![](\"https:\/\/images.dailykos.com\/images\/1308855\/large\/EMUCampusinSnow.jpeg?1717798231\")
It was Monday morning and I woke up to that disc jockey guy on the radio on CKLW again just talking away about the weather\u2026<\/p>\nIt was Monday morning and I woke up to that disc jockey guy on the radio on CKLW again just talking away about the weather\u2026<\/p>\n
Twenty twenty weather word, \u201csnow\u201d. It\u2019s comin down boys and girls, flake by flake, inch by inch, maybe nine inches before it\u2019s done in the Detroit Metro area, and it\u2019s not even Thanksgiving yet. Thanks for nothing, mother nature! Unless you’re a kid whose school is closed today, and then all hail the weather goddess! Temp in the high teens this morning\u2026 hi all you teens out there\u2026 but barely breaking thirty this afternoon. But somebody please \u201cbreak it\u201d to Tommy James and the Shondells that no school is no excuse for bad behavior\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Then the four \u201cnotes\u201d of them singing \u201cCKLW\u201d followed by that first line of the song with just that Tommy James guy\u2019s voice, that I think I\u2019d heard a hundred times by now\u2026<\/p>\n
My baby does the hanky panky<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Then the guitars started playing and the other guys in the band sang too in \u201charmony\u201d, singing the same words over and over again, but each time a little bit differently\u2026<\/p>\n
My baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky<\/p><\/blockquote>\nEvery time I heard the song now I thought of Frankie and Stuart, they were in the other fifth grade class with Mike and Arthur. They LOVED this song so much that whenever a bunch of us were talking outside school but people stopped talking for a second, one of them would look at the other and start to sing it like that Tommy James guy, \u201cMy baby does the hanky panky\u201d. Then the other would pretend to play guitar and make the guitar sounds, \u201cDer der der der\u201d, and then sing it back like the other guys in the band. Frankie had an older brother who worked at that record store called Discount Records, that kids, mainly older kids, went to buy records. And Stuart with Frankie\u2019s best friend.<\/p>\n
What \u201cthe hanky panky\u201d was exactly, no one knew for sure, but all us kids figured it was something dirty, a dance maybe, that a girl could do for a boy that was really \u201csexy\u201d, like she wanted to do \u201csex\u201d stuff with him. \u201cGet naked\u201d stuff. \u201cFeel her up\u201d stuff. \u201cJerk off\u201d stuff. Those were the things I had heard, so stuff like that I guess, whatever all that was. All those things kids would never say in front of grownups. And if they said them in front of another kid and the kid asked what something meant, they\u2019d just say \u201cya know\u201d, but wouldn\u2019t explain it. Then maybe say, \u201cIf you don\u2019t know already you\u2019re too young to know.\u201d So I was never stupid enough to even ask, I just imagined a boy and a girl touching each other or rubbing their bodies together.<\/p>\n
It was a pretty stupid song actually, because after singing that same thing five times they sang it five more times, like they couldn\u2019t think of anything else to sing.<\/p>\n
My baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky
\nMy baby does the hanky panky<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI mean if I\u2019d heard the song a hundred times, and they sang those words like a hundred times in the song, then I\u2019d heard them sing those words ten thousand times!<\/p>\n
Finally the song had a verse part where he actually sang other words\u2026<\/p>\n
I saw her walkin’ on down the line
\nYou know I saw her for the very first time
\nA pretty little girl standin’ all alone
\nHey pretty baby, can I take you home?
\nI never saw her, never really saw her<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWas that what older boys did when they liked a girl? They\u2019d wait until the girl was by herself and then go up to her and say, \u201cHey pretty baby, can I take you home?\u201d I could never do something like that in a million years!<\/p>\n
But then the guy sings, \u201cI never saw her, never really saw her\u201d, which made no sense at all. Did he see her for the very first time or not? It was a stupid song.<\/p>\n
I swung my feet out of bed and sat up. David was already up and gone, at least from our room. Out the windows I could see the snow falling, very big flakes just floating down. I couldn\u2019t wait to get outside and be in all the fresh snow. I wondered if the other older kids in my school would be playing soccer in the snow.<\/p>\n
I turned off the radio, put on my clothes, got my math book with the sheet of homework problems I had done and went out in the hallway. I could hear dad typing in his office at the other end of the hall by the bathroom as I started down the stairs and around the corner. When my hand reached to grab the metal bannister the spark of electricity stung my fingertip. We had learned about that \u201cstatic electricity\u201d in our science book. I could swish my feet on the carpet as I walked around for a couple minutes and then go to touch the banister and a little lightning bolt half an inch long would come out between my fingertip and the metal. David thought that was super neat. I did too, even though it stung my finger.<\/p>\n
David was in the kitchen with mom and the kitchen radio was turned on. Mom saw me and said they were listening to the Ann Arbor radio station. That one was the highest number, \u201c16\u201d, which was as far as you could turn the dial to the right, but I didn\u2019t listen to it because they didn\u2019t usually do music, or at least music that I liked. She said they were going to read the list of schools that were closed soon. I got even more excited that I might not have to go to school today, and I made myself a bowl of Cheerios and milk for breakfast, ate them, listened and waited, hoping.<\/p>\n
And then the guy on the radio read the list. Allen. Angell. Bach. and then he said it, \u201cBurns Park\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlright\u201d, I said, looking at David, \u201cNo school today mister D\u201d, which was the main nickname we called him.<\/p>\n
Dad came down from upstairs and stood in the doorway to the kitchen. His lips were pushed together like he was thinking of something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiz\u201d, he said, \u201cCan you turn the heat on the tea kettle? There should be plenty of water still in there.\u201d He sighed and said, \u201cI need more coffee! I\u2019m trying to get the final test done for my journalism students and my head\u2019s kind of cloudy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I\u2019m not surprised Eric\u201d, mom said, \u201cYou were tossing and turning all night. Is everything okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad pushed his lips together again, nodded and said, \u201cYeah\u201d, but it didn\u2019t sound like he was sure, \u201cA lot of things were going through my mind last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the kids\u2019 school is closed today due to the snow\u201d, mom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh wow\u201d, dad said, \u201cDidn\u2019t realize we got that much, I better call in to see if my classes got canceled.\u201d He took the talking and listening part of the phone off its hook and rested it on his shoulder as he reached around the kitchen table to dial a number, then he held it to his ear. Mom went back to washing dishes. I ate my Cheerios and David sipped a glass of orange juice as we watched dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoris! You\u2019re there!\u201d he said, \u201cIt\u2019s Eric Zale. So I assume classes are on even though it\u2019s snowing?\u201d I could tell he was listening to that person talking on the other phone as he nodded his head slightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Doctor Wilson make any decision on the proposal?\u201d he asked. He closed his eyes and nodded some more. \u201cOkay\u2026 okay\u201d, he said, nodding some more.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid your brother get that job?\u201d he asked. He opened his eyes and made a big smile and said, \u201cOh good\u2026 so good\u2026 glad to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he listened some more and said, \u201cNo problem. I was happy to help him in any way I could. He\u2019s such a bright young man!\u201d Then, \u201cI\u2019ve got to go. I\u2019ll see you when I get there. What?\u201d He listened again and said, \u201cOh Doris, you are so bad, but that\u2019s very funny. I\u2019ll touch base when I get there\u2026 gotta go\u2026 bye.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that all about?\u201d asked mom. Dad closed his eyes again and shook his head and waved his hand across his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnglish department politics\u201d, he said, \u201cIt would take me a half hour to explain.\u201d The tea kettle started to whistle. Dad came into the kitchen, opened the coffee jar and put a big spoon of the brown powder in his cup and poured the hot water in from the kettle. I could smell the coffee smell and it always smelled good, but a couple times when mom or dad let me taste it tasted horrible.<\/p>\n
Mom breathed out air. \u201cSo Eric\u201d, she said, \u201cI was planning to have the house to myself this morning for some \u201cme\u201d time. I didn\u2019t expect the kids to be home from school so I was wondering if you could take them with you to your office. You\u2019ve been talking about showing them where you work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, he said looking at David and me, \u201cI\u2019ve got a ten o\u2019clock class, but if you two are okay hanging out in my office til I\u2019m done, I\u2019d love to show you around the place before my one o\u2019clock class. What do you guys think?\u201d David nodded. I wondered what mom meant by \u201cme time\u201d but I didn\u2019t ask and finally nodded too.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat\u201d, he said, \u201cWe should leave by around nine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure you\u2019ll be okay driving in the snow?\u201d mom asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure Liz\u201d, he said, \u201cI\u2019ve got chains in the garage and I\u2019ll throw them in the back of the stationwagon in case I need them.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
So as the big soft snowflakes continued to fall, dad got David and I in the car and tried to drive out of the driveway but the car wouldn\u2019t go anywhere even though you heard the engine and the wheels were spinning. So he got out of the car, got the snow shovel from the garage and shoveled the snow away under the car and behind it, where the tires had to go. Then he got out those chain things and laid each down in a straight line behind each back tire and drove the car back just a little so the back tires were on top of the chains. Then he got down on his knees by each one and pulled the chain up around the tire and hooked them at the top. The car looked kind of neat, like a tank or something.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the car, guys\u201d he said, rubbing his now dirty hands together, and blowing air between them because they were cold. Big snowflakes landed on his gray cap.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019re ready for anything!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
David and I got in the car and took our favorite places in the \u201cwayback\u201d. Now the car started moving slowly backwards, which was neat because it felt like we were driving it instead of dad. But when we got out in the street, which didn\u2019t look like a street anymore but just one big white flat part that went up onto everybody\u2019s front yards, we moved forward, which was backward for David and I in the \u201cwayback\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dad drove slowly around the park then took a left and then a right and down this street until we got to Stadium, which only had a little bit of snow on it because dad said it had been \u201cplowed\u201d. Dad turned left and as we drove down the big street there was a grinding sound under us. Dad said that was the chains on the \u201cmacadam\u201d, the stuff the road was made of. We drove by this big square building on a snow covered hill that dad said was \u201cTappan Junior High\u201d, where dad said I\u2019d go to school after I was done next year with sixth grade at Burns Park. It looked like a giant fort, sitting by itself on the white hill, or maybe a giant factory but with no smokestacks.<\/p>\n
We also drove by restaurants where we\u2019d go sometimes to eat. There was that \u201cFrontier Beef Buffet\u201d, which was dad\u2019s favorite place because he said it was a \u201cgood deal\u201d, which meant it was cheap, which dad always liked. It was where that guy with the white coat and hat would use this giant knife to cut roast beef off this big round cooked thing that used to be part of a cow before it was cooked. And \u201cFriar Tucks\u201d where I liked to eat their \u201cclub sandwich\u201d, which was a \u201cBLT\u201d that also had chicken on it. Finally \u201cHoward Johnson\u2019s\u201d, which was mom\u2019s favorite restaurant because they had fried clams, which David and I thought tasted \u201cdisgusting\u201d, a grownup word that older kids liked to use too because it sounded so good when you said it, I think because it sounded like hissing.<\/p>\n
Then we drove by that \u201cArborland\u201d place that was a \u201cshopping center\u201d, which was a bunch of stores around the sides of a giant parking lot, that looked like they were all one long building. We went under a bridge and drove for a while until you could see that giant \u201cwater tower\u201d way up ahead, that looked like a giant rocket ship, except it was made out of bricks. The round top part had snow on it. We were in this other city now next to Ann Arbor called \u201cYpsilanti\u201d, but mom and dad usually just called it \u201cYpsi\u201d, which was like a nickname. It was interesting that Ann Arbor didn\u2019t have a short name, at least not one that I\u2019d heard mom or dad or anyone else use.<\/p>\n
We turned off the big street by the water tower and went to this place with all the big brick buildings that looked like the \u201ccollege\u201d ones in Ann Arbor. Dad parked the car in a parking lot, which I guess had been \u201cplowed\u201d, because there wasn\u2019t much snow on the ground. When he came around to the back of the stationwagon to open the \u201chatch\u201d, he looked at the two of us like he was thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave either of you two guys ever been here before?\u201d David looked at me and I shook my head, so David shook his head too. The snow was still falling around us and everything was really quiet, even though you could see those \u201cstudent\u201d type people walking around carrying books.<\/p>\n
We went inside this big building, which kind of looked like my school only the ceiling was higher and the floor was a shiny gray.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy office is on the third floor\u201d, dad said, his eyes sparkling, \u201cShall we take the elevator?\u201d Both David and I nodded at the same time without even looking at each other first. I had REALLY LIKED elevators since the first time I could remember riding them at that \u201cUnion\u201d place where dad took me to get my haircut, and now David\u2019s too. The last time we were there, David and I had played \u201celevator tag\u201d, where one of us was \u201cit\u201d and had to \u201ccapture\u201d the other one by being outside the doors of the elevator they were on when it opened. I had always liked stairs, because it changed where you were when you went up and down them. And elevators were that way too, and even better because they were big machines you could control by yourself just by pushing the buttons, and feel the going up or down part, even if you couldn\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n
As we walked through the building we didn\u2019t see any other people. Dad said that some of the other teachers may have canceled their classes because of the snow, but he wanted to have his, even if some of his students didn\u2019t show up. Though I\u2019d never seen him be a teacher, he would always talk about it like he really liked it, even when he had to grade tests, which mom said was the worst part of being a teacher. Dad said that he even liked grading tests because he liked to see his students doing well and \u201cdemonstrating their knowledge\u201d. In the school David and I went to, all the teachers were women, except for that gym teacher guy. But I guess in college, most of the teachers were men. I remembered once spying on mom and Molly\u2019s mom when they were talking in the kitchen of our old house, and Molly\u2019s mom said that she wanted to be a college \u201cprofessor\u201d, that\u2019s the word they used at colleges for teachers, but she ended up being a mom instead. I wondered about mom, if she wanted to be something different than a mom, like a tennis player maybe.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s office was kind of neat. You went through the door from the hallway into a bigger room that had doors to four smaller rooms. One of those smaller rooms was dad\u2019s office, which was just big enough for a desk in front of a big window, a table and one of those \u201cfiling cabinets\u201d on the right side and bookshelves on the left. They were regular wood bookshelves, not the board and bricks ones he had in his office at our house. The window was neat because it was really tall, and went up to the ceiling, and dad showed us how you had to use this long pole with a hook on the end to pull down the \u201cshade\u201d, though I didn\u2019t want the shade down because you could see all these other buildings, and watch each big snowflake for a long time as it floated down from above the top of the window to the ground way below.<\/p>\n
On top of the bookshelves were a bunch of empty tin cans that didn\u2019t have the paper around the outside that showed you what kind of fruit, soup or vegetable it used to have in it. Each can had a rolled up piece of white paper inside it. I went up to look at all of them more closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an interesting assignment I gave one of my writing classes\u201d, he said, \u201cI gave each of my students a tin can. You can see how each one is a little different from the others. They had to write a short essay using descriptive language about how their particular can looks, and then we\u2019d see in class if their fellow students could figure out which one was theirs based on what they wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad looked at his watch and said he had to go teach his class soon. He said it was just downstairs on the first floor of the building in room 105, and if there was an \u201cemergency\u201d we could come down to that 105 room and find him. Otherwise he\u2019d be back up here a little after eleven. He showed us where he had pieces of paper we could draw on and those \u201cbluebooks\u201d we could write on. He opened the middle drawer of his desk and showed us where there were different colored pencils and pens. He said we could sit out in the bigger room and use the tables there to draw or write on.<\/p>\n
He showed us where the drinking fountain and the men\u2019s bathroom were just down the hall. He said if anyone asked who we were or why we were here, tell them we were \u201cDoctor Zale\u2019s kids and our school was closed today because of the snow\u201d. He took two regular books out of his bookshelves and put them on a stack of papers and then took what he called his \u201cgradebook\u201d from his desk. It looked like the one my teacher had that had those metal wire circles along one edge. He said he was off to teach his \u201cjournalism\u201d class and he headed out into the hall.<\/p>\n
David got some pieces of paper and started drawing people. Not regular people but those \u201csuperhero\u201d guys from comic books, like Superman and Batman. I wasn\u2019t sure what to do, so I looked at the books in dad\u2019s bookcase.<\/p>\n
There were books about \u201cjournalism\u201d, which dad had told me was about how you write stories for newspapers and magazines. There were others about \u201cliterature\u201d, which he said was a word for books, plays and poetry. \u201cBooks about books\u201d, he had said, laughing. There were other books about writing. One was called \u201cWriting the Perfect Paragraph\u201d. We were learning about \u201cparagraphs\u201d in my class. They were supposed to have a \u201ctopic\u201d sentence, then \u201csupporting\u201d sentences, and finally a \u201csummary\u201d sentence at the end. I liked asking dad questions about that kind of stuff because he really liked answering those kinds of questions, and he also liked it that I was learning about that kind of stuff in school.<\/p>\n
There were also some magazines piled up on top of the shelves where there weren\u2019t any books. Some of them were called \u201cReviews\u201d, like \u201cPartisan Review\u201d, \u201cHudson Review\u201d and \u201cEvergreen Review\u201d.<\/p>\n
The \u201cEvergreen\u201d ones had interesting pictures on the covers. The one on top looked like the picture of the top part of a man with no clothes on with the back of his head on a woman\u2019s chest and she didn\u2019t have any clothes on either. One of her hands was on top of his head and the other on his back. I carefully picked up that magazine to see the one below it, which had a picture of a woman in one of those old-fashioned bathing suits standing in the water with a rope between her legs that was touching her private parts down there. The bathing suit was wet so you could see her chest \u201cfigure\u201d parts sticking out, Dale\u2019s \u201cheadlights\u201d from that joke about her and Roy Rogers. Some of the older boys in the park called them \u201cbreasts\u201d or \u201ctits\u201d, and talked about the older girls they thought had \u201cnice\u201d ones or \u201cbig\u201d ones. I had never seen anything like those pictures before. I had never seen an older girl or grownup woman naked, even just the top part of her body.<\/p>\n
I wondered why dad had magazines like these \u201cEvergreen\u201d ones at work but not at home. I figured it was maybe because kids my age weren\u2019t supposed to see them, because we weren\u2019t old enough yet. Older kids in the park had always talked about this magazine called \u201cPlayboy\u201d, that had pictures of women without their clothes on. They said that store called the \u201cBlue Front\u201d had that magazine and sometimes they\u2019d go there and sneak looks at the naked pictures in the middle part, when the guy that worked there wasn\u2019t looking. Only grownups could look at or buy those magazines without getting in trouble.<\/p>\n
I just wanted to see those kind of pictures of women without their clothes on so I could figure out how older girls and women\u2019s bodies were different than mine. When Molly and I took our clothes off up in her bedroom when we were five, her body wasn\u2019t that different from mine, except I had a penis thing and she had something else, but I really wasn\u2019t too sure what it was that she had instead.<\/p>\n
So I put the magazines back as I had found them, the one on top of the other, so dad couldn\u2019t figure out that I looked at them. I looked at David and watched him thinking real hard as he drew his superhero guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u201d, I said, walking up to him, \u201cYou want to explore the building?\u201d He nodded but he kept drawing too, which made me a little bit mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to go NOW?\u201d, I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a second\u201d, he said, something mom and dad said a lot but I had never heard David say before, \u201cI want to finish Batman\u2019s legs. It\u2019s a lot harder to draw them when I can\u2019t see the picture in my comic book.\u201d He pushed his lips together as he drew them and then frowned when he was done.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay\u201d, he said, \u201cLet\u2019s go!\u201d<\/p>\n
He followed me out into the hallway. It was kind of like the hallways in my new school except it was straight instead of going around a corner. It was wider, the ceiling was higher and the floor was shinier. We walked down to one end where there were stairs going down and a big window that looked down on the parking lot, other buildings and a bunch of trees. The snow was still floating down and I could see our car had white snow on the top part that hadn\u2019t been there when we parked it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis place is like a giant fort\u201d, David said. I remembered when I was his age how I liked pretending places were forts, even the lilac bushes in the park. Now that I was nine, I didn\u2019t think about forts so much anymore, just sometimes, but David was only six.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess so\u201d, I said, but in a way that sounded like I really didn\u2019t think so. He wrinkled his nose like he wanted me to feel like the building really was like a fort too.<\/p>\n
\u201cShall we go down to the other side of the fort\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd see what we can see from there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah okay\u201d, he said, smiling.<\/p>\n
We walked down the hallway to the other end. A few of the other doorways off the hallway were open, and the rooms inside looked like the bigger room outside dad\u2019s office. I could hear a typewriter but when I looked in through the open door I couldn\u2019t see anyone typing. But then I saw a woman sitting at a desk and I could tell that she saw us. She got up and came through the doorway out into the big hallway where we were.<\/p>\n
\u201cDear me\u201d, she said, \u201cAre you two children lost?\u201d David looked worried but shook his head and looked at me. I looked at her and shook my head too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re okay\u201d, I said, \u201cWe\u2019re waiting in our dad\u2019s office while he teaches a class down in room 105.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there something wrong that I can help you with?\u201d she asked, \u201cDo you need help finding that classroom? I can take you down there.\u201d I shook my head, but didn\u2019t like it that she was talking to me like I was a little kid who couldn\u2019t figure out how to go down the stairs and find a room on the first floor that had a number by the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just showing my little brother around the place\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s your father\u2019s name?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctor Zale\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my god\u201d, she said, putting her hands over her mouth for a second, \u201cYour Doctor Zale\u2019s children! You must be Cooper and this must be little David. Your father talked to me this morning but he didn\u2019t say he was bringing you two in.\u201d She looked down at David and made one of those big smiles that grownups do to kids sometimes. \u201cYour father\u2019s told me all about you, how smart you both are and how you\u2019re a good baseball player too!\u201d<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t sure what to do or say when grownups said stuff like this, trying to make you like them. I didn\u2019t want to nod like, yeah I am super smart, because that would be \u201cconceited\u201d, that\u2019s the word the older kids in the park used. And no kid liked it when some grownup said stuff like that to one kid, but not to all the kids. And I knew you were supposed to say \u201cthank you\u201d when some grownup did something to help you, but saying I was super smart didn\u2019t really help me, it just made me kind of embarrassed. So I just looked at her and tried to smile like grownups always did to kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, she said, \u201cIt was a pleasure to meet both of you, but I\u2019ll let you continue your \u2018tour\u2019. But if you need anything, you can find me over there in room 312.\u201d Now I nodded, and tried to keep smiling. David nodded too. She walked back into her room.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, I said to David, trying to say it the same way that woman did to be silly, \u201cWhere shall we go next?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go spy on dad\u201d, David said. I was surprised he even knew that \u201cspy\u201d word. He and his friend Hannah must have played spying with the older girls back at Allmendinger Park.<\/p>\n
Even though the stairs were kind of neat because they were so big and had giant windows between the floors, we decided to take the elevators because they were even neater, and we didn\u2019t get to go in them very much. There were two elevators right next to each other, with the button in between that you pressed to get one of the elevators to come to where you were and open. It was the same way in that Union place in Ann Arbor where we got our hair cut. Since we were on the top floor there was only one button, because the only way you could go on the elevator from here was down.<\/p>\n
David got mad at me when I pushed that button to make the elevator come so I let him push the \u201c1\u201d button in the elevator to make it go down to the first floor. After it went down, the doors opened and there were three of those college student guys standing there. One was really tall with curly red hair and freckles.<\/p>\n
He laughed and said, \u201cYou two look a little young to be college students!\u201d The other two laughed. I wanted to say something funny too, so I tried to think what Ricky would say if this happened to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re short for our age\u201d, I said. All three of them laughed. David looked at me like he couldn\u2019t figure out why I said that.<\/p>\n
They let us walk by them as they came into the elevator, and as we walked away and the elevator doors started to close that one really tall guy said, \u201cYou\u2019re a crackup kid!\u201d, and I thought that Ricky would be proud of me.<\/p>\n
Once the elevator doors were closed David looked up at me and asked, \u201cWhy\u2019d you say that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were being silly\u201d, I said, \u201cSo I decided to be silly too.\u201d David nodded his head like that finally made sense.<\/p>\n
We walked to the room with the \u201c105\u201d by the door. The door was closed but it had a window in the top part and we could see dad sitting on a table looking at all these students sitting in front of him. His legs were hanging down and he was swinging them back and forth like a kid. The desks the students were sitting in weren\u2019t like the desks in my school because the top part didn\u2019t open up and was really small. We walked up close to the door, where dad couldn\u2019t see us but we could hear him talking even though the door was closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an interesting way of looking at it\u201d, we heard him say, \u201cAnybody else?\u201d. We heard another voice but I couldn\u2019t figure out what they were saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo is that coming from your own prior knowledge on the topic or from something specifically cited in the article?\u201d dad asked. Then someone else was talking and we couldn\u2019t hear the words.<\/p>\n
We heard dad say, \u201cI would pay good money to see THAT!\u201d, and then we heard a bunch of people in the room laughing. I couldn\u2019t remember the last time dad said something that made people laugh. He kind of sounded like a different person than when he talked to us or mom. And he didn\u2019t sound like any of MY teachers, but then he was a man and they were women, and he was talking to college students, not kids like me. David and I listened for a little while longer, but then dad stopped doing much talking and it was just other people in the room talking that we couldn\u2019t hear very well, which wasn\u2019t interesting anymore, so I said we should go back upstairs.<\/p>\n
We took the elevator back up to the third floor. I let David push all the buttons this time. When we went back into the big room where dad\u2019s office was, there were those same three students again that came into the elevator on the first floor when we went out.<\/p>\n
That one really tall guy with the red hair, who had talked to me before saw us, smiled and his eyes sparkled. \u201cHey short-for-your-age\u201d, he said, \u201cWhat are you two doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re waiting for our dad\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou two are Doctor Zale\u2019s kids?\u201d he asked. I nodded. David nodded too. \u201cHow about that!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell this is a bit AWKWARD\u201d, he said, looking at his friends and then back at us, \u201cBut we\u2019re in your dad\u2019s Advanced Writing class and we\u2019re kind of in the middle of playing a prank on him.\u201d He rolled his eyes around, but then looked at me again.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong\u201d, he said, \u201cYour dad\u2019s great, he\u2019s my favorite teacher.\u201d He looked at each of his friends and asked, \u201cFavorite?\u201d, and each of them nodded.<\/p>\n
Then he looked back at David and me and said, \u201cBut he made us do this crazy assignment where we have to DESCRIBE a plain tin can with no label on it. He said we need to do it well enough so someone else in the class can read what we wrote and figure out which one is ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my buddies and I figure we\u2019ll fix him\u201d, he said, making his eyes big and making a big smile, \u201cWe\u2019re going to switch all the essays so they\u2019re all in the wrong cans and now HE\u2019S going to have to read them and figure out which went in which can. IF he even can.\u201d He laughed and his friends did too. The three of them pulled the rolled up papers out of cans and put them in other cans so they were all mixed up.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at David and me again and wagged his finger at us. \u201cYou two need to pretend you didn\u2019t see us.\u201d Then he thought about that and said, \u201cActually\u2026 I think he\u2019ll get a kick out of it so you guys can tell your dad whatever you want.\u201d Then he laughed again and said, \u201cBut you\u2019re going to have to give him a pretty good description of which cans\u2026 I mean students\u2026 we are.\u201d The three of them laughed and went out of the big room into the hall.<\/p>\n
I thought it was neat, playing a \u201cprank\u201d on the teacher, even though the teacher was our dad.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Dad finally came back from his class and I could tell that he was happy. \u201cI\u2019ve got the best group in my Journalism class\u201d, he said smiling, \u201cSometimes I\u2019m amazed Eastern even pays me to do this work. Of course, according to your mom, they don\u2019t pay me enough.\u201d He pushed his lips together and said, \u201cShe\u2019s most likely right.\u201d He put his hand on his forehead, looked down, and shook his head.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at the cans with the papers on them on the table by his desk in his little office, the ones that those student guys had changed. He wrinkled his nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you two move those cans around?\u201d he asked. I shook my head. David looked at me shaking my head and started shaking his head too. Dad saw that and figured there was something we weren\u2019t telling him.<\/p>\n
He bent down toward David and smiled at him. \u201cAre you sure Mister D?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
David shook his head again and said, \u201cWe\u2019re not supposed to tell you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoop\u2019s not supposed to tell you either\u201d, David said, trying to get dad not to look at him but look at me instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo a conspiracy\u201d, he said. I didn\u2019t do or say anything. I wasn\u2019t going to tell on other kids, even big kids who were college students. But David nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u2026 did you guys touch the cans and the papers in them?\u201d he asked. Again we both shook our heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid someone ELSE touch the cans and the papers in them?\u201d he asked. We didn\u2019t shake our heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay\u201d, he said, laughing through his nose, \u201cA really tall kid with red hair and freckles?\u201d Again we didn\u2019t shake our heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cFranklin\u201d, dad said, shaking his head slowly, \u201cThat kid\u2019s a live wire!. Smart as a whip though.\u201d He looked at his watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, he said, \u201cNormally I\u2019d eat my sandwich and have my one o\u2019clock class, but Doris said they were canceling. She said she met you two in the hall exploring the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah David wanted to so I figured I better go with him\u201d, I said, like that was all David\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo that\u2019s fine\u201d, dad said, \u201cI meant to mention that it was okay for you two to explore the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway\u201d, he said, clapping his hands together, \u201cYou guys want to stop for lunch at Dog and Suds?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHotdogs!\u201d said David, excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cYessiree\u201d, said dad, \u201cAnd rootbeer!\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad and I put on our black plastic boots and jackets, but when I went to help David put on his boots he shook his head and said, \u201cI can do it!\u201d Dad filled his briefcase with a lot of books and then tried to pick it up AND that box with all the cans with papers in it, but couldn\u2019t do it very well.<\/p>\n
\u201cCloob\u201d, he said to me, \u201cCan I get you to carry the box full of cans?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanna carry it\u201d, said David, almost crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh boy!\u201d dad said, looking at me, \u201cShall we let your little brother carry it?\u201d I raised and lowered my shoulders but I gave David the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be careful out there David\u201d, dad said, \u201cIt may be slippery where the snow\u2019s packed down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI KNOW\u201d, David said, like we shouldn\u2019t ask him that. I didn\u2019t mind David getting to do stuff that I would usually do. I just didn\u2019t want him to think that he could always do whatever HE wanted instead of me getting to do some stuff.<\/p>\n
We took the elevator down to the first floor of the building. David wanted to press the buttons so we let him put down the box of cans so he could press it and then pick them up again. Outside everything was covered in fresh white snow except for the street out front where there wasn\u2019t as much snow and it was packed down.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh good\u201d, dad said, \u201cThey plowed the street. Now if we can get out of the parking lot maybe we\u2019ll make it to the restaurant and home from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
At Dog and Suds we all got hot dogs and root beers because dad said that they had the best hot dogs, and I wanted dad to think I was smart about food and David wanted to do what dad and I were doing. They had those neat booths with the soft shiny cushions and they had one of those big jukebox machines with lots of metal pages of songs under the glass and all the buttons to push what songs you wanted. Dad gave us a quarter, which let you pick six songs, and said David and I should figure out which ones we wanted.<\/p>\n
I figured there were three ways to do the picking. One way was with me in charge, being the older brother. David could say songs that he wanted, and I would think about those, but I would make all the choices. The second way would be to get David to agree with me on all six. The third way was just to let David pick three and then I would pick three.<\/p>\n
We flipped through the metal pages under the glass top part of the big jukebox machine. They had lots of Motown songs by the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and the Temptations, including that new one \u201cBaby Love\u201d by the Supremes. Then they had lots of Beatles songs plus that \u201cYou Really Got Me\u201d song by the Kinks that my school friend Arthur REALLY liked, but I liked too.<\/p>\n
David really liked the Beatles. We had their \u201cHard Day\u2019s Night\u201d record \u201calbum\u201d, and we listened to it over and over again. You could put that top thing on the record player over on the side, instead of on top of that little sticking up post thing that you piled the records on, so when the side of the record finished, that \u201cneedle\u201d part would go back and play it again. I liked the record too, but David REALLY liked it, specially the “I Should Have Known Better” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” songs on the second side, though he also liked the \u201cHard Day\u2019s Night\u201d song on the first side. But he just liked letting it play by itself, over and over, so he usually had it on that second side because it had two that he really liked and the first side only had one.<\/p>\n
David just wanted to pick songs on the jukebox from the Beatles \u201cHard Days Night\u201d album, even though we played them at home all the time, but I kept trying to tell him that since we could always listen to those songs at home, why not listen to other ones here that we didn\u2019t have at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut those are my favorite songs\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell yeah\u201d, I said, \u201cBut if you don\u2019t listen to more different songs then you\u2019ll never find any NEW favorite ones, and you\u2019ll get bored with the ones that are your favorites now. Then where will you be?\u201d I thought that made a lot of sense, since I knew way more than he did about how things worked and he should listen to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re still my favorite songs!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell how \u2018bout we just play two of them\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd maybe that really really neat one by the Kinks, \u2018You Really Got Me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wrinkled his nose. \u201cI don\u2019t like that one. It\u2019s too noisy!\u201d He looked up at me next to him, both of us leaning against the big shiny machine. \u201cI\u2019ll pick my ones and you can pick yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shook my head. \u201cIt just seems like such a waste\u201d, I said, \u201cWhen we get home we can play those Beatle songs as many times as we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe\u201d, he said, \u201cBut just cuz you\u2019re older doesn\u2019t mean you get to say what\u2019s best all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t do that ALL the time!\u201d I said, pretending I was mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do it SOME of the time\u201d, he said, and I could see him smiling a little like he liked arguing with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re a pest\u201d, I said, banging my shoulder against his. He grinned and nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my job as your little brother\u201d, he said, looking into the jukebox but not back at me. I wondered where he had learned to say all this stuff, he was only in first grade.<\/p>\n
So David picked the three Beatles songs from that album, \u201cA Hard Day\u2019s Night\u201d, \u201cCan\u2019t Buy Me Love\u201d and \u201cI Should Have Known Better\u201d. I of course picked \u201cYou Really Got Me\u201d by the Kinks and I almost picked it twice as \u201cpunishment\u201d to David, but I picked the Supremes \u201cBaby Love\u201d and the Beach Boys \u201cI Get Around\u201d.<\/p>\n
We went back to our booth with dad who had gotten us all our hot dogs and root beers. Mine and David\u2019s just had the regular yellow mustard. Dad got his with onions, relish, and that spicy brown mustard, all piled up on the top part of his hotdog, so he couldn\u2019t even keep it from falling off when he picked up his hotdog to eat it. And when stuff did fall off he just ate it with his fingers. I think if mom was there she wouldn\u2019t think that was right, that that wasn\u2019t \u201cgood manners\u201d. But dad was different when he wasn\u2019t around mom, and I think he was also different when he was with his students instead of David and me, I think because he didn\u2019t have to be their dad.<\/p>\n
Then our songs started playing on the jukebox. Some of the words in those three Beatles songs, that I\u2019d heard so many times playing on our record player, made me think, made me worry even.<\/p>\n
When I tell you that I love you
\nYou’re gonna say you love me too
\nAnd when I ask you to be mine
\nYou’re gonna say you love me too<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo many songs were about \u201clove\u201d stuff. It seemed like the only thing some older kids and grownups wanted to sing about, specially those Beatle guys. And asking some girl you liked to be YOURS, that seemed really scary. I didn\u2019t want to belong to anyone else, so why would I want to ask anyone else to belong to me, specially someone I really liked?<\/p>\n
I should\u2019ve realized a lot of things before
\nIf this is love you’ve got to give me more<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI kept thinking about those words, \u201cI should\u2019ve realized a lot of things before\u201d. There was so much I didn\u2019t know that maybe I should already know but I didn\u2019t. That worried me.<\/p>\n
You know I work all day
\nTo get you money to buy you things
\nAnd it’s worth it just to hear you say
\nYou’re going to give me everything
\nSo why on earth should I moan
\nCuz when I get you alone
\nYou know I feel okay<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo what did it mean for your girlfriend to give you \u201ceverything\u201d? I figured that had to be like \u201csex\u201d stuff. But couldn\u2019t you just do that naked stuff, that \u201csex\u201d stuff together and not have to give or take EVERYTHING?<\/p>\n
I’ll buy you a diamond ring, my friend
\nIf it makes you feel alright
\nI’ll get you anything, my friend
\nIf it makes you feel alright
\n‘Cause I don’t care too much for money
\nMoney can’t buy me love<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo these words were really confusing. He\u2019d buy this girl a diamond ring so she\u2019d like him and be his girlfriend, but HE didn\u2019t care about money, because it can\u2019t buy him love. But wasn\u2019t buying her a diamond ring trying to buy HER love? And didn\u2019t older girls just like older boys, and not just like them because they gave them stuff. How did it all work?<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t heard that \u201cYou Really Got Me\u201d song by the Kinks as much because we didn\u2019t have that record, but it was the same kind of thing except now the girl was making the guy crazy and worried all the time because she \u201cgot\u201d him, whatever that meant.<\/p>\n
Yeah, you really got me now
\nYou got me so I don’t know what I’m doing, now
\nOh, yeah, you really got me now
\nYou got me so I can’t sleep at night
\nYou really got me
\nYou really got me
\nYou really got me<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI didn\u2019t want ANYBODY to \u201cget\u201d ME. But was that what older kids did, running around trying to \u201cget\u201d somebody they really liked. And I guess when you did \u201cget\u201d them back, you were supposed to do sex stuff with them, because that\u2019s all you could think about.<\/p>\n
See, don’t ever set me free
\nI always wanna be by your side
\nGirl, you really got me now
\nYou got me so I can’t sleep at night<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYou wanted that other person you liked to keep \u201cgetting\u201d you forever, and never \u201cset you free\u201d, like you were in jail but you liked it.<\/p>\n
But the Beach Boys song was nicer and it made more sense.<\/p>\n
I’m gettin’ bugged driving up and down the same old strip
\nI gotta find a new place where the kids are hip<\/p>\nMy buddies and me are gettin’ real well known
\nYeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI had moved from Allmendinger Park and Bach School, which was kind of MY \u201cold strip\u201d, to this \u201cnew place\u201d, Burns Park, where all my new friends seemed more like older kids who really knew about stuff, and I was feeling like an older kid too. And there were different groups of kids, \u201cbuddies\u201d, who thought they were the best ones, better than the other groups of kids who were \u201cbuddies\u201d.<\/p>\n
That was what all the older boys – the Beatles, the Kinks and the Beach Boys – were singing about in THEIR songs, but it was that older GIRL singing in the Supremes, and she was sad about all the bad stuff her boyfriend was doing.<\/p>\n
Ooh baby love, my baby love
\nI need you, oh how I need you
\nBut all you do is treat me bad
\nBreak my heart and leave me sad
\nTell me what did I do wrong
\nTo make you stay away so long<\/p><\/blockquote>\nShe thought maybe it was her fault that her boyfriend did bad stuff to her. That was interesting, because the Beatle and Kink guys thought it was THEIR girlfriend\u2019s fault too.<\/p>\n
Dad listened to all our songs while he ate his hotdog and scooped up the stuff that fell off and ate that with his fingers. He said he liked the Beach Boys song best, because he liked the way they sang \u201charmonies\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was Monday morning and I woke up to that disc jockey guy on the radio on CKLW again just talking away about the weather\u2026 Twenty twenty weather word, \u201csnow\u201d. It\u2019s comin down boys and girls, flake by flake, inch by inch, maybe nine inches before it\u2019s done in the Detroit Metro area, and it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[1777,13,1774,1773,1799,1800,1775],"class_list":["post-7801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-1960s","tag-ann-arbor","tag-autobiography","tag-childhood","tag-free-range-kid","tag-growing-up","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t