For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women, please visit www.shyperson.com. For Terry Heggy's other writing, please see www.terryheggy.com.
The Swimmers and the Blind Man – Part 1 ~1974
Our story begins in the living room of the Smith family. Duane and Pat Smith (or DuaneR and Pitter Pat, as they were known to the swimmers) were the most generous and friendly folks imaginable. Everyone from the entire Wichita Swim Club was automatically considered to be a member of the Smith family, and was welcome to drop by and hang out any time. And if this openness and kindness weren’t enough, well, they had a bitchin’ stereo system and a pool table.
Hey, if we weren’t in the swimming pool working out, chances were good that we were over at the Smith’s, playing 8-ball and listening to the tunes.
I’d imagine that most kids who spent so many hours with a pool cue in their hand would eventually begin to take the game seriously; learning about physics – you know, angles, momentum, spin, and how energy is transferred during a collision. But we didn’t. There really wasn’t any point in it. First of all, we were swimmers, so we already had a venue of expertise. And second, it didn’t matter how skilled you were, because Daniel Smith was always going to cheat, anyway.
Daniel was a con man. He sold contraband at school (fireworks, fake IDs, and the one thing that really torqued off the school officials, cinnamon toothpicks). His oft-quoted ambition was to eventually leverage his extra-curricular experience into a lucrative career…in the Mafia. I won’t go into details here; further description of Daniel’s experiences as a “legitimate businessman” will be explored in other chapters. But what’s important to this story is that Daniel proclaimed himself to be the designated authority on the rules pertaining to conduct around the pool table.
If Daniel found himself stuck with a difficult shot, he’d move the cue ball to a more agreeable position and explain the maneuver by proclaiming “House Rules”. If an opponent was looking at an easy shot, Daniel would again cite “House Rules” and move the cue ball to a less advantageous spot. Since the walls of the room were fairly close to the table, it was not unusual to hear Daniel say, “House Rules allow me to climb up on the table”, or if it was YOUR shot, he’d say “House Rules prohibit climbing on the table, you quaester!”
“But YOU just climbed on the table…”, you’d say.
“Of course I did,” Daniel would respond. “I was on the NORTH side of the room. It’s in the House Rules.”
(By the way, the word “quaester” – pronounced “kwee'-ster” – was something he picked up in his World History class. Even though he didn’t expect to need to use any “book-learnin’” in his future career as an extortionist and racketeer, he did pay enough attention to latch on to any words that sounded like some sort of insult, and were esoteric enough to confuse his victims. We were all called “queaters” for quite some time. He later moved on to the use of “dust bunny”, but that’s another story.)
Anyway, depending on which direction the wind was blowing, or what color your socks were, or how many days it had been since your last haircut, there was sure to be a House Rule that would ensure your defeat at the pool table. Therefore, the games took on secondary importance – we were really there to listen to the music.
DuaneR (Daniel’s dad) had purchased a state-of-the-art “Bang & Olofson” stereo system, with speakers the size of a Volkswagen. (Hmm, is it possible that teenage boys would try to make jokes out of the initials “B&O”? Do ya think?) It sounded SO sweet, and it was SO loud that you just couldn’t help yourself – you had to move to the beat.
(Another side note: For some reason, Daniel’s older brother Doug was under the impression that turning up the “bass” knob would somehow “suck the bass right out of the record”. If you turned the bass up just one time, it would deplete the vinyl disc’s ability to ever reproduce those bass lines again. Therefore, if Doug was around, we tended to only hear the treble parts. But it still sounded great!)
So… if you had a pool cue in your hand, the music was awesome, and Daniel was running the table with help from his imaginary rule book – well, you really couldn’t help yourself; you played the cue as if it were a guitar.
Yes, this was before the term “air guitar” came into existence. The originators of the concept (us!) called it “playing cue”. We’d jump, strum, spin, and grimace-on-the-high-notes, just like the real rock stars. And if Hendrix was on the B&O, we might even play the cue with our teeth, or behind the back. There was some serious style being cranked out in the Smith’s living room.
Our favorites were the Blue Öyster Cult, Alice Cooper, Cat Stevens, and of course, Jimi. But believe it or not, we even saw some wicked Elton John piano parts interpreted for cue – I’m telling you, this was a talented group.
And then came the accident. While the closeness of the walls worked in Daniel’s favor in developing advantageous rules, it wasn’t really a benefit to the wide-open, frenzied actions of your typical world-class musical cue player. A cue-to-wall collision was inevitable.
I don’t really remember who did it, but since most undesirable events were eventually blamed on Nyberg, we’ll just stick with what works. So, here we were, right in the middle of the part where BÖC’s “ME-262” transitioned into a reprise of “Buck’s Boogie”, when we hear a loud crack as Nyberg’s cue smacked up against the wall.
“I knew it!” Doug shouted upon hearing the noise. “We sucked the bass out!” He immediately ran over and turned off the stereo. Suddenly, all you could hear was the ragged breathing of the cue-players as they panted from exertion.
“Uh, no, Doug,” said Nyberg. “I think it was my cue.”
“You gotta buy a new one,” Daniel said. “House…”
“Shut up, Daniel,” I said. “Now that it’s already broken, we’ve got nothing to lose by using it upside your head.” I took the cue from Nyberg and waved it threateningly.
“Actually,” I said, looking at the cue, “it’s not that bad. Just broke the tip off. We could probably repair this before DuaneR gets home and has a cow.” Instantly, as all good teams will do, we became a force united with a single thought – how are we going to cover up the accident?
The bad news is that we weren’t able to repair it. The good news is that DuaneR really hadn’t been paying attention to how many cues there were in the house, and never even missed it. It seemed a shame to throw it away, so I took it home and tried to think of something useful to do with it.
Thus begins the story of how I became a blind man for a weekend.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women, please visit www.shyperson.com. For Terry Heggy's other writing, please see www.terryheggy.com.
My Gorgeous Spanish Teacher ~1974
Hey, even Beaver Cleaver once had a crush on his teacher; don’t tell me it never happened to you.
My biggest teacher crush came in my “Advanced Spanish Composition” class* in college. I wasn’t particularly interested in writing novels and essays en Español, but I figured that such a class would be easier than, oh, say, Organic Chemistry or something, so I signed up. I knew that I’d made the right decision when the teacher walked in. Wow!
Her name was Ana María, and she was beautiful. She had the smoothest bronze-colored skin I’d ever seen, and the silky hair tumbling about her face seemed to exert an almost magnetic pull on me. Looking into her huge brown eyes made the rest of the world fade from existence, and her lips promised a sweetness beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
And if those features weren’t enough, her body was the type that made chiropractors rich from all the heads snapping around when she walked through a room.
It was as if all my adolescent fantasies had come to life…but, (deep breath)…no – she was WAY out of my league. Hey, at that point in my life I wasn’t even confident enough to pursue the hygiene-impaired chicks who constantly mumbled curse words through their clenched and crooked yellow teeth as they rummaged through garbage cans, looking for discarded socks. No, if it wasn’t enough that Ana María was one of the beauty elite, she was also a teacher, and she was totally older than me; probably as ancient as 22 or 23.
I knew that I’d have to be content with the blessed opportunity to attend her classes a couple of times a week and gaze longingly upon her loveliness from my chair in the back of the room.
But wait a minute…it turns out that she just that day got off an airplane from Argentina. She’d never visited the USA before, and (maybe there’s hope) she doesn’t speak a single word of English! In our very first class, she confessed (in Spanish, naturally) that she was facing a bit of a challenge; being new in the country, having no friends, and not having a clue how to talk with anyone other than her advanced Spanish students.
Now, I’m the first to admit that at that time I had no experience in dealing with women. Heck, it was rare that I even talked with a female…but I was at least literate enough to recognize an opportunity for chivalry when it was thrust in my face. “Have no fear, teacher dear,” I said. “I’ll help you get acclimated!”
She smiled and said, “¿Qué?”
Well, whaddaya expect? She couldn’t understand English. Geez.
Anyway, after several attempts (frequently interrupted with her corrections of my amateurish Spanish grammar), I was finally able to get the point across. She actually seemed happy to know that she could call on me to help her settle in and become comfortable in her new land.
Over the next several weeks, we ended up spending quite a bit of time together. We went shopping, talked on the phone, and sampled the local restaurants. Her favorite was IHOP, though it took repeated attempts on my part to explain that in America, we don’t have to pronounce every vowel. She kept ordering “pan-kay-kees” and a nice pulpy glass of fresh-squeezed “or-anj-hee joo-ees-uh”.
During the course of our conversations, I learned a lot about my Argentina goddess. She seemed to genuinely like me, and one day when we were talking about movies, she really got my heart pounding. She casually mentioned that her favorite actor was Richard Boone – because she liked ugly guys. “Damn!” I thought. “I’m perfect for her!”
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say I fell in love, but there was definitely some serious hormonal action going on. I was moving slowly, of course, because I really didn’t know how to move at all – but I felt that I was making progress. When she told me how much she enjoyed the romantic music of “Raphael”, well, I created a plan to really kick start the romance.
I did a little research, and found out that this Raphael fellow was a HUGE star in Europe and South America. He was sometimes referred to as “The Spanish Elvis”, and was one of those steamy love-song kind of guys who always had panties and room keys thrown at him on stage. (That sounds kinda sexy, but seriously, would you want to get hit in the face with pointy metal objects, much less someone’s used underwear? I doubt it.) It took a while, but I was finally able to find one of his records in the cut-out (severe discount) bin at the local drug store.
The plan was to pick her up at her sorority house, take her back to my apartment for an evening of candlelight, wine, and romantic, panty-throwing music. Of course, I had to figure out a way to get rid of my obnoxious roommate, and I’d have to buy some candles. As a college boy from Kansas, I naturally had cans of Sterno, road flares, and a couple of gallons of Coleman Fuel, but those weren’t the right types of flammables. I may have even had a Roman candle or two, but she was from Argentina, so those wouldn’t work.
My roommate, Mickey, was continually taunting me for not being able to date any American girls, and was actually quite creative in his quest for new and powerful ethnic insults to hurl at me because of my Latin obsession. But when I pointed out that HE wasn’t dating anyone, and promised that I’d tell him all the romantic details, he agreed to disappear for the evening. The stage was set.
Her sorority was apparently the female equivalent of Delta House. Upon my arrival, I noticed that all of the girls seemed to be encumbered by afflictions that would keep them out of all the uppity sororities – you know, things like baldness, leprosy, resemblance to Dom DeLuise, etc. And being unable to speak English.
The house actually had a Front Desk, staffed by a stern, shampoo-challenged receptionist. “I’m here to see Ana María,” I said. “Could you please direct me to her room?”
She looked at me as if I’d asked if I could cook and eat her favorite puppy. “Certainly NOT!” she said. “We don’t allow boys in our rooms.” She shuddered at the thought, and then continued in a snotty tone. “I’ll let her know that you’re here.”
“Hmmm,” I thought, “this severe non-fraternization attitude may indicate possible reluctance toward my visions of a naked candlelight Raphael romp.” I knew now that I’d have to be extra-suave to implement my seductive plans. I started practicing my best Richard Boone smile.
As usual, Ana María was radiant. She impressed me even more by speaking English as she greeted me. “We go for pan-kay-kees, yes?”
No, I wanted to explain – we go for smooching and fondling. Yes. Yes. Yes!
Sigh. You know what happened, though, don’t you? We ended up at IHOP, and by asking questions about the sorority, I quickly learned that she was fully supportive of the “no-boys rule”. I could spend time with her, and she’d teach me all the Spanish I wanted, but…there weren’t enough Raphael records in the world to deliver me to the promised land of hanky panky with her.
Sigh.
The bad news is that even after the class was over and I quit spending time with her, Mickey still continued to make fun of my futile attempt to woo my Argentinean teacher. Even to the present day, he’ll occasionally bring it up, the jerk.
The good news is that I still sometimes get nostalgic and throw my old Raphael record on the turntable. He really is a very powerful and emotional singer – why else would I get those tears in my eyes whenever I listen, right?
Buenos noches, amigos.
Terry
*Addendum:
The only memory I’ve retained about the Spanish Composition class is about the “magazine article review” assignment. We were supposed to read an article in an English-language magazine, and then write a synopsis/analysis of it in Spanish. Well, it seemed like too much trouble to actually go find a magazine somewhere, and I figured she was still pretty new to the country – so I thought I could probably get away with simply making something up.
I decided to write about a mythical article that I’d read in the imaginary “Inventions of Applied Science” magazine. It was about the invention of the proverbial better mousetrap. Not a bad idea, huh?
The problem was that by the time I was finished, I had endowed my mythical mousetrap with motion-sensor technology capable of discriminating between mice and other (desirable) household pets, as well as the ability to fry the offending rodent with a miniature laser beam. The zap only lasted 3.4 milliseconds, meaning that the device was also environmentally friendly with its low energy consumption.
Once the little mousy corpse had cooled, the trap used a remote manipulator arm to retrieve its victim and to stuff it in the “decomposition chamber”. The chamber (I wrote) could hold up to a dozen expired mice, and would process them all into a single odor-free bio-pellet that could then be used to fertilize one’s garden. Good stuff, eh?
I was having so much fun envisioning all the Rube Goldberginess I could cram into the dang thing that I forgot what the original assignment was. By the time I remembered that she was expecting a review of a real article, it was too late to come up with anything new. I finished my hasty translation mere moments before it was time to rush off to class and hand it in. I was sure I’d be busted for plagiarism. (No, wait. Plagiarism is stealing from someone else. This was original. So what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh yeah – lying. That’s it.)
Epilog: I didn’t get busted. In fact, she gave me an “A” on that assignment. There was a moment of panic when she said she’d like to read the article, and maybe even buy one of those funky traps…but I thought fast and told her that my roommate had accidentally burned the magazine during an experiment for his Chemistry class. Anyway, the close call had taught me a lesson, and I never ever again cheated on a school assignment.
Well, almost never.
My Gorgeous Spanish Teacher ~1974
Hey, even Beaver Cleaver once had a crush on his teacher; don’t tell me it never happened to you.
My biggest teacher crush came in my “Advanced Spanish Composition” class* in college. I wasn’t particularly interested in writing novels and essays en Español, but I figured that such a class would be easier than, oh, say, Organic Chemistry or something, so I signed up. I knew that I’d made the right decision when the teacher walked in. Wow!
Her name was Ana María, and she was beautiful. She had the smoothest bronze-colored skin I’d ever seen, and the silky hair tumbling about her face seemed to exert an almost magnetic pull on me. Looking into her huge brown eyes made the rest of the world fade from existence, and her lips promised a sweetness beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
And if those features weren’t enough, her body was the type that made chiropractors rich from all the heads snapping around when she walked through a room.
It was as if all my adolescent fantasies had come to life…but, (deep breath)…no – she was WAY out of my league. Hey, at that point in my life I wasn’t even confident enough to pursue the hygiene-impaired chicks who constantly mumbled curse words through their clenched and crooked yellow teeth as they rummaged through garbage cans, looking for discarded socks. No, if it wasn’t enough that Ana María was one of the beauty elite, she was also a teacher, and she was totally older than me; probably as ancient as 22 or 23.
I knew that I’d have to be content with the blessed opportunity to attend her classes a couple of times a week and gaze longingly upon her loveliness from my chair in the back of the room.
But wait a minute…it turns out that she just that day got off an airplane from Argentina. She’d never visited the USA before, and (maybe there’s hope) she doesn’t speak a single word of English! In our very first class, she confessed (in Spanish, naturally) that she was facing a bit of a challenge; being new in the country, having no friends, and not having a clue how to talk with anyone other than her advanced Spanish students.
Now, I’m the first to admit that at that time I had no experience in dealing with women. Heck, it was rare that I even talked with a female…but I was at least literate enough to recognize an opportunity for chivalry when it was thrust in my face. “Have no fear, teacher dear,” I said. “I’ll help you get acclimated!”
She smiled and said, “¿Qué?”
Well, whaddaya expect? She couldn’t understand English. Geez.
Anyway, after several attempts (frequently interrupted with her corrections of my amateurish Spanish grammar), I was finally able to get the point across. She actually seemed happy to know that she could call on me to help her settle in and become comfortable in her new land.
Over the next several weeks, we ended up spending quite a bit of time together. We went shopping, talked on the phone, and sampled the local restaurants. Her favorite was IHOP, though it took repeated attempts on my part to explain that in America, we don’t have to pronounce every vowel. She kept ordering “pan-kay-kees” and a nice pulpy glass of fresh-squeezed “or-anj-hee joo-ees-uh”.
During the course of our conversations, I learned a lot about my Argentina goddess. She seemed to genuinely like me, and one day when we were talking about movies, she really got my heart pounding. She casually mentioned that her favorite actor was Richard Boone – because she liked ugly guys. “Damn!” I thought. “I’m perfect for her!”
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say I fell in love, but there was definitely some serious hormonal action going on. I was moving slowly, of course, because I really didn’t know how to move at all – but I felt that I was making progress. When she told me how much she enjoyed the romantic music of “Raphael”, well, I created a plan to really kick start the romance.
I did a little research, and found out that this Raphael fellow was a HUGE star in Europe and South America. He was sometimes referred to as “The Spanish Elvis”, and was one of those steamy love-song kind of guys who always had panties and room keys thrown at him on stage. (That sounds kinda sexy, but seriously, would you want to get hit in the face with pointy metal objects, much less someone’s used underwear? I doubt it.) It took a while, but I was finally able to find one of his records in the cut-out (severe discount) bin at the local drug store.
The plan was to pick her up at her sorority house, take her back to my apartment for an evening of candlelight, wine, and romantic, panty-throwing music. Of course, I had to figure out a way to get rid of my obnoxious roommate, and I’d have to buy some candles. As a college boy from Kansas, I naturally had cans of Sterno, road flares, and a couple of gallons of Coleman Fuel, but those weren’t the right types of flammables. I may have even had a Roman candle or two, but she was from Argentina, so those wouldn’t work.
My roommate, Mickey, was continually taunting me for not being able to date any American girls, and was actually quite creative in his quest for new and powerful ethnic insults to hurl at me because of my Latin obsession. But when I pointed out that HE wasn’t dating anyone, and promised that I’d tell him all the romantic details, he agreed to disappear for the evening. The stage was set.
Her sorority was apparently the female equivalent of Delta House. Upon my arrival, I noticed that all of the girls seemed to be encumbered by afflictions that would keep them out of all the uppity sororities – you know, things like baldness, leprosy, resemblance to Dom DeLuise, etc. And being unable to speak English.
The house actually had a Front Desk, staffed by a stern, shampoo-challenged receptionist. “I’m here to see Ana María,” I said. “Could you please direct me to her room?”
She looked at me as if I’d asked if I could cook and eat her favorite puppy. “Certainly NOT!” she said. “We don’t allow boys in our rooms.” She shuddered at the thought, and then continued in a snotty tone. “I’ll let her know that you’re here.”
“Hmmm,” I thought, “this severe non-fraternization attitude may indicate possible reluctance toward my visions of a naked candlelight Raphael romp.” I knew now that I’d have to be extra-suave to implement my seductive plans. I started practicing my best Richard Boone smile.
As usual, Ana María was radiant. She impressed me even more by speaking English as she greeted me. “We go for pan-kay-kees, yes?”
No, I wanted to explain – we go for smooching and fondling. Yes. Yes. Yes!
Sigh. You know what happened, though, don’t you? We ended up at IHOP, and by asking questions about the sorority, I quickly learned that she was fully supportive of the “no-boys rule”. I could spend time with her, and she’d teach me all the Spanish I wanted, but…there weren’t enough Raphael records in the world to deliver me to the promised land of hanky panky with her.
Sigh.
The bad news is that even after the class was over and I quit spending time with her, Mickey still continued to make fun of my futile attempt to woo my Argentinean teacher. Even to the present day, he’ll occasionally bring it up, the jerk.
The good news is that I still sometimes get nostalgic and throw my old Raphael record on the turntable. He really is a very powerful and emotional singer – why else would I get those tears in my eyes whenever I listen, right?
Buenos noches, amigos.
Terry
*Addendum:
The only memory I’ve retained about the Spanish Composition class is about the “magazine article review” assignment. We were supposed to read an article in an English-language magazine, and then write a synopsis/analysis of it in Spanish. Well, it seemed like too much trouble to actually go find a magazine somewhere, and I figured she was still pretty new to the country – so I thought I could probably get away with simply making something up.
I decided to write about a mythical article that I’d read in the imaginary “Inventions of Applied Science” magazine. It was about the invention of the proverbial better mousetrap. Not a bad idea, huh?
The problem was that by the time I was finished, I had endowed my mythical mousetrap with motion-sensor technology capable of discriminating between mice and other (desirable) household pets, as well as the ability to fry the offending rodent with a miniature laser beam. The zap only lasted 3.4 milliseconds, meaning that the device was also environmentally friendly with its low energy consumption.
Once the little mousy corpse had cooled, the trap used a remote manipulator arm to retrieve its victim and to stuff it in the “decomposition chamber”. The chamber (I wrote) could hold up to a dozen expired mice, and would process them all into a single odor-free bio-pellet that could then be used to fertilize one’s garden. Good stuff, eh?
I was having so much fun envisioning all the Rube Goldberginess I could cram into the dang thing that I forgot what the original assignment was. By the time I remembered that she was expecting a review of a real article, it was too late to come up with anything new. I finished my hasty translation mere moments before it was time to rush off to class and hand it in. I was sure I’d be busted for plagiarism. (No, wait. Plagiarism is stealing from someone else. This was original. So what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh yeah – lying. That’s it.)
Epilog: I didn’t get busted. In fact, she gave me an “A” on that assignment. There was a moment of panic when she said she’d like to read the article, and maybe even buy one of those funky traps…but I thought fast and told her that my roommate had accidentally burned the magazine during an experiment for his Chemistry class. Anyway, the close call had taught me a lesson, and I never ever again cheated on a school assignment.
Well, almost never.
