Growing Up with Ambassadors from the 19th Century

“Tales From an Unsolicited Autobiography” (Episode #1)

It occurs to me that–as a member of the beautiful folk who make their living in the arts–my life has been embarrassingly rich. Much like the Johnny Cash tune “I’ve Been Everywhere” and also the ads for Farmer’s Insurance whose spokes-dude J.K. Simmons often says “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two,” my on-going journey is loaded with ups and downs, and adventures a-plenty. Ranging from beautiful to tragic, and quite often HILARIOUS, I’ve had a wonderful ride so far! Therefore, even though nobody asked for it, and in doing so I am no doubt demonstrating the very height of an inflated and happy sense of self, I thought it might be fun from-time-to-time to share a story or quip from my own magical and mysterious tour on this mortal coil…

When I was a wee lad and my parents took a brief break from their tour of America (due to my father being a charismatic salesman who got tired of jobs rather quickly) we settled down for my elementary school years (circa 1964) in a brand new happy little suburb of Chicago called “Woodridge.” A blue collar hamlet out in the remote farmlands northwest of the Windy City proper, Woodridge was an oasis of fun for kids growing up. So much so in fact that I may just feature that lovely spot in an episode of its own. But this particular chapter has to do with an even more magical place in the state next door and my fortuitous relationship with my great grandparents G. Frank and Georgia Smith.

Due to the fact that Frank and Georgia got married young and had kids right away, I had the joy and honor of growing up not only with my grandparents on my mother’s side, but their parents as well! This also presented a problem in semantics for young Stevie as these four relations constituted a double set of “Grandma and Grandpa Smiths.” Rather than going with the conundrum of “too many Smiths,” the young creative soul that was yours truly came up with a unique solution: my great grandparents became simply “Grandpa Man, and Grandma Lady.” Slick, eh? And amazingly …the names stuck! They even signed their letters to the family as such. Seemed cool to me!

Both Grandpa Man and Grandma Lady were born in the NINETEENTH Century (circa 1887) which seems incredible to be writing about here deep into the TWENTY FIRST Century, I mean …really?! Somehow, I sit here straddling THREE centuries? What wizardry is this?! But here we are and I am a FAR better person I believe for having experienced such an upbringing around these delightful people.

Consider this when pondering the lives of my great grandparents: they went from no electricity and getting around by riding horses to men landing on the moon–in ONE lifetime! The mind is boggled and the soul is thrilled at pondering such a thing! But live it they did. When they were born, Lincoln had died a mere one score and three years years earlier, Custer had perished in the great Montana battle only eleven years prior, Mark Twain and Frederick Douglas were still living, and some of the U.S. states weren’t even states yet! Imagine that when thinking of these two intrepid souls watching Neil and Buzz talking a lunar stroll on TV in 1969!

Every summer for years, my mother would pack us all up into the barely functioning family station wagon with the enchanting sobriquet of “Ol’ Bessie” (the station wagon, not my mother) and off we would go to visit her mother and grandparents in the tiny rural town of Cameron, Missouri. Cameron could easily be an Encyclopedia Britannica representation of the term Midwest Americana. It was like something out of a Frank Capra movie with a sound track by Aaron Copland! Surrounded by farmland and boasting a quaint little downtown area dominated by a Ben Franklin general store situated next to a used comic book and penny candy establishment, Cameron was a pure delight to me and my siblings. Of course, when we grew into teenagers, it became tiresome, but we are dealing here with the delightfully resilient years of being a kid. (As a sidebar, Cameron was highlighted by establishments with more importance than a general store and a used comic book emporium of course, but to me and my siblings…nothing was more momentous than the Ben Franklin–especially the basement level toy displays– the comic book store with its sugary delights, and the public pool!)

In those years Grandpa Man and Grandma Lady lived in a fine old farmhouse-style white wooden home situated directly in front of two giant grain elevators and right next to a train track crossing on the edge of the downtown area. This was magic on an almost metaphysical level to young Stevie! Whenever the trains would come through picking up a load of grain or on some other exciting mission, the red warning lights of the crossing would erupt into blazing beacons swinging back and forth while a rapid fire klaxon bell announced the imminent arrival of a giant locomotive! Once again utilizing his own more picturesque approach to language, the five-year-old version of myself would run through the house and out into the yard screaming “The KaMOOSE! The KaMOOSE is coming! The KaMOOSE!!!!!” Meaning of course that I wanted to wave to the last car on the train, the legendary caboose! The adults would immediately circle around the caterwauling young lad and hold my hand to take me as close to the tracks as they dared while I just stared in rapturous excitement at the steel behemoth barreling through town on its way to some incomprehensible destination.

DAYUM! I STILL get chills remembering it …all these years later!

Grandpa Man had chickens in the backyard and Grandma Lady had a series of gardens that included a mesmerizing patch of violet irises. As far as the chickens, Grandma Lady expressly told Grandpa Man NOT to let me see the beheading of said in preparation for dinner, which of course inspired Frank all the more to share that gruesome experience with me. So I learned at a very young age from my mentor of the 19th Century that chickens can indeed run with their heads chopped off! (much to the consternation of Georgia Smith.)

As far as Grandma Lady’s iris garden… walking among those excellent blooms transported me into an electric land of heavenly-scented violet charms and otherworldly feelings that thrilled me then and still does today. Those seemingly sentient flowers made such a powerful impact on me in fact, that I wrote a piece that programmatically remembers and addresses these feelings and recorded it via my jazz fusion group Phröntrange in 2017.

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