A Kid Growing up in the 70's

A Kid Growing Up In The 70” s - What a Shit Show

What the Hell were you thinking?

It is believed that the stars and heavens predetermine your life path by the time and date you are born. I agree this might be true. I also think that life experiences can and do contribute to what we say, do and how we act. Unfortunately, destiny, karma and maybe even hormones play a part in disorientating our thought process. Hence creating moments in your life, you would rather forget. I look back and see one cringe worthy moment after another in my early adolescence. It crept about just waiting to pounce as it conjured in my mind abstract truths and distorted realities. The aftermath engulfed by a common theme; I am going to haunt you until your last breath. It is quite possible that in truth, “shit happens.” Somewhat proven by the following follies.

My life was predestined to begin in the 71st year of the Twentieth Century. In my Mother’s womb, I am responding to her voice, the yummy bangers and chips and undoubtedly the popular song in England that year; “Never Ending Love For you” by New Seekers. (Check it out on youtube.com.) The recipe for my personality started before my first breath of air. From day one, I wanted to sing, dance and laugh. I could not be bothered with people. As my personality grew, I did not allow myself to be persuaded by other people either. I did not care what people thought of me. My Mother said, “you should be nice, you will not have any friends”. I wanted to do things my way. This has “I don’t give a shit” written all over it. True to form, it begins; “what the hell were you thinking?”

My parents divorced when I was four. My Father took my Mom to court for custody of Brother and I. We had a relationship with our Mother growing up, but we lived with Dad. He made the rules and did his best to raise two kids. Our family unit became Amber D. Marty and me. My Dad wrote that on everything. I still have the piece of wood he engraved it on circa 1978. Looking back our lives were not perfect but the good days outweighed the bad. My brother and I played baseball. He was on the football team and I was a cheer leader. That was probably the only “girly” thing I did. It was the routine and schedules that kept us in check during the early school years. We played outside until the street lights came on or Dad blew the whistle. We climbed trees, played in the leaves, climbed on to the roof. Laying back to look at stars or see the Space Shuttle before it landed. We even heard a sonic boom a time or two. Base housing was the best. All the adventures happened or were close to where we lived, 6339 Travis Street.

As we grew older, every week, Marty Jr. and I had our specific chores. We always did the dishes together, even cooked on Fridays; to butter Dad up. We had a dance to go to or the roller rink. Brother took out the trash, I was tasked with running the vacuum. The huge green shag carpet covered the entire living room. I always thought it looked like a shaggy bear from The Muppet Show. The little hoover was easy to handle for this seven-year-old girl. The worst part of vacuuming, the hose would wrap around my little ankle trying to trip me up the entire time. The second worse thing about vacuuming, vacuuming! Seriously dude, it takes too long. I moved that metal wand back and forth, back and forth. Singing at the top of my lungs to Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac on the 8 Track. The noise of the vacuum never hindered my ability to hear the music because I never plugged the damn thing in. I was always in a hurry to get it done, I figured if I did not plug it in, I would finish faster. As long as you could see the pattern, no one would know. What the hell was I thinking? Was it the satisfaction that everything is not how it appears? Was it the accolades? There is no reasonable excuse for not plugging in the vacuum, none… Dad replaced three vacuums that decade. He could not figure out why none of them sucked worth a shit.

I finally got my chores done, wink, wink… I get to ride my bike. Brother was done with his chores in five minutes. Was I being punished? I showed Dad, didn’t I? I vacuumed the hell out of that rug. I rode my bike everywhere. I still had the bike my training wheels were taken off of. Your “baby bike” Brother would tease me; he had a Ten Speed. Oh, how I wanted a ten speed. The rule was, you get a ten speed when you are ten. I wanted everything Brother had. I wanted to be just like Brother. I was a real tomboy! I am starting to see the correlation of male influence compared to female influence. Perhaps these influences were slowly adding fire to the flame of my “who gives a shit attitude.” But I was born with this attitude right, how could it be wrong? Then this next incident happens.

One day I swiped a pack of Dad’s cigarettes and his zippo, I jumped on my bike headed to my friend. Destination… the ditch, to smoke up these cigarettes. The ditch was located in the Mojave Desert, right behind my house. We often road our bikes there but you could jump the six-foot cinder block wall and be there just as quick. Marty Jr. and I jumped the walls all the time. Short cut to school, short cut to a friend’s house, short cut to anywhere really. So, the ditch was huge. It was approximately thirty-feet wide and thirty-feet deep. During early Spring to Summer, areas in the ditch would hold water. Tall cattails would grow in ponds along the way. The ditch stretched out for miles in both directions. We often played in the water and mud. Catching tad poles, frogs and lizards. We also set up ramps to jump our bikes. I recall a rope in one area to jump the water ponds. Looking for a spot past the pond, I plucked cattails along the way. Pulling them apart to reveal the cotton fluffy contents under the brown dome. It was flying around us like snow. Wait, what, anyways, there was no time for children’s games that afternoon. We were eight years old and we were there to smoke!

Cattail fluffiness flying around our heads standing ankle deep, I light it up, puff, puff…cough, trying to put the cigarette out, the cattail guts catch on fire. The entire ditch is ablaze in less than thirty seconds. I am screaming and running as fast as I can to the other side of the ditch. I make my way to the wall of my back yard, throw my bike down, jump the cinder wall only to meet big brother with a shovel yelling “the ditch is on fire!” I yelled, yes, yes, the ditch is on fire and that shovel won’t put it out! We stood on the wall just gawking at the huge flames. The fire engine horn screaming in the smoke- filled air. I remember it took more than an hour to snuff out the flames. But the worst happen when I looked across the road and saw three tiny silhouettes pulling a wagon. Those kids were about six years old. They were stopped in their tracks by a Fireman. To this day, I believe, they were blamed and punished for starting that fire, I just stood there and watched. What the hell were you thinking? Holy Shit! I was thinking, Thank God I was never questioned by the Fireman! I should have told the fireman what I had done. I still cringe at the thought of those poor little souls.

I am pushing nine and a half years old now and still on course to one upping my last disaster. Remember, I do what I want and now I don’t pay attention either. It’s April Fool’s Day! Oh Boy do I have a prank for my teacher. A rotten Apple. First of all, why did I have a rotten apple? Did I secretly plan this assault and let the apple waste away in my top dresser drawer? Or, did we just have rotting fruit laying around the kitchen? I just can’t remember. That was forty years ago. I was so excited about giving this rotten apple to my teacher. I packed my lunch in my Holly Hobbie lunch pail. I put the rotting apple in a brown paper bag. I tie up my buster browns and head out the door. Off to school I go, again riding my baby bike, because I have to wait four more months for my ten speed. Damn it! I get half way up the street the rotten apple falls through the bag and I look down to see where it rolled and BAM, I crash into a parked car. I fall to the ground. I am crying, snot coming out of my nose and blood running out of the gash on my shin. I still have that scar today. I tied my sock around the wound and went to school. As if crashing into a parked car once is not enough. That evening after baseball practice, I am riding my bike home. My coach honks to say goodbye, I look back to waive and run into another parked car and bloody my other shin. What a crock of shit! I’ll definitely blame this one on karma, it happened twice in one day. Maybe I was not ready for a ten speed after all. I was getting my comeuppance for the fire.

My last story takes place the Summer of 1981. I finally got my ten speed! No more baby bike and no more jokes, no more bulling. I am ten! I still don’t care what people think, other than the time my teammates were calling me names at baseball practice. I was the only girl in the entire league for four years until Andrea played. Dad asked what they were calling me, I was crying, a girl, they are calling me a girl… he reminded me, quite frankly, you are a girl. Here comes the hormones and the training bra. Ok so, I am a girl that does boy things. That summer shit really hit the fan. I have jumped the wall to my friend’s house across the street. Not the street to the ditch, the street in front of my house. David and Kinney and little Peggy are in their back yard playing in the tent their Dad constructed. It was so cool! I mean, I have been camping before but it was a tent in the back yard! My Dad never put a tent up in my back yard.

We played in that tent all afternoon. We imagined we were camping on a lake. The water hose was out and I made mud burgers with stick fries for lunch. I did all the cooking, because I am a girl, I guess that is what girls did. We had a make shift boat, a cardboard box, we put their dog Dusty in. I think his name was Dusty, maybe Chip, or perhaps shit head. Maybe the parents were cooking out too. I think it was a barbeque party. We were always cooking out or going to cook outs. Take It To The Limit by the Eagles blared from the garage. I don’t remember if anyone was in the tent with me but I do remember shit head being there. Then here it comes, I blow off the first fart and then another. Dusty is smelling around my butt, get away…Oh man, I gotta go to the bathroom. Instead of getting out of the tent and going in the house, or jumping the wall to my house, I sat there smelling my farts, it consumed the tent. It will only take a few minutes to walk in the house or jump the wall. Did I think, no, I am camping? Did I think I can’t make it to the bathroom? Was I influenced by what I thought my Dad or brother would do? What the hell was I thinking? I pulled my shorts down, just outside the tent, and took a shit. I grabbed the hose to clean myself off. I thought I was in the clear. I made my way back into the tent, I look back and Chip was in hot pursuit, smelling, barking, oh my God, eating my poop. The gag reflex kicked in, out came my bologna sandwich from lunch, all over the tent. I was somewhat relieved the evidence was gone but also in panic there was new evidence all over the tent. Thanks to Dusty he did not miss a beat; he cleared the scene of all evidence. Evidence of my laziness, my stubbornness or just evidence of a girl in a boy’s world.

I would like to blame the male influence in my life and the lack of female guidance but I can’t use those excuses. I just did what I did. I have never seen anybody vacuum without plugging it in the socket. That is just plain stupid. I have never seen anyone carelessly start a fire because Smokey The Bear says, “Only you can prevent Forrest fires.” Let alone watch someone clumsily run into a parked car twice in one day. Lastly, I certainly have not seen a person take a shit in a neighbor’s yard. The calamity of these events can only be chalked up to shit happens: Figuratively and literally in my case. CRINGE!