The "Can Bill come out and play?" Story

My childhood friend - Bill Heckel

It was an ordinary day.  My longtime friend Bill just left to head back to Arizona.  I knew Bill from elementary school.  We lived less than a block away from one another, but only got to know each other after we entered elementary school.  See, my mom didn't really want me to play with too many kids when I was growing up, so she kind of limited me to the kids in my block so I wouldn't have to cross the street.  Well, Bill lived with his twin sister, younger sister, mom and grandmother on Liberty St. in Lancaster.  Liberty was across the street from me, so I never knew Bill until we had to walk to school together.  I found out I could see his house from my front porch, but until my mom got to know him during first grade, I wasn't able to play with him.  Bill and his family were rather poor.  They lived on the second floor above a garage.  All five of them in a rather small area.  Below their home, in the first floor of the garage, was a store where they made and sold chocolate candy.  During the summer between 1st and 2nd grade, Bill and I were best of friends.  Bill loved visiting on Saturday mornings for breakfast and then the special treat; watching "Covered Wagon Theatre" on our black and white TV.  His family didn't have a TV so we spent all Saturday morning, after breakfast, watching westerns on our little screen TV.  Boy, those were the days.  Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger; they were our heroes.  During the rest of the week we would visit with one another and play cowboys and Indians.  I remember many times when I would knock on his door and ask his mom, "Can Bill come out and play?"  We even took Bill on vacation to the Chesapeake Bay with us one year.  Bill and I were reminiscing about our childhood today before he left for the airport.  "Remember the time when you came over and we got really wound up, opened the window of our second floor place, and started to throw toys out onto the pavement below.  Boy was my grandmother mad.  Never saw her mad at you like that.  Made you go home and called your mom," Bill recalled.  "Yeah, I had to spend a few days in my room for that," I replied.  Bill's mom moved her family to Manheim, PA after Bill finished 3rd grade and I lost one of my best friends.  In my junior year of college, Bill surfaced once again in my life.  He was also a student at Millersville State Teacher's College.  I managed to get him a job at the Acme Supermarket where I was employed.  Shortly afterward, Bill joined the Navy, but never forgot me.  We still keep in touch and get to see each other every year or so.  And, we still enjoy playing together as we did when we were elementary school friends.  But the excitement of throwing items has waned.  Now we only talk and laugh about the old days when cowboys and Indians were the only thing we had to worry about.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Bill's childhood home on Liberty Street.  Second floor; door to the second floor used to be on the far right.

Mrs. Good's 1st grade class.  I am in the rear left, Bill is 3rd from the right in the first row, and my other childhood friend and traveling companion, Jerry, is in the first row on the far right.