Family Trees

Although, admittedly, I take some enjoyment in satirizing some of the more absurd behavior of the American Shintoists, I must also confess that we do share an area of common interest—family trees.

I guess the most significant one for me was a huge mulberry in my backyard when I was a child. It's trunk had the girth of three, maybe four, John Candys (who has unknowingly, but deservedly, replaced Orson Welles as the international symbol of immenseness), and its three main branches formed a comfortable pocket in the middle of the tree, where an eight-year-old boy could sit unperturbed, far away from all the monotonous insanity of the adult world. It was white-washed up to about four feet, because my grandmother said it would keep the ants away. It did work; however, there were always little worms all over the ripened mulberries that I had to thump off before I ate a berry. Sometimes, I'd bring some mulberries home and put them in with my corn-flakes and milk. Sometimes I'd forget and leave them in my shirt pocket. Perhaps I was the unwitting inspiration for tie-dying. But most of the time, the mulberry tree served as a sort of natural hideout when I played cowboys, soldiers or pirates. It once even became a real-life sanctuary, after I, in Calvinistic fashion (the evil cartoon character kid, not the religious philosopher) blasted by friends' annoying cousin with my dirt shotgun. This weapon was a BB gun with the inner barrel removed, filled with dry, dusty dirt. I can remember how cool ("cool maybe be historically inaccurate, since it was 1948, and unless I was a jazz enthusiast , which, of course, I wasn't, I probably said something more like "nifty" or "keen") I thought it looked when I pulled the trigger and the dust could billowed out of the barrel just like in the movies. I also remember how scared I was when I realized I had actually shot someone, albeit a mere granular stinging on the legs. She, of course, complained to the parental authorities. (Yes, I shot a female, and no, I did not become a serial killer, a wife beater or a professional wrestler.) Eventually, I had to come down from the tree (I was starving and a man can't live on mulberries alone). I confess to my transgression, but I cannot even remember my punishment. My mother's discipline strategies were so mild and ineffective, that until I experienced the pain and degradation of my first year at The Citadel, I thought I was a sociopath since I had absolutely no fear of the consequences of my actions. Still, I never shot anyone else after that and have only an intractable writing style as the most salient legacy of a permissive upbringing. I enjoyed many more afternoons in the mulberry tree and even now cannot think of the house without also envisioning the tree. I sometimes feel an urge to crawl up in it in stressful times, and, in fact, checked it out a few years ago—out of nostalgic curiosity of course—only to find asphalt and cars where it had been.

My father's side of the family also had an important tree. It was an enormous chinaberry in my grandmother's back yard in the rural town of Summerton, South Carolina. It didn't have a natural sitting area in the middle of it and I wasn't able to climb very high in it. I did sample one of its berries once and found out right away why no one ever bakes chinaberry pies or puts up chinaberry preserves. Roseanne Barr coming off a five-day fast wouldn't eat one.

Unlike the mulberry, things happened under the chinaberry tree instead of in it, and they were usually of the painful growing experience variety. Two have always remained wedged tightly in my memory bank, and they both involve my grandmother's black cook, Ethel, a wonderful, ebullient person, who, because of yellowish skin, almond-shaped eyes and bowed legs, I always thought looked more Asian than African. I was about four years old and was playing with some of my toy soldiers under the tree when I noticed Ethel coming out of the chicken yard holding a chicken by the neck and a large machete-type knife in the other hand. The chicken was squawking loudly (and perhaps nervously in hindsight), when Ethel suddenly stopped and started swinging the bird about over her head like some sort of a living noise-maker. The poor creature eventually became silent, thought it did not seem dead, as Ethel placed it on a tree stump and then, without hesitation, whacked off the bird's head. I'm sure it's one of those cases of recalling a child's imagined perception of an event rather than the facts, but I can re-envision the chicken's headless body fluttering about the yard, spewing blood and feathers everywhere.

In my later years of memory delving I have recreated the Ethel under the chinaberry tree, with her Asian features, as a Samurai warrior, in full battle armor, emitting some sort of Kung Fu Theatre scream as her gleaming sword chops into the stump and the poor chicken begins its death dance. (Sometimes during late November reveries, the chicken becomes a Gamecock.)

I ate fried chicken that night at my grandmother's house, my guilt and remorse for the chicken quickly succumbing to Ethel's superlative culinary skills (more fodder for my sociopathic personality diagnosis). Ethel ate heartily, too. Perhaps we were both sociopaths.

The second impressionable event that occurred beneath the chinaberry tree, as I mentioned, also involved Ethel. Emerging from the kitchen door one day (the tree was right outside the kitchen), I noticed a grey galvanized tub (the kind people used to wash clothes in prior to washing machines. We used them mostly to put crabs in when we went crabbing) on the ground. Upon closer investigation, I discovered the tub was filled with water and swimming around in its one foot depth were three or four frightening looking fish. They had long whisker-like appendages and they, too, had a sort of oriental Fu Man Chu (Fish Man Chu?) appearance. Anyway, Ethel told me they were catfish and to stay away from them because they might hurt me. A warning from the imperial chicken executioner should have been sufficient for any five-year-old, but still I wanted to get a real close look at these things. Retribution for my disobedience was quick and semi-voluntary, as in bending over the tub too far, I lost my balance and fell face first into the vat of lethal fish. I instinctively closed my eyes and waited for the lash of poison-barbed whiskers and the tearing of flesh from my face. Instead, I only felt the powerful hands of the Samurai cook (No, I don't know if that's where John Belushi got the idea) as she yanked me, gasping, from the water. Fortunately, my mother waived her most draconian punishment—the reduction of my dessert from cake and ice cream to cake or ice cream only (I was given the choice)—conceding that the accident was punishment enough and the only untoward side effect of this happening was my new sobriquet of "Fishface."

Briefly, I pondered why Summertonians don't have glass aquariums with goldfish—like people in Charleston—but my excogitation was interrupted by Ethel once more as she deftly grabbed each wiggling fish out of the water, flopped him on a picnic table and whacked off his neckless head. Just as with the luckless chicken, their crispy remains appeared on our plates that night. Ethel and I again ate every morsel—remorselessly. The chinaberry tree is still there. Ethel isn't, but I still cannot think of one without imagining the other. I don't really understand the significance of my family trees and the interconnected human phenomenon—I'll leave that to my analyst, or even more properly, my psychogeneologist, but then I'd have to be completely deranged to go to a psychogeneologist—Does anyone know a good one? I can only assert that they are important landmarks in my life.

But now that I have revealed this erstwhile latent fixation with my ancestral arbors, Middletons, Rutledges, Pringles and others of their illustrious ilk can be assured (or as Hans and Franz would say, "Hear me now and believe me later") that I will never cast rebuke upon theirs.

The Days of Pabst and Hoses (Part 2)

“As we walk from Big John’s south on Market toward State Street, this is the route that the previously mentioned A.O.H. was pulled home by his friends in a child’s red Radio Flyer wagon because he was too besotted to walk or even crawl, for that matter, and all of his friends were equally incapable of operating their vehicles, motor or otherwise. Here are the corner of State and Linguard Alley on July 18, 1964, was where the wagon overturned when the pullers became overzealous pushers in order to allow the falsely confident A.O.H. to steer himself. There were no injuries, of course, since, as we all know by now, God, with his Almighty sense of ironic humor, always enables people in chemically mind altered states to escape personal harm even in the most disastrous of situations.”

“Here, ladies and gentlemen—okay, let’s finish those beers, some of you are not keeping up—where this gift shop is now located (southwest Market between State and Church) was the infamous Owl Club, where it was so dark, roaches would knock themselves unconscious walking into furniture, and a guy named Willie Cheek (or Willie Cheeks as my friend J.T. referred to him in private) played piano till slivers of slowing invading sunlight sent his single-digit audiences (I’m not talking about their finger count, by the way) scampering into the club’s deeper depths like vodkarized vampires. It was here on October 28, 1962, that this same J.T., after a long day of Falstaff (another popular beer in those days), Penrose sausage, pickled eggs, boiled peanuts and pig’s feet, released a belch of such seismic intensity that the pages of the calendar behind the bar fluttered like time was passing in one of those old movies, a bottle of Rebel Yell toppled off the shelf, and neighborhood dogs began to howl as if to warn us of some impending natural disaster.”

“Here on the other side of Market, is where the ‘real’ Henry’s used to be, an actual restaurant. It was in the muted light of one of the tattered bar booths on December 22, 1961, that M.J. received a B.J. from C.J., with the former all the while munching on celery sticks with cream cheese and, although the entrée, wahoo with grits, was excellent, according to M.J., it was decidedly anticlimactic.”

“Here, ladies and gentlemen—come on, there’s another case under the cooler—where this boutique now stands (north side of South Market) was the Carriage House, a nightclub that featured a singer named Juanita Champion, a dwarf M.C., on legitimate dancer, who should have been a Rockette (F.S.), and, most important in those days (and these too, I guess) a bevy of strippers. Everyone usually ended up there around 1 or 2 a.m. or whenever their alcohol levels had reached the saturation point. It was always the last stop just before the Goodie House (now a Starbucks), where we would gorge ourselves with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, often losing the entire meal, frequently intact and undigested moments later. In fact, if someone had opened up a pay vomitorium next door, they could have retired early. It was on one such night at the Carriage House (August 11, 1964), that C.R., his surging hormones whipped to a frothy frenzy by the sight of the ecdysiast’s undulating body, lunged puma-like (if you can imagine a drunk puma) from his table and sunk his teeth into her sumptuous bottom. An extremely intolerant Mafioso-looking bouncer, fearing he had only seen the very tip of a very crude and lascivious iceberg, convinced us that we would all be better off if we left the premises right away. And we did.”

Believe me, there were a myriad of others who played significant roles in maintaining and promoting the bon temps spirit of the Market Street area and, if you go on my tour, you will find out about them. Incidentally, there will be an announcement about the start of the tour, as soon as I get permission to use the actual names of these id-driven icons and have the plaques made. I may also be looking for some re-enactors, so if any of you would be willing to do some of the tings mentioned here (although the scene at Henry’s might have to be done in North Charleston) plus a few feats involving bodily functions not referred to, give me a call. Hey, it’s a good deal, since you’ll just be getting paid for some stuff that’s probably no worse than what you normally do when you get loaded. “Jackass” fans are more than welcome.

The Days of Pabst and Hoses (Part 1)

The Market Street Area 2001: A churning enclave of high-end restaurants, bars and clubs, some featuring bands and dance floors, even a couple of comedy rooms, all teeming with hordes of tourists, yuppies and college students swept along by a roiling rover of booze.

The Market Street Area 1961: Dimly lit blocks of typical waterfront bars, strip bars, seedy grills redolent of stale Pabst Blue ribbon and Lucky Strikes, and several borderline rundown but excellent restaurants, enlivened with noisy but sparse clumps of sailors and local hedonists, the latter group composed of college students and Charleston street characters. Not a tourist in sight, except for the aforementioned, involuntary, uninformed kind. The eternal river of booze being the only time-defying constant.

Charleston has come a long way in 40 years. We’re not only nationally but world famous now, with an important art festival, trendy rock bands, and scores of great restaurants, many with chefs trained in New York or Paris. The Market Area is bustling with expensive boutiques and frenetic flea marketers, selling everything from 13 bean soup and Charleston t-shirts to jewelry to money laden tourists making purchase-passes like schools of blood-frenzied sharks. A perpetual flotilla of carriages pulled by sagging horses, wistfully dreaming of a sylvan pasture or even a glue factory as a merciful end to their drudgery, are driven by yammering tour guides, who obviously have daily competitions to see who can carry the most people weighing in at over 300 lbs. (I’ve seen the scales.)

I walk down Market Street, deftly weaving my way like a knifeless OJ through herds of flip-flop-shod strangers, whose apparent rallying cry is: “It’s spring time in Charleston, let the Cellulite and Body Hair Festival officially begin!” As a psychological defense mechanism, my mind flashes back to the good old days of the 60s and, in the midst of my refreshing reverie, I had an epiphany: Had it not been for some of the hardy, hard drinking pioneers of the 60s, myself immodestly included, all these people would not be reveling in this Mecca of Mirth and prosperity. Had we not dedicated our precious nights to the relentless pursuit of pleasure, at times sacrificing our health, even our lives in some cases, for the glory of Bacchus, the Market Street Area, as we know it today, would not exist. Had we not persevered and allowed the spirit of hedonism to be snuffed out, this part of town today would probably be nothing but condos and office complexes, with the only entertainment related edifice being a joggling board factory.

What a shame, I thought, that these brave but bibulous champions and their immeasurable contributions have been forgotten. Then, suddenly, I had an idea: I will start my own personalized tour of the Market Street Area and point out the sites where some of these profligate pacesetters made their marks.

Me, addressing a group of about 15 tourists on the corner of Pinckney and East Bay streets. I’m dressed in my 1960s uniform, which since I dress somewhat traditionally, is the same way I dress now. Currently, it’s called “preppy.” Then it was “Ivy League.” Please refrain from drawing any socio-economic conclusions. They would be wrong.

“I would like to tell you about this tour, ‘Charleston in the 60s – The Days of Pabst and Hoses.’ Pabst refers to the most popular beer at that time, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and hoses refers to the practice of one of the local taverns of bringing out hoses, as a last desperate measure, to force out the final diehard group of unruly inebriates. You will not that I have a large cooler sitting in a small wagon, which I will be pulling along. It’s filled with Pabst, which, for purposes of getting you into the mood of that era, you will be required to drink as we walk along. If a cop comes by, stick the can in your pants, shirt of pocketbook, an act which will also immerse you more into the 60s zeitgeist. Please also be aware that you should try to maintain a two-beers-per-block average.”

“We are starting on this particular corner because of its proximity to the most fabled night spot of that time, Big John’s Tavern, which is coincidentally where all the hosing incidents took place, the most memorable of which happened on May 24, 1961, when A.O.H., R.H., H.A., none of whom weighed over 130 lbs., were sent careening and sliding out onto Pinckney Street, each of whom through some sort of alcohol induced gyroscopic skill, was able to hold onto his beer without even spilling it.”
“You will note that since I have not yet received permission to use individual’s names, I am only giving initials. Once I convince them, their families, or, in some cases, their estates, that the purpose of this tour is to honor, not disparage, plaques will be erected at the various sites.”

“Now, if you will follow me, we’ll step inside John’s for a moment. There at the far left of the bar is where Big John Canady, the establishment’s proprietor, would sit on his stool, flipping his cans, as he finished them, into a large metal garbage can at the opposite end of the bar—a distance of about 25 feet. On August 15, 1963, he nonchalantly tossed in a record 58 without a miss over a 9 hour span.”

“And over here, if you will just step into the men’s room, is the Harold Rhea Memorial Urinal. Harold was one of John’s most popular bartenders. For reasons beyond my comprehension, John always kept an enormous block of ice in the urinal, but the unofficial purpose for the ice eventually became a very many game, to s who could be the first one to empty his beer-distended bladder with such velocity that the block would break in half. And in order to improve one’s chances, you would try to wait till the last, most dangerous minute before you would fire away. Perhaps I should also clarify that the ice could only be broken at the center, where the reigning champion would ceremoniously make his indentation when the ice was set in place. In actuality, of course, the winner was determined by simply being in the right place at the right time and the initial blasts were always inconsequential with secondary effects of splattery and embarrassing trouser stainage. The winner would always emerge with his fist raised, shouting, “Ice break! Ice break!” It was rare that more than two blocks were ever broken in one night, and only once did the same individual do it more than once, that being myself on July 12, 1962, when I accomplished an actual trifecta. Unfortunately, there is an asterisk attached to this feat, since I arrived at John’s around 10 a.m. that day and didn’t leave till 4 p.m. the next. Incidentally, if you’re wondering if anyone was ever tempted to cheat, the answer is yes, once, on January 3, 1961, when W.A. was discovered kicking the block with his foot. He was summarily banished from John’s for life.”

“Just as an interesting sidebar, you might be interested in knowing that because of the energizing effect the ice breaking celebration had on patrons, the common phrase, “Breaking the ice,” was consequently created.”