The Shade

In the 1950’s most families didn’t lock their doors at night, and TV was still relatively new. Young people still walked in the evenings with their friends, or just hung out. Adults sat on the front porches and listened to the ball games or “The Fat Man”, “Green Hornet” or “The Lone Ranger. It was one of those swell evenings. Tony Maringuez and Oren Brown were walking to the Plaza to get a root beer float, when Oren caught sight of some red tomatoes in the small, back yard garden on Okonagan Street. There was still too much light so they waltzed on down to the Plaza until it got darker. In the mask of night, they parked themselves in the backyard of the house with the tomato garden, and ate the forbidden fruit. Strange activity inside the house caught their attention and, of course, they had to investigate. Through a crack in the window the boys witnessed a murder.