Several of my grandchildren will dutifully sit and listen to me reflect on some highlights of my childhood and younger years. It is probably at times such as these that we understand how much our memories — the good ones — really mean to us.

I am realistic enough to know that, given the prism of time, some of what we recall from the “good old days” was never as spectacular as we have enshrined it in our mind’s eye of today.

My wife, Marie, recalls the Wednesday night dances in her hometown as if they were the social events of the year. I remember the Friday night dances at the local parochial school hall in my hometown, but the joys are tempered by the recollection of the presence of the parish priest admonishing us not to date Protestant girls and slapping us around if he had heard that we had. (But that’s another subject for another time.)
There are, however, some very special memories based on one-of-a-kind events that only a select few enjoyed, mostly by fate or circumstance, or even being in the right place at the right time.

It was a hot, sunny August day in 1948, when I was 9 years old, and I made my one and only visit to the Peanut Gallery on the nationally broadcast NBC Howdy Doody TV Show in New York City.

Presided over by a middle-aged, former radio broadcaster in buckskin — Buffalo Bob Smith (the “Buffalo” was not because of the “where the buffalo roam” variety, but because Smith was a native of Buffalo, N.Y.) — the show became a spectacular hit and eventual cultural phenomenon.

Howdy Doody was the freckle-faced marionette, which captivated the imagination of my generation of kids every weekday afternoon.

It’s Howdy Doody time,
It’s Howdy Doody time.
Bob Smith and Howdy, too,
Say Howdy-do to you.
Let’s give a rousing cheer,
For Howdy Doody’s here.
It’s time to start the show;
So, kids, let’s go!

Singing at the top of my lungs, I couldn’t believe that I was actually in the Peanut Gallery with dozens of other, similarly wide-eyed youngsters welcoming Howdy and the whole Doodyville gang.

My mom was visiting her brother — my uncle Zeno — who lived in Astoria, Queens, and who owned and drove his own taxicab. He thought I might like to sit in the Peanut Gallery, every kid’s dream back then. I was so grateful to him.

I don’t know what strings he was able to pull (pun intended), but the demand for tickets was so great that the wait could have outlived the show, which stayed on the air for 13 years (1947-1960). My mom told me later that Uncle Zeno would take TV executives to NBC, and he got the tickets for my mom and me from one of them, who was involved with the show.

In addition to Howdy, I loved Clarabell the Clown (played by Bob Keeshan, who went on to star in his own series, Captain Kangaroo), Mr. Bluster, Dilly Dally, the lovely Princess Summerfall Winterspring, and, of course, Buffalo Bob Smith, who died in 1998 at the age of 80.

During the warm-up, before the show went on the air live, Buffalo Bob came over to the Peanut Gallery, and we all went crazy, yelling and clapping and calling out to him, “Buffalo Bob, where’s Howdy?”

Buffalo Bob, who was Howdy’s voice, put his finger to his lips, and we immediately quieted down. “You’ll have to promise me you’ll be good,” he said. “Will you?” Buffalo Bob asked. “Yes,” we screamed in unison.
The show itself is pretty much of a blur, but I remember being accidentally squirted with some water from Clarabell’s seltzer bottle — one of the show’s running gags — but I certainly didn’t mind. Clarabell never talked; he would sound his bicycle horn to respond to questions.

When the show was over, Buffalo Bob came over to the Peanut Gallery and told us how well-behaved we were. “Howdy was so happy with you; he thought you were the best group of kids who ever came to the Peanut Gallery,” said Buffalo Bob as he waved and left the set.

A friend from my hometown, who visited the show about six months later, reported that Buffalo Bob said the same thing to his audience.

We all received a signed picture of Howdy and Buffalo Bob. Where is it, you ask? Well, it, along with my baseball cards, marbles and other childhood memorabilia, was condemned to my irate mom’s trash can one day after repeatedly warning me not to leave “this junk” all over my bedroom.