Monday, January 26, 2009

You Can Call Me Al

This guy ....

He of the soggy cigar
and the white fedora
alum of Catholic School 133
(from which he was expelled at age 14)
the Junior Forty Thieves
the Five Points Gang
ringleader of the Chicago Outfit
fiesty inhabitant of Atlanta US Pen,
Alcatraz Island, Terminal Island,
and even this lovely cell in
Eastern State Pen (Philly).

Yes, this is for real people!
Mr. Capone got special permission to decorate his cell
and so,
as you can clearly see,
given his Italian roots and all,
he went with the Tuscan Look.
It must have taken Alphonse weeks
to get that retro/adobe walls/wine-cellary ambience
and I'm pretty sure that he stole that
wooden radio from our house in the ghetto.

Apparently, his time at Alcatraz,
wasn't quite as cozy.
While there, Mr.Capone failed to adhere to
the basic rule that every school kid over the age of 5
can sum up in two words:
"no cuts".

When Al tried to take cuts in the prison barbershop queue,
James Lucas, a Texas bank robber serving 30 years,
pressed a pair of scissors to Al's neck and told him
to get back to the end of the line.
Al wondered aloud if Mr. Lucas knew who he was...
Lucas answered, "Yeah, I know who you are,
greaseball,
and if you don't get back to the end of that line,
I'm gonna know who you were."

Dang!
Better than Once Upon A Time In The West!

And yes, Mr. Lucas did stab him,
although at a later date for an equally "serious" infraction,
and down to solitary confinement he did go.

Well, as we all know,
our Al was a very bad boy indeed,
despite all the aforementioned quaint rehabilitative anecdotes.
His obituary in the New York Times
attributed over 300 deaths to His Chicago Outfitness
due to his creatively inspired gang wars.

That's not to say Al didn't have his good points ....

Here we have the starving and the unemployed
of the Depression era
lining up for Al's free coffee and doughnuts.
I believe this was the
"One doughnut, one vote" line.

Okay okay okay okay.
What does this have to do with BSL? you say.

Because because because because
we all know that Alphonse Capone
liked to hide from the Feds, from the G-men
and from his arch enemy "Bugs" Moran
in Lake County
and we are pretty sure
it was right about here:

Do you see that leetle yellow boat, senoir?
Now do you see that pointy promontory peninsula thingy
directly across the lake from the leetle yellow boat?
Bingo!

This is where, for some reason,
through some overheard grown-up conversation,
or whispered pseudo-ghost story around a campfire
we believed Al Capone was lurking,
no doubt spying on us with his binos
from his perch on the hill
facing conveniently east toward all the cottages
we normally inhabitated
(Strovens, Owens, Elharts, Laansmas, D'Archangels)
plotting our early Hofman demise.

It didn't seem to make any difference
that we were born in the 50s and 60s and
and Al Capone died in 1947.
It just made it spookier.

By the way, there is an excellent post here:
http://bigstarlakehistory.com/capone.htm
that is much more informative than my random Hofman rumors.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Eggbeater Redux


A little feedback on the eggbeater....

Judy VH Alphenaar writes:
"I have fond memories of the eggbeater being
a real boy magnet.
Eunice and I used to take out the rowboat
with the eggbeater attached
and when we saw some cool guys ramming around in a speedboat
we would pretend that we were having motor trouble.
Of course you didn't have to do much pretending with the infamous eggbeater
because just the sight of it made the whole scenario believable."

Bill Hoogstrate writes:
"Not too bad (the photo in the previous post)
but the real eggbeater predates the one in the picture
by quite a few years.
It didn't have any housing on the top
so you could see the whole engine.
On the top was the starter cord
that you had to wrap by hand
every time you pulled to start.
This was originally Grandpa Hofman's motor,
my guess is that it was built in the 30s."

And just for old timey's sake,
here is a little snippetje from a letter
Grandma Hofman wrote to Uncle John & Uncle Wally
when the rest of the clan was at BSL in the summer of 1956:
"Greetings to all from Big Star....
Well, last Saturday when we got here
Dad (Jan Hofman) went in the boat
with Davy (Dave Van't Hof, now 58)
to catch some fish and the motor stalled on him.
He just got it back from Schaeffer which cost
him over $10.00!! (Lawsy mercy! - editor)
Well, you can't begin (sic) much without a motor.
Don (VH) was going back Sunday night and coming back Wednesday night
so early Monday morning Marge (Vermeer) got up
and she took Don to work so she could have
Don's car to take the motor (to the mechanics),
they checked it and it was
OUT OF GAS!

Did you ever hear anything worse?
Dad was without a motor for three days!"


Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Eggbeater

Innertubing, tobaganning, skiing,
In general, just going fast,
these were all activities we lusted after
while at Big Star Lake.

In our collective mind's eye
we looked something like this
(if we were female)

Modest, head-covered,
but still having a good time,


or like this,
(if we were male)

Appropriately attired,
but in general kinda insane,
as most boys are at this age.


Unfortunately, none of this was meant to be
for the extended Hofman clan.
In fact, I can almost hear the dominie intoning,
"If the good Lord meant
for you
to be tearing around the lake
like a crazed waterskeeter ,

he would have formed you with a

35 hp Evinrude welded to your spine."


On the practical side, two key ingredients were missing:

1. A big boat
2. A big boat with a big honkin' motor.

Now,
the Hofmans had a boat motor,
an inheritance of sorts and in the true Dutch tradition
where nothing is ever discarded or thrown away
simply because it's broken, or out-dated,
or non-energy effecient, or politically incorrect
or in our case, ugly beyond all belief,
we had our family heirloom motor
which we christened
"The Eggbeater".

(not an actual photo but pretty dang close)

Yes. I know. Almost too hideous to behold.


Pictured below is a "real" eggbeater.


If you were to hang over the back of your fishing boat
put this kitchen implement in the water and crank away,
your boat would ( kinda sorta) advance forward
at approximately the same speed as it would
using our vintage "Eggbeater" motor.

I think it goes without saying that we children
and teenagers were too mortified
to be photographed anywhere near
this thing,
and so, sadly, no pictures have been found (yet).

However, I'll leave you with a
very close approximation
of the sound of our Hofman Heirloom
"beating" in your ears: