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In the years before John arrives, we take a trip to Princeton, New Jersey, to visit one of my mother’s few remaining friends. She and her husband live in a nice townhouse, one in a row of many that look alike. There are lot of toys in the backyard but I only remember one of the other children.
Jake and this boy are heading out on some adventure and I want to come. I am five years old. Jake immediately nixes this idea but I’m just as stubborn as he is and I follow them. Every block or so, Jake turns around and tries to shoo me away. After quite a few blocks, I’m getting tired and want Jake to take me back.
“Hah! I’m not taking you back. Just go the way we came.”
I turn around and look down the road as far as I can see. I’m not sure I recognize all of it, but I head back anyway. After twenty minutes or so I reach a corner. I look both ways, and I’m stumped. I don’t know where I am. I sit down on the curb in front of a drug store and start to cry.
Many drug stores had soda fountains in those days, but perhaps not
as classic as this one.
After a few minutes a couple of nice ladies come out of the drug store.
“What’s the matter, honey?” one of them asks.
“I’m lost and I can’t get back,” I blubber out.
“Do you live around here?”
“Noooooooooo.”
The ladies exchange looks.
“Why don’t you come inside? Would you like a milkshake?”
“Ye-ye-yes.” I hiccup as I reply.
Within minutes, I’m sitting at the counter drinking a mighty fine chocolate milkshake. Things are looking up.
Two policemen arrive and ask me a slew of questions, none of which I can answer. Where are you staying? Do you know the name of the people you’re staying with? Do you have a phone number or a house number?
How did you get here?
I give them a garbled account of how my shiftless brother ditched me.
One of the policemen rolls his eyes slightly.
“Well, come along and we’ll give you a special ride in the squad car. We’ll see if we can’t find where you’re supposed to be.”
The nice ladies give me hugs and pour the rest of the milkshake into a portable cup.
I clamber up into the back seat of the police car and we go for an extensive tour of the area. These houses really do all look alike and it’s not until we circle back and go behind the houses that I finally spot the yard with the toys I recognize.
It’s just around the corner from the drug store.
A mighty fine milkshake.
The cops are nice enough not to curse. Here they’ve wasted much of an hour trying to get me to someplace I know.
I never know whether the policemen talk to my mother. She never mentions the incident to me as far as I remember. I am unsupervised in a strange city, and I don’t have the information I need to get back.
But I did get a great chocolate milkshake out of it.
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