If you read this one, you’re in the majority. Only a tiny fraction of my friends and family know this story.
Christmas Eve, not sure of the year., it was 1970 or 1971. I was 11 or 12, spending a lot of time with one of my junior high classmates, Donnie Bradburn. Donnie had attended East Grade School, I’d gone to South Grade School, but when the primary schools combined at Higbee Junior High School, we found each other through common interests and occasional mischief, nothing terrible.
Example. Donnie lived near the two lumberyards in our hometown of Pittsfield. The two of us would make a game of it to see if we could scale the fences and get into the lumberyards undetected during business hours, then climb around on the boards and materials and get up into the catwalks and rafters and play around. Sometimes there was success, sometimes a worker would spot us. “Hey, Donnie.” We weren’t harming anything and they never got too excited. Like Tom and Huck, we were just looking for adventure.
I’d watched “The Dirty Dozen” with dad. The World War II movie with a great story line and cast. It remains one of my favorite movies of all time. Towards the end, the dozen and the officers are all together, meticulously planning their attack on the chalet where the Germans are staying. Plans made, down to the minute. I guess that movie inspired me and I pitched an idea to Donnie.
Why not two pals, sneak out of their homes (completely across town from each other), on Christmas Eve, and meet up “somewhere in the middle.” I think the plan was finalized in Mr. Boyd’s science class just before break. I wrote my itinerary down on notebook paper. We’d synchronize our watches and leave our houses at the same time to meet up at a random location, the west stall of the car wash at the Deep Rock gas station between Dutton and Mississippi Streets near downtown. From my house, 7/10ths of a mile.
Donnie had the logistical advantage. His bedroom had a window that exited onto a low roof. Next to the roof was a tree. Escape was easy. Many times prior, when I did a stay over at Bradburns, we’d shimmy down that tree to prowl the streets of town, doing nothing more than just running around.
Our house was a ranch. No easy way out. However, I had a “boy cave” in the basement, complete with a full-sized bed. With relatives visiting for Christmas, I'd be sleeping there while my room was for an aunt and uncle. That’s what gave me a “window of opportunity,’ literally, to pull it off. Under the family room was a crawlspace. Two windows led outside from there. A third window, just above the deep freeze in the laundry room, led to the crawlspace… I’d quietly get out of bed, hope I could get into the laundry room without a pair of doors that separated the main basement room from the laundry room, from creaking too much. Then put on a pair of pre-stashed, dark coveralls, and use the deep freeze as my step ladder. Go through the first window, belly crawl through the dirt (just like soldiers), then exit the second window I had unlatched earlier that day as it opened outward. There had been the possibility of dad, sleeping downstairs with me that night, but I was going to try it anyway,, looking to make sure he was asleep! “Check on dad,” read one of the entries on the time frame. He wound up sleeping upstairs, making it much easier for me.
Am not recalling our “go time,” maybe 9 p.m. as Christmas Eve was usually early to bed. was usually to bed. The adults stayed up, had their adult beverages, and talked by the fireplace. It was certain they’d still be awake while I was sneaking out, the crawl space was directly under where they were. Any noise or mistake and I’d be “captured by the Germans.”
I made it out! It wasn’t terribly cold, and there was no snow that year, making it easy to begin dashing through the shadows of yards, away from street lights. Up Clinton Street to Grant Street, then east, where I used the south side lawns. Then cutting diagonally on Sycamore near Chuck Yeager’s house to Fayette Street. From there, it was only three or four blocks to the car wash. I’d made it on time. I crouched in the southeast corner of that west bay, waiting for Donnie.
It was Christmas Eve quiet. Only a car or two, but I felt like the headlights may have shined on me as I stayed still and down. It spooked me. Waiting for no more than 10 minutes, it became clear that Donnie was not going to show. Retracing my route, almost step for step, and getting back into the house undetected, I’d done it, though the rendezvous didn’t happen. There had been no plan for what we might do if we did meet, we just wanted to see if we could “get by with it.”
I almost did until…That piece of paper I’d printed the timeline on… When it came time for mom to do laundry, guess what she found in the hip pocket of a pair of my jeans?
It was probably a week or so after Christmas, mom and dad summoned me, sat me down and presented the paper. I was stunned. Questions were asked, “Why,” “What’s this check on dad part?” “What were you going to do?” I don’t think they’d have believed me if I had told them it was all inspired by a war movie. “Did you do it,” they wanted to know. Of course I lied (something dad detested and rightfully so). “No,” I convinced them, it didn’t happen. That pretty much was the end of it. At 66, I shudder to think of the consequences if I’d been caught! It was extremely daring of me. Neither parent ever learned the truth. Donnie, of course, would remember the story, and there may be six or seven friends who have heard it.
The Dirty Dozen found success with its mission, but only one made it out alive. Thankfully I’m still here. If I’d been caught by dad, I’m not so sure you’d have read this blog.
Christmas night, 1970. Dad indulges in a game of electric football with me.