Back in MY Day . . .

 

 

 

The kids are not alright! Today I was watching a video of one of those staged, fake courtroom dramas where some mythical judge hears absurd cases from dinged out contestants explaining situations that almost never occur except on reruns of “I Love Lucy,” but as it dragged on it began to ring true because certain things had been woven into the storyline that so perfectly explained the “Z” generation they should be added to the Bible in a completely new book called Generation Lost! Let me elaborate.

 

There was this twenty-one-year-old kid, man, neutral gender, whatEVER suing his father for sixty-thousand dollars for failure to fulfill. Failure to fulfill what, you may ask? Seems as the kid grew the father had promised wonderful things to him when he achieved manhood, which, from his claim adequately demonstrated that he was yet to arrive at that point. He just turned twenty-one and stuck his hand out for his reward whereupon his father asked, “WHAT?” and he said, “HUH?”

 

What inspired this article was one of his demands. He wanted an expensive high end automobile somewhere along the line of a Porsche, Lamborghini or comparable sack of nuts and bolts to satisfy his driving comfort. I never SAW either of these cars because if I did it was because the soon to be former owners were stupid enough to drive it through the neighborhood and diwnloaded the Simmonsville update of the game “Grand Theft Auto.”

 

The kid went on to list a plethora of needs that would satisfy him. Uh, he’s still living in his parent’s house. Just thought I’d mention that. I didn’t watch the rest because after a while I began to think of the things I’d like to do to his sister while he watched and the Bible says if you even think . . . well, you know the rest. Now, where was I? Oh yes. Z guy.

 

I had a typical Texas childhood. Working class parents. I love that term. “Working class,” ie “Poor White Trash.” Now don’t get me wrong. There’s no problem with poor white trash as long as everyone around you is as poor and as trashy as you are. It wasn’t until LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act and launched The Great Society that we even knew there were other people in the world because, like the song said, “The world must be flat because when people leave town they never come back!” And with the advent of integration we were introduced to poorer black trash which, of course made us more racist than our parents which was going some. They threw us all in school together and we quickly formed opposing teams but came to our senses when the Killeen High School football team (mostly black) continually stomped a mud hole in the team from Copperas Cove (all white) in the annual face off at each homecoming. In fact, the only time Cove ever won a game was once when Killeen didn’t even show up and Cove paraded the homecoming queen around the football field five times winning the homecoming game by default!

 

To say the least we grew up without. Mom always bought us new clothes for the first day of school and we took a week or two before throwing them in the wringer washing machine on the back porch to persevere the “new clothes smell” as long as possible. And in all respect to Dolly Parton’s line about getting a brand new pair of shoes every year? Every year Dolly? We wore ours until we couldn’t stand them anymore and mom passed them down to the younger kids who were expected to “grow into them” which wasn’t hard because the had very little soles left. In fact, in the summer, when the asphalt on the street began to melt we’d just walk barefoot and coat the bottom of our feet with tar that would protect our feet while we were hunting deer with rocks.

 

My dad was a roofer beating shingles all day in the Texas heat, then come home, drink a few beers and beat us. All but “girl baby!” If you had a couple boys and a girl the sister reigned supreme from her mountain and could do no wrong. Girl Baby went to sleep-overs, Girl Baby got the biggest piece of chicken, Girl Baby was the apple pie of daddy’s eye and we boys, well we were there. You know, I honestly cannot remember ever having a conversation with my sister. I don’t know if it is a mental block or simply never happened. Mom told me she was a good kid and I suppose she was. But she too was one of those people who left town and never came back.

 

I got through high school but only because I got a free lunch every day. Well, it wasn’t actually “free!”’I washed dishes after I ate. But I got an extra plate so there was that. Danny, my best friend got a 1957 Chevrolet and we’d go to the drive in movie on weekends. Danny and Ramona would ride in full view with him driving and her sitting next to him like a girlfriend. It was thirty-five cents each so the rest of us rode in the trunk with the beer.

 

Nobody really had a “girlfriend” per sae. Texas girls “didn’t” and the ones that “did” were married off to the suspected father. All the anglo girls looked like Olive Oyle while Mexican girls? Don’t get me started. A little known biological fact is that Mexican girls are born full grown. But you gotta catch them young because the keep growing, if you know what I mean. That, and they always seemed to have a big brother named Santos. You’d heard his name later when you ended up in the county jail. All the inmates would tell you that Santos was with your wife. My sister’s best friends were a couple girls named Maria and Yolanda! Do the math. At fourteen I LUSTED for them! God, they were beautiful. Their bother, Santos wasn’t therefore I lusted in the bathroom with a paper towel and a magazine. There really wasn’t any porn back then so I had to use the lingerie section of a Sears & Roebuck catalog. “So this is sex!”

 

All these tender memories came back to me as I watched this guy on People’s Court bitch about his hard life in the country club. I imagined hanging him upside down naked from a tree and whipping him with a wet rodeo belt, but like I said, that’s just me. One day I will die. Saint Peter will meet me at the gate and say, “Come on in. Maria and Yolanda are waiting for you in the garden and Santos is making tacos.” And I believe!