By Fred Owens
I wrote these stories for my classmates. They give off the air of innocence and times of long ago -- the Sixties.
We didn't worry about paying off our student loans, but we did worry
about getting killed in Vietnam. Fear of getting drafted added a
personal motive to the late night discussions of those days.
I
was 19, a sophomore in college in 1966. I was in a state of sheer
exuberance, which is what got me through stunts like this. Plus I read
many, many books and kept in good academic standing. I could give
details to this incident, like I could tell you about Tom, my roommate,
and what school we were at, stuff like that, but I think I like this
very short version of the event.
I threw the jar of grape jelly out the window.
Tom
cooked pork chops and made the best mashed potatoes. We ate off of
aluminum plates, which we had bought figuring to keep them until they
wore out. Heck, they lasted all year. The handle was off the
refrigerator, so you had to pry it open with a knife. And when you got
the door open, a jar would inevitably roll off the shelf and bounce on
the floor, because the floor underneath the refrigerator was tilted.
Boy, that was annoying.
One
late night I came weaving home, and opened the frig door for a snack.
The grape jelly jar came rolling on to the floor, and I was pissed. I
picked it up and heaved it with all my might out an open window and on
to Church Street. Unfortunately, it splattered and broke on the
windshield of a car. I had the presence of mind to quickly turn off the
lights and watch, as the driver got out of his car. I noticed his
stunned and perplexed expression as he turned and looked up at my
darkened window. Then he drove off, and twenty minutes later one of
Metro’s finest, all starched and ironed, very large but also very
polite, came knocking on my door.
“Did
you throw a jar of jelly out the window?” he asked, or words to that
effect. I, a master of undergraduate insouciance, had begun to see the
humor of the situation -- Toronto cops were such pussycats. I mustered
up my most serious intellectual expression and said with feigned
amazement, “What! That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of. Why do you
wake me in the middle of the night? This is really ridiculous.”
The
cop quickly realized he had more important matters to attend to, as I
rather abruptly closed the door in his face and laughed myself silly.
So much for college hijinks. The
thing about college, at least for me, is that I simply had too much
fun. I did not suffer. Do you need to suffer to make a good story? Where
is the anguish and pain? Not here, not in these tales.
These are prime summer days. Time
for lazy days at the beach. I work mornings for various garden
customers, but afternoons can find me stretched out on the sand with an
umbrella overhead to keep out the strongest sun. I like the water at 65
degrees or warmer. I like to paddle around in it and just float. I love
the sound of the waves and I watch for dolphins out past the
surf......And pelicans, I love the way they fly.
For beach reading I have $3 paperbacks from the used book store -- Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling and a collection of short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Thanks for staying with me.
Fred
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