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Charles William Patterson
Hi Hite,
Thanks for all of the info about your life now and then. I am grateful that your bouts with cancer have been successful and that you have such good family.
Chuck Pritz lived at the end of Rose Avenue in the house that Bob Sterrett lived in prior to moving off to Richmond for a while. Joan Johnson and I lived mid way on the street and Steve Taylor lived at the top of the street. Prior to the Taylor's movng in, Albert Robinson lived in that house. Barbara Lane and David Harris lived next door to each other on the next street south, Dehart Street. To the north of Rose Ave, is Fairview Ave and David Moore lived at the end of the street. Across the road from Airport Acres is Eastview Terrace and Mary Ruth Morris lived on this street.
This said to illustrate the number of classmates that were in close proximity one to another and I've left out other BHS folk in classes surrounding 1969.
So David Moore, Chuck and I spent a lot of our time in the woods adjecent to David's and Chuck's houses. Included in our domain was what was an area west of the woods called Sandy Airfield. It was called an airfield because there was a grass runway to the north of the paved Tech Airport runway where planes sometimes landed for the purposes of, I assume, practice. It was used more extensively, I am told, during the times the US was at war for ROTC pilot training. Chuck, who had one of the strongest throwing arms I've ever seen, once threw a rock through the side of a Piper plane practicing touch and gos on the grass strip. Some planes were made of fabric back then. We ran like hell.
In the woods, David, Chuck and I constructed numerous forts and at least 5 tree houses. We scrounged materails for their construction from neighborhood basements and the few new homes that were being built in the area. One tree house had 3 stories and they were fortified. We made a slingshot our of an inner tube and it was possible to launch green apples several hundred feet.
To Chuck more specifically, his dad was a jeweler who worked at Hummel's downtown. While on vacation, his dad was swimming and had a massive heart attack on died. I think Chuck was 4 or 5. His mother, Betty, remarried 25 or so years later. Chuck had Tourette's. He would sniff alot, emit an eeeeh sound, and kick his left ankle with the inside of his right foot. There was another tick that he'd do above his head. He outgrew most of these things by 6th or 7th grade. He got a speedometer for his bike and he wouild ride many miles a day. He'd come by to show me/us how many miles he'd put on. He loved fires. Burning leaves or any other fires...Chuck would spot or smell the smoke and go neighborhoods away to near the fire. He also love to mow grass and had many good clients in our neighborhood.
I saw Chuck a couple of times as an adult when he was home for a visit. For awhile, he worked for an adhesive company in NJ. Later, he ended up in Pheonix where he started a Lawn Care/Landscaping business. I think he had a wife or significant other while in AZ and that they were fairly devout.
He moved back to Blacksburg 3-4 years ago I think. A former neighbor on Fairview said he'd approached her about renting a room. He moved into Warm Hearth for awhile.
A funny story about us boys. Some college students moved out of a house they were renting and left a big box of "girlie magazines" as we used to call them. What a prize! We carried them down to a fort we had made on Sandy's that was about 100 yards from the bottom of Rose Ave. Now a tremendous amount of information about the female anatomy was gleened from the 100 or so copies and we found a way to visit our trove regularly. We believed that we had them secure until some big ass wind from the west started to distribute them, page by page, all over the neighborhood. Chuck's house, in closest proximity to the fort, got the most of them though. Can't you just see the "looks of innocence" we tried to put on?
Chuck was a great playmate and I can still remember his laugh. Kind of like Woody Woodpecker's. I pray for his Peace and Rest.
Kindly,
Charley Patterson
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