Andy as I Knew Him

I wish that everyone could have experienced the high spirits that permeated life in Manhattan back in 1927 when I first knew “Andy”, C.W.Anderson.  Although I was only nine years old, I witnessed and remember a time when the whole human race seemed to be on a roll toward Utopia. The era of heady possibilities had begun around 1925 and continued one giddy day after another until the stock market crashed in October of 1929. 

Meanwhile, redhead Clara Bow, the flapper of flappers, dominated a lively Broadway that echoed the music of the Charleston that had become the rage along with knee high skirts.  Speakeasies were everywhere and the popular highball at parties was bathtub gin and ginger ale.  You didn’t have to be a millionaire to afford a drink - alcohol was tax-free and no one was looking.  Carrie Nation was history.

Nestled among the narrow streets of Greenwich Village were two outrageously successful speakeasies, The Pirate’s Den and The Blue Horse, both owned by a fellow named Don Dickerman who hired a little known collegiate musician from “down-Maine”, complete with megaphone, to play at the Pirate’s Den.  Rudy Vallee was an instant hit and soon became renown with his “Connecticut Yankees” band.  In these early days, before Victor signed him up for good, Vallee recorded on Harmony records as Frank Mater.

Dickerman owned a camp on Lake Kezar up near Fryeberg, Maine.  It wasn’t the kind you might think: there were no children.  The patrons were friends of camp owner Don Dickerman, wintertime habitues of the Pirate’s Den and the Blue Horse.  Camp Kezar is where our story begins.

In the Beginning . . .

Miss Alvina Walker and my mother, Mrs. Madeleine Paltenghi Ruckstuhl had recently returned from a year in Paris where they studied art and once in a while attended raucous affairs such as the yearly “Bal des Qu’atz Arts”.  Banned decades ago, this ball, or orgy, was featured in Gene Kelley’s 1951 movie “An American in Paris”. 

Alvina had returned to the U.S. considerably earlier than Madeleine who didn’t especially want to come home.  Her affection for my father, her ever-providing husband, had long since ceased and my term at Ecole Ile de France wouldn’t be finished until December, an excuse for Madeleine to see a little of Europe by herself.

Fate interrupted the stay in France when Madeleine, who had decided to return to art class, fell off a stool, and detached a retina in her left eye.  The accident commanded a quick return home just before Christmas, 1925.  Now partially blind, Madeleine had no choice but to go home.  That was the end of more than a year in France, a period during which I began to speak only French.  It had taken me four months to make the switch to French, and on my return to the U.S., another four months to change back to English.

Alvina, who had been in art school in Manhattan with Madeleine before Europe, was happy to have her back stateside.  Alvina had met Andy a year or two earlier.  It so happened that her new husband, Paul Ickes, a friend of Don Dickerman, had made plans for the summer of 1926 that included a stay at Lake Kezar.  The newly weds thought it would be great sport to invite Madeleine to the camp so she could make some needed new friends.  Her entourage was limited after 18 months in France and what they thought was her somewhat restricted life: husband, child - that’s how they saw it.  Logic suggests to me that Alvina knew Andy would be at Camp Kezar - perhaps at her behest?  But I am not sure she knew the fire she might be lighting.

So the stage was now set for Madeleine Ruckstuhl to meet a bachelor named “Andy”, C.W.Anderson.