2000-08-24 - 00:10 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

O. Julius

This overbearing mind of mine insists that I visit the scene of my nefarious youth. I am forced to write about the Orange Slice Caper.

It was summer time and we (my bosom buddy and I) decided to adventure around the neighborhood to see what we could find or stir up.

Denver -- maybe 1931 or so -- On South Pearl Street -- the 1800 block had a string of stores, side by side with shared walls between each establishment. One of these stores was vacant, the one between the Piggly-Wiggly (forerunner of the big ones now, like Albertson's) and a beauty shop. On passing by, being at the super nosy age 9 or 10, we peered through the front window of the vacant store and spotted a gum ball machine on the floor, in plain sight by the wall. It was loaded with gum balls.

Our daring and sneaky minds decreed that we just had to have that gum ball machine and contents. We crept sneakily up the alley behind the store and fiddled around with the door -- I did have a skeleton key as did most kids my age -- which opened most everything but Yale locks. Annnnnd the nefarious activity began !

We wiggled and jiggled the key until the door unlocked and we weaseled our way into the back room.

We had an early version of a "brain storm" trying to figure out what to do next. The problem posed to us was that the whole front of the store was plate glass from the ceiling to about 9 inches above the floor, from one side of the store to the other. It was a stage open to the world and frequent passers by.

We conferenced and decided to look around for some as yet unknown aid to our purpose. We searched the store and in the basement found a cardboard carton just about the right size to hold one of us and the machine. We schemed, plotted and mapped out what to do. Then we embarked on our act of derring do.

We hacked the box with our jack knives, cutting out one end and one side, put the open side on the floor and the open end facing the back of the store. I crawled into the box and began my micro-inch by inch snail slow trek to the gum ball machine, my buddy, peeking around from the side of the door to the back giving me loudly whispered instructions on directions and when to move a bit. Of course a couple of ladies under their parasols stopped in front of the store and had a conversation that seemed to last forever, finally they moved on, allowing me to move little by little toward the machine. Atomic increments of movement as near to being like the movement of an hour hand on the clock as we could manage, to avoid anyone noting change of position or perceived movement.

I arrived at destination zero and managed to squirm around and back up to the machine, putting it between my feet and crawling to the back room in a painful process of acrobatics. Had scabs on my elbows for weeks.

Not wanting any noise to be heard over in the Piggly-Wiggly on oneside and the beauty shop on the other we tried to figure a way of getting it to a place where we could break the glass and get the gum, we were marginally smart -- knowing that two kids carrying a gum ball machine down the street would have been busted for sure. We could hear the pennies rattling in the bottom, so they figured in the overall plan for the day.

We scrounged around and found a gunny sack. Wrapped the machine in the middle and carried it slung between us, trying to look innocent as we made our stealthy way out of the store and down the alley.

We went to the alley behind my buddy's house and he got a hammer out of their garage. We went to a garage behind a vacant house in our neighborhood and proceeded to break the glass and pocket the gumballs. With the hammer we broke the metal case and dumped the pennies out on the floor, it had been almost full of pennies - bonanza ! We divided them too.

We split as all good thieves do, each going in a different direction. I stashed the gum balls and went straight to the Piggly-Wiggly and to the bin containing the Orange Slice Candy (like a gummy bear only shaped like an orange slice and coated with sugar, still sold in some candy stores) where I lusted for the whole bin but could only afford a sack full.

At that time in my life, Orange Slice candy was the ambrosia topping all the goodies in the world.

So, the grocer filled my bag and I swaggered out of the store, walking on a plush carpet of satisfied crime and anticipation of the treat.

This greedy villian snuck to the nearby park, found a place to hide back in the bushes to be unobserved. I made myself comfortable and gorged, gulped and stuffed myself until I ate the last orange slice from the sack.

As I left my hideout I felt unaccountably full, why shucks -- a bag of candy can't be that big. (Yeah Right) Further on the way home my stomach tried to churn the orange slices into something else and not being successful pointed me to a trash can where a major upheaval occurred. I don't think it all came up -- that evening at home I hid my bilious, distended and painful belly from my parents, and I think I did live through the night, else I am in heaven now.

Lord that was around seventy some years ago and even now the thought of Orange Slice Candy nauseates me to the max. My dishonest sortie into a life of crime really taught me a sex lesson !

The two of us stressed ourselves enough that we decided that we wanted to do something legal for the rest of our lives.

Now, I don't even like O. Julius !

Blog