"Glasscock" wasn't his real last name. His actual last name was even more outrageous - it sounded even more fictitious. He wasn't a Glasscock, but out of respect for the surviving, I'll use a surrogate here for his actual surname.
Dickie was a bully. Perhaps with a name like that, he had to fight all the time, but now fighting is all that I remember him for. I don't recall him having any friends, and he wasn't a member of any gang of bullies to the best of my memory. He was just a mean-ass kid who would pick fights with anybody and everybody who crossed his path. I wonder if it was his funny-sounding name that compelled him to fight. Or if his combative tendency compelled everyone to call him by the cruelest version of "Richard" possible.
Now, for some context, I'm going back to the Third Grade here. Dickie Glasscock was in my Third Grade class, but everyone avoided him on the playground, because of fights, and you tried not to stand near him waiting for the afternoon school bus for the same reason..
We were only about eight years old at the time, but Dickie already wore his hair in a high pompadour held up with copious quantities of gel. Grease - Dickie was a "greaser." We were all still too young for facial hair at that time, but I'm sure that he grew long sideburns as soon as he was able. Even back then, he dressed like he was heading to a casting call for Grease, although at the time, the standard for delinquent fashions was still West Side Story. It's hard to imagine him not becoming a chain smoker and frequent drunk.
Yes, Dickie Glasscock terrified eight-year-old me, and I remember him to this day for his aura of menace and for his ridiculous-sounding name.
The other night, while I was Googling the names of my childhood friends, I also went and searched for other names I could remember, and who can forget the name "Dickie Glasscock?" The name is unique, and I quickly learned that he had joined the Navy and served in Vietnam. Of course he did - his pugnacious spirit probably couldn't wait to fight overseas, and his only regret was probably that due to his being the same age as me, he couldn't serve until he turned 18 in 1972, as the war was winding down. But still, he served and he fought.
People change, I get it, and I have no way of knowing what Dickie was actually like after the Third Grade. All I know is that one of the meanest, most belligerent bullies I have ever known went on to later serve in Vietnam. But he may have blossomed into a kind and caring family man, he may have taken up literature or music and expressed his deepest thoughts for all to share, he may have been one of the countless Americans working a job, paying a mortgage, and raising a family. But based on the trajectory he seemed to be on back in '63 and '64, I suspect he may have been a mean, friendless drunk, a 'Nam vet picking fights at the VFW with anyone who looked at him wrong. I hope I'm wrong about that, but those are my impressions.
Based on his on-line records, I know that he lived out in Suffolk County on Long Island, so I don't know what he was doing walking of the side of I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida in 1995. Returning from a vacation when his car broke down? Walking back to his hotel after an ex-wife kicked him out of her car? Taking a short cut back from the VFW Hall to wherever he could get another drink? It could have been anything. All his on-line obituary notes is that he died in Duval County, Florida in 1995.
But someone posted a comment to his obit, in all likelihood the most bizarre and confessional comment I'll ever see posted to an obit in this life:
[Mr Glasscock] was killed at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Pecan Park Rd about 9 pm on Thursday the 14th of Sept, 1995. He was walking along the shoulder of the interstate when a heavy rainstorm suddenly broke. He was struck and killed by a hit and run driver. His body was thrown into the roadway and he was struck by several more drivers because their vision was impeded by the sudden heavy downpour. I was one of those drivers who was unable to avoid hitting him, and I was the only driver to stop.
The commenter added, "I did not know [Mr. Glasscock], but I remember him and his family in my prayers regularly."
Let's be clear - eight-year-old me may not have liked eight-year-old Dickie Glasscock (no one did), but no one deserves to die like that and I take no satisfaction or pleasure in the cruel circumstances of his death. But I also have to note that those events have to be about the most Glasscockian way to die, the Dickiest demise imaginable. Even while dying, he was able to psychologically damage at least one of the drivers who struck him.
Impermanence is swift; life-and-death is the great matter. Our life is like a dream and time passes swiftly. Our dew-like life easily disappears. Since time waits for no one, try to do good for others as long as you are alive.
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