memoir

Hometown Steelers.
I grew up in the red neck woods of southwest PA, where the people live in slow motion. They all look like they ware waiting for something amazing to happen in front of their houses. But in reality all there waiting for is the next welfare check and for the sun to go down so there’s no glare on the TV screen. Until then they sit on their front porch drink beer and get fat. Once they do the daily migration from the front porch to the kitchen to throw some pile of scrap food into the microwave. From there they roll themselves in front of the TV to see if they have the special lottery ticket. Just maybe they would have the winning number. Then they could stop suffering and having to fight with the land lord every month because they spent too much money on beer and direct TV and now they don’t have enough to pay the rent. Now that’s the bottom of the pack. The other neighbors are a bit better off. They’ve got a full family of four, two boys ages 13 and 15. They’re jumpy little hillbillies. Running around all day everyday shooting shit from their porch and tearing up their own yard with their quad. Blowing stuff up and making huge bonfires were just the norm. The mom doesn’t do much except cook dinner, yell at the kids and obey all orders from the man of the house. The man works at a farm and makes pretty decent money. Enough that he gets to support his kids and wife and still have some play money left over. Bummer is that he spends a bunch of it on lottery tickets and guns. He never leaves the house without wearing some piece of clothing that doesn’t contain the Steelers symbol or something Steelers related. The whole family is loyal to the only thing that makes them proud of where they’re from. The Steelers. That’s the one thing that links all people in the entire region. Weather there barley able to get money for food or have so much money they have to hide it over seas to keep it away from the government, everyone can connect and relate with their loyalty to the well loved Steelers.
I remember the first Steelers football game I watched. It was a playoff game a bunch of years ago. I don’t remember too much about the game but I do remember that that game was a big deal. Our house was perfect for football games. We had huge TV in a giant room with a monster couch. There was a kitchenette kind of thing there too. I guess its was a mix between a bar and a kitchen. But anyway I was just a youngster trying to understand the rules/ concept of the game. I would sit there and watch the game very intensely for a few minutes then get distracted by all my little friends that were running around and go play with them. We would jump around on the couches; fly though all the adults’ legs to get an up-close and personal eye level few of all the food that was on the bar. There were piles of wings that were smothered in a variety of sticky sauces, chips and salsa. We would challenge our taste buds with the mild wings. But only a few brave souls tried the hot wings. They all ended up freaking out and crying to their parents who were so consumed by the football they didn’t care one bit about the crying child latched onto their leg. All the adults were constantly yelling at each other and the screen, throwing footballs around and consuming large quantities of beer and wings. When we all started getting bored of running around we sat right in front of the TV blocking the entire view of the game. The adults would instantly go bazzerk and yell like mad at us to get out of the way. Once we got enough attention we would run off laughing. The adults would have a brief moment to relax because they could see the screen again. Then right back to deep stares and shaking nerves once they realized what went down during the 15sec separation. By the time the game was nearly over us kids were beat. All we wanted to do was go to bed. But no. we all had to stay up till the game was over. The adults were still raging it just as hard as they were at kick off. I could have gone to bed but my room was too close to the action so I would have never gotten to sleep. Plus all my friends were there till the end of the game so might as well. I don’t even remember if we won that game or not. To me that was the least of my concerns. If I had to guess I would say we lost because that was the last time we had a football party at my house that year. The years after that were totally different. Us kids had grown up enough to appreciate the game so we all ended up just like the adults screaming at the TV. Now we are all true blue Steeler fans and nothing will ever warp us to become fans of another team, nothing.

Cotton candy.
The first time I remember having cotton candy was at Kenny Wood theme park. I have no clue how old I was but it must have been pretty young because the memory of the moment is pretty faded and sketchy. It was just my dad and I floating around the park. I was super small so most of the rides I was too little for. I had just lost a bunch of money one of those stupid games that sucks in like gambling. I was basically in tears my dad felt bad for me I guess so he bought me a wad of cotton candy. Now this is something that my dad would almost never do so he must have been feeling very generous. He either had the need to ruin my teeth or felt really bad for me. Anyway he got a batch of the stuff and I munched down on it for a long while. You can never forget the feeling and taste of cotton candy. It is truly one of a kind. You munch down on the super fluffy light sugar and rip off a huge section. Then you slowly bring it into your mouth with your tongue. The water in you mouth turns the stuff into a super sticky slush that is sure to stick to your face, all over your hands and in return every piece of clothing you’re wearing. When you’re eating that stuff nothing else seems to matter. You’re so preoccupied by how entertaining it is to melt it in your mouth that you don’t notice the massive roller coasters or how you just lost 10 bucks trying to get ping pong balls into a cup floating in a pond. Since that time I can’t remember the last time I ate the stuff but I will surely never forget the experience. I guess if you’re not too worried about how bad cotton candy is for you, you can use it for an antidepressant because nothing gets your mind off reality more than cotton candy.

First life threatening moment.
The first time in my life when I felt that it could have been my last breath was when I was 12 years old. Me and my two best mates had a made a vine swing over a swamp in the middle of the woods. Now this was back in PA so the woods are totally different. There were gnarly vines all over and the trees are so much bigger than around here. Anyway, we had taken a golf cart full of tools to our newly located vine heaven. The plan was to find the biggest and highest vine in the valley and turn it into the greatest vine swing ever made. After a brief search we stumbled upon the greatest vine the world had ever seen. It was 4 inches thick and went all the way to the very top of a huge tree. I cant remember how far but back then it looked really far up. We cleared out a run way, chopped the vine in the perfect spot and then cleared out the landing zone on the other side of the tree. The tree was placed perfectly at the crest of the valley, perfect for a high swing over the swampy sludge below. After a few practice swings we got the hang of it and started to some running starts. The problem with the running starts was you had to move your hands down the vine as you got closer to lift-off. After a while of going faster and fast we got to the point where we were a good 15 to 20 feet over the swamp. We all felt pretty comfortable with it all until I went for yet another big swing and when I was about to grab the very bottom of the vine my hand missed the most crucial grab. I was able to hold on for a slit second until the full weight of my body hit my lonely arm on the vine. Then I just fell. A good 10 or 15 feet into the swamp. Now I don’t really remember falling but I do remember opening my eyes after the fall. And all I could see was a big freaking boulder maybe 10 inches from my face. It turned out that I landed in pretty much the softest part of the swamp. Once I stood up I saw that there were pretty much rocks all around me and I managed to miss every single one of them. My two bros were shocked for a second then they just started laughing cause there was a big impression of my body in the mud. After that fail we gave up on vine swinging for a few weeks till we all got our nerves back to try it again. So yeah that was pretty scary but it never affected me to the point of being scared to do stuff, thank god.

Christmas.
The first Christmas I have a good memory of was a fantastic one. Once again I have no clue how old I was. I remember I still had a slight thought of the Santa guy but I seriously questioned him. I was a logical child. The first thing I remember was me and my dad taking the big truck out to all the different farms to pick out a perfect tree. If you don’t know southwest PA is the Christmas tree capital of the world. We had thousands of trees to choose from. After searching for a good 30 min we found a tree ripe for the picking. We pointed it out the old farmer man and he ordered his boy to grab the chainsaw and cut ‘er down. The kid was only 17 probably but to me he a giant. He drug the beast over to our car threw it in and strapped it down. That was the easy part. Putting the tree up in the house was the real challenge. Since we had a living room with a really tall ceiling we had to get a really big tree. But there’s no Christmas tree stand in existence that would hold up our tree. Dad a genius plan that he did every year. He would tie a cable to the top of the tree and hang it from the ceiling. It was a 3 person job. Dad went up on the ladder to where the hook was and 2 other guys (some construction workers that were at the house if I remember correctly) hoisted the monster off the floor enough for dad to tie it to the hook. At this point it was just a big tree swinging in the middle of the living room; this is where mom did her share. She piled up linens underneath it to make it look a little saner. Then she put the 20 million ornaments. Dad had to use the ladder to put the one that goes on the top. Then was the waiting game, waiting for the special day that you get to open all the presents piled up all around the tree. On Christmas eve mom thought we should make cookies for Santa. We made a bunch and put them the coffee table with some milk just like you’re supposed to do. I was forced to go to bed I can still remember the excitement of lying in bed wanting to go to sleep but wasn’t able to. When morning finally came I instantly ran upstairs to hustle mom and dad to stop sitting around drinking coffee and get into the living room. Once I got everyone by the tree it was finally time to open up the presents. The cookies were still there so I just ate those a breakfast during the opening process. I remember opening up a bunch of stuff and burning the wrapping paper in the fire. I don’t remember any of my presents other than the best one. A brand new pair of Dynastar skis and boots. I remember strapping on the boots, slapping into the skis and sliding around on the carpet. That was an epic Christmas.

kid story

Once upon a time there was a little red dump truck that lived in the red wood forests of California. Mickey was abandoned as a very young truck when the lumberjacks didn’t need him anymore.

He was left to rust with the rest of the trucks that the lumberjacks left behind. All the others have fallen apart and died. Now Mickey is all alone in the big forest.

There isn’t much to for a truck to eat in the forest so Mickey had to be creative. He discovered that the hikers that came through the forest would always eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So why couldn’t Mickey do the same?

One day he found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the ground. He was very hungry so he decided to try it. It was the most delicious thing Mickey had ever had before. It was then that Mickey realized that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were how he was going to get his food.

All day Mickey would drive around on the hiking trails looking for dropped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Like was good for the little red truck. He was always able to find enough sandwiches to keep himself happy.

Until one day he couldn’t find any sandwiches. Mickey needed to find the reason for this so he wandered the woods all day until he found what was happening to his sandwiches. It was an evil monster that was eating all the sandwiches before Mickey could get to them.

This was not good. Mickey would starve without the sandwiches. He needed a way to get rid of the evil monster. For days Mickey secretly watched the evil monster to see if there was anything he was really scared of.

Mickey found out that the monster was terrified of bees. Mickey had a plan. He was going to gather a bunch of flowers and pile them around the monster when it was asleep. The next night Mickey put a truckload of flowers all around the sleeping monster.

When the evil monster woke up there were thousands of bees all over him. He was so scared by the bees that he got up and ran. The monster ran all the way to the desert where it knew the bees would not follow him

With the evil monster gone Mickey was able to eat his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in peace and he lived happily ever after.

poems

Wander
The streets the woods the ocean the world
Wandering teaches you more than anything else.
No book can show you the wold first hand
Have you experience all types of places
People see them be influenced by them
Learn from them and how they do things.
Wander the woods to understand it so well and completely
You can study a tree in a library but why bother
When you can lean all you need to know just by walking
Through the woods and examining
contemplating what you see
sail the ocean take
take your time
there’s hardly ever a rush
swim with it and absorb the water
live off it
feed off it
appreciate it.

Back in style.

Who cares.
To people really pay attention to what you where?
Hip and new is all the rage.
You got to be up to date or youre a worthless nobody

If cosmo says that having a tear in your jean is cool on the right but not the left
You best go out and buy jeans just like that.
If you’ve got a hole on the left you might as well go hide in a cave.

Where whatever you want.
If people give you shit for it you can think of them as mindless drones
That obey orders from a magazine.


skis

You just sit there and wait
All summer you stare
Right at me every morning.
Leaning against the wall
calling me
I move you to the floor
Letting you know
The time is near.
The snow is coming
Your new co-workers have arrived
Youll like them
I know your upset
That you cant go out as soon as the others
But your special
You wait for prime conditions
Let the others eat the rocks.
you will be most triumphant

Crash

Flying down leaning way back
Sinking deep full confidence
No backing down now too late
Launch through the air
A white explosion behind you
You see your LZ
Its perfect, deep and untouched.
You hit spot on
You compress deepinto the snow
Your head close to the tips
Your going to slow.
Tick tick poof
You fly forward
Skis way behind
Your head buried deep under the surface.
Your friend rolling in the snow laughing.
You double ejected.

The first time cotton candy experience

I have no clue how old I was so I must have been pretty young
my dad and I floating around the park.
I was depressed
I had just lost a bunch of money
on one of those stupid games that sucks you in like gambling.
I was basically in tears
My dad bought me a wad of cotton candy.
He wanted to ruin my teeth
You can never forget the feeling and taste of cotton candy.
It is truly one of a kind.
The water in you mouth turns the stuff into a super sticky slush
that is sure to stick to your face
When you’re eating that stuff nothing else seems to matter.
You’re so preoccupied
You forget you lost10 bucks
trying to get ping pong balls into a cup floating in a pond.
nothing gets your mind off reality more than cotton candy.

short story billy bob

Creative writing

Damon 9\17\09

Billy the Rally Racer

Billy bob had two goals in life. One was to become a professional rally racer and the other was to be a stunt man for a movie at least once. Both of which were very far reaches for a 25 year old hick stuck in the deep woods of West Virginia. He was a woodsy from birth. He grew up on a 300 acre farm that had 200 acres of corn and the rest was woods. With the closest town a good 30 min drive on a dirt pothole invested road. And the town itself was only a gas station, grocery store, liquor store, a diner, town hall/police station/ fire department and a school. There were only about 800 people in Saltlick County so no one was an unknown. If you lived in Saltlick County you never left, ever. And no one would ever think of moving to Saltlick County.

Billie’s childhood involved nothing more than playing in the fields, roaming the woods and observing the awesomeness of his uncle at work. His uncle, John was the car mechanic of the town. He had decked out one of the old barns at the Bob’s family farm into a car shop. There were piles of old cars, broken down dirt bikes, quads, tractors, snowmobiles, dishwashers, refrigerators, any kind of machine that had broken down in the last 10 years in the county ended up right there. Billie learned nothing from going to school; rather he went to workshop school 7 days a week with his uncle. He would try to fix weedwackers, blenders or any super simple contraption that had a motor when he first started off at age 12. but his real passion was to one day know enough to break down a car completely and put it all back to gather. No instructions necessary. As he grew up he would move to more and more complicated things. Each spring would bring a new machine. From weedwackers to push mowers to tractors, dirt bike, quad, and then at age 16 he was approved by his uncle to be a full time mechanic at the shop.

Billy wasn’t too pleased with working in the shop all the time because he had plans of his own. Rally racer and stunt man. But through deep thought he realized that this could be his ticket in. a rather ingenious plan. Whenever a car would come in for a repair Billy would fix whatever the problem was as fast as he could, then do some research on that particular car to see what parts of it where known to be the best out of all cars. Once he found out the cars most respected part he would take it out. And replace it with a shotty one from one of the cars in the scrap pile. For example, say a Ford f150 came in for a realignment of its wheels. Billy would fix it as fast as possible, then slyly ask john what he though the best part of a Ford f150 was. Say it was the power steering system. Billy would then continue the conversation with john as to not make him suspicious of why he asked. Later that nigh Billy would rush out to the garage with a headlamp and spend hours of the night tearing out the power steering of the Ford and replacing it with another one out of the pile.

Now he had to be very carful with this whole operation because, A. it was a small town and if caught he would never be let back in the county. B. his family would be frowned upon for ever and they would frown on him. And C. its just plain illegal. How ever Billy’s commitment to his dream he would go to any lengths to achieve his master plan for success. Thankfully john’s shop was somehow very well known in the next closest town. The next town of Uniontown was a big one and although Billy had never been there he knew that the people there were not motor heads. Therefore the odds were good that they wouldn’t notice if there cars were not running quite as smooth as it was before the sent it to the shop for whatever reason. All they were worried about was that there brakes weren’t shaking.

Billy figured that if he could get away with this for a few years that he could have enough random high quality parts to make a crappy old car into a turbo charged racing machine.

It turned out that a few years turned into 10. It’s been 10 years since Billy Bob stated his epic plan to create an armature rally car. And after 25 years of living at home in saltlick County he was ready to open his eyes to the rest of the world and show them all that he is the next pro rally racer. He had saved up a huge pile of cash to hit the road and check himself into the closest rally race in Cumberland Maryland. He bought a big truck to haul the rally car and to eat, sleep and live in for the next few years or until he made enough cash off the race business to buy an RV.

Today was the big day. As Billy said good bye and good riddance to his home town he thought about all that little community had done for. Him but it was a brief thought. Because that town had held back his dreams for too many years. And now he was finally on his way to happiness. He arrived in Cumberland MD to see huge crowds of people all over the place. It turns out that this weekend had multiple events going on. Right now was the hair scramble dirt bike race. Then tomorrow would be the main event, the rally. After watching the bikers fly through the section of town that was part of the track for a brief moment he located the registration booth for the races. Without hesitation he threw down the 300 bucks it cost to be in the sport class race. He had full confidence he would win that money back along with another 700 on top of that. For 10 years he had been practicing on the Bob’s farm, making tracks threw the woods, each spring making them harder and harder, deeper mud pits, sharper turns bigger jumps. He was prepared for any kind of race track they could lay on him. No obstacle could scare him, nothing. If they had to cross a raging river no problem he had done it a thousand times. A pit with 3 feet of drowning mud or a jump so long you cant see the landing until you’ve been in the air for 100 feet, it was all a breeze.

After a peaceful night sleep in the back of his car. He was well rested for the big race. With his confidence through the roof he showed up at the starting line bright and early. He ate his breakfast on the starting line in his rally racer. An hour later the organizers of the race began to show up and play around with the computers in the observation booth. Still Billy was not one bit nervous. A good 2 hours after he had first gotten to the staring line the other cars started to emerge. There were 23 cars total. 23 cars on the track all at once. 23 cars to cut you off, screw with your line, distract you and block your view. But still Billy remained totally confident and not one bit nervous. Billy had a choice of doing this, it was one that he had been thinking of for a long time. When he was young he had dreamed of this and now he his there, the feeling is surreal. His emotions were rushing through him with the same speed that he wishes to go in his race. The main emotion he was feeling was success. He had made it to his dream.

Once everyone was settled down on the starting line the commentator did the classic “Racers start your engines” and everyone quickly fired their ignitions and began revving up. Billy plugged in his cassette player, pressed play and turned the volume all the way to the top. It was a cassette of the greatest pump up rock songs of the 80’s. The first song was We Will Rock You, clearly the best choice for track 1. one the intro to the song was over Billy strapped into his race seatbelt a put on his helmet. He figured all he had to do was imagine that he was back at the farm on his own track. He thought he could fool his brain into thinking that he already new the race course. But the problem was he didn’t.

The gun fired signaling the start of the race. All 23 cars sprang to life. Their tires all spun and squealed for a second before collecting the friction and flew off the line. There’s no skill involved in getting out front in the beginning of one of these races. As long as you know how to shift a car you’re as good as everyone else. What makes the difference is the car. Some are just plain faster. Billy had about average acceleration in his ride. So he was right around the middle of the crowd. Once the first turn comes is when you can instantly figure who is going to be some real competition and who should have stayed at home. Billy definitely should not have stayed home.

The first turn was a tricky one. Right at the apex of the turn was the transition from pavement to dirt. Billy cam in super hot just like everyone else around him and then everyone had to slam the breaks once they saw the dirt. The guys in front with the super fast cars were in for trouble. Didn’t have nearly enough space to slow down to avoid hitting the barricade. So 7 cars in front of the main pack slid into the jersey and piled up. The 2 second gap was enough for everyone else to realize what needed to be done. The peloton came in much slower and made the transition/ turn super easy. Billy came on the inside just as fast as the guys on the outside of the turn. If he could keep the traction he could pass everyone and be in the lead. But his wheels were spinning too fast and he slid across the turn bumping into the guys on the outside of the turn. They were all shaken up from it but were able to avoid crashing into the barricade.

Once through the first turn there was a dirt straight-away wide enough for 4 cars. This was where everyone would get resituated on the track and prepare for the next turn. Billy pinned it. Not paying any attention to the other cars around him he went as fast as his car would let him go. He and 2 others were pretty much all tried for first at this point one man to his left and one to his right. The next turn was a right had turn. Billy was planning on slowing down well before the turn then gunning it through the turn while staying in the middle of the track the whole time. The man to his left was a bit ahead of him. About 1.5 car lengths. And the man to his right was just barley behind him. 50 feet before the turn Billy hit the brakes. The racer on his left didn’t slow down until in the turn then he power slid. Billy got to the beginning of the turn and gunned it again. He was going to swing wide then cut back across the inside of the turn. But as soon as he started his plan of execution he notice what the outside guy was doing. He hadn’t slowed down and now Billy was heading, at speed, right for him. Billy t-boned the car at 30 miles an hour. Once he bounced off that car he tried to correct his steering to stay on the track but he over corrected and started heading towards the inside of the turn where the 3^rd place car was. And bam he hit the inside car at and angel causing Billy’s car to flip onto its side and off the track. The thoughts that were running through Billy’s head had no direction of what was going to happen next but of how hard he had worked to get it to that race, to be on the track. Billy was just happy that all off his hard work had paid off and he made it. No matter what happened next. The car, still going about 25, slid off into the woods and cracked into a huge tree. The impact crushed the roof of the car in 2 feet right on top of Billy’s head. Crushing his neck and crumpling his back. Billy was dead on the spot.