“Monsters" aka The Twins, Serial Killers

 

My worst nightmares are by far using nightmares, where I am in a world, where again am in the grips of some drug with mind racing as I attempt to do more or find more. All rules still apply this is a nightmare ever so more real cause I’m in a twisted state of long ago.

I want to tell you now. I have seen and been close to real dark people, big and small, but I never seen what my mind showed me. I do not like even writing this one down, but am just the …….sleep please……

 

It was Mount Vernon Baltimore Maryland area one of those back ally apartments near student housing on St Paul street about 13 blocks up. The School had several apartments they used as student housing in the old brown stones and huge historic houses with twists and turns for three or some five floors. I knew the guy hadn’t been seen and we thought he was busted. We had got coke from him before while at college. I was in Baltimore, a crack head near the end of my second year. I stopped, but those months were hard, hard lessons in life to a young man in his twenties to learn when he should have been a student.

We entered into the house and we going through things, but the house seemed to have been tossed all ready, things lay about in disarray. I was looking for a score, cocaine, or cash for coke. I was high and it mattered for about four hours real bad to get more when you have been smoking. Some people went to lengths, some massive and on the news as car jackings, muggings, robberies, shootings and I was doing my length not much in balance entering this house looking for drugs, twisted. Not by any means a criminal, really just twisted in my nightmares need to find the drugs, and to out and get high. I counted the minuets home once we found his stash of coke. I was all set up my little station for cooking, clean again waiting. We were on different floors the girl was downstairs; I up in his room the top floor where the room was dashed to and from and trampled and a book shelf three feet high recessed in the wall had a few clothes thrown against it, but a shape immerged as I reached for it a camera hidden by the mess, it was his camera and video recorder pointing into the room. It was like mine; I turned it on, just to see, if it worked, I thought. I saw, his face but not, it was the face of a dead man, eyes with no life, they held him by a big hand compared to his light frame by one big hand and two men big tattooed, with masks like wresters or some cheap fetish movie red and blue on naked next to the body as the last picture of the camera was like a trophy shot. It doesn’t come fast enough, or too fast horror. I clicked to into the video in the menu, seeing some-what the same shot as the last frame. I pressed play. Why?

            The men in masks had the young man down on the floor he was just some young kid in his twenties who worked as waiter dealing drugs. He was so scared. You could see it, and he wanted out. He was not a fighter, not built for it, not of temperament he was not tall a little lean and maybe medium strength. All this did nothing for him. I was transfixed at first watching in the why, then things became unreal as they began the taunting, the beating, the sexual violence as they forced things into his mouth and anus, as the his screams and weeping got more intense so did their fever beating him as he followed their commands or was just a taunt that they might just leave him and go as he begged. I could hear little muffled far away yells breaking through the camera’s speaker as he pleaded them to stop. I watched, fast forwarded and watched, I was going forward and had just stopped, in an unimaginable place, a place of monsters. A nightmare captures our essence and rips it along a journey like a loose tread of palatable existence in a reality, in horror sometimes we wonder if it’s just a film this nightmare or life.  I watched as they both attacked him sexually at once, beginning to choke him and pound on him as they attacked in sexual frenzied madness, animal lust… until the girl I was with said, “What do you got there?” taking the camera away. I reached, horror builds in the mind. It had replaced the need for drugs, my twisted high. I was still in shock and the camera slipped from my hand and she looked at the little screen.

Like I said, it takes real horror to sink in. I saw in my few seconds of video which seemed to share more than possible of this vile looking glass featuring a last night of a mans life and, them doing things to him, that are stuck in my mind. Awful things, that a normal human could not withstand much, and then others worse with the warm body, in their lust, and madness, this thing I was forced to watch, on the video. It went for another second and a grabbed back the camera. It was too late. A nightmare scream, the one that lasts on and on as the bits of the video played in my mind, a scream of pure terror from the girl, she had seen that much. “Monsters” two men, lovers, went out looking for their sexual primal lust, boosted by the drugs, and found… The scream woke me, as I still watched the video and slowly everything became white, blinding with the scream being the only thing left, and the want to leave this horrid place.

I woke. I stood, and walked in seeming way to get away from the images in my head, but they kept repeating.  The real story was too vivid, too visceral to explain in detail, flashes of him pleading as they first began getting hi, and then his screaming as the men the monsters with no masks, tortured and used the young man as a sex toy, just look of animals with their prey was left, Monsters that walk among us.  

 

Thor

I fucking hate this one.

It doesn’t need to come back. I work with cameras all the time for the last couple years, the horror of this dream is in the camera when I hold it, shadows somewhere in my mind of another camera linger.

 

 

Letter to Snoop Lion from THOR Peace-UP

Do you see?

Mandela walked out of 20 years of Jail to become the president of a country. What are you willing to sacrifice? Now you walk this new path, you are becoming a beacon. Why do you think I stayed quiet when Eminem trash talked me in 2005, well I did flow for three days straight, but the higher reason, the same reason when Black Eyed Peas gave me shout out; I stayed quiet. I passed on Hells Angels Club prospect for alone this road I walked. The road of Peace-UP.

It was the Gangsters who put down their guns and picked up food for the long boycott in South Africa. Do you see?

Peace-Up is the way you are walking now we are looking forward to better dayz.

Now you are in the spot light. What do you want America to really know? What great truths have you found? “A great warrior fighting for the side of good” is what the elders said. I asked Kenny A. Pimp “What is the difference between a warrior and a soldier.” While we were on the 3^rd floor, heavy custody levels. I responded, “A warrior fights because he wants to, a soldier fights because he has to.”

I am a soldier doing this alone for 13 years.

What are you? Are you the Lion.

The tooth I wear around my neck is a Lions tooth from Johannesburg South Africa.

They say the black mane Lion is the bravest of all Lions, but is often the loner, a king unto himself.    

Chef John aka THOR  

 

Letter to Michael J. Fox from Chef John the Ghetto Gourmet Show aka THOR

I am handicapped. I learned a lot over the last three years, teaching myself to walk, running 4,000 miles, learning to live and laugh at my disability. I am now realizing there isn’t much I can’t do if given a shot. I might not be at 100% but my 60% is pretty darn good and if you add a smile well as said by Jimmy Stewart in the movie Harvey, “You can be smart or pleasant and I choose to be pleasant.” I find the human condition of suffering one of the most enlightening experiences of my life time. Love got to come from inside as well as out, and that’s why I “Shine’ just as much as I can.

This little boy of three in our apartment had this thing about not paying attention, or switching his attention quickly and being herded by mom who also had his older brother a runner along made simple transits up or down the stairs. This day he was coming up the stairs very intent on eating a peach as he slowly step by step took the stairs and he being my buddy I said, “Hello”. That’s all it took and backwards he went. I dove the seven feet, and then reaching out one hand and caught him just he was about to tumble the whole stairs head first. He exclaimed, “Get my peach!” for in my catching him and his surprise he lost his peach over his shoulder. It was for most in his mind, the joy of life, innocence. I realize we lose our innocence the reality of that innocence is returned during suffering, and that is an amazing and powerful gift. To be able to give a window of it to others noble in intent, and is working. Eventually even after another saving grab by me. The little boy almost four now came home with a caste on his arm, gravity finally got him but he still had a lot of innocence left, and always a smile and talk for me. That little moment where the peach was everything I think that’s what I strive for every day.

Chef John Ernst AKA Thor

We the little people talk about you Mike, you empower us.

 

Chapter 6 Minnesota “Cousins Cousins Everywhere”

 

 

 

Chapter 6

Minnesota

“Cousins Cousins Everywhere”

 

            Forty five cousins by fourteen aunts and uncles, my father had seven siblings, and I was the first adopted mullato into a family of German Catholics. We would fly up every summer without exception. In the first years I was of course and infant and stayed with my parents the whole time. We would always stay at Grandpa and Grandma’s first in the spare bed room in the two floor cottage were I an infant and toddler would share the bed with Mom and Dad and then the basement in my early years a small cot was put in the corner. It’s a funny thing now that I think about it. I used to sleep on a lot of old army cots as a child, with adults using them as well in large gatherings where sleep over was required, and then they phased out with time. The street was a soft black asphalt street slow diving street with a driveway that went up quickly on the left side of the house under an awning. A small walkway next to the bushes that would gently prick you on the left and right with these little red berries with a very sour taste, really not to be tried just because they are red, and they had a funny little reverse nipple where the black seed lay snuggled in a sticky clear syrup with like I said It had a very red skin which I considered in the realm of good things to eat as a toddler. Cherries in the fruit can red, strawberries red, red was good, the first instance of red in berry form being bad kind of sticks in your head. The clear stuff was kind of sticky and would act as a good mini bomb in a game of War later with my cousins. My hands were always on the move as a child. There were just three steps up to the screen door which opened to the right off of the small ledge. The top of this ledge at the age of 3 and 4 was like the top of a great hill for the grass and hill stretched down to the curb which of course I had rolled down with many times an added child in tow as we flipped down the hill. The first room inside was the living room the dark Walnut organ with all its peddles and switches on top in long rows. I read each one on an afternoon, the coco clock lay above that at the far right of the room, a gentle blue carpet lay on the floor.  The house was two story Rambler with bed rooms in the back right with a bathroom and a big basement under ground. It had the most amazing wood paneling that covered the whole room, an old style round picture tube television set was actually be hidden in the wall. A huge freezer was at one end laying on top of the checkered white and pink tiled work that covered the whole floor. I was about nine and I was at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s Ernst for a week that summer until I went to see Mark and Mary at Aunt Irean’s, and John, Joe, Becky, and Uncle Jim Fisher.

I was stationed down stairs, with a pot. A ritual I had to endure any time I stayed at Grandma and “Gramps”, that’s what all us kids called him like he was our best friend, he was “Gramps” even when we got older. I would have to wake and try to hit that pot and then bring it up in the morning; I was still a tart then. I graduated up stairs, when my other Grandma Lucile got a hold of me a few months later. It was like that, back and forth during the summers Minnesota and upstate New York. I would wake early to hear Grandma Ernst call me up the stairs to breakfast. The kitchen had glass bricks all around here and there to let in the light, intermixed with white and blue tiles and a small counter curved counter with a metal edging with little grooves in which I used to run my nails back and forth like little groove races in awaiting my meal, in need be large meals like the Christmas we spent there the leaves could be put into the main dining table in the proper dining area right behind my seat at the counter which faced the kitchen. Breakfast was always here with toast and soft boiled eggs, bacon, or oat meal, her soft boiled egg is revisited still to today, her apple pies, I don’t know if it was gathering of the apples in the morning or waiting any part of a day and as a food thought is pretty hard as a kid, just be wanting that apple pie to be done. Her crust is flakey and light holding the apples in perfect suspension. She also made these elephant ears a traditional Germen pastry brought from the old country, and pin wheels all of this fine fried dough which were browned and crunchy like a wagon wheel with high sides. I have no idea to this day how she did that.

This morning was exciting because I was going back to the pond and the raft we had been working on all of three days was almost done. We had just used junk we found around the pond to build the raft, and had lashed it together, so I finished off my egg, bacon, and toast had a few words with Grandma after washing up, and was in a hurry to be on my way. I had found the pond on my 2^nd day in the neighborhood. It was down a street or two at the end of a road by the train tracks. I was loaded with frogs, minnows, a few sucker fish and a occasional perch, sunfish a rumored bass or such, and it had turtles sunny them selves on logs, all kinds of turtles, and snapping turtles, swim with you’re a shoes on don’t touch turtles, and the biggest sunned them selves all day on a log near the center of the pond. The pond was maybe the size of a football field scrunched funny. It had its main area and lots of little swampy inlets and a few muddy beaches. I met Paul on my second day of vacation when my when I found the pond. He had called over at me while I was using the refuse around the pond to gain head over the water teetering and balancing along rocks and logs. We became instant friends, because he needed my help to catch “The biggest snapping turtle in the lake.” adding “Way out there”; he pointed, on that log. I covered my eyes and spy the log that lay near the unapproachable side of the pond.

“Out there” I asked lifting my arm and pointing, with the most dubious of looks on my face.

“Yeah” He replied “You see they way you catch a snapping turtle is you get them to grab a stick, and then you grab them, simple.” And he swung his arm and snapped which I thought was pretty cool. He wore blue jeans and a dirty old white T- shirt rolled at the sleeves. His hair was a dirty blond; he had light freckles and gray eyes seeming to be of light character which in difference to the way he carried himself.

“Hi. I’m Paul” and he shoved out his hand. We shook and that was that.

So here we are shoes muddy already, jumping on at the last second and launching our make shift raft which was not what you call meant to last, it had a shelf life, so the longer we pushed it with a long pole, paddled it out in the pond the more it strained against its bonds of plastic, rope wire, and what-evers we had painstakingly sent out to create our raft that was shaking, and pulling at its bonds from the start as we went. This was our 2^nd day at this, we had found early on that turtles spook easy and now had to almost drift when we got close to the log. The water was never clear, it had a dark green or light tan color, and it stank. Each push with the pole pulled up a gas bubble of pond funk. We had tried everything to catch a snapping turtle, everything but a good net, but what parent is going to give a kid a net for a snapping turtle, and what kid was going to tell of his secret mission for the day. Every morning I would grab a fishing pole and it would sit by the pond some of the time. In the water green patches of algae mixed with other of shades plants littered the pond, so I had been all around it’s sides. We knew we entered the deep part now. This was a mud pond there was no bottom in respects to footing all sunken logs and mud. On top of the water lay lily pads with their occasional flower bright yellow and white shinning on top of the green and dark water and the floating patches of green algae. Your eye could get lost in them for they seemed so out of place like a lone star on a hazy night with flashes of light as an occasional ripple disturbed the water and was gone. We had to paddle now, using small flat boards we pushed our craft across the pond towards the far side towards the log, and getting up speed for a second until we stopped hunkered down and stayed still allowing our push to drift us slowly towards the log where lay the sleeping turtles. It was mid-day and hot with the sun beating down. We looked across the dark water spying the snapping turtle “Big Jim” as we called him laying sunning, looking off in the distance. We drifted closer, and immobile lay upon a raft of hope. Just a few feet and Paul leans forward with the stick, now to tell you Big Jim was from where I saw a lay on the far side guiding us in looked all business even from the side, his claws noticeably gouging into the log, and his shell beginning to dwarf the other turtles still all unmoving on the shared log that stretched way into pond and resurfaced some tree a few years back that had toppled into the pond. Paul made a go for it with a quick thrust, and turtle starting diving into the water every where, Big Jim grabbed the stick, just plain bit the end of the thing, and Paul’s starts whooping and pulling and Big Jim jumps of the other side of the log right, simple story right, nope. You see while Paul was hanging on to big Jim I was hanging on to Paul and the stick holding us in place while lying on the raft, which by this time in the battle was turning into a pile of logs floating underneath my belly in sort of a square. Big Jim let go; I think it is important to explain gravity in childhood, we got the idea in school, the apple thing, but real life happens way to fast to figure much, gravity took over momentary pause where I was looking at Paul’s mad face cause he was so close, and then one of surprise as he hurtled in my direction, I was always faster than most people and new he was headed my way and had long let go his leg. I rolled side ways just as he crash landed next to me which was all the raft needed to quite his contract. It broke apart in the middle of the pond, the two of us had to swim though the long part of the pond to get to the other side a muddy bottom but no pond slim, or we could get out twenty feet away to the short side. We swam pushing the muck and pond slim a head of us; I laughing at the adventure, and Paul yelling over and over “We almost had him.” “We almost had him” in his ferocity of the battle, I took one more look at his face and went into laugh hysterics one big ball of laughing took me over and I had to fight even harder thought the muck. We made the side both covered in foul pond scum from head to toe, clasping onto the muddy bank and climbing up on our bellies using the long grass on the side of the pond we finally pulled our selves out. I was still laughing, Paul had got quiet, but the same look lay in his eye when I turned finally to look at him after my fit had subsided. He was looking out across the water, the five minuets it took us to climb out just another part of his over all battle, to get big Jim, and that same look lay on his face right now.

We got, well I got in a lot of trouble, filthy slimy, muddy I ran back to grandma’s up the street full of stories for all of it was new to me the adventure, what I got was stripped down and hosed in the backyard with cold water than right in the tub, with “How could you?”, and “I never.” As she first hosed down a child that really did not want to be, and at first darted to and fro in little moves, until standing naked in the backyard, but grandma would smile at my antics and gyrations while telling the story over dinner. The shock of naked hosing in the back yard and grandma’s ministrations having worn off, I was at it full tilt, telling my story jumping out of my seat and being generally way too much kid at the table and all around. I was wearing Grandpa and Grandma out, this would be my last year as a grandchild unattended by parents or shipped to Aunts and Uncles, like I said “Cousins, cousins everywhere.”

Station wagons, reunions, places to go, Minnesota it really has over 11,000 lakes we went to so many, and the mosquito followed. I have so many memories of this time, it was a place out of time for me, as soon as that plane took off the wild trust bearing us up in the sky, watching as I always did. The slow taxi to the run way in a major airport, the set on the run way, the slow moan and shudder from the engines as they gathered to hurdle us down to the run way at break neck speed. I would always fight as long as I could leaning forward into the old seat belts which clicked loud and were brightly colored until the power drove me back into my seat. I felt that final moment when suddenly upward as the ground leapt from beneath the plane we shot into the sky. I would watch as the world got very small very fast with my eye straining to see out the window I had pulled my self to. I had to look back, see the world shrink, know I was flying again. Joy and flying, family, critters, cousins, the river with Michael, Uncle George’s the last of the Ernst’s farm line after generations he held a farm he just wanted to do what his dad, and his before did farm. Rosie his wife who has passed she was so full of laughs all the time she could get the jokes going, when we was just plain tired Bobby, Richard, Jackie their dog a golden retriever named Thor, horses, chickens, a barn or two, rides here and there, long walks with Mary Fisher and Mark Fisher after watching Perry Mason everyday to the pool for the day one year. Lets us not forget when the parents decided different activities, and I or we at the time tagged along. It was a place so dear in my heart, it was so much of who I was, part of this big family framed me. It was a time where my skin color was washed away by love, my not being a part replaced by comfort and the warm embrace of kinship, a place where I was not so confused about life for I was just part  of everything here.

"The Summer of the Food Police, ON LINKEDIN"

 

 “Hey guys, why don’t we write a book?” I wrote on our face book group, “On the line/professional chefs” group run by Nick.

 

If you wanted to write a book about food you really should state what your personal reason for doing it is. Plain and simple 60% of premade food is bad for you, it is the reason for illnesses; the making food from scratch, cooking is a skill lost in our everyday diets in a single generation “Everybody’s Grandma’s Cooking was the Best”, and simply want you the reader to be better healthier, save money and look at food with our eye of truth. I also write this book to any person now working in this vast “Guild” a word I coined to bring anyone with in this vast service industry under, one calling lending a sort of solidarity among all in the culinary, service, food orientated, and most of all the four guys I’m about to mention cause really we are the book .One simple goal the better service of our guests, our community, and learning the art and truth about food, even more so you must endeavor to live this very high moral fiber in such a way that journey in professionalism lay a template for those around you and those to follow. I am saying if you know food, are a life long student of all things culinary, the service of guests and, teaching, inspiring to reach new and exciting ideas in service and natural stature in culinary arts this seed is already planted in you. I say it like that because we all got these great big egos in the kitchen. I think you’ll enjoy that were a salty bunch at times.  I address one more group that 60% of restaurant owners who loose their business in 5 years. I see being a chef on of the hottest career on the media, and now a good time to reach many inspiring Culinarians. The “Summer of the Food Police” will be what you will expect it to be, on many levels what I just said, but I will admit we are some old timers and put in our dues, and even more we are friends, even though we have never met.

 

Acorn Fights, Football, and Autumn

 

We had acorns, I mean we had acorns, in Takoma Park, this was before Montgomery College in Montgomery County Maryland was build along the row of Takoma Ave, before then it was big houses, for a bridge used to lay where the college now stands, as a direct access to Washington D.C., but between the time of the bridge and Montgomery college all along Takoma Ave lay great Oak trees, the kind that cover the sky in canopy of eighty to over a hundred feet with their hundreds of great bases stretching into massive black branches crossing the sky, old branches reaching in every direction, up them as everywhere in Takoma Park lay thousands of acorns falling everywhere, forget the squirrel population of the next year; lets find us and boys preparing for the daily acorn fights, Philip, and I figured on using our news paper bags from carrying the Washington Star an evening paper in the late 70’s in Washington D.C. area soon to be over taken by the Washington Post making D.C. a one paper town, which meant a lot back then. Everybody still read the papers on their porches, evening chair, it was different, getting news. We had these things brimming with acorns, the streets and ground were already covered, where acorns where scooped with snow shovels and trash cans to clear them, as well being smashed into asphalt like a carpet. Philip and I roughed it but some boys would come with pads on the arms and hats covering there heads, the game, well the on going war with the boys from down the street was on full tilt, and we roamed the neighborhood as well running our turf. We had the pick of the biggest fattest acorns from just the right trees for as boys we knew all our trees in the neighborhood it was our solemn duty, a right of passage of being an accomplished boy, using the best of what lay at hand. The acorns were as big as an inch or more hard and heavy with meat, just right for smacking some unfortunate acorn battler in a good fight and strong enough to leave a welt. You see boys, lots of acorns, like mad, crazy amount of acorns, just plain too many at once, acorns equaled acorn battles among all the boys daring to be out. That was it pretty much for a week, just boys and acorn battles every where. We had been using piles of acorns as our defense like and sneak attack but had realized our acorns could be taken by over whelming forces, with us skirting from our place of attack we needed to be mobile, not with buckets like Philip suggested or with my Hong Kong Phooey lunch box and Philip’s, old Roy Rogers Box cause you ran out to soon cause and they kept falling out besides mom saying , “What are you doing with your lunch box?”  we created secret piles of acorns all over the defensive zones, and carried our mail bags with us making us mobile with ammo aplenty we could reach in a running fight. Our home turf being set the best and final defensive line the Ryan’s home. It lay at the top Jacquie Park, and held the high ground for around it was a row of bushes and a small hill going up. We were already good sneakers in broad daylight are small frames in easy to hide as we moved forward towards our prey. We leaped out sending zingers. I mean some times a fellow took one no the arm or leg, back a stomach was a shot but the real welters were right in the forehead of the poor fellow, they would be in injured status in retreat for a while to recuperate, but soon to re-join we had a safe zone like a penalty box in hockey. I give the metaphor for it really applies, for the war would still be on with whooping and shouting full of laughs and “Oos” and, “Got you” or a taunt shouted. Boyz in a kind of wound up wild abandon, living the fever of a new game testing skill, our fortitude as mini soldiers, we were having so much fun, hot sweaty, running need a drink from the old cement water fountain, banging into each other rolling around laughing jumping and testing and laughing, and ever of course attacking with intensity, which Philip would have a special face for attacking. Philips face in such a manor of saying and doing was such a complete change from his waving arms, hands, and jolly self, he put on the “Straight Face” to prepare for warrior mode. This face of sternness upon his face littered with freckles and his constant good countenance of nature was like a kitten looking tuff, “Totally un-believable!” as he would exclaim at only the most extraordinary events. Philip was so calm mannered, and a goof, so this face of his would make me crack up. I couldn’t hold it back, and it would come bubbling out. Philip would be off on a charge expecting me to be with him, but if I caught that face of his. I would stop dead in my tracks cracking up. He would still be charging with that face getting mad at me and be yelling at me “What are you doing?” which he was often asking me, and “Stop laughing.” The face would lose the match for us as our attackers, usually Brian and Mike would just move in and start peppering Philip with acorns, and I’m watch as acorns are bouncing onto the ground after they left their mark, Philip covering his head and the mad look at me remained on his face, cause Philip never got mad, not really. Well I saw it twice once with the atomic wedgie and the other later, for now I’m just watching him in retreat and cracking up. I never got close enough for them to get a bead on me, I was always quick, even while laughing I kind of laughed more cause they would be mad at me for being so quick, and I would easily dodge their throws, and these were my bullies of type so, I had to be careful. This of course lead to the peppering of Philip and me laughing more. “Bing” Bonk” “Dink’ “Donk-ong” a ricochet that hits mark, from front as your running they let loose on him. I was no use sometimes. Philip would get so fake mad, and be yelling at me, and then come over and quietly plan the next melee with me. We were soldiers.  

“I had to get the face Philip said.” I guess his dad used it on him, face and it worked, just the once or twice he spoke directly to me fine, that’s all he did was speak to me, and I froze, stuck by his voice grounded to the spot. I mean in a quick minuet with the whole “Yes sir” included. Mr. Ryan was a big man, I mean a big man, too a little kid for he was over 6 feet tall and had wide shoulders and just plain girth to him, not a fatty girth but one made from being a big man. He spoke very little to the children individually; there were twelve of them from his first wife and she raised them all. I think Philip most of all. Mr. Ryan was all I knew and was told the rules of the house when I was young because I was baby sat their. That’s when Philip and I would sneak into the pantry and eat cool aid by pouring into our mouths, it was the sugary kind, and he taught me at five about bread butter and sugar as we snuck some off the dinning room table, long set table set with a long table cloth, is held them all, or most of them, I was the smallest, always in the Ryan’s house, except when I stayed there on baby sitting then I was treated like Philip minus the piano lessons the only way would really get away with what we all were doing was not letting the parent know. It’s funny how much in life we just don’t want mom or dad to know about.

Now we older full fledged get dirty playing foot ball with just five Aaron would always be a quarter back. I was never allowed to play quarter back, when he was around. He said, “There are no black quarter backs.” And took the job. Philip would always say that was silly but Mike and Brain would chime in and he would be quarter back me and Philip and I on one side and Mike and Brain on the other. Philip was the only one I wanted to play with cause I knew he treat me fare, so that’s were it wound us boys playing football with a little K2 that was the best, running up and down the field played a lot of pitch backs cause two or three kids can run all over the place, and if one of us was falling we would do our best to pitch it. We would use our jacket and shirts on hot days, no sticks. “You can fall on them” and “No trees” as boundaries cause once we did to be able to play in dry part of the field and Philip, had caught the ball then one two steps, the tree. It was bad, he hit full on because he had already turned to run, poor Philip, was quick but didn’t turn well, or stop quick, and his body just wrapped around the tree, and the ball spit out, then in slow motion he fell. He got up bloody and well kid knows where home is when he is hurt bad, and he just struggled to his feet and we kinda walked him across the street. Boys ain’t good at that game was over. We boys played football on that field everyday, getting home sweaty, dirty, hungry, and played out. Most of the time Philip and I lost. I see Aaron, Brain, and Mike had it figured that was. They was taught that, so it was, Aaron would play better for their side. Once we had a whole bunch of kids playing one year from around the neighborhood, about eight to ten of us, with our picked quarter back. Most these kids were older than me so I was still bottom man on list, until with a fair shot. I got a fair shot, I could run and catch pretty good, and was hard to tackle, even at nine. It was hard for me to play against Philip the face and the running with his head bobbing would just make me crack up. I was faster than him, but his head bobbing along with the way he ran all wacko like would leave me cracking up. I guess if I had a best friend as a little boy, it was Philip.

We were loaded and sure our new tactics would win the day. We skirted trees, hedges, and parked cars making our way down Takoma across where stands now the Montgomery Community College, but we were across the street, sneaking until we saw them coming right up the middle of the road, just as plain as could be for they had made mobile carts with trash cans full of acorns and a shield the hide behind and mobile made them far more effective. Philip started up the front throwing them in handfuls in grenade style straight at them and then I sent zingers side ways, fast and hard coming from the side and running as I threw acorns across their flank. We used backwards quickly for we were taking hits they had got to duck most of what we threw behind their carts then race forward attacking, we quickly went to higher ground putting the cart after taking a full retreat which were called often, that’s how we did it with war cries, or laughing as someone gets a good one when they’re running which was me laughing at Philip, cause when it came to retreat, as fast as I came I went and would pass Philip their main target at the moment for had out distanced them on speed and my zingers. You see you got to throw side ways first as a boy to learn to throw and it take a long time cause most boys throw like girls when they are kids until they start throwing sideways, and if you was real good zingers can hurt from a long way, further than any over hand throw. We beat tail up the road with both boys right behind us until we took a left over the hedge and up the hill taking the higher ground at the Ryan’s house pelting and using the high ground we waited for the enviable call on Takoma avenue “Car!” someone yelled and the boys had to clear the street or turn down Albany. That is where we wanted them. They had as much ammo as we did but our higher ground took the sting out of their shot while we were finally landing a few above the shield, no official wounds, or route, until they decided to try to take the park in retreat. The park in one spot had the real fat acorns like a supper ball with a deep think core and hard shell, it was our best ammo. We charged across the hill for really we were undefeatable in our own park, and we could move much faster with skill moving within and out of all the equipment, we had mastered that long ago. I we real young then, I swung on my belly pushing with my little feet just to swing up in the air after a parent would not push me any longer. A long time since Philip and I met at five, gee a whole buch of years. We met at the swings. There is a definite mass to swing weight ratio going on here, and finally the boy using the stand method of kneeling and pumping your legs to get the swing going real fast, as a kid it was the only way we could get the swings going. Standing holding the chains and get a swing and pump the next at the g force interval of the swing kick in. Philip’s mom would be watching all the time and when acorns started bouncing on the long porch with a swing at the end, she would come out the door. “Philip.” As decree as in all boyhood a parent in any form was really not down with what we as kids did so we stopped and waited, and we all could get in trouble as well but the first motivation rules the second. Our little mini war would rage for a few more days, until the rains came. The acorns soon became a city issue causing unsafe roads, drains stopped, and they had to send crews to unload the roads with big huge vacuum hoses for the leaves and a pickup for the acorns first. Most would be involved and the whole street got involved, the community. It was a big deal for all kids cause we loved it we these big burly black men would come in groups, and then in all the noise and rush the acorns where gone, Autumn moved on. The acorns never fell like that again, well not for a long time.

THOR    

The Slide

 

It was a big boy slide, no doubts about it, and we became professionals one spring preparing the slide to perfection. Philip and I would first go dig into the steel drum trash cans that sat in between to posts and dig out some waxed cups to tear into flat pieces, if there was enough we could just ride the cups down the slide our little buts planted in the middle with our legs up feet pointed in the general direction of forward and down. Over and over we could do this increasing in speed every time, or we could go the deluxe method. We would jump the slide and began one of us from the top the other to the bottom and we would first clean the slide, and then start rubbing down the slide with the waxed paper cups till the whole slide was coated then we buffed it. We took some real dry sand and tossed some down the slide as we buffed the slide to a smooth polish with our butts. Now let me tell you about this slide when they say they don’t make them anymore kids like us are to blame. The slide was twenty or so steps made of steel with a design to the top. It was about 25 ft tall as tall as or just a little taller than the full size adjacent swings and its rails, handles crested another two feet in the air.  The pad was small and required using the handles to sit down or later the cross beam as a swing propelling our small frames down the chute like mini human torpedoes. The steel chute was a sturdy sheet of stainless with one join half way down, by that time we could be moving, and the bump was a minimum. The best wear was tight shorts running shoes and a tea shirt the best ride came literally from the seat of your pants. Philip, I, and a few other boys had been in on the initial idea of juicing up the slide were practiced and seasoned for the speed and landing. What was good at it? Well at the age of eight I weighed 60lbs so with a good swing and keeping knees and elbows tucked I could fly down the slide at speeds equaling a full sprint the first few steps were in the sand box but your third or fourth “better” clear the sand box boarder, then full speed towards the field with arms and legs flailing in an attempt to stop from speeds that were faster than physically possible for the child in the thrills of his ride. We could go so fast only one foot was needed inside the sand box the chute having propelled us 6-8 feet, bounce one and run like a squirrel that has had the misfortune off falling out of a tree. We weren’t falling that far but in our defense squirrels are better equipped than we were.     

“No matter what you must avoid the rail and run full speed when you land.” We would call up to some over zealous kid who wanted to ride full speed just like us, and never fail one out of two of these daring fellows got hurt, wiped out, hit the sand rail, or just face plant into the sand. That kid didn’t get up right away and was dazed for a little and had to sit on the side rail and watch until he was okay. Sort of he had snot, sand and, and blood smeared around his nose but he had a big smile on his face for being so brave to try what we “The expert kids” were doing. He was maybe 6 ½.  Mike and Brian showed up and being my constant bullies were sure they could ride the slide. Brian went first he had more of that crazy white boy in him than Mike. He launched himself with a rebel whoop and zoom he was flying like a turtle twisting and turning on his back somehow keeping his feet underneath him his wild long jet black hair a blur tossing about his head in contrast to his alabaster white skin some how got his chucks underneath him and took off when he hit the sand box. He made it slowing down in the grass. Mike had to do it if Brian did it. Mike was bigger all over not fat just little chunky and big framed and not at all wiry like Brian. So his decent was met with a slower accent and take off from the top. I would like to pause for a second as to tell you about this slide it was fast, finely polished, slippery and just down right dangerous for the inexperienced and people of any weight over a hundred pounds. We didn’t know that we were just kids. We had no idea about gravity and incline planes, physicists and such. What we saw was a sudden increase in speed in the fast zone Mike was out of control early on, he attempted to right himself but the gravity thing nailed him down to the slide like some one put a weight on him, the edges of the slide were 5 inches high to keep the rider safe. Mikes feet were dancing in the air when he left the end of the slide and he was horizontal to the ground going sideways towards the corner boards which were harder to miss. He didn’t. He had managed to right himself somewhat when flying in the air but that first foot down tells the story. Mike went down hard, slam belly and chest first with his hands out, slide for a second, and rolled once hard sort of like a flip and a final flop.  Dirt, gravel, grass stains, and skinned hands, elbows, cheek, and bump to the head. He had to sit down a while. I saw the big kids totally bit and then they took it for the day sort of. Those boys who I pointed to were “cool” and could get in line with the big kids. I remember mothers running to the side of there overly brave 10 year old, our age who had found part of the railing with his foot then the ground with his nose. She was yelling things like “Why do you have to have it so fast?” “You boys are being dangerous” “Look at him.” She shrieked, and marched him off to the car. He was crying. I think he broke his nose.    Parents in the park started watching the slide putting restrictions on which kids could ride it. Philip and I were the fastest of the middle sized kids 55-75 lbs. We could zoom down that sucker like it was nothing, and that what this “old man” (average adult) though when he wandered into the park. He sorted of jumped off the side half way down, straight chickened out on the speed. He left the park beaten by professional sliders, the veterans of wax and speed with a noticeable limp and dazed countenance. Of course the other boys are often watching and a mid “Ooohs’ and “Ahhhs during a spectacular wreck. This guy did something we never saw and tried to get off mid slide and bit it hard. A “tong” could be herd as part of him hard hit one of the steel poles holding up the mid portion of the slide.

  I would get all the kids into it. My gyrations, animated activity, and excitement would be contagious and boys would be scrambling for wax paper cups in the two garbage cans next to the picnic tables, feet up in the air, trash flying, and the scramble to create the fast ride. We got in trouble when the recreation staff showed at summer. They were adults and wore shirts with Staff on one side and Takoma Park Recreation. At first they were amazed by the local kids of the park who gathered together to achieve a common goal. We worked the slide to perfection. Kids were flying in the air everywhere and a line had formed at the base of the slide. All the kids wanted to try it, and they did. Zoom, Zoom kids are coming down so fast the other kids at the bottom who had done a but-slide in the sand or mini wrecked could not get out of the way fast enough. What we had never for seen had happened, a pile up of small legs and arms with little wails and umps for a pile up, is a pile up, and in the 70’s we appreciated that and took full advantage. Kids were stacked and twisted into a laughing from the top, screaming from the bottom pile which had to be carefully undone for these stacks could get 10 to as much as 20 little kid bodies intertwined in a mass of elbows, knees, and heads popping forth. The staff intervened and began applying rules. A staff member posted himself at the bottom and regulated turns on the slide. Still the slide was fast for some too fast. It was a little fellow who changed the slide rules. He took off like a pro from the top with a powerful swing, and he positioned his but in the perfect position to maintain the least friction as he hurtled down the slide, but instead of sliding off the end he put his foot down right on the end of the slide, friction. He went off the end of the slide with a side ways spinning cartwheel which surely was not planned, his body stiff in its flight awaiting the dreaded landing. Every kid knows what this is like. The stunning impact that knocks your wind out, leaves the whole world shaking, and is often accompanied by big head to foot howl, ending up in an ear curdling scream. Yeah that’s it. This little kid hit hard, and we knew he was hurt. His spinning sideways allowed his head to find its way to down to smack his head on the border of the sandbox with was a sturdy 2” x 12” board of hard wood. The thud could be herd from fifty feet away the scream following it could be herd first stunning the park with sound then echoing around the trees sending every available adult into motion full speed to the emendator of such a horrid noise. It is the sound every parent knows, the sound of a child being seriously injured. They didn’t let us speed the slide up anymore, at least when they could. Philip and I would still speed it up at night or on dry week ends, but for the park staff the ride was over. Still the idea spread. Kids in different parks were getting the idea from the kids shipped in to Jacquie Park from surrounding areas. Stories of slide accidents increased kids were breaking arms and flying off the spin around ones halfway up, except the “Rocket Ship” slide on University Blvd., but that’s for another story.