A Story From Dad

When I was a kid, let's say about seven years old, my father, on some of his good days, would take my mother, my sister, and I, for rides to get ice cream. Some of these rides, included going through Riverview. Now, I wasn't too swift when I was a kid, so at night's when we rode through Riverview, looking for love birds, you can believe good old JJ here when I tell ya that, every time we rode past a parked car, my family would shout out, "THERE'S ANOTHER LOVEBIRD!" I would look up into the trees , trying to spot that damned bird! It wasn't until I was in my teens, that I found out the truth.(Gang, " Take a breath, JJ." Me, "okay, thanks gang." Gang, "no problemo").
Riverview had a shortcut leading to it, from Grand Avenue (Grand was off Smithton). It was a killer hill, and was labeled, break your neck. There were horse stables, and a corral right on Grand there. Back in the early 50s, they used to bring horses up and down that hill, until one of them took a spill, and broke its neck, hence break your neck. Taking you to the 60s, there was one area on that shortcut, that was nothing but rock. It was well camouflaged from the rest of the world, so kids used to sit up there and drink. As they would empty their beer, they would bust their bottles on those rocks, so you had thousands of tiny glass particles in that area. The park had a huge, free swimming pool that our gang use to go to religiously. The only problem was, since the pool was free, there were hundreds of other kids from surrounding neighborhoods that use to go there too, which presented a problem getting in and out of the pool. I.e., checking your clothes in and out. It was a major hassle. We used to take the shortcut to the pool every day to save time. Also to save time and, one of us had the brainy idea to change into our swimming trunks, and bury our clothes, (shoes and all), on that shortcut. The pavement sometimes got really hot on our feet, but it was worth it when we got to the check-in line, we walked right in. This worked out fine for about a week or so. Until one day, we were walking back from the pool to the shortcut. When we got to the shortcut, we noticed a faint odor of burning rubber, and fabric. We got to the area where we buried our clothes, and got a big surprise. There was a big pile of burnt ashes, left over remains of tennis shoes. Someone had found our clothes and burnt them all. To make matters worse, we had to walk over all that glass in our bare feet. I was about 13 then, and learned a valuable lesson. My father left home when I was nine years old, they called it irreconcilable differences, but it was more or less they'd kill each other if they stayed together any longer. That left me, my mother, and my sister to fend for ourselves. Although, he did buy me a car for graduation, and I'll always be grateful to him for that. It was a sweet thing. 63 baby blue Oldsmobile convertible, with a four on the floor, and a fifth under the seat. That's an old joke.