birmingham

A Case of the Human Condition: Some Scenes from Birmingham, Michigan, Today

November 17, 2009 By Barbara Leave a Comment

Birmingham High School is now known as Seaholm High

Downtown Birmingham looks the same -- but almost all the old stores are gone: Jacobson's, the Village Store, Kay Baum's.

But the old Varsity Shop is still there.

Pasquale's pizza place on Woodward Avenue is still there.And the pizza still tastes like -- pizza. But we didn't have to wait 45 minutes for it to arrive at our table. Is that a good thing?

And the pizza still tastes like -- pizza. But we didn't have to wait 45 minutes for it to arrive at our table. Is that a good thing?

Filed Under: A Case of the Human Condition Tagged With: birmingham, downtown, Michigan, pasquale's pizza

A Case of the Human Condition: It’s Us — The Class of ’59

November 16, 2009 By Barbara Leave a Comment

My friend Karel and me in the parking lot of our old high school.

In the halls of our school. Some new wings have been added, but the architecture is the same.

The new band room at Seahold High School, Birmingham, Michigan

The new band room at Seaholm High School, Birmingham, Michigan

We just keep getting better and better — and less and less like a bunch of adolescents. The class of 1959, Birmingham High School, Birmingham, Michigan, stopped talking long enough to let me take some pictures — October, 2009.

At Pasquale's pizza place on Woodward. Photos c 2009 B.F. Newhall

Check out the Birmingham, Michigan, school district website. (Our school was renamed Seaholm soon after we graduated.)

Filed Under: A Case of the Human Condition Tagged With: birmingham, class of 1959, high school reunion, Michigan, seaholm high school

A Case of the Human Condition: You Can’t Go Home Again . . . Oh, But You Can

October 23, 2009 By Barbara Leave a Comment

The entrance to Birmingham High School, now Seaholm, looks pretty much as it always has. A nice example of mid-century modern architecture? c 2009 B.F. Newhall

The entrance to Birmingham High School, now Seaholm, looks pretty much as it always has. A nice example of mid-century modern architecture? Photos c 2009 B.F. Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It turns out that, yes, you can go home again. If you’re me, that is. All I had to do was show up for my high school class reunion and there I was, back in Birmingham, Michigan, circa 1959.

Last weekend (after two weeks in Greece with Jon and the kids – more about that later) I flew to Birmingham and was transported through time – fifty years – to a place and an era and bunch of people that I thought had vanished.

Except they hadn’t. The community that has existed in my mind these past fifty years turned out to be a fact, not just a memory. Last weekend, 125 out of a class of 500 or so got together for two days. It had been five decades, but we still knew who we were and that we had shared some vital – if sometimes painful – years together.

Jan Heideman was still pretty. Jewel Ofenstein still smiled the same sweet, wry smile. Jim Griffin still had freckles. Bob Lovell was as affectionate and confident as ever. Linda Burkman still cared about everybody. Penny Ball still played the piano. Karel McCurry was still my friend.

My friend Karel McCurry Howse in front of her old house on Yarmouth in Birmingham

My friend Karel McCurry Howse lived in this elegant house on Yarmouth in Birmingham

On Saturday morning, our old school opened its doors to us for a tour. This gave dozens of the class of ’59 a chance to walk the halls — the same ones we used to walk a half century ago, saying “hi” to each other as we passed from algebra to chemistry to the cafeteria, hoping against hope that our classmates would say “hi” back.

Mary Lester, Bill Montgomery, Margo Mensing - names as familiar to me as those of my next door neighbors. No. More familiar. (To tell the truth, I have to pause a moment to remember the names of the people who inhabit my life these days. But the class of ’59? Their names are imprinted deep in my gray matter.)

I can still remember the the faces, the voices, the personalities of most of my old Birmingham High School (since renamed Seaholm High School) classmates. Sue Little, who sang with me in the First Presbyterian Church girls choir. Pat Hovey, who beat me out for “Best Smile” in our senior year elections. Jan Cadwell, who talked me into skipping school with her one spring day – and made sure we got away with it. Ann Graham and Gordy Fox, who reconnected with each other at our tenth reunion, got married, and all these years later, went to a lot of trouble to organize our fiftieth reunion.

This was our house on Jackson Park Drive on the outskirts of Birmingham

This was my family's house on Jackson Park Drive on the outskirts of Birmingham

Thanks Ann and Gordy and everyone else who put this weekend together. With any luck at all, we’ll see each other again in 2019.

Filed Under: A Case of the Human Condition Tagged With: birmingham, high school reunion, margo mensing, Michigan, old friends, penny crawford, seaholm high school

A Case of the Human Condition: I’m a Woman with a — Sprawling — Past

July 17, 2009 By Barbara 2 Comments

A corsage from my sophomore year in high school. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

The trouble with painting the inside of your closets is — everything has to come out of them.

And then what do you do with all your beloved stuff?

If you’re me, you don’t throw it away.

But what if your beloved stuff is in disarray?

What if your Girl Scout merit badges are mixed in with the portrait of your father’s high school football team and your mother’s baby photos and an old World War II ration book?

My Great-great-grandmother Harlow from Red Wing, Minnesota. C 2009 .F. Newhall

A photo of my mother's great-grandmother Harlow from Red Wing, Minnesota. Walinger Studio photo

If you’re me, you want to impose some order on all your wonderful old belongings. And on your past while you’re at it.

Which takes time. Lots of it.

As a result, ever since we painted the interior of our house last year, all the good stuff I pulled out of our closets has been sprawled around my writing room, taking up space, waiting to be sorted and put away.

Twenty-eight cartons of it. Calling to me.

Finally, yesterday, I did it. I organized my beloved stuff — and my rather extensive past — into twelve tidy, carefully labeled business boxes.

To wit:

Five of the 28 boxes. c 2009 B.F. Newhal

“High School Stuff.” The corsage of red roses from my sophomore year boyfriend at Birmingham High School, in Birmingham, Michigan. The insect collection I did for biology class. The report card with the note from my social studies teacher, “You talk too much.”

“Grandma Falconer.” My grandmother’s wedding photos. Photos of the family barn and silo in Scottville, Michigan, and some cows. My great-grandmother’s speech to the Michigan Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

“My year in Heidelberg.” Coasters from a Bier Stube. Train tickets to Paris and Moscow. A telegram from my parents asking why I hadn’t written in two weeks.

A photo of me as a student in Heidelberg. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

The boxes go on: My years growing up in Detroit. As a student at the University of Michigan. As a twenty-something in New York City. As a hippie in San Francisco. As a respectable, hardworking mom. Everything in a box. Everything in its place.

And nothing, nothing at all, in the trash.

A card welcoming the dear baby me to the family. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

The remains of my high school insect collection. I got an A. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

Filed Under: A Case of the Human Condition Tagged With: aging, birmingham, cleaning closets, heidelberg, life's third act, long life, Michigan, saving souvenirs, scottville michigan

A Case of the Human Condition: Early Late Youth Gives Way to Middle Middle Age

June 12, 2009 By Barbara 2 Comments

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It’s time to tell the truth – to myself.

I’m sixty-seven years old.

That’s a big number. Sixty-seven. And I don’t like it one bit.

When I was twenty, I didn’t want to be thirty. When I was forty, I considered fifty a disaster. And now that I’m sixty-seven I don’t want to even think about sixty-seven, let alone sixty-eight.

To be honest – sort of – I don’t feel old. I can remember World War II, waxed paper and Kukla Fran and Ollie. My knees creak when I get up from the computer. But I don’t feel old.

At Jon's fiftieth reunion -- under the live oak trees at sunset. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

At Jon's fiftieth reunion under the live oak trees at sunset: We felt terrific. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

On the eve of my thirtieth birthday, I dreamt I was approaching “early late youth.” And now, I’m ready to have the dream that tells me I’ve arrived at “middle middle age.” Okay, okay, maybe it’s “late middle middle age.” But no way is it “old age.”

Still, that number, sixty-seven, is a big one. In restaurants, I order from the senior citizen menu. I’ve heard my kids use the word “old” in the same sentence as “Mom” or “Dad.” Most wrenching of all, my high school class – the class of 1959 – has scheduled its fiftieth reunion for October.

My husband’s class – also the class of 1959 – celebrated its fiftieth last weekend. A lovely dinner was held in its honor. Tables were set out on the patio under the oak trees. White tablecloths. Wine glasses. A golden California sunset combined with uncountable refills on the wine softened the mood and the wrinkles around the eyes. We looked terrific. We felt terrific.

Over dessert, Jake, one of the guys in Jon’s class, stood up to make a little speech, closing with a poetic, “For us, the past is bigger than the future.”

After dinner on the way to their cars, the guys in Jon's class couldn't stop talking and laughing. c 2009 B.F. Newhall

“And there’s very little future left,” muttered one of his classmates.

It’s true. Even if I live to ninety or a hundred like my mother and grandmothers, there are now a lot more years behind me than ahead.

Which makes me a rich woman. I have years. Sixty-seven of them. Sixty-eight on my next birthday. A childhood in the Midwest, with glorious summers along Lake Michigan, the impossibly white sand squeaking under my bare feet. A young adulthood in New York and San Francisco and the thrill of seeing my first articles in print. A life with Jon, parenting two babies who – swiftly, relentlessly – became children, then teenagers, then adults.

The old downstairs playroom where Peter and Christina used to ride their trikes and build their forts is now my writing room. Outside my window, a sturdy Monterey pine and the neighborhood doe with her fawns keep me company. On the Internet, I reconnect with old friends once lost in the rush of years. I keep a blog; I write what I damned please.

I have a lot of years. Nobody can take them away from me. And all those years of mine make me feel, not old, but grateful.