Saturday Morning

Do you remember when you were young and couldn’t wait for Saturday to begin? Lying in bed you think about trees to climb, grasshoppers to catch, balls to throw and places to hide. Then the first rays of light shine through onto the wall behind you. The world is waking up for you and excitement bubbles inside as you think of new adventures just down the street or even in your backyard.

In the morning of life you still believed in Santa, the tooth fairy and your dad was the greatest man alive. The world was all goodness and love and mom and dad were always there for you. Guardian Angels were real and when you talked to God he listened. Everything was so new and shiny just waiting to be explored and enjoyed.

  Throwing back the covers you bounce to the bureau taking out your favorite pair of jeans. Mine were Wranglers which I turn up in a cuff around my ankles. I put on my new Red Ball Jet tennis shoes with the large circle patch on the inside ankle and after putting on a wrinkled white tee shirt I bound down the stairs hoping I’m up before my sister.

Downstairs I made a bowl of cocoa puffs or frosted flakes and went into the family room and turned on the dark brown Zenith box T.V. which was almost up to my shoulders. Laurel and Hardy would appear driving an old Model T Ford. I would watch a little while then my sister would come in and sit on the couch with a bowl of cereal. Then it might be Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Sky King followed by The Three Stooges and Lone Ranger.

I had a little submarine about the length of a pen with an opening that you put baking soda into then closed. It would go to the bottom of the sink as bubbles came out the top then when they stopped the sub rose to the surface. I would repeat the process several times just to watch the sinking and rising. As an eight year old I found that amazing.

Sometimes for lunch we walked the three blocks to town and ate at Bacon’s Drugstore. I would sit on the round chrome stool at the counter watching the cook cut the hotdogs in half lengthwise then fry and place them on a sandwich. He would also make a malt placing all the ingredients in a large stainless steel container then place it under a mixer. The food was sumptuous, especially the chocolate malt.

Afterwards we walked along Main Street on the sidewalk stopping in at the Five and Dime Store to look at the toys and coloring books.Then crossing Main Street we might have stopped at the wishing well in front of the old brick courthouse and thrown in a few pennies. I probably wished for a new cap pistol or toy men.

Western Auto was my favorite store. It was heaven for boys. You could try on every baseball mitt. There were Spalding, Rawlings and Wilson gloves with distinct logos and lacing. Throwing up and catching a new baseball I admired how they felt on my hand and the smell of new leather. The catcher mitts were my favorites. They were huge with thick padding and the round shape really caught my eyes. I’d also get in my batting stance and swing some of the wooden bats pretending I was Mickey Mantle.

Then there were boxes of model cars and planes you could assemble and decorate with decals and also paint. I had a car collection including a Corvette Stingray along my bedroom shelves along with a Corsair Fighter plane and the X-15, a hypersonic rocket powered aircraft first made in 1959.

Every October on a Saturday we had Kid’s Day and I always had trouble sleeping the night before. It started around nine at the high school football field. One year a star player in a gold and purple letter jacket talked with the kids. He had scored a couple of touchdowns the night before and was a hero to us.

There were the two legged and single person burlap bag races, the ten dollars on top of the greased pole and the greased pig. If you caught him it was like a twenty five dollar prize. My favorite was the huge sawdust pile that hid dimes, nickels and quarters. It was also the favorite of almost every kid in town.

We commenced digging frantically because back in ‘62 and ‘63 that could buy a lot of marbles and model airplanes. Soon the pile was covered with holes like swiss cheese as the kids dug like an army of ants. Dust hanging in the air and sweat running down our backs we kept digging shoving coins down our bulging pockets.

One year after digging a while, another kid and I walked up the long hill to his house where we ate sandwiches and listened to a transistor radio in his canterbury tree. I remember the announcer talking about Sandy Koufax. It might have been ‘63 when he pitched in the World Series against the Yankees. After a little while I walked further to the top of the hill and the old red brick elementary school.

In the auditorium I watched a film about Alan Shepard’s flight into space in the Spring of ‘61. Flickering light streamed from the projector behind us onto the large screen in front creating a slightly blurry black and white picture of a man in a tiny space capsule. I remembered seeing that picture as it happened on the black and white T.V. in the second grade.Then the film told of John Glenn’s orbit around the earth in 1962.

After that we walked up to the movie theater in town, got in free, spent a nickel on candy bars and a dime on a coca cola. A red and white box of popcorn was a dime. I can remember the excitement walking into the pleasantly cool theater then plopping into a soft seat. Cartoons came on and it was quiet. Then there was a movie where a man on this strange island used a long wooden pole to fend off a giant crab. 

It was a great time to be a kid and not feel pressured to grow up fast and be protected feeling the whole town was watching over you. We could explore and wonder about things or just use our imaginations. There were so many interesting things all around that my curiosity kept me in an almost constant state of excitement as I explored.

Along with the interesting stores and small drug stores with comic book stands and lunch counters there was the library where you could get lost in an interesting book. After you finished reading there was the city park with lots of swings, slides and a merry go round which could go faster by pulling a bar and pushing on another bar with your feet.

Kids sat in groups making that contraption spin faster than the earth while those trying to get on were dragged like rag dolls until they pulled themselves up over the seats. Getting off was a real trick as you tumbled and rolled after ejecting. Time was suspended as we spun around laughing, giggling and even at times screaming. What seemed like five minutes might have been an hour.  I sometimes wondered why I didn’t fly off the earth.

Going home was always an adventure as we could explore different parts of town on the way to our destination. One street had massive oaks as old as time itself and old two story houses with screened in porches on both floors. Pictures of Model T’s rumbling down the street and people talking on porches on sleepy summer nights came to mind. Sometimes I felt I was in another time or “the hour of the pearl.” 

Another way home took us around the old red brick elementary school and the basement classroom. We would kneel down and see the hanging skeleton and jars of dead animals. Sometimes it would be a cow skeleton and jars of glassy eyed snakes. Around dark a light was often shining making those snake eyes gleam. We would hurry on our way wondering if the creepy science teacher was around.

We were always using our imaginations to make up fun things to do. One Saturday me and my sister pretended we were walking to the center of the earth by way of the red brick school building. Stepping carefully along narrow brick ledges while grasping at the mortar between bricks above us we climbed along the walls pretending there were bottomless chasms or molten lava below us. Time and place were suspended as we lived in our own little world.

Another time me and my sister along with neighbor friends transformed an overgrown lot behind our house into an adventure in the jungles and savannas of Africa. Using a sling and lawnmower we cut main paths through the stalks of weeds and wild potato vines. We added smaller connecting trails and hiding places throughout the area.

Walking along the paths and trails the explorers were trying to get out of the maze to the other side of the lot which was where they came out of the jungle. The head hunters and wild animals were already in the hiding places and crouching in the connecting trails as the trek began. We’d have a blast for several hours playing different parts and creating new obstacles like quick sand and river crossings with alligators. Sometimes we would stop and throw wild potatoes at each other.

As I got older and started riding a bike I would often ride across town to a friend’s house. We would go down into and explore the drainage ditches all around town. Sometimes we’d take sandwiches and cokes and spend half the day turning over rocks and searching the stream bed for something shiny or colorful.

We’d take all our booty back to his house and hose it down in his backyard. There would be old cork stopper medicine bottles in various shapes and sizes with the glass etched in animals and designs showing a name. The colors came in light rose, deep blue and bright turquoise. We’d divy up the spoils and I’d ride home with one or two bottles as the late afternoon sun lit up the old oak in front of the courthouse. 

Somehow I obtained a flintlock pistol. It just seemed to appear one day in my room. The barrel was octagonal with no noticeable rust, had a sight for aiming and still had the pan and plate. The dark brown handle was about two inches long. I was the only kid in town with a flintlock pistol and I proudly showed it to my friends. 

After school when I was alone I would sometimes sit in my room looking around just admiring and taking in everything. Pictures of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were to the left of my bed. I got them off a Frosted Flakes box. My eyes would always drift over to the shelf with the model cars and planes. The X15 looked like it could fly out of my room.

Afternoon light sometimes streamed through illuminating the multi-colored bottles and bathing the room in a soft Autumn glow. I would just watch for a while feeling happy. It was great being a kid and I couldn’t wait for the next Saturday morning.