"I'm Not As Young As I Look Award"

The 2002 Palm Bay Fountain of Youth Society
"I'm Not As Young As I Look" Award
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A Resolution
To Honor the Birthday of
Claudette K. Gold
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Whereas, over the course of one's life there are certain occasions when it is appropriate to take time to bring certain facts to mind, reflect and try to remember what really happened.

Whereas, January 20, 2002, the 50th anniversary of the birth of Claudette K. Gold (a.k.a. Claudie, Karen Glacamoira, Claudine, C.K. Claudette Colbert), is one of those reflective and noteworthy occasions--and well-worth remembering.

Whereas, Claudette arrived on earth, with the assistance of Jay & Joe Jr., at Roslyn Hospital and soon took residence at Casa del East Hills, NY.

Whereas, she demonstrated early and often an ability to eat her alphabet soup, look cute with no hair, withstand cruel "please don't die" couch tricks, avoid neighborhood gangs and cigarettes with Chucky, and survive a pre-arranged child-marriage to the son of a Chinese laundry owner.

Whereas, with the assistance of Aunt Stella and Sophia, Ms. Gold learned leadership, responsibility, teamwork, beach-bathing and other forms of sun and sand worship, the joy of pizza and beer, shopping, and essential family and social skills.

Whereas, she abandoned Western civilization, as New Yorkers know it, for a life as a Laurelpolitan on the North Fin among the cauliflower, fiddler crabs, brussel sprouts, gulls, potatoes, shellfish, rye, finfish, sandy beaches, ice ponds and dirt roads.

Whereas, it was within this frontier environment that she excelled singing solo at Sacred Heart about "How Are Things in Glacamoira?" hawking candy bars, wrapping paper, and Christmas cards, consistently whacking wiffle-balls over the fence, flipping trays of lasagna while whimpering, maintaining consistently high grades in local classrooms, avoiding highly frustrated Nuns, regularly turning screaming triples into routine outs, clearing the basepaths whenever the opportunity presented itself, and maintaining her wits while those all around her were losing theirs.

Whereas, following the wanderlust traditions of her immediate family, she took a ramble to the South without fear or apprehension, with one of the best announcers in the land, in search of hockey teams, humidity, racecars, surf, sand, shrimp and a place in the sun. In a holy, solid and quite wonderful marital partnership with her husband Eli, she has traveled extensively, root-root-rooted for the home team, worked successfully in diverse business careers, brought Joe Jr. back from the great beyond, maintained communication between and about family members, stood by her Man, raised Elise the amazing "Bama-Girl" while being a friend of many--including small strange cats and dogs.

Whereas, it is typical for people to forget the past and achievements of others, and only recognize personal accomplishments or the major screw-ups of others, this comes as a gesture of largo-apprecio.

Now, therefore, we the Honored Trustees of The Palm Bay Fountain of Youth Society proclaim January 20, 2002 as "I'm Not As Young As I Look Day" to recognize Claudette K. Gold of Birmingham, Alabama and formerly Laurel, New York. Specifically we agree to recognize all that she does; make nice-nice for at least one day; supply genuine smiles, platitudes, bowls of fruit and slabs of red meat; provide an expensive looking Fountain of Youth Award, and work harder to appreciate everything she does and the way she does it for as long as we can remember to do so.

Hats-off to you Ms. Gold!

By Order of Moe "The jungle is my castle the animals are my friends" Gambo, Chairman, Palm Bay Fountain of Youth Society, Fontana, CA.
01-20-02

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J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press

A Big Surprise in the Stone Soup Kitchen

A Big Surprise in the Stone Soup Kitchen
Fontana Free Press
J. Glenn Eugster
October 22, 2001

Leonardtown, MD. The 35th Annual St. Mary's County Oyster Festival Saturday was the setting for what was billed as the battle of the "Cooking Pisanos". Charles "Petro" Petrocci of Chincoteague Island, Virginia was scheduled to meet Alex "The Dish" DeSantis of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the main bout of the National Oyster Cook-off. Although De Stantis and Petrocci received top-billing and months of newsprint from far and wide, it was Dawn "Downtown" Brown of Baltimore, Maryland that stole the show in the "Stone Soup Kitchen". Brown won the hearts and stomachs of the standing room only crowd with her "Grilled Oysters Athena" and left the audience wondering, who are those two other guys?

The Cook-off, the centerpiece of the Oyster Festival for the last 22 years, pits the top 12 oyster chef's in the United States against each other in four categories of competitive oyster cooking. This year's contestants came from Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Mississippi, Vermont, North Carolina, Louisiana, and the Chesapeake Bay region.

Three contestants are picked by a panel of experts for each of four oyster cooking categories--Main Dish; Soups & Stews; Hors D'oeuvres; and Outdoor Cookery & Salads. Each of the contestants has one hour and fifteen minutes to cook. Contestants present their food to five unforgiving judges and then present their dishes to the hungry and oyster-crazed audience.

Workers, in white rubber gloves, ladle small amounts of oyster dishes into little white cups and hand it to the audience which lines-up in single file the length of the auditorium. The procession, which some call "the religion of oysters" seems hauntingly similar to communion at a Roman Catholic Church. In Southern Maryland, the Land of Religious Freedom, this procession to receive oysters
seems only natural.

Petrocci's return to competition after an extended absence drew a large number of spectators to the County Fairground Auditorium. Petro’s appearance, plus his being placed in the main event versus DeSantis made this cook-off one of the most anticipated and talked about cooking competitions in St. Mary's County history. Spectators started filling the concrete block auditorium early
in the morning to take their place to witness this part of Southern Maryland food history.

The Cook-off was also covered by the Food Network which is scheduled to produce a television show on Oyster Festivals later this year. Camera-people, reporters and extras swarmed the stage, photographed minor cooking details and talked constantly with the contestants as they prepared their dishes.

The audience sat patiently through the Main Dish, Soups & Stews and Hors d'oeuvers competition waiting for the arrival of Petro and The Dish. Members of the audience talked of the time when Petro forgot that the each of the outdoor cooks are provided with impregnated coals. People recalled that Charlie soaked his charcoal briquettes with lighter fluid, lit a match to the grill and set the side of the auditorium on fire. Even now there is debate among the cooking aficionados as to whether Petros fire was accidental or planned to give him a competitive advantage.

As if the excitement of the cook-off wasn't enough, during the event the Grand Master of the Cook-off introduced the "King Oyster" to the crowd. As the King made way to the podium to make a few welcoming remarks the Grand Master called for the audience to acknowledge this icon of oyster land. Unfortunately the King was really a Queen--a fact that wasn't acknowledged until the King was seen leaving the building with the Grand Marshall in a headlock.

Unfortunately Petro and The Dish could have used a diversion this year. Downtown Brown, a relative unknown chef from the heavily polluted Port City of
Baltimore captured the gold medal for Outdoor Cookery and Salads. With style, grace and a splendid selection, Ms. Brown made DeSantis and Petrocci, who finished second and third respectively, look like two older guys who can look but can't cook. Brown's "Grilled Oysters Athena" clearly outdistanced Petro's
"Flambéed Oysters, Squid & Mushrooms" and The Dish's Touch of-Thai Grilled Oysters with Mango Salsa". Ms. Brown did Charm City proud as she pulled
down a unanimous score from the judges and an overwhelming majority of votes from the audience.

The crowd was stunned by Brown's performance. Their shock was short-lived however, for as soon as they sampled her dish they realized that there is a new oyster chef in Leonardtown. It didn't take the audience long to get over the disappointment that the DeSantis and Petrocci contest just never materialized. Many of the audience believe that Petro and The Dish were thinking too much about the next level of oyster cooking competition. Winners from the St. Mary's Festival take home $1,000 in cash, an oyster bowl, bragging rights for a Year and get to go to Ireland to compete against international shuckers and chefs at the Global Oyster Festival.

DeSantis took the competition and his second place finish in stride. The Dish said, "I've been here quite a few times. I usually finish second. You never know what the judges will like, one year it's this, one year it's that". Petrocci, surprisingly obtuse this year, seemed disconnected about the
event. He said, "I'm not organized this year. I don't have a costume. I have to get in touch with my coals. There's too much going on right now--I can't focus".

Petrocci's return to Southern Maryland was much anticipated and heralded. Petro has single-handedly carried the oyster-cooking-honor of the Eastern Shore into this competition many years and has done the Delmarvians proud. Although Charlie has proven to have Jordanesque powers, making these types of comebacks over, and over again, each time he creates an expectation that is Neptunian. Perhaps Petros third-place finish can be chalked up to the stress that has permeated all of our lives since September 11. Then again maybe Petro's longtime Oyster Festival companion, Chef Marie, said it best, "Charlie's only human, you know--and we do have a good time coming to Leonardtown".

My Green Thumb

My Green Thumb
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press
August 7, 2006

Since 1976, when I joined the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, I have worked with the Bureau, the Heritage Recreation Conservation Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Park Service where I am employed now.

Prior to joining the “feds” I worked parts of eight years with Athens-Clarke and Fulton County Planning Commissions in GA, a private land development firm in Atlanta, the Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources, NJ’s Office of Coastal Zone Management, the Bucks County Planning Commission, and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and on a variety of part-time and consulting projects.

The path that led me to my 38 year career included a college education at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, the University of Georgia’s School of Environmental Design, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts.

Thomas Merton, one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of the 20th century, once wrote that “A man is known, then, by his end. He is also known by his beginning. And if you wish to know him as he is at any given moment, find how far he is from his beginning and how near to his end”. Where I am today, according to the words of Merton, starts with the gift of being and with the capacities that God has given me. It will continue to be influenced by the actions of others around me, by the events of the world in which I live, and by the character of our society.

Although my education has been shaped by leaders such as Professor Jack Ingles of Cobleskill’s Plant Science Program, Dean Hubert Owens of Georgia’s School of Environmental Design, and Professor Ian McHarg, Chairman of the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Program at the University of Pennsylvania, my interest in my work was influenced by my parents. Josephine and Joseph Eugster, were the persons that introduced me to nature, the environment, culture and landscape design. Through their lifestyle, life-choices and work “Jay” and “Joe” taught me about gardens, landscaping, scenery, and the landscapes where people and nature come together.

We lived in Southern California, in orange groves near Fontana and in suburban and rural landscapes in Greenvale and Laurel on Long Island in New York. My interest and work in ornamental horticulture, landscape architecture, and regional and ecological planning evolved from the places we lived, the experiences my parents shared with me, and the activities I participated in.

We lived in suburban and rural landscapes within intimate nurseries and orchards, next to open and fragrant farms, near always changing salt marshes, along dynamic tidal streams and next to a Bay full of life and mystery. We had plentiful flower and vegetable gardens and landscaped our properties with function and creativity. As child I sold my family’s vegetables in a small red wagon to our neighbors, and fished for snappers, blowfish, hard and soft-shell crabs, porgies, flounder and striped bass from boats and the shore.

My mother, Jay, was born in Roslyn, NY the 3rd of six children of Anthony and Josephine Stazweski. My grandparents emigrated separately from Poland when they were in their teens, met in New York, and married. My mother’s parents were from a farming region in Poland along the Russian border and farms, gardens, flowers were always a part of their life when they settled in Greenvale, New York. Although my grandfather died a young man it wasn’t unusual for him and my grandmother, as well as some of the older children, to spend long hours working in the farm fields not far from where they lived.

My Mom joined the military service after she graduated from high school, traveled to the southern and western parts of the US, and eventually returned to Greenvale. She worked briefly for the Winston Guest Family on their estates in NY and FL, studied to be a dietician, before meeting and marrying my father and moving to California in 1947.

My father, one of two children, came from St. Gallens, Switzerland as a youth. His parents, Joseph and Johanna, were dairy farmers in Switzerland and they came to the US through Ellis Island, New York in the 1930’s. They first settled in Northern New Jersey and worked on a dairy farm. As they established themselves in America they were able to move to Westbury, New York where they ran a boarding house across from the Roosevelt Racetrack. My grandfather, Joe Sr., went from working on a dairy farm to delivering milk for the One Oak Dairy in Westbury.

My Dad went into military service after he graduated from high school, worked for a local fire department when we moved to California, and took a job with HC Bohack Foods when we came back to NY in 1950. Bohack was one of the early super markets in NY and the job presented my father with the lure of a new career opportunity.

In the Bohack stores in Glen Cove, Southold, Shelter Island, and Mattituck, New York he held a variety of jobs including Clerk and Produce Manager. He would work for Bohack from the early 1950’s until the 1970’s. Although Bohack was a good place to work the job never really reflected his true interests or who he was. The responsibilities of a wife, two children, and a mortgage gave the paycheck priority over his real dreams.

While my father worked in Bohack he always worked second jobs to earn more money for the family. His side work typically involved doing grounds maintenance for landowners and landscape construction work for local companies near where we lived. He was quite knowledgeable and skilled with lawns, plants, shrubs and trees, and was sought-out by many individuals and companies for his services. He was hardworking, dependable, provided quality services, probably at a cheaper rate than he should have been.

The part-time jobs my father worked on always involved special places. His work with landscape companies often had my father planting sod, shrubs and trees on NY State Parks along the Great Peconic Bay, Long Island Sound or Atlantic Ocean. When he worked independently he normally was hired by large landowners with beautiful properties. He seemed to enjoy working outside in beautiful landscapes and was comfortable operating power equipment or working with a shovel or rake. He wasn’t afraid of hard work and often pushed himself to complete projects as quickly as possible.

My father was able to use his supermarket and landscaping jobs to create opportunities for me to work after school and during summer vacations. My father routinely brought me a variety of part-time jobs to earn money and gain experience. I regularly shoveled snow, raked leaves, mowed grass, and cleared brush for many of my father’s clients. Periodically I would be hired by a landscape company to plant sod, beach grass, shrubs and trees. My father also managed to get me a summer job one year working in the Southold Bohack as a clerk stocking shelves and bagging at the checkout.

One of the periods that I found to be most interesting, and influential, was when my father was the Produce Manager for the Bohack in Southold. In that position he was in-charge of the section of the supermarket that sold fresh fruit and vegetables. His job involved ordering, displaying and selling fruit and vegetables. Southold was a service area for a part of the North Fork of Long Island, a largely agricultural region bordered by Peconic Bay to the south and Long Island Sound to the north. The people he served were either year-round or summer residents and they were sophisticated, successful folks that knew quality and sought it out.

My father was serious about his job and took pride in the quality of his work, service and product. He seemed to believe that the individual sets the standard for the quality of the work that we do rather than the organization or the job standard. He seemed to believe that if you do something you should do it very well. His work in the produce department illustrated his standard of quality. He would select fruit and vegetables with care and creativity, setting them out on display so that they would attract and motivate his customers. He would select common fruit and vegetables of quality as well as unique offerings from places afar.

He would rise very early each morning, shave, shower and drive the 19 mile route from Laurel to Southold stopping for coffee to go and his morning newspaper in Mattituck. Coffee and newspapers were essential parts of the commute and he would leave enough time each day so that he could make his stop, drink his coffee and read the sports section of the paper before he started work. Sports were a prominent interest of my fathers and he would always check the scores to find out how his favorite teams, such as the San Francisco Giants, New York Giants, and New York Knickerbockers had done.

He was 6’3” tall and weighed about 185 pounds. He dressed each day with a uniform-type of style that included black shoes, khaki pants, a white dress shirts and a bow tie. The pants and shirts were always clean and pressed sharply by my mother. He wore his black hair short in a flat-top, brush-cut that made him look younger than his years and quite handsome. More importantly he was a shy but friendly man who always shared a smile and hello with friends and strangers.

Although his life passion might have been somewhere else Joe Eugster was a good ambassador for Bohack and an excellent Produce Manager. He took pride in the fruit and vegetables he offered his customers, was knowledgeable about the different varieties, and was quick to offer assistance and advice, and willing to interact with them as they shopped. Young and old shoppers, whether cooperative or difficult, seemed to respond well to this tall, friendly, and helpful man. As I occasionally watched my father work he seemed to enjoy selling fruit and vegetables to people that knew quality.

My father’s workday, with the commute, was anywhere from 10 to 14 hours. He believed in getting an early start and was willing to put in extra time. During each day he would take a 10-15 minute break in the morning and the afternoon for a cigarette. His lunch hour was usually with one or more of his co-workers and they would get fresh bread, cold-cuts, vegetables and fruit from the store and take one of their cars to a road ending that overlooked one of the small tidal streams that linked to the Peconic Bay. His sandwiches always featured fresh hard rolls, thinly slice cheeses and cold-cuts, and some type of vegetable from his produce stand and pieces of Bermuda onion or avocado would make a typical sandwich into something very special.

Lunch hour conversation often featured sports and my father and his co-worker(s) would typically discuss professional baseball or football or local high school sports. On occasion the conversation would be about customers, especially women, or unrest between the workforce and Bohack’s management. The conversation would vary depending on who joined my father and some days the conversation included talk about Roger Foster’s ability to make a hook shot in basketball, Cliff Scholl’s extensive jazz phonographic record collection, or the scholastic or athletic accomplishments of one or more of the summer employees.

On the occasions when I was invited to join my father and one of his co-workers I was treated to good food and the opportunity to listen to savvy conversation between good friends about sports and life on the North Fork.

Once I left for college my father left Bohack, stopped working on landscape and grounds maintenance projects, and he took a job working as a sheet metal technician for Grumman and Boeing Aircraft in Calverton, New York and St. Augustine, Florida . He seemed to truly enjoy the combination of design and implementation and the salary and benefits of working with the defense industry were much more profitable than super markets and landscape construction companies. He worked at Boeing until he died of lung cancer in 1989.

As I look back now on where I have been, where I am, and how I got here, it is easy to see the influence that my family has had on my career.

My father’s influence follows me each day like a friendly cat. For nearly forty-years now I rise each day at 5:00 am, leaving time for coffee, the sports pages, and many of the scores from my favorite teams. I drive five miles to my job early enough each day so that I can prepare for the work that I do. Although I don’t wear a flat-top haircut any longer I do regularly wear khaki pants, a white shirt and a tie. I make a point to say hello with a smile to anyone I pass or meet. When I can I try to connect with the people I serve make their involvement with our agency pleasant. I think of myself as an ambassador of NPS and most days most people would agree that I am a good one.

I work for the federal government in a regional office of the National Park Service providing services to our park and regional office program managers and the public we serve.

My work in public service has focused on management, planning, research, fundraising and donations related to natural areas, parks, open space, recreation areas and tree-planting. It includes working on special places, such as parks and unique landscapes in the US and other countries. More often than not it involves working with the residents and visitors—including people and other living resources, to these places. All of these people and living resources are sophisticated and in search of ways to succeed and quality services to help them seize opportunities or solve problems.

I try to do a good job at what I do. My father taught me that the work we do belongs to us. No matter who we work for, or with, we determine how and when it gets done. His interest in quality over forty-years ago resonates with me today more than ever.

Actor Laurence Fisburne once said, “We’re in a period where mediocrity rules the day. There’s a lot of stuff that is not good that’s touted as being good”. My father would bristle at such a comment and he wouldn’t enjoy the lack of quality we often see today in our stores, government, public lands, and customer services. He would surely buck the trend and continue to set his own standards of service and quality.

Most of my workdays are longer than shorter. I cherish my time for lunch and will often walk to a bench overlooking the Potomac River where I can read the sports pages over a homemade sandwich and a piece of fresh fruit. Unfortunately my sandwiches will never rival my father’s but I haven’t given up trying to find that special combination of ingredients that he brought together each day.

My work is my passion and most days there isn’t anything else I would rather do. The career path I have taken has been one of design and discovery. My parents introduced me to nature, the land, and working with both. Where they were from, the work they did, the places we lived, and the jobs they encouraged me to take, gave me experience, perspective, and some of the skills and character traits I’ve needed to succeed. Most of all they showed me the beauty and enjoyment of plants, people and the land, and the satisfaction of hard work and a job well done.

Personal Reflections

Personal Reflections
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press
September 15, 2002

My earliest connections to conservation came before my education or my profession. My mother's parents were farm workers from Poland. My father's parents were dairy farmers from Switzerland. For as long as I can remember my mother gardened and father did landscaping for pleasure, as well as profit, in a home we lived on the North Fork within New York's "East End". My parents lived where they did because it had open space, farms, rural life and diverse water bodies for fishing, swimming, and beachcombing.

During my childhood I always had some type of boat and would wander up, down and around the tidal marshes of Brushes Creek and into the Great Peconic Bay. If I close my eyes I can still feel the sun beating on my shoulders and the smell of the salt and the muck, as I dipped for blue crabs among the wetlands, fiddler crabs and waterfowl. Standing in my flat-bottom boat, I could feel the temperature of the stream change as I maneuvered from the main channel to the tidal flats.

We lived adjacent to the "Potato Landscapes" of the North Fork and they offered a distinct contrast to the forests and riparian corridors that laced through and linked the region. Miles of precisely plowed, nearly flat fields, green in the spring and summer, brown in the fall and the winter.

Over time I watched the shellfish of the Bay and the Creek die and Laurel Lake close because of unrestricted farm runoff. The groundwater levels in our hand-operated pump dropped as more and more new residents tapped the sole-source aquifer and farms everywhere began to grow houses.

For me the evolution of conservation, and my involvement in the movement, has been a ramble based first on discovery and then design. Surprisingly, it has progressed in a hierarchy that led me from the influences of my family and the landscape of my youth to education in horticulture and nursery management. From horticulture I was introduced to small-scale landscape design and community-based landscape architecture. Landscape architecture took me to broader ecological planning with a focus on watersheds, cultural landscapes, metropolitan regions and large ecosystems, working regionally, nationally and internationally.

Ecological planning expanded my conservation practice to view this work holistically with an appreciation for how people and nature are interrelated. It exposed me to ecology, and human ecology, and the need to recognize, understand and respect the values of people, economies, living resources, and natural values and functions.

My evolution has taken me from being a part of a small conservation business, into local, regional and State governments, deep into the recesses of federal government, and eventually into sophisticated coalitions of governments and private groups from the U.S. and around the world.

As an eight year-old I once dragged a wagon filled with farm produce up and down North Oakwood Road in Laurel, New York. I would sell fresh fruit and vegetables grown nearby on a relative's farm to neighbors. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that the road I walked then was to converge with the roads that were to follow.

Music Is My Life: Ode to a Howling Dog

Music Is My Life: Ode to a Howling Dog
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press
August 27, 2006

This morning at the 8:30 am mass at St. Mary’s Church in Alexandria, VA, at our folk-music mass, I sang softly with the small group of singers leading the congregation in songs to praise the Lord. We sang “Ave Maria’s”, “Glory to the Lord’s”, and-—my favorite, “Alleluia’s”. My voice was muffled so as not to embarrass my wife or the parishioners nearby. I’ve always liked music and enjoyed singing.

I wasn’t always a muffled singer with a dog-voice and there was a time when I sang proud, loud and without any sense of the sounds I could make.

One of my earliest recollections of singing is sitting in the back seat of my parents 1953 Chevrolet Bel-Air, four-door coupe, singing “Ave Maria” and other Catholic favorites. The inspiration for my tune of the day came from church and first grade at the Roslyn, NY Catholic elementary school my parents sent me to. The back seat was a private place where I could barely be seen by others, could sing to the back of my parent’s heads and to my hearts content. Their appreciation of my gift of song, or their tolerance of the noises I would make, was significant.

Our family, probably like most others, enjoyed music and songs and singing was common throughout the year. My father was Swiss and my mother was Polish. As Eastern Europeans they both enjoyed music from the homeland. Each Sunday morning my father would tune-in to a Riverhead radio station that played Polish-Polka music for five hours. My Dad’s interest in the Polka baffled me most Sundays since he couldn’t dance and had a good sense of music and the songs that played those mornings seemed repetitive and pretty average compared to Ave Maria and other Catholic favorites.

Given that I was a child and couldn’t commandeer the radio and switch the channels, I learned to live with and gradually enjoy the Sunday morning Polka-fest.

My parents enjoyed music and they had a collection of 45’s that they would play on a small turntable that was connected to our television. Their tastes were diverse and included Elvis, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Nelson Riddle, Perry Como, and other singers of the 40’s and 50’s. When the opportunity for private listening presented itself I would play these records and sing along to the music. The music and the lyrics fascinated me and I soon knew every song by heart.

My father would later prove that he actually had good taste in music when he instructed me to purchase a copy of the record album “Sketches of Spain” by trumpeter Miles Davis. This introduction to Miles and jazz opened a musical door for me that have remained with me to this day.

Whenever we visited my mother’s family in Greenvale, New York I would get another dose of music. My mother’s two sister’s Stella and Sophia and their brother Joey lived with my Grandmother Josephine and each of them liked music and exposed me to new and different singers and songs.

Stella and Sophia would encourage my sister Claudette and I to sit on the couch with them each Saturday night and either watch Lawrence Welk and his orchestra and singers or sing-along with Mitch Miller of Perry Como. The music was light and cheery and my aunts were always full of fun and good cheer. The songs were simple and easy to sing-along to and it would always make for an evening of fun.

Good cheer was something my Uncle Joey was always full of. Joey had two moods—subdued and intoxicated. When Joey wasn’t drinking he was rather shy and had little to say. When he drank he talked more and invariably would sing at some point in the evening. His nickname as Yodel and he never did anything to indicate that he didn’t deserve the handle.

For example, Yodel would drink on every holiday. He would start with beer in the morning and gradually work his way to hard liquor or homemade Dandelion wine by the early evening. As he progressed to wine or hard liquor he would always sing. Although his voice was average his collection of songs, from around the globe, was amazing. He could sing old favorites such as “I’ll take You Home Cathleen”, and “Goodnight Irene”, as well as lesser-known songs such as “When the Horseshit Gets to Manila”, “She Was Peaches, She Was Honey”, as well as a number of German songs that to this today remain untranslatable.

It wasn’t unusual for me, even as a young child, to be singing some Mitch Miller’s or Yodel’s songs the day after a visit to Grandma’s.

Interestingly Uncle Joey took me to see my first Cowboy musical, a movie called “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”. It was an unusual night out since the theater didn’t serve beer, I was very young, and Uncle Joey and I went without any adult supervision.

At this time I was familiar with westerns and was in the process of making a career change from wanting to be a Priest—my mother’s idea, to a Cowboy. The idea that you could have cowboys as well as singing really appealed to me. The movie was more of a musical than a western but it broadened my sense of my Uncle and music. It also filled my head with more songs to sing and the idea that you could wander around town singing to other people.

While my sister and I were in Catholic elementary school we were encouraged and subjected to various musical pursuits. We sang religious songs with our classes on a regular basis; participated in periodic plays; and were encouraged to join the band.

By the time I was in the 5th grade I knew that I loved music and wanted to pay and instrument—as well as sing. I thought a trombone or a saxophone would be challenging and fun. Unfortunately the school decided that I was best suited for the baritone, a rather large tuba-like instrument that was hard to carry on my school bus and even harder to play. The baritone might have worked for other singers but it was hard to sing with, I was hard-pressed to master it, and I soon lost interest in it.

My lack of success with an instrument reinforced the idea that I was best suited to sing.

Claudette also loved music and sang. As a third-grade student at a Catholic school in Cutchogue, NY she gave solo performance at the annual school music festival. In front of a standing-room-only crowd the church hall Claudette wowed the audience with a beautiful rendition of “How Are Things in Gloucamora?” She sang that Sunday afternoon with talent, poise and confidence that was uncanny for a third-grader and the crowd loved her. Having records of singers was exciting but actually having a singer living with us was unbelievable.

My sister’s performance made me think that maybe, just maybe, I was part of a talented singing family.

Despite my failure as a musician I continued to listen to music and sing when I could. I began to buy records with money I earned mowing lawns and shoveling snow and always had a radio or record player on whenever I could. I knew all of the popular songs and had an ever increasing knowledge of tunes from Polka Sunday, Cowboy musicals, certain jazz artists, and intoxicated family members. It was not unusual for me to go to sleep at night with a stack of records on my turntable and wake-up singing the latest top 40 hit.

When I got into Mattituck High School I continued my singing. Some of the singing was casual; some of it was structured and semi-serious. Casual music was spontaneous. Whether it was following an athletic event or during a night of beer drinking with my buddies a good song would always break out leading to endless others. We often sang in a car, on the team bus, or around a beer keg, and the songs made life seem like a musical.

During the summer vacations my friends and I would take spontaneous songs to new heights. For example, one evening after a night of drinking on Long Island’s South Shore with a fellow named Charlie Gackenhiemer we decided to a visit a local all-night dinner in Riverhead, NY for a late-night breakfast. Unfortunately we had squandered all of our money on drinks that evening and we didn’t have enough to pay for a meal. Always quick on his feet Charlie approached the manager of the dinner and offered to have us sing in return for breakfast. The manager declined our generous offer and suggested that we leave the dinner but not before Charlie and I broke into a few lines of a popular tune. We continued singing as we were ushered out of the dinner, into our car and out of the parking lot.

During the school year I had the opportunity to be in Mattituck High’s annual “Minstrel Show”. The show combined skilled and unskilled musicians, singers and performers in a range of serious and semi-serious songs and performances. Occasionally I was part of a performance-skit but I always found a way to be in the chorus and looked forward to the chance to sing in front of a local crowd with the 30-40 other singers. God only knows how the chorus sounded but it was a real high to sing loud and in public.

Shortly after my daughter Laura was born I began singing with her. When she was old enough to sing along we would pick songs that we both seemed to enjoy and sing while we were driving. Although she got a steady diet of children songs from her mother I was more inclined to teach her more contemporary tunes. She seemed to like all kinds of music but seemed to most enjoy musicals and story songs by such singers as Harry and Tom Chapin. Many of our car rides included family renditions of “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” and other Chapin hits.

My singing evolved gradually after high school and it wasn’t until my arrival in Philadelphia, PA. in 1974 that it began to take on a more regular public-expression. My wife, daughter and I moved to Philadelphia so that I could go to Graduate School at the University of Pennsylvania. It took less than 3 months for the pressure of school and urban life to wreak havoc on my marriage and send my wife and daughter packing to live elsewhere. The break-up sent me to some of the City’s many taverns, when I wasn’t studying or working, and introduced me to the Philadelphia music.

The end of my marriage lead me to frequent more and more bars and I soon sought out those that either had fabulous juke boxes or that featured local singers. For awhile I frequented Cavanaugh’s, an Irish bar which was run, if not owned, by Mickey Cavanaugh. Mickey ran the place and he would on occasion hang around the bar, pouring drinks and chatting with the customers.

One Saturday evening, following a hockey game, I invited my brother-in-law Eli, and my sister Claudette, who were visiting Philadelphia, to join me for a late night drink and songs at Cavanaugh’s. In addition to bar-chat Mickey began to sing Irish songs as he worked the bar. He had a rich, authentic accent and was a very good singer. All of us settled into the atmosphere and with the other patrons began to join in one of Mickey’s sing-along.

One year, after graduate school while I was working, my father moved into my South Philadelphia apartment for a week to ten days while he did some work for Boeing Aircraft. Although my apartment was small I welcomed my Dad for this visit and quickly planned evening activities which included fishing, a baseball game, and a few visits to some of the City’s local bars.

Given my father’s interest in music and the fact that during this period I was regularly listening to Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on my eight-track tape recorder I decided that we should visit Philadelphia’s cowboy bar, “The Boot and Saddle” on Broad Street. The bar featured a great juke box with all kinds of broken hearted western and cowboy songs and on weekends featured country western music and square dancing.

Dad and I sat at bar of The Boot and Saddle, played music and enjoyed spending time with each other. The bar had an amazing neon-light out front, in the shape of a cowboy boot that was a beacon for all of the urban cowboys of this Northeastern gritty, industrial city. Each visit to The Boot and Saddle filled our heads with the intoxicating sounds of Waylon, Willie, Hank Williams, and other country western singers and most nights we were singing along with the songs before the night was over. Like friendly dogs the songs would follow us out into the car, along the streets of Philadelphia, and up into the second floor row house apartment that my Dad and I now shared.

My father liked the music, my apartment, his job, and probably The Boot and Saddle, so much that he was still living—and singing, with me six months later until I asked him to move on. I enjoyed his time with me, especially Sunday morning Polka specials on the radio and the visits to The Boot and Saddle but it seemed as if we had started living out these broken hearted western songs. Unexpectedly my life was starting to feel like a Larry Brown novel.

After my father departed my music focused on a portion of Philadelphia’s famous South Street which was a longtime source of local and regional rock and roll. One Sunday evening I wandered into a bar named JC Dobbs which featured music every night. This evening the singers were Tom & Jim, two local rock and roll stars named Kenn Kweeder and Chris Larkin. Although Kenn and Chris were serious musicians who were lead singers for serious bands on occasion they would sing at places like Dobbs on off-nights. On nights like this one, when Larkin and Kweeder sang together, they would be much more casual and regularly encourage the bar patrons to sing along. Reinforced with alcohol and a bar-environment I was a regular support singer for the musicians.

It was as if I had found my musical-singing Mecca at Dobbs that night. Not only was Dobbs close-by and a very comfortable bar, Kweeder and Larkin were talented and creative singers and musicians with a zaniness that was rebellious and completely refreshing. They were both from Philadelphia, had started a band when they were young called “The Secret Kids” and had a good size following. They featured a variety of songs that reflected their experiences in the City as well as songs by Bob Dylan. They were rebellious, had a unique ability to connect with their audience and I soon became a fan of theirs checking the local papers, and with them, to find out when and where they—and I, would be singing and playing next.

As much as I liked Kweeder and Larkin, I was, however, still a singer and the new source of music gave me a vast number of songs to sing myself. I quickly got some tapes of their performances, embraced the tunes, learned the lyrics, and took to singing their songs whenever the mood struck me-—and the mood struck quite often.

I would routinely sing along to Kweeder and Larkin songs whenever I was at home or driving. I would also sing their songs as I walked home late at night, alone or with someone, from Dobbs or other bars where they were playing.

The more I learned Kenn’s music I noticed that there was bit of yodeling—a sort of Eastern European influence in his songs that somehow seemed to connect Uncle Joey’s songs, Cowboy Western musicals, my father’s Sunday morning Polka special, with Philadelphia rock and roll. The ballads that Kweeder sang were about his life, lost loves, and adventures in Philadelphia. Many of the songs were stories that resonated with me and it was common for me, after an evening of drinking at a bar, to walk the streets of Philadelphia late at night singing these songs to myself and others I would encounter along the way home.

Confident with my street troubadour style I took my singing to other countries. Once while I was in Japan, as part of a Countryside Stewardship International Exchange Team, I sang “karaoke” one night after a meal in Shira Kawa Ko with a group of US and Japanese leaders. The leaders from Japan sang beautiful songs with skill and style that made my rendition of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” seem quite pathetic.

I left Philadelphia in 1989 for Alexandria, VA, married, and gave up my attachment to alcohol, bars and singing in the streets at night. After I eliminated alcohol I realized that as much as I enjoyed music and singing I couldn’t carry a tune and I had no God-given ability to sing. My voice was dog-like and it was possible that it had always had a canine quality to it. When I sing it causes strangers to complain, relatives to blush, and friends to move away.

My family, except for my wife and my sister’s husband Eli, seem to accept my dog-voice songs when I get carried away and try, once again, to carry a tune. It’s both reassuring and scary how accepting your family can be of the flaws of others. Then again they might have the same tune and tone-deaf limitations I do and are convinced that we are from a talented singing family.

My life still includes listening to music and an occasional Cowboy musical. I seek out music of all kinds and have developed quite a sophisticated ear for jazz, blues, country western, classical, folk, and of course rock’n’roll music. I purchase a great deal of music and we regularly go to concerts and some musicals at the Birchmere Music Hall, Wolf Trap, and the Kennedy Center.

I look for opportunities to sing when I am alone and out of ear-shot of strangers, family, friends and foes. As Harry Chapin sang in “Mr. Tanner” I’ve come to realize that “music is my life and not my livelihood”.

I do still sing at church each Sunday when I can join the singers and the congregation in some Catholic tunes that are suited to my lack of tone and range. I can’t help but think that some of my fellow parishioners might have had a musical history similar to mine and be dog-voiced as well. When those around you are of similar talent it is always easier to be yourself. Church got me started signing and it’s appropriate that I bring my songs back to where it all began.

Claudette, from Paris to East Hills

Claudette, from Paris to East Hills!
January 20, 2003
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press

On January 20, fifty-one years ago in East Hills, New York, Josephine and Joseph Eugster had a baby at the Roslyn Hospital. It was the second child for the Eugster’s and it was the daughter they had hoped for. The baby arrived on time, without complications and thrilled the relatives living nearby in Greenvale and Westbury. Although both families had many children, the kids typically were born afar and the good news was celebrated at some distance. A new baby, born at home, was cause to celebrate!

The Eugster’s lived in an apartment, with their four year old son Joseph, a.k.a. Glenn, behind the East Hills Shopping Center off of Guinea Woods Road. Joseph, a.k.a. Joe, worked as a Grocery Clerk in the Bohack Food Store that was part of the shopping center, while Josephine, a.k.a. Jay, filled her time raising their son, working part-time, and caring for their home.

The Eugster’s abode was modest and included a living room, kitchen, one bedroom, bath and basement for storage--and a place where Joe made holiday Santa Claus displays for East Hillapolitans. Although it wasn’t a house, the apartment was the first separate residence of the Eugster’s that wasn’t a part of someone else’s house. Although space was limited the family found the residence accommodating and viewed the apartment as “one step away” from a real house.

The new baby’s arrival caused quite a stir in the Eugster home. Jay and Joe were excited about their daughter’s arrival and had been making plans for bringing the baby home in advance of Jay’s stay at Roslyn Hospital. With the help of Jay’s sisters the couple prepared a crib, dresser, blankets, toys, bottles, and other essential items needed to raise the new baby. Although Glenn wasn’t quite sure what was going on, he new changes were on their way.

Being an only child, and the “first-born”, Glenn had a good deal at the apartment. He slept in between Mom and Dad in the big bed, got plenty of attention from his parents and his four aunts, three uncles, two grandmothers and one grandfather. Life in East Hills was very good and Glenn had no reason to believe that growing older would be much different than it was when he started. Certainly a new sister living in a crib wouldn’t be any big deal, or would it?

Shortly after the birth of their daughter Jay and Joe brought the child home wrapped in soft white cotton and wool blankets. They advised Glenn and anyone else who would listen, that the baby’s name was Claudette. Joe passed out cigars to his co-workers and relatives, and drank shots of whiskey at Budney’s tavern while Jay gave attentive listeners highlights of what it was like to have a child at Roslyn Hospital.

Roslyn was a more historic community than East Hills and a very good place to be born. East Hills had a mixed history. In the 1800’s it was the home of a few wealthy families, including the Mackays who also owned Robin’s Island in the Great Peconic Bay—an island Jay and Joe would see later in their life after the family moved to Laurel. The Mackays wined and dined the best including the Prince of Wales and Charles Lindbergh after his solo flight to Paris—perhaps in search of Claudette Colbert. The Mackays lost their fortune and were bailed out by their spurned son-in-law Irving Berlin, but that’s another story.

Aunt Stella, Jay’s sister, came to the apartment, to watch over Glenn, when Jay and Joe went to the hospital. As they waited nervously for the new baby to arrive, Aunt Stella and Glenn watched television and ate bowls of popcorn. A day passed and the news came from Roslyn Hospital, courtesy of a phone call from Joe, that Jay had a baby girl without complications-except for hemorrhoids which were common with pregnant women. He indicated that they would be home soon and that Stella and Glenn should go easy on the popcorn and not watch too much television.

Not surprisingly, when Claudette arrived in East Hills, she was placed in crib in the bedroom. The crib was at the foot of the big bed and Glenn could see his sister from his spot between his parents. It was a good location in that it was close but not too close. The new baby had her own space and she seemed to fit in quite well.

Claudette made a great first impression. She was healthy, smiley, and had a baby-like, big round Eugster-Stazweski-head. She was obviously one of us and not someone else’s baby brought home by mistake. Claudette seemed to enjoy sleeping, gradually learned to roll-over onto her stomach, and seemed to like being there, often smiling and kicking her feet. Although she took lot’s of care and feeding, and drew attention away from Glenn, she seemed to be oh-so pleasant and reasonable in every way. She was cute, very photogenic and quickly made friends with our Kodak “Brownie” box camera. One might have thought the camera was alive and named “Goo-goo” after watching my sister and the plastic picture box.

The name that Jay and Joe chose broke with family traditions and reflected a tendency that first generation Americans had to strive to fit in to their new country. Where previously everyone in the family was named after their parents—either directly or nearly so, this child would have a new identity. The baby girl wouldn’t be named Josephine or Johanna, as her mother and grandmothers had been, she would be named after a movie star named Claudette Lily Colbert. Claudette, mouthed constantly by Jay and Joe, brought a regular smile to the baby’s face as well as those who stopped in to see her.

It took Glenn, who was actually named Joseph after his father, grandfathers, and uncles, as well as the others—he even had a dog named Jose’, to get used to someone that wasn’t named Joe-something. For many years, starting the day his sister arrived, Glenn pondered the name Claudette. Where did it come from? What did it mean? Whose name was it before they gave it to my sister? What, oh what, was going on? Before long, in 1957, pop-singer Roy Orbison even wrote a song made famous by the Everly Brothers called “Claudette”. This new baby was proving to be more of a big deal than Glenn imagined.

The explanation for the baby’s name was clear and easy to understand. Jay and Joe had this thing about famous and wealthy people. They wanted to be them! Although they were of modest means they enjoyed the glitter and the glamour of the movies, had worked for wealthy people and they aspired to do great things with their life. Jay believed that she could have married a big name baseball star and Joe believed that if he had gotten a break or two he could have been a successful artist. Logically, they believed, that great names could help their kids become great people. Glenn, although named Joseph, was also sub-named after Glenn Ford the actor and Claudette was named after Claudette Colbert. Movie-stars would make our kids better!

Claudette Colbert’s past was exciting and immediately cloaked my sister in a new, exciting and mysterious light. Claudette Colbert was really Claudette Lily Chauchion who was born in Paris, France in 1905. She came to the US when she was three and made her film debut in silent films in 1927. She wore a “Betty Boop” hairdo, scarves, and behaved with style and haughty sensuality. Glenn could only imagine with excitement and intimidation that this child in the crib would one day become a big face on the movie screen and a star in California.

Perhaps it was a coincidence but Claudette Colbert’s resume, in retrospect, seems to have had hints of the Claudette Eugster’s past and future. Claudette of Paris had her first big acting success in a movie called “The Sign of the Cross” which seems to be linked to Jay’s hope that her daughter would someday become a nun. Unfortunately for Jay’s vision of Sister Mary Claudette, this film featured Claudette Colbert in a now famous nude milk bath scene that placed the movie on the Catholic Church’s restricted movie list.

Claudette Colbert also starred in Cleopatra as well as a series of screwball comedies such as “It Happened One Night” (dedicated to Mattituck Bowling Lanes in Mattituck, New York) and Boomtown (dedicated to Birmingham, Alabama).

All totaled Claudette of Paris made 65 films, including “The Egg and I” (dedicated to the LI Ducks), “Since You Went Away” (dedicated to her husband and other sport announcers everywhere), and “Three Came Home” (dedicated to her daughter Elise Gold). Her roles included teaming with Clarke Gable and Fred Mac Murray, acting as the mother of Shirley Temple, co-staring with Ann Margaret in the “Two Mrs. Greenville’s”( dedicated to the women of Mongalousa Lane), “Sleep, My Love” (dedicated to her daughter Elise), and cast opposite of Troy Donahue(dedicated to Steve Nostrum). Little did most of the family realize what a standard Jay and Joe had set for the child they brought home from Roslyn hospital.

As the first year of Claudette’s time in Casa del East Hills unfolded everyone found her to be cute, quick to smile, easy-going, somewhat gullible, and always loveable. Much to Glenn’s surprise, Claudette’s ability to attract attention created a distraction for him and his childhood pal Alan Darnell of the “Darnell’s Hardware Store” family to form the notorious “East Hills Gang”. The pre-teen gang would later terrorize merchants, arrange for child marriages, scare shoppers, and harass the “Dolly Madison” ice cream lady. Over time Claudette would learn that Glenn’s behavior would make her seem even more reasonable in her parent’s eyes. It would also cause her to believe that Glenn’s name was really “Jesus Christ Glenn”, a name that Jay and Joe frequently used.

Alan and Glenn’s behavior offered Claudette the “comparative cover” that she would use and need later in life to create her own identity in the family. Next to Glenn and Alan Claudette looked even better behaved than she was. Unfortunately, this brotherly influence was not without a price for the younger child. Fake deaths on the living room floor, an arranged marriage to Yo-Lin the son of the East Hills Chinese Laundry, mandatory waffle-ball games, farm pond ice skating until 1:00 a.m., and implications in shopping center vandalism added frequent suspense, drama, exercise, and romance to the girl named after the famous actress.

Over more than one-half a century, Claudette of East Hills has lived a life in the tradition of her namesake. She has appeared in theater productions singing at the Cutchogue Theater and Mattituck’s Annual Minstrel Show. For many years she stood in the spotlight playing the outfield and hitting nearly .500 and catching anything hit in her direction for various town teams in the Mattituck and New Suffolk Summer Softball Leagues.

She has regularly been seen on camera at various auto-racing and ice hockey sporting events hurling accolades and insults with great passion and articulation. She regularly represents her family’s interests in matters of domestic, scholastic, environmental, behavioral and civic importance.

More recently she has taught at Summer Bible School and has signed a long-term agreement to sing as part of the “Out East Karaoke Lounge Act”. Even today, close friends swear, she will take a nude milk bath when the situation is appropriate!

The new kid in the crib fit in beautifully and has made her mark with a worldly and sophisticated yet down to earth style. Recently, on a Christmas visit to the White House in Washington, DC, Claudette of East Hills perhaps said it best, “I know what’s best for me, and after all I have been in the Claudette business longer than anybody”. The kid in the crib was a much, much bigger deal than Glenn, or any other of the family members realized. Over time she’s made us all forget good-old “what’s-her-name” from Paris.

Aunt Stella’s Gift

Aunt Stella’s Gift
December 4, 2006
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press

When I was young I was walking at night with my Aunt Stella along what is now called Elm Street in Greenvale, New York. It was very dark and the sky was clear that night and I remember my Aunt saying, “Look Glenn, there is the Big Dipper”. We stopped along the road and my Aunt helped me look for and see the amazing formations of stars that night. I was struck not only by what she showed me but also by what she knew. The sky and my Aunt, I thought, were very impressive.

One evening last year I was watching a television show called Inside the Actor’s Studio. It featured Long Island, New York-born actor and dancer Christopher Walken. Walken mentioned how successful or distinctive actors develop an objective correlative which he described as something that you associate with a person that evokes a particular emotion in an audience. As I listened to the interview I thought about the special things that reminded me about people I know and love.

My aunt Sophia—Zu-Zu, passed away in 1997. I think of her often for the many things she did with her life and I still pray for her each Sunday. However, whenever I see a penny on the ground or a four leaf clover in the grass I always think of Aunt Zu. She believed, as I do, that a lost penny or a discovered four-leaf clover is good luck to the person that finds them.

Aunt Zu’s sister, my Aunt Stella, lives in the family home in Greenvale, New York. I have known her longer than anyone else in my life and as a result my list of her objective correlatives is much longer than anyone else’s.
Zu-Zu and Stella Stazweski were two of six children--Helen, Al, Mary, Josephine Jr., Joseph, Stella and Sophia, born to my grandparents Josephine and Anthony Stazweski. My grandparents emigrated from Poland to the US and met and married in New York. Josephine was about 15 at the time she arrived in the US and came to New York with her sister Olympia, or Cha-Cha as we called her.

My grandfather died at a young age leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves in Greenvale, NY. As the children grew some of them left home while the others stayed to help their mother maintain the family home.

Zu-Zu, Stella and Joey, the youngest of the six, stayed with their mother. Stella graduated high school and began a job she would keep most of her adult life at Doubleday Book Company in Garden City, NY. It was her “other job” given the responsibilities she took on at home.

When I see a book published by Doubleday I think of my Aunt Stella. For years she would rise from bed in the dark, dress stylishly for work, and walk down Elm Street past the dark yew bushes, pear trees, and stucco houses of the Polish and Italian people that lived along the street—once called Mongalousa Lane, to Guinea Woods Road-now called Glen Cove Road, to catch a ride with a co-worker.

Where my Aunt went when she left for work was always a mystery to me. Doubleday Books was in Garden City which from the name must have been a quite special place. It sounded big, green, corporate and sophisticated and I was impressed that she worked there.

Doubleday published and sold books and my aunt regularly brought them home. The books were always new, with colored shiny covers, large and heavy. They smelt fresh and were full of knowledge. Aunt Stella always seemed to pick out books that were on topics that were interesting and sophisticated. The topics always exposed me to something or someplace new and different and my interest in books got its start from her sharing this part of her work.

As I watch my wife Deborah, or daughter Laura, successfully juggle a variety of family and professional tasks I think of my Aunt Stella. Aunt Stella would return from work each evening at the same time, in a most predictable way, somehow never looking fatigued. She walked back along the street greeting neighbors along the way, with the same bounce in her step that she left with, returning to the house in time to cook and care for the family. While others needed to come home from work and “relax” before doing something else Aunt Stella never seemed to need a transition from one job to another. Her ability to move from one task to another was done so seamlessly that it masked the effort that she was making.

My Aunt Stella and Zu-Zu were another set of parents for my sister Claudette and me. They were always glad to see us, and were generous with their time and affection. Each phone call or personal welcome was always with a smile and very pleasant greeting. No matter how boring, distracted or obtuse we were as children my aunt’s always genuinely seemed to be interested in what we had to say, what we were doing, or what we hoped to do. My Aunt Stella, more than anyone else I’ve known, offered me unrestricted love from the first day we were together.

Stella and Zu were close and their behavior toward us was quite similar and often complimentary. I was one of the first children born to this generation of nieces and nephews and perhaps I got the jump on Pat, Richard, Claudette, Paul, Stephen and Oscar by being one of the new kids. Aunt Stell seemed to warm to me quickly and given that I was a shy, skinny child the fact that this friendly, attractive and caring lady showed interest in me was wonderful.

Aunt Stella’s interest in me created a seasonal rhythm to my childhood. She regularly sent me birthday, Halloween, Christmas and Easter cards and they would arrive with her distinctive and very legible handwriting. Each card was a welcome sight when it arrived and I looked forward to these greetings and the reminder that she was thinking of me even when I wasn’t with her.

At Christmas and my birthday my aunt would give me gifts. For Christmas I took the liberty of letting her know what gifts I most wanted. It seemed that I did believe there was a Santa Claus but I believed in Aunt Stella more than jolly-old Saint Nick.

Year after year I would write embarrassingly detailed letters to her identifying a particular toy. Lionel trains were of great interest to me then and I would routinely identify the particular car or engine—by color, model, and catalog number and page. If there had been “Mapquest” then no doubt I would have helped her find the store that sold the gifts of my desire. Amazingly she would listen to me and more often than not, when I was reasonable in my requests, she would give me the gifts I asked for.

The relationship with Stella and Zu was more than cards and gifts. Our time with my aunt’s was special and on many occasions it gave us new and lasting insights to life.

When I visit the North Shore of Long Island I visit places I went to as a child and think of my aunts. They took us places, both unique and average, and every trip was a positive adventure. We made regular trips up and down Elm St., to the beach, Engineers Golf Course, the Glen Cove Carvel, Walzach’s Delicatessen, Lord & Taylor, Korvette’s and the A & S department stores, Catholic churches, the Roslyn duck pond, and the cemetery where my grandfather and grandmother, are buried.

My aunts introduced us to people at the shops and stores, neighbors along Elm Street, Priests at church, people where Aunt Zu worked, and acquaintances at the beach. They introduced me to their close friends, such as John Bakowski, my Aunt Stell’s longtime love and companion—and one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. As we met people my aunt’s would introduce us with pride and poise which was a big deal for kids like us. These interactions taught my sister and me that we counted and how to handle greetings, and be polite and social.

Each trip and introduction broadened our little country heads, exposed us to a bigger world showing us places to walk and enjoy nature, buy food for the family, shop for clothes—and toys and records, and recreate They also opened our eyes to the important, helpful, pleasant, and loving people out and about in the world beyond our home.

In addition to showing us how to enjoy the pleasures and responsibilities of life my Aunt Stella demonstrated daily throughout the past, and present, what it means to be part of a family and care for the people that you love.

Over the years I watched my Aunt Stella help people in good times and bad. I watched her assist Uncle Joe when he needed help and understanding. I watched her provide support to my Mother, Aunt Helen and Aunt Mary on family matters and child raising issues. She shouldered the responsibility when Uncle Al struggled with a terminal illness. I watched her help my Grandmother recover from a broken hip, and lovingly care for her until she died. I watched her help Aunt Zu battle terminal lung cancer. More than anyone else she was, and still is, the constant in our lives, always accepting circumstances and each of us no matter what happens. She always makes time to care for family members that needed—or need, her help.

When I see Bermuda shorts or two-piece bathing suits I think of my Aunt Stella. My earliest recollections of her are ones that include stylish summer clothes, an attractive, healthy body, and a dark tan. She always turned heads when we visited the beach and her clothes and the way she carried herself communicated a confidence that I have always admired.

Even today, as the years have past, she never seems to change or grow old. Age never seems to affect her body, beauty, or mind and it is not unusual to find her occasionally sunning herself in the back yard of Elm Street in a two-piece.

As I think about my Aunt I’m often struck by how ironic life can be. Despite the love and care she has shown to others it seems as if life hasn’t always been as loving to Aunt Stella. Many of the family members she has loved and cared for have lost their health and passed away. Her brother Alex and her sisters Mary and Jay passed away before their time and her oldest sister Helen, as well as her husband George, and her brother Joe have been battling health problems for some time now.

As I watch and listen to my Aunt I think that the reality of life must sometimes be frightening for her as she sees so many of the people she cares about pass on. Each change in the family shrinks this part of the family circle and challenges her to continue to be more and more resilient. Perhaps knowing that she has made a difference in each of these people’s lives makes it easier for her to deal with the joys and sorrows—and the eventualities of life. Hopefully she takes some comfort in knowing that she has helped raise the next generation of family members.

As I watch her continue to live her life her way I’m both pained and pleased. It is painful to see her struggle with the problems around her. I can’t help but wonder why life can’t give Aunt Stella occasional time to pause and let her enjoy life without sickness and death.

Watching my Aunt also gives me pleasure for she has touched so many of us in so many ways. Certainly she is always there in a crisis but perhaps more importantly she has given all of us an unconditional love and taught us the importance of loving your family no matter what happens. Each year I see some of Aunt Stella in my sister Claudette, my daughter Laura, my cousins Pat and Richard, and even in myself.

Stella has given us many gifts. Some are bought and wrapped and some are those that have made us better people and family members. I think of her often these days as time moves quickly, and the miles are harder to travel each year. There is not a day that passes now when I see those special things that make me think of her with love and admiration. The night sky and my Aunt are still very impressive.

A Banana Barge

A Banana Barge
July 4, 2002
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press

One day in 1958 the Stazweski Girls--Sophie and Stella, took Jay and Joe's kids--Claudie and Stash, for a ride. It was a hot night in July and a ride in the car was one of the surprises that always came with a trip to Elm Street--formerly called Mongaloosa Lane.

The girls told the kids they were going to Glen Cove for a "Banana Barge."  The children from a beautiful but quite remote rural-outpost named Laurel were bright, but not altogether cosmopolitan at this point in their lives.  Barges were boats and they thought they were going to the coast to see a boat used to transport bananas.

Riding in the back of Sophie's tri-brown-color-automatic-powerglide-1953 Chevy was always exciting and never predictable--Stash had fallen out of the back-seat of a moving car when he was younger and never trusted adults after that experience.  Sophie was a tentative driver who took the wheel because Stella wouldn't.  "You've got to be a little crazy to drive around here you know," said Stella, reflecting on those crazy-hazy-lazy-days of past summers.

The trip to Glen Cove was loaded with honks--the Stazweski girls were attractive and single, and many of the cars that weaved around the slow moving sisters didn't see the two country kids hunkered down in the back seat.  "Guys would see us and they'd wave, honk and blow us kisses," recounted Sophie in her unpublished notebook. "They tried to get our attention until they saw the kids in the back," she said.

The group arrived at a small commercial store with a glass front and white walls.  The parking lot in front of the store was bustling with activity.  With a lurch, a jerk, and a couple of curse-words, the group deftly slid into a parking spot, cut the engine and Sophie headed for the counter with a sense of purpose.  The country kids sat nervously wondering where the banana boat was and why we had stopped at this place called Carvel?

Sophie returned to the car with cylindrical containers, long red plastic spoons, and a fistful of napkins.  "This one's for you," she said as she passed out the containers to everyone, cool to the touch, and heavy with the weight of whatever was in them.  The country kids pried the tops of the containers off to find, vanilla ice cream, fruit, nuts, bananas, heavy sweet syrup, and who-knows what else in the mix.  "Dah, what is this?” said Stash.  "It's a banana barge, and it's delicious," replied Stella.

The evening was hot and the ice cream was so cold it made our temples hurt as we shoveled this amazing concoction down their excited little throats.  As Claudie and Stash dug into the cylinder it seemed to go on forever.  A banana barge--the name didn't make sense but once the lid came off it didn't matter, was a sweet, cold, smooth, creamy, crunchy, delicious mix of everything a kid could ever dream of on a hot night in July.  Inside the container made the visit to Carvel seem like a trip to someplace cool and tropical at the same time.

With vanilla ice cream lines around their mouths, chocolate syrup drips on their shirts, crumpled napkins everywhere, the group headed back to Elm Street, with an image of Glen Cove--oh wonderful Glen Cove, etched in their minds forever.

In the Morning Light

In the Morning Light
July 9, 2002
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontna Free Press





















In July of 1960 my father, Joseph, took me surf-fishing off the coast of Long Island just below Orient, NY.  I was twelve at the time I was awakened at a God-awful hour by my father and told "It's time to go."  Dazed and confused, I pulled on some clothes, drank some fresh squeezed orange juice-with pulp and seeds that was left by my mother, and climbed into a 1957, green, Chevy station wagon.

We made our way in the dark and dead of night, driving with little conversation nearly twenty-six miles to a remote and rural area near Orient, NY.  Along the way my father and I stopped for coffee.  Although I didn't drink coffee, my father handed me a cup and said, "Here, this is for you."

The coffee was with milk and sugar, very hot and definitely helped me stay awake.  The radio played a combination of news reports and music, none of which made the long drive memorable.  As the coffee kicked-in and the radio continued to intrude on the scene, we arrived near a dirt road next to a farm field.  My father carefully parked the car in a small pull-off near the tree line and said, "Let's go."

We pulled our hip-boots on and then removed the nearly ten-foot long surf rods from the back of the wagon.  Throwing old army bags, packed neatly with fishing gear, over our shoulders we quickly finished the coffee, locked the car and clumped-off down the farm road.

The farm road quickly disappeared into the trees and a canopy formed over our heads. It was dark, somewhat cooler than the open field, but yet a bit humid.  As we clumped-clumped-clumped along, our boots making a strange noise, we walked quickly in silence passing through a variety of micro climates.  Despite the darkness the forest was cool in places, warm in others.  We passed through a wet area that filled the space with a rich, almost sweet, almost sour smell, which was different from anything I ever smelled.

Before too long we came to the end of the road and the forest.  The beach and Long Island Sound was suddenly before us as the ground changed from soil to sand and the clumps turned to softer thumps. "This way," my father said, as we walked to our left along the shoreline that was filled with fist-sized cobblestones that moved when you stepped on them.

The waters of the Sound had a rolling quality to them.  The sea wasn't rough but it moved with power and grace, waves regularly washing far up on the shore, retreating with a long-whoosh through the cobblestones, before returning from the shore.  The tide was almost high and that meant "Good fishing," according to my father.  Obviously, I thought, Dad has done this before and he appears to be fairly good at it. "Quite impressive," I said to myself, somewhat surprised by the skill I was unaware of.

We stopped and my father helped me with my lure and offered some simple instructions. "Throw the plug out beyond the waves and reel it in slowly," he said as he walked off down the shore to cast from another spot. 

The beach was in darkness and now I was left alone, half excited and half wondering what I was doing there at that hour.  I started lobbing long-casts out toward the breakers, increasing the distance each time until he reached a rhythm that felt right for my strength and expectation of the instructions I had been given.

As we cast into the surf, we walked ever-so-slowly each time we threw our lure into the Sound.  Patiently we moved down the shoreline, casting out, reeling in, casting out, reeling in, again, and again.  Once we reached a certain point on the beach, known only to my father, we started back working the same rhythm and routine.

"I’ve got one," yelled my father, as he reeled in faster and with a joy that livened up the dark beach.  He had hooked a striped bass and was bringing it in.  It would be the first of several he would catch that night.  All of the fish were more than twenty pounds, beautifully textured, and alive with a fight.  They would be brought home, cleaned by my mother, and eaten by that part of the family that liked fish.

As the fishing continued daybreak was arriving just as the tide was at its highest point.  With the sky starting to lighten I hooked my first and only fish.  The end of the long pole jumped and I felt the fish take the plug and try to swim in the direction of Connecticut.  The pole that had been a tool of tedium had now become an extension of me and the fish.  It was in fact the connection between a struggling boy and striped bass.

As I reeled in the fish, it broke out of one of the waves that surged toward the shore, spit the hook, and vanished as quickly as it hit the plug.  "I had one!’ I said with as much pride as disappointment. ”Wow, I had a big stripper," I said in the direction of my father, but as much to myself as anyone.  Despite losing the fish, I felt electric throughout my body and realized what the point of getting up in the middle of the night to go fishing was.

The sun rose and it was time to get on with the rest of the day.  My father would have to be at the Southold Bohack-the food store where he worked by 8:00 a.m. and I had lawns to mow and other odd jobs for an assortment of neighbors.  We walked along the shore, through the woods, and back to the car.  All the way we talked of the fish we caught, the beach, the waves, the tide, the forest, and occasionally about the one that got away.

The drive back was alive with the events of that morning, more coffee for me, and a Rheingold beer, or two, for my father.  For my father it was another day of fishing, something he did before and would do many times after.  It was part of the reason he and my mother had decided to move to this remote and rural outpost.  For me it was the first, and only, opportunity to surf cast with my father.  It was a night like no other before or since, fish, or no-fish!

A Boat Named Bingo

A Boat Named Bingo
By J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press
Alexandria, Virginia

June 25, 2009




My parents, Jay and Joe Eugster, moved our family from outside of suburban Roslyn, New York(NY)in suburban Nassau County to a tiny hamlet, surrounded by wetlands and potato fields, called Laurel in rural Suffolk County. My parents both loved the water and the North Fork of Long Island was an ideal location for them since it borders the Great Peconic Bay, Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. My mother loved to swim, sunbath, clam, and beach-comb. My father also loved to comb the beach but his true passion was surf and boat fishing. The move to the “East End” offered the family a number of assets, including more affordable housing, more open space, but nothing motivated my parents more than increasing their access to water.

My father, before and after the move to Laurel, would often fish off my grandfather’s boat which he kept moored in a small marina off of the Great South Bay on the southern shore of LI. My grandfather, also named Joe, came to America from Switzerland, worked on dairy farms in northern New Jersey before settling in Westbury, New York. His boat was 19 feet long, wooden, with a small cabin enclosed on 3 sides, and an inboard engine. It was an excellent craft for 4-5 people to go fishing in for fluke, flounders, or porgy‘s and my grandfather, father, Uncle Joe, and their other friends and co-workers would spend many a Saturday or Sunday fishing.

The more my father fished on my grandfather’s boat the more he longed to someday own a boat of his own. When we arrived in Laurel my father quickly obtained a row boat for us to use. It was a second-hand wooden boat, old, very sturdy, heavy, and covered with multiple layers of paint. I spent the first summer we had the boat trying to scrape and caulk it so that one day we could launch it and row up and down Brush’s Creek and into the Great Peconic Bay, close to where we lived. Unfortunately the paint was hard to scrape off, the bottom of the boat required a great deal of caulking, and I was a skinny 8 year old with little skill and even less strength and perseverance.

After six torturous weeks of scraping and caulking my father joined the effort and within a few days the boat was ready to paint. Shortly thereafter we launched the boat, without a name, at a right-away for the land bound residents of our unpaved street, and I spent many of my days rowing the creek and gradually venturing into the Bay. When I caught the tide it was a magical sensory glide along the channels that meandered through salt marsh and mud flats. Day after day that summer I was satisfied with the ability to row our boat. Having a boat seemed to be a dream I shared with my father.

Not surprisingly my father had greater nautical aspirations than our row boat. The image of his father’s power boat must have stayed with him as the summers passed. Although his interest in buying a power boat never wavered my families finances hardly allowed my father to acquire one. I’m sure my father kept is eyes open for a good second hand bargain but it would take some real money to buy a boat and lease a place to moor it.

Each summer the Town of Mattituck, the more sophisticated urban neighbor to Laurel, would hold the annual Fireman’s Bazaar in July. The bazaar was one of the seasonal treats of the North Fork which included the Memorial Day Parade and the Strawberry Festival. To a shy, unsophisticated child from a sleepy potato field hamlet these three events were the “Triple Crown” of summer excitement and entertainment. While I was usually able to march in the parade, and eat large quantities of strawberry shortcake at the festival, the bazaar was the event that was most exciting.

The Fireman’s Bazaar was intended to raise money for the town’s volunteer fire department. Tickets were sold for various rides like the merry-go-round and Ferris wheel, and the bazaar also introduced young and old to games of chance. Within the firehouse parking lot there were games of chance where you could pick a number on a wheel, throw a ball at a milk can, or toss coins into a floating plate all with the intent of winning some type of prize. This activity created a lure that was hard for most to resist and even harder for most to convert into a prize.

The big money prize of the bazaar was the Bingo game that was played continuously in an area that was set aside for people to sit at tables holding their cards and recording numbers that were called out by the barker. Bingo always seemed to me to be slow-paced and a game for the elders. To my surprise it turned out to be a game of skill, multi-tasking, and cut-throat speed. Seasoned bingo players would work numerous cards simultaneously with an intensity that would have made a professional athlete envious. As you worked you card with the illusion of success and the optimism of youth the real gamers would be calling out “bingo” before you had anything close to a winning row.

In the summer of 1960 my mother decided to play a few games of bingo at the bazaar. Although she never seemed like a gamer she obviously was quite skilled and probably more than a little bit lucky that night. After a few hours of playing my mother managed to win the big prize of the night which was $250.00. She was thrilled that she won and my father, sister Claudette, and I were all very proud of her as she accepted her cash prize.

My mother and father returned home that evening in a joyous mood. The prize was a blessing given that they typically struggled to stretch my father’s paycheck to make ends meet. As we drove home with them I couldn’t help wonder how my mother would use her winnings. I could imagine her treating herself to new clothes, a meal out, perhaps something for the house, or maybe just getting out in front of the monthly bills.

That night my father acted quickly. After we arrived home my parents disappeared into their bedroom and didn’t reappear until the next morning. My parents loved each other throughout their life but more often than not slept in different rooms and rarely were intimate in any obvious way. Although it was nice to see them acting as one it was unusual enough to seem confusing. Early that Sunday morning the confusion continued as my parents let my sister and I know that they were using my mother’s winnings to buy a boat.

Evidently my father had found a 19 foot, wooden power boat, with a cabin enclosed on three sides that just happened to be $250.00. It needed some work but it was, according to my father, a great buy. As good as the news was about the boat I was baffled. Never did I ever hear my mother say, “Joe… Glenn… Claudette… you know, what I really need is a boat“. Without a word of reluctance or resistance my mother was a willing partner in this nautical purchase and talked about how wonderful it would be to have our own boat. Her support of my father’s dream reminded me of how much she loved him and his ideas.

My father bought the boat and found a place to moor it in New Suffolk, NY. It needed work and he spent many days working on scraping it, caulking it, and fixing the engine. He enjoyed working on his boat and it kept him close to the water and other ships that used the area. He worked it with persistence, patience, and perseverance and it wasn’t but a month or two before it was ready to take out into the Great Peconic Bay.

Our first cruise brought a day filled with blue skies, light breezes, calm waters, excitement, and pride. Unfortunately it ended with clouds, strong winds, rough waters, engine trouble, and the embarrassment of a tow back to the mooring. That day promised to be a snapshot of what would follow. More often than not my father had to do work on the boat rather than enjoy using it. I often would accompany him to New Suffolk to spend time with him as he caulked leaks and repaired the engine. Over time I found the routine to be enjoyable and eventually the dream of actually using the boat was realized when my father and the family took the boat out once again.

The second launch was as exciting as the first and far more successful. The plan was to cruise from New Suffolk to a beach not far from the inlet to the mouth of Brush’s Creek. The weather was good and the water calm as we cruised along the coastline to our destination. When we arrived we dropped anchor just off the shore and with great pride wadded to shore for a picnic lunch in view of our boat. The rest of the day was spent talking about places we would go with the boat and how great it was to finally have one of our own.

That evening my father and I took the boat further from shore, on water as flat as glass, and securely anchored it. We wadded back to shore and walked, with a little bit of nautical swagger, the short distance to our home feeling a type of kinship with the sea.

The next morning the weather had changed, the wind shifted, and the Great Peconic had a serious chop to it. Waves were rolling under the family boat and because it was anchored it rhythmically bounced up and down hour, after hour, after hour. As I approached the boat it was obvious that the up and down bouncing had jarred some of the boards loose and the boat was taking on water. Although it wasn’t much water it was clear that caulking would be in our future again.

We hoped the weather would change but that week, while my father worked, the boat continued to bounce until the leaks were more and more frequent. By the weeks end my father took the boat back to New Suffolk and it was lifted out of the water so the hull could be repaired. The repairs, either due to cost, limited time, or the time of year, took away the rest of the summer for us. Shortly after the cruise my father had the boat on a trailer and placed in our backyard.

When the boat first docked in our backyard my father and I continued to enthusiastically work on scraping, painting, caulking and tinkering with the engine. Over time our visits to the boat became less frequent until they stopped and the boat was placed on the never-ending list of unfinished projects that my father seemed to create. It rested for more than 25 years, in view of potato fields and winter farm ponds, before rot, time and neglect drew the nautical life from the boat leaving it an aged, grounded monument to lost optimism and pride.

After my parents died my sister and I took time to clean out our home and yard. As part of the effort we dismantled the garage and removed the unnamed boat. I took a long-handled axe to the rotting hulk of the boat and each blow gave me both joy and sorrow as I reduced it to a pile of wood and an engine block. As I smashed the last of it I shouted “Bingo” and thought of my mother’s love for my father’s dreams and her luck at the Mattituck Fireman’s Bazaar.

What Do You Say to a Squirrel?

What Do You Say to a Squirrel?
By J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press
November 9, 2009


As a young child I was fortunate to always receive wonderful birthday and Christmas gifts from parents and family members who loved me. One year I received a scale model that allowed me to assemble a life size plastic replica of a squirrel complete with life-like eyeballs, realistic whiskers, and a fur-like spray-on substance to cover the plastic body with. For kid who liked sports, cowboys and Indians, and army stuff, this struck me as one of those loving but off-beat educational gifts that I would appreciate as I got older.

I assembled the squirrel and placed it in my room on a bookshelf overlooking my bed where it stood silently for quite a few years. Little did I know that this was my introduction to these strange yet endearing animals who seem dedicated to regular interactions with humans.

My wife Deborah and I live next to a 43 acre city park in Alexandria, VA. Fort Ward Historical Park was major reason why we purchased the home we live in and it affords us nature and history on a daily basis. Although the leaves will change with the seasons and park visitation will vary over the year, the one constant that we have are squirrels. Each day they are running along our fences, climbing trees, digging in the lawn, the flower beds, and our potted plants. They move about as if they are working on a deadline and have no time for anything but the task at hand.

The only time I’ve seen these squirrels stop is when we wander into an area that they don’t think we should be in. It is then that they will position themselves on a tree limb or trellis and let loose an irritable chattering noise in our direction. They speak to us with an impatience that seems unreasonable given that we pay a substantial mortgage on our home and surrounding property. Then again, perhaps they lived on our property before it was developed and feel as if their interest in the land predates our claim.

When I was a young man attending college one summer I made periodic visits to my parents home in Laurel, NY. If I visited on a Saturday I would spend the night roaming local bars and nightspots before returning to the house. If it was very late when I pulled into their yard, and I had to much to drink, I would often grab my sleeping bag which I always kept in the back of my car and wander into the back yard to sleep under the stars and one of the big oaks growing on the property. At night the sky was clear, bright with stars and as peaceful as any place I can recall.

When the sun rose Sunday morning the peaceful quality of my outdoor bedroom was almost always broken by a squirrel who would climb a branch over me, look down, and chatter in an aggressive and belligerent tone. Suffering from sleep deprivation, too much alcohol and not enough coffee these encounters would always result in harsh words between us.

I’ve also seen the squirrels stand on the deck outside the window to our enclosed sunroom. They seem to know that glass separates them from our two Birmin cats, Mr. Percy and Ms. Pearl. The squirrels stand in silence no more than 18” from the window where Percy and Pearl stare and let loose with a soft guttural noise that must suggest what they might do if the door were to open.

One evening I called my Aunt Stella who lives in Greenvale, NY. I call her regularly to see how she is and to exchange information about each other and other family members. The calls are almost always enjoyable and they keep this important connection to our family which is shrinking in many ways while growing in others.

This evening’s call led Aunt Stella to share a story about how she and her long-time companion John spent the afternoon repairing a hole in the eave along the roof line to her house. Evidently over time they began to hear noises in the walls of the house and suspected that a squirrel or other wild animal had taken residence in the house through the hole.

Aunt Stella and John were both in their late 70’s when this story was told and my aunt went into great detail telling me about how she and John made this repair. She said that they got the ladder out of the garage; carried it to the side of the house where the hole was; brought a piece of wood, a hammer and nails to the ladder; held the ladder and climbed it to cover the hole with the board; and nail it to the eave. Her story continued with she and John carrying the ladder and the hammer back to the garage feeling as if this was a job well done.

Much to their surprise, as they lugged the ladder down the driveway toward the garage, they noticed a very excited and irritated squirrel looking at them from inside the basement window. Upon reflection Aunt Stella and John soon realized that as they fixed the hole to the eave they had boarded-up the squirrels entrance and exit, while the squirrel was inside. With its escape route blocked the squirrel quickly worked its way through the walls until it found a way into the house and the basement.

Inside the house the squirrel entered a heightened state of confusion and panic running from floor to floor, room to room, window to window. Aunt Stella and John entered the house and embraced the confusion and panic as they tried to find a way to get the squirrel to leave the house. They opened doors and windows, shouted spirited slogans of encouragement, and waved their arms.

Eventually the squirrel left the house and Aunt Stella and John closed the doors and windows before returning to the driveway to put the ladder and hammer away.

Much to my surprise this Sunday morning as I read the Metro-Section of the prestigious Washington Post I came across a report called ANIMAL WATCH which read:

ALEXANDRIA, West Bellefonte and Commonwealth avenues, Oct. 23. Residents called the Animal Welfare League about a squirrel that was perched on top of a third-story window air-conditioner. The squirrel didn’t move despite residents’ repeated knocking on the window. An animal control officer opened the window, and the squirrel scampered away. The day before, the residents had repaired a hole in the eave, which had been occupied by a family of squirrels. The officer suspected that the squirrel did not realize that the space was no longer available.

These days Deborah and I regularly maintain our home to reduce the chances of noises in the walls or small furry faces with big teeth staring at us through the basement window. We also continue to wonder if the next call to Aunt Stella will include another rousing story about the squirrel family’s reentry into her home in Greenvale. Although we love our children and grandchildren we won’t ever buy them a scale model of a squirrel to complete and pose in their room. With nature nearby, we, and Alexandria, VA, have enough squirrels and we are sure that more are on their way.