Looking Back with a Smile

By Edward Farber

There’s a chuckle on every page of Looking Back with a Smile as the author recollects in brief but entertaining anecdotes (bits and pieces) of a life that has spanned seven decades. Bits and pieces are what they are. Quick looks at what he calls an “ordinary” life, each served up with a laugh.

These recollections take the reader on a merry romp through growing up during the Depression and wartime 1940’s, the transitions from grade school to high school to college to the military, to work, and finally, to marriage, kids and grandkids. On the way we also laugh about pets, secretaries, bugs in the BOQ, being a canine midwife, and many more incidents and observations all dished out with warmth and wit.

A sampling of the subtitle over each anecdote gives a little insight into Ed Farber’s humorous approach: A Wig in the Waste Can; No Appreciation for Tenors; Hiding from Cousin Sophie; A Low Point at High School; Bill Haley vs. Beethoven; Las Vegas Was Cheap Back Then; Hot Fudge Sundae, Hold the Fudge; Teeth? Who Needs Teeth? Teenagers. A Whole New Brand of Kids; Lucky Ticks Me Off; What’s a Skink?; ESP on the Way to L.A.; An Instant Grandchild.

The author sums it up nicely when he writes: “I have to warn you ahead of time that there are no moments of historical importance, no stories of great deeds, no famous people, nothing sensational, sleazy or sexually arousing, but I’m certain that these bits and pieces, while totally mine, will give you a chuckle and remind you of your own, because we are all, millions of us, ordinary people. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Farber
• Release date: Jul 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476220666

Edward Farber

Ed Farber's writing career spans more than half a century as a copywriter, creative director and ad agency owner. After leaving the world of business, he has devoted his creative efforts to his two, passionate loves--writing for his own pleasure and painting. His short stories have appeared in literary magazines, and his non-fiction book, Looking Back with a Smile, is available as a Smashwords edition. You can see both his artwork and some short stories on his website: http://www.farberart.com

Book preview

Looking Back with a Smile

Bits and Pieces from Seven Decades of Experience

By Edward Farber

Looking Back with a Smile

A Timberwood Press Publication, Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 by Edward Farber

All rights reserved. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. No part may be reproduced in any way without written permission except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Cover photo and design by Edward Farber

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Growing Up

Chapter 2 - The U.S. Air Farce

Chapter 3 - Dating, Love and Marriage

Chapter 4 - Married Bliss Interrupted by Kids

Chapter 5 - Pets are Family, Too

Chapter 6 - Travel and Vacations

Chapter 7 - Grandkids Make Life Sweet

Afterword

Introduction

Shakespeare said it best. Life is not an unbroken narrative but bits and pieces sewn together like a patchwork quilt which you draw around you for warmth and comfort in the winter of your life. Was it Shakespeare? Nah! Wordsworth? Mark Twain? Somebody. Me!

When people think back over a lifetime, from a safe distance of five, six, or seven decades, their minds filter out tons of insignificant routine (which accounts for a lot of our time on earth) and they are left with fragments—an odd assortment of scenes and memory flashes, not in any particular order until they arrange them, some happy, some sad, some funny, but all of which in concert make up a life story.

Can recollections of an ordinary life be humorous and interesting? Absolutely, but not in the same category as the tell all, where famous people, paid enormous sums by publishers, jot down their life stories (and secret love affairs if they are movie stars) in minute detail, usually with the help of a ghost writer. People such as former presidents, sports figures, billionaire business men, world-famous statesmen or stateswomen are persuaded to have the public privy to all their supranormal lives. I say supranormal because amongst the billions of the world’s population only a tiny, tiny fraction becomes famous or infamous.

In fact, we ordinary people almost never earn such notoriety. We are born to ordinary people, marry ordinary people, raise ordinary children (whom we all secretly hope will become extraordinary), and live our lives the best we can, usually without ever having a single paragraph written about us—except for a final obituary notice in our local newspaper. As brief recollections, however, all of us could compile enough material to write a book with universal appeal. I believe there are many things which are universal—love, children, family and a sense of humor. We recognize and are interested in hearing about those universal things that happen to others because in a very human way we relate to them. Thus, you find the continuing interest in Readers Digest’s feature, Life in These United States. The anecdotes may not be, and usually are not, identical to the things which happen to each of us, yet they appeal to all simply because we all share a common humanity.

Anyway, what follows are bits and pieces from an ordinary life, mine. Most are on the humorous side, and some are a bit nostalgic, for me anyway, because I’m writing about times and things which happened over a period of more than seven decades.

I have to warn you ahead of time that there are no moments of historical importance, no stories of great deeds, no famous people, nothing sensational, sleazy, or sexually arousing—but I’m certain that these bits and pieces, while totally mine, will give you a chuckle and help you remember your own, because we are all, millions of us, just ordinary people. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Chapter 1 - Growing Up

Many people say they have memories of their life before the age of five or six. Some even claim to remember incidents from infancy. Mostly, I suspect, we have taken stories that our parents told about us and reclaimed them as our own memories of those earliest years. I really can’t remember much before the age of five when I first started out in Kindergarten. I do remember my teacher’s name—Miss Griffin! Do you remember your Kindergarten teacher’s name? I also have some vague memories of a Kindergarten classmate, a girl, who periodically left a puddle under her chair which was next to mine. My chair not my puddle. But most of our memories about growing up revolve around later years at home, in the neighborhood and at school.

A Wig in the Wastecan

In the 1930s, most of the teachers in elementary schools were single, older women. According to the rules which were in effect back then, female elementary schoolteachers were not allowed to marry. If they did, they had to leave the teaching profession. So we had a lot of old maids teaching us. One of these will always live in my memory because of one unfortunate incident. While standing beside her desk teaching us a lesson in something or other (my memory is good but not that good) she dropped her pencil. She bent over to pick it up and—horrors—her wig (a red one) fell off right into the wastecan.

Poor woman, under her wig she had sparse, wispy, gray hair which she obviously was trying to hide. She retrieved her wig with as much dignity as she could muster and left the room. We had been too shocked to do anything but stare while she was in the room, but you should have heard the laughter when she left. It was the buzz of the school for the next month. Kids can be cruel, but it was kinda funny.

A Schoolyard Incident

One day, while leading a class of boys in exercises in the schoolyard, Miss Moyser’s bloomers (yes, not panties, but bloomers) suddenly settled down around her ankles. You can imagine our shocked surprise…and suppressed laughter. However, displaying extraordinary dignity, Miss Moyser stepped out of her drawers, put them into her handbag and said to the lads gathered there, including me, Well, boys, it’s wartime, you know, and good elastic is hard to get these days. Then she continued the class.

Virginia Mayo Lived Here

For school age kids, World War II was something you heard about on the radio, saw at the movies when they showed newsreels, or connected with when someone in your family was in the service. But sometimes even a kid could get directly involved in the war effort. One way we kids helped was in the neighborhood scrap metal and paper drives. During wartime, very little metal was available for anything but the making of war machinery—planes, tanks, ships, etc. In an effort to recycle old pre-war metal items into bullets, etc., school kids were enlisted in campaigns to collect metal and paper from the neighborhood. The school yards became the central collection areas.

On one particular paper drive, we kids were sent out with our wagons to collect old newspapers and magazines in the neighborhoods surrounding the school. It was really fun—especially since we did it during regular school hours and were legally allowed out of the classrooms.

At one of the homes we visited, the lady of the house gave us lemonade after we had lugged out the bundles of newspapers she had saved. Then she showed us a picture of a very pretty young woman. This is my daughter, Virginia, she said proudly. She’s a movie actress in Hollywood. You’ll be seeing her in movies soon Neither my buddy nor I had ever heard of her, but sure enough, we did see her in the movies. She turned out to be Virginia Mayo, beautiful film star of the ’40s and ’50s. You have to be a film buff or as old as I am to remember.

Hiding from Cousin Sophie

All of us have memories of relatives, but I have one that took the shape of a recurring nightmare. Cousin Sophie was a small, rotund woman who was an elderly cousin of my mother. When she came to visit, she always wore her pride and joy—a stole or wrap made of fox fur, and it still had the head of the poor fox on it. When that sweet woman hugged me to her ample bosom, I would be staring into the glassy eyes of this dead fox! When was the last time you stared a dead fox in the eye? As I said—nightmares! So, whenever I heard that Cousin Sophie was