1949 will ever be remembered as the year of silly putty. Everyone remembers where they were when that little toy store in New Haven, Connecticut, sold its first plastic egg shell of the stuff for one dollar American. I’m sure you also remember this was the year RCA first came out with vinyl 45 RPM records and that they were color coded. Country releases were green (the first was “Texarkana Baby”, by Eddie Arnold), children’s were yellow, classical got red, semi-classical instrumentals were blue with a blue label while international recordings were blue with a black label. Race records were orange.
And who could forget that it was in February of 1949 the world first heard of Grady the cow? She’d gotten stuck in a silo and they couldn’t get her out. Thousands of suggestions poured in from around the world, my favorite being bring an attractive bull to the opening to lure her out. I assume there are folks who know what a cow like Grady might find alluring in a bull. Finally they greased her and the opening and shoved her out. But not before milking her, presumably to lighten the load. The udder tugging was done by a chap named J.O. Dicky, Jr., he being the obvious choice.
Things you may have forgotten, however, include the Soviet Union lifting the Berlin Blockade, Ireland leaving the British Commonwealth, the Communist takeover of China, Albert II, rhesus monkey and first primate in space, being killed on impact when what went up came back down, and Howard Unruh, 28 year old WWII Army vet and Bible enthusiast going for a walk with his souvenir Luger pistol and murdering 13 people, including 3 children.
If you have forgotten any of those things, or anything else for that matter, you mustn’t blame yourself. Memory’s a very tricky business. If I’d been asked before starting this memoir, or indeed, if Pop had been asked at any point, when we moved into our first house on South Allison Street, we both would have said 1950. That can’t be though. You see, on March 28, 1949, astronomer Fred Hoyle, on BBC Radio, coined the term Big Bang and my sister Janet was born. And we were already living on Allison.
I remember the first time I went outside to explore. It was a gray, chilly day, probably during the ordeal of Grady the cow. A wad of paper bounced across the street in the wind like a tumbleweed. There was no one in sight but I heard down at the Kingsessing end of the street what sounded like boys. I went to investigate and I found four of them huddled in conclave in front of a small garage. Apparently I had interrupted some dark proceeding, and one, who I later learned was Jacky, came toward me scowling. He was wearing knee pants and long socks. I had never seen a real boy in knee pants but I had seen pictures of my father and his brothers in knee pants in the Great Depression.
I asked the boy if he was poor. He growled and rushed me. I retreated a bit to assess the situation but then they all started after me and I ran. I flew along and easily beat them to my new house, up the four steps and into the glass-enclosed porch. From there I watched them in the street as they hopped around and made faces.
After that, chasing was the only game the neighborhood boys would play with me. The rules were simple. I would seek them out, they would chase me home.
One time, however, as I ran up the steps I saw my mother just inside the glass door. I saw her finger push in the little button that locked the door. I looked up to see her looking down at me. I heard her muffled voice say, “Go out and fight. You can’t run home to mommy all your life”.
That surprised me. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d been running home to mommy. I had never actually run to her after one of these chases. I always went straight to my room or the basement. This was the first time she had figured in the game in any way. I was surprised she even knew about it. The phrase “all your life” also made me wonder. It had only been a week or two, a time period I felt hardly merited such description. That her words implied I was afraid surprised me as well. Just as it hadn’t occurred to me that I was running home to mommy, neither had it occurred to me that I ran from fear. Looking back now, I try to get that boy to tell me why he ran, but he doesn’t know. They chased, he ran. That’s all there was to it.
Odd though her words may be her meaning was clear enough. She wanted me to fight these guys, so back down the steps and onto the sidewalk I went, just as the lead boy, Marty, arrived. I uncorked a mighty roundhouse right and Marty skidded so suddenly to a stop that his momentum, and not the draught from my fist, caused him to fall over backwards. In an instant he was on his feet and fleeing pell mell with his accomplices back down the street. I did not pursue. I was content. I had risen and mine enemies were scattered.
