What Happened (Part 9)

So let me describe a typical type of Weekday, let’s say a Monday.  I’ll cram it full of every day routine as well as incidents that would probably be spread out over the five days.

     A Monday morning would start with Pop already gone off to work the night before. We would be sleeping in our tangled heap, maybe even on the cooler floor if it had been a hot night.  Mom would come in at about 7:30 and rouse us with her signature four note whistle (“Whee-hoo-WHEEE-hooo!”) and telling us to come and get breakfast before she fed it to the hogs.  Up we’d scramble and race for the bathroom, where we stood all around the toilet at the same time and crossed our tinkle streams, sometimes pronouncing the Musketeers oath, “One for all and all for one!”  Then we’d all wash up, crowding in at the sink (it was a porcelain basin on metal legs at the time, not the cabinet model that replaced it later; it had one faceted leg you could twist), dry our hands, and thunder off to the kitchen, still in our pajamas.

     Breakfast was usually cereal, and cereal was an important business.  There could be oatmeal, or Malt-o-Meal, or scrambled eggs and toast, but cold cereal was our workhorse.  There were the rather grown-up varieties like Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, or Rice Krispies, or Cheerios, tolerable with enough sugar and maybe sliced banana.  But more significant was the kids’ cereal, whatever sugary, showy brand gripped our attention at the time.  Kid cereal was a meal and entertainment, and sometimes a prize, to boot.  One vital reason we treasured our shopping trips with our parents on Saturday was to choose which cereal and its mascot would have our loyalty that week.  As we ate, the box would be passed around (with Mike as eldest, on down) and the cartoons and offers and advertisements were perused as intently as any newspaper by any adult.

     Most of the cereals we enjoyed are still around, in some incarnation or other.  Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Coco Puffs, and Trix are still being shilled by Lucky, Tony, Sonny, and the Trix Rabbit, if in slightly different cartoon form.  But there were some that fell by the wayside.  One of special significance only to me among my brothers (as far as I know) was Crispy Critters and its mascot, King Linus, a creation of animator Jay Ward for the cereal-selling show “King Linus the Lion-Hearted.”  Long after I forgot every episode of the cartoon I was haunted by the image of a crowned Lion (it turned up everywhere, in Christmas specials and valentine cards and in bank form) and a fondness for the name Linus.  It was only reinforced when I found out (years later) that my astrological sign was Leo.

If there was a prize in the box we would usually have to share it, but if anyone was seen to be particularly fond of a certain character or have strong affinities with it, it was generally conceded that it was his.  When empty, the box might be cut up if it had an interesting graphic or a game on the back.  Very rarely Mom consented to mail order box top offers; we got some Tony Tiger hats, complete with long tiger tails, that way.