By Jim Nichols

Like others, I have been amused at news reports suggesting that younger people have difficulty telling time on an analog clock or watch. In our digital age, there is apparently something mysterious about a circular clock face with numbers and hands that move around the circumference.

That contrasts with my rite of passage (like tying my shoes) that meant I was no longer a small child. Indeed, one of my best and first gifts was a wristwatch like my father’s; it even had an “expansion” band like his, although we had to go to the jewelry store and have them cut off part of the band to fit my child wrist.

That memory surfaced as I attempted to answer a question posed to me. “What television program did you watch in your childhood?”

My response is that I had a favorite television program before our family had a television set. It is hard to imagine now, but in 1950 only a select group had a set in their house. I remember standing on the sidewalk outside a department store and watching TV through the plate glass window, soundless, of course.

A new neighbor boy moved in across the street. That family had a television set. I had a friend who had access to a TV; life was good. The family also had a Pontiac automobile that had a small “Indian head” hood ornament. That car had something called automatic transmission. It was a car your mom or dad did not have to shift—pretty amazing.

The new boy had some special characteristics and that friendship taught me lifetime lessons. Perhaps you had a friend like that.

Tommy could not hear. Because he could not hear, he also could not speak. He could make noises, but not words. Furthermore, he had only one functional eye; the other was a realistic glass one. That fact was mildly alarming to me, but I became accustomed to it. Other than those disadvantages, he was a typical boy about two years older than I was and we played well together. And I learned a lot.

I walked to nearby Francis Willard elementary school. He attended a different school that his mom drove him to in the Pontiac; I had never heard of that school.

We met up after school each day to play either at his or my house or outside. Since I could tell time, when my watch read 4:30 and we were together, I would clap my hands (something he apparently could hear). Moving right close to his face, I would yell, “Howdy Doody!” Although he could neither see nor hear well, he shared my appreciation for Howdy and his friends Clarabell, Mr. Bluster, Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring, and other puppets (along with the human Buffalo Bob). Hearing and seeing me notify him what time it was, he would race to his television set. I followed closely for a half hour of fun with the children in the Peanut Gallery.

Although his physical disabilities were obvious to me and everyone else, I have no memory that we had restrictions on our friend activities. If I SPOKE LOUDLY and used exaggerated motions, we were equal playmates. It would be an overstatement to say I felt the need to protect him, but I was sensitive to what he could and could not do or understand. It was minimal.

Buried in a set of memories with him was a deep regret for me. 

I spent much of my youth throwing things—balls, mud clods, rocks, and snowballs. If it was semi-round and throwable, I threw it.

One winter during a neighborhood snowball fight (where you just randomly throw), I threw in Tommy’s direction. He ducked and my snowball missed his body but hit him in the face; it hit him in his good eye. Temporarily blinded completely, he started crying. As he began recovering, he looked at me with an expression that seemed to me an accusation of betrayal. His best friend had hit him in his only good eye.

By the next day at 4:30 he seemed to have forgotten it. I have not, however.

Who taught you a personal lesson you never have forgotten?

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain