My Childhood Memories

One of the first childhood memories I clearly recall occured on a fine summer Saturday.

There I was in my high chair, enjoying the smell of the Cuban cigar I was gonna light while sipping some fine single malt scotch.

My mother, father and grandparents were waiting patiently for the premier of Lawrence Welk on TV.

It was July 2, 1955 and I was looking forward to the Lawrence Welk Show myself, in fact I watch to this day simply because it brings back some very fond childhood memories such as this one I'm sharing with you now.

In order for you to fully appreciate my childhood backround, picture "Dennis the Menace."

Have you got the visualization yet?

When I was just a young child, about 2 or 3, there was this little girl named Helen Temple. I guess she liked me, I don't recall, but evidently she did because she used to come over to play.

One day while she was over, I was playing in the dirt with my trucks and obviously said or did something she took offense at and she grabbed a small metal shovel and clobbered me in the eye.

Actually she clobbered me just above my eye and you can still see, even though it is barley visable, that I have the scar to this day.

Even at an early age I was quite the ladies man.

Obviously the episode with Miss Temple weighed upon my mind even several years down the road because according to the stories I have heard (I personally don't recall doing this) I kinda took my revenge.

Supposedly I saw their sprinkler on in the back yard and in those days our neighborhood was extremely safe from most threats so people used to leave without locking up and sometimes even without closing their doors, especially in summer. Well ...

Like I mentioned the sprinkler was on and the back door to their house happened to be wide open. Now, I was not sure if Mrs. Temple had done her house cleaning so I decided it might be neighborly if I helped her out. So ...

I took the sprinkler and put it inside the kitchen.

Now if you recall the water was ON.

I guess, from what I hear from the stories told, the Temples returned to a very soggy house and of course everyone blamed me.

I felt singled out, put upon.

Along about the same time our other neighbor Joanne was laying in her back yard catching some rays.

It was a very warm day and I thought perhaps she might enjoy some "cooling off." So ...

I ventured over and said: "Hi Joanne"

She of course said "hi" as well and I then mentioned: "Gosh it sure is warm."

"Yes, it is" she replied.

"I'll bet you'd sure like to cool off some?" I asked

That would be nice," she said and ...

Since I was more than happy to help I took the pitcher of ice water, that was sitting on the table next the the lounge chair she was laying on and, well, I poured it all over her.

I guess that helped to bring her body temp down some.

Being raised Catholic, I soon found my young ass in Catholic elementary school. And Catholic nuns used to LOOK kinda like penguins, especially if they were walking along in a group - you know 5 or 6 of them together? I mean check out the picture above and you can't help but see what I mean right?

I guess I was somewhat of a non-conformist and of course still had that lovable "Dennis the Menace" thing going. As a result ...

I drove the nuns simply crazy.

I, along with a couple other boys, would shoot spit wads and beans (through bean shooters) not only at the other students (mostly the girls) but at the nuns as well. We shot them at the boys too but the girls were more fun cuz they'd get so mad and throw a caniption fit.

There were three of us that hung out together in 4th grade (me, Rick and Clair).

We met each morning and walked to school.

Along the way there was this house and one day the other two challenged me.

They told me I didn't have the guts to chuck rocks at the front door.

Now we weren't "gangsters."

We didn't sell drugs, steal, or go out of our way to hurt people - we were simply full of mischief. You know, average shit-for-brains kids. Anyway ...

I took the challenge and chucked a rock at the door.

Bam!

It hit dead center and we ran like hell.

Next day, on the way to school, they challeneged me again, with the same house! So ...

I grabbed a rock, and, those lousy cowards took off running like bats outta hell as I chucked that rock.

That rock hit the door, the door flew open and this guy with a shotgun pops out, on to his porch and ...

KaBLAM!

I damn near shit my pants!

That was the first time I'd heard a weapon discharged in my direction. The guy shot over my head but I could still hear what sounded like a swarm of pissed off bees speeding through the air above me. And ...

My folks sure were not happy campers when they found out what I'd done. In fact, as it turned out ...

I was brought before the nuns and priest along with my parents and requested to spend some time away from school. You know, until I could become more Catholic-like and behave the way it was expected of me. I think that was also the first time my folks mentioned something about my possibility of attending military school (that wasn't a good thing in those days).

Now you might begin to think that I was an abused kid or maybe had piss-poor parents but nothing could be further from the truth.

Did I mention I was an only child?

I had parents who loved me totally, unconditionally and I had two sets of grandparents who thought the sun rose and set upon me.

If anything, I was spoiled rotten.

I actually had two teachers who were neither nuns nor priests while in grade school. One was Mr. Duffy but I can not for the life of me remember the womans name whom I believe taught me in 5th grade. But enough about school.

My favorite grandpa taught me to fish, shoot and hunt. His other son, my uncle Lime (Lime was a Marine, he's dead now) also spent a lot of time with me, hunting.

We went hunting for deer or elk and bar fights.

He was the one that liked a good bar fight, I was a little young for that.

I was a damn good shooter.

I could shoot the ass off of a fly at 100 yards.

Ok, so that's an exaggeration.

I couldn't even SEE a fly at 100 yards but I could put 5 rounds in the black at 200 and 300 yards with out a miss, and in groups so tight the holes were sometimes connected. It is the only thing I did incredibly well at 12 years of age. Oh wait ...

I was a damn good baseball player.

I played baseball and pitched a no-hitter once while on our school team.

I also started playing football in 4th grade, 2 years earlier.

I was a cub scout too. My mother was the den mother and she voluteered at school (probably to do penace for my behavior) but she had nothing to do with the baseball team and her and my dad (when he was in town) came to watch the games.

Then, my dad started getting sick.

He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, now called Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Along about that same time, I was at school one day and as usual making a pest of myself. I actually don't remember what I did to piss off Sister Theresa Mary so much (I really liked this nun. She was young and really hot) but she went into a caniption, took my desk and moved it out in the hall and told me to sit there and be quiet. She went back to the front of the class (the door was open so I could see and hear) and turned her back and proceeded to write on the chalkboard. So ...

I picked up my desk and moved back into class.

When she turned around and saw me, I thought she might have a seizure. Her face turned beet red, her big blue eyes flashed like lightning bolts, I swear I saw smoke billow from her ears and she proceeded to scream at me, something about being told to stay put in the hall.

Being very respectful of my elders I calmly stood up and said:

"Sister, my parents spend $500 per year for me to attend school here and that's just what I'm going to do!" And ...

Like a woman, she started to cry for gawd sake!

Well hell, I got in trouble with the priest and my folks for that too.

Did I mention I was gonna go to Catholic high school too?

Holy crap it is expensive to go to my high school now.

I think my parents paid less than $1000 per year but now it's outrageously high.

Tuition for 2009-2010?

$9,435

The University by the same name, which a lot of the high school grads attend is extremely high and ...

That is one of the reasons I joined the Marine Corps out of high school. I knew my folks could not afford to send me to the University or even another college. It just wasn't in the cards, even if they insisted it was. I can read cards pretty well and the hand that was dealt just didn't look like a winner to me, sort of like drawing to an inside strait. Anyway ...

I can only remember a few pranks but the priests were worse than the nuns in regards to punishment.

The nuns would sometimes rap us on the knuckles with a ruler but there was this priest at high school (he was the assistant principle) who had this specially made paddle. It looked to be about 2 feet long with a lead strip down the center and I had several occassions to whitness its sting first hand while grabbing my ankles.

But let me tell you about Mr. Grief ...

He was a Jesuit in training.

Mild mannered and meek, I should have never picked on him.

I never was a "bully", ever.

I just had this love of mischief and pulling pranks. One day I bought some Exlax or Feenamint, I don't recall which, but it looked like chiclets and I was able to get it to fit nicely into a peppermint flavored chiclets box and I knew that Mr. Grief loved to chew gum and well ...

I gave the "chiclets" to Mr. Grief at the beginning of class.

Our rest rooms at school, an all boys school at that time, had intercoms in the rest rooms (I had previously visited the principle's office and turned up the intercom volume).

I dare say it was a horribly funny and shocking display of sound that eminated from the restroom once Mr. Grief needed to visit it.