Lawrence Hittle
06-08-2012, 01:19 PM
Beneath A Canopy of Twinkling Stars
My brother, Carl, and I spent our teenage years in the woods of Pennsylvania where we fished, and camped, and hiked the pine and oak-lined trails year round. Our packs leaned against the wall, ever-loaded with tents and bags and mats and little camping gizmos so we could be gone at a moment's notice. In our minds, there was nothing better than a quart of Wild Turkey and a pot of beans and weenies cooked over a piney campfire under a dark sky and a canopy of twinkling stars.
We were an unusual pair. Where most of our friends seemed to be victims of sibling rivalry, we shared a strange sense of humor that has kept us on good footing all our lives. We have had only one fight that I can remember and that never amounted to anything. Among our circle of friends we were known as Those Horrible Hittle boys because our brand of humor and outlook on reality relentlessly pushed the envelope of social acceptability. Always unpredictable and unusual, we were the entertainers, rarely the entertained. We reveled in the absurd.
State College, Pennsylvania, is the home of a big university where Joe Paterno has made quite a name for himself. In the late 60's, we grew up in that town, and like everyone else who went to State College High School, I eventually went on to attend Penn State. We made great friends during those college days. Many have lasted a lifetime. It seemed that every year around December 23rd, there were always a few friends who could not make the trip back home to be with their families. They were known as the Christmas orphans. And rather than let them spend the holidays alone, Those Horrible Hittle Boys sent out invitations to gather with us for an unusual night of celebration.
On one occasion, we drew a map showing a place and time of rendezvous, and asked that everyone who was invited bring a sleeping bag, some good cold weather clothing, some tasty munchies, and whatever else they needed to put them in a good mood. The destination was a small parking area at the foot of Tussey Mountain, a somewhat remote favorite summer campsite with plenty of fallen wood, a frozen pond, and ample pine protection from gusty winter wind. Carl and I got there hours ahead of everyone else, gathered and stacked enough wood to burn through the night, and tramped down the snow with our boots to make a nice area to sit around a campfire and pitch a half dozen tents. The campsite was well surrounded by heavy pine foliage that kept out the chilling wind but open above our heads to reveal what would be a clear starry winter sky.
About a half an hour before total darkness would descend, as requested, the Christmas orphans began showing up around the blazing fire they could see from half a mile away as they followed our tire ruts and drove in on the winding snowy mountain road. Hugs were passed around, tents were pitched, bags rolled out, and when everybody had gathered and squatted close to the fire to keep warm, huge heaps of yummy food on blue metal camping plates and wine in lead crystal glasses were passed among the folks huddled cross-legged around the leaping blaze. Carl had sage and crouton stuffed and roasted a huge turkey all morning and made a vat of his famous mashed potatoes that he warmed in a bath near the coals at the edge of the fire. His mushroom, chive, and giblet gravy was most excellent and rolled down the buttered volcanoes of potatoes heaped on everyone's plates. Little spoonfuls of bright green peas smiled along the edge of the presentation. PB and J sandwiches, and caramel popcorn, and spice cakes, and pumpkin pie, Slim Jims, and wine, lots of wine, rounded out the menu as savory steam rose from each plate silhouetted against the firelight and cold mountain air. It was a good gathering of hungry and orphaned friends who huddled 'round the fire, but it was Those Hittle Boys who were magnificent that evening. As the night darkened and with bellies filled, guitars broke from their cases, and those of us who had the talent strummed and performed well into the drunken night under a canopy of twinkling Christmas stars while the rest of us just sat grinning and stared into the flames, sated, knowing we were among the best people we knew.
Ten years passed quickly. College friends graduated, parted, and went on to pursue their lives and fortunes. Carl and I ended up in Chicago where we found ourselves rehabilitating an 1880's landmark, the Hotel Florence, and the Victorian kitchen that it housed. 1979 brought with it a scorching hot muggy summer and a brutally cold winter. Waves of snow drifted in from Lake Michigan and buried our little historic community under 3 feet of hard, frozen, barely passable, sooty ice. The interstate was always plowed, but there was no such thing as plowing the side streets, so Champlain Avenue was nothing more than two deepening, depressing, smooth, icy ruts. At one point, temperatures remained below freezing, hovering near zero for what seemed an eternity as travel and community activity came to a shivering standstill. Except for getting to work and to the store for groceries, people huddled indoors to avoid the arctic conditions. Cabin fever set in quickly.
Our neighborhood was 16 square blocks (4 x 4) of brick and mortar row houses built by George Pullman in the 1880's. Carl and I rented the ground floor at 11214 South Champlain Avenue from our aunt and grandmother who lived above. These row houses shared a common wall on two sides and had windows at both ends but no side windows. In the summer, they were little stinking sweltering sweat boxes if the wind was not blowing correctly, and in the winter, they were congested corridors of clustered claustrophobia. Without exception, the Horrible Hittle Boys and their Chicago friends all went nuts in the confines of their cramped cubicles that winter. We decided we had to do something unique and unusual to break the deepening misery.
Our row house accommodations featured a 15 x 20 living room at one end. It had two windows facing the frozen street followed by a small bathroom, a cramped kitchen, a tiny bedroom and a door at the opposite end where there was a small set of rickety grey steps and a narrow concrete path that divided Gram's perfectly manicured garden. It lead to a 3 foot grey picket fence that bordered the alley. Our plan was to recreate a Pennsylvania forest where friends had gathered ten years earlier.
We removed our home made couch and end tables, placed them outside on the front concrete porch, and left behind only the Zenith console TV that fit nicely along the wall between the two street-facing windows. It was a Dec. 23rd afternoon.
The plastic drop cloth was laid down to protect the hardwood floor and Carl poured the dark green paint he had found in the hotel into the trays that sat on the plastic. We rolled the walls in about twenty minutes, heavily near the floorboards, lighter as we got towards the ceiling, and transformed the once soft beige confines into a dark green cavern. We then altered the remaining paint to be somewhat bluer and lighter and free-handed a forest of peaking pine trees on all 4 walls that regressed into the distance where they would eventually butt up against a fading sunset where the walls met the ceiling. The ceiling was rolled and feathered from a dark, almost black, at the center to a lighter blue where it butted into the waning golden sunset at the top of the trees. When the ceiling paint had dried, fluorescent stick-on stars were placed in the darkest part of the ceiling and feathered out to the edges of the sunset. The Big Dipper was prominent. In a matter of hours we had created a crisp forest atmosphere with waning light, similar to that Pennsylvania setting ten years prior. We congratulated ourselves and broke out the Wild Turkey.
Invitations were phoned out to our cabin-happy friends, especially the ones who were not married with kids or going to join family in these wretched conditions, to come and join us for a few hours on Christmas Eve to eat, drink, party, and watch It's A Wonderful Life.
The afternoon of the 24th was hectic. Carl had prepped his meal all morning and put his turkey in the oven around 11 am to cook very slowly. We had parked our beater on the street and had not driven anywhere for a month. The back glass of the yellow '67 Cougar convertible top was missing as was a side window, so, of course, the interior was full of snow and ice. We bundled up and took to the task of digging our ride out of a bank of sooty ice. After twenty minutes of swearing in disgust, Carl finally got the rag top down and shoveled out the inside of the car's front and back seats and floorboards while I hacked and chopped away at the ice that encased the body and tires. After two hours we had her freed up and lo and behold, when Carl inserted the key and gave it a turn or two, she fired right up. He backed out into the icy ruts, then we placed our couch in the vacated ice cave to reserve our parking spot while we went back inside to warm up and change out of our sweaty clothes. We were in a festive mood and decided on short-sleeved Hawaiian shirts, summer shorts, antlered moose hats and wrap-around sunglasses, got into the car, and went on our way, top down in below freezing temps, radio blaring, to continue our late afternoon Christmas shopping. No winter clothes for us ... shock value ... it's all part of being horrible! But I must say at this juncture, it's a DAMN good thing that car had a good heater!
The plowed streets were a mess of howling Chicago wind and blowing snow, but we eventually found a store on Michigan Avenue that was still open and where everything was only a dollar. We spent about 30 bucks buying strings of colored lights, colored ball do-dads, extension cords, and a few boxes of Christmas tree tinsel. The afternoon had passed quickly, the light was waning fast, and as the sunset was quickly approaching, we found ourselves in a less than favorable neighborhood looking for a Christmas tree lot that would want to sell its unsold stock at rock bottom prices. We found a place at 115th and Michigan Ave where a bundled-up old black man was huddled around a 55 gallon drum fire warming the palms of his outstretched hands, accompanied by friends passing around a quart of Olde Style wrapped in a brown paper bag. His trees leaned against a stretch of temporary chain link fence rimmed by a lone string of dim refrigerator light bulbs. The streets were barren. He was not selling much and you could tell he really wanted to go home, so when two fat white guys in a yellow convertible pulled up dressed the way we were and offered him three bucks apiece for some of his remaining stock, you can imagine how glad he was to see us. Judging by the bewildered look on his face, maybe glad is not the right word, but we struck a deal and crammed 7 six foot trees, standing upright, into the back seat of the Moosemobile and slid away into the approaching darkness.
Along the way back to our house, travel was treacherous, and we had to stop for many red lights. We frequently found ourselves in a lane along side soot-stained buses that were crammed full of heavily clothed people who were wiping the steamy fog of their breath from the cold frozen bus windows to get a look at the Hawaiian loonies in crazy hats with their load of trees in the yellow convertible below. Disbelieving faces were smashed against the glass of the buses, fingers pointing, eyes bulging behind rows of smiling teeth swathed in heavy scarves and pulled down hats. We gave them the Miss America wave as they gawked. Ah-h-h ... shock value. Priceless!
We eventually got home, put the couch back on the front porch, parked the car, and took our late-found booty inside where we untrussed them and stood them against all of the walls except where the TV stood, in the holders we had found in the basement of the hotel. They blended into the companions we had painted for them earlier. Lights were feverishly strung, extension cords hastily stretched, and garland franticly added. We were surrounded in fragrant piney foliage. The setting smelled like a combination of Pennsylvania forest and savory turkey, and just in time, too. Friends began showing up right on cue. They stomped the dirty snow from their boots, huddled in, and tossed their coats on the bed in the back room. We kept everything dark, not a light was shining, only a candle in the kitchen and one on top of the TV. The forest floor was spread with a quilted circular rug and lots of pillows that we had borrowed from the hotel. Paul and Carol brought a glazed orange bundt cake. Joe brought his guitar and some peanut brittle and Pabst. Robert and Mickie brought wine and another guitar, and finally, Tom and Linda showed up with their golden retriever and a big tray of pecan brownies. The focus was on the kitchen where everyone gathered until we led them to the door that secreted what was behind. Jaws dropped and eyebrows arched as each of them entered our makeshift forest, and when everyone was huddled tightly on the floor, surrounded by trees, the lights were plugged in and Carl passed out plates of hot turkey and fixin's, the TV was turned on, and Donna Reed, Jimmy Stewart, and Clarence the angle filled the room with memories of Christmases passed. The room was comfortably crowded and warm. The sunset and trees we had painted, combined with our live shrubbery, provided a fragrant woodsy coziness and relief from the confines of row house monotony. We drank a lot of wine as smiles crept across the faces of the people who were crammed into that makeshift Pennsylvania forest that night. Of course, we saved the best for last and when the movie was over and Clarence got his wings, we placed the lone candle in the center of the floor and broke out the desserts everyone had brought. The tree lights were extinguished, the TV turned off, and what remained was the smell of a forest, aroma of brownies, the warmth of good people, and a ceiling full of stars that were now releasing all the light they had absorbed from the TV. The same smiles, on different people, ten years later, once again spread across the faces of orphaned folks who knew they were among friends for the holidays.
Another true story.
Lawrence Hittle
Rewritten 23 Dec. 2011
My brother, Carl, and I spent our teenage years in the woods of Pennsylvania where we fished, and camped, and hiked the pine and oak-lined trails year round. Our packs leaned against the wall, ever-loaded with tents and bags and mats and little camping gizmos so we could be gone at a moment's notice. In our minds, there was nothing better than a quart of Wild Turkey and a pot of beans and weenies cooked over a piney campfire under a dark sky and a canopy of twinkling stars.
We were an unusual pair. Where most of our friends seemed to be victims of sibling rivalry, we shared a strange sense of humor that has kept us on good footing all our lives. We have had only one fight that I can remember and that never amounted to anything. Among our circle of friends we were known as Those Horrible Hittle boys because our brand of humor and outlook on reality relentlessly pushed the envelope of social acceptability. Always unpredictable and unusual, we were the entertainers, rarely the entertained. We reveled in the absurd.
State College, Pennsylvania, is the home of a big university where Joe Paterno has made quite a name for himself. In the late 60's, we grew up in that town, and like everyone else who went to State College High School, I eventually went on to attend Penn State. We made great friends during those college days. Many have lasted a lifetime. It seemed that every year around December 23rd, there were always a few friends who could not make the trip back home to be with their families. They were known as the Christmas orphans. And rather than let them spend the holidays alone, Those Horrible Hittle Boys sent out invitations to gather with us for an unusual night of celebration.
On one occasion, we drew a map showing a place and time of rendezvous, and asked that everyone who was invited bring a sleeping bag, some good cold weather clothing, some tasty munchies, and whatever else they needed to put them in a good mood. The destination was a small parking area at the foot of Tussey Mountain, a somewhat remote favorite summer campsite with plenty of fallen wood, a frozen pond, and ample pine protection from gusty winter wind. Carl and I got there hours ahead of everyone else, gathered and stacked enough wood to burn through the night, and tramped down the snow with our boots to make a nice area to sit around a campfire and pitch a half dozen tents. The campsite was well surrounded by heavy pine foliage that kept out the chilling wind but open above our heads to reveal what would be a clear starry winter sky.
About a half an hour before total darkness would descend, as requested, the Christmas orphans began showing up around the blazing fire they could see from half a mile away as they followed our tire ruts and drove in on the winding snowy mountain road. Hugs were passed around, tents were pitched, bags rolled out, and when everybody had gathered and squatted close to the fire to keep warm, huge heaps of yummy food on blue metal camping plates and wine in lead crystal glasses were passed among the folks huddled cross-legged around the leaping blaze. Carl had sage and crouton stuffed and roasted a huge turkey all morning and made a vat of his famous mashed potatoes that he warmed in a bath near the coals at the edge of the fire. His mushroom, chive, and giblet gravy was most excellent and rolled down the buttered volcanoes of potatoes heaped on everyone's plates. Little spoonfuls of bright green peas smiled along the edge of the presentation. PB and J sandwiches, and caramel popcorn, and spice cakes, and pumpkin pie, Slim Jims, and wine, lots of wine, rounded out the menu as savory steam rose from each plate silhouetted against the firelight and cold mountain air. It was a good gathering of hungry and orphaned friends who huddled 'round the fire, but it was Those Hittle Boys who were magnificent that evening. As the night darkened and with bellies filled, guitars broke from their cases, and those of us who had the talent strummed and performed well into the drunken night under a canopy of twinkling Christmas stars while the rest of us just sat grinning and stared into the flames, sated, knowing we were among the best people we knew.
Ten years passed quickly. College friends graduated, parted, and went on to pursue their lives and fortunes. Carl and I ended up in Chicago where we found ourselves rehabilitating an 1880's landmark, the Hotel Florence, and the Victorian kitchen that it housed. 1979 brought with it a scorching hot muggy summer and a brutally cold winter. Waves of snow drifted in from Lake Michigan and buried our little historic community under 3 feet of hard, frozen, barely passable, sooty ice. The interstate was always plowed, but there was no such thing as plowing the side streets, so Champlain Avenue was nothing more than two deepening, depressing, smooth, icy ruts. At one point, temperatures remained below freezing, hovering near zero for what seemed an eternity as travel and community activity came to a shivering standstill. Except for getting to work and to the store for groceries, people huddled indoors to avoid the arctic conditions. Cabin fever set in quickly.
Our neighborhood was 16 square blocks (4 x 4) of brick and mortar row houses built by George Pullman in the 1880's. Carl and I rented the ground floor at 11214 South Champlain Avenue from our aunt and grandmother who lived above. These row houses shared a common wall on two sides and had windows at both ends but no side windows. In the summer, they were little stinking sweltering sweat boxes if the wind was not blowing correctly, and in the winter, they were congested corridors of clustered claustrophobia. Without exception, the Horrible Hittle Boys and their Chicago friends all went nuts in the confines of their cramped cubicles that winter. We decided we had to do something unique and unusual to break the deepening misery.
Our row house accommodations featured a 15 x 20 living room at one end. It had two windows facing the frozen street followed by a small bathroom, a cramped kitchen, a tiny bedroom and a door at the opposite end where there was a small set of rickety grey steps and a narrow concrete path that divided Gram's perfectly manicured garden. It lead to a 3 foot grey picket fence that bordered the alley. Our plan was to recreate a Pennsylvania forest where friends had gathered ten years earlier.
We removed our home made couch and end tables, placed them outside on the front concrete porch, and left behind only the Zenith console TV that fit nicely along the wall between the two street-facing windows. It was a Dec. 23rd afternoon.
The plastic drop cloth was laid down to protect the hardwood floor and Carl poured the dark green paint he had found in the hotel into the trays that sat on the plastic. We rolled the walls in about twenty minutes, heavily near the floorboards, lighter as we got towards the ceiling, and transformed the once soft beige confines into a dark green cavern. We then altered the remaining paint to be somewhat bluer and lighter and free-handed a forest of peaking pine trees on all 4 walls that regressed into the distance where they would eventually butt up against a fading sunset where the walls met the ceiling. The ceiling was rolled and feathered from a dark, almost black, at the center to a lighter blue where it butted into the waning golden sunset at the top of the trees. When the ceiling paint had dried, fluorescent stick-on stars were placed in the darkest part of the ceiling and feathered out to the edges of the sunset. The Big Dipper was prominent. In a matter of hours we had created a crisp forest atmosphere with waning light, similar to that Pennsylvania setting ten years prior. We congratulated ourselves and broke out the Wild Turkey.
Invitations were phoned out to our cabin-happy friends, especially the ones who were not married with kids or going to join family in these wretched conditions, to come and join us for a few hours on Christmas Eve to eat, drink, party, and watch It's A Wonderful Life.
The afternoon of the 24th was hectic. Carl had prepped his meal all morning and put his turkey in the oven around 11 am to cook very slowly. We had parked our beater on the street and had not driven anywhere for a month. The back glass of the yellow '67 Cougar convertible top was missing as was a side window, so, of course, the interior was full of snow and ice. We bundled up and took to the task of digging our ride out of a bank of sooty ice. After twenty minutes of swearing in disgust, Carl finally got the rag top down and shoveled out the inside of the car's front and back seats and floorboards while I hacked and chopped away at the ice that encased the body and tires. After two hours we had her freed up and lo and behold, when Carl inserted the key and gave it a turn or two, she fired right up. He backed out into the icy ruts, then we placed our couch in the vacated ice cave to reserve our parking spot while we went back inside to warm up and change out of our sweaty clothes. We were in a festive mood and decided on short-sleeved Hawaiian shirts, summer shorts, antlered moose hats and wrap-around sunglasses, got into the car, and went on our way, top down in below freezing temps, radio blaring, to continue our late afternoon Christmas shopping. No winter clothes for us ... shock value ... it's all part of being horrible! But I must say at this juncture, it's a DAMN good thing that car had a good heater!
The plowed streets were a mess of howling Chicago wind and blowing snow, but we eventually found a store on Michigan Avenue that was still open and where everything was only a dollar. We spent about 30 bucks buying strings of colored lights, colored ball do-dads, extension cords, and a few boxes of Christmas tree tinsel. The afternoon had passed quickly, the light was waning fast, and as the sunset was quickly approaching, we found ourselves in a less than favorable neighborhood looking for a Christmas tree lot that would want to sell its unsold stock at rock bottom prices. We found a place at 115th and Michigan Ave where a bundled-up old black man was huddled around a 55 gallon drum fire warming the palms of his outstretched hands, accompanied by friends passing around a quart of Olde Style wrapped in a brown paper bag. His trees leaned against a stretch of temporary chain link fence rimmed by a lone string of dim refrigerator light bulbs. The streets were barren. He was not selling much and you could tell he really wanted to go home, so when two fat white guys in a yellow convertible pulled up dressed the way we were and offered him three bucks apiece for some of his remaining stock, you can imagine how glad he was to see us. Judging by the bewildered look on his face, maybe glad is not the right word, but we struck a deal and crammed 7 six foot trees, standing upright, into the back seat of the Moosemobile and slid away into the approaching darkness.
Along the way back to our house, travel was treacherous, and we had to stop for many red lights. We frequently found ourselves in a lane along side soot-stained buses that were crammed full of heavily clothed people who were wiping the steamy fog of their breath from the cold frozen bus windows to get a look at the Hawaiian loonies in crazy hats with their load of trees in the yellow convertible below. Disbelieving faces were smashed against the glass of the buses, fingers pointing, eyes bulging behind rows of smiling teeth swathed in heavy scarves and pulled down hats. We gave them the Miss America wave as they gawked. Ah-h-h ... shock value. Priceless!
We eventually got home, put the couch back on the front porch, parked the car, and took our late-found booty inside where we untrussed them and stood them against all of the walls except where the TV stood, in the holders we had found in the basement of the hotel. They blended into the companions we had painted for them earlier. Lights were feverishly strung, extension cords hastily stretched, and garland franticly added. We were surrounded in fragrant piney foliage. The setting smelled like a combination of Pennsylvania forest and savory turkey, and just in time, too. Friends began showing up right on cue. They stomped the dirty snow from their boots, huddled in, and tossed their coats on the bed in the back room. We kept everything dark, not a light was shining, only a candle in the kitchen and one on top of the TV. The forest floor was spread with a quilted circular rug and lots of pillows that we had borrowed from the hotel. Paul and Carol brought a glazed orange bundt cake. Joe brought his guitar and some peanut brittle and Pabst. Robert and Mickie brought wine and another guitar, and finally, Tom and Linda showed up with their golden retriever and a big tray of pecan brownies. The focus was on the kitchen where everyone gathered until we led them to the door that secreted what was behind. Jaws dropped and eyebrows arched as each of them entered our makeshift forest, and when everyone was huddled tightly on the floor, surrounded by trees, the lights were plugged in and Carl passed out plates of hot turkey and fixin's, the TV was turned on, and Donna Reed, Jimmy Stewart, and Clarence the angle filled the room with memories of Christmases passed. The room was comfortably crowded and warm. The sunset and trees we had painted, combined with our live shrubbery, provided a fragrant woodsy coziness and relief from the confines of row house monotony. We drank a lot of wine as smiles crept across the faces of the people who were crammed into that makeshift Pennsylvania forest that night. Of course, we saved the best for last and when the movie was over and Clarence got his wings, we placed the lone candle in the center of the floor and broke out the desserts everyone had brought. The tree lights were extinguished, the TV turned off, and what remained was the smell of a forest, aroma of brownies, the warmth of good people, and a ceiling full of stars that were now releasing all the light they had absorbed from the TV. The same smiles, on different people, ten years later, once again spread across the faces of orphaned folks who knew they were among friends for the holidays.
Another true story.
Lawrence Hittle
Rewritten 23 Dec. 2011