Little Oscar smelled of beer and cigarettes

One of the joys of summer is seeing the wiener-mobile as they travel the country. Some people do not like wieners, but they make a tasty treat at baseball games and summer pick nicks. When I was a kid, I remember the first time the wiener-mobile came to our town. At that time, there really was a Little Oscar who was a little person. He rolled into our town. There was a crowd of kids with the parents standing in the back. The door opened and out popped Little Oscar. I was at the front of the crowd and it sort of pushed us up against him. I was kind of surprised that he smelled of cigarettes and beer. Good times were being had as he rolled down the road apparently. He got the crowd to move back and pretty soon, the parents had stepped away to talk. As soon as he realized they could not hear him, he started to say some pretty salty things to us kids. We all learned some new words that day. Of course, when we tried them out on our parents, we got to taste bars of soap. They wanted to know what hoodlum of the town was teaching us sailor language. As kids, we were pretty truthful. When we told them it was Little Oscar, we got to eat some more soap. It was not good to lie to your parents, they said. Over the years I have met a number of people who worked at Oscar Mayer who all said that Little Oscar had quite a dirty mouth on him. He was told to keep it shut, but he had learned how to teach the kids a lesson, I guess. The people who knew him also said he was very fond of his cigarettes and beer. We actually had a friend named Oscar. We used to sing a rather ribald version of the wiener song about wanting to be someones wiener so all the girls would be in love with me.....

9/11

I thought a lot about that terrible day from 11 years ago. Maybe it is because that day was also a Tuesday. In the next few days I will think about the eerie silence when the planes were grounded.

The Old Bag

When we were kids, we had a baseball field at the corner of the block. The corner yard was big, so it had an equal right and left field. Past left field was a front yard of a neighbor who did not object to our games. Past right field lived a woman who we called The Old Bag. Fortunately, none of us batted left handed. Anything hit to right field was an automatic out. However, every once in awhile someone would hit a monster hit to right field that went into The Old Bag's front yard. She must have been always watching us play baseball. As soon as that ball went toward her front yard, she was out on the porch. If the ball went into her yard, she was there to pick it up. She took it in the house and threw it away! Hence, to us, she was The Old Bag. At that time, most people had a housekeeper. The Old Bag had one. The housekeeper would sometimes smuggle the balls back to us. However, she explained that The Old Bag would keep count of our balls to make sure they went into the bottom of the garbage can. The garbage was collected early in the day, so we rarely had a chance to tip it over to get our balls back! The teams shared the duties of providing balls. They were mostly whiffle balls anyway. so they did not last a real long time since we used wooden bats. Our summers were filled with efforts to keep the Old Bag away from our balls. Sometimes, she would come out and yell at us about playing baseball. There were no easily accessible baseball fields and our parents knew where we were. So, our parents just told us to keep playing and try not to hit the ball into the Old Bag's yard. At the time, the backyards in the block were open so we could run around in the big area between the houses. Of course, The Old Bag had a fence around her back yard. Any stray balls that flew into the yard were immediately scooped up and disposed of. She must have kept a keen eye on us. One time she reported me to my parents that I was peeing behind a big tree in the next yard. I figured no one could see me because I was between a tree and a garage. Actually, we all peed there, both the boys and the girls on the block. My parents said I should come in to pee, but the single bathroom of the house was on the second story. You never knew when it was occupied, so planning ahead was a hard thing for a little kid. I have no clue what the Old Bag's name was. She was just a nasty old lady who stole our balls. I suppose I am her age now. STAY OFF MY LAWN YOU NASTY LITTLE KIDS!