Growing Up In Greenhills- Week Three
I was sitting on the porch of my house when I heard the phone ringing. In the 1960s we didn’t have air conditioning so all the windows were open. I still can remember my phone number 825-6363 fifty-some years later. How is that even possible? Soon my mother hollered out the window, “Dougie it’s for you, ZT is on the line.” “Mom it is Doogie please, not Dougie,”* Why can’t she stop calling me Dougie? *I said to myself. “Hello, City Morgue. You stab ‘em we slab ‘em.,” I said as I picked up the phone. “ZT, how’s it going buddy old pal of mine?” “I am bored out of my mind,” replied ZT. “My sister is driving me nuts and my mom keeps droning on about the grass needing to be cut. Can I come over to your place?” “Sure,” I said. “We might as well be bored together on my front porch.”
“Dougie, I am going to the grocery to get a few items and I will be right back. You and ZT can have a cookie and some Kool-Aid while I am gone. Remember, one cookie, I have them counted.” “Thanks, Mom and I promise we will only have one cookie.”
I returned to the porch and soon I heard the crash of ZT’s bike in the front yard as he jumped off and ran up the hill to the porch. You see our house sat up on a slight hill and the driveway went straight down into the street and then across the street is another driveway perfectly lined up with ours. At the corner of the driveway and the sidewalk was a huge bush that my father swore he was going to cut down since it partially blocked his view of the street when backing the car down the driveway.
ZT hit the porch with a jump over the two steps and announced, “I am hungry!” “Great, my mom left us with cookies and Kool-Aid. We can only have one cookie.” Soon we were sitting on the porch munching on our cookies and drinking Grape Kool-Aid.
“What do you want to do ZT?” “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas? “Nope.” “I got an idea. Get that skateboard you made and ride it down your driveway and across the street and see how far I can get. Do it before your Mom gets home” I lived on Junefield Ave and it is not a busy street but there is no way I was going to do that. “ZT you are crazy, my luck my Mom would run over me” Just then my mother came down the street in her bright yellow, 1962 Studebaker Lark and pulled into the driveway. She drove the car into the garage and I could hear her get out and then she slammed the door shut. The next thing I hear is my mother screaming, “Dougie, help!”
I jumped off the porch just in time to see the bright yellow backend of the Studebaker Lark roll out of the garage. Then I realized there was no driver in the car. The Lark rolled down the driveway, nearly hitting the bush and it continued out into the street. But instead of rolling straight across the street, it turned up the street rolling backward towards an oncoming car. I closed my eyes and waited for the crunch. Only it didn’t happen. I heard a car horn and a bunch of curse words but no crunch. I opened my eyes and now the Studebaker Lark was rolling forward right towards the bush. Then I heard a crunch. The car was stopped by the bush. My mother ran towards the car screaming, “Your father is going to kill me.” I hollered, “Don’t worry Mom, Dad wanted to take the bush out anyway.”
It appears my mother forgot to put the car emergency brake on and she left it in neutral. The slamming of the car door was all it took to set the car in motion. Make a mental note Doogie, don’t do that when you start driving.
Photo courtesy Scotty Gilbertson
