Seven-year-old Latarian Milton stole his grandmother’s SUV and went on a joy ride with a friend in Palm Beach County, Florida, running over three mailboxes, crashing into two cars in the Costco parking lot, then two more on the highway. The news interview with him went viral…

Latarian: “I wanna do it ‘cause it’s fun. It’s fun to do bad things—drive into a car.” 

Interviewer: “Do you understand you could kill someone doing that?” 

Latarian: “Yes, but I wanted to do Hutterite things with my Hutterite friends. 

Now I’m no expert on Hutterites, but I do know that they are kind of like Mennonites and the Amish, only they dress less Goth-like. I could not have been more confused by Latarian’s comment, but the one thing I understood at my core was the thrill of being seven years old and going for a joy ride with a friend… 

For his wedding, Donald dressed as if heading to the Royal Ascot—charcoal gray morning coat, white silk tie, striped gray and black trousers, and a top hat. Pat looked like a movie star. They both could have been movie stars. That’s when Pat moved in with us—or more specifically, she moved into Donald’s half of the house. 

There were plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms for each family, and we respected those spaces. But most other parts of the house were shared, like an early commune. There were separate kitchens which adjoined each other, and the kids wandered back and forth, sharing meals while the adults shared cocktails.  

Looking back, I realize now that the adults were celebrating. Uncle Donald and my father served overseas during WWII. To me, that was ancient history—something to reenact in backyard army battles. But to them, it was all barely behind them, and they were making up for lost time.  

Of course, Uncle Donald and Aunt Pat were not really related to us. Honorary aunts and uncles were big in the 50’s—folks who were not quite family, but you wished they were.  

Uncle Donald introduced me to my first fried grasshopper and chocolate covered ants. He often served my sister and I strange things like pea soup, beef bourguignon or spareribs and sauerkraut for breakfast before school. He trusted me with matches—at least enough for me to burn the trash out back in a wire cage for a quarter a week (which would buy me an ice cream soda at the corner drug store). The best part of the job was when Uncle Donald’s shaving cream cans exploded, showering me in a Barbasol snowstorm. 

Aunt Pat often hugged and kissed me, which I couldn’t say I disliked. Like I said, she was Hollywood glamorous. Usually when she got all lovey, she would balance an amber drink in one hand as she gushed over me. I even got used to her perfume and boozy breath which blended to smell like spoiled fruit.  

Val and I were best friends. I never asked him how he felt about having a new stepmom (though I did notice that Pat never fawned over him the way she did me). His real name was Valentine—namesake of his granddad, who was Nelson Rockefeller’s chauffeur.  

The sweeping driveway in front of our house suggested a different era. The driveway led to a carriage house out back—originally for the horses and carriages. The ground floor had been partitioned to create a garage for Uncle Donald’s Cadillac. In the cavernous space behind the garage were the old stalls, plus piles of horse tack, furniture, and storage boxes. That’s where Val and I played hide and seek and army. 

On Independence Day, Uncle Donald wore his old army uniform and marched with other veterans in the town parade. Next came the town’s two fire engines, convertibles with waving town officials, the school marching band, and Val and I in our Cub Scout uniforms. The parade ended at the cemetery where the speeches droned on forever. A 21-gun salute fired off by a bunch of army guys in white helmets made the boring parts almost worth it.  After that we headed back to our house for a 4^th of July cookout. 

The adults got so into celebrating that by the time they went to put the steaks on the grill, all the briquets had turned to grey ash, and they had to relight the fire. Left unattended, Val and I chugged sodas, ate clam dip on potato chips and enjoyed the freedom that comes with preoccupied parents. 

When it began to sprinkle, Uncle Donald checked the grill again. A column of distorted heat and firefly-like sparks danced above the mountain of glowing briquets, and the Weber’s kettle glowed a dull orange like a blacksmith’s forge. The adults laughed and mixed another drink. 

Meanwhile, the sprinkles had grown into fat raindrops splattering off the red leather seats of Uncle Donald’s Cadillac, which sat in the driveway with the top down.  

Val ran over to the grown-ups and waited for his opening. “Ahhh, dad? The rain’s getting the inside of your car wet!” 

Uncle Donald waved him off, trying not to interrupt the story he was telling. “Put it in the garage.” 

“Really?”  

“You’re old enough to drive,” his father joked. Val was eight, and I was seven. 

Val jumped in the driver’s seat, and I rode shotgun. The rain was now coming down like it meant business.  Val turned the key, and the Caddie’s 452 cubic-inch, V-16 engine roared to life, rocking the chassis with its torque.  

But before Val could shift into forward, his father opened the passenger door and told me to slide over. Apparently, a flicker of sobriety had made him reconsider.  

“You can drive…I’ll just supervise,” He promised Val. 

Val shifted the car into forward and inched into the garage. As we approached the back wall, Uncle Donald reached over with his left foot, feeling for the brake. Only he missed the brake and hit the accelerator, flooring it. 

Tires screamed, and the car launched as if trying to become airborne, clean through the back partition of the garage as if it weren’t there, sending a plume of wood and fiberboard flying gloriously in all directions. It was better than any action movie imaginable, and I was in it, as a stunt man!  

The car landed in the back room of the carriage house, with cardboard boxes plowed into a pile in front of us. To his credit, Uncle Donald just got out of the car, ducked through the gaping new hole in the back wall of the garage, and rejoined the party. He didn’t even pause to inspect the car (which may have been influenced by the fact that he owned an insurance company).  

Shortly after our joy ride, my family moved away from Kinderhook. Then, two years later, we moved again. Long distance phone calls were expensive, the internet did not exist, and for adolescent boys, letter writing was out of the question. Val and I lost touch. 

But I still didn’t understand the Hutterite connection, so I went back to look at that news clip again. It turns out, Latarian wasn’t saying he wanted to do Hutterite things. He wanted to do Hood Rat Things with his Hood Rat friends. 

So, I had it right all along. Val and I were more Hutterite than Hood Rat. For a brief period, we lived communally; we shared and helped each other out. We could afford to shun technology because it had not yet arrived. We wore simpler clothes. Dressing up involved putting on our Cub Scout kerchiefs.  

Over the years I tried to track down my old childhood best friend, My only clue was that he had moved to the Pacific Northwest decades ago. Judging from the scarcity of information, the thought persisted that he was no longer alive.  

Postscript: Revisiting this story encouraged me to renew my search for Val. I discovered a possible phone number for a Donald Valentine (Last Name), Jr. 

“Val?” I asked when a male voice answered. 

There was a very long pause, then, “No one has called me that in over 60 years.”