Freddy Barth
We had lived in Severna Park for less than a year when we had a visit from the Barths, a family of four, friends of my parents from our previous home in Baltimore. Quite the opposite of the city, our small township near Annapolis abounded with woods, rivers, and untouched land.
Freddy (a fellow nine-year-old) and his family included Big Fred, large and rotund, with a tugboat voice that could summon clams, and Madeline, the slight, passive mother. Priscilla, age seven, was ultra-feminine even at six; she sashayed around the house in mother’s high heels, calling them gookers. Haughty and disdainful, she had a pet Rabbit named Hop. Freddy had a bright toothy look to him and his eager, friendly presentation made him a likable guy. Freddy was also a bit gullible: in Baltimore I’d nearly convinced him that our neighbor was a serial killer. I showed off for him, calling him a “city slicker.”
At seven, I was a published author in Baltimore, as the Weekly Reader had printed some of my blurbs, musings, and stories in the third and fourth grade before we moved in 1954. Though I had begun writing in Baltimore, the avocation had really taken off in the country, as I would wander off during summer afternoons to write in the woods. I wrote about a detective I called Fearless Fosdick, a name I caged from the Sunday funny pages of the Baltimore Sun. Fosdick had many adventures under my pen, and I had the latest ready for Freddy as he liked ole Fearless and owned several early tales.
I led Freddy to the beach, and the old wooden 1940s stairs groaned and creaked as we descended to the first of two landings. Here we paused, and I turned to Freddy with The Case of the Half Bitten Nostril, the newest adventure of my hero. I handed it to Freddy with a mixture of pride and fear, emotions now familiar to me, all these years later, each time I show an artwork for the first time.
I stood uneasily while Freddy perused the tale. He liked it, especially the parts featuring the villain, who doggedly trailed his intended prey before waylaying and pinning his victim to the ground and biting off their right nostril. These intrusive, shocking crimes had outraged the city in which Fosdick toiled, and the newspapers and TV talked of nothing else during the months the wily lawbreaker terrorized the populace. At the time the story had been penned, the malefactor was still at large (I had to keep my hero busy).
When Freddy finished, I waited anxiously for his reaction. Finally producing a Buffalo Nickel, he handed it over to the beaming author.
I wish I could report I still have the nickel and the story and my friendship with Freddy, but like many vestiges of youth, they are lost in time, living only in memory.