The boy with no laces in his shoes.

Over the last few weeks I have had this need to write this story.  I haven't ever stopped thinking about the boy with no laces in his shoes, but lately I have felt the need to speak about him, share my feeling about him, and remember him. This is my story about the boy with no laces in his shoes.

I grew up in a small town, one with less than 5000 people.  You didn't know everyone, but you knew of most.  This can be a blessing and a curse, depending on the situation, and your situation.  I personally enjoyed the fact that I knew of most people, it created a feeling of community to me.  The knowledge that there was someone on every street that you knew was a good one, in my opinion.  Knowing of everyone did not make it safer, or easier, it just made it feel like we were all in it together.

This small town was divided up into four area's.  The north, south, west and east wards.  It depended on where you lived as to where you went to public school.  When I started school there were two public schools, and I attended both.

I started off in kindergarten at Central school.  I did not live in the area, but it was the only public school that offered kindergarten.  After kindergarten I attended West Ward school, as I lived in the west ward.  This school had three grades taught in it.  Grades one through three.  Grades one and two were in one classroom, and grade three was in it's own room.  The two teachers who taught there had taught since the beginning of time I think, they were old grandma types.  There were many a day that I would fall asleep at my desk to wake up with my teachers sweater on my shoulders that's what kind of class it was, and that's what kind of teacher she was.  I went to first and second grade in this school.

At the end of grade two, the school board decided they no longer needed West Ward school.  It had become obsolete, and the classroom sizes had dropped dramatically, so they were moving the students to Central school.  There they would offer grades kindergarten thru the forth grade.  I was not happy about this move one bit.  I liked where I went to school, I liked that I only had to walk less than a block, and I liked how little it was.  Central school was big, full of kinds I didn't know, and I wouldn't know any of the teachers.  Non the less, I went off the Central for grade three.

The first day was a little scary, I remember taking my time getting ready in the morning.  I did not like this at all, I was sure I wouldn't know anyone and I would have to play alone at recess. There was one good thing, and that was that I was going to be able to eat lunch with my Grandmother, as she lived right across the street.  I remember thinking while I walked in that first day, if I don't like it I can just tell my Grandmother at lunch and she wont send me back. 

That first day went fine.  I knew lots of the kids, at least the ones that were with me at West Ward, and my teacher seemed nice.  Her name was Mrs. Dolhanyk.  I was a little afraid of the teacher, she was a little louder than I was used to, and she seemed pretty crazy.  She had lots of energy, and seemed to run from one side of the room to the other all day long.  I loved having my lunch with my Grandmother.  She made yummy things and I like the time with her.  I thought this year was going to be pretty good.

It wasn't too long until I felt differently about school.  Soon after the first day I started to have trouble with everything.  It all seemed so confusing, at least to me.  I couldn't understand what the teacher was teaching, and I seemed to get yelled at alot.  I also seemed to have a hard time concentrating and getting my work done, this would be something that followed me the rest of my school career.  I was embarrassed by the fact that I was always being talked to, and after a few weeks I started playing away from the other kids in my class.

One day, after I was done eating lunch with my Grandmother I headed off back to school.  This day was different, as on this day I decided to discover what was behind the school.  This was one place I had never gone, and thought I will see if there are any interesting things back there.  I walked back, and saw a couple of green garbage dumpsters, but nothing much else except there was a little boy playing by himself.

At first he and I played back there separately.  I would glance over his way, and he mine but we never spoke or got too close.  I was shy, and I think he was too.  But this didn't last long.  I decided to play back there during the afternoon recess and when I got back there he was there.  This time we both looked at each other and then I walked over to him.  I knew who he was, but I had never spoke to him at least not that I could remember.  When I reached him I said "hi, do you want to play?" and he said "yes'.  We played together that day, and everyday after that.



I liked my new friend.  That friendship started to become so important to me.  School got harder, home wasn't much better, but playing with him made me feel better.  We didn't do anything exciting, we hardly ever talked, but I felt like I belonged with him and that as long as we were playing together nothing else much mattered.

One weekend that all shattered. 

In a small town not only did you know of everyone, but you also heard everything about everyone.  Information spread like wildfire in our town, and this day was no exception.  I heard my mom and dad talking one afternoon about an car accident.  I heard them say my friends name and my heart stopped beating....it was as if I was no longer taking any air into my lungs.  My feet were planted and my body froze.  I needed to hear what they were saying, but I couldn't bring myself to get close enough to hear very well.  I heard them say that my friend and his sister were in a car accident and it was serious.  How serious I had no idea, until the evening news.  The story started the top of the news that night.

"Today a family in St. Marys is morning the loss of two young souls.  While driving down county road" something or other, "the car which was driven by" someone, but I knew it was my friends dad, "swerved off the road and hit the side of a bridge.  The car was quickly engulfed in flames and the two young children, who were in the back seat of the vehicle were unable to escape."  It went on to say that the other passenger in the car was the wife of the driver and was seriously burned on the arms and face. Then the news moved onto something else. 

I went down into the basement where no one else would be and I cried.  I hit the cement walls with my hands, I stomped my feet, but most of all I asked why.  Why did this have to happen to my only friend, why couldn't it have happened to someone else.  I was down there a long time, I cried for a long time, then I came upstairs and went about the night as normal.

This back in the 70's. No one did anything to help the kids back then, there were no grief counselors waiting to help.  The school mentioned the passing of my friend, but that was the end of it. 

I was so sad, so shaken up by it, so alone.  School just wasn't the same after that.  I missed him day after day after day.  I wished he would come back, I prayed to God to send him back.  He was never very far from my thoughts.   It was such a sad time for me, and no one seemed to care about me, about the fact that a little boy died, that I was lonely, hurting, crying.  That something bad happened that day and we all needed to talk about it, to understand it, to turn to each other for support.  All of that just didn't happen back then.

A few weeks later we discovered that not only had these two children died in that car accident that day, but they actually died at the hands of their father.  What had happened that Sunday afternoon is that my friends Dad gave his wife and  kids medicine that would slowly put them to sleep.  He then took both my friend and his little sister out to the car and placed them in the back seat, where he tied the seat belts together instead of using the latches.  He then told his wife they were going for a country drive.  After driving a bit, and the kids falling asleep he did what he had planned all along.  He drove their car full force into the side of a cement bridge.  He drove that car so that the bridge would hit the center of the car, and at a force to start a fire.  He had soaked the back seat with gasoline.  It took no time for the car to be entirely engulfed in flames.  His wife tried to release her babies from the back seat, but she was groggy from the drugs and couldn't undo the knots.  She burned her arms and face trying to save them, but she just couldn't.  He did all of this for the insurance money!!

My friend has stayed with me all of my life.  I can't say I think of him daily, but I think of him often.  I still feel the pain when I think of his last day, I still have a hard time with why, but what I do know is that he is in a far better place now then he ever was on earth!!  This was when I learned how serious child abuse is, how much it can cost someone, how much it hurts everyone involved.  I learned that every life is precious, and they deserve to be talked about, remembered and honored for who they were, and what they brought to us still living.

My friends name was Ralph Droste, and he was my best friend in the third grade.  He came to school everyday without laces in his shoes.  He made me feel important!!  I wonder what he would have become, what things he would have done, if we would still be friends today.