Eugene Price

I grew up in a part of the country that was outdoor playing weather 360 days of the year. We went out early and stayed out until the street lights came on. We drank from the hose……….. No, it’s not just something cute on facebook, we really DID drink from the hose. And there’s something really special about the taste of water that’s passed through a garden hose. I also lived with perpetual stubbed toes because I never wore shoes. My toes finally cleared up when I got a job and was required to wear shoes to work. No. I didn’t grow up in West Virginia.

I was raised in an era where you spent most of the time playing outside with the neighbor kids and all of us walked or rode our bikes to school together without a second thought. “Go out and play” didn’t mean go play in the fenced back yard. It meant go out pretty much wherever you wanted to go and play. You knew mom would yell for you when she needed you.

I had 3 pretty good friends in our neighborhood. Carol, Sandy, and Mona.  Interesting that I spent a lot of time playing with them, but I don’t remember us playing much as a group. Maybe because Mona was a couple of years younger. But she was an “only”, and I really liked her. We did a lot of fun stuff together. The first time I ever saw snow was with Mona. Her dad had a dichondra lawn and my favorite thing was to pull the tops off the stalks in strips to make roads through the grass for the matchbox cars. Mona’s dad was NOT a happy man when we had been playing cars on his front lawn!

I had two brothers, too. My older brother was nicknamed “Mingy” and the younger “Buns”. Mingy grew up to be called “Emperor Ming”, and also picked up other names along the way. “Squats to pee” was my favorite. Anyway, Ming’s favorite thing to do was to tease the neighborhood boys. He always had a creative way of finding their weak spot and tormenting them with it. And so we come to Eugene.

Eugene was my friend Carol’s older brother. They didn’t have nicknames in their family. And Eugene was a little bit quirky. I remember he would spit a lot when he talked. That’s really about all I recall about him personally, but I’ll never forget what Ming used to do to him.

You see, Eugene had a very weak stomach. If you said the word “barf”, he would. And so he became a target occasionally for my brother. I’ll never forget the day when Ming spit on the sidewalk and Eugene promptly threw up.  Yep. Ming spit again with the same result. And I’m pretty sure that summer, Eugene lost a lot of weight.

Eugene and Ming were actually friends. I guess friendship is just a little twisted when you’re 11. I often wonder what happened to Eugene. His family moved away when we were still kids. Perhaps they had an inclination that Ming would eventually become “Squats to Pee” and got out while they still could. 

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Prov. 17:17

 

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