which he would do and then return feigning awful, awful fright. “OK, Billy, it’s your
turn. Walk slow and don’t come back till you count to 50." Of course, I was scared
every step of the way and swore I really saw ghosts. I did have a good imagination.
I don’t know if the other kids believed me or not. But then, although young and
naive, perhaps I was a pretty good little actor.
Alan, the doctor’s son, had more advantages than Pershing and I, especially
in the late twenties and early thirties when times were hard for the Rohrer family.
Alan went to summer camp, went on family vacations to New York and London, took
cello lessons, belonged to the Y.M.C.A. AND was a Boy Scout.
I lost all envy of Alan’s scouting after one unforgivable blow to my delicate
sensitivities occurred: Alan had permission to take me to his troop’s late evening hike
on one of the nearby hills that enwrapped our town. Darkness fell and a campfire was
started. One of the boys said to me, “Here, kid, throw this on the fire," handing me
a piece of wood. It was too dark to see that the proffered end was covered with s—
t! I was glad that Alan hadn’t anything to do with that.
One Halloween I was the butt of another set-up. The older neighborhood kids
took me along to do the usual dirty tricks - in those days “trick or treat" was unheard
of. They made me soap the big front window of the A&P grocery store. “Don’t worry.
The store’s closed." But suddenly an employee bolted out of the door, grabbed me
and guarded me while I wiped off all the soap. Maybe I hadn’t been set up, but that
firewood incident gave me reason to be suspicious.
The big, new Y.M.C.A. building was directly across the street from our house
on Baltimore Avenue. Pershing and I often went to the game room and watched the
other boys shoot pool. Sometimes I sat on the bleachers in the swimming pool
waiting for Alan’s swimming class to end. In the gym, Pershing watched basketball
practice and games, nurturing his budding entrepreneurship in the sport which
somewhat later matured and lasted for several years.
While the Y.M.C.A. afforded these free advantages, an official membership
would have afforded more - plus status. But our families could not afford
memberships for Pershing and me. What irony for them to realize that Grandpap had
been a director of the “Y" in earlier years! Then we learned there might be a chance
for us after all. The sign read something like:
FREE MEMBERSHIPS FOR BOYS WHO QUALIFY.
SIGN UP IN THE OFFICE ON MONDAY.
Without saying a word at home, we boldly crossed the street, went into the red brick
building that we longed to be a part of, and lined up to claim our membership.
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