Tradition

Tradition

Decades ago, I and a few friends arrived for a Holiday dinner at the iconic Chicago restaurant, The Pump Room.  Our table was not yet ready so we had to wait, but the establishment seated us at the bar where we could enjoy a chanteuse, and a small plate of French fries and a flute of Champagne they gave each of us. Not only was this a gracious gesture, but that particular combination was inspired. These disparate things are made to be together, perfectly.  That time and taste made an impression on me that was to spawn a Christmas tradition that has twined generations.

In the 90’s, a  friendship with train commute buddy Mike and his wife Petra led to my invitation to their home for Christmas tree trim with  their family. We were having red wine as I remarked of my Pump Room experience.  It sparkled. We decided the next year that is what we would do at tree trim.  It became the year after, and year after that, and so on. Years passed.

The family grew up and moved to their dream log home in Woodstock.  Our annual ceremony prevailed: Tree trim, Champagne, and homemade fries.

More years and the Children married and all the family moved to Colorado with their own homes and families.  But the tradition stayed with them all.  Every year I hear from Mike and Petra, and now Michelle and Andrew, and Tim and Gianna.  Each year’s trees are trimmed with a lasting memory of me as they mark the occasion with Champagne and French fries.

This year I just got a video message from Tim and Gianna’s  young son  Tyler alongside their daughter seated at a table with a newly cut tree standing in the background, waiting.  They had paused to send me a message,

“Hi, we want to tell you we are having Champagne (sparkling grape juice) and fries putting stuff on the tree. Thank you for starting this. We love you Uncle Jerry.”

I melted.

My Carved Lava Haumea, Hawaiian Fertility Goddess

Dior "Idol" Stilletos

It has brought to my attention that perhaps I was disparaging local culture in my depiction of the Dior “Idol” shoe with carved lava Fertility Goddess.

Oh No, nothing could be further than the truth. I do have  a treasured carved lava Fertility Goddess of my very own, and could have had a lot more, but further on that later.

My Goddess was made at a time when starchy Poi was more a mealtime choice than the currently popular fruit salad plate.  My Haumea is a bit more corpulent. 

Hawaiian lava is quite hard and brittle making it difficult to cut and carve without breaking. I learned this watching a young group of native Hawaiians carving the stone, called “fountain rock” at the Polynesian Cultural center on Oahu.  I found these dedicated young men worked long hours for low pay keeping the tourists supplied with this unique island token.  They would finish their long days with hands so tired and sore they were barely able to hold a soft banana. 

"Mano Kana", center

Being a creature of empathy I offered to message their aching hands as a cross cultural inroad, and often met with willing affirmation. I would accompany these carvers home to their modest dwellings.  It turned out that holding a banana wasn’t the only need of these virile young men.  The production quotas and demanding “Luna’s”  (Hawaiian for boss)  caused a great deal of built up tension and anxiety in which  lending my helping hands could also be of use .  Needless to say my healing and focused message made for a lot of gratitude, thankfulness for healing release.  Their loud and joyous cries were noticed, word got around, and, in my island visits I became very popular for requests of my ministrations. 

Now perhaps The Fertility Goddess didn’t have any direct affect on me, but I can confidently say it did on many of her idol creators.  Who knows, my “hand intensive” help could have even had a minor affect on island overpopulation. Of course in a very small way.  But it was not for any lack of zeal that I undertook my mission in earnest, so much so that on many occasions , my helpful visits were so well received that I not only got great joyous cries of thanks but many, many offers of a treasured gift of their craft. Not being one to take food out of a young mouth I turned all these Fertility Goddess” statue offers graciously down.

Haumea

That is all except for one.  Mano Kana (namesake of “The passionate long roped God”) was such a gift to Hawaiian manhood that I gave much more of myself than usual. He was more than grateful on many occasions in my island visits over the years.  Many times his hands were so sore and useless I had to spend extended time with him.  Often, this time with him ended with his being so relaxed he would fall asleep as I watched his beatific smile.  He was exceedingly grateful and offered me a sample of his carving. That one time I accepted, more as a remembrance of times shared .

Some say it was a wonderful thing I did eliciting Hawaiian love and cultural understanding.  Perhaps, after all, there is something to the Lava Fertility Goddess.

LONO

Haumea, honey, you may have facilitated a lot of love and attention from me .  Oh course, in my case, perhaps I should more thankful to “Lono,”  Haumea’s male equivalent .

In Ten Lines

A face

caught half

in shadow

and light…

Only partial story told

or enigma of beguiling mystery?

Hidden flaws or furtive flirtation,

half full or half empty?

The mystery is a book

 written here in ten lines.

- Jerry Wendt 2016

Ribs For Dinner

Ribs for Dinner  

Case makes the best ribs.

We just sat down to eat
at our stationhouse,
67^th and Jeffrey-
when we got a still call, 2-11.
Three story tenement on Englewood,
probably a bed smoker.
So it’s gear ourselves up and ride the pumper engine down,
hose up to a hydrant, and lil Joey got three lines going out on full
with aspirated stream nozzles to drench and quench.
Fire broke on the 3^rd floor of the 16 unit frame,
14 units occupied; 13 out, accounted for and safe.
Chief wants a crew to go in for a looksee at 2^nd floor rear to
scope anyone trapped in that last apartment.
So Max, Jim Johnny and I suited up heavy duty, put on smoke masks
and went in.
Even without the fire heat it’s 92 outside
and with those suits felt like over 120
We found the unit and it’s empty so we tracked back out
until a portion of the roof by the stairway collapsed between
Jim and Johnny, separating Max and Jim from us and blocking their exitway
We’re out.  Big-time worry about the guys inside.
We did hear the last tenants have been located. They made it out O.K.
Now it’s just our own and it seems forever with no news.
We were still working the pumper hoses when we hear on the talkie,
Max and Jim got out the rear.
Wow; relief . . . until we also heard a
sniper, probably a neighborhood banger,
shot Jimmy .
Caught him in the spine.
The second paramedic squad reported  he’s outbound to Holy Cross.
That’s pretty much the fire story.
It took 4 more hours in that heat to get it put out
and social services was there helping find
shelter for the residents.
Back at the stationhouse we got word Jimmy is critical but O.K.
He will walk but not be back for a long time.
Case reheated the ribs for our wee hour’s dinner.
They didn’t taste as good as they usually do.  

                                             -Jerry Wendt 2016

Christmas Skates

Christmas Skates

I wanted skates for Christmas.                                  

Figure skates.
He wouldn’t hear of it.
I got hockey skates.
I loved skating,
the warming shed,
and the laughter-
even the sounds of the ice.
So I went.
But still today
watching figure skating on television,
I always remember
how I hated those damn black and brown hockey skates.

-Jerry Wendt 2009

Nine Eleven

Acrid smoke fills my lungs;                                   

it tastes of kerosene.

My computer has no power

and the phones are without signal or jammed.

Lord, lead me home.

I consider my options,

I think of family to prevent panic.

Up is fire and darkness,

down is 55 levels; no stairs or elevators.

Lord, lead me home

All around I feel the heat consume.

Through the shattered window

I can lean out to see confusion below;

Firemen coming,  people fleeing.

Lord, lead me home

I think of dying burned alive

and futility of any rescue.

My  choices have dwindled,

my destiny confronts.

Lord, lead me home

I Remember

I Remember

- photo by James Gavin on Fire Island,  June 2016

Following high school graduation,

my  classmate Bob Behling

took his movie star looks

to a modeling job in Greece

where a swarthy pickup from an Athens gay bar

mugged and knifed him to death.

I remember.

From an open shower in our basement apartment

naked  roommate Joe baited me

until I admitted that, yes, I “liked it.”

He launched into a rage

deriding and beating me with his fists.

He was suspended and I left school forever.

I remember.

Left as a living scarecrow

tied to a fence in Laramie Wyoming

Matthew Shepard died at the

hands of torture and beating

by two gay pretenders whose hatred

turned robbery into murdering rage

I remember

So many memorials

left us to deal with an ignorance

telling us it was all divine justice,

this horrid ugly deathly AIDS left

kindred survivors sad , alone, and shamed

as community turned its back and shunned us.

I remember

My dear friend Frank DiCecco was a college professor

who built a harpsichord, grew prize orchids

and who , in a sterile call from a Chicago precinct Captain,

I learned was bludgeoned to death with a ball peen hammer

by a tenant who simply  did not like

his “Alternative Lifestyle.”

I remember.

Now I have 49 more hapless fallen

added to my list of memories,

soullessly murdered in Orlando

losing pulse to a psychopath

who could not deal with

his own sexuality.

You can bury all the bodies,

but not the memory .

-Jerry Wendt 2016

Those Ropes

Going to young friend Jair’s graduation being held tonight in the Fieldhouse of my Alma Mater, Crystal Lake Central High School, reminds me of the last time I was in that facility 54 years ago. As senior men, we were told we had to pass a physical proficiency test in order to graduate.  Back then we took any word from faculty as truth, so there I stood in that fieldhouse, a trembling shell.  Physical anything was not a skill. It was avoidance therapy for me.  Thin as I was, I had no core strength.

First up was a run twice around the fieldhouse.  It was supposed to be timed, but I took so much time they just marked me “passed.”  Then I got yelled at for trying to maximize some rest time at the water fountain.  Darn.

OK then, next was pushups: Twenty , no rest . My pal Powers McGuire had pissed me off using the excuse he had a bad heart.  The teacher- I still remember his name, Roy Nystrom- told him to do them anyway. “Muley,” Powers’ nickname, did two and collapsed in a fake heart attack.  He got passed  but now I had no excuse as he had already taken my planned one.  I did my twenty and it was more than once I got yelled at again for resting my stomach on the floor. But I did do them. (sort of- the floor under my stomach was polished very clean) Finally. Passed.

Now, the dreaded ropes.  They hung ominous and large from the ceiling.  I  really  had nothing against the ropes themselves as they provided me great pleasure watching the gymnast muscles flex as they pulled themselves up as we gym wimps played volleyball. But now it was my turn to climb. Oh Geez. I grasped the rope.  I pulled, wishing the rope would detach from its ceiling mooring.  Nothing,  the rope stayed and so did my feet- on the ground.  Nystrom bellowed “Pull, Wendt, Pull: get yourself up there. Wrap your legs around the rope and anchor your ankles. Use them to push.”  Hah. I wrapped my legs around, the rope swayed and down I fell on my bum.  “ Get back up there, Wendt, I want to see some effort,” the coach yelled.

I sweated. That was showing effort, right?  Evidently, not enough.  I knew it wasn’t going to happen so I just stood there holding that rope, wishing maybe there would be a fire, a tornado; something .  I was not going to cry, dammit.

Nystrom yelled at me, “ If you don’t climb, you will NOT graduate,”   Yikes, that motivated me to speak in terror, “ You mean I’ll have to try to do this again next year? ”

Unknowlingly, it was the perfect thing to say.  The light went on in  Nystrom’s brain ; wheels furiously turned.  “Repeat? Him- in my class, again?”

“Wendt, you pass, now get out of here.. . Next !”

There must be a Jesus I thought as I exited that facility, not even stopping at the water fountain.  In June, at graduation, I could not stop glimpsing across the court to the conditioning area and those ropes.  I wonder if they still hang there. I’ll be looking yet again tonight.

Mom Was There

This kid loved to run,

but gravel and asphalt were not kind,

and I went down often.

Bloodied knees, scuffed chin, and injured hands

were left to Band-aids to cover,

while  for my spirit

Mom was there.

Dressed in adult armor,

my tuxedo jacket as white as my face,

I all but crushed the corsage box in anxiety,

preparing to meet her parents.

Out with our car and the girl together

for an eternity of trying to say the right thing.

I knew however prom would go,

coming home, all ears to my adventure,

Mom was there.

That first day of school,

oh, not that earlier one where

memory had graciously slipped away,

but this was college, away from home alone.

More than just a school transition,

this was a “no going back” dive

into life in a big new pond,

a frightening ‘gigantor’ where my only reassurance was

Mom was there

Mid thirties arrived

with conviction and shaky resolve

that my most-loved needed telling

there would never be grandchildren.

I sat her down in front of me

and, with core deep fear and sweating hands, my words spilled out

“I am gay.”

With  unwavering acceptance and love,

Mom was there

I hovered bedside

at the nursing home,

she speechless due to stroke,

her hand relaxed and released mine,

and, just like that

Mom wasn’t there.

Mom

Jerry's Mango Cheesecake

Jerry’s Mango Cheesecake Recipe

Posted per request for Caribbean recipes. Prep time includes standing time and cooling time (5 hours).Recipe source: Turtle Bay Cookbook with modifications by Jerry

6¾ hours | 5½ hours prep

1 10 inch cake
· 1  cup chocolate wafers; crumbled crumbs
· 1/2 cup chopped unsalted macadamia nuts
· 1/4 cup brown sugar
· 3 tablespoons butter
· 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
· 1 cup sugar
· 1 1/2 cups sour cream
· 4 eggs
· 1 1/2 cups mango puree (made from ripe mangoes or use thawed frozen mangoes)
- 1/4 cup Rumona liquor or Jumbie Rum Liquor
· 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
· 1 teaspoonlemon juice
· 1 1/2 cups sour cream
· 1/2 cup sugar
· 2 tablespoons apricot jam
· 2 tablespoons corn syrup
· 1 teaspoon lime juice
· 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

PREP
1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Butter a 10-inch springform pan and set aside.
3. Combine first 3 ingredients (graham cracker crumbs- sugar) in a small bowl.
4. Stir in melted butter.
5. Press mixture into prepared pan.
    bake the crust in the springform pan at 300 degrees for 8 minutes
    let cool before adding cake batter.  The nuts can burn quickly so watch this bake carefully.
6. Combine cream cheese and sugar in a food processor or blender; process until combined.
7. Add sour cream, eggs, mango puree, liquor (Rumona or Jumbie), vanilla and lemon juice; process using on/off turns until combined.
8. Pour mixture into prepared crust.
9. Bake for 1 hour or until set. ( I added 13 minutes to bake)
10. Let cheesecake cool for 1 1/2  hours.
11. While cheesecake is cooling prepare topping by combining sour cream and sugar in a food processor until combined.
12. Preheat oven to 350°F.
13. After cheesecake is at room temperature (1 1/2 hours cooling at room temperature), top cheesecake with topping.
14. Bake 8 minutes.
15. Remove from oven.
16. Chill for at least 4 hours.

Serving Sauce
2 mangos pureed with 1/4 cup Rumona or Jumbie
drizzle sauce on plate, serve with cake slice over

Unanswered Prayers

Unanswered Prayers

A pictureque faded red barn,

sun-stained and time faded,

 reposes amongst shady verdant poplars

with natty squawking chickens

running beneath,

chased by a ginger-haired boy

In riveted scuffed denim overalls,

in a cloud-studded breezy scene

encompassing a white clapboard

farm house festooned inside with

gingham on windows

that overlook vistas of tall corn tassels

with fat crows

roosting in field boundary bushes

to no notice of lazy cows

grazing in adjacent pastures.

All parts of a pastoral picture

on an old farm bureau calendar

tacked up on a grimy gray wall

inside a linoleum floor kitchen

part of a shack next to the coal fields

in rural Pennsylvania

where a work worn woman

in raggedy flowered chenille robe

irons her one “good” dress

which she will wear to her

only social outing at Church Sunday

where, amongst her too loud

“Hosannas’,” she will pray for a day

when that farm would be real.

                                                                                                       -Jerry Wendt 2016

Of Consequence

Flags flew full staff today. 
Here was no cortege,
nor muffled cannon barrage.
Flowers were omitted,
and no one wept,
for it was a box elder bug
that passed from this realm
in my bathroom
where it sought warmth on my floor.
A flailing of legs,
turning round and round in futility.
slowed to a halt.
A death-held carcass remained in front of me .
But this passing caused me pause,
as bigger part of a grand plan.
 Because I bore witness
and wrote this eulogy,
a commentary of  transition,
this hapless creature
that was not the less of myself,
and belonged as much as I ,
will realize profound legacy:

a life of notable consequence
within these lines.      

                                                                                                                Jerry Wendt 2016

Enigma

Enigma

( Finding God in a 1956 Buick)

Moist cool grass cradles me lying face up in shaded lawn spot on a hot summer day when a muted rumble, not a vibration as with oncoming train, rouses me from lazy contemplation of my mind’s formed personifications in puffy clouds above me. I sit upright.

 Here comes a looming large shiny black chariot, too grand to be called a car, dripping in chrome and presence, as it eases under boulevard canopy of dappled light to curbside in front of me, with just a muffled protest of white sidewall tires voicing a scuff against curb, gliding to placid halt.

Then silence. No movement.

Curious, I stand, and walk slowly toward this ominous arrival.  I see my reflection in opaque windows that prevent me from looking inside, even as I press very close.

Then, a whine, as glass recedes downward, releasing cool, conditioned air smelling of French lavender and freshly washed sheets from inside, into my flaring nostrils.  I am excited. What has this conveyance brought here?  A learned judge?  A celebrity?   A lost soul?  Curiosity leaps unbridled in my heart as I lean yet closer. 

Only one sits on the commodious leather rear seat, facing away.  I fully feel the coolness now. It is like viewing a sanctuary inside there. Calm and shaded and mysterious.

“May I help You?”  I implore, anxious to see what character has arrived in this magnificent sedan.

No response. No turn toward me.

I shudder. Goosebumps. What lies in store?  What does this being want of me? What is his purpose? I feel strange, but calmer now, as if a peace has shrouded me.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, this richly dressed, almost formally enrobed figure turns, and the face slides from veiled shadows into my view.

I am transfixed, startled, astounded. And scared shitless.

I am looking at myself. It is my own countenance gazing back at me. It is I.   How can this be? 

Before I can rebound and formulate a question, there comes a smile from the “car me”

“No thank you, I am just looking,” comes in voice, or maybe a thought, or perhaps from intuition.

 I cannot discern if actual words were formed.  But I can feel the presence.  Whatever the format, the delivery came with a sense of omnipotence, of reassurance, of all-feeling, all-seeing.

Frozen, I watch the window rise with a soft whir and then a solid thud as it closes, again shutting me outside, alone, to ponder it all, as the car pulls from the curb to continue down the boulevard.

Shapes and light slide me back to the now. I am lying on the grass, looking up again at clouds.  Did I nod off? Was there ever a car?

Or did I gaze ever so briefly into God’s eyes?      

                                                                              - Jerry Wendt 2016

6 levels of Photoshop to portray this graphic of "God in a '56 Buick"

Lake Geneva memoir

In my early forties I used to really try to get off work in time for an earlier train to allow for a drive up to Lake Geneva for dinner with a small group of friends.  We generally would meet at either the venerable Shore Club on the Lake for fish fry or Fazio’s downtown where a former mob captain held court in a elaborate rococo Italian steak and pasta house. Dinner usually involved catching up on gossip or a discussion of what we would do later.

If we were at Shore Club one of the options involved going across the building to the lounge where a lesbian ( back then a masculine appearing lesbian was tagged a “bull dyke” or a “butch lezzie,” terms that are politically incorrect now, but then were always  used , even by lesbians themselves, with affection) presided at a piano bar. This lady had a extensive and bawdy repertoire masterful in double entendre that grew a substantial gay crowd. Her last performance every night would end with “God Save The Queens(s)” which caused a boisterous uproar amongst our group but was clueless to the straights in the audience.

Another option was Christopher’s.   Chris Brown and his Mom owned a large opulent home near downtown Lake Geneva.  Indulgent Mom allowed Chris to turn part into a gay watering hole.  He only could get a beer license meaning beer was all that could be sold. So Chris served Miller High Life, “The Champagne of bottled beer” as it was called.  And he did it in a very attractive setting.  His former parlor he transformed into a period French salon with velvet settees, potted Areca Palms, and a parquet floor he installed himself, as a replica of the one at Versailles Palace . Outside there was an expansive deck bar with tables and beautiful plantings under old maples surrounded by a trellised fence. It was every so elegant and a sure magnet for the community gay population especially since he installed Kyle, a “find” from one of his eastern seaboard excursions.  Kyle got a bed to share, a Jaguar, and the duties of bartender every weekend. He was very personable and very good looking, making the evenings there fun to watch as Kyle got hit on and Chris fumed and fussed over his infidelities.  A guaranteed “
hoot” we used to say.

Another of our regular choices was the Abbey Resort on the lake.  It attained popularity as a high-line tryst hotel for wealthy Chicagoans and the Lake Geneva yachters clan. But they had one waterside bar where one of our own played piano. Unlike the boisterous Shore Club lounge, The Abbey bar was quiet and romantic. If we wanted a “wind-down” evening, we went there.  In the Abbey the gift shop was owned and run by a friend, Roger Morbeck.  Roger would often come over to join us after he closed his store. 

On evening Roger brought along a friend, a fellow heir to one of the many Chicago potentates of commerce having summer mansions on the lake. Families like Wrigley of chewing gum fame or Swift of meat packing fortune renown.  His name forgotten, I do remember he was a personable fellow. He had a launch on the lake and invited us to his home for  a nightcap.  His parents were away in Germany on some business so he was left stateside in this humungous home. 

Off the pier into the home what stood out to me was a baronial great room with two stone fireplaces and a vaulted beamed ceiling. But more so, in this cavernous space there was a herd of about twenty sheep, so realistic, I was taken aback.  I thought they were a whimsical slant in so traditional a place. I later found they were limited edition 1986 Francois-Xavier Lalanne-designed model sheep. One of these sheep made in the early 80’s sold recently at Sotheby’s for $341,000 and a herd of ten auctioned out at Christies’s for $7.5 million dollars.  I never knew I was looking at such a frivolous fortune.

This is just an appetizer of the adventures in Lake Geneva.

Next up. Dana Montana, her downtown restaurant, the  notorius Sugar shack and her hunky gay son.

Then, the escapades of Robert Quinn, ex fire commissioner of Chicago, and a man with a penchant for S & M and bondage coupled with elegant dinner parties at his Wisconsin getaway. Notably an account of my  attendance one of his famous “yacht races” in the swimming pool

Oh , and I can't forget the saga of Delavan pal Dewey Long who sued and won his suit to work at Milwaukee's Ambrosia Candy Factory as the first male employee on the line. The story there is about the famous , or , rather,infamous, person who was the second male hired there. That is a chilling story, but you'll just have to wait.

Hero

A legend in his service,                 

He has vanquished untold enemies
to fall flaming from the firmament.

He knows not fear,

trusts in his steady hand on the trigger,
and spews trails of Hellfire across the blue.

He never swerves away,

from straight-on stalwart races
toward oncoming, strafing doom.

He is ever valiant in his quest to uphold

honor, freedom, and liberty,
from all oppressors in life.

He will forge justice from his blazing wings

and, after a rousing day of relentless battle,
a grateful nation will reward the returning hero

with milk and cookies before bed.

-Jerry Wendt 2016

Diversion

Scents of bleach                                                                 

carried by breezes,

from bed sheets

flouncing on clotheslines

propped above

a young boy,

mesmerized by an ant

crawling through a jungle

of new mown grass.

Connections to

his growing world,

interrupted

by Mom,

calling for a stop

to this dawdle.

“There’s work

to be done,

and the mower won’t

work by itself.”

- Jerry Wendt 2016