Monday, January 30, 2012

Obit

Opened the paper today to find that a childhood playmate died.   We didn't play exactly;  every time we met we fought, and I, a confirmed sissy, mostly kept away from him.  

I remember one time I didn't want to play but stayed in the car, and when he was hitting at me playfully through the window I stuck out a fist and caught him on the side of the head and brought tears.   Later in his yard he caught me on the side of the jaw with a roundhouse kick and when he saw how hard he had hit me, invited me to go to the store on the corner with him for candy.  (Those days many Lubbock neighborhoods had houses converted to a little store in the front room, where kids could buy candy and cold drinks and ice cream; that was before the days of convenience stores.)  On the way to the store I started to black out and had to put my head between my legs.  

He was always trying out on me moves that he saw on TV wrestling, or at Lubbock's Fairpark Colliseum.   I remember getting into a hold he learned by watching the Sheik.  He sat astride my back as I lay in the dirt, put his hands on my forehead and pulled hard.

One triumph I had was when he threw a long pole about 3" thick and 8 ft.long at me while I cowered behind a car.   The pole struck the car roof and bounced up and I accidently caught it, causing him to run.  There was usually a wrecked car in their yard, because he had several brothers and they were always wrecking their cars.

One of the last times I saw him he came to my house and tried to string a bow the wrong way and split the wood.  So it went.  I never called him a friend, did I?   But neither do I think of him as an enemy, now. 

I think maybe the first time I met him was when I was taken to a revival meeting at an outdoor place south of 34th on Ave H.  His mother was quite religious.  I don't remember any preaching but do remember running around with other kids there.   That was about the only time I ever went to such a thing.

He was one of a large family living in a tar paper clad house in Arnett-Benson, that lived hard, loved promiscuously and died early.   Two brothers and one sister predeceased him.   They were always getting arrested for something.  Their mom must have kept the numbers of bailbondsmen by the phone. 

For a brief time we went to school together, when he had been kicked out of another school for saying something to a teacher.   Then I heard he had a pregnant girlfriend;  he would have been 16 or 17 then.

Curious, I googled his name today.   He died as an inmate in an area prison medical facility, serving out a 4-year sentence for DWI.  I saw he had been involved in a marijuana bust back about the same time as the DWI.  

He was only 59.   

I'm sure there was much more to him and to his life, but this is all I know.  If he were writing my obit, he'd say that I was a coward, a bore, who never had any fun and didn't know how to.   He would have been right.

I think on him with a combination of sympathy and envy.  He may not have had a happy life or a long one, but by golly he lived--or so it seems to me as I wear callouses on my rear end and strain my eyes on print and blog away as a substitute for talking to friends.

2 comments:

  1. A kid my age I didn't know but heard about since his mom and mine were friends is now doing time. He was the roommate of two other men, one of whom killed the other. He helped hide the body. You heard about that.

    Fella who was a neighbor of mine in the late 70s early 80s got out of prison back 15-20 years ago, was found dead on a park bench not long after. So it goes.

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