Sometime back I left off after describing my summer with a stopwatch, learning that summer how to walk on my hands, culminating in a 50 yard triumph. I failed, however, to detail a few important happenings that just might give you a better understanding of the roots of my independence. By and large, I spent my youth, most of it, unsupervised, and while I did play youth football, (Pop Warner, JFL), most of my experiences were unstructured as well. I will now recap the untold adventures of the summer of the handstand. I say recap because I might have already detailed a few and I'm just too lazy to look back to earlier posts.
Fireworks:
Beginning on the fourth of July and running to the first day of school, Disneyland, very close to us, in Anaheim, set off fireworks around 9:45pm. Don't ask me how I remember the exact time- I just do. Anyway, me and some neighborhood kids- not Rodney; he lived outside the neighborhood and couldn't be cavorting so late- found a way to climb up on the roof of a 2 story apartment, offering us a bird's eye view every night. If you're wondering how we could be out so late, you'll have to talk to my mom or continue to wonder because I haven't a clue. Remember, though, it didn't get dark until way past 9pm.
Learning to swim, guerrilla style:
Common amongst the neighborhood kids was to climb a fence or otherwise gain access to the swimming pool areas found in some of the nicer apartment complexes. I followed along a few times that summer, learning that early in the day was better than later, when a passel of tenants would run us right back out. Most times we never got to water. An important factoid here: I could not swim. A detail I should have shared with my buddies. I would not be here today if not for my catlike- drowned cat, almost- reflexes. The story goes: Early one weekday (I'm sure) morning we climbed a fence and found ourselves, 3 of us, inside the gates of a very nice apartment complex, alone except for an unattended swimming pool. We jumped in- me, of course, in the shallow end- the other guys cannonballing off the diving board, climbing out and repeating, all of us knowing our fun had a very short lifespan. I got out, rounding to the deep end to show my support only to have one of my friends walk casually behind me and shove me in. Nine ft. That's what I saw as I hit the water, flailing. I didn't inhale until I went under. My flailing increased. I surfaced and choked out the water I'd sucked in, sputtered for oxygen and, just before I re-submerged I was sure I saw the guy who pushed me in- laughing. Meanwhile, my arms and legs flipped and kicked, I came up and gulped air and somehow I made it to the side where I scooted, hand over hand, until my feet felt the bottom. About this time management was on the scene and we were kicked out.I think I threw up soon thereafter.
Oranges, weeds and Apple Beer:
We raided and explored an orange grove located behind a little grocery store down the block, climbing trees, picking oranges, stealing and trespassing. Turned out, the oranges were juicers, thin peels, ok taste but full of seeds. We did discover a profusion of these plants, topped with tiny yellow flowers. The stems, we found out, were juicy and sour. We ate a million of them. No doubt they had resisted the pesticides, possibly they were the product of DDT. Could it have been the root cause of my ALS? Maybe. We washed it all down with cans of Apple Beer, a soda product that we thought was both cool and decadent.
Roller skates and carports:
This girl, whose name I may never have known, let me try her roller skates, the kind that clipped onto your shoes, the kind with a key- like in the Melanie song- the kind with metal wheels, the kind that threatened to pop off at every seam in the sidewalk. I flopped a few times before I got the hang of it, soon finding out that downhill is much preferable to uphill, not long after finding a parking garage under construction, on a slope no less, fresh concrete and swoops downward connecting each stall, nearly seam free. Near the end I found a diagonal brace with my forehead. After pinwheeling off my feet, smacking my back and cracking my skull, I recovered with a new understanding of construction sites.
A bike and a parked car:
As briefly as possible I can tell you that being a boy and hitting the back of a parked car while riding your bike is uncomfortable bordering on agony. I can claim such experience on that same eventful summer.
I know I titled this post including something about horse bones and girlfriends. You'll have to wait on that.
Fireworks:
Beginning on the fourth of July and running to the first day of school, Disneyland, very close to us, in Anaheim, set off fireworks around 9:45pm. Don't ask me how I remember the exact time- I just do. Anyway, me and some neighborhood kids- not Rodney; he lived outside the neighborhood and couldn't be cavorting so late- found a way to climb up on the roof of a 2 story apartment, offering us a bird's eye view every night. If you're wondering how we could be out so late, you'll have to talk to my mom or continue to wonder because I haven't a clue. Remember, though, it didn't get dark until way past 9pm.
Learning to swim, guerrilla style:
Common amongst the neighborhood kids was to climb a fence or otherwise gain access to the swimming pool areas found in some of the nicer apartment complexes. I followed along a few times that summer, learning that early in the day was better than later, when a passel of tenants would run us right back out. Most times we never got to water. An important factoid here: I could not swim. A detail I should have shared with my buddies. I would not be here today if not for my catlike- drowned cat, almost- reflexes. The story goes: Early one weekday (I'm sure) morning we climbed a fence and found ourselves, 3 of us, inside the gates of a very nice apartment complex, alone except for an unattended swimming pool. We jumped in- me, of course, in the shallow end- the other guys cannonballing off the diving board, climbing out and repeating, all of us knowing our fun had a very short lifespan. I got out, rounding to the deep end to show my support only to have one of my friends walk casually behind me and shove me in. Nine ft. That's what I saw as I hit the water, flailing. I didn't inhale until I went under. My flailing increased. I surfaced and choked out the water I'd sucked in, sputtered for oxygen and, just before I re-submerged I was sure I saw the guy who pushed me in- laughing. Meanwhile, my arms and legs flipped and kicked, I came up and gulped air and somehow I made it to the side where I scooted, hand over hand, until my feet felt the bottom. About this time management was on the scene and we were kicked out.I think I threw up soon thereafter.
Oranges, weeds and Apple Beer:
We raided and explored an orange grove located behind a little grocery store down the block, climbing trees, picking oranges, stealing and trespassing. Turned out, the oranges were juicers, thin peels, ok taste but full of seeds. We did discover a profusion of these plants, topped with tiny yellow flowers. The stems, we found out, were juicy and sour. We ate a million of them. No doubt they had resisted the pesticides, possibly they were the product of DDT. Could it have been the root cause of my ALS? Maybe. We washed it all down with cans of Apple Beer, a soda product that we thought was both cool and decadent.
Roller skates and carports:
This girl, whose name I may never have known, let me try her roller skates, the kind that clipped onto your shoes, the kind with a key- like in the Melanie song- the kind with metal wheels, the kind that threatened to pop off at every seam in the sidewalk. I flopped a few times before I got the hang of it, soon finding out that downhill is much preferable to uphill, not long after finding a parking garage under construction, on a slope no less, fresh concrete and swoops downward connecting each stall, nearly seam free. Near the end I found a diagonal brace with my forehead. After pinwheeling off my feet, smacking my back and cracking my skull, I recovered with a new understanding of construction sites.
A bike and a parked car:
As briefly as possible I can tell you that being a boy and hitting the back of a parked car while riding your bike is uncomfortable bordering on agony. I can claim such experience on that same eventful summer.
I know I titled this post including something about horse bones and girlfriends. You'll have to wait on that.
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