Fuzzy Childhood Memories XIII

The Turds in the Hall

It's been a while since I've really posted anything. Fuzzy memories come and go, and they had been running dry for a while, but one has been sticking out recently and with my brother just starting his blog, it sort of inspired me...and yes, he is the main character in this one. Here it is, a fresh installment...

It was probably around 1985 or '86, I was 9 or 10 and my brother was about 6 or 7 years old. As always, the minor details are sketchy. I can't recall, but I'm fairly sure that it was during the Summer months and most likely on a Saturday. So my brother and I are just lounging around on the floor in the living room watching TV, cartoons probably, not really speaking to each other, just focused intently on the tube. It seemed like hours, we just sat there and stared, except occasionally we had to bang on the TV to get the picture back working.

On a side note, our TV was pretty crappy, it was one of those old school picture-tube consoles, it weighed so much that if it tipped over on top of one of us, we would surely be riding the short bus for the rest of our lives only if we survived, which was not likely. Another thing about the TV was that the picture would constantly go out. Sometimes you could fix it by banging on the top of it, but that didn't always work, so we had to do something we learned from watching our dad. It probably wasn't the safest thing for a kid to do, but it was worth the risk to get our cartoons back on the air. Our dad had loosened the back panel of the TV and he could fix the picture by reaching inside the back of the TV while it was still on and jiggle this aluminum box inside and the picture would come back. Without a concern for getting electrocuted, we would mindlessly reach our tiny hands inside this massive TV and grab a metal box and jiggle it and like magic, we were watching toons again, no big deal.

Anyway, back to the main story. So, we're just sitting there watching TV for a long time and I believe it was a commercial break when I barely even noticed my brother get up and take off running into the other room. He didn't say a word and in a matter of minutes he was back beside me watching the show. Probably about 15 minutes or so pass before the next break and I decide to go take a leak. This is when I notice something is not quite right. As soon as I step foot in the hallway, I notice a trail of turds leading to the bathroom, this was unacceptable. My brother had pulled his pants all the way down while running to the bathroom and his bowels let loose, spitting little turds here and there, two lay in the hallway, several on the bathroom floor, and even one on the toilet seat. I don't even think the dude wiped because there was one lonesome turd still left in the toilet, which was devoid of TP and I know he did not flush. Well, I certainly could not let this stand, so I summoned our mom to come investigate the scene. I don't think she was too pleased, I mean it's disgusting. I know he was only 6 or 7, but he should have known better. I was hoping for some justice, hoping that he would have to pick each turd up with his bare hand and scrub the floors clean, but he just gets off with a minor tongue lashing and gets to go about his business. This obviously had no affect on him whatsoever, because not too long after that, the same scenario occurred. I don't recall it happening again, I still wouldn't put it past him, especially if 'Fraggle Rock' came on and he had to choose between taking a dump and missing a precious minute of watching Doozers ride around. He loved that show, to me the original 'Muppets' were way better.

My brother loved Doozers as much as taking a dump on the floor (Probably still does):

Fuzzy Childhood Memories XII

Stool sample, anyone?

I'm sure most have heard the expression, "Kids say the darndest things." Well, kids eat the darndest things too. I remember growing up when my brother and sister were toddlers, those suckers were like vacuum cleaners. My sister's favorite meal was a stick of butter while my brother preferred mayonaise sandwiches. Luckily they grew out of that phase as well as the phase of eating inedible objects, although the paint chips might have done some permanent damage...Just kidding.

I think I remember my sister eating loose change and maybe even a nail. Probably the oddest thing she ever ingested was a decal off the 'General Lee', my brother's 'Dukes of Hazzard', toy car. My mom would always freak out and then we would have to play the waiting game. It was like a Cracker Jack box of fecal matter, my mom would have to search through some vile stuff just to make sure everything came out allright. I could tell my mom was relieved to see the 'stars and bars' of the 'General Lee' in a heaping pile of pooh. It was one of the nastiest things I think I have ever witnessed.

I guess kids are going to always put things in their mouths that they shouldn't and if you are a good parent you will probably find yourself poking turds with a stick at some point looking for those things. It seems that its just a fact of life.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories XI

Childhood Influences
The impact of media and pop-culture on children today is far different from when I was growing up. It was all about 'The Dukes of Hazzard', the 'A-team', and Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Album. 'Knight Rider' and 'The Incredible Hulk' were staples of a kid's TV watching diet. The huge satellite dish in the back yard picked up all kinds of signals, scrambled or unscrambled, that were things that kids really shouldn't be watching. We had fake, candy cigarettes and cap guns that looked real. We had yard darts, which was sort of like natural selection of the 1980s. We rode bikes and skateboards with no helmets or pads, in cars with no seatbelts, or in the back of pickups. We were living on the edge, rebels without a clue. It's not that parents cared less about kids back then than they do now, I don't know, things were just different. How many kids today wear clothes that their mother made? I know I wore my share of homemade 'jamz', the short-pants of choice back in the day. Man, we were a bunch of retards, but life was good. As a kid, you're bombarded with all these things, but ultimately it's the parents who are the most influential.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories X

Pissing Contest

From previous 'Fuzzy Childhood Memories' posts, you'll recall how I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house along with my brother and two cousins. I just now remember having actual pissing contests along the banks of the creek that ran through the backyard. We would always see who could pee, not the farthest, but the highest. My cousin could pee probably over 6 or 7 feet high, nobody that I knew could top that. Maybe it was the huge wart on his penis, I don't know. So, I guess it really wasn't a contest, but just something to do for amusement...Amusement that is until the accident. I don't know how it happened, I just remember the trauma that ensued. The details are sketchy at best, I just remember walking around the corner of my grandpa's shed when all of the sudden I was drilled in the face with my cousin's urine stream...It was horrible. My favorite baseball cap was ruined and I proceeded to run to the house and immediately wash my face off with as much soap as possible. I was actually washing my own mouth out with soap, oh the irony. My mom didn't believe that my cousin could have possibly urinated in my face, despite my proclamations. She was finally convinced when I showed her my yellow baseball cap with a vivid pee stain across the bill. She was obviously stunned, but her laughter didn't help the way I was feeling, I was extremely 'pissed' off, or on, whichever way you want to look at it, I was not happy. So, I guess that's where the story ends, no more pissing contests for me. I would advise against them if at all possible.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories IX

Crash Test Brother



Back in the day, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' home with my brother and two cousins. I don't know how my grandma put up with all of us for so many years, but somehow she managed. My grandparents had a huge backyard with a creek and a vast amount of wooded area. This was our playground. There was a trampoline and a cement basketball court and just wide open spaces to roam around and do whatever. We were hopped up on an abundant supply of Pepsi and other things parents don't let their kids have today. It was the 80's and parents weren't as over-protective as they are today. I mean, we rode home from school everyday in the back of a pick-up and rode bikes with no helmets. When was the last time you saw a kid doing such things? I think we were the last ones...Fortunately for us we got to do cool stuff.

There was so much for us to get into and it opened the door up for us to do a lot of really stupid things. For instance, we dug out a 'huge' hole in the backyard near the woods. It was probably about 3 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet deep. We covered it with sticks and leaves hoping we could get the neighbor's grandkid to 'accidentally' fall in. This kid was so skittish, that if you waved a popsicle stick at him he would freak out, so we couldn't wait to see what he would do if he fell in this hole filled with mud and muck. Well, we tried to coax him towards the hole, but no dice, he was a little apprehensive. My brother who was about seven years old was getting a little impatient and I guess he really wanted to see that kid fall in the hole. The kid wasn't moving, so my brother just gave him a shove in the back as he crashed though the sticks and leaves into ankle deep mud at the bottom of this pit. Of course we were all shocked at my brother's actions, but we knew we were all to blame. The kid wasn't hurt, but his brand new 'Superman' shoes were ruined and no surprise, this upset him immensely as went crying all the way home, "My Soopaman shoes! My new Soopaman shoes!". It was funny at the time, but so wrong. Lucky we didn't get beat down for that one.

My older cousin and I were the inventors and builders of the group. My younger cousin and brother were the test pilots, but more like crash test dummies in all honesty. We would build sleds and scooters out of rusty lawnmower parts and whatever my grandpa had laying around the basement and let my brother and cousin test them out on the hills around the house. Usually they came away with nothing more than a bruise or a scratch, maybe the occasional rusty-nail-puncture-wound, but that was about it. Then the day came to take to the skies, so we decided to build a glider/parachute out of limbs, duct tape, and a huge plastic bag my grandpa used to get up leaves in the backyard. My older cousin and I were confident in the design, so confident in fact that we were going to let my brother jump off the roof with it . . . Brilliant! This was going to be awesome! Well, luckily for my brother, my grandma thought this wasn't the best of ideas, so she suggested that we simply drop the contraption off the roof with nobody in it and see what happens. This idea wasn't nearly as cool, but at least we were going to still be able to drop something off the roof, so we said what the heck and dropped the glider/parachute off the roof. Of course it crashed violently to Earth and shattered in several pieces, grandma was right as usual, good thing for my brother's sake.

You learn something new each time you do something stupid. Like, if you catch the woods on fire with gasoline while trying to kill a hive of yellow jackets, it's a good idea to have a fat kid with a board on hand so he can smother out the flames. It's also good to know that the grass in your grandparent’s backyard is not the same as the grass on the golf course and if you lower the blade on the lawnmower, it's just going to make a bare spot and not a putting green. We did a lot of stupid things back in those days, but fortunately for us, we're still here.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories VIII

These gruesome stories about mangled and ripped out testicles are making me have painful flashbacks to my first ever memory of getting hit directly in the balls. Now, I'm sure every man on Earth can hearken back to that dreadful day when time seemed to stand still, when the whole world seemed to come to an abrupt and tragic end all because his junk took a direct hit. It's probably one of the main reasons Einstein devised his atomic theory, because he himself had his 'atoms' split at one time or another. All I'm saying, is that I will never ever forget.

Okay, so here is the blow by blow of how it all went down. Recess, 1st grade, the daily kickball game, I was positioned in the outfield. The fat kid in class was up to kick and you just knew that if he got his weight behind it that the ball would go pretty far. So, there I was, the last defender and I had no idea how far this kid was going to kick the ball. If I had known, this would be a totally different 'fuzzy memory' all together.

Anyway, this kid kicks the ball and I could tell right off the bat that I was toast, I mean he really got into it. So immediately the ball gets past me, so I'm chasing with all my might, just focused on ball and tracking it down before it got to be a homerun. I finally reach the ball and as soon as I am able to grasp it, still carrying the momentum of an all out sprint, I look up and realize that I am on a collision course with the monkey bars. I tried applying the brakes, but my Zipps just wouldn't hold up as I crashed nuts first into the pole.

At that point, I think I blacked out momentarily from the pain and agony, I thought I was going to puke right before dying. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain finally subsided and the paralysis slowly faded. I don't remember crying, I think I was too stunned, but all I know is that it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me at that point in my life. Even now, after numerous shots to the groin, over the course of many years, the fear has never went away from that first time on the playground in 1st grade. Like I said, I will never forget.


Artist rendition of that faithful day on the playground in 1st grade.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories VI

First Job - 1992
Maybe you cut the neighbor's yard for a few bucks a week. Maybe you flipped burgers at some fast-food joint. Maybe you bagged groceries at Piggly Wiggly, or maybe you just gave out BJs in the parking lot for a quick buck or two...It doesn't matter, the point is, everyone remembers their first paying job whether it was good or bad. When you're 15 or 16 years old, you'll take a the $4.25 an hour and think you're well on your way to being the next Donald Trump.

$4.25 an hour, that's what I made at my first job. That was the minimum wage in 1992. I got a gig working at a local sandwich, slash ice cream shop because the lady that owned it went to my church and my parents thought it would be good for me to get a little work experience. I wasn't that thrilled about it, but one of my friends was working there too, so it made it a little better. I don't think he was too keen on working either.

It's not like the job was hard or anything. You pretty much just ran the drive-thru, scooped some ice cream, and mopped the floors. It wasn't so bad. We got a 15 minute break and a $5 allowance to buy food. Some days you got to change the message on the sign outside or do something cool like sweep the entire parking lot. That was about as good as it got.

Most of the time I was manning the drive-thru, something that I hated to do, although I did get mad tips. Actually I only got tipped once and it was only 15 cents. I don't think I had taken an economics class up to that point, but somehow I knew that 15 cents added to my minimum wage salary was not worth the opportunity cost of having to clean out the women's bathroom. You might as well have been sending me to clean out the reactor at Chernobyl 'cause to me, it was one of the most godforsaken places on Earth. I remember the first time they sent me in there, I was thinkin' it couldn't possibly be as bad as the guys bathroom, after all, women are the fairer sex. Man, I was in for a shock. First off, this place stunk like I don't know what, kind of like someone took a dump in a can of Starkist. There were spent tampons and pads all over the floor, it looked like a war zone. I didn't want to touch that stuff even with my rubber gloves on. I pretty much just held my breath for as long as I could until I could saturate the whole place with bleach. Then I would just flush the toilet and get the heck out of there. It got to the point where that was pretty much all I did...Flush the toilet and spay some bleach and be out with the quickness. It wasn't long, however, before the boss lady called me into her office, telling me that I needed to do a better job cleaning the women's restroom. Not long after that, and this is no coincidence, I decided that I had better focus more on my studies and playing on the baseball team and that I really didn't have time for all this and a job, so I decided to quit.



It was sort of like this when I had to clean out the women's restroom...

Yes, I will always remember my first job. Although I don't list the skills I learned from that job on my resume, nor do I hearken back to those days to answer questions during an interview. I will say that the things I experienced are forever burned into my cerebral cortex whether I want them there or not.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories V

The Case of the Dented Skull - 1985
It was normal day just like any other. I was about eight or nine, my brother was five, and my sister was less than an year old. We were just being kids that day, jumping around on my parents bed, having fun. We were supposed to keeping an eye on my sister and that's what we were doing. It's no fun to just sit there and watch her, so we were trying to make her laugh, jumping around and acting crazy.

Here's where the details begin to get a little cloudy. I don't know how it happened exactly, but you know how babies' heads are really soft and the skull has yet to harden? Well, for some reason, my brother dented my sister's head like a ping pong ball, only it wasn't popping back out. She was screaming and wouldn't stop, so we began to panic.



It was obvious that something needed to be done and with me being the oldest, I took it upon myself to fix this dent in my sister's cranium the only way I knew how. The only training that I had was fixing dented ping pong balls. I knew from mashing on the sides of the ball around the dent that sometimes you could fix it, so with this knowledge, I began mashing on my sister's head around the dent trying to get it to pop out. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, her head returned to it's normal shape, much to our relief.

Not wanting to get into trouble for this, my brother and I both swore never to speak of this incident again and we kept this secret for many years until just a few years ago. We figured because my sister did not end up retarded or anything that we could finally bring this story to light. Who knows what effect that day had on my sister's mental capacity. Maybe she would be a genius today if not for our irresponsibility. We're just glad she turned out normal.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories IV

Kirby Rocks Christmas (1980's)

Christmas is a time of giving and spending time with family. Our family would gather at my grandparents' home for the traditional meal and exchanging of gifts. I'm sure it was not that much different than any other family Christmas celebration, pretty basic stuff, basic unless you count Kirby. For those of you about to rock Christmas, I salute you, and yes, I mean you, Kirby. Kirby is my aunt's brother and we only saw him on rare occasions, and Christmas was one of those occasions. A guitar master, Kirby was packing a Strat nearly every place he went. He resembled a cross between Neil Young and Meatloaf, but he rocked out to Whitesnake and Poison right in the middle of Christmas. He would sit on the couch, oblivious to everyone, just stroking out licks on his guitar while we all exchanged gifts. Kirby never had any gifts to open, but he didn't care, he had the gift of music and sometimes that's all you need.


If Neil Young and Meatloaf had a kid, Kirby would be his name-o.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories III

The Chesnut Wars (Late 1980's)

This wasn't some George Lucas dreamed up battle with Yoda and Jabba the Hut, this was real. We had to defend our turf from the fat kid across the street or he might come over and bust the springs off our trampoline.

The battle lines were drawn in the back yard between two chesnut trees separated by thirty yards of open field. Having him out numbered four-to-one we wasted no time with our aggression. My older cousin began launching the first wave of chesnuts, narrowly missing their target. The response was swift, but expected as we were able to avoid the flying projectiles. The battle raged for what seemed for like an hour, neither side backing down, each taking minor hits, but remaining steadfast.

With ammo running low, our portly opponent launched a desperate final campaign, peppering our positions with fists-full of chesnuts. Though risky, this maneuver proved to be decisive as a lone stealthy chesnut made a direct hit on my left eye leaving it blackened and swollen. At this point, we knew that we had been defeated, reluctantly surrendering use of the trampoline. Thus it sits today barren of springs, a lasting relic of the Chesnut Wars.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories II

Dixie Youth Baseball - 1986-1988
I was 10 years old and life was good. Baseball was my passion, Ozzie Smith was the man. My red Nike cleats paid homage to him, although our uniforms were yellow with brown lettering. We wore the Dixie Youth logo proudly on our right sleeve, not really knowing the implications of the 'stars 'n bars' incorporated into it, other than it was like the ones on top of the 'General Lee' in 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and everyone thought 'The Dukes of Hazzard' was cool. Heck, every car horn just about was rigged to sound like the 'General Lee'. What a bunch of rednecks.

I played shortstop for Golden Corral. They were like the Yankees of the Reidsville Dixie Youth League. Golden Corral was one of the finest dining establishments in the whole town and our team enjoyed the perks. After every Monday practice, we were treated to a free meal at the restaurant, we were on top of the world. On the really hot summer days, while other teams were lucky to have lukewarm water with a lead aftertaste, our team had and endless supply of iced down Coke and Mr. Pibb.

I remember a few of the kids on the team. There was Lil' Red, the biggest kid in the league. He would have to buy a new 'Bomb Bat' every week because he hit the ball so hard that the bats would deform on impact. There was Dinky Robertson. He was the kid who always acted cool and tough off the field, but on the field he was always getting hurt and ended up crying every game. Lets see, there was Ricthie Wright, son of a dairy farmer. One day he came to practice with a bandage on his face, apparently he had been bitten in the face by a cow. There were many more, but those are just the few that stick out.

Dixie Youth Baseball was not the Little League World Series, but we didn't care. All we knew how to do was to just have fun. You won some, you lost some. Maybe somebody's dad got mad and beat down the umpire in the parking lot. Maybe some of the parents took it a little too seriously, belittling their kid for not swinging on 0 and 2. So what if some of the kids were already chewing tobacco at the age of 10, it's all just a part of life and growing up I guess.

Fuzzy Childhood Memories I

Setting: pre-school, 1979, age: 3 years old. There I was, minding my own business building a tower out of wooden blocks. The tower reached epic proportions and was pushing three feet in height, when all of a sudden...Disaster...A little girl, who will remain nameless, maliciously attacked the structure, reducing it to rubble. I was enraged and gave a stern warning of swift retaliation if it were to happen again. Determined, I pressed on and rebuilt the block tower, restoring it to its original prominence. That's when history repeated itself and there was only one course of action to take...that's right, I bit her in the face. She never knocked over my blocks again. That is what pre-school was for, learning, and everyone learned a lot that day.