He Can't Drive 55
The closest town from the Park I lived at was a little more then just a mile away. In order to get there you would leave my park, drive a quarter mile down to the railroad tracks, turn left and go about a mile or so. Right before you got there you would drive over a little bridge .
The local town cop was a whale of a man named Leonard. Nice guy overall I guess, but pretty useless as a police officer. Leonard would rarely do anything other than just sit there and ignore speeders
One early evening in the summer of 1984 while it was still a little light out, Mark and went into Annawan to get some pop or something. Before Mark had left the small town to go back to the park he was already doing more then 60 miles an hour. As we got to the small bridge he was pushing 70. As we went over the small hump of the bridge I saw the Annawan police car sitting on the other side.
Mark apparently did not see it.
As we passed him I saw to my shock the red lights on top come on and he began to chase us. Mark still drove unaware of the cop chasing us.
"Hey, I said calmly, "Let's see how fast you go can go in this thing.'
"Ok", Mark replied and pressed his foot down on the gas peddle. The truck sped up. I look behind and saw the cop car closing in on us.
As we neared the railroad tracks I told Mark, "Hey don't slow down. Show me how fast you can go make this turn, and go over the railroad tracks!"
Mark didn't say a word. He smiled as he made a sharp turn and flew over the railroad tracks. For a brief moment the truck was airborne. Still doing somewhere around 70 we sped up the quarter mile road towards my park. Just as Mark was turning towards the entrance I saw the cop car come over the tracks.
As we drove (More slowly now) past the gate I told Mark, "Don't stop, drive into the back of the Park."
Mark was now looking at me a little funny, but did as I asked. I had him pull over in a little spot off the main road.
"What was all that about?", Mark asked.
I got out and walked towards the main road. "There was a cop chasing you since we left town."
Mark seemed very ungrateful that I had just gotten him out of his very first speeding ticket. He was still kinda mad as we saw Leonard slowly driving though the park. Leonard asked me if I had seen a brown truck drive by. I told him he just missed it. It looked like it was heading out of the Park.
"Screw it", the fat cop said and slowly drove away.
Mark never did say thank you.

"Mission Control,.....We Have Lift Off!"
Early in the summer of 1982 I went camping in the back of the park with Mark and some of my other friends. We were camping on a point in the farthest reaches of the camping area over looking the lake. We had a nice tent set up and a huge roaring fire. (Building fires was part art and part science for me.) Down the hill from us was one of the boat ramps with our green "battleship" canoe parked there in case e wanted to raid the other park on the other side of the lake.
Camping across the road from us maybe 50 yards or so away, was a very nice elderly couple named the Bensons. I like the Bensons very much. One of the primary reasons I liked this great couple was that they were going to set me up with there lovely and delectable granddaughter Lisa. It had taken a year of acting like I was a perfect gentleman in front of these people to convince them I had no bad motives towards her Innocence. (In other words I lied my butt off. And she was as Innocent as I was.) So everytime I saw them I would greet them and say hello, ask if there was anything they needed, and try to make them feel as if they were the center of the world. Mark and other friends remarked on how I was overly friendly to all the older people camping out at my Park. My answer was, "They all have granddaughters somewhere."
My Dad told me I was being a Wolf in Sharks clothing. I never did figure out if that was a compliment or not. But my Dad did have a very active fear that I was going to get every girl in that Park pregnant.
Anyway so there we were camping across the road from the Bensons on a lovely warm summer afternoon. The Bensons had a huge Camper (Almost a mobile home really.) and were sitting outside the front in lawn chairs. In front of them was a huge Oak tree, giving them shade. On their faces were nice smiles of constant contentment that I must confess made me wonder if they weren't smoking a great deal of pot inside that huge camper of theirs.
Mark and I were having the same conversation that we had everyday, 5 times a day. At least.
"So what do you want to do today?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do today?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do today?"
The only thing that made that days conversation different was Mark held a can of OFF in his hand. As he was talking he was spraying himself in a vain attempt to keep the insects from eating him alive. After he was done he handed me the can. I looked at it and laughed a little. (I had long ago stopped needing any insect repellent. I had found I could walk with friends into the worst areas of our Park and not get stung once while they would be virtually eaten alive.) So not needing the can of bug spray I did what seemed very reasonable to me at the time.
I tossed the nearly full can of Bug Repellent into our roaring fire.
It landed right side up wedged in between two logs. Mark saw what I did and got up and walked very rapidly up the hill. He got to what he thought was a reasonable distance and sat down. I followed him.
"What are you doing? All that's going to happen is that the top will come off and some flame will shoot out."
" Then you can go down there. I'm staying here." Mark folded his arms across his chest in the classic, "I ain't moving pose."
I walked back towards the fire. Sure enough just as I said it would the top popped off the can and a stream of fire shot up into the air. Soon the flame died down. I turned to Mark who was still sitting down on top of the hill.
"See I told you that's all that would happen", I said smugly.
" I'm not moving."
"Chicken," I replied.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion. In front of my eyes the off can lifted off like the Space Shuttle, leaving a trail of white smoke behind it. It lifted straight into the air, but soon began to curve towards the East.
Right towards the Bensons. Who never once stopped smiling as certain doom hurdled their way. I remember thinking very clearly that if one or both of them were killed that I'd never get to go out with Lisa.
Thankfully the can hit a nice thick branch of the oak tree, sending pieces of bark flying everywhere. The crumpled can fell into the road. The Bensons never once stopped smiling. But it was another year before they ever brought Lisa back too my Park.
Mark and I both said at the same moment, "Whoa! That was sooooo Cool!" (It was now that the danger to the nice old people who wanted to set me up with their granddaughter had passed.) We tried in vain to duplicate it with little success.
Which is probably for the better. I'm sure if I had learned to harness the power of Off Can Rockets more then a few would have been aimed at my sisters window.

I Feel Left Behind.

Sigh.
During the next two weeks my oldest son has two weeks of constant testing courtesy of President Bush's No Student Left Behind policy. I assumed during this time of testing, (Since apparently the test last all day) there would be little or no homework for Ethan.
I was wrong. He spent some time with his Mom yesterday. When he came home around 5, I asked if he had any homework. He said Yeah and I told I'd help him if he needed it after I finished cooking dinner. So around 5.45 or 6, I sat down and looked at his "little" homework.
He had three separate math pages totaling 65 questions. He also had two practice test to help him with today's test. This totaled over 40 questions I believe. He also had some weird English -Math hybrid homework that he need to do.
I thought to myself, "Ok no problem . It's 5th grade problems. I did that like 28 years ago." We started doing the homework with the Simpson's playing in the background. I soon turned it off. These were fairly hard problems. Ethan looked more and more frustrated. A few times he looked like he was about to cry. A few times I wanted to cry.
It was when Ethan got to this question that his head exploded.

"Suppose that you are planning to paint the walls of a
living room with two coats of paints. A gallon of
paint covers about 400 to 425 square feet with one
coat. The room measures 16 feet by 24 feet, and the
ceiling is about 7 1/2 feet high. There are 4 windows
in the room each measuring 33 inches by 48 inches. The
room also has two door ways that each measure 36
inches by 81 inches. How many gallons of paint should
you buy? Describe how you figured the amount."
This was like question 25 on the practice tests. Another 15 like this lay ahead. And after that 65 more on his "regular" homework! We finished up around 9.15. Ethan looked very tired. I told him, "Only two more weeks of this to go."
Much to my surprise he did not run off and join the circus last night while I slept.


And yes ,......I got the answer to that question wrong.

My Blog has gotten to a sad point. (yes even sadder than posting my son's homework assignments so I have something to do.) I've just gone though the blog making sure what I'm about to post hasn't already been posted. I am beginning to feel like an old man who's told all his stories a million times to the same person. (My wife at least will avoid hearing the same stories over and over even more. She'll hear different less well thought out stories over and over) Anyway from what I've seen I haven't posted this story before. If I have please be kind and just keep nodding as you read it, like it's all new to you.
Damn Dirty Apes.
We lived in Kewanee until just after the summer of 1976. Our landlord was a crotchy old man who would walk into our backyard without once bothering to look to see if our dog DUKE was tied up. One day his luck ran out and Duke came charging at him. In all fairness to Duke all he did was rip the vile old man's pant leg, but within a week we were asked to leave.
Instead of staying in Kewanee, Dad moved us again to another town. This time it was a place called Annawan. Annawan was only 10 miles from Kewanee, but as far as I was concerned it was a lightyear away. I was now separated from my best friends Mark and George, and the lovely vision that was Kathy Lasky. To make things even worse our new home didn't allow pets.
So Duke never came with us. I spent the last night in Kewanee sleeping in the basement with my beloved Dog. The next day Dad gave him away. I've never forgiven him for that.
Anyway in Annawan I once again made some good friends. (To be quite honest Kewanee and Annawan are the only two places I've made lifelong friends. Atkinson could have been a place where I made lifelong friends but they all had the bad manners to get themselves killed. More on that at a later more somber date.)
John was working at a SuperX, a drug store in Kewanee. He continued to work there even after we moved to Annawan. One day in early summer SuperX had some weird celebration. John was asked, and gladly accepted, to stand outside the store in a full body gorilla suit (with a little 1920's college hat and a little flag like you would wave at a football game that said SuperX) and wave people into the store. He did this on a Friday from 3 in the afternoon, till the store closed that night.
Since he had to work the next day and he was going to wear it all the next day he thought he'd simply wear it home. About half way between Kewanee and Annawan as county cop passed him. He saw a the suit and promptly pulled him over. After making sure he wasn't drunk the officer had a good laugh with John and let him on his way. John said he wished he was able to have a photo of the cop's face when he saw him.
About 5 minutes later John pulled into the back of our house in Annawan. As he walked towards the front door he saw Rose making out with one of her many victims. John crept up towards them (well as much as a guy in a full body monkey suit can creep along.) trying not to make any noise. Then he jumped out in front of them screaming. I was inside the house in the kitchen reading a comic book when I heard the screaming. My first thought was,"They all scream eventually".
Outside Rose's would be boyfriend took off running. Rose just sat there screaming until John took off his mask. Then she started screaming foul words at him. After a couple of moments she calmed down and with a sly look on her face said, "Lets go in and scare Tom." John readily agreed with her.
Maybe it was the fact that John tripped as he came in the door behind Rose but I wasn't overly scared. I looked up from my comic book and said, "Your boyfriends hairier then the last one."
"Shut up", Rose said. She thought for a moment then said, "Where's Mom and Dad?"
"Dad's in the bathroom finishing up a shower and Mom's in bed watching television."
Rose got another sly look on her face and said, "Let's scare Dad when he comes out of the bathroom." John nodded.
"I don't think that's really a good idea", I said. "Do you really want to be scaring Dad?"
John looked my way. (Still wearing a gorilla mask) and said, "It'll be fun."
John stood in front of the bathroom door and waited. Finally getting anxious he knocked on the door.
"One second", came Dad's gruff voice.
John knocked again.
"I said one god damned second!"
John knocked even louder a third time.
Dad threw the door open. He had his bathrobe one. " I Said One God........." Dad saw the gorilla suit in the dimly lit hallway. John started to jump up and down and making what he thought sounded like monkey noises. Dad's eyes grew a little wider and he jumped back into the bathroom. Rose ran screaming into her room.
As he jumped back he threw a perfect punch right at John's face. John made a sound not unlike a balloon with all it's air leaking out and collapsed to the floor. Dad shut the bathroom door hard.
A few seconds later Dad opened the door again, looking much more composed. John was still laying where he fell. Dad looked down at John and said, "Why did you do that?"
John mumbled something to the extent that he thought it would be funny.
"And was it?", Dad asked.
"No sir."
"I hope you learned your lesson. Now get up. Let's go scare your Mom."
Dad spent that night sleeping on the couch.

This has nothing to do with anything, but it's Ethan's reasons to save money.

Why Is It Important To Save Money
There are many reasons and ways to save money. If there is something you really want or need you can save your money to get it.
If you have a savings bond you can save it and let it increase in value until you need to use it. You can use it on yourself or for a friend, or friends, or your family, or even your class. You can even use a savings bond to buy something for a pet you love.
If you save your money you can use to help somebody who lost their house to a fire. You can also use to help someone who has a disease they could die from. If you really love someone you can buy them something like a wedding ring with money you save. Saving your money and buying things for troops fighting a war is a good reason to save money.
If you save your money you can use it to help people who are homeless . You can use it to plant seeds to help feed them . You can also use it to stop people from destroying trees, and rainforest. You can your money you save to charities to help people who don't have anything.
If you've saved money you can buy loved ones a really nice birthday gift with it. It doesn't matter if it's a person or a pet.
If you owe someone money you can save your money and pay it back to them. Then you can keep saving it and have it in case you have an emergency.
Saving money is also good for paying taxes. If you plan to invent something it is good to save your money so you can buy the things you'll need to use.
If you need medicine or food you can save your money so you can always be sure to have it. You can also save your money in case you lose your job and that way you can still buy medicine and food.

Court Date
I just wanted to say my wife and I had a hearing about who got temporary custody of the kids and house during the divorce. The Judge granted it too me. I'd say more but to do so might be inappropriate at this time. The next court date could be as much as 6 months from now, so I'm good until then.
Hopefully this will all be settled long before then. Anyway been busy with all this to blog anything good. I'm sure Mark will find another inane moment of my life which I will then have to clarify again for you.

Dinner Without Tom Redux
It was sad to see what Mark did with a perfectly funny episode in my life yesterday.
Mark was known as The Boy Who Liked To Eat because he did. Once in the winter of 1982 my Mom baked three pecan pies. My Family found this odd because only Mom liked pecan pies, so we saw little reason for one pecan pie let alone three of the damn things. In the next few days Mom was able to eat about half a pie herself.
So when Mark came over that weekend he saw two and a half pies sitting there begging to be eaten. He asked my Mom if he could have some.
"Help yourself", my Mom said. Then without realizing what she was saying she added, "Eat all you want."
Within the space of 30 minutes there now sat one lone pie. Mark sat at the kitchen table looking at it with hungry eyes, but restraining himself from eating it because he didn't want to look like a pig. Also my Mom was cooking supper and he wanted to save some room in that bottomless pit he called a stomach.
Mom was delighted to see that so much of her pies had been eaten. She was a little taken aback to find out they had been eaten by one person. It was shortly after that we saw a news report on the new video arcades sweeping America. In the segment they showed someone playing Pacman. Dad muttered," looks like your friend."
"Who? The kid playing?"
"No, the thing eating all those dots."
Three years later in the summer of 1985, life had changed much for me. We no longer lived at the private park, and my job was taking care of my ailing Grandfather. Everynight I had to be home by ten to stay up, or at least sleep in the same room with him. To say it was a draining experience would be a vast understatement. I was only 20, yet everyday I was confronted with the ravages of old age.
It would have been easier if my Dad had shown some gratitude about what I was doing. I had given up most aspects of a social life to stay home and care for his Dad. Yet he seemed to act as if it was required of me. I grew increasingly bitter and began to plot my escape to college.
However one glorious summer day Mom told me Dad was having a cookout just for us. She told me he was doing it to show how much he appreciated me helping out with Grandpa. I was touched and moved (and more then a little suspicious. Dad cooked Steak on the grill once a week at least. He never seemed to need any excuse before.) I could smell the aroma of the steak drifting into the house.
Now on this point Mark was correct. Dad was a magician when it came to cooking steak on the grill. He cooked steak the way Mozart wrote music, or the way Leonardo da Vinci painted masterpieces. I would kill for one of steaks.
I was so excited about the upcoming meal that when Mom pointed out we needed some ketchup and asked if I could run to the store, I gladly obliged her. She gave me the money and I took off running to the local grocery store.
While there, I bumped into a very lovely blonde girl who filled her sweater out in very lovely ways. I stayed and chatted with her for maybe all of 7 minutes. However remembering the Steak that awaited me at home I soon got her phone number and ran off for home.
In just a few more minutes I was bounding my front steps and opening the door. I raced into the dining room.......
Where I saw Mark.
Sitting in my chair. Eating a steak.
My steak.
With my fried mushrooms.
And Diced onions.
And French Fries.
And the little hungry freak smiled at me.
I was so stunned I couldn't speak for a moment. Finally I choked out,"Is there another steak for me."
Dad didn't even look at me. "Nope", he said as he ate another piece of his.
"But you gave mine away", I said in a very weak voice.
"Sorry" said Mom.
"You gave my food away." I wanted to cry.
"He looked hungry", Mom said. Mark smiled as he ate another piece of MY steak.
"HE ALWAYS LOOKS HUNGRY! IT'S MARK!"
"I could cook you a hot dog", my Mom suggested.
I looked at the remains of the steak (really just some bone on Mark's plate by this stage) and decided that going hungry was preferable than having a hot dog.
I was so angry. My parents gave my food to someone else.
Food that was supposed to be cooked to show their gratitude for taking care of my grandfather.
Since then there have been two times that I told Mark I was going to try to hook him up with a girl. Each time I thought of the steak and grabbed the girl for myself.
It still doesn't make up for the Steak.

Just a quick post here.
Sorry about the lack of post lately. Been real hectic here. My Dad suffered a small stroke the day after I made my last post. And I still have the divorce to deal with. Don't worry (as if there's anyone out there to worry.) I'll be back posting on a at least semi-regular basis here again soon.
However it seems my blog has been at least partly highjacked by Mark. Please disregard any of his ramblings as the product of a deranged mind.
Anyway more to come soon.