I don’t think I ever talked to Mike Maddock, except over the backyard fence separating our homes. Not that we disliked each other, but Mike was three years older than I was, the kind of difference that placed me a million miles downstream from him.

Mike was taller, with sinewy arms and a presence not to be messed with. Despite the little contact we had, I remember two moments that remind me not to be too quick to judge someone.

That brings me to Bazooka Joe. No, he wasn’t another kid in the neighborhood, but a character featured on the wrapper of my preferred bubble gum in the late ’50s. If you bought enough of it, collected the wrappers, and added less than a dollar, you could get your chosen prize by mail.

The item at the top of my list was a pocket knife. I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with such a thing, but it seemed like a cool thing to have. The mission involved collecting wrappers and saving my change, sending them both away to the required address, and waiting.

Kids live for such things.

On the day—the one for which I’d been waiting—I pulled it out of the mailbox, took the shank out of its container, and rushed to the backyard. There was Michael. I calmed myself, walked over the grass to the fence, and showed him my pride and joy.

Let me see that.

Sure, Mike.

Mike opened it, grabbed the cutter by its handle, raised it over the wooden top of the fence, and jammed it into the railing.

The blade broke, the plastic broke, and my heart broke.

It’s a piece of crap.

Two minutes before, I was flying high, and now I was in the dumps.

Michael didn’t apologize, didn’t say he would give me a better knife, didn’t say he would compensate me.

Too bad, Gerry.

With that, he walked away.

Sometime later, I happened to find a bunch of change in some dirt I was investigating in an empty lot a few blocks away. I thought of showing it to Mike for a moment, then changed my mind.

In my imagination, I displayed it to my pal and poured it into his hand, whereupon he wrapped his fist around the shiny coins and opened it, leaving me with a silver ball of fused metal not fit for buying anything.

All of this occurred in elementary school. I still liked Mike, but was hesitant about trusting him with anything I might value.

My high school career began at S.T. Mather Public High in Chicago. Not Saint Mather, but Stephen Tyng, a building only a year old.

After the first few classes, it was time for lunch. Entering the lunchroom, I had no idea just how terrible the food would be—except for the veal cutlet, which turned up once a week for 37 cents.

A burly, scowling veteran student watched me as I entered the queue behind him.

You a freshman?

Yes.

Do you know the ‘freshie poem?’

What’s that?

You better be able to recite it tomorrow or I’ll beat the crap out of you.

It occurred to me that the word crap was something Mike mentioned in connection with the knife, but without the menace. Meanwhile, I mentally counted how many body parts the thug could break, but kept my mouth shut.

Doubtless a considerable number.

The day was spoiled, for sure. One of my elementary school friends told me what the poem consisted of, having figured out it wasn’t a work of Edgar Allen Poe, but a method of humiliation.

The first words were something like, “I am a little freshie, as green as green can be.”

Not a charming opening, especially if performed before a crowd.

When I got back home, Mike was already in his backyard. He was the same three years ahead of me at Mather, though we weren’t miles apart anymore, at least in my imagination.

I told him about the day and the ambulance I might require on the next one.

If you see this guy again and he starts trouble with you, tell him I will beat the crap out of him.

Two things about this.

First, I don’t recall if I saw the nemesis the next day, but I did recognize him from time to time. The bully never noticed me.

Second, God bless Mike Maddock.

My older friend was never a fellow with a light touch, but he taught me not to buy crappy knives and that he would take care of me.

It wasn’t long before my bodyguard, his older brother Bob, and their parents moved elsewhere. Who knows where he is or if he is. I might remind him of the two stories, if possible, though I doubt he would recall them.

Thank you for the lessons, Mike, wherever you are.