Whenever Jane needed weekend or overnight babysitting services, she called on Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl.
Even though Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl was Laurie and LeeAnn's relatives, they were around our neighborhood so often that we ALL called them Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl.
Grandma Mary and Grandma Pearl lived together in a house near Georgia Tech.
Grandma Mary was Jane's mother. She was a very sweet and quiet woman. She was a little feeble physically, but sharp as a tack mentally. Whenever she talked to us kids in the neighborhood, she actually talked TO us; not AT us. And she seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. She told us stories and we told stories to her.
Grandma Pearl was Grandma Mary's mother. She might have been old, but she was far from dead. She was feisty. In other words, Grandma Pearl didn't put up with ANY nonsense.
If you entrusted your children to the "tender" care of Grandma Pearl, you relinquished your parental rights. Translated, that meant that Grandma Pearl reserved the right to open up a major can of whoop a** on you if you crossed her. She thought nothing of going to town on your rear end Grandma Pearl style....with a hickory switch personally selected by none other than Grandma Pearl.
One of my dad's favorite things to do after supper was to go outside, sit in his lounge chair underneath the shade trees in our front yard, drink a coke, and read the paper. One of my favorite things to do was lay in the grass next to him and read the funny papers and attempt to work the crossword puzzle.
One night, my dad and I were sitting in the yard, totally engrossed in our papers. We heard the back door open across the street and Grandma Pearl call for LeeAnn. LeeAnn did not answer, so Grandma Pearl stepped outside and called a couple more times. Still no answer.
Grandma Pearl hollered over to my dad. "Ken, you haven't seen LeeAnn have you?"
"No," my dad answered. "But if I do see her I'll tell her you're looking for her."
Trying to be helpful, I piped up. "You know, she may be over at Missy's house. If they are inside, she probably can't hear you."
Grandma Pearl scrowled. "She better not be up there. She told me she was just going to ride her bike up and down the street. I guess I'd better call and find out."
I felt bad because I didn't mean to get LeeAnn in trouble.
Apparently, that's where LeeAnn had been, because shortly afterwards, she rode her bike onto her driveway and was promptly met by a p*ssed off Grandma Pearl.
"Why didn't you tell me where you were going?" asked Grandma Pearl.
"We weren't doing anything except watching TV" said LeeAnn.
"That's not what I asked you" said Grandma Pearl. "You should have asked."
"Well ok....now that you know where I was, can I go back?" asked LeeAnn.
Grandma Pearl said "No...It's getting late. It's almost time for you to come in and take a bath anyway. Come on in."
LeeAnn just looked at her. "Oh Grandma....come ON! It's still daylight. Let me go back."
Grandma Pearl was getting a little irritated. "LeeAnn, I SAID NO....and I MEAN NO. Now come on in the house."
LeeAnn was getting just as irritated. "But WHY? Why can't I go back?"
Grandma Pearl pulled out the answer that every parent has for that question. "Because I SAID so, that's why. Now GET IN THIS HOUSE.....NOW!"
By this time, both my dad and I had long since put down our papers to watch this standoff.
LeeAnn stared for a minute at Grandma Pearl. She got off of her bicycle and slowly walked towards Grandma Pearl. She stopped, then took her bike, gave it a slight shove and it rolled towards the carport. She stood there for a minute staring Grandma Pearl down.
Grandma Pearl said "Come on, let's go."
LeeAnn said "No."
"What?" asked Grandma Pearl.
My dad looked at me and said "Did LeeAnn just say no?"
"That's what I thought she said" I replied. I was actually stunned...and somewhat in awe of LeeAnn's bravery.
LeeAnn just stared at Grandma Pearl. "I said no. I'm going back down to Missy's."
Grandma Pearl was royally p*ssed at that point. She walked over towards LeeAnn and as she passed one of the shrubs in the front yard she selected a switch.
"LeeAnn, I've had it. I'm fixin' to wear you out."
"Oh yeah?" LeeAnn shot back. "Well, first you have to CATCH me!"
She then proceeded to run all over the front yard. She'd run up towards Grandma Pearl and just when she was in arm's length of Grandma Pearl, she'd run away.
Grandma Pearl was beyond p*ssed. That's when LeeAnn REALLY did it.
She turned around and stared at Grandma Pearl. She stretched her arms out to either side, them put her hands up to her ears and wiggled her fingers. She started shaking her rear end from left to right. "Na Na Ni Na Na....you can't catch me."
At this point the spectacle was so funny, that both my dad and I started to laugh....but not loud enough for Grandma Pearl to hear lest she decide to take a stroll across the street and beat us.
LeeAnn began running through the front yard again and singing her little song at the top of her lungs.
Grandma Pearl retreated to the house. LeeAnn saw my dad and I sitting in the front yard, so she skipped over to visit.
My dad looked at LeeAnn and said "Lightning, you're in big trouble. Grandma Pearl is MAD!" (Lightning was my dad's nickname for LeeAnn; her nickname for my dad was Thunder.)
LeeAnn just laughed. "I ain't scared of her. She's ain't gonna do nuthin'."
"I don't know" my dad said. "She looked awful mad to me. You better go home and tell her you're sorry."
"Sorry for what?" LeeAnn asked. "I was just up at Missy's watchin' TV. We weren't doin' anything."
"I'm talking about running all over the yard like you were doing," my dad told her.
"Well, I HAD to run...did you see that switch she had?"
My dad laughed and said "Yeah, I saw it. I also saw her take it in the house with her, so you KNOW she's waiting on you. But she didn't get that switch until you told her no. If you had just done what she said in the first place, you'd be ok. You better get back over there....she's waiting."
LeeAnn said "Well she's gonna have a long wait."
My dad said "Well just what are you planning on doing? It's going to be dark soon."
"I don't know" LeeAnn said. "I'll figure something out."
LeeAnn and my dad continued to talk and eventually it got dark. From across the street, we heard Grandma Pearl tell Grandma Mary and Laurie good night. We heard her say to Grandma Mary "If little Miss LeeAnn comes home tonight, you tell her that I haven't forgotten about this and I'm going to wear her butt out tomorrow."
LeeAnn whispered to my dad "That's what I was waiting on. She's going to bed. Grandma Mary ain't goin' to do anything and by tomorrow Grandma Pearl will have forgotten all about it."
My dad said, "Well, maybe....but I doubt it. But you better go on home, just the same. You can tell me how it turns out tomorrow."
LeeAnn sighed. "Ok, Thunder....I'll see you tomorrow. Bye 'Nette. (She never called me Annette, she always dropped the first syllable. Until I met Tom, she was the only one that had ever called me that.)
"Bye LeeAnn; I'll see you tomorrow," I said. LeeAnn skipped across the street.
My dad and I continued to sit in the yard listening to the crickets. The night air was cooler now, and I had a feeling that something was about to happen.
I watched as LeeAnn slowly opened the back door, and quietly sneaked into the house.
Suddenly, the living room light flipped on and we saw the shadow of Grandma Pearl standing in the middle of the room....along with the faint outline of a switch. It was something straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
"Uh-oh..." I looked at my dad. "Grandma Pearl LIED! She didn't go to bed. LeeAnn's gonna get it now!"
"First off," my dad said, "Grandma Pearl did not lie. She was actually pretty smart. Secondly, don't you think LeeAnn deserved it? What do you that I would have done if that had been you or one of your brothers?"
"Well....I guess if I had done that I guess I have to find another place to live because I don't know if I would have come home."
"Well...then I guess you'd better not ever do anything like that" my dad said. "We'd better go on in the house now. I gotta get up early tomorrow to go to work. Let's go."
We gathered up the newspapers, my dad folded up the lounge chair, and we walked towards the house listening to the sounds of crickets, a hickory switch flailing through the air, LeeAnn hollerin' at Grandma Pearl that she'd had enough, and Grandma Pearl punctuating ever swat with "No....You.....Haven't.....You....Better....Mind....Me....From.....Now...On.....Do.....You
....Understand....Me?"
I didn't stay to hear the rest. I already knew how that switch lecture went because we had all had experienced it ourselves at one time or another.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Laurie and The Rock Star
This is by far one of the craziest adventures involving Laurie. I've met a lot of idiots in my life, but I swear Laurie just took the cake.
To understand Laurie, you have to understand the psyche of Laurie. In the prior story, I told you a little about her mom. Allow me to share a little more.
Since all of the moms at that time were stay at home moms, they periodically did things as a group. Evelyn, another neighbor, was a licensed cosmetologist. Once a month, they met at a neighbor's house and Evelyn would cut and style everyone's hair while the rest of the ladies "visited". ("visit" = gossip.)
At one time, they all belonged to a bowling league, so that provided another opportunity to have fun and "visit".
During one of these "visiting" sessions, somehow the conversation got shifted to what we (all of us kids) were interested in and what we might be doing for a living later on in life. I was probably about 13 at this point in time.
Jane (Laurie's mom) volunteered this info to the other ladies. She said that she had already told Laurie that when she grew up, she should look into being a (are you sitting down for this?) a call girl. Jane said that if Laurie was able to find the right sugardaddy, he'd put her up in a nice apartment, buy her nice clothes, and she'd be set for life for doing relatively little. She laughed as she said all of this, but it absolutely floored everyone else in the room.
This was WAY before Reba McEntire had even remotely THOUGHT about recording that song "Fancy".
After Jane left, all of the ladies looked at each other and Evelyn asked "Surely she was not serious.....was she?"
Marie said "Well, you know how Jane is, you see how she dresses, and she's got that dumb and helpless act down to a science. I wouldn't be surprised if she was serious."
So that sort of sets up the story of "Laurie and The Rock Star." I was about 21 at this time....Laurie would have been about 20. It was at this time, my mom told me about the call girl episode. After hearing about that incident, this story made a little more sense.
One afternoon, I was in my bedroom watching TV when my friend Greg called. He said "What do you know about Laurie getting kidnapped?"
I said (thinking this was a joke) "I give up. What DO I know about Laurie getting kidnapped?"
Greg said, "No, I'm serious. LeeAnn (Laurie's sister) is coming over to spend the night with Missy (Greg's sister.) Her mom just called up here telling my mom that she needed to send LeeAnn up here to spend the night because she (Jane) had to drive down to Savannah to pick Laurie up because she had been kidnapped!"
I said "WHAT???? Are you SERIOUS?"
"Yep! You didn't know anything about it? You live across the street from them." Greg asked.
"No! I'll call you back."
I went in and told my mom the news. She was just as shocked as I was. About that time, we saw Jane's car backing out of the driveway and LeeAnn walking up the street with her suitcase.
I told my mom I was going to see what I could find out from LeeAnn. I grabbed my bike and followed LeeAnn up the street.
When I caught up to her, I asked her what had happened. She said she really wasn't sure herself. All she knew was that somehow, Laurie called them from the police station in Savannah and she must have been kidnapped. As soon as her mom got there, she was going to call LeeAnn and let her know what was going on.
On the surface, the story sounded odd. But then again, this WAS Laurie, so it really wasn't so odd after all.
I accompanied LeeAnn to Greg's house. When LeeAnn went back to Missy's room, I told Greg what LeeAnn told me. Greg said as soon as Jane called, he would call me and tell me what he found out.
The next morning, Greg gave me a call and told me to come over because the story was just NOT to be believed.
Here's what SUPPOSEDLY happened.
At this time, Laurie was working as a dancer (more on that later) at a club downtown. She was waiting on a ride (not sure if this was a ride home or...ok I'll hush.) Anyway she was sitting at the bar and a man came over and began talking to her.
All Laurie knew was that he flashed a lot of cash around and he introduced himself to her as "the lead singer of Pink Floyd."
I started laughing at this point and asked Greg to just quit and tell me what REALLY happened.
He said "I swear this is EXACTLY what LeeAnn told me after her mom called."
I told Greg that I could just imagine the scenario. "Hey. I'm the lead singer of Pink Floyd. You can call me Pink.....what's your name?" "Hey Pink...my name's Laurie. Wow...is that all your money? Will you buy me some stuff? I really need me some boots." (Laurie had a thing for boots.)
Greg continued with the story.
The guy told Laurie that he would call his limo to come and drive her home. He bought her a couple of drinks while they waited.
The next thing she knew, she woke up in a hotel room...alone. Her new "friend" was no where to be found, when she looked out the window, she knew she wasn't in Atlanta, but she didn't know where she was.
She went downstairs and talked to the desk clerk. The clerk, thinking she was on drugs or something, decided to call the cops. The cops picked her up, talked to her to see if they could figure what what happened, then told her to call her mom.
When Jane got there, Laurie told the story to her. In the meantime, the cops had already figured out that something really stunk. Pink Floyd was not touring. They were not even in the country. But...just for the heck of it, one of the cops went over to a local radio station and was able to get a picture of the group. (This was before the internet.) They showed it to Laurie and without telling her who she was looking at, asked her if any of the guys in the picture looked familiar. The answer was no. (Big shocker.)
In talking to the night clerk, he didn't really remember the guy, but the room had been paid for in cash. When the cops ran the name that he had registered under, nothing had come up in either Atlanta or Savannah.
Those were the basics of the story. We never got much more than that. We never found out what the cops thought about it. We never found out if they took her to the hospital. Or what really happened. But we had our own theory.
Since the guy had a lot of money (supposedly) he was either into drugs or he was a pimp. He slipped something into her drink, took her to Savannah and between the time she konked out and the time she woke up, you can make up your own details as to what might have happened. Considering how everything turned out, she was actually lucky that she lived to tell about it.
It wasn't the first time she had gotten herself into something like this and it probably wasn't the last.
That's enough about Laurie...for now. Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing about it) I'll tell you some LeeAnn stories.
Like I said before LeeAnn was a real sweetheart and you just could not help but like her. She was just so darn funny! The story I have in mind is LeeAnn at her finest...and it's just classic LeeAnn antics. My dad and I both love this one. It's called "LeeAnn and Grandma Pearl."
To understand Laurie, you have to understand the psyche of Laurie. In the prior story, I told you a little about her mom. Allow me to share a little more.
Since all of the moms at that time were stay at home moms, they periodically did things as a group. Evelyn, another neighbor, was a licensed cosmetologist. Once a month, they met at a neighbor's house and Evelyn would cut and style everyone's hair while the rest of the ladies "visited". ("visit" = gossip.)
At one time, they all belonged to a bowling league, so that provided another opportunity to have fun and "visit".
During one of these "visiting" sessions, somehow the conversation got shifted to what we (all of us kids) were interested in and what we might be doing for a living later on in life. I was probably about 13 at this point in time.
Jane (Laurie's mom) volunteered this info to the other ladies. She said that she had already told Laurie that when she grew up, she should look into being a (are you sitting down for this?) a call girl. Jane said that if Laurie was able to find the right sugardaddy, he'd put her up in a nice apartment, buy her nice clothes, and she'd be set for life for doing relatively little. She laughed as she said all of this, but it absolutely floored everyone else in the room.
This was WAY before Reba McEntire had even remotely THOUGHT about recording that song "Fancy".
After Jane left, all of the ladies looked at each other and Evelyn asked "Surely she was not serious.....was she?"
Marie said "Well, you know how Jane is, you see how she dresses, and she's got that dumb and helpless act down to a science. I wouldn't be surprised if she was serious."
So that sort of sets up the story of "Laurie and The Rock Star." I was about 21 at this time....Laurie would have been about 20. It was at this time, my mom told me about the call girl episode. After hearing about that incident, this story made a little more sense.
One afternoon, I was in my bedroom watching TV when my friend Greg called. He said "What do you know about Laurie getting kidnapped?"
I said (thinking this was a joke) "I give up. What DO I know about Laurie getting kidnapped?"
Greg said, "No, I'm serious. LeeAnn (Laurie's sister) is coming over to spend the night with Missy (Greg's sister.) Her mom just called up here telling my mom that she needed to send LeeAnn up here to spend the night because she (Jane) had to drive down to Savannah to pick Laurie up because she had been kidnapped!"
I said "WHAT???? Are you SERIOUS?"
"Yep! You didn't know anything about it? You live across the street from them." Greg asked.
"No! I'll call you back."
I went in and told my mom the news. She was just as shocked as I was. About that time, we saw Jane's car backing out of the driveway and LeeAnn walking up the street with her suitcase.
I told my mom I was going to see what I could find out from LeeAnn. I grabbed my bike and followed LeeAnn up the street.
When I caught up to her, I asked her what had happened. She said she really wasn't sure herself. All she knew was that somehow, Laurie called them from the police station in Savannah and she must have been kidnapped. As soon as her mom got there, she was going to call LeeAnn and let her know what was going on.
On the surface, the story sounded odd. But then again, this WAS Laurie, so it really wasn't so odd after all.
I accompanied LeeAnn to Greg's house. When LeeAnn went back to Missy's room, I told Greg what LeeAnn told me. Greg said as soon as Jane called, he would call me and tell me what he found out.
The next morning, Greg gave me a call and told me to come over because the story was just NOT to be believed.
Here's what SUPPOSEDLY happened.
At this time, Laurie was working as a dancer (more on that later) at a club downtown. She was waiting on a ride (not sure if this was a ride home or...ok I'll hush.) Anyway she was sitting at the bar and a man came over and began talking to her.
All Laurie knew was that he flashed a lot of cash around and he introduced himself to her as "the lead singer of Pink Floyd."
I started laughing at this point and asked Greg to just quit and tell me what REALLY happened.
He said "I swear this is EXACTLY what LeeAnn told me after her mom called."
I told Greg that I could just imagine the scenario. "Hey. I'm the lead singer of Pink Floyd. You can call me Pink.....what's your name?" "Hey Pink...my name's Laurie. Wow...is that all your money? Will you buy me some stuff? I really need me some boots." (Laurie had a thing for boots.)
Greg continued with the story.
The guy told Laurie that he would call his limo to come and drive her home. He bought her a couple of drinks while they waited.
The next thing she knew, she woke up in a hotel room...alone. Her new "friend" was no where to be found, when she looked out the window, she knew she wasn't in Atlanta, but she didn't know where she was.
She went downstairs and talked to the desk clerk. The clerk, thinking she was on drugs or something, decided to call the cops. The cops picked her up, talked to her to see if they could figure what what happened, then told her to call her mom.
When Jane got there, Laurie told the story to her. In the meantime, the cops had already figured out that something really stunk. Pink Floyd was not touring. They were not even in the country. But...just for the heck of it, one of the cops went over to a local radio station and was able to get a picture of the group. (This was before the internet.) They showed it to Laurie and without telling her who she was looking at, asked her if any of the guys in the picture looked familiar. The answer was no. (Big shocker.)
In talking to the night clerk, he didn't really remember the guy, but the room had been paid for in cash. When the cops ran the name that he had registered under, nothing had come up in either Atlanta or Savannah.
Those were the basics of the story. We never got much more than that. We never found out what the cops thought about it. We never found out if they took her to the hospital. Or what really happened. But we had our own theory.
Since the guy had a lot of money (supposedly) he was either into drugs or he was a pimp. He slipped something into her drink, took her to Savannah and between the time she konked out and the time she woke up, you can make up your own details as to what might have happened. Considering how everything turned out, she was actually lucky that she lived to tell about it.
It wasn't the first time she had gotten herself into something like this and it probably wasn't the last.
That's enough about Laurie...for now. Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing about it) I'll tell you some LeeAnn stories.
Like I said before LeeAnn was a real sweetheart and you just could not help but like her. She was just so darn funny! The story I have in mind is LeeAnn at her finest...and it's just classic LeeAnn antics. My dad and I both love this one. It's called "LeeAnn and Grandma Pearl."
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Adventures of Laurie
Laurie and LeeAnn lived across the street from me. Laurie was one year younger than me and LeeAnn was a couple of years younger than Laurie.
Before I get too far into this, I need to give you a quick lesson on the correct pronunciation of the names "Laurie" and "LeeAnn."
In your nasaliest, whiniest voice say "Laaaaaauuuuuuurrrrriiiieeee" (special emphasis on the "aurie" part. You say it this way because that is the way Laurie talked.
As for "LeeAnn", in your most p*ssed off voice, say "Li AA-UH-NN" (special emphasis on the "Ann" part. You say it this way because that is the way her mom usually called her when she was p*ssed off at LeeAnn....which was pretty much all the time.
I barely remember their father; he died in a plane crash when I was about eight years old. He was a flight instructor and he was known to have a habit of cutting the engines on student pilots as a test to teach them how to react in an emergency. There was speculation that this happened on his final flight, but I don't think they really ever figured out what happened.
Their mom was unlike most of the other moms on our street. For one thing, she had bleached white hair. That just was something that RESPECTABLE women just did NOT do back in the late sixties. She also wore really short dresses and black, fishnet stockings and heels. (No, I'm not making this stuff up! Stuff like this, you just don't forget.)
Their mom was what was commonly referred to back then as a "hussie." Somehow, she managed to get herself elected president of the PTA at our elementary school. Her husband had died by this time, she was single, and she began "dating."
I don't remember her boyfriend's name or what he did, I just remember that he spent a lot of time at her house and she talked about him a lot.
One day, a car pulled up into her driveway and pulled in behind the boyfriend's car. A woman we had never seen before jumped out of the car, popped her trunk, and began tossing clothes and Lord knows what all else into the driveway, street, and yard. She was screaming at the top of her lungs "Here's your stuff! You can HAVE your D*MN little Harper Valley PTA Hussie and don't you EVER come back home AGAIN."
That was when we found out that her boyfriend was married. After the woman left, he came out of the house, picked up his stuff, left, and was never to be seen again. But other boyfriends were waiting in the wings.
That gives you a little insight as to why Laurie and LeeAnn were the way they were.
Laurie was a mini-me of her mom. She looked like her, acted like her and talked like her. She could do absolutely no wrong. If anything bad happened it was usually due to something LeeAnn had done, at least that was what Laurie said. LeeAnn, for the lack of a better analogy, was a Cinderella.
Everyone in the neighborhood adored LeeAnn. She was funny, mischievous, sweet, and was just fun to be around. Even though she was one of the youngest kids in the neighborhood, if there was something going on, no one seemed to mind if LeeAnn joined in.
Laurie, on the other hand was the exact opposite. She was spoiled, lazy, snotty, and even though she was our age, she constantly referred to us as "children"....which was ok, because we constantly referred to her as "b*tch."
Laurie was somewhat of a dizt...scratch the somewhat. She was a complete ditz.
Because there was no father in her life, anytime she got into a scrape somehow, my dad got dragged into it. The only good thing about that was that when he got back home, we got to hear what really happened rather than the sanitized Laurie version.
For instance, there was the Hawthorne Plaza incident.
Hawthorne Plaza is a strip mall in Mableton. If you needed anything, you went to Hawthorne Plaza. You needed groceries, you go to the A&P in Hawthorne Plaza. You ordered something from the Sears catalog, the Sears pickup store was in Hawthorne Plaza. You needed a fancy cake, you go to the Rich's bake shop in Hawthorne Plaza. It also had a jewelry store, a shoe store, a Singer Sewing Machine Repair and Retail store, a fabric store, and an S&H Green Stamp store.
For whatever reason, the day after Laurie got her driver's license, she went down to Hawthorne Plaza. My dad had just gotten home from work and dinner was on the table. We had no sooner sat down when the phone rang. It was Laurie's mother.
She had just gotten off the phone with Laurie. All she knew was that Laurie was down at Hawthorne Plaza and had been in a wreck. She needed my dad to take her down there. So off they went.
We had long finished dinner when my dad finally got back home. As he ate his dinner, he told us what had happened.
When they arrived at Hawthorne, they knew exactly where to go because the police had already arrived.
Laurie was standing there squalling and yelling over and over at an old man and a cop that she didn't do it. When she saw her mom she ran over and told her mom that the man and the cop were saying that she had run into the man's car. Laurie kept crying and telling her mom that it wasn't true.
My dad walked around both cars.
The first thing that he noticed was that both cars had parked into angled parking spaces. Apparently, when Laurie tried to leave she turned her wheel opposite of what she should have and plowed into the passenger side of the car. And even though Laurie was performing quite the act of protesting her innocence, the fact the wrecked car was red and the front bumper and fender of the car that Laurie was driving was heavily tinged with red paint was the dead giveaway.
The second thing he noticed made him sick. The car was brand new and still had it's price sticker in the window. He heard the man tell the cop that he had just picked the car up from Hyde Oldsmobile that afternoon and had stopped by to run in the hardware store to have some extra keys made.
The cop walked over to my dad and told him, "Your daughter is saying that she didn't do this, but this guy said that he saw her do it and she would have left the scene except for the fact that this man stood behind her car and refused to leave....plus he has witnesses that have verified his account."
My dad said, "Well, first off...she ain't my daughter. I just brought her mom down here to deal with it. Secondly, anyone can take one look at these cars and see exactly what happened."
After Laurie's mom got her calmed down, she walked over to the cop and said to him "Laurie said she didn't do it. So what do you think happened to his car?"
Both the cop and my dad looked at her like she had three heads.
The cop said "Here's what happened. She hit his car. He saw what happened. Two people coming out of Sears saw what happened. She can deny it all she wants, but the fact is she hit his car."
Laurie's mom looked at my dad. My dad said, "Jane....come here." He took her over to the cars and pointed. "Your car's fender and bumper is covered in red paint. Look at that dent in his car. The paint is an exact match. His car is parked in the middle of his parking space. Take one look at your car and you can see where she was trying to back out in the opposite direction. She hit his car, no two ways about it."
Laurie started crying again...."No I didn't!" My dad looked at her and said, "Well Laurie if you didn't hit his car, what happened then?"
Laurie said, "I don't know. I was just sitting here minding my own business when he came up screaming at me accusing me of hitting his car."
The cop looked at my dad and my dad said "Look....I'm just a neighbor. I can't say anymore that what I've already said. You know what happened, I know what happened, he (the other car owner) knows what happened, but you're not going to convince these two...I tried."
The cop thanked my dad, and turned to the other car owner and relayed the bad news. Since the accident happened on private property he could not issue a ticket. But he would submit an accident report for him to submit to his insurance company and if he wanted to try to take it to court to recoup some damages, the report would serve as evidence.
Laurie NEVER owned up to hitting that car.
The next Laurie story is one I like to call "Uh-Oh." It took place when I was in high school.
In the mid to late 1970's, South Cobb High School was one of the best and one of the largest marching bands in the state of Georgia. When the band took to the field at halftime, you wondered when the parade of students filing onto the field would end. Whenever the band left school for any sort of competition, most of the classes became study halls because so many students were on the trip it was pointless to try to conduct a regular class.
My younger brother played trumpet in the marching band. Greg, my best friend from down the street, and David, another neighbor, also played trumpet in the band. His sister Cindy was in the rifle corps. Laurie was on the flag corps.
South Cobb maintained an extremely stringent band rehearsal schedule. Marching practice for the football schedule began the first week after school let out for the summer. Sectionals were held every other day from 9am until noon. Drill team, flag corps, rifle corps, and woodwinds met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Brass and percussion met on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Full marching practice took place every evening from 6pm until 9pm and all day on Saturdays. Attendance to all sectionals and rehearsals was mandatory. You were allowed to miss five days during summer rehearsals. Any more than five absences meant that you would NOT march in the first football game of the season.
Since so many on our street were in the band, it was decided that a carpool would be the best way to get everyone to the sectionals and rehearsals. Two parents were available to take everyone during the day, and in the evening two other parents that worked during the day made the evening run.
One particular week, it was my father's turn to make the run. Everyone knew that time was of the essence in the evening so the rule was you better be ready or you'll get left behind. This was due to the fact that anyone showing up late to rehearsals was required to run 5 laps around the track. Not something you want to do on a hot, summer evening, in addition to marching practice.
So my dad rushed home; everyone one was standing in the driveway. The boys and Cindy, who was somewhat of a tomboy, piled up in the back of his pickup truck; Laurie, being the "lady" climbed up in the cab of the truck.
Just a little bit of info about this truck. It was bought for one purpose and one purpose only. Gas mileage. At the time that it was bought, gas was being rationed. My dad had his name put on a waiting list for a Toyota. As the trucks came in, the dealers would call the next name on the list to pick up their truck. If they couldn't pay, changed their mind, etc., the next name on the list was called. The truck was puke green and had no air conditioning.
It was small and cramped....and hot in the summer. Due to the lack of air conditioning, both windows had to be down in order to maintain a certain level of comfort.
As soon as Laurie hopped in the truck, the first thing she did was roll up the window, because God forbid she should get her hair messed up from the wind.
My dad, who was already flustered, tired, and hot from his afternoon commute from the airport could not believe it, but he didn't say anything.
The only way to get to South Cobb from our house was via Clay Road. At that time, Clay Road was in the process of being widened and repaved. The deadline was to have the road completely finished by the time school started in late August. The road crews were running behind, so rather than knocking off at 5pm, they were using every amount of daylight in order to complete the project. This meant that road work continued until 8:30 and sometimes 9pm.
When my dad hit Clay Road, he came to a complete stop. They had blocked one lane of traffic so that the paving crew could work. Slowly they inched along.
Everyone in that truck was miserable. The boys and Cindy were miserable because the sun was beating down on them. Even though they were in the back of the truck in the open air, the air was not moving at all and they were getting hit by the heat from the other cars and paving equipment. My dad was miserable because he had no air conditioning and half of the ventilation had been cut off when Laurie rolled up the window.
Laurie sat in oblivion.
When they got within site of the school, Laurie said, "Uh-Oh." My dad looked at her and said "What's wrong?". Laurie said "I forgot my flag." My dad said "What do you mean you forgot your flag?". Laurie said "I forgot it." My dad just looked at her and said "Uh.....does that mean we have to go back and get it?" Laurie said "Well....I guess so. I can't march without it."
All of the boys in the back of the truck heard this conversation. Dan stuck his head in the window and reminded my dad that if they were late, they were going to have to run laps.
Greg then stuck his head in the window and said to my dad what everyone else was thinking. "Mr. S....why should the rest of us get punished because she forgot that stupid flag? Go ahead and take us to practice, take her home to get her stupid flag, then bring her back up here. By the time y'all get back, practice will almost be over with, she'll have to run laps because she's late, and we can all sit in the bleachers and laugh at her. We'll even save you a seat."
My dad said to Laurie "Well, he has a point. With all of this construction, by the time we come back up here practice will almost be finished. Why don't you just skip tonight?"
Laurie whined "NOOOO!!!! If I miss tonight, it means I can't march in the first game. I've already missed my five days."
Greg poked his head back in the cab. "Well, BOO HOO! I mean who cares? It's not like you're the star of the band or anything. No one's going to miss you."
Laurie told Greg to shut up. My dad told them both to shut up because he wasn't in the mood to hear it. He said he was going to drop them off at the school, take Laurie home, then he'd bring her BACK up there and just wait for the practice to end. He was not happy about it, but that's what he did.
When they got back home, Laurie ran to her house to get her flag. My dad rolled her window down after she got out. She returned with her flag and immediately rolled the window up.
My dad told her to roll the window back down. She looked at him and said, "But what about my hair?" My dad, by this time was not in the mood to be messed with and had absolutely no patience for her nonsense.
He just looked at her and said "What about your hair? It's 98 degrees and it's hot. You're going to marching practice, not a church social. That window stays down."
Laurie rolled the window back down. My dad looked at her again and said, "OK...before I back out of this driveway, do you have everything you need?" Laurie said "Yes." My dad said "Are you sure?" Laurie said "Yes." My dad said "Are you positive?" Laurie said "Yes...why do you seem to think I've forgotten something?"
My dad said "Well....I just don't know. I mean you go to band practice every night. You're in the flag corps and you forgot your flag. I just want to make sure there's nothing else that's that obvious that you forgot."
Laurie (using Laurie logic) said "Well, it's really everybody else's fault. Greg or Danny, Cindy, or David should have noticed I didn't have it and should have reminded me to get it. And how come you didn't notice it?"
Now, my brothers and I knew better than to have made a remark like that. But Laurie, was Laurie. And that was a typical Laurie response.
When my dad finally got home that night, he told us all the whole story. He was still royally aggravated with the whole thing but he did say that it was quite amusing to see her run around that track with all the neighborhood kids yelling "HA HA....LAURIE HAS TO RUN TRACK! HAHAHAHA!"
He laughs about it now, but is still in complete amazement at all of the example of her idiocy.
Tune in for the next episode...It's called Laurie and the Rock Star."
Before I get too far into this, I need to give you a quick lesson on the correct pronunciation of the names "Laurie" and "LeeAnn."
In your nasaliest, whiniest voice say "Laaaaaauuuuuuurrrrriiiieeee" (special emphasis on the "aurie" part. You say it this way because that is the way Laurie talked.
As for "LeeAnn", in your most p*ssed off voice, say "Li AA-UH-NN" (special emphasis on the "Ann" part. You say it this way because that is the way her mom usually called her when she was p*ssed off at LeeAnn....which was pretty much all the time.
I barely remember their father; he died in a plane crash when I was about eight years old. He was a flight instructor and he was known to have a habit of cutting the engines on student pilots as a test to teach them how to react in an emergency. There was speculation that this happened on his final flight, but I don't think they really ever figured out what happened.
Their mom was unlike most of the other moms on our street. For one thing, she had bleached white hair. That just was something that RESPECTABLE women just did NOT do back in the late sixties. She also wore really short dresses and black, fishnet stockings and heels. (No, I'm not making this stuff up! Stuff like this, you just don't forget.)
Their mom was what was commonly referred to back then as a "hussie." Somehow, she managed to get herself elected president of the PTA at our elementary school. Her husband had died by this time, she was single, and she began "dating."
I don't remember her boyfriend's name or what he did, I just remember that he spent a lot of time at her house and she talked about him a lot.
One day, a car pulled up into her driveway and pulled in behind the boyfriend's car. A woman we had never seen before jumped out of the car, popped her trunk, and began tossing clothes and Lord knows what all else into the driveway, street, and yard. She was screaming at the top of her lungs "Here's your stuff! You can HAVE your D*MN little Harper Valley PTA Hussie and don't you EVER come back home AGAIN."
That was when we found out that her boyfriend was married. After the woman left, he came out of the house, picked up his stuff, left, and was never to be seen again. But other boyfriends were waiting in the wings.
That gives you a little insight as to why Laurie and LeeAnn were the way they were.
Laurie was a mini-me of her mom. She looked like her, acted like her and talked like her. She could do absolutely no wrong. If anything bad happened it was usually due to something LeeAnn had done, at least that was what Laurie said. LeeAnn, for the lack of a better analogy, was a Cinderella.
Everyone in the neighborhood adored LeeAnn. She was funny, mischievous, sweet, and was just fun to be around. Even though she was one of the youngest kids in the neighborhood, if there was something going on, no one seemed to mind if LeeAnn joined in.
Laurie, on the other hand was the exact opposite. She was spoiled, lazy, snotty, and even though she was our age, she constantly referred to us as "children"....which was ok, because we constantly referred to her as "b*tch."
Laurie was somewhat of a dizt...scratch the somewhat. She was a complete ditz.
Because there was no father in her life, anytime she got into a scrape somehow, my dad got dragged into it. The only good thing about that was that when he got back home, we got to hear what really happened rather than the sanitized Laurie version.
For instance, there was the Hawthorne Plaza incident.
Hawthorne Plaza is a strip mall in Mableton. If you needed anything, you went to Hawthorne Plaza. You needed groceries, you go to the A&P in Hawthorne Plaza. You ordered something from the Sears catalog, the Sears pickup store was in Hawthorne Plaza. You needed a fancy cake, you go to the Rich's bake shop in Hawthorne Plaza. It also had a jewelry store, a shoe store, a Singer Sewing Machine Repair and Retail store, a fabric store, and an S&H Green Stamp store.
For whatever reason, the day after Laurie got her driver's license, she went down to Hawthorne Plaza. My dad had just gotten home from work and dinner was on the table. We had no sooner sat down when the phone rang. It was Laurie's mother.
She had just gotten off the phone with Laurie. All she knew was that Laurie was down at Hawthorne Plaza and had been in a wreck. She needed my dad to take her down there. So off they went.
We had long finished dinner when my dad finally got back home. As he ate his dinner, he told us what had happened.
When they arrived at Hawthorne, they knew exactly where to go because the police had already arrived.
Laurie was standing there squalling and yelling over and over at an old man and a cop that she didn't do it. When she saw her mom she ran over and told her mom that the man and the cop were saying that she had run into the man's car. Laurie kept crying and telling her mom that it wasn't true.
My dad walked around both cars.
The first thing that he noticed was that both cars had parked into angled parking spaces. Apparently, when Laurie tried to leave she turned her wheel opposite of what she should have and plowed into the passenger side of the car. And even though Laurie was performing quite the act of protesting her innocence, the fact the wrecked car was red and the front bumper and fender of the car that Laurie was driving was heavily tinged with red paint was the dead giveaway.
The second thing he noticed made him sick. The car was brand new and still had it's price sticker in the window. He heard the man tell the cop that he had just picked the car up from Hyde Oldsmobile that afternoon and had stopped by to run in the hardware store to have some extra keys made.
The cop walked over to my dad and told him, "Your daughter is saying that she didn't do this, but this guy said that he saw her do it and she would have left the scene except for the fact that this man stood behind her car and refused to leave....plus he has witnesses that have verified his account."
My dad said, "Well, first off...she ain't my daughter. I just brought her mom down here to deal with it. Secondly, anyone can take one look at these cars and see exactly what happened."
After Laurie's mom got her calmed down, she walked over to the cop and said to him "Laurie said she didn't do it. So what do you think happened to his car?"
Both the cop and my dad looked at her like she had three heads.
The cop said "Here's what happened. She hit his car. He saw what happened. Two people coming out of Sears saw what happened. She can deny it all she wants, but the fact is she hit his car."
Laurie's mom looked at my dad. My dad said, "Jane....come here." He took her over to the cars and pointed. "Your car's fender and bumper is covered in red paint. Look at that dent in his car. The paint is an exact match. His car is parked in the middle of his parking space. Take one look at your car and you can see where she was trying to back out in the opposite direction. She hit his car, no two ways about it."
Laurie started crying again...."No I didn't!" My dad looked at her and said, "Well Laurie if you didn't hit his car, what happened then?"
Laurie said, "I don't know. I was just sitting here minding my own business when he came up screaming at me accusing me of hitting his car."
The cop looked at my dad and my dad said "Look....I'm just a neighbor. I can't say anymore that what I've already said. You know what happened, I know what happened, he (the other car owner) knows what happened, but you're not going to convince these two...I tried."
The cop thanked my dad, and turned to the other car owner and relayed the bad news. Since the accident happened on private property he could not issue a ticket. But he would submit an accident report for him to submit to his insurance company and if he wanted to try to take it to court to recoup some damages, the report would serve as evidence.
Laurie NEVER owned up to hitting that car.
The next Laurie story is one I like to call "Uh-Oh." It took place when I was in high school.
In the mid to late 1970's, South Cobb High School was one of the best and one of the largest marching bands in the state of Georgia. When the band took to the field at halftime, you wondered when the parade of students filing onto the field would end. Whenever the band left school for any sort of competition, most of the classes became study halls because so many students were on the trip it was pointless to try to conduct a regular class.
My younger brother played trumpet in the marching band. Greg, my best friend from down the street, and David, another neighbor, also played trumpet in the band. His sister Cindy was in the rifle corps. Laurie was on the flag corps.
South Cobb maintained an extremely stringent band rehearsal schedule. Marching practice for the football schedule began the first week after school let out for the summer. Sectionals were held every other day from 9am until noon. Drill team, flag corps, rifle corps, and woodwinds met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Brass and percussion met on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Full marching practice took place every evening from 6pm until 9pm and all day on Saturdays. Attendance to all sectionals and rehearsals was mandatory. You were allowed to miss five days during summer rehearsals. Any more than five absences meant that you would NOT march in the first football game of the season.
Since so many on our street were in the band, it was decided that a carpool would be the best way to get everyone to the sectionals and rehearsals. Two parents were available to take everyone during the day, and in the evening two other parents that worked during the day made the evening run.
One particular week, it was my father's turn to make the run. Everyone knew that time was of the essence in the evening so the rule was you better be ready or you'll get left behind. This was due to the fact that anyone showing up late to rehearsals was required to run 5 laps around the track. Not something you want to do on a hot, summer evening, in addition to marching practice.
So my dad rushed home; everyone one was standing in the driveway. The boys and Cindy, who was somewhat of a tomboy, piled up in the back of his pickup truck; Laurie, being the "lady" climbed up in the cab of the truck.
Just a little bit of info about this truck. It was bought for one purpose and one purpose only. Gas mileage. At the time that it was bought, gas was being rationed. My dad had his name put on a waiting list for a Toyota. As the trucks came in, the dealers would call the next name on the list to pick up their truck. If they couldn't pay, changed their mind, etc., the next name on the list was called. The truck was puke green and had no air conditioning.
It was small and cramped....and hot in the summer. Due to the lack of air conditioning, both windows had to be down in order to maintain a certain level of comfort.
As soon as Laurie hopped in the truck, the first thing she did was roll up the window, because God forbid she should get her hair messed up from the wind.
My dad, who was already flustered, tired, and hot from his afternoon commute from the airport could not believe it, but he didn't say anything.
The only way to get to South Cobb from our house was via Clay Road. At that time, Clay Road was in the process of being widened and repaved. The deadline was to have the road completely finished by the time school started in late August. The road crews were running behind, so rather than knocking off at 5pm, they were using every amount of daylight in order to complete the project. This meant that road work continued until 8:30 and sometimes 9pm.
When my dad hit Clay Road, he came to a complete stop. They had blocked one lane of traffic so that the paving crew could work. Slowly they inched along.
Everyone in that truck was miserable. The boys and Cindy were miserable because the sun was beating down on them. Even though they were in the back of the truck in the open air, the air was not moving at all and they were getting hit by the heat from the other cars and paving equipment. My dad was miserable because he had no air conditioning and half of the ventilation had been cut off when Laurie rolled up the window.
Laurie sat in oblivion.
When they got within site of the school, Laurie said, "Uh-Oh." My dad looked at her and said "What's wrong?". Laurie said "I forgot my flag." My dad said "What do you mean you forgot your flag?". Laurie said "I forgot it." My dad just looked at her and said "Uh.....does that mean we have to go back and get it?" Laurie said "Well....I guess so. I can't march without it."
All of the boys in the back of the truck heard this conversation. Dan stuck his head in the window and reminded my dad that if they were late, they were going to have to run laps.
Greg then stuck his head in the window and said to my dad what everyone else was thinking. "Mr. S....why should the rest of us get punished because she forgot that stupid flag? Go ahead and take us to practice, take her home to get her stupid flag, then bring her back up here. By the time y'all get back, practice will almost be over with, she'll have to run laps because she's late, and we can all sit in the bleachers and laugh at her. We'll even save you a seat."
My dad said to Laurie "Well, he has a point. With all of this construction, by the time we come back up here practice will almost be finished. Why don't you just skip tonight?"
Laurie whined "NOOOO!!!! If I miss tonight, it means I can't march in the first game. I've already missed my five days."
Greg poked his head back in the cab. "Well, BOO HOO! I mean who cares? It's not like you're the star of the band or anything. No one's going to miss you."
Laurie told Greg to shut up. My dad told them both to shut up because he wasn't in the mood to hear it. He said he was going to drop them off at the school, take Laurie home, then he'd bring her BACK up there and just wait for the practice to end. He was not happy about it, but that's what he did.
When they got back home, Laurie ran to her house to get her flag. My dad rolled her window down after she got out. She returned with her flag and immediately rolled the window up.
My dad told her to roll the window back down. She looked at him and said, "But what about my hair?" My dad, by this time was not in the mood to be messed with and had absolutely no patience for her nonsense.
He just looked at her and said "What about your hair? It's 98 degrees and it's hot. You're going to marching practice, not a church social. That window stays down."
Laurie rolled the window back down. My dad looked at her again and said, "OK...before I back out of this driveway, do you have everything you need?" Laurie said "Yes." My dad said "Are you sure?" Laurie said "Yes." My dad said "Are you positive?" Laurie said "Yes...why do you seem to think I've forgotten something?"
My dad said "Well....I just don't know. I mean you go to band practice every night. You're in the flag corps and you forgot your flag. I just want to make sure there's nothing else that's that obvious that you forgot."
Laurie (using Laurie logic) said "Well, it's really everybody else's fault. Greg or Danny, Cindy, or David should have noticed I didn't have it and should have reminded me to get it. And how come you didn't notice it?"
Now, my brothers and I knew better than to have made a remark like that. But Laurie, was Laurie. And that was a typical Laurie response.
When my dad finally got home that night, he told us all the whole story. He was still royally aggravated with the whole thing but he did say that it was quite amusing to see her run around that track with all the neighborhood kids yelling "HA HA....LAURIE HAS TO RUN TRACK! HAHAHAHA!"
He laughs about it now, but is still in complete amazement at all of the example of her idiocy.
Tune in for the next episode...It's called Laurie and the Rock Star."
Saturday, February 28, 2009
When A Stranger Calls
Wimpy was our next door neighbor. His real name was Paul, but everyone called him Wimpy...yes, Wimpy as in the old cartoon character that always said "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." I don't remember if our Wimpy liked hamburgers, but I do know he liked beer.
Frank lived on the other side of Wimpy. Frank also liked beer. Beer was one of his job benefits because for a while he was a beer distributor.
Remember in the previous posting, I mentioned that all the kids liked to pick on each other? Well, it wasn't just the kids.
Once upon a time, Wimpy got a new car and decided to sell his old one.
He stuck a sign on it with his phone number, parked the car out in his front yard waited for someone to call. And waited. And waited. And waited.
One day, Frank decided to pull one over on Wimpy. (Keep in mind this was WAY before caller id had been invented.)
Frank called up Wimpy and disguised his voice.
F: Hey. A friend o' mine told me you had a car for sale for $1500.
W: Yeah, I do.
F: Well...tell me about it.
W: Well...whaddya wanna know about it?
F: What kind is it?
W: Buick Skylark.
F: What color?
W: Pale yellow with black vinyl top.
F: Run good?
W: Yeah.
F: How many miles on it?
W: Oh, 'bout 70,000.
F: Has it ever been in a wreck?
W: Nope. The body's in good shape and it's got a fresh coat of wax on it.
F: What about the interior?
W: It's clean and looks good.
F: Good tires?
W: Yeah, tires are good.
F: Hmmmm...so why you sellin' it?
W: Got a new one for my wife, I've got a truck, so we really don't need this one.
F: You know what I'd do with it if I were you?
W: What's that?
F: I'd turn it sideways and shove it up your a**, cause ain't nobody in his right mind givin' you $1500 for that piece of sh*t!
Frank then called everyone in the neighborhood and asked them to call Wimpy to ask if anyone had called him about the car.
Frank lived on the other side of Wimpy. Frank also liked beer. Beer was one of his job benefits because for a while he was a beer distributor.
Remember in the previous posting, I mentioned that all the kids liked to pick on each other? Well, it wasn't just the kids.
Once upon a time, Wimpy got a new car and decided to sell his old one.
He stuck a sign on it with his phone number, parked the car out in his front yard waited for someone to call. And waited. And waited. And waited.
One day, Frank decided to pull one over on Wimpy. (Keep in mind this was WAY before caller id had been invented.)
Frank called up Wimpy and disguised his voice.
F: Hey. A friend o' mine told me you had a car for sale for $1500.
W: Yeah, I do.
F: Well...tell me about it.
W: Well...whaddya wanna know about it?
F: What kind is it?
W: Buick Skylark.
F: What color?
W: Pale yellow with black vinyl top.
F: Run good?
W: Yeah.
F: How many miles on it?
W: Oh, 'bout 70,000.
F: Has it ever been in a wreck?
W: Nope. The body's in good shape and it's got a fresh coat of wax on it.
F: What about the interior?
W: It's clean and looks good.
F: Good tires?
W: Yeah, tires are good.
F: Hmmmm...so why you sellin' it?
W: Got a new one for my wife, I've got a truck, so we really don't need this one.
F: You know what I'd do with it if I were you?
W: What's that?
F: I'd turn it sideways and shove it up your a**, cause ain't nobody in his right mind givin' you $1500 for that piece of sh*t!
Frank then called everyone in the neighborhood and asked them to call Wimpy to ask if anyone had called him about the car.
Friday, February 27, 2009
There's Something About Cindy
I had absolutely nothing in common with the few girls that lived in my neighborhood. They were either too young for me to play with, too old for me to play with, or just flat out too stupid to even bother with (my stories about Laurie are coming up soon.)
The aforementioned Cindy was about five years older than me. For whatever reason, she would pile her hair underneath this little flat orange hat. If you ever watched the Fat Albert cartoon, there was a character on there named Rudy who wore a hat similar to Cindy's. Don't get Rudy mixed up with Mushmouth, cuz Mushmouth wore a ski mask.
She acted like she was tough stuff, but she was really just all talk. She had absolutely no sense of humor. Everyone in our neighborhood constantly played jokes on each other; no one meant any harm to anyone. It was done completely out of boredom and it was a harmless way to amuse ourselves....and no one was exempt. That's just the way it was.
We hid each other's bicycles. We told each other that their mother was calling them when we knew she wasn't. We'd tell the little kids that we saw the ice cream truck on the back street so they'd run in the house and beg their mama for ice cream money and get mad when she wouldn't give it to them. We'd argue over whose daddy could beat up the other daddys. (All of our fathers got along with each other just fine; but to hear us tell it, every daddy on Grace Street had beat up at least 100 other daddys.)
Anyway, we played together and we picked on each other. It was just fun.
Apparently, Cindy did not see things that way. She was CONSTANTLY in big sister mode with regards to her brothers and if she even SUSPECTED that you were picking on them, then you were going to get the world famous "Cindy Stare-down."
She would do this thing where she would stand out on her driveway with her hands on her hips, that stupid little hat pulled low across her eyes, with her head lifted up so she could see underneath the brow....and stare you down. I guess it was supposed to scare us or something. If you closed your eyes, you could almost hear the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."
All of that changed when she started dating Tiny.
Tiny was our garbage man. I have no idea what his real name was, but his nickname was Tiny....but he was not. I think the garbage truck actually belonged to his dad. I just remember that on the side of the garbage compactor in big letters it said "Haulin' For Jesus."
One day, Tiny came down the street in his "Haulin' for Jesus" garbage truck as we were riding our bikes. Cindy happened to be outside and she and Tiny were talking. After he threw the Baskins' garbage up into the compactor, we heard Tiny holler out "I'll be back here around 7" and Cindy said "OK" and she ran back into the house.
We all looked at one another and immediately made a beeline for the Baskin house. My brother asked the million dollar question...."How come Tiny's coming back here tonight?"
Stanley said, "He's taking Cindy to a movie."
So....all of us being the nosy little kids we were, gathered on our carport around 7 to see the spectacle. This was not just me and my two brothers....this was just about every kid on our street.
A car pulled into the Baskin's driveway and out jumped Tiny. We were all standing there, so we decided to do what most nosy little kids would do. We all hollered out "Hey Tiny!!!"
Tiny didn't look like the Tiny we knew. This Tiny wasn't wearing tore up blue jeans and a dirty white tshirt. This particular Tiny was wearing regular pants with a button down shirt....and he wasn't wearing his garbage gloves.
LeAnn hollered out, "Hey Tiny...how come you're not in your garbage truck?"
Tiny hollered back, "'cause I'm done haulin' trash today."
One of the older boys muttered "Oh yeah?" which made everyone else laugh. Being 12 at the time, I didn't get what was so funny, but I laughed because everyone else was laughing.
Cindy came running out of the house...with that ridiculous orange hat on and got into the car.
And as they backed out of the driveway, we began serenading them with that age-old love song:
Cindy and Tiny sittin' in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Here Cindy comes with a baby carriage
I'd like to be able to give you a happy ending, but Tiny and Cindy eventually broke up. They got mad at one another about something, she pulled the "Cindy Staredown" and I guess it probably scared poor Tiny.
From that point on, Tiny made it a point to not tarry on our street too long when he picked up our garbage.
The aforementioned Cindy was about five years older than me. For whatever reason, she would pile her hair underneath this little flat orange hat. If you ever watched the Fat Albert cartoon, there was a character on there named Rudy who wore a hat similar to Cindy's. Don't get Rudy mixed up with Mushmouth, cuz Mushmouth wore a ski mask.
She acted like she was tough stuff, but she was really just all talk. She had absolutely no sense of humor. Everyone in our neighborhood constantly played jokes on each other; no one meant any harm to anyone. It was done completely out of boredom and it was a harmless way to amuse ourselves....and no one was exempt. That's just the way it was.
We hid each other's bicycles. We told each other that their mother was calling them when we knew she wasn't. We'd tell the little kids that we saw the ice cream truck on the back street so they'd run in the house and beg their mama for ice cream money and get mad when she wouldn't give it to them. We'd argue over whose daddy could beat up the other daddys. (All of our fathers got along with each other just fine; but to hear us tell it, every daddy on Grace Street had beat up at least 100 other daddys.)
Anyway, we played together and we picked on each other. It was just fun.
Apparently, Cindy did not see things that way. She was CONSTANTLY in big sister mode with regards to her brothers and if she even SUSPECTED that you were picking on them, then you were going to get the world famous "Cindy Stare-down."
She would do this thing where she would stand out on her driveway with her hands on her hips, that stupid little hat pulled low across her eyes, with her head lifted up so she could see underneath the brow....and stare you down. I guess it was supposed to scare us or something. If you closed your eyes, you could almost hear the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."
All of that changed when she started dating Tiny.
Tiny was our garbage man. I have no idea what his real name was, but his nickname was Tiny....but he was not. I think the garbage truck actually belonged to his dad. I just remember that on the side of the garbage compactor in big letters it said "Haulin' For Jesus."
One day, Tiny came down the street in his "Haulin' for Jesus" garbage truck as we were riding our bikes. Cindy happened to be outside and she and Tiny were talking. After he threw the Baskins' garbage up into the compactor, we heard Tiny holler out "I'll be back here around 7" and Cindy said "OK" and she ran back into the house.
We all looked at one another and immediately made a beeline for the Baskin house. My brother asked the million dollar question...."How come Tiny's coming back here tonight?"
Stanley said, "He's taking Cindy to a movie."
So....all of us being the nosy little kids we were, gathered on our carport around 7 to see the spectacle. This was not just me and my two brothers....this was just about every kid on our street.
A car pulled into the Baskin's driveway and out jumped Tiny. We were all standing there, so we decided to do what most nosy little kids would do. We all hollered out "Hey Tiny!!!"
Tiny didn't look like the Tiny we knew. This Tiny wasn't wearing tore up blue jeans and a dirty white tshirt. This particular Tiny was wearing regular pants with a button down shirt....and he wasn't wearing his garbage gloves.
LeAnn hollered out, "Hey Tiny...how come you're not in your garbage truck?"
Tiny hollered back, "'cause I'm done haulin' trash today."
One of the older boys muttered "Oh yeah?" which made everyone else laugh. Being 12 at the time, I didn't get what was so funny, but I laughed because everyone else was laughing.
Cindy came running out of the house...with that ridiculous orange hat on and got into the car.
And as they backed out of the driveway, we began serenading them with that age-old love song:
Cindy and Tiny sittin' in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Here Cindy comes with a baby carriage
I'd like to be able to give you a happy ending, but Tiny and Cindy eventually broke up. They got mad at one another about something, she pulled the "Cindy Staredown" and I guess it probably scared poor Tiny.
From that point on, Tiny made it a point to not tarry on our street too long when he picked up our garbage.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Life on Grace Street (circa 1962 - 1987)
Grace Street was the name of the street where I grew up.
I never thought too much about it at the time, but there was quite the odd assortment of characters that lived there. I still keep in touch with a few of the former neighbors (the ones that WEREN'T odd!) and inevitably someone will say, "HEY....Remember when...." and we all relive the episode, each person butting in and putting in their details, and we laugh ourselves silly.
So....I decided to tell some of those stories here. Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be one of those "You had to be there" things.
Here's what the neighborhood was like. (Back then, subdivisions were referred to as "neighborhoods.")
The neighborhood I grew up in was a typical middle class neighborhood. The houses were all one story and they were all built in the early 1960's. We moved into our house in 1962...I was 2 years old.
The houses were 2-3 bedrooms, with either 1 or 1 and 1/2 bathrooms. They were roughly 1300 square feet and one 1/2 to 1 acre lots. The houses had no basements...just crawl spaces. In 1962 they sold for $13,000.
The houses sound small when you think about homes of today, but it was a pretty typical middle class home during that era. You're probably wondering what that has to do with anything, but I wanted to give you a feel for what it was like.
Now...for the neighbors!
In order to have all of this make sense, I guess the best place to start is to list the cast of these stories.....(and there are MANY characters!) I'm going to change up some of the names, but I'm guessing if some of my Grace Street homies accidentally find this page, they'll easily recognize the people.
Let's start with one of the families that supplied an ABUNDANCE of amusement...the Baskin Family....obviously not their real name.
My family had the misfortune of having this family move in next door. (This is where you need to keep the size of these houses in mind.)
The Baskins moved into their house in the early 1970's. If you've ever seen the movie version of the Erskine Caldwell novel "Tobacco Road", the Baskin family was sort of like the Lester Family. Except the Lester family probably had a little bit more class.
The Baskin family consisted of the following:
Carl - The patriarch. He was in his mid 50's and worked for the Atlanta Fire Department. He smoked.
Ruth - The matriarch. She smoked too; she RARELY came out of the house. It's not that she wasn't physically able, she just didn't. We (my brothers and me) referred to her as "the hermit." I know....not nice, but it was the truth. If you ever saw that movie "The Homecoming", the one that the tv show "The Waltons" was based on, Ruth looked and sounded like a really old Patricia Neal with really bad teeth.
Clifton - The eldest son; not sure exactly how old he was, but he moved out of the house shortly after the family moved in and eventually got married. Oh...he worked for the Fire Department, too.
Ray - Next Eldest son. He was a high school senior when they moved in the house. The one thing I remember about him was that he stuttered something awful. And anytime we (my brothers and me) told a story involving Ray, we also included the stuttering. I know.....not nice, but it somehow made the story funnier. Several years after he graduated, he got married and he and his wife remained in this house...along with the REST of the family. (Did I mention this was only a 3 bedroom home?)
Cindy - The only daughter; she was a high school sophomore when they moved in. She had the biggest boobs that anyone living on Grace Street had ever seen. We're talking some SERIOUS boobage; those things were lethal. Just to set the record straight, she had neither the face nor body to go along with it. Again.....I know.....not nice, but you can just ask my brothers, the Rollins brothers, the Jones brothers, Greg Johnson or any of the other kids that lived in that neighborhood and they'll tell you the same thing.
Stanley - He was a couple years younger than me. He was a diabetic and had to give himself insulin shots everyday. He also loved to throw these wonderful pity parties for himself. (A short story for another day.)
Richard - The youngest son. He was a couple of years younger than Stanley and one of those kids that would do anything you told him to do. (Another short story for another day.)
These are some of the reasons why we classified this family as odd:
Ruth kept a real tight rein on Stanley and Richard. They were only allowed to play in their back yard if Cindy was able to sit outside and watch them. They had probably lived in the house for about six months when Ruth finally decided that it was safe to let them play in the back yard unattended; looking back, that probably wasn't a good idea. (Story to come in a minute!)
They were also not allowed to ride their bikes in the street. Keep in mind that most moms were stay at home moms, there were maybe 20 houses on the street, and the peak traffic times on that street were at 6am when most of the dads were going to work and 6pm....when most of the dads were coming home from work.
During the day, we amused ourselves by having bicycle races, seeing who could ride the longest with no hands on the handlebars, etc. Stanley used to beg my younger brother to just ride his bike in front of their house, since Stanley and Richard were only allowed to ride from one edge of their front yard to the other edge of their front yard. (Did I mention that their front yard was fenced in with a chain-link fence?)
When my brother really wanted to tick Stanley off, he would pretend to ride along with Stanley, then bolt like lightening up the street and around the block.
Another thing was the sheer number of people inhabiting this house....and they weren't even Mexican!!! And I haven't even mentioned the dogs, yet! To this day, I still can not imagine what the sleeping arrangements were.
They got the bright idea to get a dog. A Doberman named Cleo. Cleo got lonely. So they got ANOTHER Doberman named Duke. Duke liked Cleo, Cleo liked Duke. They REALLY liked each other and Cleo wound up having a litter of 9 pups as proof.
Did I mention that this was a three bedroom home, with seven people living in it, 2 of whom smoked and eleven dogs living in it? Did I mention they lived next door to us?
So....that's the family, now let's get on with some stories.
I like to call this one "Hang 'Em High". (I love Clint Eastwood and the title sort of ties into this story.) Speaking of which, AMC is showing ALL of the Dirty Harry movies this week. We need more Dirty Harrys in the world.
The story takes place in the Baskin's back yard. Ruth had decided that Cindy no longer had to watch Stanley and Richard when they played in the back yard...considering that Stanley was about 8 and Richard was about 5, this was a good thing...then again, maybe not.
Most of the trees in their backyard were at the very end of the lot. These trees sat on a hill that had a somewhat steep drop. For whatever reason, one of boys had tossed a rope over one of the branches on one of the trees and tied a small loop at the end. Their game was to grab hold of the loop, take a few steps back, then run full tilt to the edge of the hill and swing from the rope.
One day, Stanley and Richard were playing their little game. My brother and I had gotten into a spat with them earlier that day, so we were not on speaking terms. So we decided to do what we normally did if we wanted to p*ss them off. We sat on the property line, stared at them, and pretended like we were talking about them. (Come to think of it, I don't think we were really pretending.)
For whatever reason, Stanley decided to try something different with the swing. He threw the rope over Richard's neck and pushed him off the hill. (I can safely say that he did NOT intentionally attempt to kill his brother....he was just stupid. I think stupidity ran in the family.)
As soon as Richard swung off the hill, Stanley realized that that might not have been such a good idea, so he grabbed Richard, pushed him back up the hill, and took the rope off his neck. It happened so quick, that Richard really didn't have time to get hurt....except for the humongous rope burn around his neck, but he didn't cry.
This happened in the middle of summer, when most boys ran around barefoot, in shorts with no shirt. That rope burn could not be missed.
My brother Dan hollered over to Richard: "You ok Rich?" Stanley said "Shut up...we're still not talkin' to y'all."
Stanley turned to Richard and said, "Now, Richard...you're ok, ok? Just don't say nuthin' and everything'll be ok."
Richard said "OK....I'm going in the house to get some water."
Stanley said, "Look...instead of goin' in the house, why don't you just grab a drink from the hose. It's just as good."
"Yeah, but it ain't cold. I want ice water," said Richard.
"Well, go ahead and run in, but remember, don't say anything cuz you're ok. Just don't say nuthin' and it'll be ok. We don't want to get punished, right?"
Now...I couldn't understand why in the world Stanley thought RICHARD would be getting punished, but this family WAS rather odd.
Anyway, off Richard ran to the house. There was dead silence. Then all of a sudden there was a thunderous "STANLEY!!!!" that was probably heard clear over to Mimosa Circle.
Stanley yelled back, "Ma'am?"
"GET IN HERE........NOW!!!!"
"OK" said Stanley.
Dan and I could smell it....and I'm not talking about smell of stale cigarette smoke intermingled with the smell of eleven Doberman's on a hot summer day. Nope...the air was ripe with the unmistakable smell of an a** whoopin'. It was something that we were intimately familiar with, as were most kids on our street.
This was, after all, back in the early 70's. Time out did not exist as we presently know it and the only kids that got put on restriction had hippies for parents.
Back then, time out was when mamas and daddys had to switch their a** whooper (might be a belt, might be a hickory switch, might be a hand...each mama and daddy had their own special a** whoopin' equipment) over to their other hand so their regular a** whoopin' hand could rest so the a** whoopin' could continue uninterrupted.
You also didn't have to worry about DFACS back then. EVERYBODY got an a** whoopin' at one time or another and most folks my age will tell you that not only did they deserve every one of them, but sometimes it becomes somewhat of a p*ssing contest as to who got the worst a** whoopin' and the stories are told with a certain amount of pride.
Anyway, yep Stanley got an a** whoopin'; we knew because we could hear it. Not that we were trying to listen or anything, but most houses back then did not have central air conditioning so most of them had their windows wide open.
Richard's rope burn eventually healed; the rope was taken down from the tree and it was a long time before Stanley and Richard were allowed to play in the back yard alone.
My brother and I eventually got back on speaking terms with them again....till the next time we had a spat with them.
So much for "Hang 'Em High". Next up, a story I like to call "There's Something About Cindy"....but I'll leave that one for next time. But just to give you a little preview, it involves the garbage man. (Betcha can't wait, huh?)
I never thought too much about it at the time, but there was quite the odd assortment of characters that lived there. I still keep in touch with a few of the former neighbors (the ones that WEREN'T odd!) and inevitably someone will say, "HEY....Remember when...." and we all relive the episode, each person butting in and putting in their details, and we laugh ourselves silly.
So....I decided to tell some of those stories here. Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be one of those "You had to be there" things.
Here's what the neighborhood was like. (Back then, subdivisions were referred to as "neighborhoods.")
The neighborhood I grew up in was a typical middle class neighborhood. The houses were all one story and they were all built in the early 1960's. We moved into our house in 1962...I was 2 years old.
The houses were 2-3 bedrooms, with either 1 or 1 and 1/2 bathrooms. They were roughly 1300 square feet and one 1/2 to 1 acre lots. The houses had no basements...just crawl spaces. In 1962 they sold for $13,000.
The houses sound small when you think about homes of today, but it was a pretty typical middle class home during that era. You're probably wondering what that has to do with anything, but I wanted to give you a feel for what it was like.
Now...for the neighbors!
In order to have all of this make sense, I guess the best place to start is to list the cast of these stories.....(and there are MANY characters!) I'm going to change up some of the names, but I'm guessing if some of my Grace Street homies accidentally find this page, they'll easily recognize the people.
Let's start with one of the families that supplied an ABUNDANCE of amusement...the Baskin Family....obviously not their real name.
My family had the misfortune of having this family move in next door. (This is where you need to keep the size of these houses in mind.)
The Baskins moved into their house in the early 1970's. If you've ever seen the movie version of the Erskine Caldwell novel "Tobacco Road", the Baskin family was sort of like the Lester Family. Except the Lester family probably had a little bit more class.
The Baskin family consisted of the following:
Carl - The patriarch. He was in his mid 50's and worked for the Atlanta Fire Department. He smoked.
Ruth - The matriarch. She smoked too; she RARELY came out of the house. It's not that she wasn't physically able, she just didn't. We (my brothers and me) referred to her as "the hermit." I know....not nice, but it was the truth. If you ever saw that movie "The Homecoming", the one that the tv show "The Waltons" was based on, Ruth looked and sounded like a really old Patricia Neal with really bad teeth.
Clifton - The eldest son; not sure exactly how old he was, but he moved out of the house shortly after the family moved in and eventually got married. Oh...he worked for the Fire Department, too.
Ray - Next Eldest son. He was a high school senior when they moved in the house. The one thing I remember about him was that he stuttered something awful. And anytime we (my brothers and me) told a story involving Ray, we also included the stuttering. I know.....not nice, but it somehow made the story funnier. Several years after he graduated, he got married and he and his wife remained in this house...along with the REST of the family. (Did I mention this was only a 3 bedroom home?)
Cindy - The only daughter; she was a high school sophomore when they moved in. She had the biggest boobs that anyone living on Grace Street had ever seen. We're talking some SERIOUS boobage; those things were lethal. Just to set the record straight, she had neither the face nor body to go along with it. Again.....I know.....not nice, but you can just ask my brothers, the Rollins brothers, the Jones brothers, Greg Johnson or any of the other kids that lived in that neighborhood and they'll tell you the same thing.
Stanley - He was a couple years younger than me. He was a diabetic and had to give himself insulin shots everyday. He also loved to throw these wonderful pity parties for himself. (A short story for another day.)
Richard - The youngest son. He was a couple of years younger than Stanley and one of those kids that would do anything you told him to do. (Another short story for another day.)
These are some of the reasons why we classified this family as odd:
Ruth kept a real tight rein on Stanley and Richard. They were only allowed to play in their back yard if Cindy was able to sit outside and watch them. They had probably lived in the house for about six months when Ruth finally decided that it was safe to let them play in the back yard unattended; looking back, that probably wasn't a good idea. (Story to come in a minute!)
They were also not allowed to ride their bikes in the street. Keep in mind that most moms were stay at home moms, there were maybe 20 houses on the street, and the peak traffic times on that street were at 6am when most of the dads were going to work and 6pm....when most of the dads were coming home from work.
During the day, we amused ourselves by having bicycle races, seeing who could ride the longest with no hands on the handlebars, etc. Stanley used to beg my younger brother to just ride his bike in front of their house, since Stanley and Richard were only allowed to ride from one edge of their front yard to the other edge of their front yard. (Did I mention that their front yard was fenced in with a chain-link fence?)
When my brother really wanted to tick Stanley off, he would pretend to ride along with Stanley, then bolt like lightening up the street and around the block.
Another thing was the sheer number of people inhabiting this house....and they weren't even Mexican!!! And I haven't even mentioned the dogs, yet! To this day, I still can not imagine what the sleeping arrangements were.
They got the bright idea to get a dog. A Doberman named Cleo. Cleo got lonely. So they got ANOTHER Doberman named Duke. Duke liked Cleo, Cleo liked Duke. They REALLY liked each other and Cleo wound up having a litter of 9 pups as proof.
Did I mention that this was a three bedroom home, with seven people living in it, 2 of whom smoked and eleven dogs living in it? Did I mention they lived next door to us?
So....that's the family, now let's get on with some stories.
I like to call this one "Hang 'Em High". (I love Clint Eastwood and the title sort of ties into this story.) Speaking of which, AMC is showing ALL of the Dirty Harry movies this week. We need more Dirty Harrys in the world.
The story takes place in the Baskin's back yard. Ruth had decided that Cindy no longer had to watch Stanley and Richard when they played in the back yard...considering that Stanley was about 8 and Richard was about 5, this was a good thing...then again, maybe not.
Most of the trees in their backyard were at the very end of the lot. These trees sat on a hill that had a somewhat steep drop. For whatever reason, one of boys had tossed a rope over one of the branches on one of the trees and tied a small loop at the end. Their game was to grab hold of the loop, take a few steps back, then run full tilt to the edge of the hill and swing from the rope.
One day, Stanley and Richard were playing their little game. My brother and I had gotten into a spat with them earlier that day, so we were not on speaking terms. So we decided to do what we normally did if we wanted to p*ss them off. We sat on the property line, stared at them, and pretended like we were talking about them. (Come to think of it, I don't think we were really pretending.)
For whatever reason, Stanley decided to try something different with the swing. He threw the rope over Richard's neck and pushed him off the hill. (I can safely say that he did NOT intentionally attempt to kill his brother....he was just stupid. I think stupidity ran in the family.)
As soon as Richard swung off the hill, Stanley realized that that might not have been such a good idea, so he grabbed Richard, pushed him back up the hill, and took the rope off his neck. It happened so quick, that Richard really didn't have time to get hurt....except for the humongous rope burn around his neck, but he didn't cry.
This happened in the middle of summer, when most boys ran around barefoot, in shorts with no shirt. That rope burn could not be missed.
My brother Dan hollered over to Richard: "You ok Rich?" Stanley said "Shut up...we're still not talkin' to y'all."
Stanley turned to Richard and said, "Now, Richard...you're ok, ok? Just don't say nuthin' and everything'll be ok."
Richard said "OK....I'm going in the house to get some water."
Stanley said, "Look...instead of goin' in the house, why don't you just grab a drink from the hose. It's just as good."
"Yeah, but it ain't cold. I want ice water," said Richard.
"Well, go ahead and run in, but remember, don't say anything cuz you're ok. Just don't say nuthin' and it'll be ok. We don't want to get punished, right?"
Now...I couldn't understand why in the world Stanley thought RICHARD would be getting punished, but this family WAS rather odd.
Anyway, off Richard ran to the house. There was dead silence. Then all of a sudden there was a thunderous "STANLEY!!!!" that was probably heard clear over to Mimosa Circle.
Stanley yelled back, "Ma'am?"
"GET IN HERE........NOW!!!!"
"OK" said Stanley.
Dan and I could smell it....and I'm not talking about smell of stale cigarette smoke intermingled with the smell of eleven Doberman's on a hot summer day. Nope...the air was ripe with the unmistakable smell of an a** whoopin'. It was something that we were intimately familiar with, as were most kids on our street.
This was, after all, back in the early 70's. Time out did not exist as we presently know it and the only kids that got put on restriction had hippies for parents.
Back then, time out was when mamas and daddys had to switch their a** whooper (might be a belt, might be a hickory switch, might be a hand...each mama and daddy had their own special a** whoopin' equipment) over to their other hand so their regular a** whoopin' hand could rest so the a** whoopin' could continue uninterrupted.
You also didn't have to worry about DFACS back then. EVERYBODY got an a** whoopin' at one time or another and most folks my age will tell you that not only did they deserve every one of them, but sometimes it becomes somewhat of a p*ssing contest as to who got the worst a** whoopin' and the stories are told with a certain amount of pride.
Anyway, yep Stanley got an a** whoopin'; we knew because we could hear it. Not that we were trying to listen or anything, but most houses back then did not have central air conditioning so most of them had their windows wide open.
Richard's rope burn eventually healed; the rope was taken down from the tree and it was a long time before Stanley and Richard were allowed to play in the back yard alone.
My brother and I eventually got back on speaking terms with them again....till the next time we had a spat with them.
So much for "Hang 'Em High". Next up, a story I like to call "There's Something About Cindy"....but I'll leave that one for next time. But just to give you a little preview, it involves the garbage man. (Betcha can't wait, huh?)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Amazing Facts
Amazing IT Facts
Fact: A printer will not print if it is not turned on.
Fact: If you submit a job and it does not finish right away, submitting it again will not make the first job complete. Submitting it ten times does not make it go faster.
Fact: If you do not know what your password is, I don't either.
Fact: Mr. Zuhamfa from Nigeria is not going to give you $1.5 million dollars if you wire him your bank account number along with $5oo to pay for the release fees.
Fact: If an IT administrator sends out an email saying under no circumstances should you open an email with a subject line "Hey Stupid....Open This", there will be at least 15 people that will open that email when they receive it.
Amazing Facts of Life:
Fact: You don't tug on Superman's cape.
Fact: You don't spit into the wind.
Fact: You don't "drop the kids off at the pool", when the water's off in the building.
(Plea: If the water is off in the building, and you've already "dropped some of the kids of in the pool", don't get up and go to ANOTHER pool to let ANOTHER load of kids out. That bus needs to stay parked at one pool, and one pool only. If at all possible, you should try to convince the kids to go to the pool at home.)
Fact: There is a true story behind the previous fact. It's hysterical....at least I thought so, but then I'm weird like that. But you do NOT want to hear it during lunch.
Facts about the economy:
Fact: Over 1000 applicants lined up for 35 firefighters jobs in Florida.
Fact: Over 1000 applicants lined up for 600 openings at a Kia plant in LaGrange, Georgia.
Fact: Benjamin was not among those applicants.
Fact: A printer will not print if it is not turned on.
Fact: If you submit a job and it does not finish right away, submitting it again will not make the first job complete. Submitting it ten times does not make it go faster.
Fact: If you do not know what your password is, I don't either.
Fact: Mr. Zuhamfa from Nigeria is not going to give you $1.5 million dollars if you wire him your bank account number along with $5oo to pay for the release fees.
Fact: If an IT administrator sends out an email saying under no circumstances should you open an email with a subject line "Hey Stupid....Open This", there will be at least 15 people that will open that email when they receive it.
Amazing Facts of Life:
Fact: You don't tug on Superman's cape.
Fact: You don't spit into the wind.
Fact: You don't "drop the kids off at the pool", when the water's off in the building.
(Plea: If the water is off in the building, and you've already "dropped some of the kids of in the pool", don't get up and go to ANOTHER pool to let ANOTHER load of kids out. That bus needs to stay parked at one pool, and one pool only. If at all possible, you should try to convince the kids to go to the pool at home.)
Fact: There is a true story behind the previous fact. It's hysterical....at least I thought so, but then I'm weird like that. But you do NOT want to hear it during lunch.
Facts about the economy:
Fact: Over 1000 applicants lined up for 35 firefighters jobs in Florida.
Fact: Over 1000 applicants lined up for 600 openings at a Kia plant in LaGrange, Georgia.
Fact: Benjamin was not among those applicants.
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