Old Friends are the Best Friends

My birthday was yesterday and I got a call with birthday wishes from George, one of my friends from our kindergarten days back in Mt. Tabor, the tiny town in New Jersey where we grew up. He calls me every year, and in the days before smart phone calendars I sometimes didn’t set a reminder anyplace and missed calling him back on his birthday exactly two months after mine in January. I don’t miss anymore. Our other joined-at-the-hip-since-kindergarten friend, Bob, has a birthday in March, and George and I talked about Bob, as well as other things.

Other things included reminiscences about the old days, of course, but after a bit of that we just settled into what old friends usually do: chatting about what’s going on in our lives like it was only a week ago, or less, that we last talked. It always strikes me with old friends that you don’t have to lament how long it’s been since you’ve contacted each other, or either of you feel bad about it, or even one of you give the other a hard time because of it. (I have some friends that get all bitchy if too much time passes without a word, who blame me for it, even though they hadn’t picked up the phone or emailed either. Old friends don’t do that.) With old friends you pick up like you’ve never left. You slide back in together like you’re sitting in George’s room listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for the first time, or smoking your first joint behind the church again, or gaping once more at Playboys that Bob found in the woods off the fourth fairway on the golf course.

What was going on with George most recently was the evening concert he produces for Children’s Day, the town celebration of children in Mt. Tabor—morning Olympics, an afternoon parade with costumes and floats, a midway with arcade games and food, an evening parade with all the local fire trucks and an evening concert and fireworks—on the first Saturday of August every year; the fact that the bands were supposed to be somebody I didn’t remember opening for Arlo Guthrie, but the town elders decided that even though the first Saturday of August this year was the 1^st of the month, that for the first time in 140-something years they had to invoke some rule that Children’s Day was on the first Saturday after the first full week of August, so it fell on August 8^th, and Arlo Guthrie wasn’t available, so it was Badfinger (the last one still alive backed by other musicians) opening for Peter Noone featuring Herman’s Hermits instead; that Finn, local Tabor kid who made it big in real estate and finances the concert each year, couldn’t even make it on the 8^th.

Then after mentioning Badfinger we went into a long digression about Harry Nilsson (he made a hit out of Badfinger’s song, Without You), me saying that I could never find Nilsson’s version of I Like New York in June that ran with the closing credits of the movie The Kingfisher on any of his albums, so I had to buy the soundtrack of the movie for that one song. We talked for a while about all of Nilsson’s albums, trying to figure out if I Like New York in June was on one of them and finally gave up. I resolved to order the CD for A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night because I haven’t heard it in years: I only have it on vinyl and have no idea where my turntable might be.

What was going on for me was that Manette and Zac were out of town so I had birthday dinner with Jack and Cindy, my in-laws, and of course Styles, our wonderdog pitbull; that I’ve finished my latest novel and am waiting for my editor to free up to work with him on it; that I’m working on another Sasha Del Mira story; that we closed up the pool and the fountain a little early this year; that our taxes on our New Jersey house went up yet again and as much as I love it I’m thinking of arranging to have a plane crash on it some day we aren't there because it’s worth more dead than alive (replacement cost insurance vs. market value); and that I would take responsibility for contacting Bob to set up an annual hard date for the three of us to get together instead of calling each other randomly and not having it happen for months.

I have a pillow in the den of our home in Milford that I got from my old friends, Jimmy and Charle, that has, “Old Friends are the Best Friends” embroidered into it. So true. If I don’t see George first, I’m looking forward to talking to him on his birthday.

Victorian Christmas

Every year or so during the Christmas season, I try to return to the small town of Mt. Tabor in northern New Jersey where I grew up.  Not only does it bring back memories from my childhood, but the town itself hasn't changed much since the Victorian era, so it’s like walking into a Victorian Christmas.

Mt. Tabor, NJ

Mt. Tabor was founded in 1869 by the Methodist church as one of two camp meeting grounds in New Jersey for outdoor summer religious retreats.  The Methodist faithful would pitch tents and camp out in either Mt. Tabor or Ocean Grove for the month of August to study the Bible, attend revival meetings, and hear sermons and religious lectures.  In time, the revelers built cottages on the 16’ x 25' tent lots and Mt. Tabor soon became a summer resort.  Eventually the cottages were winterized, which led to a year-round community.  Many of the original cottages still exist today.  Homes in the old section of town are covered with Victorian filigree, trim and railings and many are still painted with bold complementary colors true to the Victorian era.

Mt. Tabor is still a hilltop community of about 1,000 people with beautiful wooded streets, 15 MPH speed limits, its own nine-hole golf course—the former farm of Stephan Dickerson, who sold the property to the Methodists in 1869 and whose descendants still live in town—basketball courts, a playground, a baseball diamond and Mt. Tabor School, to which I walked across town as a child, as do the children today.  It was a special place, and still is.

But for most of us, the Christmas season was the most special.  Christmas decorations were a tradition in town; not the Santa Claus and reindeer variety, but white and multi-colored lights adorning the angular peaks, gingerbread and railings of the Victorian homes.  There was no rulebook that said you had to participate, but almost every household did its part to decorate the town.

In our family, trimming the outside of the house was as much an annual ritual as decorating the Christmas tree.  We’d march up to the attic and bring down all the lights, then crawl under the porch to drag out the ladder.  Dad would direct us to our stations, then climb the ladder and my three brothers and I would feed the strings of lights along like a bucket brigade, Paul, the youngest behind me, Jon ahead of me, and Mark, the oldest, a "big kid" with his feet two rungs up on the ladder.  By the time we got back inside hours later, the house was warm from the fire and Mom had Andy Williams, Burl Ives and Tony Bennett singing Christmas songs on the record player.  The house smelled like fireplace smoke, pine from the Christmas tree, and cinnamon and cloves from the hot mulled cider Mom had ready for us.  After a snack and Christmas cookies with the hot cider, we'd tackle decorating the Christmas tree.

I'm sure it didn't snow for some Christmases, although my memory is a blank for those, as I always remember walking around town on snow-covered streets with my family to take in the lights, and to participate in groups of Christmas carolers performing for the neighbors.  It had an aura of something from Charles Dickens’ era: the crunch of snow underfoot, Oh Come All Ye Faithful wafting from a few blocks away from another group of carolers, and our noses and fingers stinging from the cold air.  I always half expected to see Scrooge, after his evening transformation by the ghosts, with Tiny Tim beside him, walk around the corner.

On those caroling evenings we were frequently invited inside for hot chocolate by the neighbors.  Maybe people would think that's corny today, but it still goes on.

Another tradition was sledding (we called it “sleigh riding”) and tobogganing on the golf course.  The fourth green, sacred ground that couldn’t be tread upon by kids in summer, was always made available to us in winter as a perfect launching pad for our rides.  You could even find Chas Fouquet, the most obsessive golfer in town, helping to give our sleds that initial push across the expanse of the green to build up speed for a breathtaking run down the hill to the long slope of the third fairway.  There was also a rite of passage at about the fifth or sixth grade that advanced you to taking runs down "Bloody Guts", the 45-degree bone-crushing hill from the tee down to the sixth green over rocks, nasty tree stumps and a stream bed that would eat you alive if you didn't properly negotiate the four-foot-wide bridge across it.

As I write this I've decided I'm going back to Mt. Tabor this year to walk around town to take in the Christmas lights.  Hopefully snow will cover the streets, as it should.  Most things in our lives change, but Mt. Tabor will always hold, for those of us who grew up there, the ability to transport us into the past by virtue of its retention of the traditions of old.  I wish you all happy holidays with the hope you have an opportunity to revisit some of your own traditions of the season, and that your memories of former holidays are as precious as mine.