So you see the dilemma we faced, “should we keep this path or find another one”? and just then we heard this faint yet deep breathing coming from the weeds just inside the fence, we went around this bush that was right next to us and seen him. He was standing there with these evil looking empty eyes just staring at us. We kind of giggled and started walking toward his back yard to get away from him, and as we turned around we noticed that he was walking away from us which was not normal for him, you see when ever someone would walk too close to the fence he would follow them the whole way past his yard. Just then someone, (I can’t remember who), noticed that the front gate was open, which was something we never seen. He was just walking toward the gate as he kept staring at us, well that was it, and we were out of there like no body’s business. We started running and didn’t stop until we got to Brian’s house. Once there we told his older brother what happened and he called the police. Now they didn’t exactly believe him right away, and it’s not like they had any good reason either. You see Brian and his older brother Scott weren’t the poster children for good behavior, or weren’t up for any awards for kids of the year or anything. They had this knack for lying and playing a lot of pranks on people.

Like one time they told me about this time they were driving down the road with their mom and they got this wild idea, well the police pulled their mom over and asked her to step out of the car, well surprised and confused she did, and the cop asked her if everything was ok? Well she explained that yea, I guess so, but why do you ask? Well then the policeman informed her that someone had seen her driving down the road yelling into the back seat at a couple of children and a few miles later one of the kids held a sign up to the window that worried the other driver so she called the police from an off ramp and gave them her description and license plate number. Their mom said yea I was yelling at them because I thought they were making faces at the other drivers on the road and I didn’t want them to make anyone angry. So the cop said for her to stay by his car while he checked on the boys, just then two more cop cars pulled up and then their mom was really starting to get nervous. Just then the one officer called their mom over to her car and apologized to her for acting stern with her, but then showed her why they were really so concerned. Underneath a blanket in the back seat was the sign that the two had been showing to the other drivers while they drove by. It read “PLEASE HELP US WE’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED”. Their mom was furious, she didn’t even wait until the cops left before smacking her kids; you see back then, you could spank your kids without going to prison for it. Well I’m sure that was one of the many reasons why the police didn’t believe Scott’s story that day about the doctor’s son being outside with the gate open. So they told him to not call back with any more lies or he would be arrested, and before he could explain that he wasn’t lying, they hung up on him. Well someone else must have called because not even an hour later we heard a bunch of sirens and ran down the street and cut through the path we took to get there and seen about ten cops trying to talk to the doctor’s son without getting hit. He was walking down the middle of the street howling like a wolf as he swung wildly at the police every time they got close. They did finally grab him and wrestle him down to the ground, and let me tell you it was wrestling all right. It took just about every one of them to hold him down as he tossed them off of him one at a time. They whisked him away in a car to keep the people from seeing the anger that was being contained in that yard in our small and humble neighborhood. We found out a few days later that the doctor had went to work and left the gate open for a delivery and the nanny that was in the house had fallen asleep while they were watching television.

Well after that we listened to our parents about that yard; we didn’t listen to them about anything else though. Hey, we were kids you know. Well the fun of finding new paths was about over and we were getting bored, so we went back to my house to join the others in tree climbing. As we got there we noticed that their group had grown. Now it seemed like everyone on the street was in my yard climbing up one tree and jumping to another while close to the top. Well as you could imagine this didn’t last long, we did however all get a chance before our friend Cathy was swinging upside down showing off a new gymnastics trick she learned. Well I’m sure that she shouldn’t have been forty feet in the air when she did this, and I was right. As she was explaining how she could swing upside down with her legs over a branch, the unthinkable happened. She swung forward and as she went backwards she went too fast and her legs came off from around the branch. Everyone screamed as she fell hitting almost every branch on the way down, which at the time seemed awful but looking back at how high she was, the branches probably saved her life, they slowed her down a little before she hit the ground, also her hitting the branches caused her to rotate so she didn’t land on the top of her head. When she did hit the ground she didn’t move, we all got down faster than we ever did before, her brother Mike walked up to her in a daze and bent down to check on her, as she laid on her side. As soon as his hand touched her shoulder she sprung up like a jack rabbit and started screaming as she darted toward home. Mike had to grab her and sit her down as he seen that both her arms were flailing wildly and were both obviously broken. Well me and Jimmy my neighbor went running home yelling for help, we met Jimmy’s mom almost at the house and she asked “what happened?” we explained what had happened and she shouted for my mom, “Carol, there’s been an accident!” my mom came running outside and once again we told the story of what happened, my mom got into her car as Jimmy’s mom went inside to call Cathy’s mom at work. My mom drove her car all the way back to where the accident happened, and that couldn’t have been an easy feat. You see the only way back there was an unused old dirt bike trail, and my mom drove a mustang that sat really low. But she managed to get there, and we seen her come driving up the back yard, just then we heard the sirens from the volunteer fire department, one stopped at my house while the others proceeded to the fire house. Well my mom was driving extremely slow, and Cathy was lying down on the hood of the car with a blanket covering her and her brother sitting next to her for comforting. The rescue squad pulled in and went around the side of the house into the back yard, and once again we had the most exciting house on the block. People started walking over to see what had happened, and who was hurt. In our neighborhood news doesn’t take long to get out, it had only been about twenty five minutes since we told our parents of the accident and already we had some people from two streets over in our front yard. Well they took Cathy away and to the hospital and once again we got a long lecture on the dangers of climbing trees. We were never forbidden to climb them only to never climb them alone. It must have been three days or so and Cathy came home from the hospital with both her arms in casts, and her shoulders in a traction splint. She broke both her arms, and both of them were broke up by her shoulders, which I guess back then was bad. But she got about ten slaves to do what ever she wanted us to do for the next six months, so she really didn’t complain a whole lot.