October, 2007

"Place" has almost as many meanings in the English language as "set," another short word with a very long definition. This morning during water aerobics with a dozen other fitness seekers who were splashing ahead with "cross country skiing" movements and then backing up again my mind was on my place. We had followed the motions with a few pendulum swings and sidestep slides before our instructor told us to glide back to our favorite place.

We all crossed over, pushing the water ahead of us, weaving in and out of each other's way and planted ourselves in our usual place. We could place ourselves anywhere, actually; no assigned space here but we seemed to find ourselves each day where we exercised the day before. I was in my place. It was my comfort zone.

With arms akimbo and legs gliding forward and back to the count of eight before switching, I thought of my place, actually, my places. When I was thirteen, each summer evening after dinner my place was with the neighborhood kids on the corner under the streetlight, occasionally carving initials in the telephone pole. We'd poke a pencil-sized hole big enough for a firecracker to fit, light it, and - k-a-a-a-Boom! (Warning: Don't try this at home.)

That place was not too different from the modern-day water cooler where people meet and greet and share opinions, tell stories, and comment on television shows. No, not too different, except ours were radio shows. Most of all, we'd laugh.

"Were you listening when the Bob Hope Show was cut off the air?"

"No. What did he say?"

We were all ears. "Well, a guy at the gym asked Hope how long he had been wearing a girdle."

Hope answered: "Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment," and the radio went dead.

We laughed, tittered, actually. We were so innocent and the remark was so racy. We were coming of age.

We were young, we were safe during those war years on the home front, we would play hide and seek, and guessing games, we spent an hour or two in that memorable place before one by one a mother would call us in. Oh, but not mine: My mother knew I'd go in as soon as the last one there was called.

"I don't worry about Connie," my mother would say. "She'll come home when the last dog dies." That's probably true of me today; as long as there is laughter and socializing, I'll stay. That's an example of another old bromide: "as the twig is bent so grows the tree."

After a summer or two later, my place was Harry's Ice-cream Parlor in Jackson Heights. Half way between home and high school we would meet. The hide and seek games were all outgrown and so we sat, talked, laughed, ridiculed and praised each other with warmth and understanding none of us could count on at home. We were teenagers in our place. We were in our comfort zone.

We learned about our place in the world whether in a movie theater, "mind my place," or on the subway, "I'll stand, there is no place to sit," or at a dinner table: "you're in my place, I was here first." In classrooms, "you're in the wrong place." The teacher says: "Take your places."

"Someone ought to put him in his place."

We say that and it usually means to humble "him" because of his arrogance. But do we know where his place is? Would he know? We do know exactly what we mean and anyone who knows him hears us. Is there a place somewhere that people taken down a peg can find a place of their own? A comfort zone?

Is there life after high school? I've heard those four years are the most memorable for all of us. We had a sense of being. We finally knew who we were if we didn't quite yet know where we were going.

We were comfortable and for most of us we had "places" within the "place" which was our comfort zone. We had each other and still we were welcomed without each other in different places. One would be in the drama club, another on the volleyball team; one would study French and be welcomed in the French Society while another was editing the school newspaper.

No problem; after school we'd still meet at Harry's. All the individual places we may have scattered to and from, waving to each other in the halls, between 8:00 and 3:00 gave over to the back booth where any spare nickels we had would feed the jukebox. This was before the advent of television so we argued back and forth with Johnny Ray's "Cry" blaring out.

"Did you know he's blind?" Bobby would say.

"No, dimwit, he's deaf."

Back and forth it went until we finally found out he was deaf, not blind.

The argument ended with, "No wonder he can't carry a tune."

That certainly is not a conversation to record for all ages but I'll add I don't recall ever being sad or angry when I was at Harry's. Jealous at times? Yes, I'll own up to that. During those years we're always with someone prettier, smarter, richer and more popular. Not all in one person, but spread around among us all. And then we learn those very persons have insecurities themselves and often they turn out to be the kindest friends of all.

When we learn that, we grow up and find our places in the world.

Knowing your place and knowing someone else's place - and then learning to place yourself in their place, is really the spirit of the Golden Rule.

   

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