Eleven
Author: Bill Roberts
I definitely peaked at eleven:
Harry Truman threw out the first ball
to open the Senators’ season,
I attended my first production of “The Mikado,”
a boarder introduced me to spaghetti
with tomato sauce, cauliflower and one meatball,
the Redskins came back miraculously
from the brink and beat the Cardinals in a doozy,
W. H. Hudson spoke to me in “Green Mansions,”
J. Edgar Hoover let me heft his submachine gun
in his surprisingly cluttered F.B.I. office,
a nice girl named Jane Trilling gave me my first real
kiss that made all my toes wiggle,
I was MVP on our 90-pound football team
that went undefeated with me at quarterback,
Dad gave me my own library card and put the first
ten dollars in my postal savings account,
my older sister taught me to be a confident jitterbugger,
Mom had her ninth and last child,
I tanned that summer without peeling,
and my favorite pitcher, Bob Feller,
came to town and won all three times with his fastball.
It’s been downhill ever since.
(Published first in the July 1999 issue, Vol. 5, Issue 6, of George & Mertie’s Place – defunct)
Note: I probably borrowed a few months from ages ten and twelve, but who’s counting? Eleven was a great age, circa 1947, to be a kid growing up in amazing Washington, D.C. So much going on in my vast little world – pleasures, treasures of people, threats, illnesses always looming, acne, growing pains, slights, delights, fights, but oh the sights. These days I value the stories of friends who grew up in small towns or on farms – so completely different from my experience! – and I wonder how they would have managed growing up in the big city. God bless ‘em all, we’re all unique….unless we choose to follow those paid to lead us astray, their way.
