Boys will be boys....

I feel like before we get any further along I need to get down on paper some stories… that I have heard but cannot remember with my own two eyes. They are the kind of stories that make me laugh and remember that even in dysfunction… kids will be kids.

When we lived on Nettle Tree my brothers kind of ran the block and they decided that it was in the best interest of the neighborhood if they formed their own police squad. Please keep in mind that this police squad was run by boys still on bicycles but nonetheless they patrolled with a vengeance. They would issue tickets to neighborhood kids that were “riding on the wrong side of the sidewalk” and on occasion were known to cart the real troublesome ones off to “jail”. Jail consisted of a room in our basement where kids would spend entire days hoping and waiting for someone to come bust them loose. From what I understand on more than one occasion parents in the neighborhood placed a very angry phone call to my mother asking her to release their child from “jail” so they could make it home for dinner.

In elementary school one of my brothers went for one year with me to that school and that was the best year of my entire scholastic existence because he was the leader of a “gang” (more like a Fonzie type of gang than the Bloods or Krips type) and because he was the leader no one bothered me ever. I thought it was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen when he would snap his fingers at the lunch table and they would pull out his chair for him.

Barry went through an Evil Kenevil spell and dislocated his collar bone when he attempted to jump a string of garbage cans….Donald was the mastermind of most of the plans…and David always seemed to march to the beat of his own drummer.

I have not been very close to these guys most of my life… but these stories kind of define how I always picture them…Barry is daring and bold and courageous… Donald has a mind full of ideas… and David is an individual that has an uncanny ability to influence the people around him. And though after Nettle Tree I didn’t spend much time with all three of the brothers…these stories make me smile and takes a little bit of the sting from that house.

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Questions for the Day:


• Did you have any neighborhood kids that ran the block when you were little?

• Who did you hang out with in your neighborhood?

• What funny memories do you have with your brothers and sisters?

• What was elementary school like for you?

• Did you ever do something crazy because of a dare?

• What kind of bicycle did you have?


Of course you don’t have to answer all of them or any of them for that matter… but if any of them made you think… I’d love for you to capture those thoughts so you have them to share… because they are worth being heard !