Car Tire

This morning the front tire on my car was flat. This fact of course has ruined the rest of my life, a crisis so despicable that I don’t know how to move forward with the rest of my perfect life. The morning began like every other morning, I had just dragged myself out of bed, eaten something that I found in the fridge, that I thought was a fruit (although it could have been some kind of meat), and headed out the door.


After having put my bag in the car I turned around in slow motion, my head moving even slower. My eyes eventually landed on the front tire of the car, and again in slow motion I let out a howl that would have even put my son Asher to shame. How can this be! I screamed as I fell to my knees. “ If life is just, why, why should this happen to me?”

Hearing the commotion a few of the neighbors came out in their robes. Nobody said anything, they didn’t have to. I knew just by looking at them that they were astonished and this injustice. Yes, their faces said, “that poor fellow, when will things ever go right? He has now hit rock bottom, I don’t know how he will ever recover from this blow.” My wife came running out, her hair looking like she had been through a tornado. At this moment I knew all hope was lost, for the neighbors now saw the horror I have been waking up to for the past 12 years.

“How could this happen?” Tiffany cried.

“ Oh wo is me,” I calmly stated.

Tiffany then began to scream like a squirrel before it is run over by a purple 1970 Monte Carlo.

“Tiffany, you must hold it together and give me the attention I deserve, for it is I that has been wronged.”

Needless to say the next five minutes seemed like an eternity as we sat there wondering what to do. Finally I said, “why don’t I just take the van today?”

“Wow, you never cease to amaze me with your wisdom.”

“Thanks.”

Once at work I had to go immediately to break because of the pressure that I was under, when finally Tiffany called me an hour later to comfort me and tell me that the car had been fixed. “ A lesser man would take a sick day,” Tiffany said.

“I know,” I said.

Tribulation

“Tribulation worketh patience.” A maxim only understood by those who live it. To be grateful for tribulations is not some self-righteous statement begging for praise, but a true heartfelt expression only understood by those who laying in the gutter, “learn to look at the cars.” (Neal Peart) “And patience worketh experience, and experience hope.” Hope, the beacon of the night. How blessed are those who have it, and destitute those who do not. “God will not have his work manifested by the coward,” (Emmerson) or the unbelieving. The work on God is manifested through those who have hope, those blessed few who through tribulation have learned to be grateful, humble and submissive.

The Last Urinal

I have been talking recently with a couple of friends that have started their administrative degree. These conversations have of course, sent my unstable mind down the path of memories. It is extremely curious the things that go through our minds, or at least mine.

For two years I heard professors and intelligent students discuss important issues of our culture and society, however it is the urinals that I will always remember. How is it that some of my most profound thinking moments come while staring at slightly tinted white porcelain?

During my two year adventurous, academic journey exactly five urinals were used, most of them repeatedly, and two of them shared the same bathroom. It is interesting that of all these toilets, the most stinky was also my favorite, the newest my least favorite and the oldest the first to come to my aid.

Frozen Campout

The mountains have always brought me peace and comfort, in fact my whole family has enjoyed the wonders of God’s creative hand. This love for the outdoors came from an early age. My dad’s parents worked as forest rangers, so my father liked to take us up to visit them at their campground as often as possible. This combined with the countless hours I spent in a crudely made fort in the backyard, my parents liked to call “the think time fort,” provided me with the opportunities that gave me not only a love for the great outdoors, but the abilities to survive in the cruelest of elements.

It was late spring and we were headed to the Uintahs for a long day of hiking and a night of sleeping in the freezing cold. The occasion was a scout camp, but my dad liked to turn my scout camps into a family adventure. He loved to support me in my adventures and brought all of my younger siblings along so that we could spend quality time as a family.

“We’ll take up the rear,” my dad called to the other leaders as we all got situated in the trailhead parking lot. We knew in advance that this was going to be a fairly technical hike and that my 3 year old sister and 6 year old brother might run into some complications on the three mile hike in to Wall Lake. In anticipation of this great hike my dad had fashioned a type of modern day miniature handcart that actually had the appearance of an old fashioned, wooden wheelbarrow. He had our sleeping bags, tents, food and accessories strapped neatly to this invention. As a crowning jewel he threw Marne, my sister on top and proceeded to intricately weave the ropes around her limbs to snug her down tightly to the handcart so that she would not topple off on our way up the mountain. To Marne’s credit she never did get tired off looking down at the passing mountainous terrain for the next few hours, as she was strapped face down sprawling over our equipment.

“This is going to be fun,” I sarcastically commented to Dallin as we began our assent.

Five minutes later the shellac that Dad had coated the handcart in to waterproof our expedition, got its first test. The river was much deeper than Dad had anticipated as Marne soon found out as her face soon became immerged in the ice cold glacier water. As soon as Dad crossed he knew that it would be too deep for Alex’s stubby little legs, so he threw a u-turn down and returned across the river.

“Hold your breath,” Dad yelled at Marne as she went under for the second time.

Now on the same side as the river as his frightened children, Dad threw Alex on top of Marne’s back and slung Dallin over his left shoulder. “You’re on your own,” Dad yelled back at me as Marne went under again and Alex started screaming as his feet went in the water.

Being late spring instead of early spring the river was actually a warm freezing and the rapids were much calmer than they would have been just days before, so I was actually only pushed down the river some twenty-five feet before I grabbed on to some tree branches and pulled myself out of the water. I ran to catch up to my herd as they were quite a distance ahead of me by now.

“Foot- sack- it Bryan! Where have you been? This is no time to go off for a leisurely swim. Look at you, you are soaking wet, you are going to regret being wet when that storm rolls in,” my dad not so calmly stated while pointing to the daunting horizon that seemed to be laughing at my hopelessness and need for warmth.

Just as my dad had predicted by the time we reached the camp the first drops of rain began to fall. Within minutes the wind had picked up and the rain had turned to a wet, slushy snow. In this context the word wet means “moistened, covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid.” Being in this state, covered or soaked with water or some other liquid a lesser man would have been discouraged and reduced to persecute others with incessant whining.

“Dad, can we start a fire now?’ I bravely asked.

“Not until we get our tent up.”

“But it’s so cold, I can’t even move my fingers.” I calmly stated.

“Get the tent out.”

The only way that I can think of describing the rest of that night would be eternal misery, and remember that is coming from the toughest person I currently know. I don’t think I slept for more than 6 hours that night on the lumpy, scolding rocks that my dad had put in my sleeping bag. On the other hand, my dad had such a restful, peaceful night that he was able to get up by 3:00 to get the fire going and our breakfast ready.

To this day I still wake up in a cold sweat at times remembering that horrible sleepless night. Since that day in the river I have also had to bear the burden of a numb lip that causes frequent drooling and of being slightly cross-eyed. These traits did not only determine the outcome of high school dances, but also continue to work against me in job interviews as people do not understand that my disabilities do not affect my ability to be an effective principal.

As I make a commitment to write more I only hope that everybody else understands the importance of what I have to say.

Friday

Today is Friday. To the untrained eye, this maiden sentence is completely straightforward. The phrase, “today is Friday” is not plain and candid, but complex and mosaic. What better way to inaugurate a new chapter than on Friday, the day of hope, the day of destiny? This strategically placed day marks the end of one era and the beginning of another. “Today is Friday,” optimistically shouts the possibility of life untainted by the past and illuminated by the endless possibilities of the future.

Thoughts

I am going to do something that I have never done before. I am going to refer to myself as a writer, a term that I have always shied away from and kept in reserve for those with superior talent such as Steinbeck, Dickens, DuBois, Hardy, Corimer, Bronte, Austen, and Fitzgerald. Recently I made an explanatory discovery in the dictionary, “writer- one who commits his or her thoughts to writing.” That is what I do, I may not do it as effectively as some, but I do it nonetheless. As a recently self-discovered author, I would like to “commit my thoughts to writing.”
I am not an old man. I am not of the depression era, or can I take claim to the title of “Baby-Boomer.” I do however have the same outlook on life that someone from a prior age would have. I love to work, and in my mind work is equivalent to manual labor. I find joy in my hands, in the ability to change my situation by hard work. As I type these phonemic symbols, and my fingers uncontrollably “twitch” to the wrong letters, I feel anger for those people who have in their wallet a monthly pass to an air-conditioned building full of exercise equipment, an d who find the need to hire a plumber, landscaper, gardener, trench digger, tree trimmer, house cleaner, dog walker, babysitter, or whatever else they need to eliminate from their busy, 21st century, self-serving schedules. I have the desire to work, help and serve, and the ability and talent of physical labor, so why in God’s infinite wisdom does my body not work the way that a 32 year old man’s body should work?

Life

“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” How profound. Why am I who I am? Why was I not born in a humble Haitian setting? Instead of comparing this life to a sweet piece of candy, I would like to parallel life to something a little more accurate, crap. Yes, it is true that we never know what we will get; however, the end result is rarely pleasant. If you happen to work in the medical field or another cushy, pointless occupation that provides an unwarranted, padded income, you will not understand the power in the eyes of this young lady, but for the rest of us these eyes speak to the heart and soul. Having lived in Europe without a car, I know that to walk in the streets of the cities is dangerous in that you are likely to step in some dog’s leftovers. So today I would like to change Forrest’s quote to, “Life is like taking a walk on a metropolitan, European sidewalk you never know what you are going to get.”

Last Night

Unfortunately I am extremely tired this morning due to a most unfortunate situation last night. As many people know, I have a swell wife with many talents. (The following sentence only works in this situation because of the amazing compliment which I just paid my wife.) Being tolerable while sick is sadly not one of my wife’s many abilities. Yesterday she was even more worn out by the time I got home after taking care of a bunch of sickly rug rats all day and making dinner. I finally got “mi princesa” (a phrase hear meaning I have a wonderful wife that is very forgiving) into bed and resting, however this is precisely when my nightmare began. During the night I woke up 16 times due to extreme snoring produced by congestion, 21 times due to an overheated body tossing and turning next to me, and 11 times due to a soggy, gooey tissue being stuck to one of my many body parts.

Little Things

Sometimes it is the little things that we are thankful for. May I take this opportunity to paint a picture in your mind of what I am trying so hard to refer to with the phrase, “sometimes it is the little things that we are thankful for.” This morning on my 27 ½ minute drive to work I experienced a truly humbling experience. I had just distilled a string of transparent drool off the edge of my chin; an unfortunate situation produced by a momentary loss of concentration. I looked down at my stained slacks to mop up the slobbery mess with my left hand; then with one continuous swipe I strategically placed the vile on the bottom side of my seat. My eyes couldn’t have been off to road for more than 30 seconds when I raised my head again to make sure that I was still headed in the correct direction. As my gaze met the horizon in the distance I briefly noticed out the corner of my eye a most amazing sight, and even though I only saw it for a split second, I knew that I had been blessed. On the side of the road I saw a metallic green sign bordered by white reflective paint that simply said in white letters, “Farmington Next 3 Exits.”

Happiness

Life is about living. Life is wonderful. Have a great attitude and keep smiling. Elder Maxwell refers to today as the "holy present.' Remember to live each life to the fullest and share a smile with somebody else. My blogs have always been stories, but lately I just don't have time for stories, so I figure that I should just be writing whatever is on my mind, and today it is happiness.

Synopsis

I have an extremely difficult life; in fact any other person in my situation would immediately jump off the nearest cliff screaming, “AHHHHHHHHH!” All the way down. I however am a trooper, in fact I am more than that, I am a hero. Currently I work as an assistant principal (I have been strategically placed in an assistant’s role to aide a “sweet,” but “aging” principal) and as an assistant principal my role is to listen to all of the whining that takes place at my elementary school. Just to give you a little taste of what I go through on a daily basis I will proceed in the next two sentences to provide you with a graphic picture of my daily torture with a specific dialogue I had with a subordinate employee just the other day:

“Bryan my feet hurt from standing out in the cold for 15 minutes,” complained the forty-five year old duty named Stacy as she sported her funny looking, florescent green lifejacket.
“Stacy why don’t you come inside and take a nap while I take your place for a while,” I valiantly replied.
The end.

As you wipe the tears of sadness away from your eyes I will give you a moment of silence to pay your respects to my goodness. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

My extraordinarily difficult life also includes a nagging wife and five semi-intelligent children who unfortunately take after my wife. Tiffany, my wife, is a short, skinny, dirty-dishwater blonde who looks exactly like Tom Petty. To this day she is not aware of the large sum her former boss paid me in order to take her off of his hands by marrying her. Tiffany is a nice enough person with low intelligence; however she comes with a lot of baggage. Unfortunately her mother is clinically insane and spends her days chasing geese and goats around her two acre lot. Nevertheless, as I reflect upon the fact, I also have a clinically insane mother, but my superior will-power and intelligence make up for my poor matronly genes. My mother eats all of her food with a straw, laughs at her own jokes, and reads poorly written romance novels.

Some of you may be asking yourselves at this point how a normal person can survive living day to day in such circumstances. The simple answer is that I spend much of my time teasing my inferiors as you will see displayed in my subsequent journal entries. It must also be remembered that I am not a normal person; I am a hero.

The day I got poked

Life isn’t always about clean underwear and delightful chocolates. Sometimes life can be downright risky and foreboding. The following entry from my life falls into such a category. I am not one to go around patting myself on the back, but I will anyway. I am the most diligent, assiduous, steadfast, tireless person that I have ever known (incidentally I have recently purchased a new, bulky address book as my old one run out of pages). It is hard for me to bring back to my memory the horrible events of July 24th 1987, but the story must be told to inspire those individuals who happen to be less dedicated to happiness than myself.

It was not as if my telepathic and fortune telling-abilities forewarned that the day would change my life forever. That fateful July morning started as any other morning would have started. I woke up changed my underwear and socks and went downstairs to eat a stale piece of bread and a glass of water that my mother had generously provided for me. After breakfast I went in to tell my lovely mother that I would be going outside for awhile.

“Mom, I’m going out for a minute,” I kindly remarked.

“Please be quiet and get out of here, my head is killing me,” she retorted back to me through the heating pad that she had formed into some kind of medieval knight’s helmet.

I was surprised that she was not a little more kind with me since she had kept me out of the bathroom while she snorted salt water up through her nose for two hours in an attempt to relieve some self-inflicted migraine-type pain that would always conveniently appear when she wanted to avoid something. I was more forgiving than most, so it didn’t even occur to me to be offended for more than a few days, even though my already tender bladder had now been harmed for the remainder of my remarkable life.

I moved to the back door and opened it with my stealth-like abilities. I was quick, I was quiet, and I was a force to be reckoned with. I had not yet informed the CIA of my talents, but I would eventually. For now it was time to practice my investigative skills and look for clues. Surely there must be some crime that needed to be solved that had recently occurred in my front yard.

As I emerged from the garage, I heard the slow purr of a Ford F150, blue in color and in fairly good condition for its age. I had not yet seen the vehicle, but I had an uncanny ability to identify cars by their sound. I ducked behind a bike just as the green pinto passed by. I looked through the spokes at the car looking for anything suspicious.

“What are you doing?” My brother Dallin asked in a suspicious voice.

“Solving a mystery, if that’s quite alright with you.”

“I want in, give me an assignment,” Dallin eagerly responded.

“Go hide behind that fence and keep completely silent.”

“Aye, aye Captain.”

With Dallin out of the way I was now able to complete my dangerous mission. I headed down the sidewalk, careful not to step on cracks or suspicious debris that could easily be booby traps. I saw it before my foot lowered---the object was green in color and covered in some kind of spikes that had obviously been dipped in poison. In an effort to avoid an early death, I threw myself into a body roll that would safely land me on the other side of the obstacle. The evil object must have had some sort of magnetic force field because it jerked my body out of my perfectly executed roll, pulling me toward an extremely painful landing. Because of my extremely large calf muscles, I had plenty of time during my decent to analyze the situation. I knew that the green spiked object could only have come from one source, the KGB. But, how would the KGB know about me? And if they did have agents in the area, why had I not detected them? Just before impact I looked up and noticed an entire tree filled with these poisoned balls. The KGB had somehow managed to plant an entire tree overnight. My brilliant discovery was rudely interrupted by the shot of pain in my back. The poison immediately took effect as my normally-high threshold of pain disappeared.

Keeping my senses I immediately jumped to my feet and started running in circles screaming at the top of my lungs, “Help! Help! They’re here, and they have infiltrated our defenses!”

“Bryan! Get out of the road and stop your screaming,” my mom yelled as she poked her head out the front door.

Abandoning the road I ran up the driveway. I could hear Dallin giggling as I past his hideout behind the fence. At last I reached the safety of my front room, still screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Why in the world do you have a horse chestnut stuck in your back?" my father calmly asked.

I attempted to answer in a respectful manner, but time was of the essence, the poison would soon reach my heart. “Get it out, NOW!”

My father wasted no time. He reached up and tore the weapon out of my skin. I remember nothing past that point, for the feelings were so intense that even I, trained in resistance to torture as I had been, fainted because of the pain.

To this day I wear the mark of the KGB on my back: a scar right across my spine that has the appearance of Donny Osmond. That tree still sits in my front yard. I continue to selflessly protect my little community by spending countless hours smashing each chestnut that falls from the tree with a baseball bat. I also sell countless pictures of my famous scar at ilovedonny.com.

Skiing

I have always been an exceptional athlete, born with an athletic build and sharp reflexes, sports have always come natural to me. This unfortunate curse (I refer to my talent in this context as a curse because of the extreme jealousy that my innate skills invited from substantially less talented siblings) has in fact led to several unique opportunities. For instance, I was once invited to join a traveling band of famous athletes. They praised my parents with such language as special, one-of-a-kind, limited, memorable, rare, and unusual. I would have enjoyed playing with all of their exotic animals, however the chafing I got from my allergies would never allow me to perform with such creatures.
Another opportunity that my athleticism presented to me was the opportunity to train to be a world-class skier. One day I decided to splurge and eat out at Article Circle. As I approached the counter the culinary request technician happened to notice my athletic build. Capitalizing on this amazing opportunity, she had no choice but to provide me with a special invitation.

“Would you like to buy these night skiing tickets?” she asked in a flirtatious, admiring (bordering on worshiping) tone.

“I have never skied before, but I am sure that I would be a natural,” I said to myself while staring blankly at the wall.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” asked the culinary request technician.

“You know what? I am going to take two tickets. I appreciate your confidence in my abilities,” I awkwardly added.

The culinary request technician looked at me with a puzzled squint. I stuck out my chest to augment the quality of the limited time she had dedicated to her stare, the self-time-restriction being required in order to keep her gaze within the strict time regulations for a socially acceptable admiration session.

I took the tickets and strutted to my seat, proud that I had yet again managed to impress the opposite sex with my refined personality and stunning good looks.

I found a nice booth and sat down with Han, my extremely uncoordinated bosom buddy.
“Yum,” I said licking the fry sauce off my chin that was left over from my extremely delicious spicy fries. “So, ya wanna go skiing this weekend?” I asked my friend.

“Nothing would please me more my young padawan, nothing would please me more.” Han was a great friend and he was extremely intelligent when it came to school, but he was a little weird and slow when it came to social issues.

During school the following day Han and I worked out that his sister would drive us up the canyon and drop us off while we skied the slopes for a couple of hours. That night the car pulled up in front of my house about four in the afternoon. Sen, Han’s sister, rolled down the passenger window and I pushed my rental skis over Han’s head. The two pair of skis barely fit on a diagonal. We figured out that we couldn’t quite roll the window up all of the way, but luckily we were all dressed in our warm winter clothes. With the heater blaring and the skis sticking out of the window, we hit the freeway cruising at a comfortable 45mph to keep down the wind chill on the inside of the car.

“Our exit is coming up Sen,” I mentioned as we were about to pass the I-215 turn-off.

Realizing that we were in the far left lane, Sen looked in the rear view where she saw several cars attempting to get around our 45 mph go-cart. She had no choice; time was too short to wait it out. Sen hit the gas while simultaneously pulling the steering wheel to the right. The sudden force put on the skis by the now 55mph wind snapped one of Han’s skis in half.

“My ski, my ski!” Han frantically yelled as we moved parallel across four lanes with half of Han’s body hanging out the window in hopes that his cursing would bring back the prodigal ski.

I looked back just in time to see the ski just miss the car behind us, it hit the road for a brief second until a dump truck ran over the top of it, the ski flew into the air again and disappeared over the edge of the overpass that we were approaching. We drove on toward the canyon, shocked at the events that had just transpired, and frozen because of the huge, wet flakes that had started to fall from the sky.

By the time we arrived at the ski resort we were wet and tired from the long ride. We bought our tickets and got on the lift. As we approached the top of the run I got off the lift and was almost clear of disaster when I felt Han’s icy hand grab my coat. The distraction was just enough to throw me off course and I headed sideways instead of straight ahead. I crashed hard into the ski lift operator and looked behind me to see Han dangling from the lift chair.

“Help, Help!” Han yelled as he hung dangerously 3 inches from the ground.

The operator struggled to stop the lift, but I had unfortunately pinned him to the ground. I tried frantically to remove myself from this precarious position, but the awkwardness of the skis overpowered my agile body.

The ski patrol rushed to help Han as he unfortunately continued on the lift that could not be stopped.

“Jump!” they yelled at my dangling friend.

“I can’t I’m stuck, get me out!” Han started to panic as he kicked and screamed like a trapped, overweight female badger.

Just as the situation looked hopeless as Han’s chair made the loop to go back down the mountain, one of the ski patrol made a daring leap and grabbed Han by his boots. I heard the rip and I immediately knew something had gone wrong. I looked up just in time to see one of the sleeves of Han’s coat disappear down the side of the mountain.

I looked over at my friend with his broken ski and missing sleeve as some of the ski patrol reached down and helped him up. The men wished us luck as they looked questioningly at Han’s half ski and naked left arm.

We started off down the hill, but only made it a couple of feet before I saw Han approaching me extremely fast out of the corner of my eye.

“Watch out!” I yelled in a terrified, hopeless voice.

It was too late. I found myself pinned under Han’s 95 lb. skimpy body, sucking in fresh powder with every breath.

“Get off me you big oaf!”

“That was awesome,” was all that he could manage to say through his high nasal laughter. He stood up and took hold of my coat to attempt to pull me out of the snow bank that had recently become my best friend.

“Han, your stupid broken ski is giving me splinters get it off my back!” I said, but unfortunately the snow translated my perfect English into a mumbled mess.

Han fell over laughing leaving my face planted in the snow and my backside covered in fiberglass slivers from his wind damaged ski.
“Get back over here, this isn’t funny, I can’t even breath,” my mumblings only making my former friend laugh harder and harder.

He came over and after several more tries he managed to pull me up. Now I was wet, tired and irritated at my little laughing grasshopper looking partner who happened to think that everything was hilarious.

Two hours later we sat together on the side of the mountain. We still had not made it down the hill and both of our legs burned.

“I may be extremely good at skiing, but my legs sure to ache.” I complainingly remarked.

“Fun,” replied Han.

“I don’t think this sport was meant to be fun, it’s too painful.”

“Let’s go faster.”

“Yeah, we sure could go a lot faster if you didn’t have your stupid, gimp ski,” I thought to myself, but what I actually said was, “Han, you’re right, this time let me go first and let’s see if we can’t make it down this next hill with some real speed.”

I took off with a determination to make it to the bottom of the 30 foot hill. “Stay on your feet twinkle toes, stay on your feet,” I kept repeating to myself. I began to pick up more and more speed. I was flying now and I felt like I could conquer the world, at least until I thought about the fact that I had no idea how to turn and I was headed right for an orange, plastic fence. I immediately froze and began to imagine how horrible I was going to feel after I collided with a florescent barrier. I didn’t have to much time to think about my tragedy before I slammed into the fence. The tips of my skis went through the wholes in the plastic, the material naturally wrapped around my legs and through me into a beautiful front flip. My head stopped my flip as it slammed into the ice. There I sat upside down with a perfect view of the hillside that I had just skied down with such finesse. I noticed an object heading toward me.

“That looks a lot like Han,” I thought to myself, “He sure has a lot of balance to be able to steer straight when half of his left ski is missing.” As I was deep in thought I remember hearing a loud screaming noise coming from my own mouth, and then everything went black.

When the lights came back on the only difference that I noticed was that I was experiencing more pain throughout my entire body, I also now had a partner with whom I got to pass away the time in the giant florescent orange human spider web.

“Nice move,” I sarcastically complimented my friend on his aim.

“Thanks, that was fun,” Han commented as he started into his laughter again.

It didn’t take the ski patrol long to free us from our misery once they found us and took several photographs. Unfortunately for myself, my fame as a world-class skier was too tempting for those amateurs. They couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pose with such an amazing athletic specimen.

Our luck turned for the better on the way home, we were fairly comfortable before the hypothermia set in. My first training session had not been exactly what I had expected, but I had learned my lesson and I would never go skiing with Han again. I never did make the Olympics, I had to drop training due to a lack of finances, but to this day my picture remains posted in the lodge where I first went skiing.

My Superiority

I know there is a lot of editing to be done, but I wanted to get something on here since it has been such a long time.

It is suspiciously amazing that I turned out to be the perfect person that I am with the kind of childhood that I experienced. It was not that my parents did not love me, they did. It wasn’t even that my parents didn’t try, because they did. But for some unfortunate reason my dad was blessed with intelligence, but no social skills. My mom had an overdeveloped social personality and an unfortunately low standardized IQ score. This combination equated into a very difficult childhood for myself. I inherited my mother’s social brilliance and my father’s high intelligence, but unfortunately for my siblings, they all inherited my mother’s mentally-challenged status. My incessant mumbling actually has a point and that is that it was a blessing for my siblings that they were so slow, and that was that they never realized what an incredibly hard childhood we all shared. Examples: My dad would entertain us on the Fourth of July with road flares; my mom would forget to make dinner a few nights in a row in which case we were forced to eat “leftovers.”
One of my most memorable childhood adventures came at an early age. Dad had recently made a few “modifications” to our little red wagon.
We had just finished eating our “leftovers” which consisted of crusty bread and water when Dad called us out. “Andy! Bryan! Get out here!” he yelled, demonstrating his lack of tact.
“They’ll be out as soon as they finish their morsels,” Mom called back as she lay in her chair with a headache that had been brewing for three days from when my father decided to use gas to polish our silverware. A biography of my childhood would not be complete without a little side discussion about “The Chair.” There are some inanimate objects in our life that are interwoven with numerous memories and experiences, in essence they are a part of the family. I like to sleep in a bed; it does not have to be a comfy bed, a round bed or even a rectangular bed. I have slept in a bed with mice, bed bugs, and even lizards, but I have always enjoyed a normal, healthy night’s sleep. However, every time that I have slept in a chair of any kind I have experienced what most would label a rough night. My mom would argue the opposite, she slept in the chair. It is not as if The Chair had a major role in any of the most significant parts of my life, it was not present when I was born, on my first date, or when I accidently crashed my mom’s car before I had a license, but that chair was a support to the backbone of our family. The Chair, simply put, lived for the sole purpose of supporting my mom.
“Holy horse confetti!” I exclaimed upon seeing our new and improved Radio Flyer for the first time.
“What in the world is that supposed to mean?” Andy asked looking at me with a blank stare.
“Apparently you have not seen a horse with gas bubbles,” I replied while continuing toward my dad’s new creation.
What sat before our eyes in the driveway and used to be our old read wagon, was now something that resembled a UFO more that a shinny red Radio Flyer wagon. The wagon was now covered by a huge, multicolored umbrella. Dad had mounted a steering wheel to the front of the wagon and had placed a beautiful black vinyl seat, complete with a backrest, in the back of the wagon. My dad had also welded a hook to the end of the handle that would fasten to the back of his bike.
“Hop in Andy,” Dad commanded more than requested.
“Why am I always first?” Andy whined.
Off they went flying up and down the street. Andy looked to be having the time of his life, but I was too busy thinking about my own interests to care very much. I knew that I was next and being the important addition to society that I was, I was concerned for my safety. This concern was not some egocentric apprehension for my self preservation, but a genuine regard for the good of humanity; the conservation of my estimable wisdom was vital. Andy returned from his ride. It was my turn. I sluggishly stepped into the special trailer and knew that I had to be one of the bravest people to ever walk the face of the earth. As soon as my fingers wrapped themselves around the wooden steering wheel, my head was jerked back by the speed of my dad’s acceleration. As we hit the bump leaving the driveway, the wagon’s non-inflatable wheel’s had no chance to absorb the force. I flew, but fortunately for my superhuman grip, I managed to literally hang on by the tips of my fingers as my legs flew above my head for a few seconds. With my butt safely back on hot vinyl I concentrated on staying alive. Out of fear that my dad would hit a bump and injure himself, I strategically decided to let out a compassionate, continual scream. People all up and down the street were looking out of their windows and coming out of their houses to see my amazing, X-game worthy skills.
Dad turned into the driveway and pulled me all the way up the hill to the entrance of the garage. Just as I was congratulating myself on surviving my recent horror ride, I realized that Dad’s back tire was shrinking. I grabbed the wooden steering wheel and took my future into my own hands. I turned the wheel back and forth with such force that I was giving myself splinters, but with my high threshold for pain, I didn’t even notice them for a few days. Despite my heroics, I was headed for the road with such speed that even a trained NASA astronaut would have fainted. My custom Radio Flyer hit the lip of the driveway going about 10 mph, the wagon flew into the street with such height that I easily cleared the family squirrel that had heard the commotion and come out to join the fun. Once past the squirrel, I came to a rolling stop in the gutter on the opposite side of the street, as the wheels crashed against the curb my weight became unevenly distributed and I tipped into the stale puddle of gutter water where the local earthworms had gathered to bask in the warm summer sun.
After a couple of weeks I had completely recovered from my injuries and I was cleared by my doctor to once again entertain guests and do my daily chores. Once again, I had used my superior genes to survive a near childhood tragedy. Andy on the other hand experienced many nights where he wet the bed for the next several years upon seeing me, his hero, nearly lose my amazing, unadulterated life.

(I'm Back) Christmas Candy

I have to be in a good mood to write these, it has been a long time, in fact I have felt a little guilty for enjoying things now that my dad is gone, but I know my dad would want us all to be laughing as much as possible and enjoying life. Every time he saw me his first question was always, "are you sad?" He did not want his family to "catch" the sadness that he had found in his lonely bedroom. In an attempt to make my dad happy and not be sad I will attempt to take the lighter side to life once again and enjoy each moment.


Christmas Candy

My mom loves Christmas candy. She will tell you that she likes to cook Christmas candy, but in all reality the only reason that she likes to make the candy is so that she can eat the candy. By the end of December each year I can always tell the time of year by the extra pudge in my mother’s cheeks. She will spend weeks making caramel, fudge, English toffee, toffee, turtles and homemade hot chocolate. As a child I loved to eat this candy, everyone loved to eat the candy including the tiny mice that lived in our home. If we ever forgot to cover the fudge it was easy to spot the little mouse footprints where the mice had been; the footprints became more of a trade mark than a nuisance.
“Wow, thanks for the candy,” people would say, “I love how your mother always puts her trademark on the fudge, it’s like I’m eating expensive European candy.”
“Yum,” I would reply having always been one to use few, but meaningful words.
My mom would make us run plates of candy to all of the neighbors, in this sentence the word “neighbor” means anyone who lived within a two mile radius of our house. It took hours and hours of labor to deliver all of these handmade treats, hours which came free to my mom so she really didn’t care about the enormous burden that this tradition placed upon me and my siblings.
One winter the weather was so bad that I was sure that we were off the hook, the least that would happen would be that my mom would drive us around to the different houses to deliver her goodies. My jubilation, animated as it was, did not last for long.
“Boys the plates are ready for special delivery,” my mom called as if inserting the word special would make us feel noble about our chore.
“But what about the snow?” I complained.
“Don’t worry about it, the treats they are wrapped in extra layers of plastic wrap, plus your dad has welded a couple of umbrellas to the red wagon so that the candy will stay nice and dry.”
“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” I replied, “but what about your children?” I replied.
“SPECIAL delivery,” she mouthed in an over exaggerated manner.
“I’m special,” Marne stated.
We all looked at her with a “we know you are” look.
“I apologize mother, when you put it that way how dare I complain. What a wonderful opportunity this will be for us to deliver your candy to your friends,” I answered in an extremely fake sounding voice.
“That’s better Bryan, I am glad you see it that way.”
The argument was fruitless, if it came down to saving the kids or the candy mom would rush the Christmas goodies out of the burning fire well before her own children. Out the door we went, I was wrapped in three coats, four scarves, two pair of gloves, three hats, and five pair of socks. I knew the dangers of the cold and I was going to do everything in my power to keep warm.
At the first stop just up the road from our house, I noticed that my mom had not accounted for sideways snow and that our red wagon was now completely full of snow. My brothers and I brushed off the snow as well as we could, but in the process Andy knocked the wagon over.
“Nice shot,” I sarcastically remarked, “come on guys let’s pick everything up”
“Hey knock it off!” I heard Dallin yell at Alex as he shoved his mouth full of Mom’s candies.
Dallin proceeded to pelt Alex with frozen pieces of fudge. “Eat this, and this,” he kept yelling at Alex.
“Dallin!” I yelled. The yell did the trick and Dallin dropped the rest of his ammunition.
Alex, now looking quite ridiculous with half his face covered in frozen fudge, and the other half covered in welt marks, picked up the fallen candy shoved in his pockets then took hold of the wagon and started pulling it up the driveway to our neighbor’s house. I rang the doorbell and a fat, old man opened the door. Andy shoved the plate of candy at the man.
“Candy,” Andy stated looking just like a Neanderthal.
“Ouch, careful boy,” the man replied as Andy, because of his stunted growth, had pushed the plate right into the man’s knee.
“Sorry sir, he’s in a hurry,” I apologized for my brother who had run off to the wagon in an attempt to hurry to the next house. He looked more like a gingerbread man running away than a boy with his tight winter clothing hugging his legs and arms so tight that he could not bend his knees and elbows. I turned to leave the doorstep and stepped on some ice, down I went hitting every limb on my body and the back of my head on the hard cement.
“Here have some candy, that will make you feel better,” said the senile man as he threw a piece of frozen fudge and my head before he slammed the door to keep the blowing snow out of his house.
“Hush up!” I yelled at my unsympathetic brothers who were laughing uncontrollably at my unfortunate blunder. I limped back to the wagon and we continued our trip. A couple of minutes later Alex lost the grip on the wagon, I saw it coming, but my body did not move the way that it used to before my horrible and tragic fall. I dove out of the way, but misjudged the distance. My quick thinking to act as a human speed bump, did however slow the wagon enough so that my brothers were able to stop the wagon before it got all the way down the hill.
“Good thinking,” Andy sincerely complimented.
“Yeah, nice moves ballerina boy,” Dallin couldn’t help himself. With all of his defaults, including his personal hygiene challenges, Dallin was always jealous that I was so much closer to perfection than he was and he had to get in his jabs every chance that he could get. I ended up slipping about ten more times during our long journey as I learned that slippery ice and injured knees and ankles do not mix.
“You boys are so cute,” Mrs. Riley kindly said at our last stop. “What’s wrong with your brother?”
“He’s had a few falls today,” Andy answered looking at my back, since it was the only thing visible after a face plant into the snow in Mrs. Riley’s front yard. Alex and Dallin both grabbed a foot and pulled me onto the street where oncoming traffic had a free shot at my crippled body.
“Let’s get home boys,” Dallin said to the rest of us.
Even though our house was only a few feet away, it took me about 30 minutes longer to get there than my brothers. By the time I got home my brothers had eaten all of the left over candy and blamed it on me. I didn’t mind the month of being grounded since it gave me the opportunity to rest from my injuries.
Another year of deliveries was over and I had suffered greatly. My dad like always just wanted to make sure that his wagon was taken care of and told me that the falls would make me a man. Mom was asleep and sick in her chair for the next two days because of all of the hard work of making Christmas candy (or eating too much of it), so she never did offer me the sympathy that I deserved for my amazing sacrifice.

The First Day of Sixth Grade

There are several reasons why I remember the first day of sixth grade. It all started in the morning when we were getting ready for the all important first day of school. Andy was starting 9th grade and he believed himself to be the hottest thing since indoor plumbing. He ended up spending way too much time on the little curl on his hair that made him look like Lucille Ball to everyone else. Then he used makeup to cover up some of the bigger white heads on his face which had been hit with a plague straight out of the Bible. His head may have looked funny, but his pants put all other funny looking things to shame. They were made of shinny polyester and they hugged his legs so tight that Michael Jackson would have turned his head in shame. Andy was at the peak of puberty and to this day I have not had the pleasure of having a normal conversation with my older brother as it has been his misfortune to continue puberty well into his 30’s.
I arrived at school and heard an announcement that I knew would change my life forever. This year the school would have a student body president and a student council. I was going to be the president. I always knew that I was destined for glory, and this was my chance to prove it. Everything that had happened from the moment of my birth had prepared me to be the student body president of my elementary school.
“Did you hear that?” I asked my friend John who sat next to me. “I am going to be the president.”
“That’s awesome man.”
“I knew it,” I thought to myself, “everyone is expecting me to be their leader.”
The rest of the morning I sat in my seat smiling uncontrollably and planning my campaign strategy in my head. I was focused and nothing could distract me. Throughout the school day I was on cloud nine and I had fun doing everything. I sat at a table of boys and just before lunch we were hungry and getting a little rowdy. While I was laughing at a blond joke I let things get out of hand and before I knew it the pressure got to me and I made an unexpected loud noise. There was no denying this embarrassment so I just joined in with everyone else and laughed even louder.
“What’s going on!” Mrs. Jones demanded.
The kids all pointed to me.
“Bryan I want you back here for recess, you can sit with your head down and think about how you are not going to interrupt our class for the rest of the day.”
This wasn’t the best way to get on good terms with my new teacher, but I didn’t care I was going to be student body president, nothing could phase me at this point in my illustrious career, I am sure my teacher thought that I was on something as I sat there and just smiled like I didn’t have a care in the world.
After lunch one of my friends pulled out some seeds from some kind of pepper.
“Look at this guys,” John said showing us his treasure. He then proceeded to pass out seeds to our entire table.
“Look at me I’m a monster,” I said putting a seed on each of my eyes.
Other boys put the seeds in their noses, tongues and ears. We had a great time for about two minutes. My eyes started to itch and then burn as if someone had lit a fire inside of my head. I looked at my friends and they all had red faces and hands.
Mrs. Jones came over to see what the moaning was coming from our table. When she arrived I can only imagine the pitiful sight she enjoyed. Six boys with swollen red faces and hands moaning and a couple of us were rolling on the floor. She sent us to the bathroom to rinse off, but the pain remained for the rest of the day. I kept reminding myself of my future fame and that helped to ease the pain throughout the day and I sat with my careless smile once again.
The bell sounded and I rushed to the bike rack to find my two younger brothers.
“Alex guess what,” I said to my kindergarten brother.
“What?”
“I am going to be the president!”
“Wow, will you get to move to the White House and eat candy?” Alex was obsessed with candy.
“No bud, but I will be your boss.”
Just then Dallin came running around the corner with his friend Josh.
“Dallin guess what.”
Dallin turned toward me, made a monkey face while his friend flapped his wings like a bird. They both just ran past me and jumped on their bikes.
“I’m telling Mom if you don’t wait up,” I yelled without effect. “Come on Alex, let’s catch him.”
We didn’t catch sight of Dallin until we were almost to our first day of school ice cream party at the church.
“What’s that? Alex asked pointing at something in the road up ahead.
“It’s probably just a dead bird,” I replied.
“But it’s huge,”
“Maybe it’s a dead bear,”
I could tell this scared Alex as his eyes grew about 10 sizes which looked really funny on a little kid with and oversized head and eyes that already looked like they were going to pop out at any moment.
As we approached the dead bear, I could tell that it was actually a couple of kids lying in the road. Alex and I came up to two kids lying on their backs, staring at the sky and crying hysterically.
“Hey Dallin guess what? Sidewalk chalk tastes great. I accidently licked some in class and before I knew it half of my piece was gone.”
“Alex knock it off! Can’t you see that he’s hurt, look at his face it doesn’t have any skin on it.” I gently reprimanded Alex for going off on another tangent.
After trying to get the boys out of the middle of the road I gave up and decided to make a safe barrier around them so they would not get run over by a car. Alex and I broke the reflectors off our bikes and laid them in a circle around the accident. We had plenty of reflectors because my dad always made sure that each bike had at least ten reflectors to make sure we were safe and riding in style at the same time. After we had the accident site secured I turned to Alex.
“Alex you stay here and make sure Dallin doesn’t get run over, I’m going to get Mom.
I rushed home and ran through the door. After I had told my mom the whole story about me being the future president of our school I proceeded to tell on Dallin for running away from me after school. Eventually I got to the fact that my brother was lying in the middle of the street bleeding to death and we ran out the door to save his life.
When we arrived on the seen it looked the same as I had left in, two boys screaming in the middle of the road surrounded by bike reflectors. Alex had wondered off to the gutter and was eating bugs.
“Alex get over here!” Mom yelled.
Alex dropped his next bug and ran over to my mom. “Mom, Mom! Guess what. I ate sidewalk chalk!”
My mom starred at him in horror for a brief second and then focused on the two boys. She picked them up and put them in the back of the car as I gathered the reflectors and Alex chased a butterfly.
“Let’s go,” Mom demanded.
“But what about my ice cream at the church,” I whined.
“Not now Bryan, not now.”
“But…” I stopped as my mom gave me the “I will rip your guts out if you say one more word” look.
We rushed the boys over to the hospital where we all three fought for my mom’s attention. I was trying to tell her about how popular I was and how there was no way that anybody would vote for anybody else, Alex was bragging about his snacks throughout the day, and Dallin was still screaming like a little girl who had just lost her doll.
I never did win the election; the rumor was that the whole election was fixed. I still hang my posters in my living room, knowing that one day my old principal will walk through my door, apologize and beg me to attend our sixth grade reunion as president of my class. Dallin ended up with a permanently scared face which looks like he has had a run in with a blow torch that melted his face off. Alex continues to have GI problems due to his interesting choice in foods. Andy still lives in 9th grade and walks with a noticeable strut. Despite our shortcomings we are still the best of friends and even though we may not be accepted by our neighbors, we respect each other and enjoy getting together to watch Alex eat weird things, and balance couches on his face while Andy shows us his latest basketball hero’s name that he has shaved into the rug of hair on his back.

Playing Baseball

Baseball was usually my sport of choice and from the time that I was three I spent my summers swinging a bat. Andy and I would often have debates on who could hit the ball the farthest; Dad or Mickey Mantle. We usually decided that Dad would probably out slug the famous Yankee Hall of Famer. Dad would take us down to Stoker school to hit us baseballs. The field was only a little larger than a regulation soccer field, so he did not have enough space to hit the balls far, but he did hit them high. In fact, my dad would hit the ball so high that I would always lose sight of it for a few seconds at its peak. One time he got too much ball and the ball soared over buildings and into Main Street, I heard some noises but he told me that it was a bad ball anyway and not to go and look for it. We got pretty good at spotting the balls coming out of the clouds and then catching them. I also learned how to pad my mitt to avoid broken fingers. Before I got good I would also wear a football helmet, shoulder pads and shin guards. All suited up I had no fear, except for when the oversized football helmet spun around and would leave me in the dark for a few scary moments. Once we caught the ball we would throw it toward Dad where Dallin or Alex would act like gophers, shag the balls and hand them back to Dad. I knew that I was well on my way to becoming a professional baseball player, I even had my own baseball card and championship trophy made in preparation for future events.
My dad of course could not always come with us. Most of the time, in fact all summer long, Andy and I and later our other two brothers would head down to Stoker on our own and spend the day playing our own made up versions of a baseball games that could be played with only a couple of people. We would load up the baskets on our bikes with bats, balls, bases, and all sorts of mitts and head down to our home field. One of my favorite games was when I would pretend to be a major league pitcher. My skills were up for the challenge but unfortunately I was too young to actually pitch for a major league club so I settled to pitch 9 full innings to imaginary batters with my older brother catching. Usually I would end up pitching a perfect game striking out all pretend batters who came to the plate. Yes, a few of the batters saved my records of no walks by conveniently calling time outs just before I threw many of the my wild pitches, but in the end I always threw a perfect game without making a single mistake. I was good, and I knew it.
After a year or so of playing all day everyday during the warm summer months Dad decided that the public park needed an upgrade. We spent the next few weeks pulling ivy off the left field fence that acted as a barrier for the people who lived in the apartments next door and relocating loads of sand from the nice city park to make a nice infield for our field. Our project was starting to look much more like a baseball field than a weed patch. I worked hard during those weeks to make that field usable and through our efforts we claimed the public field as our own. I was not very happy those times when some intruder had the audacity to trespass on our field.
One day Andy and I were pretending to have a playoff game. He was always the hitter and he would go through the team’s line up drop hitting me fly balls. I purposely would drop a lot of the balls that were hit by my favorite players, and with my skills I also made some pretty miraculous catches to save the day for our team. In all reality I was my own hero and in some ways I made more miraculous plays than the real player ever did.
“Who’s up?” I yelled to Andy.
“Wade Boggs,” he yelled back.
Wade Boggs was a good player, but he played for the Red Sox and we were not Red Sox fans. Wade hit a fly ball right for me, “Easy out, easy out,” I could hear the crowd cheering in my mind. I knew that all eyes and hopes of the crowd were on me, the self-appointed defensive hero of every game played in Yankee Stadium. I put up my glove and just missed it. The ball ricocheted off my glove and hit me right in the chin. I was hurt, but I was also brave.
I heard Andy yelling, “you can still throw him out!”
I gathered all of my strength, picked up the ball and threw it with all my might toward 1st base (the ball actually went the opposite direction into the road).
“OUT!” Andy screamed.
I was the only right fielder in history to have an arm strong enough to throw out a would be single. With my job done, I collapsed to the ground in obvious pain.
“It was the sun,” I kept whining over and over, “the sun made me drop it.”
“But it’s cloudy out here Bryan there is no sun,” Andy had run out to the outfield to see if I was okay.
“Yea, but it came out just long enough to make me miss that ball.” I said as I stood up ready to go again even though I had to play the rest of the game with the baseball’s thread marks imbedded on my chin.
“Next up, Don Mattingly,” Andy excitedly yelled out.
The bases were loaded and the Yankees were down by three runs. A grand slam here could mean a win for the Yankees. There was a full count, somehow Andy had managed to miss the ball twice and had thrown himself three balls. He hit the next toss and I was about to catch it, but decided to drop it on purpose just outside of the foul line.
“Foul ball!” I yelled.
After three more foul balls and a line drive that did not count because of a rowdy, imaginary fan, Don, finally hit a deep ball (it helped that Andy had scooted up to third base to hit the ball) that went flying over the fence. I ran around the fence to get the ball when I heard the distinct sound of glass breaking. I ran back around the fence even faster. In church teachers frequently give the example of some kid breaking a window with a ball. The honest child always goes, knocks on the door and offers to pay for the broken window. Obviously those teachers have never broken a window before. During the lessons I always gave the right answer, but the sound of broken glass triggered a signal in my brain that said, “RUN!”
I have never moved so fast in my life, Andy and I jumped on our bikes and took off down the street, we jumped off at a nearby church and hid behind a big tree.
“That was an awesome hit,” Andy complimented himself.
“Who cares, we are dead. How are we ever going to pay for a window, not to mention get our ball back?” I hopelessly asked.
We debated for a few minutes and then decided that after a whole 10 minutes, the coast was sure to be clear. That was a nice ball that we had lost, and we had to get it back. Behind the park where we played there was a big apartment complex. We looked through the bushes next to the window where the ball had gone and all we could see was a hole in the window.
“Andy look,” I said pointing at the window.
“Wow, a hole,” Andy replied with his mouth gaping open. “Do you think a rock broke it?
“What’s wrong with you Andy? You broke it!”
Just then I heard a voice behind us say, “Looking for this boys?”
I turned to see a huge man just taller than me in a tight white tank top, glasses, unibrow and a patchy beard that was obviously his pride and joy. He held a burned grilled cheese sandwich and a can of Fresca in one hand and in the other was our ball. He held his prize new ball, taunting us and obviously not planning on giving it back. The kind man, showing off his huge vocabulary of four letter words, then explained to us in a long compound sentence, how we would pay for his window.
We were doomed and we knew it. There was no way that we could tell my dad, he would not be happy. We went straight to Mom and told her what had happened. My mom made us return to the man’s house to apologize and pay him off. When he answered the door the man was not as loud as he had been before, it probably had to do with the fact that my mom’s five foot two figure dwarfed his own five foot frame. My mom made arrangements to pay the man once the window came in and then Andy and I agreed to do the dishes for the rest of our mortal lives.
We ended up breaking another couple of windows over the course our careers, but nothing could ever stop us from playing baseball together. My legacy still lives on at that field, out of respect for my brothers and I the city tore out the baseball diamond a few years back and the field has been retired in our honor.

Parades, Rooftops, and Dead Birds

For many years my dad had decorated our bikes, dressed us up as clowns and entered us in the town parade. We were never official, Dad would just show up and we would sneak in line behind the fire trucks. Although we were not official, we were favorites, one year the newspaper even did a story on us. If people in our town don’t know us by our tree house, they do remember us from the parades. Mom spoiled all of the fun saying it was too dangerous just because baby Dallin was hit in the face with a water balloon one year as he rode in a trailer that my dad was pulling. This year we would have to be like the rest of the crowd and just watch the parade. The only problem with this scenario was that we were not like the rest of the crowd, we were a peculiar family and we always stuck out. My dad could see no point in saving places the night before that was a waste of time, besides we were busy at that time collecting discarded chairs and blankets that people had left on the side of the road.
My dad had a plan, I could see it in his face, and it made me nervous. I didn’t like sticking out, and I hated doing things that could get me into trouble, Dad was the opposite. He was always dragging us into situations that could get us yelled at or driven off in a police car. For instance, he frequently made us get up on the roofs of the local schools so that we could get all of the balls and other things that the students had thrown up there.
The time of the parade arrived and we jumped on our bikes to ride down to Main Street. Before getting on his bike, my dad casually threw a 12 foot ladder on his back. I looked over at Andy and mouthed the words, “A ladder?”
Andy shrugged his shoulders indicating that he hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were about to do.
I looked over again at the interesting sight of my dad on his bike with a ladder on his back and my little sister sitting on an extra seat that he had welded to the frame just in front of his own seat.
As we approached Main Street it was obvious that there were way to many cars for us to make it to Dad’s secret spot without being noticed. While maneuvering through the cars my dad’s ladder caught the side of a car and left a long gash in the shiny red paint. My dad glanced back, but kept riding. Now I really began to panic, I didn’t want to get into trouble for scratching somebody’s car so I hurried as fast as I could across the street, it was a mistake and I knew it as soon as I began the dangerous crossing. A car was coming fast and I saw it, but I needed to stay with my dad so I wouldn’t be blamed for scratching the car. I turned my pedals as fast as my legs would move, but I wasn’t fast enough and the car clipped my back tire. The force threw me most of the rest of the way across the street and I landed softly on the grass; a grand total of a two foot flight.
“Ouch!” I screamed more out of fear than pain.
My brothers and a couple of strangers ran over to me to assess the damage. Dad ran over to the bike, picked it up and immediately began to check all of the different parts to make sure that the precious bike had not been damaged.
“Are you okay?” Andy asked.
“My knee, my knee,” I cried figuring that since that is where I landed, that must be where my injury was.
“Well, it looks like you have some grass stains, and both of your knees are red,” Andy replied trying to sound sympathetic.
“I think my injuries are internal!” I was hopelessly reaching out for any kind of opportunity to get out of this scary situation with the ladder and go home to my mom.
“Shake it off, and let’s get going,” I heard the familiar voice of my father command.
I stood up and walked over to mount my bike with an exaggerated, pitifully looking limp that made me look more like a penguin than a little boy. We ended up riding our bikes to the back of Bountiful Drug. I was still confused, especially since we could not see the parade from where we were standing. My dad got out the ladder and set it against the back of the building.
“Up you go,” he calmly stated staring right at Andy.
Up Andy went without even giving it a second thought. When he reached the top my dad started to climb the ladder. Once Dad reached Andy I saw my brother climb onto his shoulders and suddenly I realized what we were doing. We were going to watch the parade from the roof of Bountiful Drug! It would be a great view, but I could think of two problems; one, we wouldn’t get any candy, and two we would probably end up in jail. As scared as I was of going to jail, I was even more scared of my father, so when it was my turn I obediently climbed the ladder, my father’s shoulders and then the last few feet of the wall until I landed safely on the roof. Dallin was also able to climb up on his own, but Alex and Marne were too short. Luckily, Alex was a good climber so once Andy and I gave him our hands he was able to scurry up the wall with ease. The problem came with Marne. Marne was brave for a girl, but when it came to standing on top of Dad’s shoulders on top of a 12 foot ladder, she reverted back to her silly girl tendencies to freak out. As soon as we grabbed a hold of Marne’s arms she started screaming and kicking as if she were an inflated, untied balloon that had just been released.
“Calm down spas!” I screamed at Marne attempting to facilitate my grip on her flailing body.
“I’m FALLING!” Marne pierced the air with such fury that a nice family of birds in a nearby tree took flight for a safer refuge.
I finally was able to get my arms around her chest and pull her onto the roof. We both tumbled backwards and the gooey snot from her temper tantrum covered my arms and hands in a transparent, sticky film.
My dad came up right behind us and pulled the ladder up after him to cover our tracks, as if six people on top of a roof would not tip anyone off.
I have to admit that we had a great view of the parade. My siblings and I stood right next to the edge for the whole parade, Alex and Marne needed a boost to be able to see over the wall that surrounded the border of the roof.
“Look,” I said to Andy pointing to a dead bird on the ledge.
“Touch it,” I dared Andy. I should have learned my lesson by now, but whenever Andy and I found something new and interesting, I always dared him to touch it to make sure it was safe.
“No way, Dallin you touch it,” Andy said.
Just like always Dallin obeyed, reached out his finger and poked the dead bird. The bird immediately took flight, not by its own power but through the power of gravity. We all three stretched our necks over the ledge and watched the bird falling head over heals toward the ground. The soon to be smashed piece of poultry landed right in the lap of a man who was just about to take a bite out of his sandwich. The man jumped to his feet out of sure fright and knocked his drink onto the people sitting directly in front of him.
We dropped down out of sight, too scared to recognize the humor in the situation. After a couple of minutes we got up to watch the rest of the parade confident that it was now safe to resurface. Andy reached over and brushed the gravel off that had imbedded itself in the skin of my face.
My dad had done it again, he had given us another unique childhood memory that we would never forget. Somehow we got through the parade, got down and rode our bikes through a crowd of police without anyone ever questioning us. The next year we ended up watching the parade lying in hammocks in the Sycamores that provided shade to a section of Main Street.

The Worst Week Ever

(Remember that these are fictional stories based on real events. This blogg is a place for the author's drafts, proofreading will take place at a future date, the author is completely aware of the need for editing and revision)
There are not too many specific dates that I remember, but I will never be able to forget the most horrible week of my life. The week of Oct 3 1988 was when my sister Marne was born. Although Marne has made all of our lives a little more complicated, she was not my reason for despair during these specific days. The source of my regularly reoccurring nightmare for the past 20 years was my dad. When my mom found out that she was going to have a 5th child she immediately decided that she needed a little R&R. She also decided that the best way to take this R&R would be to have a C section instead of a traditional delivery so that she would have a few extra days in the hospital. Yes, my mom was desperate and this was, as she saw it, her only way out.
My dad was a nice guy, he just had some unique ideas that didn’t make sense to anybody else, this uniqueness made it difficult for me to live with Dad without having Mom as a buffer.
The first night started out okay until Alex had to go to the bathroom. Alex was four and supposedly recently potty trained, but apparently he still did not understand the entire concept of a toilet.
“Bryan!” Dad yelled, “come and get this thing off of your brother.”
“I came into the living room assuming that Alex had just stuck the mop bucket on his head again, but as soon as I rounded the corner, my recently healed nose told me that I had my work cut out for me. I did not want to get involved in cleaning Alex up, but I knew better than to defy my dad, there would be no forgiveness for such an act.
“Alex, come over here buddy,” I leeringly coaxed.
He could tell from the look in my eyes what I was up to and he ran for it. Andy and Dallin helped me chase him down and corner him in the back of the laundry room.
“Andy you hold his hands up in the air while Dallin holds his legs and I’ll get these dirty pants off,” I said in a less than motivated tone.
As soon as I had started Alex broke free of Dallin’s grip and kicked him in the head. Dallin went down hard and took the laundry soap with him. Struggling to get back on his feet, Dallin regained control of Alex’s flailing leg and we completed the dirty procedure. I threw the filthy pants in the washer and opened the bathroom door where my dad was waiting to squirt Alex down with a hose he had fashioned to the tub. After two minutes of Alex screaming and Dad yelling, Dad came out to scold us for the mess we had made in the laundry room.
“What’s for dinner Dad?” Dallin boldly asked at about 10 that night. We were starving and hoping that Dad had accomplished enough of his projects that he would be in a good mood and would be feeling generous enough to feed us. He ended up getting out some 50 year old Army Surplus instant dinners. They had great names like “Chicken Ala King,” but the brown and dark green packaging made them look just like they tasted, stale.
“This food will put hair on your chest, its not like the wimpy stuff Mom feeds you, plus its cheap,” Dad told us matter of factly.
As anyone can tell by looking at Andy’s chest, back and ears, he loved the stuff, he ate his share as well as everybody else’s. Once dinner was finished it was time to do the dishes for the day. Dad had us haul all of the dishes into the bathroom and load up the tub.
“Dad didn’t we just clean off Alex in here?” I timidly questioned.
“This is powerful cold water, if you can’t see it, it’s not dirty,” my dad answered.
The dishes were loaded and my dad spent about 30 seconds sprays all of the visible food off the plates, spoons, pans, and glasses. Next, we put all of the dishes on a couple of large bath towels and let the dry for a few minutes before we put them back in their places in the cupboards.
“Dad all of the towels will be wet for our baths,” Andy observed.
“Real men don’t need towels,” he replied. “You first Bryan.”
Obediently I jumped into the tub.
“I don’t make enough money to constantly use the hot water, so brace yourself,” my dad warned right before he turned on the straight cold water and squirted me off just like he had the dishes. “Go turn on the fan in the kitchen and stand in front of it, you’ll be dry in no time.
There was no such thing as privacy in our home and within a few seconds all four boys were standing in the kitchen in front of the fan drying off from their quick “showers.” My dad walked in with a sense of pride on his face, he had saved at least a few cents from making us suffer and he was proud of that accomplishment.
The next day we got to go to the hospital to visit our new baby sister. I knew she was part of the family, but there was something weird about her, I had never been so close to a girl before and I was a little scared.
“Andy I dare you to touch her,” I said.
“No way.”
“I will,” Dallin boldly stated as he walked over and poked Marne in the eye.
This sent the baby into a screaming furry as mom scrambled to pick up her new favorite child. She sent a scowl to all of us as she tried to calm the baby. Meanwhile Alex thought that Dallin’s actions were a permit to create total mayhem so he started climbing the curtain that divided Mom’s room in half. Without warning the curtain crashed to the floor covering Alex in a heap of mess. Just then the nurse walked in the door to see what all of the commotion was. I can’t even imagine what thoughts she must have had as she saw a screaming newborn, three young boys laughing hysterically, a toddler tangled in a mess of ceiling tiles, curtain rods and fabric, and a bald man with a latex glove pulled over his head. She took one look, started to say something, turned and left the room.
Mom ended up sending us all home, and we didn’t get to go back until mom was released from the hospital.
This is basically how it went for the few days that we lived with Dad, Army for dinner, cereal for all other meals, spraying off the dishes and the children, and helping him with his special projects. When mom finally got home, we were grateful for bedtime, bath time, and real food. This was the worst week of my childhood not only because we barely survived, but because of the severe repercussions, repercussions that are still in force today. When I go to visit my mom’s house I am not allowed to poke Marne in the eye, see mom’s large belly scar, or encourage Alex to swing from the curtains.