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Adventures always began first thing in the morning. There were chores to do before leaving to walk down the hill to catch the bus for school. Make your lunch for school, eat breakfast, dump the garbage and make your bed. Life had a routine. This included picking on Jason and demanding Sheryl let someone else use the bathroom.
Then there was the walk down the mountain to the bus stop and off to school, a brand new Junior High. The bus trip took about twenty minutes. Which was enough time for Steve to antagonize someone, then off to classes.
Just a year before, Steve spent his classroom hours in one building, a big building housing all the classrooms. Now he had a piece of paper with his class assignments typed out followed by a time and room number. This was a challenge.
This school had seven large buildings. Each class appeared to take place at a distance equal to the other side of the campus from the last one. And now he carried books for each class. Which meant that he had to keep the other class books in a locker, conveniently located between rows of buildings at the center of the campus. Learning to manage a schedule helped Steve to gain a small amount of confidence as the first year of Junior high slipped through Steve’s brain without leaving much in the way of lessons learned.
This was a big school. There were a lot of events, dances, sports, and new people. Some of those new people didn’t care much for Steve’s attitude and behavior. Some of these new people didn’t like Steve enough to punch his face. This happened enough times that Steve and the principal were now on a first name basis: Steve, and Mr. Richardson.
One lunch period, Steve got his face punched outside the door to the lunchroom; at the exact moment the Principal walked through the door. Mr. Richardson witnessed the whole thing.
“Break it up!” Mr. Richardson demanded of the crowd now starting to gather. “OK boys. Who started this? Steve.” Mr. Richardson was looking directly into Steve’s eyes, clearly passing the mental image that he was fed up with Steve and all the fights he kept getting into. “What did you do this time Steve?”
“Nothing.” Steve was nose to nose with Mr. Richardson. Steve’s eyes were beginning to turn red as he stared straight back into Mr. Richardson’s eyes, determination mind-set in them both.
“When I came out of the lunchroom door I saw Richard hit you. Did you hit him before I came out?” Mr. Richardson was continuing to stare directly into Steve’s eyes. Stern looks of discontent projecting like knives toward Steve.
“No I did not.” Steve’s voice was shaky. His vision still fuzzy and his speech kind of slurred as the pain in his face continued to grow with each passing second.
“Why not? Aren’t you man enough to stick up for yourself? Don’t you know enough to protect yourself?” Mr. Richardson’s voice was sarcastic in tone.
Mr. Richardson did not wait for an answer. He turned and looked over at Richard. “What did you hit him for?”
“Because he’s a creep. I just like to punch his face. He deserves it.”
“You’ve got to come up with a better excuse than that Richard. Didn’t he say something to you or jester something offensive?”
Richard’s answer was brief, as he stared with contempt toward Steve. “No.”
The other kids had gone off to eat lunch. Just Steve, Richard, and Mr. Richardson were standing outside of the cafeteria door.
“You guys sure put me in a hard position. Steve, I didn’t see you throw a punch. So I can’t suspend you like you deserve. But you were in a fight, so I am giving you three nights of detention. Richard, I have no choice but to suspend you for fighting, as you are the only one who threw a punch. If I had my way, I’d suspend you both. Steve, see me in my office at the end of school. Richard, come with me to my office. He is a creep. I don’t blame you a bit. Sometimes I’d like to punch his lights out too. Steve, go to class.”
Lunch period was over ten minutes ago. That meant that Steve was going to get a “tardy” for being late to class; again.
Junior High happens at the same time that hormones start numbing the thought process. There exists in the minds of teenagers, a desire for social intercourse and peer acceptance. Steve’s desire was more like an obsession.
Naturally Steve gravitated toward the wrong crowd. This included a cigarette or two before first period, down in the “Gulch” just off the school grounds. Steve was run off after a few weeks of hanging around where he was really not wanted. One morning a student punched Steve right in the head. Just walked up and punched him; a complete surprise to Steve. The message delivered with the punch was “We don’t want you here.” Very straightforward and to the point. Steve didn’t hang out there any more.
Steve’s grades were C’s at best. Most of the time it was D’s and F’s. School just wasn’t something Steve would sit still for. There were some eventful periods of Junior High life for Steve. One was the science teacher. For purpose of demonstrating human habits that can be implanted by a mere suggestion, the teacher told of a professor that used to wipe his nose very frequently. Then the teacher wiped his nose in front of the class. Anyway, Steve always wiped his nose a lot after that.
Another monumental event was the assassination of President Kennedy. Steve was in math class, not his best subject, when the announcement came over the school intercom. School was canceled and everybody had to go home. Steve spent the day glued to the TV set, watching history unfold right before his eyes. This also meant that Steve did not do his homework; again. The real impact of Kennedy’s death didn’t sink in until Steve watched Oswald get shot right there on the TV.
Metal shop was very exciting as well. Steve learned to sand cast and even made his own bow out of cast aluminum. Got an “A” on that project. Got the bow taken away from him as soon as he brought it home; of course.
The last year of Junior High was the toughest. Steve just barely kept his grades up high enough to graduate. When it came time to pick classes for his first year in High School, Steve wanted to take Spanish. Spanish was an elective class and you couldn’t take the class unless you had a “B” or better grade in English. Steve actually managed to squeak out a “B” amongst his standard “C’s” and “D’s” and not only graduates, but also got the Spanish class for his first year in high school.
When Steve moved up on the mountain, there were no other kids except for Larry. Larry lived in the house on the hill above Steve. Larry is the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Poundstone. Mr. Poundstone was the man Steve’s father bought the property from where Steve now lives.
Larry and Steve got along very nicely. Most of the credit for that belongs to Larry. Larry had a very level head. Was a good student in school, “A’s” and some “B’s”, and he was older than Steve by a couple years. They began an annual campaign of adventures that would please the most hard core adventurous Hobbit.
There are so many adventures; it is hard to even begin to remember them all. Larry built a Catamaran in his garage. Steve got to help, sometimes. Larry’s dad did a lot of the work, but Larry did as much as he could by himself. Larry was very good with wood. It was sort of his hobby. Larry was preoccupied with how different pieces of wood felt its grain and texture. He loved to sand and polish wood. Wood could always be shaped, or joined with other pieces of wood to create large trophies from effort invested in its creation.
One such project was the bow of a Catamaran Larry and his father were building in the garage. Blocks of tight-grained hardwood were glued together with “Weld Wood” cement; a dry powder mixed with water. The blocks were clamped and left to “cure” for a few days. The large heavy block of laminated wood was then ruff cut to remove the large pieces, and then the block was filed with a wood rasp. Slowly the block of laminated wood began to look like the bow of a boat. Next Larry used a plane and slowly peeled away the final layers. Then it was sanded to a smooth finish. When it was attached to the frame of the boat, it fit like a glove. Only a minor amount of sanding was needed to blend in the bow to the marine plywood frame. Then the whole thing was covered with fiberglass cloth and resin. The same thing was done for the smaller outrigger.
Steve got to go on the inaugural sailing. Larry was very good at handling the new boat. It was fast and functional in the ocean. Steve got to hang out over the outrigger as counter balance when Larry got just the right amount of wind in the sail.
Sailing was something Larry would never be away from. Year’s later Larry got a job teaching sailing. To this very day, whenever the weather is just right, Larry grabs his Scotch and water and spends the day sailing. That is when he is happiest; on the water.
Larry and Steve managed to get into a fare amount of trouble together. Like the time they decided to build a bomb in Larry’s garage. It is hard to say exactly who started this one, but both Steve and Larry spent hours stuffing an empty C O 2 bottle with match tips and gunpowder, complete with a fuse Larry had taken from one of the firecrackers they used for the powder. They tried to light it. It did not blow up. So Larry put the C O 2 cartridge in the vice and proceeded to cut the metal tube with a hacksaw so they could save the gunpowder and build another bomb. The friction from the metal blade set off the gunpowder and blew up the metal bottle. Steve was standing just a few feet from the explosion. The open end of the bottle was facing Steve. The match heads and pieces of metal embedded into Steve’s arm and leg; little black holes all over his skin.
Larry didn’t get hit with anything because he was standing next to and above the metal bottle. Both Larry and Steve had a very loud ringing in their ears for a few hours from the explosion. Mr. Poundstone was not home when this happened, so Steve and Larry managed to clean up the evidence before getting caught. Steve spent some quality time alone picking little black things out of his skin with a needle.
Larry and Steve didn’t build any more bombs after that. They did blow up some blasting caps Steve had swiped from a construction site. They placed the caps in sand under a large piece of plywood, put an old tire on top of the plywood and then buried the whole mess under more sand. Steve gathered up all the wires and hooked half of them to a battery. When everybody was ready, hiding behind what ever was handy, but allowing full view of the event zone, Steve touched the remaining wires to the battery terminal. There was a low muffled thump. The plywood under the tire and sand lifted about six inches as sand blew out from under the wood.
The ground vibrated from the explosion. This was all very exciting. Down right lucky no body got hurt this time. Steve had no idea how dangerous blasting caps could be.
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