Tag: my childhood

TV Heroes: ‘Robin Hood’

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Wow, this takes me back a good distance down Memory Lane!

The Adventures of Robin Hood ran from 1955-1959, and I tried never to miss an episode. It starred Richard Greene, not well-remembered now, but quite a big star in his day. How big? In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Greene got top billing over Basil Rathbone. That’s big!

How many times have I whistled this theme song since the show went off the air? How many times did my friends and I play Robin Hood?

Of course, kids have been playing Robin Hood for centuries. Before there was TV, my Aunt Joan and her twin sister, Florence, decided to play Robin Hood on a rainy day. In their game, Robin had to rescue Maid Marian, who was locked up in the Sheriff of Nottingham’s jail. They used a bed frame for that. Unfortunately, after Maid Marian poked her head through the metal struts to call for help, she couldn’t pull it back out again. Grandpa had to bring his tools and take the bed apart. I wish I could’ve seen the look on his face when he discovered what his two youngest daughters had gotten up to.

Enjoy the clips, and feel free to play a little Robin Hood yourselves when no one’s looking. Just be careful with the bed.

Memory Lane: A Writer’s Roots

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Image result for all about dinosaurs by roy chapman andrews

To be a writer, you have to be a reader first. And don’t stop reading, either.

The books that capture your imagination early in life will always be with you. What you want to read about will shape what you choose to write about.

All About Strange Beasts of the Past flicked my imagination switch. I was only seven years old when it came out, and nine or ten years old when I read it. Roy Chapman Andrews, the explorer who first found dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, wrote several of these Allabout Books. His All About Dinosaurs I read over and over again until it fell apart. Strange Beasts I kept checking out of the library.

Andrews had a gift for making prehistoric worlds come alive. In practical terms, he used this gift whenever he had to schmooze J.P. Morgan into funding another expedition. When he wrote for children–well, as far as I was concerned, it was just like being there.

Everybody knows about dinosaurs, but I got really into prehistoric mammals, especially the gigantic hairy ones. Strange Beasts introduced me to creatures that have inhabited my dreams ever since; some of them now inhabit my own Bell Mountain books. Andrews’ “Beast of Baluchistan” appears in The Thunder King just in time to rescue the city of Obann from being sacked by the Heathen host. The saber-toothed cat, seen on the cover of Strange Beasts, features in the climax of The Last Banquet. The saber-tooth’s prey, the giant ground sloth, makes cameo appearances in several of my books. I haven’t yet found a place for the spectacular “Shovel-tusked Mastodon” of Strange Beasts, but I expect I will.

Books were a big deal in our house. My mother was a reader, and filled several large bookshelves with her favorites. I took after her in that department: I just could never get my fill of stories! History and science, in my view, also counted as stories.

But nothing could ever top the creatures I met in Roy Chapman Andrews’ books.

P.S.: Andrews was widely believed to have been the real-life model for Indiana Jones. To that I must say “Pshaw!” Andrews’ adventures were real.

P.P.S.: For some reason which I can’t remember, as a very young child, I formed the expectation that my Aunt Betty, a nun, would somehow provide me, someday, with my own woolly mammoth. Please don’t ask me to explain this. She did try–gave me a vaguely mammoth-shaped little furry something which, I am sorry to say, did not quite live up to my expectations. But she did try, and for that she gets full marks.

Memory Lane: ‘Grandfather’s Clock’

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This was in old song, from 1876, but it was popular when I was a little boy, and I remember it. It used to move me close to tears, and still does: I guess because I loved my Grandpa.

Some of us have things that are always associated with us, and the sight of one of those things–a cane, a hat, or a grandfather’s clock–always, and vividly, brings to mind the person to whom it belongs.

There were songs like this, back then. I don’t think there are songs like this now.

I’m glad I wasn’t born much later than I was.

‘Tales of the Vikings’

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Couldn’t resist this! Tales of the Vikings was one of my super-favorite shows when I was ten years old, especially in the summertime, when there was still enough light outside to let you and your friends play “Vikings” while  inspired by this rousing theme song. True, we didn’t have any ships, not even an unused rowboat in the neighborhood. But a garbage can led make a fine shield, and there were always sticks for swords.

I suppose it wasn’t the best idea ever, to make heroes out of men whose occupation was robbing and looting other people’s villages. They have another name for that now, and only the Democrat Party praises those who do it.

And no, none of us ever put his eye out with a stick.

Memory Lane: ‘Little Red Monkey’

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I think this might have been the first record I ever had–that, or The Shoemaker and the Elves. That one has survived over 60 years; my sister has it now.

So here is Rosemary Clooney singing Little Red Monkey, back in 1953, a nice little piece of my childhood. A song that could do a child no conceivable harm. And a very catchy tune: that’s how I remembered it so long.

Memory Lane: ‘Mr. Machine’

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Remember this toy–Mr. Machine? It came out in 1960, and my kid brother soon got one.

The cool thing about Mr. Machine was, you could take him apart and put him back together, and he’d still work. The design was practically foolproof: the parts were simple and sturdy, very hard to break, and the only way you could put him back together was the right way. It would be nice if more of the gizmos in our lives were like that.

Maybe, if you were only three or four years old, and of a particularly sensitive bent, you might’ve found Mr. Machine a tiny bit unnerving. But the commercials were in black and white, and Mr. Machine in person–as it were!–was a nice, bright, cheery red. He wasn’t really all that menacing.

A Little Toy Bank That Scared Children

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Image result for hand crank toy savings bank

When I was a little boy, there were all sorts of savings banks available to teach children how to save money. They came in all shapes and sizes: see the photo for one example of many.

My brother and I had cash register banks. The catch with those was, you couldn’t open them until you had $10 inside–wealth almost beyond my imagination. There was a little slot in the back, though, and if you shook the bank long enough, a nickel might find its way out.

Image result for images of uncle sam's 3-coin bank

My Aunt Louise (my father’s aunt, actually) had no children of her own, but she liked to keep nice things on hand for her many nieces and nephews. One of the toys she had for us was a “Ben Franklin Savings Bank” with a crank. You put a coin in, turned the crank, and it would say, “Thank you! A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Well, it did say that, but I think it was supposed to sound like a kindly old man. In fact, the voice coming out of the bank sounded like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. Had I been just a little younger, it would’ve scared me but good.

Then we learned that if we turned the crank really, really fast, the voice would get all high and squeakity–like one of The Chipmunks. Richly amusing! That was what passed for a high-tech toy in those days, circa 1958–and boy, did we enjoy it.

Memory Lane: A Snow Day

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Image result for images of school playground under snow

Nothing ever gave me more pleasure than waking up and finding out that school was closed that day because of snow.

I remember one snow day in particular. Oatmeal for breakfast, then off to my friend Jimmy’s house. To get there, I had to climb a fence and cross the high school football field. That turned out to be not so easy: the snow was up over my knees. It was very cold that morning, and before I plodded halfway across the field, it started to snow again. I began to have hopes that tomorrow might be school-less, too.

Well, I made it across the field, climbed another fence, and in another minute or two was warming up in Jimmy’s living room, with my galoshes and shoes left by the heating vent. We decided not to go out for a while, but to watch TV instead: and what we saw was a movie, The Charge of the Light Brigade, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHaviland. Jimmy’s mother made us hot cocoa–just the ticket!–and sandwiches for lunch. So fortified, we went out with our sleds and took them down to Tommy’s Pond for some excitement on the slopes.

I’ve always remembered that day very vividly. A few years ago I bought The Charge of the Light Brigade for my own movie collection, to be played on heavy snow days.  But I haven’t been able to find a sled for someone my size, and the slopes of Tommy’s Pond don’t seem anywhere near as long and steep as they once were. Ah, well–we ain’t none of us as long and steep as once we were.

Memory Lane: Skating in the Woods

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Image result for images of frozen pond in woodland

It’s cold today, and it’s been cold for a week. If I were ten years old, I know where I’d be headed, right about now.

With my ice skates in my hand–yes, come on, grab your skates and come with me–I would go to the little swamp behind Mrs. S’s back yard. An enormous weeping willow tree hung over it, and beyond it was a palatial estate like a movie star’s. They had an in-ground swimming pool: in those days, a sign of fabulous wealth.

The swamp is frozen over. We walk out onto the ice and follow a stream leading deeper into the woods. It opens into a little round pond, and some of the other kids in the neighborhood are already ice-skating there. Off with the shoes, lace up our skates, and join in the fun: it’s just big enough for half a dozen kids to play crack-the-whip.

You could, if you liked, follow the stream all the way into the middle of the woods, until it grew too narrow for any proper skating. But the pond is more fun. It’s only a stone’s throw into the woods, but it seems much farther because it’s so quiet–except, of course, for the noises made by all of us playing and whooping it up because it snowed last night, heavily, and there is no school today.

We are unsupervised. We are free. We are having a blast! And if the need arises, we’re only three minutes’ walk from the nearest house with adults in it. We’ll skate until we’re too cold to skate anymore, and then it’s back indoors to warm up and maybe play a little Monopoly. It’s about a hundred times better than the best day you would ever have in school.

And the day, at least for now, is ours.

I wouldn’t trade that little frozen pond for all the fancy indoor skating rinks on the planet.

Memory Lane: The Sears Roebuck Christmas Catalogue

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Vintage 1959 Sears Roebuck & Company Christmas Wishbook Catalog

When I was a boy, one of the sure signs that Christmas really was coming at last, honest, was the annual Sears Roebuck Christmas Book, better known as the Sears Catalogue.

How I loved to pore over this enormous thick book! It was as thick as the phone book, but with dozens of captivating pictures on each and every page. Of course, I rushed through the long and tedious sections on clothes and bedding and the like, lingered over the guns–real guns, not toys–and then, aaah! The toy section. El Dorado!

My favorites were the play sets, consisting mostly of little plastic figures of animals and people. Pictured in the catalogue, all set up and ready to go, I could just groove on these for hours–imagining myself imagining all kinds of adventures for these little characters, once I got them. The farm set! The circus! The African safari! Not to mention pirates, army men, cowboys and Indians, and, one of the best ever, Cape Canaveral with spring-launched rockets that made a gloriously loud “bonk!” if you shot them into the ceiling. And the sheer ecstasy of finding the dinosaur play set under the tree on Christmas morning–!

Image result for images of marx dinosaur playset

Some of the gang from the dinosaur play set

I understand, now, what it meant: that my mother and father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, loved the living dickens out of me and all the other child-kin and delighted in seeing our faces light up when we got those gifts.

In that sense, those gifts continue to give, to this day.

And if love and giving and joy are not the way to celebrate Our Savior Jesus Christ, I don’t know what is.