Although names have lazily been changed, more shifted than changed, the story you’re contemplating donating five or ten minutes of your life to read (could be longer depending on your literacy level, cognitive function, and severity of narcolepsy) is mostly true and based on mostly factual events. Our memories of events from our youth are like that, mostly true and mostly factual.

Embellishments, exaggerations, and flat out lies creep into every event and every story about an event almost immediately, and over time, some of those embellishments become a permanent part of the story, some become the story. Over time, a good story, a funny story, will be told and retold because in general we like to laugh and to make people laugh. It feels good to laugh and it feels good to make others laugh. So, maybe this story will make you laugh, maybe it will remind you of stories from your youth, and maybe you’ll share it with someone you think might enjoy such a story. Stories are meant to be shared. Thank you for letting me share this story with you.

Blanchard’s house was a rutabagas toss from ours. More accurately, I suppose, our house was a rutabagas toss from his, as our parents didn’t plant rutabagas nor would they have thrown them towards Blanchard or his little blue house. Civilized, I suppose you could say “normal”, folks don’t do such things. I suppose it could be said that both my parents are civilized and mostly normal. The same can’t be said for all of their children.

The youngest, Arthur, only a year old at the time of these particular events, was still too young for judgments of character to be passed, but with the errant role models he was exposed to there was a pretty strong inclination as to the path he would follow. Rose, a stubbornly quiet six year old, was much too busy concerning herself with the life and times of her many dolls to pay any mind to the comings and goings of her two pain-in-the-Barbie butt older brothers or some little troll that willingly soiled himself. The poor girl, adrift in a sea of stupidity, stuck sharing her inner most thoughts and feelings with a spirited but misdirected Cabbage Patch doll and a ratty haired stiff legged Barbie.

Our given names were Charles and Ray, not to be confused with the musician Ray Charles, as neither of us were blind and we were both too dumb to play the piano. Ray couldn’t keep his hands out of his pants pockets long enough to learn how to tie his shoes so the piano was most definitely out of the question. The advent of velcro shoes was a godsend for Ray.

Our mother grew tired of repeatedly taking each of our names in vain and took to referring to us jointly, and accurately, as “fricken' idiots”. Maybe this allowed her to emotionally separate herself from our behavior, making herself believe that it wasn’t her flesh and blood, Charles and Ray, performing those idiotic acts of lewd depravity, it was those fricken' idiots. I was 12, Ray was 11, and my mother was right, we were fricken' idiots.

To be continued…