Cazenovia in the fifties and sixties was a wonderland for kids. Its rich environment surely made it one of the best places in the country to spend your childhood.
To begin with the terrain was interesting. There are very few flat, boring areas in Caz. Nearly every street is situated on an incline. A cyclist or pedestrian always had a mini view to enjoy, a hill to climb or a place to just let your bicycle coast downhill. There is the creek running through town that supplied power for the mills of early settlers. The creek banks were special places often lined with old men fishing. This landscape has changed little since the fifties. There is much that has changed however. There was a train traveling through once or twice a day back then. It was a great tool for flattening pennies. The first time a kid showed me a pancaked piece of copper I thought he was pulling my leg. Nothing could do that to the currency of the United States of America! He gave me a demonstration and sure enough those many tons of train easily crushed that little piece of metal. The train went through just as we Burton Street School kids were walking home from school. The trains were usually not that long, often just 10 to 20 cars. As the caboose rolled through it almost became a duty for many children to wave to the conductor. I recall the first time I did this. It was a thrill to have an adult wave back to me- almost as an equal. These conductors were important people to us. They appeared for a minute as the train went through and then were quickly gone waving away as they went down the tracks. We felt a special kinship to these mysterious men we would never know, never talk to. Each downtown shop had its own character and characters. Aikman’s Hardware was situated in the center of the northern block of conjoined buildings. It had a pale yellow ornate front with lots of windows. In the center at the back end of the store was a grand staircase to the second floor where they sold toys. At the base of this stairway was a little shop within the shop. This was Munger’s Clock and Watch Repair. Mr. Munger was a tiny, stooped red faced man who walked with small, shuffling steps. As we kids walked by he was usually bent over a pocket watch with a magnifying eyepiece strapped to his head. He always walked to work and he worked into his eighties. It must have taken him an hour to walk the three hundred yards from his home to the shop with his peculiar gait. The men working the hardware floor wore tan shirts with the word Aikman’s embroidered on them. Art Evans was senior among these knowledgeable men. Many of the arcane hand tools on display then will not be seen on today’s big box shelves and Art knew about them all. Art was a tall, thin man with upright posture and character. He had a booming, authoritative voice and was the local Boy Scout leader. A fine man. Just after Thanksgiving each year Aikman’s would rope off the base of the stairway to the second story toy section for a few days. When the rope finally came down word soon got around and we kids joyously ascended the grand staircase to see Cazenovia’s version of Macy’s. Aikman’s went all out to delight the local children with its Christmas display. There was tinsel and colorful lights everywhere. There was Christmas music and Santa showed up too. The centerpiece was a huge model train setup. It was a joy to behold for every boy in town. The craftsmanship was excellent. Everywhere you turned was a special new toy. There were the latest dolls for the girls and shiny pistols for the boys. It was one the year’s highlights. Down the street a bit west of Aikman’s was the restaurant of Greek immigrant Johnny Christakos. Johnny and his wife spoke with thick accents. Short people. Hardworking people. They both had very round faces with squinty, almost oriental eyes. They also had hearts of gold. Every Sunday throngs of people would go to Johnny’s coffee shop after church. Huge crowds also headed to Albert’s Bar across the street after every Saturday afternoon home football game. These were great meeting places, everybody knew everybody and there was much laughter. One hot summer day my father parked downtown and we got out and headed to Johnny’s place. I had just turned four. On our way we encountered actor Basil Rathbone. He was staying at the Lincklaen House. He was in town because Fayetteville had summer theater and quite often movie stars went there to stay sharp. Basil was wearing Bermuda shorts with knee socks. My father said I pointed at him and innocently said something like ”That man has funny knees”. My father said Basil was not amused. So I pissed off Sherlock Holmes. It is surely one of the great achievements of my life. At the east side of the north block was Mulligan’s Imported Woolens. Mulligan’s had a high stamped tin ceiling and shelf after shelf of fine sweaters and scarves. Ed Daley worked there for years. It is still going. The place has not changed much in over a hundred years. The bookstore at the end of the street was run by two elderly church going women. Great Gals. Always helping out old Father Lynch up at St. James. As you entered they welcomed you immediately and asked if they could help. They meant well but you really didn’t feel that comfortable just browsing. There were a lot of religious books and items. These ladies found out that I had chosen the name Martin as my confirmation name based on Blessed Martin de Porres. He was from South America. So anyway they went about finding a sacred item for me. A gift. One day I walked in and they gave me a cloth that had touched the coffin of Blessed Martin! It was framed in heavy blue paper. I kept it for many years. God knows where it is now. Around the corner was a very small shoe repair shop run by a kindly old Italian immigrant…Mr. Barilla. He barely spoke English. His shop and tools would have fit in perfectly with a 19th century Sicilian village. Another little place that made Caz colorful. Across the street from Aikman’s was the Golden Pheasant Restaurant.. It was a very upscale place. As you walked in there was a large mural covering the wall on the left. Its subject was Route 20 and the Cherry Valley Turnpike. Drawings depicted historical events and some terrain. Cooperstown was emphasized. I recall the Loomis Gang was also highlighted. Cloth napkins and fine décor . One day Steve McCall and I were wandering around town. We were seven or eight years old and we were hungry. We spotted the Golden Pheasant and headed on in. We sat down and spread our change on the table and counted. It was all we had. Then we looked at the menu. Holy Cow! The hamburgers were like $5! We finally asked for peanut and jelly sandwiches–not sure if they were on the menu. Looking back now I am sure the waitresses thought that we were the cutest things they saw all week. You know- a couple of little kids walking into this upscale place counting their pennies. They were real nice to us. As I recall we came up a little short and they said there was a special on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that day and we were OK. The Golden Pheasant had a huge neon sign out front as did many of these businesses in the fifties. These were zoned out 10-15 years later as being too modern and too garish and ugly. Ironically many people now would consider them quaint. The Rexall Drug Store was small by today’s standards but packed with a lot of stuff. There was a large magazine display inside the front door to the left. Magazines were a more important part of life before the internet. Occasionally a gruff old fellow would wander up front and remind us kids that this place wasn’t a library. Good thing because we often forgot where we were. They had a flat round chocolate bar there with large chunks of malt imbedded in it at the candy section. Malt chunks….pretty close to Heaven. Going east was Talbot’s Five and Dime store. We boys would always head to the back left corner where the novelty toys were. You could buy baseball cards and 45 records there too. Then down the way a bit there was McLaughlin’s Clothing Store. Mr. McLaughlin ran an attractive store. He was a slender, quiet, well dressed man with a slight stoop. With our weather he wore long overcoats with the collar up a lot. He also tended to walk in short, choppy steps. He was aptly nicknamed Count Macula by the great Riedl brothers. Another Greek, Pete Togias ran a popular place next to McLaughlins for a few years. A very popular place. The diner's booths were places for lively conversation and hearty laughter. When Pete decided to retire to Arizona the town gave him a rousing going away party. Across the street from Pete’s place was The Wagon Wheel a soda shop and the perfect teenage hangout. Wrought iron chairs and granite table tops...picture please...A perfect sunny autumn day. Sitting in front of the large front window. Leaves blowing around outside. A hot fudge sundae on the table in front of you. The Beatles or the Stones or Motown playing on the jukebox. Talking with your friends about the always excellent Caz football team. A beautiful girl sitting at the counter. We were rich. Life was fine. To the east and down the hill near the railroad tracks sat Buyeas’s Quonset hut. It was a superstore before the word was invented. Irv, the genial owner, and the attentive Edna were always there… helping Caz folks find the right boot or coat or sump pump. There was even a rack with mildly steamy discounted paperbacks. The covers were torn off, of course. Googin’s movie theater showed gritty black and white British films with lots of masonry as a background for the drama. Little brick walls on the screen everywhere. The people who ran the stores (except maybe the Western Auto) in Cazenovia were genuinely warm folks who cared a lot about the village and its children. Each store and shop had its own distinct personality. Shopping Malls were just getting started around the country but Caz remained much the same as it had been. Cazenovia also had two train trestles to cautiously cross, a library with a mummy and stuffed birds situated up another grand staircase and a park with a masonry pier extending into the four mile long lake. Not far from the lake is Carpenter's pond. It is just loaded with frogs. It is also a good place to skate. Yeah we watched too much TV on our little black and white sets but we spent most of our time outdoors exploring, playing and enjoying our neighbors. In many ways our childhoods were not much different than those from fifty or more years before. Take Depot Hill. It is on Williams Street. It was a fairly short hill in the middle of a neighborhood with the train tracks at its base. Not real long but it was pretty good for sliding down in winter. Many, many sleds went down that hill over the years. As far as I know only one fellow was struck by a car. His last name was Friend and he walked with a limp afterwards. The neighborhood kids also managed to turn that hill into a baseball diamond and a football field on occasion. Anyway, I am sure that kids were sliding down Depot hill at the turn of the century and into the twenties and thirties and that they did so in nearly the same way that we did. It was the same situation only back then there were people in Model Ts slowly driving by. It was all a little bit like a Capra movie, like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and, for a while, it was. ©2015 by John P. Kennedy I was a human slot machine. When I was 3 ½ or 4 years old I swallowed 7 pennies, one after another. My mother saw me swallow the last one. I told her that I had swallowed more. They took me to Doc Cannon. We looked at the X-Ray. There they were. Doc said they will pass. They did. I remember Dad searching through the poo with a plunger and finding 2 or 3. Another X-Ray. All Gone. I haven’t had a lick of cents since.
The Onondaga County War Memorial downtown has been a darn good venue for the Syracuse area for many years. It opened for business in September 1951 and has hosted rock concerts, professional wrestling, hockey games, basketball games…you name it. It is still an impressive building. Seats over 6,000. The striking Lee Trimm murals dedicated to Veterans and the wide expanses have impressed many people both from this area and from around the country.
During the late 50s Carrier Corporation, the air conditioner maker, had it’s annual Christmas Party there. All for the employees kids…. Imagine that. It was a pretty impressive affair too. There were clowns, music, candy and presents. Most of the kids had wonderful afternoons at these parties. My Dad worked as a guard for Carrier at that point and sometimes he was required to work providing security for the party. We kids thought he looked pretty spiffy in his uniform. Over the years my buddies and I have also attended quite a few rock concerts there. We saw Freddy and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, The Rolling Stones , The James Gang, Led Zeppelin and the Who there. Good times. The acoustics weren’t that great but hey… we weren’t listening to Mozart. Occasionally my Uncle Don would take his nieces and nephews to various trips and events. It was a special treat for us kids. He would take us to NYC to see the Yankees play and go to the top of the Empire State Building. We were in Yankee Stadium watching a game the day before Roger Maris hit his 61st home run. Darn! Still had a great time. In the winter of 1963 rumors went around that the Syracuse Nationals were leaving town. The NBA team was going to Philadelphia. On March 10 of that year my Uncle Don took Rick Will, Steve McCall and I to see the Nats play the San Francisco Warriors. The Nats had Hal Greer, Larry Costello, Red Kerr, Chet Walker and Dolph Schayes. They were a scrappy, hardworking bunch. The Warriors had Guy Rogers, Al Attles, Tom Meschary, Wayne Hightower and Wilt Chamberlain. This would be the first and last NBA game I would see. We enjoyed the first half of the high scoring game from our perch high in the stands. The Nats were ahead 85-81 at halftime! I went down to grab a snack and on the way back through I noticed the teams doing a brief warm up before the second half. There were a few kids getting autographs. So I wandered over to court side. Now I had seen a big league baseball game before from afar. However I had never been standing right next to a professional athlete. These were the guys I had seen in Sports Illustrated, Sport magazine and on TV and here I was standing right next to them! Wilt Chamberlain practicing hook shots less than thirty feet away! The legendary Wilt looked like a creature from another planet! He was literally bigger than life. The whole scene was overwhelming. I was in awe and, well…..shock. I stood there with my jaw dropping and eyes popping for a minute or two. Wilt was unapproachable. No autographs from the Basketball God. So I went over to Al Attles, the talented guard who had made many magical passes to Wilt during that season. “Can I have an autograph?” I said. “Sure kid” said Al. I stood there. Al stood there. I waited. He waited. Finally he looked down at my empty hands. “Uh…. kid. You’re supposed to supply the pen and paper….” “Oh..uh. Oh…..Jeez” I said. “I’ll tell you what” he said. “You get the stuff and I’ll meet you after the game and give you your autograph.” I said OK and wandered on up to my seat. The second half of the game was just as wild as the first. What a contest! Dolph firing up long set shots and beautiful hook shots…Wilt slamming dunks and the guards of both teams making unbelievable passes. The sneakers were really squeaking. Wilt scored 70 points that game! The Syracuse Nationals prevailed 163-148. It was one of the last games they would play as Syracuse players. I was so engrossed in the game that I forgot for a moment I was supposed to meet Al Attles after the game. When I woke up to this I grabbed the pencil and scrap paper and rushed down towards the floor. I was weaving in and out of the crowd the best I could as they shuffled towards the exits. I could see that most of the ball players were already in the locker rooms. It seemed to take forever to go the length of the court. Finally I entered the area near the locker room entrances. No other players around. There, standing around and looking all over was Al….and he was looking for me. “Oh there you are kid!” he said. I was beginning to wonder if you’d show up.” He looked pretty exhausted. He smiled and signed the scrap paper. Imagine that. After this momentous contest he still remembered his promise to that dopey, small town kid. I was a pretty happy young fellow. I am impressed still. I run into Dolph Schayes occasionally at Wegman’s in Dewitt. We chat a bit. He is a big, affable gentleman in his eighties. One of these times I started to tell him this story but as soon as I as I mentioned Al Attles he went off on a story of his own about how Al had accidentally hurt him while playing against him in San Francisco. He said Al was a great guy. I agreed. And then there was Bucky….
Bob and Veronica Bennett’s son John was born in 1947. He had some health issues early in his life but he struggled on ahead and became the plucky little fellow known as “Bucky”. Bucky became a central figure in Cazenovia culture for many years. He, along with Mark “Spook” Goldacker, were the town criers. They knew the story, and backstory, of nearly everyone in the area. From the Black Moonshiner high in the hills of Fenner to that wild looking old couple George and Hazel from New Woodstock to the career of Cazenovia sports legend Paul Johnson they could tell you the whole story and then some. Some called them the heart and soul of Cazenovia. I first met Bucky when I was around seven. It immediately struck me that in some ways this young boy was like a jovial old shopkeeper. He shared this trait with his classmate Larry “Doc” Larkin. They both wore their pants a bit high and really enjoyed a good joke or story. The Great Doctor Larkin is another story. Due to his health issues Bucky was uncoordinated and unathletic. He had thick glasses and squinted a lot. He lumbered a bit when he walked. When he genuflected in church sometimes he had a little trouble getting back up. Despite this, from early on, he was always a presence at local sporting events. He was often a referee or announcer. Later on in life he would become the official broadcaster at Cazenovia High School football games. He could talk knowledgeably about sports all day long. Veronica was a devout Catholic and so the somewhat sickly Bucky was given a lot of attention from our priests and nuns. St. James had Father Lynch, Father Gorman and Father Burke. All these good men preceded Father Casey who was hands down the most popular priest in Central New York. Anyway some of this rubbed off on Bucky and often after a brief greeting there was a hand on the shoulder and a bit of sincere “How’s your soul?” from Buck. Sometimes Bucky’s mostly good natured kidding went a bit too far. One day Leo, after enduring a summer long ribbing about his weight, snapped. Leo was also not very athletic and normally he was an easygoing but somewhat emotional kid. He was very strong however. There were about twenty of us eleven- twelve year olds at Legion Field. We were getting ready to choose sides for a baseball game that day. The day Leo snapped. He grabbed Bucky, threw him to the ground and sat on him, fists clenched. Leo was red faced, apoplectic and speechless in his anger that had built up for so long . Bucky was terrified but from early on he had a sense for the dramatic. When several guys made a move to pull Leo off Bucky yelled “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!” Bucky was going to “talk him down”. He spoke slowly, priest-like and after a while he calmed down the nearly murderous Leo. It was all an unexpected eye popping event for us guys. I expect most who were there remember it well. In 1962 ABC television opened up it’s affiliate in Syracuse. Channel 9 wanted to pick up interest with local programming. So there was a talent show on Saturday morning. Soon word was going around that Bucky had tried out, made the cut and he was GOING TO BE ON TV!! This was a real big deal. Cazenovia was rarely mentioned on television back then and we thought of ourselves as being out in the sticks. So Bucky had made the big time as a sit down comedian. All of Cazenovia sat glued to their sets as Bucky performed. I hadn’t seen much of Bob Newhart at the time so I did not recognize that Bucky had borrowed a lot of his material from him and added some local flavor. No Matter. Bucky had ambition and guts and did pretty darn well. We were proud of him. Damn proud. Ten years later I was working with Bucky at the Town & Country IGA up the hill east of the village. Don Callahan’s store was Cazenovia’s Wegman’s. It was a very, very popular place. Bucky told me years later that some marketing outfit had determined Mr. Callahan’s mercantile had 90% of the area’s grocery business. The other store near the tracks downtown was almost deserted. People went to the IGA to people watch and catch up on local events and gossip. This was a great place to work for the outgoing Bucky. Fridays and Saturdays were almost circus-like up there on the hill and Bucky was very busy being Bucky. One day I was stocking a shelf off in a corner in the back of the store. No one noticed that I was there. I had a good view of the “center stage” that was the meat department. Bill Waffner was in the cooler taking inventory. A cocky young salesman stood in the middle of this stage. Then Bucky walked by. Bucky was snapping his fingers and whistling and well, being Bucky as he moved along across the meat displays and exited stage right. All the while this arrogant salesman has his eye on him. As soon as Bucky was out of earshot the hotshot salesman said aloud to himself ”Executive Material” …with a sneer. Executive material? Executive material? What the….? Well, Bucky may have not been “Executive Material” but he meant a lot to most folks in Cazenovia. Bucky was a popular MC at many local events and a darn good public speaker. He developed a little harder edge as he moved into middle age. The years will do that to you sometimes. However he remained a Cazenovia fixture and a good hearted neighbor to many and he left us way too soon. Not many people get to come back from the dead but my father did. Well, sort of.
Dad was born in 1915. He was raised in Cazenovia. As he got older everyone in Caz said he looked like the actor Lew Ayres and indeed he did. Anyway, after a lengthy stay in high school, he decided to join the Army. This was around 1935, the middle of the depression, and jobs were scarce. He spent some of that time stationed in Hawaii where he called Schofield Barracks home. This same Schofield Barracks was the setting for the novel ‘From Here to Eternity’ by James Jones and the 1953 film based on it. Dad was in the Army Signal Corps and for the most part loved Hawaii. After his Army stint he became a New York State Trooper. He was stationed and lived in the barracks at Remsen, on the edge of the Adirondacks. When war broke out in late 1941 Dad had a choice. He could keep working as a trooper with that exemption or he could join the Army again. He decided to join up again. This decision was mostly based on what he felt was his patriotic duty. There was another reason, however. He said that if he had stayed working as a trooper he would have never heard the end of it from his older brother Tom. Sibling rivalry you know. As it turned out both my father and Uncle Tom ended up aboard B-17 bombers. Tom was a turret gunner and Dad a tail gunner. However they were not stationed at the same bases in England. Dad was stationed in central England near the town of Kettering. USAAF base Grafton Underwood was large and was adjacent to a tiny village of the same name. My wife, daughter and I visited Grafton Underwood in November 2007. Many of the beautiful homes there still have thatched roofs. There isn’t much of the airfield left though. A nice monument stands outside of the town a bit and there are just the bones of a barracks and a few other buildings. For some reason Helen Fielding’s fictional heroine Bridget Jones also called this place home. Uncle Tom Kennedy was stationed further south. My father met up with him once in London during their stay there. Dad flew 31 missions out of the Grafton Underwood base from late April to mid July 1944. These included four trips to Berlin and the bombing of a bridge in Caen, France early on D Day morning. Now Dad made many friends during this time. He also lost a few as their planes went down or came back crippled. Probably his best friend was a man named McAllister. His family was and is well known in New York City harbor. The family business is tugboats. This clan lived out in the Great Neck/ Glen Cove area on the northern shore of Long Island. Anyway, these men really hit it off…partying with the local gals when they could between missions. Either my Dad left England before McAllister or visa versa in any case at some point Mr. McAllister was (mis)informed of my father’s death. He was told that Dad’s plane was shot down with no survivors. McAllister felt really sad as he had lost a close friend. A friend he had met during a perilous time for both of them. A few years later this McAllister ventured up to Oswego harbor on a business trip. After several days there he made it a point to get down to Cazenovia. He wanted to tell my grandfather and the rest of the family what a great guy my Dad was and share some stories from their time in England. The first place he stopped in Cazenovia on that Saturday afternoon was Colligan’s Gas Station. He told Bob of his mission and asked for directions. Bob replied “Dead? Charlie ain’t dead! He’s probably having a beer up at the Cazenovia House right now!” So my father, in McAllister’s eyes, had risen from the dead. They had a wonderful reunion in rollicking postwar Caz. By the way, The Cazenovia House was as close to as you could find to a classic Hollywood western saloon. Of course it predated the movies but that is the best way to describe it here. It had a long porch out front with old men kicked back in wooden chairs, swinging doors, a long beautiful bar and a pot bellied stove…the works! It was torn down around 1955. I was fortunate to have visited there with my father. Mike Driscoll, Don’s father, who somewhat resembled the actor Victor McLaglen, always made a fuss over me whenever I entered.”How ya doin KNOTHEAD!” he would yell out while laughing away. He always called me knothead. But, I digress. My Dad and Mr. McAllister never saw each other again. However Mr. McAllister did call the house every Christmas for years afterwards until his death. Dad died about a decade later, in 2002. Perhaps, as in the popular World War Two tune sung by Vera Lynn, they met again somewhere for a beer or two somehow. Don’t know where. Don’t know when. My earliest recollection is standing up in my crib, hands firmly gripping the top rail, looking out into the darkness. There is faint light coming in from the hall on the second floor of 7 Liberty Street. My father comes home late at night glances in and sees me standing there. “What are you doing up buddy?” I had no answer.
He gently puts me down on my side and covers me up. Basically a little boy wondering “What am I doing here?” It’s a couple of years later and I am kneeling in front of a radio speaker with my sister Eileen. It is a tall wooden radio/record player and we are listening to an episode of “The Lone Ranger” on a Saturday morning. It is my first memory of radio.This is 1952 and we are, like many, a home with only radio. There are many sound effects on the radio show and of course the hoof beats of horses are prominent among them. One other effect that I remember clearly is of someone who had fallen into a well. I had to ask my mother what a well was but I knew from what I had heard that this guy had fallen into some kind of hole. We thought that they were great stories and the sound effects were wonderful. I think we would have been content and happy for years just listening to these stories and using our imagination. It was actually quite satisfying. About a year later Dad brought home our first tiny television. Where kids of previous eras had been entertained by colorful itinerant puppet shows appearing in town centers we got our first taste of puppets on that small screen. It was just as mesmerizing for us. There were mainly three shows with puppets. Early on it was Rootie Kazootie and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. Fran was real nice and reassured us that everything was all right amidst all the crazy goings ons. The third television show in the mid 50s featuring puppets was the Howdy Doody Show. We watched it faithfully and were rarely disappointed. It was a higher quality production than the previous two and Buffalo Bob seemed like a real good guy. Anyone who watched it remembers Phineas T. Bluster, Dilly Dally and the Flub- a- Dub. Well done puppeteers! There were also quite a few Westerns in those early days of television. The big three were Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid and the show about the best, greatest, grandest and most glorious cowboy of them all-Roy Rogers. Roy had a sense of humor. He always got a kick out of Pat Brady’s antics. Whenever he got into a fistfight with the bad guys he always came out of it with a cut lip. He was always wiping blood off that lower lip. As wonderful as Roy and his wife Dale were I think their horses fascinated me a bit more. Trigger and Buttermilk were beautiful horses and figured as real characters in the show. But…. as beautiful as those Palomino and Buckskin horses were there was something on the show that fascinated me even more-Accoutrements! I never tired of looking at the well decorated saddle, bridle and stirrups on Trigger. I was totally enthralled. They were absolutely magnificent. Works of art. I still admire them greatly whenever I see them. About that time Gabby Hayes hosted a show featuring western movies. Old Gabby played a rough spoken prospector type. He had a grizzled beard and upturned hat. The show he hosted was sponsored by Cocoa Cola. At the end of these shows was an offer to get a genuine cowboy scarf. You needed 25 cents and a CocaCola bottle cap to get one. Boy I sure would like to get one of those bandanas I thought. I did not think this was possible but my father noticed and said I think we can do that. He carefully showed me how he went about putting the necessary items in the envelope. Letter, bottle cap and quarter were on their way. A week later the package arrived in a brown envelope. Now I was one excited little fellow. When my father opened it and slowly took out that red bandana it was as if I were in Heaven. Heck I was in Heaven! I studied every square inch of it over and over again. There were cowboys on horses with lariats and steers and a rope border. This scarf might as well have been made of pure gold. Never in the history of mankind has a scarf been the object of such reverence and devotion. It was put in a most special place where I went back to admire it again and again and again. I walked on air for days. I am sure many of my generation have memories similar to these….the “magic” of electronic media I suppose. Like snowflakes however, no two memories are exactly the same. Oh, and I still occasionally look out into the darkness and ask “What am I doing here?” |