My Bedroom - 1966


That ten year-old with the buzz cut waving "hi" is me. (It wouldn't be anyone else - I was an only child.) Oh, look: The desk is antiqued avocado! Note also the Batman paperbacks to the left of the lamp (must-haves for the Batmaniac). We got most of the oddly-grouped pictures from garage sales. The bronze-colored plaque with the red feather was presented to some company by the United Way; it fit into our overall decorating scheme so we used it. I always liked the Currier and Ives print of the ship, and I wish I still had it. (The only classy things we ever hung on our walls were Currier and Ives prints.)

The aquarium didn't last long after Mom discovered how much of a bother it was to keep clean. Green slime would appear on the sides of the glass frequently, and it seemed that we always put incompatible fish into it. I can remember waking up more than once to see some dead, nibbled-on fish floating on the surface of the water. I was always an enthusiastic feeder, too, so I finished off more than one fish that way. A little diver, a little castle and another little diver, all in divergent scale, are in the aquarium. The wooden aquarium stand was a small table that was modified for this application.

An unpainted model of Superman stands at the top of the bookcase. I couldn't be bothered to finish it, which is perhaps just as well or I'd have painted him avocado too. See the little orange dot directly under the world globe? It's an orange styrofoam Union '76 gas station promotional giveaway, meant to be placed atop one's car antenna. We kids used to put firecrackers in them and toss them like hand grenades. Another gas company gave away plastic horseshoes, which we dutifully affixed to our '66 Mustang.

The last thing I ought to mention about this ten year old's bedroom is the fact that the lower part of my bed nearly always contained sand between the sheets. I picked it up from playing at the park barefooted, and recall that when it used to annoy me I simply fancied that I was sleeping on a beach somewhere. (This was easier than removing the sand.)


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