High Noon On The Moon

   I don’t think I was 10 years old when the Harbor Freeway was just a graded mound of dirt that passed by my house in Gardena. It was paved down to El Segundo a couple of miles north of me up to the beautiful Pasadena Freeway just north of downtown Los Angeles.  

   I would ride sometimes push my Huffy bike, replete with ape hangers and banana seat, up and over that mound tossing packs of firecrackers into the air heralding my arrival to the top. I was King of the Dirt Pile.

   In those days I was spellbound by my ABC’s, Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke. My imagination ran wild and I would often be lost in my hopelessly eternal reverie. Even so, I was acutely aware of my surroundings.

   Lying in the grass watching the clouds roll by I would often get distracted by the sound of a bug crawling through the blades and roll over to investigate.

   At that time I still had a father who cared about me even though my mother and he had been divorced and my mother remarried.

   He’d buy me pretty much anything I asked for, within reason, as he was fairly pragmatic as well as a hardworking man.

   I say fairly pragmatic as I owned no less than 5 different chemistry sets. They ranged from beginner to ATOMIC! (There were limited child protection laws at that time so parents could buy you dangerous chemicals then beat you up if you did anything wrong …in fact YOU as a child could buy dangerous chemicals at the local five and dime! I used to make gunpowder, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story…)

   The house we lived in had been converted into a war dorm for returning soldiers during WWI maybe WWII, I’m not sure but it was old enough to have been fitted with gas piping throughout.

   I had a little kitchenette off my bedroom upstairs with sink and counter and ice block refrigerator. This is where I set up my laboratory!

   Glass tubing, rubber corks on beakers and of course a BUNSEN BURNER!

   It was there in that kitchenette alcove that I first developed my foaming instant paint remover. My only problem was that it also dissolved Formica and linoleum. I was Colin Clive, ‘It’s alive, alive!’

   That particular day it poured swiftly out from the beaker above the blue flame of the burner, a blood colored foam expanding exponentially as it touched the air flowing over the Formica counter top and down my mother’s meticulously painted wall to the linoleum below. It was truly a day of days!

   The wind rustled the curtains as it blew through my bedroom window that balmy afternoon; I was bathed in the glow of the sun. In the distance a barely audible choir was singing.

   I was ecstatic; the purple red foam was everywhere. Suddenly a rapidly moving gnawing thought crawled up my back and into my brain. My mother would soon be home.

   I could hear the half hour toll in the town’s clock tower, ‘Bonnnggg!’ If I was Colin Clive then my mom was Gary Cooper and the inevitable analogy was drawn. It was either strap on my six-shooter or ride out of Dodge, fast. There was danger in the air. I was in danger. The town folk were locking doors and shuttering their windows, they could smell trouble brewing. They knew it and I knew it. It was going to be High Noon on the moon and Gary was going to win.

   She always does!