When I was about eight years old, I started walking home from school because the bus (Number 18) was slow and boring and the bus was crowded with bullies....big kids that liked to throw my books out the window and laugh while I tried to get them out of one of the briar patches that lined the road, or smack me until my nose bled. As I remember it now, I would join a gang of kids that walked from the school up the old railroad track. I was the smallest kid in the bunch and usually struggled to keep up. There was a big kid named Forrest Lee that sort of led us as we walked the rails and jumped from crosstie to crosstie. The big kids would smoke and spit and tell jokes that I didnt understand but I tried very had to be one of the gang. Back then, there was a trustle (spelling) that crossed Scotts Creek where it joined Cope Creek, and it was always a little scary to walk across the crossties over the water which was deep at this point. There was a kind of huge sinkhole there and the water the water swirled in a circle and was always filled with spinning trash and mud. Forrest Lee was always talking about jumping from the trustle into the sinkhole, but he only dropped bottles and trash into it and watched them disappear. We would all gather and watch stuff disappear in the sinkhole and speculate on where it went and what was at the other end of the sinkhole. I dont know why I did it, but one day, I elbowed my way to the point above the sinkhole and bragged that I would jump into the sinkhole for a quarter. Things got quiet and suddenly Ronnie Stewman said, I got a nickle. They took up money and when they had twenty-five cents, mostly pennies, they gave them to Forrest Lee who poured them into my hand. I didnt hesitate. I jumped and it was pretty scary. I stopped sinking and just hung there in the dark mud below the surface. I had never learned to swim, but I wallowed there in the dark until I found a tree root and pulled myself up on the bank. Ronnie later told me that I looked like a chili-dog, totally covered with mud. I got up and slogged along the bank until I found a path back to the railroad track. That crowd of kids just stood and stared at me and they they all walked past me and on up the railroad track. Forrest Lee shook his head and stared at me like I bewildered him. I said, Well, I didnt do it for the money. Forrest Lee said, No, you did it because you are crazy, and they he walked off. The next day, I went back to riding the bus.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:56:23 +0000