Chivalry And The Boy Next Door 7.

On Flag Day, the day before my eighth birthday, Lois took me on a special outing as an extension of my gift. When she got home from work, which was about four, we took the city bus from our corner and rode to the Seattle City Center area where the Fair Grounds were and still are. We transferred to the Monorail, which today remains part of the Metro Transit System and had a snack at a nearby soda fountain. Then we went to get my present, which was to be a knap sack. I tried on several and settled on a canvas haversack with a rainproof flap and drawstring.

Lois got me a gold-plated Tradefair dollar with pictures of the Space needle and the four-car monorail train on opposite sides. It was redeemable at face value if anyone were silly enough to want to spend it.

My big sister had a notion to take me out on a hiking-camping expedition and teach me some woods craft. She’d learned a fair amount about trail lore from her Hacket uncles. The trip as such, never came off, but Lois had bought me a first-aid kit with gauze pads, surgical tape, sterile cotton and antiseptic skin ointment.

Next day which was the 15^th and my birthday. Mom and I had done some arguing over the guest list. She’d started out by saying Jimmy Magnus wasn’t coming. Since I still considered Jimmy to be my best friend, I was horrified. "He’ll take you off on the peddle tractor," Mom predicted, and ignore the rest of the kids. I felt like telling her that in that case I could do without a party but that was a bit of a step to take and would certainly be construed as smart-alec or sarcastic. Eventually she relented and said that since Chris

had Mary to her birthday party on June 2, it was only fair that Jimmy should come to mine. I thanked her

for changing her mind.

Since Jim was eleven and would be one of the few fully sighted people at the party there was some chance he might feel out of place. The problem, if there’d been one, was solved by Jim coming over later than the other guests and spending the night.

Though I sometimes liked Tommy Robertson I didn’t at present but Mom did, sight unseen because since Tom had some sight he could help her with seeing to the party. I didn’t know his phone number and Mom never found it in the book, so that left Shannon Hurd, Shelley Heck, Mary Jane Kemp, Chris Gray, John Zimmerman and of course, Chris my sister. Though Marty Lancer and I were pals now he wasn’t able to attend for some reason now shrouded from recall.

Our activities were borrowed from parties at Shannon’s and Marty’s homes. In one we were seated around a table with bowls of large and small marshmallows, large and small gumdrops and a tray of toothpicks. Using these items and our imaginations, we were free to create any sculpture or animal, person or things less definable.

In another game we all had balloons tied to our ankles and the object was to chase one another around the grass attempting to stamp on one another’s balloon. Whoever had the last still inflated balloon was of course, the winner. This was me, I believe. Christine came along and stamped on my balloon at the end, but hers was already broken so it was hardly a play within the rules. I believe we also pinned tails on something or other. I remember there were prizes.

My gifts included a wood and cloth sailboat from Shannon, quite nice, a plastic cabin cruiser from John, a game of Sorry from Shelley, a plastic hook and ladder truck and a cork rifle from Chris Gray. Grandma Lois who was also in attendance, had found me Braille Bingo cards from a supply outlet for the blind. There were other gifts but I can’t recall what else except that Jim gave me a card, which when opened, allowed a lion on a spring to leap out at you.

We had moved to a house, which was in spots, nearly 50 years old. Our across-the-street neighbor, Art Fertwangler, (and how Chris and I loved that name!) said he recalled the kitchen section existing as a one-room shack in 1914. About a generation later, more rooms were added so now we had six, if you counted the bathroom and closed in back porch, which I insisted upon doing. They were all at somewhat different levels and put together a bit haphazardly, but it was a fascinating place, with bolts, locks and latches, a peep shutter in the front door, washtubs on the back porch, a water heater with a wooden tank! There was a big, old-fashioned tub in the bathroom and a door going between Chris and my room and the bathroom. We were early on ordered not to use that. In the daylight basement which must be entered from outside, Dad found a jackknife with a wooden handle and a box with a rounded lid, looking exactly like a pirate chest. It even had old English lettering on it. Bruce Brown, Lois’s current beau, who was an educated person with a British background, said the chest had been used for storing brown bread aboard ship. We used it to store charcoal for the barbecue.

The yard was as interesting as the house, with snowball bushes, a Hawthorn tree, raspberries, roses, and shrubs whose name I never knew. Mom and Dad planted a good deal more before we moved away, some three and a half years later.

Probably about the most notable feature of the property was a summerhouse in the backyard, which could be reached by following a cement walk directly from the back porch of the house. There was of course a roof and two complete walls in addition, I think on the south and West sides. The rest was mostly picket fence and roof support beams. The floor was a cement patio. It was probably about twelve by sixteen in extent. Against the back wall was a davano, which made out into a double bed. We moved a dining set in there early on and often ate dinner out doors on warm summer nights. My Uncle Tick or Jimmy sometimes roughed it with me outside on the house, (Old Goat, Mom called him,) had painted the living room walls battleship gray and the insides of the kitchen cabinets fire engine red. Mom spent a very pleasant first few days after we moved in, complaining loudly about the former owner and undoing these atrocities. Mr. Lewis did something else however for which he will always have a warm spot in my heart, because it was tailor-made for my amusement!

ON the kitchen floor, right in front of the set of drawers which stood between the door to the bathroom and the bedroom Chris and I shared, Mr. Lewis had screwed a buffalo nickel in place. Buffalo nickels weren’t quite as scarce then as now but were still rare. Dad and his friends did a fair amount of drinking, so it wasn’t uncommon to see the same person several times in the same evening, pass by that spot, bend and attempt to pick the nickel up off the floor. I of course, had a fiendish advantage over everyone else because I could say to repairmen, salesmen, gullible relatives, "excuse me, I dropped my nickel and can’t find it. Would you please get it for me?" In those days a nickel was a week’s candy allowance!

Within the last year, I’d received a number of fascinating books. Two of the most notable were The Princess and the Goblins by George McDonald and Tales from Silver Lands by Charles J. Finger. Princess is about 8-year-old Irene, only child of the king, who is sent to live with her nurse and mysterious Great-Great Grandmother in a country manner so as to be away from the intrigues of the court, and to take the good air. On a walk with her nurse, Irene meets 12-year-old Curtie, a miner boy, who is just this instant, involved in driving away a strange and frightening creature by means of insulting verse. The creature is of course, one of a race of goblins, living under the nearby mountain, who are preparing to break out and attack the Manor, to carry away the princess herself as wife to the gnome prince.

Some sleuthing, some magic and some harrowing experiences down in the mine help Curtie and Irene foil the Goblin plan and eventually change the goblins themselves. For a year or more I was fascinating with mining and carried my pickaxe, given to me by Bill Johnson, reciting goblin rhymes to anyone who wanted to listen.

In the sequel, The Princess and Curtie, our young miner boy follows a summons to the capital city of this unnamed land. The king is being slowly poisoned by false courtiers who turn out to be literally sub human. Curtie leads the counter attack, eventually marries Irene and becomes king.

Tales from Silver Lands is a collection of stories from South America taken down by Mr. Finger on his travels. Some of them are quite frightening but good always triumphs in one way or another. Some of the stories are quite poignant such as the one in which a mother goes away and becomes a witch in an attempt to help her two handicapped children. Many of the tales contain interesting information about weaving, food preparation or dwellings made of earth and stone, sod or grass. These fuelled my desire to build such structures myself. Most of these projects (though not all) remained unrealized.

This and some other books I suspect also contributed to a series of bad dreams. I don’t remember too much about most of these dreams. They seldom resembled any of the stories I read so they may have come from elsewhere but the stories were an obvious culprit. Some of the dreams were terrifying. Some were sad, some riddling me with guilt or filling me with anger. In one of these dreams which made me sad for a long time, I’d accidentally hurt my mother and she didn’t want to believe that I was very, very sorry. In another, Debby, our niece had been hit by a car and presumed dead. The family had gone on to the social event of the day, leaving Deb to be picked up later. I went off by myself and found her, still alive. (I could see in my dreams until my teens or so.) When I went to report that I’d found Debby, hurt but still alive and beyond my power to assist her unaided. The elders just sat and continued talking telling me in just a little while, and in just a little while!

I told someone that I was going to stay awake all of the time so I didn’t have to dream anymore. I’d always had trouble falling asleep since about Five years of age anyhow. When I tried to discuss this rash of bad dreams Mom simply said that I was as protected as any kid could be and there was no reason for me to have bad dreams. The rash abated eventually but rational or not, they still occur once in a while and are still very unpleasant.

I had a particular dream of another sort at about this time, one which I did not discuss with Mom or anyone else. Mom was in the dream, along with Ruth Johnson, at whose house it took place. No one save the three of us was present. I was wearing a dress. The dream offered no reason why this should be so. It was simply a fact. It felt a bit like walking through water. The dress was evidently long and quite full. I believe I had a bonnet on as well. I’d never worn a dress or skirt. The closest I’d come was my pink, tie-around-the-waist bathrobe. At some point in the dream I indicated that I wanted to put my pants and shirt back on, which suggests I’d tried the dress on at her house. Ruth acted somewhat surprised that I’d want to take the dress off but there wasn’t any big issue about it.

For years I wondered why I’d had this dream. At ages seven say, through perhaps ten, I had the perception that many of the girls and women in my life wanted me to be feminine. I was small, slim, and blonde and had long slender fingers, slim hands and feet. My voice was often mistaken on the telephone for a girl’s. Women would sometimes remark that I’d make a pretty girl with my blonde hair and slender hands. This of course, upset me no end. So why, I wondered did my Dream Generator allow me to be in girl’s clothes?

A few years ago I startled and rather disappointed myself with a rather mundane answer. Toward the end of Second Grade I’d read (and at the suggestion of Ruth Johnson incidentally,) Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Tom was in 11 records. Huck in 20. I’d be rafting down to Jackson Island in my dreams for the next couple of years, taking my friends with me. Huck of course, had spend a nervous few hours disguised as a girl, the first time in or out of fiction I can recall hearing of a boy in a dress.

About this time we sold our Occidental house after renting it to three successive families. The third of these had refused after a time to either pay rent or to move out, requiring rather drastic action to evict them. Sam, my cream-colored cat, who had stayed with the house, now moved with the last of the renters. I never saw Pammy and Fritzie again, though the Blodgetts did visit us once or twice.

The summer of ’62 with the Fair on, many folks were having out-of-town guests. Ours would be Grandma and Grandpa Plassman who I’d met nearly three years before but never gotten to know very well. Again they arrived by train and we’d have them for a full month. We were now eight in the house, with Lois and Debby occupying Chris and my bedroom, Chris and I in our parent’s room, Grandma and Grandpa of the living room daveno.

I found out early that Grandpa liked to walk. I usually managed to attach myself to his wanderings about the neighborhood. Grandpa and I would chew tobacco together and talk, mostly about old times, long before I was born. I think if I hadn’t been bitten by the Science Bug a couple of years later, I’d likely have majored in history then faced the decision of whether to go on to Law School or become a History Prof. I much preferred the 17^th and 18^th centuries, but to be speaking with a man who was born in 1895 was still quite impressive. Grandpa as 67 at this time and though Grandma said he was "old and funny" that wasn’t all that old even then, it seemed so however.

Grandpa told me about a baseball-like game he and his friends had played in the early 1900s, with a hand-whittled paddle and a ball of string tightly wound about a small rubber ball in the center. He also showed me how to make a toy similar to an Australian atlatl, carved from a cedar shingle, which used an elasticized string to snap fat little arrows through the air.

I had no proper whittling knife of my own, but Grandpa leant me his sometimes and helped me make simple things like paint paddles and wooden cigars. He made me a billy club with a bit of twine attached so it would hang on my belt. He also made me a wooden gun.

Grandpa told about a time when someone had given him a quarter. He was about my age and a quarter was worth a Lot then. He’d taken it to the store and told the man he wanted licorice sticks. Grandpa hadn’t known about change and licorice was five sticks to the penny. He went home with a whole shopping bagful!

Grandpa used to joke about something called a houtsey-poutsey. If he was making something, it was going to be a houtsey-poutsey. If he ate a filled chocolate, there was a houtsey-poutsey in it. I never found out what a houtsey-poutsey was, but I had lots of fun trying to solve the mystery.

Grandpa also loved to fart volubly then he’d say "Oh that was pretty bad. We better pump it a little" and he’d grab the back of his pants and pump the seat in and out a few times, beechnut Tobacco package rattling away in his back pocket. Robert Bly, poet, philosopher, male advocate has spoken at length about the lack in the lives of many modern males of an elder man or Grandfather influence. I’ve remarked that my grandfather taught me about whittling, chewing tobacco and to fart and laugh about it.

Grandma was very fond of bingo, loved riding in the car and sulked if ever left behind. I learned about that time that Mom and Grandma really didn’t get along all that well and sometimes Mom just wanted a rest! Grandma was content to stay on and on, with someone else doing the cooking and the chores, but Grandpa was forever fussing about needing to get home and make sure everything was alright. "Deschler’ll keep, Dad," my father kept telling him.

Grandpa got tired of me sometimes because I talked too much and he and Grandma sometimes spoke German in front of me. I think I embarrassed them pretty badly one evening at dinner when I said that I knew some French but wouldn’t talk to a French person in front of them without telling them what we were saying? Why did they talk German in front of me?

Chris and Grandpa didn’t get along well. Chris said she thought Grandpa was "something pretend, like a witch." I heard him telling Chris that she was full of poop and saying other mean things, while she said angry things in return. I went and found Mom, telling her what was going on.

Grandma and Grandpa wanted to do three things while they were in Seattle, go up in the Space Needle, see the fishing boats and watch Roy Rogers at the World Fair. Mom drove us to the wharf where a big fishing boat was being unloaded. She described to me how a man was reaching down into the hold with a hook, pulling out salmon and other large fish and chopping their heads off with a large knife.

Our Family had been to the Fair a couple of times before but it was fairly expensive to get in. You paid extra to go up in the Space Needle with it’s observation deck and revolving restaurant which each hour, furnished a complete 360-degree view of the Puget Sound Region.

We were about to enter the elevator when Grandpa got cold feet and decided he wasn’t going up "that thing!" My parents were afraid Grandpa might wander off, so Dad decided to stay sea level with him. I also opted out, to be in solidarity with the men. Mother said a number of times that I was frightened, but that wasn’t so. Three months later I went up The Needle. I just didn’t want Dad and Grandpa to be down there by themselves. I’m told that Grandma pressed against the glass restaurant wall at the inner edge of the observation deck, as far from the railing as she could get. Chris all but hung over the rail. Mom, of course, was midway between the two extremes.

The Roy Rogers Show was at the newly completed Coliseum Building, at the time, the largest entertainment center in Seattle. Roy, (originally Leonard Sleigh, an Ohio Native,) was appearing with his wife, Dale Evans and their children, also regulars from his Saturday Western drama, country singers The Sons Of The Pioneers, Trigger and other horses. I can’t recall much about the show itself except that Roy fired of six .44-caliber blanks and Pat Brady, and one of his daughters sang How Do I Know? The Bible Tells Me So, a composition of her mother, Dale Evans.

Sometime between acts, Mom went down to the dressing room area and conferred with the guard there. I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events anymore, but Mom explained that I was blind and had been a Roy Rogers fan all of my life. The guard said that I should come down at the end of the next act.

When Mom and I made our way toward the area where Roy and Dale were preparing for their final act, we encountered another mom and little boy earnestly trying to get through to where the Stars were. The guard passed Mom and I but not the others. "She’s bringing her little boy through!"" the woman said angrily.

"That’s different," said the guard. Dale Evans appeared suddenly and said

"Just a minute, I’ll get Roy." The next moment Roy was pumping my hand and Dale was kissing me.

I asked Roy if I could hold his gun. He put it in my hands then said "Would you like to have one of the bullets I shot at Pat Brady?"

I said "Sure!" He punched one into my hand.

"Do you want another one?" Roy asked.

"I said "Gee Mom, wouldn’t Jim love to have one of these?"

"Well Dave," Roy said "why don’t you take all six." Mom said that when we walked past the mom and her son, still arguing with the guard, and the kid saw the bullets in my hand, he looked like he wanted to strangle me. I wish I’d thought to ask if we could give one or two of Roy’s shells to the boy but this sort of thing was awfully new to me. I didn’t yet realize what a magical effect the word Blind had on some folks, especially religious ones like Roy and Dale; and what an unfair advantage it sometimes gave me.

Next time Jim stayed over night I proudly presented him with a shell, .4440 caliber. About five years later when my parents were in Reno, Nevada they met Roy Rogers and Dale Evans in a restaurant where they happened to be breakfasting. Mom and Dad walked over to introduce themselves and ask if they remembered me. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers said that yes, they did remember meeting me and Dale gave them a religious tract for me.

Roy Rogers died about three years ago as I’m writing this and Dale Evans followed a few months ago. I still have on my office wall a signed picture of Roy and his trusty dog Bullet. My wife found it among the possessions of a neighbor near Bellingham and secured the picture (with the neighbor’s consent of course,) for me.

Shortly after Grandma and Grandpa returned to Ohio, we made a trip to the ocean, Actually Hoods Canal, at a place called Belfair. Two of the couples from Mom and Dad’s Pinochle club, the Alans and the Wards, owned a beach lot in common. Shirley Ward and Marie Alan were sisters. Marie and Fred, Shirley and Borry, all happened to live within a few blocks of our new house on Beacon Hill.

We arrived on a fine afternoon and swam, played in the sand, collected shells; had fun roasting things on the campfire, erecting windbreaks and telling ghost stories. Korry Jr. was my age and very good company. Randy was about a year older and usually thought rather a brat, having three older sisters to spoil him. At the time I tended to concur with this but within a couple of years Randy and I would be good pals, a friendship which hasn’t ended yet so far as I am aware. I just don’t know where he is at present. With Robin, Randy’s youngest older sister and Wess, Korry’s little brother, we dug holes in the sand big enough for foxholes and built sandcastles. I excavated an underground chamber, about two feet on a side and roofed it with driftwood, mounding with sand for camouflage. This was an infant beginning of the underground palaces I was building in my imaginings. I went home with wonderful, sunny memories of the beach. Our family continued to come to Belfair and this lot for a half dozen years or more.

In some ways the biggest adventure of the summer awaited End-August/beginning-September and overlapped the start of school. I asked Dad one Saturday morning where we were going for vacation this year. The previous year we’d stayed home, probably because we’d just bought a house! Dad said he was thinking about going up to Canada. I greeted this news with some surprise. My only association with our neighbor to the north was my considerable affection at ages 5-6, with Sergeant Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Every episode I could recall save one, showed Canada as being a fierce land, covered with snow, teaming with wild animals and bad guys, with winds which constantly howled. I asked Dad if it wasn’t true that you had to get around by dogsled in Canada and he said "Not in all of it." As it turned out, we were heading for perhaps the most lavish experience any of us had known.

Harrison Hotsprings, noted for it’s heated sulfur-water pools and lavish hospitality for young and old, is located near Vancouver BC (Not to be confused with Vancouver Washington.) I suppose I’d thought that Canada was another state, like Alaska and I was very impressed to learn that we were journeying to another Country. I think it was a three-hour drive from Seattle. We had a double room with bath. Chris and I shared a bed, in which she generally insisted on sleeping diagonally.

Us kids were picked up after breakfast and entertained all day with hikes, hayrides, swimming, beachwalks, and campfires. One afternoon I opted out of the planned hayride and went along with a bunch of adults on a horseback outing. I’d ridden a number of times by now and the woman who led our file said I sat my horse like a little soldier. Of course I was enormously proud.

A girl of about my age named Sean kicked me in the mouth for some reason that even at the time was unclear. She felt badly about it later and thereafter, kissed me every time I was in reach. I protested this and she told me rather wisely, that I’d appreciate it when I was in sixteen. I replied, as wisely, that this might be true but when I was sixteen the girls probably wouldn’t kiss me nearly so often.

As a school, I was adopted by a couple of older girls who walked me about quite a lot and played with me in the pool. They must have been intent upon raising my self-esteem because they told me they thought I was extremely strong, probably stronger than an Elephant! I’d recently been inspired by a rather silly book about several very strong men and had convinced myself I had vast hidden reserves of strength, I avoided having to prove this by refusing to ever use All of my muscle.

For years I’d had the twin ambitions of seeing a cave and a hollow tree. Fred Alan had supplied the cave, a small one near his home and now our youth directors, Bill and Anne, showed me a hollow tree.

One night we ate duck with orange sauce in the young people’s dining room. Another night Chris refused to eat something she termed "crammy stuff." After listing the things she had eaten, she helped me to deduce that the offending item had been brussel sprouts.

On our vacation plan we had Sunday Night through Thursday Afternoon at the Hotsprings. On Friday we went over to Victoria on Vancouver Island and bought a lot of English wool, English toffee and other items, including a tartan cap for me which was supposed to be the sort of thing Prince Charles wore. I wore it quite a lot when we went back home, though Mom said it made me look like "a Canuck." I’d developed by then a considerable interest in Scotland and hoped that it made me look somewhat Scottish as well.

We returned to Seattle on the steam liner Princess Marguerite which plied the inland waters for many years. I walked a picket line to protest her decommissioning in ’89.

I think we spent the weekend at home then were back in British Columbia for the next week. This time we just traveled as whim struck my parents, staying in motels along the way. We crossed most of the province, then dropped down to Spokane to spend the night and visit with Aunt Winnie. We drove across Washington to Seattle and arrived on a hot September Sunday to find the grass bone dry and a sense of anticlimax hanging over everything. Next day I must finally make an appearance at school.

I knew well enough where I’d most likely be expected to report and had even had dreams about classes starting but I went first to Miss Gourder’s room, just incase 3^rd Grade had been added to her where with all. She took me next door to Miss Larson’s room and introduced me. Elizabeth Larson was about the midpoint between Miss Gourder and Mrs. Swanson. She was a good deal stricter than Miss Gourder but I don’t ever recall being really afraid of her.

Miss Larson spoke several languages, including French, Spanish and at least some Russian. She had traveled extensively, having visited Mexico, Japan and Britain. Like Miss Gourder, she played the piano and she also read us during a special time each day, entire books, a chapter at a time. She started with Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lingren the first day I was in attendance. She introduced us to Caddie Woodlong, the Laura Ingles Wilder books and many more.

This year we were 3^rd and 4^th grades together with Shannon, Chris, Bonny and Mary Jane in Fourth, Marty, myself and later a boy named Stanley McGovern in 3^rd. John Zimmerman was repeating 2^nd Grade because he’d had insufficient preparation in Braille the previous year. This was a disappointment certainly to me, but we still shared recesses and lunch.

This year in addition to Math, spelling, reading, Social Studies, Music Art and Science; this year we’d be learning the use of slate and stylus, a pocket Braille writing device and typing on a standard print keyboard. The Braille slate consists of two long, narrow plates of metal or plastic, hinged together at one small end. The top plate has little windows through which one punches individual Braille characters, using a stylus. The bottom plate has corresponding indentions arranged in six-dot cell patterns so paper can be punched down into the tiny valleys. Braille is punched through the paper from right to left, so when turned over, the characters can be read from left to right. This system of writing seemed laborious indeed after we’d be using Braille writers for a couple of years but in High School when note taking was crucial, this was the only convenient, compact and unobtrusive way of doing so among sighted peers.

We typed on manual machines, sometimes with tape on the "f" and "j" keys so we could find the home row more easily. I’m frequently asked, as if it’s a foregone conclusion, didn’t the keys of my typewriter have Braille on them? Sighted typists are not encouraged to look at keys. Either are blind ones. If typing very rapidly, there’d be o time for reading keys anyway and, typing on molded plastic dots would likely be Painful! I was excited about learning to type at first, but didn’t show much aptitude for it. Still I did have fun with the typewriter. Miss Larson habitually read lessons aloud with spelling and typing mistakes dramatically pronounced, which I thought was hilarious!

Another significant component of our schedule each day was something called Contact Classes. The educational strategy for the blind in Seattle Public Schools was that we’d start out learning entirely in a special class until deemed ready to spend one or more classes with a regular sighted class. These were known as contact classes. Time spent in contact classes would increase through the first six grades so that by Seventh Grade each student was, at least in theory, taking all classes with sighted students and would return to a resource room only for Braille transcription and some special tutoring if needed.

I’d been in a contact class for reading during the later part of 2^nd Grade. Now Marty and I would be having reading and Social Studies with Mrs. Burg’s class out in one of the portables. From the beginning I expected trouble from Mrs. Burg. I thought she was petty. She liked to shame students in front of the class and she didn’t seem to like me very much. I wasn’t really used to that. Most adults tended to like me, but some teachers preferred a big, strapping kid like Marty whom Mrs. Burg did like, over a slim, sensitive rather timid student like I was. A few weeks after school started, Mrs. Burg noticed an odor in her class and wondered to Miss Larson if it might have anything to do with the blind boys.

Marty and I were hauled in front of the school nurse and quizzed about our hygiene and bathroom habits. How often did we bathe? How often did we change our underwear? Did we urinate directly into the toilet or did we tend to get some on ourselves? Could we tell if we were urinating on ourselves? Marty whom I’d always though of frankly, as goody-goody where teachers were concerned, assured the nurse that he bathed several times a week and changed his underwear nearly every day. I announced without a hint of shame or embarrassment that I bathed about once a week and usually changed my underwear then. But I did let the nurse know that I could tell if I was peeing on myself. She suggested that I bathe on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and just for good measure, again on Sunday too. I went away chuckling.

Mother was horrified at what I’d told the school nurse. I do think though, I was fairly accurate in what I’d reported. An eight-year-old body doesn’t tend to require the same degree of daily deodorization that a thirteen-year-old body might want.

I guess while I’m close to the subject, I’ll address a couple of points. I’ve been asked this question a number of times by both men and women, often accompanied by sniggering. No, blind men don’t have to sit down to urinate. One tends to learn the correct stance and angle of trajectory for one’s own toilet and those in familiar visiting locales. Strange toilets can be problematic since splatter can result from unfamiliar water levels in the bowl. Still I don’t know that blind men do much worse generally than sighted men in this respect.

I however do sit down by choice. This is for a number of reasons but it originated when I was dating. A woman told me how another blind male had managed to just about entirely miss the bowl, leaving a job of work for my informant’s mother. Then and there I decided to do it girl style in future. I suspected my marksmanship wasn’t nearly so poor but I knew I’d likely die of mortification if I messed up a lady friend’s bathroom in such fashion. I still feel that way and though the majority of men will disagree with me I feel it’s just a more civilized way to manage things. At eight however I wasn’t nearly so courteous.

When we weren’t busy stinking up the portable, Marty and I participated in Mrs. Burg’s reading class, taking our turns aloud. I seemed never to be fast enough. Miss Gourder hadn’t pressed for reading speed and even now I tend to be a thoughtful, rather meditative reader. I would improve in time, but many tears and much acrimony at home and in school would occur before progress was notable.

Social Studies was different. The little books we used usually weren’t available in Braille, so Marty and I listened to the other students, or sometimes just the teacher reading. I listened well and retained what I heard. I was very interested in the ways of other peoples, especially what they wore and what their houses were like.

First we studied Mexico, then Scandinavia, then Japan. Miss Larson who had been to Japan, brought an entire Japanese woman’s costume to school, first to show her own class, then Mrs. Burg’s. In our own room, she slipped the kimono onto my shoulders so Marty and the other kids could feel it. Later, Marty said, "I’m happy you had to wear that girl’s kimono."

Somewhere during the past summer, Lois had begun dating her supervisor at Boeing, Bruce Brown. Bruce was a graduate of the University of Washington, Class of ’60. He had been a fraternity man. Bruce came from a Scots background. His grandfather had fought with a highland regiment in the British Army during World War I, the famous "Ladies From Hell."

Bruce’s mother had died shortly after he was born. She’d written him a letter before she’d died. His Aunt Rosie, his dad’s sister and a lovely person, had come from England to take care of Bruce and until he was Eight, he thought she was his mother. (I know no details beyond that on this particular subject.)

At that time Bruce’s father remarried. Not only had Bruce; effectively lost his assumed mother, but his stepmother was an abusive woman who beat him with a poker when his father was not around. This continued until Bruce was 13, when he took the poker away from her, struck her three or four times and told her that if she touched him again he’d kill her. When he joined the Army, x-rays showed that tree of his ribs had been broken and healed crookedly. Bruce developed a stammer during those bad years at home, which has never left him.

Bruce knew stuff. He knew something of fencing and old-time guns and crossbows. His ancestor had been a Scottish lord and he belonged to a clan. All of this was highly impressive to me. Besides teachers and Drs, I’d never known anyone who had been all the way through college and I must say Bruce seldom let one forget that he had.

I was in the habit of cross-examining people on points of interest to me, whether they could be expected to know the answers I wanted or not. When was gunpowder invented? How many soldiers had there been in George Washington’s army? What did a Viking helmet look like? Was there really such a person as Tom Sawyer? I must have been Exhausting! I know Bruce found me so sometimes but he usually gave me answers, even if he had to make them up. I know now that some of the things he told me could have been guesswork at best, but at least I had some sort of framework upon which to base my imaginings.

Sometime in August, Lois and Bruce became engaged. Bruce showed up one day and announced that he had something like 189 days of freedom left. To tease my sister I counted down the days with Bruce, all the while looking forward to the day he would be my brother-in-law.

I was often accused of living in a dream world in those days and I suppose I was, but I think I was building storytelling skills too. Even when listening to TV or talking books, I was spinning for myself a virtually unending saga of battles, construction of castles, farming, and parleys with other nobles. I had read a couple of books about the Middle Ages by now as well as some books about kids in Scotland. I was fancying myself a Scottish Knight, perhaps a duke, maybe even king. As an effort to help me in my Scandinavian studies with Mrs. Burg’s class, Mom had gone to the Library for The Blind and gotten me some books on Norse legends. She had also picked up Howard Pyle’s Adventures of Robin Hood and His Merry Men. Soon I was speaking in thees and thous much of the time.

Besides Bruce’s input I had George, our afternoon cabdriver to help feed my medieval fantasies. He had married into the McTavish Clan, though his wife had died since and his father-in-law had given him some kilts. George told me what he knew of Scottish history and culture, which wasn’t all that much I suppose, but made for interesting conversation.

Shannon and I were the oldest kids in the cab this year and me pretty much ruled the roost. We still roughhoused sometimes but weren’t really fighting anymore. A boy from the Sightsaving program at Coe School had joined us and he supplied whatever animosity that might be lacking. Steve Harrison was a puny, somewhat sickly boy who talked big, but would cry easily when struck. He said he was a Nazi German and sometimes even claimed to be Hitler. Dad teased sometimes about being one of "Uncle Adolph’s boys" but at other times made it very clear on which side of The War he’d fought. Someone claiming to be on the wrong side of World War II. was a bit more than most of us were prepared to handle. It made for conflict—striking—crying.

At school Marty and I were parceling up the playground, declaring various portions to be countries on the map. I staked out some choice territory and called it Scotland and myself Robert The Bruce. Ruth had told me the story of King Bruce and the spider and it seemed a good model to follow. Marty was Edmond Ironsides of England, who though, three centuries previous to Bruce, was one of the few English kings about whom I knew anything. Chris Gray was King Philip of Spain. John was one of the Louis’s of France. Stanley McGovern, a kid we didn’t like, was made king of Ireland and we immediately threatened to conquer his country. Stanley said he didn’t even like Ireland and we said it didn’t matter. He was king of it anyhow!

Shannon asked me several times if I ever really would wear a kilt. I said that I probably would. In my daydreaming I frequently did. The kilt was a thing of fascination for me. Since a kilt was a type of skirt and everything I learned up till now told me it was sissified for a man to wear a skirt, I wondered if the same thing held for a kilt. I broached the subject with Bruce who told me "No, the kilt is a man’s wear. You might have to fight your way through a whole line of men for wearing a kilt." This left me with the notion that whether or not a kilt might be sissified, there seemed to be a lot of people who thought it was.

Girls seemed to be more interested in kilts on boys than boys were themselves. At the time I thought that most of the women and girls I knew, approved of anything, which might make a male seem more feminine. I was probably mistaken in large part, but girls were also seeking their own understanding of self and other. The whole matter made me think outside of the boxes somewhat. Right about that time David Brinkley the commentator went to Scotland and had kilts made for himself. I learned that each kilt took eight yards of material to make!

Another rather funny, apparel-related issue came up when I went with my family to the first Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus I’d attended. There were of course, the tightrope acts, which always made Mom’s hands sweat, performing chimps, large animals and the like. There was also a clown act, something about mechanics working on a car. At some point the car blew up and one of the clown's pants fell down. Mom, narrating for me, said "And there he is, standing in his pink shorts." Later I inquired of Mom as to what would a man, even a clown, be doing in pink shorts. I’d never heard of such a thing. I’d never seen anything on man or boy but white jockey shorts and didn’t even know there were other sorts of men’s underwear. Mom explained to me that there were also such things as boxer shorts, which could be just about any color. (Disturbing.)

The wind was high on the morning of October 12, 1962. At recess I convinced myself that a milk carton filled with dried leaves, seeds and other trash (a secret formula,) was helping me to fly, or nearly so, when I jumped into the wind. This was perhaps the biggest day we’d ever had. We were going to the World Fair as a class, with our teachers and a couple of the mothers. We left school after lunch, in private cars, for what must have been one of the most unique tours ever conducted of the Fair exhibits. The guides and display attendants could not have been kinder or more helpful.

We started at the Space Needle, riding the elevator the 600 feet up to the restaurant level then going out on the observation deck. I’d been told the Space Needle leaned two inches form base to top. I fancied I cold feel the tilt, but wasn’t disturbed by it! Since the Space Needle is essentially a flexible structure, I’d be surprised if it didn’t list a good deal more than two inches and in random direction too. It felt pretty solid to me though. One of the women changed a dollar in a change machine and let us feel the handful of silver she got back. None of us had ever seen anything like that before.

The rest of the afternoon and much of the evening we spent going from building to building, exhibit to exhibit, spending a good deal of time in the Science Center.

Bell Telephone had an impressive exhibit, showcasing the first touch-tone telephones and the first dial on the receiver phones we’d ever seen. There was a phone that let you record a message then play it back. There was another phone that echoed what you said into it, a second or so later, creating hilarious confusion. I believe there was a typewriter, which spoke every letter as you typed it. Guides gave each of us a small, plastic, princess-style telephone souvenir.

Another exhibit I recall particularly well was a comparison of surface gravities on various planets, with that of earth, using grapefruits. One would put one hand in a kind of slot labeled Earth and another labels Mars or Venus or Jupiter, etc. then press upward with both hands. The difference in the weight of the grapefruit lifted simultaneously, provided the comparison. We took in another exhibit which was a film detailing what the home, office and classroom of the year 2000 would be like. Then we went into the most impressive exhibit of all.

John Glenn’s Friendship Seven space capsule was on display here at Century #21, as well as a Mercury astronaut’s spacesuit. We were allowed to feel the capsule and I was amazed at how small it was. Surely this was one of the true pilgrimages of my life.

We went through the Japanese exhibit and felt a Rickshaw among other things and we visited a two-ton cake, contributed by the Bakers of Washington State I believe, reputed to be Paul Bunyan’s birthday cake.

Possibly the most excited part of the trip was a brief visit we made to the Stan Borrison Show which was being broadcast from the Coliseum. Stan had been a performer and music store proprietor for a good number of years in the Seattle area. He and a fellow musician/humorist Doug Centerburg have published several albums of Swedish funny songs and parodies such as I yust Go Nuts at Christmas and Have a holly, Yolly Christmas.

Since I’d been very young, Stan Borrison had been hosting a 5:00 kid’s variety show on weekday evenings. We got out on the stage just in time to group next to Stan as he was ending the show but we had been on TV! I couldn’t wait to get home.

We ate dinner from vending machines, another uncommon experience in those days. It all seemed very futuristic. In solidarity with Chris Gray, I had a tuna fish sandwich.

All through the afternoon we’d been hearing reports that the wind was continuing to rise. About dinnertime I think, they ordered everyone out of the Space Needle. Soon the tall, slender structure was waving alarmingly in the wind. At some point it was decided it would be unsafe for us to remain at the fair any longer and we must get all of us home. I was riding with Shannon and her mother and there was quite a walk for us back to the small, foreign car Joyce Hurd drove. Mrs. Hurd kept exhorting me to walk faster. I don’t think we kids realized what potential danger we were in. On the way home, the little Semka was buffeted from of side of the freeway to the other. Many cars were off the road. Trees were falling all over the place and powerlines were down in some areas.

I arrived home bubbling with news about the fieldtrip and was disconcerted to be put summarily to bed. Later I realized that this was due to the general sense of alarm over the storm, which was still on the increase. Powerlines were howling in a ghostly manner and weather warning bulletins kept interrupting TV shows. In later years I learned that the storm had been felt all up and down the West Coast. Students at the State School in Vancouver had been brought into the house parent’s rooms of their various cottages to play piano and sing songs in an effort to keep everyone from panicking.

I spent the weekend regaling my family with my experiences at the Fair and interesting facts I’d learned there. Though we generally watched Stan Borrison as faithfully as any show on TV, in my absence Christine had opted to watch J. P. Patches, a clown, also well known to Seattle, who also had a 5:00 kid’s show, probably Stan’s chief rival.

That Fall, Mom and I watched a documentary on TV concerning the South Vietnamese resistance to the North Vietnamese Communists. How gallantly they fought with homemade guns and bombs, building fortifications of adobe like mud and sharpened sticks sunk into rice paddies. Uncle Tick, Mom's half brother was being sent over there when Americans were still Advisors. Uncle Truman had been in the Army since World War II. His only brother had died on the Death March whether because of this or because he just generally liked military service, he’d stayed on, reaching the rank of Captain at one point. A reduction in force in the military had given him the choice of retirement or remaining active at a reduced rank. Uncle Tick had excepted demotion to Master Sergeant. He retained Captain’s rank in the reserves in the event of a Major Conflict. Tick would spend the next ten years in Vietnam, first as a supply sergeant and later as a civilian contractor. At school I decreed that we fortify a tree which grew out of the black top of the playground. It was actually Edinburgh but we made it our little Vietnam, erecting fortifications of mud and gun emplacements of sticks. Vietnam seemed at that time a romantic adventure the true path for all good Americans who wanted Everyone to be Free.

Mom had several surgeries over the course of about three years. One was for her kidneys. The others had to do with her back. I don’t recall what she was hospitalized for in late October, but suddenly, she wasn’t going to be around for several days. There wasn’t going to be anyone else able or willing to get me off to school in the morning. Chris could go to the Magnuses, but I needed to meet the cab each morning. So it was worked out that I’d stay with the Hurd’s from Wednesday till Friday evening the first week. The week following, Mom had been released from the hospital, but ordered by the Dr. to Recuperate somewhere away from household chores. I went back to Shannon’s for the later part of that week as well, spending six days in all with the Hurds. Mom and Chris spent the second week at Harrison Hotsprings.

I really didn’t know why Mom hadn’t gotten me an invite to John’s, Chris’s, even Marty’s house but she and Joyce Hurd were friends and Shannon and I were on the same cab run. We listened to talking books together, (Shannon’s family were big time TV wrestling fans,) And we shared our Halloween candy. The first evening of my visit to Shannon’s house had commenced after a very hasty and abbreviated trick-or-treat on which, carrying a flattened coffee can and my knife, I tried very hard but not very recognizably to be a knight.

Shannon and I slept on the floor of her room in sleeping bags. We made snorting noises in our pillows so her mom wouldn’t hear, and whispered scary stories to each other. I don’t know how we ever got any sleep because we were forever taking turns going to the window to see if it was daylight yet. Both of us had some light perception. We also talked, wrangled and wrestled with her older brothers, Tim and John. I’d spent a fair amount of time around the Hurds and felt reasonably comfortable in their home. At Shannon’s house you could listen to talking books for a while and eat potato chips before going to sleep. There were Commandments against things like that at Mine!

On my last day with the Hurds I had a memorable mishap. It was Friday and things on Friday seemed generally lighter and more relaxed, even the somewhat rigid set of rules by which we lived in class. It was mandatory that we visit the restroom at the beginning of each recess, or if we didn’t, we’d be best advised not to ask the teacher to leave class. Friday or not, this was a steadfast edict. It didn’t seem quite so at the outset of afternoon recess which had glimmered so tantalizingly that I begrudged even 20 or 30 seconds out of a scant quarter hour of free time. I began to regret my decision toward the end of the day and I began praying my full bladder could hold out till I got to Shannon’s.

I was punctilious about telling the truth in those days so it was out of the question to tell Miss Larson I’d gone at recess and win permission to go again. My fear of what She’d say or do to me restrained me from doing anything but suffer in silence and then, very suddenly, I was soaking myself! This had happened on the way home from school on about the 3^rd day of First Grade. Mom had handled the event very nicely, simply advising me that it was perfectly fine to ask the teacher where the bathroom was. I guess I’d been holding in all day up till then. Now however I was eight years old and wasn’t going Home. I was not by the way, a bedwetter, nor had I suffered other such accidents save for the time in First Grade.

I spent a very uncomfortable afternoon and evening, riding the cab to Shannon’s, sitting on the basement steps, standing against the wall, avoiding physical contact whenever possible. I mentioned the incident to Shannon many years later and she said so far as she knew; no one had noticed my predicament. I’d have been much more comfortable had I been able to ask someone for help but I was too mortified to say anything.

For Christmas Santa brought me a cannon. I’d asked for a Civil War model called Johnny Reb, but he brought me the World War II. vintage Mighty Moe which loaded with a shell containing a heavy coil spring and threw a ping-pong-sized plastic ball. It was quite impressive. Bruce, who by now felt like a member or our family for sure, bought me a bazooka gun which fired soft plastic rocket-like projectiles, at variable velocities.

The countdown continued. Bruce and Lois were to Marry on February 23, ’63. I continued to bug Lois. "57 more days and you’re Gone!" Twenty-six days to M-Day Bruce got cold feet.

When I understood the marriage was off and Bruce probably wouldn’t be coming around anymore, I cried as hard as Lois had. Not only did I like and admire Bruce, but by becoming his brother-in-law I would in somewise be related to the LaMont Clan of which the Browns are a sect. I was at the time, living with the ignominy of thinking myself merely English and this anticipated cultural advancement was very difficult to relinquish!

After leaving Lois (and I) miserable for 24 hours or so, Bruce called to ask if he and Lois could get together privately and talk things over. The rest of us went over to the Johnson’s for the day and when we returned, romance was again in flower.

This was the third marriage I’d attended so far. The second having been that of Lois’s friend, Joanne Martin, at which I’d served as ring bearer. Mother said, when she didn’t think I was listening, that I’d looked much more feminine than Marcie, Joanne’s little sister, who was the flower girl. That was probably intended more as a critique of Marcie, but didn’t feel that way to me.

Mom had a couple of new bees in her bonnet of late. One was that I was living too much in a fantasy world and of course my records were to blame. The other was that Jim was getting too old for me. The later assertion hurt more. I’d not sure where the notion came from originally. The message seemed to be that Jim only played with me because he was made by his parents to do so, in order to maintain friendship between our families. Of course I did not wish to believe such a thing and in fact did not. Jim generally seemed enthusiastic when we met. We had good talks, laughed and joked, did interesting things together.

Mother started whispering things to me when Jim was over like "He’s outgrowing you" or "he’s getting tired of you" if Jim seemed at all bored or if we had even the semblance of a disagreement. I didn’t see how Jim could be outgrowing me if the same age difference existed between us now as always had before. Perhaps I wasn’t growing up rapidly enough?

Mom kept stressing that I needed to meet new friends, more my age. But thought I was willing to join the Cub Scouts, nothing was ever done about it though the subject was repeatedly discussed. I’d been in the YMCA for a while in Second Grade and had been told I was welcome there for summer camp or for next year’s meetings, but somehow that wasn’t followed through either. At school I had plenty of friends, but Queen Anne Hill, near Seattle’s Central District was too far a drive from Beacon Hill where we lived, even to allow me to go to my school carnival. Visiting friends after school would have been entirely out of the question.

As to leaving in a dream world, that was probably so. But in a sense do not all Writers, inventors, historians’ artists, archeologists live after one fashion or another in uncharted territory? I was interested in history and much of what the library had in that line was fiction or fiction based on fact.

I’d recently learned from the older blind students that there were seven Narnian books in all and soon I’d read the Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle. The Voyage of The Dawn Treader and the Magician’s Nephew, (the first of the Narnian stories chronologically, though the last to be written) I picked up in college. Prince Caspian my wife read to me about the time our daughter was born. Narnia was as real to me as anything in history books.

I believed in its existence for years.

Many other people young and old had done likewise. It was somewhat acceptable when Lois cried over Black Beauty. It was not at all so when I admitted Wanting to cry over the killing of Aslan, (the original Lion King.) It’s interesting to note that C. S. Lewis wrote the Narnian stories at least in large part, to help children have faith in God and to learn Christian principles. In a manner of speaking, Narnia was intended to be taken seriously. The connection with the Bible however managed to elude me until Sixth Grade, when an older friend mentioned to point to me. Then it was Oh, yes. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? In my original reading Lewis seemed to me, rather subversive in a delicious sort of way and I always suspected he knew how Narnia might be reached if only he’d chosen to tell!

Aslan visited me one night in a dream, or at least I thought he had. Actually he was talking to my sister, telling her to meet him again on a particular date, (I thought it was July 3^rd,) and he’d take her to Narnia with him. I honestly don’t recall if I had any sort of dream upon the date mentioned but there were other dreams.

It was shown to me in one such dream that the magical rings used to transport to and from Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew, had been relocated to a hiding place behind a mysterious panel in our school’s basement. In another, I was directly to get the rings, come to Narnia and present them to High King Peter. Guardedly, I asked my friend the Custodian, what this panel, a few steps from the boys’ room, might conceal. He said it was removed in order to clean out the furnace ducts. (A likely story!) For years I intended returning to John Hay, at night of course, only to unscrew the panel and find the rings. (Possibly paying a quick visit to the girls’ room while I was there to see how it differed from the boys’.) In 1988 I was dismayed to learn that my grade school had been torn down and another built, also called John Hay. Perhaps I should have consulted my sister. Aslan after all, had been speaking to her--.

Except in the Narnian tales, girls hadn’t figured all that much in the stories I generally read and the same was more and more true in y day to day activities. There was a girl named Linda Leake, who always seemed to be walking with me to lunch from Mrs. Burg’s class and she frequently ate with John and me. I’d play games with Linda, playfully hitting her and sticking out my tongue as if zapping her with deadly radiation. She always dodged and said she hadn’t been hit.

Chris and I played with tinkertoys quite a lot on the living room floor, dividing up the pieces while watching cartoons. When weather was fair we sometimes dug in our favorite hole in the back yard, raised worms in twin tin cans and played on our swingset. Sometimes we colored together with Chris tracing the picture outlines for me with crayon so I could feel them. Generally though, boys my age and older, tended to go out of their way to give girls a bad time and I wasn’t any different. It wasn’t as if the behavior was unreciprocated. Girls playing at the boundary between boys’ and girls’ territory, where I often stood directing armies of Robin Hood’s Merry men, would leave of their chanting of "I see London, I see France" and other ditties to run over to scream in my ears and kick me with their hard little shoes. I’d grab both hands full of braid and pull in opposite directions. Sometimes I’d make up unkind rhymes and chant back. Other times the girls would pretend one of them was in love with me in order to embarrass me, which always worked quite well.

I wanted male companionship of my own age or older. I’d always had lots of buddies at school but school’s distance from my home made my chances at close friendships, less than optimum. I never seemed to exchange phone numbers with sighted kids though blind friends called one another quite a lot.

Ron Johnson, who had always been important in my life, especially after I lost my sight, was particularly good to me. Now when we went to the Johnson’s I usually go into Ronnie’s room where he’d show me the several guns he either owned or had borrowed. We’d talk about cars and boats, even rockets and spacecraft. We’d listen to KJR, the major rock station in Seattle then, and hope they’d play Robert Mitcham’s recording of Thunder Road. Once Ron let me talk to his girlfriend, Barb on the phone. We also talked about how much we disliked school. Going to school was seeming like more and more of a girl thing. Real guys seemed to drop out and join the army or get a job. Ron didn’t want to join the army but he didn’t want to go to school either. He wanted to work on cars and didn’t see how English and civics would help him do that.

We seemed to be spending just about every Friday evening at the Smithson’s. They were founders of the pinochle club to which Mom and Dad belonged and were among their closest friends. We’d go out for dinner of Friday evening, usually at Busey’s in White Center, a restaurant know for their marinated steaks, creamy Roquefort dressing and pecan pie. Afterward we’d drive over to Fred and Junes and the older folks would play cards till Three or Four.

Chris usually sacked out on the couch fairly early. Sometimes June gave me a sheet of aluminum foil to play with. I found foil to be a fascinating substance, midway between a metal and a modeling compound. I could make armor caps, breastplates, shields, swords with scabbards, antique guns, contoured facemasks. Sometimes I’d lay on the living room rug and listen to the Late Late Late! Show and the early morning movie.

I still remember quite vividly, a movie about a modern-day shipwreck and a handful of survivors in a boat commanded by a grim officer who threw people overboard at the first sign of physical weakness. I heard my first science fiction movies here, sometimes narrated by Mark.

If Mark were home, I’d generally spend most of the evening with him. The Smithsons had at this point, two kids, Laurie who was 17 and Mark who was 14. Laurie babysat for Chris and I sometimes and seemed a lot more in Lois’s category than a real kid. Mark was also a lot older than me but he’d always seemed to like my company to some extent, if sometimes in a negative way. Mark had broken several of my toys when I was younger, and in at least two cases, had done it quite deliberately. He was prone to initiating hurtful games, which showed one to be a baby if not able to handle the torment without protesting very much. He liked to play Frankenstein and that sort of thing, which scared me sometimes.

Mark also built models. Many sorts of naval craft, army vehicles and artillery pieces. He was always glad to show these to me. He had intriguing records, songs about World War Two and other interesting things, including a recording of the Cinderella story with everything said hilariously backward. (This is the story of Indercella who lived in a big hark douse with her mean old mepstother and two sistyuglers. They made her do all the wirty dork while they sat around all day cheating ocolates and magging readazines.) Seeing how much I enjoyed the record, Mark eventually gave it to me.

Mark joined the Marines a few years later, to upset his mom and while in Vietnam, was burned over 70% of his body. He recovered and came home and last I saw him was still a bit of a brat, now grown up. Mark was never all that popular with my parents, especially at age 14. As in Chapters 2. and 4. I’m going for the next five paragraphs, in order to discuss some things that were happening at this time to my sister and myself.

Dp#1. I’ve mentioned before that Mark had been sexual with me when I was younger. This happened when I was about Four, an age when children wonder if others even of the same sex are similarly equipped as one’s self. One evening when I was about Eight, Mark and I discussed the games we’d played then and he said we should do it again. We began by examining one another’s genitals, with me touching. Mark provided me with information hard for me to find elsewhere. For example, what things are called.

DP#2. I find it hilarious that this is so seldom discussed but my experience can’t be unique. We were not taught the actual words for private parts and were taught to refer to that part of our bodies, whether male or female, as our "gadget." Mom justified this as a means of avoiding embarrassment in case a child for some reason, referred to that region of his/her body in public. Since that word came up fairly frequently in other contexts, Chris and I were always gasping in horror when someone said gadget on TV or in innocent conversation. I’d tried very pointedly to find out from Dad what the real name was and he insisted it was actually Gadget. Mark enlightened me that it was the penis, slang word prick and that you never wanted somebody to slug you in your balls. He also told me about boners.

Dp#3. I told Mark I wasn’t really all that interested in fondling other people’s penises and he said when I got to be thirteen or fourteen, I’d love to do it. But he said if I got the chance I should try it with a girl because they had something different. I’d sort of figured that out because girls sat down to pee and their underwear didn’t have an opening in front, but I knew no details. Mark told me if I got the chance I should take my sister’s underwear off and lay against her. I did not. There was a time though when Chris and I were in my bed together, which we did sometimes, more of a companionable thing than anything else, she showed me the flowers and other decorations on her underpants. On one occasion Mark tried to get Chris to join in our games but though she was happy enough to examine Mark, she didn’t want to expose herself.

DP#4. Sometimes Mark’s parents, innocently enough, sent Mark and I to bed together. Sometimes it was Mark’s idea. When that happened the play was freer and Mark would ask me to fondle him. Sometimes I did, but he never asked for anything more. Once I heard June suggest that I be put in Laurie’s bed. (Perhaps Mark had a friend over that evening.) I wondered if Laurie played these kinds of games too and if she’d let me feel her underclothing.

DP#5. Chris who was just generally interested in bodies, at least when young, liked to drop the word Gadget into conversation, just to be impish and she frequently said she wished she had a boy’s gadget. When she told me on several occasions that another teenaged boy, a very close friend of our family, had shown her his gadget, I thought she might just be imagining things. Years later, she told me he had penetrated her and described ejaculation in such detail, (through the boy’s subsequent self-fondling) that I knew something must really have happened. This is Chris’s story and I’ll not say more about it. I’ve presented this material in order to illustrate how even in the early sixties, at least some children could easily be used by elders. We talk about child-abuse more these days than back then, but it’s far from a new phenomenon.

Okay, dangerous material terminated for the present. Let’s talk about mayhem and bloodshed. The next landmark book in my self education was The Story Of King Arthur And His Knights by Howard Pyle. I don’t know when I received this talking book exactly, but I think it must have been late Winter/early Spring, ’63. I’d been hearing about King Arthur for years. Mostly from Jimmy and his dad, but even Robin Hood had referred to him. I couldn’t wait to finally learn in detail about this great king, and to tell you the truth, I’ve read every book on the Arthurian legend on which I could get my hands, most notably perhaps, Marian Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists Of Avalon.

I found in Pyle’s book largely what I’d expected, fighting in armor with lance and sword, castles, adventures, nobility and conspicuous riches. Merlin the magician was a new acquaintance and I spent many hours pondering whether real magic actually existed. I’m still not sure. My own daughter considers herself a witch. I’ve seen no castles appear out of thin air, but during a power raising ritual I felt distinct and unaccountable warmth against the left side of my face where no candle was burning or light shining.

The other new quantity in the Arthur Book was the deference paid to and service of ladies. As I’ve said, females didn’t figure all that prominently in most of my books. Arthur’s knights made it very clear that one did not behave with reverence only to the beautiful and lovable, but must be gallant also to the unattractive, even the ill mannered. I knew that being a gentleman had something to do with letting my sisters slide into the car seat before me, but Pyle’s artful language and attention to lady’s’ whims gave me new food for thought. I decided I wanted to be a knight and as Pyle pointed out in his epilogue, a man does not become a knight merely by wearing armor. It didn’t take right away and I had many lapses but a chivalric code which really never existed began in varied ways to influence my thinking. Soon I was even speaking politely to bratty Judy Forthoffer next door. I began opening doors for teachers and offering to do errands for my mother. Even today, though I count myself a feminist and have sufficient experience around that set of issues to provide me some sense of confidence regarding same, my behavior toward women is, I think better described as courtly than through the use of any other adjective.

When I was in the first flush of my newly acquired outlook, an ironic and sweetly amusing thing occurred. Though Christine had a number of kids, both male and female with whom to play in our neighborhood, I had very few. There weren’t many children of my age to begin with on our block and those there were didn’t often drop in to visit a blind person. My parents found me playing one day with older boys who seemed mostly interested in my guns. Mom and Dad got very angry and demanded volubly that I and my guns return home. I tried to discover what gain had thereby been achieved. I had been in the yard with other kids, at least having someone to talk with now and again. Now I was back in my own yard, with my guns to be sure, but otherwise alone. The argument that if they didn’t want me for myself... didn’t help.

The only two boys near home who’d played with me over then last couple of years were Robby from next door and a boy named Steve from up the street. Both boys were considered juvenile delinquents by the neighborhood. Both had a long history of cruel and spiteful behavior toward younger kids as well as stealing, setting fires, etc. They both played nicely with me though. Rob and I even built stuff together, nothing all that ambitious or long lasting but fun all the same. Still, Rob and Steve didn’t come around all that often either and any hint of a new, age-appropriate voice was quite exciting.

I was out behind the swings one afternoon, gleaning the raspberry bush when such a voice high and sweet, spoke to me. We exchanged ages and she was nearly Nine like me. Then we exchanged names and I didn’t quite catch hers, but she was clearly a friendly person.

At one point I heard a thump near my foot and she said "Oh, I dropped my baton over the fence." In my newfound gallantry I swept to the ground, retrieved the baton which she’d evidently been twirling and returned it to her. She thanked me. I asked her if she’d like to come over and play on the swings. She said she thought she would, so I went to find Mom and ask if this little girl I’d met could come over and play with me.

Mom accompanied me outside to see my new friend but when we reached the raspberry bushes and the fence, she said "What little girl?" Clearly there was someone standing there though , for Mom inquired "What’s your name?"

"Tommy Tibbits," said my new friend’s voice. I thought He’d? said something like that but had yet to meet any girls named Tommy. Perhaps she’d been joking or using a pretend name. Mom told me this was a little boy I’d mistaken for a girl and Tommy came over. We played together then and a number of other times.

While it’s true that boys of Eight or Nine are often difficult to tell from girls by their voices alone, there does tend to be a certain musical quality in a young girl’s voice, (largely a product of expression,) that is less common in boys. Tommy had a very girlish voice. Tommy was also quiet, studious, loved books and even listened to talking book records with me once or twice. Our games were very gentle. Even when I made him play pirates with me there was little enough buckle and hardly any swash! My sister was much rougher.

One day I heard Tommy talking to my mother and a neighbor woman. He was saying he wished he were a girl. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly earthshaking about the revelation to judge from the reaction of the women. Mom didn’t seem to be disturbed by it, but I’d never heard a boy say anything like that before. Girls often said they wished they were boys, but in those days more clubs, organizations, sports and other fun activities were conspicuously open to boys, more career pathways open to men.

Amateur psychologists abound everywhere of course, and neighborhood women seemed to blame the fact that Tom’s dad was a travelling salesman for his girlish ways. He had too little male influence in his life, (that so easy explanation so often invoked in such situations.) Never mind that I’ve met some very macho individuals who were only sons in multiple-sister, female single head of household families.

Mom said that boys were just too rough for Tommy. After a while he showed up less and less and was generally seen riding bikes with a girl named Susan. I mentioned Tommy to Christine a while ago and she said, "I hope he grew up okay. I mean, I hope nobody killed him or anything." Chris hadn’t remembered Tommy at all but I’ve thought of him quite a lot over the years. He introduced a new element into the world I thought I understood, a new way of perceiving, if not a preferred one.

I was familiar enough with girls and now boys who acted babyish, which we equated with being a sissy. I’d been called a sissy rather often myself. I can’t recall before however, meeting a boy who was really girlish and seemed reasonably happy about it. I wouldn’t have you think at this point that I was warmly accepting of this difference because that would be untrue and would give me too much credit. But I didn’t hurt Tommy either.

This has been said before obviously, but I think we are poorer as a culture for not having a male equivalent term for a female tomboy; a male who might be feminine but need not be marginalized as a worthless, disgusting individual. It took me another fifteen years to reach this consensus with myself and there would be much landscape to cover along the way. My next revelation along that path still lay several months in the future, at the beginning of Fourth Grade.