Pamplin Avenue 05

When I moved up to first grade, Jack and I used to walk to and from school together, a distance of five fairly short blocks. On most occasions one or more of our neighborhood friends accompanied us. On a particular day I will never forget, Jack, our neighbor Tom O., and I were walking home on Florissant Avenue not far from Riverview Boulevard. I spotted a $5.00 bill on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant and yelled in typical kid fashion, “Dibs on the money!” And sprinted for it.

Tom, two years older and a step or two faster, overtook me and was just about to snatch it up when I jumped on his back, knocking him to the ground, his outstretched hand only inches from the treasure. At that critical moment, Jack scooped up the $5.00 and the two of us took off running, congratulating ourselves on working as a team, leaving poor Tom lying on the sidewalk in tears. When Dad came home we gave the bill to him and he gave us each $2.50.

Despite Tom’s cry-babying around the neighborhood about how we cheated him, we gave him not one red cent. “Finders keepers, losers weepers” was the tough rule all of us kids lived by back then. We figured it was too bad if his parents didn’t understand. Regardless of his loud belly-aching about how unfair we were, Tom knew that if it had been he who had grabbed the money there would have been no thought of his splitting it with Jack and me. Such unrepentant, unchristian savages were we.