Great Coca-Cola Heist: The Broadway Musical

On the night of June 20th in 1956, just before I moved from Downingtown, an event occurred that seemed like magic. It flies in the face of what I have said about my honesty, because it was also dishonest. It didn’t occur to our little boy minds at the time that we were stealing. We thought we were brilliant.

The “we” of whom I speak was Dave Fidler, Stuart Meisel, Teddy Miller, Bill Brookover and myself. Ronald wasn’t along. There might have been another boy, perhaps Buddy Bruton (pictured right), who lived near Dave. The five or six of us got together in the loft over the Fidler’s garage. It was halfway between a sleepover and a campout. We had a mixture of blankets and sleeping bags strewn across the floor. There was a radio.

We sat and talked until late, when sometime around midnight somebody said, “I’m thirsty,” and we all decided we were thirsty too. We left the loft and hiked down the block. There was nobody else around and hardly any traffic on the Lincoln Highway. The street was pretty dark between the dim streetlamps and the shadowy tree branches blocking what light there was. We crossed over to the gas station on the corner.

By that hour the station had long closed, but there was a lit up Coca-Cola vending machine outside along the front. Here is how the machine worked. You dropped a dime in a slot and then pressed a lever down. There was a narrow windowed door along one side. You opened the door and there were all these round openings out of which protruded the necks of the sodas. A metal device held them captive, but when you dropped your money and pressed the lever, one of the bottles released for pulling free.

Teddy Miller knew the magic trick. How he knew, I couldn’t say.

We dropped a dime and Teddy pressed the lever, but not completely. He held it there a fraction of an inch from full cycle. The machine released one bottle with a large clicking sound and one of us pulled the bottle out. Teddy very gently raised the lever just slightly and pressed it down again, but not all the way. There was another click and another coke. Teddy accomplished this maneuver until every one of us had a soda on that one thin dime.

We ambled back to the garage, laughing and praising Teddy for his ingenuity. We would brag about that stunt, never giving a thought to being a little gang of thieves. That was the one time I got away with something like that and never went back and paid. One of us probably took the empties to some store and got the deposit, too.

We sat about drinking our ill-gotten gain and talked until one by one guys drifted off to sleep. I couldn’t sleep, my mind too charged up. I was very cozy in my make shift bed. It was peaceful and pleasant. The radio played all night. The station was playing Broadway scores, the whole albums without much interruption. I lay there listening.

“Poor Jud is daid./Poor Jud Fry is daid,” sang a baritone voice. It was Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! I fell in love with Broadway that night. I asked for the cast recording of Oklahoma! for my birthday and I got it. By the time I graduated high school my record collection was pretty much a history of Broadway from the late 1930s through the late 1950s.

My father took us to see “Oklahoma!” when the wide-screen film played in Philadelphia on November 3, 1956. Elmer Lentz and Dot Bernard went with us. They were very close friends of my dad’s. Elmer was also a truck driver and he and Dot had been going together for about 15 years. The film had been released during 1955 in Todd-AO, but only to limited presentations. It was later released to the general theater audiences in CinemaScope and this came around in late 1956. I had loved the score since we did the all-nighter in Dave Fidler’s garage. The cinematography of the movie was beautiful. Cinemascope had come to be as a film industry defense against Television. Todd-AO was another format  named after Mike Todd the producer. Cinema (1952) had been another attempt to hold back TV. 
"Oklahoma!" was the first of big splashy Hollywood productions dad took us to see in Philadelphia. It starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Dad took us to see “Carousel!” starring the same stars when it came out later in the year. “Carousel!” remains my favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein play..

I bought the original cast album of Carousel! My next cast album would be “My Fair Lady” which had came out earlier that spring. After this I began collecting as many of the Broadway scores as I could. 

Sometime in the autumn of 1955 my grandfather had his fall. He was a foreman at the Downingtown Iron Works. Part of his job was inspecting the welds in the large underground storage tanks built at the plant. He was at the top of a ladder inside the tank. I don’t know if he was ascending or descending, but his foot slipped and he fell to the bottom of the tank. He landed one foot first and suffered multiple fractures in that leg. An ambulance took him to the hospital. The doctors applied a cast that ran from his hip down to his foot. He was laid up at home for weeks, unable to work and having a good deal of pain. He had always been a drinker, but now he was consuming even more to dull the boredom and the pain.

Ronald had taken another job and without his bike we weren’t going up into the hills as often. I was spending a lot of afternoons and evening at Stuart Meisel’s. Stuart was always finding interesting things to do. One time he took me into the basement. It was like something out of a horror movie. There were dark narrow corridors and odd little rooms and bins going off these halls everywhere. It was a very creepy place. I only went down there one time.

Another time we were kind of exploring upstairs and we found this odd looking contraption. I have mentioned this before. It was an old fashioned Dictaphone, one that used wax cylinders to record. It worked by speaking into a hose. A needle reproduced your speech waves into the wax. You could then play it back.

This was better than those recording booths at the Farmers’ Market. It was free. We sat on the floor several nights singing and talking into this machine.  We began making up original songs after a while. I don’t have any of those songs and I don’t know if Stuart still has the recordings or any means to play them. But there was one song I did write down.

We use to sit in the parlor every Wednesday night at his place and watch “Disneyland”. Stuart’s father was always sitting in his favorite chair as well. Maxwell Meisel was very dignified. Walt Disney introduced “The Goofy Sports Story” this particular night. They were holding the Melbourne Olympics in the summer of 1956. I guess Walk Disney was keying off of the coming Games. “The Goofy Sports Story” had a narrator named Spyrus Olympopolus, who told how ancient games became the ones played in modern times. The character Goofy demonstrated the action. In several situations Goofy would yell, “Ya-ha-whoey,” such as when he went off a ski jump.

After the show Stuart and I went to the Dictaphone and began making up verses to a song.

Grandpa was driving down the mountain on an icy day,

When his car hit the curve, it began to sway.

Off of the road it found its way

And as he went over you could hear him say:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they lay him away that day.

Each verse we did would end with that same refrain, “Ya-ha-whoey! Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey! Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!” with a variation on the last line.

This was the last verse:

A man went up to a scaffold real high,

A way to roofs simplify.

Got too near the edge, sweet old guy,

And as he slipped, you could hear his cry:

“Ya-ha-whoey!

Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!  Ya-ha-ya-ha-whoey!”

And they laid him away to lie.

We wrote this song on March 21, 1956.

I wrote a song on my own that summer and mailed it to a publishing house in New York. The tune was conceived as a Country and Western song, but I only had a rudimentary understanding of writing music. The Publishing House rewrote the music as a Pop Ballad that I didn’t think worked very well. Actually, even then I didn’t like anyone to edit my work. I called the song “My Little White Lamb” and Crown Music Company in New York published the sheet music in 1957. I retained the copyright. The old saying, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” inspired the song.

She came into my life

Like a little white lamb,

But she went out

Like a big roarin’ lion.

Why did she double-cross me

At the crossroads of life?

Why, oh why, did she leave me?

 My song was recorded a year or so later as a 45-RPM Extended Play by Ben Tate on Ronnie Records. It went straight from the recording studios to oblivion. Still, it was my first fully published work in the world at large rather than just locally in school.

I used both “Ya-ha-whoey” and “My Little White Lamb” in a play I wrote in 1959 to impress a girl, but we’ll speak of that later.

Stuart (who else) suggested we try out for Babe Ruth Baseball that March of 1956. Downingtown didn’t have a Little League program at the time. Organized baseball outside the high school consisted of the Babe Ruth program and American Legion ball. We were too young for the American Legion league, but Babe Ruth began at age 13. The Babe Ruth League was a name change in 1954 from “Little Bigger League”, which had been founded in 1951.

We tried out in Kerr Park. I don’t know if Stuart played on any team that year or not. I cancelled out because my parents announced we had to move that spring and I didn’t think I’d be able to play anyway.

I had an altercation with Mr. Paltrone at school that spring, too. I had been in his bands since Fourth Grade. The Junior High Band had its Spring Concert and it went well. The only problem was after we left the auditorium stage a number of band members were angry. They felt Mr. Paltrone took all the credit for the performance. He was up on stage bowing over and over and a lot of the band members didn’t think he gave enough credit to us.

Members were saying we should do something to show our displeasure and then someone suggested we should all quit band. That grew into a revolt with everyone shouting we should quit and that would show Mr. Paltone. Let’s see how good his concerts are if all the band members quitted he has no band to lead. Everybody was going to resign from band.

Guess who was the only band member to actually do it?

This was not to be the last time I stood alone against injustice while others backed down.

My parents rented the house at 417 Washington Ave. They had no immediate plans for going elsewhere, but the landlord notified them on March 17 that his daughter was getting married that summer and he wanted the house for her. They were told they had to vacate the house by May 1. My parents didn’t want to move back in with my mother’s parents again so began looking for a new home. They decided they had enough money saved up to buy a place of their own if the price was low enough.

My dad found a place for sale near Pottstown, Pennsylvania by a man named Seibolt. The 

house was in the Village of Bucktown, about fifteen miles north up Route 100 (five miles south of Pottstown). They drove up there and bought this ranch house with three and a half acres of land on April 15, 1956. They moved to the new home when their lease was up at 417 on May First. They didn’t want to take me out of my current school with only a month and a half to go so I moved in with my grandparents. I was back in my old bedroom at 424 Washington and everything became the reverse of what it used to be.
Once upon a time my parents would drop me at my grandparents on a Friday until the Sunday evening to be rid of me for the weekend; now I was picked up at my grandparents every Friday eve and deposited at the new home for the weekend.

My father changed employers again about this same time. He left Atkinson Trucking and began hauling for A. Duie Pyle. I always wondered why that man went by his middle name (his first name is Alexander, by the way). Every time I heard it I thought, “A dewy pile of…” You may fill in the blank anyway you please. This time, though, changing employers wasn’t the reason for the move. The change of employer didn’t change his weekly schedule one whit. He still left early Monday Morning, had his midweek stop at home and then got back on Friday night.

Although I had quit band, Mr. Ifert, who was the Senior High Music Director, came recruiting me for Senior High Band. He wanted to convert me from trumpet to French Horn. He said Mr. Paltrone told him I was a good trumpeter. No one ever told either man I skipped the tough notes. The switch made sense to mr. Ifert. The French Horn was a brass instrument with three valves, just bigger than a trumpet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, but it was a mote point. My folks told me we were moving by the time Mr. Ifert (pictured right) came around. I wouldn’t be in Downingtown Senior High next year anyway.

Mr. Ifert was another person with an unfortunate name, especially for a teacher. Ifert was one letter away from a more denigrating name. I think you can figure it out.

I was hoping I could move with my parents and go to a new school like right away. I couldn’t wait to get out of Downingtown Junior High School. At the same time I was apprehensive about starting over in a new school, meeting new kids. It was a case of “the Devil you know verses the Devil you don’t.” I was miserable and I was scared I was going to flunk. Now with the move I couldn’t even escape into my fantasy play. My grandmother and grandfather never went out. One or the other was home all the time. I couldn’t be running through their house in little homemade loincloths or snipped apart underwear.

I notified Babe Ruth Baseball to drop me from consideration. I let the collection lady, Mrs. Lindermann, know I would have to give up the paper route in June. I quit the MYF and Boy Scouts. I also thought about my few friends after school ended. Would it be like Billy Smith all other again? Would I move north and we would never see each other again?

Could my life get any worse?

Certainly it could.

“In a world where the HORROR never ends there is no escaping the HARPIES of JUNIOR HIGH!!!!”

We were presented with choices when we entered Ninth Grade. We were no longer in sections labeled Section A, Section B and so forth studying basic subjects. We were told to select a course reflective of some life endeavor. These were Academic, Commercial, Industrial Arts, Agriculture and General. I didn’t want to work in a stuffy office the rest of my life, so I ruled out Commercial (proving to be somewhat ironic, I suppose). Industrial Arts was not feasible with my history in Shop. Can you imagine four more years of magic belt hooks and cast iron pipe holders? I had no plans to be a Future Farmer of America and viewed General as the Future Dropouts of High School (certainly an unfair judgment, but that was my opinion). The best fit or more like the only fit seemed to be Academic. Believe it or not, I still had an interest in becoming a scientist.

The other name for Academic was College Preparatory. My parents weren’t certain I should take this selection. Oh, let's be brutally honest, they were downright hostile against the idea. They told me straight out to forget college, no way was I going to college. They did not purely base this on financial considerations; although that was part of it.

My parents had a dim view of higher education. They felt it didn’t prepare you for anything worthwhile, unless you were studying medicine or law. In fact, my mother worried me constantly about my “always having a book in front of my face”. She believed too much reading wore out the brain.

My dad was not only against Academic; he didn’t really see any future in taking Commercial either. It was too much emphasis on secretarial skills like typing and shorthand. It wasn’t man’s work; women did those kinds of things. Men did the dictating and women did the transcribing and then getting coffee for the men. He suggested either Industrial Arts, or at worse even Agriculture, because those courses trained you “for real jobs”.

I thought Academic might help me become a writer even if I never did go on to college.

My grades in Ninth Grade Academic certainly supported my parents telling me to forget college. I probably wouldn’t have qualified for Hamburger U. with my marks. This was my worst year academically yet. I finished the year with an overall GPA of 1.78, a nice solid C minus (or a D plus if you wanted to be negative about it), just enough to promote me to Tenth Grade where a different set of teachers would have to put up with me.

Perhaps I should have rethought the Future Dropouts of America and taken General. I may not have been considering dropping out, but my grades seemed about to shove me over that cliff.

That September just before I set off to Ninth Grade my dad actually pulled me aside for some fatherly advice, the only such he ever gave me.

“Don’t get an F and don’t get a girl in trouble,” he said.

Well, I followed half of his advice.

I never got a girl in trouble. I didn’t even know what he was talking about when he said that. Why or how would I get a girl in trouble? That didn't make any sense. I didn’t ask him what he meant. Dad giving explanations to my questions wasn’t his strong suit.

I did get an “F” in Latin.

Several old familiar faces greeted me back into Downingtown Junior High that fall. Mr. White still oversaw his students from West Chester dictating gym. Mister Hemberger and Mister Kipp were manning the Wood Shop and Foundry. Mr. Paltrone still waved his baton teaching Varsity Music, as they now called it.

Much to my relief, there was at least was one  familiar face I was happily leaving behind in Eighth Grade, but much to my chagrin on reporting to Homeroom I was greeted as Lawrence by Miss Hurlock. It was only for Homeroom, but even two short periods a day with her got under my skin.

I had Louise Remetz for Art in seventh and eighth, but now I had a Mr. Paul Leonard (pictured left). Art was my best subject and the only one I finished with anything higher than a C in. I got straight Bs.

I earned a C in Health, but have no idea anymore who taught it.

I had Mr. Edward Campbell for Civics and Pennsylvania History. If you recall this was the teacher who snagged the back of my shirt and hauled me off to the principal’s Office for hitting Gary Kinzey. Mr. Campbell turned out to be an all right teacher who most students liked, but some kids did call him “PorkyPig” behind his back. He resembled that cartoon character and junior high kids can be cruel. I got a C in both courses and I actually found those classes interesting. He taught us a lot about how the branches of the government worked as equal entities and how our rule was designed as a series of checks and balances to guard against the formation of any person or one or other of the governing houses gaining too much power. He taught we were a nation of rights, which were not in the purview of government to deny us, that we were protected by the Constitution. He told us one of our most important right was that of free speech, even if we were to say things that others vehemently disagreed with. He told us we were a nation of laws and tolerance, but one in which the majority ruled, but the minorities had the right to challenge that and try and convince people to accept their ideas. He taught us a lot of things that don't appear to be followed very well anymore.

It was the Harpies that did me in. Here I was and then they, these female teachers, swooped down like birds to torment me and in a figurative sense, snatch the morsels of knowledge away before I could gain nourishment. (f you don't understand the allusion here, look it up.) Two of my women instructors made me dread coming to school every day and gave me nightmares at night. A third made me lose faith in justice. I don’t know which had the most damaging effect upon me.

I originally had Mildred Wilson for Arithmetic in Seventh Grade. I had managed a C then. I thought it humorous she had the same name as my cousin, the one that served my mother as Maid of Honor. My humor didn’t last. I had struggled with Math in Eighth Grade finishing with a D despite having Mr. Ax, a teacher I liked. Now in Academic Ninth I was facing Algebra for the first time. I was hardly prepared and I had a hard time following the lessons. I managed a C in the first marking period, but dropped to a D in the second. I realized I was falling behind and I didn’t want to fail. Teachers told us repeatedly during all our years in school, “Go to the teacher for extra help if you need it. They are always glad to help.” I had never taken that advice, but this time I did.

I went up to Ms Wilson’s desk after class and asked if I could get any extra help after school.

She screamed at me, literally, screamed,  “No, you’ll get it in class like everybody else. Now get out of here.”

I practically ran.

I never again went to any teacher for help after that. I finished First Year Algebra with a D plus average, pulled up by a C in the final exam. I was thoroughly convinced that math was beyond me.

But the teacher I dreaded the most was Lucille Horner, who I had for Latin.
I did not love Lucy.
 Two things conspired against me in her class.  One was my slight hearing problem, the one I was born with where I had difficulty distinguishing some English words and pronouncing them correctly. Foreign languages would always prove tricky for me. I mean I couldn't tell Calvary from cavalry or quarrel from corral. I was able to read the Latin in the textbook and understand the meaning. Speaking it was my problem and Ms Horner made us stand up in class every day and speak it.  

Here is where my second problem, Social Anxiety Disorder, kicked in. I did not like to be the center of attention in Junior High. People not seeing or hearing me was my preference. Ms Horner forced us, in order of seating,  to stand up and congregate the Latin verbs. This could be hard enough for me under any conditions to distinguish the subtleties between the verbs, but Ms Horner threw in another Monkey Wrench. She timed you. She kept a record of the fastest time achieved of every conjugation ever performed in class history and she expected her students to try for a new one. I would come to class and know the verb forms in my head, but once on my feet in front of my peers my tongue would be Greek to me, not Latin. I would stumble at the start and never get back on track. I use to shake before every Latin class. I would stand to recite and literally quiver. My constant failure wasn’t embarrassment enough. She had to make cutting remarks about my failures.

This was the course where I broke my father’s advice. I got an F. The only one I ever got for a course.

The teacher that stung me more than any wasn’t mean or nasty. Mrs. Rodgers was very nice. I had her for Homeroom in Eighth Grade and I believe she had a son in Boy Scouts. I had visited her home socially for somereason. I remember being there and I remember standing on her front porch, but I don’t know what the visit was about. She was a very kind and gentle lady. I had her for Ninth Grade English. I ended up with a C.

I was totally devastated about what happened in English. Mrs. Rodgers was a teacher with no ability to control her class. She would go out into the hallway and cry sometimes it got so bad. The bullies and troublemakers ruled and learning was difficult for anyone.

I may have been a poor student, but I was never a troublemaker. Everyone else might be yelling and throwing things, but I would be calm and quiet. During one of her attempted lectures about some literary point the two guys who sat next and behind me shoved all my books off my desk. The volumes hit the floor with a load bang. Mrs. Rodgers had been facing our way when they did it. She had to have seen it happen..

“Larry,” she said very sternly, “you are to stay after class.” She said nothing to the other two boys.

At the end of the period I walked to her desk. I said, “Mrs. Rodgers, I didn’t do anything. So and so and Whozits pushed my books off my desk.”

She looked at me. Her eyes were moist at the edges. “Yes, I know,” she said. “But you’re the only one who will listen to me.”

I think that was the moment I became cynical toward education. I felt sorry for Mrs. Rodgers, but I also lost all my respect for her. It is one thing to be singled out and punished for the bad things you do, but quite another to be treated that way when you are innocent and everyone knows it.

Ms Horner assigned some homework I was delighted to do. During the year she assigned us to see movies and she provided the passes. The first was Ulysses (based on the Odysseus Myths, not the James Joyce novel. I can imagine we ninth graders reporting on Penelope portrayed as Molly Bloom. ), The film debuted in theaters August 1955 and played the Roosevelt sometime after school began.

The second film was Helen of Troy, based on the Iliad. This film came out in January 1956 and we saw it on March 9. I am not certain why she did this, since Homer was Greek and Ms Horner was teaching Latin. The films were in English.

Ronald, Stuart and I saw these together. We were walking home on Lancaster Avenue after seeing Helen of Troy. This movie had several battle scenes. One particular scene stood out in our minds. A Spartan below the walls of Troy shoots an arrow in the air. A Trojan soldier is standing on the battlement. The arrow pierces the soldier below the chin and comes out the top of his head. We were discussing how they accomplished this effect.

“You know what,” said Stuart. “I bet what they did was go to a prison and give an offer to a condemned prisoner on Death Row. They would pay the prisoner’s family something if he let them execute him this way for the film.”

Ron and I didn’t think so.

“I don’t see how else it could have been done,” said Stuart. “You could see the arrow go right through his head.”

I did not discuss The Sirens confronting Ulysses on his journey, although they had more interest for me than arrow-pierced Trojans. The Sirens were mythological women who seduced sailors into shipwrecks with their songs. The crew tied Ulysses to the mast so these women cannot lure him. This type of story and imagery fit right into my fantasies.

As the stresses of Algebra and Latin increased, I fled more often into those fantasies. The story always began the same, but as the year progressed I began to play act as well as imagine. This wasn’t difficult because my parents were seldom home with me. I would become the shipwrecked sailor left ashore on the island. I would slip off my socks (I seldom wore my shoes inside the house then). I use to sit in the living room imagining it all, but now I would get up and pretend I was exploring an island, moving cautiously into the dining room. In my mind I would come across the Pirate Women here and they would give chase. I might run back to the living room, slipping off my shirt as if they had pulled it off in midflight. They would capture me in due time and strip off my pants. I would walk about as if a prisoner, holding my hands behind as if tied.

My story wouldn’t end with me tied to a pole (figuratively). The Pirates would slowly circle me. They would poke me or pull at me. Then they would pull off my briefs and leave me naked.

This total striping wasn’t enough after awhile. Like any addiction my fantasy demanded more after a time to keep me interested. I began adding little flourishes to this fancy. My story would continue with my alter ego escaping the bonds.

I had seen the Tarzan films and pictures depicting Native Americans wearing loincloths. I didn’t know loincloths were a long piece of material that they wore tucked over a belt and then passed between their legs and up over the belt again in the rear. I thought these people wore two pieces of cloth that just dangled over their front and back with nothing underneath. I began to fashion a loincloth for my escaped hero to wear. I used a couple of my handkerchiefs hanging them from a rope belt. Eventually I began trying to make my loincloths cover even less.

One day I decided it would be more exciting if instead of a loincloth to have the Pirate Woman not simply pull off my briefs, but to tease me by gradually ripping up my undershorts. I had some old worn underpants, so I took scissors and cut strips and holes out of these, making the shorts ever smaller, but leaving enough to cover my privates.

Yes, I was quite aware doing this made my penis  erect and sensitive to touch. This felt extremely pleasurable, but it ended there. There was no ejaculation. I still didn’t know about masturbation.

I  would hide the tattered underpants in my room and reuse them until a pair was too far-gone then I would dispose of it in the trash.

However, every time I indulged this fantasy I felt guilty afterward. I would lie in bed afterward agonizing about what was wrong with me. I also worried whether anyone could see me dashing about inside the house dressed in ripped up underpants; after all, the lights were on and the shades were up. Whatever feelings of guilt or fear I felt did not impede me from pursuing my fantasies. The next time I was home alone and feeling frustrated I would go to my fantasy world all over again.

And I began adding a voyeuristic element. The Pirate Women would now tease me with their bodies. I imagined them undressing in front of me. But I still lacked a full image of a woman’s body to complete my imagination.

There was a totaling embarrassing incident at school that had absolutely nothing to do with my fantasy life. It was the day I freed the slaves.

It is hard to image any school today having this; however, Googling the Internet shows the practice continued as late as the 1970s in several schools around the nation. Even today, some schools have a version of it to raise funds for charity.

Downingtown High had a once yearly “Slave Day”. We did this in 1955 or 1956.

This was considered a fun day. They had criteria for masters claiming slaves, but I no longer remember the rules. Perhaps Ninth Graders could claim slaves from the class below. I do recall I was very determined to claim a slave. Usually a student would tap another’s arm and claim them. The person claimed had to be a slave for the whole day, which entailed carrying the master’s books, get the master his or her lunch and run small errands.

I was in the hall and zeroed in on this very tall girl walking ahead of me. I think her name was Yvonne, but I could be wrong. She was as tall or even taller than I was. I walked up behind her and tagged her arm, but she ignored me. I took hold of her arm and declared her my slave and she took to running. I leaped for her. I landed upon her back and she ran down the hall with me clinging piggyback style to her. She carried me right past the school office door as Mr. Evans the principal was stepping into the hallway. We almost knocked him over. He looked totally floored by this exhibition.

That was the last year that Downingtown had “Slave Day”. So, I guess I freed the slaves.