Earliest Memories Include Getting The Cops Called On Me

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States when I came into this world in November of 1956, a cloudy, cold Tuesday afternoon in Portsmouth along the banks of the Ohio River.

I spent a couple of days in what was then called an 'incubator' because I was a little small.

The earliest memory I have is of falling off a swing set in our yard and cracking my head on its metal frame. Pretty traumatic stuff for a three-year-old. Dad scooped me up and took me in the house. Now that I think about it, that blow to the head might explain much.

A significant memory is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the days that followed. His death was announced over the public address system at Raemelton school that afternoon; my teacher, Miss Lindbeck, cried, as did a lot of the staff. During the time his body lay in state in the Capitol rotunda and JFK's funeral, cartoons were preempted during television coverage. I couldn't watch Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat or Deputy Dawg. Black days for a kindergartener who didn't understand the magnitude of a presidential assassination.

We lived, back then, at 766 Lexington Avenue; at the time, Lex was a two-lane road and we had these big pine trees out in front of our house. They were the perfect cover for an incident that resulted in the first...and only...criminal contact I had with police.

I was five years old and had the police come to my house because my neighbor, Jerry Harper, and I had been throwing clods of dirt at cars as they drove by from behind the pines. Jerry was a couple of years older and easily convinced me that 'bombing' cars was a good idea. When I saw the cruiser pull into the drive I ran into the house and hid behind Mom's skirt as she worked in the kitchen, she not understanding why I was so scared...until the cops came to the door. That policeman, when he stepped into our living room, seemed 8-feet-tall and scared the ever-living crap out of me when he leaned over and, an inch from my face, said I'd go to jail if I ever threw anything at cars again.

Looking back, this is all pretty funny stuff now; you see, Jerry's Dad was a Captain on the Mansfield Police Auxiliary, yet Jerry spent a lot of time being in trouble. The policeman who came to the house had the sole aim of instilling fear...mission accomplished. I can recall several instances during my time wearing a badge of doing that very thing to a youngster, aside from telling them they'd be incarcerated. The point was to get them to behave, not make them afraid of police.

I was so scared by that brush with the law that, hours later, Mom asked where the harmonica that our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fleming, had given me was.

"It's outside." I wasn't about to go near the door.

"Well, you better go outside and get it, honey. It's supposed to rain tonight and it'll get rusty."

The thought of going outside was horrifying. I told Mom I didn't want to.

"Well why not?"

"Because that policeman will get me and take me to jail!"