How's Your Tallywacker?

When I was a little boy, there were only two or three other homes anywhere in sight. One of them was where Ben lived. His house was diagonally located from us, about two stone-throws away, on the other side of an alley that ran between his avenue and ours. Ben was about the age of my older brothers Lewis and Howe, I think somewhere in between them. My brothers and I spent a lot time at Ben’s, one reason being that he had a TV set. We watched stuff like “I Married Joan”, “The Life of Riley”, and “Dragnet”. Ben’s parents were very friendly. Sometimes I took care of their dog when they were away. Ben’s mom helped me get through the first grade on time, and Ben’s dad often kidded me one way or another in a friendly way. Ben, however, sometimes took shameful advantage of our age difference.

For example, one afternoon when I went over to Ben’s, he greeted me by asking me how my tallywacker was. I had no idea what that meant. I was just an ignorant little kid, and I had never heard the word tallywacker before. Ben told me that asking someone about his tallywacker was just a friendly way of greeting him, kind of like asking how things were going for him. Well, that seemed like a good explanation, so with Ben’s encouragement, I practiced asking him how his tallywacker was for the next hour or so, until I had to go on home for supper.

Now, Sunday midday dinner was always a big thing to the Whitmans. If it was summertime, we often would go to Radium Springs for a picnic and swimming. Otherwise, we would likely have a fried chicken dinner or roast beef dinner at home. Just outside and off to one side of our dining room window, there was a big Mimosa tree that we climbed on a lot. It was perfect for climbing, but that’s another story. Sometimes, Ben would come over to see us while we were still eating dinner, and when that happened, he would just sit outside in the tree until we were done and could come out and play. To get to the tree from Ben’s house, you had to walk right by the dining room window. On this particular day that I’m telling you about, maybe a couple of weeks after my visit at Ben’s that I just described, Ben came walking by the dining room window while we were at Sunday dinner. He waved at us and continued on toward the Mimosa tree, and I hollered out the open window to him, “Hey Ben, How’s your tallywacker?” My mom and dad instantly swiveled to focus di-rect!ly on Ben, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. You reap what you sow.