On the other side of us there was a lady named Lucy, who was a full-blooded American Indian. She was nice but had some quirks about her. For one she always seemed like she was pregnant. The weirdest thing I remember about her was that she ate clumps of dirt. Just picked it right up off the ground and put it in her mouth. I’ve heard that some women crave the minerals that can be found in dirt when they are pregnant , and with her being and Indian, I guess she was really close with Mother Earth.

Lucy had a husband, or at least a boyfriend, who I don’t recall seeing except maybe once or twice the whole time we lived there. I have a sneaking suspicion they weren’t married, which back then still had a taboo attached to it. Most people still didn’t shack-up, although it was likely becoming more common.

Lucy and her Sugar Daddy had a Minah Bird, who would sit in the cage they had in the dining room and whistle, in the fashion that men whistle at women. When we first moved in we had no idea they had a Minah. My mom would go out in the back yard to hang laundry on the line and she thought that the gentleman who lived there was hitting on her. I’m sure it made my mom uncomfortable at first, but after awhile she must have got more comfortable with it. I remember after we found out it was a bird and not a horny fifty year old man, my mom was a little disappointed. She would have never had an affair on my dad, (I think), but she was flattered and liked the attention.

We of course had the Dunlaps a few doors down, but the most interesting people on the street were the hippies who lived in the cul-de-sac. This was the early seventies and these were full-fledged, VW Microbus, peace out, toga wearing long hairs. They kept to themselves pretty much but their presence was well known. They ran around with cut-off jean shorts and no shirts and always played acid rock loud enough to get everyone in earshot stoned. Next to them at the very end of the cul-de-sac was an eccentric old man, who reminded me of Thurston Howell III. He kept to himself most of the time but every once in a while we would see him leave in his Cadillac, wearing a straw hat and cataract glasses.

Besides the aforementioned cast of characters, the biggest source of mystery for all the kids on the street was the old truck that was parked between the hippies’ house and Mr. Howell’s. The truck was a mid to late ’40′s panel van and was black in color with some surface rust. There was an abandoned alley that ran between the two houses, from the street back into an open field. The legend was that the guy who was driving the truck had died while driving back the alley and the authorities just left him and the truck there. Everyone called him “The crooked man in the crooked van”

We avoided that abandoned alley like syphilis. When we would play kick ball and the ball would go over near the crooked van we would just cut our loss and find another ball. That thing gave you the willies just looking at it. It was parked to where only the back of the truck was visible from the street and we had no way of knowing if there was, in fact, a skeleton in it or not. I for one was not going to find out.

My line of thought was, “Well, he’s been there for thirty years, why bother him?”.

After we had lived there for awhile, Albert Dunlap, instigator of shit and mayhem, decided it was time to solve the mystery of the crooked man. He was ten years old, practically an adult, and we figured he was the one to step up and be the man. Of course, he wanted help doing it but the rest of us weren’t that stupid. There was no way in hell I was going to be the one who crapped in their pants when we found the skeleton and be the laughing stock of the neighborhood for the rest of my life. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. I was the daredevil of the group but this was beyond my expertise.

After much haggling and debate, we weren’t getting anywhere in forming an expedition platoon and Albert, getting very agitated at this point, just looked at us and said, “Fuck it. I’ll do it myself”. I thought that he was just as scared as the rest of us, but he didn’t show it and he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it. So off he went, walking off into history and legend, the one who would conquer the crooked man and show us once and for all who had balls the size of grapefruits.

As Albert approached the van, he stopped. He stood there, frozen, for a good minute. Later he would tell us that he thought he had heard something, but more than likely he was debating the actual size of his balls. After the minute or so, he resumed his approach, slower and more carefully. He was just about there when all the sudden he broke off and came running back. He told us that he heard what sounded like someone inside moving around.

After catching his breath, I asked him if he was going to go back. He just kinda looked at me like I was crazy, and said, “Why? You wanna go?”

While we were in the midst of our group discussion, declining the mission was easy as I had plenty of company of like-minded kids. But this was a direct challenge. Although every fiber in my body screamed NO!, the word “Sure” came falling from my lips. That was it, no backing down now…

Boy, what a dumbass!

We made our approach nice and slow, like we were Recon Marines. I was scared shitless, to the point of almost turning tail and running. I wasn’t particularly worried about my fearless reputation, but the thought of not making it past my seventh birthday bothered me somewhat. I was holding out hope that I would get an ‘Eagle-Eye G.I. Joe’ for my next birthday and if Albert Dunlap screwed that up I was gonna kick his ass from the afterlife.

As we made our stealth approach there were a hundred thoughts going through my mind, and about twenty-five of them involved tactical retreat. There is no shame in running if you use the ‘tactical retreat’ clause to ensure that you and your comrades lived to fight another day.

Everything was surreal: I could hear the most minute noises; I could smell everything, hear my heartbeat and the blood rushing through my head. It sounded like ocean waves crashing into rocks. After what seemed like eternity, we made it to the van. Albert decided to approach from the passenger side, the side that he probably thought would provide the most cover and the least amount of danger in case the skeleton decided to launch an attack. I took a tactical position at the rear, in effect becoming the rear guard. I had no problems with being the ass-end of this mission, for sure. Besides, it was his idea!

As I covered the rear of the vehicle, I glanced back over my shoulder at the onlookers. As I looked at them I felt their admiration at my bravery, seeing in their eyes the envy of having ice water running through my veins. Yep, I thought I was king shit of Poly!

As I was reveling in my rather large ego, I heard Albert scream something that sounded like it was in Chinese. I quickly turned around and saw Albert in a pile of hay and grass clippings thrashing around. I just stood there, thinking the skeleton of the crooked man must have reached through the passenger side window and punched him.

He started yelling, “Help, I’m sinking” at the very top of his lungs.

“Sinking in what?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“QUICKSAND!”

Holy shit, we were in trouble now!

I immediately took the most rational course of action and ran, er, made a tactical retreat back to the street. I wasn’t going to let the crooked man knock me into that shit because there was no way in hell the others would come help us. The only person who could help was Albert’s dad, Gene.

I got to the Dunlap’s house and found Gene, where else but in the garage. He turned around and asked me what was wrong. I told him, out of breath, that Albert was drowning in quicksand.

“What?!?”

I told him that Albert was down by the crooked van and was in quicksand. We both took off in a cloud of dust, with Gene quickly pulling ahead of me. By the time I got there Gene was about ready to beat the snot out of Albert. Apparently, when Albert saw his dad coming he miraculously made his way out of the quicksand and was standing up.

Shit, I had no idea there was no quicksand in Poly!

Come to find out, Albert Dunlap knew there was no “Crooked Man” in the crooked van. It was something that he made up to scare the younger kids. He didn’t plan on me, in my state of panic, to run to get his dad. He must have thought that naturally I would try to help him get out and when I did, pull me in there with him and then take off running.

So much for the best laid plans of mice and men.

After everyone found out there was no “Crooked man”, we made regular trips down there and played in and around the van. No one ever went there alone, though. To this day, when I see a late forties to early fifties panel van, I still get the eebie-jeebies.

And Albert?, well, payback was a bitch…

Back in the early seventies, Evel Knievel ruled. He was the ultimate testosterone rush before I even knew what the hell testosterone was.

Of course, everyone wanted to mimic the crazy sonofabitch, including some adults. We heard a story of a guy somewhere that got completely wasted and tried to jump his Harley over his wife’s car using a piece of plywood propped up against the car. Needless to say, when the weight of the Harley hit the plywood, it snapped, sending him into the car, then into the hospital. Some people have no business drinking.

Hopefully he turned his testicles into gravel so he couldn’t breed the “The spawn of Stupid”.

Anyway, the Evel Knievel craze had hit the young and impressionable kids on Thrall Court. This was an unfortunate turn of events for the parents there, and across the nation I imagine…But a boon in business for the hospitals and companies that supplied cast plaster and sutures.

Before long we were jumping homemade ramps made out of, well, plywood and two by fours. At first we just jumped into the air with no objects underneath. Then, we worked our way up from air to a couple of kids to a few garbage cans.

Another kid on the street, Brian, decided he wanted to go first when we built the “Big Ramp” to jump two cans. As he raced toward the ramp from the top of the hill he must have had second thoughts because at the last minute he slammed on the brakes. He was way too close to the ramp and subsequently just kinda rolled off the top of the ramp and into the garbage can. He wasn’t hurt too bad, except for the fact he racked his balls on the bike. Besides banging the twins up and bruising his pride, he really dented the crap out of the galvanized can. I can’t remember whose can it was but I bet they weren’t amused.

I decided I wanted to try taking on the two cans. I went to the top of the hill near Hanger Street, turned around and stopped. The ramp looked like it was about the size of a matchbox. I was thinking there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to be able to make that jump, but I had to try. At six years old two trash cans may as well have been two cars. After going head to head with the ’68 Catalina, though, I had a reputation to keep.

I then thought about Evel Knievel and remembered him talking about one of his jumps where he had crashed and broke a few bones. He told the sportscaster that he didn’t have enough speed when he hit the ramp, which caused him to come up short. I knew that I had to have speed…and lots of it.

I started off and cranked that bike with all I had. I was hoping that the combination of my immense leg power and the grade of the hill would propel me to victory. I was cranking like hell, white skinny legs just a blur, and focused my attention completely on the ramp. I could see nothing else because of tunnel vision.

As I got about three-quarters of the way to my destination, I hit a rock that was in the middle of the street, causing my bike to start wobbling out of control. Everything went into slow motion at that moment. I thought, “Man, I’m in some really deep shit here”, followed by, “Man, this was really a stupid idea”.

You know how they say your life passes before your eyes right before you die? My life was on a wide screen, in stereo and in Technicolor.

As I hit the pavement, I went over the bike face first into the pavement. The only thing I remembered was the wobbling of the bike, BIG blank space, and getting up off the ground, dazed and bleeding like shit. That was my first taste of being really hurt. Man, I was screwed!

I immediately went into the house, with all the dipshits who concocted the crazy idea in tow, and told my mom I needed a band-aid. When she looked up, all she could say was “oh, shit…SHIT!”. She rushed me into the bathroom and proceeded to clean me up with a wash cloth, then Merthiolate. I looked in the mirror and saw that I had ripped my top lip open, as well as having road rash to the rest of my face.

We went to Dr. Austins office at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, our family doctor. When Dr. Austin saw me, he asked my mom what the hell happened. She told him what had happened, adding that we were copying some crazy guy on TV who rode a motorcycle was trying to kill himself. He looked at me and said, “Evel Knievel fan, huh?”. Anyway, he looked me over, stitched my lip up and told my mom that I would live to fight another day.

I would, indeed, fight another day.

About two months later, I was ready to try the jump again. During my healing time, Albert Dunlap invented the Redneck Chopper. Any of you who are old enough to remember them, the bikes back in the seventies had banana seats with sissy-bars, butterfly handlebars, and curved forks on the front. Albert, who obviously by now was following in his dad’s footprints in tinkering with everything he owned, had figured out that if you cut the forks off of one bike, they would fit right over another bike’s forks, making a copper bike – redneck style. He had cut the forks from an old bike, removed the front wheel off his bike and hammered the cut forks over top of his. He now had a Redneck Chopper.

I decided to try it out, by jumping a ramp of course. Albert didn’t think it was a good idea. He thought the forks would scrape the ramp and bend them. I convinced him I wouldn’t tear up his bike and if I did I would fix it. Apprehensively, he consented.

Once again I went to the top of the hill, but as I went this time I made sure there were no rocks impeding my success. I got to the top and made my turn. I knew ol’ Evel always said a prayer right before he jumped, asking God to deliver him safely through the jump.

I prayed that Albert wouldn’t beat my ass if I wrecked his chopper.

I started cranking (Not quite as fast as the last time) and as I hit the ramp, the forks snapped in half right where they were hammered together. There was no bending whatsoever, just SNAP!

Off the bike I went again, this time over the freakin’ handlebars. Now, if the first time nearly killing myself got me into trouble, I was dead for sure this time, either from the crash or from my mom beating my ass to a bloody pulp. The last thing she had told me from the previous wreck was, “I don’t want you doin’ that shit anymore, your gonna kill yourself”.

The crash resulted in almost the same injuries as the last, with one exception: The left handlebar, which had a worn grip exposing the end, went into my arm just below the inside of the elbow.

Once again I made the journey into the house to tell mom. Same reaction, same trip to the hospital, ass-beating as an added bonus…

After that, I decided that although getting hurt wasn’t that bad since I had beaten the Grim Reaper three times now, I was retiring due to the fact that my mom brought me pretty close to death with that ass-whoopin’. Besides, I didn’t want her to take my bike away permanently and lock me in my room until I was eighteen.

As they say, pain goes away but defeat always stays. In time I healed and, after much contemplation, I decided to resume jumping. I just made sure in the future that I was more realistic about my limitations and that of the bike. I also did my homework before trying any jump.

Besides, there were other things on the horizon, more tempting and exciting, that would beckon me…

On Thrall Court we had friends, or at least we had other kids around to play with. The first kid from the neighborhood I can remember is Albert Dunlap. Albert was a couple of years older than us, and he’s the first one to approach and welcome us to the ‘hood. We thought he was either the scouting party for the group or the one that had lost a bet. He seemed like an alright guy, kind of stocky with an Elvis Presley Haircut. He had a younger brother, Tommy, and a sister, Rita.

Albert’s Dad, Gene, was quite a peculiar person at first blush. He stood about six foot four and was thin. He had wavy hair and long side-burns and would always have a toothpick in his mouth. He worked for the water department and always seemed to be wearing his work uniform no matter what was going on. He drove a Toyota sedan, which was very uncommon in those days. It was like a swimming pool blue color and was small. It struck me as a clown car, with him having to wedge himself in and out of it.

Gene was cool though. He was always joking around, doing goofy stuff like winking both eyes, making hen clicks while strutting like a chicken, and crap like that. But the coolest thing about Gene of all: He had the toys!

Gene was one of those guys who were always working on something. He had a motorcycle (Honda or Yamaha) and was alway tuning it to try to make it run better. When he would get it to where he thought it was running perfect he would go out and race it up and down the street, sometimes popping wheelies. Gene also had a Cushman three-wheeled truck, which was used by the Post Office back then in Fort Worth.

He had taken this thing and stripped it down, painting popular cartoon characters on the sides and back. Foghorn Leghorn, Casper, Daffy Duck, The Flintstones…They were all on there. On the front above the windshield, it proclaimed “HERE IT COMES!” and on the back top “THERE IT GOES!”. He would take the kids in the ‘hood for rides down to the store and we would just have a blast seeing the looks on peoples faces.

Gene also built everyone in the neighborhood skateboards. He had acquired quite a number of boards somewhere and then purchased the trucks to go with them. The trucks were metal and, unlike the later polyurethane wheels, were very rough and unforgiving. But hell, we had fun!

The thing that Gene was probably the best at was taking something and making it better, or just coming up with brilliant ideas at the spur of the moment. He taught us how to make go carts, kites, sleds, etc.

WHOA! Sleds? In Texas?

Yup, sleds in Texas! Being in north Texas we weren’t immune from snow and ice. It didn’t happen often but it did happen. White death would visit us about once every three years or so. It was always a joyous occasion when we did get snow. (Now that I live in Ohio, I just wonder WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?!) Of course it didn’t last long, so we had to make the best of it in short order. You can always tell when someone hasn’t seen much snow. They act like they know what they’re doing, but really don’t have a damned clue. Trust me, our snowmen were genetically defective and anatomically incorrect.

My first year on Thrall Court was welcomed with an ice storm. We had no idea what to do with ice except fall down and bust our ass, but we did do that with glee, inventing ways to fall down. When we weren’t actually trying to fall down, we would walk real funny…shuffling our feet and holding our arms out like a Penguin. Come to think of it I think Tommy Dunlap had a black coat on, unzipped with a white shirt underneath. Anyway, my brother and I slid on down to the Dunlap’s house and we were immediately confronted by Albert, who appeared to be way too excited about something. Albert informed us that we were going sledding! He took us into his garage and there was Gene, tinkering with an ironing board. I asked him what he was doing and Albert, hardly able to contain himself, said “He’s making us a sled!” I was looking at the ironing board and thinking, “Boy, Mrs. Dunlap is really gonna be pissed off when she gets home”.

Thrall Court was a fairly long street, about fifteen houses long from the beginning to the cul-de-sac at the end, and it was a slope from beginning to end. That slope got me into more trouble than anything else in the neighborhood.

We took the “Sled”, which we knick named “Perma Press One”, to the top o’ the hill and began our adventure. Me, My brother Jerry, and Albert loaded onto the board and off we went, using the legs of the ironing board for handles. It wasn’t until we were about midway through the ride that we realized we had no way of steering this thing. As we veered to the left we noticed a ’68 Catalina, one of the largest cars of that era, parked on the side of the road and approaching us at light speed (Metal + Ice = Supersonic Speed!). When we dove off ol’ Perma, we slid about fifty yards or so. Jerry and Albert ended up in a field to the right, while I ricocheted off the Pontiac, into a bush, finally coming to rest in a neighbor’s flower garden.

According to Jerry, they thought I was dead. Well, obviously, I wasn’t dead, but at that time I wished I were. I had just lay there for a minute, looking for the angels and completing the Rosary. When I didn’t see any angels and realized that I was in some amount of pain and my ass was freezing, I got to my feet and started walking back up the hill. About that time Jerry, Albert and Gene came running down and asked if I was alright. As I told them yes, I slipped on the ice, causing me to go down face first into the icy road, resulting in a bloody nose and a cut lip. They decided to carry me the rest of the way before I could kill myself or somebody else.

Alas, the legend of Terry Barton, the one who would conquer any challenge or be maimed trying, was born. At six years old I had faced death and won…But that was the last time in my life I went sledding on fucking ice without a football uniform on.

I don’t really remember too much of anything about Stop Six except for the immediate area around our house. There was a service station of some kind next door to the west, Boswell Nursery just to the east. Across Rosedale was Amanda Street, with a small shopping center on one corner. In that shopping center there was a barber shop, and the only reason I can remember that is because there was a shooting one night where the proprietor was shot in the wrist during a robbery. I also remember the huge twin power plants about 5 miles east of our house, known as the Handley power station. They were probably ten stories high and had a rather large neon “Reddy Kilowatt” on the side of one of the towers.

We had a nanny even though we weren’t rich. Her name was Hilda and she lived up on Amanda Street, in the projects. She was an older black woman, I would say at least in her sixties. She was a part of the family in a way, always around to watch my brother Jerry and I.

My parents weren’t prejudiced, although most white folks back then were. It was the age of civil rights and there was a lot of animosity between the races. I do remember my mom and dad saying “Nigger”, but I guess that was just the way of the times. They never showed any hostility towards blacks or Mexicans unless they were just plain useless. Later in life I would have this confirmed by the fact that both my parents had friends who were black and Mexican. They treated them just like anyone else.

They had a special word for blacks who made trouble or were hostile. They liked to refer to them as “Jiggaboos”, and illegal Mexicans they referred to as “Wetbacks”, which was in reference to them swimming across the Rio Grande to enter the country illegally.

The neighborhood was somewhat rough from what I can remember. In fact, every area I grew up in down in Texas was rough to one degree or another. Back in the 70′s most of the east side of Fort Worth was predominantly black, or as the folks back then called it, “Colored” When my twin brother and I were 5, we moved from Stop 6 to Poly, just up the road to the west. The Boswells had sold the property to an oil company, and the oil company in return tore the house down, cleared the property and stored their containers there. But moving to and living in Poly later on probably defined my personality and character more that anything else.

My parents were caretakers for old man Boswell, of the Boswell Nursery. He lived in the big house and my parents lived above the garage, rent free in return for their caretaking. Mr Boswell died sometime before I had any recollections of living in the apartment, so I would say probably about ’67 or ’68. Once Mr. Boswell passed away, we all moved into the big house owned by the Boswell family.

I very vaguely remember Lyman Boswell, the old man’s son, making many visits to our house. I don’t know how he and my parents came to know each other, but they were close friends. I am pretty sure that Lyman made sure our family was well taken care of, probably in gratitude of taking care of his dad.

The house we lived in was an older house, with a full-length front porch and an enclosed back, in the style of a Florida room. My family would spend many days and evenings on that back porch. We had no air conditioning, so the porch was a natural gathering place during the hot Texas summers. I can remember having small get-togethers at the house, with everyone congregating on the back porch . My dad would have a beer and would sit out there and make hot sauce, wearing rubber gloves to protect his hands from the heat of the Habenaro peppers he would cut. I can also remember the yard we had. It was rather large, especially in the back, with a field of Johnson grass at the very back which led to the train tracks a few hundred yards away.

My dad was a truck driver, working for Foremost Ice Cream and my mom was what is referred to now as a stay at home mom. Now, being good Texas boys, my brother and I would find nine ways to hell to create havoc around the house. We always knew somehow that whatever hell we raised would be punished by mom to some degree of harshness in the short term, but paid back ten-fold when daddy got home. As this story unfolds, keep in mind that what we consider child abuse nowadays was normal punishment in the 70′s down in Texas. To this day, Texas leads the nation in the carrying out of the death penalty, and I truly believe this is no coincidence. Punishment usually consisted of just being yelled at all the way up to the switch.

The switch is a simple device, created by God and used by mortals to instill fear in boys all across the Lonestar state and beyond. I’ve actually heard of “Switch Sightings” from as far away as West Virginia!

It was an ingenious invention by the Almighty, consisting of one very green thin branch from a bush or tree, thinner than a pencil and as long as a yardstick. It was very flexible, which in the world of physics means the design ensures maximum velocity at the point of impact. It whistled as it approached your ass, giving you a nanosecond of warning before the blinding pain let you know that God really does believe in “An eye for and eye…”.

As a four year old, you want to show that you can carry adult responsibilities and perform tasks that would prove your worthiness to your parents. I don’t remember too much of any responsibilities I may have had at that age, but there was one task that I was very fond of, and that was getting the mail from the mailman at the end of the driveway. I relished performing this task, to the point of being obsessive-compulsive. I would use the position of the midday sun as my clock,, kinda like the Romans, and would dutifully go to the driveway and await the postman. Day after day I was the “Sentinel of the Driveway”. And yes, I will take credit for being the creator of OCD.

One day while playing out back in the scorching hot Texas sun, my brother and I were finding new ways to wreak havoc on our little corner of Stop Six when I realized that it was past time, according to my sun-clock, to pick up the mail. Now, mom usually would yell for me to let me know that the mailman was coming up the driveway so I could meet him and get my daily parcels. It was a ritual as time-honored as the Holy Communion.

As I walked to a good vantage point in the back yard where I was able to see the driveway, I froze dead in my tracks: The mail truck was already turned around and headed back towards Rosedale.

I ran to the front of the house, checked the box only to find it empty, and then went inside. I must have had quite a look on my face, because the first thing out of mom’s mouth was, “Honey, I yelled for you but you didn’t answer”.

What happened next will be embedded in my mind until the day that I die.

As I welled up in tears, I blurted out “You Piss-ant!” This was a favorite expression of my mom’s, a derogatory phrase usually used in place of ‘You sonofabitch’.

As the words left my mouth I realized that I was in some deep shit, another one of my moms favorite expressions. At least I didn’t compound my predicament by blurting that out too.

Now, the best way to finish this story is to tell it from my brothers point of view.

According to Jerry, he was by now on the back porch playing when he heard my blunder. He immediately heard the front screen door fly open as my mom yelled “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

In a about ten seconds he observed me running around the back side of the house, with my mom about fifty paces behind me. As I left his field of view, my mom would go by. About another thirty seconds and here I came again. Then mom. Terry, mom, Terry, mom, etc. This went on for about ten laps or so until it was just me, no more mom. Although she was no longer behind me, I kept making laps. For Christ’s sake, I was running for my life!

In the grand scheme of life, the old saying is oh so true. Age and wisdom will always overcome youth and treachery.

Mom knew she couldn’t keep pace with me for long because of her advanced age (She was in her forties), but she also knew that I had to eat sometime. I eventually broke down and, hoping she had cooled down enough to discuss this issue like an adult, went in the house.

Now, remember the way cool invention by God designed to instill fear and blinding pain? Well, the Almighty watched on, pleased with his creation, as it was put to good use.

When daddy got home at about 5:30, not a word was said. Either my mom felt that my punishment was enough or she wanted me to be able to sit down at dinner for the next few weeks. Either way, I felt lucky and relieved.

That was the last time I ever called my mom a piss-ant, or anything else for that matter. She gained my respect that day, and I knew that I was on a short leash with my tongue. But my mouth, even though it wouldn’t be directed at her, would rise up and spew forth other problems. The switch would also be right there to right the wrong…