This is Kinda Like Being a Writer.....

From my earliest days, I can remember wanting to be a writer.  Don't get me wrong - I had other dreams too.  At different stages in my life, I wanted to be a carpenter, or a botanist, or an architect, or Grizzly Adams.  I really really wanted to be Grizzly Adams.

 

When I was older, though, I realized that I couldn't ever be Grizzly Adams.  So instead, I decided that I wanted to be that guy from "That's Incredible!" who jumped over a car as it was speeding toward him at 90 miles per hour.  I actually practiced that move in my backyard, figuring all I had to do was get enough height and the car would just pass right under me.  That dream came to an end when my grandma showed me an article that she had cut out of The National Enquirer.  The article graphically described how the guy was nearly killed when he tried to push his luck, jumping two cars at once.  I saved the article, as a warning to myself that I might want to consider a safer vocation.

 



So I wrote, and I wrote.  I wrote short stories on scraps of paper and proudly read them to my family.  At the end of each story, I would include one or two questions about the story, just to see if everyone was listening.  Based on the results of the quiz, I quickly learned that they weren't.  But I kept writing anyway.  When I couldn't think of stories to write, I copied entries out of the World Book Encyclopedia.  I was about 10 pages into an entry about the African Rhinoceros before my brother explained to me what plagiarism was.  Undeterred, I kept writing.

 

The lesson on plagiarism didn't completely sink in.  In the sixth grade, I was 43 pages into a detailed story about a boy who goes back in time and meets up with dinosaurs, aliens and an ape-boy.  I put the story on indefinite hold when one of my classmates pointed out that the story sounded an awful lot like Land of the Lost.

 

But I kept writing.  I wrote short stories.  I wrote letters.  I wrote poems.  I wrote fake newspaper stories for my fake newspaper.  I got a typewriter for Christmas one year and decided that was about the coolest thing ever.  I was more convinced than ever that I wanted to be a writer.  My passion did not go unrecognized.

Then, one day, I stopped writing.  I'm not sure why.  It might be because I discovered girls, or video games, or math.  Maybe it's because I simply ran out of things to write about.  Recently I've discovered that I still like writing.  That's cool, but for sure it's not as cool as jumping over a car.

Rack-O!....................James Dean

It makes me sound really old, but when I was in the 3rd grade, our favorite recess games were still "Cowboys and Indians" and "Cops and Robbers".  Basically, we just chased each other around the schoolyard shooting fake guns, or arrows, at each other, yelling "You missed me!"  On days that we were stuck inside, though, our choice of games was limited.  A favorite game of ours that year ended up causing me nightmares and was eventually banned from the classroom.

Rack-O was a simple enough game.  From what I remember, players drew numbered cards from a pile, putting them in a rack from smallest to largest.  When you had a complete rack of 10 cards, and all your cards were in numerical order, you won.  But not without first yelling "RACK-O!!!!!" at the top of your lungs.  3rd grade boys are creative.  Somewhere along the line, somebody added an important rule to our game.  When you won the game, you won the right to yell "RACK-O!!!!", of course.  But in our version, you also won the right to slam your fist into the crotch of one of your adversaries also playing the game.  So, basically, each game ended with one boy rushing to rack someone in the balls before they had a chance to protect themselves.  Sounds fun, right?  Or as it says on the game box, "keen competition."

I started dreading rainy days for fear of being stuck inside playing Rack-O and getting slammed in my undersized junk.  To make matters worse, about that same time, there was a song on the radio called "Rock On" by David Essex.  Except I never heard Mr. Essex saying "Rock On". What I heard him saying was "Rack-O."  Listen to that song and you'll see why it is second on my list of creepiest songs of all-time, just behind "The Night Chicago Died."  The weird bass guitar and the violins combined to make it the scariest song I had ever heard.  Add in the "Jimmy Dean.....James Dean" part and I was this close to cowering in my closet, crying and  holding my hands over my crotch. To this day, I instinctively reach down whenever that song comes on the classic rock station.

I don't remember going to my mom and telling her the whole story about our Rack-O games at school.  I'm pretty sure I did though.  Mom had a talk with the teacher and before you could say "James Dean", the game had been pulled from the classroom shelves, never to be seen again.  Word got out that it was my mom that ended our "fun".  I took some heat from the other boys, but looking back, I'm pretty sure they were as thankful as I was.

Click here to listen to the 2nd creepiest song of all time.