Foothills of Childhood - Part 10

***(from the chronicles written in 1990) The following series, "Foothills of Childhood" is not really a creative writing, not a true embellishing flourish of words.  It is merely a journalistic approach of times past which I basically 'compiled' in 1990 to entertain my boyfriend while he passed 5 plus months in jail.  well, they can't prove he committed ALL those murders...kidding...he was in for a DUI...one of several.  

So take your relaxed time, and don't expect a Pulitzer Prize winner here.  Okay?

Part 10


*asterisk marks a name change for the sake of a small town.

When I first moved to Reno and got the mobility of a 28" boys' bike (which provided me a great deal of pain also, before I was forced to become extremely skilled on the thing in order to preserve my genitalia) we spent all day riding back and forth across our little village of Reno.  Right in the middle of the distance along the highway above the river, was a tiny cluster of small buildings being our town center of activity.  Which was about nothing.  

We had a little one room post office, wooden barn pole construction style, naturally, sitting in the darkness of high Norwegian Pines.  Next to that was a small gas station.  Next to that was the dairy store.  All small stores were called that; they had ice cream treats, candy, maybe one booth for sitting - with old leather or vinyl seats, and a table with everybody's' names carved in it since about 1907.  Every time we came through the door, a little bell above it somewhere jangled, not that you needed to be alarmed of anyones' entrance, you could reach from one side of the interior to the other.  

We all congregated there religiously everyday, after school, and during the summer, several times a day. There was one pinball machine, a flat freezer to reach down into on a hot day, and pop machines which allowed one bottle at a time to be gripped by the neck and removed after dropping in the proper coinage.  We all thought we knew for sure that the shop owner's son was "queer," and so the poor unfortunate kid was the brunt of many jokes, gay or not.  But they always got even with us.  They being the store owners.

After all, they lived in that store and got all the gossip about everybody else and therefore were able to embellish it and pass it along weathered with necessary dirty details.  Small town justice!  (and of course, the poor "queer" kid wasn't at all, finished his Air Force stint and got married and moved away from the jeering madness.)

One night back in 1957, my then 'crush' (*Bobby Forest) and a couple of younger kids, broke in to the store through some floor boards.  They stole about two packs of cigarettes, about what I would have done if I had been along that night.  They might even have left the money, the whole intent being just to get in and say that you could and that they did!  We really had no huge dishonesty issues to speak of in our little towns.  

For this deed, or misdeed, Bobby  being the oldest was sent away to a place for young delinquent boys for awhile.  He was genuinely one of the very nicest people I ever knew!  Bobby  came from a poor family where his mom was pretty much an alcoholic, but nevertheless, a very nice lady who was very beautiful and loved her children, unable to carry the obligation as she was drawn deeper into her addiction.

His dad was a nice man who nobody knew very much at all.  They lived a ways off down the highway just at the limits of the borough.  Mr. Forest had some old cars that we knew would someday be worth a small and mighty interesting bundle, be it monetary or intrinsic.  The cars were from the 20s and 30s.  Bobby customized a couple into "street rods" and learned the world of mechanics and the gas combustion engine from his dad.  

Anyway, all of the kids were soon sent off to different foster homes and became somewhat orphans so it would seem.  They were all sweet and cute kids, and would eventually choose various diverse lifestyles unalike and spread out all over the country.  Brother *Danny was my favorite though.  He never got to be any taller than myself.  He always looked like a little kid, with a tiny nose and a big cute as Hell smile, an easy laugh and a hand to lend to anybody in the world.  Danny never left town.  Every time I went back home, I found him.  He was always happy, no matter what, and always helping me out with my trucks and cars.  Sometimes he ended up sleeping on the couch at one of my nephews' apartments.  We would share a few beers, sneak out behind everybody and go off to a bar in the woods by a lake and dance and play pool and tell stories.  We would drive around in the dirt roads and watch the moon over the ponds, listen to the peep frogs and katydids in the cat tails by the swamps and go over old times.  Danny was always intrigued by the only story I ever told him about going skinny dipping in a large lake out west.  He had never done that, and was waiting for the opportunity, but I know it never came. 

 Anyway, down by the old homestead where Danny and Bobby grew up there was a gas swamp;  natural gas that leaches out over decaying glacial remnant material and oil deposits.  And their house was alone in that area surrounded by a half dozen acres of forest as well.  I will never forget the night they all ran up to my house to tell the story of the "swinging lamp."  All the guys in town were down there that evening in autumn.  

Danny only about 12, and the oldest kid with them was Gerry Nellis, who was 17.  George was there, he was my idol.  Boy, George was so handsome and mysterious.  He had qualities no one else in that village would ever possess.  He was introspective, pensive, quiet, thoughtful to the max.  He had curly brown hair that gleamed little bits of blond in the summer when he had that greasy stuff on it that guys used back then, and a pompadour that wouldn't lay down with a ton of it combed in.  Well, George was the only one I would have believed about this tale for sure.  He lived down there too in the swamp area.  

The story was, that they were all out in the field having a nice cozy bonfire, when they saw in the mist and fog off in a distance, a swinging light like the kind you would see from a kerosene lantern.  It was coming their direction, so they thought some hobo or hunter was just coming through the woods.   But then they saw the damned light all by itself, swinging just a few feet off the ground about tall-weed-height still approaching at the speed of a slow walking phantom.  The hair stood on the backs of their necks as they repeated the tale that night, I assure you.  

They found it hard to swallow, and their teeth chattered as fast as their lips could.  One of them ran into the house to get a gun as the rest ran right along behind.  They got a shotgun, and the oldest kid, Gerry Nellis,  walked right up to the light about 5 feet away and fired right into it, and emptied the shot fully.  The light disappeared ...but there was nothing else there at all.  It was uncanny.   

They ran back to the house, and up the hill and stayed there until my mom made enough bacon-fat-soaked french fries to keep them all in cholesterol for a week.  After smoking up all the Camels they carried, they packed it in for the night and jumped into George's '53 Kaiser with the right rear door tied shut by a piece of clothesline, and barreled off into the night.  

Lots of folks have seen these lights and attribute it to swamp gas burning vapors.  Who knows ???