From the depths of February, an icy interlude
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- February 22, 2025
- 783
Let’s say I got a crisp, new $10 bill for my 10th birthday in 1965.
Here’s a list of what I would have bought:
—A pack of Black Jack chewing gum (15 cents)
—A copy of Mad magazine (35 cents)
—Two bottles of Choc-ola (50 cents)
—A Super Ball (98 cents)
—The latest Rolling Stones single (99 cents)
—A Slinky ($1)
—A Hot Wheels car ($1)
—A Bic Clic pen ($1)
—Ten packs of Topps baseball cards ($1)
—An Etch-a-Sketch ($2.99)
You’ll notice that there’s no mention of clothing, not a hint of what a shirt or a tie or a pair of dark trousers might cost, let alone a belt, black shoes or a pair of socks, the typical Catholic schoolboy attire.
Instead, it’s all about immediate gratification, the kind of shopping spree I often imagined but never had a chance to experience, though I do recall a favorite uncle giving me, my sister and my brother an hour to spend $25 apiece on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
I can still remember that afternoon at the newly opened mall and the fact that I scored an ABA red, white and blue basketball and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, a three-record set that cost 12 bucks, an astonishing amount for 1970. Nowadays, though, a pristine copy can set a collector back in excess of $1,000.
That’s what in this foul (fowl?) year of 2025 … a few dozen eggs?
The cost of everything, it seems, is out of control, which is why I rarely leave the house these days; then again, with the ice storms and the nightly snowfall lately, it’s a cold, slippery world out there.
Speaking of slip-sliding away, the playground at the grade school I attended wasn’t anything special, just a paved parking lot, but with its natural incline and wide open spaces, we always had lots of fun.
One of the things my schoolmates and I used to enjoy during winter recess was the very definition of simplicity. There was a slope alongside the nunnery and, after the snow had fallen, it was easy for us to create a downhill ski jump. You’d take a running start and let gravity do the rest, just gliding along on the smooth surface of your hard shoes, then slicing through the air.
The idea was to stick the landing and finish your jump with élan and panache, creating a spectacle for the other kids who weren’t interested in the risks involved in such a dangerous demonstration.
Naturally, though, there were occasional spills, but if you were careful and experienced enough, you could walk away from that kind of mishap none the worse for wear, still quite eager for more.
One afternoon, though, my luck ran out, and I hit the pavement knees first, ripping a hole in my pants and causing blood to flow.
After the bell rang, signaling our return to classes, I was stopped by the teacher, who noticed the rip in my trousers. He pulled me out of the line of students marching back inside and had me stand with my back against the brick wall of the building, glaring at me.
You have to understand that I was a pretty smart kid, getting good grades and mostly staying out of trouble. I’d mastered the Latin Mass, served as an altar boy and generally skated through easily.
Being made an example of bad behavior wasn’t something I was accustomed to, so when my teacher asked if I had any idea how much a new pair of pants cost, I thought he was kidding around.
“No idea,” I said, rather flippantly. “What’s the big deal, anyway?”
What followed was a dressing down the likes of which I’d never known before, a litany of my callous carelessness, an indictment of my ne’er-do-well lifestyle, an accusation of wasting my parents’ hard-earned money, and, worst of all, the idea that I’d let him down.
Thus duly chastened, I apologized and promised that I’d do better.
Catholic children carry significant guilt on their way through life, the seeds of which are planted early, what with their indoctrination to original sin and the burden of everyday temptation. We’re taught from a young age that thinking about sinning is just as bad as actually doing it, a philosophy that’s bound to cripple.
Just the other day, my wife noticed how torn and frayed my jeans were, the way the neck of my Nantucket sweatshirt sagged, the holes in the fingers of my gloves and the sad shape of my sneakers.
She suggested a birthday outing to a clothing outlet, updating my wardrobe, then having a nice little lunch to celebrate afterward.
I waved her off, saying something like, “I’m good, but thanks.”
She knows me well enough to understand the way I’m wired to hang onto things far beyond their expiration dates, trying to coax the last ounce of usefulness from a VCR player or a manual typewriter, unwilling to part with T-shirts I wore in college.
I’m reminded of a line from the TV show “M*A*S*H,” one delivered by Sidney Freedman, a psychologist in the war zone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, departing the operating room, “take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to find him on his Facebook page, where older things (and friends) still have value.