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about the Browns was the fact that because of being in the wholesale cigarette business, Mr. Brown was able somehow to supply Caleb, known more familiarly as Bud, with an almost unlimited supply of baseball-player cards, silks, leathers and buttons that came as souvenirs with cigarettes at that time. As I recall, the silks had collegiate flags embossed on them, and the buttons, which were the most numerous, were in various series but the most widely known one was the "I'm the Guy" buttons, such as "I'm the Guy Who Put the Foot in Football"; these quite inane sentiments were printed on metal "buttons" maybe 3/4" in diameter which could be pinned on your lapel and included along with the sentiment, a cartoon face. These various items were enormously coveted by kids, who accumulated collections of them and traded with others just like stamp collectors. Dode Brown was pretty and delicate and sweet and soft-spoken and I became very fond of her but somehow I never had the least romantic interest in her as the years went by.

Beyond the Browns, lived the Duguids in a big rambling house on a double lot on a high back above the street. Mr. Duguid was in the coal business, which, in those days, was often big and profitable. The Duguids had one daughter, Isobel, who was about my age but she didn't seem to mix too much with the rest of the Highland crowd. Maybe she was a bit younger. She was plump and pretty and a nice kid as I recall.

Then came the Southworths who were in the school book publishing business, Mrs. Southworth being a writer who contributed numerous school book texts to the publishing house. Son John was my age and we became close friends. Nancy was his younger sister and one or two more still younger came along. The family was not rich but comfortable, living in a square frame house perched high on a bank above the street. The drove Franklin automobiles. It so happens that John is the only member of the Highland crowd I knew so well in boyhood that I'm still in touch with. He's retired from the publishing business, is a writer in his own right, collaborated with his mother on school texts, is an expert on medieval ships and naval warfare and has written several books on the subject as well as some paperback novels centered around such subjects. He now lives in Florida in winter and Skaneateles in summer.

Then came the Barnums and the Telfers, neither with children so they didn't register very much with me. Then there was an old, gray, frame flat with an apartment upstairs and another downstairs as I recall -- it must have been the oldest house on the whole three blocks of Highland Avenue. I can't remember who lived there but the place was bought by Mr. Reimers, a postman who lived a few blocks away, and he tore it down and built a modern two-family flat, moving into the lower unit and renting the upper to the Kingsburys, whose daughter,