Ronnie Dee--Friends And Neighbors

Friends And Neighbors

Ronnie Dee

My next door neighbors, Randy and his younger brother, Ray were always in trouble. I think Randy was a psychopath. His view of crime was: there is nothing wrong with it as long as you don't get caught. The police knew them as well as me. One humorous incident happened one night about 2:00 am after Randy and I had been out stealing hubcaps. I had just about gone to sleep when there was a pounding on the door. I could see immediately that it was the police.

I wondered, "How did they catch us so quickly?" So I jumped out of bed, pulled on my pants and bolted out the back door, passing my grandmother as she headed for the front door. I went over the back fence and hid in some bushes. The cops were there for a while and I could hear them arguing with Randy. Then they just left.

I then returned to the house and mom asked, "Where did you go?"

I told her, "I was hiding out back." .

"Why, what did you do?" she guardedly inquired.

"Nothing mom, but you know how the police are. I didn't want to get accused of something I didn't do," I explained.

They actually had been looking for Randy in the first place. Our houses were only eight feet apart. They told him a man called them about his hubcaps being stolen. He said the cops told him that the man pleaded, "They drove right by my house with my hubcaps on their car!"

True. We had put them on my car and we saw the guy as we drove by, but he couldn't identify the car and Randy had taken the caps off when we got home and put them in his backyard. I had heard him tell the policemen, "If you're going to arrest me, go ahead or I am going back to bed."

So the cops left and we all went back to bed.

Randy and Ray got into a fight one year and crashed through their front door glass on Christmas Eve and another year they went to Bernheim Forest, not far from Louisville, and chopped down a tree because the top looked like it would make a good Christmas tree. They got caught. Another time Ray shot Randy in the mouth with a BB gun and the BB lodged in his cheek forever. They both had continuing problems with the law throughout the years, and of course, Randy accidently shot and killed some kid years later.

My buddy, Jack, lived across the street and down two houses, on the left side of the alley. We faced the backyards of the houses facing River Park Drive.

The guys and I thought for sure the man living next door to Jack was a communist spy. "He looked like a communist," we all agreed. He was short and chubby with a bald head and mustache. He always wore a dress shirt and vest when he went to his basement and fooled around with an enormous cb radio set. We would watch through the window and shake his tall antenna vigorously trying to upset his communications.

This was, I might add, right in the midst of the popular TV program, "I Led Three Lives." It was about an FBI agent, Herb Philbrick, who went undercover, exposing "commie" spies.

Our man was a standoffish guy and we knew very little about him. It was scary. I don't know why it was scary, but it just was. We thought about calling the FBI, but we were afraid of what he might do if he found out it was us who turned him in. We spent way too much time one summer worrying about him. We somehow got over the Red Scare and went about our lives.

The Downs lived on the corner to our right and next door to them lived the girls, Shirley and Babe. Bud lived on the street to our left, Del Park Terrace and Bobby Joe lived a few doors up from him. The Professor lived on River Park Drive, a few doors down from 35th. Up was toward downtown and down was toward Shawnee Park.

What great fun summers were. We drank milk all winter, but when spring arrived, we switched to iced tea. How cool was that. My sister and Jack's older sister hung out together and there was usually a gaggle of older boys hanging around our house and their bikes would line the sidewalk.

That was another perk about having a pretty, older sister. The older guys wouldn't pick on you. I enjoyed many a free soda or milkshake from guys pumping me for info about my sister. They wanted me to "put in a good word" for them and I would say, "OK," but I never did. I knew where my loyalties lay. I would tip her off about the guy, but that was all.

But there was one time, I guess I was about ten, I went to the corner drugstore hangout and the soda jerk tried to show off for his friends and he threw me out of the door for no reason. He caught me off guard and I fell down and badly sprained my wrist. It hurt like Hell and I went home crying, my wrist all swollen up.

My sister immediately charged out the door and went to the drugstore. She confronted the guy who hurt me, and although only half his size, she backed him up against the wall and gave him what-for. He apologized profusely and almost cried. He didn't feel like a hot shot tough guy anymore. Needless to say, he never bothered me again. His friends thought it was a hoot.

My sister, Doris Lee and I rarely had any disagreements. She and Jim, my great brother-in-law, raised three children: Rick (J. R. Jr.), the minister and a good guy, who married Donna and me (Ronald Lee); the ill-fated Mona Lee, a sweet girl who personified the middle child syndrome; and my namesake, Rhonda Lee, a school teacher, who was, and still is, always a delight to be around. We are from Kentucky, so a lot of people think we are named after Robert E., but no, we are named after our doctor, Lee Bunting, the guy who gave us our rabies shots. Where he got the Lee, I don't know.

Anyhow, my sister has a good sense of humor, as exhibited on one horrific occasion. She slipped on the ice one morning and bashed her face on the curb. She cut up her mouth and knocked out several teeth. As she was being released from the ER, all bruised and stitched and swollen up, she looked squarely at the doctor and solemnly inquired of the flabbergasted man, "Will I ever be able to play the trombone again?"

He just stared dumbfounded at her. "He was very stoic. He didn't have much of a sense of humor," she told me.

In our early to mid teens, Jack and I could usually be found on Shirley and Babe's front porch. Jack and Shirl would go for walks that covered miles. Babe and I went with them a few times and it about wore us out, so we would usually just stay behind and fool around. It was about time Jack and I found some girls who would put up with us, because we were getting goofier as time went along. One day we were talking about things they do in the movies and we got on the subject of spitting in somebody's face so, of course, we had to try it. I don't remember who went first, but one of us would say, "Why you, I oughta," and spit in the other guy's face.

We each honored the deed, laughing hysterically afterward, but we never did it again. My grandmother happened to witness the exchange and she came out onto the porch more concerned about our mental welfare than anything else when we explained it to her.

On my first official date with Babe, we rode a bus to the amphitheatre to see a horribly boring play about Abraham Lincoln and I spilled a milkshake on my new sports coat in Walgreens Drugstore on the way home. After we left the West End, I didn't see any of my friends until years later. I bumped into Babe at a local parade, ran into Dan one day downtown, and Donna and I saw Kenny Downs at the Louisville Zoo one afternoon.

Jack, who was a former lifeguard and excellent swimmer, got caught in a rip tide and drowned while visiting his sister in Jacksonville, Florida while still a young man, and after I got married, I just sort of lost touch with Bud and the Professor.

My old friend Marty, who was certifiable, but a great guy, died, as have most of my friends and compatriots. I often stayed at Marty's house when I cut school. He had shown me where they hid their door key. I never snooped around or bothered anything, I just read and watched TV, or took a nap. In 1956, about anything on TV was intriguing.

Marty was probably the most naturally funny guy I ever knew. When I did actually go to school, Marty and I pretty much shared the crown as number one class disruptors, spending a lot of time sitting outside in the hallways or right beside the teacher's desk. I liked sitting by the teacher's desk. I would be facing the class and could still wink at the girls and make faces when the teacher was speaking.

Besides Jack, we lost some more friends and family at a very young age. Donna's sister Beverly was 37, our musical family friends Tom Jacks and Hedy Hilburn were in their mid fifties, Greg Badgett was in his early twenties, Ed Adams was 58, Donna's good friends Sandy, was in her twenties and Barbara, was in her forties, Lee McCoo was in her forties, Bob McGlaun was 61 and Gene Shea was sixteen. Far too young, my friends.

My niece, Mona, had the first of a number of strokes at forty and was eventually unable to communicate or walk and lived in a nursing home the last twenty years of her life. Her husband tried to take care of her, but it was too much and he died in his early fifties.

Mona, as a wee child, once yelled at Uncle Kenny, who was ribbing her daddy Jim, about not being in the armed services because of a bad ear, "He was too! He was in the Boy Scouts!"

Mona was the rebel in that family and danced to her own tune. Speaking of dancing, I remember Mona as a young girl, making a big splash coming home from a dancing school rehearsal. As they were coming up the walk from the garage, Mona charged off, spinning her little umbrella and belting out, "Singing in the rain," and fell face first in the full kiddie pool.

Man, I didn't get married until I was forty. I had known my Donna for seven years at that time, but ended up enjoying nearly fifty years with her. Look what I would have missed if she would have died young like that. You see what I mean about being so lucky. But I still rue the fact that she could have had a few more years - she was 75. But then, it's always too soon.

Donna often rued the loss of our friends and I would tell her, "Well hon, it comes to the point where, either you miss them or they miss you. I prefer the former."

But with every friend you lose, it gets a little tougher.