Tales From Brunswick 51
When I tell you that the idea for this blog post came to me at about 3 in the morning, I’m not even joking. The amazement that I actually remembered it 8 hours later is something I’m still working on moving past. I think I was trained from a fairly young age to remember things I’ve been told when I’m half asleep.
As a kid, my dad used to give us directions for the day before he left for work. Before the sun came up. We’re talking before 6am here and you’re waking a teenager from a dead sleep to give instructions (NEVER write them down. That’s a sign of weakness. Also, no calculators. Use your head.) that you fully expect to be completed when you return from work and you better believe there would be hell to pay if one failed. But I’m getting off track.
Still as a kid, we spent an absolute ton of time at the bowling alley. I can remember my parents going to their league on Sunday nights and we had a sitter and we watched the Muppet Show. As we got a little older, we got to go to the alleys with them and that’s where the fun began.
Then, and still now, I LOVED pinball. One day I plan to own a machine, but that’s a story for another post. Well, of course there were pinball machines in the bowling alley. On occasion, I’d have a quarter or two to play but I also liked to just watch other people play. One evening, there were some scary looking biker dudes hogging the pinball machine. They were there for HOURS. It seemed like hours to me as a kid although it probably wasn’t. When they finally left, I made my way over to the machine and saw that they had left credits on it. Like A LOT of credits. Which I commenced to burn through. And then they came back. They were shooting fire out of their eyes but were nice enough to not kill me.
Another time, I was swinging myself around a handrail and completely bashed my head on a bench. That might have been my first concussion. I would write stories for my parents’ friends, just off the cuff, they’d give me a topic and I’d write them a little ditty. My stellar math skills enabled me to learn to keep score. Adults who didn’t know me would try to come and shoosh me away from the scorekeeping table and those who did would set them straight.
I once broke bowling etiquette when I was an actual bowler. It was terrible. Someone was bowling almost a 300. I was young. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to take my turn and let him finish. I DIDN’T KNOW!!! Ugh. He didn’t get a 300.
On a particularly silly evening, my mom was spinning around in a circle, twirling her skirt. Spinning, spinning, spinning, until….thunk. Oops. In all that spinning, she didn’t see the guy who was trying to walk by and she basically punched him in the balls. Mom’s a gem. Here’s another. There was a gentleman whose eyes were crossed. It seemed that mom was unaware of his situation and yelled at him to look at her when she was talking to him. HA!
I don’t get a lot of dad stories in, but the bowling alley has one for him. See, dad had false teeth. And he LOVED to scare little kids with them by halfway popping them out of his mouth. Well it was all fun and games until the time he popped a little too hard and his dentures fell out onto the floor. Fucking hilarious.
I’m gonna have to make a second part of this as the memories surface because I know there will be more. But that’s enough giggles for today. I’ve got a plane to catch. Back to the natal chart either tomorrow or Monday. Peace!
