| Florida Story |
| I have many fond memories of growing up in south Florida during the 1950's and will share some of these with you here. There was five of us who always hung out together. We were the best of friends, and where one went, we all went. First, there was Pat. She was my best friend and confidant. We shared everything, telling each other our deepest secrets, hopes and dreams. Pat was the daughter of our small town's one and only television salesman. Her father owned the local television and appliances store, and sometimes in the evenings, we would all go downtown and sit outside on the sidewalk in front of his store and watch tv through the store window. Her father always left the sets on in the evenings. I suspected he did this just so the local families in our small town who still had no tv at home could at least watch for a little while. I am sure he was also hoping that it would help him to sell more sets. We loved watching shows like Ozzie & Harriett and Father Knows Best. Being the tomboy that I was back then, I really loved watching the old westerns. We all had a tv in our home, but it was a lot more fun for the five of us to sit outside on that sidewalk, giggling and having a grand time, while eating hot dogs and drinking fountain cokes from the Rexall Drugstore down on the corner. Rick was the oldest of our little group. Reddish blond hair and freckle faced, he was always clowning around and kept us laughing much of the time. I always thought he might grow up to be a comedian, maybe go to Hollywood or something. Next was David. David was okay most of the time, but he tended to be a bully more often than not. Sometimes he was merciless in irritating the rest of us. No one really understood why David felt the need to play the bully so often, nor why the rest of us put up with him the way we did, but he was our friend, and back then friends stuck together and that's just the way it was. Then there was Frank. He lived right next door to our house. Frank had the prettiest eyes and mouth you ever wanted to see on a guy. My mother always said that the word handsome must have been invented just to discribe Frank with. " That Frank is going to be a handsome heart breaker when he gets grown,'' the mothers in the neighborhood were always saying. I felt a special bond to Frank, even when we were very young, but a heart breaker? I laughed at such a silly idea. My name is Katherine. Everyone called me Kathy. I was fifth in the group, and it was my house we all seemed to congregate at every day after school. Our house had a huge back yard, bordering on thick woods that housed every kind of creature you could imagine, some of which you definitely did not want to mess around with. There were panthers, bears, and even wild hogs roaming around out there. Those woods were also home to a lot of deer. They would sometimes saunter out to the edge of the clearing and just stand there. I was always awestruck at how beautiful they were, how majestic they looked standing there. There was a small stream out back of our yard, seperating us from the woods. It was a good stream too, with trees growing close by, their branches hanging out over the water in places. If we used our imaginations, we could easily imagine the stream was a big river, and we all had great imaginations back then. When the five of us weren't running around the yards catching butterflies and fireflies in butterfly nets, we were wading up and down that stream with fish nets in hand. catching minnows and whatever else we could find. There was always plenty of tadpoles, and we never tired of catching mop buckets full, carefully studying their transformation into frogs. We all had our own fish tanks at home, filled with minnows and little crawly critters from the stream. I remember once, I caught this really strange looking little catfish in my net, sort of a greenish gold color. We all thought he was so special. Everyone gathered around, oohing and awing over my great catch. I remember the look on Frank's face that day, the look of admiration and awe as he gazed at that little catfish. That fish lived in our living room tank for about a year, until we found him floating belly up in the water one morning, which really didn't upset me that much at the time because that fish kept eating everything else I tried to put in that tank with him anyhow. In fact, he probably choked to death on a rock or something. I remember the time we were all out wading around in that stream and bully David accidently caught a snake up in his net. When he jerked his net up out of the water, that snake flew up and hit him smack on the front of his chest. It wasn't a poisonous snake, but David turned a sickly ashen color. Well, big bully David just threw his net right up in the air and went running home like the devil himself was after him. I must admit, we all kind of enjoyed seeing David with the wits scared out of him. Served him right, we all agreed, laughing till our sides hurt. I still to this day have to chuckle when I think of the look on David's face that day. That look was priceless. All things change though, and time marches on. We got older, interests changed, and I'll never forget the first time Frank looked at me differently. We were setting on the edge of the stream, feet dangling in the water, laughing over some joke we'd heard at school that day. It got awfully quiet all of a sudden. So strangly quiet that it made me jerk my head around to see what was wrong. Well, Frank was staring at me. Just staring with those big brown eyes wide open like he was seeing something he'd never seen before. It kind of reminded me of the look he'd had on his face the day I caught that catfish long ago. Realizing that I was staring back at him, he suddenly turned away, embarressed. Finally, he mumbled," Your hair is so pretty, with the sun shining on it like that." Then, reaching over to take my hand in his, he held it as we sat quietly, both of us suddenly at a loss for words. Right then I knew, somewhat sadly, that the days of playing in the stream, catching tadpoles and just being buddies was over. A part of our lives was changing, but another part was just beginning. Pat grew up and married Rick,which was no real surprise to anyone. David became a social worker. Said he just wanted to help those less fortunate. Go figure, huh? As for Frank and me, well, that's another story for another time. |
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