Randy’s Childhood Flashback

Wow, talk about a flash back to a childhood memory! There are times in life when you see or hear something that instantly takes you back to a childhood memory and that happened to me the other day. I walked into work on Monday and the station had installed a new sink in the restroom. Not just any sink, a slop sink, you know, one of those big janitor type sinks, and ‘that’ caused the flashback!

In 1962, I can remember the year but not the date, my parents built a new house in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. The house was complete and we moved in but the laundry room didn’t have a sink in it yet. Money was a little short so we were going to wait. Friday evenings at St. Helen’s Catholic Church was always Bingo night and my Mother and Grandmother decided to take me along. It was the first time I had ever played Bingo and in those days kids could play although very few ever went.

Being new to the game, I only had two cards and was getting frustrated at coming close but never being able yell out ‘BINGO’. We came to the final game of the night, blackout Bingo, and the jackpot was $22.75, pretty big for 1962. My card started to fill up fast and my Mother and Grandmother were starting to get excited for me as they kept watching my card, then it happened, I WON, BINGO! Talk about being excited. I won $22.75.

When I got home my Dad congratulated me and said, ‘you know, the slop sink we need for the laundry room cost $22.00, why don’t you buy it with your winnings?’ He said you donate the $22.00 and keep the 75 cents, so I did, it felt good to buy something for our new house and I still had 75 cents. When I walked into the station and saw the new slop sink in the restroom, it looked exactly like the one I bought with my winnings, flashback!