Strange Interlude

One day, our next door neighbor, Mrs. Ranhorne, was summoned to her front door by a knock. When she opened her door, I thrust a naked doll at her and said "Here, you take this doll baby. It's naked, and I can't play with it no more." Then I marched off toward home.

I was probably three years old at the time, and although my mother tried to keep an eye on me, I was lightning-fast and very sociable. I liked to make the rounds. My folks would wake up some mornings to find I had already visited several neighbors. When the Munsons over on Farrington moved away, I was the first in the neighborhood to welcome the new owners, Bill & Sylvia Harris. I had to stand on their aluminum milkbox to reach the doorbell, but I beat the Welcome Wagon by several days.

Mr. and Mrs Ranhorne lived next door, and were quite a bit older than my parents. They had a son who was grown and lived in another section of town. Mr. Ranhorne died when I was still a little boy, and I remember visiting them with my mother when he was sick. He had cancer of the larynx, and had endured a tracheotomy. I stared at him with wide eyes as he smoked a cigarette through the hole in his neck.

Before Mr. Ranhorne died, he and his wife were sitting in their den when they heard ghostly piano notes coming from the other side of the kitchen's swinging door. When Mrs. Ranhorne ventured to investigate, there I sat on the piano bench, fingering the ivories.

After Mr. Ranhorne died, Mrs. Ranhorne was lonely for awhile, but then she found a boyfriend named Smitty. Smitty drank a lot and didn't fit in with the neighbors, but everyone figured if he made Mrs. Ranhorne happy we'd all put up with him. Smitty would try to mow Mrs. Ranhorne's lawn, but it never worked out well.

Smitty would careen around her yard, always sitting side-saddle on the lawnmower, clutching a beer in one bony hand and trying to steer with the other. After a few loop-de-loos and random patterns, he'd get bored and disappear into her house to pass out, leaving her yard a half-mown mess. My mother would sometimes go over to finish the job.