Editor’s Note: Many of us will remember these halcyon days of our 1950’s youth. Yes, there was the Cold War, your better-off neighbors were building bomb shelters and we practiced hiding under our desks during nuclear bomb drills. But after-school afternoons spread out ahead of us like lazy Sundays. We’d ride our bikes to buy penny candy at the local market, play baseball and dodge ball. And in the evening, after dinner, we’d run outdoors again to catch fireflies beneath the weightless, unthreatening immensity of the night sky.
From Our House to Your House
It is 1959. It is the cusp of the coming revolution.
We still like Ike. We are still afraid of Sputnik.
We read Life magazine and Sports Illustrated
where the athletes grow up shooting hoops
in the driveway, playing catch in the backyard.
We sit on our sectional sofa. My mother loves
Danish modern. Our pants have cuffs. Our hair
is short. We are smiling and we mean it. I am
a guard. My father is my coach. I am sitting
next to him on the bench. I am ready to go in.
My sister will cheer. My mother will make
the pre-game meal from The Joy of Cooking.
Buster is a good dog. We are all at an angle.
We are a family at an angle. Our clothes are
pressed. We look into the eye of the camera.
“Look ’em in the eye,” my father teaches us.
All we see ahead are wins, good grades,
Christmas. We believe in being happy. We
believe in mowing the lawn, a two-car garage,
a freezer, and what the teacher says. There is
nothing on the wall. We are facing away
from the wall. The jungle is far from home.
Hoses are for cleaning the car, watering
the gardens. My sister walks to school. My
father and I lean into the camera. My mother
and sister sit up straight. Ike has kept us
safe. In the spring, we will have a new car,
a Plymouth Fury with whitewalls and a vinyl top.
Jack Ridl, Poet Laureate of Douglas, Michigan (Population 1,100), is the author of All at Once, (CavanKerry Press, 2024), Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press, 2019), and Jack’s Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (Wayne State University Press, 2013) was awarded the National Gold Medal for poetry by ForeWord Reviews. His collection Broken Symmetry (WSUPress) was co-recipient of The Society of Midland Authors “Best Book of Poetry” award for 2006. His Losing Season (CavanKerry Press) was named the best sports book of the year for 2009 by The Institute for International Sport, and The Boston Globe named it one of the five best books about sports. In 2017 it was developed into a Readers’ Theater work. This poem is from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron.
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