Where to go and what shall I remember about myself to you…
Let me just bring my Jimmy Brennan adventure to a close for “yas”.
We got across the highway of plenty; I can remember pulling my sluggish boy of a friend all the way…he wanted to experience all that I promised he’d see but for a small boy (though a bit bigger than I was) he weighed a frightened ton!
Made it we did and it’s funny how two significantly young children back in the day could move so freely around a sleepy Long Island town without attracting much notice…”The Ransom of Red Chief” had nothing on us or at least me. The staff at Woolworths was accustomed to impishly mischievous kids running about and they focused more on protecting the toy department which is not where we were (ever) heading…
The pet department consisted mostly of pet supplies for tropical and fresh water fish and various dog and cat supplies but they also had a big assortment of small pets of the “pocket pet” size. There were Syrian Hamsters, Mongolian Gerbils, white mice and vast amounts of Gold Fish and Neon Tetras swimming around in murky over crowded tanks; I recall explaining to Jimmy that the floaters were definitely dead and not tired at all; this troubled him because he was a rather sensitive boy; “are you still a teary eyed boy?”.
I had my heart set on only one type of pocket pet. The Red Eared Slider was the only critter on my 3 year old radar! While my slow to move compadre was poking the dead floaters around in their cloudy watered tank I was trying my best to remove the top of the turtle tank enclosure. Tiny hands move fast, “I tell ya” and before anyone knew a thing I had a half dozen little turtles stuffed in my Osh Gosh overall shorts and urging my accomplice that it was time to “scado”!
“Why, why, why, do we have to go” I can still hear him cry…I swear when you’re attempting to pull off a big turtle heist choose your “get away guy” more carefully. We raced out of the department store and up and down those sleepy town streets as fast as two little rapscallions could go!
I’ve not much more memory of our escape or much on the fate of those tiny turtles but thankfully my dad’s a bit of an amateur herpetologist so I’m sure all ended up most well in our backyard pond.
Jimmy and I spent the remainder of our short time together (approximately two more years) reducing the pocket pet supply at Woolworths and in our opinions we thought we were the best pet liberators of all!
Next I shall jump ahead a bit to my more advanced years of adventure and for a six year old now living on the border of Corona and Forest Hills Queens there were many curious curiosities to explore.
(Stay tuned readers because I will be back with more silliness before too long)
theaflys 