Hayter’s article for May 22, 2022

“In search of a friend”

            A couple of weeks ago I ran across a website that locates people. At the moment, I didn’t feel the need to find anyone. But, I was curious. You know what curiosity did don’t you? It killed the goose. Killed something.

There was a girl or two in my past that I was curious about, but all I knew was their maiden name. No, it had to be a guy. But, who? -- Boing! – David!  My friend on Camille street! From the ages of nine to 12, David’s family lived next to the Hayters in Pasadena. I was so glad we moved next to them. David was honest as all get out, responsible, and great at rubber gun wars. From the get-go, we hit it off great.

He’s the one who introduced me to Soupy Sales. I came over

one Saturday morning to get him to come out and ride fake horses with me. He said he couldn't come out until Soupy Sales was over. Soupy what?

        I ran home and told Dennis that we needed to watch Soupy Sales. Dennis said, “Why?” I said, “Because David likes it!” There were only three TV channels at the time, so Soupy was easy to find, and we were immediately smitten. Let’s see, there was Soupy, White Fang, Black Tooth, and Pooky. Soupy was a real man, but Pooky was a hand puppet and White Fang and Black Tooth, were the arm and hand of two large off-camera dogs. It was corny as all get out, but an absolute hoot.

            If David did nothing but introduce me to Soupy Sales he would’ve been a good friend. But we did a lot of stuff together. We camped out and played cowboys and Native Americans. David was the eldest child in his family. He had three sisters and one kid brother. Dennis, Jill, and I had fun playing games with David and his siblings.

We never played with his Mom. We seldom even saw her. Occasionally, she might step outside and yell at one of the kids to go get her bottle of pop at the 7-11. David’s Dad was a bit more upbeat. I learned most about the man after a wrestling match. Sometimes, when he came home from work, he would be in a good mood and start playing King of the Mountain with the kiddos. They’d jump on him and he would eventually fall to the ground and kids would jump on top and pummel him.

It wasn’t until he invited me to join in one of the wrestling matches that I learned two things about him. One, he smelled like medicine. Also, he had an artificial leg. I never knew that before. When you play King on the Mountain with a guy, you can tell if they’re missing any appendages.

David later told me that His Dad used to work at the docks, where he had an accident that cost him his leg. That’s all the detail I got. I didn’t ask about his medicine smell. It was much later that I realized he was an alcoholic. That was likely responsible for him having only two moods. Happy or angry. 

David and I occasionally talked about our future. We both decided to be either cowboys. or army guys who fight creatures from outer space. Monsters were all over the place back then. And so were neighborhood kids. The elementary school was three blocks away so we walked the distance back and forth every school day. We never waited on one another. Dennis and I would just step out the door and start walking.  Generally, there would be a few friends who would join us.

One of the sadder moments of my youth was the night that David told me he and his family were moving to Mississippi the next day! What? Why? –He didn’t know why. What he did know was that the both of us were about to lose our best friend.  

I eventually figured that because of the immediacy of their departure, his father probably had to get out of town for financial reasons. The Hayters moved around town quite a bit when I was a kid. We never had to flee, though. Dad occasionally paid off the rent by doing carpentry work on the house we were living in at the time. Before we moved to Camille Street, most of our residences were in the sad part of town. But once we got to Camille Street things looked better. I don’t think Dad’s refinery ever went on strike after we moved to Camille.

Well, as mentioned, I lost my best buddy three years after we met. And, two weeks ago, I had a chance to find out where he was. If he was. The people finding site asked first for the name, possible location, and age of my friend. After a few minutes, I was asked to include education, religious preference, employment, and some other stuff… about myself!

I didn’t like that much. You see, while I didn’t mind finding a friend of mine, I didn’t want to leave the door open for people to find me. Hey, I don’t know who is out there. Whoever they are might not be as nice as I am.   

Finally, after about 30 minutes of waiting for a response, I closed the program down. As much as I wanted to learn about what happened to David, I thought it better not to. A couple of days later, the person-finding site popped up on my screen. They had found David. I knew because his kid brother and two of his sisters’ names were just below his. All I had to do was click on the arrow and I would learn… something. Good or bad, I’d know more than I do now. 

I left the site not knowing. Maybe another day. Till then, I’ll just stick with the happy thoughts about the great times I spent with my best friend. I hope he could say the same. Hard to tell.  – I wonder how you might handle a similar situation. Something to think about. 

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