A sip of the past

Keep in mind I am using real names of real people, be damned the ethics; these are my friends, my mentors, maybe my tormentors, and they all deserve recognition.

We rented a house in a middle class subdivision within Diamond Bar, a relatively new development nestled amongst the foothills of either Orange or Los Angeles county. I'm too lazy to research  which. As I remember, the single story ranch had 3 bedrooms, a 2 car garage to the left creating an "L" shape and a fenced in back yard incapable of containing our terrier mutt Chibisan.  The back yard, over a year and a half, was home to Chibi, for a brief time a German shepherd proficient at planting land mines, a box turtle that scratched at the patio door when he wanted to come in  and a nest or two of black widow spiders. 6th grade, it was, me,  my 2 sisters Tammy and Trudy- Tammy in 4th, Trudy in 1st- my mom and a guy, Tom Dowling, a Vietnam vet and aeronautical engineer, maybe only a draftsman, certainly a stone alcoholic who had a lot of cool knives, canteens and such, a camo jacket with his name on it that he gifted to me, a dog, maybe a turtle, livin' the life.

I cut the grass with a non motorized push mower. The job was a  lot easier before I forgot and left the thing outside to rust in a rainstorm. I assembled model cars with wheels that turned! only to soak them with lighter  fluid, set them afire and see how far they would roll before melting. A  guy gave me a 4 ft. bull snake. I talked Tammy into smuggling it under her shirt to my bedroom, where I fashioned a cardboard box into a terrarium, dropped the snake inside and closed the lid. The next  day, while      we  were at school, my mom met the snake in the hallway. As a consequence, the snake had to go, I caught hell and I got the snot knocked out of me as I slept when Tom came in late from a binge. I think he preferred beer during the day and whiskey at night, but likely any variety  would do, none would sate.

My finger is tired. Tomorrow I get to visit a place where I can try out eye control systems.  I can't wait.

During our time in the rental house my mom read HELTER SKELTER. I found it and read it at night under my covers,  with a flashlight. Highly recommended.