Spring 2020 Issue Boyhood Memories

No Regrets Journal Boyhood Memories

Spring 2020 Issue 29


No Regrets, a journal of poetry, prose and images about the exploration of being and meaning.

Clayton Medeiros, Editor, Poet, Photographer, Collage Artist claymedeiros@aol.com Neil McKay (Johnny Trash), Webmaster Submissions are by invitation of the editor Epublishing http://issuu.com/claymedeiros/docs Facebook page No Regrets Journal, haikus, poems and photographs https://www.facebook.com/NoRegretsJournal

Aunt Fran’s Bird Feeders I grew up with bird feeders brimming With gray and black sunflower seeds Chunky peanut butter for jaunty squirrels Suet for birds who hung on wire holders Aunt Fran loved back yard flora and fauna Including her three year old nephew invited To live along with her younger sister Bernadette With Uncle Eddie in East Hartford Connecticut Perhaps I am the child Fran never had Until this memory of birds and squirrels Raising robins who fell from the nest A possibility never considered likely

Aunt Fran’s House From the front walk at Fifteen Bedford Avenue, I could see Cape Cod houses, just like ours, on each side of the simple, black macadam road, spaced equally among segmented gray side walks, marked here and there by hop scotch squares, waiting quietly for school to be done.

Milk and cookies at the kitchen table with friends or hangers on who knew my Aunt Fran almost always had fresh baked cookies ready after school, chocolate chips, lots of walnuts, inchoate buttery wonders.

Then, in that time before dinner, there were balls to be tossed, tag to be played, hiding places to be found that no blind folded kid leaning against a tree would ever find.

There was pie for every season, spring time rhubarb, followed by strawberry rhubarb, summer peaches, apples into the fall, Gravensteins, worth it for the name alone, accompanied by extra sharp pure white Cheddar cheese from Vermont Winter trips to the basement Uncle Eddie diligently dug out of the three foot crawl space with its cement floor brought into submission one piece at a time by sledge hammer, shovels, an endless wheel barrow to and fro. Soon, there were floor to ceiling shelves along the wall, each filled with summer captured in jars of canned fruits and preserves to get us through the winter when, as always, there was Aunt Fran’s dessert.

Uncle Eddie And Aunt Fran Uncle Eddie grew up in a large family Part of New Bedford’s Polish diaspora Adding to the Acadian Portuguese New England Yankee mixture In this lobster and fishing center Rendered in Melville’s Moby Dick The old church described with A pulpit looking like a Boston Whaler Cutting through rolling white caps Sermons reflecting puritanic roots Uncle Eddie was a man of few words Loquacious Aunt Fran filled the void With endless thoughts and stories Accompanied by raucous laughter A characteristic shared by her sisters Eddie was one of seven children HIs mother ruled the family with Quiet determination and expectations Everyone was expected for Easter Polish Catholicism’s vibrant center Celebrated in prayer and all day feasts Aunt Fran became a nurse who soon Found her real interests in art and gardening They moved to East Hartford Connecticut For a Pratt & Whitney Aircraft job where Eddie who had gone to trade school Became a highly skilled machinist I can still see the velvet lined drawers Of the burnished wood tool kit he had The plant was the community’s life blood With great positions no college required He was a natural athlete along with skills in carpentry plumbing and electrical work He later worked for a custom house contractor We would go out to building sites searching For stones and plants for Aunt Fran and Her nationally recognized rock garden When he retired they became professional Round dance and square dance teachers Traveling the country capturing students And prizes with their graceful movements and Outfits that reflected her sewing arts skills

Aunt Fran’s Pets My Aunt Fran made the squirrels and birds welcome With bountiful homemade feeders hung On the maple tree I hopefully climbed most days With its late spring robins’ nests where fledglings Would mistake their readiness for air and earth So we took them in to raise them In card board box residences on the enclosed porch The dogs left them alone even though they Shared the same food from our local market The butchers set aside meat scraps for us Picked up with each Friday’s groceries No one minded the smell of kidneys and leftovers As they simmered on the stove

Aunt Fran’s Kitchen Along with whatever menu had come To Aunt Fran’s ever fertile culinary mind Grounded in endless explorations Of the cooking roots of our New Bedford Acadian French Polish and Portuguese heritage The aromas of German pork with sauerkraut Greek lamb with our home grown green beans Canned Italian marinara sauce in quart jars for Winter pastas with old fashioned meatballs A mixture of pork beef veal and stale bread Recipes that cut back and forth across Europe

Wooden Bowl The candelabra cross sat on a book case with Halloween pictures of costumed children, hung with small witches, pumpkins and other treasures of the season. It usually held candles when called for. I decided it belonged behind the wooden bowl by the sideboard. The bowl had been hand carved by some New Englander a long time ago. You can see the chisel marks with their sense of purpose.

At an auction in rural Vermont’s rolling green hills Aunt Fran successfully bid on it. I was about eight at the time. Aunt Fran and Uncle Eddie often took me along. The drives themselves were fun in the old four door black Buick that cruised over two lane black top roads heading out to big white New England clap board houses with wrap around porches and barns filled to overflowing with one or more estates.

They gave you time to look things over before the auctioneer kicked things off with a “What am I bid for” whatever was being held up or pointed to by one of his assistants who took their job very seriously.

They too scanned the crowd for bidders. Fran had a great eye for form and bargains. She taught me how to tell the old cut glass pieces and look for English stone ware and Limoges china marks on the back of plates.The wooden bowl sat in a prominent place on the fireplace mantel in her Connecticut house.

When she died, it came to me and it now holds fresh fruit in the kitchen. I like to see it each morning as part of getting the day started on a good note.

Walk Early spring walk A rare blue northwest day Green slope rivulets Pristine white magnolia’s Memories of other walks From a long time ago Wooded adventures following The stream on the other side of Shade grown tobacco’s fallow fields Far enough into the woods To feel like Natty Bumpo Deerslayer Leatherstocking Frontiersmen who understood The ways of the forest And all the lives it held Carried all they needed For the hunt for new land With no farmers or rules Seasons’ rhythmic cycles Spring time exuberance Shelter in the winter quiet Then, home for cookies with Chocolate chips and walnuts I could almost smell them Coming up the walk To the house

Bernie Knits I see my mother Tall and slender even when She sat on the couch Circled my waiting arms with Colorful wool yarn ready To be wound in to a ball Placed in a basket on the floor Knitting needles soon clicked Gifted fingers steady knit and purl Her hands were always busy I had more colorful sweaters Than anyone in the neighborhood Warm enough for a winter day’s effort At snow fort construction crafted By hands encased in wool mittens

Childhood Walk A walk in the narrow tree and scrub filled valley Along the stream bed clotted here and there By stones left behind in glacial retreats A search for quiet pools usually around A curve or behind a log in the tempered shadow Pale green watercress dotted with frog spawn My canning jar ready to be filled and head home Checking daily the jars placed in the window For the moment round black dots uncurled into tadpoles

Movies Saturdays I went to the movies, double features, cartoons, candy bars, popcorn in rectangular boxes, perfect for a flattened toss across the camera's flickering light where cowboys and super heroes taught invaluable lessons about life, death and liberty.

Once in awhile, a kiss before the hero rode into the sunset or shook hands with his buddy after the evil forces of the wild west, World War II, outer space were duly and fairly extinguished to raucous cheers and clapping, might and right seemed to be the same thing on Saturday afternoons at the movies.

John Ford and Me Dreams of John Ford’s camera Clothes smell of bar smoke stale beer My Darling Clementine plays Cowboy storied dusty roads Lead to Monument Valley Spires and buttes and chaparral As far as the eye can see Henry Fonda does the good things Walter Brennan does the bad things The Clantons and the Earps live Again and again film after film I desperately wanted those long Henry Fonda legs the clear eyed hero Doing the right thing always

Books Running through the hills of my imagination Characters from my aunt and uncle’s book shelves Rafael Sabatini Alexander Dumas James Fenimore Cooper Authors I was told I was too young to read so Flashlight in hand I would creep down the stairs Grab a hefty forbidden hard bound book Soon I was transported to pirate seas, musketeers An ever resourceful frontiersman careful not to sleep Until the purloined treasure returned to its proper place

Boyhood In my working class Neighborhood where everyone Worked at Pratt and Whitney The foreman down the street went on Strike with everyone else in East Hartford When the time came to walk out It took college and books for me To understand the bravery of what He had done even though he Whacked his kids and never Said a word to me that I remember The side door into the kitchen was Always answered by one Or another of the four sisters His son Gilbert and I would be off And running to some new Fantastic adventure

Teenager boyhood expectant hesitations edged into teenage years turned up collars DA haircuts fourteen inch pegged pants grey wool with small pink speckles finished in Cuban heel black shoes striped Chinese collared shirts me and my girl king and queen of the high school sweetheart ball danced at the bandstand show in the big city of New Haven her poodle skirt moved to the beat as we did the Berkley Bop to doo wop harmonies

Bohemia He wasn’t preaching that poetry creates Bohemia A simple matter of fact that poets know But Wallace Stevens sold insurance in Hartford Where the State Theater on South Main Street Lured boys like me to hear the G Clefs Moonglows Bo Diddley black history’s genius In unrecognized music Doctor Jive broadcast From Philadelphia to my Phillips radio console In Connecticut along with short wave languages That sounded like relatives’ parents’ voices Fortunately for me the bathroom switch blade Only hit a front tooth and I never told my mother Who always worried and still does even when I sat by her nursing home bed and read to her What later caught my ear were poets’ voices Sonorous Dylan Thomas when not in coed beds Stodgy T S Eliot when not abandoning his wife Shadowed hipster Beatnik songs of black top Places I’d never been New York to LA When my draft board vetoed Vietnam for Peru

Boyhood Jobs When I was fourteen I tried strawberry picking In day two I knew pay and effort were discordant I switched to shade grown tobacco Planted under nets and used as cigar wrappers I sat between the plants to weed side to side Working my way down the endless rows Soon dripping in sweat from the humidity The high point was getting a drink of water Served from recycled wine barrels At sixteen I switched to field grown tobacco No netting and I drove a John Deere tractor When school started I went to the A & P store Bagging and helping people load their groceries Returning the abandoned carts to the entryway Once surprised by a lovely five dollar tip My mother worked at G. Fox and Company The privately owned high end department store She oversaw the pharmacy and candy department I knew many people there from my childhood I worked there through high school Starting out as a stock boy in the shoe department I worked my way up to being a salesman Through all of these varied experiences I realized my future included a college degree 

Visiting October New England Often lost in books words stories Childhood a distant time and place A mixture of misty relatives Where I understood each season With its own sunlight and clouds Where I misunderstood others Each with their own sensibilities A place where I return for tastes of childhood Each with its flavor of the sea Portugal Acadia I travel to and see with new eyes Familial ghosts and New Bedford’s current denizens Places on Cape Cod where it curls into the Atlantic Jostled by Humpback whales with curious eyes Melville wondering who and what we have become

New Bedford, Massachusetts Places like Coggeshall Street Steam out of childhood memories Aunts uncles cousins Christmas dinners Where everyone speaks but no one listens Soon boozy silence and separate dreams Solace in morning’s misty harbors Charlotte’s laugh rings from the kitchen Always sputtering butter in the morning As stove top gas ignites black metal Iron skillet wonders of eggs and fish cakes Forgiveness in sweet aromatics In a kingdom ruled by loud uncles

New Bedford Even if you've never been Have no idea where it is You know its a fishing village Cranky weathered wood buildings Piled along the bay's curve Clapboard tavern pickled eggs In a big jar behind the bar Tasty beer named Narragansett Fisherman hunched on bar stools Speak to the old ways of Infinite cod and haddock Out on the Georgia Banks You could pay for the kid Too clumsy to be on a boat When a northeaster rises To go to the university Become a doctor a lawyer But today just memories A beer and a shot or two The phone rings near closing He’s not here says the bar tender I haven't seen him today Another round another round

Aunt Charlotte My mother and I always vacationed With Aunt Charlotte in Massachusetts Her home was in Fairhaven a classic New England town with brick sidewalks Elm tree lined streets and parks Much to my happiness the house Was walking distance to the harbor Where the boats were kept by Busy lobster and fisher men With their constant goings and comings Boat repairs traps and nets being mended The house looked out on the town square Their grocery store was on the first floor They lived on the second floor with Windows facing the elegant stone church There were various shops along the street Including a drugstore with fountain services And a very satisfying hot fudge sundae The house centered around Charlotte’s kitchen Her infectious laugh often accompanied by My mother’s laugh as they cracked up Over shared stories from their childhood Before dinner drinks were shared At the small rectangular oil cloth covered table Charlotte as always in one of her frumpy Flowered dresses with or without an apron Matching the table’s yellow flowers Often there was the buttery smell of Halibut haddock Georges Bank cod We knew the fishermen and got Top of the catch which was freshest Clam chowder was on the stove Broth made from quahogs with butter Cream and half and half added later The final touch was a few oyster crackers Even now I believe that Aunt Charlotte Looks down on her favorite nephew

Uncle Poolie Edward Wlodyka Uncle Poolie Was six foot five inches tall Weighed two hundred fifty pounds With a voice and the narcissism To match his equally loud brother Walter who was a lobsterman They started the day at sunrise Out at the back yard picnic table With shots of Canadian whiskey There was laughter but without joy Jokes were always at other’s expense Any problem either of them had Was always someone else’s fault Someone else’s responsibility On the other hand when we visited Walter would leave a plastic bag With a dozen or so lobsters in it Uncle Poolie a clam bake master Would walk us down to the beach To dig the hole that holds the rocks Topped off with a huge bonfire At the right moment the coals Were covered with gathered seaweed Followed by layers of soft shell clams Fish wrapped in oil paper corn Sausage tripe and other wonders Covered with sea weed and a tarp The clam bake master determined The right moment to open the bake Ushering in the feast accompanied By iced beers lemonade and soda

Uncle Eddie’s Family I don’t know who they were Unhappy drunks who surrounded My childhood and still sit In memories of Christmas Easter Aunt Cadelia’s funeral When I first had pickled ham hocks Aunt Stella always looked startled Only rarely hearts entwined A sensibility I saw in others A soft hand to ease the burden Of sadness over some loss Any loss even childhood itself The will to play to create Sapped by time’s drudgery Together to no purpose except The shine of egos standing One on another compete for Some inanimate unclear prize The search for spiritual solutions Rosicrucians hypnosis hypochondria Maybe in the end it is about control The need to own something Pure and simple that never Talks back or seeks a higher place Some listener to absorb the Sense and nonsense of mind Heart and soul quietly Reverent but alive in this world Not the Christian heaven or hell But simply present here and now Recognize the newest wrinkle And not diminish the old forms Tied carefully in knots since The beginning of time for these People linked only by blood Rarely tenderness in a quiet touch To reassure the childish heart That everything is alright after all Broken glasses can be replaced

Uncle Eddie’s Mother her babushka cotton print dress ever present apron unless she came in to finally sit down to eat one of many meals prepared that day she faked not speaking English if she didn’t like you I hung around in her kitchen by the coal gas stove with its white enamel windowed door we got along she cooked I tasted trays of home made kielbasa were passed around followed by a sit down dinner meat stuffed roast duck’s fat disappeared under crisp skin pierogis with sauerkraut farmers cheese potatoes sour cream and butter sautéed in the big iron skillet soon followed by Polish meatballs made with bread veal pork beef loaves of rye pumpernickel egg yellow sweet bread she would watch superman with me

Bernie’s Sisters Bernadette Charlotte and Francis Chortling sisters once again From where ever one goes from this life Raucous laughter flows across the room Across clam bake picnic tables Across dinning room chowder bowls As they once again tell the story Of everyone but five year old me Sitting in the kitchen over coffee As I happily tossed down leftover drinks In the living room laughing into the kitchen And very soon asleep on the rug Mother’s only son and favored nephew Of childless aunts who took us in After she kicked my father out

Uncle Ernie’s Stone Wall The old stone wall Reflects the work of hands That made it many years ago Every stone belongs Uncle Ernie walked the wall Each Spring to restack Winter frost heaved sections On the house side of the wall Were primroses and rhododendrons The other side looked to a field With some twenty cords of firewood Capped with plywood sheets Held down by glacial rocks Unearthed turning up the soil For the vegetable garden Beyond the garden wall Blueberries lined a path Into the woods that once Held a copper still

Uncle Ernie and Aunt Lou Uncle Chick a lean angular man of few words Aunt Lou was round and five foot two With a similar approach to words When they bought the farm in Hixville It was mostly open fields Chick spent decades planting trees A woodland with a path Lined with prolific blueberry bushes He added orchards a strawberry patch A truck garden and a two story barn That included an area to raise Chickens for eggs and capons for meat The house had a rarely used front door There were two back doors One came to the sitting room with a wood stove The other came into the tool shop There was nothing he could not make Or repair with his machinist skills They hosted Christmas late afternoon dinner We would arrive and be told to Go on in to the living room There would be no socializing until Chores were done and everything in order Then the welcome hugs and smiles Accompanied by cherry brandy made In the still he shared with a neighbor There were plates of appetizers A sumptuous feast soon took place Before presents were opened and admired The laughter rose to accompany the brandy

Reminiscence Along the early morning empty beach Memory’s museum rises from the mist My mother’s slim silhouette a one piece Swim suit overseen by an arc of straw hat My tan boy’s body bounds in to the waves Of surf pounding Horseneck Beach Always part of the summer vacation At Aunt Charlotte’s among Fairhaven’s Fireplace red brick walks carefully laid By diligent immigrant hands as Elegant elm trees bless the day

Adventurous Words I was a boy in love with adventure books Pirates cowboys explorers warriors Ever resilient on disasters’ edge Sailors forever going down to the sea In a place with little resemblance To the New Bedford I knew But the courage still there As the fisherman took their boats Out of the harbor to ride out the hurricane That took the roof off the church As I sat in a window across the street I listened closely on their return To understand Newfoundland’s cadence As they sat in Aunt Charlotte’s living room Sharing stories and Canadian whiskey Above the grocery store she owned Where the Captain bought supplies For the next Georgia’s Bank trip Laughing voices described waves That could have easily swamped them

Photographs Photographs mat or glossy candor Capture romantic aspirations Possibility disappointment Kept in thick black pages Not too carefully by aging aunts Whose siblings beat them to heaven So they maintain the family history As best they could for dwindling Survivors who no longer knew Who the proud people were in front Of the wooden store somewhere In French Canada before the Moves to Massachusetts And Rhode Island and‌

Father’s Day My father called today with That big Massachusetts accent Like everyone in New Bedford A machinist now in Michigan Seventy retired perhaps happy I think in the world chosen or Perhaps it picked him with The motorcycle he drove east To wrap up his father’s Last will and testament They hadn’t seen one another Since nineteen fifty two An old dog betting gambler Win lose or draw with Forty years between visits And forty seven for us Men leave their children The forgotten don’t forgive Tight money new wife Kid on the way never knowing Who could or would love you I thought he might save me From my fractured childhood Left alone to fend With all those women Who loved me well But no men’s things To share like balls thrown To the boy hiding among Hero brimmed lonely books Always running to the Next adventure by horse ship Plane train rocket ship Magic carpet just one step Ahead of treachery or evil With unsheathed shining sword A swiftly drawn forty four shoots True to the mark stops All villains everywhere Monte Christo’s revenge As the clock strikes the hour

Going down to the sea Ishmael in the crow’s nest The globe of the sky blue As the ocean with Moby Dick nowhere to be seen Walden Pond’s Thoreau Jailed Emerson out there Blowing bubbles pays Taxes Puritan niceties Foisted on all lovers’ future My father’s and mine Do you have a favorite book What movies did you like What’s your favorite TV show Whose your favorite Film actress Game show host football player Baseball team race horse What music do you like Did you and your wife dance Our unshared life and times

Edwin Outwater II, Stepfather We were never close You adored my mother She loved you deep and true But too much distance Always between us Your lithe athletics My anxious awkwardness Your precise engineering My literary aspirations The war you never spoke of Unless it was a funny story From Germany’s front lines The zipper that broke When you were blown from The top of the American tank Uninjured and a medal for bravery The Vietnam War I did not join You understood why after a time My mother was our common ground

Gulls for Bernie Morning wake up call Squawkers and screechers Dreamers against the night A renovated school roof perch Home to ever watchful gulls Keening in the airy sun rise Eager seekers of possibility My mother’s favorite creatures Other than anything small and furry Sailing on wind blown memories Of Horseneck Beach rocky sands Her brothers’ ever watchful eyes Alert to New Bedford’s denizens On the look out for innocence Eighty eight in a nursing home bed Dreams of childhood picnics With her four siblings her mother Summer ribboned dress flowered hat Their handsome well tailored father Before they lost it all to the depression My mother was sixteen when they died

Maternal Update I see my mother in rain drenched clouds driving windy ripples across the bay too busy for heaven she wanders the earth ever since the northeaster took her ashes out over Horse Neck Beach into the swirl of snow and drizzle that soon enveloped her beloved Wellfleet its bay slowly adds sand on one side of Cape Cod while on the other the crashing Atlantic tears away at sandy cliffs beaches and dunes she loves the Northwest with its mix of Salish Sea the wild Pacific and me