Oddly enough I really don’t remember much about any of my first days of school. The first day of high school???? Maybe I remember P.E. I kind of remember the days leading up to it. It was the first year I really wanted cool clothes. Well, I did want OP and Bolt stuff in Junior High but this was different. Mom took me to some place in Seal Beach…possibly the Shore Shop. So I got my rad Zeppelin and Britannia pants. Three pairs. One was kind of a dark pink and I said “Mom I can wear these with my new red shirt!” The metrosexual (in 1979!) proprietor just about passed a peach pit. “Nooo! You need a neutral color shirt!” He was right, of course. I never was good with colors.
Zep:
This was about the time Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door came out. I, along with fully half the student body bought mine. It was more or less the soundtrack for the Fall semester.
Geometry:
Math (plane and solid geometry) was first period…with Mr. Leonard. “If and only if!” One time he asked me a question but I couldn’t tell if it was actually me he was asking, or Dan W. who sat behind me, so I didn’t say anything. Damn, I hate that almost as much as getting to an intersection at the same time as someone who doesn’t remember that the person on the right has right of way. Usually it’s the person on the right who doesn’t remember and they wave you on, irritated, never realizing that they are being a total douche. So anyway Mr. Leonard said “I’m going to have to tap this person on the shoulder, I’m talking to YOU!” I probably didn’t know the answer anyway. He was cool though! Drove a dune buggy with flower stickers on it. . .Geometry…the concepts just didn’t sink in until I had trig in college. That I aced.
PE:
Second period was P.E with Coach Brody.Steve A. was there, that big guy who used to meditate on the tennis court was there, Randy J. was there, Gigi B. was there, Diane G. was there. They had Cactus Cooler in the locker room. We played softball and tennis. It was rather enjoyable on cold mornings. Dolphin shorts.
My mouth:
It was a trippy time. We used to eat in the cafeteria until we had a problem with a group of kids on the other side. Gerald and some other kid. Steve W. was there too…more on him. At some point one of them threw an orange slice and hit me. I looked over and yelled “FUCKHEAD!!!” It’s rare that I do something that spontaneous, but when I do it gets me into trouble. So I went back to eating. All of a sudden the sun was eclipsed and Steve W. was there looming over me…he was a big basketball player, albeit walking with a cane at the time. He did that quiet scary voice thing “Did you say something?” Uhuhnowellijustsaidfuckwhentheorangehitmethatsall! “You didn’t say anything?” NoIjustsaidfuckbecausetheorangehitmeiwasnttayinganythingtoyouguys…and he left.
Later that day the kid whose name I don’t remember told John that he was going to fight me after school. John said, "Hey man, how come you can say shit to us and we can’t to you?" Apparently he said “that’s just the way it is man” Well, they never did come after me.
Later that day the kid whose name I don’t remember told John that he was going to fight me after school. John said, "Hey man, how come you can say shit to us and we can’t to you?" Apparently he said “that’s just the way it is man” Well, they never did come after me.
English:
English with Mr. Schroeder was cool. Jeannie with her really short Dolphin shorts. Then there was this dude: James S. He wore the same shirt every day…hardly said a word. Usually forgot a pen or just used like the inside cartridge of a pen to write. One time when we were picking parts of a play to read and Mr. Schroeder was writing them on the board, James went to the board and put “James: Stuntman” He seemed extra happy for the rest of the day…chuckling to himself the whole time. One other time we were discussing a poem or something that had to do with war or violence or killing. James, for the first and only time, said something: “I think the point is about killing in general whether its with guns or bombs” [Teacher “good point”] “or knives” [“yes”] “or gas” [“fine”] I think the guy was just one of those people that can’t hang with mainstream society. Super sensitive and with no internal defenses against the usual confusing high school peer pressure conformist adolescent sexuality bullshit. He wasn’t there for our junior year. Wonder what happened to him I hope he’s ok.
John and Cory:
Sometime during that year John became acquainted with Cory (Corleen, a girl) when they were both in the local police Explorer Scouts. I was in it for a while in ninth grade but quit just before they went to the academy for a weekend. I wasn’t really good about sticking with new endeavors plus I think it was interfering with Dungeons and Dragons sessions. Well, which would you choose? Total nerd…(but at least I wasn’t a fascist! J/k!).
John and Me, Cory and Marla:
At one dance John and I were hanging with Cory and Marla and John said “Let’s go into the bathroom and totally rub our eyes and see if the girls think we’re stoned!” So we went into the bathroom and totally rubbed our eyes and the girls thought we were stoned. Good story.
Me and Cory:
Cory had a friend named Marla we kind of hung with them at dances. At some point I was railroaded into asking Cory to go steady and we hadn’t even gone out or spent any time together or even really knew each other. She declined but was sweet about it, and I was more or less relieved and embarrassed at the same time.
Me, Holly, Stephanie, Eric, John and the other girls:
Eric met this other girl, Gale, in driver’s ed (I think) and she happened to be a friend of Cory’s. Gale had a sister Debbie and Debbie had a friend: Holly. John kind of dug Marla, Eric had the hots for Gale. I don’t think anything came of either. So one evening this whole group (and me) was at Shakey’s which was one of the main hangouts. I don’t really remember too much about it except that I was wearing my blue terry-cloth shirt. You know those ones from the late 70s/early 80s. Shit, what was the brand? It had the name on the sleeve. Pretty popular at the time. It was like the only year where I was really in sync with the popular style. By the time preppy style came back I was so out of it. Although I did wear topsiders BECAUSE I COULD ACTUALLY SAIL YOU POSERS! The other thing I remember was Holly ripping up the upholstery on the chair she was sitting on. It was kind of trippy but pretty cool. I enjoyed watching her do this. Yeahhh.
So a few days or maybe a few weeks later John told me that he heard that some girl liked me. He said it probably wasn’t someone from “the group.” Well, he hoped it wasn’t because he was starting to like Holly. We knew it wasn’t Cory, Marla, Gail or Debbie. I don’t know how or why we knew this but we did. Well it turned out to be Holly…the chair ripper. As usual I was slow on the uptake until someone gave me her number and said, "goddammit, will you call her!?" So I did and was super nervous (first girlfriend). She was listening to Queen’s Night at the Opera (I could hear it in the background) “Love of My Life” was the song (not bad n’est pas?) so we talked about Queen (I had been a fan since seventh grade) and I don’t remember what else. Maybe tennis.
I was briefly on the tennis team before getting cut. While we were still playing each other to find out our rankings I was actually put in as #1 frosh-soph (where the hell does frosh come from?) so I had to play the #1 frosh-soph guy from some other school and got my ass kicked. I had never had tennis lessons before so actually I did pretty good for having taught myself. I used to play Rob a lot and this guy from my French class My (pronounced Me). My (he’s Vietnamese) was cool. One time when we were playing at Laurel Park he hit this totally hard serve and it hit me right in the dick. NOT THE NUTS, THE DICK. That hurt like a sonofabitch. And it was immediate pain, not the wait for it…wait for it…slowly ascending pain that you get when you are hit in the balls. So ever since then, at least for Rob and I, getting hit in the package has been known as a My T… in his honor.
The tennis team was a weird mix of folks like Steve A (he wasn’t weird, I said a weird MIX) who had been in my class since kindergarten and probably playing tennis for at least as long. He was killer. I remember in PE the semester before he would just toy with me/us (usually doubles). You know, just volleying. Then when he couldn’t stand the slow play he would wind up and send this gnarly shot over the net. I would literally see the dust (smoke?) burst off the ball. Thank God he never sent one into the old schlong or my entire twig and berry collection would have re-ascended never to return. There were also some punk guys from the band The Vandals and a rather large collection of nerds like me…who could, however, play better than me. The coach looked like the Marlboro Man. I pretty much lost to everyone on our team. Not badly to everyone, but I just could never finish. I often won the first couple games (sets? I forget which is which. no, I think it’s games) and promptly lost a bunch in a row, then sometimes won one more.
So while all this was going on I was figuring out the relationship with Holly. She was a year older than me and had had a few boyfriends, so this disparity made for some difficulty and misunderstanding. I felt the need (after the first call) to call her like every night which must have seemed a bit desperate. However, aside from playing tennis with her once, I wasn’t really good about arranging actual dates until a school dance came around. It was a lot of fun at the dances though. Some pretty good live bands came through…I think some were from our school. Still playing mostly 70s standards but there were punked out kids pogo-ing and stuff too. It was weird.
Now this is where things started to get complicated…at least for me. It was after the first dance I went to with Holly and before the second. I got a phone call one afternoon from a girl called Stephanie S. I didn’t know her but apparently she had sixth period PE too (was she on the girls' tennis team?) and had seen me and was smitten. She asked if I had a girlfriend and I said yes. She asked who it was and I told her and she said “shit!” and hung up the phone. She called back a few minutes later apologizing and asked how serious it was and I said something to the effect of “serious” and she implied that that really sucked because Holly was mean to her. So not only was I already with someone but I was with a nemesis of hers. Now I don’t think I actually knew who she was at the time. I don’t recall if I had someone point her out to me or what. As it turned out she was part of the punk crowd and hung out with Steve Pfauter and Joe Escalante of the Vandals (they are public figures so I use their whole names). She was cute. The punk look worked for her.
The relationship between her and Holly was confirmed one day at school when she walked by Holly and me and Holly whispered “I hate her!” I played innocent and said “Who, that punk girl?” “Yes!” I really should have inquired further as I have no idea what caused their mutual antagonism. I don’t know if it went back to junior high if they both went to Pine. Holly did but I don’t know about Stephanie.
Some time after this, things started to go weird with Holly. She became distant not really talking to me at school or on and the phone. I thought she was seeing, or interested in, someone else, specifically this guy named Kevin. As it turned out he was seeing Holly's sister but I thought it was over. I had kind of made peace with the situation and then Holly left me a letter in my locked saying how sorry she was and that she was “figuring things out” and that she wasn’t a nice person when she did this. In retrospect, she was a 16 year old high-maintenance girl…I was a confused 15-year-old and we had widely different amounts of relationship experience. 'Nuff said. Well, in the meantime, Stephanie had noticed that Holly and I weren’t together much at school and called me up again. I had certainly never been pursued like that before! Unfortunately, she called just as things were getting better again with Holly. Stephanie asked if Holly was going to the upcoming dance with me. At that time I actually didn’t know. Holly wasn’t sure if she was going to be there or something so I told Stephanie as much and she said “well, she probably won’t go so can you go with me?” This was more of a temptation than before as I thought the relationship with Holly was still unstable. But I didn’t see how it could be done. What if Holly could go (as it happened she did)? And if she didn’t, word would certainly get around and I definitely didn’t want that kind of drama…arrgh. Well Stephanie took it better this time and said she would maybe try again. I said “sure!” ERROR ERROR…I should have asked for her phone number!!! My brain really has a habit of sabotaging me a crucial moments.
The dance with Holly was fine as it turned out and all was good. This was shortly before the beginning of my (and John, Eric, Jeff’s) criminal record, but that will be a separate story. Holly by the beginning of summer ended up moving to her mom’s house in La Verne and I didn’t hear from her again until the next Fall. Never did actually see her again…Stephanie never called back although I called every number with her last name in the phone book trying to track her down…that was a lot of damn numbers, she had a verrrry common last name…but it was for naught. Why did so many girls who were interested in me have such common last names? That totally worked against my self-sabotaging brain.
In junior high this girl Tina liked me in 7th and the beginning of 8th grade. I wanted to ask her to the 8th grade Christmas dance and kept putting it off until like the day before whereupon I called every number with her last name in it again to no avail. She also had a super common last name. I went to the dance anyway hoping to meet her there, but she was with some other dude. I still probably could have salvaged the situation after the dance but I thought I had totally blown it.
So a few days or maybe a few weeks later John told me that he heard that some girl liked me. He said it probably wasn’t someone from “the group.” Well, he hoped it wasn’t because he was starting to like Holly. We knew it wasn’t Cory, Marla, Gail or Debbie. I don’t know how or why we knew this but we did. Well it turned out to be Holly…the chair ripper. As usual I was slow on the uptake until someone gave me her number and said, "goddammit, will you call her!?" So I did and was super nervous (first girlfriend). She was listening to Queen’s Night at the Opera (I could hear it in the background) “Love of My Life” was the song (not bad n’est pas?) so we talked about Queen (I had been a fan since seventh grade) and I don’t remember what else. Maybe tennis.
I was briefly on the tennis team before getting cut. While we were still playing each other to find out our rankings I was actually put in as #1 frosh-soph (where the hell does frosh come from?) so I had to play the #1 frosh-soph guy from some other school and got my ass kicked. I had never had tennis lessons before so actually I did pretty good for having taught myself. I used to play Rob a lot and this guy from my French class My (pronounced Me). My (he’s Vietnamese) was cool. One time when we were playing at Laurel Park he hit this totally hard serve and it hit me right in the dick. NOT THE NUTS, THE DICK. That hurt like a sonofabitch. And it was immediate pain, not the wait for it…wait for it…slowly ascending pain that you get when you are hit in the balls. So ever since then, at least for Rob and I, getting hit in the package has been known as a My T… in his honor.
The tennis team was a weird mix of folks like Steve A (he wasn’t weird, I said a weird MIX) who had been in my class since kindergarten and probably playing tennis for at least as long. He was killer. I remember in PE the semester before he would just toy with me/us (usually doubles). You know, just volleying. Then when he couldn’t stand the slow play he would wind up and send this gnarly shot over the net. I would literally see the dust (smoke?) burst off the ball. Thank God he never sent one into the old schlong or my entire twig and berry collection would have re-ascended never to return. There were also some punk guys from the band The Vandals and a rather large collection of nerds like me…who could, however, play better than me. The coach looked like the Marlboro Man. I pretty much lost to everyone on our team. Not badly to everyone, but I just could never finish. I often won the first couple games (sets? I forget which is which. no, I think it’s games) and promptly lost a bunch in a row, then sometimes won one more.
So while all this was going on I was figuring out the relationship with Holly. She was a year older than me and had had a few boyfriends, so this disparity made for some difficulty and misunderstanding. I felt the need (after the first call) to call her like every night which must have seemed a bit desperate. However, aside from playing tennis with her once, I wasn’t really good about arranging actual dates until a school dance came around. It was a lot of fun at the dances though. Some pretty good live bands came through…I think some were from our school. Still playing mostly 70s standards but there were punked out kids pogo-ing and stuff too. It was weird.
Now this is where things started to get complicated…at least for me. It was after the first dance I went to with Holly and before the second. I got a phone call one afternoon from a girl called Stephanie S. I didn’t know her but apparently she had sixth period PE too (was she on the girls' tennis team?) and had seen me and was smitten. She asked if I had a girlfriend and I said yes. She asked who it was and I told her and she said “shit!” and hung up the phone. She called back a few minutes later apologizing and asked how serious it was and I said something to the effect of “serious” and she implied that that really sucked because Holly was mean to her. So not only was I already with someone but I was with a nemesis of hers. Now I don’t think I actually knew who she was at the time. I don’t recall if I had someone point her out to me or what. As it turned out she was part of the punk crowd and hung out with Steve Pfauter and Joe Escalante of the Vandals (they are public figures so I use their whole names). She was cute. The punk look worked for her.
The relationship between her and Holly was confirmed one day at school when she walked by Holly and me and Holly whispered “I hate her!” I played innocent and said “Who, that punk girl?” “Yes!” I really should have inquired further as I have no idea what caused their mutual antagonism. I don’t know if it went back to junior high if they both went to Pine. Holly did but I don’t know about Stephanie.
Some time after this, things started to go weird with Holly. She became distant not really talking to me at school or on and the phone. I thought she was seeing, or interested in, someone else, specifically this guy named Kevin. As it turned out he was seeing Holly's sister but I thought it was over. I had kind of made peace with the situation and then Holly left me a letter in my locked saying how sorry she was and that she was “figuring things out” and that she wasn’t a nice person when she did this. In retrospect, she was a 16 year old high-maintenance girl…I was a confused 15-year-old and we had widely different amounts of relationship experience. 'Nuff said. Well, in the meantime, Stephanie had noticed that Holly and I weren’t together much at school and called me up again. I had certainly never been pursued like that before! Unfortunately, she called just as things were getting better again with Holly. Stephanie asked if Holly was going to the upcoming dance with me. At that time I actually didn’t know. Holly wasn’t sure if she was going to be there or something so I told Stephanie as much and she said “well, she probably won’t go so can you go with me?” This was more of a temptation than before as I thought the relationship with Holly was still unstable. But I didn’t see how it could be done. What if Holly could go (as it happened she did)? And if she didn’t, word would certainly get around and I definitely didn’t want that kind of drama…arrgh. Well Stephanie took it better this time and said she would maybe try again. I said “sure!” ERROR ERROR…I should have asked for her phone number!!! My brain really has a habit of sabotaging me a crucial moments.
The dance with Holly was fine as it turned out and all was good. This was shortly before the beginning of my (and John, Eric, Jeff’s) criminal record, but that will be a separate story. Holly by the beginning of summer ended up moving to her mom’s house in La Verne and I didn’t hear from her again until the next Fall. Never did actually see her again…Stephanie never called back although I called every number with her last name in the phone book trying to track her down…that was a lot of damn numbers, she had a verrrry common last name…but it was for naught. Why did so many girls who were interested in me have such common last names? That totally worked against my self-sabotaging brain.
In junior high this girl Tina liked me in 7th and the beginning of 8th grade. I wanted to ask her to the 8th grade Christmas dance and kept putting it off until like the day before whereupon I called every number with her last name in it again to no avail. She also had a super common last name. I went to the dance anyway hoping to meet her there, but she was with some other dude. I still probably could have salvaged the situation after the dance but I thought I had totally blown it.
Post-script: The next year Stephanie wasn’t at school. I thought I saw her early that fall with darker hair but I think it must have been her sister, Skipper. I say this because their picture was in the LA Times in a feature on punk and new wave. Skipper, Stephanie, and two other girls were pictured in the Starwood nightclub in Hollywood. Stephanie still had bleached-blond hair and Skipper had (dyed) dark hair. I didn’t see Skipper at all after that either. 30-years (!) later I found this picture online. It left me with some ambiguous feelings. I am doing graduate work in history and my main area of interest is Cold-War era culture in the U.S. and Europe. This, of course, encompasses 1980s Los Angeles and so part of me is really pissed at my 15-year old self for not making sure I was able to get back in contact with her.
For one, as I said before…she was really cute. Second, I could have had direct experience with the last days of the classic era Hollywood/LA punk scene. It would probably have led to much more interesting concerts than Joe Perry/Brad Whitford-less Aerosmith or Dio-era Black Sabbath (tho’ I kind of enjoyed that show). Ok, we did see some good stuff. We saw X, the Blasters, Ian Hunter, The Alarm several times some of the Paisley Underground bands, Wailing Souls, Burning Spear, U2, Nightranger (ok, they sucked, but at least it was free!) Quiet Riot (I know, I know, plus I definitely lost a few hz hearing at that concert). Yes, I could have gone to the Starwood et al on my own or with Rob but we weren’t really familiar with that music except for X and there is nothing like familiarizing yourself with music in order to align yourself with a specific girl’s taste. I mean I wouldn’t get into Journey or Bryan Adams to impress a girl…I do have standards…but a more rebellious style? Sure. A hot metal chick could definitely have gotten me into the Tygers of Pantang or Norwegian Death Metal.
For one, as I said before…she was really cute. Second, I could have had direct experience with the last days of the classic era Hollywood/LA punk scene. It would probably have led to much more interesting concerts than Joe Perry/Brad Whitford-less Aerosmith or Dio-era Black Sabbath (tho’ I kind of enjoyed that show). Ok, we did see some good stuff. We saw X, the Blasters, Ian Hunter, The Alarm several times some of the Paisley Underground bands, Wailing Souls, Burning Spear, U2, Nightranger (ok, they sucked, but at least it was free!) Quiet Riot (I know, I know, plus I definitely lost a few hz hearing at that concert). Yes, I could have gone to the Starwood et al on my own or with Rob but we weren’t really familiar with that music except for X and there is nothing like familiarizing yourself with music in order to align yourself with a specific girl’s taste. I mean I wouldn’t get into Journey or Bryan Adams to impress a girl…I do have standards…but a more rebellious style? Sure. A hot metal chick could definitely have gotten me into the Tygers of Pantang or Norwegian Death Metal.
The problem is that societal/cultural developments and movements really only interest me once they are in the past. It’s only retroactively that the late 70s/ early 80s hold this fascination for me. I was more into the 60s and earlier 70s at the time. Until I have a historical context with which to analyze a particular scene I’m not really interested. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy music that is contemporary, I do. But music to me is more than just the music itself. It is a part of a cultural matrix (“The matrix is a point of ceaseless input and output, a web of intersecting, crisscrossing impulses always in productive transit.” Houston A. Baker Jr. Blues, Ideology and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory ) that involves politics, economics, local and world events and greater artistic movements. This matrix cannot be fully understood until a certain amount of time has passed so that it lies within the context of its future as well as its past. I am thus doomed (Really? I am Doomed? Like Prometheus is doomed to have his liver eaten out by an eagle every day for eternity? Jeez, talk about overstating!) to live with my back to the future always looking behind for meaning and artistic fulfillment. Maybe I would have been hit with a bottle at a gig or something and suffered brain damage or death and that’s why fate intervened and prevented Stephanie and I from ever getting together. Who knows?
The arrest:
There was another group get-together at Shakey’s sometime later that spring. I think it was a Saturday night. I don’t think Holly was there but the other girls were. And those girls ended up leaving early leaving me John, Eric and Jeff alone and behind. Waah! For some damn reason we decided to spend the rest of the evening exploring the “abandoned” building up Los Alamitos Blvd. Big mistake. We walked up the street to the building and tried the front door. John rammed his shoulder into it but it didn’t budge. Then we went around the alley in the back and tried to open the gate type door of the rear entrance. John and Jeff found a metal bar and tried to pry it open. I don’t recall how long we had been there at this point but I looked behind me and saw a head peeking around a corner from the house behind us. I said to the guys “Hey some neighbors are watching, we better go!” so we started to leave, heard someone yell “Stop or I’ll shoot!!” and we took off running back to the boulevard.
And we were met with three cop cars, lights shining on us and four or five cops with guns drawn facing us down. And down we went on the ground, face down. And I looked up after a second and was met with “keep your head down!!” Then I heard “get your head up!” So I looked up and saw a cop holding Jeff’s head up by his hair, showing him his shotgun and yelling at him “Don’t you know this could blow your fucking head off!” What could Jeff say? “Yes sir!!!” And then to me “Get your head down!!!” “Shit” I just kept saying “shit” under my breath. John was next to me and thought I was calling him a dick. After searching us and taking out keys and wallets they took us, two by two, into the cop cars and to the police station. We were fully interrogated, fingerprinted and had our mug shots taken. Mine actually looked pretty good! While the cop was fingerprinting me he made like walk and stay parallel/even with him as he did each finger and hand. At one point I got a little close and he said “You don’t have to buttfuck me, just stay alongside!”
Ok.
They put me and John, cuffed behind, in this locked room. Eric and Jeff actually got the cell. Then they interrogated each of us separately. John and I could see Eric while he was being questioned. Every time the cop wasn’t looking, Eric would look at us and give a wave and a shit-eating grin. That’s so Eric. While John was being questioned I slipped my cuffs from the back to the front. Well, they were pinching in the back! The cops apologized for the inconvenience. Then we had to face our parents. I don’t remember too much about that except Eric’s dad asking if they could keep us there overnight. Eric kind of wanted to. He’s such an adventurer! Oh yeah, his dad also asked if we had been drinking. The cops said no, but said they smelled pizza on our breath. Apparently John had burped during his fingerprinting and the pizza made itself known. Mmm Shakey’s!
Oh yeah, the building was not abandoned. It was a welding shop with all kinds of equipment and shit. We were charged with attempted burglary. I guess they thought we were going to carry welding equipment home to fence on foot. No, once they realized we were 15 year-old kids they put us through the ringer as a sort of scared straight thing. We weren’t really of a criminal mind anyway so it didn’t matter. Though I guess I was taking a risk every time I bought and/or smoked pot before I was 18. Especially when I bought it from (another) Eric at the donut shop where I worked during high school. Hello!!! Donuts???!!! Cops???!!!
Slippage:
Two stories. This, I think, says something about humor and the instinctive human response. One day I was walking across campus on the way to math class…still geometry with Mr. Leonard. When I was almost at the building I totally slipped on a banana peel. Yes, I really did. No, this is not a joke. As this was in between classes, there were tons of students out and about. Now, this is the classic move in physical comedy, right? So laughter can be expected, right? Especially in a freakin’ high school! Guess what? Nobody laughed! In fact only one person said anything at all. This one guy said. ”Dude, are you alright? I didn’t think that happened in real life.”
One other time I was walking to class behind the multipurpose room and I stepped in a muddy patch. I slipped and slipped, but through a major contortive effort I managed to stay upright. There was hardly anyone there…hardly. Just three girls. Jody was one, I don’t remember the others. Now, I didn’t even fall, remember? I remained heroically un-prone. So, do you think they laughed? Hell yes they did! Robustly! Heartily! What the hell! The moral: If life puts obstacles in your path, just go ahead and quietly fall on your ass. It draws much less attention than the arm-flailing and pinwheeling required to maintain your equilibrium. One additional note: None of my friends were there to witness either act. Had they been, great hilarity would have ensued regardless.
