Mr. Gilliam lived directly across the street from us in a white clapboard house, and from his rocking chair on his front porch he surveyed his property. With a street full of boys, he needed to, but in our own neighborhood, we were mostly innocent. Mr. Gilliam was my grandfather’s age and he might have shared similar experiences, though he lived in Ohio and Roy O’Connell, six hundred miles away, in Nevada Missouri.<\/p>\n
They both, at an age that spoke more about their past than the present, bought outlandish cars, Mr. Gilliam a pink, 1957 Oldsmobile 98, five years before Roy, his white Cadillac. A year before I earned my driver’s license, I drove that white Cadillac; I could only dream about driving the pink Olds.<\/p>\n
But what I remember most about Mr. Gilliam was his language.<\/p>\n
When we played king of the hill on the edge of his sloping lawn, he\u00c3\u00add holler, “No, no bank, papa spank.” Climb his trees and you’d hear. “No, no, trees, papa please.” I climbed everyone’s trees, but his, and I was in his neighbor’s tree when Charles reached over to touch the high tension wire running between the limbs.<\/p>\n
It was a humid summer day in Cincinnati and we were perched Like blackbirds in that tree. Glenn and I, dressed in our white shorts and tight black muscle t-shirts stood below the wires looking up, while Paul, Charles’s younger bother, clung to the highest limb, above the telephone pole. Steven Brown, hands clasped behind his head, rested on a branch shaped like the homemade slingshot which hung from his pocket. We were honored to have Charles in our tree. He was, after all, a big brother, someone to whom you might say hi – if you were feeling really talkative.<\/p>\n
“Do you dare me to touch it?” Charles asked with a broad grin.<\/p>\n
We didn’t dare to dare Charles to touch the wire.<\/p>\n
Dare him to maybe die? Nope, not us and we were mostly fearless. But we were intrigued. What would happen if he touched the black wire? Charles flapped his hand at the wire as if he were playing with a burner on a hot stove. Touch it quickly and feel no pain. His game made us giddy, but still we remained silent. We wanted him to , and we didn’t want him to. How to explain that?<\/p>\n
“What if I touch the wire but with a leaf to protect my hand?” Charles asked.<\/p>\n
Sure, that made sense to me. Leaves that hung like laundry might add enough protection. From what, I wasn’t even sure. Paul broke our silence with, \u00c3\u00aeDon\u00c3\u00adt do it,\u00c3\u00ae but too late to stop his brother whose hand was already in motion. Thwap! His hand hit the leaf, the leaf hit the wire and they both bounced back. All of us jumped but Charles.<\/p>\n
\u00c3\u00acAre you okay?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n
\u00c3\u00acDidn\u00c3\u00adt feel a thing.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n
We weren\u00c3\u00adt so sure because Charles climbed down from the tree, waved to Mr. Gilliam on his porch, and walked straight into his house. <\/p>\n
Mr. Gilliam lived directly across the street from us in a white clapboard house, and from his rocking chair on his front porch he surveyed his property. With a street full of boys, he needed to, but in our own … Continue reading ![\"deck_two_sm.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/images\/deck_two_sm.jpg\")
\nPosts up and most of the floor has been deck-screwed to the joists. The happy couple pose as Jan dreams of a full width set of stairs, and Mark wonders why we didn’t accomplish more.
\nView larger image<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"