Gerald Howard's Narrative

Thanks, Arnett, for taking the initiative to bring Frazier Drive back to life. Even though it is not as it was in th 60's when we played baseball in the vacant lot beside the Turners. Mrs. Estis, you're still as pretty as back in those days and thanks to Mr. Estis for helping me with my elementary car problems. I remember you as being the technical fellow in the neighborhood that could fix anything.

Frazier Drive was a "neighborhood," a place where you didn't have to lock your doors or have a key to the house; a place where you hung out on the only street and either jumped rope with the girls or rode your bicycle till it got dark. The Winstons got called in by either Mr. Winston's ear shattering whistle, while other's signal was the porchlight. Yes, those were the days, we thought they'd never end; being young, carefree, when mom and dad took care of everything. All we had to do was go to school and take out the trash.

The car in the picture Arnett has on the main page is my Camaro. So that has to be 1971 or 1972, the year I got drafted in the army. We were the Howard Gang, where the noise of four rowdy boys came from, living next door to the four Crump Sisters. If you didn't hear music or motorcycle noise coming from our acre, you heard the combined excitement of trying to tackle Keith Turner on the football field behind our house (it got moved when the Dooley's house was built).

I remember my back hurting, while bending over picking all those darn strawberries. Shoot, at twenty-five cents a quart, I could deal with a little back ache. Cutting grass at $4 a yard is hard to believe when compared to the $50 people charge now. I even remember gas being nineteen cents a gallon and the attendant, Bill, would even check your oil at the Certified Gas Station just past the Dairy Queen in Plain City (population 2000). I remember Sheldon Sarver and his brother, Darryl, who would not speak above a whisper (the residents in the farm house directly across Route 33) taking some of us in the woods on a "snipe hunt."

I remember the 1969 Corvette Billy Leftwich got just after he graduated from Miami University. I remember Benny Thompson, Rickie and Eddie Winston and Keith Turner being the football stars at Jonathan Alder High School in 1966. I remember the first pig roasts, when the elders of the neighborhood cooked a pig over an open fire all night long.

I remember;
(a) When the end of the Leftwich property was the end of the drive,
(b) Going to Mr Frazier's red barn and jumping from the rafters into the haystacks,
(c) At about 18 yrs old, I was giving Mr. Willie Thompson guitar lessons,
(d) Following my father, George Howard, through the fields with frozen feet, while he was hunting rabbits,
(e) The utility pole between our house and the Crumps, where he cleaned wild game,
(f) Our old fashion washing machine, with the wringer the clothes went through before we hung them on the clothes line,
(g) Carrying baskets of clothes to the Crump girls to iron for us after our mom passed,
(h) Our 1956 Chevrolet,
(i) Bringing eggs home from my job at Byers' Chicken Farm,
(j) Learning carpentry with K.P Williamson,
(k) Practicing our music on the Davidson's piano with our neighborhood band, The Soul Internationals and their basement parties.
(l) I remember running out to catch the school bus that stopped in front of our house.

Those were the days and we thought they'd never end. I have lived in Atlanta Ga. since 1974 when I got out of the service. My daughter, Tina, lives here also.

I am the last of the Howard Gang to have written and published a book. Please visit my site www.Riskingparadise.com. I wrote the song on the site, Arnett is the arranger/performer. I hope it interest you enough to purchase at least two copies supporting the Gerald Howard Anti Poverty Fund.

I look forward to reading more contributions from my neighborhood, Frazier Estates.