I know I've written a lot about my childhood pony, Mr. D, but one more photo can't hurt. Our backyard was our playground, wild woods, fields of grass and of course, animals. Mr. D was a good sport, allowing us to jump on him bareback to ride around the yard and now and again, down the fire trails. This photo must have been early 70's, my sister and I riding Mr. D with my brother Ward standing by. Ward and Mr. D with similar Manes of hair. Mr. D was a beautiful pony, docile and tolerant of us kids. Having time and space to be explore the world, barefoot and dirty is such an important element of childhood. I'm not sure when parents became kids playmates, certainly wasn't the way in the sixties and seventies and doubtful even in the eighties. We grew up knowing we could, and most likely would, get hurt, lose a game, skin our knees, be thrown off a horse or picked last for a team and somehow we'd survive. I grew up with everyone around me telling me that my sister was prettier than I was, thinking back, that was clearly everyones objective opinions. I wasn't the strongest, prettiest, oldest or fastest but I held my own with our neighborhood crew of rednecks and have a story or two to show for it. The other day as Tim and I sat with a group of friends we all chatted about who grew up in the roughest neighborhood. Tim won with ease, being from the hard streets of Oneyville, Providence. They never even asked about my hood, thinking it must have been like Mayberry out in the woods. On the contrary, we had rednecks that could make up a Netflix series. The cast of characters on my school bus alone makes me wonder how my parents allowed us to go off for the day with such a crew. Up the street we had serious heroine addicts, down the street a boy who was known to spend his nights and weekends in the woods, torturing and killing animals and molesting his sister as a side bar....no one was surprised when he turned eighteen, moved to South Carolina and was found dead in the woods only a few weeks later. Another family had a drunk for a dad, he would often shoot his shotgun in his house, making holes through the ceiling and up into the upstairs, we weren't allowed to play upstairs when visiting their house. They had no indoor plumbing, just a house full of kids, mom that didn't drive and a mean drunk dad who blew things up with dynamite as a profession. Dynamite Charlie, as he was known, was later killed, bludgeoned with a jackhammer, by his son, who was a year older than me. When the police arrived the boys mom said she did it, in self defense and although he was standing there, covered in blood and brains, they took her away. He was killed a year later in a car crash and I believe she got off with her self defense plea. Down the street from him were two brothers who lived to torment anyone daring to drive past their house on Ministerial Road. They would pour gasoline across the street and wait for a car to come by and ignite the gas just as it did. One of the brothers ended up being decapitated in a car crash, the other went to jail for rape, got out then was put back in jail for rape again. Oddly, when I was sixteen I ran out of gas on my way to school, he was freshly out of jail and stopped to help, drove me to get gas then returned me to my car, unharmed...it never dawned on me that I could be in danger, maybe it was a childhood school bus code or something. There was another family, down the fire trails, that didn't allow anyone to pass, the dad would come out with his shotgun and threaten or shoot at anyone he deemed a trespasser, which was everyone. Even the school bus wouldn't pick his son up near the house out of fear of flying bullets. The boy had to walk a half mile to the end of the street to catch the bus. There are more stories but I'm sure you get the picture, a neighborhood with organized crime at least sounds organized. I suppose all the colorful characters added to my ability to navigate personalities, find the good in people wherever and whenever I can and appreciate peacefulness when I find it. I'll never know what it was like to grow up in the city, but the rural countryside had it's own bit of spice, minus the hot wieners. My old neighborhood has become a popular place for yuppies to live, go figure, most of the rednecks and locals forced out, dead or in jail. I couldn't wait to live in town, raise my kids right smack dab in civilization, but they'll never have good stories like I do...and never had a pony.
😳db
ReplyDelete