Odds and Ends

My narrative is getting close to the point where we move from St. Louis to Philadelphia and there are a few 'leftovers' that don't seem to fit into any particular topic. Here they are:

When I was 3 years old (1957) my folks took me and my sister along to buy a replacement for my mom's 48 Dodge. (It had had seen better days.) As we were walking toward one of the cars the salesman said to us: "And look! It's got whitewall tires! The kids'll like that!!". I remember staring at those tires trying to figure out exactly what about the whitewalls I was supposed to like. I puzzled for hours and still didn't get it. I figured I must be missing something... Seriously. Have you ever heard a kid say "Hi! My name's Tommy and I like whitewall tires!!"... It just doesn't happen :-)
We ended up buying a barely used 55 Dodge. It was a standard Royal model but with the optional Super Red Ram engine - I remember the 'gearhead' teenage boy next door in Lakeshire practically drooling over it. My mom described the car as "peppy" :-)
And this is the perfect excuse to post a picture of me with the car in the background (whitewalls and all):

I have no idea what was up with that bow tie...

My mom's Easter eggs were incredible. She'd poke holes in both ends and blow the innards out (so the eggs wouldn't rot). Then she'd paint beautiful intricate patterns on them. She'd finish by threading a ribbon through the holes and hanging them in the kitchen window. They were amazing works of art. (Unfortunately, we never took any pictures of them...)

One day after a shopping trip my mom was putting away some soap when (on a whim) she grabbed one of the bars, a paring knife and a dollar bill and carved me a perfect miniature bust of George Washington (it took her about 5 minutes).
It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen and it became one of my most prized possessions. (Another one of the many things I never saw again after the divorce.)

Our neighbor in Lakeshire (Tiny Nordman) had some hounds chained up in a fenced enclosure in his back yard. One day I heard a horrible yelping from back there and discovered that one of the hounds was hanging by his collar halfway down the outside of the enclosure. I ran to the Nordman's back door and started pounding on it. Tiny had been taking a nap and by the time he came to the door the yelping had stopped. Since everything was now quiet it took a lot of pleading to convince him to take a look. And when we got down there the hound had managed to climb back into the enclosure and was lying there looking totally innocent, like: "Who me?? I would never try to get out of the enclosure. Only bad doggies do that..."
Tiny was pretty mad at me for waking him up - all I was trying to do was save his dog's life... So this is another one of those 'injustice' stories except this time the culprit was a lying dog. (Pun intended.) :-)

Finally: I was kneeling next to my bike one day (when I was 5) and somehow managed to get the skin on my knee caught between the chain and the front sprocket. (That really, really hurts!)
I was completely paralyzed - time had ceased to exist - I couldn't figure out how to free myself, there was blood running down my leg and I thought the pain would never stop. My father heard my screams and came running. He calmly and gently separated me from the bike (thereby saving my life) and carried me into the house. And that's (by far) my fondest memory of him...