[OceanFlower]

OK I'll take Sven's advice cause Lord knows she's a helluva lot smarter than me that's for sure!
You know when I was a ninth grader I was this little (well maybe not so little) roly poly kid wearing baggy khakis, a gray sweatshirt, a pair of Converse and wanted nothing more than to be left alone reading my Famous Monsters magazine, watching Zacherly on the weekends. I was in a great sense a loner. Well, as we all to know being a loner actually attracts people to you perhaps in a more negative way than one would like. My mom always made me wear a hat against the cold NE winters. I had to walk to school and of course, it made absolutely good sense to wear a hat.  But she made me wear one of those hats with the ear flaps and chin straps, totally uncool even in 1960, right? Or maybe even more so. But sure enough, walking down the hallways between classes or on the way out to recess, which was really more like Fight Club, some older bigger guy would come up behind me, grab the hat off my head and taunt me to no end to get it back. At first I fell for that trick trying to grab it out of his hand while he tossed it to one of his buddies back and forth. Finally I got smart and on the way the school I'd take my own hat and throw it down the sewer. I figgered the bullies are gonna get it anyway so I may as well just throw it away myself. And for the most part that worked. Shortly after this something changed at school and they decided that it would be better if they bussed my neighborhood to school. So one day I'm standing at the bus stop minding my own business, when this bigger guy for reasons still unknown to me today, came right up to me and straight armed a punch right into my nose without warning. Naturall, I fell back into the snow bank, books and papers flying everywhere and my nose began to bleed profusely and of course the bodily response of tears as well. So there I am, roly poly kid, rolling around in the snow bank, bloody nose, snot and tears all over my face. The bus pulled up, the kids got on the bus and the bus driver left me there in the snow bank! I pulled myself up, dusted the snow off me and headed for home. Needless to say, my poor dear departed Mother was appalled. She allowed me to stay home from school that day. But when I was cleaning myself up in the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror and swore that would never ever happen to me again. And for the most part it didn't, except for one time later in high school, when some guy blindsided me and cold cocked me while I had on a pair of cheap sunglasses. The sunglasses broke on impact and I damn near lost my eye. Got a neat little scar running thru my eyebrow from that one! But that's a story for another time soon to come. Anyway, during the summer of 1961 I lost about 20 pounds, learned how to dance, traded in my khakis for a pair of black toreador slacks, grey sweatshirt for purple shirts, a pair of spanish hi-top boots, a three quarter length olive green trench coat, slicked my hair back a la Dion, took up smoking Camels and turned myself into a bad ass. Then I discovered girls, or should I say, they discovered me. And that's when the real trouble began!  8)

[Sven2]

Hell, no, I'm not smart, I'm just a trickster, by sometimes begging, sometimes bribing and occasionally cursing I could finally make you share your stories, Flower! I love reading, especially good writing, that's why I am still here. Flower is our hippie-in-residence, a great writer, a real "beatnik" and a devout surfer with a treasure-trove of tales and adventures.

I am thoroughly enjoying his work anxiously waiting for more.

[OceanFlower]

Oh Svennie you say the sweetest things!  :-*


Fucking Eugene
Like most small time hoods we started out small. I mean really small. It was mostly trouble with the cops. Kid stuff. Stuff they send kids to therapy for nowadays. But back then, wow, what a scene! I turned thirteen in 1960, Year Zero of the 60s and entered high school in the upside down year of the 60s, 1961. We sort of had a gang, but again nowhere near today's standards of what a gang is. We didn't kill anybody or even want to kill anybody, nobody owned a gun, but we did carry knives for protection, not aggression. Our gang was more like a social club based on style of clothes, rock and roll music, how you combed your hair, manner of speech, the way you carried yourself when you walked and of course, how you danced. We didn't just bop, we diddy bopped. I was blessed with a set of rhythmic Italian hips and a primitive sense of bop, curly hair and a baby face. The girls loved my eyes and was told by many who I danced to romance with that I looked alot like Robert Mitchum or Paul Newman. Not sure about that though. 

Our group just sort of fell together by hanging out at the local luncheonette buying cherry cokes and greasy cheeseburgers. On Long Island in those days we called them "stationery stores" where there was actually very little stationery but alot of magazines, daily newspapers, pulp novels, greeting cards and a counter soda fountain. No tables or chairs, just a long counter with those swivel stools bolted into the floor. Up front near the entrance was the counter cash register where the proprietors kept the tobacco products, candy bars and all sorts of useless crap one could purchase on impulse. Just outside the entrance was a mechanical horse the kids could ride for a dime and a twin gumball machine. That gumball machine was the target of our first caper.

[Sven2]

Did you steal the horsie too, Flower? :)

Come on, we won't tell on you, besides, the stature of limitations long ago expired. Pleeeeeese?  Pretty please! Are you moving to NYC, surfing in Tahiti, or, heaven forbid, fell ill? Hey, say a word.
Skor can't log in, Cassie is in a place unknown, the winter doesn't end, JFC is canceled, OMG, what's left? Lad Gaga, Charlie Sheen fallout and a sudden revelation that astrological predictions were all wrong! Gee, that must be the end of the world!

[OceanFlower]

to quote Sam and Dave:

hold on, i'm coming!

part duh on its way  ;D