My friend Dale.

In small town Indiana, I had a friend named Dale. He was my everyday buddy and had bright red hair just like me. We use to go behind Joe Jonas's general store to steal empty Pepsi bottles and cash them in to Joe for candy.

One day we had two eight packs while waiting in a short line to cash them in. When we got to the counter Joe said with a half grin,"you two boys are going to have to quit stealing my bottles and selling them back to me."

Dale and I both had a,"How did he know",look on our faces. Joe then said,"boys...I will be glad to give you candy money if you do a little work around here for me." We both nervously agreed.

We did work for Joe a few times and never stole any more of his bottles. We swept the sidewalks and sorted pop bottles for him.

Dale and I got in trouble quite a few times with slingshots, seeing how far we could spit and the usual six year old boy antics. On our first day of the first grade, Dale and I got into trouble for making fart sounds with our arm pits. We both agreed that school was totally unnecessary and stupid!

Sadly, Dale soon moved away to Ohio.

My family didn't live far away from his grandparents, so I was able to see Dale a few more times before distance and life faded away the friendship.

One spring morning, my dad dropped me off at Dale's grandparent's house. I walked across the old swinging bridge over Wolf Creek. I couldn't see Dale but I could hear him shouting. I thought I would just sneak up on him and surprise him.

I sneaked along the side of the path until I had to crawl up a small bank in the high weeds. There was Dale....only a few yards from me. Dale was playing Roman soldier like we had done before. He had an old tin pot on his head, with an aluminum foil breastplate and wooden tobacco stick sword. He was marching back and forth while shouting the names John, Paul,George and Ringo. "The four gospels" according to Dale.

It being the mid sixties, the names made sense. Dale stopped marching and pretended to unroll a scroll and shouted," I Caesar hereby declare the death sentence to all Christian toad frogs and it will be a death by crucifixion!" I couldn't see who or what Dale was shouting at but I knew somehow that there was something on the ground.
I began laughing and that ruined my plan for scaring Dale.

When he saw me he said with an honoree look on his face," I am Caesar and you can be Maximus Tom." I said,"OK with me" as I walked up to him. When I saw what Dale had done, I busted out laughing!" He had four toad frogs tied on little stick crosses! I looked down at the poor squirming frogs and back at Dale in his tin pot hat, aluminum breastplate and wooden sword.

I laughed so hard that it hurt! Dale was a bit embarrassed and said," I'm tired of this, let's go whip snakes!" "Whipping snakes" was going to the creek and grabbing snakes by the tail to whip them, snapping their heads off. Dale's Grandma came out of the house and made us untie the frogs...then let them go, much to Dale's disliking.

Well, we whipped a few snakes, climbed trees, threw rocks and simply enjoyed being irresponsible ten year old boys. That was the last time I got to play with my best friend Dale. I saw him a few years later and being grown up had made it just not the same.

To this day, I treasure the days when time would come and go in grins. The sky was just a roof to play under and a friend was truly a friend.