This will be a long one… buckle up!
The day started with excitement, not like a normal Sunday; today was the day I, along with several other young teenagers, was going to be confirmed as full members of the congregation of the United Methodist Church of Patterson. Unfortunately, like many things in my life at the time, I didn’t fully understand, or really care to understand, the import of this commitment.
For several months I had been getting up early on Sunday morning, getting all doodied up, and walking to church early; my parents were probably cautiously optimistic, hoping that their wild child was finally maturing into a young man they could be proud of… and when I think of this now I have a pang of regret. There were many times in my young life, up until the time that I finally met my Angel that changed everything, that my actions surely hurt their hearts and hurt their pride… my solace now is that they got to see me finally become the person they always hoped for. When I graduated from ULL with a Bachelor’s degree, they were busting with pride! And the memory brings tears to my eyes…
But if they would have known my true motivation for getting up and going to church early they would have had a bit less optimism; I had a crush on one of the young ladies that was my age, and who would actually be joining the church the same day as me, Carla Fox. And at the risk of being crude, she was definitely a fox. And she laughed at my attempts at humor, and was a friend, and sometimes we talked on the phone for a while; and I had dreams of maybe someday being her “steady”, as we called it at the time. but my actions later that day probably ended any chance I may have had with her, as far as her parents were concerned anyway.
Moving on, I made it through the ceremony without doing anything outrageous or embarrassing; and the congregation probably held their breath until it was finally over… and everyone left the church in high spirits, the new con-celebrants going off with their families to celebrate in their own ways… we went home to eat dinner at the house, as my Mom and Dad had some function they needed to attend out of town that afternoon. Probably due to the false sense of optimism about my decorum and civility to that point in the day, they did not impose any restrictions on our activities while they were gone, to their later regret!
Sunday afternoon back then, in a small town, was a quiet time of the week; most people would go to church, then go home and have a nice dinner with family, then sit out on the front porch with extended family while the kids visited and played with cousins in the yard; it was quite Norman Rockwellian, if you know what I mean; and if you don’t you can look it up and see what it was like. His paintings chronicled small town life to a very accurate degree in the fifties and sixties, and earlier; and even though the world was changing drastically and at a dizzying pace in 1970, it was still an accurate depiction then, there.
I met up with my camp-out buddy and best friend at the time, Keith Gary; we had many adventures over the years, but unknown to us at the time, today was destined to be one of the most un-forgettable… we had no clue how un-forgettable! Looking back, I wonder if someone would have told us how it would turn out if we would have avoided it or embraced it; we both had a keen sense of adventure, and skirting the line of appropriate behavior was our Modus Operandi. Well, today, we crossed that line.
We were walking down the sidewalk discussing what to do; and as we finally decided we wanted to get some beer, we agreed we didn’t have the money to buy any… so, what to do? We were coming up on the Patterson Pantry at the time; it was a small convenience store on Main Street (Highway 182, once US 90); and the Devil, seeing his chance to get revenge on the fact that I had joined the church that morning, jumped dead square on my ass… “We’ll go in together; and while you occupy the cashier, I’ll grab a couple of quarts and stick em in my jacket…”! Yeah, that’ll work! I had on an Ike jacket; for those that don’t remember, it was a tight jacket that had two inside breast pockets that you could stick a couple of quarts in, upside down; of course, after this maneuver you looked like Mae West with breast implants…!
…but it went off without a hitch! Well, is 2 enough? Nah, we did it 2 more times! Then went back in and asked for some paper bags, in order to carry them down the street discreetly… just as we’re finishing bagging them up on Pop Rizzo’s side of the store, we are aghast to see the Patterson Police Department (only) patrol car coming down Main Street!!! So we immediately ditch our booty under the store… but they drive by with nary a glance in our direction, and continue down the road; Whew! But on retrieving our 3 bags of beer, we find that 2 have broken… DAMN! Being emboldened at our previous success, we get 2 more, and a bag for them… we were on a roll…
Now we head on down the sidewalk, and begin pondering the next big question; where are we gonna go to drink our beer un-interrupted? As we are passing the park, I have an inspiration that, I’m sure to this day, made the Devil smile; “We can go in the Church, it’s never locked!”. So we walk up to the Church, and walk in; going up to the front, we pull out a couple of quarts, open em up, and begin sucking down some suds… and after a few minutes we hear a car pull up outside the Church! We immediately move into one of the side rooms, and hunker down; Keith is behind the door as we hear footsteps in the church, coming closer; I am looking out the window as the door suddenly opens behind me; I freeze and continue to try to casually gaze out the window; after what seems like forever, the door slowly closes behind me… to this day, I don’t know who that was… maybe a warning shot from my Guardian Angel?
Unfortunately, I ignored the warning…
To be continued; same life, different story…
Stories From The Fog 