I spent a lot of pocket change there buying cokes, candy, and chips. When I became a summer working "man" at the age of 14, I often bought my lunch there. Old Man Brown's wife would start making sandwiches around 5:00 AM to fill an old coke cooler.
All the sandwiches were on white bread and wrapped in wax paper. There were ham sandwiches for 40 cents, ham and cheese sandwiches for 45 cents. Baloney sandwiches were cheaper at 30 cents and with cheese for 35 cents. All were generously slathered with Mayonnaise. If you wanted something else, please move along, because someone else was always waiting in line for their ham or baloney sandwiches. Trades people jammed up the small parking lot until 8 or 9:00 AM every weekday morning. I usually packed 3 baloney and cheese sandwiches with a coke for under $1.50.
I crammed a lot of growing up into those few years in Bethesda. The carefree slow days of my pre-teens changed when I officially became a teenager. Life picked up the pace at which it came at me.
I rebelled. I hated everything, possibly myself the most. I was sure I was a loser. All in all, a predictable turn of events coming out of puberty. I know now it wasn't just me, it was likely every teen who was confused by changes in their bodies, their brains, their outlooks.
In the here and now I struggle to remember why I was such a punk. I got into fights, began drinking and drugging and generally was a huge pain in the ass for my parents. I was an angry, angry young man then and yeah, I was lucky to have survived my time in Bethesda.
Between all the angst and self doubt of those Teen years, I did manage to squeeze in some awesome times that can only happen in the period of turmoil between kid life and teen life. Being almost adult sized with a child's outlook, well, that was a recipe for stupidity that was too enticing and fun to turn away from.
I began sneaking out at night with a couple of friends when I was in 9th grade. The attraction at first was riding the Washington Post newspaper truck bumper as it delivered bundles of the day's news all over Bethesda and Chevy Chase. We were kings of the world as we stood on the rear bumpers of those trucks. Of course we were often found out by the driver who always seemed to catch us when we were at the furthest point away from our homes near Suburban Hospital. An hour of fun often resulted in a hour walk home as our reward.
My sneaking out days ended the night I was caught by the cops and whisked away to the local cop shop near the center of town. I tried to act the tough guy by refusing to tell them who I was. The cop parked me in the drunk tank with an obviously drunk homosexual. The guy was harmless, but he did have some fun at my expense. A half hour or so of that and my tough guy schtick evaporated. I gave up my name , address and phone number as the cops there laughed their asses off. They were not trying to scare me straight. They were just into having a laugh.
The cops called my parents around 1:30 AM I guess. My dad told them he would swing by sometime later that morning to pick my sorry ass up. He showed up around 11:00 AM. The cops told me he wasn't coming. Again, I am sure they were just yukking it up at my expense.
Oddly, my ole man didn't say a word on the way home. Nor did he say anything when he opened the garage door and pointed to the wheel barrow full of yard tools. I knew without being told, every weed ridden flower bed in the yard was going to be serviced without any help from him.
It didn't end there. I washed and waxed both cars and then he loaned me out to the old lady next door to serve as her slave for the foreseeable future. Throughout this ordeal, he might have said a few words, but none that were not commands or criticism. It went on like this for a couple of weeks.
Then we had "the talk"; the talk I had been dreading. As it turned out, it was not so bad. I never snuck out again though. I also did not calm down. I ended up being booted out of the Montgomery County School system. I ended up going to Charlotte Hall Military Academy my last 3 years of high school, while my parents moved to Maine.
In retrospect it seemed to me it was an White upper middle class way of kicking me out of the house. At the time I did not really think about it. They had done the same thing to my brothers. Regardless, I held no animosity towards my parents then or now. I created the situation by my self destructive behavior. I needed their tough love and they were more than happy to supply it.
Keep it 'tween the ditches .............................
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I am going to pick the music for this post by throwing a virtual dart at a playlist I have buried in my computer. We will see what I pick. ............ Well, well, well. One of my favorite Steely Dan tunes off their "Pretzel Logic" album. Here is "East St. Louis Toodle Oo". Enjoy.
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