The Dilemmas of Every Day

Bill

Cats and Dogs

                                         

One can be confident about life and say every new day has its astonishing moments.  One can be downbeat and say every new day has its challenges.  One could argue they are the same thing. When I talk of the dilemmas of my childhood I am talking about the manner in which I interpreted those circumstances, the emotional toll they took.  An adult might describe these experiences as simply the day to day moments encountered as part of growing up.  But nothing is ever trivial to a seven year-old.  Not the ants. Not the cat.  Not the dog. 

There'd be times I'd walk out of my house on Adams Circle in Jamaica Plain but not go very far, just to the few stairs at the end of our porch.  I'd sit, look around, think a little bit, enjoy the quiet.  Sometimes I'd watch the tiny ants glitter back and forth on the cracked walkway in front of me.  If I had a cracker or a few Cheese Tidbits I'd crumble them up and sprinkle them in one of the cracks.  Soon the ants would swarm, begin picking up bits of the Tidbits to carry away.  It was all fun and games until my mother came out with a pan of hot water to pour upon the ants she thought would come into the house.  Poor ants.

One late afternoon I'm sitting on the stairs.  No ants.  Sort of a cold day.  Gloomy.  November.  Light snow coming down.  No one around.  Not much going on.  

Across the street where there is a garage I see a cat.  Not ambling in that cool cat way but running. Very uncat like. It's trying to get in the garage but the doors are closed. Then I see why the cat is so agitated.  A large dog is chasing it. Very dog like.  The cat screeches as it races for the safety of a small tree next to the garage.  The dog lets out a yelp as it lunges for the cat just as it reaches the tree.  The bulk of the dog knocks the cat off onto the ground.  As if chasing its own tail the cat instantly circles around the dog making for the tree again, the dog snapping as the cat runs by.  

I knew this wasn't a game. This was real.  Someone was going to get hurt.  Most likely the cat. I'd never seen anything so brutal before. The cat bolted up the tree just as the dog crashed against it. Neither seemed to care about getting hurt in their effort to escape or to capture. The dog, furiously frustrated, ran around the tree barking and braying, stopping, putting his paws up against the trunk willing the cat down. The cat stayed put, trembling on an upper branch. 

I watch, fascinated.  Sorry for the cat, glad it escaped, but sorry for the dog as well. Thinking also what would have happened if the dog had snatched the cat between its jaws.  I was thrilled and repulsed.  

I am being called in for supper.  I want to stay, see how this all ends. When I come out again later, no cat, no dog.  All is quiet.

My life as a kid was good.  I didn't live in Europe, in Russia, places still recovering from war. Nobody had too much but what they had seemed to be what they needed.  I had a bed in which to sleep, food to eat, friends to be with, regular school, a neighborhood in which to be out and about, the four seasons with which to interact. I was motivated and curious, taking chances and holding back, smart enough to know when to do which. Well, most of the time.

That I was naive is a given. Not innocent though.  I'm human.  With that goes a certain corruption.  My religion declared that in just being born I was tainted with the corruption of all humans.  Original sin. I think in a primitive way I understood what that meant. It had something to do with intent.  Even though I never intended to harm or offend anyone, it would happen anyway.  These were situations occurring more in Hyde Park than in Jamaica Plain but even as a kid in JP I did not lack guile or cunning.  I lied, would blame others, I got into trouble.   I often knew better but my actions would contradict my better nature. 

Two things were going on simultaneously.  As a way of maintaining an ideal, childlike innocence, adults went to great efforts to keep the real world away from us. Similarly, because of my own issues with anxiety, I also worked to buffer myself from things that frightened me, that I didn't understand.

My naivety was in the form of sweet ignorance. I didn't want to think about the things that were going on in the world, what people were capable of, the odd dichotomy of good and evil.   While I felt relatively secure, there were moments that interrupted the flow. I had eyes and ears.  The reality of my world was forever assaulting my senses. Having neither the experience to interpret that reality on my own or the access to adults who had enough confidence in themselves to discuss with me their own hopes and fears, (Wouldn't that have been amazing!) I had to decipher my own meaning. I got a lot wrong. I rationalized away what I found unsettling.  I turned away from those things not in keeping with my narrow world view.  Much of this process took place unconsciously.

Good and evil were simple terms for me.  I didn't even know the word evil. I knew the word bad, sort of the younger less corrupt cousin of evil.   "You did something bad."  "Oh, oh, that's not good."  "Be good today, not bad."  "You're a bad boy."  Good and bad were often interchangeable. It was difficult to tell them apart. 

I've never believed the perceived conformity of the 50s was a positive environment for a kid.  Unless your parents talked to you a lot about life, you had to rely on far less accurate information from your friends. There were also books and magazines, but they required a trip to the library where finding an answer to a specific question was time consuming. Also many of the books were in the  adults section making it difficult to check them out or even to read them. Television was hand in glove with the tenor of the times, nothing much revealed there unless you had the insight to understand what was just below the surface. Movies were a bit more forthcoming but again in the 50's reality was often concealed in censorship which led to contrivance. 

Maintaining a child-like innocence was as much a virtue in the 50s as it was in the Victorian era.  Considering what many kids had been through during the Second World War, this superficial insistence on keeping reality away from us was hypocritical.  Looking back I wish I knew much more about the true nature of people than I actually did.  I don't know about innocence, but I do know ignorance is not a virtue.  I'd see things I didn't understand, do things I shouldn't be doing. The reality I tried to avoid was always right there in front of me.  The same dog you would pet might also bite you. The adorable cat who purred when you stroked behind her neck might one day have that neck broken by that dog. I did eventually come to terms with the world around me.  Sort of.  That education was enlightening but also painful. The long term ramifications linger still.

One way to maintain a sort of equilibrium was not to think too deeply, to have fun. Even when doing an errand for my mother. At  seven I was considered old enough to walk up to Egleston Square by myself, to be safe.  I never felt threatened but out on my own I knew being safe was up to me.  When I was alone I was the only one in charge. I had to find ways to be safe in the real world which often was not the world I preferred.

 Man on a Sidewalk

Walking alone up School Street I'd pass a building which was near to the corner of Washington Street.  A large brick building.  All along the bottom the bricks were black, from the sidewalk up to maybe two feet.  My friends had told me the black was the result of a huge fire.  I believed that.  That fact positioned how I thought about that building as I walked by it. I was always a bit anxious thinking of scenes of smoke and flames and destruction.  Of course had there been a conflagration of the sort I imagined, the building would have collapsed in a heap of brick.  It's likely there was no fire there, the black on the lower bricks could have accrued from years of grime.  It needed sand blasting.  But every time I walked by it I always thought of it as the building "where the big fire was." 

Every once in a while walking up to the square there was a man sitting on the sidewalk, his back against that blackened brick.  He was drinking something from a crumpled paper bag.  My first thought was to cross the street so I wouldn't have to walk by him but then I'd have to cross back over again at the top of School Street. 

He might have been drunk, or homeless, or both. I didn't have any experience with those situations. I'd walk by him with a combination of trepidation, would he grab me by the leg, and a certain fascination.  The men I knew worked; they didn't sit on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon.  I was curious.  Who was he? Was he a dad like my Dad?  Did anyone miss him or wonder where he was?  

These were questions and concerns I should have discussed with my parents to alleviate my ignorance and allay my fears.  Sounds reasonable.  But I never did.  I kept this and so many other things to myself. If I had just one do over, the one that would have made a big difference in my life is to have found an adult I felt confident in revealing myself to, someone who would listen to me with understanding and without judgement, who would discuss life with me, even give me advice which, when appropriate, I could act upon. Without such a mentor, I relied too often upon my own inferior understanding of how the world worked. Many of my dilemmas were of my own making.

I didn't see everything with a mixture of dismay and confusion.  There were times when as I was as carefree as only a kid can be, sometimes to the embarrassment and confusion of others.

 An Errand for Ma

   

One bright warm afternoon I am on my way up School Street to do an errand for my mother.  She's given me specific directions to ask the clerk at the store for a particular item.  "It will be way up on the top of a shelf," she tells me. With a couple of dollar bills in my pocket I walk to the drug store close to the corner of School and Washington. I may have had a note which I handed to the clerk. Using a long-handled nabber he reaches up to the highest shelf to grip a medium-sized rectangular box wrapped in brown paper. Placing the item in a paper bag, he hands it to me along with some change.

I'm a kid. I'm bored. On the way back down School Street I start tossing the paper bag up in the air, sometimes catching it, often missing, running to pick it up as it bounces along the sidewalk. The paper bag is soon in tatters.  Now I am throwing the paper-covered box up in the air. I'm having a great time.  What a great errand.  The outer wrap tears.  It soon joins the remnants of the paper bag somewhere on the sidewalk behind me.  I walk down Adams Circle, the item my mother asked for, a box of Kotex, now unwrapped and unadorned under my arm.  As I walk into the house my mother is astonished and upset.  All she can think of are the neighbors watching her kid coming down the street tossing a box of female hygiene products up in the air.  It's a safe bet she never asked me to do that particular errand again.

Cobbled

Most of the time I didn't mind when my mother would send me to the store for something.  Going to the cobbler was an entirely different matter.  I didn't even know what a cobbler was.  Something about shoes. When bringing up a pair of shoes for the cobbler to repair, I had to remember the difference between soles and heels.  "My mother wants the heels replaced." "My father needs new soles on these shoes."  It was best when my mother gave me a note that said "soles" or "heels." 

It was bad enough bringing the shoes to the cobbler for repair, it was worse when I was sent to pick them up. I had a little slip with a number on it but I knew from past experience this receipt would be of little use. I took my time, I'm in no hurry to get there, walking past the old MTA trolley barns and then a right down Washington Street.

Just finding the store was a problem. Though large and close to the street, store windows were often quite dirty making it difficult to see very much. I'd slowly walk along checking each store window looking for shoes, anything to do with shoemaking.  Even windows with shoes displayed might not be the cobbler's shop.  It might be a thrift store. My anxiety level rose.

Finally, here it is.  Shoes everywhere and the machines used to repair them.  The shop itself smells of burnt rubber and various oily aromas.  The cobbler, lurking somewhere behind a high and worn counter, doesn't take kindly to little kids.  I feel I'm intruding on his work.  He probably feels the same way. Not that he talks much. His demeanor is a mixture of grunts, feints and glaring eyes.

I am hoping against hope I said the right thing when I dropped off the shoes, that he replaced the heels not the soles, or vice versa.  I hand him the receipt. He takes it and without even a glance drops it on the counter. Then the shuffling begins.  He rummages along the back shelves lined with pair after pair of shoes.  Lifting a pair up, he asks, "Is 'is 'em?"  What!  I don't know. They all look the same to me. All I can manage is, "Do they have new heels on them?"  Pretty much ignoring me he picks up another pair with the same question, "Is 'is 'em?"  

Each time he picks up a pair I'm trying to figure out if they are my father's shoes. That and not quite understanding what he is saying increases my stress. All I can manage is, "They're shoes. Brown, maybe."  To me he's a stooped over old man with lumpy disfigured hands who isn't able to find the right pair of shoes. Finally I accept the next pair of shoes he offers me, pay him the $2.50 or $3.00, grab the shoes and hurry out of the shop. Sometimes they would be the wrong shoes. My mother would then have to go back to the shop to return the shoes he gave me to get the right ones.  Hopefully my father had different shoes to wear while all this was going on. 

  

Game of Shadows

Hanging around with my friends was more relaxing.  Mostly but not always.  There was a period when we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to step on our own shadows. I can see us, late July, hot. We're lounging around someone's yard, or over to the Mendell schoolyard. A bet is made,  "I bet you can't step on your own shadow." Even more compelling, the dare.  "I dare you to step on your own shadow."  I mean, what kind of dare is that anyway.  Usually failing a dare results in some sort of punishment, or worse, injury.  "I dare you to jump off that garage roof!" Failing the shadow dare just resulted in frustration.

I took the shadow dare.  It's obvious I didn't have much science savvy about light and shade, the dynamics of motion, how your shadow is tied to your movements.  Maybe I thought I was Peter Pan and could remove my shadow, toss it over my shoulder and attach it later.

We did work at it.  As we chased our shadows around, we quickly discovered they moved as fast as we did.  Then we'd stand still, look unconcerned, until suddenly,  unexpectedly, we'd jump toward our shadows.  Our shadows didn't fall for such trickery; they still avoided our feet.  We could jump on each other's shadows but as much as they got tangled up, our own stayed just out of reach.  

One kid sort of figured it out.  He threw his shadow against a wall and then placed one foot on it.  This started vigorous arguments about fairness. "No fair! You didn't win the dare.  You have to jump on it with both feet."  "No, sir," would begin the counter arguments, "You said step on it, not jump on it."  This would go back and forth for a while until we all lost interest.  The thing is, some of us are still chasing our shadows, dare or not.

Whistling in the Dark

A more legitimate pursuit, but still as frustrating, were my attempts to learn how to whistle.  Other kids could do it.  "It's easy," they'd tell me. "Just do this." What would follow were demonstrations of tongues against teeth, blowing air out, pursing of lips.  Some kids sounded like birds, their whistling technique was that good.  One kid put his fingers in his mouth to whistle.  He was a pro's pro, to my mind.  But I didn't care about the fancy stuff. I just wanted to make echoes in tunnels, to whistle songs like "Row, row, row your boat..." I'd love to whistle to get someone's attention.  

I'd copy my friends' instructions.  Tongue here, lips like this. When I tried it all I got was sort of a wheezing noise, all air and facial grimaces. "No, no," my friends would admonish, "More like this."  I listened, I copied, I tried.  Nothing. I soon realized it would be more fun to chase my shadow.

It wasn't until I moved to Hyde Park that someone told me specifically what to do.  Curve your tongue, press the tip of your tongue firmly against your bottom front teeth and then gently blow.  It worked.  I became a whistler.  I'd like to tell you that someone was Lauren Bacall, but...

Lost in a Crowd

A kid feels frustration, unhappiness, annoyance but there were also times when I felt more intense emotions.  Real anger. Helplessness. Panic.

It was panic that overwhelmed me the time I found myself alone and abandoned in front of the Lodgens Market on Washington Street.  My mother had taken me with her to do some grocery shopping. I was probably four or five. Somehow we became separated in front of the store.  It couldn't have been more than a minute or two.  Yet I felt so alone and helpless.

The image I have is of being surrounded by very tall people. They are all walking around me, not so much to avoid me but as if I weren't even there.  I was trapped within a forest of uncaring, unknowing people.  What would I do?  Who would take care of me now that my mother is gone?  I just stood there on the sidewalk invisible to everyone but myself.  Then my mother's arm reached in to pull me out of the crowd back into the world I knew.

What kid is really secure?  I felt like I was but that facade can crumble pretty quickly.  Those feelings of loneliness, of being lost and isolated, of anxiety, persisted through the years. I became better at controlling them as I got older but they remain part of the framework of how I perceive the world, of who I am.

A World of Hurt

In spite of my concerns, I still thought of myself as a rough and tumble kid.  That meant getting hurt.  I didn't like getting hurt. It wasn't so much the pain, it was the longer term consequences.  If I climbed that tree I might fall out.  If I fell out I could break my leg.  If I broke my leg I might never walk again.  I fell out of a lot of trees but I never broke a bone, never suffered a concussion, never went to the hospital. My fears played out in my imagination, but they were never backed up by reality. That such things might happen were always in the back of my mind.  I must've been a fun kid to be around.

I worried as much about the small injuries. These actually happened a lot. I hated rope burns. Now I don't think I shinnied down a lot of ropes but we did play tug of war.  Sometimes the sides would be uneven and instead of a slow progression someone stronger and bigger would jerk the rope.  Some of us would let go, others would go tumbling and a few would start screaming. "Rope burn!  "It hurts!  It hurts."  Well, it did hurt but you couldn't say that.  "What a baby," would be the retort.  So you looked at your hands, there'd be some redness, maybe a layer of skin would be pulled off.  If someone had water you'd pour some on. I'd shake my hands back and forth thinking that would help.  After a few minutes we'd be doing something  else.  

Splinters were another hazard of playing outdoors.  There were a lot of ways to get a splinter: climbing a fence, dueling with sticks, even sweeping a floor.  What I was particularly wary of were Hoodsie spoons.  Hoodsie Cups were little paper containers of vanilla and chocolate ice cream which you'd eat with a little flat wooden spoon. Trouble is when you got a Hoodsie it was usually frozen solid. If you dug that spoon in too vigorously the spoon could snap resulting in a dreaded finger splinter.  You'd yell, start waving your hand around.  "Let me see, let me see," your friends would say.  "That's bad," I'd hear.  The solution was to soak the finger in warm water until the skin softened and with some tweezers you could pull the splinter out.  But who wanted to go home to do that.  After a minute the pain would subside, you'd get back to your ice cream using what was left of the spoon.  You dealt with the splinter later.

The worst of all these injuries were paper cuts.  They stung.  Who would have thought that a sheet of paper could be so dangerous?  It was that heavier-weight white paper you'd write on in school that was particularly lethal. This wasn't just some scuffed up skin, paper cuts bled.  Hated that too.

Someone got a bandaid but within an hour it had fallen off. Your hands were dirty again, the cut forgotten. We did waste a lot of those bandaids. 

I was never in a hospital as a kid but I did visit doctors occasionally.  I remember getting my vaccination and the large scabby thing that formed.  "Don't pick at it," was all I heard while it healed.  Once in a doctor's office I was having blood taken for some reason. I'm seven. Interesting that I may have been scared of paper cuts but the doctor putting a needle in my arm didn't seem that big a deal. Except he couldn't find a vein. Great. He tried once, twice, several times.  It was more annoying than painful.  Finally he accomplished the task.  He looked at me and said, "You're the bravest boy I've ever seen." I loved that he said that to me.  It was amazing for him to show me that much respect.  Usually the only time an adult spoke to a kid was to tell them to eat everything on their plate or to yell at them for running through their yard. 

About the same age I am at the dentist having a tooth pulled.  That says a lot about our dental hygiene at the time.  This would have been at the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for Children which offered free dental care to kids under 16.  Some of my friends told me people learning to be dentists were the ones who did the work on your teeth.  I didn't care.  I didn't want to be there no matter who was doing the work.

Unlike past visits, this time I would be "put to sleep" during the procedure.  It seems primitive now.  A cloth was placed over my nose. I was told to breathe deeply.  What I recall vividly is the dream I had.  I was watching a train go by. Each car was a letter. I told my friends it was the "A to Z train."  Perhaps I was asked to recite the alphabet as I  went under.  A few moments later, or so it seemed, someone was calling my name.  "Billy, wake up, wake up now."  I looked up at a person in white staring down at me.  I think they even showed me the tooth.  Maybe I took it home for the tooth fairy. Maybe the tooth fairy rode to my house on the alphabet train. One thing, having that tooth pulled was a far less painful than any paper cut.

Looking and Waiting

When friends weren't around or even if they were and I wanted some solitude, I'd walk by myself up to Egleston Square to take a look at the photos outside the Egleston movie theatre.

These were small photographs, sometimes in color, mostly black and white, used to advertise the movies currently playing and the movies that would be playing the next week.  Stills for the current film were displayed at the front of the theatre as you walked by on the sidewalk under the marquee. The stills for the coming attractions were along the walls off the foyer.  In there it was always a bit dark and damp.

Several movie stills were posted in a frame behind a shallow glass door.  I never saw anyone replace them but every week there was a whole new set to look at, the ones from the previous week's "coming soon" transferred to the sidewalk's "now showing".

The photos were 8 by 10s with the name of the movie at the bottom along with a copyright date and a long thing about the pictures being the property of Paramount or MGM and licensed for display in connection with the exhibition of this picture at this theatre. I wondered what all that meant. There was also a line stating they had to be returned immediately after the movie's run ended.  It made the stills sound valuable. Special. I began to think of these photographs as unique, something I'd only be able to see outside the movie theatre and then only for a very short time before they would disappear forever.  I loved the ritual of looking at them. It was exciting and added to the mystique of going to the movies.  

For a long time I thought they were scenes from the actual film not realizing many were taken on set by a still photographer specifically hired to promote the movie. Sometimes they had little to do with the movie. They were really for publicity, actors shot against a blank background. To me those pictures were boring. I preferred a scene from the actual film.  When watching the movie a scene could go by so fast; the stills gave me a chance to look at the scene again.  I'd say to a friend, "Remember when that happened?" It was enjoyable standing outside the Egleston when the movie was over seeing what I'd seen.

Next to the Egleston movies was the fire station.  That was a whole different obsession.

I liked fire trucks, fire engines as I called them.  What kid could resist a screaming fire engine roaring down the street?  They could go as fast as they wanted, ignoring red lights, everyone moving to get out of their way.  The hook and ladder was a favorite.  First of all it was enormous, loaded with ladders, hoses and gleaming axes attached to the sides. There was a driver in the front where you'd expect him to be.  There was also a driver in the back.  Wow!  He had his own little cab from where he steered the back wheels. How is that even possible, I thought.

There were times when after looking at the movie stills I'd stand on the sidewalk by the fire station hoping there'd be a fire somewhere so I could see the engines come roaring out, sirens screaming, lights flashing, on their way to pull people out of a burning building. I'd stand around a while, waiting.  Ten minutes would pass. Nothing. I'd think about going home.  Then I'd think as soon as I leave there's going to be a fire.  So I'd wait a little more.  Five more minutes. Nothing.  Eventually after maybe a half hour I would go home.

Then there was a time I was so sure I'd see the fire trucks I spent the better part of an afternoon waiting outside. I don't think I went up to Egleston Square with that intention. It's likely I was on Washington Street doing something else when I saw that the doors to the fire station were open, the bays empty.  Someone had the great luck to see the engines roar out so I thought I could wait a little bit to see them come back.

I recall that afternoon as chilly, overcast, early December.  I waited about 15 minutes, got bored, walked next door to the movie theatre, studied the stills for a long time, keeping an eye on the station.  Nothing.  

I didn't go inside the station but walked over to one of the open doors to take a look.  There were rows of raincoats and those tapered firemen's hats on hooks to the side.  A small office was on the other side. Occasionally a bell would ding in coordination with some sort of a punched paper machine.  Most interesting were the several fire poles at the back of the station where the firemen living upstairs could slide down at the first clang of the alarm bell.  I'd love to try that.  Well, maybe.  I didn't want to break a leg either.  I moved closer to the street, watched cars and trolleys go by.  I'd look up and down both sides of Washington hoping the trucks would be coming back.  I'd even walk down to the corner of Columbus.  No sign of them anywhere.  The few minutes had turned into a few hours.  I'm cold.  

I am determined to wait.  I've waited this long.  Someone even came up to me to ask if I were lost.  I mumbled something, "I'm okay."  What I should have said was, "I'm not lost, just obsessed."

Another hour.  I'm still there.  It's beginning to get dark.  That's when I first saw him.  From a distance, coming up Washington under the El tracks. Solitary, walking slowly.  He had on a big heavy coat, shabby.  I wondered if he were the homeless guy I'd seen around the corner on School Street.

He stopped at the fire station, went inside.  One of the doors next to the office was a bathroom.  He opened the door, turned on the light and leaving the door wide open, began to pee in the toilet.  There was so much vivid yellow light coming from the fire station it actually brightened the normal darkness under the El tracks.  Anyone walking by would have seen him.  I watched him, heard him.  I thought it was odd, and brazen. Defiant somehow. Why didn't he shut the bathroom door?  

Coming out he noticed me for the first time. He began to pull down the doors leading to the bays.  "This way the heat will stay in," he said. I may have nodded, most likely just stood there. He walked by me just as the fire trucks came around the corner.  Three or four of them.  Traffic stopped as they pulled across Washington Street ready to back into the station.  Except the doors were closed.

A couple of firemen jumped out to open the doors.  Normally I'd be thrilled.  This is what I had been waiting for all afternoon.  The firemen began to complain about the doors being closed.  They looked at me.  "Did you do this?" they shouted.  "I'm just standing here," I said.  The innocent bystander.  

The doors were thrown open, the trucks backed in, the doors banged closed.  Silence.  I barely watched.  I was already walking home.

Box of Cones

It was an ordinary late summer morning.  Johnny and I are walking along Armory Street near the railroad tracks just past Boylston Street.   Not doing much.  Nothing much to do. A small truck drives by. Something tumbles off.  A large cardboard box. We  yell at the truck to stop. "Mister, a box fell off."  Whoever is driving the truck doesn't hear us. The truck keeps going.

Running over to the box Johnny keeps yelling, "What's in it?  What's in it!"

We push the box over to the sidewalk. It's light.  "Awwww," laments Johnny, "It's probably empty." 

We tear open the top flaps. It's ice cream cones. Twelve long boxes. We open one of the boxes.  Not waffle cones. Not sugar.  The regular plain ones, maybe a hundred in each box, each cone tucked inside the other.

"Maybe there's ice cream too," we are thinking.  We take all the boxes of cones out, stack them on the sidewalk.  No ice cream.  Still, this is exciting.  Johnny and I are jumping around.  "We could open a store or something, or sell ice cream cones from a table in front of our house!"

Johnny plucks a cone from the open box. In about three crunches it's gone.  I eat one too. 

We have to get the box home.  We slide the individual boxes back into the big box. It's not heavy, just bulky. We try carrying it for a while, one of us on each end, Johnny in front walking backwards.  About the time we get up to Boylston Street we're tired of carrying our prize. 

Now Johnny tries carrying the box facing front with his hands behind him.  On the other end I've turned around with my hands behind me.  But now I'm walking backwards and can't see.  The box keeps slipping out of Johnny's hands. We try carrying it sideways. The box is just too big and clumsy.  We drop it to the sidewalk.

We're getting close to my house, almost to Dalrymple. We push it along the sidewalk for a while before Johnny gets the idea to tumble it end over end.  Luckily it's not glassware.

By the time we get it to my house the box looks like it's been shipped from China. One side is partly caved in, the crisp cardboard corners are now rounded, the box is scuffed and dirty.  

Once we get it into my kitchen we check the contents.  In spite of everything the cones are in good shape.  I want to give some of the boxes of cones to Johnny and keep the rest in my room but my mother says the box has to stay in the kitchen.  "Wait 'till Daddy gets home. He can decide."

Awakening the next morning I ran out to the kitchen only to discover the box was gone.  My uncle has a donut shop and my father, without discussing it with me, has given the cones to him for some reason. Donut cones?!  I'm upset. I'm angry. Those were mine.  I lugged them home.  I wanted some say in what happened to the cones. I probably would have come around to giving them to my uncle but it would have been nice to have been asked.

I begin to realize adults didn't often speak to kids in any positive way.  It's mostly criticism, complaints, admonishments, corrections, lectures, direct orders, or yelling. They don't negotiate. 

My father did save a few cones for me.  Not enough to open a store or anything. Poor Johnny lost out entirely.

The Fruit War

Some things in my early life are so odd I wonder if they really happened.  How did I get involved in the first place?  A case in point is what I always think of as the fruit battle.

Even saying it, a battle with fruit as weapons, seems crazy.  If my life is one long nutty movie then this comes right before the first intermission.  The whole situation came out of nowhere, became pandemonium for a few moments and then as quickly dissipated.

There were grape arbors and crab apple trees in the yard just below the Mendell school wall next to Boylston Place. There was a garage down there too. For some reason I was by the garage with some other kids.  One of those kids may have lived in the house associated with the garage.  I remember several wheel barrels full of fruit nearby. I'm thinking apples, tomatoes, bunches of grapes. Not rotten exactly but gone by the point of being edible.  Maybe it was going to be used for mulch in the over-wintering of a garden. The time of the year strikes me as being late in the fall when the last bits of vegetables would be coming out of gardens and the last bits of fruit off of trees. 

It starts innocuously.  A couple of the kids started throwing the fruit around.  I got hit once or twice.  I ran into the garage. No cars in it, more of an empty space although I recall some sort of old-fashioned carriage stored in there. Other kids ran in as well.  Some had handfuls of fruit.  A couple of kids closed the barn-style doors. 

Now it's dark.  I'm in the back somewhere, not exactly scared but somehow invigorated, excited. Did the noise of the kids outside draw other kids from the nearby schoolyard? There seem to be a mob of kids outside. There's a lot of yelling.  Fruit is thwacking against the garage doors.  I'm in a battle.  

Inside the excitement begins to turn toward agitation.  Someone shouts, "We have to get out of here!"  There's movement toward the doors.  Pressing against them everyone expects they'll open. They don't. Kids outside are holding them closed.  Now it gets crazy.

One of the bigger kids inside grabs something hanging from the garage wall.  A ladder?  A sledge hammer?  He starts banging it against the door.  It's turmoil inside.  I am screaming along with everyone else.  There's even more commotion coming from outside.

Suddenly the doors burst open. The light pours in.  Outside everyone is throwing fruit at everyone else. In my mind's eye fifty kids inside explode through the doors to confront the fifty kids outside. Now the pandemonium.

There is fruit flying everywhere. This isn't possible.  Even given a kid's heightened imagination, this seems like some wild dream.  I make my way outside trying not to get hit. I do. Fruit is coming from every direction. There isn't enough fruit in the world to match my conception of how much fruit is being tossed about.

The sky darkens.  The sounds are screams and splats and squishes.  Elemental noise.  I pick up some pulpy unidentifiable something from the ground and toss it randomly.  I get hit again.  My hands are sticky and dripping. I'm outmatched. I'm trying to get away. Then it's over.

It ends in a flash. Kids scatter. The cops? Adults who live here?  We suddenly run out of fruit?  I run up the stairs to the school yard.  Other kids run down the street.  My memory stops at that point. I'd have to go to the cosmic video tape to know what the fruit fight was really about.  It seemed so random.  Spontaneous.  One thing quickly leading to another until it was out of control.  But still very exciting.  All I have now are these remnants of memory and a faded tomato stain on a very, very old pair of pants.

Hail

I'm by myself.  On Dalrymple Street.  A few minutes from my house. It's late summer, early fall. I'm about seven, too young to know very much but old enough to be out on my own.

Not that I've paid attention but the sky has darkened, considerably.  I do notice when it starts to rain.  I don't like getting wet. I still don't.  I run up onto someone's porch to wait out the rain.  Now it's pouring, the rain coming down with a hissing sound, cascading off the porch roof that is protecting me. There's a flash in the distance.  A few moments later a sound like a ton of dishes being thrown off a roof. Loud. I'm getting nervous. Another clash of thunder.  "That one was close," I think. 

The rain comes down harder.  There is no one around.  Not even a car goes by.  Where did everyone disappear to? I'm feeling very alone.  Scared. Will I be stuck on this porch?  How will I get home? I'd be soaked in two seconds if I ran off the porch toward home. I stay put. I'll ride it out.

"What's that clattering sound?" I think. The rain is bouncing off the porch roof, off the sidewalk.  Amidst the rain I can see white particles.  Ice. It's hailing out.

Suddenly, as if someone throws a switch, the rain is abruptly swept away replaced by hail.  It happens so fast it's like a crazy movie special effect.   Ice pellets bounce every which way.  The noise is even more frightening.  On the porch I suddenly feel trapped, panicky. I am startled by the oddness of it all.  I've never seen anything like this.  An ordinary afternoon has turned harrowing and I'm caught in the middle of it. I begin to believe my parents don't know where I am, that I'll never see them again. I bolt.

I don't run down the stairs, I jump over them, landing squarely on the sidewalk.  As fast as I can I streak toward the stairs leading up to Adams Circle. The hail is coming down all around me.  Bouncing off my shoulders. I'm in now in full panic mode; I have to get home. It's hard to breathe from running, from the frenzy I'm in.  I'm drenched as well.  The hail isn't hard ice, it's small, porous, not that far away from being liquid.  My wet hair clings to my face. My pants and shirt feel heavy.  Water drips down my nose, like tears in rain.

I dash up onto my front porch. I'm soaked but I made it. Gasping for air I lean against the house feeling relief. Another flash, more thunder. It's almost music to my ears now. The hail subsumes back into rain.  The shower begins to fade.  Now it's just the gentle sound of water dripping from leaves. Perhaps there is the hint of a rainbow.  That would have been a good ending.  All I know is that I'm safe on my porch. This dilemma was easily solved.  Other predicaments are more complex

The Dilemma of That Day

Spankings. Paddling. A licking. Corporal punishment. For a couple of my friends it was the standard punishment for misbehaving.  Even though there was the occasional threat of a licking in my family I don't remember being spanked, not even a few swats on the behind. Except for that one time. In those few moments a relationship I was forming with a very important person in my life came undone.

There are a lot of reasons not to spank a kid. Even those few swats. Some child advocates believe this sort of punishment interferes with a kid's need to learn how to resolve conflict without resorting to physical violence. Others feel it disrupts the bonding process that begins the day a child is born. That early parent/baby bonding is important but it's even more crucial to build upon that initial bonding as the child gets older. Spanking disrupts that process. Something else; how difficult is it to show love and affection toward a person who has just hit you?  Good behavior based on fear is hollow and superficial. Spanking may also be a factor in a child feeling it's okay to hurt someone else especially if that other person is smaller and younger.

The long-term effects are profound. A child is powerless to express his pain and rage while being spanked but inevitably those feelings will vent themselves in myriad ways as the child becomes older.  Loss of trust in a parent can be one result. A detached perfunctory relationship with a parent can be another.  A child needs a parent when young. A parent needs a child when old.  To disrupt that natural order has significant ramifications. 

Ideally a transgression on the part of a child should first be acknowledged through disappointment.  "You know better than that."  "Just sit here for a minute and think about what you've done"  Then the talk.  About why the parent feels what the child did was wrong. Their side of the story.  An agreement on a fair punishment.  "I don't like doing this but no TV tonight."  An effort on behalf of the child to do better next time.  Idealized, I know, but within that construct is the basis for behavioral change based on love and respect.

The worst thing is to strike a child in anger.

On the outside my father was easy going.  He was humorous, smart, inventive; people liked him; he worked hard both at the Navy Yard and at home. He was close with his parents who only lived a few steps up School Street. He had four kids, three of them small boys.  On the inside he was self-described as nervous.  Not worried or frightened or anxious, just nervous, as if calling yourself that could mitigate what was really going on, a life-long anxiety disorder.  Common enough but no less serious for that.  Sometimes it all became too much for him.

My father revered his own mother.  Thought the world of her.  She was that good saintly woman.  From the little I remember of her the description fits.  My father expected us to treat our own mother with the same respect. A reasonable request.   As a seven year-old I was caught up in my own world; my mother was there on the sidelines.  I didn't know her in that fuller more complex way that I would as an adult. I don't think I disrespected her but I did  regard her at times with a typical kid disinterest. 

It's late of an afternoon. Close to five. I'm coming home for supper. I never used the front door.  Always came down the walk alongside the porch coming in through the back entrance.  In front of me a long dark hallway.  At the other end is the door to the kitchen, filled with warm light, the smells of cooking.  I never make it to that door.  My father comes out. Something wasn't right. I've never seen him this angry. I freeze.

"You hit your Ma," he says.  Earlier my mother may have asked me to do something. I didn't want to.  She may have taken me by the arm to get me to obey her.  I probably pushed her, accidentally hitting her while trying to get away.  

My father grabs me by the arm. I go limp. He starts to whack me on the behind. I struggle. Try to get him to stop. "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!" I yell.  He continues to hit me.  I don't know when it will end.  I'm trapped. Helpless.  I begin to wet my pants.

Then its over.  I run into the house, through the kitchen, looking for a place to hide. In my bedroom I feel more vulnerable than when I was being held and spanked. I am humiliated and disgraced. Too, there is the shame. I feel shame for my own vulnerability, for allowing myself to be in this situation.  Below it all is the rage. I am seven years old.

I knew my father loved me, wanted the best for me. He and I would have many more years in Hyde Park and beyond as father and son. Even though there would be many good moments it was never the relationship we both might have wished for. Part of the reason was what happened that afternoon.  The person I was and the person I was becoming conflicted with the person my father was and had become. In the quiet of my room, getting my breath back to normal, I wondered how I would ever face him again.  Tonight at dinner.  Tomorrow.  Could everything just go back to the way it had been? 

This happened when I was seven; I am writing about it now when I am seventy.  The sad truth is the anger from that long ago afternoon resonates still.  I've never figured out how to cope with those few moments in the hallway.  How to absorb them, how to accept them, how to let them go.   Not that night at dinner. Not the next day. Not in the years that followed. In many ways I am still that kid hanging off my father's arm.

My father had a favorite saying. "Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, what might have been."  I heard him say that many, many times. Now, with the full weight of those words upon me, I feel sadness and regret over missing what might have been an extraordinary journey with him.

In the most profound way possible, I realize I wasn't the only person hurt by that long ago licking. There was someone else.  My father.