Shortly after my family moved from next door to Mr. and Mrs. Rolley to another small town in southern Illinois; I met a person who would be my best friend for many years. His name was "Zeke." Zeke wasn't his real name of course. He didn't like his real name because his dad had the same name and Zeke and his dad got along like hot grease and water. One day out of the blue someone called him 'Zeke'. He liked the name so much it stuck. Zeke and I hit it off right away and were like two peas in a pod. We liked the same things, chased the same women when we got older, and even fought with each other over the least little thing, but we never stayed angry with each other for very long and it wouldn't be long before we would be best buddies again. We were wild and carefree kids by nature and didn't care who knew it or liked it. It seemed like most of the young people liked us well enough because we were never without company for very long. I can't say the same for the older generation because they never knew what we would do next. My parents generation called us "rebels" and "hell on wheels" an "accident waiting to happen".

When things became mundane in our little town which was most of the time, Zeke would go to great pains to create some excitement. This often resulted in his dad receiving a late night phone call telling him, "Zeke did this", or "Zeke did that", "you need to come down here and get him before he gets into real trouble." His dad would crawl out of bed and go get Zeke, take him home, whip his butt, and tell him not to do whatever it was that Zeke did that time. The older generation couldn't see it, but the only problem Zeke had was he believed life was his castle, and he lived every waking moment of his life filling every room with laughter and joy. This sometimes irritated my parents generation because they had forgotten they had once did the same kinds of things. Now that they were older and past the fun stage of their life, they had become critics of his antics instead of enjoying the pranks he would do.

Zeke may have been funny to our generation, a headache to my parents generation, but to me he was a great teacher in his own right. He may not have known he was teaching those of us who were observers of people and studied why people do the things they do. I learned from Zeke that you don't have to settle for the better off forgotten mundane things life throws your way. With a little creativity on your part you can grab the bulls in life by the horns so to speak and change any situation into a meaningful experience that will be long remembered by your family and friends. OTBP

As a youth I lived in many of the small towns that dot the map of southern Illinois and in one of those small towns our next door neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Rolley. I was about seven years of age when we first moved in next door to them. Mr. and Mrs. Rolley didn't have any children of their own, but they loved children very much. I would spend almost as much time at their house during the warm summer days as I would at our home. Mrs. Rolley loved to bake and she did so quite frequently. I was a little blond haired, brown eyed, rascal of a boy, but Mrs. Rolley loved me dearly and on 'baking day' I could smell the sweet aroma of her freshly baked pies gently wafting on the light breeze of those lazy summer days. She would sit them on the window sill to cool and after a short while I would hear her calling my name to come over. When Mrs. Rolley baked pies she always baked a little cinnamon pie crust coated with sugar just for me. I loved those cinnamon and sugar pie crust and still do today. As I sit here writing this short story about Mr. and Mrs. Rolley - in the deep recesses of my mind I can still hear Mrs. Rolley sweet voice calling me to come over to her house on baking day and the aroma of her freshly baked pies and that little cinnamon and sugar pie crust that she made with loving hands for a little blond haired rascal infiltrate my memory senses.

 It was while living next door to Mr. and Mrs. Rolley that I first learned to ride a bicycle. It was also there that I lost my two front teeth to a big tree in our front yard because I didn't know how to stop the bicycle using the brakes and slammed into the tree to stop it before I ran through the fence that surrounded Mr. and Mrs. Rolley's pig pen. It was also there that I learned pigs will eat coal. This didn't set too well with my father after he learned I was throwing the coal he used to heat our home with in the winter time over into the pig pen for Mr. Rolley's pigs to eat. It was also there that my older brother and I scared the crap out of my little brother so badly by imitating bull sounds and thrashing noises in the woods that he two and one half years younger than I took off at a dead run for home to get away from the bull that wasn't there and dove head first through two strands of a barbed wire gate without touching either strand of barbed wire. My brother and I laughed so hard we could have cried, but crying wouldn't have been manly even to us boys. It was also there that I learned just how strong and hard my daddy's hand of correction was after he learned what my older brother and I did to the younger one.

It was there next door to the Rolley's that I learned how to make a sling shot and shoot a bow and arrow, make our own kites to fly, bait my own hook and hog fish down in the creek just below their house. It was also there that I learned you could catch a black snake by the tail and twirl it around your head in bull whip fashion - snap it sharply - and the snake's head would fly off. It was there that I learned you cannot catch a pitch before the batter hits the ball. I still have a scar on the crown of my head from the piece of wood we were using for a bat to prove it. I also learned I bleed pretty easy and my mother didn't appreciate having to take me to the doctor to be stitched up and leave the other children at home while doing so. It was there I experienced a death in the family when my brother eight years older than I lost his wife and baby in childbirth. She was diabetic and knew she could possibly die if she got pregnant, but she chose to try and bring a baby into the world anyway. I don't think my brother ever completely got over losing her and the baby at such a young age. He joined the Army a short time thereafter "to help him focus on other things", he said. But I really think he joined the Army to get away from the memories and the home they shared together.

The three years we lived beside Mr. and Mrs. Rolley were filled with many wonderful experiences and I wouldn't change any of them even for a million dollars. I don't have to tell you I was greatly saddened the day mom and dad told us we were moving to yet another small town. But, I have since learned that kids are resilient and rebound quickly from bad news. After the move I didn't get to see Mr. and Mrs. Rolley much, but my world was expanding even though I didn't realize it at the time and a whole new group of people and experiences were waiting for me - just three miles down the road. OTBP

I grew up in America during a time when families were large and most every family had four or more children. That was in a bygone age before abortion became legal and the family shrunk to less then two children per family. According to present day national statistics there are now 1.11 children per family in America not counting the illegal immigrants that are swamping our country and keeping that magic number of children at 2.1 per household that is needed for a country to survive another fifty years. In my particular family there were nine children and I was eighth in the birth order. Back then every mother I knew with the exception of a few who were teachers or secretaries worked in her home caring for her family. I was fortunate that my mother worked in the home.

I called our home, "Mom's University" because that is where each of her nine children received their education in manners, responsibility, and how to treat others. It was during the evening meal and around our supper table that most of mom's teaching took place because that was the time of day when every family member was present. No one in our family missed supper and the time mom spent teaching her children right from wrong. My mother didn't have a teaching degree or a PhD in Education like most people must have today to prove they are qualified to teach in their field of expertise, but she was the smartest person I knew. Where did my mother get her unique teaching abilities? At her mother's knee, just like her mother had before her. Back then family values were passed down from one generation to the next. Mother's didn't depend upon public television to teach their children how to read, count, or share. They took that responsibility upon themselves and the older children assisted them.

I took my daughter on a trip back through time last Father's Day and visited all the houses I lived in during my childhood that were still standing. After visiting the last one, I asked her, "Did you find any one thing all of these houses had in common?" She was quick to tell me, "They were all very small." Which was true. I never lived in a big house during my childhood. Most houses were small and families were close back then. No one I knew had their own room to escape to if we didn't like what was on the radio or television. We went outside and invented a game to play to keep ourselves amused. We didn't have air conditioning to cool the house in the summer, or a thermostat to turn up the heat in the winter if the house was too cold. Most people didn't have indoor plumbing, they had a number three wash tub to bathe in and when nature called we used an outdoor privy some fifty feet from the house. Somehow we all managed to survive our meager surrounding and grow up to become responsible adults. In the summer we went barefoot and wore shorts and took our baths in the local swimming hole and no one thought we were strange. And on those long winter nights we slept three to a bed to stay warm - and on the really cold nights we added another blanket or two on the bed to ward off the cold wind that blew through the cracks between the weather boarding. The next day we added an extra layer of clothing before we went outdoors to play or do our chores.

We were tough kids and patriotic to the bone. We loved to fight, baseball, and mom's apple pie. We were taught to be respectful and on parade days when the American flag went by we stood up straight and watched it until it turned the corner out of sight. We respected our teachers and recited the Pledge of Allegiance everyday before classes began in classrooms where we were taught how to think for ourselves. Every boy owned a GI Joe toy soldier, a cap pistol and holster, and a BB gun. We didn't shoot out too many of our friends eyes with them and the whippings we received on our little behinds with those willow branches off the tree in the yard did nothing to harm our little egos. We were America's youth and damm proud of it! OTBP