Oh, the days of summer! I remember how I used to count the hours until I could finally get out of that stuffy classroom and catch some rays (raise a little hell) with my friends.
When I wasn’t busy working as a dishwasher and busboy down at the local diner, my friends and I would be out on the lake fishing or swimming. Most of the time just checking out the girls in their tight swim outfits. We rode around in my buddy’s “beater”. Where most people saw a rust bucket 1981 Ford Mustang, we saw freedom.
I lived out in the boondocks, like most of my friends, so you really needed some way to get around. And believe it or not, cruising on a 10 speed is not cool if you’re trying to impress chicks. Not to say that the old rusty bucket was a head turned or anything, but it sure as hell was a giant step up. Not to mention that crossing the causeway into Ohio could be pretty dangerous on a bicycle after dark.
Living on the border did have an advantage. In Pennsylvania the legal drinking age was (and is) 21, but in Ohio it was only 19 for beer. So we knew a few bars that usually didn’t card teens who bought beer, if they looked old enough. And with his Italian/Hungarian genes, Franco sure did. “Frank” was sporting a Magnum P.I. mustache already at age 14. Since we were still too young to drink even in Ohio, we always sent Frank in alone. And most of the time he delivered, though there were rare occasions when they turned him away or asked him for his ID which he conveniently forgot in the car and we’d have to find a new source.
When nightfall came, we’d sneak on over to Ohio and get supplies, cross back to PA and head to the city to cruise the diamond or hang out at “Mickey D’s” with Whitesnake blaring out the window. We never went looking for trouble, but damned if trouble didn’t find us. Flirting with the wrong girl was usually the way it started, and in the end we’d get run out of there by some older punks. Hey these were big guys! We were crazy, not stupid.
So we’d head back out to the countryside, and look for something to do. We’d snatch all of the garden dwarfs from an entire neighborhood and relocate them in some old lady’s yard – all facing her picture window staring in at her. We’d relocate bus shanties from one side of the street to the other. We even rearranged the street signs showing the direction to the highway in a way that anyone following them would end up driving in a big circle. (But never, ever touching or removing a Stop sign. Crazy, but not stupid.)
I honestly can’t remember whose idea it was, but the topic came up “Mailbox Baseball”. We were buzzing pretty well at the time so it sounded like fun. There was a teacher who lived not too far from where we were. Mr. Emil Smith, real mean ornery SOB, the kids called him “Evil Emil” behind his back. And with that, we knew where the game was going to take place. “Play Ball!”
We wanted to be sure that nobody knew we were targeting him directly, so we started hitting mailboxes down the street from him. As we got closer, we noticed some of the mail boxes had already been hit. Apparently somebody else had the same idea already. We were getting ready for disappointment, figuring that the Smith’s mailbox had already been hit, but we were completely surprised to see that out target was still intact. As we got closer, Frank slowed down and I took aim. POW! Direct hit! And then shock after shock…
When the bat hit the mail box, the vibrations rang through my arm as if I hit a steel wall. I thought I’d dropped the bat at that point, but I didn’t and instead of going through the mail box as intended, it bounced back smashing Frank’s back window! We got out of there as fast as we could, and when we did stop I was still howling about my broken arm (It wasn’t, but it sure felt like it was) And Frank, he was hysterically trying to figure out what he was going to tell his parents. I still don’t, to this day, know what he told them. I can tell you that “Evil Emil” got tired of having his mail box destroyed and filled that dang thing with concrete.
I don’t get back that way often, but when I do and I’m driving down the road past the old Smith residence, I can’t help but smile thinking about how “Evil Emil” got his revenge on the punks who kept destroying his mail box. I’m sure I was not the only one who found out the hard way, you don’t mess with Emil Smith.
I hope you've enjoyed this episode of "Tales from the Dorkside".
Be sure to recommend, if you did.
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