We kids, back in the 1930’s, spent many more hours outdoors when school was let out and home chores finished. Money was scarce so most of our toys were imaginitively created. Skateboards were made from scrap lumber with rusty old roller skates for wheels. Fishing poles, dueling swords, bows and arrows grew on trees then, because money didn’t.
We were inspired for our outdoor games by comic book adventures, Saturday movie serials and especially the early evening radio programs of heroes like Flash Gordon, Bobby Benson and the Lone Ranger. Often, those exciting programs would have boys pleading for ten-minute bedtime extensions to find out how spaceman Buck Rogers escaped the fiendish trap of Killer Kane or how Dick Tracy managed to douse the sizzling dynamite fuse set by Flat Top. Every Saturday morning we’d take to the streets or the neighborhood woods to act out our versions of these adventures.
“Gangbusters” one of our favorites, was a true crime story program with accounts of the successful captures of famous crooks by police forces around the country. A scary element was added at the end with the description of a desperate criminal, still at large. His violent crimes were described at length and a “last seen” location was given.
After one of these programs, Dad asked me to go down and throw a shovelful of coal on the furnace for the night. I crept down the steps, turned the cellar light on and and moved cautiously toward the coal bin where I was almost sure “Slasher Solinsky” was lurking in the anthracite. I quickly fed the furnace and ran, carrying the shovel halfway upstairs, in case he was behind me and getting close.
One rainy day, my pal Bobby played out a one-man cops and robbers adventure game. He tied himself up before the climax where he was supposed to capture the imaginary gang single-handedly. Unfortunately, he’d tied one knot too many. His mother finally heard his calls for help, but too late. Bobby’s bladder won the race.
Another pal, Chuck, was discovered by passerby, struggling upside down in a phone booth with his clothing wrapped around his head. It took two cops ten minutes to free him from the booth. Chuck was never a Superman fan after that. He switched to Billy Batson who could transform into a completely uniformed Captain Marvel by merely shouting “Shazam!”
Chuck got in the habit of shouting the magic word whenever he felt the need to escape, hoping he’d magically be promoted to Captain. One day he scared the life out of cranky old Mrs. Novotny, our third grade teacher, and instead of being turned into Captain Marvel, he was turned into to the principal’s office.
Imagine That 