The cigarette burn
From the time I was one, until I was three and a half, we lived in government wartime apartments, in Windham Ohio. It was an interesting place. We would often hear men and women arguing loudly with each other. Unemployed men loitered about, smoking and drinking. My neighborhood friends were dirty and ragged, just like my brothers and I. For toys I had clothespins that I cared around in a brown paper bag. Mother constantly told us that we didn't have money for this or that, money didn't grow on trees, and for goodness sakes don't waste anything. We usually had enough to eat, and we always had each other, and for the most part that was enough for me.
The two-story apartment buildings were arranged in a quadrangle, with a common "backyard" area crowded with clotheslines, beat up old trashcans, some sidewalk and dirt. When it rained there was a lot of mud. From the backyard you could see three or four rough concrete steps going from the sidewalk to each back door. I wondered why no one thought to patch the holes and broken siding incompletely covering the crawl spaces under the buildings. Maybe the rats, trash, and cold air could be kept out if they fixed it up. In the winter it was always cold, but in the summer the flies would sometimes eat you alive.
The trash in the crawl spaces was something of a fire hazard. I remember one particular time that Mom and Dad were not home. My oldest brother David was beating up on Richard, the next oldest. Richard ran out the front door, with David in hot pursuit. David was fast, but on this occasion Richard was faster. Richard ran around to the back door and locked it. Boy, was David ever mad!
"Open this door or I'll kill you!" No response. "If you don't open this door, I'm going to burn the house down!" No one dared to open the door. Richard locked the front door. David tried to sneak around to the front door, but he was too late again. Really mad now, David crawled under the house where he had some matches hidden. He struck a match and lit the trash. When the smoke from the burning trash got thick David was forced out from under the house, coughing and choking. Fortunately for us inside, the trash burnt out and the house did not catch fire. No one thought it was funny, and no one told my parents.
One warm summer day I went over to the back door of a friend of mine. My friend and his dad were sitting on the back steps; the dad was smoking a cigarette. I sat down to talk to my friend. We sat there talking for a minute when my keen powers of observation deduced that the dad was looking for something on the ground or on the steps. It certainly was a very hot day.
"I wonder where I put it," my friend's dad mumbled. "It got to be around here somewheres."
Suddenly I was simultaneously aware of four things: (1) My friend's dad was looking at me funny, (2) my friend's dad no longer had his cigarette, (3) the steps were much hotter than they should be, especially in one particular spot, and (4) I smelled burning cotton. I rocketed off the steps.
It made my friend and his dad laugh to see me running around in circles, trying to get away from the seat of my pants. I hooted and hollered and spanked myself until my friend's dad could stop laughing long enough to tell me, "Yer clothes ain't burning no more." Feeling humiliated I slunk off for my home.
"You did what?" demanded my mother. "Let me see that." Then after inspecting the damage she announced "Douglas Wayne _____ that was a perfectly good pair of pants. It was practically new when the lady at church gave them to David. And the underpants were new when we bought them for David. I guess we can put a patch on the seat. I think I have a patch that will match the patches on the knees. But the underpants you will have to keep wearing with the hole in them. Fortunately no one will see the hole. Maybe this will teach you to look where you are sitting."
My brothers thought it was hilarious. "How stupid can you get? Ha! Ha! Ha! To sit on a lit cigarette and not even notice it! You must be the stupidest person in the whole world. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" I was not often the center of attention in my family, being an insignificant two-year-old with a baby sister. I was gratified that everyone thought I was important, but I would have preferred it to be for reasons other than being the stupidest person in the whole world.
My parents were greatly disappointed in me when I was born. For years they used to tell everyone. "Yes, we have four rowdy boys. We wanted so much to have a girl when Douglas was born. We told the doctors to send him back; we were waiting for a girl". They would all look at me, nod their heads understandingly, and laugh. After they read this story they said that they must have been only joking, but at the time it seemed only too true.
My parents also blamed me for being born on the second of January. "Why have you always been so slow? If you had been born one day earlier we might have won some valuable prizes." And my dad would add, "And if you had been born on December 31st you could have saved me some tax money." I took the criticism to heart. I guessed I always was a problem and not good for anything. I was too slow, and too stupid. I didn't learn until I was grown that I had actually been born ten days before I was due.
Now that Alice Marie was born, and I was no longer the baby in the family, I was truly insignificant. The long awaited girl was finally here. I was just a pain in the neck two-year-old who wanted some attention.
Nothing was said about the red blister on my bottom, so I figured I didn't need to go to the doctor. And anyway, doctors cost a lot of money. It was only many, many years later, when we had a lot more money, that my mother would learn to think of the child first, and the damage done to the clothes second. I wore that pair of underpants for a couple of years after we moved to Solon. It helped to remind me of my stupidity. It is funny now, more than fifty years after what remained of my underpants was finally thrown away, that I still think from time to time that I am wearing, though no one can see it, underwear with a stupid burn hole in it.
From the time I was one, until I was three and a half, we lived in government wartime apartments, in Windham Ohio. It was an interesting place. We would often hear men and women arguing loudly with each other. Unemployed men loitered about, smoking and drinking. My neighborhood friends were dirty and ragged, just like my brothers and I. For toys I had clothespins that I cared around in a brown paper bag. Mother constantly told us that we didn't have money for this or that, money didn't grow on trees, and for goodness sakes don't waste anything. We usually had enough to eat, and we always had each other, and for the most part that was enough for me.
The two-story apartment buildings were arranged in a quadrangle, with a common "backyard" area crowded with clotheslines, beat up old trashcans, some sidewalk and dirt. When it rained there was a lot of mud. From the backyard you could see three or four rough concrete steps going from the sidewalk to each back door. I wondered why no one thought to patch the holes and broken siding incompletely covering the crawl spaces under the buildings. Maybe the rats, trash, and cold air could be kept out if they fixed it up. In the winter it was always cold, but in the summer the flies would sometimes eat you alive.
The trash in the crawl spaces was something of a fire hazard. I remember one particular time that Mom and Dad were not home. My oldest brother David was beating up on Richard, the next oldest. Richard ran out the front door, with David in hot pursuit. David was fast, but on this occasion Richard was faster. Richard ran around to the back door and locked it. Boy, was David ever mad!
"Open this door or I'll kill you!" No response. "If you don't open this door, I'm going to burn the house down!" No one dared to open the door. Richard locked the front door. David tried to sneak around to the front door, but he was too late again. Really mad now, David crawled under the house where he had some matches hidden. He struck a match and lit the trash. When the smoke from the burning trash got thick David was forced out from under the house, coughing and choking. Fortunately for us inside, the trash burnt out and the house did not catch fire. No one thought it was funny, and no one told my parents.
One warm summer day I went over to the back door of a friend of mine. My friend and his dad were sitting on the back steps; the dad was smoking a cigarette. I sat down to talk to my friend. We sat there talking for a minute when my keen powers of observation deduced that the dad was looking for something on the ground or on the steps. It certainly was a very hot day.
"I wonder where I put it," my friend's dad mumbled. "It got to be around here somewheres."
Suddenly I was simultaneously aware of four things: (1) My friend's dad was looking at me funny, (2) my friend's dad no longer had his cigarette, (3) the steps were much hotter than they should be, especially in one particular spot, and (4) I smelled burning cotton. I rocketed off the steps.
It made my friend and his dad laugh to see me running around in circles, trying to get away from the seat of my pants. I hooted and hollered and spanked myself until my friend's dad could stop laughing long enough to tell me, "Yer clothes ain't burning no more." Feeling humiliated I slunk off for my home.
"You did what?" demanded my mother. "Let me see that." Then after inspecting the damage she announced "Douglas Wayne _____ that was a perfectly good pair of pants. It was practically new when the lady at church gave them to David. And the underpants were new when we bought them for David. I guess we can put a patch on the seat. I think I have a patch that will match the patches on the knees. But the underpants you will have to keep wearing with the hole in them. Fortunately no one will see the hole. Maybe this will teach you to look where you are sitting."
My brothers thought it was hilarious. "How stupid can you get? Ha! Ha! Ha! To sit on a lit cigarette and not even notice it! You must be the stupidest person in the whole world. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" I was not often the center of attention in my family, being an insignificant two-year-old with a baby sister. I was gratified that everyone thought I was important, but I would have preferred it to be for reasons other than being the stupidest person in the whole world.
My parents were greatly disappointed in me when I was born. For years they used to tell everyone. "Yes, we have four rowdy boys. We wanted so much to have a girl when Douglas was born. We told the doctors to send him back; we were waiting for a girl". They would all look at me, nod their heads understandingly, and laugh. After they read this story they said that they must have been only joking, but at the time it seemed only too true.
My parents also blamed me for being born on the second of January. "Why have you always been so slow? If you had been born one day earlier we might have won some valuable prizes." And my dad would add, "And if you had been born on December 31st you could have saved me some tax money." I took the criticism to heart. I guessed I always was a problem and not good for anything. I was too slow, and too stupid. I didn't learn until I was grown that I had actually been born ten days before I was due.
Now that Alice Marie was born, and I was no longer the baby in the family, I was truly insignificant. The long awaited girl was finally here. I was just a pain in the neck two-year-old who wanted some attention.
Nothing was said about the red blister on my bottom, so I figured I didn't need to go to the doctor. And anyway, doctors cost a lot of money. It was only many, many years later, when we had a lot more money, that my mother would learn to think of the child first, and the damage done to the clothes second. I wore that pair of underpants for a couple of years after we moved to Solon. It helped to remind me of my stupidity. It is funny now, more than fifty years after what remained of my underpants was finally thrown away, that I still think from time to time that I am wearing, though no one can see it, underwear with a stupid burn hole in it.
posted by Nectar | 4:05 PM
1 Comments:
Aww... that's so sad...
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