The Office...

  

                Next door to my house, in the cellar below, was the hangout that we called " The Office".

        There were walls filled with stacked beer cans, and out front of the house was a sign stolen from Congress Park in Saratoga. It simply said, in green and red, " Warning Poison Ivy".

                 These guys were wild. They would walk into Price Chopper, buy seven or eight bags of chips and Slim Jim's, go outside, get another cart, then head back inside to fill it with cases of beer. They then flashed the receipt, pretending they already paid for the beer and exited in a bee line for the car.

        We had a bar across from both of our houses, and when the beer truck delivered and the driver was inside,  they raided the truck. Once, they even scored a 1/4 keg...

       It was funny. These guys who traded me booze at 12 years old for my prescription phenobarbital  kept me out of these thefts.

              I would have gladly helped. They were my heroes...

                     I post this stuff again, because as I perused Facebook just now, I came across an obituary of one of " The Offices" founding members.

                                      54 years old.

                            I haven't seen him in probably thirty years, but it looks like he made a decent life for himself. At least that is how I read it and how I hope it was...

                        I went out with his niece when I was young. Her name was Diane and she lived down the street. She was one of my partners in crime. We definitely had quite the history. When she was seven and I was eight, I locked her inside an old washing machine that was in the corner of my yard. I told her she had to go in it to be a part of our club. What I hadn't told her was that it was full of spiders. What she probably told me but I didn't really hear, was that she was extremely claustrophobic and anachraphobic...

            I was a boy and could not fathom anyone actually being afraid of spiders. Most of my early years were spent hiding in tiny spaces from a long list of someones, so I didn't understand the fear of small places either...

             Needless to say, she didn't speak to me at all for quite a few weeks. From what I did hear, later on, was she didn't actually speak to anyone for days after that. She never let me forget that one..

        We went out at times. One year she was twitterpated with my oldest brother. I taped her pining over him one day and played it over the blaring stereo at her uncles graduation party...

   She definitely never let me forget that one, either...

             She passed away about five years ago.

                 They were both good people. 

                I think about the people who pretty much raised me or were raised with me in the same dysfunctional zip code and realize they were all pretty decent folk.

              I look back at the insanity and realize my youth was more of an adventure than anything else.

       A lot of it was stupid adventure. Most of it, actually. But what wasn't fun was exciting.

               I was blessed to be surrounded by reasonably harmless lunatics.

                     At least the ones who watched over me...

                         I never told anyone, but when the neighbors who owned the house that held the cellar we called " The Office" moved, I took the " Poison Ivy" sign they left in front of their house. It has been with me thru every move I've ever made, excluding the one bedroom my Wonderful Wife and I shared in Albany. 

       So, before starting this post, I went into my garage and dug thru the rafters. I used an old broom to free the sign from the plywood strips it layed on. I took it down and looked at it, remembering old friends. I sat it on my generator and came inside.

                I would not trade my childhood for anything. It may have been more Stephen King or Kafka than Norman Rockwell, but it was an adventure.

                            Rest in peace, my friends...