32-07-15 Little Boy's First Day

STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON

• Sade wakes Vic because "Victor" is homesick and sobbing.
• At breakfast Vic says his bicycle doesn't fit – what's he supposed to do with it?  
• Young Victor loves the bike, wants to know how much Vic would sell it for.  Vic says, "Five cents – because it's been used."
• Victor offers to buy the bike and hands Vic a nickel, which Vic bites to insure it's not a phony nickel.
• Vic and Victor work together on learning to ride the bike.
• They decide they can't both use the same name so "Rush", the boy's middle name, is settled on.  Vic asks him to call Sade "Mom."
• Vic: "Yeah. the reason for that is one time I heard about a fella called all the ladies "m'am"… and he strained a tonsil and he couldn't never say anything else but ‘pass the butter'."
• They settle on "Gov" for Vic, too.
• At breakfast Rush tells of his acquaintances, especially a Freck Johnson and riding his bike into a Mr. Peckinpaugh.
• Rush gets a wave of homesickness while talking of his sister, Hannah. He leaves the table and Vic and Sade discuss whether they should send him back to Mary. they've already become very attached to Rush. Vic says let's wait awhile – things'll work themselves out."
• Vic decides to stay with the boy all day to keep him from feeling homesick.  He suggests they go swimming.  - compiled by Barbara Schwarz, edited by Jimbo Mason

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This episode is really the first time we get to "see" Rush interact at length.

I can't imagine Rush actually being homesick, since we know Rush pretty well. But then again, he was only 9 years old at the time (in radio years, anyway.) I suppose it's very possible. It just seems to go against his nature.

Perhaps the most fascinating things to come from this episode is we find out why Rush calls Vic, "Gov" and we find Rush has a sister, Hannah.  He certainly never mentions her in the audio episodes... but that should be no surprise as he never mentions his mother, either.

In an interview, Bill Idelson commented that this was a very emotional episode.