Beginning To Feel Like Home

The Porch Club 

I was beginning to feel a lot better about living in New Jersey.  Not sure it was the beautiful spring, Barney's visit or the fact that I can only stay grinchy for so long.  With Mother announcing she was flying up to visit I had very mixed emotions about her coming.  It was going to be nice to see her but there was always that fear that she and Dennis would have difficulty in getting along.

With new running shoes in the closet and a three mile jaunt by the river and around town mapped out I drove to the airport to pick her up. The house was immaculate, food in the cupboards and I was all dressed up so at least we should get off to a good start. Mother had always preached to me that a "lady" never left the house without her hair and make up in place and I have to admit that although I may not always behave like a "lady" that has embedded itself into my brain.

Mother got off the plane looking like she just stepped out of Vogue Magazine and all smiles.  Luckily for me her relationship with her new man was going well so a happy Mother was one that was easier to be around. The airport is on the far northwest side of Philadelphia and she really enjoyed the rather lengthy trip to Riverton.  I had planned the return home on the most scenic trip I could so that she could see it wasn't so bad here.

We literally hit the ground running the next morning at six-thirty. Somehow I managed not to die on the three mile run and she was quite impressed with how beautiful the river bank and all the century old houses were.  By some stroke of luck Dennis had to be out of town for a couple of days that week. It was lucky because there were a few places he had told me I was not to go like New York or Atlantic City.  I don't remember agreeing with him and just because the one time we did go to New York he had an awful time didn't mean I was never going again.

The agenda for the week of Mother's visit pretty well went like a three mile run every morning, get the boys off to school at 8:00 and then head off for what ever adventure we picked for the day.  There was a day of historical sights in Philadelphia, a day trying our luck at the casinos in Atlantic City and a day in New York City.  If we didn't get home before the boys got out of school Sis and Gus were always glad to have them visit.  Most of the evenings were spent being invited to someones home for supper or drinks on one of my neighbor's porches.
It was a surprise not  only to Mother but also to me that I had so many neighbors that were so hospitable. On Saturday Dennis actually decided we should go to Washington to the Air and Space Museum and I have to admit he was pleasant all day - maybe because Mother was going home the next day and he never knew we broke the New York rule.

Growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma New York City always sounded like a magical place to be and the day spent there with Mother for the first time was awesome.  We drove in on the Jersey Turnpike and just before you go down into the Lincoln Tunnel right in front of you is the skyline of the City.  It was breath taking to see it in person as it is something you have seen in movies, on TV and in photographs all your life.  You have the feeling with the City that you know all the buildings and streets and that there is nothing about he City that will be a surprise.

Travelling with Mother is going in style.  We parked the car for the day and hailed cabs to get us to all the different places we went. She had never been there before and her bucket list included lunch at the Plaza Hotel, a trip to the Empire State building, shopping at Saks and a visit to Tiffany's.  Since Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of my favorite movies of all times you can not imagine the feeling I had standing in front of their window and actually going into the store. There would be many more trips to New York but that first one will always stand out in my memories.

Perhaps after my Mother's visit all the neighbors decided I was more classy than the bathrobe clad woman running down the street after the funny dog. Even with the unusual assortment of cars and race car trailers in the driveway it was decided I could be invited to join the Porch Club. The Porch Club began around 1908 with a small group of women meeting on different porches for tea and perhaps a lot of local gossip.  The group slowly grew to over fifty which did not fit well on most porches so the husbands decided the ladies needed a building to socialize in.  They built the building called the Porch Club in 1928 for them.

The Porch Club consisted of a meeting once a month and a lot of civic activities and fund raisers for different organizations.  Members arrived for the meetings dressed in the good old Stephens College tradition of hose and heels - some even with gloves. It was quite an honor especially being an outsider to Riverton to be asked to join. At age 35 I was the youngest member of the group.  It is funny but my first trip inside the little building the thing that most impressed me was that it actually had a stage. There had been a time when the ladies did little skits and plays but that was long past.  I could foresee a use for that stage in the future - actually every time I saw a stage I could find a way to use it. Maybe that is the reason it was easy to get all dressed up once a month, walk a block down the street and partake of fancy finger food and tea.

If dear Dennis did not have any money to work on the race car with and his lovely wife already had the yard mowed by the weekend his favorite past time was to go on long drives.  The drives through the country side and the neat towns was alright with me.  Not so much for the boys who would rather have stayed home and played with friends. The problem with them was that it was very rare that you got to stop any place and peek through stores or look at interesting sights.  We were lucky if the boys did not have to go to the bathroom at a different time than Dennis did. I have to admit that we did stop or make special trips to the Amish grocery store in Lancaster, Pa on a regular basis.  This was not a store for tourists but the one where the Amish people went to purchase or to trade for items they needed.  We became addicted to their potato chips.  They were real potatoes sliced and fried in pure lard.  Probably not that healthy but absolutely wonderful to eat. The store, like their homes, had no electricity but plenty of useful items most of us consider relics of the past.

Wes and Wally were sort of little rock stars when everyone discovered they came from Texas and we came from Oklahoma.  They were quizzed a lot about the Indians and people riding horses every where.  Most of their friends had never been to any place besides "down to der shore" for vacations.  Many had never been to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
It did not take Wes long before he discovered the bicycle shop in Palmrya that sold the little racing bikes. All his friends hung out there but none of them could afford to purchase any of the pricey little bicycles. The best we could do at the time was to buy Van tennis shoes and let him dream on.

                                              Wes and Wally
We all swore Dennis bowed down to the southwest every morning and wished to go back to his Mecca of Dallas. The move had been expensive, the house payment had doubled, it cost us $7,000 in capital gains taxes because we bought a house much cheaper than the one we sold and Dennis put his foot down about me going back into the decorating business. Ford wives don't work and I had left Kansas City with Gordon owing me several thousand dollars I refused to ask for since the move prohibited me from finishing his home. Fine...I was finding it nice to not work and in actuality play a lot.

Summer was approaching and the boys would be out of school but it turned out to be one interesting and fun time.

Wally and Tug

No one really knew how traumatic the move to New Jersey really was for me. Of course I was very good at putting on the happy face for everyone, especially the boys. Most days I would get up with great plans of redecorating the house or trying to become part of the community but with in a few hours the sadness of leaving Kansas City, a business and friends sank in and it was difficult to get anything done or want to go and do anything.

Barney's visit really changed all that. I knew a lot of the historical facts about Philadelphia but spending time in the city to figure out what to show Barney and then taking him on the tour made me realize that I was pretty lucky.  His excitement over seeing all the historical and neat places gave me, in a way, approval to be there. Actually it wiped out all my fear that with the move I would never see him again and affirmed that this was a wonderful place to live.

My sweet neighbor, Sis, had tried to get me involved in almost everything going on in Riverton.  It may have started with my willingness to go to Grace Episcopal Church with her and Gus each Sunday or my going to the "Friday Potluck Lunch and Craft Afternoon" at Bay's. Or helping with Story Time at the Library or being interested in the Historical Society or finding out just what the Porch Club was about.   In reality I think it was this fascinating lady thirty plus years my senior who had never lived anywhere but on this same street and had this great love for her hometown. 


Truthfully I had not been to church except for weddings and funerals in all the years I had been married to Dennis.  He had been raised a fire and brimstone Baptist and simply did not want anything to do with organized religion.  It had always been easy not to go to a church and save the argument but I had begun to really like going the Episcopal Church and decided that Easter Sunday I would at least try to get the boys interested in going also. So, I made a new dress for me and outfits for Wes and Wally.  The boys would have rather stayed home and eaten Easter candy but I made them get dressed.  Wes was the usual Wes and did not want to get dressed much less put on the shoes I had bought for him.  I guess Wes thought if he didn't put on the shoes he would not have to go to church  so he would curl up his toes so the shoes would not fit.  This went on for quite awhile when I finally just said okay, let's go or we will be late.  Wes said he couldn't go without shoes  and I told him his socks would be fine and that no one would even notice. Walking to church Wes decided a half a block from home shoes might be nice and ran home and put them on.

I was not prepared for New Jersey having so many flowering trees in the spring and I was not used to the hundred year old trees all over town or how much foliage there was. Growing grass was a problem because of all the shade but half of our backyard was covered with English Ivy that surrounded the hundred foot tall trees. Noisy gas powered lawn movers did not seem to be the accepted thing to use.  With only a very small areas of grass to mow we reverted to the very old fashion push mower, the little revolving blade with two wheels and a long handle. The house sat on a lot 50 x 140 foot lot with half of that English Ivy so mowing a lawn mower width path winding through the Ivy and over the rest of the yard took less than an hour. It also made it very easy to send ten year old Wes out to mow the yard.  Well, I say easy but there was usually a few hours of argument before the little rotary blade started turning.

Riverton was only one square mile in area with about 3,000 residents.  One of the great things about our house was that I could stand on the sidewalk in front of the house and see the school yard and the Episcopal Church in one direction and the Delaware River and the Yacht Club in the other direction. The Yacht Club was the oldest existing one on the Delaware.  The river was tide water and one mile wide.  Sis was the first woman, back in her teens, to swim across the river and back. But the best thing about the Yacht Club was that every Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon there were sailboat races. Not ever being much of a "boat" person I caught myself falling in love with the sailboats and the river.

Of course Dennis was very uninterested in anything that took place in our new town.  His brain was still deeply involved in drag racing.  Since we had a dragster chassis and trailer he was most unhappy about the little wood frame single car garage.  That first spring he built an addition onto the back of the garage so he could back the dragster in, raise the front of it up to the rafters and park our 1950 Mercury underneath it. Clever as that was you still had to squeeze into the garage and back the Mercury out to get to the lawn mower or any tools one needed. But Wally did get his first chance at learning to paint after the garage addition was complete.

The Christmas puppy, Tug, was always a source of laughter and fun.  We survived the winter and housebreaking the little clown.  With the advent of spring I was able to just let him out the door to do his jobs and at first he would come right back in.  The nicer the weather got the more he seemed to want to explore his territory.  I became a source of laughter for the neighborhood running down the street after him in my bathrobe or having the local police chief knocking on the door with Tug in his arms. I finally learned that Tug could get home all by himself or someone would bring him home so I stopped running after him.

The boy's bedrooms finally got finished and looked pretty darn good, if I my say so myself.  Wally had his Willy the Whale to protect him from the ghosts in the house and we found a lot of ship artifacts to go in Wes' room.  The only real hard part in the decorating was the fact that every window in the house had the old two inch wide wooden slat binds with the fabric tape.  Naturally they were all painted in Mrs. Adams Blue.  Somehow in the current age of metal mini blinds I managed to find a place that sold the fabric tape to repair the blinds with.  Does it sound like fun to take the blinds completely apart, lay all the slats out in the basement and put two coats of oil paint on each side?  Not fun but they sure looked great when I got them done.

After five months of living some place I certainly did not want to be it was a welcome change to be able to see all the positive aspects of living on the East Coast.  All the days of depression and sense of loss disappeared to be replace with days of laughter, fun and a new adventure every day.  

Hopefully I can maintain my positive outlook as I head out to purchase new running shoes. Mother is coming for a visit and this could be lots of fun or a sheer disaster.