Chapter Seven: Frisky Barrington Goes to Paris!

 

Chapter 7 (Part One):

Frisky Barrington Goes to Paris

My name is John Jacob Barrington IV, but everyone knows me as Frisky Barrington. 

I had originally started this chapter by telling you that “I am John Jacob Barrington IV”.    The sentence didn’t seem right, it didn’t seem correct, it didn’t seem truthful, and in fact it seemed like a lie.  

Truth is:  I’ve never been John Jacob Barrington IV.   I don’t even know who that guy is, who that guy was, or who that guy was supposed to be.   John Jacob Barrington is the name on my birth certificate, but that’s the only place that connects this (my) body to that name.   I had so little use for that moniker that I wasn’t really sure how to spell my middle name.   Was it JaCob, or JaKob?   Had I not needed a passport for my travels to Paris, I would never have known how to spell my own middle name!

The people at the Passport Agency won’t let you use your nickname, and you really can’t be introduced to Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert Givenchy, or Valentino as ‘Frisky’.   Well, I suppose you could be ‘Frisky’ Rothschild, or maybe Frisky Hilton.  I don’t doubt that there’s a Frisky Hapsburg running around, but to be a well-respected ‘Frisky’ in France, you’ve got to have a butt load of dollars, francs, or euros, and possibly a chateau or two in your portfolio!

In France (and with a French accent) ‘John Jacob’ sounds much more refined; and so in certain Parisian salons I am still known (or remembered) as Jean Barrington, Directeur général de Saint Laurent/rive gauche, la Boutique Femme et Homme Philadelphie.   That’s quite a title for a forty thousand dollar a year job in 1984.   I could have used a little less title and a little more salary, but the job and the title came with lots of perks – and I mean LOTS of perks!

Back in Dentdale everyone who knows me, knows me as Frisky Barrington.  It’s deceptive to state that ‘everyone’ knows me.   Some people know me very well, and some people kind of know of me.   Most folks view me as just another oddity that grew from the Barrington family tree – quite literally the low hanging ‘fruit’ on a tree that was better known for its ‘nuts’! 

The Barrington clan is riddled with larger-than-life personalities and I doubt that more than a few people in Dentdale know or care that I exist.   This used to bother me.   In hindsight, it was better and easier to move around Dentdale in the fog of obscurity that presented itself like Brigadoon around the Barrington clan about the time I was born.  Had it not been for the Barrington cleft chin and gap-toothed smile, I could easily have passed for an Austin, Kingston, or member of the Moore families.

No matter where I went, I could (and probably still can) always surprise someone by mentioning my name and family lineage.   “Oh, you’re Carol and Jake’s son?”   Well, yeah, somebody had to be Carol and Jake’s son, or sometimes Jake and Carol’s son.  You could tell who, was whose friend.  Carol’s friends listed her first and Jake’s friends would list her second.  Jake had more friends so I was more often thought of as Jake and Carol’s son. 

I was a pretty average kid, but I didn’t wear denim, and frankly I preferred emulating Jake’s fashion sense: white shirts, and gray slacks.  I don’t think Toot really wore denim until the mid-1960s – Levi’s were for laborers.   The Barrington’s were hard workers, but they never thought of themselves as laborers.

That’s not to say that Jake was effete.  Back in the 60’s every man wore white shirts and gray slacks.   Well hell, Jake used to mow the lawn in a white shirt and gray slacks – that is, until Toot and I were old enough to run a lawn mower without maiming each other.  At that point, Toot and I did our summer chores in cut-off shorts made from the previous year’s school clothes.

Jake Barrington wasn’t supposed to have a son whose aesthetic sensibilities belonged on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris France.   Nor was Jake Barrington supposed to have a son whose business travels would actually repeatedly take him to the Rue de Rivoli in Paris France. Toot (my brother) was easily associated with Jake because Toot’s aesthetic sensibility didn’t extend further beyond Fiberglas Drive.  Until I went to Paris, I thought the Rue de Rivoli was the Rue de Ravioli and that this is where Chef Boy-ar-dee was made!

Fiberglas Drive was the access road to the Owens Corning Fiberglas plant, and for many it was the yellow brick road to continued employment at pretty good pay rates.   Except the ‘yellow’ on this particular road contained asbestos and other carcinogens that the plant emitted night and day for many years.  Most Dentdalian’s afforded their mortgages because of their employment at Owens Corning Fiberglas.   Every branch of the Barrington clan did some time over at Fiberglas, and most of us were grateful for the opportunities it provided.  In hindsight, we paid dearly for those opportunities with any number of ailments that developed later in life from our employment at the plant – but, we didn’t know better.

Carol was a secretary at Owens Corning for many years.   She hated it.   Toot took a summer job there, and he lasted all of two days.   From the way he spoke, Owens Corning was Dentdale’s equivalent of the coal mines in Scranton.   It really wasn’t that bad, and frankly Toot tends to be a little melodramatic – but that my friends, is a totally other story.

I too worked at Owens Corning Fiberglas.   Actually, I never had any real hope of escaping from Dentdale, so I planned to graduate from Denton Heights High School and spend the next forty years doing shift work packaging Fiberglas products.   It was a three month summer job at Owens Corning that convinced me to go back to college, and in a strange way, it was that job that also had a great deal to do with me going to Paris.

Fiberglas Drive ran parallel to the New Jersey Turnpike.   When the Turnpike was built, Dentdale didn’t merit an exit.  So we aren’t the type of New Jerseyans who identify themselves as a turnpike exit (that’s a North Jersey thing: “I’m Exit 16”).   I was pulling an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at the plant and went up to the break room.   The break room was on the second floor of the plant, and it faced the turnpike.   I looked at the traffic going up and down the turnpike, wiped the crust of asbestos that had scabbed up over my ears, and decided right then and there, that I was going to find me a way to get out of this dale.  I didn’t pick Paris (or France) as a destination.  Hell, I figured if I could get myself over to Cherry Dent, or maybe Dentonfield, I’d have reached, or possibly exceeded my original goal.

Toot got out of Dentdale by getting married and moving out past Marlton.   He still lives there.   It seemed like a bold move to move away from Dentdale and all the Barrington relatives.    But with Toot, it wasn’t so much that he was ‘moving to’ – he was really running away.    What was he running away from?  Himself.  

I wonder how that’s working out for him?

308 Barrington Avenue (our home) was parallel to the railroad tracks that ran Northwest to Southeast from Camden to Atlantic City, and I-295 crossed over the tracks at an angle taking travelers north and south.   Clements Bridge Road led folks in and out of the town in a kind of Northeast to Southwest direction.   I-295, Clements Bridge Road, and the railroad tracks crisscrossed one another and formed a triangle with their intersections.  It was a man-made Bermuda triangle.   I suppose I stared so long and hard at those roads and trestles that I took the energy of that triangle, and instead of being swallowed up, I catapulted myself out of Dentdale, over to Society Hill in Philadelphia and then off to Paris, New York, San Juan, Chicago and points beyond….

Whether it’s Jean, John, or Frisky Barrington that people call me, in Dentdale and thereabouts, it’s always, always, always followed with:  “That’s Jake and Carol’s son?”    Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t just drop the Barrington surname and sign everything: Frisky Jake-and-Carol’s-kid.   Every contract that I signed was signed Frisky Barrington, but there was rarely a need for a written document in Dentdale: being Jake and Carol’s kid carried a lot of weight, and everyone knew that if one of the Barrington’s screwed up, the rest of the clan would ‘make good’ on the contract.   Everyone also knew that after ‘making good’ on the contract, the Barrington’s would make sure that the erring Barrington would be ‘made sorry’ for their transgression(s).  

Being ‘made sorry’ would suggest some sort of corporal punishment, financial penalty, or other penance was visited upon the miscreant who besmirched the Barrington legacy.   Those of us (and actually, it was all of us) would have much preferred those tangible punishments.   After all, a good whipping has a beginning, middle and ending.

Purgatory is only a seven year sentence, so it too has a beginning, middle, and end.   Purgatory in the Barrington clan was a life-long event. The Barrington’s all knew that even the most devout and saintly of the recently deceased in the clan would stand at the pearly gates knowing that some pre-deceased ancestor would saunter over to Saint Peter with some tawdry detail about the new arrival’s  life

Even the smallest of infraction would result in repeated public retelling of the shameful incident.  While other families like to hide the dirty laundry, the Barrington’s reveled in airing their poo-stained linens on the social clothes line for all to see.

Other people’s transgressions, omissions, and mistakes were hoarded like gold bullion in the Barrington family and at every fancy dress occasion ‘the good stories’ were brought forward, embellished, told, re-told, and then embellished some more for all to see and enjoy!

Sure Queen Elizabeth brings out the fancy jewelry for a wedding or a funeral, but the Barrington’s would never tire of telling how I pooped my pants in kindergarten, or how the underwire in Carol’s brassiere wouldn’t melt in an all-too-memorable public bra burning incident in 1975…….

It kind of takes some superhuman talent or incredible deficiency of character to get noticed or be remembered by Dentdale residents.   So, not ‘everyone’ knows me or even knows of me.   With all the John Jacob Barrington’s running around (John Jacob ‘I’  thru ‘IV’)I was never known as Jack, John, JJ, or anything other than  “Jake and Carol’s son”, or,” Momma Goose’s grandson”, or as the relative of someone in the Barrington clan who was more deeply woven into the fabric of Dentdale society.

Jake was a politician and Carol was in every P.T.A. group, Cub Scout group, and Ladies Auxiliary in town.   My brother is Thomas William Barrington, and he’s known as Toot.  My grandparents are Momma Goose and Victor Shreve (Carol’s parents) and John & Nancy Barrington (Jake’s parents).   Grandma Barrington (JJ’s wife) is a Dolan, and her genealogy elevates my bloodline to include some French Royalty.   A lot of French Royalty fled the guillotines of the French Revolution to settle in Ireland.    It is through this loosey-goosey genealogical thread that my lust for things French begins.  

While my ancestors came to America through Ireland, from France, I took the reverse trip: born in America, raised as an Irish-American, and then off to Paris…

My brother Toot and I have never been to Ireland.  I don’t think Toot has ever left the continental United States.   But you don’t have to have the soil of Ireland in your fingernails to be Irish.    Some would say that the entire Barrington clan’s personality can be summed up in two words:  “They’re Irish!”

“They’re Irish” should really be a diagnosis listed in the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment.   ‘They’re Irish’ is not a personality trait.   ‘They’re Irish’ is all I need to hear to know that a big heaping helping of craziness is about to be witnessed.   Irish craziness is understandable:  the Irish have had a tough time in the world.   In Mel Brooks’ movie Blazing Saddles there’s a scene where the villagers are willing to accept all of the immigrants – except the Irish (I’ve cleaned up the description of that scene.)   

Being Irish is a constant battle between internal and external forces: 

·         low self-esteem vs. big ego

·         guilt riddled emotions vs. pride in one’s achievements

·         inferiority vs. superiority

·         Knowing that you’ve done all that you can do vs. thinking you could have done a little bit more…..

In technical terms it’s known as cognitive distortions.  Cognitive dissonance/distortion is the only way humans can survive their existence.   Life is not all peaches and cream, so we use our cognitive skills to minimize the bad, and maximize the good.   I’m sure we all have events in our lives that we’ve needed to minimize so that we can move forward.   Even I, the ‘did-I-ever-tell-you-I-worked-in-Paris’ kid from Dentdale, have a few remembered moments that send a shudder down my spine!  On the other hand, it can truthfully be said that I maximized the hell out of my Parisian experiences (as one would).  

It’s been decades since I travelled to the fashion shows.   It was nearly 15 years before I returned to Paris as a visitor, and even that trip was a solid 18 years ago.  But, I did get to Paris.   I got there in style, and I got there on an expense account (first rule of business: use other people’s money). 

My Parisian experiences were the defining moments in my life.   I never had a lot of money (no one who works in high fashion has any money) but I did travel to Paris in head-to-toe, custom fitted Saint Laurent.   I would have preferred staying at the Plaza Athenee, or The Ritz, but my boss knew better, and we stayed at The Hotel D’Angleterre in San-Germain-des-Pres.   Hemingway used to stay at this hotel.  Gore Vidal, Tennesse Williams, and that whole group used to stay on the Rue Jacob (yup, my middle name spelled correctly).  Listening to an accordion playing “La Vie en Rose” at Deux Magots around the corner from the hotel was as memorable a moment as watching Iman or Jerry Hall strut down the runways in the tents set up in the Louvre’s Cour Carree.

Well, the road to Paris was surprisingly short, and frankly my aunt (Minnie Gloster) had trod those boulevards and avenues long before me in the 1940s.  Minnie served in the Women's Air Corps and through events that I don't know about - ended up serving in Paris.  As they say, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, and so we’ll step back to Dentdale to find the step, or in my case, the miss-step that landed me on Air France in the 1980s.

The Barrington’s dysfunctional relationships are legendary.   The difference between me and my brother Toot is that he firmly believes that he’s the picture of sanity.   I firmly believe anyone who thinks that they’re not crazy…… is probably the craziest one in the bunch!   In the case of Toot: I would be correct.

Explaining the psychosis of the Barrington clan might seem to be a little off topic.   After all, this chapter is titled:  “Frisky Barrington Goes to Paris”.    How did I, Frisky Barrington, capitalize on the Barrington insanity to land myself in a front row seat at Hubert de Givenchy’s runway show (Primtemps ’84) in Paris?

I suppose it started when Carol dressed me as Jackie Kennedy for my kindergarten Halloween parade.    It was the sixties, and Jake III had just been elected (as a Democrat) to a seat on borough council.  Had Jack Kennedy (et al…) not been elected, Jake would not have been elected.    If Jackie Kennedy had just faded into history, Carol would not have owned a faux Chanel suit and a pillbox hat to throw me into, on that fateful Halloween.

Toot was Jake’s first born son.

I was Carol’s second born son.

The descriptions above would suggest that both Jake and Carol had other children in other families.   This was not the case.  Carol and Jake had no other children, but it was clear that they weren’t sharing their kids with one another.   They also weren’t going to let any cross-parenting occur.  East was east, and west was west, and there was a dividing line as wide as the Mississippi delineating who was going to parent which child.

Toot had boys his own age in the neighborhood.

I only had girls my own age.

Toot was taught how to catch a ball.

I was taught how to bake a cake.

Toot gladly took some guitar lessons from Uncle Ernie.

I was forced into piano lessons with Aunt Peg.

When Carol went to back to work, she needed someone to take care of the house.  Jake and Toot refused.   Carol needed ‘a wife’ to do the chores that she no longer had time or interest in.  So she made me ‘a wife’.   Which actually was good training, and it’s probably one of the reasons I was chosen to go to Paris.   The world of high fashion is a gritty business.   You’ve got to look great, but you also have to work like a horse.   I was chosen because I did have the taste and experience that was necessary to be a buyer.   But, I also never shied away from running the vacuum in the boutique, or doing the other chores that makes a high-end store look high end.    Most people think that high end fashion makes so much money that there is no need to stick to a business plan or budget.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Typically, high end stores are 60 to 90 days behind in their accounts payable, and maid service isn’t one of the things that is generally affordable.  A good store needs a wife to take care of it.  Thanks to Carol’s training – I was that wife!

Carol made some dubious choices when it came to raising me.   But it’s unfair to say that she made choices: some of her decisions were made out of desperation.   Jake was clearly too busy being Toot’s dad, and all the other things that Jake wanted to be, and he trusted Carol so much that he figured I’d just be cookie cutter version of one of my Barrington ancestors.   So Jake, rarely interfered, interacted, or involved himself in what would be looked back upon as life changing, life-altering decisions that affected my choices and direction in life.

One of the more memorable choices that Carol made occurred sometime around 1967.  In 1967 Carol turned forty.  Years before she had read in a magazine that pink walls would make her look younger. She remembered this tidbit of decorating advice, and so she went over to Page Brother’s Lumber to purchase three gallons of pink-champagne colored paint.   She painted the living and dining room walls.   She painted the ceiling in both rooms.   She had a little paint left over so she painted my piano pink as well.

Boys who take piano lessons aren’t held in particularly high regard.   In the second or third grade hierarchy, a boy who took piano lessons, and played a pink piano was kind of marked for life.   Also, third graders were still chatting about that kindergarten drag routine.  No other third graders had exhibited any kid of knack for drama and so any theatrical event that was put on at Kingston Elementary had Frisky Barrington as a performer.   I don't recall any particular starring roles, I think I was used more as 'filler' - a character actor at the age of eight.   When you're the second born, you get used to being part of the supporting cast, and I think I was innately shy, so those secondary roles probably weren't a part of my conscious angst.   Later on in life, I recognized the value that a starring role could have.   I didn't really pursue fame, but fate made up for whatever oversights had been made in my youth, and rewarded me with plenty of media coverage for my professional activities!

Now, you’d think a kid like me would have shown little interest in the girls.   Actually, I was fascinated by girls.   I was amazed to learn that little girls had to sit when they peed.  

Had Carol or Jake given me a little more information about human anatomy, I would’ve been the straightest arrow in the quiver – and most likely never gone to France.   As it stood, my investigations of female anatomy were terminated by the time I reached third grade.    My innate curiosity about female sexuality was replaced with fear!   Fear that I was too stupid to understand a vagina – which, actually, I don’t think anyone, at any time, any age, or any place, really understands a human vagina.    All I really knew was that vaginas were the places that babies were made.   Back then, unsafe sex meant that someone got pregnant.    Gay sex was safe sex.   I was one horny hombre, and frankly I would’ve humped an orange if it smiled at me, but Carol and her sisters made it all-to-clear that women were things of beauty – and that things of beauty were not to be humped.

One of the first French words I learned was ‘tampon’.  I was probably about nine or ten years old, and on a quiet summer’s day I stumbled upon Carol’s supply of tampons.   It was a forty-eight unit pack of tampons.    I had never been schooled about the purpose of tampons and didn’t know what I had stumbled upon.   However, I could clearly see that by adding water you could make the tampon expand.   I had remembered getting some dehydrated sponges from Sunday school.  You’d get these wafers of dried-out-sponge with some bible verse printed on them, and then add water to watch the verse come to life.   Thinking that Carol’s tampons were a similar type of toy, and not bothering to figure out why Carol would be playing with such toys – I submersed two dozen of her tampons into water to watch them expand.    This wasn’t done one here, one there; I went through two dozen tampons in 35 minutes… and never thought twice about it until many years later.

Ours was a normal house, not a public restroom at the mall and Carol was the only woman in the house.   It was me, Toot, and Jake who lived there and it wasn’t like visiting female relatives were so frequent that Carol was constantly replacing her tampon supply.   So Carol obviously sees that two dozen tampons are missing from her freshly purchased forty-eight pack.   Does she say anything?   Does she mention to Jake that ‘now’ might be a good time to have ‘the talk’ about female anatomy with the boys?   Nope!

Here was a clear turning point, an opportunity that most people would (reluctantly) seize to provide their boys with an education that they so clearly lacked.   Well, I guess Jake feared he would then be stuck explaining the female orgasm (although the female orgasm really wasn’t discovered or cared about until the 1980s).   By this point the Barrington’s had strayed from Catholic teachings, but they had clearly not strayed from Catholicism’s embarrassment about the human body and its functions.   So, onwards I went through my all-to-celibate and pent-up teenage years in complete fear and ignorance about the female anatomy.  I was probably in my twenties before I ever ran into another tampon, and by that time my French had improved dramatically.   My knowledge about women: had not seen similar improvements.  Now, on the other hand (so to speak)……..

Toot and his friends were about five years older than me.   Most of them were in the Boy Scouts.  Clearly, somebody in the Dentdale Boy Scouts was taking advantage of their innocence.   Boys who were always photographed with smiles, suddenly became sullen and withdrawn.  Some of the boys dropped out of boy scouts, but Toot wasn’t a quitter, and a part of him really liked the bonding that these show-and-tell sessions created.

Toot didn’t have many girls in his peer group, and the boys in the scout program were being taught by someone that you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine was a perfectly acceptable game for a forty year old scout leader to play with a bunch of adolescent boys.    Sex education wasn’t being taught in school back then, and certainly Jake Barrington was not inclined to have ‘the talk’ with either of his boys.    So, when a friendly adult offered to share some gentlemanly advice about human sexuality, the boys in the boy scouts readily cooperated.

Well, I wanted to belong to my brother’s gang and so I did what one needed to do to fit in.   Nothing horrible happened, just boys being boys.   Someplace along the line we all got caught, and from that moment we learned the meaning of shame, and we learned what a powerful tool shame could be.     For some of us, the shame was too great, and we had to learn how to be shameless.   I didn’t have strong feelings about gender specific roles or duties, so I was never ashamed of learning about fashion – men’s or women’s.   This shamelessness served me well, and it proved to be the key to my journey out of Dentdale, and away from the Barrington family’s grip!

Having achieved fashion success in Carol’s faux Chanel, and clearly being trained for a life of theatrics, I took an interest in things that were ‘pretty’.    By my teenage years, I had thought I would be a musician.   Carol sagely pointed out that musicians don’t generally make a lot of money, and that I (Frisky Barrington) had a clear penchant for the finer things in life.  Being a musician wouldn’t deliver the fine things in life –frankly, I wasn’t a really great musician.   The title of ‘great musician’ would come much later in my life.

My penchant for fine things came from a series of books from Time – Life Publications.    Books were highly prized in Dentdale, and particularly prized by the Barrington family.   I learned of Versailles and The Louvre through a series of picture books printed by Time – Life.   I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened those books:  gilded this, marble that, waterfalls here, immaculately manicured gardens there.   

By the time I was born, the Barrington trust fund was mostly depleted, and the big house in Collingswood had been pretty much worn out by a couple of decades of my relative’s residency,  so fancy things weren’t a part of my day to day upbringing. There were photos of the Jake I’s ‘mansions’ in Camden and Gloucester, but his wealth wasn’t decadent in style.   Jake Barrington was wealthy because of his land holdings (a decidedly non-liquid asset.)    With the great white flight to Cherry Hill and areas other than Camden and Gloucester, his land (and the housing upon those lands) decreased in value.    The Barrington crest of arms should really have this as the logo:

"Emitur magno pretio vendere pretium"

(Purchase at a high price, sell at a low price…)

 

At about the same time Jake the First’s children realized that they needed to replenish the quickly dwindling trust funds, they also realized that none of them had ever really held a job!    They were living off the rental incomes from Jake the First’s, Camden and Gloucester investments.  Over the course of time, and through a somewhat benign neglect (as opposed to intentional neglect) the properties had fallen into disrepair.

Tearing down, and building new apartments, or re-investing in those properties wasn’t going to be feasible:  there were no cash assets to invest in the projects.   Actually, ‘the projects’ is really what they had become.  Almost every apartment building was now inhabited by lower income residents, and the ‘gentrification’ of these derelict buildings was never going to happen.    There was some hope that Rutgers would expand its Camden campus to include the neighborhoods that the Barrington’s had holdings in.  But the powers-that-be at Rutgers were in North Jersey, and everyone knows that the South Jersey campus was only maintained because the folks at the North Jersey campuses didn’t want to mingle with ‘The Pineys’ of Southern New Jersey.

What little land Rutgers did use was taken by eminent domain.    Most folks (including the Barringtons) were happy to just hand the land over to the university because it released them from a liability.  So, true to their motto: the Barrington’s purchased high, and sold low; thereby destroying the fleeting wealth that Jake-the-First had created.

It was also Grandma Nancy Dolan-Barrington who influenced my francophilia.   She had done a little (and I mean very little) light research into the Dolan genealogy.    She had come from a nice family, who had seen her marriage to Jake II as a big step up for the Dolan family fortunes.   The Dolan’s were a proud bunch, and they worked hard (as one would) to maintain their lace curtain status.   Someone had put it into Nancy’s ear that ‘Dolan’ was really taken from the French:  “De Lion”.    De Lion would have suggested royal lineage, and it was assumed that the Dolan’s were really royal immigrants who fled to Ireland to avoid the guillotines of the French Revolution.

If a gut-feeling has any merit, then it’s my gut feeling that Grandma Nancy is in some way correct about the Dolan lineage.   There is no American city that has ever given me the feeling of ‘home’ the way Paris does/did.   Within moments of arriving in Paris, I knew that I had been here before.   It was déjà vu all over again!   There is no doubt in my mind that I had experienced Paris in many previous lives.   Was I royalty?  I doubt it.   The Dolan’s have a penchant for physical labor, and I just don’t think that this is a genetic trait passed down from French royalty.   I like gilded furniture, but give me a shovel and some land to excavate and I’m a very happy guy.

Doubting my royal lineage doesn’t suggest that the Dolan’s were peasants.   I think that the Dolan’s were a highly skilled, highly regarded family who served the royal families in highly sought after positions.   I think the ‘De Lions’ had enough money and enough ‘connections’ to avoid the guillotine, and that they did run off to Ireland – where they most likely set up shops, or bought some land to farm.  

Much like the Barrington’s, the Dolan’s had the right idea, but invested on the wrong side of the tracks.   Investing in Ireland must have seemed like a great idea, but a safer bet would have been to invest in England, or Spain, or any other friggin’ country other than that you-can’t-grow-anything-in-this-friggin-soil Ireland!   Sometime during the potato famine the Dolan’s picked up their fleur-de-lis and departed for ports known as Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago.   Actually, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that.  They came over one by one, or in small groups, and they often settled in the smaller cities such as Scranton, Wilkes Barre, or up to Easton Pa; or whatever small city was nearest the dock that they landed upon.   The migration went on for nearly 70 years, and only World War I stopped further travel.  

With all this background information you’re probably thinking that I had a carefully laid out plan to get to Paris.   That I spent years studying fashion, and went to the Fashion Institute, or Pratt, or some other glitzy resume building experience that would build me a bridge (a Pont Neuf if-you-will) to Paris.

Nothing could be further from the truth.   I went to Camden County College and after four years in a two year college (long story) I finally earned an Associate’s Degree in Marketing.    I never looked at Vogue, or Women’s Wear Daily – and could not have cared less about fashion.  Much like the Ann Hathaway character in The Devil Wears Prada, I didn’t have a clue about French fashion.

My first inkling that I wanted to go to Paris occurred when the French teacher at Denton Heights High organized a high school trip to France.    I wanted to go, but there just wasn’t any money to pay for the trip.   So, I dreamed about going to France, but never made a plan to realize that dream.

‘Be careful what you wish for!’

I wished I may and I wished I might get the heck out of Dentdale; and sure enough my wishes and dreams were realized.     I learned that wishes aren’t just bestowed upon those who wish or pray.   Wishes are fulfilled and fully paid for with perseverance, sweat equity, hard work and an undying faith in ones self!

Yes, every dream I ever had came true: but so did every nightmare…..

 

 

Chapter Six: Carol Barrington (The Men in My Life)

 

 

Much like my son Frisky Barrington, I have maintained a somewhat ‘sub-rosa’, under-the-cover, not-really-noticed existence.

My mother (Momma Goose Shreve) and my husband (Jake Barrington) required constant attention from a multitude of sources and people.   Their lives were and are the stuff that good stories and books like this one, are made of!

I was born into a family of four sisters and three brothers.   All but one of us made it into adulthood, but it can be safely said that none of us reached maturity.   It’s not that we passed away – we just made it our motto to grow old and never mature.   One need only attend our family reunions to witness and attest to the imbecilic, childish, and petty behaviors of my siblings, their spouses, and spawn.

Although raised in the Catholic faith, we all migrated away from or abandoned those guilt-riddled teachings to embrace atheism, agnosticism, communism, Episcopalian-ism, Jehovah’s Witness-ism, and any other ‘ism’ that seemed fashionable, intellectual, or a topic that Dick Cavett and William F. Buckley would discuss.

I don’t know how or why, but all of the girls in the family adopted that rather patrician dialect that was so popular in the 50’s and 60’s.    We all sounded as if we had just stepped foot off the Mayflower, or were only a quick-boat ride-away back to merry-old-England.

We never really had much money, but photographs taken of us suggest that we were fashionable.  Of course, we were young in the 1940s and clothing back then was much more substantial then today’s fashion trends.   One would think that the entire family lounged about our Dentdale abode dressed to the hilt day-in, day-out.   We girls always wore skirts, and the boys generally didn’t have much more than some t-shirts and the white shirts that they wore to school and church, so I suppose (compared to today’s loose standards) we were fancily dressed.

Daddy was a more-than-generous provider to the church so we had a pew near where the action was:  near the altar.   We were by no means wealthy, but our pew position elevated from Shanty-Irish to Lace-Curtain-Irish, and that seemed to be an important distinction.   Daddy’s generosity to the church never stopped the nuns from their corporal punishments.   I’m afraid the boys in the family suffered more bruised knuckles (and worse) because the nuns felt a need to humble those handsome young men who sat only three pews away from the altar!

 

I am the youngest daughter, and my sister (Minnie Glouster) is married to Jupiter Glouster.   They live in that long brown house that had the willow trees at the corner of Gloucester Pike and Moore Avenue.    Jake Barrington and I lived at 308 Barrington Avenue.  Both houses were prominently situated and well-known homes to those passing through Dentdale.   

The houses were very much like their residents:  facades that rarely belied the activities that were going on inside the homes.  It’s not that anything illicit or tawdry was being hidden – we lived lives of ‘quiet desperation’ and things seemed to run smoothly.   But I’ve found that the smoothest ride is often had while in quick and irreversible descent.   I knew that we didn’t have much money, but we had ethics and morals, and humor, and, and, and boy was I wrong!

In Jake’s case, he was raised in a fancy home in Camden and then a fancier home in Collingswood.   It was the Barrington’s belief that if it looked good, then it was good.   If the house looked stable, secure, comfortable, and better than the homes around it, then the residents would be stable, secure, comfortable and better than the people around them!

Jake always had company cars, so he always drove something big, new, and somewhat deluxe.   He was more than personable, and so a career in sales was his future.   He would awake in the morning, put on his white shirt and much like Willie Loman he would set out into the world to see what treasures awaited him!  

I knew I had his loyalty, and I thought I could depend on his faithfulness.   When he came down with hepatitis I assumed he caught it from some shell-fish he had eaten for lunch when he serviced his client’s in Atlantic City.    Many years later Frisky asked about the hepatitis episode.   I remembered it as one of the nicest periods in our marriage.   After all, hepatitis isn’t all that debilitating – it’s just exhausting.      Frisky had come down with Hep B and that’s what brought up Jake’s hepatitis.   We never approached Jake about the topic (at that point I had learned not to beat dead horses).    Did I ever think or suspect that Jake was the philandering type?   No, I really didn’t.   But I suppose boys will be boys, and as long as he kept his flings outside the boundaries and purview of our fellow Dentdalians I moved blissfully forward.

It’s difficult to live with Catholic-guilt, low self-esteem juxtaposed with that innate Irish sense of wonderfulness and superiority.    Truthfully, and I’m really not boasting, we (the Jake Barrington family) very nice people.   But the Barrington clan had long ago dissipated the wealth that the original Jake Barrington created, and we stumbled forward with eager anticipation and an unrealistic/unrealized belief that tomorrow we would awake and find ourselves returned to the land of manna and big bucks.

Had we had more money, and if I had not limited my feminism to the weekly watchings of Maude and the writings of Gloria Steinem, I think I would have divorced him.   I’m an attractive woman, and my gin-soaked, New-Year’s-Eve-Jitterbugging at the V.F.W. often caught the wandering eye(s) of the various wolves and predatory creatures that can always be found in a small town such as Dentdale.

I maintained my virtue for all of my married life, but there was once.   Yes, there was once.  There was a temptation, and opportunity, a chance to experience the mid-life rekindling of a fire that I had long ago dampened.

It started at Cinelli’s Country House in Cherry Hill, The Pub on Admiral Wilson Boulevard, or maybe The Hawaiian Cottage on Route 38.   Except for the distinctive Hawaiian Cottage they pretty much all looked alike, and after a couple of Tom Collin’s who really cared what restaurant they were in!

We were there for some company sponsored event where Jake was to be honored.   Jake (as usual) was busy regaling everyone in the room with the same five jokes he had been telling for years, and I had forgotten my lighter. 

Back then, every restaurant and public venue was clouded by a velvety fog of cigarette smoke.   It was a habit the boys had picked up in WWII, and we women just thought it to be the height of emancipation to join them (or beat them) in their smoking habits.   I had expunged the contents of my smart little evening purse onto the banquet table, and found no lighter.   There was the gold compact that boasted a little mirror and some powder (which I can still remember the smell of), a lovely little tortoise shell case for my eye glasses, and a shagreen (sharkskin) cigarette holder in the purse,  but no lighter could be found.   I powdered my nose (which today means something so totally different), and extracted a cigarette.   Each of these little containers had a clasp that ‘clicked’ upon closing.   I loved the sound of that ‘click’.   That click made me feel feminine – kind of like Doris Day in a Rock Hudson movie.  Actually, I was more like Doris Day then I knew – but that my friends will be a topic for a later day!

Anyway, I knew I could depend on the kindness of some stranger for a light, and my overly lacquered, Aqua-netted hair was almost ignited when ‘He’ offered his already lit Cartier lighter to light my ciggy!

‘He’ asked me to dance, and I quickly accepted.   These were times when men and women touched each other to dance.   There was actually choreography to be paid attention to, not just wild gyrations, and it wasn’t unseemly or untoward for a married girl to dance the light fantastic with several gentlemen on her night out with the hubby!   It was called socializing.   We didn’t have television (or maybe we had three channels on a black and white TV), so we depended upon one another for our amusements. 

The married women flirted but would never, ever consider having a fling.   I suppose our sisterhood and ersatz sorority prevented us from indulging our passions.   But I really think it was because we never had the time (or the place) to consummate our longings.   Did the men have flings – certainly they did.   But they had them with the divorcees and permanently single women who lived in the apartments on the outskirts of town.    The single women didn’t mingle with the married women, and the divorced women were pariahs so the men could ‘visit’ the apartments without fear of their car being seen.   A married woman living in a single family home, simply could not have a car parked out front for an hour or two in the morning or afternoon while the kids were in school, and the hubby at work.

We finished our dance and ‘He’ lingered for a second more than necessary.  I thought that I was flirting – and that it was a harmless flirtation.   I too lingered for that extra second, and as the song says: “It Only Takes a Moment….”

I had somehow nursed that damn cigarette through our dance, and quickly turned to extinguish it in one of those metal ashtrays that had a little plunger (you know, you hit the plunger and the metal part of the ashtray spun around removing the offending butt from view).  I remember I stunk to high heavens of Chantilly or Imprevu, and the room’s cigarette smoke clung to every inch of my clothing, skin, and hair, but it was as if Brigadoon had appeared and the air was filled with clover and honey.

Jake had a penchant for cigars and Old Spice.   ‘He’ smelled of Brylcreem and Mennen.

Jake drank beer.  ‘He’ drank scotch and soda (neat).

Jake loomed over people.  ‘He’ nestled comfortably into the crowd.

Jake had pretense.  ‘He’ had no need for pretense, because he was the ‘real deal’!

Jake was……….   ‘He’ wasn’t.........

Jake thought........    ‘He’ knew..........

Jake returned.   I cried……..

Chapter Five: Beth Dent (A Prequel and a Sequel)

Beth Dent is the descendent of Elizabeth Haddon Dent.   The Dent family has resided and presided in and over their Camden County land holdings for over two centuries.   For all of those years, they have been described as well-grounded, lovely, and just plain nice.  

If they had settled south of the Mason Dixon line, people would genuinely say (and mean): "Bless Their Hearts".

Beth dent has recently "misplaced" her newest Hermes scarf!   For those wondering how one could misplace such a valued accessory: read Chapter Four of the Dentdale Diaries (Joe Joe Austin).

Beth's cousin has always been fascinated by cars.   In fact, it is to him (the oddly named: Ding Dent) that Beth delivered her new SUV to have a slight dent (no relation) repaired.

Ding Dent's shop would accept no payment for the slight dent's repair, and Beth Dent can now be found running up and down the Jersey shore (Cape May to Belmar and then on to Deal) in her bright red, brand new SUV.

Beth Dent likes red cars:  she finds that the color red often camouflages a world of sin!

The above text is the sequel to Chapter Four (Joe Joe Austin), for the prequel: read on...........

 

My friend has a daughter named Beth.   Beth is charming, intelligent and attractive.   One would think that her personal relationships reflect her accomplishments.   Unfortunately, Beth has attracted paramours who have been somewhat less than gentlemanly.   Fortunately, she has suffered little more than a broken heart, and through her disappointments she has gained insights that have served her well.

Beth is now finishing her Master’s Degree and recently agreed to a blind date (set up by her mother).   Her school duties and other obligations postponed the original ‘date’.   Beth’s mother had spoken highly of the blind date (Joseph).   Beth ‘Googled’ Joseph and found Joseph to be highly regarded by his friends and business associates.   Presumably Joseph did similar research on Beth.   In this age of social media, one does not have to actually meet someone to learn of their accomplishments, personal habits, friendships, and associations and Beth’s research heightened her anticipation of the blind date. 

A few days before the date, Joseph called to confirm the place where he and Beth were to meet, and he also confirmed the time.   Both parties seemed excited at the prospect of this new relationship.

Beth arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time.   She waited fifteen minutes in the foyer and Joseph did not arrive.  The hostess suggested that Beth might be more comfortable waiting at the bar, or in the lovely garden.   Beth doesn’t like to sit at the bar, and when she asked, she was promptly seated in a romantic and charming table that Joseph had pre-selected.

Single women are notoriously bad tippers, and rarely attract the attention of the waiters and waitresses in a restaurant.    Beth sat at the table waiting for Joseph’s arrival.  Assuming that Beth might be yet another low-tipping client, the waitress paid her little attention.   Another 45 minutes passed, and finally a waitress offered Beth a glass of water.  Beth then surprised the waitress by ordering a nice bottle of wine. 

Thinking that Joseph may not have seen her, Beth explained her embarrassment at being ‘stood up’, and described Joseph to the waitress.   The waitress responded that Joseph was an investor in the restaurant, and that he was well-known to the waitress.   The waitress then testified that Joseph had arrived in the restaurant earlier, and had become sidetracked by an urgent business matter.    The waitress was lovely, and apologized for Joseph.   She assured Beth that Joseph would be ‘at table’ in just a moment.

Another fifteen minutes of waiting ensued.   Beth went to the Maître d'hôtel of the restaurant, who assured her that Joseph was keen on meeting Beth, and so Beth returned to the table.

A few moments later, a lovely woman joined Beth at the table.   The woman introduced herself as Susan.   Susan explained that Joseph would not be able to meet Beth for dinner that evening.   She then offered to have dinner with Beth.   Beth had already paid $50 for a bottle of wine, and was looking forward to dining with Joseph.    Susan was charming, but Beth’s lesbian experimentations had been a thing of the past.    Beth thought that it might be nice to have dinner with Susan, but realized that the dinner was not going to be paid for by Susan or Joseph.   Beth can well afford her own meal (and had anticipated splitting the dinner receipt) but it seemed silly to be paying for a meal in a restaurant that Joseph had an ownership in.   Had Joseph or Susan offered Beth the restaurants carte blanche hospitality as a good will gesture from the (missing) Joseph, Beth might have ordered a small salad, and stayed for a moment to enjoy Susan’s company.   But no written communication from Joseph was received offering the restaurant’s hospitality or Joseph’s regrets- so Beth politely declined Susan’s invitation to remain at this estrogen filled table.

Beth thanked Susan for her attentiveness.   Susan escorted Beth to maître d and another reservation was made for Beth and Joseph to dine.

Beth regaled her family and friends with this dining-date-gone-wrong story.     I personally think that the way relationships begin, is the way that they will end, so I cautioned Beth to proceed cautiously in her dating of Joseph.

Beth’s life is very active, and just because she had a date with Joseph, did not mean her life’s activities were reduced or put on hold.  Events both good and bad transpired in the time between the first date and the second date and those events did overshadow the next date, but Beth was determined to put the past in the past, and begin anew with this mysteriously evasive Joseph.

Beth was pleased when Joseph’s secretary called to confirm their next date.   The secretary assured Beth that Joseph would be there, and all seemed well!

The evening of the next date, Beth again arrived at the restaurant in a timely fashion.    As the hostess was ushering Beth to her table, Beth glanced at the reservation book.   Joseph had booked two tables for the same evening at the same time!!

Being no dummy:   Beth surmised that Joseph was going to do a meet and greet with her, and then dump her for a more favorable ‘back-up’ date.      Beth waited 35 minutes for Joseph to arrive.    The waitress that Beth had previously met came to the table.   Beth politely asked the waitress why she had told Beth that Joseph was in the restaurant the last time, but he really wasn’t at all in the restaurant?   The waitress stumbled with her answer and offered Beth a glass of water…

Just prior to her arrival for this second date, Beth had received a text telling her that a close friend was in a distressed situation.   Beth is not one to be publicly histrionic, and felt composed enough to continue with the wait for Joseph.

During this wait, Beth was texted with information about her distressed friend.    Unfortunately, Beth’s friend had suddenly, and unexpectedly passed away.

The shock of this information would be distressing to anyone.   Beth immediately leapt from the table so that she would not be seen in tears.    There really was no time to consider the late arriving Joseph’s feelings or interpretation of her actions.   Beth explained to the waitress that there had been a calamity and that she was leaving.

 

Joseph had been made aware of Beth’s quick and dramatic exit from the restaurant.   Whether his back-up-date consumed too much time – we’ll never know.    Joseph had someone (not Susan) contact Beth about his concerns over Beth’s distress.  Beth graciously thanked the caller for their concern, and unfortunately, erupted into tears over her deceased friend.

 

The caller wanted to know if Beth wanted to arrange for another date!    Beth still (maybe foolishly) wanted to meet Joseph, but she knew that the loss of her friend would require some healing time.    Her appointment with Joseph (at the restaurant) was inextricably linked to the event of her friend’s passing and those events led Beth to understandable bouts of tears. 

 

Beth was surprised by this stranger’s outreach, and received the phone call with the graciousness that she is well known for.   Unfortunately, the grief over her friend’s demise welled-up and Beth erupted into tears.   The caller had presented themselves as someone who was concerned about Beth’s well-being and Beth quickly apologized for her tears with an explanation of her friend’s death.   However, the caller treated Beth’s tears like a hot -potato and quickly ended the conversation (never to be heard from again).

 

Beth readily understood that Joseph would not understand her emotions about being ‘stood-up’ the first time, and about her discovery of being one of Joseph’s double-booked dates the second time.   She feared that she would suffer an unexpected bout of tears over her friend’s death, and that to do so in front of Joseph would be cause for Joseph to justify his ungentlemanly behavior. Beth knew that she needed time to compose herself before venturing out to meet him (Joseph) again and so she has made no attempts to arrange for a third meeting.

 

Beth was clearly not at fault on either date.  She arrived promptly, and acted treated the waitresses and other service staff with elegance and humor.   But, she has yet to meet Joseph and fears that he holds her in some type of contempt.

 

 

END OF STORY