Friendships forged anew

In the 3rd grade my best friend all year was a kid in my class, Mrs. Crittenden's class. He was a kid named Matthew Mitchell. He was a new kid. His family were missionaries. They were in Bonham for the year on sabbatical or whatever from their mission in the small African country of Zambia. We sat by each other at lunch. When class assignments called for partners we picked each other. At recess we played together. In school we were inseparable. The coolest thing in the world to me was when he was allowed to bring a home video so we could see what life was like in exotic Africa. Matthew had a friggin' monkey! A pet monkey! How cool was that? It seemed feral but was in their house running around, running amok. It should have been creepy, after all Monkey Shines was a spooky movie, but it was amazing.

After school ended, a few days before his family flew back home to Zambia I got to stay the night with his family. They took me to the First Baptist Church services and we attended some sort of farewell ceremony celebrating their selfless lives. The next morning they dropped me off at my house and I never saw them again. I guess that finality never hit me, I took it for granted he wouldn't be there next year in the 4^th grade. Oh well, summer break was here.

Billy Caldwell would become my new best friend. I guess his parents frequented the American Legion because I had no classes with the kid, fairly sure I met him through my folks. That summer we would take turns staying at each other's house. Each place had its own benefits. My place had a Nintendo and less adult supervision. His place had HBO and he had a brother two years older than us. I don't remember his name but he was nice to us, he played with us. This made him cool. We would watch HBO late at night back when there was only one HBO channel and no on demand unless you recorded it on your VCR. I remember watching such classics as Maniac Cop, Tales from the Crypt and Dream On. Those weren't necessarily good shows or movies but they were violent, had boobies and swear words. So that made them cool.

At Billy's house we would play this game that was probably very dangerous, but nobody ever got hurt. We wrestled in his room. Me, Billy and his older brother. Doesn't sound so bad, but his room's floor was covered wall to wall with mattresses. Actually that sounds safe. Just mattresses, no dresser or bed. But the thing is we had the lights turned out after dark. Pitch black. Total darkness. Three young kids flailing about blindly trying to make contact. Tons of energy. Tons of fun. Tons of stupid. But nobody ever got hurt seriously. Just the occasional crying.

The fair grounds were near my house. Maybe three or four blocks away. A group of us, including Billy and his brother went over there to hang out. Place was deserted. No fair, no flea market. Just an acre or so of unsupervised unadulterated wholesome fun. Pure adolescent insanity. See, there had been recent heavy rains and at the south end of the fair grounds the ground was lower. There was minor flooding, water was probably six or eight inches high. We didn't have access to swimming pools. The lake was miles away. This was our swimming hole for the day. This was probably a quarter acre underwater. We splished. We splashed. We ran and slid. We jumped. We were soaked. We were all barefoot, just drenched in our clothes in the Texas summer heat. Billy cut his foot on something. Glass, a stick, scrap metal. I don't have a clue. But it was bad. His brother and I helped him walk to their house. It was probably two miles away. This was probably a terrible idea, his foot exposed to dirt and litter and whatever there was around. Definitely not a sanitary environment. Could have caused infection. Billy ended up getting stitches.

By the middle of the summer I was hanging out with  Billy and he suggested we go to his new friend Bryce's house. Bryce was a new kid last year. I didn't have any classes with him but apparently Billy did. I told Billy, “I don't know, I heard that he's stuck up.” Billy reassured me that Bryce was cool and we would have fun. We walked over to Bryce's house and hung out. Bryce actual was pretty damn cool. His house was closer to mine than Billy's as well. Both Bryce and I lived in West Bonham whereas Billy was in Central Bonham. Not far away but when you are on foot or on a bike, a few minutes may as well be half an hour of precious play time.

Bryce would forever endure himself to me when he told me he was pissed. I asked him why and he explained that Billy's brother wanted to play seventh grade football but they didn't have the money. You had to pay a nominal fee to help subsidize the equipment costs. Bryce was going to ask his mom to front him the money. It touched me so much that Bryce was pissed because Billy's brother was going to miss out. I was young but appreciated selfless acts. I'm not sure if his mom, Connie, felt the same way about him spending her money though.

School started up and I had no classes with either kid, but Bryce was closer so I ended up playing with him so damn much. I saw less and less of Billy until one day I think his family just moved and our friendship ended unceremoniously. Just a singular event scraping the crumbs of our fading friendship. Convenience initially shaped the burgeoning friendship between Bryce and me. We bonded and clicked so fast. We were best friends for the next six years plus. Our friendship sort of ended much the same way as my friendship with Billy. A slow fizzle and a deceptively fast vacuum sucking it all away.

Bryce and I had many adventures together. So many that there will be innumerable stories lost. I will never remember all the great stuff we did, but it was so damn good. I will delve into the first part of our exploits with my next post and hope to touch on as many tales as possible. One thing is for certain, there were lessons learned. There were typical adventures of young boys in small town Texas, and a degree of entrepreneurship of the preteen soul. We forged our own way. We did things so great and so stupid. Stay tuned.

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My sister and me playing in the Red River. 1989, the summer before I knew Matthew Mitchell and Bryce.

If I had to pick a single song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be...