I was born in Chicago,Illinois on November 6, 1949. As far back as I can remember, was when I was about 3 years old and I had another brother who's name was Frankie. He was my only full-brother that I had and we were so much alike. He was born December 9, 1950.
Anyway we were being raised by our grandparents for a few years. All the trouble we used to get into, would give any mother gray hair FAST!
MOM worked in Chicago for Motorola, and our grandparents lived in a small town called Fish Lake, IND. I guess you can say that our grandparents were our nannies at that time.
There was a time when people who lived in the community would invite families & friends in their massive Lake, for either a dip or swim.
My grandfather was a retired diver for the City of Chicago who used to work out on the crib. My uncle Charlie was working for the City of Chicago, and was one of the most decorated professional drivers to work for the sewer systems there.
One time my older half-brother (who's name is also CHUCK and 10 years my senior), would take me with him to some farm houses and steal rabbits from them. One time a farmer came out running after us. My brother CHUCKIE had picked me up by the arm so I could run faster. We had made it back an he dropped everyone off. We never did go out like that again.
I recall that one time Frankie & I went to the Lake to go swimming. Little did we know that we were in BIG trouble, without us looking for it. We all were picking up sand from the bottom of the lake and throwing it at each other. We were not supposed to do that. Next thing I heard was a bunch of people shouting & YELLING! "EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WATER!" So Frankie & I were still in there throwing sand at each other, and all of a sudden "BIG" brother was suppose to be watching us, was also YELLING back to us! "OK YOU GUYS IF YOU DO NOT COME OUT NOW! I'M GOING TO TELL YOUR MOTHER ABOUT IT, AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN!" So on that note Frankie rushed out of the lake, but I was running so hard and fast that I tripped on the shore and fell flat on my face and I will be the first one to admit that too. That sand in the mouth is NO GOOD!! Little did I know that the neighbors came over with boat oars and they started swinging & clubbing right behind me. I could actually feel the swishing of the oars right behind me. As I looked in back of me I saw that there was a Water Moccasin (Copperhead) snake (at least 5 feet long) right near my left leg! Thank God, one of the neighbors killed the snake, and soon after, fired up the Bar-B-que grill for that BIG sucker. He was a very, very nice man that I met sometime before. He bent down closer to me and then he asked me: "Son if you really want to have the first bite, I would be more than honored for you to have the first piece." That made me so nervous, that I made lemonade in my cut off blue jeans, and I decided to take my time going back to my grandparent's house. So I took the long way home, feeling embarrassed at this untimely dilemma.
By the time that I made it over there I had BIG welts all over my body. Shoulders, legs, back, & the chest area, 3rd degree burns from the sun on some of the burns. I also had welts on me that were BIGGER than nickles. Later I found out it was sun poisoning. I can remember that my grandmother used a whole bottle of BACTINE on it, and it really stunk to high hog heaven.
My grandparents had this black Labrador retriever his name was BLACKIE. He was like one of us. We had lots of fun doing things and going places with him. We had a riot with him. One time we were in the woods, and BLACKIE heard something in the woods. He took off like his butt was on fire. A few minutes later, he came back to us with a squirrel in his mouth. Frankie & I didn't know what to do, so we buried it in the ground and YELLED at BLACKIE for killing a poor animal. Blackie felt bad all that day, cause Frankie & I would just ignore him.
After a while my mother showed up with this new man that I had never seen before. So I being the oldest boy between Frankie & I went over to ask my mother who that other guy was after he had gone to the Trading Post to get some food. My mother said that he is your "father" LARRY! I was a bit leery as to who this man was. So MOM would just stay for the weekend, and head off to Chicago. My mother (I don't think) ever did know the pain that we were going through. So then we would be quiet for a while.
Then by the time LARRY came back from the Trading Post. Frankie & I would stay a clear distance from him, because he was a stranger to us.
A couple of weeks had passed by and MOM & LARRY had showed up again, and this time LARRY brought over a new swing set. It had 2 swings, a teeter totter, and a 5 foot high slide (for us that was big at the time). That kept us occupied for a while. I think that was when we had real confidence in this new man LARRY, and accepted him into our lives.
My grandmother had a long row of berry bushes of all sorts and a great big tree that grew Concord Grapes on it. So we used to get our tummies full of that all the time. That used to get our grandparents mad, and they would never hit or strike at us, but they used to scream at us whenever we did something wrong. So MOM & LARRY would leave there when Frankie & I went to bed. We were a very tight unit Frankie & I. I can say that we were more like twins, but we weren't we were 13 months apart.
A couple of weeks had passed and my grandparents went to the neighborhood BINGO one Saturday night and they left my older brother CHUCKIE to be our baby-sitter. So as soon as my grandparents left for BINGO, my older brother told us to be on our best behavior, that he was going to visit his girl~friend. I told him that we were going to watch SHOCK THEATER . It starred this spooky guy by the name of "MARVIN". They would show an old horror movies like : "The Mummy", "Frankenstein", "Invisible Man", as well as numerous "Wolfman" movies. There was this one movie that Frankie & I had never seen before. Our hearts were pumping, and there was a wee bit of a chill in the air, and we had no street lights. Just light that came from the moon. That was our only source of seeing in the darkness. Frankie & I were so huddled up, close to each other that you couldn't squeeze a fart between us. Hehehe! Finally we were watching this scary part where the "WOLFMAN" jumps out of the hedges and goes after somebody. Frankie & I were so much into this movie, that we both kicked each other in the leg, and we ran through the house, screaming & YELLING our foolish heads off. The more that we screamed the more terrified we became. After a while we took it out to the street. Bill & Mary (our neighbors) came out in their gowns & robes to try to catch one of us and then Mary gave us candy to try to settle us down somewhat. After we calmed down we saw our grandparents coming up the drive, and that is when reality set in. I knew that we were in for it, but I thought that if they heard our side of this story that they would have pardoned us for doing what we did. It didn't work! Grandmother told us that we should have never ran out into the street with just our underwear on and for scaring everyone else for it. Then after we got the low down from grandmother, we soon learned a valuable lesson from my grandfather. He took off his belt and spanked us for doing that. I don't know what happened to Chuckie, but we heard it from him too.
