Lighting Bolts

When I was a kid, a couple of kids (a brother and a sister) lived three houses from ours. They were the Bolt (maybe Bult) family, and our two families were mortal enemies of each other. I don't know why. But my parents would encourage my older brother Mike and me, and Mr and Mrs Bolt would encourage their kids, who were the same age as Mike and I, to engage in an almost-weekly ritual of throwing rocks at each other across the front yards. The rocks were plentiful from the dusty, rocky, gravel street in front of our houses. At times, Mike and I would dart for protective cover into the deep ditch which ran along side the street; then the Bolt brats would take their turn in the ditch.

One night, Mike, rascal that he was, persuaded me to join him in slipping out the house and into the Bolts' backyard. There we found their wash hanging on their outdoor clothesline (as was customary for all households in those days), and we proceeded to apply mud from the freshly wet yard onto their sheets, shirts, underwear, etc.

We never were seriously hurt from the rock throwing. Our mother received an irate phone call from Mrs Bolt about her muddied clothes, but Mom simply celebrated the victory with us. I don't remember the Bolts ever attacking us again.

Mike was, as I said, a rascal, who led me astray at times, and whom I would at times keep in check. It was good to have a brother who could batter lightning Bolts. Still, we had to learn our lesson, which would come to us later in the form of four two-year stints in the state juvenile reformatory.