School is out !  We were all dancing in the street !  Dancing consisted of hopping up and down in a tight circle. It was a tradition for the Birren Avenue gang and we had perfected it. Some guys even used pogo sticks (a death-defying maneuver)  which caused sprained ankles. Pogo foot was healed within 3 or 4 days but would slow one down running to first base and usually put out unless the ball was thrown into the next crop field. Many on our team didn’t have control of the throw that early in the baseball season. Often it was much more accurate for the guy who actually caught the ball to just run to the base from center field and beat the pogo footed runner easily.

The pogo stick was a cruel invention, but it was advertised on TV as a joyful toy showing some kid hopping down the sidewalk... never landing in the street. Landing on the street sideways would have been a sales crusher. The usual reaction was high-pitched screams of intense pain from a sprained ankle. The victim was often drug off to his yard and left there most of the day. When he never came to lunch his mother would notice and she would start screaming, also. Mother would drag him into the house and both of them would be screaming in a kind of harmony...a weird harmony but easily recognizable by most of the neighbors. 

Mike (the beast) Bornshier tipped me off about a Weeny roast one evening in his front yard... at sundown. He announced it as Camp SunnySide on Sunnyside Street (a very clever endeavor) it attracted lots of kids. The campfire surprised his folks. Mike often surprised his folks. We brought our own weeny.

We all were assembled in his yard (no girls allowed) and he was barking out orders of proper etiquette for front yard campfire hooting and screaming. Buttface had not arrived on time... we were concerned for just a moment. We all knew he had pogo foot currently. But his screaming was weird from a half block away. Mike announced something was wrong with the tone of Buttface’s screams. I had failed to inform Buttface that Birren Avenue had a new neighbor and new dog. His little brother Crusty had arrived on time so outside of pogo foot we expected Buttface to arrive 15 minutes late. The screaming eventually caused us all to find him and drag him to the Campfire. We spotted him at sundown laying on his side in the street in the usual pogo stick catastrophe position. Unfortunately for Buttface he had wrapped his sprained ankle with 3 weenys to reduce the swelling of his ankle. We all thought he was somewhat a genius until we stood over him. He wasn’t able to form the words that were needed but we figured it out ourselves. We noticed that the wax paper that held his weenys was ripped to shreds and the weenys were gone!  The new neighbors with the new dog failed to post a warning sign. We eventually found out that the new dog was a very protective animal and really loved to eat weenys. It had darted out to Buttface because of his odd walk with a pogo foot but soon scented the meat. It was all over in about two seconds. Buttface lay there in shock after being attacked by a saber tooth toy poodle. We drug Buttface to Camp SunnySide and as we arrived at Bornshier’s front yard we met his parents shouting threats and strange words. We instantly broke camp and drug Buttface back home and dropped him in his own yard where he belonged. June had a rough start but us guys are strong and soon made plans to move campfires to the pitcher’s mound and sing campfire songs in peace... always at sundown when our baseball game had ended. Life was good to us there even with a pogo foot victim laying around.

Hug your kids and love your strange neighbors... it’s what you are given !

Nelly