(Author Note: This is the seventh story in a series. The characters and situations were introduced in the episode:
Camp Torowa Falls 1964 - 01: A Fair To Remember
Read that episode first!) Then read episodes 2 thru 6 before reading this one.
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Thursday dawned clear and bright - another fine summer day. At breakfast the radio was once again predicting afternoon thunderstorms - although the storms hadn't made an appearance on Wednesday. Corey hoped they'd stay away again - he and Jerry had work to do today. It was finally time to mow Mrs. Bauer's lawn.

As the boys rode their bikes up 9th Street, Corey warned Jerry to be very careful what he said when they were at Mrs. Bauer's house. She usually remained inside her house while someone mowed her lawn, but she could hear everything that was said outside - and she probably would be listening. Jerry assured Corey that he would be polite to the old lady. And no, he wouldn't refer to her as "the old lady" while they were on her property.

Mrs. Bauer was pleased to meet Jerry. Her hair was gray, and worn in a bun. She wore "granny glasses", although her face was surprisingly free of wrinkles. All the kids in the neighborhood referred to her as "Old Mrs. Bauer", but Corey wasn't sure how old she really was. She seemed to move around pretty well as she tended her gardens.

As Corey had expected, Mrs. Bauer was concerned that her grass had grown so high because of all the rain and the delay. She felt Corey would be able to use the help in getting the grass mowed and was pleased that Jerry was there to help. Corey was amused by her concerns, but said nothing. Her grass was only now about as high as the grass was at home when Dad told Corey to mow it. But Mrs. Bauer was almost as fanatical about the appearance of her lawn as she was about the appearance of her garden.

Jerry was given a quick tour of the grounds before they got started. He expressed due appreciation for the flower gardens, particularly the special strain of prize-winning blue geraniums that Mrs. Bauer had developed herself. Jerry was genuinely amazed by the large greenhouse, which could actually be heated in cold weather, and which contained a large collection of tropical plants. Corey didn't know precisely how rich Mrs. Bauer was, but he knew it must cost a pretty penny to keep a large greenhouse like that heated throughout the winter in this kind of climate.

All in all it took about three hours to mow Mrs. Bauer's lawn. She insisted that Jerry do the front lawn, away from her gardens, while Corey - who was "more experienced" - could do the back lawn. When Jerry finished the front and side lawns he was allowed to work on the back lawn, but only under the direct supervision of Mrs. Bauer herself.

"Don't worry," said Corey, as they rode down Howertown Road after finishing the job. "She always watches you like a hawk the first time you mow anywhere near her gardens. She'll start to trust you after another time or two."

"After which I'll head off to camp and she won't see me again," said Jerry.

"Oh, yeah," said Corey, and the two friends shared a laugh.

Despite Mrs. Bauer's eccentric behavior, the job sure paid well. She must really have liked Jerry since she tipped them $3 on top of the $2 the job was supposed to pay! They each had earned $2.50 - more than a week's allowance. Not bad for three hours work!

The boys went home for lunch. It was after 1 o'clock, and Mom had already gone back to work, but she left them sandwiches and a note. They had permission to cross the Coplay bridge and visit Tony's Hobby Shop!

As they rode their bikes across the bridge to Coplay - a steel arch affair with concrete abutments - Corey could tell that Jerry was excited. He didn't blame his friend, who would be buying his very first model rocket that day.

Corey and his father had been flying model rockets for nearly two years now. Corey had been introduced to model rocketry by his sixth grade science teacher. Usually Dad took Corey - and often one or two of Corey's friends - out to fly their model rockets on Saturday mornings if the weather was okay. Of course the previous Saturday they had gone to the World's Fair, and next Saturday was July 4th. Corey had been hoping to talk Dad into taking them out on Sunday afternoon. But first things first - they needed to get Jerry set up with his own model rocket.

Jerry had never seen a model rocket fly before, and had shown a great deal of interest in the Lane family rocket collection. Corey's Dad had an "Astron Apogee", a two-stage rocket that could reach altitudes of more than 2,000 feet. Corey's current pride and joy was his "Astron Ranger" a 2-foot-long single-stage rocket with three engines. It could lift something as heavy as an egg to more than 1,000 feet in altitude.

Jerry had quickly grasped the concept behind model rockets. You take a long cardboard tube which forms the rocket body. Then you attach fins and a nose cone fashioned from balsa wood. Then you shove a solid fuel impulse rocket engine up the thing's tailpipe and use a battery powered electrical "igniter wire" to ignite the engine. Whoooosssshhh!! A small cloud of smoke is left on the launch pad and your model rocket is soaring up into the sky at an incredible rate.

The internal structure was more complicated, of course, and these things didn't always work as designed. But that was the general idea behind model rocketry. Corey and his Dad flew Estes rockets, made by a company in Colorado. Other companies made model rockets, of course, but Estes Industries was the company that had sent Corey's science teacher a free stack of catalogs two years ago and managed to infect another group of 11 and 12-year-old boys with the model rocketry bug. The real world NASA space program certainly helped to fuel this craze, and was exploited by Estes with reproductions of some of NASA's vehicles.

Estes even offered group discounts when boys bought their first rockets together through their science teacher at school. Corey's Dad said that it was really clever marketing. But he also thought the rockets were very cool and allowed Corey to purchase his first rocket through the group discount program. Model rocketry was a reasonably safe hobby, although his Mom didn't necessarily agree with that assessment. In any event, Corey and his friends were not allowed to fly their rockets without adult supervision.

The previous summer Corey and his cousin Walt Eckert had been caught gluing fins made from scrap balsa wood directly to the casings of Estes rocket engines and firing them off. One of these improvised missiles had struck the side of the neighbor's garage just as Uncle Jim (Walt's Dad) got home. The garage wall was made of concrete block and hadn't even been scratched. The same could not be said for Walt and Corey, who quickly found themselves bending side by side over the back of an old couch in the basement of the Eckert house, shorts down, while Uncle Jim used the "Board of Education", one of those novelty painted wooden paddles, on the seats of their tightly stretched briefs.

The Board of Education may have looked like a novelty item, but Corey could attest that the sting it imparted to a naughty boy's bottom was all too real. Uncle Jim had alternated between the two culprits, giving Walt three swats, then Corey three swats, then Walt, then Corey, and so forth until both boys were howling frantically and pleading for mercy. To make matters much worse, Uncle Jim had phoned Corey's Mom, so Corey had received bare-bottomed double dips with her hairbrush promptly upon returning home. Corey had to sit on a pillow to eat dinner, and slept on this tummy that night.

Of course there was no problem with the boys working on building and painting their rockets without adult help. In fact Corey would help Jerry build his first rocket, an Astron Sky Hook by Estes Industries, which Jerry purchased at Tony's Hobby Shop, along with a tube of 3 Estes A.8-3 rocket engines to power it. Tony was always pleased to see a boy buy his first rocket, since it usually meant years of future purchases to follow. The hobby shop owner was less pleased when he found out that not only was Jerry just visiting from out of town, but that Corey was going to let Jerry use his own knives, glue, paints, brushes and launch system. This meant that Jerry was only good for a $2 sale, rather than the $8 to $10 he might have spent otherwise.

The boys rushed home, needless to say, and immediately began working on Jerry's new rocket. They ignored the lightning which flashed through the loft windows from outside - the afternoon thunderstorms had arrived. The Sky Hook was an excellent starter rocket and easy to build. Jerry, who was a novice, benefited from having a veteran model rocket builder as a mentor and assistant. By dinner time on Thursday the fins had been fashioned from balsa wood stock - in fact the whole thing was ready to be glued together after dinner.

During dinner Dad threw gasoline on the fire of the boys' excitement when he pointed out that although Saturday was the Independence Day holiday, they didn't in fact have to be at Uncle Karl's house in Allentown until noon for the start of the Hoffman family picnic. So if the boys were willing to get up early enough, he would take them out to fly their rockets in the morning.

Jerry and Corey practically stormed up the stairs back to the loft as soon as they had finished dinner. Jerry quickly, but very carefully, glued his rocket together. They would have to let the glue dry overnight, and then if everything went well they could paint the new rocket Friday and it should be all dry and ready to fly on Saturday morning.

Jerry decided to paint his new rocket green, but Corey didn't have any green spray paint. So the boys drove their bikes up to Miller's department store on Friday morning. They locked their bikes in the rack behind Miller's and entered the rear, basement entrance. Many of the stores on the west side of Main Street had their front entrances at first floor level on Main Street itself, and their rear entrances at basement level facing a series of large parking lots.

Jerry found a shade of green paint he liked in Miller's paint department, and even saved some money over what would have paid for spray paint at the hobby shop. Of course the biggest reason for going to Miller's was that the boys didn't have to ask "Mother may I?" like they would have done for a trip back to the hobby shop.

Corey insisted that they check out the Roxy Theater on the way back. Sure enough, the marquee proclaimed "Viva Las Vegas - starring Elvis Presley!" as the current featured film. Corey had been aware that it was a coming attraction for weeks now, and finally the waiting was over! He checked out the showtimes sign: 2 - 7 - 9:30. "Jerry, we have to make it back by 2 o'clock for the matinee!" said Corey.

"Okay," said Jerry, grinning.

Corey glanced at his watch - 10:30 in the morning - they had three and a half hours. "You don't mind, do you?" he said as they started riding home.

"No, Corey, I want to see it," said Jerry. "I like Elvis - just not as much as you do. I like to listen to other people sing too, including the Beatles. Besides, Ann-Margaret is in that flick, so I want to see it anyway."

"Okay!" said Corey happily as they rode home.

It turned out that the can of spray paint was defective and they had to ride all the way back to Miller's for a replacement. The delay meant that they couldn't actually paint Jerry's rocket until they got home from seeing the movie that afternoon.

Jerry and Corey sat in their loft bedroom, looking at the beautiful green Sky Hook rocket sitting on top of some spread-out newspaper on Corey's desk. It was after 10:30 in the evening, which explained why Corey's phonograph was silent. "I can't believe we're actually sitting here watching paint dry," said Corey, moodily.

Jerry reached out and touched the rocket gingerly with his right index finger. He said, "It's already dry, I think. Which just makes it worse. It means we're sitting here watching it..."

"...do absolutely nothing," said Corey. They broke into laughter over that one.

"We could talk about baseball," said Jerry.

The two friends looked at each other, then shook their heads and both said, "No!"

"How about Viva Las Vegas?" said Jerry.

"Yeah, okay," said Corey, dubiously.

"I still don't get how Elvis lost his money," said Jerry, "did somebody pick his pocket?"

"I don't think so," said Corey, "I think it just fell out of his pocket when Ann-Margaret pushed him in the pool."

"Why didn't he go back to find it?" said Jerry. "It was thousands of dollars, wasn't it?"

"I think you just answered your own question, pal," said Corey. "It was thousands of dollars - that money was gone!"

"But if it was your thousands of dollars, wouldn't you at least gone back to look for it?"

"Yes, I suppose I would have," said Corey. "But I'm the son of an insurance man. What's next?"

"Oh, man!" said Jerry. "That shot of Ann-Margaret where the camera focused right in on the seat of those tight white shorts she was wearing, and then she walked away from the camera....oh!"

Corey groaned... he could see that Jerry's hand had found its way back inside the front of his briefs as he thought about his favorite scene from the movie. Corey thought it was a sexy shot too, but Jeeze! How many times had it been already in the last six hours? Corey said, "You're gonna wear that thing down to a stump if you keep that up, you know?"

"Don't bother me, boy," said Jerry. "I'm thinkin' about the woman I love."

"Yeah," said Corey. "I'm sure Ann-Margaret will be interested in you, Jerry. You can pick her up in your brand new Astron Sky Hook!"

"Grrr, you little creep!" said Jerry as he rushed over to engage the laughing Corey in some wrestling play. Corey did the best he could, but Jerry was better at wrestling than he was. They thumped around the room for a while, banging into things as they wrestled, but eventually Corey was pinned with his back to the floor. "Say it!" said Jerry quietly.

"No!" said Corey. His pride demanded he refuse to say it at least once.

Jerry twisted Corey's left arm slightly, causing him to groan in pain. "Say it!"

"Uncle!" said Corey.

Jerry immediately released Corey from the hold, patted him kindly on the top of his head and said, "Be a good widdle Corey and leave Uncle Jerry alone while he thinks about grown up things."

"Okay, Mr. Grown Up," said Corey. "Keep jerkin' it while thinking about your pretend movie star girl friend. I've got a real girlfriend."

"Yeah, I noticed," said Jerry, grinning. "You know what, I'm happy for you, Corey. I really am happy. I hope that you, and the receptionist at your Mom's office will be very happy together."

"Yooooooouu!" said Corey as he charged. There was even more thumping each other around the room as they wrestled, pushing each other into the walls, floor, beds, and so forth. Then before he knew it, Corey was flat on his back again saying, "Uncle!" Jerry started to release him again, when...

"Hey! You two knuckleheads!" came the angry voice of Corey's father from the bottom of the stairs. "Quit fooling around up there! If I have to come up there, you'll both be very sorry!"

"Sorry!" both boys yelled as Jerry rolled off of Corey.

"Well, don't be sorry," yelled Dad, "be quiet!"

"Yes, sir!" both boys yelled. They giggled quietly as they lay side by side.

"That was close," whispered Corey.

"Yeah," said Jerry. They lay there for a while staring at the ceiling, too tired and bored to move. "Corey, what kind of name is Ewart?"

"Huh?" said Corey. Then he said, "Oh, yeah. My Dad's middle name. Where did you see that?"

"On his college degree," said Jerry, "when I was meeting with your parents on Tuesday night. William Ewart Lane."

"Well, I don't know what the national origin of the name is originally," said Corey. "But my Dad was named after his great-grandfather, William Ewart Gladstone."

"Was he famous, or anything?" said Jerry.

"Kind of," said Corey. "He was Prime Minister of England way back in the 1800s. About a hundred years ago, I guess."

"That's a really big deal, isn't it?" said Jerry, looking impressed.

"I guess it was," said Corey, "but it was a long time ago. It's not like he was Winston Churchill, or anything."

"Yeah, but Churchill won't be that big a deal a hundred years from now, either," said Jerry. "Did England win any wars while Gladstone was Prime Minister?"

"Not that I know of," said Corey. "In fact I think they got their butts kicked at some place called Khartoum, and Gladstone got blamed for it."

"Ouch!" said Jerry.

"Hey," said Corey. "I never said he was a good prime minister. Just that he was my great-great grandfather. We can't pick our ancestors."

"Does that mean that you and your Dad are descended from...royalty?" said Jerry.

"No!" said Corey. "Prime ministers aren't royalty. Some of them may have been knights, but I don't think Gladstone was. He was just a regular guy who went into politics and won some big elections, the same as our presidents."

"How do you know all that?" said Jerry.

"Because," said Corey, "I asked my Dad the same question a while back, and that's the answer he gave me."

"Hmmmm," said Jerry. "Shall we hit the sack?"

"Why not?" said Corey, smiling. "My great-great grandpa's story always puts people to sleep."