My Friend Jimmy Hayes on Burnside Ave
Some of my earliest memories are of my first friend, Jimmy Hayes. He lived across the street on Burnside Ave. in Somerville. We used to go exploring, play pick up games of baseball, go to "John's Store" to get a bottle of Coke and a Ding Dong. Those days were magical for me. We'd play in the street all day and well into the night in the Summer time, and whenever someone would drive up our small side street, we'd all move off to the curb and yell, "ONE WAY!" In 1977, we moved away, to "the sticks", as we thought of it. Actually, it was only to Lynn, but it seemed to my 7 year-old mind, that it was the farthest thing from Somerville ever. For years after that, I would get someone to drive me back there once a year to visit with my old friends Timmy, and Jimmy, and to dirty-look Scott, who broke my watch in a fight one time. (My sister Debbie, beat him up in revenge, then beat up his big sister too!) Every once in a while, Jimmy would com