King of Sandcastles

Junior high was an unrealistic expectation gone worse. I was still very shy, and student "clicks" started developing, which I wanted no part of. Being a loner was easy, so I did that social study and found two other loners to hang out with: Pancho Chavez and Jim Davis…always in trouble, I chose to refrain from our friendship. I tried to associate with other students, but I found them boring. Eventually, I started pitching quarters behind the handball courts with other boys and found acceptance with these kinds of kids, and their anti-social activities. I didn’t understand that their anti-socialism activities were against school rules and could get me suspended, not to mention against the law. So, I just learned to be very careful not to get caught, which by the way, takes a great amount of skill and energy in all the wrong areas. In fact, I became very good at it.

One day we had a substitute teacher who had a reputation for showing movies while he substituted. He was also known for falling asleep, and he wears a hearing aid. So, while the movie is playing, he falls asleep. I sneak over and turn off his hearing aid, signal to the kids to vacate the classroom, and shut the door behind us. Well, he woke up, there was no class, he panicked, and I think was suspended for insubordination. In which I became very popular. Now my ego was being fed, and I had lots of new friends.

My First Band and More…

I started my first band in the 7th grade called "The Cricketts." Our one and only gig was at Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Monrovia. Our fee was free pizza and cokes, and I still remember the audience yelling for a drum solo. I was sure that Ringo Star of the Beatles had never heard that, so I was proud. Now, there was a rumor around school that a girl named Vicky Feckly like me, so some friends hooked us up to go to the local walk-in, in Monrovia. Weeks prior to the movie we attended some parties together where the game, "Spin the Bottle" and French-kissing were introduced to me. "Spin the Bottle" would start the evening off, then the lights would go off, and everyone would end up making-out. Wow, what an experience! Her perfume…soar lips…"hickies." Satan was certainly at work, and I had no knowledge of it. Everybody was doing it…Right?? The kids that weren’t doing it were studying at home, not participating in the spirit of disobedience and feeding the flesh.

Praise God for movie night when it came, because it just so happens that Carol was taking care of a man’s horses up the street from our house. He had just informed Carol that previous summer that he had the leaking role in a movie being filmed in Africa and would be gone all summer. Would she take care of the horses? With permission from Mom and Dad, she did. So, Summer ended, life went back to normal and that particular movie would be the movie we were about to see. The name of the movie was Born Free, and knowing of the connection between the main star, Carol, and the fact it was a movie on lions, being an animal lover, I was excited to see it. Well, the other four couples had different agendas in mind. So, we went in, sat down, and the movie started. Well, about a half-hour into the show, everybody was kissing and things, except for Vicky and me. I put my arm around her and felt that was sufficient affection. After all, I was watching the show. Now, the pressure is on, and I’m getting nervous, and all of a sudden there’s a close-up of a den of baby cubs, and the parents as they clean and cuddle each other. Well, I’m so taken by this act of affection that I’m watching on the screen, that I set my hand on Vicky’s head and start patting and petting her hair. Well, she jumps up, grabs her friend, storms to the restrooms and that was that! The next day in school, she broke up with me, and I was so glad. Girls like that could get me into trouble, I thought. But see, not knowing the Bible, I had no knowledge of Ephesians 6:12 or the Spirit of Jezzebell. It wasn’t over yet…Satan had plenty of time in 1966, and I was in his sights.