Best Friends

Back when I was four years old, my family moved from a small town in North Texas to a small town in South Texas along with our Shetland pony named Smokey.

Soon after we were settled, I became best friends with the kid next door. Kyle was the same age and was living there with his grandparents because his folks were going through a divorce or something like that. Kyle was Jewish, just like the Kyle on Southpark, but I never knew what "Jewish" was because there aren't any Jewish people in South Texas. Anyway, we were inseparable for the next two years.

I still have a newspaper clipping that includes a pic of my kindergarten class. There were are, Kyle and I, among a dozen other kids in our little bitty chairs with our greased back hair. Remember Vitalis hair tonic?

I remember being sick in bed with "the croop" and Kyle would come by my window each day to check on me. I doubt he was really checking on me; he was probably just bored.

Kyle and I would go all over our little neighborhood and catch "horney toads". Back then, Texas horned frogs were everywhere. (They're practically extinct now, probably because they all fell prey to six-year-old boys back then) We'd catch a dozen or so and keep them in a coffee can for a couple of days and let them go. I always thought horney toads smelled like coffee for some reason.

One day, Kyle got bit by a mouse. For the next couple of weeks he'd have to go to the hospital each day and get painful rabies shots in his stomach. We'd be in the back yard, antagonizing horney toads and his grandmother would call him in the house to get ready to go to the hospital. He'd begin wailing and our play time would come to an end. I'd hate that.

Kyle's parents either got back together or his dad remarried. At any rate, he had to leave and move away to San Antonio. I was devistated.

A couple of years later, I was with my grandparents on a weekend trip to San Antonio and actually called him up. We talked on the phone, but it just wasn't the same.

A lot can change by the time you hit nine years old. . . .