$ 1.00

I recall an incident from my very early youth. I was around age four. My family lived on a white oak lined avenue in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. The year was 1956. Just up at the top of the hill, five houses beyond my house was Oakleigh Elementary School. On the grounds, aside from the actual school building itself, were four baseball diamonds, a football field, soccer field, two tennis courts, a basketball court, several wooded areas, an old haunted house (not part of the school grounds, but it was there), and a corraled (metal bars) playground. In this playground, of the many apparatti available, was a merry go round, a sliding board, monkey bars, and swings. The playground was brand new, the ground strewn with sand and stringy wood pieces. My two best friends, Paul and Tommy (who were two years older than me) and I would often go to the playground from our homes to play (We lived very close and remember this was 1956). The end of the school jutted out toward the playground. Maybe, fifty feet apart from each other. Oakleigh elementary was a two story structure in which were taught grades 1 thru 6. One day, as my friends and I were playing, two figures appeared in the large picture window on the second floor at the end of the school overlooking the playground. It was a man and a woman. The man was naked and the woman, clothed, appeared to be scrubbing him just below the belly with a brush. (At the time, I didn't realize that that wasn't a brush in her hand). Without alarm, we played and then left for home. As we were heading home, we came upon our neighbor, Mr. Menninger. One of the older boys, I don't recall which (probably both), remarked to him that they had seen a naked man in the school. As it never crossed our minds that there was anything wrong (or mine anyway), we made our way to our homes. After a bit, there was a buzz going about on our street. Folks were outside. Shortly following, a police car went up our road to the school. After a while (I haven't a clue how long), the police car came back down the hill past our homes and disappeared. I saw two people in the back seat of the car as it passed. I was oblivious to the meaning of all the excitement, obviously. Sometime later (for some reason), Paul, Tommy, and I, and our parents, had to get dressed up in the middle of a weekday and travel to this big building somewhere. I had never been there. Our parents walked us into the building and we were all seated in this wide hallway on some wooden benches. Well, we never left those benches for the longest time until some man in a suit came out of one of the doors and spoke to our folks. Something about it being all over. Now get this, then another man came over and gave each of we children a brand new crisp one dollar bill and told us "this is for appearing in court". Whatever that meant. I was bewildered by this entire affair.