“Take a picture. It lasts longer.” From Bret Hadley and Todd Mack. One time, the former came to me with curb dirt on wax paper and poured it in my hair. I rode home and Mom asked what was wrong. She then washed my hair with Johnson’s “no more tears.” That was really sad. Then one merciful day, Kevin Hadley rode up to me on his olive green Schwinn and said hi. We became fast friends, a couple of misfits in a boring world of the average. We both owned a copy of The Album of Dinosaurs. We both read comic books. We played together with G.I. Joes, of which his collection was bigger. His room was painted blue, his sister Janet’s, pink. Their house was sky blue with white trim. Mine was pale yellow and white. I rode my yellow and black Gull one-speed with banana seat down the street nearly every day, leaving Mom alone with her escapes. I spent almost more time at the Hadleys’ house than at home. Janet had little girl things she liked to do. We played house together. She told me my parents were going to die because they smoked cigarettes. I didn’t want to acknowledge that. During second grade, I had a Tonka fifth wheeler set, white with brown stripes, I often took with me to their house. We played house with it. Todd would deign to come over sometimes, bringing odd dolls of his own. But usually he and Rick and David were too cool to mix with us. Okay. We played Batman together sometimes, assuming roles. To choose these, Todd would do Bubble Gum. With us sitting in a circle, he’d recite: “Bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish / How many pieces do you wish?” We’d give a number. “One, two, three, four, and you are not it.” This person would then take his/her foot from the circle. We’d pretend to have Batman versus the bad guys fights, complete with sound effects, like “biff,” “zowie,” and “whammo.” …These memories waft into my mind with fresh air thru my open front window. It’s surprising to think on how mindlessly I played children’s games. We had fun together. If we had money, we’d traipse over to Community Market and buy candy cigarettes. David would take a bite and cry out, “Heartburn!” Then over the years, school got more intense and we got more individualized. I’ve lost track of most of my neighbor friends from childhood. Janet and I stayed in Eugene. Kevin passed away in 1989. Bret probably moved out of state, and Rick and David, too. Todd, too. I still see Janet and her mom occasionally at the end of my street. Darlene Hadley is over 90yo and gets her hair done once a week around the corner on Maxwell. Things gone and things still here…
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I remember those !
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Yep. Menthol. There was a time, too, when Mug root beer came in brown glass bottles that resembled beer bottles. My nephews and I would strip the labels off and pretend, hoping to be caught. Then we could say, “Oh, no you don’t. We’re legal!”
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Batman. One of the few good memories about my dad. He would read the captions with a certain zeal unlike his normal behavior.
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It’s windy as hell out here.
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