When we were children, my cousins,* Eric, Manny and Dave, and I used to play together all the time. Their house had a den which was cleverly designated “the play room” that was filled with toys and books and games. It also had the advantage of having a lavatory directly off of it, which was handy. The floor of the play room was polished wood, gleaming so that you could almost see your reflection in it. But all of this polish made it very slippery. If you ran onto it in your stocking feet, you could almost upend yourself. My cousins liked to get up a little head of steam and then slide, kind of like ice skaters or snowboarders, across the floor. We had never heard of it in the New Hampshire of the early 1960s, but now we’d probably call it Surfing on Summer Street. It was a sport.

Manny, who is now a business executive and a trustee of a university, was at that time obsessed with Zorro on TV. He would stop what he was doing, no matter what that was, and stare at the black and white screen, mesmerized. He’d go into a secret place inside himself where everyone had lush Spanish accents, the women wore elaborate lace mantillas and the men were dashing, handsome, bold and brave. The man of men in his world wore all black, a large gleaming cape and a mask to obscure his identity. In the secret creases of his childhood mind, Manny was Zorro.

On this particular day, we were in the play room probably building something with Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys. The TV was blaring away on the other side of the room. Dave and Manny got the brilliant idea that it was time to do some floor sliding. The throw rug was pushed aside and, since their mom was out of earshot, the forbidden floor-sliding began. Manny and Dave took turns, each trying to best the other and trying to slide the entire length of the room. Eventually they seemed to tire of it, and Dave sat down in front of the TV. Manny left the playroom. We thought he was going to the kitchen to get a snack or a drink.

Some time went by and, hearing a commotion, we all looked up to the door from the dining room. Bursting through and striking a heroic pose was a figure with a mask and a dashing cape made from his security blankie. Could it be . . . Zorro? No, it was Manny. He rushed into the room, started sliding across the floor, shouted, “Ole!” and let out the most explosive fart ever heard by the ears of mankind. I swear that it propelled him across the floor.

As you may well imagine, we re-enacted the scene ad infinitum, shouting the rousing “Ole!” and making farting sounds for most of the afternoon and the rest of our childhoods.

*Names have been changed to protect the reputations of the gaseously empowered.

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