Just drove Leo to school. Passed up all the firemen breaking down the giant tent city that had sprung up over night a few days ago. These guys are real pros. On the side of the road out in a large field, they have giant plastic covered areas where all the huge fire fighting equipment is driven onto, then, cleaned by men in hazmat suits and high pressure gear. The runoff goes into a sump area, then sucked into tankers. Quite impressive. Must of been fifty tents in one spot alone. Leo suggested we put smudge on our faces and get some free meals. Oh, as if we would fit in with these ass kickers. He’s a funny kid, this Leo…I guess he’s not a chain smoker. Haven’t heard a word on his trick smokes…

I found Leo’s secret cigarette stash under the crawl space a few days ago. I just found the box with all our junk stuff in it from the old barn. In it, a pack of cig exploders. Their tiny little sticks that you slip into the tobacco at the end of the cig. When the unsuspecting sucker lights up and takes a drag, it blows the cig apart and scares the hell out of you. Tonight, will keep the stereo down. Don’t want to miss the ‘KA-POW’…He only has four cigs, so, I covered all bases…

Kids. I just witnessed another generation do the, “This milk is old, so, I’m opening another container”, routine. Gee, really? That cereal needed fresh milk? Oh yeah, it sure did. So, to combat this I would keep really old, but washed out half gallon plastic containers, hidden in the pantry recesses. When no kids were around, I would open one of the new containers, pour the new milk into the container with the old date, then, mix milk from the half empty container no one would touch with powdered milk, then, some cream for my coffee. These idiots fell for this for quite awhile until I was busted in the act by my son Tejas. The look of horror when he realized what had been going down was well worth the trouble…

So, the little lad Leo, didn’t want to go to school. Why, he even cursed at his shocked mother. I fnally hear the words I’ve been hungering for, “Kim, will you deal with this boy!” OH MAN! There is nothing sweeter on gods green earth them straightening out a malcatricent teenager. Hey, I was bent by masters, time to pass along the wisdom. Oh, you never break a child. My Uncle Curly felt a little bending couldn’t hurt. I use an old tactic pulled on me. I touch hands with Pat, I enter the ring. I was ready to rock and roll. I say a stern, “Leo, out of that rack pal!” He feigns sleep. In my left hand, a glass of water. My right, a soup pan full. I hit him with the glass. He shoots up in a sitting position while starting a protest of some sort. Never heard it. The soup pan water at fifty miles an hour shut it out…

A kid at the skate park here in town was telling his pals how the ‘Justice league’ a new flick coming out would be the ultimate super group. I get in on this. I wonder, “What about the HULK. You’re saying they can take him?” The kid says, “Well, they have Superman and six others!” What? Hulk already wiped the floor up with Superman a long time ago. He bounced him like a basketball. I tell the kid the bad news, then add, “I call those other guys pallbearers”!!…

Leo, our Russian kid, gets caught shoplifting. At a Dollar store for crying out loud. The wife says I have to have a talk with him. I start out by telling him to always check on what type security cameras the store has. She slaps me up side the head. Oh, I get it, an Andy Hardy sort of talk. “Well Leo, I too, was caught stealing once. I was in the Topanga Plaza Mall. I was about 15 at the time. They had a pet shop in said mall. I was entranced with a big, two foot Iguana in a glass terrarium. It was thirty bucks. I had zip. Since I was wearing some sweat pants and the clerk was busy at the register, I lifted the glass top, ignored the hissing lizard, then stuffed him in my sweat pants. I put my sweat shirt over the bulge then strolled out like I owned the place!” Leo’s eyes opened at this revelation. Pat is horrified. I then finish the tale. “Too bad, that Iguana noticed my nutsack. It attacked ’em. Yep. Chomped right on the old scroto. I ripped my pants down, right in front of a security guard, then, started a pulling contest as I tried to run with my pants around my ankles.!” I waited for a, “Then what happened”? Pat’s glare made me shut up…Alright already. I finally got the lizard off, tossed it at the guard as he tried to grab me, then ran for my life through a side door that led to the loading docks. I dropped a good twenty foot, landing on some stacked broken down card board boxes, and escaped through a bunch of unloading trailers. The incident changed my stealing. I promised myself to never get caught again…

So, Leo has some new pals with ATV’s. He’s now sneaking out his window to meet up with them. He doesn’t realize I hear them coming from five miles away up our canyon. While trying to get a shot at a coyote with the pellet gun, I watch from a vantage point in the brush as Leo pops out his window, then, repeats. I also notice he dives into the window to return, rolling on his bed next to the window. Hmmm. The thought of putting about twenty mouse traps on his bed when he sneaks back at night pops into my head…On that note, I had a room mate, Larry Williams, who used to hit his alarm on top to sleep fifteen minutes more, then, shout at me for letting him sleep. I was fifteen, he was twenty two. I put a mouse trap on top of his alarm clock once. I didn’t hear the ‘snap’, but I sure heard him scream, then hit his door looking for me. I slept in the front room of this old farm house. He chased me outside, then locked me out…

The Underpants War

Leo refuses to pick up his shorts. Mean, dirty briefs. Weeks old if a day. The gauntlet is thrown after the hundredth time finding ’em on the bathroom floor. I help him with his volcano deal for a school project. I pretend it needs a bit of work. “I’ll take it to school for you!” He runs for the bus. I stick a pair of his dirty shorts in the volcano with just a bit poking out. During his presentation, no smoke. He spots the blockage and pulls out his shorts in front of the class…He doesn’t learn. I notice he always opens the cereal boxes looking for toys. He’s Russian. Once he found a toy, he expects a toy, dammit. I pre open some Frosted Flakes, put a pair of his dirty briefs in, reseal with glue gun. He spots the box as soon as he’s home, tears it open. The look on his face when he pulled out the shorts…the war went on…

So I tell my son Tejas to call his sister in Boulder, Colorado, today, since its her birthday. He gives me a sigh. They never got along, these two. I think its from the bathroom affair. Since we lived out in the middle of nowhere, school buses picked up the kids, and dropped them off. Tegan’s bus happened to drop her off about seven minutes before Tejas’s. Now, Tejas had a big secret that we all knew about. He couldn’t go to the bathroom at school. Bashful bowels they called it. So, as soon as he jumped off the bus, it was a run for the toilet. Tegan knew his Achilles heel, his Kriptonite, his armor’s chink. That bathroom. We only had one in those days. She would wait for him to spot her out front, then, hit the house and lock herself in. My gosh the things he would scream while he pounded on the bathroom door. Guess that might be why no birthday call. Well, one of the reasons. Answering the phone for him might be another, but, that’s another story…

So, years ago, my oldest boy Tejas, lived in the toy house off tower four. Its a tiny two story job next to the train station. He never liked to close the front gate. He would even park out front then sneak in, leaving that gate open. We had these really mean African geese, goats, ducks, chickens, and some peacocks I wanted protected. One morning he sneaks in at five am. I cut him some slack since he was going in the Navy. But that gate was open again. I take some cat chow that all the animals loved, picked his lock, put a back trail of chow to the animal gate, then let them loose. The peacocks find the chow, start pecking like crazy, soon, it’s a mini stampede. As the goats pass everyone and go inside and up the trail I put on the stairs, shouting came from the 2nd floor. Music to my ears…He still left the gate open. Got a better lock…