As usual we met at Palm Dairy a block or so from Vic West School to plan the events of the day. Bob Morgan checked out our gear, for he was leader: "Okay guys. Got your stuff? Your money? You'll require twenty cents for trolly fare, eats, movie and pool. This time Halfpint's coming along."
Sketch by Glenn Brucker "Hey, little guy, I thought you was too high and mighty for the Crystal, only swimming at the Y," Turnip piped in. Halfpint had been haughtily bragging about his Young Men's Christian Association membership and athletic program.
"So what?" Pinta consoled. "He's going with us this time and I for one want him along."
"Sometime you'll slip us into the Y, won't you Halfpint?" Wayne Morgan was always trying for an edge, for he was mighty adventurous.
"Can you do the Australian crawl, Halfpint, or merely dogpaddle like me?" Nina looked at him with those big brown doe eyes. Love began early in those days.
"Oh, down at the Y we have a coach who teaches backstroke, butterfly, the crawl even. All the ways. Breaststroke, no problem," he boasted.
"It's much easier swimming at the Crystal. Salt water, you know, buoys you up," I concluded. "Lets stick a rocket in it or we'll miss the morning matinee." The big old red streetcar was clanging down Craigflower Road as I spoke.
After buying a nickel bag of doughnuts in the adjacent Chinese Bakery, our cadre infiltrated the cheering celebrants at the Rio and joyfully witnessed guitar-picking Gene Autry rescue a pioneer lady's ranch from the back of his horse Champion while singing "Back in the Saddle Again." One-gun Don Red Barry took a rock-ricocheted forty-five from a Peacemaker through the side, and we bade adieu to Kit Carson bound up in a burning-mine-shack-full-of-dynamite cliffhanger -- to be redeemed next week. Then off to the Crystal.
"I gotta go number two," Whined Halfpint.
"Wait 'til we're at the Crystal. Can you hold out that long?" Bob was impatient to get swimming. "There's a can there."
Halfpint's emergency accelerated things so we skipped through the sanitary footbath while he beelined for a booth. "We'll see ya in the pool, Halfpint!" Wayne hollered.
We'd already been diving for little rubber hoses among a thrashing throng and splashing around the deep end when the volume of screaming elevated. There was Halftpint running out waving his long arms above that little body and taking a most graceful swan dive right in beside us, swimming like Johnny Weissmuller after a savage crocodile to save Jane from peril in Tarzan the Ape-Man.
"Sheesh Bob, did you see that!"
"Oh boy. My oh my."
"Should I cover my eyes?" Pinta feigned embarrassment.
Bob edged Halfpint over to the poolside. "What's the matter? Something wrong, Bob?" The little fellow viewed with alarm the consternation on Bob Morgan's face.
"Well, it seems as if you been going all the time to the Y, and they have certain customs there, don't they?"
"Yep, they do," Halfpint nodded."
"One of which is that you gets to swim absolutely bareballs. Naked."
"Okay? So?" Halfpint agreed again.
"Here in the Crystal we're forced to wear a swim suit. Ya understand? With girls and all."
Halfpint reddened all over when it suddenly hit him. We covered while Bob ran for a towel to hide his pink nakedness, resolving the issue. For the time being that is, because Turnip had the story all over school and neighborhood the following week. "It's such a small thing to be embarrassed about," He'd chuckle, while the kids roared.
As Halfpint walked the hall some really mean girls might break into the old campfire song, improvising: "Found a peanut. Found a peanut. Found a Peanut in the pool…" to his utter chagrin and shame. Some were even so bold as to actually call him "Peanut" or that other, older, name for the victual: "Goober" from their folk-choir song, "Eating Goober Peas." You can imagine the variations on that particular theme. Youbetcha, the embarrassed little guy came that close to an involuntary name change!
Some weeks passed before Halfpint dared a return engagement at the Crystal, but later he scored a degree of one-upmanship on us - the boys brigade of the Jungle of Moo. He proudly guested us at the YMCA, where only sissies wore bathing suits and the members swam nearly as swiftly as Johnny Weissmuller, making us look like Charles Atlas ninety-eight pound weaklings in comparison.
And, so help me, that's the naked truth.
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