We finally moved to our own house at 212 South Wheatland Ave. in the spring of
1965.
(212 S.
Wheatland Ave.
My brother, little sisters and I were thrilled that at last
we had our own back yard. There was even an apple tree in the back yard that
the previous owner had mended different apple branches onto so the tree had 4
kinds of apples on it. I had a dog my uncle Howard brought up from St. Louis the previous
winter that I named “Blacky”! He was a Blue Tick, I think that’s how you spell
it. But anyway he was a good dog and followed me everywhere I went. He was very
smart and to me he was like a close friend that understood me somehow even if
he was a dog, he seemed to empathize with my emotional state where people could
not or did not whichever the case may have been.
(Alice
One morning that spring me and my little brother Timmy were
out playing in the front yard in our little furry coats my mom had gotten us
and along comes this guy I had never seen in the neighborhood before. He was
looking real mean as if he were going to say something crazy! He walks up to me
and asked, “What would you do if I hit your little brother”? I responded like a
total coward! I said, “I’m not allowed to fight guys bigger than me!” God, I’ve
regretted that over and over throughout my life and I still to this day it can
make me feel so worthless over that! Anyway, he get’s down on his knees and
say’s, “I’m not bigger than you now!” I was at a complete loss, my little brother
had just seen me cower in spite of a threat on him! I can’t quite remember how
I got out of that one or how it ended except the guy whose name happened to be
“Guy Monroe” walked off with a sneer and snicker knowing I would never be a
threat to him and that he could pretty much have his way around my neck of the
woods..
I was no more than 11 years old at the time, and I
eventually ran into Guy again at school in September. We used to play this game
with a football out in the field called, “Smear the queer!” The object of the
game was to catch the ball from a guy who had made goal without being tackled
in the mud! You guessed it, Guy Monroe was that un-tackled kid and everybody at
school was trying him out to see how close they could get in the domination game.
I was out in the field with the rest of the kids trying to find where I ranked
and yelling Guy, Guy, with my hands in the air acting like I wanted to receive
a pass that would make me the queer that got smeared or either a triumphant big
dog goal maker! (Fat chance)! I was only trying to fit in and to tell the truth
I was faking it! I never thought he’d throw me the stupid ball but he did!
“Damn!”, “&*@#! I was holding the ball and about to be creamed by 20 or so
kids! I’d never gotten the ball before, why now?
I made it a total of about two to three yards before I was
piled upon like a solitary meatball in the bottom of a bowl of spaghetti! Ouch!
Guy ended up being someone at the school everybody else in the male hormonal
department either respected or were scared of. What’s really strange is how he
chose to befriend me after all that intimidation and watching me make a
complete idiot of myself! He came by the house one day when I was out in the
front yard after school and asked, “Do you steal?” I had never stolen a thing
in my life, but I was sure going to try to look as tough as I could in Guy’s eyes
so I said, “Yeah, do you”?
(W. Broad
St. Hilltop USA
So off to the store we went! I was now officially making my
first move toward becoming a common thief! We went to a store on W. Broad St. that
was called Gray’s Drug Store, they've since built a Family Dollar store on the
spot. They had a candy Isle and my new gangster buddy and I took some candy! He
must have filled his pockets with 10 or 12 candy bars! I on the other hand “stole”
one solitary Milky way bar! I thought that would prove I could be a tough guy
too, but instead it appealed to his humorous side because he laughed about it
all the way home.
The worst part was when I got home I still had the candy bar
and my mom asked me where I got it and where the money came from to buy it? I
was no good at lying and my mom saw right through it! She made me take the
candy bar back to the store and give it back! What’s so crazy is I actually did
it! I went in and told on myself and gave the man behind the counter the candy
bar and told him how sorry I was! What the hell? I was now a coward, and a
unsuccessful thief and a liar all rolled into one disgusting little package! I
really wasn't sorry and the next time I went into the store I did it again, was
caught and asked never to come into the store again unless my parents were with
me.
It seemed I was no good at anything and just did not fit in
no matter how hard I tried. I was no good at football, I always sprained my
ankles! I wasn’t very good at even catching the thing! Basketball wasn’t my cup
of tea either, I looked good but the stupid ball just would not go into the
bucket for me! I wasn’t very good at stealing so it seemed I was destined to
play little silly games like building makeshift toy planes or running around in
the yard acting like I was flying. I also did the “Fort building” thing I got
into with a select group of nerds like me! We even went on to jump ramps with
our bicycles until that also ended in injury for me. I was taking saxophone
lessons, and sax was O.K. but it wasn’t real interesting to me, besides the
horn was almost as big as I was!
My uncle Vernon
(Dad’s youngest brother) came by one day and had a guitar. He put it in my hand,
showed me how to hold the pick, put my fingers on the neck and in the frets to
change tone and pitch. I knew then that this was the beginning of an affair
that would not likely end any time soon. This first physical encounter with a
real guitar came to me in a open E and chorded by barring across the frets. I
would shortly learn from my Great-grandmother Carrey Newsom (Mother-Lady) how
to produce chords in standard 440 tuning.
L to R 1st
son Junie, Myself, Mom, Gran and Mother Lady
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