The teenage years were a long way back for most of the folks sitting around the table at the Grounds for Divorce the other day. Heck, even our kids’ teenage years were a long way back for most. So when Pastor Peterson brought up some of the struggles he was having with Colby, his middle son who’s a senior over at Jim Bowie High School, “Home of the Fightin’ Knives”, we could all sort of relate, but made us glad that time had passed.
“He lost one of his contacts the other day,” Pastor Peterson said. “Swore up and down it was nowhere to be found. So of course, I went into his room – always a dicey proposition at best – and searched around on the floor and was able to locate it in about three minutes. Colby was shocked at my superior detective skills.” Everyone around the big table in the middle of the cafe nodded in agreement. “I told him it was all about perspective. I explained that he had just been looking for a small piece of plastic. I was looking for a hundred and fifty dollars.”
Some things never change. We could all relate.
New Guy hadn’t said much, which all of us kind of enjoyed. Then he piped in, “I recently told my wife I still had the body of a teenager. She just laughed. Until she looked in the freezer.” Nobody was quite sure if he was joking or not.
“Do you know what the difference is between a teenager and a terrorist?” Sister Thelma asked. “You can negotiate with a terrorist.” It was obvious her work with the youth group was taking a toll.
“How many teenagers does it take to change a lightbulb?” Lucinda asked as she was refilling all the CMC mugs around the table. Nobody knew. “I don’t know, like one, three, five? Whatever, I just can’t even….” She answered with the best Valley Girl imitation any of us had ever heard.
I relayed the story of a disagreement I had with my own daughter back in the day. “At the end of the argument, she stormed off towards her bedroom, not happy with the results of whatever the confrontation had been. As she started to go into her room, she turned around and yelled, ‘And another thing… Jim Morrison sucks.’ I had to tell her, in no uncertain terms, there would be no slamming of The Doors in this house.”
I attributed the faint response to that story to the fact that many of those around the table were probably too young.
Anyway,” Pastor Peterson said, “Colby got his license. He came to me and asked me if he could use the family Taurus. I told him if he would bring his grades up, spend more time reading the Bible, and get his butt over to Barnaby’s Barber Shop for a haircut, then he could use the Taurus.” It seemed like a fair deal to all of us around the table. “A month later, he comes to me while I’m working on a sermon at the kitchen table. He asks me about using the car again. I tell him I’m proud of him. He’s brought his grades up to a respectable level. He’s spent more time in The Word than I’ve ever seen before. But I told him he still hadn’t gotten a haircut.”
We all waited for the other shoe to drop.
“And then he tells me that in all the time he’s spent reading his Bible, he’s noticed how all the significant men of importance had long hair. Sampson. Moses. Noah. John the Baptist. Even Jesus.” Pastor Peterson continued. “So I reminded him, that was true. And they also walked everywhere they went.”
Rusty Hammer had been following along with the story, kind of grinnin’. He said, “That’s when the boy came in and asked me for a part time job at the hardware store. He’s a good worker. I’ve got him driving the Cushman Package Kar. Took him a while to figure out how to maneuver the thing. It’s a little tricky, what with there being only three wheels and all. But he got it down.”
Pastor Peterson couldn’t help but beam with pride while he sipped his Folgers.
“Of course, it took him a time or two to figure out you can’t stack the bags of manure taller than you can see over, or you’ll run right into Sister Thelma’s new Bronco.” The smile faded from Pastor Petersons face. “And it was a real lesson to be sure and look behind you when driving the Cushman, or you’ll back right over the spring display of geraniums we’d just built out front.” Pastor Peterson looked down at the red and white vinyl tablecloth and put his head in his hands.
About then, Colby came running into the Grounds for Divorce, obviously agitated.
“Rusty? Mr. Hammer?” The boy was distraught. “There seems to be water in the carburetor of the Cushman. Can’t get it to turn over.”
“Water in the carburetor?” Rusty was irritated. “How the hell can there be water in the carburetor?”
“Well, it’s at the bottom of the drainage ditch, back behind the store. All you can see is the steering wheel above the surface.”
“Looks like now the boy’s saving up for a new Cushman,” Lucinda noted. “Could have been worse. Could have been the Taurus.”
Brother Bob, who’d come in late for coffee, thought a little levity might pick up the mood. “Did you hear about the teenage boy who went into Rex Hall Drug to buy condoms for the very first time?”
None of us stuck around for the rest of the story. Well, except for New Guy.
7 responses to “TEEN AMBITIONS”
Interest and passion for anything with wheels and/or an engine is part of our DNA. I can remember my brother and I were always into this stuff. As little kids we started with collecting Hot Wheels (which I still have). Moved on to bicycles where we’d put the Mattel V-RROOM engines inside the frame. Then moved on to building go karts out of wood scavenged from construction sites and using the wheels off Dad’s lawnmower. Making the steering mechanism was the hardest and most dangerous part. The go karts only worked going downhill (with no brakes except your shoes on the pavement. Of course we installed the V-RROOM engine on the go karts.
Then finally my bro and I saved enough money to buy our first motorcycle when I was 12. An 80cc 1973 Indian Enduro. After that the flood gates were open, buying dozens of motorcycles. My brother raced dirt flat track and did ice racing. 50 years later he is still ice racing. I chose drag racing my modded 76 RD400 and eventually moved to a 10s Kawasaki drag bike. We both wrenched at various motorcycle shops for a living. We just love motors.
As @angushopper discusses, no one taught us how to drive a stick, you just did it. My 65 Rambler had a 3 on the tree and the instructions to drive and shift were embedded in our DNA. My point of this rambling is, we are all mutants caused by this innate passion for anything with a motor. Hell, I still get it up when I swing my leg over my Club Cadet riding mower. Mrs Motcat is always asking why I have to mow the yard twice. It’s something she won’t understand because her DNA is flawed, unlike ours.
So many touchstones in your comment, the best of which (for me) is the V-ROOM engine from Mattel. I had completely forgotten about that little treasure.
Next to the orange colored tiger-paw handle grips that each featured a large tiger head at the end and black stripes to “grip”, the V-ROOM was my favorite Sting-Ray accessory. So classic.
While I was disappointed that it didn’t make the bike actually GO any faster, it did make it SEEM like it was going faster. Now that I think about it, that may have been the moment in my life that taught me perception is sometimes better than reality.
Thanks for the memories, Mot!
Well, Cap’n, this one dispels the rumor that I might be New Guy . . . I do not have one of those “wife” things that you mentioned . . .
Like all the rumors going on across the pond about Kate Middleton’s exact whereabouts, rumors can be dispelled. But can they ever actually be eliminated?
An inverse corollary of this great tale is the immense satisfaction I get from asking a young porter to move a particular truck from the back of the lot.
This truck has a three on the tree—for you guys 50 and younger that’s a steering column shifted three speed manual transmission.
This task never fails to wipe the smirk off their faces and one time a kid was almost reduced to tears after he couldn’t figure it out.
No better example of simple pleasures for simple minds right here, folks.
I never understood it when my dad would mutter “Youth is wasted on the young.” In retrospect, the man was a genius.
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -Twain. One of my favorite of his quotes.