On Christmas Day it may be appropriate to say: to know the man, look carefully at the toys of his childhood ...
This is an original piece written and read by the author, Charles Elliott/Beautyseer.
Childish Things
Time to clean up, put away all those intense iconic
imaginings of childhood play, stow them
with the memories. Mostly-plastic dream sets,
they were dear to the small boy and his sisters: a farm set
for example, with its own polystyrene ground cloth;
the Fort Dearborn "wooden" stockade -- faux
pointed log posts enameled on interlocking steel;
a red-and-white Texaco service station;
a platoon of GI-Joe look alikes. A Lone Ranger
decoder ring. And before the last time we relocated,
a large, aluminum Allied moving van, too.
And what about the play store, a cardboard retail counter
for which we saved boxes and cans for weeks, so much
childish nagging to assure that adults opened all containers
only from the bottom? So many cereal boxes, cans
of vegetables, other grocery store items carefully resealed
to appear new when stocked in our pretend grocery?
Line up the shell merchandise again. Buy and sell,
yet dream more bucolic idylls. Set plastic cows pastoral,
to graze -- teetering -- upon the rumpled lawn again.
As the child, give no thought to the weariness of tallyings,
sunburnt plowings, all the twice-daily odd-hour milkings.
Park the car on the roof of the garage
run by that affable man with the trusty star
who in those distant Bob Hope-ful days still offered
full service at the pumps and committed repairs
cheerfully in bays below.
Post the cavalry ever-watchful upon the ramparts,
armed against feathered braves waiting to attack
at dawn, painted warriors who lurked just past the couch
on the rugged wall-to-wall, skulking and slouching
low out of old, culturally-biased molds.
Deploy the modern Army, too, always two identical sides
from the last good war, arrayed against their shadow selves,
never asking "Kill for what?" Every shiny figure pressed
in military green, each soldier marching or crouched
murderously with a rifle ready for redemptive gore.
Match displaced alphabets on a disappointing decoder ring
for which you sent two Cheerios boxtops and a fee
to Battle Creek. Learn secret meanings coming back
from the stars -- radio messages about virtue
and a circular breakfast cereal -- broadcast long ago
by that solitary Texas Ranger
and his one good, live, pidgin Injun.
Roll the scale model of the silvered moving van
that carried the furniture and bric-a-brac of our little clan,
first from the inner city of Brooklyn
and then from Long Island suburbs
to the lusher landscapes of Los Angeles. Roll the van
with rear doors that always flew open upon acceleration,
filled with our marbles and other precious items
so inertial that they have long since been left behind, lost.
Then the Kodak box camera, my Mighty Mouse scenarios
in which my sister -- caped, stern -- saved the world
in stark black-and-white. And the little, circular printing press.
Rotate again in your mind's eye the pink rubber type
snugged backward into gray metal cases on the central drum.
Roll them with ink, then past paper. A few good turns
deserve more. And that printing press going 'round,
coming around, faster, faster, would set me up, cast me
forever after as a man of words and images, a moveable type.
Even now, restless. Every day looking
round for something new to see and say.
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12:59
Bubblesby oweiser82 views
All I ever wanted was books, music...mostly got socks and bloomers! lol Fantastic write for the season, Charles. (And we have a great time with the legend of Santa and the 12 year old...and does she ever get frustrated!lol)
MsTashtoo 2 months ago
I think your right Charles as a child i played with barbie dolls... now i'm a cross dressing womaniser lol... as ever a pleasure to listen to your taut and explorational words...read with style apu! :)
arron shilling
MultiTeliot 2 months ago
while i read this i thought we should never ever stop playing...my brother once had a red-and-white Texaco service station as well..we did not have much money when we were small - so there were not many toys and we improvised a lot...but that was the magic..
claudiaschoenfeld 2 months ago