The Case of the Magic Mirror

Back in the day of our print publication, a reader-favorite feature was SCENES FROM CHILDHOOD, a column created by former associate editor, Suzanne Beyer. I hope to dust off these little gems from time to time and post them online. This contribution from Charles Inge was originally published in our February/March edition in 2016.

In early 1946, the World War was over, yet pieces of it continued to float across the Pacific Ocean, pass under the Golden Gate Bridge and land on Alameda’s shores.

We lived on Hawthorne Street, which ended on a bluff just above the Bay. A short scoot down a dirt path and slivering between toppled sea walls yielded a gateway to miles of beaches. When the tide was out, it exposed more miles of brown, stinky, oozing mud. But, in or out, the Bay was always fascinating.

My friend Howard and I were a couple of eight-year-old beachcombers who loved to run out across the mud flats and race the tide in, then check the beaches for whatever the Bay had to surrender.

One Saturday morning we spotted something lolling in the surf: a small wooden crate. We dragged it up onto the bluff.  In it was a plastic container imprinted Signal Mirror, USN. We tore through the wrappings and found a mirror, one unlike anything we’d seen before. It was thick and a bit larger than a car’s rear view mirror. The back side was painted black with a half-dollar size mirror in its center with a cross hair. 

Here’s what was strange: we could see right through that mirror!

The instructions said to hold the mirror up to your face while facing the sun. A cross hair would appear on your face and would be seen in the little mirror. Line-up the mirror image on your face with the one in the mirror and it will shine directly at an object.

 It took awhile for us to digest that, but after arguing and fumbling back and forth we finally caught on. Howard, impatient because I was hogging the mirror, suddenly jumped up and took off running.

“Where are you going?” I yelled.

“Be right back!”

In about ten minutes he returned, grinning and holding a gold-framed mirror about as big as he was.

“They’re sure to see us now, huh?” he said. “What’ll we aim at?”

 A few miles west was the Alameda Naval Air Station. All kinds of planes flew in and out of there but one of the most impressive was the PBY, a large amphibious job.

The sun was climbing up over the Bay in front of us when we heard the roar of the PBY’s engines. The silvery hulk was rising from the water and seemed to be heading for the sun. Perfect!

“Do you see it?” Howard shouted, juggling his mirror.

“Yup,” I replied, taking a bead on it. “Got it right in the cross hairs. If they don’t see us they’re blind.”

The plane gained a couple of thousand fee altitude but instead of continuing across the Bay it seemed to dip its left wing. Soon it made a slow circle over us and then winged back out over the Bay. It made a big circle and returned in a kind of dive straight toward us.

 With a howl, Howard took off running with his four-foot mirror. I leaped after him with the signal mirror.

“I’m going home!” Howard cried over his shoulder and ran into a Hawthorne tree. Down he went in a tangle of gold wood, picture wire and shattered glass. Still howling, he got himself untangled and sprinted off to his house on the next block.

I ran like a deer to my house. Once in my bedroom, I tucked my booty under my bed’s mattress. The rest of the afternoon the family eyed me curiously as I wondered about the house whistling and furtively peeking out the windows. The possible arrival of search planes, coast guard cutters or the police made me very antsy. Fortunately, no one showed up at our door.

I had to tell my older brother. He laughed himself silly. Howard tried to sell his mother on the possibility that their hallway mirror was burglarized; eventually he confessed. They drove over to my block and picked up the pieces. I wasn’t welcome at their house for awhile.

My magic mirror? It disappeared in time. I still miss it.

Charles N. Inge is a Lynden, Washington resident