The Summer of Lost Soles

Copyright © Ronald E. Hudkins

All Rights Reserved

Print ISBN: 148392503X

Print ISBN-13: 978-1483925035  Ebook ISBN: ISBN: 9781310442438

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Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wife, Ginny, who has been my partner in life and business.

To my children Katie, Nikki and Jesse – your growth provides a constant source of joy and pride.

This book is dedicated to the mentors, acquaintances, friends, and family of Ronald Hudkins; my wife, children, Otis Hohimer, Carol Thompson, Bill Poulelis, Owen and Dulcy Howard, Cindy, Medina Family, Hise Family, Lindholm Family, Lewis Family, Arellano Family, Les and Jan Burrow, Bard and Bobby Heroy

Last but not least

To you the reader . . .

I hope that you have at least half as much fun in the reading of this book as I’ve had in the writing of the tale. Please visit the source you purchased this book and leave your comment(s).

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Section One: Introduction

Section Two: The First Self-Propelled Rotary Mower

Section Three: What Do You Want to Do?

Section Four: The Exhibition Misinterpretation

Section Five: Skateboarding

Section Six: The River Boat

Section Seven: The Shooting Incident

Section Eight. The Bicycle

Section Nine: Fishing

Section Ten: Things You Throw

Section Eleven: The Kite

Section Twelve: The Unfortunate Flood

Section Thirteen: Frog Gigging

Section Fourteen: Grocery Store Errand

Section Fifteen: Summer's End

About the Author

Book Review Request

Acknowledgement

Much of what I have learned over the years came as the result of being a father to 3 wonderful and delightful children, Katie, Nikki and Jesse all of whom, in their own ways inspired me and, subconsciously contributed a tremendous amount to the content of this book. A little bit of each of them will be found here weaving in and out of the pages perhaps not in story form but certainly with the emotions they were able to make me realize. Things like hate, rage, disgust, contempt and things like these that surfaced immediately after the word No. But also love, appreciation, tolerance, pride, respect and so much more that bound us all as we matured - thanks kids!

I also need to thank a wonderful lady who changed me completely, and that is my wife. I thank Ginny, with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing a warm, wonderful and loving relationship with and whose words, over the years has taught me much about my self and the mysterious ways of life. She taught me humility and how to value the lives, thoughts and expressions of others, how to care for and understand their needs. She taught me how to bite my tongue publicly and in my senior years not to chicken choke every idiot that somehow manages to surface but rather, keep my mouth shut in a small town.

No one walks alone on the journey of life and as much as my ex wished I had, would or could - I do not. With all that I have shared my life with just where you start to thank those that joined you, walked beside you, and helped you along the way. Many have continuously urged me to write a book, to put my thoughts down on paper. Over the years, those that I have met and worked with have encouraged me to share my insights together with the secrets to my continual, positive approach to life and all that life throws at us. So at last, here it is. So, perhaps this book and its pages will be seen as thanks to the many of you who have both tolerated me and helped make my life what is today; happy, fulfilled, rich and content.

I would like to thank Hannah for her review of this book. Her proofreading, editing and critique were invaluable. These professional services and many other talents are found at http://fiverr.com/jeyrin.

Section One

Introduction

Our story happens within a small town named Massillon. The city is located along the slow, shallow, meandering and canalized portion of a river in northeastern Ohio known as the Tuscarawas River. This small town with the building of the Erie Canal in or around 1827 was a commerce powerhouse up until the first few decades of the industrialized 1900’s. Despite all the progression in its industrial technology; our story takes place when the steel industry of our fair city was dethroned. It was than that it and all other communities of the Rust Belt experienced some dismal days in both business and growth throughout the early 60’s up into the 80’s. We could talk about the river, city and Ohio history for pages but we are not here for that today. All we need to know is we are in the United States in a small friendly town located about fifty-five miles south of Lake Erie.

Seemed all adults in the tri-county area at the time were struggling to make ends meet. Guess you could say for children in this 1960’s Ohio it was pretty much similar to 1944 World War II when children often came home from school to an empty home and subsequently were termed latchkeys. This time however, it was still one parent working and the other parent had enlisted into the service or was drafted this time to serve in the Vietnam War. Between a combination of dismal times, poor economic growth and war; many children were left with little or no parental supervision.

Loneliness, boredom and fear can be a problem with younger unsupervised children. However in our little town there were positive effects of being latchkey children that included independence, self-reliance at a young age and unfortunately, peer pressure that resulted in everyday conduct sometimes becoming near disasters. It is here in the early 60’s we meet Ricky and his band of friends being sometimes bored but always earnest in their attempts to fill the summer day doing something they thought was productive.

Ricky wasn’t anything spectacular. He was skinny, had a squeaky voice, a bit small for his adolescent age. His closet consisted of a twenty foot rack full of on sale shirts that all looked the same. He also had a drawer full of matching jeans of different sizes from the local Salvation Army Store. Unless you actually knew Ricky’s parents and their obsession with thrift you would think the kid had never changed his clothes since first grade. But hey, a sale was a sale was a sale right? Times were tuff! I suspect the frames of his glasses were pretty much the same parental concept as they too were three times larger then his head needed. Poor Ricky looked like he was wearing a scuba mask with the size lenses it took to fill those frames. The only thing he got he would never grow out of was shoes.

It isn’t that his parents couldn’t, didn’t and have not purchased sale shoes by the multiple gross like everything else. The simple fact of the matter was no matter how hard he tried or how careful Ricky was; he could not keep from destroying any type of shoe. It wasn’t on purpose or some inadvertent physiological cry for attention. It generally had pretty much the ending consequence of actions that all happened faster than an old fashioned 78rpm record. They (just like him) sounded good but moved statically fast!

The day may have ended up only being 24 hours but feet could do a whole lot of kicking dirt, trees and posts during the woken hours. Shoes could be left on the city bus, at the lake or just about anywhere else that became an event left behind. There was bike riding, skate boarding, running, climbing, jumping and all manner of feet dragging. Surface Friction and air resistance on the soles was just part of an energy packed day. Open eyes were after all meant to be action/reaction, kinetic energy, thermal energy, chemical energy, electromagnetic radiation, gravitational energy, elastic energy, electric energy, nuclear energy, (not yet classified) potential energy and everything but rest energy worked on the soles of Ricky’s shoes. Is it a wonder they never had a chance?

Ricky and his sister were a classic example of sibling rivalry and as a result of this combat; who knows how many pairs of Ricky’s shoes suffered as a result of dispute and devious demise. Then there was the humor quotient of friends and the resultant pranks and their off the cuff jokester misbehaver. But somehow I suspect even if Ricky was raised in a closet the shoes on his feet would not have had a chance there either.

So, lets transition into the life of Ricky, his friends, foes and acquaintances by starting off as nearly every day did. Morning, front porch, clear summer day trying to bloom into hot and blustery day.

Section Two

The First Self-Propelled Rotary Mower

Ricky was a bookworm in grade school who during the year managed to read every book in the Horace Mann Grade School Library. This may sound pretty impressive; however, the library consisted of five or six double-sided racks of books that were located in the rear of the senior (6th grade) class classroom. Still, all the inventors and their creations fascinated him and he was ready to move forward into junior high. Ricky decided he needed to use some of those amazing inventions to make shoe money. After all, history had proven he was far beyond the ability to keep any shoe in the proper state of usefulness.

He remembered reading about someone inventing a self-propelled mower. Now that he thought would be the thing to have. A person even as small as himself wouldn’t have trouble guiding a mower around any configuration of a yard. No fuss, no muss just money in the pocket. With all the physical energy he’d conserve behind a self propelled mower it seemed he would be able to cut every yard in the city