My next door friend, Coogie Brack, whose full name was Calvin Coolidge Brack, and I were standing at the corner of our front fence taking a peek now and then at the man coming down the street. We had seen men like him before and we knew exactly what he was doing. A bag hung over his shoulders like a paper carriers bag and as he came down our street he went up to each house. He never knocked, he just took something out of his bag and hung it on the door knob, or screen-door handle. He was passing out free samples and the two of us were full of excitement as we stood there watching.

The last time we saw a man like this one he was passing out free samples of a new cereal. The guy before him passed out a new Ivory hand soap. We didn’t know what this man had but we were hoping it would be something even better than those things. Whatever it was we knew that we wanted more than one of them. In the early 1930’s anything free was not frowned upon.

Coogie and I were close chums and we did just about everything together. He lived next door. We played Tarzan, or Tom Mix, or cowboys and Indians together in those days. We lived the great life of two happy children. He was a couple of years older than I was, but that didn’t matter. In fact I kind of liked the idea of him being older. He was kind of like the big brother I never had.

The fence we were standing next to was covered with morning glory vines. Mr. Troy kept his fence next to the street covered with vines of flowers. Early each school day I would make sure I popped as many of the closed flowers petals as I could. People now days like to pop the small plastic bubbles in packing material. Well, that’s what closed morning glory flowers sound like before they open. But, now we were glad they were there because they gave us a place to hide. As the man got closer we made our plans on what we were going to do.

Coogies Aunt May lived half way up the street and we knew we could get her free sample without her knowing it. The Wiggetts lived across the street and if we were quick enough we could get theirs also. We’d check and see what the samples were before we tried to get any more.

We made our dash up the street while the man was walking down the sidewalk of the house on the corner across the street. I waited by the curb while Coogie ran up and grabbed his Aunt May’s sample off her screen door handle. With it in his hand he ran back to where I was standing. A quick look at the prize in his hand and our eyes lit up. It was a free sample of chocolate. Turning I ran across the street and took the sample off the Wiggets screen door handle. I ran back and met Coogie in the middle of the street. We quickly then made our way down the street but were saddened when we saw that most of the samples had already been retrieved by their owners. The ones that hadn’t been taken in by their owners. The ones that still remained on the houses were on houses we would rather not try and get them. We sure didn’t want to get in any trouble with them. All we wanted was a few more samples of chocolate candy.

We decided to go get the samples that had been left on our own houses. Running back to our homes we quickly retrieved the free samples. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. With our two free sample in hand we headed for the alley behind our houses. We didn’t want to have to share our candy samples with anyone else. We had worked hard to get what we had and were going to enjoy our booty. It wasn’t every day we had chocolate candy to eat. We might even get some more later.

Next to the alley behind Coogies and my house was the garage for our family cars. There were sheds connected to each of our garages that held the wood and coal we needed for the cook stoves and furnaces in our houses. There was a gap between their sheds and our garage of about 5 feet where our gate was located to get into the alley. Many a cowboy and Indian chase occurred across that open space. We also made rubber guns with cloths pins attached to the handle of the gun. Rubber inner tube bands tied in a knot in the middle were held by the clothe pins and then stretched down the gun and over the end of the barrel. When you were shot with one of those rubber bands with a knot in it you knew you were shot. There was no saying, "You missed me." It was, "Ouch."

In the alley behind Coogies wood shed was a good size telephone pole. This telephone pole was what we used as a target. My dad had a couple of hatchet axes and the pole was what we threw or hatchets at. Of course throwing knives at it was another pass time we had.

One of my tasks around the house was to cut wood. My dad would go out and get old railroad ties that lay alongside the railroad tracks out of town. New railroad ties had taken their place under the steel rails so the train would have a sturdy foundation to travel over. Dad would load up our small trailer with these old ties and bring them home. He would stack them in our back yard next to the alley fence next to the coal shed. It was my job in the summer to cut these railroad ties up into one foot long pieces. I would then have to split them up with an ax, or a hatchet, so they would fit into the cook stove in the kitchen. This wood was used all year round to start the fires in our stoves. More so in the winter to get the coal started to burn.

It was into the alley behind our back yards we ran with our free candy samples of chocolate in our hands. We ran over to our favorite telephone pole and sat down with our back up against it. The wrappers on the candy were quickly taken off and each bite of the sweet chocolate was savored. There were only four small squares of chocolate in each package and they were gone before we knew it. The other one was opened and it to quickly disappeared. We decided right then that we would have to go and see if we could find us a couple more free samples somewhere

Jumping up we and ran up and down the streets around where we lived but with no luck. when we returned about an hour later we went into Coogies house to get something to drink. It was hot outside that day and the chocolate had made us real thirsty.

As I stood out on the porch drinking my water I heard Coogies mother ask him if he was alright. He told her he was feeling kind of strange in his stomach. As I took another drink of my water my stomach growled and seemed to turn over inside me. Mrs. Brack looked at me and gasped. "What have you two been eating?" she asked. "Green Apples again?"

We both shook hour head and assured her that we had not been eating any green apples. In fact we didn’t know any place where there were any. But if we had we probably would have ate some of them. She stood there looking at us and asking us questions and finally Coogie told here that the only thing we had eaten was a couple of free samples of chocolate candy a man was passing out from house to house. She asked what kind it was and we didn’t know, so she asked us where we had eaten them. We told her out behind the garage in the alley.

Out the door she ran and disappeared around the corner of their garage next to the alley. It wasn’t long until she came running back around the corner of the garage with the wrappers in her hand. When she got to their house she was laughing. She told Coogie to get his clothes off and get in bed then took me by the hand and led me over to our house. I didn’t know what was happening but it didn’t look good. She laughing as she leads me over to our house. Something is wrong here and I didn’t really want to know what it was.

Mrs. Brack didn’t bother knocking on our door she just pulled it open and walked inside with me tagging along behind her. She called out my mothers name and she came running out of the bedroom where she was cleaning the windows. She looked at Mrs. Brack holding my hand and then at me. "What’s the matter," she said.

I wasn’t feeling good at all. In fact I was getting sicker and sicker. She handed my mother one of the wrappers she had in her hand and told her that Coogie and I had eaten two of the free samples a man had passed out that day. My mother read the wrapper and looked at Mrs. Brack and they both started laughing. I saw nothing funny about it at all. If I was going to get a spanking I wish Mom would hurry up and get it over and send me to be like Coogie was. Bed sure sounded good to me right then.

It was only then that I was sat down in a chair by the table and told what I had eaten. It was not chocolate candy, but X-LAX a chocolate laxative. WOW!

In the small coal mine town where we lived there were very few inside toilets in the 1930’s. Ours of course was an outside toilet that sat on the back of our lot next to the alley near the woodshed. For the next two days that is where you would find me. In fact I almost lived there the rest of that first day. I was one sick guy, and I’m sure Coogie was also. Fortunately for us we didn’t get any more free samples that day. If we had I don’t know what would have happened. It could have been serious.

The two of us were very leery of free samples from then on. Not only that I don’t like anything Chocolate. I’m over seventy now and I still don’t like chocolate. I wonder why?