My name is Jane.

Growing up, my neighborhood began with the road that continued straight when Folsomdale Road hooked a right and crossed Cayuga Creek. That road, the straight through road, was called Schoelkopf Road. The house at the corner of the intersection is known locally as the Folsom house.

Miss Frankie Folsom stayed there in the summer of 1885 to tend to her ailing grandfather. That was before spending a year in Europe and then marrying President Grover Cleveland, thereby becoming the youngest First Lady to live in the White House.

But that is a different story.

The neighborhood stretched a country mile along Schoelkopf road from the Folsom House to the old iron bridge. In that mile, on that rural country road, there were only a half-dozen families but we numbered about thirty kids.

I was the oldest in my family and my three girlfriends were the oldest of theirs. Together, we ruled the road.

This was the late fifties. Well before cell phones. We didn't even have a phone in the house at the time. We used the little kids as runners.

"BIlly, Take this note to Nancy and wait for an answer."

The road paralleled Cayuga creek as it tumbled down from the hills. It was mostly a shallow creek, babbling around rocks and slowing under bowers, but there was a waterfall and a few deep pools. Perfect for creek walking.

A vacant lot served as our ballpark. On any given summer afternoon, an impromptu softball game might start up. The teams would vary as kids dropped in or dropped out. No one worried about winning or losing. I don't think we even kept score most of the time.

I have hazy memories of much of that time. That can happen, I guess, after sixty-some years. I remember when my brother got the fish hook stuck in his chest and it was somehow my fault because I "should have been watching him."

I remember when the lady down the street shot herself. Everyone liked her. My mother told me, "you never know what goes on behind closed doors."

And I remember when Danny Lockwood moved into the neighborhood. His dad bought the old Carpenter place. It had been vacant for years and we always thought it was haunted.

Everything changed after Danny moved in.

He was one of those kids that knew things. He could put a chain back on a bike. He made a racer out of a couple of wooden pallets and ran it down the hill. He would pick a leech off you with his bare hand.

And, he was a good kisser.

The problem was, I wasn't the only one that thought so.

Cindy claimed she saw him first. But I lived closer and he was at our place more often. Nan sided with Cindy. Betsy, with me. The lines were drawn.

When school started in the fall, Danny found a whole new field of flowers to canoodle, but the damage had been done.

The quadrumvirate had been broken and it would never be the same.