That story reminds me of my 4th grade girlfriend, Shoeless Barbara Bernetti. I had no idea she was my girlfriend but that never stopped the little minx from tossing gravel at my bedroom window at 11PM on school nights. She was a product of a broken home and lived with her lush mother. Barbara’s idea of a hot date was helping me assemble plastic models like the Munstermobile and some Big Daddy Ed Roth kits. She was the only oversexed 9 year old I have ever heard of - all she wanted to do was run around barefoot and make out between our house and the neighbors place - where the cats sat on a wall pondering the scene taking place below them.
Barbara’s mother would rather spend her alimony money on Oly in cans than shoes for her daughter. Barbara’s feet were perpetually black as sin but that girl knew how to kiss a boy.
We would lift Astro pops or Pixie Sticks from Vito with the Gold Chains and his sons’ liquor store - “Vito’s” - those guys were all made guys I later found out - they’d chase us out after continued episodes of petty crime but they knew we were poor rabble so they didn’t break our skinny little legs.
I suppose I had a falling out with Barbara over modeling as she insisted on painting peace signs and anti war slogans on my B-25 Mitchell model - she also defaced my Fearsome Foursome poster but that’s a tale in itself.
I wish I knew whatever happened to her. I hope she lived.
Astropops. Haven’t heard that word in years. Messy little buggers. We had the original Ice cream in a push-tube (rockets). Used to fill them with charcoal, sulfur and Potassium Nitrate and light them. Fumigated the neighborhood but never exploded. We were amateurs in that department. However, miniature liquor bottles filled with dirt “blowed up” when you hit a brick wall with them.
B-25 Mitchell. I had most of that series as I posted elsewhere the other day. B17 Flying Fortress, B24 Liberator, B25 Mitchell, B26 Maurauder, B 36 , B47 and B52 Stratofortress. B 57 Canberra.
Actually saw B 47 fly over my elementary school so low that we saw the pilots. B 57 flew over the house as we lived in one of the flight paths of Glenn L. Martin in Middle River, Baltimore. Also saw their A-10’s early on. You knew they were coming long before you could see them. Also saw them come over our cars during air shows at Andrews Air Force Base. Saw a B-1 take off. Totally awesome - level flight then a 45 degree sprint upwards.
Best I could do was a C119 Flying Boxcar from Taiwan to Quemoy with an F 86 escort, and Hueys in Vietnam/Cambodia (I was a journalist there). Saw but didn’t get to backseat an F4 or Cobras (I couldn’t fit in them).
My son got to fly in a Chinook in Iraq, and as a kid I put him in a Cobra. No way a big person could fit in it. Had a V-shaped seat like a Corvette.
Now about Barbara. Nine years old. Sure beats the girls I knew, even at 13. Do hope she made it okay.
We had fun back then, didn’t we?