Sweet Memories

Running through sprinklers, slight chill as the wetness evaporates on a summer day. Slight breeze bringing the smell of Honeysuckle and freshly mown grass.
The noise of birds chirping, bicycles skidding, and lawnmower engines shattering the stillness of youth.
Great concern whether or not Dorothy will walk down the yellow brick road again this year or whether Peter Pan will see fit to make his way back from Neverland.
Ice cream falling from it’s sugary perch and hitting the hot pavement, chocolate chips left in the sun to melt into one big chip and the memory of wanting those and not having them but only visiting the bag every day and considering what’s been lost.
Carefully jumping over the ditch and sliding between the 2 strands of barbed wire while feeling the glorious collection of marbles in my pocket while heading for that place deep in the woods where the kids line up to climb the fallen tree and edge out toward the end where getting down is just a courageous jump and a rope grab away.
In my dad’s hometown we played red rover with a slight twist. Kids, strangers; from all over town would meet at this open lot, which had a large pit in the middle of it. The kids would line the edge of the pit with handfuls of stones and call a kid from the other side to risk running through the pit and a hail of rocks.
To play was risky and sometimes painful but to not play was worse than death.
The wonderful sound of cleats hitting the sidewalk as I ran down the street toward the ball field in my black and orange Baltimore Orioles uniform. Pants that stopped just below the knee guarding against the orange striped black socks from sneaking any further up the leg.
The hot dugout full of kids screaming and laughing and cursing like their hero’s did on TV, sweaty and filthy from the red dirt that sticks to every part of a kid.
The night air so thick you can feel it going down your throat as you breath while waiting and hiding in the access hallway underneath the apartments in the huge buildings.
Waiting for the beer truck to make its way to your street and then sneaking like a trained commando squad between parked cars and around bushes quietly waiting for the beer man to go inside to make an exchange. Then the signal is given and there’s no turning back, the squad rushes the truck pulling cases of beer from the racks and heading back to the rendezvous point.
These beers will be consumed in the woods in the dark and they will be good cold or not they are the prize, the booty, the loot. This is one of the rewards for being a kid.
The proud feeling of walking down the street with that electric guitar in hand past other kids that know you. It’s Friday night and there is a teen club dance which my band formerly known as Sacrifice is headlining tonight. Playing in front of your peers, some who think you’re terrific and others who thought you were a creep until this very moment. Throwing the strap over your head, plugging in and stepping up to the mic, “testing one, two, three, testing”. The young babes looking at you with adolescent desire while the boys wished they were you right then. Tonight your feature song will be “House of the Rising Sun” and you will nail it.
You will play and sing your heart out and you’ll be paid $5.00, a free membership at the teen club and free soda during your breaks. But it’s worth it, every minute of it!
At that time of your life you are unstoppable, unbeatable and indestructible.
Boarding a bus in Hahn Germany and heading for Bombholder to yet another dance. You’re alone but it’s something to do and you cannot stay home. You arrive at the dancehall and there are girls everywhere some you know and others you do not. It doesn’t matter; you dance with anyone that will dance. Afterward you get back on the bus, it’s dark and you take a seat in the back. Someone heads toward you in the back of the bus and it’s a girl, an older girl. You’ve seen her around usually with some other guy. Until now you really had no opinion but now she’s sitting down next to you in the back of that bus. Why you wonder, there’s plenty of seats open but she sits down in yours.
She starts talking to you which on one hand isn’t that unusual because although not the most popular kid in school you do run with a known crowd that isn’t despised. But still you generally do not consider yourself that lucky. Her name is Karen she’s quite pretty as tall as you with short blond hair and very slender. She has no hips to speak of but points up high all her own.
By the time the bus arrives back at Hahn you are making out like wild monkeys and you don’t really even know how it started or who started it. Her face is pretty smooth for a 14-year-old girl but you do feel a few pimples and for some reason you’re not sure how you feel about it. Why this gets your attention you don’t know and why it bothers you is to figure out another day because right now you’re kissing your new girlfriend. A girlfriend you didn’t have or even knew about just 2 hours ago. Life is good when you’re fourteen.
Through this new girlfriend I made a new friend, which will become my best friend until he leaves a year later.
He really likes Karen they are best buds even though he would like it to be more. Karen however likes me and so I become fast friends with him. The three of us make quite a team, always together through thick and thin. Getting drunk together, having sex together (in the same room) when he can find a partner.
We were always getting drunk in Mike’s house. He lived with his dad who was a bartender at the stag bar and was always gone so we had the house to ourselves and no supervision.
We partied on my 15th. Birthday, Mike and Karen got me a bottle of Cherry Vodka and a 45 by Alive and Kicking with their hit song “Tighter Tighter”. After a very drunken night in Denver 2 years later I don’t much care for Cherry Vodka anymore but I still have that song.
Was I really ever 15?