Pleasantness

PLEASANTNESS (circa ‘67)
On this frigid night, I need a lift to the station.
The only cab I see says, “off duty”. He does stop.
How be it then, those days so vastly cold.
How they exterminate me at the present and fill me up with yesterdays.
The sandbox corrupted my moral youth and gave me false justice as
did the doctor phase which I’m afraid will never be over.
I was told if I was a bad boy, Gabby Hayes would come out of the TV
set and hit me.
He did.
The policeman proved very trustworthy to me. Yes, he was my friend.
Or was it that I haven’t grown up yet that makes me his friend?
Diane’s father was a good humor man.
That is, he sold Good Humor.
Even I remember at the end of the block, the little super market that
carried the new candy sensation, Pez.
We, all of us, were playing in the sandlot by the supermarket
showing off our new Pez dispenser.
The police lady that helped us across to the school was even nice to me.
How funny it all is that we’ve changed. Or is it the world changed?
We begin to wonder if God is dead. With wars and the bomb and seg-
regation and people in general, we really wonder.
We are God’s instruments.
We are all he has on this earth. It’s up to us to change the world.
It is, however, one thing to talk about it but it’s a whole other thing to
do something about it.
It was also hard living then.
Fat stuff with the bull dog never did have enough cold cream.
Was it him or the doctor?
Ya know, I’m beginning to wonder about all this.
He told the town I was gonna be in the newspapers for hopping a train.
I believed him.
The Russo’s new baby was lucky.
He had a years supply of Desitin.
And a year supply mother to apply it for him.
How lucky.
What were the mothers then and who were they?
They can’t be the same now.
Was it all an act?
Popeye debued in 1956 or ‘57. Mom called me in for the first
show.6:00. Great!
The twins were dignified. Very strict discipline. They were taught.
Red, on the other hand, wasn’t so. He lived in a world of bricks.
He became a baby when his mother said he has to go for a booster.
Maggie, my own true love, what?
She became me several times and I enjoyed it.
Stuie was older and that’s why he could stay up a half hour later.
I couldn’t stand it.
My first night away from home. I went home.
Then why did his house turn into Rozzys all of a sudden?
Poppy was gonna be home when Mickey Mouse was over at 6:00. He did.
I stayed up the extra half hour on Tuesday to watch Wyatt Earp.
9:00 I went to sleep
How do ya like that?
I ran away from my math tutor and I’m glad. How glad?
My accordion teacher wasn’t that freaky either. Italian I think.
Camp Bauman changed all that.
Our counselors name was Mike. Mike?!
How can we both have the same name?
I’m the only Mike in the world.
I soon learned I wasn’t.
We did a lot there. Mostly swim in the deep end.
Ya know under the ropes and all that.
Rich kid wasn’t that great. He kept throwing mud at me.
Grass kid had nothing better to do then to pick grass.
Remember the fort Asa? with Mama?
in the synagogue yet with gefilte fish?
Boy I had to go to camp. I hated it. I really did.
Mike was probably a college guy. Yale or something.
Ya know. Ivy League.
The birthday party. That’s something else.
It’s a good thing I got that tank or there really would have been trouble.
Mel, I think, was my uncle. He wouldn’t be now.
He was probably a Harvard center or something.
Steve Kurland, who went to Dartmouth, used to stick his hand in his
pants and smell them.
He played penis, I mean piano, very well.
Aunt Mina found a scum bag in the wastebasket one morning and
laughed embarrassedly.
Uncle Mike was nice, old, and healthy.
He had a heater in his room though.
Pacy used to make the freshmen undress and used to wash them in the
lake. Right below the girls camp.
I would have liked it much more now.
Tarigo was better. More understanding.
Me, a sophomore, broke up a fight between 2 seniors once which won
me the Character award.
Hampshire Lodge was too superb to talk about.
It’s entitled to it’s own speaking.
Anyway I was different then.
Days long ago were great.
On the way home today I saw three young girls playing with a
jumprope and a ball.
They were living what I and everybody else once lived.
I tried to join them but couldn’t.
One of them threw a ball at me and we started to have a catch.
I couldn’t do it.
I tried to explain to them to enjoy themselves as much as they can now.
Soon, I told them, things around you will grow. They of course laughed.
I soon left them.
We weren’t part of the world of today.
We weren’t aware of what was happening.
All we were aware of was ourselves.
You can’t live in another generation.
Only your own.

Nothing can be done about it.

So I said to the cab driver, thank you for making me a part of your life
on your day off.