The Story of My Life: Saying Goodbye to the 90s

I hope you enjoyed those themed segments of memories, but a brief intermission for the normal timeline. I've already discussed most of the important tales from 96 and 97. Now it's time to enter the last two years of the 90s. I didn't know it then, but the 90s giving way to a new millennium was the end of a decade that meant the world to me.

1998 made a big splash with the arrival of Pokemon to the US shores. It had already been released in Japan since 1996, but once the craze was introduced here, we couldn't get enough. The games, cards, and toys flew off the shelves. Burger King introduced the creatures as a toy in kids meals and they sold out in hours all across the US. Kids couldn't get enough of a digital world where you could go adventure, capture strange, but charming creatures, and battle with them. Pokemon cards were a hot commodity which kids collected as many as they could to try and get them all. The search for the ever elusive holographic Charizard caused gullible parents to spend a lot of money on packs of cards hoping their kid would pull it. Unlike the Beanie Baby craze, this one had some weight. Because today in 2021, Pokemon is still going strong and those in my generation who are now adults are getting hit with the nostalgia of their youth and buying up cards everywhere. That holographic Charizard in near perfect condition goes for $300,000 online! Imagine if your kid was lucky enough to find one of these and kept it in a card sleeve all these years. Their college tuition and a mortgage would be covered. Pokemon was more than a craze. It became a cultural phenomenon. 

A big change entered my life late 1998. Elise's dad's job offered him a five year deployment in Germany. Just like that at 7 years old, my best female friend was moving halfway around the world. I was definitely a little sad at the time, but my young, stupid self couldn't fully comprehend the weight of what was happening. Someone who I knew pretty much my entire existence was leaving for a long time which would ultimately cause us to drift apart. When she left, we wrote back and forth via letter a handful of times that first year. Her family even sent us a large package with German goodies inside. But my family didn't have the technology we have today and combined with the lack of desire I had for writing letters, our contact simply faded. It's hard to fault a young child for that. Many are a product of their environment and can make new friends as easily as they lose old ones, but I never did forget the ones I had before. There are times I do wish younger me knew the true value of that friendship and fought to keep it close. But life continued on and I still had my main core of friends around me to keep me going.

Somewhere around this time, two new friends entered the scene. They are brothers by the names of Matthew and Curtis, but we called them Matt & Curt. Their mom Melissa (Missy) started meeting with us on Sundays and that's how we came to know them. It was really good to have more boys around who weren't my siblings. They fit right in with all of our shenanigans and at time brought some of their own.

Legos really took off for me during this year. I signed up for the Lego magazine and each time one came in the mail, I read it cover to cover many times over. So much so that the pages would become tattered and torn from excessive use. If I liked the magazine enough, I'd keep stapling it back together. My 1998 Christmas catalogue should be in the Smithsonian. It was also because of the magazines that I saw more and more sets I had to have. I remember one day in the middle of the summer, I burst into my mom's room while she was on the phone. I was upset because I didn't have any new Lego sets. The person on the other end of the line was my grandma. Mom told me to talk to her. She settled me down and told me to mention one I liked that was under $20. I told her I liked the Land Jet 7 from the Extreme Team collection. And that was that. No she didn't go out and buy me the set on the spot. And I eventually forgot about it.

Summer gave way to Autumn and Autumn fell to Winter. Christmas was looming around the corner and I couldn't be more excited that my favorite holiday was upon us. All December long I jammed to Christmas tunes on cassette tapes, watched Frosty the Snowman at least five times, ate delicious iced Santa cookies, and dreamed of a white Christmas.

Then Christmas Eve arrived. My parents had spent the day wrapping gifts, making food, and dealing with our extra bouts of energy. After dinner, we all bundled up and piled into the car. The trunk of the station wagon had gifts for my grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousins. We cruised down the road to Grandma's house, gazing in awe at all the Christmas lights along the way. When we made that all too familiar left turn into their driveway, you couldn't really tell they celebrated Christmas unless you saw the wreath on the door. There were hardly any decorations on the outside to be seen. Yet, the inside was truly what mattered.

Walking through the front door into the breezeway, I was greeted by the musical Christmas lights, the smell of the cookies lying in wait, and the glow from the basement was a beckoning beacon of warmth. I rushed in and said hi to Grandma and Grandpa, surveyed all the goodies in the kitchen, then rushed down to the basement where the fully decorated tree stood, guarding all the colorfully wrapped gifts tucked underneath it. It wasn't long before everyone arrived and assembled in the basement. Grandpa had an stove-like fireplace and a black cauldron next to it where he stored all his carving wood scraps. It didn't take him long before he had a nice roaring fire. He'd give me and my cousin Dave the task of keeping it going by feeding it the wood blocks. Then came the fun part. Handing out the gifts. Being able to see the size of every one, the type of wrapping paper that adorned them, and simply being able to find mine was such a blast. I ran all over the basement, scooping up gifts from under the tree and delivering them to each person whose name was displayed upon them. After all the gifts were handed out, us kids were given the green light and we began ripping the colorful wrapping paper to shreds. I liked to start with the big ones first and finished with the little ones because to me bigger meant better. At one point I had a average sized package in my hands. Like the presents before it, its wrapping paper was rendered useless. My jaw dropped. I was not expecting this. There in my shaking hands was the Extreme Team Land Jet 7 Lego set I had asked for 6 months ago. I was in shock, but overjoyed. My grandparents, aunt, uncle, and parents all beamed knowing they had helped make this Christmas that much more special.

Normally we would wait until the next day to assemble and play with the Legos, but this one couldn't wait. Dave, who also received a Lego set, joined me at the little square table and we began the assembly process. Before long, we both had completed sets which we promptly set aside to go play in all the shredded wrapping paper all over the floor. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying lots of goodies and good company before our parents had to get us home and to bed at a decent hour.

Fast forward to 1999 which leapt upon us like a tiger in the grass. It was the last year of the millennia. There was much excitement and anticipation in the coming of the year 2000. But there was also a significant amount of unwarranted fear. Why? Technology was developing at incredible lengths. Home computers were becoming more popular and efficient. The internet was charging us full steam ahead into the future. So much so that everything was beginning to be run by it. The fear that arose was that the computers did not have a way to compensate for the calendar leaving the 1900s and entering the 2000s. There was a panic that everything would crash. As silly as this sounds, the fear of such a catastrophic event loomed over 1999.

Another major event that I was well aware of at eight years old was the ongoing impeachment of President Bill Clinton. I did not know what that meant, but I remember it being all over the news, the bumper stickers of people's cars, stickers on light poles in Walmart parking lots, basically everywhere. It was odd that this was happening to the only president I knew (George H.W. Bush was president only until I was 2 years old). For a young kid who was already fascinated by history, this event was strange and annoying as I didn't fully understand why it was happening and was sick of seeing it everywhere. Ultimately the Senate acquitted him and he finished his final term, but his reputation was forever tarnished.

One of my favorite Backstreet Boys songs of all time was released this year. Titled, "I Want It That Way" this song ruled the airwaves and continued to surge their popularity and that of the boyband generation. Years later, this song has still made for memorable mini jam sessions with my fellow 90s babies.

By the time the 90s were nearly over, two other things had become a large staple for me. Labor Day conferences and Camp Wabanna. These were two large annual events that a handful of east coast churches put together. The Labor Day conference meant we would go down to Virginia over Labor day weekend, stay with a family down there, and attend meetings with 100s of other people. Camp Wabanna was a large camp facility located on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland where all the same churches would gather in the spring and fall for a fun-filled retreat weekend. I'm going to go into detail on these two events later on, but I bring them up now because two major things happened in my life revolving around these two events. 

With the Labor Day conference, our family met another family whom we became extremely close friends with. They are the Bishops. Their eldest son, Wesley, and I became fast friends and best buds. He became my closet friend in the DC area. His family consisted of parents Brian and Cindy, a sister Bonnie, and another brother Grayson. His youngest brother Joseph came a little later. Whenever we got together, we were two hooligans who drove everyone around us nuts. Whether we were pretending to be soldiers in a great battle, annoying our sisters, or coming up with new adventures, life was always good around him and his family.

Camp Wabanna led to very significant change in my life that impacted me for years. It occurred between 1998 and 1999, although I do not remember the exact year. It wasn't great and was life altering. But I need to save that story for the next chapter and am only mentioning it because it happened in this part of the timeline.

I'm sure there's some things that I want to share with all of you that may be buried in the back of my mind at the moment, so I apologize in advance if I flash back on them later. All that being said, we say goodbye to the 90s, the decade I came into existence, began to form my identity, and is still to me one of the best decades of my life. On to the new millennia!

The Story of My Life: The Magic of Friendship

I didn't have that many friends growing up as I was homeschooled. But the ones I did have sustained me all the way to my teenage years. I've already introduced you to most of them and some brief looks into our adventures, but now I want to hone in on a handful of significant moments in my life influenced by them before I jump back into the timeline.

I mentioned previously that I hung out with Elise a lot as a kid and that wasn't an overstatement. Our mom's would take turns coming over to each other's houses and letting us spend countless hours playing while they enjoyed each other's company. I obviously preferred going over to Elise's house as that meant toys I didn't have I could play with, a really nice swing-set, and cable TV. For me, cable TV was a big deal because it meant cartoons 24/7 and some channels played the same series all day meaning you wouldn't have to worry about missing out on critical episodes. One of my favorite educational cartoons was discovered in Elise's living room. We were a bit pooped from playing all day and to give our mom's a break from our incessant noise, Irene turned on the TV. Before my eyes was a cartoon I would come to know and love for years to come. The Magic School Bus. A zany teacher who took her kids to places mankind could only dream of going all via her magic school bus. Science became a desired subject and I attribute part of my reason for wanting to be a marine biologist as a kid to that show. 

I spent a lot of time at Al & Sue's in the summer. But the best days were when we were there all day. Why? Because that meant I was able to do plenty of things with my Motley Crue of friends. There were days where Zeke, Cam, Joe, and I would chuck plastic baseballs in the air on a hill out back and take turns mashing them with a plastic bat. There was a swing-set at the bottom of the hill that was spray painted red. This was because Joe's favorite color was red and Al let him pick it out. One sunny afternoon, Al, Joe, and myself spray-painted the whole thing red. To young boys, spray paint was one of the coolest things to exist and the fact that we got to use it had us over the moon. That swing-set served for more than an art project. Joe and I would sit in the double-swing-bench and see how high we could get. We'd take it a step further and imagine we were headed to a far away land, battling monsters found in a Power Ranger TV show along the way. During a lazy summer evening as the sun was beginning to set, Zeke and I were sitting on that bench swing. It wasn't dark enough yet, but the moon was quite visible and it was a thin, crescent shape. Zeke asked me if I wanted to know something cool. He said someone once told him that when the moon is shaped like that, gleaming over the earth, it's God's thumbnail. For short period of time I actually believed that in my naïve innocence, but I still hold onto that memory. 

When it would become too dark for us kids to play further away from the house, we'd usually congregate on Al's big patio. It was well lit, contained some picnic tables and a bench swing, and since we were out in the middle of nowhere, our parents had no problem with us all hanging out there unsupervised past 10pm. One night in particular we got a little bored and Chalene suggested we tell scary stories. Chalene went first and told one based on Stephen King's "The Children of the Corn." Her story was so convincing that cornfields at night freaked me out for quite awhile. Cam tried to go next, but he kept laughing and couldn't finish the story. No one else really had any good scary stories so we just talked about kid stuff until our parents said it was time to go.

Another place I spent a lot of time at was Melinda & Joanna's house. Like Irene, their mom Alice was good friends with my mom. Alice was also a teacher and she had a functioning computer with internet. Once a week, part of my homeschooling would be spent there doing educational things on the computer. Some of the programs I used were Treasure Mountain, Treasure Cove, Puddle Books, Reader Rabbit, Word Muncher, and so many more. Melinda & Joanna were in public school so they weren't there until school let out. I recall countless summer days of creating adventures in their woods, riding bikes all over their big driveway, swimming in the above ground pool, petting their neighbor's horses and goats, watching lots of Nickelodeon, and making lots of different crafts. I considered their house my second home at times. One of my favorite times there was a New Year's Eve. I'm pretty sure it was 2002 going into 2003 because their dad had a brand new Sirius Satellite radio that he had received for Christmas. We got to stay up late, the house was filled with people, we ate a ton of snacks, and played various games up until midnight all while having Radio Disney playing in the background. When the countdown began, the girls decided it was a good idea to make a human pyramid. I believe it was me, Sarah, and Tim on the bottom, Melinda & Joanna in the middle, and we put Nathaniel on top. We held the pyramid for the 10 second countdown, shouted "Happy New Year!" at zero, then abruptly collapsed the human pyramid in celebration. I'll probably have to dedicate a whole chapter to the memories and moments that occurred here.

Joe and I were like two peas in a pod. We learned how to rollerblade together at age 4. I went with his family to Racetown one summer and rode a speedboat for the first time. We spent many many summers creating new adventures and many winters coming up with creative ways to use a sled. We navigated our way through the early stages of life together. Here are some of the fun memories we shared together. When we were around 7, his parent's had given him a kids snowmobile for Christmas. One very snowy day, he brought it to Al & Sue's and I was excited. We were bundled up so tight the only parts on our bodies exposed to the elements were our eyes. Al took us out to the hill in the back and helped us get on the snowmobile. Once Joe and I were seated and snug, Al stood there as the snowflakes concealed themselves in his white mustache and told us to let her rip. Joe squeezed the throttle and off we lurched. It didn't have enough power to send us flying, but I didn't care as I was riding the fastest sled-like thing I had ever ridden before. It was a total blast.

Another snowy memory that comes to mind is when Joe and I were using normal (mostly) sleds. Joe had a new red sled the looked like a racecar. It had a plastic steering wheel in the center to steer the small rudder underneath so you had some control going down hills. After taking turns zipping down one hill for a bit, we wanted to move to another location. The sled had a rope attached to it so Joe said he'd pull me to the next location. There I sat, toying with the steering wheel as he pulled me along. At one point, he decided it was a good idea to pull me along the top of a steeper hill. An impish thought crept into my head. Without him knowing, I cranked the steering wheel hard right. The rudder turned and dug into the snow, making the sled harder to pull. Eventually, Joe lost his grip and I went flying straight down the hill. I looked back for a brief moment to see Joe panicking and trying to run down the hill after me, but it was more like falling as his snow clothes impeded him from gaining ground. As I laughed with sheer joy, I suddenly realized I had made a mistake. I was going way too fast and headed straight towards a small, frozen creek. Not wanting to temp fate, I bailed at the last second into the snow. Somehow, Joe appeared out of nowhere and made a diving grab to stop the sled from ending up in the creek. I collapsed in the snow full of laughter, but Joe wasn't too pleased. All was forgiven an hour later when Sue treated us to hot chocolate and warm chocolate chip cookies.

Being our neighbors, Maggie and Katherine made up a huge part of my life in those days. My mom would babysit them after school until their mom got home from work as well as many full days in the summer. Summer evenings and weekend would also be the ideal times they would invite us over to play. Simply using the toys and sporting goods we had, we came up with so many competitions an challenges. Maggie was also really into history and she was a grade ahead of me in school. Sometimes her challenges would include reciting the preamble, naming one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, reciting historic dates, etc. Both Maggie and Katherine were into what was popular in those days and since I was homeschooled, I learned most of the trends through them. Bell bottoms made a brief comeback, anything Lisa Frank was all the rage for girls, and if you weren't writing with Gel Pens, you were doing it wrong. 

About those competitions. They were fierce. Especially the foot races. Those were a straight mad dash across their grassy lawn. And they were totally different from the bike races. I did not have the turns, jumps, and rough terrain to use to my advantage. I couldn't bend a tool to my will to help me win. All I had my body and what it could do. We were at an age in life where we were developmentally the same, except Maggie, being a year older, had a slight edge on me. Imagine if you were driving your car leisurely down the street and as you were passing by the last house, you see anywhere from 4-6 kids charging at you. Never once did we end up in the street, but I can imagine we spooked a driver or two. A normal race went like this: We lined up at the imaginary starting point in a professional track stance. Then someone shouted "Go!" We took off legs pumping and arms flailing. If you cut into someone's lane purposefully or not, you were going to pay. Crossing the imaginary finish line was something else. If it was close, we left it in the hands of the person not running. If there was any hard disagreement with the "judge", then the only solution was to run it back. My racing days may be long behind me, but the legends live on.

In the next chapter I'm going to make the long overdue return to the timeline, but I wanted to insert these moments to paint a better picture of how much better life was having the childhood friendships that I did. And it was magical.

The Story of My Life: Kid's Kingdom

Playgrounds and children go together like peanut butter and jelly. Littered with many crazy contraptions to entertain children for hours on end and also tire them out at the same time. I remember most playgrounds I grew up on, and to distinguish them, we gave them our own personal names. There was a big one on Elm Ave in Hanover that we called the Spaceship Park. There was a lot of static equipment, but the most attractive was a metal structure that started as a square ladder that led into an oval dome that looked like a spaceship. This was both a fun beginning and end of visit attraction. The best time to go was in the early evening as the sun was setting. I would lie in the oval and watch as the sun set on the basketball courts down below, imaging I was about to take off to the stars. The "spacecraft" did have a major flaw and probably wouldn't fly today. I mentioned the entire thing was metal. Metal absorbs heat very well. Hot metal and a child's skin do not mix. It's why I haven't seen anything like it since.

The other park in Hanover we frequented was dubbed the Giraffe Park. In the dead center was a giant metal giraffe that you could climb up it's back and to its head. This was the sole highlight for coming to this park. Everything else was...meh. This is another forgone piece of playground equipment because it had no side barriers and the drop was a good 20ft off the ground, I imagine enough kids fell off it to make it be deemed unsafe. It actually was removed before we moved out of state. However, there was one legendary moment that happened here. It was a warm summer Saturday night. The mysterious metal cabinet that was always locked was finally open, revealing a lot of sporting equipment. It wasn't long before 16 or so kids (myself included) grabbed a bunch of hockey sticks, a street hockey ball, and promptly formed a game on the shuffleboard court. I had not met a single one of these kids before in my life, but being kids, we were all just happy to play with each other. That game was memorable. There were some kids who were definitely bigger and better than I was and it was intimidating. At one point I saw an opening and took my shot. It sailed right under two sticks of good players and off the back for a goal. Then later in the game, one of the better kids on my side told me that if a bigger kid charged me with the ball, to simply charge him back and take it. I wasn't willing to do that, but when the moment came, my teammate nodded and I charged the big kid charging me. To my amazement I swiped the ball and sent it to a teammate further down. I don't remember the exact outcome of that game, but my love for street hockey was born that night. The last thing that made that night memorable was a very smart ice cream truck driver drove his musical truck right by the park. Instantly he had 30-50 customers. My parents obliged and allowed us to get ice cream. It was an incredible night.

Abbottstown park was a bigger park in terms of land that was down the street from our house, but not playing equipment. However, due to its proximity to us and its baseball fields, we frequented it quite often. There was a small wooden playhouse that you climbed wooden stairs to get into. It had a rickety bridge connected to a platform which had a slide built off it. Sometimes we would bring hot wheels cars to this park and race them down the slide. One time after doing this, we decided to go down to the baseball fields and Tim left his shoebox with a handful of cars in it at the slide. When we returned later, they were gone. After that we never brought more than a few cars each. The house was fun when it was new but eventually it became quite rundown and wasp infested. Whenever we had bigger group outings, we'd usually end up here. And every summer, the large field on the back end of the park would host a carnival. Rides, games, cotton candy, the works. I did one of my first House of Mirrors here. It was nerve-wracking for my young self, especially when I walked head first into a mirror. One of the popular rides here was spinning crowns. They were large crown cars that could hold 4 people and they spun like mixer. If you had dizzy problems or a weak stomach, this ride was definitely not for you. Each year though, Zach would have a competition with some of his other friends to see who could ride it the most times in a row without puking. I never did see the end results, but at one point, he didn't look too good. Small town carnivals were always a blast.

I did have a favorite park. If it was up to me which one we'd go to, it was this one every time. It had its own name. Kid's Kingdom. Imagine pulling into the parking lot with your parents. There, just a hop, skip, and a jump away, stood a large wooden castle. To my child eyes, it was huge. There were different levels, multiple floors, ladders that went down hatches, rooms with spyglasses, and even built in receivers where you could communicate with your friend on the other side of the castle. This was the kind of place where my imagination went wild. 

Sometimes I would see myself as a valiant knight defending the castle's honor. Other times I would believe I was a vicious raider coming to loot the castle's treasure. And on occasion, I would be an explorer, searching for long forgotten riches and treasures. But never once in these great escapades was I alone. We always went on group outings here so the usual suspects included Melinda, Joanna, Elise, Maggie, Katherine, and sometimes Joe. We would craft new realities to our heart's content. Sure the occasional disagreement would arise, but we were noble kings and queens who could reconcile our differences in a civil manner. This castle truly made me feel like a king.

There isn't a happy ending to this story, however. Playgrounds like this used to be quite prevalent. But as the times changed, they took with them these iconic grounds. Being made of all wood, splinters could be a common issue. The cost to upkeep these types of structures in season changing climates became uneconomical. But the biggest reason for their demise is simply that parents could not see their children half the time. In the 90s, parents didn't have to worry as much as they do now about child predators. It was perfectly fine for 7 year old me to disappear into the castle for chunks of time without my parents being overly worried if anything happened to me. But now, those castles with all their blind spots create havoc on anxious parents. Some may still exist, but all the ones I knew and loved are long gone. Left to be nothing more than amazing childhood memories that gave purpose to my life. 

One last thing I want to mention is that parks with playgrounds were a great place for making temporary friends. You showed up, other kids were there, you wanted to play a game, and you were set for the rest of the night. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you'd never see those kids again, but that mattered not as they had served their purpose. To simply be someone to play with for a short period of time. And that's quite alright. 

The Story of My Life: Why Saturdays Were Legendary

I loved Saturdays. Rain, snow, or shine, they were the most epic day of the week. You may guess it was because that's the point every week where my education went on pause. That astute observation did indeed play a part, but was minimalistic in my reasoning for being enthralled by a day named after a Roman god. It was a combination of an exciting routine of events that made a kid feel so alive. Let's get into it.

A typical Saturday started with waking up before the sun did most of the year. Most young children do that naturally and it's not until the teenage years where sleeping in becomes habitual. Yet, there was a purpose for it. Saturday morning cartoons. Starting at 6:30am and running until noon, they captivated and entertained us for hours. They were what we waited all week for they were the best of the best. We didn't have cable TV growing up (where cartoons were run nearly 24/7) so once a week we got our fix. Every major channel had them. And it wasn't just watching them; it was also how we watched them. The process was simple. Roll out of bed, don't change out the PJs, make a bowl of cereal, then plop on the couch for the next 4-5 hours. Sarah was the cartoon junkie and would have the TV on and a bowl of cereal ready to go around 6am. Scooby-Doo came on at 6:30am and there was no way she was missing that. Most of the cartoons I enjoyed came on from 8am-11:30am so getting up that early was not in my wheelhouse. Seven to seven-thirty was where I usually drew the line. You may be wondering how five kids managed to peacefully watch cartoons without bickering over what show or channel to watch. We had a system of unwritten rules. Sarah was the first one up and most of her favorite shows aired between 6:30am-8am. Anyone else who woke up at that time simply watched whatever she was watching. After that whomever got their hands on the remote usually had control which was either Tim or I. Nathaniel and Stephen usually didn't get much say in the matter, but they were young enough that as long as the TV was on, they were content.

The morning cartoon hours were more than just the cartoons. Like super bowl commercials, Saturday morning cartoons and something extra with them. We only had an analog TV that got 7 or 8 channels and used the ancient technology known as rabbit ears (antenna). This was before airwaves converted to high definition. Depending on which channel you were on, each had it's own intro and transition clips between commercials. ABC had what was called One Saturday Morning (which was my favorite) that had a sweet intro song (youtube it) before the cartoons and then a little lightbulb in the corner that would be turned on to signal the start of each cartoon. The best set of cartoons they aired were Doug, Recess, and Pepper Ann. FOX eventually had the Fox Box which boasted cartoons like Action Man, Nascar Racers, Ozzy and Drix, Pokemon, and Yugioh. NBC would show cable cartoons that could be seen often on Nickelodeon such as Blues Clues, Little Bear, & Franklin, but were re-run on regular TV in the Saturday morning cartoon time slot. Another side note is that the commercials were even worth it because they were all aimed at kids. The toy commercials, the candy & drink commercials, the cereal commercials, and even the shoe commercials were exciting to watch.

One last thing I'll say about the cartoons is that sometimes it was mission impossible of sorts. My parents were on the strict side growing up and they didn't allow us to watch whatever we wanted even if it was a cartoon. They'd even go as far as to change the channel if a commercial they didn't like came on. For us, some of those cartoons we couldn't watch were some of the coolest. For a period of time, we would attempt to watch these "banned" cartoons when they came on, but only if our parents were out of the room. These would be the most tense ones to watch because any little outside sound caused us to immediately change the channel. The other problem was that the old analog TVs were sometimes slow at changing between stations and when they did, they displayed the channel number for an excruciatingly long period of time in the upper right hand corner as pixelated digits. It didn't take long for my mom to put two and two together as every time she came down the stairs, she saw a channel number in the corner of the screen. Thankfully, we only received a harsh scolding when caught.

After the cartoons had ended the afternoons would vary depending on whether my dad worked or not. If he did, then we utilized those chunks of the day to test new games we created (including the previously mentioned banned ones), played full blown soccer games in our back yard, hung out with Maggie, Katherine, Zach, and any other neighborhood kid that showed up, and if it had snowed, would spend the entire afternoon sledding. If my dad was off work, we would more often then not have an afternoon outing. Sometimes that would be spending a good portion of it at Chuck-E-Cheese, or going to a local park, or spending the afternoon exploring Hanover. 

For us kids however, Saturday evenings were our Friday nights. By that I mean the most epic evening of the weekend occurred on Saturday. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, but that reality faded when we all piled in a Ford Aspen station wagon and rolled into Hanover. Nearly every Saturday the first thing we did was go out to eat. We loved this because sometimes it was McDonald's and sometimes it was our favorite buffet called Ryan's. Buffet's were the best because we got to pick what we wanted and had a wide variety to choose from, although some of us were content with macaroni & cheese and french fries. You would think that bringing five kids to a restaurant on a weekly basis would be a nightmare. But my parents raised us right and the simple warning of misbehaving would put going out to eat on a hiatus, we listened. I cannot count how many times random strangers came up to our table to compliment my parents on how well behaved we were. It happened almost on a weekly basis and I had set a high standard for myself to attempt to receive such compliments every time we ate out.

Going out to eat was not the end of the night. Sometimes we'd swing over to our favorite fun center known as Falloon's. It started as a simple arcade center where you could play the games and get tickets to exchange for prizes. Eventually as their business picked up, they added an indoor jungle gym, a mini golf course and allowed a pizza place and a dairy queen to occupy space inside. If I had to designate a favorite place, this was it. The thrill of having a pocket full of once shiny tokens which unlocked countless hours of fun was the stuff dreams are made of.

A night here went like this for me. My dad would give me a $5 bill which was good for 20 tokens. As most games at that time only cost one token, I was able to stretch them pretty far. I always went for the video games first because they didn't give out tickets. I wanted to make sure that the last games I played were the ones that dispensed tickets so I had a better chance of acquiring enough for something I wanted by night's end. I was drawn to the racing games because as much fun as it was to win, it was even more fun to try and wreck the computer drivers. The name of my favorite was Days of Thunder. After that it was usually on to a fighter pilot game where for a few minutes, I got to feel like a real war pilot blasting enemy planes out of the sky. Then came the ticket games. While skee-ball was usually a safe bet and a ticket gold mine, I gravitated towards the more physical games. There was Big Bertha where you had to throw as many plastic colored balls into a large clown's mouth. Spider-Stomp had you stand on a platform and would light up spider pads that you had to stomp on before they turned off. But the one that always drew my attention was an older game that was called something like Whack-a-Croc (probably not, but close enough). The game had a padded mallet attached to it and a soon as you put your token in, mechanical crocs would slide out of their holes at random. Your job was to mash as many as you could in the time given. Some crocs would stay out forever, but some would come out only long enough for you to attempt a whack,  but if you missed, you were likely to miss another croc as well. We always made it a competition among ourselves to see who could get the best score, including my dad. We got so competitive that we realized we could hit more crocs without the mallet and just use our hands instead. Sure mashing hard plastic didn't always feel good, but you had to do what was necessary to be the best.

Games of chance weren't originally my cup of tea as it meant betting precious tokens for the chance to win big, but most of the time end up with little to no tickets. Then, on one fateful night, everything changed. There was a popular chance game that appeared in most arcades everywhere. We called it Jackpot, but I believe the branded name was Cyclone. It was a short, hexagonal machine with a dome on top and a light that zipped around a circle. You could pic any one of the sides to place a token in to send the light in the reverse direction. You had one chance to stop the light on the jackpot space by pressing a single button. I never cared for this game because the one time I tried it, I missed badly and got 2 tickets. But this one night, as I was passing by it, I heard the machine going nuts. It was making ringing sounds and flashing like mad. There was a lone man maybe in his late 40s or early 50s just standing there as tickets poured out of the machine. He had hit the rare jackpot. The tickets kept coming so much in fact that I went to play other games rather than watch them all spill out. That lucky guy was still standing there near the end of the night when we went to cash ours in. When the machine finally stopped, the man took this large bundle to the counter. The employee took them and began to feed them through the ticket counter machine. After what seemed like an eternity, the counter read nearly 2000 tickets! My jaw dropped. That many was enough for a prize from behind the large glass, basically the more expensive ones. From that night on, chance games took up to 40% of my tokens whenever I visited a place with ticket games. 

My goal became to beat Cyclone. I fed many tokens into that game. Studied the light pattern. Timed the exact moment to press the button. Then it happened. I hit the button and stopped the light right on the jackpot, only to watch in horror as it skipped off onto the 10 ticket space. That was the day I found out the game was rigged. But I didn't know how rigged. My ever relentless desire to beat Cyclone led my timing to be so spot on that I could stop the light on the jackpot nearly every time. But that stupid little light would "skip" off over and over...until one night it didn't. I had stopped it on the jackpot. But the game didn't make victory sounds. The lights didn't go berserk. They just disappeared and the game spit out 10 tickets. Not to be robbed, I spoke with one of the employees and told her what happened. She informed me that if I was successful, the secondary backlight would have lit up as well. This meant that you could stop it dead on, without it skipping, but if the game decided it wasn't profitable to spit out that many tickets then no jackpot for you! That moment surly put a damper on how often I played the game. But like any addiction, the slight urge to play was always there. This would be a game that tested my patience for years to come.

Cashing in our tickets was always fun as it meant we were able to obtain prizes. The reality was that not a single prize was worth the amount of tickets they required nor the amount of money used to purchase tokens to obtain tickets. But as a kid, that mattered not as it was not our money we were spending and the prizes were "earned". I always wanted the big ticket items but never saved up for them because that meant multiple visits where I kept the tickets and had nothing to show for them. Usually I ended up with a lot of candy, some army men or parachute men, some stretchy men, and some other weird dollar store toys. But once I managed to get a black and yellow smiley lanyard. That lanyard held my house key for years and well outlived its value. It may have been the one I used the longest out of all the lanyards that came after it. And I earned it.

Before returning home, my parents would usually want to stop at Walmart to pick up a few necessities. As kids, it was the perfect end to the night as one parent took us to the toy aisle where we would spend every moment we had ogling and and "testing" the toys we couldn't have. What I mean by testing is that a lot of the toys had "try me" buttons that you could press to make them do something to show you how cool they were. For example, one of the hottest toys around Christmas time one year was the Tickle-Me Elmo. At the store (if you found one), you could press his hand to make him talk and then "tickle" him to where he would shake and laugh all while still in the box. Most other toys would make sounds or flash lights, but for us kids, it was sheer enjoyment and for my parents it was free entertainment.

After all the day's fanfare had finished, going home was still a sight. You'd still see the city of Hanover hustling and bustling with people. The car guys would be in the Wendy's or Walmart parking lots revving their sweet rides and showing off their neon glow. The dirt track down the road would be loud and roaring as the Saturday night dirt cars were just getting under way. The bowling alley signs would still be flashing their animated cartoons, beckoning you for an evening bowl. But my favorite part was when my parents drove back up Hershey Heights hill and I could see the entire town's lights as if it was a swarm of July fireflies. 

To the average person, these accounts may not be considered worthy of legendary status. But when coming from humble beginnings and a big family, being able to go out to eat nearly every week, making an occasional visit to a fun center, and being able to partially play with toys we couldn't own was enough to make a kid like me think I was living large. Maybe as you finish reading this, take a pause and reflect upon great experiences of your childhood. Take a moment to realize how magical they truly were. You're welcome. 

The Story of My Life: A Boy and His Bike

Bicycles. One of mankind's greatest inventions. You never forget your first. And by that I mean the first one that was your own and you learned to ride with no training wheels. When I was really young, Grandpa Watkins got me started on this really small, white and pink, kid sized (ages 2-5) bike with training wheels. I zipped all over his driveway on that thing for hours on end. While it was one of the first bikes I did ride, it wasn't full sized and the training wheels never came off. The bike I truly claim as my first as it became my very own, was a sleek black with gray splotches Huffy bike. A one-speed with no hand brakes and colorful plastic spoke clips, it quickly became my most prized possession. I still had not mastered the art of a two-wheeler, but by the age of 6, that was all about to change.

Huffy bikes were all the rage in the 90s amongst kids. If you had one, you were doing something right. Having one was only half the equation. To be cool, you had to be able to ride them without the "baby wheels" as we called them. So one summer day, my 6 year-old self decided it was time to ditch them. I'm pretty sure I asked my mother to remove them. Then, with the luxury of a big yard, I pushed the bike a distance until I was comfortable enough to hop on. Once I finally did, I pedaled like mad to keep from falling. It didn't take long to become comfortable with riding without the fear of toppling of in some horrific crash.. Now stopping was another matter entirely. With hand brakes not being a thing for one-speeds, there were three ways to stop the bike. 1) Pedal backwards so the gears locked and kept the back tire from rotating anymore (easiest). 2) Drag your dominant foot on the ground to cause enough resistance to get the bike to stop (Took some skill). 3) Crash (most painful). I employed all three of these methods and for the longest time, the foot dragging method was my brake of choice. Some of the problems that occurred with such a method were that my shoes would wear out faster, my foot occasionally got caught on natural debris, and sometimes I was going way too fast that attempting this method would almost always get overruled by method three. This was all part of the learning process and the only thing that mattered was that I could now ride a two-wheeler like the cool kids.

With no phones, no internet, no video games (parents didn't let us have them at the time) and a big yard, bikes were our go-to entertainment option. If you know us by now and have been following this blog for awhile, you'll know that simply riding them was not enough. We had two major forms of excitement with bicycles which were racing and stunts. We utilized a large chunk of the land as an imaginary racecourse. Our starting point was always the white gravel road at the very end of the woods that led to the country club's maintenance garage. There was a large enough clearing through the trees that we raced through, which eventually led to a small in stature but long in length, hill. One had to clear this hill in order to continue the course. Upon doing so, we then raced by the male mulberry tree and down a bigger hill by the house. The final stage consisted of racing around the house, across the narrow strip of grass between the house bushes and the front bank, across the gravel driveway, stopping by the little brown shed. This course may have seemed long, but was usually over in a matter of minutes. It designed to be exciting, but also a bit dangerous. Why? First, the mini hill. It was really small yes, but if one had enough speed, it became a ramp and going airborne was quite common. While the hill was long, our clearance wasn't much. On the left was a large pile of dead wood that would get piled up there over the year. To the right was a large tree and then the shed directly behind it. We had plenty enough space to get between the sticks and the shed, but imagine racing four to five other people trying to hit that clearance. It did not always end well. The next dangerous spot was down the second hill and the first turn around the house. At this point, our speed picked up dramatically and if we weren't in control, we either wiped out on the turn or potentially collided with the house. There were two more risky spots. The patch of grass between the bushes and the bank was so narrow that only one bike could get through going one way. If you clipped the bushes or slid off the side of the bank, you were in for a tumble down it into the street. Immediately after that strip was the gravel driveway which had a bank on either side. Depending on your speed, it became another mini ramp with dangerous loose gravel that caused a handful of wipeouts. This was our racing course. And from mid spring to early fall, it was a staple in our everyday adventures as kids.

I also mentioned that we did "stunts". Our favorite spot to attempt them was that first mini hill which was big enough to get us airborne. Zach, Tim, and I would occasionally hold competitions to see who could get the most air and who could land the furthest. As Nathaniel became older, he eventually joined as well. Each of us would take turns starting all the way up at the white gravel road. We would then pedal as hard and fast as we could to get enough speed going into the hill. Then it was up to fate how high and far we went when we hit it. Being the little daredevils that we were, we'd sometimes change the course to go over the right side of the hill instead of the left. That part of the hill was a bit higher, but it also landed us on the concrete pavement between the picnic table and the shed. After that, there wasn't much distance to stop before we found ourselves in the gravel driveway and then running the narrow grass strip by the house. Going this was was tricky and any minor mistake could cost us. There were some pretty dynamic crashes.

Two of my most horrific spills came from when I was jumping the mini hill by myself. I was getting in practice runs for when I took on Zach and Tim in the future. I casually rode my Huffy up to the white gravel road. I faced the bike towards the hill, paused, took a long, cool breath, and then took off. I pedaled as if the devil himself was chasing me. Because I was going so fast, I was losing a bit of control and the walnuts and sticks crunching underneath my tires were throwing off my preferred course. By the time I reached the mini hill, I knew it was going to be close on clearance, but it was too late to stop now. I flew up the hill cleanly and was airborne. I knew my landing point was going to be extremely close to the shed, but there was nothing I could do but hope I missed it. The bike hit the ground hard and the jolt was enough to turn the front tire slightly to the right. BAM! The front tire clipped the edge of the shed, spun the bike sideways, and launched me to the left. I tumbled a short distance away from the bike. Then I collected my scrambled senses and checked myself out. Saw I had a few minor scrapes but nothing more. I checked my Huffy and saw that she was still in excellent shape. After walking away from a crash like that, I did what any young boy my age would do...go again. The second crash came much later and ended up creating a chain of events I was not expecting. I decided once again that I was going to try and catch massive air, but this time, I was going to attempt the risky route of splitting the shed and the picnic table. Once again I began my approach from the white gravel road. And once again, I sacrificed my control for speed. I had made this jump many times before, but this time for a reason unbeknown to me, I was approaching the hill too far to the right. I flew up it and achieved more air than I had even acquired before and I was flying. But my adrenaline rush turned to horror as I saw where I was going to land. Both wheels slammed upright on the concrete pavement followed by the front wheel colliding head on with the two cinder blocks that held up the right side of the bench for the picnic table. I was once again launched off my bike. Like the previous crash, I was able to walk away fine, but the picnic table wasn't so lucky. The top cinder block fell and cracked in two on the pavement. The bench was flung into the table, which toppled over the other bench and rolled down the slight incline, severely damaging it. To be fair, both the table and benches were old and rickety which is why they got pulverized by my collision. The destruction of the picnic table eventually led Mom to sending me (and Tim) with Al one day to build another one, but that's a tale for another time.

I wasn't the only one who had my fair share of crashes. I remember one in particular involving Tim, Zach, and I. It was a late Autumn evening and it was nearly dark. We decided to have a jumping competition. We each took turns racing our bikes down through the woods and up over the hill. Everyone was making clean jumps. So we decided to make it more interesting. We began making the hill "higher" How? By collecting a bunch of bark and slowly piled it on top of the hill. We took turns to see who could clear the highest pile. At one point, Zach and I were on the edge of the hill adding more bark onto the pile. I then stuck a tiny stick behind the pile for support, even though it wasn't really doing anything. Not known to us, Tim had began to make his run. Zach and I were still on the edge of the hill, making the clearance even smaller. I turned my head at the last second to see Tim come flying onto the hill. The next thing I knew, he was sideways in the air, tangled in his bike, and in a weird superman-like pose. He ended up landing on his stomach with the bike mostly on top of him. How it happened, I can only speculate. Maybe he thought he was going to hit us and bailed. Maybe he didn't think he was going to clear the pile and tried to miss it causing him to lose control. Or maybe he lost control in the air. Whatever the cause, he managed to get up with nothing more than the wind knocked out of him. 

While the stunt course was our secret pleasure, racing was where it was truly at. Anywhere from 2-8 bikes at anytime were at the starting line (that's how many could fit fairly). Any neighborhood kids that brought their bikes over would get involved. We'd race each other all summer long and sometimes deep into the fall. Even three year old Stephen would race at times even though he never had a shot at winning. Zach had the best bike and being a little older, he usually ended up winning unless something dramatic happened. One time after losing to him three times in a row, I was determined to beat him. Upon go, I pedaled with all my might. I actually had a tire length on Zach, but he was keeping real close. Suddenly, he shrinks lower to the ground and I hear a loud OOF. I blow by him and turn my head back to see him topple off the bike. I kept going and finished the course victorious. Upon my triumphant finish, I went back to see what happened. Zach was pushing his bike back to the shed. Apparently he pedaled so hard, he snapped a pin in the chain, causing it to fall off the gears and caused him to wreck. Seeing he was okay, I still soaked in the moment that I had finally beaten him. Another time Zach and I had a one versus one race. Zach smoked me pretty good. Determined to finish the course, I turned the corner on the house and to my surprise, saw Zach way off course and part-way down the hill. He was standing by his bike, but not going anywhere. He motioned me to come over. I started laughing. He had on a pair of those ever popular baggy jeans and one of his pants legs was caught in his gears. I had to go into the house and grab a wrench to help pry him loose. This became a common site if we wore baggy jeans while riding a bike. 

My love for bike racing and winning took me on a path to attempt to beat everyone who rode a bike. I had taken care of Zach, Tim, Nathaniel, Stephen, and even Maggie and Katherine. But there was one person I had not beaten because she didn't race with us much. That person was Sarah. So one night, she and I had finished eating dinner before everyone else. I asked her if she'd race me one on one. To my surprise she agreed. So we went outside, got our bikes, and took them up to our usual starting point. I called out 3-2-1 go! And  we were off. It wasn't long before I put some distance on her. So much so in fact that I made it down and around the house and she was nowhere to be seen. Upon being victorious, I rode my bike back around the house to see where she had gone. I arrived just in time to see her come barreling down the hill by the male mulberry tree. Then I stood there shocked as I saw her lose control and slam into the side of the house. I ran over to see if she was okay and thankfully she was. Her bike was still in mostly good shape, but there was a tire imprint on the house that remained there until the day we moved. That was my first and last race against Sarah as she unsurprisingly didn't want to race me ever again. 

Fall races were more challenging as there were a number of rough elements in play. The cold sting of the crisp Autumn air or our faces, the extra nature debris from leaves, sticks, and walnuts, and our own element where we found out that if you threw a walnut hard enough at a rotating bike tire, they would get caught in the spokes. During those races, one or two of us not racing would hoard a pile of walnuts, pick a spot along the course, and wait for the racers to come by so we could unload on their tires. Most of the time the walnuts either harmlessly fell off via the tire's rotation or landed perfectly to avoid any other bike components. However, every once in a while, a walnut would get lodged just right and jam the tire between the spokes and the fork, causing the front tire to seize up. There are no colorful crashes I can recall from these antics, but I'm sure some occurred.

Somewhere between the age of 10 and 11, I received a brand new, sleek blue, Pacific mountain bike for my birthday. I was ecstatic. I still loved my Huffy to death, but I was out-growing it. I retired the Huffy to our shed where it spent most of its time, only to be ridden on rare occasion. The Pacific, was flashy. It had 12 speeds, hand brakes for both front and rear wheels, and I could pedal backwards without causing the bike to stop. She was fast, she was smooth, and she was all mine.

Like the Huffy before her, the Pacific went through some harrowing moments caused by my own ineptitude. The first came when I was testing her out on the mini hill. On one run, I gained way more speed than I was used to. Right before I hit the hill, I panicked and squeezed hard on the hand brake for the front tire. Suddenly, the front screeched to a hard stop and the momentum from the back launched me over the front of the bike. As I hit the ground, the bike tumbled over top of me. I learned a valuable physics lesson that day. It taught me to clutch the rear hand brake first and then ease into the front brake if necessary. Another day I was testing the bike out on our normal racing course. I went clockwise around the house as was normal. But as I turned upon the narrow grass strip, there was Tim flying at me from the oncoming direction. I grabbed the brakes, but Tim and I still managed to collide head on. I kept control of my bike and used the bush for support, but poor Tim tumbled down the side of the bank. At the exact moment it happened, our parent's friend Ned had just pulled up in his car and witnessed the whole thing. We heard a loud "Wow!" and an "Are you okay?" Thankfully we both were fine. The worst crash with my Pacific came when my parents finally let me ride the bike in the street. I was allowed to go up to the fire station (about a block beyond the white gravel road) and ride from there to our driveway. Going in that direction, it was all downhill. The reason the driveway was the cut-off point was because beyond that was the country club entrance and exit. My parents didn't want me crossing them as cars coming in and out probably wouldn't have seen me. I made this run a handful of times no problem. But then I started to go faster and brake a little later. It was pure thrill. Then, during one fateful run, I was going faster than I should've and I over-shot the driveway. I didn't want hit the brakes fearing a wipeout in the street and a lot of scrapes and cuts, so I made a hard turn which took me up the bank in front of our house. The bank and my speed launched me incredibly high into the air and with nowhere else to go, my bike and I slammed into the corner of the house. My mom heard the collision from inside and came out to see what had happened. Not wanting to show her I was hurt, I got up and tried to hide my limp as I walked away. Once I regained composure, I saw I had taken a small chunk of skin out of my right knee. The rain gutter on the corner was dented. I also bent the fork on my bike. That was the first time I ever damaged a bicycle where it needed repairs. I faked my injuries enough to get into the bathroom and bandage up my knee by myself. As for the Pacific, Grandpa Watkins and Uncle Randy took it and replaced the fork. No longer did it match her blue hue, but was now a silver gleam on the front. It served as a constant reminder how lucky I was once again to walk away with nothing more than a cut or two. The limp wasn't serious and went away within a couple days. But what a ride that was. 

My Huffy and Pacific were two of the greatest gifts I'd ever received. I rode them fearlessly, endlessly, and crazily for as long as I had them. My childhood and the experiences I gained during those years wouldn't be the same without them. These were some of the tales of a Boy and his Bike.

The Story of My Life: The Banned Games

"I'm bored!" A phrase kids love to say and parents hate to hear. Unfortunately for my mother, she heard this phrase more than one should. Her first response to our incessant whines was "go outside and find something to do." Most of the time we replied with a curt "No!" Then she'd simply say, "We'll I've got plenty of chores you can do." That second response had us bee-lining out the door. You better believe we managed to cure our boredom, but the way we did it usually forced us to find new ways each time we uttered that dreadful phrase. Why? Because the games we came up with almost always caused an outcome that would force my parents to put and end to them. Hence the name: The Banned Games. In the rest of this chapter, I will be describing each game in detail and giving you the cause for why it was banned. For some, you may see a pattern. Let's go.

Shoe Kicking Competition: Remember that swing-set I mentioned we had? We utilized it in many different ways. We found out that if we swung hard enough and gained enough momentum, with a forceful kick, we could send a shoe (or flip-flop) great distances. The game was simple. Using the swing, we had two chances (both feet) to see who could send their shoe flying the farthest. We could take as long as we needed to get high enough to launch the shoe as far we could. Seemed harmless enough right? Well there were two problems. We didn't understand physics very well yet and there happened to be a large male mulberry tree 30ft from the swing set. If a shoe was kicked of at the highest point of the forward arc of the swing, the foot most likely sent the shoe straight up with little horizontal momentum. Sometimes the angle of the kick would just miss the sweet spot and the shoe would zing towards the tree. We even sometimes purposely tried to kick the shoe over the tree for bonus points. However, all of these antics led to many shoes getting stuck in the tree. My parents got sick of retrieving them and thus gave the game the ban hammer.

Hula Hoop Battle: Hula hoops could only entertain in their natural use for so long. Of course we found "better" ways to use them. In Hula Hoop Battle a minimum of two people were required, but you could include as many people as hula hoops you had. You and your opponent selected their hula hoop of choice and then stood about 25ft apart. Using a countdown of 3-0, you and your opponent would toss the hula hoops into the air at each of them. The goal was to hit your opponent's hula hoop and knock it backwards towards them. Every time you succeeded, you got a point. If they both went backwards, it was a draw and no points were awarded. If they both missed, also no points. The point cap changed each time we played so as long as you hit that number, you won. Children are not always aware of their surroundings as we liked to play this game near some pine trees. On occasion, a hoop or two would end up lodged in the branches of the pines. Those instances contributed to the game's banning, but the final nail in the coffin came on a cold, overcast, fall day. Tim and I were outside and playing with the hula hoops when I challenged him to a game. Things were going mostly well except for an argument or two of who got the point. Then, during one toss, I decided to heave mine up really high. It missed Tim's hoop, but began falling perfectly towards him. I think he was paying more attention to where his went because the moment he looked straight up, the hula hoop crashed into his face. The cold, hard plastic obviously didn't feel good and I didn't mean to hit him, but he went and told mom anyway. Not wanting to deal with more potential injuries, mom put an end to hula hoop battle.

Civil War: As most young boys do, if something we were playing with looked like a gun, we acted like it was a gun. Every once in awhile we'd come across a fallen branch or twig that looked like a shotgun or pistol. Then we'd pretend it was a gun and pretend to shoot each other. It ended up being a lot of "your dead!" and "no I'm not!" Over time we would find branches that were too perfect and we'd hide them in places where they wouldn't get ruined or taken. We also had plenty of walnuts around and they were small and green, just like grenades. We decided one day that we had enough to have an actual war. This war was going to be a three way battle between Zach, Tim, and myself. We grabbed all of our gun-sticks and walnut-grenades and took positions on the front hill facing the golf course. We each had a tree and began pretend firing upon one another. At some point, Zach and I thought it would be funny to team up on Tim and convinced him to go by the stone covering a drainage pipe. As he "fired" upon us, Zach and I took our hoard of walnuts and began launching them at Tim. I don't recall if we actually hit him, but I would say it was a good possibility because he quit mid barrage and told my mom. She was not pleased that we had made "guns" and were "shooting" each other. Her public enemy number one was also walnut stains. She gave us a pretty stern warning to not attempt this game again. In reality, while that was the last of Civil War, it didn't stop us from throwing walnuts at each other for all sorts of reasons in the future. 

Alligator: I'm cheating a little as this one wasn't 100% banned. More like, constantly stopped. We had a small gravel driveway flanked on both sides by two small banks. Those banks allowed us to pick up speed running down one side to be able to scale the bank on the other side with ease. We would even take small riding toys and see how far we could get. I don't remember whose idea this was, but one day we decided to create our version of Sharks & Minnows, not knowing that that game had already been in existence. The gravel driveway became a "river" and the person in the middle was the alligator. Everyone else had to try to run across without getting eaten (caught). Last person alive won and the first person caught became the new alligator. Nothing too crazy. The problem was that kids are clumsy. Add that in with us older ones being a little more rough and a gravel driveway, led to a bunch of cut-up knees and elbows. Once the casualties rose to an unbearable level, the game would receive a temporary ban.

Whack The Walnuts: This is the most notorious banned game of them all. It started harmless enough, but took a dramatic and scary turn which landed it on this list. Every year Grandma Watkins would make all of us kids Easter baskets. Well she wouldn't actually make the basket itself, but she'd buy the decorative grass and candy to fill them up with. The baskets she used were made to last as they were this incredibly hard plastic with a thin metal handle. You could leave it outside in the elements and it still wouldn't crack and fade as today's plastic baskets do. Sarah had a pink one that she saved all those years and it eventually ended up with our outdoor toys in the shed. One day, Zach and I found some rope and decided to tie it to the handle on the basket. Then we flung the basket over a low tree branch and filled it to the brim with walnuts. Zach then went and found the biggest branch he could carry and told me to pull the basket up and down like a piñata. Zach would then swing the large branch as hard as he could at the basket and try to knock out as many walnuts as possible. This game we invented became very popular amongst all of us kids and it was played quite often. I think we eventually made the rules that you got 10 swings or 5 bucket hits, whichever came first. You won by knocking out the most walnuts. Sarah also didn't mind us using that basket as it took hardly a dent from our brutality. It was always funny when someone whiffed really hard or the person pulling the basket up and down had to dodge rogue walnuts. This game managed to stick around for a long time, until one fateful late spring night. I was stuck inside with my dad going over my dreaded math homework. Suddenly, the door of the house swings open and we hear a loud wailing. Then as my Dad and I look up, there stood Tim in tears with blood streaming down his face. "WHAT HAPPENED!" my mom shouted aghast. "Stephen hit me in the head with a tree branch!" Tim wailed. Apparently, Tim was the one pulling the basket up and down and 3-4 year old Stephen was the one swinging at the basket. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to let a kid under the age of 5 use an incredibly large branch for this game. Thankfully, Tim's head wound turned out to be a small cut and no stitches were required. Unfortunately for us, one of our favorite invented games was banned effective immediately after that incident.

(Bonus) Sled Wars: Sled wars was never actually banned but based on the previous causes for banning a game, it should've been. Every winter, once the hill in our front yard was covered in snow, we hauled out plastic sleds, foam sleds, snow boards, and basically anything that could shred snow. Being the creative kids that we were, simply riding and racing sleds wasn't enough. We created a no holes barred version where as soon as you took off you did whatever was necessary to win. Some of the stunts I pulled were as follows: If my opponent passed me, I would leap out of my sled, onto my opponent's, and try to push them out and win the race in their sled. I would try to race down standing on the sleds at times and maintaining balance was hard enough. But it was more crazy when we tried to physically push each other over while racing down the hill. I sometimes deployed my other siblings to interfere with whomever I was racing. One more fun, but usually ineffective tactic was to load up the back of the sled with snow balls and wail them at each other on the way down. One could say sled wars was probably the most dangerous game, but we loved it more than the bumps and bruises we acquired than to tattle to our parents that so-and-so hurt us.

There were a handful of other very minor games that we did not event, but got banned due to things like broken windows, broken toys, or having country club members get mad at us. There were probably other games that my siblings created that got banned, but these were the most memorable to me. Even though many were short lived, they did indeed cure our boredom.

The Story of My Life: A New Addition and a Taste of the 90s

I loved the 90s. Not entirely because I'm biased. Not entirely because I grew up in them. But mainly because of what they brought and what they meant to me. The movies, the culture, how we hung out on weekends, the music, the toys, etc. You may be reading this and thinking how could you fully appreciate all that under the age of 10? Or how "the good ol' days" can be attributed to every generation. Believe it or not, I did have awareness and appreciation at that age and because I that was my life experience, the 90s are my good ol' days.

Movies and TV shows as a kid were a big factor. In 1994, Disney released The Lion King. If I need to say anymore as to why that is a big deal, then you've been living under a rock. In 1995, Pixar released Toy Story. Yes, THE first Toy Story which is now 26 years old. That movie revolutionized animated movies. It flooded the culture. It made kids like me see toys in a whole new way. When burger king released Toy Story toys in their kid's meals, you better believe I managed to get my parents to take me so I could get the large set of toy army men from the movie. That very Christmas I was given a Mr. Potato Head toy that I still own to this day. The amount of non-animated family friendly movies were huge. Movies like Air Bud, Beethoven, Homeward Bound, The Mighty Ducks, Free Willy, Summer of the Monkeys, Flubber, just to name a few. The movie experience wouldn't be complete without Blockbuster. Kids today will never know the experience of seeing that big blue sign being a welcoming beacon to a world of wonder and then entering the store to see hundreds of movies displayed to catch your eye. Towering racks of neatly organized candy and popcorn begging you to buy some, larger-than-life cut out posters of whatever movie star or animated character was hot that year displayed throughout the store. Since our parents would only let us choose one or two movies, we'd take our sweet time fretting over which movie we really wanted to see and which would have to wait until next time. And they were all VHS tapes. DVDs had just made their entrance into the world late 1996 and the excitement of finally picking out a movie and taking it home, to the slight disappointment you'd have to wait for two-four minutes for the tape to rewind because the last renter failed to do so, to the giddiness of seeing the MGM Lion, the Paramount stars, or the Disney castle open the film in all its low quality, grainy goodness. What a time to be alive.

TGIF. The acronym for Thank God It's Friday, meant a whole lot more to me as ABC used if for a Friday night spectacular. I always made sure chores and homework were done because I was not missing TGIF. The line-up changed throughout the 90s but included the likes of Full House, Family Matters, Boy Meets World, and Two of a Kind to name a few. These TV families were part of my Friday nights for years and no matter what kind of day I was having, they brought a little more joy into my life.

Music in the 90s had a broad range of popular genres. But one word comes to mid when I think of that decade. Boybands. Boybands ruled the 90s. From Backstreet Boys to N'Sync, to 98 Degrees, to Boyz II Men, to New Kids on the Block, I was jamming out to those tunes to my heart's content. My friend Zach who I mentioned previously, had just acquired the new 98 Degrees album. Their opening for it was a tuned voiced that said "98 Degrees is spreading all across the land". One night when Zach and his parents were outside, he turned on his boombox and pressed play. Then he played with the volume knob to make it sound like he was tuning a radio station. Then at the exact moment that opening came through the speakers, he stopped and let the full phrase come out. Then he turned the volume way down and his mom legitimately thought that she had just heard an actual weather report and went inside of the house to get out of what she thought was an oncoming heat wave.

One of the coolest toys I ever received was a 2XL Robot made by Tiger. I got it with Christmas money in early 1997. It took four D batteries and had it's own cassette tapes to play its programming. As the tape played, the robot would talk and ask you trivia questions that you could answer by pressing one of four buttons on its lower half. Since it required cassettes to work, you could also stick music cassettes in it and it would play them. CDs had been around since the 80s, but they didn't really overtake the cassette until the 90s and even then, cassettes managed to hang on through most of the decade. As new music was coming out, my friends still got cassettes to play in walkmans as those were still the way to go as CD players were expensive. One summer day, Zach brought over a new cassette tape. I didn't have a boombox, but I had my 2XL. The cassette was newly released in 1997 by a European band known as Aqua. They had began to achieve international success with this album mainly for the song on that album called Barbie Girl. That song is quite silly and sometimes cringy to my now adult self, but as a kid in the 90s, it was a lyrical masterpiece that we played on repeat on my little 2XL. 

I didn't care really about fashion then , but what six year-old does? However, the one popular clothing item I loved then and still wear to this day are the baggy jeans. They were cool then and to me, they were and are the most comfortable jeans to wear. Why skinny jeans for men ever became a thing I will never ever understand. The only downside to them was when riding a bike. I cannot tell you how many times while pedaling a bike that it would suddenly come to a screeching halt and my leg felt like it was going to get ripped off simply because the jeans got caught in gear and chain. The worst part was when they got caught so bad that I had to drag/carry the bike all the way to the house where I could acquire the proper tools to get unstuck. Even with that minor inconvenience, I still rocked them proudly.

I never dreamed of being an astronaut, but I spent countless nights staring into the sky gazing in awe at everything that hung there. Some nights I would not be satisfied until I spotted either the big dipper or little dipper constellations. 1997 brought a stargazing moment that captured me for the ages. Discovered in 1995, the comet Hale-Bopp came closest to the earth in late March, early April of 1997. It was incredibly bright and could been seen with the naked eye for 18 months. Every night when the sun dipped to the other side of the earth, I'd scan the night sky looking for that comet. Every time I saw it, my heart filled with mirth. Some days I'd be upset if I couldn't spot it right away, but once I did, I was in a happy place. This rare space occurrence had a deeper significance for me. Because in the month of May, one month after the comet had reached it's closest point to earth, my third brother, fourth sibling, now totaling five kids, named Stephen, was born. My parents dropped us other four kids off at Al and Sue's so they could go to the hospital. I cannot recall where we were coming back from with Al and Sue one night, but once we got back to their house, Al pointed into the sky and said "Look, someone's shining a flashlight in the sky." From that moment forth, every night until it disappeared, that comet was my flashlight. 

I already mentioned POGS as one of the 90s fads, but a classic toy made an incredible comeback. The yo-yo. Designed with thick, hard plastic edges and transparent faces that gave you a look at what was going on inside of it as well as having names like X-Brain, Fireball, and Maverick, these toys were in every kid's pocket or being walked as an imaginary dog everywhere they went. I eventually acquired a sleek, black X-brain yo-yo as a birthday gift that I still have to this very day. I never did master walking the dog though.

There's definitely more I could say about the 90s and I surely will later on, but this is only a taste after all. With the arrival of Stephen, he rounds out the older five kids of the Pennsylvania era. The next few chapters will take a pause from the timeline and will tell of different series of events that occurred during my childhood. Buckle up because it's going to be a fun trip down memory lane.