Max nipped at his ankle so he stays in the cage. For. EVAH!
I have been remiss in posting old journal entries. For that, I apologize. So let’s suit up and go back to June 3, 1983. It was the end of my sophomore year in high school and I was 15.
I think my legs could beat the sheep’s fur. I wish I could say I’m getting a tan but there’s no sun out. All we get is rain and 40 degree temperatures. Fun, huh?
I hate Michigan weather. Personally, I could pack my bags right now and head for California.
I think D (my brother’s girlfriend) is coming home today.
Guess what. Clarie got her new car today. It’s really cool. It kind of makes me wish I was a year older. (I would know how to drive then!)
One more week of school left, I can’t wait. Its gonna be great. SUMMER VACATION. Me and Claire are going to Missouri in August. But until then I can sleep in late, stay up til the wee hours of the morning and, in general, do nothing.
No Gill, Bowhuis, Demmick, Andrews or Pappenhagen on my back every minute of the day.
Cheryl’s bird Max is staying here while they’re in Florida. Dad doesn’t like him because when we first let both birds out together, Max bit at Bingo’s foot and Bingo didn’t fly away. It was like he was thinking, ‘I can handle it; you don’t scare me!’
So anyhow Dad won’t let me take Max out of his cage at all and Cheryl and Mark are going to be gone for two weeks.
Cool, huh?
Oh well, I have to go because I can’t think of anything else to say.
Wow. Talk about stream of consciousness. These are just random thoughts strewn about like a 20-car pile up on the freeway.
I have absolutely no clue what “my legs could beat the sheep’s fur” means. Perhaps it was a psychic precursor to Sweep the Leg. The “Karate Kid” came out in 1984; I wrote this in 1983.
However, it was probably a lament meaning I needed to shave my legs. I was always on the quest for a good tan which meant I kept up maintenance on my legs in the summer. But when the weather did not cooperate I did not shave my legs.
We must have had a cold snap that June.
I still hate Michigan weather, but the cost of living is so high in California that I fear I shall die a life-long resident of the Mitten state shivering and wrapped in a quilt.
I guess my brother’s girlfriend was coming home that day in June. Don’t know where she was coming from, but I hope she had a good trip.
It looks like June third was a busy day, what with D returning home and Claire getting her new car and all. It was a blue and gray Dodge Shelby and my brother was all over that thing like white on rice.
I do remember it was a stick shift and I had to learn how to back it out of the driveway so my dad could get his car out.
At that time we had five people living in the house. Four were licensed drivers; I was not. But there were a lot of cars and one long driveway so we were constantly moving cars around.
I’m pretty sure I learned how to back the car out when I was 14. This is amazing because we had a 20-foot tall metal street light at the base of our driveway. I know my mom backed into that once and one of my sisters back into it, but I never did (blows on her fingers and buffs her nails on her lapel.)
The other thing I remember about the Shelby is that it was hard to put the stick in reverse. First gear and reverse were in the same position on the front left.
To get it into reverse you had to press the stick down really hard and then put it in first. I know I bumped the car in front of me more than a few times trying to get that effer in reverse.
That’s the price you pay when you trust a 14-year-old to move the cars in the driveway.
I had to laugh when I read that my dad made the bird stay in its cage for two weeks because it bit the other bird’s leg. That bird Max was a gray and yellow cockatoo so it was much bigger than our small blue parakeet. But I have to marvel at our ‘keet’s moxie — Eff no, I ain’t movin’ brother. This is my turf.
But more than anything, I find my dad’s black-and-white thinking hilarious. This is such a classic case of his all or nothing world view.
What about letting Max out for a bit while Bingo remained inside his cage? Or, perhaps we could have removed Bingo and his cage from that bedroom so Max could take a spin inside the room with the door shut.
No, sir. One infraction and you are sentenced to the dungeon. No sunlight for you.
As usual, I enjoyed my seamless and abrupt end to the entry and shall employ it again — Oh well, I have to go because I can’t think of anything else to say.
Tags: Things that require a side note, Things that require my sarcasm
this post gave me several chuckles.
“my legs could beat the sheep’s fur” – i had to read that twice, just because i’m slow and sometimes i don’t get it. i tried to figure out the meaning before you explained it and i assumed you needed a shave or your hair was thick and woolly.
i totally hate the cold. florida/georgia is more of my speed.
ah the stick shift. i totally love mine and refuse to give it up. it’s so much fun and makes driving less boring. hmm, that shelby looks familiar.
absolutely love this and the bird’s reaction. — Eff no, I ain’t movin’ brother. This is my turf. that’s hilarious, way to stand ground bird.
V,
I’m with you on the stick-shift: I just turned 41, and I refuse to own anything but. It makes me feel more engaged with the vehicle and the road (and my fantasy that my Jetta is, in fact, a Porsche), whereas an automatic transmission makes me zone out. Also, I have an innate distrust of men who don’t drive stick. Also, I believe learning on a manual should be a basic part of all drivers’ education, because at some point, your friends will get drunk and require a ride home, and the car you all arrived in WILL be a five-speed.
CG, this explains your Dad more and more. . .
@V It’s funny to me to see how I spoke/turned a phrase back then. Most of them I remember, but a few still surprise me. I think the sheep thing might have staying power.
I’m impressed that you’re holding on to your stick. Mr. C and I had a stick shift for the first ten years of our marriage. I enjoyed it until the end, but by then I was ready to give up the stick so I could drive one-handed with a drink in the other hand.
@Tracy Hey! Happy b-day and damn you! I’ll be 42 in the early weeks of 2010; you’re supposed to be there with me, not ten months behind me.
I’m totally behind your driver’s training idea. That has happened to me and it was a long drive home.
These old entries do make me shake my head when I see my references to him. At least he was consistent from the get go.
Wow V! You actually still drive a stick shift? How do you talk on the phone and drive at the same time? Guess you can’t.
Ugh. Don’t even mention the cost of living in California. I cringe when I think of the house we could have bought pretty much anywhere else but here. The weather is pretty awesome though!
This is so funny, Michelle, but I think we got rid of our stick before I got my first cell phone. How strange!
I seriously have no idea how anyone lives in California if they’re not Aaron Spelling’s kid.
Our little car is a stick shift, and while I miss driving a stick, I do love my minivan. My husband’s been driving the little car, which was the car I bought after college, for the last few years, and it’s trashed now. I avoid it as much as I can because it just depresses me to see how bad it’s gotten over the years. But it’s still fun to drive, and I’m very glad I know how to drive stick. The little car has an odd way to put it into reverse too — you have to lift up on this ring that is just below the knob as you’re pushing the stick to the right and down. If you don’t lift the ring, you’re not going anywhere. I’ve driven cars that have the reverse above 1st gear, or to the left of it, and that confuses the heck out of me. My dad’s Honda, the car I learned to drive on, just had reverse at the far right, and you simply had to push the stick wayyyyy far right and down to get into reverse. No gimmicks there.
I was resistant to our minivan in the beginning. But now the Mystery Mobile is my preferred ride.
Oh! My sister also had a car that had a stick like that with the ring to go in reverse. I liked that one. She also had a car with reverse way back and to the far right as well. How funny!
I didn’t realize how many manual cars she owned.
“For. Evah!” – good line
Well as long as you still smelled better than sheep’s fur. Wool is oily and gross, especially wet wool. Did you look out the window and mutter “bahh” under your breath at the foul weather?
We have the long driveway thing going on right now. At least the 18 year old moved out and took his car with him, so that just leaves 3 vehicles to juggle. No way is Eric(12) moving any of them- he already ran the tractor into our holiday trailer last fall. Minor cosmetic damage, but really fruitin’ annoying. If he took out the wife’s new Escape there would be a near death experience.
Thanks Tim!
I never muttered “bahh” as a kid, but I do now as an adult. Must be a delayed reaction. I don’t know why I find it hilarious that:
1. you have a tractor
2. you have a holiday trailer
3. your kid ran the tractor into the trailer, and
4. I want to spell trailer “trailOR” as if it’s a tailor who will sew adjustable seat covers on the vehicle.
I cannot imagine letting my kids move the cars. Of course they’re only 9, 6 and 4 but I know I won’t trust the oldest when she’s 14.
Ha ha! Don’t you know, all us country folk in Alberta have a holiday trailer and at least one piece of farm machinery or construction equipment. I wish I had an excavator, but all we got is our little Kubota with a rototiller and front end loader. We went for the small tractor so my wife and kids could learn how to use it. I foolishly thought a small tractor couldn’t do much damage…
We also have the “old enough to dress yourself, old enough to help with the outside work” rule at our house. So far my 10 yr old daughter is definitely not to be trusted with running the tractor unsupervised. Every time I watch her on it I imagine I have a really stressed look on my face.
Beat the sheep’s fur, but this was a good post. Although I mis-read the first sentence as “I have been posting old journal entries. For that I apologize.” Heh.
Most of my diary entries ended with the infamous: “Well, I have to go because I can’t think of anything else to say.” Why did we feel we had to explain ourselves? Why couldn’t we just STOP? And for that matter, since it was supposedly for our eyes only, why not make up a more exciting exit strategy, like “Well, I have to go because Max is pecking my dad’s head off”?
Silly teens.
It’s actually fun when I mis-read someone else’s post. It sort of adds a treasure hunt quality to it and then the joke is just for me.
I had the same thought. Um, this journal was for my eyes only. Why did I have to explain to myself that I ran out of stuff to say? Man, I would have loved to ad lib that stuff like you suggested.
Hey! That’s a way to add new life to the old entries. I might re-write them to better reflect what I wanted to say without the fear of my parents reading it.
Taps chin as she thinks about the rewrites.
I love your journal entries and the glimpse into young CG’s mind! I assumed that the reference to the sheep’s fur meant that you needed to shave…sounds like I was on track :) I can drive stick. I’m not that hung up on it but I will tell you that my stick shift Trans-Am was awesome!! I ended up getting rid of it because I could only afford one car and really need something better in all types of weather. The day it took me 1/2 hour to make it over this one snow covered bridge that I must take everyday made me realize I had to give it up. :(
Oh yeah, baby. The Trans-Am was the holy grail of stick shift cars, wasn’t it? We never had one, but it was da bomb.
I have heard people say that driving a stick in winter makes them feel they have more control over the snow, but I never felt that way. Probably it also has to do with front-wheel drive vs. rear-wheel drive.
I do not like rear-wheel drive vehicles. Mr. C’s car (Charger) is an automatic with rear-wheel drive and I don’t like driving that thing snow.
Ha, I thought at first that it meant your legs were pasty white like sheep’s fur. Wool. Whatever. But now I see it probably meant you were not feeling like shaving.
And that actually sounds like a much more interesting journal than my 15-year-old self would have kept. I didn’t do journals because I never had anything exciting enough to warrant writing about. I would buy a journal at the beginning of each school year because I was CONVINCED that it would be an exciting enough year to journal, and then I would write about the cute boy in homeroom for approximately 2 days, and then would get bored and stop writing. But since I’d tainted the journal, I HAD to buy a new one for the next school year. I was never much of an environmentalist.
Hey, I hadn’t considered that, but my legs always were pasty white (still are and I still am in search of a good tan.)
You know, I was always really repressed and I never did write about any love interests back then. I’m sure I was afraid my journal would be discovered and that info, apparently, had to go with me to my grave.
Hola CG,
At 14 they let you back the car down the driveway. I am super jealous. I wasn’t even able to touch the car keys until I was 16 and even then my dad didn’t trust me with his car. Back in the day he had a Z28 which was like the coolest car ever to exist in the world. Now that I think about it, it was such a single man car, not sure why Wander allowed him to get it.
Anywho by the time I was all licensed up he’d demolished that beauty (Z28) in a car accident but he replaced her with a sweet Maxima. Again, not family car but at least it had four doors. I think I took my driving test in that car and that’s about it. He never really let me drive it after the driving test so I ended up stuck with Wander’s Taurus (family car), not nearly as much fun.
Oh and two weeks seems like a severe punishment for a little peck on the leg, I could be wrong though.
Boy your dad had a wild streak — both of those cars were not family cars. My dad was never into snazzy cars. We had a lot of drivers and a lot of beat up cars that he was always fixing in the driveway.
I think you’re right that two weeks of isolation was severe.