Who’d Have Dreamed It Would Be Like This?

I feel cheated.

Listen, when you were a kid, did you ever dream of the things you’d do when you got older? Plan what you’d do with success?

So did I.

For instance, when I was a boy, times were hard. The Depression was on. You had to cut corners, make do.

One thing we had to do was wear these god-awful sneakers, ersatz shoes made out of canvas and rubber. You had to wear them till the canvas tore, the rubber split and you couldn’t bear to sleep in the same room with them after a long hot summer’s day.

I said to myself, “When I grow up and get work, I’ll never wear another pair of sneakers again as long as I live.”

Then, I grew up and got older and more prosperous. And everybody in the world, all my colleagues and friends, took to wearing these damn athletic shoes that, so far as I’m concerned, are just sneakers with a superiority complex.

I also said when I got money in the bank, you’d never get me to wear a pair of overalls or denim pants that would tear at the knee ever again.

So, I grew up and all of the “in” people, rich movie producers, actors and actresses and agents, are wearing jeans torn at the knee to go with their sneakers and sweat shirts. Ugh! Do you know how I hated sweat shirts growing up?

I could cry. Then, I dreamed of wearing a tuxedo, tails, maybe. At the very least, I pictured three-piece suits and neckties. With roses or palm trees on them.

Then, I grew up and went to fancy restaurants and nobody was even wearing a suit jacket, never mind a tie. They had bush jackets thrown over their shoulder as if they had just spent the day hunting lions. As for tuxedos, the only guys in restaurants wearing tuxedos were head waiters.

Our role models were guys like Ted Williams, who said he wouldn’t wear a tie to meet a king. I wanted to graduate into starched collars and these guys wore no collars. T-shirts, maybe. To me, T-shirts were something you wore under real shirts. When you could afford real shirts.

I wanted bench-made shoes from England when I made my poke. Then I grew up and everybody was wearing cowboy boots. Guys who had never seen a cow.

When I thought of a car, I used to picture this neat Packard, maybe with jump seats and wood paneling. Or perhaps, a Pierce-Arrow. I loved Pierce-Arrows.

Then I grew up--and everybody was riding around in a Jeep Cherokee or a Range Rover or some damn pickup truck. Rich guys drove those bloody things. I couldn’t believe it. In my day, they’d be ashamed to be seen in the front seat of one. We left trucks to truck drivers. What self-respecting woman would ride around in the cab of a truck?

I watched the slow, steady decline of the amenities. I hankered to get the peasant out of me but society wanted to get the peasant back in. Everybody wanted to look like a peasant. Me, I wanted to look like J. Pierpont Morgan. My favorite movie growing up was “Diamond Jim Brady,” not “The Grapes of Wrath,” or “Cool Hand Luke.”

Speaking of movies, I used to save up to go to these great big extravagant musicals, Busby Berkeley specials with leggy chorines and tenors in white tie and tails. On stage, I wanted to see the Ziegfeld Follies.

Then I grew up and the movies were all about people living in tenements, in poverty or hard times. A Broadway musical was a bunch of people dressed up as cats, if you can believe it.

I dreamed of Westerns in which the guy in the white hat rode in on a white horse and saved the town from the outlaws. Then I grew up and the outlaws were the heroes, the guys in the white hats were klutzes made fools of by Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid or somebody.

Cheated again.

But I had a saver. I still had sports. Ah, I figured, some day I would have enough to go see all those things I dreamed about listening to radio.

The Army-Navy game was high on my priorities. I loved the idea of the Army-Navy game. All those marching cadets, midshipmen, the baritone growl of the rooting sections, the uniforms, the military brass. And two of the best teams in the country.

And then, I grew up. And only the other day, I picked up the paper to see where Navy got beat by San Diego State--San Diego State!--56-14. And Army got beat by Duke, 43-7.

Now, what kind of image is that for our armed services? Who wants to go to that Army-Navy game? Two admirals and General Schwarzkopf. You want to see top-rate football, you have to go see Florida play Florida State, wherever that is and whoever they are.

I dreamed of seeing the Army-Notre Dame game. But the Humane Society won’t let them play anymore. And whatever happened to the Yale-Harvard game? And raccoon coats? Man, I wanted a raccoon coat and Boola-Boola! Does anybody go to Yale-Harvard anymore? They’re not even in the NCAA’s top division in football anymore. And remember Harvard came to the Rose Bowl in its day.

But all was not lost. I still had baseball! Good old baseball! “Take me out to the ballgame . . . I don’t care if I never get back!” Right?

I dreamed of being able to afford box seats at the World Series. See great pitching, great hitting, great history. Root, root, root for the home team. Maybe catch a foul ball and go get the Mick to autograph it, eh?

Not! It’s all yesterday’s roses. The world has tricked me. All the things I dreamed of in my youth have vanished in my old age.

I mean, no World Series? No guys calling the shot? No Willie Mays catching home runs over his shoulder 450 feet from home plate? No Gashouse Gang? No pitchers named Dizzy? No Murderers’ Row, Big Red Machines? No Wild Thing? What do we talk about all winter? What kind of a crummy world is this?

I think you can have the 21st Century. Just be sure your sneakers match.