I have three questions, maybe four.
Whenever there was a holiday in the Frank Chavoor family one thing was certain. We'd spend the day at the beach? Never. We'd picnic at Griffith Park? A few times. Church picnic? On Memorial Day. But the one constant was that Dad, around 10 in the morning after he shaved and doused himself liberally with Old Spice, would go to the bookcase and pull out the appropriate encyclopedia and begin reading aloud about the holiday we were celebrating.
He'd stand in the middle of the den holding up the text like it was the Good Book and he was commencing to preach the word. He'd read the introductory paragraph and then stop and shout, "Come listen to this! Learn about the holiday you're celebrating!" And Mom would sent me from my bowl of Sugar Pops into the den where I would sit on the couch and be Dad's one boy audience.He'd read the entire article, read each word and paragraph as if each part of it were of equal importance and any part not properly read or not read at all would mean that I would have no chance of truly understanding and appreciating the given holiday. Sometimes he would read a phrase twice, adding my name at the end of the phrase in hopes of acquiring some buy-in. I suppose that's how I started bringing one page articles to class just before holidays for my classes over the years. Just last week I brought them an article about Labor Day, and I had them write a response in their journals.
One day they'll make 911 a holiday, I suppose. Labor Day being so close will be problematic but they'll do something to fix that, maybe like move Labor Day to the end of the month. Then there's the problem of what to call it. It could be called Freedom Day or Firefighters' Day or Vigilance Day. I don't suppose you could call it Freedom Day; 3,000 people dying is not readily associated with freedom. And the firefighters were surely heroic but naming the day after them may not encompass the broad sweep of what marked our collective souls that day. That leaves us with Vigilance Day which may not fly because it suggests that we may not have been as vigilant as we should have been and the point of the holiday would be to pledge to be more vigilant in the future which wouldn't be untrue. It was one of the biggest meltdowns of both preparedness and response in our history.
But we don't want to be painfully truthful about it; we want something about the day but vague enough to not think about it too deeply. Something solemn but not morbid and something with overarching patriotism to it. There will be flags, half mast, everywhere, and "Never Forget" signs in windows and on lawns.It won't be a picnic day. The day off will be on Monday, which means there will be Vigilance Day sermons on Sunday, just as there are Memorial Day and Independence Day sermons. Interestingly enough, not every American holiday merits a sermon on the day before. You won't hear for instance, a President's Day or Labor Day or King Day sermon, at least not in the churches I have attended in my life.But it will be a day to pray and reflect. What though-- after the memorial is built where the twin towers once stood-- will be prayed for and what will be reflected upon? The TV news will start at the memorial and the camera will show us people who gathered there to put flowers and light candles and hold signs and there will be 5 second clips of speeches by survivors and friends or relatives of victims and the mayor of New York. Then some shots of people in church in ornate New York City churches. And there will be public service announcements with the American flag waving in slow motion superimposed over the 911 memorial while taps plays and James Earl Jones does the voice over, something simple, short and moving.
Will people go on weekend getaways on Vigilance Day? Will they attend patriotic gatherings and listen to impassioned speeches? Will it evolve into something else? Will it become a celebration of the overthrow and death of Saddam Hussein? Will people burn effigies of him like they burn effigies of Guy Fawkes in England, even though Saddam is the wrong guy from the wrong country? Holidays have slowly departed from its original purpose. Mother's Day was originally meant to be a protest of Mothers against war. So Vigilance Day will morph into something other than what it should be; it's inevitable, I guess. The words "freedom," "courage," "sacrifice," "honor" and a host of others will tossed around like so many walnuts and raisins in a fancy salad.
We have not yet examined the hard questions, not collectively anyway, and anyone who does get dropped into the societal waste bin called "conspiracy nut." I don't consider myself a nut, not unless the word "music" is in front of that word, and even then it's not a word I'm entirely comfortable with. And I don't think there's a conspiracy behind every unanswered question but neither do I avoid pondering a question just because it might be one that might suggest a possible conspiracy. So here are my questions.
Why didn't NORAD scramble?
Do buildings really just completely collapse like that?
Why did the Bin Laden family members in the United States get a free pass, flown out of the country without even being interviewed on September 13?
And finally, President Bush. I'm not angry at him. I wonder about him though quite a lot. I think he was just a pawn, a rube. I think that he was the elitist that people thought they saw in his opponent for the office of president of the United States, although it sounds weird to think of him or anyone as both a rube and an elitist. Anyway, I didn't want to drag him into this because he might steal all the attention but my question is this:
How could he have ignored the briefings, Intel "chatter," reports, advisors on over 40 different occasions-- including several that were very specific-- about terrorist threats on our country?
Those are my four questions. And until they are answered or at least examined seriously, I don't see any point in getting sentimental or otherwise making 911 into some gaudy show or excuse for amping up God and patriotism which really aren't, shouldn't be, and can't be compatible in the first place.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Confronting Rocky
December 1999
The dog jumping the fence dream came from a memory before my official memory begins. Wait, that's not true either. I have always claimed that I remember my crib and a press board train that fit on the rail of the crib. This was later. This was pre-kindergarten and Mom had taken me on the bus to somewhere and we were walking together. Mom was dressed up and was wearing a hat. I was so happy and proud and excited to be with her. We had been on the bus and had lunch and we were headed back. We were on a residential street. There was shade and morning sun coming through the shade and it was peacefully quiet. I had a joy and contentedness that was just I don't know, hasn't been matched since. I was looking at the houses as we walked down the tree-lined street. I saw the dog-- it was a big black dog, maybe a short hair lab-- and got a little skittish but I saw that he was behind a chain link gate. The dog started to bark and Mom took my hand and said, "It's ok," using her dismissive, sing-song voice. The dog was jumping straight up and barking hysterically. I was trying to get to the next house. I didn't want to see the dog but I was already turning my head to watch him. That's the part that I believe is real. I say I believe because I dreamed the whole thing over and over for a long time after the incident. In the dream the dog clears the fence and charges us. All of it done in complete silence. Then Mom moves away. She doesn't walk or run and she doesn't speak but it's like she is suddenly repositioned and suddenly, inexplicably across the street and half way up the block. I would wake up just as the dog leaped at me.The dream went away after awhile but the memory of the dream never did. It made sense then that I grew up afraid of any dog that barked, jumped, ran and was larger than a loaf of bread.
At first I wouldn't tell anyone, not even when Jeff Ward down the street got a Weimaraner and the back yard smelled of dead grass, sun baked cinder blocks,dog piss and dog shit and the dog, I think his name was George, would jump up and put his paws on my shoulders. I wouldn't tell Jeff how scared I was. But by the time I got to high school I made it in to a running gag. That way it could serve dual purposes: it was humorously ironic that a "big" and "tough" football player was afraid of dogs, and I generally liked playing against the stereotypical jock anyway; and it could notify owners to keep their dog at bay.
One October night when I was 19 or so I was trying to find a house where there was a Halloween party going on. I can't remember if it was an official sanctioned church party or a party given by friends from church. I think the hosts were the Albarians, but I could be wrong.In either case it was a house I had never been to and neither had Robert, my good friend. We were somewhere west of Van Nuys Boulevard, maybe it was Canoga Park, and we were on the right street but we didn't have the address. There were a lot of cars--some of the were familiar looking-- and we had narrowed it down to two houses. They were both dark but we figured maybe that was for effect. There was music but it was hard to determine where it was coming from; it was muted and sounded as though it was hovering over our heads. The house directly in front of where we stood had a chain link fence around it; the house to our right had none.
"Would an Armenian put an ugly cyclone chain link fence around his front yard?" I asked incredulously.
"I think this is it though," Robert said.
"You sure?"
"No, but I got a 50-50 chance."
That's when the dog came blasting out of nowhere, a stupid looking, mangy tan and white little sheep dog with the comically short legs. He was barking manically, savagely like we were resident puppy killers. I jerked and jolted as if Old Scratch himself has crept up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and singed the skin with the touch of his white hot sulfurous hand.
"Whoa! Easy there, Jack."
"I don't like dogs.
"No kidding."
"I used to have bad dreams when I was little about a big dog hopping a fence."
"This dog's no threat. No chance he's getting over the fence."
"Yeah? You don't know."
"Look, you want the dog to shut up you have be the alpha dog."
"The what?"
"Hey, dog! Quiet! Down boy!"
"Way to go, Robes. He's ten times crazier."
"Wait a minute now, if this is the Albarians, then the dog speaks Armenian."
" Ha-ha. Yeah, maybe."
"Seriously. Watch this. Shoon! Soos!"
"It's not working. Maybe you have to know his name."
"Everybody calls their dog shoon."
"We name our dogs Dog?"
"Of course! We're a very practical people."
But the dog was more hysterical than ever. He was trying to push his face through the bottom of the fence, all the while snarling, barking and making other guttural sounds.
"Come on Robes, let's get out of here. I don't like dogs. I told you, man."
"A tough guy like you?"
"Right now I'm all flight and no fight. I'm very practical."
"This is the place. Come on, tell that dog to shut up in Armenian. Confront your fears and prove that we're at the right place."
"Soos shoon, soos!"
We were barking out our commands when the owner of the dog came out, asking us in a manner rather rude if there was someway he could help us. Much to our ok make that much to my mortification, the man wasn't Armenian. He was highly annoyed though.
"Oh yeah," Robert said nonchalantly, "we're looking for the Albarian residence."
The man pointed to his left, then told his dog, Topper, to shut up and go inside, which the dog did immediately. I don't remember much about the party except that I was still rattled by Topper for a long time.
That's how it was. I hated people who said of their barking dog, "Just ignore him," or "He hasn't bitten anyone. Not yet, anyway!" When my oldest was five and began begging and bartering for a dog, I eventually gave in. I got the wrong dog though and he grew to be the size of Marmaduke. When he ran away for the fifth time, Grace and I said to each other, "Run Sherlock, run." But owning a dog was different than encountering one. We did better with a smaller dog and currently have two of them. Nevertheless, I still am nervous and jumpy around big, barking dogs behind fences. There is a huge German Shepherd around the corner from us; we haven't walked our dogs for years. Sometimes though one has to, as Robert said so many years ago, confront the object of fear, be the master of it. I was perfectly content at being better safe than sorry until the day I had to face down my worst fear.
We were delivering Christmas presents to kids whose mom or dad was in prison. The present was addressed from the imprisoned parent and was purchased by benefactors from churches that participated in the program. The parents described the gift so there would be no guess work or some vague, generalized, one size fits all gift.It was really a great idea and despite what happened, it still is. I thought that the delivery of the gifts would be a great activity for the youth group of the church; the ideal lesson having to do with the verse where Jesus says, "Whatever you do for the least of these, you have done it for me." It seems that if there is no outreach program the church is only a social outlet. But our church had several good things going on: we gave food out in November;we gave heavy jackets away in the winter;we participated in Cropwalk, which raised money for local foodbanks; we offered tutoring for the neighborhood elementary school kids. It was mostly planned and executed by the adults in the church;the kids typically played broom hockey and ate pizza. And so this time the kids were invited to participate. Grace and I had five or six presents to deliver. Our daughter, Kelsey, 10 at the time, was with us. We loaded up the Dodge Caravan and rolled through some pretty rough neighborhoods. For the most part we treated graciously. On a couple of occasions the participants were the parents or grandparents of some of my students. The look on the faces of the young children when we announced that their father was thinking of them at Christmas was the richest kind of blessing I have ever experienced. I was very happy that Kelsey was with us.
We were on our last or second to last stop, somewhere around Belmont and Maple. It was a small house on a block of small houses in varying degrees of disrepair. There was a cyclone chain link fence around the front and broken toys and car parts strewn about. The house had a front porch and the front door was ajar.
"Well, this must be the place," I said to Grace, "looks like they left the door open for us." I put my hand on the latch but Grace stopped me.
"Wait, there's a dog."
"Where?"
"Right over there."
The dog began growling as if on cue. It was a white pitbull, quite muscular, replete with studded collar.
"He's on the side yard isn't he?"
"Hello?" Grace called out, "We're here to deliver the presents? I called this morning?"
"Yes," an unseen man's voice replied from inside the house, "come on in."
"Could you please secure your dog?"
"He's on the side yard. He can't get to the front and the back door is closed."
So I opened the gate. We were about halfway to the front porch when the dog just materialized. and stood before us, ok, not exactly before us but a little to my left. We all slowed our pace but as I found out later, Kelsey never saw the dog. I immediately began thinking of strategies. I remembered from elementary school it was widely held that kicking a dog directly on his lower jaw would knock him out. But by way of twisted selected breeding a pitbull's face is mashed in and there wasn't much of a jaw to kick, and odds were I wouldn't hit the target even if it were the size of a hatbox and this wasn't the time to revert to or rely on schoolyard mythology. The dog was quicker, stronger and far more ferral than I could ever hope to be. There was only one strategy that I could think of: I would have to make sure the dog attacked me so at least my wife and child could escape. I had to assume that the owner had a shovel or a crowbar or a pistol to eventually separate me from the dog, but by God, I was going to protect my family. I locked eyes with the dog. I couldn't remember if it was something you were supposed to do or never do, like the moment of a car accident do you turn into it, out of it, brake, pump the brakes? Who knows? Anyway, I decided to stare the damn dog down. Let him know it was between me and him. And the dog watched me all the way to the front porch, slowly leaning his head forward. The dog was bracing himself when the owner, a shoeless man in sweatpants, a Raiders shirt, a goatee and Ray-bans,came to the door and called out, "Rocky, no," and Rocky suddenly relaxed and trotted off to the backyard.
We delivered the presents, more than a little annoyed that the man's inattentiveness created our brush with catastrophe. He insisted the side gate was closed but offered no explanation as to how Rocky might have made it to the front yard. I'm thinking that in dream like fashion, Rocky silently hopped it.
Marathon Boy
My face was beet red, sweat was trickling into places it had never been before, the smog was squeezing me like a python...
April 1966
I was fast. I mean one of the fastest kids in the school. Every morning before school started we who contended for the title of fastest kid at Lincoln Elementary would gather at one end of the playground and sprint the width—maybe 60 yards—crashing into the chain link fence, the order of the clanking sound designating the winner as well as the runners-up. I was almost always third, and that’s fast; there were a lot of us lining up for race after race, each of us trying to beat Donnie, the fastest, smallest kid I’ve ever seen. Didn’t matter if you raced him in the first race, figuring he wasn’t warmed up yet, or in the sixth race, when you figured he was tired. There just wasn’t any difference: the boy took off and left everyone in his tailwind.
But that was in the 2nd and 3rd grade. In the 4th grade though, a kid named Jay Johnson arrived and made Donnie turn invisible. Jay looked like he was 16, which to our 10-year-old eyes was a full-grown adult. He could hit a softball not just out of right field, but all the way to the fence that separated the school from a nursery school, which was two baseball fields away, and the ball would hit that chain link fence with force. He was strong, quick, very fast and dominated every game that was played in elementary school. I’m telling you Donnie just disappeared. Ok, he moved. But maybe it was because he was no longer idolized.
When we were in the 6th grade, Mrs. Jones proposed a marathon race. We had no idea what that was but we were up for it. It turned out that a marathon race started when a Greek guy 500 years before the birth of Christ ran from one city to another to say they had won a war. For us though, it was a long race around the perimeter of the school, then two jogs around the log cabin that housed the sport equipment and finally a hundred yards in a straight line to the finish line. By the 6th grade though I was no longer fast; my legs and arms suddenly began having a life of their own, flapping this way and that clumsily for every movement as if all four limbs were having a serious argument. That wasn’t going to stop me of course. It was irrefutable that Jay would win the race; the drama was in how the rest of us would do. I intuitively knew that I would not do well. Pain and I never got along well, and I was perfectly willing to cease any activity that was causing it. Not that the pain in your chest, lungs, and legs was the worst pain around but to me there wasn’t much point in putting up with it for a contest where there was no score to it. Still though I was going to do it and I looked forward to it.
“On your mark, get set, go!” Mrs. Jones had a smile in her voice and was wearing sunglasses. Jay Johnson broke out from the pack immediately, put a 15 yard lead on us and then set it to cruise control. I was quickly conceding to the slightest pain, but the race had pecking order implications, to which I was sensitive. One’s standing in the race was a direct correlation to one’s social standing. No way was I going to finish side by side with the outcasts of our tribe, Gene, who was a source of continual annoyance, and Mooney, a kid who was skittish and nervous but quiet who had a way of making the rest of us nervous. Behind them would be Billy Welsh, who would walk the whole thing. I had to be in the middle of the pack or face the consequence of falling down a peg.
I was somewhere in the back half of the middle when we hit our first turn. I stayed by the fence as Mrs. Jones had described it to us, but almost everyone else cut the corner. I was in mortal danger now of being caught by the laggers. I felt ashamed to do it but I cut the next corner with everyone else. We could hear Mrs. Jones calling out to us to knock it off. We were getting tired as we headed toward the log cabin. Asthmatic kids were wheezing and dropping out. Kids who assumed they would do well were barely jogging, then walking, then barely jogging again. Jay Johnson appeared to feel sorry for us as he took it down a notch. We were now close enough to hear his US Keds slapping the asphalt.
The idea of circling the log cabin twice after running such an unprecedented lengthy amount of time made me wonder if this was the cause of that smile in Mrs. Jones’ voice. I began to hate the Greek guy who got all this started. If Mrs. Jones wanted us to learn about it what could be better than reading it out of a book? My face was beet red, sweat was trickling into places it had never been before, the smog was squeezing me like a python, and I was still behind a dozen of my peers. This was basketball ball without the ball, hoop or any apparent reason. I was hoping for a twisted ankle so that I could have a reason to stop running, but ultimately I figured I was close enough to the end to finish the race.
As we completed the first lap around the cabin, something odd happened. Jay Johnson peeled off and headed down the stretch. He had either forgotten to go around twice or thought he had already done so or he was cheating, although he never had any need to cheat. And that’s when every other kid that came behind him did exactly the same thing. Now I’m not saying I’m a directions nerd but I was determined to run the race as instructed. This meant that every single kid got ahead of me. Well, except for Gene and Mooney, but even they nearly caught me. Billy Welsh had stopped walking some time ago and was pretending to mop the sweat off his brow while sitting with the girls.
After crossing the finish line we gathered around Mrs. Jones. We were gasping and bent over with our hand on our knees, except for Jay who stood grinning, with his arms akimbo, waiting to be praised.
“And the winner is,” she grinned, “no one! You are all disqualified!”
The uproar that followed was so intense and loud that she had to blow her yard whistle to restore order.
“I said twice around the log cabin, and none of you did it!” Jay Johnson took his hands off his hips and put his head down. We were all quiet. It took a while but a thought came to the surface and I spoke out before I could examine it thoroughly.
“Mrs. Jones, I went around it twice,” I said matter of factly.
“Yeah, sure. Very clever of you,” she remarked in an unteacherly voice.
“I did it.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, turning away from me. “All right! Let’s get back to class, come on.”
“I did. I went around twice, no one else did. They’re all disqualified, and I’m not, so I won the race.”
She stopped and turned to look at me, lowering her glasses for a moment, then turned away again walking off without comment. I felt that she knew I was telling the truth but she just wasn’t going to hand the title of marathon winner to anyone who won merely on a technicality. I wasn’t mad or sad. I wasn’t happy either. I just knew that I won it and I would always know it and believe it, even if no one acknowledged it.
April 1966
I was fast. I mean one of the fastest kids in the school. Every morning before school started we who contended for the title of fastest kid at Lincoln Elementary would gather at one end of the playground and sprint the width—maybe 60 yards—crashing into the chain link fence, the order of the clanking sound designating the winner as well as the runners-up. I was almost always third, and that’s fast; there were a lot of us lining up for race after race, each of us trying to beat Donnie, the fastest, smallest kid I’ve ever seen. Didn’t matter if you raced him in the first race, figuring he wasn’t warmed up yet, or in the sixth race, when you figured he was tired. There just wasn’t any difference: the boy took off and left everyone in his tailwind.
But that was in the 2nd and 3rd grade. In the 4th grade though, a kid named Jay Johnson arrived and made Donnie turn invisible. Jay looked like he was 16, which to our 10-year-old eyes was a full-grown adult. He could hit a softball not just out of right field, but all the way to the fence that separated the school from a nursery school, which was two baseball fields away, and the ball would hit that chain link fence with force. He was strong, quick, very fast and dominated every game that was played in elementary school. I’m telling you Donnie just disappeared. Ok, he moved. But maybe it was because he was no longer idolized.
When we were in the 6th grade, Mrs. Jones proposed a marathon race. We had no idea what that was but we were up for it. It turned out that a marathon race started when a Greek guy 500 years before the birth of Christ ran from one city to another to say they had won a war. For us though, it was a long race around the perimeter of the school, then two jogs around the log cabin that housed the sport equipment and finally a hundred yards in a straight line to the finish line. By the 6th grade though I was no longer fast; my legs and arms suddenly began having a life of their own, flapping this way and that clumsily for every movement as if all four limbs were having a serious argument. That wasn’t going to stop me of course. It was irrefutable that Jay would win the race; the drama was in how the rest of us would do. I intuitively knew that I would not do well. Pain and I never got along well, and I was perfectly willing to cease any activity that was causing it. Not that the pain in your chest, lungs, and legs was the worst pain around but to me there wasn’t much point in putting up with it for a contest where there was no score to it. Still though I was going to do it and I looked forward to it.
“On your mark, get set, go!” Mrs. Jones had a smile in her voice and was wearing sunglasses. Jay Johnson broke out from the pack immediately, put a 15 yard lead on us and then set it to cruise control. I was quickly conceding to the slightest pain, but the race had pecking order implications, to which I was sensitive. One’s standing in the race was a direct correlation to one’s social standing. No way was I going to finish side by side with the outcasts of our tribe, Gene, who was a source of continual annoyance, and Mooney, a kid who was skittish and nervous but quiet who had a way of making the rest of us nervous. Behind them would be Billy Welsh, who would walk the whole thing. I had to be in the middle of the pack or face the consequence of falling down a peg.
I was somewhere in the back half of the middle when we hit our first turn. I stayed by the fence as Mrs. Jones had described it to us, but almost everyone else cut the corner. I was in mortal danger now of being caught by the laggers. I felt ashamed to do it but I cut the next corner with everyone else. We could hear Mrs. Jones calling out to us to knock it off. We were getting tired as we headed toward the log cabin. Asthmatic kids were wheezing and dropping out. Kids who assumed they would do well were barely jogging, then walking, then barely jogging again. Jay Johnson appeared to feel sorry for us as he took it down a notch. We were now close enough to hear his US Keds slapping the asphalt.
The idea of circling the log cabin twice after running such an unprecedented lengthy amount of time made me wonder if this was the cause of that smile in Mrs. Jones’ voice. I began to hate the Greek guy who got all this started. If Mrs. Jones wanted us to learn about it what could be better than reading it out of a book? My face was beet red, sweat was trickling into places it had never been before, the smog was squeezing me like a python, and I was still behind a dozen of my peers. This was basketball ball without the ball, hoop or any apparent reason. I was hoping for a twisted ankle so that I could have a reason to stop running, but ultimately I figured I was close enough to the end to finish the race.
As we completed the first lap around the cabin, something odd happened. Jay Johnson peeled off and headed down the stretch. He had either forgotten to go around twice or thought he had already done so or he was cheating, although he never had any need to cheat. And that’s when every other kid that came behind him did exactly the same thing. Now I’m not saying I’m a directions nerd but I was determined to run the race as instructed. This meant that every single kid got ahead of me. Well, except for Gene and Mooney, but even they nearly caught me. Billy Welsh had stopped walking some time ago and was pretending to mop the sweat off his brow while sitting with the girls.
After crossing the finish line we gathered around Mrs. Jones. We were gasping and bent over with our hand on our knees, except for Jay who stood grinning, with his arms akimbo, waiting to be praised.
“And the winner is,” she grinned, “no one! You are all disqualified!”
The uproar that followed was so intense and loud that she had to blow her yard whistle to restore order.
“I said twice around the log cabin, and none of you did it!” Jay Johnson took his hands off his hips and put his head down. We were all quiet. It took a while but a thought came to the surface and I spoke out before I could examine it thoroughly.
“Mrs. Jones, I went around it twice,” I said matter of factly.
“Yeah, sure. Very clever of you,” she remarked in an unteacherly voice.
“I did it.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, turning away from me. “All right! Let’s get back to class, come on.”
“I did. I went around twice, no one else did. They’re all disqualified, and I’m not, so I won the race.”
She stopped and turned to look at me, lowering her glasses for a moment, then turned away again walking off without comment. I felt that she knew I was telling the truth but she just wasn’t going to hand the title of marathon winner to anyone who won merely on a technicality. I wasn’t mad or sad. I wasn’t happy either. I just knew that I won it and I would always know it and believe it, even if no one acknowledged it.
The Kool-Aid Stand
“Two friends, two buddies, a couple of neighborhood kids, on a sunny day selling Kool-Aid; what could be more American than that?”
July 1965
I hadn’t seen all 47 years of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers but I had a hunch the one scene of Americana I had in mind was one he must have done. Well, the Net is a wonderful thing; I just this moment discovered that it does indeed exist. A matter of fact, there are two that I was able to find. One is confusing though. It shows a boy selling lemonade to a girl but he is also selling apples. Apples? But the other one is classic: two boys selling lemonade. The hand drawn sign is there which must have served to convince a girl to part with her nickel. She drinks her lemonade while one boy hawks the product in search of the next customer and the other boy cleans the glass of what must have been a previous customer. The boys are wearing standard issue post-war, pre-Beatle attire --tee-shirts and jeans with rolled up cuffs.
That was Doug, my buddy and best friend who lived next door, and I. For a long time I couldn’t figure out why some people called him a “lonely child.” Later I found out the expression was “only child,” and so after that I start thinking of him as a brother.
There was certainly nothing lonely about him; he was like a ring leader for a circus, waving his arms and announcing events in our lives. I liked playing side-kick to him even though I was 2 ½ years older. I was 11, and Doug was not far from 9.
“You know what we haven’t done yet?”
“No.”
“We haven’t sold Kool-Aid from a stand for five cents!”
“Yeah, that’s sounds good.”
“Good? It’s great! Two friends, two buddies, couple of neighborhood kids, on a sunny day selling Kool-Aid; what could be more American than that?” He should have become a promoter.
“Yeah, that’s great. You mean like today?”
“Of course like today. Look at that sky, perfectly blue. Think about the temperature, hot but not too hot.”
“Ok. Shouldn’t we be selling lemonade though? You know, like the All-American kids?”
“Too complicated. Too messy.”
“Oh, yeah. We want something that’s easy to make.”
“You forget, we’re two guys. We’ll get our mom’s to make it.”
“You sure they’re gonna do that?”
“Oh course! They’ll think it’s so cute, they make it.”
We went to his mom first. She was in the living room with the ironing board set up to face the TV. She would attack a pile of wrinkled clothes, taking long drags on her Salems while “As the World Turns” played out before her.
“So, you want Mom to do all the work and you guys make all the money. That it?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Doug offered bravely, smiling gamely.
“It’s Kool-Aid. It’s not hard or anything,” I chipped in.
“Thanks very much, Jackie. I think I could manage,” she took a drag and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
I felt embarrassed and found somewhere else to look. I stared at the painting of the flowers that hung on the wall. I remembered that Doug had once told me that without his glasses he could not see the petals of the flower clearly. No one was speaking. Had I annoyed her? I had never seen her cook anything, and Doug told me that she probably couldn’t boil water even if she wanted to. I envied that family; there were always going out to McDonald’s or Doug’s dad would make peanut butter and butter sandwiches.
“And what about Frances, Jackie? What’s she contributing to this business? She’s not leaving it all to one mom is she?”
“No.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say; an incorrect answer could quash the deal. Doug came to the rescue.
“Oh she’s letting us use their card table.”
Mom was likewise in the living room but she was reclined on the couch, eating an apple and reading a book. She nodded approval of our request, took another bite of the apple and resumed reading.
We wrestled the card table out of the crowded hall closet, set it up in front of Doug’s house, and Doug set about making a sign. I had to convince him that spelling the k backwards was not going to get us more customers.
We had the sign, the table, the Tupperware pitcher, the Dixie cups, but we had no customers.
“I told you we should have spelled the K backwards.”
“That’s not it.”
“Ya-huh”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Well what is it then?”
“The cars are going too fast. By the time they see us, they are already half way to Buena Vista.”
Doug thought about it, puzzled for a moment. Then he pointed his finger in the air like a mad professor.
“We gotta be like those guys.”
“What guys? What are you talking about?”
“Those carnival guys on the outside of the tent. They yell and stuff.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“We’ll go broke.”
“We can’t go broke, we didn’t spend anything.”
“Ok wise guy, we won’t make any money.”
“You yell then. It’s a family trait. On your mom’s side.”
“KOOL-AID! GET YOU ICE COLD KOOL-AID RIGHT HERE!”
“Yep. That’s loud all right. Don’t see anybody though.”
“FIVE CENTS!! YOU CAN’T GET ANYTHING FOR FIVE CENTS ANYMORE, FOLKS! KOOL-AID, RIGHT HERE!”
“Wow. That was louder than Mike Buckley.” Mike could do a perfect Tarzan yell so loud that anyone could hear it two blocks away.
We were arguing about why I wouldn’t yell and whether it would do any good when we hear brakes screeching across the street. It was a new Mustang, the color of the blue sky Doug had been talking about that morning. The Mustang certainly held our attention but then two girls got out and waved cheerily at us. Doug waved back with one hand while poking me in the ribs with his elbow of the other. We were prepubescent but we weren’t going to let that stop us from dancing the dance.
“Pay dirt, buddy boy!” Doug said in the voice of a conspirator.
“You said it, brother.”
Here were Betty and Veronica the blonde and brunette best friends, right out of the comic book, looking bubbly and happy crossing the street headed our way. The only comparable feeling I had at that time was waiting for your turn on the Slip n Slide.
“Hi guys!” they spoke in tandem, smiling like they were on the cover of Teen Magazine.
“Hello!” I chirped, grinning like Stan Laurel. Then Doug’s arm came across my chest and he shoved me back.
“I’m Doug; he’s Jack,” he said in a voice that suggested he was a diamond while I was a lump of coal, “What can we do for you ladies?”
“They want Kool-aid, Einstein.” They giggled lightly. Then the blonde turned her attention to Doug.
“I’m Valerie, this is Vee.” Doug shook hands with them both, tipping his head sideways like it was something they did in King Arthur’s court.
“Oh Vee, that’s my brother’s girlfriend’s name. It’s really Veronica, but everyone calls her Vee.” I figured finding common ground would be a good thing.
“Does your brother go to Burroughs?” Vee seemed interested in finding out if she had a namesake at her high school.
“No, he’s old, he’s in college.” They giggled again. I filled the Dixie cups and Doug handed them out, but when they started to fish in their pocketbooks, Doug raised his hand.
“On the house,” he said nobly.
“How sweet,” Valerie said in a coquettish tone.
They stayed and chatted for a while, Doug gave them a second free round, and then they crossed the street, got back in the Mustang and took off. When the car was out of view I turned to my business partner.
“What the heck are you doing? Our only customers and you give the drinks away?”
“They’ll be back,” Doug said confidently, “the blonde likes me.”
“Likes you? Are you blind or crazy?” I said incredulously, “I had them both laughing at everything I said.”
“And who held Valerie’s hand?”
“That was a handshake, that doesn’t count.”
“Ok, tell you what I’m gonna do: You can have brunette; I’ll take the blonde.” He raised his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, I rolled my eyes. We weren’t rivals, but we loved the idea of playing at being rivals.
“No way man, no way. They like me better. Sorry, that’s how it goes sometimes.”
“You’ll see tomorrow when they come back.”
They did come back the next day, and they paid for their Kool-Aid this time. The day after that they gave us a dollar each and bought the whole pitcher. By that time we were like old friends, somehow. Doug was smart enough to set out four folding chairs that day. We talked and joked and Doug and I razzed each other. The fourth day though they didn’t show. We knew they wouldn’t ever come back. We sat in our folding chairs with the legs sinking into the grass. The ice was melting in the pitcher. Flecks of unidentifiable stuff floated in the Kool-Aid. We had made two dollars and ten cents and two friends who didn’t stick. We sat watching cars fly down Verdugo Ave. We had our arms on the other’s shoulders as was our custom when we were younger. Just before we put the stuff away Doug spoke.
“Heck of a week, eh Jack-boy?”
“Heck of a week, Doug-Doug.”
July 1965
I hadn’t seen all 47 years of Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers but I had a hunch the one scene of Americana I had in mind was one he must have done. Well, the Net is a wonderful thing; I just this moment discovered that it does indeed exist. A matter of fact, there are two that I was able to find. One is confusing though. It shows a boy selling lemonade to a girl but he is also selling apples. Apples? But the other one is classic: two boys selling lemonade. The hand drawn sign is there which must have served to convince a girl to part with her nickel. She drinks her lemonade while one boy hawks the product in search of the next customer and the other boy cleans the glass of what must have been a previous customer. The boys are wearing standard issue post-war, pre-Beatle attire --tee-shirts and jeans with rolled up cuffs.
That was Doug, my buddy and best friend who lived next door, and I. For a long time I couldn’t figure out why some people called him a “lonely child.” Later I found out the expression was “only child,” and so after that I start thinking of him as a brother.
There was certainly nothing lonely about him; he was like a ring leader for a circus, waving his arms and announcing events in our lives. I liked playing side-kick to him even though I was 2 ½ years older. I was 11, and Doug was not far from 9.
“You know what we haven’t done yet?”
“No.”
“We haven’t sold Kool-Aid from a stand for five cents!”
“Yeah, that’s sounds good.”
“Good? It’s great! Two friends, two buddies, couple of neighborhood kids, on a sunny day selling Kool-Aid; what could be more American than that?” He should have become a promoter.
“Yeah, that’s great. You mean like today?”
“Of course like today. Look at that sky, perfectly blue. Think about the temperature, hot but not too hot.”
“Ok. Shouldn’t we be selling lemonade though? You know, like the All-American kids?”
“Too complicated. Too messy.”
“Oh, yeah. We want something that’s easy to make.”
“You forget, we’re two guys. We’ll get our mom’s to make it.”
“You sure they’re gonna do that?”
“Oh course! They’ll think it’s so cute, they make it.”
We went to his mom first. She was in the living room with the ironing board set up to face the TV. She would attack a pile of wrinkled clothes, taking long drags on her Salems while “As the World Turns” played out before her.
“So, you want Mom to do all the work and you guys make all the money. That it?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Doug offered bravely, smiling gamely.
“It’s Kool-Aid. It’s not hard or anything,” I chipped in.
“Thanks very much, Jackie. I think I could manage,” she took a drag and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
I felt embarrassed and found somewhere else to look. I stared at the painting of the flowers that hung on the wall. I remembered that Doug had once told me that without his glasses he could not see the petals of the flower clearly. No one was speaking. Had I annoyed her? I had never seen her cook anything, and Doug told me that she probably couldn’t boil water even if she wanted to. I envied that family; there were always going out to McDonald’s or Doug’s dad would make peanut butter and butter sandwiches.
“And what about Frances, Jackie? What’s she contributing to this business? She’s not leaving it all to one mom is she?”
“No.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say; an incorrect answer could quash the deal. Doug came to the rescue.
“Oh she’s letting us use their card table.”
Mom was likewise in the living room but she was reclined on the couch, eating an apple and reading a book. She nodded approval of our request, took another bite of the apple and resumed reading.
We wrestled the card table out of the crowded hall closet, set it up in front of Doug’s house, and Doug set about making a sign. I had to convince him that spelling the k backwards was not going to get us more customers.
We had the sign, the table, the Tupperware pitcher, the Dixie cups, but we had no customers.
“I told you we should have spelled the K backwards.”
“That’s not it.”
“Ya-huh”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Well what is it then?”
“The cars are going too fast. By the time they see us, they are already half way to Buena Vista.”
Doug thought about it, puzzled for a moment. Then he pointed his finger in the air like a mad professor.
“We gotta be like those guys.”
“What guys? What are you talking about?”
“Those carnival guys on the outside of the tent. They yell and stuff.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“We’ll go broke.”
“We can’t go broke, we didn’t spend anything.”
“Ok wise guy, we won’t make any money.”
“You yell then. It’s a family trait. On your mom’s side.”
“KOOL-AID! GET YOU ICE COLD KOOL-AID RIGHT HERE!”
“Yep. That’s loud all right. Don’t see anybody though.”
“FIVE CENTS!! YOU CAN’T GET ANYTHING FOR FIVE CENTS ANYMORE, FOLKS! KOOL-AID, RIGHT HERE!”
“Wow. That was louder than Mike Buckley.” Mike could do a perfect Tarzan yell so loud that anyone could hear it two blocks away.
We were arguing about why I wouldn’t yell and whether it would do any good when we hear brakes screeching across the street. It was a new Mustang, the color of the blue sky Doug had been talking about that morning. The Mustang certainly held our attention but then two girls got out and waved cheerily at us. Doug waved back with one hand while poking me in the ribs with his elbow of the other. We were prepubescent but we weren’t going to let that stop us from dancing the dance.
“Pay dirt, buddy boy!” Doug said in the voice of a conspirator.
“You said it, brother.”
Here were Betty and Veronica the blonde and brunette best friends, right out of the comic book, looking bubbly and happy crossing the street headed our way. The only comparable feeling I had at that time was waiting for your turn on the Slip n Slide.
“Hi guys!” they spoke in tandem, smiling like they were on the cover of Teen Magazine.
“Hello!” I chirped, grinning like Stan Laurel. Then Doug’s arm came across my chest and he shoved me back.
“I’m Doug; he’s Jack,” he said in a voice that suggested he was a diamond while I was a lump of coal, “What can we do for you ladies?”
“They want Kool-aid, Einstein.” They giggled lightly. Then the blonde turned her attention to Doug.
“I’m Valerie, this is Vee.” Doug shook hands with them both, tipping his head sideways like it was something they did in King Arthur’s court.
“Oh Vee, that’s my brother’s girlfriend’s name. It’s really Veronica, but everyone calls her Vee.” I figured finding common ground would be a good thing.
“Does your brother go to Burroughs?” Vee seemed interested in finding out if she had a namesake at her high school.
“No, he’s old, he’s in college.” They giggled again. I filled the Dixie cups and Doug handed them out, but when they started to fish in their pocketbooks, Doug raised his hand.
“On the house,” he said nobly.
“How sweet,” Valerie said in a coquettish tone.
They stayed and chatted for a while, Doug gave them a second free round, and then they crossed the street, got back in the Mustang and took off. When the car was out of view I turned to my business partner.
“What the heck are you doing? Our only customers and you give the drinks away?”
“They’ll be back,” Doug said confidently, “the blonde likes me.”
“Likes you? Are you blind or crazy?” I said incredulously, “I had them both laughing at everything I said.”
“And who held Valerie’s hand?”
“That was a handshake, that doesn’t count.”
“Ok, tell you what I’m gonna do: You can have brunette; I’ll take the blonde.” He raised his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, I rolled my eyes. We weren’t rivals, but we loved the idea of playing at being rivals.
“No way man, no way. They like me better. Sorry, that’s how it goes sometimes.”
“You’ll see tomorrow when they come back.”
They did come back the next day, and they paid for their Kool-Aid this time. The day after that they gave us a dollar each and bought the whole pitcher. By that time we were like old friends, somehow. Doug was smart enough to set out four folding chairs that day. We talked and joked and Doug and I razzed each other. The fourth day though they didn’t show. We knew they wouldn’t ever come back. We sat in our folding chairs with the legs sinking into the grass. The ice was melting in the pitcher. Flecks of unidentifiable stuff floated in the Kool-Aid. We had made two dollars and ten cents and two friends who didn’t stick. We sat watching cars fly down Verdugo Ave. We had our arms on the other’s shoulders as was our custom when we were younger. Just before we put the stuff away Doug spoke.
“Heck of a week, eh Jack-boy?”
“Heck of a week, Doug-Doug.”
Pizza
I would have to convince them that I liked it, too.
May 1965
Chris Day had Beatle boots. His hair was long enough to hang over his right eye, and he knew that flipping his head back every once in a while would not just get the hair out of his eye but would make him look terminally cool doing it. He wore rings on his pinkie fingers like Ringo. He slouched and shrugged regularly; he even made his stammer sound cool. He had athletic skills but was not necessarily interested in sports. This was baffling to me but it added a bit of mystique to his coolness. And even though we were in the 5th grade and were way past the girls are icky stage we were generally clueless about the female state of mind especially in regards to how they decided whether they liked one of us or not.
But for Chris, they would gather around him, comb his hair, straighten his already straightened collar, slip notes to him and offer up their place in line wherever we were required to line up. That kind of effortless attention from the opposite sex annoyed some of my peers but to me it one more reason to nominate Chris to the coolness hall of fame. There was something about him—a wounded hero quality—that impressed me; I even would give him back rubs.
“You’re the b-best,” he would say, “you s-should do this for a living.”
“Ha-ha. Yeah, maybe.”
“You’d make a lot of m-money.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you s-said you are? Y-you know, your nationality?”
“Armenian.”
“Yeah. Armenians are g-good massagers.”
“We dyed rugs, actually.”
“Yeah, but this is b-better than dying rugs.”
“Guess so.”
The rumor of his birthday party started on a Tuesday morning. It was going to be big, at night and there would be massive quantities of food. There would be games the older kids play; we had no idea what that was but we all knew we would be very willing participants. Then Friday during lunch the invitations began appearing. The card featured a race car and a checkered flag, and the party was to be held that night.
I could see Chris all over the playground, talking to one or two kids at a time, nodding his head and flicking his hair back. After lunch during arithmetic, Chris made several trips to the pencil sharpener so he could distribute more invitations. He passed me by three times. By 3 o’clock it was clear that everyone else was getting a checkered flag but me.
It was a long, slow four block walk home. I couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if I had said something that offended him. I wondered if his parents had set a limit and I was the limit plus one. I wondered if I wasn’t cool enough, but how could I have been less cool than every single kid in Miss Moore’s class? Didn’t Dale, Ross and I get an A++ on our report on whales?
On the last block before home I tried to rethink the situation. I tried to block out the hurt by being logical. It was his party and if he didn’t want me there then, well, I mean, that’s what he wanted. It was his birthday, and maybe me not being there was part of his birthday wish. It wouldn’t make sense to be there if he didn’t want me there and so it followed that my wanting to be there didn’t make sense.
I was still troubled though when I walked through the front door. I headed for the kitchen, found some molasses cookies and poured myself a glass of milk. A few minutes later Mom came home and tooted the horn, usually indicating that she had groceries. I helped bring them in and then while we put them away I debated whether or not to tell her about the day’s events. At first I didn’t want to tell her, then I did, then I didn’t. Sometimes she had a tendency to overreact and somehow blame herself or ask too many questions, or get on the phone and discuss it with her best friend Pearl Laws or another friend’s mother, Mrs. Gullian. Other times she would underplay it to diminish its power to hurt. “Oh well,” she would she say and shrug and then bite into an apple as if I hadn’t said anything terribly important. But there were also times when her words were full of wisdom and insight. I decided to take a chance.
“Hey Mom,” I said while we put the last of the groceries away.
“Hah.”
“Something kinda funny happened today,” I said as lightheartedly as I could.
“What’s that?”
“Well Chris Day was inviting everyone to his birthday party today.”
“Yeah?”
“He was giving out cards.”
“Cards?”
“Uh, invitations. And well, everyone in Miss Moore’s class got invited.”
“Wow.”
“Except me. I didn’t get a card,” I said in a high voice like it was an amusing mystery.
“What?”
“I-I wasn’t invited!” I tried to laugh but no sound came out.
“You weren’t invited?”
“No.” She looked at me for a while, and then her upper lip curled up to the top of her nose—a sign of deep cogitation—while she looked at the telephone.
“I’m gonna make some phone calls,” she said with much gravitas.
I grabbed three more cookies and went to the living room to watch Felix the Cat. I didn’t know who she was going to call; I knew she didn’t know Chris’ mom. When I wiped out the last of the cookies and a commercial came on I went back into the kitchen. Mom was on the phone, nodding her head.
“I can see how that could happen,” she said twisting the cord of the receiver until it was wrapped around her fist. “I’m glad, too. Oh, fine. Dah. Thank you.” She liberated her hand and gently put the receiver down.
“What happened?” I asked impatiently.
“You’re going to the party,” she replied in a cheery but resolute voice.
“What did you….”
“Never mind. Just be ready to go at seven. And change that shirt. Did you go to school in that?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with it?”
“Just change it.”
“What about a present and stuff?”
“I’ve got a card. I’ll put five dollars in it.”
The card had flowers on it but I didn’t care. I felt funny being not invited and then being invited after Mom called but I couldn’t undo that. I was in; I stayed focused on that.
I arrived late and the front room of the house was packed with peers. For a moment I was afraid that they knew I wasn’t invited but the feeling evaporated as soon as I was greeted by my friends and heard the Beach Boys decrying the unfaithfulness of Wendy. The front room had wood paneling and a painting of cowboys on pinto horses looking over the range and another branding a steer and another sitting around a campfire. The lights were dim but you could still see the deep shine of the wood floor. I wanted to go say hi to Chris but he was encircled by the prettiest girls in our class and I didn’t want to disrupt the revelry. There were chips and dips and M&M’s. We stood and ate and yammered and were relieved and thrilled to be together away from the tedium and rigors of school. It was as if someone had unlocked shackles that we didn’t even know we had. We were free to laugh, be loud, act silly, be funny and clever without the presence of well-meaning teachers looking to keep us out of trouble and on task, and when Chris’ brother shouted over the frenzy of “You Really Got Me Now” that there would be no adults at the party, that feeling of exhilaration intensified.
I was pouring myself a coke—a rare treat for me because Dad had a ban on sodas—when Chris came over.
“I’m g-glad you came.”
“Me too.”
“What happened was I r-ran out of invitations.”
“Oh, that’s ok.”
“And my m-mom said I couldn’t have anymore than the number of cards.”
“Uh-huh.” It was hard to imagine Chris negotiating something, anything, with his mother.
“But when I got home she said it was all right.” He was twisting one of his pinkie rings.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
“So like, sorry.” His eyes blinked in rapid succession.
“It’s all right.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say and he flicked his hair and walked off.
I was talking to Barbara Neese when Chris’ brother returned in a Cowboy hat brandishing a pistol.
“Hey, kids!” he shouted. No one paid him any mind. “Hey, ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please?” He raised the pistol over his head and the last thing I thought was he’s not gonna shoot that in here, and then BLAM! There was the collective shriek followed by dead silence. I was shaking and my ears were ringing.
“My b-brother’s a little crazy,” Chris said breaking the silence.
“All right, now that I have your attention, listen up.” It was so quiet I could hear the needle skipping at the end of a record. “We’re going to have a great time. Are you having a good time?” We quickly answered in the affirmative, not wanting to make him resort to shooting his pistol again.
“We were having a g-good time, until about t-two minutes ago,” Chris said, only half kidding.
“Do y’all like pizza?” his brother continued. Everyone cheered. “Well, the pizza is on the way, and there’s gonna be plenty for everybody. We got eight pizzas!” Everyone went bonkers, except me. I was mortified; I was 11 years old and had never even seen a real pizza.
Dad had a no restaurant policy and Mom had four basic meals: chicken and pilaf; roast beef and pilaf; dolma sarma and pilaf; and then there was mashed potatoes, which was fine and meatloaf, which was inedible even if you drowned it in ketchup. As a result the Chavoor children had a limited palate, to say the least. I knew nothing of pizza except that it smelled funny, and I gained that tidbit of knowledge because Doug, my best friend who lived next door had pizza at least once a week. My only other exposure to pizza was the school’s version of it and that was a disfigured mess that made their brick of spaghetti look great.
The doorbell rang and the kids cheered again. Chris and his brother brought the pizza to a banquet table that had been set up in the living room. The funny smell filled the room and was making my stomach curl up in retreat. I began considering different strategies to get out of eating the stuff. Just ate? No, why would I have done that? I have the flu? Why would I come to the party? Allergic? That might work, unless someone who actually had allergies shouted out YOU DON’T HAVE ALLERGIES! I didn’t like being devious. The pizza was being offered in good faith; how were they supposed to know I was raised in a weird family that ate only four meals? It wasn’t their fault. The only fair thing to do was eat the pizza. I would have to convince them that I liked it, too.
We lined up and I gazed at the row of pizzas while my peers oooed and ahhed. “Pepperoni!” they shouted with delight. But when I looked, it didn’t seem to have the same appeal. Then there was another with what looked like very thin ham slices and pineapple. It must have been someone’s idea of a joke. Hot pineapple? Ultimately I picked one unadorned slice and another with bell peppers on it. I decided to start with the plain cheese and if I survived that, I would advance to bell pepper. I sat down on the couch, placed the plate on the coffee table, moving the copy of Guns and Ammo out of the way, and situated my glass of Coke so that I could grab it quickly if necessary. I took a bite. It was delicious. I ate heartily then moved on to the one with bell peppers and found that it was even better.
I had an epiphany: there are things you know you don’t like and then there are things you think you know you don’t like, and it was true that without trying there would be no chance of knowing which is which. And trying would lead to lead to more and more discoveries. I was sipping my coke like I was a captain of a luxurious yacht, looking out across the ocean when Chris came over.
“You want some more p-pizza?”
“Yeah!” The Byrds’ rendition of “Mr. Tambourine Man” floated over us.
“Pizza’s the b-best, huh?”
“Yep, it sure is, Chris.” A minute later we got up and got seconds. I went for the linguini and then the Canadian bacon.
May 1965
Chris Day had Beatle boots. His hair was long enough to hang over his right eye, and he knew that flipping his head back every once in a while would not just get the hair out of his eye but would make him look terminally cool doing it. He wore rings on his pinkie fingers like Ringo. He slouched and shrugged regularly; he even made his stammer sound cool. He had athletic skills but was not necessarily interested in sports. This was baffling to me but it added a bit of mystique to his coolness. And even though we were in the 5th grade and were way past the girls are icky stage we were generally clueless about the female state of mind especially in regards to how they decided whether they liked one of us or not.
But for Chris, they would gather around him, comb his hair, straighten his already straightened collar, slip notes to him and offer up their place in line wherever we were required to line up. That kind of effortless attention from the opposite sex annoyed some of my peers but to me it one more reason to nominate Chris to the coolness hall of fame. There was something about him—a wounded hero quality—that impressed me; I even would give him back rubs.
“You’re the b-best,” he would say, “you s-should do this for a living.”
“Ha-ha. Yeah, maybe.”
“You’d make a lot of m-money.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you s-said you are? Y-you know, your nationality?”
“Armenian.”
“Yeah. Armenians are g-good massagers.”
“We dyed rugs, actually.”
“Yeah, but this is b-better than dying rugs.”
“Guess so.”
The rumor of his birthday party started on a Tuesday morning. It was going to be big, at night and there would be massive quantities of food. There would be games the older kids play; we had no idea what that was but we all knew we would be very willing participants. Then Friday during lunch the invitations began appearing. The card featured a race car and a checkered flag, and the party was to be held that night.
I could see Chris all over the playground, talking to one or two kids at a time, nodding his head and flicking his hair back. After lunch during arithmetic, Chris made several trips to the pencil sharpener so he could distribute more invitations. He passed me by three times. By 3 o’clock it was clear that everyone else was getting a checkered flag but me.
It was a long, slow four block walk home. I couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if I had said something that offended him. I wondered if his parents had set a limit and I was the limit plus one. I wondered if I wasn’t cool enough, but how could I have been less cool than every single kid in Miss Moore’s class? Didn’t Dale, Ross and I get an A++ on our report on whales?
On the last block before home I tried to rethink the situation. I tried to block out the hurt by being logical. It was his party and if he didn’t want me there then, well, I mean, that’s what he wanted. It was his birthday, and maybe me not being there was part of his birthday wish. It wouldn’t make sense to be there if he didn’t want me there and so it followed that my wanting to be there didn’t make sense.
I was still troubled though when I walked through the front door. I headed for the kitchen, found some molasses cookies and poured myself a glass of milk. A few minutes later Mom came home and tooted the horn, usually indicating that she had groceries. I helped bring them in and then while we put them away I debated whether or not to tell her about the day’s events. At first I didn’t want to tell her, then I did, then I didn’t. Sometimes she had a tendency to overreact and somehow blame herself or ask too many questions, or get on the phone and discuss it with her best friend Pearl Laws or another friend’s mother, Mrs. Gullian. Other times she would underplay it to diminish its power to hurt. “Oh well,” she would she say and shrug and then bite into an apple as if I hadn’t said anything terribly important. But there were also times when her words were full of wisdom and insight. I decided to take a chance.
“Hey Mom,” I said while we put the last of the groceries away.
“Hah.”
“Something kinda funny happened today,” I said as lightheartedly as I could.
“What’s that?”
“Well Chris Day was inviting everyone to his birthday party today.”
“Yeah?”
“He was giving out cards.”
“Cards?”
“Uh, invitations. And well, everyone in Miss Moore’s class got invited.”
“Wow.”
“Except me. I didn’t get a card,” I said in a high voice like it was an amusing mystery.
“What?”
“I-I wasn’t invited!” I tried to laugh but no sound came out.
“You weren’t invited?”
“No.” She looked at me for a while, and then her upper lip curled up to the top of her nose—a sign of deep cogitation—while she looked at the telephone.
“I’m gonna make some phone calls,” she said with much gravitas.
I grabbed three more cookies and went to the living room to watch Felix the Cat. I didn’t know who she was going to call; I knew she didn’t know Chris’ mom. When I wiped out the last of the cookies and a commercial came on I went back into the kitchen. Mom was on the phone, nodding her head.
“I can see how that could happen,” she said twisting the cord of the receiver until it was wrapped around her fist. “I’m glad, too. Oh, fine. Dah. Thank you.” She liberated her hand and gently put the receiver down.
“What happened?” I asked impatiently.
“You’re going to the party,” she replied in a cheery but resolute voice.
“What did you….”
“Never mind. Just be ready to go at seven. And change that shirt. Did you go to school in that?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with it?”
“Just change it.”
“What about a present and stuff?”
“I’ve got a card. I’ll put five dollars in it.”
The card had flowers on it but I didn’t care. I felt funny being not invited and then being invited after Mom called but I couldn’t undo that. I was in; I stayed focused on that.
I arrived late and the front room of the house was packed with peers. For a moment I was afraid that they knew I wasn’t invited but the feeling evaporated as soon as I was greeted by my friends and heard the Beach Boys decrying the unfaithfulness of Wendy. The front room had wood paneling and a painting of cowboys on pinto horses looking over the range and another branding a steer and another sitting around a campfire. The lights were dim but you could still see the deep shine of the wood floor. I wanted to go say hi to Chris but he was encircled by the prettiest girls in our class and I didn’t want to disrupt the revelry. There were chips and dips and M&M’s. We stood and ate and yammered and were relieved and thrilled to be together away from the tedium and rigors of school. It was as if someone had unlocked shackles that we didn’t even know we had. We were free to laugh, be loud, act silly, be funny and clever without the presence of well-meaning teachers looking to keep us out of trouble and on task, and when Chris’ brother shouted over the frenzy of “You Really Got Me Now” that there would be no adults at the party, that feeling of exhilaration intensified.
I was pouring myself a coke—a rare treat for me because Dad had a ban on sodas—when Chris came over.
“I’m g-glad you came.”
“Me too.”
“What happened was I r-ran out of invitations.”
“Oh, that’s ok.”
“And my m-mom said I couldn’t have anymore than the number of cards.”
“Uh-huh.” It was hard to imagine Chris negotiating something, anything, with his mother.
“But when I got home she said it was all right.” He was twisting one of his pinkie rings.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
“So like, sorry.” His eyes blinked in rapid succession.
“It’s all right.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say and he flicked his hair and walked off.
I was talking to Barbara Neese when Chris’ brother returned in a Cowboy hat brandishing a pistol.
“Hey, kids!” he shouted. No one paid him any mind. “Hey, ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please?” He raised the pistol over his head and the last thing I thought was he’s not gonna shoot that in here, and then BLAM! There was the collective shriek followed by dead silence. I was shaking and my ears were ringing.
“My b-brother’s a little crazy,” Chris said breaking the silence.
“All right, now that I have your attention, listen up.” It was so quiet I could hear the needle skipping at the end of a record. “We’re going to have a great time. Are you having a good time?” We quickly answered in the affirmative, not wanting to make him resort to shooting his pistol again.
“We were having a g-good time, until about t-two minutes ago,” Chris said, only half kidding.
“Do y’all like pizza?” his brother continued. Everyone cheered. “Well, the pizza is on the way, and there’s gonna be plenty for everybody. We got eight pizzas!” Everyone went bonkers, except me. I was mortified; I was 11 years old and had never even seen a real pizza.
Dad had a no restaurant policy and Mom had four basic meals: chicken and pilaf; roast beef and pilaf; dolma sarma and pilaf; and then there was mashed potatoes, which was fine and meatloaf, which was inedible even if you drowned it in ketchup. As a result the Chavoor children had a limited palate, to say the least. I knew nothing of pizza except that it smelled funny, and I gained that tidbit of knowledge because Doug, my best friend who lived next door had pizza at least once a week. My only other exposure to pizza was the school’s version of it and that was a disfigured mess that made their brick of spaghetti look great.
The doorbell rang and the kids cheered again. Chris and his brother brought the pizza to a banquet table that had been set up in the living room. The funny smell filled the room and was making my stomach curl up in retreat. I began considering different strategies to get out of eating the stuff. Just ate? No, why would I have done that? I have the flu? Why would I come to the party? Allergic? That might work, unless someone who actually had allergies shouted out YOU DON’T HAVE ALLERGIES! I didn’t like being devious. The pizza was being offered in good faith; how were they supposed to know I was raised in a weird family that ate only four meals? It wasn’t their fault. The only fair thing to do was eat the pizza. I would have to convince them that I liked it, too.
We lined up and I gazed at the row of pizzas while my peers oooed and ahhed. “Pepperoni!” they shouted with delight. But when I looked, it didn’t seem to have the same appeal. Then there was another with what looked like very thin ham slices and pineapple. It must have been someone’s idea of a joke. Hot pineapple? Ultimately I picked one unadorned slice and another with bell peppers on it. I decided to start with the plain cheese and if I survived that, I would advance to bell pepper. I sat down on the couch, placed the plate on the coffee table, moving the copy of Guns and Ammo out of the way, and situated my glass of Coke so that I could grab it quickly if necessary. I took a bite. It was delicious. I ate heartily then moved on to the one with bell peppers and found that it was even better.
I had an epiphany: there are things you know you don’t like and then there are things you think you know you don’t like, and it was true that without trying there would be no chance of knowing which is which. And trying would lead to lead to more and more discoveries. I was sipping my coke like I was a captain of a luxurious yacht, looking out across the ocean when Chris came over.
“You want some more p-pizza?”
“Yeah!” The Byrds’ rendition of “Mr. Tambourine Man” floated over us.
“Pizza’s the b-best, huh?”
“Yep, it sure is, Chris.” A minute later we got up and got seconds. I went for the linguini and then the Canadian bacon.
A Cigar for Everyone
“…we’re both trying to solve the same problem, that’s all. Just in different ways.”
September 1964
Eventually, Jack Darakji’s face and his saliva soaked cigar became one entity. He was never without it. It could be unlit, smoldering or extinguished, but it was ever present, any time of day, any occasion. He was an energetic man; animated in speech and gesture, as if everything he said and did came with an exclamation point. His face though looked tired. His jet black hair greased up and combed straight back, his little mustache, white short sleeve shirt over a white t-shirt, black pants, his short but strong looking frame combined with his energetic nature and his tired, bittersweet countenance, made him look like an exiled Mediterranean dictator. He wore the same combination of clothes, as if he had decided that if he couldn’t wear his uniform, then he would at least dress as uniformly as possible. His clothes hung loose on him. Clothes to him seemed to be something that didn’t merit his conscious attention, they were merely functional. They were never dirty but they appeared to be well lived in and the smell of his trademark cigar permeated his clothes as well as his very being. His cigar fixation made it quite ironic that Dad—who was against smoking long before anyone admitted that it was poisonous—called him his friend. That irony, coupled with the fact that when Dad yelled at him, he yelled right back with relish and impunity, made Jack Darakji a source of fascination for me and my sister.
He was nice to us; we never realized that when he called us young lady and young man, it was because he didn’t know our names. He was a funny, entertaining character, a little bit off kilter. One day Shamera couldn’t resist asking a question that led a kind of dissertation on life and cigars.
“Mr. Darakji, how come you always smoke those cigars?”
“Well young lady, I’ll tell you. I like cigars. I’ve liked cigars since I was a young man. If I didn’t like cigars, well, I wouldn’t smoke them. You see?”
“But they kind of smell.” She wagged her hand manically in front of her face.
“They might smell bad to you, but to me cigars are wonderful. I think everyone should have a cigar. Every man. And women, too. Everybody! Even you and your brother here. Little babies in a baby carriage, they should have a cigar.”
The image of cigar smoke curling up from a baby carriage was tickling my brain. I couldn’t believe an adult would be so honest and wacky to say such a thing.
“That’s funny,” my sister said, no doubt amused by the same image.
“Nothing funny intended. Everyone should have their own cigar. See?” “But they’re bad for you,” I put in.
“Well, sonny, you’re the son of your dad, all right. You don’t have to smoke a cigar if you don’t want to, but for me, I like cigars, so then, I smoke them, that’s all. It’s like me and your dad. Frank is a fine man. Very intelligent, your father. I’ve known him since before you were born. Since before your brother, even. How is your brother, anyway?”
“Fine,” I answered.
“That’s good. Glad to hear that. He’s a good boy, just like you. Yes, I’ve known your dad going all the way back to Fresno as a matter of fact. And you know, we don’t always agree on everything. I’m sure you’ve heard us arguing over various things.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Shamera said emphatically.
“Now you should know this: I don’t dislike your father and he doesn’t dislike me. When you hear us shouting and the like, well, that’s just like a, like a disagreement. But we both are trying to solve the same problem, that’s all. Just in different ways. Do you see that?”
“I guess,” I said, uncertain.
“You’ll get it a little better when you, when you are a little older. Grown ups just argue sometimes, that’s all. But me and your dad, well, most of it is about the Assyrian Hall, the club, the organization, you know, what’s the future of it and all, and he sees it one way and I see it some other way. And then maybe there’s someone else, maybe your dad’s cousin Lily, or Maljan and they all see it yet again another way. But every one of us wants the same thing, which in this case is to keep club going and keep it strong. Ok? So that there is something there for you, something you can be proud of and you can say this is who I am and meet with people of your own kind. See what I mean? Thirty-eight years, I been a member.” I was studying the cigar carefully to make sure no ashes would fall off; he had been waving it like a baton. Shamera, in the meantime, had been sneaking glances at me because the “Thirty-eight years” line was his signature comment whenever he got wound up, so much so that Glenn, our cousin, included it whenever he did his spot-on Jack Darakji imitation.
“That’s a long time,” my sister said in mock reverence.
“How’s that again, Miss? Lost some hearing in the war. A bomb went off very close to where I was.”
“I said that’s a pretty long time, 38 years,” she nearly shouted.
“It sounds like it, young lady, and I guess it is. But those of us who are your father or your mother’s age, well, I don’t know how all those years got by or came and went or what have you. That’s why everyone should know what they like and want and they should do that because well, even though you aren’t thinking about it right at this moment, and you shouldn’t be thinking about it, we’re all going to be dead at some point or another, you see? So while you’re alive, you should do the things that you like, the things that make you happy or feel good or satisfied as often as you can because you don’t want to get to the end and say to yourself, goddamniit—oh, sorry, young lady—so, I mean you don’t want say to yourself I should have smoked some cigars while I had the chance. A cigar for everyone, that’s what I say. The whole world should have a cigar. Ok? You get it?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“Ok, good. Very good.”
“They still smell bad, though,” Shamera said.
But Jack Darakji puffed on his cigar, making it glow. He didn’t answer my sister; he was a man who had made his peace with a troubled world.
September 1964
Eventually, Jack Darakji’s face and his saliva soaked cigar became one entity. He was never without it. It could be unlit, smoldering or extinguished, but it was ever present, any time of day, any occasion. He was an energetic man; animated in speech and gesture, as if everything he said and did came with an exclamation point. His face though looked tired. His jet black hair greased up and combed straight back, his little mustache, white short sleeve shirt over a white t-shirt, black pants, his short but strong looking frame combined with his energetic nature and his tired, bittersweet countenance, made him look like an exiled Mediterranean dictator. He wore the same combination of clothes, as if he had decided that if he couldn’t wear his uniform, then he would at least dress as uniformly as possible. His clothes hung loose on him. Clothes to him seemed to be something that didn’t merit his conscious attention, they were merely functional. They were never dirty but they appeared to be well lived in and the smell of his trademark cigar permeated his clothes as well as his very being. His cigar fixation made it quite ironic that Dad—who was against smoking long before anyone admitted that it was poisonous—called him his friend. That irony, coupled with the fact that when Dad yelled at him, he yelled right back with relish and impunity, made Jack Darakji a source of fascination for me and my sister.
He was nice to us; we never realized that when he called us young lady and young man, it was because he didn’t know our names. He was a funny, entertaining character, a little bit off kilter. One day Shamera couldn’t resist asking a question that led a kind of dissertation on life and cigars.
“Mr. Darakji, how come you always smoke those cigars?”
“Well young lady, I’ll tell you. I like cigars. I’ve liked cigars since I was a young man. If I didn’t like cigars, well, I wouldn’t smoke them. You see?”
“But they kind of smell.” She wagged her hand manically in front of her face.
“They might smell bad to you, but to me cigars are wonderful. I think everyone should have a cigar. Every man. And women, too. Everybody! Even you and your brother here. Little babies in a baby carriage, they should have a cigar.”
The image of cigar smoke curling up from a baby carriage was tickling my brain. I couldn’t believe an adult would be so honest and wacky to say such a thing.
“That’s funny,” my sister said, no doubt amused by the same image.
“Nothing funny intended. Everyone should have their own cigar. See?” “But they’re bad for you,” I put in.
“Well, sonny, you’re the son of your dad, all right. You don’t have to smoke a cigar if you don’t want to, but for me, I like cigars, so then, I smoke them, that’s all. It’s like me and your dad. Frank is a fine man. Very intelligent, your father. I’ve known him since before you were born. Since before your brother, even. How is your brother, anyway?”
“Fine,” I answered.
“That’s good. Glad to hear that. He’s a good boy, just like you. Yes, I’ve known your dad going all the way back to Fresno as a matter of fact. And you know, we don’t always agree on everything. I’m sure you’ve heard us arguing over various things.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Shamera said emphatically.
“Now you should know this: I don’t dislike your father and he doesn’t dislike me. When you hear us shouting and the like, well, that’s just like a, like a disagreement. But we both are trying to solve the same problem, that’s all. Just in different ways. Do you see that?”
“I guess,” I said, uncertain.
“You’ll get it a little better when you, when you are a little older. Grown ups just argue sometimes, that’s all. But me and your dad, well, most of it is about the Assyrian Hall, the club, the organization, you know, what’s the future of it and all, and he sees it one way and I see it some other way. And then maybe there’s someone else, maybe your dad’s cousin Lily, or Maljan and they all see it yet again another way. But every one of us wants the same thing, which in this case is to keep club going and keep it strong. Ok? So that there is something there for you, something you can be proud of and you can say this is who I am and meet with people of your own kind. See what I mean? Thirty-eight years, I been a member.” I was studying the cigar carefully to make sure no ashes would fall off; he had been waving it like a baton. Shamera, in the meantime, had been sneaking glances at me because the “Thirty-eight years” line was his signature comment whenever he got wound up, so much so that Glenn, our cousin, included it whenever he did his spot-on Jack Darakji imitation.
“That’s a long time,” my sister said in mock reverence.
“How’s that again, Miss? Lost some hearing in the war. A bomb went off very close to where I was.”
“I said that’s a pretty long time, 38 years,” she nearly shouted.
“It sounds like it, young lady, and I guess it is. But those of us who are your father or your mother’s age, well, I don’t know how all those years got by or came and went or what have you. That’s why everyone should know what they like and want and they should do that because well, even though you aren’t thinking about it right at this moment, and you shouldn’t be thinking about it, we’re all going to be dead at some point or another, you see? So while you’re alive, you should do the things that you like, the things that make you happy or feel good or satisfied as often as you can because you don’t want to get to the end and say to yourself, goddamniit—oh, sorry, young lady—so, I mean you don’t want say to yourself I should have smoked some cigars while I had the chance. A cigar for everyone, that’s what I say. The whole world should have a cigar. Ok? You get it?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“Ok, good. Very good.”
“They still smell bad, though,” Shamera said.
But Jack Darakji puffed on his cigar, making it glow. He didn’t answer my sister; he was a man who had made his peace with a troubled world.
Goldie the Space Cat
Goldie looked down at the ground, shifting her massive head slightly as if it took too much energy to protest.
July 1963
The United States of America was the greatest country in the world for most of 1963. There were no wars that we knew about; neither was their any racism or sexism that we knew about. We didn’t even know those words. Everyone seemed to really like the president. No one was angry; the United States of America was like one gigantic suburb, and all you had to do was turn on the TV to see it. No one my age knew about the Korean War, but everyone knew someone whose dad fought in World War II. The Germans were the bad guys then but we were such a great country that we ended up being cool with them, the West Germans, anyway. I had seen the award winning picture of the East German soldier hopping over barbed wire to get to West Germany. The United States and West Germany were cool, but East Germany, China and Russia, well, they weren’t so lucky. As far as we knew Bart Starr, Jerry West and Sandy Koufax lived clean lives and loved their respective sport. The high school students in senior portraits in yearbooks looked like serious, goal-oriented young adults. None of them looked satirical or like boudoir shots. Women wore white gloves when they rode the Greyhound bus. The sky was blue. No one bought drinking water. No one was afraid to swim in the ocean. No one feared the contents of a can of tuna. The music never got crazier than the Beach Boys, Skeeter Davis, The Cascades, or Bobby Vinton. Five days a week you could watch Superman stand on top of the world with the American flag waving behind him, hear the words “…the never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way,” and not once feel it was ironic. There was nothing bad in soda, meat or French fries as far as we knew.
When middle age people say it was a different world, this is what we mean. It is true that our perspective was shaded by our youthful naiveté and simple ignorance, but nevertheless, we were true believers; our government merited our faith. We even explored space because it was there and we could.
My cousin Kirk and I were fans of the NASA space program. John Glenn was as big a hero to us as Don Drysdale, if not bigger. The flight of the Friendship 7 was the first major event in our lives. Kirk had framed pictures of the capsules and the astronauts. He knew Mercury from Apollo and Grissom from Cooper. He made models of the space ships. When I made model planes I would douse them with lighter fluid and tie firecrackers to the fuselage, but I did believe that space was the new frontier. I knew that was true because the Kingston Trio said it in a song, “Then on to the heavens and the stars for to see; this is the new frontier, this is the new frontier.”
It was no surprise then that Kirk was looking to launch a cat into space one summer day. Kirk and I were good boys; sending a cat into space was the riskiest thing we had ever done, well, except for finding a girlie magazine on a bulldozer at a worksite. At that age though pushing a button on the bulldozer that caused the blade to lift was much more exciting than any magazine.
Ever the perfectionist, Kirk spent the better part of the morning finding the right box and drawing an authentic looking control panel which he taped to the inside of the box, er, capsule. His best friend, Norman, came over but he didn’t share our enthusiasm.
“What the heck are you guys doing?” he asked.
“We’re sending Goldie into space,” Kirk answered scanning his father’s work space in the garage for potential feline space helmet materials.
“And how are you doing that?” Norman asked doubtfully.
“We’re putting her in a box!” I exclaimed.
“And what will propel this box into space?”
“Well, we can drop it off a roof.” I suggested. We hadn’t worked out the details just yet.
“That’s gravity, not propulsion,” Norman said, like a smart aleck professor.
“We’re throwing the box straight up into the air,” Kirk said, giving up on the space helmet idea.
“The cat won’t get more than five feet in the air; she won’t even need a parachute,” Norman laughed.
“They’ll be two of us,” Kirk said, laughing back.
“And if you help, that’ll be three,” I added.
“No thanks. I got other stuff to do. I just rigged my train transformer to an electric chair,” Norman said, rubbing his hands together.
“Electric chair?” I said, not accustomed to Norman’s eccentricities.
“Yeah, from an erector set.”
“So, you finally figured out how to do it, huh?” Kirk said.
“Yeah, I think so. Wanna come over and find out? I even got my first test subject.” He took a lizard from his front pocket.
“Nah.” Kirk said with a mild disdain.
“You’re gonna miss it when his eyes spin around then pop out!”
“But we’ve got a cat launch in like t-minus five minutes,” I said.
“Ok, you guys are gonna miss it, I’m tellin’ ya.” He got on his bike and rode off, waving the hapless lizard in one hand.
Kirk found Goldie lounging in the patio under the picnic table. Electrocuting small animals was too far gone for Kirk and me. We didn’t fight, steal, or cuss, and we didn’t torture animals. But a cat in space, well, that was a different matter. To launch the fat, lethargic, loveable Goldie into space as a tribute to the space program, well, that was patriotic. Goldie, also known as Tomasina, was about to become the next space hero. Kirk picked her up and held her aloft.
“And now, Goldie, the great astro-cat is heading toward the launch platform. What a brave cat! What an intelligent cat!” He shook her a little to see if he could get some response; she was as active as a bag of onions.
“T-minus ten seconds and counting,” I said as we moved toward the box in the middle of the lawn. Kirk may not have been the only boy in America who talked baby talk to his cat, but he was the only one I knew. His voice switched from impressed newscaster to hysterical mother.
“Will you be all right, precious baby? Will you blow up in a million bits? Precious baby, Goldie! Don’t die, Tomasina! Please, baby, please. PLEASE!” He dropped her in the box and she sat, motionless.
“Six, five, four…” I continued, as we lifted the box shoulder high. Goldie looked down at the ground, shifting her massive head slightly as if it took too much energy to protest. At three we lowered the box to our belt buckles and at zero we flung the box in the air.
She stayed in the box for a moment, but on its descent, she jumped out, looked at us with a crazed expression before she took off running. She went missing for the rest of the day, and the next day, too. We planned no further space shots after that; it was a great country and there were other things to discover, no doubt to the infinite relief of Goldie.
July 1963
The United States of America was the greatest country in the world for most of 1963. There were no wars that we knew about; neither was their any racism or sexism that we knew about. We didn’t even know those words. Everyone seemed to really like the president. No one was angry; the United States of America was like one gigantic suburb, and all you had to do was turn on the TV to see it. No one my age knew about the Korean War, but everyone knew someone whose dad fought in World War II. The Germans were the bad guys then but we were such a great country that we ended up being cool with them, the West Germans, anyway. I had seen the award winning picture of the East German soldier hopping over barbed wire to get to West Germany. The United States and West Germany were cool, but East Germany, China and Russia, well, they weren’t so lucky. As far as we knew Bart Starr, Jerry West and Sandy Koufax lived clean lives and loved their respective sport. The high school students in senior portraits in yearbooks looked like serious, goal-oriented young adults. None of them looked satirical or like boudoir shots. Women wore white gloves when they rode the Greyhound bus. The sky was blue. No one bought drinking water. No one was afraid to swim in the ocean. No one feared the contents of a can of tuna. The music never got crazier than the Beach Boys, Skeeter Davis, The Cascades, or Bobby Vinton. Five days a week you could watch Superman stand on top of the world with the American flag waving behind him, hear the words “…the never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way,” and not once feel it was ironic. There was nothing bad in soda, meat or French fries as far as we knew.
When middle age people say it was a different world, this is what we mean. It is true that our perspective was shaded by our youthful naiveté and simple ignorance, but nevertheless, we were true believers; our government merited our faith. We even explored space because it was there and we could.
My cousin Kirk and I were fans of the NASA space program. John Glenn was as big a hero to us as Don Drysdale, if not bigger. The flight of the Friendship 7 was the first major event in our lives. Kirk had framed pictures of the capsules and the astronauts. He knew Mercury from Apollo and Grissom from Cooper. He made models of the space ships. When I made model planes I would douse them with lighter fluid and tie firecrackers to the fuselage, but I did believe that space was the new frontier. I knew that was true because the Kingston Trio said it in a song, “Then on to the heavens and the stars for to see; this is the new frontier, this is the new frontier.”
It was no surprise then that Kirk was looking to launch a cat into space one summer day. Kirk and I were good boys; sending a cat into space was the riskiest thing we had ever done, well, except for finding a girlie magazine on a bulldozer at a worksite. At that age though pushing a button on the bulldozer that caused the blade to lift was much more exciting than any magazine.
Ever the perfectionist, Kirk spent the better part of the morning finding the right box and drawing an authentic looking control panel which he taped to the inside of the box, er, capsule. His best friend, Norman, came over but he didn’t share our enthusiasm.
“What the heck are you guys doing?” he asked.
“We’re sending Goldie into space,” Kirk answered scanning his father’s work space in the garage for potential feline space helmet materials.
“And how are you doing that?” Norman asked doubtfully.
“We’re putting her in a box!” I exclaimed.
“And what will propel this box into space?”
“Well, we can drop it off a roof.” I suggested. We hadn’t worked out the details just yet.
“That’s gravity, not propulsion,” Norman said, like a smart aleck professor.
“We’re throwing the box straight up into the air,” Kirk said, giving up on the space helmet idea.
“The cat won’t get more than five feet in the air; she won’t even need a parachute,” Norman laughed.
“They’ll be two of us,” Kirk said, laughing back.
“And if you help, that’ll be three,” I added.
“No thanks. I got other stuff to do. I just rigged my train transformer to an electric chair,” Norman said, rubbing his hands together.
“Electric chair?” I said, not accustomed to Norman’s eccentricities.
“Yeah, from an erector set.”
“So, you finally figured out how to do it, huh?” Kirk said.
“Yeah, I think so. Wanna come over and find out? I even got my first test subject.” He took a lizard from his front pocket.
“Nah.” Kirk said with a mild disdain.
“You’re gonna miss it when his eyes spin around then pop out!”
“But we’ve got a cat launch in like t-minus five minutes,” I said.
“Ok, you guys are gonna miss it, I’m tellin’ ya.” He got on his bike and rode off, waving the hapless lizard in one hand.
Kirk found Goldie lounging in the patio under the picnic table. Electrocuting small animals was too far gone for Kirk and me. We didn’t fight, steal, or cuss, and we didn’t torture animals. But a cat in space, well, that was a different matter. To launch the fat, lethargic, loveable Goldie into space as a tribute to the space program, well, that was patriotic. Goldie, also known as Tomasina, was about to become the next space hero. Kirk picked her up and held her aloft.
“And now, Goldie, the great astro-cat is heading toward the launch platform. What a brave cat! What an intelligent cat!” He shook her a little to see if he could get some response; she was as active as a bag of onions.
“T-minus ten seconds and counting,” I said as we moved toward the box in the middle of the lawn. Kirk may not have been the only boy in America who talked baby talk to his cat, but he was the only one I knew. His voice switched from impressed newscaster to hysterical mother.
“Will you be all right, precious baby? Will you blow up in a million bits? Precious baby, Goldie! Don’t die, Tomasina! Please, baby, please. PLEASE!” He dropped her in the box and she sat, motionless.
“Six, five, four…” I continued, as we lifted the box shoulder high. Goldie looked down at the ground, shifting her massive head slightly as if it took too much energy to protest. At three we lowered the box to our belt buckles and at zero we flung the box in the air.
She stayed in the box for a moment, but on its descent, she jumped out, looked at us with a crazed expression before she took off running. She went missing for the rest of the day, and the next day, too. We planned no further space shots after that; it was a great country and there were other things to discover, no doubt to the infinite relief of Goldie.
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