2017 - The following recollections are from 2000.
Collecting Cards and Reading
I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I was a generally shy guy and tended to amuse myself pretty well.
I used to like to listen to the radio in my room. I was not big into music (unless it was the Beatles) but I often surfed the channels for talk shows, distant signals, comedy, plays, and Boston Red Sox baseball games. Since batteries were a precious commodity, I would use those 9 volt batteries until they were dead, dead, dead. I saved the dead ones so that I could string a bunch of them together to pump a little more juice out.
I remember listening to a baseball game on the lowest possible volume setting in order to conserve the power. There were times when I couldn’t plug the radio in because there was no electricity in my room (more on this later) so this was why I was using batteries. I can remember one season where I listened to all of the games. I was a big fan and knew all of the players. Jim Rice. Fred Lynn. Carl Yastremski. Carlton Fisk. Rico Petrocelli. Luis Tiant. Dennis Eckersley. Dwight Evans. I collected baseball cards and had a bunch. I remember once taping them together and gluing them to the wood paneling in my room. I don’t know why. Hell, I still do stupid stuff today so I’m not going to question my youth. I strived to get the whole set by buying as many packs of cards as I could. That’s a lot of stale, pink gum. I never was able to complete a set so when I see that, today, you can buy a whole set at once, I can’t help but think that that is cheating, somehow, and that kids today are robbed of the excitement of the search.
Another program I like to listen to was E.G.Marshall’s “Mystery Theater”. The first episode I listened to scared the pants off of me. The subsequent stories didn’t seem as scary but I listened, nonetheless, because we didn’t have a TV for a long stretch. Unfortunately, the show only lasted a few months, it seemed to me.
The further the signal, the cooler it was. I liked to tune the AM channel with the volume turned way up so that I could hear stuff from far away. I don’t remember the furthest station I ever received but I do remember listening to some Canadian comedy show and I also got some French stations, probably from Quebec.
There was one talk show that I used to listen to regularly out of Hartford, I think. I can’t remember the host’s name but he would have guests talking about all sorts of things. I learned about the world this way. I can remember them talking to the infamous atheist Madeleine something or other and debating the merits (or not) of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a satire on Jesus. Callers were terribly upset about these subjects because people get pretty upset about their religion. Other shows included people talking to ghosts as well as the more typical political topics.
I also liked listening to Paul Harvey, a satirist who reported the news with a quirky delivery.
I once brought my portable radio to a “block party” on Forest Street. Unfortunately, I set my radio down in the grass for a little while to play badminton and when I returned, it was gone. Just a little bit of my natural trust of people whittled away.
I read a lot when I was young. Today, it is an effort for me to get through a book and I generally shy away from fiction because non fiction seems more interesting. Anyway, I inherited the family collection of Grossett and Dunlap classics which included things like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, Arabian Nights, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and about 20 others. I read just about all of them although I remember refusing to read Little Women because, well, it seemed to be for girls. Today I would have no qualms. I wonder if, had we had electricity, I would have read a lot less than I did and turned out differently. As painful as the period was, I can’t help but wonder if it was a blessing in disguise. Would I have done as well in school? Would I have gone on to be an engineer? Who knows? I can remember that occasionally John and Mike and I would read together. I can specifically remember reading Tom Sawyer Abroad aloud, using all of the appropriate unpolitically correct accents.
I used to have a bookcase as my headboard to my bed. The height was such that I could lay on my bed and place the book in the bookcase and read it there. This worked out good because, due to the lack of electricity, I had to read a lot by candlelight and the candle could sit beside my book. Candles were my savior. Otherwise, life would have ended when the sun went down. I made sure to collect the spilled wax and periodically repair the candle so that all of the wax would get used. Let me tell you that the flickering certainly wasn’t a plus.
I am not really sure if my mom consciously encouraged reading but there certainly seemed to be enough books around. One of my favorite things was the set of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias. I read those things a bunch, practically cover to cover. Now, this doesn’t mean I’m a genius because I tend to forget something once I read it. However, reading those things probably instilled in me my desire to travel and explore. Plus, whenever I needed to know something I learned to look it up. I think the Internet serves this purpose for kids today. I wonder if books will someday disappear and this thought makes me sad.
One of my big hangouts was Springfield’s Forest Park Branch Library which was about a half mile walk from my house at Oakland St. and Belmont Ave. I remember going there to watch filmstrips, and the occasional film. Incredibly, they had a showing of Rosemary’s Baby, a particularly disturbing story about some lady with a possessed baby or something like that. Pretty odd that they let me watch but this was a time when adults weren’t so concerned about the effects of images on the minds of youths. I also went to find out information and push the boundaries of what I was allowed to take out. It irritated me to no end that, as a kid, I could only take out four books at a time but the adults could take out an unlimited amount. I remember that the library card was a credit card-sized piece of flimsy cardboard that had a 3/8 by 3/4 inch metal identifier tag slid onto the card. The children’s card was light blue, I think, and the adult card was a light yellow. When I got my “adult” card (at age 11 or so) I was ecstatic that I could now “legally” peruse the adult side of the library. Being a geek, I checked out the usual books on rockets and animals and such. But what really impressed me was that I could check out the art books. Imagine that, nudie pictures (drawn) and I was able to take them out. Life was good. Another thing I remember taking out was humorous collections of cartoons. I used to copy the drawings.
I used to like to listen to the radio in my room. I was not big into music (unless it was the Beatles) but I often surfed the channels for talk shows, distant signals, comedy, plays, and Boston Red Sox baseball games. Since batteries were a precious commodity, I would use those 9 volt batteries until they were dead, dead, dead. I saved the dead ones so that I could string a bunch of them together to pump a little more juice out.
I remember listening to a baseball game on the lowest possible volume setting in order to conserve the power. There were times when I couldn’t plug the radio in because there was no electricity in my room (more on this later) so this was why I was using batteries. I can remember one season where I listened to all of the games. I was a big fan and knew all of the players. Jim Rice. Fred Lynn. Carl Yastremski. Carlton Fisk. Rico Petrocelli. Luis Tiant. Dennis Eckersley. Dwight Evans. I collected baseball cards and had a bunch. I remember once taping them together and gluing them to the wood paneling in my room. I don’t know why. Hell, I still do stupid stuff today so I’m not going to question my youth. I strived to get the whole set by buying as many packs of cards as I could. That’s a lot of stale, pink gum. I never was able to complete a set so when I see that, today, you can buy a whole set at once, I can’t help but think that that is cheating, somehow, and that kids today are robbed of the excitement of the search.
Another program I like to listen to was E.G.Marshall’s “Mystery Theater”. The first episode I listened to scared the pants off of me. The subsequent stories didn’t seem as scary but I listened, nonetheless, because we didn’t have a TV for a long stretch. Unfortunately, the show only lasted a few months, it seemed to me.
The further the signal, the cooler it was. I liked to tune the AM channel with the volume turned way up so that I could hear stuff from far away. I don’t remember the furthest station I ever received but I do remember listening to some Canadian comedy show and I also got some French stations, probably from Quebec.
There was one talk show that I used to listen to regularly out of Hartford, I think. I can’t remember the host’s name but he would have guests talking about all sorts of things. I learned about the world this way. I can remember them talking to the infamous atheist Madeleine something or other and debating the merits (or not) of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a satire on Jesus. Callers were terribly upset about these subjects because people get pretty upset about their religion. Other shows included people talking to ghosts as well as the more typical political topics.
I also liked listening to Paul Harvey, a satirist who reported the news with a quirky delivery.
I once brought my portable radio to a “block party” on Forest Street. Unfortunately, I set my radio down in the grass for a little while to play badminton and when I returned, it was gone. Just a little bit of my natural trust of people whittled away.
I read a lot when I was young. Today, it is an effort for me to get through a book and I generally shy away from fiction because non fiction seems more interesting. Anyway, I inherited the family collection of Grossett and Dunlap classics which included things like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, Arabian Nights, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and about 20 others. I read just about all of them although I remember refusing to read Little Women because, well, it seemed to be for girls. Today I would have no qualms. I wonder if, had we had electricity, I would have read a lot less than I did and turned out differently. As painful as the period was, I can’t help but wonder if it was a blessing in disguise. Would I have done as well in school? Would I have gone on to be an engineer? Who knows? I can remember that occasionally John and Mike and I would read together. I can specifically remember reading Tom Sawyer Abroad aloud, using all of the appropriate unpolitically correct accents.
I used to have a bookcase as my headboard to my bed. The height was such that I could lay on my bed and place the book in the bookcase and read it there. This worked out good because, due to the lack of electricity, I had to read a lot by candlelight and the candle could sit beside my book. Candles were my savior. Otherwise, life would have ended when the sun went down. I made sure to collect the spilled wax and periodically repair the candle so that all of the wax would get used. Let me tell you that the flickering certainly wasn’t a plus.
I am not really sure if my mom consciously encouraged reading but there certainly seemed to be enough books around. One of my favorite things was the set of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias. I read those things a bunch, practically cover to cover. Now, this doesn’t mean I’m a genius because I tend to forget something once I read it. However, reading those things probably instilled in me my desire to travel and explore. Plus, whenever I needed to know something I learned to look it up. I think the Internet serves this purpose for kids today. I wonder if books will someday disappear and this thought makes me sad.
One of my big hangouts was Springfield’s Forest Park Branch Library which was about a half mile walk from my house at Oakland St. and Belmont Ave. I remember going there to watch filmstrips, and the occasional film. Incredibly, they had a showing of Rosemary’s Baby, a particularly disturbing story about some lady with a possessed baby or something like that. Pretty odd that they let me watch but this was a time when adults weren’t so concerned about the effects of images on the minds of youths. I also went to find out information and push the boundaries of what I was allowed to take out. It irritated me to no end that, as a kid, I could only take out four books at a time but the adults could take out an unlimited amount. I remember that the library card was a credit card-sized piece of flimsy cardboard that had a 3/8 by 3/4 inch metal identifier tag slid onto the card. The children’s card was light blue, I think, and the adult card was a light yellow. When I got my “adult” card (at age 11 or so) I was ecstatic that I could now “legally” peruse the adult side of the library. Being a geek, I checked out the usual books on rockets and animals and such. But what really impressed me was that I could check out the art books. Imagine that, nudie pictures (drawn) and I was able to take them out. Life was good. Another thing I remember taking out was humorous collections of cartoons. I used to copy the drawings.