1. Mad Magazine was my favorite when I was little. My brother kept years and years of them. When he stopped buying them I went into the oldest one he had and tore out the order form and got a year subscription. It was so old that instead of the $5 or whatever for a full year it was something like 50 cents. I thought I was going to get arrested for trying to use an old form, but they accepted it. Suckas!
2. In freshman year of high school my friends and I became obsessed with dunking a basketball. We played everyday and worked on it everyday. By Junior year on a good day I could dunk even though I was only about 5 foot 9 at the time. I wasn't good enough to make the high school team, but that's probably a good thing because I ended up with Swimming scholarships in college.
3. But my crowning achievement in sports was a playoff game walkoff homerun in 8th grade. Earlier in the game I had my first strikeout of the year. It was a tie game in extra innings and my coach agreed to call the game because of darkness if we didn't score after my at-bat. I cranked probably my farthest hit ever at the time over the left fielders head. In a hopefully unrelated tragedy, that kid died a few years later from an asthma attack.
4. My main hangout growing up was a church parking lot up the street from my house. We creatively called it "The Parking Lot." We played every sport imaginable there and in the Pee Hole (a walk down basement entrance where we used to pee rather than walk home) the neighborhood floosy showed me her privates. I was probably 7 and don't think I even looked.
5. When I was 12 and just finished 7th grade I got my first girlfriend. She was 15 and going into junior year. When hanging out watching tv she used to put my hand up her shirt. We "dated" for about a month, but we never even kissed. She dumped me for my older brother, then dumped him for his best friend.
6. In about 5th grade a friend of mine was sleeping over. I slept over his house almost every weekend and he finally agreed to sleep at mine. He was a mommas boy. Me and my older brother got in a fight that night and he ended up smashing my head into the concrete basement floor. My friend cried and went home. Me and my brother bonded by laughing about him being a wimp later that night. A little over two year later after my girlfriend dumped me for my brother we got into another big fight which we were blaming on a whiffleball game or something. I was getting bigger than him and it was the first time I actually beat him in a wrestling/fist fight. That was also the last time we got into a fist fight.
7. One thing that really sticks in my head about my parent's relationship from when I was growing up was that my dad used to smack my mom's butt all the time when she was cooking dinner or whatever. Not in a sexual way, just in a casual way. Which is probably why I do that all the time now too.
13 comments:
Timareminiscing:
I love this post! I had the same obsession with Mad Magazine. The guy on the front with the red hair an freckles was Alfred E. Newman. I don't know why I remember that.
And even though I have done a lot of things people say I should be proud of, I still hang onto those sports memories like you have - like being the only girl picked for the sixth-grade baseball game against the teachers-stuff like that.
My Dad smacked my Mom on the butt too, usually while she was standing at the sink cleaning something. I just thought it was normal. My husband contstantly grabs my boobs, but I don't remember my Dad doing that to my mom. Eesh.
You could dunk at 5'9? You're an animal man. I got obsessed with dunking too, but I got 3-4 inches on you. Swimming is a much better sport though anyways.
The sibling fights, those are some great memories. Nasty as hell, but I'm guessing you're fairly tight with your brothers as a result. I'm so passive as an adult because of all the childhood fights.
I love your baseball story, except the asthma part of it.
Was the neighborhood floosy like 42 or something?
My dad did the butt smacking thing, and so do I. But I've expanded the smacking by adding the nipple tweaking! It's great, you should try it.
I never read Mad because, you know, I'm not ancient ;) I also never played sports, didn't have any older siblings around the house, and my parents were divorced but this was still my favorite post. :)
What a terrific post Tim! I loved these memories of yours. I used to read Mad magazine and CRACKED magazine too.
My husband used to pass girlfriends around with his brothers too. Kinda creepy if you ask me.
"Oh. You Looked, baby." - town floozy
Even though I am a chick, I sorta wish we had a town floozy when I was a kid. We had Nammy, the Homeless Bikeriding Guy. He lived in the weeds down near the fishing docks, and would make machine guy noises at all the kids waiting at the bus stop every morning. He was entertaining, but he was no floozy. At least, I don't think he was.
This was an awesome post. And I hung on to my MAD and Cracked magazine for years, too... I think I loved the movie parodies the best. Good stuff, that. :)
L - I should become a sixth grade teacher. I think I could dominate some little kids in baseball.
E - I gave up the dunking obession around junior year. If I would have kept it up as I grew a few more inches over the next year or two I'd probably have more to be proud of. In college I could still dunk smaller balls, but it was probably junior year HS since I last dunked a basketball.
C - She was my age. Her name was JoJo. She was a redhead.
M - Thanks! Glad you could(n't) relate.
O - Cracked was the poor man's Mad. I loved that too though.
K - I looked and it was spectacular.
C- ha, we had a town homeless guy too! His name was Slobbering Bob. He had a sppech impediment and always had on a Phillies jacket with slobber all over it. He walked all over town and people used to see him in Atlantic City too. We all theorized he would walk down there to go to the beach. AC was about 90 miles from hwere we lived.
We tried the dunking thing, too. I could dunk a girl's basketball because it was easier to palm, but I was 6', and just worked my calves like crazy. Now, I can't grab the rim. Funny what's important to teenagers.
We had a spot like that, called "The Spot." It was behind some towhnomes, on the other side of a privacy fence, which was behind a life insurance building. There, I first smoked pot out of some crazy thing with batteries that shot smoke into me. Good times. Consequentially, I didn't get a swimming scholarship.
Oh, I forgot the best part of my comment...
You smack your mom's butt in a casual, non-sexual way? That's a little weird.
In a hopefully unrelated tragedy, that kid died a few years later from an asthma attack.
I probably shouldn't have laughed about that, but I did.
my dad used to smack my mom's butt all the time ... I do that all the time now too.
You mean you smack your mom's butt all the time or your wife's?
I'm glad I'm not the only person that randomly smacks significant other's butts in non- sexual ways, too. I think it weirds out my boyfriend but it's just like a knee- jerk reaction to him being there and his butt facing me. No innuendo, just a smack.
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