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YOU DON'T KNOW

In this wartime summer of 1944,
visiting Grandma's farm,
alone in the yard,
you come suddenly, shockingly, face to face with a painted box turtle.
You run into the house,
in such a thrill of excitement that you can't remember the right word,
and you tell one and all,
"I just saw a frog with a shell!"
You cannot know that in this same summer,
in the shade of elms,
you will see your Aunt Mary's little scottie dog Sandy
grab a snake in his jaws,
and shake the unhappy serpent to an untimely death.
Someday you will hear Froggy the Gremlin plunk his magic twanger.
Roy and Trigger will come to your school.
In five years you will learn to take the waxed paper from your lunch sandwich,
and sit on it to go down a slide really fast.
Bill Welch will describe the parade.
When you are twelve Carroll Alcott will come on KNX
at 6:05 one July afternoon
and tell you of the truce in Korea.
You don't yet know that your mom will take an instant loathing to Jackson Wheeler,
afternoon TV movie host,
and his smarmy maundering about "My girls", his housewife audience.
You don't know that Joe Carbo will try to sell you cars.
You don't know that Nick Shammas will try to sell you cars.
You don't know that Bob Yeakel will try to sell you cars.
You cannot know that Clete Roberts is waiting in the future
to report the antics of George and Charles, the flying Finn Twins,
and their feud with Chief Parker and U.S. Attorney Laughlin Waters.
Bill Welch will describe the parade.
You don't yet know that Lana Turner's teenage daughter,
intolerant of shack-up hoodlum boyfriend Johnny Stompanato's hobby of battery,
will teach him a permanent and fatal lesson with a kitchen knife.
The Dumont Network will come and go.
You will watch Leo Carrillo and Monty Montana ride in the Rose Parade.
Bill Welch will describe the parade.
You will see Schultzie wave to the Coliseum crowd at the Fourth of July show.
You will see Koufax fan eighteen Giants in the same Coliseum.
You will snap a photo of a glowering Big Klu leaving the same Coliseum,
after a loss to the Dodgers.
You will watch Maris, and Howard, and Yogi,
whacking balls over the wall at Wrigley Field into Forty-first street.
Bill Welch will describe the parade.
Dick lane will exclaim, "Whoa, Nellie!"
Dick Garton will shave off his moustache,
explaining that he thought it was his eyebrow,
and Elizabeth won't really be ashamed.
And when Cleve Herman has signed off,
And when Gil Stratton has stopped calling 'em as he sees 'em,
You don't know it yet,
But when you are an old man, living in a different century,
You will look back and say,
"Now, THAT was entertainment!"

July, 2006

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