Dick Sullivan, R.I.P.

 

A lifetime friend, Dick Sullivan, 89, died Tuesday.  He, his parents, and siblings lived three doors down from us in he Clay Homes. 

Dick’s  family did the concessions at Larry Bell Park.  Their father owned a flatbed wooden wagon to haul canned drinks and snacks from one event to another at the park.  It also hauled us and picnic supplies to our annual outing to Sweetwater Creek near Austell.  It was a birthday outing.  Dick’s brother Eddie’s birthday was July the 15^th and mine is July 16.

On one birthday outing on the banks of Sweetwater Creek by a bridge I waded out and suddenly stepped into nothingless.  I think years before the creek was lower and where I stepped was where a bridge was at one time.  A swift underwater current grabbed me and away I went, underwater.  Dick jumped in and saved me.  My daddy also yanked off his shoes and helped save me but Dick got to me first.  The obituary today said Dick was 89 and I am 79.  He was ten years older than I when he saved me.  I was about 5 and Dick would have been about 15.

About ten years later when I had an Atlanta Journal paper route  I delivered their paper when  they lived on Chester Street, near the Coca-Cola  Bottleling Company on Atlanta Street. 

Though the years I talked to Dick and his brother Eddie at the annual Bell Reunions. The Bell Reunions were commemorating  Larry Bell Park.  The only other family there that I know of that had such an attachment as the Sullivan was the Hood family.  Betty Hood was there at every reunion also.

When the Clay Homes Housing Project was being bulldozed; demolished, it was a sad event for many people who once called the homes their home.  Dick went there more than a couple of times to see it, my sister Frances saw him there several times.  At that time, Dick had retired and worked at Cobb Hardware, which was at the foot of what was the Coca Cola company, which was just a hop, skip, and jump from the Clay Homes.