What day is it?  right, you guessed it! I was going to offer a box of cigars to those who got it right–but my attempt to buy a tobacco plantation is still ‘in process’. So, I must disappoint you. No box of Havanas today.

Yes, I did have a life before Culver. Lets go way back and see what made or saved my life.

I went to kindergarten age five. My first gigantic humiliation at the hands of a beautiful woman!! One day in our classroom the teacher asked us to move our chairs to the edges of the room so that we sat side by side around the walls. Then she asked the innocent question: ‘How many of you can tie your shoes? Raise your hand.’ Some hands shot up, others raised hesitantly and slowly, but I –a bit late–shot my truthful, masculine-boy , aggressively proud up!! ‘O.K. everyone that can tie your shoes please do itnow’. I leaned over to my shoes with a positive motion. Ah  er  well..and I couldn’t. Perhaps the teacher will show me. No. ‘Mary will you show him how to tie his shoe, please.’ So, began my real  and first humiliation by a GIRL.  I’ll not go into my other humiliations by girls/women.

A really frightening event came while I was playing with ‘Henry’ my friend and neighbour. In those days around late 1930’s people were changing from Ice fridges to modern electric fridges–as did my parents. The old icebox was stored in an open garage. This huge fried=ge five or six feet high had  four compartments with say two foot square doors. I can remember the ice man who used to deliver large blocks of ice for the fridge, He used some fascinating tongs which gouged into each side of the iceblock as he lifted it. Anyway, Henry and I were playing ‘war’ and we desperately needed a place to hide. We ran into the garage. I encouraged Henry to get into the top door {and I closed it}. Then, of course, I crawled into the bottom..but when I gently pulled the door towards me to be hidden from the dangerous troops just around the corner–I pulled the door too far and a latch caught. Oh my goodness what do I do now. I tried to get my fingers through the gap. No dice. My parents were out of town and ‘Sue’ was ‘baby sitting’. As it got darker she came out looking for me and calling my name. when I heard her I started SHOUTING. Much to her horror shoe followed the cries. Opened the door and pulled us out.  Of course we were alright I reasoned. We could breath through the gap in the door. This thought reduced  the horrors I had at being so close to tragedy. { I never was allowed to play with Henry again.}

But this one is even worse!  [Don’t leave. The stories grow up later] I was brought up as a Congregationalist. Our family went to church every Blogday. I went to sundayschool while my parents went into the church for ‘the Word’. I was good at bible stories and one Blogday I won a prize–a frogstaber. I’m afraid that  it has always been a puzzle to me why the prize was appropriate for a religious knowledge.  Anyway, I had another friend named Sammy. We lived next to a long field where a few years later we would play football and softball before going to one of the gangs basketball hoops. On one sunny day Sammy. We  were lazing about. At one side of the field was a telephone hut  and an apple tree which we enjoyed climbing. Sammy lay down on the grass and put his hands over and under his head. I was carrying my Blogday prize. occasionally we played mumbli-peg which was a skills game. We placed an open pocket knife {not a frogstaber} about 12 inches above the ground. with a flip of the hand the knife would turn in the air and, if we were good enough, stick in the ground. So, this quiet sunny day I took out my prize, opened the blade and thought I’d be clever and stick it the knife into a telephone pole next to the shed.

Bad idea { you can skip this section if you don’t want to know what happened} A distance away from the pole, I raised my right arm and threw the knife. It hit the pole alright–but not square on. Of course, the pole was dense and hard. The knife glanced to the right  where Sammy was snoozing with his hands behind his head. Too quickly the knife went into Sammy’s chest and out again. I cannot recall exactly what happened next, but Sammy did not live very far and he ran home. He was taken to the hospital where the doctor said that if the knife had been a few inches lower it would have hit his heart.. Woe!. I was never allowed to play with Sammy again.

This one is amusing. My grandfather had a department store. As a child I used to go to the store, get out my toy truck and play on the ground floor. When the lift came down and the door opened I would push my truck straight at the customers and enjoy the startled expressions on tier faces. Grandfather wanted to encourage my commercial skills. One Christmas time I ask for a box of Tussy Handlotion. I would go door to door in my neighbourhood and try to sell each one a bottle. I set off with the box on my sled.  I sold a few but after an hour in the freezing weather I looked at my box and each  bottle had frozen and the tops had popped up![I lost a lot of money in my first commercial enterprise] undaunted, I started to sell SATURDAY EVENING POST magazines. An agent brought me the week issues and shared the money with me. It was a wonderful magazine and occasionally had spoonerisms–

Marden me padam , this pie occupued. May I sew you to a sheet in the jack of the burch.

I went to a school with a gym that  had a ceiling about 12 feet high. I was tall at an early age–5’9” and possibly one of the tallest boys in the school basketball league. Two problems interfered with my excellence –first the low ceiling. In Fort Wayne Fred Zollinor, an industrialist, started a professional basketball team. They played in our coliseum with a very high ceiling. I used to watch them and they would arch the ball very high in the air and drop it straight through the hoop. We couldn’t do that. We had to shoot the ball almost straight at the basket. The other hinderance was that the gym brick walls were 2 feet from the basketball side line. Th Zollinor Pistons had at least 6 feet and could lunge out while throwing the ball back into the court. However, I had my time for glory. I played in the city tournament. To this day I can remember standing at the foul line for a throw–sn missing it. Quite a few times.  The game starts with a throw in the air by the referee and a member of each team jumps. I had a plan with our best player that I would out jump and tip the ball to him. This time I did it and he scored!

Finally, for now–I learned a ‘speech. The best in the class would say it to the parents at the ‘graduation ceremony’. I was chosen along with Connie, a girl that I ‘admired’ and had chased around a classroom after school. Anyway, I practiced in our small hall in the afternoon. I had been told to look just over the audience’s head and I wouldn’t be putoff if I recognized my parents or grandfather. I decided that I would put a large chalk mark between the windows in the back of the hall . Then I coud concentrate on it. And I went home for tea. I was called to speak in the middle of the ceremony. I started confidently , but when I looked to the back of the hall there was no mark. Someone had cleaned it off!! However, I carried on and enjoyed my performance [or the praise I received afterward] and I have been performing ever since.