Open Writing

Parkfairfax, Virginia, was unique. We'd finally been able, through a connection at the base, to land an apartment. Driving there for the first time the following Sunday, we were amazed at the size of the complex. We had a '39 Chevy, and, because of Dad's job, a much-coveted "A" gas sticker in the right front window. This gave us some driving flexibility at a time when gasoline was severely rationed.

That Sunday, for the first and only time I recall, we took advantage of that flexibility, driving everywhere through and around the development. Even Dad was in a decent mood, no doubt as thrilled as we were to finally get out of the hotel. For all of its many plusses, hotel life got old quickly, especially for Gordie and me. Ordering every night from room service loses its luster when you've exhausted the limited menu for the umpteenth time (meat was rationed as well.. .and Jello!). Mom was a fantastic cook, and I for one longed mightily for a bubbling, steaming dish of Daisy-fied goulash.

Built in 1942-43, Parkfairfax was a huge place, with nearly 1,700 apartments in all. Obviously, we were among the early families to move into the new complex. I have no idea to this day how we managed to get a place there. But then, I didn't know how we got an "A" sticker, either. As most folks must surely be aware, God and the U. S. government move in strange ways. But there we were. All of the apartments, — six in our large building - had individual exterior entrances - and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I came to full realization that I no longer had to go through a packed wartime lobby just to reach my bed!

It was there in Parkfairfax that I had my one and only run-in with the law. And if I had hand-picked my victim from an International Police Agency roster, I could absolutely, positively never have selected more of a dandy of a wrong one. If life had been a giant freeway that day, everyone else, I was convinced, would have been windshields, and I would have been the solitary, utterly doomed bug!

Four of us kids were walking on a large highway overpass, coming back from the Shirlington Drugstore, where Mom worked part-time for the kindly Doc Ellsberg. The cars below us were whizzing by underneath - going to and from downtown Washington — when I, little Ronnie, came flattened nose to windowpane actuality with an exceedingly rare delinquent thought. Might it not be fun to drop a little pebble from the overpass to see if I could perhaps hit one of the cars? I retrieved a small stone from the curb and, with my three horrified associates looking on breathlessly, dropped it gently over the side.

Bingo!

The fruit of my utterly un-aimed drop would have made Jimmy Doolittle proud! The errant pebble struck one of the speeding autos smack dab on the windshield, bouncing perhaps fifty, cartoon-like feet after the initial impact. The car, of course, continued on, apparently unruffled by the glancing flick of a quarter-inch pebble.

Within three or so minutes, with the four of us still hanging-out in the general area, a strange car pulled to the curb near us, and a man got out. "Come here, you!" he ordered gruffly. It was the driver of the car I'd hit. I could see that his windshield was cracked. Clearly, the guy had gone to the next exit beyond us, maybe a mile away, then exited and doubled back. And he knew my bright blue jacket!

The first thing he did was to flip open an official-looking leather thing that identified him as (gasp!) an FBI agent! 1 looked at that badge as if Socrates himself had just offered to share a cool, greenish liquid refreshment. He proceeded to take down all of our names and addresses, like any good G-Man, and told me that my dad was going to owe the government some money. He then drove off. Ever true to a G-Man's Word, the guy made sure that my dad received a letter within the week — on FBI stationery, no less! It was going to cost the family twenty bucks for a new FBI windshield! Ohhh, brother!

Mom, who'd opened the letter, immediately began thinking of ways to reduce battlefield casualties. She thought for a minute, and made a decision. She would withdraw the money from the $93 vacation fund she had amassed over a two-year period. Somehow, the monumentality of my crime startled even my Dad, however, and I never did receive the beating both Mom and I had anticipated was coming. (For a brief moment there, I even thought I saw the merest tinge of smugness in his expression as he held an actual FBI letter in his hands. But naaw ... that couldn't have been the case!). I'll tell you this, though: it was a closer call than anything I'd seen in "Fighting Devil Dogs," only two days before! Afar closer call!