Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The House that Corky Built

This place? Most of us know from this place all of our lives. It looks a little different these days but trust me, its the same joint.

I keep this not so old photo around for a couple of reasons. One day I'm going to show it to my kids encase my parents decide to move. There is a lot of history there. I could dedicate this post just to talking about the front yard. Take the three biggest trees in this pic. I planted them when I was in the first grade.

Cindie and I used to go camping between to the two trees. There is a really cool creek that runs between our house and the white house. I used to catch crayfish and native brook trout in it. A lot of people call crayfish crawdads or crawfish but that shit doen't make any sense to me. IM sure some of you went camping there as well. Benny Cubbeta shot me in the ass with a bb gun in front of this house. Ihab Sali whipped me in the back with a completely fiber glass fishing pole. That fucking hurt, but I wish I still had that pole. It should be obvious to all of you by now that this was also a super hero training compound.

This house was also used to film the very famous documentary "Black Belts" starring the Apologist. We also built a lot of Igloos on the front of this lawn after a big snow storm. One thing I never understood was how the Eskimos put roofs on their Igloos. My father still has two of those snow block makers.

Over here we have a picture of Hazel Ave. In the 70's and 80's this street functioned as a football field, a racing park, and a battlefield to name just a few. If you never skinned your knee or cracked your head open on a street just like this one then I really have no use for you. I learned how to ride a bike on this street and fell quite a few times. The cool think about riding bikes back in those days was that kids didn't wear helmets. There were a lot of Big Wheel races on this street as well. Shooting out street lights with a bb gun or an arrow was always a good way to kill an afternoon on Hazel Ave.

The street has almost completely turned over since the days of you and me and I can tell you this for sure, most of the newcomers that live there are nothing like you and me. Besides the fact that they don't have personalities, the kids ride down the street with helmets on, what's that about? They stay in their own yards, the're not organized at all. I can't dig it. As i recall we owned this entire street and a couple of other ones for that matter.

Oh yeah, I drank a lot of beer and ate a shit load of hotdogs here too.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i feel weird being first/only to post commenti on this, since i definitely didn't spend as much time there as other readers.

that said, i sure did enjoy those boardathons with all you can drink instant iced tea.

i think as much as anything, the memories i have of corky's childhood/adolescent home is the magic of childhood that makes you think anything is possible--whether it is doug trying to break 4 boards at 118 pounds or keith and brett deciding that it was normal to ride bicycles on the highway while carrying planks of wood on their shoulders. it was this kind of magical childhood logic that made me think a short, fat, jewish kid could be good tae kwon do and fighting, and later made me think i could actually make the olympic team.

some of our dreams may fall short, but i think we can all agree that this blog itself is proof that anything is possible.

(have you heard my plan for trying to walk on as a kicker?)

Anonymous said...

Grandma says you forgot to tell them about the time I shot the wild turkey in the backyard, plucked, and cooked for Thanksgiving.
:)

captain corky said...

I would love to watch you try out for the Jets. Before anyone else asks, can you get me season tickets?

captain corky said...

Could you imagine if Fannie had a blog? 93 years of living history and counting. Plenty of stories to embellish.

She has watched the world go from horse and buggy to high speed Internet.