Why I Do It

“Man, you got a weird hobby.” K told me.

“What? That I visit graves?”

“Yeah, it's creepy.”

I have to explain myself again. (Sigh...I get tired of that. And when I speak honestly, they don't believe it anyway)

“Look, it's not that I want to sneak out there at 3 AM, dig them up and scatter their bones all over the ground then run barefoot through them....is that what you think?”

I tell him that there places, people and events from the past that interest me to no end, but there's a problem. Either it's in the past or they're long since dead. Going to these places, cemeteries, is as close as I can get to it/them now. I can't jump into a time machine and go live that period, so what else is there for me to do but stand next to it 25, 50, 300 years later? There's a bit of an aura to the grave/place when you finally get there. The aura says, “This happened. This was true. It was real. I was there.”

“Oh shit, I said the word 'aura' to him.” I say to myself. That's not a word in the lexicography of the limited, narrow and intolerant. Saying it tips them off to the fact you're not one of them.

I get a stare. Then finally a dismissive “hmmph.” I get it. I've heard that judgment before. It's the judgment of a blue collar, uneducated, local and small-minded moron. To them, anything worth doing or knowing has to, in some way, benefit their daily lives of getting ahead and surviving. Everything else is meaningless. Well, for YOU it has to be buddy, since your feet are always so close to the damn fire and since you've never figured a way to even leave the Street, if only for a few hours. What the fuck can you possibly know outside of that? The box you live in is small and what's revealing, is that it's self made and hasn't changed in decades.

I don't say that, of course. Instead it's: “You oughta get out of Pawtucket and this electrical supply shop more often K. You won't fall off the edge when you cross the border into North Providence you know.”

His response? There is none except the look of “Fuck you” on his face. That's all I needed to prove I was right.

I'll say it again, I”m usually pretty tolerant of most people, but these kind...ugh. I've had too long an experience with them over the years and it's solidified my aversion.

**

I made it to Jack Kerouac's grave in Lowell yesterday. I've wanted to see it for a few years now since I managed to nail it's location down to 10 feet on GPS. Once I saw it, I found it's kind of impossible to miss. It's the only stone with cursive writing and a pile of remembrances stacked around it like the ones you see on Rt 95 after a car load of drunk teens slammed into a bridge abutment.

This was as close as I could get to Jack. As I approached the grave, I heard my mind saying, “Holy Shit, There you are Jack! You really DID exist!” He no longer was some blurry myth I was once told about. This was a real person.

**

I read “On the Road” at the insistence of my brother back when I was 20. Then, I just had a clownish view of what the Beatniks were and it looked like this clip from Youtube. The two Beatniks are Pia Zadora and Ric Ocasek of the Cars.

Click the Pic!

As I read it, I became kinda bored with it. I surmised this was going to be in the vein of hopping freight trains to travel like during the 30's Depression. The “philosopher bum” didn't do it for me, in any version, be it Dust Bowl America or Kerouac's travels West.

“You're reading it wrong!” bitches my brother when I told him what I thought of it, just a ¼ way through.

“Wrong? How can I read it wrong? I know how to read!” I thought

“Read it in the context of the TIMES! The late 40's!” he complains.

“Ohhhh....”



This is what you get from an English Major who also berates you into reading Chaucer in the original, 1300's middle English



I reread Road again and then something clicked for me. The independence, the non-conformity. The willingness to say FUCK YOU to even your friends when they try to force you into doing/thinking a particular way. I have always had that part in me, even as a child. I was pretty sharp as a kid and grown up/adult BS rarely got by me. If I knew it to be horseshit, I wasn't going along to keep them happy when I KNEW it was against my best interests. To make it worse, I'd point it out. Like pointing out the Giant Elephant in the room no one else dares to make mention of.



I gladly pointed it out, again and again and again.



I once was harangued, in school, to “respect” my elders. My big mouth got me into trouble for that but I didn't care, I was RIGHT.



“Respect my elders? Like the one down the street that likes little boys? Or the guy across the street that beats his kids in the front yard...in full daylight at NOON? Or his neighbor who loves Nixon and would vote for him again if he could?”



I violated a cardinal rule of being a child: “Adults are always right and shut up.”



(I ought to tell you the story of how I really drew the hated of Goff Jr High's principal, Mr. Forrest, some day. I blew his attempts to turn the kids into “good little Do-Bees and followers” once. In sort of 60's fashion, I “raised their consciousness” to what was going on and started a mini rebellion)



So, Jack's independence, his willingness to live his life on his terms, is what brought me into the book. It also coincided with that time in my life when Icould be as independent as I wanted too. Being 20 with the protection of a roof over my head, some money finally and old enough to go venturing out into the world was great fun! I did what I wanted to, if I could pull it off, with great abandon. It's that part of your life when you are an adult in many ways, but you aren't financially so yet. You get the perks w/o having to pay for them, for a while at least.



Reading Jack was a confirmation that I was right in my thinking, for that time in my life. It was valid then and that's what hooked me about the book.



**



I tell people to re read books they've read decades ago. After 30+ years of life beating the fuck out of you in various ways, you tend to read them differently. I had reread On the Road, but this time with more knowledge of who Jack was, the Beatniks, Counter Culture and the addition of my cumulative experience of my own life. I came to a different conclusion of the book this time around. I suppose everyone who is my age would reach a similar conclusion as well, but you have to be over 50 to do it.



It's nostalgia in a way, a yearning to relive the best part of your life, but THIS time around, do it right, or at least do it better. And without the uncontrollable forces that buffet everyone's life and force you to navigate a different direction, or at best, outside forces that don't blow you too far from your desired heading.



But that ain't what life really is, is it? You know this truth, finally, as you get older and you accept it. This isn't defeatism. Defeatism is when you don't even try. Being in the fight all the time and having to negotiate, skipper and aim as close as you can for your heavenly Goal and being shoved around, delayed and hampered from the goal, is Real Life. You do the best you can.



(I once saw a Johnny Carson interview with an old dowager 1920's actress who said: “I regret NOTHING in my life.” Richard Pryor, who was sitting next to her on the couch turns and says, “Lady, are you KIDDING? NO one gets life exactly as they want it!)



Jack's book blew the top off 50's society and the money and fame it brought him finally ruined him. He couldn't really hack it and having publishers on his ass to redo “On the Road” in other forms wasn't going to happen. There was only one. He was also pushing middle age when it was published so he was just starting to have that yearning for a past when things were Golden and when you thought you were in reach of that Nirvana. You do reach it at times, but it's always fleeting, it never stays. Jack's idea of returning to that period, and doing it “right,” was blown out of the water for good after he was crowned King of the Beatniks. He ran from that Title with a flame coming out his ass.



So, even so with all that...



The conclusion you reach at 20 about One the Road is valid for it's time. It's right and true. Any conclusion you reach about your life then is true, for it's time. You do it with the best intentions and with what you have learned and know.



The one you reach at 50 is valid too, but only to Fifty Somethings.



There will be other, different conclusions to reach as you and I age as well.



That's Life, That's the Road.



(“That's the Road.” Ain't that a hackneyed ending? Sure it is! I am too hot and lazy now to put the effort into a better ending...so nyah nyah!)

Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Only get Dirty, and Besides, the Pig Likes it

Yeah, George Bernard Shaw was right, pigs are pigs. 

 I told this story to a co-worker and had a similar conversation with a close friend yesterday afternoon. The jist of it was that I never, and I mean never, had any patience with inflexible and wholly determined stupid people. Why? They long ago taxed my sympathy to zero by the time I was nine years old. Now if you were ignorant and came to me with a genuine desire to change that condition, that was different. However, most were too proud and imperious in their “duh-ness” to even think about changing that. The worst of that lot? Lazy AND ignorant. 

 I did phenomenally well in school. I enjoyed it. I knew how to study and absorb information. Success begets success you know and upward and onward I went. So, in fourth grade, Mrs Enos (who I genuinely liked) decided it would be a great idea for me to tutor some kids in the bottom 10% of her class. I ended up hating to do it. That's probably the only thing I disliked Enos for. 

One kid she paired me with was not only ignorant but he had that look too. His best talent was thuggery and that was probably the only thing that carried him through his life up to fourth grade when I knew him. I suspect it's what carried him to 18 years of age when all of a sudden, thuggery becomes “assault and battery” in a courtroom. So, I sat with him, for about 10 days, trying to show him how I did it. How I managed to ace tests, retain knowledge. It is a skill that can be learned. 

 “Just give me the answers!” he growled as we went over his exercises. 

“Look, if I do, you'll never learn this. You NEED to pass this final test to stay in this school! You have to take that test in the principal's office w/o anyone around you to help. You have to know how before you go in there.” I tell him.

 He was in danger of being expelled due to be too stupid for Potter's school. In Pawtucket at that time, especially if you went to school over on the east side, if you couldn't hack the “good” elementary schools of Potters or Curtis, they sent you to...ugh...Fallon school. Everyone regarded Fallon as the retard school. Yes, today that's politically incorrect but we're in 1974 mind you. That kid I was tutoring was headed straight for it if he didn't pass as least, one test in Eno's class. They had tried everything else in the book to turn him around. He was intransigent to all remedies. 

So, for a few days of trying to make him see the light, and add to that his badgering me for the answers only, I gave up on him. Also, his personality was just pure bully and I got sick of that too. 

One thing about these kind of people is that they incorrectly think pretty highly of themselves and lack the ability to figure themselves out. Or they refuse to self examine, that may find faults! I found a particular kind of “lack” in this kid and it was his misplaced pride. 

The losers of this world, due to whatever reason that brought them there, have to defend, to the death, whatever scraps of self esteem they have left. After a childhood's “lifetime” of being told “NO!” or how stupid, what failures they are and how ugly they look, you aren't left with much to defend to prop you up. Hence they fight like gladiators for those scraps of dignity. You've seen them, usually on Jerry Springer or the old COPS show. 

So, since this kid would never figure himself out, I did instead. With this knowledge, I led him right out of Potters into Fallon. For the rest of the week, I showed him how to do the problems and to his credit, he too could to it but I then refused to remind him that he had to practice it again and again till it stuck. He hated doing that to begin with and my constant reminders telling to do that, just angered him. So, when he got a problem right after I showed him, I stroked his pride, “Hey, you got it!” I could see him beam with delight. That's it, bask in it now asshole! We went onto the next problem and I repeated it again and again. 

“Looks like you're ready for that test in the principal's office” I told him. 

He sat there, safe in the knowledge he would do well. You could read it on his face. 

Thursday comes and he's sent to the principal's office to take the test (under the eyes of Mr Collette to prevent him from cheating, copying answers) and we stay in Eno's class and take ours. 

Monday comes, the thug isn't there. Tuesday comes as well as Wednesday, no thug. 

I ended up asking whatever happened to him. “Pauly? Oh, he's been sent to Fallon now” I was told. 

I just grinned. 

When I told this story to Nick, this guy I know at work, I get this: 

“Ron....you're an ASSHOLE!” 

I say:  “Nick...I hated him and he treated me like a dirtbag AND I was trying to help him at first! Look, to “operate” me is pretty easy. Treat me nice, I treat YOU nice. Treat me like dirt and I treat YOU like dirt! It's pretty easy! 

“Yeah, I guess so...I get it.” Nick finally says. 

*****

This nest one would've gotten me nailed on verbal sexual abuse, but it's 1979 it was aimed at another dullard that wanted a free ride off of me. We were all young teens then. Very sexually matured. Remember this as you read on.
 
Mrs Chatier held a science class and behind me a few tables back, were these three girls who I knew just did the bare minimum to get by. But as usual with these types, they can get behind and the finish line of final exams is coming up and they know they don't have the class average to pass. How did I know? Mrs Chatier was bitch of a teacher who, on an tear of anger one day, harangued all those in her class who needed at least a 90 on the final to pass the entire class with a meager C-. These three girls came under extra bitchy attention from Chatier who told them they needed more than a 90. 

So, I see it coming. They're going to come to me for hints and tricks on how to handle the test as I pretty much knew what Chatier was going to be asking us. How did I know? I paid attention in class for Christ's Sake. 

They hit me up for an entire week, trying every manipulative trick they know to get me to divulge what I know, the “way” to take the test. 

I finally get pissed and say, “What? I work all year to learn this and you want it for free? You all are welfare cases!” 

 “WE'RE NOT WELFARE CASES” they all seemed to chime at once. 

“Oh? You're not? What do you call someone who expects others to give them a check from the one who DOES have a job? 

I get silence. 

They were pissed. 

So, they keep at it, trying to wheedle me for the easy way out. Like I said before, I had NO patience for these types who were willfully lazy and stupid. They had blown the entire year off and now needed a high score on the final. 

One day, Shelli, (one of the girls) and I were alone in the classroom and she tries again to get me to help her skate the test. I say to her: “How about $5? I'll help you for $5” 

“Fuck you” she mutters. 

“Oh, you want me to give you a free ride? You want it w/o giving me anything? Typical!” I say. 

She glares at me. 

I don't know where these next comments came from, how it welled up in me, but it was PERFECT. It was the final thing I could say that would shut them all up. 

 I say the next because it was true. 

“Look, you have NOTHING you can give me. There's no HELP you can give me....but however it seems I can help you and you want it, bad! But you aren't willing, nor capable, of returning a favor...and I swear it's mostly because you aren't willing.” 

Then this: Pure genius. The Pièce de Résistance. It come from that part of you that's deep inside and you don't try, it just comes on it's own. 

I look at her, straight in her eyes and say. “Wait! There is ONE thing you can give me though.” 

I stare at her and she's not getting it just yet. Then the realization comes and she whips her head around from me and stares at the front of the classroom. 

To grind it in a bit deeper... 

“Look, I won't tell anyone. We can go behind the stage in the auditorium.” 

She shut up forever. All three did when she told them. 

They all failed the class after they took the exam. 

 *****

“Jesus Ron! You SAID that to her? God, you were a major JERK as a kid!” Nick says as he's chopping away at some celery on the cutting board. “Nick...I say it again...If you treat me GOOD, I treat you GOOD. Those three were just major pricks to me. So I became a mirror, I reflect back to people what the show me”

True Love

I didn't do it nor would I. Why would a little tart like the one above have anything to do with me except to gain admittance into the US then become an American citizen? But I heard a story the other day about some one who did.

“I know a guy who tried it, used to visit me at times when I was in Manomet. They guy was 41, particularity obese, not very good looking and had had nothing but bad luck with women ever since he was a teen. Hmm...already past 40 and getting desperate, you see that a lot!”

“He became a true believer in “Svetlana,” a Russian girl he found on the internet site and had corresponded with for over three months. I saw her picture, she was 20, hot and spoke about this much English.” (He was holding his finger and thumb about a millimeter away from one another to make the point). Да, я очень люблю тебя!! Diyava! I love you many much!” he says in a bad Russian girl accent.

“Scott paid the fees, the airline tickets and everything else that was needed to ship her over here. I was guessing it was about $4,000 when it was all tallied up, but he was determined and believed that she would be the girl for him.”

So before Scott had pulled the trigger, B. asks him, “Do you think there might be a small possibility that she's totally conning you?”

“Oh NO! She's the real thing! I've emailed her many, many times, she's always asking about ME, so interested in what I do, where I work, my home...all about ME!”

“Uh huh” B says. “Who typed the emails if she knows 15 words of English?” He let that question hang in the air.

So Svetlana lands at Logan, and she is the real thing apparently. 20 years old, eager and pretty. She was nothing but authentic, hot danger for any man by the way she walked. He takes her to his home in Carver and settles her in. Within a week, they were married by a justice of the peace after she complains that living as a singles couple was “shameless” and against her Russian Orthodox religion.

“B. it's perfect! She's like a 1950's wife! Cooks, cleans and is she a tornado in bed! It's the best four grand I ever spent!'

B. answers. “Well, Scott, I'm glad you finally found the one.” What could he say but nice little white lies to not burst this bubble? Why get involved?

Scott worked off 128 at one of those bio-med companies you see all along the road there. One day, he's called to the lobby and there waiting for him is a Massachusetts State Sheriff.

“You Scott De'Lorren....” asks the Sheriff?

“Yes” Scott answers. 

 

“You've been served.” says the Sheriff as he shoves a thick envelope into Scott's hands.

After plowing through all the legalese, Scott realizes this is a petition for divorce initiated by Svetlana. They had been married five months. “Irreconcilable differences” was the accusation. Svetlana was already an American citizen by then. It seemed that she had learned just enough English to study American divorce law while in her home town of Smolensk...or at least knew someone who did.

Scott begged and pleaded but Svetlana would have none of it. Within some pretty quick order, they were divorced. Scott, still stinging from it all, hires a private detective to find out where she ended up. He couldn't let go just yet .

She had moved to White Plains, outside of NYC and was living in the extra bedroom of another Russian wife, who was married and doing pretty well. Svetlana in short order found a man closer to her age, a lawyer and the two were steadily headed for marriage.

B. who is “sort of” consoling Scott over all of this once it was clear Svetlana was never coming back says, “Scott. Did you really think that a cute 20 year old was going to fall for a guy like you? C'mon, have you LOOKED in the mirror?” This was rather cruel but it was sharp reality slap to him. “You were a lonely sap and here comes this sex kitten....god, you bit that hook, line and sinker!”

Moral of the story? Hell, do I have to tell you?

The Learning Curve

I've taken up hiking and scrambling again, just to see if I can still do it. I can, yet it takes longer. I had an acquaintance suggest that I hire a prostitute to get over any mid-life crisis. It would be easier and perhaps more fun and possibly less dangerous. Though idiot me will fall for a pretty face out in Las Vegas and that ain't going to end well. We'll see.

As you get older, you definitely know yourself. If you don't by 50, I don't know what to tell you. For me, taking on any new hobby/job/idea/whatever involves a learning curve and I know how those go for me after all these years. The one threat I know? I have to be very aware that the new whatever can involve me falling 30 feet, being electrocuted or some other ugly mishap, and it'll happen very early in the curve. The early part, for me anyway, can be lethal or maiming. I go reallll sllllow when I start something off that could possibly ruin my day.

Here's an example:

Years ago, I learned how to build my own stereo speakers. The electronic wiring is just a mind problem that just needs pencil and paper. The actual building of the box requires tools, some pretty nasty ones like a table saw. So, being all gung ho to have speakers that could rival the best out there, I headed up to Home Depot to get me a small table saw.

Cutting small or short pieces of MDF board wasn't so much of a problem. I made a push stick so my hands were clearly far enough away from that blade. I had learned to use the guard as well so I'd keep all my fingers. The problem occurs when you try to rip a large board.

There is a guide called a “fence” on the saw and it's supposed to keep your piece straight as you slowly move it into the blade. Any deviation from that might “bind” the blade. Bind the blade and the board will kick back at you.

So I was pushing my large piece through, trying to keep the saw lined up on the pencil line I had drawn and forgot about also keeping the piece snug to the fence. All of a sudden, the piece lurches back into my gut. I spin around, half bent over like someone had sucker punched me. right in the stomach. “Owwwwww! It was solid hit.

I kept all my fingers, both hands and arms and the only price I paid for this early learning was a sore stomach.

Live and learn they say. I prefer to “learn and still live.”

**

I had taken a small hike out in the woods of Seekonk and w/o a trail map because I was too lazy to print one off the computer. So out I go, romping around, getting my legs accustomed to this again when I begin to notice the trail markers had changed from red to blue. “Huh?” I thought, “perhaps they changed the color.” I kept going and noticed that I wasn't arriving at the 17^th century ice cutting pond I kinda knew was only a half mile away. So I kept plodding on. I did this till I arrived at a spot I had began with earlier. I was amazed. How the hell did that happen? Then, I had remembered from long ago that if you're lost and you keep walking, you tend to walk in giant circles w/o knowing it. I was surprised to have proven this to myself. Why does that happen? We all favor one leg over the other and if you take 4,043 steps, always leaning 1/5 of an inch to the right or left, you create a large circle eventually.

“Shit, they weren't kidding.” I realized.

In my head I scolded myself as I made my way back to the right trail “Get a DAMN map next time. Take the compass with you smart ass! Or you'll spend a night being eaten alive by bugs as you wait for the dawn to begin again.”

So today I go out, to woods I know well and sort of “get lost” and made my way back using the map and compass I was so sure I never needed. Yeah, good thing I didn't start on Buck Hill in Gloucester, or I could get to see Douglas MA by mistake, or Thomson CT, or God knows where.

“Never get out of the boat.” Martin Sheen said in Apocalypse Now. Well, true, but if you do go, start in the shallow end, at least you don't drown and learn to swim.

 

Wolf Hill

Hiking up Wolf Hill has taught me a few things:

1. I am out of shape from a winter of sitting down, napping and eating
2. I need better shoes. A sneaker's sole don't cut it when you're walking over roots and rock
3. I can pant pretty hard!
4. When there is an incline of 35 degrees, they mean 35 degrees! My calves were burning
5. I forgot what shin splints were.
6. I made it

I did surprise myself on the time I took, it was only an hour but I haven't done this stuff in years so it's a good start. The other surprise were the old memories that had nothing to do with hiking that came upon me when I crossed National Grid's land. Why I was having memories of being about four years old I don't know why. I do pay attention to that, when old memories pop up for some seeming odd reason. 

**

 

This is how it starts. It look sort of inviting as they put in railroad tie stairs for you to get up the very beginning of the trailhead. The problem is that this is the last time you see any engineering to help you out on the trail The rest is up to you. 

So far, so good, There were just some light rises and depressions to move along but the trail was open, clear and navigable 

Then as I made the turn I came upon this. Nothing but rock and all UP. This is where I find out Avia sneakers are useless on rocks like these. 

When I was coming down the path on the left, I got these weird memories from being a little kid. I wans't sure if it was the area, the sound of high voltage snapping and crackling above my head or what. But I felt as it were from some old vacation spot, trip or whatnot. I kept remembering the old Enchanted Forest kid's land that once was in operation a hundred years ago. Who knows? But the sense of deja vu was strong. 

I finally find it. This is a memorial to a WW2 crash site in the middle of nowhere. A Lockheed RB-34 lost it's engines. From the witness statements the pilot was trying like hell to restart them when the plane smacked the shit out of the top of the hill, into that boulder. When the rescuers arrived, the land was on fire, the fuselage was crumpled up against the boulder and other plane parts scattered around. A more grisly find were blackened, somewhat human being looking piles of goo thrown about the hill. There's absolutely nothing there now to suggest a plane had ground itself up there. Not even a tiny metal scrap. 

Here's the boulder and the memorial stone. I don't know how long it's been there but someone's been hiking out here putting up flags. Probably more than a few people because you can see all the memorial stones place upon that boulder as well.

The memorial itself. Again, I have no idea how old it is but another thought hit me. Who humped a 100lb gravestone and the cement to make a base all the way out here?

Coming back down the hill I came across this. A boat. Who the hell would tote a boat up a hill only to dump it in the middle of the woods? I've seen stolen cars left in the woods, that's pretty common, but this? Weird. 

I finally have a sit down to rest those legs. You can't smell it but my jeans, sneakers are covered with permethryn insecticide. The last thing I wanted to get out here are deer ticks. I don't want a months-long misdiagnosed Lyme's disease or babieosis. Bizarre blood borne pathogens are not my cup of tea so I'll stink of Union Carbide chemicals for a while.

Well that's it. My takeaway is that I can do it at 54 and probably a bit more if I got my legs a bit more worked out.

Hey, Found Something to Write About..

From the Onion Comedy Site:

LITTLETON, CO—On April 20, when two students at Columbine High School opened fire in a brutal shooting spree that left 12 classmates and a teacher dead, many feared that this affluent suburban school would never be the same.

Members of Columbine High School's popular “in” crowd, who, more than four months after the tragic shooting at their school, have finally begun to exclude losers again.

The atmosphere is optimistic. Slowly but surely, life at Columbine is returning to normal.

Thanks to stern new security measures, a militarized school environment and a massive public-relations effort designed to obscure all memory of the murderous event, members of Columbine's popular cliques are once again safe to reassert their social dominance and resume their proud, longstanding tradition of bullying and tormenting those who do not fit in.

"We have begun the long road to healing," said varsity-football starting halfback Jason LeClaire, 18, a popular senior who on Aug. 16 returned to the school for the first time since the shooting. "We're bouncing back, more committed than ever to reject anyone who's different."

Added LeClaire's girlfriend, pretty cheerleader Kellie Nelson: "A school where the jocks cannot freely exclude math geeks, drama fags, goths and other wash-outs without fearing for their lives is not the kind of school I want to go to."

On Sept. 6, amid a pep-rally atmosphere of marching-band fanfare, cheerleaders and mass chanting, a group of jocks wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan, "We, Not You, Are Columbine" were escorted by armed guards into the school for the first day of the new semester. Approximately one hour later, anyone not in the right cliques were allowed into the building through a side door.

**

“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth.”

A proverb I never heard before...

I have no answers to this, nor anything meaningful to say either, and I ain't getting onto the issue of gun control, but just a couple of stories I remember from then when I was a teen.

I've written about him before, Steve, a congenital dork, dweeb, goober, nerd who rested on the bottom rung of the social ladder of St Rays high school. The one sad story I told you about was when he admitted it was he who sent a “Valentine's Secret Introductory Rose” to one of the prettier girls in our class. Each year boys could buy single roses, send them anonymously to a girl they liked and if they were brave enough, reveal themselves later in the day. Steve tried that, but the popular girl out of either protection of her social status, or perhaps out of a true “not feeling that way about him” rejected him as easily as she could in front of 30 of his peers. THAT little show got around the gossip circuit within an hour for the whole school and because Steve was a loser-troll, the magnitude of his crime was made all the worse. “How DARE you...YOU! Make an attempt to ask out one of the Top Ten girls!”

Steven never returned with an AK 47 to pour out 12 years of revenge for the bullying, shame and abuse that was heaped on him daily. Had he done so, I don't think I would've been too surprised. But that wasn't Steve's personality. He turned the pain onto himself by moping about his school day and keeping in the shadows.

He never showed up for any of the reunions and who could blame him? Many of the kids he knew then were his enemy via the exclusion from the fun teen friendships, mileposts kids achieve at that age and all that the other joys the teen world has to offer. Why meet again those who kept you from all the fun?

**

When I was a young teen, Soldier of Fortune magazine was the only rag, and perhaps Guns & Ammo then, where you could order para-military items, “How To's” and the “Anarchist's Cookbook.” Occasionally I'd paw through it as we kids just burned up summer days at the mini mall near my house. There was sometimes nothing else to do but hang out inside CVS for their a/c and read the mags till we got the annoyed look from the manager.

His real first name was Wayne and he lived not more than three blocks from me and I didn't even know it. He was about three years younger than me and his existences was a surprise to me when I finally met him. My buddy M, knew of him because the kid routinely wore Vietnam tiger stripe camo when he went to jr high school at Goff. If not that camo, than any “utility” type of clothing you could get in 1979. On top of his head was a regular issue Army cap. I was told he had no friends and was avoided by others because of being “weird.”

One day, M, I and Wayne run into one another outside the same CVS and I start to goof on his apparel as it seemed a bit too much for a hot July day. The kid just gave me the meanest, most hateful stares you ever saw. It's a stare that usually only worn out, cynical adults give after a life time of having to make compromises to get along. This kid was probably 12 then.

So, to ease the situation I steer the conversation over to the Soldier of Fortune magazine Wayne just bought and talked about those tactics the Green Beret's have to kill you with their little pinky. He gets annoyed still because I don't know what I'm talking about and he corrects me when I get it wrong. I then ask him if he knows any of “those moves” and he says he does and I ask him to try one on me. I regretted that pretty soon.

He gets behind me and in a flash and with some power too, uses his left hand to compress my throat and his right hand slides up and over my scalp and with a claw like motion, digs his fingers into my eyeballs. He wasn't faking it.

Know what you feel when you can't breath AND your eyeballs feel like their going to squish out? You don't know where to defend yourself first, your throat or your eyes? You tend to reach for both and in doing so, you are an uncoordinated mess. This goes on for, I guess 20 seconds when my buddy M steps in and has to literally bash Wayne on the top of his head to stop it.

As I spun around and saw M toss Wayne onto the ground, I see Wayne's face. He's excited! He's focused! He has a shit eating grin from ear to ear.

He LIKED doing this. I bet his heart was racing too.

You know those moments in your childhood and teens where you experience the real, ugly side of life? Either it's a person or event you are witnessing and it leaves you feeling the ABOSLUTE creeps after it happens? It's called “growing up” and your innocence is forever altered. If you're lucky, they're don't maim you nor are lethal. They're just learning experiences you managed to get away easily with.

Wayne was one of those experiences and not so much about what he did but that look on his face that creeped me the hell out. If there was anyone who would shoot up his school because he was weird and excluded, it would be him. He never did. From what I learned he joined the military right after high school. He probably begged to be sent as part of advisory command when we were training the CONTRAS who were causing all sorts of trouble in Nicaragua. If he did get to go, he found a real home for himself.

Those two, Wayne and Steve, were probably the worst social misfits I knew as a kid. Neither shot up anything (but I wonder if Wayne fantasized about it) and apparently made something of their lives, even with their impoverished social networks.

And we keep cranking out more of these kids daily I hear...

More Tales from the Past

I haven't written anything because I'm running out of ideas! I've told you all of the Xmas stories, the New Year's Eve stories....and I'm sure you don't want to read about me rambling on about a subject only I care about.

So here goes this...

McManus Restaurant was a sort of clone of the Newport Creameries that dot this state. There was one McManus in the strip mall were we hung as kids on Armistice, but being a bit too young to be attracted to restaurants, plus having no money, we barely went in there.

That wasn't the case for my older brother and his friends. They had part time jobs and some spending money to waste in there. Mostly it was to turn it into a hang out for teens, as long as they kept buying rounds of coffee, the manager didn't seem to care. For a while at least.

They ran their welcome out in an inventive way though.

**

There was a family of three boys that lived not too far away. The Crusoe family. Each of the boys unfortunately inherited those genes for “prominent ears,” or “Dumbo Ears” as we called them. We kids in that neighborhood and time ruthlessly bullied them about it. To think on it now, we ruthlessly bullied each other for our shortcomings as well. Too short, too fat, too skinny, too stupid, too smart, too ugly...you get the picture.

Times have changed and kids can't bully one another..oh wait, there's cell phones and Snapchat!

There was a friend of my brother, a Save Dupanic (I leave it up to you to figure out the clever way I disguised this name) who one day completely shocked the Crusoe family in McManus's.

The teen boys sat near the window booth and guess who comes in? The entire Crusoe family and they regrettably chose a booth right next to my brother and his friends. After a few minutes, Save Dupanic turns around in the booth, facing the Crusoe family and does something only teen boy with no regard to social etiquette can do.

He grabs both his ears with his fingers and stretches them out as far from his head as he can, all the while screeching, “EEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEE!” Where upon the teen booth bursts out, laughing their asses off.

The Crusoe family sat in silence over that one. I assume no one complained to the manager.

**

Jo Jo lived on Armistice Blvd and I never knew his real story. Retardation, autism, cerebral palsy...I never knew. But to see him walking and stumbling down the street, we kids branded him as retarded. So did my brother and his friends. Once a day, weather permitting, his mom would give him some money to go to McManus or CVS to get some ice cream or candy or whatnot, depending on what he wanted. The problem with Jo Jo was his incessant drooling. He would wipe his mouth at times but I guess he thought that as long as it wasn't dripping off your chin yet, it was OK.

So, Jo Jo comes into McManus one day, orders an ice cream cone and drools. My brother's friends had just sat down in their usual booth. Jo Jo leaves happily with his treat and the waitress comes over to my brother's table.

“Same thing boys?” she asks

“Yep, 5 coffees and 10 halfs on the back burner.” Halfs meaning english muffins.

Save Dupanic (him again) then chirps up, “Oh....and can we have a cup of Jo Jo's drool too?”

“THATS awful! He CAN'T help IT! You boys have NO IDEA what he goes through.” the waitress chides

I was told she stormed off but put the order through anyway. The manager was no where to be seen.

Final Straw...

On another day, the teen boys go to their usual booth to order up the same thing but one of them adds a bit something extra to the order. It wasn't Save Dupanic this time and I won't say who but refer to him as, umm...Paul. Yeah...Paul..who now is the, or could be the sales manager for a very large jewelry display company...or not!

Paul adds this to the check after the other boys give their order.

“Can I have a blow job too?”

I was told the 20 Something waitress just narrowed her eyes and walked off.

Then comes the manager.

“That's IT! I've put up with your guys SHIT long ENOUGH! You NEVER use PROFANITY with my girls! If you DON'T get out of here I GOING THROW YOU OUT ON YOUR EARS!!”

The boys left...

Jimmy and I then got a sort of part time job ourselves. Since my brothers's friends were banned from McManus and couldn't get their coffees and english muffins, we did it instead. For a fee of course, usually keeping any change leftover from the transaction. They'd now have to sip the coffees and eat the muffins while sitting in front of Egan's Laundromat, a definite demotion! I'm sure the waitresses in McManus figured out these daily orders from two grammar school kids. Why would two 11 year old boys want five coffees and five english muffins? The order seemed awfully familiar.