Between the mistakes, the bad timing, and just how much work an old orchard actually takes, we eventually had to let it go.
One of Dad’s smartest moves was grabbing a teaching gig at the local tech college to keep the farm from sinking. In the military, they’d call it double-dipping: retire with a pension, grab a state job, and then collect Social Security down the road. Three income streams plus good healthcare? That was the ticket.
That teaching job kept us afloat through the bankruptcy in ’84. We all missed the farm, no doubt about it, but I’m pretty sure he was happier teaching. Once the orchard was gone, we packed up and moved into town. As soon as we settled in, I traded my BB gun for a bicycle and made friends with everyone I could find. Cindy even moved in next door with my new niece, Claudia, who had some serious health struggles in her first two years. Sandy, our dog, turned more housebound around then. He was always a good protector, so he took it upon himself to keep a close watch on that baby.
For a couple of years, we lived what I’d call city life: fifth and sixth grade at Johnny Clem Elementary, Little League ball, Dad at the tech school, and Mom and Cindy running a ladies’ shop just a few blocks away. It was a big shift. Out at the orchard, if you wanted to see a friend, someone had to plan a sleepover. Suddenly, I had an entire neighborhood to choose from.
We biked the north side of Newark from 21st Street all the way to Mount Vernon Road. We found BMX trails, hung out at Roosevelt Junior High, and occasionally snuck down to the Licking River. My grades were solid, life felt good. I was breaking a few rules here and there, but I still felt like a decent kid.
After only two years, though, we moved back to the country—to a spot called Rainrock Road. There was a natural spring that formed a tiny waterfall trickling over a shallow rock face. The rock just rained, which is where the name came from. That area had been a terminal moraine during one of the ice ages, leaving massive boulders scattered across the hills and valleys, exposing ancient sandstone carved by water over thousands of years. It was paradise for a boy with endless imagination and freedom to roam.
A Boy Scout camp sat in the next valley, complete with an amphitheater built inside the flood-carved bowl of one of those sandstone cliffs. Most of the year it stood empty, so we swam in the creek, ran the trails, fished their big pond in spring and fall, and just stayed away when the Scouts arrived in summer. Rainrock put me in the Utica school district, which meant changing schools again. Being back in the country was worth trading another set of friends.
Sandy was thrilled. I liked living in town, but I preferred the country. We became friends with a nearby family whose sons, Chip and Andy, were my home buddies but had different friends at school. Then there was my neighbor and namesake, Jason Walker; we were running-the-hills buddies. Everyone at school assumed we were brothers, and we let them believe it until the mail started getting mixed up.
We racked up huge miles on BMX bikes before we were even old enough to drive. Sean was my science buddy—we were happy nerds. Dave was Sean’s friend and part of the crew. Bobby was bigger than most of us. We stuck together for protection at school and ran wild all summer. I sat on the bench for a Babe Ruth team and stayed reasonably active in school. I got into science and art, partly thanks to my mom and partly because of my dad.
Sean and I built and launched Estes rockets. In eighth grade, we gave a demo for the whole school. Everyone got excused from class to come watch. For a day, we were heroes.
Later that same year, I managed to alienate the entire school when I got caught shoplifting. Lunch was free—that was a tradition in Utica. Parents told their elementary kids about their favorite downtown spots and how, once you were old enough, you got to go too. At first, I headed straight for the farm store near the school, which had a deli and grocery. We bought French bread pizzas. If you moved fast, you could beat the line and spend the rest of the hour outside.
I used that free time to explore Main Street. I learned that the family drugstore kept easy-to-conceal items right within reach of the counter: snuff, cigarettes, candy. The first time, when nobody was looking, I grabbed a can of snuff. Once I got away with it, I took more. For days, I pretended to browse while filling my pockets with candy and cigarettes.
What got me caught was everything happening at once. I dropped a Snickers bar in the alley behind the store. A neighbor’s dog found it and got sick. That neighbor turned out to be the industrial arts teacher. At the same time, pressure was mounting from the parents of a kid who rode my bus and had been caught with a pack of cigarettes I’d sold him. I was turning rotten, and nobody knew why—not even me.
The principal gave me a good whipping. I remember trying to keep a straight face to hide the searing pain as I shuffled out of the admin office. It probably looked like I needed the bathroom. None of my good friends were involved, and life got back to normal within a month or so. But first, we had to run the gauntlet of teenage anger.
The other kids in school were looking for payback. Since they were my friends, we all had a target on our backs. The old junior high was attached to the newer high school building. Utica is—and always has been—a small town, so rather than build elsewhere, they just expanded the original school. We occupied the old building and moved next door after eighth grade.
Before the incident, I’d imagined an invisible barrier at the end of the hallway connecting the two schools. We weren’t allowed to mingle with the upperclassmen, and that imaginary line made those older kids seem mysterious and intimidating. After my little shoplifting spree, that line was gone. Every kid in that building now had to get a letter from their parents authorizing them to leave for lunch. Because of me.
My close friends stuck by me anyway. Jason took unwarranted abuse in the hallways because we shared a surname, and Sean had to use karate to embarrass an upperclassman who came after us in the gym—kicking him squarely in the chest and sending him stumbling backward in shock. Every day, we were forced to defend ourselves from some assault. I’m truly sorry, guys. You didn’t deserve that.
Eventually, the older kids realized we weren’t easy targets and moved on.