Now when I was in the 8th grade, with all them hormones flowing and stuff, I met this girl in my class, named Patsy.
She sure was a pretty girl. And Patsy, she had horses, well, to be honest they were her grandparents, but as far as we thought, they were ours, I mean hers. We’d go riding until it was time to go home, and the next day…. We’d go riding again. We did this for several weeks. We just rode those horses all day long till one day we decided to check out the barn. Now that barn, was full of hay, so might as well check it out. Right? Right.
Me and Patsy went to check that hay barn. “wink”, just about got caught by her Uncle too. We didn’t do anything, but we thought we did. Truth is: we kissed a little. OK We kissed a lot……. and made it out of the barn without getting caught.
Bet my heart was racing faster than those horses coulda ran, partly from the excitement of making out, and partly from the fear of getting my hide tore plum off by her uncle if he’d showed up only a few seconds earlier.
Those were the days that a kid did a lot of high energy playing. We pitched horse shoes, and I was pretty good at badminton too. In fact, don’t know that there was anybody better at the time in either one of them two sports.
So about every afternoon, and then again every evening, we were playing badminton tournaments and horse shoe matches. All the kids in the neighborhood were there in my back yard playing. Guess I was a pretty lucky kid, big ole back yard, fishing, camping out, horseback riding, barns to explore----- life was good!
Right next to our house was a vacant lot, the owners used to use it as a cow pasture but now our neighborhood was becoming a fair size sub-division. And somebody was beginning to build a house on that empty lot. Good! Another place to hang out. This could be the diversion we were waiting for.
When the workers went home in the evening, we’d go to work. Maybe I should say play. One night we opened every single can of paint in that place and pee’d in em’. That way when them workers painted the walls, that house would have our mark on every single room. And we thought it would be pretty darn funny for the whole house to smell like pee too. Guess we were marking our territory. We laughed about that for years.
Anyway, after it was finally finished and built, they put a price tag on it- $16,000! I couldn’t believe there was that much money in the whole world. There was a bunch of us guys making bets. Nobody in their right mind would pay that much money. Funny I can’t remember who won that bet.
It was a nice house though, a brand spankin’ new split level. But, low and behold, 2 months later it was sold. Must be rich people! At least that’s what we thought. Rich people must be moving in to be our new neighbors.
Well, turns out that a guy named Ronnie moved in, he was my age and in the same grade. Must have been divine intervention. Me and Ronnie became the bestest, goodest, tightest friends. Spent many of our days together, either playing monopoly, cards, reading Mad Magazine, or riding bikes and skate boards.
Ronnie and I did everything together it seemed like. Ronnie married my other neighbor Becky several years later. Funny how things just work out that way. But one things for sure, I wonder what his mom would done if she knew what we did to that paint? And more than a few times I wondered if she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the bathrooms and bedroom floors wondering where that urine smell was coming from and why she couldn’t get rid of it.
Now, let me tell you about the time one of my other friends Eddie and I would be out riding his motorcycle. It was a Honda 90. That Honda was a neat bike, but it fell into the forbidden zone as far as my Mom was concerned.
I suppose that there weren’t many things she put her foot down about since I did spend most of my days from before sun-up to supper out hanging with the fella’s but motorcycles was another story all together with her. So mostly, we’d ride around over at Eddie’s house or at least when my mom wasn’t around.
One day, about dark, while my parents went grocery shopping, we thought we’d go to Oak Ridge. Now it was about 10 or 15 miles away and we were going to ride that Honda. We had to be real sneaky, but we had a plan and here we go. Being it was a Honda 90, it took about 45 minutes, with both of us on that little bike, to get there.
So, after such a long trek, we were hungry. The obvious choice was to head straight to Walgreen’s. Back then there was no such of a thing called a Mall to hang-out at. Anyway, there was a giant stretch of stores that made a big L shape, what you’d call a strip-mall. And Walgreen’s was right in the middle of the big curve. The Five and Dime on one side and McCroy’s on the other. Did I mention we didn’t have a nickel between us?
Well, our hunger was powerful, so our plan was to steal us a candy bar- Each. So Eddie went one way and I went the other. I had one of these jackets on that was called a parka. Since it had elastic around the sleeve, I figured I could take an Almond Joy in my hand, and with my little finger could stretch the elastic out, and with one motion slide that candy bar up my sleeve. Don’t really know how Eddie did it.
So, with the mission accomplished, we met out front, next to the bike. Well....The darn Honda wouldn’t start. In about 3 or 4 minutes the Pharmacist came out and asked us if we were having any problems. Of course we said no, and then……. he asked me if I’d had anything to eat. I said no but……, he asked what that bump was in the sleeve of my jacket. “Nothing” I said. But he asked me to take a look anyway.
Well, now I already knew what it was, and my mind was blank from fear. I was busted, caught, slammed, and THAT was to put it mildly, I was in trouble- real trouble. We went back into the store, and I went to crying.
Crying is an insufficient way to explain what was happening. I was not only sobbing, but I was shaking, and maybe even screaming, and definitely carrying on like some kind of deranged trapped animal, but anyway there was some wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that was just me; I can’t even tell ya what was going on with Eddie.
Looking back, the pharmacist was probably a pretty good guy. Said he was going to call the Police. You going to do what?
Wailing and gnashing of teeth is now a mild way to put what took place here. It must have been embarrassing to anyone within a block of that store. I’d even bet that our neighbors back in Claxton could hear us carrying on all the way in Oak Ridge at the Walgreen’s.
There was a lot of different sounds coming from that little, 14 year old mouth of mine. But, even though I didn’t have any plans or the sense enough to try and use them tears to get out of anything, it worked. That pharmacist broke down, and he let us go. He did however, give us some conditions. “Go home!”, he said, “And, you gotta tell your parents what you did and I’ll call them tomorrow, and talk to them about what went on”.
We left. Wasn’t no grass growing under our feet. Just about the time the motor cycle started, he came out again, and told me, that if I’d not told my parents, he was going to then call the Police, and I was going to jail. GOING TO JAIL? Oh no! This can’t be happening!
Wasn’t a very pleasant trip home I tell ya. With knees wobbling, I made it in the house, and all before my parents had gotten back from shopping. It wasn’t even 8:30 yet, but I went to bed anyway. I was exhausted. Man, I had done so much crying and carrying on, and then shook the whole way back home, I was plum tuckered out, and I had a lot of thinking to do, but I couldn’t think.
I didn’t know what my Mom would say, or worse, what she would do to me. Mostly cause all I was considering, was that my Dad was going to kill his second son. I don’t mean hurt me real bad, I mean he was going to KILL me. Mom probably couldn’t even stop him either, she might even help him.
Needless to say I didn’t sleep that night. Nope, not a wink. Tossed and turned all night long. But, I came up with a plan. It went like this, I was going to glue myself to the phone, I’d answer it before my mom or anybody else could and I figured that just might work. That darn thing must have rung 8 or 10 times the next day. I was there to answer every one of them. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.” It didn’t matter if it was the neighbor calling to borrow a cup of sugar. “I’m sorry; you must have the wrong number”. I’ve never fretted so much in all my life, No, not even ‘til this day. Don’t even remember how long this must have gone on, days, weeks even, and I can’t even ever remember going back to that Walgreen’s for many, many years to come.
Mom and Dad never did find out what happened on that day. Just me writing this down proves that. ‘Cause like I said, if they had known, well I would be dead. Not hurt, not injured, not even maimed- I would be dead. I really was-one scared little puppy.
This is a good time tell you a very short story that was taking place with me at the ripe ole age of 14.
The preacher from the church house right down the road lived almost straight across the street from us. Since I was 14, he figured I was a man now, and that it was time to give my dedication and life to Jesus.
Approaching me he asked if I was ready to give my life to Christ. I responded “Yep, I reckon”. His response was “This Sunday morning I’ll tell the congregation that you gave your life to Christ and we’ll baptize you in the evening services”. “OK’ was my second response.
Since this was happening on Thursday, by the time Sunday rolled around, I’d forgot. He came to the house on Monday and asked me what happened. After making up something, I assured him I’d be there on Sunday, and that I wouldn’t forget.
So Sunday morning I was there with all the bells and whistles on. It was announced to the congregations, and here they came. There was a string of people that looked like it was a mile long, every one of them coming to shake my hand and welcome me.
I did more shaking and howdy-ing than a feller ought to in a life time, but I did get baptized that night, or maybe I ought to say I at least got wet that night.
After, buying my restroom pass on the first day of High School, My eyes were opened to an entirely different situation than this young, naive feller had ever experienced.
On Friday, of the first week of school, Clinton High School Dragons had their first football game of the 1963 season. Being an away game, the school provided a ride to the game for only 50 cents a person. I went to that game. Didn’t know anything about anything about football, this was a whole new world, but I went anyway.
And, on the bus, I met this girl named Carol. Well, I admit that was the day I fell in love, head over hills. Carol and I went together for almost 3 years.
One day in my junior year, (She was a senior), Carol said, out of the blue clear sky, that maybe we should break-up.
Let me stop, for a minute here and explain: Back then I might have been a pretty cool guy, but I didn’t feel my feelings very well. After being in the hospital for so long, I’d just shut down my feelings. What I did was; intellectualize everything. I guess what I mean is: I put a wall up, to protect my precious man-hood. I’d been disappointed and abandoned too much in the hospital, to allow myself to be hurt even one more time.
Remember, my Mom had to go home each night to take care of my Dad and brother which meant I had to sleep there in that cold, sterile, echoing, scary hospital bed all by myself each and every night- for a long, long time. She’d done nothing wrong, but to a two year old, it was abandonment. I couldn’t make sense of her duties and obligations I just knew my mom left me every night. You know, thinking back I might have been pretty selfish when I was a tiny boy.
Anyway, I told Carol “OK” and that was that. You know, we didn’t speak in our school days again.
But I did see her again, and that’s another story for another day.