Dennis "the Menace" Phelps was my best friend, when we were children. I think I met him in the First Grade, at Mountain View Elementary School, and discovered his family had moved into a house I always walked past on my way to and from that school. One day, they played "The Age of Aquarius" so loud you could hear it from the school to my house, blocks in opposite directions.
By Second Grade, when his mother, a cook at our school, brought his new-born sister, Karen to our class for show-and-tell, we had become best friends, and his family treated me like family. There were probably years when I spent more time eating and sleeping at his house than my own. We often zipped our sleeping bags together and slept (no homo) together in one big sleeping bag, in his yard or on the living room floor. Thanks to him, I discovered "Lost in Space." I think he watched every episode religiously since its premiere. We also watched "The Brady Bunch," "Star Trek," "Gilligan's Island," and "Truth or Consequences." We walked to the Orpheum and watched the 1974 version "Gone in 60 Seconds" when we were about 12 years old. They weren't such sticklers for age requirements in those days. Our mothers would probably have gone to jail for raising us the way they did, if they had raised us that way now-a-days.
Dennis' mother used to kick us out of the house on warm, summer days. It was sunny outside, and she would not allow us to waste the weather indoors. So we'd take his dog, a female pug we called "Ugly Pugly" for a walk perhaps three miles away, as children, without any adult supervision. We'd take her to the Ogden River and watch her swim - not doggy style, but like a cork or a barrel, looking straight up. She couldn't see when she was in the water, so Dennis would hold her by the ribcage, and lower her bottom into the river. As soon as she felt the water on her nether regions, she would start paddling with her arms in the air. She never particularly liked me, but she was extremely loyal to Dennis, inspite of all the abuse he subjected her to. She always ran to him whenever he would call.
Sometimes we would go behind the Brewery near the River, and swipe aluminum nuts and bolts gathered in stalls like a dragon's treasure troves. They were color coded by size, so we made Chess sets out of them. On days we were allowed to stay indoors, we played Chess, Smess (Chess for Ninnies and Numskulls), Monopoly, Parcheesi, and Sorry! He also had a game called Operation and at least one Mr. Potato Head. He also had a Hoppity Hop which we preferred to use as a weapon in modern, medieval ordeals and trials by combat. Mudballs, dirt clods, and fruit were our favorite projectiles, until we discovered guns, starting with a BB gun. His favorite game was 52- or 54-card pick-up, but we spent more time playing War. We also liked to make rockets out of toilet paper tubes.
Dennis' father and big brother worked on cars in the family garage. His father died when we were still very young, so his brother, Reed, took over the garage. Thanks to him, I knew what a Polish pistol and a pellet gun were, and the difference between an Edsel and a Plymouth Duster. Dennis kept a solid steel cyclinder he called "the Crusher." It was about a hand's width in diameter, and about a shin's length. Discovereing how much damage it caused various items he dropped it on provided us with endless hours of entertainment. Sometimes we'd go to rail yards and dig odd chunks of metal out of the dirt or sand, and fill our pockets with them. We always kept a keen eye for any unusual treasures or actual money, and Dennis often yelled, "I dubs!" when he'd see such things first.
Early in our friendship, we formed a society of just the two of us, which we called "The Bug-Bug Club." We'd walk into the grocery store at 17th Street and Childs Avenue which Howard Hughes made famous by leaving some money to one of its owners. We would walk up and down all the aisles yelling "Bug-bug!"
