This past week I passed another milestone in my life. I had another birthday. Getting older does funny things to a man, well at least me, I am fully aware I have seen more yesterdays than I will see tomorrows. Somehow I am looking less to the future and more to the past. To the days when I was younger and things were . . . different . . . a time that seems much slower than today. Sorta as if I am watching an old movie in slow motion. Back to a kid that was too tall for his age, clumsy and naive. Back to . . .
(This is where the screen gets all smoky and blurry as we go back in time to those days.)
My buddy Nigel and I were riding our bikes to the Neighborhood Link Playground. He and I spent a lot of time there defending the jungle gym that was our fort. We would run the obstacle course of swings and seesaws to get to the buried treasures we had made up in our minds. Many times we had rode that horse and elephant that sat on those huge coiled springs racing to see who could be the winner of the race. That playground was a fun magical place as we let our imaginations run as wild as we did.
Today as we rode down the street on our bikes Nigel and I immediately stopped as we turned the corner into the playground. We had been invaded. It was the worst attack we had seen on the playground in a while. There on the picnic table under the tree were . . . Girls. What were they doing on our playground. We had to defend our turf.! We studied them for a moment. It looked like it was Frazzled, Wroe, 2 cents, and Tlou playing with paper dolls. Paper Dolls! In our fortress! I looked at Nigel and said, “What are we going to do, man?”
“The only thing we can do, Opie, run them off by grossing them out!”
“Great idea, but we will need some help.” We looked at each other and then at the same time said, “DF.” We peeled out off the playground sand and peddled over to DF’s house. We rang the doorbell and DF answered the door. DF was a great kid, funny, always looking to pull a gag. He used to pull his dad’s beer cans out of the trash, rinse them out and fill them with root beer, then walk around acting all drunk and stuff. He was hilarious. He got in trouble more than once in school for acting drunk in class. We told him our problem and he was right there with us. He got on his bike and we were off.
We got to the playground and the enemy was firmly entrenched. They had captured the picnic table and had flown their paper doll flag as it were. We approached cautiously but when we were in range, DF let out a loud disgusting belch that just made Nigel and I crack up. It was awesome. The girls turned and looked at DF and gave him a disgusted look. Yes! We had made the first strike and it was successful.
As we got to the table Nigel said “Hey girls, what’s up? Can we play with you?”
“No,” said Wroe this is for girls only.”
“Yeah,” said Frazzled, “besides why would boys want to play with dolls anyway?”
“We don’t,” said Nigel as he sat down next to 2 cents. “We want to play with you, sweetcheeks.” 2 cents took and elbowed Nigel right in the chest. He fell over backwards into the sand with the wind knocked out of him. I had to do something quickly. I had been saving up for two days now, and now was as good of time as any. I lifted my right leg and let one rip! It was loud, it was wet, but best of all, it was smelly. I was so proud. The girls all plugged their noses and started yelling at me to get away. DF belched again. It looked as if we had the girls on the ropes. Nigel stood up and plugged one side of his nose and and blew. A huge snot came out the other side and just dangled there. We had the girls on the ropes. They were complaining and yelling and we knew it was just a matter of moments before we has our victory. DF belched again, Nigel blew another snotball and I lifted my leg again and pushed. Unfortunately I squirted a little rather than farting. The took the WIND out of my sails. We geared up for our final assault to get the girls to leave when suddenly Tlou says,
“Guess what girls, I had my first period last night.”
What a blow. We didn’t know what to do! We didn’t have a comeback for that one. That was definitely the winning shot in the gross out wars and we quickly retreated to the jungle gym. We sat at the top feeling really dejected. . My underpants were wet and we just had all the fight knocked right out of us. We were humiliated on our own playground. As if that wasn’t bad enough here came BIGMOUTH and BULLYBOY, the two most feared kids on the playground. They were bullies all right and they didn’t care who they gave a wedgie too. The were heading straight for us. Oh, man to get the mother of all wedgies with what I already had in my underwear, this was going to suck. The came closer and then one of them said,
“Okay, who wants to be first.” I figured it was going to happen either now or later I might as well get it over with. I jumped down and as one of them grabbed me I heard the other one start screaming. Then again. Then the one that had a hold of me let go and too was screaming. They were holding their butts and jumping up and down. I looked over and there behind the swinging gate was Nedl with his BB gun. He had shot both the bullies in the ass with his BB gun.
“You varmits git on out of here before I fill you full of copper,” he yelled out to the bullies. They ran off. Mr Jr NRA had saved the day, our dignity and the playground from the bullies. Well we decided to let the girls have the picnic table cause we four spent the rest of the afternoon fighting the bad guys and defending the kingdom from the imaginary enemies. We even saw Kenn walk by the playground and waved to him. Kenn was a little bit older, he was already in Jr. High. He was a great guy.
Just one of the many wonderful memories of my youth that seem to consume my time in my older years. Memories, sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.
