Summer of "63

     Mom was feeling very nurturing and had joined a woman's group at the PILLSBURY CENTER that was located down the block from our house. We had a really good time going to family camp with her.
      Our neighborhood was changing, hippies were starting to hang out in the 7 corners area. and Mom was pregnant again! Dad didn't seem like he was too upset this time and I remember he was even excited that this time could be a boy. Dad was so busy working 2 jobs. He would do that often.
    Some days Barb and I would go to the corner park to play, then we didn't need to worry about being safe because everyone watch us kids. Well, everyone except the scary BUM with the large chain around his neck, he must have been an old train bum, but he really scared us. Linda, Judy and Cindy went looking for him one afternoon because he threatened to hurt Barb and I. After they talked to him,  he never talked to us again. I don't think I even seen him again after that.
     Mom and dad had to move to a bigger place. They found a place across the street from the old South High off Cedar Ave. the football field was right behind our house.
     We watched football games for free and Barb was able to go to South for a science program for kids in Preschool and Kindergarten. Barb loved to capture bugs and she would keep them in jars like lots of kids do, however the science teacher heard about some of the things she had and bought them from her because I guess some were pretty rare.
     A family moved in next door to us, mom became fast friends of the mom, her name was Retha.
     They also had a large family. Next to them was an older couple who had lived on a farm and moved to the city. And then there was another family that I remember that had 2 daughters mine and Barbs age.
     We had so much fun that summer and then sometimes I think it was one  of the scariest summers of my life, except for the night in the old neighborhood when Renee's sister was murdered in the hall way of their duplex, her sister had left her boyfriend, she was white and he was black, he had been abusive and she tried to leave him many times, this was another night. He wasn't going to let her go, she went to her mothers house and he broke the door down and shot her, Mom was walking Barb and I home from, someplace and we had to go passed all the police and when I looked to where I heard people crying I saw blood everywhere, mom hurried us home and then dad watched us while mom went back to see what she could do. That was a night I will never forget.
    SO ...anyway, that summer was funny we played hide and go seek with the neighbors, Barb was getting tired of playing the normal way so she talked me into asking Vernon, the boy next door to hide in the washer. so I did. Then she said, "Jeannie wouldn't it be funny to have Vernon hide in the dryer. No body will find him there." So I went to Vernon," Hey Vern, let's go hide in our back porch and you can hide in the dryer, nobody will find you..I would but my mom said I can't but you can she didn't tell you not to." Barb's idea worked he answered," Yeah ok, don't tell anyone where I am".
   "We won't!!" Barb and I said at the same time.
     Barb was so excited Vernon climbed in and then Barb TURNED ON THE DRYER!!!! we both laughed uncontrollably and all you could hear was a large THUMP! THUMP! and you could hear a few noises  from inside the dryer.
     "What in God's name is that noise?" my mom was asking as she came out of the house, "What did you kids put in the dryer?" "Vernon" I answered.
       "VERNON!?" mom yelled as she pulled the door open and Vern came out sweaty and dizzy. He fell to the ground. " Barbie, did you put him in there?" mom was trying to get a very dizzy and sickly Vernon to focus, " Look at me ...Look at me Vern are you ok?" mom kept talking.
    " He climbed in himself, Jeannie told him to," Barbie answered, Vernon Stood up and smiled," Can I do that again? That was fun." he finally answered. Mom was very angry now, you could see it in her eyes, ( we always told her she had Betty Davis eyes) when she had that look you knew you were in deep trouble and RUN! Do I need to say we never did that again. Vernon had to go home.
     Summer was over and mom and dad decided I could go to Kindergarten I went to Irving elementary school, Barb was told where to pick me up, I went to the wrong door and I couldn't find her, I went back in  and the principal asked my name," I can't tell you, my mom told me not to talk to strangers," I started to cry. "We need to know your name honey  so we can take you home," they kept saying. "Do you have a sibling here at school?" I just cried harder, I didn't know what a sibling was.
So they had to call the police and when they got there they asked my name, "Jeannie Terwey, my sister Barbie left me." I cried. One of them picked me up in his big arms and took me to the counter, he called my mom and told her I was safe and that they would be bringing me home. And had I told them before who I was I would have been home sooner, but because I was told not to talk to strangers they couldn't figure it out. My dad thought maybe I was to young to go to school, after all I was still just 4, but they let me go back. I waited for Barb at the right door from then on.
       And...I got a spanking from my teacher a few days later for rolling my nap mat up too soon, when I KNEW she tapped me with her foot on the top of my head and she said she didn't tap me at all.The boy next to me got a spanking too, for not waiting to get tapped as well. I think her foot must have accidentally hit my head and she didn't know it, oh well..it made us better in the end.