Peanuts and Me

I expect this is most person's favorite comic strip, "Peanuts", drawn and written by Charles Schultz for a period of 50 years. This picture reminds me of my own childhood, particularly in the early thirties. For several years I was part of the "Spring Street Gang" - my brother, James "Jimsie", and I, and my first cousins next door, Mary "Sister" and Rochford "Sonny". I was like Charlie - the "round headed kid"; "Sister" was much like Lucy - in the blue shirt; and "Sonny" and "Jimsie" both were like the kid in the middle - in the green-and-yellow-striped shirt.  "Sister" and "Sonny" had a bulldog known as "Jiggs" that matches with Snoopy. Jiggs liked chocolate ice cream and enjoyed playing football with us. "Sister" and I are the last survivors of our families, and we have only two first cousins left, in Rome, Georgia.  Early June reminds me that we had a certain date in April or May to go to short pants and bare feet.  There was another, much larger gang of cousins a block or so away, known as the "Water Street Gang", but the two gangs seldom mixed.

My neighborhood included four houses on the east side of  Spring Street and the south side of South Street, with only one house facing on the west side of Spring and no houses across South Street. Each house had a vacant lot behind it, and on the west side was also a large sheep pasture belonging to Dr. Robb Simpson. On the west side of Spring was a paved sidewalk. So there was plenty of play space around us. 

"Sister" was the accepted leader/boss of our gang and one year on my birthday, June 9, she magnanimously told me that I could be "boss" that day. I was pleased, of course, but my good feeling didn't last beyond noon. By that time "Sister" felt compelled to take the position of "boss" away from me and to assume the role herself. A few years ago, I reminded her of this incident, and she went out and bought a 3-D plastic sign that read "BOSS".

I remember that on our third-grade baseball team "Sister" and I were relegated to the "boonies" on defense, but she could catch a fly ball, while the best I could do was to run down whatever came my way.