We had Major the dog (whom we acquired as a puppy in Palmyra). He was a medium-sized mutt and greatly enjoyed the wilds of Macedon. He would hunt woodchucks, in particular, and having caught and killed one would bring it home and we would find such rotting woodchuck carcasses around the place (not indoors!). Major died when I was 13 years old, on my 13th birthday as a matter of fact, which happened to fall on Friday the 13th that year (not that it really mattered, just coincidence). He was only around 9 years old but had been hit by passing automobiles on multiple occasions in his lifetime (the result of his car-chasing habit) and finally succumbed to his internal injuries, whatever they were. We didn’t have money for veterinarian services back in those days and we just let nature take its course. Recently I found an old faded picture of Major:
Mr. Muffs was our cat that was acquired in Palmyra as a tiny kitten (I talk about him back in entry #15). He was 14 when he kicked the bucket, the direct result of being run over by a car. It was sad to lose him – he was a member of the family and we all took it hard, particularly Mom.
We ended up with a replacement cat, though I have no idea from whence it came. I think it was a stray cat that adopted us. We named it Scrapper for a scrapper he was. He was a tiger cat with an orange belly (quite beautiful, as cats go) and the very last inch of his tail was bent 90°, the result of some mishap unknown to us. Affectionate as all get-out when he wanted to be, but a ruthless hunter of small game including rabbits that he would drag through the back door and into the utility room, still alive, only to corner and torment them. We would find blood stains on the floor and walls from the poor things. He would amuse himself at times by hiding under the couch in the living room and lurking until someone walked by with their bare feet, at which time he would launch out and grab ahold with teeth and claws. One learned to walk carefully past the living room couch. He also had an affinity for Dennis, specifically when it was summertime and Dennis slept with only a sheet because of the heat. Scrapper would hang around the foot of Dennis’s bed in the morning waiting for Dennis to begin to stir only to attack his moving foot with (again) teeth and claws. This would naturally send Dennis into an immediate wide-awake state with very loud vocalizations directed at the cat. Scrapper never bothered me in that manner – only Dennis.
My sister Rita wanted a baby goose for some reason. She was always coming up with crazy ideas. So, she went to a farm, got one, brought it home, and named it Spanky. It was a big hit with the family – so cute and quite entertaining. It waddled about the house looking for crumbs of food and bugs, peeping all the way. In the late evening it would cuddle with you and sing itself to sleep with a little peeping song. Eventually it got too big to have around – it shit all over the place plus it’s attitude was growing less sweet as time progressed. It eventually was taken back to the farm.
I came home from school one day to classical music being loudly played and the most amazing noise which turned out to be a canary my parents had purchased. Why did we need a canary? Who knows. It was in a large cage hung from the ceiling of the living room (out of reach of the cat, of course) and there was a sign attached to the cage – something like “Hello! My name is Jocko”. Dunno how my parents came up with the name “Jocko”, but us kids thought it ridiculous and a name more fit for a monkey than a bird. Silly name aside, the thing was singing its little brains out in conjunction with the orchestra on the record player and I was mesmerized. Never heard any like it. Didn’t imagine such a sound from nature existed. He eventually got ill and died, but I can hear his song vividly in my head to this day.
Dad did work for Crosman Arms (BB guns, pellet guns, and the like), a division of Coleman (the camping company). Dad was a commercial artist and had a studio in which he did his work. Sometimes the studio was at home, though I dunno why. I enjoyed playing around (carefully) with his art stuff and occasionally he would show me some process or activity related to his work.
Anyways, he designed the Crosman logo which is in use today, or at least something pretty much like it. If it has changed, it has changed very little over the years. He re-designed their packaging so it stood out on store shelves. Apparently it had an amazing effect on the company’s revenue stream at the time. He even designed at least one of their air rifles which is still being sold today.
The upshot of this to Dennis and I was that we had a virtual endless variety of BB and pellet guns to play with, along with ammo plus CO2 cartridges which supplied the air power. BTW, nobody shot their eye out. Matter of fact there were no injuries involving the use of the guns that I can recall. Dad taught us how to use them safely, and we did. We did mostly target shooting, though certain wildlife ended up dead because of us: frogs, starlings (black birds who were quite numerous and bullies at the birdfeeder), for example. We even had a Crosman air-powered shot gun (the shells were quite small in comparison to standard shotgun shells and either contained tiny shot or a ball bearing) with a skeet launcher – instead of clay pigeons there were little plastic frisbees that came apart if you hit them and could be easily reassembled.
It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad for the experience as my parents could have never afforded such a luxury out of their pockets. Plus, it incremented my popularity in the neighborhood.
4th grade was a busy time for me in the romance department. I fell in love with a cute-as-all-getout girl named Rhonda (cue the Beach Boys singing “Help Me, Rhonda”). This happened within the space of an hour (I think it was during math lesson). She, apparently, fell in love with me, too, for reasons that befuddle me to this day – there were boys in our class much better looking and much more popular than I. Perhaps my wallflower-like persona was attractive to her. Who knows, except perhaps Rhonda, and I’ll bet she doesn’t remember if I asked her now. I remember Rhonda brought her older sister to the classroom and pointed to me (i.e. “this is the boyfriend”). Her sister didn’t seem to have any particular reaction, so I have no idea if I passed muster or not. The whirlwind affair lasted a week, I think, before she discovered she really didn’t love me. Or particularly like me, for that matter. Broke my heart. I probably got over it in a week or so. Except for a brief stint at a dance in 7th grade, we had nothing to do with each other since that time, though she remained my crush and fantasy all the way through high school.
Actually, now that I think about it, I did ask her why she was attracted to me, and she said it was because I wasn’t mushy. I, thinking mushy was something like vegetables cooked way too long, sought clarification, and she explained that I wasn’t annoyingly romantic, which turns out I was, which is probably why she tired of me so quickly.
Linda was another crush – she had a darker complexion and was (and presumably still is) of some exotic descent (Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or something). Exotic in my mind, anyway. She was a bit more tomboyish than Rhonda, which I found very attractive for some reason, but she never fell in love with me, or fell in anything with me.
I’ve never seen the movie Ben Hur all the way through – beginning to end. My parents watched it every year when it came on television. TV shows, BTW, were listed out in what was called the TV Guide which was included in the Sunday newspaper. You looked up what shows would show on which channels at what day/time during the coming week and you planned your TV viewing schedule accordingly. Plus we only received 4 channels back then: 8, 10, 13, plus UHF which required its own antenna. I remember when we acquired a motorized antenna which was mounted to the roof – by a dial on a console next to the TV you could change the direction the antenna was pointed and get a clear signal of whatever station you were watching. It was magical, at the time. VCRs weren’t yet available for the average (or, in our case, below average) family.
Ben Hur in its entirety is nearly 4 hours long but I would last only about a half hour or so before I fell asleep. My parents would wake me for the chariot races, which I found very exciting, after which I would crawl up to bed.
Suppose I should spend the time, someday soon, and watch the whole thing.
One day a classmate, Chris, came into our 4th grade class bearing a brand new Snoopy (Peanuts) lunchbox. Lunchboxes, back then, were a thing - I had a Batman lunchbox, as I recall. Anyhoo, we inquired about how he obtained it, and as his story goes his mom had gone grocery shopping the day before and spent $104 dollars in one fell swoop which included the lunchbox. Chris was quite happy with his windfall, though he told us that his parents got into a huge fight about the amount of money spent, which didn’t seem to bother him at all.
$104 was quite a large amount of money in those days, even for adults. Sort of like going grocery shopping now and spending $1000.
I had 2 Guinea Pigs for a few years. I don’t recall where the first one “Popcorn” came from, but the second one “Coon” was courtesy of my sister Rita. My parents bought a used rabbit hutch to house them, which was quite large and had an enclosed area for colder weather. Speaking of which, I kept plenty of hay in the “outdoor” section and filled the “indoor” section with wood shavings so that they remained happily outside pretty much all year around, even through the winter. However, I brought them inside during really cold periods.
I remember taking them out of their hutch on warm summer days and letting them graze for clover in the lawn. They weren’t particularly interesting or affectionate or anything, but they were my responsibility and I was diligent in taking care of them.
Eventually my interest in taking care of them waned and we ended up giving them (and the rabbit hutch) to a physically handicapped kid who aspired to be a veterinarian.
We had an old black leather-bound Bible in the house. Dunno where it came from, but I assume it was in someone’s family for a long time for it was quite worn. I wonder where it ended up. Probably tossed when the family broke up, which is a story for another time. I remember picking it up from time to time and reading it. Well, attempting to read it as it was a King James Bible and the diction/syntax befuddled me. It did serve a useful purpose amongst us kids, however, when one was made to swear (as in solemn oath vs cuss words). For example, someone would challenge another on the verity of something spoken, one would place one’s right hand on the Bible and swear it was true. Or perhaps to confirm a commitment – i.e. you would swear on the Bible that you would fulfill a particular promise.
No one ever told me that the black book was God’s Word, God’s Truth, or any such thing. I only knew that if you lied while swearing on the Bible that it was really, really, bad, and you were violating something sacred. Plus, if you did so, something pretty bad would happen to you.
Christmas was a magical time for a kid – getting out the Christmas decorations and sorting through them, hunting down a Christmas tree (a real one – we never had a fake one), playing Christmas music, etc.
One year my parents found little Christmas tree lights and used them on the top section of the tree. We liked them so much that within a few years little twinkly lights had replaced the big fat ones that had been used for decades. There were very old ornaments we hung on the tree – it was like visiting old friends when we unboxed them each year for Christmas.
Among the decorations was a musical bell. I believe my parents bought it shortly after I was born. It’s maybe 6 inches in height (plus a chain to hang it) and there is a little music box inside – you pull on the string and it plays Jingle Bells. There’s a label on in indicating it was made in Japan (in the days before cheap stuff was made in China). As a kid I thought it was solid and heavy. I discovered in my early teens by happenstance that is quite light. I’m spending words on this bell because it, more than any other physical object, signifies Christmas for me. It’s the only thing that has been present at every Christmas since I was born (apart from certain years I was not home for Christmas). Anyways, I have it now and intend on keeping it until some day one of my kids or grandchildren hang it in their house.
Until my mid teens, Christmas was also bountiful occasion – lots of great presents under the tree. Dennis & I would wake up very very early Christmas morning, sneak downstairs, and quietly survey the presents with flashlights for who got what which, of course, was all wrapped up in paper, though we had fun guessing what may be inside each. After that we would wait for what seemed like days until everyone was up, dressed, and ready to gather for present-opening time.
I was a grown-up when I found out that my parents would take out a loan each year so we kids could have an awesome Christmas. Sometimes the previous year’s loan would not be paid off on time and was added to the new loan. Eventually they caught up and stopped taking loans out as Christmas, over time, became less expensive – kids got older and some of them moved out. I was 14, I think, when one particular Christmas I looked at my quite small pile of presents and realized I wasn’t a kid anymore.
A couple of presents I especially recall that were given to Dennis and me by Jean & Dick: Atari Pong, which had just come out, and the following year a small but thoroughly enjoyable air hockey table (air hockey was also relatively new thing at the time). Those were expensive gifts. Dennis and I were really overwhelmed to receive them, though we had to wait until the adults were finished “trying them out” which was pretty much all Christmas Day.
