Assignments

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 442.

Part 1

You might say I had a mythical childhood. What few fantasies radio didn't inspire, storybook characters from my weekly binge at the public library did. When I look back at the 1930s and early 1950s, I realize that my dog-eared orange library card was more valuable to me then than my slick orange-and-gold MasterCard is to me now. It didn't matter if the books were fiction or non-fiction. All of them were passports to faraway places and wonderful adventures.

All my life I have been fascinated by the mysterious relationship between myth and truth. As children, we regularly mix myths and truths. This is of no real concern unless we carry forward and cling to the myths in the arena of real living. For many of us, the myths slip in as facts, and before we know it, we have been sold a bill of goods that leads us down a worthless, frustrating dead-end road.

Like that of most kids of my generation, my fantasy world centered on the radio, the library and, of course, Saturdays at the Roxy Theatre. When I could earn the dime for a ticket and the extra two nickels for popcorn and a soft drink, the silver screen became a prime spawning ground for my imagination. I did a lot of pretending when I was growing up. My comic book collection helped mc pretend I was the «Green Lantern», «Hawkman», and «The Blue Beetle» all rolled into one undersized kid. I pretended my father didn't have to go to war. I pretended my parents got along better and they didn't always have financial problems.

I was born and raised in San Diego, California, during the post-depression and World War II years. Like many of my friends, I recall cutting out pieces of cardboard and slipping them inside my shoes each morning so I wouldn't wear holes through my socks.

What a pair of shoes mine were! They were my school shoes, gym hoes, and Sunday shoes all in one pair, and I took good care of hem knowing that they had to last at least a year or until my feet outgrew them.

We had little money, but my mom was good at making us seem rich. She packed my lunch, usually a sandwich and an apple, as if it were a delicacy. I remember the morning I asked her what the .sandwich-of-the-day was, expecting her usual answer «of peanut butter and something». She answered, with a twinkle in her eye, «Why, today you're getting a delicious chicken sandwich ... without the chicken!»

And so I did. My chicken sandwich without the chicken was two pieces of bread with margarine, lettuce, salt, pepper, and mayonnaise between them. My mom could even make poverty fun!