Kudzu & The Peanut Man

My brother Chappie (as he was called back then), and I were thirteen months apart. We had fun together; we got into trouble together, we would try to see who could ' out-scare 'the other. We were best buddies. We could fight each other, but no one else had better try to bully one of us, because the other one would step right in to defend. (but that's the way it is with most siblings.)
  We lived on a dead end street; a long bank full of kudzu grew down to a railroad track at the end of the street. Up the other side was a huge sock mill in an area known as 'smokey hollow', (so named I suppose, because of all the smoke from the mill). We were not allowed to go across to the other side. Ha!! Not so, with my brother.
  The house (on our side) beside the railroad track had a huge lot behind it with an overgrowth of of spindly trees, kudzu and bamboo (which we called cane poles). This was our favorite place to play (and it was only two doors away from home). There, is where we became 'Tarzan and Jane', ' Roy and Dale', 'Gene Autry', or any one or two of our favorite heroes at the time. This special place was magical.
We cleared small paths, we swung on vines, hid from each other, whooped and hollered our way through every inch we knew by heart. All Mother had to do was come out the door and whistle for us, and we knew it was time to go home.
 We slid down the bank to the railroad track, the butts of our pants turning red from the clay, and walk the tracks to see who could go the farthest without falling off. We'd wait for the train to come and yell at the man on the caboose to 'blow your whistle', and he would, every time. What a wonderful, free, and exciting  childhood we had.

 On Sunday's, if the weather was nice, Granddaddy would take us up to Capitol Square there in Raleigh to feed the pigeons peanuts. He would sit and chat with the 'Peanut Man' while we ran around the square, climbing the statues and playing hide 'n seek; and of course we fed the pigeons too. So many wonderful memories.
The above picture is ..you guessed it..the Peanut Man.