My mom may be dead, but the world is not missing a crank. I have replaced her.

At issue is the week-long parking-lot repaving that is into its third month. In fairness, we had some rain and other bad weather, but this is being done on contractor time.

The last piece was re-installing the bicycle rack. This is something I know a bit about, having spec’ed a rack for a church, having attended multiple Moving Together and other transportation conferences, having interviewed the bike coordinators of Cambridge and Boston, and being a very regular cyclist.

I had spoken with the Y’s staff, including the executive director. I said it would be a false economy not to replace the inadequate 1960s rack with a much more sensible Ribbon Rack. It holds more bikes and more types of bikes in less space.  I pointed them to one in the neighborhood at the public library. I noted that the city has an active program to place racks for free in likely places. I added that there were reimbursement programs that would require only paying for installation. Everyone responded with aggressive head nods and promises to follow up.

Horse feathers!

When the rack reappeared, not only was it the same lame old one whose upright members don’t accommodate any mountain bike or even modern road bikes, the solid-geometry deficient and cycling ignorant pavers had actually set it as in the above image (click for larger view). As the new placement is not even a wheel diameter away from the brick wall, the only way to lock a bike to it is is sideways, limiting it to three at best and more likely two bikes. Duh.

In other words, if the aim is to service the Y members or encourage visitors to leave cars at home, this fails. Cyclists I know and I would not ride a bike there if we knew that the racks would not be easy to use or in this case even possible to use.

Channeling my mother Wanda, I asked the staff to call the executive director. I led her to the rack and explained why it utterly failed at its aim. I discussed the options for free or reduced cost racks and insulted the intellect of the paving minions.

She alleged she would be interested in links to the rack programs.  Arriving home, I sent her links to:

• Boston’s bike-rack request form
• Boston’s Bike Coordinator Nicole Freedman
• The MAPC rack-reimbursement program
• Ribbon Rack

She replied quickly by return email that she was not aware of these and was delighted to have the information. Crank. Crank. Crank.

I shall watch eager to see whether and if so how long it will take to put a functional rack in the parking lot or in one of the two locations (Bellevue or Centre) I suggested for the free city ones that have to go in pubic spaces.

Like Wanda, I do not raise my voice. However, also like her, I am reasoned and relentless. It all seems to intensify with age.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, crank, YMCA, bike rack

Not only in this era but in New England in general and Boston specifically, we are not known for our social graces. From the way we drive to how we respond to questions from distant tourists, outsiders would reasonably expect us to have been raised by wolverines or something in the weasel family.

Yet, in the wilds of Stony Brook at the bottom or Rozzie and HP, a small plat of mannered heaven hides. Where Enneking turns hard and meets the other parkways of Dedham and Turtle Pond, an Eden of consideration and kindness exists.

From any of the four directions, drivers stop, wait for each other, pay attention to the rule that first-come/first-go or even the law and courtesy that the driver on the right gets to go when cars arrive simultaneously.

Whether I bike or drive. no matter what time of day, whether it is rush hour with jammed Enneking traffic, or regardless of the weather, drivers are polite to each other. I have never heard a blaring horn nor seen anyone demand and take an out-of-turn shot.

Could it be something in the oxygen from all the foliage? Might some nearby unknown native American burial ground be affecting Bostonians as they arrive at the intersection? Would the bucolic nature of the park all around calm the savages?

The cause is far less important than the mere existence of the magic intersection.

Go then when you despair of your pushy neighbors or aggressive bozos on the roads. There is a remarkably low JQ (jerk quotient) at Enneking and Enneking. Bless that X.

Tags: harrumph, polite, Hyde Park, Boston driver, Stony Brook

Series note: This is part of the Rail-Volution inspired post set.

At the weekend’s conference, I was surprised and pleased to learn about the Fairmount Corridor from two key players. Marvin Martin, who drove this city-train revolution as executive director of the Greater Four Corners Action! Coalition (no website) and Gail Latimore, who heads the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corp., spoke.

I had sort of paid attention, but not enough, to the news over the years. This has been percolating for nearly two decades and is happening as we speak. I’ll post details in a few days. However, the key concept it that Martin led largely African-American Bostonians between lower Hyde Park and South Station in indignation. A perfectly good commuter-rail line zipped through their neighborhoods, making the trip in 8 minutes. Read carefully to be fully aware that it made two stops on the way (Morton Street and Uphams Corner). In fact, there were no other stations for it to stop at over 8 miles, by design, where most people lived.

The bus or bus/subway alternatives for this large swath inhabited largely by lower-middle, poor and middle class residents of color was different. It took an optimum 45 minutes and more likely 60 to 90 for the same trip from where people live to where they work. There are four stations (New
Market/ South Bay, Columbia Road, Four Corners, Talbot Avenue, and Cummins Highway) \in the works in an activists’ effort that started in 1987 and has continued relentlessly.

I must be a typical American. I paid attention when it meant something personal. Moving to Fairmount Hill in Hyde Park after 21 years in Jamaica Plain, I was pleased to hear from the previous owners here that the Fairmount line at the bottom had a commuter rail. In a pig’s eye it does.

Until the Indigo line is complete and the MBTA keeps its promise to increase trips, it is still a white commuters’ line. Specifically, inbound, four trains are scheduled for Fairmount between 6:38 and 8:28 a.m. Likewise, outbound, there are four from South Station from 5:10 to 6:30.

Throughout the day, a few may stop if the conductor notices anyone flagging the train from the platform. The last possible train from South Station leaves at 9:30 p.m. and will stop to discharge only if passengers ask the conductor and that conductor remembers to tell the driver.

Weekends? Forget about it!

Moreover, this in unlike a real city transit system for pricing. With a Charlie Card fair of $1.70 for subway and $1.50 for bus, the irregular and inconvenient Fairmount is $4.25 each way, with no provision for transfers, even to buses.

I figure to go to Mike Capuano’s function Monday at the Park Plaza from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. That should be a good time to see how to get from here to there and perhaps even back.

First, note that the MBTA trip planner truly stinks. On Universal Hub and numerous blogs, they have depressing examples of being routed absurd ways to go short distances. In this case, I also found the T doesn’t use fuzzy logic and requires silly specifics to find the most basic locations. For example, it can’t find Back Bay Station without its ZIP code added, and it knows Milton Ave., but not Milton Avenue, but again only with a ZIP and not just the neighborhood. Lame.

For giggles, I asked about getting to and from the event. By the bye, the number 24 bus through Mattapan Square and up to Ashmont stops a half block from my house. The T doesn’t seem to know that.

The T would have me spend $5.95 each way, with trip times from 63 to 97 minutes. Those using the commuter rail also indicate a flag stop for the train, which I don’t trust from previous experience seeing trains pass vigorously waving potential passengers.

I know from a son who commutes to Latin Academy that a shank’s mare version is quicker. A 10 or so minute walk to Cleary Square get a 32 bus in a minute or five, for $1.50. I gets to Forest Hills in 15 to 20 minutes. Then the Orange Line thumps to Back Bay Station in a similar time, for $1.70. So, for $3.20 and under an hour, I’d be done each way with a vastly more flexible schedule than any of the combinations the T suggests.

Were I still on crutches from my leg operation earlier this year, I’d do the 24 close by. I could take it from very close to Ashmont, then the Red Line subway to the Orange Line and get off by the hotel. That would be maybe 90 minutes, or T time.

In other words, it’s expensive and slow, practically mandating a car trip with a pocket of quarters and driving around Back Bay for an open meter. That would be when people are leaving so it wouldn’t take long.

That’s not as significant as the many thousands who live between the Orange and Red Lines with no viable commuter rail. It is inconvenient and unnecessarily expensive.

I think of the much larger, longer, wide and more stop-filled NYC subways. In Manhattan alone, you can travel the 14 miles from the Battery North to Washington Heights local or express and get damned close to where you want fast. The city fare is $2.25 and trains go from where people live to where they work and play. All lines run all the time, frequently and on weekends as well.

Back to Boston and down to earth, we’re never going to be a 24-hour city or have a fast and frequent subway system. However, we can do better.

Through the efforts of Martin and the CDCs, the Indigo Line is coming. I remain to be convinced that the schedule will be convenient. I’d love to be able to go into town day and night on a convenient line.

There’s no reason other than inertia or indifference by the T that we don’t have real urban transit. There’s also no reason other than arrogance why its zone system puts so many parts of the actual city of Boston in zone 1 at $4.25 for what should be the same as a $1.70 subway ride. Absurd and provincial.

Of course, for the upper middle and upper class commuters, these are not problems. The trains run at to- and from-work times. They buy commuter rail passes so they don’t feel the per-trip cost. All the rest of the riders subsidize them and make do with the few off-rush-hour trains.

I see a parallel here with computer software. Most of it requires that the users be programmed for the quirks of the applications. We had to learn absurd commands and procedures to do basics. Likewise, T riders are supposed to adapt to the T’s edicts and caprices.

We oldsters and early adopters recall illogical Ctrl-k sequences for Word Perfect and such. Here, we’re accustomed to transit that just stops at night, trolleys that can’t operate over fallen leaves, and commuter rail that doesn’t accommodate where people live or when they want to arrive.

That future post will discuss how a indefatigable set of activists changed that for the Fairmount Corridor. At Rail-Volution, attendants from around the country could not stop raving at how sophisticated and effective that effort has been. It gives a Bostonian hope

Tags: harrumph, massmarrier, Hyde Park, Rail-Volution, mass transit

I surely make too much of this, but it is my nature to expect much from those who promise much. Where are the bike racks for the snazzy convention center at Ft. Point Channel?

In its very subtle way (click thumbnail for large squint), there is one, one short one for the entire center plus the gigantic Westin adjoining it. They’re a package deal, don’t ya know, but they better not have more than 10 cyclists at a time anywhere around.

It’s amusing and disappointing because:

• Boston has a nifty program under bicycle czarina Nicole Freeman to plant racks wherever they will be useful and encourage cycling. This includes an interactive map of where the city has planted racks.
• The conference I went to at the hotel and center was about transit, specifically about non-motor-vehicular transit.

Yet, in a typical room, when the speakers asked who was from the Boston area, about half the hands went up. While Rail-Volution is annual with a thousand or more attendants, it invariably pulls in more local wherever it happens to occur.

One might expect with hundreds of folk likely within a dozen miles of the complex that a bunch of us would, well, show off transit cred. I was the only jerk who did. I rode the 10 miles from the bottom Hyde Park through some of the town’s densest traffic to and from the conference three consecutive days.

I checked the convention center and hotel websites. Neither said anything about racks or any biking accommodation. Check the Westin amenities in the above link — cribs, check; pets (under 75 pounds), check; valet parking (cars), check; Starbucks, check; and wait, there’s more. The hotel folk knew nothing about bike racks. I tried the afternoon before at the center, but the switchboard shut down at 5 p.m. and I was out of luck. Then I located one on the city bike-rack map at the shared address of the Westin and center.

The next morning though, I didn’t see one at either the center or the hotel. I asked uniformed minions, first at the hotel, but they didn’t know. Then one of the center’s red jacketed lads said he thought there was a rack behind the trees over there.

I had pedaled by and didn’t see them. I did again and didn’t again. Then I removed my sunglasses and in the figurative mist, there it was.

Sure enough, it was a Ribbon Rack. Yet unlike the standard, which is black, this is gray against a gray sidewalk and gray wall. The kind word is subtle. Cloaked is more like it.

Likewise, the rack is fully exposed, which became important in the rain on one day. I did remember to tuck in a cloth to wipe down the seat, frame and rims where the brake pads hit.  This is even more peculiar than hiding it by color. The convention center (see the image in the link above) has a huge roofed overhang with vast unused space underneath, ideal and standard in bike-friendly areas.

In short, folks, likely from both the city and convention center had decided to hide this rack. Like the envelope in Poe’s The Purloined Letter,  the rack was hidden in plain sight, this time camouflaged by color and placement. They had also placed it where the bikes parked there would not be weather-protected in the slightest.

The twist is that for three days mine was the only bike in the rack, as in the image above. so the question comes whether if you provide it they will come or if there is so little demand that only a single cyclist used the rack, isn’t one anywhere around a major convention center adequate?

I bet it’s the former. If Nicole’s elves put two or more racks in colors that contrast to their background under the overhang, cyclists will feel encouraged and when they attend event at either the hotel or center, some will leave their cars or SUVs in the driveway.

Tags: harrumph, massmarrier, Hyde Park, Rail-Volution, transportation, rail, bike rack,

Those involved in big transportation issues and projects necessarily cross over into government funding, housing issues and public approval or comment. The design phases alone are often in many years, as are the implementation ones. The rest of us are living practically new lives when these folk are just finishing one thing.

This transit conference has been perking for 15 years. This was my first, although I’ve been attending the Massachusetts Moving Together conference for pedestrian/motor vehicle/cycling for seven years. There’s an overlap, but as its name suggests, Rail-Volution loves its trains.

I’ll post several times here and cross-post at Marry in Massachusetts about what I learned down on the waterfront in the Westin. That will include a book review and a surprising link to my new neighborhood at the bottom of Hyde Park in the bottom of Boston.

Posts include:

• Rant about a bike rack
• Trying to use the closest commuter rail

Tags: harrumph, massmarrier, Hyde Park, Rail-Volution, transportation’s, rail, Moving Together, housing, Boston

With credit to his challengers and critics, few have made much of his age in this Boston mayoral re-election bid. To be sure his four terms and 16 plus years in office, the longest serving ever, have made the debates and campaign literature of those who would take his relative throne in the concrete castle. There’s an implication there that he’s old, but the thrust is too long in office.

Cross-post note: This is one of those rare cases that seems to fit here and at Marry in Massachusetts.

I would not be the first or even the 900th to note that in some European nations and typical Asian ones 66 is considered a reasonable age for a chief executive to take office for the first time. That’s supposed to bring with it maturity, wisdom, experience, knowledge, expertise, savvy and even statesmanship.

In last night’s final debate before next week’s voting, his age was the only humor safety valve in a tense session. He got chuckles answering about city workers in general, “I don’t believe in mandatory retirement.’” Pause. Laughter.

Yet, Menino is just a little older than the youngest baby boomer. Judging from print, broadcast and blog chatter, many younger Americans would just as soon that such oldsters toddle off to Cape Cod or wherever they can get to…right now.

It’s easy to see them corking up jobs while ignoring the boomer role in keeping Medicare and Social Security funded for WWII and Korean era folk, putting the Gen-X and Gen-Y kids through college, caring for elderly parents and even age protection in employment law. The media melodrama of the 50-something multimillionaire subset is much more, well, dramatic.

So, again, Tom is 66. Is that too old to be mayor? The would-be replacement, Michael Flaherty is no child himself. but at 40, he’d be a decade younger than Tom when he became mayor.

We don’t see Mike smearing Tom for his age nor Tom asking if Mike is too young to be mayor.

For sure, Mike and the challengers who fell in September’s preliminary had strong arguments for replacing Tom. He has been there so long he’s out of ideas. He’s so entrenched that development, schools and other key functions seem stagnant.

Perhaps it’s to our credit that being a year past the traditional retirement age for the previous two generations has not been a campaign issue. Yet, I think the laughter at Tom’s retirement remark is just one indication that we do have it in the back of our minds. We’re all adults here, but we know that 66 is not 40.

Tom isn’t giving any indication of age-related shortcomings. He is known sarcastically for his long memory (in holding slights) and seems to have great short-term recall.

Now, I’d like him to be healthier and have offered several times to go on long bike rides with him or cycle into City Hall together. Councilor Steve Murphy (himself 50-ish) joined me in that offer. As fond of his mountain bike as he is, Tom prefers to tool solo around his part of our shared neighborhood instead. Yet, even in physicality, he’s far from limited by being mid-60s.

Of course, some pols stay in office after age has bested them. I think of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, whose brain had, if you pardon, gone South long before he died a few months after leaving office at 100, a very old 100. His voters returned him repeatedly past his freshness date in a combination of sentimentality and the self-interest of having such a senior legislator with power.

I doubt Tom has another 34 good years in office in him or that Bostonians would be so emotional and accommodating to a failing politician.

Meanwhile, our mayor has astonishing energy and focus. A key staffer told me she had trouble keeping pace with him as he did his job and campaigned non-stop. She’s in her 20s.

I think Menino’s opponents were wise in not raising the age issue. It’s better that they stick to more saleable contrasts in how they would do this or that better. Too long in office? Maybe. Too long on the planet? Not yet.

I recall well when we had one, then two, young sons. With work and parenting, cleaning and repairing, cooking and reading, we were lacking. We didn’t have much adult time, much quiet romance time, much just-us humor, much leisurely meal time, much revel in each other alone together time.

We ended up contracting with boy sitters for a weekly or at least bi-weekly night out.  We could drag our sorry selves home from exhausting days, but we knew Wednesday evening was ours. We went out, just the two to a restaurant, theater or some variation. We might go out tired, but we were always glad for it and refreshed.

Bryne recalled that for me yesterday. I had met him casually before, as he and the chefs would greet diners at the table or door. Last evening was the first time I really spoke with him.

There for a meet-and-greet for at-large councilor candidate Andrew Kenneally, I had a little time with the owner when Andy introduced us. Of course, we talked food and booze, restaurants and bars, things Bryne and I seem to know a bit about. In the course of intercourse, I recommended Townsend’s in my new neighborhood.

Then he told me of his variation on date nights. He and his girlfriend keep a dish (I don’t recall whether it was a cup or bowl) as an aid. They write names of restaurants to try on slips of paper, toss them in and decide where to go by pulling one out a random.

That seems to add a dash of adventure to it, eh?

After talking Townsend’s and owner Michael Tallon for a bit, he said he’d short circuit the process this week and head on down. He said they’ve been meaning to check out some eateries in Hyde Park for awhile.

Apparently we arrived at a decent time. A week after we moved, Mayor Tom Menino and Councilor Rob Consalvo had the scissors out in Cleary and almost adjacent Logan Squares. They cut ribbons on five newish restaurants that afternoon. Townsend’s was not among those, having been open for over a year. Within a block though are a Mexican one, a Spanish one, and the South End-style The Hyde.

I like Paulie’s attitude about restaurants and romance. No matter how you decide, I recommend date nights. Romance isn’t just for teens.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, Hyde Park, James Gate, Townsend’s, Bryne, Kenneally, restaurants, romance

The day after the Deep Ellum session, I appeared at Brigham and Women’s orthopedic-trauma offices for my OK-now-get-lost visit. Having been eight months since surgery to repair my broken leg, the final checkup was to be sure nothing has gone terribly awry.

Having posted snaps of my comminuted fibula head and splintered tibia, I knew this was my chance to see whether the bag of rocks that was the thinner bone had tried to heal. I was sure that the tibia was growing plenty of repair material, but the fibula was just a bunch of jagged shards held together by the fascia around it.

On the previous visit, the very jolly and helpful resident surgeon assisting the God of Trauma had noted that they really didn’t care whether the fibula cohered.

“We are very disrespectful of the fibula.” He noted that orthopedic surgeons use the tibia for spare parts, lifting segments as needed to graft to weight-bearing and essential bones. He iterated that as far as they are concerned, it isn’t even necessary for me to function.

Two long-term friends, who are professional massage therapists and healers themselves disagree. They say they treat numerous clients with bad pain and such from the fibula-is-connected-to… kind of problems. That is, this allegedly non-weight bearing bone helps align the ankle and knee, and in turn femur and pelvis. If one bone is out of whack, it can twist the pelvis and spine.

From the surgeon’s point of view, I got my taste of that in the hospital. The operating team arrived at my bed a few hours after inserting a 14-plus-inch pin and five screws in my leg saying I was good to go. The leg was structurally sound and I could leave when I was ready.

That’s a very carpenter or auto-mechanic attitude. Shall we say, kindly, it is not holistic. There was a piece of metal keeping the leg from collapsing if I tried to stand.

I was on opiates and experieninge an elegant, sublime level of pain regardless of the mechanics. The room nurse overheard them and as they left (and I think within earshot), she said, “Fucking surgeons!”

For last week’s final, they had even less concern about potential problems.  I had taken my minerals and hit the gym like a Spartan. My bone growth in the first two months had been what they might expect in eight or ten. They didn’t order or want x-rays for the last look.

I don’t, can’t and won’t know if my bag-of-bones above my ankle is knitting. I choose to think it is.

For other issues, I asked about the discolored swatches on the left calf. The long, crescent contusion-looking areas have remained since the surgery.

Originally, the surgeons said that was collected blood cells that would resorb into the body. However, last week, the head of the group said they were permanent. “Consider them tattoos,” he told me.

I laughed aloud and told him about the pair at Deep Ellum. He said he lived in that neighborhood and would check them out, as well as the taps there.

Now I have a bit of a science project. A couple of weeks ago, one my massage-therapist friends was by and examined the leg. He has been following the progress since February.

He showed me a technique for stretching the skin around the discolored areas and inspiring the cells to move along. I’m already trying his method. I learned long ago that physicians, be they in the GP/FP/PCP/internist families or surgeons/specialists have large areas of ignorance. Some are defensive about not knowing much about nutrition or rehabilitation or the like, pretending that expertise in their areas means they know every damned thing. Others are open to different views and admit they can’t know it all.

So, it’s likely that Mark, the doc, or Joel, the body worker is right. TBD.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, surgeons, operation, healing

Our regular gang of middle-aged swillers have warmed the stools and patio chairs there on and off for several years. We like to vary our establishment for new brews to us.

We think of Cambridge Common as the IPA paradise with prices one or two dollars a pint cheaper than almost anyone.  Redbones has its 24 taps, plus sometimes cask conditioned, changing the mix regularly. The Sunset a short distance from Deep Ellum has over 100 taps, where everyone can find three winners a visit.

Deep Ellum has much on bottle and plenty on tap, but centered on Belgians, which is not my favorite. Yet, they always have several wonderfully hoppy brews. In the main their shortcoming is outside — no provision at all for bicycles. You might luck on the single new post there for the bus stop. That by itself could inspire punks to trash your ride while they wait for the T. The abutting Walgreen’s has an iron fence that for the moment doesn’t have signs discouraging cycle locking. Apparently you are supposed to be a student in the area and walk to and stagger from the pub.

A remarkable sideshow is the tattoos that Max and Emily display, particularly in warm weather when their arms are bare, at least of clothing. I think I have it right that their skin decorators are at The Painted Bird in Somerville.  The designs are serious art and the colors are like the fish and coral you see skin diving in the Caribbean.

My adult introduction to tattooing was in the 1970s when I lived on East Third Street in Manhattan across from the Hell’s Angels. Several friends had itty-bitties that  one Angel or another had convinced them to endure in some drunken or drugged moment. At the time, they’d wrap cotton thread around a sewing needle and then dip it repeatedly into indelible ink as they punched holes. They would do maybe a flower or butterfly.

Again, color me dull. I pierced my ears long ago, but I have no permanent body art. Even my sister, who apparently will continue to be older than I has tattoos, as does her daughter.

I do admire the Deep Ellum moving art though.

Emily came in yesterday as though on cue. The barkeep at the moment said she did not have tattoos when I remarked that I recalled Emily’s. She added that her chum was about to have her left arm done too. Emily then showed up and showed off.

The outline of the work in process completely covers the arm from the shoulder through the wrist. Color is to come.

She said it all started because she fell in love with a tattoo artist. She asked him to give her a tattoo. It was an elaborate, and again very colorful, gird at waist level. They have kept company and he has continued to ink her. Her right arm is high art already.

She said previously there was a book in the works on her beau’s art and her tats will be included. After coming home, I searched and found a myspace site for her. That includes a few pix with the art, but doesn’t stress it.  Pity, it’s impressive stuff. If I ever decided to go that way, I’d definitely go to her guy.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, Deep Ellum, tattoo, Allston, Emily, bars

Yesterday in sorting old correspondence, I found a lost artifact, one I just knew had been tossed in my mother’s detritus from her overly stuffed garage after she died. Click on its thumbnail her for a larger view.

Journey back with me to the 1950s (if you weren’t alive then, pretend that something that doesn’t relate directly to you happened). Imagine a world in which my mother was a single-parent raising two kids without even the child support her ex refused to pay. Imagine that she would from time to time keep company with a man who asked her to dinner.

One such fellow, Allen as I recall, fancied himself as clever, hip (as the expression was) and manly. To me at 12 or 13, he seemed silly. Also, as a middle-aged guy who still lived with his widowed father, he didn’t seem like the best relationship material. Yet, from time to time he and his father would come over for a meal and some cards.

This was the modern-art and Peter Gunn era.  Today, we have our own safe-to-ridicule groups, like cyclists (particularly wearing bike shorts or fat people). Then, beatniks were fair game, as was abstract painting.

One evening, Allen took some of our ubiquitous art supplies (my mother, sister and I were forever drawing for Red Cross or school needs). He churned out the pasted piece, both to show his sophistication at satirizing modern art and to claim gender superiority.

My mother, Wanda, was astonished at his lack of observation and awareness. She was far more accomplished and self-sufficient. Indeed, among the helpless in the room, Allen was singular.

Come to see this oddity in my files, I seem to recall that she tossed it, maybe before he even left. It was his ticket out and I don’t think we saw him again.

My mom was many things, but helpless was not one and neither was accepting denigration of her gender.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, 1950s, sexism, modern art