The adventures of Young Chuck and Rick

I think it all started in the second grade. It couldn’t have been in the first because Chuck Datres' last name began with a “D” and mine with a “W.” The nuns always assigned desks alphabetically so there was a whole classroom full of kids between us. In second grade, Sister Theresa had us sing a lot in class. She would walk around as we sang at our desks entreating us to sing way up high. Yes, that was before puberty changed our vocal registers. Little did we know that she was auditioning us for choir and that Chuck and I both made the cut. Positions in the choir loft were assigned by height so both of us being tall and lanky we wound up on the back riser next to each other. Before long a close friendship started that would last through high school.

Two years later, we were selected to be altar boys and often paired together for masses partially because of our height and partially because by that time we were hanging out together in the cafeteria, on the playgrounds and in the halls before and after school. My route to school took me past Lexington Avenue where Chuck and his siblings Joe, Mary Ann and Louise would be joining the ever growing bunch of kids walking the final few blocs up Blanding to St. Matthews School.

Chuck was the entrepreneur of the lot of us, starting his first paper route for the evening paper, The Jacksonville Journal a year before the rest of us did. When my brother and I started our first routes, Chuck had already realized that the worst part of paper routes was collecting from the perennially grouchy customers every week. So he switched from a route to street corner sales on the corner of San Juan and Blanding. He sold more papers there than we did on our routes. Fortunately the “drop spot” where the route managers left the newspapers for the carriers was the same as where he got his papers so we always had time for lively conversation about the events of the day while folding papers and stuffing them into the canvass bags draped across our handlebars.

Bicycles played a major role in our early adventures. Along with Bob, who was also in our class, we ranged far and wide from a successful search for Pat Boone’s early boyhood home ranging down to the marinas on Cedar River, it was called Cedar Creek back then to the Ortega River and down into Ortega and Venetia to see our other friends or visit with the girls in our class. Being young and shy, (please don’t break out laughing) we always visited the girls in our class as a group.

As we transitioned into high school, Bob, being a member of a Navy family was stationed out in California, but our group expanded to include Pat and Terry. Pat’s dad was a classmate of my dad and Terry was from a retired Navy family. We discovered some time later that Terry’s dad was a member of The First American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force, better known as the Flying Tigers. Terry’s dad like so many WW II Veterans did not speak much of his experiences but every once in a while we would get a tidbit or two.

Chuck, Pat and I joined the band our freshman year at Bishop Kenny and all of us selected trumpet as our instrument. Terry, Pat and I also joined the cross country and track teams while Chuck concentrated on various business enterprises after school. In the early days, band practice was during the school day so we rode the “Special” busses home. But for some reason, one year there was a Saturday morning band practice. This lead to the infamous bridge walk that Chuck, Pat and I undertook that day. The distance between school and my house was about 12 miles by surface roads so we decided it would be fun to walk home instead of taking the bus. So off we went in search of adventure without telling anyone what we were up to. Because it was a tad longer to walk we were all met by worried parents by the time we reached our respective homes.

Then there was the crooked driveway incident. Several of us had been out in one of the family cars. I don’t remember if it was Chucks, Terry’s or Pats, but we parked it in Chuck’s driveway and went inside for something. When we came back out, we observed the car that had a stick shift transmission which had slipped out of gear, slowly rolling backwards down the driveway. We all took off in pursuit. When the car hit the street, somehow it took a turn to the left and then back to the right to align perfectly with the driveway across the street. Just before it would have crashed into the car parked in that driveway, the runaway took another left turn and came to rest 3 feet from a pine tree in the neighbor’s front yard. Sheepishly, we retrieved the car from the yard across the street nodding acquiescence to the endless cacophony of entreaties to always set the parking break. We got very lucky. You would think that I would never experience anything like that again but it happened in my own front yard in the late 70s with my cross the street neighbor’s car.

Left: Photographic Proof of dance with classmates Mother! Needless to say, since we were all young red blooded American boys, we had a healthy interest in the girls around us. Early on, there were Boy Scout and Girl Scout dances usually held in one of the classrooms at school. Later there were CYO dances held in the church hall which was converted from the old church building moved from Camp Blanding in 1947 when the Army did not need it any more after the war. We were fortunate in that each and every one of the young ladies around us were just that; ladies – beautiful inside and out. Whether we were dancing to Elvis’ “Teddy Bear” or waltzing to “Young Love” by Tab Hunter or Sonny James we all had a great time. Recently a picture surfaced on Facebook of me dancing with one of my classmate’s mother. I remember those days like it was yesterday.

In high school, the serious dating began, but car ownership by teenagers was a rarity back then. So dating required a lot of coordination of transportation. Each of us depended on our family cars for dating. And each of us had siblings that needed the same cars on critical date nights. Needless to say cars were a scarce resource. Double dating was the only way to go. Sometimes it was to a party or a dance but more often it was to a movie. Chuck and I double dated quite a bit. Quite often the movie was at Loews Normandy located a few miles northwest from us at 5011 Normandy Boulevard. We would arrive at dusk, and he and I would grab Cokes and popcorn while our dates would talk. Since everybody knew everybody, I wonder to this day what they talked about. I guess I’ll never know. Both of our family cars had bench seats, so we had to arrange things so that the couple in the back seat could see the movie. That meant the couple in the front seat had to scrunch up on the left and the couple in back likewise on the right. That was fine with me!

When graduation came along, Chuck went to Belmont Abbey College about 15 miles west of Charlotte, NC and I went to The University of South Carolina in Columbia SC. Despite being only about 100 miles apart, Chuck and I really saw each other when on spring winter and fall semester breaks. I spent my summers on Midshipman Cruises in the Navy so we did not see each other much then. Eventually we drifted apart but our friendship remained. The last time I actually saw Chuck was in the mid 70s when I was offered a job at one of the local TV stations in Macon, Ga where he lived. I wound up not taking that position but we had a nice visit with Chuck and his wife, Peggy while in town.

I heard from Chuck’s sister Mary Ann that he passed away on July 16th. Chuck, you lived a good life and touched the lives of many others. I am so grateful that I was one of the lucky ones. Oh MY!