Chickasaw Chuckles, Vol. 3

Growing up in a nice neighborhood has its plusses, with all the nice stuff around. It also makes for expensive fun, and expensive cleanups when a bunch of bored baby boomers decide to wreak havoc on a yard, house, street, or whatever is handy to at least keep the authorities busy figuring out how to undo the damage done.

That august Presbyterian document known as the Catechism says that the chief end of man is to love God and enjoy Him forever. The chief end of a bored baby boomer is to love mischief, and keep the grownups forever in a dither as to how to deal with it. Up and down my section of Lombardy, adding some side streets, was a collection of kids that knew no end to what they might do for a thrill. When it was hot, we were selling lemonade from a corner stand, when it was cold we were battling it out with mega snow forts, hitching rides behind cars with our sleds or throwing snowballs at passing cars from well-hidden hideouts. As was mentioned in a previous episode, one year it snowed , melted and re-froze, before the snow could get away. That's when the neighbor on his sled went down the hill, crossed the street, went up my driveway, past the house, and slid all the way to my back fence. That's when we went looking for a driveway on a hill that lined up with an intersecting street that came in across from the driveway. We needed some ROOM!

You know how leaves can do a good job of stopping drains. That's how you get lakes, and places where you wondered "forget the drain, where's the curb?" This was one intersection of Arawata and Lombardy Roads, the southeast corner, to be exact. Arawata was coming from a hill, so completely unda wata was impossible for Arawata, but we had our water playground. Got up to my 10 year old kneecaps. We brought our boats, the big boys rode their bikes in up to the hubs, and the cars, well, they found another way to navigate for awhile. We owned this ocean. We played and played, until some older guys began to hear it from their moms to "get out there with a rake, and unstop that drain before somebody gets hurt!" We never dreamed of hurt. We knew how to be safe, and how far to push that envelope. Besides, it was too shallow to swim in.

Warren Miller must've lived this life, too. His films, such as "Christmas Story" are tremendous Xmas entertainment. On a dare, one kid licked a flagpole and got his tongue stuck to it. That's my kind of Christmas story.

But now, I gotta move forward some eight years, and talk about a neighbor who really knew how to make people stand up and take notice. He is Robert Burton. Robert had a growing collection of firearms, which he occasionally fired in his backyard, in the middle of the day. This is the kid who lit a firecracker with a magnifying glass. He had aimed it down his driveway, so it shot down there, crossed the street, and up the opposite driveway, exploding about the time it got to the garage. Of course, the driveway had a high fence along it opposite the garage, so the noise was amplified. Neat fun!

Well, as the story goes, Robert fired a really loud gun one too many times. There was a picture in the paper of his car trunk, loaded with weapons. He got an offer to join the Army and go to Vietnam, and all charges of disturbance of the peace would be dropped. He did that and came back with even louder toys. The ditch that courses the length of Chickasaw Gardens had been made into a high-walled, fenced in passageway for rainwater. Later on it was a cocaine corridor. But before all that came to pass, I was lying in bed one late night when I heard a sound trail, followed by a large bang. When I say bang, I mean something so loud a cop a half mile north felt it shake his car. A serious level of noise was heard, and called into the cops, of course. I got dressed, and got out of the house. I went across the street, and discussed what I'd heard with my neighbor, Frank Williss. About fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up Frank's driveway, and in it was Robert with another fellow boomer, Russell Goode. When I saw them drive up, I knew at least, who was probably involved. I said "uh oh , I think I know somethin" to which Frank replied with "ssssssssssssssssssssh" Turns out an artillery piece had been thrown in the ditch, with the vertical walls amplifying the sound upward when it landed. Don't think it did any damage, although I didn't want to investigate it myself. Being seen around the site might have put me on a hot seat. Didn't want the attention.

All the king's horses and all the king's men just COULD NOT figure out who was responsible. Mission Accomplished!