I usually don’t write stories about one individual - unless it’s myself or another member of my family. But this kid has to many good ones to leave alone. We are only two months apart in age and lived within a block of each other for almost twenty years, even today it’s less than a mile between our houses. I still consider him a great friend. He was probably the fastest kid our age but really wasn’t that athletic (sorry).
We played just about every sport together in the early years. Most of these stories don’t relate to each other, except they include the same person. We grew up in an area where there were a lot of boys the same age and we did everything together. One day he announced that there were a bunch of cherries in his garage and we could have some if we wanted them. It was right after church and we had on our Sunday best, but for free cherries we weren’t going to go change first. There was one kid with a bright yellow shirt that was pretty good looking; all I ever wore to church was a white shirt. We all took a couple of hands full except this kid as he decided to un-tucked his shirt so he could take more. Apparently our friend didn’t have the authority to give away the family cherries, as his father came out and gave us the business. He walked up to the kid in the yellow shirt and smashed all his cherries – I think he thought we were stealing them and he was going to teach us a lesson. Besides this time he was really a nice guy and it surprised us all, his son was the one that said it was OK.
Another memorable story about the same time was when we were scouts. Now when your twelve years old you really think you know what’s going on but in reality your kind of stupid. One week we were complaining to our scoutmaster that we didn’t want to bring dues every week. Now as I recall it was only ten cents a week – but we didn’t want to give it away. There were a number of kids that accused the assistant scoutmaster of embezzling the funds. Now we all knew this wasn’t true and there wasn’t enough money to make it worth it even if they were inclined to do so.
Now the problem was the assistant scoutmaster worked at the city and there had been accusations made of this nature in the local paper. This is what made the kids think of it in the first place. Like I said, others had said it before - but he said it load enough for the scoutmaster hear it. You would have thought he said something about his mother wearing army boots. The scoutmaster kicked him out of scouts and told him to never come back. Now this didn’t last very long, as he called the scoutmaster later and asked to be reinstated.
When he came back the scoutmaster did something he shouldn’t have done - he told my friend to apologize to the assistant scoutmaster for what he had said. This may have been fine if he had heard it in the first place, but he wasn’t there that week and had no idea what events had transpired. He approached the assistant and told him what had been said and that he was sorry. The guy went ballistic, can you blame him. He started yelling at us and said a couple of things a scoutmaster shouldn’t say and stormed out the door and never come back.
The greatest story wasn’t his idea and he was only part of it because we made him. We showed up on his doorstep one time in high school and asked him what he was doing – he said nothing so we grabbed him and preceded to tie him up – with ropes. Now I’m an Eagle Scout I know how to tie great knots. We never put a gag in his mouth, we weren't too concerned what he would say, and as a matter of fact it made it funnier to hear his frustration. We then drove to a girls house that he had a crush on, I had told him earlier that he needed to just talk to her. We then put him on her doorstep, rang the doorbell and ran. We knew she was home and we would have come back if she wouldn’t have been – you just can’t leave a kid tied up on someone’s porch for a couple of hours.
They were kind of forced to talk to each other because - what else can you do when you answer the door and find some kid tied up on your front porch. It would have been cool if they ended up getting married and we were the ones that got them together – but oh well it was just a joke that turned out ok for us.
The next story was his idea and it got me in trouble so I guess the last one was kind of my attempt to get him back. For this story I’m going to use his own words, he put them in a story for my birthday.
“One day I overheard a conversation that described a unique scheme to make money. I told Paul how we could go around the neighborhood and pretend we were on a scavenger hunt – not with a long list of sundry items, but one through which we could make some sweet moo-lah. We would knock on a door an tell the homeowner we were on a scavenger hunt and that we were looking for, say, a 1975 quarter or dime or nickel. Sometimes when the people told us they only had a 1974-quarter we would reply, Oh yeah, we need that one also.
After we collected a pocketful of change, we thought we best head to Skanchy’s to spend our loot. We stopped at Paul’s house on the way. As we were walking down the driveway, Paul’s dad came out the front door and toward Paul and me. He addressed us and asked what we had been up to. Apparently one of the ward members had called Bishop Champlin and told him what we had been doing. He instructed Paul that what we had done was not right and that Paul should return the money. I knew it was time for me t go home. Through the years I’ve always looked to Paul as an example and value his friendship.”
There isn’t a great morale to these stories – but I was there for each of them and also value my friendship with Keith.
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