I recall a litany of pet names and species from my youth:

Speedy a Bulldog

Bullet, a Police dog

Grady, a goldfish

Lassie, a Collie (of course)

Parakeet, a horse

Dan, another horse

Bill, still another horse

Skipper, a German Shepard

    Do you recall "Finger paintings" or making impressions of your hand on paper with art painting school, or using a piece of screen wire and a tooth brush to make that unusual effect of "splatter paint"?

    I had not yet mastered the art of winding or successfully getting it to recoil. I would ask him to wind it up for me. Then I'd walk over the the edge of the porch. Holding the yo-yo by the string, I'd release it, allowing it to "unwind". When it would come to a halt, I would take it back to Woodrow, and whine,

"Wind it up for pore old Mike, one more time."

    He would sit on the porch steps and wind it for me time and time again. This cycle would continue until he finally tired of winding the yo-yo back up.

    I recall playing cowboys at my cousins' house and being shot with a B.B. gun, by Godley Jones (or Jerry Beach) falling to the ground and thinking I was mortally wounded. No blood ever showed up, but I knew that B.B. went right through me. I fell to the sand of that "lot", as John Wayne would in one of his movies.

    Ice cream churning was always a source of anticipation for me. Whenever someone began turning the crank, it never got done soon enough.

    In the 4th grade, in Hendersonville, S.C., (Population 214) grades one through twelve were taught. Years before, my Mother had attended school there, when the Senior Class was the eleventh grade.

    At recess, we played surgeon and to improvise, we took a glass eye dropper with the rubber bulb on the end and pretended it was a hypodermic.

    A straight pen was placed in the glass tube. The head of the pin prevented it from falling out. When we wanted to administer a shot to someone (we had no concept of drug usage at that time) we would allow the pin to drop out of the tube, stopping when the head reached the small opening. This device was then placed next to the "patient's" arm and the pin was slowly pushed back into the tube, thereby replicating the introduction of a hypodermic needle into the "victim's" arm. The hard part was getting the needle to appear to withdraw from the arm, upon extraction.

    When I graduated from the eighth grade, at St. Mary's Catholic School, in Rhinelander, Wisconsin (the land of the Hodag) the nuns made special arrangements to teach us dance steps so we could "dance" at our graduation. We learned the "two step", the "box step", a "square dance", and others.

    The result was a predictable robotic movement, but our first opportunity to hold girls next to us and smell their hair (on purpose), which we relished.

    Of course if a Harris poll had been taken, it would not have been the first time for ANY of the guys. We were all experienced in the "ways of the world." After all, we were about to graduate form the Eighth Grade. Besides, we were going to CATHOLIC SCHOOL!

    Charles Heirs lived next to us on the road that now runs behind Herndon's funeral home in Walterboro. Charles and I were best buddies. We were constantly building forts in our back yard. If we could get our hands on some scrap lumber, look out! Occasionally, we got fancy and dug basements for our forts. We even made soup some times. But, Only he and I would dare eat it.

    The "Canteen" in Yemassee was the community center. It was a cinder block building where the teenagers listened to Bobby Vinton sing "Blue Velvet" and Chubby Checker sing "The Twist". On some occasions, some of the parents would get together and put on a party for us. Those were special, but we enjoyed just getting together and dancing.

    Donkey Baseball was an event that showed up in Yemassee every three or four years. I never played. I had too much fun watching. Besides, I saw that guy with the cigar who would touch it to the donkey's butt to make it run, once the batter jumped on its back

    When we lived behind the motel in Walterboro, around 1953, we used to get up a ball game on the weekends in the lot between us and the Dondeiros. Talk about sandlot!

    Nightly Softball in Yemassee. . . This was another diversion we had at our disposal. I occasionally joined in the game, but these were my high school years and I was much more intrigued in watching the girls who came to the game.

    Uncle Utsey delivered the local Sunday morning paper. I can almost recall, to this day, the route he took to deliver the Sunday morning News and Courier.

    I was one of the most energetic GRIT newspaper salesmen in the city of Walterboro. GRIT was a predecessor to The STAR and The National Inquirer, but the articles in GRIT were believable - most of the time.

    As I grew older and wiser and hungrier, I took on a News & Courier Route of my own. Every morning, around 4:30 A.M., before I left for school, I was up folding and tucking newspapers and delivering them around Yemassee. And about 68% of the time, Momma was right there, by my side, either driving the car, or tossing papers. I do not know if I ever said "Thank You!" or gave her any of the proceedings. I should have, and do, now. Thanks. Momma.

    I seem to have been involved in newsprint most of my life. After I peddled the "Grit" newspaper door-to-door in Walterboro and Yemassee and drove the News & Courier house-to-house, I became the sports column editor for the Wade Hampton High School "Rebel" Quarterly newspaper. Later in life, I was the editor of my Departmental newspaper at Gulfstream. In 1993, I began publishing the "Mike and Linda's Newsletter" which had a circulation of about forty homes from New York to California to Washington State, to Florida, and some ships at sea.

    "Lizard, lizard, show your blanket" is a chant we used to recite when we wanted a lizard to blow out the red colored loose skin beneath his neck. This usually worked, since lizards constantly participate in this practice, anyway.

    As a child, I recall lying in the back window of the family car as it sped to town. The sun, beating down on the glass of a hot summer day is a recollection I can still embrace.

Barber shops.

    The first thing the barber did was place that red naugehide covered board over the two chair handles so you were not too low in the chair. I think this was the first booster chair. I can even smell the Vitalis, today. I no longer use it. The wet head is dead. Remember? And I do not mean that little bottle of Vitalis that was purchased in the drug store.

    I am talking about the long neck variety, with the small hole in the top that restricted the flow of the "product" from flowing out too rapidly. The barber knew just how many times to shake it over his hand until he had enough to sufficiently coat the hairs remaining on your head.

    A boys hair becomes important to him, only once he turns 13. Up until then, it doesn't really matter much what style it is in. Of course, at that age, it doesn't much matter whether you want the style that is selected for you or not. It is the style you are going to get. And by the time you turn 13, and your hair style is beginning to become important to you, your parents have gotten used to being able to dictate your hair cut length.

    I wore a crew cut almost exclusively until I was out of the U. S. Marine Corps. I cherish the few times I went to a barber shop, I mean a real barber shop, where men go to have their hair cut, not styled.

    The strangest thing I ever saw in a barber shop, right on main street in Walterboro, was a barber singeing a man's loose hairs with a wax taper, much like what alter boys light the candles at church with.

    One of the unique things about getting your hair cut in a "Man's" barber shop is the fact that they have more than one pair of clippers.

    At the appropriate time, the barber inserts that long black comb into his breast pocket, reaches back and picks up the "other" set of clippers.

    It is so refreshing, because the metal of this set is cold to the touch. These are obviously trim clippers, because he uses them to clip the fine hairs on your neck. That is why the temperature is so apparent. It always seemed so neat to run through two pair of clippers to get your hair done.

    And if you were real special, no matter how old you were, he'd break out the cup of soap, lather you up and "shave" you. The first time that happened to me, I was probably about four years old, and had seen the older gentlemen getting shaves, I wondered, "Now, just how old does this guy think I am?" Then, to top it off, out came the Vitalis and then the pony tail brush with powder. That was the real signal that you were through.

    One day, we were at the motel in Walterboro when a couple of elderly tourist came out of their rented room. They were elderly, traveling to Florida for a summer vacation. Little care of bother was given to their appearance in public. They were trying to impress no one but themselves.

    They no longer tried to impress each other. The gentleman was wearing a pair of sear sucker knee length shorts, white socks, brown loafers and a flowerdy button-up shirt. His wife had on a muumuu, some wild frame glasses, a pair of mules on her feet, and a green flowerdy hair net on her head.

    Hank looked up from his job of swimming in the pool and exclaimed, "Green Hair?!"

    When Daddy ran the motel in Walterboro, he had lots of time on his hands on the night shift. For a long time, in the early years, he built model cars. They were on shelves every where. Later, it branched out to my bedroom. Daddy and I built model planes, too. They hung by strings, from the ceiling. My bedroom looked like the Air Force armada.

    We used to sail kites and add as much string to them as we could find. We were never very good at box kites, though we tried them occasionally. The most common kite, the "cross-bar" version was our usual mode. Some times, we'd approach letting out one half mile of string. We would get to the end of a spool of kite string and tie on another one. If too much string was added, it would get too heavy for the kite.

    Before launching a kite, we'd prepare a tail to tie on the end of it. Any colorful rag would do. It helped to keep the kite erect and danced nicely in the wind.

    Another preparation was to tie a knot in the string about fifty feet from the kite. After we had it well up into the air and way over some neighbor's home, we'd go to work. A plain brown paper bag would be inflated - a small one. Then a string was tied around it and the other end of the string tied to a straight pin. The pin was then bent and the bent end was hooked over the kite string. The air filled paper bag dangled below the string.

    When the bag was released, the wind would carry it along the string. Eventually, it would reach the knot that had been tied near the kite. By pulling back on the string and releasing it, it caused the string to "jerk". This jerking action transferred the 400-800 feet to the kite. When it did, the string would fall below the pin holding the bag in the air. Generally, the bag would then float gently to the ground.

    Many times, a neighbor child from several blocks away would walk the bag all the way back to us. They'd exclaim, "A piece of your kite fell off." It was not uncommon for this to happen at all.

    When we had them available, we'd use a similar technique. We would hook model airplane gliders to the string. They took forever to fall to the ground, floating, looping the loop, gliding left, gliding right, according to the wind currents.

    Many children have problems swallowing medicine when they are young. When my sister Jane and I were pre-teenagers, we were expected to take iron vitamins. I could, at that time, not force myself to swallow medication. I had no problem with corn, or peas, or other non-medicinal products. Medicine was another story entirely.

    In order to get us to take our vitamins, Momma would open the capsules, squirt the contents onto a slice of bread and cover it with butter. We had bread and butter and iron vitamins. We knew it was there. It wasn't hidden. We just couldn't swallow a capsule, so this was a way to allow us to take our vitamins.

    There were other times when we were supposed to eat certain things-vegetables, for instance, which we did not want to eat. Jane did not care for cauliflower at all. I, on the other hand, could tolerate it. Knowing Jane disliked it made it easier for me to eat.

    Momma had a way to get her to eat her cauliflower, though. She'd place it within a pile of mashed potatoes. Surely, Jane knew it when she bit into it.

    Another medicine that was hard to swallow as a child was Vicks Vap-o-rub. I know it is a topical ointment, but occasionally, it was administered with a spoon. One morning, I woke, feeling a little "wheezy". As I prepared for school, I coated myself down with Vicks. One whiff of it and Momma said, "You can't go to school with that all over your chest. You'll have to stay home today". Bummer!

    The medical and pharmaceutical professions and businesses of today attempt to make medication as pleasant as possible. That was not always the case. I recall a drawing salve that we used to have applied to a "boil" or "risen" that would rival any petroleum product of the '90's. This salve usually came in a small "tin" about as big around as a half dollar and about 5/8" tall. The cover was as tall as the base, and the salve within was as black as coal.

    Before "Neosporin" came that little silver colored tube of ointment with a green label. This was the cure all for any opening in the skin.

    Then there is St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin. What is all of that about? We know who St. Joseph was, but what was his connection with baby aspirin?

    My first tooth came out one day while Jane and I were playing at a friend's house in Yemassee. I think the name was Youmans. Momma had left us there for the afternoon to play with this older girl; I do not recall her name. While playing in the unusual yard, I suddenly noticed that one of my front teeth felt peculiar. It was as though there were a plastic shell over it. My tongue kept "playing" with the tooth, testing the "plastic shell" to see if it was getting any looser. Eventually, it did get looser and actually came out all together.

    To my surprise, it was not a plastic shell, but, in fact, my tooth itself. It was followed by what seemed like two quarts of blood.

    The young girl who was, perhaps, "sitting" us that afternoon, knew what had happened immediately, and tried to convince me that what I was experiencing was natural and expected. The next thing I wanted to know was did she think it was natural and expected for there to be a hole in my jaw eight inches deep and four inches wide? She laughed and assured me that cavern would soon heal over and a new tooth would soon be poking through it. That was how I recall loosing my fist tooth.

    The Catholic parish in Walterboro was named St. Anthony's. The small green structure on Whittaker street held about 30 families at Christmas time. The rest of the year, twenty families or so attended regularly.

    The parish priest, Father Roy Frances Aiken, an Episco- palian convert to the faith, was new to the community. He was newly ordained and ready to make his mark in the church.

    He soon tired of doing all the "server" functions during Mass and asked my parents and Paul Debacker's family if we could each assist him on Sundays. Fr. Aiken assured our parents that we would not have to learn any of the prayers right away.

    He just wanted someone up there to pour the wine, ring the bells and assist with Communion. So at age six, I became an altar boy. Thus began a twenty year history of being an altar server, and a 45 year history of helping out on the altar in one way or another.

    Not much time went by, though, before Fr. Aiken asked us to begin repeating the responses (in Latin) with him. As we learned to read, he provided altar cards with the prayers for us to follow.

    Father Aiken went on to become Monsignor Aiken in the Charleston Diocese. I went on to be included among the first group of four Eucharistic ministers at the Cathedral of St. John, The Baptist, in the Diocese of Savannah, Ga.

    The microphone had a screen over the face plate to protect it from damage. Plus, it made it look cool! To operate it, it was necessary to look at the numbers on the vacuum tubes in the back of the set and compare them to a long list of compatible numbers on the chart provided. When it was discovered that one of our radios numbers matched one on the list, that tube had to be removed, a wire from the microphone inserted over one of the pins and the tube replaced in the radio.

    Our radio was one of those 38 inch floor models that had about 27 knobs on it. Quoting Bill Cosby, "Only two worked: 'On/Off' and 'Volume'! All the rest were there to replace any that got lost."

    Once the microphone was installed, our huge floor model radio magically was transferred into-an amplifier. It did not transmit to other radios on the street. It did not even transmit to other radios in the house. Although, at that time, we probably didn't have other radios in the house. Why would we? There was probably only one radio station within fifty miles.

    The next thing I got out was a 45 RPM turntable. I made the proper connections to make it amplify, too. Next, I would get a stack of 45's to play.

    Then I would sit in a chair in front of the radio, a pair of ear muffs on my head, and I would open my radio station ("Go live!"). . . .and for about 45 minutes, I would be a radio D.J.

    I would play requests . . . until of course the request was "Turn that racket off!"