Random Thoughts from a Random Memory

By Edward Master

We never had the treehouse/clubhouse as in the film “Stand By Me.” I guess the closest to the clubhouse thing was the barn where we played basketball. However, one line near the end of that movie has always stuck in my mind: the line about people moving in and out of one’s life. Main character Wil Wheaton spoke of junior high school, while I now write of life in general.

Maybe the first people to “move” in and then out of my life were the Blair brothers, Chuck and Terry. They lived about one-half mile from me, up Ritz Farm Road. The Blairs relocated to Butler. I last saw Terry at my brother Jack’s wake at my sister Shari’s home on route 38. I didn’t recognize Terry at all. He had enlisted into the Air Force, got a business degree, and was an accountant for the Butler VA. He had to explain who he was and I remembered immediately. I was fairly young when those two moved away. I forget what he said about his brother Chuck. I haven’t since Terry Blair since.

The Fair kids came and went; they took over the Blair homestead. Tommy, the youngest I heard was living near Harrisburg when he passed. Janice, the sister, was my age. I think she lived around Knox somewhere; she may have been married when she died. Mark settled just up the road from Mom and Dad, not even a half mile; he had moved in by the Weller and was an over-the-road trucker. He stopped once when I was home on a visit, we had a chat at the garage, and that was it until he passed.

I’ve buried family and a neighbor, and also a couple fraternity brothers, one being a suicide. I had big plans for my neighbor, Dick McHenry, before he met with an accident. He was starting college at Clarion U in January 1972 when he met his demise in December 1971. He would have met all my fraternity brothers, and received the inside info to college life. Plus, he would have been eye witness to the Phi Sig clubhouse in Huefner. I had big plans for Dick, big sisters or no.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why Al Petro decided to end his own life. My only solace is I’m godfather to his grown son.

I suppose I can count some out-of-state neighbors, too, though I was doing the moving in and out. Bob and Ginny Bates were next-door to us in Glassboro, NJ. They were as nice a couple as anyone could want. Their son Rodney really helped take care of our cats when we were on a visit somewhere. Bob taught industrial arts in Philadelphia. Bob and Ginny would invite us next door when they had family cookouts. Their other son, Robby, ended in a college in South Carolina. I guess I’ve also had my fair share of itinerant neighbors also, including faces I hope to never see again.

I guess I’ve been through a normal procession of comers and goers in school, even in college. In my time, the military had much to do and say who went where and did what.