I do remember the family doctor making house calls. Soltis was his name. Mumps was the disease, a disease that was part of the regimen that all of us kids was expected to go through, and then it was completely forgotten, and now it appears to be making a small comeback thanks to the idiot anti vaxxers, I remember something called pink salve that was put on our necks and smelled terrible and we didn't like it all. Nor did we like the doctor. I remember being made presentable for the doc and complaining "I don't see why I have to clean up for a dirty old doctor," and everybody laughed, and I saw where I might have a chance to make it in show biz, but somewhere along the line that talent got channeled into being a wise ass.
I have vague memories of sitting on the floor of the living room and listening to this huge radio play the Baby Snooks show. Then came The Wonder. At first it was just something the kids would talk about coming back to school from lunch. Uncle Johnny Coons, The Little Rascals, cartoons. What manner of device was this? Then the neighbors got one and we kids would sneak onto their front porch and watch it through their window.
Finally one arrived in our house, I don't remember how the furniture was arranged in our front room before, but now all chairs were turned to the tv and that's how we spent all our nights.
But sometimes it would go on the blink and the family would have to wait while he removed that back and did whatever. Old Dog said it was relatively easy, but we never knew that because we never dared because of that sudden death thing.
Tempura is a Japanese dish. The paints we used in grade school were called tempera paints which I think is kind of a generic name for different kinds of paint. Before oils people used to paint with egg tempera which was a sort of water soluble paint mixed with egg white. There are two kinds of watercolors, transparent where if you put yellow on top of blue you get green, and something called gouache where if you put yellow on top of blue you get yellow. I believe what we used in grade school was more the gouache type but of a very cheap variety.
I don't know what became of those paint spattered kids because as a sub once the bell rang and I had the kids ushered out the door my day was over. Many drawbacks of being a sub but walking out the door shortly after the bell was one of the upsides.
I think it was a sixth grade at Washington Irving school, there was a kid I didn't like. He was loudmouth asshole, but what I didn't like was he was picking on this girl, and sometimes physically. Not cool. Coming back from something he tripped her and she fell flat on her face. I was so shocked that "Damn," slipped out of my mouth, something that happened maybe three of four times in my seven years of subbing. But it was quickly forgotten as I hustled him off to the office to whatever tender mercies he would be shown there.
At the end of the day I was punching out and somebody in the office told me I had a telephone call. I took it and it was the irate mother of the bully. I tried to explain briefly the nature of her kids's crime, but she was not interested, instead she was launching into a diatribe about me swearing a blue streak. I looked up at the clock and told the woman that I was off the clock and hung up on her.
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