Submarines

Friday, October 14, 2016

In the summer of 1955, when my mother was working on a master’s in Education, Susie Bickle was my daytime babysitter.

I believe her job was relatively easy.  She supervised me as I ate cereal.  Rice Crispies.  You know, “snap crackle pop.”

In those days you got a submarine in the Rice Crispies box, in a cellophane envelope, one with a hat-shaped metal insert in the bottom.

One could add a bit of baking powder to this sub, which was all of 1.5 inches long.  You put the sub into the water and it sunk to the bottom.  Once the water reacted with the baking powder, bubbles caused the sub to rise to the surface.  The bubbles burst at the surface, and the sub sank to the bottom once again.

My brother Tom and I played with the sub in the bathtub, and my friend Mike Kohler and I played with the toy sub in the deep water of his father’s wheelbarrow, a special wheelbarrow with giant wheels and a payload that was probably two feet deep.