Monday, July 7, 2008

WAY TOO MUCH FROZEN YOGURT

hey guys. just wanted to check in, see how y'all are doing. you know.

Remember back in the days of Fosters' Freeze, when we'd get whopping Twisters swirled with peanut-butter cup and chocolate chips, then go watch some crappy B-movie at work for free? Afterwards we'd spend hours chillin in the break room, waiting for the movies to start so we could play the arcade games by kicking the change intake and reseting a New Game every time..until they'd break. Once in LA down some crowded street in Burbank, inside a bar I found myself with a stash of quarters standing for an hour with a blue plastic gun gripped between my palms, aiming it at an arcade screen. 5 dollars later I had been made fun of enough by the dart-throwing bros next door so I left, and sighing with the memories of that same futuristic Police Academy game satisfaction I'd had after so many late nights of the Placerville Signature Theater. Like my frozen yogurt ventures tonight, I was reminded of the days of Foster's Freeze Twisters and bad B freebie movies.
Then there was that peanut-butter-chocolate ice cream cake pie that we got at Denny's, and how I obviously took it back to work with us. Or the time I brought home a Costco carrot cake from rafting training in the spring and froze it, on Roosevelt St.. I was the only one who ate any of that. And I loved it! Nothing tastes better than frozen colored buttercream frosting. Han Solo loves sweets.
OK, so, one night I was up in the wee hours of freezing winter, beneath my car with charcoal black hands bleeding, scraping a starter between the poorly-designed exhaust pipes of a 1980 Toyota Corolla. Even then my dad thought I was too hasty. Or how about the time we climbed the baseball stands at night and stole the PA speakers, then hooked them up to our car stereo and blared music through them as we cruised downtown. Or when we snuck down the dirt tracks of the football field to stake out and watch the stars blot out the night sky? Or that time I drove up Hwy 9 on a mission to find the perfect flowers, only to end up spread open in a wild field, throwing my precious Beer Token into the wind and singing "Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind" to the oncoming dusk, picking more flowers and carefully placing them back on the doorknob of a girl's house whom I fell in love with. Then there was the time I crested Carson Pass alone in the dead of winter, at 9000ft with front wheel drive in a beatup car and no chains, no cars nearby to keep me company, and swirled in by a blizzard on all four sides, so that I had to back down slowly and blindly until I rediscovered the lost road - and the 7 1/2 hour drive it took me to return back home, patiently and frantically waiting for cell phone service in an avalanche-filled night. Or the time a bee landed on my leg while riding down a hill on my bike, and me plummeting in silence toward fast-approaching asphalt, smearing my shoulders and face on the rolling black rocks of the road, and how Matt found me wandering into the house delirious and quickly coming to my aid. One time I walked out of our room across the deck as Matt swung a giant oar in revolutions around his head, and for a second I watched the blade come cracking against my skull, sending me staggering and laughing at the bloody hilarity of it! Remember? And then how Dad refused stitches because...well, the hospital bill. OK ok, how about the morning Dad backed his truck out of the driveway, broadsided my Corolla with his rear-end and then drove off to work without telling me- that day left me at school in the morning wondering what the heck had happened. Or when my Tempo was broken into and all my hard stereo work was yanked from that precious vehicle, along with Matt's Radiohead CD that had been in the stereo the night before as I had driven home from a party in Greenstone.
Speaking of flying in the air, there was that time I flew backwards for a few seconds with a snowboard strapped to my feet then landed with my tailbone on a sheet of ice, from the impact I have a lifelong deposit of extra bone mass which i quickly deemed my "bulbous". Like running down a mountain pass with no trail and only a backpack on in wailing winds and balls of ice sleeting down on our heads. Or hopping the fence under the eerie spinning lights of the airport, climbing that rickety tower to the top and curling up in balls to look out over the twinkling lights of the Sacramento Valley. leaping from Salmon Falls bridge into a flow warm lakewater. biking to the top of every hill in town to give a thumbs up to nature. standing in the now Dream Inn with two large pizzas in one arm and an entire Mexican family in another, getting my picture taken, the original Santa Cruz Pizza Guy. climbing street lamps to sit on top, singing to a lightning storm with arms wide from a roof.
this is my bounty. some times are bigger than others, but none are better. looking at Mars in its closest from a telescope in Pollock Pines. driving a tank home from a high school party. there are too many things we do that are good, and we must keep doing them. its real bounty, and you could call it fun or adventure or whatever. Yesterday we swam and jumped in the river, then danced and drank the night away. These things are my bounty. the real sweets of living.
love ya, and so does my frozen yogurt

4 comments:

Susan said...

Hey Mikie I really enjoyed reading this. It gave me a little peek into your life during your growing up years. Sounds like you've had some really great times. It's great that you've learned the art of writing it all down. I wish I had written down some of the things I did as a kid and teenager, it would be so fun to go back and relive it by readin it. Some of it would be too painful of course, but I had some fun too! Love ya.

moonshinejunkyard said...

hi mikie. i love all these adventures. who were you with for most of them? they are mostly unfamiliar to me, except the times you got hurt. i can't believe you crashed because there was a bee on your leg. i never knew that dad hit your car either, i don't remember. anyway, good writing, this was so fun to read.

Mikie Beatty said...

hah funny you should say that. In the first part I guess I was with Justin, and the rest well I think generally they took place with me, I and myself.

mattbeatty said...

I liked this too. Pretty rad to have such great recollections. My memory always seems shot but then once I start, it opens a floodgate and things start coming back to me of their own accord. Memories are great--and always in the making!