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Birthday Boy 1943

Chicago, March 14, 1943. My fourth birthday. It was cold and cloudy.  A few days earlier it had been seven below zero. The temperature had risen but there was still a chill in the air mixed with an inescapable threat of rain. There would be no playing outside for my guests and me on this day.

In the early afternoon the guests arrived, crowding into our tiny apartment. There were Gramma and Grampa Peller and Aunt Mickie, driven in from Maywood by my Uncle Leo, who also brought several of Grampa’s wooden folding chairs from the Workmen’s Circle hall. Auntie Lucille came with them. They left Cousin Bobby, then an infant, with Lu’s folks, the Chulock’s, who owned a drug store in Maywood.

Uncle Jack and Aunt Sallie drove in from the Southside. They carried Cousin Charlotte, a toddler of two and a half, up the three flights of stairs.

Dad’s sister, Aunt Harriet was also there. How could it be a party without her and her famous cackling laugh?

Our next-door neighbor, witty, outgoing little Estelle Fagiano, was in the kitchen helping my seven-month’s pregnant mother.

There were more than a dozen children— my neighborhood playmates as well as kids I had never met before but whose parents were friends of my parents. Among them were Joy, Ronnie, Karol, Jimmy, Roberta, Rodney, Roslyn, Norton, Rocky, and Adrienne.

I played almost every day with Adrienne Fagiano or Norton Lowy, both of whom lived in the building.  Although Roslyn Goldstein lived a block away across from Muller’s grocery store, she was my favorite. My mother would visit hers when we went shopping and Roslyn and I would play tag in the courtyard of her apartment building. Her mother used to tease me and predict that I would marry Roslyn someday.

At my party, we children played our games—Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Spin the Bottle, Ring Around the Rosie, and London Bridge is Falling Down. It was a time when I was at ease and affectionate with all my playmates—not even self-conscious when we played Spin the Bottle and I had to kiss the girls. Four of us boys found our way into my parents’ bedroom, which was serving as a cloakroom. The bed was covered, several layers deep, with hats, coats, mufflers, and gloves. We tried on the men’s wool felt hats, which fell down over our ears to our chins, and pretended to be cowboys.

When we returned to the living room, Estelle in her loud, deep voice insisted that I sing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” and Aunt Harriet asked for “Oh, Johnnie.” I complied. After being applauded for my impromptu recital, it was time for cake and ice cream. As the crowded group sang “Happy Birthday,” five candles were lit on the white whipped cream cake with pink, yellow, and blue rosettes. Mother told me that the cake was something special. It was from Schlosser’s Bakery on Madison Street. “There is one candle for each year and one to grow on,” my grandfather explained as he took me over his knee and lightly smacked my bottom five times.

 I made my wish (that my father would become a soldier or a sailor—a wish that fortunately for us did not come true!) and blew out the candles. Then it was time to unwrap the gifts. There was a mechanical train with a windup key, Tinker toys, and books. I remember a “Fuzzy Wuzzy” book with animals coated with velveteen so that they were wooly to the touch, a Wizard of Oz-based story with parts that moved with the pulling of tabs, Peter Rabbit, and a picture book about K’tonton, a thumb-sized Jewish boy who rode on his mother’s handheld food chopper as she prepared liver pate. And, of course, there were the practical gifts, the bane of every child’s existence: socks, wool mittens and scarves, shirts, shorts like Mickey Mouse’s with straps that buttoned in front at the waist, etc.

Aunt Harriet promised that she would take me to the circus at the Chicago Stadium in a few weeks when they came to town. She said that the Lone Ranger and Silver would perform. Aunt Harriet’s promise was as delightful to me as any gift, although I knew that she worked at the Rock-ola plant making submachine guns. I had been hoping that she would get a real Tommy gun for me or at least a toy one. How I would be envied by the neighborhood gang the next day when we once again played “guns.”

Gramma Peller gave me a box of hard candy and chocolate bars from her brother Irv, who was “in the business.”  Grampa gave me a package of Wrigley’s Peppermint chewing gum tightly wrapped in a new dollar bill. He also handed me a shiny steel penny, saying, “A penny for your thoughts, boychik!”

My thought? “Grampa, why isn’t this penny brown like all the others?”

“Because the government needs all the copper for the war,” he responded. I did not understand but I knew I had been answered and that was enough.

The adults said nothing about the war even though both of Gramma and Grampa’s younger sons and the sons and brothers of other guest were in the service. However, they did vigorously comment about how frustrated they were by the rationing of sugar, coffee, gasoline, food, and shoes. Uncle Leo, who worked for a government agency, informed us that in a few days meat, fat, and cheese would be added to the list.

After all of the children except for my cousin had left, Uncle Jack, mother’s eldest brother, who always enjoyed teasing children, tried to trick me by showing me a nickel and a dime and asking me if I wanted the larger one or the smaller one. I had fooled by this game before and grabbed the dime. Then Uncle Jack wanted to know, “Who do you play with the most?”

I said, “Adrienne.” 

“Adrienne’s a girl. You should play with boys,” he said sternly. “What about Norton? He lives downstairs, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, next door. I play with him too,” I answered, “but I don’t like him much. He always hits me.”

“Well, stand up for yourself. Hit him back,” Jack opined.

“I don’t know how to,” I replied.

“Here, pretend that I am Norton. Now try to hit me,” he ordered.

So I flailed at him, slapping the air in front of me while I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

“No, not like that!” said Jack. “Don’t fight like a girl! Be a mensch!” Then he showed me how to make a fist and throw a punch but he could not give me the courage or resolve to punch Norton.

While I conversed with various aunts and uncles, Mother had stretched out on the sofa and was gabbing with Estelle, Lu, and Sallie about her pregnancy, the in its seventh month. She told them what a “big belly ache” I had been—that I had come six weeks early, that she had been in labor for thirty-seven hours, that I looked like a shrunken up little old man with bags under my eyes and a patch of gray hair, and that they had to put me in an incubator.

The boy in an incubator! Like a chicken’s egg about to hatch! That’s me. And that’s the beginning of my story.

Top left: The Lone Ranger makes his first personal appearance, April 24 to May 9, 1943. Top right and bottom: Brace Beemer as the Lone Ranger in 1943. Beemer was not the first radio Lone Ranger but the one who played the part the longest—1941 to 1954. The mellow-voiced actor was six foot two, an excellent rider, and a crack shot.  At the Olympia Circus in Chicago, the entrance to the Chicago Stadium floor was covered with a huge painting of a radio. As the band played the William Tell Overture, the masked man and Silver burst through the paper painting. The Lone Ranger galloped around the floor twice, firing his pistols, and rode off stage. It was all over in seconds but the author (then four) has never forgotten the thrill! Thank you, Aunt Harriet!

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