Hometown Memories: My Kid Life in a Place Called Hometown

by Brian Weaver

When dusk arrived, the mosquito fogger truck betrayed its location with tell-tale billows rising from 88th Place. A call to arms. “Get your bikes!” It was time to chase the truck of poison gas. I don’t know what it was about pedaling into a cloud of DDT that was fun. But it was. It was a phenomenon of the time. By all rights we should’ve all been dead by the time we hit twelve years of age. There were no less than half a dozen kids trailing after a truck belching high volume, foul smelling insecticide. Grown men on the back of the truck were frantically waving their arms and hollering for us to stay back. All the while a pack of kids on banana seats with sissy bars as far as the eye could see, disappeared into the fog behind it. Myself among them. When the streetlights came on and the insects that survived the death fog began to teem around the lamps, we headed for our homes. Our bellies heaved after our day of playing, running and riding our bikes. Sweat ran down our foreheads. Even the humidity somehow felt good. At night, for those of us with only a box fan to move the air, the bed sheets stuck to us as we reached for the cool side of the pillow until sleep overtook us. If you’re looking for a source of inspiration for your life…this isn’t the book for you. There are no ghastly tales of parental abuse or triumphs over grinding poverty awaiting you inside these pages. There are no drugs (aside from generous doses of Bactine, tincture of iodine and Murcurochrome for my various and sundry childhood injuries), no murders or terrorist plots. This is a very loose collection of recollections from my youth in the 1960’s and 1970’s. If that makes any sense. An autobiography? A literary selfie? In a way. But this is more about the time and place in which I grew up then about myself. Hopefully you’ll see reflections of your own childhood in these micro memories. My life, was and remains nothing special and yet…somehow…it is.

125 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 23, 2016