Story Hour
Tom's Time Machine
Written by Gene B. Williams
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August 21 is Senior Citizen’s Day. It’s not always easy to understand just what our elders have done for us – and too easy to forget. What we have today came from yesterday. Someone older than you can say, “I’ve been where you are now – you have yet to be where I am.” That elder man was once a little boy. That elder woman was once a little girl. You can read about it in history books, but THEY lived it (or at least part of it). Listen to your parents. They were once children. Listen to your grandparents. They were once children. They grew up, just as you will grow up.
On this day – actually on every day – you can discover this treasure. Oh my, the stories you can hear!
Use this day – every day – to do something nice for an elder. They have been where you are now, and you have yet to be where they are. What a wonderful chance for you! As you hold that iPod, even the transistor was high-tech for an elder. Step into Tom’s Time Machine … if you dare.
Brad and Tom were good friends, but Brad often thought that Tom was a bit strange. The two boys would be eating a sandwich and dangling their feet in the stream, and suddenly Tom would come up with a story. Not just any story, what Tom told was real. Too real. Tom seemed to know things from history, almost as though Tom had been there himself.
Both boys loved history in school. Sometimes they would go to the library together and get books about it. This was different.
“Garlic was put on the grills at fairs and carnivals. It wasn’t for eating, not even to add flavor. It was shoved to the side and then thrown away. They wanted the aroma because roasting garlic makes people hungry. The people who sold popcorn and cotton candy also had special places so the smells would fill the air and bring people in. Vanilla was put into the sugar to make the cotton candy. It wasn’t for taste, it was because as the sugar melted to make the cotton candy, the vanilla heated and made a delicious smell. Did you know that there were big vats of hot water with melted butter on top? They’d reach in with tongs and get a cob of corn. Lifting it out coated the corn with the butter. It was SO yummy to eat! They also put the popcorn stands in special locations. And the places that sell fried foods. YUMMY smells! Back then, things weren’t so expensive. At the end of the night, they had bags of nickels, dimes and quarters. Oh, and Brad, you should have seen the way they could take a piece of paper, whip it into a cone and twirl inside that cotton candy tub. It was really something.”
The way Tom told the story, Brad didn’t need the actual smell of garlic or vanilla. He got hungry just hearing about it. He wanted to go visit a carnival or fair – especially the ones that Tom described in Salt Lake City and Idaho. Brad had been to a few carnivals and fairs, and twice to a circus that had a popcorn machine. He knew the excitement and the aromas. Tom’s telling of it had Brad seeing the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round, all the other sights and sounds. And the smells. As Tom talked, it was like being there. More, it was like Tom was describing real places. Real events.
Brad knew that Tom had never been to Utah or Idaho, yet he knew all about Liberty Park in Salt Lake City. He knew all about the Idaho State Fair and the nearby children’s hospital. Then he told about a line of kids in a driveway, all waiting on a summer evening for free cotton candy. “Living in the 1950s was so different from how things are now, Brad. In the 1920s they were even more strange, at least for you they would be.”
A couple of days later ….
“Being a gunner on a B-17 bomber in 1944 wasn’t at all fun. It wasn’t just that you were being shot at. You went way up to where there was no air to breathe and the temperature was worse than the deepest freezer. Just to survive you had to wear an electric suit. Sometimes they would short out and give you shocks or burns. Everything turned white with frost. Then as you came down the frost melted. You had to drain the water out of your guns or they might explode.”
Tom told stories about how the soldiers were trained with “grenades” that had just flour inside. The soldiers were covered in white, and laughing. He told of fixing a roof for a woman who had lost her husband and son. He described something called scones covered with homemade jam, served with hot tea. He talked of playing a piano, rather badly, and singing silly songs.
Rosie Pompetti
The great jubiletti
She married the wild man, it’s true
His name’s Irawaddy
He bites everybody
He once bit three lions in two
He loves his sweet Rosa
Buys her pretty clothsa
He treats her so fine like a child
But the circus peep tell us
His Rose makes him jealous
And that’s why the wild man he’s wild
Tom finished singing went on, “Then it was time for another mission. As shells exploded outside the B-17 ships, the flak ripped holes through their sides. It was terrible. No one wanted to be there, in the air or on the ground.”
The more Tom shared with Brad, the more real the stories seemed to be. Brad began to wonder how Tom knew all these things. It was almost as though Tom had been to that fair in 1927 – and had been in that B-17 over Germany.
On another day, Tom was talking about a cross-country trip. Brad knew that Tom had never been more than a few miles from home. Yet, Tom said …
“Going into California is the Sonora Pass. It has deep snow at the top sometimes even into the summer. Even in June you can make snowballs. The road is so steep your brakes could go out. Believe me, it’s a shortcut you don’t want to take! You might have to crash into a bush just to stop. At the bottom, though, you can get what is called a California burger. It’s huge and comes with lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and other things.“
A few days later, Tom seemed to be talking about another long trip. He described an open field – a plain – that stretched out for miles. He described it right down to the rusty barbed wire fence along an empty road, and a black Ford parked near the fence, with an open ice chest.
“The best way to eat on the road is to get stuff for sandwiches and a gallon of milk. Then stop somewhere on a quiet road out in the country, make the sandwiches, and if you spill the milk while pouring it into the cups … blame it on someone else.” Tom laughed himself silly and said, “I didn’t do it, Gene did,” then laughed even harder.
One day Tom told Brad …
“They’re going to rebuild that main street over on the next block. It used to be made of bricks and had tracks set into it for electric street cars. Before that, it was all a wheat field. The house where Mr. Jones lives used to be a barn. Back then there was no street, just a wide area with wheat growing. For a long time they used horses and cut the wheat by hand. Then tractors came. The river had huge barges to carry all that wheat. Anyway … when they rebuild the street, we should go over and see if we can get some of those old bricks that have been hidden and covered all these years.”
Brad thought again that Tom had been going to the library, but his stories weren’t the kinds of things you can find in books. They were too real. And once again Brad thought that the stories were almost as though Tom had been there himself. Brad loved the stories. Finally he asked Tom, “How do you know these things?”
“I found a time machine,” Tom said with a smile.
“There is no such thing as a time machine,” Brad said.
“Of course there is, and it’s very close. Would you like to see?”
Well, of course Brad was on his feet very fast. Who wouldn’t like to see a real time machine – even if you firmly believed that there was no such thing.
The two boys walked down the street, and there on his porch sat Mr. Jones. Brad had seen him there so many times. Out front was the cherry tree where all the neighborhood kids came. The kids were cautious, but Mr. Jones never seemed to mind. Sure, he LOOKED grumpy. And old. Mr. Jones was a bit frightening. He also never smiled. The children would pick up fallen cherries from the ground, and even if Mr. Jones came outside, he never yelled at them. He would just sit on his chair.
As they went up the sidewalk to the porch, Brad wanted to hold back. Then Tom waved and gave a cheery, “Good morning, Mr. Jones!”
“Well, Tom, how are you this fine morning? Ahh, and here’s Brad. I know you. Come on up. I even have some cupcakes.” As the boys enjoyed their treat, Mr. Jones said, “Tom, did I ever tell you about how my grandmother used to make cupcakes? I was very young but I remember it well. It was about 1923 and ….”
Mr. Jones was a real person, and he really did live in a house that was once a barn. Across the street from that barn was a wheat field. It later became a neighborhood, then a freeway. The other stories are also true, although from different people. Do you have an elder who lives near you? It’s now 2013, so you will be lucky to find someone who was even a youth in The Roaring Twenties. You might find someone who flew in a B-17 during World War II. It wasn’t all that long ago – really! – when television was new and had no color, with maybe one or two channels. About 60 years ago, a computer filled an entire building and couldn’t do what you can do now with a computer you can hold in your hand. For that matter, your iPod probably has more computing power than those computers on the first missions that put men around, and on, the moon. You can still find elders who, at your age, had never seen a car or an airplane.
Use this month to appreciate an elder. This person can be a relative or a neighbor. Start with your own parents. What was life like when they were young? Their parents know even more from farther back. You might even find a treasure, the way Tom and Brad did.
You might not believe this … way off in the future, YOU might be a treasure. YOU might know things that the children 50 years from now only read about in books … unless YOU tell them. For now … listen. Step into the time machine.
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