As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I grew up in a small neighborhood. It wasn't so small that you knew everyone's name but you knew your neighbors and maybe their neighbors as well. The house that I grew up in was at the head of a t-shaped intersection. What made this great was when we would have a neighborhood game of kickball. The sewer drain in front of my house served as home plate, there were two other drains for first and third, and we would just use chalk to mark second base. Near my house there were a few kids that I played with on a regular basis. Across the street were the Osbornes. There was Quen, the mother, Lynn was the oldest daughter, Kim was the middle daughter and Greg was the youngest son. Lynn was about my age and Kim was just a couple of years younger. Greg was about 7 years behind me if I remember correctly. Down the street was Sarah Kepkhe. I don't remember playing with Sarah as much but we would sometimes. Because the grammer school I went to was not close to my house I had two groups of friends, the school friends and the neighborhood friends. This is about the neighborhood friends. There was one house across from Sarah at 21 Blaze Road and that was where my best friend in the neighborhood lived. His name was Roger Ouimet.
Roger was a little younger then me but he was always taller then I was. I dont mean taller by an inch or two, I mean taller like in a foot. I remember at my fifth birthday party Roger was standing next to me in a photo and he was so tall standing next to me. We did everything together; We rode bikes, we played cops and robbers, we played kickball, hide and go seek. There were so many things to do. In the winter me built snow forts, in the fall we jumped in leaves, in the summer we would be out all day until the street lights came on. We used to follow the garbage truck on our bikes as it drove around the neighborhood crushing all the trash in the back of the truck, thinking that it was a cool job. I remember that Roger's dad had a collection of playboy magazines in his basement ands we would try and sneak a peak every now and then. Trying to get down there with out getting caught was like trying to get into Fort Knox, or so it seemed at the time. Rogers father worked very far from home and after a while I think it was too much so Roger and his family moved to Westerly Rhode Island. I was about 12 at that time. Roger and I saw each other a few times after that but we lost contact with one another. I heard he joined the navy and became a doctor but i dont know for sure. I thought I may have found out where he lived when I did an online search for him and even though I wrote him, I have not heard a reply yet. I hope that I do.
Lynn Osborne was just a bit older then I was. She was also the first girl I had a crush on. Actually she was the first girl I ever saw naked. I was about 7. She told me if I took off all my clothes and laid on top of her she would have a baby and we would get married so we did. Of couse none of the baby or marriage stuff ever happened but at 7 I thought I had my life all planned out. As Lynn got older we also stopped being as close and I stared to hang out more with Kim. Like most other things, we ended up going our own seperate ways and lost touch.
There was one other kid in the neighborhhod, we called him Mooney. For the life of me I cant recall his real name. He was older then I was and we did not hang out. The reason I mention him is because Years after he had moved and gone on in his life I met a kid in high school named Matt. Matt's father was in the FBI and we were talking about it one day and come to find out his partner was Mooney's dad. Small world sometimes.
As I got older the nieghborhood changed. After Roger moved it seemed like there were less kids to play with in the neighborhood, or the kids were either older or younger then I was. I was in high school at that point and I was making new friends as well and in high school I met one kid who would fill the loss I had with Roger moving. His name was Brian Miguel and to this day we are stil friends, even though he lives 3000 miles away from me. But that is all for another story.
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