I Remember

     [A reader just wrote to remind me about this sentimental old piece, which first appeared at the beloved but long-defunct Palace of Reason very, very long ago, and to ask that it be reposted. Perhaps it will serve as a companion to Good Men. -- FWP]

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     Ever seen Federico Fellini's movie Amarcord (I Remember)? It's not the muddled mess so many of his other films were. It's a memoir of his childhood in a small Italian town, during the years before World War II. It's simple in focus and execution, beautifully written, and acted, directed, and filmed with an artless grace that raises it to the pinnacle of the film-maker's art.

     The Italians have a word for it: sprezzatura. The art that conceals art.

     Why Fellini made this movie, I can't say. I can say that, having seen it recently for the first time in thirty years, it's prompted me to do a little remembering of my own.

     I did most of my growing-up in Orangeburg, a small town in Rockland County, New York, in the Fifties and early Sixties. It was a place most modern children would disbelieve in, unconditionally.

     The doors had locks: snap locks that you could force with a credit card. However, this was before credit cards, and the locks didn't get that much use anyway, because who on Earth would intrude into someone else's home uninvited?

     A home with a television in it wasn't a rich man's home, but two televisions marked a household as well-to-do, and perhaps a little more materially indulgent than was really good for a family with minor children. A color television was an object of wonder. I've never forgotten the thrill of seeing Bonanza in color for the first time.

     Yards were kept neat and clean. Maintaining them was regarded as a civic duty. One homeowner let his lawn go unmowed for three weeks, and thereby earned a visit from a group of his neighbors, who wanted to know what had happened that he couldn't keep up with his responsibilities.

     Children of all ages wandered the neighborhood without fear. Parents were confident that their neighbors, and their neighbors' older children, would look out for the young that hadn't yet come into their full senses. A driver that honked at a child who was a little slow to cross the street risked being shucked out of his automotive armor and disciplined in public.

     I remember one universally beloved little girl, named Janie, whose innocent enthusiasm for life was the delight of our block. I once caught Janie toddling across my back yard, looking for my younger sister Donna, bursting with eagerness to tell Donna something that had just occurred to her. She'd hopped out of her bathtub and scampered across her back yard and into our own to do so. She was wearing what one usually wears in the bath. Archimedes might have blushed; Janie didn't.

     It was an overwhelmingly Catholic community. There were five Masses each Sunday morning, and all of them were attended to capacity and beyond. The parish priests were regarded as higher authorities than any elected functionary. When our pastor was elevated to Monsignor, we young ones were stunned that the town didn't hold a parade.

     Most of the children attended the parish's grammar school, St. Catherine of Alexandria. Despite St. Catherine's huge class sizes -- classes of fifty were the norm -- standards were high, and the pressure to get in never slackened. The local public grammar school was regarded as a refuge for the children of lazy parents, who didn't care how their kids were taught; it had many unoccupied desks. Competition among the latter-grade students at St. Catherine's was intense; we all wanted to go to the local Catholic high school, Albertus Magnus, and we knew there weren't places enough for all of us.

     The big excitement in my life was school. I didn't understand kids who hated school. It was a place I almost couldn't stand to leave at the end of the day. I wasn't alone in that.

     The town's “bad apples” swore, smoked behind the local convenience store, and flung spitballs in class when they thought they weren't being watched. The rest of us were told they were bad apples. We weren't told they were misunderstood or had self-esteem problems. When detected, they were corrected, in no uncertain terms. Their parents came in for even more opprobrium than they did.

     There were unpleasant episodes, of course. A family not far from us had domestic troubles. She slapped him one night, and he responded by shoving her through a screen door, which occasioned a visit to the local hospital for her, a visit from an impromptu decency committee for him, and departure from town for the two of them, soon afterward.

     Then there was The Divorce. It shocked the entire community. The idea that parents wouldn't find ways to bridge their differences and keep their home together for their kids wasn't just unthinkable; it was an insult to the whole concept of marriage and family. It bespoke a lack of self-discipline and incomprehensible priorities.

     I suppose I should mention that the parents that divorced were mine.

     The highest honor any child could aspire to was to be picked for the chorus that went to Rockland State Hospital to entertain during the Christmas holidays. Success in Little League was a distant second.

     In those years, Orangeburg's residents were working-class white and Hispanic families. I don't remember any blacks. I don't know what to make of that. Draw what conclusions you will.

     I was considered a little odd, because I had no interest in learning how to shoot.

     I remember the milk truck, the bakery truck, the dry cleaner's truck, the sharpener truck, and the Charles Chips truck, all of which came to our door, and all of whose drivers were treated like old friends. In some cases, they were old friends.

     I remember cap guns, and games of Cowboys and Indians, and huge snowball fights conducted with an innocent ferocity by pugilists from eight to eighty.

     I remember thinking that the Palisades Interstate Parkway must surely be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and that heaven itself could hardly exceed the delights of Palisades Amusement Park.

     I remember my father, down on his luck and himself after my mother left him, spending much too much time in a local gin mill. I remember him cashing check after check at that saloon, and the owner, who knew those checks would bounce right over the Moon, accepting them anyway, putting them into his cash register and never saying a word. That saloon owner eventually got every penny my father owed him. I wonder if he'd known that he would.

     I remember adults who had standards they weren't afraid to enforce without needing to invoke the authority of the law. I remember lawyers who tried to counsel their prospective clients not to sue. I remember journalists who could be trusted. I remember loving America wholeheartedly and with no reservations. We were the good guys. I remember fearing nothing and no one, certainly not the government. I remember being confident that the world could only get better, now that the good guys were in charge.

     I remember coming home after five years in college and two years in Hell, and looking at my town, and knowing it had changed out from under me, that I no longer belonged to it, nor it to me. And I went away, and did not return.

     And I, who have set these things down, have wept many bitter tears for my country and what she has forsaken. I am of the last generation that remembers our days of strength and virtue, and my years are growing long. I and my contemporaries are entering the twilight of life. When our memories fade, there will be nothing but the cold and the dark.

     But for now, I remember.