My earliest memory is of pretending the interior, wood-paneled surface behind my family's fold-down (murphy style) dining table - that curved downward from vertical to the floor of our 24-foot trailer, was a "slicky-slide". (continued in Blog)The chances of getting my own phone in my room - a notion I had overheard while passing the girls' locker room and had adopted as my mission - were somewhere between "not good" and "_____". [insert disgusted and annoyed look from fadora wearing male parent here]. At first it seemed that I had just made another badly timed request. I could not have been more correct. Still silent, the spy guy produced the day's mail delivery from his London Fog beltless trench coat, removed the coat and placed it carefully on the back of "his" chair followed by the hat. The opened envelope on top bore the familiar blue logo of Southern Bell (was that a clever brand or the result of corporate marketing Bigs trapped in self-parody?).I'd opened my first checking account in 7th grade when I started my first paper route. the only checks i ever wrote were for a combined payment in a thin envelope, which i sent each week to the Herald-Dispatch. Couldn't be a chump with a brown lunch bag full of loose change wheeling up on my stingray and humbly standing by while my dispatch manager-slash-substitute science teacher boss, grudgingly counted it out and counted my presence as an interuption in his chain smoking, clock watching Saturday morning. The office closed at noon on Saturday's and the more slowly he counted, the fewer annoying little snots he'd have to deal with. Of course he'd contradict this action with a suprise visit to your drop at 5:30 am to harrass you about being late with your collections and payment. I collected religiously and mailed my check in. once in a while i'd show up on my customized stingray but just to hand him a check so he'd remember what the smart kid looked like.I'd never written a check for a bill. Certainly not a phone bill. I would write a very large one on this day. Apparently all those calls to Kanoa Surf and Skate shop in Cally in hopes of talking to Tony Alva or any of the Dog Town crew, were not free. And instead of a 12" wide Alva deck, I paid that month's phone bill.
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