Christopher Porter And Me circa mid 60s

Jeesh...how the bindery housing the living pages of this bookish fellow seem to flip by with ever increasing rapidity at a faster pace with each orbit Earth completes around the sun.

I could never foretell when just a fraction the age of myself.

Odd also that recollection of long ago personal trials and tribulations seem to pop (like some kind of cerebral advertisement beckoning attention), thus the reason for sharing a childhood fragment asper the following.

This LVIII aged beastie boy oft times takes faux pas par faw the course of doddering along the downside parabola of consciousness, and unexpectedly gets jarred back (lid er a lee) in time, whereby he takes stock, lock and barrel sans some hair raising brush with angelic intervention.

Unbeknownst to me why or what activates a long dormant memory stashed gallimaufry somewhere within his fifty plus shades of gray matter. An incident predicated on mine kempf as a kid in kindergarten came to light re: as a flash in the pan metaphorical nugget of gold.

No explanation seemed to precipitate the following account, which harkened back more’n five decades.

Thus before the mere fragment of a what might be termed divine intervention visited upon myself and close chum (who became fast friends with me) at Port Kennedy school for those gently cosseted, groomed, and linkedin to commence getting read for first grade.

That particular day began as usual, but ended up doling out my fifteen minutes of fame and fortune to remain intact and unscathed emotionally, physically, or spiritually.

Mother drove me to the nondescript building within which vital lessons viz how to color (within the blurred lines), frolic, and impersonate a kiddy version of some industrial magnate.

Hours of playtime ticked by in a flash.
Upon dismissal, each child went its separate way. An arrangement got made for yours truly to sally forth with a classmate named Christopher Porter.
He lived in Valley Forge trailer park.

Before describing the misadventure that involved this then cloyingly innocent, naïvely reticent sole son tied to my mother’s apron strings, (and his flaxen haired pal, re: Christopher Porter), I make a brief digression eliciting general habits joisting Kuritsky lass (maiden name of pa’s pretty queen) to inform a major influence upon my ineffable, malleable, and gullible crucible qua cerebral cortex.

Ever the obsessively compulsive economical cutler, queen hoarder, and scraper of sundry residual tailings upholding veneer wrested from victuals provided by the modest income of my daddy (a mechanical engineer at General Electric), my mother secured, scrimped, and saved any shred of material and squeezed out every last drop of maximization from father time.

This mindset to refrain tossing anything into the garbage receptacle indelibly etched in conscious on account of growing up (in dire straits, hawking heirloom tchotchkes to stave off angst of a bleak, grim, and penurious poverty steeped into her temple mount. this predilection to maintain a skein of mediocrity, paucity, and scarcity.

Despite our middle income family status, (an imbedded a legacy of hardship, hand to mouth existence, and one among countless affected have-nots remained forever scored within the memory of (thine late mum) Harriet Harris, the Cinderella of Coney Island.

She, thee prima donna adored youngest progeny (who reaped the line ness iz share of parental love), per Rebecca and Morris (Moishe) Kuritsky got instilled by dint of dirt poor travails retained many behaviors linkedin with those critical, primal, and vital early years.

Thus, upon readily accepting the responsibilities of motherhood, the instilled atrophied, codified, and mummified manifesto naturally impinged on the habitués regaled upon thyself and mine elder and younger sister.

So, rather than expend the extra fuel to drive a fractional distance from the trailer park, her credo found insistence logically ordering riding to aforementioned locale, whence arrangements stipulated to ferry me back to Lantern Lane, an end house nestled adjacent to a Super Fund Site in the potemkin village of Audubon, Pennsylvania.
Unbeknownst to me the specific details underpinning what went awry that typical day. This aging memory can only bring to light a faded, gauzy and indistinctly nebulous picture, which principle outcome found thyself and above named equally demure, introverted and oblivious to threatening uber vipers waiting to prey on two precocious boys.
Through some happenstance we found ourselves stranded in unfamiliar territory, We found ourselves to be in the middle of nowhere, perhaps Timbuktu, or possibly up 5^th and japip!
Leave circumstantial detail gapped honestly knowledge less.

Whoever came to the aid of this coy, puny, and shy thing (as well his similarly recalcitrant temperament, especially intimidated by beefy police officers doing their level best to soldier onward to ask pointed questions, that at most generated a shrug or blank stare), now a blessing paid to the fates.

The local newspaper ran a blurb, which clipping ma dear mama saved, though long since lost with other tidbits of mine storied past.

What dismays this now midlife crisis dishabille entails how if that scenario occurred today, I would not be alive to tell of such deeds of daring do.

So, this spottily recalled anecdote and subsequent belated praise and quite appreciation to those strangers (in tandem with enforces qua strong arm of the law – most likely no longer alive), whose existence today hinged on those fates that clasped faith in the milk of human kindness and at this day and age eclipsed with a plethora of angst riddled cruelty, fiendish incivility, and lackluster noblesse oblige.

Hence, the nostalgic pang for a time that seemed more idyllic, when strangers reached out to forge a lifelong impression of positivity. Such a benediction imbues me with a feeble attempt within this body electric guaranteeing anonymous brethren to salve the ache the found trust to ramp down the doom per being scared.

Ah alls well that ended well sans so much within meself (nor oh me oh) to tell this true story.

Comments