Childhood Neighbor Memories

Mr. Rogers died today at age 74. *sigh* I always liked Mr. Rogers. When I was a kid I really did want to be his neighbor! The people in his neighborhood were a lot nicer than the people in mine. 🙂

Y’know, I grew up in a really crappy neighborhood now that I think about it. The kids and adults in it were really shitty. The neighbors to our left were nice, they were friends of my dads. The guy to their left was nice, he was really old and I used to sit outside waiting on him to come by on his morning walk. He’d always wave and say good morning to me. And one more neighbor down to the left was a family with a kid a little younger than me. We were friends, I remember her clearly, her name was Alicia. We used to climb her tree and roll in the mud, play nintendo and ride bikes. The other people in the neighborhood were creepy and they didn’t seem to like children. One teenager sicked his dog on me once. I was playing with his little sister in my front yard and he came out to get her. They had this little terrier that always ran free. When the sister wouldn’t come on and go home the teenager threatened to sic the dog on her. She still didn’t come on so the teenager yelled “Sic em!” Of course the dog didn’t go after the sister, it went after the kid it didn’t know so I ran and it bit me square on my right ass cheek. That totally sucked, my mom had everyone that came over “look at this dog bite” and she’d make me come over and pull my pants down. Luckily I was only like 5, but still. I remember once my mom used the sore bite as a threat. I wouldn’t get out of the bathtub and it pissed her off because I wouldn’t listen and get out so she said “I’ll spank you right on your dog bite!” I responded with “No you won’t, that’d be mean”. And of course, that pissed her off so she yanked me up and spanked me square on the sore dog bite. I still remember it hurting but I remember feeling more shocked that she actually had the nerve to hit me somewhere she knew was really going to hurt like that. I think I lost some faith in my mom that day.

Anyway, back to the neighborhood. There was one guy around the corner that had all kinds of keep out and no trespassing signs all over his yard. We used to keep one foot on the street and put the other in his grass and then run off giggling like we we’d really done something bad. There was one time that we pissed him off, he came out and yelled at us to get out of there and we took off. We always figured he’d shoot us or something.

There was another teenager around the corner that was mean, he took a kitten I’d had. My dad said he’d chased the kid off the yard one day, he’d been in the yard messing around with my kitten, and the next day my kitten came up missing. My dad, of course, told me it’d be okay and that the kid probably took it because he loved cats. At the time that was a good explanation but I know better now. I don’t even want to think of what probably happened to my kitten. That was the same teenager that shoved me on the street and knocked me down and held my face right above a dead frog and said he wasn’t going to let me up until I licked it. Luckily a car started coming down the street and they had to let me up. I took off running the other way and didn’t go outside much after that. A few months later we moved to a new neighborhood.

The new neighborhood had nicer people. A boy I went to school with and had a childhood crush on lived in that neighborhood. He had a trampoline and I used to go over there and jump on it with him. He was the first boy I’d ever liked and we almost did the whole “I’ll show you yours if you show me mine thing” but we never got brave enough to actually go through with it. That neighborhood was also the one I met another good friend in. I’ll never forget him, his name was Carl. He was probably the nicest person I’d met my entire life. He was an outcast in school because of his religion. He was a Jehovah’s Witness. All the kids made fun of him because he stayed seated for the Pledge and stuff. He was the first person I’d ever met that was a different religion other than Christian or not relgious at all. We were friends for a long time until his parents made him quit playing with me. He said he was sorry and that he liked me but since I wasn’t a JW I couldn’t play with him anymore. This was also the neighborhood I almost got kidnapped in and also the one I got chased by another loose dog. A rottweiler this time. luckily I was on my bike though and was able to get away from it. The dumbasses that owned that dog put the dog house right up against the chain link fence, what did the dog do? Jump up on the dog house and then right over the fence, peice of cake.

After that I started spending time with a girl a few houses down. She was friends with the guy I had a crush on too, Bradley. One day we all got together with their younger siblings and they climbed on the fence behind the townhouses I lived in and threw rocks in the neighbors pool. Since I was on the fence my mom got informed of the incident but luckily she believed me when I said I didn’t throw any rocks. I really didn’t, I thought that was a crappy thing to do. I quit hanging out with them after that.

Then we moved again to a neighborhood that didn’t have any kids. Well, there were two kids that visited over at the house next door sometimes but they were bad kids. They were always getting in trouble they did this weird thing where they picked up old cigarette’s off the ground and sucked on them. They liked the taste, I thought they were weird. We only lived there for a year then we moved again.

The new neighborhood was in a different school district, a richy school district. The kids were snobby and mean, one kid was always picking on me and telling me to “free his willy”. But there was one nice girl who’s name was Michael, I always thought it was weird that she was named Michael. I asked her if her mom had really wanted a boy or something and she said she thought she must have. 🙂 We lived there a couple years then moved to another neighborhood in that same school district. I was glad to get out of there and away from the “free my willy” kid but the kids in this new neighborhood were worse. One kid threatened me that if I came down his street he’d beat me up. I ended up even walking an extra three blocks so I didn’t have to wait at his bus stop.

A couple years after living there (my mom still lives there) I moved in with my dad and his neighborhood didn’t have any kids either but by that point I was 15 and had lost interest in trying to make friends. It’d gotten too complicated, no longer did you just get together and “play” you had to talk and communicate and share interests. It got too difficult.

Anyway, those were my neighborhood memories. Life was certainly simpler in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. 🙂 I guess I’ll close here since I’m down to 500 characters.

Oh yeah, and before I forget:

5 more days until we get our puppy</B 🙂