After my mother mistakenly injured my fingers in the car door I became more cautious, at least about where I put my hands. But I did make other mistakes. One tiny incident led to my first remembered lesson in personal morality. I had had been rolling and zoommm zoommm-ing my two foot long toy delivery truck along our driveway. The truck looked just like the real thing and held a cargo of sticks and stones. They were loaded by hand through the truck’s hinged back doors that could be locked with a little key. That day, after locking them I dropped the key through a slot between the doors. I was either dumb, looking for a challenge, or both. How to recover the key? Simple. I borrowed a butter knife from a kitchen drawer and used it to open the lock. I was proud of this solution and pulled my mother out to show her and brag about it. That was a mistake. Whatever her actual words, her response still resonates. I can see her kneeling, apron spread around her, looking into my eyes and saying “Robert honey,” (always my full given name when emphasis was essential) “you do not break into things like that. I don’t want you to do it again. Come to mommy or daddy if you need help. Promise?” She didn't want me to grow to be a safe cracker. I didn’t. Nor did I totally adhere. I've solved many problems unconventionally since. On my own. Always legally though.
Another sad comedy in that period also left a deep impression. The time was about a year after my finger nail loss. My parents were now divorced, so suddenly my mother and I were poor, living in a small apartment in Brooklyn . The only feature I recall was its ice box to which large blocks of ice were delivered periodically.
It was a time of desperation. I was unaware of the huge unemployment. Shanty towns were springing up in parks, beggars in the streets selling pencils or apples. We were lucky, luckier than many people, good people, who were out of work. Five year olds don’t ask all the right questions, so I didn't find out why we were better off, or how. My rudimentary financial understanding was that a penny could buy some candy; a rare nickel could get a Mello Roll. Someday, but not now, we would save enough to buy me a tricycle
Single mothers were a rarity then. My mother’s only skill was singing. She did this mostly from church balconies, and not regularly. But we were relatively comfortable even though we weren't living independently. My father was paying alimony sporadically, my mother’s family was contributing monthly to help keep us alive and sheltered.
Among the helpers was my mother’s sister, Aunt Judith, considerably older and quite wealthy. She and my uncle owned a traveling carnival, Sol’s Liberty Shows. It travelled in 40 railway cars. Not many people had such glamorous relatives. When I grew older any one I told that envied me. My aunt was very plump in her mid parts, with thin straight legs. Years later years, when my kids met her, she reminded them of one of their favorite playthings, Mr. Potato Head. He, or it, involved a spud taken from the pantry, painted to look human, standing on matchstick legs embedded in clay.
One day my aunt came to visit in the carnival off season. She, my mother, and I went for a walk. Aunt Judith reached into her purse and pulled out a monstrous fifty cent piece. “Here Bobby” she said, reaching down and handing me the coin, “put this in your piggy bank.”
I didn't have a piggy bank so I did the next best thing. A man, a beggar, was sitting at the corner. I ran down the street and tossed the half dollar into his cup. When my mother and aunt caught up with me my aunt knelt down and held me with both hands. Her face, normally round as the departed half dollar, but now long and sorrowful, was close to mine. I still hear her say “Bobby, I gave that money to you for you and your mother, not to give away. Don’t ever do that again! You must keep what is yours”.
I thought I had done a good thing. I still do. I learned much more from that incident than from blackened fingernails and a misplaced key. I still ponder its lessons. I wonder what others think.
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