You see, I have known Dickie since he was a little boy, about three, and I have known his family all my life. So finding out that he died well…freaked me out. I can remember a couple of different times when I use to live in town when Dickie would start to have asthma attacks, and Marline, Dickie's mom would have to take him to the hospital. It don't think it was anything major then, but the last time it was. I heard from different people on how he died, and from what I heard didn't sound good. I was told that around 2:00 in the morning Marline heard him wheezing and he couldn't breathe, she called both one of his sister's Shelly, and the ambulance. Shelly said by the time she had got there his eyes had already rolled back. I was told it took the ambulance 15 minutes to get there! They got Dickie revived with the help of machines, they knew if they took him off he would die, when he got to the hospital his lungs collapsed and the only thing that was keeping him alive was a machine. I was told he was brain dead when they took him off. K…it is getting a little bit harder to talk about him now. It is a hard way to think of your friend, now I am just going to go back, when I use to live across from him.

Me and Dickie, best friends when I was 3rd and when he was in 1st really even before that. He use to come over to the house with his step sister Jenn, and we always watched per semetery and yes it is spelled semetery, I still remember how much fun we had together. Me, Dickie, and Joey, always, every day it was clear out played base ball, foot ball, anything to keep us busy, looking back it makes me laugh, me and Dickie had started a club…and we would go around the block on our bikes, which made us real rebels since we weren't even suppose to leave the main housing area, and pretty much race…I don't quite remember what the purpose of the club was about…I don't even think it had a purpose, we were just having fun, throwing "Bubba bombs" and drinking red Kool-Aid. For a long time Dickie disliked this kid, which we called Bubba…but he is pretty cool…I remember every now and then they had some good fight…well Dickie always won…Bubba would be riding by on his bike and Dickie would try to knock him off…Later on those two became good friends, and I was happy because I was just about to go through some big life changes. My grandma, one of my best friends, passed away. I had no clue what was happening it all just seemed to fly. I mean I couldn't even believe it, I stayed at her house everyday after school until my mom and dad got home…She died January 10, we moved out of the big house that summer.

Now after we moved me and Dickie I guess just drifted apart. I would see him when we went into my Sister's house though, cause she lived right next door to the house we once lived in. Any ways we will move on up to when I was in 8th and Dickie was in 6th. In school I didn't see him much, but I had a newspaper rout and delivered to him every single day, except for Sundays. I would see him pretty much every day too, he would just be getting off the bus as I made it to his house. Back in school I remember people making fun of him which needless to say pissed me off pretty bad, just simple things like they would say "Opps I pulled a Dickie Harrell." And I heard a couple of girls in my class who have said it, I won't mention names, but I guess you can call them what ever, I prefer Idotic Bitches who think they are higher than everyone in the class so they stick they're fuckin nose up to anyone, they can fuck off and go hell.(sorry bout that, but thinkin bout it pisses me off.) The last long time I got to spend with the 'ol crew, which consisted of some new people, was when my mom and dad went to Mexico, I spent a whole week with my sister. Me, Dickie, and Joey, and pretty much the rest of the government housing, played base ball the first three days I was there…It was either me or Dickie that always got alone on a team…meaning both of us wanted Joey to be on our team, well this week I was the alone one, as me and seven other people took on Joey and Dickie, and his seven other people. We won the first day, which by the way we don't play with innings, we play until there is no one left, or until we get tired, we once played from when we got home from school 4:00, to 11:30 that night, we then went out and caught fire flies and lit off fire crackers, but that was a different time. Moving back to the more recent games my team had won the first day, Joey's I guess won the second…we never kept score, so who ever won the day before, lost the next…or it seems that way…the last day we tied….Then for the rest of the week me and Dickie took on Joey in foot ball….Although we never beat Joey, we did come close…and would have won if Dixie wouldn't have had to go eat. Well, this brings me to the last day I ever saw Dickie, if only I would have known that, I would have done something, I only saw him for a minute. I was delivering my newspapers, and I was running late I saw Dickie and "bubba" who now goes by Richard. Richard was on his bike and Dickie was eating, kind of weird, I know just what he was eating, and that was a ham and cheese sandwich, any ways I stopped talked to the two tossed Dickie the paper and then said good bye….so did Dickie.

I was on the internet at 3:10 in the morning when the phone rang and knocked me off…I was like "Who the #$@# would be calling this late…early in the morning? It was my sister, and she told my mom, I was tired and had school the next morning so I shut the computer off and went to bed. A couple minutes later I heard the light in my mom and dad's room turn on and foot steps coming into my room, it was my mom. My mom had told me what had happened and that Dickie was brain dead, but was still alive. I about puked, she told me, he had had a bad asthma attack and I knew that next day at school was going to be hard on a lot of people…I saw people cry that day that I never thought I would of, I on the other hand didn't cry, not because I was trying to be "a man", instead, I and a couple of other friends laughed, not that he was dead, I blocked as much as I could out of my mind, the whole morning we didn't have classes, but me and a couple of friends just changed the subject to happy good funny, what ever you want to call it, I changed the subject just because I didn't even want think about Dickie being dead. It did feel a little weird that in the whole science class room that day, our table was the only one not all down about Dickie, I was down, so much, but I know Dickie is all better now, and has no asthma, he can probably even run 100000 miles, no more cast on his leg, no more broken bones at all. All I have to say is, bye Dickie, you were a true friend, and I know I will never forget you, or your family.