At age 5, Mom didn’t tell me about H.V. Crouch, a flagpole sitter, who had just perched for 17 days. She didn’t tell me about the birds and bees or that the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. I just wanted to play with friends or listen to Mother read to me. I didn’t care about the human body or sex education.
We boys were about 9 or 10 when we began to gather at the arbor to talk. Usually our bull sessions took place when we had ended a hard-fought kick-the-can battle on Kunz Avenue, just a short walk down the alley to the arbor. Most gatherings were during our middle-age youth years when we chased girls away, while secretly hoping they would not leave.
The arbor had been in a neighbor’s yard for quite a time. It was oblong. Had benches inside and strips of wood across the top which let light and rain in. The fading sunlight peeked between the grape vines, providing a moving strip of light followed by a shot of ghost-like darkness which frightened each boy — but not one would admit it. When a mother’s evening call to come home was heard, we all ran down the alley to our homes, keeping a sharp eye out for ghosts, black cats and other nocturnal animals.
Our spirited debates were usually about sports and sports heroes. I liked Bill Dickey, a New York Yankee catcher. He was a great ball player. I assume I was somewhat influenced because, on our Delpark Boys softball team, I was the catcher. Merle Wendt, Middletown’s All American who played football at Ohio State, had his supporters, as did heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey and homerun hitter Babe Ruth.
Charles Lindbergh made a one-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927; that was often a major topic of conversation. His flight, in the “Spirit of St. Louis,” made us young ones forget about becoming cowboys and pointed us toward becoming pilots.
While we talked about flying high, the stork received more than her rightful discussion. We young geniuses debated when and how the stork brought newborns. One boy in our group, who lived about two blocks away, even carried a slingshot just in case the stork made a flying mistake and entered the arbor. It was a waste of time for him, however. The long-legged bird never joined us. She took most of her deliveries to the Middletown Hospital which was not close to where we all lived.
When Mom and I were washing and drying supper dishes one evening, I asked her about the big bird. Mom put her loving arm around my shoulders while explaining that the stork did not bring me or any other baby, that a doctor did.
I was glad she told me because, early one evening, I saw a doctor go into our neighbor’s house carrying a big black bag. I was the only kid in the neighborhood who knew he was carrying a baby in that bag.
Reading the news was not a habit for kick-the-can players. We did hear our parents talk about the world’s first continuous-sheet mill built in Middletown by a man named Tytus. We didn’t know what it was nor did I know that about six years later it would cost my dad his roller’s job at Armco.
We had other interest in local issues of the 1920s. In 1925, when I was 7, Dad took me down to Broad Street and Central Avenue to see Middletown’s first traffic light. I was impressed and, while resting in the arbor, I told my friends all about it. We talked about Frank Simon forming an Armco band, and a Manchester Hotel opening. Even the closing of the Miami-Erie Canal brought some debate as to what its future might be.
In not very many more years, the arbor ceased to be a meeting place. School activities were breaking up our gang, diverting our interests. Now and then, hamburgers at the Jug with a favorite female occupied our time, as did school dances and downtown movies.
We began school at age 6. That was the beginning of our education. Becoming street smart began a few years later at the arbor. There we exchanged youthful wisdom. Discussed “dem dry bones,” discarded foolish thoughts about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the possibility that anyone would ever walk on the moon.
Now we know Mark Twain was right when he said, “It ain’t what you don’t know what gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Knight Goodman is president of Knight Goodman Inc. public relations firm. He formerly held management positions at Aeronca and The Journal, and was chairman of Middletown’s bicentennial celebration in 1991.