[img]2704|right|Rick Hudson||no_popup[/img]During the 1950s, my family lived on Hubbard Street, in Culver City.
Ricky Hudson lived across the street. We ran all over the small neighborhood, freely, until we felt like coming home. One day my brother Gene and Ricky ran up and down the block. Each wore an Indian headdress, which consisted of a couple of feathers.
I chased them on my bike. Suddenly, Ricky and Gene turned and began chasing me. I lost control of the bike and fell.
I sat in the street, tears streaming down my face, bits of gravel embedded in the palms of my hands from breaking the fall.
Then Ricky and Gene danced in a circle around me and my bike.
Laughing and screaming, they intermittently tapped on their lips mimicking the sound of the Indians as we knew them from the Lone Ranger.
Ricky said, “Tie her up.”
“No, no, no,” I screamed.
By the time I screamed the last no, Gene was running toward us with a match. Not a rope or twine. He held one match.
“We’re having a campfire,” he said.
Those words pushed me up onto my feet and running inside of the house. All the way, I was tauntingly hollering, “Na, Na, Na. You’ll never get me.”
As we aged, we became explorers. One of our favorite spots was Ballona Creek. We ran through the waters barefoot, walking deep inside of a tunnel, yelling obscenities, listening eagerly for the echo of our words.
Even the infamous f-word.
I must state here that I was far advanced in the obscene words department. It is said that to improve your vocabulary skills, practice, practice, practice. We did all right, laughingly referring to each other in our newly discovered vocabulary words.
By the end of adolescence, our friendship had been a memory of sharing a childhood.
Although our contact was rare over the coming decades, Ricky grew into Rick.
A formidable transformation in both stature and responsible consciousness. He found his way to a rich life. Occasionally we would meet in the isles of Trader Joe’s or at a Culver City High School reunion. For the past several years at the Culver City Car Show.
Main Street has been the hub for many of the older Culver City crowd. There is an energy there that expresses itself in hugs, picture-taking, laughter, engines gunning to flashes of shared memories and a refreshing bottle of beer from Ricky’s ice chest.
This past May as I said bye to Ricky; we awkwardly hugged.
Ricky said to me, “Sharon, you’re the only person I let call me Ricky.”
I don’t know if that’s true. Nonetheless, today I reflect on a kid I once knew with a deeper connection to the past and the to the present.
Ms. Bantilan-Duncan may be contacted at sharonduncan007@gmail.com
