How could I have forgotten to mention the funniest event that happened to us back then?!?! And so timely in our current election year situation....
In 6th grade with Mr Blanks (Tim Blanks... he was an AWESOME teacher. They first teacher to teach us how to think, not just regurgitate. If anyone knows where he is, please tell us; we'd love to reach out to him.) we had a class vote on the 1976 Presidential Election - Ford vs. Carter. The ONLY person to vote for Carter was Darren; it was like 22 to 1. Now that he reminded me, I can visualize the memory of the class all sitting around in a circle and Mr. Blanks announcing the results. Yeah... we gave him a TON of shit for that. Especially when two years later President Carter blew me off in Burlington Ia after standing in 90 degree heat for three hours to see him, so it was personal at that point... ROSALIND WAS NOT A SATISFACTORY SUBSTITUTE!!! (That being said, Jimmy has always been a spectacular humanitarian and he has all my respect for how he has made the world a better place, so I admit it is hard to stay mad at the guy... ah, for the good ol' days...)
Apparently we used to make a lot of dioramas back in those days. Darren for some reason remembers mine, although I don't; "Rob's were always on fleek (See what I did there?) Seriously. Like WWII battles in little French towns with tanks & walls & bushes & injured guys on fleek." 4th grade into High School I was a serious WWII battle buff and I built a lot of Testors models back in the day, so I'm not surprised that I was overboard with detail, but I seriously don't remember any of the dioramas.
And one other thing about Indian Guide campouts; Darren remembers that after our Dads boozed it up late into the night, they would make us kids pick up all the beer can pop-tops the next morning. Yeah, nothin' like father-son good times...
Deadly little things...
You see, boys and girls, back before the can manufacturers got smart, these little things were pulled off the top of the cans (beer and soda) to open them. Easy way to gash open your feet, BTW. Also, I can still picture in my mind an episode of Emergency! in the 70's where a big slobby guy was pounding beers behind our EMT heroes, dropping the pop-top into the can and then drinking it. As they finished their save, the dude took a big swig and started choking; the pop top went down and got lodged in his throat so they had to save him too. Apparently it scarred me for life...
I find those pop tops in my yard all the time (house built 1923). I ask the youdths "do you know what this is?" and none of them do..... haha. Loving this. Keep at it.
ReplyDeleteThanks... just getting started with the wacky stories... :)
DeleteI find those pop tops in my yard all the time (house built 1923). I ask the youdths "do you know what this is?" and none of them do..... haha. Loving this. Keep at it.
ReplyDelete