Introducing Betty Bacobb

I don’t recall when I first met Betty Bacobb. Nor do I remember where she got her name.  

I’m sure that if someone had asked me where her name came from, I would have said that was how she introduced herself—although at the age of four or five I might have simply said, “She told me.” And, I believed her. Why would I not? Of all your friends, the imaginary ones are the least likely to lie to you.

I now question if I might have pieced together her name from my grandmother’s friend, Mrs. Macobb, and, if I somehow heard that her friends called her Betty, Lauren Bacall. Although, I adored Betty White. I might have named my Betty after her.

I don’t remember a lot about Betty Bacobb. I want to say she had blond hair but, to tell you the truth, I can't get a clear picture of her in my mind. I couldn’t pick her out of a line-up. Even when I think about the one event concerning her that I recall best, I don’t see her. Of course, she wasn’t there that night. I don’t think about it often, but cool September evenings bring to mind a walk with my father when we decided to drop by and see Betty Bacobb.

The best scenario I can come up with is that it was a Friday and my father, who didn’t keep beer in the house but did enjoy a beer while watching the Friday Night Fights, walked to a place where you could buy quart bottles of beer. The state of Pennsylvania has tricky Liquor Control Board rules so I have no idea where that might have been. Also, I might be completely wrong about why we were out walking.

Digression 1

Friday night fights during that era was actually a long-running television show called the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports that featured fights from Madison Square Garden. I think the fights came on at 10pm. Watching them with my father (I had no bed-time) imbued me with an intense dislike of the sport. I didn’t last long in front of the TV. I probably never saw Round 2.

Anyway, one balmy autumn evening when walking with my father, I mentioned that Betty Bacobb lived in the house we were passing. My father suggested that maybe we should drop by and see her.

Digression 2

Dropping by was something that people back in the day did. Friends and acquaintances would simply show up at someone’s house and knock on the door. Then, the people who lived in the house would answer the door and invite the previously uninvited visitors in knowing that by doing so they were surrendering any hope of knowing if Perry Mason got his client acquitted.

Digression 2a

Bad example. With one exception, Perry Mason always got his client off.

Digression 2b

There was a possibility if people waited until summer and their show was popular enough it migh warrant a rerun.

Anyway, I was all in for visiting Betty. I led my father up to the front door. We knocked and, as was the custom even after dark, the woman who lived there opened her door wide with no idea of who was standing on her doorstep. These days my father would more likely be viewed through a ring camera as a criminal type exploiting his minor child for his nefarious purposes. Back then? We were greeted with a warm smile.

I don’t recall how my father introduced us. I can imagine him behind me gesticulating wildly over my head in an effort to clarify what he was saying about the friend of his daughter who lived there. I don’t know the truth. After all, he was behind me and I was not much over three feet tall.

I do remember the women’s response. She leaned down to speak to me and, with an apologetic smile, said she was very sorry that Betty wasn’t home right then but she would be happy to tell her we called. (People said called in those days.) I guess I was disappointed that Betty wasn’t home but I was happy we stopped by. 

I don’t recall the last time I hung out with Betty. Eventually, we drifted apart. I suspect she may have ghosted me. I hope she wasn't angry that we dropped by.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Keeping Secrets

Today I heard Elton John’s Crocodile Rock on the radio  and it brought back memories of a Friday night in 1973. I cannot recall the experience coming to mind for years, more likely decades.

I had gone out after work with a group of friends to a local bar that probably disappeared years ago in the redevelopment of the area. I have no recollection of the name of the place or the exact location. I don’t remember anything about the night except what happened in the parking lot as I was leaving.

For some reason, it fell to me to take a very drunk coworker home. I didn’t know him well, barely at all. He worked in a different section of my department. I thought of him as a kid. He might have been a couple years younger at a point in life where that a year or two felt like a big difference. I’ll call him Ted because I don’t think I ever knew a Ted and this is about keeping secrets. 

He had too much to drink that night. His inebriation made him quiet, almost comatose but left him capable of telling me where he had to go. I hoped. I never found out. As we approached my little VW bug, a big, seventies-style American car screeched to halt across from us. Not in a parking space, but straddling several spots. A woman jumped out of the passenger seat and ran across the parking lot yelling at Ted. 

I cannot describe what followed in any detail. I don’t think I ever fully grasped what was going on. It turned out the woman was his mother and she was hysterical. The man who followed her tried to exert a calming influence on his wife but failed. Miserably. I could say that Ted remained calm but I think he just withdrew. I had never witnessed any scene like that one outside of a movie theater. 

The last thing I remember was Ted’s mother screaming, running across the parking lot and throwing herself in the air. Like a pole vaulter she got her body into a position parallel to the macadam surface and dropped like a rock to the ground. 

I don’t recall leaving but I left. I am sure I was shaken then and months later when I heard Ted had died. I was no longer at that job or living in the area. I cannot remember who gave me the news. My memory says he died in a car crash. A one vehicle accident. Ted might have been drunk. It was at night, so I found it hard to believe he wasn’t. No one said it was suicide but I found it hard to believe it wasn’t.

His death was sad but that is not what breaks my heart when I think of Ted.

When I witnessed the domestic chaos that was his life, my mother had recently died and I was living in one of the largest counties in Pennsylvania, the fifth most populous state in the United States, with my father who had one of the most common surnames in the country. His first name began with R the 18th letter of the alphabet. 

What breaks my heart is remembering that when Ted reached me late on Saturday afternoon, he told me he had spent the day calling every Kelly in the Montgomery County phone book starting with the As. He begged me to keep what had happened to myself. He didn’t have to beg. I didn’t plan on telling anyone. And I didn’t. Not when it happened and not when he died.

Yes, I never told the story at work but keeping his secret was never a hard, or noble, effort. We never had mutual friends, only acquaintances. I am no longer in touch with anyone who knew Ted but I still wouldn’t use his real name.

I don’t recall talking about this incident but I worry that I ever said enough that someone could piece Ted’s identity together. Even now, fifty-one years after he died, I worry. 

I wonder if I did Ted’s memory a disservice by never explaining to those who probably saw him as a problematic kid just how hard his short life must have been. I couldn’t have witnessed the only chaos in his domestic situation. I knew of one close friend he had at work. He must have known what happened, what was going on. As for me, I didn’t volunteer the information and no one would have asked me. I was only part of his life for a few days.

I have not thought of him in years but today I can’t shake the sadness remembering and hoping that during the little time he had left, he trusted that his secret was safe with me.

© Jane Kelly 2024

Three Bag Flight

Valdosta Georgia was in the news today. The reason is politics-related but my Valdosta experience has nothing to do with politics. 

I used to do a lot of business travel - up to eight flights a week. The trips blended together in my mind and were immediately forgotten which is, I believe, the way it should be.

And then, there was a rainy night in Georgia. Atlanta to Valdosta. Probably on American Eagle. Definitely on a small plane. It was, in fact, a dark and stormy night.  I knew how dark it was. I didn’t know how stormy it was. At least, my brain didn’t know. My stomach caught on quickly but did its best to hold on through the short flight.

We were getting close to Valdosta when I turned to the man across the aisle and asked if he would talk to me, just to distract me. He smiled, leaned on his armrest and said something like, “Sure I fly this route a lot.”

I replied. “Never mind. Too late.”

At my meeting the next day when people asked how my fight was, I answered that it was a three-bag flight. Only one exchange was a little different.

“When did you get in?”

“Last night.”

“Did you throw up?”

Looking back, I should have asked why were there three air-sickness bags in my seat pocket.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Favorite Sons

Anyone remember favorite sons at conventions?  

At the National Convention in 1960 in a speech that felt as if it mentioned his name dozens of times, Mississippi nominated its governor, and favorite son, Ross Barnett, to be the Democratic presidential candidate. For some reason, my family latched onto that idea, but not in a way flattering to the governor. (Barnett was a rabid segregationist.) His name became a household word to cover a variety of negative characteristics usually related to narcissism. Not a common occurrence in Pennsylvania homes.

In the early 1980s, I was in a taxi in Jackson, Mississippi when a car came careening up behind us, barely missed the cab, swerved onto a lawn, drove right across the grass and continued as if the sidewalk were an exit ramp.  

The cab driver did not seem shocked, “That’s Ross Barnett.”  I can’t imagine there would have been a lot of people from the Northeast who appreciated that.  

I could have said, “What a Ross Barnett!” I thought better of it. After all, he was their favorite son. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Isolated Moments - Tonsils

I am fascinated by the isolated moments my memory can dredge up. Just flashes of a few seconds often with absolutely no context. What prompted my brain to store that moment? How weird that I barely noticed a moment not knowing I would recall it forever!

My tonsillectomy provides context for a few flashes. It is very rare for me to recall several moments from the same event but the time I had my tonsils out provides an exception. I remember three moments from the two day period when I was five years old.

I remember looking out the window of the elevated train as my mother pointed out the studio where they broadcast American Bandstand.  (3 seconds)

I recall a nurse asking me if I didn’t want to eat the ice cream on my dinner tray and saying no although I really wanted it very badly. (5 seconds)

I recall being told to count backward from 100 and can envision the spiral I saw as I slipped into sleep. (3 seconds)

That’s it.

Takeaways:  

My mother took me to the hospital on public transportation but not public transportation that ran anywhere near my house. I thought my mother said we had extra time so even though we wanted to go east, we rode to the west end of the elevated line and then turned around. I never thought about how we got there but realize we probably rode with my father to his office and then got the train. We were on his time schedule. All my life whenever I thought of that moment, I thought we took the ride because my mother liked to go. Anywhere.

In those days a tonsillectomy required overnight hospitalization in the children’s ward. I don’t know what they served for dinner but I didn’t like it. At home there was a rule that if you didn’t eat your dinner, you couldn’t have dessert. I was so ridiculously obedient and honest, I didn’t eat the dessert even though the nurse encouraged me. I enforced the rule myself. I still say I am obedient to a fault. I got Bs in obedience in second and fourth grade, but As every other year. What happened to that rebellious little second grader? At least now I would eat the ice cream.

When administering ether, the doctors asked you to count back from 100. I got to 97. I am surprised a five year could do that but apparently we all could. That was the common practice. The memory of that spiral is enough to make this much-more-than-five-year-old nauseous (or nauseated - I’m not here to argue).

I think I am going to start a list of these flashes. Maybe there is more to them.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Theft protection

I am not often a jerk but I do have the ability to transform into one. I’ll give you an example. 

I used to travel a lot on business. I wasn’t extravagant. In fact, I was a bit cheap with my expenses. Even too cheap. I realized that when I suspected I was the only guest at a Holiday Inn near Dallas who was not a convicted felon. My point is, I didn’t ask for much. I simply did not want to sit in the center seat on any flight.

I had conveyed this request to our travel agent from a pay phone in the concourse at LAX after deplaning from a cross-country flight on which they had pre-booked me a center seat. In my own interpretation of Mark Ruffalo turning into the Hulk, I hissed in my jerkiest voice,  “do not ever book me a center seat again. If you can’t get me an aisle seat, get me another flight.” I slammed the phone into the cradle and said, “What a jerk.” I was referring to myself.

So, it was a very anxious travel agent who called a contact, Caroline, in New York (no cell phones yet) who reached me in Albany to let me know that she could not get me an aisle seat on my flight to LA that afternoon. I was, at best confused.

Are you sure it’s for me?

I don’t remember booking a flight to LA.

Did I say why I am going to LA? 

Caroline investigated and discovered that an assistant in the office had booked the ticket. I have no idea how in those pre-security days she could use it, but she had planned to take the flight to Los Angeles. I assume she had also planned to use the return trip. I don’t know if she had figured out how to process the expense report when she returned. 

Let me digress here to say that filing expense reports was not my strong point. As evidence, I offer an instance when the accountant at another job brought me a check for over $900 (which Google tells me is almost $3K in today’s money) that I had somehow cheated myself out of. The assistant didn’t know that story but she did know me. End of digression.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Caroline was investigating. She called back with two options for dealing with the thief. The choice was mine.

* Cancel the ticket and fire her.

* Let her pick up the ticket and have her arrested.

I thought it over but not for long. 

I told them to cancel the ticket. 

I don’t know what I would have said if she wasn’t in NYC. I didn’t exactly know the procedure but I did know there was a women’s jail on Riker’s Island. I am sure there are vicious criminals that I might not feel bad seeing in Rikers but most humans should not be subject to that jail.

My point? If you feel obligated to commit a crime, let me suggest that you not do it in New York City. Others might not be so reluctant to press charges.

Another, more problematic, point:  being a jerk really paid off.  Nonetheless, I don’t want that to be my standing operating procedure.

A NOTE ABOUT THE PERP:  I never saw her again. I forget her name. What I never forgot is that after she left we found thank you letters she never sent out to applicants for a job opening we had. For that, I can never forgive her.

The Clipboard Era

I once had a coworker who had a theory that worked back in what I’ve come to call the clipboard era. He felt that if you carried a clipboard and behaved professionally, you could pretty much go anywhere.

He proved his theory one day in Washington. We were at an online information meeting of some variety that was sharing the hotel with the annual NABOB conference. 

According to NAOB.ORG, which of course did not exist during the clipboard era, “NABOB is the first and only trade organization representing the interests of African-American owners of radio, television and digital media across the country.” 

We had no desire to intrude, simply to observe. So armed with our clipboards, we found an empty theater where it turned out Al Jarreau was rehearsing. We watched from the balcony. We were the only two people up there. No one questioned our presence. We were carrying clipboards. 

At our next stop, we had to deal with a larger crowd but people moved aside for the folks with the clipboard. We had no problem stepping into the room where all of the media outlets in Washington were waiting for a press conference to begin. As is often said, the excitement was palpable. The anticipation was visible. Everyone who was anyone in local news was gathered for the ground-breaking event.

Who was visiting? The Pope? Queen Elizabeth? Khrushchev arisen from the dead? No. Michael Jackson was in town. 

We were in the capital of one of the largest nations in the world, the alleged capital of the free world. Where else would the press be? It wasn’t as if anything else could be going on in that city.  

It was a long wait for a short appearance. What I remember about Michael is that when he climbed onto the platform at the front of the room, he appeared like a giant. Not because he was tall. The ceiling was oddly low. 

I might be misremembering what he said: not much and substance-free. I don’t recall if he took any questions. I do remember his high voice and satin outfit. I know it was a bright color. I think it might have had epaulets. Everyone loved him. 

We didn’t go to all the conference events. We never would have tried to go to the party that night mostly because we truly did not want to intrude. Also, clipboards were not appropriate and wouldn’t have fooled anyone. Invited attendees would have seen us as press which probably would have gotten us thrown out. 

We didn’t even pass by the door on purpose but as we did we couldn’t help but glance in and catch sight of a pretty high-profile guest. 

I later told a friend about the incident. I had a reputation for running into famous people, so I mentioned Michael Jackson was just about the most famous person in the world. 

My friend:  One person is more famous. 

Me: Who?

My friend: Muhammed Ali

Me: Oh, he was there.

Of course, I can’t attribute the Ali sighting to the clipboard. I count that as an accidental encounter, the kind I am prone to have. 

I am not a crasher of any type—gate, party, wedding. (I did once go to the wrong funeral but that was an accident. I swear.) Although I had fun that day, I wasn’t completely comfortable with the clipboard approach. I never tried it on my own and now it is a relic of the past.  I am glad I got to experience it before modern technology and heightened security moved us into a new era, but once was enough for me. Clipboard or no clipboard, a crasher is a crasher. And, that’s not really my thing.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Mysterious Job Interview

As I approached college graduation with a history degree that I didn’t yet appreciate (I had not figured out what aspects I loved), I had no goals or expectations. It was a different time. I recall saying two weeks before graduation, “I guess I’ll have to get a job or something.” 

This was not related to the social norms of a time when the customs of the 1950s were still holding on - for women anyway. I had no expectation that I’d be marrying and raising a family. Let’s just say I was open to the possibilities. Any possibility. 

A friend suggested the civil service test. So, I took it and received in response a letter from the government asking me to come in for a “special” interview for those who had scored in the 95th percentile and above. No mention of a position or an agency. Just a job. 

There was a state office building on Broad Street in Philadelphia and my recollection is the interview was held in a conference room there. So, on a lovely spring day, I headed downtown to learn more about my new opportunity. I wasn’t thinking about career path. I was thinking about location. At the time I favored Puerto Rico and Hawaii. 

I arrived and was put in a waiting room worthy of any American institution of the 1940s. It was then 1970. The only other person waiting was a young woman much more of the flower-child type of the era than I was. She was very sweet and chatty and eagerly engaged me in conversation. About what? No idea. We did establish we were both waiting to be interviewed. For what? Again, no idea.

My next recollection is sitting around a conference room table with three other interviewees. At the head of the table was a very pleasant interviewer, male, Caucasian and possibly wearing a white shirt. And, a tie. Definitely a tie. Did he keep his jacket on? Possibly not. The atmosphere was very friendly and informal.

I couldn’t help noticing that those of us who were there to be interviewed could have come from central casting. The flower-child sat across from me. I called the fellow beside me the used-car salesman—not because he resembled any actual used-car salesman I had ever met but because he fit the Hollywood stereo type perfectly. I don’t remember the fourth person except he was a white male. I suspect we were all in our early twenties.

We were each asked the same questions I now realize were all about personal ethics. I only remember one. The son of a diplomat (from the Middle East? Hazy on that.) gets drunk and in a car with diplomatic plates runs down and kills an American citizen in DuPont Square. What do you do? (As to why they expected me to know about DuPont Square since I didn’t live in DC, I couldn’t say.) 

The flower-child focused on some half-truths that supported the victim’s and the diplomat’s families.

The used-car salesman came up with out-and-out lies to make it all go away including the diplomat’s kid who was on the next plane out of the country.

I have no idea what the fourth person said. He was a ghost. 

I laid out a plan to do the right thing. I specifically recall telling them—naively but wisely—not to try to hide the incident. Cover-ups always fail. Had they known what lie ahead, they should have hired me for the Nixon White House right there and then. But they didn’t.

I wasn’t offered any “special” job but I was eligible to be hired. I was asked what locations I preferred. I got two choices. I put Puerto Rico and Hawaii. I never heard from them again. 

Possibly, they—whoever they were—figured out I wasn’t particularly serious about a career in government service. Or any career, actually. I can imagine my evaluation. Unrealistic. Naïve. Possibly stupid but freakishly good at standardized tests. (I loved them.)

I’ve come to believe that the criteria for an invitation to this special interview had less to do with percentiles than with character traits. I suspect that there were questions peppered throughout the test to catch personality traits they found desirable and I might describe as pathological. 

I was telling a coworker—I’ll call him Rob—who had once held a top-level security clearance about this interview. 

I told him about the flower-child, the used-car salesman and the ghost. “Ghost probably got the job. I can’t remember a thing about him.”

Rob appeared amused. His response?  "You were the only one being interviewed that day.”

It feels kind of exciting to think that might be true. 

© Jane Kelly 2024

When the Upper West Side Was King

Sometime around 2015, I saw a movie called The Intern starring Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway. I don't know what genre of movie it was. It had the feel of a rom-com but the love between the two stars was not romantic. That has nothing to do with my point. 

My point is when the movie was over, I felt old and out-of-touch. Not because the film involved a man not much older than I was trying to fit it at a fashion start-up, but because the entire movie was set in Brooklyn. Every scene. Brooklyn. I knew nothing of Brooklyn beyond Brooklyn Heights and the River Cafe. To me, Brooklyn was somewhere you didn't want to live because it was hard to get a cab to take you there late at night.

When I lived in New York, I lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was at the time very in. How did I know that? Because I could not step out of my apartment without running into a film crew. There were always production trucks parked somewhere in the neighborhood. Often they were from Law & Order. If as many dead bodies showed up in my neighborhood in real life as they did on Law & Order, rents would have plummeted. Well, probably not. Rents never plummet in New York. Let's just say it wouldn't have been good.

More often the filming was for movies about young professionals. Green Card. Baby Boom. You've Got Mail. When Harry Met Sally. Even the Ghostbusters were, in their own minds at least, professionals. Certainly, Sigourney Weaver's character was. All these successful fictional characters were my neighbors. Three Men and a Baby filmed a short walk down Central Park West from my apartment. I remember running into the twins who played the baby on the street and all the male stars in the park. A lot of the other movies were shot much closer. I was annoyed to find out while I was on an all-day conference call in my apartment Jack Nicolson had been filming Wolf on my corner. The Upper West Side was a cool place to be.

At the movies, I got used to recognizing not just streets but restaurants. All these shiny characters would sit at the same table where I sat. The Upper West Side may not have been the hippest place to live but it had a certain cachet, a certain style. I loved it.

I had not lived in New York for many years when I saw The Intern. I had heard about the move to Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, I made a business call to the only partially renovated building in Williamsburg in the early 1990s. The guy who lived on top of the mostly empty building where he ran his business told me to buy a building. What happened to Soho is about to happen to Williamsburg. I ignored his advice. I missed the boom. I have never actually been to the hip Williamsburg. For all I know, Williamsburg may have become somewhat passe. There might be a more hip Brooklyn neighborhood. I wouldn’t be the right person to ask.

So watching The Intern brought home to me that my time had passed. Sometimes, I like to revisit the restaurants I loved in the eighties and nineties when they were the hot spots in town, but my enjoyment is always tinged with a little sadness. My favorite restaurant and I are both a hold-over from the past. Ironically, it is owned by Robert DeNiro.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Meeting Mr. Smith

Meeting Mr. Smith (Not his real name)

As I was approaching thirty, I had a boss who was very concerned that I was not married and, even worse in her eyes, didn’t seem at all concerned about my status. Because we worked in Human Resources, we knew a lot of basic information about every employee—enough for her to screen for suitable mates for me. 

“Mr. Jones seems nice,” she would say. Coyly. 

“He’s very nice, just not my type.”

“Mr. Williams is very polite and is going to medical school.”

“He is very pleasant but I think he’s interested in the head librarian.”

“Mr. Smith is single and always pleasant when I see him.”

“There’s something not right about that guy.”

She brought up Mr. Smith quite a few times and I always had the same response: “There’s something not right about that guy.”

I didn’t have any facts to support my claim. I didn’t actually know Mr. Smith although I saw him on almost a daily basis. He was a nice looking man about my age. From what I could tell, he and his coworker from their small department ate together at the same time and place every single day. Then, they sat for a few minutes in the lobby and watched. Everything and everybody. He even watched me. Not in a lascivious way. Not in an amused way. Not in threatening way. His face remained expressionless. I concluded he simply liked to watch. I found something about that creepy. My reaction was always the same even if I was only talking to myself. “There’s something not right about that guy.”

We never spoke until . . . 

One Friday afternoon, Mr. Smith stopped by HR on his way out the door. He needed to check something. I’ve long since forgotten what. He came into my office sporting a warm smile and exuding an appropriate level of charm that appeared genuine and not at all fake or creepy. His conversation was pleasant. He made me laugh. He stayed a little longer than necessary but not long enough to become a nuisance. When he walked out the door, he had won me over.

I told my boss: “You know, Mr. Smith? I was wrong about that guy. He’s perfectly nice.” And, then, I left for the weekend and I imagine she went home relieved at prospect of wedding bells in my future.

So I guess you think you know how this story ends. You guess that just as in any romance novel, my bad feelings turned to love, we married and lived happily ever after. Guess again.

I never saw Mr. Smith after that Friday. I might have noticed that he wasn’t at lunch on Monday but my attention was focused on finding out what was going on that kept my boss, her boss, and his boss behind closed doors for most of the morning. 

Luckily, the secret did not remain a secret for long, Over the weekend, Mr. Smith had been arrested for rape and assault. 

A week before my reaction would have been “I told you so.” But I’d been charmed. And, now I was shocked. Had there been some sort of mistake? In my seventies mindset, I wondered if he had been too aggressive, misread some signal or if a girl had changed her mind. After all, the seventies bar scene was crazy. But then I learned about the breaking and entering charges. Note the plural.

It took years and the invention of the Internet before I learned the rest of the story. In the months before his arrest, Mr. Smith had committed a series of attacks in the western suburbs of Philadelphia each one escalating in terms of violence. There were at least a dozen victims. They had not met Mr. Smith at a bar. They had not invited him into their homes. They had never seen him before. He had broken into their houses or apartments and raped each of them inflicting more and more physical damage than on the previous victim. One of his last victims after a required hospitalization testified that he was a monster. 

He claimed stress at work had caused his actions. He admitted he didn’t handle stress well. He offered alternative recommendations for sentencing to keep him out of jail. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. 

On the rare occasions I drove by the jail that was his home, I wondered how his life was going behind those walls. After twenty-five years I assumed he had been released. I was wrong. He had survived prison for only six years. I couldn’t discover whether he died from natural causes—unlikely in a man his age—or suicide or murder. 

My brain worried that I had bought into his charming act so easily. On an emotional level, I felt only sadness that my initial reaction had been so accurate. I’d been right. 

There was something not right about that guy. 

 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

If I were a psychopath

Handy tip: if you are going to condescend to someone in the global community of social media, you might want to check if they live not in Sri Lanka or Paraguay but within ten miles of your house.

I used to check a daily post by author Terry O’Dell. I had a morning routine I loved which concluded with a visit to her Facebook page where she posted a word of the day and followers provided fake definitions. Light-hearted fun until . . . 

I decided to change a word in my comment. I backed my cursor up and in the eyes of any conscientious member of the grammar police committed a capital crime. I failed to convert the “a” before the new word that started with vowel to “an.” I hit the post button and went on with my day.

I don’t usually get comments on that page, so I was interested to see what someone had to say. What he had to say started this way: “Come on people. This page is run by an author. Let’s get our act together.” Then, he went on to explain the rule regarding the use of “a” vs. “an” to me. In detail.

Being condescended to is one of my hot buttons. So, ignoring the unwritten law that you never respond to negative comments, I shot off a snotty retort. What a jerk. Me. Him too, but also me. I referenced my two graduate degrees and the nine (at that time) books I had published and sarcastically asked: “How did I miss learning that?” I could have noted that I used the rule correctly on the next line of the post but I wanted to show some restraint.

He tried to make light of his remark in one or two comments. I was not appeased. I blocked him but before I did, I whiled away the afternoon—there was a pandemic going on—checking out this jerk. I mean gentleman. Let’s be honest, I mean jerk.

I felt elation when I saw his address. I could be on his doorstep in under half an hour. I knew what his house looked like. Thank you, Google Earth and Zillow.

I learned where he worked and in what department. He’d been there many years without a promotion. I discovered the hobbies he enjoyed and the church he joined. I do not know how often he attended but it was there in his sixties he married for the first time. I found the name of the widow he married. She had grown children and I learned a lot about them too.

I became fascinated not by the information I retrieved but by the amount of information I uncovered. And, how easy it  was. 

He and his wife had recently moved so I knew the price of both houses. I expected to find that info. What I did not expect to find was on the realtor’s website, the realtor who had neglected to remove the virtual tour of the couple’s new house. So I checked out the floor plan moving from room to room including the main bedroom where he would sleep never knowing the price he was paying for making that snide remark on Facebook. But, only if I were a psychopath. And, let me state for the record, I am not. (References available upon request.)

I didn’t need to shoot him in his sleep to get satisfaction. I got that when I checked his profile on Linked-In. There in the first paragraph, I spotted the error. Didn’t he know that the rule is use “a” before a consonant and “an” before a vowel? Come on people . . .

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My Time with the Mob

I don’t really know very much about the Mob with a capital M. My philosophy is that the less you know about the Mob the better. I still haven’t seen every episode of The Sopranos.

However, unlike Justice Potter who remarked about obscenity—“I know it when I see it”—I, apparently, don’t know the Mob when I see it. At least I didn’t back in the 80s and 90s an era of New York Mob superstars: Carlo Gambini, Paul Castellano and John Gotti. They were all over the news even after death. I’d seen the stories but really hadn’t paid any attention. As for the New Jersey mob? I knew it existed but wouldn’t recognize a name or a face if I walked onto a room full of Jersey mobsters. 

Which brings me to . . . 

Late one Sunday afternoon a couple of friends and I arrived in a northern New Jersey town too early to show up at a party. Eating was always a good way to kill time. Starbucks was not yet an option in New Jersey so we looked around for a restaurant. Pre-Internet that meant driving around searching for one. Let’s call the one we found Ristorante Italiano because it’s generic and that was not its name.

In retrospect, the first sign that the place we selected was unusual? We could not even get a glimpse of the interior. The windows were covered and if the door had a window it was small, placed high and filled with tinted glass. The details are gone from my memory but the general impression is clear. We had no idea what we were walking into.

As we stepped through the entrance, everyone, and I do mean everyone, in the restaurant turned to look at us. They continued to watch as a very pleasant maitre d’ rushed forward not so much to greet us as to stop us. It was a small place with a dozen tables or so and we could see that just about all of them were occupied. So, we didn’t question him when he said they were full. Maybe we looked as if we were starving, harmless and clueless. We weren’t really starving but his other two assessments were dead on. He relented and told us the owner wasn’t there that evening. We could sit at his table. 

He led us past the other diners to a round table at the rear of the restaurant not far from the door to the kitchen. Not a traditionally good table but ideally situated for a quick getaway should an undesirable type such as a law officer with a warrant or a mob enforcer with a gun come through the front door. 

We may have noticed the clientele was predominantly Italian but if we did we would have seen that as a positive. Where better to eat Italian food than at a place where well-heeled Italians ate?

The table was too big for a party of three but we settled around one side of the table that we were lucky to get. The food was delicious and the conversation, lively. We laughed a lot—about what I have no idea. I don’t recall if we ever questioned the professional affiliations of the other diners but if we did we knew enough not to laugh about that.

After a great meal, we moved on to the party that had brought us to town. Except for the red sauce (or gravy if you prefer), we didn’t think much about the experience.

Until . . . 

Within weeks or maybe months of our visit to Ristorante Italiano, the New York Times noted that several high-ranking members of the leading New Jersey crime family had been arrested. Where did the feds get the evidence for the indictments? Wiretaps especially the one that had been in place for many months at the owner’s table at the Ristorante Italiano.

My friends and I were not included in the indictments. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My Life in Crime

Picture 1969. Hippies. Drugs. Psychedelic music. People having wild times at wild parties even in the least wild of locales. 

Then picture a sober, twenty-year-old plainly-dressed girl sitting with a similarly attired friend and four completely sober, clean-cut, twenty-ish, varsity rowers exchanging ghost stories in an old summer rental house at the New Jersey Shore. You would probably think that would be the least likely spot for a police raid on August 23, 1969. You would be wrong.

It wasn’t even midnight when a fellow named George sauntered into the all-purpose room where we had gathered. “There are police swarming around the building. I wonder what’s going on.” 

Turned out we were what was going on.

I don’t know how many cops burst into the apartment but I do know it was more than needed. They weren’t exactly taking down the Weather Underground.

I briefly considered hiding but figured I wouldn’t get away with it. I let a long-forgotten officer lead me outside. I didn’t resist. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t look around to see if I knew anyone in the crowd that gathered. To tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I don’t recall anything about the walk from the house or the ride to the police station. It couldn’t have been very long. I vaguely recall being rushed inside. Only then did I learn why I was there. 

Someone had turned up a radio in the back of the house. I couldn’t hear the music, but apparently the man next door could. He called the cops. 

All six of us in the house were charged with a noise violation. The cops couldn’t even find an instance of underage drinking in the group. We had to be the tamest crowd assembled on the entire island that night.  

Probably afraid we would get ahold of some transistor radios and hit the streets endangering the ears of innocent victims, the police did not offer us the opportunity to post bail that night.

My friend—I’ll call her Betty—and I were separated from the male criminals in our party, or should I say gang, and driven to the County Jail. I didn’t consider escaping because I had no idea where we were and, frankly, I was not wearing comfortable shoes. 

Besides, it was a summer Saturday night at the Shore. The jail would just be a somewhat subdued party with other kids. Right? I’ll repeat the term County Jail and let you figure that one out for yourself.

We pulled into a classic prison yard surrounded by brick buildings. I’d seen places like this in the movies (black and white films only) but never expected to visit one. Especially in the middle of the night in the back seat of a police cruiser.

Our custody was turned over to a male policeman that today I could not pick out in a line-up. I might not remember his face or his name but I do remember his attitude. Not good. He had no patience for hardened criminals like us. He made us sign what looked like a guest book but we weren’t fooled. There was no space to rate or comment on the service. 

After a few formalities—no mug shot, no fingerprints—he called a female officer into his office and told her where to put us. “Not with her!” The matron’s face contorted with horror. Sadly, her only power appeared to be over us. I came to suspect she might not be in the right line of work but she did her job and introduced us to our new life inside.

First off, we had to pick up our bedding. I shudder recalling that I ever touched the thin mattress let alone clutched it to me as we were led to our cell block. (Note to self: create a list of phrases you never thought you’d use.) To get there we were paraded through a row of cells. Male arms—in my memory they were big, strong and hairy—extended through the bars of each one. Hands made grabs for us but luckily none connected. I remember foul sounds and I can only imagine they were matched with foul words. As with the cops, I couldn’t pick any of the inmates out of a line-up which is, I suspect, where they were most likely to be found over the years. These were not kids who partied too hard.  These were criminals. In a county jail. Imagine that.

People might tell you they’ll never forget the moment those cell doors clanked shut behind them. I do. However, I didn’t forget that Betty and I ended up in a jail cell built for three. We had to share.

“I don’t know why he put you in with her,” the matron mumbled as she locked us in. The look on her face and the tone in her voice when she said “her” made me think that our new roommate—excuse me cellmate—was not incarcerated for playing loud music.  The guard did not stick around to answer our questions. There was no introduction, no orientation. 

Our cell, was brightly lit but the rest of the cell block was dark and silent. Betty and I could have had our pick of accommodations. Instead we would be occupying bunk beds across from a woman lounging in what I assumed was the premium spot. To be fair, she was a large women and needed the bigger cot. She didn’t make a move to greet us. Her only action was leaning forward occasionally to spit into a styrofoam cup. 

I am generally a big chit-chatter but I was a little distracted by a digestive system that was betraying my outward calm. So, Betty took it upon herself to get to know our cellmate. Since there were no doors in the cell I could hear her attempt at prison chatter over the churning of my stomach.

BETTY: “What are you in for?”

CELLMATE: “I cut up a woman.”

BETTY: “Where is she now?”

CELLMATE: “She’s dead.”

We couldn’t help assuming that there might be some cause and effect between the cutting up and the death. Neither of us made any further attempt at conversation.

We knew the boys—excuse  me our partners in crime—had arrived when Billy yelled out. “Don’t worry, girls. We’ll get you out.” A nice show of bravado but completely implausible since he and the others were being led to their cell. 

The night was so long we could have been in Stockholm in midwinter. At least that is how it felt. Wake-up time was signaled by the arrival of the same prison matron carrying a metal tray filled with . . . hard to say. Our cellmate assured us the gelatinous glop, tastefully presented in a battered metal tray the same color as the food, was edible. She wolfed it down. My stomach urged me not to risk it. My brain agreed. Surely we’d be out by lunch.

I won’t go into the details of how, in the ice age of banking, our bail money arrived because I have no idea. I assume Western Union was involved.

Neither will I share the details of our release although I can testify the traditional walk of shame has nothing on the ride of shame when the police car you’re riding in stops outside the Catholic Church just as the last mass is letting out.

Speaking of testimony, I’ll skip ahead to the trial. 

I didn’t usually feel entitled but I do generally feel lucky. So, I took it for granted when a friend’s father’s friend, who happened to be on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and who happened to be on vacation at the Shore, and who happened (I assume) to be licensed to practice in New Jersey showed up to defend us. Spoiler alert: we were acquitted and our record expunged.

I suspect the powerhouse defense could have been a detriment but the prosecution did have a pretty weak case. They tried to impugn Betty’s and my morals when the prosecutor asked “What room were they in when you arrested them?” 

The cop feigned distress as if he hated to say it. “The bedroom.” I guess they wanted to expose the sweet little college girls as shameless hussies engaged in all types of wanton behavior. 

Our attorney wasn’t going to let that happen. Even before I’d watched twenty seasons of Law & Order, I knew that was irrelevant. Our attorney took a simpler approach and established that there was no bed in this “bedroom.”

In today’s world, we’d probably sue. We’d been arrested for playing music that we couldn’t hear, paraded through a crowd of onlookers, denied our one phone call, forced to spend the night in the county jail and made to share a cell with an alleged murderer.  

But the worst indignity? The song on the radio? “ Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Note to self: the big C

Some thoughts on the occasion of the two year anniversary of your cancer diagnosis.

On the afternoon of March 16, 2022, you called your doctor’s office to say that you found a lump in your left breast and to ask what the next step was. “The next step is you come here at ten tomorrow morning.” And, so began a journey that has taken longer than you ever imagined and is not quite over. In a way it is never over but it looks like you can finally move it to the background.

Here, in no particular order, are a few thoughts about what you learned.

Anyone can get it. No one in your family ever had cancer of any kind. You had absolutely no fear of getting cancer. Kellys did not get cancer. Apparently they do. You were diagnosed in March, 2022. Your brother was diagnosed in the summer of 2023 and gone before Thanksgiving. Your genetic testing was clean and you still got it. Remind people. Anyone can get it.

Before talking about cancer, assess your audience. Preface any conversation with “I don’t know if you’ve experienced this yourself or been with someone who has . . . .” It is amazing and distressing how often you will find yourself talking to current patients, cancer survivors or their family members.

One of the greatest revelations was just how many friends you had and how wonderful they were. If able to thank them in an Oscar night speech, the music would play you off before you could name ten percent of them.  To list the kindnesses shown would take the entire show.

Everyone’s cancer is different. Everyone’s reaction to cancer drugs is different. Don’t compare yourself to other patients. There are many reasons Facebook groups are helpful. For one thing, they let you see people who have much worse situations: medical, financial, familial, professional, social. Every aspect of life is affected. If you don’t have the same struggles, feel grateful not guilty. If you seem to be having a harder time than others, it’s not your fault. Do not feel guilty.

Admit you worry about your hair. Losing hair is the least of a cancer patient’s problems but you discovered hair is symbolic. You had no issue with going bald during chemo. Hair of some variety would be back. But thinning hair from long term medications was more upsetting. It could be a warning about what else the drug might be doing inside your body. But, even more importantly, it symbolizes that things are different now when all you want is for things to be the way they were.

You tried to find some humor in a very serious topic. You should be allowed to laugh when your pants drop to your ankles in a public place. Even if no one was there to see it, empirically, it was funny. It’s ironic when your hair starts coming back on your upper lip first, then on your scalp. There were other funny occurrences. Admittedly, not many. You just need time to think of them.

You had to introduce yourself after chemo. You didn’t recognize yourself so how could others recognize you? You never took offense. You took the offense and told everyone who you were. The same person you were before - just smaller and grayer. At least you will be after all the brain fog clears. You hope.  Brain fog is real. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

The Ghosts We Know

A little background. I am a slider. Or at least I claim to be a slider. Sliders can only claim slider powers. There is no scientific proof that we exist. 

For years, I didn’t even know that there was a term for my totally useless super power. I did know there had to be others with similar experiences somewhere out there. I might have met one or two of them in my lifetime. The topic doesn’t come up in conversation easily or often. And, it is not met with universal interest. 

Then, over twenty years after the Internet arrived—being quick on the uptake is not one of my super powers—it occurred to me that I could search for people who turn street lights off. And that is when I discovered the term slider.

Street Light Interference. Scorned by science. Debunked by experiments. A phenomenon whereby individuals by their mere presence cause street lights to go off well beyond a frequency that chance would dictate. 

I demonstrated this ability to a friend one night in the parking lot of a suburban office building making him walk with me back and forth under a street lamp. Walk under it. It goes off. Walk under it again. It goes on. Repeat. Many times. The experiment never failed. I am not sure he was convinced. Actually, I am pretty sure he wasn’t but he was kind enough not to debate the issue, then or when it came up a few times in the course of our friendship.

Within a year or two, our friendship came to an abrupt end. We argued. I assumed I would never see him again.

Then came the worst thing possible when you have unresolved issues with someone. He died. Unexpectedly. Before he even got to have a fortieth birthday. 

So, although I do not routinely try to communicate with the dead, one winter night on a cold beach I sent an unspoken message. “I know you have a big family and a lot of closer friends to get around to, but when you have a minute, could you drop by and give me a sign that things are good between us?” I did not expect a response. I didn’t even feel sure about the whole afterlife thing.

Not long afterwards I was at a restaurant in Boston that we had visited together. I saw the seats at the bar where we sat were open and took one of them. He had only been dead for a short time. Maybe only weeks. 

So, he was on my mind when I was in the restaurant and when I went to retrieve my car from a multi-level parking lot. 

I got in the elevator with one other person, a businessman who positioned himself in a back corner as far away from the button panel as possible. I stood in the middle on the opposite side nowhere near the panel. The doors began to shut and suddenly bounced open, the way they do when they hit the arm of a latecomer trying to hold the elevator. But there was no arm. There was no latecomer. No one got in. We could see no one was in the lobby. We were alone. Or were we?

The other passenger uttered a sentence I’d never heard before. “Looks like we’re riding with an invisible man.”

“Don’t worry.” I told him. “I think he’s with me.”

We both chuckled.

I exited the elevator liking the idea that I had an invisible man in tow. 

Smiling, I walked forty yards down the ramp before I realized I was going in the wrong direction. In the instant that I turned to reverse direction, undeniably simultaneously, the overhead light at the top of the ramp turned off. Not my doing. I was too far away.

An overwhelming feeling of relief washed over me. 

Do I believe the light going out was my friend telling me all was good, we were good? I did at the time. Over the many years that have passed, did I consider that the light’s snapping off was a mere coincidence? My brain did. But I remember the warm feeling I experienced. Do I believe I got a message from the other side saying all was okay?

I choose to believe I did.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Some Thoughts on Cancer

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that the largest part of 2022 would be devoted to chemotherapy and then surgery, I told myself—and anyone who would listen—that 2022 was going to be the best year of my life. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Having no recent experience with friends or family members going through cancer treatment, I was somewhat naive. No, let’s face it. I was an idiot.

I had two major misconceptions about the process. I knew it was tough but:

1) I thought I would get chemo, feel horrible for a few days and then take off to visit friends, return to chemo, feel horrible, go visit friends . . . . You know, as the shampoo bottle says, lather, rinse, repeat. That is not how chemo worked for me.

2) I thought I would do my five months and the experience would be over. It was not. 

As many of you know, cancer is what brings us to the doctor’s office but, for many of us, it is the side effects of the drugs that keep us coming back. 

I have found myself disabled in a variety of ways for two solid years. I should have been out and about months ago but, although my cancer responded well to the treatment, my body did not. It has been a long haul. I have declared my period of physical limitations over before and found I was mistaken. Nonetheless, as I approach the two year anniversary of my diagnosis, I am declaring my restricted lifestyle over once again. 

I feel silly complaining because I realize many have worse side-effects for a much longer time—all the while trying to maintain a full-time job and raise a family. The timing was lucky for me. I just had to worry about myself.

People often ask what I learned from a bout with cancer. My standard reply is I discovered that either I have an incredibly positive attitude or I am the dumbest person on earth. Possibly both. Turns out I am an optimist. No one was more surprised than I was. 

Maybe I am more of a pragmatist than an optimist. Many people have grown to hate the phrase “it is what it is.” But you know what? It is what it is. I don’t think about cancer very often. I am forced to think about the treatment. 

Anti-cancer drugs inflict indignities on a body that I could not have imagined but don’t ask me to list them. As the side-effects fade from my body, they also fade from my memory. Turns out there is a whole world out there beyond the hospital grounds.

I saw an old New Yorker cartoon where the doctor tells the patient that, excuse the paraphrase, I can cure your back problem but you might find yourself with nothing to talk about. I can’t wait.

As I approach my two year anniversary, I will try to record some more thoughts. With any luck, I will be able to look back at my notes with surprise. All that happened? It was so long ago, I barely remember.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Newspapers & Breaking News

There was a time if you saw “Breaking News” flash across your television screen, the words meant hold onto your hat. Something big has happened. Think Kennedy assassination. The first one. Disrupting American life in the middle of the afternoon. JFK’s death in 1963 was my introduction to breaking news and that news came via television. I had no smart phone to receive the information. No one did. Big stories broke on television.

During the weekend of the Kennedy assassination, people would turn away from their TVs to pour over print coverage. Newspapers retained an important position in the dissemination of information, but movies no longer included montages of bundles of papers with huge headlines being thrown from the back of a truck to a waiting public. More likely, a movie included a scene where crowds gathered outside a shop window to watch a television report. As the years went on, newspapers shared their role as town crier with television news.  

As a kid who never lived in a house without a TV, I only recall getting breaking news via newspaper on two occasions. 

The last time was when Princess Diana died in 1997. That happened because I was visiting friends whose copies of the New York Times and the Washington Post arrived before they turned on their TV. Once we saw the headlines, we gathered around the television. 

The only other event I learned about through a newspaper was the explosion of the Challenger.

In 1986, I was in Hong Kong on a business trip on January 28th. I’d called our office shortly after 11am, New York time. Around 11:30 I hung up and basically collapsed into sleep. Less than ten minutes later, the Challenger blew up over Florida.

When I awoke in the morning, I stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom. My eyes were barely open but I saw, as usual, a newspaper had been slipped under my door. I glanced at it and kept going. After a few steps, I stopped. That headline was huge. Something had happened. I reversed direction and saw there was, in fact, breaking news. 

I remember that moment clearly. Yes, because of the tragedy. But, also because of the way I learned about it. I felt as if I’d traveled back into another era. Reacting to that headline—not sure if it said Challenger Disaster or Challenger Explodes—made me nostalgic for an era that my parents had lived through but I had only seen in movies.

I grew up with television but I loved newspapers. Still do. I know that online editions have made it possible to report breaking news twenty-four hours a day, but it isn’t the same. I could go on and on about how valuable back copies of newspapers are when trying to get a full picture of an era, but that is not what I am thinking about. I am not really thinking. I am feeling. I am feeling sentimental. And, in a strange way, grateful that I had an experience that was not of my time.

© 2024 Jane Kelly