Let me tell you about the photograph you see before you. It was taken in the backyard of the home in which I lived with my parents from age 1 to about 22. I'll guess I was about seven, maybe eight in this picture. The little girl was named either Roxy or Lee.
The reason I'm not certain is that Roxy and Lee were identical twins — and I mean identical. Their grandmother, who lived next door to us, could not tell them apart and she claimed that even their parents had trouble. Roxy and Lee liked this and encouraged their folks to dress them alike. When their folks didn't, they were known to swap outfits, just to keep everyone guessing. They would also sometimes claim to be each other. If you took a guess, they'd usually tell you you were wrong, even if you were right.
Every week or three, Roxy and Lee would come stay with their grandmother for a few days and when they did, we'd play games and I would make up little adventure stories for us to act out. Once, we put on a show in that backyard for my parents, their grandma and as many of the neighbors as we could bring there under duress. We opened with a magic act that utterly baffled the three people there who didn't know that my assistant had a twin. For a few seconds there, they actually thought I'd magically transported her from one big cardboard box to another.
The other seven people in our audience laughed because they knew the secret. Then we intentionally gave it away to the other three so Roxy and Lee could both be in the rest of the show together. They sang and danced to a record I played there in the yard thanks to a phonograph and an ungodly-long chain of extension cords. I did other magic tricks and a ventriloquism act that did not have Paul Winchell sweating the competition.
I liked Roxy and Lee a lot. One day, we learned that their grandmother was moving away. Actually, everyone in the small apartment complex next door was moving away. It was being demolished to be replaced by a large apartment building. I was quite sad because it meant the end of my friendship with Roxy and Lee. I never even got to see them for a "last time."
In the above photo, one of them and I seem to be running some kind of mobile exhibit of rocks we'd found or something. I have no idea what we were doing but I do remember that wagon which served me well. It was at different times, a spaceship and a stagecoach and an ice cream truck and a door-to-door lemonade stand and I believe I even won the Indianapolis 500 in it a few times. Finally in my teen years, I gave it to a younger boy who lived down the street and he too found all sorts of imaginative uses for it. He may even have used it as a wagon.
The main thing I would call your attention to in the photo is that little house we had in our yard. It was there when we moved in and I'm not sure of its original purpose. It had no plumbing or electricity, which suggested it was built as a tool and storage shed. But it also had big windows all around it which suggested people were expected to be inside it. Here's another photo where you can see it…
I don't know what caused me to make that face. Usually when I'm around females, they're the one making that face.
For a time, I used the little house cautiously as a playhouse — cautiously because many of the windows were broken, the floor had weak spots on it, there were portions of the ceiling that looked like they might come down at any minute, and there were a great many rusty nails in its walls. My Uncle Nathan, who was marginally handy with tools, occasionally went in and tried to remove some of the greater hazards but it finally came down to a simple decision: My father would either have to spend a lot of money to have someone come in and fix it up or it would have to be demolished.
A neighbor recommended a carpenter who came by and quoted a price to make it safe and inhabitable. The amount was clearly out of the question so my father asked, "How much to tear it down and haul everything away?" That fee was less but also more than he could spend at that time. Uncle Nathan boarded up the windows and the one door…and the little house just sat there for a year or two looking sad and maybe haunted.
During that time, the apartment complex next door was razed and a new, modern building took its place. As you might expect, we began finding termite droppings in our home. A bunch of them probably came in when they lost their residence next door and another wave probably arrived with all the lumber that was trucked in to build the new building.
An exterminator gave us a price to have our house tented and fumigated but, he said, there was no point in doing that as long as that little house was in the backyard. It was swarming with the little beasts and would re-attract them after any "kill." He gave my father an estimate on what it would cost to rip the place down now. It was $300, which seemed like a lot at the time. My father thought about it for a few days and finally decided he had no choice but to pay it.
Then my mother had a thought. She asked our gardener Felipe what he would charge to do it. He said he didn't do that kind of work. Then she asked him, "If someone else tore the building down, what would you charge to haul away all the old wood and broken glass?" That, he said, he would do — for $40.
She came to me and said, "How'd you like to make $130?" That was half of what would be left if she and I tore it down and Felipe cleaned up after us.
I think I was ten at the time and $130 seemed like…well, less than a million dollars but not by much. The primary expenditure in my life was the purchase of comic books, most of which I bought at used book shops where I could get six for 25 cents. I did some instant arithmetic. $130 was 3,120 comic books.
But not really. There were many current comic books on the newsstand that looked so wonderful that I couldn't resist paying full cover price, which then was a dime. So maybe it was more like 2,000 comics. I remember thinking, "Gee, it's too bad I won't have a little house in the backyard to store them in."
My mother then said, "Now, don't think I'm going to let you spend the $130 all on comic books. Some of it's going to have to go for clothes and other expenses."
I asked, "Could I buy a pair of socks and spend the rest on comic books?" She said no. I could spend $30 on comics and then the remaining $100 would go towards, as she put it, "Necessities of Life." I tried to argue that Detective Comics was one but all she said was, "Nice try, kid. Nice try." I never could put one over on my mother. My father, yes…but not my mother.
Still, I took the offer. Thirty bucks worth of comic books was, after all, thirty bucks worth of comic books. Even at twelve cents apiece, that was a lot.
She presented the proposition to my father: "Give us the money and Mark and I will tear down the little house." He was skeptical but obviously, there was a value to keeping the dough within the family. "You've got a deal," he told us. "But for God's sake, be careful."
We were…and it was, up to a point, enormous fun. The little house was built like a real house but without a concrete foundation. We bought tools so I had safety goggles and gloves and a sledge hammer that was appropriate to my size and a big crowbar that I used to pry the shingles off the exterior. Once I did that, some of the walls beneath them could be knocked down with the sledge hammer, even by a ten-year-old boy. The little house turned out to be in even worse shape than we'd thought, plus we also had a big assist from those termites.
When we got the place down to the framework, Uncle Nathan decided to get in on the action. He went someplace and rented a gasoline-fueled power saw and then came over and cut down some of the upright beams, collapsing the roof. Boy, that was exciting. Many years later, I was outside the Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas the night it was imploded with thousands of gallons of liquid explosives. Watching the little house come down was more memorable and astonishing.
Then Uncle Nathan sawed the roof and interior paneling into smaller chunks that Felipe the Gardener could fit into his truck. When the house was almost down, we paid Felipe to dig up the wooden frame that had formed the foundation. He then hauled the wreckage away and we were done.
My father was amazed. Absolutely amazed. He stood out in the backyard, staring at the plot where the little house had been and he said over and over, "I can't believe you did it! I cannot believe it!"
Between that extra cost of Felipe's excavation and what we spent on tools, we didn't clear $260. It was more like $200 but I still put aside $30 from my share for comic books and the rest went for clothes, shoes and some new shelving for my bedroom. I had to have a place to put all those comic books, after all. That was a Necessity of Life.
Only days after the little house was gone, we had to spend two nights at a nearby motel while our big house was covered with a tent. It was then filled with poison gas…which, the exterminator swore to me on the life of his children, would not harm my beloved comic book collection. As we were checking into the motel, the clerk noted that the address my father wrote on the registration card was less than a mile away. "You're not from out of town, I see. Might I ask the reason you'll be staying with us?"
My father was still reeling with astonishment at our demolition work. I guess it was partly that and partly to make a joke that he told the man, "My son here tore down our house."
The clerk gave me a look of incredulity and he asked, "Did you really do that?"
I said, "Yes." And motioning to the little suitcase I was holding, I added, "I packed my sledge hammer and my crowbar! If the TV in our room doesn't work, this place will be a parking lot by morning!"