The weathered eye is a nod to my mother’s encouragement to find the answers and her creation of a home full of the reference materials to do so – in the pre-internet world.
The result…a constant curiosity, desire to seek the deeper story and the confidence that I don’t need to know all the answers, if I know where to find them.
The search is the fun.
My mother and my mother in-law are the same age. Both are college graduates, can speed-read anyone under the table and can correctly complete a Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.
When I married, rather late in life at 41, I found myself among a family unit with many traits like my own. My husband and I both grew up in middle class families, in neighborhoods where kid’s ruled, but mothers were in charge.
Yes, our families had a lot in common, but probably just as much, not.
The first time I met Jay’s family, we had traveled to Northern New Jersey to see a show in New York. We arrived late Friday night and settled into the upstairs bedroom, while the rest of the household slept. In the morning, I exited the bathroom to find that my future husband had already gone downstairs to greet his extended family, who, all six of them, were waiting at the bottom of the stairs to meet me.
After delivering an appropriately nasty evil eye to my companion, I descended tentatively, to meet his family.
Without digging into to dysfunctional family history, let’s just say that my family is less than demonstrative in their physical contact. Any errant hugs are brief and somewhat awkward. We love each other, but we really don’t have to say it everyday, do we?
On arriving at the foot of the stairs that first day in New Jersey, I was met with what I can only describe as instantaneous acceptance.
Jay loved me, so they loved me.
Done.
Since that day, I have felt firmly, McCutcheon.
This week, after learning of my mother in –law’s passing, I sat on the couch with a box of cards that she has sent us over the years.
A cherished box of colored construction paper, New York Times magazine clippings and…buttons.
A long-time quilter and seamstress, Anne eventually realized that her hands, racked with RA, would likely never thread another needle. Her thrifty and optimistic resolution was to use her stash of buttons in some unorthodox ways. Cards began arriving with buttons pasted over eyes, as punctuation after her signature, in shapes of Christmas trees and wreaths, and often a handful of tiny buttons would just tumble from the envelope.
The illustrations are hilarious. The inscriptions are priceless.
“Pulling Iron “
Jay, It’s your birthday. I’m glad you were born – you are my favorite son! I know you don’t pull (pump) iron – but you would look this good if you did. So have a nice walk, kiss your dog and your wife and be happy I still know your name. I love you muchly, Mom
Fluffy Sheep
Dear Kay, I’m late thanking you for “Bossy Pants”. I’ve never seen any of SNL, so it was fun to read the scripts. She is an amazing person. Thanks for Tina Fey; we’re friends now. I hope she does her Sarah again! Speaking of S.P. I’m so sick of seeing her in the news. Feel sorry for the young daughter she’s dragging around, she should be in camp. Love, Anne
Shortly after we were married, my husband was very ill. One of the first cards I recall receiving from my mother in-law was during this period. It contained no prayers, no flowery sentiments..just three words.
You’re a stud.
No. I’m a McCutcheon.
A horse is often the object of a girl’s first love. Sitting astride her first steed, feeling the power and strength of the beast can spark confidence and potential within a young girl.
I can recall the first time I strapped my legs around a horse’s powerful girth and felt it move beneath me…but that’s a story for another time.
My love story began much earlier.
I was 5 years old and the third in a family that in a year would include a younger brother. But for now, I’m the baby. Happy and out-going, I regularly introduce my family to the occupants of neighboring cars at stoplights. You can imagine how well his went over with my 11 year old sister and 8 year old brother.
And then I met him.
And the outside world melted into the background.
Together we would ride for hours, the rhythmic EEE-err, EEE-err of the springs as we rode long and hard.
My first love.
Wonder.
Wonder Hobby Horse
Made in Arkansas, the Wonder state.
Wonder had the largest injection molding machines of any toy company. Styrene horses were made in six parts and solvent welded as soon as they came out of the presses. Wonder horses had molded plastic bodies, suspended from a tubular metal frame, by four strong springs.
In 1964 Wilson Sporting Goods purchased Wonder Products, primarily for it’s custom molding equipment. Soon after, Wilson’s Wonder Products was producing custom molded parts for baseball and football protective equipment; shin guards and face masks. Wonder Products continued to manufacture spring rocking horses throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s.
The Wonder Hobby Horse originally sold for $15 – $20. The secondary market for these rocking horses is negligible.
Wonder Hobby Horse Newspaper Ad
That’s fine by me…my love is not for sale.
I am descended from people who save things.
Recently my mother passed on a stack of old Baltimore Sun newspapers, dating back to 1970. The common denominator was that each of these issues boasted a front page headline of “SNOWED OUT” or “SNOWBOUND”, “Whiteout” or “Here it comes. Again.”
More than enough reason for saving.
Leafing through a 1970’s edition, past the full page Kent cigarette ad, “Never before has so little tar yielded so much taste”, l landed on a back page ad for Hutztler’s Department Store, but not before scanning ads for Hochschild’s, Hecht’s and Stewart’s This was the heyday of the Baltimore department store. But Hutzler’s … Hutzler’s Towson was our particular childhood Mecca.
Hutzler’s Towson
Our frequent pilgrimages often involved delivering my grandmother to the department store salon, but always included lunch in the Tea Room, officially the Valley View Room, and a loaf of Hutzler’s freshly baked cheese bread, to carry home.
Hutzler’s Cheese Bread Recipe
Hutzler’s Cheese Bread
1 cake compressed yeast or 1 package ( 2 ¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
9 ½ cups bread flour
4 teaspoons salt
¼ cup sugar
2 cups milk
13 ½ ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, grated (3 ½ cups)
2 ¼ tablespoons butter
Dissolve the yeast in the water and stir in the remaining ingredients. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, until smooth, about 10 minutes. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl,
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 ½ to
2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.
Divide dough into 3 portions and shape each to fit an 8 ½ by 4 ½ pan. Bake @ 300F for 45 to 50 minutes.
It’s cheese bread in my toaster, but the aroma takes me back to our linen clothed lunch table, the last crumbs of my mother and grandmother’s chicken a la king over puff pastry littering their china plates and a stack of domino sugar cube wrappers on mine.
Meet my father in – law, Bill McCutcheon.
His IMDb will tell you he was born on May 23, 1924 in Russell, Kentucky, USA.
In his nearly 40-year acting career, he appeared in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway shows, regional theater productions, television programs, commercials and movies, including,“Steel Magnolias”.
He won an Obie Award in 1985 for his comedic portrayal of a stroke victim in Christopher Durang’s “Marriage of Bette and Boo” at the Public Theater in New York. He also won the Tony for his role as a comic gangster on the lam in a 1988 revival of “Anything Goes” at Lincoln Center.
He was awarded three daytime Emmys for contributing to the Emmy Award-winning “Sesame Street” program on PBS, on which he played the bow tie and cardigan-wearing Uncle Wally from 1984 to 1992, the year he retired.
He was married to Anne McCutcheon. He died on January 9, 2002 in Mahwah, New Jersey, USA.
Early in our relationship, my husband and I fell asleep watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”. This particular broadcast included some of the original 1946 commercials. I woke to a black and white Coca Cola ad featuring my new father in-law. I shook Jay, screeching, “I think your dad is on tv!” He glanced up and rolled over muttering, “uh huh”. Clearly not a big deal for him. Jay and his sisters grew up seeing their dad in print ads, on television, stage and in film. For me it was fascinating. Coca Cola Ad
While working as an usher at CBS in 1954, Bill was asked to appear on Edward R. Murrow’s live “Person to Person” program, in which the renowned journalist interviewed celebrities in their homes while he sat in a comfortable chair in the CBS studios.
In a unique program twist, Murrow interviewed Bill and Anne in their humble Greenwich Village apartment, to contrast the life of a struggling unknown with the enormously successful Arthur Godfrey, featured in the same episode.
“Anne and I lived in one room. Godfrey had a palatial mansion in Virginia,” Bill recalled. “When Murrow visited us, I said, ‘This is our library,’ while pointing to the bookcase, and ‘This is our guest room, while pointing to our cot.
Bill was a silly man. Disciplining the kids meant threatening to break out in song while shopping the aisles of the A&P. Bill was an honest, hard-working, responsible, family man. Bill raised a hard-working, responsible, family man. When I look at Bill (even life-sized cardboard cut-out Bill) I see Jay…a husband, a father, a silly man.
Although I only had the pleasure of his company for a few years, I can clearly recognize Bill’s goofy glint in my husband’s eyes.
Happy Father’s Day Bill.
Good job.
Shipwreck Lamp
Truthfully, it’s impossible to know the provenance of the recovered ship railing that eventually became the little lamp. The shores beneath Stone House were notorious for nautical disasters. Here is one story of untimely demise and the characters connected to it.
On September 1, 1951, the FV Pelican, operating out of Montauk, capsized, killing 45 passengers and crew, including the captain.
The 42-foot fishing boat left the Fishangrila Dock at Fort Pond Bay severely overloaded. Experiencing engine trouble and stormy weather on their return trip from fishing in the Atlantic, the vessel became unstable and capsized. Only 19 of the 64 souls were rescued.
A little background…
During World War II (1939 – 1945) the United States Navy bought most of the east end of Montauk to erect a Navy Base. Fort Pond Bay became a seaplane base and The United States Army established Camp Hero. Buildings on the base were disguised to appear from above as a New England fishing village.
Conspiracy theorists claim Camp Hero was once used for bizarre, secret experiments that included mind control, time travel and contact with extraterrestrials. All of these claims are presented in the film “Montauk Chronicles,”.
After the war, Fort Pond Bay, now Fishangrila Dock was within walking distance of the Montauk Long Island Railroad station and on weekends, the railroad ran “Fisherman’s Special” trains. Passengers from New York , like those on the Pelican, would exit the train and climb aboard one of the waiting party boats and pay their fare for a day of fishing.
Interest in fishing exploded and sport fisherman Frank Mundus began to lead charter fishing trips out of Lake Montauk initially looking for bluefish but soon found fishing for sharks more lucrative. The sport of “monster fishing” became Montauk’s signature draw.
“For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing”.
Mundus is widely speculated as the inspiration for the character Quint in the film Jaws.
Overloaded fishing boat
Author, Peter Benchely was a long-time Montauk resident, shark fishing, overloaded boat….you decide.
Digging into the history of the little lamp and Stone House unearthed a wealth of fascinating connections; trivial, historical and just plain odd. Follow the Weathered Eye to learn more about the everyday objects, lost and found.
Shipwreck Lamp
Back to the story of the little shipwreck lamp. (see previous blog).
It turns out my husband and his family vacationed that summer in a beautiful romantic Costwold cottage that began life as a storage cellar, in the early 19th century, for the Montauk Point Light House, with an enduring history for romantic trysts.
And it’s no wonder…The sound of crashing waves against the rocky shore, the faint flicker of light through the window from the lighthouse and the remote location on the southern most bluff of Long Island, made this little stone cottage the perfect illicit meeting place.
In 1912 it was converted into a private home by Rosina Hoyt, the daughter of Alfred Hoyt, of the original Montauk Association Homes, built by Stanford White and site plan by Fredrick Law Olmstead.
The home changed hands multiple times and in 1968 the land was divided and a parcel sold to the photographer Peter Beard.
The late 60’s and 70’s Montauk was rich with New York glamor. Richard Avedon lived next door, Andy Warhol’s compound Eothen – now owned by J. Crew CEO, Millard Drexler, was around the corner, so Mick and Bianca, Lee Radzwill, Jackie O, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon. Even Truman Capote stopped by the house on the cliff.
Rumor has it that John Lennon and his secretary and lover May Pang, spent time in the stone house and entered into a contract to purchase it as their love nest…until Yoko learned of the deal.
Richard Gene, Woody Allen and Billy Joel among others considered purchasing this amazing property, but all were concerned about it’s proximity to the eroding cliffs and the Atlantic Ocean.
The property was eventually sold to the “so called” Jay Gatsby of décor, the flashy-dressing, Bentley-driving antiques dealer and interior designer Tony Ingrao. After a fire destroyed the house, Ingrao rebuilt the property on the original footprint, and solved the erosion issue by trucking in over 500,000 pounds of New England granite to build a retaining wall.
I recently found the house being offered as a film and video location site with this tag.
Montauk, NY, 120 miles from NYC, PRINT ONLY, incredible stone house on the bluffs in Montauk, NY, breathtaking ocean views and steps down to a rocky beach. There is a small heated pool on the property which is approx. 5 acres, antique furniture throughout, restrictions do apply, VERY, VERY EXPENSIVE.
Next up…the shipwreck.
Shipwreck Lamp
I grew up respecting reference materials.
Asking a question in our house resulted in being directed to the family room bookshelf to consult one of the countless dictionaries, encyclopedias and…every copy of National Geographic every printed. This practice cultivated a constant curiosity, a desire to seek the deeper story and the confidence that I didn’t need to know all the answers, if I knew where to find them.
I married into a family, very much like my own, of voracious readers. This common ground made me instantly comfortable with my new extended family.
On a recent trip to visit my mother in-law, Anne (my husband’s mother), asked me to look at a little lamp and see if I wanted to take it home. My sister in-law added that it was one of the “shipwreck” lamps.
Umm…”shipwreck lamps” ?
So the story goes, when my husband was young, his family vacationed in a home on Montauk Point. This house sat on a cliff over a rocky shore where the only access to the beach was a rope you would lower and pull yourself —- On the shore, they found a shipwreck, and salvaged the railings, which were used to create the little lamps.
In a frame above Anne’s desk is a Geoffrey Beene magazine ad, with the same house in the background, years later.
Geoffrey Beene Ad
Geoffrey Beene Ad
Shipwreck.
Stone House on a cliff.
Montauk.
Geoffrey Beene.
I’ll bite.
A little background. My husband’s father was the actor, Bill McCutcheon. I mention this because the family was invited to the house as guests of Playboy Film Critic, Bruce Williamson. Mr. Williamson was the first and least famous, famous person I associated with this little stone cottage on the cliff.
Follow the Weathered Eye to learn more about the little lamp, the Stone House on the Bluff and their connections to some of New York’s most fascinating people.
The Weathered Eye 