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Scary Movie

stranger

I was ten years old. It was a summer’s afternoon in 1955 when my Aunt Bonnie visited my mom. My cousin was with my uncle (I’m not sure where, although it could have been the milk route) and she was by herself.

The reason was because the Will Rogers theater was showing a film, “Not as A Stranger.” It was a melodrama, kinda love story mixed with the medical profession, and starred Robert Mitchum, Olivia DeHaviland and Frank Sinatra. Back then, matinees were 50 cents for adults and a quarter for kids.

No need to wonder that Aunt Bonnie (as well as mom) would go see the movie even if it were a comedy for a dollar, if that’s who was starring! I believe Aunt Bonnie was trying to persuade mom to go with her but failed since my two sisters were around someplace.

As a ten year old kid, a chance to go to the movies was a blessing, so I asked if I could go and mom said yes after Aunt Bonnie said it was okay. That was her big mistake.

Not knowing what the movie was about, sitting in the darkened theater with my box of popcorn, I was happy just to be there. But not for long.

The movie was in black and white, shadowy, a film noir genre, but even that was okay, it kinda gave an ominous feel to the experience. Unfortunately, for Aunt Bonnie, it was not too long into the film when my senses were shocked by a medical autopsy scene.

The covered body was rolled down a corridor and into a room which turned out to be an arena of interns. The old doctor comes out and announces he is going to dissect the corpse, flipping the sheet and exposing the body. I really didnt want to see that. I hid my eyes.

As I imagined what was taking place on the screen (which was probably worse than the actual images), I kept telling Aunt Bonnie I wanted to get out of there. She tried to persuade me that the scene was over and I could relax and watch the rest of the movie (I’m certain she really didn’t want to leave).

I think I started crying and said I would wait outside for her. This was her cue to give up and escort me out of the theater, still clenching a half empty box of popcorn.

I dont remember what we talked about on the walk back to my house. I think she was trying to reassure me that they didnt show the internal organs of the patient and that it was all just make believe. For me, make believe was giant ants and grasshoppers sneaking up behind unsuspecting victims, not real dead people in a hospital.

Even today, when I think about it, I robbed my aunt of a rare day to herself where she could have immersed herself in the adult themed movie, enjoying the actors and actresses transporting her to a fictional world of drama for an hour and a half. I ruined that for her. I hope she went back and was able to see it without the interruptions of a scared ten year old who never should have gone in the first place.

I decided I would stick to Saturday kids features and cartoon frolics. And…stay out of hospitals as much as possible.

Secret Place

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Elementary School was not an enjoyable experience for me. Besides the nuns meting out physical pain for infractions, there were the class bullies. And there were a few of them.

In the classroom there was no problem, but at recess they plied their trade of picking on anyone they thought would not stand up to them. I was one of the unfortunate victims of peer abuse.

One year in particular it was difficult to avoid confrontation. I was in fifth grade when the bully group decided it would play Civil War after reading about it in history class. Their idea was very simple. They would come up to you and ask if you were North or South. It didn’t matter which side you declared since they would automatically be on the opposing side, declare you the enemy and pummel you around a bit before confronting another unfortunate straggler.. It didn’t take long to realize you couldn’t win.

One day, when I saw them approaching, I ran off around the side of the school, past the rectory and into the alley in the hopes of eluding the enemy. As I rounded the corner into the alley, I saw the news cart used by one of the parishioners on Sunday to house and sell newspapers to people leaving the church.

It was up against the rear of the school and as I pulled it slightly away from the wall, opened the doors at the bottom where newspapers were stored, found that it was empty and would house a kid my size. I crawled inside and shut the door.

The cart was perhaps five feet long and five feet high and was on rollers. It had the storage area below and an upper part which the newspapers could be displayed and an awning above to keep our rain or sun. And it all folded up into a compact unit when closed. I declared it my secret place and retired there often during recess and lunch period in order to avoid the roving bands of Civil War enthusiasts in the playground (which was actually a parking lot and the street in front of the school).

When necessary (like getting back from lunch too early and wanting to avoid confrontation in the playground), I would sneak around to the back of the school and climb into my little fortress where I would munch some penny candy and read a comic book until I heard the warning buzzer sound for the resumption of classes.

This went on for several weeks, maybe a few months, until one day I arrived to find the doors padlocked. My secret place had been discovered, no doubt because I had left telltale candy wrappings and/or comic books within. It was okay, however, because the Civil War was winding down and things would be quiet until a different method of bullying was employed. I would just have to make sure that I didn’t return to school after lunch all too early.

Perhaps I could watch a little more of Lunchtime Little Theater or Uncle Johnny Coons and eat a bit slower from now on.

Good Humor

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One of the sounds of summer I remember as a little tyke, besides the clickity-clack of the manual lawnmowers, was the gentle wafting rings of the bells on the Good Humor truck as it headed down my street. There were a series of (I think) four bells strung across the front windshield of the truck, attached to a cord that the driver would be constantly pulling on with one hand while steering with the other.

Unlike the scratchy recorded chicken dance music that bellows from a cheap speaker on the faux-ice cream truck of today, pasted with stickers of a variety of vegetable fat concoctions, the Good Humor truck slowly wound its way along the side streets of the neighborhood and we could gauge, by the approaching bells, how much time we had to run into the house and ask our parents for money and get back on the street as the truck rolled closer to our location. On occasion, one of us was designated to stop the truck and delay the driver by pretending to make up his mind what he wanted, while we ran in and out of our houses with the cash.

During the summer months, the Good Humor Man, dressed in white shirt and pants and a cap, Would ride down the street in the afternoon but many of us were out playing in the parks, or swimming and missed his rounds. It was in the evening, just after suppertime, around 7:00pm when the bells were heard and the possibility of father popping for the after dinner treat were at high expectations.

Good Humor ice cream bars cost a nickel more than the store bought kind, but there were reasons (besides home delivery) such as the variety of bars available. My favorite was the chocolate malt bar and the only way to get it was off that truck…and to get the fifteen cents off my old man, which was not always easy (unless he was in the mood for one himself) because of my two sisters who would also be included which meant a purchase of five items (six, if Grandma was downstairs at the time) totaling seventy-five cents. I do not recall there being sales tax charged at that time.

All playing stopped for fifteen minutes as we sat on the front stoop of someone’s house and ate our bars as the melting ice cream leaked out the bottom cracks of the chocolate coating onto our hands.

With the changing times, growing safety concerns (for drivers as well as kids) and cost increases, Good Humor eventually went into the freezer compartments of the food and grocery stores and the trucks and carts slowly fazed out. I feel we lost something there along the way of progress.

The offerings off of the trucks today, in my opinion, cannot compare to the taste and delight of having an ice cream bar from the Good Humor Man of the 1950s. And, of course, as Poe so aptly put it: “the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”

Cinder-Alley

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When I was growing up, there were no paved alleys. They were comprised of cinders and no one had any idea how the city was able to get that many cinders (fire residue) to cover all the alleys, but they did somehow. Speculation was that they were remnants of the Chicago Fire and were transported from various locations such as downtown’s lakefront, where most of the debris from the fire was used as landfill, and the old Ashland (appropriately named) avenue dumps including the Riverview area around Belmont and Western.

In those days there were no plastic bags either and when mom went shopping at the food store, all the groceries were packed into handle less paper bags. They were not easy to carry (especially the heavier ones), but most of the time mom made it home without any of the bags ripping. Milk and juices were delivered to our homes and shopping was at least twice a week in order to carry all the meats and groceries.

The paper bags were saved and used to collect the family garbage. All the table scraps and left over trash were placed into the bags and daily transported to our huge cement garbage containment locker located in the back of our yard.

This mausoleum was huge, and had a heavy metal flip top where we kids would throw the bags of garbage which would be picked up once a week by the sanitation department. The men who collected the trash were then simply known as garbage men, and they would open the bottom front of the cement behemoth, facing the alley, and shovel out the bags of trash into the truck (a messy job it was).

The entire process was not as sanitary back then as it is now. The cement blockhouse would occasionally be hosed out by my father onto the cinder strewn alleyway, but most of the time the thing stank with the remnants of the week’s (if not years) dinner remains and expired foodstuffs.

Part of the excitement of emptying the garbage was to see if you could make it from the house to the bin without the grease and oil soaked bags falling apart in your arms as you carried them to the back of the yard for disposal. Usually, the bags would give way as you lifted the metal top and hoisted the bags up to drop inside. Many a time I had to shovel the dropped fruit cores and rinds along with chicken skins and beef fat off the grass and sidewalk and dump it into the cement depository, followed by a hosing down of the outlying area.

Winters were not all too bad for garbage but the summer months brought on all the flies which accumulated around and inside the bin, attracted by the pungent odors which emanated from the crypt. In an effort to disguise the behemoth, my mom took out her paintbrushes and drew plants along the outside of the concrete container which looked okay, but the area certainly did not smell like flowers in the least.

I don’t remember exactly when the city assessed homeowners in our neighborhood for the new, improved concrete alley which would replace the old cinder way, but I remember it was $300 per home and most of the neighbors, including my father, were not too happy about it. A short while after the alley was paved, homeowners also had to start using lidded garbage cans and give up the concrete crypts which for so long had plagued the area with ominous odors and unwelcomed pests and vermin.

Even though we no longer used the cement contraption, I do not remember it being destroyed and, thus, could possibly still be there in the back of the yard like an old World War Two bunker, long forgotten as to its necessary use, but still visible to history buffs who like that kind of garbage.

The N- Word

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Cashews and pistachios are my favorite nuts. There are a few, however, on my list I will never eat because of the psychological effects they have had on me. I think it was nuts that opened the window of racism for me although, at the time, I didn’t understand the implications.

I was around seven years old while walking to school one morning when a friend offered me a walnut. I had had walnuts before so I gladly accepted. It had a hard to open shell so I placed it between my teeth and bit down. It cracked open and when I separated the shell with my fingers, the interior was a brown sawdust looking mess and staring back at me was a worm. I screamed in disgust and tossed the nut into the street. My friend offered me another which I refused. I have refused walnuts to this day unless the meat has already been extracted from the shell.

The above is a nice way to ease into the next category. Being under ten years old, most of the words I learned to identify things were from my parents. Unknowingly, I am certain, they taught me in the ignorance of the times without understanding the long range effects it would have on me as well as others.

I liked certain nuts my parents, and everyone else I knew, called “redskins.” I knew them by no other name until one day saw a newspaper ad regarding a sale on a pound of Spanish Peanuts. I was confused as to why they were called Spanish when the name redskins implied (to me) Native Americans. Needless to go into detail, it took a while for me to understand the social incorrectness of my parents terminology. Eventually, I didn’t like the way the flaky skins stuck in my throat so I stopped eating them.

Then there was the nuts I knew, again, by no other name but “N-word toes.” The term, as my mother had to explain was not because we were actually eating someone’s toes, but only that they looked like that and so, the name. Well, I didn’t know, because I had never even seen a person of Color (much less their toes) in our neighborhood on the Northwest side until I was fourteen years old!

I grew up in all White neighborhoods, went to all White schools and shopped with my folks in all White stores. Honest, it was that segregated at the time. The first Black people I even talked to were two men who cleaned the Will Rogers movie theater when I was an usher at fifteen years old.

I do not blame my parents for their ignorance because they grew up learning the same things they were passing on to me and, I didn’t know any better for many years because of my non-association with people of color. So it was not only me calling them Brazil nuts “N-word toes,” because when my mom went to the store and ordered a pound of them by that name ( she, like many others, probably never knew their actual name) as she also did with “Redskins,” the clerks knew exactly what she wanted. She was never confronted nor admonished. No one was. It was the 1950s.

By the way, I never did eat Brazil nuts, only because of the mental image I had of eating someone’s toes, even until this day.

As an aside, I never heard my parents use the N-word when discussing people of color (only when ordering Brazil nuts) and the folks in my neighborhood did not have to deal with the presence of people of color until the City started bussing Black students to schools in 1967! Then racism, exposed, reared its ugly head and things began to change.

You Can’t Go Back

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A few years ago, on a lark, I decided to visit the old neighborhood where I spent the first eight years of my life. It turned out to be a bittersweet experience as places I remembered were no longer in existence and those that did remain had changed.

The old apartment building on the corner of Francisco and Diversey looked about the same although the old windows had long been replaced and there was an iron fence around it now. Many of the old buildings had survived and there were new ones (built after I had moved) dotting the street. The vacant lot where we used to gather and watch the fireworks now had a building and the big side yard by the alley where we used to play for hours on end was now a private parking lot for tenants and what remained of the back yard was fenced off so I could not see in.

I walked along the alleyway noticing the back yards where we played also were gone, replaced by garages. As I walked back up the alley to Francisco, I tried to peer between the wooden slats of the fence to see if the hole we began to dig back in 1950 to reach China was still there. It wasn’t.

Although the food store on the southeast corner was still there, it was no longer Edmund’s but changed to Logan Square Grocery. The tavern where my dad used to get his empty milk bottles filled with beer was still there but beer had now changed to cerveza.

Gone were the bakery, fish market, Johnny’s meat market and, sadly, Zappa’s Confectionery. Many of the businesses along my old childhood route were gone and the buildings rehabbed. Only the cleaners down the street and the grocery looked about the same.

I looked northward down Francisco and wondered if the path I took to school every weekday was still navigable. That street held both good and bad memories, like the time I bit into a rotten walnut, or my school chum who held me at knife point the day we played hookey. All stories I hope to eventually relate to you.

The path was blocked now by the Kennedy expressway so I had to turn down Richmond and head back to Diversey where I took it to Albany and headed north toward the steeple of the old church as a guide.

When I got to the church and school where I had graduated kindergarten and transferred out of the 3rd grade when we moved, I discovered that the old parish, St. Francis Xavier had, in 1991, combined with another and became known as Resurrection. The church itself was locked and I could not see in to determine if the interior was much like I had remembered, but on the outside it appeared the old stained glass windows were still there.

I walked down the side and behind the school, rectory and convent where I took a few months piano lessons, and into the playground. Indistinct shadows and voices surrounded me as the memories of the past became more vivid in my imagination. As I walked back down the street to my car, I noticed the building which housed the old penny candy store where I hoped to one day get a pink peppermint (another story), was still standing, looking the same except it was shuttered and boarded.

As I got into my car, a young Hispanic women exited the church rectory and, as she turned onto the sidewalk, she caught sight of me and smiled. I smiled back. It was her neighborhood now and I was merely the past, but I felt, in that instant, the generations had been bridged and it felt satisfying.

I headed back to Francisco for one more quick look hoping to gain entry to the rear of my old apartment building to see if the book of matches me and my buddy Johnnie hid under the porch stairs was still there. The gates were locked and the porch appeared repainted several times. The matches were well hidden, tucked between the risers and maybe one day they will be discovered and someone will wonder what the heck they were doing there. Or maybe Johnnie went back later and recovered them.

Come to think of it, I dont remember why we hid them in the first place (I was only six). But I do remember what they were used for. I had a toy steam shovel and we could stuff paper and twigs in the rear boiler section and watch the smoke come out as we pretended to excavate the dirt in the front of the building and maybe, if there was time, dig a hole to China.

Magic Screen

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I was the first generation introduced to the electronic baby sitter: the television set. Moms across America discovered that Saturday mornings, as well as after school, could be less of a burden by placing their kids in front of the box while they did their household chores, and the programmers knew it. By today’s standards, early kids television shows required a substantial need for imagination due to restricted and low budgets, but it worked.

There was Smilin’ Ed’s Gang which gave the appearance it was filmed before a large, live audience but each week, it became obvious that it was the same enthusiastic kids jumping up and down in their seats as the week before. It was still the same kids when the show was later hosted by Andy Devine. Even Gunga the Indian Boy, in the serial film short, was attacked by the same tiger time and again.

There were shows like Rootie Kazootie and Fury (a horse story), but the ones I like the best were the sci-fi programs like Space Patrol and Space Cadets. Each week the loyal crews would embark on interplanetary missions against the cardboard backdrops of outer space. Space ships with cigarettes stuck in their exhaust gave the appearance of rocket smoke as wire suspended ships zoomed through twinkle light space to fight evil meanies that looked like Uncle Louie after an all nighter. Even as a kid, you had to watch with a degree of suspended disbelief as the cameras tilted left to right and up and down to convey motion as the crew sat amid normal tables and chairs simulating the ship’s bridge. Some early first generation Star Trek episodes even employed the same tactics, I seem to recall.

My Uncle George was always on the forefront of innovation. Once, when we went to visit, he had a plastic color tinted film to place over the TV screen to give the appearance of color to the black and white set. It was cut to fit the size of the screen and was held in place by static electricity. It was a simple plastic film with graduating colors starting with green on the bottom, light tan in the middle and blue on top. It was great if you were watching the old westerns such as Gene Autry or Hopalong Cassidy because you would have your brown sagebrush and blue sky, but close ups and any other show made actors look like aliens from another world (which made it great for watching Captain Video and his Video Rangers.

Speaking of plastic screens, there was a show called Winky Dink and You. It was a semi-animated show with a live host. It was unique because you had to order a special magic screen to place over the tube in order to draw right on the television set with the special crayons also provided. The show’s premise was to help Winky by drawing what he needed (ropes, a car with wheels, balloons, etc) to succeed in his endeavor.

Most kids could not wait the two or three weeks to get their magic screen, much less spend the required cash and a boxtop to get it so we just drew directly onto the TV screen. This did not please mom at all as the regular crayons were a bit difficult to wipe off, so we were forbidden to participate in the show and thus stopped watching it, which may be the reason it was canceled after a short run.

There were other kids shows that had cartoon specialties such as Crusader Rabbit, Tom Terrific (with his mighty wonderdog, Manfred); some live action shows like Susan’s Show where she sat on a kitchen chair and was magically flown to a place with talking furniture which featured a table named Mr. Pegasus whose legs wobbled and mouth was the front drawer. They were cheapo sets and crude scripts but imagination in those years was king and sorely needed if you were watching this stuff.

There was Super Circus (another story), Garfield Goose, a puppet show with Frazier Thomas who also employed a magic screen to view cartoons, and a goose who didn’t talk but clacked his beak. Thomas, however, knew exactly what the clacking goose was saying. There was Kukla Fran and Ollie, another puppet show created by Burr Tilstrom, with Fran Allison. Both the aforementioned shows were more creative than the others and lasted for a long while.

These are only a few of the kids shows (there were many more) available to sit us for free while mom did her daily chores or visited with friends. I’ll share more of the shows that played a major role in my early childhood development, such as Elmer the Elephant, Mickey Mouse Club, Howdy Doody and Ding Dong School later on. Right now, I want to see if I can catch Spongebob Squarepants.

Remember the Alamo

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It was in late fall, 1954 when the television show, DisneyLand, premiered a three part mini-series (maybe a TV first) on the life of frontiersman Davy Crockett, and the rest was television history.

The show took off like two riverboats in a race when Fess Parker became an overnight hero Disney style. Although there was an element of truth to the series, Davy Crockett, with the help of his sidekick George Russell, tamed the frontier, set Andrew Jackson’s Congress straight and was the last man standing at the Alamo. Impressive for someone we kids had not heard of before Disney.

Disney styled his programs to appeal to children and Davy Crockett was no exception. Davy could grin down a bear with his charming toothy smile. His sidekick Russell, played by Buddy Ebsen (later of Beverly Hillbillies fame), followed Davy everywhere plunking on his guitar and singing verses of what would become a number one hit record, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”

Although politically incorrect and offensive in parts by today’s standards and enlightenment (such as references to Native Americans, British, Mexicans and perhaps Congress), given the context of the time it was presented, the program introduced young people to several chapters of American History (as embellished by Disney) and began a mania of Davy Crockett emulation and hero worship.

As the Christmas season approached, stores and catalogs were filled with coonskin hats, miniature Alamos with plastic and rubber fighters, buckskin jackets, toy rifles, rubber Bowie knives and a host of other paraphernalia. Even prior to the holidays, kids were flocking to the stores to buy comic books, trading cards and records while they eagerly anticipated the next “official” Davy Crockett something (which, shortly, would be Davy Crockett and the Riverboat Pirates).

Even other shows mentioned Crockett. Jackie Gleason, who portrayed Ralph Kramden on the Honeymooners, belonged to a fraternal group called the Raccoons whose members wore a coonskin cap like Davy. This was before the series but now had gained popularity because of it. On one program, Gleason enters the room dressed in his lodge uniform with cap and the little boy Ralph’s wife Alice was babysitting, rubs his eyes and states: “I never knew Davy Crockett was so fat!”

The series ran one night a week for three weeks and by then kids were discussing and playing Davy Crockett Indian Fighter, Davy Crockett Goes to Congress or Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Disney announced a movie would be released with all three episodes combined into a full length movie. This was great because now we could go to the show and see Davy in color on the big screen.

My gang pretended that Jose’s front porch was the Alamo, and Rich and I defended it while Freddie and Jose (you guessed it, Jose was Santa Anna) attacked it and we wound up breaking a few pickets along the railing as the attackers scaled the fort.

Aside: I remember that Jose’s mom always wanted him to be the “good” guy when we played war but it was interesting that his role was Santa Anna when we played Alamo. As I reflect back with the wisdom of an old man, perhaps Jose was the good guy at the Alamo, considering Texas did belong to Mexico at the time.

For over a year after the series premiered, there was not a kid in the neighborhood who didn’t have a coonskin cap. The fervor of response to Davy Crockett may have been due to the times. It was 1955 and communism and nuclear war were the threats of the day. Crockett instilled a sense of patriotism in kids and a sense of pride in our country and its defense.

When our local theater, the Will Rogers, displayed a sign that Davy Crockett was playing that Saturday only, kids lined up down the street to see the movie thinking it was the much anticipated Disney version. In a rare gesture, my father took me to the show. As the lights dimmed, my excitement could not be contained. It was then I learned about bait-and-switch, and misleading advertising.

The theater manager had gotten hold of a cheap print of some old black and white movie where Davy Crockett was only mentioned in passing. My father was pissed and stated that he had seen this movie on television recently. Kids were beyond disappointed and parents who had taken their kids began to gather outside the manager’s office door (he locked himself inside) to demand a refund.

“Read the marquee,” the manager yelled out from behind the locked door. Above the big bold red letters stating “Davy Crockett,” just above, in small black letters, “Son of.” And that is what I heard a lot of fathers mumbling as they left the theater, “Son of…”

Aunt Agnes

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If there is one person to whom I owe my spirituality to it would be Aunt Agnes. I am not talking about religion, but a relationship with God, one on one and it was she who, through a gift for my first communion, started me on the journey of knowing God more intimately.

Agnes was my favorite aunt and this was due, of course, to the fact that whenever she visited our house she had a shopping bag full of gifts for us kids. She knew what we liked, too. Always superfluous stuff and toys, never anything practical. Comics, coloring books, dolls and golden books, she gained an everlasting place in our hearts for her understanding of childhood.

She was a very kind and gentle lady, my mother’s friend, and whether she was actually related or not, she was always invited to our birthday and holiday celebrations. I gather she probably brought the gifts so we kids would go off into the other room and play while she discussed adult things with our mother.

It was my First Communion party when Aunt Agnes presented me with a little book titled, “Jesus and I,” written by Jean Plaquevent and translated from the French. Although it was Catholic in its presentation ( I was raised a Catholic), it held a fascinating situation for me as it was composed of everyday conversations between a little kid and Jesus.

The preface stated it was conversations between Jesus and any child who wants to talk to Him. Up until that point, I didn’t know a kid like me could actually just talk with Jesus. I was brought up where we had a myriad of saints and ritualistic prayers to get to God. Being able to talk directly to Jesus was a step up from St. Jude or St. Anthony and multiple Hail Marys, and I learned as I read the book that Jesus had a childhood just like me. I was told in the book by Jesus that I did not have to always pray prescribed prayers but could just talk to Him. That was an eye opener for me!

It was then, after consulting this little book, when I had anything to question or needed guidance, I would call on Jesus and tell him my problems or ask for advice. The chapters of the book had conversations about being rich or poor, about being lonely or sad, obedient to parents, happy, or getting angry and even having too much candy. It was a book written for children and unlike the pomp and ritual of the church, it held a fascination that Jesus loved me for myself and all my shortcomings and I could talk to Him as an understanding friend because He was a kid just like me once.

Long ago I gave up conventional, corporate religion for a more personal and spiritual walk with my God. Throughout the years I have learned that it is an individual walk with the Lord and a matter of the heart rather than mind and, when I want to know God better, when I want guidance or need help dealing with my trials and afflictions, I once again become as a little child and just talk with my Heavenly Father like I did over 60 years ago.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” I believe that with all my heart thanks to an enlightening little book given to me by my Aunt Agnes many years ago.

Toy Soldiers

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Freddie, Jose, Rich and I would play “war” at least twice a week after school. We played war in two different ways and the question we asked before starting was, “Do you want to play little or big?”

If we played “little,” the rubber toy soldiers were gathered out of their bag or box and assembled in the battlefield of dirt, rocks and popsicle stick fences near the old apple tree in my back yard. Back then, we could buy assorted soldiers in various poses in a bag of 50 for around a dollar. You could buy them in green or grey and sometimes other colors so you could tell which soldiers belonged to whom. They were the same soldiers and the only difference were their color, and we had hundreds of them ready to engage in battle in a designated area along the fence line where there was more dirt than grass.

There were rules when playing “little.” As we tossed small clumps of dirt or pebbles at each others forces, they toppled over when hit. If the soldiers landed face up, they were only wounded and could engage in the next battle. If they landed face down, they were out of the action and laid there until one or the other army was still standing. There is a toy cemetery in the backyard near the tree which still contain the rubber bodies of scores of rubber soldiers who no longer could stand on their own and were given burial.

When we played “big,” the yard became “no man’s land.” We used our cap pistols or Mattel tommy-burp weapons to dispatch each other. Our parents preferred our playing “little” instead of “big” because of the running and shouting and noise we would make as we yelled, “I got you!” and “No ya didn’t!” and, of course, the verbal and guttural attempted sounds of the weapons we were firing.

Getting shot and having to fall down in Jose’s yard was difficult because he had an old dog named Sandy whose only outdoor activity was crapping anywhere in the yard she felt like. Many a time a truce was called while one or more of us went home to wash the dog poop off our arms and hands. We died in battle many times over and, in the end, when our mothers called us in for supper, we would resurrect ourselves from the battlefield, prepared to fight another day. After all, it was pretend.

Ten years later I was in Viet Nam. A real soldier in a real war.

We had uniforms, helmets, flak-jackets and weapons. I carried and fired a single barrel double-aught buck shotgun, an M-79 grenade launcher, an automatic M-14, several hand grenades and a boot knife. My playmates would have been impressed. I could cause some serious damage!

This was real war. Dog poop was replaced with feces covered punji sticks, soda pop cans we used as kids for grenades were replaced with cans filled with explosives for booby-traps. Tommy-burp guns were replaced with 7.62mm rounds of ammunition, AK-47s and M-16s. And when people got shot it hurt. When people died, they stayed dead. No one’s mother yelled out a window telling them to stop and come home for supper.

I wondered if any of my fellow soldiers, and even the enemy, played with toy guns and rubber soldiers when they were 10 years old. Were they the backyard heroes and platoon leaders who led their men to victory with water balloons, wooden swords and clumps of dirt?

Today, you don’t see kids playing war in the neighborhood. They can’t. People would be calling the police if they saw half a dozen kids chasing each other with (toy) weapons. And there is always the fear that someone would shoot back, only it would not be playing around.

Maybe it’s time we stopped playing war altogether.