Surviving Childhood

Thought for the Day

One of the truly amazing accomplishments in my life has been survival. It seems the things that attract me are insidiously dangerous. Combine that with a level of naïveté that is often not terribly subtle and voila, potential disaster.

I have written on these pages about my midnight wanderings about the city when I was eight. I traveled with Rusty, my dog. I can add to that an interest in recreating battlefield conditions when I was between seven and ten. I stumbled across a piece of chunky scrap metal that probably weighed four to six pounds. It looked like an object that could be associated with a detonated bomb and so I picked it up and took it home with me. I placed it in the back yard and saved it for future use.

The future use of the scrap became a prop for the impromptu staging of battles in imaginary theaters of war. The object would be thrown into the air with the warning, “bombs away”. It was the responsibility of each participant to avoid contact with the missile.  I would invariably loft the fragment into the air. No less than two playmates were taken to the emergency room for stitches following such activities.

I never was injured my self. It was not because I made any effort to make the toss away from me. To the contrary I rather hoped to be the injured party for the dramatic effect. I was too much a Lone Ranger, Straight Arrow type to attempt to injure others. I would rather be injured saving them from danger. The parade lauding my bravery and sacrifice would easily have been enough to allay any pain.

There are multiple examples of the Walter Mitty like behavior but what brought this behavior to mind occurred when we moved from Fayette Street to North Webster.

The new house was larger and in better condition. It also had a basement, a real treasure trove. The house was vacated without total removal of the previous owner’s possessions. That created a mining opportunity that kept me busy for weeks. The basement was not an attractive place. It was a Michigan basement with rock walls, poured concrete floor, coal bin and furnace, a work bench and the location of the washer and dryer. They were placed close to the steps so that wandering into the dank, dark recesses of the cavern were not required by the females in the house.

This suited me to a tee. I wandered all around the basement looking for treasure and at one point while exploring the dusty articles in a double locker found a headset. It looked to me like the equipment of a fighter pilot who had been responsible for shooting down the Red Baron.

Electronic equipment of that sort was not common in those days. If it had not been for Ed Herlighy's announcements about the war in theaters between features I would not even have known what they were. I did know they were used by pilots in airplanes but the plugs that were attached seemed unusable to me.

After a careful and lengthy examination of the headset I decided that what they needed was an equipment update. So, I cut off the banana plugs and attached a plug from an old lamp. It struck me that this seemed a strange method of communicating but I didn't know much about that sort of thing when I was nine.

I must say that after I created the monster it frightened me a bit but, I was determined to see, or should I say, hear what was available. There were a number of near trials that ended in aborted probations. Instinctively if not intellectually, I knew this was not a good idea. At last, I could wait no longer and with the same resolve as a boy swallowing a tablespoon of Mineral Oil I plugged them in the wall and put them on. Frankly, I do not know why I wasn't fried. But here I am, a bit red faced I don't mind saying and unscathed by Edison’s Workshop.  

This later gave rise to the feeling that I had been selected by the powers of reason and love to be a great leader in the world. I had been saved by providence to do a service to humanity. Guess not. It’s nice to be here anyway, lucky but nice.

©Herb Ratliff, October 11, 2012, All Rights Reserved