Mickey Mouse

 "Leave it to Beaver", episode 16 of Season 5, brought up a painful at the time memory. 

(NOTE - I was going to explain why I even know about Episode 16 of season 5 of "Leave it to Beaver". Once I considered it, I feel no explanation is needed. I watched it sipping coffee day before yesterday and this post is the result.) 

In the episode, Beaver is tasked with wearing a bunny costume for some kind of play, pageant, whatever. He was mortified that his peers would see him wearing it as they had much better costumes to wear like lions, zebras, leopards. Before he even put it on , his buds were calling him "Cotton Tail" and making jokes about hopping here, hopping there. .............  

Maybe I need to back up and set the stage, create the premise, state my reason for a post titled "Mickey Mouse". I haven't mentioned it, but this post will also dovetail nicely into our current ghosts and goblins season.

My family settled at 5302 Augusta Street the summer before I attended 2nd grade at Wood Acres Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland. There were kids everywhere in the neighborhood. I settled on forming a bond with the two biggest troublemakers on the block, Jimmy and Chuckie. Chuckie lived across the street from me; Jimmy lived a few houses down on my side of the street. We got into all sorts of stupid kid crap that still lives in my mind as one of the best kid years of my life. We were inseparable that summer.

When school started, my life changed. Jimmy and Chuckie were going into 3rd grade. I was going into 2nd grade. There was an immediate unspoken break up between us that first month of school. They were bad ass 3rd graders. I was still a little kid because well, only little kids go to 2nd grade.

As usual, I blew it off as I had become well versed in being shunned having moved 7 or 8 times already in my short to that point life. But it still hurt every time I saw them. And we saw each other every day. Geographical proximity insisted on it.

It was maybe the first week of October or so before the two of them agreed to let me walk to and from school with them. They made it clear though, once we entered the school, I would be ignored until we walked home in the afternoon. I was happy. I was sure I was back in the crew then.

I did not know that Wood Acres Elementary took Halloween seriously enough to sponsor a goblin and spook parade for all the kids at the school. We were all asked to wear our Halloween costumes to school on the Friday before Halloween which I think was early in the next week. I was very excited. That meant I would have a chance to wear my new Mickey Mouse costume one extra time besides on Halloween. Yeah, it was going to be a lot of fun and I was sure I would have the best costume there. I loved that costume.

I had no clue about how cruel my 3rd grader buddies could be. I found out as soon as we gathered as we always did in front of my house to begin the heel scuffing drudgery of walking the mile or so to school. And no, the only hill was barely uphill and it only lasted maybe 100 yards.

I will always remember running down the steps in my spiffy Mickey Mouse outfit to meet Jimmy and Chuckie. As soon as they noticed me, they started laughing. Not just snickering or tittering, they were out loud laughing hard enough, my ears felt like they were on fire by the time I reached street level. 

The laughing stopped. I cannot remember who spoke first, but the first words I heard were, "Look, it's Minnie Mouse. So Minnie, where is Mickey?"

I was crushed. My future manhood had been called into question. I replied by asking something about why weren't they wearing costumes.

"Only babies wear Halloween costumes", one of them said.

The embarrassment of that moment lives with me still. My face became very warm, I could feel tears beginning to well and what really pissed me off was if I cried, then I was being a baby. So, to hide my anguish, I knocked Jimmy on his ass and went after Chuckie who tossed me in the bushes near the curb. I tore my brand new Mickey Mouse costume. When I saw it, the tears could not be stopped. I began balling.

Crying in front of the tough guys of 3rd grade only amplified the reciprocal taunts, teases and torments. All the way to school they were on me.  "Look at Minnie, she sure cries easily." "Do you want a Kleenex little girl";  shit like that all the way to school. And all the way to school I was crying. But at least I managed to remove the Mickey Mousse costume, toss it to the curb and then stomp on the mask.

The results, or should I call it the epilog of this tale set the memories of the moment in stone. My so called friends continued their teasing for what I considered  to be an inappropriate amount of time. My mom was really pissed I ruined the store bought costume I had brow beaten her into buying for me. She made me fetch it out of our bushes  so she could try to repair it. The mask was totaled. And oddly, my dad suddenly became Beaver's Dad as he helped me navigate the stress of that learning moment. It was a growing up moment that helped me learn to find perspective about how arbitrary and unfair Life could be. An early life lesson that helped to thicken my skin for the future.

And it was an early, if not my first realization that most disappointments are not the end of the World. Jimmy, Chuckie and I were hard core buddies again well before Thanksgiving. But then sometime after  Christmas, my family suddenly relocated to a brand new house 4 or 5 miles away to Ogden Court. But that's a whole different story.

Later .......................................

________________________________

The "Mickey Mouse Club Song" is the only logical choice for my musical treat today. I was not a card carrying member , but I would have been had I known it might be possible. Without any more fanfare, here it is. If you are old enough, I hope it makes you smile. If you are young enough, I still hope it makes you smile.