The People Next Door

The girls next door seemed to get wilder as they got older. I was more friends with Vivian than the others. She was my age. Her sister Vicky seemed more stuck up than the others. Not sure why. Just the way she acted I guess. Then there was Gloria. She was the prettier one of the group and acted nice all the time. Doris, the older one was the crazier one. She's the one who liked to take walks up the road to hopefully get picked up by a truck driver. Not sure if she ever really did. All those girls climbed down sheet ropes to escape for the night sometimes. It was funny to watch them. I'm surprised they never fell and got hurt because it was quite a ways down onto a dirt driveway. I'm not sure how they ever got back in. Gloria had a nice boyfriend and I think she got pregnant on purpose just to get out of that house. She ended up marrying him and they are still together.
They used to like pouring lighter fluid down the side of the house and setting it on fire! Can you imagine! Yikes! That whole house could have burned. They thought it was funny.
The Aunt they lived with had a daughter named Ginny. I never liked her much after what Vivian told me she had said one time. Ginny would come to visit her mother once in a while. She was married. They were all sitting on the porch one afternoon . I was all dressed and ready to go to a school dance and had to walk all the way. I tried to wear pumps (low heeled shoes) so I'd look more dressy. I got just to the railroad tracks and had to turn around and come back to change those shoes. I could not walk in them. Vivian told me later that her "sister' Ginny had been making fun of the way I walked. She said I walked like I had a corn cob stuck up my rear end. She used another word of course. I never forgot that and even over the years if I saw her I'd still have ill feelings toward her. I'd just say hi and walk away. Funny how things like that stay with you all your life.
Old Mrs. Griffin would sit on her porch and make fun of some people also. There was a girl up the road that would walk by on her way to the gas station. Well, Mrs. Griffin never liked that girl because she wore short shorts. She said some nasty things about Connie. Just jealous I guess because she was so heavy. If only she knew us kids saw her coming out her back door and peeing in the corner.Ha! Ha!
Old Mr. Griffin was a pervert. He'd lure my little sister, Jane, over to him with pennies. Then when she got close he'd drop them in her pants and then put his hands down them to get the pennies. I never saw this happen but heard about it later. He did a lot of weird stuff. But I am not going to talk about it here. He'd be in jail for sure if it was now.
A lot of strange things happened over there in North Ilion.
I have just one photo of the Griffin girls from 1961. See that car they are leaning against? They used to take the gas cap off and sniff the gas fumes. Crazy!! Ha!