Our End Of The Block

"Anyway, I feel like the longer we sit here the worse our odds get. Let's just do it and see what happens."

No one would ever be able to have a summer like this again, although they didn't know that at the time. It's the middle of the 1980s, and the internet, cell phones, cable TV, all of it was about to change the world, but it hadn't just yet. They're saying goodbye to more than just their childhood and taking one last run through the neighborhood in this story about growing up, told by a kid who was there at just the right age. If you're old enough to remember you might find some familiar territory. If you're too young to have been there, this is the stuff your parents don't want to tell you about.

Up until now, summers had been pretty carefree for Pete and his friends. This one was not. He has an uncool nickname, his best friend Ricky lives next door with a stepmom who has serious anger issues, and they both have a problem with a former friend and current neighborhood juvenile delinquent, James Barlow. When James starts focusing his aggression on them, it sets off a chain of events that winds through baseball games, the longest and possibly strangest Fourth of July ever, an epic game of Kick the Can, trespassing everywhere, and generally causing minor chaos across the neighborhood.

At the same time, Pete is learning that the adult world that he and his friends (and enemies) are moving towards isn't as simple as what he knows. Soon they're going to be starting high school, and that's not the only thing that's going to be changing for them, and everyone else. But before it does, they have a one last chance to fully enjoy the way things were until they have to leave it all behind forever.

This is the first of three parts.