That One Time During The Summer...

My moms sister and her husband, played a major role in my upbringing. So much so, I've spent multiple summers and school years living with them throughout my life.

When we were kids they lived in this neighborhood named Enderly Park. The neighborhood was between Freedom Drive and Tuckaseegee Rd. If you know Charlotte, you know that is not the most "safe" place for your children to roam freely.

My Aunt has three beautiful and successful daughters. One is a couple of years older than I am, the middle child is the same age as me, and the youngest is a couple of years younger than us. During the summers we stayed home alone. Aint nobody paying for child care! First off, it's too high. Second of all we were old enough and mature enough (so they thought) to watch ourselves and the baby.

My Aunt made sure there was plenty of food for us to eat, and we had toys for days to play with. If we needed to contact them, they were a phone call away. We knew we weren't supposed answer the door period. We also knew we weren't supposed to go outside...AT ALL.

But we did.

We were in Elementary, maybe middle school at the most and we went outside every single day. Just to go get lunch. I think one other time to smoke these fake cigarettes we rolled up in notebook paper LOL. Anyway..... keep in mind we had plenty of food, we just didn't want to eat it. We created a routine. two of us would go, and two would stay. The youngest always stayed. My Aunt and Uncle would never know because we got the money from the Crayon piggy banks my cousins had.

The lunch options were, Gates (the gas station) or McDonalds.

Pause.

If you know me now, you know good and fool well I am NOT eating anything out of a gas station...Maybe Sheets or WaWa but that is IT!

Gates had 2 for a dollar hotdogs and you could get whatever you wanted on them. McDonalds was just McDonalds, we all loved going there when we were kids.

On this one particular day it was me and Tra's turn to go get our food. We decided we were going to go to McDonalds.

My Aunt lived at the bottom of a dead end street. On the opposite side of her house was this gigantic semi wooded hill. I think it was the back of Apple Auto, on Freedom. On that hill the homeless people, winos, addicts would sleep or whatever it was that they did, on that hill.

Hence the reason we were not allowed to go outdoors when they weren't home.

McDonalds is on Freedom Drive. We had to walk up our street, to Enderly Park, then CROSS 2 lanes of traffic in both directions to get to McDonalds.

I know we tried it.

Tra and I managed to make it to McDonald's and were heading back home. We had just passed the gas station that sits at the top of Enderly Park and Freedom. Behind the gas station were the frequent loiterers. Bums, crackheads, prostitutes, drunks etc. Everything was all good....

Until it wasn't.

A bum asked for our food and ended up chasing us down the hill. We ran for our lives! LOL

We ran all the way home. I'm sure he had stop chasing us, but we were not trying to die so we kept running until we were safe inside the house.

We were so dumb. Risking our lives for some cheeseburgers and fries, because that's all we could afford. We could've been raped, murdered, kidnapped, you name it.

All for some John Brown McDonalds.

Turn to your neighbor and say "But God!"

God and that grace, and that covering, and that mercy and that hedge of PROCTECTION!!!!!!!

Thank you Lord.

As adults, whenever we revisit this story with my Aunt around, she just laughs and says..

"Bad Chaps"

Peace.

©Chroniclesofthelazynatural