Siren Song

I’ve been asked to share more paper-route stories so I will set about sharing one of the most famous paper-route stories in the history of our family, perhaps, in the history of newspaper-passing.

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Late one clear, cloudless night the entire town of Brooklyn was roused by the shrieking of a tornado siren. The siren was perched high above the town on the Brooklyn water tower and from that great height it could be heard for miles around.

It wasn’t tornado season and when we checked the radio, there was nothing about bad weather or tornados, still the siren continued to wail. For some reason, the siren had malfunctioned and was now stuck on. The town engineer had to be summoned and, in the middle of the night, he scaled the tower and silenced the siren.

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We called it “collecting.” In the old days, we had to knock on the door of each of our customers and ask for payment. In return, we would tear a tiny little square from a collection ticket and give it to the subscriber as a receipt. We would then turn around and pay the “Bill.” The bill came from the newspaper publisher and it was an invoice for the wholesale cost of the papers. Anything left over, after paying the bill, was “profit.” So if a customer didn’t pay, it came right out of our spending money. We were motivated to see that every subscriber was paid-up.

But there were always those subscribers who felt compelled to stiff the paperboy. The excuses were legion. “My wife has all the money and she’s not home” or “My husband has all the money and he’s not home.” “I get paid on Friday, come back then.” Sometimes they would simply ignore the knock on the door; all this over a bill that could be paid with the loose change under the sofa cushions. It probably had more to do with power and control than it did with money. How many other bill collectors could you simply tell to “go away?” The last thing you had to worry about was the lowly paperboy, right?

That was before Douglas entered the picture.

Douglas was constantly in motion. He was drawn to mischief like a moth to the flame. Mom said that when he was two years old, he bolted out of the house, scaled the fence, and took off down the street, buck-naked! As a teenager, he actually blew-up the neighbors brick incinerator with chemicals he cobbed (Indiana slang for stole) from chemistry class. Then there was the incident with the moped and the Town Marshal…suffice it to say that Doug’s unique combination of technical genius and fearlessness created plenty of excitement.

So it was natural for Douglas to take matters into his own hands when subscribers refused to pay up, and as it happened, the Town Engineer was one of the worst offenders. Legend has it, that when the Engineer scaled the water tower, that star-lit night, not only did he find that the siren's switch had been purposely shorted; he found a tiny little coupon that read “Indianapolis Star: PAID.”

Run, Forest Run!

The church ladies were coming over and Mom was in a panic. These were not the ladies from our church; we were Catholics, and our church was miles away in Martinsville. These ladies were from the neighborhood church, probably coming by to do their missionary work, trying to keep the Witmer’s from being put in the “Straight To Hell” chute when they died. Whatever the reason for their stopping by, the result was we were told to “go outside,” so as not to be an annoyance during this rare visit from neighbors.

Now we had to find something to do. The boys meandered in the general direction of the Dyer Twin’s house and the little girls drifted across the street to play with Maxine Hubbard. I noticed that Big Bob Dyer’s white Ford Fairlane station wagon was parked on the street. He was known as “Big Bob” so as not to be confused with Bob Junior, the oldest of the Dyer boys who was approximately the same age as Marilyn. Big Bob also fit his name because he was of exceptional girth.

With nothing better to do, I walked closer to the station wagon to look it over. Then I noticed it, It was fascinating! Two little air valves protruded from behind the back bumper, just under each taillight. Now the Witmer boys were all very mechanical, we had to be. If our bikes were broken, we had to walk our paper routes, carrying our load in canvas bags, slung over our shoulders. Learning to fix our bikes was a matter of survival. We knew all about tires and tubes. The Streets of Brooklyn were loaded with broken glass, nails, old car parts and other sharp objects so we got really good at patching tires. When I notice these two air valves sticking out of a bumper, not even close to a tire, curiosity possessed me. I immediately set about forming and testing hypothesizes:

If these valves are somehow attached to a tire, then if I use a small stone to press down on the valve, I will hear a hissing sound.

I tried it. No noise. When I pressed the valve it was silent. I went to the second valve. Same result. Now my mind was racing:

Perhaps Ford Fairlane air valves are unlike the valves on bicycle tires. Perhaps these air valves are activated in some other way.

To rule this out I would have to test one of the car's tire valves. If the valve failed to emit a hiss, then I would know that I was dealing with an, as yet, unknown technology.

I knelt beside the tire with the little stone I was using as an improvised tool and I press on the stem. The tire let out a HISSSSSS.

Very interesting…

My thoughts were interrupted by my brother Joe’s voice, “I saw that! You’re letting the air out of that tire! I’m TELLIN!” Joe bolted in the direction of our house.

Is he insane! How could he confuse this scientific research with vandalism! He must be stopped!

Joe had about a 10-yard head start as he dashed home to tell on me. I took off after him and began gaining on him. This was not hard to do because of his shoes, his big, black, clunky shoes. They were “corrective” shoes and they probably weighed ten pounds apiece.

I must digress and explain that my brother Joe loved to tinker, even at an early age. He scrounged an ancient TV set off of some junk pile and then fiddled with, changing out tubes and such, until he got it to work. Then he put in the bedroom, the one he and I shared with Dennis. When the rest of us were sleeping, Joe would turn on the set, with the volume low, and watch TV until the wee hours of the morning. The result was Joe was always tired. He often complained of vague ailments, such as headaches, in his efforts to convince Mom to let him stay home from school and sleep.

Mom became convinced that Joe had some mysterious illness and hauled him off to a doctor in Martinsville who was happy to find all kinds of things wrong with him. The Doctor had boat payments to make and Joe’s mysterious “illness” was a gold mine. The corrective shoes where one of many 'cures" prescribed by Dr. Martinsville. Dr. M. explained: Because Joe was slightly pigeon toed and flat-footed, he had poor posture which stressed the muscles in the back and neck causing headaches; therefore, corrective shoes could cure Joe’s headaches. My parents paid dearly for the black-leather-headache fixers and so Joe had to wear them; all the time. He was lucky Mom and Dad didn’t make him sleep with those shoes on.

So that day, when I was racing Joe back to the house, it was easy to catch up to him. In fact, by the time we got to our yard, I was way ahead of him. I burst in to the living room and screamed, “HE’S LYING!" I was like an actor who had missed his cue. The room went silent and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. No one knew what to make of my outburst until Joe came huffing and puffing behind me and said, “John was letting the air out of car tires!”

Mom was mortified. The Church Ladies wagged their heads. They didn’t actually say anything but, “That’s appalling!,” was written all over their faces. Mom moved quickly to save face, “John Michael! Go and get me a switch!” I tried to explain. I tried to tell her that Joe was lying, that there was a big difference between letting the air out of some ones tires and testing a hypothisis. It was no use. Mom had been humiliated in front of the church ladies and now she had to demonstrate that she knew how to deal with unruly children.

The injustice of it all brought me to tears and I cried as I walked out the front door and on to the porch, searching for the switch that would be used on my bare legs; to give me an Indiana-Lickin.

The first thing I saw was the magnolia tree that hung over the porch wall. The porch wall was high, ten or twelve feet off the ground, and the tree branches just barely reached the wall. I climbed up on the ledge and was attempting to break off a switch when I lost my balance and fell, hitting the ground with a thud, the same thud a pumpkin makes when you drop it off a roof.

During all this, Joe had followed me out to the porch to watch and enjoy my agony. When he saw me fall, he yelled, into the house, “John fell off the porch!” Everyone scrambled out of the house and Mom came to me as I lay on the ground. I surveyed myself. The fall had knocked the wind out of me but my brain was still working.

If they think I'm really hurt, there's no way I'm getting a lickin!

"OHHHHHHH!", I let out a long pitiful moan.

“Is his back broken!?,” asked one of the Church Ladies.

"OHHHHHHHHHH!" came my reply

“Call an ambulance!" someone yelled.

And then it all took on a life of it’s own. The ambulance showed up and I was whisked away to the hospital in Martinsville where we learn, suprise, suprise, there were no broken bones. “Just shaken up a little,” the doctor told Mom, “he should take it easy for a day or two.” I laid it on thick for the rest of the day, moaning every time I got up from sitting in front of the television. But the next day, I was good as new.

Of course none of this would have happened if Joe would have simply minded his own beezwax. But life has a way of evening the score. Joe paid for his sins at the hands of Dr. Martinsville, who had plenty of other "cures" waiting for him. But I'll let Joe tell the rest of that story. I will only say that, from that time till this, I have never heard of such a bizarre surgical procedure.