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| My childhood home as it is today |
Blogger's Note: Notice the picture at the top? That's my childhood home. Now, it looks a bit different than I remember it. We had just planted the tree in the front yard (I recall getting a running start and jumping over it). I don't remember the colorful tree in the backyard; it must be new. The roof was shingled, and there wasn't a handrail on the front steps. Also, that waist-high, chain-link fence to the side of the house wasn't there, either. The shed in the back was much newer as my mom had that built. The field looks about the same, and it led to the tree-lined creek that was my playground. The concrete driveway was in better shape; my hand-prints should still be pressed into the back edge and into the concrete back patio. But, I have more than nostalgic reasons for including this picture in today's post.
Well, I suppose it serves as a visual aid for today's feature; but, more importantly, it solves a dilemma I was having. You see, I just started using Pinterest, and I have little to no understanding of how it works yet. But, I've discovered that if you wish to share a "pin" then there needs to be a picture that it uses as the "pin". So, I've gone back and added some pictures to some of my older posts that didn't already include images.
I do think that having at least one image in each post is a good thing. Sometimes, the task can be difficult. For example, I certainly don't have any futuristic pictures of Alanaka's world; and, despite a valiant effort, I haven't been able to Google myself into finding any photographic treasures of Paducah or the mall or downtown back in the 80's and early 90's. So, sometimes, I have to be clever. For example, in "First Love", I added a picture of an '89 Chevy Cavalier like the one that I drove in high school. It wasn't, of course, a picture of my car. But it was very similar to that. Other times, I just add an image that reminds me of that day's post or just something that I consider to be iconic to Parenting with Lightsabers.
Also, if you go back, sometimes you'll find an image that is no longer there. This problem really perplexed me. I didn't understand why some images would stick around and others would disappear after about a week. And then I discovered a correlation. The ones that disappeared had come from Facebook. I employ different measures to find images: Facebook, Google +, off my hard drive, searching the web, other people's pages etc. I don't think that Facebook and Google + much like each other; they are competitors after all. And this is a Google website. I think Google boots Facebook images after a span of time. So, from here on out, I'm going to stop using images that I borrow from Facebook (or at least I'll upload them first). Hopefully that will solve that problem.
So, now, let's get to today's feature. Who is "David" and why would I be telling stories about him? David was a classmate, and he lived about a block away. We didn't play together a lot, really. But, I can recall almost every time that we did, because he would end up doing something every time that was just... well, so David..
You may recall him as the Baby Powder Bandit from "The Simplest Lessons". At the beginning of every school year, he would be in so much trouble from the teachers that we wondered if he would live to see the next day. But, by the end of each school year, he would get away with murder, as the teachers just seemed to give up. No punishment seemed to phase him.
When I run in to some of my old classmates, we usually end up sharing a David Story. In fact, I just ran into my old pal, Damon, the other day. He was telling me one. David had brought a fishing pole to school (it must have been towards the end of the school year when the teacher had grown exhausted from trying). He had wanted to practice his casting during class (understandable, right?). Every time the teacher would turn around, he would cast it across the room and then reel it in. I don't really have any more to the story than that; and, knowing David as I do, I really don't need any. That just about sums it up.
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| Cavity Creeps attacking! |
Listening to: "David Essex" Rock On
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Mom was cleaning the kitchen as my brother and I lay on the living room floor. Our elbows were dug into the shag carpet, and our chins were propped by the palms of our hands. The Super Friends narrator had just declared that our favorite show "would be right back after these important messages!"
An alarm had sounded in Toothapolis, and the Crest team was assembling to defend their city as the Cavity Creeps began mobilizing just outside the city's walls. "Cavity Creeps attack!!!" one of the monsters rallied just as another Thud. Thud. Thud. shook the walls.
"I don't know what you boys are doing in there, but it needs to stop right now!!!" Mom shouted from her mopping duties in the kitchen. Shawn and I looked at each other inquisitively. If she wasn't making that sound, and we weren't making that sound then...
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The pictures on the wall vibrated even harder this time. Mom stepped out of the kitchen and looked around suspiciously. Shawn and I sat up looking around. What was going on? Where was that sound coming from??
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"That's coming from the roof!" Mom exclaimed. We stood up, dismayed at the confusing turn of events. Mom opened the front door, hurrying outside. Shawn and I stood, cautiously weighing our options: step outside to investigate this strange phenomenon or run and hide under the bed. We carefully opted to watch from the safety of the doorway as our mother stepped onto the front porch just as another Thud. Thud. Thud. rocked the entire house.
Mom turned around, looked up, and shouted. "David!!! What are you doing up there!?! You're going to fall and break your neck!! Get down right now!!! How did you get up there!?!?" Now, Shawn and I ran outside, turned around, and, finally, saw the culprit. David was jumping on our roof and laughing. We had a small house, but our shingled roof was rather steep. That looked perilous!
Our heads turned in unison as we watched a smirking David casually walk across our roof, attach himself to our antenna pole, and slide down. He was smiling as he rounded the corner of our house. "David! Don't you do that again!" our mother warned him,
"Wanna come see my two-story tree house?" David asked me, seemingly deaf to my mother's admonition. I didn't even pause to consider. With an entrance like that, how could I say no? I'd catch this Saturday-morning episode of the Super Friends on a rerun. The summer day was already getting too nice to stay inside, anyway. I grabbed my shoes, threw them on, and ran outside. "You coming?" I asked my younger brother. Shawn just shook his head wearing an incredulous look that clearly said that he thought I must be an idiot to go with that crazy kid.
"Don't you boys get into any trouble!" Mom warned as we began walking up the street and to the end of the block where David lived.
"Is it really two stories?" I asked him as I imagined how a two-story tree house might look. I had decided that there must be a spiral staircase and a pole to slide back down and a string that operated a lever that opened a gate that...
Upon arrival, I realized that it was nothing like I had imagined. I mean, it wasn't bad; it just wasn't what I had imagined. A ladder of wooden planks had been nailed into the tree in his backyard and ended just below a rickety floor of miscellaneous boards. Another level of wood scraps served as a roof; I didn't see a second level.
"Hey, Heather!" David called to the street that ran beside his house.
Heather, another classmate of ours, was riding her bike; she was probably headed home from Angie's house. She waved.
"Wanna see my two-story tree house?" David called to her. Heather circled her bike around but didn't respond. She, knowing David, appeared suspicious. "Come on, I'll show you real quick!" he persuaded.
Heather looked at me, and I shrugged. She got off her bike and pushed it across the ditch and into David's yard. She had one of those girl's bikes, with a banana seat and long handlebars and streamers on the handles. She carefully placed the kickstand with her foot and parked her bike next to the road. I never understood girls. Why didn't she just let it fall to the ground and come running like we did? Everyone knew that kickstands were just for looks, anyway!
Once Heather joined us, David didn't waste time with pleasantries. He began climbing, one rickety rung at a time. He pulled himself over the ledge and disappeared into the tree house. After a brief moment, David's head peeked out. "C'mon you guys!"
Heather and I looked at each other. "You go first," she suggested. I looked up at David and back at her. I considered, briefly, to insist that she go first; but, I mustered my courage and grabbed one of the planks. Carefully, I scaled the tree, making sure to maintain at least three points of contact. At the top, David offered his hand to escort me into the niche; but, I declined. I didn't think he'd pull a prank in such a precarious situation, but why take chances? I, not being fond of heights, delicately anchored myself on what appeared to be a sound board and hauled myself onto the makeshift mezzanine.
"Ok, your turn Heather!" David called down. I could see the resignation in her eyes. She carefully followed my lead, copying my example with prudence. When at last she surmounted the base, I could almost hear her sigh of relief.
"Ok, now to the second floor!" David announced. He turned to climb a single plank that had been nailed into the trunk behind us and used the foothold to scale himself onto the roof. Heather and I shared a look of apprehension. If I was going to be able to tell anyone that I had been in a two-story tree house, then I would have to duplicate the feat.
A familiar Thud. Thud. Thud. from above was David's way of saying, "C'mon!" I tried not to think about it. I used the single handhold and finagled myself to the uppermost level. I all but hugged the floor while we waited for Heather to join us. I must admit I was surprised when her head surfaced. She clambered onto the roof and mimicked my crouched position. David smiled and looked around for something. "Watch this!" he instructed.
The "second story" had been situated where the tree had split into two lesser trunks. A single two-by-four stretched between these two anchors and served as a rail. David ducked under the rail; and, to demonstrate how unafraid he was, he would grab the board and then let go, grab it, then let go. When we would gasp, his smile would widen with satisfaction. "David! Stop it!" Heather yelled at him like I had wanted to.
"You mean stop doing this?" He would pretend to fall and then grab the rail at the last second. We just closed our eyes and quit watching him. Hopefully, the lack of an audience would end the charade.
"Help!" David screamed.
When I looked up, David was dangling over the side. He was gripping the floor to the second story and screaming. "David! Stop! I'm telling your dad!" Heather screamed. I didn't know if I should help him or stay away. I was afraid that if I influenced his concentration in any way, he might lose his grip and fall to his doom.
David laughed as he pulled himself up and back onto the upper "floor". He slid under the board that served as a rail, chuckling as he rolled over and stood.
"Let's get down," Heather suggested to me. I was squatting in order to keep four points of contact with the tree house; heights, apparently, just weren't my thing. Heather took my wide eyes and emphatic nodding as affirmation.
"I'll just go down this way," David bantered. He slid under the rail, gripped the floor, and, once again, hung over the side. I thought for a moment that he knew a trick to get back to the "first" floor, but he just hung there as Heather persuaded. "David, get back up here. That's not funny."
I could hear David chuckling, and I wondered how much longer he was going to continue the ruse. I was anxious to climb back down, and Heather clearly was as well. But we didn't want to just leave him there.
He began to pull himself back up, paused, and then slackened his arms. He paused, then tried again. "David, quit messing around and get back up here!" Heather insisted.
"I can't," he panted.
The suspicious part of my brain didn't believe him. That was David speaking, after all; he had "gotten" me so many times that anything and everything he said was suspect. But, something deeper still nagged at me. David really was in trouble.
Heather and I exchanged a glance; we could see in each other's eyes that we were thinking the same thing. Then, simultaneously, we fell to our knees. She grabbed one arm, and I grabbed the other.
"C'mon, David," I pleaded, trying to lift him. As my sight drifted over the edge, I saw how far up we were. From this height, if David were to fall, he would be in big trouble. He might just break a leg if he was really lucky. If he was really lucky...
"Grab his wrists and pull him up," Heather suggested. I wrapped my hand around his wrist and... oh, cool, he had a Pac-Man watch! I had been wanting...
"Duane!!!" Heather shouted, pulling me back into reality. Her shout gave me an idea.
"HELP!!!!" I yelled. Heather joined the chorus. "HHHEEELLLPPP!!!"
David meekly attempted the plea, but he was justifiably concerned about his grip.
"This isn't going to work," Heather decided. And she was right. We weren't going to be able to pull him up, and he didn't have enough strength left to do it himself. "Can you hold him by yourself? I'm going to get his dad," Heather outlined.
I lay on my belly and wrapped both of my hands around his wrists. "Please hurry," I begged her. She didn't waste any time. Moving more quickly than I could have, she navigated back to the "first" floor and started down the precarious rungs.
While I strained and waited, neither David nor myself spoke. I could hear him grunting laboriously. If I had just stayed home, I'd be finding out how Green Lantern got his ring back from that nefarious Legion of Doom. Instead, I was stuck, straining to maintain a grip on the imp that had ruined my morning. Please hurry, Heather!
I flipped my head over, resting my other cheek on the hard wood; sweat had begun to bead on my forehead. From this angle, I could see the corner of David's house. Like a drink of fresh, spring water, Heather rounded it, pointing up at us. Strolling casually behind her, seemingly unaffected by Heather's urgent appeals to hurry, David's father glanced up at us. He disappeared out of my view, and I could hear him climbing beneath me. "I ought to let you fall," he nonchalantly expressed. "I told you this was eventually going to happen if you kept doing it."
Suddenly, David was pulled from my grip. I feared for a moment that he had fallen, but I soon realized that his father had grabbed him from the "first" floor and hauled him to safety. I took a moment to breathe and then began to climb down.
"Get in the house," David's father scolded as David meandered toward his house with his head down. Heather waited for me to climb down.
Back on the ground, we just looked at each other and shook our heads. We walked to her bike, and she steered it back onto the street. "See you later," she said as she climbed on and rode away.
"See you later," I echoed. There just wasn't anything else to say...
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I was sitting on the floor next to the front door struggling to stretch a tennis shoe over the heel of my foot when the signature "knock" began. Mom had told us that she was going to be doing some yard work today, and she wasn't going to have us tearing up the house inside while she was working outside. So, Shawn and I had thrown on some old clothes and were preparing to tackle an unusually warm, Autumn day.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Mom came marching past me and yanked the door open. She looked like she was going to rip David a new asshole.
Just as she took her first step outside, she screamed. Mom didn't scream like typical girls; it was sort of a hodgepodge of indistinct words that garbled loudly from her throat. As she jumped back inside, the first decipherable word came into focus. "...DDDAAAVVVIIIDD!!!"
Anxious to see what had frightened her so badly, Shawn and I scrambled to the front door. Stretched out on the porch, a snake, as long as I was tall, laid with unblinking, sinister eyes. Its mouth was unhinged to display fangs that I didn't want to go anywhere near. Mom gathered her wits and finally stepped past the dead reptile. She turned around and looked up to address our guest.
"David, you get down from there right now! I'm going to tell your dad! Did you know you can die from a poisonous snake if you get scratched by one of the fangs? You can! Where did you find that thing?" she scolded.
Shawn and I had come outside with Mom. We watched as David took his familiar stroll across our roof and casually slid down the antenna pole. "I found it in the creek behind the telephone station," he revealed. "Don't worry it's dead."
My brother and I inspected the enormity of the thing. We played in that creek nearly every day and had rarely seen a snake back there. I'd be practicing some caution the next time we were gallivanting through those woods.
"You guys wanna do something?" David addressed me and Shawn.
"The first thing you need to worry about is getting that snake off my porch!" Mom threatened.
David grabbed it by the tail, walked down the front steps, and headed to the field behind our house. Shawn and I hurried to keep up; snake-handling wasn't something you saw everyday in our small town of Brookport.
The three of us crossed the field to the tree line where we descended the bank. A familiar smell of dried mud and dead fish flavored our entrance; I knew that, within minutes, our nostrils would forget the unpleasant odor. David drug my mother's "gift" through the dried creek bed and found an isolated spot near the fence-line where we rarely played. He discarded it there with little fanfare and wiped the palms of his hands on his breeches. Shawn and I, abruptly bored, looked at him as if to say, 'now what?'
He walked past us without comment, toward the other bank that I called the White Castle. He climbed the worn path out of the creek bed and into the field that sat adjacent to ours. It was separated by a small ditch that could be jumped easily. My brother and I followed him, wondering how he was going to entertain us.
Searching the tree line for something interesting, he kicked at a scrap of metal and left it where it landed. We were coming up on an amorphous part of the creek where we had tossed old tires and cinder blocks into its murky and stagnant water to create a bridge of sorts so that we would have access to a pile of tin that someone had stacked on the other side. We had intended on making a clubhouse out of that tin one day, but I don't believe that we ever did. Mostly because I had a better idea...
In the side of the bank next to the White Castle, I had been using several makeshift tools to dig a hole into the earth. I hadn't gotten very far yet, but I would. I was going to dig out a large room big enough for all of my friends to hang out; I even had a flashlight that I had hidden in a tangle of roots nearby that we would use for lighting once my project was completed. It probably needed new batteries by now, but I'd get those when I was ready for it.
Once the room was finished, I had an even grander idea. I'd make a series of tunnels that veined throughout the whole town. I could go anywhere in secret, and everyone would wonder how I got to places so quickly and so covertly. I had explicit plans to make an exit in my friend Brian's backyard. He lived just a couple of houses down from the school. I could pop out in his backyard right before it was time for class. His mother would probably be doing dishes and looking out the back window. She'd blink and there I'd be, seemingly out of nowhere. I'd just casually knock on the door and ask for Brian; and, when she asked where I'd come from, I'd just shrug. I was really clever sometimes!
I picked up my digging stick and went to work on the project that had been put on hold a couple of weeks ago for reasons that I didn't presently remember. David and my brother seemed to be preoccupied with traversing the gauntlet of tires and bricks, testing its integrity.
Within minutes, I had forgotten all about my brother and our mischievous neighbor. I had gotten lost in my task of burrowing with my stick. From over the ledge of the bank, I could see Mom ardently raking away at the brown and yellow leaves that blanketed our backyard. Even from this distance, I could hear the comforting whish of her rake painting our yard into the Autumn floor. I might take a break soon to jump into one of those inviting piles.
Shawn and David, who I'd never really seen play together before, were being unusually quiet. They had gathered some metal scraps and pieces of clay bricks that they were piling into some kind of structure. Their enterprise seemed disorganized and uninspired; nothing like what I was doing! Shawn sat cross-legged, carefully placing a brick so that it wouldn't compromise the model's integrity, and David was on one knee, steadying the architecture.
Suddenly, David just stopped what he was doing. He stood and paused to assess me. I looked up from my work to see what he was considering. He casually glanced at Shawn; my brother inquisitively returned his gaze. I had the strangest feeling that something was about to happen when, sure enough, it did...
David just took off running. At a full sprint. As fast as he could go. Straight toward our mother.
Shawn stood and looked at me. He shot me a questioning glare that was demanding an explanation. I just shrugged. Suddenly, I was confused beyond explanation. I had a suspicion that my brother knew what was going on; but, one look at his eyes confirmed that he was as clueless as I.
Shawn tossed down whatever was in his hands and took off at a full sprint toward David. Inexplicably, I understood why. When one of your friends just starts running for no reason, well, that's what you do, too. I threw down my digging stick and filed in behind my brother. Suddenly, I was running for no reason.
Shawn wasn't making very fast progress through the high weeds in the field. He was three years younger than us, and David had enough of a head start that he had pretty much made it to our backyard before we had gotten very far at all. As soon as David reached Mom, he started shouting.
"Edna! Edna! Shawn got bit by a snake! Shawn got bit by a snake!!" He didn't pause for even a second to gauge our mother's reaction. I think he pretty much knew what it was going to be. Without so much as a goodbye, he continued his full sprint to the street in front of our house, heading in the direction of his.
Panic stung my mom like an angry hornet. She threw down the rake and ran to intercept us. Shawn was trying to yell, "no. no it didn't." But, everything was suddenly so confusing. Our mother saw both of us running in what she determined to be a sprint for help. She grabbed Shawn up as soon as he reached her. "Where did it bite you? Where did it bite you??" she began screaming.
In all the heightened emotion, Shawn couldn't find the right words to calm our ballistic mother. I wouldn't have fared any better. She was moving him this way and that way trying to find the pair of fang bites that would most likely be around his ankles. Shawn was struggling to explain amid all the tossing and turning.
When I, at last, arrived, it took my brother and I a couple of minutes to get the message into her head that David had just gotten her. Once she finally processed the information, her anxiety transformed into palpable fury. We could almost smell the fires of vengeance cooking in her head as she stomped back to her rake. Shawn and I tiptoed back to the creek...
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Our big, living room Zenith television had been warming up for almost a minute, and I had just been able to see the picture when David's signature "knock" began. I had been hearing the digital processing sound effects of the game "Press Your Luck" being played, and I was anxious to see the cartoon Whammies that playfully mocked an unlucky contestant when they struck out. School had been cancelled today due to the heavy snow that we'd received overnight, so I had a rare opportunity to see some of the weekday morning game shows that were rather fun to watch.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Mom came marching out of the bedroom; Shawn, in his pajamas, filed in behind her. She slammed open the front door and stomped outside. Even though I wasn't dressed for the chilly temperature, I raced to the front porch. Whammy mischief had just been trumped by David mischief.
"David!!! You get down from there right now! There's ice on that roof! If you fall and break your neck, I'm the one that's going to have to pay the medical bills! I'm calling your dad!"
David routinely strolled across our rooftop, slid down the antenna pole, and rounded the corner. I noticed that, leaning on the edge of our house, a sled, presumably David's, had been propped. He grabbed it and carried it under his arm as he approached our front steps. I couldn't stop the smile that was beginning to spread on my face, even though I knew it might fuel Mom's ire.
Fortunately (for myself and David), Mom seemed to be in a rather cheerful mood this morning. Fresh snowfalls tended to do that to her. "Well, come inside if you're going to," Mom ushered. "You can warm up just inside the door." David's invite surprised everyone, but "just inside the door" would be as much as he'd ever get from her.
An arctic-like wind hushed as David pulled the door shut. I hugged myself, and my brother found shelter under a blanket that had been laying disheveled on the couch. Mom, uninterested in anything David, walked into the kitchen.
"Wanna go sledding?" David asked me charismatically. Of course I wanted to go sledding; I had just been getting some morning television out of the way first.
"Mom?" I called into the kitchen. "Can I go sledding with David?"Mom stood at the step-down between the kitchen and the living room; she was drying my favorite Smurf glass with a towel. "I want you back here by one o'clock because it's too cold to be out for long. Make sure you wear your cover-alls and warm hat and your gloves. Oh, and your boots are sitting on the back porch. If you start to get too cold then come on back home."
Expeditiously, I started gathering the required gear. My pajamas began flying carelessly around the house as I changed my attire. I glanced at my brother who was curled up on the couch and, upon seeing his cozy repose, I withheld an invitation. Besides, if he had really wanted to come along, he would have made it known. Within minutes, David and I were headed across my backyard to our shed where my sled was anxiously waiting.
I carefully maneuvered over our bicycles, a forsaken lawn mower, and a careless arrangement of yard tools to reach the rarely used green and plastic sled that we had purchased last year at Douglas Hardware. Snow didn't come very often to Southern Illinois; but, when it did, I was ready!
David and I, once co-editors of the D&D Express (the now-defunct Brookport Elementary School newspaper that never saw its first issue), stomped through knee-deep snow until we found ourselves on an icy East 9th Street and heading toward the floodwall.
"Wanna go down by the ballpark and sled there?" I asked my companion.
"Nah," David spurned. "I just came from there. I built a cool ramp with some snow at the bottom of the hill, and then Kevin and Charlie came and ruined it. I kept trying to fix it, and they were being stupid."
He needed to say no more. I knew who Kevin and Charlie were. Anytime they got involved in anything, fun just got siphoned out of the environment. They were two of the town bullies, and I'd rather play with a broken Etch-a-Sketch then hang out with them.
"So, where do you want to go?" I asked.
"I was thinkin' we could go down behind Joe's Market. I've never sledded there, and it looks steep enough," David revealed.
It was as good a plan as any. My house actually had quite a hill in the backyard that the neighborhood kids sometimes used to sled down. When I didn't feel like going far, I'd just go back there. Usually Damon and his little brother Jeffrey, or even Costo and Matt, would join me. But, the floodwall was a real hill. Today was a good day for floodwall sledding.
Content with the turn of the day, I started humming the C&H jingle; and, David joined in. "C&H, Pure Cane Sugar, from Hawaii, that's the one..." We sang it a few times; it was a catchy little tune. At Joe's Market, we turned up the busy Unionville Road to head the short distance to where it carved through the floodwall.
"Come on!" David shouted as he lead the way off the road and up the hill. We were about the same height, so our struggle was similar.
After we crested the hill, we struggled to catch our breath in the cold air. I was breathing hard when David sat his green, plastic sled on the crest of the hill and lay belly-down on it; he clearly intended to go first. On an expedition such as this, I didn't object.
David flew down the hill. Wow! That looked like the best ride ever! I jumped on my ride and mimicked his technique. Woohoo!!! I had never sledded that fast in my whole life! Piss on Kevin and Charlie!
The only problem was getting back up. The task wasn't insurmountable, but the snow was so darn deep there. By the time we got back to the top after each descent, we would need to rest to catch our wind. I had never realized that one of the benefits of sledding where the rest of the kids were was that the line of children climbing back up the hill would cut a path into the snow that made each ascent easier. Being just the two of us, our path never really got much better.
After a few fun, but tiring, slides, David suggested we try something different. He wanted to sled down the other side of the hill.
I paused to consider. Even though the distance was only a few yards, the other side of the hill was outside of the town limits. I had a horrible feeling that I shouldn't go there. Mom had never expressly said that I wasn't allowed to go outside of Brookport, but wasn't that rule implied? Shouldn't I stay inside of the town's boundaries? At last, I decided that sledding down the opposite slope wasn't much of a trespass. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
"Let's race!" David shouted as he jumped on his sled. He wasn't going to beat me! I jumped on mine just as quickly; and, together, we raced down the hill. And, at the bottom, we kept racing... and we kept racing....
Because, you see, the ground wasn't exactly flat there. It inclined into a fast-moving creek that had water rushing under a Unionville Road overpass. Just beyond the bridge, the swift current disappeared under a thick layer of ice. David and I were sliding to our doom; and, no matter what we did, we couldn't seem to stop. A sheet of ice at the base of the hill casually drifted into the creek's icy water, and we had unknowingly been on one of Mother Nature's uncanny booby traps. We weren't even sliding all that fast, but neither our hands nor our feet could claim purchase. The ice was just too slippery.
Our sleds, just slightly ahead of us, plopped into the water first. The current carried them hopelessly under the highway overpass and just out of sight. Our screams grew louder; because, we knew that we would be next.
My first thought when the icy water grabbed me was how deep it was. I scrambled to catch my footing on the creek's bed; I found out rather quickly that it was too deep. I could swim, but I was hardly an expert. If the conditions had been perfect, I would have been able to navigate myself out of this predicament. But with heavy clothes and boots and gloves, and with wits that were handicapped by a torrent of panic, I just flung my arms about like a fool.
My flailing arms struck something. It was a knob of ice in the natural slide that had chauffeured us to our doom. With wet gloves and chattering teeth, I gripped the frigid bump with as much of a grasp as I could manage. The task was hopeless; I wouldn't be able to gain enough anchor to pull my water-logged weight free of the arctic water. David had begun doggy-paddling to the other side. A sheer bank was waiting for him over there; I knew that any hope of salvation wouldn't come from his endeavor. But, I also understood his plight. Any endeavor at this point was hopeless, but our survival instincts encouraged us to do something, to try anything.
But then something magical happened.
I began to pull myself out. My hand was only halfway latched onto the slippery knob of salvation, and I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I pulled myself out of that damned water, one. chilly. limb. at. a . time. Curse words, previously reserved for prepubescent jokes and tested in the shadows under the school bleachers, crept honestly and stoically into my being for the wind, in my drenched state, which had been previously chilly was now really. fucking. cold. I was shivering so hard that when I yelled, "DAVID!" it came out more like, "DVIDVIDIDVA!" But, fortunately, he understood.
He turned around and began doggy-paddling back to me. I had a terrible, terrible thought that maybe I should just leave him. Maybe I should go get help. Because, I had just barely been able to pull myself out. On this slippery slope, there was no way that my half-grip on the frozen ice would be able to hold both our weights. And if we fell in again, I knew that lightning wouldn't strike twice. I would never find that handhold again. We would die. And in a manner much like my father had.
But, I didn't leave. I, shivering like a mother fucker, waited for him. And when his grip had firmly laced into my outstretched hand, I somehow managed to haul him out of the water.
We didn't waste time for any words, not of gratitude or amazement or fear. We just scrambled off that icy slope and onto the highway. Once there, David ran to the other side. I didn't know what the hell he was doing. I just wanted to get indoors somewhere, anywhere. I leaned over the shoulder to see what he was looking at. Under the sheet of ice that covered the creek on the other side of the overpass bridge, a familiar green was shaded underneath an icy blue layer of frozen water. His sled must have gotten hung on something, as it wasn't moving any further. It was bobbing and scraping underneath. David and I almost certainly shared the same thought as we took off in a sprint toward Joe's Market: that could have been us.
As soon as we got to the door, the familiar chime of the bell overhead announced our arrival. Mrs. Craig, usually so jolly and fun, stared at us from behind the register. I remember always asking her if they were going to get comic books like Pat's Market had, and she would always respond, "Why? Am I not funny enough for ya?" But there was nothing in her eyes that suggested humor now.
"Are you boys soak and wet??" she asked us incredulously. David and I just shivered uncontrollably. We knew what we had to do. Before Mrs. Craig could say another word, we turned around and ran back out.
I know, I know. Sounds crazy right? But David only lived another block away, and I only lived another block from him. As frightening and chilly as the prospect had been, we knew we could make it home. And, once there, we could hide the evidence of our scary debacle. A couple of blocks of running in wet clothes in the dead of winter easily trumped the massacre that would befall us if and when our parents found out about our near-death experience. Especially when I factored in my mother's severe fear of icy water since my father had died a few years ago. She would beat the ever-living fuck out of me. And I'm sure David wouldn't fare any better.
On the shivering jog, David told me 'thanks'. He said that I had saved his life and that he would never forget it.
I don't believe anything else was ever said about that day from anyone. But I was beaming with pride. I can't say for sure that I saved his life, but I enjoyed the notion.
When I got home, shaking violently from the cold, I crept into the back door. Fate smiled on me for I didn't see my mom anywhere. I took off my drenched clothes, hid them under the kitchen counter until I could find a better place for them, and tiptoed into the bathroom. My mom was in our bedroom, playing with my brother as I carefully slipped by.
I lay in a warm bathtub thinking about the future. I had no idea where my life would end up; but, at least for now, my record was still playing.
"Did you have fun?" my mother called through the bathroom door.
"Yeah." I responded. And, to this day, I don't believe she ever knew about our "arctic plunge adventure"...
...and I have no intention of ever telling her.
-- If you enjoyed this feature, check out more Flashback episodes like "Brookport" and follow the links for more memories from yesteryear.
-- Or try a different feature, like the story of how I met my Polish wife starting with "Chapter 1 - The Tea Monster".
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