Ten things from my childhood that you don't see any more

1. The Ice Cream Man... What happened to the daily melody that signaled yummy was on it's way?
2. Chicken Delight delivery cars... Something about that chicken on the roof of the car that endeared itself to me.
3. Kids out on Halloween without parents... Remember when you went EVERYWHERE with just a big group of kids and no one worried? Sad to say my kids don't know those times.
4. The Double Feature Saturday matinee... The kids loved it and the parents had to love it too as it was really a cheap babysitter for the afternoon. Alas the fear of kids safety rears its' ugly head again.
5. Drive In movies...Okay if you drive to Ennis there still is one but what kind of idiot will drive to Ennis ??...er...never mind that one.
6. Variety Shows...man I miss The Carol Burnett Show!!!
7. Horned Frogs....maybe they were the smart ones and got out of town while they still could.
8. Drug Store Soda Fountains..There is still one in downtown Irving but remember when there were 3-4 in Plymouth Park alone? Almost extinct. Best lemonade ever.
9. The Milk Man..remember home delivered milk, eggs, ice cream, etc.? Note to my Mom...remember it's "DON"T let the dog out" and not "let the dog out". The mental picture of the Milk Man trying to get devil dog LittleBit out from under the couch is scary.
10. Shave and a haircut, 6 bits...It's $15.00 now.

I'm back Wednesday with the weigh in.

An embarrassing story and special moment

In July 1969 I suffered the most embarrassing incident of my adolescent life. I was 12 years old and just two months from turning 13 years of age. I was leaving elementary school and about to enter Jr. High School. It was a time of change for me. I grew 8 inches during my sixth grade year and went from a kind of squatty kid to a full blown teenager. I was at that point in my life that you never ever want to look bad in front of the girls. Oh was this was going to be bad night.

There may have been other people there that night but I really only recall the principal players. My best friend Jimmy Cox and I were up at the McCullough girls house playing records. That's what we did in those days. We sat around, played records, and sang our hearts out. The girls would get up and dance but we just watched them dance. Wanda and Mary Nell McCullough were there and so was Kathy Roche. Kathy's presence was of particular importance. For years the older guys were going steady with the older girls but Kathy and I, being the youngest of the bunch, were kind of on the sidelines watching the game. There was a effort, I believe engineered by Mary Nell, to make Kathy and I boyfriend/girlfriend. It almost happened but never really did. This very night may have had a lot to do with that. But I certainly did not want to do anything stupid in front of Kathy. Again, this was going to be a bad night.

In one of the few moments of silence that night, a sound slipped out from my body. I wish I could say it was a good part of my body that it came from but that is not the case. It was very faint and would have been ignored if not for good ole Jimmy Cox. Jimmy let loose with the loudest and most over exaggerated "What was that?" I have ever heard. I stammered for a second and all I could muster was a sickly, feeble "Excuse me". Jimmy howled with laughter. Forever. He doubled over. He cried he was laughing so hard. Seconds became minutes, the minutes seemed to become hours. The girls were polite and tried not to laugh but Jimmy's uncontrollable shrieks were just too much. They were all about to split with laughter and I understand this now but at that moment I just needed to get out of that room. So I did something I had never done in that house and walked to the back den where the McCollough's parents were. They asked me what everyone was laughing about and I just mumbled "nothing". I'm sure that by my beet red face and general attitude they knew that whatever the joke was I was the brunt of it and that I needed shelter.They told me I should stay in there for a few minutes because something special was about to happen. They pointed to their TV and I turned to hear "One small step for man..." .

I wasn't the coolest kid in the house that night. I was, once again, the goofball of the bunch. But I was the only one of the kids that were in the house that night that saw Neil Armstrong, live and as it happened, step on the moon.

I'm off and peddling for now.

Wednesday weigh in for 10/07

It was a strange roller coaster week.

Last Wednesday I weighed in at 258.0 pounds. I spent Wednesday afternoon mowing the back yard and ate well Wednesday and was at 256.6 Thursday morning. I weighed 256.4 Friday morning. I was off to such a great start. I got off at 6pm Friday and Karen and I decided to use a Chili's gift certificate she got from work. We split an order of Mushroom Jack chicken fajitas. I also got a bag of chips and salsa to go. I ate half of the fajitas and Karen ate half. I ate what I considered to be a half bowl of chips. I checked the charts at livestrong.com before I decided to order this. It would put me at the high end of my daily allowed calories but it would not put me over. I really thought it was a fine meal. I also decided that as tired as I felt and at the end of a long week missing one night of exercise would be okay so I did not do anything that night.

WRONG

Saturday morning I weighed 260 lbs! There was something in that meal that didn't agree with my metabolism. Also choosing to not exercise on my highest caloric and fat gram day of the week in hindsight was just plain stupid on my part. It was a struggle to get those pounds back off. Monday morning I was at 258.2 which was still .2 higher than I was last Wednesday. I was faced with the prospect of my first week of no weight loss. I am mentally prepared for a week like that by the way and I will not let it discourage me but I am not ready for it. I ate my regular healthy routine Monday and Tuesday and did 15 minutes each night on the jogging trampoline. This morning I weighed in at an even 256.0 pounds. Somehow I did obtain my weekly goal of a 2 pound weight loss.

Friday I have the story of how the single most embarrassing incident of my adolescent life turned into a pretty special moment.

I'm off and pedaling for now.

The Haunted House

I believe all kids are fascinated by "The Haunted House." I really feel that every kid wants to go to a haunted house. If you don't have a haunted house in your neighborhood you pretend that you do. That's what the kids in my neighborhood did growing up. We had a vacant house that we considered haunted and made several field trips to until one evening something happened that scared us all so bad we never went back there.

The house was on the far northwestern border of our neighborhood. We would go to Pat and Kathy Roche's house and walk through the back yard. We then crossed the field and headed west. It set back about 100 yards off Belt Line. It was a large, old, vacant, and dilapidated house. The doors were open so we could go in any time we wanted to. I went inside that house a few times during daylight hours but I would never go there at night. It was spooky and it was frightening. Part of the fear was deep down inside we all knew that our being in that house was wrong and that if we got caught we were in big trouble. The thing that really fascinated me about this house is that it had a storm cellar. It remains to this day the only storm cellar I have ever seen. It was much like the one in the Wizard of Oz. It was next to the house and it had a trap door that covered it. The door was hinged at the top and required lifting up from the bottom to open it. It was full of trash and was very scary to go down into. That storm cellar gave me the creeps.

One day we were thrown a weird curve ball. Someone had cleaned out the storm cellar. It had a little ledge inside and there was even a mattress on it. This freaked us all out. We decided we had to find out who did that and what was going on in there. We decided to make a field trip out to the place and check it out. We went around dusk and there was still a small amount of daylight left. About half of the kids in our group were there but I really can't say exactly who was there and who wasn't there that night. I do know my brother Dave was not there. Our leader David Skaggs was there and he led the way. There was comfort in knowing David was in charge. We tried to make our way silently towards the house and as is the case with a group of kids silence was next to impossible. I have a clear recollection though of the closer we got David Skaggs telling us over and over to be quiet. David made it to about five feet from the storm cellar door. Mike Skaggs was a few feet behind his brother and Jimmy Cox and I were a few feet behind them. We had actually arrived at our planned destination. We just had no idea what to do next. That decision was made easy for us. There was a sudden creak coming from the cellar door and we could all see that the door was starting to raise. It took about 6 inches of raising for us all to reach the same conclusion and that was we needed to TURN AROUND AND RUN FOR OUR LIVES. Seeing who was down there was no longer our mission as survival was our new goal. Our leader David left nothing but a cloud of dust for us to follow and follow it we did. I had never in my life felt as much sheer terror. I could picture Dracula turning into a bat and flying after me just before the Wolf Man jumped on my back. But somehow we all survived. We ran as a group to the Skagg's house and just trembled with fear for about 30 minutes until we could catch our breath and calm down. We came to a realization that night. We decided that playing records with the girls was a much better way to spend our time. None of us ever went to that house again.

I'm back Wednesday with the weigh in...off and pedaling for now.

We were also Goonies

I love watching movies with my Granddaughter Madi. What is really special is when I introduce her to a favorite from my past that becomes a favorite of hers. A prime example of that is "Abbott & Costellos's Jack and the Beanstalk". We have watched it a hundred times and can still watch it today and find new things to laugh at in this movie. Two weeks ago I bought her "The Goonies". I remember watching it with my girls and that they absolutely loved that movie. It has now become a favorite of Madi's. The movie is about a neighborhood of kids on an adventure together. There is the older cool teen brother and his love interest. There is the younger brother with asthma. He is an optimist and a tireless worker who never gives up on anything. There are the rest of the neighborhood kids. One is a brainiac inventor, one is a wisenhiemer smart mouth, one is an eating machine. There is a younger girl that was more mature than the younger guys her age. None of the younger guys see as attractive yet but by the end of the movie you see her and her main nemesis, the smart mouth kid, share a "moment". First spark of puppy love perhaps. They were all different but they all were pieces of the puzzle that made up the neighborhood and together they were something special. They called themselves "The Goonies".
Reflecting on that movie led me to compare them to my childhood neighborhood and I came to the conclusion that we had this core group of kids that were also Goonies.

I grew up in a neighborhood with houses full of kids. We all knew each other. We all played together. Some years the kid next door was your best friend, some years it was the kid on the next street, and the next year those two were best friends and you found someone else to be your best friend. It was all good in the end because we were all pieces of the same pie. We lived in the middle of Williamsburg street. My Goonie story starts with my brother Dave. He is two years older than me. Dave was my first playmate and my first best friend. Others come and others go but Dave and I will always have each other. Dave was very smart and he was the one who had a way with the ladies.Two houses to the left lived David and Mike Skaggs. David was about 5 years older than me , the oldest kid on the block, and was every one's hero. For little boys the biggest, strongest, and fastest kid on the block is revered. He was funny and he was so cool. He never bullied us and in fact he was just one of the guys. But he was the leader, no doubt about that. His little brother Mike was my first playmate outside of my brother. He was a year older than me. Smallish kid and very funny. Mike was a mechanical whiz. Next door on the other side was Kenneth Johnson. He was Dave's age. His parents were older and a little more strict than everyone else's parents. Kenneth was kind of nerdish but in a good way. He taught me the joy of roller skating. Kenneth had an older brother David and he always scared me. He was the same age as David Skaggs but I considered him more bully than buddy. That is probably not fair to David because he was not a bad guy. Around the corner one way was Jimmy Cox. Jimmy was Dave's age. I was terrified of Jimmy until the third grade and then we found out that we shared two things. We both loved to sing and we both loved to laugh. Jimmy and I became inseparable for many years and stayed close until he graduated high school and moved away. Around the corner the other way was Pat Roche. He was Dave's age and just a great guy. Pat was always calm and laid back and he loved to laugh. He also could run like a deer. Mark Stephens became a part of the group when I was in maybe the 4th or 5th grade. He was an outsider who showed up on his bike one day and through overall general coolness and a passionate love for The Beatles was an instant fit in the core group. The last Goonie was Roger Buchanan. Roger was Dave's age. He lived around the block from us and in fact our back yards butted up to each other. I really didn't get to know Roger until I was in the 4th or 5th grade but his easy going nature made him fun to be around.

And then there were the girls. There was Pat's sister Kathy. She was a year older than me. She was also calm natured and was definitely the sweetest girl on the block. The girls on the hill were the McCollough sisters. There were two that were much older. Shirley was the oldest and she was 6-7 years older than me. Barbara was a year or two younger than Shirley. Barbara was gorgeous and she was David Skaggs first girl friend. Way to go David!. Wanda McCollough was Dave and Pat's age. She was a fiesty red head and was Pat Roche's first love interest. The youngest McCullough girl Mary Nell was a year older than me. She was definitely the fem fetale of the bunch. She was a pretty blonde and was Dave's first offical steady girl friend that I recall. She may have been everyone's first girl friend except mine although I'm not sure of that. She kind of went through the whole group. Although they were younger and not really a part of the core group I have to include my two younger sisters. Betty Ann was 4 years younger and Dinah was 8 years younger than me. They had their own group of Goonie friends ( The Glover kids, Dotson kids, etc) but they were all much younger than I was so I have not included them in my list.

There were a few other kids on the outer boundaries of the neighborhood that we interacted with as well. There was Neil, Betsy, and Patsy Farris on Luke Street. On Jamestown there was Vance, Denise and Stephen Galimore and Charlie Rucker. On Roanoke street were Charles Cox and Karen BeKnight. I am sure that there a couple of kids that I am forgetting and I apologize to the world if I left a name off that obviously belongs here.

Note one recurring item here and that is in our core group EVERYONE WAS OLDER THAN ME. Being the youngest presented challenges. I was kind of a goof ball. I was not as active romantically with the girls as the other guys. I wanted to be the funny one and sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't. I consider this neither good nor bad. It is just the way it was.

I have some neighborhood adventures I intend to share from time to time but today I just want to introduce the cast. To summarize the main characters :
Rick Holland... youngest and part time village idiot
Dave Holland... Rick's brother. Part boy genius, part boy Casanova
Betty Ann and Dinah...Rick and Daves younger sisters
David Skaggs... Oldest and coolest
Mike Skaggs.... Funny little guy, great mechanically.
Jimmy Cox.... Rick's best friend
Kenneth Johnson... Artistic one of the bunch
David Johnson... Kenneth's older brother
Pat Roche... Mr Laid back
Mark Stephens... Joined group as we were pre teens but was instant fit.
Roger Buchanan ... He had the most easy going nature of the whole group.
Kathy Roche, Mary Nell McCollough, Wanda McCollough, Shirley McCollough, Barbara McCollough... the girls on the hill and love interests to the above listed males.

Monday...The Story of the Haunted House...I'm off and pedaling for now.