Author: mark_user

When I was 13, I had a friend who lived in the house behind me. Jimmy H. and I went camping at his brothers farm, somewhere in the country. We were on our own and totally unsupervised. I was ready to go. I had my new sleeping bag and everything. After the sun had set and we finished setting up our camp, Jimmy decided that it would be cool to see what a real line of fire would look like ( you know, like the movies). I tactfully agreed. We filled up an old coffee can full of kerosene from the lamp. The brilliant plan was, he would run very fast and pour a little out at a time. Thereby making a line of fire. Easy peasy.

He walked to the fire and bent down to start pouring out the kerosene and the entire can went up instantly. He panicked and threw the can. It landed on my new sleeping bag. We grabbed it and tried to put it out. First, we threw it in the mud and jumped on it. Then, as a safety precaution, we filled up a few buckets of water from the creek and dumped it on the bag.

After a long argument over who’s fault it was, I tried to fall asleep in a stinky, wet, and mud covered bag. I could not believe that he refused to give me his sleeping bag as compensation! I am pretty sure, I slept a total of 1 hour that entire weekend.

When in first grade, one day I got lucky and found a penny in the school yard. I decided to go to a local store called HART pharmacy and buy myself a piece of penny candy. I grabbed a piece from the jar and put my penny on the counter. Mr. Hart looked at me and said, that will be 2 cents please. What??? I threw myself on the floor of his store and had a totally meltdown. I told him “this is called penny candy for a reason…. I know false advertising when I see it“.

After letting me sulk for a while, Mr. Hart leaned over the counter and in a stern voice said Son, it’s called inflation, better get used to it. My 6 year old self rejected that concept completely.

This is a list of what I think are the best of the 80s games that I played as a kid. I recently purchased a few on eBay, to see if I can get back that ole’ feeling. Now I just have to find someone to play with 🙁

• Gamma World
• D and D, 1st edition.
• Top Secret
• Boot Hill
• Twilight 2000
• Panzer Leader
• Third Reich
• Panzer Blitz
• Tactics II

In second grade, my mom told me to not wear out my good shoes because they did not have money to buy new ones. Well, I must have played rough that day because the heel fell off. The entire next week, mom made me go to school in my bedroom slippers. On Saturday, after my dad got paid, she took me to the store and bought me new ones.

I can attest, that there is no greater shame, then having to tell your classmates that you don’t have any shoes. I began to understand that my family was lower lower lower middle class.

When I was a kid, I held the family record for most trips to the hospital. It was so bad, my mom was investigated for child abuse. Here are a few memorable one.

One day, we got a new dryer and my older brother Wayne and I were playing with the box in our front yard. He got a knife and cut a door and crawled in. He poked a hole in the box to look out. He would not let me to play so I started looking in the hole to see what he was doing. He got mad and thrust the knife through the hole to get me away from his box. The knife hit me in the cheek about 1 from my left eye. I had to get stitches (I still tell everyone, the scar is from a knife fight).

One day, mom said we will be having dinner soon and not to go far. So I was going to just ride my bike to the end of the street and back. As I was riding my bike down the sidewalk, by Herman z German’s house (was he a Nazis? no one knew), I had to navigate around his car, as it was overhanging the sidewalk, and hit a piece of uneven concrete. I flew over the handlebars. Fortunately, my face slowed my acceleration. That day, I learned the head bleeds more that the rest of the body.

In 5th grade, my friend Rusty Zimmer and I got in an argument and I punched him in the face and broke my knuckle on my right hand. I had to get a cast put on my arm and everyone signed it.

On a fine summer afternoon, me and my friend Jimmy Hammersmith decided to drive a wooden stake into the ground [who knows why?]. We could not find a hammer. Our problem solving skills kicked into overdrive. We will climb onto a ladder and in sequence drop concrete blocks onto the wooden stake. Thereby, driving it into the ground. I remember bending over to pick up my block when it all went blank. My poor mother had to make another trip to the hospital, for a head wound.

In 6th grade, I was playing in the school yard and fell and dislocated the thumb on my left hand. For the second time in a year, I had to get cast put on my arm. Sadly, my so called friends and family refused to sign it. They said “been there, done that”. That was a little hard for me to take.

All the kids were playing baseball in the back yard. They asked me to be the catcher. I knew from TV that he stood right behind the batter. Unfortunately, I was too close and when Julie Alford swung the bat, she hit me in the right eye. It soon swelled up terrible and they said I would be blind. The doctor had to cut my eye lid to release the pressure. But, I got to wear a eye patch like a pirate for 3 weeks.

When I was 16, after I had my license for a few weeks, my dad asked me to go to Kroger’s to get some broccoli for dinner. My sister Jill went too. She would not SHUT UP and complained the entire trip. This distracted me.

The car in front had no break lights and had slowed to a stop to pull in their driveway. I hit the car at 20MPH and Jill’s face made a perfect mold in the front windshield. She was bleeding badly and I ran to the nearest house and asked to use the phone. We called an ambulance and I also called my dad. Before I hung up the phone and walked outside, I saw my dad running up the street.

To this day, I don’t know how he ran a half mile in less than 5 seconds? Of course, I got in big trouble. But, in truth, it really really was Jill’s fault. 🙂