My first and only theft

Sometime during the early hours of the morning, I was dreaming an essay, the main subject of which had been haunting my mind for some time. It was about the only real crime I ever committed, my only theft. When I was a young child, my family lived in Phladelphia, but my grandmother lived in Ocean City, New Jersey. We stayed with her for a week or two ever summer, and visited most Sundays. What struck me most about this memory of my crime was that I, a small child of 6 or 7, was allowed to go out by myself and wander around. One of the things people had then was an alleyway. We had one in Philadelphia behid the yards at the back of our brick row homes, and my Grandmother Mabel had one behind her yard that stretched down the street. I am sure I was probably warned not to leave the yard or go further than the alley behind Grandmom's house when I was allowed to go out and play, but I often wandered far afield. Once, most dangerously, I climbed into a coal car down at the railroad tracks and found myself trapped there for several hours before I managed to jump and slither high enough to get purchase on something to pull my little snowsuit clad self out. But that's another story. My theft ccurred on a day when I was wandering along the main shopping street of Ocean City, Asbury Avenue. My Grandmother's apartment was then at 6th and Asbury, the upstairs of a house owned by her sister. The builidng has since been demolished.

On the day of y Asbury wannder, I walked into Hoyt's five and dime store, and gazed longingly at the eye level counter with the bin of the object of my greatest youthful desire, a set of false teeth with a hinge that you could put on your pinter finger and your thumb and clack up and down. Only the mystery of childhood can explain my overwhelming desire to own that object. It was true, that at that time clacking false teeth seemed to be a common and popular accessory to many television productions, both comedies and mysteries, but I have no idea why I wanted that item as much as I did. On the day of my theft, I remember being particularly cunning and acting with real intent. I was planning to steal the coveted object. I looked around to see if any store clerks were nearby or watching me. I was terrified, which is why, no doubt this old old memory is still with me, the strength of the emotion that it is wrapped in.

Finding myself unobserved, I quickly reached my small nad up and into the bin and grasped the one ich square clear plastic box which housed the little false teeth. Then, quickly, tense with fear, I walked out onto the sidewalk where the sun shone like an interrogation lamp. There was no joy in my successful theft, no sense of triumph, only a bad feeling of fear.

In those days, men and women dressed up when they went shopping down town, and there were many suited men with hats, all of whom looked to me as though they were store detectives and as each one passed me, I imagined him laying a huge man hand on my little shoulder and taking me in to go to jail for theft. The shame to my parents! By the way, I am certain that my father and mother, my Grandmother, my Greatuncle Yock, any of them would have gladly given me the nickle to buy the alse teeth, so I am not sure why I felt compelled to steal them.

Inevitably the weight of the fear and the consequences weighed so heavily I turned and trudged back to the five and dime store and put the false teeth back into the bin. I never stole anything ever again.

By the way, not only children could roam freely in those more innocent or naive days, dogs, too, could roam about at will. People mainly opened the door and let the dog or cat go out and the pet returned in its own good time, its own business having been concluded. Slowly over the 1950's and 1960's, somehow these freedoms eroded and we all, probably correctly, began to see the world as a more dangerous place. Children played under watchful supervision or in their own yards only. Dogs, too, became sequestered into their own yards or walked abroad only on a leash.

One of the many other times I wandered off on my own at the seashore was in Wildwood, NJ, with the other Grandmother, in a rental house with bright forest green wooden trim. That time I was even younger, possibly four years old, and I followed the family dog of my grandparents, an Irish setter named King, who did, indeed have the imperious bearing of royalty. The day I decided to follow him, he was patient for a few blocks but then decided to shake me so he could do his own grown up dog route without the encumbrance of this human slow poke, so he trotted off as I called forlornly and futiley for him to wait. Many hours later, I was hopelessly lost, hot, and tired. Finally, I lost all courage and hope and stood on a corner crying. A police patrol car stopped and picked me up. The officer asked my name but I only knew my first name. I was so awe struck by my situation in the back seat of a patrol car, it is a wonder I could even pull up my first name. To his question about the name of my parents, I could only reply "Mom and Dad." When he asked where I lived, I only knew Philadelphia. Finally he asked if I thought I could recognise the house where I was staying if I saw it and I shook my head to the positive. We drove up and down the streets until I saw the bright green wooden trim of the rental house and my Grandmother and Grandfather standing on the lawn, presumably looking for me. I suppose these are good reasons why chidren should not be allowed to wander freely.

These memories, however, due to my advancing age, come back to me more and more and in surprising detail which, I am told, is what happens when you get old. The distant past comes into focus as the recent fades. We old people soon become aware of the lost world we inhabited, the things that we knew and took for granted like alleyways, hucksters with horse drawn wagons selling vegetables, the ice man, ice boxes, free dogs and childhood adventures wandering, are gone forever, replaced and covered over by the sediment of time.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com