The house call (revised 12.15)

Walla Walla, East Alder St., between Wilbur and School, south side of the road.

Upstairs bedroom front corner see the sky out the window from my pillow.  Lucid dream no doubt, shadowy figures standing at the foot of the bed.  Aliens under direct control from somewhere, bots in our current lexicon.  Through ports in the bottom of one of my feet they connected me to the system.  Adjustments and upload data. On a visceral level I sensed a connection with controllers on some unknown exoplanet. My roll here on Earth clearly understood to be that of detached observer, sending data back home.

Voice in my head still sings "YEAH FOR BURNEY!" every time the Wisconsin Fight song thunders through the gym at pep rallies. Eighth grade cheer leaders, saddle shoes, bobby socks, school color skirts and pom-poms cast a lasting shadow in the mind of a second grade boy.

1955 or so, I started first grade at Burney, Justin in third.  Real Dick and Jane setting, grassy playground, large shade trees around the edges.  Kids walking in from surrounding neighborhoods, third and fourth graders watching out for the little ones. 

They taught us kid culture songs.  " first grade babies, second grade tots; third grade angels, fourth grade snots; fifth grade peaches, sixth grade pairs; all the rest are big black bears. 

And the ever popular.

      Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school

      We have tortured every teacher and broken every rule

      We have robbed the principals office and the principal is through

      Us kids go marching on

      Glory, glory, hallelujah teacher hit me with a rulla

      Bopped her on the head with a moldy loaf of bread

      Us kids go marching on  . . . to the tune of the Battle Hymm of the Republic

In those days boys played marbles at recess.  Not all year, regular season for it in the spring same as football in the fall.  Principal, Mr. Smoke even organized a tournament as an official school event.  Play for keeps. Probably wouldn't go over so well in today's school environment. Kids with a good eye and steady shooting thumb went around with big bags of marbles, rest of us lucky to scrape up a dozen cat's eyes to get into the game.  Played a lot of pots'ies.  Hand scooped pot in the dirt, everyone antis up with a marble, take turns shooting from a measured distance.  Get your shooter into the pot to win all the marbles.

School store, kitty corner across Pleasant Street from the play ground. One time my buddy Rocky and I each had a nickel, pushed through the worn screen door and started checking out the candy.  Man behind the counter, Herbert T. Gillis type character who intimidated us kids,  started giving Rocky the hard sell on a candy that came with a fake cigarette.  Opened the box, put the fake cig to his lips and mimicked the scene of Rocky's old man catching him pretend to smoke.  Got really huffy when Rocky tried to say he didn't want that candy, especially not after it had been in the store man's mouth.  Acted like we had opened the box not him, took our nickels and we ran away as fast as our little legs would go.

One day while Justin and I played in the back yard the folks called us over to the kitchen door.

Without a word of explanation they showed us a baby bottle half full of white pills.  We instantly got the message about mother's pregnancy with sister Annah.  I didn't have a clew before that moment, but Justin probably knew more than the folks realized, which accounts for the instant recognition when the bottle finally came out of the cupboard.  Our little minds filled with wonder and awe.

We saw our first TV that year.  Single woman in the church cared for three elderly ladies in her home. Ruth Anderson.  Justin and I stayed over there when mother went into the hospital with Annah in July.  TV set in the living room.

 

Actually, we did see TV a couple years earlier.  Farmer in the Ephrata church lived in the higher country north of town got a set and invited every one over to have a look.  Living room set with chairs in rows just like Sunday morning service in town.  Reception by antenna from Spokane mostly snow and shadowy figures, but Walla Walla must have had cable, picture at Ruth's place came out clear and sharp.  Only thing I remember watching are nineteen thirties westerns.  Guys in white hats chasing a gang of black hat cowboys on horse back, guns blazing.

They are running those horses too hard!  One of the ladies kept yelling at the set, tapping her cane on the floor for emphasis.  Me and Justin made fun of her behind her back, cranky old lady didn't understand the life a a cowboy.  Didn't realize she lived through the cowboy era, spent lifetime ranching in an era when horsepower came live on the hoof.  She knew horses. Born just after the Civil War, probably came west by wagon train.  Up in the Palouse they used teams of a dozen to over twenty horses to pull the combine at wheat harvest time.  She knew horses can't be run as if they are motorcycles.    

Our family didn't get TV until dad moved us up to Great Falls a couple years later. None of the other kids in our neighborhood at TV yet either.  Tail end of the golden era of radio.  Four foot high console radio in the dining room, Justin and I on the floor as close as possible to huge speaker. Back lighted band selector panel, red pointer smoothly sweeping across the screen at the turn of a large Bakelite knob, intriguing sounds and static from far away places between stations, green glowing fine tuning tube in the middle.  Peak around the back and pretend the forest of tubes glowing in the dark cabinet is a teaming city. 

Loved those programs. Strange set chills in our spines.  Announcer always started with the words, strange but true.  Burning house terrors haunted my dreams for years after.  Image of a ghostly woman descending a staircase engulfed in flame.

Still hear Justin sigh wish I could live in them days, ear pressed to the grill over the huge speaker listening to the  Sons of the Pioneers, followed by Less Paul and Mary Ford. 

Mom listened to The Breakfast Club with Don McNeill fixing breakfast every morning, and after dinner the whole family sat around the dining room table and listened to, Bob and Ray.  Dad used to quiet Annah's meal time fussy fits singing go a Bob Bob Bob and Ray Ray Ray go a Bob Bob and Ray... falsetto voice, goofy facial expressions. Cries quickly changed to laughter. We all loved that program.

Not enough room in the farm truck that moved us up to Great Falls for extras like the old radio, or mother's dining room set for that matter, both were left behind. Sixty years later she is still pissed about the table.

Floor furnace in that house.  Heavy metal grate over an opening in the dining room floor that housed an oil burner. Cold mornings we scampered down staors with our clothes to get dressed over the heat that didn't get out to other parts of the house very well.

One time dad had the grate tipped open, Justin holding it while he serviced the burner.  Leaning in from the other side, I didn't back away in time when the grate slipped out of Justin's hand, cracked me a good blow to the back of my head.  Probably hurt like hell and I must have screamed.  All I really remember is feeling reassured that it couldn't be so bad, just a tiny bit of blood.

Doctor made a house call.  Remember the black bag full of wonderful things, mysterious smells.  Until sitting down to tell the story, never occurred to me that the alien presences at the foot of my bed may be connected to the bump on the head.  The doc probably had dad carry me up to my bed, and the three of them watched me for a few minutes.  Semi delusional, I saw the alien beings making adjustments to my programming through the opening in my right foot. Or not, no way to know now.

Always wondered though, why the space alien bot theme instead of religious imagery.  Angels and demonic spirits and gosh only knows what all else woo woo were as real as tomorrow in the world we inhabited at the time. Crack on the head, possibly a shot of morpheme for pain explains the dementia. Not so easy to figure where the aliens came into the picture.  We had seen a flight of UFOs buzz over Ephrata.  Enjoying the cool of the evening on a blanket behind the house a V formation of light green lights silently crossed the sky, turning suddenly and disappearing.  Widely seen throughout the area, written up in the papers next day.  No little almond shape eye grey creatures abducting folks from their beds until several years later. 

For a long time after I occasional felt a sensation in which a heightened awareness filled my body like the rush one gets from standing up suddenly.  Something in my head repeated that we are well aware.  Used to think these moments were data being uploaded to the system.

Naturally in the nineteen fifties I didn't think in terms of data and uploading, but these terms accurately describe the experience, felt on a visceral level at the time.  Little doubt in my mind now that the head trauma resulted in absence seizures. But then whose to say that the head trauma didn't disrupt the part of my programming that keeps me from seeing through the system back to our home planet, and the visitors weren't sent to set things back to normal, and I am in fact an observer bot.

Certainly lived my life as if this were the case.  Alienated from everything going on around me, large parts of myself feeling detached and alone, never participating fully in anything, just watching thank you.