I suppose "Needy Godzilla" is out of the question.
Personal story, or stories
- Thread starter Grandpa
- Start date
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I will call you....I will call you...Ryter.
Very cool! I remember doing some chatting on IRC years and years ago, and I had the moniker MrWrite back then. A little ego attached to that one.
Well, I think I like that even better.
Grandpa: I'm re-new to the SKMB, and I was always only partially here. I don't much dabble in the social aspect, but I have made a few friends...even if I don't remember the details accurately.
I can't recall your personal backlot if I ever knew it. I am enjoying the introduction, however.
If you are not submitting stuff for publication, you should be flogged.
No Maslow references or things like that, though.
I can't recall your personal backlot if I ever knew it. I am enjoying the introduction, however.
If you are not submitting stuff for publication, you should be flogged.
No Maslow references or things like that, though.
You and me both. I have been here maybe... a month now? And isn't this just the nicest bunch?
I cannot remember details of forum entities, either, to my discredit. There have been a couple who have reached out with some conversation, and I remember them. But I'm old-fashioned, and when I see a bunch of names scrolling by, no faces, no context other than postings on the forum, I cannot remember details to save my life. In truth, I have a hard time remembering details of real people that I mean in the physical world. It might be a guy thing. Or an age thing. Or those combined. Or it could be one aspect of my own particular psychopathology.
I have some rejections. So it goes. At least they can't reject a blog, and I'm not going to give up the day job.
And nice to see you got the little reference.
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Good evening.
I'm gonna tell ya a story.
(Please, don't ask why I did it or what I was thinking. Most likely, I wasn't thinking. Ha!)
It was Summer. My brothers were nowhere to be found and I was bored. I walked down the block and for some unfathomable reason I noticed the telephone pole on the corner. I decided it would be cool to climb it. The thingies (sorry to get technical) that allow telephone pole people climbers are about what? 8..10 feet up? No problem. I shinnied up that sucker until I was able to use those iron *steps* and climbed up to the the apex. Yay!
Well, not so much, yay. Looking down is way different then looking up. There was no freaking way I was gonna climb down. It didn't take long before kids and adults noticed my goofy azz up on that freaking telephone pole. A crowd gathered. Some narc advised my Momma of my situation. ( Rat bastard.) My Momma came ...and she had THE belt! And she was ready to wield it to whip my scrawny dumb butt. She demanded I come down. RIGHT NOW! Yeah, right.
It would not have mattered a whit if she whipped my behind in front of all those present. I stayed put.
In time, Momma and everyone else wandered away. Eventually, the Sun started to go down and I did as well. I made my way down and sneaked into the house. Kept on the down low. Didn't get a whipping.
My Guardian Angel was working over-time.
Peace.
I'm gonna tell ya a story.
(Please, don't ask why I did it or what I was thinking. Most likely, I wasn't thinking. Ha!)
It was Summer. My brothers were nowhere to be found and I was bored. I walked down the block and for some unfathomable reason I noticed the telephone pole on the corner. I decided it would be cool to climb it. The thingies (sorry to get technical) that allow telephone pole people climbers are about what? 8..10 feet up? No problem. I shinnied up that sucker until I was able to use those iron *steps* and climbed up to the the apex. Yay!
Well, not so much, yay. Looking down is way different then looking up. There was no freaking way I was gonna climb down. It didn't take long before kids and adults noticed my goofy azz up on that freaking telephone pole. A crowd gathered. Some narc advised my Momma of my situation. ( Rat bastard.) My Momma came ...and she had THE belt! And she was ready to wield it to whip my scrawny dumb butt. She demanded I come down. RIGHT NOW! Yeah, right.
It would not have mattered a whit if she whipped my behind in front of all those present. I stayed put.
In time, Momma and everyone else wandered away. Eventually, the Sun started to go down and I did as well. I made my way down and sneaked into the house. Kept on the down low. Didn't get a whipping.
My Guardian Angel was working over-time.
Peace.
..then there's my Mother-In-Law, who once during a harried conversation-couldn't remember the term "airport"...and said "You know, that airplane place!"...
...and you forgot...as dashingly handsome...
Loved it. That is an epic chapter, even with the current overuse of "epic," in the life of a kid. Get everyone in the neighborhood gathered around and yet outwait them all. Great story.
My brother blew up the back yard. I didn't stop him, so I could be guilty as an accessory.
We were both old enough to know better, but we were bored.
My brother found the gunpowder in our dad's closet. He poured some into a plastic Coke bottle, added an old candle wick, lit it, and we ran.
OMG!!! There was a sound like a sonic boom, the bottle blew up and over the house, the ground shook like an earthquake. As we were standing on the porch looking dumbfounded, the neighbor two doors up ran out of his house looking frantically at the sky. This neighbor happened to be deaf, so it was the vibrations he had felt. Well, that scene struck us funny.....my brother and I had a sort of twisted sense of humor....and we fell on the ground laughing.
When we regained our composure, we noticed the huge black hole in the backyard. My brother looks at me and asked what we are going to tell Mom.
I said I wasn't telling Mom anything. It was up to him what he wanted to say. Nothing was said for a week....that's how long it took for Mom to see it.
My brother made up some wild tale about how he and his friend needed to perform some sort of experiment for a school science project, and she bought it.
We were both old enough to know better, but we were bored.
My brother found the gunpowder in our dad's closet. He poured some into a plastic Coke bottle, added an old candle wick, lit it, and we ran.
OMG!!! There was a sound like a sonic boom, the bottle blew up and over the house, the ground shook like an earthquake. As we were standing on the porch looking dumbfounded, the neighbor two doors up ran out of his house looking frantically at the sky. This neighbor happened to be deaf, so it was the vibrations he had felt. Well, that scene struck us funny.....my brother and I had a sort of twisted sense of humor....and we fell on the ground laughing.
When we regained our composure, we noticed the huge black hole in the backyard. My brother looks at me and asked what we are going to tell Mom.
I said I wasn't telling Mom anything. It was up to him what he wanted to say. Nothing was said for a week....that's how long it took for Mom to see it.
My brother made up some wild tale about how he and his friend needed to perform some sort of experiment for a school science project, and she bought it.
All y'all are wonderfully adept at conveying images. I've been there with y'all sharing your adventures 
Its been an exhausting couple days! Yesterday I dodged an exploding manhole cover and trudged through tall grass that made eerie plastic swishing noises looking for Coke bottles. Next, I was transported to a prison hospital and hurt myself laughing. On the way home, I helped DiO'Bolic bury a prized M-80 and learned avocado has many meanings.
This morning I jumped off a garage roof and climbed a telephone pole. Then I blew up the back yard!
Waving goodbye is the image that has stuck with me. It touched my heart. I was right there beside you at the hospital.
Its been an exhausting couple days! Yesterday I dodged an exploding manhole cover and trudged through tall grass that made eerie plastic swishing noises looking for Coke bottles. Next, I was transported to a prison hospital and hurt myself laughing. On the way home, I helped DiO'Bolic bury a prized M-80 and learned avocado has many meanings. This morning I jumped off a garage roof and climbed a telephone pole. Then I blew up the back yard!
Waving goodbye is the image that has stuck with me. It touched my heart. I was right there beside you at the hospital.
So I’m smoking a ciggy in an alleyway early one morning in downtown Beaufort.
I’m also open for business; the lights are on, the “welcome mat” is placed snugly outside the front door; saccharine Christmas music is seeping through the speakers.
There’s art to be sold, and Boy George, I’m the man ready to sell it!
But, as I said, it’s early. No shoppers are out, and nothing’s happening on Bay Street.
Well…not exactly nothing. Morning is trash-gettin’ time, so the guys are out en masse doing the daily pickup—early and quickly so as not to offend the discriminating and highly refined senses of the Locals (or even worse, their Long Island visitors).
I’m around the corner from my art gallery, smoking a bitter piece of hell. I probably spit a few times, but I made sure no one saw me.
An almost indescribable older black man ambles by me with a slight limp, going about his business of carting off the loads of trash generated by the many restaurants in which he would never eat.
Trained by the confluence of Time and Inequity not to speak to a white guy in dress clothes (little did he know that my shirt and pants had not been washed in over a week), he shuffled on past.
I wished him a “Good Morning,” and added the customary “How you doing?”
Having myself already breached that bullshit rule of etiquette hinted at above, he felt free to answer honestly.
“Ain’t doin’,” he said. “Got me a bust up knee.”
His limp immediately became more pronounced.
Then, with two-days worth of a white-whiskered grin he said, “Yassir, mind if I get one of your smokes?”
Cryptically he added, as if to seal the deal, “I’ll tell you a secret.”
The bargain had been struck, but neither of us knew it yet.
Like a cornhusk puppet, I patted the pockets of my khaki slacks despite knowing that my pack of cigarettes was left behind in the art gallery. I’d just started up--again—and didn’t want to keep them handy. I’m sure our President understands.
“Oh…. I know…you ain’t got ‘em,” he grunted, prompted by the recognition of one who has asked a thousand times before and heard a similar lie from those who get asked for a quarter, for a ride up the road, for a smoke.
“Yeah I do, just not on me. You going to be out front for a while?” I gestured towards Bay Street. I knew that he would be; the alleyway we were in was in the first third of the trash pickup route.
“Yassir,” he said while he walked by, knowing another false promise for what it was after enduring the thousand let-downs that came before.
As he rounded the corner with his load and headed back onto Bay Street, I raised my voice to carry strong over the loud diesel engine grumbling life into the nearby trash truck. I yelled loud enough to startle one unfortunate bird roosting under an eave nearby.
“I want to hear that secret!”
He raised his hand as if to say “Yeah. Sure. Whatever,” but he did not look back.
I finished my cigarette (to the halfway point), ashed it out, and then walked back to the art gallery. I found my pack, popped out two fresh ones, and went back outside.
Smokes in pocket, I noticed the gentleman continuing his duty up the street a bit. His limp had returned to barely noticeable.
Early morning traffic is slow on Bay Street, so he noticed me noticing him. After tossing in a few more bags, he walked back to me, warily though expectantly.
The limp remained slight, almost as if he’d thought “that guy didn’t lie to me, so I ain’t gonna lie to him.”
I didn’t, and he didn’t.
I pulled out the two smokes and a lighter and offered them up. “One for now and one for the road,” I said.
“Thank yassir,” as he lit one and made the other disappear. He wasn’t the only one of his crew patrolling the streets, and he didn’t want any of his fellows to know he had a spare butt.
After a few impressive blue-plumed blasts of smoke he looked at me with indiscriminate eyes the color of aged ivory striated by faint tendrils of Tabasco sauce.
“So, now you want that secret, I s’pose?”
“Yeah, lay it on me,” I said, fully aware that I wasn’t in either art or bullshit selling mode, but that maybe I was in the market to buy a combination of the two.
He simply said “Thank you. That’s the secret. Thank you very much. Don’t you go around tellin’ anyone that secret, boy.”
After a moment’s pause I answered “No sir. I am going to tell that secret. I am going to tell it to everyone I see. It might make the world a little bit better.”
As a single impossible tear slid down his raisoned face, he said “You are the best man I ever know,” and then he just went back to work.
_____________________________
~~The Cigarette and the Secret~~
2009-ish. Published in a decent N.Y. highbrow art ragazine. Actually got paid a big handful of quarters. After, had a few ploops with online sites, but my last (first) copy of Writer's Market is 2010, so I haven't been sending (or producing...much). Said contact book has an inch of dust and is sitting under a crazy cymbal-monkey puppet given to me by a good friend.
I’m also open for business; the lights are on, the “welcome mat” is placed snugly outside the front door; saccharine Christmas music is seeping through the speakers.
There’s art to be sold, and Boy George, I’m the man ready to sell it!
But, as I said, it’s early. No shoppers are out, and nothing’s happening on Bay Street.
Well…not exactly nothing. Morning is trash-gettin’ time, so the guys are out en masse doing the daily pickup—early and quickly so as not to offend the discriminating and highly refined senses of the Locals (or even worse, their Long Island visitors).
I’m around the corner from my art gallery, smoking a bitter piece of hell. I probably spit a few times, but I made sure no one saw me.
An almost indescribable older black man ambles by me with a slight limp, going about his business of carting off the loads of trash generated by the many restaurants in which he would never eat.
Trained by the confluence of Time and Inequity not to speak to a white guy in dress clothes (little did he know that my shirt and pants had not been washed in over a week), he shuffled on past.
I wished him a “Good Morning,” and added the customary “How you doing?”
Having myself already breached that bullshit rule of etiquette hinted at above, he felt free to answer honestly.
“Ain’t doin’,” he said. “Got me a bust up knee.”
His limp immediately became more pronounced.
Then, with two-days worth of a white-whiskered grin he said, “Yassir, mind if I get one of your smokes?”
Cryptically he added, as if to seal the deal, “I’ll tell you a secret.”
The bargain had been struck, but neither of us knew it yet.
Like a cornhusk puppet, I patted the pockets of my khaki slacks despite knowing that my pack of cigarettes was left behind in the art gallery. I’d just started up--again—and didn’t want to keep them handy. I’m sure our President understands.
“Oh…. I know…you ain’t got ‘em,” he grunted, prompted by the recognition of one who has asked a thousand times before and heard a similar lie from those who get asked for a quarter, for a ride up the road, for a smoke.
“Yeah I do, just not on me. You going to be out front for a while?” I gestured towards Bay Street. I knew that he would be; the alleyway we were in was in the first third of the trash pickup route.
“Yassir,” he said while he walked by, knowing another false promise for what it was after enduring the thousand let-downs that came before.
As he rounded the corner with his load and headed back onto Bay Street, I raised my voice to carry strong over the loud diesel engine grumbling life into the nearby trash truck. I yelled loud enough to startle one unfortunate bird roosting under an eave nearby.
“I want to hear that secret!”
He raised his hand as if to say “Yeah. Sure. Whatever,” but he did not look back.
I finished my cigarette (to the halfway point), ashed it out, and then walked back to the art gallery. I found my pack, popped out two fresh ones, and went back outside.
Smokes in pocket, I noticed the gentleman continuing his duty up the street a bit. His limp had returned to barely noticeable.
Early morning traffic is slow on Bay Street, so he noticed me noticing him. After tossing in a few more bags, he walked back to me, warily though expectantly.
The limp remained slight, almost as if he’d thought “that guy didn’t lie to me, so I ain’t gonna lie to him.”
I didn’t, and he didn’t.
I pulled out the two smokes and a lighter and offered them up. “One for now and one for the road,” I said.
“Thank yassir,” as he lit one and made the other disappear. He wasn’t the only one of his crew patrolling the streets, and he didn’t want any of his fellows to know he had a spare butt.
After a few impressive blue-plumed blasts of smoke he looked at me with indiscriminate eyes the color of aged ivory striated by faint tendrils of Tabasco sauce.
“So, now you want that secret, I s’pose?”
“Yeah, lay it on me,” I said, fully aware that I wasn’t in either art or bullshit selling mode, but that maybe I was in the market to buy a combination of the two.
He simply said “Thank you. That’s the secret. Thank you very much. Don’t you go around tellin’ anyone that secret, boy.”
After a moment’s pause I answered “No sir. I am going to tell that secret. I am going to tell it to everyone I see. It might make the world a little bit better.”
As a single impossible tear slid down his raisoned face, he said “You are the best man I ever know,” and then he just went back to work.
_____________________________
~~The Cigarette and the Secret~~
2009-ish. Published in a decent N.Y. highbrow art ragazine. Actually got paid a big handful of quarters. After, had a few ploops with online sites, but my last (first) copy of Writer's Market is 2010, so I haven't been sending (or producing...much). Said contact book has an inch of dust and is sitting under a crazy cymbal-monkey puppet given to me by a good friend.
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It's chilly here in Port Royal. I've just finished my public speaking homework, and the current semester at TCL is coming to a close. Mid-terms. The climax of the story, where emotions and actions run high. With my paper on Dissociative Identity Disorder completed and e-mailed to my one-armed psychology teacher, Mr. Mullins, I hope to get back to the garden in my mind. The garden is thick with ideas and dialogue. The Overlook party is packed with faces I've sculpted. They're real characters, alright. Stanley's camera crew follows me in an impressive tracking shot through the crowds of my creations. I take a seat at a nicely-decorated round table. I rest my eyes for a minute, and when I open them, five people are sitting with me. They're the major characters of a novel I've been stuck writing since high school, a Frankenstein monster I'm finally making progress on. They're happy that I'm nearing fifty pages, but we've still got a long way to go.
Whoa. Went off on a tangent there.
Whoa. Went off on a tangent there.
Didn’t know if I should to put this one here or the Nut Magnet thread.
After graduating from high school I got a summer job at the largest beer festival in the US, which ran for about 28 days, before heading off to college. One morning I was put in charge of disposing of a truckload of garbage bags at the local dump. While throwing them out the back of the truck one caught an edge and ripped open. Out poured beer tickets. Thousands of beer tickets. Every bag was filled with beer tickets... and they trusted that with me? Being young and foolish, I decided to keep 4 of the bags.
I then proceeded to make a phone call to a friend in my hometown and said everyone was invited that night to the beer festival and the beers were on me.
"Who’s everyone?" he asked.
"Everyone and anyone" was my response.
Now that afternoon I was on a date with the president of the beer festival’s daughter (this is where the nut magnet thing applies). He had given me the day off to show his daughter a good time. It was an okay date, but she obviously was a spoiled rotten brat who always got here way. When the date ended she wanted to get together again later that evening. But I had other plans. I was bringing another date to the shindig I was throwing. I told the daughter I had to work (yeah I know... stupid, like she wouldn't find out the lie).
The other girl also worked at the festival, and wanted to party hardy.
That evening about 50 people showed up at the beer hall from my hometown, and I gave them all beer tickets. It was turning out to be a wonderful evening.
My second date had a good time and things were going along fine, until the girl from the earlier date showed up and put on a scene, and abruptly left. I knew I was in trouble. I didn't run. Real men don't run, right?
A short time later she came back with here father and security, and I was hauled off to the front office. She wanted me fired, arrested, drawn and quartered... and not necessarily in that order.
Security had already been suspicious as our area was drinking plenty, but not buying any tickets.
They figured out what had happened in short order, and were going to call the police on me. Thinking quickly (or maybe it was the beer), I said "okay, but do you really want to do that?" "I’m 18 (drinking age is 21), and just about everyone in our group was underage." "The police will probably shut down the festival after they question me, and do you really want that to happen"
The president turned white as a ghost.
After talking a short time with security, he informed me that if I give him the remainder of the beer tickets I had in my possession, he would forget the matter. But I was to come see him the next morning.
I turned back the tickets I had and returned to the beer hall (much to his and security's chagrin) and continued the date and the partying.
After the hall closed I went home with my date as her parents were out of town. The rest of the evening is another story but lets just say it involved a window, a dog, a hospital and scar whith I carry to this day.
After the hospital I went to work.
The president of the festival said he had to admire the gall it took to pull off what I did. He said I reminded him of himself at a younger age.
I was being promoted, but the girl from the prior evening was being fired, and I had to keep his daughter happy for the remainder of the time I was employed there.
Oh well... I agreed. (Hey, I couldn't see the other girl again, and she wasn't allowed to return anyway)
Unfortunately the "promotion" I received required me to wear Lederhosen, smile a lot and be friendly. And horrors upon horrors... get a haircut! Not something a young hippie relished.
Win some, lose some, I guess.
(As I said before, I don’t know how I survived my youth.)
After graduating from high school I got a summer job at the largest beer festival in the US, which ran for about 28 days, before heading off to college. One morning I was put in charge of disposing of a truckload of garbage bags at the local dump. While throwing them out the back of the truck one caught an edge and ripped open. Out poured beer tickets. Thousands of beer tickets. Every bag was filled with beer tickets... and they trusted that with me? Being young and foolish, I decided to keep 4 of the bags.
I then proceeded to make a phone call to a friend in my hometown and said everyone was invited that night to the beer festival and the beers were on me.
"Who’s everyone?" he asked.
"Everyone and anyone" was my response.
Now that afternoon I was on a date with the president of the beer festival’s daughter (this is where the nut magnet thing applies). He had given me the day off to show his daughter a good time. It was an okay date, but she obviously was a spoiled rotten brat who always got here way. When the date ended she wanted to get together again later that evening. But I had other plans. I was bringing another date to the shindig I was throwing. I told the daughter I had to work (yeah I know... stupid, like she wouldn't find out the lie).
The other girl also worked at the festival, and wanted to party hardy.
That evening about 50 people showed up at the beer hall from my hometown, and I gave them all beer tickets. It was turning out to be a wonderful evening.
My second date had a good time and things were going along fine, until the girl from the earlier date showed up and put on a scene, and abruptly left. I knew I was in trouble. I didn't run. Real men don't run, right?
A short time later she came back with here father and security, and I was hauled off to the front office. She wanted me fired, arrested, drawn and quartered... and not necessarily in that order.
Security had already been suspicious as our area was drinking plenty, but not buying any tickets.
They figured out what had happened in short order, and were going to call the police on me. Thinking quickly (or maybe it was the beer), I said "okay, but do you really want to do that?" "I’m 18 (drinking age is 21), and just about everyone in our group was underage." "The police will probably shut down the festival after they question me, and do you really want that to happen"
The president turned white as a ghost.
After talking a short time with security, he informed me that if I give him the remainder of the beer tickets I had in my possession, he would forget the matter. But I was to come see him the next morning.
I turned back the tickets I had and returned to the beer hall (much to his and security's chagrin) and continued the date and the partying.
After the hall closed I went home with my date as her parents were out of town. The rest of the evening is another story but lets just say it involved a window, a dog, a hospital and scar whith I carry to this day.
After the hospital I went to work.
The president of the festival said he had to admire the gall it took to pull off what I did. He said I reminded him of himself at a younger age.
I was being promoted, but the girl from the prior evening was being fired, and I had to keep his daughter happy for the remainder of the time I was employed there.
Oh well... I agreed. (Hey, I couldn't see the other girl again, and she wasn't allowed to return anyway)
Unfortunately the "promotion" I received required me to wear Lederhosen, smile a lot and be friendly. And horrors upon horrors... get a haircut! Not something a young hippie relished.
Win some, lose some, I guess.
(As I said before, I don’t know how I survived my youth.)
I don't want to say "Great story!" after each of these. They are just great stories.
Now I see where Curt and I went wrong with the cistern. We should've put gunpowder in it!
A touching human interest story told in gripping noir style. A Keillor/Marlowe hybrid. Really, it just doesn't get much better.
Inorite? I had an idea for the "next" story as I was driving through Nebraska. I got to the hotel, opened up the "story ideas" file and started scrolling to the end. Oh, man, I'd forgotten about that one. I better start.... oh, wait, that's a good one. I need to get going... oh, that one would be a snap.... oh, crap, why haven't I don't that already...
I put it in, but it wasn't happy about the line.
If it would go in the Nut Magnet thread, it would be because of the jumbo cojones on display in this tale. You have my respect, sir.
Loved 'em all. Keep 'em coming.
Now I see where Curt and I went wrong with the cistern. We should've put gunpowder in it!
A touching human interest story told in gripping noir style. A Keillor/Marlowe hybrid. Really, it just doesn't get much better.
Inorite? I had an idea for the "next" story as I was driving through Nebraska. I got to the hotel, opened up the "story ideas" file and started scrolling to the end. Oh, man, I'd forgotten about that one. I better start.... oh, wait, that's a good one. I need to get going... oh, that one would be a snap.... oh, crap, why haven't I don't that already...
I put it in, but it wasn't happy about the line.
If it would go in the Nut Magnet thread, it would be because of the jumbo cojones on display in this tale. You have my respect, sir.
Loved 'em all. Keep 'em coming.
Hi.
Thank you for sharing.
Wonderful story. I'm so sorry it went down that way.
Hugs.
Peace.
Y'know, Curt and I were obviously close. I don't think we considered each other best friends, although in hindsight, the reality said otherwise. We went to different schools, different churches, our parents' lives didn't cross, and neither did our social circles at the time. About the only things we had in common were being white kids in a working-class neighborhood and the time we spent together.
The time, in looking back on it: after-school times usually began with us getting together. As did weekends. As did days during summer. We lived on the same block with one house separating us, that house owned by a marvelously congenial elderly couple who didn't mind kids passing through their yard, and there were innumerable times when Curt and I met in the middle of their back yard, having gotten it into our heads simultaneously that we should go see what the other was doing.
One particular silly-stupid event sticks out. When you're kids and you're with each other, you don't see the world as kid-adult. You see the world from your eyes, and you're both the same size, and you're cool, and you're the normal. Hey, like Einstein said, everything is relative.
We got it into our oh-so-cool heads one early evening that when the next car came down the road, we'd fake a horrific fight, just to get them to gawk, or something. We didn't even choreograph it. It just sounded impressive.
Hey, we weren't rational. We were about 10 years old.
We talk and wait, and a car comes down the street, and we hop up and say, "Let's go." As the car approaches, we take a mighty fake-swing at each other, and improbably but precisely, our fists collide head-on in midair. I mean perfectly, knuckle to screaming knuckle. The car drives by, and I don't know if they looked, because I was suddenly uncaring, and I rather hope they didn't, because rather than seeing a couple adolescents engaged in the Mother of All Fights, they would've seen two kids hopping around, yelling and grasping their hands in pain.
As we grew older, some of our childhood games continued still, probably because we were conditioned to enjoy them, and that's because they were fun. We were soldiers. Or figher pilots. Or dinosaurs. Or secret agents. Who needed video games? And then Star Trek came out. We didn't know then that it would change the world. We just knew we liked it and wanted to be there. Curt was the rakishly handsome, outgoing guy, and I was the sullen and literal loner, so in our play time, he was Kirk and I was Spock, and we were just about perfect for each role, at least within our own minds. And I was probably getting too old to play make-believe at the time, and he was approaching too-old, but you know what? we loved Star Trek, and we had fun.
We were also having serious discussions around that time about life, the universe, and the meaning of it all. I went to the local Catholic parochial school. He went to the local Lutheran elementary school. I'm quite sure that each of our teaching environments told us to watch out for the dangers of those Protestants/Catholics, but our differing dogmas never entered the discussions. I mean, never. We were discussing things like whether our universe could be but one molecule in an infinitely larger universe. We talked nothing about who Jesus would like, and everything about the nature of existence.
And so, like the Summer of Practicing on the Free-Standing Ladder, this was another lesson added on to life's experience: You don't need to have everything talked out, all things expressed, no secrets, with people who care for each other. In fact, I'm convinced that one of the great lubricants of successful socialization is knowing when to shut the hell up and keep the tensions low and the comity high.
We kept growing and developing. And then... Does anyone else have a memory of the Summer That Never Ended? Like Bryan Adams' Summer of '69? It was first summer I had my driver's license, and suddenly Curt and I had a newfound freedom, and we wallowed in it. Curt, through his dad, had access to a local company swimming pool, and we were there a lot. We also went to the city pool and saw friends, and we were really starting to get interested in how girls looked, particularly in their swimsuits, and we saw movies, and we blasted down the highway, and Curt started taking me to parties that his friends would have, which was the only way I got socialization with the outside world because I wasn't getting there on my own, and.....
Well. That summer was glorious. I was peeking out of my fortress walls of social anxiety, wondering what was out there, and the excursions with Curt were on the cutting edge of that venture.
The time, in looking back on it: after-school times usually began with us getting together. As did weekends. As did days during summer. We lived on the same block with one house separating us, that house owned by a marvelously congenial elderly couple who didn't mind kids passing through their yard, and there were innumerable times when Curt and I met in the middle of their back yard, having gotten it into our heads simultaneously that we should go see what the other was doing.
One particular silly-stupid event sticks out. When you're kids and you're with each other, you don't see the world as kid-adult. You see the world from your eyes, and you're both the same size, and you're cool, and you're the normal. Hey, like Einstein said, everything is relative.
We got it into our oh-so-cool heads one early evening that when the next car came down the road, we'd fake a horrific fight, just to get them to gawk, or something. We didn't even choreograph it. It just sounded impressive.
Hey, we weren't rational. We were about 10 years old.
We talk and wait, and a car comes down the street, and we hop up and say, "Let's go." As the car approaches, we take a mighty fake-swing at each other, and improbably but precisely, our fists collide head-on in midair. I mean perfectly, knuckle to screaming knuckle. The car drives by, and I don't know if they looked, because I was suddenly uncaring, and I rather hope they didn't, because rather than seeing a couple adolescents engaged in the Mother of All Fights, they would've seen two kids hopping around, yelling and grasping their hands in pain.
As we grew older, some of our childhood games continued still, probably because we were conditioned to enjoy them, and that's because they were fun. We were soldiers. Or figher pilots. Or dinosaurs. Or secret agents. Who needed video games? And then Star Trek came out. We didn't know then that it would change the world. We just knew we liked it and wanted to be there. Curt was the rakishly handsome, outgoing guy, and I was the sullen and literal loner, so in our play time, he was Kirk and I was Spock, and we were just about perfect for each role, at least within our own minds. And I was probably getting too old to play make-believe at the time, and he was approaching too-old, but you know what? we loved Star Trek, and we had fun.
We were also having serious discussions around that time about life, the universe, and the meaning of it all. I went to the local Catholic parochial school. He went to the local Lutheran elementary school. I'm quite sure that each of our teaching environments told us to watch out for the dangers of those Protestants/Catholics, but our differing dogmas never entered the discussions. I mean, never. We were discussing things like whether our universe could be but one molecule in an infinitely larger universe. We talked nothing about who Jesus would like, and everything about the nature of existence.
And so, like the Summer of Practicing on the Free-Standing Ladder, this was another lesson added on to life's experience: You don't need to have everything talked out, all things expressed, no secrets, with people who care for each other. In fact, I'm convinced that one of the great lubricants of successful socialization is knowing when to shut the hell up and keep the tensions low and the comity high.
We kept growing and developing. And then... Does anyone else have a memory of the Summer That Never Ended? Like Bryan Adams' Summer of '69? It was first summer I had my driver's license, and suddenly Curt and I had a newfound freedom, and we wallowed in it. Curt, through his dad, had access to a local company swimming pool, and we were there a lot. We also went to the city pool and saw friends, and we were really starting to get interested in how girls looked, particularly in their swimsuits, and we saw movies, and we blasted down the highway, and Curt started taking me to parties that his friends would have, which was the only way I got socialization with the outside world because I wasn't getting there on my own, and.....
Well. That summer was glorious. I was peeking out of my fortress walls of social anxiety, wondering what was out there, and the excursions with Curt were on the cutting edge of that venture.