On a recent birthday I thought of earlier ones that stood out
for various reasons, and invariably went back to my fifth, which
led to one of the most traumatic times of my young life.
On a recent birthday I thought of earlier ones that stood out for various reasons, and invariably went back to my fifth, which led to one of the most traumatic times of my young life.
In November of 1938 although the nation was slowly coming out of the Depression, money was still tight. I thought of many things I would like – a pony, a miniature fire engine that ran by pedal power or a new pair of roller skates. However, I felt that any expression of greed might negate my parents’ impulse toward generosity and result in nothing.
A few days before the big event arrived I was going through a department store with my older brother, Larry, and suddenly stopped. There before my wondering eyes was a goldfish bowl with a goldfish serenely navigating its way inside it. I stared until Larry took my hand and led me off. Even then, I looked back at it until we left the store.
On the evening of my birthday, my parents and older brother sang “Happy Birthday” over the cake with five gleaming candles, then brought out the presents. I remember getting a cap pistol and several comic books, then Larry went into the next room and emerged a few seconds later with the bowl and fish.
I couldn’t get over it and practically pressed my face into the bowl to watch that orange wonder go back and forth in his watery world. When bedtime came, my mother said it would be best to leave the fish in the living room where it was warmer than the bedrooms.
I kept awake and when I was sure the rest of the family was asleep tiptoed into the living room and took the bowl into my room where I placed it on the table next to my bed.
It gets cold in Toledo in autumn, and I awoke the next morning to find the fish floating belly-up. My mother did not have the heart to chide me. Larry removed the fish while I contemplated my crime and its punishment.
My recovery was fairly fast because I had not had enough time to grow really attached to the fish. I kept the bowl on the table because of the patterns the sun made in it at certain times of the day.
One afternoon I returned home from kindergarten and stopped dead in the doorway of my room. Playing on the ledge above the bowl was a mouse, very small with velvet fur and the shiniest eyes I had ever seen. Even as I watched, a larger mouse emerged and chattered at the smaller one. It obediently followed its mother away.
I grew to love that little mouse, which seemed to have no fear of me. Every day I rushed home from kindergarten and went to my room. Sometimes it was not there, but frequently it was and I spread out a generous supply of bread crumbs on the ledge to entice it. All that time I never told anyone because even at that tender age I sensed that my mother would have an unreasonable antipathy toward mice.
One day in mid-December I went to my room and my heart leaped into my throat. The little mouse was floating face down in the bowl where it had fallen. I ran over, instinctively scooped it out, then ran crying to my mother.
She returned with me to see the cause of alarm, and we both stopped. The mother mouse had inserted its nose into her baby’s mouth and was puffing. Mom and I watched transfixed as the small limbs moved, then it rolled over and shakily followed its mother to safety.
It was a moving experience – and it was also the first time I witnessed mouse-to-mouse resuscitation.
