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Those of you who have kept up with my stories over the past six years know I often mention my big-head friend, Clarence “Headquarters” Kennedy.

At the beginning of the year, Kennedy and I started walking 2½ miles every morning. Our 40-minute brisk walk is a combination of arguing, joking, gossiping and tripping down memory lane.

Recently, Kennedy and I recalled just how thrifty our parents were when we were kids.

This usually leads to lying about just how poor your family was with exaggerations you wouldn’t believe. Things like “We were so poor that the roaches packed up and left” or “We were so poor that we ate air sandwiches — that’s two slices of bread and a lot of pretending about what could have been in the middle.”

Recently, we both recalled funny experiences regarding clothes-shopping back in the day.

My funny shopping experience took place at a bazaar that was held most Saturday mornings at Christ the King Church, on the corner of Kivett and Hoskins Streets, in the early ’50s. Just in back of the church, close to the railroad tracks, was an old white garage with a large sliding door. The Hand Maids of Mary sold new and used clothing, sheets and linens to raise money for church/community projects.

These Sisters had some good contacts in New York because their benefactors sent top-quality merchandise down to be sold in the “Catholic Barn.”

Even the priest at that time did a little shopping for himself at the Barn.

There was nothing fancy about the inside of the Barn. The floor was packed dirt. There was a hand-built table in the middle and tables around the walls piled high with clothes we could buy for much less than we could downtown.

To us, shopping at the Barn was the equivalent of shopping at Walmart or Target.

My funniest purchase was a hideous greenish-gold swim suit that turned out to be too large for me when it got wet and heavy.

At the time, that swim suit looked like a million bucks, and I just had to have it. We were going to Atlantic City to visit cousins that summer, and I wanted to wear this swimsuit when we hit the beach. At 10 cents, it was a steal.

I was about 10 years old at the time with not one muscle on my body. (I know you are laughing because I am still void of muscle mass.) My bones in that ugly swimsuit would have won first prize on “America’s Funniest Videos.”

The suit didn’t look so bad on me when it was dry, but when I came out of the ocean, it looked like a fully-loaded extra-large pamper hanging from my waist. No matter: It only cost 10 cents, and no one in High Point would ever see me in it.

I thought my story was good for a laugh until Kennedy shared his family’s way of buying clothes. His family couldn’t afford to shop downtown. Instead, they ordered their clothes via a mail-order company, National Bellas Hess, which allowed them to pay on their account monthly.

At first, I thought he was lying, but thanks to the Internet, I was able to find this company, which was founded about 1910.

When Kennedy was 9, he and his sister Lou Ella went to South Carolina to visit relatives. Like most mothers, Willie Mae Kennedy wanted to make sure relatives knew they were doing well. So, she bought the kids new clothes from the Bellas Hess catalog.

Willie Mae bought a beautiful blue gabardine suit, with knickerbockers pants — a Sunday go-to-meeting outfit — for her little 9-year-old big-head boy.

One evening while in Simpson, S.C., visiting their aunt and uncle, Kennedy and his sister went to a camp meeting celebration by themselves, all decked out in their Bellas Hess finery. As they walked along three miles of bad dirt roads, the sky began to darken and the clouds thicken.

Once they reached the church, no one was there except the minister, who promptly announced that a storm was going to hit and he was going home.

The minister offered them a ride home, but the two felt that riding in a car on those muddy roads wasn’t safe. Neither knew at that moment that their lives were about to change forever … in a comical way.

After their long, wet trek in a heavy downpour, the youngsters finally reached the home of their aunt and uncle, soaked to the bone.

When the door opened and their uncle gazed upon Kennedy in his once beautiful blue gabardine suit, he couldn’t stop laughing. It had shrunk three sizes, and, Kennedy recalled, was so tight on him that they couldn’t pull it off. His aunt had to take a pair of scissors and cut his beautiful National Bellas Hess suit off of him.

Fond memories are truly that needed vitamin that can’t be found in food or drugstores. It is that magic bullet that only friends can forever cherish and appreciate. I am blessed to have so many friends and fond memories and a special big-head friend, “Headquarters.”

Glenn Chavis researches and writes about High Point’s black history. Contact him at Storytime40@aol.com