The Dawsons

Just to set the record straight, I feel the need to stress a couple of important things.

1. Most of the names in the prior stories have been made up to protect their stupidity, and more importantly to protect my butt in the unlikely event that any of them stumble upon this site and decide to sue for libel.

2. I did NOT grow up in the projects!!!! My street, for some reason, seemed to be a "Twilight Zone" that attracted a whole series of odd people. I think there were only five families that lived on that street were normal.

So now, let's turn our attention to the Dawsons.

The Dawsons lived down the street from us. There was the patriarch, Leonard, and his wife Lydia. Lydia had two children from a previous marriage, Doreen and Jake. She and Leonard had one son together named Tyler.

Leonard worked as a mechanic at a local garage. He "fixed" cars for some of our neighbors. I use the term "fixed" loosely, because it seemed like every car he worked on was never actually fixed.

I never understood why the neighbors allowed him to work on their cars, but everyone said it was because he was cheaper than taking it to a dealership. Leonard only charged for parts, not labor. But, if he was fixing things that weren't broken to begin with and the car still ran like crap, you were spending extra money so to me, it just didn't make sense. But that's for another day.

Doreen was a year older than me and rather quiet. Too quiet. As soon as she graduated and turned 18, she left home and I never saw her again. Looking back, sometimes I think there may have been a good reason why she never came back home.

Jake was my age and was mentally retarded....at least that was what it was called back then.

At that time, mentally retarded children were not mainstreamed in school and there was no such thing as special education classes in schools. Instead they were usually sent to special school where they were taught to do basic things to try to get them through life.

I remember when I went into first grade, Jake was in the classroom across the hall from my room. He was stayed in first grade until Christmas. After that, a little bus came to pick Jake up to take him to another school. My friend Greg told me years later that Leonard and Lydia had no idea that Jake was mentally retarded until his teacher had pointed it out.

Whenever me and my brother got into a fight, he would invariably end the argument by telling me that I was stupid because Jake finished first grade before I did.

My brother, Tyler, and my friend Greg all ran around together. So any of the stories that I heard about the Dawsons came from my brother or Greg.

This one is one of my favorites.

One year, Leonard decided to have an in-ground pool installed. This was big doings in our neighborhood because he was the only one on our street that would have a pool. I guess he did really well between the job at the garage and ripping off, I mean repairing cars for our neighbors.

Leonard had a rule regarding the swimming pool. When the pool was opened for the summer, he was to be the first one in it. No ifs, ands, or buts. (Don't ask....the man was just weird!)

So, about the second or third year after the pool had been installed, my brother and Greg happened to be over at Tyler's house. Greg noticed that the cover was off the pool and asked Tyler when could they come over to swim. Tyler told them to go home, change clothes, and come back because the pool was going to officially "open" that night.

Both my brother and Greg ran home to change into their trunks and run back over to Tyler's house.

By the time they got there, Leonard had just pulled into the driveway. He saw my brother and Greg standing there in their trunks. He said "I guess Tyler told you we're opening the pool tonight."

Greg said "Yeah he told us. We're just waiting on him."

Leonard said, "Y'all wait on me."

Unfortunately, Tyler had neglected to tell my brother and Greg about Leonard's little rule about the pool. When Leonard said to wait on him, they thought he was just kidding around.

As soon as Tyler came out of the house, my brother and Greg took a running jump and leaped into the deep end of the pool.

It was at that exact moment that Leonard came out of the house....just as Tyler screamed "NO!!!"

The boys came up out of the water to face a glaring Leonard. They looked at Tyler and asked what was wrong.

Leonard said "What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong. What's wrong is that I didn't get to be the first one in the pool....that's what wrong. What's wrong is that y'all jumped in before me."

With that, he turned and stormed back into the house.

They looked at Tyler and started laughing....then they realized that Leonard wasn't kidding. Leonard, a man in his mid-40's, was p*ssed because he was not the first one in the pool.

When Leonard was p*ssed, he was REALLY p*ssed. He did not get in the pool that entire summer.....all because he was not the first one in the pool that year.

Another favorite:

One of the boys' favorite pasttimes was to tease Jake. I just want to preface this by saying that Jake was NOT picked on because he was mentally retarded. All of us kids on that street enjoyed picking on and teasing each other. The difference was that some of us were able to laugh it off or were devious enough to plan a good payback. The others cried or tattled to their mommies.

Jake on the other hand just got mad.

For some reason, when the builder built the Dawsons house, one of the bedroom doors was hung so that the lock was on the outside of the door, rather than in the bedroom.

Leonard never fixed it because he figured when he sent the kids to their room for punishment, he could lock them in there until he decided it was time to let them out.

This bedroom happened to be the one that Tyler and Jake shared. Even though Tyler was the youngest of three children, Tyler sometimes considered Jake to be the annoying little brother.

Whenever my brother and Greg visited Tyler, one of the things they liked to do was lure Jake into the bedroom, then run out and lock him in. This resolved the problem of Jake following them around like a puppy dog, although they still had to listen to Jake banging on the door.

One day, Tyler made an urgent phone call requesting that my brother and Greg to come over right away because he had something really important to show them.

When they arrived, Tyler took them back to his bedroom and closed the door. Tyler walked over to his closet, opened it, and motioned for them to come over. There, stacked neatly in a corner was the holy grail of all 13-year old boys.

Tyler had found.......Leonard's stack of Playboys. Tyler had pulled out a few from the bottom of Leonard's stash thinking they would not be missed and hid them in the back of his closet.

They each grabbed a magazine and plopped on the floor to read....(and I use that term loosely.)

In the middle of all of this, Jake happened to walk down the hallway and heard the three of them talking in his bedroom. Now was the chance he had been waiting on!

He locked them in....then proceeded to bang on the door hollering "I locked y'all in! Not so funny, huh? Y'all are all locked in. HAHAHAHA!"

Tyler looked at the others and said, "I don't know about y'all, but he's about to drive me crazy. Let's get out of here."

He walked over to the window, opened it and the three of them jumped out. They ran to the backyard, climbed up into Tyler's tree house, and continued to read.

A little while later, Jake came out of the house. My brother saw him first and yelled out "Hey Jake!"

Jake was stunned. He had locked them in the bedroom. He knew they were in there. He was furious. He yelled "How did y'all get out? I had y'all locked in there."

Greg yelled, "We're magic. We can disappear and reappear whenever we want. Just like on tv."

Jake said "No you can't."

Tyler said "Yes we can."

Jake said "Do it then."

My brother said "Ok......run back to your room, we'll be there by the time you get there."

Jake ran into the house and all three of them climbed down the treehouse and climbed through the window back into the bedroom.

When Jake unlocked the door and opened it, he was amazed. He begged Tyler to teach him how to disappear, but Tyler told him that it was too hard and would take too long.

Jake was amazed that he had a brother that could actually disappear. Tyler was amazed that Jake never thought to climb out the window whenever he was locked in....but as far as Tyler was concerned that was a good thing.