| Letters and Diary Non-Fiction posted November 30, 2024 |
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My best dreams...
Remembering Childhood
by Tom Horonzy
I viewed the Dr. Vernon John Story tonight which was set in the fifties. It carried me back to my pre-teen years living in New Jersey.
We slept with our windows open to a Mid-Summer Night breeze while lying beneath a white muslin sheet that did its best to desiccate beads of sweat. We had no air-conditioning, but Mom and Dad had a window fan that assisted in drawing a breeze through the hallway to every room. Its near-silent hum was the only added sound to crickets stridulating their wings while I lay mesmerized beneath beams of countless stars. Occasionally, a firefly would flicker by illuminating its tail in cadence to a distant lighthouse beam. I ponder how great that life would compare to today, even without our modern conveniences.
Additional recollections stirred by the film were: the simple joy of walking to school and kicking a tin along the way. Lunch pails decorated with cowboys or cartoons held either a PB&J sandwich or a bologna with a first name. The boy in the ad held a fishing rod and, I swear, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Check it out. The kid actor was Andy Ambros.
Classrooms were cavernous, with extremely large blackboards, accompanied by either a world map to trace the magical journeys of Columbus, Vasco da Gamma, or one of America to track Lewis and Clark. Discipline was never an issue, and kept in check with aerated paddles, pointers, and nuns who would tug on a child's ear. Recess was a litany of activities that included a jump rope, hopscotch, and flipping, either baseball cards or pennies. Our go-to sport was baseball, America's Great Pastime.
After school, but before dinner boys busied themselves with ball games of every ilk, be it stickball, wallball, stepball, or wireball. I scarred many a wood bat hitting quartz nuggets across the railroad tracks, thinking I was the Splendid Splinter, Mick, or the Say-hey kid. Sandlots were on every corner and a game could be held with as few as six per team. The field opposite the batter was dead in such cases. As for the girls, it was doilies and doll babies such as Chatty Cathy and Tiny Tears. Barbie came along in fifty-nine.
Fishing was another activity to fill a day. Cane poles strung with braided line, Eagle Claw snelled hooks with red wigglers, and a slip bobber drifting in a current filled the buckets we sat upon with bream, catfish, and perch, normally used to fertilize Mother's Rose garden.
Popular bikes were Schwinn, Huffy, and Sear's J.C. HIggin's. We rode them everywhere. I recall collecting 600 road maps from the grand stations of the day such as Flying A, Sunoco, Mobil, Esso, Atlantic, Sinclair, and Standard Oil.
It was fun being in a kid's gang with secret handshakes and nicknames like Spanky's gang such as Porky, Stymie, and Alfalfa. We also had a work ethic instilled by our dads to earn bonuses to supplement our weekly allowances by shoveling snow, cutting grass with manual mowers, and paper routes. I toted five routes including the Trenton Times, and Trentonian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Bulletin, and the Sunday edition of The New York Times.
I find it unusual that my pre-teen days return more easily in dreams than my adolescent years when girls were discovered to be more interesting than Phillies pitchers Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, and Chris Short. Why? Far less drama, and no wet dreams.
The End
I viewed the Dr. Vernon John Story tonight which was set in the fifties. It carried me back to my pre-teen years living in New Jersey.
We slept with our windows open to a Mid-Summer Night breeze while lying beneath a white muslin sheet that did its best to desiccate beads of sweat. We had no air-conditioning, but Mom and Dad had a window fan that assisted in drawing a breeze through the hallway to every room. Its near-silent hum was the only added sound to crickets stridulating their wings while I lay mesmerized beneath beams of countless stars. Occasionally, a firefly would flicker by illuminating its tail in cadence to a distant lighthouse beam. I ponder how great that life would compare to today, even without our modern conveniences.
Additional recollections stirred by the film were: the simple joy of walking to school and kicking a tin along the way. Lunch pails decorated with cowboys or cartoons held either a PB&J sandwich or a bologna with a first name. The boy in the ad held a fishing rod and, I swear, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Check it out. The kid actor was Andy Ambros.
Classrooms were cavernous, with extremely large blackboards, accompanied by either a world map to trace the magical journeys of Columbus, Vasco da Gamma, or one of America to track Lewis and Clark. Discipline was never an issue, and kept in check with aerated paddles, pointers, and nuns who would tug on a child's ear. Recess was a litany of activities that included a jump rope, hopscotch, and flipping, either baseball cards or pennies. Our go-to sport was baseball, America's Great Pastime.
After school, but before dinner boys busied themselves with ball games of every ilk, be it stickball, wallball, stepball, or wireball. I scarred many a wood bat hitting quartz nuggets across the railroad tracks, thinking I was the Splendid Splinter, Mick, or the Say-hey kid. Sandlots were on every corner and a game could be held with as few as six per team. The field opposite the batter was dead in such cases. As for the girls, it was doilies and doll babies such as Chatty Cathy and Tiny Tears. Barbie came along in fifty-nine.
Fishing was another activity to fill a day. Cane poles strung with braided line, Eagle Claw snelled hooks with red wigglers, and a slip bobber drifting in a current filled the buckets we sat upon with bream, catfish, and perch, normally used to fertilize Mother's Rose garden.
Popular bikes were Schwinn, Huffy, and Sear's J.C. HIggin's. We rode them everywhere. I recall collecting 600 road maps from the grand stations of the day such as Flying A, Sunoco, Mobil, Esso, Atlantic, Sinclair, and Standard Oil.
It was fun being in a kid's gang with secret handshakes and nicknames like Spanky's gang such as Porky, Stymie, and Alfalfa. We also had a work ethic instilled by our dads to earn bonuses to supplement our weekly allowances by shoveling snow, cutting grass with manual mowers, and paper routes. I toted five routes including the Trenton Times, and Trentonian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Bulletin, and the Sunday edition of The New York Times.
I find it unusual that my pre-teen days return more easily in dreams than my adolescent years when girls were discovered to be more interesting than Phillies pitchers Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, and Chris Short. Why? Far less drama, and no wet dreams.
The End
 Recognized |
I waited and waited for a contest to stir my interest to find nothing in the queue, so this is released on its own.
The photography is my own as is meant to relate (b&w) yesteryear. Perhaps Sepia would be better.
I hope this fires up your neurons to remember the best day of your lives, readers.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. The photography is my own as is meant to relate (b&w) yesteryear. Perhaps Sepia would be better.
I hope this fires up your neurons to remember the best day of your lives, readers.
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