Sixth Grade Research Saves Lives

Life is full of questions. When we were young, our parents and teachers seemed to have all the answers. As we grew older we relied more on the limited knowledge of our friends which was where things start going wrong. After all, there were questions that we would never ask an adult but our friends were always willing to offer an opinion.

“I wonder if this will burn” would be one of those questions. It might make a great segment for the David Letterman Show but no good can come from two eleven year-old boys discovering the answer.

Fully aware of the “don’t play with matches” campaign from Fire Safety Month, Billy Garrabrandt and I tested the combustibility of an old canvas chair – in my garage. Much to our delight and then horror, the old dried out chair flared up almost instantly.

Our immediate reaction was to find something to put the fire out in the unattached garage. There was no water and racing into the yard to run a hose into the garage would likely cause alarm from my mother. Our solution was to smother the fire with a fifty pound bag of dry cement that we found in the corner. Cement powder was everywhere but the real threat of burning down our garage was abated.

For the first time ever, we voluntarily cleaned up the garage and carefully trimmed the burnt seat of the chair hoping the grownups wouldn’t notice. We then threw the chair out with all the garbage from our cleaning frenzy. It was one of the few times that we didn’t get caught doing something stupid but I did admit the whole incident to my mother thirty years later.

Scientific discovery was at the heart of many theories that Billy Garrabrandt and I attempted to prove. We tested Newton’s theories of gravity by tossing objects out of our third floor window. Seeking an answer to the age old question “what will happen if I throw this out of the window?” we dropped airplane models, army men and even food out of my attic window.

Years later we reversed the process to answer the question “what can we sneak into the attic?” but that’s a story for another column.

“Do you think it will explode?” was the most dangerous but also the most entertaining question that Billy and I struggled with. Chemistry sets were still the rage and enterprising youngsters could purchase refills of ingredients at the local hobby store. We pooled our meager resources and bought sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate to play with. With absolutely no thought of the danger involved, we made gunpowder and stuffed it into objects that we detonated. I don’t believe we ever created an explosion but running at full speed away from a lit fuse was better than any amusement park ride.

There were so many unanswered questions that Billy and I struggled to answer. Each of them would have made an excellent sixth grade science project.

“I wonder if this will make him throw up?” “What will happen if the dog drinks beer?” “How long will it take my two year-old nephew to learn a swear word?” “How far will car model parts travel when exploded with a cherry bomb?” “If a bus is passing by at 35 mph, what trajectory is needed to reach it with a snowball and still leave enough time to run away?”

There were no marble lab books, but Billy and I solved these and many other puzzling questions of childhood. I am not sure if humanity is better for it but it sure was fun.

The Flipside Column - November 2007

Bill of Rights Bulmer

Article I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Her name was Agnes Bulmer but we affectionately called her “Bill of Rights Bulmer.” She was my sixth grade teacher at St. Thomas the Apostle School. By all counts, she was a very good math teacher and probably a really nice person – unless you were a sixth grade student.
Sixth grade was a very big year at St. Thomas. The sixth, seventh and eighth grades were all located on the top floor of the old school. Kids rarely visited the top floor unless they were collecting mission money or attending detention. I visited more often for detention.
My feet didn’t touch the floor at the desks in the detention room and the textbooks were a lot thicker than ours. That was the extent of my third floor memories until I arrived in Mrs. Bulmer’s room in 1967.

Mrs. Bulmer was an unknown to us. She came to St. Thomas that year after a long career with the public schools. We had no rumors or inside information from older brothers and sisters. We would just have to break her in like we did Sister Theresa in fifth grade.

Sister Theresa had issues with classroom management as we say in the business and ended up leaving the convent altogether and getting married. We took full credit for her nun meltdown but I would imagine her fiancé was a bigger factor. Like a relief pitcher trying to finish out a losing game, Mrs. Nicholas took over the class for the last 2 months of school. It’s possible she became a nun after a few months with us.

So we arrived at Mrs. Bulmer’s sixth grade door with an attitude. Her reaction to our antics was calm and efficient. In that first week, four of us had a giggling fit that could not stop. She calmly wrote our names on the board and said she had a special assignment for our misbehavior.
We were told to write out the Bill of Rights and turn it in the next morning. It took about 45 minutes that night to write it out by hand which was annoying but not deadly for a punishment.
For one reason or another (mostly talking), my name appeared on the board again and again. I accepted my fate and wrote copy after copy of the Bill of Rights like a monastic monk.
Mrs. Bulmer rarely raised her voice and most kids learned to keep their names off of the Bill of Rights list. Michael Rosetti even erased the whole list once but she conveniently had it jotted down in her teacher book. She assigned the Bill of Rights to the whole class on several occasions and a collective groan came over the class.

One day I was filled with patriot pride and I challenged Mrs. Bulmer saying that we had a right to exercise our free speech. It said so right in the Bill of Rights and I was practically a constitutional scholar by now. Her response was to make me write the referenced document 5 times.

It got so bad that year, that I memorized the ten articles. I would write them in advance on pages in the back of my theme tablet and turn them in as needed. In a moment of stupidity, I handed her one moments after she assigned it just to get a laugh. The class laughed at me instead as I got another five assigned.

I wrote the darned Bill of Rights about 63 times that year according to the check marks on my notebook cover. I could have supplied the entire Continental Congress with copies two hundred years earlier.

I am ashamed that I can’t remember all of my grammar school teachers but I’ll never forget Agnes Bulmer and I’ll never forget the Bill of Rights.

The Flipside - May 2009

Don’t Tell Mom I Got Hit By A Car

I was hit by a car when I was twelve years old. The accident could not have been more predictable. I slipped my bicycle out into the middle of Byrd Avenue between two parked cars and wham!

My bike took most of the hit but the slow moving car’s bumper popped me in the shin. It shook me up but not as much as it shook up the elderly driver. I assured him that I was fine and I began walking the bent bicycle home.

It’s not as though I hadn’t been warned. My parents had cautioned me about jaywalking since I was old enough to cross a street.

Walking – actually limping – home I was reminded of an annoying but catchy public service announcement that ran on New York City TV and radio stations in the 60’s. It was called “In The Middle.”

Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle- in the middle - in the middle in the middle of the block; Use your eyes to look up -Use your ears to hear -Walk up to the corner when the coast is clear -And wait - And wait …Until you see the light turn green!

Find a baby boomer from NYC and they will probably sing the whole tune for you. It was written by longtime songwriter Vic Mizzy who also penned classic TV theme songs including The Addams Family, Mr. Ed and F-Troop.

Vic’s song was speaking to me on that fateful day. I had indeed crossed in the middle and in the process I had almost given a little old man a big heart attack. I was too old to be scared and too young to realize how lucky I was that I could even limp away.

My real fear was facing my mother. “If I tell her, I will get in trouble for disobeying,” I mistakenly concluded.

Therefore I did what many adolescents in my situation would have done…I said nothing. It wasn’t actually a lie, I reasoned, if I didn’t say anything. Instead, it was more of a cover-up. I hid the bent bicycle, limped for a few days and surprisingly got away with it.
I finally did tell my mother almost thirty years later. She was up late one night watching Carson and we started swapping secrets.

“Did I ever tell you that I got hit by a car when I was twelve,” I asked her. “Really,” she said not flinching at all. “Yeah – it was no big deal but my bike got crushed and I was afraid to tell you.”

Without showing any surprise or concern she paused and then said “what else haven’t you told me?”

I tossed out a few more gems but held back a few memories from high school as we all do when sharing the good old days with our parents.

She threw some interesting tidbits out for me as well but held back a few memories as parents do when sharing the good old days with their children.

I had many late night conversations with my mother but this one always stuck out because we were just in one of those moods.

No reports were filed the day I got hit by a car but the evidence still exists on my left leg where a small indentation perfectly fits the front bumper of a 1966 Oldsmobile.

The Flipside - April 2008

Take 10 Records For Only $1.99!

“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Columbia House Record and Tape Club Mr. Carroll?”

“Yes sir, I paid $1.97 plus postage and handling just like the magazine ad said.”

“Could you share with the court how many times you joined Columbia House Mr. Carroll?”

“That would depend on how you define the word joined.”
“According to our files, you enrolled in the club at least eight times from 1972 – 1980. You agreed to purchase six 12” stereo records or 8-track cartridges. Did you fulfill your agreement plus postage and handling in each of those enrollments?”
“My attorney has advised me not to answer that question.”


This fictional account is a public service message to those readers who have not completed their Columbia House enrollment agreement. It could happen to you!

Columbia House began as an experiment in 1955 when an executive at CBS Records formed a new division called the Columbia Record Club. The purpose of the new division was to test the idea of marketing music through the mail. To attract interest in the concept, Columbia Record Club offered one free record to those who joined the club, offering its new members a wide selection of jazz, easy-listening, and Broadway show titles from which to choose. By the end of 1955, the Columbia Record Club boasted 128,000 members who purchased 700,000 records. The club’s success led CBS to move its operation from New York City to a sprawling distribution center in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1956.

According to the company’s history, the Columbia Record Club changed the profile of the retail music industry within a decade. By 1957, Columbia Record Club was using its Terre Haute facility to ship seven million records to its members, the ranks of which were swelling by the month. By 1963, the division accounted for 10 percent of all the money spent on recorded music and thirty-six years later, membership exceeded 13 million.

While their history doesn’t mention it, the key to Columbia House’s success was the full page magazine ad that tantalized music fans with the offer “Take any 10 records or tapes for only $1.97.” The offer later rose to 13 records or CDs but the deal was the same. Get a lot of free stuff at once and then pay exorbitant prices (plus postage and handling) for six records to complete your agreement over two years.

It was a fair proposition if you divided 21 records by the total investment but few of my friends were concerned about long term investments. Instead, they broke the agreement and never became eligible for the bonus plan.

Few activities were more entertaining than selecting the 13 records and filling in the boxes or licking the little album stickers for the enrollment card. Then, 3-6 weeks later a heavy cardboard box full of listening joy appeared at my mailbox.

Another memorable feature of Columbia House that has been duplicated by many mail order businesses was the selection of the month. If I did nothing, Columbia House would still send a record each month. I could return the record postage free if I didn’t open it. Otherwise, it would cost about a dollar to return it. The challenge was finding out what record was inside the packaging without appearing to open it.

Somewhere on Fruitridge Road in Terre Haute, a woman sits with my name on a yellowed index card. “One of these days we’ll catch this guy and make him complete that agreement,” she says. “He still needs to buy 3 more 8-tracks.”

If she calls, have her contact my attorney. Thanks.

The Flipside - February 2008

Bloomfield HS Prom 1974

The best photographs are able to tell a story without words. Other photographs beg the viewer to ask more questions. The prom photo on this page would certainly fall into that second category.

If I hadn’t been there myself, I’d first ask why. “Why would the four guys in this photograph think it was a good idea to dress up in pastel tuxedos?” I would just have to ask “what’s with the hair – are you kidding?” Then finally I might ask why four apparently normal high school girls would be seen with this bunch in the first place?

The answers to these important questions are two familiar words – the prom.

The word prom comes from the French word promenade, which means walk or stroll. According to the mostly reliable Wikipedia, it was considered inappropriate in the early twentieth century to dance with a man you were not married to. Instead, the girls would take short and heavily-chaperoned promenades around the block with their dates. That practice grew into formal chaperoned dances by the 1920’s.

Proms became common in the 1930’s and reached their outlandish peak in the 1950’s in the same way that Cadillac tailfins did. The traditional prom survived the 1960’s and found its stride once again in the disco 70’s. Proof that the annual event is going strong in 2009 can be found this coming weekend at The Plano Centre where several hundred Allen High School couples will dance the night away.

This year’s Allen High School prom resembles the 1974 Bloomfield High School extravaganza in name only.

A couple this year might spend $400 or even more on the prom. The evening usually includes dinner at a fancy restaurant, a limo rental, the dance, flowers and after-prom activities. Toss in a new hair-do, prom gown, flowers and a rented tuxedo and kids today are faced with one pricey evening.

I laid out $30 for a prom ticket, which included dinner at one of the many Jersey banquet halls that survive on proms, bar mitzvahs and weddings. I admit that I probably could have spent more on the yellow and brown crushed velvet tuxedo. The pink satin tuxedo was an upgrade though. The new pair of platform heels completed my transformation from mellow 70’s guy to disco king for one evening.

There certainly was dancing at the ’74 prom but it is possible that our group never hit the dance floor. Bands like Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers provided the soundtrack for our high school memories. Unfortunately songs like Rock The Boat and Dancing Machine dominated the dance. Just imagine the eight kids in this photo dancing The Bump to Boogie Down. It’s hard to visualize.

Our all night party began with a misguided trip into Manhattan where we sat in horrible traffic and imagined people were looking at us. They weren’t.

The New York City adventure was followed by an evening of driving aimlessly around northern New Jersey in my father’s car. After a late night stop at the diner, the four of us rolled in close to dawn to face my worried and then furious parents.

The 1974 Bloomfield High School prom didn’t meet all of our expectations but we still had a good time. We got to dress up and pretend we were adults for one night. That’s the story behind this crazy prom photograph and I’m sticking to it.

As for the Allen High School prom-goers this weekend, I hope every one of them has a fantastic time and can laugh just as much at their photos in 2044.

The Flipside -May 2009

Penny Candy Obsession

I love candy and have the cavities to prove it. Medical journal articles could be written about the size of my sweet tooth but let’s just say the evidence is clear enough.

My dentist was probably onto something when he started rewarding his young patients with Trident Sugarless Gum instead of candy. It was a losing battle though, because candy was everywhere and it was cheap.

Every classroom teacher in my parochial school sold candy at recess. Watermelon slices, coconut bars and fireballs would hardly qualify by today’s food of minimum nutritional restrictions for schools. We were actually doing God’s work by consuming an extra candy bar or two becaue the “profits” went to the missions.

Jackie Granger and I strayed from God’s work one day in fourth grade when found boxes of candy stored in the coat closet and helped ourselves. In retrospect, leaving the wrappers in the closet instead of my desk would have been a better strategy.

Some mission is South America was a little short that month. The yardstick we were whacked with was probably an inch shorter as well.

We rarely had candy in the house except for holidays. Boxes of incredible chocolate from Holstein’s (site of the final Soprano’s episode) would be set aside by my mother “for company.” It was painful to smell the homemade candy and not devour it. Once the relatives arrived and dessert came around, I stayed through the boring adult conversation just to score a few extra pieces.

Once the holiday was over, the extra candy wouldn’t last a day, even when my mother hid it in the linen drawer. My father used a different approach to protecting his sweets. He just bought licorice treats, especially the black licorice assortments that kids ate in desperation when the chocolate was gone.

Halloween was a gold mine. Our haul was no less than two grocery bags (paper of course) full of candy including stacks of Nestles, Hersheys and Snicker’s bars. Once the good stuff was gone, we picked at the leftover stash of Good and Plenty, Chuckles, Dots, and Neco Wafers that had a shelf life of several years.

Once we were old enough to walk to the newsstand alone, we squandered our allowance on candy that would make a dentist cringe. Charleston Chews, Sugar Daddy’s and Jaw Breakers were popular choices but my favorite was Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy. The candy was so hard and chewy that kids smashed them on the sidewalk before eating them.

An old fashioned country store called Rowe-Manse Emporium in nearby Clifton was the motherlode for young candy lovers. They sold penny candy out of glass jars for a penny! For one dollar we could fill a small paper bag with candy that could last all afternoon – or less. Walking home from Rowe-Manse, I once consumed fifty malt balls on a dare from the previously mentioned criminal, John Granger.

Like them or not, some candies just had more sizzle than others. Atomic Fireballs, Pop Rocks, Lemonheads and extremely sour Warheads all provided entertainment and oral torture for youngsters.

The Flipside - February 2007

Milton Bradley Comes Out Of The Closet

Absolutely the best part of any friend’s house in the 1960’s was the game closet. Television advertising must have been very effective because every family owned shelves filled with classic board games like Monopoly, Clue and Parchesi.

In the days before Atari, board games filled many an hour of our childhood. My friend Gary Costa and I often hoped for rain during the summer so we could stay inside, play games and drink Tang.

A rainy summer day in sixth grade might start with a game of Trouble. The game was slow but the Pop-O-Matic dice made it all worthwhile. Later we might move into a game of Life before heading to the basement to run the slot cars for a break.

Eventually we’d get bored and start rummaging deeper into the game closet. Most of the game boxes on the bottom of the pile had flattened out and spilled their pieces. Sorry pieces mixed with Monopoly hotels and caroms on the floor but at least we knew where to look if game parts were missing. Games at the bottom of the closet were either too easy or too hard but that didn’t stop us from pulling them out.

There was no shame in a game of Chutes and Ladders as long as out friends at school never found out. On the very bottom was Scrabble in that familiar dark brown box. I am convinced that our parents played Scrabble in the days before kids but hadn’t had a peaceful evening in the twelve years since. That explains why it worked its way to the bottom of the game closet stack – even lower than Candy Land.

It is naïve to think that board games were a product of the 60’s. The earliest games are 2,500 years old, according to the somewhat reliable Wikipedia. As for the classic games we played, many were golden oldies by the 1960’s. Those include Chutes and Ladders (1943), Candy Land (1949), Yahtzee (1956), Monopoly (1935), and Scrabble (1938).

The Game of Life has an especially long history. A lithographer named Milton Bradley created The Checkered Game of Life in 1861 as a new game to be played on a checker board. The company survived and 100 years later The New Game of Life was introduced (and endorsed by Art Linkletter).
Board game companies have fallen on hard times in these days of video games. Hasbro purchased Milton Bradley in 1984. The company, which was best known for Mr. Potato Head and GI Joe, also gobbled up Coleco, Tonka, Kenner and Parker Brothers in the 1990’s.
There is no research to back this up, but I would guess that most baby boomers have a game closet of their own. They probably scavenged games from their childhood or repurchased them in the hopes that their kids would find as much pleasure in playing them as they did. Eventually Nintendo and its competitors won the kids’ hearts and minds but those board games wait silently in the closet.

Our game closet fits the description. Classics like Life, Clue and Monopoly are stuffed under Mousetrap and various editions of Trivial Pursuit. Unlike most household toys, we can’t seem to let go of those childhood games so there they sit.

Maybe it’s time for the PS3 to power down and for Milton Bradley to come out of the closet.
Visit the Flipside Blog and answer fun questions at http://flipsidecolumn.blogspot.com/

The Flipside - October 2008

Sixth Grade Research Saves Lives

Life is full of questions. When we were young, our parents and teachers seemed to have all the answers. As we grew older we relied more on the limited knowledge of our friends which was where things start going wrong. After all, there were questions that we would never ask an adult but our friends were always willing to offer an opinion.

“I wonder if this will burn” would be one of those questions. It might make a great segment for the David Letterman Show but no good can come from two eleven year-old boys discovering the answer.

Fully aware of the “don’t play with matches” campaign from Fire Safety Month, Billy Garrabrandt and I tested the combustibility of an old canvas chair – in my garage. Much to our delight and then horror, the old dried out chair flared up almost instantly.

Our immediate reaction was to find something to put the fire out in the unattached garage. There was no water and racing into the yard to run a hose into the garage would likely cause alarm from my mother. Our solution was to smother the fire with a fifty pound bag of dry cement that we found in the corner. Cement powder was everywhere but the real threat of burning down our garage was abated.

For the first time ever, we voluntarily cleaned up the garage and carefully trimmed the burnt seat of the chair hoping the grownups wouldn’t notice. We then threw the chair out with all the garbage from our cleaning frenzy. It was one of the few times that we didn’t get caught doing something stupid but I did admit the whole incident to my mother thirty years later.

Scientific discovery was at the heart of many theories that Billy Garrabrandt and I attempted to prove. We tested Newton’s theories of gravity by tossing objects out of our third floor window. Seeking an answer to the age old question “what will happen if I throw this out of the window?” we dropped airplane models, army men and even food out of my attic window.
Years later we reversed the process to answer the question “what can we sneak into the attic?” but that’s a story for another column.

“Do you think it will explode?” was the most dangerous but also the most entertaining question that Billy and I struggled with. Chemistry sets were still the rage and enterprising youngsters could purchase refills of ingredients at the local hobby store. We pooled our meager resources and bought sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate to play with. With absolutely no thought of the danger involved, we made gunpowder and stuffed it into objects that we detonated. I don’t believe we ever created an explosion but running at full speed away from a lit fuse was better than any amusement park ride.

There were so many unanswered questions that Billy and I struggled to answer. Each of them would have made an excellent sixth grade science project.

“I wonder if this will make him throw up?” “What will happen if the dog drinks beer?” “How long will it take my two year-old nephew to learn a swear word?” “How far will car model parts travel when exploded with a cherry bomb?” “If a bus is passing by at 35 mph, what trajectory is needed to reach it with a snowball and still leave enough time to run away?”

There were no marble lab books, but Billy and I solved these and many other puzzling questions of childhood. I am not sure if humanity is better for it but it sure was fun.

The Flipside Column - November 2007