Telephone Numbers, Xpanders, Fire Trucks, and Memorial Day Parades: Swirling Down an Internet Rabbit Hole

The other day I found myself wandering around at the bottom of a rabbit hole of my own doing (I suppose all internet rabbit hole journeys are self-assigned…). I was working on my latest project for Winterthur when I stumbled upon an alphanumeric phone number, that is, a number old enough that it begins with letters instead of numerals.  Does anyone remember them?

I was at once reminded that the earliest of our family phone numbers I can remember as a kid in Hopewell, NJ also began with letters.  But since I couldn’t remember the specific number, I decided to try and find it online. A few libraries in NJ have old telephone directories for Hopewell, including from the early 1960s when (1) phone numbers began with letters and (b) we lived in Hopewell (and would be in the book), but they are only available in print in the libraries. No help there.

I decided to check out the copious resources available on the website of the Hopewell Valley History Project.  I sorted their digital collection by date and looked in the vicinity of 1960.  I didn’t find a phone directory, but I did find a resource that gave me the answer!  It was a 52-page book celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of the Hopewell Fire Department.

My father was a member of the fire department in those years and I remember having this publication in our house up on the hill.  I loved leafing through it when I was a kid looking at the pictures of the fire trucks. 

 

 

Anyway, I searched the document using my last name as the search term and BINGO!  My dad and his business partner Sal Taormina had taken out an advertisement for Xpanders, their home improvement contracting business – WITH phone numbers.  You can see our number in the advertisement.

 

That's right, our number was HO 6-0502, short for HOpewell 6-0502.  Here's another Xpanders relic, a sticker Dad and Sal had made to advertise the business.

 

This is the first time in at least 55 years that I've looked through this book, what else can I find?

For one thing, I was reminded that Dad participated in preparations for the 50th anniversary as a member of the Decorations and Stands Construction Committee.  Makes sense.

 

I also found a photo that  reminded me that one year I rode in the Hopewell Memorial Day parade in the front passenger seat of this fire truck:

This photo is from the bottom of page 13 (the document itself has no page numbers – look on p. 13 of the PDF) – a late 1940s (probably 1947 or 1948) American LaFrance pumper.  The parade must have been prior to 1966, because the parade route we followed while I was riding shot gun in this swanky fire truck was the one that snaked through town when the American Legion hall was still on Mercer Street.  (If I recall correctly, this route went past all the cemeteries in town.)  When the Legion moved to Van Dyke Road, the parade route was basically a straight shot up Broad Street from east to west and out to Van Dyke Road before ending at the Legion Hall. 

I also recall being a little leery about being a passenger in a big fire truck being driven by a man who, while in reality was probably in his 60s or early 70s, seemed to the very young me at the time to be about 150 years old.  I recall coming down off the railroad bridge on Greenwood Ave past Jimmy Hall's and hoping he would be able to get us all the way to the end of the parade. Spoiler Alert:  We made it just fine.

I wonder what photos of the Hopewell Memorial Day parade I might find on the Hopewell Valley History Project?  Although none of me in the fire truck nor of me marching with my Cub Scout Pack dressed as a minuteman, but I did find this one:

And this brings me back to Xpanders, in a way.  But first, older Hopewellians will know where this photo was taken.  The same place I described above when I was in the old fire truck and wondered about the potential of the driver to make it to the end of the parade route.  The airplane is about to bank to the right and fly down Model Avenue.

Anyway, the workshop for Xpanders was located in one of the barns on my grandparents’ farm, adjacent to our property (the house on the hill).  I don't recall what civic group this float represented in the parade, but Dad was a member of the Jaycees, so perhaps it was them.  At any rate, this airplane was built in the Xpanders shop in my grandparents barn.  I don't know who helped him build it, but I'm confident it was a group effort and that Black Label beer was involved (his preferred brand before discovering Gablingers).  I recall the fuselage before the fabric was stretched over it and I remember having fun sitting in the cockpit.  I also have vague memories that after this parade, the plane came back to the shop where it festered and fermented before being consumed by age and neglect.  But I may have this wrong.

I'm not sure if that's Dad driving the Wheel Horse tractor or if it was even our tractor, but we did have one, several actually.  This photo is a little older and the tractor has different rear tires.  But notice the Black Label can in the lower left.

 

 

And with that, I'll climb out of this rabbit hole and get on with the day.  If you have questions, give me a call - HO 6-0502, that's HOpewell 6-0502.  I'll pick up.

 

Until next time...

On an Interesting Confluence of Two of my Passions

Two passions of mine include music and the written word.  I love to listen to, think about, talk about, and make the former.  And I love to read and write the latter.  In fact, when I retired a few years ago, I pledged to myself to try to do four things everyday:  Listen to music, make music, read, and write.  Not a day goes by without me doing at least two of these things. Adding a third is quite easy, and doing all four is hardly ever out of reach. 

 

My activities in retirement help.  I volunteer in the library at Winterthur where I get to engage in some serious scholarship in the form of historical and genealogical research and writing on new acquisitions by the library.  And my ushering gig at The Grand and The Playhouse on Rodney Square enables me to see lots of live music for free.

 

My two passions sometimes converge, but generally only in one direction, oddly enough.  I do like to keep the Facebook nation apprised of new music that moves me, older music that I can’t believe I’ve missed, or interesting podcasts that lure me down musical rabbit holes that lead to even more new music that moves me or old music I can’t believe I’ve missed.  But that writing is nothing more than frivolity, not the more serious stuff I did during my career or what I’m doing now at Winterthur.   

 

And I have this old blog about music which is semi-comatose at the moment.  You’re on your own to find that one.  These are also idle thoughts and fluff; best avoided. 

 

Interestingly enough, I rarely read books about music, at least non-fiction works.  More than a decade ago, I almost finished Ted Gioia’s Delta Blues – the Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters who Revolutionized American Music.  And I have an old copy of What to Listen to in Music by Aaron Copland (1957) that has been waiting for three years to be read.

 

About ten years before I retired, I moved (almost) exclusively to fiction…on purpose.  There are too many good novels to read, and I don’t have the time anymore to mess around with all that non-fiction (except the odd Erik Larson or David McCullough).  So, if I read a book about music, it is purely coincidental.

 

This week, one such coincidence occurred when I picked up a copy of Mitch Albom’s The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.  I finished it this morning.  It was a very good read.  The book tells the story of a musical prodigy born in Spain in the mid-1930s.  I’ll leave it to you to learn more about the plot.  Go to Goodreads.com, if you want.  Or your favorite website about books.  Or just read the book.

 

 

The book is narrated by Music.  That’s right, some sort of ethereal personification of music.  Aside from telling Frankie’s story, Music shares many insights about music as an art form that has been pursued by humans for as long as humans have been pursuing things.  Two of them caused me to need to pause my reading so I could give them further consideration.

 

Early in the book, Music helps us understand his role – bestowing musical talent on humans, but such that some get more of it than others.  The book opens at Frankie’s funeral with Music there to collect Frankie’s vast talent so it can be re-distributed to newborns in some reincarnation-like fashion. 

 

How you ask?  Here’s a passage from page 2 of the book,

 

Of course, some of you get more of me than others. Bach, Mozart, Jobim, Louis Armstrong, Eric Clapton, Philip Glass, Prince – to name but a few of your time. In each of their cases, I felt their tiny hands at birth, reaching out, grabbing me. I will share a secret: this is how talents are bestowed. Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing. Those talents are with them for life. The lucky ones (well, in my opinion, the lucky ones) choose me. Music. From that point on, I live inside your every hum and whistle, every pluck of a string or plink of a piano key.

 

I cannot keep you alive. I lack such power.

 

But I infuse you.

 

Wow…

 

Frankie grabbed a lot of it when he was born in Spain in the mid-1930s.  Read the book to find out what he did with all he grabbed, you won’t be sorry, especially if you feel you grabbed any at your own birth.

 

The other thing that caused me to pause was this passage from Music on p. 267.  It captures something I’ve long believed but struggled to put in words.

 

What would you give to remember everything? I have this power. I absorb your memories; when you hear me, you relive them. A first dance. A wedding. The song that played when you got the big news. No other talent gives your life a soundtrack. I am Music. I mark time.

 

I don’t know what color Music is, but that seems to be the color I also grabbed.  I didn’t grab much of it, mind you, to be honest.  Not enough to be wildly and naturally talented.  Not enough to have made a career of it in performance or teaching.  But enough so that it has been able to provide a stabilizing force through all the chapters, er, movements of my life; I am gratified and grounded by music every day.  As I am sure Music knows, I am infused by it and my time is marked by it.

 

I found this book to be very gratifying.  Not as much for the fictional tale of Frankie’s life which, don’t get me wrong, is very good.  No, as I mentioned, I was more gratified by the insights from Music and how they explained so much about me.

 

And now, I need to get ready for a show at The Grand – Joe Jackson and his 100+ year old alter ago, Max Champion.

 

Until next time...