Fireworks and Liquor

When I was a kid, my dad had this small, brown leather suitcase that looked like it was made in the nineteen-thirties. It was probably two feet long by a foot and a half wide and eight inches deep. Not very big, but it was stuffed with all sorts of gun collecting accessories. There were 22 caliber bullets and forty fives and a couple of antique pistols and a container or two of gun cleaning fluid inside. There were also polishing brushes, old hunting licenses, assorted bullet casings and a can. A red and black rectangular tin can that was about the size of a Bible. And inside this can was… GUNPOWDER!

My dad also had a couple of flintlock rifles, so he used the gunpowder to load them. He’d pour a little gunpowder down the barrel, then a hunk of cotton wadding followed by a lead ball. He’d ram it all together and when he squeezed the trigger, hopefully, the hammer would hit the flint, create a spark and ignite the powder, just like it was done during the Revolutionary War. My dad didn’t shoot his flintlocks very often, so there was all this precious black powder just sitting there, calling out to me day after day. “Stee-eeve. I’m bored. Come light me. I want to burn something.” It was usually too much for me to resist. Okay, it was always too much to resist.

There was one time in particular, though, that I was “playing” with the gunpowder when it nearly got the best of me. That was during the spring of my eighth grade year.

Behind our house was a small woods with plenty of nooks and crannies that us kids had carved out. Old, abandoned forts could be found in a tree or under some brush. Most were just old plywood that was haphazardly nailed together, with a large cardboard box for a floor. I remember one was painted dark green. I imagine this was supposed to camouflage it. It didn’t work. There were also plenty of ant hills in the woods. One in particular.

It stood about three feet high and was probably about four feet in diameter. However, there wasn’t an ant to be found. I don’t know if they moved or if they were underground or where the hell they were, but they weren’t on this hill. I’d seen enough ant hills by then to know it was, indeed, an ant hill. I saw a documentary about fire ants in South America and they would constantly be on the move. The thing about them, though, is that they eat pretty much everything that can be eaten in their path, so they have to move to find more food. The ants in the woods behind my house were those little brown ones that don’t require too much food, I believe.

Anyway, I had placed a nice little pile of gunpowder, about two or three tablespoons full, I’m guessing, on the top of the hill. My friend, Jeff, was with me that day and he was curious, but not nearly the pyromaniac kid that I was. I was crouched over the gunpowder and Jeff was standing right behind me. I pulled out a handful of match heads and an empty book of matches from my pocket. Oh, the match heads. See, I didn’t have the whole matches, just the little, red heads.

I pressed one of the match heads against the sandpaper strip on the inside of the matchbook with my thumb. I had become quite adept at lighting match heads using this technique – dragging it across the sandpaper and letting it fly off the edge. They usually burst into flames. Usually. On my first try that day this didn’t happen. Instead, the head just crumbled against the sandpaper and a tiny, little puff of smoke came out. I looked over my shoulder at Jeff, who was now standing four or five feet behind me. I didn’t think anything of it because I was focused on the task at hand. If I remember correctly, I was probably better in science than Jeff, but at this moment he was displaying a much better understanding (and respect) of both chemistry and physics than me.

I pushed another match head against the sandpaper and let it fly towards the gunpowder and, with a little pop and a puff of smoke, it burst into flames. Now, the next few moments were a bit of a blur for me. I don’t remember if it was the “fwoom” sound of the gunpowder igniting or if it was the flash of bright light. What I do remember is that my reflexes weren’t faster than the blast of fire that covered my face. I had turned my head maybe an inch when it hit me. Fortunately, I was a geeky, glasses-wearing eighth-grader, and it was that pair that probably saved my vision.

I took off my glasses and the lenses looked like someone had spray painted them battleship gray. I think I swore and then looked back at Jeff. His expression was part concern, part fear, but mostly amusement. I could see he wanted to laugh, but Jeff was a good guy, so he merely smirked. Now, if any of you has ever smelled burned hair, you know it’s not pleasant, especially when it’s your own. I scraped some of the gray off my glasses with my fingernail. Jeff started laughing. I guess he wasn’t always a good guy. But by then I was laughing, too. Then I panicked. My parents were home – I couldn’t let them see me like this. I brushed my hand over my face and felt the little sand-like remains of my eyebrows. Fortunately, nothing hurt. Aside from the singed hair, nothing bad happened.

I needed a plan. Jeff was one of those kids who easily talked to adults. He liked to joke with my dad, yet he was polite and respectful. My dad liked him a lot. I told Jeff to go in the house ahead of me and distract my folks, talk to them, ask them questions. Anything. When we got to the back door, I prepared to slip behind Jeff, head down the hall and slide into the bathroom. As soon as we went inside I saw my dad standing in front of the kitchen sink. I found out later, much to my relief, that my mom had gone shopping. Phew! Jeff was on my dad like a stripper on a lottery winner and I shot down the hall.

I locked myself in the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but it was also funny. My face was the same color as the lenses on my glasses – battleship gray. This was 1974, so my hair was more of a mop than hair, and the front of this mop had been melted into a hard… burned hair mass. What a mess. My eyebrows were just two strips of melted hair. I had to take a shower and there was no way to disguise that. I never took a shower in the middle of the afternoon for no reason. What reason could I come up with?

I ended up taking two consecutive showers to get all the stink and burn off of me that afternoon. I don’t remember what story I told my dad, but he bought it. Or he may have just given me a break. Fortunately, he didn’t notice any difference in the mop of hair I had and my large-framed aviator glasses completely covered my eyebrows. I’ll tell you, things just fell into place that day. Well, after the gunpowder incident, that is. Oh, and the gray film on my lenses washed off quite nicely, I must say. I was out of the house before my mom got home and I have a feeling my dad didn’t “bother” to mention to her that I had taken two showers. Good old dad.

The next day at school I received more compliments on my new “haircut” then I’d ever had. I told some of my closest friends what had happened and they got a big kick out of it. Jeff told everyone else. I thought about going to my barber and showing him the haircut that had elicited so many compliments and seeing if he could recreate if from then on, but I had already pushed my luck enough that week. So, I’ve never had a better haircut.

I haven’t talked to Jeff since 1987 and often wonder how he’s doing. The ant hill, I imagine, has long been grown over with shrubs or perhaps a nice tree and I don’t light anything with match heads anymore. Unless I have to. Oh, some of you are probably wondering what I was doing with a pocketful of match heads in the first place. Well, that’s a story for another day. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll talk to you soon.

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Steve Mancini is co-author of the best selling satirical novel “Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend“

Recently, I’ve been inundated with cards, letters and email asking me about Leo, the gentleman in the photograph on my ‘Pictures’ page. “Who’s Leo?” some say. “Where’d you get the picture of Leo?” others ask. “Is that your grandfather?” one wondered. No. Leo was not my grandfather. In retrospect, though, I think he probably could have been.

Leo is a memory kept alive by a trio of Botsford Street Boys – my friends, Russel and Steve, and me. Actually, Steve, is a Taylor Street Boy, but he was close enough in proximity to Botsford to be one. Besides, who the hell wants to be a Taylor Street Boy?!

Leo owned the General Store on the southwest corner of Lapeer Ave. and Botsford St. Noff was his last name. Most of what follows comes from memory and may not be accurate, but it’s all I have.

Leo and his wife (I don’t remember her name) lived in the same building that housed the store. It was a two story hodgepodge of brown and tan, wood and brick, shingle and stone. I doubt any permits were acquired when it was built, and judging by the look of it, that was sometime in the thirties, or possibly the twenties. The store was situated at the front of the building, accessible from both Botsford and Lapeer. The parking lot was well-worn gravel.

Leo was always dressed the way he is in the photo, plaid shirt with overalls and suspenders, and he always had a two or three inch cigar stub in his mouth, but I don’t recall it ever being lit. Mostly curmudgeon, Leo also had a subtle, playful side. He would always call all the girls, “boys” and called us boys, “girls”. Except when he said it, it was, “Hello, Gurlz.” I called him Grandma in return. I was taught to have great respect for my elders back then, and should address them only as Mister or Missus, but for some reason I felt it was all right to call Leo “Grandma”. I guess I knew he wasn’t going to rat on me. Leo was a guy.

Leo’s wife died when I was very young, so I don’t have many memories of her. I do remember her giving us kids candy from Leo’s store and him getting mad at her for giving away the profits. Not really mad, though. It was his businessman talking. She was a doll. I suspect he was fairly devastated by her passing, but I never saw it. Leo was an unwavering sort. He just plodded along, keeping his store open as much as possible. He was way ahead of his time. Back in a time when virtually every other store in town was closed on Sunday, and many others on Saturday as well, Leo stayed open day after day.

If you couldn’t find something anywhere else in town, you’d go to Noff’s, or Noffy’s, as we’d call it. Leo would have it. One of my childhood friends recently said his store was “squalor”. I suppose she’s right. I remember it as being more… lived in. The wooden floor was dark brown and black and had ruts worn into it from years of foot traffic. Even on a sunny day it was a bit dark inside, because Leo had so many items hanging over the windows, they blocked out most of the sunlight. Leo did not waste space. He supplemented the sunlight with a few bare sixty watt light bulbs suspended from the ceiling by frayed, black cords. The smell in Noff’s never seemed to change. It was combination of metal, grease, sugar, dust and old Leo.

Ask Leo for anything and, not only did he have it, he could lay his dirty fingers on it in seconds. Yes, dirty fingers. Among the rough surfaced aluminum address numbers and nails and screws of all shapes and sizes, Leo had a candy counter. It was a pretty damn good one, too. He had almost every kind of candy bar available at the time, but I wasn’t much of a chocolate fan, so I used to lean towards the penny candy and, back in the middle to late ’60’s, it was actually a penny for a piece or two. My favorites were Nickel ‘Nips (tiny, bottle shaped wax containers filled with flavored syrup) and paper dots (three or four inch wide paper strips covered with a matrix of different colored sugar dots that all tasted the same). I probably got most of my fiber from eating the paper that remained on the dot after peeling it away with my teeth. He also sold candy cigarettes before they became taboo.

Oh, yeah, dirty fingers. One of Russel’s favorite Leo stories is about a time he went to Leo’s to buy some candy. He wanted some of those orange, chewy marshmallow type candy peanuts. Now, this was before everything in the retail world was individually wrapped or service people had to wear plastic gloves. Leo grabbed a few of the peanuts with his bare hand and, when he set them on the counter, they were all smudged with what was probably black grease. Russel told Leo he didn’t want them because they were dirty, so Leo told him to go away. He did.

My friend, Steve, also has a favorite Leo story. One Sunday, Steve’s father was building something or another and ran out of a certain type of nail. He knew all of the other stores in town were closed, so he headed on down to Noff’s. Leo had the nails. When Steve’s dad asked Leo how much they were, he said, “A dollar nineteen a pound.” Steve’s dad couldn’t believe it. He told Leo that the same nails were only thirty nine cents a pound at Ace Hardware. Leo didn’t budge. He just said, “You want ‘em, I got ‘em.” You want ‘em, I got ‘em. I love that line. Steve’s dad bought ‘em.

Finally, here’s my Leo story. I, little troublemaker that I was, prompted Leo to enforce a rule, which was really amazing, because he didn’t have many rules. I think the only rules he had before that were “Cash Only” and “No Credit”. Anyway, when the weather permitted, Leo used to cross Lapeer and shoot the breeze with whoever was the gas station attendant at the White Rose at the time. I figure that Leo was probably hovering around seventy then, but he could (and would) talk to anybody. He didn’t talk too much, and I don’t even know what he talked about, so maybe it was more about just hanging out with someone. Well, whenever he was at the gas station and someone would pull into his parking lot, they’d wave to him and two or three minutes later, he’d finally shamble over. He’d make the sale and return to the White Rose.

One summer day, I rode into Leo’s lot on my tri-colored Schwinn Stingray bike. I was so cool. There sat Leo at the White Rose. I waved. When he finally made it behind the candy counter, I ordered one penny’s worth of candy. I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, you see. Leo was as upset as I had ever seen him, chastising me for dragging him across the street for one penny and all. I didn’t understand. Business is business, I thought.

A few days later, I went into Leo’s and this time he was behind the candy counter, but he didn’t affectionately call me “Gurl.” That didn’t bother me. What did, though, was the hand made cardboard sign Leo had made in haste (and probably anger) that read “10¢ Minimum”. That’s all is said, but that’s all it had to say. I clearly understood. I became furious. “Ten cent minimum!” I said, “You can’t do that.”

Leo didn’t budge. “I can do anything I want.” he said, “It’s my store.” I argued with him and then pleaded, saying I only had three cents and I would spend all of it and, as long as he was already behind the counter, what’s the big deal. Leo stood his ground. I went home with three pennies and no candy. I complained to my dad and he sided with Leo. Damn.

Eventually, Leo took that sign down. I think he just wanted to teach me a lesson. He did.

I never called Leo “Grandma” after the ten cent minimum sign incident. He never called me a girl again, either. I think it was a right of passage or something. I don’t know. I do know, however, that Leo was a very special part of the Botsford Street Boys’ youth and will live on in our memories as long as we live on.

Thank you for reading about Leo. If you like Leo, and I’ll bet you will, maybe I’ll tell you about the banana flavored ice cream bars and other quiescently frozen desserts he kept in his freezer. Now go have a piece of penny candy, boyz and gurlz.

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Steve Mancini is co-author of the best selling satirical novel “Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend“

My dad tells a story about the time when I was a little boy, maybe two years old, my great-grandfather decided to give me a taste of his whiskey. Now, before you get all bent out of shape, remember, it was the early sixties and it wasn’t a crime to give a baby whiskey. That does sound bad, huh? But it was a time when the Flintstones and the Rubbles smoked Winston’s behind Fred and Wilma’s garage. A time when Darren on Bewitched came home every night to a pitcher of martinis whipped up by Samantha. And, back then, the way your house became child-proof was that someone would give you a paper clip and tell you to stick it into the electrical socket. After that, your house was child-proof. So a teaspoon of whiskey wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

My great grandfather lived in an old, one-story house oh, about a half-mile or so from us. It wasn’t in the city, but it wasn’t in the country either. It was in the township. This was Port Huron, Michigan, though, so there really wasn’t much of a difference. Maybe paved roads. His name was Beneditto, but his friends called him Ben and the rest of us called him Grandpa. He was born in 1874 in a little town in Italy named Attina and lived to be 103 years old. I wish I had a picture of him to show you, because you could just see the mischief in his eyes. Grandpa was a wiry guy, probably about five and a half feet tall and a hundred and thirty pounds. He was nearly bald and sported a broom-style white moustache and when he smiled, it was a gentle, relaxed smile.

Grandpa’s house had a distinct smell, like old cigar smoke and fried spaghetti. Well-worn stairs and old furniture. It smelled like Grandpa and whiskey. Whiskey. He always had an open bottle of Seagram’s 7 handy and some in a glass. I never saw him open a bottle, never saw him empty one. He never had to buy one either, because he’d get a year’s supply every Christmas. I also never saw Grandpa drunk. I heard stories, but never witnessed it myself. I get the feeling he wasn’t completely sober very often, though.

Okay, I’ll tell you more about Grandpa and his house down the road, but back to the whiskey story. Like I was saying, Grandpa figured, according to my dad, that if he gave me a taste of whiskey when I was just a baby I would be repulsed and never have the urge to drink again.  After all, why would I want to be as content as he was?!  So, Grandpa poured a little of his Seagram’s 7 into a teaspoon and put it in front of my face. I reached out and pulled the spoon to my mouth and sipped some. My dad said my face scrunched up and both he and Grandpa laughed. I smacked my mouth a bit from the bitter taste, then, after a few moments, reached out towards Grandpa and said, “Wickey”. I had acquired a new taste. My dad said that he and my Grandpa stopped laughing, but I’d be willing to bet Grandpa was at least smirking. He’d found a kindred spirit.

When I was a freshman in college, my drink of choice was Seagram’s 7 & 7, but that’s another story. Several, actually. Until then, best wishes to you.

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Steve Mancini is co-author of the best selling satirical novel “Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend“