Mom

When I was very young, Mom sometimes took me shopping at a small shopping center on Six Mile Road. After Shopping, she always took me to Sanders to get ice cream. That was good. I used to steal money and cigarettes from Mom’s pure in the hall closet. That was bad. She didn’t like it. I used to cuss a lot when I first learned how. Practice makes perfect. Mom washed my mouth out with soap. I didn’t get the connection. What has cussing got to do with hygiene.

A couple of things that made Mom laugh:

• Serving Pineapple Surprise for dinner. I don’t remember what were the ingredients, but pineapple wasn’t one of them.
• The Detroit intersection of Macomb and Brush (‘My comb and brush.’)

Mom spent a lot of time in the basement washing and ironing. She even ironed the bedsheets. After dinner, the dishes were to be washed and dried immediately (mostly by Mom) and put away in the cupboard – no ‘air drying’ of the dishes by letting them sit out on the kitchen counter. She took to heart the saying, ‘if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’

When I was upset or angry, Mom would say ‘where’s that smile?’ and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t resist breaking out in a smile and my problem disappeared just like that.

In later years, mom occasionally had a maid who happened to be a black women. Mom often gave her clothes that were in very good condition and also made sure that the maid was provided a ride home at the end of the day and generally treated her as a personal friend.

Dad

Dad and I played a lot of sports and games together. I don’t know how he found the time. Fishing at Burt Lake. Baseball games at Briggs Stadium. Golf at Palmer Park, Rackham, Essex, and the cottage up north. He was a fan of Ben Hogan. I thought he looked a lot like Ben Hogan. Dad and I went to the US Amateur one year in Detroit. Arnold Palmer won. Arnold was still in college. When I played golf with my friends I had a habit of throwing my club whenever I made a bad shot – just to blow off some steam. One time when playing with Dad I forgot and instinctively threw a club after a bad shot. Dad was taken aback. He had never seen me do that before. For Dad, that was unacceptable behavior on a golf course. My biggest problem when playing golf is a tendency to stand too close to the ball after I hit it (that’s a joke).

Dad put up a basketball backboard in the back yard. My friends and I got hours and hours of enjoyment out of it. He also put up a floodlight on the back porch for playing at night. Dad and I played a lot of pool down in the basement usually late at night. We played cribbage up at the cottage. When it was my turn to play a card, he said, ‘think long, think wrong.’ I think that was a hint.

He sometimes took me to his work in downtown Detroit. One day a black woman came in. She had a very worried look on her face. Probably needed financial or medical help. Dad’s secretary showed her into Dad’s office. A few minutes later, the woman came out with a big smile of relief on her face. Another satisfied customer! Dad was very proud of being awarded an honorary membership in the NAACP.

My Dad’s nickname for me was ‘Pedro’. I really don’t know why he used that name but it always gave me a warm feeling. 

After Mom’s funeral, Carol, gin and I went to visit Dad at Ford Hospital. We were obviously all feeling very depressed and I don’t recall much of the conversation, but, at one point Dad looked upward, and, with a faraway look in his eye, said, ‘I can see her beautiful face,’ referring, of course, to Mom.

Gin

Gin helped me with a grade-school project – actually, she did it for me – it was a real neat wood-burned image of the Eiffel Tower in color. I got an A. 

El

In early grade school, I fell and hurt my leg while playing in the neighborhood with Ivan Boesky (yes, that Ivan Boesky). El came and carried me back home in her arms so Mom could take me to the clinic and get me sewn up.

Kath

On Christmas, Kath always had a gift for everyone and each gift was beautifully wrapped – almost like a work of art. Seeing the wrapping was almost as enjoyable as opening the present.

Mare

Mare saved my life. When I was very young, I almost drowned at Mullet Lake. I hadn’t learned to swim yet. Mare pulled me out of the water. Mom and Dad got her a pair of water-wings as a reward.

Ed

Ed and I sometimes went to the movies at the Varsity Theater during early grade school. He knew all the actors’ names. He followed the plot. I didn’t. I liked Abbot and Costello movies. I asked him all kinds of questions about what was going on during the movie. Drove him crazy. 

Tad

Tad got into a lot of trouble one time at Gesu Grade School. He wrote the name of one of the older nuns on a billboard beneath a picture of the Egyptian sphinx. The billboard was right outside school where everyone could see it. I thought it was funny. The nuns didn’t think so.

Mike

Mom use to tutor Mike on his math when he was in grade school.  I don’t know if there was any Learning going on during these sessions but I do recall a lot of laughter.  A couple of times I did the tutoring for her when she asked me.  After that I was pretty sure he would never make it through grade school.

Marg

Marg and Mike used to argue a lot about who had the better birth date – March 11^th (Marg) or February 16^th (Mike). Not sure if they ever came to an agreement – probably not.

Bob

Bob was a fan of Mad Magazine – what, me worry? - wish he could be here for Beavis and Butthead. I liked the way he was so unpretentious.

One time, as a gift, I gave Bob a kit for building a homemade radio.  I didn’t think it was such a great gift but it was the best I could come up with at the time on a limited budget.  A day later, Bob said ‘come here – I want to show you something’. I went to his bedroom and he showed me the assembled radio complete with an antenna which went from the radio out to a nearby tree in the yard – and the radio actually worked.  I think he got more pleasure out of it than if it had been a regular radio, all of which gave me a good feeling.  He had a lot more patience than I would have had with such a project.

Paul’s Friends

Ray Ruddon

When the family first moved to the Parkside Home, I was about 4 years old. I didn’t have any kids to play with in the new neighborhood so I played at home a lot. One day, I was walking down Parkside and spotted a kid about my age across the street. But I wasn’t allowed to cross the street. So I went  home and told Mom, who walked me over to Ray’s house and introduced us to Ray and his mother. Mom was very happy about this. Much less babysitting for her and a friend for me. Ray was my closest friend from that time all through grade school. Ray was always the top student in Gesu School. Sometimes it was very handy to have him as a friend. Whenever I got into trouble at school, the nuns would ask me who my friends were and the first words out of my mouth were ‘Ray Ruddon.’ Then the nuns would let me go.

Marty Brown

Marty lived in the neighborhood on Wildemere Street. I knew him through our teen years. He was a happy-go-lucky guy, unlike his father, who was an All-American football player at Notre Dame in the ‘20s and a no-nonsense guy. Marty occasionally dropped by our house on Parkside to visit. He called Dad ‘Wally’ and generally treated him like one of ‘the guys’ with verbal jousting and teasing. This was shocking to me. I would never talk to Dad like that. Equally shocking was seeing Dad enjoying it immensely and teasing Marty right back.

Tom Brown

Tom was Marty’s older brother. I was driving our car one day down Northwestern Expressway with Tom and a couple of other friends. Tom had purchased a starter’s pistol. As we drove down the road, Tom reached his arm out the window and shot his pistol at other drivers. Sounded like a real gun. Just like cops and robbers in the movies. The real cops paid me a visit later that day at home on Parkside. Thank goodness Dad wasn’t home from work yet. Got away with it for once.

Mullach abu!!!