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Springtime on Flamingo Street

By RICK RYCKELEY
Contributing Writer

Spring is that wonderful time of year when the temperature’s never too hot and never too cold, but just right. Most people recognize the signs of spring: mid-afternoon thunder storms, being able to wear shorts and short sleeves, flowers pushing up out of the ground and busting into a multitude of brilliant vibrant colors, and of course the days getting a little longer.

But if you didn’t grow up around here, you may not know that there are a lot more signs that spring has finally sprung. So sit back in that rocker on the front porch, grab a bag of salty peanuts, pour them into a “Co-Cola,” and read on. You’re gonna like this one.

One of the first signs of spring down on Flamingo Street was Old Man Hornbuckle digging up his garden. He called it a garden; heck, we all called it a farm. Hornbuckle didn’t believe in tractors or anything like that; he dug the entire farm the old-fashioned way, with a hand plow dragged behind Matilda. Matilda was the only mule on Flamingo Street, Duke of Gloucester Street, or all of East Point for that matter. 

When Matilda stomped and snorted through the back 40 acres, she’d drag Old Man Hornbuckle and his plow behind her as the blackest dirt we’d ever seen was thrown up into the air, and we knew that winter had finally released its grip on our town. Spring had arrived. 

Living in East Point and growing up on Flamingo Street, there were other signs of the changing seasons, like Bubba Hanks changing the way he wore his clothes. ubba Hanks was by far the largest kid in Mrs. Crabtree’s fifth-grade class at Mt. Olive Elementary School. He was held back in the third grade due to a kidney infection that kept him out of school for three whole months. The only thing the doc allowed him to do was lie in bed, eat, and watch television. And Bubba’s folks didn’t have a television.     

By the time he reached Mrs. Crabtree’s class, Bubba Hanks was five-foot-seven and weighed over 180 pounds. That’s why he always wore overalls and white T-shirts. They were the only clothes his parents could find to fit him. During the winter, Bubba added a coat and sock hat to his ensemble. When it started to get warm out, the hat and coat were tossed in the closet; he’d un-buckle the straps of his overalls and tie them around his waist like a belt. When we saw that big white tee shirt sauntering down the hallways, we all knew spring was finally here.

The way Bubba dressed was the best way for us to tell spring break was right around the corner; well, that and Goofy Steve’s frogs. To say that Goofy Steve was a bug person would be an understatement. Goof was a bug and critter fanatic! Side note: For all of you who weren’t fortunate enough to be born down here in the South, a critter is anything that crawls or jumps and scares your sister. It’s usually equipped with a tail. Critters, not your sister. 

Even though he’d been told about a bazillion times not to, Goof always had either a bug or a critter in his pocket or book bag when he came to school. Crickets, salamanders, lightning bugs, chameleons, really cool walking sticks, or a praying mantis would always be hoping or crawling around on Goof’s desk. I think the praying mantis one he found at church. All the critters and bugs somehow found their way into Mrs. Crabtree’s classroom, much to the displeasure of every girl who sat even close to Goof.

But everyone knew that Goofy Steve’s critter of choice was frogs. Goof loved frogs and, true to being a critter, frogs do have tails. You just have to look closely under their back legs while you hold them up just right. You can’t hold onto them too tight or they’ll pee all over your hand; only advantage to that is grossing out all the girls. If you don’t hold them tight enough, they jump right out of your hand. That’s how Froggy got down Blabber Mouth Betsy’s new spring dress.   

When spring arrived, Blabber Mouth Betsy took great pride in being the first girl at Mt. Olive elementary to wear a new spring dress. That year she was also known as the first girl to run around Mrs. Crabtree’s classroom screaming and then bolting down the hallway with a Goofy Steve’s frog dangling its green and black, webbed back feet out of the top of her dress. I guess it was really my fault; I just wanted to see if frogs really had tails. How was I supposed to know that Froggy would jump out of my hand, hop off Goof’s shoulder and down Betsy’s dress? It was a real shame. Never did find out if Froggy really had a tail or not. Tales of a different sort were what Neighbor Thomas’s Dad always told around the campfire. And the scariest tales he told were always at the first campout of spring.

All the neighbor kids camped out in Thomas’s backyard because his mom would always feed us and his dad would walk over to our base camp when the sun when down, tell us a tale, and scare the livin’ tar out of us. His stories were always after dinner and told around the campfire. While we were busy roasting marshmallows on the end of sticks, and making s’mores out of piece of bar chocolate and half burnt brown and black marshmallow squished between two sugar graham crackers, Thomas’s dad would start the first scary story of the spring. 

Thomas’s dad’s stories were always different, but they were always the same. Really scary. Some had chainsaws, some had knives, one had hatchets, a man who escaped from an insane asylum, an old man who never found out the war was over running around our woods, werewolves, and once he told a story of a mutated frog that would suck the life out of anyone who checked it for a tail. I stayed away from Goof for a whole week after that one.

So you see - flowers in bloom, warmer temperatures, and your car being turned yellow for a month aren’t the only way to know spring has sprung. And if you think we had some strange ways to tell it was springtime down on Flamingo Street, just wait ‘til you read about how we knew it was about to be summer. But that’s a story for another time.