Ken Schwartz's Stories - "Life at Lark Ellen" - Page 2

Each boy had a bank account into which a parent would deposit small sums of money. If a boy sold vegetables from his garden plot to the kitchen, those profits would go into his account. On set days and set times boys lined up to see Mrs. Cassidy for withdrawals. Sometimes Mrs. Cassidy could be a hard sell. A nearby candy store had brown-sugar tits for a penny. That store got a lot of traffic from Homeboys - all we had to do was tell our matron where we were going and when we would be home. Just like most regular homes. On Saturdays, if we had a dime in our account, we could go to the matinée at the motion picture theater up on Santa Monica Boulevard five blocks distant.

Lark Ellen's library had shelves of adventure books such as Tom Sawyer, and Treasure Island. One series was about a boy who worked on inventions. We spent hours trying to replicate those inventions. We also saved pennies to buy 25-cent crystal sets (fundamental radios). We ran antenna wires everywhere and pleaded with parents to buy us a pair of earphones. I never got a pair but I did get a single earphone. I thought I was in seventh heaven. Now, I could connect my crystal set to an antenna 'lead' and when lights went out I could crawl under my blankets and listen to a radio station, static and all. I'm sure there were times I would fall asleep and the night-duty matron would come along and gently remove the crystal set and earphone.

Model airplane kits were much sought after. A hobby shop up on Santa Monica had solid model kits for 10 cents. As craftsmanship improved, boys moved to balsa strips and tissue paper models that would fly. We had a squadron of planes flying every afternoon. Once or twice we would sneak a match and light an old model on fire and toss it from the top of the stairs so that it would fall like those flaming planes in World War I dogfight movies. Matrons didn't like us doing that. Tom Box, a high school homeboy, was the all-time best model builder. He was allowed to paint with 'dope' and his models were superb in every detail. His model of Jimmy Doolittle's stubby little 'Gee Bee' racer was the envy of everyone. We all sought to be a Tom Box.

Most of our school friends who were Nisei had to attend a Japanese School after regular school. This school furthered their education in topics important in the Japanese culture. The Japanese school was located across the street on our eastern boundary. On those days when Nisei boys practiced Japanese martial arts, they would file out onto their playground dressed in traditional white warrior attire and with wooden swords practiced their stylized moves. We at Lark Ellen would scramble up our exterior stairs to sit and watch. Their moves were like a practiced ballet. The Nisei girls practiced dancing, but we boys weren't interested in girls yet.