250805 Stories and dreams

Most of this story was 75 years ago. The rest was many years later.

How I can remember this is a mystery to me.
I was sent down to the corner confectionery every day to buy my mother to get her a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes. While there, I usually had a nickel or so in my pocket. The store had penny candy and I had to decide what I wanted that day. The counter was filled with all kinds of candy. One favorite was candy dots on a strip of paper. They weren’t the best, but there were more of them than just picking any other candies.

The store also had shelves of used comic books. It being the fifties after WW-2 there were lots of war comic books. They were my favorite, perhaps because my dad and uncle were in the war. Dad was in Patton’s 3rd army in Germany and my uncle was a marine in Carlson’s raider battalion in the pacific. If I was out of money, I could trade 2 of my comics and get to choose one from the display. Later on, I would walk along the avenue with a girl in my class in school on our way home. One day she told me they were moving away and her mother had to dispose of a lot of things because they had to travel light. The girl took me into their home and she handed me a full box of her brother’s comic books. It was all I could do to carry them another 3 blocks home, but I wasn’t going to get rid of a single one of them.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I would have dreams at night. Sometimes I could run a few feet and take off flying (best dreams ever). Other times I was walking down the street and picking up loose change to fill my pockets with money.

Those were the best dreams of my life, until I met Joyce. That night changed my life forever. I had a dream that summer. I was in navy dress blues standing at an altar getting married to Joyce. I didn’t even know what dress blues were, so how could the dream have happened? I don’t have any idea. Oddly enough, Joyce and I were married in Saint Williams church, in Millington, Tennessee six months later; I in navy dress blues and she in a white dress.

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart. (Frank Sinatra song).