The Neighbors - Part 1

Here's a bit more about our neighbors on Bewley Road.

The Devines lived next door. They had 3 daughters (all very pretty) and 2 younger sons. The mother Jeanette was the 'queen' of the house. She was afraid of water, animals and ... pretty much everything - she was a bit over-protective. A squirrel got into their house once - it was just like the scene in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" - lots of running around and screaming. Another time when I heard screaming I ran outside to see what was happening. Their son Jimmy (who was 5 or 6 at the time) was up on the roof of their car in absolute hysterics because the Musticos' 7 lb miniature poodle was barking at him... I couldn't help laughing - it was just too funny - I hope he turned out okay... :-)

Just past the Devines were the Bradfields. I was friends with their sons Lou and Frank (off and on). They tended to engage in a lot of unsafe activities that sometimes resulted in injuries requiring medical attention. I was always concerned for my safety when I was hanging out with them. Plus, their youngest brother referred to me as poo-poo head :-)

The Crofts lived on the other side of us from the Devines. The mother can only be described as a saint. She was a kind, gentle and patient woman trapped in a hurricane of testosterone. She had 4 sons - Billy, Butch, Bobby and Ricky. They were all very nice but were the rambunctious "boys will be boys" type - a bit intimidating at times (it was Billy that almost drowned me). Ricky was the 'baby' - 5 years younger than me. I enjoyed playing with him - he was a really neat kid... And the dad was the biggest kid of all - loud and boisterous - just like his sons.
The Crofts had a really nice pool with a diving board. They started construction on it just a few weeks after the prior owners of our house moved away with their 14 kids. The Crofts had obviously been anticipating that 'blessed event' for a long time :-)
My family belonged to the Llangollen Hills Swim Club, but we usually only went there on weekends - I swam over at the Crofts almost every weekday. The older sons were usually off playing baseball or whatever and it seemed like Mrs. Croft really enjoyed my company - I was quiet and thoughtful and enjoyed interacting with adults - pretty much the opposite of her sons :-)

I haven't done many things in my life that I regret, but here's one if them:
Butch Croft was my sister's age and she had a huge crush on him. One day when I was 10 (my sister was 13) I told Butch how much she weighed, and for a long time afterward he teased her about it... It was a particularly clueless thing to do - but I've always had this deeply ingrained sense that the truth can't hurt... Apparently that's not always true... It's something I still wrestle with to this day.

That was just only one of many times I got in trouble with my sister for telling the truth:
We gave Anita Devine a Barbie for her birthday. And Keg (my sister) had taken it out and played with it a bit before packaging it up. Unfortunately, she lost one of the small accessories...
At the birthday party I mentioned to Anita that the Barbie came with another accessory but it got lost. (It seemed relevant at the time - full disclosure and all.) My sister was livid! After the party she said "How could you tell her that?? You made it sound like I played with it before I gave it to her!!". And I'm sitting there thinking "??? But you did play with it before you gave it to her..."

So, yeah - that's always been one of my character flaws - I can't be relied on to not tell the truth. :-)