Page 88 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
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I did not grow up in a place where Little League, “travel teams,” or, for that matter, any other form of organized activities could be found. We simply organized our own games and never had adult supervision. (And yet I cannot recall an occasion when there was a big fight over a call in a ball game or, for that matter, any real fighting at all.) With the exceptions of Hebrew School, about which more later; clarinet lessons, which lasted about four months and stopped, thankfully, when I broke my thumb playing my favorite sport, softball; and SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) preparation courses—there were few “educational offerings” that my parents or any other parents felt obliged to force their children to undertake, at least in an organized fashion.
There were no car pools, something that I was unaware of until I had children and was living in the suburbs, because there was nothing to carpool to. We didn’t have computers, PlayStations, iPads, or any other electronic hypnotics to spend our days staring at, and we didn’t watch much daytime TV.
In fact, televisions were making their first real appearance in the late 1940s, so they had not as yet had time to root people to their couches, at least before what is now known as “prime time.” The primary afternoon TV show in my youth was the Howdy Doody Show, which featured marionettes—Howdy, who had freckles and looked like a young Ron Howard; Flub-a-Dub, a platypus-looking animal; and Phineas T. Bluster—and live people: Buffalo Bob Smith; Clarabell the Clown, who didn’t speak; Chief Thunderthud, who was capable of saying only, “Cow- abunga”; and Princess Summerfallwinterspring, who was very pretty (but, unfortunately, died in an auto accident). The show also had an onstage area, known as the “Peanut Gallery,” in which children sat. One of the highlights of my youth occurred when I actually sat in the Peanut Gallery, although I know that I was disappointed to learn that the pup- pets had strings and were operated from above, and to find out that Buffalo Bob was not on the show that day. It was then that I first heard the words heart attack. Thus, you can see how the show contained some important life lessons. The two big evening shows, at least to me, were
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