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The Admiral and Davy Crockett by Tom Pankiewicz
(as read from the "When Writing Teachers Write VI" forum, October 17, 2007)
Running to the corner, I looked down the street searching for any sign of a delivery truck. The Saturday morning roads were quiet, empty. I ran down the block to the far corner. Empty too. I continued running from one corner to the next for much of the morning, taking only short rest breaks on the front porch steps. But the promised arrival of my family’s first television drove me from the porch and back to my reconnaissance runs.
I stood at the far end of the street when the delivery van arrived. Two workers waddled up the front steps with the television—an Admiral in a mahogany cabinet. They deposited the TV in a cleared space under the steps, checked that none of the vacuum tubes had worked loose on the drive, plugged it in at a nearby wall socket, and left us with a new piece of furniture, the first piece of furniture that I ever cared about.
We turned on the television and watched the beautiful screen of black and white static. That morning I learned a new meaning for snow and what vertical and horizontal meant. By the end of the day I was dropping those terms into my conversation to show off my knowledge of this new world of broadcasting.
Since we did not have an antenna all we could watch was snow where channels should be. Then my dad—only he could touch and tune this sophisticated instrument that morning—came to Channel 2, KFEQ, St. Joe’s only television station. A ghostly image appeared out of the static snow, the buzzing crackle of interference cleared, and my sister and I watched our first Saturday morning program. Even for a five-year old like me, it seemed babyish.
But the commercials caught my attention. The first one was for Ovaltine. The chocolate powdered drink had to be better than the hot cocoa that my mom simmered on winter mornings. They said so on the TV, and all of the kids who drank it were happy. Later I learned about new cereals to eat, different breads for sandwiches and always new jingles to sing over and over either mindlessly during play or in my mind at school. A few minutes after turning on our first television, I became a consumer, begging my parents for such new and exotic treats as Ovaltine and buttermilk that Hopalong Cassidy ordered in saloons which usually led to fights with the rotgut whiskey drinkers who challenged him to gun fights that Hoopy always won and Butternut bread that proudly brought me Sunday evening’s episode of The Cisco Kid. I knew that these products would be better tasting than what was currently in our kitchen cabinets and would somehow make me one of those laughing Ovaltine-moustached kids, or a great defender of the weak like Hopalong, or a buddy of the joking Mexican cowboy Cisco and his sidekick Pancho.
* * *
The antenna was connected that Saturday afternoon by Joe, a bald, cigar-chewing, beer-drinking handyman who worked at the heating and plumbing supply shop with my dad. Joe wore faded blue bib overalls with a pair of channel pliers stored in the back pocket and a faded blue workshirt with the sleeves always rolled tight to his biceps, revealing his forearm tattoos.
I knew when Joe would come to the house to repair something because a six-pack of Schiltz would be cooling in the refrigerator. Since my mom and dad did not drink, the beer was payment for Joe’s work. Joe’s pick-up—a dusty, greasy thrift shop of stray tools—announced his arrival. My dad would hand him a beer. They would visit while Joe drained the long neck. Then Joe would grab another beer and the work would begin. An extension ladder tied through the windows of Joe’s pick up was unloaded and set against the two-storey, full attic house. With pockets bulging with tools, and carrying an antenna, Joe climbed the ladder, pulled himself onto the steep, slanted roof, and marched up to the chimney. He wrapped metal strips around the chimney and attached the sockets that would hold the antenna. Finally, he slipped the antenna in place and connected the flat brown wire to it and tossed the coil to the ground.
I watched with envy from below. I wanted to climb that ladder, balancing myself on the peak of the roof to look out for miles. I wanted to carry tools in my back pockets, to know how to use them in such a magical way that they would bring images into our living room. I wanted to possess Joe’s casualness in reaching for a wrench while pulling taut a metal strip, while balanced on a pitched roof three stories up. I even wanted to chew a cigar stub. I knew that when no one was looking, I would be up the ladder.
On his way down the ladder, Joe paused at intervals to attach the antenna wire to hooks he screwed into the siding. When he reached the ground, he reached for a Schiltz.
I could follow Joe on the rest of his work; he let me hand him tools, some of which found their way into my back pockets, and, most importantly, carry his beer. With a brace and bit, he drilled a hole into the basement and caulked it with an oily strip of rope. He strung the antenna wire across the basement, tacking it to the rafters, and he drilled a hole in the living room floor to bring the wire to the TV. As we worked, Joe took occasional beer breaks, telling me about serving on a submarine in the war and how he learned how to work in tight places.
Our final step was to connect the wire to the TV. Then we turned the TV on again and found that the snow was replaced by the Kansas City channels. My interest in the climbing the ladder and strolling across the roof, of joining the Navy and living in a sub or of becoming a tool-rich handyman evaporated. Joe sat in the kitchen, draining the rest of the six-pack; I sat mesmerized in front of the Admiral. The TV remained on the rest of the day. . .the rest of my childhood.
* * *
I saw ladders on television too. American soldiers used ladders to climb a hill to attack the Communists. My mom would feed my baby brother his breakfast in the living room while watching the Today Show. She and I would watch it mostly because of a chimpanzee that appeared, but I still recall some of the news images, images that burned into my mind. I did not know about Korea or the Cold War other than through the pictures I saw at breakfast. I still see the soldiers weary and dirty after a battle, carrying rifles and smoking cigarettes, and staring with haunted eyes. The newscasters never smiled when they showed these pictures and my mom did not talk about them as she did when the chimp arrived on screen. On summer afternoons, my neighbor Jeff and I battled our way up the steep bank to the Hall School playground, firing our toy guns, throwing dirt-clod grenades and covering ourselves in the glory and grime of battle.
* * *
The Admiral had doors. This feature, I imagine, is why this model was purchased. My mother kept a clean house. She cleaned even when the house was not dirty; she decorated for every holiday with items that should only be looked at and never touched. Buying a television would not have been high on her list of wants, but a new piece of furniture, well, that would be different. The Admiral was mounted in a richly grained, highly glossed cabinet. A pair of doors with gilded wooden handles closed the screen so when not in use, the set would resemble a finely-crafted cabinet. When I think about the television now, I can see my mother wishing to close the doors every day to preserve the décor of the living room. But once the stations were tuned in, the TV became the center of the house and the doors only closed when my mother, armed with a rag soaked with Pledge, polished the set. Over time, Pledge’s wax dulled and blackened the rich wood. The aging of the cabinet, however, was gradual, unnoticed, especially since the screen was all that I ever looked at.
* * *
One Wednesday in January, I came home from school to be greeted by my grandmother, Ma. My mom had gone into labor. I did not really understand much about it other than Ma would be taking care of us for a week and that I would soon have a new brother or sister.
After dinner and homework, we settled in front of the Admiral for one of the all-time best programs, Davy Crockett on The Wonderful World of Disney. Davy Crockett was a phenomenon. Kids loved the adventures of Davy; he became a marketing bonanza for Disney. Every child knew the theme song, and coonskin caps became the most popular item to own. Some of my friends already wore coonskin caps at play, earning the respect and jealousy of those of us who did not have one. . .yet.
I was coming into the living room when my older sister asked if she could watch another show. Ma said yes. Didn’t they know Davy Crockett was coming on? I explained to them that all of America would be watching Davy. My sister said she did not care, and my grandmother agreed! I pleaded; I begged; I may have even whined a bit, but they would not listen. Children should not think of becoming ax murderers. While all of America watched Davy battle Mike Fink for supremacy of the Ohio River, I was forced to sit through a silly sit-com that no one would even remember today in a trivia contest.
I should have argued the educational benefits of Davy Crockett. Not only did we learn about American myth, legend and history, I am certain knowledge of such crucial events as the Battle of the Alamo reached its peak in the 1950’s through Disney’s programming. San Antonio would not be a tourist destination without the legend of Davy’s heroic death imprinted in the minds and hearts of baby boomers. Davy influenced our play and in doing so inculcated us with the values of patriotism and family and courage. Yes, I should have raised the educational angle, but at that time all I could think of was the huge injustice these two girls had caused.
In the middle of the program, my dad called to announce the arrival of our baby sister. I remember my sister and grandmother cheering while I thought how unfair it was to have another Davy Crockett-hating female in the family.
Ma recognized her serious mistake. Several weeks later when she could no longer remember anything about the stupid comedy, she presented me with a Davy Crockett quilt she had made. Flannel Davy Crockett material (another of Disney’s marketing ploys) covered one side. I slept under my Davy Crockett quilt for years.
* * *
When my children were younger, they too slept, wrapped in this warm quilt. One side of the quilt was blue with scenes of Davy rasslin a bear, riding a galloping horse, and fighting for the weak and defenseless. Coonskins caps and muskets appeared between the scenes. My children did not pay much attention to Davy’s exploits when I pointed them out; they were too wrapped up in the images appearing on a 19-inch color Signature Series television from Wards. Davy did not matter. They were hypnotized by a couple of good ole country boys in an orange hot rod who fought against greed, or by a Pa and a Ma who settled a prairie farm, raised three girls and solved every problem through love, faith and justice, or by cars, turtles or sometimes humans who had been transformed into superhuman warriors for good. They too had blankets that bore the images of their heroes. But their fabrics were thin and did not keep them as warm as Davy. Their blankets only had one side.
The other side of my Davy quilt is pieced by squares and rectangles of suit remnants my grandfather picked up from the tailor at Brooks Department Store in downtown St. Joe where he worked. The quilt pieces are all dark black or blue, charcoal or gray or brown, sober, manly colors to be worn at business or church. The materials, half a century later, are still rich in texture, still tightly stitched. While the Davy cloth has faded and lost it softness, the suit side has attained a patina of age and strength.
I like to think Ma made the quilt for me as an apology for her great error in judgment, but I don’t think she ever realized it. It was a gift to a grandchild who had been stolen by the images of the television. One side of the quilt celebrates that stolen life. But the other side may be her greatest work, making a statement she never intended. The quilt is the work of Depression-Era thrift where even leftover swatches of cloth have value and of a craft where quilts were made for beauty and warmth and hard use. Unlike the electronic images that flicker on screens, telling us who we are and what to think before disappearing in the snow of memory, Ma’s quilt was—is—expected to serve generation after generation after generation. Ma would be pleased with her work.
* * *
The Admiral is gone, replaced after a dozen years by a color set. While I will deny it publicly, the news images still bother me; the story lines still capture my imagination and shape my values; the commercials still influence my purchases. The conflict between the life fed by the screen and the life nourished with people and activity still exists like the two sides of the quilt.
* * *
The Admiral is gone. But its cabinet remains, an empty husk sitting in my sister’s home. The wood that my mother religiously polished is now dusted by my sister. Some things just aren’t meant to be thrown away.
plwp |
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, Oct 23 2007, 6:37 PM EDT
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Anonymous | The Admral..... | 0 | Oct 23 2007, 9:54 PM EDT by Anonymous | ||
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Thread started: Oct 23 2007, 9:54 PM EDT
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Tom I loved this piece when I read the draft on the web board. I am so glad you have posted it here.
Do you think we could get others that read their work at the When Writing Teachers Write to post here? Mary Lee |
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