Jaywalking With Jesus Section 2

8/8/2019 Jaywalking With Jesus Section 2

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Those early years of my life were indelibly marked by attendanceat the "Baby Center", which continues to serve the area with a fiercepride and a cruel determination not seen since the final days of WorldWar II. Ramrod stiff in their commitment to teaching children "what'sright" and not being afraid of meting out a bit of physical punishmentwas and is "what the Baby Center" is all about.

What I found hard to believe was Miss Jan and my Baby Centerdays occurred about 50 years ago, yet they seemed just likeyesterday. With this rich and tawdry history to draw from, it waspitifully ironic that Id lived this long only to realize I had a fake wife, afake son, a fake daughter, a fake life and REAL problems. I ruefullyunderstood my future was now in my past; I could reach behind myback and feel my blown futures cold, white rhino horn about toimpale my present. More about that later.

Abdicating any semblance of maturity long before my innateimmaturity reached full bloom, my greatest strength was knowing myweaknesses, but my greatest weakness was the blissful ignorance Ihad of my strengths.

I stood awash in a bitter reminisce that enshrouded me in a coldloneliness as blinding and numbing as snow. This cascade of angstand regret rolled over me till I broke from this fugue of self pity andrealized how fairly lucky I was. But I could've been a lot luckier.Everything seemed to be Yin and Yang, hot and cold; no time tobreathe and relax, just a mad dash towards a finish line that wasnever defined and never, ever seemed to get closer. Why couldn't Ihave been just a nice, semi-normal rich kid? The type of person whocould walk into any given situation with an air of confidence and lanthat screamed "The world is my oyster" because it was.

Looking back to my adolescence, I was surrounded by rich kids.Walkin' around in nappa leather dress shoes with soles as thin asCommunion wafers and slinging open the doors of convertibles thatcost more than my parents house, I was almost certain they didn'teven have blood pressure, and quite possibly no blood, just silver andgold running through those aristocratic veins. Living on "estates" and


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"compounds", you'd float down driveways that went on forever,ensconced in a corridor of perfectly trimmed hedges that rose likegreen tsunamis on either side of an island of wealth.

Many of these people lived in "gated communities" andsubdivisions named after birds and animals that were driven away bythe construction of the very subdivisions and developments namedafter them! Considering my family was there before the "Bulldozer Glacier" disposed of eons of flora and fauna, the cruel irony wasn'tlost. "Quail Hollow", "Elk River", "Bass Lake", "Fox Glen" and"Pheasant Run" were epitaphs. The closest anyone who lived on"Pheasant Run" ever got to a pheasant was when it was under glass,undercooked, and totally devoid of feathers.

I recalled having dinners at some of my friends homes whoseparents or grandparents were introduced as Lord Plover, TheMallard and other rather bizarre, cruelly boyish nicknames thatsmacked of an immature self importance and utter disregard for theflora and fauna of less intelligent, disposable animals andenvironment. But come dinnertime there they were, hovering over asmall fowl with knife and fork in hand, ignorant of the bird's beauty infull plumage, living on a street named after a dinner you couldn't evenlament; the effrontery was incendiary. But God, I thought, I may

have been pretty poor but I sure had fun growing up, or at least older.Caught in this enigma of ineptitude, brilliance, latent wisdom and

underachievement that was galactic in scope, I was a would-be idiot-savant gazing vacantly into the warped mirror of my past, present andfuture. I sighed in relief in the knowledge I was just barely stupidenough to live this lie of incompetence and just barely smart andcompetent enough to understand that. Ignorance is only bliss if youre really rich or truly ignorant. One out of two aint bad.


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ABOVE: (Circa 1968) The car on the left, a Plymouth Sport Fury,before I totaled it; the car on the right that I loaned Wayne and Craig that they were kind enough to total for me. I happened to look out the

plate glass windows of the grocery store as they were walking in totell me, and I knew, I just knew it was curtains for the big Olds.Gophers Glen Drive is in the background.

Boredom, Blue Jays, the Brewand "The Dryer Drum Dummy"

The 1960's roared into our lives like a psychedelic Pop Tart thattook seconds to eat, years to digest and decades to understand.Lesley Gore was cryin' about some party, The Beach Boys werepickin' up Good Vibrations, Sonny was still with Cher and Jan & Deanwere rippin' around every Dead Man's Curve in America. The ColdWar was hot, Viet Nam was not, global warming was what youaspired to do with your girlfriends breasts, gasoline was virtually freeand a quart of beer cost about 37 cents. Who needed Oprah or Dr.

Phil?

"Environment" was something your mother tried to do withinterior decorating on a shoestring, neckties were as thin as belts anda 1964 Mustang convertible rolled off Ford's assembly line at about$2,400. Suntans were "in" and totally harmless, cigarettes were likea sixth finger on everyone's hand and like all teenagers around the


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world, me and my peers were scared shitless.

Didn't matter. Wed still bounce out of bed ready to grab another

summer day by the throat and shake it like a bag of hot popcorn. Iawoke every morning hearing that achingly beautiful, discordant trillof redwing blackbirds and I could actually smell the sunshine. Whenspring peepers started singing their sirens song from the creeks thegang and I knew spring had arrived and we couldnt wait to taste thedirt our mothers would be washing out of our clothes.

We spent so much time playing in the grass our sneakers turnedgreen, like the envy our parents had for our youth. Time was stoppedfor us, a static phenomena that couldnt touch us wouldnt touchus we were forever young. But, as someone much wiser than mostof us once said, Youth is wasted on the young. Maybe so, but wesure had fun wasting it.

From a vast, incalculable distance, only God knew whatadventures each day held for Jack and the Rat Pack, but many anight would find half the neighborhood running around my back yardcatching so many fireflies it looked like lightning in a bottle.

Bedtime found us ready for dreams that could barely rival our real lives, and we welcomed sleep with an untroubled honesty andpurity only the young enjoy.

We lived in the Garden of Eden. Creeks were so clean andclear one could drink from them without fear of growing an extra ear or stubbed limb, and by the fifth grade my visual butterfly and mothcollection consisted of 27 species. Goldfinch would roller-coaster through the summer skies like black-winged, yellow darts inexuberant celebration of summer, and the birds and us boys never wanted the day to end and tomorrow could never arrive soon enough.

We were all just emerging from the true innocence of life whensummers lasted forever, weeks were like years and days actually hada beginning, middle and end. Every summer day was an era untoitself and in retrospect was . Christmas vacations were like a career,Halloween, Thanksgiving and New Years were events, birthdays


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were anticipated and actually celebrated, and all our parents wishedwe ran on batteries so they could pull 'em out of our backs at nightand get "some peace and quiet."

When one of my best friends, Wayne French claimed he saw"Reddy Kilowatt" (an electric company's lightning bolt-man logo) after peering into and breathing deeply of the vapors emanating from hisbrother's motorcycle gas tank, I knew we were impervious to anythreat, save ourselves. Isn't that always the rub?

Totally ripped on gas fumes, stumbling around his parentsgarage like a drug-addled ape, the Frenchman snapped off his familycar's rearview mirror, then, on the recoil, kicked over a couple cans of white paint.

ABOVE: Wayne saw this guy after inhaling gasoline fumes beforefalling into the puddle of white paint in his parents garage.

Already high as Ben Franklin's kite, he was now swirling among


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fresh paint fumes, blinded with petroleum distillates, ethanol, pigmentdyes and oleoresins that had killed many a lab rat. Slipping andsliding in the widening pool of paint, the "big cat" went down hard butsomehow scrabbled to his feet, looking like a spotted, streakedhyena.

Panting like an over-laden burro, his tongue a blinding "SherwinWilliams" white, the Frenchman careened wildly into the garage door opener (in this case closer) and unceremoniously shut the door on hisfoot. Howling with rage and pain, we could hear him punching blindlyabout, trying desperately to re-hit the "magic button" that would freehis foot. Unfortunately for Wayne, we were all outside in the drivewayshooting baskets.

I realized that looking at the sneakered toes of the Frenchmanprotruding from the garage door was rather eerie, yet arousing in away. The front of Waynes foot seemed totally disjointed from thefury and tumult on the other side of the door.

Standing there with a basketball in my hands but unable to help, Iyelled "Hey Wayne, shut up! We're shootin' hoops out here!" Finally

hitting the correct button, the garage door slowly raised and Waynecollapsed onto the asphalt like a staked vampire. Rolling in slowagony, smeared with white paint in a bizarre random pattern, Waynelooked like a fairly large Aborigine in cheap war paint.

Craig Woodrich and I (our mutual best friend), looked down atour fallen spotted owl and I opined, "Geeze, it seems he may havesoiled himself." Hoping that's all that happened, we pulled him upand within half an hour, rejuvenated by three pieces of bologna(compressed inside a Wonder Bread dough ball) washed down with astolen (his dad's) Rolling Rock, the Big Aborigine was good to go. Aslight drizzle had set in along with an ennui that had to be addressedimmediately. Boredom always seemed to bring out our groupcreativity.


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This picture was taken in the Ackers back yard looking North upGophers Glen Drive, From the look of mirth on Pop Ackers face, hemust have just heard young Jack had fallen off a cliff. Just kidding.

Birds of a Feather

"Let's go down to the creek by the floodplains from the other day"I suggested. One of the worst floods in the last 60 years had tornthrough the area three days ago, and even now the crick was runninghigh and limbs, silt and other detritus still rimmed the banks. A trulydevastating spring flood, it took its toll on both flora and fauna, andwe saw many dead animals and birds as a result.

Walking over a rise I almost stepped on a dead blue jay, andwhen twenty paces later we raised our faces to the frantic chirping of three baby blue jays, even we could figure it out. With craning necksand ridiculously huge beaks and eyes, these boys must have losttheir parents and their future wasn't looking too good. Their feathersspiked like they were still wet from the storm, they kinda looked likeRod Stewart, but we carried them back to my parents compound


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anyway.

I told the boys to catch some grasshoppers, crickets etc. on theway back so they could begin the trio of jays rehab processimmediately. Grabbing a bird cage out of the basement, we soon hadthe Baby Blues set up in a beautiful new home. Naming them "One-Jay", "Two-Jay" and "Three-Jay", the Blue Brothers lookedresplendent in their straw-floored bachelor's pad

ABOVE: Triple Threat. From left to right, Jack Acker, Wayne and Craigs high school graduation pictures. I was class of 1967 whileWayne and Craig were 1968 graduates. Wayne actually signed theback of his picture Dryer Drum Dummy. Dont let that dazed and confused look on my face fool you; I was every bit that dazed and even more confused, I rather desperately hid it well. Thats a lotta hair, baby!

With Easter just around the corner, I quickly had my sisters (as if they had nothing better to do) weaving the boys tiny "Easter BirdieBaskets" out of long grasses plucked from the fields. I couldn't wait

to see their beaks gaping with awe and appreciation at the bounty of insects, larvae and nuts crammed into their Birdie Baskets Easter morn! I retired that evening with blue birds of happiness flitting aboutthe horizons of my dreams.


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ABOVE: Left to right, Ken, Dave, Ann, and Jack; circa 1956. All clutching Easter baskets like the ones the Blue Jays almost lived toenjoy. The look on my face tells us my chocolate bunny Mr. Bigby was too furry to ingest Look at those baskets, filled with futuretooth decay! Kenny (far left) looks like Jimmy Cagney in YankeeDoodle Dandy. One must assume Marilyn and Regina werent bornyet.

Checking on the boys the next morning, I recoiled with horror fromthe cage when I spotted Three-Jay down flat in the straw. With greattrepidation I reached in, and as I removed my arm, it was a lifelessform cradled in my hand. There was no doubt the period without hismother's providing food and shelter had proved fatal. Id noticedsince the rescue mission none of the jays had eaten very well andseemed somewhat listless and disaffected. My concerns now werewith the remainder of the avian trio.

With no small degree of apprehension I approached the cage thenext morning. My worst fears were realized when I espied only Two-Jay on his perch. Two-Jay cast a doleful look at me as I gently pulledOne-Jay out of his circumstantial tomb. I took another look at Two-Jay and realized he was lookin' pretty crummy too; his death wasimminent as well. This was serious shit and I glumly sat down to


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assess the situation.

The idea came to me almost like divine revelation. This was aBlue Jay - a Sky Pirate whose piercing cries were as unmistakable ashis brilliant, flashing blue, black and white plumage. With a crest onhis head that made him look absolutely regal, I was determined thatTwo-Jay would leave this mortal coil like a champion and a warrior,not a beaten, slack-winged lump of feathers. I called Wayne andCraig, broke the bad news of the dual deaths as gently as I could andtold them an emergency meeting was being called and time was of the essence. Meeting them with cage in hand at the entrance to myparents basement we immediately went underground.

"I'm not gonna let Two-Jay here go out like his brothers," I said."We're gonna do something special for this bird, something I'm prettysure no bird has ever done before." C-man and the Frenchmanlooked at each other then back at me, knowing full well this would besomething special, all right.

"This Blue Jay is part of the Crow family," I continued. "GreatIndian tribes were the namesakes of his relatives, and for all we knowother great social institutions, like a Canadian baseball team inToronto, may be named after him in the future. With your help, I'm

gonna send this magnificent Blue Bastard into the hereafter in amanner befitting his exalted position in the hierarchy of avian history!"

I strode briskly over to my American Flyer electric train layout thatfeatured a big, black locomotive with a working headlight, train whistleand a real, puffing smokestack. Though we were pretty poor, me andmy bros had a helluva nice train layout. About eight by twelve feet,filled with tiny to-scale houses, buildings, post offices, train stations,rivers, mountains and a town filled with tiny people; it was reallyfantastic.

Looking back, I couldnt figure how we could've had the moneyfor all this train stuff. I knew Pops had bought the train in downtownCleveland for my Christmas present one year, but all this other stuff?I knew for sure we didn't have any disposable income for this frivolity.I guessed we must have stolen most of it - either from stores or our rich relatives. I knew in my heart we didn't want to steal, it just


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happened.

"All right, get Two-Jay outta that cage and bring him over here," Isaid. "Craig, gimme that adhesive tape, and Wayne, start that trainup, turn on the lights of the town to high and kill the basement lights."

One of the coolest features of the layout was a fake mountainrange about two and a half feet long and sixteen inches high, with aneight or nine inch tunnel hole bored through it. Placed over a sectionof tracks, when that churning locomotive whipped into that tunnelpullin' all those cars with the sound of the whistle "whooo-whoooing",its headlight piercing the darkness and smoke billowing out of thesmokestack to trail along the length of the Great American Flyer -well, it almost gave you a woodie.

Above: This is the train that gave Two-Jay the most memorable (and final) ride of his too short life. These trains really did have working lights, smokestacks and whistles. This artists rendition hardly does

justice to what occurred in the basement that rainy day. Just imagineTwo-Jay taped to the engineers area atop that massive, churning


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engine! Oh to have been there... Magnificent!

"Wayne, get over there and pull that tunnel-mountain range off thetable and expose those tracks," I directed.

"What are we gonna do, asked Craig.

I looked up and said "I'll tell ya' what we're gonna do. We'regonna give Two-Jay the final ride of a lifetime, literally. I want him toremember this day and the fact that he went out proud with adistinction no other Blue Jay has ever imagined." Hell I thought,without a divine revelation of sorts, I could barely believe Id imaginedwhat was about to take place myself and in some perverted wayenvied Two-Jay and his historical ride.

I gently taped Two-Jay's little black legs to either side of the

engineer's compartment on the locomotive. Realizing the enormity of this sacrosanct occasion, I heard C-man and the Frenchmen clear their throats. No Rhodes scholars, they knew me well and wereplenty smart enough to figure out what was comin' down.

"Wayne, get ready with that tunnel and do what I tell ya' when I

tell ya', but keep it clear of the tracks for now. C-man, in case of derailment save the bird first and worry about passengers andtownspeople later," I said. We all looked at each other in the ghostlyglow of a lit-up fake town, with fake little people, tiny trees andhouses and a real bird whose ticket was punched for the finaldestination.

I wiped a tear from my eye and yelled into the gloaming: "Allaboard!"

Jaywalking With Jesus Section 2

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