Pat Rich

Pat Rich at a Bell Reunion.  In my preteens years I lived on Manget Street.  Pat and his family lived close by on the corner of  Manget and Glover Streets.  He is a couple years older than me.  His sister Faye Rich was closer to my age.

Their yard was a hangout, sort of like an rural street corner.  It was where the local preteens and teens met and us preteens were normally picked on or agged into fights with other preteens with the teens doing agging.  Why we kept coming back for more, I don't know;  Peer pressure I suppose.

Once I and Eddie N were pushed into a fight.  Eddie was challenged.  He came at me with his arms swinging like a windmill, leaving his face unguarded for a sucker punch with I took advantage of.  It broke Eddie's nose and blood went every where.

He ran to his grandparents house on Glover Street crying and I ran home.  I was told his sister returned wanted who assaulted her brother and she wanted to press charges.  Being good peers, no one "saw anything."

Months later the episode was forgotten and a bunch of us were playing in the loft of Eddie's grandparents' barn.  While up in the loft, one of my "friends" reminded Eddie the time I busted his nose.  He pounced on me and started choking me.  I could not breath, I thought my life was about to end.

But, luckily enough, the plywood across the rafters were not nailed down, and as we struggled the plywood tilted and unloaded us not to gently onto barn's dirt floor.  I sprung up took off running home like a scared rabbit.

I heard a couple years ago that Eddie was serving time in prison for murder.

And, the house Pat and Faye Rich lived in was burned down along with the George and Mike Hobby's house next door for a Marietta Fire Department  training exercise.