It Is Now Post Time.
We're Off...Weekend done. Hell summer is almost over...Remember when you were a kid and school ended for summer...It was like getting paroled..Especially if you went to Catholic School...I used to call it St. John The Baptist Catholic Prison for Kids...Man, I fuckin hated grade school...So when summer rolled around, it was thee best times of my life....My Mom and Dad both worked, so when I got up, whenever I felt like it, the first thing I did was look for my cleanest dirty shirt. Throw some water on the face, brush the teeth, and down the stairs I came with a bound...Cereal was the breakfast of the day....OK, little Simple, gear check, baseball hat, check, baseball glove, check, ball, check...whoa!! gotta put some tape around this baby...that concrete up Joel Cook takes it's toll on balls and sneakers...50 cents for lunch, check...OK, time to go play...and play I did, from morning till night..My biggest thrill was waiting for Tommy Flaherty to come up the Manayunk wall..Well my biggest thrill was when I would see him round the curve...YES!! here comes my man...Up to the school yard we would go, baseball, monkey bars, and oh yeah climbing the fire escape, that shit could kill ya...Over to Weber's for a milkshake and a burger, and then onto the pinball...Long before Elton John, Tommy was a pin ball wizard...he would rack up 10, 12 games, and let me use a flipper or shake the machine. Of course we tilted it many times, and he would always blame me..I think we were maybe in second or third grade, when I started using fuck, he was the main reason.. Like what the fuck I didn't tilt it...He was picking the fuckin thing up off the floor, Mr. Weber was screaming and threw us out every other day....then the plan was to go to Standards Drug Store Manayunk and Lyceum, and when the dude went in the back fill our pockets with candy. Later on in was ciggies....they call that shop lifting now, we called it cool....I never could understand why Tommy would grab cough drops...I told him, that ain't candy. He said shut up and eat it, it taste like candy. Then it was who you telling to shut up, and yep, we would be rolling around on the ground...then somewhere along the line he grew up physically, and I didn't...I remember having him down in second grade we were on Silverwood Street and I should have punched his head in, because it was the last oppurtunity I would get...from that day on he won them all...but as we became closer and closer, it became apparent that, me and him would go at it...but nobody else better get involved...that man is thee greatest, most loyal, crazy brother I could ever have..Neither of us were blessed, to have a blood brother, so we just adopted each other, and till this very day, I love that man with all my black heart.....I guess I sort of went on a little tangent there about Sgt. Flaherty, but when summer starts and the balls start flying it reminds of those days long ago, in a place called Manayunk..It wouldn't be much longer until we started spreading out and meeting the other guys that would become out life long friends and brothers...Babe was younger than most of us, by maybe 3 or 4 years, but he also was bigger, he was telling everybody at ECK'S the story of when he met us, and he said all the older guys were really good to him except me. He said I aggravated him every day..(he still aggravates me).. All the younger guys were laughin and said, well what happened...He said I just used to bounce him off the ground every day, I guess he finally got tired bouncing and here we are 55 years later, still laughing,and talking about it...One more on the old gang stories...fucking Plain..I was the Christ Child in the 8th grade play...yep, I was..and I had to wear socks with what looked like blood stains on them..After the play, (I was outstanding) the nun hugged me, I even remember my Mom and Dad in the front row, it was like the best man....Well we are leaving and we are walking through the alley on the way to the front of St. John's, when this kid gets right in front of me and stops me and kneels down and starts, worshipping me in front of everybody...Incorrigible little fuck..yep, Plain, so the next thing I know there is Young Plain and Young Simple fightin in the alley, when my Dad grabs us both by the scruffs of our necks and is yellin knock it off will ya....you two will get kicked out of this school, if he only knew then what he knew later, he probably woulda hung both our young asses LOL!!.. I just looked at that kid and thought to myself. I am never going to forget that face...HA!! he won that fuckin fight...How the fuck did I know I would be stuck with him for the rest of my life...Wouldn't have it any other way..My friends and brothers are the best men, I have ever met in my life.. and I am not only overjoyed to have them and their families in my life I am blessed.....
3 comments:
Wow, nostalgia reigns supreme! Yep, we all have those wonderful stories of our youth and our family and friends in the great Manayunk. People are amazed when I, or one of my childhood friends, tell them that we still meet once a month for lunch after graduating 54 years ago from St. J's,(yep it will be 54 years on June 8th) and are even more astounded to hear that we have known each other since we were 5 and 6 years old. We girls were not as violent as you boys but of course there were disagreements that arose now and then but we always ironed them out and remained true friends. My daughter once said that Manayunk is the most unique place she has ever known. She doesn't think there is another place like it in the country or out of the country. We are privileged to have grown up in the environment that we did and even more priviliged that we still have these wonderful friends. Simple left out the part that I usually gave him his breakfast and that we had to have lunch at our Grandmom's but the rest of the stuff he said, true, true, true. And, Weber's had the best milkshakes ever!
P. S. These words and numbers to prove we are not robots are getting more and more difficult to decipher. Sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 times to get them right.
The great writer Ernest Hemingway once said to make a story interesting, funny, or sad, in other words to make it a novel.. embellish it..The stories that I tell about myself, and my friends, a lot of them are totally outrageous, and you really don't have to embellish them at all..A lot of times people just stare at me and say, no way, you guys did not do that...May main comeback is, do you think anybody could make that up?? No, as a matter of fact, you are right, that has to be true...Yes sir some of the best stories and remembrances and laughs of my life, have come from that group of whatever we are, def not normal, but then again define normal.....I think we are fine....
Yes lets see leave a comment..OK, critter check, they are all in the pines at a party at some peoples house that the goat knows..yep, he delivers all over the pine barrens..So the hooch is quiet, there is a lot of parrot shit on the dirt road, that fuckin parrot shits every two minutes..I remember a seal gull shittin on me, and it was hot..looked like white wash with a blueberry in it..I am knocking down my friends, not a good time right now for the Phils, but they are hanging in, gotta give the guys playin some credit..They still are only 4 games out..Whether or not they can overcome all of these injury issues, is a Post for another day..They have in the past, and I hope they can in the future..They have supplied the city of Philadelphia and The Ville a much needed reprieve from all things real.....Talk to you tomorrow.
Stay Out Of Harms Way My Friends.
TAPS
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