Born on the Cusp of the Pig
A Boomer Remembers
Will de Kypia, 1947-????

I was born at the end of
the first half of the final century
of the previous millennium.

My grade school was Catholic
and the teachers were nuns
who still wore wimples.

Students wore uniforms.

For girls, a red plaid jumper,
a white blouse, and a red beret.

For guys, a light blue dress shirt,
a dark blue tie, long pants
cuffed and belted.

We went off to school like the
seven dwarfs marching to their mine,
skipped back home like prisoners
escaped from their cells.

After class most of us played
with pals or tussled with siblings.

Everyone did chores and homework,
watched TV, wondered what they
would eventually grow up to be.
~
Something was always happening around town.

Boys on bikes tossed the latest news
onto the smiling porches of neighbors.

Teenagers in T-shirts mowed lawns or worked on cars.
Believers in black went door to door saving souls.

A roving knife sharpener trundled his grindstone on
its wheeled tripod, calling out the old-time street cry
“Any knives or scissors, scissors or knives?”

Avon ladies and the Fuller Brush guy sold cosmetics
and cleaning supplies for the modern housewife.

Tradesmen delivered spotless laundry, perfectly
pressed. They bore Grade A milk, fresh eggs, and
wholesome bread right to your unlocked door.

On hot summer nights the Good Humor man
came by in his truck with ice cream bar treats.

We had the same postman for years. He brought
us seed packets in the spring, a Christmas toy
catalog in the fall, everyone knew his name.

Mom bought clothes from ‘Roebuck & Sears.’
”We’ll look great for almost nothing” she'd boast.

“Might wear those pants when I’m dead” Dad once said.
Sure enough, when the old man finally died he did.

We mailed a cereal box top to Quaker Oats and
they sent us back the deed for a square inch of gold
rush land in Sergeant Preston’s Yukon Territory.

I wanted to put a Monopoly house on the teensy lot.

There were so many kids, we didn’t need playdates
to organize games. Depending on the season you'd grab
a bat, a ball, and a mitt/the pigskin/a puck and a stick,
head to the usual diamond/park/frozen pond, choose
up sides, and that made it officially "Game time!"

No parents/coaches/batteries required.

We played basketball sometimes, soccer never,
and we didn’t even know what a frisbee was.

That small town had a downtown where we’d
go to shop, to meet friends, to have fun.

Downtown meant a Kresge’s and a Karmelkorn.
The post office, three churches, a drug store
and a diner. A savings bank and a bookstore.

A movie theater with just one screen and a gas
station with only two pumps. Our sole fancy restaurant
whose white tablecloths and leather-bound menus
made it appropriate for any special occasion.

And the community center, which held a craft
room, a music room, a game room offering
ping-pong, puzzles, and board games.

Right next door, the public library.
“We’ll be studying at the libe tonight”
meant we’d be flirting with girls.

The bowling alley was the place grownups
went to bowl, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and
listen to the jukebox play its parade of hits.

For a quarter they got three
songs or one pack of cigarettes.

Across the street stood the train station.
You could take a train into the city which had a
big downtown. Department stores, museums,
a zoo, hotels, good parts and bad parts.

The city had an airport too, an international airport
with flights to anyplace anyone ever wanted to go.
~
A bountiful world held countless futures,
each of them splendid and all of them ours.

Someday we'd have to choose one but there was
no rush because we were going to live forever.