The Snowball

It was on a cold winter afternoon when Hank and I went to the old Liberty Theater located on Fullerton Ave. just west of St. Louis Ave. I was about twelve years old and Hank was only nine or ten years old. As usual we arrived before the first movie started and waited anxiously for the doors to open. Finally, after ten or twenty long, terrible minutes passed the usher opened the door, and we bought our tickets. Now we still had to wait another long fifteen or twenty minutes before the show started. Great, today three cartoons and two long cowboy movies finally begin.

The cartoons and the first cowboy movie have ended and I leave Hank to buy another box of popcorn. I return to my seat, and the second movies has started already. After a while I ask Hank something, and he doesn't answer me. A few minutes later I begin to talk to Hank, and he still ignored me. And I look over to him and it's not my brother. When I returned from the concession stand with popcorn I sat in the wrong seat. I start looking for Hank and can't find him. After looking up and down the aisles of the theater, I became scared. I knew I had lost him. I called my Mom on the phone and told her what happened. She told me to ask the usher to help me find him, which I did, and had no luck. I was running back and forth in the theater, and finally after calling home again. This time Mom told me to come home. She sent my brother Rich to find him.

I took the streetcar and bus home, all the while looking out the windows through the snow looking for Hank. He was no where in site. I was worried; what was going to happen to me when I got home. I kept thinking, "Would Dad give me a beating for losing my young brother? Would Mom meet me yelling and scolding me for losing him?" They always told me to be careful and stay together." Now I was really afraid to get home. It had been snowing for the past couple of hours and the snow was getting deep.

I finally get home and enter the door and Mom said, " We found your brother, you don't have to worry. Richard was heading for the bus near Wright College, that is two blocks from our house, and saw a little snow ball rolling across the parking lot. He looked closer and saw that it was Hank, completely covered with snow, walking home."

I asked Hank if he remembers that day, and he had no recollection of that incident. I don't know how old he was, but he couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old at the time.