We were born just short of a year apart; I'm the older one.  We both were born in St. Louis.  But I have no memories of us living that close together.  The first memories I have of my cousin's family were them coming to visit everyone in St. Louis, when they were living in Chicago.  I was always very excited when I heard they were coming.  They made it almost every Christmas, usually once a summer, and a lot of Thanksgivings.  We always spent some time at Grandma Cele's, and if they were in town long enough Rich, Jeff, and Terri would spend some nights at our house.  Uncle Bob's mother and father lived in St. Louis too, so on occasion I was invited to their house.  They were very nice people and obviously had a lot of patience to invite a surrogate grandchild over when they were getting a visit from the Chicago based clan.

           I loved growing up in my family.  We all got along really well, and we enjoyed spending time together and joking around.  We would go places but only places an hour or two from our home.  Jeff's family lived in the exotic locale of Chicago.  (At least that's how it seemed to me.)  They would drive from Chicago to St. Louis and back, which from my perspective at the time seemed to be an enviable adventure.  Sometimes if Uncle Bob was unable to come, Aunt Dorothy and the kids would take a train, and believe it or not, there were times they would fly.  I thought it was fun just going to Union Station, or Lambert Field to pick them up.  This was probably due to the fact we didn't go on a vacation until I was nine years old in 1969.

          There was one incident I remember while picking up Aunt Dorothy, Rich, Jeff, and Terri, from the airport when I was between 7 and 9.  We'd gone down and met them at the gate where they disembarked.  (Can't do that anymore.)  They'd gotten off the plane, and we were starting the walk to the baggage area to pick up their luggage.  Jeff and I were walking together but not saying anything.  We saw each other often enough, but it sometimes took a little time to get reacquainted.  Well, this time I guess Jeff had come up with an idea that he thought might break the ice a little sooner.  He held out his hand which he'd clenched in a fist, and said, "Hey Mike, look at this!"  Naturally curious I leaned forward to look.  Quickly he opened his fingers, leaned forward, and blew into his now exposed palm.  Immediately I was blinded, tears started pouring out, and I had a horrible stinging sensation in my eyes.  Jeff had kept a pepper packet he'd picked up on the plane and emptied the contents into his hand, and now a good portion of those contents were in my eyes.  I was shocked, and it kind of hurt.  My eyes were watering so much I couldn't see, so I slowed down walking to rub my eyes.  Aunt Dorothy looked down and said, "Come on Mike why are you going so slow?"  She watched as I kept rubbing my eyes, then asked, "What's wrong?"  Jeff must have had a guilty look on his face because the next thing I heard was, "Jeff, what did you do?"  He told what had happened and Aunt Dorothy said, "What were you thinking?  Were you trying to blind him?  Tell him you're sorry!"  Jeff apologized he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't think it would hurt that much."  I admit I was kind of mad at first, but as I rubbed my eyes, and my vision returned, I was thinking more of what we could do when we got to Grandma Cele's house.

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           On another visit Jeff was over at our house in St. Ann, Missouri.  We were in the basement, and Carla was down there with us.  My recollection was that we were playing 'Vampires'.  It's probably 50 years later now, so I don't really recall how you played 'Vampires'.  I can only surmise between Jeff and I, one or both of us were vampires, and Carla was a prospective victim. As we were playing someone thought it would be cool if the 'Vampires' had a coffin to pop out of.  Looking around it didn't take long to zero in on my mom's cedar chest.  It was about 4 feet long and had a button on the outside you pushed to open the lid.  The button had a place for a key to be inserted if you wanted to lock the chest.  We didn't have the key.  Opening the chest, we emptied whatever was inside and decided who got to pop out of the coffin first.  I'm not sure if it was winning or not, but Jeff got to go first.  He climbed inside and scrunched himself up so that he could fit.  I started to lower the lid when Jeff reached up quickly and said, "Wait, wait!  Don't let the lid close all the way, I don't want to suffocate."  I said, "OK.  I'll lower the lid slow and keep my fingers in the opening so it can't close."  So, I slowly lowered the lid until just my fingers held it open from latching.  I'm not really sure what happened next, if Jeff shifted inside the chest, or if I flashbacked to the 'pepper in the eyes incident' at the airport, but my fingers slipped out, there was an audible click, and the lid shut all the way on the chest.  It was quiet for a few seconds, then I heard Jeff's calm voice say, "What was that?"  I pushed the button, but the lid wouldn't budge.  Jeff said a little less calmly, "Did the lid shut all the way?" I pushed the button again, but the lid still wouldn't open.  Jeff pushed on the lid and said, "Mike, get me out of here!"  I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I couldn't get that button to open the lid.  I said, "Jeff, I can't get it open."  Jeff said, "Get me out of here."  I said, "I'm trying."  Jeff said, "Well try harder it's getting hard to breathe in here!"  I panicked, looking around I saw my dad's tool chest.  I ran over and grabbed a hammer.  Carla had been trying the button with no success, but she kept trying.  I told Jeff, "I'm going to turn the trunk over and bust in the bottom, to get you some air!"  I got the trunk onto its side, and was getting ready to swing the hammer, when Carla said, "Got it!"  I looked, and sure enough Carla had opened the lid.  We helped Jeff out of the chest.  We lost interest in playing Vampires for a while after that.

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          One thing I always remember was when we were together, we always came up with something to do.  We both liked WWII movies, and we came up with the idea of drawing pictures of battles.  We were very detail oriented.  We'd find books with pictures of planes, ships, tanks, and even topographical maps of battle fields.  Then we'd start to draw.  Before long we would have six to ten 8"x 11" sheets of drawing paper taped together in a long strip, going from ships at sea, to the beachhead, into jungles, and up mountains.  We spent hours putting those drawings together.  When it appeared we had no more ideas to put to paper we'd look at each other and start methodically adding explosions and other types of destruction until all of our hard work was destroyed.  Sounds goofy, but it was fun.  Continuing along the military path, when we were at my house, we'd often don my dad's old army shirts and play war, with the boys in my neighborhood.  If Rich was there, he would join in too.  If the weather wasn't cooperating, we'd pull out the little green army men, split them up and set up our own defenses.  To fight our battle, we used these disc guns you used to be able to get.  It was a plastic pistol with a hole on top, you'd drop in a disc, and when you pulled the trigger, the disc would shoot out about 10 feet or so.  If you hit an army man once he was dead, a truck or jeep took several hits, and a tank even more.  If we didn't have a disc gun, we had to settle for a marble or a rock.  That got out of hand sometimes and wasn't a good idea inside.

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          There was one visit when Jeff, Rich, Terri, and Brenda all spent the night at our house.  (If you're wondering about sleeping arrangements, at that time the basement wasn't finished but we had two double beds downstairs.  That was the boy's dorm.)  Anyway, Jeff, myself, Carl, Vickie, Terri, and Brenda were all playing downstairs.  What, I don't recall.  Rich had been upstairs with the adults and Kathy and must have gotten bored because he came down to 'play'.  While we continued with our chosen activity, Rich looked around for something to occupy himself.  On a shelf he found an old pair of those clamp on roller skates you can clamp and strap to your shoes.  He started doing slow circuits around us and the basement, kind of like you'd see in Roller Derby warmups.  On one circuit he grabbed a baton off of another shelf, (I think Kathy used to be a baton twirler at some point.), and continued skating.  I guess after he felt warmed up, he called Jeff and I to approach him.  That was a mistake.  He proceeded to swat both of us in the butt with the baton and started chasing us around the basement on skates.  After several laps, and swats, we threw aside our chivalrous ways and tried to lead Rich towards 'the girls'.  Unfortunately for Jeff and me, 'the girls' had staged a stealthy retreat upstairs, and our planned distraction had disappeared.  Lucky for us, earlier that day Mom had purchased a few water pistols for us to play with.  Spying them on a nearby shelf we proposed a less violent and hopefully less painful way to occupy our time.  We each filled our water gun and began blasting each other all over the basement.  I guess since he no longer was coming close to drawing blood, Rich left us and returned upstairs.  Our reprieve lasted until shortly after Jeff and I went to bed.  At first it was just Jeff and I in the basement, each in our own bed.  We had our water guns and sniped back and forth at each other while hiding under blankets.  We shot from small openings trying to reduce our chances of being hit.  But after a little practice we got pretty good, getting to the point we could shoot each other in the eye through our sight holes.  To get to that point we had to sacrifice the dryness of our sheets and blankets, despite this Jeff and I were having a great time.  We were laughing and enjoying ourselves when we noticed a shadowy figure appear in our doorway.  A voice said, "You two are being entirely too noisy."  Rich was back.  Entering the room he somehow was able to get us both in headlocks with our faces each planted firmly in one of his moist armpits.  Struggling just insured your air supply was cut off even further.  Resistance was futile.  I don't have a clear recollection of how the rest of the night went, but at some point, I think we both passed out from foul smelling arm pit fumes.  (Skating around a basement swinging a baton at miscreants is sweaty work.) 

 

          When the Doss's were in town and came over to our house, we played outside most of the time.  In our neighborhood I had five friends that were always available for whatever activity we could dream up.  Kenny, Jimmy, and Brian Liggett, and Keith and Kevin Briggs.  On one visit Rich was there.  At home he had started playing PeeWee Football.  We all started throwing a couple of footballs around, and Rich started showing us 'skills' he had learned from his coaches.  Rich got us all to perform various drills he had learned, under his tutelage of course.  This eventually progressed into a derivation of several things Rich had learned.  One person would run with the ball, at a person who would try and tackle him.  Rich was able to talk Kenny, Keith, and myself into participating.  (Remember Rich was 4 years older than me, and 5 years older than Jeff.)  Jeff decided to sit this one out.  (He knew better from past experience.)  The drill consisted of Rich standing 20 yards away and running with the ball towards a tackler.  I was the first tackler.  Rich told me to get ready and then took off running right at me.  I was thinking he was going to try and run around me or evade me in some way.  But he came right at me.  Foolishly I thought, this is going to be easy, I don't even have to chase him I can just stand right here and wait.  So, I did.  I remember him coming closer and closer, and then suddenly all I could see was sky.  At this same instant my lungs forgot how to take in air.  I lied there for a while teaching myself to breathe again.  Rich came up to me and told me what a great job I had done and suggested next time I should keep my legs planted farther apart for a more solid base.  I looked up at him from the ground and slowly nodded my head.  The next time didn't go any better.  When I got up Jeff was laughing at me saying, "What were you thinking?"  At this point I thought it was only polite to let one of the other guys have a turn, but they were all walking away saying they needed to wash up for supper even though it was only 2:30PM. 

 

          On another visit, Jeff showed up with an injury.  He had gotten his right thumb slammed in a car door.  Luckily it wasn't broken, but bleeding underneath his thumbnail caused a lot of swelling and a doctor had needed to drill holes in it to relieve the pressure.  My friends and I, not aware of his injury, thought it would be fun to play baseball at St. Kevin's school which was only a block away.  Seeing Jeff's wrapped up hand, that didn't seem like a good plan anymore.  For some reason we thought it might work better for Jeff if we played softball instead.  I guess since you pitch underhand.  We started playing and Jeff being a right-handed person was having a hard time batting that way, so he switched to his left.  It didn't hurt as much, but he couldn't hit as well either.  Someone came up with the idea that we all would hit from the opposite side we normally did.  We had a great time making fun of each other as we awkwardly took our at bats.  By the end of the day though, we all were making pretty good contact, and hitting the ball pretty consistently.  The next day, we thought it would be fun to play on the Tee-Ball field.  In right field it had a six-foot tall fence that was 150 feet away.  We thought maybe one of us would get lucky and pop one over the fence left-handed.  The game was going pretty well with everyone spraying base hits all over the place.  Then I came up to bat.  Jeff was pitching to me, and I connected.  It went over the fence, over the street, and landed on the sidewalk of a house.  It was the house of a friend of mine, whose dad worked nights, so he slept days.  The ball bounced off the sidewalk and slammed into the bottom of their aluminum storm door.  It made a very loud BANG!  We all looked at each other............and scattered, hiding wherever we could find a place.  Mr. Webb came out yelling, "What's going on out here!"  Looking around he didn't see anyone, then looked down and saw the ball.  He picked it up, looked around again, then went inside taking the ball with him.  Our softball game was over. 

 

End of Volume 1             

 

     

 

 

          

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