Clubius Incarnate Part 24 - Burns Park (August 1964)

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Friday April 19, 2024 · 1:33 PM PDT

2024/04/19 · 13:33

Looking across Burns Park with school at far end

It was just a week ago that we moved here. Mom said we needed to move for her “mental health”, so “your dad and I can have more of the kind of life we imagined when we agreed to get married”, and so “I can continue to do all those things you need your mom to do for you”. Yeah, she said all that, and I guess it all made sense, but mom was always good at figuring out what to say so it at least sounded like it made sense, so I was never completely sure.

After mom said all that, dad said that he and mom were working on a plan to get furniture to put in our new living room, which was much bigger in our new house than in our old one. He said they figured out places they could go to buy old furniture for cheap and fix it up to make it look really nice. They would go to the big University warehouse on “North Campus” where they had and sold old tables and chairs that they didn’t need anymore in classrooms and offices. They would also go to “garage sales”, and this place called the “Treasure Mart”.

When we were getting ready to move, dad went to the A&P and got lots of empty boxes. Then mom and dad went all over the house and put everything in those boxes, “except the furniture, what little we have”, and then mom wrote on the side of each box with her “India ink” what was inside. David and I helped put stuff in the boxes that said “Kids Clothes” and “Kids Books” and back in the wood boxes we already had for our toys.

Then dad borrowed a “pickup truck” from the woman who ran the “frat house” where he still worked sometimes. I’d seen people driving them around, but never been in one. It had a front part like a regular car, but instead of backseats or a trunk it just had an open part with sides so stuff didn’t fall out. You could pile stuff in the back, like the mattresses and other parts of the beds, the dressers, and the tables and chairs, and then “tie them down” with rope. It was all pretty neat, and I watched how dad used the rope and tied special knots.

Dad got some of his friends, like Walter and Frank, and “hired” some of his students to help put all the furniture into the truck and take it to our new house. I even got to help take apart our toy shelves and dad’s book shelves, and carry all the boards and bricks up the basement stairs to the back of our station wagon. David helped too, but he couldn’t carry the boards and he could only carry one brick at a time up the stairs, while I could carry two.

Then when we got to the new house we had to take everything out of our car and the truck and put it inside. We had to do that three times to get everything from our old house to our new one.

Mom was in charge at the new house of telling everybody where boxes and furniture went. Since the bedrooms were all upstairs, like in Molly’s old houses, taking the mattresses and dressers up there on the staircase was really hard, because you had to go up, and the stairs near the top went around a corner that they said was really “tight”. Dad hurt his back helping one of the students carry his desk up the stairs to the “office” room, and had to take some aspirins. Mom got mad at him, and said he should have let the students do all the “heavy lifting”. I didn’t think that was fair, but I didn’t say anything. I took the boards and most of the bricks for our toy shelves down the stairs into the basement, while David just took a few bricks. Then he and I built our toy shelves, just like they had been before, and put all our toys back on the shelves. That was neat that we could do it ourselves.

When we finally got done after the third trip, dad went and got pizzas from Dominicks for all the “helpers” and that tasted really good. I liked being part of the “team” and being able to help and not just be a “kid” who couldn’t do anything and was just in the way.

Our new house was a lot bigger than our old house, even though we only lived in one half it, and these two older people, the Leonards, who owned the house lived in the other half. Our old house just had the regular part, and then a stairway that went down to the basement. This house had a regular part that had a downstairs and an upstairs, like the houses Molly had lived in. It also had a basement, and an attic, so we had three whole staircases, which was really neat. And it wasn’t like the attic in our other house where you had to climb up a ladder and open a hatch in the ceiling to get to it, and where you couldn’t really go in because it didn’t have a floor. This attic had a floor so you could walk around in it, and it even had little windows on either side. It was really hot up there, but that didn’t bother me, because it just made it different and more of an adventure to go up there.

David and my new bedroom was upstairs and it was the biggest one. It had two windows, a little one that looked down on our driveway and the garage, and a really big one where you could see across the street to the basketball court, and that “lodge” place in the park, and you could see more because we were up high. David and I decided not to have bunk beds, so mine was across from his. We also had our dresser and the rocking chair that mom or dad would sit in when they read stories or when dad sang songs with us, which he still did almost every night. I really liked being able to sit on my bed and see the park across the street out that big window. This was definitely a better bedroom than the one in our old house.

Our bedroom was so big, that mom said there was room for a big table, and she and dad would find one they could buy cheap and fix up. She said, “I’m not much for cheap stuff generally. It’s usually poorer quality and you often don’t get your money’s worth. But when it comes to furniture, your dad and I can spot a good piece of wood and we know how to refurbish it. A good bit of elbow grease, hard work, and a touch of artistry.” And then she would do a big smile. I liked seeing that big smile again.

Mom and dad’s bedroom was across the hall from ours. The door to their room was right next to the door to the stairway to the attic. They had their bed and other furniture like it had been in their other bedroom. They had two windows too, but theirs were smaller than the big one in our room. The third room upstairs was dad’s office, but mom said she would be using it too when dad wasn’t home. Dad put his desk and wood “swivel” chair in there and rebuilt all his bookcases with the bricks and boards. It only had one window but you could see the Burns Park school from it. The fourth room was the bathroom, which was a lot bigger than the one in our old house.

The hallway upstairs had one more really neat thing. It was a “laundry chute”, with a little door in the hallway wall you could open and drop clothes down into the basement. They made a whooshing sound as they went down. David and I had lots of fun playing with that, dropping clothes and other things down it like balls, paper gliders and even plastic soldiers with parachutes.

The downstairs part of the house had a really big living room and then the kitchen. So if you divided the downstairs into four quarters, three of them were the living room and the fourth was the kitchen. The living room part had three big windows, the biggest looked out on the driveway and the “hedge”, which was a bunch of bushes all in a line. The second one looked out at the front yard and the third one was around the corner, and looked out at the house next to ours, and you could kind of see the park too. The kitchen had two windows, kind of like our old house, but it was smaller than the one in our old house. So mom couldn’t fit our kitchen table with four chairs around it like we did at our old house. For now we had the kitchen table in the living part of the living room right by the kitchen.

It was the only furniture in the whole living room except for the “Windsor” chair and the “Herman Miller” chest. But mom said she and dad would find good “used” furniture they could fix up to make the living room look like a “real living room” and be able to have parties like mom always wanted.

And finally there was the basement. I thought it was the best part of our old house, and this basement was okay too, but not as good. You went down stairs from the kitchen, past the side door, and then down into the middle of the basement, kind of like in the other house. It had the same kind of gray “concrete” floor and those giant brick walls like the other house. And the basement had four quarters like the other house, but it only had two of those little windows that were up high, so it was darker. It did have four lightbulbs hanging down from the ceiling with a chain you could pull to turn them on and off.

At the bottom of the stairs was the furnace. To the left of it was the laundry area with the washing machine and those big gray sinks. It was more an “area”, not a “room” like in the other house, where it had the staircase and the furnace on two sides that made it separate from the rest of the basement. It wasn’t like in the old house where it felt like you were in the “engine room” or in a submarine.

To the right of the furnace was where we put the shelves with all our toys. We could have put them in the opposite quarter to the left of the stairs, but that part of the basement was the darkest, so David and I decided to have the toys in this part instead. We put the rug from the TV part of the old basement in this part of the new basement. Since the office upstairs already had carpet, mom and dad rolled up the rug from dad’s old basement office and put it up in the attic.

The fourth quarter of the basement was this little room with an old door that didn’t close right. Dad said it used to be a “coal room”, because it had a metal “chute” high up on one side, that if you opened, you could see the sidewalk by the driveway. He said in the “old days” people had furnaces that “burned coal” instead of “gas” like they did now. He said it was like those Western TV shows with old trains where there was that guy in the engine part that was always shoveling coal from the “coal car” attached to the engine into the “boiler” part that heated the water to make the steam that made the train’s engine turn. Dad said that once he had helped mom get and fix up cheap furniture, he would try to build shelves to put in this little room so it could be like the walk-in closet in our old basement. But for now he and mom just put boxes in it that had stuff in them from the old house but they hadn’t taken it out yet.

We had used our old basement so much that it felt fun to be down there, and each area felt kind of “cozy”. Our new basement didn’t feel cozy like that, maybe because we hadn’t done stuff down there yet.

Then there was the whole thing about where to put the TV. Since we got it five years ago when I was four, it had always been in the basement, in its own part, with a rug that David and I sat on to watch or with the white wood “project” table with the metal legs and wood chair that mom or dad sat at to work on stuff while they watched. Mom would also put the ironing board there and watch TV while she ironed. But our new basement didn’t have anywhere to hook the TV to the big “antennae” on top of the roof, and the little antennae on the top of the TV didn't work very well in the basement.

So dad said we could put the TV on the white project table that they put by the window in the part of the living room by the kitchen. There was a cord there that you could hook the TV to the big antennae on the roof. Mom didn’t like that idea, but then she said okay, “but just for now”. She said it would be an “incentive” to keep buying and fixing up old but nicer furniture. An “incentive” was something that made you want to do something else that was really important.

Mom and dad had already started working on making nice furniture. They had bought an old dining room table that was kind of messed up, and a rocking chair where the cover part was ripped and had started to fix them up. Dad said they only paid five bucks for both of them at a “garage sale”.

They were both out in the front yard today working on them. Dad had already taken the broken “leaf” out of the middle part of the table and pushed the two half circle parts together and banged in nails so it would hold together and be just a circle table.

Mom was wearing rubber gloves and had the table out in the driveway on a bunch of old newspapers and was putting this yucky “goop” on it called “Stipeze” that melted all the paint off the wood. Then she was going to use “sandpaper” and “elbow grease” to make the wood “nice and smooth” before she painted all the bottom parts of the table white, and put this stuff on the top called “Linseed Oil” to give it a “beautiful soft patina that showed off the grain of the wood”. And even if it had a few “dings”, they would still look good and “just give the table more character”.

Dad had the rocking chair in the side yard by where mom was working. He had already used a hammer to rip off all the old “fabric” that had covered it and “batting” that had been inside to make it soft and puffy, and was now putting new fabric and batting that mom had picked out at the “linen” store.

I sat on the steps of our stoop and ate the baloney and American cheese sandwich with mustard that I made for myself, and watched the two of them, both working really hard, and looking happier than they’d been for a long time.

Just like our old house on Prescott, the park was right across the street. When mom and dad had told us after David’s birthday party that we were moving, they said that they had found a house right next to the park, because they always wanted us to live next to one, so we had a place to play with lots of other kids.

I had been to Burns Park several times when I’d spent Saturday afternoon over at Molly’s house, and we also played a Little League game here back in July. It was bigger than Allmendinger, mom said it was twice as big, and it even had a school, the one that David and I were going to go to next month. He would be in first grade and I would be in fifth. I even took David on a “tour” of the park because he had never been there before.

I had already met boys in the park who would be going to Burns Park school too, some of them in fifth grade too. The ones going into fifth grade who liked baseball, I asked if they had been on a ten-year-old Little League team last year. They said they had been on the “Yankees”, and I said I’d been on the “Orioles”, and we remembered when our teams played each other last summer. I figured I would probably be on their team next summer, and we probably would play against my old team. That would be strange, but maybe also kind of fun.

Burns Park had a lot of the same stuff as Allmendinger. It had lots of trees, but they were kind of all over the place and not all in one area like the old park. It had two baseball diamonds. It had that “lodge” place where Part 24 - Burns Park (August 1964) grownup “coach” guys would do the bases and the white chalk “foul lines” for regular baseball games. They also gave out balls, bats and catcher's mitts and masks for pickup games, and stuff for the girls too. It had two basketball courts instead of one, but the second one was way over by the school. And instead of one tennis court it had five, and also a “backboard”, which mom really liked, and she had already gone over to hit tennis balls against it. She said it was great if you wanted to practice your “strokes” but didn’t have anyone else to play with. And it had a part under some trees with swings and a slide and stuff, but no monkey bars. It did have those giant tubes you could climb on or go inside and kind of hide, like the one that had been at the little playground at my old Bach school.

But there was a lot of other stuff that was different. It had a hill next to the tennis courts that kids called the “big hill” even though it wasn’t really that big. And next to it was another place they called the “little hill”, but that one wasn’t much of a hill at all. It looked like it used to be a hill but then most of the top part got cut off so it just went up a little bit and then was flat on top. There were two football fields next to each other that had those goalposts at each end. Near the swings was this big circular concrete thing with a fence around it, a gate to go in, and a part in the middle that kids said sometimes had water spraying out of it and got you all wet if you were in the circle, though I hadn’t seen any water come out of it yet. And there was a really neat different kind of merry-go-round where you could sit on either side and push and pull bars with your arms and legs to make it go round really fast, but it was way over on the other side of the park in the corner by the tennis courts and a parking place for cars, so kids didn’t go over there very much, because that’s where the grownups were playing tennis.

But if you REALLY wanted to hide and do secret meetings and other stuff, there were no bunches of lilac bushes like at Allmendinger, or any other good hiding places that I could find. I wondered if those other boys were still having their secret meeting in those lilac bushes on Sunday mornings and still getting naked with each other. That was really exciting and fun, but I figured most kids wouldn’t do that and I might not get the chance to ever do that again. At least I got to do it a couple times and mom and dad and nobody else I knew found out!

And then there was the school. It was on the other end of the park, beyond the giant concrete circle thing and the football fields. It looked older than Bach school, because it was all bricks and the windows were smaller. Bach school had an old brick part too, which had two floors, though the new part that my classrooms were always in, just had one floor. But the whole Burns Park school had three floors, which was really neat, and I wondered if my classroom would be on the third floor so I could look down on the park. I didn’t really want to start going to school again, but at least I would get to see all its inside parts, which would be fun.

Mom and dad said they were “concerned”, that’s what grownups sometimes said instead of “worried”, that David and I would be sad about moving “across town”, and not going to school with or seeing our friends in the “neighborhood”. So they would try to help us “make plans” and take us over to see our old friends, or have them come over to our new house. They said that at least our phone number was the same, so our friends, or our friends' mom or dad could still call us. Mom had even made a list of all David and my friends’ phone numbers and taped it to the wall by our phone, which was on the wall in our new kitchen, just like it had been on the wall of our old one. Herbie had already come over once, when dad and I drove over to his house and brought him here and he stayed all Saturday afternoon, but was sad when he had to go home. He liked me, but he also liked dad a lot, because I guess he didn’t like HIS dad very much.

Dad had also taken David over to Marybeth and Hannah’s house so David and Hannah could ride their bikes together and play in the park. Dad said that he spent some time talking to their “Bobchos”, that’s their grandmother, Mrs Bukowski, who was Polish like dad was. He said he could speak to her a little in that language, which he said she “got a kick out of”. He also said that she was a “hoot”, which meant that she said funny stuff.

David was kind of sad about moving, but at least David’s best friend, Eddie, had also moved to Burns Park and lived around the block from us. David was over at Eddie’s house right now.

But I wasn’t sad. I liked things changing. Living in a new house, exploring a new “neighborhood”, and meeting new kids. It was an “adventure”, like when dad took David and I in the car somewhere we’d never gone to before, and I had always liked adventures. And I was “sick and tired”, that’s what mom always said, of her being unhappy all the time and always arguing with dad. And I also liked our new house because it just took me a couple minutes to get from our front door to the front door of the school, so I wouldn’t have to do all that extra walking to school and home all the time, specially in the winter when it got really cold and windy outside.

My best friend Molly, who had lived on the other side of Burns Park for the last four years, had moved in June to a different part of Ann Arbor. Dad said it was “ironic” that when we finally moved to Burns Park, Molly and her mom and stepdad had just moved away, to a different part of Ann Arbor. I think grownups said “ironic” instead of “weird”, because “weird” was more of a kid word. All summer long mom had called Molly’s mom to set up a time when Molly and I could play, but said that Molly was always busy with her “new friends”. That made sense to me. She probably liked things changing too, and maybe she liked playing with other girls now instead of boys. Just because you WERE a “Tomboy”, doesn’t mean you have to be one forever!

I had that new Supremes song playing in my head. I’d probably heard it on CKLW or at Miller’s on the jukebox a hundred times. And even when I didn’t, it just kept playing in my head like right now. It was about this older girl who really “loves” this older boy, and I guess he used to love her too, but it hurt her really bad when he didn’t anymore…

Baby, baby, baby don't leave me
Ooh, please don't leave me all by myself
I've got this burning, burning, yearning feeling inside me
Ooh, deep inside me, and it hurts so bad
You came into my heart, so tenderly
With a burning love
That stings like a bee

“Liking” somebody, like I liked Molly and my other friends, and “loving” somebody, like the girl singing the song, seemed like two very different things. “Love” I guess, wasn't really really liking somebody, like I had thought it was. It was different, it was all wanting them so bad that it hurt, specially when they didn’t love you anymore.

I wondered about me and Molly. Some kids would ask me if she was my girlfriend, and if someone was your girlfriend, then I think you were supposed to be in love with her. When we were little, Molly and I wanted to be the same, to think and feel the same things, but that seemed completely different than this “love” stuff. Because even now, when maybe we didn’t want to be the same anymore, it didn’t hurt or burn or sting.

And then there was this other part in the song…

Baby, baby, where did our love go?
And all your promises, of a love forevermore!
I've got this burning, burning, yearning feeling inside me
Ooh, deep inside me, and it hurts so bad

Before you won my heart
You were a perfect guy
But now that you got me
You wanna leave me behind

So I guess that was really bad for an older boy to do, to get some older girl to really love him, and want to be with him, but then not want to be with her anymore. In other songs they called that “breaking your heart”. Like in that other “She’s a Queen” song on the other side of the “Hey Little Cobra” record that I got from Gabe for my birthday. In that song it was the older girl who did the bad stuff…

Jackie thinks that she's a queen
So she treats everybody mean
But I'm gonna knock her off her throne
She'll try to break your heart
Tear it all apart

A lot of the songs I heard on the radio or on records were about “love”, or about “hearts”, which I guess meant they were about love too. The grownups sang about it, like that Frank Sinatra guy, but also the older kids too, like the Motown ones or the rock and roll ones. The older boys and men were supposed to find a “good girl” and watch out for “bad girls”, and when they found a “good girl” they were supposed to “win her heart”, something like that. And the older girls and women were supposed to watch out for bad guys who would “steal their heart”, and “give their heart” to a good guy instead.

But being “in love” seemed so complicated and dangerous, like you had to take something really important away from the person you loved, and then give them something completely different that was also really important. But if you didn’t do it all just right, then it got messed up, and one or both of you would get hurt bad. It just didn’t seem anything like just liking someone and being good friends, or even best friends, like Molly and I had been.

I guess I felt a LITTLE bit sad that Molly and I couldn’t play together, but I wasn’t mad at her and I couldn’t imagine she was mad at me either. I would never try to “take her heart”, and I don’t think she’d want me to if I tried. I mean we did kiss each other on the cheek that one time in the back of her station wagon under the blanket when we went to Saugatuck, but that was just a fun thing to do when we were in a secret place when nobody else could see us. And then when we were alone in that “cottage” in Saugatuck, we even tried to kiss each other on the lips, but that was just weird and not very fun. I wonder if grownups would say that was “ironic”. That was that kissyface stuff that older kids did with each other when they thought they were “in love”, and that moms and dads did sometimes too because they were also supposed to be “in love”. Molly and I also got naked with each other when we were five, but we were just little kids and didn’t know anything. We just thought it would be fun to do, and also to see if our “private parts” were the same or different.

So as I ate my baloney and cheese sandwich and watched mom and dad work on fixing up old furniture I thought about them maybe being in love, but it was always getting messed up. Mom was alway getting mad at dad for something he did, like buying the cheap grapefruit juice instead of the good kind she liked, or even something he DIDN’T do, like not telling her when his back was bothering him. And then dad would try to tell her why and they would have an argument. But after the argument dad would usually still be mad, but mom would feel better, and she would tell David and I, even though they had a “fight”, that they still “loved” each other.

I wondered if they just said that because they were supposed to, but it really wasn’t true. Maybe if they didn’t worry about that love stuff and just tried to like each other, like right now, it would be better!

Clubius Contained Part 23 - In the Lilac Bushes (June 1964)

leftyparent

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Friday April 05, 2024 · 3:26 PM PDT

2024/04/05 · 15:26

It was the last day of school. I was finally done with fourth grade. The last day of school was my FAVORITE day of the whole year because I didn’t have to have grownups in charge of me anymore, or at least until fifth grade started in the fall. It was better than Christmas OR my birthday, which were my second and third favorite days of the year. And as you can probably figure out, the first day of school in the fall was my least favorite day of the year. That’s when grownups being in charge of me started again.

This year I even liked my teacher, Mrs Larkin. She let us do a lot of stuff we decided for ourselves, and really liked me and my friends because we were really good students. She was way better than Mrs Rodney last year, damn her to hell, even though she taught us how to sing together, which I really liked. My first grade teacher, Miss Zimmerman, was still my favorite, because she was more like an older kid or one of those college students than a grownup.

But even if my teachers were good, I didn’t like them being in charge of me all the time. Mrs Larkin would let us do what we wanted sometimes, but we still had to ask her, and work hard all the time to get all our answers right so she’d think we were smart and good and let us do it our way.

Most of my friends, except my newer friend Lenny, liked school more than I did. Amanda, Gabe and Jake thought if you didn’t go to school you’d be stupid. Herbie liked school because he didn’t like being at home because of his dad and his mom. Theo liked school because that was what a kid was supposed to do, so you might as well like it.

I was walking home from school up Fifth street to Allmendinger Park with Lenny. The sun was out and it was warm with a nice cool “breeze”, that’s what mom called the wind when it wasn’t blowing hard. Lenny and I were both talking about how glad we were that it was summer and that maybe our little league team, the Orioles, would be better this year, because our coach had us do more practices than last year, and because Lenny was on our team. Lenny was really good at baseball and he was our best pitcher, because he could throw the ball fast and “throw strikes” like our coach said. So our first game would be tomorrow at this school called “Dicken”.

“Coach wants me to pitch on Saturday”, he said, “I’m ready.” When he pitched to me at practice or in the park I had trouble hitting it because it was so fast it was scary. I couldn’t wait until guys on the other team tried to get hits when he was pitching. He was left-handed like me and like that Sandy Koufax guy on the Dodgers who most kids said was the best pitcher in regular baseball. Lenny liked to talk about everything he was thinking about, and I just walked next to him and nodded.

“I heard these two older kids talking in the park the other day”, he said, “They didn’t know I was listening, but they were talking about these other kids that get naked in the lilac bushes, like it’s some sort of secret club or something.”

“Really?” I asked, it didn’t seem possible. I’d been in the park for years and I had never heard about or saw anything like that. The kids I knew who knew the most about the park, Ricky, Marybeth and Paul had never said anything about anything like that.

It sounded interesting to me and even a little exciting, but I wasn’t going to tell Lenny that, after what happened when I told Joey that I’d “pull down my pants for Mary” last year and he told on me in class. I knew you weren’t supposed to do stuff like that, like when Molly and I got naked a long time ago up in her bedroom at her old house across the street. Even though THAT was supposed to be really bad, it was really exciting and fun.

“I don’t know”, said Lenny, “You wouldn’t do stuff like that, right?” If I shook my head no, that would be kind of lying, which I didn’t like to do with other kids. Grownups sure, but not other kids.

“You’re not supposed to”, I said instead.

“Right”, he said, “You can get in a lot of trouble.” I nodded, but now I was really wondering about it.

When we got to Allmendinger Park lots of kids were there, just back from the last day of school. They all seemed pretty happy about it, because they were talking louder and doing more laughing than they usually did.

There was a group of older girls on and around the swings who were talking about which one of the Beatles they liked the most. Marybeth was there, and her sister Hannah was close by climbing on the monkey bars with two other girls. Hannah saw me and waved. I waved back. Marybeth saw Hannah waving and looked to see who she was waving at, saw me and waved too.

“You know a lot of girls”, Lenny said. I got worried when he said that, wondering what he was thinking about me, maybe thinking I was some kind of sissy, though he’d never said anything about that stuff before. He had gone to my ninth birthday party and Molly had been there when Danny told him that Molly was my best friend.

“I know more boys than girls”, I said, thinking I better say something like that, so he didn’t keep thinking about me and girls.

“Yeah”, he said, “I know. I hardly know ANY girls. Diane is always saying bad things about me so Mary and all those other girls in class wouldn’t talk to me, and Amanda thought I was stupid.”

I laughed through my nose, I was now doing it too like grownups and older kids. “Amanda thinks most boys are stupid”, I said, thinking that would make him feel better.

“But you and Gabe and Jake were always talking to her at recess”, he said, “She didn’t think you guys were stupid.”

“Well”, I said, “We’ve been in class together since first grade, and she isn’t like a regular girl.”

“Is she a tomboy?” he asked. I shook my head.

“No, she’s just super smart”, I said, “And likes being a good student. And she thinks all the other girls are silly.”

“Well”, he said, “I think she’s right about that. So I guess she hangs out with you and Gabe and Jack because you’re the smartest boys.” I wasn’t sure whether to nod or say something about that. I know most kids didn’t like other kids who talked about how they were better. The older kids called it being “conceited” or a “show off”. Some kid would say…

You think you’re hot snot on a silver platter
But you’re really cold boogers on a paper plate

So I raised and lowered my shoulders like I didn’t know if that was true, hoping that would end it and we wouldn’t talk about it anymore.

But it didn’t work. “Yeah”, he said, “I know you. You know you’re super smart. You just had your ninth birthday but you’re in fourth grade and all the rest of us are ten.” I wasn’t sure what to say and was worried about talking about it.

“Yeah”, I said, “I guess I’m good at school stuff.”

“You ARE!” he said, “Like I’m good at baseball pitching. It’s okay to say you’re good at something if you ARE.” I nodded, but wasn’t sure he was right about that, though he WAS a really good pitcher.

“So I got to go home and practice my pitching”, he said, “My dad set up this tire in the backyard that I try to throw baseballs through. He has a bunch of them that he keeps in a bucket. And when he gets home from work he’s going to practice with me, he said, so in tomorrow’s game, he and everybody else there will see how good a pitcher I am.”

Lenny headed off to walk home and I watched him while I was thinking. I wanted to be good at baseball too, but I was really glad that mom and dad didn’t do stuff like that with me and come to our games to see how good I was.

“Hey”, It was Paul’s voice, “That’s that Lenny kid, right?” I nodded.

“He won’t talk to me because I’m only in third grade”, he said, shaking his head slowly. He made a kind of whooshing noise through his teeth. “We all played together at your party, but when I said hi to him in the park after that, he asked me what grade I was in, and when I told him third, he just ran off.”

I nodded, but I was thinking about that other thing Lenny said about the boys in the lilac bushes. I knew Paul knew a lot about what was going on in the park and would always keep secrets and I could trust him not to tell on me.

“So Lenny was saying something about boys getting naked in the lilac bushes”, I said, “You heard anything about that?” Paul nodded.

“Yeah there’s that one older kid, Zeke”, he said, “I think he’s in sixth grade. I’ve heard him talking about it though he always says it’s disgusting and he’d never do it. But he just keeps talking about it, so I wonder. And he’s not very nice.”

Paul pointed to the bunch of lilac bushes across from Marybeth and Hannah’s house. “I figure that one’s probably the secret meeting place, it’s got the most room inside. That’s where the girls have most of their secret meetings.”

We walked back over to where all the girls were talking by the swings. Since Marybeth lived across the street from that bunch of lilac bushes, and her and Hannah’s bedroom window upstairs looked down on the bushes, I wondered if she might know something. I couldn’t ASK her about boys getting naked in the bushes, because then she or one of the other girls that heard might think that I wanted to do that. But maybe I could ask her something else about secret clubs.

When we got back over to where the girls were all around the swings, they were all singing a song together, it was that new Beatles one…

I'll give you all I've got to give
If you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give
But what I got, I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love

Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no-no-no, no!

I’d heard the song on the radio and a lot at Miller’s ice cream on the jukebox there, and I’d put in nickels to play it too because I liked it. I couldn’t quite explain WHY I liked it. The kids on American Bandstand on TV would say it had a “good beat”. I guess that was what I thought too.

Paul and I didn’t stand next to the girls all standing around the swingsets, because we weren’t other girls and there were no other boys there, so some of them might not like it. So Paul and I walked by them, and walked by the monkeybars where Hannah was and started to spin the merry-go-round around and jumped on it. The girls had stopped singing and were arguing whether John or Paul was the one singing that song.

“Must be John”, I said to Paul, trying to make a joke, “Because you didn’t sing it.” He nodded and we both laughed through our noses like older kids.

“Have you heard that new song by the Supremes?” he asked, kind of loud, as we spun around on the thing hanging on to the bars across from each other. I nodded.

“Where Did Our Love Go”, I said loud back across to him. I’d heard the song on the radio and at Miller’s too.

It seemed like most of the songs were about “love”, which I got meant really REALLY liking somebody a LOT, and so much that you wanted to do kissyface stuff with them.

Hannah was now by herself on the monkeybars and looked bored. She climbed down and ran over to the merry-go-round and jumped on, working her way between the bars to get close to where I was hanging off the edge.

“Where’s David?” she asked, “I went over to your house and he wasn’t there.”

“Did you ask my mom where he was?” I asked. She shook her head.

“No one was there”, she said.

“Maybe my dad took him out somewhere”, I said. She wrinkled her nose, like she didn’t like that. I wondered if she and Marybeth had a mom and dad at all. They said they did, but I had never seen them. Just their grandmother that they called “Bobchos”, all the grownups called “Mrs Bukowski”, and some of the older boys called “the crazy old lady”.

Paul asked Hannah, “Do you want to go fast?” He looked across the merry-go-round at me and I nodded like that was a good idea. We were both nine now so we could make it go REALLY fast.

“Hang on”, I said, as Paul and I both jumped off, held the bars and ran and made the thing spin fast. Hannah screamed, but I had seen little girls play enough in the park now that I knew it wasn’t because she was scared. It was just what some of them did when they were excited and having fun. Paul and I jumped on and hung off either side again across from each other, holding on to the bars.

Then Marybeth came over with this other older girl who looked like she was maybe the same age. Marybeth had gotten a lot taller. She and her friend were both really tall.

“You guys want to go even faster?” she asked. Paul and I nodded, still hanging off the ends across from each other. Her friend ran across to the other side and then they both started to run and grabbed bars and we started spinning even faster. They were girls but they could run pretty fast. Finally they both jumped on.

Leaning towards the middle as we spun, Marybeth and her friend stepped slowly toward the middle where they sat just opposite each other. Hannah tried to do what they had done, but she had trouble and had to fall down on her hands and knees and crawl to the middle. I started to move towards the middle too, and Paul saw me and did the same. We didn’t sit next to the three girls but stood above them leaning in and holding onto bars. I was trying to think of something to ask Marybeth that might help me find out about that secret meeting where the boys got naked without really asking her about it.

“You can see the Lilac bushes from your bedroom window, right?” I asked her.

She looked at me like that was a weird question and then looked at her friend and made a funny face that made her friend laugh through her nose.

“Yeah”, Marybeth said, “So what?” She seemed way more like a really older kid now, one of those “teenagers”, rather than a regular kid like Paul or me.

“Don’t girls have all their secret meetings in those lilac bushes by your house?” I asked.

“I think so”, said Paul, figuring out my sneaky plan.

“Why do you care?” her friend asked, “You want to spy on them?” I shook my head really fast.

“No”, I said, “You shouldn’t spy on people, specially girls. We just want to have a meeting there too but we don’t want to steal their place.”

“What kind of meeting?” her friend asked. I wasn’t sure what to say and looked at Paul.

“We can’t tell you”, said Paul, “It’s secret.” Marybeth laughed through her nose, and then her friend laughed too.

“Okay”, her friend said, “Whatever”, like she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“I saw some boys have a meeting there last Sunday in the morning”, said Marybeth, “And maybe the Sunday before too. That wasn’t you guys?” We both shook our heads and looked at each other and Paul’s eyes flashed.

“I thought just girls had meeting’s there”, Paul said.

“No”, said Marybeth, shaking her head, “Girls and boys go in there all the time, to have meetings, to talk, to play. Sometimes an older girl and boy go in there to make out.”

“Like Sherry and Daniel?” asked her friend. They both laughed a regular laugh. I liked it when girls laughed when I was talking to them. It made me feel like they weren’t worried about talking to a boy, so I didn’t worry either.

“What’s ‘making out’?” asked Hannah. She had been sitting in the middle of the spinning merry-go-round watching all us older kids talk about all this stuff.

“It’s when a boy and girl want to kiss each other a lot and do other stuff too”, Marybeth said, looking down at Hannah. Her friend looked at her and wrinkled her nose.

“Isn’t she too young to know about this stuff?” her friend asked.

Marybeth moved her shoulders up and down and said, “Maybe… but she asked.”

“What other stuff?” asked Hannah.

“Okay you”, Marybeth said, shaking her head and looking up at the sky, “Enough. Hannah, ask me when we’re back home and maybe I’ll tell you.”

I nodded like that was a good plan, but I really didn’t know what that other stuff was, so I wish Marybeth had said.

***

The next day was Saturday and we had our first ten-year-old Little League game. It was at this place called “Dicken”, which I guess was a school, and only Gabe knew where it was. So Me, Lenny and Herbie all rode our bikes to Gabe and Theo’s houses, and then Gabe led us all on a long bike ride. We rode up Hutchins across Pauline past Allmendinger and then down Franklin by Paul’s house. Then when we got to Stadium, we rode along the sidewalk for a long way. We went across the big street and down a street called “Alhambra” and then around to another street called “Stephen Terrace”, which went around instead of straight and finally there was the school.

It was kind of an interesting place around the school. There were houses on one side of the school that all kind of looked the same. There were trees but they were all small, not like the big ones around where I lived and going down into the city part. The other side of the school there were no houses or buildings, just the baseball field.

The adventure getting there and the place were way more interesting than the game. We actually won, fifteen to twelve, but their pitcher kid just walked most of us when we went up to bat. Our coach said when we were batting we shouldn’t swing at a pitch until their pitcher threw a strike, and I got three walks. I could tell the kids on their team out in the field were getting bored or even mad while their pitcher walked guys, and felt embarrassed. I felt embarrassed for the pitcher, and all the other kids on their team.

The next time I got up I just wanted to hit it, even if the pitch wasn’t a strike, because that’s what you did in pickup games, hitting and fielding was what made baseball fun, not getting walks all the time. I hit the ball pretty hard and it went right at the kid playing first base. He stuck up his glove but it bounced off and hit him in the chest. I was able to run to first, but when I came back to the base he was crying and his coach came out and was mad at him. Not because he didn’t catch the ball, but for crying. I didn’t like standing there on first base, doing nothing while this grownup told the kid stuff like “be a man” and “be tough”. As soon as the coach had gone away, I told the kid I was sorry. But he looked at me really mad like I was making fun of him.

That whole thing was bad, and it made the whole game feel bad too. When I finally got around the other bases and scored, our coach and the other kids on my team said that I got a great hit, but it didn’t feel great, or even good, because of what happened to that kid. It was like if bad stuff happened to someone on the other team that was good for your team you were supposed to like it. If it happened to kids you were playing a pickup game with in the park you wouldn’t like it. Not that some older kid might say the same kind of stuff that the coach did about not crying.

So after the game we all rode our bikes back to Allmendinger Park. Even though I didn’t like the game very much, we were all just happy that it was summertime and we were all together and could do whatever we wanted and didn’t have to go to school anymore, at least for a long time.

When we got back to the park there were older kids playing a Little League game, and my friends all wanted to sit in those metal bleacher things and watch it, us with OUR baseball t-shirts and caps on, though not as neat as the older kids’ Little League uniforms, which were caps, shirts and pants and those special striped socks. The back of their special baseball shirts had blue circles with “Washtenaw Dairy” in white cursive letters.

We all sat in the top row of the bleachers on the first base side. A lot of the kids playing saw us up there and nodded like it was neat that we came to their game. Some of them asked us if we won our game. We said we did and told them the score, but didn’t tell them how stupid the game was with all those walks or about that kid that got hit and cried. We were all just super happy it was summertime and we were out of school and doing stuff that we WANTED to do, like playing baseball.

So we watched the game and I saw that Zeke kid, the one that Paul had said was talking about boys getting naked in the lilac bushes. He was playing for the other team. I told my friends I needed to get a drink of water, and after I walked over to the water fountain at the lodge place, I walked over by the other bleachers on the third base side where Zeke’s team was. Zeke was standing and practicing swinging a bat. He saw me walking up to him.

“What’s up kid?” he asked, “You in tee ball?” I shook my head.

“No”, I said, “Ten-year-old league. We won our first game this morning over at Dicken, fifteen to twelve.”

“Ten-year-old league, eh”, he said, “All walks right?” I nodded and grinned, figuring I wanted him to like me.

“Yep”, I said, “All walks.”

“Don’t worry kid”, he said, “By next year it’ll seem more like real baseball.” I nodded again.

“You look familiar”, he said. I nodded another time.

“Yep”, I said, “I live right across the street from the park. You’re Zeke, right?”

“That’s my name”, he said, almost like he was singing a song, “What’s your game… kid?” I figured he was being silly, so I wasn’t sure how or whether to answer. So I decided just to ask my question and see what he said or didn’t say.

“So there’s that secret meeting in the Lilac bushes over there”, I said, pointing, “Some kids said you might know about that.” He looked worried.

“What kids?” he asked, looking at me more carefully now and not swinging his bat any more.

“Just some kids”, I said, “I don’t know their names.”

Still looking worried he said, “I don’t know anything about that. What kind of secret meeting?”

“I don’t know”, I said, “But they said they were doing super super secret stuff. Stuff they couldn’t tell ANYBODY because…” I couldn’t think what to say next.

“Because what?” he asked, now seeming even more worried.

“Because it’s super super secret”, I said, “And they said that the meetings were early Sunday morning.”

“Oh THOSE secret meetings”, he said, shaking his head, “I don’t think you’d be interested, kid.”

Then I heard a grownup’s kind of fierce voice say, “ZEKE, you’re up!” He went to the plate and I walked back behind the backstop fence back to the bleachers where my friends were and climbed through the people sitting on the lower steps back to sit with my friends.

“Do you know that kid?” Herbie asked. I shook my head.

“Nah”, I said, “He just saw my uniform and asked me how our game went.”

***

It was the next morning, Sunday morning, and I got out of bed as soon as I was awake. I could see through the one window in our room that dad was mowing the grass in the backyard and David was playing in the dirt pile under the maple tree. The door to mom and dad’s room was closed, so mom was probably sleeping in again.

I quickly got dressed and went into the kitchen and ate a bowl of Cheerios. I was excited. I was going to see if this “secret meeting” in the lilac bushes was really happening and what it was all about. I wondered if that Zeke kid would be there, and if he would be mad at me being there. I made sure to go out the front door so dad and David didn’t see me. The sun was out though there were puffy clouds in the sky. There was just a little wind, that “breeze” thing again. I didn’t walk down the sidewalk on our side of Potter street, because dad or David might see me from our backyard.

So I crossed Potter instead and walked over past the bunch of lilac bushes that were closest to our house. I could really smell their sweet smell, what mom called “fragrance”. I looked over to the bunch of bushes along Hutchins across from Marybeth and Hannah’s house. I saw a kid’s face peeking out looking around. It was that Zeke kid, and I could tell that he saw me, so I walked toward him. As I got close to the bushes he was shaking his head slowly.

“What are YOU doing here, kid?” he asked, his voice sounding fierce, “Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t be interested in this secret meeting.” He looked at me for a minute thinking then said, “You wouldn’t try to spy on us would you?” he asked. I shook my head.

“I would never spy”, I said, shaking my head, “Spying is bad and I would never, ever do that. I know I’d rot in hell if I did.” I had heard some older kids using those words “rot in hell”, so I used them because it sounded good.

“Well”, he said, “Maybe you’re okay then, and we’ve got room for one more. You better come in before somebody sees you. He pulled on a big branch of one of the bushes so I could get between two of them and inside. There were four other boys in there with him. Inside the bushes the smell of the lilacs was REALLY strong, it made it hard to even think!

“Who’s this kid?” one of them asked, talking quietly, but like a loud hissing whisper. He seemed older than the other three, maybe Zeke’s age. The other kids were more like my age. I’d seen all of them in the park, but I didn’t know who they were.

“I see him in the park all the time”, said Zeke, also whispering the same way, “I think he’s okay.” The other older boy nodded, and then the three other boys nodded too.

“Does he know the rules?” the other older boy asked, still quiet but fierce.

“No”, said Zeke, “You tell him.” The other boy nodded.

“I’ll remind everyone”, the other boy said, and he turned his head to look at each one of us like this was really, really important.

“Gentlemen…” His voice was quiet but still fierce, like his eyes when he took his turn looking at me. Sometimes older boys used that “gentleman” word that grownup men used sometimes when talking to each other. I think they figured it made what they were about to say sound more important, though I would never say that, and didn’t like it when other kids said it, but I didn’t say anything.

“Rule one”, he said, “This is a secret meeting so you don’t tell ANYONE about it. Not your parents. Not even your best friends.” I nodded.

“Rule two”, he said, “Everybody here has to do whatever we tell you to do, and you can’t tell ANYONE about that either.” I nodded again.

“Cross your heart and hope to die?” he asked. I nodded. I figured that if they asked me to do something really bad I could just run out of the bushes back to my backyard where dad and David were and then what could Zeke and that other older kid do. But I felt that that wasn’t going to happen. They were just being extra careful.

“SAY IT!” he said, in that loud hissing whisper, looking at me fiercely.

“Cross my heart and hope to die”, I said, putting my right hand on my chest like we did for the pledge of allegiance.

“That’s better”, he said, “Now EVERYBODY has to say it!”

Everybody, including him and Zeke and the three others, and me again, said it, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Okay, good”, he said, now not so fierce, “Now gentlemen, please take off your shoes and socks.” The other boys started doing it, throwing their socks and shoes into a pile between us. So I did it too, really excited because it looked like the next thing would be to take off our clothes. The dirt felt cool and good under my feet, as I wiggled my toes on it.

I remembered that day almost four years ago when Molly and I got naked together up in her bedroom of her old house across the street from mine. This time it would be with other boys, so this was a little different, but also exciting.

“Okay”, said the other older kid, “VERY good!. Now gentlemen, we’re all going to take off our shirts and pants.” Me and the three other younger boys kind of waited for Zeke and the other older kid to start before we did. We didn’t want to look like we WANTED to get naked, but only did it because they were telling us. We all threw our shirts and pants into the pile on top of our shoes and socks. It felt good to see all our clothes there together, like we were all going to do this together. We all were wearing the same kind of white underwear, not that “boxer” kind that dad wore.

He looked at all of us and nodded with his lips pushed together like it was good.

“Now gentleman”, he said, talking slower, like this was the main part, “Each of you is going to pull down his underwear, one at a time.” He looked at the kid next to him. “You first.”

The kid nodded, said okay, looked at all of us, and pulled down his underwear to the ground, stepped out of them and tossed them on the pile. I had never seen another kid’s penis. It looked pretty much like mine, but still. He looked at all of us again and stood there naked and smiled, like he was glad he finally got to do it. That made sense to me, and I was excited waiting for my turn, but there were still two other kids before me.

Each of those two took off his underwear, and threw it on the pile of clothes. All of the rest of us watched each one as they did it, not saying anything. I could tell they were both excited like I was, and happy when they were naked in front of the rest of us.

So when they all first looked at me I got shy and scared, and my whole body shivered.

“First time, kid?” the other older kid asked, but his voice sounded friendly now. I was going to nod, but then I thought about getting naked with Molly, and I shook my head, and realized I didn’t want to be shy anymore.

So before he could say anything else to me, or maybe even tease me, I pulled down my underwear, and as soon as I could feel the air on my penis and knew they all could see it, I was so excited, and there were little “goose bumps” all up and down my arms. I saw their eyes all look down at it, that part of me that no one ever saw and I wasn’t supposed to show anybody. But here I was, showing it, and it felt really good.

I thought about last year, when I had told Joey, right here in these same bushes, that I’d “pull down my pants for Mary”. I think I said that because I had what the older kids called a “crush” on her, where you were thinking about her a lot and you wanted her to like you. I wanted her to know that I would even do something embarrassing for her, and that I wasn’t afraid to show her who I really was. Something like that I think.

When I actually did get naked with Molly, a long time ago when we were five, I don’t think it was a “crush” thing, even though I guess you could say that we really really liked each other. It was because we were best friends, and we both wanted to do it even though we weren’t supposed to because it would be fun, and we knew the other one wouldn’t tell anyone.

So now I was getting naked with these other boys, who I didn’t even know and didn’t know me, just because it would be fun and they wouldn’t tell. I didn’t have a crush on them or even really like them, but that didn’t matter.

Zeke looked at me standing there naked, goosebumps on my arms, my toes digging in the soft dirt I was standing on. He smiled and nodded his head just the littlest bit. I bent down and threw my underwear on the pile.

Then Zeke and the other older kid pulled down their underwear. Their penises were a little bit bigger than the rest of ours but looked about the same. We all stood there for what felt like a long time, the sweet smell of the lilac bushes making all of us just kind of not worry about anything and even a little bit silly, kind of like the grownups with that punch stuff they drank at parties.

“Okay gentleman”, said Zeke now, “Everybody turn around and show us your bottoms.” We all turned around, though we all had trouble seeing each other having to look behind us now, and as we tried to turn our heads each way to see, our bottoms moved back and forth in a silly way and it was pretty funny, some of us even laughing a little bit.

We were breaking the rule, the grownup’s rule, that showing these “private” parts of your body was really bad, even though we knew they did it with each other when they were in bed at night. And they did other stuff too, like in the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans joke. Most of us didn’t know what all that was yet, but we knew it was something, and it was special, and probably really fun. But here in our secret place we would do at least this much, and like it a lot.

Suddenly we heard the voices of two girls talking to each other as they walked down the sidewalk just across Hutchins from us. One asked the other, “Is that where the boys have their secret meeting on Sunday morning?”

“I don’t know, maybe”, said the other, “It would be fun to spy on them.”

“Somebody said they take off their clothes in there”, said the first.

“Ewww”, said the other, “Boys are so… ewww”.

We all got scared and rushed to find our underwear and other clothes in the pile and quickly get dressed again. Once we were dressed we laughed at being so scared. The two girls had kept walking up Hutchins and had disappeared across Pauline. It was actually kind of fun because at least we had all been scared together, Zeke and that other older kid had been just as scared as the rest of us.

“Welp”, said Zeke, “I’m outta here.”

“Yeah me too”, said the other older boy. Then he looked at the rest of us and said, “Remember, this never happened. We tell nobody!”

***

The next Saturday I was playing soldiers and Martians in the dirt pile in our backyard with David and Paul. Mom was hanging the clothes she just washed on that metal clothesline thing at the end of the driveway close to where we were playing.

She had the radio from the kitchen playing by where she was hanging clothes. It was plugged into this long thing called an “extension cord” that went into the house and was plugged into one or the “outlets” in the kitchen. It wasn’t that CKLW station that me and other kids liked to listen to, but that other one close to it on the dial with talking and more grownup music. Right now it was playing a Frank Sinatra song and mom was humming along because she REALLY LIKED him. I think she liked the last part of the song SO MUCH that she started singing, even though she couldn’t sing very well. I don’t think she even knew she was doing it…

Now I shout it from the highest hill
Even told the golden daffodils
At last my heart's an open door
And my secret love's no secret
My secret love's no secret
My secret love's no secret anymore

Then she stopped singing or even humming. “This is strange!” she said. Paul and I looked at her, though David was too busy getting Godzilla ready to attack the soldiers.

“Coolie”, she said, she used that nickname for me specially when she was feeling happy, “You have one pair of underwear that’s different than the other pairs. I could swear I haven’t seen them before.” She looked at me like she wondered if I knew why.

I lifted my shoulders up and down and said, “I don’t know.”

Paul looked at me like maybe I DID know but I wasn’t telling her.

***

It was the next morning, Sunday, and I woke up early again. We had won our baseball game yesterday at Buhr Park when Lenny pitched, ten to seven. We had lost our game Wednesday at Virginia Park, fifteen to eight, when Theo tried to pitch. He had walked just about everybody.

Dad and David were in the kitchen eating breakfast. Dad said he was going to take David over to play at his friend Jimmie’s house and then go out to run some errands before picking David up before lunchtime. He said mom was “sleeping in”, but after lunch he and mom had some errands to run together, so they wanted me to keep an eye on David until they got home. I was okay doing that “babysitting” stuff, because it made mom and dad think I was “growing up” and that I could do more stuff by myself.

But this morning I also wanted to go out to the park to see if Zeke and those other boys were going to have the secret meeting in the lilac bushes again. I knew most people thought it was bad to do that kind of stuff, but I had liked it and wanted to do it again and maybe do even more stuff, though I wasn’t sure what.

So when dad and David left in the car, I walked over to the park. I couldn’t really see many kids anywhere. There were two boys swinging on the swings. It looked like there were some grownups or those older student guys playing basketball way across the park in the other corner. So I walked over to the lilac bushes by Marybeth and Hannah’s house but there was no one else there when I went inside. As I smelled their super sweet smell, I remembered taking my clothes off in front of the other boys last Sunday, and how good it felt to be naked around other kids who weren’t worried about it like most kids seemed to be. I wondered if I should take off my clothes here by myself, but that wouldn’t be the same because no one else was watching.

I heard the voice of a kid saying something to another kid. It sounded like they were running towards me. “That’s that kid from last week”, he said.

I waited. Finally they got to the bushes and came inside and saw me. “You came back”, one of them said to me smiling. I nodded.

I didn’t even know their names and they didn’t know mine, but I figured that was probably good like that.

The other one looked at me and asked, “Do you think those two older kids will be here?” I raised and lowered my shoulders because I didn’t know.

“We should probably wait and see”, said the first one and then looked at me. I nodded. I had had fun and I think they had too, that’s why they came back, but none of us were going to talk about it because of that first rule, I guess, about not telling anybody.

So we all waited for the older kids to come, but they didn’t. We kept on peeking out between the branches looking for them. But then we saw four girls walking quietly up Hutchins from the corner by Paul’s house pointing at the lilac bushes we were in and putting one finger over their mouth to tell the other girls to be quiet. They walked by us on the sidewalk on the other side of the street but then crossed a little farther up and went into the bunch of lilac bushes between our bunch and the play area in the trees.

“Oh no”, said the one boy, whispering now, “It’s those girls who were going to spy on us. What do we do?” We still had our clothes on so I figured we were okay, but then I had an idea.

“Let’s sneak out the other side of these bushes”, I whispered, “Where the girls can’t see us. They both whispered “okay”.

It was like when we played pretend war. We crawled out of the bunch of bushes on the opposite side of the bushes the girls were in. We crawled through the grass and down the little slope to Potter street and then crawled along the grass right by the curb over to where that third bunch of lilac bushes just across from my house was, and then we crawled inside of those. There wasn’t as much room inside as the bushes we had been in, but just enough for us to hide and see out. And we waited.

Nothing happened for a while but then two of the girls kind of sneaked out of their bushes towards the ones we had been in before. I saw one of the girls look at the other and shake her head. They slowly got closer until they were right next to the bushes we had been in.

“There’s nobody in there”, the one said to the other.

“There’s nobody in there”, the other yelled to the two other girls who were still in their bunch of lilac bushes. Those two girls came out, looking mad.

“I saw them in there”, one of them said, “Where’d they go?” They walked over and stood next to the first two and looked around.

“They’re probably going to search and find us”, whispered the boy lying next to me in the bushes, “What do we do now?” he asked, looking at me like I was in charge now. I liked that he thought I was in charge.

“Follow me”, I whispered, “They’ll never find us.”

There were no cars coming so I ran across Potter street across the little backyard of the people that lived next to us on the corner and into our backyard. The other two boys followed me laughing quietly like we had tricked the girls.

When I got to our side door I looked at them behind me, put my finger over my mouth and said, “Shhh! Wait here.” I opened the screen and regular side door quietly and snuck into the kitchen. When I got to the door to the living room I saw that the door to the bathroom was closed and I could hear the noise of sloshing water, and I knew mom was taking a bath, something she liked to do these days on Sunday mornings, specially when no one else was around.

I went back to the side door and opened the screen carefully and whispered for the other two boys to come in quietly and go down the stairs into the basement. Then I quietly closed the screen door and walked slowly down the stairs too, so I didn’t make much noise.

“We’re safe from the girls here”, I said, still whispering, because I knew mom was right above us in the bathtub, and it also felt more like a secret meeting if we whispered.

“Is this your house?” one asked. I nodded, and I thought it was funny that he might have thought I just went into somebody else’s house.

“Where’s your mom and dad?” he asked.

“My dad and my brother are out for the morning and my mom’s”, I whispered, pointing up above me at the ceiling, “Up in the bathroom taking a bath, so we need to be extra quiet.” They both nodded, I could see they both thought it was neat that we had to be quiet too.

I figured the MOST secret place in the basement was the walk-in closet that dad had made. None of the basement windows were in the closet, so if those girls HAD followed us to the house, and they looked in the basement windows, they still couldn’t see us. So I did that thing you do with your finger when you want people to follow you and I went over to the door to the closet and opened the door.

The closet had big shelves on either side piled up with folded towels, sheets and blankets. The floor was just the gray concrete, like the rest of the basement. There were also big cardboard boxes with words written on them, like “Bathroom”, “Kitchen” and “Gardening”. Both mom and dad loved to “organize” stuff. When we went inside and I closed the door the light came through the top part of the door, which had these really neat things that mom and dad called “slats”, which made these lines of light across the little room, mostly on the floor. There was a lightbulb you could turn on by pulling a chain, but I decided not to turn it on, because how it was now, with just the light coming through the door slats made it feel way more secret.

“So what are we going to do?” the one kid asked me. I suddenly got real excited that they were looking to me to be in charge and decide what we should do.

“We should take our clothes off”, I said, “Right?” They both nodded, but I could tell they weren’t sure who should go first. Then I thought that I should go first, and that made me REALLY excited, getting naked in front of them while they still had ALL their clothes on.

So I stood where the light from the slats went across my body and I took off my shoes and socks and everything else while they watched. I got that extra rush of energy and tingling on my arms again when I pulled down my underwear. They both looked at me for a minute, which felt really good. I remembered mom saying we were animals. But no other animals wore clothes. So now I was being an animal.

“I’ll go next”, said the one kid, and he took everything off too and pulled down his underwear. Then the other kid did it too, and we were all naked, standing in the bars of light coming through the slats.

“Now what do we do?” asked the one kid, which got me more excited that he wanted us to do something more, do whatever I said.

I had thought about what Molly and other kids had said about grownups lying on top of each other when they were in bed together. I figured mom and dad had done that too, but I’d never seen them, like Molly had seen her mom and dad that one time, and other kids too. Some kids said that was how babies were made.

I wondered what it felt like to lie on top of someone else, specially when you didn’t have your clothes on. Maybe this was when I could find out.

“We could lie on top of each other”, I said, “That’s what other kids say grownups do.” Neither of them said anything, and I wondered if I had said something REALLY bad, even bad for the three of us kids who had decided to get naked together, which most other people thought was already bad.

“Hmm”, the one boy said, “We never did that before”, and I got worried that I had gone too far.

But then the other boy said, “Okay, that sounds fun, should I go first?” I was surprised that he said that, but I nodded.

He laid down on the floor on his stomach, but had his arms under his chest so he could hold his head up, but didn’t turn it to look up at me. The floor felt kind of cold on my bare feet, but he didn’t say anything about it being cold, or anything else. I had expected him to lie on his back, but I guess that would make lying on top of him weirder, because our penises would touch.

I got down on my hands and knees over him. “Are you ready?” I asked. He nodded.

I lowered myself down until the parts of my body started touching his, my chest against his back, my penis touching his bottom, and my legs touching his. I used my elbows to hold my head above his as I looked at and could smell his hair. His body felt warm and it was really exciting, my whole body shivered and I got goosebumps on my arms. I was afraid to say anything because we were doing something so strange that everyone else would think is really bad. But it didn’t FEEL bad, and I wondered why this was supposed to be bad.

I turned my head and looked up at the other boy, standing above us. I could tell he didn’t know what to say either, and just nodded. He got down on his hands and knees over me, and I could already feel the tip of his penis touching my bottom. Then I felt HIS warm body press against mine and my body shivered again, making more goosebumps on my arms. I was squeezed between them, all of us naked, all feeling each other. We lay there for a long time, not saying anything.

I had never felt anything quite like it. It was very strange, but not BAD strange. EXCITING strange, and I got why grownups and older kids might want to lay on top of each other when they were super kissyface. I figured they did other stuff when they were doing this, that was even more fun, but this was plenty for me.

We lay there on top of each other for what seemed like a long time. I think all three of us liked it but were also afraid to say anything, because we knew we weren’t supposed to be doing it.

Finally the kid I was laying on squirmed and said, “Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom.” The kid above me quickly got back on his hands and knees and then stood up. I did the same. Then the boy below me also. We all grabbed at our clothes and put them on. The kid who had to go was bouncing his legs up and down.

“Where’s your bathroom?” he asked.

“Sorry, you can’t use it”, I said, “Remember? My mom’s in the bathtub.”

“Shoot”, he said, kind of wiggling his legs.

“Run outside”, the other boy said, “And pee in the lilac bushes across the street.” The first boy nodded and ran up the stairs and out the side door.

“I better go to”, said the other boy, and he ran up the stairs and out the side door too.

I walked up the stairs and heard mom yelling from inside the bathroom with the door still closed. “Coop? Are you there?”

I ran to the closed bathroom door and said, “Yeah mom, it’s me!”

“What the hell’s going on?” she asked, sounding mad, “What was all that running up the stairs?”

“A couple of kids from the park were playing with me in the basement”, I said, “But they had to go.”

“Oh my god, Coop”, she said, “I couldn’t figure out who the hell that was, and I don’t have any clothes in here, just these two towels.”

“Sorry mom”, I said. Seemed like I was saying that to her a lot these days.

“Listen Coop”, she said, “You need to be more considerate when you know I’m in the tub to at least let me know that you and your friends are coming in the house.”

“Sorry mom!” I said it again.

“Is anyone else here? Is your dad still out with David?” she asked.

“Just me”, I said.

“Okay, good”, she said, “Are you planning to play in the basement or outside?”

“In the basement”, I said, figuring I didn’t want to go back in the backyard or over in the park in case those girls were still looking for us.

“Okay, fine”, she said, “Just next time…”

“I KNOW”, I said, sounding kind of mad, not letting her finish what she was going to say.

“It’s fine”, she said, “I’m sorry I got so mad. You and your friends scared the crap out of me. I didn’t think anyone was home, and then suddenly I hear all these feet on the basement stairs and the side door opening and closing.”

I didn’t want to keep talking to her about it, so I said, “I’m going back down in the basement.”

“Good”, she said, “I’m going to finish my bath. PLEASE make sure all the doors are closed, not just the screen doors, and PLEASE close the door behind you if you go back out.”

“Okay”, I said, “I’m going downstairs”, and I ran back down into the basement.

I sat in dad’s office chair and thought about all the stuff that had just happened. There were still goosebumps on my arms. I wondered if those two boys would want to do something like that again. I remembered again when Molly had told me about peeking into her mom and dad’s bedroom when he was lying on top of her in the bed and they were doing kissyface stuff and moving around. If you lay on top of a girl to do kissyface stuff, she would have to be on her back, not her stomach, so you could kiss each other on the mouth. And if you were naked, then your penis would be touching her thing down there between her legs.

Some of the older kids in the park said that was how women had babies, but I had never heard all the different stuff that you had to do when you were on top of her naked to do that. I think they called that “sleeping with” someone or having “sex”, but I wasn’t sure yet, and there was no way I was going to ask mom, dad, or anybody else, kid or grownup. I would just have to keep sneaking around and listening to the older kids in the park when they were talking about that kind of stuff.

I spun myself around in the chair. All this stuff was pretty complicated and hard to figure out.

Clubius Contained Part 22 - Panic Attack (April 1964)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday March 14, 2024 · 11:30 AM PDT

2024/03/14 · 11:30

Aunt Pat kissed me on the cheek, looked at me and said, “Tell your mom I’m thinking of her and that you and your Aunt ‘Hant’ Pat had a great time together and you're welcome back any time!” I nodded and told her that I would. Aunt Pat liked to tease me that before I knew what an “aunt” was, I thought her regular name was “Hant Pat”. And then when I found out what an “aunt” was, and figured out that was what she was, I called her “Aunt Hant Pat”. I usually didn’t like people teasing me, but because it was her, and she felt like my big grown up older sister, I was okay, but only on this one thing.

“And tell her”, she said grinning, “That you insisted on wearing these same pants every day you were here, despite having others in your suitcase and these probably in great need of a wash at this point.” She laughed through her nose like a grownup. I pushed my lips together and didn’t nod or say anything. Those pants with the stripes down the side WERE my favorite.

She wagged a finger at me and said, “So you’re going to throw your Aunt ‘Hant’ Pat under the bus, are you? Let my sister think I didn’t even try to get you to change your clothes while you were here.” I did a big smile and nodded my head. Now she did a regular laugh.

She looked up at the woman with the airplane uniform on and said, “He’s all yours!” The woman nodded, looked down at me, held her hand out to the open door where a man in another airplane uniform was standing, holding it open.

“This way young man”, she said. I walked out the open door and felt her fingers just touch my back. The wind was blowing outside and the sky was gray. I walked up the little stairway to the open door into the plane at the back by the tail and she followed me up. I always liked to run up stairs but I figured I shouldn’t run up these because I didn’t want to get in trouble. Inside the plane I looked down toward the front and it looked the same as the one I had gone on to fly out here to visit Aunt Pat last Saturday.

“I’ve got a seat for you up near the front on the left”, the woman in the uniform said, “So you don’t have to sit by the smokers. Your aunt said you prefer a window seat so I’m glad we had one for you.” I thought it was strange that you could have a uniform that was also a dress, but she WAS a woman.

I looked out the little round window and saw Aunt Pat standing by the big window of the building looking out, but I figured she couldn’t see me.

She seemed more like a grownup than the last time I’d seen her a couple years ago, though she still tried to be more like a kid, specially when she and I were alone together. Now she was married to this guy named Ray who was now my “Uncle Ray”. He was nice, but way more like a grownup than she was.

She and I had fun while I was there. We drove up to this place called “Seneca Lake” and this town called “Watkins Glen”, where she said mom and my Uncle John were kids and used to live with THEIR mom and dad who were MY grandparents, but Aunt Pat wasn’t born yet. She showed me more pictures she said were of mom as a little girl, but that still seemed hard to imagine that mom used to be a kid like me. But I had seen Aunt Pat change from what seemed like an older kid when I first remembered her, into more like a grownup now. She was married and everything, and not living with my grandparents anymore. She and Uncle Ray lived in one of those “apartment” places, where you live in part of it, and other people live in the other parts.

But now I was going to have my own adventure of flying in an airplane again, all by myself. I had seen so much flying in airplanes from watching Sky King with Molly and in other shows too, and from reading Tom Swift books, but coming to visit Aunt Pat was the first time I had done it for real. Some of my friends had already been on a real airplane, but they had gone with their mom and dad. I was the only one who had gone on an airplane ALL BY MYSELF.

It had been really neat coming to Binghamton on the plane, because I got to look out the window the whole time and see the ground way below us. When we first took off, I could see roads, houses, buildings and cars. But as we got higher up I could only see green parts and brown parts. Some of them looked like squares. There was even this really big blue part we flew over what the captain said was “Lake Erie”, which was one of those “Great Lakes”, like that “Lake Michigan” that Molly and I swam in in Saugatuck. Sometimes there were clouds BELOW us instead of above us and we couldn’t even see the ground. At one part there was blue above us and below us so it looked like there wasn’t any ground anymore, only sky above and below. That was really weird, maybe like being in space, if space was blue instead of black.

And now I could do it all again. The propellers on the plane’s engines started going and then the plane started moving away from the place we got on. That woman in the airplane uniform showed us how to hook and unhook our seatbelts, and then she came down the walking part between all the seats and made sure we all had ours on. She even reached down and pulled on the belt part of mine to make sure it was on tight, but it already was. The plane went on the airplane roads out to the long straight one that was the “runway”. Then it stopped and the engines got really noisy and there was a jerk and the plane started rolling down the runway, faster and faster. The feeling of the speed was really exciting. Mom said she didn’t like to fly, but I REALLY liked it.

Suddenly I could feel we were off the ground a little bit and then we started to go up quickly. There was a rumbling noise underneath me like machines were turning on and off. I looked out the window and I could see houses and roads and cars, getting smaller as we went up. I wanted to keep watching to see when we got so high that you couldn’ see them anymore and they changed into just those squares of brown and green. Then we flew into this fog and wisps of it shot by the window really fast and I couldn’t see anything. The plane shook up and down a little, but I figured if the plane was still going forward it would be okay, and that woman in the airplane uniform and all the other people on the plane didn’t look worried, so no way I was going to, since they’d think I was a scared kid.

I could feel us still going up and the white stuff went away to see blue sky with the white clouds below us. I guess we had just flown through a cloud. The puffy clouds below us were neat looking but made it hard to see the ground below. When I could see it, it was looking like green and brown patches now as I could feel that we were still going up.

Then the pilot used that radio thing to tell us that we’d reached our “cruising altitude of 18,000 feet” and that he was “turning off the fasten seatbelt sign”, that meant we could unhook our belts and even walk around. But I just wanted to look out the window and see when we flew over that giant blue “Lake Erie” again.

When that woman came pushing her thing with the wheels and asked me if I wanted something to drink, then I stopped looking out the window and watched her while she found me a Coke and poured it into one of those clear plastic glasses like I’d seen grownups use to drink that punch stuff at the parties at Molly’s house. Then when she went down to the next person I looked out the window again.

As I looked out and saw all the clouds below, I thought about Aunt Pat, and how she wasn’t living with HER mom and dad, my grandparents, anymore. Other people might think she was a regular grownup, but I knew that she still wasn’t, that she was still like a kid, but she couldn’t be that way anymore around other grownups, like that Uncle Ray guy she married. I figured that I would get to be as old as she was and I wondered if grownups would expect ME to act like one of them too. I wondered if mom and dad had that kid part inside them too, but they didn’t want to show it to anybody, except maybe to me or David but only once in a while.

Aunt Pat showed me those pictures of mom when she was a kid my age and said that mom had told her that she had been a “tomboy”, and never liked to play with dolls like other girls. Aunt Pat said she didn’t know for sure because she hadn’t been born yet, but that’s what “my big sister told me”. Looking at those pictures of mom as a kid, she had that same big smile and eyes.

I thought about the hands of a clock again. Always moving, pointing at different numbers, but you couldn’t SEE them move.

It didn’t seem to take very long before the captain pilot guy said that we were getting ready to land at Willow Run airport. I liked how when we were landing the plane bounced a little bit on the runway and the engines got really noisy again and I could feel the force of it trying to slow down, then moving slowly enough that it became like a giant car on the special airplane roads. We stopped by a building and that woman in the airplane uniform opened the door and the grownups sitting with me stood up and started going off the plane. The grownup sitting behind me stood up but waited for me to go first so I did.

When I got to the front of the plane, the woman in the uniform told me to wait next to her until all the other “passengers” went out first. The pilot was there too and he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Was this your first flight son?” he asked. I shook my head. “Second”, I said.

“All by yourself?” he asked. I nodded.

“Yep”, I said, like it was no big deal. He laughed through his nose and I kept nodding and I laughed through my nose too.

Then when all the other “passengers” had gone out, the woman in the uniform walked behind me down the stairs thing and into the building where dad was, watching me and waving.

***

I woke up the next morning in my top bunk bed and could feel the cold air from the outside coming through the window even though it was closed. It was almost my birthday and it still felt like winter. I wondered when my birthday party was going to be and if it would be outside in the park or inside in the house. Mom and dad said they were waiting for the weather to get warmer so we could have it in the park.

David was already up, he almost always got up before I did, and was probably down in the basement playing. I heard mom and dad talking in the kitchen.

“You’re letting it get to you, Liz”, dad said.

“How can you NOT let it get to you”, mom said, “After seeing all that devastation on the news reports last night, I just can’t even imagine what those people in Alaska must be going through after a massive earthquake like that. My mind just wouldn’t let me stop thinking about it last night. YOU saw it too. How did you manage to sleep last night?”

“Well”, he said, “When you’ve been through a war, driven through, bombed out cities, slept in a tent or a halftrack but never a proper bed, been up all night, you learn how to sleep anytime and anywhere.”

“And when are we going to do Coop’s birthday?” she asked, “It’s goddamn freezing out there, Eric, and it’s supposed to be even colder tomorrow.”

“Let’s just schedule it for next Saturday and hope for the best”, dad said, “And then worst case we do it in the house like his sixth birthday party.”

I heard mom breathe out air really loud. “That only worked because Margie brought over her records and record player and turned it into a dance party”, mom said, “And you were still a starving grad student back then so people maybe understood. But now you're a college professor and we still have no goddamn furniture. It’s embarrassing.”

“C’mon Liz”, dad said, “Our friends would understand.”

“I DON’T understand”, mom said, “Why can’t Eastern pay you enough so we can buy some goddamn furniture.” I could hear her voice sounding different, like she was ready to start crying.

“Well I can pick up some part-time work”, dad said.

“Oh Jesus Eric”, mom said, now sounding mad, “You’re already way too busy as it is. You’d never be here. And now you have to go to that conference Monday in Chicago. It’s hard enough keeping all the balls in the air when both of us are here.”

“It’s just three days”, he said, “And it’ll look good on my CV when it comes to getting tenure.”

“I don’t know if you understand”, mom said, “Sometimes I just feel like I’m hanging by a thread. And I had plans too Eric, we talked about this. You were going to get your PhD and a professor job and then I was going to go back to school and get my masters. That’s never going to happen, is it?”

“Oh Liz”, dad said, “Sure it is. Everything is just taking longer than we thought.”

“Right now it feels like it’s taking way TOO long”, mom said, “I can’t keep this up. We’ve been married almost fourteen years now and I feel like I’m just a maid and a nanny watching you slowly achieve YOUR goals.”

“Jeez Liz”, dad said, “That’s not fair. We’re both in this together.”

“Well… maybe not fair”, mom said, “But that’s how I’m feeling right now, I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you!”

***

I hadn’t felt very hungry last night because my stomach felt bad, and this morning when I woke up my whole body felt weak and my head hurt. David had got up and gone in the kitchen to eat breakfast, and then mom had come into our room to check on me.

“You still not feeling right?” she asked. I nodded. She put her hand on my forehead, “You feel warm. Better stay home from school this morning and rest. You may have picked something up on your trip. We’ll see how you are at lunchtime. You hungry for breakfast?” I shook my head.

“Ah Coolie”, she said, shaking her head, she hadn’t called me that nickname in a while, “What are we going to do?” She asked questions like that sometimes that I really didn’t know how to answer. She seemed sad and worried about stuff she was thinking about.

“Your dad’s off to Chicago for a couple of days for a conference”, she said, “It’s part of his job, I get that, but I’m just not used to doing everything here by myself.” She stood up and moved her head back and squeezed the back of her neck with her hand a couple times and groaned.

“I got to get your brother off to school”, she said, “And then I’ll be back with an aspirin and a cup of water for you to drink.” I nodded, and she walked out of my room and back into the kitchen. I heard David asking her if I wasn’t feeling well.

Still laying in bed, I felt the cold air outside from the window near our bed, and even though I was under the covers my body shivered. I heard the front door open, mom telling David to have a good day, then closing again. Then it was quiet. I didn’t hear mom’s footsteps or anything.

The phone rang. I heard mom go into the kitchen and answer.

“Yes this is Jane Zale”, she said. Then she was quiet.

“That can’t be right”, she said, “I deposited my husband’s check last Wednesday. I should have the receipt right here, hang on.” She was quiet again.

“Oh my god”, she said, sounding really worried, “I must have forgotten to make the deposit. I’m so sorry!”

“Oh no”, she said, “I just sent out checks with all the monthly bills. I can run the check over right now. Please don’t bounce any more of them.” She was quiet again.

“Why not?” she asked, and was quiet again.

“Oh dear god”, she said, “Thank you for the call. My husband’s out of town and my son is sick.”

“Goodbye”, she said, and I heard her hang up the phone.

“Oh no”, she said again, louder this time, “Not now, not today. I can’t do this today.” I heard her walking around the living room making noises like she was trying to breathe. I could tell something was really wrong.

I did my best to sit up on my top bunk and then slid down to the floor. I walked slowly out of my room to the hallway as I heard her continue to walk around the living room making funny breathing noises. I got to the hallway door to the living room and stopped and watched her.

She saw me, and she looked really afraid. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her look like that. She stared at me like she needed help.

“I CAN’T BREATHE”, she said. Then she sucked a bunch of air into her mouth and said it again, “I CAN’T BREATHE COOP”. I suddenly felt really afraid too. I didn’t know what to say or do. Was she going to die? Would it be my fault because I was the only one here to help her. Should I call the ambulance or the doctor or the hospital? But I couldn’t move and just stared at her.

Between gasps for air she said, “Jesus, what the hell is happening to me!” She didn’t look fierce like I would expect but just afraid.

Finally I managed to say something. “I don’t know what to do. Should we call somebody? The doctor?” She was breathing in and out really fast.

“Yeah”, she said, “Call someone… phone’s in the kitchen.”

“Should we call dad?” I asked.

“No”, she said, “He’s on the road.”

“Should we call Molly’s house?” I asked. Hers was the only phone number besides ours that I knew.

“Yeah”, she said between gasps, “Call Joan.”

I dialed Molly’s number. The phone rang for a long time but no one answered.

“Go across the street and get Joyce”, she said.

“Who’s Joyce?” I asked.

“KENNY’S MOM!” she yelled, angry like I should know that, “Go quickly, Coop. I feel like I’m going to pass out.” I wasn’t sure what “pass out” meant, but it sounded like something you did before you died.

Even though I had pajamas on and bare feet and didn’t feel well I went out the front door into the cold and ran across the street to Kenny’s house and rang the doorbell over and over. Finally his mom opened the door.

“Cooper”, she said, “Why are you in your pajamas and your bare feet? What’s wrong?”

“My mom says she can’t breathe”, I said, “She needs your help.”

“Okay”, she said, “Let’s go”. She came out the door, closed it and walked quickly across the street with me.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know”, I said, “Nothing happened. She just said she couldn’t breathe.”

We went in our front door. The living room was empty but I could hear mom moaning in the kitchen and gasping for air.

“Jane”, said Kenny’s mom, “Are you there in the kitchen?”

“Oh Joyce, thank god”, mom said, “I’m having trouble breathing!” She started to gasp and cry at the same time.

“Dear Jane”, Kenny’s mom said, taking her hand, “Have you called your husband?”

“No”, mom said.

“Can I try and call him for you?” she asked.

“He’s on the goddamn road!”, mom said fiercely, crying.

Kenny’s mom looked really worried when mom used that swear word but didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry Joyce”, mom said, “I can’t think straight, please forgive me!” Kenny’s mom nodded slowly.

“You're forgiven”, she said, “I’m just trying to get you some help.” Mom nodded slowly and closed her eyes while she breathed out really fast. I could tell she just wanted what was happening to her to stop.

“Should I call the hospital, the ambulance?” she asked, “My husband has our car so I can’t take you there myself.” Still breathing in and out fast, mom opened her eyes and shook her head like she didn’t know. She looked like a scared kid. I was embarrassed for her, and for myself.

“I can try Matilda”, she said, “She used to work as a nurse.” Mom nodded quickly, her eyes closed now and still breathing fast. Kenny’s mom used our phone and made a call. She explained to the person on the phone what was going on with mom.

Finally she hung up and said, “Matilda is on her way over, she said she might be able to help.” Mom nodded.

“Joyce. Thank you SO MUCH”, she said, “I couldn’t deal with this without someone else.” When she said that I felt bad that I couldn’t be “someone else” to help her. I felt like a stupid kid that didn’t know anything.

“Oh god”, mom said, “I feel like my heart is going to jump out of my body! Am I having a heart attack?”

“I don’t know Jane”, Kenny’s mom said, “But I don’t think so. Hopefully Matilda will know what to do.”

We were all quiet now. Mom sitting in the chair in the kitchen. Kenny’s mom and me standing next to her.

A station wagon came and parked in front of the house. I looked out the kitchen window and it was Molly’s mom getting out.

“Molly’s mom’s here”, I said.

“Oh yeah”, mom said, “I guess I called her when you were getting Joyce. I can’t even remember what I said to her.”

I watched Molly’s mom run from her car to our front door and bang on the screen door. I ran into the living room and opened the door.

She looked at me and asked, “How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s in the kitchen with Kenny’s mom”, I said.

“Okay”, she said, then looking at me in my pajamas, “How are YOU doing? Are you home sick?” I nodded at the second question. I didn’t know how to answer her first one, I didn’t want to tell her about feeling embarrassed about mom.

“JANE”, Molly’s mom said loud, “I’M HERE!”

“We’re in the kitchen”, said Kenny’s mom. Molly’s mom went to the door between the living room and kitchen and stood there. I couldn’t really go in too because Molly’s mom was in the way, so I just stood there feeling like a stupid kid who didn’t feel well and didn’t know what to do, and I had to wait for the grownups to figure things out. But I’m glad they were there because I didn’t want mom to die.

I heard Kenny’s mom tell Molly’s mom everything that had happened. Finally Molly’s mom said, “Jane, I don’t think it’s a heart attack, I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“Why would I have a panic attack?” mom asked, still breathing hard.

“I don’t know”, Molly’s mom said, “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately trying to keep all the balls in the air.” She took a quick look at me like there was stuff she didn’t want to say because I was there. That made me feel like a more stupid kid.

“Jane”, she said, like she was talking to a kid, “I can take you to the emergency room at U of M hospital if that would make you feel better.” I couldn’t hear mom say anything and I didn’t know if she was nodding or shaking her head.

There was another knock on the screen door. I opened it and it was Paul’s mom. Molly’s mom saw her from the doorway to the kitchen.

“Matilda”, she said, “We could sure use your help and nursing experience sorting this out.”

“I’m glad I was home”, Paul’s mom said, “But I’ve got something in the oven so I can’t stay long.”

Molly’s mom told her all the stuff that Kenny’s mom had told her. I just stood in the mostly empty living room and listened.

I heard Paul’s mom say, “Jane, I’m pretty damn sure you are having a panic attack and that you’re hyperventilating. Do you have like a paper lunch bag or other small paper bag?” I heard a cupboard open and the crunching sound of a paper bag being opened.

“Now Jane”, she said, “Close the opening of the bag over your mouth and breathe in and out slowly.” There was a moment of silence.

“I know it sounds strange”, Paul’s mom said, “But it usually works.” I heard the bag making crunching noises, I guess as mom breathed into it.

“Okay good”, Paul’s mom said, “Keep going and just try to relax and focus on your breathing.” More bag noises but no one was talking in the kitchen.

“Is that better?” she asked. Again I couldn’t tell if mom was nodding or shaking her head, but Paul’s mom said, “Good.”

“Matilda you’re a lifesaver”, I heard Molly’s mom say.

“Yes indeed”, said Kenny’s mom, “Thank you so much, Matilda.”

“Happy to do it”, said Paul’s mom, “We girls need to stick together. Jane, you probably should talk to your doctor or maybe even a psychologist about what might have caused this. When’s Eric home?” she asked.

“Thursday”, mom said, “He’s at a conference in Chicago.”

“I’ve got to get home or I’ll burn my cookies”, Paul’s mom said, “And then I’ll have an unhappy hubby! Can you two sit with her a bit more and make sure she’s okay? Worst case, run her to the ER at U of M hospital.”

Paul’s mom came out of the kitchen and looked at me standing in the living room. “I think your mom’s going to be okay young man, but YOU don’t look so good.” She put her hand on my forehead and nodded. “You need to drink some water and get back into bed.” I nodded, still feeling pretty stupid and not able to do anything to help.

Paul and Kenny’s moms went home, but Molly’s mom stayed, and she and mom went for a “walk around the block”. I wondered if that was because they wanted to talk about stuff and didn’t want me to hear what it was. When they got back, Molly’s mom drove her car back to their house. And then before David came home from school, mom asked me to not say anything to him about what happened, because he was too young to understand. I wasn’t sure I understood, but I said okay. I wondered if she’d tell dad, but I didn’t ask her.

***

The next morning, Tuesday, I was feeling a little better, but mom said I should stay home from school one more day and reminded me not to tell David about what happened. When she looked at me she would smile, but it felt like more of a pretend smile, like she was thinking about a bunch of stuff that she was worrying about. After David came home from school and ate lunch, she took him over to the park to play while she sat in the middle of the park and watched him, like she used to do with me before she let me do whatever I wanted. I just played in the basement and watched shows on TV.

I went to school on Wednesday and when I came home after school dad was back a day early from his “conference”. I guess he knew what had happened, though he and mom didn’t talk about it at all, at least that I could hear, maybe because they didn’t want David to find out. They also said they had decided to “postpone” my birthday party until the next weekend, because the weather was supposed to get warmer and we could have it in the park.

When I finally had my party in the park, mom didn’t come. Before the party she “apologized” to me for not being able to be there, but said she was feeling “under the weather”, and said that Molly’s mom and Paul’s mom would help dad with the food. She had never not come to my birthday party before.

I wondered if she was embarrassed about having that “panic attack”, like I had been embarrassed last year when Joey told everybody in my class that I’d pull down my pants for Mary. I could still remember standing there in class getting ready to go out to recess when he said it and everybody looking at me and just feeling like I wanted to disappear. It wasn’t like other things I remembered, it was like it was happening over and over again each time I thought about it.

Mom and dad did get me a record player for my birthday, though they said I had to let David use it too. My friends at the party were mad that they didn’t know that I was getting it, because they would have bought me records for birthday presents. And while we played in the park they were all telling me good records to buy, like “Hey Little Cobra” by the Ripcords, “The Way You Do The Things You Do” by the Temptations, and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles.

My friends didn’t ask me about mom or the panic attack, so I guess they didn’t know, which was good. I did wonder if the other grownups at the party knew, besides dad, Molly’s mom and Paul’s mom. Kenny came but HIS mom didn’t. And Danny’s mom was mom’s other best friend, besides Molly’s mom, and I couldn’t tell if SHE knew.

And now I was wondering if there was something wrong with our family. Dad couldn’t make enough money. He and mom argued all the time. She had a panic attack. And I had said last year that I’d pull down my pants for Mary and Joey had told everybody at school. Maybe we weren’t regular people like other people were. Maybe we were all bad.

Clubius Contained Part 21 - D-Day (January 1964)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 03, 2024 · 11:05 AM PST

2024/03/03 · 11:05

The biggest present I got for Christmas was from “Santa”, which I knew now was really mom and dad. But mom wanted to keep pretending that Santa was real, maybe for David, because he was still a little kid. Or maybe because mom just liked Santa a lot, even though he was pretend. Like David and I liked our toy soldier Lieutenant Cord a lot, and had a funeral for him when he died and buried him in the backyard, even though HE was pretend. And the presents from “Santa” were always really good ones, so I went along with mom and dad’s pretending.

So for Christmas this year “Santa” got me, actually David and me, an Aurora slot car racing track. It was really neat, because you could hook it together any way you wanted to and it had little controls to drive each of the two cars. You turned this little wheel which made the car go faster or slower. Also I could buy more track from the Kiddie Korner toy store if I wanted to make the track bigger or different, and I could also get more cars too.

It was interesting what made the cars move. Thin lines of metal in the track carried electricity and the cars had these little metal flat parts underneath between the front wheels that touched the metal lines in the track and gave the little motor in the car electricity to make it turn the wheels.

The day after Christmas, dad got this giant “beaverboard” thing at Schlenker’s, and put it on four wood boxes so it was like a really big low to the ground table, and I could leave the track set up on it all the time and no one would step on it by accident like if it was just on the floor. The beaverboard was set up between the TV and the shelves where David and I kept all our toys. On the TV side, was this rug that mom had found at this store called the “Treasure Mart”. Dad liked the rug too because it was cheap. It made it more comfortable to sit on the floor and watch TV, but it also made it more comfortable to sit on the floor on that side of the beaverboard and drive the cars on the track.

We got other presents too, from “mom and dad”, our grandparents, and Aunt Pat. Our Uncle John and Aunt Ruth didn’t get David and I presents, but they sent us money instead. They sent us each five one dollar bills inside a Christmas card. They looked like regular dollar bills except they were stiffer and shinier. Mom said they were new, and the cards said we should go out and buy whatever we wanted with them.

So today when I woke up, I could see David already playing in the backyard. Dad was out there too, doing some kind of digging. David had on his jacket but it wasn’t even zipped up. Dad didn’t even have a jacket on, just a sweatshirt and he was even wearing shorts instead of trousers. The sun was shining, and I could tell by the way the air felt by the window next to our bunk beds that it wasn’t really cold outside. Sometimes in January, even though it was winter, we had days like this. We didn’t have to go to school because it was “Christmas vacation”, and all the schools were closed, even that Eastern place where dad worked as a teacher.

I could see mom and dad’s bedroom door was closed, so I figured mom was “sleeping in” again. It was a kind of strange thing to say, “sleeping in”. If you didn’t sleep in and got up early, were you “sleeping out”. No one ever said that.

I wondered about mom. She didn’t seem like she was happy very much, and she was still staying up late watching TV, that “Tonight Show”, and she seemed more worried now than she used to be. She would get mad at dad a lot and have a “fight” with him, though only a talking fight. She was always mad that even though he had a teaching job he still didn’t make enough money and we couldn’t buy furniture for the living room. He would always say that he’d “do more work on the side”, though I could never figure out on the side of what. Then she would say he was ALREADY working too hard. Sometimes she’d even start crying.

But this morning, all I wanted to think about was what toy I was going to buy at the toy store with that five dollars I got for Christmas. I’d seen Herbie and Gabe in the park yesterday, and they had told me about this “hobby” store called “Riders” that they and their older brothers liked to go to to buy games and models. They said that “hobbies” were things like toys that older kids and even grownups liked to play with. Well now that I was in fourth grade, and had a 22 inch bicycle, I felt more like an older kid, so I thought I’d go there rather than the regular toy stores, like the Kiddie Korner or Hessenauers, that I still liked to go to, but had a lot of little kid stuff too. Hessenauers wasn’t JUST a toy store for kids, it had stuff grownups liked to buy to have fun too, like those “grill” things for cooking food outside.

Herbie told me that Riders was on Liberty street that was near his house. He said that I should ride my bike down Fifth to Bach, then over to his house on Third, and then farther down Third until I got to Liberty. Then I had to go to the right down Liberty under the train track bridge. Since I walked to school every school day, riding my bike there and maybe even farther didn’t sound too far for me. It would be an adventure, I thought, that’s what dad would say. I figured whatever I got I could carry back home in the pressure basket of my bike.

After I got dressed and put a sweatshirt on too, I ate my Cheerios for breakfast by myself in the kitchen. I ALWAYS had Cheerios for breakfast, unless mom or dad made us all scrambled eggs and bacon, but they didn’t do that very much any more, since mom slept in a lot and dad usually had to go to Eastern to teach his morning classes. But I liked that I could make my own breakfasts and lunches and eat them by myself. It made me feel more like no one was in charge of me. When I finished, I put my bowl and spoon in the sink and went out the side door. It really wasn’t cold outside, and I knew because the sun was out, and it wasn’t windy, that it would keep getting warmer. I went back in my room and put on my “Michigan” sweatshirt like the one dad was wearing and then back out the side door.

We kept all the bicycles outside even though they got snowed on because we didn’t have a garage. There wasn’t enough room in the basement to keep them there without them getting in the way, and even if we did, it was too hard for David to carry his bike up the stairs and out the side door. I guess it was pretty hard for me too. As I got my bike untangled from mom’s, David and dad both saw me. Dad stopped shoveling, took off his Tigers baseball cap and wiped his forehead and looked at me.

“Where ya going?” David asked. He sounded more like a regular kid than a little kid now.

“For a ride”, I said, deciding I didn’t want to tell them what I was really going to do. It was “my own business”, as mom or dad would say.

“I want to go too”, David said. He didn’t even ask me if it was okay.

“Nah”, I said, “I’m going to be riding too far and too fast. You won’t be able to keep up on your little bike.” His bike used to be my bike. It had 20 inch wheels and MY bike had 22 inch wheels. David frowned and looked kind of mad.

“If I was older”, he said, “I’d let you ride with ME.” That reminded me of that Golden Rule thing, but I really wanted to do this by myself. I nodded.

“Next time”, I said. Mom and dad sometimes said that to me when I wanted something that they didn’t want to get me. David made a face and shook his head and looked “disgusted”, that was the word my friends and I liked to use a lot now.

“Coop”, dad said, from over where he had been digging, “Watch out for slushy patches in the street or especially on the sidewalks.” I nodded. David had gone back to playing with the dinosaurs and Godzilla on the packed down dirt pile, like he didn’t want to look at me anymore because he was mad.

I rode around the park and then down Fifth street. Riding down Fifth this way was fun, because it was a little downhill, so I didn’t have to pedal unless I wanted to. But this time I did pedal because I was excited to get where I was going. I got to Bach School, which always looked strange on the weekend without all the kids there. I turned right on Jefferson by the school and rode down to Herbie’s street and then down past his house until I got to the big Liberty street. Though I’d seen older kids do it, I didn’t like riding my bicycle on the big streets, so I rode on the sidewalk down toward the railroad bridge. When I got to the end of the sidewalk at each street, I turned right and rode my bike to the first driveway then across that street if there were no cars to another driveway on the other side and then back up that sidewalk and continued toward the railroad bridge. The most fun was riding on the sidewalk under the bridge, though no train went over me.

As I rode up the Liberty sidewalk into the downtown part with buildings and stores instead of houses, I rode past Shlenker’s Hardware and remembered that day back in November when we heard that Kennedy was shot. Mom really hadn’t seemed happy much since then, except maybe for Christmas morning.

I saw the “Riders” sign on the building part above the store part with its big glass windows. I stopped my bike in front and looked in. There was all kinds of really neat stuff behind the big windows. Two kinds of toy trains and tracks. The big “Lionel” kind and the smaller “HO” kind. The tracks were on green stuff that looked like grass with little pretend houses, buildings and trees. The boxes that you could buy with all those kinds of trains in them were right there too, just behind the set up trains on the green stuff.

Then above the trains on shelves were boxes of models you could buy, planes, ships and even those “Weird Oh” models like the one Molly got for me and her stepdad liked to make. They had two model planes that were all put together and painted really nice. One was all brown with those blue circles with white stars in them that I knew from dad’s red World War Two books was an American plane, a “bomber” I think because it had four propeller engines. Next to it was a smaller gray plane with only one propeller engine and that black plus sign symbol on the side with the white edges which I figured must be a German “fighter”. They both looked so neat with all their colors, instead of how the real ones looked in the gray pictures in dad’s books.

I leaned my bike against a light pole, opened the big glass door and went inside. There were shelves and shelves full of boxes, and a long giant glass box thing along the side, like a lot of stores had, with more stuff on shelves under and behind the glass. There was a grownup guy that I figured worked there standing behind the glass thing. He was talking to what looked like an older kid on this side of the glass box who was nodding a lot. They were talking about car models. The grownup man saw me come in but didn’t say anything. I got worried that maybe I wasn’t old enough to go in the store, but then I remembered that Herbie said he had gone in here.

I walked between the shelves and looked at all the boxes on them. There were all kinds of models on one bunch of shelves - cars, ships, planes, tanks, even those “Weird Ohs” and models of comic book guys like Superman and Batman. Other shelves had the boxes of train sets like the boxes out in the front store window, and others had Aurora slot car sets like the one mom and dad got for me for Christmas. Then there were shelves with boxes of games, but not the games in the regular toy stores like Clue, or Parcheesi, or Monopoly, or even war games like Stratego or Conflict.

I saw a blue box that said “Risk” on it, and I remembered Jake had talked about that game, where everyone playing tried to take over the whole world. I figured I might like to buy that one and play it, since it cost less than all the money I had in my pocket. I pulled the box out of the shelf and looked at it. It had a picture of the world behind the giant “RISK!” word and other pictures of cards with either an infantry or cavalry soldier or a cannon on it, and one card with all three. It also had the words “CONTINENTAL GAME”, whatever that was, and on the side it said “10 years and up”, and I knew that meant you were supposed to be ten years old to play it.

“You like war games?” It surprised me when he asked me that. It was the grownup guy who had been behind the long glass thing who worked there, and he had come over next to me but I hadn’t seen him because I was too busy looking at the game. I looked up at him and he looked nice, so I nodded.

“A lot of kids your age like that one”, he said, “Though older kids and even grownups like playing it as well. I play it with my nephews, and they win sometimes!“

He looked at me some more like he was trying to figure something out. “What are you, nine or ten?” he asked. Then I got scared because I was only eight, and I suddenly felt like a little kid again instead of a big kid. I looked at him and didn’t say anything.

“You’re a smart kid, right?” he asked. I nodded.

“I’m sure you can figure it out”, he said, “The rules aren’t very complicated.”

“Do you know how to play Monopoly?” he asked, and I nodded again, “Then I’m sure you can figure it out!” I felt better, like everything was okay and I put the game box back on the shelf.

Next to the stack of “RISK!” games were other smaller game boxes stacked on top of each other and I read the words on the side of each one. One said “TACTICS II”, and then in smaller letters, “REALISTIC WAR GAME”. Another said “Le Mans”, then smaller, “REALISTIC RACING GAME”. Another said “U-BOAT”, then, “REALISTIC NAVAL GAME”. But the one in the stack that really caught my eye said, “D-DAY”, then, “WORLD WAR II INVASION GAME”.

A game about WORLD WAR TWO. Dad had even told me about “D-Day”. That’s when the Americans and the British landed their soldiers in France, and the Germans couldn’t stop them. I had read about it in Dad’s red war books and different library books about the war. Dad also took me to see that movie, “The Longest Day”, at the movie theater. He said it would give me an idea what fighting in a war was like. He said he wasn’t part of the “D-Day invasion”, but started fighting in the war after that when the “Allies”, all the goodguy countries like the US, were ready to cross the Rhine River and attack Germany.

The store guy saw me looking at those games and said, “Ah, the Avalon Hill Games. Really nice military simulations. There hasn’t really been anything like them before.

Then he stopped talking to think, and finally said, “They may be a little advanced for you.” I heard his words but didn’t want to listen to what they said about me or the game. That was the game I wanted.

“But you can open it up if you like”, he said, “And check out the rules, charts and the board to see if you can figure it out.” He pointed at a big table in the back part of the store where there was a submarine model that was like half put together on one half, but space on the other half. “There’s room on that table. Just put everything back in the box when you’re done.”

I nodded fast because I was excited that maybe it would be okay if I wanted to buy that game. I could see the little white thing on the corner of the top of the box that said “Riders” and then “$2.99”, which I knew I could buy with the money I had. I carefully pulled the game out from the other games on top of it, and took it over to the table. On the front was a big red part with big black letters that said “D-DAY”. Below that on the left looked like ripped pieces from newspapers with those big “headline” letters at the top of each one. The headlines were about the D-Day invasion like “1ST PHASE OF INVASION BATTLE WON, ALLIES SAY” and “BEACHES IN FRANCE CLEARED OF NAZIS”. Then the right bottom part was black with words in white letters.

Now YOU change
World War II History
In this realistic
INVASION
GAME
by Avalon Hill
12 YEARS & UP

I got worried again. Maybe I couldn’t figure out how to play a game that you were supposed to be 12 years old to play. But I REALLY wanted to, so I laid the box on the table and took the top off, which made a sort of whooshing noise when I did. It smelled new inside, kind of stinging inside my nose.

Like other games I had, the board was folded up, but this one was folded into four pieces instead of just two like other games. That made it harder to open up, but I finally figured it out. It looked like a map, though it didn’t have any roads on it, but it looked like it had lots of cities and rivers. I knew it was France because there was a “PARIS” city in the middle of the map. I was used to games with squares, like Conflict and Stratego, where you moved from one to the one next to it. But this game didn’t have squares with four sides but things with six.

I looked at the pages that said, “D-DAY INSTRUCTIONS”. Then there was a picture of that Hitler guy and other guys in uniforms I figured were German generals, because they looked like the pictures of German generals in dad’s red war books. Next to the picture it said…

An unforgettable day in history ... the Allied invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944.

I knew that’s what I had to read to figure out how to play the game. Below that were lots of words and some little pictures with arrows pointing at different parts of them. I was used to reading game rules, though they were usually written on the inside of the top of the box the game came in, and sometimes they were on a piece of paper, but I had never seen as many rules as there were for this game.

Each part of the rules had those “title” words at the top, that were bigger darker letters. The first title was “MAPBOARD” which had all the different stuff that was on the map. It said the map had “hexagons”, but the instructions would call them “squares”. There were “city squares”, “fortress squares”, “fortified zone squares”, “mountain squares”, “sea squares”, “coastal squares”, “inland ports” and “invasion areas”. It all seemed really neat, as I looked for each different kind of “square” on the mapboard. It was interesting that the rivers WEREN’T squares, but blue lines between the squares, so you went across them rather than being on them. And the fortresses looked really neat with the thick red line around them. I just liked the word. Not just a “fort” but a “fort-RESS”. I imagined what a fortress would look like in my mind, some super giant fort with really big walls.

The second title was “ORDER OF BATTLE UNIT COUNTERS”. In other games I had, the instructions called them “pieces” or “pawns”, but these were called “units”. I looked at the sheet of cardboard with all the little square units on it. The rules said the blue ones were Allied and the red ones were German, though the German units looked more pink than red. But they were all super shiny and had little letters and numbers and symbols on them that meant special things. There were headquarters, infantry, armored and parachute units that I already knew about, and the German word for armored was “Panzer”. But then there were two kinds I hadn’t seen before, “static infantry”, which only the Germans had and “armored infantry”, which the Germans called “panzer grenadier”. Then each unit had numbers on the bottom part for attacking, defending and moving.

The third title on the first page of the rules was “PREPARE FOR PLAY”. It had “steps”, which were different than stair steps, but maybe kind of the same, because you did them one at a time and you did them in “order”, that was a word I’d learned in math at school.

I just wanted to play this game so bad, because even though it was just a game, it was a game about something that REALLY HAPPENED. Some of the other games I had played, like Monopoly and Careers and Conflict, were just supposed to be LIKE something that really happened. Also this game wasn’t about how the regular soldiers did the war, it was about how the GENERALS did the war!

I was getting even more excited as I turned the pages to see the second, third, and fourth pages of the instructions. Each new title in the bigger darker capital letters caught my eye; “HOW TO PLAY”, “HOW TO WIN”, “HOW TO INVADE”, “HOW TO MOVE UNITS ON LAND”, “HOW TO HAVE COMBAT”, “ZONE OF CONTROL, “ATTACKING”, “INVASION ATTACK”, “ALLIED REINFORCEMENTS”, “MORE THAN ONE UNIT PER SQUARE”, “MULTIPLE UNIT BATTLES”, “MOVEMENT AFTER COMBAT”, “MOUNTAINS” and “SECOND INVASION”. I looked at some of the writing under each of the titles and I could pretty much read it, so I really felt I could play this game.

It was like I was thinking too much and too many different ways at the same time. I just wanted to keep going, looking at and playing with the game. But I was in this store I’d never been in before, a long way from my house and all the other people in the store, the guy that worked there and four other guys also looking to buy stuff were older kids or grownups. They might be laughing at me or thinking I was “cute”, a little kid looking at stuff for big kids or grownups. I figured I better buy this thing and get out of there!

I closed up the game, liking the way the top of the box made that whooshing noise again as it slid tightly onto the bottom, and took it up and put it on the long glass thing next to where the cash register was. The guy who worked there saw me and came over on the other side of the glass thing and looked at the “D-DAY” game I had put on it.

“Might be kind of advanced for you if you’re only nine or ten”, he said, “But maybe you can get your dad or an older brother to help if you can’t figure something out.” If he hadn’t been a grownup and maybe just been an older kid, I might have told him that I would be nine soon, to show him how much I could be like a big kid. But since he was a grownup I just nodded.

“Maybe read the rules, look at the charts, unit sheet and map first”, he said, “To make sure you can understand them all before you actually try to play. If you punch out the pieces and then decide to return it I can’t really give you a full refund.” I was feeling a little bit mad, but I just nodded, and I could feel my lips pushed together.

“Let’s see”, he said “That’s two ninety nine plus twelve cents tax, so three eleven total.” I pulled three of those new dollar bills out of my pocket and gave them to him. Then I dug out a handful of coins from the bottom of that pocket and gave him a dime and a penny. Dad had shown me how to do this instead of having to give him an extra dollar and get change. It made it feel like I had more money left.

“Exact change”, he said, like he was trying to be extra nice, “Very good. And three crisp new dollar bills. Christmas money?” he asked. I nodded.

Then he got a bag from under the glass top part and slid the game in it and said, “Enjoy your game. The next time you’re in the store and I’m here, let me know how it’s going.” The only reason I nodded was I figured you were supposed to and I didn’t want him to think I was a bad kid, though I was still kind of mad at him.

I took the game in the bag out of the store and pulled up the top gripper part of my shiny silver pressure basket and put the bag and game on the bottom part and let the top part down to hold it there. I rode home the way I came, but more slowly because I kept checking to make sure the game didn’t fall off. It was also mostly uphill going home, so that made it slower too.

When I got home I was super excited. I had done it! I went all by myself on my bicycle with my own money to a big kid and grownup “hobby” store and bought a game that said “for 12 to adult”, big kids and grownups. I figured I could do just about anything now by myself.

David and dad weren’t around anywhere, but my old bicycle, which was now David’s, was gone, so I figured Dad had taken David out to ride it, maybe with Hannah or his new friend Jimmie. I figured that was really good, because I could open up the game and really try to figure it out without David OR dad wanting to see it too. They would probably see it pretty soon, but I wanted to see it by myself first.

I took the game in the side door and went straight down the stairs to the basement. Mom was in the kitchen and saw me go by with the bag.

“There you are”, she said, “Been out shopping?”

Since I had already run down the whole stairs by the time she said it, I said, “Yep”, from the basement really loud so she could hear me.

I heard her voice up in the kitchen say, “Good for you Cloob!”

I put the gamebox on the floor between the office and the TV part of the basement. I was excited to hear the whoosh again as I pulled the top up and off. I took the board out, and unfolded it open on the floor. Again, I just couldn’t take my eyes off the board which was a map with all its rivers and cities and mountains. These were all real places in that “Europe” place where World War Two was and where dad was. I took out the instructions, which I had already looked at in the store, but I knew I had to read really good to know how to play. Then I took out two sheets of stiffer paper. One was blue and said “COMBAT RESULTS TABLE” at the top, the other was white and said “D-DAY TIME RECORD CARD”.

Then there was the other really exciting thing, the sheet of cardboard where the top part was shiny blue and said “ALLIED ORDER OF BATTLE”, and the bottom part was a shiny red and said “GERMAN ORDER OF BATTLE”. These were all those “unit” things, all the parts of the real armies for both sides. They all had little boxes in the middle of each unit with symbols inside and numbers and letters all around the boxes. I couldn’t even figure out how to take the units apart, and I remembered what the store guy said about once I took the units apart I couldn’t take the game back and get all my money back. I shook my head and laughed inside my mind. There was no way I would ever take THIS game back, even if it took me a WHOLE YEAR to figure out how to play it.

Then I took the instructions and put them down in front of me as I sat with my legs crossed on the floor. I crawled over andgot dad’s big dictionary book from his bookshelves so I could look up any words I didn’t know. The “MAPBOARD” section was first, telling you about all the different kinds of squares. Also the rivers, which weren’t squares but went between the squares, and other stuff that I was still figuring out like “INVASION AREAS”…

INVASION AREAS: The 7 separate areas encompassed by red lines, each containing its own troop invasion table.

I had to use dad’s dictionary to figure out that word “encompassed”, which meant “surround and have or hold within”. But then I figured out those were those areas with the white boxes and big black capital letters, one saying “NORTH SEA”, “PAS DE CALAIS” and “LE HAVRE”. Then the next one was “NORMANDY”, which I remembered from reading about and dad talking about the war, was where the Allies invaded France. Then two more below “NORMANDY”, “BRITTANY” and “BAY OF BISCAY”, and a last one, “SOUTH OF FRANCE” in the top right part of the map away from all the others. So neat!

The next part of the instructions said “ORDER OF BATTLE UNIT COUNTERS”. It said…

Now study the die-cut Order of Battle Counters. Blue are Allied; Red are German. These counters are you “chessmen”. Hereafter, they will be called Units.

Then there was this picture of one of those units with words around it with arrows pointing at different stuff on the unit like the “nationality”, “size”, “type”, “identification”, “attack factor”, “defense factor” and “movement factor”. The sizes included “Army”, “Corp”, “Division” and “Regiment”, words I already knew from reading all the war books. Other sizes I hadn’t seen before, like “Army Group” and “Brigade”. Some of the types I knew, like “headquarters”, “infantry”, “parachute”, and also “armored” which I knew were the tank ones. Then other types I didn’t know, like “static infantry” and “armored infantry”. I looked at the cardboard sheet with all the Allied and German army pieces on it and saw all the different types. Both teams had infantry, parachute, armored and headquarters, but only the Germans had static infantry and armored infantry.

Then the last part of the first page of instructions said “PREPARE FOR PLAY” and had three steps. The first one was…

STEP 1: Lay the mapboard out on a table. The Allied player sits on the western side; the German player sits on the eastern side.

When I did pretend war, pirate, or Captain Nemo stuff with my soldiers, I played BOTH sides, even if I was playing with Molly, David, or one of my other friends. I was hoping to do that with this game too, because then I could play it whenever I wanted to, and not have to wait for a friend to play too, like with regular games like Monopoly or Conflict.

STEP 2: Punch out the Order of Battle Counters (Units). Allied player places all blue Units in the section of the map marked Allied Units Available in Britain. The German player places all red Units as follows:

So you were supposed to “punch out” these little square “unit” things. I picked up the shiny blue and red cardboard sheet and pushed my finger against one of the parts with those little squares and a bunch came apart from the rest of the cardboard, still hooked to other ones, and I figured out by wiggling each square unit it would separate from the others. It took a while but I did that with all of them.

I looked at all the symbols, numbers and letters on each unit as I unhooked it from the others. Most of the blue Allied units had that “x” symbol in the box which the instructions said was infantry. They all had “4-4-4” below the symbol which meant their “attack factor”, “defense factor” and “movement factor” were all four. They all had two little “x”s on the top of the box which the instructions said were “divisions” and a tiny number on the right side of the box, which was their “identification”. And some had two little letters on the left side of the box which was their “Nationality”. It said that “Br” was British, but it didn’t say what “Fr” and “Ca” were. I figured “Fr” might be France because I remembered that even though their country got captured by the Germans they still had soldiers fighting against them. Most of the units didn’t have those little letters, so those were the American ones. That all made sense with what I had read and dad had told me about the war. France and Britain and those “Ca” guys were the “Allies”.

Then there were the units with the stretched out circle in the box. Those were “armored”, which was the word for tanks. They all had the “XX” on top of the box, so they were all divisions too, and all had “5-5-4” below the box. So five was better than four for attacking and defending, which made sense since they were tanks instead of just guys with guns, but I was a little surprised that the armored divisions weren’t even better than that, like six or seven. Most of them were American too, but some were French or British or “Ca”. One even was “Po”, some other ally I guess.

Then there were the parachute ones. They had the same “X” in the box, but with a tiny “m” thing in the bottom part of the “X” which I guess was like bird wings because the parachute guys came down out of the sky. They were divisions too but they only attacked, defended and moved three instead of four.

Finally there were headquarters. They were all “0-1-4”s, which made sense, since they were the in charge guys, the generals, so they couldn’t really attack anything by themselves, but just told other guys to attack.

The Allies just had the four kinds of units - infantry, armored, parachute and headquarters. Each unit of the same kind had the same factors. But the Germans had six kinds of units; infantry, armored, parachute and headquarters, like the Allies, but also “static infantry” and “armored infantry”. The regular German infantry were either “3-4-3” or “4-4-3”, so they could only move three squares where the Allied ones could move four. I wondered why they couldn’t move as far as the Allied ones.

The static infantry units' factors were just “1-2-2”, so they were pretty bad at attacking and defending, and couldn’t move very far either. The instructions said that…

All Static Units must be placed on Coastal Squares only.

I looked up the word “static” in Dad’s big dictionary and it said, “Staying in one place without moving, or not changing for a long time.” So I figured these were the soldiers who just guarded the beaches and had those “pillbox” things to shoot out of that I saw in “The Longest Day” movie.

I turned to the second page and read through the rest of the rules. It was interesting that in the “MORE THAN ONE UNIT PER SQUARE” part, it said that the Allies could only put two units in the same square, but the Germans could put three. It said that was because, “The Germans were more tightly organized.”

There were so many rules, I didn’t know how I could remember all of them while I played. But I was so excited to try. I wondered if I could get any of my friends to play this complicated new game with me, or if I played the game by myself I could play both sides. I figured I probably could.

***

I had made myself a baloney sandwich with mustard for lunch and had brought it downstairs to eat while I kept working on figuring out my new game. I heard footsteps in the driveway crunching on the gravel. Dad and David were home. David opened the side door and saw me down at the bottom of the basement stairs.

“Coop! Coop! We got donuts!” he said really loud and excited, as he ran down the stairs, though not as fast as I did. He looked at me with the game spread out on the floor between the office and TV parts of the basement.

“What’s that?” he said.

“A new game I just got”, I said, still looking down at the game.

“Can I play it too?” he asked.

“I don’t know”, I said, “It’s pretty complicated. I’m still trying to figure it out.” He wrinkled his nose, thinking.

He ran back up the stairs saying, “Dad! Dad!”, again really loud, and then as he turned at the top of the stairs to go into the kitchen and said, “Coop got a new game and it’s pretty complicated and he’s still trying to figure it out!”

“Tattle tale!” I said the words quietly to myself. I didn’t know enough about the game yet to tell dad about it like I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t want him to try to figure it out for me.

“Shall we go see?” I heard dad ask from the kitchen. Dad came down the stairs first followed by David kind of hiding behind him.

Dad looked at me and asked, “So you got a new game?”

Feeling like I was going to have to explain things I wasn’t ready to explain, I puffed my cheeks and blew air out of my mouth and nodded. I wondered if that was what grownups felt when they blew air out of THEIR mouths like that. Dad saw the top of the box.

“D-Day”, he said, “Didn’t know they made games like this.”

“It’s supposed to be realistic”, I said, “With the real map and real armies on both sides. I just got it and I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“I see the map”, he said, and then pointing at all the little square units I had spread out on the floor, “And are those the armies?” I nodded again.

“Yep”, I said, “Mostly divisions.”

“Wow”, he said, then nodding like he was thinking, “I was in the Third Armored Division in Patton’s army.” I already knew that and had found the unit for his division. I picked up the small blue cardboard square from the basement floor and held it up to him.

“Oh my god”, he said, laughing through his nose a little as he looked at it closely through his glasses, “There it is!” He wrinkled his nose a little and asked, “What do the numbers mean? Five five four.”

“That’s the attack factor, defense factor and movement factory”, I said, “All the Allied armored divisions have the same factors, but they’re better at attacking and defending than the Allied infantry. They are four four four. There’re also parachute divisions and headquarters.”

David was standing next to dad now and he started to jump up and down.

“What’s the matter?” dad asked him.

“I have to go to the bathroom”, he said.

“Just go”, dad said, smiling a little and pointing up the stairs, “You don’t have to tell me first. When you gotta go, just go.” David nodded and ran up the stairs and into the kitchen. We could hear his feet running on the floor above us.

“What about the German units?” dad asked.

“Well the German armored move four just like the Allies”, I said, “But the German infantry only move three.”

“That makes sense”, he said nodding, “Most German infantry didn’t have trucks like our guys did and had to march everywhere on foot.” Now that “3” instead of a “4” made sense to me too.

I was enjoying this talking about war stuff with him, like we were both two regular guys. So I kept trying to say the few other things I already knew. “But the German armored units have a bunch of different attack and defense factors. Most of the best ones are those ‘SS’ ones.”

When he heard me say that, I could tell it made him think about something he hadn’t been thinking about. He puffed his cheeks out again and blew air out of his mouth and slowly shook his head. “Those SS guys were horrible”, he said, still slowly shaking his head, “Real Nazis, especially their officers.”

He looked at my eyes and his kind of closed a little bit, like he wasn’t sure whether he should say something. “Don’t tell your brother this”, he said, “He’s not old enough to understand, but my platoon captured an SS Colonel with a bunch of other SS soldiers. When our truck came to take all the prisoners away, he refused to get on, and then his men wouldn’t either. I was in charge, but I wasn’t sure what to do.” He shook his head slowly again and looked down at the ground like he had done something bad.

“I told him to get on the truck or I’d tell my sergeant to shoot him”, he said, talking more quietly and still looking down, “I figured that he’d comply then.”

After looking at the ground a little more, he quickly looked at my eyes and then looked down again and said, “He refused, so I ordered my sergeant to shoot him and he did.”

“Was he dead?” I asked, “Or just wounded?”

“He gave me one last nasty look that I’ll never forget and keeled over dead”, he said, “I can still see his face in my mind.” Then he shook his head really fast for a second, and finally grinned. “But then all his men got on the truck”, he said, doing one of those nose laughs but not sounding happy.

He started to tell me something else but David came running down the stairs and dad stopped talking and patted me on the shoulder. He hardly ever did that anymore, because I didn’t like it, but I didn’t get mad this time.

***

It was the next day, Sunday morning, and Paul had come over to play, and I was showing him my new D-Day game.

I worked on figuring out and playing the game all day yesterday and even after dinner, and figured out pretty much all the rules, and started trying to set up the German units to defend France from the Allied invasion. I ended up moving the game up onto the beaverboard with the racetrack. I had to push the track down towards the other end of the beaverboard so the game board would fit too.

I had read the part at the end of the rules called “HISTORICAL COMMENTARY”…

GENERAL SITUATION: The Allied forces, although leading in number of units, combat power and mobility are severely pressed for time.

In order to win, Allied forces must breach the line Rhine-Ijssel in force by the 46th week since D-Day and maintain their bridgehead for 4 weeks without interruption. Because of the effects of the German replacement rate which begins at D-Day plus 16 weeks, however, the Allied forces must move with great speed and decisiveness in the early weeks of the campaign.

If Allied forces are not within striking distance of the Rhine by 16th week, the probability of victory swings to the German side.

I had to look up some of the words in dad’s dictionary. “Mobility” was how easily you could move, so that was the thing about all Allied units moving four, instead of three or two like a lot of the German units. “Breach” was breaking through the enemy’s defensive “line”. “Bridgehead” was about getting across a river when the enemy was on the other side. “Decisiveness” was making good decisions quickly. “Campaign” was like actually doing your whole plan for the entire game. “Probability” was whether something would probably happen or not. “Striking distance” was two words, both of which I knew, but I wasn’t sure what they meant together.

But I got that the main plan for the Allies was to keep moving their units toward that Rhine River as quickly as possible, or the Germans would have a better chance to win because they would start to get more extra units, those “replacements”.

Then in a part called “BASIC ALLIED STRATEGY” it read…

The Allied commander must select the initial invasion area with two problems paramount - he must give himself every reasonable assurance of getting ashore, which implies striking the lesser defended areas, but in turn must be sure he has a good chance of reaching the Rhine in about 16-20 weeks, which implies using one of the areas closest to the Rhine but, assuming German is competent, the very ones which will be stoutly defended.

More words to look up. “Reasonable” and “assurance” together was like being pretty sure. “Implies” was an interesting word, meaning you were saying one thing but maybe meaning something else that the other person could figure out even though you really didn’t say it. And “competent” meant you were good at something, like setting up your armies.

Then in the part called “BASIC GERMAN STRATEGY” it read…

In broad terms, the German problem can be stated in two parts:
Crush the invasion very early.
Failing in that, fight a withdrawing battle to the Meuse, Mosell or, at worst, the Rhine.

I already knew where the Rhine River was and I found the other two, which the Allies would get to first. The “withdrawing battle” was interesting, you could retreat but still be fighting at the same time. I guess that was what Lieutenant Cord and a few of his soldiers were doing when he fought all the dinosaurs, even the Martian dinosaurs, and got killed.

The first part depends upon the generosity of the Allied commander. Since the German must, at all costs, stoutly defend North Sea, Pas de Calais, Le Havre and possibly Normandy, his chance of repulsing an invasion is determined by whether or not the Allied forces assault one of those areas. Even if they do, however, victory is far from certain. The German side is blessed by a great many units, but few of them are mobile or of offensive worth.

Thus for the German to be caught on exterior lines - as counter-attack against any beachhead usually places him - is a thing of great peril and creates a “crust” situation. He must hold at all points or be caught in a debacle, as his “edge” units cannot outrun an enemy breakout.

So a “Beachhead” was like a “bridgehead”, except it was on the beach instead of a river. Those last two sentences I could hardly figure out at all, what a “crust situation” was or “edge units” were, even though I knew what all the words meant by themselves.

But I got the basic idea. The Germans would put most of their units along the North Sea, Pas de Calais, Le Havre and Normandy invasion areas. So the Allies probably had to invade Brittany, the Bay of Biscay or Southern France. But those areas were really far from the Rhine River, so that could be a problem. I felt like a general trying to figure out what would be the best plan. I thought about the real war where the Allies invaded in Normandy. Maybe the real Germans didn’t put enough units there.

So I tried to explain all this to Paul, who was really smart, sometimes smarter than I was, even though he was in third grade and I was in fourth. Like when he read through the instructions, HE knew that “striking distance” meant, you were close enough to attack something, which made sense.

“I tried doing a bunch of invasions”, I said, “And it’s all about the Combat Results Table and what you roll on the dice.” I held up the white sheet with that table at the top and the other bigger table at the bottom that helped you figure out the “basic odds”. Paul took it and looked at it carefully.

“What’s ‘A elim’ mean?” he asked.

“Attacker eliminated”, I said, “All the attackers units in the battle are destroyed.” He nodded.

“So ‘D elim’ means defender eliminated?” he asked. I nodded.

“And ‘A’ or ‘D back 2’ means the attacker or defender has to retreat all his units two squares”, I said.

“What about ‘Exchange’?” he asked.

“That one’s more complicated”, I said, “All the defenders units are eliminated, and the attacker has to eliminate some units too, with enough attack factors to be equal to or more than the defense factors of the defender’s units that were eliminated.” He nodded like I was right about it being complicated.

“So”, I said, “When I only put one German static division on a coastal square and the Allies invade with two infantry divisions, that’s eight attack factors attacking two defense factors, which is a four-to-one attack. The Germans can’t win that one, because the best they can do is for the Allies to roll a two, and get an exchange, which destroys the German unit but only one of the Allied units. So the other Allied unit captures the coastal square. Every other roll both Allied units capture the coast square and the German unit is destroyed or has to retreat.”

“That’s not very good for the Germans”, he said. I nodded.

“If the Germans put two static divisions on a coast square”, I said, “Then they have four defense factors and two Allied infantry divisions attack at two-to-one. THEN the Germans have TWO chances of winning, if the Allies roll a six, which is attacker eliminated or a four, which is attacker back two, which eliminates the attacker too, because you can’t retreat into the sea.” Paul nodded.

“But on the other four rolls”, I said, “At least one of the Allied units captures the coast square. Since the two German static divisions have just four defense factors, an exchange still only eliminates one Allied unit.” I liked that I sounded like I knew a lot, specially because I was talking to Paul who always knew a lot too.

“I guess that’s a little better for the Germans”, Paul said, “But still most of the time the Allies get ashore.” I nodded.

“But if I put THREE German static divisions on each coastal square”, I said, “Then they have six defense factors and the two Allied infantry divisions, or even armored divisions, have just a one-to-one attack. Then the Allies capture the coastal square only if they roll just a one or a three.”

“So that one is better for the Germans”, he said, and I nodded.

“That’s about the best the Germans can do”, I said, “Since they can only put three static divisions in a square.” He nodded, but was thinking.

“What if the Allies attack with three divisions?” he asked.

“They can’t”, I said, “They can only put TWO divisions in the same square.”

“How come?” he asked.

“Because the instructions say the Germans were more organized”, I said. He pushed his lips together and tilted his head as he nodded, like he guessed that might be right.

“But if you do it that way”, I said, “Then you use up all your static units defending the North Sea, Pas De Calais and Le Havre areas, even if you only put one in the fortresses and two in the regular cities.”

“Are the red ones fortresses?” he asked and I nodded, “So why do you only need to put one unit there?”

“Because the unit’s defense factor is tripled”, I said.

“How come?” he asked.

“I guess because it’s like a giant fort”, I said, “With walls around the city. The regular cities are good for defending too, though the unit’s defense factor is only doubled in them.”

“Anyway”, I said, “Then you have to use regular infantry and armored units to defend Normandy, Brittany, Bay of Biscay and South France.” I pointed at each area as I said it. “But in the basic German strategy part of the instructions, it says that you really only need to defend Normandy, and not those other areas very much, because they are so far from the Rhine River up here.”

“What does that matter?” he asked.

“Because that’s how the Allies win”, I said, “You have to get ten divisions across the Rhine River up here and keep them there for four turns.” I pointed at the crooked blue line across the top part of the board.

“Way up there?” he asked, like he didn’t think that could be right.

“Yep”, I said, nodding.

“Can I play?” he asked.

“Sure”, I said, “But I’m still kind of figuring it out. Maybe you can help me set up the Germans, and then we can both figure out where the Allies should invade.”

“You mean we don’t play against each other?” he asked, “That’s weird.”

“Yeah, maybe”, I said, “It just seems more fun than one of us taking a long time figuring out how to set up the Germans while the other one just sits there and watches.”

So Paul and I spent most of the morning figuring out how to set up all the German units. Sometimes we had different ideas what to do, like he wanted to put a German infantry unit in Bordeaux, but I thought it was too far away from anything to matter. So we had to tell each other why we thought that way and we’d usually agree in the end.

After we made ourselves peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, we went back in the basement and started figuring out which area the Allies were going to invade. We both knew that the real invasion was in Normandy, but we didn’t have to do it that way if we didn’t want to. That’s one of the things that made this game really interesting, because you could pretend something different than what really happened. Pretend to be the General in charge and make your own different decisions.

We decided to do the Allies invasion at Brittany. When we had set up the Germans there we had only put infantry divisions at the top of the area, in the cities of Avranches and Rennes, and also one in St. Nazaire, which was in the Bay of Biscay invasion area, but also by the top of Brittany.

So on the first turn the Allies got to invade with four Allied infantry divisions and two parachute divisions. We decided two infantry would land in St. Malo and the other two in Lorient, both fortresses that didn’t have any German units there. We weren’t sure, since there were no German units, whether the Allied infantry units could keep moving and maybe all attack Rennes, but I looked through the rules and found under the “HOW TO INVADE” instructions…

6. Inland movement in the invasion week is not allowed. Unit may move no farther than the first Coastal Square they land on.

We had the two parachute divisions parachute in the square next to Nantes but across the Loire River. It was five squares from where the Allied infantry divisions were in St. Malo. We hadn’t put a German unit in Nantes so the parachute divisions could cross the river and capture it. It was a good place to capture, because next turn it could help us capture St. Nazaire. I imagined in my mind all the soldiers jumping out of the planes with their parachutes and then landing on the ground and getting all together, before crossing the bridges over the Loire River into Nantes. I remembered the part in “The Longest Day” with all the parachute guys.

***

All that week Paul came over after school and we played the game, not playing different teams against each other but playing each team together. On Tuesday we finished that first game we had started on Sunday and the Germans won, which was strange because the Allies won the real D-Day “campaign”.

Did the Allies lose because we were just figuring the game out and weren’t very good generals yet? Maybe it was more important to be a good general if you were attacking than if you were defending. The REAL Allies had good generals like that Patton guy who was dad’s general. But older kids said that the Germans had good generals too like Rommel.

Maybe it was because our Allies invaded in Brittany instead of Normandy. Or maybe it was just bad luck. There was that one time when we did this really big battle trying to cross the Rhine River where the Allies had this two-to-one attack and rolled a “6”, which was an “A elim” and all six Allied armored divisions that attacked got eliminated. Those two-to-one attacks were just “risky”, that was the word Paul used. I could just imagine hundreds of Allied tanks getting blown up and thousands of Allied soldiers getting killed or wounded, losing that battle to cross the Rhine.

In the game we started Wednesday after school, we did the same German setup, as best we could remember it, and had the Allies invade Normandy. We had better luck rolling the dice this time and the Allies ended up winning. And every time I moved dad’s 3rd Armored division I thought of him and his guys driving in their halftracks, maybe dad standing in the back part of the first one, where the mortar was, so he could tell everybody else what to do.

But what if the REAL Allies had LOST D-Day? Since both our dads fought against the Germans in that campaign, would they have been captured instead, or even killed. Would the two of us not have been born?

Paul said that was “weird”. I thought so too.

Clubius Contained Part 20 - Assassinated (November 1963)

leftyparent

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Saturday February 17, 2024 · 3:02 PM PST

2024/02/17 · 15:02

I was excited that even though it was Friday, I didn’t have to go to school today. Mom said there were “parent-teacher conferences” instead of a regular school day, and she walked to my school, instead of me and David, to meet my teacher Mrs Larkin and see my classroom. She also talked to David’s kindergarten teacher, who she already knew. Dad “had the car” and had gone to his “Eastern” place to do his teaching this morning, but would be back by lunchtime. So while mom was gone too, she said I was “in charge”, like a babysitter. I thought that was pretty neat.

David and I went over to Allmendinger park to play. I was worried since I was in charge of him that maybe I’d have to go just to where he wanted to go. But when he saw his friends Hannah and Jimmie he said he wanted to go play with them and I didn’t have to go with him. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was helping me play with my own friends or helping himself play with his own friends without me watching. But either way it was better for me too.

The park was full of kids, because there was no regular school at Bach OR Eberwhite today because of those “parent-teacher conferences”. Paul, Lenny and Gabe, and even Herbie were there. We played in one bunch of lilac bushes and pretended that we were on a special small submarine during World War Two on a secret mission to kill Hitler. Gabe said we would go from the North Sea up the Elbe River to the river that went through Berlin where we would blow up a bridge that Hitler always went across. This was a special super secret submarine that had an “invisibility shield” so no one could see it when we were underwater.

The bad part was that the leaves were gone from the lilac bushes so other kids could see us in there and kept coming over asking us what we were playing and if they could play too. But that made it too complicated and hard to pretend because we kept having to explain the story to the other kids. So when we all got hungry at lunchtime we decided to stop and all went home to our different houses to eat lunch. Herbie went with Gabe to Gabe’s house because he said he didn’t want to go home, because his dad was mad at everybody. I found David playing on the monkey bars with Hannah and Jimmie and I told him he should come home with me to eat lunch because I was in charge. David said he wanted to keep playing with his friends, so I wasn’t sure what to do. Did I have to stay there with them? David probably wouldn’t like that either. So I just went home by myself.

When I got home, mom was back from my school and dad too, from teaching at Eastern. Mom said that it was okay that I let David keep playing in the park with his friends, because that’s what she would have done too. She said I was a “good older brother” for looking after my younger brother. I liked that, because it meant that I could keep doing everything I wanted to myself, and she and dad didn’t ever need to be in charge of me.

Mom said she had a “nice chat with your teacher”. Grownups used that “chat” word sometimes when they talked to another grownup, but kids never used it, unless they were pretending to be a grownup. Dad asked me if I wanted to go with him after lunch because he had to go to Schlenker’s Hardware and then to Quality Bakery to buy some donuts. Donuts were still dad’s favorite thing in the whole world. Mom said she had to do the laundry and lots of ironing.

Dad and I headed out in the car. As he drove around the park we saw David still playing with his friends on the monkey bars. Dad said I should “get his attention” and ask him if he wanted to go with us. I rolled down the window and yelled his name. He saw me in the car and ran over and decided to get in and go with us.

Dad said, “Business before pleasure”, we would stop at Schlenker’s first to get some screws and nails, and some “putty”, which was this cool stuff that came in a jar and smelled really good that you used to to fill holes so you could fix stuff. The “white table” in the basement that mom used to fold clothes and do other chores while she watched her “soap opera” TV shows had a leg that was kind of broken and dad told her he could fix it. Then once we were done there we would go and get a dozen of the “day old” donuts, because they were cheaper. The only thing dad liked better than regular donuts were “cheap” donuts.

Dad drove up to Pauline, turned left, and then right on Seventh all the way down to Liberty. All the trees looked like gray skeleton fingers reaching up to try and grab the gray sky. We went by the other side of the Bach “Big Playground” which was hiding behind the houses except for that one little street that I could look down and see just a little bit of the edge of it. I thought it was neat that it was hidden behind there, rather than all out in the open like Allmendinger was.

Dad turned right on Liberty and we went down toward the railroad tracks that the road went under. A big long train was going over the bridge. The “flatcars” were mostly yellow, and were piled up with that black “coal” stuff that train engines used to use to make them go. Now train engines used “diesel”, which dad said was like the “gasoline” we put in our car, but other factories used coal, like that car factory out past Ypsi. The “boxcars” were mostly brown or red and had doors on the side and an inside part where they had all the stuff they were carrying so you couldn’t see what it was.

David and I liked to count the number of cars in those long trains when we had to stop for the train to go by, but this time we could just go under it while it went by above us. Sometimes the trains had almost a hundred cars, and usually a caboose at the end with a guy standing at the very back of it. David and I liked to wave to him out the windows of the car, and if he saw us, would usually wave back. But because our street went under the train, we didn’t have to wait until the end. But going UNDER it while it went OVER us was still pretty neat.

Dad had the radio on and it was playing a song that I guess he liked because he started singing what I figured was the chorus part…

I'm going back someday
Come what may
To Blue Bayou
Where the folks are fun
And the world is mine
On Blue Bayou
Where those fishing boats
With their sails afloat
If I could only see
That familiar sunrise
Through sleepy eyes
How happy I'd be

Then there was a different voice on the radio that sounded fierce, like one of those news guys…

We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin from ABC Radio.

Dad looked at me and he made his eyes get really big. We both looked at the radio and David stood up in the back and leaned over the front seat to look at the radio too. The news guy kept talking…

Here is a special bulletin from Dallas Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade today in downtown Dallas Texas. This is ABC Radio. To repeat, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade today. The President has been making a two-day speaking tour of Texas. We’re going to stand by for more details on the incident in Dallas. Stay tuned for further details. Now we return you to your regular program.

“Jeezus Christ”, he said, his voice sounding fiercer than I could ever remember it, and more like hissing than regular talking. He turned the car into the little parking lot next to the hardware store, stopped, but didn’t turn the car off.

Dad then turned the dial of the radio to other stations, but each one only had the regular talking or music. Finally another one had the voice of another news guy…

… fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.

Another man’s voice, who didn’t sound so much like one of those news guys, but sounded really worried, said…

That bulletin just came in from CBS News. To repeat, apparently President Kennedy has been shot and seriously wounded and we are awaiting more news from CBS and the Associated Press. Dear lord! We will interrupt our regular programming again once we have anything more.

Sitting behind the steering wheel with me across from him, he turned the car off and then put his hands together and pushed his face down into them.

“What’s wrong?” David asked, standing between dad and me up against the back of the front seat.

“President Kennedy got shot”, I said to him.

“Is he dead?” David asked. I shook my head.

“He’s wounded”, I said. David nodded, thinking about that. When he and I played with toy soldiers in the basement or the backyard there were always guys getting dead or wounded, so he knew about that kind of stuff. Dad now raised his head out of his hands and looked out the front window of the car, thinking and looking worried.

“Jeezus Christ”, he said again, more quietly this time as he kept looking out the window.

“Is the doctor helping him?” David asked. When we played with the soldiers we always had the wounded guys helped by the doctor guy. I nodded. They hadn’t said anything about that on those “bulletins”, but I figured he had, and I didn’t want David to worry about that.

“I think so”, I said to him.

Dad started the car. “We better go right home. I’m worried about your mother. She’s going to be a wreck.” I nodded, then David did too.

We drove back up Liberty, but when we got to Seventh the light turned red right before we got there.

“Dammit”, Dad hissed fiercely. Then he breathed out through his teeth, still really fierce.

David looked at me worried and asked, “Is dad okay?” I raised and lowered my shoulders like I didn’t know.

Still looking out the front window up at the light, dad said, “I’m fine. I’m just concerned about your mother.”

The light finally changed and he turned left and went fast up Seventh. We finally got to our street and he drove the car into the driveway. We all got out and I ran to the side door and opened it. I could hear mom crying in the basement and news guys talking on the TV.

I ran down the stairs. Mom saw me and stopped crying and wiped her eyes with a kleenex. She had a box of them on the ironing board she was standing next to. She looked at me with wet shiny eyes and tears running down her face, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing her so sad.

“Did you hear?” she asked. I nodded. I could hear the news guy talking on the TV.

David came running down the stairs behind me and said, “Kennedy got shot. He’s wounded but he’s not dead!” Mom looked at him and her face got even sadder.

“Thanks sweetie”, she said.

Dad came down the stairs and looked at mom. “We heard on the car radio just when we got to Schlenker’s, so we came right home”, he said, “Are you okay?”

Mom suddenly got mad and said, “No Eric, I’m not okay!” She pointed at the TV. “They’ve got him in the operating room and there’s no word yet if he’s going to make it.” She put her hands together in front of her face so the tops of her fingers touched the bottom of her nose. Then she pulled down her hands to her chin and closed her eyes.

“God”, she said, “If you’re even up there, please help this man, we need him.” I couldn’t remember her ever talking about God before. I didn’t believe in God because I didn’t want anybody in charge of me, though I was still afraid to tell mom and dad that.

We kept watching the TV and those news guys talked about the same stuff over and over. How he was riding in the backseat of that “convertible” car when the shots were fired. How he was wounded and also that “governor” guy, John Conally. How the “secret service” guys who are supposed to protect him ran and jumped on the car as it drove really fast to the hospital. How that Lyndon Johnson guy, who was the “Vice President”, had gone to the hospital too. How the police were trying to find the guy that shot him.

Mom kept ironing the clothes as she watched our little TV, always looking like she was about to cry again, I guess hoping that the news guys would say that the doctors made him better so he wouldn’t die. Dad watched too, looking more worried than sad, and not looking like he was going to cry. I figured that was because men weren’t supposed to. He also watched mom, worrying if she was alright, like he was thinking what he could do to make her feel better.

“Liz”, he said, “Can I get you anything from the kitchen? A glass of water, a soda, or make you a cup of coffee?” She just shook her head and kept ironing.

Then he said to her, “Why don’t you leave the ironing until later. I can do it if you like.” That made her get mad.

“Eric”, she said, “I’ve got to have something to do here while we wait to see if he’s going to make it.” Then dad looked mad that she was mad at him for just wanting to help her, though he didn’t say anything and just stopped talking and looked at the TV. I felt bad for him and mad at mom, but I didn’t say anything either. David kept looking at me, but I didn’t want to look back at him because I didn’t know what to tell him by how I made my face look.

Mom finally opened her mouth and blew air out and said, “Eric. I think a glass of water would be nice, thank you.” Then she looked at David and me and asked, “You guys want anything?”

I shook my head and didn’t say anything, figuring it wouldn’t be right to ask for something right now. David looked at me and shook his head too.

“Got it, Liz”, dad said, jumping up, more like he was a kid, and going up the stairs. The rest of us just looked at the TV.

“Is he going to die?” David asked, still looking at the TV.

“Sweetie, we don’t know”, mom said, not sounding mad anymore, “All we can do is wait and hope.”

Dad came back down the stairs with a glass of water for mom. Now there was that main news guy, Walter Cronkite, talking…

From Dallas Texas the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1pm Central Standard Time, 2pm Eastern Standard time, some 38 minutes ago. Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded, but presumably he will be taking the oath office shortly and become the 36th President of the United States.

“Oh boy”, dad said.

“Oh dear God no!” mom said, and started to cry again. David and I were sitting in front of the ironing board and we both looked up at her but didn’t know what to do. When grownups cried, even women grownups, it just felt really scary. Dad went over to her and they hugged each other, but that just made her cry more. She pushed her head against his shoulder, still crying.

“We finally had a vibrant young man in the Whitehouse with vision, and some asshole shot him”, she said while she cried, “And poor Jackie with their two young kids. How can she ever explain what happened to their dad?” And then, still with her head against his shoulder, she just cried without talking for a long time.

Dad patted her on the back and finally said, “It’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t, Eric”, she said fiercly, “It WON’T be okay. The whole damn world’s been turned upside down. How do we explain this to Coop and Davey? What kind of world is this for them to have to grow up in?”

“Oh Liz”, dad said, then looked at us while he was still hugging her and said, “It’ll be alright.” But it didn’t seem that what he said was right.

I wondered what she meant by the world being “turned upside down”. Would other people start getting shot? Did those Soviet Union guys do it, and now there’d be a war? Would I not be able to play in the park anymore? Would I not be able to play with my friends? Would grownups be in charge of me all the time? I couldn’t imagine that EVERYTHING would change. One guy shooting another guy, even the President, couldn’t change EVERYTHING. In World War Two a lot of guys got shot, but it didn’t change EVERYTHING.

I wanted to run out in the park and see all my friends out there, and we could have our own meeting and try to figure this all out. Grownups weren’t going to tell us the real stuff because they didn’t want kids to worry, and wanted kids to just keep doing what they were supposed to do. If everything really changed, I figured then kids would have to be ready to be in charge, at least the really older kids, just in case.

I remembered when Molly and I went to that giant painted rock by Burns Park a long time ago and it was painted with those “SDS” letters and “New Left” words, and then those older student kids drove by in their car and held their fists out the windows up in the air, and then Molly and I did too, and it felt good, like us kids were getting ready to be in charge. But then that old man said it was bad, those older kids were bad, and Molly and I were bad too, even if we didn’t know it. I wondered if all that had something to do with the President being shot and dead, and everything changing.

We kept watching the TV and the news guys talked about other things happening. The news guys said that Kennedy was “assassinated”, a really long word I couldn’t remember hearing before. That Johnson guy, who was the “vice president”, was made the new President. Both mom and dad said they didn’t trust him because he was from Texas, though he was on the same “Democrat” team as Kennedy was. That didn’t make sense, but I decided I better not ask any questions.

The news guys said that the police captured that Oswald guy that they thought had shot Kennedy, and that he had also killed a policeman when he was trying to get away. He sounded like a really bad guy. They said he had been in the Marines but he also was a communist and had lived in the Soviet Union. Dad said he was probably working for the Russians, which made me worry that maybe there would be another war, but I figured I wasn’t old enough to be a soldier yet.

David went back to playing with our toys and even went out in the backyard. I kind of wanted to stop watching too, to not think about it anymore, but I thought mom and dad would think I was bad if I didn’t want to keep watching, that I didn’t really care enough that the President was shot. But I didn’t want to have to just sit there and keep thinking about it.

After dinner mom called all her friends on the telephone and talked to them about what happened. Sometimes she even cried a little talking on the phone.

***

The next day was Saturday and it was colder and windier. But I still wanted to go over to the park instead of staying in the house. Dad was working in the basement and listening to the radio for more news. Mom stayed in their bedroom with the door closed and dad said she was sleeping in, though sometimes I could hear her crying in there. David wanted to go to the park too, so I figured it was okay if I went, to “keep an eye on him” as mom or dad would say.

There weren’t quite as many kids in the park as there usually were, and they were in small groups together in different parts of the park. There was one group of mostly boys my age in a bunch of lilac bushes near Paul’s house. I could see them because it was fall and all the leaves on the bushes were gone, so it wasn’t as secret as it was in the summer. I could see another group of girls were in a bunch of the lilac bushes across the park on the other side. There was a group of younger and a few older boys and girls on and around the monkey bars and a group of mostly older boys and girls sitting around on top of the picnic tables. In the group around the monkey bars a couple younger kids were swinging on the swings or doing the seesaw.

Paul was there in the first group of boys in the lilac bushes, and his older brother Jink. Lenny was there too. Even though the bushes didn’t have any leaves and you weren’t hidden inside them, it still felt like the place to go to talk about important stuff. Other than Jink, most of the kids like me that went to elementary school hadn’t gone to school yesterday because of those “parent-teacher conferences” like mom went too. Some of the boys said they were playing football in the park yesterday and one of their moms came out and told them that Kennedy had been shot and they should all go home.

Jink went to Slauson, which was a junior high school that mom had said was the one I would go to after sixth grade at Bach. He said that the principal at his school came on the “PA” and said that Kennedy had been shot and everybody should go home. I guess the “PA” was kind of like a radio so the grownups in charge of the school could talk to everyone in all the rooms at the same time.

All the kids talked about how he got shot in the head and went to the hospital but the doctors couldn’t fix him. They talked about that Oswald guy that shot him and whether he was a spy for the Russians. Jink was the oldest, so he did a lot of the talking.

I stood on the edge of the bushes and listened for a while, but then I walked over toward the trees and the monkey bars. There were girls and boys in this group, and Marybeth was there, sitting on the very top of the monkey bars with Hannah right under her and David was there too. They all nodded at me when they saw me come up, but didn’t wave or smile.

Some of the girls my age said they were home from school too when they heard about it on the radio or the TV. One girl said that she was with her mom at the A and P when one of the guys that worked in the store said something bad about Kennedy and her mom got really mad at him. Then Marybeth said that she was in “civics class” at Slauson when they heard that Kennedy had been shot and their teacher “punched the blackboard”. Then they were all told to go home. And when she got home their “bubsha”, their grandmother, was “saying a prayer”, which was that talking to God stuff, “for America”.

I stayed there a while but then went over to the group with most of the older boys and girls. They were talking louder and arguing about whether that Oswald guy was a Russian spy. I saw Ricky sitting on one of the picnic tables listening. I was surprised that Ricky was just listening, and not doing a lot of talking like he did whenever I saw him at parties with grownups.

“Hey kid”, he said, which was what he always called me when he saw me in the park, “I assume you heard all the bad news yesterday.” I nodded.

“Some of these older kids think Oswald was working for the Russians”, he said, “And that’s why he shot Kennedy.”

“What do you think?” I asked. Ricky always seemed to have everything figured out.

“I don’t know”, he said, “It kind of makes sense cuz he lived in Russia for a while. What do you think?” I shook my head.

“I don’t know either”, I said, “I just don’t want there to be a World War Three.” Ricky nodded.

“You and me both, kid”, he said, “You and me both.”

***

It was Sunday lunchtime. The sun had been out all morning but it was colder than yesterday and the wind was starting to blow and now there were clouds in the sky. I made myself a baloney and cheese sandwich with mustard. Dad called it “hotdog mustard”, because it was the same yellow stuff you put on hotdogs. Dad had this other mustard that was brown that he called “hot mustard”, but it was too “hot” for me, which really meant it was spicy, and hurt my tongue and mouth when I tried to taste it. David could make a baloney and cheese sandwich himself now, though he didn’t put ANY mustard on it because he said it was “too tasty”, which was funny because most grownups wanted their food to be “tasty”. Mom said I was like that when I was five, like David was now, that I also liked all my food “dead plain”. David didn’t even like spaghetti sauce on his spaghetti.

We had that Wonder Bread that they talked about on the commercials on TV. You could take a piece, eat off the crust part, and then mush the rest down into a little white cube. But I liked it not mushed, though it was so soft that when you put peanut butter on it with a knife you had to be careful or it might mush down and even tear the piece of bread apart. But that didn’t happen when you put mustard on, because it wasn’t as gooey.

Mom and dad were down in the basement. I could hear dad typing but I could also hear that the TV was on and those news guys were talking about the Oswald guy who shot Kennedy. They said that Oswald would have a “trial” and if he was “found guilty” of killing Kennedy then he would be “executed” in the “electric chair”. Ricky had told me about that “electric chair”. They strap you into it so you can’t get out, and when they turn it on it sends enough electricity through your body to stop your heart and “fry your brain”, as Ricky told it, until you’re “glad you’re finally dead”. I couldn’t imagine killing somebody on purpose if you were a goodguy, unless it was a war and it was an enemy soldier that would kill you if you didn’t kill him first.

I was eating my sandwich in the kitchen. I could hear the news guy’s voice on the TV but not what he was saying. Then I heard mom’s voice loud.

“Oh my god, Eric”, she said, “Somebody just shot Oswald. Just now. The camera was on him and we heard the shot and you could see the pain on his face and then he slumped over. I can’t believe what I just saw!”

I got up from the kitchen table with a mouthful of baloney and cheese sandwich and the rest in my left hand and ran down the basement stairs. David ran down after me. When I got to the bottom of the stairs mom looked at me. I had never seen her look so worried, afraid and sad all at the same time. Then she closed her eyes and looked down toward the floor.

“I’m glad you guys didn’t see that”, she said, still shaking her head slowly, “I wish I hadn’t seen it either.”

I looked at the TV and there were all these guys in hats and ties yelling and moving around, and the TV guy talking kept saying “Oswald’s been shot” over and over again.

“Did he shoot the guy that shot the President?” David asked. Mom nodded slowly and pushed her lips together and looked like she was about to cry. David looked like he couldn’t figure that out.

“But you’re supposed to shoot badguys, so that’s okay, right?” he asked. Mom’s face got fierce.

“NO, it’s not okay, sweetheart”, she said, “This is the United States of America. We have rules on what’s right and wrong and we’re supposed to settle our differences in court, not take the law into our own hands. This is not some Western or war show.”

“Your mother’s right”, dad said, “Though I can’t say Oswald didn’t deserve it!” Mom looked behind her at dad and nodded slowly like she thought he deserved it too, but then it looked like she thought something different and closed her eyes and shook her head really fast. She opened them and kept looking at him.

“Eric”, she said fiercly, “If I’d been there and I had a gun, after what he’s done to Kennedy and to the whole country really, I would have been tempted to shoot that bast…”, she didn’t say the whole word, I think because it was that really bad “bastard” word, but said, “Shoot him myself.” And she started to cry again.

She looked at David and I with tears running down her cheeks from her wet eyes and said, “You guys’ll have to forgive me, I’m not much of a role model right now. I’m still so goddamn angry that that guy shot the man who was carrying the future of our country in his hands!” She put her hands over her mouth and nose and closed her eyes again and I could hear her breathing inside her hands.

“Excuse me guys”, she said, standing up, “I need to go up to our bedroom and lie down for a while.” She walked to the stairs and walked up them slowly.

***

It was the next day, Monday, and there was no school again because of President Kennedy’s funeral, which the news guys showed and talked about on TV.

His body was in a “casket”, which was this big wood box thing that was all shiny. It was in this round room in the “Capitol” building called the “rotunda”. It had an American flag on top of it, which dad said they did when special people like Presidents or soldiers died. There were soldiers standing around the casket but they weren’t moving. Dad said that’s the way they did it because they were an “honor guard”.

All these people came into the “rotunda” room and just looked at the casket but didn’t say anything while the soldiers stood like statues around it. Dad said all those people looking were “paying their respects”, which I figured was what you were supposed to do at a funeral.

Then the TV showed all the main people getting into cars in the “White House”, which mom said was where the President lived, and driving super slowly to the Capitol building for the “procession” part of the funeral, which was taking the casket to this church called a “cathedral” and then to the cemetery. Mom said a “procession” was like a parade except it was very “somber”, which meant it was sad, and you were supposed to be quiet and just think about how sad it was.

Then when everybody got to the Capitol, those soldiers around the casket carried it slowly down a whole bunch of stairs while these other soldiers that were a band played musical instruments like they did at the Michigan football games, but the songs were slow and “somber”. At the bottom of all the stairs the soldiers put the casket on this wagon thing which the news guy said was a “caisson”. I remembered that word from the army song that dad used to sing to us, “those caissons go rolling along”, which he said the army used to carry the cannonballs and “shells” that were shot by cannons and artillery. Guys on a bunch of white horses pulled the caisson, but really slowly.

Behind the caisson was another horse with no one riding it but one guy next to it walking with it and trying to hold it. It looked like it didn’t want to walk slowly like the other horses and wanted to walk sideways instead. Mom said she had heard that was Kennedy’s horse, and his wife wanted it to be in the parade with no one riding it to show he was dead.

In front of the horses pulling the casket were more guys marching playing instruments and the news guy said they were the “Marine band”. I knew that “marines” were these soldiers that were on ships and attacked the Japanese soldiers on islands in the Pacific like that “Iwo Jima” island I had read about in one of dad’s red war books. And after that was a navy band with the guys wearing those white navy hats. Behind each band other soldiers and sailors marched with their guns.

As they got closer to the “cathedral” church there were lots of people standing along the sides of the road watching. I thought it all was getting kind of boring after a while, and David was over in the other part of the basement playing with toys, but mom and dad kept watching like they had to or other grownups might think they were bad. I wondered if I could stop watching too, but I was worried that if I did mom or dad might think I didn’t really care that Kennedy got killed, which would be bad.

When they got to that big cathedral church, all of Kennedy’s family and the other main people, which were also people in charge of other countries, got out to go inside. The news guy said…

The order of procession to the cathedral is Mrs Kennedy and the Attorney General followed by President Lyndon Johnson. Then the chiefs of state and foreign delegates to the funeral. There is no precedent for a First Lady walking in a funeral procession. Still it has been done in other countries in other eras. It is done here because the distance to the Cathedral is only two blocks.

“Good for Jackie”, mom said, “Women need to step forward and not hide in the background at important moments like this.”

Then we heard these really screechy instruments playing, which dad said were “bagpipes”.

Then they showed all the people inside the giant cathedral church. We could hear singing but I couldn’t understand the words. Mom said they were “in Latin”, which was another language people used to say a long time ago, but now only in churches. The caisson with the casket waited outside with all the soldiers around it until the music changed and the soldiers carried it slowly into the church and some guy was talking in that “Latin” language again. Then the news guys did a lot of talking about church stuff that I didn’t understand.

Then the church guys did this “prayer” thing, that I didn’t know about because I’d never really gone to a church, except that one time when we went to that church to watch Molly’s mom get married again to that Larry guy, who was Molly’s stepdad, but they didn’t do any praying. And there was more singing by what dad called a “choir”. Then they showed this “cardinal” guy, with this really tall strange hat, sitting on a “throne” with other church guys around him.

This other church guy, wearing a robe, climbed up these stairs to one of those things that you talk at with a microphone so everyone can hear you. He said he would read words that President Kennedy had said. It was a bunch of stuff that didn’t make much sense that I figured was from that Bible book. But then there was a part that was interesting and kind of made sense…

The following is one of his favorite passages of scripture from the book of Ecclesiasties, the third chapter. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to uproot the plants. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them. A time to embrace and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend and a time to sow. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.”

Sometimes you did one thing, but other times you did the opposite thing. I figured all this stuff happened in the regular world, but a lot of those things also happened when kids were playing and pretending, either with soldiers here in the basement or the backyard, or in the park with other kids. We pretended that soldiers got killed or wounded, and the doctor made some of the wounded guys “heal”, which was like getting better. We built cities and forts and other things and then wrecked them with cannons or Godzilla. We would be friends, but other times we’d pretend we were enemies that hated each other and were fighting a war. Lots of things we saw, heard or read about grownups doing in the regular world, we did in our pretend worlds when we played, so we could figure out how and why they happened, and maybe change the story so it came out better, or maybe not.

Then the guy read parts that were too complicated for me to figure out, but dad seemed to really like this part though it also made him sad, which almost never happened…

Let the word go forth from this time and place to friends and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, overcome any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Mom went over and put her hands on dad’s shoulders and squeezed them and kissed him on the top of his head.

Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need, not as a call to battle, though embattled we are, but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, a struggle against the common enemies of man. Tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Mom pushed her lips together and nodded slowly, then looked at David and me and looked like she might cry again, but she didn’t.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it. I do not believe any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.

I remember mom explaining to me what the word “generation” meant. It was all the people that were close to the same age. Like all our moms and dads were one generation, but all us kids were a different, next generation. I just knew that us kids, that “next generation”, would change everything so it would be better, and maybe that Kennedy guy had figured that out too, even though he was a grownup.

Then all the church guys and the other people left the church and the soldiers took the casket out too and back down the stairs to the caisson, while the bands played more somber music. I was figuring out that the music you played was different, depending on what was going on. One way in a football game when you wanted your team to win, but another way in a funeral, when it wasn’t really about teams, but just thinking about the guy that died. I remembered when David and I pretended to do a funeral when we buried Lieutenant Cord after he got killed by the Martian dinosaurs on Jinx island, though we just buried him in the dirt on the edge of the dirt pile in the backyard, but not in one of those casket things. And we had President Lincoln say stuff instead of one of those church guys.

Then the caisson with the horses and the cars and the soldiers marching all started going down the streets again while bands played more somber songs. I even heard a band play the music for that death song that kids would sometimes sing in the park…

Pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you.

And when they weren’t playing the music, you could still hear the bands playing the drums.

They took the casket to the cemetary. They showed the car of the new President, that Johnson guy, with all these guys in dress up clothes walking all around it. The news guys said those walking guys were “Secret Service”, protecting him. I remembered how those secret service guys ran and jumped on Kennedy’s car after he was shot.

When they finally got to the cemetery, there were all these different soldiers and sailors standing with their guns but not moving. Dad said they were “at attention”. Some soldiers carried the casket again to the place where they were going to bury the casket in the ground. The news guys called it a “grave site”. Then there were noisy jet airplanes that flew overhead. They said there were 50 of them, 30 from the air force and 20 from the navy.

The soldiers who were carrying the casket took the flag off it and other soldiers “at attention” all did this stuff with their guns all at the same time. Then this church guy read something out of a book that I figured must be the Bible. When he finally finished talking, the band played music and the soldiers folded up the flag in this strange way that made it into a triangle which they gave to this guy in dress up clothes. Then that church guy read more words. Dad said it was another “prayer”. When he was done everybody got quiet and I could see that Kennedy’s wife, mom called her “Jackie”, was holding that folded up flag in a triangle. The soldier guys were still standing still on either side of the casket, but finally marched away, and the TV showed that “eternal flame” thing burning. Dad said that other guys would lower the casket into the ground and put dirt over it.

I kept thinking about what mom said about everything being “turned upside down” and that it would “never be the same again”.

Clubius Contained Part 19 - Fourth Grade (September 1963)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday January 30, 2024 · 1:43 PM PST

2024/01/30 · 13:43

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs Larkin, was different than all the other teachers I had had. I mean, she was a regular grownup like my third grade teacher Mrs Rodney and my second grade teacher Mrs Camden. My first grade teacher, Miss Zimmerman, didn’t even seem like a real grownup. She was more like a really older kid, like Margie but even older, or like one of dad’s “college students”.

Mrs Rodney and Mrs Camden seemed like they had one way to teach you stuff and you had to do it that way and then they liked you and gave you good grades. But Mrs Larkin seemed like she was always looking for different ways to do things and was interested if you had a different way of learning something. Like learning about plants. When Amanda suggested that we all bring in plants we found, a leaf from a tree, a flower, or even just a piece of grass, Mrs Larkin would help us figure out what kind of plant it was and stuff about how it worked, what it did in the winter, stuff like that.

Or when Gabe and I wanted to write a story about a secret submarine traveling all over the world, she got us a world map we could use and helped us go to the library and find books about all those places in the world our sub would go, and even let us tell all the other kids our “stories” about our sub.

Even Mary, who never wanted Amanda to be better than her, did this whole special thing about showing us all how to keep score in bowling, since her mom worked at that Colonial Lanes bowling “alley”, which I had been to for a birthday party. I tried to bowl, but wasn’t very good. Mary even showed everybody in class how the “perfect game” was three hundred points.

Mrs Larkin said she “believed in the principles behind ‘New Math’”, that it was more important to figure out how to do things yourself than have a teacher tell you how to do it. I remember Mrs Rodney talked about that “New Math” stuff too, but I don’t think she liked it very much, because she said it “confuses students”. Mrs Larkin liked “bright” kids like mom and dad did, and she really liked me, Amanda, Jake and Gabe, because we were always coming up with ideas that she wanted to hear. I guess she thought Mary was “bright” too, and liked her, but I tried to avoid Mary and her best friend Diane as much as possible.

Diane still said that I was a “pervert”, because last spring in Mrs Rodney’s class Joey had told everybody that I had told him that I’d, “Pull down my pants for Mary”. I wasn’t even sure what a “pervert” was, but I knew it must be bad, so I wasn’t going to ask anybody. It seemed like it was at least better than being a sissy, which was the worst thing a boy could possibly be. I just wanted everybody else to forget about it, though I would NEVER forget about it!

Diane liked to tell on people. Mary did too, but not as much as Diane did. I wasn’t sure Mary was still even mad at me, except that she didn’t want other girls seeing her talk to me, because I figured she was afraid they’d think she was a pervert too. DIANE was the real problem. I remembered how dad would swear when he hurt himself, like banged a finger accidentally with a hammer. He’d make a hissing sound through his teeth, shake the finger he banged and say, “DAMN it! Damn it to hell!” So about Diane I was thinking, “Damn you Diane! Damn you to hell!” There is no way I would ever say that out loud, but when I thought the words, at least I felt a little bit better.

And at least Mrs Larkin didn’t know about all that bad stuff that happened last year, and I never talked about it, nor luckily any of my friends. I figured the safest thing to do was work really hard to get really good grades and have ideas on everything so Mrs Larkin would keep liking me a lot and think I was really, really good, just in case she found out that Diane was calling me a “pervert”. I don’t think Diane wanted to tell our teacher, or any of the boys, because her and Mary and the girls that were their friends liked to have their girl secrets and I think me being a “pervert” was one of those secrets. If she told Mra Larkin then our teacher might tell her not to talk about it anymore and that might ruin it. Secrets were only fun if they WERE secret, but you could still tell them to your friends.

Joey didn’t talk about it either, and he wasn’t my friend anymore. I would NEVER forgive him for telling on me like that. Damn HIM to hell too!

Gabe and I were still really into submarines. Not just Captain Nemo’s Nautilus or the Hunley sub from the Civil War, but the submarines in World War Two and the American and Soviet Union subs today. And even pretend submarine stories that we made up, like the one that Mrs Larkin helped us with.

Another thing that was different about fourth grade was recess. We got to do recess in the “big playground”, which was across Fifth street from the other “small playground” where we always did recess before. The big playground was like that secret park, Wurster Park, that had houses all around it and you couldn’t really see it from the street. There was this passageway that went from the sidewalk on Fifth street between two houses and into the playground. It was kind of like that passageway by Molly’s house that went into Burns Park, even though that wasn’t a secret park because you could see it from the other streets around it.

It was also interesting that the half of the park you walked into was much higher than the other half, which was down what Mrs Larkin called a “slope”. And the “slope” was pretty big, big enough, Herbie, Jake and Amanda said, to sled down in the winter when there was snow. The three of them had known about this place for a long time, but had never told me about it. At least I don’t remember them telling me about it. I guess that’s because it was “secret”, so that made sense.

So the top part of the playground had some swings and monkey bars, but mostly had a sort of baseball field. It just had a small fence behind home plate but it didn’t have the dirt “diamond” part. At school, we didn’t have our gloves and all the bats and balls to play regular baseball, but we did have larger balls that you could kick, so we played “kickball” instead.

It was kind of like baseball, but the kid pitching rolled the ball to you instead of throwing it, and you ran toward the ball and kicked it instead of hitting it with a bat. Once you kicked it you would try to run around the bases like in regular baseball. You could get out if someone caught the ball you kicked, though that didn’t happen very much, because most kids kicked the ball along the ground. But you could also get out if someone got the rolling ball you kicked and got it to the pitcher before you got to first base, or if someone got the rolling ball and threw it at you and it hit you before you got to first or another base.

Then another thing that was different is that girls played too, and usually each team had boys and girls on it. When we first started playing kickball, some of the boys said that girls shouldn’t play, but Mrs Larkin said that they could. Then some boys thought it should be boys against girls, but there weren’t as many girls that wanted to play as boys did, so it was hard for the girls to have a whole team. And I didn’t like it when it was the boys against the girls, because some of the boys got too crazy about it and it made some of the girls worried that they didn’t want to play. So now we had boys and girls on both teams, which I figured was best, because then the teams would be more fair, and girls and boys played together, which seemed better to me, because usually at school boys and girls at least pretended they were on different teams.

The big playground was also neat because it was so big and there were lots of trees on all the edges, specially in the bottom part, where you could go and hide and talk about secret stuff, which is something that me, Gabe, Jake and Herbie liked to do a lot now. Before fourth grade, the only place to go at recess to talk about secret stuff was inside that big tube thing. But in the lower part of the big playground were lots of places behind trees where we could be far away from anyone else and see others coming before they could get close enough to hear what we were saying.

Sometimes Amanda would come over and join us, but sometimes she didn’t, because there was this new girl in our class, Elaine, who liked Amanda a lot and who Amanda liked too. Amanda said Elaine was shy around boys, so when the two of them played they would do stuff by themselves, or maybe with some of the other girls, though never with Mary or Diane.

So at our secret “meetings” we would talk about different stuff. Maybe submarines, maybe war stuff, maybe baseball, or maybe even about girls. And when we talked about girls, we’d talk about Mary and Diane and what my friends found out when they sneaked around and spied on them. My friends would talk about all the “crazy” stuff that Diane said, like that Theo had a “crush” on Mary and that Joey had a crush on that new girl Elaine. If Amanda was there we’d want to hear what she was thinking about Mary and Diane too. If Amanda wasn’t there, Jake or Herbie would say that Gabe was “in love with” Amanda, because they liked teasing him about that. But he would always say that wasn’t true, though I thought DID they seemed to like each other, though I don’t think he was “in love” or even had a crush on her.

***

There were a lot of neat shows on TV that I liked to watch when I got home from school, like The Twilight Zone. I liked that guy at the beginning of the show who said…

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

“Imagination” was a grownup word for pretending, so I liked what he said. I mean watching real stuff could be good, like a baseball or football game or about the war. But pretending, “imagination”, was better.

There was also a new show that was like The Twilight Zone called “The Outer Limits”. A voice at the beginning said…

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... the Outer Limits.

I thought that was really neat because they said they were telling stories that were pretending, about monsters and aliens that weren’t real, and they were IN CHARGE of the pretending and they could pretend whatever they wanted to, and even pretend that it was real. Since I really liked pretending and making stories, that made sense to me.

And I always liked things that were an “adventure”, that was the word dad liked to use when he, David and I would go somewhere new in the car, so mom could have time by herself. And I liked trying to figure out the “inner mind”, whatever that was, and about “the outer limits”, whatever THAT was.

I also liked watching that “Combat” show, because I got to see what it was like for dad in the war. When we played soldiers it was fun, helping each other and even getting killed sometimes to save your “buddies”. But on the show it didn’t look like much fun, and guys were always messing up and getting wounded or killed, or getting their other guys wounded or killed. I wondered since dad was in charge of his “platoon” if he had to be mad and yell at his guys all the time like that sergeant guy on the show. I just couldn’t imagine dad being like that, yelling at people he was in charge of.

But there was also that funny war show, “McHale’s Navy”, where they were sailors in those small “PT Boats” on the ocean fighting the Japanese. They did silly stuff, but I liked how they tricked the captain guy that was in charge. Dad said it was “obviously a comedy”, but that stuff like that did happen in the real war when guys in his platoon did stuff they weren’t supposed to. He said he usually didn’t get mad at them, because in a war you spend a lot of time waiting for stuff to happen and even though you worried a lot about getting wounded, captured or killed, it could get pretty boring, so his guys needed to “blow off steam”. Just so long as when they had to move, help with an attack, they all worked together and followed orders. Again dad didn't seem like someone who would give people orders. He never gave mom, me or David orders.

Then there was another comedy show called “The Beverly Hillbillies”. You could tell that they were comedy shows because you could hear people laughing on the TV, like they were watching it too, though you could never see them. I asked dad if those were real people laughing, but he said it was probably just a “laugh track”, which he tried to explain to me but I still couldn’t figure it out. But when you heard those “laugh track” people laughing on the Beverly Hillbillies show, what they were laughing at usually WAS pretty funny.

The show always started out with this really neat song, sung by one of those guys with a Southern “accent”…

Come and listen to my story
'Bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer
Barely kept his family fed
And then one day
He was shootin' at some food
And up through the ground came a-bubblin' crude
Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea

Gabe and Herbie watched it too, and sometimes we’d sing the song together at recess or in the park. It was fun because the other kids that didn’t watch the show couldn’t figure out WHAT we were doing, and it made us feel like we were super special and neat. Out at recess, if Jake and Amanda were with us when we decided to sing the song, they’d just look at each other and shake their heads.

The show was about these four people that found “oil” and got rich and moved from where they lived to what seemed like a pretend place called “Beverly Hills”. I figured it was pretend because it had these really strange trees that had a trunk part that went up really really high and then just these really big leaves coming out at the very top. It also had these giant houses and front yards with roads and fountains that I couldn’t imagine were real. I think they were from the “south” too, because they talked with those “southern” accents that mom and dad and other grownups were always making fun of.

They all lived in one of those giant houses like they were in the same family, but they weren’t like a regular family, because there wasn’t a mom OR a dad. There were just two really older kids and this older “Uncle Jed” grownup guy and this “Granny” woman who was really old and I guess was their grandma. They were always trying to figure stuff out that was all different in Beverly Hills from where they used to live. And the Beverly Hills guy who was in charge of the bank and wanted all that “Uncle Jed” guy’s money, and the woman that worked for him, were always worrying about them and sometimes even helped them.

One of my favorite shows was the “Flintstones”, which was a cartoon show, but also a comedy, because it had that “laugh track” stuff. They were supposed to live in the “Stone Age”, which mom had read me about in that “Child’s History of the World” book, that was a really long time ago. And they had dinosaurs, that mom said had all “died off” long before there were regular people, even “cavemen”. It was my favorite because it was pretty much all pretending, which made it really neat. Like they had airplanes that had the place where the people sat on top of a giant flying dinosaur, like a Pteranodon. They had cars with stone wheels and everybody in the car used their feet to make the cars go. Also people had dinosaur pets instead of regular dogs and cats.

It also had a song at the beginning that Gabe, Herbie and I would sing…

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones
They're the modern Stone Age Family
From the town of Bedrock
They're a page right out of history

Dad said it was a, “Lampoon of modern life”, which meant it made fun of stuff happening right now. “Modern” was that word grownups used to mean stuff happening now, new stuff, rather than stuff that used to happen which they might call “old times” or “a long time ago”. And there was that “ancient” word too for things that happened a long long long time ago, like cavemen, or those guys with chariots.

Then there were three other cartoon shows that I liked, that were on other times during the week. The first one was “Supercar”, about this thing that could drive on the road, fly in the sky, go under the water like a submarine, or even go in space like a spaceship. The guy that drove it, Mike Mercury, would fly it out of this laboratory place and try to help people or get badguys, kind of the same stuff that Sky King did. It wasn’t like a regular cartoon, like Felix the Cat or the Flintstones. Dad said it was done with “puppets” that they pretended to have talk.

Another puppet one was “Fireball XL5”, about this spaceship that this guy, Steve, and this girl, Venus, flew. They would fight things trying to destroy Earth but also meet friendly aliens too. At the beginning of every episode before they took off they’d always say to each other…

Steve: Okay Venus?

Venus: Okay Steve!

And the show also had a really neat song at the beginning…

I wish I was a spaceman
The fastest guy alive
I'd fly you 'round the universe
In Fireball XL5
Way out in space together
Conquerors of the sky
My heart would be a fireball, a fireball
Every time I gazed into your starry eyes

And then this part was my favorite. You were going on an adventure all over the solar system with someone you really liked a lot. I thought of me and Molly doing that…

We'd take the path to Jupiter
And maybe very soon
We'd cruise along the Milky Way
And land upon the Moon
To a wonderland of stardust
We'd zoom our way to Mars
My heart would be a fireball, a fireball
Cause you'd be my Venus of the stars

I figured the Steve guy really liked that Venus girl. She was really pretty, at least for a puppet. It seemed grownup men liked women best who were pretty, or “good looking” as grownups usually said. I wondered if dad liked mom because she was good looking, because she wasn’t nice to dad very much anymore. She was always mad at him for buying the wrong kind of grapefruit juice, or worried that he wasn’t making enough money and they couldn’t pay “the bills”. I wondered if because she was pretty, she didn’t have to be nice and he still would like her.

I guess most boys liked girls who were pretty too. The older boys in the park were always talking about girls that were super pretty that they’d like to kiss, which I guess was the beginning part of being kissyface with them, or even marrying them when they were older.

The boys in MY class would talk about girls, but only when there weren’t any girls around and would never say that they liked them, because most of the boys in MY class still thought girls had cooties. They didn’t usually say that, but I think they were thinking that. Because if you told boys you liked a girl, even told boys who were your regular friends, they would tease you about it. Or worse, they would tell on you to your teacher and the girls, like Joey did to me after I told him that I’d “pull down my pants for Mary”, which I guess was like saying I really liked her, and maybe even liked her in a kissyface sort of way. Boy was I STUPID for telling him that, that was the WORST thing that I ever did, even though it didn’t feel bad when I was telling Joey.

There were also those new songs by the Beatles about boys and girls liking each other. Paul’s older brother AND Gabe’s older brother both went to the record store and bought their new record on the first day you could buy it. It was one of those little “45” ones with the big hole in the middle. On one side was “She Loves You” and on the other was “I’ll Get You”. It was interesting, because on the first one this guy tells his friend that this girl still likes him, even though he thought she didn’t.

You think you've lost your love
Well, I saw her yesterday
It's you she's thinking of
And she told me what to say

She says she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad

Then on the second side, that guy decides to “get her”, even “get her in the end”. It was strange, that the girl in the first song could tell her friends that she “loved” that guy and then they could tell the guy, but she couldn’t just tell HIM that she did. But the guy in the second song, if HE liked a GIRL, he could just “get her”, like capture her.

I think about you night and day
I need you and it's true
When I think about you I can say
I'm never, never, never, never blue

So I'm telling you my friend
That I'll get you, I'll get you in the end
Yes I will, I'll get you in the end

Was that how it was supposed to work? Boys were supposed to “get” girls they liked, but girls couldn’t do that, they were supposed to tell their friends about a boy they liked, and their friends would tell the boy so he could “get” her instead if he wanted to. It all seemed so complicated and not fair. Why couldn’t it all be like Molly and me, we just were best friends. I didn’t want to have to “get” her.

But the best one of all the TV shows was Rocky and Bullwinkle. Other than those two, everybody in it was a grownup, and they were all pretty stupid and silly. Bullwinkle was a talking moose, and he was pretty stupid too most of the time too. Rocky was a “flying squirrel” that talked, but he seemed more like a kid because he was always trying to figure stuff out. He wasn’t super smart like Felix the Cat or Tom Swift, but he always tried really hard to figure stuff out so he could save everybody and beat the badguys. I don’t think REAL squirrels could fly, because they were all over the place outside, but I never saw any of them fly. And the main badguys, Boris and Natasha, were pretty stupid too, though unlike Rocky and Bullwinkle, THEY thought they were super smart, but they always messed stuff up. And the badguy in charge of them, Fearless Leader, was pretty stupid too. My friends and I all watched the show, and talked about it too, and we all liked when Boris said “moose and squirrel” with his Russian “accent”.

The show was interesting because the badguys were “spies” for the “Russians”, that was what most people called the Soviet Union team, and Rocky and Bullwinkle were the goodguys on the American team. They didn’t actually say that on the show, but all my friends and I knew that Boris and Natasha were supposed to be Russians, because they talked with that accent. It was hard to worry anymore about nuclear missiles and bombs when the show made it all seem so silly.

Dad kept saying it was “satire”, and I finally asked him what that meant. He said it was, “Using humor, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity and vices. Basically, showing how stupid or bad some people are by pretending they’re NOT stupid or bad, even though you can tell that they are.” That was REALLY interesting. I liked the idea that you could make fun of people, specially grownups, by pretending you’re a grownup and saying all this stuff like you’re super smart or super in charge of everything when you really aren’t and other kids know that.

***

Last night it was finally Friday night again after a long week of school. Though dad still always sang songs with us when we were in bed, sometimes mom would read us stories instead of dad. She was reading us that “Child’s History of the World” book that she liked so much. She had read the whole thing to me already, from how the Earth started before there were people all the way up to World War Two. But then she started again so she could read it to David, and that was okay, because I liked listening to it again. I could read it myself now, though there were still a lot of words I didn’t know, but I liked listening to her read it.

Mom said all the stories in the book really happened. Most of the stories were about famous people who did stuff to make things different. Usually to make things better but sometimes, like that Hitler guy in Germany, to make things worse. A lot of them were kings or emperors in charge of stuff, though some were just guys that weren’t in charge but came up with really good new ideas, like inventions like the printing press, to make books and newspapers.

But almost all the famous people in the stories were men. I could remember only two women, Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth. Cleopatra tried to save her Egypt country by tricking the Roman guys who were in charge of capturing it because she was so pretty, and those guys wanted to “get her” like in that Beatles song. But I guess she didn’t want them to get her and she let this poisonous snake bite her and she died. Then Queen Elizabeth was in charge of England for a while and she did really good. Mom had read that chapter again a week ago and I could remember the words at the end…

People at that time thought it impossible for a woman to rule as well as a man, but under Elizabeth’s rule England in turn became the leading country of Europe. Then people said Elizabeth ruled like a man, that she had a man’s brain, a man’s will. In fact they said she was more man than woman—that she was a tomboy grown up—that’s why I call her “King Elizabeth.”

And I guess the world was still that way. All the people in charge of our country and the Soviet Union, and all the other countries I had read about in books or seen on TV were men. The only women who were famous were like movie stars or singers, or that Emily Dickinson woman who wrote poems.

But mom hadn’t read to us at night since then, only dad, and tonight it was dad again, reading one of the new Tom Swift books, about the “Triphibian Atomicar”, which was kind of like that “Supercar” on TV. We sang some songs too and then he went back into the other bedroom with mom. Then David and I heard mom and dad arguing in their room. Though I think they were trying to be quiet, we could hear mom’s words sometimes when she got really mad. She was saying stuff like “I don’t have a life”, “I’m just a house frau”, “We had a deal”, “We don’t have any goddamn furniture”, and “I can’t go on like this”. That last one really worried me, and I could tell it worried David too. David even asked me what was wrong with mom. I told him I thought that she was worried that we didn’t have enough money and that she didn’t get to do things that she liked.

***

At breakfast this morning, mom didn’t look very happy. She wasn’t smiling or talking very much. She helped David make a bowl of Cheerios and milk to eat and I made my own. While we were eating, she went to the top of the basement stairway and called down to dad.

“Eric”, she said loudly, “Can you come up here?”

“Yeah, okay”, I heard dad down in the basement say. Mom came back in the kitchen and I heard dad’s feet banging on the steps as he quickly came up the stairs.

When he got to the kitchen he saw us and said, “Hi guys! What’s up Liz?”

Mom sat in one of the other chairs at the kitchen table and pointed at the last one and said, “Sit down, Eric.” Dad nodded and sat. David and I looked at both of them.

Mom put her elbows on the table and put her hands under her chin. She pushed her mouth together and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. I figured it must be something bad, and I wondered if it was something I had done. Then she looked at David and me.

“I imagine you two heard us arguing last night in our room”, she said, and David and I nodded. “We try to be quiet, but I tend to get louder when I feel strongly about something.” I looked at dad, who didn’t say anything and looked more like a kid than a grownup, like a kid worried about what an angry grownup was about to say about him.

“It’s a challenging time for your dad and I right now”, she said. I could see she was trying to figure out what to say next.

“Well”, she said, closing her eyes for a second, “It’s a particularly difficult time for me. Your dad has finally gotten his PhD and a job both he and I have been working towards for the last few years as a college professor. But I don’t think either of us realized that he still has a lot of work to do getting tenure before they pay him more of what he deserves for all his hard work.” Dad pushed his lips together and nodded.

“It’s all very frustrating”, she said, “For both him AND me. Your dad doesn’t talk about his frustrations, but I do.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I HAVE TO, it’s just the way I am. I’d explode if I didn’t share these feelings with somebody. So I share them with your father.” Dad nodded again, still seeming like a kid.

“It’s gonna all work out, Liz”, he said, “It’s just a bump in the road!” Mom closed her eyes again, pushed her lips together and nodded slowly.

Breathing out loudly she said, “I hope so”, then looking at dad, “Getting your dad a tenured professor job was only PART of the plan. The other part was for me then to go back to school and get MY masters degree, most likely in fine art. We are struggling to make that half of the plan happen.” She stopped talking, and dad nodded again and looked down like he’d done something bad.

“So that’s what we’re going through right now”, she said, “And you’re hearing my frustrated words that I’m trying to just share with your father. And I just want… we just want… both of you to know that we love both of you so much, and you two are the best thing that ever happened to us, and we don’t want you to worry about us. We will figure this out like we’ve figured out things before.” Dad was nodding and putting a smile on his face that seemed pretend.

She looked at dad and asked, “Eric, do you have any thoughts?” She looked like she really wanted him to say something, but he looked like he couldn’t figure out what to say.

“Your mom’s having a tough time”, he said, “We all have to help her get through this. And she’s right. We both love you two more than anything in the world and don’t want you to be worried.” They’d said that last thing to us before, and it always made me pretty worried.

Mom looked at David and me and asked, “Do you guys have any questions or things you’re worried about?” I was thinking that mom shouldn’t always be getting mad at dad, because he was doing everything he could. But I wasn't going to say that because I was afraid mom would get mad at ME like she was always getting mad at dad, so I shook my head.

David asked her, “Why don’t you like dad any more?” Everyone was quiet for a moment. David looked at me like maybe he said the wrong thing. I didn’t know how to look back at him, though I guess I wanted to know that too.

“Oh sweetie”, said mom, “Your dad and I still love each other very much. Almost as much as we love you two.” I wasn’t sure if that was really true.

“So”, mom said, clapping her hands together, “Joan and Molly are coming after lunch and we’ve been invited to ‘tea’ at Joyce’s. And dad’s going to take Mister D over to Killins to get fresh dirt for the dirt pile.” “Mister D” was one of David’s nicknames. I liked thinking up nicknames too, and sometimes called him “Wavey Davey”, or just “Wavey”, but nobody else did. I guess mom and dad were better at thinking up nicknames than I was.

***

Kenny, Molly, Paul and me were up in the big cherry tree in Kenny’s backyard picking dark red cherries off the branches and eating them. Below us all our moms sat around a round glass table and drank tea. Tea was kind of like coffee but didn’t taste as bad, at least if it had sugar in it.

“Hey fruit pickers”, mom said, looking up at us above her, “Toss a couple of those little guys down here for us ground dwellers.” Molly and I each “tossed” one to her and she managed to catch both of them. Then Paul tossed one and finally Kenny. Mom caught those too.

“Good catch Jane”, said Paul’s mom, “You haven’t lost your eye-hand coordination.”

“Thanks Til”, mom said. Then she put her hands on her cheeks, slowly shook her head and made that funny sound when things weren’t going like she wanted them to. “Ach…”, she said, “It’s been so long, I don’t know if I even remember how to hit a damn tennis ball!”

“Jane”, said Kenny’s mom, “You’re so free with your colorful language. I always feel like I need to be so formal or it’s disrespectful.”

“Oh geez Joyce I’m sorry”, mom said, “There I go cursing again.”

“Bad Jane”, said Paul’s mom, starting to laugh through her nose, and then patting mom’s hand with hers.

“Jane always speaks her mind and doesn’t mince her words”, said Molly’s mom, “I’ve always admired her for that.”

“Hear, hear”, said Paul’s mom.

“No, no”, said Kenny’s mom, “I agree with Matilda and Joan on your forthrightness. I admire it as well. I wish I could speak so forcefully.” She pointed up at us in the tree. “I just worry about setting a bad example for the children.”

“Are there children up here?” Molly asked looking around, “All I see are us kids!” Her eyes caught mine and she opened them big to let me know she was being silly.

“Molly”, her mom’s voice was fierce, “Don’t be disrespectful of our hostess!”

“No, it’s okay, Joan”, Kenny’s mom said, putting HER HAND on Molly’s mom’s, “You all have taught me to loosen up quite a bit. This is America, not Yugoslavia!”

“Well you’ve certainly come a long way Joyce”, mom said, “From when you called us all Mrs so and so.”

“Yes, thank you”, Kenny’s mom said nodding, “I must have sounded like a fuddy-duddy back then.”

“No!” said mom and Molly’s mom, both making faces and shaking their heads. Then Paul’s mom said, “Well… maybe a little”, while she held her finger and thumb really close to each other. All four of them laughed.

“Well”, said Molly’s mom, “I’m still just sick about the bombing of that church in Birmingham. Those four young girls brutally killed, and now the FBI confirming it was an explosive device.”

“I’m not comfortable talking about this with our children around”, Kenny’s mom said, pointing up at us again.

Molly’s mom shook her head slowly and said, “Joyce, as discomforting as it is for all of us, this is the world our kids are growing up in. I think it does a disservice to their ethical development to not make them aware of what’s going on in the greater world around them and what’s at stake.”

I had seen them talking on TV about those four girls getting blown up. I wondered if stuff like that could happen in our town to us. The four of us kids in the tree all looked at each other but didn’t say anything. Kenny was the first to start looking for cherries again to eat.

“It’s a terrible thing indeed”, mom said, “I’m just heartened by what Doctor King is doing to organize negros to fight for their equal rights.” I had heard about that “Doctor King” guy and “negros” on TV news, but I didn’t know who they were.

Molly spit out a seed and swallowed the cherry she was eating, looked down and asked, “What are ‘negros’?”

Her mom looked worried as she looked up at Molly and asked, “Haven’t we talked about this?”

Molly pushed her lips together thinking and then said, “I don’t remember.” Her mom blew air out of her mouth and shook her head slowly and her head tilted down.

“So much for my grand pronouncements!” she said.

Mom looked up and asked, “Do any of you know what we’re talking about?” Molly, Kenny and I all shook our heads, but Paul nodded.

“I DO”, he said, “Negros are people with dark skin. They used to be slaves a long time ago, but now they’re just supposed to be regular people.” When he said that, I remembered that stuff about the slaves in the Civil War.

“Well Kudos to you Matilda for teaching your son about the world”, Molly’s mom said. Paul’s mom shook her head, and then made a clicking noise.

“I wish I could take credit”, she said, “But Pauly just seems to figure everything out for himself, or from his big brother and sister.”

“Sis told me”, Paul said. His mom nodded.

“We watched the march in Washington on the news with Coop”, mom said, “But our TV is black and white and so tiny, so it's hard to get a sense of the scope of it.”

She looked up at me and said, “Remember Coop? When King spoke and said he had a dream, about a country where everybody’s equal?”

I could tell mom really wanted me to remember, and I kind of did, so I nodded.

“Such powerful words”, said Molly’s mom. Then she looked up at Molly and said, “Molly dear, you remember when we watched the march on TV, don't you?”

Molly wrinkled her nose and said, “Kind of.”

“I’m afraid we missed it because we were visiting family”, Kenny’s mom said, “But aren’t you concerned about the radical elements in his organization?”

“Joyce”, It was Molly’s mom sounding fierce, “It’s those ‘radical elements’ that catalyze real change.”

“The way I see it you two”, mom said, “Yes there are those radical elements in any social movement, I guess it goes with the territory. But what’s important to me about King, is despite what those Southern bigots have done, beating up peaceful marchers, killing children, King has repeatedly called for only nonviolent protest, and I think we owe him a debt that he isn’t calling for fighting in the streets.”

“Hear hear”, said Paul’s mom, “Jane you always hit the nail on the head. You should be out there leading the charge, running for public office!”

“Thanks Til”, mom said, “If I was a man I probably would. I’m sure you’ve noticed it’s still a man’s world out there!”

“I suppose it is”, Paul’s mom said.

The four grownups below us continued to talk about that kind of stuff while the four of us kids in the trees found more dark super sweet red cherries to eat. We all had fun spitting the pits out, seeing how far we could spit them. Then they started talking about President Kennedy, who mom really liked.

Below us Paul’s mom said, “I was glad to see when Kennedy was interviewed on TV several weeks back, that he said it was up to the Vietnamese to fight their own war against the communists. I hope he sticks to those words, I’d hate to see us sending our young men over there to fight.”

“Agreed”, said Molly’s mom.

“As challenging as these last three years have been for me”, mom said, “I take a lot of solace that a man the quality of Jack Kennedy is sitting in the Oval Office. He’s a man of his word and a smart cookie”, and I trust him to make the right call about Vietnam. We just have to get him reelected next year.”

“Well”, said Kenny’s mom, “I voted for Nixon, and my husband and I have always voted Republican.”

“Jane here convinced me to vote for Kennedy”, Paul’s mom said, “Though Dilly always pulls the lever for the GOP ticket.”

“Forgive me”, Kenny’s mom said, “Dilly is…”

“My husband”, Paul’s mom said, “His given name is Randall, but his buddies call him ‘Dill’, so I like to tease him that OTHER women have a regular husband, but I have a ‘Dilly’. He’s hoping Rockefeller will run against Kennedy in 1964.”

“Rockefeller’s a good man”, mom said, “The Republicans could do much worse.”

“My husband is a Goldwater man”, Kenny’s mom said, “I don’t suppose any of you three care for him.” The other three below us shook their heads.

“I’m concerned that Goldwater will have us in a nuclear war with the Russians”, said Molly’s mom, “If we ever let him anywhere near the White House. We owe it to our children and the rest of the world to make sure that never happens.”

I remembered last year in third grade how we saw those movies about nuclear bombs and did those “duck and cover drills”. Kids in the park still talked about what it would be like if we all got blown up by those “H-bombs”. I still could even remember back to Molly’s fourth birthday party when Ricky talked about the radiation melting the skin off your bones while you were still alive. I could never forget that.

“I think we need someone in charge who’ll stand up to the communists”, Kenny’s mom said, “Joan, don’t you think Kennedy did the right thing by blockading Cuba during the missile crisis last year?”

“Well”, said Molly’s mom, “Kennedy just got lucky that Kruschev was the better man, willing to swallow his pride and walk back from the brink of the apocolypse.”

“Should we even be talking about all this with our children up there listening?” Kenny’s mom asked.

“It’s THEIR world as much or more than it is ours Joyce”, Molly’s mom said, “They need to be aware how much we’ve mucked it up for them.”

“Dear dear”, said Kenny’s mom.

Clubius Contained Part 18 - Saugatuck (August 1963)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 08, 2024 · 2:22 PM PST

2024/01/08 · 14:22

“Cooper, wake up”, dad whispered, and I felt something shaking my foot under my covers, “Molly’s here and it’s time for your big trip.” I had trouble opening my eyes and figuring out what was going on. Everything was dark, but then I remembered they would be here super early to pick me up.

“Is he awake?” I heard Molly’s voice whispering.

“Getting there”, dad whispered, “I just don’t want to wake up David, he gets so jealous when Coop gets to go somewhere without him.”

“Well”, whispered Molly, “If I was in charge he’d get to go too!” Dad nodded his head and laughed quietly through his nose.

I sat up to see if it was really Molly in my room before it was even light out, and it really was, she was standing in the doorway to the hall. She was wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap and a dark blue Michigan sweatshirt.

“His suitcase is out by the front door with everything in it”, dad whispered, “He just needs a minute to put his clothes on and then he’ll be ready to go.” Molly nodded, but kept standing there.

I threw back my covers and swung my legs out over the side of my bed, getting ready to jump down like I always did.

“DON’T JUMP”, dad whispered sharply, “You might wake up your brother.” I nodded and rolled over on my tummy and kind of slid off the bed, I felt dad’s hands grab my waist as I slid down so my feet were on the floor.

“There ya go”, dad whispered, “Here are your pants and shirt.” I was wearing just a t-shirt and underwear because my pajamas were packed in the suitcase. “Molly, maybe you can wait out in the living room so Coop can have some privacy putting on his clothes.” She pushed her lips together and wrinkled her nose thinking.

“No that’s okay”, I whispered to dad. Molly looked at me in my underwear and smiled as she watched me put on my pants and my shirt. I remembered when we had gotten naked together up in her bedroom in their old house across the street when we were still little. I figured she remembered too. I wondered if she looked the same now as she did then.

“You should wear your Michigan sweatshirt and Tiger baseball cap too”, she whispered. I nodded and looked at dad.

“Uhh”, he said, “Your sweatshirt is already in your suitcase. I’ll get it for you. And your Tiger’s cap…”

“I’ve got it”, she whispered, holding the cap up in the air and waving it.

Dad laughed through his nose again and went out in the living room, bringing back my sweatshirt. I put it on while Molly watched, still smiling. When I pulled it over my head she stepped towards me and put the hat on my head.

“Perfect”, she whispered.

“Out in the living room you two”, dad said, “Before we wake up your brother.” He gently put a hand on each of our shoulders and pushed just a little bit towards the door. I reached down and grabbed my sneakers.

“No socks?” he asked. I shook my head. “Well there are socks in your suitcase if you need them”, he said.

Carrying my suitcase, dad walked with Molly and me out to the street where Molly’s mom and step dad were by their station wagon. They put my suitcase in the middle seat with their suitcases and other stuff.

“Have a great time Coop”, dad said, patting my shoulder, “Maybe you’ll tell us all about it when you get back.”

Molly’s stepdad opened the back part so Molly and I could climb in our favorite “way back” seat, and then shut us in our cozy little place. Dad talked to them for a minute by the front of the car, and I could hear him say, “Thank you, this means a lot, we owe you one.” I wondered what he meant by that.

“You're very welcome Eric”, said Molly’s mom, “Molly is so excited that Cooper will be joining us.”

Then her stepdad started the car and drove down the street towards Stadium Boulevard. Looking out the back window, I saw dad waving to us, and Molly and I waved back.

It was really neat in the “way back” seat, because all the suitcases and stuff filled up the middle seat, between Molly and I in the back and her mom and dad in the front of their station wagon. It felt like we were in our own separate car, but we were going backwards instead of forwards, seeing where we were leaving rather than where we were going. It was still dark outside and the streetlights flashed by us on either side of us on the big empty street. Molly’s mom and stepdad sounded far away way up in the front talking about the numbers and directions of the highways we were going to go on to get there. Twenty three north, sixteen west, and eleven south.

Molly got the blanket next to her and threw it over my head and then went under it herself so we were both under there. I felt her shoulder against mine, bit I couldn’t really see her at all except when we went by a streetlight and a tiny bit of light got through the blanket to make her face look like a ghost.

“We’re in our secret cave now”, she whispered, “If we’re really quiet we can do whatever we want.” Then she asked, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know”, I whispered, but it was really exciting to start thinking about that.

“It’s our secret cave”, she whispered, “We need to do something that’s secret?”

I remembered back in January when Mary kissed me on the cheek in Wurster Park, and then in April, after Joey told on me, and how Mary was always mad at me for the rest of school and wouldn’t talk to me or even look at me at all. I liked Mary, but I liked Molly even more. She was my best friend. It felt like we had been friends forever. Mary was just a girl that I liked, or at least used to like. Molly was a girl too that I liked a lot, but she was different.

But she WAS a girl, and not a boy, and older boys and girls kissed each other. Margie said so, and I’d even seen them do it hiding in the lilac bushes when they were “making out”. And we were getting older now too, though Molly had only finished second grade, even though she was older than me. I wondered if Molly wanted to kiss ME. I wondered if Molly would think I was bad if I kissed her, but then I thought that I wouldn’t think SHE was bad if she kissed ME. So wasn’t that kind of like that “Golden Rule” thing that mom had talked about, treat others like you want to be treated. I wanted to do it but I wasn’t sure.

The streetlight made her ghost face appear again in front of mine. Her eyes looked at mine and she whispered, “I can see you thinking about something secret.” I nodded.

“I am”, I whispered, “But I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“I promise I’ll like it”, she whispered.

“You really promise?” I asked. She nodded and kept nodding, so I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Then without even thinking she just kissed me on the cheek back. Her ghost face appeared and we just looked at each other.

The car suddenly stopped.

“Uh oh”, Molly whispered, “Pretend like we didn’t do that.” She pulled the blanket down from over her head so she could peek out. “What’s wrong?” she asked in her regular voice.

“Oh nothing really, young lady”, said her stepdad, “That blankety blank car in front of us changed lanes right in front of us without signaling and then stopped. Go back to sleeping or whatever it was you two were doing back there in, what do you call it, the…”

“The WAY BACK”, said Molly. Molly’s stepdad laughed.

“Great name”, he said, “I’ll have to tell my colleagues.” He and Molly's mom went back to talking about other stuff. Molly pulled the blanket back over her head so we were back in our secret cave.

“What’s ‘blankety blank’?” I asked her, whispering again because we were back in the cave.

“He says that instead of using a swear word like ‘damn’”, Molly whispered. I did a quiet nose laugh. I liked doing that now when grownups said or did silly things, because that was what they always did to us kids.

Molly didn’t say anything for a minute and then whispered, “You seem different.”

“I don’t know”, I whispered, “Maybe.” She seemed kind of different too, but not in a bad way.

“I think I’m different too”, she whispered, “So it’s okay I guess, since we both are.” I nodded. Our shoulders still touching, I felt her head leaning toward mine, so I leaned mine towards hers and the sides of our heads touched and I heard just the tiniest sliding sound from her hair rubbing against mine.

***

I guess I had fallen asleep, because I woke up and our heads and shoulders were still touching and Molly was making a sleeping noise next to me. The blanket was still over our heads but there was a lot more light coming through it. The car felt like it was moving really slowly and doing a lot of turning. Then it stopped and I heard the front doors of the car open. Then a much louder noise as the back part of the car clanked open and the cooler outside air pushed through the blanket into our warm cozy cave.

“Knock knock”, said Molly’s stepdad, “Anybody home in there? Asleep in your cozy little lair?”

I pulled the blanket down off our heads and the light was so bright my eyes hurt and I could barely see anything at first except the outline of her stepdad.

“Oh my god Joan”, he said, “These two are SO CUTE with their matching Michigan sweatshirts and baseball caps. What does that olde English ‘D’ on the caps stand for?”

“Detroit Tigers”, said Molly, opening her eyes and then squeezing them together and putting her hands over her eyes because it was so bright.

“Of course”, he said, laughing through his nose, “I should know better by now. My work comrades would be aghast at my continuing ignorance of American sport.”

“Pit stop, ladies and gentlemen”, he said, “Gas for the wagon, bathroom for the humans, a quick breakfast including some nice hot caffeine juiced café for the grownups and maybe a Cola for the youngsters.”

“I don’t know Larry”, said Molly’s mom, coming around next to him to look at us, “Maybe better just an orange juice or a Seven Up for these two.”

“Oh”, he said, “But we’re all on vacation darling. We should treat ourselves for all the hard work we do the other fifty one weeks of the year!”

Molly’s mom sighed. “Well okay, maybe just this once.” Molly’s stepdad winked at us.

So after we got gas in the car we walked across the highway to a little “coffee shop” place. It had those neat “booths” with a table between shiny puffy couch things. Each booth had one of those little “juke boxes” on the table against the wall. I’d already used those at that Miller’s ice cream place on Main street and Dog n’ Suds way out on Packard. You’d put in a nickel and then you could push the buttons to pick a song to play. They were really neat. This machine had round openings for a nickel for one song, a dime for two, and a quarter for six, so you got an extra one.

Both Molly and I really liked that little juke box so we sat on either side of it. Molly’s stepdad sat next to me and her mom next to her.

“Ah, modern musical appliances”, said her stepdad. He seemed to like to say silly stuff like that. Even though the words sounded real and complicated, I could tell he was trying to be silly by the way he said it. I looked at him and made a silly face like I KNEW he was being silly and he laughed quietly through his nose and winked at me again.

“Well”, said her mom, “I imagine we have a range of musical tastes at this table. Your stepdad likes Jazz and Blues, I prefer either Classical or Folk Music, and god only knows what you young people like these days, rock and roll?”

“Let’s try this”, she said, “I’ll put in two dimes which means we have four choices. You kids can each choose one, then your stepdad and I.”

“Magnificent idea lady”, said Molly’s stepdad, which I knew meant great, I might say “super good”. I figured he was still saying those really big words because I liked him being silly. Some grownups tried to be funny or silly so kids would like them more.

He pointed his hand at Molly and asked, “Ladies first? If that’s still the protocol these days.”

Molly wrinkled her nose and then said, “Let Coop go first, but no one watch what he picks so it’ll be a surprise.” She closed her eyes and put her hands over them. Her mom and stepdad did that too.

I looked at the thing with the metal pages under the glass with names of songs and who sings them. I moved the little metal levers that stuck out above the glass part to change pages. There was a Beach Boys song, “Little Surfer Girl”, but I had never heard it. But then I saw that song “Heat Wave” I’d been hearing on CKLW. It had a “C4” next to it. I pushed the “C” button and then the “4” button.

“Okay”, I said, “I picked mine.”

Then the rest of us closed our eyes while Molly picked hers. Then Molly’s mom did hers and then her stepdad. The song that had been playing finally ended and then the “Heat Wave” song came on. It started with that clangy music part. Molly looked at me surprised.

“That’s MY song”, she said, “What happened to yours?”

“I picked that song too”, I said.

“Really?” she asked. And then she looked at me in a way I couldn’t remember her looking at me before, like maybe we really WERE the same and she never knew that. When we were little we talked about being the same, even though I was a boy and she was a girl. But then she moved away and we were in different grades in different schools, played in different parks, and we figured we had to be different, though we were still best friends.

The main older girl in the song started singing and the other girls sang back sometimes after her and sometimes before her…

Whenever I'm with him (Ooo-ooo ooo ooo, ooo)
Something inside (Inside)
Starts to burnin' (Ooo-ooo ooo ooo, ooo)
And I'm filled with desire

The song was complicated. It had a lot of stuff in it, and each time I heard it on the radio I figured out more of what it was about. This time it was that “desire” word, which I had read in books and heard grownups say before. It was something you really really wanted.

(Ahh) Could it be the devil in me
(Ahh) Or is this the way love's supposed to be
It’s like a heat wave
Burnin’ in my heart (It’s like a heatwave)
Can't keep from cryin' (It’s like a heatwave)
It's tearing me apart

When older boys and girls got all kissyface with each other I had figured they were really happy, but “tearing me apart” didn’t sound happy.

Whenever he calls my name (Ahh)
So slow, sweet and plain (Yeah yeah yeah yeah)
I feel, yeah, yeah, well I feel that burnin’ flame (Yeah yeah yeah)
(Ahh) Has high blood pressure got a hold on me
(Ahh) Or is this the way love's supposed to be

I guess she couldn’t figure out what “love” was. It didn’t seem to make her happy. It just made her more crazy.

After that second verse there was a music part, first all high and clangy and then low and croaky, and just the other girls were singing…

(Ooo-ooo ooo ooo, ooo, heat wave)
(Ooo-ooo ooo ooo, ooo, heat wave)

And then the main girl sang the third verse, and the other girls sounded like they were singing other stuff but I couldn’t figure out the words they were saying…

Sometimes I stare in space
Tears all over my face
I can't explain it, don't understand it
I ain't never felt like this before
Now that funny feeling has me amazed
Don't know what to do, my head's in a haze
It’s like a heat wave (heat wave)

I looked at Molly and wondered if she wanted us to get all worried like this or just be good friends that were happy to be together. But then the main girl got really excited and crazy, and the other girls sang to the main girl that it was alright to feel like that and it was okay to have a “true romance” with the boy she liked…

Yeah yeah yeah yeah (but it's alright girl)
Oh yeah (go ahead girl)
Yeah yeah yeah yeah (well it's alright girl)
Oh (Ain't nothin' but love girl)
I feel it burnin' (don't pass up this chance)
Right here in my heart (it sounds like a true romance)
Don't you know it's like a heat wave

Finally the song finished and it was quiet for a minute.

“Well”, said Molly’s stepdad, “It’s quite notable that you both picked that song. And I quite enjoyed it, it has some Gospel, Blues and Jazz elements to it. Who’s the artist?”

“Artist?” Molly asked, wrinkling her nose, “It’s a song.”

“Right”, he said, “What I meant was who sings it?” Molly lifted her shoulders and made a face like she didn’t know, then looked at me.

I couldn’t remember either but I did knew something about it. “It’s Motown”, I said. The song started playing again, because Molly had picked it too.

“Do you two even know what the song is about?” Molly’s mom asked. We both nodded.

“But mom”, Molly said, “It’s too embarrassing to talk about!” Her mom and stepdad looked like they were starting to laugh and then her mom put her hand on her stepdad's hand and they didn’t and just nodded. I never liked it that grownups always seemed to want to laugh at kids, I guess because they thought we were “cute” or something.

“That’s fair”, said her mom, nodding her head.

The second time we heard that “Heat Wave” song, I really liked that part where the main girl singing said “Yeah, yeah, yeah” all loud and excited. I wondered if all girls got excited about being “in love”. And I wondered if boys could feel all those things too if they really liked a girl. I mean, I said I’d pull down my pants for Mary and I had done that with Molly when we were little, but I don’t think my heart was “burning”.

After the song finished a second time, the song Molly’s mom picked came on. It was a guy’s quiet voice and there wasn’t much music, mostly his singing, with no one else singing too…

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?

I couldn’t really figure out what he was talking about, and why he was asking those questions, but I looked at Molly’s mom and she listened like it was really important.

Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?

Sounded like he was talking about wars, but I didn’t know what the word “banned” meant.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

And that didn’t make sense to me AT ALL, but it looked like it made sense to Molly’s mom, who looked kind of sad.

“That’s my kind of music”, she said, “A compelling young voice with a guitar, challenging capitalism and the military-industrial complex.”

“The WHAT?” asked Molly.

Her mom sighed and asked, “Ah dear Molly, where do I begin?” I figured she should begin by answering the question.

“Big business interests making money”, she said, “From building guns and tanks and bombs and forcing our young men to fight their wars for profit.”

“Your mom’s on her soapbox”, her stepdad said. That made no sense, she was sitting in a booth.

“So I am”, said her mom, “So I am. It needs to be said. We don’t want dear Cooper here to have to grow up and be caught up in the war machine.” All us boys did play soldiers in the park, and talk about war stuff a lot thinking someday we would have to fight in wars like our dad’s did. I had to think about all that some more.

Before the song ended that guy sang…

Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

The song stopped and we were all quiet. Then the song Molly’s stepdad picked came on. The music started all screechy and honky, more like that “Heat Wave” song than the “Blowing Wind” one.

“Ray Charles”, said Molly’s stepdad, “Great blues with a nice jazz twist.” The guy singing sounded like a grownup who was really sad and worried…

Yeah, my bills are all due and the baby needs shoes but I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound but I'm busted right now
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county's gonna haul my belongings away 'cause I'm busted right now
Oh, yes I am

I thought of mom and those “bills” she was always worrying about and figuring out how to pay.

Y'all know I'm broke
I ain't got no money
I'm talkin' 'bout empty pockets
Ah, forget it
Ah, to hell with it
Yeah

Definitely a grownup, I thought, because he did swearing.

We ate our breakfast. Molly and I had pancakes and orange juice. The syrup tasted really good.

***

We got to that Saugatuck place and it was really different than Ann Arbor where we lived. It was more like that Dexter place that we drove through to go to Silver Lake. The buildings and stores were small, and there were some houses, but not very many. There were these buildings called “hotels” where people could pay money to have a room to sleep in when they were “on vacation”. Other ones were called “motels”, though I wasn’t sure what made them different, except they didn’t have any upstairs parts to the buildings.

We drove to this little house called a “cottage” that was across the street from a little lake called “Kalamazoo Lake”. The front of the cottage had three steps that went up to this screen door that didn’t have a regular door right behind it. It went into this really neat room that didn’t have regular walls or windows, but had walls made out of screens that you could see through, so it felt like you were outside when you were inside it. It had a couch that looked like it was made out of big strings all stuck together. Then on the other side of the room from the screen door was a regular door with a window in it that went into the kitchen part of the house.

The kitchen had the regular kitchen stuff and a round table with four wooden chairs. It also had three doors and each went into a different room. I ran after Molly as she ran into each one to explore. First a bathroom that had a toilet and a sink but no bathtub. It just had one of those “shower” things instead in a tiny little white place you could just stand up in and had a white plastic curtain to close it. I had seen one in one of my friends' houses, but I’d never used one. Second, a little room with a bunk bed and a small dresser, but no other furniture. Third, another room with a bigger bed, like the one in mom and dad’s room, with those little tables on either side of the bed by where the pillows were, and another little dresser. Each of the four rooms in the regular house part had one window. It all seemed pretty neat to me, though I liked that screen room the best.

“Usually boys and girls sleep in different rooms”, said Molly’s mom, looking in the room with the bunk beds, “Usually just grownup women and men sleep in the same room or the same bed, like your stepdad and I.”

Molly looked worried about that, then said to her mom, “But Coop and I can sleep in the same room because we're best friends, right?”

“Well”, her mom said, “Ideally you’d sleep in different rooms, but…”

“Why’s that, mom?” Molly asked, sounding a little bit mad and worried.

Her mom looked worried like she was trying to figure out what to say. “Boys and girls are supposed to sleep in separate rooms so they have privacy when they are sleeping or changing their clothes.”

“But why do boys and girls need privacy when grownups don’t?” Molly asked.

“That’s a very good question young lady”, her mom said, “And I’m struggling to give you a good answer.” She looked at Molly’s stepdad. “Larry, any words of wisdom from the university professor to clarify this quandary?”

“None”, he said, rolling his eyes, “Other than the show of force approach… ‘We’re the grownups so we make the rules’, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for here.”

“No… it’s not” she said slowly, sounding just a little bit mad, but then laughing a little through her nose and shaking her head.

“We promise we won’t do any kissyface stuff”, Molly said, shaking her head and looking at me. I had never talked to a grownup about kissyface stuff and never seen any other kid talk about it to a grownup either. I didn’t know whether to nod like I promised too, or shake my head like I wouldn’t do that stuff, but I figured if Molly was shaking her head I would too, to show that we both thought the same thing.

“Oh dear”, said her mom, blowing air out of her mouth, “This conversation is going down a rabbit hole!” She sat down in one of those chairs in the kitchen. I had no idea what she was talking about and Molly didn’t either.

“What’s that mean?” Molly asked.

“My god”, Molly’s mom said, putting her hand on her forehead, “It’s when something you are doing or talking about gets way more complicated and messy than you want it to.” I could tell Molly was thinking about that.

“How about this”, her mom said, “You and Cooper can both sleep in the room, in different beds of course, but we’ll keep your bedroom door open during the night. And when you need to change clothes, in or out of your pajamas or your bathing suits, you’ll do it in the bathroom.”

Molly wrinkled her nose, thinking, then pushed her lips together. “Do you guys get to sleep with your door closed?” Molly’s mom looked like she was about to say something but just blew out air instead.

“Your stepdad and I are married”, she said, “That gives us certain privileges. Someday when you’re married, to each other or other people, you’ll have those privileges too.”

“That seems reasonable to me”, said her stepdad.

Molly’s face was still all squished together when she looked at me and her eyes got big like she was asking me if I thought it was okay. I tilted my head, raised my shoulder and looked up at the ceiling.

“Okay”, she said, letting her face be regular again, “I guess so.”

Molly’s mom sighed and clapped her hands together once and said, “Okay, good. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” Then she looked at both of us and smiled. “Let’s bring in all our stuff and get settled. Okay?” We both nodded, and Molly ran out of the house back to the car, with me behind her.

Molly and I brought our suitcases into the bedroom. Since we both liked the top bunk best, we decided we would take turns sleeping on the top and the bottom bunk. Molly’s mom said we were, “So grown up!”

***

It was interesting, that when I had to go to school, I always remembered what day of the week it was and how many school days left until it would be the weekend, so each day felt different. Monday felt bad because I had four more days of school before the weekend. By Thursday I only had one more day of school so it felt better. Sunday was pretty good, because I didn’t have to go to school, but I had to go to school the next day, so I would be worrying about that. Friday was good, because even though I had to go to school, once it was done, I had two days when I didn’t. Saturday was the best, because it was the only day I didn’t have to go to school that day, and I didn’t have to go to school the next day either.

But during the summer, I only had to remember what day it was so I knew when to go to my Little League practices on Tuesday and Thursday, and my games on Saturday. Which day of the week it was was for things that grownups were in charge of, like school and Little League. And now that it was August and Little League was over, I didn’t have to remember what day it was at all, like here in Saugatuck, which was really neat.

Molly’s mom and stepdad did say that we had to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with them each day, and we could only go across the river to where the beaches were with them. But everything else we could decide for ourselves what to do and where to go as long as we ate with them and came back to the cottage when the streetlights came on.

So Molly and I did all kinds of stuff together. We made our own map of the “town”. That’s what everybody called it because it wasn’t big enough to be a “city”. Our map was really neat and we marked down all the places we had been to - restaurants, ice cream places, book store, post office, playground. We even explored the outside of a school, looking in the windows and trying to figure out what grade each classroom was.

We found this one ice cream place we really liked called “Round the Corner”, on this little street, Mason street, and after we found it we went there every morning. It was up the Lake street that our cottage was on, which turned into Culver street which went into the town part with buildings instead of houses. You could either walk all the way to Mason street, or you could take the “short” ways by turning on Griffith or Butler street before you got to Mason. The place was kind of like the Washtenaw Dairy in Ann Arbor, which was the first ice cream place Molly and I ever went to ourselves, back when we were little.

After we found it and put it on our map we went there every morning. But we decided that each time we went we would get something different, different than the other times we went and different from each other. Then we’d eat half of what we got then trade and the other person would eat the other half. We had money because every morning at breakfast Molly’s stepdad gave Molly and me some to buy stuff. When he did he would say, “Don’t spend it all in one place”, but we could tell he was just being silly, and we spent most of it at that ice cream place.

He and Molly’s mom drove us to the beach pretty much every afternoon except for the one day that it rained. The beach was on this place on the other side of the “Kalamazoo” lake that was across the road from our cottage. It was funny, because it was just a tiny lake with a river going out each side that went into the giant “Michigan” lake on the other side of the island, which looked like the ocean to me.

They would sit on a big blanket with their hats and sunglasses on and rub this “lotion” stuff on their arms and legs. Molly and I would go out in the water. We could go pretty far before it got too deep and we’d let the waves lift us up and back down again. Molly was a better swimmer than I was and when a bigger wave came towards us she could swim towards the beach really hard and when the wave came it would kind of carry her body like she was flying on it. I tried it a couple times but I couldn’t do it. Molly said it was called “body surfing”, and I remembered that Beach Boys “Surfin USA” record with the picture of that guy on that “surfboard” thing with that giant wave behind him. I wondered if this Michigan lake ever had giant waves like that. Usually the water was okay to swim in, except that one day when it was really windy and the water got super cold.

One time I got really scared because I was out pretty far though I could still touch the bottom. But when I started to walk through the water to the beach there was a deeper part and after swimming a little, when my feet tried to stand I went completely under water instead, and forgot to do my swimming, and a wave went over me too when I tried to breath and I swallowed some water. For just a second I thought I was going to drown, like the giant lake was going to eat me up. I finally did enough swimming with my arms and kicking with my feet until my feet touched the bottom again and I had to cough for a while to get the water out from inside me before I was okay. After that, the big lake and thinking about the ocean was always scary for me. I didn’t tell Molly about it or anyone else, specially my mom and dad. I didn’t want anyone to think I was a sissy or something.

Then when we stopped playing in the water we would build sand cities on the beach with long roads between them. We had to build them down by where the sand was kind of wet so you could make houses and walls with your hands in the sand and they stuck together. Sometimes the waves would then come farther up and start washing some of the cities away that were closer to the water. Molly and I would pretend that all the people in that city would be scared and have to quickly go on the road to the next city that was still okay and build new houses for themselves there.

***

That one day when it rained in the afternoon, we didn’t go to the beach and Molly’s mom and stepdad went out to the store and Molly and I stayed in the house on the porch with the screen walls while it rained. It was pretty neat to watch everything outside get really wet and the cars driving down the street making a whooshing noise. Since we were on the porch we didn’t get wet but we could smell the wet air and were all dry and cozy. We sat next to each other on that “wicker” couch thing with the shiny pillows that squeaked when you sat on them. It was the first time we’d been alone together in the cottage.

“That Heat Wave song is really neat”, said Molly. We had heard it again today when we went with her mom and stepdad to this restaurant for lunch. The place had one of those “Jukebox” things, though this one was a really big one, and not a bunch of little ones at each booth. Molly and I went over to it and put a quarter in and got six songs. We chose Heat Wave four times and Surfin USA two times. The guy that worked there thought maybe the Jukebox was broken because it was playing the same song over and over.

“I like the part at the end where that main girl sings ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ a bunch of times”, I said, “And the other girls tell her that it’s ‘alright’ and ‘go ahead’, like they’re telling her it’s okay to feel that way and do what she wants.”

“Yeah, I like that too”, said Molly, then she looked at me, thinking. “But my heart isn’t burning when I’m with you, and you’re my best friend”, she said, “Is your heart burning?”

I shook my head. I wondered if we didn’t like each other as much as the girl and boy in the song. But they probably were a lot older. “Maybe when we’re older we’ll be like that”, I said, “You know, burning.” Molly nodded, thinking again.

“What about when you kissed me on the cheek under the blanket in the car, were you burning then?” she asked.

“Hmm”, I said, thinking, “Remember you said you wanted me to do something ‘secret’. So I figured we were getting older, and older boys and girls who really like each other sometimes kiss each other when they’re in a secret place like the lilac bushes in the park, and that’s something I would only do if it was secret.”

She thought about that and said, “That makes sense, but were you burning when you kissed me?” I kind of thought maybe I was a little bit.

“You kissed me back”, I said, “Were YOU burning?”

“I don’t know”, she said, “After you did it I just really wanted to do it to you too.” I nodded.

“When grownups kiss”, she said, “They kiss each other on the lips at the same time.”

“I know”, I said, “That seems really…” I didn’t know what to say.

“Different”, she said, “I know.”

“I know”, I said.

“Should we try kissing like that?” she asked, “Pretend we want to be kissyface with each other, just to see what it’s like?” I nodded.

Her head slowly moved towards mine, so I moved my head towards her. She pushed out her lips so I pushed out mine. They finally touched. It felt strange, like we weren’t two different people anymore. We just were there with our lips touching, I didn’t dare move them around. Finally she moved away.

“Hmm”, she said, “That was weird.” I nodded.

“It WAS weird”, I said.

“But not bad weird”, she said.

“Right”, I said nodding. Then shaking my head, “Not bad weird.”

“Good weird?” she asked. I’d never thought of something being good and weird at the same time.

“Can something BE good weird?” I asked.

“I don’t know”, she said, raising her shoulders and dropping them again, “Maybe.”

“Remember when we took all our clothes off and were naked together up in my old room?” she asked, “Was THAT weird?” I shook my head.

“That was the best thing ever”, I said, before I could even think about if that was a good thing to say and that maybe she’d think I was bad for thinking that.

“I know”, she said, and her eyes got bigger and sparkled, but then got worried and thinking, “But I don’t think people are supposed to do that kind of stuff, even grownups.”

“But what about when they get kissyface an do that ‘makeout’ stuff?” I asked.

“One time I heard funny noises from my mom and dad’s room, before they got divorced”, she said, “And I sneaked open their door a little bit and spied on them and they were under the covers of the bed and dad was on top of mom and moving around. But it looked like they had their pajamas on, at least the top parts that I could see. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, but now I wonder if they were ‘making out’.” I nodded.

“Maybe they were doing that thing in the Roy Rogers joke”, I said, “He was putting his pistol in her holster.”

“You mean his thing down there in her thing down there?” she asked, and I nodded. “Eww, yucky”, she said, shaking her head and making a face like something smelled bad.

Then I remembered what Ricky told me. “Ricky’s friend’s older brother said that that’s how you make babies. He sticks a tiny baby inside her and it grows in her stomach.” Molly made that face again.

“I don’t think that’s how it works”, she said, “If mom and dad were doing that then why didn’t they make a baby?”

“I don’t know”, I said, “Margie says that older boys and girls sometimes ‘make out’ too, even though they’re not supposed to, but I didn’t dare ask her if they did that kind of stuff that Ricky was talking about, because she might think I was really bad.”

“I know”, she said, “There’s this older girl Monica who’s MY babysitter, who said when older boys and girls ‘make out’ they go to ‘first base’ or ‘second base’, but never to ‘third base’ or do a ‘home run’, because that’s really bad unless your married. When I asked her what the different bases meant, she said if I didn’t know already, she couldn’t tell me because she could get in big trouble and not be able to babysit anymore.”

“Then why did she talk about bases at all?” I asked, “If she wouldn’t tell you what they were?”

“I don’t know”, Molly said, “Maybe she just wanted to show me how much she knew about stuff.”

“How do you ever find this stuff out?” I asked. Molly just raised and lowered her shoulder and made her eyes really big.

“I wish I knew”, she said.

***

It was finally time to go back home. It had been a whole week. Molly and I hadn’t spent so much time together since when she lived across the street before we had to go to regular school. We had slept at each other’s houses back then a couple of times, but not every night for a WHOLE WEEK.

I had never been away from my mom and dad and my brother for so long, but I still didn’t want to go back home. That’s because I’d be starting school again next week, fourth grade. Mom and dad would want me to go every day and I’d have a new teacher who’d be in charge of me all the time I was there, except maybe at recess. I’d see all my school friends, but Mary would still probably think I was a “pervert” and hate me. We WOULD get to play in that BIG playground across the street from the regular playground, so that might be neat. I wondered if I would have to do school FOREVER.

When we got back to my house, Molly’s mom and stepdad all talked to mom and dad in the front yard for a while. Molly came inside with me and we went down in the basement. David was down there and had all the toys set up. When he saw us he looked mad.

“It’s no fair”, he said, “I didn’t getes to go with you.”

“Your brother and I are big kids”, Molly said to him, “You're still a little kid. We did big kid stuff.” Molly looked at me and smiled.

David was still mad and went back to playing with the toys like we weren’t even there.

Still looking at me, Molly got fierce and said, “You better not tell anybody what we did, not even your friends! Okay?” I nodded.

David turned his head again to look at us. “What did you do?” he asked.

“None of your business”, said Molly, “Maybe when you're eight like we are we’ll tell you.”

“That will be almost forever” he said, still mad, and then pretending we weren’t there again and going back to playing. Molly laughed through her nose.

Then she looked at me all fierce and sang, “It’s like a heat wave…”

And I sang back, “Burnin’ in my heart.”

Clubius Contained Part 17 - Little League (June 1963)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 26, 2023 · 9:37 AM PST

2023/12/26 · 09:37

I was extra happy that day third grade was finally done. The last day of school each June was already my favorite day of the year, even better than Christmas or my birthday. On those two days I got presents, usually neat toys and games, but having two and a half months without having to go to school was even better than presents. Since that day in April when Joey told everybody in class that I’d “pull down my pants for Mary”, I hadn’t wanted to go to school AT ALL.

But I had to, because that’s what kids were supposed to do, and also so mom and dad wouldn’t try to figure out what had happened, and they’d still think I was a really good kid. Mary and Diane sure thought I was a bad kid, and the other girls would tease Mary about seeing me naked, though she never did. And her best friend Diane would say bad things about me at recess, like I was a “pervert” or something. I wondered if my school friends, like Gabe, Herbie, Jake and Amanda thought I was bad or even a “pervert” too, even though they were still friends with me. Joey wasn’t my friend anymore. I still wouldn’t talk to him and he had stopped trying to talk to me. I’m glad mom and dad didn’t know that Joey HAD been my friend, because then they wouldn’t ask why I didn’t play with him anymore.

On that last day I couldn’t wait for that last bell to ring. When it finally did, Mrs Rodney said that before we left, she had an envelope for each of us with our grades to take home to our parents. Once we got our grades we could leave. Then she called each of our names and had us come up to her desk so she could give it to us. She did our names in alphabet order, so Mary was first because her last name was “Abbot”.

Mary jumped up from her seat with a big smile on her face like being first was like being the best one. I could see Amanda watching Mary and shaking her head slowly. When Mary got to Mrs Rodney’s desk, Mrs Rodney said something to her in a real quiet voice that I couldn’t hear then gave her the envelope. As Mary turned toward the rest of us to walk out the door, her smile was even bigger, I guess because of what Mrs Rodney had said. Mary saw me looking at her and looked away, and then looked over my head across the room I guess to see Diane and nodded her head, still smiling. Then she went out the door.

And for every kid Mrs Rodney called, she did the same thing, said something quietly and gave them their grades, and then they went out the door. Since my last name was the last letter in the alphabet I was always the last one in alphabet order. That meant all the other kids might be gone when Mrs Rodney gave me my grades. As each of my friends got theirs, and as they walked towards the classroom door, they said to me quietly that they’d see me outside the main doors.

As that last kid before me got their grades and headed towards the door, Mrs Rodney said, “And finally, Cooper Zale.” I walked up to her desk and looked at the envelope instead of her face and held my hand out.

She breathed in and out in a noisy way then said, “Young man, you obviously have not been the same in class since that incident back in April.”

I looked down at the floor and thought to myself, just give me the damn envelope and let me get out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again!

“I intended what I said to you as spur of the moment good advice”, she said, “But I’m well aware now you didn’t take it that way. I did not intend my words to be so critical of you.”

Tears just filled my eyes, even though I didn’t want them to. I looked up at her for just a second and took the envelope out of her hand and ran to the door and out of the room.

From the hallway, I could see that Gabe, Herbie, Jake and Amanda were waiting for me on the sidewalk outside the school doors looking through the glass at me. I tried to wipe the tears out of my eyes, but I was just wearing a short-sleeved shirt, so it was hard to use it to help wipe them. I figured my friends could see them as I went out the big doors to the outside.

“Geez”, said Gabe, “What did Mrs R say to you?” I looked down and didn’t say anything.

“Gabriel”, said Amanda, “Cooper probably doesn’t want to talk about it.” Gabe looked at Amanda then down at the ground too.

“Are you in trouble?” Herbie asked. Amanda looked at him like he shouldn’t be asking that either.

Still looking at the ground I shook my head and said, “I don’t think so.”

“Well then everything’s okay”, Herbie said, sounding happy like he was trying to make me feel happy too, “You never have to talk to Mrs R again. To hell with her!”

“Oh my god Herbert”, said Amanda shaking her head slowly, “Such a potty mouth.”

Some of my friends, like Gabe and Herbie, were starting to say swear words sometimes when no grownups were around, like I was. A lot of the bigger kids in the park, mostly boys, liked using swear words, so we were thinking we were big kids now, so we should be swearing too. I’d even heard Margie swear a couple times and then say “excuse my french”, whatever that meant. But Amanda and Jake didn’t.

Herbie laughed through his nose at what Amanda said. “Hey”, he said, and then he said that poem thing that kids said sometimes in the park. “No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.”

He did a big smile and said, “You’re free Coop. We’re all free. What’s that song on the radio? Crazy, lazy summer something?”

Jake started singing, and moving his arms and feet around like he was one of those singer guys on TV…

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer

Herbie pointed at him, nodding his head. “Yeah that one”, he said.

Then everybody stopped talking and looked at Jake, surprised that he had just done singing like that. Gabe started to laugh, and then Herbie too, and finally Amanda. I couldn’t help but laugh too.

Jake held his hands up in front of him and said, “WHAT? That’s just how the song goes. Don’t you guys know how to sing?”

Amanda rolled her eyes and said, “I guess Jacob, that question doesn’t apply to me?”

“Geez Amanda”, Jake said, “You know what I mean. You’re pretty much one of the guys.”

Amanda wrinkled her nose and looked at Jake like she didn’t like what she saw. “Is that supposed to be good or bad?” she asked.

“Well you’re not like a regular girl”, Jake said.

“What AM I like, Jacob?” she asked, nose still really wrinkled, “Be careful what you say. You may be walking home alone.”

“You’re uhh”, Jake said, trying to think what to say, “You’re just like you. You’re Amanda.”

Amanda pushed her lips together and moved them around, thinking. “Well I guess I’ll walk home with you… but only today”, she said.

“Ha ha”, said Jake, “Today’s the last day of school!” Amanda smiled and her eyes twinkled, because Jake had figured out her joke.

“So our Little League team has their first big game tomorrow”, Herbie said, “You guys think we can win it, with Coop at First Base and me at Shortstop?”

“And me far off in the wilds of Right Field”, said Gabe, “Looking at the clouds in the sky”.

“So you decided you’re going to play?” asked Herbie.

“I guess so”, said Gabe, “Might as well.”

“What about you Jake?” asked Herbie, “You don’t like baseball?” Jake wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

“What about me?” asked Amanda.

“Well you’re a girl”, said Jake, “So…”

“You said I’m just ‘one of the guys’”, Amanda said, “So NOW I’m a girl?”

“Do you even know how to play baseball?” Gabe asked her. She turned and stared at him.

“If they let me play, Gabriel”, she said, “Maybe I’d take the time to learn.”

“Anyway”, said Herbie, “Remember, the game’s not at Allmendinger, it’s at Eberwhite at nine in the morning.”

“You guys can meet at my house”, said Gabe, “And we can walk over from there cuz it’s not very far.”

So finally we all split up and walked our different ways home. Herbie walked down Jefferson. Amanda and Jake walked down Fifth. And Gabe and I walked the other way on Fifth, which I guess you would say was “up Fifth” because it was uphill. I said goodbye to Gabe at his street and kept walking “up Fifth” to Allmendinger Park.

All the kids now out of school for summer vacation were in the park, running a little faster with their voices a little louder. The park was OUR PLACE and summer vacation was OUR TIME. No grownups needed to be in charge of us for anything. Well except maybe for Little League.

***

The next morning I woke up with the smell of plants outside tickling my nose. Mom had probably come into my room when I was still sleeping and opened the windows, and probably all the other windows in the house. She loved “fresh air”, even if it was “a little chilly”. It was past eight o’clock, so I had to get going and get over to Gabe’s. I put on my long pants instead of shorts because that was better for playing baseball so you didn’t scrape your knees up. I put on my orange t-shirt and orange baseball cap, which was my team’s uniform. We didn’t get a whole uniform with special pants and socks like the older Little League teams.

I quickly ate a bowl of Cheerios in the kitchen. I could hear the birds chirping outside. Mom wasn’t around, and their bedroom door was open, so she wasn’t “sleeping in” like she did now some mornings when she stayed up late watching TV. And the car was in the driveway so she wasn’t out shopping. I heard dad typing in the basement. I wasn’t sure where David was.

I didn’t really need to tell anybody where I was going, since it was just daytime. The only rule was that I had to come home when the streetlights came on, and I figured I’d probably be home by lunchtime. But my glove was down in the basement, so I ran down the stairs, and dad turned as I got to the bottom.

“Another Little League practice for the Allmendinger Orioles?” he asked, putting a big smile on his face.

“Nope”, I said, not even shaking my head, “It’s our first game today.”

“You guys playing over in the park?” he asked.

“Nope”, I said again, almost like I was being silly saying the exact same thing the exact same way twice, “At Eberwhite.”

“That’s a bit of a trek”, he said, “Do you need a ride over?”

“Nope”, I said a third time, almost laughing now, “I’m going to meet Herbie and Gabe at Gabe’s house and we’ll all go together from there.”

“Okay”, he said laughing, “Though I’d get a kick watching one of your games if it was okay with you.”

“I don’t know how good we’re going to be”, I said, “Since it’s just our first game. Maybe once we’ve had a chance to play a few games we’ll be better.”

He nodded, thinking, then finally said, “You know, that pretty much every dad would love to see his son in a real baseball game.”

“It’s only Little League”, I said.

“Still!” he said, making an extra smiley face. He seemed pretty happy.

“Anyway”, I said, “Gotta go.”

He nodded again, thinking, then wagged his finger at me pretending to be serious and said, “Keep your eye on the ball.”

I nodded and ran back up the stairs with my glove and went out the side door. I decided I’d ride my bike over to Gabe’s so I could be sure I wouldn’t be late. I put my glove in my pressure basket and it looked really neat in there, all shiny brown and folded. I pushed my bike to the end of our driveway, because it was all stones, “gravel” it was called, and it was really hard to ride on. Then I rode up our street to the park and went left on Potter street.

Once I got by the house on the corner I could see our backyard, and there was mom on her hands and knees working in the garden and David playing with toys in the grass. David saw me and yelled out, “It’s Coop!” and pointed at me. Mom now looked at me too and waved, and I waved back, because I could ride my bike really good with just one hand. Soon I couldn’t see them anymore and I started thinking about the game and my team.

I figured that, of all the main sports with teams - baseball, football, basketball and hockey - baseball was the most fun to play and also to watch, whether you watched it for real in the park or on TV. Dad liked all sports, and when we watched them on TV together, he’d try to tell me about how they worked, and the different positions and “strategies” in each game.

In real football, the one team with the ball that was trying to score the touchdown lined up pointing toward the “end zone” they were trying to get to, and the other team lined up in front of them and tried to stop them, which all made sense. Then when the quarterback guy got the ball, most of the guys on both teams kind of smashed together and the quarterback would either give the ball to a “halfback” or “fullback” to try to run right into all the guys smashed together, or run around the side of them until they got “tackled”. Or he would try to throw it to one of his “ends”, who tried to catch the ball when he threw it to them. The other guys that just smashed together, dad called it “blocking”, were called “guards” and “tackles”, plus the “center” guy who gave the ball to the quarterback between his legs. And when the other team got the ball, your team had completely different players, not the same guys that played when you had the ball. It was really hard to figure out what was going on when you watched it on TV. And even the times when I saw a real Michigan game at the Stadium, it was hard to figure out, though if you watched the game on TV or listened to it on the radio that announcer guy would at least TELL you what happened.

When we played football in the park, it wasn’t anything like that. It was mostly just one guy being the quarterback and everyone else on his team was an “end”, running around and trying to catch the ball if he threw it to you. It was fun, but it didn’t feel like you were playing real football.

In real basketball, there were different positions depending on how tall you were. The really tall guy on each team was the “center” and he stayed in the middle near the basket. He did shooting and also tried to get the ball when someone else’s shot didn’t go in, which was called “rebounding”. Then there were two kind of tall guys on either side of him who were the “forwards”. Then there were two shorter guys called “guards” who were usually away from the basket and dribbled and passed the ball a lot. I thought it was strange that they were called “guards” because they didn’t guard anything. It was the “center” who looked like he was guarding the basket when the other team had the ball. So there were those five guys that played on a team at one time, and they played both when their team had the ball and the other team had the ball.

When kids played basketball we usually didn’t play on the “full court”, which was both ends, but just one end, which was called “half court”. If you had the ball, you dribbled until you had to stop, and once you stopped you couldn’t dribble anymore or that would be a “double dribble”. Then you would have to figure out how to pass the ball to another guy on your team. Somebody on your team would finally shoot it, but usually not get it in the basket.

And real hockey, which I’d only seen on TV, was a lot like basketball, except you had a “puck” instead of a ball and you were skating with special “hockey” sticks to try to hit the puck into the other team’s goal. Everybody zoomed around and it was hard sometimes to see where the puck was and what guys were doing, because everyone skated really fast and the puck was really small. Dad said that was because we had a really small TV. In hockey, guys crashed into each other all the time and even got into fights, which I guess was part of the game because the people watching the game in the “stands” seemed to like it when the hockey guys punched each other.

I’d seen some kids play hockey in the park in the winter when they made the ice rink you could skate on. I never tried to play because I couldn’t figure out how to skate very well.

But baseball was different and better. Because even when we played a pickup game with just kids, it was still a lot like real baseball on TV. We had all the same positions the real baseball games had, and did all the special stuff for that position. If I played first base, I had to stand near the base, and when somebody hit a ground ball to some other person playing in the infield, like the shortstop, I had to run over and put my foot on the base and get ready to catch the ball when they threw it to me to try to get the guy hitting out before he got there. That was the main thing I did. If I was playing outfield, no one ever threw the ball to me, I just had to try to catch it when it was hit to my “field”, or at least try to stop it from getting by me, and then throw the ball back to someone playing in the infield. That was the same as what the first baseman or the outfielder did in a real baseball game, even though they did it a lot better.

When we played football or basketball, it was just a bunch of kids running around all doing pretty much the same thing, except for maybe the quarterback in our football games.

There WERE two big differences in our pickup baseball games from regular baseball. We didn’t have a coach, who was in charge of everybody on the team, we only had captains, which were just kids like us, but maybe older and we all knew they were good at baseball. And we didn’t have an umpire, so no one got to say if the pitch was a “ball” or a “strike”. So no one ever got a “walk” because the pitcher threw bad pitches, and you only “struck out” if you swung three times and missed, though sometimes they’d let the littler kids have extra strikes. The pitchers in our games tried to throw it so you COULD hit it, even underhand to someone like me when I wasn’t used to guys pitching the regular overhand way yet. Everyone on both teams WANTED you to hit it, because that was more fun. When we played, if lots of kids struck out that was pretty boring. But in a real game, everyone thought it was really neat when the pitcher struck out a bunch of guys.

But now in Little League we were going to have an umpire like a real baseball game, and coaches, like a real game too. Our coach was the dad of this kid on our team named Troy, who had been in the other third grade class at Bach. I would have liked it if the coaches were other kids, maybe older ones, but older kids in the park who played little league said that coaches were always grownups. So that was the bad part about Little League, the grownups were the coaches and the umpires, so they were in charge.

And what also wasn’t like a real baseball game, was that in the nine-year-old league they didn’t pitch it to you when you were batting. You had to hit the ball off this pipe thing, which the coach called a “tee”, that was put in this really big wooden home plate with lots of holes in it. At our “practices”, which were Tuesday and Thursday after school in Allmendinger Park, we all had to hit the ball off that “tee” thing. Some grownups and older kids called it “Tee Ball”, like it was different than regular baseball, and not as good because there was no pitching like regular baseball. But once you hit the ball off the “tee” it was like regular baseball, and all the kids on our team just called it “Little League”, which was the same as the older kids played, except for the pitching and we only had the top part of a uniform.

Most of the kids on our team went to Bach School. Some were in our class, like me, Herbie, Gabe, Theo and Lenny. Even Joey was on our team, and I’d throw the ball to him if I had to, but I would never talk to him. Some kids were in the other third grade class, like Troy, Dick, Marty, Bobby, and two kids called Freddie. Since they had the same name, everyone called the bigger one “Big Freddy” and the smaller one “Little Freddy”. There were also a couple of other kids from Eberwhite School on our team too, but I couldn’t remember their names yet.

I figured Little Freddy wouldn’t like being called “little”, but he liked it. Maybe because he was really really good at baseball, maybe the best one on our whole team. He could hit the ball into the outfield and run super fast. He also played pitcher, and even though he didn’t get to pitch, he could get those ground balls that kids didn’t hit very hard, and throw them out before they ran to first base.

Another way it was different than regular baseball was that we got to have four guys in the outfield instead of three like regular baseball. So instead of just a “center fielder”, we had a “left center fielder” and a “right center fielder”, or sometimes a “short center fielder” and a “long” one. And even though only ten guys could play on the field, if you had more than ten guys on your team they all got to bat.

So there was the regular person who played each position and a “backup”, in case the regular person didn’t come to the game or couldn’t play for some reason. So I was the regular first baseman, because I was left-handed and could catch the ball really good. Bobby, who usually played outfield, was the backup first baseman, even though he was right-handed instead of left. There were only two other kids on our team who were left-handed, Little Freddy and Dick. Dad had said that it wasn’t so much that right-handers couldn’t play first, it was more that left-handers had a hard time playing the other positions in the infield because when a ground ball got hit to them, it took longer for them to turn their bodies to throw with their left hand to first base.

While doing all that thinking I rode down Hutchins street past Allmendinger Park. Those grownup guys who worked in the park were putting out those real bases that kind of looked like pillows and making those long lines with that chalk stuff on either side of the diamond that told you whether a ball was fair or foul. Then I rode across Pauline and kept going on Hutchins down towards where the street ended at another street which was the one Gabe lived on. His house was right there with Theo’s right next to it. Gabe, Theo and Herbie were all sitting on the grass in Gabe’s front yard, wearing their orange t-shirts and orange hats. They saw me coming.

“Geez”, said Gabe, “I was wondering when you’d get here. We don’t want to be late for the game!”

“That’s not very nice”, said Theo to Gabe, “Aren’t you happy to see him?”

“Theo, Theo, Theo”, said Gabe, “You don’t need to be nice to your friends. They already like you.”

“Well”, said Theo, “I don’t know about that. Don’t you know about the ‘Golden Rule’?”

“He who has the gold makes all the rules?” Gabe asked. Herbie laughed.

“Ha, ha”, said Theo. It was interesting that people said “ha, ha” when someone else thought something was funny but they didn’t think so.

Mom had told me about that “Golden Rule” thing. Treat others the way you want them to treat you. It made sense, but it seemed like a lot of work.

“Have you guys heard that new song by the Beach Boys, ‘Surfin USA’?” Gabe asked, “My brother got the album and the song’s really neat. Maybe we can listen to it after the game!” I remembered that Margie had those bigger record “albums” that had more than one song on each side, and came in those big cardboard things with the pictures and words on them that you slid the record out of, instead of that little paper thing that the regular one song on each side records had.

I’d heard the song a few times on the radio but I’d never figured it out. “What’s ‘surfin’?” I asked.

“Ridin’ the waves on your surfboard”, said Gabe, like I should know already. I looked at him like I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Cooper, Cooper, Cooper”, he said, like he had said to Theo. He seemed to be changing the way he talked to people, trying to act like he was older. “You gotta keep up on what’s goin on, kid!”

“You know”, said Theo, “I really don’t think we should be late to our first game.”

“We better ride our bicycles”, said Herbie. All the rest of us nodded.

So Gabe and Theo got their bikes from their garages, we all had twenty two inch ones now, and the four of us rode out down their street to Seventh street. With Gabe in the lead, we crossed Seventh and went up on the sidewalk on the other side. When we got to the first street, Lutz, we turned left on the sidewalk and then Gabe went down the first driveway and back into the street. There weren’t any cars around so Gabe rode right in the middle of the street and we all followed alongside or behind him. That was neat, the four of us riding together, like the whole street was all ours. I could tell by that little bit of hurting in my legs that we were now going uphill.

We crossed a street where the sign said “Eberwhite”. I figured that up that street was where the school and the baseball field were but we kept riding on Lutz. The street sign said “Lutz Ave”, which meant it was an “avenue”, but I couldn’t figure out the difference between an “avenue” and a “street”, they all looked pretty much the same. I mean a “boulevard” was a really big street, like Stadium or Washtenaw, but “avenues” didn’t look any bigger than “streets”.

We came to kind of a neat place where three streets came together with a little triangle in the middle like a tiny block with just grass and one little tree in the middle of it. We rode to the left, still following Gabe. Then there was another small block, with just grass and a few trees on it and the road split into two roads going up on either side. We went on the left one and up ahead I could see a building instead of houses, a building that looked like a school. When we got closer, there was a big circle part in front of the school that the road went around which had a flagpole in the middle but no flag on it. To the right was one of those parking lots, and there were some cars there.

Grownups and kids were getting out of one of the cars. The kids had green caps and t-shirts, so I figured they were from the other team, which was called the “Athletics”. Our coach had said that all the teams in our “league” were named after real baseball teams, except none were called the “Tigers” because that was our Detroit team so that wouldn’t be fair. I guess that made sense. There was a place for us to put our bicycles. I took my glove out of the pressure basket and I let it snap shut with a clang.

The baseball field was just next to the parking lot, and way out behind the outfield it was all woods. It looked pretty much like the fields at Allmendinger, with that giant “backstop” metal fence and those “bleacher” things on each side where people could sit and watch. Our team was over on the third base side. Our coach, Troy’s dad, saw the four of us and waved us over.

“Good”, he said, “Now we have our ten plus one, we won’t forfeit.” I didn’t know what “forfeit” meant, but it sounded bad. But since we weren’t going to do it, I didn’t ask. Then he looked at all of us and said, “Gather round, gentlemen”, like he was pretending we were grownups, which was pretty strange to me, though some of the other kids seemed to like it.

So the coach gave us the “lineup”, which was when we were batting and what position we were playing. I was first base and batting sixth, hitting after Herbie who was playing shortstop. Little Freddy was playing pitcher and batting first, which made sense because he always hit the ball super hard and could run really fast, and even if he hit a ground ball and one of the infield guys got it, he still might be able to get to first base before they could throw him out. Gabe and Theo were in the outfield, with Big Freddy and Dick. Lenny was playing second, and Troy, whose dad was the coach, was playing third base. Joey was the catcher but didn’t get to wear that neat catcher’s mask because it was tee ball and there was no pitching. Marty was the extra guy and he started the game “on the bench”, as the coach said, though he still got to bat, and was batting fourth, because he was big and could hit the ball really far.

Dad had told me about the “strategy” of the lineup in real baseball, and what order guy’s should bat. He said usually, the guys that could get on base the most, either by getting a walk or a hit, batted first and second. Sometimes they were also the fastest guys, so they could steal bases, but Gabe said we couldn’t do stealing until the twelve-year-old league. Dad said the guy batting third was usually the best hitter and the guys batting fourth and fifth were the best “power” hitters, which meant they could hit home runs. The last guy in real baseball batted ninth, and was almost always the pitcher, because he usually wasn't a good hitter and you didn’t want him to have to bat until he had to.

The other team got to bat first because we were the “home” team, even though we weren’t playing at Allmendinger, which was where we mostly practiced and was closest to most of our houses, so should have been our “home field”. It was exciting when the coach said, “Okay gentlemen, take the field. Look alive!” like it was a real baseball game, and we all ran out to our positions. We all knew when we “looked alive” we were supposed to run, not walk.

I had watched baseball games at Allmendinger, grownup ones and Little League ones, where people sat on those “bleacher” things and watched the game, and even cheered for one team or the other. At our game there were some people watching but they were mostly like moms and dads from the other team and sat on the bleachers behind their team on the first base side. The only people who were cheering for our team were Troy’s mom and older brother, who were the only ones sitting on the bleachers behind our third base side. Troy said that baseball was a “tradition” in his family, and all his older brothers played Little League, and his dad had played when he was an older kid in high school. I guess his sisters didn’t get to play because they were girls, which didn’t seem fair. Even though the other team had more people cheering, it was good to have at least two for our team, which was much better than having zero.

So we ended up losing the game nineteen to fifteen, but pretty much everybody got to hit the ball and get on base. Everybody on both teams were a lot better at hitting than catching the ball and getting people out. I don’t think the other team ever got Little Freddy out. I got two hits and got to score both times when other guys after me got hits too. And at least I caught the ball when the other infield guys on my team threw it to me, except that time Herbie threw it over my head and Troy threw it too low, and it was “in the dirt”. And at the end of the game we all lined up to shake hands with all the guys on the other team, which felt good. We were all still kids, all had been third graders, so we weren’t REALLY on different teams, even though the coaches and the other grownups pretended that we were.

After that our coach said “gather up gentlemen”, and he had us all come close in a circle around him. I liked that we were all in a circle together, our shoulders even touching each other, and the person behind you against your back. But I didn’t like having the grownup in charge in the middle of us, though I guess some of the other kids liked that more than I did. He said that we “fought hard”, like it was a war or something. Then he said though we played our best, we had to work on our “fielding”, which was catching the ball when the guys on the other team hit it. He said even though we were playing games now, we would still have our two practices each week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at four o’clock at Allmendinger.

Gabe, Herbie, Theo and I rode our bikes back to Gabe’s house. We had so much we wanted to talk about the game, that we started talking about it while we were still riding. The only way we could all hear what was being said was to ride side by side instead of behind each other, so when we were side by side we filled the whole street. It was pretty neat. When a car came we had to stop talking so we could get to the sides of the street or even up on the sidewalk. But once the car went by, we would all get our bikes next to each other again in the middle of the street. Theo said we were like planes flying in “formation”.

It was interesting that Gabe, Herbie and Theo all liked talking about different stuff, even though they were all talking about the same thing, the baseball game. Gabe liked to figure stuff out, why it was happening. He said that guys on the other team only hit the ball twice to right field where he was playing, and everyone else in the outfield got the ball hit to them more. He figured that was because only left-handers hit the ball to right field, and most kids were right-handed. Herbie talked about the stuff he liked and didn’t like. He liked it when Little Freddy ran by that kid on the other team who had the ball, before that kid could tag him. He also thought our coach, Troy’s dad, was really neat. Theo liked it when everybody followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do. He said that Herbie kept forgetting to run out in the outfield from shortstop to get the throw from him and the other outfielders after someone hit the ball out there.

When we got back to Gabe’s house we were all hungry, so Gabe said we should all go inside and make ourselves some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen. Once we all made our sandwiches he had us follow him down into the basement. Theo wondered if we should have plates but Gabe said, “Nah!” It was kind of like the basement in my house with the gray block walls and the little windows up high, but a carpet all over the floor. There was a TV with a table in front of it. It was one of those tables with really short legs like Molly’s house had in the living room. Around the table was a couch with blankets on it and one of those big puffy couch chairs. On the table was a record player.

Gabe put his sandwich with bites taken out of it down on the table, and all the rest of us sat down on the couch, and ate ours. He went over to this bookcase against the wall and pulled out one of those record albums, with the big picture and words on the square cover. It was a picture of a giant wave with this guy underneath it in his swimsuit standing on a yellow board on top of the water, but with the wave all above him. I guessed it must be the ocean, but I’d never been to the ocean, and I didn't think a wave that big could be real. Gabe grabbed the edge of the big record and slid it out of the cover.

“Surfin’ USA, gentlemen”, he said, sounding like our baseball team coach, “By the Beach Boys.” He turned the record player on and put the little hole in the middle of the big record over that round silver thing sticking out in the middle of the turning part. The record just went down part way and kind of hung there, not going all the way down to the spinning part. He then pulled this other thing up and moved it over so it was on top of the record. Then he pushed another button and the record plopped down on the turning part, and all by itself, that part that people usually picked up and put on the record to play the music went up, over just above the edge of the record, then slowly down until we heard the crackling and then the record started playing.

It started with music, real high and clangy, and then a guy singing that sounded like he was an older kid. In the first verse, after each time he sang the last word, these other guys sang “ooo”. It all sounded really neat…

If everybody had an ocean (ooo)
Across the U.S.A. (ooo)
Then everybody'd be surfin' (ooo)
Like Californi-a (ooo)
You'd see them wearing their baggies (ooo)
Huarache sandals too (ooo)
A bushy bushy blond hairdo (ooo)
Surfin' U.S.A. (ooo)

And when the guy sang the second part, the other guys sang “inside outside USA” each time he sang the last word. Then in the third part they went back to singing “ooo” again…

We'll all be planning that route (ooo)
We're gonna take real soon (ooo)
We're waxing down our surfboards (ooo)
We can't wait for June (ooo)
We'll all be gone for the summer (ooo)
We're on surfari to stay (ooo)
Tell the teacher we're surfin' (ooo)
Surfin' U.S.A. (ooo)

It was all real fast and made you want to move your body back and forth to the music.

Then there was a big music part all clangy and then they sang the last words over and over again until you couldn’t hear them anymore…

Everybody’s gone surfin’, surfin’ USA

It was really neat how they sang it. The guy with the high voice sang “Everybody’s gone”, then they all sang “surfin’” together but different like a harmony, then the guy with the lower voice sang “surfin’ USA”.

“I like when they sing ‘Tell the teacher we’re surfin’, surfin’ USA’”, said Gabe, singing the song part. The rest of us nodded. No more teacher’s dirty looks OR WORDS, I thought. I was so happy it was finally summer, and that at least most of my friends still liked me and didn’t think I was a bad kid.

Clubius Contained Part 16 - Mary (April 1963)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 08, 2023 · 2:36 PM PST

2023/12/08 · 14:36

I was over at Joey’s house. We had both just played in what the older kids called a “pickup” baseball game at Allmendinger Park. That was where two of the older kids decided to be the captains, and the other kids decided that that made sense, and then the two of them took turns picking the other kids that wanted to play to be on their teams. Most of the kids were older than we were, so we got picked last. But we both liked baseball, and were pretty good at catching and throwing and hitting, so we didn’t mind being picked last as long as we could play.

Since I was eight years old now, I was finally the same age as Joey and some of my other friends who had their birthdays before mine. When you were the same age number as someone else, it was easier to feel like you were the same, and not littler.

How old you were and your grade number made it so “complicated”, that word grownups used that some kids were starting to use instead of just “hard”. It was complicated because your grade number was a different number that could make you on different teams. Like Paul and I, since I was eight like he was now, but I was in third grade and he was only in second. So at home or in the park we felt like we were on the same team, but at school it felt like we were on different teams.

It was like that with Molly too. Even though she was my best friend, and her birthday was two months before mine, I was in third grade and she was only in second, which felt strange, or weird as Paul would say. Before Molly moved and before we both went to regular school, we used to feel like we were the same, even though she was a girl and I was a boy. That felt really good being the same, like we knew what each other liked and even what each other was thinking. Now we were feeling more and more different, because we lived in different places, played in different parks, had different friends, and were in different grades. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or liked anymore.

Molly came to my birthday party yesterday. We got to have it in Allmendinger Park because it was warm and it didn’t rain. Mom said it was good that we didn’t have my party on my actual birthday, because that was Tuesday, and it was super hot that day. Mom said it felt like “the dead of summer” even though it was “just barely spring”.

At my party, I could tell it was hard for Molly and Paul, who were in second grade, to be with all those kids at my party who were in third grade, like Herbie, Gabe, Lenny and Jake, and me too. We all talked about third grade stuff that Molly and Paul couldn’t talk about. David and his friend Hannah were there too, but they were really little kids, didn’t go to regular school yet, and weren’t worried about different ages or grades yet. At least Danny and Marybeth were there too, and they were both in fifth grade. They were the big kids, and all the rest of us in second OR third grade were little compared to them, so that made the rest of us feel more the same.

There was a bad part to that too. All us kids at the party tried to do pretending together on the monkey bars and the merry-go-round, like Captain Nemo or Civil War stuff. But Danny or Marybeth would say something silly that wasn’t part of the pretending, and then Gabe or Herbie would say silly stuff too to be like the bigger kids and then the whole pretending wouldn’t work anymore.

We did all get on the merry-go-round together, all eleven of us, and we were big enough and strong enough now to make it go around really fast and all jump on. They wanted to put me in the middle, but that felt strange without being there with Molly, since at my little kid birthday parties in the park it was always her and I in the middle together. I didn’t want to even ask to be in the middle with Molly, because I didn’t want anyone to think Molly and I were girlfriend and boyfriend. We ended up all deciding to put David and Hannah in the middle, and they both really liked that.

While we were spinning around, Marybeth made a joke about how Molly always used to fall off the merry-go-round at my old birthday parties in the park and get all scraped up and get her nice party dresses dirty. All the rest of us laughed, even David and Hannah. Danny laughed the most and asked Molly if she’d like to do it again for “old times sake”, whatever that was.

Molly liked the idea, though she said it wouldn’t be the same because she was wearing pants, because her mom didn’t make her wear dresses to parties anymore. So she hung off the side, and when we slowed down enough so we weren’t going super fast she let go and did a kind of pretend tumble in the sand, ending up flat on her back with her legs and arms spread.

All the rest of us kids still going around on the merry-go-round clapped and cheered, which all the grownups at my party at the picnic tables heard. Molly’s mom stood up, looked worried, saw Molly lying on the ground and said, “Oh my god, not again!” All us kids laughed and Molly jumped up to show her mom she was okay and said, “Just pretending mom!”

It was interesting, because I think Danny and Marybeth kind of liked each other. They weren’t best friends like Molly and I, and they weren’t like boyfriend and girlfriend, or wanting to be kissface. But they kept looking at each other, said something when the other one said something, and laughed when the other said something funny, even if it was pretty silly or even stupid. I wondered if it was that “flirting” stuff that Margie had talked about older boys and girls doing and that I had heard mom say some other grownup women did with dad at some parties they went to.

Anyway, I got lots of good presents, which was the other really neat part. Mom and dad, grandpa and grandma, and Aunt Pat got me a new bicycle. It was another red Schwinn like my old bike, but this one was for bigger kids, because it had 22 inch wheels instead of 20 inch ones. It was really neat, and had a “speedometer” that told you how fast you were going and a “pressure basket” over the back wheel to carry stuff on your bike. I was glad it wasn’t those regular baskets, like on mom’s bike, because those looked kind of stupid.

Joey hadn’t come to my party, because mom didn’t know he was my friend and I didn’t tell her to invite him. He was still eight, and now that I was eight too, I didn’t feel like he was older than me anymore. Joey liked to “brag”, and tell me all the big kid stuff he was doing, like riding HIS twenty-two inch bike.

But he also liked it when I did bragging too, so that was kind of fun. So I told him I had a twenty-two inch bike now too, that I just got for my birthday. I told him it had a “speedometer” that told you how fast you were going, and a “pressure basket” which looked really cool, not stupid like those regular bicycle baskets that some girls and grownups had on their bikes.

My other school friends - Gabe, Herbie, Jake, Lenny and Amanda - didn’t like to “brag”, or talk about themselves. They liked to talk about other stuff, like dinosaurs, the Civil War, submarines or Captain Nemo. Amanda liked to talk about how silly the other girls were and how stupid the other boys were.

“My older brother just got a record player for his birthday”, Joey said, “And mom and dad said I could listen to it too.” He showed me some of those circle record things like Margie had and took one out. It had the hole in the middle, a big red part around the hole and then the black part where the song was.

“Have you heard of the Beatles?” he asked, and I shook my head, “They’re from England, and my brother says that all the older kids like ‘em.”

He put the record over the middle sticking up part of the thing and it kind of wiggled down to plop on the circle part below. He turned the switch and the record started turning. He lifted up this other part and carefully put it on the edge of the record. I’d seen Margie do this when she brought her record player and records to our parties.

The thing made a crackling noise and then there was a music part without any singing. Finally it sounded like two older boys singing together, both of them sounded excited, like they couldn’t wait to tell us. Though they each sang it different, their singing still sounded good together. I remembered Margie had said that was called “harmony”.

Last night I said these words to my girl
I know you never even try, girl

Then they did that thing where one sings first and the other sings the same words back. I don’t think Margie ever said what that was called. Maybe that was “harmony” too.

Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Please, please me, whoa-yeah, like I please you

I couldn’t figure out what they were saying, saying “please” twice like they really really wanted something, but not saying what they wanted that girl to do.

You don't need me to show the way, love
Why do I always have to say, love?

It sounded like maybe they wanted to get kissyface with her, but both of them at the same time? Did people do stuff like that? Or was it just supposed to be one guy singing it and the other was just singing along to make that harmony part. And I guess he usually tells her what kind of kissyface stuff to do, but this time he wants her to tell him.

Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Please, please me, whoa-yeah, like I please you

There were those two “please”s again.

I don't want to sound complaining
But you know there's always rain in my heart (in my heart)

It was strange that word “complain”. Grownups would say, “I hate to complain”, and then they would start doing it.

I do all the pleasing with you it's so hard to reason
With you, whoa-yeah, why do you make me blue?

I couldn’t figure out what “pleasing” meant. Was it like saying “please” a lot?

Last night, I said these words to my girl
I know I never even try, girl

Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Come on (come on)
Please, please me, whoa-yeah, like I please you

When the song was done I said to Joey, “He says please twice but he doesn’t tell her what he wants her to do.”

“You don’t get it”, he said, “He wants her to PLEASE him, to make him happy by doing all the stuff a girlfriend is supposed to do to make her boyfriend happy.”

Wow, I thought, it sounded like Joey really knew about this kissyface stuff. Joey liked to talk about girls. Girls in our class or ones in the park. He was always interested in what they were doing or what they were talking about in the lilac bushes. I felt like a littler kid than him because I didn’t know all that stuff.

“Who do you think is the prettiest girl in our class?” he asked, “Mary or Diane.” Diane was Mary’s best friend in class and Joey’s desk was right behind hers. She liked doing everything Mary did. She had a long black ponytail which was kind of neat and made her look special and extra pretty, but I never really talked to her, because boys and girls didn’t talk to each other at school unless we had to, because we felt like we were on different teams.

“Sometimes when Diane is working really hard writing something I like to touch the bottom of her ponytail with my finger”, he said, “Sometimes she doesn’t turn around and look at me, just moves her head a little bit. But when she does look at me, I just shake my head like I didn’t do it. She gets a little bit mad but she doesn’t tell Mrs Rodney. She looks super pretty when she’s mad.” He smiled and said, “I think she likes me.” That all sounded exciting to me, and I thought about that time I showed Mary how to do long division and she kissed me on the cheek. Maybe I wasn’t such a little kid after all.

“You and Gabe and Jake are always talking to Amanda”, he said, “Do you think she’s pretty?” His question worried me, like maybe he thought we all wanted her to be our girlfriend, so I wasn’t sure what to say. Even though Amanda wore dresses like the other girls, I don’t think she even wanted to look pretty, because she thought the pretty girls were all silly, and she wore those big plastic glasses that made her eyes look big.

“Nah”, I said, “Amanda’s not a regular girl. She’s super smart instead of pretty.” Joey nodded like that made sense, and I was starting to feel like I knew stuff about girls too.

“Don’t tell Gabe”, I said, “But I think HE likes Amanda, because they’re both super smart.” Joey nodded and did a laugh through his nose like that made sense.

“What about Mary?” he asked, “I’ve seen you talking to her sometimes after school.” I got worried again about what to say.

I hadn’t told anybody what I thought about Mary or about how she kissed me on the cheek so I’d show her how to do long division, but I wanted to tell SOMEBODY. Most of my other friends didn’t talk about girls, even my best friend Molly, who WAS a girl. And Amanda only wanted to talk about bad stuff about girls.

“Mary kissed me on the cheek”, I said, “In Wurster Park.”

“WHAT”, he said, like he couldn’t believe it, “She kissed you?”

I nodded and said, “Two times.” That felt like really good bragging, because I could tell that Joey was a little mad that she had kissed me and not him. And I also felt good because I had FINALLY told somebody else about it.

“No”, he said, shaking his head, “She didn’t!” I felt like a really big kid now. That felt good.

“I wouldn’t lie to you”, I said. I’d heard big kids say that.

“Why’d she kiss you?” he asked, like he was now thinking I was really neat.

“Because I showed her how to do long division”, I said, “She wanted to know how to do it before Amanda did, so Amanda wasn’t always the smartest.”

“Did you kiss her back?” he asked. I suddenly felt shy about that and I shook my head.

“I would’ve”, he said, “She’s super super pretty!” I nodded because I thought so too.

“Were you afraid?”, he said, like maybe I was too much of a little kid to kiss a girl back, “I wouldn’t have been!” That sounded like bragging again, so it was my turn now. I thought about when Molly and I got naked together in her bedroom, and thought about how neat it would be to get naked in front of Mary.

“I WASN’T afraid”, I said, feeling kind of mad at him now, “I just was surprised.” Then, feeling that spring energy in the air, I said a swear word to really tell him how I felt. “Hell”, I said, “I’D pull down my PANTS for Mary!” It felt so good to say that to somebody, something I’d been thinking about for a long time.

“Hunh”, he said, looking worried now, “You’d really do that?”

“Well”, I said, “Only if she wanted me too.”

Then I could tell he didn’t want to talk about that anymore.

“My dad said he’d sign me up for Little League”, he said, “The practices start next month here at Almendinger. It’s the nine-year-old league. I’ll be nine in June so my dad said I’m old enough to play.”

I’d heard other kids talking about Little League, and I wanted to play too. I was pretty good at baseball, but I wondered if you really had to be nine to play. That wouldn’t be fair. I wondered if dad would lie and tell them that I was nine so I could play too.

***

The next afternoon in school it was time for recess. We were all standing around the classroom door waiting for Mrs Rodney to say we could go outside. Joey was across from me just behind Diane, who was wearing a red dress and had a red ribbon tied in a bow at the end of her long black ponytail. Joey looked at me and a couple of the other boys and made his eyes get really big like he was telling us “watch this”, without actually talking. His finger just quickly touched the ribbon, just enough to make Diane turn around and look at him, but when she did, he shook his head like he didn’t do anything. Theo, Gabe and Herbie did a little laugh, and Diane looked at them worried, like she figured they were laughing at her but she didn’t know why. I heard Mary’s voice behind me.

“Joey did it”, she said fiercely, “He’s always touching your hair. He thinks he’s in love with you, but he’s so disgusting!” We all liked using that word, “disgusting”. Joey looked really worried, like he’d been caught doing something really bad, and then looked mad.

“That’s not true!” he said to Mary, “I’m not IN LOVE with her. But you must be IN LOVE with Cooper because he said he would ‘pull down his pants’ for you!”

Both Mary and Diane did that breath in noise, like they couldn’t believe he said that. I heard Gabe and Herbie do that kind of laugh like you’re trying not to but you can’t help it.

I suddenly felt like I was in a bubble and I wasn’t really in the room anymore, but just looking at the room all around me. How could Joey say that? Everyone would think I was really bad. Maybe I really was bad. I could feel the kids around me looking at me, but I couldn’t look back at any of them and just looked at the floor. I wanted to somehow say, “I did not”, but I couldn’t get myself to say anything. It seemed like forever before I heard Mrs Rodney’s voice like it was slower and louder than it usually was.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” she said, “That’s enough of that kind of talk! Joey and Mary, please go over to my desk RIGHT NOW. We need to have a discussion. The rest of you out to recess, QUIET in the halls please.”

Other kids in the class were still looking at me worried as they went out the classroom door. Herbie and Gabe whispered to me, almost at the same time, “Did you really say that?” I still couldn’t make myself talk and just looked down and went through the door then out the big hallway outside doors to the sidewalk and the playground, with Herbie and Gabe following me and asking again, “Did you really say that?”

Once I got through the big doors and out on the sidewalk, I thought for a second I wanted to run home, but instead I ran to the far side of the playground and climbed inside the giant pipe thing where we all liked to hide sometimes, or pretend it was a submarine or a spaceship. Gabe and Herbie got down on their hands and knees on either end of the pipe and looked in at me.

“Did you really say that?” they both asked me again, but I couldn’t talk or even look at them. If I looked at them I figured they could tell that I really DID say that. I wondered if Joey had done something bad by telling on me. And then I was worried that maybe he WASN’T in trouble because he was just telling people that I had said something really bad, that I was a bad kid. A really bad kid. I felt my body get warm and I felt like I was going to fall asleep. I heard the voices of other kids nearby.

I heard Amanda’s voice ask, “Did he really say that?” Then Gabe said to her, “I don’t know. He won’t tell us.”

Herbie was still at the other end of the big pipe. He climbed inside and sat, though he didn’t sit next to me. I turned to look at him for just a second and then down at the ground again. I was actually kind of glad that I wasn’t in the pipe all alone.

“You know”, he said, “Joey’s not very nice that way. He’s not good at keeping secrets. He told Diane that I said she was pretty.”

“He likes Diane”, I said, “He told me he teases her because he likes her.”

“You know”, he said again, “If you DID say that about Mary, but you told me instead of Joey, I would NEVER have told anyone else.” I nodded. That made sense, though it was too late now.

“Even if you DID say it”, he said again, “Just say you didn’t, and that Joey made that up. He lies about stuff all the time.” I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure about that, feeling like everybody had already figured out that I said that about Mary.

I didn’t like lying, because if you did it about something, then you had to remember to keep doing it. And if people figured out you were lying, specially grownups, they’d think you were really bad. And I would start thinking I was really bad too. Instead of lying, I usually just didn’t say anything, because it was none of their business anyway. Even though I told him, it was none of Joey’s damn business anyway.

Amanda stuck her head in the other end of the big pipe and said, “Can I come in?” I nodded, but couldn’t even look at her.

“Well I guess I don’t really need to say that Joey is really STUPID”, she said, “Probably the stupidest boy in our class.”

“I don’t usually agree with Herbert”, she said, looking across at him on the other side of me, “But I do think he’s right that IF you really said that to Joey, he’s a really bad friend to tell everybody like that.” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that they thought my nod meant I really said that, or just that Joey was a bad friend.

“I mean grownups do things like that”, she said, looking out the end of the pipe and not at us, “But I think it’s pretty terrible.”

“What kind of stuff?” asked Herbie, sounding like he was using his teasing voice now, which he usually did with Amanda, “Naked stuff?”

“I don’t want to talk about it”, said Amanda. She was quiet but her voice was still strong and fierce. “When we get really old and we’re in charge of things, we’ll make things different.”

“How will we have any babies?” Herbie asked, still with the teasing voice.

“I don’t know, Herbert, but we will”, she said. Then all three of us got quiet while the other kids were laughing and yelling around us.

Finally Gabe, who I figured had been sitting on top of the tube and maybe listening, stuck his head down upside down by the side of the tube where Amanda was sitting.

He made a big upside down smile and said, “I don’t usually agree with Amanda…”

“Shut up, Gabriel”, she said, not looking at him but grinning a little like she actually liked that he said that.

“I think recess is over”, Gabe said.

Somehow I managed to go back into the classroom with Amanda and Herbie and Gabe all around me. When I noticed Mary staring at me from the other side of the room and looking mad, I didn’t look at her anymore.

***

The last bell of the day FINALLY rang, and I was SO happy that I could go home. I’d been trying since recess to be invisible, I didn’t raise my hand and I didn’t look at anybody except the teacher when she was talking.

“Everybody’s dismissed”, said Mrs Rodney, “Enjoy the rest of your afternoons.” I stood up from my desk. Gabe came over like he was going to walk home with me, at least to his street.

“Cooper”, Mrs Rodney said, and I suddenly got really scared, “Please stay for a minute.” Gabe looked at me, worried, and then looked at Mrs Rodney.

“Gabe”, she said fiercely, “We will just be a minute. You can wait for Cooper outside the main doors. We need our privacy.” Gabe looked even more worried, but he nodded, looked at me one more time, opening his eyes wide, and then went out the door.

“Young man”, she said. She had never called me that before. Sometimes mom or dad, or some other grownup, called me that when they were really mad at me.

“Did you say that to Joey about Mary?” she asked. Her voice was quiet and trying not to sound fierce. I couldn’t even look at her, but I could tell she was nodding her head slowly.

“Well”, she said, and her mouth made a clicking noise as she opened it to say more, “Assuming you did, I would just like to say that you are a very good student and for the most part a very nice young man, at least as far as I can tell. I have already spoken to Joey about his behavior, but I just would like to say that you shouldn’t say things like that if you want to continue to be a nice young man. I hope you’ll think about that.”

I felt that warm bubble feeling in my head again, like I wasn’t really there. The words “you shouldn’t say things like that” kept repeating in my mind and everything else she said disappeared. These feelings I had about getting naked with someone else were making me a bad kid. I thought, what if she told mom and dad? I wanted to ask her if she was going to, but I was too afraid that if I did, that would sound REALLY BAD.

“You're dismissed”, she said, “Now go out and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.” She smiled, but I figured it was just pretend.

Gabe was outside the big doors on the sidewalk waiting for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about it but I was also glad I wasn’t alone.

“What’d she say”, Gabe asked, excited, “Are you in trouble? Is she going to tell your mom and dad?”

“I don’t know”, I said, not looking at him. I wasn’t thinking about that so much as just thinking about being bad. Having a grownup that was in charge of me thinking I was becoming bad.

“You should’ve asked her if she's going to tell your mom and dad”, he said, looking worried, “Because if she doesn’t then that’s not too bad, it’s just her.”

I just didn’t want to talk, even though Gabe was one of my best friends, but I was so worried I just had to.

“But all the other kids heard that I said that!” The words just came out of my mouth.

“Yeah”, he said, thinking, like that WAS pretty bad that everyone heard, “That Joey is a total traitor, I don’t think I’ll ever talk to him again. If he was a soldier they’d hang him or shoot him with a firing squad!”

I had just been thinking about me, but what about Joey? How could he do that, say that to everybody? Was what I said, and what I was feeling that made me say that so bad that he had to tell? Would none of my friends talk to me because they’d think I wanted to pull down my pants? Mary probably hated me now, by how mad she looked when she was looking at me.

We crossed Jefferson and headed up the sidewalk on Fifth toward our houses. We walked quietly for a minute but I could tell Gabe was thinking.

Finally he said, “She would never do it, but if Amanda DID ask me to pull down my pants for HER, I MIGHT think about doing it.” Then he looked at me fiercely and said, “But if you tell anyone, I will completely kill you!” I nodded. I wondered if I had said that to Joey, after I told him, if he wouldn’t have said that in class.

When we got to his street he stopped and looked at me. “Be careful”, he said, “The grownups are still in charge of everything, and some kids will always rat you out to them.”

“I would never do it”, he said, and then pointing at me, “And you better not ever do it either.”

I nodded really fast to let him know I never would, then said, “I never, never would!” It felt good to say that, like I at least would never do anything against my team.

As he started to cross Fifth to head up the street toward his house, he turned back to look at me one more time and said, “Someday when we’re in charge maybe it’ll be different.” Then he ran across the street and started walking up the sidewalk to his house.

When I got to Allmendinger Park and got through the trees and could see my house across the baseball diamonds, I started thinking about what if Mrs Rodney called mom or dad and told them what I said. Would dad spank me? He hadn’t spanked me since I was three. Would mom be “very dissapointed” in me? Would they not let me do stuff by myself anymore because I had to be watched in case I tried to say more bad things or do more bad stuff?

Was I a bad kid because I liked being naked and being naked with people I really liked? Did that make me a sissy? No grownup ever wanted to see a kid naked unless they were your mom or dad and they had to because you were really little and they had to give you a bath or help you put on your clothes. No grownup wanted you to see them naked, not even your mom or dad.

I think Molly liked it when she and I got naked together. I did. When you were naked there wasn’t any pretending, no clothes to pretend you looked different than you really looked. It seemed strange to think that, because I and most other kids REALLY LIKED to pretend. Grownups did A LOT of pretending too, but it was different. They pretended that they liked stuff that they really didn’t like, that they were okay when they really weren’t. So I guess that was BAD pretending. What kids did was GOOD pretending.

As I walked by the kitchen windows to go in the side door I heard mom’s voice in the kitchen saying “dammit” a couple times. I figured she was paying bills, because she said that a lot when she was, and I figured she hadn’t seen me because then she wouldn’t swear if she had.

I went in the side door hoping just to sneak down into the basement, but she saw me.

“Hey Coolie Coo”, she said, “How was YOUR day at school? MY DAY is paying bills, and per usual, it’s not much fun.”

I didn’t want to talk about my day, so I figured I’d get her to talk about her stuff, so I said, “Why not?”

She looked at me like I should already know why not and said, “SOMEDAY, when your dad gets all his ducks in a row and gets tenure, the paycheck will be significantly higher, and I won’t go through this… process every month!”

“Ducks in a row?” I asked. I’d heard other grownups say that but never figured out what it meant.

“Yeah”, she said, laughing through her nose, “Your father’s not here to bestow his language expertise on us.” She did more nose laughing and said, “Let’s see… It means you’ve worked everything out with everyone else so that what you want to happen will happen. Does that make sense?” I nodded. I guess I didn’t have MY ducks in a row either.

Worried she would still ask me about school, I quickly asked, “What’s tenure?”

She did just a little nod and her eyes closed a little and she said, “Tenure is when a school offers you a permanent position, which usually means more money.” I nodded.

Suddenly I felt so scared that mom didn’t know who I REALLY was, a kid who liked to get naked and said he’d pull his pants down in front of a girl. I wished I could tell her and have her not think I was really bad, but I couldn’t risk it.

“I gotta go downstairs”, I said, and didn’t even wait for her to say something back before I ran down the stairs. I heard her laughing but it sounded like a sad laugh.

I was so relieved that David and dad weren't in the basement. I could just be there all by myself. I put a couple race cars on my Aurora racetrack, the hotrod and the Stingray and turned the little wheels on their controls so they went around the track in opposite directions. I put my chin on the beaverboard by one corner of the track so I could watch them come or go down the long straightaway and not think about anything else.

Paul came over and mom told him I was down in the basement, so he came down the stairs and saw me just watching my race cars go down the long straightaway. I looked at him but then looked back at the cars.

“I don’t want to play”, I said.

“Why not?” he asked, “What’s the matter?”

I remembered that thing that grownups said to each other sometimes, and Amanda had said at recess. “I don’t want to talk about it”, I said.

“Is it something really bad?” he asked.

I felt my head nodding slowly, even though I didn’t want it to. No one could know how bad it was, not even Paul. Not mom or dad or Molly. I hoped that none of my school friends would tell them. I just had to pretend like it didn’t happen and never talk about it again, and maybe everyone would forget it happened and I could have another chance. I would have to be way more careful who I talked to about stuff like that.

“I do bad stuff too and don’t want to talk about it”, he said.

“Like what?” I asked, not looking at him.

“I don’t want to talk about it either”, he said. He sat down next to me and put his head down on the beaverboard so he could see the cars like I was seeing them.

***

The next morning I woke up to dad telling me I needed to get up and get ready for school. I had barely slept all night. My mind kept worrying and thinking. Was I really a bad kid because I talked about pulling down my pants and regular kids would never say stuff like that? Was I some kind of sissy because I wanted to do that? If dad found out would he want to spank me again and not like me anymore? Would my school friends still talk to me? Would Mary hate me forever? What could I do to make things go back to before I said that to Joey or he said it to everybody else? I wished there really was a time machine like Mister Peabody’s “Wayback”.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open and must have fallen back asleep because now it was mom waking me up. I told her I didn’t feel very good and she put her hand on my forehead and said I felt a little warm and said I could stay home from school. I stayed inside all day and just read books in my room or watched TV in the basement or played with my racing track. Watching the cars go around the track made me not think about other stuff.

After mom picked up David from Play School, she came down in the basement to check on me. She put her hand on my forehead and said it felt okay now, but that I looked like I hadn’t gotten any sleep.

“Did something happen at school yesterday?” she asked. I shook my head but didn’t look at her. “Are you sure?” she asked again. I shook my head again fast but still didn’t look at her. I could tell she was figuring out that maybe something HAD happened.

“If something’s going on at school”, she said, “I really wish you’d tell me so I can help you sort it out. I’m always on your side Cooper, I hope you’ve figured that out by now. And I’m always so so proud of how you chart your own course, and I’d move Heaven and Earth to help you do so.” She finally stopped talking and I nodded, but still didn’t say anything.

She puffed her cheeks and blew air out of her mouth and said, “I really don’t like to see you like this. You and your father just clam up when something’s bothering you.”

I knew mom by now. If she thought something might be happening at school, “moving Heaven and Earth” might mean calling my teacher, who might tell her what happened. That would be terrible. Mom and dad might think that I shouldn’t be able to do stuff by myself anymore and always want to know where I was and what I was doing. I couldn’t let that happen.

I knew I had to say something, or mom would get even more worried, and that wouldn’t be good.

“I promise I’ll go to school tomorrow”, I said, “I just needed a day off.” I had heard her say that “day off” thing to dad sometimes when she didn’t feel like doing all her chores.

“Okay”, she said, nodding, “I get that. But I also know problems just don’t go away if you don’t talk about them and work them through. If Mrs Rodney or some kid in your class said something or did something that’s really bothering you, from my experience, you should tell them honestly how that made you feel and talk it through.” Mom was good at figuring stuff out that she didn’t even know about, like she could figure out what other people were thinking. I got worried that maybe she could figure out what I was thinking.

“Otherwise”, she said, “You just keep it inside you and it can be like a wound that never heals and maybe just keeps getting worse. Believe me, I have issues with MY mother and MY brother like that that I’ll tell you about someday.”

“Yeah”, I said, finally looking at her quickly, “I’ll go back to school tomorrow. I’ll get it sorted out.” That sounded like a good thing to say.

“Okay, good”, she said, “I won’t pester you anymore. Just know that your dad and I love you dearly. We try not to interfere in your life unless you ask for help. But PLEASE, ask for help if you need it! Okay?”

“Yeah, okay”, I said, then figured I should also say, “Thanks mom!”

“You’re welcome sweety”, she said, and she started to laugh, “I’m always tempted to rub your head because it always feels so nice and reminds me of when you were a baby and I gave you baths in the kitchen sink. But I know you’re a big kid now and I can’t indulge that urge anymore, it’s not respectful of who you are now.”

“Well you can do it this time mom”, I said, “Because no one else is around.” She laughed again and rubbed her hand on my head. It felt good. I wished so much I could tell her, but it would be too dangerous, too risky.

***

The next morning when dad woke me up to go to school, I was still worried about what would happen there, but I knew I had to go, even if I didn’t want to. If I didn’t go this time, I figured mom would probably call my teacher, and that would be really bad. So I got dressed and went.

When I got to Gabe’s street, instead of walking by it, I looked down Fifth to see if he was walking ahead of me, but I didn’t see him, so I figured he hadn’t left his house yet, because he usually didn’t go to school early and came just before the bell. I was so happy to see him come out of his house, see me, wave, and then run down his street toward me and across Fifth.

“Did Mrs Rodney call your parents?” he asked. I shook my head but didn’t say anything. It was strange that he said “parents”, because usually only grownups used that word. Like they used the word “adults” too.

“Joey didn’t come to school yesterday either”, he said, “So I wondered if Mrs Rodney had called HIS parents. Joey told me that when his parents find out that he did bad stuff they punish him. They spank him and ‘ground’ him, whatever that means.”

“My friend Ricky says that when kids get ‘grounded’ it’s like they get thrown in jail by their mom or dad in their own house and can’t go out or do anything fun until their ‘sentence’ is over”, I said.

“Yeah”, he said laughing, “I remember Ricky from that birthday party when we were all in your basement instead of the park. He’s pretty funny.”

I was glad Gabe would be with me when I walked into class. I didn’t want to walk in all by myself. So right before the bell we walked in together, which was good because then no one could say anything to me or ask me any questions before it rang. Jake, Herbie and Amanda were there. Mary and Diane were there and Mary saw me and then looked out the window instead of looking at me anymore. Joey was even there, but he looked like he was just pretending he was okay, and once he saw me he wouldn’t look at me either. Mrs Rodney did her regular teaching stuff and didn’t say anything about it, which was good.

It was in the afternoon when we went out for recess that I worried what other kids would say to me, specially my friends. Once I got out the hallway doors onto the sidewalk I ran into the playground, running by other kids in my class to get to the big pipe before anyone else did. Gabe ran after me and so did Herbie. I saw Joey talking and probably bragging to some of the boys in the class who were all around him. Once I saw him I tried not to look at him anymore. And Mary and Diane were swinging on the swings, talking to each other and some other girls that were standing around them. I couldn’t tell if they saw me, because if they did, I wondered if they’d still be mad.

When I got to the big pipe no one was inside so I went in. It felt nice and dark and cool and not all bright like the rest of the playground. I sat in the middle and worried if all the kids in my class were still thinking about what Joey said that I said, and whether they all thought I was bad, or even maybe a sissy. Gabe came in one side and sat on that edge and Herbie sat on the other side. I was glad they both did that, like they both still wanted to be my friends and also were guarding me to keep me safe.

“Did you really say that?” Herbie asked, “Or is Joey lying, because he lies a lot.”

“Herbert”, it was Amanda’s voice outside the pipe where I couldn’t see her, “I don’t think Cooper wants to talk about it.”

“I just want to know if Joey was lying again”, Herbie said quietly to me.

I looked down at my sneakers and shook my head slowly. I think I felt “ashamed”. I had heard grownups use that word. I remember when Kenny’s mom got mad at him in the park for saying a swear word and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

When I shook my head Herbie looked worried, stopped talking and was thinking. But it didn’t feel like he was worried in a bad way. It was like he was worried about his friend, not some bad kid he didn’t want to be around anymore.

“Kids aren’t talking about it anymore”, Gabe said, “Mrs R handed back the math tests yesterday and Mary got the highest score, higher than Amanda. So they’re all talking about that.”

“That will never happen again”, said Amanda’s voice.

“And Theo got all his hair cut off”, Gabe said, “And Diane said that he looks like a ‘plucked chicken’.”

“He kind of does”, I heard Amanda say, “But it’s none of our business of course!”

“Of course”, Gabe said, trying to sound like Amanda. Then he looked at me and made a funny face. I started to laugh before I could stop myself.

Clubius Contained Part 15 - Long Division (January 1963)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 09, 2023 · 6:34 PM PST

2023/11/09 · 18:34

“So what you doing in math these days, mister Clubius?” mom asked as I was eating a baloney sandwich I had made for myself in the kitchen, and she was making a “big pot of spaghetti sauce for dinner” on the stove. It smelled good, kind of burned but like it was going to be really tasty. Mom LOVED math, so I figured I’d tell her all the different stuff.

“We’re doing multiplying and dividing, and still doing those times tables”, I said.

“Ach”, mom said. That was a word she used sometimes when she didn’t like something. She said it was German for “Oh dear” or “ugh”.

“Those times tables”, she said, shaking her head slowly as she stirred the big silver pot with the spaghetti sauce bubbling in it, “God I remember them. Boring rote memory. Mrs Cranbrooke.”

“Rote memory?” I asked.

“Yeah Cloob”, she said, blowing air out of her nose but not like a nose laugh, “Learning something by drilling it… into… your brain… by constant… repetition.” She pretended to pound her fist against her head above her eyes and scrunched up her whole face as she said it. I’d never seen her do something like that before. But then she let her face get regular again and did a big smile.

“But”, she said, “You need to know all that simple multiplication like THAT”, and she snapped her fingers, “So you can multiply big numbers and also do long division.”

“The teacher said we’re going to start doing long division pretty soon”, I said. Because they called it “long” it sounded like it was going to be really hard and not fun. I guess mom figured out what I was thinking.

“Actually”, she said, “Long division is pretty neat. I LOVED it! I STILL love it! It’s like a game or a puzzle with numbers. It really isn’t hard as long as you stick to a couple basic rules of the process.” Her eyes were twinkling as she looked at me. Even though I was chewing on a big mouthful of baloney sandwich, I was starting to move it around in my mouth so I could ask her what a “process” was.

“Can I show you?” she asked. I just nodded. She went to the stove and turned the dial down. “Let me turn this down first, I don’t want to burn it.”

I could tell she was excited because she just about ran into her bedroom, almost like a kid, to get her “yellow pad” that she used to figure numbers things out, like those “bills” that made her worried and she never liked doing.

“So”, she said, tapping the point of a pencil on the yellow sheet with all the lines on it, “Let’s see. How about an easy one to start. Nine hundred sixty five divided by five. She wrote the “5”, then that up and over thing for dividing, and then the “965” under it. “The five is our ‘divisor’ and the nine hundred sixty five is the ‘dividend’.”

“Now we are going to go one digit at a time in our ‘dividend’ from highest to lowest”, she said. Then she turned her head toward me and asked, “You know what a digit is?” I nodded.

“Good”, she said, like she was even more happy now, “Now we start with the nine which is in the hundreds place so it represents nine hundred. So five goes into nine just once, so we put a One up here above the Nine. That One is in the hundreds place, so it’s really one hundred, but we don’t need to put the zeroes up there next to it.” She wrote the “1” above the line above the “9”.

“Now one times five, from those times tables, equals five, so we write that BELOW the nine.” She wrote the “5” below the “9” and then put the minus sign to the left of the “5” and a line under it.

“Now we subtract five from nine which equals four”, she said as she wrote down the “4” below the line below the “5”.

“Now we bring down the next digit from our dividend in the tens place, the six”, she said, writing the “6” next to the “4”. “Now we do our process again. How many times does five go into forty six?”

She waited just a few seconds and said, “Now I just know it’s nine times because I’ve known my times tables for years and nine times five equals forty five, and ten times five equals fifty, which is more than forty six. But you may have to go through in your head the ‘five times’ part of the table. ‘Five times one equals five, five times two equals ten’, and so on until you get to ‘five times nine equals forty five’ and ‘five times ten equals fifty’. Fifty is more than forty six, so nine is your answer, and you put it up here next to the One, and you put your Forty Five down here below the Forty Six” She wrote the numbers on her sheet of yellow paper.

“Now you do the same subtracting process again”, she said, putting a minus sign to the left of, and then a line under the “45” below the “46”, “Forty six minus forty five equals one.” She wrote the “1” under the “45”.

“Now finally”, she said, “We bring down the Five in the ones place to make Fifteen down here. How many times does five go into fifteen?”

I was getting the idea of how this was working and said, “Three.”

“Yep”, she said, “You’re getting it Cloob!” She wrote the “3” up top next to the “9”.

“Now we’ve run out of digits in our dividend number, so we’re done. The answer is one ninety three”, she said, “And here’s another neat part, you can CHECK your answer by multiplying one ninety three by five.” Over to the right on the same piece of yellow paper she wrote that multiplying problem and quickly did all the numbers underneath that added up to “965”.

“Bingo”, she said. Grownups said that sometimes when someone got it right.

She did a couple more long divisions to show me again. The second time she did a bigger number, “1958” and divided it by “11”. I didn’t think it would work the same way, but it did somehow. The third time she did “534” and divided it by “7”. This time it worked the same way too, but there was a “remainder” at the end.

“Do you know what a remainder is?” she asked. I did and I nodded.

“You want to try a few?” she asked. I felt like I had it figured so I was excited and nodded really fast.

To do the first one she had to give me a lot of help, but to do the second one I did it mostly by myself. The third time I figured she’d do one with a remainder, and I was right. It WAS fun! And now I could tell my teacher and the kids in my class that I already knew how to do long division.

Later that day I tried some more by myself to make sure I remembered and could really do it by myself. I even did one dividing by twelve. I was so excited, and couldn’t wait to go to school the next day, when usually I didn’t want to.

***

“Time to get up Cloob!” It was dad’s voice, “It’s Monday!”. If it had been mom, she might have said, “Time to get up sweetie.” Dad never called me “sweetie”. Men weren’t supposed to, because then they might be sissies, or at least other men might THINK they were sissies. I guess women might think so too, though I don’t know if mom would. I wanted to ask some older boy in the park about this whole “sissy” thing, but I was afraid to, because then he might think that I wanted to be a sissy and tell on me. I just wanted to know how it all worked. That’s what I always wanted to know.

There was stuff like that that I wanted to ask about, but it was too dangerous. I couldn’t ask mom or dad, because I always wanted them to think I was super good. Maybe I could ask Margie the next time she came over to babysit, because she never worried about my questions, though I never asked her a question like that. But she didn’t babysit as much anymore, because now that I was more of a big kid, mom and dad let me babysit for David, if they weren’t out too late. I knew what to do in emergencies. Call the police or call Kenny’s mom and dad across the street. Mom had written those numbers on a piece of paper by the phone in the kitchen.

“Did you hear me?” dad asked, “Are you awake?” I didn’t open my eyes but I nodded, and I heard him walk away.

I could tell it was really cold outside, because I could feel the cold from the window touching my face. And the window was rattling too from the wind. If I wasn’t worried about mom and dad, and wanted to tell all my friends that I knew long division, I wouldn’t go to school on a day like this, but I wanted them to keep thinking I was a really good kid. Not a sissy and not lazy.

I sat on the side of my top bunk with my feet hanging down. David was already up and probably down in the basement playing with the Motorific cars. He liked those A LOT, but he ran them so much he used up the batteries, and I had to wait until dad bought more or I spent my own money to buy more. It felt like they were David’s toys now and I could play with them too. By the time I got home from school in the afternoon he already had them all set up doing a story, and if I wanted to play with them I had to do his story or else he’d say that I would “wreck” it. He went to school too, but it was Play School, and it was only later in the morning for a few hours. He was so lucky! I wish they had a Play School for older kids!

I pushed myself off my bed and landed on the floor. That was always fun! I quickly took off my pajamas and liked that short time when I got to be naked before I put my regular clothes on. I liked being naked, but everyone else thought it was bad, except Molly that one time a long time ago. I wondered if she would like to get naked with me again some time, maybe I’d ask her.

I put on my bluejeans and an undershirt AND a regular shirt because I knew it would be cold outside, even with my winter jacket on. I put on my socks and my sneakers. As I walked out of my room I saw that mom and dad’s bedroom door was closed, and when I got into the kitchen no one was there. I could hear the clicks of dad’s typewriter in the basement. He usually did work at his desk in the morning before he drove David to Play School and then went to teach his morning classes at “Eastern”, which was the place he was a teacher at now. The kitchen clock on the wall said it was seven fifteen, I could figure out all the times now, both the small hand AND the big hand!

I figured mom was still sleeping. She was doing that a lot now, “sleeping in”. She would stay up late and watch that “Tonight Show” on TV, though she said that new guy, Johnny Carson, wasn’t as good as that old Jack Parr guy. Dad always stayed up late too, but he still got up really early because he didn’t like to sleep very much.

I turned the radio on in the kitchen. Mom had wanted one there so she could listen to it while she did her chores and “paid the bills”. It was different than our other radios, because it had a round circle part that looked like a clock, and when you turned the knob to change the “station”, there was a hand that moved around and pointed at the different numbers in the circle, not one to twelve like a clock, but five to sixteen. Dad got it for free from one of his friends who was going to throw it away. It was on the station between the seven and the eight, but I changed it to my favorite CKLW station right on the eight.

I made myself a big bowl of Cheerios. Mom might have made me a cup of hot chocolate if she were in the kitchen. She had said she would show me how to make it myself on the stove but she hadn’t done that yet. As I listened to the radio the commercials finished and this guy on the radio said…

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, Smokey’s latest hit is now tracking at number eight on the charts, “You Really Got a Hold On Me”…

Smokey’s voice always sounded like an older kid to me. When older boys were listening to a radio in the park and one of his songs came on they would yell out, “Smokey!”, like he was their best friend or something.

The song started out with that music part without any singing. Then he started singing and he kind of sounded more like an older girl than a boy…

I don't like you, but I love you
Seems that I'm always thinkin' of you
Oh, oh, oh, you treat me badly, I love you madly
You really got a hold on me (you really got a hold on me)

That didn’t make sense to me, that you could “love” somebody you didn’t like, someone who even did bad things to you. It even seemed pretty stupid. But then sometimes mom and dad got really mad at each other and seemed like they didn’t like each other, but then said they still “loved” each other. I couldn’t figure out this “love” thing, and how it was different than really liking somebody.

Baby, I don't want you, but I need you
Don't wanna kiss you, but I need to
Oh, oh, oh, you do me wrong now, my love is strong now
You really got a hold on me

Boys my age thought kissing a girl, specially on the mouth, was pretty “disgusting”. That was a word some of my friends and I were now using for stuff we really really didn’t like. It was just a fun word to say, “disgusting”, I guess because it was so long. Now I had heard some older boys talking about wanting to kiss some girl they liked on the mouth, and maybe one or two said they even really did it. But in the song he was singing about “needing” to kiss someone that he didn’t even “want” to kiss. That seemed really strange, and stupid too.

Baby, I love you, and all I want you to do is just
Hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me
Tighter

Now THAT sounded like real kissyface stuff, maybe even that Roy Rogers' “pistol” in Dale Evans' “holster” stuff. I remembered sneaking up on and listening to some older girls talking secret stuff in the lilac bushes in the park.

One girl said to the other, “What if you were naked and he lay on top of you?”

“Eww!” the other said, “You’d like that?”

“Naahh”, said the first girl, “I was just thinking about it.”

Tighter

Now laying on top of somebody else when you were both naked seemed really really something. Scary maybe, because it seemed so bad. But it didn’t seem yucky like kissing somebody on the mouth. Did people really do that pistol in the holster stuff? Older kids? Grownups? I figured at least grownups did because of that Roy Rogers joke. Even though it was so bad, it kind of made me excited to think about it. All the parts of your naked body touching the parts of their naked body.

Anyway, in the song it was like what some older boys had said, that some girls that are pretty and that you “want” just want to trap you and do bad things to you or say bad things about you. That Smokey guy singing the song was worried about that…

I wanna leave you, don't wanna stay here
Don't wanna spend another day here
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna split now, I can't quit now
You really got a hold on me

That just didn’t make sense to me. But probably there was something about this love stuff that I hadn’t figured out yet!

***

So I finished my Cheerios and put on my jacket, and my cap over my ears. I wondered whether I should put on my rubber boots for walking in the snow. If I just wore my sneakers, and I had to walk through snow where my feet mushed down into it, my sneakers would get all wet and my feet would get all cold and wet, which felt really bad. But if I was just walking on sidewalks that didn’t have snow anymore, or maybe just had packed down snow, then the rubber boots just made it harder to walk fast or even run and made me look kind of stupid.

I figured I didn’t need my boots, because it hadn’t snowed since a week ago, and though there was still snow on the ground, it was probably all packed down, even maybe in the park if I walked across it to get to Fifth Street on the other side of the park.

I put on my mittens, though I figured that now that I was not a little kid anymore I should have gloves like dad instead of mittens, but they did keep my hands warm. And I could take them off before I got to school so none of the kids at school would think I looked like a little kid.

I opened the front door and the cold wind blew across my face into the house. It was cold enough to make my cheeks sting, and when I breathed in that cold air it made the inside of my nose sting too. I closed the door, and at least I felt like I was in a different world now where the grownups weren’t in charge, because they were all hiding in their houses or their cars. It was kids like me, walking to school, who were in charge out here. And though it was really cold, we got to do the adventure of getting to school.

I went across Potter street and climbed up the edge of the park by the lilac bushes that were just branches with no leaves, and looked out at all the white snow on the ground all the way to the trees on the other side of the park. As the wind blew at me I could see all the footprints of the kids who had crossed the park since the last time it snowed. I guess my footprints were there somewhere too. Where there were the most footprints I figured the snow was the most packed down, and if I walked through those places I might not step in any mushy snow that would get my shoes, and then my socks, and then my feet wet. It was an adventure, following the best path to avoid danger. So I walked across with all the white ground all around me, the wind pushing against me, trying to stop me, but it couldn’t.

“Cooper!” I heard the voice yelling from far off on my left. I turned to look and it was Paul, running across the white park snow towards me and waving his hands. I stopped and waited for him to get to me. It was strange with Paul when it wasn’t summer and we had to go to school. We were both seven but I was in third grade and he was only in second. That made me seem older even though his birthday was in March before mine in April. He would be eight before I was. In the summertime when there wasn’t any school, we seemed more like we were the same again.

“I don’t usually see you walking to school”, he said. I nodded. I usually didn’t see him either.

“That’s weird”, he said, “Because we’re both going to the same school and have to get there at the same time.” Paul was one of those kids that said stuff was “weird” instead of “strange”, which was the word that me and my school friends used. Herbie in my class at school said kids that said “weird” were “weirdos”, saying it like being a “weirdo” was bad.

“Did you see Rocky and Bullwinkle last night?” he asked. I had seen it, so I nodded. It was one of my favorite shows on TV. Paul’s too.

“I like Boris and Natasha”, he said. Then trying to sound like Boris was talking he said, “We have to get moose and squirrel!”

So I tried to talk like Natasha and said, “I know darlink, but how?” Paul liked that, he did a big smile and nodded his head really fast. We had known each other it seemed like forever. When Molly lived across the street I played with her the most. Now maybe I played the most with Paul.

The Rocky and Bullwinkle show was silly, but silly in a smart kind of way that made it extra fun to watch. Both the goodguys and the badguys were pretty stupid, but that made it funny too. Dad said it was “satire”, whatever that was. Paul and I talked about the show as we crossed the park, trying to find the best places to walk where our sneakers didn’t get into the mushy snow.

When we got down to Madison and could see Bach School down the street I was wondering if any of my friends or the other kids in my class might see me walking with a kid that was in second grade. At school the kids in my third grade class thought kids in second or lower grades were “little kids” and we were “big kids”. But Paul would be eight years old before I was, which was strange, or weird even like he’d say. At school it was like there were so many different teams. The teacher's team against the kids’ team. The girls against the boys. The third grade team and all the other teams for the other grades. You were better if your grade number was bigger. The sixth graders figured they were the best of all.

In class, I only had a few minutes to talk to my class friends before the last bell rang and we were supposed to be quiet. I wanted to tell my friends that I had figured out how to do long division before we even learned it in school. But my friends were so busy telling me things that they did, that the bell rang before I could tell them, and then we were supposed to stop talking and let the teacher talk.

“Now settle down class”, Mrs Rodney said, “Take a deep breath… and then let it out slowly.” I guess kids did that because then she said, “Good!” I didn’t want grownups telling me how to breathe. I’d been breathing by myself since I was a little kid.

“Now one more deep breath”, she said. Then putting her hands on her stomach she said, “As you breathe in try to push your stomach out to fill your lungs with air. I looked around and a lot of the kids were doing it. But I was feeling mad so I didn’t, and I tried not to breathe at all.

I guess Mrs Rodney saw me doing that and said, “Cooper, try taking a deep breath, I think you’ll like how it relaxes you and helps you focus.” I was still feeling mad but I didn’t want her to know that, but I guess the way I blew air out of my nose made her figure out I was mad.

“Do you have a problem with this?” she asked. All my friends turned and looked at me and Mary across the room did too.

“I already know how to breathe”, I said, before I could even think about saying those words and whether I really wanted to. My friends Gabe, Jake and Herbie did that quiet chuckling laugh, but Mary made that clicking noise opening her mouth and then blew air out. Then a couple of the other girls that really liked her did the same thing.

Mrs Rodney looked at Mary but didn’t say anything to her, then she looked back at me and she pushed her lips together like she was thinking.

“Suit yourself”, she said, shaking her head slowly, “Of course you all know how to breathe, I’m just teaching you a special way of breathing to help you relax your bodies and your minds and be ready for our BIG DAY today.” I couldn’t remember why today was a big day, but figured I better nod anyway before I got in trouble, so I did. I never wanted my teacher to think I was bad.

“Do you all REMEMBER why today is such a big day?” she asked, making a pretend worried face. Mary and Amanda’s hands just kind of shot up into the air, Mary saying, “Oh, oh, oh, oh”, as she waved her raised hand around.

“Okay you two”, said Mrs Rodney, “Thank you for your enthusiasm. Hands down please!” Amanda put her hand down. Mary put hers down too, but made a kind of grunting noise when she did like she wasn’t happy. Mrs Rodney looked at Mary and made the tiniest laugh through her nose and just a little bit of a smile but didn’t say anything to her, but now looked at all of us.

“TODAY is our BIG PERFORMANCE!” she said with a loud voice, holding her hands up in front of her with her fingers apart, like she was talking to a whole bunch of more people than just us.

“As the finale to our Colorado project”, she said, “Today is our day to sing at the assembly along with Mrs Poindexter’s class for all the other students at school!” Amanda’s hand went up again.

“Yes Amanda?” Mrs Rodney asked.

“But not for the first graders or the kindergarteners, right?” Amanda asked.

“As always”, said Mrs Rodney, “You are correct.”

“Okay, good!” Mrs Rodney said, clapping her hands together like lots of grownups did after they told kids what to do, “The assembly will be this afternoon at two o'clock.”

Mary’s hand went up again.

“Yes Mary?” Mrs Rodney asked.

“What about our cowboy hats?” Mary asked.

“I will hand those out right before assembly when we do our last rehearsal”, Mrs Rodney said, “I know you all are excited. I certainly am!” She grabbed her hands together, did a really big smile, and looked around at all of us.

“So let’s change gears, shall we?” she asked. She always asked questions like that, that she didn’t want us to say an answer to, and also the only right answer was yes. She really liked being in charge, more than the other teachers I had, or any grownups I knew.

“Mathematics”, she said, “Now in our study of mathematics each new skill we learn builds on the ones before. In first grade you learned how to add and subtract numbers, starting with small numbers. In second grade you applied that to adding and subtracting much larger numbers. Last fall we learned our times tables so we can multiply numbers up to twelve together from memory without having to take time to calculate it each time. Now we’ve been using the skill of multiplying small numbers AND adding larger numbers to learn how to multiply large numbers.”

Then she put her hands together under her chin and said, “I think most of you are doing a good job mastering these skills!”

Grownups were always talking about “jobs”, “good jobs” or “hard jobs” or even “bad jobs”. I guess “jobs” were all the stuff they had to do that they didn’t want to. And when they told you to do stuff that you didn’t want to do, they would say “good job” when you did it. Kids NEVER said “good job”, unless they were pretending they were grownups.

“We’ve also been starting to do division”, she said, “Which in my book is harder than adding, subtracting OR multiplying. It’s like multiplying but you have to do it BACKWARDS!” She shook her head and laughed through her nose.

“So even though it is harder”, she said, “We apply the same building blocks and go step by step and we learn how to do it.” Mrs Rodney was all about “teaching” and “learning”. She did the teaching and we were supposed to do the learning.

What I had always done was figure stuff out because it was interesting, but in school now I was “learning” stuff instead because we were supposed to. I guess some of it was interesting and helped me figure more stuff out. I noticed in the park that the younger kids talked about figuring stuff out, but the older kids, more and more talked about “learning” stuff instead, which usually meant they learned it at school.

And while we were all supposed to be quiet and keep listening, she kept talking. “Pretty soon we are going to learn how to divide larger numbers. It may seem nearly impossible at first, but I will teach you ways to do it. You’ll be amazed what you can do!” She made a big smile, like she was trying extra hard to make it as big as possible.

Here was my chance to tell everyone about “long division”. I raised my hand.

“Yes Cooper?” she asked.

“I already know long division”, I said, feeling really good that all my friends and Mary too now knew that I had, and how good I was at math. I kind of looked at Mary and she clicked her mouth open again and breathed out really noisy. I really liked that she did that. Amanda would probably say that Mary was “jealous”. Amanda might also say that I was “bragging”, which meant you were telling other people how good you were when they didn’t even ask you.

“Well”, said Mrs Rodney, “That’s VERY impressive. You can help your classmates learn it as well. We’ll be getting to that soon.”

***

Walking out to recess Herbie and Jake were walking behind me.

“Hey mister ‘long division’”, Herbie said, “How much is thirty-nine divided by seven million?” I turned around and looked at them and made my shoulders go up and down like I didn’t know.

“But maybe I could do seven million divided by thirty-nine”, I said.

“Showoff!” Herbie said, though he didn’t say it like he was really mad at me.

Jake made a funny face. “Are you SURE?” he asked, “Or are you just saying that so Mrs Rodney will think you're a really good student. I want to see you do one!”

“I’d do one right now”, I said, feeling like such a big kid because of all the math I could do, “I just need a piece of paper and a pencil.” Since we were outside playing, no one had one.

***

After recess, soon it was lunchtime. My old school friends Herbie, Jake, and Amanda ate their lunch at school, plus my new friend Lenny. Jake and Amanda said they ate lunch at school because no one was home at their houses at lunchtime. Herbie said it was because being at school was nicer than being at home, because he never knew when his dad was going to be mad at him. Lenny thought it was just too far to walk home for lunch and then come back, because though he lived near me, his house was farther away from school than mine was. He lived near that big Stadium street across from the giant high school.

My friends Gabe and Theo went home for lunch like I did. Theo said that he liked the hot lunches his mom made for him. Gabe said he didn’t like being at school when he didn’t have to. I guess I felt that way too, because even in the winter when it was cold and windy I still was okay walking home for lunch and back to school after. I usually walked with at least one of them up Fifth street until they went up their own street to their houses, which were right next to each other.

***

It was after lunch and after I came back to school that we did that “rehearsal” thing.

“Now we’re going to have a quick dress rehearsal”, Mrs Rodney said, “With your hats, and with Mrs Poindexter’s class.” She looked at our classroom door, nodded her head, and put up one finger. I looked at the door and saw the other third grade teacher, looking through the door’s window.

“Okay”, she said really loud, “We need to make room so Mrs Poindexter’s students can fit with us in our classroom.”

“Everyone who sits in these two rows”, she said, pointing to the rows on either side of the middle row, “Push your desks towards the middle row.” Gabe and Herbie and other kids went to their desks and pushed them. It was really noisy as the desks scraped and squeaked on the floor.

When everyone was done, she said, “Now move out of the way and let everyone who sits in the outside rows push your desks towards the middle of the room. We need enough space along the walls for everyone from both classes.” That was my desk, Jake’s and Amanda’s, and Mary’s across the room, and others.

When we were done she said, “Okay. Now EVERYONE, out in the hallway! And NO TALKING please! Let’s try to disturb the other classrooms as little as possible.”

As we all went out in the hallway, Gabe said to me quietly, “Mrs R would have been a good general in the Civil War.”

“NO TALKING PLEASE!” said Mrs Rodney, “That includes you Gabe!”

“See what I mean!” Gabe whispered to me.

All the other third grade kids from Mrs Poindexter’s class were already out in the hallway watching us come out of our room. Some were talking and laughing.

Mrs. Poindexter put her finger up to her mouth and said, “Shhh.” I waved at a couple kids I knew in her class.

When us kids were all out, Mrs Rodney was at the doorway and whispered really loud to Mrs Poindexter, “Okay, Sarah, have all the boys from your class and mine enter my classroom.”

“Okay”, Mrs Poindexter said to all of us in a loud whisper, “Boys in my class, go into Mrs Rodney’s room, one by one and quietly.” The boys in her class kind of all came together in front of the door and one by one went through.

I could hear Mrs Rodney’s voice in the room, “To the left, that’s it, single file around the edge of the room against the wall, that’s it.

When they were all in then all us boys in Mrs Rodney’s class went in, and Mrs Rodney had us follow their line so we were all standing against the walls around the room. Then the girls came in, and Mrs. Rodney had them all stand in front of the boys around the room. We all had our made up cowboy hats on. Some kids were laughing and whispering things, and one of the girls in Mrs Poindexter’s class got mad and said “Stop it!”, and two boys behind her laughed.

Mrs Rodney moved towards them with her finger pointing. “None of that!” she said, “Everyone will be watching us. You don’t want to embarrass yourselves on stage, do you?” The boys behind the girl shook their heads and the girl turned around and gave them a fierce look.

Mrs Poindexter finally came into the room and said, “Glenda… I mean Mrs Rodney. That’s everyone.” I saw Gabe look at me and his mouth moved like he was saying “Glenda”, but he didn’t really say anything. Mrs Poindexter looked at her watch on her wrist and said, “We don’t have much time, the assembly starts in fifteen minutes!”

Mrs Rodney looked at her kind of fiercely and pushed her lips together and tried to smile at the same time and nodded. She held up her hand and said to all of us kids, “Okay everyone, we’re going to sing this through just once. You all have your hats. Remember to take them off WITH YOUR RIGHT HAND and hold them up in the air each time you sing ‘Whoopie ti-yi-yo get along little doggies’, then put them back on your heads. I want to see everybody nodding that they understand.” She looked around the room, still with a fierce look.

“In the auditorium Mrs Poindexter will be playing the piano and giving you your note to start singing”, she said, “But for now, I will.” She took this small round thing from her desk, looked at it closely and then put it in her mouth and it made a sound.

“Okay everyone”, she said with a big smile and started singing the words of the song. We all started to sing. We had sung the song many times so most of us at least knew all the words…

As I was out ridin’ one mornin' for pleasure
I spied a young cowboy a-ridin' along
His hat was thrown back, and his spurs were a jinglin'
And as he was ridin' he was singin' this song

“Now hats off and hold them UP in the air”, she said, pretending she was wearing a hat and taking it off her head and holding it up, and we sang the chorus part, and I took my hat off and held it up, most of the other kids did too…

Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune, ain't none of my own
Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along, little dogies
You know Colorado will be your new home

“A dozen of you missed the hat cue that time”, she said quickly, “Next time EVERYBODY please!” and she said “Second verse, ‘When spring comes’”, and we sang…

When spring comes along we round up the dogies
We stick on their brands, and we bob off their tails
Pick out the strays, then the herd is inspected
And the very next day we go out on the trail

“Now HATS everyone”, she said loudly.

Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune, ain't none of my own
Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along, little dogies
You know Colorado will be your new home

“Better with the hats”, she said, “Third verse, ‘We ride on the prairies’.” We sang…

We ride on the prairies across the wide rivers
And on through the flats where there's never a town
Our horses are weary, we're tired and we're hungry
Lay still, little dogies, stop roamin' around

Mrs Rodney held up her finger and said, “Last chorus… HATS!” We sang…

Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune, ain't none of my own
Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along, little dogies
You know Colorado will be your new home

We finished and we were all glad to see Mrs Rodney smile. “Okay, pretty good”, she said, “For a dress rehearsal at least. In the auditorium I want you to sing louder and with more energy, like you’re really having fun, and not just singing because your crazy teacher is making you.” Some kids laughed, but I didn’t. Herbie laughed, because he liked Mrs Rodney.

“And when we do it for real”, she said looking at Mrs Poindexter, “What do you say we have everyone throw their hats in the air and say ‘Yee Haw’ at the end?”

“Fine by me, Mrs Rodney”, she said, “But shouldn’t we rehearse it?”

“Ideally yes”, said Mrs Rodney, “But I’m concerned that the hats are pretty flimsy and will get wrecked.” Then she looked at all of us and said, “But how about a quick ‘YEE HAW’ from everybody.”

Most of us kids said, “Yee Haw.”

“Louder”, she said, and we said it louder. Joey threw his hat in the air. The other boys around him laughed and he looked at them like he was really neat. Mary did that click noise thing with her mouth.”

“JOEY”, said Mrs Rodney fiercely, “What did I just say about the hats?” And she wagged a finger at him and said more slowly but still fierce, “What did I just say about the hats!”

Joey rolled his eyes, looked at his friends who were laughing, and said, “Sorry, Mrs R.”

“Who in god’s name is ‘MRS R’?” she asked Joey, still sounding fierce.

I could tell Joey was just pretending to be afraid, so his friends would think it was neat. “Sorry, Mrs Rodney”, he said.

“Okay everyone, it’s showtime”, she said, with her big smile back on her face, “Mrs Poindexter will lead you all down to the auditorium. Boys will sit in the first two rows and girls in the second two. When you go up on stage the risers will be set up. Boys first will go up and stand on the top riser. Girls next on the riser below them.”

We all walked down the hallway by the classroom doors of the older grades. All their doors were closed and no one else was in the big hallway. When we got to the auditorium, Mrs Poindexter held the big door open and Mrs Rodney led us in. The other kids were already in their seats. Second graders, fourth graders, fifth graders and sixth. She took us to the middle part and turned around and looked at us and pointed her hand at one row of seats and said “boys”, and at another on the other side of her and said “girls”. So all the boys sat in two rows and the girls sat behind us in two more.

One of the other teachers was up on the stage at that tall thing they stood behind to talk in that “microphone” thing to make their voices really loud.

“Welcome everyone”, she said, “Today’s assembly should be a lot of fun! The third, fourth, fifth and six grade classes all have musical presentations for you based on the part of the American story or state they have been studying. She said a bunch of other stuff thanking all the teachers and that principal woman.

“Our first presentation will be from our third graders”, she said, then looked at our teachers, “Mrs Rodney and Mrs Poindexter?”

Gabe was sitting next to me and whispered, “Mrs Rodney and Mrs Poindexter are definitely NOT third graders!”

Mrs Poindexter went up on the stage and talked about how our third grade classes were “studying” Colorado and the “Western expansion” of our country. She said we would be singing a song about “cattle herding”, which was a big part of that “Western expansion”.

It was interesting what Mrs Rodney had told us about Colorado and the West. “Cowboys” did “ranching” with “cattle”, which were like lots of cows and bulls which they took to this place called a “slaughterhouse” where they got killed and cut up to make “meat”, which was like steaks and hamburger. Other guys did “mining” to get “silver” out of the ground that they used to make money coins. And others did “farming” which meant they grew “crops”, which was other food for people that was sold at “markets”, before there were grocery stores.

But there were also badguys who wanted to steal the cattle and the silver, but there weren’t many “sheriffs”, who were like the police, so that’s why guys were always shooting at each other. And Mrs Rodney said the badguys didn’t always wear black hats like they did on TV. There were also “Indians”, and they lived in “tribes”.

Then Mrs Poindexter told all us third graders to come up on stage to sing our song. Mrs Rodney had it all figured out and had the first row of us, who were all boys, go up on the stage. Mrs Poindexter up on the stage told us boys all to climb up those “riser” things to the top one and walk down as far as we could. Then Mrs Rodney had the rows of seats with the girls come up on stage and Mrs Poindexter had them go up on the riser that was down from and in front of us boys.

Mary ended up on the riser right in front of me. She looked back and saw me and got a fierce look on her face.

“Did you REALLY figure out how to do long division all by yourself already without even learning it?” she asked. She was wearing a red dress and her hair had ribbons in it that were the same color.

“Not all by myself”, I said, “My mom showed me how to do it.”

She made a kind of growling noise but turned away when Mrs Rodney started talking.

“EVERYONE”, she said with a loud fierce voice, she was standing in front of us on the stage and Mrs Poindexter was now down off the stage sitting at the piano, “Quiet down please, and look at me.”

Then she looked down at Mrs Poindexter and said, “Mrs Poindexter, let’s begin.” Mrs Poindexter began playing the beginning part of the song on the piano, the part before we were supposed to sing. When it was time for us to start singing, Mrs Rodney held up her arms and then pointed fingers at us and sang the first words herself and we started singing them too.

As I was out ridin’ one mornin' for pleasure
I spied a young cowboy a-ridin' along
His hat was thrown back, and his spurs were a jinglin'
And as he was ridin' he was singin' this song

I remembered last year watching from the seats below as those third graders sang their songs and did their marching. I thought it was really neat to hear them all singing and marching at the same time. It was even better being up on the stage doing the singing to all the other kids, all of us singing the same words at the same time, even though I didn’t think our song was as good as the ones they had sung, that “backpack on my back” song, and the “marching to Pretoria” one.

And then we got to the chorus part, and Mrs Rodney pretended she was lifting a cowboy hat off her head and we all lifted ours and sang…

Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies

Then we put them back on our heads and kept singing…

It's your misfortune, ain't none of my own

Then again holding our cowboy hats up and singing…

Whoopee, ti-yi-yo, git along, little dogies

And then back on our heads again to sing the rest of the chorus…

You know Colorado will be your new home

And when we finally got to the end of the song, a lot of us remembered that we were supposed to say “Yee haw”, and throw our hats into the air. Those of us that forgot threw their hats up after we did. All the grownups in the seats clapped their hands and then a lot of the kids did too. I knew that was what you were supposed to do after you heard people sing or play music, and it felt really good to hear it done for us, though I wasn’t sure whether they really liked it or were just clapping because they were supposed to. Mrs Rodney looked happy, and not worried at all, so that was probably good.

Soon after the assembly was over the go home bell rang.

I usually walked home with Gabe or Theo, or my new friend Lenny. But today I had decided to go to the store across the street from school to buy a pack of baseball cards. I just felt like chewing that big sugary stick of gum on the way home. Usually there wasn’t a line at the store to buy stuff, but today there was and Gabe and Theo said they didn’t want to wait for me. When I finally paid my nickel for the cards and walked out of the store, Mary was on the sidewalk outside by herself waiting for me.

“Hi Cooper”, she said, “Do you want to walk home with me?”

I could tell she was expecting me to say yes, because most of the boys in class, even though they didn’t talk to her, had what older kids called a “crush” on her. When you had a “crush” it wasn’t like a regular friend. It was something different about how they looked. When boys had a crush on a girl it was mostly because she was “pretty”, that’s what the older boys like Danny and Ricky or in the park would say, though she also had to be “nice”. And when I’d heard older girls like Marybeth in the park talk about crushes on boys, it was because they were “cute”, which I guess was like “pretty” except it was a boy. I think a boy couldn’t be pretty without being a sissy, but I never had figured out how that worked. Boys usually had to be “nice” too, but not always, for girls to have crushes on them. But a girl ALWAYS had to be nice for boys to have crushes on them. If a girl wasn’t nice, even if she was pretty, that was really bad, almost as bad as boys who were sissies.

“Sure I guess”, I said. She lived next to Wurster Park so it wouldn’t take me that much longer to get home. I looked around to see if any of my other friends could see me talking to her. That always made her a little mad when I did that.

“Don’t want your friends to see you talking to a girl?” she asked.

I felt bad, but tried to make her think I was good again. “I talk to Amanda”, I said.

“AMANDA, is not a regular girl”, she said fiercely.

“Why not?” I asked. I was really interested in what a regular girl, specially Mary, would think about Amanda.

“Because she thinks girls are stupid”, she said, still fierce.

“She told me that BOYS are stupid, GIRLS are silly”, I said.

Mary made that growling noise she made when she was really mad and said, “I think AMANDA’S stupid, though Mrs Rodney thinks she’s the super smartest kid in the whole world.” She wrinkled her nose and looked down at the ground like she was thinking. We started walking down the street towards the street that went up to Wurster Park.

“Anyway”, she said as we walked next to each other, “So you said your mom showed you how to do long division?” I nodded.

“Your mom must be super good at math”, she said, “It’s NOT FAIR! My mom said I had to wait until they taught us at school.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded as we kept walking, now up the street towards Madison street and Wurster Park across it.

“So your mom showed you”, she said again, thinking, “Maybe you could show ME.” It surprised me that she said that, so I still didn’t say anything, or even nod this time. We continued to walk up the street towards Madison not saying anything. The branches without their leaves in the trees above us made a whooshing sound as they moved around in the wind. I could tell she was trying to figure out what to say next to get me to do it.

“I won’t tell anybody that you showed me. I promise!” she said. I could tell she thought I still didn’t want to do it. We were quiet again as we walked up the sidewalk to Madison, Wurster Park across the street. We waited for cars to go by and then we crossed and walked by the “Wurster Park” sign and under the bare trees at the bottom of the park.

“It would REALLY be nice of you if you did it”, she said, as we started to climb up the hill into the park, and I could feel the wind behind us getting stronger and making my neck really cold. “Maybe I’d give you a kiss for being so nice”, she finally said.

I really didn’t expect her to say that, but I could feel myself getting excited. The only person that I could remember ever kissing me was mom, but she just kissed me on the cheek. Mom and dad kissed on the mouth sometimes, but they were grownups. But I had seen an older boy and girl hiding in the bushes kissing, and they kissed each other on the mouth too. That seemed scary, but kind of exciting. I knew I wanted to say something, or she might start thinking I was stupid, or didn’t want to.

“Maybe”, I said, pretending in my mind that she was kissing me on the mouth, as we climbed up the hill into the middle of the park by the swingset. She stopped walking and turned to look at me, and pointed behind her.

“That’s my backyard.” She looked at me and I could see from her eyes that she got an idea. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were dry against my skin but felt warm. It felt completely different than when mom kissed me like that. Maybe because she was another kid, or maybe because she wasn’t my mom.

She looked at me again and smiled. “Now you HAVE to show me because I kissed you and you owe me”, she said. Then she thought about what she just said and maybe decided it wasn’t nice enough. So she said, “Well, we really didn’t make a deal yet, but it would be REALLY NICE if you would show me.”

She looked around and then said, “I’m going to run inside my house and get paper and a pencil so you can show me. Stay right here. Don’t go anywhere!” And she ran into her backyard, opened the back door of her house and closed it.

As I stood there alone in the cold and wind I looked out at all the big buildings downtown. My mind pretended again I was kissing her on the mouth. I really wanted to try that for real, but I was worried that she would think I was really bad if I said I wanted to do that. I liked thinking I was a big kid, but maybe not THAT big yet.

She came back out the back door and ran toward me. Her long golden hair under her snow hat blowing in the wind. She had one of those yellow pad things like mom used to write things and pay the bills. She held out the pad and pencil to me with her big furry mittens over her hands. I took the pad with one of my mitten hands and the pencil with the other, but wasn’t sure what to do next, so I looked at her.

“You're so nice to do this for me Cooper”, she said, “I think you're the nicest boy in our whole class!” We just looked at each other.

“I need somewhere to write on”, I said, “And it’s kind of really cold out here.”

“I know”, she said, looking worried, “I’d invite you into my house, but my mom’s home and she would want to ask you a million questions, and I don’t want you to get in trouble with your friends for telling me.” I nodded, because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go inside her house either and talk to her mom. She might think that I was Mary’s “boyfriend” or something. Mary said, pointing, “There’s a picnic table over there that you can write on.”

We walked over to it and I sat so the wind was kind of behind me. I put the pad on the table and tried to hold the pencil with my hand still in my left mitten, but I couldn’t hold the pencil the right way for writing. If I had those gloves like mom and dad had it would have been better. I took my left mitten off and my fingers started to sting with the cold, but I could hold the pencil okay. Mary sat next to me.

“My friend Diane says you're only seven because you skipped kindergarten”, she said. I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if that made her think I was neater, or more like a little kid just pretending to be a big kid.

“Are you like super smart?” she asked. I didn’t want her to think of me as some strange little kid.

“I don’t know”, I said, “I’m good at numbers like my mom.” She was just looking at me and I was starting to feel worried, like she was going to do something strange, but I had no idea what.

“How ‘bout we do an easier one first”, I said.

“Okay”, she said, nodding really fast and wrinkling her nose like she was about to do something really really hard. She kind of scooched her body over so our shoulders and the top parts of our legs were touching. She was still wearing that red dress and those really thick long socks that went all the way up her legs and under her dress, I think they were called “leggings”.

“Seventy five divided by five”, I said. I’d done that one before and I remembered it didn’t have a remainder. She nodded really fast and hard again.

So I wrote the line thing that went up a little bit then over to the right.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“That’s just the thing you make to keep all the numbers separate”, I said. She nodded.

“Then you put the Seventy Five here under the line”, I said, “And the Five to the left of this part over here.” She nodded again.

“Then we’re going to make the answer above the line”, I said. She nodded, but more slowly like she wasn’t sure but didn’t want to say anything.

“So how many times does five go into seven?” I asked. She looked at me confused.

“Well”, I said, “Five times one is five, which is less than seven, but five times two is ten, which is more than seven, so five only goes into seven one time.” She nodded slowly, but then faster.

“Okay”, she said, “I get it.”

“So then you write that One up here”, I said, “Above the line above the Seven.” She nodded.

“Now you multiply this One up here times this Five over here and write the answer under the Seven down here”, I said, writing the numbers in the different places as I talked.

“One times five is five”, she said, “That’s easy, I know all my times tables, my dad got me flash cards to practice.” I nodded.

“Now you SUBTRACT the Five down here from the Seven above it”, I said, putting that subtract sign to the left of the Five, and putting a line below the Five like a regular subtraction problem.

“That’s two of course”, she said. I nodded and wrote the “2” under the line.

“Now this is the tricky part”, I said, “I’m not sure why you do this but you just do it. You bring down the Five from the Seventy Five and put it next to the Two to make Twenty Five.”

“Okaaaay”, she said slowly.

“Now how many times does five go into twenty five?” I asked.

“Hmm”, she said, “Let’s see.”

“You just do your times tables for five in your head”, I said, “Five times one, two, three, four, five. Five times five is twenty five. So five goes into twenty five…”

“Five times”, she said.

“So you write the Five up here next to the One and you’re done”, I said, “So seventy five divided by five equals fifteen.”

She nodded slowly, looking worried, and looking closely at all the numbers on the sheet of paper.

“Then you can check it to make sure it’s right by multiplying fifteen times five”, I said, feeling like such a big kid even though I was seven and she was eight. She was just looking at it.

“You do it!” I said, pushing the pad over in front of her and handing her the pencil. She looked at me kind of worried and surprised that I said that. She took off her left mitten, took the pencil, and started to write the multiplying problem, fifteen times five.

“You’re left handed”, I said, “Like me.”

“I know”, she said, looking down at the paper, “We’re special!” I nodded and couldn’t help but smile, and like her more.

“Make sure you did it right by multiplying”, I said, “Fifteen times five.”

She wrote the numbers on the piece of paper, her writing was much nicer than mine, the “15” then the “5” below it with that multiply sign “x” next to it. She did the times tables multiplying, five times one ten equals fifty and five times five ones equals twenty, then added those two numbers together to get seventy five.

“It’s right!” she said, sounding excited. I nodded and smiled even more.

So then I had us do a harder one, three hundred divided by eleven. That was how many elevens in thirty, which was more than one, but not three because that was 33, so it had to be two. Then how many elevens in eighty, which was seven. But finally how many elevens in the leftover three, of eighty minus seventy seven.

“Three has no elevens in it”, she said.

“Right”, I said, “So since that’s the last part of the number, that’s a ‘remainder’.” I wrote a little “r” like mom showed me to the right of the “27” answer and then wrote a “3”. “Now to check it you have to multiply twenty seven times eleven and then add that remainder three.” She did, and it all equaled three hundred.

“That’s so neat!” she said, looking up at the sky, “Now I can be better at some school stuff than Amanda!”

She looked at me kind of worried like it was really important and said, “I PROMISE I won’t tell anybody you showed me.”

I nodded, but then I thought about it and wondered if the other kids and Mrs Rodney would think I was even SMARTER if they found out I could teach Mary to do long division without the teacher, like us kids could figure stuff out for ourselves, though mom had to show me how to do it. But I decided we’d keep it a secret, because it was fun to have a secret with another kid, and specially with a girl like Mary.

She tried a couple on her own and messed one up, but we started it again and figured out what she did wrong the first time. She could do it, she was smart with numbers too.

“You should go home”, she said, “But you’re really really really REALLY nice!” and she kissed me on the cheek again. Her lips were wet this time because she’d been licking them. When she kissed me I felt my cheeks get warm, not just the one on the side she kissed but on the other side too.

Her eyes got fierce again and she said, “But YOU better not tell anyone either. And if you tell anyone I kissed you I’ll hate you forever!”

I nodded really hard and said, “I promise.” I didn’t want her to hate me forever.

I watched her walk back into her backyard with the pad and pencil, and go inside the backdoor of her house and close it. I walked up to the top part of the park which would take me to the streets that went to my park. As I finally was walking across Allmendinger Park towards my house, even though I didn’t tell it to, my mind started pretending that two older girls in the park were teasing me, singing…

Cooper and Mary sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes baby in a baby carriage

I thought again about kissing Mary on the mouth like grownups did in front of people or older kids did secretly in the lilac bushes. I wondered about what the “love” part was, if it was that Roy Rogers’ pistol in Dale Evans’ holster stuff, which I couldn’t even imagine. It was all way too much to think about, making me really worried, scared even, but still kind of exciting in my head to pretend what it all could be. I couldn’t remember anything being all those things at the same time. I wondered if maybe there was another kid I could tell about it so maybe it would make more sense. When you talked to other kids about stuff like that, they usually helped you figure it out. But I’d never tell mom or dad, and I promised Mary not to tell my school friends.

Clubius Contained Part 14 - Football Saturday (November 1962)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 10, 2023 · 1:36 PM PDT

2023/10/10 · 13:36

I woke up and I could hear the rain tapping on the window by my bed. Not hard like a storm, but just a little bit like what mom called “showers”. I always liked waking up on Saturday morning, because I didn’t have to go to school today or even tomorrow, especially today because it would be cold and wet and windy. Though it was kind of fun to be all inside my raincoat and my hood looking out at wet everything. It was like the weather, “Mother Nature” mom said, was in charge today instead of the grownups.

Dad had got me new batteries for my little radio and I could put them in myself. I turned it on and it was on that “8” station, CKLW. I could hear in my thinking those grownup voices singing, “C K L W!” There was a grownup sounding man talking about news stuff. He said there was going to be a “funeral service” for that famous woman, “Eleanor Roosevelt”. I remember that “funeral” thing we did for our Civil War soldier, Lieutenant Cord, who we buried in the backyard. I thought of him there, under the dirt. I wondered if you were really dead and they buried you, if you’d still know where you were.

But then the news stopped and this other guy said that it was time for music. He played that song again I had heard all year by that Mary Wells, who sounded more like an older kid than a grownup to me. I had heard it so many times I pretty much knew all the words, so I could really think about what she was talking about. Like in other Motown songs there were what sounded like other older kids singing some of the same words after the main singer sang them. This time it sounded like older boys instead of older girls…

That day, I first saw you passing by
I wanted to know your name but I was much too shy
But I was looking (looking) at you so hard
Until you must have had a hunch (had a hunch)
So you came up to me and asked me my name

I always figured she was a kid because she said she was “too shy”, and grownups I figured weren’t shy like that. Then there was the chorus part…

You beat me to the punch that time, (you beat me to the punch)
You beat me to the punch, (you beat me to the punch)
You beat me to the punch, (you beat me to the punch)

I had heard mom say that to dad, “You beat me to the punch, Eric…” But it wasn’t about punching somebody or even drinking that alcohol stuff grownups drank at parties to make them silly and have more fun. It meant that the person you were talking to said something YOU were going to say before you could say it.

Oh, oh, oh, after I had known you
For it seems like a long, long time
I wanted, wanted to ask you, would you please, please be mine
Whenever you came around, my heart would pound
So you must have had a hunch
So you came up to me and asked me to be yours

I thought about that, asking someone to “be mine”. I figured that was what grownups did before they got married. I’d seen grownup men on TV get down on their knee and ask the woman they “loved” to “be mine forever”. On TV the woman always said yes, so I wondered if she could even SAY no, or if she HAD to say yes. Then they’d get kissyface and the woman would get pregnant and have a baby. Something like that, but I wasn’t sure how it all worked, and I didn’t want to ask mom or dad OR my friends, because I don’t think you were supposed to talk about that stuff, because then people would think you were bad. Some older kids got kissyface too, I’d seen them in the lilac bushes. But because they were kids I guess they didn’t have to get married or have a baby.

I wondered if Molly would ever like to do stuff like that with me. It might be fun, but I wouldn’t want to have to do it all the time. But then I thought about the Mary girl in my class. She didn’t seem to want to be regular friends like the other girls I knew like Molly or Amanda. But Molly was a “Tomboy”, and Amanda wasn’t really a regular girl either, because she thought most girls were silly.

You beat me to the punch one more time, (you beat me to the punch)
You beat me to the punch, (you beat me to the punch)
You beat me to the punch, yeah, (you beat me to the punch)

But then this last “verse” of the song was REALLY interesting…

Since I love you, I thought you would be true
And love me tender
So I let my heart surrender
To you, yes, I did
But I found out beyond a doubt one day, boy, you were a playboy
Who would go away and leave me blue

I guess some guys would tell girls they “loved” them, but they weren’t “true”, which I guess meant they really didn’t. I mean grownups said stuff that wasn’t “true” all the time. Maybe when girls were in love they wanted to, or even had to, “surrender”, and then the guy was in charge of them.

But this guy in the song was a “playboy”, which I guess was bad. I had heard that word before. It was a magazine that some older boys in the park talked about that only grownup men were supposed to look at because it had pictures of naked women in it. If kids looked at it, that was bad, and they were bad kids, at least grownups thought so. Kids weren’t supposed to be naked around each other or see anyone else naked, even their mom or dad. Sometimes their mom or dad might see THEM naked, like if you were in the bathtub or getting dressed, but even then not very much.

But it seemed like some of those older boys really wanted to look in those “Playboy” magazines and see those naked women, because it was really neat, even though you weren’t supposed to. I sure thought it was neat when Molly let me look at HER naked. And I even liked it when she got to look at ME naked at the same time. I would do it again if she wanted to, because it was fun, but I guess it was also really bad, or at least grownups would think so.

And maybe that girl singing the song thought it was bad too, because she didn’t want to be in love with him anymore because he liked to see girls naked…

So I ain't gonna wait around for you to put me down
This time I'm gonna play my hunch
And walk away this very day
And beat you to the punch this time, (I'll beat you to the punch)
I'll beat you to the punch, yes, I will, (I'll beat you to the punch)

Dad was at the door to my room. “Today’s the last Michigan game of the year at the stadium. I put our car out on the street, which is now all parked up with cars and there are others driving around looking for places to park. I know it’s kind of rainy, but are you gonna get out there and make a few bucks?” he asked.

I nodded and jumped down from my bed to the floor. Grownups would give me money to let them park their car in our driveway or front yard. Dad had showed me how and I had done it last Saturday and the one before. I was excited, because it wasn’t just like getting a quarter for my allowance. I would get fifty cents for EACH CAR and could park two in the front yard and two in the driveway, so that was four, and four times fifty cents was TWO DOLLARS. With that much money I could go to the store and buy a real TOY, not just candy bars or gum like with my allowance.

I started to take off my pajamas and dad said, “I’ll give you your privacy to get dressed”, and he walked out into the living room.

“Hey Liz”, I heard him say, “Where’s Coop’s ‘Park Here’ sign?”

“Eric”, I heard mom say fiercely, though her voice sounded kind of strange, “I haven’t the slightest goddamn idea! I’ve got my head in the oven and I’m trying to clean it with this oven cleaner you bought and it’s a holy mess!”

“It was on sale”, he said, “It’s supposed to be just as good as the regular stuff.”

“Well it’s not”, she said, still fierce, “And I’ve about had it!” And then I heard her start to cry.

“Oh my god Liz” he said, “Don’t cry! It’s not worth crying about. I’ll finish it later!”

“It’s not just this”, she said, “It’s everything!” And she cried some more. “All I do all day is cook and clean and wash clothes and shop, and try to figure out which of the GOD DAMN BILLS I can wait to pay til next month!”

“This isn’t what I signed up for Eric!” she said, “We agreed that you’d get your PhD and then I could go back to school and get my masters.”

“I know Liz, I know”, he said, “I just have to get all this English department politics sorted out so I can get tenure.”

Now with my clothes on I came to the kitchen doorway and looked in. David was at the top of the basement steps looking into the kitchen too.

Both mom and dad looked at the two of us now looking at them. I think they both figured that we had heard mom cry and what she said. Dad seemed really sad and looked down at the ground. Mom saying all that kind of stuff always made him sad, and it made me mad at her too. Why did she keep having to tell him this stuff? She had already told him many times!

Mom looked at David and me and said, “Your mother’s just going through a tough time right now.” She wiped tears from her eyes and said, “Your dad finally got his PhD. So both he and I are hoping things will get better soon! You know we love both of you more than anything else in the world!” Dad nodded.

I knew it was okay for girls and grownup women to cry, but not for boys or men. But whenever I saw dad be mad and not say anything, or mom cry, it did make me worried.

“Well Coop”, dad said, “You don’t really need the sign. Just get out there by the street and yell ‘park here fifty cents’ and you’ll do just fine!” I wasn’t sure. It was easier with the sign. I wasn’t used to talking to other grownups that I didn’t know. Now dad was saying I should yell at them.

“When I get a minute I’ll make you another sign”, dad said, “But for now you better get out there, looks like the street is full of people looking for a place to park.” I nodded.

I looked at David who was looking at me. I could tell he was worried about mom crying too and would get more worried if I still looked worried after what mom said to us. I was, but I tried to pretend that I wasn’t and just pushed my lips together like dad did and nodded just a little bit, just enough so he could see me saying it was okay. I got my jacket out of the closet, put it on and put my hood up and went out the front door.

It was kind of cold and windy, with bits of water in the wind. The sky was all covered in light gray clouds. Our street and Potter, the street next to the park, were both already filled up with parked cars. I saw that Kenny’s front yard across the street was also filled up with cars. There were a couple cars coming up the street slowly. I stood on the sidewalk not sure if I was ready to start yelling like dad said. The first car stopped on the street near me and the grownup guy driving rolled down his window and looked at me.

“Son, do you know anywhere we can park?” he asked. I nodded.

“Okay great”, he said, “Where is that?”

“In our front yard”, I said, pointing at our driveway.

“How much?” he asked.

“How much what?” I asked.

“How much are you charging to park? Unless you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart!” He chuckled and looked at me like I should be chuckling too. Lots of grownups chuckled, and some kids too, mostly older ones, but I hadn’t figured out how to do that. I could do a regular laugh, and even a laugh through my nose, but not a chuckle.

The car behind him honked and it startled me. The guy driving yelled out the window, “Keep it moving up there!” I had to say something.

“Uh fifty cents”, I said. Dad had told me to say “only fifty cents”, but I forgot the “only” part.

“Where should I park?” he asked. I remembered what dad said about where to park four different cars so all four could get out, and how I should stand by where the middle of the front part of the car should end up. I ran over to the corner of the front yard by the front living room window.

“Right here”, I said, and I circled my hands like I’d seen dad do, until the car got close to where I was standing and then I held them up in front of me to show him to stop. The guy driving got out of the car and pulled his “wallet” thing out of his pocket and took a dollar out.

“Got change?” he asked. I had forgotten about the change part. I shook my head then remembered I had coin money in a cigar box in my dresser that dad gave me.

“Just a second”, I said, “I got money in the house!”

“That’s okay son, keep the change”, he said as I was running to the front door, “You seem like a nice young man.” He handed me the dollar. The other adult guy and two women in the car were getting stuff out of the trunk - coats, bags and hats and blue and yellow Michigan banners. When I took his dollar I remembered what mom and dad told me to say.

“Thank you”, I said, “Enjoy the game!” And because they had those Michigan banners I knew to say, “Go Blue!”

“Go Blue”, all four of them said, and they headed up to the corner and then down Potter street towards the stadium.

Kenny came running across the street waving his hand.

“I already got four cars parked in MY front yard”, he said, like that was really good and he wanted me to think so too.

I nodded. “I just started”, I said.

“You should have a sign”, he said, “It works better with a sign!”

At first I was going to tell him that I couldn’t find my sign, but I decided to say something that made it sound like I didn’t need that stupid sign, I could get cars to park without it.

“Nah”, I said, making the sound through my nose like dad did sometimes, “I just tell ‘em to ‘park here’.” Then I shook my head and wrinkled my nose like a sign wasn’t important and said, “I don’t need a sign!”

Another car was coming slowly up the street. Knowing Kenny was watching me now, and what I said to him, I walked out into the street waving my hand at the guy driving the car and yelled, “PARK HERE! ONLY FIFTY CENTS!” I liked that “ONLY” part, like my place was cheaper than the other places. The guy driving stopped his car and rolled down his window and smiled.

“Only fifty cents young man?” he asked, then said, “Such a deal!” The other guy sitting in the front seat with him chuckled. I showed them where to park next to the other car in the front yard. They got out of the car. They both were wearing orange sweatshirts with the word “ILLINOIS” on the front in really dark blue letters, and a big “I” below it. They both looked pretty old and they had gray hair like my grandfather did.

“I got this Fred”, the other said, and reached into his front pocket and I heard the clinking of what I figured were money coins as he pulled a whole bunch of them out of his pocket in his hand, then picked out two quarters and gave them to me. “There you go son”, he said.

It was interesting that I had only heard grownup men called kids they didn’t know “son”, but I’d never heard a grownup woman say that. Women would say “young man” or “honey” or something else like that. Men would say “young man” sometimes too, like that Fred guy did, but never said “honey” or “sweetie” or other words like that. I wondered why that was. I wondered if it was that men didn’t want to be sissies, or have others think they were sissies. I guess men and boys weren’t supposed to do a lot of the stuff that it was okay for women and girls to do, because they had to fight in wars and you couldn’t be nice to guys you were fighting against or they might beat you.

Like mom and dad had told me to say, I said, “Thank you. Enjoy the game!” Kenny said “enjoy the game” too.

I usually didn’t like talking to grownups I didn’t know, specially men. Some men wanted boys to be a certain way. Like when you were playing baseball with other boys, they might say stuff like, “Hey slugger, going to hit one out of the park?” Then they wanted you to say something like, “Yep!”, and seem all sure that you could do that. They wanted you to be, what’s that word that grownups used, “confident”, and pretend that you were sure. They figured they knew you better than you did. But I didn’t like being “confident”, pretending like that. I just wanted to try and have fun and do the best I could and not worry about always doing it right or really good.

Other grownups thought they could be in charge of you, just because they were grownups, and tell you what to do or what you couldn’t do. So when they asked me questions or told me stuff I worried they might be doing that. Then you’d either have to do what they said, or at least pretend to do what they said, or they would think you were bad. I didn’t like ANY grownups thinking I was bad, because I was always worried that maybe I WAS bad, since I liked doing everything myself, and some of the stuff that I liked to do might BE bad.

But with these two old guys I kind of wanted to talk more, because they seemed nice, and said funny stuff, kind of like my grandma and grandpa had. I also didn’t always want grownups to be in charge of talking with kids, that wasn’t fair. They were wearing sweatshirts for that other Illinois team that our Michigan team was playing against. I figured I’d try asking THEM a question, I kind of wanted to call them “guys”, but I worried that might make them think I was bad.

“Are you from Illinois?” I asked. Kenny looked at me like I shouldn’t be asking them a question. He worried even more than I did about talking to grownups, and his mom and dad were always telling him what he should and shouldn’t do.

“How’d you guess?” said the Fred guy, laughing through his nose, “Is it our accent?” I had heard that “accent” word before, but I had no idea what it meant. I looked at Kenny and I could tell he had no idea either. I shook my head.

“You’re both wearing sweatshirts that say ‘Illinois’”, I said. Then I asked, “What’s an accent?”

“Well”, he said, laughing through his nose some more, “I was trying to make a joke, but I seem to have failed miserably because you don’t know what an ‘accent’ is.” I got worried for a minute, because I always got worried when grownups said that I didn’t know something.

“An accent is how you say your words”, he said. “Now you and I and my buddy Wilbur here, we all have Midwestern accents, okay. But have you seen that new show on TV, The Beverly Hillbillies?” I nodded, but Kenny shook his head.

“My mom won’t let me watch it”, Kenny said.

That Fred guy looked at Kenny and made a pretend sad face. “Too bad”, he said, “It’s a very funny show. You’re missing out!” That made Kenny look worried and start thinking.

“So Jed Clampett on that show talks with a Southern accent”, he said, “And the rest of his family - Granny, Elly May and Jethro - do too.”

That other Wilbur guy said, “Y’all come back now. Hear?” in that way that that Jed Clampettt guy on TV said it.

Wow, I thought, that was really interesting! Mom’s friend Lennice kind of talked like that too. I wondered if I should talk to strange grownups more often.

Fred looked at Wilbur and nodded, but then looked back at me. “Anyway”, he said, “To answer your question. Yes, we are both from Illinois. We live in Urbana. Ever been?” Kenny shook his head. I shook my head too but I wanted to keep talking to them.

“You drove all the way from Illinois?” I asked. We were learning about all the states in school and had to remember the capitals. Illinois’ capital was Springfield.

“I know”, he said, “We’re crazy. Our Illini are only one and five. But then your Wolverines are only one and five too, so maybe it will at least be a close game.”

“Ever go to a game?” he asked. Both Kenny and I nodded.

“Yeah”, I said, “My dad and I sometimes go at halftime and sneak in.” Kenny looked at me like I was really bad and then I got worried that these grownups might think I was bad too. But the two of them just laughed.

“WHY NOT!” said Fred, “Your stadium is HUGE, and I don’t think there are enough people in this whole town to ever fill it. I wish I’D been as adventurous as you when I was a kid!”

Wilbur looked at the watch on his wrist and tapped it and said, “Fred. We don’t want to miss the kickoff. Or the Michigan band. Even though they’re playing the wrong song they always sound great.”

Fred turned his hand and pointed his thumb at Wilbur. “My buddy’s right”, he said, “We have to hustle, but it was great meeting two nice young men!” Then they quickly walked across the street and then down Potter towards the stadium.

Mom opened the front door but didn’t come outside. “I saw you two talking to those two men for a while”, she said, “Is everything alright? You usually don’t talk to grownups you don’t know. Oh and hi Kenny, how’s your mother?”

“Okay, Mrs. Zale”, Kenny said.

“Call me Jane, honey”, Mom said, “And tell her hello for me!”

“Uh… okay…”, Kenny said, like he wasn’t sure. Mom went back inside and closed the door. Kenny looked at me and rolled his eyes around.

“My mom would kill me if I called a grownup by their first name”, he said. “Why doesn’t your mom want to be called Mrs Zale?” I lifted my shoulders up and back down and shook my head to show that I didn’t know.

“My mom says it’s bad manners for a kid to call a grownup by their first name”, he said.

“What does your dad say?” I asked. Kenny was ALWAYS talking about what his mom said, like she was in charge of everything.

“Obey your mother!”, he said, trying to talk like how his dad talked.

More cars came up the street and I got two of them to park next to each other in our driveway. The one guy gave me a dollar and I gave him fifty cents change, but the other had two quarters. That was all we could fit so no car got stuck behind another one parked behind it. Even though it was just four cars, I got $2.50, because that one guy didn’t have “change” and gave me the whole dollar. I stuffed it all in my pocket, because I didn’t have one of those “wallet” things.

“You doing anything?” I asked Kenny. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

“You want to listen to the game on my radio out here so we can hear it from the stadium too?” I asked. He nodded. I ran inside to my room and got my little transistor radio that Margie got me for my birthday when I was five. I turned it on and put it between the “10” and “11” in the little circle until we could hear that crazy “Meeshigan” guy talking about how it was the last game of the year at the stadium and that there looked like a bunch of people wearing orange from Illinois. I thought of those two old guys who had parked their car in our front yard.

VOICE OF “MEESHIGAN” GUY ON THE RADIO: Now a hush settles over the stadium and we all anxiously wait for that simple forward command to emanate out of the PA system. I can hear it now, “Band, take the field!” And out of that eastern tunnel pour two hundred well-drilled well-disciplined Michigan bandsmen. They pour over the eastern sideline and form the big block M, and they play the greatest college fight song ever written, the Michigan “Victors”!

And as we heard the band playing on the radio, we could also hear it for real from the stadium, over there down that Potter street, over all of those houses. It was really, really neat. We heard that guy’s little voice coming out of the radio which was lying in the grass…

That’s when the chills go up and down your spine. You get goose pimples all over and your blood turns maize and blue.

Kenny and I started marching around the front yard around and between the two cars, making sounds like we were two instruments in the band, “Bahn bah, bahn bahn bahn bahn bah, bahn-ba bha, bahn bahn bah…” When I was marching past our kitchen window I saw mom looking out at us, smiling and shaking her head slowly. It felt like our whole town was listening to the game together.

And then we could hear another voice, not coming from the radio, but from the stadium…

And now the maize and blue faithful join in a rousing chorus of the “Victors”!

I could hear just so many people singing that song from the faraway stadium, that song I’d heard SO many times, that dad had sung to David and me at bedtime since I was a little kid, and now that I was a bigger kid, I sang with him. Kenny and I kept marching and we sang along…

Hail! to the victors valiant
Hail! to the conquering heroes
Hail! Hail! to michigan
The leaders and best!

I saw dad peeking out at us from the front door, his lips were pushed together and it looked like there were tears running down from his eyes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen dad cry.

Hail! To the victors valiant
Hail! to the conquering heroes
Hail! Hail! to michigan
The champions of the west!

Kids and grownups, I thought, we were all together on the same team, at least right now, before we went back to our regular different teams.

And the game finally started. That “Meeshigan” guy kept talking on the radio about which team had “the ball”, and who was running or passing or tackling. But that other guy, who we could hear talking from the stadium, would say who “carried” the ball and how many “yards” he got and who tackled him. First the “Meeshigan” guy would say it on the radio, and then that other guy would say it from the stadium. It was really neat!

VOICE OF “MEESHIGAN” GUY ON THE RADIO: Timberlake at halfback now. Chapman takes the snap… rolling right… short pass to Timberlake in the right flat and the big sophomore puts his shoulder down and pounds for eight hard-fought yards. FIRST DOWN, MICHIGAN!
VOICE FROM THE STADIUM: Chapman’s pass completed to Timberlake for a gain of eight yards, tackled by Deller. Ball on the Illinois 43 yard line, first and ten.

So Kenny and I listened to the first half of the game. We both liked it when the “Meeshigan” guy said that Michigan did something good and then we could hear the kind of whooshing noise of all the people cheering faraway. But Michigan was doing really bad so we didn’t hear that very much, and the Illinois team scored a touchdown and kicked a field goal and were ahead ten to zero. Kenny and I would throw my football during the commercials. He would stand on the other side of the parked cars and each of us had to figure out how to try to throw it just over the cars so it came down where the other could catch it. We heard that Roy O’Brien song I had heard so many times…

Stay on the right track
To Nine Mile and Mack
To get the best deal in town
Cuz Roy O’Brien, has the best deal around

They kept playing that Roy O’Brien one over and over. I always wondered what a “deal” was. I thought maybe it was a nickname for a car.

Then it was that “halftime” middle part where they stopped playing for a while and the band played and marched on the field. During other games, dad and I had walked over to the stadium at halftime and just walked right in without a ticket, since they opened all the gates to let people leave and it was really easy to walk in because no one was checking. Dad said it wasn’t exactly “according to Hoyle”, whatever or whoever Hoyle was, but the “price was right”, which meant that you didn’t have to pay any money. And there were plenty of empty seats up in “the nosebleed section”, which he said was the very top of the stadium, even though it didn’t really make your nose bleed. I liked it up there because you could look down and watch the game way below. The players looked like ants. The Michigan ones were blue ants with yellow parts and the other team were white ants. But I also liked looking out from the stadium, because you could see really far, with so many houses and buildings with trees all around them far away.

Dad had told me earlier that he had “papers to grade” so he couldn’t do that today, but I figured I could do that by myself and I could have Kenny come with me.

“You ever been to a game?” I asked him.

He shook his head and looked kind of sad. “Mom always tells me to ask my dad”, Kenny said, “But he says that he doesn’t like ‘American’ football, he likes the REAL football they play in Europe!”

“REAL football”, I asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s the kind where you just kick the ball all over the place with your feet”, he said, “But you're not supposed to touch the ball with your hands. They call it ‘Soccer’ here.” I hadn’t heard that name before but I remembered some older kids playing a game like that in the park.

“You want to see the rest of the game?” I asked. Kenny looked at me really worried. He looked worried a lot, that’s the way Kenny was.

“You can’t go to the stadium without a grownup!” he said.

I lifted my shoulders up and down and made a silly face. “Molly and I used to go to the stadium all the time on our bicycles when she still lived across the street! They weren’t playing a game then, but we still went there”, I said. Then I said what dad would always say to mom. “It’s no big deal”, and it hit me, so that’s what a “deal” was.

“But we don’t have tickets!” he said.

“If you go at halftime you don’t need tickets”, I said. You can just walk right in. They don’t care. Lots of people do it, go in and out.”

“But there are so many people”, he said. Sometimes it WAS scary when there were so many grownup people all around you and you couldn’t tell where you were going because they were all so tall, but I liked pretending I was the big kid when I was with Kenny. He was seven like I was, but he was only in second grade and I was in third.

“They’re just people”, and again I said, “No big deal.” Kenny looked at me like he couldn’t figure out what I was saying, or like I had changed into this strange different person.

“Well I’m gonna go”, I said, “Whether you come along or not.” Kenny looked worried, like he was thinking.

“I’d really like to go”, he said, “But I really should ask my mom!” I figured if he asked his mom she would only let him go if mom or dad came along.

“So if you ask her”, I asked, “What’s she going to say?” He looked sad and looked at the ground.

“No”, he said, then thinking some more, “I’m never going to see a game!”

“Suit yourself”, I said. That was something Amanda at school liked to say when she didn’t want to do what you wanted to do. Kenny looked really worried and like he was doing a lot more thinking.

“How about I walk with you towards the stadium”, he said, “I can do that.” I nodded.

“Let’s go”, I said. And we walked up to Potter, with Almendinger Park across the street, and started walking down Potter towards the stadium. We could hear the sound of the band playing coming from the direction of the stadium. As we walked we talked about what we could buy with the money we got from parking cars. Kenny really liked games. He had Checkers, Parcheesi, Life, Stratego and Yahtzee, but wanted to get Monopoly, Conflict and Careers. When we played together now he would always want to play one. Sometimes he’d even bring one with him when he came over to my house. He said he liked it when his cousins from New Jersey came to visit, because they all got to stay up late and play games. His mom even liked playing games with him sometimes.

I liked playing games too, but not as much as Kenny did. You couldn’t really make your own stories with them like you could with soldiers, ships, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, wooden trains and my girder and panel set. I did like that Pirate and Traveller game because you could move around the whole world. When I told Kenny about that one, he said he wanted to get that one too.

I told Kenny I might buy more track pieces and switches for my Motorific track, along with more little batteries. I liked trying to set up a track where my two Motorific cars could go around by themselves for a long time without crashing into each other. The switches were really neat because when one car went over the switch it went one way, but the next time a car went over that switch it went the other way. So when you had two cars going around the tracks with a lot of switches going different directions, it got really complicated and fun to try to keep the cars from crashing into each other.

While we heard the sound of the band getting a little louder as we got closer to the stadium, we walked and had fun talking about all this stuff we wanted to buy and why we wanted to buy it. We walked up to Main Street, and then up to the corner where we could cross over at the light to the Stadium. Kenny looked across the street at the Stadium and looked worried. There were lots of people, mostly grownups but some kids, going through the open gates out of the stadium, and some other people going back in.

“Are you really going to go in there all by yourself?” he asked. I nodded.

“Sure”, I said. I liked Kenny thinking I could do all this stuff by myself, since I WAS in THIRD GRADE now. But it seemed like he wanted to go with me even if he wasn’t supposed to.

“I won’t be by myself if you come with me”, I said, knowing that would make it harder for him to decide what to do.

“I don’t know”, he said, “I really don’t think I’m supposed to, not without a grownup.” He looked at me. “Won’t your mom and dad get mad”, he asked.

“I can go wherever I want as long as I come home when the streetlights come on”, I said, “Do you tell your mom and dad that you’re going to the park?”

“No”, he said, sounding kind of mad, “But that’s different, the park’s right across the street!” I nodded, thinking.

“But the stadium is just a little bit farther”, I said and then asked, “You walk to Bach School, right?” He nodded.

“Well this isn’t as far as Bach”, I said. He kind of nodded a little bit but was still thinking.

“You’re right”, he said, “But there's way more grownups here.”

“Well”, I said, “Sometimes there are lots of grownups in the park too, like when they are playing those softball games when they have the uniforms.”

“I guess so”, he said, kind of quiet and looking at the ground, “But okay, I’ll go, just so you don’t have to go alone!” He seemed to like that idea that he was helping me, and got happier.

So we crossed Main Street together when the light said it was okay. We walked down to where the stadium gates were open, and people were walking in and out, and we just walked in. It DID feel kind of strange to do it without dad with me, but it also felt really good, like nobody was in charge of me. Kenny was looking all around like someone was going to tell us we weren’t supposed to be there and we’d get in bad trouble. There were other kids there, so the grownups that saw us just looked at us like two more kids. A lot of grownups didn’t even look at kids at all, unless they were being noisy or causing trouble.

I remembered some friend of dad’s saying that in the “old days”, which I figured was way before I was born, maybe even during the Civil War, “children”, that strange word for kids that some grownups like teachers used, “weren’t supposed to speak to grownups unless spoken to”. So even now, it kind of worked that way only backwards. If you were a kid and you didn’t say anything a lot of grownups didn’t even notice you, specially grownup men. Some grownup women, who I guess were more like moms, might notice you and maybe ask if you were all right or needed help. THAT, was usually okay, but only if when you said you WERE okay, they didn’t bother you anymore.

Kenny looked around like he didn’t know what to do, so I showed him where we should go, through that long big tunnel part that went around the inside of the stadium and back out into the even more inside of the stadium where the football field was and all those long metal things you sat on were around it. We were close to where the field was, right over the wall in front of us, and it was filled with mostly grownups. It was mostly grownup men, but there were a few grownup women, and some of them would look at us like they were wondering if we were okay. But just like in the park, if I didn’t look worried, looked like I knew where I was and was having fun, then most grownup women wouldn’t worry about me anymore.

Kenny still looked worried, so I figured we better find another place where there were less people, and places where we could sit, so we looked like we were like everyone else, watching the game. When dad and I had gone into the stadium at halftime before, we had climbed up the stairs to the top part. So I looked around and found where the stairway was, headed over there and started to go up the stairs, with Kenny behind me. Though I had always liked to run up stairs, this was like a giant stairway that went up really far, and each step was really high and felt harder to climb, so I just walked. As we got farther up towards the top there were less and less people sitting on the metal bars. We walked all the way up to the top where there wasn’t anyone, except for a couple other kids, but they were over a ways and were not watching the game but looking out over the edge of the stadium.

I had done that before with dad and it was really neat. I was just tall enough to look over the edge. Though Kenny was a little shorter than me, he could look over too. We could see over to the left the giant grass part where the high school was, that Margie had gone to. And over to the right were lots of houses that we could look down on, with maple trees all around them now without any leaves. And back behind them there was kind of an open space that I figured must be Allmendinger Park. It all looked so different from up here. Kenny thought it was neat too, though we couldn’t figure out where our houses were.

So we turned around and sat down next to each other on one of the long metal things and looked down at the field. The band had finished, but part of the band was sitting in this one part right by the field. They kept playing this same quick song that only had words at the end, “LET’S GO BLUE”, that all the people sitting around the band got to yell out. There were these other guys wearing yellow, with blue “M”s on the front parts of their bodies, standing in front of those band guys and trying to get all the regular people around the band to yell out.

There were two of those giant “scoreboard” things. One was really close to us on our right but hard to see the front so we could see what the score was. The other was way far away at the other end of the stadium but it was easier for us to see. The “Visitors”, that’s what they called the other team instead of their regular name, had ten points and Michigan had zero. Dad and most other grownups or kids would say “nothing”, but I always said “zero”, because I really liked zero after mom told me about how it worked when you were doing problems.

The teams were back on the field. The Michigan guys, with their helmets on, looked like big blue and yellow ants from where we were sitting. The Illinois guys looked like white and red ants. Most of the players were on the side parts of the field, the blue ones together on the left side and the white on the right side.

“Dad said that when Michigan plays a game ‘at home’, which means at this stadium, they wear their darker blue and yellow uniforms”, I said to Kenny, “The other team has to wear their white uniforms, so that if you watch the game on a black and white TV you can tell the difference between the teams.” I liked that dad had told me all that stuff and I could tell it to Kenny so he thought I knew a lot of stuff, and more stuff than he did.

“Hunh”, he said, slowly nodding and thinking.

But some of the blue Michigan guys and white Illinois guys were on the field getting ready to play the second part of the game, getting in “position” on either end of the field for the “kickoff” part.

Dad had told me about how football worked, when we snuck into the second part of other games earlier this fall. About how it started with a “kickoff” and maybe a “runback”. Then the team “with the ball” would do “plays” with running or passing, and try to get “ten yards” in four plays to get a new “first down”, or it would be the other team’s turn “with the ball” to do their own “plays”. But usually, if you didn’t get ten yards in your first three plays, you’d punt on your fourth play, which was kind of like a kickoff, and it would be the other team’s turn.

Teams would try to get their guy with the ball into the other team’s “endzone” to get a “touchdown”, or maybe just close to the other team’s “endzone” to kick a “field goal”, which wasn’t as many points as a “touchdown”. The other team would try to “tackle” the guy with the ball so he couldn’t get very far.

I’d seen kids play football in the park, and even played a few times myself, and we played with different kinds of rules, and we had to figure out those rules before we started playing. It wasn’t like REAL football, though we all liked pretending that it was. Instead of tackling the kid with the ball, we only had to touch him, maybe with just one hand, or maybe with two, depending on the rules we decided on. And we didn’t do the “10 yards” part to get a new first down. Maybe if you passed the ball and your guy caught it, which we called a “complete”, and you got two of those, or two “in a row”, then you would get a new first down.

Kenny had played and watched pretend kid football in the park too, so he knew all that stuff. But the REAL football stuff he didn’t really know, and I tried to tell him everything dad had told me about it but it was hard for him to figure out all at once.

So after they did the kickoff and the teams started doing their plays, Kenny really liked watching it. When the Michigan team did something good, everybody would cheer, which sounded like regular cheering around where we were, but more like a whooshing sound from the people way over on the other side of the stadium. Kenny would get excited and ask me what happened, since he didn’t know football as much as I did, since dad had told me stuff about it. I’d try to figure it out and tell him.

And when the Michigan team got close to the touchdown line, and they got in a line to do their play, everyone stood up and started yelling stuff like “come on” or “you can do it” or just “go blue”. Then that main Michigan quarterback guy started a play and started running sideways with the football. While he was still running he threw it to this other Michigan guy who caught it, crashed into this Illinois guy, but then fell down over the touchdown line.

Now everybody, already standing, just yelled without any words, which usually sounded like “yaaaaaay”, but more like that whooshing sound again from the people farther away. Other kids were standing on their metal bench things and yelling, so Kenny and I climbed up on our metal bench thing and yelled too and held our arms up over our heads.

ANNOUNCER: Chandler completed the pass to Timberlake for four yards and a Michigan touchdown!

Everybody yelled and cheered again, but it was funny, that when I listened to games on the radio with that “Meeshigan” guy telling us what was happening, he would get really really excited when the Michigan team scored a touchdown. But the announcer guy only got a little excited when HE told everybody. Dad said that that was what the announcer was supposed to do, not get excited, and just keep talking regular all the time, because he wasn’t supposed to want either team to win.

Then I couldn’t figure it out, but Michigan got a chance to do another touchdown really close to the touchdown line, but their quarterback guy got tackled before he could throw the ball to someone else.

So then Michigan had to do the kickoff thing again and Illinois started doing their plays. But then on one play, the Illinois quarterback guy threw the ball but a Michigan guy caught it instead of the Illinois guy. Everybody was standing up again and yelling. The Michigan guy almost got to the touchdown line but he got knocked down. The announcer guy said the “pass was intercepted” and that it was “Michigan’s ball, first and goal on the one yard line.” Now it was Michigan’s turn again, and their quarterback got the ball and just went into a big pile of other guys on both teams pushing each other and they all kind of fell down together and that referee guy in the striped shirt ran over and put his arms straight up, which I guess was another touchdown, because everyone was yelling and cheering again.

And then Michigan did that thing again to do another extra touchdown, and this time they did it, but they only got two points instead of six. But they were ahead fourteen to ten. And they kept playing but nobody scored any more touchdowns or other points and it got to the very end of the game when the numbers were going down on the giant scoreboards, fifteen… fourteen… thirteen. Everybody started yelling out the numbers. I remembered hearing this one other time a while ago when dad and I didn’t sneak into the game but we could hear people counting backwards from our house.

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one…” That number counting thing on the scoreboard just showed zeros, but nobody except me said “zero”, they just all yelled and cheered. And then pretty soon all the Michigan band guys were out on the field and playing the Michigan song. Some people were leaving, but others weren’t and sang along. Dad had sung the song to me and David so many times that I know all the words. I think Kenny kind of pretended that he knew the words too.

Hail to the victors valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, hail, to Michigan
The champions of the West

I always wondered about that “west” part, because we didn’t live in that place on TV with mountains and hardly any trees where guys wore cowboy hats and shot guns at each other all the time.

We walked home with lots of other people, mostly grownups. It was fun being part of a happy bunch of people, except for the Illinois people, wearing their orange stuff. But some of the Michigan people would see them and yell nice stuff like “good game”. I remember mom saying, as an “athlete”, she thought it was important to learn to be “both a good winner and a good loser, because you’re probably going to do a lot of both”.

When we got back to my house, the two cars parked in our driveway and one of the two in our front yard was gone. But the car that those two guys from Illinois had was still there. Kenny and I sat on the little wall around the side of our front yard and I turned my transistor radio back on. That “Meeshigan” guy was still talking about the game with the coach guy of the Michigan team.

“There you two are!” It was dad’s voice. He was standing on the other side of those guys’ car, still parked in our front yard. He heard my radio and asked, “So did you listen to the whole game? Michigan actually won one! Their defense really played very well in the second half.”

Then he made a sad face and said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t take you guys over to the game at halftime.” Kenny looked worried and looked at me.

“That’s okay dad”, I said, “I know you were really busy. You know, I made two dollars and fifty cents parking cars, and Kenny made money too!”

“How much did you make, Kenny?” dad asked him.

“Just two dollars, Mr. Zale”, he said. I wondered if dad would tell Kenny to call him “Eric”, but he didn’t.

“That’s really great”, dad said, “Two budding young businessmen.” He nodded and looked happy.

“Anyway”, he said, “Your mom’s taking a nap, and I’m grading papers in the basement, so I’ll bid you both ‘adieu’.” He said funny stuff like that sometimes, especially when mom, or any other grownups weren’t around. He went back in the house.

Those two guys from Illinois finally came back to get their car.

“Well your team one, unfortunately for us”, the one guy said, “But I guess you’d have to say it was a good game. Too bad you boys couldn’t see the game!”

I usually didn’t talk to grownups, specially ones I didn’t know. But I had talked to these guys earlier and it was fun, ao I thought I’d just talk to them like they were kids like me.

“Well”, I said using that word more like a grownup, “We went to the second part of the game.” Kenny looked worried when I said that, but I kept talking. “At halftime you can just walk right in!”

“Did one of your dad’s take you?” he asked.

“Nah”, I said, feeling really neat like I was an older kid now, “Kenny and I just went by ourselves.”

“Wow”, he said, “Do your parents know?”

“Well”, I said it again, and it felt good again, “They just tell us to come home when the streetlights come on.”

“Well”, he said, “Call me impressed, and thanks for the use of your front yard.” He stuck out his hand to shake hands with me. Mom and dad told me that I shouldn’t just hold out my hand, but grab the other person’s and squeeze it when I shook. “Grownup men respect a strong handshake”, mom and dad said. So I grabbed his hand before he could grab mine and squeezed.

“Good man”, he said, ao I guess it worked. Kenny held out his hand but he didn’t know the special rules so the guy had to grab his hand and shake it for him. Then his friend shook both our hands too. They got in their car, made it slowly go backwards back onto the street, and then drove down towards the big high school and that Stadium street.

“I should go home”, Kenny said, looking worried again. “What if my mom and dad ask me where I was?” he asked, “They always figure out when I’m lying.” I was now worried that if they found out they’d tell mom and dad what we did.

Still feeling like a big kid, a THIRD GRADER while Kenny was only in second, I said, “I’ll tell them, so you don’t have to lie.” I figured lying to your own parents was harder than lying to somebody else's.

We walked in Kenny’s front door and his mom was in the kitchen. She looked out of the kitchen and saw us.

“There you are young man”, his mom said, “And welcome Cooper, we don’t usually have the pleasure of you coming into our home. Can I get you two a glass of orange juice?” I shook my head.

“I gotta go home”, I said, “But Kenny made two dollars and I made two fifty parking cars, and then we listened to the game on the radio. Michigan won!”

“That’s nice”, she said, “Cooper, you’re a good friend to Kenny!”

Yep, I thought, better than she even knew!

Clubius Contained Part 13 - Third Grade (October 1962)

leftyparent

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 06, 2023 · 1:48 PM PDT

2023/09/06 · 13:48

Last night I was watching TV, but mom came down and said she wanted “to hear what President Kennedy has to say about what’s happening in Cuba.” Dad was already down in the basement at his desk. He turned around in his wood office chair to watch too.

That “news” show came on with that Walter Cronkite guy. When the TV showed him, he turned his head and looked out of the TV at us.

Cronkite: Please standby for a statement by President Kennedy on the evolving situation in Cuba.

Then the picture changed to that President Kennedy guy standing behind this little table with that circle thing with a picture of an eagle in the middle with the red and white stripes.

Kennedy: Good evening, my fellow citizens. This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week unmistakable evidence had established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purposes of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

“Oh Jesus”, mom said, putting her head down and her hand on her hand above her eyes. Dad didn’t say anything. Some kids said that that “Jesus” guy was in that Bible book and that he was either god or the “son of god”. Other people said it was swearing. That seemed strange.

That President Kennedy guy kept talking about a bunch of stuff about how Cuba had “communist missiles” and how it was becoming a big “base” for the Soviet Union. Then he said…

Kennedy: To halt this offensive build-up, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.

“It’s about time!” dad said, shaking his head. Mom looked at him and pushed her lips together, thinking.

Kennedy: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

I looked at dad. He shook his head and blew air out of his mouth and looked worried, but didn’t look at me. I guess men had to be tough and ready to fight, even if it was shooting nuclear missiles at each other rather than guns and mortars and tanks. I looked at mom. She looked worried too, but also kind of fierce. She saw me looking at her and her eyes got less fierce.

“Oh sweetie”, she said, shaking her head, “It’s a challenging world we live in, trying to keep our contest with the Soviet Union from turning into a war. But Jack Kennedy is really smart, so I for one trust his judgment, and that he’ll do the right thing.” When you “trusted” someone, you didn’t worry that they would do something stupid.

Mom always liked grownups who were “smart” and kids who were “bright”, which I guess was the same thing as smart, but for kids, since we didn’t know very much yet. If I always tried to do things that were smart, then mom would trust me too and not try to be in charge of me.

Kennedy: The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high - but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

I wondered about that surrendering stuff. In the Civil War, that General Lee guy who was in charge of the Confederates, he surrendered, and that was a good thing. In a war, like a game, somebody won and somebody lost. In a game, if you lost, you were supposed to be a “good loser” and not be mad at the other team that beat you. In a war, if you lost, you were supposed to surrender. In the Civil War the Confederates surrendered. In World War Two, the Germans and the Japanese surrendered. I mean they were badguys, but THEY didn’t THINK they were badguys. If they never surrendered, would we still be fighting them today?

Kennedy: Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right - not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this Hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

All those grownup men on TV, like President Kennedy, who were in charge of stuff, usually said something about god when they sounded worried. The grownup men that I knew, like dad, his friends, and my friends’ dads, DIDN'T talk about god, even WHEN they were worried.

This all sounded really bad and made me worried. Were those Soviet Union guys going to fight a war with us and shoot missles. I pretended in my mind seeing the giant hydrogen bomb explosion with that “mushroom cloud” that I had seen on TV. Ricky said that if you looked at the explosion it would “fry your eyes out” before it “melted your skin off” and you were dead. I wondered what it would be like to be dead.

I looked at mom and dad. Dad was still blowing air out of his mouth and shaking his head, but didn’t look back at me. Mom still looked worried and like she was thinking very hard. She finally looked at me.

“Sweetie”, she said, “Do you understand what’s going on?”

“I think so”, I said, but I didn’t say anymore.

“This is like a very serious game”, she said, “Between our country and the Soviet Union. Each side makes a move and then the other side makes their move. We just have to hope all our leaders, and their leaders too, are smart enough to work this out without wanting to start a damn war.”

“I still don’t trust Kruschev”, dad said, shaking his head slowly, “He’s just another two-bit Stalin.”

“Well I trust Jack Kennedy”, mom said, “I don’t think we’ve ever had a brighter mind in the President’s chair.” I remembered mom saying that Molly and I were “bright” kids, like that was really good. I remembered her saying that it should be a GAME between us and the Soviet Union instead of a war, where both sides tried to win but not kill anybody with their bombs.

She looked at me really hard like she was trying to figure out what I was thinking. “I bet this is pretty scary for you Cloob. Right?” I remembered that dad said he wasn’t brave in the war, he just tried to “do his job”. I thought about Lieutenant Cord who was brave but got killed when the Martian dinosaurs attacked. Men were supposed to be brave or they were “cowards” or even “sissies”. Or at least they had to do their jobs like dad said. Us boys pretended we were brave so that maybe someday we could really be brave and fight in a war against badguys. I figured I should at least pretend to be brave.

“I’m okay”, I said.

“Are you sure?” mom asked, like she didn’t think I was saying what I was really thinking. I remember dad saying he was okay when I could tell he really wasn’t, like when he burned his hand on that frying pan on the stove. I guess that was being brave.

So I nodded and said, “I’m okay.” I remembered when I saw President Kennedy talk at that Union place before he got to be the President. “President Kennedy will figure it out”, I said. I figured mom would like that.

Mom nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

***

The next morning, walking to school, I was thinking that I had been in third grade for six weeks now and it was hard and not very fun. I still liked seeing my school friends, Gabe, Jake, Herbie and Amanda, mainly when we went outside for recess. That was fun, but other stuff wasn’t. The teacher Mrs. Rodney was older, and not as nice as our other teachers had been. She didn’t let us talk to each other much in class, and at free reading time, she didn’t let us sit together at a table, we had to sit by ourselves at our desks. And when she asked us questions we always had to raise our hands if we knew the answers. I usually knew the answers so I would raise my hand a lot and tell her if she called on me, so she’d think I was good.

Herbie and Amanda liked her, because they said she didn’t talk to us like we were stupid little kids, but more like we were “regular people”, which I guess meant like grownups. But I liked our first grade teacher Miss Zimmerman better, because even though she talked to us like kids, she didn’t think we were stupid, and she seemed more like an older kid herself.

Mrs. Rodney gave us pieces of paper called “homework”, that we were supposed to work on when we got home and bring back the next morning and give to her. They were usually “definitions”, where you had to write down what each word meant, or “problems” where you had to do adding and subtracting, like second grade, but also “multiplying” or “dividing”, which we hadn’t done before. She would “check” them and give them back to us and put a red check by the ones we got right and a circle around the ones we got wrong. If we gave her our “homework” with all our answers she would put a silver star on our paper and give it back to us. And if we got all the answers right, she would put a gold star instead, because gold was better than silver I guess. She would also put the same color star on this bulletin board on the wall that had all our names down the side and the days of the week across the top, so we all could look at it and see who was doing the best, which was usually Amanda or Mary.

All the kids in the park who were older than me said that third grade was harder than second grade or first grade, and that Mrs. Rodney was really “strict”. Even mom said that it was harder. She said that you learned “basic stuff about reading, writing and math” in first and second grade, but now in third grade you learned more complicated stuff about how to use all those “basic skills” to now learn more “complicated skills” for figuring stuff out.

“For example Coop”, she said, grinning, “In order to learn how to multiply or divide big numbers, something you have to do in the real world, first you need to know how to add and subtract.”

“And”, she said, raising her hand, pointing her finger up and wiggling it, “You have to know how to multiply small numbers, like one through twelve, in your head, without even thinking about it, by memorizing what they call the ‘times table’.”

“Timetable?” I asked. I had heard that word before and seen it in books.

“No”, she said, “The TIMES table. The basic multiplication table. When you multiply, you’re adding the same number over and over again. So like four plus four equals eight, right? That’s adding. But you could also say you’re adding four TWO TIMES, or ‘four times two equals eight’. And if you add four plus four plus four, then you’re adding four THREE TIMES, or ‘four times three equals twelve’.”

“And THEN”, she said, making her eyes open really wide, “You can multiply and divide really big numbers by just using a pencil and paper and the basic adding and subtracting that you’ve already learned, plus the times table that you’ve memorized.”

“Memorized?” I asked.

“Yeah”, she said, nodding her head and thinking, “Memorizing is like learning all the words to a song so you can sing them perfectly without having to have them written down so you can read them while you sing.” I nodded. That made sense.

Then she made a pretend sad face and said, “But memorizing the Times Table is not much fun, not like memorizing a song you like to sing. I remember I had a really tough time memorizing the Times Table when I was in third grade.” I frowned. I still couldn’t imagine mom, dad, or any grownup ever being a kid like me.

“But don’t worry”, she said, shaking her head and waving her hand in front of her face, “You’ll have to work hard at it but you’ll figure it out. And for the rest of your life you’ll remember it, and be able to use it to do all sorts of complicated math problems, even how much fuel to put in your rocketship to get to the moon!”

***

Gabe said Mrs. Rodney was “sneaky”, because she always made us do hard stuff that we didn’t want to do before recess, which was our favorite thing. This morning before recess she did those “times tables” again that mom had told me about.

“Let’s try to make this more fun”, she said, and then she looked around at all of us and asked, “Who wants to start?”

About half the kids raised their hands, including me, all my friends, and Mary. She picked this girl Sarah, who was one of Mary’s friends. Most of the other girls in class were Mary’s friends, except for Amanda, who didn’t like Mary at all. Herbie said the other girls liked Mary because she was the prettiest girl and she also got the most gold stars on her homework on the bulletin board, except for Amanda, who ALWAYS got gold stars.

“Okay”, said Mrs. Rodney, “I will say the first multiplication problem and Sarah, you’ll try to answer it. If you get it right, I’ll give the next problem to Millie behind you. If you don’t know the answer, or get it wrong, I’ll ask Millie the same problem and we’ll continue down the row. When we get to the end of the row I’ll start at the front of the room with the next row and work my way back. You’ll all get the hang of it, and even figure out when your turn is coming up and maybe even be ready with the answer before I even ask you.”

“Okay ready?” she asked all of us. I nodded, and most everyone else nodded too.

“One times one”, Mrs. Rodney said to Sarah.

“One”, said Sarah, then looking behind at Millie. Mrs. Rodney took a step toward Millie’s desk.

“One times two”, she said to Millie.

“Two”, said Millie. Mrs. Rodney took a step towards the girl sitting behind her at the end of the row.

“One times three.”

“Three”, that girl said. Mrs. Rodney walked up to the first desk in the next row closer to the windows and continued down the row. Everyone was getting them right, but they were “one times” and “two times”, so they were easy.

When she got to me it was two times five, which was ten, and I answered that. These “two times” problems were super easy, because since the way she asked them, you just had to add two to the last answer to get the next one. When she got to Gabe he knew it was going to be two times eight, which was 16.

“Sixteen”, he said, before she even asked him the question. She laughed through her nose and said, nodding her head, “That’s right Gabe, but please, I’d like everyone to hear the problem first before they hear the answer.”

It was the new kid Joey that was the first to mess up when she asked him “three times seven”, and he didn’t know.

“Damn!” he said.

“JOEY!” she said in a very fierce voice, “You will never hear me use those kinds of words in class, and I expect you, and all my other students, will not use them either. If you swear again I’ll send you to see the principal.” That’s what she always said she would do, and one time, when Herbie told everyone that Mary was wearing pink underwear, he had to go to the principal’s office. Joey looked really mad but just looked down and didn’t say anything.

I had talked to Joey in the park a couple times in the summer. He had moved to Ann Arbor from a place called “Kalamazoo”, which was a strange name for a city. He always liked to tell me how good he was at everything, which made me want to tell him how good I was at stuff too. Older kids called it “bragging”.

So we got up to the “six times” and then most kids didn’t know the answers. I didn’t know them either, but Amanda and Mary still knew them, but Mrs. Rodney decided to stop.

“Okay”, she said, “That’s enough for today. You are all doing pretty well, and if you all keep practicing, we can get up to ‘twelve times twelve’.”

“One hundred and forty-four”, said Amanda. Mary made a grunting noise, like she wanted to say that first, and pulled her arms around her chest and shook her head back and forth.

Mrs. Rodney looked at Amanda and grinned, then looked at Mary and said, “Mary my dear, this is not supposed to be a competition. The multiplication table is just something you all need to learn in third grade. It is a lot of memorizing I know, but if all of you practice every day, and we practice in class, I feel you will be able to learn it.”

She clapped her hands together and said, “Well now, there is something VERY IMPORTANT we need to do after recess this morning. We will have a ‘civil defense drill’. This is nothing to worry about, just a routine precaution that all school children in the country are required to participate in. I will explain more after recess. Now everyone please line up at the door in…”. A lot of us started jumping up from our desks and headed for the wall of the classroom by the door.

“STOP”, she said with a loud fierce voice. Everyone stopped and turned and looked at her. “THANK YOU”, she said, still loud and fierce, “Now please all of you line up in an orderly fashion. Once you are all quietly lined up and looking at me, Then I will open the door and I expect you to WALK out through the hall also in an ORDERLY fashion.” She looked at all of us and said, “Is that clear?” Everybody nodded, except for Amanda.

“Amanda?” Mrs. Rodney asked, “Do you have a problem with this?”

“No”, Amanda said to her, not fierce at all, “I already always walk out in an orderly fashion so I don’t have a problem, so I don’t have to nod.”

Mary made a clicking noise with her mouth like she thought Amanda said something bad.

“MARY”, Mrs. Rodney said, fierce again, “Do YOU have a problem with what Amanda said?”

“Amanda should have nodded”, Mary said.

“Is that any of your business?” asked Mrs. Rodney. Mary looked worried and like she was thinking.

“Uhh…”, she said, “No?” like she wasn’t sure that was the right answer and was asking.

“That’s right”, said Mrs. Rodney, slowly nodding her head, “It’s not.” Then she walked to the door and opened it.

“Okay”, she said, “Please walk quietly through the hall to the outside doors.” We all walked out. Amanda, as usual, was the last one.

When we all got out in the playground behind the school, Gabe waited for Amanda and then walked next to her.

“Why didn’t you nod when Mrs. Rodney asked if it was clear?” he asked her. Herbie, Jake, Lenny and I all heard him ask and moved towards Gabe and Amanda to hear what she was going to say.

She did one of those “sigh” things where you blow air out of your nose kind of loud.

“Because Mrs. Rodney should already know that I always do what she tells us to do”, she said, kind of mad, “I’m already clear, so I shouldn’t have to nod like I wasn’t already clear.”

Gabe really liked Amanda so I could tell he thought that what she did was really neat. But Herbie liked to tease girls, and Amanda too.

“Sooo”, Herbie said to her, “You think you’re such a tough guy!”

Amanda looked at him fiercely and shook her head. “I’m not a GUY, Herbert”, she said.

“Did you guys…”, Gabe started to say, but he stopped talking and looked at Amanda, “And you too Amanda. Did you see President Kennedy on TV last night?” Amanda, Jake and I nodded. Herbie and Lenny shook their heads.

“We’re going to blockade Cuba”, Gabe said, “Just like the Union did to the Confederates in the Civil War!”

“Yeah”, said Jake, “So the Russians can’t send them any more nuclear missiles.”

“I know”, said Gabe, sounding kind of mad, “I was just going to say that.”

Theo heard us talking and came over. “My brother said that when you blockade a country that’s an act of war!” he said.

“We’ve got more nuclear bombs than the Russians do so we’d win”, said Herbie.”

Amanda made a clicking noise with her mouth, that she did when she thought something was stupid. “HERBERT”, she said, “So we blow up millions more of them than they do of us. Still millions of us get blown up!”

“Yeah Herbie”, Gabe said, “As a brighter than the sun nuclear explosion fries your eyeballs and melts your skin off your bones, at least for your last thought you can think, ‘This is happening to more Russians than to us… that’ll show ‘em’!” Jake and Theo started to laugh, and I laughed too. Amanda didn’t laugh very much, she grinned and shook her head.

Herbie looked at all of us laughing at him and said, “We’d still win!”

I’d heard that “frying your eyeballs and melting the skin off your bones” stuff before about nuclear explosions. But hearing Gabe say it again made me pretend what it would be like, your skin melting down to just your skeleton. How would that feel? Would it hurt so bad you’d WANT to be dead? It made me really worried, and I wondered if it could really happen.

We all looked at each other and no one said anything more. I wondered how we could stop it from happening. But we were just kids, what could we do? It wasn’t fair! We liked to pretend that things got blown up, and even liked to pretend sometimes that WE got blown up. But not for real.

At the end of recess, as we all followed Mrs. Rodney back into our classroom, there was one of those “projector” things set up in the middle of our room and a “film” screen was opened up in the front of the room behind her. She clapped her hands together and said, “Okay class, now everyone please take your seats and please, no talking!” We had seen this projector before to watch movies about stuff that had happened a long time ago, or science stuff about plants and animals.

“It’s time for our very important civil defense drill”, she said. I could tell Mrs. Rodney was worried but was also trying not to look worried. Gabe looked across the room at me and he made his eyes really big.

“First I’d like us all to watch this film”, she said, clapping her hands together again, “And then we can practice ourselves.” All of us kids were looking at our friends, and many of us were starting to talk quietly to each other.

“No talking please”, Mrs. Rodney said again fiercely, “I need all of you to watch and listen to this carefully.” She went over to the windows and pulled those “shade” things down on each one so we couldn’t see the outside anymore. Then she went over to the projector and turned it on. It started making its special noise and I could see a light come on inside it that made a movie picture on the screen in the front of the room. There was that box thing that the sound came out of on her desk that made a crackling noise at first. Then Mrs. Rodney turned off the lights.

The picture was a cartoon of a turtle guy walking like a regular person down a road with trees behind it. There were voices like grownups singing a silly song with stupid words for kids.

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) Dum dum, deedle dum dum

Then the voices started singing regular words as the turtle guy continued to walk down the road.

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) There was a turtle by the name of Bert and Bert the turtle was very alert.

(A lit firecracker appears on a string just behind his head.)

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) When danger threatened him he never got hurt, he knew just what to do.

(A monkey in the tree above him holds a long stick with that lit firecracker on a string from the end. The turtle turns and sees the firecracker about to explode and grabs his head with his hands, drops down on the ground and goes into his shell. The firecracker explodes.)

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) He ducked, and covered. He ducked, and covered.

Then the movie showed the same part again with the monkey holding the stick with the firecracker on the string on the end and the turtle looking back and seeing it.

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) He did what we all must learn to do. You and you and you and you.

(The turtle drops and hides in its shell again as the firecracker explodes again.)

SINGING VOICES: (off screen) Duck, and cover!

Then there was a different grownup man’s voice talking instead of singing.

MAN’S VOICE: (off screen) Be sure and remember what Bert the turtle did, friends, because everyone of us must remember to do the same thing. That’s what this film is all about!

Then the words were there on the screen, “Duck and Cover”, and that man’s voice said them too.

Then the movie showed a grownup man teacher in front of a class of kids that looked like they were our age. He said something that we couldn’t hear and all the kids got down on the floor under their desks and put their hands on their heads.

MAN’S VOICE: (off screen) That is why these children are practicing to duck and cover, just like you do in your school. We all know the atomic bomb is very dangerous. Since it may be used against us, we must get ready for it.

Then there was more stuff in the movie about being safe from fires and from cars.

MAN’S VOICE: (off screen) We must be ready for a new danger, the atomic bomb. First, you need to know what happens when an atomic bomb explodes. You’ll know when it comes. We hope it never comes, but you must get ready. It looks something like this. There’s a bright flash, brighter than the sun, brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. If you’re not ready, do not know what to do, it can hurt you in many ways.

Then they showed a cartoon with a tree and a house. There is that bright flash and the tree breaks up into pieces that are blown away by a giant wind. The house gets wrecked too and leans over in the wind but doesn’t fall down completely. While we watched this the man’s voice kept talking.

MAN’S VOICE: (off screen) It could knock you down hard. Or throw you against a tree or a wall. It is such a big explosion it can smash in buildings and knock sign boards over and break windows all over town.

Then we see that Burt the turtle guy going into his shell while the big explosion and all the wind happens around him.

MAN’S VOICE: (off screen) But if you duck and cover, like Bert, you will be much safer.

Mrs. Rodney turned off the projector. None of us kids said anything.

“I think that’s enough for you all to get the idea”, she said, “I know it’s pretty scary, and we know our government in Washington is working hard to make sure it never happens. But just in case, we all need to know how to stay safe.”

Gabe, still sitting at his desk, put his hand up.

“A question, Gabe?” she asked.

“They don’t use atom bombs anymore”, he said, “They use hydrogen bombs! They’re a lot bigger!”

“Yes Gabe, you’re right”, she said, “This film is somewhat out of date, but the same safety rules apply now.” She walked up to the front of the room, turned and looked at all of us and clapped her hands together. She clapped her hands together a lot!

“Okay boys and girls”, she said, “We need to practice our own duck and cover drill.” A lot of kids nodded. I looked around the room and most kids looked worried like I was. Even my friends look worried, except maybe Gabe.

“When I say so”, she said, “I want all of you to get on your knees under the front part of your desks and then put your head down to the ground with your hands over your head.” She tried to look at everybody in the room.

“Okay, ready?” she said, “We all see the bright flash of light in the sky outside! What do we do?”

All us kids did our best to get under our desks. It wasn’t easy because our desks were small and there wasn’t much room between the metal “leg” parts of our desks. Everybody was looking around at everybody else. You could see some of the girls’ underwear if they were wearing dresses.

“No looking around everyone”, Mrs. Rodney said, “We’re supposed to put our heads to the floor, close our eyes and cover our head with our hands. I’m seeing a lot of open eyes down there!” Most kids tried to do that. A few others looked like they couldn’t figure it out.

Herbie, on his hands and knees under his desk, looked at our teacher and asked, “What about you Mrs. Rodney? Don’t you need to do it too?”

“HERBIE”, she said fiercely, “No more talking out of you. If it were for real, of course I would be down there on the floor with the rest of you. But this is a DRILL, and I need to watch all of you to make sure you do it correctly!”

“Got it!” said Herbie. But he didn’t sound like he really did. He sounded like he figured our teacher was just another grownup telling us stuff that wasn’t true. Other kids figured that out too and were laughing a little bit.

“QUIET everyone!” she said, “I want to see everyone with their eyes closed, head against the floor and hands over your head.” She waited and I guess everyone did it that way.

“Okay”, she said, “That finally looks good. Now we’re going to try it one more time. Everyone up, and back in your seats. Let’s see how quickly we all can do it this time.”

So we did it a second time and everyone tried to do it quickly. Most of us boys tried to do it really quickly, trying to be the first one to do both the duck and the cover parts. Joey banged his head against the metal part of his desk chair and said, “Ouch!” Some of the boys and girls around him laughed. When my forehead touched the cold floor I couldn’t help pretending that all the houses around the school were getting wrecked and the trees blown apart and the glass of our big windows were breaking.

I opened one eye, with my hands still over my head and I saw Gabe, looking at me from under his desk through another desk between us. He said in a quieter voice so Mrs. Rodney couldn’t hear him, “We’d be SO dead right now!”

“Okay”, Mrs. Rodney said, “That was MUCH better!” She clapped her hands together three times.

“Okay”, she said again, “Everybody up! Joey? Are you all right?”

“Yeah I’m fine”, he said, standing up and pretending he couldn’t walk right and moving his head around like he was dizzy, which made the kids around him laugh again, especially the girls, which he liked.

Pretty soon the bell rang and it was time to go home for lunch. Gabe and I walked up Fifth Street together, the way home to both our houses.

“That duck and cover thing is pretty stupid”, he said, “If you aren’t killed by the explosion you’ll get killed by the radiation! That’s what my dad said.”

“Grownups think they can tell us stuff that isn’t really true”, I said, “Because they think if they do we won’t worry about it.” I was using that “true” word now, instead of saying “right”, and also that not true word, “lie”.

“Yeah”, he said, “Pretty stupid. See you back at school after lunch!” He went across Fifth Street and up his street towards his house.

As I now walked by myself up Fifth Street towards the park, I still pretended what I saw in that movie that our teacher showed. A bright flash, like looking in the sun where it hurts your eyes, but everywhere. All the trees coming apart and the houses getting wrecked and leaning over broken. The wind from the bomb full of parts of trees and houses and maybe even people too. I wondered if I’d be dead before I knew what was happening. Or would I have just enough time to know that we were all getting dead at the same time while my body melted off my skeleton. What would that feel like, to know you were going to be dead, but you were not dead yet? Would I be more scared than I had ever been before with no one around to help me? Would mom and dad already be dead?

Then I wondered what would happen when I was dead. Some kids said that when you were dead you went up to the “gates of heaven”, but there was this Saint Peter guy who had to figure out if you should go to Heaven or Hell. Not that Hell place up by Silver Lake that dad took us to, but the real Hell place, under the ground or wherever they said it was. Those kids said that if I didn’t believe in God, even if I’d been good, I would still have to go to Hell, and go there FOREVER! That was pretty scary.

I wondered if I needed to believe in God, at least a little bit, just in case there really was one. I mean if you believed in God and there wasn’t one, then that really wasn’t a problem, I figured you were just the same dead anyway. But if you didn’t believe and there was one, then that was a really big problem. But how did you figure out if God was real and not just pretend. Some of the kids in the park believed in him and said he was this old guy in the sky with a beard that told you the stuff you’re supposed to do. But I had never seen him and he had never told me anything. I’d never even wanted to pretend he was real. I wanted to figure stuff out for myself, or ask mom or dad if I couldn’t. I didn’t need this God guy in charge of me telling me what I should do or shouldn’t do.

I think a lot of grownups believed in God too, but I never asked mom or dad if they did. I was afraid they might say, “Of course we believe in God, don’t you?”. Then they’d figure out maybe I didn’t, and think that I was a really bad kid.

So was I ready to go to Hell if I didn’t believe in God and he was really up there, in that Heaven place? I didn’t want to have to read that scary Bible book and do all the things it told me to do. I didn’t want anyone to be in charge of me, not grownups or anybody. So I figured, at least for now, I wasn’t going to believe in god, and I was going to “hope” that I didn’t get killed by a nuclear bomb. You “hoped” something when you really wanted it to be “true”, but you weren’t sure it would be. But I also figured I was going to have to keep worrying about it, maybe forever.

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