November 9
My new best friend after Randy passed away would turn out to be John, from church. His dad was a deacon and his grandfather was a preacher, so we were the perfect dysfunctional pair. That we ended up friends is a bit of a mystery since one of my first encounters with him involved his informing me that I had stolen Kelli from him. Evidently she was ‘going steady’ with him when he went on summer vacation. His mom played the piano so he had a bit of music understanding and he wrote a love song to Kelli in French. I think he liked the idea that he kinda sorta got her back from me, but even that didn’t last. John’s dad and brother were hunters and he grew up knowing how to hunt and skin animals. One time he gave me a first-hand demonstration of this by taking a rabbit out of a cage in their back yard, whacking it a couple of times over the head with a pipe to break its neck, and then gutting it. I watched but didn’t particularly help. His mom cooked it into a meal. It did *not* taste like chicken.
John and I spent a lot of time together over the years. We got our amateur radio licenses at the same time after attending a lot of practice sessions. We had at least one good fight/wrestling match over something that I’m sure neither of us remembers. He decided that I was talking smack about drugs at some point so he told me he had some (LSD or something, I don’t remember). He showed me the pills, and I took one. I was disappointed when I didn’t feel anything, and he acted a bit surprised and miffed that I had actually taken it. As it turns out, it was something completely benign, just a test.
To round out my middle school experience I often hung out with Wilson, mainly at school. Our primary form of interaction seemed to be sneaking up on the other person and giving them a good, glancing knuckle to the spine, right between the shoulder blades. This was great fun when done right, although I’m sure we were risking total paralysis. The last I saw Wilson is a detective with the Fort Worth Police Department. I wonder if he would laugh if I pulled the same stunt again for old times sake, or would he just Tase me?
