Dear reader:

Please forgive a few discrepancies. There are some parts of my story here where I had to fudge the facts due to a many years-faded memory.

It was 1944. I was 8 years old.

I would rush home from Garfield Elementary in time to listen to that wonderful radio series of 15-minute action-packed episodes of some pretty heroic guys doing some pretty heroic deeds.

It started with “Terry and the Pirates” then “Dick Tracy,” “Jack Armstrong” and “Captain Midnight,” then finally, “Tom Mix” — a cowboy hero.

Mom sometimes would have dinner ready by the time “Tom Mix” came on, so it was a bit of a hassle to listen to Tom.

One time, one of the characters in a “Tom Mix” episode became trapped somehow in a snowy forest. Tom Mix and his horse, Tony, were among the searchers for that trapped person.

Tom heard it! It was the Tom Mix Siren Ring’s call for help! The trapped person was found, all because he had used his Tom Mix Siren Ring!

Wow!

I wanted to get one of those siren rings.

The announcer for the program told me to “take a tip from Tom and go and tell your Mom” to get some Shredded Ralston (the sponsor of the show) so I could cut off a couple of box tops and mail them, with a quarter or so, to Tom to get my Tom Mix Siren Ring.

I even convinced Dad to take me to the post office (while he was on another errand) so that my order was sure to get to Tom.

Weeks passed by. This wasn’t an illusion on my part — it actually took about five wartime weeks — for my Siren Ring to finally appear in our mailbox.

Finally it came.

I tore open the little package.

Enclosed in a circular mounting was a little fan-like object that would turn when you blew into some holes on the top of the ring.

I put it on. I blew into those holes.

Nothing.

Well, of course.

You had to have the ring off your finder for the siren to work.

I took the ring off, and again I blew into those holes.

Now out came a little noise, something akin to a timid cat meowing.

That was it!

That guy who was lost in that snowy forest must have been about 6 feet away from Tom when Tom heard that siren.

Oh well. I gave that ring away to my buddy Stanley. He just wanted that ring.

He liked anything shiny. It didn’t matter to him whether it made a noise or not.

His chance of getting lost in a snowy forest were pretty slim, though.

I guess I was pretty much of a sucker to order that ring.

But, even after that, I ordered a Dick Tracy bazooka.

I had to use up two jars of Tootsie VM to get the jar lid seals to send.

The bazooka was a total cardboard flop.

Mumford, of Warren, can be reached at

donmumford@aol.com.