The Martians are coming! The Martians are coming!

The day before Halloween 1938 a young man named Orson Wells made an adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds for the radio. To make it more dramatic he decided to broadcast it in the form of news broadcasts. A portion of the audience concluded that it was hearing an actual news account of an invasion from Mars. People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens. Many water towers were shot that evening by people believing they were Martian tripods attacking them. It would later be called The Night That Panicked America. It seems every year since radio stations rebroadcast it as a Halloween treat.
On the day before Halloween 1971 , at the tender age of 6 I knew none of this. All I knew or cared about was that for some reason the area I was living in was splitting trick and treating up into 2 nights, October 30, and of course October 31. I bugged my parents into letting me go on both nights and eventually they caved in. So on that beautiful Saturday evening my father took me to the side of town where trick or treating was allowed.
On the way there Dad kept fumbling with the radio trying to find a station that wasn't playing "That damn rock and roll". He stopped when he found a news broadcast about some "explosions" on the planet Mars. I was too excited about the prospect of all that extra candy to really listen too closely. My Dad listened with a slight smile on his face.
We got to where we were going and I got out and ran to a few houses. My goal was to fill my pillow cushion full with candy. It took just a few minutes for me to hit the few houses on that street with their lights on. As I got back into the car Dad was still listening to that news station. He told me that a "huge flaming object " had just landed on a farm in New Jersey. Dad said he thought it was a meteor. A big one.
Now this got my attention. Like most 6 year old boys , 2 things interested me, Astronomy, and Dinosaurs.
As Dad drove to the next block he said "It's probably nothing."On the radio,the reporter and some famous scientist(who I had never heard of before) were driving out to see it. The scientist kept saying he was sure it wasn't from Mars.
"That's Good" dad said.
As we got to the next block I was a little less eager to get out, now really interested in what was going on. But the call of candy could not be denied .I ran up and down the block in record time getting all the candy that could be gotten. I had almost forgotten about the meteor when I got back in the car. It seemed the reporter and scientist had gotten to the field where it had crashed while I was out trick or treating.(pretty good timing on their part.)As Dad drove(slowly) to the next block over all hell broke loose.
It was beginning to turn out that this was no meteor! This might be a spacecraft of some sort!
"I knew it" Dad said.
I was now in no hurry to get out and trick or treat anymore. As the reporter talked the top of the "craft" opened. The reporter described the aliens coming out of the ship.
"Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," he said, in an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. "Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It...it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate....The thing is raising up. The crowd falls back. They've seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't find words. I'm pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the description until I've taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be back in a minute."
It's nothing short of a miracle that I didn't pee my pants.
Within a few short minutes the reporter was back. The reporter sounded afraid, and Dad kinda looked afraid. The reporter was now talking about 3 guys walking up with white flags as a show of friendship for the Martians."What?"Dad said. "You can't trust any Martians!"
It seemed Dad was right. The Martians promptly shot some ray beams at the 3 guys, and then turned it on the rest of the crowd. The reporter talked about the ray moving toward him. Then static.
I was now very very scared. Dad put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said "World's coming to an end. You need to get all the candy you can. It may be all the food we have to live on." With a trembling lip I got out of the car and ran as fast as I could from house to house. The people at the door were treated to a crying ghost begging for candy. I finished that block in record time.
By the time I finished the second block the Martians and petty much destroyed our Army and Air-force. As I got back from the third and last block they were marching on New York City. A new reporter described the Martians spraying gas and the residents were "Running like rats into the east river."
" I hope we have enough candy to live on "Dad said very sadly. Dad then turned the radio off saying he just couldn't listen anymore." Lets go home before the Martians start spraying gas."
My brothers and sister were sitting in the living room watching, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".The front door flew open and I came tearing in screaming at the top of my lungs. I ran up the stairs and into my bedroom. As I dove under the bed it never occurred to me that no one else seemed bothered by the end of the world.
It was only a few minutes later that my Mom came upstairs and told me that it was all a cruel joke. It was nothing more then a old radio broadcast. Her Dad was fooled by it 33 years earlier. It was just Dad "having some fun with me."
Oh yeah and everyone was downstairs eating my candy.
Looking back on it, was I upset and embarrassed? You bet. But every year after , until well after college, a Halloween never went by without me catching "War of the Worlds" on some radio station.
And I did get a record amount of candy that night.

The Peanut Heads


A couple of days ago, the news had a "Important events on this day" segment. The main focus was that Apollo 11 had returned to earth after the first moon walk 34 years ago.
Wow. That brought back some memories. It was a little after my trip through the French doors. I was still healing up, but couldn't wait to watch it. Even at 4 years old I knew that I would remember this for the rest of my life. Every detail would be burned in my brain, so I could tell my children and grandkids. I remember the excitement of my entire family. I remember my Dad telling me " Look up at the sky. Tonight there's life on another world" I remember my family sitting around the TV waiting for this historic event .I also remember sitting next to me was the planters Peanut Man. Complete with a monocle, top hat, and cane.
Whoa.
that's not right I thought.
I closed my eyes and tried to think back again. Not only could I remember the Peanut Man being there ,I remembered some Peanut children, a Peanut wife, and even a little peanut dog. This really started to bother me. I began to have dreams of sitting on a couch watching television and asking this huge smiling Peanut to pass the popcorn.
I pride myself on having a really good memory. I may not remember every detail, but I have a good overview of my life. And I was fairly sure that I've never been in the company of a family of monstrous mutant peanuts. Yet the memory was there.
I decided to ask my family, and hope they wouldn't laugh at me. I went over to my Parents while my Grandfather and an uncle were over. My sister arrived for a visit shortly after I got there. Great I thought. Now the whole family can laugh at me together.
"Hey I had a weird dream last night " I said." I dreamed I was watching the Moon Landing next to the Planters Peanut Man."
The Kitchen became very , very silent. Everyone stared at me.
" I wonder why I'd have a strange dream like that."
They kept staring at me for a couple of seconds. Finally my Dad laughed.
"That's because we watched it in the peanut heads apartment."
"Excuse me?" I asked
" Our TV was broke, so we went downstairs and watched the moon landing in the peanut heads apartment" My Mother added.
" Who were the peanut heads?"
"Oh they were the family living downstairs from us."
I felt like we were going in circles.
"Why did you call them the peanut heads?"
My father looked at my like I had asked the single most stupid question he had ever heard."Because"he said,slowly, as if speaking to a 4 year old" Their heads looked like peanuts."
My Mom nodded " Oh they did .They did. Those poor kids."
" Those poor ugly kids" My sister said with a cruel smile." They were the ugliest family I'd ever seen. "
"Didn't one of them become a Doctor?" my uncle asked .
"Dr. Peanut Head?" I said.
Everyone laughed.
"What was their real name?"
Everyone became very silent.
" I don't remember" my Mom said. Dad looked very puzzled. "Your father always just called them the peanut heads. After a while that's how we thought of them."
So because of Father's perverse sense of humor I will always remember watching the single biggest historic event of my life, with ...... This guy.

Fun at Home

By the time I was 6 , we had moved maybe 6 times. I began to think that maybe we were being chased by aliens or perhaps even Bigfoot. In retrospect it could have been the sad fact that we had left a few of our previous homes a bloody mess. Whatever the reason as I started first grade we moved to a new house. And for the first time moving didn't bother me. It seemed like we were making a fresh start. Dad had stopped drinking so much and got a job as an exterminator. He even drove around in a van with a big dead bug on top of it. At 6 years of age I thought there was nothing cooler then that. My 10 year old sister would cringe and run and hide whenever she saw that van coming our way.(perhaps that's why I liked it so much.)
Life was good. After 2 years I finally got off that damn blanket and could run and play with other kids. I don't think I stopped moving even when I was asleep. My teachers had to always tell me to stay in my seat. In every picture and home movie of the time I'm always either running or moving my mouth. Usually both.
But I hadn't forgot the laughter of my big brothers and sister as I sat on that hated blanket. I waited until I was fully healed to do anything about it.(I most likely waited longer then I had to ,but my parents had instilled in me the fear that I would break into 5 very messy pieces) Finally In 1st grade,a little after a month after moving to our new home I struck back.
I remember standing in the hallway by the top of the stairs. To my left I could look into Geno and John's bedroom. Geno lay on his bed reading a book .It was one of those John Carter Warlord of Mars books. I looked into his room for a few seconds until Geno saw me.
"What are you looking at ?" He said.
I smiled at Geno.
Then I threw myself down the stairs. I believe I managed to hit every step on the way down. All the way down those steps I screamed bloody murder. As I hit the bottom my parents came running in from the kitchen. Geno now stood at the top of the stairs trying to figure out what happened.
Mom and Dad picked me up and asked me what happened.
"Geno (sob) threw(sob)me (sob) down the stairs!(sob sob) AND HE LAUGHED AT ME!"( I thought that was a really good touch)
Dad narrowed his eyes and looked up the stairs at Geno who was now holding his hands up in a "Not me " gesture and backing down the hallway. Dad handed me to Mom and began to walk up the stairs.
"Think you're a big man for picking on a little boy half your size?!" As Dad marched up the stairs he took his belt off. "Are you trying to break the boy in 5 pieces? We've just put him back together! "
I'm not sure how bad he whipped Geno, but Geno gave me dirty looks for the few weeks. I just smiled sweetly back at him, content in my knowledge that he couldn't touch me.
After that I became a terror to my brothers and sister.
I found out it was much simpler to accuse them of hitting me in my side where my scar was then to throw myself down the stairs every few weeks. And far less painful
"Mom ! Dad! John hit me in my side.....And He Laughed at me!" (I was over doing it at that point)
Mom and Dad would come in and punish John for hitting me.
"Mom ! Dad ! Rose hit me in my stomach!"
Mom and Dad would come in and punish Rose for hitting me
"Mom! Dad! Steve....."
Steve hit me.
Hard.
In my gut.
By my scar.
He hit me so hard I found it hard to breath.
Mom and Dad came in. They punished him for hitting me. All the while he smiled at me.
I never ever accused them of hitting me again. They had figured out the weak point in my plan. If they were going to get in trouble for doing something they might as well go ahead and do it.
Looking back at it , they really didn't make that much fun of me while I sat on that blanket. I was just being a brat.
Thank God Steve knocked some sense into me.

I Learn The French Can't Build Decent Doors.




About 6 months after Steve put a bullet in my back(ok it was only a b.b. pellet) I started to have some problems. It was right after I had turned four. I discovered to my horror that my urine was now red. Even at four I know this was just not right. When Mom found out she freaked out and I was sent back to the hospital. They told Mom it was most likely just a kidney infection. I was given a prescription of penicillin and sent home. 24 hours I was back in the Emergency Room. It turns out I'm deathly allergic to penicillin. I swelled up and turned blue. At one point they thought I might die.
But thankfully for you the gentle reader I recovered.
My near death experience didn't help my pissing blood problem. In fact it was getting worse. As time went on I was urinating more blood than urine. I spent much time in the hospital off and on while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me.
At one point I pointed to the Doctors that perhaps it had something to do with the b.b. that was supposed to be lodged in my spine. The Doctors laughed and said basically, "You're just a four year old boy who doesn't know anything."
About three months after my blood problem I was admitted to the University of Iowa hospital for some quick checks.
I wouldn't come home for 3 months.
I became a unholy terror in that hospital. At first I was hooked up to an EEG machine that monitored my heart rate. My room was stark white with only me in it. I gently asked for a television to watch. They told me that I couldn't have one until I was unhooked from the EEG machine.(for some reasons the early ones didn't work well with TV's) By the third day I was horribly bored. I asked again if I could have a television. They said," Not yet. Wait until we are done running our test." That afternoon I rolled the table the EEG was on over to the window and tossed it out.
The Doctors screamed at me. The Nurses screamed at me. When Mom and Dad visited they screamed at me.
I got my television set.
Later I demanded 3 television sets so I could watch all the channels at the same time. I started screaming. They told me screaming wouldn't do any good. They shut the door. I kept screaming. I screamed for a whole day.
Soon I had three television sets.
I kept them all on the same channel.
About 2 weeks after I was there they inserted a catheter in me. I thought that was the most painful thing that could ever be done to me until they gave me a kidney test. I knew I was in trouble when they strapped me into the bed and had two big orderlies hold my arms and legs for good measure.
I was so pissed off after that , that I decided not to help them any longer. They would empty my catheter bag at the same time every day. Then they took away the contents to be tested. It was still very red.
So a few minutes before they would come in I would empty it myself into a bedpan by my bed. Sometimes I just put it in the toilet , but usually I tossed it out the window.
At first they thought my kidneys may have stopped working. They thought I might be near death. My parents even had a priest come in and baptize me.
They were again, not amused when they found out.
I demanded and eventually got a newspaper every day. I couldn't read but liked to pretend.
There were two main Nurses that tended to me. I can't remember their names but rather I remember them as "Pretty Nurse", and "Ugly Nurse". Pretty Nurse was very nice to me. She always treated me very nicely and would give me extra desert. Ugly Nurse clearly did not like me. She always took a little too much pleasure sticking me with a needle. She was also the one who took my extra two television sets away when I was down being x-rayed.
The Nurses two different reactions to me could have something to do with me actually calling them Pretty Nurse and Ugly Nurse.

(Pretty Nurse)

Finally a German doctor came to my rescue when he had me X-rayed from a different angle. It turned out that my b.b. pellet had drifted away from my spine and into my kidney. I was shortly scheduled for surgery. Before I was operated on , the Doctor asked if he could have my b.b. pellet. He said it was a very unique surgery he was performing and he would like it as a souvenir. I told him no.
The Nazi bastard took off with it before I awoke from my surgery. He did however leave me with a scar that ran more than half way around my waist.
After the surgery I spent another two weeks in the hospital. Back in the 60's they wanted a patient to have as much bed rest as possible.
Finally the day came for me to come home. I remember the entire hospital staff cheering as I was wheeled out. Dad told me that he was going to be paying for my hospital stay until he was an old man. I was under no circumstances to get so much as a cold until I was 18.
Dad didn't go straight home. He took me to a local park . There I saw my entire family and many friends. There was a big banner that read," Welcome Home TOMMY!" I was very happy. All I wanted to do was run and play with my cousins and friends. Steve was one of the first ones to come up to me. He told me he was so sorry for what happened.
I didn't get to run and play it turned out. My parents still worried about the massive scar I had, made me sit on a blanket the entire time.

(I hated that blanket)
I was furious. I had just spent months in that hospital, and now that I was out my parents were still not letting me have any fun. Worse yet, they took me to where I had to watch everyone else I knew running around having fun.
They party eventually broke up and we headed home after a long day. I was happy beyond words to finally be home. I wanted to run and play , but my parents told me to take it easy, and not strain my scar. Dad told me if I wasn't careful I would break apart into three very messy pieces.
After a little while my parents had to leave to take my Grandma home. They took my sister with them leaving me in the care of my 3 brothers. As Dad left he looked at Steve and said half serious "Can I trust you to watch Tom without trying to kill him this time?"
Steve turned beet red and said,"Dad I didn't mean to hurt him." Mom hit Dad on the back of the head and said,"Gene cut it out. You'll make Steve crazy if you keep that up!"
The minute Mom and Dad left I started running all over the house. I jumped up and down on my bed, I threw pillows all over and wrecked anything I could. I slammed the French doors to my bedroom open and shut. My 3 brothers did everything they could to keep up with me. They were afraid to touch me because they were still very freaked out by the scar I had.
Steve told John to make my bed so Mom and Dad wouldn't come back to a messy house. I thought that since I had been in the hospital for so long, I should make the bed. (4 year old logic) John pushed me out of the room, and I ran back in. John pushed me out again. This grew into a game of it's own. This went on over and over. Finally I closed my eyes stuck out my right arm and ran back into the room. I heard the sound of glass breaking.
I opened my eyes and saw my idiot brother had closed the French doors to our bedroom. And my arm was now sticking threw it.
A huge strip of skin from my wrist to my elbow now hung loose. I was bleeding badly. I looked up and saw John faint.( he denies that to this day) I stood there just looking at my arm and the blood coming out. I didn't start screaming until Steve and Geno began screaming. Steve ran over and picked me up, and carried me out to our 4th floor hallway. We didn't have a phone at the time (We had just moved in and it wasn't hooked up yet.) and Steve didn't know what to do. Steve totally freaked out and began pounding on all the doors as he ran down the stairs. I remember watching my blood dripping on the stairs. Somewhere around the 2nd floor I fainted from lack of blood.
From what I understand a man passing along the street heard Steve and ran to help. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around my arm. This man almost certainly saved me from bleeding to death.
And I wouldn't have gotten there if it wasn't for Steve.
I woke in the E.R. with the doctors stitching my arm shut. My Mother and Uncle Tim were there with me. Everytime I would turn and look at my arm , my mother would gently turn my head back and talk to me. I remember thinking I would much rather look at my arm. So I kept turning my head and she kept turning it back. After a while she wasn't doing it as gently. I remember clearly remarking that my bone wasn't white. It was more a dull reddish brown. My Uncle gleefully told me it was because of the dried blood.
"oh" I said. And promptly passed out again.
When I woke up I was back home laying in the bed I was trying to make hours earlier. The French doors were now removed. There was another welcome home party for me. This one was much more sedate.
As I lay in that bed in a very weakened state, I could hear Dad screaming,"GOD DAMNED FRENCH DOORS!"
Steve never ever babysat again.
I entered kindergarten a few weeks later with more stitches then most Vietnam vets. My Father could never punish me for anything. If it looked like I was going to get spanked I just made sure a scar was showing. My parents seemed to think that at any moment my stitches were going to break open and I would crumble into 5 very messy pieces.
When I was in 1st grade I fell during a class trip. My right arm hit a rock and I needed stitches. At first my parents were very worried. However when my teacher told my parents it was 4 stitches they became very underwhelmed. In point of fact I didn't even rate any ice cream on the way home.
While they were still nervous about my previous wounds, I had all but numbed them to normal accidents. I understood that nothing less then losing a limb was going to upset these people.
However they were not going to take any chances. For example whenever we would have a family picnic my parents would lay a blanket on the ground and make me sit on it, while the other kids ran and played. I grew to hate family get togethers.
I also grew very angry.
It also gave me plenty of time to plot revenge on my siblings. Not revenge for the accidents. Revenge for laughing in my direction while I had to sit on that damn blanket. I knew I couldn't do anything as long as I was still healing. But if anything my experience had taught me patience.
Geno would be my first victim.