Born on the Cusp of the Pig
A Boomer Remembers
Will de Kypia, 1947-????
I was born at the end of
the first half of the final century
of the previous millennium.
And I went to a Catholic grade
school where most of the teachers
were nuns who wore wimples.
Students had uniforms.
The girls wore a red jumper,
a white blouse, and a pink-and-white
striped scarf. Practical shoes.
The boys wore a long-sleeved
sky-blue shirt and a navy-blue tie,
long pants cuffed and belted.
Shoes were generally scuffed.
We heigh-ho'd off to
school like the seven dwarfs
marching to their mine.
Skipped back home like
a gaggle of prisoners who'd
served out their time.
Where we tussled with siblings,
played with our friends. Did the chores,
maybe homework, and watched TV.
Always wondering what
we'd grow up to be.
~
Our small town bustled. Boys riding
bicycles tossed the latest news onto the
smiling porches of kindly neighbors.
The Avon lady and the Fuller Brush
guy sold cosmetics and cleaning supplies
to all the stay-at-home housewives.
Honest tradesmen bore fresh eggs,
Grade A milk, and wholesome bread right
to those housewives' unlocked doors.
Laundry and dry cleaning were
delivered as well, reborn each week
spotless and perfectly pressed.
A roving knife grinder trundled a
sharpening stone on its wheeled tripod,
chanting his singsong street cry
“Any knives and scissors,
scissors and knives?”
Doctors made house calls; teens
in T-shirts and jeans mowed lawns or
worked on cars; true believers in black
walked door-to-door, saving souls.
~
One warm summer evening
the Good Humor man would come
by selling ice cream treats.
His jingling tune proved
it was suddenly June.
Year after year the same postman
brought us seed packets every spring,
a Christmas toy catalog in the fall.
Everyone on his route knew his name.
I sent a cereal box top to
Quaker Oats and got the deed
to a square inch of gold rush land up
in Sergeant Preston’s Yukon Territory.
I did not get around to putting
a Monopoly house on the tiny lot.
~
My mother was both
an excellent seamstress
and a savvy shopper.
She sewed her own outfits
and garments for the family,
found bargains in thrift stores,
ordered things from Sears.
"We look fabulous on almost
nothing" she'd often boast.
"Might wear this when I'm dead”
my father more than once said.
After dad died, he did.
~
There were so many kids then,
kids your own age, you didn't need
a playdate to organize a game.
Depending on the season,
you'd grab bat, ball, and mitt,
the pigskin plus a rag for a flag,
or the puck and a stick.
Head to the usual ball field,
park, or frozen pond, choose up
sides, and it was game time.
No playdates, parents, or batteries required!
We played basketball sometimes,
soccer never, and nobody even
knew what a frisbee was.
~
In that small town was a
smallish downtown. People strolled,
shopped, and socialized there.
Downtown was a post office,
three churches, and a synagogue.
Grocery store, drug store,
and the lumber-and-hardware.
Bookstore, bakery, a savings & loan,
Kresge’s, a diner, the Karmelkorn.
The gas station, just two pumps.
The movie theater, a single screen.
Our sole fancy restaurant whose
linen tablecloths and leather-bound
menus made it the place you'd
use for special occasions.
The community center had a
meeting space, a concert hall, and
the rec room which was cool.
Ping-pong tables, checkers
and chess, board games like Clue,
Yahtzee, Scrabble, and Risk.
Dominoes and darts, bingo game
set, some playing card decks. Poker
and gambling were forbidden.
Next to the community center was
the library, a lesser Carnegie.
“We'll be studying at the libe tonight”
meant we'd be flirting with girls.
~
Grownups flirted
at the bowling alley.
They drank beer and smoked
cigarettes while listening to the
jukebox's parade of hits.
A quarter bought three
songs or one pack of smokes.
The beers cost a buck.
Gals wore bowling shoes
and casual clothes they hoped
they looked good in.
Guys recalled past games
and bragged about all the pins
they'd knocked down.
~
Across the street was a train station.
The trains took you to the city's downtown
which was humongous compared to ours.
It had hospitals and hotels,
old mansions, large department stores.
Skyscraper apartments soared.
An aquarium, a planetarium,
and museums. A grand library full of
old books and new vinyl records.
A racetrack for cars, another
for horses. Six pro sports teams
for men, not one for women.
Tykes played in ordinary
playgrounds—merry-go-rounds,
slides, and teeter-totters.
Older kids frolicked in an
amusement park offering loads
of rides, a few very scary.
Wild animals roamed a
Garden of Eden where they did
not have to kill to survive.
The municipal zoo.
~
There was an international
airport too, flights to all the places
we dreamed about visiting.
Like those faraway places
with the strange-sounding names
calling us from over the sea.
We'd visit them, someday.
There was no hurry because we
were going to live forever.
