A Cabbage Patch Childhood

A long history of smoking began when I was eight years old.  I had seen Don smoking between the garages, when we lived on College Avenue. One day, Mom caught him and lectured about the evils of smoking, then she recited her refrain, “I’ll tell Dad.”  As a little boy without money to buy cigarettes, I picked up butts on the sidewalk.  It was a simple matter to snip off both ends, store unused tobacco in a tin can, and keep it there until I had enough tobacco to roll up in toilet paper or news paper, and take a ‘smoke’.   I never smoked with my brother, and Mom and Dad never discovered my ‘evil’.  Several times, at Flackenknicker’s Drug Store, we swiped a pack of Twenty Grand (named after a horse), or Marvels (first union made cigarette).  A more sophisticated and legal way to get cigarettes was to watch how Gene Emery’s Dad made cigarettes, with a certain machine.  We made our own after his Dad went to bed.  We could only use Gene’s Dad’s equipment, when he was home from his job as a merchant marine.  Gene and Nell, his sister, went to live at the Catholic orphanage, since they had no mother.  I never questioned this temporary arrangement. Gene was able to come and go as he pleased, and he became my best pal, because I felt most relaxed with him.  We joined forces on many adventures. But the smoking habit grew and grew until later, in my long hours of working, I smoked three packs a day, either a single puff, or many puffs. Thankfully I have been free of this destructive habit for almost thirty years,.

Roger, Jack, and I built a shed with bunks, chairs and a table.  We masturbated a little, and smoked Lady Cigars (bean pods hanging from tree limbs).  With a couple ropes, we played tree tag, and ran on tree limbs.  Jack furnished a little red lantern for our shed, but when he got mad, he left with his lantern.  About fifteen minutes later, he might return, swinging his little red lantern.  To the rear of our shed, we dug a hole about three feet square, and deep enough to barely see over the ground, when we were down in the hole.  One day Arlene walked by, and asked what was going on.  She wanted us to help her down in the hole, but she got scared, and yelled to get out. We helped her, for we did not scare girls, or even ourselves, when there was real fear.

Ken was a friend who was homebound, but I never knew why he could not attend school.  He spent most of his time at the window that faced the rear of Grace Methodist Church.  When we played Chase the Goose, I often ran by the side of his house, where he could see me hide in a sunken window of the church.  When a chaser passed me by, Ken got a big bang out of that.  Sometimes his Mom invited me inside, and I sat and talked to him while his Mom was elsewhere.  His skin was chalk-white but he was friendly.  Often during our talks, he continued to masturbate as if nothing were happening.  I figured masturbation was a private matter; in our clubhouse with friends, we turned our backs on each other, while doing this.  In time, Ken started to lose weight; when he was about ten he finally died.  His parents held his funeral at home.  At that time no one explained reasons for his illness or death, so I thought he died from too much masturbating.  My thoughts were influenced by Dad’s mechanic, who said often, “Anybody who would die from masturbating, just had more time than I did.”

 Now, I realize that Ken’s pallid skin was probably due to a heart disease, similar, years later, to my stepdaughter’s condition. She had an advantage of a school system that connected her to a home teacher, and phone dialogue with other students. Whenever she could, she joined her brothers in trips and activities, often bossing them around.  Anya left us about age twelve, but she had a more giving and adventurous life than Ken.  Her legacy, of struggling against all odds, remains with us today.