The Eye of Thor Ch 4 “Only Son”

 

            I had a childhood life that most parents may acquaint themselves with; it is of being the only son, first born son, or first adopted child as the case may be, and I held that title for most of my childhood. Having this title really means your parents are still active in their social life and meeting preset level of induction available for a couple of standing meant I went everywhere with them, or I went alone. I was first thought in the morning for I would always wake my parents when I woke up for my first four years. We were a family unit and I learned from my parents, and television. Few people could break my exterior unless they came from a different angle than society played for me. They were the ones who seamed to have a secret, or a place that lay within make believe, and I listened to them. I felt out of place so any divulgence of secrets for sure had to be about me and for sure my life was full of make believe and I considered my self equal to the best in the art. I lived in my unique bubble with a view of the world that was full of all the best that two loving parents could give.

            My room was down the switch back hall on the second floor landing across from my parents’ room it was a big room with two huge and weathered windows one on each wall. The windows in the house were so old they were thicker at the bottom for glass is a liquid and continues to slowly flow down over the course of a hundred years and collects at the bottom of old windows. I had hard wood floors with a great oval rope gray blue rug laced with blue and yellow threads on the floor at the base of the pull out couch. My headboard wooden bed lay in the other corner with its matching night stand and dresser. I made a scratch in the wood and then another and it became my rocket ship to the stars on afternoons during nap time. I thought I would get in trouble after I scratched it and fell asleep that day in fear, but my parents overlooked my transgression. My bed was a single put together by my father’s groans and G rated curses like “gosh” and “darn” his heaviest curse beside “shoot”. I had to have a towel under my bed sheets for years because the springs in the mattress would leave scratches and cuts all over my back and stomach. I got to pick my own wall paper and I chose a colorful pattern depicting Noah and the Ark with all his animals two by two. It took a whole week to put the pattern up. The second floor of 7321 had a ten foot ceiling which towered over a small boy like my self. I had a walk-in closet which lay as a small room above the front porch. My cat Fritzy and I took turns pissing in a palm plant that lay in the room until my mom told me Fritzy couldn’t stay in my room at night any more because of the smell. I stopped. Snails and puppy dog tails and all that is my only excuse. The palm lived for awhile until it died for lack of watering. Fritzy was off suspension. I had a huge gray couch that bordered the carpet that pulled out into a double bed which I used when I had sleep over’s.   

            I was in three different pre schools before I went to kindergarten, two in Washington D.C. and one in Silver Spring Maryland. I remember being a show off on the jungle gym one day and while all the other boys were hanging from their knees; I decided to one up them and hung from my toes. This is not to be tried wearing hard soled shoes, but I will say I hung for a moment. I can see my brown Tom McCann’s clearly in my head hooked over the blue bar above me until I turned to say, “Look at me!”  “Bam”, right on my head! I never hung from my toes again.  The last nursery school I went to is on the corner of Fenton Avenue and Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring Maryland. It was in the large brick church that is on the corner with a fenced in back yard. It was here that I saw my first Praying Mantis. It was a female about seven inches long with the most beautiful multicolored wings. The Janitor held her in his grizzled lined hands and brought her down close to show us kids. My mom showed up right then and the Mantis took wing at that very moment and a lighted upon my moms shoulder. She held her ground without screaming but was in a big hurry to have the janitor remove it. I wanted to stay longer, but mom was in a hurry to leave. I learned to finger paint from an Artist who would come in during activity time of course my latest painting would wind up on the fridge. My dad would come and stand in front of the fridge and rock his head back to get a better look through his bifocals with his arms crossed over his chest. He would then swing his torso in my direction remarking, “Well gosh that’s a great picture.” What is it a sky scraper?” I would give him the same look I always gave him or any one who said something silly. I would scrunch up my face and wrinkle my nose while saying “It’s a tree not a sky scraper” which was evident I thought if you just looked at it cause it had a green top.  My dad was always joshing me about something.

            Being a kid one is always looking for something to play with and the parents’ are always attempting to keep the child safe. I remember holding my mother’s hand an looking around the perspective living room at some friends of my parents waiting to be led to a play area while scrutinizing the child across from me with dubious concerns of their ability to “play”, or if no children are present the adults would do their best to entertain me while carrying on conversations. As a child the ability to “play” is often measured by age up until the murmurs of puberty and young adult hood begin to dissolve the child removing the “play” from life. Some adults keep this ability they often become teachers, coaches, professional athletes, or some to a lesser degree parents. I have this ability as an adult and keep it live and active, for being able to share with a child in play opens the door for reaching a child with instruction, wisdom, and love. I strongly believe this attribute should be fostered in the home and community. As a child we recognize this attribute in adults and it is sought out, for children yearn to connect with adults and wish to have that special relationship that comes from a mentor or parental figure. So I was always on the move, looking for that special play.

            This often was portrayed by the need for the best game, birthday party, or the mother of all holidays Christmas where the newest and best toys were given. Under our Christmas tree lay the manna of children toys, cards with a simple Christmas hello wrapped with a five or ten dollar bill, and candy for days rivaling Halloweens take. My father would open his wallet and pour out presents of all sorts in an attempt to satisfy this insatiable desire that stirred me to vocalizations of, “Please!” “Pleases!” or “Can I have that?” echoing the wants of the newest hobby or latest high tech toy which the media had been tossing in my direction via a never ending stream of commercials that back then started the day after Thanksgiving. I went a model train show with Dad at the Natural Museum of History and we became enamored with the tiny world of model trains. Each display was adorned with a world in miniature. Some worlds wound the train through a small western town, others the train climbed to the heights in snow covered mountains, and others a river lay at the center which was crisscrossed by trestles carrying a puffing steam engine black as the coal it carried, a silver liner flashing its gleaming passenger cars, or a yellow diesel pulling its box cars in tandem. When Christmas came that year a large box stood in front of the tree, and I tore into it with the haste a child shows knowing this was the main present he would receive that year. There is was a black model train steam engine that puffed real smoke. I jumped up and down saying, “Thank you” over and over mixed with repetitive, “Can we put it together?” My dad just laughed and said we would get to it after we opened all the presents, ate our breakfast, and he added absent mindedly as an after thought, and a piece of wood large enough to hold it. I stood in disbelief, stunned deep to my fiber, “Impossible, I thought. This could not be happening”. Anything that is not now to child at this point of present unwrapping feast becomes forever, and my Dad said forever three times other peoples’ presents, breakfast, and wood. All in all this summed up an unusual Christmas day.

            I began asking Dad with an at least a double repetition “Please” like two shots from the gun of a trained secret agent just before breakfast. “Can’t we just open the box?” “Please, please” I fired across his bow.

            “No. You just wait.” He laughed.

            Mom would have been working up her blueberry pancakes with some of Dads “Real maple syrup from Vermont which he was always able to acquire from a friend of the family Stan Holt who I thought the best of for his meeting and acquaintance were of fun and smiles. This coveted sweet to top off the holiday breakfast side by side with sausages Dad had been frying, fresh orange juice, English muffins butter and jam milk and cereal.  

I would finish early and would already grilling my dad about his plan’s and what kind of wood for at this point he is fully committed. Dad and Mom still chuckled at my insistent behavior and insuppressible excitement. Finally two forever’s were past and only one remained the opening of the box and assembling of the model train.

            We made our way to the garage and Dad had his measuring tape with him. I stood at the doorway for the garage was still off limits to me; for, it had an asbestos insulation which was torn and loosed its cancerous material into the air like flurries of snow when the air was overtly stirred. My father dove into the stack of wood to the right of the door and began painstakingly measuring and discarding small pieces of plywood. It seems another forever would be adjudicated into the massed lot. None of the pieces of plywood we had would be large enough. Dad came out of the garage with his hair tussled and a light dusting of asbestos on his head and shoulders which had been loosed from the stirring of air by the opened door. I looked up at him with the obvious question written in my eyes. He had me take a few steps back as he dusted himself off and composed himself while he verbalized his thoughts. “I guess” he began “We could ask Mr. Thorn” he finished. Often Mr. Thorn and my father would spend time at the back fence during the spring and summer talking but not during the winter. He could see the disappointment in my face for I knew Mr. Thorn’s routine. “I don’t think he would mind if we walked around and knocked on his door.”

“Gee” I replied. “I never thought of that.” We went back into the house and put our coats on to walk around the block. We got to Mr. Thorns door and range the bell. He answered and said he was happy to help. We walked to the side fence and went into the backyard towards his work shop in the garage. I had never been in Mr. Thorn’s backyard before in comparison to the other neighbors on our block whose yard I had used as a cut through many times. I stood at the open door of the garage and gazed at the many tools that Mr. Thorn who made furniture had dispersed around the garage. Each one as wondrous and alien as the next, and my curiosity had my nose as far across the doorway that it could stretch. Mr. Thorn quickly returned with the needed piece of plywood and Dad and I were off. I wanted to be a part of building my new toy and I considered that as part of it, and in the beginning Dad had that idea too.

We got down on the living room floor and began laying out all the pieces of the model train, there were pieces of track straight and curved, brackets, screws, sign posts, an electric power station, and the train with its black steam engine, and several cars of different colors ending with a bright red caboose. Dad picked up the directions over a page long and dug into the building of a complicated system of tracks that required perfect connection for the proper distribution of electrical current. He began painstakingly placing the tracks down on the plywood, screwing and tacking the pieces together and then finally after an hour or so of work and repetitive questions by me which began to furrow my fathers head we were ready for the first test. I say test because this time the train would not work, but as a small child I was sure it would, so when it didn’t I was like, “Fix it Dad. Fix it.” The problem was that Dad had no idea how to fix it because he didn’t know what was wrong. It was the need for a perfect connection which was not easily achieved. Thus began my insistent repetitive questions in the realm of, “How do we fix it? Can we call someone?” And the ever present question “Is it broken?” My Dad has a great amount of patience and I was the only one in the family who had the consummate ability to exhaust this veritable fountain head. Dad had enough. He face screwed up into a mini snarl then he regained some of his composure and said, “You just leave me alone!” By this time Mom came around the corner armed with Christmas love, and separated us. I was told to pick another toy and play with it until Dad finished the train. I remember how sullen I was and made off to some forgotten part of the house with a toy I have no memory of. It was just before dinner when Dad finished the train set. He spent all day on it. He called me down from my room and asked me if I wanted to put the liquid smoke in it. I was scared and elated, the haze of the fight Dad and I had had began to break and Christmas was reborn. I filled the engine and Dad tussled my hair and we sent the engine into action. It worked, puffing a little cloud of white smoke out of its chimney as it rounded the track. We sat and laughed watching the little engine go round and round. Dad showed me how the controls worked and I got to play engineer until dinner was ready. Dad and my relationship would not change much during my youth.

 I will say the corresponding years netted me presents under the tree that required less “work” to fashion; I got “Hot wheels’ written in bright red colors on the  package with the registered trade mark proving to all the kids that your hot wheels were the best. I put together tracks that round the entire living room or raced them down all 21 stairs and around the corner making a high bank into the living room or through the loopy loop. I run and show my Mom or Dad whoever was closest when alone or be deep in play with a friend over who brought his 20 feet of track with his own track corners some of which were 30, 45, 60, or 90 degrees according to the turn you want. I got a collection going: a silver corvette racer, an ambulance with orange and red stripes, a fire truck, VW beetle, a blue shiny corvette with chrome pipes, and an old mini diaper truck with doors that worked to name of few of my favorites and best rollers all in a case shaped like a wheel. I would leave them one day down by Long Branch creek when I was about twelve and they would be stolen by a neighborhood kid and painted all silver and put back in the case. This boy was killed by the age of twelve by a drunk driver; I remember how shocked and sad Ronnie Hutchison who considered him his best friend was and how the parents had to move away after a few years do their grief, but that just part of a later story. Toys, toys, toys, nut crackers, and action figure of the time period Super Man, Under Dog, the amazing Stretch Armstrong made of this polymer that would allow the action figures limbs and torso to be stretched to wild contortions tripling his size. Kids would attack this toy on T.V. commercials creating a craze that swept the Christmas season one year; kids all over the neighborhood would be doing there best to rip Stretch Armstrong apart and while the craze of this novelty still held so did the rumors that no kid was able to successfully destroy Stretch. Later that summer the whole nation would be discovering Mr. Armstrong’s Achilles heal it was the sun, sun and time, soon the reports during the summer that year of slow oozing sticky exploding Armstrong’s made the news along side murmurs of parents finding said goopy mess in the back window of cars which they were quite irate about. My cousin Marks Stretch died in this fashion leaving a goopy puddle in the back of his mother’s car during one summer while I visited. The goop was imbedded in to the mock green felt never to be cleaned up, and every year the puddle would ooze a little more during the hot Minnesota summer. Stretch’s sales would never recover and only unaware parent would buy one. I think he might be found on some forgotten shelf never to be party to the torture that he once experienced at the hands of Americas children.

I had a rudder sled with a wooden top which was really best for northern climates and one year at Christmas Grandma Lucille Murry’s house my Uncle Ed bought two red plastic toboggans for my sister and I this sled would be my favorite runner for years to come. And since my sister was much younger than me one of my friends would often barrow this extra ride. All the kids would explode onto the streets and fields finding hills wherever we could when enough snow fell to make sledding possible, but the best local hills were at the double hill at Takoma Middle school. The hill lay adjacent to the parking lot and there along the parking lot and fully past the school, over a field, and finally Piney Branch road was wide in expanse from left to right showcasing the entire hill and the valley below. The first down slope sent you down a hundred foot steep grade then over a little flat and then down another smaller hill with still the same steep grade or the left side of the hill by the fields if you’re looking down had a longer more gradual slope referred to as the bunny slope by all the kids. The hill at its apex along this ridge line would have the shortest flat area between the two hills culminating to create a sure fire air ride in the sled due to speed and just plain leaving the ground as you went over the edge of the second hill. The boys after a while would of course build a ramp over by this apex to get the fastest decent coupled with a jump that could launch a small to medium sized boy flying into the air all the way to the near to the bottom of the second hill while he screams and says “Oof’ as his sled slams him down against the snow which is still flying until the ride ends in the second flat area at the bottom of the hill. It’s a long ride. It’s a fast ride. It’s a fun ride. This would be the same place fireworks would be shot off every year in Takoma Park, this place would be the place of where I met the cold one on one, fingers frozen to the bone, and feet stomping the cold out next the trash can with a fire in it. If it was a fresh snow the first to flatten the field were toboggans or inner tubes this could take up to a few rides so the first boys gathered together in teams to flatten down the fresh snow and there bye becoming friends for the day. At first the snow would be so deep that it took several passes to flatten the first hill and flat enough so you could reach the second hill, eventually the snow on the hill would flatten out and ever increasing in speed for the grade left you hurtling down no matter what which way you were coming up or down. One year I got cowboy boots with a new slick bottom and I decided to wear them instead of my hiking boots and spent the whole day falling down the hill when I was trying to get up it. I mean Mom had dropped me off and would be back in about 4-6 hours to get me when I went on a sledding adventures so I had no way to get good boots this time out. I would get so mad throwing my arms down trying to catch myself in a mini tantrum from falling down three or four times in a row nearing the top of the hill and then sending my self tumbling and sliding down the hill until I came to a rest next to my sled or had to march it down because it had a better ride without me in it so it went farther to my chagrin. I would learn to go the long way around to where the hill wasn’t so steep and fight heel toe up the hill till again across the ridge at the crest a long way for a ride. I spent the day learning a criss-cross pattern of being able to skip up hill in big burst of speed digging in with my boots on full speed like, skipping to the top. At the age of twelve is when my abilities and speed kicked in far surpassing my dad and most boys of my same age.

My Dad bought me an old bus bicycle with three speeds when I was about six. I couldn’t reach my leg to the bottom of the swing of the crank so Mr. Thorn made blocks of wood that attached to the peddles adding two inches which made it so I could get enough push to get the bike into motion. Dad took me out front and held me upright running behind me letting me get the feel of the bike and finding my balance. Then he let go. I didn’t know he let go. He yelled, “You got it!” I turned to look back and “Bam!” I hit the ground. I went inside to lick my wounds. The next day I was back at it. This time Dad did let go but stayed by my side until I got the hang of my balance. I was off riding all over my stomping area that summer. The other kids made fun of my bike for they had BMX bikes with special alloy goosenecks, and mag rims of bright colors. Then one day  Brian Trogden and Mike Smith decided to knock me off my bike and started pulling the spokes and breaking them while I rolled around on the ground crying. They laughed and pushed me down when I tried to stop them. Both these boys had it instilled in them that because I was “Black” in there eyes I was less than equal to all the white boys in the neighborhood and they never let me forget it; whether we were playing football in the field they would never play on the same team with me, or let me be quarterback. Philip Ryan and I became a team; he had no false preconceptions or prejudices grilled into him by his parents.

My Dad decided to get me a new used bike, and Brian and Mike thought that he was easy pickings for six dollars. They showed up with a Rampar frame which needed to be put together with new cranks, chain, and front forks. The two boys brought the frame over and asked me to get my dad. I ran into the house saying, “My bike is here. Can I have the money?”

“Well lets go see” he replied and we headed out to the garage. The bike was not done, so Dad wouldn’t give up the money. Over and over again he would refuse to pay for the bike until it was completely put together. And over and over the two boys would go back to their stolen pile of bike parts at home and bring another piece. We had to take the cranks off the old bus and put them on the Rampar frame which were longer than conventional cranks with a bigger sprocket this made my bike faster than all the other boys when we finally put it together. Finally Dad shelled out the six dollars to the boys who found their easy deal had turned into an all day lesson on the fact my Dad was no sucker.

The only son, this title has perplexed me since I put it on the page. I look into my world in the mirror of what my parents tell me and how I emulate my father; this becomes the pattern my life takes and a direct representation of the many bible parables and stories, “The Prodigal Son” where I am definitely the younger son later in life yet, I do wish to earn the elder son title during the childhood years. I was treated as the elder son and so in action, thought, and deed this title lay upon my shoulders like a knighthood in the white world, yet I am not white. I am more than that. I am half black and lost to that part of my being as a child, so I grow in the only world I am exposed to. This induction gives me a knowledge and temperance that does not hold to the actuality of who I am. I am confused battling my nature which rivals my nurture to its very core. I am my fathers’ son.

In comparison I am my mother’s son in a different way for mothers create a realm of love and support that fathers do not. Mothers teach while fathers lead. Mothers dive in letting their nature and temperance provide direction while fathers plot and navigate testing the water setting course and allowing for wind. Mothers lead with heart, fathers by the mind. I was full of heart as a child and carried my mind for use when the situation called for it, or when my heart directed me across the sea of life. By the age of ten I had to step into the shoes of a young man following my deep inset training by my grandma Murry who told me I was the man of the house when no other was present. Her old ways were deeply set into who I was. It was in Rochester New York and Minnesota that the title of only son continued to shape my life.