Life on Grace Street (circa 1962 - 1987)

Grace Street was the name of the street where I grew up.

I never thought too much about it at the time, but there was quite the odd assortment of characters that lived there. I still keep in touch with a few of the former neighbors (the ones that WEREN'T odd!) and inevitably someone will say, "HEY....Remember when...." and we all relive the episode, each person butting in and putting in their details, and we laugh ourselves silly.

So....I decided to tell some of those stories here. Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be one of those "You had to be there" things.

Here's what the neighborhood was like. (Back then, subdivisions were referred to as "neighborhoods.")

The neighborhood I grew up in was a typical middle class neighborhood. The houses were all one story and they were all built in the early 1960's. We moved into our house in 1962...I was 2 years old.

The houses were 2-3 bedrooms, with either 1 or 1 and 1/2 bathrooms. They were roughly 1300 square feet and one 1/2 to 1 acre lots. The houses had no basements...just crawl spaces. In 1962 they sold for $13,000.

The houses sound small when you think about homes of today, but it was a pretty typical middle class home during that era. You're probably wondering what that has to do with anything, but I wanted to give you a feel for what it was like.

Now...for the neighbors!

In order to have all of this make sense, I guess the best place to start is to list the cast of these stories.....(and there are MANY characters!) I'm going to change up some of the names, but I'm guessing if some of my Grace Street homies accidentally find this page, they'll easily recognize the people.

Let's start with one of the families that supplied an ABUNDANCE of amusement...the Baskin Family....obviously not their real name.

My family had the misfortune of having this family move in next door. (This is where you need to keep the size of these houses in mind.)

The Baskins moved into their house in the early 1970's. If you've ever seen the movie version of the Erskine Caldwell novel "Tobacco Road", the Baskin family was sort of like the Lester Family. Except the Lester family probably had a little bit more class.

The Baskin family consisted of the following:

Carl - The patriarch. He was in his mid 50's and worked for the Atlanta Fire Department. He smoked.

Ruth - The matriarch. She smoked too; she RARELY came out of the house. It's not that she wasn't physically able, she just didn't. We (my brothers and me) referred to her as "the hermit." I know....not nice, but it was the truth. If you ever saw that movie "The Homecoming", the one that the tv show "The Waltons" was based on, Ruth looked and sounded like a really old Patricia Neal with really bad teeth.

Clifton - The eldest son; not sure exactly how old he was, but he moved out of the house shortly after the family moved in and eventually got married. Oh...he worked for the Fire Department, too.

Ray - Next Eldest son. He was a high school senior when they moved in the house. The one thing I remember about him was that he stuttered something awful. And anytime we (my brothers and me) told a story involving Ray, we also included the stuttering. I know.....not nice, but it somehow made the story funnier. Several years after he graduated, he got married and he and his wife remained in this house...along with the REST of the family. (Did I mention this was only a 3 bedroom home?)

Cindy - The only daughter; she was a high school sophomore when they moved in. She had the biggest boobs that anyone living on Grace Street had ever seen. We're talking some SERIOUS boobage; those things were lethal. Just to set the record straight, she had neither the face nor body to go along with it. Again.....I know.....not nice, but you can just ask my brothers, the Rollins brothers, the Jones brothers, Greg Johnson or any of the other kids that lived in that neighborhood and they'll tell you the same thing.

Stanley - He was a couple years younger than me. He was a diabetic and had to give himself insulin shots everyday. He also loved to throw these wonderful pity parties for himself. (A short story for another day.)

Richard - The youngest son. He was a couple of years younger than Stanley and one of those kids that would do anything you told him to do. (Another short story for another day.)

These are some of the reasons why we classified this family as odd:

Ruth kept a real tight rein on Stanley and Richard. They were only allowed to play in their back yard if Cindy was able to sit outside and watch them. They had probably lived in the house for about six months when Ruth finally decided that it was safe to let them play in the back yard unattended; looking back, that probably wasn't a good idea. (Story to come in a minute!)

They were also not allowed to ride their bikes in the street. Keep in mind that most moms were stay at home moms, there were maybe 20 houses on the street, and the peak traffic times on that street were at 6am when most of the dads were going to work and 6pm....when most of the dads were coming home from work.

During the day, we amused ourselves by having bicycle races, seeing who could ride the longest with no hands on the handlebars, etc. Stanley used to beg my younger brother to just ride his bike in front of their house, since Stanley and Richard were only allowed to ride from one edge of their front yard to the other edge of their front yard. (Did I mention that their front yard was fenced in with a chain-link fence?)

When my brother really wanted to tick Stanley off, he would pretend to ride along with Stanley, then bolt like lightening up the street and around the block.

Another thing was the sheer number of people inhabiting this house....and they weren't even Mexican!!! And I haven't even mentioned the dogs, yet! To this day, I still can not imagine what the sleeping arrangements were.

They got the bright idea to get a dog. A Doberman named Cleo. Cleo got lonely. So they got ANOTHER Doberman named Duke. Duke liked Cleo, Cleo liked Duke. They REALLY liked each other and Cleo wound up having a litter of 9 pups as proof.

Did I mention that this was a three bedroom home, with seven people living in it, 2 of whom smoked and eleven dogs living in it? Did I mention they lived next door to us?

So....that's the family, now let's get on with some stories.

I like to call this one "Hang 'Em High". (I love Clint Eastwood and the title sort of ties into this story.) Speaking of which, AMC is showing ALL of the Dirty Harry movies this week. We need more Dirty Harrys in the world.

The story takes place in the Baskin's back yard. Ruth had decided that Cindy no longer had to watch Stanley and Richard when they played in the back yard...considering that Stanley was about 8 and Richard was about 5, this was a good thing...then again, maybe not.

Most of the trees in their backyard were at the very end of the lot. These trees sat on a hill that had a somewhat steep drop. For whatever reason, one of boys had tossed a rope over one of the branches on one of the trees and tied a small loop at the end. Their game was to grab hold of the loop, take a few steps back, then run full tilt to the edge of the hill and swing from the rope.

One day, Stanley and Richard were playing their little game. My brother and I had gotten into a spat with them earlier that day, so we were not on speaking terms. So we decided to do what we normally did if we wanted to p*ss them off. We sat on the property line, stared at them, and pretended like we were talking about them. (Come to think of it, I don't think we were really pretending.)

For whatever reason, Stanley decided to try something different with the swing. He threw the rope over Richard's neck and pushed him off the hill. (I can safely say that he did NOT intentionally attempt to kill his brother....he was just stupid. I think stupidity ran in the family.)

As soon as Richard swung off the hill, Stanley realized that that might not have been such a good idea, so he grabbed Richard, pushed him back up the hill, and took the rope off his neck. It happened so quick, that Richard really didn't have time to get hurt....except for the humongous rope burn around his neck, but he didn't cry.

This happened in the middle of summer, when most boys ran around barefoot, in shorts with no shirt. That rope burn could not be missed.

My brother Dan hollered over to Richard: "You ok Rich?" Stanley said "Shut up...we're still not talkin' to y'all."

Stanley turned to Richard and said, "Now, Richard...you're ok, ok? Just don't say nuthin' and everything'll be ok."

Richard said "OK....I'm going in the house to get some water."

Stanley said, "Look...instead of goin' in the house, why don't you just grab a drink from the hose. It's just as good."

"Yeah, but it ain't cold. I want ice water," said Richard.

"Well, go ahead and run in, but remember, don't say anything cuz you're ok. Just don't say nuthin' and it'll be ok. We don't want to get punished, right?"

Now...I couldn't understand why in the world Stanley thought RICHARD would be getting punished, but this family WAS rather odd.

Anyway, off Richard ran to the house. There was dead silence. Then all of a sudden there was a thunderous "STANLEY!!!!" that was probably heard clear over to Mimosa Circle.

Stanley yelled back, "Ma'am?"

"GET IN HERE........NOW!!!!"

"OK" said Stanley.

Dan and I could smell it....and I'm not talking about smell of stale cigarette smoke intermingled with the smell of eleven Doberman's on a hot summer day. Nope...the air was ripe with the unmistakable smell of an a** whoopin'. It was something that we were intimately familiar with, as were most kids on our street.

This was, after all, back in the early 70's. Time out did not exist as we presently know it and the only kids that got put on restriction had hippies for parents.

Back then, time out was when mamas and daddys had to switch their a** whooper (might be a belt, might be a hickory switch, might be a hand...each mama and daddy had their own special a** whoopin' equipment) over to their other hand so their regular a** whoopin' hand could rest so the a** whoopin' could continue uninterrupted.

You also didn't have to worry about DFACS back then. EVERYBODY got an a** whoopin' at one time or another and most folks my age will tell you that not only did they deserve every one of them, but sometimes it becomes somewhat of a p*ssing contest as to who got the worst a** whoopin' and the stories are told with a certain amount of pride.

Anyway, yep Stanley got an a** whoopin'; we knew because we could hear it. Not that we were trying to listen or anything, but most houses back then did not have central air conditioning so most of them had their windows wide open.

Richard's rope burn eventually healed; the rope was taken down from the tree and it was a long time before Stanley and Richard were allowed to play in the back yard alone.

My brother and I eventually got back on speaking terms with them again....till the next time we had a spat with them.

So much for "Hang 'Em High". Next up, a story I like to call "There's Something About Cindy"....but I'll leave that one for next time. But just to give you a little preview, it involves the garbage man. (Betcha can't wait, huh?)