Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist
Cumberland Times-News
April 17, 2009 12:50 am
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My mindset has long been that there is so much free entertainment out there, just waiting to be had, and all you have to do is look for it, take advantage of it and enjoy the results.
One of my younger co-workers recently said he was playing catch-up.
I asked him if he knew why people had to play catch-up.
“No, Goldy,” he said, a look of growing wariness in his eyes, “why do people have to play catch-up?”
“People have to play catch-up,” I said, “because they can’t cut the mustard.” (Say it out loud, if you didn’t get it right off.)
He just looked at me for a moment and then turned and walked away.
Now and then, someone who is considerably younger than I am remarks that he is having trouble “finding himself.” Or herself.
I usually tell these people to just wait until something itches, and then they’ll know right where they are.
The trick is not necessarily to be particularly witty, brilliant or wise, but to leave them with something they cannot respond to.
As a friend of mine who is a retired judge says, age and experience beat the hell out of youth and ignorance every time.
Age and experience also come in handy when you’re having a conversation with somebody who shares them.
A friend of mine’s work station has a photo of her grandson that shows him wearing a basketball uniform with the team name, “ROTARY.” I told her it would be neat if she could put this photo next to another photo of him in a uniform that says, “TOUCHTONE.”
She laughed. Bless her heart, I didn’t have to explain it to her. Isn’t it much easier to relate to someone when there’s no generation gap involved?
There are other things that leave me wondering in spite of my age and experience.
Like, the other day in the newspaper parking lot, I saw an SUV with a warning label that said to avoid injury, one should stand back from the tailgate while it is opening.
I mentioned this to another of my co-workers — one who also has the benefit of age and experience — and asked her how much worse it could get.
“I don’t know, Goldy,” she said. “The way things are, I suspect very strongly that somewhere, somebody did stand too close to one of those things when it was opening and got clonked on the noggin, then sued the dealer or somebody else.”
Good answer, and it’s probably true.
I tend to believe that’s so because years ago, before I had much age and experience, my parents and Grandmother Goldsworthy and I made one of our weekly Saturday pilgrimages to downtown Cumberland, where there were stores, places to eat, wonderful things to see and do and wonderful people to meet.
There still are stores, places to eat and wonderful things and people in downtown Cumberland, just not as many.
We usually parked in the Blue-White Tower parking lot, then split up to go our separate ways. I tagged along with one of the grownups, not because I didn’t feel safe, but because they had money and I didn’t.
There were newsstands — something you don’t see much any more — that had newspapers, comic books and other neat things, and a coin shop I liked to visit because at the time I collected stamps and coins.
My dad spent probably $15 or $20 to buy me a 1955 Lincoln penny with an “S” mark that showed it was minted in San Francisco. These coins were somewhat rare, and I was unable to find one in circulation, so after I whined and cried enough, Dad gave in and bought me one.
Of course, not a week went by before I found a 1955-S penny in a handful of change.
I also liked to go to Hill’s Toy Store, not having any idea at the time I would wind up being friends with Bob and Bill Hill, who owned the place. After I grew up and moved to Cumberland, the three of us frequently wound up on bar stools next to each other at The Famous North End Tavern.
At noon, my family met in front of Rosenbaum’s to go for lunch. Dad and I usually got there about five or 10 minutes before noon, and Grandmother showed up right at noon. Then we’d have to wait another 15 or 20 minutes for my mother, who invariably explained that she’d lost track of time.
For lunch, we went to McCrory’s 5&10. My favorite meal there was two hot dogs, french fries and a chocolate ice-cream soda.
McCrory’s was great because all of the toys were downstairs in the basement, and so were the aquariums with fish. My first goldfish came from McCrory’s, and I named him (or her, I had no way of telling) “Goldy.”
Goldy survived for nine years, outliving every other fish we put in the aquarium. Following Goldy’s funeral, conducted in the bathroom of our home, my mother announced, “There will be no more fish in this house unless they are in my skillet.”
Rosenbaum’s fascinated me because of the compressed air tubes into which clerks put cylinders containing pieces of paper and shot them away to ... oh. OK. I see.
You’re still waiting for me to explain why I’m not surprised that they would put a warning label on the tailgate of an SUV, and what it has to do with the Blue-White Tower.
All I can tell you is that it happened at the Blue-White tower, and neither my dad nor I saw it. To the end of her days, my mother never did explain to us how she managed to close the car door on her head.
That said ... when we have a little more time I’ll tell you about the night I drove my car into Patterson Creek. I began to figure out that something was wrong when my buddy — who also gained in age and experience and grew up to be a high-school principal, asked, “Why are my feet getting wet?”
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