THE STREET

By Jim Kittelberger

The boy on his new two-wheeled bicycle wobbles and weaves from side to side on the street that is wet with melting snow. He is being pushed by his dad who yells, “Peddle, keep peddling”. He peddles his new Christmas bicycle as he’s been told, knowing his father is holding him up. His nervousness is evident though as he keeps up a constant stream of inane chatter. Finally, he takes a peek behind to assure himself that his dad is still holding him up, but to his amazement, fright, and wonder his dad is no longer there but watching from hundreds of feet away. He is on his own now, balancing and peddling with the wind in his face, alone.

A photograph in sepia, now sixty years old, reveals the face of the father showing pride, and yet sadness with the knowledge that another step forward for the boy is another step away from him.

Right on schedule, the boys head for the vacant lot at the end of the street, carrying with them assorted gloves, two bats, one battered ball, and a ball that is still a little white, on a day that is hot, yet in memory clear and wonderful. Love of the game replaces talent with these boys, but it does not deter the complete giving of all they’ve got to the effort. Fly balls are dropped, throws are muffed, pitched balls are missed, but in their imagination they are the best darn baseball players in town.

The creased photograph, turned yellow now, was taken with a Kodak brownie camera. It shows a picture of boys in blue jeans with turned up cuffs, giving themselves completely to a game of skill where they had none, but isn’t that the way for most of us in life. Only the very few have a skill or talent to take them above the group and receive accolades and awards. For the rest of us, it’s all in the imagination.

We often wonder what draws certain people together, to form a friendship. That bond of understanding things about each other without having to make excuses or manufacture lies to justify why we do what we do. A person with whom talk is not always necessary. The boy from the street had the good fortune to have had a pal, a buddy of quiet temperament, with whom he was able to drop any pretensions and just be his own young, questioning self. Favorite pastimes of the boys were trading comic books, talking about their favorite baseball team, and discussing what was going on in the neighborhood. Small talk would be what we call it now, but it was of utmost importance in their world.

A photograph of the two boys with lop-sided grins on their faces is all that remains as evidence that the two were great buddies, confidants, and allies during those years. As they grew older, they grew apart because of differing interests, and their time together became less and less until they finally lost all contact. Not intentionally, but nevertheless, how could he have lost all contact with his buddy, his pal. How could a relationship that was so important to him once, not have a proper conclusion? Half a century later he doesn’t know if he is still living.

The boy, like all others, learned best by example. He learned lessons in kindness from a gruff war veteran who happened to be his neighbor. Fred was his name, but the grownups called him Fritz, so the boy, wanting to be grownup, called him that also. Fritz was a neighbor who showed the boy how even a little interest shown to a growing boy is the stuff that is never forgotten. Fritz had a wonderful, gentle, English bulldog who would stand between them and drool as Fritz marveled over the boy’s new ball glove, or volunteered to tighten his bicycle seat. He also happened to be the man who was first in the neighborhood to get a television set. He was a generous man and would invite anyone who would like, to drop in and take a look at this new marvel. The boy was one who took him up on it, and spent many hours looking at the snowy picture until his head felt like it was going to explode. That is, until the next da, when the headache would be gone and the lure of the magical box in Fritz’s living room would draw him in again. Fritz’s wife and two daughters accepted him as a temporary resident until his interest, which could not dwell on anything for too long, was drawn to other things.

No photograph remains of Fritz and his dog except in the boy’s memory, and that is bright and clear and kept safe, because the memory is the ultimate scrapbook for the snapshots of our lives. But the question we should ask of ourselves is do we ever wonder how important a few moments of time, a moment of connection to another might produce an impression that the person will carry with them forever

The street was a wonderful place for a boy to grow up on, in a time that now seems antiquated and oh so innocent. But it was a real street and these were some of the people who were his companions for a portion of his life’s journey. He hopes and prays that they all had good lives, and if their journeys have ended, an eternity of peace and love. If they have gone ahead of him, he adds this message to them, “please save a place for me in the line-up, but you have to know beforehand, I never got any better at playing the game. But what we had was just fine.”