Once upon a time in 1938, on the 5400 block of Regent Street in West Philadelphia, during a game of two-hand touch, a girl named Tessie offered to teach Pop how to kiss.
Pop, fourteen going on ten, declined. Tessie said if he changed his mind he should come to a party at her house Saturday night. This at a time when Neville Chamberlain was giving away Czechoslovakia.
Pop took it under advisement.
Come Saturday, Pop went to the movies. At the Lenox Theater on Chester Avenue he saw Love Finds Andy Hardy. Betsy, played by Judy Garland, made him feel all squinky inside.
Betsy got Pop more in the mood to party so he spiffed up a bit.
At the appointed hour, still shy, Pop hung back, watched other kids going into Tessie’s house.
And that’s when it happened. Two girls walked out of the dusk and one of them walked into Pop’s heart. She was a knockout, a dead ringer for Judy Garland. She was Pop’s personal, custom made Stupefyin’ Jones.
The less said about the other girl the better
Entranced, Pop followed the vision into the party. The parlor seemed a golden haze with glittering points of light. Girls tittered and boys preened. Some of them would not live to see 1945. As the boys jostled and heckled one another, showing off, behind it all, on the only phonograph in the neighborhood, “Begin the Beguine” by Artie Shaw. In the midst of all the bustle Pop heard nothing but “that music so tender” and saw nothing but she who walked in beauty like the night.
But not from afar. Pop felt he had to do something, connect somehow, save her from the villain who had tied her to the railroad tracks. If only some knucklehead would annoy her! He’d knock his block off! She’d see him then alright, standing tall, back arched, daring the knucklehead to get up.
Or two knuckleheads – even better
Fortunately, before he could clobber some poor kid in the snoot Tessie intervened. She said they’d play a game called “Spin the bottle”. It was a disaster. That damn bottle never pointed to him when she spun it nor to her when he spun it.
Did Pop kiss the girls when the bottle pointed at him? He always claimed to have kissed only one girl in his life. So maybe it never pointed his way. Did the goddess kiss the boys when the bottle pointed her way? You don’t know Mom yet but I do. Let’s just say she was a good sport.
Such a good sport
Alright already! We get the picture
You can easily imagine how Pop felt. He ground his teeth, maybe even gnashed them (whatever that means), clenched his fists, curled his toes. The situation was intolerable. Luckily for all hands, just before the top of Pop’s head blew off and he was forced to grab her and drag Mom out of the clutches of all these perverts they switched games.
This one was called “Flashlight” and worked much better. When it was your turn, you shone the light on the person you wanted to kiss. No more taunting by the fickle finger of fate. To the dismay of the gentler sex in general, and to poor Tessie in particular (I assume), Pop shone his light on one girl and one girl only. Mom. What happened when a non-Mom girl shone her light on Pop’s face, he being such a handsome devil, I can’t say.
Pop weathered the onslaught – for love.
At the end of the party he told Mom he’d never kiss anyone else ever again. Young love took wing like a butterfly (Pop’s words). Nights he lay awake thinking of her. He sent her a Valentine. Shy and pushy at the same time (per Pop again), he would ride his bike by her house hoping she would see him. She did.
Pretty noticeable really.
By the time Hitler invaded Poland they were going steady. While they were in high school, Poland was carved up, France fell, the Brits escaped from Dunkirk by the skin of their teeth, and the Japanese, bored with raising hell in China, bombed Pearl Harbor. Before you could say “Admiral Nimitz” Pop was in the Navy, a trained radio operator on the PBY Catalina flying boat and Mom was going to be a mom.
Pop the sailor man.
Young folks in those days were tremendously naive, but not so much they couldn’t figure out what goes where.
Seems simple enough.
Or, if you’re Swedish ->
The IKEA kit.
There was, of course, a lovely wedding – we have pictures to prove it. I’m in this one myself but you’d need ultrasound to see me.
I’m behind the bouquet.
Then Pop was off to Jacksonville Naval Air Station while Mom settled down in Philly to await yours truly. This blessed event came on Saturday, January 15, 1944, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. It was Mom’s 18th birthday.
