What happened, when it happened

When my father celebrated his 100th birthday, the family made a Time Line of important events during the century. It would be fun to see what went on during the 50 years of our marriage.

In 1962, the big news was The Cuban Missile Crisis, the jailing of Nelson Mandela, the independence of Algeria from France, the hanging of Adolf Eichmann and the biggie: Johnny Carson debuts as host of The Tonight Show.

I can't remember any of these events making an impact on our wedding, although watching the Tonight Show became a serial event in the early years of our marriage. More important were the food prices: it cost 89 cents for 6 cans of Campbell Soup; ice cream cost 79 cents a half gallon; fresh carrots cost 9 cents per bunch; pork chops cost 59 cents per pound and a watermelon cost 2 1/2 cents per pound. We depended on broiler chickens (29 cents per pound) as our staple meat. A loaf of bread cost 19 cents, so a lot of peanut butter sandwiches that year also.

We were married in September and our oldest son was born in September the following year. I went to graduate school in Philadelphia and so we moved into a three story apartment building close to the university. We lived on the top floor and Diane and Harold Fishbein lived below us. On the ground floor was a Japanese family, Dr. Watanabe and his wife and two children. The delicious smells of the cooking in the Watanabe household would float up the central staircase to our apartment and make us wonder what they were eating that smelled so good. We were close friends with the Fishbeins and had a long-running practical joke that we played regularly on them. We had a large wicker basket and would put our baby in a blanket in the basket and sneak downstairs to their door. We knocked on the door and ran and hid. When they opened the door, we would squeak, " Take me, take me, I'm abandoned." They never got tired of the joke (I think).

I would take classes in the afternoons and my wife would drive to her college in the mornings, so we never needed a baby sitter. But honestly, we were complete novices when it came to being parents. We decided to build our own special baby bed, after all, why should we have a "common baby bed" like everyone else. So, we bought a low, three-drawer bureau and two hollow doors. One door became a flat bed for the matress and was attached to the top of the bureau. The other door became a standing wall after I sawed in half. Then, we attached three horizontal hollow curtain bars from door to door. After the matress was put in, it became a cozy bed. UNTIL the little baby figured out how to stand up holding the bars and one day, he squatted down, pulling on the bars. We saw him rocket up into the air like from a cannon and land, bump, on his head. Magic. But that was the end of that bed.