GETTING CHASED

The city streets of Cleveland were covered with six inches of snow, and three of my friends, Bill, Pete, and George and I, decided to have fun in the snow one evening when it was dark. Due to the snowfall, there were not many cars on the streets. When we saw a car coming toward an intersection, we would hide behind a parked car close to the stop sign, and when the car stopped, we would scurry out, stay low, get behind the car, hold on to the bumper. When the car started moving, we would slide along with the car. As we called it, Car hopping was fun until we hit a dry spot on the road without snow due to a snowplow and would cause us to fall and roll. Thankfully, we didn't get hurt. We would do this over and over, seeing how far we could go without falling off or getting caught by the driver, sometimes going several blocks, and having to walk back.

We would also hide behind trees or cars and wait for a car to drive by and then jump out and throw snowballs, hitting the car with several snowballs at once, causing the cars to speed away or stop and the occupants to get out and chase us. On this particular night, we were walking west on Lorain Avenue, towards West Sixty-First Street throwing snowballs at cars and buses as they came by, hitting some and missing others. Buses were much easier to hit. Sometimes someone would be walking down the street, and we would throw snowballs from far away trying to hit them, but most times, we would miss. We did try to stay away from doing that, even though other kids would throw at us.

As we stood on the corner of West Sixty-First Street, we all had snowballs in our hands, waiting for a car to drive by. A car was driving west on Lorain Avenue, approaching our location. We all got ready, and when it got close enough to hit, we all threw the snowballs, hitting the car with all four snowballs, bam, bam, bam, bam direct hits. The car stopped and began to turn around. Bill and I ran west on Lorain Ave. towards West Sixty-Fifth St. George ran south on West Sixty-First St. Pete stood his ground. He never ran. The two occupants, two men in their twenties, got out of their car, and both guys started hitting Pete, and Pete fought back hitting them as well. It wasn't fair two against one. After a five-minute scuffle, Pete was suffering from a bloody nose and lip. In the meantime, Bill and I ran north up West Sixty-Fifth St. to Madison Avenue, wondering if the car was trying to find us, then running East on Madison Avenue to the Rapid Transit bridge. This bridge would take us back to Lorain Ave, where Pete was still waiting. We ran up to him, and Pete said, "why did you guys run? Those two guys were fighting me," but we thought that Pete had run too. If we had all stayed, it would have been a shouting match instead of a fistfight. We didn't realize Pete didn't run. We watched as George slowly walked back toward us. We stood there in disbelief, discussing where everyone ran to and asking Pete if he was ok, wondering about what had just happened.

This story is dedicated to my childhood friend Roy (Pete) Buchanan who sadly passed away from cancer. We all had such a great childhood and great memories that will never be forgotten from that period of our lives.