There’s an interesting story of how I first met Chris Demeter. We had just moved to our house on Winterset in April 1978 and I was finishing up my first year of school as a kindergartener. This was the first time I had ever ridden the bus; before I had been close enough to walk to school. Chris rode my bus and it didn’t take long before we began talking. He was older than me, being in first grade. After chatting it up one day, he invited me over to his house and I accepted. He was dropped off before me, so I knew right where his house was. It was just up the street on Birchall, a short bike ride from home.
So I planned to ride up to his house to play after I was dropped off at home. There was only one problem: I didn’t know his name. All the way up the road, I labored over what I would do if his parents answered the door. What would I say? “Do you have a son?” or “On the bus, I met a boy who lives here. Is he home?” Anyway, it made no difference. When I showed up on his doorstep, he immediately spotted me from the kitchen table where he was drinking a glass of milk and came outside. Immediately, I asked him his name to make sure I was never in this predicament again. He sullenly answered “Chris” as if he was actually disappointed with his name.
We became instant friends and for the next ten years or so, we grew up scouring the neighborhood for things to do, raising holy hell across every inch of it. We explored in the woods, built forts, played tag, fought, visited each other every Christmas morning to share our loot, smoked for the first time, got drunk for the first time, rode our bikes through Beavercreek, jumped ramps in ‘the pit’, listened to KISS, collected comic books, played Atari, played with Ninja throwing stars, split a paper route, drove – and got into a wreck – together, played with BB guns…you name it. We did everything that you might expect children growing up in a middle-class neighborhood in the 1950’s to do. I think we would both agree that we had some great times.
The pictures above, at right, and below are (in order of appearance) from the Summers of 1980 and 1981, and around Christmas 1985. We were going to try and take yearly shots with a pyramid assembled from my beercan collection. We did this for two years in a row and then forgot about it. Several years later, we revisited the idea with the thought that we were now too mature for beercan pyramid building…and more interested in the beer itself.
Of course, as we became older, we began to drift apart, each of us having our own set of friends and sharing less and less in common. Chris and I never had any sort of official parting and I think we would always consider each other to be a friend…but we never saw one another and rarely communicated. The last time I saw Chris was in 1992 at a Cheap Trick concert in his hometown of Cincinnati. After that, every five years or so, we would contact each other and exchange a couple of emails and perhaps a short conversation…
…Until January 18, 2007, when we met up yet again. This time I had contacted Chris about six months prior and we had exchanged some emails. Although I got busy and put it off for a while, I eventually gave him a call and arranged to have dinner. We met at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen for dinner in Cincinnati after we both got off work.
I had a great time both reminiscing about the old times, while catching up with what we’ve been up to these days. Lively discussion topics over dinner and beer included movies, music, kids, dating, beer, computers, and football. Chris made a disc full of music and movies that he likes for me check out. After about two and a half hours, we decided to call it a night and head home, promising that we’d keep in touch and perhaps meet every couple of months for dinner.
It was great to see Chris after so much time has passed…only to find that he really hasn’t changed all that much. It’s easy to see why we were such good friends.
I think it was the 70’s/80’s, not the 50’s. 🙂
Chris Demeter
January 29th, 2007
Our old neighborhood just felt to me like what the 50’s look like on TV. We had all kinds of great stuff there: woods, vacant lots, swinging vines, great sledriding hills, friendly neighbors, ditches to jump our bikes, and hills to fly down on skateboards. I loved that plat.
Brad
January 29th, 2007
I want to know who’s taking pictures of such young boys drinking beer!
Heidi Maynard
October 24th, 2008