Saturday Morning Cartoons
Mom bought a TV Guide from the grocery store every week. Why she did this is beyond me. We got a total of 6 channels; ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, channel 11 and channel 30, which was usually full of static. Channel 11 was, without a doubt, my favorite channel. They showed horror movies late at night, and mom would let us stay up on Fridays to watch. Now that I'm a mother myself, I understand this tactic. If we stay up late on Friday, we should sleep late on Saturday. If we sleep late on Saturday, she won't be awakened at 6 am by the TV. Riiiiight. We were children, filled with boundless energy. We didn't need sleep!
Twice a year, my sister and I would leaf through the TV Guide and decide which Saturday Morning Lineup we would watch for the next 6 months. It was too much trouble to get up off the floor and change channels every half hour, so choosing the right station was crucial. The networks understood this. They would show previews of their new cartoons in the evening during sweeps week. The winter the Smurfs made their debut comes to mind right off. I don't recall how old I was, though the internet agrees it was 1982. We had already explored the new cartoons guide, and couldn't decide which channel to watch that night. Some of the shows looked really good, some looked like garbage in animated form. Whatever we decided on, it was sadly disappointing. We switched channels, found the Smurfs, and were hooked. Yes... That was when cartoons started to really go downhill.
Crappy cartoons notwithstanding, my sister and I got up with the sun every Saturday. We would try to be quiet, but by 9 o'clock mom would be making breakfast for us. Even better than the cartoons was what came on afterward. Wrestling At The Chase. Wrestling rocked! Big strong men in superhero costumes acting out the most delicious dramas. The good guys like Hulk Hogan, sergeant Slaughter and George the Animal Steel, battled stereotypical evil-doers like The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Andre the Giant was neither good nor bad, he was more like a force of nature. Once in a blue moon we'd be lucky enough to see him in a "wrestle royale". That's where 20 men fight to be the last one left in the ring. Andre would toss them out like they weighed nothing. Every wrestler had a signature move, and I loved them all. Von Eric had the Iron Claw, capable of delivering a knock out headache. Rowdy Roddy Piper had the figure 4 leg-lock to go with his signature kilt. Adrian Adonis would pause to have his attendants spritz him with perfume before he finished off his opponents. Randy "Macho Man" Savage portrayed a wife beater, back in the day -before it became politically incorrect. He was the man I loved to hate. I also hated "The Millionaire" Ted Dibiase, because he would throw money around, and buy off his matches.
As cartoon quality dropped off, wrestling got better and better. A big part of my childhood involved wrestling, and then; either I grew up, or wrestling just got weird. The managers began playing bigger roles. The best wrestlers retired, and everyone left started looking like body builders. It was a sad day for wrestling when I decided to play outside, rather than watch Wrestling At The Chase.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Everyone Knows To Stay Away From The Pervs
Mom didn't go to the bar. Mom rarely drank, and she absolutely hated beer. She called it "piss water". She looked down on beer drinkers, viewing them as only one step above winos. This kept us pretty isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. All my friends went to the bar to buy cigarettes for their parents. Mom sent us all the way to the gas station. The gas station was a full block away, and to get there you had to pass abandoned buildings and such. Just because an owner doesn't want a building, doesn't mean it is empty. The homeless slept there or used the buildings as shelter. The homeless weren't a threat. It was the pervs we had to watch out for.
The pervs used the abandoned buildings -and the space between them, in the afternoons and evenings. Mom usually needed a new pack of cigarettes around 7:00 pm. That was prime perv time. The pervs would bring their dirty magazines and whack off in the buildings. Some of them needed a more public place to do their business, so they'd use the gravel and glass parking lot between the buildings.
That really sucked for my sister and I, because the parking lot held a short cut to the gas station. If there was even a chance that someone might be lurking in the lot, or the path beyond that led to a hole in the gas station's fence; we would take the long way. Neither of us wanted to get snatched. Snatchings were common, and never talked about.
If you grew up in a good neighborhood, you might not understand. Admitting that you were snatched and violated would be showing weakness. You might as well paint "victim" across your forehead, and be done with it. Weak people got robbed, beaten and raped. Not once or twice, but often. You never, never, never admit weakness in a neighborhood like mine. I think that's why it bothered mom so much when we got robbed. Somehow, we had appeared as victims. After that, we had to be a lot more vigilant. We had to come across as twice as tough as before. We had to convince the neighborhood that there would be retribution on an apocalyptic scale, or live in fear that next time we might be home, and lose more than just stuff. -I know it sounds melodramatic, but it was simply the way things were-
The pervs were another example of the way things were. I never counted how often I saw some perv masturbating in a semi-private part of the parking lot. The boldest perv I remember was standing in the middle of the lot, holding his pants in one hand and his dick in the other. He was looking down at a magazine. When he saw my sister and I, he walked off to a corner, just beating away. He left the magazine behind. We were lucky, he wasn't one of those guys who prefers children. We didn't have to see him look at us and get even more excited, or worse yet, chase us. That happened a few times, too. Being chased by a perv is no picnic.
We had a series of safe doors to knock on. Any of the bikers would have let us in. Also most of the pot dealers, and Tattoo Annie, the neighborhood prostitute. The pervs never chased us very far, though. We never had to knock on any of the doors. At least not for the neighborhood pervs. There were a few incidents being followed by a car...
They never tried the candy bit. Most of them offered money. "Hey, girl. Ya want some money?" Like that's going to bring me anywhere near a perv in a car! Street snatchings you might walk away from. Cars never brought you home.
How did I know this, when no one ever talked about it? I don't know. I think the real meaning of, "You stay away from those pervs." filters into kids through osmosis or something. We just all knew what would happen if you didn't stay away.
Mom didn't go to the bar. Mom rarely drank, and she absolutely hated beer. She called it "piss water". She looked down on beer drinkers, viewing them as only one step above winos. This kept us pretty isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. All my friends went to the bar to buy cigarettes for their parents. Mom sent us all the way to the gas station. The gas station was a full block away, and to get there you had to pass abandoned buildings and such. Just because an owner doesn't want a building, doesn't mean it is empty. The homeless slept there or used the buildings as shelter. The homeless weren't a threat. It was the pervs we had to watch out for.
The pervs used the abandoned buildings -and the space between them, in the afternoons and evenings. Mom usually needed a new pack of cigarettes around 7:00 pm. That was prime perv time. The pervs would bring their dirty magazines and whack off in the buildings. Some of them needed a more public place to do their business, so they'd use the gravel and glass parking lot between the buildings.
That really sucked for my sister and I, because the parking lot held a short cut to the gas station. If there was even a chance that someone might be lurking in the lot, or the path beyond that led to a hole in the gas station's fence; we would take the long way. Neither of us wanted to get snatched. Snatchings were common, and never talked about.
If you grew up in a good neighborhood, you might not understand. Admitting that you were snatched and violated would be showing weakness. You might as well paint "victim" across your forehead, and be done with it. Weak people got robbed, beaten and raped. Not once or twice, but often. You never, never, never admit weakness in a neighborhood like mine. I think that's why it bothered mom so much when we got robbed. Somehow, we had appeared as victims. After that, we had to be a lot more vigilant. We had to come across as twice as tough as before. We had to convince the neighborhood that there would be retribution on an apocalyptic scale, or live in fear that next time we might be home, and lose more than just stuff. -I know it sounds melodramatic, but it was simply the way things were-
The pervs were another example of the way things were. I never counted how often I saw some perv masturbating in a semi-private part of the parking lot. The boldest perv I remember was standing in the middle of the lot, holding his pants in one hand and his dick in the other. He was looking down at a magazine. When he saw my sister and I, he walked off to a corner, just beating away. He left the magazine behind. We were lucky, he wasn't one of those guys who prefers children. We didn't have to see him look at us and get even more excited, or worse yet, chase us. That happened a few times, too. Being chased by a perv is no picnic.
We had a series of safe doors to knock on. Any of the bikers would have let us in. Also most of the pot dealers, and Tattoo Annie, the neighborhood prostitute. The pervs never chased us very far, though. We never had to knock on any of the doors. At least not for the neighborhood pervs. There were a few incidents being followed by a car...
They never tried the candy bit. Most of them offered money. "Hey, girl. Ya want some money?" Like that's going to bring me anywhere near a perv in a car! Street snatchings you might walk away from. Cars never brought you home.
How did I know this, when no one ever talked about it? I don't know. I think the real meaning of, "You stay away from those pervs." filters into kids through osmosis or something. We just all knew what would happen if you didn't stay away.
Monday, January 12, 2004
Playing With Fire
My sister and I were pretty independent kids. We had to be, since mom came home from work at about 6 o'clock at night. We were intelligent and well behaved. We knew when something was a bad idea. But knowing a thing and heeding your own advice on it are two entirely different things. As a result, my sister and I made some mistakes.
Most were minor, like putting a roast in the oven and then going outside to play. That's how I learned meat shrinks, just like in the cartoons, when you let it cook for too long. Minor disasters included letting the tub overflow, ignoring the dog when she needs to go outside, and hiding crackers in the sofa -so mom wouldn't know you were eating junk. (side note: A box of crackers at Tru-Buy was 44 cents. That's some cheap eats, there. I ate a lot of crackers)
Sometimes, however, my sister and I made some major mistakes. We snuck out of the house and bet on the drunks leaving the bar. We went joyriding with people we barely knew, and once, we set the recliner on fire. It was a complete accident, of course. Neither of us were stupid enough to burn the furniture on purpose.
We were bored. So we invented a game. We had seen a commercial for a game where you remove pieces from a board until the central piece falls. Whoever makes the thing fall, loses. So we got a bowl full of water and covered it with plastic wrap. We put a penny in the center of the plastic wrap, and then we did the stupid thing. We swiped a pack of mom's cigarettes. The idea was to take turns burning holes in the plastic until the penny fell through. The water was insurance, because we were playing with fire. See how smart we were? It worked so well, we invited some friends to play the next day. We played again the day after. By this time, we were confident in our ability to control the cigarettes we were playing with. Puff puff puff on the cigarette until the end glows bright red, flick off the excess ashes and burn a neat hole in the plastic wrap.
It was my fault. I accidentally hit the cigarette on the edge of the bowl and knocked the cherry loose. I pulled my hand back to drop the cigarette in the ashtray, and the cherry flew up over my head and landed on the recliner. I grabbed a pillow and batted at the spot it had hit. Everyone surveyed the char hole, and we prayed that mom wouldn't notice. We were a little shook up at the near miss, but went back to playing the game. The room was full of cigarette smoke, but it was even smokier by the recliner. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of smoke coming from the burned spot that I thought I'd put out. One of the players declared, "The chair is on fire!" I turned to look, and sure enough; there was flame coming from the corner of the recliner. I grabbed the bowl of water and dumped it on the chair, plastic wrap and all. I either missed the spot, or it wasn't enough water. Everybody both ran to the kitchen for cups of water.
We dumped cup after cup of water on that poor old recliner. It seemed to take forever to stop smoldering, but eventually it did.
Our friends decided it was time to go home. The game wasn't fun anymore. We walked them to the stairs and said goodbye, then went to clean up the cigarette game. There was a nasty smell in the living room. We sprayed Lysol all over the chair, and that helped a bit. It was summer time, so the windows were already open; that helped more.
I blotted at the soggy recliner with towels. When I ran out, I used my winter clothes. I cried as I tried to soak up the water. I knew I was in such deep trouble that I couldn't even imagine what mom would say or do. To give her credit, my sister could have stood there telling me how much trouble I was in, but she didn't. She silently helped me clean up the mess.
Once the chair was as dry as we could make it, we covered it with an ugly orange blanket. When mom came home, we told her we had re-decorated, and showed her the new recliner cover. This was the moment of truth. Mom knows everything. Mom would certainly know the chair had been burned. How could she not know? One whole corner was missing. The house reeked of burned fabric and cigarette smoke. She must know. I was just waiting for the axe to fall.
The fates smiled on me that day. Mom must have been exhausted from work, or something. She declared that it was just lovely, told us she was going to take a nap, and asked if we could make dinner.
Months later, when she took the throw off to wash it, she saw the damage and asked what had happened. I fessed up to playing with some matches and accidentally burning the recliner. She said, "Well that was stupid. Thank God you're both ok." And later she commented, "I'm glad I have such smart daughters. You kept your heads, and I'm proud of you."
Go figure.
My sister and I were pretty independent kids. We had to be, since mom came home from work at about 6 o'clock at night. We were intelligent and well behaved. We knew when something was a bad idea. But knowing a thing and heeding your own advice on it are two entirely different things. As a result, my sister and I made some mistakes.
Most were minor, like putting a roast in the oven and then going outside to play. That's how I learned meat shrinks, just like in the cartoons, when you let it cook for too long. Minor disasters included letting the tub overflow, ignoring the dog when she needs to go outside, and hiding crackers in the sofa -so mom wouldn't know you were eating junk. (side note: A box of crackers at Tru-Buy was 44 cents. That's some cheap eats, there. I ate a lot of crackers)
Sometimes, however, my sister and I made some major mistakes. We snuck out of the house and bet on the drunks leaving the bar. We went joyriding with people we barely knew, and once, we set the recliner on fire. It was a complete accident, of course. Neither of us were stupid enough to burn the furniture on purpose.
We were bored. So we invented a game. We had seen a commercial for a game where you remove pieces from a board until the central piece falls. Whoever makes the thing fall, loses. So we got a bowl full of water and covered it with plastic wrap. We put a penny in the center of the plastic wrap, and then we did the stupid thing. We swiped a pack of mom's cigarettes. The idea was to take turns burning holes in the plastic until the penny fell through. The water was insurance, because we were playing with fire. See how smart we were? It worked so well, we invited some friends to play the next day. We played again the day after. By this time, we were confident in our ability to control the cigarettes we were playing with. Puff puff puff on the cigarette until the end glows bright red, flick off the excess ashes and burn a neat hole in the plastic wrap.
It was my fault. I accidentally hit the cigarette on the edge of the bowl and knocked the cherry loose. I pulled my hand back to drop the cigarette in the ashtray, and the cherry flew up over my head and landed on the recliner. I grabbed a pillow and batted at the spot it had hit. Everyone surveyed the char hole, and we prayed that mom wouldn't notice. We were a little shook up at the near miss, but went back to playing the game. The room was full of cigarette smoke, but it was even smokier by the recliner. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of smoke coming from the burned spot that I thought I'd put out. One of the players declared, "The chair is on fire!" I turned to look, and sure enough; there was flame coming from the corner of the recliner. I grabbed the bowl of water and dumped it on the chair, plastic wrap and all. I either missed the spot, or it wasn't enough water. Everybody both ran to the kitchen for cups of water.
We dumped cup after cup of water on that poor old recliner. It seemed to take forever to stop smoldering, but eventually it did.
Our friends decided it was time to go home. The game wasn't fun anymore. We walked them to the stairs and said goodbye, then went to clean up the cigarette game. There was a nasty smell in the living room. We sprayed Lysol all over the chair, and that helped a bit. It was summer time, so the windows were already open; that helped more.
I blotted at the soggy recliner with towels. When I ran out, I used my winter clothes. I cried as I tried to soak up the water. I knew I was in such deep trouble that I couldn't even imagine what mom would say or do. To give her credit, my sister could have stood there telling me how much trouble I was in, but she didn't. She silently helped me clean up the mess.
Once the chair was as dry as we could make it, we covered it with an ugly orange blanket. When mom came home, we told her we had re-decorated, and showed her the new recliner cover. This was the moment of truth. Mom knows everything. Mom would certainly know the chair had been burned. How could she not know? One whole corner was missing. The house reeked of burned fabric and cigarette smoke. She must know. I was just waiting for the axe to fall.
The fates smiled on me that day. Mom must have been exhausted from work, or something. She declared that it was just lovely, told us she was going to take a nap, and asked if we could make dinner.
Months later, when she took the throw off to wash it, she saw the damage and asked what had happened. I fessed up to playing with some matches and accidentally burning the recliner. She said, "Well that was stupid. Thank God you're both ok." And later she commented, "I'm glad I have such smart daughters. You kept your heads, and I'm proud of you."
Go figure.
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Getting Out
I suppose every generation in every poor neighborhood dreams up ways to get out. They all believe that they are somehow better than the generations that came before, and they all think they are the first to plan their escape.
The neighborhood eats these people alive.
Every once in a while, I'll run into someone from the old neighborhood, and we'll discuss the people we knew. Denny was going to be a race car driver. He killed a woman while driving drunk. A week and a half later, he died the same way. T had a good job at Anheuser Busch. He supported his mother, sister, aunts and uncle. What little money he had left over paid for classes at the community college. We really thought T would escape. He still lives in the neighborhood, and his family still bleeds him dry. There were boys who carried weights everywhere they went. They were going to be the next Mr. Universe. Their dumbbells were a symbol declaring, "I'm better than this and I'm getting out!"
They all had their symbols. Nunchucks were for the next Bruce Lee. Greasy jeans were for the next mechanic, and a blue work shirt meant you had finally grown up and gotten a job. The girls flocked to these status symbols, offering up their bodies and praying for babies. For them, it was the only way out. If they could get some guy to marry them, and that guy got out, then the guy would take them out too.
I suppose every generation in every poor neighborhood dreams up ways to get out. They all believe that they are somehow better than the generations that came before, and they all think they are the first to plan their escape.
The neighborhood eats these people alive.
Every once in a while, I'll run into someone from the old neighborhood, and we'll discuss the people we knew. Denny was going to be a race car driver. He killed a woman while driving drunk. A week and a half later, he died the same way. T had a good job at Anheuser Busch. He supported his mother, sister, aunts and uncle. What little money he had left over paid for classes at the community college. We really thought T would escape. He still lives in the neighborhood, and his family still bleeds him dry. There were boys who carried weights everywhere they went. They were going to be the next Mr. Universe. Their dumbbells were a symbol declaring, "I'm better than this and I'm getting out!"
They all had their symbols. Nunchucks were for the next Bruce Lee. Greasy jeans were for the next mechanic, and a blue work shirt meant you had finally grown up and gotten a job. The girls flocked to these status symbols, offering up their bodies and praying for babies. For them, it was the only way out. If they could get some guy to marry them, and that guy got out, then the guy would take them out too.
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