The Old Porn

Once upon a time in a northern suburb of Chicago that was nicer than most but not as nice as some, there lived a man named Schrorr. He had a wife who had anxiety attacks and a grown daughter who seldom visited and a vision of what he thought he wanted. One year he wanted a new swimming pool and lo, he caused a beautiful gunnite pool with a diving board to appear in the back yard of his three bedroom ranch. That year, Schrorr swam occasionally. The next year he swam less and finally he swam not at all and the cover stayed on the pool until it sank into the murky waters.

Another year Schrorr decorated the big evergreens in his front yard with Christmas lights, but the lights were never taken down and a few years later they still clung to the tree, all broken and derelict.

One summer, Schrorr decided he wanted to walk in his woods, and lo, an army the size of Santa Ana’s appeared with rakes and gravel and the army constructed walking paths in the woods behind the three bedroom ranch where Schrorr walked once or twice. Never thrice.

The little suburban neighborhood of three bedroom ranches had parties and Schrorr appeared once with Mrs. Schrorr, who did not have a panic attack. Schrorr got a snootful and became glassy eyed and stumbling and had to be taken home.

Schrorr bought a new lawn tractor, and one season he drove it and the next year he did not and lo, the tractor took it’s place beside the pool, the decorations and the paths, now completely overgrown and weedy with young oaks and shagbark hickory growing on them.

It is never too late to turn over a new leaf and lo, one year the Schrorrs performed spring cleaning in the three bedroom ranch. Huge piles of stuff and stacks of magazines were laid out several days prior to the arrival of the trash truck. The white truck lumbered down the street early in the morning, and the suburban dad who lived next door to Schrorr in a four-bedroom ranch was curious because the truck stayed so long and the dad finally got up to see what was going on, and the trash pickup guy was tossing some of Schrorr’s magazines into his cab of the truck and other items into the business part of the truck.

The neighbors pieced it together bit by bit. Schrorr, or perhaps Mrs. Schrorr, had rid the household of an enormous collection of pornography, and all the neighborhood boys had come upon this, lured perhaps by old inner tubes and pocket knives and cool stuff that young boys covet. The parents had to search high and low under mattresses and beds and in the darkest recesses of the closets to locate the secreted magazines. Schrorr was ever after known as The Old Porn.

One of the items salvaged by the suburban Dad's kids was a genuine Italian Borsalino hat, a fine felt hat worthy of Schrorr. The family treasured it for years until the youngest son took it off to the University of Iowa and lost it. The Borsalino was the family's last vestige of Schrorr, but his fame lives on in the oral history of that house and of that suburb in the old days.

lSchrorr and his wife eventually moved, and the tractor disappeared and lo, the pool was uncovered and restored to its former glory. The paths remained overgrown and in fact disappeared back into the dense woods. And The Old Porn became the stuff of legends.