2000-11-12 - 07:00 MST

November 12, 2000

Coping

An often relived time of my boyhood, a rerun as it were of the joy of living.

Usually our morning occupation over, next on the day's calendar was listening to the Texaco Opera and after that a half hour program led by The Elder, Solomon Lighfoot Mischaux - from the banks of the Potomac. I know not now who sponsored it or whether it was under the auspices of some church or another, what I do remember is that the wonderful, heartfelt singing of the old Spirituals was so great, the singing included the harmonizing and the distinct emphasis on rhythm that was characteristic of the old plantation singing. I didn't know that then, but learned about that several years later. What I did know was that the words carried deep meaning and evoked deep feelings in me, it was religious and enjoyable and seemed to be done with great enthusiasm, lifting my heart with the enjoyment of the words and the great music.

After while Mom would be home from work, she only had about a half a block walk from the streetcar line to our house. She would enter and make the family complete. Usually Mom and Dad would talk about work for awhile as they both worked at the same place and each of them had friendship and acquaintance with the employees there.

During this time I would be playing solitaire or engaging in some pursuit that did not require another participant. I always had one or another library book to dive into and enter another world for a while, I early gained the pleasure of working crossword puzzles from Mom and gradually became more able to solve them.

Later Mom would begin preparation of the evening meal, a rather short operation, warming the beans, boiling weiners and maybe if the ingredients were magically there, making a small salad. There was enough milk for me to have a glass at the evening meal, sometimes darkened and flavored with a bit of coffee from their pot. I formed a habit which caused me trouble in later life, reading at the table. We all read at the table. Our other doings often consisted of each of us doing something different, but the deep family feeling of togetherness and contentment was always there.

One of the Saturday things I enjoyed was being sent to the Drugstore to buy the weekly Hit Parade record which was made of cheap pressed cardboard with possibly a shellac surface on one side which had the grooves. They would last a while, maybe until one of the newer ones became more popular with us. The Hit Parade was a radio program sponsored by I think Lucky Strike cigarettes. Having a radio, a Philco table model Cathedral style, which Dad had bought second hand somewhere and a Victrola, which had been bought before the '29 Crash, we had the best of both worlds, a stack of records bought before the Crash and the latest Hit Parade cheapies and the radio which gave us the latest in what was going on, I remember we would listen to Will Rogers program coming from a distant location the three of us hand in hand with the end person holding onto a wire from the back of the radio. If we were lucky we could hear the whole program without the troublesome fading.

Very often the evening was spent with the three of us playing 500 Rummy or one or another of the paper and pencil word games Dad had thought up. Once in a great while I would win a game of rummy and once in a while I would be rewarded with a nickle to go to the drugstore and buy a Popsicle. Sometimes if the games palled on Mom and Dad I would read until bedtime which, Glory be, came later than in the week and even later than Friday night's bedtime. We all got our treats, catch as catch can with great value placed on small things.

Our pleasures and entertainment cost us little or nothing, a new pack of Bicycle playing cards purchased just before the old deck fell apart -- the family joke was by someone saying that the cards had worn so thin that they could be read from the front, a weekly Hit Parade record, a pencil now and then and once in a great while a pint of ice cream from the Creamery (far before Seven Elevens) where some canned goods, dairy products, candy bars and cigarettes could also be bought in the evenings, oh, yeah, they had toilet paper there too. Creameries stayed open usually until eight in the evenings, real old time convenience stores they were, with prices a bit higher than the Piggly Wiggly.

For the most part whatever fun we had was provided by ourselves using what we had, we boys built scooters out of one sidewalk roller skate split in half mounted fore and aft on a two by four with an apple box mounted on the front end and one by one handles nailed across the top of that. They were clumsy, but cheap, the skate usually came from someones trash can, two by fours and one by ones, pieces from some carpentry project going on in the neighborhood and the apple boxes from the neighborhood grocery stores. The taller kids would use orange crates which were longer for the uprights.

In those days "Scavenger" was a proud name to bear by us kids. We would keep a close eye on the neighborhood trash and if nothing else we would find something we could, in our vivid imagination make into a thing more rich than any family could afford.

I guess, during the depression an interesting and fun life was obtained by us boys by our imagination and ingenuity. We learned at a fairly early age the fine art of coping . . . . .

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