Flashback Friday #65

Goodbye to the Butcher Boys, Hello new neighbors.

Hello, Welcome to another edition of Flashback Friday. In today's edition, we cover the topic of having a good friend move away. We had lots of neighbors, but the Butcher boys were the little brothers that I never had, and now they were leaving.

I came home from school one day and started my chores. About and hour and a half later, I heard Doug & Billy's bus (since I was now in Jr. High, my bus ran earlier than theirs, seeing that they were still in Elementary). Giving them enough time to do any homework, I went over to their house.

When they greeted me at the door, they dropped the bombshell on me. Their dad had put an offer on a house in Marengo, and it was accepted. they would be moving shortly. They were excited, me not so much.

Having only an older brother who's sole purpose in life was to torment me, I liked having younger "brothers" to play with. They never thought something was "only for little kids". It was going to be quite an adjustment without them around.

After they moved, the house they rented sat vacant for a few months. I saw, one day, that someone was moving in, but I couldn't see who. It was winter and cold, so I figured if there were kids, I would see them eventually.

One day Dad came in with a strange girl. He had seen the new family (The Pershing's) and stopped to talk to them. This girl had told him that she had seen a boy (me) out burning the trash one day. Dad told her that he would introduce us. I found out that there wasn't just a girl, but four of them. The oldest (Pauline) was my age. The next oldest, Tess, (who Dad introduced me to ) was two years younger than me. Next in line was Trina who was five years younger. The youngest girl, Samantha (or Sammy) was seven years younger. The youngest, at three years old broke tradition. He was a boy named Bert.

Now as disappointed as I was in losing the Butcher boys as neighbors, this new bunch was quite intriguing. Being in Jr. High, I had started noticing girls, and these new neighbors were cute. Not only were they cute, but they were tomboys who could climb trees with the best of them. Things weren't as bad as I had thought.

I still visited Doug & Bobby Butcher whenever Sir Gattabout knew that their aunt would be in. She lived in Columbus, but she liked him, and he liked her, so she came up as often as possible. Since we no longer saw each other at school, and I only saw them whenever my brother felt like taking me along to visit "his girl", we lost the closeness that we had when we were at each other's house every day. More to come in future posts about the adventures with the Pershing girls.