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New friends Brad and Mathew lived in the same town as the apartment.
New friend Tim lived in my home town.
And then there was another new friend, a 'John'. He was a year older
than me and lived a couple houses down from the apartment on the way
to the back of the town hall where the school buses would meet.
After the first couple of months making the morning walk to the bus
waiting area, it was obvious seeing him take the same walk a bit
before me or a bit after me. One day it was pretty much at the same
time as me and so we walked together and chatted. He was a friendly
boy also interested in a new friend near his home and that was that.
He visited my apartment a few times, I visited his home a few times,
but mostly we'd meet to roam the surrounding woods and chat.
Still, there were the old home town friends as well and I don't know
if it was my mother or me that came up with the idea that, since I
had the spare bed in my room and it was too far to drive for just an
afternoon visit, how about an overnight visit much like I was doing
overnight visits to dad's house during the week. It was thought best
to do these for Friday/Saturday where there was no worry of homework
that needed to be done and it provided most of the following day for
visiting and play. Once this plan was settled on, the first person I
invited was Pete. Despite the fact that he had become distant at
school, I was hoping the overnighter would mend fences.
He accepted and rode the bus to the apartment town with me after
school. The branch grocery store was open into the evening on
Fridays and so my mother worked late and then had to spend sometime
with Joe after closing hours for stuff, so we pretty much had
unsupervised free time from the walk to the apartment after the bus
reached town until around nine thirty when my mother would get home.
Frozen pizzas and making popcorn kept us fed as we visited and maybe
played a game or watched a little Friday night television.
Sure enough, Pete's and my friendship seemed to be back to
where it was in the previous years as we spent the following day
exploring the woods behind the apartment, seeing the tree house,
chatting and playing some more games. Mother actually made lunch for
his visit. Then we got to take him home around three in the
afternoon so he'd be there in time for dinner. All and all the sort
of reunion I had originally hoped for once school had started and I
could see my old friends again... But then the following Monday
at school, it was the same distant Pete as he had started out the
school year, again I presumed to not jeopardize his new friendship
with the upperclassman. And yet, he was back to being my old friend
again the next time I invited him for an overnighter. I, myself, had
to work hard to switch how I interacted with people when locations
changed. I wondered if it was easy for Pete, it seemed to be.
Given the success of this, I invited Jonathan for an overnighter and
it was equally successful, though he had remained friendly during
school hours as well so I hadn't any doubts before hand. Things
roughly worked out to three overnighters with Pete that school year
and two with Jonathan. By the following years Jonathan would be less
able to come as his father would progressively want him to spend more
and more time on his studies at home, which included doing homework
Friday evenings while Friday classes were still fresh in his mind.
So with Jonathan down to once a year for an overnighter, I thought
I'd invite new friend Tim. Also a success, he reciprocated by
inviting me over to his home a few weekends later.
Unlike me having a spare bed in my room, Tim shared his bedroom with
his younger brother, so he was displaced and I got his bed... Which
included a plastic under sheet as his brother had problems wetting
the bed. Oh,
kinda icky, I thought but I toughed it out sleeping in the bed.
The following morning his mother made a fried egg breakfast for us,
though apparently his family liked the whites of their eggs runny.
It kind of grossed me out and I just ate the edges around the eggs
and avoided the less cooked centers. The toast was good and having
juice for breakfast was a novelty for me. Then, unlike with my
parents, or Pete's and Jonathan's parents even, Tim's parents didn't
like us leaving the yard of his home, so roving the woods was out and
this was especially disconcerting as my family home was just a
quarter mile walk away and I would have loved the chance to have
shown it to Tim. So we did a couple of things in his yard and played
games in his home and visited, but by the time three o'clock came
along I was ready to be back at the apartment and have more freedom.
I wondered if this was how my other two friends had felt during their
overnighters to my place, but I concluded 'not' as they came for
return visits over the years. In the case of Tim, I was afraid of
inviting him back for another overnighter for fear that I would get a
return invite and wouldn't know how to turn it down without offending
him or his parents. Tim and I would just remain school-time friends
for the rest of Middle School and then just acquaintances by High
School.
My routine during the school year, for those days I was at the
apartment town, was to return on the bus and go to the store and work
for two and a half hours until it closed at six and then get a ride
home with my mother. She soon encouraged me to only work two hours
and walk home as she and Joe had to 'count the money' after the store
closed and she knew I'd be bored hanging around during that.
So I would work at the store two hours, then grab myself a frozen
pizza for dinner and walk to the apartment. On Fridays when I didn't
have friends over, I would work three hours due to the store's
extended hours, have Saturdays off as did my mother, then work Sunday
mornings as, unlike the main store, the branch store was open then
and made a fair deal of money as the town included quite a few
working class single parents who couldn't shop the weekday hours.
For this work week, I'd get handed a five dollar bill and I was
rich! This I cycled into school lunches so I could finally find
out what my other school friends had been enjoying all these years,
yet I still had plenty of money left over. There was a branch bank
across the street from the branch grocery store and my mother would
go there from time to time. So one day I took that week's five
dollar bill and asked to open an account. I was eleven at the time
and the bank personnel met this with some good humor. The answer was
'maybe,' but they'd have to check with my parents first. I told them
that my mother worked across the street at the store and so they
opened-up the phone book and called. Being just across the street,
my mother came from the store and quickly signed some paperwork and
left and I completed the rest and had my own bank account with
passbook showing my account balance. This spent most of its time in
my keepsake drawer until it was time to deposit more money or less
often withdraw some money. This was my primary bank account until I
left New England and moved to Colorado seven years later.
For my twelfth birthday, my mother wasn't able to assemble the family
gathering as she had the previous year, so she recommended I think of
some friends to invite, though they'd have to be local ones, not from
the old home town given the driving time. Further, when my mother
asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I just told her money. The
previous Christmas had been a disappointment for me as my wish list
of things to have got translated into generic knock-off
versions of those things. By having cash in hand, I would be able to
make sure I got exactly what I wanted. She gave me twenty dollars
the next time we visited the capital city, and I pulled another ten
of my own from the bank. While she spent her time visiting the
various stores on main street, I studied the aisles of the toys-only
store on the back side of the block. Seeing all the things I'd like
to have, I did the math and figured-out the combination of games and
toys that would perfectly use up my money. Mostly games as I knew
I'd be able to have a group of friends over for my birthday the next
Saturday. This was my most rewarding birthday haul and I insisted on
cash from mother for all my future birthdays... It would just be
two.
As an additional surprise, when my mother came to pick me up at the
toy store, she wanted to go back to the department store on the
corner as they had adult sized ten speed bicycles on sale and she was
going to get me one! While I could only pick from the style on sale,
I did get to pick the color and we then had the scarey time at the
loading dock wondering if we could actually fit the box of the
disassembled bike into her car or have to leave it behind. We
finally got it in, though the trunk had to be tied partially closed.
The next day I assembled the bike on my own and was riding it around
the apartment parking lot that afternoon. Unlike last year's bike,
this one fit me without having to raise the seat and handle bars high
into the air. When my father picked me up for my midweek
overnighter, my mother recommended I show him my new bike and
enthusiastically I did, riding round the parking lot for him to see.
My mother smirked as my father frowned, then he got to
load the bike he had bought for me the year before into the back of
his wagon so I could now have it at my old home.
For my birthday, I had settled on inviting over John from down the
street and Brad and got them confirmed. I wanted to invite Beth over
but, as I had friends of both sexes when I was younger, I had noticed
an implied division of the sexes as I had reached my preteens. So
instead I was thinking I'd invite Mathew... but when my father
brought me back to the apartment the following day my mother said
she'd seen two boys with their families at the store and invited
them! Oh, ah... okay then. Mathew was
now out as she said that would be too many kids. The good news,
though, was I knew the other two boys from school and liked them so
my brief fear, that one or both of the boys might be from the final
quarter of Science class, was dispelled. When the day came and the
boys arrived we pulled-out the pile of games I had gotten the weekend
before only to find that they were for 'Up To Four Players.' We
debated how to handle this as with the boys and me there were five.
As we began to settle on the thought that one of us would sit out
each game as we went through playing all of them, mother intervened
and pointed out that, as a good host, I should let them play the
games and I could be the banker: “After all, you'll have plenty of
time to play the games later, yourself.” It turned out most of the
games didn't need a banker and I got to spend from noon into early
evening watching the four boys play through the various games
I had gotten for my birthday. I discovered the games were not
very fun when I later tried to play them alone...
The following year, when my mother asked if I wanted to have another
group of boys over for my birthday, I said ''No.''
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