The secret world in the trees - Published November 27, 2011

Tree huts; no adults allowed!

By Merlin Lessler

The hut was perched in Johnny’s back yard, 15 feet above ground in an old maple tree. Smoke wafted out of a dozen cracks blanketing it in a low-lying cumulous cloud. It was nothing more than an elevated hovel. Hacked off boards jutted out at all angles; the roof was covered with tar paper scraps; a bunch of gnarled two by fours nailed to the tree trunk formed a crude ladder to a trap door in the floor. Johnny Almy and his brother Mike built it, but this day it was occupied by Woody (Sherwood Walls), Johnny, friend David and me. We were ten years old and taking our first drag on a cigarette. David, John’s classmate at Saint Johns School, came to visit for the day and brought along a carton of Kent cigarettes that he’d requisitioned from his mother’s secret hiding spot. It was an unusual collaboration; two kids from Saint Johns (Johnny and David) and two from Longfellow (Woody and me). There wasn’t a lot of mixing with kids from other schools in those days. I didn’t know any kids from Lincoln Elementary even though it was less than ½ mile from my school. We were tribal and suspicious of anyone from another tribe (school, neighborhood or other side of town). Johnny lived in our neighborhood, so he was OK, but we welcomed his friend David with reservations. They disappeared the minute he pulled the carton of Kents out of his nap sack.

These huts were precursors to the man caves of today, a private space where you can shut out the world and its pressures, in our case, the pressures of multiplication tables, fractions and sentence parsing. A place to hang out and read 10-cent Superman, Little Lulu and Archie comic books. To down an endless supply of homemade chocolate chip cookies, dipped in metal tinged milk kept cool in WWII canteens. And this day, to lounge around smoking Kent cigarettes, drinking shots of whisky (root beer) while loading up our cap pistols in preparation for a shoot out on Junk Street (now Aldridge Ave) with the Vincent and Tommy Spangoletti gang at noon. Fortunately, none of us inhaled: we’d just puffed on the “cancer sticks,” as they were called back then, ten years before the Surgeon General came to the same conclusion and ordered warning labels be affixed to every pack. We didn’t exactly stagger to the OK coral to meet our fate, but we were a little green and had to stifle an urge to toss our cookies. We faked a macho swagger and strutted in with a fresh roll of caps in our Hop-A-Long Cassidy and Roy Roger’s guns, a “cig” hanging out of the corner of our mouths and intimidation on our minds. The guns blazed and everyone fell to the ground in a death spiral. Heck! Dying was the best part of a gun battle. We worked harder on our death throes than we did on our fast draw.

Woody and I erected a series of tree huts, each one a little sturdier than the last. The best was built a half-mile from home near the creek that runs along the side of West Hampton Road on South Mountain. In those days, the hill was part an overgrown pasture covered with wild blackberry bushes. It was a long way to drag lumber and tar paper from our Denton and Chadwick Road homes, but it was worth it. What a view! It must have been a good location. Some of the finest houses in the area now overlook the creek. The remnants of our 1950’s adventures are long gone. We were lucky, kids of our generation. We didn’t have TV, I pods, video games or other distractions to lure us inside the house. Ours was an outdoor childhood. Prowling through the new houses going up in our two-block neighborhood was a favorite pastime that yielded great rewards: lumber, nails and tar paper. We used the lumber to build hot rods and rafts, but most of it went into our tree huts. The carpenters left at five; we moved in at ten after. First to explore and play, and then, under the cover of dark, to requisition building materials. Most often from the scrap pile, but not always.

Woody shocked me one night when he came running out of a house with a whole roll of tarpaper on his shoulder, staggering under the weight. We dragged it to a staging area in the cow pasture behind Johnny Almy’s house. The next day we wrestled it a half mile to the creek. It was the most luxurious tree hut we ever built. You don’t see these Arial hideaways much anymore. There is one around the corner from where I now live. It has two by four, framed walls, windows, a solid entranceway and a waterproof roof. I suspect the kids that play in it didn’t build it. It has a “professional, fatherly” look. Even so, I’d love to climb in and read an Archie comic. Maybe puff on a Kent cigarette too.

The Day of T-Rex, published August 21, 2011

The great dinosaur expedition. (a 1950’s Southside adventure)

By Merlin Lessler

“Look! A baby dinosaur skull!” I didn’t know it when John Almy announced his discovery, but before the day was over, I’d regret ever becoming a dinosaur hunter. He was the new kid on the block. This was his first venture into the hills on the south side of Binghamton that hovered above our new, 2-block, Denton and Chadwick Road neighborhood. Woody (Sherwood Walls) and I were old pros. We’d been scouting the nearby hills for three years, ever since we’d turned five and were allowed to venture beyond the confines of the block. Our release came when we started school at Longfellow Elementary on Pennsylvania Avenue. “If we’re old enough to walk to school, we’re old enough to explore the big woods,” we argued. And much to our surprise, we were allowed to venture forth. It was the 1950’s. Kids had a lot more freedom back then.  

We put aside our cap pistols and bow & arrow sets, deciding that playing cowboys & Indians was for little kids. We strapped knapsacks on our backs (brought home from WWII by our fathers and uncles), loaded them with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies, tied canteens filled with metal tinged milk to our belts and headed for the summit of the mountain in a quest for dinosaur bones. Twenty minutes later we crashed down on the first of three seldom used roads that traversed the hillside in long switchbacks that made a gradual assent to an aging farm-estate at the top. We were exhausted. It was a steep climb by the route we took, straight up. An even steeper and longer climb lay ahead. Two sandwiches and half of our milk supply disappeared before we started climbing again.

We eventually made it to the top, making sure to stay far away from the “haunted” house. It was run down and creepy; the old guy who lived in it hated kids and would race out the door with a shotgun if he spotted you messing around. That was the rumor, anyhow. It was barely a working farm anymore. There were some fenced in pastures. But, they were overgrown and only a cow or two was in evidence. We found an area in one of the deserted pastures with a dozen or so large mounds. We were sure they contained the remains of T-rex and his smaller relatives. We crawled under a rusted bob wire fence and started digging. We used Army-issued, folding shovels, “borrowed” from my grandfather’s attic.

Nothing! That’s what two hours of hard labor got us. We did unearth some bonelike fragments but they turned out to be old tree roots. We slunk back down the hill and through the neighborhood, passing the Almy family’s brand new house. Johnny was in the front yard and asked where we’d been. “Dinosaur bone hunting,” Woody grumbled. “We didn’t find any, but we’re going again tomorrow. Wanna go with us?”  So, bright and early the next morning, we set off on the hunt, 3 boys, 6 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, a dozen chocolate chip cookies, a canteen of milk and my dog, Topper. So named, because he was the first of his six siblings to make it to the top of the basement stairs.

This time we went to the other side of the mountain, further to the west, the section that Powder House Road girds on one side and Hawthorne Road on the other. Back in those days, Hawthorne Road followed the creek all the way over the rise and connected with Powder House Road, about two miles from Vestal Ave. Now it’s only three blocks long, cut off to make way for the subdivisions that started popping up in the early sixties. We found a promising area on a level spot halfway up the hill. We split up and started searching. We’d only been at it for a few minutes when Johnny yelled out those fateful words, “Look! A baby dinosaur skull!” We circled it, and couldn’t believe our eyes. It looked exactly like the head of a miniature T-rex. Woody pushed at it with a stick and a swarm of maggots squirmed out. A horrible odor engulfed us. But we were not deterred. Johnny stuck a stick in the eye socket and we escorted the skull to the creek and plunked it down. The water washed through it, sending hundreds of maggots (and an ugly gray wad of gunk) downstream.

We looked like hunters on an African safari as Woody and Johnny shouldered a long pole with the head hanging from the center while I led the parade. Mr. Almy was in his back yard as we broke through the underbrush and marched in with our dinosaur trophy. He took one look and ordered us to drop it. Then, he rushed us over to the hose and started scrubbing us down with ice cold water and yellow laundry soap. But it was too late. We were already turning green from spending the past two hours messing around with a rotting deer skull. It took twenty-four hours for the unrelenting waves of nausea to ebb. I was one sick dinosaur hunter. My episodes of heaving and stomach cramps didn’t stop until my father got some coke syrup from the soda fountain in Armand Emma’s drug store on the corner of Vestal Ave. and South Washington Street.

We brought back out our cowboy & Indian gear, deciding it wasn’t such a “little kid” pastime after all, especially when we added BB guns and hunting knives to the mix. Even with the possibility of shooting out an eye, it was a lot safer reliving the days of the old west on South Mountain than it was hunting for dinosaur bones. 

Swamp War- (published in Binghamton Press - June 19, 2011)

The Great Swamp War.

By Merlin Lessler

The “Great Swamp War” took place in the autumn of 1954. The fur flew in a hidden marsh on the south side of Binghamton. Woody (Sherwood) Walls and I stumbled onto (and almost into) the swamp by accident. We were exploring a dense woodlot in the area where MacArthur School now sits. The stand of trees was so thick that when we broke through we nearly tumbled into the murky, black water that collected in this low spot on its journey from the hills above Denton and Chadwick Roads to the Susquehanna River. For years we played sandlot football and baseball in the “Flats,” as we called this area between Vestal Avenue and the river. Archibald MacArthur donated the plot to the City for public use. He owned The Boston Store at one time; it became Fowlers, and is now Boscovs. An extensive complex of temporary veteran houses was also built on the site, stretching along the north side of Vestal Avenue, from Brookfield to Denton Roads. We never suspected a swamp lay hidden in the middle of the woodlot on the eastern end of the plot. 

We were two surprised explorers when we broke through the undergrowth and saw the open expanse of water, hidden from us all our lives, all 11 years. A raft beckoned from the other side, so we worked our way to it along the muddy shoreline and hopped on. Water crept over the surface of the raft, soaking first, our sneakers (PF Flyers, of course) and then the bottom of our pant legs. The raft floated all right, but did it three inches below the surface of the water. If anyone had seen us on our maiden voyage, they might have thought they were witnessing a miracle, two boys walking on water. We maneuvered around the swamp, pushing the raft with poles. The water was only a foot or two deep. It was yet another perfect venue for two kids messing around in the 50’s. All the elements were right: water, woods and no adult supervision. The latter, was a major benefit of growing up in that era. Kids were allowed to explore their world. And we did! Nobody had to yell at us to go out and play. We had to be yelled at to come in.

Binghamton was a boomtown back then, busting at the seams. The veteran houses in the flats were temporary, but it took ten years for the building boom to catch up with the need. The structures weren’t razed until the mid fifties, a few years before Binghamton’s population peaked at 85,000. The boom gave us an endless supply of construction materials. We put them to good use, building tree huts, soapbox racers and now, an armada of rafts. A pile of scrap lumber was all we needed to improve on the seaworthiness of the raft that we’d gotten soaked on. A fresh pile lay next to a new house going up across the street from our partner in crime, Warren Brooks. Two nights later, it lay hidden in the woodlot next to the swamp.

Me (left), Woody (right)  

We hammered and sawed and three crude looking rafts emerged. We pushed off from shore and transformed into Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Injun Jim. When that got old, we took turns being pirates attacking the Spanish Armada. It was a delightful ten days, but then word got out. Our secret swamp was discovered and confiscated by a gang of older kids from an adjacent neighborhood. But not without a fight. It was a battle to the death on the high seas. That’s what it seemed like. Actually, it was three eleven-year olds getting bumped into the water by some older kids with longer poles and stronger arms. We were banished; the swamp was theirs. We never signed a peace treaty, so every once in a while we snuck back, making sure the bullies were elsewhere. But it was never the same. Eventually, an even bigger bully came along, the State Highway Department. The trees were cut down; the swamp was drained and construction of the Vestal Parkway was started. Lew Caster lost his gas station at the bottom of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Red Robin Diner lost its visibility (eventually moving to Johnson City) and we lost our swamp. The parkway opened in November of 1956, forever changing the landscape and cutting off the Flats from the river. It’s just another reason why old coots like me, hate progress.

Binghamton Press articles Batch #2

The Old Coot Broke the Law!

By Merlin Lessler 

Published in the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin on November 8, 2008

Even old coots get embarrassed! We put up a crusty front. We act cantankerous and indifferent. But, it's an act. My ears burn and my face turns red just thinking about my stint in the Cub Scouts and the “scout promise” that I left in tatters. It took place over fifty years ago, yet it still makes me squirm. I joined a cub den when I was eight. Irma Ahearn was our den mother. The weekly meetings were held in the basement of her Overbrook Road home on the south side of Binghamton. I can still remember the excitement I felt when I tried on a Cub Scout shirt in the scouting section of Fowlers Department store. It was the "coolest" outfit I’d ever seen, even better than the Hop-a-long Cassidy cowboy suit I got for my seventh birthday. I proudly wore my new scout shirt to my first den meeting, but as soon as I looked around the room and saw Bucky Ahearn’s shirt my euphoria evaporated. His was ablaze with decorations: diamond shape wolf and bear patches, two gold arrowheads and a sea of silver ones. He wore official Cub Scout pants too; I had on a pair of rumpled dungarees. My mother had refused to spring for scout pants. “All you need is a shirt. I’m not wasting your father’s hard earned money on a pair of pants that you’ll have covered with grass stains in ten minutes.” But it wasn't the pants that got me going; it was the wolf, bear and arrowhead patches that took my breath away.

Me, in full uniform (earned and unearned badges)

I learned soon enough, that I too, could get the badges and arrowheads that Bucky sported (and I coveted). I simply had to “earn” them. The first step was to learn the scout promise, a vow I’d break before the end of the year. Then, after completing a few more simple tasks, like learning the Cub Scout salute and the official handshake, I received a “bobcat” pin. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to pin it on my scout shirt. It could only be worn on  “civilian” clothes, to show the world that I was a Cub Scout. I wasn’t any closer to having a shirt like Bucky’s. But, I sucked it up and started the process that would earn me a wolf badge. Looking back on it now, it wasn't motivation I felt; it was compulsion. Every night after school and on big chunks of my Saturdays and Sundays, I slaved away, trying to complete the 12 “achievements” that would earn me the badge. I was “following the wolf tail,” as they called it, in the Cub Scout Manual. 

I spent hours in the basement at my father’s workbench working on projects that would make me a wolf. One was a ring toss game. I nailed six, empty spools (mom never missed the thread) to a board, painted a number under each to designate a point value, and attached a cup hook at the bottom to store the canning jar rings that were used in the game. You played by tossing the rings onto the spools until someone scored 100 points. It took me two weeks to build it. I figured it would take me forever catch up with Bucky at this rate, but I plowed ahead, wondering if he had really completed all requirements to earn the badges and arrowheads he wore so proudly. I wondered if it helped to have your mother, be the den mother? (It didn't, as I later found out. Bucky earned every single one of his badges and arrowheads.)

I finished an “achievement” every few weeks; my mother or father signed and dated the page and Mrs. Ahearn logged it in. Badges and arrowheads were awarded at the pack meetings that were held every month in the basement of Ross Memorial Church on Mitchell Ave. All the dens in the pack came together for these monthly meeting. Sometimes it was combined with a potluck supper where one or two of the dens put on a show. Six months into my scouting career and my shirt still looked naked compared to Bucky’s. I eventually earned a wolf Badge and completed ten “electives” that netted me an arrowhead (officially called an arrow “point,” according to the manual). But, I was a long way from my goal. 

Early one Saturday morning while I was rummaging around in my father’s desk, I stumbled on a rubber stamp. It looked like his signature. I found an inkpad and tested the stamp on a piece of paper. "Wow,” I whispered to myself. “It’s exactly how he signs his name!” Then I tried in on a page in my scout manual. I was so too excited to hear the Cub Scout promise break when the signature stamp touched the page. I only knew that I was on my way to a sea of arrowheads. 

I brought the manual to the next den meeting and handed it to Mrs. Ahearn. She didn't blink an eye; she noted the accomplishment in her logbook and said I had enough to get an arrowhead. I was off and running. “I’ll have a shirt full of badges and stars like Bucky’s,” I excitedly told myself.  The next week I came to the meeting with four more projects signed by my father (unbeknownst to him). In simple terms, I was a pig! The following week, Mrs. Ahearn sat us down and lectured us at length on the meaning of honor. She told stories of famous people who had dishonored themselves and repented, and gone on to a life of valor. I didn't get it! The lecture went right over my head. But, I stopped using the signature stamp anyhow. It simply wasn’t there when I went looking for it. My rise to scout stardom was at a standstill. Oh sure, I eventually added a bear and lion badge and a few silver and gold arrowheads, but I never came close to catching up with Bucky. I did finally get the point of Mrs. Ahearn’s lecture, but it was twenty years later. It came to me when an eight-year-old kid pulled a similar stunt in a youth program I was running for the Elmira Jaycees. When I discovered his forgery the light in my head came on. “She knew!” Mrs. Ahearn hadn’t been fooled for a second! She had been talking about me, that day so long ago. I still get embarrassed and my ears turn red whenever I think about it. What happened to my father’s signature stamp? I didn’t know it at the time, but Mrs. Ahearn talked to my parents and they hid it. It came back into my life a few years later. I used it to sign an eighth grade report card. I did it to “protect” my father, so he wouldn’t have to find out that his son got a ‘D’ in History, his favorite subject. Oh yes, I did get caught, by the school principal, but that’s a story for another day.

My Den, putting on a skit. From the left: Kent Titus, Woody Walls, Me,

Marshal reutlinger, Dick Tuttle, Donald (Bucky) Ahearn

 

Unsafe at Any Speed!

By the Old Coot, Merlin Lessler

Published in the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin on August 2, 2008

“You’re an accident waiting to happen!” That’s what my mother would say when she saw me push my homemade racer out of the driveway and head to the top of our hill. But, I never had to wait, not very long anyhow. I cracked up just about every time I raced down Chadwick Road with my friend Woody (Walls). If Ralph Nader, author of Unsafe At Any Speed, thought the Corvair was unsafe, he would have been horrified by the vehicles that we raced down the hills on the south side of Binghamton. Vehicles that started the trek on four wheels but more often than not, finished on three.

These downhill death traps were called soapbox racers in some circles. We called them hot rods. None of ours were made from wooden soapboxes, nor were they built to the design specifications of the Soap Box Derby Association. Our venture into the four-wheel racing world was pretty primitive. We used scrap lumber that carpenters left behind at new houses going up in our neighborhood. One year I hit the jackpot. I found a “nearly” straight piece of 2 X 6 that was perfect for the main body. I attached it to a 2 X 4 with a long spike. I bent the spike over so the connection between the two boards was loose enough to allow the shorter, steering board to turn when I pushed it with my feet. Wheels from a discarded baby carriage were fastened to the “unholy” cross. A short scrap of wood was nailed to the side as a brake. Theoretically, it would rub against the road and slow me down when I pulled on it. Like the Corvair that Nader indicted; it wasn’t safe. (I eventually owned a Corvair, too.) 

The hot rod worked great the first few times I came flying down Chadwick Road. But, design flaws began to show. First, the brake came off, causing me to crash into the hedge of an elderly, neighborhood couple that took meticulous care of their property. It was one of several houses on the block that were off limits to Woody and me. I reattached the brake and took another run. That ride lasted less than thirty seconds. The right front wheel wobbled free and beat me to the bottom of the hill. 

Me. in the driver's seat, Woody Holding the whie flag (his T-shirt)

My father observed these technical failures and decided to take responsibility for the mechanical aspects of my racing career, forming a pit crew of one. He was an excellent mechanic. He made his living as a designer for Ansco and always jumped at the chance to build something on a larger scale than a camera. He was interested in my hot rod because he’d been forbidden to start any new construction projects around the house. His last one got a little out of hand. He built a travel trailer in our garage. My mother wasn't thrilled about having it parked in the side yard, especially when a neighbor complained, using words such as “eyesore” and “blight.” At any rate, my father was forced to get it off the property. He took it to a friend’s house in the country, where zoning laws were less restrictive and neighbors were more tolerant.

 The stage was set. He elbowed his way into the reconstruction of my hot rod with a claim that he wasn’t starting a new project, “I’m just helping the kid!” He used new lumber, screws instead of nails, and ball bearing wheels from a wagon instead of a baby carriage. His design was radical. He installed two spring loaded push brakes on the front wheels and crafted a steering system using a yoke from a Piper Cub airplane. It was connected to a swivel mechanism at the rear of the vehicle by an elaborate cable and pulley system. It was the only hot rod in town that was steered with the rear wheels. The jitney, as he called it, was museum quality. It glistened in a fresh coat of paint. Seven, my favorite number, was stenciled on the front. He reluctantly handed it over to me for a test drive.

I was happy with the hot rod that I’d made myself, but learned long ago to "appreciate” one of his creations. I pushed it to the top of the hill for its maiden voyage. Woody was next to me in his rickety looking racer. One! Two! Three! Go! Down the hill we went! Woody beat me by a mile. The wire cable slipped out of the pulleys in the steering system. I traveled a serpentine route to the bottom, twice the distance of Woody's. My father confiscated the vehicle, moved it into the "pit" area, shut the garage door and started a major overhaul. Woody and I were free to race on our own. He, in his homemade crate and I, on an Irish Mail, a four-wheel vehicle that was propelled by pumping a handle, like the handcars you used to see on the railroad tracks.

Finally, my father opened the garage door and rolled out Version II. The race was on! Woody beat me to the finish line by fifty yards. Everything worked fine on my hot rod; it was just slow. It took all my father’s will power to let it be. I was certain he’d have another go at it but he didn’t. "It needs to be broken in; it'll get faster with time," he said, and then slunk back into the garage. A week later I had a wreck. A hunk of the front section broke off when I hit the curb. This gave my father another chance to make it faster than Woody’s. 

When it rolled out of the garage this time it sported larger wheels and an aerodynamic front end. He replaced the flawed cable and pulley system and a chain. My father didn't stick around to see the race. He knew there wasn't anything more he could do. He couldn’t bear to witness another defeat. I did beat Woody to the bottom of the hill, but he led most of the way. Then, the nail holding his left rear wheel came out, sending him off course and into the same elderly couple’s hedge that I’d run into earlier that summer. His pruning job was more extensive than mine. I played around with my father’s creation from time to time over the next several years, but it never was as exciting as flying down hill on one I’d built myself, one that was unsafe at any speed.

An Old Coot Mourns a Jacket.

By Merlin Lessler

Published in the Binghamton Press, March 21, 2010

I sat in a muddy field near “Brady’s” at Quaker Lake. It was a chilly May morning in 1957. I was dead tired. I’d spent the night trudging down pitch-black, desolate roads, winding my way to this “oasis.” I’d been dropped off at the entrance of a neglected, turn of the century cemetery on a rutted dirt road five hours earlier. Strong arms shoved me out the door of a chopped and channeled, 1951 Mercury. Tires screamed and the air filled with the acrid smell of rubber as the car pealed out and sped away. When the echo of the teenage passengers and the roar of the Merc’s Hollywood mufflers faded away, I removed my blindfold and peered into the darkness. The only sign of life was the sound of munching cows in a nearby meadow. I shook myself off and started the trek back to civilization. Wondering how on earth I’d get there.      

But I did. And, now sat in a mud-clotted field, my head and shoulders awash in the devil’s own concoction, a mixture of Limburger cheese, raw eggs, flour and shaving cream. My backside screamed in pain from the 16 paddles it had absorbed, delivered by running, screaming heavyweights, swinging rolled up “Life” magazines. Yet, I was smiling. Downright giddy. My six weeks of pledging hell was over. I was an official member of Alpha Zeta. Some kids did it for the parties. Some for the prestige. I did it for the jacket.

Buzzy (George) Spencer can still fit in his AZ jacket,

 fifty years later

My ordeal started in April when I received an invitation to become a member of AZ and attend a pledge meeting at the home of Tony Nelson at 43 Lathrop Avenue, 7pm sharp. It was hand written and signed by president Mike Manahan. I was a fourteen, a ninth grader at West Junior. A bunch of us were invited to pledge for the Central High School fraternity, even though we were still in junior high. I guess it was AZ’s move to beat out archrival, Lambda. The supply of kids, stupid enough to undergo six weeks of hazing had to be limited, so AZ dipped into an untouched pool of idiots at junior high. I was one of them.

The meeting started off cordial enough. We were treated like royalty, not knowing we were innocent lambs brought to the slaughter. Then the pledge master took over. A list of pledge rules was distributed. This was serious business! And, to prove it, we were escorted to the driveway, one at a time. Two burly frat brothers held us in a bent over position while other members lined up with tightly rolled magazines clenched in their fists. It didn’t take long to get our introduction to pledging. The enforcers came in threes, running down the driveway and swinging at the target (our derrieres) as hard as they could. Whap! Whap! Whap! The holders were there to make sure we didn’t escape, or drop to our knees and take one in the spine. My ordeal had begun. 

The rules were quite specific: pledges were to have gum, cigarettes, a note book and pencil (for recording black marks) on their person at all times - memorize the Greek alphabet by the next meeting - address members as “Mister” - light members cigarettes - wear a sport jacket (or suit), a white shirt and a blue and white tie to meetings – obey orders of members faithfully. The latter had us mowing lawns, cleaning windows and doing other household chores all weekend long at member’s homes. There was a “personal affairs” section in the pledge rules. We were supposed to have a least one date a week with a respectable girl. (What respectable girl would go out with a nerd with pockets bulging with cigarettes and gum, and yelping in pain with each step, the result of a Friday night paddling.)  The rules also instructed us to have a sharp haircut, trimmed nails, shinned shoes and a generally neat appearance. They forbade us to use profane language, especially when with a member of the opposite sex. And lastly, (some fatherly advice), “Take these rules seriously, work hard and stick with it.”

It wasn’t as bad for pledges that went to West Junior as it was or those kids who went to Central. We escaped the daily hazing that they were subjected to. But, we paid for it on the weekend. And, no matter how hard I tried, I never failed to be slapped with a slue of black marks. The lawn I mowed wasn’t cut perfectly, or I left streaks on the windows I washed, or I failed to say “Sir,” before and after each sentence when addressing one of the members. Three whacks in the driveway at the weekly meeting erased a black mark. I tried to keep my total low, so I could avoid getting creamed on initiation day. I didn’t think I could endure twenty or thirty whacks at one sitting. So, in addition to the mandatory three weekly whacks, I opted for several more, to cut down my ever-growing collection of black marks.  

I made it. We all did. Nobody dropped out or was maimed by the countless beatings we absorbed during the six weeks of hell. It was with a swagger that I walked into Central on my first day of high school that September. It was in the 80’s, and quite muggy but I didn’t care, I wore my new blue, corduroy AZ jacket with pride. It cost $18 (a small fortune for a teenager in those days) and over 50 whacks to my backside. But, I’d pay ten times that to get one today (ten times the money, not ten time the whacks). The money, not the whacks. But alas, AZ is no more. The local chapter and the national organization folded up years ago. There is an unauthorized, old coot branch that still functions. It meets every other year for food and drink and unabashed discussions of the good old high school fraternity days. This year’s gathering will be held in July. If you want to join in the fun, send us a note at azbinghamton@yahoo.com for more information. Even Lambda guys are welcome.

The whole Frat in 1958

I Grew Up in a World Without Book bags!

By The Old Coot (Merlin Lessler)

Published in the Binghamton Press, September 5, 2007

School is back in session. Yippee! When my kids were little, we lived in a small town north of New York City. On the first day of school a small clutch of adults would gather in front of our house, the designated bus pick-up point for the subdivision we lived in. It was mostly mothers, but a few fathers went to work late so they could join in the celebration. I was one of them. We came equipped for the event, with pots, pans and metal soupspoons, anything that would make a racket. The kids clustered together in a state of denial. “How embarrassing, to have your parents acting like crazy fools!” We banged the pots with our spoons as the bus pulled up. Whistles and party noisemakers rounded out the symphony. One by one the kids stepped up into the bus and slunk to their seat. It was the best “first day of school” celebration I ever experienced. It was back in prehistoric times, when it was still politically correct to delight in the fact that the “little darlings” were out of your hair for a few hours a day. Freedom was at hand!

I’m sure my mother and father would have joined the parade if there were one when I went off to P.S. # 13 (Longfellow School) on Pennsylvania Ave on the Southside of Binghamton. But they didn’t need a celebration in those days. Parents ruled the roost, not the kids. But, in spite of being at the bottom of the pecking order, we had a better deal than the kids do today. We didn’t have homework! Not in P.S. #13, not in any of the “grade” schools around the city. When the dismissal bell rang, we were free. Not today. Kids have to lug schoolwork home in a book bag right from the start. Even toddlers in nursery school. We were spared the misery. We did our schoolwork in the classroom

Book bags didn’t exist in my day. They hadn’t been invented. We had something similar, knapsacks. Brought home from the war, the big one, WWII, by our fathers, uncles and cousins, or purchased at one of the numerous army and navy surplus stores that dotted the countryside. We used them for hikes in the woods, to carry food, matches and shovels for digging up dinosaur bones. We weren’t smart enough to use them for hauling books back and forth to school. In junior and senior high school, when homework was the order of the day, we still didn’t give the knapsacks a thought. We just stacked our books in a pile and carried them under our arms, resting the bottom of the pile on our hips. Girls used a different technique. They used two hands to carry their books, and clutched them to their chests, as though holding a newborn baby. Every other day or so, somebody would come along and shove the stack of books out of your grasp and then laugh and say, “Drop a few subjects, did you?” A few brave souls totted a brief case around Central High School when I went there. (three to be exact). It was the equivalent to coming to school in pajamas. It was weird. The term, “nerd,” hadn’t been invented yet. We didn’t know what to call these guys; they were just the weird guys with briefcases. 

We “cool” guys wouldn’t’ think of using a briefcase. We’d rather suffer with an eighteen-inch stack of books, awkwardly balanced on our hips. It messed up our alignment. It’s why old coots like me can’t walk in a straight line. We sidle down the sidewalk like a drunken sailor. And, it explains why so many of us need new hips. It’s what happens when you grow up in a world without book-bags!

Me, showing how we carried books in our day!

Binghamton Press articles, batch 1

The Old Coot Goes to the Dogs

Published in the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin on August 30, 2008

By the Old Coot, Merlin Lessler

My sister Madeline on the right holding Topper, Lassie is next to me on the left.

A young woman was walking her dog on the sidewalk in front of me as I did the old coot shuffle into town the other day. Her pooch wore a pair of shoes, though I guess with one on each paw I should refer to them as a “quartet” of shoes. The dog stopped and sniffed at a fence post, a tree stump or a signpost every few feet. They were going so slow that even at my gimpy pace I caught up and passed them. The woman didn't seem to mind her lack of progress. She held a cell phone to her ear with one hand, and clutched an empty “poop” bag and a leash in the other. She chatted while the dog gawked and sniffed; it was a match made in heaven. It made me think about the dog I had as a kid; His name was Topper. I was four when I brought his mother to the door and said, “Mom, I found a dog; Can I keep it?” I was a lucky kid, not many mothers would let a preschooler keep a stray dog. Especially one about to give birth to seven puppies.

The stray (Lassie) had the pups in our basement. “Topper” was the first to make it up the stairs, earning him a name and a place in our family. His siblings were dispersed throughout the area; he and his mother stayed with us. I was one happy cowboy. I roamed the driveway and back yard in my cowboy suit, a pistol on each hip and a pair of happy dogs by my side. Lassie chased cars, and no matter how many contraptions my father rigged up to stop her from running, she never failed to break free when a sedan came past the house. She was a relentless pursuer, a tire bitter. She eventually was exiled to a farm owned by a friend of the family, put out to pasture. From then on, Topper and I formed a duo that rivaled that of Batman and Robin. We went everywhere together.

It was a different era. Dogs were dogs; people were people. The confusion we have today about the people - dog pecking order didn't exist. Dogs were tougher, more self-reliant. My friends and I rode our bikes to the movies in downtown Binghamton. We' d park them in a heap in front of the Press building on Chenango Street. After a quick glance in the window at the evening paper that was speeding across a giant set of rollers, we’d head into the Strand Theater. (The Binghamton Press was an evening paper in those days. The morning paper, the Sun Bulletin, was produced at the other end of the block) Topper would plop down next to the bikes and stand guard. When we came out three hours later, rubbing our eyes and squinting into the bright sunlight, he'd be there, his tail wagging like crazy.

When my family left town for a few days, a rare event I must admit, he stayed home in the garage. We propped the door open with a cinderblock so he could come and go as the mood hit him. A neighbor kid would come by every day to give him a can of Rival dog food and a fresh bowl of water. On one occasion he apparently resented being left behind and wandered off on an adventure of his own. We came home. No Topper! We asked around the neighborhood but no one had seen him. A week went by, still no Topper. I was one sad kid. My best friend was gone. I was hanging out in the driveway two weeks later, throwing a tennis ball up onto the roof and catching it after it worked its way down a double set of valleys, when Topper came running down the street, turned into the driveway and stopped in his tracks. He stared at me. I stared back. We both were dumbfounded. Then he yelped and ran to me, his tail wagged a mile a minute. He licked and licked my face as we rolled around together on the ground. It was one of the happiest moments in my ten years of life. My parents thought he’d gotten impatient and went looking for us. I think he just needed a break. At any rate, it was the last vacation he took. He was always home waiting for us after that.

The relationship between dogs and people was different in those days. Kids played outside and dogs in the neighborhood played along with them. They provided a layer of security that gave our parents a high level of comfort when we wandered out of sight and beyond earshot. A stranger wouldn’t dare come after a kid with a dog or two around. We were free to spend our days in the woods and creeks that surrounded the south side of Binghamton. Every once in a while my sister Madeline and I put a dab of peanut butter on the roof of Topper's mouth. We’d laugh ourselves silly as he licked and licked to get it off. He'd do somersaults and twist across the floor in his effort to be free of the foreign substance. It was a blast, until our father caught us and explained how cruel we we’re being to a helpless critter. That’s when we switched to Jujy Fruit candies and watched as he furiously chewed in a vain attempt to get them unstuck from his teeth. We did this out of sight of Dad. We guessed he wouldn’t think it was any better than the peanut butter game. Leashes were seldom used back then. Pooper-scoopers didn’t exist at all. If a dog left his calling card on the lawn, you simply found a flat stone and covered it up. Nature went to work and took care of things. When you removed the stone a week later there was nothing there. The microbes had done their job. In another week the grass grew back. People who let the stones accumulate ended up with a nice rock garden. Which, I hear, is how the concept got started, just another positive contribution to the human condition from our canine friends. Where would we be without our dogs?

Merlin Lessler, is a freelance writer who lives in Owego.

We learned more than the ABC’s at old PS-13!

Published in the Binghmton Press and Sun Bulletin on December 13, 2008

By Merlin Lessler, AKA the old coot, Owego

PS #13 (Longfellow Elementary)

It’s tough for an old coot like me to take a trip down memory lane to my grade school days when the old building no longer exists. It was smashed to bits over thirty years ago. That’s the dilemma facing all the former students of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow School. It’s not just the place where we studied the three R’s and earned a sixth grade diploma; it’s the place we learned about life. Our old school is gone. It’s a parking lot next to the UHS medical building at 93 Pennsylvania Ave. It was torn down to make way for a Giant Market, which used the site for a quarter of a century and then moved down the street to bigger and better things. Now it’s in the hands of U.H.S. No longer can we gaze on the old school and longingly glance toward the side door where we lined up at the bell, that dreaded signal to go inside, to walk away from an unfinished game of batball.  

PS-13, as we referred to it on all our school papers, served kids on the south side of town, roughly westward from Mitchell Ave. to the Binghamton – Vestal border. It’s gone! We can’t stop by and kick the tires and stir up old memories. Like the lessons in we learned in “Bully” survival! I took two semesters. Butchy taught the first. It started in kindergarten. He decided who played with the toy fire truck, not the teacher. He ruled outside the building as well, roaming the area on his bicycle, a baseball bat resting on his shoulder. His demeanor radiated a warning, “Mess with me and I’ll bean you.” I chose to go for a passing grade. I conceded him the fire truck, the ball and the blackboard eraser. Kids who didn’t, ended up with lumps and bumps and an “F” in the course. He was one bully you couldn’t outrun. 

Denzel presided over my second “Bully” survival course at PS-13. . He wasn’t menacing like Butchy; he was gregarious, subtle, and as tough as they come, but the theme of his lesson plan was the same, “Do what I say or you’ll be sorry!” He lined us up on the playground for a weekly quiz every Friday before the bell. The test question was the same every week. “Do you want a sock in the arm or do you want to give me a dime?” It was a tough decision. You could buy a soda and a candy bar for a dime in those days, but a sock in the arm would ache through the first hour of the school day: through the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lords Prayer and half way into the arithmetic lesson. Most of us made the right choice, gave him the dime or accepted a punch in the arm. We got an “A” in Denzel’s class. Some kids learned the hard way. I watched them with a shrug. They followed the lame advice that parents have pawned off on their naïve offspring for generations, “Stand up to a bully and he’ll back down.” After discovering that the advice was bogus, they lined up with the rest of us chickens. But in addition to a sore arm and/or a reduction in their financial condition, they also nursed a black eye. They got an “F” in the course, but surprisingly few of them were dumb enough to repeat the class. 

I didn’t pass all the life lessons at PS-13. I failed a course called, “He dared me to do it.” It took place on the playground, though I remember it unfolding in the library on the third floor of the school. Billy Wilson pulled out a pack of matches in a “see what I’ve got” taunt. I saw, and was impressed, jealous too. I dared him to light one. He just smiled. I double dared him. His smile weakened. I triple dared him. He looked around and then pulled out a match and struck it. Then he blew it out. Here is where the story gets muddled. I remember him throwing it in the wastebasket in the library. He claims he tossed it in on the ground in the schoolyard. I remember the school filling with smoke and the janitor, Mr. Vanick, dousing the papers in the wastebasket. He says I ran to Mrs. White, our fifth grade teacher, and ratted him out. If his version is accurate it means I was involved in another fire incident with another kid in the library. It wouldn’t surprise me. One thing is clear to both of us. We were marched by the ear to the principal’s office. I wasn’t afraid. After all, it was Billy who started the fire, not me. But, would he tell the truth? Well, he did! He told Miss Lennox that he brought the matches to school and lit one. But, then he added, “Merlin dared me to do it!” I chuckled to my self. I knew he was in for it now. Anytime I’d ever used that excuse I got it thrown back in my face, with the standard adult rebuttal, “And, if he dared you to jump off the Empire State Building, would you do it?” That usually ended the discussion. I waited for Miss Lennox to bring the Empire State Building into the conversation. She didn’t. She reached over and gave be a swat on the back of the head. It still stings. Then she imposed our sentence. We spent the rest of the day copying every word on fire prevention from several encyclopedias. We spent the next day too. It wasn’t until the third day, after my mother came to school and had a long talk with Miss Lennox, that my sentence was commuted. I got an “F” in this life lesson. I still wonder to this day, “Would Billy jump off the Empire State Building if I dared him?”  

1/2 of my 6th grade class (me in the exact center)

The other 1/4,  Billy Wilson my arson partner

(top row, 4th from right)

 Ross Creek and the Tunnel to Hell!

(Published in the Binghamton press, June 21, 2009)

By Merlin Lessler (the old coot)

We were lucky, the kids that grew up on the south side of Binghamton. Nature provided us with an endless venue of places to play: woods, fields, ponds, swamps, ravines and best of all, the “Creek.” It’s officially known as Ross Creek, named after the doctor who donated land to the city for a zoo and a park. The creek runs under the zoo and then meanders between concrete walls topped by a page link fence to the Susquehanna River. The last leg of its journey is in a quarter mile, dark, forbidding tunnel. We were introduced to the creek and the abyss it descends into at the intersection of Park and Vestal Avenues by chasing fly balls that cleared the fence bordering the playground at PS-13 (Longfellow Grade School). We vaulted over the rails on the Morris Street Bridge and ran them down, sometimes all the way to the tunnel, where a giant mouth gobbled them up.   

The tunnel to hell!

I don't why, but caves and tunnels draw kids like a magnet. The lure of the dark and forbidding black hole at the end of Ross Creek turned from curiosity to obsession for us. Even in the dry season, when water runs in a narrow trickle, it transforms to white water as it slides down the steep pitch to the tunnel entrance. The slope is so severe we were forced to descend feet first, on our backs, in a crab-walk. My friend, Woody (Walls) and I scouted the mysterious cavern many times, walking down the creek with a cocky strut, even descending to the tunnel entrance with an eight-year-old swagger, only to look into its maw and quickly scamper back up the slope to safety. The two of us couldn’t muster enough courage to go through the tunnel. Maybe, with more guys we could? We recruited two “explorers” to join us, probably Buzzy (Spencer) and Warren (Brooks). I’m just never sure when I dig that far through the cobwebs into my memory banks.

We lingered at the top of the slope, some thirty feet from the entrance to the tunnel. We were stalling and we knew it. We did everything we could to delay the mission at hand. We practiced yoyo tricks, searched for crayfish and told “moron” and knock-knock jokes, anything that would keep us above ground and in the safety of daylight. We might have continued the stall for the rest of the day, if tough guy, Denzel Kelly hadn’t come along, leaned over the fence and yelled, "Boo!" In our agitated state, it was enough to get the response he wanted. We jumped! He liked that. One of his favorite utterances was, “I speak; you jump. He followed it up this time with, "What are you girls doing down there anyhow"?

"Getting ready to go through the tunnel,” We muttered in unison.

“Good, I'm going to stay right here and watch. I don't think you have the guts to do it."

He was right, but now we had no choice. If we didn't, he would make sure we never forgot it, and that the rest of the school never forgot it either. Buzzy went first, followed by Warren and Woody. I was the last to slide down to the tunnel, pretending to tie my shoes, a standard delaying tactic of the day. Years later, when I first heard the expression, "Caught between a rock and a hard place," I immediately understood what it meant - Denzel on one side, the horror of the tunnel to Hell on the other.

Our fate lay ahead. We entered the dark, forbidding cavern, a round concrete structure, fifteen-feet in diameter. There was an angled shoreline on each side. If the water got any higher the walkway would disappear. We went in far enough to block Denzel's view of us. We knew he was still there because he shouted down, "I'm waiting right here in case you chicken out.” We knew we had to give it a try, come hell or high water, two distinct possibilities for four chickens crouched on a narrow pathway at the edge of a rising stream.

Our eyes adjusted to the dark; we could see the route ahead. A dim circle of light in the distance beckoned. Buzzy led the way, something that normally would have been decided by a round of one-potato, two-potato, but today had been left to fate. The ledge we perched on was too narrow to change the order, something I took secret delight in from my safe spot at the back of the line. We moved ahead, slowly at first, then at a good clip, considering how dark it was and how scared we felt. After ten minutes we noticed that the circle of light in front of us was larger and brighter, testament to our progress. It appeared to be about the same size as the one at our backs, telling us we were about half way there. We would have “high-fived” each other, were there such a thing back in those days. Instead we settled for a "Whoopee,” from Woody, the most vocal of our foursome. Buzzy jolted us out of our revere, "Shut up! Something is moving up ahead!"  A normal group of ten year olds might envision the movement ahead as a snake, a muskrat, or a skunk. Not us; we’d completed our second year at "Horror Movie University." We visualized giant ants, radioactive rats or something worse, the creature from the Black Lagoon. 

A closer view

"What is it," I bravely asked from my secure position in the. Buzzy didn't know, but he reported that it was too big to be a rat, unless fallout from an Atomic test had caused it to mutate. It crossed over from the other side of the tunnel on a clump of branches that formed a crude bridge. We froze, listening intently for clues that might tell us where it was. When nothing happened, we forged ahead, a little slower and with nervous caution. We’d progressed about fifty feet when all of a sudden, Buzzy splashed past the rest of us with a yelp, and got behind me in line. His shoes, socks and pant legs were soaked, but he didn't care, the "thing" wasn't going to get him first. Warren led the way for the next few yards, but then it startled him and he fled to the back of the line. The "beast" was as big as a giant cat, and glittered and glowed as it crossed back and forth on one of the many haphazard clogs of twigs, dirt and rubbish that littered the tunnel. It must be radioactive! What else could explain the glittering glow?

With Woody in the lead, we pressed on, four terrified chickens. My position wasn’t as secure as it had been, but I still felt safe. Woody would never back down. Another hundred yards, and my biggest nightmare became reality; Woody freaked; now I was at the head of the line, facing a radioactive monster. I was trapped. I couldn't get my feet wet. I was wearing a brand new pair of P.F. Flyers. When I left home my mother told me to put on an old pair of sneakers so I wouldn’t ruin the new ones. Of course I hadn’t listened.

We inched on in absolute silence, posed to flee at the first sign of attack. All of a sudden, I could see what had frightened the other guys. The "monster" did glitter as it scurried back and forth across the tunnel, but there now was enough light coming in to make it out. It wasn't a radioactive rat. It was a black cat with white feet, sporting a gemstone collar that glittered. I accelerated the pace, my frightened companions anxiously asked, "Are you all right?" Their view of the cat was blocked. Only I could see it. I played out my "bravery," all the way to the river, hoping the cat would scamper away before they saw it. But it didn't. When we emerged from the tunnel, rubbing our eyes in reaction to the bright sunlight, it sat on the river bank licking its' paws. The Radioactive-Rabid-Vicious-Sharp Fanged-River-Rat was someone's house pet, probably with a name like "Boots." I must have gone through the tunnel a hundred times after that. My last visit was in 1962. Even then, when I was a nineteen-year-old college student, it was still an eerie place, but nowhere near as scary as my first trip into the tunnel to hell.

The Boys in Blue. (published in the Binghamton Press, October 11, 2009)

by Merlin Lessler

Me, ready for duty in 1953

“Wait there until a car comes!” That’s what I yelled over my shoulder to the three kindergarteners at my back. I was trying to hold them in place until a car came by and I could prevent them from stepping in front of it. I was just doing my job. I was a patrol boy at Longfellow Elementary School, assigned to the least active corner in the neighborhood. Other patrol boys could use this delaying tactic; cars actually came by their corners. Not by my assigned location. Not often enough to keep even the youngest kids from crossing without my help. Kids walked to school in those days. Longfellow Elementary (PS-13) was a neighborhood school. All the schools were neighborhood schools. Patrol boys were deployed to help kids cross the streets and get there safely. The crosswalk in front of the building on Pennsylvania was the busiest. Mister Terry, a friendly policeman with the same shape and demeanor as Santa Claus was stationed there and was assisted by a patrol boy. The squad came from the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grades. We proudly wore the official uniform, a white belt that crossed from left shoulder to right hip and girded the waist. It was topped off with a silver badge. High-ranking squad members, lieutenants and captains, sported badges with a red or blue tint that designated their rank. We folded and hung the “uniform” from our belts when we were off duty. It was a way of lording it over civilians. I never figured out if it was the uniform or the authority that attracted me to this elite troupe of Special Forces; It must have been both because the job required you to be at your corner thirty minutes before school and then hustle to class before the final bell. It also meant that you got home late, both at lunchtime and at the end of the school day. Yet, there wasn't a boy in Longfellow that wasn’t eager to made the sacrifice. (Girls weren’t allowed on the force, not back in the 1950’s)

I didn’t make it the first time I applied for the squad. Maybe my involvement in the library fire had a bearing on the selection process. I eventually did get through a screening and become a candidate for the force but soon discovered there was a down side to the honor. You didn’t just get a uniform and an assigned to a corner. We had to attend training sessions every day for a week. That meant staying after school; the cruelest punishment there is for a school kid. Miss Wood, a stern and somber taskmaster with a high-strung personality similar to Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show was in charge of the squad. She conducted the training sessions in her fourth grade classroom. I suffered through the lessons and was assigned to the corner of Cross Street and Park Avenue, where a lot of kids passed by but only a few crossed over. Most of them crossed down the block at Morris Street. It was a boring job! I strutted around in my patrol boy belt and badge with nothing to do. The few kids that did cross at my corner didn’t need me to help them. Cars didn’t come down Cross Street, at least not during school hours.   

I frittered away my time that first week, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. On Friday, I discovered another reason to question my decision. Miss Wood told us we had to wash our “uniforms” over the weekend. They had to gleam when we handed them off to the squad on duty the following week. I explained this to my mother as I handed her the belt. She handed it right back, along with a bar of yellow soap and pointed me to the scrub board and stationary tub in the basement. So much for the glory of the uniform. 

My career ended in disgrace. A brother and sister crossed at my corner four times a day: on their way to school in the morning, home for lunch, back for the afternoon session and then home again at the end of the day. They constantly fought and pushed each other into the road. The brother was two years older and a bully. I weakly "ordered" them to stop fighting, warning that they could get hit by a car if they didn’t pay more attention to where they were walking. This stopped them long enough to gawk at me like I was from another planet, and to say, “You’re not the boss of us!” Then, they would cross the street and start up again. Finally, I put them on report and ordered them to appear in court. Judicial sessions were held once a month in Miss Wood’s classroom. She was both judge and jury.

Their case made it onto the court docket three weeks later. I had forgotten why I’d “arrested” them by then. When I was asked to explain the charges, I simply stated they always fought and pushed each other into the road. They jumped to their feet and shouted out that I was the one who should be on trial for picking on them and saying mean things when they passed by my corner. Miss Wood looked at me over the top of her glasses and asked if this was true. I was dumb founded, totally unprepared to deal with their well-told lies. I thought for sure the girl would speak up, to put an end to the constant taunting by her brother, but she didn’t. I managed a feeble, "They're lying!" But, it was two against one and I was a rookie cop. The charges were dismissed. I was scolded and told to shape up or I'd lose my slot on the squad. I left the room in shock, but with a conviction that I definitely would not “re-up” for a second tour of duty. The lure of the uniform wasn’t that strong.

Old Coots Gather for a Reunion

Published in the Binghamton Press, May 16, 2010

By Merlin Lessler

The front door to high society?

It’s my fiftieth high school reunion this year -the Binghamton Central High School class of 1960. My fellow old coots will be gathering in town to tell lies about the good old days. Some will brag about the unbeaten football team in 1957. Others will reminisce about the prom or the fraternity and sorority dances. My mind is stuck on the oddities we experienced. The ones not mentioned in the yearbook.

Like the great egg toss! A new principal was assigned to Central shortly after the start of my senior year, Mister Willard C. Hamlin. Or, as he called himself, Captain Hamlin. He summoned us to the auditorium for an assembly his first week on the job. “I’m the captain and the school is my ship,” he growled at us that chilly fall morning. “I’m going to steer us through rough educational waters; you are going to follow my orders and get us to our destination.” On and on he went, using nautical terms that had us groaning: “The teachers are my officers. You better get on board; the anchor is coming up.”

Finally, at lunchtime, we were allowed to leave. We scurried out of the building by the side entrance. He strutted out the front door, with a self confident, captain’s swagger. He was met by a barrage of missiles. Some said the eggs came from the grassy knoll. Others said, from a widow in the brick repository across the street. It’s a mystery that’s never been solved. All that is know for certain, is that they did come, dozens of well-aimed eggs. “Welcome to our world, Captain Hamlin.”

We were back in the auditorium that afternoon, getting our comeuppance in traditional school fashion, a stern lecture, a plea to the guilty parties to confess and punishment for the rest of us until they did. "A cowardly attack,” he proclaimed. It was not just an attack on him, but worse; it was an attack on his distinguished position. It was the best assembly I ever attended. To this day, I still picture him at the podium, looking out to a sea of grinning teeth, which must have appeared as white caps on a rough sea, in perfect synch with his nautical theme. It probably drove him a little batty. It was the last we heard of the incident. He wisely spent the rest of the week in the safety of his office.

What did he expect?  He’d invaded our turf. He came to us from our archrival, North High. And, who was he to saunter out the front door, an entrance we were forbidden to use. We were relegated to a door on the side of the building, at the end of a long passageway with a page link fence on one side and a cement wall on the other. I always felt that I was a sheep, marching down a chute to the slaughterhouse. He was the captain, strutting on the forbidden promenade. And now, he was a captain swept up in a mutiny, with egg on his face. 

We weren’t bussed to school back in those days. We had to provide our own transportation: our feet, a public bus at our own expense, or in a friend or parent’s car. Bicycles were not an option; they weren’t “cool” back then, and we were desperate to appear cool. I was lucky; I got into a car pool. The turtle! A green, 1953, four-door, Chevy sedan, owned by John Fish. It was misnomer to call it a car pool; there was only one car, John’s. The rest of us were pedestrians. John collected a buck from the five of us every Monday morning, a good deal for us, a good deal for him. His gas bill for the week never exceeded three dollars. Our journey from the Fish residence to school was a somber event; we were still trying to wake up, or we were groping with the prospects of a taking a test we hadn’t gotten around to study for.

Our commute changed from humdrum to exciting the day John decided to try to make the trip without using the brakes. It was quite a challenge. We faced a route that involved a dozen or more traffic lights, a lot of early morning traffic and several hills. Every day we tried; every day we failed, but we kept extending our progress; we got closer and closer to school, using a technique of slowing down a block from a traffic light or stop sign and jumping out of the car to slow it down with muscle power instead of brake power. The “Turtle” had a manual transmission, which helped a lot when John downshifted and slowed the car down. Finally, we made it to within a block of the school. As we coasted toward the last traffic light it unexpectedly turned red. We jumped out of the car, and this time John joined us as well. We slowed it to a crawl, long enough for the light to turn green. We did it! We finally made it without using the brakes. We only did it that one time but the memory has lasted 50 years.     

My class officiers (June)

Our January class.

Lunch hour was different in the 1950s. It was freedom. I felt like I was out on parole, early release from a day of imprisonment. I didn't spend a second in the school cafeteria in my three years at Central. I walked past it and glanced in to see what it was like once, but my crowd was too "cool" to eat there. We wanted to be on our own, maybe have a smoke if we could find someone with a pack of Marlboros to bum from. No supervised cafeteria for us. Instead, we squeezed into Baird's Bakery, a small shop a few doors down from the school with a soda cooler in the back. For reasons I’ll never fathom, they not only tolerated fifty or more kids hanging out on their for lunch hour, they encouraged it. Most of us never bought any baked good and we took up valuable space. It was as crowded as Times Square on New Years Eve. There was barely enough room to maneuver a sandwich from a brown paper bag to your mouth. I never understood the attraction, but everybody who was anybody ate there eventually. I remember feeling like a contortionist as I consumed my three sandwiches, two cupcakes, pint of milk and apple while being jostled around in a sea of surging teenagers.

If Baird's Bakery became too crowded, which rarely happened in this era when it was popular sport to see how many people could squeeze into things, usually a phone booth or a Volkswagen Bug, we went down the street to Lottis’s Pool Hall, another business that tolerated a mob of hungry teenagers. But no matter what, even if we had to eat out in the rain, cold or a northeaster, we never, ever, ate in the school cafeteria.

I’ll be going to the reunion to talk about the math class where we placed bets on how often the teacher would scratch the bald spot on the back of his head and the history teacher who blew up and stormed out of the room at least once a month. I won’t be in the group discussing the school play, graduation day or student council. I hope I’ll run into somebody who remembers the time I drove my father’s Edsel to Quaker lake with my knees. I hope to see you there, even if you were in the class ahead of or behind us you are welcome to join us at the Friday night mixer at Flashbacks on August 13.

Real Men Don’t Wear Jeans!

By the Old Coot (Merlin Lessler)

Me on bike, Woody on the back.

Note the folded up Levi's

Some men may wear jeans but not old coots like me. True, you might spot us walking around in denim pants, but they aren’t jeans. They’re dungarees. Girls wear jeans! We wear dungarees! We wear the same rugged, denim pants that prospectors wore during the California gold rush, that cowboys wore when they settled the old west, that James Dean wore in the movie, “Rebel Without a Cause.” They aren’t jeans, not to old coots who grew up in the 40’s and 50’s. Jeans are the denim slacks that girls wore. Jeans didn’t have pockets and they zipped up on the side.

Boys wore dungarees; girls wore jeans. That was the law.  A boy wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of jeans. Jeans were essentially skirts with legs. In the late 1950’s, the fashion industry started calling dungarees, jeans. But we didn’t. We knew the difference. We stuck to our guns, stuck to our dungarees. Sometimes we called them overalls, but never jeans. There were a lot of makers of dungarees but the Levi brand was king. I can still remember the thrill of getting my first pair. My parents bought the cheap ones but it didn’t stop me from coveting a pair of Levi’s. They were the rage! They set you apart from the crowd, with the distinctive double arch, stitched on each back pocket, the little red tag and a leather logo on the waistband. They also had a unique, dark blue stripe on the leg seam that was revealed when you folded up the cuff. And you had to fold up the cuff because Levi’s weren’t pre-shrunk in the fifties. You bought them big. They weren’t soft either. New Levi’s were as stiff as frozen canvas.

We bought them two sizes big and patiently waited for them to shrink, wash after wash, until they fit. We started out with a six-inch cuff. Every time they were washed the cuff got smaller. Eventually, a cuff wasn’t necessary. It was a little sad when that day came. The distinctive blue stripe on the seam could no longer be seen. We did everything we could to break in a new pair of Levi’s. We ran and somersaulted across the lawn; we slid on the ground; we took them off and dragged them through the dirt. It helped soften them up and it was the only way we could get our mothers to wash them. It was a survival thing. The stiffness made them hard to walk in and the bigness made us look like nerds, what with a six-inch cuff and a waistline that settled just below our armpits.

My first pair of Levi’s came from the Harris Army and Navy store on Washington Street, a few doors down from the YMCA. I don’t think regular stores even sold them in those days. They were expensive, around four dollars if I remember correctly. Regular dungarees were about half that. I didn’t think so at the time, but mine was a fashion conscious generation. The consciousness was limited to two items of fashion, at least for me: Levi dungarees and P.F. Flyer sneakers. Levi Strauss started making the dungarees in 1872. BF Goodrich started making the sneakers in 1937. P.F. stood for “posture foundation,” an innovative insert that was claimed to reduce leg strain. I got my first pair of Levi’s when I was nine. It took a year of begging. I didn’t get the PF Flyers until I was twelve. Begging didn’t work for shoes. We grew out of them too fast. Levi’s never wore out and because we had to buy them so big, it was a year or more before we outgrow them. It was a feature that helped convince our parents to lay out the big bucks. And when the bottoms of our Levi’s started to rise above our shoe tops, we simply pushed them lower down on our waists, making us look similar to the low waisted hip hoppers of today. I starting helping with a Binghamton Evening Press paper route when I was twelve so I could earn the money to complete my ensemble and buy a pair of P.F. Flyers. It was worth the sacrifice. It made me a full-fledged member of the “cool cat” crowd. I was a fashion pate (in my own mind) as I paraded around in a pair of Levi’s with a blue stripe on a five-inch cuff and pair of black, P.F. Flyer high tops. But make no mistake. I never wore jeans. My sister did.

Published in the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin on May 10, 2008