Occurrences

Jan,58: We were going flat out and hit the truck and trailer leaving only 28 feet of skid marks. 2 in front seat of other car: dead on the spot. 2 in the front seat of car I was in including me: Driver=veg for life. Me: Some teeth out, etc.

Summer 1953:CORRECTION: SUMMER OF 63: I fast pitched an 18 inning softball game and hit 3 home runs. We won.

1943-44. Long Beach, Calif.: Men in white hats would knock on our door, tell the grownups in no uncertain terms to turn the damn lights off. Japanese subs off the coast.


1978: First boy comes out breach at home. Midwife was afraid--I could see it in her eyes. She got him , her 1st breach ,right out.


1958: Father hit a bridge drunk, came home, passed out and was arrested. Was a big shot, cop was balled out, no charges, no newspaper story. Took revenge by taking me to jail for an unopened can of beer in the car in which i was sitting with 4 others. Me only. Called big shot--said " I'm in jail."Big shot replied "Not interested" and hung up.


!969. Maui: The sailboat, a large trimaran was circling a sub-tender with me, couple other guys and several topless women. Sail had a 6 foot peace sign sewn onto it. Sailors carrying on and hollering at the women---man on bullhorn advised us to get the hell outta' there. We did.


1964-67: Put dashboards in Mustangs which took about as much sense as a monkey.


!960: A bully fucked with my uncle in a bar. He had had 10 professional fights as a heavyweight, won them and wifey told him--me or boxing, so he quit boxing. The bully was placed in the corner of the bar for about 40 minutes , from a left hook.


1956: Got my first car as a junior in HS. Pristine 1937 Plymouth coupe. Cost me 25 bucks!!

 

Interesting thread, Scratcho. I'm still at work for a few, but I'll come back later to participate.

 

Hope nobody's expecting me to remember shyt...

 

1991 - first time I kissed a girl
1992 - first time I got drunk
1993 - sent away to boarding school in Running Springs, CA
1995 - returned from boarding school in Northern Idaho from same family of services
1998 - got my license to drive!
1999 - went to my first rave
2000 - Moved to Denver for 5 months (I'm not absolutely sure it was that long actually, but I've been saying 5 months so... whatevs).

There. Some occurrances!

 

So you have been living in Denver for 18 years but you only say 5 months?

 

1958: Fool from adjacent town pulled a gun, said "OK (my name) " you've had it. My feet told him otherwise and off I went. (anyone remember -serpentine, Shelly. Serpentine!)


1960: "No, we know nothing of a spy plane", Mr Eisenhower said. Unfortunately, the ruskies had a living Gary Francis Powers, the pilot of the U2 spy plane they shot down. Ooops. A president lied?? The beginning of my political education.


1958: Drafted. Bad knees. Unsuitable to kill. Sent home. Got drunk and shot pool.


1953-eighth grade: Tough guy , hoodlum- type starts in my classroom of 30 pupils. Told him to quit picking on another kid. Week later, punches me in the side of me cabeza. Took him down, blacked his eye. No more trouble. Thanks uncle Joe.


1959: God-dammit-rolled one of my favorite cars ever, jackin' around needlessly! 1950 Oldsmobile. Hid from the cops, but ---well---yeah they found me.



1956: First Pit bull I or my neighbors had ever seen. He was locked onto a dog that we all knew and would not let go. I grabbed him by a back leg, swung ém both over my head and threw them up against the house. Still wouldn't let go. Neighbor smacked the Pit on the head with pruning shears and he let go. The owner was so pissed at the cut on his dogs head, that he shot and killed my grammas dog, a little Cocker. Couldn't prove it, but knew it.


1957: I and some friends had worked the Cantaloupe shed for most of the summer. Sometimes it was 16--18 hours and collapse in ones car for a few hours. Speed involved. Went to the coast to celebrate after the season, picked up some girls. The one I ended up with weighed approximately 350 pounds. Kept asking when intimate--"aren't you through yet"? Realized at that point that I was not as studly as I thought.


1998: Shot through my couch, through a wall and killed a refrigerator. Perhaps when next giving my son a safety lesson, it would behoove me to pay closer attention to any remaining ballistics.


1969: Cruising towards home on Maui. Saw a little --something--moving on the center line of the road. A kitten. I made the driver stop and I slowed the cars down waving and picked the little guy up. Had one eye already hanging out from being hit. Otherwise--OK. Never had a cat before, but the little guy was a brave and loving kitty after I took him to a vet and had the eye removed. Have had many, many cats/kittens since and gotten most of them homes. Now I love cats.


1969 extension: Living with 2 girls from San Diego, up around Kula on Maui. Called Oahu to get work and was told get over there--plenty of work for me. The girls had 2 big dogs and my little kitty friend would stand his ground with them. Smack ém if they got too close. Flew over and the girls said that they would, of course take care of my little Peeper. Started work the next day on Oahu and was banging the wood on the roof and ---------something was wrong. It came to me as nothing has since. I put my tools down, went to a pay phone , called over to the girls. AS soon as she recognized my voice ---she started crying. She had started my car to leave, startled my kitty and the kitty hid behind the tire. She had to tell me that she had run over Peeper. Some incidents are difficult to explain. This is one.

No one care to participate?

 

scratchco,

I think you should expand on your 'occurrences' and turn them into a collection of short stories with a common theme, i.e. You! That way you could approach an agent or publisher with a complete set of tales ready for publishing. I think the story you did about your dad and your uncle giving six attackers a lesson in boxing was very good, and if you do further stories about the incidents you've listed above then they would fit nicely into a very interesting anthology.

I think so anyway.

 

1960: Came back to hometown from college on the school bus-- a Friday. Richard and I got drunk and staggered into his room hours later. Still drunk, I got up to piss and upon leaving the bathroom , turned the wrong way and climbed into bed with his mom and stepdad.
1976: Made what turned out to be my last flight on an airplane returning to the mainland from Hawaii. Too much stress on my brain with an imagination like mine.
1976: Same flight. Friend flying with me had no shoes --stranger gave him flip flops and we boarded.
1976: Same flight. Friend took full hit of windowpane after boarding. Said : OOOO--it's scary.
1982: Son number one and I rode the Greyhound bus from Lincoln City, Oregon, to Jupiter Florida. Threatened a man that took my seat when I got off to smoke. He got up.
2021: Old friends , male and female all dead now. Wondering why I'm still here.
2003: Friend riding a bike fell down , damaged his plums and stick. Ignored the damage, had to have ALL removed.
1972: The jungle, big island. Hippie girl found out I could roof. Enlisted my help to repair her tree house. Re-roofed with palm fronds. She stripped, watched and talked to me. Very enjoyable day
2011: Removing a roof with sons. Eugene. Call from hospital. Come to hospital NOW. Did. Total removal and replacement of aorta from crotch to under heart. Lucky. Very Lucky.
2020: Met brand new daughter I never knew I had. One 10 minute stand in 1973 did the trick. She now knew who her biological father was.
1949: Running BB gun fight throughout neighborhood with other dummies. Stung a lot.
1948: Burnt the ass end off neighbors house playing with home made clothespin wooden match shooters.

To be continued. Maybe.

 

1950: Richard and I took a small metal pipe, threaded one end to accept a cap, drilled a small hole the length of a firecracker on the cap-end, tied the pipe to length of wood and had ourselves a home made gun. Cop saw us shoot and stick an arrow in a tree in the park. Not pleased. Confiscated gun. 10 year olds lectured.

1949: She said "c'mon--I want to show you something." 10 year old self followed 13 year old girl into garage( raggedy-ass " clubhouse") behind Richard's house. Taught 10 year old what intercourse was about. Best 3.5 seconds of the summer.

1949: Chinese boy about 14 y.o arrived from China escaping communist takeover. Placed in first grade to learn english.

1980: Moved onto 10 acres, Florida to complete 40 foot Catamaran. Mobile home several feet above the ground. Was warned not to let my two boys go under mobile home as rattlers had been seen . Youngest boy went under trailer and got the only spanking ever given him. Five minutes later a couple of my chickens stirred up a five foot rattler that then came out from under the trailer. 6 shots did the deed.

!950: Summer. Richard was visiting his sister and brother in law at Paso Robles. BIL owned a car wash. Had big Coke machine on location. Richard tried to coax a Coke out of machine without the required deposit of money. Arm stuck in machine, fire department called, machine partially dismantled. Much embarrassment. Lecture given. Lesson learned. Maybe.

1948: Joel steals yoyo from Sprouse Ritz department store where aunt works. When confronted as to where yoyo was obtained and how, Joel busted. Made to return yoyo and apologize to store owner. Lesson learned. Maybe

1957: Joel graduates from high school. Immediately goes to six months active duty with National Guard unit, which Joel had foolishly joined senior year of high school. Not suited for military. Quit National Guard. Oops. Not allowed. ( see item three., post six.)

1956: Joel -- in drive in theater waiting for friends to show up. Joel has a case of beer in car for big fun at drive in with friends. Cop slowly drives by and looks at Joel, but continues driving. Joel panics , starts car and drives toward exit rapidly. Joel has forgotten speaker trapped by rolled up window. Amid much clatter, Joel has to stop a mile out of drive in and throw speaker, metal post and large chunk of cement off to side of road . Joel then drinks beer.

1964: Friend comes home to Coalinga from Berkeley and has weed. Joel and friend drive up in the hills and smoke same. First time smoking REAL weed. Lightening storm arrives appropriate time--great show. Vows to smoke more weed.

1967: Same friend. Me visiting in Berkeley. Driving around looking for weed. Meet girl--can get , she says. Give her 50 bucks for a kilo of weed and drive her to location. She exits car, goes around side of house and disappears. Never seen again. Lesson learned.

1958: Hunting with girl friend's dad and uncles in the mountains. Loaned me a rifle, sat me in position and said "stay here. We're going to drive any deer in the area towards you". They disappeared and then I could hear them making noise in the distance. Coming towards me. Then a large, beautiful buck with a big set of antlers appeared in front of me. Eluding the noise. Dad and uncles finally came to where I was sitting and asked: "did you see any deer" ? "no", I said.

 

1982: Gave Erskine Caldwell's grand daughter a foot massage. Flori-duh.

!950s, etc: Halloween meant gigantic, whole town, all clique, water balloon fights. Richard and I had a powerful water tank, pump up sprayer that would spray liquid about 30 feet. Pissed in it for months and unleashed it on unsuspecting high school dipshits riding around pelting little kids with water balloons. We were 12 and 11. We knew ALL the hiding spots around town and were not caught. Suspected though.

1955: Got kicked out of a Catholic dance for doing the "dirty bop. "

1953: Got an old guy to buy wine for four of us, got drunk in our grungy "club house " and went to the annual hometown fireman's ball. Friend threw up weenies on dance floor, got us all kicked out. We were 13 years of age.

1958: Step grampa suffered with cancer for a year or two and was bedridden at home. Asked gramma to walk him around the house before she went shopping. Step grampa located 22 rifle and shot himself when gramma was shopping. Too much pain.

1968: Sailed to Oahu from Maui to see Hendrix at the outdoor venue at the Zoo in Honolulu. Sufficiently dosed with windowpane walking from Ala Wai harbor through Waikiki and then neared music venue. Greeted by hundreds and hundreds of concert goers leaving venue because Hendrix blew out his amps.

1957: Two friends added long , long fuse to M80 and signed out of study hall after lighting fuse. Several dozen students levitated upon explosion. Friends caught, expelled for a week.

1953: Stayed overnight with friend. Friend and sister slept in same room. Very late, sister woke me and invited me into her bed. Me: just started furtive , highly anticipated action , when step father rose from other room to take a piss. Me: Got back in other bed and was told not to come back to bed of sister. Me: very disappointed 13 year old.

1950: Me ,10 years old, caught by gramma pounding pud in bathroom. Gramma mentioned eyesight and the eventual need for glasses. Eyesight still decent after all these years.

 

2021: Week of August 18th: 20 year war in Afghanistan over for US. Homicidal, religious manics take over country.

1980: Fidel Castro pulls a sneaky one. Gives "permission " to anyone that wants to leave Cuba to do so. US welcomes so -called freedom seekers. Castro empties all jails in Cuba ,which contained every type of criminal including rapists , murderers and others and off they go to the United States. Consequently commit heinous crimes up and down the east coast of the US.

1957: Pinky, the cop who likes kids, catches me and several others with a couple cases of beer driving down main street of small home town. Stops us for tail light out. Sees beer. Says: Dammit--I told you kids to drink your beer out of town.!! Turns us loose and we drive out of town to drink our beer. Getting out of town consists of driving for approximately 1 or 2 minutes.

1967: Stopped in to VERY large roofing company in San Jose to ask for work. Told me what price they would pay me for piece work, but said a portion of the work fell under--"we don't pay for that--the boys just throw that in." Which meant --we are making free money off our workers for the last part of all jobs and that's the way it is. Told them that reminded me very much of bullshit --I wouldn't do any work for nothing and exited the joint and moved on. Got a job working on a huge building at Stanford University.

1967: In Bellevue , Washington. Got off work and went to large store to get beer for party. Flirted with three girls and told them about party. Turns out, they were 15 ,and 16 year old girls and mom. Called police and police got me at my car in the parking lot. California license plates, long hair and attitude got car emptied of all possessions and a ride to police station. Police chief asked me what was going on. I replied: "overzealous policeman and needlessly nervous parent. " He told the cop to return me to my car. Got there, loaded up possessions from parking lot and went to party.

1953: Stopped by my house with three or four friends to get get cake, which gramma always had available for friends and me. One nosy friend found 22 rifle in a closet, brought into the kitchen to show me, pulled the trigger and shot a hole in the floor.

1965: Friend attending UC Berkeley had his motorcycle stolen from area where many motorcycles were parked. Got pissed off, stole one like his recently stolen bike and rode home to Coalinga in the south valley. About four or five miles from reaching home, he ran out of gas. Parked the bike to the side of the road, hitch hiked into town , rounded up a friend and some gas and headed back to get the bike. Arrived at the location where bike was left. Gone. Stolen. Not sure of Karmic implications.

1970: Three girls, a man friend and I had camped and stayed in youth hostels across Canada in 1970. Reached one little town in one of the Eastern provinces in the late afternoon. Parked on main street and watched young people endlessly walking up one side of the street , cross the street and head back on the other side of the street. We eventually got out of our giant station wagon and asked some kids why they were walking. They said to start walking and they would tell us. We did and they said that in that town , it was against the law to stand in one place and talk--you had to keep moving. Otherwise , it would mean a ticket. I still haven't figured out how something like that could happen, but those were weird times what with the Viet Nam war raging and demonstrations happening pretty much everywhere.Suppose those things had something to do with the policy. So we walked and talked to a bunch of locals and they told us of a place we could camp for the night. In fact, they took us there. That night a bunch of them showed up with food, musical instruments and much good will. Fed us, entertained us and fun was had by all. Wish I could remember the name of that little town.

The Present: Met Margaret at the zoo in Honolulu in 1970. Lived together and had many experiences until 1977 when we amicably parted She is in Portland and we now communicate on a fairly regular basis. You do NOT play poker with margaret unless you don't care if you lose your money. Certain period of time in Hawaii, Margaret and I would drink beer and play cards with some working men on Fridays. Margaret always won the balance of the money, mine included. (didn't matter--it was OUR money).

The present: Son and daughter in law are refinancing our home and are saving to get us a place in the country in a year or so. Since I put the down on this place--I have no house payments and am covered for life on a place to live. Oh boy.

1963: The pickup rounded the turn so quickly that we were caught In flagrante delicto. In other words, I was caught with my white ass bobbing up and down on the coeds willing , naked body. Man exited pickup and said: "Sorry. You can't be here. There's been thefts lately. " After assuring him that what I was stealing had no value to Standard oil, we dressed and left. Probably a good thing that we were not reported, as I was employed by Standard Oil at that time.

 

Hey,love this type of dialogue. I have had many crazy but interesting short adventures and sometimes longer ones. So will try posting them also. One weird event was Christmas as a Marine in San Diego. Graduated from radio telephone repair course in late December. no money to go home in Columbia, SC. so hitchhiked to san fran, No good military flights east since it was Christmas eve. Talked to the co-pilot of a swift airlines freighter going from SF to Oklahoma city with space. Called main office to get permission to fly but they said no. so co-pilot told me that they would not be in the plane for about a half-hour and it it were me, he would get into the plane and hide behind some 55 gal barrels in the cabin area and stowaway. why not, i said. so we did exactly that and flew to Oklahoma city behind those barrels, cold, headache from oxygen deprivation, kind of nervous but it worked. when we landed the plane went straight to the freight area to be unloaded. The two pilots left while we waited to see how we could get off the plane without any police problems. couldn't find any easy way so decided to be brazen and just walk off. left our hiding place. went to the door area, but no steps. so one of the workers told us to hold on while they raised the loader up and took us to the ground, we wished everybody a merry Christmas and practically ran to the offices. and within two hours later on Christmas day, I got a ride in an old B-24 that an AF pilot had built back up into a plane just like the original and flew to Sumter AF base just outside of Columbia, and getting home on Christmas night. Unbelievable.

 

There were several things that preceded this trip. About a month before this my girlfriend got married and broke my heart. drove to Tijuana to party by my self and to go awol. But several of my marine buddies knew about the letter and suddenly asked questions of others. short story, they figured I was hurting worse than I seemed and decided to find me. They did and got me so drunk they had to carry me back to the base. good friends, cause I was fine after that. but we decided to pull a prank on the Marines by doing something on the base. so the night after we graduated, we raised a jolly roger flag on the main flagpole. It was two sheets tied together. we did this a midnight thinking that every one would get a kick out of it. However, the sheets apparently got stuck at the top and they couldn't get it down. Every Marine knows that all movement stops on the base at *every morning as the flag is raised and the national anthem plays, except this morning cause a jolly roger was stuck. We knew we wee]re in trouble if they found out who did it so we got off the base as quickly as we could. A female Marine i had been dating talked about it in the slop shoot and she was taken by the MPs for questioning and I was named immediately. the result of this was a severe tongue lashing by the general but nothing more. lucky . actually not proud of that now.

 

I met this woman Marine one night in San Diego at a wedding reception for a Marine buddy (actually a DI at the MCRD). He was marrying a friend of this gal. She was one tough but beautiful woman. She could outdrink most of us. I liked her but knew I would be leaving there soon so didn't want to get too involved. So one night I went to a movie by myself just to relax some. When I left the theater, she was waiting outside. I was shocked but pleased. we then went to the new apartment of her friend and screwed all night. I didn't get one hour of sleep. The next day was Saturday and I had to make a choice. Inspection for everyone or play basketball. Our training battalion played basketball every sat morning and we were undefeated and leading the league. so I had to play. had a great first half, rested too much at half time and could not move the second half. had a big lead at halftime, blew it all in the second half. Our only loss. my teammates were not happy with me, but i had a great night.

 

I managed to upset the Lord Chancellor. I was invited to a reception at which he was to give a speech. This was at the time that Bliar had been 'caught' flogging seats in the house of Lords in return for a donation to the Labour Party. The Chancellor was late, so turning to the person sitting beside me, I commenced a conversation. We knew the cost of a seat in the House of Lords, but I was conjecturing on the price of a Knighthood or other honours. Whilst I was talking, the Lord Chancellor had arrived behind me and overheard some of my conversation - he was far from happy !!!

Later during this reception he commences his speech, there was a large television camera there as this was to be a major news item that evening. The camera had one of those big fluffy microphones on it. I assumed it it was omni directional, but it wasn't it was multi directional. during the course of this speech I muttered under my breath that what the Lord Chancellor was saying amounted to a cost-cutting exercise. At that pointr the cameraman turned and winked at me, at which point I realised that my under the breath mutterings had been picked up by the camera's microphone. They never did use that item on the news !!!

 

Understand how you feel. I was once an invited guest to a reception and speech by a congressman running for Governor of nc. I knew this man very well and I also knew the person introducing him before an audience of very successful people. However, the congressman was running very late. I soon realized that the person doing the introduction was running out of things to say. Now I was merely a guest and held no high position or anything but I noticed my friend kept looking at me. i got this sick feeling that he was going to call on me to speak simply so he could get off the stage. I tried sinking deeper i my seat trying to hide, and kept saying to myself, he wouldn't do that to me. but he did. Now I am the new speaker to 400 or 500 very influential people and I have absolutely nothing to say. I have no idea what I said except that when the congressman cam walking into the room, I gave him the quickest and shortest introduction ever and went out looking for my former friend.

 

Way to go gentlemen!! Thanks Zen for moving this little exercise of mine so that more people would see it!! C'mon in you-all ---the water's fine!!---Joel.


Just like Jesus Christ and General Macarther---I shall return.