What lasts? Friendships and summers, memories, and the mashed potato spoon.

The mashed potato spoon, large and sturdy, perfect for lifting globs of buttery mashed potatoes onto your plate, back when carbs didn’t matter. That spoon is the only thing I have that also lived in the Fourth Avenue garage apartment, and I treasure it. In case of fire, my house could be ablaze, and I’d be standing in the street clutching the mashed potato spoon.

Memories last, and as for summers, I never revisit the last summers of my childhood without thinking of Danise.

Here’s the first thing she said when she came to me, almost 60 years ago: “You’re a girl.” Good luck can turn on something as simple as one little girl speaking to another.

I was outside on the open wooden steps to our apartment. The neighboring garage was about 10 feet away, so the steps were in a canyon. It was a private place, and I liked it. I still attended fourth grade across town, but I knew there were other kids around. I saw them from a window, but I was not capable of seeking them out. I wondered, if I could transform myself into a merry-go-round, would the other kids come to me?

Even as I had the thought, a brown flighty thing flashed by, visible for a moment in the opening between the two garages. I took it for a bird until I heard a stopping sound in the oyster shell alley, and it came back. It was a little girl all of one color, tan skin, tan hair, tan eyes, skinny and small, and a little dirty. When kids played outside all day, they got dirty. By summer’s end outdoor children after the evening bath glowed from sunshine, fresh air, exercise, and freedom.

The bird creature stared at me, and I stared back. It’s a suspended moment, just as it is, forever in my mind, and it only moves forward when she speaks again, repeats her opening line:  “You’re a girl.”

The message that being male was better than being female had sneaked into my head, inculcated. That’s a good word, inculcated. Male bias was in the culture. I didn’t know whether her remark was a statement or an accusation.

She stepped closer. “There’s only boys on the block, except for me. My baby sisters don’t count. I’m Danise. I live three houses down.”

I didn’t like the part about the boys. Although Mrs. Schleiser’s fourth grade almost cured my fear of boys, my experience before that was bad. I started first grade in a country school outside San Antonio, and I walked home alone through a woods. Freddy ambushed me often, pulled my braids, called me a girl, and threw my books to the ground. He did little more than scare me, but I reported it to my mother, who shrugged and said it meant he liked me.

By second grade I attended a different country school, and Junior Jim (he was called that) sought me out and punched me in the stomach for fun, and that hurt. When I told the teacher, she called me a tattle tale. It only meant he liked me, she said. When I got a belly full of Junior Jim liking me, I picked up a hefty piece of debris, planted my feet, and warned him. Hesitation. He wasn’t convinced I would hit him, but he wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t, either. I didn’t know for sure myself, but something rose in me, hard and ready, and I thought I might. He left me alone after than, and I became a believer in the “show of force” defense. I was seven, and not strong, but win or lose, I could at least look like I would fight back.

In Mrs. Schleiser’s class the boys behaved like gentlemen, Dennis, John, Raymond, all of them. They talked too much and spilled things, but they didn’t hurt anyone. Such behavior wouldn’t have been tolerated by teachers, parents, the principal, the janitor, or even an adult passer-by. Still, I had my reservations about boys. I ruminated on the boy problem, but finally I caught on. I was supposed to say something.

“Oh. I’m Becky. I’m 10. I live right here.”

“Do you wanna play with me?” She smiled her gentle smile.

Do you wanna play with me? Was it a trick question? Maybe not. My cousin Bev seemed to like me. Renee had invited me to her house. Danise sensed I would require a little time.

At last, I said, “Yes. Thank you. I would like to play with you.” Such a formal acceptance. I probably curtsied, but I didn’t smile, I’m sure. I was too busy thinking things to death.

“Come on then. I’ll show you the neighborhood!”

It must have been a weekend morning, because my mother was home. She worked weekdays, and Friday and Saturday nights she went out. Sunday nights, too. I ran up the stairs, told her there was a little girl, and we were going to walk around. I scrambled back down.

We started up the alley exchanging information. She went to Danforth Elementary school, and I explained I would be coming there next fall. We would both be in fifth grade. Perhaps we would have the same teacher! She pointed out the sites, like the chinaberry trees, and the Catholic church. She told me in a whisper that sometimes you could see priests walking around, all in black-and-white, like penguins. Then she brightened. The Catholic trash barrels were always full of perfectly good envelopes and paper, she said, sometimes candles. The wet garbage was elsewhere, so the barrels were fun to rummage through.

Later on, when we knew each other better, we would dare each other to sneak into St. Mary’s and risk the wrath of the Catholic God, who everyone knew was fiercer than the Protestant God. The church was dim after the bright sun, and quiet, so quiet. One time we tiptoed all the way to the altar and picked up something that had brass bells on it. The ringing exploded in the silence and sent two bad little girls scrambling like the Holy Ghost was on our tail! Out the front door, over the grass, and across the alley to collapse in a pile of giggles behind the garage apartment, safe! No lightning bolts from above, nor penguin priests giving chase!

But that was later, and as we left the church behind, she pointed to a vacant lot. “That’s where we play softball. I’m a tomboy. I like to run and climb trees.”

It sounded like fun. Dolls bored me, but I didn’t mention it; it seemed wrong. I was a girl. I was supposed to love dolls, and I was eager to be like my new friend. “I’m a tomboy, too.”

She showed me Bobby’s house, a duplex connected by a garage to Andrew’s house. We turned and walked down 13^th Street toward Fourth Avenue.

“Over there, that’s Darrell’s house. Kenny lives down there – he’s different.” She said this as she would have said Kenny has blue eyes. It was only a statement, and I took it for what it was: information.

She shared her personal dossier on the Fourth Avenue boys: Bobby, cute but only a rising fourth grader. Andrew, pretty dull. Darrell, nice, serious. Kenny, of course. It took him a long time to finish high school, and then he went into the Army.

One time Kenny came over, and the other kids tried to shoo him away. Danise wouldn’t have it. She said everyone could play. Kenny, too. And that was that. He was big, and we made him be the creature from the black lagoon or the invader from outer space, not from meanness, but because he could pick one of us up and carry us off as the others gave chase. He never seemed to mind. He was glad to be in the gang, and he had Danise to thank for it.

The tour proceeded down Fourth Avenue, and with a sigh, she pointed to a house on the left. “Johnny lives there. He’s in sixth grade. That’s his bike. When it’s there, I know he’s home.”

I could tell she was in love with him, so I decided to fall in love with him, too. Although she saw him first, Danise didn’t mind sharing, and our “older man” came and went quickly, breaking neither of our hearts in any significant way. (He was cute, though – see below.)

We stopped in front of a clapboard rental house in need of paint. “I live here.” She walked onto the porch and disappeared inside, but I held back. “Well, come on,” she said. “I’ll show you to my mother. My dad’s at work.”

I loved this new thing, Dad at Work. Uncle Raymond went to work. Danise’s dad went to work. The whole time I lived in Texas City, I never met anyone whose Dad didn’t go to work.

We went to the back of the house, where a pretty lady stood by the kitchen sink, up to her elbows in a bowl of dough. Danise’s mother seemed old because I was 10, and because my own glamorous single mother worked hard at not seeming old.

“Who’s this?” Mrs. Miller slipped a towel from her shoulder and wiped her hands.

“It’s Becky. She’s a girl.”

Mrs. Miller smiled, the same sweet smile she passed on to Danise. “Well, I can see that. Where’d you get her?”

“She moved into Mrs. Wagoner’s garage apartment.”

“Good! And you’re in time to spoon-drop these cookies. I’ll bet you like cookies, don’t you, Becky?”

I certainly did – snickerdoodles, they were – and from then on Mrs. Miller took me everywhere with her brood, and she taught me to bake cookies and hem skirts. She was kind and intuitive, too. Before the first batch of cookies came out of the oven, she knew way more about me than I told her. She knew I missed my parents. I didn’t want to talk about my father, and my mother was busy being a divorcee, though she called herself a widow (her charming way of dealing with unpleasantness).

Whether deliberately or by default, Mrs. Miller began to fill in for the Butterfly. Danise made sure I was integrated into the neighborhood, and so began a summer that lasted three years. We went to school, and perhaps it got cold, but in my memory from fourth grade through sixth, it’s always summer.

I learned too young I would have to look after myself, but I was relieved to have a friend to help sometimes, like when I got into a fist fight with Bobby. He and I often butted heads, and after one colorful exchange of insults, he got riled up and slapped me in the face. (He didn’t think of this as hitting a girl – I was just Becky from the block.)

In one instant the world went scarlet. I threw myself at him full throttle, and we tumbled to the ground, thrashing away. Danise realized that in 10 seconds I would lose the element of surprise, and Bobby was going to kick the living crap out of me. He was strong, and I was no match for him. Danise added herself to the twisted pile of arms and legs, and in the three-way scuffle she managed to pull us apart. When we were all upright again, she stood between Bobby and me until our tempers passed, and we all went home.

We played games of imagination and fun, influenced by movies and comic books. Our favorites were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (Bobby loved to be Roy) and Robin Hood, and although Danise or I insisted on being Robin now and then, we couldn’t prevail on Bobby to be Maid Marian.

We could walk on hot coals by July, the soles of our bare feet got so thick, and we wore pink or yellow sun-suits, tied at the shoulders, available for three dollars at Penny’s down on Sixth Street. We played hide-and-seek in the dusk and after dark put lightning bugs in glass jars. There were pomegranates to smash on the street and watch from windows as fierce afternoon storms washed the seeds away.

Danise and I hid in dark, cool places where our sisters couldn’t find us. We climbed chinaberry trees for ammunition, and had epic chinaberry fights. When we had a quarter for a ticket and a nickel for candy, we walked to the Showboat down on Sixth Street. Sometimes we stopped at the Ben Franklin store for ten cents worth of warm cashews to share. Stale as they were, we were sure they made us very, very cool.

We loved the attic of the old library on Ninth Avenue, where the dripping window air-conditioner kept us cool and provided white noise, and we were astonished to learn we could check out as many books as we wanted, in a place and time when there were limits to everything.

We spent so many hours at the public swimming pool Danise’s ash blond hair took on a greenish tinge, and we went every other day, even though we had to bike Gobi-like distances. We rode “no-hands” and pretended to splash through water mirages, and our legs grew strong as our little sisters trailed behind.

We took free dance classes at the recreation center where Mrs. Kehoe, the local dance teacher, donated her time. We fell in love with Robert, her assistant, the only boy who came near the dancing classes.

We took our shoes to the repair shop down on Sixth Street to have taps put on the toes, and met Gene, the handsome red-headed son of the owner. Just our age, he charmed us both as he did the work. On the way home, we stopped at the post office down on Sixth Street, just to roll on the grassy man-made hill, all of a two-foot slant.

By the time we got back to Fourth Avenue, it would be afternoon, and how pleasant it was before every 10-foot square bit of lawn required an insane number of power machines. There was the gentle sound of a revolving mower and the scrape of a rake mixed with birdsong and the laughter of children. In the evenings mothers called their kids who came reluctantly home, reluctant until they caught the smells from the kitchen and realized they were hungry, so hungry getting home couldn’t happen fast enough.

We shared the joy of growing up and feeling safe in a town where no one seemed rich, and no one seemed poor, and even though there wasn’t much to be had on my mother’s earnings, I didn’t care – no one seemed to. Time spent with the Fourth Avenue gang cured me of my boy-fear, and by the time the halcyon summers ended, boy people were just people.

Remember those little Brownie cameras we held waist-high? We pretended to see the future photo framed in the square on top, but we couldn’t. Not really, any more than we could see our own future or predict what people or things would last a lifetime.

Memories, beautiful and intact. The mashed potato spoon is indestructible, and so is my friendship with Danise. Yes, we experienced a long period of separation, like sisters who realize they have to go their own way to find out who they really are, beyond the influence of each other. Time brought us together again.

Danise and the Magic Summers. Sounds like a children’s book, to be read at bedtime and dreamed of in the deep sleep of childhood.

To be dreamed of, because that’s what didn’t last. By the time we had children of our own, the endless green summers had vanished, and forever, like the ice cream truck that played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as mothers called their children home.

NEXT:  The Bruskins – Part I