Junior...

I was around 7 years old when my family moved from New York to Miami. Life here was pretty simple. My neighborhood was a place where you didn't always lock your door as friends would call your name as they entered your house... much like a brother or sister.

Two houses down, lived Junior... he was a chubby likable kid, maybe a year or two younger than me. If you remember the breakfast cereal commercials where the older boys were afraid to eat it... they got "Mikie" to try it.... "Yeah, let Mikie try it" Well, Junior was the the "Mikie" in my neighborhood. He had no fear of the unknown... We could convince him to eat just about anything. Milk and Tabasco sauce? No problem.

We would line up our toy solders on the table and pay Junior 5¢ to snort pepper and 'sneeze' the solders off the table! He was that kinda kid... if you could think of something stupid, Junior would try it.

We couldn't figure out why Junior was so chubby. His older sister and parents were of normal proportions yet he was overweight.

Now, further down the block lived Tom. He was my older brothers age. When all of us got together, my brother and Tom (by age) were the leaders. Tom was a baseball player and very athletic.

Tom's house was slightly larger than the other houses on my street and his parents added a utility/laundry room to the back of their house. They cut a rectangular hole in the dividing wall between the main house and the utility room and fitted a 'box' used as a giant hamper, in which they could put dirty clothes and 'flip' the box to the other room. It was a really great idea... otherwise, you would have to carry the laundry outside the back door and and walk around to the utility room.

One night, Tom's family, got in the car and drove away. Junior saw this and went around the back of their house. He entered the utility room, climbed into the hamper and 'flipped' himself into the main house. Junior headed to the kitchen... He had fixed himself a late night snack on Tom's parents dining room table.

Just then, headlights appeared in the front window and someone quickly walked to the door and opened it. It was Tom's mother... apparently she had forgotten something and they drove back home to get it. Well who was more shocked... Junior or Tom's Mother when she found him stuffing himself at the table?

As the story goes, Junior's parents found out and he was punished. This led to the confession that Junior was daring enough to sneak into their house at night (while they were sleeping) to raid the refrigerator. That ended the mystery Tom's mother had, as to the 'constant' disappearance of food from the refrigerator. Tom and his father were both very slender and she never suspected it was someone coming in the house.