The Muppet Family
Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 11:59AM In an earlier post, I had said that when we were younger and living on 90th street, it was as if we were the Muppet Babies. We had no limits to the things we did and we did everything we could possibly do (legally). While I was with my cousins the other weekend I was reminded of some of those things and I'll share them with you guys ... for some reason I think this entry is going to be like this email forward that was going around a while ago called "Children of the 80's." Well I do hope you enjoy my memories as much as I did.
This is my Rifle, This is my Gun ...
My cousin Ody was my trainer, or sensai. He would teach me things that I never knew existed or didn't know about. I'll never forgot the first firearm that he introduced me to, it was an old school gun but nonetheless it got the job done right. It was family built and I was amazed at the craftsmanship that went into it. The design was simple, yet very effective ... the only thing limitation was that it was only produced during the holiday seasons. I'm not even sure if anyone else knew about it except our family, or it might have been limited to just him and I. Well this is a good place to give out that family creation where you take the wrapping paper tube that is used to the Christmas presents, make sure that all the wrapping paper is gone, so you're only left with the cardboard tube. Then you take a rubber band and have it going over one of the openings and stretching it a little tight, then taping it down onto the tube. Taping it as much as you, duck tape would be ideal. You take some paper and cut it into a strip of about an inch and a half or two inches at most. Start rolling it and once it's all rolled, fold it right down the middle, it should look like the letter "V" or ^" depending on how you're holding it. Secure the tube and using the projectile that you just made put the folder on the rubber band and pull as far back as you can. Aim it and fire!
Please be warned that this does cause welts if you hit someone close enough! Also as a supplemental firearm, you can use the toiletpaper tube for a pistol like feel.
Taste Test
We were quite adventurous as little ones, even our cousins Michael and John. If you watch National Geographic or the Discovery Channel you'll see shows where they tell you not to eat certain plants because they are poisonous, well we didn't have those channels back then.
There was a bush growing from the old house on the corner, the house that looked haunted and had all sort of plants and ivy growing around it. Within that bush there were little flowers, they were similar to lilies but smaller. My cousins would take this flower and pick them, then pull out the thing in the middle (I can't remember the part of the flower ... stemen???) and lick the juice at the end of it. Of course they got me to do this, and only me. My other cousins didn't want any part of this, maybe they had cable TV. I liked it, it tasted sweet almost like syrup! We picked that bush clean where there were no flowers left, and this lasted for a while as we waited for the flowers to bloom again ... I'm just glad that this wasn't one of those poison plants.
I'm Going to Tell
This was the biggest threat to a kid growing up. When you hear those words coming from your friends, your family, you immediately clam up and start to make deals with them. You start to bargain your way out of the situation as best you can. A list of toys sometimes comes up in your head that you can use a a bargaining tool to get yourself out of this without it reaching the level that it might. The events leading up to this could be anything, it could as simple as you trying to save your skateboard and almost getting hit by a car, or accidently saying a curse word. The events were never what was relevant, the only thing that did matter was you doing everything you could from them telling your parents!
This was used against me a lot ... with one such incident where I was trying to be the next Christian Hosoi and my skateboard went rolling into the street. Of course, I ran out in traffic to get my board and in the process almost got hit by a car. Returning to my safe haven of cousins on the other side of the street, instead of receiving comfort, I was bombarded with words of how dumb I was for doing that and how they were going to tell my parents that I almost got hit by a car. Now I had wished that I had been hit by the car ... if they ever found out it would be the belt ... or the slipper! My cousins used this against me for the next few months where if they needed something or wanted something, all they had to do was bring up my near death incident and how they were going to spill the beans. This would end up in me going to the deli and buying them candy, the grenade drinks, or letting them barrow my video games!
These words ... "I'm going to tell" were so powerful when we were young, I wonder if they have the same effect now? I'll test this out on someone and we'll see how it works ... or not.
Walking on Water
This usually goes on during the summer or warmer months when we weren't in school anymore. Behind our apartment building was the garage area where the tenants would park their cars and being it was during the work hours, it was usually empty. Now when there was some sort of rain the creation of a small little lakelike pond was formed right in the center where the drain was. This would stay there for a few days and slowly flow into the drain.
During these times we took the opportunity to do the things we normally couldn't do since there wasn't any close sources of water where we could "play."
This little watering hole became our lake where it was the best thing in the world! We would try to skip stones across, even though it was so short that the stones would skip past the water and end up in the fence, or in the worst case scenario it would hit one of the remaining cars in the lot which would make us all scatter like roaches when you turn on the lights.
We threw everything at that little pond and never once did it throw it back, it just sank in the two or three inches of water and collected at the bottom. We were in the zone so much that we used our vehicles and turned them into hovercrafts! The single bike or two bikes that we had, had to be shared with all of us and we took turns as we rode it across the water in amazement as each one of us would cross. There would be the occassional mishap where someone didn't make it all the way across and the bike would stop somewhere near the middle, the dreaded deepest part. Here they would have to tip toe and get their shoes wet as they made their way to the other side.
There were times when we even road our skateboards through the water! This was the hard part as you need to push off with the skateboard ... many times we would find ourselves stranded. Our cousins coming to our rescue by means of a broom or mop stick to help reach us and pull us to safety.
Once the water subsided, we went back and were in shock and utter amazement to see all the items that had been left in the water which we'd thrown in just a few days before.
This wasn't the cleanest of water either, it's not the crisp clear water that you see in the movies, but similar to that and worst than the water that we find at Rockaway beach. Cloudy, murky and full of dirt ... and also full of imagination.
The Original Spiderman
You would find the real spidermen on those apartments on 90th street. Along the hallways you could see their skills in action if you were lucky enough.
Being that the halls were about the width of the door, not a wide door but a regular door, we were able to take our arms and legs and spread them to push ourselves up the wall and hold ourselves there for whatever reason. We did this a lot when there was nothing else to do and some of us were even able to make it all the way to the top of the hallway ceiling.
One such time was when I was coming back from "playing" and was going to open my apartment door, but decided to knock on the door so my parents would open it but there was going to be a twist! I was going to Spiderman up the wall and up to the ceiling and hold myself there so when I knock on the door they wouldn't know where it was coming from.
The plan was working out perfectly, I knocked and quickly climbed that wall to the ceiling and kept quiet. At first it was my dad who opened the door and didn't see anyone, quickly closing the door. I wait a few seconds for him to walk back to the living room then knock again while still on ceiling, just holding myself with one arm and two legs against the wall. Here he came again and this time I hear him muttering under his breath as he closed the door. Clinging to the walls and laughing in silence I do it one more time, but I'm going to jump down when they open the door and don't see anyone. My mother opens the door this time and as she was about to close it I jump and land right in front of her! I started laughing, she didn't. She jumped up as she got scared ... reached down and grabbed her slipper. Pulled me into the house and closed the door behind me and hit me with that slipper until she was satisfied. I can still remember my dad in the background asking if that was me knocking on the door and my mom explaining that was on the ceiling of the hallway ... then he got upset and went to the room. Here cam the belt and I ran around the house trying to escape, but there was no Spiderman friendly walls in apartment 2C.
Just a simple ability of being able to climb walls, turned into a beating that one will never forget.
So many more stories, but I'll keep it at these for now, hopefully there was a lesson to be learned somewhere ...
+ mon