Apparently this is a yearly event that allows the neighborhood tyke’s to pedal their bikes and other toys up and down the street. Five people were at this event; Milanne Bancroft, Johnny Alyward (the host), Tall Club Wannabe’s Vern (Johnny’s neighbor, who complimented us on how noisy we were, he said he had to come over to see what all the racket and yelling was about), Dave Sanburn and as always Yours truly. It’s always a pleasure getting drunk on Johnny’s front lawn. There is no tacky ornamentation on Johnny’s lawn, just drunks.
Johnny had his cast on his wrist removed but he still is severely limited use on that hand. When Johnny injures himself, he doesn’t do it halfway. Imagine no longer being able to open a twist-off cap off a beer. Before his injury, Johnny could even open beer bottles using his belt buckle, which, sometimes resulted in his pants falling down!
We were talking about reading dirty magazines during our misspent youths, which is how most of us guys learned how to read. And we learned math as well when reading about women’s measurements. Surprisingly, most of our fathers enjoyed this as well. Punishment was somewhat muted when our magazines were discovered. Our fathers had to act like they were mad and disappointed at us for looking at such vie creatures or they’d get in dutch with their wives.
I met many of Johnny’s neighbors; younger families loaded with little tykes. The parents were always telling their children, “don’t do this, or don’t do that, or you’ll end up like Johnny.” Johnny said, “It’s like my neighborhood is being reborn, they stick the old people in nursing homes and young people replace them.” This statement was met with some trepidation on my part because when I look in the mirror and the guy looking back looks just like the other guys at the nursing home. Lots to eat, too much actually, just sniffing the pizza box is what I need to be doing, rather than actually eating anything.
I don’t know how much longer Johnny’s boss is going to buy Johnny being an invalid. His boss is mad because it’s driving up his Workman’s Compensation costs. I also saw Dave S. with an arm injury. The ladies on the Kitty Litter Scoop production line (where Dave S works) were complaining that they couldn’t see because the lights went out. They even stuck the handles on the wrong end of the scoops because it was so dark. So Dave was on the man-lift 38 feet up in the air replacing fluorescent light bulbs. Dave said he always “sings,” when he’s changing light bulbs at ridiculous heights, otherwise he’d be scared and swearing. He was singing, “Pistol Pack’in Mama,” when an entire light fixture swung over into a huge 16 foot (in diameter) ceiling fan and that’s when he got his arm whacked. That’s when the singing stopped and swearing took over. He was still 38 feet off the floor. The ladies on the Kitty Scoop line were terrified and weren’t much help at this point, so Dave S. had to get man-lift down and stick a band-aid on his arm (a very big band-aid). Why didn’t you go to the hospital I asked Dave? “What! then my boss would figure out I didn’t follow some type of safety rule I’m supposed to know about. Plus he’s mad about his Workman’s compensation costs.” Dave also said, “Normally I like to get a little shut-eye during safety meetings anyway, if I reported this incident, imagine all the paperwork I’d have to fill out!” All these injuries, yet I (the Ace Re-porter) remain miraculously unscathed and we wonder why women live longer than men.