Crabapples

  My grandmother had a crabapple tree in her backyard in Greenwood. When we would visit her, she wanted me to pick them and bring them in so she could make a pie.  I learned the difference between good and bad fruit.  The bad fruit had fallen on the ground and being eaten by birds and squirrels.  The good fruit was still in the tree but maybe not ripe yet.  They had to be ripe for the pie.  Another example of a science experiment growing up.  How to pick a ripe crabapple before falling to the ground. There were times, when I would come back emptyhanded.  This made my grandmother mad.  She was mad a lot.

 In our neighborhood growing up, there was a man who lived next to a busy road.  He had a crabapple tree.  Since I was familiar with the fruit, I could educate my friends on the art of how to know if the fruit is ripe.  He had the same problem as my grandmother of having most of the fruit to fall to the ground and be rotten.  What could we do with the rotten crabapples?  We threw them at each other.  The fruit had hardened, so it hurt when it hit us.  We did find out one use for them.  They could bounce on the road.

 One night, we ventured out and hid behind a bush next to the street.  Our goal was to try and bounce a crabapple and hit under a passing car.  We wanted the driver to think something was wrong with their car.  We had to get the timing just right so that the crabapple would hit just under the driver's seat.  We didn't know anything about physics or geometry, but those subjects factored heavily into the success of our mission.  When we got it just right, there would be a thump, and the driver would slow down dramatically to see what had happened.  We got a laugh over that and would go home.

 As time went on, we got bolder and started hitting multiple cars.  Some of us were better than others, but we would all hit at least one car during the night.  Apparently, some of the drivers had complained to the police about us.  One night, we were out there, when a police car came by.  Because it was dark, we didn't see it was a police car.  We launched a crabapple perfectly.  It bounced on the road and up into the car.  He turned on his lights, and we saw who he was.  I think we broke the world's record for running home.  The officer rang the doorbell of the man, waking him up.  He told the man to tell us not to do that anymore.  The man didn't know what the officer was talking about, but he said he would.

 The man saw us playing outside the next day and told us what the policeman had said.  We tried to feign ignorance, but who else could it had been in our neighborhood?  We were the only kids living there.  So, no more crabapples.  It was fun while it lasted.

Saturday

  Back in the 1960s, we lived in an area that was kind of close to three military installations:  Fort Jackson, McEntire Air National Guard Base and Shaw Air Force Base.  They would be prime targets to receive a nuclear missile aimed at them.  So, every Saturday at noon, Columbia would test their early warning sirens which were placed all over the city.  These things were placed on telephone poles and would blare out for five minutes.  It was important not to be doing anything during those five minutes, because you couldn't be heard over the sound.

 We lived about a block from one of these sirens.  At noon on the dot, it would sound like the world was coming to an end, but that was the idea.  It was deafening.  The kids in the neighborhood had a scientific query.  How close could we get to the pole with the siren on it before our eardrums burst?  Because you know that we were into science.  We could get as close as a couple of houses before we had to fall on the ground with our hands over our ears.  It was great fun.  The closest I ever got was one house away.  It was like sitting on the front row of a rock concert without earplugs. 

 The goal for us was to touch the pole that the siren was on. I don't think anyone made it.  It was for science.

Sumter

  When I was in 6th grade, we took a field trip to Charleston, SC to take a tour of the historic sites. We also had some of the parents to act as chaperones.  It was a big deal, and our parents had to sign permission slips for us to go.  My mother went as a chaperone, so I was supposed to be on my best behavior.

 One of the places we were to visit was Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  It was the site of the first shots of the Civil War or the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression.  In order to get out to Fort Sumter, we had to take a ferry boat.  Even though I had been there before with my Uncle George and his boat, there was still a lot of anticipation about this journey.

 I tended to get sick on boats, so I tried my best not to throw up.  I found that the best place to be on the boat was toward the back, because we didn't bump so much on the waves.  Because most of us were around 11 and 12 years old, some of us were very inquisitive about nature and living things.  One of our kids said he had heard that if you throw a Tums at a seagull, that the bird will catch it thinking it is food.  Then, the Tums will react with the water in the bird's belly, and the bird will start foaming and blow up. That theory seemed outrageous, but of course we had to try it.  

 Someone threw a Tums to a following seagull.  It swallowed it.  A couple of minutes later, we heard a small boom, and the seagull fell into the water dead. The experiment worked.  Unfortunately, one of the chaperones saw what we had done, and that was the end of our experimentation on seagulls.  We got to Fort Sumter and had a good talking to by our teacher.  It was fun, though.

Kennedy

  I was in 5th grade.  Mrs. Kirk was our teacher.  She was short and very strict.  Some kids thought she was mean.  We had to memorize a poem every six weeks and present it before the class.  I guess she liked me, because I did mine right.  

 It was November 22nd, 1963.  We just had lunch in the cafeteria and had settled in to carve green brick.  It was basically hard clay.  They gave every kid a stainless-steel knife to work on the brick.  (Imagine giving that kind of knife to a kid today.  There could be some injuries.)  

 Suddenly, another teacher named Mrs. Elmore burst into our room and frantically told Mrs. Kirk to turn on the TV.  We had a black and white TV in our classroom to watch educational programs.  Mrs. Kirk didn't know what to think, but she cut on our TV.  Just then, we heard the news.  President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.  I knew where Dallas was, because I spent a summer in Fort Worth, when I was 3.  

 When I heard the news, I dropped my knife onto the table and gasped.  Some kids laughed, and Mrs. Kirk told them to be quiet.  Shortly after the first news bulletin, they said that the President was dead.  There was silence in our room, and we just stared blankly at the TV screen.  

 After a few minutes, our school's principal came over the PA and said that they were dismissing school.  We didn't have school buses.  Some parents came to pick up their children.  Most of us walked home still in shock.  

 During that weekend, I was glued to the TV except for one time that my neighbor Bruce and I walked outside to get some fresh air. My mother and I saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot live on TV.  My mother fell to her knees in front of our TV and yelled out, "They shot him"!  I don't know if she thought there was a conspiracy, but I kind of think she did.  

 Years later, I met one of the military pallbearers for Kennedy.  He lived in Columbia and named James Felder.  He later became a civil rights advocate and a hero of mine.  

 That day in 1963 will always be etched in my memory.  You just don't forget days like those. 

Cuba

  I was in elementary school, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in 1962.  We were all scared that the Soviet Union was going to supply nuclear missiles to Cuba, and they would then launch them at the United States thus starting World War III.  The country started a policy for school children called "Duck and Cover".  We were supposed to get under our desks and put our hands over our heads.  This was supposed to protect us from getting killed in a nuclear war.  They also used that exercise for a possible tornado hitting our school.  

 When we got the word, we all fell to the floor and did what we were supposed to do.  As time went on, our teachers became aware that putting our hands over our heads probably wouldn't protect us much, so they moved us into the school's hallway.  We all sat with our knees to our chests, and we put our heads between our knees.  This posture was supposed to protect us better from a tornado or a nuclear blast.  It got us away from the windows in the classrooms.  Smart move.  No one really knew what would happen to us should we be hit.  It was a little more comforting though.

 Living through the Cold War was pretty traumatic.  You just never knew if or when somebody would start a war.  If I watch a movie now that pertains to a nuclear war, and it stops before something bad happens, I start to cry.  It is a reflex action from that period in my life.  Of course, we still have nuclear missiles.  So do other countries.  We also know not to "duck and cover".

 Years later, I came across a blacklight poster in a store.  It looked official from the government.  It had printed steps on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.  The last line of the poster said, "Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye."  That made more sense than what the school had us to do.  Keep that thought in the back of your mind just in case.

Craft

  In elementary school, we went on some field trips.  The main purpose for the teachers was for us students to learn about something outside of the classroom environment.  For us students, it was a time to get away from school and pretend we were learning about something outside of the classroom environment.

 We were in 4th grade and went to the Columbia Museum of Art which was on Senate Street downtown.  The cool thing for me was that it was across the street from a local TV station (WIS).  I loved TV.  So, we were supposed to look at works of art from the Masters.  They also had a planetarium at the museum which was pretty cool.  

 The director of the museum (and the founder) was a man named Mr. Craft. He was pretty famous in the Art World.  We went into a room to have a class with him.  Our teacher thought he could teach us everything about art in ten minutes.  One of the things he wanted to talk about was sculpture.  I was sitting on the floor next to his feet.  He looked at me and asked me what a hammer was for.  I didn't hear the question, so I said I didn't know.  He laughed at me.  The whole class laughed at me.  He ridiculed me by saying I didn't know what a hammer was, and didn't my father show a hammer to me?  Didn't I use the hammer to pound in nails?  I felt stupid, and he let me know I was stupid.  The fact of the matter was that I hadn't heard his question.

 All the way back to school, I had to hear the laughter from my fellow students that I didn't know what a hammer was.  Years later, I went back to that museum to confront Mr. Craft, but he had already died.  Good for him.  I was going to bring a hammer.  

Typewriter

  When I think of the word "typewriter", many things come to mind.  The first thing I ever wrote was on a Royal typewriter.  It was a TV commercial for a cereal, when I was five.  The ad agency said I showed promise, but they wouldn't use it.  My father had to show me which buttons to press on the typewriter. Later, my parents gave me a typewriter for a high school graduation present.  It was a Smith-Corona manual typewriter.  I used it until it finally gave out in the 2000's.  I wrote a lot of papers on that typewriter, and I learned how to edit my typing by thinking a couple of sentences ahead.  I even took a typewriting class at a local business school.  I was never really fast and just ended up typing with four fingers. 

 My mother wanted to sell our old Royal typewriter to a college student.  They had acquired it probably back in the 1940's or maybe earlier.  It was really an antique, but she felt that someone else could use it.  She put a notice on the bulletin board at Carolina and that she wanted $20 for it.  This was back in the 1980s.  An Indian student called her and expressed an interest in the typewriter. They agreed to meet in the lobby of a downtown hotel to finalize the transaction.  I went with Mother to the hotel.  

 At the appointed time, the student arrived to look at the typewriter.  He wasn't impressed with it.  In fact, he told her that it was something he didn't expect to see.  The boy said he would give her $10.  My mother was a little miffed, because she thought they had a deal at $20.  Just then, a local TV personality named Joe Pinner walked into the hotel on the way to the dining room for lunch.  My mother said, "Well hello Joe"! She didn't really know him, but she watched him on TV and felt like she knew him.  Joe graciously replied, "Hello, my dear".  The Indian boy's mouth dropped open.  He knew who Joe Pinner was, and he assumed that my mother knew Joe.  The boy gave my mother the $20 and went away impressed.

 Years later, I told Joe that story. I told him that he was responsible for my mother selling the typewriter.  We laughed about it, and he said, with a smile on his face, that he wanted a commission for the sold typewriter.  Whenever I would see him out and about, he would ask me where his commission was?  Then, we would laugh once again.  Thanks, Joe.