More Memory from 23rd Street

23rd Steet was like any other place during my early childhood. It had a neighborhood skating rink, an old 2 story brick school house an old store, a park and row after row of indistinct little starter homes that one after the other resembeled each other with only small exceptions for the modifications that each owner made to accommodate their individual personalities. We called this place home for what seemed like many years.

As little kids often do, we wandered this place as if it were an adventure land. At one end of the street, in the place that is now a park, we found lots to keep our mind busy. Broken pieces of concrete pipe served as a home for wayward cave explorers. Solid piles of unused asphalt was the volcanic mountain we used to create the ultimate fantasy world. The countless wooden wire spools, usless to the city became a forest of wooden creatures for small children to lurk around while hiding from the wooley wooden forest beast that sometimes ate the children he came in contact with. There were many earthen piles that served a great service to young children as bicycle jumps and king of the mountain bases a better accidental park than ever could be created by man.

Not only the places we saw but the people we met. Little folks with their natural curiosity sometimes know more people than their adult counterparts in the same space. They, especially in groups, fear no one. Everyone is their friend. The home down the street, on the opposite end from chubby curler lady, beyond the retired couple next door with the adult son living at home. Is where we convinced ourselves that the host of the local terror movie matinee lived. Thinking back, the vision of Sammy Terry that I held as a youth seems almost laughable. He was, as I recall,a vampire like character complete with blood on his face and a caped black garb covering his thin frame. Late night drew me in as an unatural fan. My mind raced with anticipation every time he moved into the frame. I think I knew he was just a character introducing movies at midnight on Saturday, just like Cowboy Bob and Sheila the Wonder Horse introducing our cartoons on WTTV channel 4 but one part of me liked to think he might be real. So, when the neighbor, who obviously did an impression of his voice for me annouced he was Sammy Terry, I knew we had a celebrity on our street.

The adventure park had other sorts in it. The late 60's was a time for free life and a lot of folks took that and lived it. When we met the folks who stayed at the adventure park we thought they were doing the same thing that we young adventurers would do. Bounce off the volcano, roam through the spindle forest and jump the dirt hills. They were freindly enough always there to talk to us. I don't remember any fear from these encounters. What I do remember is one of them had a guitar and he would play Jim Croce songs for us while we hung out with them. I thought these folks were locals just visiting like us. Now, I think we might have been visiting their temporary home. It was a nice interaction with a good chance to meet people not so much like those in your home. At some point, our visits to the adventure park stopped and we moved on. There was always someone to catch your attention. In the vicinity of Sammy Terry's house, lived a lady with a giant poodle. We were sure that she had gotten it from some exotic land and that no other existed in this part of the world. It could surely eat a small child in one swallow.

The folks across the street, kind of at an angle from us, had two sons. For the life of me I cannot remember both of their names. One of them for sure was Buster I think the other one was Billy. Its not really relevant. They were miss named. The names should have been little shit and bigger shit. If ever any children had a small piece of the devil living inside them. These were the ones. As I think back, they seem bigger and meaner than we were. I remember their hobbies. Buster liked to break our toys while Billy watched. They were diverse, once in a whlie Billy would break the toys while Buster would watch. When the toys were all broken or hidden away. They took turns thumping on the neighbor kids. When the neighbor kids were broken or hidden away, they took turns thumping on each other. That was fun.