While we were still living on my grandparents’ farm, I attended first and second grades in Womelsdorf, PA.

The photo above is of my first grade class from the 1956 yearbook.

The green circle is me. Yeah, I know, I look like I’m lost. I don’t know why I’m dressed in what looks like a western outfit.

The other two circles are of the other two kids whose first names were James. We had a tendency to gravitate to each other for some reason.

The orange circle is James Eagleman. He was the tallest kid in the class in case you couldn’t tell.

The red circle is James Garrett. And he was my first frenemy, although I had never heard the term at the time. I don’t think it had been invented yet.

He and I got along well enough, but there was always something, I don’t know, something rivalrous, I guess. Something that didn’t seem to exist between James Eagleman and me.

Oh, wait. Teachers called us James. But we called each other Jimmy. In fact, Jimmy Eagleman absolutely hated the name James. He swore up and down that when he was old enough he was going to change it officially to Jimmy. I wonder if he ever did. (Actually, I know that he didn’t, but that’s another story.)

Anyway Jimmy Garrett. I have two reasonably clear memories of Jimmy Garrett.

One morning when I was in second grade I woke up, and this was after the Gerharts had moved out of the Great Stone House, so we had the entire house to ourselves, and I had my own bedroom, and my baby sister had her own bedroom as well, a lot of good it did her, as young as she was, I don’t think she was even old enough to appreciate it yet, but the point was I didn’t have to share a bedroom with her anymore, because I had my own bedroom now.

Anyway, my mother woke me up that morning, probably a bit earlier than usual. It was a school day, so I had to get up but perhaps not quite that early, and she led me down the hall and over to Donna’s room and let me peek inside. And quite frankly I didn’t know what I was looking at.

When the Gerharts had moved out and I got my own room, Donna, who was about two years old at the time, got a new bed as she had just outgrown her crib, I guess. For some reason she got a double bed, while I still had my plain old single bed. I don’t remember kicking up a fuss about it, however, because I still had the cool Roy Rodgers bedspread, while she just had some plain old boring bedspread, so it was nothing to get in a tizzy about.

Anyway, when I peeked into Donna’s room, I just saw a head, the back of a head, on a pillow on that double bed. The room was dark and for all I knew it was my sister’s head; maybe she had gotten a haircut for all I knew. I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes anyway.

My mother closed the door and as I went back to my room to get dressed she began to explain.

My mother and Jimmy Garrett’s mother, Mae, both worked in a factory during the evening shift, 4:00 to midnight, I think. The previous night there had been a fire at the Garrett’s house, not anything major, no one was hurt, but Jimmy needed a place to spend the night, just one night, and my mother agreed. So the head that I saw was Jimmy Garrett’s.

The other memory of Jimmy, and the reason I tend to think of him as a frenemy, is from a birthday party. It was the birthday party of Suzanne Wells. She’s the cute little girl with the dark hair and bangs on the right of me in that class photo.

Here’s her graduation photo from the 1967 yearbook. As you can see, she barely changed at all. Still has the bangs.

Anyway, Suzanne lived with her family, also in a Great Stone House, but theirs was on the outskirts of Womelsdorf, the far end when going from my grandparents’ farm.

This was still in second grade, and I guess the whole class must have been invited to celebrate, but all I really remember about the occasion is the unwrapping of the gifts.

The gifts were all piled up neatly and they were being handed to the birthday girl a couple at a time. Everyone was gathered around her as she was opening them, and whoever was handing them to her (I don’t recall who it was, but probably a parent) happened to pick up two, a flat rectangular box with a smaller box on top.

My gift was the smaller box on top.

I noticed that and so did Jimmy Garrett, and before the gifts could be presented to the birthday girl for unwrapping, Jimmy swooped in and grabbed mine and stuck in the back of the pile, laughing all the while as he did it.

Now up until the moment when Jimmy moved my gift to the back of the pack, my seven year old self probably had no particular interest in the order in which the gifts were opened, but especially since he seemed to be gloating over his little skulduggery, I immediately got my hackles up.

So I moved my gift back to the front of the pile where it would once again be picked up in short order.

And again Jimmy moved it to the back.

Now this went on for a couple more rounds before I gathered that Jimmy was not going to let me win this little battle. I should emphasize that we were doing this in high spirits and just having a wee bit of fun with each other.

Finally, I must have realized that I needed to change tactics, so instead of just placing the gift in the front of the pile, I waited until whoever was handing the gifts to the birthday girl came back for a couple more, and with Jimmy not near enough to interfere, I was about to place my gift on top of the new load when— 

Someone grabbed me from behind and lifted me into the air.

I have no idea who it was, possibly an older brother of the birthday girl. Perhaps a bouncer hired for the occasion. In any event he said something along the lines that I needed to wait my turn, and meanwhile, there off to the side was Jimmy Garrett laughing his rotten little ass off, as I vainly tried to explain that he started it, an explanation that didn’t work then and has probably never worked for anybody ever in the history of childhood.

That brought to an end our little game. I have no memory of the rest of the party, but I presume Suzanne did eventually get around to unwrapping my gift.

Here’s Jimmy Garrett’s high school graduation picture. He changed quite a bit, I wouldn’t have recognized him. Surprised that he didn’t grow a pair of horns… 

(I’ve been able to trace him to Montgomery County in 1995 but the trail goes cold after that.)