The RECORD HEIST of '67

I can’t tell you how many times Wry Bread readers have written to ask for more entertaining stories from my childhood.  No, I haven’t actually received any such notes yet, presumably because you readers haven’t gotten around to sending the many notes you’ve no doubt written.  I understand; it’s a busy time for you.

It just occurred to me that if you did send a note reading, “Please write more entertaining stories from your childhood,” what you might mean is, “The ones you’ve written are not sufficiently entertaining. Please write more entertaining stories.”

In any event, in an effort to satisfy your evidently insatiable appetite for entertainment, I shall now recount a previously untold story from my youth, which is about as close to childhood as my memory can get on most days.

One Saturday afternoon my high school friend Bill (you may recall him as the getaway driver for The Impossible Mission) wanted to buy an album.  As those of a certain age will know, the term album, in this context, refers to a round, flat, black, vinyl object that, subjected to the right conditions, would make music.  This was before we could ask Alexa to play any song anywhere at any time.  Back then, anyone named Alexa would have only hung out with cool guys named Clay, Chet or Luke, and we wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask her the time of day. 

To buy an album, we could have driven to Baer’s Music Store at the Winter Park Mall, the one with the huge Alaskan Brown Bear standing on his hind legs in the store window, 7 or 8 feet tall with front paws up and mouth frozen in mid-growl, frightening children and sensitive teens.  Baer’s was unique in that it had several soundproof booths in which you could actually listen to an album before deciding you had heard it so often that you didn’t need to buy it.  But Bill chose to go to a large discount department store in Casselberry, closer to home.  Picture a Wal-Mart or K-Mart, without the word mart in its name.  I don’t remember what album Bill wanted that day---a safe bet would be the latest release of the Stones, Beatles or Bob Dylan, but I distinctly remember the purchase transaction, or lack thereof.

Historical Fiction

The approach of one’s fiftieth high school reunion evidently gets the reminiscing juices flowing.  Join me as I journey back to the largest room in which classes were held at Lyman High School, Longwood, Florida (north of Orlando) in the late 60’s.  I suppose it was the school’s original auditorium, but it had been fitted with student desks---wooden ones with chairs attached. Picture 15 rows with maybe 15 or 20 desks in each, perhaps enough to accommodate the entire 300 or so who comprised the class of 1968.  In that room we would receive history lectures from our teacher, Mr. Brewer, a balding middle-aged man familiar to some of us only from a distance.  We were seated alphabetically, and as my last name began with the letter ‘S’ in those days, I was toward the far back of the room, which was fine with me, as that is the preferred spot of all goof-offs. 

One of our regular homework assignments was to read a section of the history textbook and write a few sentences in answer to questions about what we read.  As each class began, we were to pass to the front our sheet of paper with the eight or ten answers we had written the previous night, and after a few days we would receive our papers back with a check mark at the top, indicating we had received credit for the assignment. [For the benefit of our younger readers, paper was a thin wood product of actual substance, on which we could write, by hand, with what we called a pen or pencil. Consult Wikipedia for more details.]  I don’t recall how many weeks I dutifully answered those history questions before it dawned on me that it was highly unlikely that Mr. Brewer actually read every answer.  With hundreds of papers turned in each day, when would he have time to watch Mission: Impossible and Get Smart?  That’s when I determined to have some fun, and test my theory. 

If the question was, for example,

“What was the famous nickname given to Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson, and how and when did he receive it?”

I might answer, 

At the first Battle of the Big Bands held in Manassas, Virginia in July of 1861, General Jackson, not comfortable on the dance floor (having skipped the quarterly West Point dances to stay in his room studying military maneuvers), was seen standing motionless against a wall (a stone wall, as it happened) observing but not participating in the festivities.  One of his Brigadier Generals remarked, “There is Jackson, standing against that stone wall like a stone wallflower,” and before long Jackson was affectionately known by his men (many of whom could not dance either) as “Stone Wallflower” Jackson----sometimes just “Stonewall” for short.