Candy Land

Our next door neighbors on the east had the last name Candy. There was Mr. Candy, his

mother, Mrs. Candy, and his daughter Judy Candy. Judy Candy was a teen ager when we moved

in and she went with a guy called Jim.

For some reason, during the summer, Diane and I slept in her room with our beds pushed

together. There was a huge window fan in her room that sucked in air from the dormer window in my room at the front of the second story. We would lay in bed and read.

It was the summer I discovered Daphne du Maurier, Olivia de Havilland, Peter O'Toole and

T.E. Lawrence. The movies I watched that summer had to be followed by reading the books

to really understand what was going on. It amazed me that Olivia de Havilland could play

the beautiful and mysterious lead in "My Cousin Rachel" and the homely, shy spinster in "The Heiress."

We would read well into the night and wake up around ten a.m. and start reading again.

Just about every night Judy Candy and her boyfriend would stroll from her back porch to

the garage and make out in the shadows. From a certain angle, the lamp post in the alley

provided excellent lighting conditions for us to watch them and giggle. Since most of

the window was taken up by the large fan, it was difficult for us to get at that precise angle.

We were able to do it often enough to giggle and snort at their shenanigans. We would have

the bedroom light off and the window fan off and sometimes we thought they may have

heard us. If that happened we would duck down below the fan and wait until we thought it

was safe again.

Eventually, Judy Candy married her boyfriend Jim. Even before they were married, Jim

was a well-known figure in the neighborhood. He did a lot of walking from Tholozan to

Watson, Ivanhoe, and beyond. He was good looking and friendly, always waving hi, but he wasn't much on conversation. After they were married, Judy and Jim remained in her house and her dad moved in with his "lady friend."

Whenever Jim encountered my dad doing his yard work, he would break the ice by saying,

"cutting the grass, huh?" Or, "barbecuing, huh?" If dad encountered him in the front yard,

Jim would say, "washing the car, huh?" These comments had a seasonal component, too.

"Raking the leaves, huh?" Or, "painting the windows, huh"

Those were the good old days, huh?