With the holiday season upon us I was inspired to tell a brief tale of a magical New Year’s Eve (the fact that I’m on vacation and sitting on my couch also helped). The more I think about the title of this post the more I think this should be about the New Year's Eve when I went to see Manowar, Dio, and Megadeth at the Nassau Colosseum, got totally f'd up on mescaline and got lost on the way home. Maybe another time.
I think it was 1989/1990, but the year isn’t as important as the fact that it was COLD. Not only was it cold but it had been cold for a week or so. That night the big shindig was going down at Wade’s house and we were all looking forward to a night of fun and debauchery. The thing about Wade’s house is that it was on the boarder of Newark (truth be told it might actually have been in Newark), not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I wanted to paint a picture of the neighborhood. I think I went there with Jeff, and after parking down the block we started walking towards Wade’s. We got about 2 houses away and were literally stopped in our tracks by what we saw. Parked on the street was a car that was covered in 2”-3” of ice. The strange part is that we hadn’t had any snow, rain, or any other precipitation. Yet here was a car that was totally encased in ice to the point that it was iced to the ground. I have never seen anything else like it before or since. Someone had to be responsible, and to be honest we were a little upset that we had never thought of such a prank/act of vandalism.
After collecting our wits and entering the party the night proceeded with quite a few memorable incidents. Wade lived on the second floor of a 2 family house, and with all of the people crammed in there it got quite hot. At one point this dude was pissing out an open window, and in his drunken state started to fall forward out of the window. Luckily my buddy witnessed the whole thing and grabbed him by the back of his pants averting disaster. Next a fight broke out in the bathroom. There was a line for the bathroom and to be honest I forget how the argument started, but at one point this dude that I was friends with was getting stomped in the bath tub by two of my best friends with the door shut and locked. Shit happens, what can you do? The caper of the evening came at the stroke of midnight when there was a spontaneous alcohol spraying fight in the kitchen – beer, champagne, wine, even some soda, being sprayed with reckless abandon all while Wade was screaming trying to stop it. When the booze settled there must have been 2 inches of liquid on his floor.
Oh, this was the night we also convinced my buddy’s drunken sister that she was adopted.
All in all a good night.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Raise the Roof
I was at dinner the other night with my wife and for some reason this incident came to mind. My wife was understandably disturbed when I told her about it.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate while remembering these stories it’s the old saying that, “idle hands make the devil’s work”. About half of us were living in single parent homes and as a result we were more or less on our own after school until our mothers got home from work. But the fact remains, if you leave kids to their own devices bad things will eventually happen. This is another one of those cases.
I’m not even sure how this whole event happened, it just did. We were hanging out at Ben’s house after school and before I knew it we were all climbing out his third floor bathroom window to climb up onto the roof of his house. In retrospect this was not the smartest thing to do. Ben lived in a 3 story house with a pitched roof. To get to the “top” of the roof you had to climb out a window onto this ledge, then you’d climb 15 feet up this 1 foot wide section of roof – it was so steep that you had to hold onto the edge of the roof line while you climbed up. One slip and you were literally dead. It was a 40-50 foot drop off the side of the roof into the neighbor’s driveway.
I’m sure it will come as no surprise that this isn’t the end of the story. Once on top of the roof we once again got bored and started ripping the shingles off and throwing them. If you’ve never thrown a shingle (and why would you have) they are GREAT for throwing. They are heavy enough to get some good speed, but aerodynamic enough to really travel good distances. So we started chucking shingles at kids walking by, and then cars driving by. Being idiots cracking up the whole time we weren’t exactly hard to spot. But you never think about the consequences when you are a kid. The scariest part about the whole ordeal was trying to get down from the roof. You basically had to go backwards down this 1 foot wide slope holding on with 1 hand with a 40 ft drop to your right.
I think we did the shingle throwing thing 2 or 3 times before someone informed Ben’s mother and she put an end to it. Man, if my kid’s ever ripped up the shingles on my house I’d kill them. What were we thinking? Oh yeah, that it would be funny to hit kids walking by with shingles.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate while remembering these stories it’s the old saying that, “idle hands make the devil’s work”. About half of us were living in single parent homes and as a result we were more or less on our own after school until our mothers got home from work. But the fact remains, if you leave kids to their own devices bad things will eventually happen. This is another one of those cases.
I’m not even sure how this whole event happened, it just did. We were hanging out at Ben’s house after school and before I knew it we were all climbing out his third floor bathroom window to climb up onto the roof of his house. In retrospect this was not the smartest thing to do. Ben lived in a 3 story house with a pitched roof. To get to the “top” of the roof you had to climb out a window onto this ledge, then you’d climb 15 feet up this 1 foot wide section of roof – it was so steep that you had to hold onto the edge of the roof line while you climbed up. One slip and you were literally dead. It was a 40-50 foot drop off the side of the roof into the neighbor’s driveway.
I’m sure it will come as no surprise that this isn’t the end of the story. Once on top of the roof we once again got bored and started ripping the shingles off and throwing them. If you’ve never thrown a shingle (and why would you have) they are GREAT for throwing. They are heavy enough to get some good speed, but aerodynamic enough to really travel good distances. So we started chucking shingles at kids walking by, and then cars driving by. Being idiots cracking up the whole time we weren’t exactly hard to spot. But you never think about the consequences when you are a kid. The scariest part about the whole ordeal was trying to get down from the roof. You basically had to go backwards down this 1 foot wide slope holding on with 1 hand with a 40 ft drop to your right.
I think we did the shingle throwing thing 2 or 3 times before someone informed Ben’s mother and she put an end to it. Man, if my kid’s ever ripped up the shingles on my house I’d kill them. What were we thinking? Oh yeah, that it would be funny to hit kids walking by with shingles.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Desserts, delicious and funny
I know that all of the previous posts have been about shenanigans from Jr High or High School, but here’s a more recent one for you. About 10 years ago there was a hardcore show happening in NJ. I don’t even remember who was playing, but it had to be someone we knew because I thought it would be cool to have a BBQ before the show. I proposed the idea to Geoff (basically saying that HE should have the BBQ since the show was near his house). He gave his usual non-committal answer but basically agreed. This couldn’t be a last minute thing because we had to plan the menu, spread the word, and just get shit ready.
For a few years we had talked about getting a sheet ice cream cake from Thomas Sweet in New Brunswick, and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity. About 2 weeks before the party I ordered the cake – which fed 40 people and cost $85. It was a blend in cake - half vanilla/half chocolate with Oreos and Kit-Kats blended into the ice cream. A few days before the show I call Geoff to confirm everything and he tells me he’s not into having a BBQ and it’s off. I’m beyond pissed at this point, not the least of which because I already ordered an $85 cake.
The day of the show comes and I’m so mad I don’t even go; instead I get Bill to go with me to get the cake. When I pick it up they ask if I want anything written on the cake, out of sheer anger I say, “Can you write Fuck Geoff on it?” The teenager working the counter is a little confused but says, “Yeah, if that’s really what you want.” So we head back to Bill’s with a giant ice cream cake. Porter and McVey meet us at Bill’s to begin eating the cake, so at this point we have 4 people eating a cake that feeds 40. The cake was great, with the Oreos and Kit-Kat blended in it made the cake as dense as concrete. While wondering around in a sugar coma we realized that we had a problem: what to do with the cake? Both Porter and I lived 30 min away; the cake would never make the ride. The only choice was to keep the cake at Bill’s. However, Bill’s freezer was filled with food and there was no room. The only solution was to throw out Bill’s food and replace it with the cake. Problem solved.
Things seemed to be going ok; the next weekend we gathered at Bill’s and ate more of the cake. Problem was we were barely putting a dent in it, and Bill’s wife was getting increasingly agitated with having a giant cake taking up the whole freezer. Bill started calling me up on week nights saying I had to come down to eat more of the cake. If I protested he’d threaten to throw the cake out his back door off his deck, what could I do? So for the next 2 weeks I’d drive down to Bill’s 2 or 3 times a week to try to eat as much of the cake as I could, each trip becoming more and more agonizing as the cake got more and more freezer burned. Finally, after 3 weeks and the cake down to the size of a sheet of paper it was over. As I left Bill’s house one Wednesday night he reached his breaking point and threw the cake off of his deck at me. It missed, but the point was made, he’d had enough of this albatross in his freezer.
While this was the end of the cake, it wasn’t the end of novelty desserts for me. Like the time I went to our softball team BBQ and brought a giant 2 foot high cake from Harold’s, or the time I went to a hardcore show in the Boston area and presented the kid who put on the show with a giant novelty cookie from those mall stores that said, “This show sucks”.
For a few years we had talked about getting a sheet ice cream cake from Thomas Sweet in New Brunswick, and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity. About 2 weeks before the party I ordered the cake – which fed 40 people and cost $85. It was a blend in cake - half vanilla/half chocolate with Oreos and Kit-Kats blended into the ice cream. A few days before the show I call Geoff to confirm everything and he tells me he’s not into having a BBQ and it’s off. I’m beyond pissed at this point, not the least of which because I already ordered an $85 cake.
The day of the show comes and I’m so mad I don’t even go; instead I get Bill to go with me to get the cake. When I pick it up they ask if I want anything written on the cake, out of sheer anger I say, “Can you write Fuck Geoff on it?” The teenager working the counter is a little confused but says, “Yeah, if that’s really what you want.” So we head back to Bill’s with a giant ice cream cake. Porter and McVey meet us at Bill’s to begin eating the cake, so at this point we have 4 people eating a cake that feeds 40. The cake was great, with the Oreos and Kit-Kat blended in it made the cake as dense as concrete. While wondering around in a sugar coma we realized that we had a problem: what to do with the cake? Both Porter and I lived 30 min away; the cake would never make the ride. The only choice was to keep the cake at Bill’s. However, Bill’s freezer was filled with food and there was no room. The only solution was to throw out Bill’s food and replace it with the cake. Problem solved.
Things seemed to be going ok; the next weekend we gathered at Bill’s and ate more of the cake. Problem was we were barely putting a dent in it, and Bill’s wife was getting increasingly agitated with having a giant cake taking up the whole freezer. Bill started calling me up on week nights saying I had to come down to eat more of the cake. If I protested he’d threaten to throw the cake out his back door off his deck, what could I do? So for the next 2 weeks I’d drive down to Bill’s 2 or 3 times a week to try to eat as much of the cake as I could, each trip becoming more and more agonizing as the cake got more and more freezer burned. Finally, after 3 weeks and the cake down to the size of a sheet of paper it was over. As I left Bill’s house one Wednesday night he reached his breaking point and threw the cake off of his deck at me. It missed, but the point was made, he’d had enough of this albatross in his freezer.
While this was the end of the cake, it wasn’t the end of novelty desserts for me. Like the time I went to our softball team BBQ and brought a giant 2 foot high cake from Harold’s, or the time I went to a hardcore show in the Boston area and presented the kid who put on the show with a giant novelty cookie from those mall stores that said, “This show sucks”.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The not so secret shitter
As much as you love your friends, occasionally you’re going to have some beef. One of the biggest sources of beef is girlfriends/wives. The reason it’s such an issue? You can’t do anything about it unless you’re willing to ruin the friendship. I guess the rule of thumb is that you can only raise your objection when it’s not a serious relationship. After it crosses that imaginary line you just have to shut your mouth, sit back, and hope for the best - unless, of course, you have another idea.
Our buddy Al started dating this girl in high school and I’d say that it was some what serious by high school standards. To be honest, I never had much interaction with her so it wasn’t any kind of issue for me. However, our other buddy Dave just really didn’t like this girl (could have been because they dated briefly). We tried to keep the two apart, and that was generally successful, however, there were times at parties or hanging out where we’d be drinking and the tension got a bit uncomfortable.
I guess this tension built for a few months until it came to a boil. I’m not sure if there was a catalyst, but it reached a breaking point on one faithful night. This girl really liked wine coolers – if you don’t remember wine coolers, they were big for a few years in the mid 80’s (Bartels and James and Calvin Coolers were two popular brands) especially with girls. So whenever we had a party we had to make sure someone got wine coolers for this girl. Anyway, that night Dave decided to empty the contents of one of the bottles and piss in it. He did a good job replacing the cap and once it was back in the fridge it was tough to tell on sight that any foul play was afoot. Well, the night continued and eventually we got to the fateful moment when this girl picked the wrong bottle. (Editor’s note – this is how I think it happened, but my memory could be totally off) I think she knew what was up immediately and ran out of the room crying. Al went after her and I can only assume that she told Al what she suspected. Al came back and was pretty pissed off, but Dave held his ground. It’s a tough position to be in, we had all been friends since the 6th grade, so by the time the end of high school came around you had to think that your buddy would side with his friends over a girl. But it’s never an easy position to be in.
They yelled at each other for a few minutes and eventually Dave just decided to leave to defuse the situation. Or so we thought…Dave is a great friend, but a terrible enemy. The night went on (uncomfortably) and at some point we all left and thought that was the end of it. You see, something else happened that night, something that wasn’t fully reveled until the next day. Dave didn’t just leave, he prepared for surgery. Al’s driveway was long and angled down out of site from everything. This girl had an old Chrysler convertible, if you remember many Dodge/Chryslers back then had these covered door handles – the kind you’d reach your fingers under and pull up on the handle to open. Somehow, somewhere Dave found rubber gloves and a spackle knife. He then proceeded to take a shit on the ground and go to work. He molded the shit perfectly under the driver’s side door handle as if he were Michael Angelo working with clay. By the time he was done it was undetectable.
The next morning came and as the girl left to go home she undoubtedly got a handful when she reached to open her car door. I don’t remember much fallout from that episode; the damage had already been done. Eventually Al and this girl broke up, so any tension faded. That is until a few years later and another “episode”...
Friday, August 8, 2008
The lunch room, delicious but deadly
When you’re in school lunch is often the only time you can get together with all of your friends during the day. As a result a lot of funny things happen during that hour. In Jr High our rectangular lunch tables were lined up head to toe in rows, the table we congregated at was located next to one of the walls of the cafeteria. Pretty non descript, except for the fact that this was the wall that the line formed at for the “snack bar”, where you could spend your money on ice cream bars, cookies and soft pretzels instead of the nutritious lunch your parents thought you were eating.
Being the lazy 13 year olds we were we didn’t see the need to walk all the way around the row of 5 connected tables to reach the line. After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? Easy solution, we would roll our table in one direction and the table next to us would roll theirs in the opposite direction creating a walkway to the snack line (the tables had wheels, so if you got everyone to move in the same direction you would be mobile). As with just about everything we did, getting from point A to point B took a few detours.
It took some convincing to assure them that their part in out game was over. We separated the tables about 2 feet – just enough to be an appealing oasis for a weary kid with a handful of snacks. We waited patiently for someone to take the bait, and then it happened. He walked up to the newly created shortcut and before he realized what had happened it was too late – our table was in motion and it crashed into his stomach causing an instant spasm. Snacks dropped to the floor, tears welled up, he tried to cry out but his air was snatched by the crushing blow of the table. We pulled the table back and he fell to the floor, as did we, in a spasm of laughter.
Friday, July 11, 2008
The Auditorium Club
In my Jr high we had “clubs”. Not the after school science club type thing you’re probably thinking of, these clubs were open periods around lunch time. I think it had to do with having too many kids to have 1 lunch period for everyone, so they broke up the students over the course of 2 lunch periods, hence the need for something to fill the open period you weren’t scheduled for lunch. There were mostly sports clubs and crafts and crap like that (there was even a Dungeons and Dragons club). At the beginning of the semester they would announce what clubs were available and it would be a mad dash to sign up for the hottest clubs (I remember the basketball club being particularly popular).
Being the astute kids that we were, by the time we got to 8th grade my friends and I made a pretty logical observation – no one really knew if you signed up for a club or not, the teachers just assumed that you would. There was no master attendance list, teachers relied on their club sign up list as an attendance rooster – if you weren’t on their list they just assumed that you signed up for another club. I mean what kind of kid wouldn’t want an extra period of gym or “play time” in the middle of the day? I guess we were that type. After blowing off the club sign up process we were free (literally and figuratively) to spend the 45 min club period however the hell we wanted. You want to go to the Village for some ice cream? Go ahead. You want to go to a friend’s nearby house? Go ahead. You want to hang out in the bathroom or wander the halls? Go ahead. You want to spend the entire time in the Auditorium and wreck everything? Now we’re on to something…
Monday, May 19, 2008
Men without hats
It's funny the things you remember from when you were a kid. Some things are just burned into your memory, while other things are lost for the ages.
In 6th grade we had a "hat day". This consisted of wearing (or making) a hat. Prizes were to be given out for the best in class hats - best sports hat, most unique hat, best homemade hat, etc. To be honest, I don't remember if I wore a hat, and if I did what it was. In fact, I only remember 2 hats from that day , and they will be burned into my memory forever.
I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary for "Most Athletic Hat", a baseball team hat, maybe a baseball batting helmet. It was 6th grade, how creative could you be? Well, don't tell that to PZ, because his hat was a tour de force in the field of athletic hats. It started with a football helmet, but didn't end there. On top of the helmet was taped a Frisbee, on one side was taped a baseball card, and the other side had a wiffle ball. Aside from the shock of trying to imagine exactly what sport such a helmet would be required to play, I was struck by something else - the excessive amount of tape used to attach the accessories. This was the tan masking tape popular in classrooms around the world. This was the most ridiculous hat I'd ever seen. One thing was obvious, PZ didn't have any help from his parents.
The other hat was even more of an enigma. It was a living work of art more than it was an ordinary hat. Imagine, if you will, what seemed like 100 individual peanuts sewn to a mesh hat. I know what you're thinking, "that's much too ludicrous to believe, Z". Believe it. The category of "Most Unique Hat" was over before it even began thanks to JF's peanut hat. And if that was the end of the peanut hat it still would have went down in 6th grade lore. But a funny thing happened (literally)...
After returning from lunch we were all told to sit in the hallway - now we knew something was up, the only times we sat in the hallway was when someone did something very wrong - like the time someone tried to flush EC's clarinet down the toilet (multiple pieces had to be retrieved from the toilets in the boys room) . Our "wing" of the building was in the basement and totally isolated from the rest of the school, so sitting in the hallway was like a mini assembly for us. The teacher's de facto enforcer, Social Studies teacher Mr. D., looked serious. "WHO ATE JF'S PEANUTS?!" We barely had time to process the words before Mr. D. produced the hat, almost out of thin air. In the place of that glorious hat with 100 peanuts was a crumpled, broken mass with pieces of empty shells and ripped thread. In examining the hat I was unclear as to if someone ate the peanuts or just stomped on the hat. I guess it didn't matter, JF was crushed, I'm pretty sure he was crying, but my memory is hazy. His greatest triumph was ripped away - a theme that was all too common in Jr High.
In 6th grade we had a "hat day". This consisted of wearing (or making) a hat. Prizes were to be given out for the best in class hats - best sports hat, most unique hat, best homemade hat, etc. To be honest, I don't remember if I wore a hat, and if I did what it was. In fact, I only remember 2 hats from that day , and they will be burned into my memory forever.
I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary for "Most Athletic Hat", a baseball team hat, maybe a baseball batting helmet. It was 6th grade, how creative could you be? Well, don't tell that to PZ, because his hat was a tour de force in the field of athletic hats. It started with a football helmet, but didn't end there. On top of the helmet was taped a Frisbee, on one side was taped a baseball card, and the other side had a wiffle ball. Aside from the shock of trying to imagine exactly what sport such a helmet would be required to play, I was struck by something else - the excessive amount of tape used to attach the accessories. This was the tan masking tape popular in classrooms around the world. This was the most ridiculous hat I'd ever seen. One thing was obvious, PZ didn't have any help from his parents.
The other hat was even more of an enigma. It was a living work of art more than it was an ordinary hat. Imagine, if you will, what seemed like 100 individual peanuts sewn to a mesh hat. I know what you're thinking, "that's much too ludicrous to believe, Z". Believe it. The category of "Most Unique Hat" was over before it even began thanks to JF's peanut hat. And if that was the end of the peanut hat it still would have went down in 6th grade lore. But a funny thing happened (literally)...
After returning from lunch we were all told to sit in the hallway - now we knew something was up, the only times we sat in the hallway was when someone did something very wrong - like the time someone tried to flush EC's clarinet down the toilet (multiple pieces had to be retrieved from the toilets in the boys room) . Our "wing" of the building was in the basement and totally isolated from the rest of the school, so sitting in the hallway was like a mini assembly for us. The teacher's de facto enforcer, Social Studies teacher Mr. D., looked serious. "WHO ATE JF'S PEANUTS?!" We barely had time to process the words before Mr. D. produced the hat, almost out of thin air. In the place of that glorious hat with 100 peanuts was a crumpled, broken mass with pieces of empty shells and ripped thread. In examining the hat I was unclear as to if someone ate the peanuts or just stomped on the hat. I guess it didn't matter, JF was crushed, I'm pretty sure he was crying, but my memory is hazy. His greatest triumph was ripped away - a theme that was all too common in Jr High.
To this day I still don't know who the culprit was, and my friends would have been the most likely perpetrators of something like this.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Kids, please don't try this at home
I swear, it all seamed relatively normal when I was a kid. Even in retrospect I don't think it was that bad.
What happens when you mix a bunch of 13 year olds, no parental supervision, and a can of gasoline? Out of control fire? Danger? Hilarity? All of the above? On this day we were hanging out at B's house*. Through the normal course of the afternoon we discovered a can of gas in his garage that they used for the lawnmower. Well, it didn't take too much thought before we started "drawing" things with gas (crosses, circles, etc) and lighting them on fire.
If that were the extent of the activities this would be a pretty uneventful story in my eyes. It wasn't. This was around the time of the 1984 Olympics, so B decided to wrap an old rag or shirt around a stick, douse it with gas, and create his own "Olympic Torch". So now we have B running around his yard waving a flaming shirt on a stick, which still wouldn't be all that eventful. Until, of course, the shirt comes flying off the stick and lands in a tree. Even that wouldn't be too out of control. But then again I failed to mention what was going on at the same time...you see I was pouring more gas on one of the many fires we had burning in the yard when the fire backtracked into the gas can. I then threw the gas can (or it might have been kicked by B's brother) and it exploded all over the yard. At this point things turned from funny to "this could be a problem".
Ok, lets step back and set the scene for you. B's house was on a corner lot of a mildly busy street with a pretty open yard. There are now multiple out of control fires, including one in a tree, and a handful of teenagers running around really not knowing what to do next. At this point there are almost multiple traffic accidents because people driving by are taken aback a bit by what's going on. So how does it all end? Well, lucky for us after the gas can exploded and we got over the initial shock the fires in the yard burned themselves out. Once the gas burned off we learned a valuable lesson -grass and asphalt aren't the best fuel for fires. That just left the fire in the tree. My memory is a bit hazy (it was 25 years ago), but I think that the rag/shirt just wasn't big enough to ignite the tree.
When you're a kid from your perspective it's always better to get away with things rather than to be caught. Lucky for us, aside from a few scorch marks on B's driveway and a few burned patches of grass there wasn't really any evidence of the towering inferno that engulfed the yard that afternoon.
Note: I think I'm going to use initials for my friends as to not incriminate anyone.
What happens when you mix a bunch of 13 year olds, no parental supervision, and a can of gasoline? Out of control fire? Danger? Hilarity? All of the above? On this day we were hanging out at B's house*. Through the normal course of the afternoon we discovered a can of gas in his garage that they used for the lawnmower. Well, it didn't take too much thought before we started "drawing" things with gas (crosses, circles, etc) and lighting them on fire.
If that were the extent of the activities this would be a pretty uneventful story in my eyes. It wasn't. This was around the time of the 1984 Olympics, so B decided to wrap an old rag or shirt around a stick, douse it with gas, and create his own "Olympic Torch". So now we have B running around his yard waving a flaming shirt on a stick, which still wouldn't be all that eventful. Until, of course, the shirt comes flying off the stick and lands in a tree. Even that wouldn't be too out of control. But then again I failed to mention what was going on at the same time...you see I was pouring more gas on one of the many fires we had burning in the yard when the fire backtracked into the gas can. I then threw the gas can (or it might have been kicked by B's brother) and it exploded all over the yard. At this point things turned from funny to "this could be a problem".
Ok, lets step back and set the scene for you. B's house was on a corner lot of a mildly busy street with a pretty open yard. There are now multiple out of control fires, including one in a tree, and a handful of teenagers running around really not knowing what to do next. At this point there are almost multiple traffic accidents because people driving by are taken aback a bit by what's going on. So how does it all end? Well, lucky for us after the gas can exploded and we got over the initial shock the fires in the yard burned themselves out. Once the gas burned off we learned a valuable lesson -grass and asphalt aren't the best fuel for fires. That just left the fire in the tree. My memory is a bit hazy (it was 25 years ago), but I think that the rag/shirt just wasn't big enough to ignite the tree.
When you're a kid from your perspective it's always better to get away with things rather than to be caught. Lucky for us, aside from a few scorch marks on B's driveway and a few burned patches of grass there wasn't really any evidence of the towering inferno that engulfed the yard that afternoon.
Note: I think I'm going to use initials for my friends as to not incriminate anyone.
Friday, April 25, 2008
We got more gongs then the breakdancing robot that caught on fire
So I was telling Cooper about this story this morning and it was the inspiration for the blog. When I was in Jr High (some time around 7th grade) break dancing started to become popular - and by popular I mean that us white suburban kids knew such a thing existed. Now at the time I was pretty dedicated to heavy metal music, so by definition I had to hate break dancing.
In our Jr High kids tended to congregate in front of school before and after school while waiting for friends or a ride home, so it was always a pretty crowded scene. One day after school there was this retarded girl who had a radio and was "break dancing", I don't know what led up to this but I just couldn't take break dancing anymore, so I did what any self respecting kid into heavy metal who was looking to make his friends laugh would do - I punted the radio.
While I was successful winning the battle against break dancing retarded girls on that day, I ultimately lost the war and realized that I was probably better off just keeping my musical tastes to myself.
What a way to start off this blog - a story about smashing a break dancing retarded girl's radio. I'm going to hell.
In our Jr High kids tended to congregate in front of school before and after school while waiting for friends or a ride home, so it was always a pretty crowded scene. One day after school there was this retarded girl who had a radio and was "break dancing", I don't know what led up to this but I just couldn't take break dancing anymore, so I did what any self respecting kid into heavy metal who was looking to make his friends laugh would do - I punted the radio.
While I was successful winning the battle against break dancing retarded girls on that day, I ultimately lost the war and realized that I was probably better off just keeping my musical tastes to myself.
What a way to start off this blog - a story about smashing a break dancing retarded girl's radio. I'm going to hell.
I can't believe I went through with this
For a while I've been thinking that I needed a place to store my childhood memories. I think I had it pretty good as a kid, I've had the same group of friends since 6th grade, and we've had a lot of good times. Now, sometimes "good" can be a relative concept. The title of this blog is a reflection of that relativity. Most of us have kids now, and I'm not so sure I'd want them to duplicate our actions. Some of what ends up here will amuse, entertain, and probably even disgust you. I'm sticking with mindset that it was a different time when we were growing up, and if you were there you know that we weren't mean spirited. We were just a group of kids that ended up finding each other and it all kind of snowballed from there.
Thanks for the prodding Cooper.
Thanks for the prodding Cooper.
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