Pamplin Avenue 04

Many sweet, golden images of childhood I can never forget, especially the huge, to my eyes, but gentle horses that pulled the dairy delivery wagons down Pamplin Avenue, knowing each stop without being prompted by the driver. The milkman would carry the bottles to the side doors of each house and the horse would calmly walk to the next stop. We thought that was a near miraculous ability. It reinforced our belief that animals were smart. And who could forget the delicious slivers of ice we begged from the milkman in the hot months of summer.

I still remember the day I turned five and learned to ride a two-wheeler. On my first downhill run, despite my father’s heroic efforts, I lost my balance, crashing headlong into one of those old cast-iron lampposts and knocked a big hole in its base, destroying the front wheel of the bike in the process.

Several months later I started going to kindergarten at Nativity Grade School and discovering girls. “Gels,” as I first called those strange but incredibly and endlessly fascinating creatures. Being from an all male household (of course Mother did not count in that calculus) and a neighborhood largely absent of young females definitely had its drawbacks.

At the end of one memorable day in kindergarten I felt a strong urge to take a dump. But I fought it off. Even then I hated to drop a load anywhere except in the security of my home.

An innocent little popcorn fart or three must have slipped out because the nun quickly came sniffing around my end of the play table.

“Does someone have to go to the bathroom?” she asked, in that dreaded voice of someone with a direct connection to the One Who Knows All. We shook our heads, even me who knew better. One blond little girl at our play table frowned at me with pursed lips; I knew my secret would not long be kept.

Minutes later the nun came cruising by again, nose working overtime. In her role as Fart Inspector General she looked me directly in the eye and asked, “Bobby, do you have to go to the bathroom?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the tattler nodding her pig-tailed head and pointing her finger at me.

“No, S’ster,” I lied, my heart in my mouth.

A few minutes later the noon bell rang and class was dismissed. After arriving home I immediately dashed for the bathroom and, with a mighty sigh of relief, ripped my pants off, climbed on the pot, and did the dirty deed. To my absolute horror, at that very instant the telephone in the hallway rang. My heart leapt into my throat. It had to be the nun, I thought in panic, checking up on me. Seeing if I had lied and was grunting on the toilet after all.

“Mom,” I shrieked. “If that’s Sister Josepha don’t tell her I’m in the bathroom.”

Naturally, it wasn’t the nun. But the story became an instantaneous addition to our family folklore.