Cruel expressions started coming out of most mothers, normally sweethearts. Lots of my baseball buddies were stunned and a bit shocked. Such dour words and short tempers began to be noticed by all of Kid-Dom in town. For some unknown reason, our mothers had turned on us. We guessed it must have been the mosquito fog truck that had attacked their brains, even though we were still normal, even after following the death fog for weeks on our bicycles. 

Cruel expressions such as “school is going to start in just three weeks!” Was that necessary?  Was it necessary to try to ruin a great summer?   Even the newspaper had bold announcements such as “Back to School Days,”... like we should be happy with all the advertisements regarding being sent back to school. Big whoop!!! We get a new pair of jeans that were always too long. We had to roll our cuffs up about six inches deep. Always told. “You’ll grow into them.” Those new jeans were stiff as plywood and did not breathe for a couple of weeks. Very hot and extremely hard to walk in. Same with our shoes—usually an inch too long and very clumsy. Unnecessary suffering, as we saw it!!!

We were Chillicothe’s finest and most famous boys in the town’s history. We were told that we had just three weeks to prove it, and by golly gee whiz, we were going to show this town what fine and dandy guys we were.

Panic swooped upon us, and we threw out the idea of being fine and dandy. The panic of Birren Avenue hit us all on our own homemade ball diamond. We started our games at 6:30 in the morning and played till 9:30 at night. Soon, our mothers appeared begging for us to come home and get something to eat. Panic does strange things to our fertile minds. Loss of appetite and incoherent speech was witnessed by our mothers... not the first time for them. It usually happened when a man-eating dog took down one of our buddies. The victims’ screams triggered a joint scream of the whole gang as we fled from the carnage behind us. Every man for himself as we ran down the avenue. This behavior usually brought the mothers out of the front door and running to embrace their sons. Thank goodness it only happened once a week. This most recent panic was very different and somber once the foaming of our mouths was wiped clean by the moms. We were led home by the hand of empathy.... very rare indeed. The last day of vacation was inevitable, so we eventually, after much tender counseling before bedtime, all decided to face the music of the school bell. That sound haunted us for months each year. Life is very hard at times, and only the strong survive. Mother always said that difficult times build character. None of us could believe a fib like that. None of the gang wanted to be “Fine and Dandy boys.” We were happy just being boys, and we have succeeded!  So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!  We will stick to smoking grape vines. At least we weren’t bitter in the end!

Please hug your kids and love your obnoxious neighbors.
Nelly