Nosmo King
Gold Member
I've been wracking my brain for a new story to tell you. I've told you about life during wartime as Pop melted old records and painted the soft bakelite on the inside of basement windows for profit. I've told you about my Grandpa serving as an air raid warden, keeping northeast Ohio safe from Nazi Germany. I've told you about my sainted Uncle Ducky who shot off a perp's ear while in hot pursuit along the railroad tracks.
Did I tell you about Pop's lucky break? Summer 1952 and Pop was a freshly minted high school graduate about to take his place at the print shop as an apprentice typographer. He was studying at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University. And he was courting Mom.
One evening he was playing his favorite sport, basketball. Now, the love of basketball was not one of the traits I inherited from Pop. Pop was tall and lean as a young man. I, on the other hand, was built like a fire hydrant with stubby legs and embarrassingly small hands. Not the physique required to play basketball. More like the physique needed to play foosball.
Anyway, Pop went up for a rebound and came down on the way to the emergency room to have his badly fractured ankle set by the mildly competent staff at City Hospital. He hobbled around with what must have looked like a plaster ski boot for weeks afterward. In the meantime, the United States Army was eager to make Pop's acquaintance. They even sent him a letter inviting him to join up and take part in the war they were waging on the Korean peninsula.
Pop, always eager for travel and adventure, bundled up his cast, the x-ray photographs the staff at the hospital took and a letter from old Doc Rugh who set the ankle. One of Pop's buddies also got an invitation from the armed forces and they decided to share the ride to the induction center in far off Cleveland.
The medical screeners at the induction center thoroughly examined all of Pop's paperwork and thanked him. They told him to sit tight for now, but to expect another letter in the future. Pop's buddy had no x-rays nor a cast the size of Grandma's handbag, nor a letter from old Doc Rugh. So he was asked to join the line of the other young men standing in their skivvies.
At that time there was a particularly virulent strain of flu going around so the Army thought it best to inoculate the new recruits. Pop's buddy had a rival in high school. They dated the same girls, ran on the track team, competed academically for valedictorian.
Lo and behold, there sat his rival all dressed up as an Army corpsman administering flu shots. Their eyes met and they squinted suspiciously at one another, like two hombres in a Sergio Leone film. Pop's buddy approached his rival's station and gingerly pulled his waistband on his tidy whities down. Unknown to him, his rival tapped the point of the syringe on the marble window sill just before he gave him the shot.
It must have been like getting vaccinated with a crochet hook. Pop never got a second letter and married Mom the following January. His buddy was inducted, but never saw action in Korea. His rival stayed in the Army and was promoted through the ranks, eventually receiving an honorable discharge and then off to medical school.
Did I tell you about Pop's lucky break? Summer 1952 and Pop was a freshly minted high school graduate about to take his place at the print shop as an apprentice typographer. He was studying at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University. And he was courting Mom.
One evening he was playing his favorite sport, basketball. Now, the love of basketball was not one of the traits I inherited from Pop. Pop was tall and lean as a young man. I, on the other hand, was built like a fire hydrant with stubby legs and embarrassingly small hands. Not the physique required to play basketball. More like the physique needed to play foosball.
Anyway, Pop went up for a rebound and came down on the way to the emergency room to have his badly fractured ankle set by the mildly competent staff at City Hospital. He hobbled around with what must have looked like a plaster ski boot for weeks afterward. In the meantime, the United States Army was eager to make Pop's acquaintance. They even sent him a letter inviting him to join up and take part in the war they were waging on the Korean peninsula.
Pop, always eager for travel and adventure, bundled up his cast, the x-ray photographs the staff at the hospital took and a letter from old Doc Rugh who set the ankle. One of Pop's buddies also got an invitation from the armed forces and they decided to share the ride to the induction center in far off Cleveland.
The medical screeners at the induction center thoroughly examined all of Pop's paperwork and thanked him. They told him to sit tight for now, but to expect another letter in the future. Pop's buddy had no x-rays nor a cast the size of Grandma's handbag, nor a letter from old Doc Rugh. So he was asked to join the line of the other young men standing in their skivvies.
At that time there was a particularly virulent strain of flu going around so the Army thought it best to inoculate the new recruits. Pop's buddy had a rival in high school. They dated the same girls, ran on the track team, competed academically for valedictorian.
Lo and behold, there sat his rival all dressed up as an Army corpsman administering flu shots. Their eyes met and they squinted suspiciously at one another, like two hombres in a Sergio Leone film. Pop's buddy approached his rival's station and gingerly pulled his waistband on his tidy whities down. Unknown to him, his rival tapped the point of the syringe on the marble window sill just before he gave him the shot.
It must have been like getting vaccinated with a crochet hook. Pop never got a second letter and married Mom the following January. His buddy was inducted, but never saw action in Korea. His rival stayed in the Army and was promoted through the ranks, eventually receiving an honorable discharge and then off to medical school.
