Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
I was standing on a chair in the upstairs bathroom leaning out of the window with a single square of unused toilet paper in my hand.
'Are you ready to get a letter?' I asked the little red-headed girl standing in the yard below.
'Yes, please,' she said eagerly.
'Go to the post office, then,' I said. She walked over and stood in the sand box, then looked up expectantly again.
'Here she comes,' I said and released the toilet paper. I watched with satisfaction as it fluttered slowly into her outstretched hands.
'What are you doing up there?' I heard my mother call from the bottom of the stairs.
'On the toilet!' I shouted as I jumped to the floor and headed into the hallway. I was still wearing my sleepers, the ones that had colourful little imprints of teddy bears and duckies and covered my feet with integral footwear. The post office was temporarily closed. After a while the little red-headed girl wandered back home. (It was only next door).
'Where's Lloyd?' I asked. I was standing on the table in the kitchen as my mother dressed me.
'I think he's in the basement; he said he was going to talk to Bill.'
'How can he talk to Bill if he's in the basement?'
'That's what I wondered,' she said.
As soon as my mother had finished tying my shoelaces I jumped from the kitchen table and ran down to the basement. I spotted Lloyd squeezed against the concrete wall at the back of the poorly-lighted basement.
'C'mere, quick,' Lloyd said, 'I've got somethin' to show you.' Lloyd was a year and a half older than I and accordingly more worldly. 'Look!' he said, pointing to a dark hole up near the top of the wall. All I could see in the dim light was a crumbled section of concrete wall.
'What is it?'
'It's a secret passage,' he whispered mysteriously. 'It goes right through to the basement next door!'
'Really?' I said, completely thrilled and struck with awe. Secrets were important to us, secret passages, secret hiding places, secret anything. I guess we all wanted to return to the womb!
'Really, watch!' Lloyd said, stepping up on top of an empty apple box and shining a flashlight into the dark hole.
'Whatta ya see?' I said, in an agony of curiosity.
'Come up and see for yourself,' Lloyd said. I jumped up behind him and put my arms around his waist to steady myself, then stood on tiptoe so I could see into the opening. Caught in the bright beam of the flashlight at the far end of the tunnel was the grinning face of our next-door neighbor, Bill.
'Wow!' I whispered, 'a secret passageway!'
'Right!' Lloyd said. 'We can send secret messages back and forth. Go ahead, say something!'
'Hi, Bill,' I said tentatively, not sure what I was expecting to happen.
'Hi, Ronnie!' Bill said, with an even wider smile.
'Geez!' I said, 'It works!'
'Of course it works!' Lloyd said scornfully. 'Bill and me discovered it; promise you won't tell nobody!'
'I promise!'
'Swear!'
'Cross my heart and hope to die,' I said, crossing myself solemnly.
'Right,' Lloyd said. 'We don't want everybody in the neighborhood using it.' I seem to have taken his words for granted. It didn't occur to me to wonder how anyone else in the neighborhod would get to know about it, let alone get to use it. (Let alone want to use it!)
Could this have been similar to the humble beginnings of the CIA?
The neighbors had four children. The eldest was Beryl; I think she was about the same age as Bob, my eldest brother, that is to say, about six years older than I. Doreen, whom I was to think extremely attractive fifteen years later when it was too late, was next in age. Bill was about Lloyd's age and they became close friends. Lois was my age, red-headed the same as I was and an inevitable associate while we lived on Fourteenth Avenue. This association continued with my grudging cooperation until and during my attendance at Junior High School in the late 1930's.
Let's get back to the subject of Fourteenth Avenue. I have little random snapshots of people and events in my mind, not necessarily connected in any way except for having taken place in that location during my first five years.
Paul Hunt (was that his name?) had an early obsession with things aeronautical. I say 'early' because those were the days when people still cried 'airplane!' if one passed over and everyone within earshot came out into their yard to gaze up with wonder at the flying machine. Our boyhood dream was for a 'plane' to crash in the middle of the front street or a convenient nearby vacant lot. The pilot would climb out (uninjured, of course) with his goggles, leather helmet and jacket, shaking hands and exchanging jokes with fascinated nearby spectators, me included.
Paul terminated his brief aeronautical career one Sunday when his parachute failed to open during a sky-diving exhibition. There were a number of apocryphal stories circulated by witnesses who claimed to have heard him screaming just prior to his sudden stop, and additional grisly accounts of the problems encountered by ambulance personnel who were required to use wirecutters and pliers to separate him from the barbed wire fence on which he had landed.
I can still clearly remember my baby crib situated in the northeast corner of our second floor bedroom. It was made of white-painted metal, presumably steel, with cast iron connections into which the steel bars were fitted. The entire side could be raised or lowered, but not by me! This is not to say that I didn't spend a lot of time trying to lower it! I don't recall sleeping in any other bed there but I assume it was no longer able to hold me captive much beyond my third birthday.
I have no recollection of where my older brothers slept. I do, however, have a clear recollection of the night I found that the feet of my sleepers had been cut off! I was livid with rage and told my mother so, making full use of all of the abusive 'cuss' words I had acquired to date.
'Don't be so silly,' she said. 'You'd grown out of them! If I hadn't cut off the feet you'd never have been able to get into them!' Commonsense of that type was not about to be rationalized by my irate mood. The abomination committed was tantamount to chopping the legs off of baby cats. It was years before I forgave my mother completely. And I never forgot!
To the north, down the hall, was a room overlooking the front street that was 'sort of" off limits to me. One of my mother's sisters (it was either Eva or Edna) was 'quite ill'. I was allowed to stand at the door and say 'Hello!' from time to time. I was not allowed to enter the room to touch her or kiss her. I had no idea what was wrong with her but I did as I was told. Of course, as I was to learn eventually, she had a terminal case of tuberculosis, referred to in those days as 'T.B.' or consumption. I remember the sputum cups she was required to use while she slowly coughed her lungs up. She died eventually but I'm not sure when or where. The Sanatorium must have been in operation by then. At any rate, she wasn't with us when we moved in 1929.
Cancer was still very much 'in the closet' in those days. I remember overhearing my mother say, 'sotto voce' to my father that Mrs. Smith had 'a cancer'. She didn't say that Mrs. Smith had cancer; she said that Mrs. Smith had 'a cancer'. The difference in expression connotated all of the fear and horror that accompanied the medical diagnosis of a malignant tumour. Chemotherapy treatment was unknown in those days. There were some initial experimental treatments with irradiated Cobalt 60 but survival rates were not promising. Surgery was an option for some readily accessible tumours providing metastasis had not already occurred. All in all, a dismal outlook, a virtual sentence of death.
We lived in the easternmost residence of a group of four identical homes. Actually it was 'row housing' but was euphemistically referred to as a 'terrace'. Next to us lived the Kellys, then the Rickards (a childless couple), and finally the Coateses, a family with which we never became particularly familiar. I still recall the feeling of rejection I experienced when the Kelly kids told me that the Rickards were taking them on a picnic and the Rickards had a watermelon--- a whole watermelon! I had never enjoyed even a slice of watermelon. It was additionally agonizing to see Bill proudly carrying the football-sized green-striped beauty out to the Rickard's car. I could never again see or hear about the Rickards without thinking about the watermelon and vice versa.
I was about five when Bob told Lloyd and me he would take us to watch a fist fight in the lane behind the Shaw's house half a block west of us. Fighting was 'officially' banned in the schoolyard at Connaught School, but nevertheless, punch-ups took place on a regular basis during recess periods. A sort of unofficial 'fighting classification' had evolved, so that everyone knew who was the toughest guy in the school. The chosen site was about two blocks south of the school, therefore not under the jurisdiction of any official boxing commission. A dozen or so of the spectators (no girls) had gathered in a circle. There was no appointed ring announcer, so, after a bit of jostling and shoving, the two combatants came into the centre of the circle. Insults were exchanged, then some shoving and finally one lad lashed out viciously and hit his opponent sharply on the side of the face. The fight was on!
Body punching was obviously considered to be a waste of time in this sort of contest. Face and head were the chosen targets and blood from split lips and punched noses was soon flowing freely. The arena adjusted slowly up and down the alley over a distance of forty or fifty feet as the battlers moved. It was the first time I had heard the ugly wet sound of fist meeting flesh, but I was not sufficiently repelled to leave. After about ten minutes the antagonists began to tire, insults became more frequent and eventually the battle just sort of petered out. The two tribes departed in different directions and Bob took us back home.
'Where have you been?' my mother enquired.
'Watching a fight behind Shaw's place,' I said casually.
'I don't know what gets into these boys,' she said, shaking her head.
'I think it's called testosterone, Mom,' Bob said.
'Don't be smart!' she said.
'Can't help myself,' he said cheekily.
In the Year of our Lord 1996 the famous baseball player Robbie Alomar had been suspended for eight games for allegedly spitting in the umpire's face during a batting argument. Shame on him , if true! On the other hand! I was thought of as a 'cute little boy' when I was a freckle-faced redhead about three years old. One day I had been given into the care of Jean Tosh, a sweet girl of thirteen or fourteen years of age who lived in the next house just east of the Sun Temple. I must have been small because she was parading me along the street holding me in her arms, inviting her girl friends to admire me.
'Isn't he just the sweetest thing?' she said to her sister. 'Give Margie a nice kiss, Ronnie!' she said, thrusting me toward her sister. I can only assume that I had suffered enough of this saccharine bullshit, for as Margie leaned forward for the anticipated baby kiss, I spat. What a rotten child! The exhibition was immediately suspended and I was returned in disgrace to my mother. I don't remember what else transpired; obviously I've just blocked it from my memory. 'Childhood repression' I think the psychology hotshots call it. I've come to the conclusion that Robbie and I had similar childhoods. I wonder if his mother ever told him that he was 'a very naughty little boy'?
I guess I haven't told you yet about the 'Sun Temple'. It was a church situated immediately to the east of us, and came complete with impressive white colonnades on the front porch. I think these were the same people who were referred to as 'The Holy Rollers' because of their reputed tendency to whip themselves into religious frenzies and roll around on the floor or the ground, depending on what was available. I can't confirm this from personal experience because obviously I was asleep long before their weekly ecclesiastical gymnastics got under way.
Down at the northwest corner of Fourteenth Avenue and Eighth Street was a little family store run by a little Jewish lady. She had a strong Jewish accent so I assume she was a native of some central European province. There must have been a husband but I have no recollection of him. There were two sons, Robert, about my brother Bob's age, who was a violinist destined to achieve some critical acclaim as a musician in later years, and Hymie, who was my age. Since we were the same age and in close proximity it was inevitable that we would have the occasional disagreement. We once had a disagreement over the ownership of my tricycle. It was indisputably my possession but, on this occasion, Hymie had chosen to be unreasonable. As a result we fought for resolution of our differing claims. Fist fighting was unfamiliar to us so we wrestled, which resulted in our threshing about in intimate contact with dirt and turf for a sustained period. I triumphed eventually and rode home proudly where I was confronted with a sustained period of contact with soap and hot water.
One day I found myself on the east side of Eighth Street with my tricycle. Since I have no recollection of how I got there in the first place I choose to blame it on Hymie. This was, after all, prohibited territory. Eighth was probably as thorough as any fare was likely to be in those days, that is to say that there was a paucity of motorized vehicular traffic at most times of the day. Most of such streets were still oiled, but Eighth had been chosen for asphalt paving and most of the heavy equipment was operating along in front of the little store. What, to me, was an enormous steam roller was in transit back and forth in front of the store, packing down the asphalt that had been spread by the other workmen. Any child with even a modicum of wit would have ridden his tricycle south along the sidewalk for a block or two and crossed over without the confusion of paving activity. I seemed to have had tunnel vision, however, and my tunnel led directly from the northeast corner of the intersection to my home at the end of the terrace.
There were no cars in sight in either direction so I started across the street, not riding with aplomb but half pushing, half pulling my balky tricycle which seemed suddenly to have become possessed by a contrary, demonic life of its own. I was literally dragging it along by one of its rear wheels. I looked up and saw the monolithic hugeness of the steam roller bearing down on me. Sheer panic took over and I came close to tripping over my own feet in my haste to avoid becoming a permanent 'panicky little boy with tricycle' pastiche embossed forever on the surface of the newly-paved roadway. I realize now that there was a seasoned city employee sitting high above in the driver's seat, completely in control of the juggernaut and no doubt hugely enjoying the hysterical antics of a little redheaded boy with a tricycle. When I got home I gave my treacherous 'trike' a sly little kick before going in for lunch.
After we moved in 1930 I didn't see Hymie again until I went to Central High School in the fall of 1939. He had grown substantially in stature in the intervening years, particularly laterally, to the point where my brother and his associates lost no time in giving him the attractive nickname of 'Slob'! His generally crude mannerisms and cocksure behaviour seemed to verify this chice of appellation. But it was misleading; he was one hell of a basketball player and he and 'Punk', son of the American Consul, led us to the Interfac Basketball Trophy in our Senior year. I think that his mother's influence had a great deal to do with the fact that Hymie always showed up at school with all of his homework done, written in a beautiful, legible round script. We had studies and homework in Algebra, Trigonometry, Physics, Social Studies, Chemistry, Art and English. Going through some old papers the other day I was astonished to find my grades were all "A" s with the exception of a "B" in Social Studies. I attribute much of this to Hymie, who showed up early at class every day and allowed me to copy from his work the blank spaces in my assignments.
Physical Training for the boys was replaced during wartime by Military Cadet Training. As if we hadn't enough to do we had a 'Gung ho' physical training teacher who managed somehow to talk me into registering for the two mile race in the annual city track and field day. I practiced faithfully, running a couple of miles every day for about two months. I actually began to think I was getting into shape!
The big day arrived and the two mile race was won by Bob Rosser in just under twelve minutes. The sun was setting as I finished, a solitary last, eight or ten minutes later. I didn't recover fully for a couple of days. The only satisfaction I had was having a competitor pass me at a high rate of speed about a mile into the race only to pass him writhing on the grass at the side of the track a few hundred yards further along. Poor planning, obviously! I admit to one more bit of satisfaction. A few days after the track meet the physical training teacher took me aside.
'I was a bit disappointed with your effort at the track meet, Ron,' he said. Well, you miserable thankless prick, I thought. I only finished so we'd get included in the team results!
'Do you want to know why you were disappointed, sir?' I said. He rose to the bait like a starving rainbow trout.
'Yes, I'd like very much to know why!'
'Well, you don't need to take this too personally, sir, but it's my opinion that you're only disappointed in people when you expect too fucking much of them!' He turned red in the face, glared at me, then turned and walked away. I don't think we ever spoke again. I sometimes wonder if it ever affected his attitude.
Any unoccupied city-owned land in those days was flooded and used as a skating/hockey rink. The northeast corner of Seventeenth Avenue and Eighth Street had been flooded and was available for skating from around the middle of November, 1928. I was anxious to try out my new bob-skates, so regularly entreated my brothers to take me with them to the rink. When I finally succeeded I stumbled around aimlessly on the ice suface for fifteen or twenty minutes before the thrill of bob-skating began to pale. Meanwhile, I had spotted a boy moving along the ice with what appeared to be a much more fascinating piece of equipment. In the thirties, oranges and apples used to be shipped in sturdy wooden boxes. There were solid wooden half-inch thick end pieces about twelve inches square connected by quarter-inch thick slats nailed at each end. All that remained of this box were one solid end piece and two bottom slats. The boy was kneeling on the bottom slats and pushing the upright end panel back and forth; as a result he was miraculously moving across the rink. But eventually even this exotic form of transport seemed to pale and the boy simply got up and walked away, leaving the 'transporter' behind. I had been hovering closely nearby and commandeered the equipment in a flash.
'Hey, pretty neat!' Lloyd said as I slowly crept along the edge of the rink. 'Where did you get that?'
'I borrowed it from a friend,' I said casually. Actually I was afraid of being arrested for theft or some similar heinous crime. But my 'friend' didn't return and the police never arrived with the 'Black Maria' to cart me off to prison. As a result I eventually tired of the device, just as my predecessor had, and simply got up and walked away. That is to say, I tried to walk away, but there was a complication involving my bob-skates and, instead of skating confidently away, I tripped and pitched face forward, banging my nose forcibly against the ice. Blood appeared.
Bob and Lloyd were soon there to comfort me but I was effectively inconsolable. Besides, I was wet and cold and wasn't having nearly as much fun as I had anticipated. When they suggested that it might be a good idea if I went home I put forward token protests before heading back. sadder and wiser, to the warmth and comfort of home. I needed a cookie, a cup of cocoa and a hug.
There was one thing Lloyd used to do that I did not find comforting and supportive in the least. There was a staircase that led down from the upstairs hallway to a door at the bottom whch opened into the dining room. Don't blame me, I didn't design the place! Anyway, his main hobby at the time was racing down the stairway in the evening, shouting 'Boogie Man!', switching off the light and slamming the door shut.
Bear in mind that I was only about four years old at the time and the 'Boogie Man' was very real and was capable of doing all sorts of horrible things to little boys including devouring them messily. My standard reaction to this cute manoeuvre on his part was to freeze on the spot and scream as loudly and as long as possible which was usually until my mother came to the bottom of the stairs and switched on the light again. This little ploy of Lloyd's really 'pissed off' my mother and he was only able to escape the painful effects of her wrath by continuing on out of the house at high speed.
Like every child of that age I had been repeatedly admonished about the danger of 'playing with matches'. I don't remember seeing paper matchbooks in those days, possibly they weren't even in general circulation. What I had seen, however, were the lovely big wooden matches with the red and white heads made by the E.B. Eddy corporation. I also knew that they were kept in a large cardboard box on the second shelf of the kitchen cupboard. One day Lois and I conspired to have some harmless pyrotechnical entertainment. I bravely volunteered to acquire the necessary equipment.
'What're you doing down there?' my mother cried from somewhere upstairs.
'Nuthin'!' Just gettin' a drink of water!' I yelled as I turned the tap water on and left it running while I opened the cupboard, removed the big box and stuffed a handful of the prized matches into my pocket.
Mothers can be really weird at times. I was convinced I had pulled off an Academy Award performance with my fake 'Drink of Water' caper. My mother, however, seemed to have been equipped with a strange decoding capability actuated by the slightest hint of ultra casualness or bravado in my voice or mannerisms. When I had said 'Nuthin', just gettin' a drink of water!' what she had actually heard, apparently, was 'Nuthin', just sneaking into the kitchen to pilfer a pocketful of matches without getting caught!'
Lois and I strolled casually down the alley about seventy-five yards until we came to a conveniently private location between a garage and a wooden fence, littered with the detritus of years of neglect. There were chunks of wood, bits of tumbleweed and scraps of ancient newspapers. The space was narrow but open at each end in case we initated a conflagration that got out of control. I was just about to ignite the first 'Lucifer' when all such possibilities were suddenly put to rest by a stern female voice.
'And just what in Lord's name do you two think you're doing?' It was my mother, of course, she of the uncanny verbal decoding device, completely lacking in all sense of fun and adventure. At any rate, we were peremptorily ordered to depart the secret hideaway and come out into the alleyway where we were divested of all combustibles and marched, shamefaced and contrite, back to our customary dwellings.
— The End —