The Shoe Brush Story

We moved to Brooklyn when I was five years old, and for the most part, this Blog is dedicated to Indiana events. But no history of our family would be complete without “The Shoe Brush Story.”

The house, in Loveland, Ohio, was a big, old, drafty, two-story frame structure. The winter mornings were cold so when I got out of bed I immediately sought heat sources to keep warm. One of my favorites was the dishwasher. In the old days, dishwashers weren’t built in, so you could sit on top them if you were a little kid, and I was only four. I was perched on top the dishwasher, warming myself and minding my own business, when the events that would lead to the great shoe brush incident began to unfold.

My father, wanting to encourage his children to understand the value of his hard-earned money, would occasionally give us the opportunity to earn a nickel by shining his shoes. Because he was an important FEDERAL employee, he wore a suit to work and he needed shiny shoes. This particular morning, Dad told Dennis he could shine his shoes. “That’s not fair! I protested, “Why does Dennis get a nickel and I don’t?” Dad, exasperated by the fact that he was now dealing with an argument instead of getting ready for work, tried to solve the problem by telling me I could also shine a pair of shoes. At this point, the story should have had a happy ending, with Dennis and I shining our Dad’s shoes and earning our nickels. But there was one problem: Dennis had the black shoe brush and he was shining brown shoes! I had the brown shoe bush and I had black shoes to shine. The solution should have been simple; switch brushes with Dennis.

But he wouldn’t.

“DAAAAD! Dennis won’t give me the right shoe brush!” I yelled in my whiniest voice. By this time, Dad was well into his morning fire drill, desperately trying to get out the door on time and he was not pleased with having to mediate a fight. “Trade Brushes with John!” Dad barked.

But he wouldn’t.

Dennis said it didn’t matter what color the brush was and in direct defiance of my father (a FEDERAL employee,) Dennis would not trade brushes with me. When I tried to bring him into compliance with my father’s orders, by snatching the brush, he bolted from the kitchen. “STOP!” I yelled.

But he wouldn’t.

The kitchen adjoined a room that seemed too big to be a foyer but was not really big enough to be used as a dining room. This room served as the hub of the first floor. You could cross to the front door, the living room, the nursery, the master bedroom or return to the large, eat-in kitchen. The open stairway, to the second floor, also ascended from this room. At the bottom of the staircase were two large windows that looked out over the hill that sloped away from the house into a wooded area. Dennis crossed the room, headed for the stairs, trying to escape into the maze of rooms that made up the second floor. I knew that if he made it upstairs, he would be out of reach, and there would be little chance of Dad being able to deal with him before he left for work.

If the authority of my father was to be protected, if the rule of law were to be upheld, Dennis had to be stopped. I quickly weighed my options and arrived at the only decision that made sense. I cocked my arm back, clutched the brown shoe brush tightly in my right hand and took aim at Dennis’ head. And then, with everything that was in me, I launched the brush toward its mark. I wasn’t trying to kill Dennis, only knock him unconscious. Then, it would be a simple matter to take the brush from his limp hand. (It may seem remarkable to you that a four-year-old child could have had such clarity of thought, but I was a remarkable child.)

From the moment the shoe brush left my hand, time was altered, the world moved in slow motion; the shoe brush rotating though the air, Dennis mounting the first step on the stairway, Dad moving about in his bedroom. I watch as the brush drifted through space, past Dennis’ head and through the large window at the bottom of the stair. The glass splintered and then fell to earth like a shower of diamonds. My father's voice broke the slow-motion spell, “WHAT THE H…” Dad surveyed the scene while spewing venom. “BONEHEAD! KNUCKLEHEAD! BONEHEAD!” he boiled as he realized that not only was he going to be late, he would also have to deal with the colossal window mess.

But it was Dennis’ fault. He was really responsible for the broken window. If he had obeyed my father and traded brushes with me, there would have been no reason for me to try and knock him out. Fortunately for me, my father saw it the same way I did. After all, he had told Dennis to trade brushes with me. Hurling the shoe brush at Dennis’ head was a “reasonable use of force” on my part. Dad realized this, so it was understandable that Dad, even though he was late for work, took the time to give Dennis the whumpin he deserved.

As I watched Dennis take his lickun, my mind drifted back to when I was only a few months old. I was laying on my back, in the crib when suddenly, the silhouette of a boy blocked out the sunlight. I could see that the boy was wielding a weapon. It was a hairbrush. Over and over again, the hairbrush came crashing down on my skull! I was too little to defend myself; all I could do was cry. I screamed for my life and just before I drifted into unconsciousness, my mother came and pulled Dennis out of my crib. The incident left me with an irregularly shaped head; “knot head” became my nickname. “Dennis was too little to know what he was doing”, my Mom told me later, but I knew better. He escaped punishment then, but he was carrying that debt with him. Now the Universe was being brought back into balance, Dennis was being spanked. Not only for the offenses of that morning, but for that long-ago attempt on my life.

There are some that will argue with the accuracy of his account. All I can tell them is to watch for flying shoe brushes.

Maxine

The Hubbards lived directly across the street from us in a house with a brick porch. I’m not sure what the house looked like from the inside because I was never inside. There were several homes in the neighborhood where it was very clear that it was okay to come over and play as long as we stayed outside. The neighbors probably saw us as peculiar. The fact that we were relative newcomers was probably the first concern. The fact that we were a large, rowdy Catholic family, didn’t help matters. For these families, it was a major concession to let their kids play in our yard. The kids had strict instructions to play outside. I think the fear was that, if they came inside our house, we might sprinkle them with Holy Water and turn them into Catholics. Who knew what strange rituals went on in the Witmer household? On summer evenings, when the windows were open, the Witmer’s could be heard reciting what sounded like a Gregorian chant, “blezus olord antheze thigh gifs”* It must have seemed as strange to them as the Nazarene worship service was to us. At any rate, Maxine Hubbard was forbidden to enter the Witmer house.

Anna and Teresa were six or seven years old and often played with Maxine, but it was always outside. That’s why it seem so strange when, one day, Maxine presented herself, at the door, and explained that her mother said it was okay for her to go up to Anna and Teresa’s room and play with Barbie Dolls. It would only be for half and hour, she explained, and so my Mom sent her up to play. It all got stranger when Mrs. Hubbard came to the door looking for Maxine and stranger still when Maxine was no where to be found.

In all the years we lived in Brooklyn, Indiana, I don’t think I ever heard Mrs. Hubbard speak, other than to call the kids for supper. But that day we all wandered through the house, upstairs and down, inside and out, calling out “Maxine!” Did I mention that Maxine’s dad was the town Marshal? It was only his part-time job, but never the less, he was THE Marshal and his 1963 Ford Fairlane patrol car sat across the street in front of the Hubbard household. The Witmers had somehow got themselves involved in the disappearance of the Marshal’s daughter.

More neighbors joined the search, combing the neighborhood, checking and rechecking all the places she might be. The panic level began to rise. But we had all failed to consider one thing: Perhaps little Maxine did not want to be found. Teresa, young as she was, sensed this was the case and went back to her room. This time, instead of calling out for Maxine, Teresa said, in a low voice, “Hey Maxine, you want some candy?” A tiny little voice came back from underneath the bunk beds, “Yes.” Maxine had been simply unwilling to leave Barbie-Doll heaven.

The word went out, “We found her! We found her!” The adults raced upstairs. Now the problem was that Maxine didn’t want to come out. She knew that in the end, she would get a good old Indiana-style lickin, the prescription for all childhood foolishness, and she was in no hurry to settle up with her Mom. Eventually Maxine’s Mom coaxed her out with soft words, promising her that she was not in trouble, that she would not be punished, but we all new better. But in the end we were so relieved, that none of us would be facing kidnapping charges that we didn’t think about Maxine’s appointment with the parental justice system.

*Bless oh Lord and These, Thy Gifts…