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The Klings lived in back of our quarters in back of the hospital at Fort Logan. They had a chow dog that they kept chained to his doghouse. I would walk past him knowing that his chain would stop him short of me, if I stayed on the sidewalk. One day, unknown to me, his doghouse ended up about a foot closer to the sidewalk. As I walked past him, he charged and I wasn't worried until he had my hind end in his mouth. I have never trusted or liked a chow dog since. When we lived at Rucker Farm, one day a Newfoundland puppy showed up at our house. I played with him all day, and he stayed that night. We began feeding him, and I named him Pluto. I played with him all summer and into the fall. After I had started school at Logantown Elementary, Pluto eventually returned to his owner, a Captain on post. One day the following fall, I was riding my sidewalk bike up the road towards our house, when I heard a tremendous crashing coming through the weeds along the road. I was afraid, especially when a brown streak jumped out of the weeds and landed on me and my bike, knocking me to the ground. My fear subsided when I realized it was Pluto, but now he was as big as a horse. I played with him until the Captain came and got him. The Captain said it was alright for me to be friends with Pluto. However, I never saw Pluto again, they must have been transferred away. When we were at Fort Benning, we stayed with the Mullins family, until we could find a place to live. We moved from there to Phenix City, Alabama, into a second floor apartment, but we moved from there the next month into a house, that we shared with another military family, outside of town. There was a blackberry patch across the road, that my mother would take me to. I hated that patch because she would have me reach into places that she couldn't reach. I didn't think the scratches were worth the berries that we got by my extra effort. In North Quincy, Massachusetts we lived at 73 Young St., in an apartment house owned by the Hills. Bobby Hill was older than I was and took it on himself to teach me how to defend myself, Boston style. After those lessons, I was brought into the Young St. gang. Every neighborhood had their own gangs. One time our gang caught an interloper from a neighboring gang in our neighborhood. Bobby said I should beat him up because he was almost my size. He was bigger but I beat him up. He took it and left. A few days later he caught me alone and I found out I wasn't as tough without our gang there. Justice prevailed. We used to slip down to the railroad bridge and skinny dip in the estuary there. Then we would lay naked on the sand and soak in the sun. My dad had told me to stay away from the bay as it was polluted. I was staying away, it was on the on the other side of the railroad bridge, a whole thirty feet. One day my dad started scratching on my sun tan and it scratched off. He said, "This is a salt water tan have you been in the Boston Bay?". I was in trouble again, but with adequate explanation as to why, as usual. That's Boston. In Greenbelt one of my friends, George Jones, and I would make spears and swords out of milk weeds. We would use them to have battles like knights of the round table. George was a strange duck, we would be riding our bikes down Southway and when he'd spot a mud puddle, he'd ride through it singing, "Snowplow Jones down the Mississippi.". He would sing it to the tune of Casey Jones. One time we built our own Morse code keys and strung wire from my room to his. Our bedrooms were upstairs so, even though we crossed the parking lot driveway, we didn't hamper traffic. When we moved to Landover Hills the Richardsons were our friends. They had lived next door to the Martz family in Greenbelt. Bobby Richardson gave me a pup from his dog's litter. He was a cross between a toy collie and an english shepherd. He looked like a wire haired terrier. He was so ugly that he was cute. I named him Muggs. Muggs was a faithful companion for me until I went into the navy. He was a scrappy dog, he would let other dogs know who was in charge in short order. One day on North 28th St. in Colorado Springs he was setting Billy Allen's english shepherd straight on who was in charge, when their fight ended up under my horse Nugget's belly. Nugget stopped eating his grain long enough to look down on them. He nonchalantly put his left hoof in front of them and slid them out from under him. They never missed a stride in their battle and Nugget went back to his grain. I poured a tub of water on them to break it up. Muggs was boss from then on. -22-