TIGERS RESCUED DETROIT, 1968

 

Not always easy to give time up for a documentary, but I liked this one, mostly just to see footage of Denny McLain pitching.  The documentary was referenced in this article.  In 1968, he went 31-6 and was the only pitcher since 1934 [a reference to Dizzy Dean of the Cardinals] to win 30 games in a season.  As stellar a season 1968 was for McLain, he lost 2 games in the '68 World Series to none other than Bob Gibson, 22-9 that year with a cool ERA of 1.12.  Talk about dominance.  Whenever I read that Gibson and the Cardinals were coming to LA to play the Dodgers, it didn't matter which pitcher Alston put up against him--Drysdale or Sutton or Osteen--Gibson's dominance never failed to cause me dread.  It's not like I ever saw televised games of the Tigers; it was more that I tracked McLain and the Tigers in the LA Times and the Herald Examiner.  At school, the magazine we seized in the library and shelled out $.75 for at liquor stores was Sports Illustrated.  On Denver road trips, I often paired SI with Mad Magazine for the 1,000-mile journey.  Loved Sports Illustrated; used to do their crossword puzzles.  Anyway, in 1968, McLain was this adolescent's hero.  

Didn't hurt to hear in the documentary some of my other favorite names growing up either, guys like Mickey Lolich, Norm Cash, and Al Kaline along with Willie Horton, whose slugging percentage ranked second in the American League behind Frank Howard's.  Where McLain went 31-6 that year, Lolich, no slouch himself, went 17-9 with a 3.19 ERA.  

I recall Dick McAuliffe too, who "tied a Major League record by going the entire 1968 season without grounding into a double play."  Anyway, thought you might enjoy the documentary.  

Audrey & Garrett on Willow Drive, Glendale, CA

 

This is certainly not the best picture I have, or maybe any member of the family has, of Audrey and Garrett's beautiful Spanish style Moorish home at 1726 Willow Drive in Glendale.  Gary passed in September 1985 at age 82; a year later, Audrey passed in April 1986 at age 78.  Their home was sold a year later in 1987.  I'd left UPS in 1986 and returned to school, starting at PCC.  It is funny about life.  Once you're out of a town or out of a circle of people, people forget about you.  But once you're in a new town, plant yourself into a new circle of folks, people want to start up with you, even start a life with you.  It is interesting. 

I wanted to write something about Audrey and Gary and their gorgeous home in Glendale, and how each was a gracious host to my dad, mom, and siblings.  

So many things to love about Audrey & Gary's home on Willow.  One, there was a basketball hoop with backboard nailed to a telephone pole at the north end of her street, and Tom, Joe, and I would regularly go down to it and shoot hoops.  Another was Audrey's basement.  It was the only basement I knew until one year while in Denver we visited our Aunt Geraldine on Dahlia Street.  She had a basement.  But Audrey & Gary's was the first one that I'd known.  Or maybe not.  The Solana Beach beach house also had a basement with a shower where we'd shower each time we walked home from the beach and sand.  Besides the basement and the end-of-street hoop, we also played in the park behind Audrey's home, called Glorietta Tennis Park. 

I can't recall what Audrey's favorite drink was, but I believe that Gary's drink was gin and tonic.  But one indelible memory at Audrey's gorgeous home was that how she prepared a halibut dinner for everybody.  I will never forget the heavenly smell of baked halibut.  Halibut was my mom's favorite fish, and I found out why.  It was delicious.  With the tartar sauce, it was pure refinement at a young age.  

This was inspired by a post that my brother, Joe, put up on Facebook.  A question came up about our cousin, Dorothy, who was a beauty queen.  Here is a picture of her from 1936: 

One surprising response came from Larry Cusack, a cousin of ours.  He wrote 

Dorthey Mulligan was my Mother. John, Audrey, Bill, (Patricia's dad) Jim and Joe were her siblings. Margret and John Mulligan were her parents. She was the Queen of the Santa Fe Railroad float in the Rose Parade sometime during the middle 30's. All four of the brothers served in WWII. Bill got stuck in the Aleutians. John served on an oil tanker in the So. Pacific. Joe saw combat in the Philippines. While stationed in Kansas, Jim was hit by a bus coming out of a bar. He spent the duration of the war in traction and rehab. My Grand Mother said he was the only one she didn't have to worry about. She knew where he was and that he was being taken care of. 

I love this photo of Audrey and Dorothy, 1932:  

From immediate family members on November 4, 2020, I solicited their affectionate memories of Audrey and Gary's place on Willow.  Dan replied that very afternoon:

A few of my memories are:  The huge trees in the front and back yard that provided so much shade.  The one in front was the Christmas pine like the ones on Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena.  The one in the backyard was an avocado, I believe.  The old garage.

Watching baseball games, because that is what Gary liked to watch.  The layout of the "spanish style" house.  The steps on their back porch, which was how we usually entered their house.  Saying "hi" to Joe, whenever he was around.  Gathering with the Mulligan families - David, Patti, Larry and his 1st wife Judy, Danny and his Amber (? not sure), Dorothy and Clyde, Bill and Margaret.  Listening to Dad, Audrey and Gary (aka Gae Gae) chatter on about nothing of interest to us kids.  Dad and Audrey really seem to be best friends of all his cousins.  She was the easiest to engage in good conversation.  That is about all I can remember for now.  Dan 

Dan nailed a lot of the great memories of Audrey & Gary's home and their house.  One memory I will never forget, in part because Mom put such a positive stamp on it, was when Audrey placed a score of Van de Kamp's halibut fillets in the oven and the smell of battered halibut fillets infused her entire home with domestic comfort.  The idea of fish and tartar sauce, maybe chips, was one memory seared in my mind indelibly.  To this day, the associated comfort of her home was punctuated by the slow-cooked fragrance of baked fish without any unpleasant aroma.  

Mary replied shortly thereafter:

Yes, I do.  I was just thinking about them the other day. . . .  Thanks, this is a real treasure.  Mary. 

But it was by phone that Mary shared the details of her years at Audrey's.  

I recall the koi pond in the northeast corner of Audrey's backyard.  Audrey bought me 3 multi-colored, polka dot dresses when I was 12. Oh, and she bought me shiny black dress shoes. She poured on the blessings.  You know I had to go to church then.

One thing, among many things, that I liked about Gary was that he watched TV frequently in his den, where he kept TV trays to eat on while watching a ball game or a fight.  

In his den, he had a painting of wild horses running in a storm.  I don't know the name of the print or who painted it, which has made finding it online difficult.  The painting gave me such comfort.  

Gary had a recliner in the den in the southwest corner of that room.  He let me sit in it, while he sat on the love seat on the right side of the room.  I will never forget watching the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament game with Louisville's Jim Price, the highest-scoring guard on the team, where they played and lost to UCLA, 96-77.  I loved Louisville because of Jim Price.  Denny Crum, their head coach, had a good name, too, back then.  I'd forgotten that Wes Unseld, former Baltimore Bullets player, played his college ball at Louisville.  

The other thing that I loved about Audrey's place was the Formica bar top that folded down from the wall with small inlaid shelves.  On those shelves, she had tiny porcelain animal figurines, like turtledoves, playful cats with long, curling tails, and so forth.  Always nice to see someone add beauty wherever.  And who can forget her exclusive alcove with desk?  Wonderful.  

Griffin and Phoenix, 1976

There was a 1976 movie that I saw probably that same year on television that had a huge impact on me.  

The movie is called Griffin and Phoenix, and it is a love story between two strangers, who both have cancer and only about a year to live.  It is a tear-jerker, for sure.  The acting is excellent with Peter Falk and Jill Clayburgh, an actress whom I liked a lot in the 70s, a star whose gentle articulate style could command any scene.  It's a romantic comedy, but, boy, aren't there some heartbreaking scenes of the two breaking up, fighting, and reconvening.  It's exhausting and desperate.  She has leukemia, and Griffin has an inoperable form of melanoma.  They both smoked, so the movie sends that message but not flamboyantly.  When each of them finds out that the other has cancer, they're both resigned to die instead of finding out more about cancer treatments.  So the context of their love is forged by each one's pending death.  To pack as much thrill in his shortened life as possible, Griffin spontaneously plans daring events to get more life into his hours.  They sneak into a movie theater and get caught, but run out before the management can reprimand them.  Then while at an amusement park, Phoenix, or Sarah, sees Griffin from afar, hand writes a notes in all capital letters, and gets the note to Griffin via a couple of young blonde school boys.  Griffin opens the note to see the words, "DID YOU SNEAK IN HERE TOO?"  Sarah is besides herself with the combined grief.  Her condition worsens and she is hospitalized and succumbs to her illness.  The next scene is of Griffin visiting her grave site.  On her gravestone is written in all capital letters, a personal note to Griffin, "P.S. HI, GRIFFIN.  THOUGHT YOU'D PROBABLY DROP BY," revealing what each meant to the other in their short-lived relationship.  Griffin meanders back to his parked car, a Chevrolet Biscayne, on the boulevard that frames the cemetery to find that it has a flat.  Slightly exacerbated, he lumbers to the trunk to extract the tire iron, jack, and spare, when he suffers another bout of crippling pain.  And this bout, at this time crushes his spirit.  He recovers and begins to smash the windows on his own car with the jack and pounded several dents into the hood of his car.  Unquenched, he looks up to see the cars parked in front of him and begins to make a violent statement by smashing the windows of those cars too.  We get it.  He's grieving for himself and for Sarah in a seemingly heartless, self-centered world.   Both are 34 years old, so they have age on their sides.  Though they're in a relationship and even live together at one point, they each have their own pain that neither sees.  We see it.  He finally gets the kite up by exceeding previously limitations from the pain set free a bit by his love for Sarah.  I mention this film, in part, due to the ending scene where Griffin smashes car windows parked along the curb of a busy street.  The ending is of a cigar-smoking handyman in white overalls painting over romantic graffiti on a very tall water tower, where Griffin had painted a heart with an arrow through it with the words, "GRIFFIN LOVES PHOENIX," inside the heart.  The cutesy ending seemed to concede death to love, conflicting with the drama of their battle for love and life.

Clayburgh was married to David Rabe, an American playwright and screenwriter responsible for John Grisham's 1993 movie, The Firm, starring Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, and Jeanne Tripplehorn.  So Rabe was no small-player in the arts.  Good for him; good for her.  

I shouldn't be too surprised by Peter Falk appearing in films with morose themes.  Along with Gena Rowland, he co-starred in the 1974 film, A Woman Under the Influence, directed by John Cassavetes, one of my all-time favorite actors.  

Mom Loved Geraniums

Mom loved geraniums.  She had planted a row of them in a ground-level planter on the eastside of the backyard on Elda. They are perennials, low-maintenance, durable, and beautiful.  I wasn't much of a fan of these plants.  I didn't like the velvety leaves, made so by the fine cilia on them.  In my young mind, the flower seemed a bit lackluster.  Mom may have liked them because they were (and are) popular in Denver.

Western Musical Motifs Up On the Plains

I do love the songs played on Denver's public radio station, 88.1. This song, "The Ludlows" from The Legends of the Fall is beautiful.  Though the song is beautiful I must admit I did not like the movie despite its very competent cast. I found the episode where the brother sleeps with his brother's wife horrible.  But the soundtrack to the movie was good as is evidenced here by this song.

Going to a Garden Party

I heard this song on the radio this morning, and two to three great memories waxed over my mind as I was driving to work.  One had to do with a UPS clerk, Jerry, at the Olympic hub in Los Angeles who worked graveyard.  And every morning as I strolled in at 7am from 1983 to 1986, he'd be playing a cassette of songs by Rick Nelson.  I can't tell you how many times I'd heard "Going to a Garden Party," 1972, playing on his boombox as I walked on the sorting belt, past the sorting cages, to my truck.  He loved Rick Nelson.  

Will never forget the pall from the news of him dying in a plane crash in 1985. I didn't know that he was born in New Jersey.  Didn't realize that the plane he was flying in was his, a Douglas DC-3.  Wikipedia explains that

The plane crash-landed outside of De Kalb, Texas, northeast of Dallas, in a cow pasture less than two miles from a landing strip at approximately 5:14 p.m. CST on December 31, 1985, hitting trees on its way down. Seven of the nine occupants were killed: Nelson and his companion, Helen Blair, 27; bass guitarist Patrick Woodward, 35; drummer Rick Intveld, 22; keyboardist Andy Chapin, 34; guitarist Bobby Neal, 38; and road manager/soundman Donald Clark Russell, 35. Pilots Ken Ferguson and Brad Rank escaped through cockpit windows, although Ferguson was severely burned.

Given how he grew up on television with "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet Show," he, his image, and his music were all quite loved by the late 1970s and early '80s despite the new wave music, hard rock, and psychedelic rock that dominated the radio in those days.  

The other memory that intruded upon me was one of my favorite memories of the LA County Fair in Pomona.  A concert series was always part of the Fair's venue during the month of September, and Rick Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band performed there in 1974. Though we didn't drive with them to the Fair, Chuck and Sally, Alicia and Coco were also going and the plan was that we'd meet up with them, hang out a bit. Well, I learned that Sally wanted to see Rick Nelson.  I also thought it would be cool to see Ozzie and Harriett's youngest son, movie and music star in a local concert, so I went to the concert.  I didn't see Sally Pullman there but I could definitely imagine her being in a front-row adoring one of her '60s music idols. It was a nice memory for me to know that she loved Rick Nelson.  Chuck may have gone in to watch the concert, but something tells me that he was elsewhere on the fairgrounds, biding his time for the concert to end and for the thoroughbreds and jockeys in bright, pennant-colored jerseys to line up at the gate for the first race.  So much excitement tagged with the racetrack in Pomona.

Years later as I was attending UC Irvine, my girlfriend at the time knew a Thai woman who was a domestic for Harriet Nelson who lived in Laguna Beach. 

Southern California, 1939