Troy Villas

I am an old man. I have an old cat. The cat and I talk a great deal about my life, he’s a terrific listener, we speak every day, all damn day sometimes. I am remembering and reflecting on the best years of my life which were spent in a cozy little town called Troy, in Michigan, Troy was a township that became a city. The summers were the best! We had three entire months to go out and explore our town, and by the time I was a teenager I knew every street, every house, and who lived in the house. We had holes dug out behind the Wallace's bushes, we had the bush triangle by Pat’s house we had an underground fort in the field across the street from my house. We had all of these places to ditch in, in case some crazed, foaming - at - the - mouth adult was chasing after us. God help those poor, crazy, foaming-at-the-mouth adults, they had no idea how to contain us, or catch us, keep us under control, they were cub scouts, with no badges and we were special forces kids, and as soon as it got dark we were outside in the darkness, no street lights in my neighborhood, we were pure mischief, the only few times we were even caught was during the day when we sometimes pushed our luck a little too far and got a bit cocky and even then we were not too easy to catch for a forty something year old dude who's days running down kids was over. We were too smart, too wily, too fast, and we were all fast, top of the chart when came to the presidential physical fitness award, which we all always received.