I heard from an old friend yesterday. I haven't heard from him in many years. It was good to hear from him. It brought back some memories...... Alot
of them actually......... OMG. So many. I was basically a waste of skin as a teenager. If my son does a quarter of the things I did when I was in High
School............. Well hopefully he never finds out the incredibly stupid BS I pulled..............
Anyway, to quote the first line of an old song from The Jimmy Castor Bunch called 'Troglodyte'
What we're gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time.
Oh yeah. Way back.........
At the time the drinking age in Jersey was 18. My Buddy and I were heading for the Jersey shore for a weekend of fun. Aside from the clothes we were
wearing and a couple packs of smokes, we had nothing else in the car. We decided to go on our road trip on about a 45 second notice.
"Yo lombozo what do you want to do?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Head to the bowling alley, and pick up chicks?"
The Bowling alley was THE place to go for people of our ages at the time. Yeah I know. I expect I will be hearing about this, but IT WAS! I SWEAR!
"Naaaah. Hey wait! Milty, I'll pay for the gas. Let's go down the shore!"
"YEAH! Let's go!"
Ahhhhh, the beauty of youth!
The Jersey shore. There is a REASON why Bruce Springsteen sings so often about it. I've been all over, and the Jersey shore is the GREATEST.
Anyway we were cruising in his ancient Buick. The darn thing always got us from point A to point B, but very rarely - wait no never got us back, but
we were young, stupid, and believed we were invincible. So we were both just 17 and we passed by a bar called, well it's not important what the name
of the 'establishment' was.
"Yo lombozo, let's grab a beer!"
"Yeah man! Let's go."
We pull in. From the front, it looked as though it was empty. Going around back, there were MANY motorcycles in the lot with a smattering of pick up
trucks. We thought nothing of it. We walk in. Two teenage kids snickering that we were going into a bar.
Everyone looked at us. It was obvious that they didn't like any strangers in this place.
"Lombozo, let's split."
I was young and stupid. I committed to walking in, and I wasn't going to turn and flee.
"Milty. Listen to me. We're going to order one beer. Just sit down, drink it, keep your mouth shut and we'll leave. Walk and act like you own this
place."
Milty. We called him Milty because he resembled Milton The Monster. He wasn't very good at hiding his fear. He was fun to hang around with, but
man.........
"Christ lombozo, look at these people. They're scumbags."
He also wasn't good at keeping his voice down.
"Who you calling a scumbag j--k-off?"
In like 5 seconds, half the bar was on it's feet. There had to be 20 people there. I went and sat at the bar. The bartender didn't even look at me.
I casually followed his gaze. He was staring at Milty. Milty was still standing in the middle of the floor. He was quaking with fear. The clientelle
smelled his fear. Well it was more than obvious. The only thing Milty could have done worse was get in a fetal position and suck his thumb screaming
Mommy.
I thought to myself 'Oh man...... Now what? This is going to get ugly.'
"Lombozo!" He called. I surveyed the area, and the 'staff' was doing nothing at all. I mean nothing. Unless you call 'watching' doing
something......
Someone threw a beer at Milty. And quite a bit of attention was focused on me as I got up and went to his aid. I got about halfway there and I was
surrounded.
"C'mon guys, leave him alone. Let us have a beer, and we'll leave."
I never saw the first punch. But I did see Milty running out the door. I also saw the next several punches. I remember thinking to myself 'Milty's
leaving?"
I would love to tell you that I gained super human strength and kicked some butt. Well that's not what happened. I had the worst whooping of my life.
I couldn't even block anymore as the punches came from so many directions. Finally they literally picked me up and threw me in the parking lot. I
remember alot of laughing. It wasn't me laughing. I could barely think. I managed to get to my feet and staggered around.
'What am I looking for?' I thought.
"Hey lombozo! Over here."
Milty was sitting in his car. I was incoherent, and bloody. I walked to his car and got in.
"Lombozo, man that was close!"
I remembered watching him leave while I tried to clean up the mess he started.
He said "You ready to head for the shore?"
To this day he has no idea how close I came to punching him in the head at that moment.
No. We did not go to the shore, or the bowling alley.
About 15 years after that 'wonderful' experience, I went back to that bar. The clientelle was exactly as I remembered. The smell of sweat and
cigarette smoke was exactly as I remembered. All eyes were on me again, just as I remembered. BUT. This time I did sit at the bar, and I did drink my
beer. Then I walked out the door all by my lonesome.