Same As It Ever Was
The official groundhog up in Pennsylvania saw his shadow this morning, a sure indicator of six more weeks of winter. This is bad news if you live somewhere in Kentucky, buried under an epic ice storm at the moment, with another Arctic cold front or three on the way. Down here on the coastal plain, six more weeks of winter isn’t necessarily bad news at all. Winter time is when we get some of our best weather of the year. We are in a drought condition presently, but aside from that there have been several glorious days recently – clear blue skies, low humidity, mild temperatures. We’ll take six more weeks of that. Hell, we’ll take six more months of that.
By the way, there are differences of opinion as to the wisdom of making weather predictions based on the whims of sleepy, medium-sized burrowing rodent. Given the current state of the science of weather prediction, it seems to me to be as good a method as any other.
Several years back a movie was made called Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray (Murray was previously in a much better movie featuring groundhogs, and golfers; but that is veering off of the subject.) The basic premise of Groundhog Day was that a local weatherman made a prediction of a short winter based on the doings of the famous Punxsutawney groundhog, which ended up being entirely erroneous. Subsequently snowed in by an unexpected blizzard, the protagonist (Murray) is forced to relive the same day, over and over again.
At the time, some of us may have wondered, where is the story? Platitudinous pronouncements that “every day is a new day” aside, a more common experience seems to be that most days are actually pretty much the same, with slight variations. Or, as the newscaster on the old Hee Haw show used to say, “The news today is the same as yesterday. It just happened to different people.”
A recent skirmish at work reminded me of that adage, which in turn reminded me of something else, from way back; a story which should have given me an early idea of what a lot of my days later on were going to be like.
Did you ever put a lot of faith in someone who seemed like they were worthy of it, and for the most part, after you decided to trust them, they pretty much came through for you? And you thought, man, what a good deal. This person is all right. Then a situation arose, one of those pivotal moments in life when all the pressure is on, and this person who had to this point been so strong and true, well. . . they wavered on you? Or maybe caved in completely, leaving you entirely, unexpectedly on your own? Ever have that happen to you?
Way back, I was matriculating in elementary school, third grade year, and me and my running buddy at the time, dude named Rollo, we pretty much had it made. Rollo and I, we were handsome, and athletic, and funny and suave (relatively speaking), and while we had rivals for popularity, I think it is fair to say we held most of the third grade in our sway, and probably most of the little underclassmen under that, too. We were the kings of 1st period recess – we chose the teams for dodge ball and/or kickball, kids came to us for advice, and some of the little girls would even run up and surreptitiously pull up their skirt and give us a glimpse of their slip and/or panties from time to time. Junior exhibitionists. Or, they’d try to plant a kiss on us, and give us “cooties.”
Life was good. But, this was a K-5 school, so Rollo and I had 4th and especially 5th graders ahead of us, and some of them liked to knock us down a little, when we got too cocky. For the most part this rapprochement was basically good-natured, and we rolled with it. But there was this one 5th grader, a big dorky kid named Larry, and he zeroed in on Rollie and I out of meanness, I think; and, I always suspected, there was some jealousy in there, too. He was sort of like the Ben Affleck character in the movie Dazed And Confused, the upper classman who takes his role of hazing the “fish” a leeetle too seriously. This Larry dude went out of his way to push us in the hallway, or call us stupid names in the lunch room. I think either one of us, Rollo or I, could have kicked his ass, collectively we could’ve for sure; but, just like in geopolitics, one has to think ahead about the ramifications from such acts. Okay, we whoop this guy’s ass, then who amongst his friends was going to come after us in retaliation? We didn’t really know for sure, and this uncertainty kept my buddy and I from striking back. We pretty much just took this guy Larry’s crap, and restrained ourselves from responding in kind.
Then another 5th grader, a guy named Steve, took a liking to us, at least where Larry was concerned. Steve was a big guy, blond, pretty well-liked. Not very smart, but an awesome dodge ball and kickball player (I saw him kick a slow baby bouncer clear to the portable buildings by the library once.) Steve told Larry if he ever jacked around with us again, he’d have to answer to him (Steve.) I guess Larry believed him, because he left us alone after that.
So, life went on in a pleasant fashion. One day, Rollie and I and two or three other classmates decided to have a pissing contest. Literally. We were in the boy’s bathroom, all ceramic block and tile, and there was this open area in there about 15 feet wide, with four or five full-length urinals on one wall and, directly opposite, a wall of windows to the outside with about a four foot high, 20-inch ledge underneath. We scrambled up onto this ledge and stood facing the urinals, our things out, in our hands, ready. The goal was to piss all the way across the room, fifteen feet, into the urinals on the opposite wall.
I don’t recall if anyone actually made it. Fifteen feet is a good ways, even if one has just built up a lot of back pressure sitting through boring old Ms. Montgomery’s Social Studies class. What I do recall is just after we had let it rip, and were more-or-less past the point of no return, Larry and three or four of his friends walked around the corner in that bathroom and directly into the line of fire. We ended up whizzing all over them. Not just in one spot, either. Have you ever started laughing uncontrollably in the middle of a big piss? Messes up the aim, pretty much. Anyway, once those guys recovered they were pretty, well, pissed off. As soon as I could get my joint back in my dungarees, I was out the window and running to the playground, Rollo and a couple of others right behind me, with the pissed upon in close pursuit.
I spotted Steve across the way, on the blacktop, engaged in a tetherball contest of some sort; so I tore out for him. I figured if we could make it into his general vicinity, Larry and his pals, now hot after us, would back off. By the time we got out to Steve, the angry 5th graders were right behind us. I yelled out, “Hey, Steve” just as Larry threw his forearm around my neck from behind and dragged me down, and he and another kid started kicking my ass. I had time to see two other guys jump Rollo and start doing him the same. I got a few good shots in on Larry – I remember elbowing him hard in the nuts one time – but he outweighed me by twenty pounds at least, as did the other kid, and in a wrestling match I was doomed. Rollo didn’t fare any better – the whole left front of his white button-down shirt was gone, and he had huge holes in the knees of his jeans. But, we both wondered, where the hell was Steve? Our protector?
Turns out, when Steve saw how many guys were coming after us, and how mad they were, he just sort of eased on out of there, over to the other side of the blacktop, where there was a game of H-O-R-S-E going on. Fucker.
*****
By the way, there are differences of opinion as to the wisdom of making weather predictions based on the whims of sleepy, medium-sized burrowing rodent. Given the current state of the science of weather prediction, it seems to me to be as good a method as any other.
Several years back a movie was made called Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray (Murray was previously in a much better movie featuring groundhogs, and golfers; but that is veering off of the subject.) The basic premise of Groundhog Day was that a local weatherman made a prediction of a short winter based on the doings of the famous Punxsutawney groundhog, which ended up being entirely erroneous. Subsequently snowed in by an unexpected blizzard, the protagonist (Murray) is forced to relive the same day, over and over again.
At the time, some of us may have wondered, where is the story? Platitudinous pronouncements that “every day is a new day” aside, a more common experience seems to be that most days are actually pretty much the same, with slight variations. Or, as the newscaster on the old Hee Haw show used to say, “The news today is the same as yesterday. It just happened to different people.”
A recent skirmish at work reminded me of that adage, which in turn reminded me of something else, from way back; a story which should have given me an early idea of what a lot of my days later on were going to be like.
Did you ever put a lot of faith in someone who seemed like they were worthy of it, and for the most part, after you decided to trust them, they pretty much came through for you? And you thought, man, what a good deal. This person is all right. Then a situation arose, one of those pivotal moments in life when all the pressure is on, and this person who had to this point been so strong and true, well. . . they wavered on you? Or maybe caved in completely, leaving you entirely, unexpectedly on your own? Ever have that happen to you?
Way back, I was matriculating in elementary school, third grade year, and me and my running buddy at the time, dude named Rollo, we pretty much had it made. Rollo and I, we were handsome, and athletic, and funny and suave (relatively speaking), and while we had rivals for popularity, I think it is fair to say we held most of the third grade in our sway, and probably most of the little underclassmen under that, too. We were the kings of 1st period recess – we chose the teams for dodge ball and/or kickball, kids came to us for advice, and some of the little girls would even run up and surreptitiously pull up their skirt and give us a glimpse of their slip and/or panties from time to time. Junior exhibitionists. Or, they’d try to plant a kiss on us, and give us “cooties.”
Life was good. But, this was a K-5 school, so Rollo and I had 4th and especially 5th graders ahead of us, and some of them liked to knock us down a little, when we got too cocky. For the most part this rapprochement was basically good-natured, and we rolled with it. But there was this one 5th grader, a big dorky kid named Larry, and he zeroed in on Rollie and I out of meanness, I think; and, I always suspected, there was some jealousy in there, too. He was sort of like the Ben Affleck character in the movie Dazed And Confused, the upper classman who takes his role of hazing the “fish” a leeetle too seriously. This Larry dude went out of his way to push us in the hallway, or call us stupid names in the lunch room. I think either one of us, Rollo or I, could have kicked his ass, collectively we could’ve for sure; but, just like in geopolitics, one has to think ahead about the ramifications from such acts. Okay, we whoop this guy’s ass, then who amongst his friends was going to come after us in retaliation? We didn’t really know for sure, and this uncertainty kept my buddy and I from striking back. We pretty much just took this guy Larry’s crap, and restrained ourselves from responding in kind.
Then another 5th grader, a guy named Steve, took a liking to us, at least where Larry was concerned. Steve was a big guy, blond, pretty well-liked. Not very smart, but an awesome dodge ball and kickball player (I saw him kick a slow baby bouncer clear to the portable buildings by the library once.) Steve told Larry if he ever jacked around with us again, he’d have to answer to him (Steve.) I guess Larry believed him, because he left us alone after that.
So, life went on in a pleasant fashion. One day, Rollie and I and two or three other classmates decided to have a pissing contest. Literally. We were in the boy’s bathroom, all ceramic block and tile, and there was this open area in there about 15 feet wide, with four or five full-length urinals on one wall and, directly opposite, a wall of windows to the outside with about a four foot high, 20-inch ledge underneath. We scrambled up onto this ledge and stood facing the urinals, our things out, in our hands, ready. The goal was to piss all the way across the room, fifteen feet, into the urinals on the opposite wall.
I don’t recall if anyone actually made it. Fifteen feet is a good ways, even if one has just built up a lot of back pressure sitting through boring old Ms. Montgomery’s Social Studies class. What I do recall is just after we had let it rip, and were more-or-less past the point of no return, Larry and three or four of his friends walked around the corner in that bathroom and directly into the line of fire. We ended up whizzing all over them. Not just in one spot, either. Have you ever started laughing uncontrollably in the middle of a big piss? Messes up the aim, pretty much. Anyway, once those guys recovered they were pretty, well, pissed off. As soon as I could get my joint back in my dungarees, I was out the window and running to the playground, Rollo and a couple of others right behind me, with the pissed upon in close pursuit.
I spotted Steve across the way, on the blacktop, engaged in a tetherball contest of some sort; so I tore out for him. I figured if we could make it into his general vicinity, Larry and his pals, now hot after us, would back off. By the time we got out to Steve, the angry 5th graders were right behind us. I yelled out, “Hey, Steve” just as Larry threw his forearm around my neck from behind and dragged me down, and he and another kid started kicking my ass. I had time to see two other guys jump Rollo and start doing him the same. I got a few good shots in on Larry – I remember elbowing him hard in the nuts one time – but he outweighed me by twenty pounds at least, as did the other kid, and in a wrestling match I was doomed. Rollo didn’t fare any better – the whole left front of his white button-down shirt was gone, and he had huge holes in the knees of his jeans. But, we both wondered, where the hell was Steve? Our protector?
Turns out, when Steve saw how many guys were coming after us, and how mad they were, he just sort of eased on out of there, over to the other side of the blacktop, where there was a game of H-O-R-S-E going on. Fucker.
*****
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