When I was growing up, we visited my parents' home town in northeastern Indiana about twice a year, at Christmastime and during the summer. My favorite part of the visit was when Grandma announced "Let's go to Fort Wayne!"
When we were very little, Mom and Dad came, too, and when we were older, my baby sister came with us, but for about five yeares it it was just Kenny and me, fighting over who would get to ride "shotgun" in Grandma's brown Chevy Impala as she drove down country roads through Butler Center and Laotto and Huntertown, and finally Fort Wayne:
The biggest, brightest, most exciting city in the world.
It was unimaginably huge, bigger than Rock Island, Moline, and Davenport put together, and it had the most fascinating places I had ever seen. There was always something new: a gigantic County Courthouse; a candy factory much nicer than that scary one in the Willy Wonka movie; a Children's Zoo with its own train; an art museum; the history museum at Old City Hall; Kern's Toy Store; a memorial to Johnny Appleseed.
Somehow Grandma always knew where there were a lot of cute boys: playing basketball in schoolyards, crowded into booths at the soda shop, building snowmen at Lakeside Park, running around in groups at street fairs. Sometimes she let us play with them, while she sat on a bench, reading a magazine.
We usually stopped for lunch at the Famous Coney Island on Main Street: hot dogs with chili, cheese, and onions, and steamed buns. Plus french fries, onion rings, and root beer floats (vanilla ice cream floating in a gigantic mug of root beer).
And a never-ending supply of cute high school boys in white shirts, black pants, and black bow ties who brought out your orders.
On a cold day just before Christmas in fourth grade, we were having lunch at the Coney Island, and my brother and I were rough-housing, stealing fries off each other's plates, shoving each other, and laughing. Grandma Davis told us to settle down, so I stopped and picked up my root beer float.
Then Kenny shoved me again. I dropped the heavy mug onto my chest, drenching my shirt with root beer. More root beer splashed onto my pants, and the clump of melting ice cream fell right onto my lap.
Gross! Cold and wet! I pushed it onto the floor.
Kenny laughed and pointed. "You peed your pants!"
"Oh, no, you're soaked!" Grandma Davis exclaimed. She grabbed some napkins and tried to dab me, but the root beer and ice cream had already soaked in. "You can't ride all the way back to Garrett like this -- it's freezing out!"
A high school boy came running up: short, compact, muscular, with brown hippie-hair and a bright smile. He was carrying a little pad and pencil. I don't remember his name, if I ever knew it, so I'll call him Jim.
"Don't worry, Ma'am, I'll take care of your grandson," he said. "Come on, champ, let's get you cleaned up."
He took me by the hand and led me past the staring patrons to a little door marked "Employees Only." Inside it looked like a kitchen, with tables and chairs and a little refrigerator. There was a bank of lockers on on side, and a rack with a lot of coats hung up on it.
More after the break
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