Tocky on 3/11/2018 at 06:24
I go back farther. I remember Slurpies at the 7-11 in comic book hero cups. No stories I can recall about them but we used to bike everywhere as a kid. Our parents gave us run of the land. Even when we visited cousins in Memphis which is now a crime ridden hell hole. It wasn't then. The first McDonalds I ever saw was there. My first big Mac. So exotic with it's thousand Island dressing. Bikes were a big thing to us then. Mine was an ape hanger handle barred purple banana seated Sears model. Great for popping wheelies. I likely developed my great ass from peddling that thing all over. Every woman who ever dated me remarked on my ass. I guess because my face was nothing to write home about.
LOL. Just read my sentence "I developed my ass from peddling that thing all over".
Anyway I remember when I couldn't ride. I was nine and should have learned by then. I don't know, I was a strange kid. I liked other kids alright but I liked solitude a fair amount too. Many of my hobbies were things I did on my own like reading and model building. I had a model of every tank made and knew a Panzer from a Panther. Anyway, one weekend I spent with my cousin in Taylor. Taylor is now a suburb of Oxford and all foo foo country chic. Back then it was just country. One rundown store and post office and sure as hell no pottery studio. I loved the way things were back then. Authentic.
So my cousins were all riding bikes and went to borrow one from a guy who had an extra and they wanted me to ride with them. I was embarrassed I hadn't learned yet. Snake was a little older and more pushy. His real name was Pat but we all called him Snake because of his saying there was a "nake in the moke house" when he was little and it hanging on him. He was a weird kid. But funny. Who is going to win the game, Snake? I don't know but if they keep this up one of them is. But which one? Likely the one that don't lose. Anyway he kept after me to ride it and all I could come up with was I could only ride my bike because it was lower to the ground. I couldn't ride any bike. He kept after me but I knew I was going to make a royal fool of myself if I got on it. A few times I nearly did he was so persuasive. He was pretty disgusted I wouldn't ride with them. He accused me of lying about being able to which of course was exactly right. No, no, I just need MY bike. What a liar I was.
So of course when I came home I set about learning to prove to him I could next time it came up. It never did somehow. But I learned. I took my ratty old sisters hand me down bike to the biggest hill around and it was do or die. I didn't die. Anyway, this was a boring story but it's just what came to mind from rereading yours, Pyrian. It's all in there isn't it? Every little incident is in our heads somewhere.
Pyrian on 3/11/2018 at 16:15
The word is "pedaling", Tocky. :cheeky:
qolelis on 5/11/2018 at 15:17
The first word is the hardest, but I kind of promised to write something here, so I'll just start with whatever comes to mind.
I grew up in a small town: a school, a gas station, a hardware store, and, a little on the side, a small library. People were invested in living there, and we had everything we needed, even a candy store. The rest was countryside, farmlands, woods, a lake. Everyone went to the same school, the same shops, saw the same things on the telly. It was a small community where people knew each other, either through school or the sawmill, which pretty much dominated the town's centre if there ever was one. My dad used to go there for timber and sometimes he took me with him. Talked to guys in overalls and brought home a smell of sawdust. Later it was decommissioned.
Being a kid, you either got into sports or the outdoors -- kind of like the scouts, but without the silly uniforms and the military-like rituals: we learned how to make a fire, handle a knife, build shelter, anything necessary for an outdoors life. I was out a lot in the woods, together with others at first and then, when that too was decommissioned, on my own. There were a few close friends, but at heart I was a solitary kid. I sought it out and lost contact.
Let's start with that. Might make for a better understanding of what comes later.
Tocky on 6/11/2018 at 02:18
Go ahead, I'm listening. You might be disappointed to learn the only thing military about scouting is the uniform and salute though. Anyway, I'm listening.
qolelis on 6/11/2018 at 11:18
Haha, yeah, I figured it was, but, you know, any chance to bash the scouts -- or the military -- is a good chance. All in good spirit, though. There was a bit of rivalry between the scouts and our thing, but nothing serious, of course: it was just like "Okay, here's the deal, you can join us or you can join the scouts. It's up to you. We would prefer it if you joined us, though -- and we think you will come to realize that you would prefer it too."
My relations to the military is another story I could tell some time.
Tocky on 21/11/2018 at 04:03
Well shit. I guess it was just a tease huh qolelis?
I've thought of several stories but they are all long and I don't feel like a long one just now. Instead I'll just tell of the last time I thought life was going to be perfect. It's not. It's not for anyone. Not even for those rich and good looking bastards we envy. It always goes wonky somehow. But for a few moments early on we have some crazy notion things will be exactly what we want for the rest of our lives. It's kind of like believing in magic for awhile. Not that there isn't some measure of magic in everything.
I was sixteen and still a virgin if you don't count oral. It was my second date with Laurie and our first without her sister as a chaperone. We even went to the movie we were supposed to see. But we didn't see any of it. Instead we kissed the entire show. The taste of cinnamon gum and lip gloss. I could touch her anywhere I wanted because she wanted that too. We joked about our "soldiers" at attention when we were around each other. She had her soldier girls pointing beneath her blouse and I my, well, you get it. She even admitted the reason she kept pushing me backward when we kissed was to feel "me" against her. I don't think it's true that we don't have a clue what life is at that age. We do. We know we are young and what we are made for. We know life will never be a series of firsts again and to enjoy the ones we get. John Melencamp knew. Life goes on long after the thrill of living it's gone.
When we left her house that evening she slid over next to me as soon as we were out of sight. Such a long winding road from her house to Oxford. Not anymore. Straight as a board now. I drove left handed with my arm around her. I still drive left handed today. But then we just couldn't get close enough soon enough. All those letters we sent to each other during the school day. Nine pages. Fourteen pages. Three times a day sometimes. Folded in this weird self contained way I've not used since. Quite shocking in their desire. And so close to fulfillment.
Back at her house we couldn't let each other go. The light over the steps at the side entrance where I parked still kept us hidden unless someone looked out the kitchen window. I don't think they ever did. I don't know because we kept kissing so much. She would be on the top step saying goodbye and then come down to kiss some more or I would come up or we would meet in the middle of this tall set of stairs. I guess we kept that up for a half hour. Our last kiss was on the third step from the bottom and I let her go then to get in my car. She watched me out of sight.
On that long winding ride home, first her winding road to Oxford, then mine from Oxford, I listened to the radio thinking about her, how she looked, her eyes sparkling when she spoke, how her lips parted slightly as she leaned into me, her smell and softness, her perfect hair I knew she had spent an hour on, stiff toward the edges from hair spray and soft at the nape of her neck. I searched for some real rock on the radio but it seemed to be all disco or corny love songs. Then I turned off onto a straight stretch of road which cut through to more curves near home, the one we used to race the quarter mile on which was considerably longer than that. This song came on and I'm sure it had been out for a while but I had felt it was too soft for me. It wasn't that night. That night it was perfect. Everything was perfect and it always would be from now on. I just knew it. Whenever I hear this song today, wherever I am, I get that feeling I had then and recall that night. Baby Got Back... no, no, not that one. This one.
[video=youtube_share;cqZc7ZQURMs]https://youtu.be/cqZc7ZQURMs[/video]
curseofnight on 21/2/2019 at 16:02
I got a story for ya! This one time my grandma(NOT my great grandma Spell, I'm talking about my dad's mom - just Grandma) told me a joke. It went something like this: There once was a white horse. Pure white like an angel. And this horse was running in circles around a mud puddle. Around and around it went. Then, it fell in. The end.
Tocky on 22/2/2019 at 03:13
That isn't a story, it's a dirty joke.
At this time of year I feel the years. The earth cold and dead awaiting a rebirth. One year it will be reborn without me. It's good to know it will. My time will never come again and that's okay. I have enjoyed mine more than most and I feel fortunate to have lived in the perfect time. In my time we were between wars but not between enemies. So very lucky to have been born just missing the Vietnam war yet still in time to see man land on the moon and fill my heart with hope for what we can do. We saw the birth of technology advances before they were harnessed against us. We are extraordinary in all ways good and bad. Is the world too much with us? I dissent Wordsworth. We can be too much for the world but it is never too much with us. We came in at the height of decadence but with the benefit of solid values. If there was any drawback it was that I saw the death of things I knew others would not even know to miss.
During all this I lived my life. I married a beautiful woman not because we agreed on everything but because we agreed on one thing. Love makes it bearable. We raised kids. We made mistakes. We lost those we loved. As Jackson Brown said, we get up and do it again... amen. I know what's around the corner and it ain't pretty. But that's okay too. We had the very best of times. I was so wild. I get defensive about it when me and Kevin talk. I don't feel as if I was the instigator always but maybe I was. Maybe I wanted things to happen without restraint. Maybe I was damn the torpedoes. Maybe I wanted things to remember even at the cost of things to regret. But I love. I love at the cost of not being loved and in spite of it. I love always. I remember. Surely that is compensation for a little mayhem and occasional disaster. We got away with it all didn't we? All maybe but the damage done our consciences.
I get the regrets this time of year and want to be forgiven. I know I was reckless. I was nobody's good example. I know I could have done better. I hope I didn't hurt anyone seriously. I never meant to. But I worry I have. Every little thing effects something. Hell, I even risked others lives. So, about that spinning on the road....
Me and Greg Cook had been out bar hopping the night before and he had spent the night at my house for some reason. I was a little pissed at him. He had told me the night before that he had been with Beth. She had dumped him too as she did all her one night stands. I was really mad at myself for not just staying friends with her instead of going further. I liked her and screwed that up. I would rather had her as a friend. Anyway he had said some stuff about her that was true but I didn't like hearing and then this particular morning had woken me early (with full blown hangover) to take him home. Fine then. He would get a ride.
Old six is crooked as a criminal snake in a silly straw and I put the hammer down. I kept expecting him to say something and the more he didn't the faster I got. He just tried to be all cool about how I took the curves I knew so well. The bastard was trying to out cool me. The hill at Camp Hopewell is an S curve up it and an S curve down it. Right before it I passed a car doing ninety and made it around the first curve fine but on the switchback curve I got sloppy and let the rear wheel slip off onto the gravel shoulder and that was all it took. Around and around we went maybe five times or so and at the end I got control enough to back it to the opposite shoulder and let the car we just passed go by. I looked at Greg and he had on these sunglasses and he just pulled them down and looked at me. Bastard was still trying to be cool.
I floored it and came up behind that car again as we started into the downhill curves. I stayed there for the first curve but as soon as the second one straightened a bit I passed it again. I wonder what those people thought. No I don't. It was "look at this idiot". Anyway, I got him home and he even thanked me for the lift. The fucking nerve. I could not rattle him. Some years later I heard he died in a car wreck. I wonder did what I had done play any part in that. I have that smirky challenging thing going on sometimes. Maybe to him I seemed the cool one. Maybe I planted a seed that grew a poison plant. I don't know. All I know is he didn't get the rest of his life like I did. It bothers me when I think about it.
PigLick on 22/2/2019 at 14:57
well what was the one thing you agreed on?
Tocky on 23/2/2019 at 03:20
That puppies are cute. Dude. It was the very next sentence. "Love makes it bearable". Life, you know? Not that we don't forget that sometimes. My wife and me are very different people. Over a lifetime we found our similarities and ground down our differences but the thing which held was that.
Damn. After reading what I wrote to find out what you were asking I realized I was unknowingly parodying A Tale of Two Cities. I get pretentious when I drink but I find it hard to just plunge into writing unless I have been.
And you did it to me again. I got all excited thinking you had written a story.