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Jerry was me, John was Chuck. I forget the dog's real
name. The mother wasn't out in the yard. I forget why I was
going around back- and Chuck wasn't there to get the dog off
of me. It let me up on its own. Still scared the pants off
of me, though. A chunk of my bio for you:
I didn't time it, but I ran out of things I wanted to
say, unless I started a whole other portion- about Chuck's
crayfish, and boiling it in the pot to see it turn red, YOW-
he was not like me..., spewing milk out my nose when he made
me laugh, about his grandmother's 20 yr old cat (flea powder
& urine smell), his grandmother's taming of the neiborhood
squirrels and racoons. THe squirrels would run up my pants'
leg begging for food. The racoons lived in a tree in the
front yard. The sleepovers, and our crawling up the attic
stairs to his sister's room to spy on them (trying to see
them naked). His parent's New Years Parties, drunken old
women chasing us for kisses (nothing more, except to rub my
curly head, fortunately). After moving away, revisiting the
neighborhood, and hearing tales of Mrs Fox and her pet fox,
which she would drape around her neck like a stole, and her
pet goose she would take for walks on a leash through the
neighborhood.
Before they moved to Florida, but after I moved, these
things made the Foxes the talk of the neighborhood. I heard
these tales of Mrs Fox one weekend a few years ago. I
accompanied my wife to Georgetown University for a
conference, and while she did that, I drove to my old
neighborhood. I looked up my fifth grade sweetheart Julie,
but she had moved. I remember sitting by the creek with her-
we found a spot where we could dangle our feet in- and we
talked about how different we were from the other kids (and
by implication, how alike we were) We held hands.
I found out she moved from a nice old lady across the
street from Julie's old house who invited me in after I
asked about Julie's family (talk about friendly and
trusting!) We sat and had tea, and she told me about her
husband, who, before he died, was a rather well-known
physicist. She dropped famous names left and right. She gave
me a directory of the neighborhood association, complete
with a map showing each house and who lived in it. She was
in charge of that directory. She told me how the area used
to be a golf course.
Then I drove past my old elementary school, whose
principal, Mrs Jones, was a black woman in a wealthy white
neighborhood in the sixties, down the steep curvy hill to my
old house. It had been added on to, but it was still the
same in essence. A two story white brick colonial built in
the thirties. It sits on an acre and a half corner lot. It
was built by my great uncle. He owned a construction
company, and built this house for himself, then sold it to
my dad when he retired to North Carolina.
It had dogwoods, honeysuckle, forsythias, rhododendrens.
Huge pines in a side yard, hardwoods around the rest. A
walled garden off a screened porch.
Across the street was the creek and woods. Catty-corner
was the bottom of the hill where on several winter
occasions, cars slid around the corner at the bottom and
through the guard rail into the creek. I remember seeing
one, a little sports car, back end sticking up, front end
down in the creek pool at the end of the drain pipe, that
pool where my friend and I sailed our toy boats. On back
from that was the neighbor with a swimming pool where in a
couple of separate mishaps, kids had drowned after sneaking
in..
Bethesda, MD. Our next door neighbor on the backside
just before we moved was Oregon Republican dove, Senator
Mark Hatfield and his son Mark-o, who was a bit younger than
me.
I recall, in awe of our audaciousness, the mud fights
along the creek- either you got the mud supply, on the flat
inside curve of the creek, or the tree for protection, that
hung from an embankment on the outside of the curve, in
which case you had only the mud that had been thrown at you,
to throw back.
One time we took the trek down the creek, past the huge
boulder covered in shell fossils. Finally we reached the
much larger Cabin John Creek, really a small river. It was
in the shadow of the newly built George Washington Parkway,
near the Potomac and the C&O canal. I was with a few other
boys. Crossing the wet drainage spillway on the side of the
steep hill below the Pkwy.
It was wet. The other boys ran across it. I was Mr Cautious-
stepped carefully- and my feet slid out, and I slid down the
thirty feet of slick concrete, out over the creek, and down
into it. Splash! It was a cold, wet walk home along Wilson
Lane.
Later I remember wishing we had made a planned trip to
do the same slide....but the late sixties recession hit the
real estate industry hard, and my dad had to move for new
work. I went to sixth grade in three other states.
After I drove by my old house, I stopped in front of my
neighbors' on the other side. My sister's friend had lived
there, and her younger sister had been a friend of mine at
times. I remembered the younger sister's name as the older
sister, and had forgotten about the younger one altogether-
until a car drove up, and Sandy climbed out. I remembered
then... And it was weird- I hadn't seen her since I was
eleven, thirty-some years before, and I recognized her,
remembered her older sister and her name (Diane)- and she
knew who I was without a word from me. Her mother invited me
in. Sandy just happened to be by for a quick visit. Married
with a young 'un. She had to get back- someone was watching
her baby for her while he napped. Mr K was there, and he
reminisced about my uncle (they were close friends) and her
Mom told tales of the Foxes,(after I mentioned I stopped by
their house and found out they had moved).
Mrs K was the one who revealed how looney everyone
thought Mrs Fox, and the whole family, was- with the goose
and the fox, for instance. It was quite a return visit.
I also looked for my friend Jimmy F's house. I
remembered basically where it was, about a mile from my
house, across Wilson Lane, but I wasn't sure which house. I
remembered it was modern- I stopped by a modern looking
house that seemed right, and rang the bell. Wrong house, and
they had lived there 20 years and didn't know the F's. They
invited me in, too! After I left there I figured out the
right house- not so modern any more. No longer the F's.
More memories: Between our house and the Foxes lived a
couple with two dogs kept in a fenced area. The dogs were
gently playful, and I loved asking to be let in the fence
with them. They also had one of the cars from another
neighbors' collection of twelve antiques stored in their
garage- the best one I saw- a huge British Racing Green
1930's Bentley two seater. I loved that car. It embodied
power. Twelve cylinders of it. The collector also had a
yellow Stutz Bearcat- another two seat racing car, an older
one, from around 1915- really a platform with seats and a
hooded engine, two big spoked spare tires hanging behind the
seats.
I don't know where the rest of the cars were, but I saw them
once in a while when he brought them around. Across the
street from them was the neighborhood loudmouth- a screechy
talking parrot. On warm summer days, you could hear him all
over the neighborhood. "Wanna cracker, wanna cracker..."
Warm summer evenings- kids from around the neighborhood
seemed to end up in our yard for games: wrestling, tag, I
forget what all. ------------------
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