Jun. 08, 2003 - 20:02 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Feckless Youth

That's what I was - in its worst definition. I guess I could fill a page of why I was, needless to do so though, in a word I was.

Moving to the other side of town when I was in high school separated me from friends I had since elementary school. A couple of my friends would occasionally ride across town to visit and occasionally I would meet them down town to go to a show, but moves tend to separate friends whether grown or immature.

I don't suppose a move affects all kids the way it did me maybe though it hits some kids that way.

The world was tending toward war, some were screaming because we were selling scrap iron to Japan, Hitler was becoming known for the scoundrel he was, and appeasment was in the wind.

A FNG in a strange world I was. Bad thing about it was my new school had many rich kids who had been kicked out of private schools and dumped into public school. There were other nice kids there, but back then for the most part the rich didn't associate with the poor but stayed apart from us. Hell they had cars and we didn't, as well as having many of the good things money would buy. Fact of life.

I had books for my friends, old friends. New books perhaps but old friends though. Never met a book I couldn't get along with for a while, even school books as limited as their life was.

At that time I had no incentive to excel at school, Mom and Dad were busy trying to assure our survival and got home at night dead tired. They were still working for the wages that had been pushed down during the depression.

Aside from books I had my own imagination as another best friend. I worked it to death too.

My new school was a bit over three miles away from our house - toward the business section of the city. Mom and Dad would drop me off at school on their way to work in the morning. Sunday Mom would give me carfare home for the week.

Very soon I discovered that waiting for and riding the streetcar bored me to tears. Knowing that I could walk a distance without extreme fatigue, on the quiet my carfare was spent on cigarettes and I began walking home. Summertime smoking was no problem as I would work a job of one kind or another and buy smokes and other things.

There were two ways that I could go east to the main north/south artery. One was along 17th Avenue on the edge of City Park, this one was neat 'cause I could stop by the zoo for awhile now and then.

The other route was along East Colfax Avenue which was lined with stores and businesses. I would slowly shamble my way along looking in the store windows and using my imagination in every way possible. Sometimes I would imagine myself the owner of the store, other times a rich patron there. Or I would imagine myself using what was on sale in the stores. The Camera shop near school was one fascination of mine. When I went that way it would be to the very eastern end of my trip, as it was just a few blocks off Colfax Avenue to our house. After I had more or less memorized the displays then I would change.

When I reached the main north/south artery (Colorado Boulevard)I had three other favorite routes to go. Montview Boulevard (20th Avenue), 17th Avenue Parkway or 6th Avenue Parkway. Walking a few blocks out of my direct way mattered not to me. Two of them had beautiful, well planted islands between the east and west directions.

Those three east/west paths were lined with mansions of the rich, big ones for our town. I loved the architecture, the grounds and plantings. As I walked those streets I was richer in my imagination than the residents were in reality. I would people those beautiful houses with great and wonderful people, ones who loved each other and their families. In my mind I would plan trips abroad and parties in Hawaii, the sky was the limit in my mind.

The sorry, sad little romance I was in before it turned into somewhat of a nightmare, would put the two of us in the very nicest house on the street, with fancy cars to drive and on and on and on.

Thinking now, "If only being a writer had been my desire - my imagination would have worked overtime, faster than my fingers could type." Yeah I could type then, could type before I took it in Junior High School. Momma was the manager of a Western Union branch office which had a spare Simplex machine (AT&T's version was the Teletype) which she let me use to practise.

Wasted opportunities by a lazy boy, can't go back though, if I did it would probably be all the same anyway.

I still devoured books, anything but school texts I was supposed to be studying.

I guess it was the disenchantment of moving away from my friends that led me to quit school in disgust and go to work. But that is another tale.

Was my youth wasted ? I think not, unprofitable of course as far as money went, but there wasn't much of that commodity for us common folk. At the time there wasn't much to aspire to and little chance for a higher education.

I read and reread books that I loved, that taught me the ethics and morals the the good guys had, books of inspiration and adventure. Tales of old or science fiction, it didn't matter just as long as it was good.

Meanwhile my imagination, although wasted on trivia was in super-overdrive and filled my nightime dreams with wonderful things too.

So, more than I really want to hear about my Feckless Youth . . . . . . . . . .

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