Tom Vosper, Remembering the Young Larry Bryan and Friends

Larry W. Bryan, 1942-2021

Larry Bryan, Mike Grier and I were inseparable friends, kindergarten through sixth grade at Sunnyside Elementary School. If we didn’t play together at least a few times every week, then something was very wrong. We were never bored as we always found something to do regardless of the season. Most of what we did were ideas inspired by Larry. You could say he was our team leader.

At left, Tom Vosper; Right, Mike Grier, 1960)

Starting with jacks. Yes, this was Larry’s idea. Getting Mike to play was tricky, because he considered jacks a game for girls. But Mike, after watching Larry and me demonstrate eggs in a basket, wanted to try it. Me, I was all in from the get-go because I watched my big sister play. We boys used a golf ball instead of the little red rubber ball. I remember that we played for money – pennies, nickels and dimes.

After we got tired of jacks, we generally walked two blocks down the hill to Joe Duty’s City Service gas station on the corner of Hillside and Morris streets. Regular gas was 11.9 cents a gallon and ethyl cost a few cents more. We said, “hello” to Joe, slipped a nickel into the top-loaded Coke machine and pulled out our bottles of pop. Next, we took a swig out of our Cokes and headed to the peanut machine. The machine was always loaded with little salted Spanish peanuts, a handful for a penny. We each got our peanuts and funneled them into our Coke bottles, drank and munched. What a wonderful taste it is and if you haven’t tried it, it’s not too late. Yum!

(Note: this is a photo of the real Joe at his Cities Service station)

One extremely hot summer day, Larry and I took a bike ride around the neighborhood and came upon a Kool-Aid stand where two girls from our school were in business. They begged us to buy some of their cold Kool-Aid and said, “We needed some to cool us off.” We told them we didn’t have money, but we’d ride home and get some. They told us they’d be glad to give us some Kool-Aid now and we could pay later. We took them up on their offer and we each gulped down a large glass of ice-cold Kool-Aid, while sitting on the street curb, under a nice shade tree next to their stand.  Without notice, I up-chucked my drink in the street and Larry burst out laughing at my misfortune. He was still laughing when he threw up too. What the heck??  Obviously, neither of us were feeling good as we peddled to our homes and told our mothers what happened.

Larry’s mom loaded Larry in her car, came by my house, picked up mom and me, and we all went back to the girls’ stand. They were no longer open for business and the stand had been struck. The only sign that any of this happened were the two wet spots in the street. Yuck! We all piled out of the car. Larry and I headed for the shade tree to rest while Larry’s mom knocked on the front door. A girl’s mother answered the door. “Mrs. Bryan, I know what made the boys sick.” Kool-Aid and aluminum don’t play well together, and the girls had served us Kool-Aid out of aluminum glasses. I guess Kool-Aid on aluminum causes a chemical reaction that if drunk will make people instantly sick. Remember those aluminum glasses that came as a set and were various colors? Vintage now! Larry and I never paid for the toxic drink.

Backyard of the young Tom Vosper
The honeysuckle bush is to the left and the basketball hoop is right of center.

Backyard basketball at my house was undoubtedly our favorite sport, and we spent tons of time playing one-on-one or horse. Playing horse, we each had our own specialty shot we used if we got too far behind. Larry’s shot was deadly accurate from underneath the clothesline, over the honeysuckle bush, under a telephone line, and swish. With that special shot, Larry could eliminate his competitors at will. Larry managed to master my special shot, a hook from the free throw line. Mike couldn’t even master his own special shot. Playing one-on-one, I held my own against Larry because he would always stick his tongue out when he was about to shoot. I’d see Larry’s tongue pop out and boom, I upped my defense.

Larry possessed a good mechanical aptitude and it showed when he built a beautiful little car made mostly of wooden orange crates. He got the crates from Mr. Schmidt, the owner of Schmidt’s grocery store across the street from Joe Duty’s Cities Service gas station. The little car was a thing of beauty with roller skate wheels, tin cans for headlights and Gerber’s baby food cans for taillights. You used your feet for both steering and brakes. Larry put the finishing touches to his car by painting it fire engine red. His trial run took place on the downhill sidewalks in College Hill Park. Clickity clack, clickity clack, faster and faster went Larry on his little red car, whooping and hollering all the way down the hill. He was so proud of his creation and rode it several more times until he was willing to let Mike have a go. So Mike got on the car and off he went, but not too far before both roller-skate wheels broke away from the front axle. I guess Larry was one of those kids that cries when he’s mad. It ended up that we each built our own wooden cars using Larry’s advice and spent most of that summer on the sidewalks at College Hill Park. Larry’s car was the fastest. Mike’s car had reinforced front wheels. My car was left unpainted.

Larry heard about smoking grape vine and by darn it works. Mr. Wheaton had some grapes vines wrapped around a wooden fence in his backyard, so we chopped and copped some dead vines. We took the vines and climbed up in Donnie Walker’s tree house and lit up. Oh my, how we were delighted with the amount of smoke we could blow. Regardless of the bad taste and the way it burned our mouths and throats, we kept puffing. I guess it wasn’t habit-forming because none of us got hooked.

I can hear Larry saying, “Let’s go play the pinball machine at the hamburger joint.”  Yes, it’s true, Larry was much better at pinball than Mike and me. 

He’d always start first and rack up some free games and then let us play. If Larry was having trouble winning free games, we’d make sure no one was looking. If they weren’t, we’d lift the two front legs of the machine off the floor and Larry would slip his feet under the legs. Then we’d ease the machine down to rest on his feet. Doing this decreased the slope. Therefore, the ball would travel much slower on its way down to the flippers, banging up many more points than it would if the machine were not elevated. Using this technique one nickel got us several games. It was painful on Larry’s toes, but who cares.    

Well, sure, we each had a BB gun, sling shot, bow and arrows, baseballs and gloves, football, basketball, tennis balls and racket, and for in house activity a Lionel electric train. We were very happy young people and were never without something to do.

And by the way…where did all our baseball cards go?

I’m thankful to have had Larry Bryan as one of my best friends in our early years. Man, did we ever have fun playing together with little time for doing homework. This I know: Larry was very athletic. If he had wanted, he could have been a top-notch performer in most any sport offered at East. I was very sad when I’d heard from Ronnie Troy that Larry had passed away. Maybe down the trail, I’ll see his clothesline shot once again. Hope so!

I’d like to mention another classmate of ours – Sharon Adams (right, in 1960).Sharon was a good friend of ours and joined us in some of our fun and games, regularly winning anything competitive. In high school she proved herself to be a mighty fine athlete.    

 

Editor’s Note –  Larry Bryan died August 29, 2021. Click here to read his obituary.

Vosper’s great story inspired the research and original artwork by Barb Hammond.