Way back when

Saturday
By GC

Nineteen-hundred and forty-six
eight years old and flush, with
fifteen whole cents in my pocket;
enough for a Hopalong Cassidy,
a Zorro, or a Lash LaRue fix
and a nickel left for a candy bar
but I had to wait forever for the
noon opening of the Crystal theater
aka the "Bucket of Blood" and the
thunder of hooves, the report of the
never emptied six shooters, the slash
marks of the rapier, the crack of the
bullwhip, movietone news, and Daffy Duck
and all of the silver screen adventures
of my Saturday afternoon boyhood, even
on occasion a bare breasted African woman
or a stampedeing herd of striped Zebras

#2

That same year (1946), early
on a Saturday morning, the
self-same eight year old
was, for the sin of talking
aloud in the shhh of the public
library, banished; so, on the way
out of the building he told the
Librarian what she could do
with her library, ripped up his card
and tossed it on her desk.  A
week went by and pride swallowed
he came back and apologized, and
she graciously issued a new card, and
even  more graciously never said a
word to his Mom, and so, through
her goodwill his affair with books
filled with wonders of  the world
resumed with barely a hitch.

Some say, however, he never did
learn to keep his mouth shut.