Green Popsicle

K76+

Another Kingston story from roughly the same time period. This one was read at a story slam at Maverick Concert Hall a few months ago.

Have you been to a story slam? If it takes you longer to read than four minutes they gong you. Jury’s still out on whether this phenomenon makes a better story, or is good for my psyche, but it makes for a lively evening, anyhow.

I also read it at Green Kill art space, just blocks from the old Boys’ Club where half this story takes place, and along the route of the big chase scene in Kingston 76…

Summer 1972, we’d just moved to uptown Kingston, and kids were all over the place. But somehow when Mrs. Dickert came back from Grand Union in her VW Bus the whole block was in her backyard waiting for her to break open an icy cold box of assorted popsicles.

Everyone would be screaming for whatever flavor they wanted, and I’d scream too.

“I want a red one, I want a red one!” but by the time she got to me there was only the green one. Or “Fudgsicle, Can I please have a fudgsicle?” but by the time she got to me, green.

And I’d watch each time, the kid who got the red one hold it up and say, “Yeah, I got the red one!” or the kid who got the fudgsicle say, “Yeah, I got the fudgsicle!” And every time I got the one no one else wanted, the green one.

I had no idea how to make myself heard in a competitive situation, to be one of those kids with the choice popsicle, holding it high for all to see.

So one day when Mrs. Dickert came home from the supermarket with the box of popsicles, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “I want the green one!”

And when she gave me the green one, I held it up for everyone to see (just in case they were watching) and I said, “Yeah, I got the green one!”

My new strategy began to work in other ways. Playing Trouble, with the Pop-o-Matic dice, I’d ask to be green and always got my first choice. At our school library, I’d plop right down on the green pillow and no one would fight me for it.

As far as the outside world knew, I was simply a guy who liked green. But, more importantly, I was a person who got what he asked for in this world. And maybe, just maybe, I believed it.

A few years later, some buddies of mine at George Washington School convinced me to join the Boys’ Club. Good move. I might not’ve been the best basketball player, or the best baseball player, but at the Boys’ Club, everyone got to play, and no one got psyched out, no matter their ability.

Over spring break, there was a sort of Olympics, to keep us off the street, as it were. Some of the events were sports related, others a little more random.

One day there was a jello eating contest. I joined, just like I joined every other event, because even if you didn’t win, you got points added to your total just for taking part.

The rules were explained. The jello would be on individual plates on a long table. You had to keep your hands behind your back, put your face down into your own plate of jello, and slurp up every last bit with just your mouth.

The boys taking part in the event all decided this was agreeable. Then the jello was revealed.

It was green jello.

The other boys, with contorting faces, all said simultaneously, “Ewww, it’s green!”

I was like: “I got this.”

When they blew the whistle, I stuck my face into that green jello so fast it blew everyone’s hair back. It was deliciously lime in a way I’d learned how to enjoy, and I slurped up every last wobbly bit of jello on that plate before half the boys had even started.

Joe, who ran the Boys’ Club, was soon holding my hand aloft in victory like he’d never seen a performance like that in all his life.

At the end of Spring Break, they wrote all the boys’ names on the wall in the order of points received over the course of the week. Out of probably 80 boys who’d taken part, I ranked number 13, in part because I’d joined almost every event, but in no small part because I’d come in first in that single contest.

Over the course of my life, I guess I have a few accomplishments I can point proudly to at this point. But in my top five would have to remain the time I reigned victorious in the green jello eating competition, spring 1978, at the Boys’ Club on Greenkill Avenue in midtown Kingston.

Thanks for continuing to subscribe.

Next Wednesday begins a very interesting interview with Ed Ford, longtime Kingston historian. Stay tuned!

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