Saturday, February 17, 2007

Tagged Again

BlackisWhite threw a tag at me. The tag originated in Australia with LC Brendan, who then threw it on Emperor Misha's lap, from whence it crawled over to BisW and now I'm stuck with it.

Six Unusual Things About Me.

1) As a kid I could make myself fart.

2) The only memory I have of my birth father is the cops coming to the house looking for him. I was about five or six years old and was playing on the front porch at the time. They were all dressed in dark blue.

I retired from the police department in 1998 after 24 years service. I bet the shrinks could have a picnic with this one.

3) While working on my Master's degree in 1971 (never finished it) I did a research paper on urban mass transportation. I tried to get a job as an analyst with the NYS legislature. The NYC assemblyman/senator (asshole) who headed the transportation committee never gave me the job or my paper back. I later learned that part of my work was incorporated into the 1972 Urban Mass Transportation Bond that was voted down that November. He was a Democrat who knew how to take a good piece of research and turn it into a bad bill.

4) My great-grandmother and her husband lived in Brooklyn, NY. She was shot to death by her Sicilian brother-in-law around 1911 when my Nana (grandmother) was about ten years old. My great-grandfather promptly put his eight kids, all girls, in a convent and married his dead wife's sister. They had another seven kids, six girls and a boy. Nana has fourteen sisters and a brother. My grandmother was a bit of a mess but I loved her dearly.

Before my grandfather, James Arthur McKevitt, died in 1956 of cancer, he had my father (who adopted the three of us) promise to take care of Nana. She lived with us until her death in 1974 when I was in the police academy.

5) I was constantly in fights in junior high (middle) school. I lived in the Principal's office.

My sister and her husband were up here last weekend. We were talking about school and she related a story about a boy who scared the ever loving crap out of her in junior high. He was a big, loathsome creature that tried to drag her away from a dance to a more remote section of the school. My sister started screaming her brains out and some friends of hers joined in the outcry, bringing teachers in on a dead run. Thank G-d. That kid was never seen again in school. That's how they did it back then; kids just disappeared after a big time screw up.

She couldn't remember his name but described him to me. I immediately said, "Jerry Dash." My sister turned dead white, I thought she was going to pass out. She literally started shaking when I said those two words. She had buried his name some 45 years ago. He really did scare the daylights out of her.

I knew Jerry Dash because of my countless fist fests before, during and after school. He lived down the street from my bus stop. He was a year ahead of me academically but maybe two or three years older. I didn't lose many fights and one day after school I was in my customary position on top of another lad that I was pummeling. The lad (can't remember his name, some faceless neighborhood punk) gave up and I prepared to get up. Before I could arise, Jerry Dash squatted down in front of me and said, "Hit him."

Dash was about 16 at the time. I was 13 or 14. He was huge. Ugly. Red haired. Gap toothed. Stupid. Sonofabitch. Every time he showed up you swore you could hear banjos play. And his breath. The foul stench that emanated from his mouth could blister the chrome on a 1956 Buick Roadmaster grill. And he stuck his face just three inches in front of my nose and told me to hit this kid that I had just bloodied. He wanted to see me hurt him more. He liked it.

I said no.

That gap toothed sonofabitch punched me in the head. It was like getting smacked by a bag of dry mix cement. So I put a few half-hearted licks into the kid on the ground. I didn't want to hurt the kid and I didn't want Dash to pulverize me.

I hope that he is in jail with Bubba the Destroyer of Bungholes as his roommate.

6) I'll eat just about any vegetable without complaint but for one. I hate Lima beans, I refuse to eat them.


OOOPS!
Forgot, today was a busy day. I tag:

LC Mope

LC Jackboot

Cookie

The Merry Widow

Death Knyte, and

Hujonwi

No comments: