Walla Walla Memory 5

Neighbors:

  

Before we found our freedom, we were pretty much confined to our street for entertainment.  

One neighbor was named Jim.  He was an older man who was mentally handicapped.  All I remember of what he looked like was that he wore suspenders and yet somehow still managed to have his plumbers crack showing.  I also want to say that he carried a lot of keys attached to his pants and jingled as he walked by our house.  Every so often we'd pass his house and he'd have his front door open and his screen door shut.  He'd be playing music as he sat in a chair by the door and play his spoons.  Let me explain.  He would hold two spoons together and hit them between his leg and his hand creating a musical sound.  I remember going home once and trying it out.  He was pretty good at it, if I must say.  We could never play them quite like he did.  Another memory of Jim was when dad was mowing the lawn and the gas can was by the sidewalk.  Jim told my dad that Rachel (correct me if I'm wrong, it could have been Nephi) was huffing gasoline.  Rachel at this time was probably only 3 years old.  I think my dad yelled at Rachel but she was INNOCENT!  Well she was as far as I can remember.  

Another neighbor we had was a girl whose name I want to say is Marlene.  It's kind of sad that I don't remember her name but that's not important.  The only reason why we even played with her was because she had a lot of Barbie clothes.  So we pretty much just used her.  She didn't live on her street very long and was replaced by an awful boy who very mean to us.  

I remember one time our cousin Amanda was over and he was being his mean self and must have grabbed her arm.  It was after she had gotten shots or something.  So we went and tattled on him.  I don't even know how the fight had started or what really happened I just remember him grabbing her arm.  I think we used to throw smoke bombs at his house.  Becca claims that he even locked us in the garage once.  Let me explain what this garage was, since the house was really old, it had a separate garage behind it.  We didn't use it as a garage though, it just had junk in it pretty much.  There was an alley behind our house and the side that faced the alley was the garage part and the side that faced the house was used more as a shed so we'd have our bikes in there and lawn mover etc.  It had a padlock on the door so it was pretty easy to get locked in.  Unfortunately, the only time I remember being locked in was with my friend Regan and Sariah was the culprit.  

    

There was also this boy named Phil who lived next door who we would war with sometimes.  I just remember throwing apples out of our yard into his yard.  I bet that didn't make his parents happy.  Oh well, his dad was always spray painting his truck a different color almost every other week.  That was so scandalous, I remember hearing my parents talk about it.  So if that kind of stuff was going on, then they certainly deserved every rotten apple we threw over the fence.  There was also Becca's friend Carmen that lived across the street.  She'd always come over and we'd dance to Mariah Carey on our front porch.