No Speakum Ill of the Dead

No Speackum Ill of the Dead. On Facebook my rambling about my preteen bully reminded my friend Bradl of his own personal bully. He said he was not going to speak ill of the dead, and he didn’t, but he did drop some clues. either that or he is a terrible speller. I used the same spelling to signal to him I caught on what he was saying, I hope Brad didn’t think I was making fun of his intellectual big words. In fact, it was so inspirational I think I will not speak ill of dead when I tell you about my natural enemy through high school. My enemy’s father also owned a car dealership just like Brad's. How’s that for a coincidence? This is fun! Back in the Day, Northcutt Football Stadium, as you walk through the Polk Street Gates on the left was a grassy bank in line with the stadium’s cement blenchers. The preteen, not yet in high school, boys gravitated on this grass bank. My Natural Enemy and I, the second we met, hit it right off as enemies. We rolled down the grassy bank trying to pull each other’s face off. When we entered the 8th grade we immediately let each other know of our mutual hatred of each other, and made a face or give the other one the finger instead of a nice meeting. Speaking of fingers, I remember once hitchhiking on Roswell Street in front of the Bee-Bop Grill and I saw my enemy driving his two-tone green and white Chevy down the street. He slowed almost to a stop. Hot dog! We are about to bury the hatchet I thought. As I reached for the door handle, he sped away, shooting me the finger. Asshole. My late friend Sam Carsley and his mother Hazel had either Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner with the Enemy’s family. Sam and Hazel did not know the family well . They were with Sam and Hazel’s uncle and aunt and they were friends. During the visit they mentioned the Enemy’s Civil Warf Relic collection. They lived at the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, and it was probably easy to build up a nice rare Civil War relics. Hazel told the group that Sam also was interested in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. The Enemy’s parents told their son to show Sam his Civil War collection. Sam said he did and he was very polite and knew a lot about the names of the groups who fought, and individual skirmishes and all. They had a nice talk. Back at school days later Sam saw the Enemy in the hall and thought he would continue their Battle of Kennesaw Mountain conversation, so Sam threw a Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield trivia question at the enemy. He looked stunned. He told Sam to come to the restroom with him. He did, and The Enemy said stay the hell away from him, he said Sam was so fat it embarrassed him to be seen with him. Sam was very much hurt and offended. So! I was not the only one he disliked. We continued our mutual hate through our high school yeas. Then he and I were part of a crowd at Varner’s Restaurant one night that was discussing stealing some watermelons. The Enemy was part of the crowd.. About 5 or 6 of us (The Enemy and I were included) were to go down the 4-Lane to River Hill and park in a private driveway and turn out the lights. When a truck with a load of watermelons came up the hill struggling with the gears we would pull out in back and run and unload the melons. One would the melons off and hand them to a guy running behind him, and he would hand it over to another guy who would hand it to a guy in the back seat. Assembly line! The American way! This was before the I-75 super highway. On our first try we got behind the truck and a few jumped out and fan behind the truck when it was straining its power to get up the steep hill.. One of us was reaching for a melon and a friend was running alongside ready for the relay. Suddenly the truck stopped. The boys were ran back to the car we heard the truck door slam. As we drove past the rig we saw a man with a weapon standing watching us. The driver of he car had another idea. Go to the Windy Hill Road traffic light. It was operated on carweight pressure to trigger the red light. We got out of the car, and when the truck was nearing we danced on the pavement trying to trigger the light. The truck rolled on by at a high speed. We failed. HOWEVER! I might have failed being a watermelon thief But I won a new friend. The enemy and I became friends after4 years of hatred. We spoke friendly to each other for a couple of years. About 3 or 4 years later I ran into him a Marietta Landmarks presentation that his mother was putting on. He gave me a nod like he might recognized me but at least not offended by me breathing the same air.