Neighborhood Memories

My last post was about the house I grew up in on Jefferson at Claybrook. Over the years the building just to our west was the scene of many a strange occurrence. One such event took place in the middle of summer during a particularly hot evening. My mom and I were sitting on the front porch when we heard a commotion coming from the house next door. Suddenly the front door opened, which was right at the sidewalk since the house had no front yard. Busting through the door was a naked man with shampoo in his hair followed closely by another man clad only in his underwear.  Now this is startling enough but the man chasing the naked gentleman had a very large butcher knife and was yelling incomprehensibly at the (luckily) quicker guy ahead of him.

This happened so quickly, and our house was so close to their’s, that in no time they had run past our front porch and down the street. All the while the guy in front was dripping shampoo along the sidewalk with the knife-welding pursuer directly behind him. But even during that short time I could tell that the guy doing the chasing wasn’t really going to stab the other guy, more of a scare tactic than anything.

After they passed by my mother nonchalantly said “well it’s time to go in now”. Always the understated woman. I miss her greatly.

Leave a Comment