Slipping Into Summer

The Fourth Grade year is coming to an end. Before it’s over another American goes into space. On May 24th astronaut Scott Carpenter takes off from Cape Canaveral. He lifts off on a Thursday morning before eight o’clock, so I get to see the blast-off before I go to school. I forget about Wee Willie Webber and cartoons today, I’m watching a real space man leave the earth! The flight lasts five hours, so he’s splashing down just as we’re coming back from lunch. Carpenter performs scientific experiments and manually flies the capsule, and he’s the first American in space who gets to eat solid food. I figure we’ll be on the moon and on our way to Mars long before the Russians now.
At the beginning of June it’s announced on the news that Adolf Eichmann has been executed for crimes against humanity. One less monster in our closet.
12 people escape from East Berlin by tunneling under the wall. The East Germans are determined to be free.
I can’t wait for school to be over. I’m a lot smarter now and I have the report card to prove it, but my brain hurts from all that studying, so I’m looking forward to just being a kid for a while.
I’m still getting crew-cuts; my ill-fated attempt at letting my hair grow long a miserable failure. I’m sure my classmates had a good laugh at my expense, as I plastered my hair down with gallons of Vitalis and tube after tube of Bryl-Creem. I will look like an army recruit for many more years, my scalp remaining in the 1950s.
The May Fair, warm weather and our final tests of the year and we’re free to be free again. Time to enjoy the summer and wait for the new addition to our family.
I'll spend the next two months watching Mom’s belly getting bigger and bigger, wondering if we’ll have a boy or a girl. How does a baby fit in there, and how do they come out? It's a mystery to me.
Right now there’s lots of time for fun and adventure.
It’s summer in Woodbury Heights, and the livin’ is easy.