OP-ED: Flying high with my imagination and a tablet
Today, I bought a new tablet, and even though that may not seem too significant to the rest of you, it was to me. No, it wasn’t a computer tablet. It was just a little tablet made of white, unlined paper with a gray cardboard back.
When I was a good little kid, my dad would stop at Murphy’s five and dime store and buy me a pack of six little 2 ½-by-3-inch, white tablets. Other kids might have gotten marbles, toy soldiers, or even a rubber ball, but I loved those tablets.
Why?
You see, with those tablets, my 7-year-old imagination would open wide. They could take me to dozens of places. I could be a professional cartoonist or a detective like Joe Friday on Dragnet. I’d carry that little tablet in my short-sleeved shirt pocket, go to the scene of a made-up crime, question the victims and witnesses, take lots of notes, and return to my playhouse, where I’d analyze their statements.
Then I’d return to the witnesses and say things like, “Mrs. Jacobs, you indicated to me earlier today that you were baking Toll House chocolate chip cookies at about 10:30 a.m. Is that true?”
Mom would smile and say, “Yes. Want one?”
“Please don’t try to influence me inappropriately, Mrs. Jacobs,” I’d reply as I took a cookie. “I’m trying to get the facts.”
Then I’d hit her with my next serious accusation. “According to Mrs. Black, the two of you were talking over the clothesline at 10:30.”
Mom would look at me as if I had a splinter in my paw and say, “I don’t wear a watch, Nicky.”
She wasn’t very good at this game.
Sometimes I’d take one of those tablets and write stories, like this one. No, I didn’t make any money in those days either.
Sometimes I’d be a street cop and write tickets for improperly parked bikes or chase down little kids on speeding tricycles.
I would often cite people for disorderly conduct, such as when my brother would punch me in the arm for bothering him.
Most of the criminals I arrested smirked until I’d show them my badge. It was in my dad’s old wallet, and even though it had Smokey Bear on it, it was aluminum, and they knew it meant business.
I loved making small paper airplanes from those little tablets and decorating them with the red, white, and blue Air Force logo that looked a little like a flag. I’d draw those logos by hand with the used colored pencils my cousin Elaine gave me for my birthday.
The tablets were also great for making lists when my mom would send me to the store to pick up groceries from my Aunt Mildred for the widows and single neighbors: milk, bread, fly strips, Lava soap, Ivory Snow, and Lysol. It was great fun playing store clerk.
I’d be a pilot, too, like Sky King, and I’d write my instructions on the pad:
“Flaps. Check. Ailerons. Check. Left engine. Check. Right engine. Check. Fuel. Check. Rudders. Check.”
Then I’d sit down in the big cardboard box my dad would get for me from the appliance store in Dawson and pretend it was my cockpit. Off I’d fly into the sky.
When I ran out of other things to do, I’d pretend I was my dad, an insurance man. The difference was that I could say things to my customers that he never would have been able to say.
“Hello, Mrs. Barnhart. How are you on this beautiful day?” I’d say, mimicking him on the phone. “You say that you haven’t received your reimbursement check from your health insurance yet? Too bad!”
Then I’d pretend to slam down the phone.
Good practice for today’s insurance plans.
Oh, what you could do with a 10-cent tablet and your imagination.
Those were the good, old days.
Nick Jacobs lives in Windber.