"Jane"
Friday June 24 2005
Jane Pollack's birthday was yesterday. You remember for a long time the birthday of your best friend when you are little girl. She was year behind me in school 'cause cut off date was April 30th and I was born at start of April, Jane was born 2 and half months later on June 23rd.
I had an earlier best friend, Debbie Bernstein before I started school, when we still lived in Manhattan. But that is further away in my mind. I see the passionate little girls arrive with their moms at the pool and their passionate friends, and their new baby brother just born, and how the whole world revolves around Madeline, Madeline is one of the little girls, and I know that was me back in the days when Debbie was my best friend. It is the world before school, you spend much more time with your mother.
By the time of Jane I was in 3rd grade, Jane was in 2nd grade, and we were best friends. She lived in the apartment above mine. I was in 3F and she was in 4F. It would take a writer with far more talent than I have to do justice to Jane because there is nothing to say about her. She is the salt of the earth and she is bland.
It may have to do with times. Maybe there is a time from ages 8 to 12 when your whole focus is on your skills, your games. Jane and I played with each other but what we played were games. We played Jacks with each other, we played cards with each other, we played board games with each other, and outside we played in groups. We played chinese handball, regular handball, punch ball, stickball, and jump rope, also Potsy and Girls and Boys.
Also Jane and I did things together. We traveled by train to Rochester to visit my grandfather. We traveled by subway to lower east side to take modern dance classes. We traveled by bus to Jamaica to take ballet. We went to the movies together. We rode our bikes together along with two other girls. We took the subway to her dad's office on Fulton Street where he sold jewelry. We went to Woolworth’s together for sodas. And had lunch at the Woolworth’s in Jamaica.
We were together a lot. And the friendship lasted till I was about 15 because I remember Jane looking out my window when my cousin Richie arrived for Thanksgiving when I was 14 and saying “your cousin Richie is good looking.”
He had just bloomed into his good looks as I had bloomed into mine. And I was in high school then. And the June before high school when I was 14 and few months, Jane and I were together in my room when Jane espied my date arriving to take me to the prom. So we did continue to hang out together even when the time of games was over.
But she was central in my life during the time of games. Every Friday night when her dad returned home from the city he bought Jane a new board game, and we played with them. That is how I discovered “Go To The Head Of The Class” a game I loved. Also Jane taught me “Candyland,” a board game she had already had. The only board game I had was “Monopoly” but Jane also had wonderful game, “Chutes and Ladders.” O I also had “Clue” but Jane had all the games. “Chutes and Ladders” was a lot of fun and I think there was a game called “Sorry” too. We played board games until we both discovered Jacks.
Then all we played was Jacks. But somehow there was always a lot of cards. Jane and I learned cards tricks together and played them. We played “Double Solitaire.” Jane taught me “Knucks.” I guess our big game was “Rummy” which we played endlessly. If Myrna and Carol were also there we played Poker. Jane and I were well matched, we competed.
In June they put up the sprinklers in the kiddie playground behind our building, the playground we all played in, and Jane and I got into our bathing suits and went under it. Also when Jane's parents took Jane and Amy, her little sister, to visit their friends or relatives on Long Island who had a sprinkler, I was invited to go under their sprinkler too.
And when my parents took me and Danny, my kid brother, to Jones Beach, Jane was invited to go into the ocean too. I remember Jane being with me at Jones beach because after we had finished swimming and wanted to go back in the water Jane and I both went in in our underpants, that was fun.
And amazingly one summer, while we were up in the Adirondacks, Jane's family came and spent a week on 4th Lake. It was a country club at Rocky Point, but I guess they rented a cabin. I remember being excited when we got in the car to drive Route 28, a winding road thru the mountains to 4th Lake, and I could see Jane. I had my own friends in the mountains. But returning back to NYC and seeing my NYC friends was always big thrill at first. I would get out of the car and rush to Jane's apartment. And Jane's mother, Ray, would water my mother's plants for us when we were gone.
On the other side of the building was Sheila, and Jane and Sheila were also best friends, and Ray was best friends with Sheila's mother Frieda. I really have no idea how Jane and Sheila played together, they seemed so different to me. I would play with Sheila after school 'cause she and I were in the same class and our way of playing was so different than what I did with Jane. We didn't play games. Sheila introduced me to her books. She had the “Honeybunch” books and then the “Bobsey Twins” books and I borrowed all of them from her.
Then we would watch “Hit Parade.” Sheila introduced me to “Hit Parade.” And Sheila had sheet music. These were the songs which were on Hit Parade. It had the words and I guess the notes. Sheila would sing “Dance With Me, Henry” and I would sing along with her.
In Sheila's room we would play “school.’ Sheila never played outside with us. She didn't join us for Chinese handball or punch ball or jump rope. Sheila did not have a bicycle, she did not learn how to roller skate.
That was another big thing Jane and I did. We roller skated at the school playground, or around the buildings, and thru the drive ways. We got my mother to take us to the rink, where we ice skated and roller skated both. So it's a mystery to me what Jane did when she went over to Sheila's room to play. Altho when we were all in the playground and the mothers were sitting on the benches we heard Sheila screech out the window “Jane is eating raw hamburger meat.” I guess Sheila was telling her mother this. Jane always liked to eat and so did I. We spent a lot of time eating together.
Jane had TV before we did so we spent a lot of time also on the living room rug in front of her TV. That was how I discovered “Father Knows Best.” Jane discovered it and I watched it there. It was thrilling at first. I watched it with her every week.
I watched TV with Sheila at Sheila's house too but the programs she liked were grown-up shows. We would watch Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. At Jane's house we watched Superman.
In the dining car on the way to Rochester Jane and I ordered a jelly omelet. It was the first time I ever tasted that, I liked it. And when we got to Rochester we turned on my grandpa's TV and watched “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” I had never seen that either.
When someone is your companion in play you mainly remember them at play, not that much catches your notice about them. I noticed when my dad gave us arithmetic problems to solve in the car as game when he was driving us somewhere, Jane was very good at arithmetic, even better than me. And I was surprised when I learned “Knucks” from Jane because it is cruel game, Jane was never cruel. And I remember the smell of her father's garage, when we would go over there to unlock it so Jane could get her bike. My bike was in the bike room downstairs of our building.
All I can think is Jane must have been incredibly easy going if we never once conflicted, or rubbed against each other. Her habits were different from mine. When I got something new to wear I wore it right away but Jane liked to save it in its original plastic and keep it in her drawer and show it to me in her drawer. As soon as I saw her pretty new sweater sets in plastic in her drawer I wanted that too. I was the same as my dog now is about his bone. As soon as I give him one he rushes into yard to bury it, but then he wants one to eat also. I wanted to wear my new clothes and save them all pristine in my drawer too.
I got to see Sheila once when she blossomed into lovely young woman. I was coming home on bus when I was half way thru college, or perhaps it was only my 2nd year, and to my astonishment the glamorous girl with all the make-up on and looking very pretty was Sheila. She told me she was secretary in Manhattan and I was astounded at her salary. Sheila was very smart, smarter than me. We had been in the accelerated class together in junior high but I could not keep up and Sheila had no problem.
I guess I played more in Jane's house than she did in mine because she had the board games, she had the TV. We did play Jacks on the linoleum in my foyer, but we played a great great great deal of Jacks in her bathroom. Her apartment had wall-to-wall carpet everywhere except in kitchen and bathroom, so we squeezed into that tiny bathroom, just enuf room for two little girls to squeeze, next to the clothes hamper under sink, and played endless Jacks there. We learned how to do Backsies there and how to do Fancies, Cherry-in-the-basket and Jack-be-nimble. And of course endless card games on the rug. For “Double Solitaire” it's possible we needed two decks of cards.
She had a cousin Harriet who was a few years older than us, who lived in Building 5, and sometimes we would visit her cousin Harriet and her cousin Harriet would come over. And of course half the time Myrna and Carol joined us for play, there were 4 of us playing Jacks on my mom's foyer linoleum, or 4 of us playing Poker at Carol's dinette table.
Myrna and I did conflict, there were fights, and then Myrna would put a note in the empty milk bottle outside my door saying “let's make up” and we would. That is why I don't understand, in all our furious competition, all our games, all our closeness, all our long afternoons together, how it is possible we never conflicted. Not about Jane, who could conflict with her? She was perfectly easy-going nice girl. But look at me. But maybe just as Jane and I were perfectly matched in every single game we played, I guess it's possible we were perfectly matched as friends too.
She had that warm easy-going nature, in astrology she is probably Taurus, that lovely sweetness of a cow, akin to placid. Jane was unruffled and unruffleable. And she was rooted as a tree. She never objected to me. Because altho I never attempted to budge Jane, I am sure she would have been unbudgeable. So even tho all our games were outdoor games of action or indoor games of mental or physical concentration, it's like those lovely fields you pass in New York State, the contentment of the cows outside, and deep shelter shade trees over them.
For 3 and a half years I spent all my free time with Jane, or most of it, playing with Jane, and it was an instant which stretched into eternity. Because Jane provided the sweet cowy contentment and the sheltering shade of tree.
We lived in apartment building projects surrounded by more apartment building projects somewhere out in Queens. Both our dads worked in Manhattan. But for Jane, who was daughter of Mother Earth herself, extended all the sweet graciousness of our lovely Planet to us. All that is sweet and warm and nurturing came from Jane. It was blessed friendship.
No comments:
Post a Comment