After our Clearwater, Florida trip, I rounded out the rest of the Summer of 1985 collecting autographs, performing the duties of my paper route, and all of the other things described in my Summer ’85 posting. Occasionally my friend Jeff Flinn and I would bicycle to each others houses and see what trouble we could find. Smoking was often our goal. Other times, we just wreaked havoc around the neighborhood. Once I spit on Bud Nye’s truck when I was collecting for my paper route and they put me off until later. Kelly spotted me doing this from her windown and soon enough, Kenny Carroll was tracking me down, telling me that Bud was driving around looking for me. So I bit the bullet and went over to his house and apologized.
We also would often venture into Tara Estates, along with neighborhood friends like Chris Demeter and Mike Weller to ride our bikes inside the pit. The pit was a huge hole that had been dug into the ground right smack in the center of an unoccupied woods. I have no idea if a house ever went into this area, but for a couple of Summers it served as a wonderful place to ride our bikes. We would fly down one side of the pit and up the other. I only remember crashing and racking myself once.
True to the harbingers that preceded, my parents separated following our trip. Initially, Mom, Denise, and I moved in with Grandma and Grandpa Murphy, but this only lasted a week. Oddly, it is a nice memory, staying with them. Soon they would move out of this house on Kruss, so this is one of my last memories of it. I remember having my trusty autograph kit and some Web of Spider-Man comics with me for the week. It didn’t take Mom long before she would take us back home and insist that it would be Dad who would have to find somewhere else to stay. Dad moved out of the house and into an apartment in Kettering. Denise and I would occasionally visit on the weekends and, strange as it sounds, I have some good memories of these visits too. I guess it was like staying in a motel on vacation, the apartment being a small, one-bedroom flat. We would get fast food and rent videos on Saturday afternoon, spend the night, and then on Sunday morning Dad and I would get up bright and early so he could drive me on my grueling Sunday Dayton Daily News route.
The fondest and clearest memory I have of being there was when he took me to a bookstore and I purchased Movie Comedy Teams by Leonard Maltin and renting the L&H movie The Bullfighters, which was the first time I ever saw it. It was nice having money from my paper route as it enabled me to support my addictive hobbies. During one of our visits, Dad offered me a beer as a gesture of male bonding. Being skeptical that it was some sort of test, I turned it down…but quickly recanted and agreed to drink half of the can.
At the tail end of August, eighth grade began. As he had become the previous year, Jeff Flinn was my best friend during this time period. We were both honor students hellbent on ruining our education by being the class cut-ups. We nearly succeeded. I’m not sure who went first (I think it was me) but we were both eventually kicked out of our Honors English class and reduced to the Scholarship level. As the year began, here were my classes and a memory or two of each:
Honors English – taught by Mrs. Gardetto. She hated both Jeff and me and this was the class that we eventually eighty-sixed. She was a prim and proper lady who stared at you over her bifocals when you weren’t behaving. Of course the other kids, being honors students pretty much behaved. I believe I survived the first two quarters. I know I was there for Christmas because that was when Jeff and I came up with “Seven Merry Creatures” (more on that later…) Many other friends from my seventh grade Honors English class ended up in here as well…as was Jeff and I’s arch enemy Harry Knight.
Scholarship Science– taught by Mr. Kosak. This was probably my most memorable class. Kyer Phillips and I got into a shoving match during the beginning of one of these classes because I was rudely mocking him for no reason at all. We later became friends. I sat across from quiet Jason Frederick and made him laugh. Jason and I would often quote a Saturday Night Live skit with “Senior Cosa” and his ventriloquist dummy, but we would subistitue “Senior Kosak” in the dialogue. Mr. Kosak once got so angry at me for yawning out loud several times during his lecture that he sat me out in the hall until the end of class. He was notorious for yelling out “Heeeeey Gaaaang!!” when he wanted quiet. Katie Boerger was in this class and became my first crush of the eighth grade year.
Honors Algebra – taught by Mrs. Williams. It took a while before I faltered in math and still feel it was really my best subject outside of composition, hence I got through this entire year. Kyer Phillips was in this class with me as well and after we became friends following our fight in Science class, we both would often make fun of the way our teacher pronounced “sorey.” But she was a very nice lady overall and I would run into her often for as long as I worked at the Beavercreek Kroger store.
American History– taught by Mrs. Pappas. She had been my homeroom teacher in seventh grade, a very kind and soft-spoken lady…although she once gave me a demerit for chewing gum. I don’t remember much about this class. At one point Harry Knight sat behind me and let out a yawn and I turned around and said “shut up!” – to which he bellowed out laughing.
Crafts– taught by Mr. Willis. This was something akin to shop class and I remember working a lot with plexiglas. One goofball once snorted some of the plexiglas shavings in the class. I remember several people that were in the class: Steve Bergman, Brad Myers, Jenny Israel – but can’t recall much that we did.
Home Economics – taught by Mrs. Lee. After asking the class once to be “quiet please,” she loved to add the phrase “quiet please means shut your mouth.” Perhaps this is where I first saw the Dick Van Dyke hosted instructional film Read the Label, Set a Better Table – and thankfully the last. It was also in this class where Jeff and I were supposed to be cleaning the tables and he uttered the line “It’s not as if there’s going to be any water involved with the cleaning” – after which, saying that things aren’t going to be “involved” became one of those goofy eighth grade catch phrases. I enjoyed the cooking portion but hated it when we had to sew.
As I’ve both hinted and outright stated, Jeff and I were serious partners in crime. We absolutely loved making fun of anyone, everyone, and everything. We nearly got our butts kicked one time by a guy named Nate at an evening sock hop, after we had picked on one of his friends. At recess, we would hassle the ninth-grade teacher Mr. Dukes and another teacher named Mr. Clay. Once we got sent to the principal for bothering Chris Vickers. We even made ‘publications’ called “The Harry Chronicles” and “Funshiet” (correct spelling). I’ll have to review the content to see if any of it is permissible to actually display in a future posting. I doubt it. We spent far too much time battling and belittling Harry Knight, Reed Eggleston, Jason Pappas, Ashleigh Heath, and many, many others. I mention this cheerfully, because we could take it (or had to take it) just as much as we could dish it out…and I actually considered all of these kids my good friends. In fact the spelling of my daughters name came directly as a result of the way Ms. Heath spelled hers.
I have one very distinct memory from outside of school when I spent a fun weekend at Diana & Tom’s house. I believe that my Mom and Diana went on a weekend trip with their sisters, possibly on a shopping trip to Metamora. Although Tom was there, it was mostly Cathy who looked after Denise and me. I had videotaped the season premier episodes of the Thursday night line-up of The Cosby Show (season 2), Family Ties (season 4), Cheers (season 4), and Night Court (season 3), and I must have watched my video tape there five or six times, perhaps more. Nothing much exciting went on, but I saw it as a fun getaway from home where I imagined the types of adventures I could have away from home. Later this weekend prompted me to write a short story called As Told By Derrick that involved girls and gangsters during a teen’s getaway at his aunt’s house. I only wrote about four pages before abandoning the project.
I have no memory of my 14th birthday as I burrowed my way further into my teenage years, but I do have one small recollection from Halloween. My friend Jeff and I went out for Trick or Treat together in my neighborhood and didn’t bother to wear any costumes, telling everyone that we were the ‘Pain’ Brothers, Thomas and Window. While in ‘character’ as these guys, we acted as if everything that touched us hurt us, so when someone handed us candy, we said “OWW!” I’m telling you – we were nuts.
And, oh yes, my eighth grade school picture was truly one of the classics. Twisted Sister, indeed.
To see what a FUNSHIET is, click here…
1985 will continue…
Holy Sh*t! I got a shout-out in your blog! I’ve been reading this thing for months now, enjoying some of the shared memories related to school. And, now, I actually appear in print. What an honor!
Arch-enemy? Wow. That’s food for thought.
How come I’ve never been privy to a copy of “The Harry Chronicles”? Surely a stray copy left on my chair before class would have provided some additional amusement.
Also, weirdly enough, I thought Jason Pappas was in your clique. I wonder whose clique he was in? Nice to get lumped in with Reed, though. He was really cool.
Harry Knight
July 8th, 2007