It was early in 1986 when I first began to feel that I was somehow emerging from the cocoon of the awkward age. The pre-teen fat seemed to be melting off as I began to sprout upwards slightly. There was still some geekiness about me (as there always will be I suppose), but as far as my appearance goes, I didn’t feel completely alienated any longer. Another huge change at home was that Dad moved back into the house within a few months after the New Year. I think that being together with his family for the holidays inspired him to make the effort to reconcile.
I saw 1986 in by hanging out with my friend Chris Demeter. He spent the night and we walked around the neighborhood setting off firecrackers, and probably smoking cigarettes. Following the New Year, I returned to eighth grade at Ankeney Junior High. By the end of the second grading period, there were some classroom changes as my Home Economics and Crafts classes came to an end and my second semester classes began. Computers was taught by Mr. Gerdes, the emphatic, lisping teacher who took us all the way back to the days of the abacus in this class. I thought I would never have the need for a computer so I concentrated more on learning to type – which I didn’t learn either. I don’t know what I did in this class. Read On was a fun class as I recall. Ms. Andrews was nice and had a good sense of humor. She even played along and signed one of my issues of “Trash.”
Jeff Flinn was still my best friend at school and we systematically inflicted our terror on the kids that were even geekier than we were – or at least we thought they were. We didn’t only inflict our humor on the other kids either. At recess, we would often spend time tormenting the teachers. We would routinely ask Mr. Clay to remove his toupee (which he denied having) and would tell Mr. Dukes to “Put up your Dukes.” They had to hate us.
One night at one of those said sock hops, Jeff and I took off behind the school to have a cigarette and were followed by three other kids. We had made fun of some kid’s big nose one day at recess and one of the three following us was one of his friends. His name was Nathan and he confronted Jeff and me about our antics. When we stood there dumbly he reached out and pushed both of us at the same time with each hand. We continued to stand there dumbly. Of course, for years we always made fun of this kid – Nate we called him – and his nose…behind his back of course, although deep down I think we both always respected this guy for putting us in our place.
I had one further schedule change that stemmed from a lack of effort on my part. I was ejected from my first Honors class – English taught by Mrs. Gardetto. I have no qualms in admitting that I simply was not applying myself. Knowing that I was getting kicked out of this class, Jeff had tried everything under his power to get out as well – including creating the horrendous comic book Seven Merry Creatures for his Christmas story project. See here for more details.
I ended up in the signifcantly easier Scholarship English taught by the significantly more amiable Mr. Focht. He once fell asleep at his desk while we were supposed to be reading and when I went up to ask him a question, he mumbled something straight out of the dream he was having. I walked away confusedly before he woke up, realized where he was, and called me back up there to answer my question.
Whereas Jeff and I had worked on The Harry Chronicles and Funshiets the year before, I began a new venture called Trash at the beginning of 1986. Although all of these ventures were rude, dirty, and highly inappropriate, the latter of the three publications was much tamer and was less inclined to make fun of fellow students. I must note that while these were silly and stupid, they sincerely occupied me and fulfilled my desire to publish something of some kind. Passing these around class made me feel like I was creating something for the masses. Of course that desire has stayed with me and has bled over into many projects including this website. I can fondly recall rainy weekend afternoons working on these things, even taking them with me to Chevy Club meetings at the Fieberger’s pizza parlor.
Speaking of the Chevy club, although I really didn’t care for the meetings at the time, I look back fondly on attending these meetings and the folks that I knew from there. Dennis and Mark were two of the older kids, and it was fun to hang out and smoke with them. One particular meeting was at a park and I brought along my friend Jason Pappas (along with a huge stack of National Lampoon magazines, which I was collecting). We went back into the woods for a cigarette, which he had no idea how to smoke. When I went to light up a second one, he uttered the classic line in his squeaky voice “Another one? You just had one.” Needless to say, this line was repeated quite often.
On March 15, I saw Penn and Teller were going to be on Saturday Night Live. I had first seen them the summer before on Late Night With David Letterman, so I immediately pulled out a blank video tape to record their performance.
From this point on, I became obsessed with these comedy magicians and began recording every appearance of theirs that I would come across. I watched them repeatedly and shared them with everyone I knew. At one point, I even wrote their name on my arm like a tattoo. The obessesion has abated somewhat, but I still like them…and have now met them four times!
Things were rather quiet on the Laurel and Hardy front as we had few if any meetings of the Towed in a Hole Tent during the early part of the year. But I was still faithfully saving $5.00 a week from my Dayton Daily News paper route for my ‘Laurel and Hardy Fund,’ the money that I would be taking with me to the upcoming Valley Forge Sons of the Desert convention. L&H mania would explode after that.
My Laurel and Hardy collection display in 1986. Also note the collection of 45rpm records in picture sleeves…and the beer cans (all full) obtained from a visit to The Beer Barn
As you can see, I had not lost interest in Laurel and Hardy
My autograph collecting never really stopped during this period so I began sending out requests right after the New Year. Although I would send requests in spurts throughout the entire duration of the year, the pace slowed down somewhat as I only sent out 28 requests for the year – versus the 71 requests of 1985.
So Penn and Teller, KISS tapes, National Lampoons, Chevy Club Meetings, creating Trash, wreaking havoc in school with Jeff, collecting KISS tapes, saving for the L&H convention from my paper route money, collecting autographs, having Dad back home, slimming down, and emerging from the awkward age are the things that defined this era of my life. And what a life it was…
Up next: a Springtime trip to visit Darlene in Colorado…
Click here to follow the 1986 autograph trail…
See some TRASH here…
Leave a Reply