William Patalon III

We'd lived in two places in Connecticut and another in a Pittsburgh suburb – renting in all three places – when my folks finally were able to buy their first house, a redbrick colonial in a Steel City suburb known as Murrysville.

It was late 1967 – my Mom was expecting my youngest sister, Carol Ann – and we moved in just before the Christmas holidays.

Because the house was finished late in the year, the yard wasn't fully graded and seeded. So at the bottom of the stone driveway that snaked down from the street and wrapped around the back of the house to form a decent-sized parking pad was a decent-sized dirt pile.

To the seven-year-old mind, that dirt pile seemed to reach for the very clouds above.

The earthen pinnacle conjured images of Mt. Everest, which I'd read about in school. The dirt clogs that helped comprise its bulk were great for throwing at enemy neighbors. The soil-and-clay mound (and the muddy pool beside it) gave me a "Guns of Navarone-ish" backdrop for my olive-drab-plastic Marx Battleground tanks and army men – and a stage for reenacting the D-Day Invasion.

And when us kids wanted to trade places with those plastic soldiers – and "be" the combatants ourselves – that dirt hill served as the ultimate stage for rounds of "King of the Hill."

You know the game, of course. One person climbs to that peak – and tries to stay there by fending off the energetic shoves or aggressive yanks of those who would be king.

In the world of kid-dom, this was the ultimate kind of combat: The winner stood tall, ready to take on all comers; the loser endured an ignominious tumble to the bottom.

As memories go, this is a timely one to share with all of you.

And here's why: Today, at 4 p.m. EDT, barring an extraordinarily bearish slap from an unforeseen threat, U.S. investors will witness the crowning of a new "King of the Hill."

You see, by the time the market closes today, the current bull market will dethrone its predecessor – the 114-month 1990 to 2000 bull market – as the longest bull run of all time.