“Bambi” would be in Punxsutawney for nine more days, and each of those days Benjy saw the movie twice. The manager looked dubious, but he spent the afternoons patrolling the theater and the lobby anyway, so he agreed. At the theater, she alerted the manager that Benjy would be there alone. He could stay for both showings of “Bambi” if he would agree to stay in his seat, not talk to anyone, and wait in the lobby for Tess to pick him up. Tess finally agreed that he could sit by himself in the theater if Leba walked the six blocks with him. Benjy WOULD go to see “Bambi.” Leba would NOT take him. The fifth day after the initial viewing of “Bambi” dawned with tears, foot stomping, and arm folding. Leba had a life, too, and did not want to spend it at the Jefferson Street Theater. And insisted she take him again the next day, when he raised a fuss about being deprived. Leba was ten, so Tess let her take her brother to the movie again the next day. Benjy was enchanted and insisted on seeing it again. When Benjy was six years old, the movie “Bambi” was released to movie theaters, and Tess took Benjy and Leba to see it. That dedication was so strong that Tess finally took bacon with her to restaurants when the family ate out. That obsession lasted almost a year and was a prelude to his bacon diet when he was eight. She hoped it would be a passing fancy and was willing to indulge his obsession. But soon she became accustomed to serving him just green beans. Tess was dismayed and put on his plate all the other things she was serving – lamb chops, potatoes, salad.
He was willing to suffer through the usual breakfasts of eggs or pancakes or French toast or oatmeal, but for lunch or dinner he would eat only green beans. At first, Benjy ate a lot of green beans. When he was about four years old, he fell in love with canned green beans. Tess, convulsed with laughter, sank into a chair.īenjy had a very strong sense of what he liked and disliked. “Mother, Mother! Guess what I saw today! A half of a bunny!” Remember, don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.”Ĭoming home after school one afternoon, Leba was astonished by the sight of a rabbit running through the neighbor’s yard. “Water reaches a boiling point and doesn’t get any hotter after that. But she was relieved not to have to walk on the same side of the street as the parochial school, so it all pretty well evened out.Īnother admonition she took seriously was one her mother had voiced after Leba repeated a story heard at school that involved boiling water and the fact that it got hotter the longer it was boiled. Leba loved jumping rope, but she took the admonition literally, memorizing the sidewalk cracks and sometimes opening the front door with dread of seeing her mother lying on the floor, back broken because her daughter had inadvertently stepped on a magical crack. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back,” was a favorite theme when jumping rope. Although Leba did not share this further fear with her mother, there was an added dimension to walking on an unknown side of the street. Soon both Leba and Tess felt confident enough to allow a foray into walking alone from school. Therefore she pointed out every legless veteran returned from the World War, every child wearing a cast, every old woman with a cane as a survivor of crossing the street without REMEMBERING WHAT THEIR MOTHERS SAID!
A little prevarication is a good lesson, Tess reasoned. Pictures still remained in her head of all the people Tess had pointed out who had been maimed crossing the street.
“When you see that nothing –NOTHING – is coming, put your foot on the street and walk – don’t run – to the other side.” “Now look both ways.” Two heads moved in unison. “Hold my hand TIGHT,” Leba’s mother said, although Leba could not possibly have moved her little hand in Tess’s firm grasp. And being taught to cross the street by her mother became a military operation. Learning to cross the street alone was an exciting prospect for Leba.
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