Tocky on 19/11/2017 at 00:57
I had wanted to go forward in time without too much skipping, Pig, but okay.
I do game but only on computer. When my daughter was 15 I got her a computer for Christmas and pretty much ignored it for years. Then I thought it might be fun to get her some games and like any big kid I wound up playing them myself. Thief in particular was interesting. Even the box was triangular compared to everything else. I had played Omicron and enjoyed it very much being a Bowie fan so I loaded this one.
I spent way too much time sneaking down alleys and bludgeoning guards like all of you. One mission had me baffled. Messenger. I followed the guy keeping well back and missed the point he threw the letter on the ground after turning a corner. I snuck all around that courtyard. I laid waste to everyone. Not a soul awake and I couldn't figure what the devil the game wanted me to do. I managed to follow him all the way down the next alley to the point the game just ended to let me know I had failed.
Well maybe the computer itself could help me find out. I had never looked anything up before. Did not know what Google was and didn't use it this time but found this place none the less. The solution was so obvious once it was simply pointed out he had dropped the letter. This was around the time of 9-11 and I wondered what folks around the world thought of it. Some of the responses left me floored at the vitriol but there were enough fully reasoned and well thought out responses to teach me many things. I like intelligent (though I quite often come from an emotional perspective) conversation so I stayed. Soon after I discovered I liked many of the people too. It was a window to the world.
Anyway that's it. I miss many who no longer drop in. I don't much understand that. I understand not dropping by so often, as life is busy and varied, but to never come back is like cutting out a section of your friends and never seeing them or speaking again. I frequent other forums now and facebook but this is still top of my browser and I will always stop by. I never let go unless I see I'm hurting someone.
Tocky on 19/11/2017 at 03:54
Back to vanity press. Hopefully I can save all these and print them out for my deathbook left among all the amazing array of memorabilia I've collected so my kids can stumble on it the way I did my dads book.
Violence. I don't like it. Who does? Assholes that's who. How do you deal with assholes? Dad was worried I was too "tender hearted". I found a string of bullfrog eggs and raised one egg from tadpole to frog and let him go in a pond next to the house. I was always doing things like that. I raised a baby robin too but that is another story entire. When he bought me a BB gun to help me keep up with my cousin who hunted I mostly plinked at cans. One day I got the nerve to shoot a red bird. I actually never thought I would hit it but I've learned since I'm a very good shot. I cried. It was the most horrible thing to watch it die and know I did it. Never again would it sing and I was responsible. My chest hurt from the knowledge. Oh I got used to hunting and never lost my dead eye aim but for a long time I was "tender hearted". You need to be tougher when you are country and Dad worried.
In first grade there was this kid named Sammy. Everybody knew he wasn't quite right. Cliche' special right down to the hurr hurr. One day he was playing with a kid at the heavy wooden door and got his finger smashed in it. Shut right on it bursting through the nail and bleeding like crazy. The teacher had gone down the hall for something and everyone was just staring. Sammy was wailing. Snot streaming wailing. I got the idea to take him to the sink at the back and run cold water on it. He was still snuffling and wailing but now he was looking to me to make it better and I felt obligated. The cool water did seem to slow the snuffles. I wrapped it in a wet paper towel and he looked at me with the kindest eyes until he began to concentrate on the pain and snuffle again.
The teacher arrived, Mrs. Bealer, and took over. The same teacher whose long red nails cut through my shirt to discipline me during the pledge of allegiance leaving little C's of bloody cuts because I held my hand over my head instead of heart was very tender and kind with him. We didn't see him for a day or two but when we did it quickly became obvious he had glommed on to me. I was his new best friend. I sure as hell didn't want to be. It embarrassed me. Who wants a retard always at hand like a puppy ready for a little notice? He had no focus but me after that.
We were let out at recess with the second grade and in that second grade was Robert McCullough. Every day he picked on a different first grader. He looked liked an evil red headed pan. Gleefully he would harass and bully a kid for the whole twenty minutes of recess. You just hoped it wouldn't be you. I was pretty lucky. I hadn't been pushed around or even spoken to by that evil little bastard. But Sammy was. He was a big target. You really couldn't miss the one retarded kid in the whole bunch.
He got Sammy at the swing. I saw it all. He pushed and slapped him. Sammy cried. Long streams of snot streamed to his shirt and his cheeks were red from the blows. The words likely hurt just as much. He was a brutal little bastard. He also had a couple of henchmen to snicker in a me too sneering chorus. I wish I could say I came to his defense. I pussed out. I saw what was happening and pretended I didn't. He kept slapping him for so long. I kept a distance and said nothing for fear I would be next. I died a little then. I just hoped it would never be me.
The next day it was. I was cornered at the monkey bars. I was held against the hard steel and suffered the same as Sammy. There was one difference. Sammy came to my aid. He pushed between us and defended me. The things he said were stupid and dull compared to the intelligent meanness of Robert. He was just as an embarrassment as always in the things he said but he shone. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt his friend. Robert turned on him and at first I was as relieved as the puss I was. But then something happened. He began slapping Sammy again and the snot and tears began to flow. I watched myself step between them this time. It was just something that just had to be.
He was slapping me then and after every slap he would rock back on his heels in laughter. Do you know how something inside you just speaks to you sometimes? It said punch him in the mouth when he rocks forward again. I did. It was a perfect punch and compounded by his forward movement. He was bleeding instantly. And crying. And accusing. And wouldn't you know the same teachers who ignored every damn thing were there to coo over him and his bleating. Oh I hated him. Those beady eyes and elfin features. But I was staring him in the eyes now.
I was feeling pretty good till he started telling me he was going to get me as they led him away. I got two weeks without recess. Sitting inside by myself while he came by the window and banged on it and told me how he was going to beat me when I got out. I have thought and thought but I just cannot recall whether he did eventually beat me. I remember the fear and acceptance of the fact he could beat me but not the actual beating. In the end I don't think it matters. I had turned. The worm had turned. Sammy had done that. For the rest of the year I looked at him in a different light. He was still retarded as hell but he was my friend, my first true friend.
The next year he just wasn't there. We all sort of figured he was sent to a school more fitting for him. I have no idea what happened to him. I hope he is alive today and has had a life worthy of the little man he was.
scumble on 19/11/2017 at 18:36
Quote Posted by Tocky
This was around the time of 9-11 and I wondered what folks around the world thought of it. Some of the responses left me floored at the vitriol but there were enough fully reasoned and well thought out responses to teach me many things.
I actually dropped in to post for the same reason. I'd visited the Circle once or twice for help while playing Thief Gold in 1999 I think, on a University Computer. It popped back into my head when the 9/11 reports came in and I hadn't bothered with any forum previously, and I haven't managed a connection with any other one. I have a habit of dropping out for months but have always come back, and I'm similarly sad that so may who used to turn up have disappeared. There are at least a few who've been posting for 15+ years on and off.
Tocky on 21/11/2017 at 03:19
Chicks, man.
There was a neighbor girl a few years older who took me to her grandparents barn before I was of school age. The sun shone through the slats and the smell of hay was pungent. I recall freckles and her lips. It never occurred to me that to know the things she did she must have been abused until much later in life when things suddenly fall into place. This story is not about her though. And I don't think I'll leave that story for my kids to find anyway.
In second grade there was this brick alcove where the janitor would leave his mops to dry. Romantic right? Well there was also this game many of the girls played where they chased you and if they caught you you had to go with them to the alcove and let them kiss you. I was really good at running and dodging. There was one persistent girl that was really good too and I nearly got caught a few times. Poor girl. I sort of wish now I had let her at least once.
And then there was Tori. Long sandy hair and long legs. She was a bit awkward and gangly but I ran a bit slower for her. Seems she would catch me at least once a day. Do you like me? Check yes or no. Yes. My first girlfriend. We held hands on the way to the bus until someone would make fun and we would drop them... then reach again when they had passed. We stayed together till third grade when I got her the wrong present for her birthday. I told Dad no girl wants hankies and perfume, they want dolls, but he insisted. Always trust your own instincts.
On my first date with my wife we told our life stories and when I got to this one I told her she better run fast. She was a slow runner too.
I'm likely losing the few who follow this so I'll skip ahead to how I got my second article fifteen in the Air Force next time.
PigLick on 21/11/2017 at 04:21
the one about how you joined ttlg is the best so far, more like that please
Tocky on 21/11/2017 at 06:02
I had always wanted to join TTLG but it hadn't been invented when I was 20 so instead I joined the Air Force. Heh. I can only do that one once.
There was this English girl who I would hang out with on occasion. We met in the NCO club at Upper Heyford, USAF base. A casual thing. I would visit her flat in Oxford or hang out in a pub with her. It was kind of like friends with benefits. I was determined not to be serious with any woman at that period of my life and she seemed to fit the bill. Also she flattered in just the right way and I'm a vain ass. "You're always so cool. It's like James Bond entered every time you step into a room". Who wouldn't eat that shit up?
Anyway I had gotten tonsillitis. Bad. Fever, chills, body ache even, and I was laid up in my dorm. No females allowed in the men's dorm and no men in the women's though I had snuck out of it early in the morn many times. She showed up bringing me home made chicken noodle soup. No idea how she found out I was under the weather. She did make me feel better and I found strength I didn't know I had. We fell asleep in the afterglow and all was right with the world.
The next morning the senior master sergeant burst through the door. We both sat up, her boobs a bouncing. He took one look and said "I didn't see anything" and closed the door. Bless him he was trying to give us a moment to stash her but we were still sleep addled and there was no time anyway. In comes the wing commander, the full bird colonel, the guy who never comes to our dinky base. He was steaming. "What's this girl doing here?" I'm saluting like an idiot and tell him I'm sick. "I brought soup" she says helpfully, never bothering to cover her bare breasts.
I was bad at being Air Force. I was a good medic but I was never serious enough about all the fold your underwear in six inch squares and never get in trouble stuff. I was hauled down to the SP station with her and on the way I was apologizing and telling her it never occurred to me there was a big wig inspection and I felt terrible for her. For me it was just an ongoing thing but it was a hell of a lot like being arrested for her. And yay fifty pages of forms in triplicate for us to fill out once we get there. She still continued to see me even after that. She was pretty damn cool her damn self.
That was my second article fifteen. It's like a demerit where they take some pay and if you get three they take a stripe.
Yes I got three. Anybody want to hear about the others?
scumble on 21/11/2017 at 07:14
Carry on, although I'm starting to feel I haven't lived yet...
SubJeff on 21/11/2017 at 07:19
Quote Posted by Chade
I remember seeing a video of my dad as a young boy growing up in Nigeria, a bunch of white families recreating middle-class England in the middle of Africa, native servants underfoot everywhere, almost invisible to the people who were there at the time but so painfully obvious to modern sensibilities. Thanks for the story!
This was us. I grew up in Africa in the 1980s and 90s. We had servants but I wouldn't say they were everywhere. We always had a cook/"houseboy". A houseboy in those days was someone who did the housework, like a cleaner++. They made the beds, peeled the potatoes, did the laundry (and there were no washing machines, this was by hand in the yard on a washer board) and ironing. I didn't make my own bed until I went to boarding school at 11.
Most of the time we had two servants; a houseboy and a gardener. We did have a cook, houseboy and gardener at one point though and, depending on who my father was working for at the time, sometimes a guard at night. One guard we had would sleep all shift, stoned. Now you got to remember that marijuana grows everywhere in Malawi (I'll tell you a story about "Malawi Gold" one time) and people just smoked this really potent smelling leaf. And it was pure leaf, no resin or anything like that. The guard would throw the seeds into a flowerbed and one time I came back home from school and my father proudly showed me the amazing crop we had. But that's for another time.
Our servants became part of the family if we had them for long enough. My best friend when I was 8 was a Malawian kid called Timothy. Timothy's father was head cook at a big school and he went to my school, something that our cook's kids would never have been able to do. Anyway, we used to have Timothy over for dinner and after the second time this was planned our houseboy had an emergency back home. I'll have to explain "back home" another time, but he left for a couple of days. It was weeks until we had Timothy over for dinner again and the next time we invited him our houseboy had the same emergency back home - the same relative had died. He never came back. My mother always thought it was because he felt demeaned having to serve another Malawian.
Chade on 21/11/2017 at 14:18
Keep going, Tocky! If you're not getting many replies it's only because we don't have the history to match. Well, that's my excuse anyway.
That's really interesting SE, funny what hangups people have. ...
nickie on 21/11/2017 at 15:07
I'm busy reading, no time for posting. And you're unleashing truckloads of my own memories some of which I hoped I'd forgotten.