The Really Long Walk

Sometimes things in life happen that, after they've happened and you haven't thought about them for a long time, you being to wonder if it really ever happened at all, and though you remember many facets of it, it almost seems more like a dream, but laced with extremely sharp details to them that state the otherwise.

It was sometime in the late summer of 1982 when one of the strangest things we ever did would occur. It was one of those hot summer days with heat belting down, and the three of us were looking for something to do. It must have been a weekend day when the pool at Wright Park wasn't open, and nothing else really exciting to do around the neighborhood going on that we hadn't already done before, as well as an excuse to get out of the heat. Angie and Mitchell began throwing around some ideas, and I really don't know how we settled onto this one, but the idea came to go to one of the roller-skating rinks.

Since it wasn't really my idea, I honestly don't remember how we came up with this, but we decided that we'd trek on downtown, catch the "300" bus that would go out to a skating rink that was on 74th and South Tacoma Way, go have some fun there for a while, catch the bus home and be back before anyone really knew we were gone (or simply assumed that we were at Wright Park, or in that area).

That we did, getting on the "300" bus downtown on Commerce Street, which rode from there, through the lower reaches of Jefferson Avenue, onto Center Street for a few miles, making a left onto Pine Street for about half a mile, then turning left onto what became South Tacoma Way at that intersection, and then the bus went southwest along that road, all the way to the Fort Lewis Army base. Mitchell seemed to know where we were going and how to get there, so we left it to him where to get off the bus. We got off at 74th, got up to the skating rink....only to see for ourselves that it was closed.

Not good. Not good at all.

What to do, what to do...the B&I store was about half a mile up the road, and so the three of us walked up there, wondering what the hell we were going to do next, how we were going to get home from there, and just plain wondering what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into. I remember some grumbling about how we should have went to Skate King instead, which wasn't too far from the TCC Transit Center, but there was nothing we could do about that now.

We went into the place, wandered around the arcade area for a bit, and Mitchell went and found a pay-phone, where he made a couple of calls to see if the person(s) on the other end could come out there and pick us up. Nothing, or no answer on the other end. Angie and myself didn't know anyone else to call, let alone anyone with a vehicle to come and get us.

Now, if I remember right, the "300" bus only ran out to Fort Lewis, and not back downtown, which really added insult to injury.

Now, we were screwed. In the biblical sense of the word. We didn't know of any other bus routes getting out of that area, let alone any that would get us back home. Nobody to come get us, and take us out of there. We slowly walked out of the B&I with the only option we could think of: walk back home from there.

I looked up the data: it's 6.7 miles from the B&I store back to 9th and J Streets.

Probably wouldn't be so bad with experience of doing some power-walking, and would probably seem like small potatoes now, but we didn't know that then, and it was the only logical thing to do. Now, we just got to remember the way back by remembering the overall direction that the bus had taken to bring us out there. With the early afternoon sun belting down on us, we began this journey home.

As a wise man once said: "Try to remember everything you passed...but when you go back, make the first thing the last!"

We walked, and we walked, and we walked down South Tacoma Way.

Looking back at this scenario, I'm truly amazed that nothing happened to us. Angie and Mitchell were both nine, and I was only six. I'm by all means sure that would have stood out, visually. Nobody stopped and asked what three young kids such as us were doing, walking alone down such a street; nobody bothered us, no strange or weird people leering after us on the street or in a vehicle. That's one aspect of the whole sojourn that made it seem like fiction, but that's exactly what happened.

One interesting thing, though, did occur. We had just passed the South Park area, just after the 50th Street mark, or thereabouts. We walked along the outside of the Tacoma Cemetery and we noticed this wall that ran along the top of the hill on one end of the park. Some teenage stoners had spray-painted a big cross and the words "BLACK SABBATH" on the wall. We wondered what it all meant, and what was behind it. We went up there, Mitchell hoisted himself up, got on top of the wall (now guarded by a fence), and saw what was there. Behind the wall is the Tacoma Cemetery graveyard. When he jumped down and told us what was behind the wall, we belted ass out of there so fast, our feet hardly touched the ground, and we didn't stop until we reached the next corner.

And onward we went. The sun was noticeably setting, which meant that it was going to start getting dark soon, and we were only about halfway home by that point. We followed the bend that South Tacoma Way went until it went to the Pine Street intersection, so we knew where to turn from there. We walked along Pine Street, until we saw the next intersection at Center Street, and made a right turn, walking by the Humane Society building, so we knew we were still on the right track.

It's getting darker, the shadows are getting longer, we hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for a while, so these things were starting to take their toll. There was virtually nothing along Center Street (certainly not a 7-Eleven kind of store), just industrial buildings, which we had no use for, although we were now looking out for a water-spout that would come in might handy for a drink of water, which would really seem like heaven by then. Somewhere along the lines, we eventually did find one sticking out of the side of one building, and--boy, did that ever seem like a prayer had been answered. We all took turns having a few drinks off of it apiece...I even think Mitchell stuck his head underneath it and soaked himself thoroughly with it. Why not!

And yet, on we walked. Finally, we came to the intersection of Center and J Streets!

J Street! Our street! Finally!

Thing was, we were at the bottom of a hill, and we were going to have to climb up this damn thing to perhaps figure out where we were from there. Our energy levels were ebbing, but we managed to walk up this rather steep-ish hill, and when it leveled off, we were at the corner of 25th and J Streets. Not too far from our old stamping grounds from a couple of years back, at least for Angie and myself, so we knew where we were...only now, not only did we have about a mile and a half ahead of us, but it was really starting to darken above us.

Boy, talk about driven, but weary. We passed along McCarver Elementary adn the adjoining playground...the St. Joseph Hospital, seeing ambulances coming and going at the entrance in front...the stretch of houses we knew along that street from the bus that used to go along J Street...11th Street, which we knew well,and home was only going to be a couple of blocks from that, but how were we going to explain this one? It was now dark outside, we hadn't been seen since about noon or so, and no-one had any idea where we were, where we had been, or what had happened to us.

We made it to the house, said goodnight to Mitchell, who had one more block to go, down to the Emmons Apartments on 8th and J, and the next thing we know, Angie and I are being shouted at by our mom, asking where we were, where we had been and all of that. We were so kicked-dog weary that we answered questions from her and Dad for a minute, went into the kitchen, each downed a big glass of water apiece, and were sent to bed. And if the out-and-out truth was to be told, that's exactly what we'd wanted for the last few hours. We went into our room, took off our shoes, collapsed onto our beds, and crashed out.

We got up (or perhaps were woken up) at around 9 AM or so. We were sore and exhausted from our walk from the day before. Our punishment was that he had to stay around the grounds of our house for the whole day and not leave it...and that really wasn't much, since neither of us wanted to really go anywhere, anyway. Mitchell didn't come around that day...not that he would have been able to come over, to add to our punishment.

EPILOGUE AND AFTERMATH

Two things happened after that: we never did anything like that ever again, and the entire incident was never spoke of again after that. In fact, we quickly forgot about it once school started up, and it was never brought up again. It faded from collective memory, and even I had forgotten about it until four years later when I went to Oakland Elementary for my fifth-grade year, over past Nalley Valley, and by Cheney Stadium. I took the school bus there, and the route that took us there went down a long stretch of Center Street that took a mental poke at "something" that was in a forgotten corner of my memory. For some odd reason, it was the area around the Spout 'N Toad Restaurant and the Tacoma French Bakery that sort of stirred my brain a little, but I merely figured it was a dream of some sort.

About a year after that, my Dad and I lived out on 74th and Lawrence for a short time, and we were often around the corner of 74th and South Tacoma Way a lot...but nothing came to mind. By that time, rollerskating was "old hat" by then, and a lot of the rinks had closed, including the one we discovered was closed that day, and it was now a car dealership. Well, the B&I store also kept a small shard of memory at having been there for some reason a few years before then, but I really couldn't remember what it was, and it felt so much like fiction that it couldn't have happened. Not three young kids on their own in that area.

It wasn't until 2011 that Angie and I were talking about South Tacoma Way, the Tacoma Cemetery came to mind, and she actually remembered the incident where we peeked over the cement wall and then booked ass out of there.

Okay....so we DID actually do that, all on our own!

On a Facebook page about old Tacoma nostalgia, the last piece of the puzzle solved the entire mystery: the sign!

I vaguely remembered a sign outside the place, with a sort of Dennis The Menace-looking boy on roller skates, just below the name of the place, which had long since escaped my memory. My mind had placed it at being outside the B&I, but I didn't see it there when my Dad and I would go there, and I'd forgottem about the rink being at 74th, but seeing the photo of the sign brought it all back to me.

Of the incident, Mitchell had this to say: I remember that it was closed and I caught a ass kicking from my grandma and auntie crazy times back then.

And with that, one of the strangest incidents of my younger life had actually happened.

But one final mystery should be mentioned.

I would swear that there was one more person with us, someone who lived at the Emmons by the name of "Curry", an older guy, like in his very early twenties. On one hand, it made sense that no-one bothered us on the way home because he was with us...but I would swear that it was simply just the three of us at the Tacoma Cemetery, finding the water-spout and thinking up the whole crazy journey amongst ourselves. He was older, and I only knew of him slightly before the whole incident, but never saw him again afterward...maybe he was a guiding spirit/ghost that only came to me? I guess I'll never know!