Recently, my 20th Class Reunion came and went. I wasn't able to make it to California, but my thoughts were with the merry reunion attendees as they drank, laughed and caught-up on old times of remember when? Twenty years-ago...those old times. Photos abound on Facebook and other social websites, as many who attended returned to search their long-lost archive of belongings to see what could be found, or better yet, dug up.
We all looked so young and beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I would swear we could've been inserted into some new and improved MTV reality spin-off sure to trump that Laguna Beach show. Wait, what?
How lame are they, the producers of this "reality" show. Lame they would take the idea of kids living in an amazingly plush environment where beautiful cast members abound, all classmates or mere acquaintances. But beautiful, none-the-less. Even the friends of friends were "easy on the eyes," as my late grandfather once said. And, they weren't even in the "inner" circle of cast members. Then there's the drug use, anorexia or bulimia, drinking, sex, angst, sex, drinking and all of the drama associated with the latter. Let's face it. The show could write itself.
Still to this day, I don't know what the characters names were. I never found the time to watch it...or wanted to watch it, really. Something tells me the show was simply a way to create another starlet in the making, poised to make her debut on a network show. I believe they got their wish on that one, too. Again, I can't recall what her name was. And, she wasn't even from Laguna. How fake can you be?
Monday, August 27, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
The Hill
To a kid with a bike, and sometimes a soccer ball, a hill can provide hours of entertainment, and even a sort of free baby-sitter made with no prior arrangements. A hill is a way for a kid to burn an abundance of pent-up energy.
The hill our house sat on was this; a long, flat face fuming of tar and creosote, paved smooth by big machines pouring steaming black asphalt, and hot to the touch on a sunny day. But to anyone else, the hill was like any ordinary hill.
To a kid pushing his brother's heavy BMX bike, the hill was an obstacle to conquer capable of taking his breath away--the very thing standing in my way of pedaling freedom.
The hill and my brother's old BMX bike taught me how to ride. I was told I wouldn't be given a bike of my own until I learned how. My dad seemed to be gone all the time. My sister was busy with her friends and playing her guitar and singing in the choir. So who would teach me? My motivation was trying to teach myself.
On this hill this particular day, I pushed his heavy metal-framed bike to the hill's crest, or the point of no-return. Handlebars I could reach, just barely, but the seat required tilting the frame toward me to just enough of a degree to throw my leg over the bike's head tube. Pedaling was out of the question altogether. I relied on gravity to do the rest.
After pointing the handlebars down hill, like a sailor might turn his sailboat into the wind, I pushed off. My free foot still firmly planted to steady ground parted freely, like a jettisoned rocket propelled into space by giant secondary thrusters. Bits of blacktop crunched from beneath. I was off. With feet dangling below.
The hill welcomed my challenge; a quest to ride a bike for the first time and assisted by no one but gravity. The old bike had brakes, but only worked when the rider pedaled backwards. That's if reaching the pedals were possible. Still, I didn't think twice...I was gonna do this.
With the amount of speed gravity helped me to gather, the hill pushed faster...and faster as if to make me admit defeat. Staying balanced came easily. I held the bars connected to a quickly spinning front wheel steady; not jittery, nor shaky--not fighting the hill to keep my balance.
I was winning...my small, nervous hands clenched tightly to cold, hard plastic handles scraped and torn at the ends from being dropped to the hard, course ground.
The freewheel clicked faster on the hill's face. Worn knobby wheels "wrrrrr"-ed below. The brick path to my house quickly passed. I had to decide what to do. Turning was too late. The next place to go was the garage. I hoped the hill would release its grip.
My brother, busy working on something at the tool bench, heard knobby wheels and a rapidly clicking freewheel roll-on by behind him, resulting in a loud crashing thud of bike and a young boy's body. He witnessed the image of his bike and his brother colliding with a solid cinder block wall at the garage's end.
Fearing I was hurt, Erik came quickly over and picked me up from the garage floor. While holding me up, he quickly checked for injuries. His voice was a mix of shock and amazement with questions in the form of statements using my nickname, "How did you get on the bike? Motty, are you all right? I can't believe you did that, are you okay?" I replied I was as best as I could. An image of the quickly approaching wall was still fresh in my mind.
Before I knew it, my bike riding lesson was over. The maiden voyage wasn't much of a voyage, if you consider having to stop means colliding with a cinder block wall.
My brother Erik must have said something to my parents. The following Christmas, Santa placed a new BMX bike under the tree when word got out that somehow or another, I had learned to "ride" a bike...if that's what you call it.
The hill our house sat on was this; a long, flat face fuming of tar and creosote, paved smooth by big machines pouring steaming black asphalt, and hot to the touch on a sunny day. But to anyone else, the hill was like any ordinary hill.
To a kid pushing his brother's heavy BMX bike, the hill was an obstacle to conquer capable of taking his breath away--the very thing standing in my way of pedaling freedom.
The hill and my brother's old BMX bike taught me how to ride. I was told I wouldn't be given a bike of my own until I learned how. My dad seemed to be gone all the time. My sister was busy with her friends and playing her guitar and singing in the choir. So who would teach me? My motivation was trying to teach myself.
On this hill this particular day, I pushed his heavy metal-framed bike to the hill's crest, or the point of no-return. Handlebars I could reach, just barely, but the seat required tilting the frame toward me to just enough of a degree to throw my leg over the bike's head tube. Pedaling was out of the question altogether. I relied on gravity to do the rest.
After pointing the handlebars down hill, like a sailor might turn his sailboat into the wind, I pushed off. My free foot still firmly planted to steady ground parted freely, like a jettisoned rocket propelled into space by giant secondary thrusters. Bits of blacktop crunched from beneath. I was off. With feet dangling below.
The hill welcomed my challenge; a quest to ride a bike for the first time and assisted by no one but gravity. The old bike had brakes, but only worked when the rider pedaled backwards. That's if reaching the pedals were possible. Still, I didn't think twice...I was gonna do this.
With the amount of speed gravity helped me to gather, the hill pushed faster...and faster as if to make me admit defeat. Staying balanced came easily. I held the bars connected to a quickly spinning front wheel steady; not jittery, nor shaky--not fighting the hill to keep my balance.
I was winning...my small, nervous hands clenched tightly to cold, hard plastic handles scraped and torn at the ends from being dropped to the hard, course ground.
The freewheel clicked faster on the hill's face. Worn knobby wheels "wrrrrr"-ed below. The brick path to my house quickly passed. I had to decide what to do. Turning was too late. The next place to go was the garage. I hoped the hill would release its grip.
My brother, busy working on something at the tool bench, heard knobby wheels and a rapidly clicking freewheel roll-on by behind him, resulting in a loud crashing thud of bike and a young boy's body. He witnessed the image of his bike and his brother colliding with a solid cinder block wall at the garage's end.
Fearing I was hurt, Erik came quickly over and picked me up from the garage floor. While holding me up, he quickly checked for injuries. His voice was a mix of shock and amazement with questions in the form of statements using my nickname, "How did you get on the bike? Motty, are you all right? I can't believe you did that, are you okay?" I replied I was as best as I could. An image of the quickly approaching wall was still fresh in my mind.
Before I knew it, my bike riding lesson was over. The maiden voyage wasn't much of a voyage, if you consider having to stop means colliding with a cinder block wall.
My brother Erik must have said something to my parents. The following Christmas, Santa placed a new BMX bike under the tree when word got out that somehow or another, I had learned to "ride" a bike...if that's what you call it.
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