Phoebe Kate

Flamboyant is not a big enough word to describe this flashy-suited, be-jeweled and pomaded proselytizer of the prosperity gospel.  Decades before 21st century environmentalists adopted a color for their publicity campaign, Rev. Ike was telling his followers to “Think Green” — and you better believe he wasn’t talking about recycling to save the earth, but about those Jacksons, Grants and Franklins he wanted to see in his Sunday collection baskets. 

Born Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, Rev. Ike rose to fame in certain religious circles in the 1960s, when he took over an old theater in NYC as his church.  It was an appropriate choice of venue, because this man of the cloth was a larger-than-life showman.  He was also a persuasive salesman of the non-spiritual bible of big bucks — and he didn’t mind rewriting The Good Book to fit his materialistic theology.  

Either the scriptural translators made an error or Saint Paul was just plain wrong when he penned the famous line, ”Love of money is the root of all evil.”  According to Eikerenkoetter, it was the lack of money from which evil springs and poverty was Satan’s weapon against believers.  He urged his congregants to meditate upon “money up to your armpits, a roomful of money and there you are, just tossing around it in like a swimming pool.”  

Even Jesus Himself wasn’t exempt from this pastor’s correction.  In the gospel of Saint Matthew, Christ is recorded as saying, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” Rev. Ike’s take on getting your one-way pass from Saint Peter at the pearly gates of Glory Land was different.  “If it’s that difficult for a rich man…think of how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in,” he frequently preached.  “He doesn’t even have a bribe for the gatekeeper.”

Eikerenkoetter reached millions via his radio and television shows.  In his heyday, he amassed a sizable fortune for himself sending out “prayer cloths” personally touched by his hand in return for viewers sending him their generous “love gifts.” 

He was, however, not beloved by all.  The IRS and U.S. Postal Service investigated his accounting and business practices.  His sketchy, self-serving theology and scriptural revisions made him unpopular with traditional Christians, who accused him of preying upon the poor.  He alienated many civil rights leaders because he failed to use his pulpit and his influence for social reforms.  Toward the end of his career, his financial empire waned and he suffered from ill health.

Eikerenkoetter died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 74.

I trust you will rest in peace, Rev. Ike — even though it must be a big disappointment for you to find out that you really can’t take it with you.

–phoebe kate

What we remember from our early childhood is not just an interesting walk down our personal memory lane.  It’s funny what kids recall and what they don’t.  Often, what does linger in the back of their minds as adults is iconic of a particular era. 

From the late 1950s, when I was seven years old, I remember:

Chenille bedspreads.  We didn’t have any in our home because my parents were interior designers and thought that particular fabric was the pinnacle of tackiness.  But all my friends’ families had them and I found their subtle swirly patterns and nubbly softness and pastel colors to be perfectly delightful. I don’t know what chenille ever did to Ma & Dad to cause them to hate it with such a passion, but I still love it to this day.  In fact, there is a beautiful sage green chenille bedspread on my bed as we speak.

Seamed stockings.  Like chenille bedspreads, silk stockings with seams up the back were a holdover from the 30s and 40s and ladies still wore them in the late 50s.  They were expensive, available only in upscale department stores and used in conjunction with a garter belt or girdle (pantyhose hadn’t been invented yet.) 

I associate seamed silk stockings with ladies of good taste and refinement who exuded an effortless elegance and graciousness.  (Think Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy.)  It’s the kind of woman we don’t often see now in this era of “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” “The Bachelorette,” “Bridezilla” and ”Dating in the Dark.”

Afternoon tea.  Nice restaurants that served luncheon and dinner also offered afternoon tea around 4 P.M.  It was a lovely custom.  The tea was not made with tea bags and was served in a beautiful pot.  The cups were real china.  There was always a silver tray with an assortment of delectable pastries made by the chef. 

Women dressed up the occasion in their seamed silk stockings and white gloves and hats, and took their properly attired, well-mannered young daughters with them.  My mother and I loved going out for afternoon tea — although she did order coffee instead of Earl Grey.  But it wasn’t about what you drank; it was about a way of life — now long gone – where little niceties and civility and decorum were highly valued. 

Grocery stores.  There is a big difference between a grocery store and a supermarket.  Grocery stores of yore had no shopping carts.  They were small and cozy with barrels of pickles and wheels of cheese on trays with glass covers.  There were floor-to-ceiling shelves for canned goods and a couple of energetic and very polite clerks who took your shopping list and used long pincer-like implements to remove items from the higher shelves. 

The clerks did all the work for you.  Over time, they became well-versed in your tastes, preferences and favorite brands.  You could write”soda pop” on the list and they knew you meant Coca-Cola, not Seven-Up or Pepsi, or “bread” and they automatically reached for the loaf of whole wheat.  They even delivered the bags of food to your door if your order was a large one — and the delivery service was free.  (Sure beats shoving a cart through a mob of 5 P.M. shoppers in the food aisles of Hell-Mart, if you ask me.)

Aprons.  All women — whether they lived in an urban high-rise or a split-level in the ‘burbs or on a farm in the boonies — wore aprons when they cleaned their houses and cooked their meals.  Women usually had several aprons, some for everyday use and a couple of fancy, pretty ones for when they entertained.  They were eminently practical, saving a fortune in dry cleaning bills and reducing the number of wash loads. 

I haven’t seen an apron on a woman or for sale in a store for years.  I doubt they even make them any more. 

Oh, well…

–phoebe kate

I’m a Baby Boomer and was a little kid in the late 1950s.  Considering the technological advances and sociological changes between then and now, I might well be classified as an antique if you’re being charitable and an artifact if you’re not. 

The Fifties being such an iconic American era — lambasted by feminists and other groups, but lionized by traditionalists who decry the collapse of Western civilization — I started to think about what do I actually remember about that time.  And here’s what I came up with, thinking with the mind of the 7-year-old I once was:

Rabbit ears TV.  It was fun, really.  Yeah, you got a lot of “snow” and people’s faces might be fuzzy, but considering how few individuals (even those on TV) were (and are, even today) actually all that attractive, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.  Plus, it was a great quest, wiggling those rabbit ears around in search of better reception.  It was akin to seeking the Holy Grail and equally hard to find. 

White gloves and hats.  Well-bred women always wore them when they emerged from their homes.  Looking at it retrospectively, it was eminently practical.  The gloves saved one from endless hand washings after touching money, other people’s hands and other inadvertent sources of germs.  The hats meant that all you had to do was put your hair up in a French twist and pop on the glamorous head covering.  Voila!  You were impeccably put together without any hair washing, setting and styling. 

Commies in the closet and under the bed.  The McCarthy era, like the stink of a bad piece of meat, lingered on in the mainstream of contemporary society for a long time.  It was the start of the conspiracy theory mentality which has certainly come to full fruition in recent times. 

Which leads me to the next memory, namely:

“I Led Three Lives.”  It was a popular nonfiction book and TV series in the 50s.  Herbert Philbrick was just an ordinary guy until he accidentally fell in with a pinko crowd and the FBI recruited him as a spy.  I thought it was absolutely fabulous, even though bad things almost happened to the poor fellow and he nearly got “rubbed out” (as they called ”getting whacked” by your enemy in those days.)  Until I grew up and got more sense, “spy” was my #1 career choice.  The nuns, who taught my grade school and early on grilled us regarding our plans for the future, were understandably very troubled that “Nun” and ”Saint” weren’t my primary aspirations with ”Wife” and “Mother” as my backup choices.  

Which is the perfect segueway to my next memory of the 50s, which is:

Meeting J. Edgar Hoover.  My childhood desire to work as an undercover agent was encouraged by some people.  One of my parents’ friends was an FBI agent.  God bless that dear man, who did not laugh at a little girl’s aspiration to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and even arranged a personal meeting for her with The Big Guy at the Top.  Somewhere, in some box of memorabilia, I have a photograph of me and Hoover at his huge desk in the Bureau HQ in DC. 

My agent friend informed that Bureau didn’t hire females as agents at that time.  “But,” he told me, “that will change in time.  In your lifetime.  Hopefully, in time for you.”

It didn’t happen that fast, unfortunately.  But thanks, Don.  You’re one of my best memories of the 50s.

     –phoebe kate

Hey, Where’s the Fire?

Up until very recently, fire stations in Muncie, Indiana had been using an interesting means of getting their regular reports to the department HQ downtown.  They delivered them in their fire engines.  The report I read declined to say if they clanged the bell or used the siren. 

However, the mayor put a stop to it and insists they now use email instead.

Darn.  And just as Muncie was beginning to sound like a happening sort of town. 

Big Apple: Everything Old Is New Again

We all know that retro is “in” and there’s no city like New York City for being #1 in trend-setting.  But this, I’m afraid, is going a bit too far.  In June, the NYPD forked out $99,000 for a typewriter repair contract.  (Yes, typewriter.  Not computer repair.) 

And why, you may well ask, did they do that? 

Elementary, my dear Watson.  Last year, for reasons no one knows (or will own up to), the NYPD — in what can only be described as a monumental bout of nostalgia – bought nearly $1,000,000 worth of manual and electric typewriters for use in their offices.

Computerization of daily forms like evidence reports remains a dream.  

And this in a city with high-volume crime — oy vey! 

But oh!  Such a deal they got on those typewriters…

What You Don’t See Can’t Hurt You

Los Angeles’s infrastructures are now serving a new, but unintended, purpose.  They are covertly housing the homeless, who have taken up residence in a huge cavern beneath the I-10 freeway.  Access to this netherworld is arduous, according to the Los Angeles Times.  It requires the agility of a contortionist/athlete to squeeze through a virtually impassable grate, slither across a narrow ledge and descend a steep ladder into a vast Hades where a surrealistic collage of baby bottles and bodies of dead animals, used syringes and children’s toys decorate a nightmarish landscape. 

Not surprisingly, the authorities are afraid to go there. 

Every few years, though, they summon up their courage and seal off the entrance.        

The homeless promptly unseal the entrance.

And life, if you can call it such, goes on.

–phoebe kate 

Did you know that…

most orange cats are male?

most calico or tortoiseshell cats are female?

polar bears are left-handed?

a lion can mate up to 50 times a day?  (so can Charlie Sheen, rumor has it.)

which animal can go without water for the longest time?  (did I just hear you say “camel”?  That’s what we all think, but we’re all wrong.)  It’s the rat.

the eyes of a donkey are configured on its face in such a way that it can see all four of its feet at the same time.

butterflies use their feet to taste.

a cockroach can live up to nine days without its head?  (it’s not the meek who will inherit the earth but Periplaneta americana Linnaeus and all its billions of kin around the globe.)

bats, like polar bears, favor their left side.  When they fly out of caves or out of your attic, they always turn left.

a scorpion will sting itself to death if you put a drop of alcohol on it.  (now that’s truly wasting away in margaritaville.)  

–phoebe kate