The Boy Next Door

I had one neighbor all through my formative years, an only child who was about seven years older than I was. His name is Alan, and he spent a lot of time playing with a boy his own age, Ricky, who lived across the street. Ricky is dead, died quite young (maybe in Vietnam).

I remember only a few things about Alan. At an early age, and this is what I was told, he set a small blaze in the backyard. When my mother complained or got worried, instead of putting it out he sassed her (I think that's what they called it back then). My mom called the fire dept on him and they extinguished the fire. I believe he got in trouble.

For Christmas one year, when I was about twelve, my "big present" was his old bicycle. It was an English Racer, with the swept down handlebars and derailer gears. It was blue. One other year, my present was a train my dad built for me. It was housed in Alan's garage, was a simple oval tacked onto plywood, and was suspended in Alan's garage. It wouldn't fit in our garage because of the boat my dad was building, and it was unfinished at Christmas and I don't recall ever playing with it. I do remember being led next door to see it, though.

Alan had a wonderful car, a '65 maroon Chevy SS Malibu, I think. He would spend tons of time on it, and I learned a lot about cars from watching him work on it. He polished it all the time, and was forever tinkering with it. He once took one of my sisters out on a date in it, but she doesn't remember that.

He was probably nerdy, and like many women, my sister craved excitement. Alan was a good sort, and the only other memory I have of him is when he was in his twenties and I was in high school. I was in his front room and he had some financial thing on TV, probably on UHF back in those days. I was fascinated by the stream of ticker symbols on the bottom of the screen, and he took the trouble to explain a little of it to me.

I don't think he ever, really, liked me. We were too distant in age for that. But he'd occasionally let me hang around while he changed his clutch.

My guess is he ended up successful.