The Barn

Childhood memory

The year was 1977. I was in the 5^th grade at Red Bank Elementary School. Some of my close friends at the time were Todd Nelson, Wendell Beasley and Robbie McCann. I had recently made the little league team for the first time. I wasn’t much of an athlete. I could neither catch nor throw very well, and batting was not one of my strong points either. The only reason I even made the team was because at try-outs I had made some incredibly lucky hits and catches, but alas, I could never repeat that performance in an actual game or even practice for that matter. Nevertheless I had my uniform, some hand me down cleats and a place on the team. Now that my inabilities had become manifest I was relegated to “riding the pines”. In reality I didn’t mind being a bench warmer. I didn’t like baseball all that much anyway. I was just there out of peer pressure to be with my friends.

My friends were all veterans of the little league while I was a mere novice, but they all clapped me on the back and said they would show me the ropes. After school we had to wait over an hour for the coach to get there for practice. Todd told me some of the team met in an old tobacco barn behind the school before practice. Knowing the barn was strictly off-limits according to every teacher at the school, I was a bit dubious. I was also a bit gullible so I accompanied Todd to the barn for this unofficial “team meeting”. We got to the door and Todd issued the secret knock, which was “shave and a haircut”. The door creaked open and I was given the shock of my life.

The inside of the barn was very gloomy with only a little light getting in through the gaps in the siding. There in the middle of the dirt floor sitting in a circle were Robbie and Wendell along with Randy Collins and Patrick Slate lit only by candles and the red tips of the cigarettes they were smoking. My world was spinning. Up was down and black was white. I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. I guess I had lived a sheltered life up until this point, because I had no idea that kids would even think of doing such a thing as smoking. I tried to hide my utter shock and amazement as I stepped inside. Robbie was the ring leader of this little group and the first thing he said was “Mark needs to take a puff so he can’t tell on us”. Then Todd stood up for me and assured them that wouldn’t be necessary because I was no rat. Little did he know that I was a rat. I found nothing more satisfying than getting one of my siblings in trouble with a well timed tattling. They even called me “Rat Patrol” after the TV show of the same name. Of course I was not going to volunteer that little tidbit of information. I wholeheartedly agreed with Todd that I would never tell a soul about their smoking circle. So I stood there watching them smoke until it was time for baseball practice, and I kept my word and never told anyone about that meeting in the barn - until now.