Growing up on Shenandoah was great in all the right ways. In the first two an half years there, I had my school friends, who I occasionally hung out with away from school and then I had my street friends. I’m not sure why I didn’t hang out with my school friends more. They hung out with each other, but I was rarely there during those times. Most of the summer I would never see them and yet we were all within walking distance of each other. In high school, some of those same school friends would end up being who I hung with most of the time. With a few of them becoming the life long friends, the boys and I have become. But for the most part in the first few years, I had my school friends and my street friends. This is about my street friends.

Out of all the street friends throughout my time on Shenandoah, only one ended up being a lifer. He also ended up being my best man at my wedding. We’ve definitely had our ups and downs over the years, but we always figured our shit out. Our last dust up put the biggest strain our relationship had ever had, and I don’t think we’re all the way back or maybe ever will be, but we’re where we need to be for each other and we’re still always there for each other.

Marc has just always been around. The amount of stories I have that include him could probably fill this whole book and thinking about now, this chapter started out as the, “Shenandoah friends” life chapter, but I think it just evolved into the first chapter ofthe one of The boys. It’s fitting that the first guy I spend a chapter on is Webby, he was the first one I met when I moved to Forest Glade. He lived across the street and our youth was basically road hockey and sitting on his couch watching, Married With Children and The Simpson’s. The strange thing about spending all our time at his place? My house had AC and his didn’t, but we always spent every summer day, sweating our asses off, drinking all the pop in his house and watching TV. Speaking of all his pop…the two of us once house sat for his aunt or uncle and in one night drank almost two cases of pop between the two of us. I don’t drink pop anymore, but not did I consume a lot of it as a kid.

Webby memories are easy to come by because there’s just so many of them. I’ll limit this chapter to the ones that happened without the rest of the boys and where the timeline was grade six to OAC. Marc is two years older than me. The same age as my sister, Aimee. But we were basically inseparable. His dad took us on a vacation once up north. I can’t remember where, but it was camping and next door to the most ridiculous, “zoo”, you could ever imagine. That trip had some major moments. At the zoo, Marc and I were witness to a masterbating monkey, with some slight self-conscious issues. He was just sitting there stroking it and when he realized we were watching him, he turned his back to us and kept going. L O L Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. I also managed to piss off the momma monkey because I had the bright idea of trying to touch her baby. She got to that side of the cage faster than I expected and managed to scratch my hand before I could pull it away. I didn’t die though, so I guess she wasn’t infected with anything. As sickly as they looked.

Then there was the moose. The idea that chicken wire could keep a moose caged is ridiculous. Wait! It wasn’t the moose that charged the fence. It was the buffalo. Marc and I thought it would be funny to irritate the buffalo to the point that it charged the fence, bending it towards us almost enough that he could have stepped over it. He didn’t, but it was damn close. Now you’d think we would have learned our lesson with that adventure, but when we got to the wolf cage, I thought it would be fun to slip the toe of my shoe under the cage and see if the wolf would bite it. He did and it was funny because I easily pulled it away from him. However. When Marc did it, the wolf got a better grip on his shoe and tried to pull it inside the cage. Marc put his hands on the cage to get some leverage and the second wolf jumped at his hands. He didn’t get bit and did get loose, but it was amazing. I was the asshole standing to the side of Marc, laughing my ass off and not helping him as he fought off what he perceived to be sure death by the sound of his voice, asking me for help. Lol

Outside of the animal part of the zoo, they had a food truck that served, buffalo burgers. I’m guessing when they got tired of the ones in the zoo, they decided to make money off them in death too. It was the worst burger I think I’d ever had. It was basically raw meat on a bun. We tossed them and went back to the camp ground. At the campground is where I met a girl and learned how it easy it was to become or seem obsessive. Ok. I was ridiculous. For the life of me, I can’t remember her name, but I do know I got at least a kiss or two from her and her address and I was going to write her and visit her and it was going to be great. And that’s when I decided to spenD the rest of my time writing her a letter and multiple poems, confessing my love to her. Lol By the time we got back home to Windsor, I had already been asked to not contact her anymore. Lol I guess I came off a little strong. Marc did his best to console and laugh at me about it. All deserved and warranted. When Higgy falls for a girl, Higgy falls hard.

It was through Marc, that I became sort of friends with Corey, Doug and Trevor and a few other guys I can’t remember names on. These were good guys. Cool guys. But they did some drugs. And by drugs, I mean they went as far as too huff scotch guard. To Marc’s credit, even to this day, he has never tried drugs. And also to his credit, his ability to hang with these guys and not partake, is probably one of the reasons I was able to say, “no” for as long as I did. Marc was by no means, always a good influence on me, but when it came to drugs, I followed his lead for as long I needed to until I was mature enough to make that decision on my own.

Marc did however buy me my first Playboy. It was the one with Rosanna Arquette in it. And that set this young man off on an obsession with beautiful, naked women and himself that took up a lot of my time. Haha What can I say? Ladies are beautiful. He would buy me plenty more after that because even though he was under age and short as fuck, he had a full beard and the guys at Becker’s and Mac’s never said, no. Eventually those fools even let underage me, who could have passed for twelve buy his own.  I also did my fair share of under age drinking with Webby from around The age of 15 or 16 until I turned of age.

I can remember one night we went across Tecumseh road for a bush party. It’s a car dealership now, but back then it was just a field with some trees. We went back there drinking and hanging out with a bunch of other people from out street. Eventually the cops showed up and we all had to bail. It was chaos. We just all bolted for the train tracks that were at the end of the field. Our one friend, Jamie jumped through the ditch so fast, I think he went up to his waist in the water and mud, but never missed a beat, just kept running. No idea how he didn’t get stuck there. Lol

That bush is also where I “learned“ from a guy named, Shamus, that “black chicks” were apparently the most fun to have sex with. He was older than I was, but he was telling me stories. The way he talked about sex with these different girls was fascinating to little virgin me. The only proof I have that what he said was true, was what he told me. I’ve never had the pleasure myself. All of the women I have  been with have been white, except for one beautiful girl from a long time ago, who was from Lebanon or Iraq. I don’t remember for sure. If her dad would have found out, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. The only word I have to describe her is, beautiful. Wonder where she is these days and what life brought her?

Marc’s parents were always nice to me. I basically lived there, aside from having my own room and sleeping over. They fed me, talked to me, paid me to do chores with Marc. His dad worked as a janitor at Parkview and would let us play floor hockey or whatever else we wanted to in the gym after hours. His mom,  RIP, was a RN (I think that was the title). She smoked liked a chimney. But she was also one the nicest ladies I’ve ever met. Even when she gave us shit, she did it with a smile. Lol

Marc and I never got into any real trouble per say, but we had a few adventures. Tailgating cars down the street in the winter time was always fun. We would wait for a car to drive by, jump out and grab a hold of their bumper, and have it pull us down the street in the snow. Seems really stupid now. Especially seeing the drivers didn’t know we were attached to their car. Lol They basically took a week to plow our road after a snowfall, so we could do that for a few nights to kill time. The winter is also where we would walk around our lovely, peaceful neighbourhood and steal Xmas lights from people. Marc, Corey, Doug and I had a few nights where we would do that. I can remember one night in particular, where we were being extra jerky and even started taking full strands and wrapping them around people’s cars in their driveway. We did that to Trevor’s house once because he wouldn’t come join us. He wasn’t toO pleased the next day. Lol The other favourite about light stealing? We would throw them at each other. Sometimes off our coats and sometimes as someone was kneeling down to pick up a light they dropped or tie their shoes. Again, so dumb. But that’s why you see all those memes about why girls are smarter than guys or will outlive us. We just do dumb shit all the time.

Marc would go on to be a regular on hunting trips with my dad and my family when we grew up. He even goes up when I don’t go. I haven’t been in a few years, but he hasn’t missed. He even goes up a second time for the moose hunt and I’ve never been on that trip. I’ve joked with him that’s he’s the son my pops always wanted. Joe hunter. Loves all that shit. I’ve only ever dabbled a little. I went up more for my pop and the stories than I did the actual hunt. They all chirp when I say, I like to shoot, not to hunt, but hey, I know what I like and what I don’t. I’d rather walk the bush and dog all day and not get a chance to shoot anything, than sit down or stand and wait for something to show up.  Short attention span and all.

Through everything with Webby, I know if I ever need him and I’m pretty sure knows the same, we’ll always be there for each other. We’ve both crossed the line with each other more than once. At least once that I’m sure he has no idea I know about, but it is what it is. All is fair in friendship with guys who’ve basically been brothers most of their lives. We fight. We forgive. We move on to the next good time. Maybe one day we’ll actually stop fighting, but then, we wouldn’t be brothers if we did, would we? I love you, Webby. Always have. Always will, man. Cheers.