I guess I’ve been talking about Devil’s Night so much that the words to follow will seem anticlimactic. It’s not so much that I have some amazing story to tell about a particular Devil’s Night; I just want to explain how amazing it is to even have a Devil’s Night and why it’s such a shame we don’t seem to have one anymore.
You first have to understand that Halloween was not always a night of simple trick or treating. And to that end I highly recommend all readers to watch the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. Among the many fascinating scenes of turn-of-the-last-century-life depicted in the film is one involving Halloween night. The kids in this middle class neighborhood have built a massive bonfire in the center of the street. They’re dragging all the wood they can find – old furniture, buggy parts, tree branches, whatever – into that flaming mess. Dressed in hobo clothes and masks, they talk over which kids will “take” which houses, and by “take” they mean “kill,” and by “kill” they mean…well, I don’t want to give it away. But the cool thing is that the adults in the neighborhood all seem to accept the fact that these young kids should be out building fires, ringing doorbells, and “killing” people after dark.
I’m not sure if I remember my first Halloween, though I do vaguely remember dressing up in a Mighty Mouse costume at age three. The following year I was a devil, but I think it was all hobos each and every year after that. My brother, our pals, and I would go out for what seemed like hours until we filled up a pillow case full of candy. Not crappy little snack sized Milky Ways, but the big ones (I think they cost a nickel back then). And there were homemade popcorn balls, cupcakes, even miniature loaves of Silver Cup Bread. We’d try to hit the “fancy” houses or the ones where we thought famous people lived. For example, quarterback Milt Plum’s house (his candy turned out to be nothing special) or WKNR disc jockey Swingin’ Sweeny (he handed out old 45 records). Then there was the year when neighborhood punk Jimmy Yeagley handed out Ex-Lax….
But though my Halloweens were great fun, we always talked about Devil’s Night and how “next year for sure” we would all go out the night before Halloween to soap windows, ring doorbells, and pull the flaming bag o’ crap on the front porch trick on Roy Meyer’s dad. But somehow we just never got around to it; that is, until that one year, I think it was 1966.
I’m pretty sure that Jeff Biggers, John Kotlarczyk, and I must have been daring each other all week that we wouldn’t be able to go out on Devil’s night. Jeff would razz Johnny, “you’re mommy and daddy won’t let you!” Johnny would insist on betting five dollars that they would, then quickly withdraw the offer. I wasn’t sure if my parents would let me go or not. I just assumed I’d walk out the door after dinner with a bar of soap and two rolls of toilet paper under my coat, hop the back fence, and blend into the dusky darkness.
That’s what I did. And as I did, my mom just gave me one of those looks that all at once said, ok, be careful, behave yourself.
After meeting Johnny in the little traffic island right in front of his house, we cut through Schwartz’s yard and headed to the “staging area” – the field. Jeff was there along with a few other guys (I don’t think any girls went out on Devil’s Night). After standing around wondering what to do next, we spotted Johnny Mason walking toward us from Michigan Avenue carrying two large grocery bags. Johnny was Charley Mason’s younger brother. Just to recap, Charley leaned psycho, Johnny leaned socio. Johnny was the kind of guy who’d play like a puppy one minute, then snap like a cat the next. I recall one day him sitting in front of me in junior high math class. He had tied several short pieces of black string together so that each of the residual tied ends stuck out about an inch. Turning to me, and while holding the entire two foot long string tautly with both hands, he cackled in a creepy witch-like voice, “Nice fresh barbedwire!”
So anyway, Johnny Mason walks up to us with these two large bags, sets them down on the dirt, starts pulling stuff out, and in a sing-song voice says, “Here’s one for you, and one for you, and one for….” They were cartons of eggs.
This next bit I’m still a bit ashamed about. After passing out what must have been a dozen cartons of eggs, Johnny Mason says, “now gentlemen, on to Nearman’s!” Recapping once again, Beth Nearman was a smart, friendly, precocious girl who, for reasons known only to the gods of cruel little boys, was frequently targeted. Alas, amidst the boy mob electric night excitement, we all agreed and followed.
It’s one thing to soap a few car windows and TP an occasional house. But when we got to Beth’s house it was like a junior version of one of those movie scenes where the crowd surrounds the jailhouse. Instead of torches and rope, we had eggs and Charmin. I threw several eggs at Nearman’s roof. I think Johnny Kotlarczyk, perhaps struck by the total wrongness of it all, decided not to throw any. I threw a roll of toilet paper. If done properly, it unrolls and “tents” the roof. My first effort failed, then someone showed me how to do it correctly, and the next one sailed over the house. Police cars were spotted in the distance. Dropping the rest of our eggs, Kotlarczyk and I ran two blocks back to his house. Standing beneath the crabapple trees that grew on the small traffic island, we caught our breath.
Down the street we could see what strikes me now as dozens of guys moving hither and yon. We heard the sounds and smelled the smoke of cherry bombs in the distance. For a 12 year old Roger, it was all hell breaking loose – and yet he was drawn to it.
But I snapped out of it as two things happened. First, Jeff Biggers comes running up and in his typical deadpan style says, “uh… [Charley] Mason and Yeagley are out with BB guns.” Jesus. The psycho and the punk, together, like an embryonic version of In Cold Blood’s Perry and Dick. Next, as I fathomed this bit of info, a police car rolled slowly past the traffic island. Under the streetlight, with his window down, the cop gave us a look much different than the one my mom had given me when I’d slipped out the back door. It was time to flee.
So I hear you ask, "How can this kind of activity have any kind of value whatsoever?" All I can say is that it was real life youth drama, the sort from which kids develop experience, independence, and a sense of moral agency. We learned how bad we could be and why it's usually better to be good. Yet, soaking in a nightful of risky freedom and figuring out for ourselves what to do with it, we felt the power and joy of disobedience. Where today can young people gather this knowledge?
Coming Soon: Mr. Kodyk and some Oxford summarizing.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Turning of Mrs. Shay
What year did Hogan’s Heroes first air? The reason I ask is because it’s around that time that our dear Oxford School librarian, Mrs. Shay, began to turn against me.
Look. We all know that books are wonderful. As some thoughtful person once said, “a book is like a story in words crammed between two colorful pieces of cardboard!” But for pre-teen boys in the 1960s, two other things were even more wonderful; real life and TV. “Real life” consisted of everything I did outside of home and classroom – bikes, firecrackers, the Rouge, Motorcycle Hill, baseball in the field, football in the street, games of “dogpile,” or “tackle the guy with the ball” played across acres of neighbors’ yards. We’d stay out every night until the streetlights came on, sometimes a little later. “Real life” was what happened when one of your buddies started telling you about sex beyond the earshot of grownups.
Then there was TV. The mid-60s gave us The Outer Limits, The Addams Family, The Man From Uncle, Time Tunnel, Get Smart, Combat, McHale’s Navy, and maybe a dozen other shows that captured the imaginations of millions of young boys, including the aforementioned Hogan’s Heroes.
That was our world. Why would any of us want to read books?
Oh, sure, I read stuff; comic books, Mad Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The Detroit News, and from time to time “normal” books about stuff that really fascinated me. Books like Frank Edwards’ Stranger than Science or Mac Davis’ Sports Shorts: Astonishing, Strange, but True. But for anyone to plop some “classic” book down in front of me was like a Baby Ruth in the swimming pool—a good thing, but in the wrong place at the wrong time guaranteed to repel me.
Prior to fifth grade (the year our teacher told us where we could all go), the relationship between Mrs. Shay and me was as sweet as puppies and cookies. I impressed her with my reading ability, and she impressed me with her willingness to leave me alone to work independently in the library. But from the fall of 1964 until I left Oxford in June of 1966, a combination of events and interactions began to transform our mutual perceptions.
First, there was “advanced reading” class. A handful of presumably gifted students from each of the three fifth grade (and, later, sixth grade) classes were selected to take our reading instruction in the library with Mrs. Shay. At first this seemed wonderful, because I expected that as she had done in the past, Mrs. Shay would allow us to read books of our choice. Instead, she assigned us all to read – was it Call of the Wild? –a very good book, but at the time one that I had absolutely no interest in reading. This was followed up by two other Baby-Ruth-in-the-pool books, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and Captains Courageous. I understand that kids sometimes need to be “forced” to read particular books. But Mrs. Shay’s approach to this was not to persuade or encourage, but to launch accusations of indolence against all those failing to show enthusiastic obedience. “Stop watching the ‘idiot box’ and pick up your book!” she would nag. I stubbornly resisted reading any of the books she assigned, which, of course, lowered my grade, increased her disdain, and eventually prompted her to threaten my exile from the class.
Second, there was a sixth grade creative writing contest, which for some time Mrs. Shay had badgered me to enter. Like a lot of boys, I had no interest in writing a story of any kind. I was a smart kid. I knew a lot of stuff. I was a talkative expert in astronomy, current events, geography, and maybe a few other things. From this Mrs. Shay apparently inferred that I could write stories. A week before the deadline, I began poorly crafting a story based on the Hogan’s Heroes TV show. For those of you who don’t know, Hogan’s Heroes was a show about American WWII prisoners of war in a German POW camp who ran a sophisticated espionage operation right under the noses of their Nazi guards. My awful knock off was replete with ridiculous references to Nazis, Chinese camp guards, and hand crank telephones in every prison barracks. It was truly terrible, messily written, and downright embarrassing—Mrs. Shay told me this in no uncertain terms. “You should only write about things you know about!” she bleated. Well of course! But since I wasn’t inspired to write about astronomy, current events, or geography, I wrote something inspired by my favorite TV show.
Finally, there was the awful charge of plagiarism she leveled against me. Specifically, around the late winter of 1966 she accused me of copying an assignment from another student. She did so, not by taking me aside and asking me if I had done so, but by spewing angry red ink accusations all over the paper itself. It needs to be said, of course, that my work was entirely my own. She had asked us to give examples of clichés and slang in speech and writing. I knew a bunch. We did part of the assignment in class and I would say some of them out loud to my table mates before I wrote them down. One of them, a sweet little girl above reproach, apparently borrowed some of my answers. Hence Mrs. Shay’s angry red ink accusation.
After that I seldom spoke to Mrs. Shay again. I saw her years later while I was working as a substitute teacher at Bryant Junior High School. She came over to my room to complain about my noisy class. I introduced myself and tried to spark kind memories of me within her and let bygones be bygones (ha! Now there’s a cliché!). She gave me a cold stare and returned to her room across the hall.
School librarians: ask them about a book, and they’ll tell you how books are made. Then they’ll accuse you of plagiarism.
No, that’s not fair. A couple years later I would meet Mrs. Haniford, the Adams Junior High School librarian, who always let us read whatever we wanted—even Detroit’s seditious, profanity-laced underground newspaper, the Fifth Estate. I bet she could have gotten me to read Call of the Wild!
Coming soon: Devil’s Night (oh sure), Mr. Kodyk, and goodbye to Oxford.
Look. We all know that books are wonderful. As some thoughtful person once said, “a book is like a story in words crammed between two colorful pieces of cardboard!” But for pre-teen boys in the 1960s, two other things were even more wonderful; real life and TV. “Real life” consisted of everything I did outside of home and classroom – bikes, firecrackers, the Rouge, Motorcycle Hill, baseball in the field, football in the street, games of “dogpile,” or “tackle the guy with the ball” played across acres of neighbors’ yards. We’d stay out every night until the streetlights came on, sometimes a little later. “Real life” was what happened when one of your buddies started telling you about sex beyond the earshot of grownups.
Then there was TV. The mid-60s gave us The Outer Limits, The Addams Family, The Man From Uncle, Time Tunnel, Get Smart, Combat, McHale’s Navy, and maybe a dozen other shows that captured the imaginations of millions of young boys, including the aforementioned Hogan’s Heroes.
That was our world. Why would any of us want to read books?
Oh, sure, I read stuff; comic books, Mad Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The Detroit News, and from time to time “normal” books about stuff that really fascinated me. Books like Frank Edwards’ Stranger than Science or Mac Davis’ Sports Shorts: Astonishing, Strange, but True. But for anyone to plop some “classic” book down in front of me was like a Baby Ruth in the swimming pool—a good thing, but in the wrong place at the wrong time guaranteed to repel me.
Prior to fifth grade (the year our teacher told us where we could all go), the relationship between Mrs. Shay and me was as sweet as puppies and cookies. I impressed her with my reading ability, and she impressed me with her willingness to leave me alone to work independently in the library. But from the fall of 1964 until I left Oxford in June of 1966, a combination of events and interactions began to transform our mutual perceptions.
First, there was “advanced reading” class. A handful of presumably gifted students from each of the three fifth grade (and, later, sixth grade) classes were selected to take our reading instruction in the library with Mrs. Shay. At first this seemed wonderful, because I expected that as she had done in the past, Mrs. Shay would allow us to read books of our choice. Instead, she assigned us all to read – was it Call of the Wild? –a very good book, but at the time one that I had absolutely no interest in reading. This was followed up by two other Baby-Ruth-in-the-pool books, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and Captains Courageous. I understand that kids sometimes need to be “forced” to read particular books. But Mrs. Shay’s approach to this was not to persuade or encourage, but to launch accusations of indolence against all those failing to show enthusiastic obedience. “Stop watching the ‘idiot box’ and pick up your book!” she would nag. I stubbornly resisted reading any of the books she assigned, which, of course, lowered my grade, increased her disdain, and eventually prompted her to threaten my exile from the class.
Second, there was a sixth grade creative writing contest, which for some time Mrs. Shay had badgered me to enter. Like a lot of boys, I had no interest in writing a story of any kind. I was a smart kid. I knew a lot of stuff. I was a talkative expert in astronomy, current events, geography, and maybe a few other things. From this Mrs. Shay apparently inferred that I could write stories. A week before the deadline, I began poorly crafting a story based on the Hogan’s Heroes TV show. For those of you who don’t know, Hogan’s Heroes was a show about American WWII prisoners of war in a German POW camp who ran a sophisticated espionage operation right under the noses of their Nazi guards. My awful knock off was replete with ridiculous references to Nazis, Chinese camp guards, and hand crank telephones in every prison barracks. It was truly terrible, messily written, and downright embarrassing—Mrs. Shay told me this in no uncertain terms. “You should only write about things you know about!” she bleated. Well of course! But since I wasn’t inspired to write about astronomy, current events, or geography, I wrote something inspired by my favorite TV show.
Finally, there was the awful charge of plagiarism she leveled against me. Specifically, around the late winter of 1966 she accused me of copying an assignment from another student. She did so, not by taking me aside and asking me if I had done so, but by spewing angry red ink accusations all over the paper itself. It needs to be said, of course, that my work was entirely my own. She had asked us to give examples of clichés and slang in speech and writing. I knew a bunch. We did part of the assignment in class and I would say some of them out loud to my table mates before I wrote them down. One of them, a sweet little girl above reproach, apparently borrowed some of my answers. Hence Mrs. Shay’s angry red ink accusation.
After that I seldom spoke to Mrs. Shay again. I saw her years later while I was working as a substitute teacher at Bryant Junior High School. She came over to my room to complain about my noisy class. I introduced myself and tried to spark kind memories of me within her and let bygones be bygones (ha! Now there’s a cliché!). She gave me a cold stare and returned to her room across the hall.
School librarians: ask them about a book, and they’ll tell you how books are made. Then they’ll accuse you of plagiarism.
No, that’s not fair. A couple years later I would meet Mrs. Haniford, the Adams Junior High School librarian, who always let us read whatever we wanted—even Detroit’s seditious, profanity-laced underground newspaper, the Fifth Estate. I bet she could have gotten me to read Call of the Wild!
Coming soon: Devil’s Night (oh sure), Mr. Kodyk, and goodbye to Oxford.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A Few More Stories about my Neighborhood
It seems I've forgotten a few salient points. Or, maybe I wrote about them and have simply forgotten that I did so. Either way, here we go.
It's important to reiterate how much freedom I felt I had as a kid. Oh, sure, I whined to my parents about how they never let me do stuff, but, in fact, they let me do an awful lot. Even at an early age I could get on my bike and be gone for hours. Or walk. We'd walk or ride east on Michigan Avenue to Pat's Party Store. Pat's little store had comic books, ice cream, candy, Coke, Sunny Boy Pumpkin Seeds, and even rotisserie chickens. There were Pixie Stix, baseball cards, string licorice, and, oh man, I could go on and on. You could take a dime to Pat's Party story, buy a Coke for eight cents and a box of Sunny Boy Pumpkin Seeds for two cents. Take 'em outside, sit on the stoop, and you had yourself a sweet summer day.
When I was really little, maybe three or four, my sister Mike walked me even further, all the way to Wilson's Dairy Bar (which later became Gabe's Party Store--the "party store" is a Detroit area thing; a small shop that sells pop, beer, snacks, etc.). We walked all the way to Wilsons and bumped into a punk by the name of Jimmy Yeagley. I didn't know him that well, but I guess my sister did because she kept me away from him. Jimmy Yeagley was about four years older than me, which would have made him about eight at the time (my sister Mike was 11 or 12) and had just been kicked out of Wilson's Dairy Bar. The woman working inside Wilson's literally pushed him out the door shouting something like, "don't you come in here for water! You go home and get your own water!"
I say Jimmy was a punk, which means he was a bully who would instantly back down as soon as any kid his size stood up to him. But the one time I tried to stand up to him when I was about 8 9 years old, he starting spitting on me and spit on me almost all the way from the little island where Whittier met Riverdale to my back fence. Part of me believes in forgiveness, but part of me hopes he's very unhappy now.
As an aside, for a long time when I was little, I kept having a nightmare about my sister and I walking along Michigan Avenue. She would say, "C'mon Roger! Let's go to the movies!" The Dearborn Theater was across Michigan Avenue from Wilson's/Gabe's, right where Michigan Avenue intersected Telegraph Road (the great intersection of highways US 12 and US 24--I love US highways). Anyhow, in the dream I would say, "No, Michael, no!" because I knew that between our house and Telegraph Road, Michigan Avenue was a bridge that crossed a terrible river, terrible because its water would turn you to stone. And because I'd had the dream before, I knew that my sister would fall into the river and suffer that fate.
So, I'd beg her, "No, Michael, no!" But "C'mon Roger!" she'd insist. We'd cross the bridge, you know the rest.
But I digress. (Oh, Mike actually did take me to my first movie at the Dearborn--it was The Shaggy Dog.)
Later on, when I was maybe eight, my brother and I began bringing fireworks back from Alabama. My grandma lived in Lillian, just across Perdido Bay from Florida. While down there, we'd get dad to stop at various roadside stands and stock up on Dixie Boys, Texas Twisters, Buzz Bombs, Cherry Bombs, and whatever else we could afford. Gradually, our neighborhood friends would give us money to buy fireworks for them and we'd bring 'em back and deliver 'em for no profit of any kind. From summer to fall we'd shoot off fireworks with no more concern than for shooting a basketball.
One day, Dennis Korloff (I'm not sure that's how to spell his last name) and I were lighting some Dixie Boys behind his garage, tossing them into the alley behind Amy Joy Donuts. Imagine--having the gall -- no, actually it was a sense of innocence -- to light firecrackers within a stone's throw of the police cars parked there! As we lit the eighth or tenth firecracker, I noticed a guy in a uniform walking slowly toward us. You won' t believe this, but my first thought was, "that's odd! What's a forest ranger doing here?"
I quickly realized my error. The officer made us empty our pockets and told us to go home. I don't remember if I told my parents, but they must have looked at my face and wormed the information out of me. My dad laughed and my mom tisked. I'm sure that by evening I was lighting bottle rockets.
Ok, enough for now. No wait, very quickly, three things that happened at the Shader's house.
1. I once stayed in the Shader's basement watching TV so long that nearly all of them had left the house and my mom had to come in and get me.
2. One summer day standing in the Shader's yard when I was maybe 7, Jerry Shader suddenly shouts, "let's have a water fight!" I excitedly ran home to change into my bathing suit, then ran back to the Shader's yard. All the Shader kids looked at me and laughed, "Roger! Where's your bathing suit?" I had forgotten to put it on and was standing there in my underwear.
3. They had a rooster. I walked over there one day and it met me in their front yard. It pecked my foot and I backed up. It pecked me again and I started running home. The damned rooster chased me all the way home. Big Tom Shader witnessed all this, laughed his head off, and told everyone in the neighborhood.
Oh, the Shader stories!
Next time: For sure Devil's Night. For sure Mrs. Shay. I know, I know, I keep promising...
It's important to reiterate how much freedom I felt I had as a kid. Oh, sure, I whined to my parents about how they never let me do stuff, but, in fact, they let me do an awful lot. Even at an early age I could get on my bike and be gone for hours. Or walk. We'd walk or ride east on Michigan Avenue to Pat's Party Store. Pat's little store had comic books, ice cream, candy, Coke, Sunny Boy Pumpkin Seeds, and even rotisserie chickens. There were Pixie Stix, baseball cards, string licorice, and, oh man, I could go on and on. You could take a dime to Pat's Party story, buy a Coke for eight cents and a box of Sunny Boy Pumpkin Seeds for two cents. Take 'em outside, sit on the stoop, and you had yourself a sweet summer day.
When I was really little, maybe three or four, my sister Mike walked me even further, all the way to Wilson's Dairy Bar (which later became Gabe's Party Store--the "party store" is a Detroit area thing; a small shop that sells pop, beer, snacks, etc.). We walked all the way to Wilsons and bumped into a punk by the name of Jimmy Yeagley. I didn't know him that well, but I guess my sister did because she kept me away from him. Jimmy Yeagley was about four years older than me, which would have made him about eight at the time (my sister Mike was 11 or 12) and had just been kicked out of Wilson's Dairy Bar. The woman working inside Wilson's literally pushed him out the door shouting something like, "don't you come in here for water! You go home and get your own water!"
I say Jimmy was a punk, which means he was a bully who would instantly back down as soon as any kid his size stood up to him. But the one time I tried to stand up to him when I was about 8 9 years old, he starting spitting on me and spit on me almost all the way from the little island where Whittier met Riverdale to my back fence. Part of me believes in forgiveness, but part of me hopes he's very unhappy now.
As an aside, for a long time when I was little, I kept having a nightmare about my sister and I walking along Michigan Avenue. She would say, "C'mon Roger! Let's go to the movies!" The Dearborn Theater was across Michigan Avenue from Wilson's/Gabe's, right where Michigan Avenue intersected Telegraph Road (the great intersection of highways US 12 and US 24--I love US highways). Anyhow, in the dream I would say, "No, Michael, no!" because I knew that between our house and Telegraph Road, Michigan Avenue was a bridge that crossed a terrible river, terrible because its water would turn you to stone. And because I'd had the dream before, I knew that my sister would fall into the river and suffer that fate.
So, I'd beg her, "No, Michael, no!" But "C'mon Roger!" she'd insist. We'd cross the bridge, you know the rest.
But I digress. (Oh, Mike actually did take me to my first movie at the Dearborn--it was The Shaggy Dog.)
Later on, when I was maybe eight, my brother and I began bringing fireworks back from Alabama. My grandma lived in Lillian, just across Perdido Bay from Florida. While down there, we'd get dad to stop at various roadside stands and stock up on Dixie Boys, Texas Twisters, Buzz Bombs, Cherry Bombs, and whatever else we could afford. Gradually, our neighborhood friends would give us money to buy fireworks for them and we'd bring 'em back and deliver 'em for no profit of any kind. From summer to fall we'd shoot off fireworks with no more concern than for shooting a basketball.
One day, Dennis Korloff (I'm not sure that's how to spell his last name) and I were lighting some Dixie Boys behind his garage, tossing them into the alley behind Amy Joy Donuts. Imagine--having the gall -- no, actually it was a sense of innocence -- to light firecrackers within a stone's throw of the police cars parked there! As we lit the eighth or tenth firecracker, I noticed a guy in a uniform walking slowly toward us. You won' t believe this, but my first thought was, "that's odd! What's a forest ranger doing here?"
I quickly realized my error. The officer made us empty our pockets and told us to go home. I don't remember if I told my parents, but they must have looked at my face and wormed the information out of me. My dad laughed and my mom tisked. I'm sure that by evening I was lighting bottle rockets.
Ok, enough for now. No wait, very quickly, three things that happened at the Shader's house.
1. I once stayed in the Shader's basement watching TV so long that nearly all of them had left the house and my mom had to come in and get me.
2. One summer day standing in the Shader's yard when I was maybe 7, Jerry Shader suddenly shouts, "let's have a water fight!" I excitedly ran home to change into my bathing suit, then ran back to the Shader's yard. All the Shader kids looked at me and laughed, "Roger! Where's your bathing suit?" I had forgotten to put it on and was standing there in my underwear.
3. They had a rooster. I walked over there one day and it met me in their front yard. It pecked my foot and I backed up. It pecked me again and I started running home. The damned rooster chased me all the way home. Big Tom Shader witnessed all this, laughed his head off, and told everyone in the neighborhood.
Oh, the Shader stories!
Next time: For sure Devil's Night. For sure Mrs. Shay. I know, I know, I keep promising...
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