I went out in my PJs and picked em up for them.

Back home, in the kitchen I'm listening to disk one - of 11 -  of the book



Riveting! Told from the viewpoint of a young Jewish boy. It reads like nonfiction.

Jew-hater, Nazi-lover Charles Lindbergh is elected president. He was a great fan of Hitler and visited Germany before the war. Became an admiring personal friend of Hermann Goring.