Cadillac Man? No, My Father Favored Buicks

Assessing the precarious market position Cadillac finds itself in these days, The New York Times Tuesday described the General Motors car brand as once “the ultimate destination as car owners prospered and moved up from Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Buick to demonstrate their success in life” (https://nyti.ms/2Zygmqk).

My father was a loyal Buick customer. Every five years or so he would buy another Buick. Yet he, too, succumbed for a short while to the siren call of Cadillac (actually, it was more my mother who pined for a Caddy, but more on that later).

The first car of his I remember was a green Buick, probably a 1950 model. It had an elongated, almost torpedo-like sleek shape. I have few memories of driving in it. In 1955, when shortly before I turned six, Dad bought a blue Buick Special with a white top, a four door sedan with air vents along the front fenders, a Buick trademark. As the youngest of three, I was relegated to the middle rear seat, the one over the drive shaft hump. Many an argument over leg and fanny room broke out with my brother and sister. Dad often threatened to pull over to the side of the highway and spank us if we didn’t stop bickering.

It was in that car that our parents informed us that for the summer of 1956 we would be sent to sleepaway camp for the first time instead of vacationing at Takanassee, a Catskills resort in Fleischmanns, NY. Eight weeks away from our parents. We’d be shipped off to Camp Massad Aleph where our father’s friend’s son summered. My brother Bernie, 11, sister Lee, 9, and I, 7, howled our displeasure. To no avail, and eventual pleasure. 

That car provided Lee with an enduring memory of our father that she related in her eulogy of him. She recounted how one Sunday morning when she was in fourth grade she alone had gone to our Hebrew school’s classes as Bernie was sick and I not yet old enough to be required to attend. While she sat through classes, our father went to a Men’s Club meeting.

“At 12:00 we met and walked to the car, a big Buick. At the time that we had parked, there were no other cars on the street. However, when we returned, the car was now boxed in between two cars. My dad was recovering from a (shoulder) bursitis operation and the strength in his arm was still limited. He attempted to maneuver the non-power steering wheeled car out of the spot. For what seemed an excruciating long time he struggled, groaned, cursed and finally collapsed at the wheel. I was horrified and frightened and in my childish way thought that we would never get out. It was then that he turned to me, with a strange grin on his face, and asked me to help him turn the wheel. My first response was, no. What could I do to help him free us from this impasse? He calmly showed me what I needed to do and together we moved the resistant wheel. Our hands, reaching one over the other, worked for what seemed an eternity to move the wheels and reposition the car. When it finally happened we screamed with joy and laughed and laughed. The whole way back to our home we reviewed what had happened, how we had worked together and how funny it was.”

Dad made sure the next car he bought had power steering. It was a 1961 Buick LeSabre, desert fawn in color. In other words, light tan. Bernie learned to drive on that car. In 1965 it made way for a Buick Electra 225, green with an off-white vinyl top. The car was massive, forcing our father to work magic each night he slipped it inside our narrow garage. He would hug as close as he could to the left side of the garage, then he had to slide across the front bench seat to exit the car from the passenger door. 

I was behind the wheel of that huge Electra—18 feet, 8 inches in length—the first time I drove on the highway, along the New England Thruway as my parents and I made our way up to Orange, Mass., to visit the family of Lee’s roommate the first year she studied in Israel. I remember observing the signs prohibiting trucks and buses from using the left lane. It felt safer driving in the left lane, though my father kept telling me to drive faster. 

When it was time to get a new car, Mom prevailed upon then 58-year-old Dad to trade up to a Caddy, a car more fitting his success as an independent businessman. He settled on a 1970 blue Sedan de Ville, an inch longer than the Electra. Dad seemed self-conscious driving a Cadillac in our row house Brooklyn neighborhood. He divested himself of this dubious distinction in 1975 by returning to his roots with a blue Buick Regal, much like a LeSabre. 

Within a month he talked himself into believing the car, at exactly 18 feet, was too small. So he engineered a three way deal: He would give Gilda and me the Regal, we would hand over our 1969 Buick Skylark to Lucy, one of his loyal employees, and Dad would buy a new Electra. We hated the Regal, as well. Too big for us. We ditched it for a Datsun Sentra hatchback. 

Dad had a few more cars until he stopped driving when he was 82 in 1994, explaining that in his new home near Bernie in Rockville, MD, “the roads don’t know me here.” His last car was a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass. He gave it to our son Dan who had recently passed his driving test. Dan didn’t care that it was an old man’s car. It was wheels, freedom. We soon swapped it out for a more sporty Mazda 323. 

Summertime Reflections on Sleepaway Camp

Our daughter-in-law Allison sent a short video of five-year-old Dagny cannonballing into a neighborhood pool along with a note that seven-year-old “Finley passed their deep end test by swimming the length of the pool down and back and then treaded water for a minute!” 

Naturally I am proud of them, but also envious, as I am, at 68, still a non swimmer. But what her note really accomplished was stimulating me to write this blog.

Actually, I’m a little late writing and posting this entry. A year late, to be perfectly honest. I had intended back in 2016 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of my first year at sleepaway camp, but I wound up spending too much time channeling Gloucester Island, Mass., summer resident Walt Whittaker (played by Carl Reiner) trying to warn fellow Americans, “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!”

Okay, I promise you—no more Trump talk this time.

I was just four months passed my seventh birthday when my parents shipped me and my brother and sister out for eight weeks to Camp Massad Aleph in Tannersville, PA, at the base of Mount Pocono. We did not want to go. When they first told us about our upcoming summer adventure, while driving on the highway, we instantly rebelled. Dad threatened to stop the car if we didn’t quit complaining. We had grown accustomed to our annual stay at the Takanassee Hotel in Fleischmann’s, NY, (subject of a future blog) and had no interest in being away from our parents for two solid months, especially if we had to be at a camp where you were expected to speak Hebrew all the time. 

As if the trauma of being away from our parents wasn’t enough, we soon found out our mother would be taking an extended trip to Israel, Italy and France and therefore would miss both visiting days. Quite an adventurous trip for a woman by herself in 1956 traveling to countries where she did not speak any of the languages (Dad had to stay home to run their business). 

When school ended in late June away we went. To get to Massad we had to board buses somewhere in midtown Manhattan for the more than two-hour ride. My loneliness and trepidation began at the bus when my older brother and sister entered separate buses. I sat way in the back, on the right side of my bus, my head propped up against the window to stave off nausea. 

Of course, we all wound up loving summer camp. I spent 15 July-Augusts at sleepaway camps, the first five at Massad, winning all-around camper awards despite never learning to swim (each year my division head counselor would caution I would not win the award the following year if I failed to achieve aquatic success).

The years at Massad have a way of jumbling together in my mind but I have some very distinct memories of that first summer. We were, for example, warned not to play catch with a baseball. Softballs only. Naturally, some boys didn’t follow orders, until one bunkmate miscalculated his lunge for the hard ball and was struck right in his two front teeth which promptly exited his mouth. 

Another boy, Dennis Keene, had to retrieve a ball thrown over a fence behind our bunk. He found the ball among the trees sitting atop what turned out to be a yellow jacket nest. He emerged from the thicket shrieking, for good reason. His shirt and shorts were covered with yellow jackets dead after stinging him. No one dared go on the other side of that fence for the rest of the summer.

Every group had its own schedule. We ran on “camp time,” one hour earlier than time back in the outside world, so that it was dark by 8 pm. Each day counselors issued marks for your performance at various activities and for speaking Hebrew. Awards were handed out for each activity at the end of the year.

My first year arts and crafts project reflected the mores of the time—I made ashtrays for each of my parents, a brown one for my father, a sandstone one for my mother. On a bookshelf in my living room sits the sandstone ashtray. 

Twice a day we had swimming in the man-made lake, instructional in the morning, free swim in the afternoon. I remember being cold, standing waist-deep in the water, a thin reed of a boy unable to stay afloat when putting my head in the water, flailing my arms, kicking my legs. I did, at least, put my head under the water, not like an even thinner bunkmate, Michael Khan, who would shake his hands wildly when the instructor would ask him to dip his head in the water. 

Every day we would raise the American and Israeli flags in the morning, lower them in the afternoon. We learned the special way the American flag is folded into a tri-cornered shape. 

Around 4 pm every day we had chocolate milk and crackers or cookies. Thin kids like me could get a second helping of chocolate milk.

Friday afternoons the camp mother came by to wash our hair, vigorously. I never realized until many years later she was checking scalps for lice.

For Friday evening Sabbath services we’d dress in white shirts and blue shorts or pants, the colors of the Israeli flag. After dinner, we’d sing Jewish folk songs in the dining room. Before it got too dark, the girls our age would join the boys outside for Israeli folk dancing. Few boys were interested in this activity.

Saturdays were spent praying in the morning, free time in the afternoon except for a mandatory discussion hour on Jewish subjects, all conducted in Hebrew. 

At the end of summer camp we had color war, called maccabiah at Massad. My first year team was “Poalim,” Hebrew for workers. I can still recite the words and melody of our Hebrew cheer song. My team won.

I went back to summer camp for 14 of the next 15 years. I learned how to play different sports. I learned how to be competitive but always show good sportsmanship. I learned leadership skills. I learned how to be independent. I learned about young love. But unlike my grandchildren, I did not learn to swim.

Exercise in Bed (It's Not What You Think)

For days, weeks, months, YEARS, Gilda has been hounding me to exercise, to stretch, so my lower back would not hurt. Naturally, I resisted, for what would any marriage be if a husband submitted without a fight to his wife's entreaties. I finally won a round in this continuous battle of what I say is a bulging disc but Gilda says is merely weak muscles, when Gilda agreed to buy a new bed. The Sleep Number mattress, indeed, has been much better for my back pain than the Tempur-Pedic, but I retained some residual pain. So, Friday night, as Gilda slept next to me, I downloaded three videos of recommended stretching exercises.

I'm nothing if not lazy when it comes to exercise, so the WebMD video I chose to start with had the added bonus of permitting me to stretch without leaving the comfort of my bed. As Gilda showered Saturday morning I started the first of the five stretching routines. Whatd’ya know? My back felt better, so much so that even an afternoon four mile walk across the Bridge over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie didn't bother it. 

The real test would be during sleep Saturday night and then pitching a softball game Sunday morning. I woke up 15 minutes early, slid softly into Ellie's old bedroom, lay down on the relocated Tempur-Pedic and ran through the routines. I had a twinge of pain on the ball field, but nothing to complain about. I pitched nine innings; had four solid hits in five at bats. We won.

Moral of the story: Looks like stretching exercise works. It's going to be real hard admitting this to Gilda. Even harder keeping up the regimen every day. Anyway, for those wondering which exercises worked for me, here's a link to the video: http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/living-with-low-back-pain-11/five-back-pain-stretches

Car Update: Like any new car, the Ford C-Max is prone to recalls. First, the tail lift gate needed refinement. Sometimes, when you waved your foot under the back carriage of the car, the lift gate would unlock but not automatically rise. A simple correction. 

Then, we got two notices on the same day about a week ago. Ford needed to add more interior head protection in case of an accident. I’m cool with that.

The other notice was a real shocker. Right now, for the first 6,000 miles, our hybrid car is getting a little over 43 miles per gallon vs. an EPA/DOT rating of 47. Gilda gets better mileage when she’s driving to and from work. When I drive on weekends, I get lower mileage as I’m usually on the highway exceeding 65 mph and the C-Max switches from battery to gas engine at speeds exceeding 62 mph. But Ford told us in that second notice that, free of charge, it will recalibrate the powertrain control module to operate electrically up to 85 mph! Better gas mileage, here we come.

I Plead Youthful Ignorance: While transferring VHS family videos to DVDs, I came across some film of my parents and their three children at the beach. But what's that on my head? Looks like a blue baseball hat with a capital B. A Brooklyn Dodgers cap! Sacré bleu! All I can say to my NY Yankees friends is that I appear to be about four-years-old at the time and was clearly under the influence of my eight-year-old brother. By the time I was 7 it looks like I was wearing a Yankees cap at a school outing. Phew.

The old family films also showed I disdained water from an early age. Some film of a family vacation at Takanassee, a hotel in Fleishmanns, NY, where we’d spend several weeks each summer before we were sent off to sleepaway camp when I was seven, shows me resisting my mother’s urging to get into the pool. The video shows her dragging me into the water, me holding her tightly once we are in the pool. Other footage at what I believe was Rockaway Beach has me clinging to the neck of a family friend who thought he could persuade me to test the waters on my own. 

My friend Ken still thinks he can teach me to swim. Who am I to disagree with him? But as sportscaster Warner Wolf used to say when he was on television, “Let’s go to the videotape” to see the truth of the matter.