Blogger's Note: Well.. I did it. My cheap ass spent some money.
As I mentioned, I was having trouble getting people to see my page. Facebook was wanting me to fork out $5.00 to "boost" a post. Otherwise, when I shared a link to a new feature, only a handful of people would see my posts. Facebook was obviously dangling a carrot in front of me. So, I'll explain what I did, why I did it, and the results.
What I did is pretty obvious. I forked out $5 to "boost" the post. Five dollars insures that whoever likes my page will see the post that I "boosted" the next time they check out their News Feed for up to 24 hours (if I want longer than that then obviously I'd have to pay more, but $5 seems to get me what I want). And, not only are my page's "fans" insured of seeing the post, but their friends will see it, too (one step, if I want it to go further than that, again, I'd have to pay more money). I got 5 new likes on my page by people I don't know, and I find that to be supremely exciting (I know, I know, it doesn't take much). But the next time I boost a post, then their friends will see a little something called Parenting with Lightsabers scrolling down their News Feed.
As I told Jeremy the other day, "hell, if I'm going to have a dream, I might as well pursue it." If my dream costs $5/week then I'd say I got off cheap. Now I just have to produce something that keeps people coming back...
One minor problem I have with this system is that the money "boosts" the post, not the page. So if someone "likes" the post, they may not realize that there is a page (as it appears somewhat like a "sponsored ad"). In case you're interested, you can "like" the page here. And, if someone I don't know (and this happened on my last feature) likes my post, I don't have a way to invite them to "like" my page. Facebook only allows you to "invite" your "friends". So, if you happen to be friends with someone that liked one of the posts, would you please invite them to like this page? Thanks!!!
Lastly, I can't see everyone that has "liked" the page. If I'm friends with someone on my personal profile, then I can see them. Otherwise, I can see that someone has liked my page (there's 91 now, which is appropriate for this feature), but I can't see who it is.
Also, as promised, I'm going to twist some arms and try to get some new readers on board with a serial that I'm writing called Alanaka. I did get a small handful of people to check it out on my solicit in last week's feature, but I'd absolutely love to get some more passengers on this train. I think it's going to be a fun trip, and I'd just love to twist as many arms as I can to humor me and jump on board. There's only two episodes so far; and, as promised, I've made "easy-to-navigate" links at the bottoms of each page. Now you can easily navigate from one chapter to the next.
In case you're new to Parenting with Lightsabers, let me tell you what today's feature is. I call it a "Flashback" episode. It's a regular feature where I revisit somewhere in my past and recount some misadventure that happened to me. Some of them are meant to be endearing episodes of lost love or forgotten places; some of them are meant to be lessons that I've learned along the path to parenthood; and, others are meant to just be funny reminisces of the days when attaining beer was like finding the Holy Grail.
So, grab some popcorn and a cold one. Sit back, relax, and join Jeremy and I on a rather monotonous drive home from Nashville. The day had been fun; the camaraderie grand; and, the adventure hadn't even begun yet...
Listening to: Ministry "Scarecrow"
The highway's familiar drone began to muffle my normally alert, teenage senses as the Cadillac cruised through boring, Kentucky fields. The stretch between Nashville and Paducah only took a couple of hours to traverse, but an insipid lack of scenery duped me into feeling like it took much longer. Jeremy's parents were sitting in the front seat, seemingly lulled into a similar mentality. I watched as a freight train in the distance hauled a line of box cars across the banal countryside; I nudged Jeremy and nodded in its direction. Jeremy responded with a collusive smile and gestured to the folder in my lap. I knew what he meant.
I opened the folder and leafed through the hodgepodge of writings and drawings until I found what I was looking for. I pulled free a map of Illinois that had been copied at the school library. Instead of roads, iconic train tracks veined across the state map; one track that ran from the southern tip of the state to Chicago had been traced by a yellow highlighter. Jeremy tapped his finger along this track, suggesting that I pay attention to what he was about to do. He traced up and headed more west than the highlighted route until he got to the middle of the state where he followed a track that reconnected with the marked path.
"There'll be more trains to catch from here, I think," he whispered. We both glanced up to see if his parents were paying attention. They weren't, so I nodded agreement.
Stephen, one of our closest friends, had moved away a couple of years ago. His father had landed a job in a small town just south of Chicago by the name of Braidwood (just thirty miles away from where Neidermyer was now living as fate would have it). Next week, we had permission from our parents to drive to Stephen's house where we'd be staying for a few days. What our parents didn't know is that we didn't plan on taking a car.
Over the past few weeks, Jeremy and I had been trading stories. I told him about the time that Neidermyer and I had jumped on an idle train and rode it across the Ohio River bridge once it started moving. He told me how he had done that all the time as a kid (minus riding across the bridge, of course); because, the railroad tracks had bordered the edge of his backyard at his childhood home. The stories had culminated into the idea of traveling somewhere via boxcar. And now that we had a destination, we couldn't resist the urge to make the trek across state as a couple of teenage hobos.
We had spent the day in Nashville. Jeremy's parents had invited me along for a day trip to a flea market where more vendors than I had ever seen were selling anything from incense sticks to motorcycles. I hadn't brought much money with me, but Jeremy and I happened across some sun glasses that we just had to have. Mine were neon blue; his were neon orange. We had decided that they would make a great accessory for our next backyard wrestling event. My ring name was the "Great Dane", and he was called "Bulldog". After a day's worth of trip planning and camaraderie, we had bonded on a level that only teenage boys are capable; so, we were pretty sure that our plans to form a tag team called the "Dog Pound" was just the first step of a bigger venture to eventually rule the world of trampoline wrestling.
Rather than risk Jeremy's parents overhearing, I wrote a question on the back of the railroad map. 'Wanna camp at the Mad Dog Shack tonight?'
Jeremy took the pen and replied, 'Sure, if my parents will let me. Wanna get some beer?'
'Hell yeah!' I responded.
"Can I go camping with Duane tonight?" Jeremy called from the back seat to his parents.
Debbie, his mother, looked at his father who was driving as if to ask, 'What do you think?'
"Where are you going camping?" John asked us. His father spared a look at his son through the rear view mirror.
I kept quiet, giving Jeremy the reins. Of course, they were his parents, so he knew the path to parental consent better than I did. What I did know, however, was that 'The Mad Dog Shack' would not be an acceptable response. No parent worth two cents would allow their child to go camping at a place called 'The Mad Dog Shack'; and, Jeremy had some frustratingly good parents.
"Up on Riepe Ridge," Jeremy quickly answered. 'Nicely done,' I thought. A quick retort, an ambiguous location, some impeccable timing, and a confident tone compiled the ingredients for teenage success. I stared a hole into the floorboard. By my measure, Jeremy had just fulfilled the recipe requirements flawlessly which meant that a negative response had no hope of recovery. I held my breath in anticipation.
"Well, I guess. But you need to be home early tomorrow," Debbie finally acquiesced. I exhaled.
The rest of the drive felt less monotonous now that we had a night of beer-drinking and camping to look forward to. Using the pen and paper, we made plans to get supplies, run to Franklin's to get beer, and invite a couple of our friends.
Once we arrived at Jeremy's house, we ran upstairs to his room. I used his phone to call several of our friends, but most of them said they couldn't make it. Only Brett said that he might show up. Then, I called my mom to make sure I was cleared for camping.
"Yeah, but don't come home until late in the afternoon!" she insisted. "I want to clean the house tomorrow, and I don't want you tracking up the carpet!"
Sounded good to me. I gave Jeremy the thumbs up and away we went.
In Paducah, Jeremy and I pooled our money as we approached Franklin's house. Tonight, being as it could likely be just the two of us, we had simplified and decided on a case of Bud Lite. Franklin didn't reek of whiskey like he normally did, and the beer-purchasing process went more smoothly than usual. We gave him his fee of twenty dollars (which was more than the beer even cost), got some ice for the cooler, and headed to the tangle of rural Illinois roads that rambled their way to the Mad Dog Shack. The most determined fingertips of sunlight had finally slipped into the night's ravine, so our view was limited to the span of my Cavalier's headlights as we turned onto the one-lane farm road, our final stretch.
"What's that?" I asked Jeremy as he shoved a cassette into my tape deck. I didn't mind, but I was curious. We actually encouraged one another to supply mood-appropriate music when so inspired.
"It's a song called 'Scarecrow' by Ministry," he informed. "The last time I drove up here, it was playing. It has an ominous feel to it that makes this road feel creepy."
As soon as the percussion began its eerie advance, I knew what he meant. Overhead tree limbs knuckled a canopy of skeletal fingers as the gravel popped and snapped like crunching bone. The effect was nearly too sinister in the dark, but I dared not admit as much. I attempted an expressive ruse of serenity as my car crept along. Its passengers were suddenly alive with a dose of adolescent adrenalin.
I parked the Cavalier in the field near the cabin, and we immediately went to work unloading the supplies. I carried in the sleeping bags as Jeremy tasked himself with getting the lantern lit. Some wood was still stacked next to the iron-cast stove from our last party, so we tag-teamed an assembly line. I handed him a log which he would load into the stove's mouth. Once it was full, we discussed the best way to light it.
"We need some paper," Jeremy suggested.
"My folder's in the car. Let's get the cooler, and I'll grab it while we're out there. I've got some old papers in it we can burn. Besides, there's a story I've been working on that I want to show you," I suggested.
We immediately went to work on the plan and promptly returned with the beer-filled cooler and my folder of stories and illustrations.
With the aid of the paper, Jeremy had the stove going in no time. We laid our sleeping bags on the bed
and was about to open our first beer when I thought I heard a noise outside. "Did you hear that?" I asked.
Jeremy shook his head. "No, I didn't hear anything." But we sat there quietly listening for a few moments. We both walked out to the front porch for a look.
We couldn't see much at all. The moon didn't appear to be out, and the lantern inside did nothing for the world outside. "Did you say Brett might show up?" Jeremy asked.
"Yeah, he said he would if his mom would let him," I responded. We looked at each other for a moment of ponderous thought.
"Let's brace the doors with the chairs in the back room in case Aaron or Brett try to scare us," I suggested. Jeremy nodded agreement.
We leaned the backs of the chairs to brace each door just under the doorknobs and tested to see if they were adequately braced. After deciding that they were, I said, "let's see 'em try to scare us now!"
We went back to opening our first beer, and I grabbed the folder to show Jeremy the story that I had been writing.
I pulled out a handful of pages and a drawing that I had made that day. It was a lazy sketch of what appeared to be a wizard standing on a bridge. He was wearing a black cloak that concealed his face. Both of his arms were raised and a wooden staff was being clutched in one hand as a giant eyeball floated in the sky overhead.
"That's Dane," I explained. "He's the main character in the story I've been working on. I wanted to have this wizard's apprentice that only knows a couple of spells that he uses to get away with petty crimes and mischief. He lives in a small village, and he has everyone fooled into thinking that he's a powerful magic-user. When this huge war breaks out, he gets drafted on a mission with all these great warriors even though he doesn't have much of a clue what he's doing. So he tries to keep..."
Clang!
A noise from outside caught my attention. I looked at Jeremy as if to ask if he heard it, too. He slowly shook his head slightly, as if to say that yes, I heard it. But I don't think that there's anyone out there. I think something just fell, or maybe it's the wind.
Neither of us moved for a moment. Standing frozen, our eyes darted about as we listened for evidence of, well, something. My imagination could create a plethora of monstrous explanations for the noise we had heard, but I didn't dare let it explore those avenues. I certainly didn't dare speak aloud my fears. After nearly a full minute of silence, I finally spoke.
"I swear... if Brett or Aaron try to scare..."
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Suddenly, someone... or something... began to kick in both the front and back doors at the same time. Jeremy and I stood wide-eyed, frozen in confusion and possibly terror. We wore mirrored expressions of bewilderment as we traded looks between each other and the doors that were being held firmly by the chairs that we had braced against them. I felt the strangest inclination to laugh, despite the circumstance. Jeremy and I would have just let the "guests" in if they would have just asked.
After what felt like minutes of loud banging, the front door had finally been kicked open just enough to allow our unexpected visitor to squeeze his upper torso through. It was a cop!
Jeremy and I, unsure what to do, didn't move from our statuesque poses. We guiltily held our beer cans out away from our bodies as we watched the cop's entertaining attempt at entry. The person at the back door was still banging away, unable to enter. I could almost hear Inner Circle singing the "Cops" theme song: "Bad boys, bad boys, whatchya gonna do? Whatchya gonna do when they come for you?"
"Police!" The officer at the front door finally spoke once he got his arm in enough to move the chair out from under the doorknob. Once he got the door completely opened, I could see that he was holding a gun in his other hand. Fortunately, he wasn't pointing it at us. I considered for a moment to just drop my beer and throw my hands in the air. Jeremy and I didn't budge as our darting eyes met for a moment. I was wondering what he was going to do, and he was wondering what I was going to do.
"Stay right there!" the cop instructed as he walked by us to the back door. He moved the chair we had braced out of the way so that his partner could get in. He, too, was holding a gun, and he looked even more nervous than we were.
Once they saw that we were a couple of teenagers, they seemed to relax a little. "Let me see some I.D.!" the first cop ordered.
Jeremy and I each produced our wallets and gave him our driver's licenses. He looked at them briefly and then said, "so you're both under 21?"
Well, duh, I thought, but, instead, we both nodded. "Whose car is that?" he asked.
"Mine," I answered.
"Put your hands behind your back and turn around," he instructed. I did as he asked; he patted me down and braced a pair of handcuffs on my wrists. For the first time, I began to measure the depth of shit that I was in. He led me out the front door, and I was certain that I was about to be put into the back of a police car. But I didn't see a police car anywhere.
"Do you have any drugs in your car?" he asked.
"No," I insisted emphatically.
"Do you mind if I search?"
"No."
"Can you open the trunk for me?" he continued.
"The keys are in my pocket," I explained.
He turned me around and unlocked the handcuffs. I took the keys out of my pocket, and he motioned for me to unlock it. I popped the trunk, and he told me to stand off to the side. After he rummaged through my car, he finally decided that I, indeed, didn't have anything else to hide.
Jeremy, being followed by the other cop, was approaching as my interrogator continued. "There's been a lot of robberies in this area; that's why we were staking this place out. We think they've been staying out here. Do you boys come here often?"
We both answered "no" because, really, what else answer was there?
"Well, we're charging you both with illegal possession of alcohol by a minor." He read us our rights, and I knew then that the level of shit that we were in was pretty deep. "Are you all right to drive? It doesn't look like either of you have really had anything to drink yet. It'll save you a wrecker fee if you can follow us back to the station."
He was right about us just getting started. We'd just opened our first beers just before they came knocking, so I nodded that I was ok to drive.
One of the cops went to get his police car while the rest of us waited by my car. I never did see where it had been concealed.
When the police cruiser pulled up, the other cop spoke to me. "Follow us to the police station. Stay right behind us."
With Jeremy in the passenger seat, I followed the cop car down the long, country lane to the highway. Apparently, we had been in Pope County; because, the police officers were heading toward Golconda where the Pope County courthouse was located.
During a brief moment of hysteria, I considered just driving my car into a ditch. I could demonstrate the gross negligence of the police officers by crashing my car because they had let me drive "under the influence". I recovered my bearings and realized that such a disaster would only graduate a bad situation into a total catastrophe.
Instead of throwing more kerosene on the fire, Jeremy and I began to discuss what we were going to say at the courthouse. If asked who bought us the beer, we would say some guy that was standing outside the liquor store. We had our ducks lined up in as neat a row as we could when the realization that the police was only one hurdle of many that we were going to need to leap. Our parents were going to go ballistic, assuming we weren't going to be spending the night in jail.
At the Pope County courthouse, the police took us to separate rooms. They got our phone numbers and, I assumed, called our parents.
A police officer came into the room where I was sitting. Sure enough, he began to ask me where we had gotten the beer. I told him our agreed upon story, and he insisted the court would smile on me if I cooperated and gave them a name. I said I didn't know his name, so he handed me a blank piece of paper with the instructions to write a description of the man that bought it and a map to where he was. I did as I was supposed to, keeping the details as ambiguous as I could. He didn't seem too worried about the paper when he, at last, collected it from me.
As he stood there holding my "map" in one hand, I noticed that he was holding my folder in the other. He pulled out the picture of the wizard that I had drawn.
"What is this?" he asked me.
I looked at it suspiciously. What was this about? "Just something I drew. It's a wizard."
"Is it Satanic?" he asked me with a very serious expression on his face.
Deep in the pit of my mind, I wanted to say what does it matter to you what it is? But I couldn't muster the courage to say that. Instead I passionately refuted, "No! It's just a wizard that I drew because I'm writing a story about him."
"I read some of the stuff in here." He motioned to my folder. "You have a very active imagination." It didn't feel like a compliment. "We've had problems with people killing cattle, and we think it's Satan worship. Would you know anything about that?"
"No!!! I promise! My mom makes sure I go to church every Sunday. That's just a dumb drawing I made of a wizard!"
"Well, your mom is on her way here. She sounded pretty upset on the phone." I hung my head as he walked out of the room.
Some time elapsed in silence as I sat in my chair contemplating my life and my delinquent decisions when I heard my mother's frantic voice in the other room. And then, to pour salt in my wounds, I could hear John, Jeremy's father, talking to her. I couldn't make out what they were saying; but, based on their tones, it wasn't pleasantries.
After a moment, John slowly walked into the room where I was sitting. Suddenly, every light-hearted thought that I ever had just melted away into oblivion. I hadn't expected this. Where was my mom? I knew how to talk to her.
In a soft tone, John spoke to me. "Duane, I just got done talking to your mom. Sounds like she's going through a hard enough time as it is. She's really upset. I'm upset. We're very disappointed in you, Duane. We didn't expect this."
I hung my head. I almost started crying. Of all the tragic devastation of this night, John's words clamped onto my heart and hung there. I wanted to apologize; I wanted to explain; I wanted to hide. But there was nothing to say, nothing to do, nowhere to go. I just hung my head, incapable of eye contact. Finally he walked out. I could hear him talking to Jeremy.
At last my mom came into the room. She was frantically yelling at me which is basically what I expected. I knew how to tune her out.
She yelled, nonstop, as she led me from the room, to the car, and on the long drive home. Amanda, my five-year-old younger sister, started singing Milli Vanilli's "Blame It On the Rain" only she had the lyrics messed up (as she always did). "Blame it on Duane, yeah, yeah," she sang over and over.
"See? You've even got your sister upset," mom admonished. I stole a look at Amanda who was smiling and bobbing her head to the tune in her head and thought, 'she sure doesn't look upset...'
Jeremy and I never made the boxcar trip to Braidwood. To this day, we sometimes discuss whether or not we would've actually gone through with it. We both decided that we, indeed, would have. We had our minds set on it. In fact, we've even toyed with the idea of still doing it, if only to fulfill an unfinished adventure. I wonder sometimes if getting arrested that night didn't, in fact, save our lives from some railway mishap. Sometimes the Universe does do strange things like that.
Jeremy was grounded from me, indefinitely. And his punishment was stiff. Where my mother would scream that I was grounded for a month but would enforce it for only a week, Jeremy's parents would ground Jeremy for two months, and it would stick. I felt badly for him. I felt like I was to blame.
On the court date a couple of months later, I got stuck with a $350 fine (which I paid myself) and a one-year probation. I was told that I would periodically need to speak to a probation officer, but I never did. I was just never given any further instructions, so someone either dropped the ball on that one or they just weren't all that worried about it.
The preacher at my church told my mother he saw me that day. He told her that he saw me walk into a bar and thought she should know. My mother, of course, believed him (hell, he was the preacher); and, I got in a good deal of trouble for that. I have no possible idea what he thought he saw, but I certainly didn't go into a bar at 17 on the same day that I was going to court for Illegal Possession of Alcohol by a Minor. I never did look at that preacher the same.
Over the next couple of months, I would find out which comics Jeremy wanted from the comic book store, and I would pick them up for him. I was delivering pizzas at the time, so he would give me a location to drop them off. Carefully, we called one another and would sometimes hang out at a mutual friend's house. But Jeremy was under lock and key, and it wasn't very easy.
Then, one day, I called him, prepared to hang up if someone besides Jeremy answered. Fortunately, he did. I invited him to play volleyball a few blocks over from his house with some friends of ours. I heard a dramatic click. Jeremy and I knew that we had been busted.
I was rather surprised when Jeremy showed up at the volleyball court. We played for some time when Jeremy's parents came strolling up. After a game, they approached me. "Duane, we'd like to talk to you and Jeremy at the house."
We made our way back to the house, certain that they were going to tell us that this was the last straw. That I needed to stay away from Jeremy and they meant it. But they didn't.
We sat down, and John started talking to me. "Duane, we were very disappointed in you and Jeremy that night. We know that it was as much Jeremy's fault as it was yours, but we wonder if Jeremy would have been able to get the beer without you. The bottom line is that we're going to let you and Jeremy start hanging out again. We're going to put some trust in you. And we expect you to respect that trust... and live up to it."
I, of course, assured them that I would. I felt relieved, and happy, and, strangely, honored. I really respected Jeremy's parents. I don't think they would have given some of his other friends a second chance.
During our remaining high school years, Jeremy and I were very careful about doing anything we shouldn't. For the most part, we steered away from the partying scene while we were together; but, if we did ever find ourselves at a party or an alcohol-infused camp site, we'd be extra, extra sure that we were somewhere safe.
In fact, the situation sparked something that we called Super Sundays. Every Sunday, Jeremy and I would hook up and take off somewhere in southern Illinois. Sometimes we would hit a crossroad and flip a coin on which direction we should head. As corny of a name as it was, Super Sunday led to many discoveries of places in southern Illinois that we never realized existed. Amazing rock formations, crazy trails, waterfalls, scenic overlooks, wicked roads, and old houses. To this day, I look back on Super Sundays fondly. I think we discovered some places that few people know.
Jeremy and I bike ride these days. Sometimes with Jeremy's dad. We sometimes go to some of the places we discovered back in those days. And when the trail gets particularly obscure and the vine-covered trees seem to lean in on us a little and a breeze rustles the leaves around us like impish whispering, I can hear Ministry playing in my head.
-- If you'd like to read another Flashback episode, then try "First Love"
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