Yes, the summer of 1964 was a far cry from the summer before. During the summer of 1963 we lived with my aunt and uncle in military housing at a place called Hewitt Farms. I’d made a few friends in those projects, and we played baseball, and occasionally a grownup would lead a tour of the swamp that lined parts of the complex and housed the infamous Grey Shack, which, because of quicksand in the swamp, all kids were ordered to stay away from (though most had said, or lied, that they had been there). I expected to see a hideous witch’s cabin, but instead found something that looked like a playhouse. Big deal! Still, the word came down before I got there that everyone had to leave Hewitt Farms before a wholesale remodeling of the facility. At first you couldn’t see it so much, but as the summer wore on and more people moved out, the place where I’d had so much fun became a ghost town. At some point my relatives may have been the only people staying there. I know we were the only ones as far as the eye could see. And though it was fun to punch and knock holes in the brittle shingle-like siding of the buildings, or to throw rocks through the windows of the apartments, overall the place started to give me the creeps.
The house where my parents and I lived did not, at first, seem as exciting as the place on the beach from the year before, but time was very kind to the new digs. The house itself was nothing to write home about, just a two bedroom place sided with the same kind of brittle shingles as the buildings at Hewitt Farms. A fence surrounded the tiny backyard and made me feel a little caged, but the area was shady and a fruit bearing fig tree grew against the back fence. I spent most of my outdoor time there.
We were also surrounded by neighbors. The bunch that lived on one side was not very friendly, and though they pretty much kept to themselves, I decided not to have anything to do with them because they seemed kind of weird from what I was used to. On the other side, in a tiny corner house, lived Pig, the sweetest woman in the world. I don’t know anything about Pig, but we began to talk together shortly after I moved in. As her nickname implied, she was a fairly large woman and could no longer tend to her flower garden as she once had. One day she asked if I could weed her flowers. We’d had gardens and flowers all my life (via my grandmother), and I knew my way around growing things, so she paid me a quarter to weed her flowers once a week. My mom got mad when I referred to the lady as Pig, but Pig told mom that everyone called her that. We became good friends.
A guy much older than Pig lived on the property behind the back fence. He was a nice old fellow who liked kids and had enlightened me about the fig tree. I saw him nearly every day. He was always very cordial and talked with me every time he came out into his yard. In fact, he kept his lawn chair close to the fence.
Now I knew good and well that my parents were going to spoil me that summer, because like the summer before, they still held onto the notion that I might change my mind and stay in Norfolk for the school year. I knew all along that wasn’t going to happen, but I decided to let them take their best shots at bribing me. Because I had to quit a Little League baseball farm team to go to Norfolk, they had an uphill battle. I allowed them to lavish upon me anything they could. They did a wonderful job.
Mom was a big believer in reading and such, so I’d already been signed up for The Summer Weekly Reader before the vacation started. One day an order form inside TSWR package advertized a batch of Classics Illustrated Comics for a special low price. Up until that time I hadn’t, mostly due to their 15 cent per issue price, bought many of that brand, and when I did, I was usually disappointed by the more grownup, nee dull, storylines, but the titles list touted Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Hunchback of Norte Dame and made a deal I couldn’t refuse. I marked the list and the order went out in the mail. Of course it was summer and I’d totally forgotten the whole thing before the first issue arrived.
No comments:
Post a Comment