7-2-12 on Julie's Birthday, confessions of childhood

Today is Julie's birthday. Julie is my second oldest friend, since 1973 when we were next door neighbors on Kirkdale. I was 10210, she was 10214. This is me sitting on her porch waiting for her to come home.

We moved into our 10210 house on Kirkdale before I turned 2. Our neighbor to our right (facing the house) was Mrs. Peters, who seemed ancient to me. She was so nice and had a little poodle dog that would bark and growl her little heart out when I would come inside. Our neighbors to the right were the Choate family, who had two kids, Jerry and Julie. Julie was my age. On the other side of Julie's house, was the Flower's home. Their youngest (I think?) daughter Shelley was one year older than us. And to the right of Shelley was Sissy, who was a year younger than Julie and I. The fabulous foursome lived side-by-side for the next four years, which isn't terribly long in adult time, but for a little kid, it's an eternity. These were our pre-school years when we had nothing to do for long stretches of the day.

I remember playing in Julie's house more than the other two girls. There were a couple of toys she had that I couldn't get enough of playing with: the playskool take-apart car and the Fisher Price Little People garage. I'm guessing these were once her older brother, Jerry's toys that had been handed down as he outgrew them, but they were awesome. Julie and I were close enough in age and different enough in that I was an only child and she'd been forced to share with her brother her whole life, that we got into quite a few arguments over who was going to get to take apart that car. I remember sitting down to have sandwiches for lunch and telling her mom I would just like butter on bread, despite the peanut butter and jelly sitting out on the table. We didn't eat that at my house. So she butters the bread for me, hands it over, at which point I begin to pick off the crust before each bite. I remember looking up at her standing over me, shocked and appalled. I was told the crust was the most nutritious part of the bread and that I should eat all of it. It occurred to me, that must be why it tasted so nasty. 

One of my keenest memories of getting into trouble with Julie was on a hot summer day when we'd been in the yard in our swimsuits playing in the sprinkler. We'd gotten bored and one of us, though I can't remember who, owned a big yellow smiley face keychain. And on the end of that keychain was a single key from who knows where, unlocking who knows what. Being four, bored, and under the impression keys could unlock anything they wanted, we jammed that sucker into the driver's door of her family's VW Beetle parked in the driveway. I don't know if the plan was to then jam it into the ignition and make our great escape or if there was just something in the back seat we thought we needed to cure our boredom. The panic set in once the key neither turned the lock, nor came out of the door, regardless of how hard we yanked at that thing. Julie was, understandably, more upset than I was -- she was the one who had to go in to tell her mother what we'd done. I don't remember what happened after that, probably because her mom came out, removed the key, and hit the private lecture circuit, reserved exclusively for four year olds named Julie and Tori. Or perhaps it was because I'd run like a chicken back to my house.

Clearly, I had a thing for locks at that age. Another clear memory is being four on Christmas afternoon and bored out of my skull. All the adults at my house were napping or sitting around talking and telling boring stories, like I'm doing now. So I set out for Sissy's house. (Julie and Shelley weren't home.) For some reason, completely bewildering to me then as now, when I got to the front door, I had the idea I was simply to turn the knob and walk inside. I told you: bored out of my skull. It causes temporary brain damage. So I turned the knob, and it wouldn't open. Instead of coming to my senses and realizing "This is not my house. The door is locked. I should ring the doorbell or knock" I simply attacked that front door knob with fearless ferocity. That thing was going to turn, damn it! I'm not sure how long I twisted and turned before Sissy's dad opened the door, probably with a baseball bat behind his back, I'll never be sure, thinking they were getting burgled. My four year old self remembers quite clearly the slacked jawed look upon his face when he caught sight of the perpetrator. I also remember scanning the interior of the living room and dining area behind and seeing quite a number of adults (Sissy's boring adults) sitting around the table, all wearing exactly the same expression as her dad. It was about this time that it dawned on me I was not standing at my own door, and that it was probably best to explain that I'd come looking to see if Sissy could play. Not wanting his daughter associating with an obviously criminal mind (or stupid one, take your pick) he told me to go home, that Sissy could not play today. She was probably being held hostage by boring adults, or taking a nap. I recall tromping back across the three lawns to my house hot-faced and embarrassed, mixed with rage that I had to go back to being bored alone at my house for the rest of the day.  I am pretty certain I did not admit to the inadvertent burglar alarm I'd caused down the street and this may be the first time my parents have even heard about it. Unless Sissy's dad called...