POOCH SAYS:

       When I was 10 years old, my mother, father, and I moved to the big city of Indianapolis. Wow! People there locked their doors and no one would dream of sleeping on army cots in the back yard on unbearably hot summer nights.

       The Borden Dairy delivery man had a horse-drawn wagon. The man would load up a wire basket with milk bottles, cream, eggs, and butter. He would walk from front door to front door, cutting across the lawns. The well-trained horse would slowly plod along the curb, keeping pace with the milkman so that refills for the wire basket weren't too many steps away.

       During the warm months, a fruit and vegetable peddler would park in the middle of the block and shout out what he had for sale. (That first drawn-out, piercing call of "Straaaaawberriesssss, straaaaaawberriesssss" meant summer had truly arrived.) Housewives would hurry outside with baskets or big pans and load up on nice fresh produce. No chemical-injected tomatoes; no contaminated spinach from far away; no travel-weary asparagus!

       My parents continued the piano lessons that I'd been taking since age seven. We had an ugly upright piano so old that the varnish was crazed. How I hated that instrument of torture. Mrs. Chenoweth came weekly for 30 minutes at a cost of $0.50 a week. Poor lady! She knew I seldom practiced. To this day I detest "Tales of the Vienna Woods" because I could never play it to Mrs. C's satisfaction.

       Gertrude, 4 doors away, had a baby grand piano! Because SHE practiced, SHE always got the treble part of whatever duet we had to practice for the yearly recital. I was relegated to the thumping oomp, pah, pah bass part. (I didn't like Gertrude or Mrs. C.!)

       My grade school was 6 blocks away and everyone (students and teachers) deserted the building at lunch time. Weekly, or so, 5-6 of us kids would have $0.25 and instead of walking home to eat we’d cross the street to a soda parlor and have a sandwich and a phosphate.

       When we'd finish, we would return to the empty school building where we would violate all the rules - running up and down the halls and stairways, yelling, and writing on the chalk boards! We were smart enough, though, to post a lookout and erase all evidence of our mischief before we got caught.

       I'll never forget chubby Bobby Kopp. He'd write that well-known poem on the chalk board:

Good, better, best.

Never let it rest.

Till your good is better,

And your better best.

       Bobby was killed in war. He gave his best.

       Nancy Guillame would entertain us by pressing on her throat with both hands until she'd pass out. The rest of us never were able to duplicate that remarkable feat, though we tried often. (Oh, my. We were so innocent.) Nancy's gone now, too. And Ed and Jack. Although a beautiful modern building has replaced the old severe 2-story brick building, I imagine the night custodians can hear the ghostly laughter of innocent children frolicking!