Previous Episode
I started pre-school which mean I had to be away from my mommy, but my big brother, Joe foo’, was at pre-school too so it wasn’t so bad. He punched me in the arm, though, and pretended he didn’t know me.
At pre-school we would do fun arts and crafts, and then there would be playtime. During play time, Joe foo’ would obsess with destroying the pre-school’s power structure that he was convinced was trying to turn us into conformist automatons. I liked the toy that had three see-through panels of different color: one red, one blue, and one yellow. If you combined red and blue, you got purple. If you combined red and yellow, you got orange. If you combined blue and yellow, you got green. If you combined them all, God help you.
At snack time we got crackers and Kool-aid… actually the other kids got crackers and Kool-aid. Mom thought Kool-aid was too sugary, and she instructed that Joe and me couldn’t have any so we just got water instead. What a mean momma. We would try to trick the teacher, such as putting on a fake mustache, but she was too smart for us.
After pre-school, we could play in the playground while we waited for our parents to remember us. We had a jungle gym and other such fun things to climb – all suspended over nice, forgiving concrete. There was this extra big platform that you could climb up to on a ladder and had different slides to get down. It was so high it was scary. One day I finally climbed up onto it, but, when I tried to get down, I noticed I was all alone, and at the bottom was the Alaskan snow monkey ready to bite me. I tried moving from slide to slide, but the monkey kept be persistent, always standing there staring at me evilly. I started crying, and eventually the teacher had to come to help me down.
All as a family, we went to one of the big, national parks in Alaska. When we were there, we ate some bear meat. It was yummy. I didn’t know bears were for eating. Dad told me, “If you can kills it, you can eats it.” Dad is very wise.
A three-legged dog named Charlie lived near us, and we sometimes took care of him. I made fun of him for missing a leg, but then he charged me and knocked me over. I tried to knock him over, but I couldn’t because of that support that extra leg gave him. Stupid Charlie, thinking he’s so great because he has one more leg than me.
When it got colder, we had a problem with a walrus getting in the backyard and tearing up the lawn with his tusks. Momma would say, “Frankie, you go take a broom and chase away that walrus.”
“Why can’t Joe do it? Those big teeth are scary.”
“You go chase way that walrus right now!”
So I’d go in the backyard, swing my broom at the walrus while saying, “Shoo, walrus, shoo!” He knocked me down with his big tail, though, and then I saw that stupid Alaskan snow monkey up in a tree laughing at me. I’d get that monkey, I swore.
Joe and I got a neat new present – a bunk bed! It was a two-story bed, which was really cool. My brother got the top bunk, though, so it ended to me being just like a regular bed that was in constant threat of crushing me.
We also got a black and white T.V. for our room upon which we could watch sitcoms like Cheers and not understand the jokes. On Saturday morning’s, though, we’d go out to the living room and watch cartoons on the color T.V. Joe foo’, Silly Sister Sarah, and me liked to watch the Smurfs and learn about their perfect society led by the unquestioned dictator, the bearded Papa Smurf. They were constantly threatened by an evil Jew and his cat. Dad didn’t let us watch it though, since he said it was Commie propaganda. So instead we put on Scooby-Doo, but dad was afraid that would teach us to meddle. So instead we watched The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, which taught us to be boring.
We ended up going on a big fishing trip. It was so far off in another place in Alaska that we had to take plane to get there. We flew over mountains and landed in water. Then we had a cabin to stay in. To go the bathroom was a big outhouse with a deep hole. Joe foo’ and I were scared of falling in, so we thought of dropping little Sarah down the hole to test things out. Mom found out and stopped us, though.
My dad ended up catching the biggest fish that season. It was huge! He then gave it to the camp people to have it prepared for a trophy. When he came back to get it, though, he found out that the guy and filleted it. My dad expressed displeasure at this.
“I’LL MURDER YOU DEAD!” my dad screamed as the staff tried to hold him back. “I’ll find out where you live and kill you and everyone you care about!” my dad said as they dragged him off.
Fishing was fun, but things waited for my dad and me that weren’t so fun.