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Robert Holmes “Yogi” Brewer sat on the porch steps and looked out across Stonewall Street at the late December sun lowering behind the distant trees….. “You reckon next year is going to be about the same as this one?”
Silence.
To be honest we didn’t do much looking in either direction in 1957.
More silence.
It was about the “here and now” for us. We’d race each other to town on Saturdays for the front row, center seat at the Park Theatre. If any of us could come up with a nickel, we’d share a Dr. Pepper on the front steps of Woodrow Kennon’s store. If we weren’t dying of thirst, we’d hustle—with our five cent piece burning a hole in our pocket—over to Pat Houston’s grocery and buy a pack of baseball cards.
We played army, cowboy and Indians, hid important things or just explored down at the big ditch behind George Sexton’s house. We’d coil up inside an old worn out tire and take turns rolling each other down that high bank in front of the ditch.
We threw rocks at the one single street light out on the Como Road.
We played “kick the can” and “hide and go seek” at night. We traded magnets for steel ball bearings. We made fun of the girls. And we all favored hamburgers and fries over brown beans, turnip greens and cornbread.
Of course, what we got mostly last year was brown beans, turnip greens and cornbread…..and we didn’t hold any high expectations of the New Year bringing a dietary change.
We fussed about having to wear those starched shirts and rock-hard Buster Brown shoes to church. And I’m telling you, every preacher in town could “shell down the corn” to way past noon, but I believe our Brother Hatcher “excellest” them all!
We played baseball in the summer and complained all fall about how confining, boring and “jail like” school was……which was an interesting comparison, seeing as how none of us had ever seen the inside of a cell of any kind.
Come to think of it, we didn’t need much of a change in the upcoming year….if you don’t count the length of the sermons.
Buddy Wiggleton broke the porch silence, “I reckon so”.
After the appropriate pause to let Buddy’s reply take root, Ricky Hale chipped in, “Do you think next year we’ll finally outgrow those gosh awful spelling bees!”