| remember buhdge. yesterday, and then some. |
|---|
My Record Player
Part Four:
Reupholstery and Other Four-Letter Words
Read:
Part One
The Road to Washington County
This is a cautionary tale, for dreamers and those who would dream.
I was an impressionable youngster. I'm still impressionable. Tell me that there is even a hint of wishing dust hovering over something that I'm passionate about and I'll believe in miracles. I'll believe that anything is possible.
Back in the golden age of radio--well, my golden age, anyway--I would listen to WABC-AM for hours on end, loving the sounds of the sixties coming through my transistor radio speaker. Growing up in New York had its advantages, not the least of which was the greatest radio station on the face of the Earth--a glorious patchwork-quilt of teen-targeted pop, show tunes and station promos that had the ring of heaven. I loved comic books, I loved to read books, I loved television, but I loved radio, so if my parents or my sister or brother were looking for me, they'd pretty much know where to look first.
The thing about WABC was that the station's personalities far outshone any music they played, and that includes Beatles songs. They were way more than fab on their own, those Mop Top slices of infinite bliss, but introduced and talked up by the best deejays in the known universe, they were even fabber.
The disc jockeys at WABC were truly magical; I count myself lucky and fortunate as hell to have interviewed almost all of them over the years. Herb Oscar Anderson was the morning man who didn't like to get out of bed in the morning; he was late so often that his engineer would have to play records until he showed up. Ron Lundy, with his vibrant "Hello, love!" greeting, spiced with southern charm, was warm and cuddly and always fun. Dandy Dan Ingram, the best one-liner jock ever, could think on his feet like no other radio guy. He is known as the Deejay's Deejay.
Charlie Greer, toiling in the wee hours, was famous for live commercials for Dennison Clothiers, a New Jersey clothing store whose copy became legend, not only for the way it was written but also for the quirky way Greer delivered it. Chuck Leonard and other magical voices made the WABC airwaves come alive during my youth, but Cousin Bruce Morrow, aka Cousin Brucie, made them sing.
The Cuz was and is something truly special, a genuine man with loads of heart for whom everyone feels a kinship. I've walked through the streets of New York with the man, and damn if every other person would say hello to him--the UPS guy, the street cleaner, the woman on her way to work. People of all ages. Brucie truly connects with every listener on a one-to-one basis, which is the way it's supposed to be.
One of the live commercials Brucie did back in the sixties was for Gimbels, one of New York's giant department stores that went out of business in the 1980s. The particular commercial I'm thinking of was one for Gimbels' shop-at-home upholstery service. I remember it like it was yesterday...
(Brucie bangs on the console) Is this the place? (Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump) Is this the place? (Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump) Well, there's no other place...like Gimbels!
The Cuz would go through his rap about how wonderful it was to reupholster your living room furniture. Now, wouldn't that old couch look sparkling in the Emperor's new clothes? Sure, it would. I remember being glued to the radio, listening to Brucie sell the hell out of the words, and I believed, despite the fact that my mother encased our living room furniture in plastic slipcovers, perfect for that coveted skin-stuck-to feeling that makes hot weather a kid's favorite time of the year.
That particular day, it was hot and humid as it usually was in the summer months on Long Island, and listening to Brucie push that copy, I believed so much so that I went to the telephone and dialed the number he read, inviting a Gimbels representative to visit our house with samples for our reupholstery job.
And then, as quickly as I made the call, I forgot about it, because I knew what I had just done. I figured, ignorance will be bliss. But I had an out: Cousin Brucie told me to call! When my mother yelled at me, and she was going to for this, for sure, I could just say, "Cousin Brucie said to call, and you always tell me to do what my elders say!"
Great plan, indisputably predictable, quite damaging results.
A couple of days later, the screen door, the only barrier between the front hallway of my house and the sweltering outdoors, was minding its own business when the doorbell rang and I, resplendent in my shorts and striped shirt ran to see who it was. "Who is it?", my mother yelled from the kitchen upstairs. "I'm answering the door," I yelled back. It was the Gimbels guy, a man looking beaten down by the heat and the impossibility of his impossible life; a man with a paunch, balding, dressed in the salesman's preferred outfit--shortsleeve white shirt on top of a white, v-neck undershirt, black-frame glasses slightly askew on his nose, belt too tight, hard-sole black shoes...and his briefcase, full to the brim with samples that would revive our tired, old living room furniture.
"Who is it?", my mother yelled again. I stammered, as I was wont to do when I was nervous. "Uh...uh...it's-" "Who is it?" "Uh...it's-" The elephant steps of my mother, clanging her way down to the screen door, resounded in the nimble air. "Who is--" And, suddenly, there she was, only the slightly warped screen between her, the Gimbels guy, and my impending punishment.
"Good afternoon, m'am," said the Gimbels guy, turning on the sort of smile that belies complete and utter disfunction, for why else would this man be subjecting himself to such activity? "I'm from Gimbels, and I've come to show you some samples that I'm sure you're going to love." "For...", my mother asked, her umpteenth cigarette of the day in her hand. "For your living room furniture," the Gimbels guy said. "You called and asked Gimbels to send someone out."
In one of those what-has-he-done-now moments that every kid subjects himself to, my mother turned to me, sitting on the steps, visibly shaking, knowing my days were numbered. Then she turned to the Gimbels guy, politely told him that she hadn't called, that I had, more than likely, and she was so sorry for the mistake, for him having to come out in such oppressive heat.
The Gimbels guy took it like a pro, shrugged his shoulders, said something like "It happens all the time, m'am, those kids'll play jokes on you if you don't watch them every second," and meandered out to his car, making sure to lower the windows for that very special four-by-sixty summertime experience.
My mother pivoted around, gritted her teeth, and began a long verbal assault that began with the parental you-did-it-again preamble, "Young man...", saying each word with more singular authority than necessary, and proceeded to ground me for what probably seemed like an eternity. I deserved it, of course (this time, anyway), and took my punishment like a man.
"But Cousin Brucie said-", I cried, trying to be defensive without quadrupling my time behind bars. All my mother said was, "I don't care what Cousin Brucie said." "But, Ma..." The sullen routine didn't work on her. "He's not our cousin, besides," my mother pointed out. "But he's everybody's cousin," I countered. Mom was not swayed. The punishment stayed, and when my father came home, I heard the whole thing again. And, probably, again.
The whole magilla seems rather quaint now, looking back on it all these years after the fact. Reupholstery became something of a four-letter word for me at that point, but I still feel that new coverings that didn't stick to the back of your leg were way better than plastic, which did, and left welts in the shape of farm animals, besides.
I bet the Cuz didn't put plastic on his living room furniture.
Alan Haber
November 6, 2005