Atomic Knights

“Barbie, Beware: NO PINK ALLOWED!” read the sign above the clubhouse door. To reinforce the gender curse a twisted Barbie doll spray-painted blue hangs by her heels dangling in front of a skull and cross-bones.

“Tap, Rap, Deedle-Bot!” With a whispered “Worb-Dittle.”?

These cryptic words usher me past the sinister vale of doom for the uninitiated. The chamber door swung open to welcome me, the newly elected Grand Pooh-Bah of the Secret Order of the Atomic Knights. I was a shoo-in for the Grand Pooh-Bah election since I provided the meeting hall. “Quid pro quo,” you know???

Our clubhouse was Dad’s new workshop he built just before he left for the summer to work at Melody Hills Farm in Brown County, Indiana.?????

I would tell you about the undisclosed handshake and the secret fist bump, but the retaliation would be worse than the disfigured Barbie’s fate.

Forget about the Knights Templar. They are ancient history. The Atomic Knights are the gladiators of the next millennium! In the late 50s, the atom was our friend. Technology was our redemption. Space was our new frontier. Boys began trading in coonskin caps and buckskins for space helmets and pressure suits.

Crooning Cowboys and the Lone Ranger became yesterday’s news. Real-life heroes like Chuck Yeager and John Glen captured our imagination. The vapor trails of the X-15 rocket blew away Zarkov’s rocket of Flash Gordon science-fiction fame. Real science was fast replacing the fiction of space travel. Sputnik launched the space race, and we were ready to challenge those Russian dogs.?

"USSR, kiss our after-burners!"

Astronauts want-to-be reaching for the moon and beyond certainly did not want any dumb ole girls aboard our Starship. We were an exclusively male club.

Secret societies are bound to spawn a certain amount of curiosity. The Elks Club, the Shiners with their funny little fezzes, and the Freemasons, with their secret rituals, have all conjured up speculations. Speculation can eventually give way to conspiracy theories.

It turns out that, all the young ladies living on Delaware Street made a quantum leap from secrecy to conspiracy in a single bound. Their curiosity did not kill the cat, but their interest did ravage the Atomic Knights' clubhouse. The east-end neighborhood girls took exception to our boys-only edict.

Our bikes skidded to a stop under the old oak tree, which stood in front of the clubhouse. We were returning from a wasp-swatting contest at Tom Jordan’s old barn on Elmore Street. Little Jimmy Carter was still whimpering about the flying menace he failed to outrun. It nailed him three times. He puffed up like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

“Somebody has been here!" shouted Don, our Sergeant-at-Arms.

The front door was ajar. The sign was askew.

Then we noticed. The mangled Blue Barbie was missing. There instead was a Ken doll swinging from a chalk-line hangman’s noose. What in the world??He was wearing a hot pink tutu! Wait, there is more. Under the tutu, where his privates ought to be, there was a Black Cat firecracker with a short fuse.

Holy Moley! The Delaware girls sure know how to hurt a guy. Who knew, they knew voodoo?!

Don deputized Mike and Bobby as guards to ward off any pyrotechnic females. The Atomic Knights spent the last two weeks of summer straightening up the clubhouse mess they left. It was spick-n-span before Dad would be home to find his "workshop" in disarray.

Eventually, our gender defender attitudes were adjusted but not by fear of the fireworks the east-end girls might ignite. We joined a new club and found a fresh appreciation for gender differences, The Mickey Mouse Club.

“M-I-C-K-E-Y…”

Whoa, Mouseketeers, forget about Mickey and the cartoons.

“Hello, Annette Funicello!”

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Story and Graphics by Chuck Clore

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