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Nostalgia

Shock and Schlock

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I was going on 12 years of age when the commercials for a new night time show were being announced on TV called Shock Theater, declaring that the first movie shown would be Frankenstein. I had to see that film. The problem was that the new program was scheduled for 10pm, my bedtime.

The week prior to the event was spent trying to persuade my parents to let me stay up and view this classic horror movie. I knew every other kid in school would be up watching it and I didn’t want to be left out. It was the weekend, there was no school the next day and I promised I would get up the next morning when awakened. I had a chance.

There were two rules about sleeping and waking in my father’s house. You went to bed when told and you got up when told. No variation, no exception. Bedtime was at 10pm and Shock Theater was debuting the same hour. I needed to persuade my father that I was old enough to handle the additional hour and a half one night a week. I knew if I could swing it this once, the following weeks would be easy. I needed help.

I had already seen the movie “Them” about giant ants and “The Beginning of the End,” about giant grasshoppers (there were a few giant mutant creature film back then regarding the effects of atomic blasts) at the local Will Rogers movie theater and used that experience to support the fact I could handle horror films.

I gained my mother and grandmother’s support in allowing me to stay up and watch Frankenstein. They had seen it in the 1930’s and concluded it could not be as scary as back then, being on a small screen and dated. Finally, my father gave in and allowed me to stay up to watch.

The big night arrived. We had all washed and got in our pajamas as mom made a big bowl of stove top popped corn laden with butter and salt. We sat around the television, me on the floor with a bottle of Coca Cola, ready to be scared, but not to the degree I would be sent to bed, deemed not mature enough to handle Boris Karloff.

The Shock Theater sign came on and shattered like a pane of glass, revealing a talking skull who invited us to come in as the camera moved to a dingy, dank looking cellar with barred windows. There, standing to greet us, was a guy named Marvin who looked like a beatnik with black turtleneck sweater and suit with very thick lensed glasses with black frames.

It actually was kinda funny and not scary at all. He had an assistant, his wife, named “Dear.” Her face was always hidden. Marvin would grab her by the hand and her entire arm would come out of the socket (obviously a mannequin). And after the opening foolery, Frankenstein began.

In weeks to follow, I was allowed to watch Dracula, The Werewolf, Bride of Frankenstein and the Mummy. This was partially due to the fact I survived the first late night encounter and that my parents also wanted to see these classics again. At school, we played monster hunters and mad scientists instead of Cowboys and cops, for quite some time after.

Over the next two years I was introduced to classic horror films along with Marvin who added a musical group called the Deadbeats and another assistant wearing a rubber Frankenstein mask called “Shorty.” These breaks in the movie were sometimes more entertaining than the film.

Best of all was Marvin’s wife who was subjected to all types of misfortune throughout the evening. “Dear” never showed her face and her back was always toward the camera, or her features obscured by a placard or prop and she was always losing an arm or leg, subjected to accidental mayhem in helping Marvin with his experiments. Shock Theater ended after two years to be followed later on by another host, Svenghoulie and Screaming Yellow Theater in the 1960’s.

Because I had been allowed to watch these horror classics, I was drawn to the movies of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Not just horror, but others such as Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon. And I was allowed to stay up since I had recently become a teenager.

I owe my infatuation with obscure and classic movies to a strange little man with super thick glasses in a black turtleneck named Marvin and, of course, my father, who suspended one of his rules and allowed me to stay up late one night in 1957 to watch Frankenstein.

Little Orley

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One thing I hated as a kid was soggy cereal. The first two or three spoonfuls of cornflakes were okay but then they went limp in the milk and were like eating shreds of soggy paper. My father ate shredded wheat which looked like something you would clean pots and pans with, a Brillo or SOS pad, and I think that is what made him mean.

I stayed with Cheerios and Kix during the summer and Oatmeal or Malt-o-meal in the winter, with bananas. Always bananas. Breakfast was at the kitchen table and we listened to the radio perched on the top of the refrigerator.

I listened, while eating breakfast, to a show I no longer remember the name of, but do remember it broadcast a series of adventures segments titled Little Orley. The daily adventure started my day and then it was off to school.

Being on radio, the verbal adventures of Little Orley allowed my imagination to run on as I listened to the exploits, oft repeated as I believe there were only 12 adventures in all, and each time, even though I may have heard it before, new images were conjured up in my mind of what was transpiring over the air waves.

Little Orley was a five minute adventure relayed to us listeners by Uncle Lumpy. That’s right, Uncle Lumpy, who told us the stories of a backwoods farm boy while accompanied by music and sound effects. I later learned that Lumpy Brannam was a musician with Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, a well known orchestra in the 1940’s nd 50’s and the whole series of stories were concocted by Brannum as part of their musical presentations over the radio.

As I kid, I didn’t know that and just enjoyed the exploits of a little boy who found a magic bass fiddle, a strange musical haunted house and meeting up with a chicken who blew bubble gum so large it rolled down the farmland fields picking up animals and people and whatever got stuck in its mass until it finally exploded (the gum bubble, not the chicken).

After I had my tonsils out, my father bought me the entire 78rpm, 6 record collection of Little Orley Tales. I was so elated I took them to school to show everyone. Sister Mary Spoilsport made me put them in the rear coat room until after school. When I went back to retrieve them they were gone. I was devastated. I never learned who took my records but realized it had to be during lunch when I ran home to watch the Happy Pirates on TV.

I told my parents and there was a meager attempt, I think, on the part of the school to recover the records and catch the culprit. I sometimes wonder if it were the nuns themselves who took them back to the convent to listen to after evening vespers.

I never forgot Little Orley and, in the 1970’s and 80’s as I set up at the flea markets, I looked around hoping to find a set to replace the one lost. There were none to be found. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I searched around on eBay and found a two record set available and it had the bubble gum and haunted house episodes that I has enjoyed as a kid 50 years earlier. I won the auction for only five dollars and waited anxiously for the package to arrive. Once again I would hear the voice of Uncle Lumpy after half a century of waiting.

As I listened to the stories again, I asked myself what was so special about these dumb vignettes that made me remember them so much. The realization came that it was not the stories but the venue.

It was a time when, for me, life was simple, secure and adventurous. Mom making breakfast, Dad grimacing as he swallowed his shredded wheat, the tall glass of Ovaltine and soggy cereal for me, the smell of fresh baked bread on the kitchen counter and the chirping of birds outside the window as the scent of garden lilacs wafted through the screened kitchen window.

Yeah, it wasn’t about the stories, it was the stage they were presented on. That is the meaning of nostalgia, the part we miss the most. Little Orley just reminded me of those times we shared his adventures together when we were both nine years old.

Duck and Cover

If the Russians ever wanted to surprise attack us during the 1950’s, it would be at 10:30am on a Tuesday morning. That’s when the air raid sirens went off.

I grew up in an era of fear of nuclear annihilation. Those sirens went off like clockwork every week and they were loud and lasted several minutes. Folks knew if they heard them any other time, it would not be a practice test. One evening, in 1959, the sirens went off and had all of Chicago saying their prayers.

It was a different world in 1959, a distrusting world, a world of Joe McCarthy and communists living next door or under your bed. It was a time when the air raid sirens went off every Tuesday morning at 10:30. Short blasts meant you had time to take cover and prepare. A long steady blast meant hit the dirt. In school we would practice the duck-and-cover routines, hiding under a desk or crouched along a corridor wall covering our eyes with our hands. People built bomb shelters underground or in their basement, food and water were stored away as each day could be your last.

Even as kids, we kinda realized that hiding under a desk or in a hallway would not help too much, but that is what they told us to do on television, even on the kiddie shows. Duck and Cover was a popular song at the time and they even had a cartoon. And every Tuesday morning we were reminded of the cataclysmic possibilities.

Some will say it was the over enthusiastic fire commissioner, Robert Quinn, who ordered the sirens to howl, but many thought that “Da Boss,” Richard J Daley, had to have been at least aware, if not approving the order himself.

It was Tuesday night, September 22nd, as my family was getting ready for bed. Dad was not much of a sports fan when it came to the Chicago White Sox, so he would wait until tomorrow to find out who won the pennant. Instead, we watched Red Skelton and Garry Moore shows. Suddenly, without any warning, the night air was filled with the horrific long blasts of the air raid sirens screeching imminent doom.

As they wailed their message of attack, mom and my sisters began to throw mattresses down the basement stairs, grandma came down from the attic apartment with a few things wrapped in her arms while I followed my dad out the front door into the street (to watch the big blast, I guess).

I don’t remember anyone turning to the emergency station on the radio. Some neighbors were outside their homes and in the street looking southward toward the Loop trying to get a glimpse of the missiles that would blow us all to Kingdom-come. A few people were shouting and wailing along with the sirens. One neighbor lady was kneeling and praying, some were just silent. Suddenly Mr. M ran out of his house with beer in hand shouting, “Sox won! Sox won!”

Everyone looked at each other with collective realization.

It was all over in a matter of minutes, the sirens died down; people drifted back into their homes as prayers changed to curses. Dad was upset, calling for someone in City Hall to get fired but mom calmly said we should all be thankful that it wasn’t real and say a prayer before we go to sleep (and after we pull the mattresses from out of the basement!). Grandma went back upstairs vowing the next time, “I ain’t coming down!”

The population of Chicago would be talking about that evening for weeks to follow. In school we would relate our story of what happened in each house when the sirens blared. Eventually, as the stories were related, and the fear of the evening was long gone, it became somewhat humorous the night we all thought we were dead meat.

The sound of the sirens still send a tinge of fear through my body in an auto-response of the days of duck-and-cover. It’s a siren you hope you never hear and should never, ever, be used for celebration.

It is the sound of death and destruction, not a victory celebration in any sense of the word.

Green Turds and Zappa’s

Mr. Zappa was a stocky, bald man with a small mustache who was very kind to us rowdy neighborhood kids. I was eight years old and in third grade when we moved out of the neighborhood but I have, at times, returned and walked around the area remembering the now gone stores and places I frequented during my first decade of life.

Zappa’s was a confectionery, a combination of candy, ice cream and bottled soda pop but also housed toys, comic books, notions and other household items in a dimly lit, high ceiling storefront on the corner of Fransisco and Diversey in Chicago. In those days, stores were family owned and uniquely individual, most owners knowing their local patrons by name.

A grocery store, fish market, butcher shop, bakery, tavern (where my father could get beer in washed out milk bottles to bring home), hardware, five and dime, dry cleaners and on the corner, Zappa’s. Saturdays usually consisted of mom taking me up and down Diversey as she did her shopping in various stores and we would end up at Zappa’s for a candy bar or Eskimo Pie on a stick.

Many of my toys were purchased at Zappa’s. When I had stitches in my knee (another story), I was confined at home for several days and received this neat plastic TV repair truck with tiny TV, tools, and other paraphernalia which fit in the back of the truck. When I had my tonsils out, I received a plastic Pirate ship with blue deck and red hull which had a gangplank, cannon, pirate figures, treasure chest, row boat, masts, crows nest and anchor. You could roll it along the floor or it would float in the bathtub.

If it wasn’t Christmas or your birthday, you had to be sick or injured to get a new toy in my house!

Asked by my parents what I would like to have for my 7th birthday, I requested a dollars worth of nickels in a bag. I never held that much in my hand at one time and, to me, a dollar was a fortune.

The big day came and I got my wish. Twenty nickels and they were all mine to do with whatever I wanted. I had already decided it would be a shopping frenzy at Zappa’s.

I took my best friend, Johnnie, over to Zappa’s and bought candy bars, popsicles (all of which cost five cents each) and a comic book. When Mr. Zappa, in his thick Greek accent asked me, “Hey keed, you find buried treasure?” I explained it was my birthday present and, as a gift, he allowed me to pick out a free comic book, for which I thanked him.

Johnnie and I sucked on root beer and banana flavored popsicles but in addition, a rare treat was that ten cent candy bar in the opaque wrapper called Mars bar. We split that, never having a dime candy bar before and it was a luxury. But I had my eye set on the biggest of the big. Something I had seen advertised on the television and longed to try. I wanted a box of Clorets chlorophyll gum.

Clorets looked liked Chiclets, small square candy coated pieces of gum in a box but they were three times the price, fifteen cents and they were green. The commercial said it made your breath smell good but I didnt care, I just wanted to taste the only green gum in existence. So I placed my three nickels on the counter and purchased the Clorets, an extravagance, but it was my birthday.

Mr Zappa informed me it was a gum for adults, “hey keed, you aint got no lady to need this!” However, I insisted. Anticipation mounted and my friend and I walked back across the street, sat down on the front stoop to our apartment building, and opened the box.

I gave Johnnie two squares and proceeded to add square after square into my mouth until I looked like a chipmunk storing food. I don’t remember the taste sensation that well, perhaps a little minty, but I do remember vividly the results of eating the entire box of gum.

By the time my father got home from work, I had but one nickel left from my morning hoard. Dad was disappointed that I didn’t save any of the loot, “You had enough to buy a candy bar every day for twenty days!” Too late, I was broke. But that was what I wanted to do, splurge, have a good time, treat my friend, and celebrate. It was a great day! Until that evening.

Because of all the candy, popsicles and other stuff I crammed into myself that day, the need arose to make a fast trip to the bathroom. The shock came when I got off the throne with a sigh of relief, gazed into the bowl and saw green colored turds floating in pea soup. I got scared, thinking I might turn green myself, and called my parents into the room.

I explained about the Clorets, and they began laughing as they looked into the toilet bowl. It was one of the rare occasions I saw and heard my father laugh. Needless to say, the story of my green turds was spread throughout the entire clan and neighborhood…including Zappa’s.

Yeah, my folks had to tell kindly Mr. Zappa, and from then on, each time I entered his establishment, he would chuckle and say, “Hey keed, you want some more green gum?” Then burst into laughter.

I never had Clorets again. Never.

MAD Memories

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I learned about satire and parody from MAD magazine; I learned fear and pain from my father. The two sometimes went hand in hand.

At age ten, I started reading MAD magazine, a comic book my friend Rich discovered. We thought it was neat because it had characters like Superdooperman, the Lone Stranger and Little Annie Fannie…ooops, wait a minute, Annie was in Playboy. Sorry.

The government got involved with the content of MAD, as well as other comics like Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, as not being appropriate for small fertile minds. They instituted the Comics Code Authority which regulated and approved comic content for kids with impressionable minds. Thus, MAD went from a comic book format to magazine in 1956, escaping the regulators, and we kids continued to purchase it along with Donald Duck and Superman, explaining the magazine was “for my older brother.”

MAD was a magazine of wit, satire, parody and “humor in a jugular vein.” Its creative contributors, Ernie Kovaks, Andy Griffith, Bob and Ray, Sid Caesar and a host of others, along with the regulars like Harvey Kurtzman, filled the pages with a world of cutting edge writing and drawing and played a key role in my wanting to be a writer, honing my developing sense of humor.

My father did not understand MAD. I dont think he ever took the time to really read it, just as he automatically condemned my taste in music (Perez Prado, the Weavers, Dave Brubeck). He never strayed from the regimented path he created for himself; if it wasn’t on Hit Parade ( a weekly top ten TV show), it wasn’t music worth listening to. That fell apart when the show, not by choice, by 1956, had to play the top ten which included Elvis Presley. He watched as the popularity of songs flipped between Patti Page and Mario Lanza to the Rock and Roll genre almost overnight. Within a short time, because of this change, the show went off the air.

The world was changing and my father could not adapt. Things he liked were becoming passe, things he believed in were being challenged and things he hoped for, like a son who would mature into his image of what a son should be, were being attacked. The world was changing and, unlike a reed in the wind, he could not bend. MAD exposed this world of change, poking fun at it, ridiculing it and explaining it in a humorous way. It became my magazine of choice, hidden from my father, throughout the late 1950’s.

If my father caught me reading a MAD magazine after banning it from the house, he would rip it to shreds and then punish me for my disobedience. This was even after a visiting priest to our house was confronted by my father asking for comment of the content within its pages. He fully expected the priest to agree with him as to the magazine being subversive.

The priest was there because I had made inquiry as to attending the seminary after graduation from grade school. The middle aged priest surprised my father and mother (and me too!) when he responded by explaining that even though the magazine touched on sensitive topics at times, it did so with restraint and intelligence and reflected a changing society and was not considered contraband in the seminary where it was read by some to gain insight into American culture. Dad was speechless.

My parents were hoping I would become a priest, and that day in 1959 dashed their concepts of a Bing Crosby, Father O’Malley type character and instead gave them a vision of Father Groucho, the unorthodox vestment wearing smart-mouth, holding a crucifix in one hand and a seltzer bottle in the other.

I was growing up, becoming my own person, and my father didn’t understand. The changing world, for me, did not alter fundamental family values I had been taught, but questioned society and government roles in managing and defining them. My world was expanding. Dad’s world was no longer flat. The Times they were a-changing.

Sharing the Past

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When the Army shipped me off to Viet Nam in 1967, my father threw out everything I had collected from birth: the comic books, Space Patrol, Space Cadet, Captain Video and other TV premiums plus Mars Attacks, baseball and other trading cards, even the well hidden (I thought) Playboys and Mad magazines were all unceremoniously tossed in the trash. Mementos of a childhood lost forever. Why he did it, I never knew. Maybe he thought I wasn’t coming home from the war. That no doubt had a bearing on my becoming a dealer in collectibles and nostalgia items, trying to reassemble my childhood memories.

I had a store in the early 1980’s located on Central Avenue just South of Irving Park called Golden Age Nostalgia, which was filled with comic books, radio and TV premiums, movie posters and other paraphernalia. It was a well known stop for collectors back in the day. There are only two existing photos of the exterior and none of the interior which I regret. I eventually sold the inventory, closed the store and later opened the Vietnam War Museum (another story).

What a wonderful life of experiences it has been and I want to tell you why I share these things with you now. My father never talked much about his childhood or our family heritage. I don’t know much about our roots or my parents experiences growing up, and what I do know I had to find out for myself. I never knew Great grandpa Louie had his own beer business at the turn of the century until I discovered an old beer bottle with our surname on it at the flea market and did some research.

I have learned that it is beneficial to share your memories, your history; as my son would say, “tell your story.” Others benefit and can be inspired or encouraged through our sharing of personal experiences.

I therefore encourage you also to “tell your story.” Share your experiences with family and friends. Find out what you can about your family history and write it down, keep a record and save a few heirlooms for posterity. Your children and their children will one day thank you.

Shoes, Checkers and Gumdrops

I have many fond memories of childhood in 1950’s Chicago and a few of the more vivid ones revolve around a strange collection of politically and socially incorrect neighborhood men who would gather in my Uncle’s garage. I didn’t know their real names as they all had nicknames given to each other years before, since they must have known each other for a long time.

They were a motley crew who would gather together in the afternoon and I would see them on Saturday when I visited my cousin, who lived within biking distance. They may have gathered on other days, but it is only then that I saw them. They were Gramp’s friends.

When my cousin and I would finish our day of biking and playing, we returned to his house for something to eat and would head to the garage to see what the old men were up to. My aunt would not step foot in the garage and sometimes brought our sandwiches to the door and we would go get them.

Gramps, my cousin’s grandfather, lived with my Uncle’s family and had pinups of Betty Page and other women lining the garage walls, the most famous, of course, being Marilyn Monroe. It was the first time I ever saw women without all their clothes on. Being eleven years old, I wondered what the attraction was and by the following year, I found out.

More interesting to me than a collection of semi-nude women were the male sexagenarians assembled around a table playing pinochle or some other card game, and sometime during the afternoon, checkers.

There was “Gumdrops,” a lanky man with bad teeth always eating from a box of Mason’s Dots or Jujifruits and was prolific in stories about women. “Women are like Jell-o,” he would say, “it’s fun to watch them wiggle.” Another idiom I didn’t understand at the time.

There was “Checkers,” an average looking guy except for unruly hair and a a few missing teeth in front which would affect his speech as his tongue raspberried through the openings like Daffy Duck. Yes, he liked to play checkers and sometimes brought his box and board over with him.

Then there was “Shoes,” who received his nickname deservedly. Shoes was retired from the sanitation department. In those days, workers were simply known as garbagemen. He would always save the discarded shoes that fit him which were tossed out by others. Sometimes he would have the soles or heels replaced and then had, virtually, a new pair of shoes at little cost. He was known for never having to buy a pair of shoes since the day he started work. Shoes, having ulcers, would drink a half pint of cream (which he usually got from my uncle) before doing shots with the others.

Finally there was “Gramps,” the only guy there with grandkids (although all of them were divorced as I recall). Gramps was my Uncle’s father and regardless of whether we kids were around, could not complete a sentence without adding a few curse words for emphasis.

It was these men, on a Saturday afternoon, who let us sit and watch and listen, and learn. We learned about women, we learned new words and we learned a bit about life. Certainly not the best role models, but they were real, they were honest and straightforward and they answered questions we kids would be afraid to ask anyone else.

In a way, they inspired me and, to their credit, I still remember them fondly.

The Dork Side

Back then, they weren’t geeks or nerds, they were known as dorks, and I was one of them. I became a dork at age eight when my parents moved the family to a new part of the city from a two bedroom apartment at Fransisco and Diversey to our new home near Austin and Belmont on Chicago’s northwest side. It was a new neighborhood, new kids and, most traumatic of all, a new school. “You’ll make new friends.” my parents said. But what they didn’t know is that I would make new tormentors: the school bullies. So I prepared for my first day, of a mid-3rd grade transfer, at St. Ferdinand Catholic School.

On a bright and sunny morning I stood in front of thirty boys and girls my age in a white shirt, blue clip-on tie and neatly pressed ribbed brown corduroy pants, the kind that make funny noises between your legs when you walk, as Sister Mary Humiliation announced to the class who I was by mispronouncing my last name. I was doomed, and would suffer from that error my entire grade school experience.

If you ever transferred to a new school, you get the idea what my problems were. Kids can be mean. I was an outcast and, in order to survive the daily harassment and push and shove dares from the school bullies, I learned how to use humor. If I could make them laugh, perhaps they wouldn’t beat me up so often.

I became, basically, the class humorist or clown. Always a joke or funny story outdoors and responsive funny faces and gestures in the classroom. I made few friends in that school and the few close friends I had lived on my block and attended a nearby public school.

Eventually, by eighth grade, I had gained recognition as a story teller and funny guy and was told by several of my departing classmates at graduation that I would be missed while giving me a final punch in the arm approval. The ordeal was over. I was graduating. I was relieved. I had survived.

The experience did lead me down a path of writing. By sixth grade I was writing short stories and poems based on my experiences. I wrote fictional accounts where I dealt with the frustrations and anger I could not express any other way. It was a great outlet for my feelings and still is. I don’t remember all the stories, or what ever happened to them, but realize they were amateurish and perhaps better they did not survive, but they were a start.

Although I had been selected by lottery as one of the lucky ones to attend the new and prestigious St Patrick’s High School, I turned it down an went to Steinmetz. I did not want to deal with what I considered sadistic teachers (Brothers they were called) who could slap and punish you, in an all-boy environment of repressed individuals and former class bullies. How I accomplished this without my parents finding out was a bit of maneuvering and dodging.

High school was on the horizon and I wondered what would be in store. Would I run into new bullies to deal with for four more years; would I hopefully meet new friends, and would there be intimidating and condescending teachers? I would soon find out. But I knew, whatever lied ahead, I would be prepared with an arsenal of jokes, humorous anecdotes and a good pair of running shoes.

For Three Cents, Chocolate

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Back in the 1950’s when I attended parochial school we had a morning milk break. Every day, around eight am, the guy from Twin Oaks Dairy delivered a cargo of half-pint bottles of milk to the school. And, every day, those little bottles of milk rested in their cases until around ten am, before the nun would allow us to drink them. This was not a good idea in the winter when the cases stood alongside the radiator near the back of the room.

It never was a good idea for those kids who stayed at school for lunch because they had to wait until noon before they could drink the milk and it was always warm no matter what month it was, although during the winter you could claim hot chocolate as a benefit.

The cost was two cents for plain white milk and three cents for chocolate per day. Money was collected every Friday and if you forgot the money, you went without the next week. No one would spot you the cash, ten or fifteen cents, so you went thirsty.

The bottles had a foil type lid and I would puncture the top with a sharp pencil to make a small opening and then use the pencil to make a small hole in the straw, keeping it above the milk line, thus mixing the milk with air so it would last longer as I sipped it. Unfortunately, this action would shortly produce a follow-up series of burps which amuse my fellow classmates and netted me an occasional rap on the knuckles by Sister Mary Yardstick.

Since I lived a short distance, I went home for lunch every day and mom would have a sandwich ready according to her menu of the week which consisted basically of either baloney and cheese or peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread. Except for Friday when it was grilled cheese. In the winter months the sandwich was accompanied by a bowl of Campbell’s Chicken noodle or chicken rice soup. And there was always the tall glass of chocolate milk made with Bosco syrup. By eighth grade I was a choco-junkie.

We got an hour for lunch so I ran home, which took less than five minutes, so I could hurriedly eat and then go into the living room to watch the lunchtime frolics on TV. Mom would not allow eating in front of the set worried about crumbs on the carpet or, perhaps, that I might laugh at the cartoon and choke. There may have been a stronger chance of that happening as I wolfed down my pre-show food.

There were four channels available in those days and three of them had lunchtime kids shows. I would watch Lunchtime Little Theater, Two Ton Baker the Music Maker or Uncle Johnny Coons. So, after a morning of science, religion and arithmetic, I spent the noon hour watching Uncle Bucky, Uncle Ned (Ned Locke of Bozo’s Circus fame) and Aunt Dodie (later replaced by Aunt Jeannie) in their striped outfits and straw hats as they sung ditties on the piano and showed dancing bug cartoons.

Uncle Johnny Coons also would eat a sandwich with us kids, tell us not to sit to close to the TV and, dressed in his pith helmet and explorer garb, relate stories and, ultimately, show outdated film shorts and, occasionally, a dancing bug cartoon.

Two Ton Baker, a large man dressed in pirate clothes, sat at the piano playing ditties about life such as “I Like Stinky Cheese,” “Poor Little Petunia,” Fuzzy Wuzzie was a Bear,” and other educational songs. He was supported by a talking parrot and Bubbles, the porpoise and he had a side-kick pirate pal who brought out Two Ton’s lunch for him and ,while he ate, we watched more dancing bug cartoons.

Since I could only watch one show at a time, there was no remote control back then, I sat close to the TV so I could manually switch channels when the bug cartoons came on (which I had seen numerous times before) catching portions of each show’s live action performances.

When the show was just about over, I kissed my mom goodbye and raced back to school to continue the day’s studies in history, more religion and geography. This was a bit difficult at times to concentrate as images of a 300 pound pirate, dancing bugs or corny vaudevillian type acts were still fresh in my mind and conflicted with learning about the origins of the universe (which, of course, was created).

I dont know if any kids still come home for lunch any more and watch TV. With all the channels now open and with the computer and internet, things are certainly different. Some days, when I make myself lunch and sit down at the TV set, all I get are commercials and swear I finish eating before any show comes back on.

I miss the fat pirate and the folks in strange garb, playing a honky-tonk piano and showing dancing bug cartoons. I do, however, still eat baloney and cheese sandwiches but with a beer instead of chocolate milk, which is no longer available for three cents.

The Milkman Cometh

When I was 13 years old, in 1958, I worked the summer with my Uncle George on his home delivery truck for Bowman Dairy. This was back in the days when you could have home delivery for many things, until safety became a real issue.

Uncle George would pick me up around 5 in the morning and we would ride over to the dairy distribution point where he would load the crates of milk while I chopped ice to place on top of the bottles.

Milk (including chocolate), cream and orange juice were checked off my uncle’s list as he placed them in the truck, followed by me chipping the ice off larger blocks to fit in the crates. We also placed a few larger blocks of ice on the side ledge in the truck to chip off more as the smaller chips melted. The interior of the truck was insulated and it was cool inside while we drove around in the summer heat. This was before air-conditioning was perfected and available for cars and trucks.

By 6am we were on the street and deliveries began. I dont remember in what neighborhoods we delivered because most of the stops were in the alleyways up the rear porches of the apartment buildings. We would get the person’s order off a list my uncle had, load a wire basket and haul the order up the stairs. I placed the items either to the side of the door or between the screen door area. Sometimes there would be a note requesting an extra quart of something for next time. I would ring the bell or knock on the door and then scamper down the stairs.

Deliveries were made 3 times a week so folks usually ordered quarts of milk unless they had a lot of kids, then it was half gallon bottles. If Uncle George saw someone sitting on the porch or out in the yard while he was delivering, he would go over and talk to them about the benefits of home delivery, explaining it was only a few cents more for the convenience. This was before all the Quickie and gas station marts.

There were a few local neighborhood mom and pop stores that were on the list and we would deliver six or eight ½ gallons, and ½ pints of chocolate milk. We usually got our donuts while in the store. George had a thermos of coffee and he let me have a ½ pint of chocolate milk.

The following year, my cousin, who was a year younger than I, replaced me on his father’s route. It was only fair, but I missed the early morning rise and grown up feeling I experienced riding with my uncle and the talks we shared during my summer vacation in his ice-cooled truck.

I wanted to help Uncle George increase his business, so I came up with the idea of colored milk. After all, cows eat grass so why not green milk? Chocolate milk was brown so why not red or yellow too? So one afternoon I got some food dye and created green milk. I thought it was cool until I showed it to mom.

She became a bit upset and when my dad came home he informed me I would be drinking the entire half gallon before anything else. When my uncle heard of it, he laughed and stated that maybe they should make colored banana or strawberry milk. He should have acted on that thought! A few years later, uncle George switched jobs and began delivering ice cream. I liked the idea of him stopping by the house weekly and dropping off ice cream bars.

One evening, Uncle George revealed why he chose milk and ice cream delivery. He had been taking courses in refrigeration maintenance and repair and now, after several years, he was going into business for himself servicing the equipment he had become familiar with.

I admired my uncle George and had the opportunity to tell him so before he died. He was a people person. A bit rough on the edges but always with a joke or story to tell. He treated people, including us kids, with respect and never talked down to us. I told him that riding in the truck with him that one summer and getting to know him better, was one of the best experience I had as a kid.

Although Uncle George always worked in the cold, it was his personal warmth that brought him success and made him my favorite uncle.