My 1969 Sour and MoonPie® Enlightenment

Miami-born, I spent my early childhood in south Florida, where I was accustomed to having a variety of fruits growing in my yard.  If they were not in my yard, they were somewhere in the neighborhood; maybe in a friend's yard, or in an unsuspecting neighbor's yard, or just growing up and down the sides of the streets--waiting to be picked. 

Surinam cherries

Surinam cherries grew off of shrubs that were incorporated in peoples' hedges at the fronts and sides of their yards.  Coconut trees were just a given in Miami, ubiquitously towering on most every street's right-of-way.  

Guavas

Guava trees were in the neighborhood, too, in somebody's yard, anyway.  Back in those days, it was OK to go around raiding the neighbors' yards and eating their fruits, so long as we kids didn't show up greedy-looking and carrying bushel baskets to fill off our neighbors' generosities.

An extra special person living in south Florida was Grandma Rose Sharpe, who had a yard filled with all kinds of neat stuff.  Fruits that were ready-to-eat and welcome-to-pick (as per Grandma's permission).  She had mangoes, figs, avocados (not sweet, but a favorite of mine), oranges, strawberries, guavas and coconuts, of course.   

She had other impressive stuff, too, like bananas (didn't like bananas, but thought they were neat-looking), key limes (sours!), and eggplants (whaaat?).  Although these latter items were not things I desired, I always thought it was so cool the way Grandma's yard and garden were so manicured.  She pampered the fruit trees that were there naturally, as well as the specialty fruits and veggies she had planted.    

In my early days, we would vacation to Tallahassee every summer, and there I remember Papa Tomberlin ( mom's bio-father) had grapevines at his place.  I would walk under them in amazement and pick-n-eat, pick-n-eat.  Yum...grapes!

Ben E. Keith, Co. http://www.benekeith.com/food/recipes/blackberry-cobbler

While in Tallahassee, the family would regularly go with my grandparents Mother and Pop Copelin and pick blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and/or huckleberries, depending on what time of the year it was and which direction we were heading any given day.  I'd eat eat and eat as I picked and picked for that yummy cobbler that I knew was coming to Mother's table that night.  Mom would tell me, "Don't eat them faster than you pick them."  

Uncle Edward had watermelons

We'd go to my Uncle Edward's place, not far from Mother and Pop's, and get watermelons from his garden.  I was allowed my very own watermelon, and I'd pick one about the size of a volleyball--big as I could handle.  Mother would make sweet pickles out of the emptied melon rinds.  What wonderful summer days! 

The sweet advantage seemed to be everywhere I turned; from my Miami end of Florida to the Tallahassee top of it.  Even when we traveled the road one way or the other, as we approached Orlando, there, up ahead, the Citrus Tower!  The once famous landmark was surrounded by orange groves, and its appearance on the horizon was our alert that soon, we'd be picking oranges off of somebody's  trees--the fruits of somebody else's labors.  

Trespassing and picking and feasting.  This was a regular pit stop for us as we traversed the Sunshine State, and back then the oranges were fair game.  We'd pull over to the side of the highway and pick as we pleased--no law, or at least, no law around!  

I spent my early years taking all these free-growing luxuries for granted.  I was accustomed to being able to quickly satisfy my sweet tooth.

In 1969, I moved to Twilleytown, AL, where the sweets didn't grow on trees.

I was at my new friend Teresa's house one day, and saw a box in the kitchen marked MoonPie.  I asked her what that was, and she described them to me; a soft tone of amazement in her voice at my ignorance about MoonPies.  She gave me one.  I ate the thing while we walked toward my house.  I loved this MoonPie!  I'm gonna' be wanting more, too.  

We entered my house, and as I showed Teresa around our small home, she spotted the bag of lemons on the kitchen counter.
Her eyes widened and her face lighted up.  "I love lemons!" she exclaimed.  "What do you mean?" I asked.  "I love eating lemons!  They are so good with salt on 'em!"  I cringed at the thought.  I was a sweet-eater, not a sour-seeker.  I gave her a lemon.




The next day, I longed for MoonPies.  I called my friend, "Can you come up?" I asked her.  "No, I gotta' clean the house today."  Teresa was always cleaning house, making cornbread, and washing clothes.  A nine-year-old homemaker.  "You have any more MoonPies?" I inquired.  She sure did!  And I still had lemons.  And since she had to work at home today..., "let's meet halfway and swap."  We agreed; trade made.  

Turns out she always had MoonPies at her house.  I didn't know why then, except that her dad, Clyde, liked them.  I know why now, though, since I did some MoonPie research on their company website http://moonpie.com/

I found out that MoonPies were created as a "staple" for coal miners' lunchboxes, or lunch pails, in 1917.  The idea was suggested by the miners, and for the miners.  They needed something for their snack breaks, something that was tasty, satisfying, and convenient for packing and handling. 

Miner's antique lunch pail

According to the MoonPie Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MoonPie, at the moment the miners were describing their snack of desire to MoonPie inventor Earl Mitchell, Sr., the moon was just rising.  One miner pointed at it, saying that he wanted said snack to be as big as that moon.  So the MoonPies came to be a miner's lunch pail regular.  And Teresa's father was a coal miner--an underground coal miner, in fact.

The reason we always had lemons, which we did, is not nearly as intriguing a story.  My parents went to the Farmer's Market on a regular basis, and would buy bargain crates of things that were about to be scrapped.  I knew I never saw any lemon meringue pies at my house, and maybe the occasional wedge could be seen sticking out of my mother's iced tea glass.  Other than that, I don't remember using lemons for anything except to watch them spoil on the counter top.  Now though, they had a new meaning and new value to me.  One lemon was equal to one MoonPie.

Our swap meet went on for several weeks.  We'd meet, we'd trade, and we'd sit around snacking on MoonPies and lemons.  Then came the day that I finally decided to try a salt-laden lemon for myself.  Wowee! 

PASS THE SALT, PLEEEZE!  

      

I quickly grew to love "sour".  Teresa introduced me to many other sour treats that I began to crave, too.  We'd raid the neighborhood of green plums, carrying our salt shakers with us as we made the rounds.  We knew when and where the green apples were ready to be plucked.                                 

http://www.wildharvestuk.net/hunt-and-gather-uk/

I learned of some "new" sort of apples  Teresa called crab apples, and she and I spent many an afternoon eating giant mixing bowls full of them.  We'd eat until the stomach aches came.  But oh, what joy the ache it was! 

She even turned me on to the old-timey dill pickles at Brasher's, the local clapboard general store.  The pickles were in a giant jar on the counter, and they only cost a nickel.  I'm sorry Mother, but these dills override your sweet watermelon rind pickles!  

The Canned Quilter at Hickery Holler Farm http://hickeryhollerfarm.blogspot.com/2013/07/high-canning-season.html

The following year, when I was 10 years old, my family had moved back to the Miami area for a short stint.  We relocated a lot because my stepfather Bill was in the asbestos union.  He was oftentimes also running from the law (another story).  In any case, we moved on several occasions.  By that time, I was firmly hooked on lemons, limes, anything sour.  

In Ft. Lauderdale, FL we lived in a rental, and out in the yard were the usual coconut and guava trees.  And there was a lemon tree, with lemons the size of grapefruits.  I was salivating as I picked one of the giants.  I cut it in half, then fourths, then eighths (yeah, they were that big) and doused the sections with salt.  Omigosh I loved it!  

Having eaten half of the monster, my stomach immediately
morphed into an ulcer-ridden bag of acid, but it was glorious!  The open-sore, burning feeling went away after about thirty minutes, so I ate the other half.  

I went to Grandma Rose's house, and this time, I ate her key limes like they were going out of style.  Sprinkle salt, and ahhhhh! You don't know what you're missing, Teresa!

I tried to bring a few of all these treasures back to Teresa that year, but they had shriveled by the time I was back in Twilleytown.  

I went back and forth from Alabama to south Florida over the next couple years.  Upon my return one year, Teresa and I experienced an episode of candy overload.  I came back to Twilleytown with a pocket full of baby sitting money I had earned during that trip.  It amounted to about $35, which was a lot for a twelve-year-old in 1972.  In just two or three afternoons, Teresa and I blew it all on brown paper sacs of candy (sweet and sour) treats from Brasher's.  

There we sat, at the roadside on the bank of Twilleytown Loop, glutting on the bagged goods.  Life was a treat!

So I hadn't abandoned MoonPies, or any other sweets for that matter.  I had simply taken a hiatus from them as Teresa exposed me to the sour side of life.  By then, I had acquired a wonderful balance between the sweet and the sour.  I had, thanks to Teresa, developed tastes for new flavors.  

I had learned to love treats like SWEETARTS® candies,Charms® Sour Lollipops (I think they're just "sour balls" today), and Now & Later^® green apple squares.  I likewise still enjoyed chocolate chip cookies, chocolate candy bars, chocolate brownies, pretty much chocolate anything.  I'm open minded, and open mouthed.  
  
Thank you, Teresa, for the taste bud overhaul and great snack enlightenment. 

www.cookingwithk.net/ Southern Kitchen Happenings

One snack she never got me to be interested in was buttermilk and cornbread in a glass.  That seemed to be a favorite of hers, and, as I learned, a favorite of many Southerners.  Thank you, but no thanks, good friend Teresa.     

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The Prank Calls

I learned how to make prank phone calls when I was nine years old.  That was in 1969, way before "Call Return" and "Caller ID".  That was back when phones were attached by a wire to the wall of your house.

I was living in my step-aunt Bobbie Nell's house in Graysville, AL, and when all adults were out of the house, my sister Colleen and my step-cousin Jack (we called him Jackie), both aged 14, would start with the calls.  I was allowed to observe these masters of prank, but only if I refrained from making background noise.

They would take turns picking random numbers out of the phone book, dial them, and give the poor recipients their anonymous treat of the day.  Colleen and Jackie both altered their voices to sound adult and authentic.  I remember their spills.  He did the now stale "is your refrigerator running?", and then told the party on the other end that they'd better go catch it before it get's away.  He also did the cliché call (although it was new to me at the time) to the drugstore to ask if they have Prince Albert in a can.  "You'd better let him out before he smothers!"

"Ha ha ha ha", we all laughed with delight. 

Colleen had a particular prank call that she used regularly.  She even had the script for it written out on a piece of lined notebook paper.  It was a telephone commercial for a non-existent cologne named Nothing.  She would start the call by asking if the lady of the house was home.  That was an OK and fairly typical question to ask in the 1960s, even though the answering party always knew there was to be a sales pitch following that question.

Colleen would begin her "nothing" cologne spill, while Jackie and I sat anxiously but quietly listening; our eyes intently focused on the fake saleslady.  Her act went something like this:

"When you wear 'nothing', your husband will not be able to keep his hands off of you.  Every man will love you if you are wearing 'nothing'.  Wearing 'nothing' gives you confidence.  Be assured that if you wear 'nothing', you will be appreciated as a modern woman.  Every man will simply love you if you wear 'nothing' at parties", and so forth it went, depending on the other party's responses.

OR, if the woman of the house was absent or non-existent:

"When you give 'nothing' to your wife/girlfriend, she will always remember you.  When she wears 'nothing', you will fall in love with her all over again."  Colleen even turned "nothing" into a man's cologne one time when she dialed a man who had no "lady of the house". 

And so on it went--you get the idea.

Now, Colleen never did well being in the limelight.  Anytime she was ever placed as the center of attention, as she was at that moment with our eyes and ears upon her, she would get embarrassed and sometimes even tear up to the point of crying.  She also would tear up when she got to laughing too hard.  Well, this was the moment for both.  She stumbled halfway through her first sales pitch, and had to abruptly hang up so that she could be free to burst out laughing along with Jackie and me.

Okay, she dialed another one with a determined seriousness, and she went through the whole spill to a patient man on the other end of the line.  Jackie and I had to put pillows over our faces so Colleen wouldn't see the twinkles in our eyes or hear the giggles we had to stifle.  She finished that one like a pro!  And, hanging up the phone, she beamed at our applause and loud bursts of previously contained laughter.

Jackie and Colleen went another round, each taking a turn, and each congratulating one another after their calls.  I was being left out of their club of mutual admiration.   

I wanted MY turn.

Since they were being kind enough to even permit me, a nine-year-old, to stay in the room while they worked, they had to discuss letting me make a call.  After an agreement, they allowed me to do one, however I had to demonstrate to them that I could lower my voice enough to sound like a grown-up.  I chose to sound like a man, and I auditioned for them.  They "ok'd" it, and I dialed the phone.  A man answered.

"Do you need your house painted?" I asked in a manly voice.  The split-second of silence was enough to make me think he was actually considering it.  He said "no".  I said "alright then", and we hung up.

Nobody thought it was funny, not even me, and nobody was laughing.  I felt satisfied though, that I had been granted a screen test, or in this case, a "receiver" test.  Next thing I knew I was being screened out of the prank session, and I had a feeling I would be granted no more chances to actively participate.  I had my go at it, and bombed out.  Colleen and Jackie worked on a few more victims for a bit, and when the adults came home, the prank party was over.

I had learned plenty though, for later.

A year or so after, I was living in Twilleytown and hanging around with my friend Teresa.  During one of our lull days when we had the house to ourselves, the telephone came into play.  I told her about "nothing" cologne, and how we could "sell" it.  We got the phone, which had a very long cord on it, and dragged it to the middle of the living room floor.  That was our stage for opening day and phone prank days to follow.  We did the "nothing" commercial for potential "customers" on the other end of the line; thus beginning a long audio acting career.

As the next couple of years went by, we honed our skills by asking weird questions of people ("can I borrow a cup of flour?"), making strange statements to people ("we are holding your cat for ransom"), and sometimes screaming out horror scenarios to people who subsequently stressed over how they could get help to some girl "being strangled" in the general area.  We even serenaded some poor folks with the break out of song as soon as they picked up their phones.  We were scaring, distressing, worrying, lullabying, etc. many unseen strangers.

In time, we even became brazen enough to call people we knew, and with much success, in that they never recognized our voices.  We discovered that it was more fun to call people we were acquainted with because, knowing what they looked like, we could envision their expressions and reactions, and therefore more thoroughly enjoy the moment.  It was a special thrill when we could picture the victims' faces as they heard the nonsense we dished out to them.  We got Aunt Bobbie one time, and Teresa's Aunt Birdie another time.  We got neighbors, we got Jack's Hamburgers a time or two, and I think we even got one of our teachers' houses once--Mr. Gann, maybe.

One day my parents brought home a crate of baby chicks.  There were, it seemed, about a hundred 3-day-old biddies (that's what we called them) in that box.  I can't say "a hundred" with absolute certainty, but there were a bunch of them.  My parents left the house again to go get chicken-raising supplies or something, and left me (and Teresa) in charge of biddie-watching.  Our stage, the living room floor, was set.  The cast?  A hundred funny, fuzzy, chirping biddies.

Not that the biddies didn't hold their own on entertainment value; they did, with their cute and comical appearance prompting us to laugh, to swoon, and to fondle them.  But we just had to carry it a step farther via telephone.  We made several anonymous phone calls to people to let them hear the melodious sound of a hundred chicks "peep peep peeping" into the receiver, while we held our breaths, silently listening to the people's responses.  Our rolling hysteria after the phone "slam" was our reward. 
 
We did the same with a small box--maybe a dozen in number--of ducklings about a month later.

It went like that off and on for a few years.  Then, at some point, I began to do the prank calls on my own.

I'd dial.  "Hello"
Me:  "Is Henry there?"
Them:  "You've got the wrong number."
Me:  "Well could I just leave him a message?"
Them:  Could develop into anything from a stern but patient "you've got the wrong number--there is no 'Henry' here" to an intense "YOU HAVE THE WRONG #@!x:%!! NUMBER!!" to a "slam" of their receiver.

Dial.  "Hello"
Me:  "This is the operator with your requested party. I have your long distance call on hold for you to Singapore" (or Cairo, or Tahiti, depending on my mood). "One moment please, while I make the connection."
Them:  "Whaaaa...?"  he fades as I scrape cardboard over the receiver's sound holes a few times to simulate transmission sounds.  I joyfully hold my breath and listen to him quizzing his wife and/or kids about "who have ya'll been calling??"

Dial.  "Hello"
Me:  (in a gum-chewing-smacking teen voice) "Where's Angie at?"
Them:  (tersely) "There is no 'Angie' here.  You have the wrong number."
Me:  (smacking gum) "How do I get 'hold of 'er?"
Them:  (not laughing) Slams down the receiver.

Dial.  "Hello"
Me:  Violently coughing and 'trying' to speak. A broken "s'cuse me" inserted a couple of times.
Them:  "Hello??"
Me:  "Just a minute" hack/cough ''s'cuse me"; clear my throat really really hard, ''alright then"....."who'd you need to talk to?"
Them:  "Do what?!" and/or "Who's this?!"
Me:  "Who's this?"  "You called me!"
Them:  SLAM

I knew how to entertain myself.

I got a part-time job when I was 16 and I had access to many names and numbers of people around Walker County, mostly on the east end.  I was left alone to "man the store" several times.  There was one customer of the place where I worked, and his name was Ollie.  I had never heard of a real person named Ollie before. I had heard of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, but never an actual Ollie person.  One day, I called this Ollie's house, and quickly inquired "Hey Ollie, where's Kukla and Fran?"  After hanging up really fast, not waiting for him to answer, I burst out in a rewarding hysterical laughter session that lasted me about five minutes.    

That unethical act would definitely be a firing offense in this day and age.  Would have been then too, but I got away with it.   

I grew up (allegedly), being in my 30s, but continued on with the tradition.  I had a Motorola Bag Phone by now and carried it around in my truck.  Still no "Caller ID", not in my circles anyway.  I bought a Frankenstein doll in the middle of a workday from Walmart's Halloween aisle, and the doll would moan and groan when you flipped on his switch.  From my Bag Phone I called Colleen first, my prank-call guru, and anonymously let Frankenstein moan into the phone at her while I held my breath.  She hung up without a word.  "Of all the nerve!", I thought.  My mentor hanging up on me, not appreciating how much her 1969 student had progressed.  She didn't even allow herself a moment to savor a well-done prank call; just unemotionally hung up on me.  Me; the reigning master of prank!

I immediately called her back, laughing despite her snub, and told her it had been me.  "It sounded like a cow" she said.  Okay, she was right once I had thought about it.  But, where was her prank call spirit of the old days??

I then dialed my mom.  She listened silently for a while to the moaning and groaning of the animated Frankenstein.  I couldn't believe she listened into her receiver as long as she did.  I finally burst out laughing, thus identifying myself, and asked her what she thought.  She said she thought it sounded like a cow, too.

That was about the last prank phone call I made.  Not because I had so matured, but because of the kill-joy prevalence of "Caller ID", "Call Return", and other likewise "FBI" phone boxes that took away any anonymous phone fun you could have.  Then cell phones came around, totally displacing house phones, or land lines, and almost eliminating the classic "pay phones".  You can't even find a pay phone anymore to do anonymous prank calls.

If I could get away with it now, I would.  If I could find just one lone phone booth, I would have a field day of laughter.  I'd carry a bag lunch, and I'd spend the whole day calling, at least until my change ran out.  I don't even know how much it cost to make a pay phone call anymore, should a pay phone booth still exist.

All you people who think you're getting harassing phone calls now--with the "800-unknown caller/ad callers/scam callers/etc. callers"--you either don't remember or you are too young to even know about true prank calls.  The good old fashioned traditional prank telephone call.  It was a real art, and I was a deviant artist.

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Corpse "out of place"

It's 1974, and I am 14 years of age.  I had seen a couple of dead people before now, but they were where they were supposed to be.  What I mean by that is that they were in coffins.  

I had attended only two funerals by that time, and I remembered them clearly.  One was my Papaw Reno who had died on my 4th birthday, and I remember strolling beside the casket with my mother.  I had not been that emotionally close to Papaw, and being so young I guess I did not have the appreciation I should have had for the loss being felt by my Dad (his son) or by my Mamaw Reno. 

I also remember the funeral of toddler William, who was a step, or even a step-step, "cousin" of mine, once or twice removed, and I was about seven years of age at the time.  William really was not where he was supposed to be--in that coffin--because he was just an innocent little child who had wandered outside of his house and gone into the adjacent Florida canal and drowned.  Nope, he was technically "out of place".  But for the scope of this writing he is not "out of place".

Early one Saturday morning in Twilleytown, AL, a small hole in Walker County and the place that I lived, my best friend Teresa came running excitedly up the hill to, and into, my house.  "Amber! Amber!" she called.  "Come on!  There's a dead man down the road!"  I was thrown off guard at what I thought she had said.  I had not been awake long, and I do not function very well first thing in the morning.  Maybe I had not heard her correctly.  

"Huh?" 

"Get dressed!  Let's go...there's a dead man down the road!  A man dead sittin' in a car...at the stop sign in a car!"  I am already getting dressed--she, grabbing shirt, shoes, etc., and pushing them to me to hurry--as fast as I can trying to absorb what she's saying.  But at the same time I was also asking her for details like, "you sure 'bout this?", "how'd you find out?", "is it OK if we go down there?", and "who's the man?".  You know, that sort of stuff.  I honestly do not remember most of her answers clearly, because I was more focused on the fact that Teresa probably was right about there being a dead man in town. Teresa had the "scoop" on things.  

Teresa was always on top of finding out juice on folks--it kind of fell into her ears on a regular basis, sometimes without much effort on her part--and so I gave her information vault the benefit of the doubt.  I hurried.  As a matter of fact, by then I was feeling a strange, maybe even unnatural, urgency; I gotta' "step it up" before it gets taken away by the hearse or whatever. 

Adrenaline-charged, we ran hard.  Down the hill from my house, and west toward the day's point of interest.  That point was situated inside the fork of the road where our little side road, Twilley Loop, veered onto the main road, Flat Creek Road. The distance from my house was around three or four city blocks' worth, and we were panting.  Breathless, not from running, but rather from the excitement over what we were about to see.  

Upon our arrival, there were only two or three men standing around a dark green muscle car.  The "two or three men" part is really a blur, because at that point a heady sensation had come upon me due to the displaced corpse before me.  I am pretty sure that I was pleasantly surprised that there was not a crowd of people there to hinder us.  We had this almost all to ourselves!  I am also relatively sure that by then I was salivating.  

The bystanders were not authority figures, just locals, and they were discussing the situation amongst themselves.  They didn't pay much attention to Teresa and me, which was beneficial to us, since we were not bothering to hide how elated we were about this find.  We went over to the passenger side window of the car, which is where the dark haired, mustached dead man had ultimately rested his head.  We peered into the car, scanned for blood or other "nasty", and saw nothing of the sort.  I felt a sense of disappointment over that.  I would like to say that I felt a sense of relief at the same time, but I couldn't swear on that last part. 

We mashed our faces up to the glass, pressed our hands all over the door, and would have opened the thing if the men hadn't been standing around.  I was keen to the fact that we were putting fingerprints all over the car, but my excitement overrode any common sense I had.  Besides, I was sure I heard one of the men say that there was no foul play.  They said the man had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  That's the first time I had ever heard of that.

Now as an adult, in retrospect, I know this scene had red flags all over it.  A lone dead man neatly sitting upright on the passenger side of his car.  Possibly a death at the hands of another, or at the very least, a deliberate self-offing.  

I really knew we shouldn't have been pawing at the car.  I guess though, after we heard the "no foul" thing from the intelligent-sounding bystander, we felt like it was fair game--this car--and we continued to peer through and smear onto the windows to make sure we got a view from every angle. 

I do remember being surprised that there weren't a bunch of cops around already, but back in the days before all the social networking tools, it took longer to get authorities on the scene.  Nowadays when somebody is found dead on the side of a road, the news spreads like wildfire and local Volunteer Fire Department personnel shows up as the First Responder "authorities" to keep everybody else away from the scene of any possible crime.  In this day and age, every dead body gets thoroughly investigated, whether it looks suspicious or not.  

But no, not back in the days before the existence of First Responders.  So it was a "free for all" here on a Twilleytown morn full of fingerprints and nose-mash spots on a dead man's car window.  

The crowd was building up by now, and cars were stopping to check it out.  Teresa and I were being displaced by other onlookers.  We were losing rank in the rubberneck pecking order.  At this point we faced the reality that we could no longer freely fondle the door handles in hopes that one would "accidentally" come open.  

Thoroughly edged out now, we backed away from the intrigue; still watching but in a "hands off" mode.  The ambulance arrived on the scene.  We watched the two ambulance men take out the rigor mortis-ridden corpse.  He was paralyzed in the sitting position, and when they placed him on their gurney, they laid him on his side where he remained a frozen sitter.  His arms were stuck fast to his sides.  His hands were stationed against his thighs in an innocent looking relaxed pose.  He had an "I'm going to sleep" look about him.  

They pulled the sheet over the dead man.

Teresa and I were through here.  Now walking towards home, we didn't go away empty-eared.  By the time we two noseys had left the scene, we knew the dead man's name, who his friends were, where he had been the day before, where he worked, and I think what time he had left his girlfriend's house last night.  Teresa and I had lot's to talk about for a while, and we were almost exhausted as we walked away from the big hubbub of activity behind us.   

This was the beginning of a fairly long stream of dead bodies I would come to encounter in my lifetime, expected and unexpected.  This was also the first of many that would induce adrenaline rush.  I'll elaborate on that at another time.  Reader, please rest assured that I am neither killer nor cannibal nor necrophile.

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