Binderama60for60

Posts are sometimes better viewed in a browser: https://binderama60for60.com/

According to her diary, Margery Rose “met an Irish pre-med student” at a square dance on October 29, 1948. She stayed up late. She saw him again a few nights later. Based on these two diary installments (which I cite with Mom’s tacit permission), I’ll start with this: Dad was never a pre-med student, at least not as far as we know. And he was kind of a little bit Irish. She was 17, he was 22.

Two years later, they married on September 5, 1950, 75 years ago today. In the decades that followed, Marge and Jim would start a family and become my Mom and Dad. My Maw and Pop.

That’s how it all went down at Central Michigan College, now Central Michigan University. This photo appears to be from a college ball. Mom is beaming and Dad looks to be in a little over his head. When I shared it on social a few years back, a friend commented that we should all have pictures of our young parents courting. Given technology these days, everyone will someday.

Dad was going to school on the G.I. bill after serving in the Navy aboard the Miles C. Fox in the Pacific during the last years of World War II. Mom was valedictorian at her high school in Ithaca, Michigan. By college graduation, they were the big couple on campus: Dad as class president, Mom salutatorian. They were also on the cover the of the school magazine. Yeah, I know.

Okay, enough about them.

Now, the Folks could have bought a house way out in Clifton or Ashburn back then, maybe a few acres in what were sparsely populated areas, long before Yuppies, data centers and defense contractor campuses came along. That’d be worth a fortune today. Instead, they settled us into a newly-built house in Vienna, Virginia, about 15 miles outside DC. Not bitter. They told me years later that they wanted us to be exposed to a racially diverse area. It was. I’ll go that in greater detail in an upcoming post about my hometown.

All three boys got good educations and were well-cultured, thanks to the Folks. I played soccer and the trombone, both requiring some sacrifice from the Folks, mostly in time, patience and putting up with atonal noises blaring through the house. They made certain we were well-versed in the many museums, monuments, activities and theaters around DC and up and down the mid-Atlantic. We were a creative bunch; every Christmas morning was chock full of sketch pads, pens, paints and pencils. We all became artistic in our own ways, though none of us pursued art as a career.

Side notes: there was other stuff under the Christmas tree. Every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, Mom would request our “lists” from the JC Penney and Sears catalogs. She’d fill out the order forms and send them in. And she’d also hit up Zayre and Hecht’s for some surprises. When applicable, Dad would stay up late assembling bikes and other contraptions.

The holiday seasons were pretty great at our house. We forged traditions over the years for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, including Mom’s still-famous Eggs McBinder.

Over the years they came to be known by a few monikers: Marge and Margey, Mom, Maw, Moomaw and Mauzy Broadway (some nonsense I applied based on a highway sign along I-81 in Virginia). Jim, Jimbo, Jazzbo, Dad, Pop, Blood. He was professionally known as L. James; when some ill-informed direct mail company began sending ads to Skull James, that also stuck. There’s lots more about Mom in this 60|60 post for Mother’s Day. And for Dad on Father’s Day.

There will be even more when we get to matters of travel, Walt Disney World (October), the holidays, and my Brothers (February). Speaking of which, my big Brother Mike, the only other surviving member of the clan, likely has a different take on Mom and Dad; that’s just who we are, and it’s all somewhat subjective. But I am right because I am putting it in writing.

For now, we’ll skip ahead a few decades. Our Family was fortunate that we didn’t suffer a lot of tragedy or sadness, beyond the usual conflicts and drama and expected though sometimes untimely losses. We were a remarkably unremarkable Family.

Mom and Dad plied their careers in teaching and journalism until they retired. That was going to be a big time, a big week back in 1993. They had earned it, and the timing coincided with Dad’s birthday and Father’s Day. So many plans for their next chapter together.

Badness

To celebrate, they headed to Wolf Trap with my Brother Tim and his wife Gina on a Saturday night: the National Symphony. Leaving the parking lot after the program the car lurched into a crowd of pedestrians. No one was killed but several people sustained some bad injuries. Dad’s name was on the front page of The Washington Post. I’ll leave it at that, as to the details, except to say that the car Dad was driving was an Audi 5000.

The week that Mom and Dad had planned for years–their retirement–turned very dark indeed. They could have lost everything they’d worked for–their houses, their savings and more. Obviously they were devastated and feared what might happen next. We Brothers went ahead with the retirement party we’d planned for the Lake a few weeks later. Gina was pregnant with Richmond, their first grandchild (Helen would come a few years later). We played Family-strong but there was a looming sense of dread.

Tim, my lawyer Brother, worked to defend Dad in the courts and the media through the summer and into the fall. Working with Audi, he was able to extricate Dad from liability. Whether that’s right or wrong, I can’t say, but it was a relief. Mom and Dad were able to live securely and happily for many more years.

Goodness

For decades, they split their time between being close to their grandkids in Northern Virginia and spending summers at the Lake, which I’ve also written about in 60|60. Back in the 80s, they’d built a home on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, as part of a Family compound; they dubbed it Binders’ Beachhead.

No matter where they were, they walked every day. In Vienna and then Woodbridge that meant a trip for coffee at Roy Rogers or McDonalds. At the Lake, they’d head north on the beach and pause at the Mac Woods turnaround and photo spot.

They traveled the world (again), to Asia and Europe, including a 50th anniversary trip to Italy. And they visited me on many Thanksgivings wherever I was living at the time: Orlando, New York, Las Vegas, Santa Monica or Silicon Valley. One of my favorite times in New York involved a matinee of “Master Class” on Wednesday afternoon. I’d planned to take them after for Reubens at the Carnegie Deli, but it was cold and rainy when the theater let out. Miraculously, I was able to hail a cab and send them uptown to my place while I weathered the dank. An hour later, I was on the Lexington subway toting two bags of salty, stinky, meaty, cheesy NYC goodness. Seriously, these sandwiches were enormous and overflowing their pie tin serving platters. The stares of other passengers were intimidating. That was a warm and sumptuous night and weekend in the city.

Eventually the Folks slowed down, as I guess we all will. I hope I still have their verve when I get as far as they did.

We sons put together a video to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2000 and a book to chronicle their 60th in 2010.

This is the final spread of the book, featuring a picture I took back in the mid-aughts: after 60 years, holding hands, surrounded by Family. We pulled quotes from past letters and conversations with the Folks in the later years.

Mom wrote, “I want to spend the rest of my life just like I’m living now, especially sharing it with your father.”

Dad, on the secret to 60 years: “The great love we have for each other and…your mother’s heroic and everlasting patience. Your mother has stuck with me through it all.”

Dad passed on a Sunday night with Mom close by. The last thing I had said to him earlier that day was, “Love you, Pop.” Mom passed nine years later, a Friday, with my Brother Mike by her side. I was able to speak to her on the phone minutes before. I didn’t have words.

They’re buried a few miles northeast of the Lake house, on the way into town. There’s a bench astride their plots, something Dad wanted in order for visitors to sit a spell, reminisce, have a cocktail and enjoy the leafy surroundings and gentle breezes. We do that a few times during our summer stretches here at the Lake, living now in the home they built 40 years ago. Before we leave the graves, we sprinkle some Jim Beam onto the turf on Mom’s side, some Stoli for Dad, along with a few olives.

The final page of the book heralds their 75th, which would have been today. For the living, it is today.

Here’s to the love you made, the Family you nourished and all that you left in the world.

Happy 75th to Maw and Pop!