Back in my day, we didn't worry about self-esteem or agonize over
feelings. We didn't care about elbow pads and cooperative games where
everyone was a winner.
We played musical chairs at birthday parties and laughed and pointed at
the kids left standing. We played dodgeball without sissy rules and our
gym teachers coached us to hit the other players where it hurt the
most. We used the stones from hopscotch games to beat the winner
senseless. Ok, no. But sometimes we would draw on her stupid pink,
frilly shirt with yellow chalk. It made her sneeze. And she would tell
on us and our mothers would say "Oh, stop complaining, Lori. It's just
freaking chalk." Can you imagine this happening today? I'd be sued by
Lori's mother for the emotional damage I caused her child and my
Saturday mornings would be spent in an overstuffed chair in some dark
of office of the state-appointed psychiatrist who would ask me how I
feel about being so evil.
Not back in my day. There were two boys in my neighborhood who used to
throw bricks at me on my way home from school. Bricks. When the
principal found out that the same boys were throwing rocks at me on the
playground, he took action. The boys got the shit beat out of them by
their fathers and no one - not one person - blamed me for being bullied
or looked for root causes as to why those children behaved like
monsters. They just got detention and sore asses.
I laugh and laugh at extreme sports shows today. Extreme? How can
anything be extreme if you're wearing fifteen layers of protective gear
while you're doing it? You want extreme? Try powering a rickety,
unstable bicycle going about 50 miles per hour - with your sister
riding on the handelbars - down the steepest man made slope on Long
Island, a slope which ended at a wall of pure concrete into which you
would smash and die if you didn't apply the brakes with just the right
amount of pressure at the right time. No helmets. No knee pads or elbow
pads. We didn't even carry Band-Aids with us. That's extreme.
We played soccer without headgear. The boys played baseball without
cups. We rode in the backs of station wagons, not wearing set belts and
hanging out the window to wave to strangers. We walked to the candy
store by ourselves. We rode our bikes after dark. We called each other
horrible names and sometimes we had fistfights right on my front lawn
and my mother would tell us to shut up because the noise was drowning
out Dark Shadows. And when we got up from the fistfight all bloodied
and scraped, mom would tell us to stop our crying, slap some Bactine on
us and shoo us outside again.
Oh yea, you saw this coming. In my day we walked to school. Our
district was on an austerity budget for years. Walked in the rain, the
snow, the sleet and hail. Our parents never drove us because our
fathers were at work and our mothers were busy preparing for the fondue
themed dinner party they were throwing that evening. So we walked to
school and when we got there we learned about history without the P.C.
agenda that you get today. And we read books in English that would make
P.C. people shriek in horror. We sang Christmas and Hannakuh songs in
the winter concert and nobody batted an eyelash.
Self-esteem? We didn't exist to build up each other's egos. We were
supposed to knock them down. Life was all about rivalries and
competition. If a teacher back then ever told us how wonderful and
beautiful and special we all were, we would have reported her to the
authorities on suspicion of being a pot smoking hippie.
You know when the world went to hell? When Coca Cola decided to teach
the world to sing. The second that commercial came out, a death knell
sounded across the playgrounds and schoolyards of America. Parents
everywhere, suckered in by the feel-good lyrics and hand-holding
sappiness of the commercial felt an awakening of sorts. All those who
missed the hippie train of the 60's were going to jump on the Free to
be You and Me train of the 70's, and ride it hard.
Back in my day, kids weren't sheltered. We were fed the day's news raw
and uncensored. Our parents took us to see gory, bloody horror movies.
We were read fairy tales, grim and perverse and wicked as they were,
without remanufactured endings where everyone is beautiful and everyone
smiles.
We had real playgrounds with merry-go-rounds and metal slides and
wooden see saws, all placed on concrete. None of this plastic
adventure-in-learning crap sitting on a gentle bed of soft wood chips.
We had broken noses and we had scabs covering half our bodies. The
school nurse would wipe up our blood, swab us in Bactine (the panacea
of our time) and send us back outside for more. Today's kids get a
piece of wood chip dust in their eye and they're carried to the nurse's
office on a stretcher where they're handed ten different accident and
liability forms to give their parents and forced to sit through a video
taped lecture on playground safety, presented by a singing, dancing,
man in an elephant costume.
We learned about life with all its cuts and bruises and hurt feelings.
We worked hard around the house and yard and built up a work ethic. We
earned our allowance and walked half a mile to the candy store where we
spent it all on sugary, fattening candy and rolls of caps for our cap
guns. We would point our guns at each other and say things like bang,
bang, you're dead.
Who knew that a generation later, that phrase would probably get you
sent to the principal's office and an appointment with the school
psychiatrist?
Sure, I lived in dangerous times. Maybe somewhere in 60's or 70's
America there were babies flying out of cars or kids smashing into
concrete walls and maybe death came calling to some in the form of an
errant merry-go-round or a lethal dose of Red Dye #2. But most of us
made it. And most of us made it without the lingering head wound side
effects.
A little head wound builds character, you know.
I will post more soon
H8N S8N
Speaking of, remember when we'd go to movies and they'd actually have
ushers? And throw assholes out who thought it was cool to laugh louder
than anyone else? Or fight with their boyfriend, girlfriend, use the
cell phone, or heck, fight with themselves.
"As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again..." fade out to an
intermission.
Fricken intermission! Well, guess they've come full circle as I wait
to see where H8H S8N is going to take me. But I'm warning you. It
better be good or I'm going to hunt you down and shoot you like the dog
you are. :)
<munch munch munch>
Itz my Ode To JIROBBI
Mostly in circles, where we go back and forth to
the Big-Inning, to run around in circles, to get to the end,
where we take a side bar, and get back in the circle again, so
we can get to the tail of the never ending story, where we pick up
the single orr for the canoe that we will paddle in circles back to the
start of the tail,and follow it to part #2 I wll post sooner or later
H8N S8N
It's amazing what you learn if you survive the leasons. Anything for
excitement... lots of things wrong, but not to be mean.
Reminds me of a Commander Cody song.... Judge threw him in jail for having
too much fun.. and he said, Judge, I've done a lot of things but I ain't
never had too much fun.
We would jump the train at a curve, where they could not see us.
Then ride it down to the trestle, and jump ! What a rush to stand
inches away from a fast train. Our rock fights were against the train !
BOMB THE TRAIN ! One block from my house was,
are you sitting down ? A haunted house ! Yea, thats what I said !
First time we were brave enough to go in, we ran right into ......
A BLACK CAT ! One time we placed a fake emergency call to
the police, we thought there was a murder in the local graveyard.
They keep it padlocked at night. We waited in the bushes, while the
police went inside. WE SWITCHED THE LOCK ! We laughed so
hard, it was just like acid ! I remember the challenge of finding ever
taller trees, so we could climb higher ! Jumping the train is not so
bad, but you just gotta jump off.
I had no intention of including this. However. The lady who lived
next door would make cookie-cutter sugar cookies, almost on a
commerical scale. She would have us over to decorate them. It
was a very big job. When we were done, WE WENT CAROLING !
We would go around the 'hood till we got tired. When I was in 6th
grade, it snowed Christmas morning. I walked to school in -18
below ZERO ! Thirty-six below wind-chill ! This was not mentto be
a serious post, butch yew never know where they will go.
H8N S8N
H8N S8N
I love it, I love all of it.
Shortest post I have ever made.
JiRobbi
Oh ya, a train passing inches by at eighty miles an hour is sheer,
delightful terror. I was an army brat so we lived in different areas of
the US and the world. Lot of fun out there for a kid with all kinds of
energy and a taste for adventure. I remember renting horses on Ft.
Huachuca, Arizona at fifteen years old for a whole weekend at the cost of
fifteen dollars, and a familiar face around the stables. Used to head out
across the SouthEastern Arizona dessert of Chochise county like cowboys in
a movie. You'd take a .22, water, matches, a bedroll, and have a ball.
No adults, just us kids. What a way to grow up. It's almost like it was
someone else's life now.
Another old scabby kid. I have battle scars as well - a dozen blue
dots on my knee from skidding on asphalt after falling off my wooden
crate orange scooter on a 2 x 4 with old roller skate wheels when it
hit a big crack in the road.
A brownish oval on both knees from two whopping scrapes I got going
head over heels off the slide on the decomposed granite playground.
Why? 'Cause I took off my shoes and slid down in my socks....dumb!
Took the hide off to the bone. Aw...my little 65 year old battle
scars......funny memories -doctored with mercurochrome and a couple of
Bandaids....no Cortaid or Lanacane in them thar days.
H8N S8N
Bet you weren't ever Santa Ana's horse. And no, I don't mean the wind,
Mirria. I mean General Santa Ana of the Alamo's horse. Kingston Trio
sang about him. So, why shouldn't I have been his horse?
I'm also guessing you boys never stole a stick horse either. Had it
been a century earlier, they'd have strung me up for sure. (And I
wouldn't have struggled a bit).
I became a criminal in the wee hours of the morn. Dawn hadn't even
yawned before I'd slipped out of my bed, threw on some clothes, and
darted out the back door. I had less than fifteen minutes to commit my
crime. Fifteen before my parents checked on me.
So quicker than the snap of a whip, I pumped my skinny little legs, the
echoes bouncing off the now waking birds and sun opening its eyes to
watch what was afoot. Twas I, only I. With lust in my eight-year-old
heart.
Not but a few more minutes to my best friend's house. I skidded to a
stop and peeked through the bushes as my gaze honed in on object of my
desire. I sighed down into my toes and felt them curl. There it was.
Tied to the tree like my fool friend left it the day before.
The most beautiful black and white stick horse you ever saw. The stick
was moist with dew, but it was the mane, the white mop mane hanging
like angel hair over the black Arab-shaped head that drew me. My wee
fingers snapped back and forth as I hastend through the jungle of a
yard. Ten yards, eight. My breathing took on a pant. Four yards,
two.
Arms reached forward...and sheer joy stunned me into Neverland at the
feel of that misty mane. Suddenly, a door opened and I slipped behind
the tree, whispering to the steed who now understood something was
amiss. My friend's Dad walked to the driveway and grabbed the paper,
itching his crotch as he stood. "Go, go," I thought as the dumb-dumb
stood there reading the headlines. The clock was ticking and I had
just minutes to get back home.
Yes! Finally. Again, just me, my horse and silence. I untied the
steed, swung a leg over the stick, and away we went, galloping back
through the jungle and as one, raced down the street, the sun now
lighting the way. We made it home in record-breaking time where I
slipped back into the house and tucked Sir Stick way in the back of my
closet.
As I climbed back into bed fully dressed, my heart beat wildly with
joy. I'd done it! Stolen my best friend's horse without an ounce of
guilt. Had she not be so stupid as to leave it tied to a tree, well,
then she'd just have her horse. But no. She didn't care enough.
And now she didn't have it. Nope, now Sir Stick was all mine.
<munch munch munch>
Memories, on the corners of my mind. (Or whatever it is Barb sings).
Top that, boys.
If somebody else posts, if you guys are good.....
Maybe, I said Maybe, I might tell you about the
time I stole a 50 to 70 year old Triple Beam.
I was the envy of everyone I was around.
Judee77: (munch,munch,munch)
19 does not equal 8. you were 11 years ahead on me <3 !
H8n S8N
I am a writer. Been published in both ezines and print magazines under
a couple different nom de plumes. (Nothing big, mind you, but I'm
trying!) Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that this little story
you've just posted, if you did indeed write it, is an awesome little
flash piece. With a dash of editing, it's quite publishable in my
opinion. I almost said flash 'fiction', but it's not fiction, is it? No
matter, I'd send it in somewhere if I were you. You're a pretty good
writer. Even your opening sentence is totally badass:
---I became a criminal in the wee hours of the morning.---
Fiction writers, even the best of them, often struggle to come up with
the most intrigueing opening sentence possible for their stories. Got
to hook the reader fast, you know? And in all honesty--this is no smoke
up the ass---I've seldom seen a better opening line than that, and I've
damn sure never written a better one myself.
Bottom line: if you haven't considered it before, perhaps you SHOULD
consider taking up the writing quill in the future. I believe you're a
natural.
MT
I believe that you win the prize for best short story.
My eyes fixed on the screen and the excitement was building in me as the
crime was revealed.
What a story. I never had a friend that had such a stick horse. I would
have attempted a crime such as this also.
I like this ode to JiRobbi.
JiRobbi
H8S S8N
I never liked pistols either. Too easy to swing the barrel around and
across something you would never point a long gun at. I finally bought
one though for wilderness backpacks. I'm not sure if I'm getting old and
more paranoid, or if things are actually not as safe. Believe it or not,
my biggest concern is wild animals. Never used to really think of that,
but I'd hate myself for being helpless if the need presented itself.
LOVE IT! Keep'em coming.
To MtHastings,
It was a dark and stormy night....when I
discovered that Judee is a published writer.
You have a good eye.
pass the popcorn, munch munch
H8N S8N
I cannot tell a lie. I was going for publication, studied for...oh,
about ten years. Wrote two novels, 500 pgs, 125,000 words.
Placed in thirteen contests, including the nationals where I was
nominated for Best Time Travel Romance by an unpublished author. But,
I self-destructed before I actually got published.
It's a little gift of mine to circumvent those dreams coming true.
Unfortunately this little self-tumble is still hanging on my back.
So, though I did write once upon a time, I never was published. (I
apologize to anyone here who got a different impression).
But I do thank you for your kind words. It was fun just falling back
into "auto-pilot" and letting the keys become my piano. I hear words
like that. Once, I even started a scene from the porch's POV. Was
told you don't do that. Tell it to Michner. :)
Anyway, again, thanks for the compliments. BTW, it wasn't until
fifteen years later I told my girlfriend I was the one who stole her
horse. Rode that darn thing until one day we were clearing a jump and
Sir Stick missed.
Not one to allow my beloved steed to suffer, I shot him with a water
pistol and buried him in the back yard.
See if you were not so interested in your terminal logorrhea, you might
have understood her (and others).
Try a '57 Panhead and then get back to me.
>From Sir Stick to Sir Harley. Leathers are leathers by any other name.
<munch munch munch>
H8N S8N
Me: Do you take me for a Windsor?
Humph!
DARK SHADOWS, DARK SHADOWS!
Gypsie said please.
*******
It came at her ever so softly. But not before it had watched her.
Listened to her. Smelled her. It breathed in, savoring the rusty-rich
scent of blood.
The feast beckoned. But young the night still was.
*******
<munch munch munch>
So, anybody? Gypsie ordered up some Dark Shadows. The glove has been
thrown down. Does "it" go for her or not? Actually, I'm sensing
someone else in the room. Why doesn't it?
Where's the coke?
Forgive me. I barely know you, but you don't seem as if you've self
destructed to me, at least not as a writer. If you still have that
dream swimming around in your head or heart, you've still got the
talent and time to pursue it. Who knows, maybe Sir Stick could ride
again one day, at least in the realm of words.
MT
re Judee77:
It did make me sit
up and pay attention.
studio wrote:
She does that to me too.
I guess I'm Judy bait.
Last thing I remember, she drove me home from the Pink Floyd concert.
1977.
I can write about this, cause I still remember this from
THIRTY years ago ! It was a big deal !
Shortly after I pulled this one off, (ok, AND God), I thought
I would give this prayer stuff another shot. I desperately needed
my own set of encyclopedias, for doing school reports. We did not
have the money to buy them. So I prayed, and Got serious. It was
"Down & Dirty"
I sent a letter in to a nationaly syndicated science collum for
kids.
"Ask Andy" And yoou know what ? God was now 2 for 2 ! The largest
(local) paper area contacted my mother to tell her I had WON
a national science contest, and when could they come be to take
some (professional) photos, annnnnnd Give me my set of
Merit Student Encyclopedias ! ! ! It was easier to accept/believe
the Dark Shadows answer. This was just tooooo big. I could not
believe it for months ! The paper was the Peoria Journal Star
http://www.pjstar.com/ birth place to Richare Prior.
H8N S8N
H8N S8N
I think Sir Stick is down for the count. My ego is simply not that of
a writer's. Why God would put such a gift in me when I don't appear to
have the character to handle it is something I've often lamented over.
Back when I was writing, I had a hard time with criticism, which
resulted in my becoming one of the best judges for my genre around. I
always tried to understand what it was the author was attempting to say
and critique from that reference point, not what I thought their book
should be about.
Unfortunately, having such a fragile ego, my own writing suffered when
people told me I couldn't experiment (like writing from a porch's POV),
nor do this or that. Well, I'd overreact something awful. Forever
trying to please and learning I wasn't writing my book, rather
reworking it to fit the mold of others.
Then there were the highs when I started hitting it big. Nominated for
this; winning that; editors asking me to toss my book and write for
their line. I acted shamefully...was a real ass. Not to other people,
but from me looking at me.
I'd always prayed that if I ever forgot what God built into me and gave
it the power to move me away from Him...yank it. Well, be careful what
you ask for cause He most certainly answers prayers.
Pride goes before a fall: I was bursting with it, so why wouldn't the
crash be hard?
I regret none of it, for I learned a great deal about God after the
fact. I can look back on that time now without viewing it as a loss.
And you're right. One never knows just what God will lead one to do.
If ever I feel led to write again, I'll do so, hopefully with a bit
more maturity. Until then, all those tales of once upon a time will
stay in the closet right next to Sir Stick.
I do thank you for your words of encouragement though. It's nice to
hear from someone in your position.
:)
PS: Ah, I think you've fallen into a little trap, i.e., "...at least
in the realm of words." Tsk, tsk. I'll have you know, just before the
sun awakes, at least once a month, me and the Stick again race around
the block. On occasion, we've startled a few morning fairies
sprinkling dew over some roses, but other than that, it's been a clean
run.
(((((Judee)))))
Hugs back at ya.
Pap...perhaps I'll tell stories from the point-of-view of my body, as
in belly dancing. :)
I agree with Gyp on this.
JiRobbi
***
You're telling me you've never seen the story of _Alf La Waila Waila_
(1001 Nights) told by a quivering navel? You need to get out more.
:)
As to quivering female navels, I'll just walk right on by that like the
lady I am. Yesiree.
But I can't let it pass...it's about a quivering navel quivering alone
that brings sheer joy to the quiverer. Tis no easy task.
You should take one of your potential quiverers to a Middle Eastern
restaurant. Bet you'd enjoy it. So would the potential. :)
Thank you. That was nice of you to say.
Take care.
Hmmm...I thought I sent a reply through, but it ain't showing up. So
I'll go for a twofer.
Of course you are jealous my wee love. But don't be dishearted. I was
referring to Studio as Stud for short. See, Stud is a very bad man who
enjoys baiting me. Inside joke.
I'd never two-time you. As for reading me...exactly what did you want
to read? Books or belly? Whoohoooo! lmao. I'm bad i'm bad i'm bad.