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.