Roller Coasters and Bitches

It's been a long while since I've been to an amusement park, let alone one on the level of Six Flags. Unlike work or refinishing a floor, you don't ordinarily sit down and plan fun. This time was worth it though.

The first ride we got on was one of the best/worst. This thing called Goliath pulls you up 120 feet. For a few seconds, you look at the Earth below and feel your body weight “falling” into the restraining straps as you stare down twelves stories. It then drops you straight to the ground till the point you think you're going to go splat, then the rails holding the car whip around to pull you out of that dive with G forces that slam you into your seat. I was grunting to that pressure. Also disorienting is not realizing just where the hell I was as the world kept spinning this way and that. The more fearful feeling is where the rails aim you at the ground or at a tower near you and you swear to God you're going to smack it.

But you don't.

Then it all comes to a fast halt and you are where you began, but your heart it pounding and for me, I was panting like dog. Then you climb out of the ride with wobbly legs and wanting to do it again.

There was one ride I wanted to try but my scaredy-cat self said NO NO NO. It looked like a reverse bunji jump. Two large cranes 200 feet tall YANK you up and let you bounce around like a you're attached to that elastic. The G forces claimed on that ride approaches five times those of gravity. The Space Shuttle doesn't give you that much I'm told. Had I done that ride, my neck would've been gained an extra inch from being stretched.

Other than getting a near whiplash or minor concussion...it was a fun day.

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The Today Show gave me an idea to talk about. Spoiled rotten girls.

Ann J. (her name barely changed) was in my grammar school classes of long ago. She came from a home that was slightly wealthier than most of ours and we were all made to know it too.

Grammar school lines everyone up for everything. Line up for recess, line up for lunch, line up for the weekly trip to the library and on and on. I've seen Ann fight with the girls who were in the front of their line and sometimes ours when mixed.

“Hey! I was in front! Move it! You took MY spot!” some poor sap would protest after Ann cut in.

And then I remember this from Ann J with that Nelly Olson sneer on her face.

“I'm supposed to be in front!!”

“Supposed to be...” Wow, talk about entitlement.

I ran into Ann a few years ago at the Stop and Shop in Seekonk. She never changed. As we were talking, she made sure I found out the roof on her house was being shingled with wooden staves. 

Now curious, I ask: “Where do you live?”

And she answers that with a dripping satisfaction: “Well, we live on Cedar Hill Terrace now.”

Cedar Hill Terrace in Seekonk is an admirable street to live on to tell the truth. It's not the best, but it is very nice.

I almost wanted to say to her.

“What's the matter Ann...you're not wealthy enough to live in the Hamptons on Long Island?”

I didn't. But I really should have said it...in the same manner she punked us all off in fourth grade.

****

I went to Saint Ray's in Pawtucket. Saint Raphael Academy I should say, god forbid I speak of it in common terms! The school back then was a quasi-religious/quasi-prep school. I say that because the De LaSallian Brothers in the late 70's, for the most part, were liberalized to hell. There were a few notable exceptions to that and it'll come up as I continue.

Imagine this though. No, don't. Because I was there when it happened. St Ray's requires you to attend at least two religious classes per year. They're mostly designed to get your Confirmation finished. Anyways...A Brother (that's what you called them) ran a “Christian Action” class and he started the semester's first class off with this.

“Look, We're going to be talking of Jesus, the Catholic religion and how you and the world should fit in it.”

There's a pause...

“For those of you who don't really believe in all this stuff...I can understand...So just listen, do well on the tests and there won't be any problems whatsoever.”

This coming from a Brother who attended colleges, took vows and spent time in foreign schools as per his mission before returning to the United States.

This is how liberalized the Church became in our Parish by 1980.

Wow, I'm really getting off topic here...I was supposed to be telling of spoiled brat girls. Please hold on as I get back to this.

Sorry. I have to add this tangent. You know why I like telling stories such as this? No one can interrupt me as I do. You just try to tell a story that requires more than 90 seconds of attention to a group of LIVE people and either their Adderal wears off or someone in the group, for fear of losing the spotlight, will cut in with a comment or story of their own to regain that desperately needed attention.

Ok, I'm done.

Soooo...I was sitting in the front row of a Chemistry class that was run by one of the very few CONSERVATIVE, BY THE BOOK, OLD SCHOOL Brothers when Natalie (another barely disguised name) goes up with her corrected test in hand to talk to this Nazi Brother.

When you sit in the front row, you constantly see this, kids going up to talk to the teacher about a test, an assignment or god knows what. You tend to ignore it as it's just boring drivel after a while.

But Natalie...gave all of us some entertainment that morning.

Let me flesh out Natalie.

She was one of those cute girls. A sex kitten type with those eyes that can open doors and make the boys carry her books up eight flights of stairs and buy her lunch after. She knew it and played it flagrantly and openly. She was very confident in her skills and didn't reign them back in any discreet way. She used her cat shaped eyes and innocent/slut ways like a club.

She never cared for me as I didn't get suckered by her technique. I was of NO USE to her then.

So, I'm sitting in the front of the class just hearing bits of Natalie's conversation to Brother Himmler. I overhear some consternation on her part for failing the test, just bits and pieces mind you, and not quite the entire conversation. And then, I hear the Brother shout out this to her face.

“I don't GIVE A SHIT who you think you are or who your “Daddy” is! YOU never studied for this test and YOU failed it...GO SIT DOWN!”

Natalie sheepishly and without making any eye contact with anyone, slinked to her desk, sat down and didn't utter a sound.

I knew then what she tried to do. She really couldn't use her sixteen year old female sexual power on a religious Brother, so she tried to manipulate him with her “well standing family” and status to get a better grade.

Brother Heinrich wasn't having any of that...