Glover Street park6

Lets back up down the drive and go by Eddie Nichols’ grandfather’s house again.  About a year after I broke Eddie’s nose he was back.  About four or five of us went to play in the barn behind the house.  We climbed up in the attic and was on the loft floor just talking about stuff, like people of the same age group do.  And one of my friends reminded Eddie the time I broke his nose.  Suddenly, without warning his big strong hands gripped my neck and suddenly Eddie was choking the life out of me. I could not breathe..  I was choking and gasping of air, I was dying at Eddie’s pleasure.

If he was going to kill me he was going have to work for it, I was kicking, waving my arms, and was throwing me about like a ragdoll to control me..  What we did without knowing what we were doing getting closer to the end of the  boards.  They were not nailed down.  Suddenly it tilted like a seasaw and tilted downward and we fell to the barn’s dirt floor.

I think the fall knocked Eddie koo koo.  I had the dirt floor running like a rabbit and went a couple of years not seeing Eddie. 

About two years after the Barn incident Tony’s mother took Tony, Gene, and me to visit him in Douglasville to a chicken farm his family owned.  His aunt or somebody gave us a tour of the egg sorting and cleaning machine and other things.  Then she told us, “You boys go play!”  I  always kept my eyes on an escape route if the need came up.  They had cattle and a big muddy pond.  I was so relieved  when Tony’s mother called us to get in the car.

At a Bell Reunion about ten years ago I ran into someone who would probably know Eddie and I asked about him.  He said Eddie was in prison.  “What for” I asked.

“For killing somebody” was his answer.   It could have been me, I thought.

 At Mr Nichols’s house Glover Street went down a hill.  One the left is the Perry Parham Little League Field, and a creek.  I think the name of it was Manget Creek.  The Creek ran under Glover Street and into a tall tree shady area we called the “Hollow”.

One night in the summer time we were playing down near the Hollow.  We heard the Hollow was haunted.  We dared each other to walk in it into the darkness of the shadows in the moonlight.  I was something of a showoff and walked onto the dirt trail into the darkness.  I felt myself going up a slope, which is more directly behind Mr. Nichol’s barn and I heard a noise behind me.  I turned around and saw green eyes glowing in the dark rushing towards me.   It jumped on me, I lost my balance and we and the green-eyed whatever rolled down the hill in the dark.  Then, the next thing I knew my dog Skipper was licking me in  the face.  The mysterious monster was Skipper.

Now, on Glover Street, all on one side from the what was the Texaco Warehouse to almost the end are Cobb County Education buildings.