It was more of an uncontrolled chaos interspersed with smacking randomly into the ground. If you've read my Moments on the other blog then you're familiar with the lack of security at my old boarding school. Ten O'clock and the teacher with the flashligh dissappeared. Up we sprang, fully clothed out of bed, and jumped out of windows to meet up at the edge of the woods.
On this occaision the gang was: myself, Jim Evans, Tom Macarther, Barry Eu and a couple more now lost to even my memory. We were up for adventure and had all night. A quick walk along the forest edge took us to the trail beside the Head Master's house. Quiet as washing machines with bricks inside, we filed by the building and merged into the darkened wood. It was a short mile to the stables where only the caretaker girls lived. We figured we'd be in, get the ponies and be out of there without even wakening a soul.
Now, have you ever highjacked a pony?
It's really not as easy as it sounds. Sure, everybody at school new how to ride. And if we rode bareback we could get out of there even quicker! But still, it took some time to pull this one off. At some point we heaved open the side barn door to the pony stalls. There they were, fiery chargers not four feet high. We each took a stall and started bridling up.
Mine was a little brown gelding with a few years put on. He was spry though, and fast, and I shot of the stables like the wind up the dirt road behind the hay barns. We were everywhere by this time. Kids on ponyback, riding in every direction and making enough ruckus to wake the dead. What were we thinking? Fun! that's what. And besides, we'd learned from experience that the cops usually found it easier just to yell at us alot and drop us off at the Head Masters' house.
After a good canter, I had pulled my fiery charger up to bay at the end of a curved road by the lunge line circle. Here in front of me stretched a puddle some twenty feet long were the passage of thousands of hooves had hollowed out the entire stretch. I knew we could take it. Earlier that year I had trained to ride Equestrian and I could feel the steel springs of muscles in my mounts' wiry limbs. I goaded him hard and we sped off at a gallup. Faster, faster! the pony virtually flew as I cinched up on the bridle and leaned into his neck for the great water clearing jump that was about to make history for me in front of all my suddenly mesmorized friends!
The edge came upon us! I braced! The pony stopped. I didn't...
You know, the time it takes to sail over a pony's head and launch ten feet into the center of a pond is way, way longer than you would think. I had all this time to think: <<Holy Shit!>>. and <<This is really going to hurt!>> and finally <<Aw Fuck!!!>> which by the way is a very appropriate thing to say when a pony throws you into a mud puddle full of horse shit in front of your best friends.
So, after the laughter died down and we all panicked at light coming on in the caretaker girls' cabin, hey, we knew it was time to leave.
I don't remember how we got the ponies back without ever being caught; or for that matter, how we made it back to our dorms and cleaned up in time for school the next morning. I do remember though, my claim to fame. I hold the unofficial RLS title of having been thrown the farthest distance by a stolen Shetland pony.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Heads in the Sand
I've been in three short films in my brief, embarrassing, film career. The first was called Rats. I played a kid who came into the room to see his friends being eaten by rodents. I walked in, screamed and the film ended. There was a second film where I graduated to serial killer by tossing rats on my friends for money but, alas, this has been lost to the scattering winds of time and lives now, only in my memory. The third and final adventure in movieland was my crowning cinematic achievement. I was buried up to my head in the sand on an ocean beach and then hidden under a blue, crushed velvet sombero. The leading lady fades in from nothing on walking approach and lifts the hat to discover me. Pink Floyd was the soundtrack I think, She looked at me, waiting to be tempted; I tempted her with wine and psychokinetically drank a glass with her. I think there were other imbibemnets involved by hey, it was a long time ago and I have no recollection of those events.
Anyhow, we tarry there on the beach, being heads in the sand and in the end she walks and fades away; I think I faded out into a pile of sand.
Bogart, eat your heart out.
Anyhow, we tarry there on the beach, being heads in the sand and in the end she walks and fades away; I think I faded out into a pile of sand.
Bogart, eat your heart out.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Snert. A story by myself and Mr. Goode
Have you ever had a best friend as a kid that you managed to have so many adventures with, get into so much trouble with, that the two of you could only be described as partners in crime? I had a friend like that once, my partner in crime, Mr. Goode.
Mr. Goode could do an unforgettable imitation of Andy Rooney complaining about having to waddle across the bathroom floor with his pants around his ankles when he ran out of toilet paper. When I was in the hospital, it was Mr. Goode who smuggled me in a pizza and the pet ducks we liberated that summer from the local swamp and,of course, Mr. Goode knew every line from all the best Monty Python skits.
There was one summer that Mr. Goode and I got gophering jobs for a contractor on the Island. I think we called him Snert. We spent each day damaging drywall, bending nails and generally causing about twice as much damage as we did getting things done, but hey, it was a paying gig. And anyway it was Snert's problem for hiring us.
Snert had this vicious, deep, sickening cough, in doubling over fits of convulsions. I think he chain smoked too. He would then use the most toxic, caustic materials, adhesives, lacquers & deadly fumes without ANY respirator or mask, & when WE would put one on he would say "Oh you don't need that, the fumes never bother me"...and he would say that, all the time. Famous last words. I'm certain he's pushing up daisies by now. I always think of that, how incredibly foolish he was. After all, he hired us.
On one particular day, Snert, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to let us use the jack hammer to bust up an old driveway. We did ok until it came time to pick ax away a bit of earth below the cement. Mr. Goode swung the pick and on the first hit managed to hit a plastic casing pipe for the main electrical line to the house. Well, nobody got electrocuted so it was a pretty good day. And hey, we knew that you never leave power lines exposed to moisture so, being honest young lads we immediately fixed it by tossing a broken piece of ceramic pipe over the hand sized hole. We then buried it up real quick with loose dirt before any water could get in and went on to the next task with our quality work ethics intact. Once the cement driveway was re-poured over the dirt above it that week we knew everything would be ok. So the next day Snert sends us out to the side yard to dig a trench. I can't recall if this was before or after our daily dark beer lunch. Huge bottles.....It definitely wasn't the day that Snert showed us how to settle a toilet onto its wax seal by sitting backwards on the seat and humping the toilet with an abandon and gusto that caused us to pull a stomach muscle each.
It was a sunny day. I remember that. I remember us laughing and joking about how we really shouldn't be trusted with pick axes. I also remember the first swing Mr. Goode took; a truly beautiful, high arcing swing. The kind of swing that baseball players and golf pros take when they make a play that people talk about for years...'Boy! Did you see that swing? Now that's a swing!....' Indeed it was. It was his first swing of the day. It arced, it swished, it popped.... Popped....it shouldn't have popped. Mr. Goode had stopped, pick ax tip in the ground, he lifted his gaze to mine with a surprised smile on his face as if to say, 'Oh...No....' and in a moment worthy of Larry, Curley or even Moe, he pulled the pick up out of the ground. As Mr. Goode put it years later, “…the pick didn't make that solid sound when it went into the ground---rather a soft, semi-hollow crunchy squishy sound, as if you'd broke into a gooey duck or something....It just didn't feel right. Out of the entire hillside, what are the chances we hit that pipe dead center with the first swing? WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??? If we could do that why couldn't we win the lotto instead?”
Now, I'm not saying that random damage to someone's home is funny. I'm saying it's freaking hilarious! When Mr. Goode pulled out that pick, the water shot up like an oil well in Texas. What a gusher! We ran around looking for the shut off, which of course we didn't find for hours. Everybody on the site had to stop what they were doing and let's just say nobody was real impressed. We didn't work there very much longer after that. And as I recall, Snert was pretty mad and shouted a lot at both of us. But it's hard, you know, to take a man seriously after you've watched him backwards hump a toilet...
Mr. Goode could do an unforgettable imitation of Andy Rooney complaining about having to waddle across the bathroom floor with his pants around his ankles when he ran out of toilet paper. When I was in the hospital, it was Mr. Goode who smuggled me in a pizza and the pet ducks we liberated that summer from the local swamp and,of course, Mr. Goode knew every line from all the best Monty Python skits.
There was one summer that Mr. Goode and I got gophering jobs for a contractor on the Island. I think we called him Snert. We spent each day damaging drywall, bending nails and generally causing about twice as much damage as we did getting things done, but hey, it was a paying gig. And anyway it was Snert's problem for hiring us.
Snert had this vicious, deep, sickening cough, in doubling over fits of convulsions. I think he chain smoked too. He would then use the most toxic, caustic materials, adhesives, lacquers & deadly fumes without ANY respirator or mask, & when WE would put one on he would say "Oh you don't need that, the fumes never bother me"...and he would say that, all the time. Famous last words. I'm certain he's pushing up daisies by now. I always think of that, how incredibly foolish he was. After all, he hired us.
On one particular day, Snert, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to let us use the jack hammer to bust up an old driveway. We did ok until it came time to pick ax away a bit of earth below the cement. Mr. Goode swung the pick and on the first hit managed to hit a plastic casing pipe for the main electrical line to the house. Well, nobody got electrocuted so it was a pretty good day. And hey, we knew that you never leave power lines exposed to moisture so, being honest young lads we immediately fixed it by tossing a broken piece of ceramic pipe over the hand sized hole. We then buried it up real quick with loose dirt before any water could get in and went on to the next task with our quality work ethics intact. Once the cement driveway was re-poured over the dirt above it that week we knew everything would be ok. So the next day Snert sends us out to the side yard to dig a trench. I can't recall if this was before or after our daily dark beer lunch. Huge bottles.....It definitely wasn't the day that Snert showed us how to settle a toilet onto its wax seal by sitting backwards on the seat and humping the toilet with an abandon and gusto that caused us to pull a stomach muscle each.
It was a sunny day. I remember that. I remember us laughing and joking about how we really shouldn't be trusted with pick axes. I also remember the first swing Mr. Goode took; a truly beautiful, high arcing swing. The kind of swing that baseball players and golf pros take when they make a play that people talk about for years...'Boy! Did you see that swing? Now that's a swing!....' Indeed it was. It was his first swing of the day. It arced, it swished, it popped.... Popped....it shouldn't have popped. Mr. Goode had stopped, pick ax tip in the ground, he lifted his gaze to mine with a surprised smile on his face as if to say, 'Oh...No....' and in a moment worthy of Larry, Curley or even Moe, he pulled the pick up out of the ground. As Mr. Goode put it years later, “…the pick didn't make that solid sound when it went into the ground---rather a soft, semi-hollow crunchy squishy sound, as if you'd broke into a gooey duck or something....It just didn't feel right. Out of the entire hillside, what are the chances we hit that pipe dead center with the first swing? WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??? If we could do that why couldn't we win the lotto instead?”
Now, I'm not saying that random damage to someone's home is funny. I'm saying it's freaking hilarious! When Mr. Goode pulled out that pick, the water shot up like an oil well in Texas. What a gusher! We ran around looking for the shut off, which of course we didn't find for hours. Everybody on the site had to stop what they were doing and let's just say nobody was real impressed. We didn't work there very much longer after that. And as I recall, Snert was pretty mad and shouted a lot at both of us. But it's hard, you know, to take a man seriously after you've watched him backwards hump a toilet...
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