There were dozens of kids living in the Wartime Housing Authority in the 1950s.

Naturally, with all those kids in the neighborhood there were a few that were not so nice. In fact, some were downright terrifying. There was one slightly older kid, that was called “Icky”, but not to his face, everyone knew him as Icky. Even his mother used it sometimes.

Icky often had a kitchen butcher knive tucked in his belt as he terrorized the neighborhood, broke up marble games, yelled and chased kids to their homes.

He chased my brother Cork home one day, holding a Daisy Winchester BB gun. At the last few steps he aimed, and fired it at Cork, and it hit him in back of his ear. Shot in the ear by Icky! Back shot by Icky! How low can you get?

I believe the police was called, and they knew about Icky. I have this memory of me being old enough to watch through the front window as I pulled the curtain to the side. People were standing on the stoop and in the front yard. I don’t know if Icky was there. I had drunk half of my glass of milk. Left it there on the window sill, then I went out on the stoop to see better. The curtain returned to its normal position, hiding the half drunk glass of milk.

The memory might have disappeared if that was all that happened. Several weeks, or maybe even months later, I happened to move the curtains to look out the window. There was my glass from the day of Icky, and there was this “icky” blob of dried milk in the bottom of the glass. I had no idea that milk would do that over time. It smelled bad, and looked worse. I was afraid that I would get in trouble so I took it outside and threw it in the trash. We had one less glass in the kitchen, no one noticed.