CHAPTER 47
I am not certain when I became aware of the world outside myself. Certainly events intruded upon me with those air raid sirens during World War II, but I was too young to understand what was happening beyond the noise, or why it must be pitch black and silent. As young children we tend to live in a bubble with ourselves at the center, but around us events continue to happen and fester, and some of those events we don’t notice in our play-a-day existence will effect far in the future.
I vaguely remember the Korean War. I probably recall this more from my grandfather cursing at president Truman for firing General Douglas MacArthur than anything else (April 11, 1951). North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. I believe the United States declared war two days later upon my ninth birthday. (Technically we didn’t declare war, but referred to this as a Police Action.) This what-ever-you-call it ended just over three years after that on July 27, 1953, my 12th birthday. It ended as a stalemate and in essence never ended at all, but continues more or less today.
I took no note whatsoever of something else that happened on my
birthday that year, which also would become a lot more newsworthy when I reached my twenties. On June 27 Truman sent military advisers to help assist the South Vietnam government fend off the Communists. (The clipping on the right says 300 advisors, which may have included counting some from a later upgrade, my research indicated initially on June 27, 1950 we sent 35.)
In March 1951 as I finished up Fourth Grade some Jewish couple named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of conspiracy and espionage and bound to die, which they did on June 19, 1953 near another of my birthdays. They were taken to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, NY and executed by electric chair, another of Thomas Edison’s famous inventions. The Rosenbregs’ case became a cause celeb for some, controversial for others and not much of anything to we children living in Downingtown.
agencies by Communist and/or Soviet spies. The names of Whitaker Chambers and Alger Hiss became prominent in the newspapers and on radio along with the mysterious Pumpkin Papers. That kind of stuff was enough to make my ears perk up even if at the time I was only 5 or 6. Another prominent name associated with all this spy stuff was Richard Milhous Nixon. Nixon was a fourth cousin on my mother’s side of the family.
As the decade wore on the term “Red Scare” grew more prominent, too, especially when a basically unexceptional Senator from Wisconsin burst into prominence in 1950. Joseph McCarthy became a force to be reckoned with. He merely had to hint someone was a Communist sympathizer to ruin their life and get them blackballed from their careers. His name was to enter the language as a despicable act of false accusations and destruction. (I say we have substituted Political Correctness for McCarthyism today and it is even more dangerous.)
McCarthy met his nadir in 1953 when he conducted a televised investigation of the U. S. Army. His tactics were exposed and it resulted on December 2, 1953 with the Congress censoring the Senator. McCarthy continued in office until he died in 1957, but his power was weakened.
The Atom Bomb Scare was something I was aware of. How could
a kid not be? We were told about it regularly, even to having occasional lessons at school on how to survive. We even had practice drills. Okay, number one; never look at the flash of light from the bomb. Hmmm, if an Atom Bomb blew up in our neighborhood would we be rational enough to not look toward it? If we were indoors and an Atom Bomb dropped we should duck down low behind or under something sturdy. This was what we practiced doing at school every now and again. Boom, the pretend bomb ignites and we all drop to the floor and huddle under our desk where we will be perfectly safe. (Oh yeah, that’s gonna save us!)
If we were unfortunate enough to be outside when the Reds attacked with their terrible weapon, then we should find a ditch and lay flat within it.
I did take note of the election of 1952. General Dwight David Eisenhower easily defeated the man with an odd first name, Adlai E. Stevenson. My grandfather was happy and even my dad, Democrat that he was, father had admiration for Ike. I had an “I Like Ike” campaign button on a round disk, which was a keychain. The disk was made in such a way that if you tilted one way slightly it displayed a portrait of a grinning Eisenhower and when you tilted it the other way it displayed the White House. His running mate was that fellow Dick Nixon. There wasn’t as much love for him.
There were some other major happenings in the world beyond me. Francis Crick and James Watson published their description of DNA. The CIA overthrew the government of Iran, but retained the Shah as leader. The first large scale Polio vaccinations began in Pittsburgh. The Supreme Court ruled segregated schools were unconstitutional in Brown verses The Board of Education in Kansas. In 1955 on May 31, all U. S. schools were ordered to integrate. On December 1 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man on a bus.
How many of these events slipped into my brain at that time I do
not know. I do know of two I took of strong note. In 1953 the first color TVs appeared and on July 17, 1955 Disneyland Opened
There were some parallel worlds to mine that would hold some significance. First, let me say my best friend was Ronald Tipton and I was very close to Stuart Meisel , but Stuart came from a different universe than myself. He was Jewish and grew up in a different family culture than I did. He also had a much different home life than I. The Meisels owned this large house on Lancaster Avenue sitting on a big lot. His father was a successful businessman, who came home every night and Stuart doted on his father. He was also very close to his
mother. The family went away to Florida when the cold weather came. On the right is Stuart with his father and uncles in Florida, 1952. He seemed to have everything. I don’t recall him having a job as a boy. He did participate in the Civil Air Patrol when he was 8 or 9, standing on a hill with his aunt logging any planes that flew over. His mother and father were always encouraging him to do well in school. I remember one day we got our report cards. He got a B in this one subject and his father punished him because he expected his son to get an A. If I had gotten a B in that particular class my parents would have thrown a party.
I loved Stuart like a brother, but Ronald Tipton was my closest friend, much for the reason we had so much in common. He was the first friend I made after returning to Downingtown in 1950, at that time drawn together because we both loved comic books and would sit and dicker trades. He was also an outsider. Tall and thin, so much taller than the rest of us he was constantly fighting with ticket sellers that he was entitled to a child’s price being under 12. When I first knew him in school he was picked even after I was for teams. He was awkward, all long legs and arms. Here is how Stuart described Ronald in his memoir:
I do not know how I got to be friends with Ronald Tipton. I think it was because I saw him as a gangly, uncoordinated person and I guess I felt both sorry for him and a bit of “misery loves company.” In any case, our friendship continued through high school. We recently renewed our friendship through the Internet. Ron considered me as much a friend as I considered him.
I shared some of that view as well, you know, the “misery loves
company” bit. Ronald took his share of knocks for his lack of athletic prowess. “You throw like a girl,” was something he heard quite a bit as I recall. You don’t hear that expression as often today, but it was pretty prevalent during my childhood and for a boy was considered a real insult. Not only did peers hurl it at you, so did adults, especially gym teachers and coaches.
Ronald and I were able to talk to each other about anything, even today, although we have differing political views now. We have agreed to stay away from that subject, but during our childhood we had no such opinions and nothing was off limits.
This may be part of our similar backgrounds. We were both sons of truck drivers. Both our fathers had once worked at the Lukens steel mill in Coatesville, even had a nodding acquaintance there. Both men verbally abused us, their sons, although Ronald’s father did sometimes physically punch him, which my dad never did. We have over the years noted several similarities in our lives. We both felt poor as children, but Ronald was worse off than me. We both began working as youngsters. He was forced by his parents to go to work and to buy his own clothes and things. I was not. I worked of my own free will
We shared an interest in art, in hiking and exploring, for taking pictures, for graveyards and horror movies.
He lived until 1953 in an apartment in the poorer area of Washington Avenue. I lived in a house to the “better” side of the avenue. Ronald and I were fated to be interlinked all our lives, except for a long period after an unfortunate falling out over a misunderstanding when in our twenties.
During these grade school years there was a girl of my age living in a parallel universe, but we didn’t know each other. We lived about 45 miles apart. She was sharing some similarities to me, however. She was tall. Her mother was a serious career woman and she felt ignored often because of this, meanwhile her father abused her verbally. He constantly criticized her as awkward. Said she tromped about like an elephant. She felt ostracized at school and she had a poor self-image, considering
herself to be ugly and fat, which she wasn’t as you can see in the phone on the right when she was 15. She would face some tragedies as a teen. Her mother was concerned about what people would think at their church and she constantly refused to let the girl do certain things or have certain things. She also sternly told the girl she was never to smoke or drink or do other acts the mother saw as reflecting badly on her family. Of course the girl was smoking by the time she was 12 or 13. Her and the friends she had made also thought it was exciting to run around the neighborhood at night in their Baby Doll Pajamas.
She was born in Philadelphia and lived on Paschal Avenue. Her family moved to a double house in Drexel Hill around second grade. For a while her parents and her Uncle and Aunt shared a house and she had to share a bedroom with her two cousins. Finally each family moved into separated houses on the same block. She went into elementary school and one day she was chased and thrown down by a group of boys. While two held her down another kicked her teeth out (fortunately these were not yet her permanent teeth). Her uncle wanted to find these boys and confront the parents, but her father didn't want to be bothered. He was eager to get home before the Friday night fights (Gillette Cavalcade of Sports) came on TV. (Photo right: the girl and her parents on Paschal Avenue, Philadelphia, 1945)
She made a few friends while in Elementary School, and like me. they have remained her closes friends today.
On the left is the Great Waldo. He performed a regurgitating act where he swallowed a live mouse and then brought it back up unharmed. He is sometimes
mistakenly categorized as a “geek”. The old carny definition of a geek, discounting the Great Waldo who was unique and respected in the sideshow world, was one who bit heads off of chickens. Geeks were at the bottom of the Carny pecking order.
In my childhood the term Geek (which means fool in English dialect and mad or silly in the Dutch root) was defined as “an unfashionable or socially inept person; a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast.” (The second part of its definition is what later came into common usage with the term “computer geek”, but that usage evolved many years after I left Junior High School.)
The word “Geek” during my teen years was used as a derogatory slur toward smart, but socially awkward individuals.
That be me!
Junior High was not kind to me and I withdrew into shyness and fantasy. I tried to hide from the world. Yes, I had my small group of friends I spend some time with, but when my friends were unavailable I either hung out in the Library or hid in my room, reading and writing. I became ever more fearful and wary walking about town. People like Jimmy Charles, Joe Bird and Doug Way, who choose to gang up and pick on the weak, were present threats in my life even when they weren’t physically there. I was constantly looking over my shoulder. Every shadow made me jump. Every stranger was someone to keep a jaundiced eye upon.
I tried to avoid as many kids at school as possible, too. I would hurry between classes, not speaking to any passing classmates, being careful to never make eye contact. I sought some relatively private spot to eat lunch if none of my buddies were about to hide among. I was receiving a number of bumps and shoves walking the hallways and attempted tripping on the stairwells. If I overheard passersby mumble something and giggle, I always took it as jokes aimed at me. Some kids did not mumble, but spoke clearly so I knew these really were insults or threats being send my way.
After my parents moved to 417 Washington and my father began to
take us places as a family on weekends, my grandfather receded more from my life. I have already mentioned the family outings with my dad were not very comfortable ones for me. Once upon a time I had a grandfather I did not feel uncomfortable with, but he had changed and we will cover what change later.
I was in now the Frankenstein stage of puberty where your features distort so nothing quite fits together. I had grown ever thinner.
My arms were much too long for my body. My face was either very gaunt (1954 photo on right) or appeared round like a monstrous Mr. Potato Head about to explode (picture from same year on left). I was nearsighted enough to have to wear glasses continually. If this was not enough, I developed some afflictions that would affect me the rest of my life.
My theory is the diseases I suffer developed from the same source. I suspect my malfunctioning immune and endocrine systems are at the root of my afflictions. Medical experts do not know what causes what I have and there is no cure. None are life threatening, contagious or necessarily interfere with normal living (at least didn’t when I was young although the arthritsis is a bit limiting in my old age) and the ALS is progressive, fatal and life limiting, but the resulting distortions and markings of my body gave others more things to mock or, in some cases, fear. These set me apart from normality.
There is hyperthyroidism, for example, which we will deal with in detail when we come to a later period of my life, although I believe it was already present in my teens. I had some gray hair by the time I graduated high school, a symptom of a thyroid condition. I also won’t deal with my arthritis at this point, but my form of arthritis is a direct result of a disease I did develop during adolescence called psoriasis.
I developed psoriasis as early as seventh grade if not before, although it wasn’t diagnosis or treated until I was fifteen. It began in my scalp. There would be flakes if I merely touched my head. If I scratched there would be a snowfall. I had a habit of absently scratching my head when thinking. If I didn’t catch myself doing this the top of my desk would become covered with a white powder. This was mistaken for dandruff and I either received derisive teasing or people would wrinkle their nose in disgust and move away from me. At least no one thought it was cocaine.
This hurt my feelings, but the real painful outcome of having psoriasis was I eventually developed psoriatic arthritis, a serious form of that joint disease. I mentioned the ailments I had (and have, there is no cure) were non-life threatening. Generally this is true. However, I came close to psoriasis killing me when I developed erythrodermia (pictured right). But we will talk about that when I reach middle age.
The other disease that caused name-calling to be directed my way was Scheuermann’s Disease. I thought it was scoliosis and my current doctor says that’s what it is, but I consider it more a kyphosis curvature. Scheuermann’s Disease quite often begins during adolescence, as did mine. It usually ceases any further curvature upon adulthood, as did mine. It can cause some restricted breathing and back pain, but normally requires no treatment. Doctors might lessen extreme curving by surgery. People might employe a back brace in severe cases for support, but this will not cure it. The brace my father threatened me with would have been useless in my situation.
Idiopathic Scoliosis, the common type, often begins early in life, even at birth, but can develop in adolescence as well. It is more common in females than males. It too can have severe symptoms requiring surgery or a brace. The main difference physically between the two is how the spine curves. In Scheuermann’s Disease there is wedging together of several vertebrae. X-Rays show I have vertebrae in my neck that have wedged. This results in a rounding of the spine, but the backbone remains straight vertically. Scoliosis is an exaggerated curving of the spine sideways.
From the side the resulting curvature looks
similar. The male on the left has scoliosis. On the right is my Scheuermann curvature from the side. You can see the scoliosis continues the curve outward down into the small of the back. My “hump” is up between my shoulder blades. A barrel chest is also a common result with Scheuermann. (You can see some of the ravages of psoriasis across my body in these photos as well. The psoriasis was not this noticeable or prominent during my youth.)
From the front or back you can often recognize scoliosis because one shoulder will dip
lower than the other similar to the person on the left. The presence of scoliosis can give a person this lopsided look from the front. Scheuermann’s (right) does not droop my front, but does cause a barrel chest effect. Because the lower spine tends to curve in more, it also pushes the stomach
forward. I developed a physic similar to Earnest Hemingway’s, which makes me wonder if he had such a condition, or maybe he just drank too much.
In the photo on the left you see the S-shape of this woman’s spine. This is a mild case. On the right you can see my spine
appears straight and my round
shoulders are less apparent than from the side. (You can also see the increasing extent of my psoriasis again in this photo.)
Here are examples of more severe cases, which might require surgery or a brace, scoliosis on the left and
Scheuermann’s on the right. I was fortunate enough not to have mine curve further than it did. My internal organs or spinal cord were not endangered.
But my psychological wellbeing was. The combination of all these factors at a time when my hormones were beginning to rage took an emotional toll. During Junior High School I became a very troubled youth, in the parlance of today, I was a child at risk. They define a child at risk as one having trouble coping with life stresses. These are teenagers more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, engage in criminal activity, be sexually promiscuous and commit suicide.
There were times during Junior High when I thought about suicide. I was certain no one wanted me, that I had no future and life was hopeless.
I engaged in come criminal activity – shoplifting.
I was not sexually promiscuous, not as we generally think of promiscuous. I was too naïve about sex and too shy in personality, but I did engage in activity some would consider outside the norm of acceptability.
I didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol. Drugs were not readily available in that place and time. Alcohol was, but I didn’t like the taste of it. I had no desire to drink it.
I ran across is a list of 24 questions used by sociologists to determine a child at risk. It said if your child answers yes to at least four questions then they are a child at risk. These are the questions from that list I would have given a yes to during Junior High:
Is the teen withdrawn?
Does the teen lack self-worth and self-esteem?
Does the parent have difficulty getting the teen to do basic household chores and homework?
Does the teen struggle with family expectations?
Has the teen lost interest in former sports, hobbies or activities?
Has the teen had problems with the law?
I did not have many problems with the law per se, but I had one. I think it was the end result of my emotional stress, ignorance of the sexual changes in my body and a wish to escape the world I faced every day and to escape to one of my own making. And perhaps it was a cry for attention.
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