A Red Rocket for Christmas

It was the winter of 1960 and Christmas was fast approaching. I had made a little money shoveling the sidewalks of our neighbors, Joe Givengio's corner store, the barber shop and Mr. Polton's Civil War book store. A young man could make twenty five cents per walk back in those days and I took advantage of mother nature's white blessings at every turn. It was hard work for a boy of ten but in retrospect everything about my life was hard in those days.

My father died the previous year. I loved him dearly, but we were always in conflict. It was sad, he died all alone in a jail cell at the old number nine police station on the North side of Pittsburgh. He had been a vagrant for quite sometime by then, a result of drinking way too much wine for too long. He was forty four years old when the grips of his disease finally had it's way with him and took his life. His death certificate reads that he had a heart attack and that was the cause of his life ending so early. In reality he passed away from an overdose of Seconal and muscatel. Muscatel could almost be described as deadly by itself but when mixed with a potent barbiturate it reached it's zenith of toxicity. Back in the late fifties it was not uncommon to try to allow the dead and the living to have a little dignity and not have the family name stained with the real reason (alcoholism/drug overdose) placed on the coroner's report and death certificate. I used to be embarrassed by these facts when I was young but I have learned to forgive my father, this was not the way he wanted to be, he was unable to see a way out.

The previous fall had been one of wonderment and excitement for me personally. My beloved Pittsburgh Pirates had won the craziest World Series in years against the dreaded New York Yankees. My Bucco's led by the likes of Roberto Clemente the beautiful Puerto Rican jewel, Vernon Law the Mormon deacon who could bring the heat with with the best of them and the ever present voice of the Gunner, Bob Prince who continually talked about the pelota, the alabaster plaster infield at Forbes Field and how we "had 'em all the way" on KDKA, 1020 on my radio dial. 50,000 watts of pure broadcasting power came smoking over the airwaves like Vinegar Bend Mizells fastball as I lay in bed late at night listening to the adventures of my team. They had swash buckled their way to the National League pennant and took the mighty Yankees with Mantle, Ford and Maris in the last of the ninth inning as Bill Mazeroski stroked a walkoff home run. The Bucco's hadn't won a World Series since 1927 and the whole city went nuts. My friend Joey Nicotra's father loaded us all into his pink and white '56 Ford Victoria and drove us right into Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle that night to see all the celebrations. It has been 48 years since that day and I remember it like it was yesterday. What a sight, people all over the place swarming like grasshoppers on the plains of Kansas a hootin' and a hollerin', dancing and drinking trying to have a great time in a not so great time.

I am child of the fifties and that meant a number of things, mostly scary things. The siren at Riverview Park would sound every Monday morning at precisely 11:15 AM when we were in school and that meant we had to duck and take cover under our desks. I don't know what government official thought that was a good idea in case of a nuclear attack but we were instructed to do so without question. I don't believe that they made desks back then that could withstand a couple of kiloton bombs any more than I believe that the Zulu warriors could survive being shot by rubbing mud all over themselves to become invisible but I could be wrong. The other things were Sputnik, TB, polio and the dreaded iron lung. I knew a couple of kids who lived in these things and that was enough to scare the hell out of a kid my age. My younger brother wound up with the former and thankfully none of us wound up with the later. My beloved Buccos' winning the World Series did take some of the edge off our fears and cares. Winning the World Series was a very personal thing for me, no one rooted harder for the Pirates than I had. It was my belief that my love for the Buccos had helped propel them to victory. I was somewhat disappointed by not receiving my winners share of the World Series prize money and the championship ring that the other twenty five members on the roster had received. After all I was just as big a piece of the puzzle as Joe Christopher had been and had the same number of at bats in the series as he.

The reason I was working was to try to save a couple of dollars to buy my mother a Christmas present. We were shopping on Prebble Avenue one day at one of the few stores still standing as the urban renewal movement started to swing into action. I don't remember the name of the store specifically but I do remember my mom picking up a copper and gold rayon scarf with large silver paisleys on it and telling the clerk how much she loved it. It was a lot of money for the widowed mother of nine children to even consider buying for herself, it was an outrageous $2.49 plus tax. I saw how much she loved that scarf and I decided that I would work to try to get it for her. That meant I had to depend on mother nature to come through with the white stuff to make Christmas nice for her.

The snow gods shined on me and I did make enough money to afford the scarf. My older sister and I hopped on the 16C Woods Run Trolley and off we went to Prebble Avenue to get the scarf. The total with tax was $2.59 plus the fifteen cents car fare times two, times two for a total $3.19. That's a lot of money for a ten year old but mom was certainly worth it. My older sister would wrap it up for her and we would give it to her on Christmas morning.

Christmas was always a tough time for our family. We were very poor and barely got by on the simple necessities of life. There wasn't much money for frivolous things but somehow mom did manage to make sure that each of us received something on Christmas day. As a young boy I could see the catalogs that used to come in the mail and I would read read them eagerly, dreaming someday of being able to buy everything in them. They always had some amazing things offered for sale, Roy Rogers cap guns and holsters, Schwinn Roadmaster bicycles, Tonka trucks, Great Garloo and oh so much more. I never knew what I would get for Christmas but most of these things would never be found under my tree.

Christmas morning arrived and we all gathered in the small living room of our rented flat around the barest of trees. We gave mom her pretty rayon scarf and she cried when she opened the little package. She remembered how much she had admired it the day we were at the store on Prebble Avenue. She placed it around her neck and pulled each of close, kissed us and wished us a merry Christmas. We eagerly dove at the tree looking for the gift with our name on it. My brother Bill passed mine to me and I torn the paper away. Inside was a box with the following name on it "Genuine United States Guided Missile" Guaranteed to fly up to 300 feet in the air just add water. Oh how cool was this? I couldn't wait to remove from the box and check it out. My neighborhood would never have to fear the damn Russians and their hated Sputnik again. I remembered how we all stood outside one evening and listened as that damn Russian satellite passed over head with its' pathetic beeping sound being broadcast on the airwaves of a neighbors transistor radio. I bet the Genuine United States Guided Missile would knock that little sucker right out of the sky. The damn Russkies would be sad that they ever flew over the corners of Woods Run and McClure Avenues once I got this baby set up.

I pulled the lid of the box and there she sat. Ruby red in color, about twelve inches high with the launch instructions right on top. I pulled the instructions out and read them eagerly. I wanted to launch right away and end this tyranny for America as soon as possible. The instructions were pretty straight forward, simply fill the rocket with water to the line indicated on the side of the missile, place it in the launcher, pump twelve to fifteen times, aim and hit the release button. I followed the fueling instructions to a tee. Outside into the cool crisp Christmas morning I went, ready to strike. After carefully selecting the best launch site on our front sidewalk I decided to do a test launch. Heartily, I pumped the plunger to create enough pressure to propel the missile upward. The instructions stated that fifteen times would make it rise 300 feet. I thought that Sputnik might be a bit higher so I pumped it twenty five or thirty times just to be sure. I instructed everybody to stand back because it might be dangerous and hovered over the launch button. I slowly counted off in my head, ten, nine, eight, seven, six. five, four, three, two, one, zero. I stabbed at the launch button and heard the sudden woosh as the missile whisked past my ear. I looked up and watched that beautiful red machine rise into the clear calm morning sky. Higher and higher it went to the cheers of my friends and siblings. It quickly went out of sight. We all stood around silently in awe of what we had just witnessed when suddenly someone shouted "there it is" and pointed upward in the sky. My keen eyes picked her beautiful red glow as she plummeted back towards the earth. "The Russkies don't have chance I said to myself almost gloating, Sputnik is mine".

I watched as the beautiful red rocket continued her downward flight, silently as might a red tail hawk in pursuit of a meal. Suddenly there was a loud crash as the missile impacted the asphalt at full speed spewing red plastic debris all over McClure Avenue. I was devastated by what I had just witnessed. She would never fly again and those Russkies and their damn Sputnik would continue to fly over our home unchallenged. I had failed without even getting off the first shot. This Christmas really sucked in the mind of this ten year old boy, I had failed miserably and it was over in ten minutes.


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