Summer of '48

The Summer of 1948
There was no TV so our evenings would be spent on the front porch or in the living room in front of the radio. Butch and I liked “Jack Armstrong –the All American Boy”, and as we got older “The Shadow”. Later in the evening Mom, Dad and Grandma would listen to “Jack Benny”, “Charlie McCarthy”, and the “Lux Radio Theater”. We would spend most of our evenings as a family around the radio. I’d fall asleep many nights with Dad and Grandma Talon listening to the Cincinnati Reds ball games. Mom wasn’t interested in baseball but Grandma Talon sure was, she knew every player, their averages and positions.
Then in 1948 we got our first television, a five inch black and white screen. There was nothing on most of the day other than a test pattern. At 7:00 it would light up. I remember inviting neighbors into our living room to watch “The Original Armature Hour” a show that everyone had heard on the radio for years and now there it was before our eyes. Within months we were watching “Kukla, Fran and Ollie”, followed by the “Howdy Doody Show”. Mom even bought Butch and me shirts just like Buffalo Bob wore; these became our favorite dress-up shirts.
I didn’t know my Grandfather Talon; he died before I was born. He must have done well for himself though because the house on Church Street was a nice home in its time.
During the summer the movie theater on Greenlee Avenue would show serials every Wednesday afternoon. Mom would walk Butch and me up Greenlee to the theater buy our tickets, a piece of candy and sit us down in the theater. “Now you stay here and watch the movie, I’m going to go to the grocery store and do some shopping and I’ll be back to get you when the movie is over. Do you have to go to the bathroom before I go?”
Butch and I looked so forward to Wednesday, over the years we saw all the now famous Superman, Flash Gordon, and Gene Autry serials. We’d come back the next week and the story would be continued from where it left off, always with the hero in a lurch.
Mom would pick us up and we’d walk back down Greenlee holding on to either side of Moms shopping basket.
The two girls that lived next door, the house that was six feet to the side of ours, were our main play mates from age 4 through 6. Ann, the oldest, was a little older then Butch and Mary was about a year older then me. Grandma Talon had a stone fish pond in the side yard that had large gold fish in it; somehow they lived through the winter freeze. This was off limits to me, for fear I would fall in and drown. To protect me from myself Dad had placed a piece of heavy wire over the top of the pond to make it more kid proof. One afternoon while playing tag in the back yard Mary aggressively tagged me and I fell into the pond face first. The wire did what it was designed to do but it also provided me with a substantial poke in the forehead that left a sizable scare that I would wear with pride in future years. Scars are reminders of the past.
There was also a stone arboretum in the furthest corner of the back yard. Vines had grown up the sides and over the top providing the four of us a perfect play house. One summer afternoon Ann brought an older girl, Margaret, from down on Greeley Avenue to play with us; she suggested that we play doctor and I was selected as the first patient.
“Take off your shirt and lay down on the bench,” Margaret directed me.
I removed my striped tee shirt, laid down on the bench and the operation began as the four of them diligently proceeded to work on me.
“Butch, you an I will be the doctors, and Mary and Ann are our nurses,” Margaret instructed. “Kobe you lay still and we’ll operate on you.”
Butch and Margaret probed at my belly with small sticks and Mary and Ann assisted. Having finished the operation they moved on to the next step in my examination.
“Pull down his pants and underwear,” Doctor Margaret instructed.
My pants were opened; underwear pulled down to my knees and my wiener was examined closely. It was determined that it also needed work.
Margaret leaned over me with the shaft of what we called a wheat weed in her hand. “Lie still while I fix you,” she said
Margaret secured my wiener in her left hand, pulling it up to its full length, with her thumb and fore finger she pinched the mouth of my wiener open. She placed the weed shaft into her mouth to wet it and proceeded to insert it into the mouth of my wiener as if she were threading a needle. I rose up on my elbows to get the best look at what was happening. The weed shaft entered and pricked the inside of my wiener with its end. I jerked and Margaret said, “Lay still, this is not easy,” as if this was a procedure that she had preformed often for the benefit of many six year old boys.
The pricking sensation continued not only at the weed shafts point but as its edges penetrated deeper. I started to feel like a small piece of barbed wire was being inserted into my wiener.
“Stop it that hurts,” I said.
“Of course it hurts, that’s why we have to operate on it,” Margaret explained. She moved her fingers higher up the weed shaft as if she intended to push it its full seven inch length into my wiener, and I didn’t have seven inches of soft wiener at that point of my development.
Butch, Ann and Mary looked on in wonderment while offering assurance that Margaret was doing it right.
The pain grew and I slammed my head down on the bench not able to look any longer. Margaret in full concentration pushed on. She pushed the weed shaft deeper and deeper, as the pain increased and my protests grew.
“Stop, stop,” I demanded.
Margaret looked at me with disgust, “You’re a baby, your no fun to play with.” She pulled the shaft out in one quick stroke delivering a maximum of pain and relief in one instant. The others dressed me and told me, “OK your better now the operation was a success, don’t worry about any pain it will go away.”
“Ann your next,” Margaret said.
Ann got up on the bench and we operated on her. We took off her shirt and worked on her tummy for a while then pulled down her pants to do some more work.
I bent over and looked closer, “Where’s her wiener.” I asked.
“Girl’s don’t have wieners,” Margaret said, “don’t be stupid.”
I looked at Butch to see if this was as big a surprise to him as it was to me, but he gave me a “don’t be stupid,” look.
I looked close and it looked like Ann had a sideways mouth between her legs. I didn’t want to be stupid but I need to know.
“How do girls pee if they don’t have a wiener?” I asked.
“Girls pee out of here,” Ann said pointing to her little mouth between her legs.
“How?” I asked again.
“Girls sit down to pee.” Margaret said pushing me off.
I tried to picture a girl sitting in the urinals that were in the kindergarten bathrooms at school. It must be hard.
Margaret bent over and came up with another wheat weed shaft lubricated it in her mouth as if she was preparing for another probing. I stepped in closer, I wanted to see this.
Having seen my operation and the associated pain Ann protested. “No, you’re not doing that to me.” She pushed Margaret away and got to her feet. She was quickly dressed and the doctor session ended.
We all avoided Margaret from that point on.