Blog Roll of a Sneaker Wearing Dad - Curtis Tucker The Blog - Antics of working from home
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 "I never had any friends later on, like the ones I had when I was twelve... Jesus.... does anyone?" - Stand By Me That line from the movie Stand By Me is a perfect reflection of me at age twelve. It was 1975 and I was in sixth grade. That was the year that I met my best friend. He's on the front row, far left, I'm third from the right with those really cool pants on. Being twelve in a small town in 1975 was golden. We were just old enough to ride bikes all over town by ourselves and just young enough to not need a job or any heavy responsibilities. Our parents didn't worry about abductions and we were free to roam from neighborhood to neighborhood. That year in school we had a really great teacher and our core gang was made up of five guys, two ten year olds and and three twelve years old. All of us lived right on Broadway street with me living the furthest west. Our school, also on Broadway, was an old brick two story structure named after President McKinley. At that time, pre-political correctness, we were known as the McKinley Bombers. I've always wanted to write a screenplay about that year. It would be a story along the lines of Stand By Me meets The Goonies. It would chronicle all of the adventures we went on in Enid, Oklahoma. We spent that year riding bikes all over town, playing in the creeks and sneaking into the large drainage systems buried under the streets. We had a favorite place under the busiest intersection in town called "Spider Tunnel". Our favorite game that year was something we called Muskalins. We don't know where the name came from and many of us have never even tried to spell it. It was a fascinating game played outside that combined hide-in-go-seek, tag and kick the can. Two players were always chosen to be "it" by an age old selection process of either One Potato - Two Potato, Bubble Gum In A Dish or Colored Eggs. Each of which required you to put your "dukes" in. Players were elimainated one at a time until only two were left standing. They were "it". All other players would run from the home base and go hide anywhere on the half block that we always played on. The other two would count to 100 and then proceed to find the others. As you were found you had to run or you would be tagged. If you escaped you could hide again. If tagged, you had to go stand on base. It took one guy to stay on base and make sure the caught players could not get away. The only way to get back into the game would be if another free player ran by and tagged you while you were on base. If there were four or five guys on base, they could form a chain as long as one player stayed on base. It became rather fun to watch one guy try to free everyone as the guard tried to tag him. Once everyone was caught the game was over. The first two tagged were then "it" and the game started all over again. We used to play this game for hours, skipping meals, television and offers of shopping trips. We would play as late as we could until one parent would finally come out and call someone home. That was the signal that everyone most likely needed to start heading home. Looking back it seems like we must have played that game every single night for a year. Of course we would sneak other events into the mix from time to time like streaking (it was the 70's), egg throwing and games like Find The Coin and Murder In The Dark. All five of us took completely different paths in life. I'm the only one that came back to Enid and has stayed. I'm somewhat of an entrepreneurial cartoonist. I drive by that neighborhood almost every day and I can still see those five boys "fake fighting" in the grass or running in the yards chasing each other. I still know the best hiding places on that entire block even though many of the bushes are long gone. Those were some really great friends. My best friend, the fast runner musician, stayed in Enid for his first few years of college but then made the move to Texas where his parents had retired. He eventually got his Masters and became an accountant and a CFO. He has a great family and spends much of his time in church or singing with his Christian Band. We try to see each other at least once a year and bring up those same old stories every time we get together. The other twelve year old, our movie director, was the first to move away. He moved to California before high school. That was very appropriate since he was the one that started the Star Trek Fan Club and also had his own movie camera in which he used us as actors in his mini commercials. We lost contact with him for many years until he popped back into my life one day. He's now gay, living on a ranch in the mountains and is aggressively trying to become a film director. Maybe he'll make my movie? As time and separation usually do, we quickly lost contact with the two ten year olds as we moved on to junior high. One of the guys became a minister and the other joined the Navy. I've run across both of them a few times over the years but have never gotten to sit down with them to reminisce about those golden days. 1975 was truly a time of innocence for me and it was summer that I wished would have never ended. I wish every twelve year old would grow up with a year like mine... especially my two girls. Back to blog and comments section... |
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Learn How To Make Your Life Happy!  © Curtis D. Tucker 2008 :: A division of Shaggy Duck Studios - Enid, Oklahoma Contact Me |
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