Standing on The Corner
After dinner, we’d meet
on the corner to trade baseball
cards and talk about our heroes.
Most kids were Yankee fans,
and the Twins were a relatively new
franchise, with Harmon Killebrew
raising eyebrows.
It didn’t take long to switch allegiance
from one team to the next, and I had quickly
become a Cubs fan, sighting Ernie Banks
as the best ever.
In the life of a child, a year is an eternity,
and by the following summer
our baseball cards were shelved
or hidden away in shoeboxes.
We still met on the corner,
but we had new interests
like which brand of cigarettes
had the best taste, and the neighbor girls.
This was about the same time
our local policemen began to take notice,
they would pull up, and tell us to scatter
with hints of the Red Wing Reformatory.
Thoughts of the reform school
struck terror throughout our circle of friends,
and anyone connected with its history
which predated us by more than 100 years.
We had heard the conditions were harsh,
and they turned factual when one of our own
got caught stealing a canned ham from
a railway car; he was 12 years of age,
and sentenced to six years.
I had been out of the community
for quite some time when news of his release
landed near his 18 th birthday, and like so many
small towns, they can be unforgiving and
prejudiced toward previous offenders.
Upon his arrival, the town elders
and the police were quick in pressuring
him: you’ll never be employable;
we’ll be watching you; Saint Cloud
is a much worse lockup, and other horrors.
They convinced him to join the army
⸺a real break and a chance to succeed
in the world. He even received a police
escort to the bus depot.
He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood
for 8 weeks of basic training.
After graduation, he shipped out
to Viet Nam, and was never heard
from again.
©2024 Richard D. Houff All rights reserved.
Richard D. Houff is originally from Austin, Minnesota, and currently lives and writes out of St. Paul, Minnesota. A former magazine and book publishing editor, he has had poetry and prose published throughout North America, and Europe. His most recent collections are Night Watch and Other Hometown Favorites, from Black Cat Moon Press, The Wonderful Farm and Other Gone Poems, from Flutter Press, and Dancing on Rooftops, from Homage Press (Czech Republic).