The Two Friends of My Childhood
My uncle Dale was two years older than me, so we sort of grew up together. We often shared homes and schools, as well as street basketball and movies. Dale was not much interested in school, whereas I loved it – even though I was not much good at it. Dale and I used to go to movies together and later on to high school dances. He taught me how to jitterbug. We also got into some non-serious trouble for raising hell on Halloween and stealing things from dime stores.
Dale joined the Armed Forces right out of high school. He especially liked being a paratrooper. After he graduated from college, majoring in anthropology, he spent some difficult years as a pharmaceutical salesman, but finally finished his Master’s Degree in anthropology and got a job teaching it just outside of Tacoma, WA. He was very successful as a college professor and especially enjoyed his many students. I got to visit him in a couple of his classes, and it was a real joy to watch him work at what he loved best. Unfortunately, Dale died of cancer when he was only 62 years old.
When I looked Dale up at his home outside of Tacoma after many years of not seeing him we met each other at one of his archaeological sites and laughed together because we were dressed almost identically – blue jeans, blue rain slickers, and beards. Dale said: “When you’ve seen one professor you’ve seen ‘em all.” I loved and miss Dale very much. He was my guide through some fairly rough years as a teenager. He was my big brother and my best friend.
When my Mom and I moved to our new home on Chuckanut Bay outside of Bellingham, WA. she bought us a small St. Bernard puppy whom we named Sarge. He was my only other close friend during my growing up years. We would leave Sarge in the garage when we went off to work and school, but as he grew up it became clear that he would not wander away during the day while we were away. When I came home from school Sarge would often meet me at the school bus up at the highway. He would come there and wait for me, and we would run home
together. Sarge was my very best, and almost only, friend during my young days.
I so well remember swimming with him in the bay near our home. One night when Dale and I rowed a little boat we heard Sarge coughing a bit as he swam after us, but he had no real trouble swimming the half mile or so to the island. As you can see, Sarge and I were pretty much inseparable. We sometimes took hikes together up the nearbye mountain. Sarge always picked up a lot of wood ticks on such hikes and so I would carefully take them out when we got home. It involved twisting them backwards like taking out a wood screw.
When we moved into the city to live with my Grandfolks we took Sarge along and he and Grandpa’s dog Red, an Irish setter, got along really well. They stayed together at night in the garage and then would trot off in the morning making their rounds through the neighborhood. We found out later that their first stop would be the butcher’s shop down the street where they were always given some sort of bone to bring home. Once or twice, they got into fights with a passing dog or two, but nothing much usually ever came of it until this tiny terrier jumped up and bit both of them, sending them home bleeding on the double.
Once when I was walking downtown with Sarge a lady drove up in her car, opened the door and said “Here Sarge.” Whereupon Sarge hopped in her car and they drove off. It was a small town and so everyone thought that they owned Sarge. The official dogcatcher often brought Sarge home in his truck, opened the door, let him out, and drove off. It was a small town and dogs were not yet required to wear a license. Sarge and I used to play football in the backyard, taking turns knocking each other down as one of us would run with the old ball. Sarge actually took the ball in his mouth and tried to outrun me. Another time, unbeknownst to me, he followed me to the high school basketball game. Came out onto the court ran around looking for me. Everyone knew that he was my dog so I had to get down from bleachers and take him back home.
When he got too old for us to manage him in the city, we gave him to a farmer in the countryside where he was clearly very happy. So, these were my two childhood friends, Dale my uncle and Sarge my dog. I loved and miss them both very much, my best friends ever.
2 responses to “The Two Friends of My Childhood”
So much like my childhood in O’Fallon, Illinois. My next door neighbor, Jack, was the oldest of 12 kids in an Irish Catholic family. Two had died, and he had only one brother much younger than us, the rest all girls. I spent many of my summer days babysitting the younger girls with him while his parents were out shopping and going to various places.
Jack and I were like brothers, he a year younger. We played baseball on a sand lot, basketball on a garage driveway near by, football in the church yard (touch football to avoid injury). There were other boys in the neighborhood, and we formed the “Cherry Street gang”. Halloween was a special time to us, too. We went “corning” (throwing handfuls of dry corn kernels at doors at night: What a racket! and “soaping” (writing things on windows at night with a bar of soap). We boxed each other for fun and bloody lips, had contests throwing our pocket knives at a target on a wooden tool shed in the church yard, and played poker for chips alone. As we got older we handed down our clothes to each other as one got bigger than the other.
My dog was “Middy”, a Spitz and Cocker combo. She had the run of the neighborhood, making her rounds every day and then coiming home to sleep in the house. She kept an eye on me and always knew where I was. She was the quintessential family dog and lived 17 years.
When I moved away and went to college, Jack stayed in O’Fallon. The Viet Nam war was starting up, and he did a stint in the Air Force but got out for some reason I never knew. He became a rebel, living in a “hippy” commune and very much into anti-war actvities. He got busted on a drug deal and tossed into prison, where he turned states evidence and put into witness protection. He had to leave everything he ever knew, including our friendship. Every Christmas the phone would ring but the person on the other end wouldn’t speak. I figured it was Jack, who wasn’t allowed to contact anyone he had known. We just told the caller everything about our lives we could think of and then the “caller” would hang up. The FBI came around periodically to ask if he had contacted any of us, and we could say “No.” I still miss him, as does his family.
Thanks David for those memories – sounds so familiar :O( Paz, Jerry