Good Morning Johan wherever you are. If Jimmy Durante could say Good Night to Mrs.Kalabash, I can certainly say Good Morning to you. By asking me questions, you have made me stop and think about who I really am. I have been meaning to do that for several years and in fact, off and on, I have been dabbling with writing my memoirs. Everything happens for a reason so I am thinking you have wandered into my life to encourage me in that area. If not, I thank you for being my Mentor Unaware.
My first memories of being a person are of Preston Street in Louisville, Kentucky. My father was Molter Jacob Kernen and my mother was Martha Louise Link. My brother Paul was three years senior to me. Our family owned a grocery store and we lived in the front apartment on the second floor above it. My father’s brother George, his wife Frances, and their son Pete lived in the rear apartment. Our kitchen and dining room areas were a shared space in the center of the building.
Next door to the north stood the building that once was the Tavern operated by my Grandfather. His family of three sons and one daughter once lived in the apartment above it. When my Grandmother, Rosina Molter died in 1916, my Grandfather purchased one of the first plots in Evergreen Cemetary farther out Preston Street.
The Kernen Tavern and Grocery were once a hub of activity in the city of Louisville. Farmers heading for the “Haymarket” on downtown Market Street to sell their produce, stopped early in the morning to first peddle their fresh fruits and vegetables at our family’s location. On return afternoon trips homeward, their Tavern stops brought word of the day’s trading before the news was broadcast on the radio.
Farmers ran yearly accounts at the Grocery and Tavern and paid their bills when crops were sold. When many could not pay their debt during the Great Depression, the Tavern was forced to close.
Brother Paul was in charge of watching over me while we played in the large yard beside the grocery. Cars were parked in the gravel area at the front and the yard was separated by a wire fence.
During early summer the grocery had a small fireworks stand to one side of the parking lot. I only remember the stand because Brother Paul showed me how to take a rock and hit the dot on the roll of “caps” to make a small popping sound.
When I had run out of caps and went out front to ask my father, who was working in the stand, for more. I was very surprised when he gave me a real cap gun and showed me how the cap roll fit inside.
That is my only memory of the cap gun. I imagine my mother was instrumental in substituting a doll as a distraction for my sharpshooter intentions.
Brother Paul’s sister watching services somewhat made up for the times that he shoved my small crib behind the chest of drawers because “she cries too much.”
My sister Jean was born when we lived above the grocery. I remember waking up and being alone one morning then I heard my Aunt Sis coming up the stairs calling to me. “You have a baby sister.” I liked her and was never accused of shoving her crib behind a chest of drawers. We have been friends ever since.
I do not recall why I was running from my mother in the sideyard, but know I was thinking that I could reach the fence and climb over it and escape before she caught me. Wrong!
After Sunday Mass each week, my family journeyed through Phillips Lane to gather with relatives at my Grandmother and Grandfather Link’s home located in Highland Park at 4435 Crittenden Drive.
The home has long since been replaced by an expressway exit, but I can still see the one-star flag hanging in the front window and remember hearing the creak of the old front porch swing. The flag meant my uncle, Jacob F. Link, Jr. was off in the Navy serving his country and the swing meant children were staying out of the way as grown-ups did what grown-ups did during The War.
They talked about the O.P.A. rationing books, war bonds, and where Bob Hope was this week. They smashed tin cans flat after opening at both ends. They invented recycling long before a future twist-tie generation coined the word. They cooked the best chicken dinners and flavored green beans with ham hocks.
“Johnny Got A Zero” meant more than a failing grade on a spelling paper. Hitler was the enemy and John Wayne was a Flying Tiger hero so on most Sundays, my father would walk to Park Boulevard with some of the children to see black and white movies at the Highland Theater.
We strolled down Ottawa Street for a quick visit to my mother’s Aunt Annie and Uncle Clarence’s home who knew where we were going and approved of motion pictures. The return trip to my Grandfather’s house took us along Wampum Street where my mother’s Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Jess resided. We chatted with them for a short time never mentioning the mighty adventures we had just seen at the movies as they very much disapproved of such nonsense.
Before returning home to Preston Street on Sunday nights, everyone gathered around the radio in the living room to hear the radio show, “We, The People”. After listening to Kate Smith sing “God Bless America” our family headed home with the children sitting on a bench in the back of a green paneled grocery truck.
I like to think that our family invented the SUV. There were no seat belts but we managed to hang on to that bench sitting lengthwise in our grocery truck as our father turned around corners. During the week the green truck delivered groceries to neighborhood homes, but on Sundays, that truck was our passport to adventure.
It would be years before I understood the concept, but by age three I had created an APE determination that would become an outline for the rest of my life. Assess Plan Execute Those three words have contributed to forming an exacting process with which to follow goal setting and attaining. There were, of course, times when the goal was not what I had anticipated as was the Coca-Cola incident.
One door to the south of the Grocery a neighborhood tavern called. “Friendly Inn” opened. My two memories of the Inn are a fire when a man in the upstairs apartment jumped out of a window wrapped in a sheet. Memory number two was my learning at age three about opening a charge account before the days of credit cards.
I was familiar with the grocery store operations and looked forward to the day when I would be tall enough to “sack” groceries as I felt that was a very important grown-up job well worth admiring. I was also acquainted with how neighbors charged their groceries and came in to pay their bills on a weekly basis.
One Sunday while we were preparing to go to my Grandfather’s home, my mother denied my request for a glass of coke telling me, “No. You will spill it on your pretty dress.”
I recall I was wearing a nice frilly dress because my mother believed in ruffles.
Being a thirsty child I formed my own course of action. To this day, I recall thinking, “I know what I will do.”
While everyone was busy getting ready for the Crittenden Drive trip. I quietly went down the steps and made my way across the parking lot and into next door’s “Friendly Inn Tavern”.
Climbing onto the tall stool I politely asked for my glass of Coke. “And charge it to my Daddy.”
I was given my glass of Coke which I promptly spilled on my pretty dress.
The “Friendly Inn Tavern” was known for two things. One was the bartender who lived in the apartment above who had to jump out of the upstairs window during a fire wrapped in a sheet. The other was a little girl in a pretty dress who came in and charged a glass of Coke to her Daddy. No mention was made in that retelling that the little girl spilled the Coke. Some legends are best left shrouded in the mists of history.
I do not recall what happened to the man who jumped out the window, but I am sure my careful table manners began with that incident.
I had learned a lesson before the days of credit cards. Your word of honor is good when you charge it to your Daddy next door.
The summer after I completed the first grade I spent several weeks at my Grandfather Link’s home. Our family continued to go “over home” for Sunday dinners on a regular basis Relatives who joined us around the green table in the kitchen were a happy group and the afternoons were always filled with laughter.
My grandfather was a blacksmith by trade. He worked for the Wood Mosaic Company farther out Crittenden Drive. His hobby of growing tomato plants earned him the respect of victory gardeners in the area. I knew that many people stopped to purchase his plants as soon as his sign went up in the front yard so I didn’t think it unusual when he suggested I sell plums for him in that front yard. Looking back I now know it was his way of keeping me busy by picking up the plums that had fallen in the yard from two large trees. Sitting beside my “Plums For Sale” sign I was at least occupied.
When customers did not appear I soon turned to other forms of amusement. It was dusty at the side of the road and I scooped up some dirt but for some reason, to this day I do not know why, instead of making a mud pie with my drinking water, I fashioned a man’s head on the ground. After patting forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin, I stood up to admire my creation.
That is when I noticed a young boy a few years older than me looking at my sign and the dirt face on the ground.
“I just made it,” I told him.
He laughed and without saying a word, lifted his foot and stomped the face flat then continued walking on down the road.
Watching him stroll away still laughing, I began to understand that smaller people need an “equalizer” although at the time I did not know to call it that. I lived in a neighborhood of older boys and after returning from my grandfather’s house that summer I put a brick in an old play purse that I carried.
I only had to hit one boy with the purse and the word got around “She’s got a brick in that purse!”
Thereafter I didn’t have to carry the brick. The empty purse worked just fine.