What!? A FLASHBACK SPECIAL? Okay, okay, I know. What's it been a couple years? (EDIT: A bit less than a year, it seems.)
I recently commented on Renetto's (aka Paul Robinette) vlog about a stupid prank his 16-year-old son pulled over the winter that caused the family some financial and legal trouble (it involved him dressing in a gillie suit for fun and defacing someone's automobile) and it got me thinking about some of the stupid things I've done when I was a kid. Here are a few (ie. there may be more but I'm not gonna comment on them...wink, wink):
1969: I'd just gotten a shiny new Mickey Mouse watch for my 5th birthday. I felt the urge to do endurance testing on it so I repeatedly dropped it from the third floor porch of our Olo Street tenement apartment to see if it would break. It eventually did, of course. And so did the switch my father used to whip my ass when he found out.
1971: Finding a chunk of gypsum drywall on the ground during 2nd grade recess, I discovered I could use it to write on walls. The brick wall of the school building looked like a good candidate to me. Sadly, all I could think to write was the word chalk...and to make the matter even more embarrassing, I scrawled it out as "chaulk." In the Principle's office, I was schooled on both vandalism and spelling.
1972: As I mentioned in the "Run Forest, Run" FLASHBACK SPECIAL, I "ran away" from home without a thought as to where I was going or any other necessities like food, clothing or money. But shit, I was only 7.
1972: Not really sure to this day if it was me or my sister, but one of us used a souvenir pen knife to slice some of the rubber trim off the rear passenger window of my aunt Ruth's Chevy Nova during an outing to Lake George, NY. It probably was me but at the time neither of us admitted to it when Ruth found out. Man, was she pissed.
1973: My sister and I played a little game of William Tell. Needless to say, I was the one with the bow and arrow, she held the balloon (which I totally missed) and then bore the scar in her forehead ever after to show for it.
1977: I ran away from home again, this time with a friend Mike D., also ill-planned and executed. Details listed in the prior mentioned post.
1977: Stole popsicles and ice cream bars from a Schwann's truck parked right in front of my house. The driver caught us in the act but my friends and I ran faster (away from my house, of course) than he could and he didn't know I lived right there.
1977 (a busy year for stupidity I guess): My buddy Mike D. and I broke into 2 different vacant properties. One was a creepy old fraternal order lodge right near my house and the other was an even-creepier old abandoned convent. For the latter we had to quietly hide out for hours as the afternoon slipped into the dark and scary night since some neighbor heard us smashing shit up and called the cops. We cautiously laid low somewhere on the third floor of the vast building while the cops briefly searched the first, then sat out in their car for hours. Did we hear the moans of dead nuns haunting up the place? Maybe.
1978: My friend David C. and I were trying out my new pellet gun on a railroad sign just over the town border in North Smithfield. The police pulled up within minutes. They actually took us in and our parents needed to come to the North Smithfield Police Station to pick us up. My father wasn't too upset. I think he was glad I was a little "JD" (as he would call it, ie. juvenile delinquent) like he used to be. Chip off the ol' block.
I recently commented on Renetto's (aka Paul Robinette) vlog about a stupid prank his 16-year-old son pulled over the winter that caused the family some financial and legal trouble (it involved him dressing in a gillie suit for fun and defacing someone's automobile) and it got me thinking about some of the stupid things I've done when I was a kid. Here are a few (ie. there may be more but I'm not gonna comment on them...wink, wink):
1969: I'd just gotten a shiny new Mickey Mouse watch for my 5th birthday. I felt the urge to do endurance testing on it so I repeatedly dropped it from the third floor porch of our Olo Street tenement apartment to see if it would break. It eventually did, of course. And so did the switch my father used to whip my ass when he found out.
1971: Finding a chunk of gypsum drywall on the ground during 2nd grade recess, I discovered I could use it to write on walls. The brick wall of the school building looked like a good candidate to me. Sadly, all I could think to write was the word chalk...and to make the matter even more embarrassing, I scrawled it out as "chaulk." In the Principle's office, I was schooled on both vandalism and spelling.
1972: As I mentioned in the "Run Forest, Run" FLASHBACK SPECIAL, I "ran away" from home without a thought as to where I was going or any other necessities like food, clothing or money. But shit, I was only 7.
1972: Not really sure to this day if it was me or my sister, but one of us used a souvenir pen knife to slice some of the rubber trim off the rear passenger window of my aunt Ruth's Chevy Nova during an outing to Lake George, NY. It probably was me but at the time neither of us admitted to it when Ruth found out. Man, was she pissed.
1973: My sister and I played a little game of William Tell. Needless to say, I was the one with the bow and arrow, she held the balloon (which I totally missed) and then bore the scar in her forehead ever after to show for it.
1977: I ran away from home again, this time with a friend Mike D., also ill-planned and executed. Details listed in the prior mentioned post.
1977: Stole popsicles and ice cream bars from a Schwann's truck parked right in front of my house. The driver caught us in the act but my friends and I ran faster (away from my house, of course) than he could and he didn't know I lived right there.
1977 (a busy year for stupidity I guess): My buddy Mike D. and I broke into 2 different vacant properties. One was a creepy old fraternal order lodge right near my house and the other was an even-creepier old abandoned convent. For the latter we had to quietly hide out for hours as the afternoon slipped into the dark and scary night since some neighbor heard us smashing shit up and called the cops. We cautiously laid low somewhere on the third floor of the vast building while the cops briefly searched the first, then sat out in their car for hours. Did we hear the moans of dead nuns haunting up the place? Maybe.
1978: My friend David C. and I were trying out my new pellet gun on a railroad sign just over the town border in North Smithfield. The police pulled up within minutes. They actually took us in and our parents needed to come to the North Smithfield Police Station to pick us up. My father wasn't too upset. I think he was glad I was a little "JD" (as he would call it, ie. juvenile delinquent) like he used to be. Chip off the ol' block.