Does What Goes Around Come Around? Reflections Of A Grandfather

Kit’s younger brother, Ricky, observed everything but said nothing.

Almost all kids have experienced their mother or some other person of parental power shooting them a withering stare after a disciplinary infraction and solemnly pronouncing the words:

What goes around comes around.

I never stopped to think about what that really meant when I was younger, although the phrase was mentioned to me a number of times when the person in command thought it necessary.

Now a father and grandfather with parental authority of my own, I can reflect on my largely misspent youth to objectively see whether that tag was merited by any of my behavior.

My memory research enables me to give a resounding YES to that question.

What goes around comes around, my story:

I was 11 years old and my cousin was 12. A family who had a boy a year younger than me had just moved into the neighborhood. My cousin and I felt that we owned the neighborhood, the kid part at least. We must have thought at the time we should pass judgment on the new guy as soon as possible.

The first week the family moved in, my cousin Kit and I paid them a visit to meet the boy (Billy Baumgardner). His mother greeted us warmly at the door, probably wanting her son to become acquainted with the two nice boys who lived down the street.

Billy was upstairs in his bedroom. His mother directed us there to see him.

As we were walking up the stairs, Kit noticed a toy pistol on one of the steps. He picked it up on the way to Billy’s room.

Billy, the new kid on the block, wanted to make a good impression on the possible future playmates who lived down the street. He saw the pistol and naturally thought it belonged to Kit. After all, Kit was fondling the pop gun with the familiarity as if it were a long term, venerable possession. Billy, wanting to ingratiate himself to us, complemented Kit on his gun.The toy gun that he thought Kit owned but was actually his!

Ever the resourceful Yankee Trader, Kit mentioned that, it was indeed, a nice pistol and offered to sell it to Billy.

Billy, still wanting desperately to make two friends, explained that he had a pistol just like that and if he bought “Kit’s” he would have two. He’d be a double draw cowboy. You know, the ranchers that sport matching guns on either hip in those old John Wayne movies.

Kit asked Billy what he would pay for the toy weapon? Billy immediately offered $1.00. Kit accepted his bid, handed Billy’s own gun to him and took his $1.00. We then told Billy it was good to meet him and made up some half assed excuse to leave. We were worried that Billy might discover his mistake and tell his mother.

At first we were delighted with our coup. Kit and I locked arms, butt smacked and giggled on the way to the Deal Pharmacy where laundered our ill gotten gains by turning the $1.00 into ten comic books.

We took the ten comics to Kit’s house and carefully stored/hid the comics between the mattress and boxspring on his bed.

Kit’s younger brother Ricky observed everything but said nothing.

Ricky became friendly with Billy Baumgardner.

A week later Ricky put the bite on us for a couple of the comic books.

Not wanting to give in to extortion; we took all ten comics and buried them in the woods across the street from Kit’s house.

A week later the woods caught on fire. The Oakhurst Volunteer Fire Company had to use their tank truck to extinguish it.

Ricky and Billy Baumgardner watched the firemen put out the fire from Kit’s parent’s living room. Their charred faces looked guilty to me.

Kit and I could never find where we buried the comics after the woods burned.

The world maintained its ethical equilibrium.

What goes around comes around.