Dad and Mickey
Mickey and Me
June 1945
The most exciting events of my short life had been my birthday, Christmas, and when the tooth fairy came and put a dime under my pillow, in exchange for one of my baby teeth. I never remember having a birthday party, but my family seemed to always know when my big day came around. It would have been hard for them not to know, since I started hinting about it a month ahead of time. My mother, in particular, seemed to remember it best. This birthday would be special in several ways: I would be 6 years old, and I would be starting the first grade in school. Somebody (I think it was one of the kids down the street) had already squealed about Santa Claus. I had always wondered how he got into our house on Christmas Eve, since we didn’t have a chimney. I was also skeptical about the tooth fairy, but I didn’t want to ask too many questions, since that dime could get me into the Saturday movie matinee. At least my birthday would always be sure to come around: one out of three was not too bad.
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This year’s rage for birthday gifts was the Mickey Mouse wrist watch. Several of my friends that lived down the street were already wearing their watch. Several of them had birthdays that were a few months before mine, and although I knew that the watch was expensive (almost ten dollars), my heart was set own having one of my own. I saw the one that I wanted in a glass display case in the drug store. It had a full size Mickey on the face, and his arms were of different lengths. The hand on the long arm pointed toward the minutes, and the hand on the short arm pointed to the hour of the day. There was a metal stem on the side of the case that was used to wind the watch spring and set the time. It had a cloth wrist band, and the band had a metal buckle to hold it on your wrist. I tried not to say too much, when my mother was with me, as we looked at the watch in the display case. I didn’t want her to think that I was hinting, but that wasn’t necessary: she seemed to always know what I wanted, anyway. Tomorrow was my birthday; I suspected that she had already gotten me a surprise.
Before my disappointment of having the Santa Claus myth exposed, Christmas Eve and my birthday eve were always two sleepless nights for me. It was barely daylight when I jumped out of bed and turned on the light. I hardly heard the “Happy Birthdays” from my parents, as I attacked the gifts that were lying on my dresser. The large box was a genuine, Lone Ranger cap pistol, complete with a plastic holster and belt. The next box was filled with “ammo”- about 500 rounds of paper caps to be used in the revolver. I had really needed these. There had been a recent Indian uprising, just down the street. The small rectangular box was what I had really been looking for. I tore off the paper and opened the lid: Mickey Mouse was staring straight at me. Wow! I almost forgot to thank Mother for the chocolate cake with six candles that we would eat later that day. She helped me put on my new watch, as I buckled on my new holster, grabbed my new “six shooter”, and ran out the door. I knew better than to load my pistol in the house: it was a standing rule – no loaded guns are allowed in the house. That rule included toys.
As soon as I got outside, I loaded the new cartridges in the flat cylinder of my new revolver. I held my new pistol above my head and emptied the cylinder into the air – six quick blasts and a small cloud of smoke. Our neighbors must have been relieved, knowing that I was in pursuit of the renegade Indians at 6:30 in the morning. As I walked down the street to find my friends for the early morning skirmish with the bad guys, I looked at my new watch, and it occurred to me: I never saw The Lone Ranger or any other cowboy wearing a wrist watch. Tonto always knew what time it was, by looking at the sun. No problem. I put my watch in my pocket, until the battle was over.
Mickey and I were practically inseparable. The only time he was not with me was in the bathtub, and when I was in bed at night. I sneaked over and put him back on my arm, the first night that I had him. Mother said that water and lint from the bed sheets would damage the watch, so after that first night, he stayed on the dresser by my bed. She was right, of course, because the watch was not water proof, and all of the little parts inside were very small and fragile.
Our car was a 1939, maroon Oldsmobile, and the dark color seemed to attract dirt. I was helping wash the car one Sunday afternoon, and I forgot that I was wearing my watch. The car was in the driveway beside the house, and we were using the water hose to rinse off the soap. My watch was completely wet, and beads of condensation formed under the crystal. I dried it, as best that I could, but I knew that the damage was done: I could hardly see Mickey’s face under the condensation inside the glass. I fought back tears, as I showed Mother the damage. It was one of the few birthday presents that had ever lasted for any length of time. Much to my surprise, it continued to run for several days. The face of the watch was too cloudy for me to read the time. After several days, the watch stopped ticking: it had become the favorite of all my birthday gifts.
Three days after my birthday, my Lone Ranger cap pistol broke in half. It came as no real surprise. World War II had just ended, and steel was seldom used in toys. I made most of my store-bought toys from card board. I could punch out flat designs from the cardboard, and I could make inter-locking, three dimensional toys, such as houses, cars, and airplanes. I made most of my own toys from wood: kites, guns, cars, bows and arrows. My cap pistol was made from a brittle, pewter alloy. It was nice to look at, but it was easily broken. My watch was made of real steel.
There was one small jewelry shop in our town, but I knew that the cost of repairing my watch would be more that the cost of a new one, so I just said goodbye to my mouse friend, and I put the watch in the top drawer of my dresser, and I tried to put it out of my mind. I thought about John Wayne. He might still be mopping up the Japs in the jungle behind my house. Maybe I should go down there; he might need my help. I knew he had a watch. I had seen him wearing it, but I’ll bet it didn’t have Mickey Mouse on it.
While rummaging through my dresser drawer, I noticed that my watch was gone. I dumped the contents of the drawer on the bed. My watch was gone, and I was about to ballistic, when I heard our car pull into the drive. Mother walked in the door with my watch in her hand, and she had that sly grin on her face, that only mothers have. There was my Mickey; he was grinning; and he was clean and ticking again. After the hugs, I proudly went out the front door, looking for some of the guys to show off my watch, and to tell them about my mother having my watch repaired. I don’t recall seeing any of my friends that afternoon, but it wasn’t important. I would always remember this: it was like having two birthdays in one month. I wonder if this will exempt me from the Sunday car washing?
The first Mickey Mouse watches were manufactured many years before I was born; their popularity waned for many years; and they have recently come back to the market as collector’s items. My watch worked for many years without a band and with a cracked crystal. After many years of service, I finally put it away in the same dresser drawer in which I had previously “lost it”. I have never had a birthday party; I have had many, expensive birthday gifts over the years; but when I was only six years old, this fragile, little watch, with the smiling Mickey Mouse will always be remembered as my best birthday gift.
Many years after I was grown, I had seen my watch lying in my same dresser drawer at home. The band was gone; the crystal was still cracked; and I was sure that it hadn’t worked for many years. Mother had left it there for a very long time. While sorting through the drawer after she passed away, it discovered that the watch had somehow been misplaced, and I never saw it again. I learned two things by owning that watch: happiness is not measured by the cost of a gift; it is measured by the love and the thought of the giver.
Maybe some day, it will be Mickey and me…somewhere in time.
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