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| Ubiquitous Pinocchio |
The new issue of Uncle Jam now is online here:
http://issuu.com/wingedtiger/docs/unclejam_105
This particular issue contains my two of my stories:
"Revisiting Lisa See," and "March Madness: An Italian Getaway."
I began to write for this arts magazine back in the late '70s, not long after finishing my MSW program at UCLA. I've written in a previous issue how I became involved with the publication and the role it's played in my life.
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| First Venetian gondola ride for me |
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| Lisa See, San Pedro, May 2015 |
Connecting at the
Cobblestone
“There was a definite
process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them
and listening to them for hours at a time.” –Rebecca West
I’d never felt so totally alone. I wasn’t stranded at one of
the Poles, nor on a Pacific atoll. No, I lived in a densely populated area, Los Angeles County. Still I felt like the Ancient
Mariner surrounded by plenty of water, but with nary a drop to drink. People
crowded my life. People everywhere, but nary an ear to listen…nor a heart to
open.
My husband rarely had a minute to spare. He worked a 10-hour,
four-day week. We had different days off. He devoted his spare time to 12-step
work with recovering patients at the hospital where he’d found sobriety. I’d always
be welcome to accompany him, but I’d wearied of hearing about sad struggles, no
matter how courageous they might be.
I heard enough harrowing tales at work. After earning an MSW
at UCLA, I was employed as a psychiatric social worker at Los Angeles County’s
residential center for abused and neglected children who awaited placement. Because
of our mutual concerns about the children’s welfare, my colleagues and I mostly
exchanged practical suggestions and words of encouragement. Our clients’ issues
were so critical that taking time to discuss the new Indiana Jones flick or the
latest Eagles recording would have seemed frivolous.
Beyond greeting neighbors in the lobby of our condominium, I
didn’t socialize with others in the building. Most were elderly retirees living
on limited incomes, who mainly seemed concerned with condo rules and regulations.
Even my son, who’d always been good for a chat about
Shakespeare or a meteor shower, was a college junior, working nights as a copy
boy at the local daily. Where we’d once chuckled together at the televised
antics of Mary Richards or Mary Hartman, we now dropped hurried notes for one another
on the kitchen counter.
One afternoon when I stopped by for a bouquet at my favorite
florist, I picked up a copy of Uncle Jam.
A sprightly tabloid, the free paper carried articles about authors and artists,
travel and the environment, all illustrated with wildly innovative drawings,
many by its publisher, graphic artist Phil Yeh, who owned the Cobblestone
Gallery.
I hadn’t seen this paper before, but when I’d finished reading
it I wondered if the publisher would be interested in anything I could
contribute. A writer since childhood and a former journalism teacher, I hadn’t
been writing lately. Maybe if I started to write again, I’d feel less alone. I
stopped by the Cobblestone Gallery to inquire. I might as well have been Alice, tumbling down the
rabbit hole into Wonderland. That’s how much my world changed.
“What would you like to write about?” Phil asked.
“Health, psychology, social issues, travel, literature?”
“Great,” he said. “You’ll be our social welfare editor.” Phil
assigned titles to anyone willing to help with the paper. One fellow who’d
ducked in from an adjacent bus stop to escape a rainstorm became the letters
editor.
Uncle Jam didn’t
have deadlines or assigned word lengths, or even regular publication dates.
Instead, it appeared at irregular intervals. “We publish whenever we have
enough people in one room to do it,” Phil claimed.
“Why are you hanging out with those guys?” my son asked.
“They’re closer to my age than to yours.”
Two decades difference might have seemed an insurmountable
divide to my son at that time, since he hadn’t yet inched very far into his
twenties. But in my forties I no longer considered age as a determinant in
making friends. I needed some, and age didn’t matter one whit.
One such new friend was a musician, Chris Statler, who’d
been writing movie reviews. He and I teamed to cover a Grand Prix wet T-shirt
contest on the Queen Mary. We wrote about what it’s like to float in a sensory
deprivation tank, and why listening to the Beatles tribute band, Rain, differed
from hearing the Fab Four themselves.
I sought new adventures, to ensure I’d have something to
write about before the next issue went to press, whenever that might be. I
enrolled in a series of aerobic dancing classes, and ventured forth on a
Phillip Marlowe tour of downtown Los Angeles and
Santa Monica, sponsored by a San
Fernando Valley mystery bookstore. I wrote about both.
I interviewed the late Aldous Huxley's spouse, Laura, about
her Project Caress. I attended novelist Carolyn See's literary conferences at
Loyola Marymount where I interviewed such writers as Herbert Gold, A. Scott
Berg and Alice Adams. I wrote about New Year's Eve in Times
Square, seeing in the '80s. I covered my first trip to England,
where I encountered the ghost of Dr. Samuel Johnson.
And I started to hang out with Julie Ahlers, the paper’s ad
manager. We bonded nearly instantly. I hadn’t had such a close girlfriend since
high school. Julie and I would phone one another daily or meet for a glass of
wine at the Paradise Cafe. We had so much to confide. We would sit and stare at
one another, breathing heavily, until one or the other said, “OK, you go
first!”
Julie’s confidences involved adventures selling
advertisements, tangled romantic attachments, and family problems typical of a
young woman seeking independence. Mine centered on my growing awareness that my
marriage was on the verge of collapse.
Eventually I did divorce, but my Cobblestone friends helped
me through the transition, with open ears, open arms and open hearts. We
created, and we chattered. We waited until midnight at the gallery for a truck
to deliver the latest issue, and then headed for Mom’s to celebrate with a
glass or wine or a cup of coffee. We’d stage afterhours parties in the back of
the gallery, where noted Conan the Barbarian cartoonist Alfredo Alcala would do
pencil drawings of all the girls on paper plates. Greeting card artist Flavia,
would drop in from time to time, and we’d volunteer suggestions for cards we’d
like her to attempt.
But we also worked…and worked into the midnight hours, as
well. I remember waiting with Janet Valentine for Greg Rickman’s voluminous
latest installment on his series of interviews with Philip K. Dick. Rickman
would rush in the door at 9:30 the night before the paper was due to go to
print. Janet Valentine and I would hunch over the copy, editing until the wee
small hours.
In 1987 I joined the Peace Corps and was gone for a decade.
Most of the Cobblestone gang eventually drifted away from Long Beach, but still kept in intermittent
touch. Each time I visit Southern California,
for instance, I get together with Chris at a used book store he’s managed for
decades. We talk about the old days and what we’re writing now.
Several years ago I had to go to Virginia for a conference. Julie, who lived
not far from Williamsburg,
drove over to meet me for dinner, and we revisited “you go first.” Julie, married
and then divorced, children grown, was about to remarry. I’d remarried and then
became a widow. Through all the changes we remain connected by heartstrings. Even
now I carry a plastic unicorn key ring she gave me for my birthday in l987,
right before I went overseas with the Peace Corps.
Not long ago, Phil resurrected Uncle Jam as a glossy full-color quarterly. I rejoined the crowd,
contributing such pieces as how I prepared to attend the University
of Cambridge International Summer School,
my conversation with Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, and,
for a celebratory 100th issue, why I love to sip cider in Somerset.
Thirty plus years down the line, we’re all reconnected on Facebook. Recently
Phil posted a message on my wall to let me know that the next Uncle Jam
would be devoted to the new science fiction subgenre, steampunk. Would I write
about its roots in Victorian literature? Sure. So I revisited H. G. Wells, full
steam ahead. Maybe Chris would be interested in collaborating again soon.
Everything old is new again.
Just as that Ancient Mariner found “goodly company” with a wedding
guest, I found it with the Cobblestone crowd. It’s still Wonderland. We create,
chatter and…connect. We’re forever friends.
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