By
Bob Cox
When
my parents decided that our family could afford to move to the nicer
side of town, I was really excited we were going for it. Sure, I was
going to miss the good old days playing with my friends, eating corn
dogs with my dad at The Yellow Basket Restaurant and driving by the
Mobil Oil Refinery and watching the sifting piles of “black sand”
empty out of long tubes from the tall machines. But our new house had
plenty to offer, so I was feeling good about the future.
As
a 6 year old adventure seeker, I didn’t care about the cleaner air,
the prettier neighborhood or the great view we had at the top of the
hill. What really mattered was living in a 2 story house and the cool
fountain that spilled into a small pond in the corner of our
backyard. Behind the fountain was dirt and plants, the perfect
setting to create my own primeval world!
From
the time I was little fat dough-ball in diapers, I had steadfastly
collected every plastic dinosaur ever created. Now I had the perfect
environment to travel back 65 million years with T- rex and his
biggest and baddest rivals!
A
few months after we moved in, T-rex and triceratops we’re engaged
in an epic struggle when I noticed that the water wasn’t coming out
of the fountain as fast as it once did. My sisters tried to convince
me that I ruined it, but I refused to believe it had anything to do
with the dirt I piled at the top of the fountain to create a more
authentic jungle-like atmosphere of a muddy river poring into a dark
and spooky lake. With the river not flowing right, I needed another
strategy to avoid the dreaded B word…boredom, the silent killer of
joy among our kind, you know brats like me!
Back
then, we only had six television stations to choose from and my
thinking at the time was that if it made it on television, it must be
good enough to watch and learn from. My next great inspiration came
before the phrase “kids, don’t try this at home” became vogue.
I was watching Lucille Ball on “The Lucy Show.” I sat mesmerized
as Lucy and her neighbor Vivian (Vivian Vance) were stuck in the
bathroom shower with the water rising near their necks. I couldn’t
understand why they had such panicked looks on their faces, since
having a swimming pool for a shower looked like great fun to me!
I
rushed home from school later that day, tore out of my clothes and
slipped on my one and only pair of swimming trunks. I dashed up the
stairs, turned on the shower in my parent’s bathroom and braced
myself for an afternoon of wet and wild adventure. Since our shower
didn’t have a plug to keep the water in, I was forced to improvise.
I grabbed a washcloth and plugged up the drain to prevent the water
from draining out. I thought “Boy, wait until my three big sister’s
get home. I’ll be the envy of the neighborhood!”
As
the minutes went by, I noticed the shower not filling up as high as I
expected so I cranked up the water full blast to get the swimming
party started. When my sisters came home, I heard some muffled
yelling behind the closed bathroom door as I looked down at my prune
textured fingers. I was shouting “Life Boy with mint, mint, mint”
from a soap commercial I saw one too many times), when the door
suddenly flung open, I can only remember a few choice words, like
“You idiot,” “What were you thinking” and “Wait until dad
gets home!” Wow, that certainly wasn’t the reaction I was hoping
for.
Before
I made the long and soggy walk down the stairs, I was struck by how
wet the bathroom floor and the carpet in my parent’s bedroom was.
“How did that happen,” I wondered to myself. When I finally
reached the family room, I couldn’t believe my eyes as drops of
water fell from our ceiling like rain. That indoor thunderstorm would
be a drop in the bucket compared to the force that would be arriving
home soon and straight out of Inglewood where he worked, “Hurricane
Dad!”
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