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The summer of 1966 began for the first time with, thanks to the Uniform Time Act’s enactment, daylight savings time. Well, in my lifetime, anyway. Lyndon Johnson was on the throne in Washington. Acid test parties and League for Spiritual Discovery were the centers of the cyclone in California, Gemini rockets were flying overhead, and bombs were falling on Hanoi. The Beatles played their last concert in Candlestick Park, and thirteen people were shot dead from a bell tower in Austin, Texas.

I was nine years old and, as of yet, unaware of the rest of the world. All I knew was that the doors of Sherwood Elementary would not see the likes of me for three blessed months of freedom. All I could see in my future was adventure.

This is my story of memories, real and imagined, and how the line between them gets so indistinct as to be meaningless. It is a ghost story, set in the dying days of the old Midwest, where no fences divided the airstrip lawns of imagination for children’s feet to trod.

The Tom Sawyers of our world have all grown old, our reality replaced by virtual ones, cell phones, and twenty-four-hour cartoon channels. Today’s children can never know just how deep childhood was then when adventure was something you had, not something you witnessed. The summer of 1966 would change me, and by fall, I would not be the same child. Adventure does that to you, and sometimes it leaves scars

Places mentioned in the story

Tunnels under St Joseph?

Oscar Wilde in St. Joseph

Milton Tootle built a nearly $200,000, almost 1,500 seat opera house launching December 9, 1872. With its three balconies and massive opulent boxes, architect W. Angelo Powell’s French Renaissance style grandeur wowed audiences back in the day.
Sarah Bernhardt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Edwin Booth and Oscar Wilde were among the performers who were on the giant stage measuring 100′ wide, 67′ high and 50′ deep.
The Dubinsky Brothers took on the theatre as its fifth operator and would switch for Dubinksy live stock to motion pictures in 1919. The theatre stayed silent and finally in 1933, the building was completely gutted down to its four walls and became the Pioneer Building with offices and some retail.
On November 21, 2016, the 144 year old theatre was gutted in an epic fire. The city called for its demolition within a month.
When Oscar Wilde appeared at the Tootle Opera House, he apparently was not too enamored of local bank owner Able Saxton.

Born in 1898, one of three brothers, Ezock began his career as a newsboy. He was well known in my childhood for selling novelty toys and mistletoe at Christmas.

EzockSpair was real, a legend for years, and one of three brothers. The story as I heard it was that Jess Jutten, a fire captain, gave Ezock the nickname. Ezoch hung around the fire station on St. Joseph avenue as a young boy, was frequently in fights. “You fight so much you should be Irish,” Jutten told him. I’m going to call you Murphy.” The nickname stuck.

But what about Edward’s house?

I have no picture of the actual house that stood on the site. It was close to what I described. but really, it became an amalgam of many of the homes in St. Joseph I loved. Here are a few. You can see Edwards tower room would not be out of place there.

Can you hear them too? All those stories, all those ghosts. all those dreams. I grew up in the midst of this, and it made me who I am. I remember them all, and carry them with me.