I was four years old and living in Raleigh, North Carolina – just down the street from Darrow Road. Butch Renfro lived upstairs. He was my age. Butch always had snot running from his nose. That irritated me but it didn’t seem to bother him.
Bobby Humphries, another four year old in the neighborhood, lived across the street. He and I would occasionally play together. One day we went into the crawl space under the apartments where I lived. There were a lot of spiders down there. Bobby ran out and locked the door behind him. I was trapped. I yelled for help until my mother heard me and let me out. I had been there in the dark for a long time but I didn’t cry.
Two weeks later, I hit Bobby over the head with a steel pipe. His mother was furious and she told my mother what I had done. My mother never mentioned it to me. She didn’t like Bobby or his mother.
Jimmy Neal lived down the street. He was seven years old and I learned a lot from him. Jimmy and I caught black widow spiders and put them into jars. Sometimes we’d go down to Beaver Dam and catch crawdads or go fishing. When neighbors would leave town, Jimmy would push me through an open window of their house and I’d unlock the back door for him. If we found any money there, we’d walk to the store on the other side of the woods and buy Cracker Jacks and Eskimo Pies. Jimmy handled the finances but I think he always gave me a fair shake.
The big boys on the block were Billy Francisco, Richard Evans, Jack Wall and L.A. Heubler. Jack was always nice to me. L.A. was a fat slob – eleven years old and over two hundred pounds. His mother said that L.A. ate only the very choicest cuts of beef.
Billy Francisco and Jimmy Neal got into a fight one day. Billy was bigger and older. He twisted Jimmy’s arm and made him cry.
The following Sunday, while the Franciscos were attending church, Jimmy threw white paint on their brick house while I stood lookout. A lot of questions were asked, but Jimmy and I denied any knowledge of the incident.
Richard Evans got a new bicycle. Well, not actually a new one, it was pretty much a piece of junk with no fenders, no chain guard and questionable tires. But he was the first kid in the neighborhood with his own mode of transportation.
The other big boys admired the bike and Richard would let them ride it up to Darrow Road and back, except for L.A. Richard said that L.A. was too big for the bike, and this lead to some discussion and ridicule of Richard. “He’s not going to hurt your bike.” “Don’t worry about it.”
Richard finally gave in. L.A mounted the bicycle and started up the street on it. The rear tire blew first, then the front. Naturally there were a lot of apologies forthcoming, but Richard was pretty mad about the whole affair.
My family and I moved back to Columbus, Ohio shortly after I turned five. I spent a lot of time with my cousins there - Eddie, Rita, Steve and Sherry. We all got along pretty well.
