My latest story involves the four year old me and my overwhelming need to get to the ice cream truck
I was four years old when my Dad moved our family to yet another new town. His Father’s burgeoning business, Rouse Construction, had bid on and won a contract for a new elementary school in Newburgh, New York. This was the largest contract the growing company had to date, and it was the first time my Father was named superintendent. So, you can imagine the pressure for this 26-year-old who was telling men who had worked in construction longer than he’d been alive what to do. It was a very stressful time for him.
Our family rented a small house trailer in a trailer park near the village of Cornwall. Our new home was actually smaller than most of today’s yellow school buses, and this palace on wheels would be our home for the next year and a half until the job was completed.
Our palatial new residence consisted of what I would call sections rather than rooms. The front interior was the living/kitchen/dining section. The rear section featured my parents’ double bed. That was it. To my four-year-old brain, I thought it was good that the mattress took up the entire space since they could never fall out of bed like I did all the time. There was a tiny pink bathroom, and tucked in the small hallway was a set of bunk beds where I slept.
I must say, the trailer park landscape was somewhat dismal. The trailers were very close together, the gravel roads were full of potholes, and there was a huge stagnant pond that often smelled of sewage. Even so, there was a silver lining to living there: plenty of kids were always around to play baseball, army, and kick the can. We learned early on that using a real baseball in a trailer park was a dumb idea after a couple of windows were blown out. Plus, the residents didn’t overly appreciate the pockmarks that a hard-hit line drive left on their exterior metal walls. We quickly switched to a baseball-sized rubber ball following an impassioned speech by one of the moms, Mrs. Scattamucci. I recall the speech included phrases such as “Asked to move.” “Paying for damages.” “Getting some brains.” and “What’s a matta you!”
A few significant events occurred in my young life at Stagnant Pond Trailer Park. There was the time I set the land speed record sprinting home after crawling over a nest of yellow jackets while playing army. My Mother, always the eternal optimist, tried to soothe me as I lay on the floor writhing in pain, covered with stings, “Well, Stevie, at least we know you’re not allergic, or you’d be dead by now!”
Then there was the Memorial Day neighborhood party our maniac neighbor, Mr. Cerio, had. He always bragged about his beachfront property, parked on the banks of Stagnant Pond. After a few drinks, he pulled me aside and asked if I wanted to go on an excellent adventure. Next thing I knew, he was coaxing me up a ladder onto his roof and in one ninja move, grabbed me by the arm, hoisted me above his head, and, while laughing like a madman, pretended he was going to throw me off the roof and into the creepy pond below. After a round of kicking, biting, and screaming, I managed to escape, and I scampered down that ladder like a seasoned cliff dweller.
And, of course, I’ll never forget my Mother’s first attempt at cooking the Thanksgiving Day turkey. It wasn’t a successful attempt. In living conditions such as ours, there wasn’t a lot of privacy, to begin with, but any hope of modesty vanished not long after the meal’s conclusion when a siege of epic proportions began. The skirmish ensued with a flurry of asses and elbows flying everywhere. There was pushing, shoving, and the sounds of gagging, wretching, and explosions as we all tried simultaneously to squeeze through the tiny bathroom door to seize the throne. The child-sized pink toilet never stood a chance. It was impossible to wait your turn. Even clenching at a professional level would not stop the onslaught. The holiday ended with bodies strewn around the trailer and my Mother slumped over the kitchen table, dehydrated and weeping.
These events were so impactful that I still remember them quite clearly today, but they all pale in comparison to the infamous Flyswatter Incident of 1955.
The day started innocently enough. The morning was sunny and quite warm. I ate my typical healthy 1950s-style breakfast: a bowl of Rice Krispies and milk with a thick blanket of sugar across the top, a slice of white toast with cinnamon, and pools of melted butter with more sugar shoveled on top, and this nutritious meal was all washed down with a cold glass of delicious pink milk. Nobody knew what was in that Nestle Strawberry Quick mix, but it had the word strawberry in its name, so we considered it one of the daily recommended servings of fruit.
After breakfast and a finger stick, I went out to play. A couple of hours later, hot, sweaty, and thirsty, I returned for a drink. Mom went to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. These were the days when no one drank straight water EVER! You got water from drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Hawaiian Punch, or Fanta Grape. Cherry Kool-Aid was a personal favorite of mine. I’m not sure, but back then, it never occurred to anyone how amazing it was that the Kool-Aid Company created spot-on flavors by simply mixing a pile of chemicals. There wasn’t a speck of an actual cherry in the whole pitcher! And in case you didn’t know, there was absolutely nothing sugar-free in the mid-fifties. Nothing! So, the Kool-Aid we drank had two full cups of sugar and a bonus of a few artificial flavors and colors. Red #40 was my favorite artificial color. Nobody knew what was in that either.
As I sat rehydrating and reinvigorating myself after my sugar high, our next-door neighbor, Irene Curcio, stopped by to join my Mother for coffee, cigarettes, and some trailer park gossip. That was my cue to make my exit and scout out some friends for a ball game. I hadn’t been outside for very long when I suddenly heard the sound of every kid’s dream off in the distance, the jingling, jangling bells of the ice cream truck! I did a quick about-face, hightailed it back through our front/side door, and interrupted my Mother’s conversation with Mrs. Curcio. “Mom, can I have a nickel for a Popsicle?” No response. “MOM!” “Stevie, please don’t interrupt me!” The bells got closer. “Mom, can I please have a nickel!” “Hold it a minute!” she yelled. Bells got closer. “Mom, the ice cream man is almost here. Hurry, I need a nickel now!!” No response. The bells were in front of our trailer, slowly fading away. There was still time, but I had to have the nickel now, or it would be too late. I panicked. I needed to get her attention, STAT! My eyes darted about the room for a weapon. I spotted the flyswatter on the table in the living room/kitchen/dining room. I picked it up. I took a couple of steps toward her. And…And…SWAT!! I hit my Mother with the flyswatter and demanded a nickel. I achieved at least half of what I had hoped to achieve. I got my Mother’s attention, but most certainly did not get the nickel. Instead, my Mother stood up, ripped the flyswatter out of my hand, yanked me by the arm, and marched me the three steps through the living room/kitchen/dining area into the hall/my room. I was not to leave the hall/my room for the rest of the day. Then she said the words I had never heard before, “Just wait til your father gets home!”
Being a rookie at getting into trouble, I wasn’t sure what those words meant, but I had a gut feeling they weren’t happy words. I was pretty sure that when Dad got home, we wouldn’t gather around, sing Kumbaya, and eat cake and ice cream.
My Father, undoubtedly, was under tremendous stress working on his most significant job ever. That was bad enough, but when he came home and found out his four-year-old son had been whipping his wife with a flyswatter for a nickel, that put him over the edge. I don’t remember what his spanking technique was, but I do remember that it really hurt. After the spanking was over, I was sent back to my hall/room. Adding insult to injury, I found out later that night that dinner was not included with the spanking.
I think he only hit my bottom a couple of times, but I sure was surprised by the force of the blows.
My Father never had to spank me ever again. A simple promotional message of an upcoming spanking was enough to turn a bad situation around. And my Mother? She was forever safe from future flyswatter attacks.
In retrospect, did the spanking hurt like hell? Yes. Did I have to sleep on my stomach that night? Yes. Was I practically starving to death by the next morning? Yes. Would I do it all over again for a popsicle? Hmmm, maybe.
