Flashback Friday #237

We're Moving?


Welcome all to another exciting post about my teenage yeras. It's almost as much fun as watching paint dry. Anyway, today's post deals with us moving.

All my life I had lived in the same place. I remember the brown house that we lived in before we built the basement to what would be Dad's "Dream house" That was directly behind the brown house. We lived in that for a year while the brown house was beind demolished. Plans were to add onto the basement until it became a whole, habital house. This never happened. The old man that lived next door died and Dad was able to buy his property at a really good price. We moved from the small basement with blankets serving as walls to a full house. Dad filled in the basement and covered it up.

Dad was forever making changes & inprovements on this house. Not all changes were improvements. Like George Baily's house in "It's A Wonderful Life", our house was an old, drafty house. During the winters, we normally hung a blanket in the doorway and spent most of the time in the living room. That way we didn't have to heat the whole house to a comfortable temperature. Needless to say, nobody stayed long in the bathroom (that is after a bathroom was installed, about five years after we moved in). Entry door locations were moved. Room locations moved. Changes all the time.

We lived in that house from the time I was five until the day Dad came home and told me we were moving. This was less than six months away from my 17th birthady. Moving? We can't move. All my friends are here. I've seen how the new kids at school acted. I didn't want to go through that. Would we be moving closer to Westerville so my folks wouldn't have such a long drive? Dad was very closed mouth about it.

No wonder he was closed mouth about it. Shortly after he told me we were moving, a semi-truck pulled up with our new house. We were going to move into a house trailer. Dad had purchased a trailer and pulled it in next to the house. He said as soon as he got the water, heat & electricity hooked up, we'd be moving in. He let us take a quick tour as soon as it was stabilized. A complete description of our new digs comes in my next post.

Flashback Friday #236

I Read It In The Yearbook (Part II)



Welcome back. I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for the conclusion to this saga. My question is, why have you been eating bait?

Anyway, I told you of a signature in my yearbook that caused me to pause and really wonder about a possible break-up. You saw in my last post that it wasn't the one from my girlfriend, Toni, that I was refering to. It came from my best friend Bart. It reads as follows:

"To (my real name), A very good friend of mine that I could do without for a while. Have fun with Toni as long as it last. You better make sure that's pretty long because she is a real sweet girl. Not as sweet as Dawn though (they hadn't broken up at the time of this writing)."

Oookaay. I'm not to sure about that first sentance. My best friend is saying that he could do without me for a while? What's up with that? I wonder if it has anything to do with him & his family getting all churchy or am I really that annoying? I really like Bart and I'd hate to lose him as a friend. What am I to do?

Flashback Friday #235

I Read It In The Yearbook



Greetings one and all and welcome to the online cure for insomnia.

There's an old Marvin Gaye song called "Heard It through The Grapevine" about a guy hearing from his friends about a coming break up. What does that have to do with my post? Glad you asked.

It's tradition that when the yearbooks come in, you have you friends sign it. I always had my named embossed on the cover to make sure I got mine back. The yearbooks came in while Toni & I were still dating, so you'll see that in some of the notations. Here are a few of the things that were written about me during my Sophomre year. All are actual quotes except for the "To (my actual name),".

"Your a real sweet guy who knows what your doing.Stay cool. Love ya!"

"A nice guy I like alot. Good luck in the future. Say HI to Mr. Magoo for you. I hope we will be friends always. Good luck always."

"To a real nice guy who is a lot of laughs.Good luck in life.I have a feeling you'll need it."

"To a neat nice far-out kid that I have know for a long, long time and hope we will always be friends. Good luck with whomever."

"To a super cool guy who's got taste cause we both like Cheech & Chong. Good Luck always."

"To a good friend. Good luck with everything and everyone you want!"

"A real cool guy & funny too. Good luck with Toni. Stay the way you are."

"To a real nice guy that is C-O-O-L."

"To a very nice guy. I hope that we will always be friends. Good luck always and with everything you do. Remember me always."

"To a very strange & weird person who is one of my friends."

And then there was this from Toni:
"To a very nice boyfriend who I really like & admire, you're the best as far as I'm concerned, you won't have to worry about me disappointing you cause I never will. When I leave next year, please keep in touch (if I decide to ) I never forget you.

OK, My girlfriend is talking about leaving. She didn't say anyhing to me about that. I read about it in my yearbook. However, that's not the really odd signage in my yearbook. More about that in my next post.

A New Accomplishment

If you were a member of The Cheezburger Network a couple years ago, you would know about the collectibles that they offered for going to different sites & pages in their network.When they made the announcement that they were discontinuing the collectible program, there was a scramble to complete sets of those that had missing collectibles. I completed all 82 set and gave away 902 to others in need. When this ended, on of the Cheezpeeps developed a site that offered four collectibles per week for those that enjoyed the chase. The difference being is that the member created the collectibles and voted which ones made the cut for the set.

What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Recently I made a colletible and it was voted in as part of the set. It recieved the second most votes. It was the first one I made that made the cut. The category was Bad Hoomin (that's Bad Human for those that don't speak LOLspeak). Here it is:

Translation: Who is this "Work"? And why do you spend so much time with them?

That's my dad's dog Coco and, yes, he is sitting in Dad's briefcase.

Flashback Friday #234

My Class Ring (Part II)


Greetings friends. In my last Flashback Friday post I told you about ordering and receiving my class ring as a Sophomire. This week I'll tell of some of the things I did with it.

Firstly, Mom told me not to give it to a girl. She always asked if I was wearing it, so I found a way around her demand. When I got to school, I would give my ring to my girlfriend, who would then wrap yarn around the finger opening until it shrank the ring to her size. At the end of the day, I would retrieve it to do it all again the next day.

The way my stone wad cut, it refracted light well. If I was sitting in a chair in which sunlight was streaming in, I'd move my ring and watch the light beam across the room. It kind of made me feel like Green Lantern.

Lastly, my ring was used in self-defense or retaliation. Turn the stone to the inside of your hand, next to your palm and you could deliver a smack that would be remembered. I only had to do this once.The was a Junior High kid on my bus named Len. Len and his friends thought they were all that and a bag of Doritos. One day Len got the bright idea that flicking my ears would be a great past time. Anybody that knows me in real life knows that I HATE anyone flicking my ears because my brother used to do it all the time. I told him to stop. Flick. I told him to stop again with the glare. Flick. I turned to him and said "Len, stop or you will be very sorry." and turned back in my seat. As I turned, I also turned my ring stone palm side down. Flick. Like a panther pouncing on prey I turned, gave my wrist a quick flick and smacked the top of Len's head.

It made a sound like somebody kicking a watermelon. Len thudded back in his seat and his eyes glazed over. He didn't make another sound or movement until the bus got to his house. Mechanically, he got up and got off the bus. I never had another problem with Len or any of his friends after that.

Flashback Friday #233

My Class Ring


Hello. Welcome to another post of adventure and excitement or perhaps the cure for insomnia.

In the middle of my Sophomore year, a representative from a large jewlery company made a stop at our school with literature about ordering your class ring. Everyone was excited. The upperclassmen wore their rings with pride and getting ours would be a step closer to becoming said upperclassman.

I got my packet and took it home to discuss my options with my parents. Seeing that our finances weren't the greatest, getting a gold class ring was out of the question. Looking at the price of a silver ring showed us that it too was out of our price range. That left us with two other options. There were two "rare" metals that were offered. The first was "Lustrium". It was a faux gold. The other was "Astrium" which was a fake silver. In looking at the two options that were affordable to us, I decided to go with the Astrium.

OK. The ring base was settled on, now about the stone. My birthstone is topaz.I really didn't care for how that looked. To me, it reminded me of frozen urine. I decided on a blue stone. I don't remember the birthstone month, I just thought it looked cool. It also helped that if you got a red or blue stone, they didn't add any to the cost of the ring (since red & blue were our school colors).

I got a red  & blue shield on one side with my initals on it. The other side had a mean looking Scotsman on it (seeing that the Fighting Scots were our mascot). I also had my name put on the insideof the ring.

I was told by my mom that under no circumstances was I to give my ring to a girl. "She'll probably loose it and you'll be out of luck.", she said. I told her that I wouldn't. (Ha!)

When the order was put in, I was really excited. When they came in, I was even more so. More on this in next week's post.