Our Old Home Street

I posted this a few days ago via Notes on my Facebook page, but I wanted to repost it here. I have a couple of beta readers going over the book now and unless they have any major suggested changes it will be published very soon.

I know I keep saying that, and I truly do mean it. This has been a wonderful experience for me and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I am just as anxious (probably more) as you are to get the book out there and see how it does.

So, here is a sneak peek from the first chapter:

Charlotte got a ride home from a friend that afternoon. It was only about a mile from her house to school. In between, was a busy highway that many eighteen-wheelers traveled, so her mother didn’t want her or her brothers walking to or from school. Charlotte couldn’t wait for her sixteenth birthday in a few weeks and then she could drive herself to and from school.

The street she lived on was perfect for kids growing up. The turn off the main highway was at the top of a hill; then it sloped downward to a small valley before climbing to a hill in the center of the street. It then sloped downward a second time to a valley where Charlotte’s family lived before finally ascending to end in a cul-de-sac. It was perfect for riding bikes and skateboards. All throughout the year, the kids that lived on the street played outside after school until sundown. Charlotte and her brothers knew when the street lights came on that was their signal it was time to go in. Otherwise, their mother would cup her hands together and blow a whistle that could be heard a half a mile away, and they would know she was calling them to come home.

When the McAfee’s first moved to the street, it was a gravel road lined with open sewer ditches. The city finally paved it sometime during Charlotte’s fifth grade year, although the open sewers remained for many years after. There were only eight houses built on the street at the time and all, but one, had school age children. The O’Quinn’s lived at the beginning of the street, and they had three daughters, Jenessa, Jennifer, and Molly. In the first valley, lived the Jones’s. They had a swimming pool that many of the kids got to swim in during the summer. Shane, Shawna, and Sheena were the Jones kids. On the middle hill lived the Williams’s with their daughter, Kelly and across from them lived the Rutherfords who had Ronny and Darah. In the second valley, Charlotte and her two brothers, Tad and Ryan, lived across the street from the Montgomery’s and their daughter, Misty. Finally, at the top of the hill at the end of the street and looking out over the whole street itself, lived the McMillan’s with their son, Isaac. Isaac was also a third cousin to the McAfee children. Next to the McMillan’s lived the “Old” Williams’s. They were the grandparents of Kelly and owned most of the undeveloped land and fishing pond further back behind the street.

Charlotte remembered fondly the games they played as children. They played a game called colored eggs that involved all the children sitting in a group with one person standing out in front. The kids were to think in their mind the name of a color. If the person standing in front called out their color, they were to jump up and run around trying not to get tagged before they made it back to their original seat. It was like an alternate version of duck-duck-goose that they also liked to play, along with Red Rover and Freeze Tag. They played hand slapping games while saying rhymes like Miss Mary Mack, Miss Susie, Alice the Camel, Miss Lucy had a baby, and McDonald’s Big Mac. As they got older, they would organize teams to play kickball. They enjoyed playing baseball, basketball, catch 500 with the football, night-time flashlight tag and making huge snowmen in the winter.

Their cousin, Isaac, was a particular trouble maker in their youth. He was into WWE wrestling and would always use Charlotte and her brothers as practice dummies to try out new moves like “the figure four.” He also got Tad and Ryan in trouble on numerous occasions by shooting BB guns and pressuring them into trying cigarettes and chewing tobacco. They enjoyed riding their bicycles along the trails in the woods and going to “the pits.” The pits was a dirt area that had been carved out over time by three-wheelers and dirt motorbikes. It was much like an early version of a skatepark with slopes and ramps to jump and ride over. They would often go to the Williams’s pond and fish even though Mr. Williams said they had to throw anything they caught back in the pond. And on one occasion, Charlotte unwisely rode a horse, courtesy of Jesse Bryson, through the back pasture that was full of holes and rough hills. Looking back on it, she realized what a dangerous act that had been since she knew nothing about horses and how to handle them.