The Ash Creek Papers

I am sure that it was not a regional thing… it had to be purely local, or even just in our neighborhood. But we had a series of nights that would lead up to Halloween. Halloween was pretty much the same in any community. But the evening before Halloween in our neighborhood was given over to “door bell night”. Really innocuous… kids would simply run the neighborhood, run up to folks’ homes and ring their door bell, and then high tail it down to the next home. Not too harmful, of course it was a nuisance in our house; because our ever-alert Bedlington Terriers always barked at a knock on the door, or a ringing of the doorbell. By the end of the evening they would be horse… and Mommie Soph would have lost her patience.

The night before “door bell night” was “chalk night”. And on this evening we would take chalk (or bath soap), and graffiti up the sidewalks (calling attention to certain residents who we felt were mean spirited)… or we employed our ivory soap to make artistic designs on car windows (once again, payback to cranky adults who complained about kids making too much noise, or having too much fun).

The night before “chalk night” was “toilet paper night”. Not hard to figure… the local stores had to love this, as several rolls of TP would not be used in the normal fashion of wiping fannies; but rather would be draped on tree limbs and over phone lines. And if there was an adult who was particularly nasty (or had a reputation for being chintzy on Halloween itself), then they might be treated to the mummification of their car in Charmin (especially if it was a compact).

Not horrible stuff.

At one point, these minor league shenanigans begin to lose their appeal. There is a divide in the road… some travel down the path to more destructive forms of mischief, and others travel down the path to the “old fogie’s home” and leave the mayhem to younger kids.

I forget when I lost interest in the pranks. Maybe I was too young? But I can recall one year my next door neighbor and I decided to reverse the tables. I think I was in 9th or 10th grade, and David Kimberly (who by the way went to Hopkins… then to Amherst, and is now a Minister) was in 8th or 7th and we decided that we would set up a defense perimeter around our houses.

The typical path that pranksters would take running between our houses covered about 25 yards of lawn, interrupted by our driveway. Each of our homes had shrubs and bushes planted in gardens that were directly in front of our houses. With great military skill, we decided to trap the obvious access route that kids would use in cutting across the lawn leading from one house to the other. First we put a series of low tripwires in the path. In between the wires we put wooden poles (used at other times for my mothers’ tomato plants) lying flat on the grass. Then we took up positions behind the bushes and armed ourselves with straws and bowls of dry peas. We then had covering fire to anyone entering the tripwire, or stumbling on the garden poles.

Now we waited in the dark.

It was a little disappointing. Not only were there not many kids that night; but those that did approach the houses used the sidewalk and did not use the “shortcut” across the lawn. Rats. But finally we caught someone in our web. We heard her steps, lighter than a boy’s, and easier breaths… we knew it was a girl. And like a deer she raced from my house to David’s… caught her foot on the first trip wire, tumbled into the garden poles, and then was caught by a hail of peas coming from two directions… she had just landed in our bee hive! Think twice next time before you think about ringing our doorbells!

The girl was Beth Sars. She lived up the street from us. She was our age… meaning I think she fell in between David and me. She had an older brother Dennis (who was 3 years older than me) who I used to love playing basketball with. But Beth was considered strange (as was her mother… and if it wasn’t for Dennis’ presence, he being sort of a tough guy, then Mrs. Sars’ car would have been marked for special treatment on chalk night)…

Beth was a thin blonde… but I can not remember anything else about her appearance. Could she have turned into a beauty? Maybe. But as a kid there was a brooding quality about her. And there was the time (when she was about 7 or 8) when she went running down the street wearing only panties yelling that her mother was chasing her with scissors. This event went unseen by me; but far too many folks did see it (and made note of it) for it to be considered an exaggeration… not the part about her mother actually chasing her with scissors; but the part about her running down Alston Ave nearly nude.

That Doorbell Night David and I had hoped to catch a bigger fish in our trap… we had to settle for Beth Sars. Why couldn’t she have used the sidewalk like everyone else that night… she would have been out of our peashooter range… no. Once we realized who had violated our perimeter, we called a halt and ceased fire. We stifled our laughs, secure in our hidden positions… waited for Beth to pick herself up (take a quick look about… what the hell had happened?); brush the leaves off her pants, fix her sweater… and then continue down the street to the next house.

David and I met on the drive… giggling (and this was before the time of “high fiving”… or we would have high fived)… relieved that all our preparation didn’t go for naught… but a little disappointed that we didn’t get that little shit Chris from McKinley Ave.

Our house on 25 Alston Ave in New Haven was five blocks from the Yale Bowl. Each fall Yale would play host to a half dozen football games. My first recollection of going to the games was in 1958 or ’59. I don’t think I really followed the games that closely then… I just went. It was an activity.

In 1960 Yale went undefeated and untied. Mike Pyle captained the Team. His senior year he played offensive tackle (and back in those days I think he played “2 ways”…. playing on defense as well as offense). He had gone to New Trier High School in Chicago which for many years was famous for sending 2 or 3 of its star players (and somewhat bright students) to Yale. After graduating, Pyle went on to play for the Chicago Bears (this was at a time when you could count the players in the NFL who came from the Ivies on your left hand and still have room to pick your nose and thumb a ride). He would become Captain of the Bears and a NFL All Star at Center.

In a quirk of scheduling, Yale played 7 of its 8 games at home that year. I saw every game that Yale played that year. The only away game being Harvard (which my father took me to… we went up and back on the train, with a bunch of rowdy Eli faithful).

I was 10, and that would be the year that I would become a huge Yale fan.

The following year my parents let me go to games by myself. A ticket cost $2., a program $1., a hot dog $.50, a coke $.25, a bag of peanuts $.25, and cotton candy $.25. I would be staked to $5. and I would walk to the Bowl by myself.

After buying a ticket and a program I would walk to Portal 26 and grab the aisle seat immediately to the left and 1 row down. I would be there an hour before game time and would have the chance to watch the teams warming-up on the field. I would scan the players and the stands with my binoculars. My dad had a great pair of binoculars… I could tell whether a guy handed the peanut vendor a $5 or a $1 from 100 yds away!

Over the years I got acquainted with the “regulars” who would sit in the same area… and by the time I was at High School I would have the company of a couple of neighborhood kids, too.

I would always have 2 hot dogs during the game and a coke (sometimes 2 cokes). Then I would treat myself to either peanuts (to take home for later)… or on occasion cotton candy.

Cotton Candy back then was always pink. And while not a big fan (there were kids who seemed addicted), I did enjoy the airy and sticky sweetness. But it did create a sticky mess, both on my hands and mouth, that couldn’t really be remedied ’til after I got home… and secondly, it made me thirsty.

But I did enjoy the sight of those “pink bouquets.”

Somewhere along the path, cotton candy also became available in turquoise blue. I could never fully understand it. Maybe someone felt that little boys felt uncomfortable eating something in public that was pink? I thought it might taste different; but it didn’t. And worse… now instead of a little added pink to your complexion around the mouth, there was now this hideous blue/green smudge.

So maybe your first recollection of cotton candy is at a circus, or zoo… maybe a country fair; but mine was the stadium where Mike Pyle and Calvin Hill competed on autumn Saturdays… and having $5 in your pocket made you the richest guy on earth.

I turned up the street on my normal route bringing Suzy to school a few days ago, and I heard the unmistakeable crunch of my tires crushing nuts that had fallen from the trees…

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I went to Gaylor’s for grades 1, 2 & 3… before entering Hamden Hall in grade 4. Gaylor’s was a tiny private school that was a throwback to the 19th century. It was a one room class room… now granted there are probably a few of these schools still kicking around today in the rural parts of our country. And while New Haven isn’t a huge metropolis, it is still called home to 150,000 souls. So a one room school for Grades one thru six had to be a bit of a novelty.

Why was I there? I have no clue. I think my parents thought that I would do better in a small environment… I would stay there thru grade six and then I would enter Hopkins… where Paul had gone to school.

I can remember just 2 boys from Gaylor’s… and only because they also moved over to Hamden Hall with me in grade four.

The school was in this old Victorian home and I don’t think there were more than 50 students in the entire complement (that’s grade 1 thru 6). The backyard of the school was the outside play area. No grass to speak of. A graveled drive, and this huge horse chestnut tree dominated the entire space. I remember falling on the gravel (it seemed more like rocks to me) and scraping my hands, ripping the knees of my pants, and cutting my knees.

In the fall, those huge chestnuts would litter the backyard. The nut themselves were enclosed in yet another shell that had bumps and made me think of corn fritters or sea mines. If you stepped on one of the fallen nuts by mistake you knew it… you would practically twist an ankle. But there was an special crunch to tromping on the nuts and grinding them into the gravel rocks. The nuts were also good for throwing. There must have been some prohibition against using them as missiles; but I can’t help but think that it would be awfully hard to keep 3rd grade boys from heaving them at one another.

I remember little from those days. A vague outline of the school, the interior of the room itself; but most significantly, that huge tree, fall days and running around the yard amongst the gravel and the horse chestnuts, hand and knees scraped.

I think my mother told me that it was lack of an adequate play area that convinced my parents that I had to go to a different school. And since Hopkins didn’t begin ’til the 7th grade… a school would have to be found for 4, 5 & 6.

I was accepted to Hamden Hall (along with Steven Hardy and Duncan Moffitt); but I had to be tutored in math that summer before entering. It turned out that in addition to lacking “gym facilities”, Gaylor’s was not particularly good at instructing in the “3 Rs”.

I guess it is convenient for me to think that my less than sterling academic career had its genesis at Gaylor’s… and being distracted by the sounds of mashing horse chestnuts under foot.