Crawling through the dirt under the lilacs branches, from behind the leaves I could glimpse Patty Mathew catching the summer sun. Patty was the only other person in my neighborhood who did not have wrinkles around her smile. Still in her teens, she was every boy's dream. That girl next door who had that air about her. Even at five I could sense that special air about her - she also had great legs. Laying on a blanket in her two piece swimsuit, she was well worth the scratches from the lilac branches and the bug bites. Music from her transistor radio was about boys standing on a corner watching the girls go by. With dark sunglasses, she was one of those girls boys watched go by but would never say “hi” to. The hot summer sun made me retreat to the cool shade of our apple tree. Major, my dog, sat watching me hoping I'd toss the ball his way. Patty's music came through the lilac leaves as I took one more peek through the irises.
Her Uncle Ray would always tell her I was there watching, but Patty didn't care, as she continued to collect the rays. Her Uncle Ray lived upstairs from Patty in his own apartment. As a stutterer, he was hard to understand at the time, sometimes the words got so stuck he'd give up, leaving his thoughts to die. The story is he was hit in the head with a baseball and he stopped learning at age ten and started stuttering. That happened long before I was born.
Patty and her Uncle Ray were part of the tapestry of my youth. A tapestry woven with adventure and the people of childhood. Thoughts of Patty brought out the bright colors while memories of Mr. and Mrs. Fromheart, even though they lived over on the other side of the block, brought out the darker colors. Four houses away they could be heard fighting by everyone. The last I remember of Mr. Fromheart was watching him, from my new friend's yard, shooting at Mrs. Fromheart and chasing her around the outside of their house. Mom could not explain that one like she explained all the others in my tapestry. Like why we sang Happy Birthday to so many of the neighbors. Mr. Besch hung himself when I was six, later that year we took a cake to Mrs. Besch and sang Happy Birthday to her. Mom never would have told me Mr. Besch had hung himself, I just remember Mrs. Besch yelling from their upstairs window "Jack hung himself!" and all the women in the neighborhood ran to help her. Mr. Besch brought Indigo Blue to my tapestry, highlighting the pale pinks and golds of Patty.
