Oops.....

So I wasn't actually present for this said event but it was one of the funnier stories I heard from the neighborhood crew. This was an incident that involved Greg, Jason, Roy, and an old friend named Terry Tipton. Terry drove this old, white, beat up hatchback car that had no muffler. We used to laugh cause you could literally hear Terry's car when he pulled onto Iron Works Pike and we were a good 15-20 miles away. One day the guys were just doing some playfull driving in Terry's car out on the gravel road that circled the lake between the neighborhoods. Well Terry's driver side door sometimes wouldn't shut completely and was know to pop open from time to time. Terry took a sharp turn and as the guys said just disappeared, as his door had popped open and he fell out of the car. Well when he fell out the car was positioned on a heading straight into the lake, Jason was riding shotgun with Roy and Greg in the back. Jason freaked and I guess tried to pop the parking break and fumbled with the steering wheel but wasn't accomplishing much as Greg and Roy were yelling at him to stop the car. Well about 10 feet from the Lake Terry magically re-appears along side the car and hops in and was able to stop the car mere feet from going into the lake.

The Elkorn Creek..........

I can't even begin to explain just how much fun the Elkorn Creek was to us as children. We spent so much time in the creek no matter what time of the year it may have been. I also cannot believe how we never drowned in that creek with some of the stupid adventures that we had in that dirty brown water. These include........

1.) Many times when the creek had flooded to a very dangerous or to us "fun" level we would wade down Jason's backyard which would be flooded to the main part. Then we'd swim out to the main part into the current and let it take us away downstream. I never thought about how dangerous this was cause it was sooo much fun. Some of these times it would be so deep you could go under and be at the bottom and raise your hands up and not break the surface. This from a creek that on the average was maybe knee to waist high. We'd jump in a let it carry us down to the Midway Road bridge and climb out, then walk back down and get in again. I remember one time Jason's mom coming all the way out to the bridge and yelling at us and made him come home. I will say none of us ever came close to being injured though.

2.) Another time when the creek had flooded late in the fall we went down to this little I guess dock/hangout place. It wasn't really on anyone's property but someone had built a nice rectangle wooden dock with benches that overlooked the creek. This time it was kinda cold out and the current was moving too fast to just to just get in. So what do we do....tie a rope to an inner-tune on one end and to the dock on the other. We took turns jumping into the current on the inner-tube and letting the current shoot us down the creek until the rope let all the way out, then pull ourselves back in. It wasn't freezing but it wasn't really warm either and we ended up quitting because after Nace's second turn he was freezing and thought he was getting hypothermia.

3.) Of course there were numerous fishing trips of all kinds from canoing to wading. This is actually an activity the continues to this day as you can catch many small mouth bass, bluegill, and sunfish in the Elkorn. I can remember soooo many lazy days just floating down the creek fishin, smokin cigarettes, and having heart to heart talks with the fellas.

4.) Behind Jeff Besser's house which would turn into Nace's house there was a small area that had two dug in holes on each side of a hill. We used to have some of the best mud and water fights in this area.

5.) I remember one time when Jason and I were playing in the down by the creek in early spring. It was still fairly chilly out but we saw a tree that had washed down behind his house during one of the spring floods. We walked out on it with no real intention of swimming or getting wet that day. However, since this was a huge tree we noticed a large branch hanging off of it that extended out over the water. We found you could jump out and grab the branch and it would dip you into the water then bring you back up. This was a very enjoyable time until we decided to both jump at the same time. The branch couldn't quite handle the weight of both of us and broke and sent us both into the water. We couldn't stop laughing!

6.) Finally I guess the kicker would be the time Jason, Greg, and Nace had to be rescued by the Scott Co. Search and Rescue Team. Now the first I heard of this was when my dad told me that some of my buddies had been on the news for having to be rescued out of the creek. Greg's mom I think to this day has recorded footage of the news of the event. I was not there so I may get the story a little wrong(Greg hopefully you can fill in some) but I know it was another day the creek had flooded. It was no worse than any of the other times we had been in it but the current was pretty bad. I guess they had "borrowed" a canoe from a neighbor and were out playing in the creek. Apparently some of the neighbors saw them tip over in the canoe and called for a rescue team. Now all three of them claim they weren't in any trouble but the news footage shows them all clinging to different trees awaiting rescue. I don't know if we will ever let them live that one down.

Ghost Dog....

Another freaky thing that happened to us out at the neighborhood was the ghost dog. On this occasion I had stayed the night with Jason and we were going to meet Roy and Josh down at the shelter for a good ole pow-wow. Again I'd put the time around 2 a.m. as Jason and I were walking towards the gravel circle at the end of the back old neighborhood road. As we were passing the last house Jason and I saw an enormous, all black dog. This was one of those dogs that as a boy you think looks like it is the size of you! The dog begins backing and growling at us so we start yelling at it and throwing rocks. This dog neither flinched nor moved from its position so Jason and I yelled down towards the other guys that we weren't coming down because a dog was blocking our path. Now this doesn't seem to strange to us until the next day when we talk to Roy. He said that Josh wasn't able to come with him so he left a little earlier to wait for us at the shelter. Roy said he saw Jason and I and could hear us yelling at something, then to him. However he says he never heard nor saw any sign of a dog!

The Truth Is Out There......

So seriously what I'm about to tell is completely true and can be backed up by one Roy Cornett. I have no explanation of the events other than it had to be a crazy ass slumber party, it had to be....right Roy?

One night Roy told his mom he was going to be staying at my house which was nothing unusual being we all slept at each other's places here and there. Most the time it was all of us staying at Greg Berry's because his mom was cool, or lenient depending on your point of view. I honestly cannot remember what we did this evening other than we snuck out of the house. Again this was not abnormal as we spent numerous night sneaking out and doing any number of fun/mischievous things. Our house was a 2 story house the had a half basement and a full basement. In the half basement there was a 2nd living room and a bedroom with its own master bath, a laundry room, and a door where the stairs led down to the basement. The windows on the half basement level all were ground hence if you opened one you climbed up it to be on the ground. I was lucky in early high school to acquire the room downstairs with the bathroom. I removed the screen on the bathroom window for easy access to sneaking out the back of the house and this is how Roy and I got back that night, how we got back in I really don't know.

We had to of gone out and done something over at either Jason's or Greg's that night because we were returning home from the old section when the most fucked up thing I can ever remember happened. Myself and Roy lived in the newer section which is located closer to Lancelot neighborhood while the old section is located closer to Midway. Anyways the older section back road ended in a gravel circle and there was a path in the grass that led past the last house on that side which you could traverse between the two neighborhoods. I'm not gonna lie when you''re a young kid this was pretty creepy as you'd have to travel about a mile or two past an old junk yard and lake with pretty much no light source to get between the two neighborhoods. I can remember many nights pedaling my bicycle as fast as I could to get home, specially after watching a scary movie at someone elses house. Sometimes you'd be going home at like 3 or 4 a.m. and there'd be a fog coming off the lake, not fun!

Well this fateful evening it was a perfectly quiet, clear night around 2:30 or 3 a.m. when Roy and I were walking down the old neighborhood back road heading home. We got to the path right past the final house which was a nice little one story home that an elder couple lived in. In the backyard they had a satellite dish and a garden and the drive went down the side of the house and turned right into the garage. This couple had no children that I, nor anyone else remembers. As Roy and I took our first steps down the path we heard the garage door start to open. Now we weren't doing any bad, this time, but as was protocol when grown-ups might see us....you hide. We both ran a small ways into the field to the left, the house being on our right, and jumped into the tall grass to hide.

What happened next I have no real way to explain! The best I can say is that we heard about 20 midgets or children come out of the garage and run around the driveway. Now we were only about 40 yards away on a perfectly quiet night and could hear them perfectly except that I heard no coherent sentence uttered. I can best describe what we heard as gibberish and laughter. They were outside approximately 10-15 minutes then went back inside and the garage door closed. Roy and I looked at each other in bewilderment and the next thing I can remember is being home, in bed. As I have said before I cannot remember what we did that evening prior to said event, nor how we got back home or into the house. I have no explanation for the events that happened outside the house either.

The Truth Is Out There...........

Don't The Zuwaki's Have A Dog?

So since we essentially ruled the neighborhood we felt that it was our civic duty to swim in everyone's pool who owned one. Most of the time this would take place when we found out they were on vacation but sometimes it would take place when they were home in the wee hours of the morning. Why you ask? Well cause we could! So we had accomplished the task of swimming in all pools but one, the Zuwaki's. Legend told that the Zuwaki's pool was surrounded by a large wooden fence and that Mr. Zuwaki had indeed installed a switch in his bedroom that when flipped turned on an alarm and every light in the house. To this day we do not know whether or not this was true because when the time came to find out....I personally didn't look back.

On this fateful eve I believe the cast of characters involves myself, Roy, Greg, Jason, and Josh. The Zuwaki's lived on a couple acre plot of land in which the majority of the backyard did indeed have a 5 foot high wooden fence around it. On a silent, very dark evening we decided to try our most daring of pool raids. We slipped around the fence all the way down to the back gate that ended near the gate. We slipped the latch and Josh G stayed behind as Greg, Jason, Roy, and I slipped into the backyard. As we got about half way up the fence into the backyard we realized Josh had disappeared and the gate was open. Jason thought that the gate should be closed so as to not tip off anyone to our misdeed. Therefor Greg took the mission of going back to close the gate of the fence and then decided he would just stay back leaving only Roy, Jason, and myself to carry out the mission. Thinking back this would end up being a horrible idea as this decision would make things interesting later.

So we make our way up next to the garage of the house which was on the far left side and about 10 yards from the edge of the pool. As we are slinking up the side of the house we get to the open door leading into the garage. Now since I lived directly across from the Zuwaki's something must have clicked into my head....something that we may have forgotten when these words escaped my mouth quietly, "Hey don't the Zuwaki's have a dog?" No sooner had the g escaped my mouth then we heard a chain rattle in the darkness of the open door. You guessed it as we had a classic "oh shit" moment as the Zuwaki's dog came bounding out of the garage barking and growling.

We all turn tale and run as fast as we can towards the gate at the back of the fence when we all realize that Greg is gone and the gate has been fastened shut. Needing a quick getaway, finding the latch in the pitch darkness was not going to be an easy thing. We all arrived at the fence round the same time with completely different amusing results. Roy tried to do an old fashioned adrenaline fueled leap over the fence. Now this is Roy's claim as I didn't really see it but he swears that he made the leap over the fence but put his feet down too early. Since Roy had some pretty big feet they got wedged in between the pickets of the fence and fell face first onto the ground with a solid "humph." I myself got to the fence and tried a classic hands on top vault over the fence. I do a good job and clear said fence however my shirt on the other hand did get wrapped on a picket. I did a fairly acrobatic front flip over the fence as my shirt ripped to shreds. Jason slid feet first into the fence and began to search frantically for the latch on the gate. I am not sure if he found it or hopped the fence because I had made a break for the safety of a house a couple down.

Now surely enough, by the time I got turned around all the lights were on and Mr Zuwaki was emerging from the back door of the house. I found Greg at the back of the house 3 down from the Zuwaki's but had no idea where either Jason or Roy or Josh were. Jason and Josh had apparently made it safely across the street into the safety of my backyard but Roy was not so lucky. Having fallen on his face he took a little bit to recover and Mr Zuwaki was on his way down to the back gate. Roy got up and made a last ditch effort to hide in the garden or the neighbor's yard. Mr Zuwaki searched the area around his house and the one's immediately to the left and right but found no trace of anyone. He came very close to finding Roy and he stood almost right in front of where he was lying in the garden shining the flashlight out down by the lake but never really looked straight down.

This was the closest we ever got to being caught and we never did conquer the Zuwaki's pool, well at least not sneaky like as I swam a couple times on invite...LoL. It was a pretty nerve racking experience at the time but is one of the funnier moments we had as children. If only we had video of mine and Roy's adventure with the fence because I'm sure both would have been extreme comedy. Cheers!

The Clubhouse....

So in a recent survey I was asked to list one of the funniest moments that I could remember and one phrase always seems to come to mind...."Get the hammer quick!" Any of us who lived in the neighborhood at the time of this event will immediately laugh upon hearing these words. It was during spring break of one year during middle school and none of us were quite old enough for Cancun or Panama. Between our two neighborhoods was an old pig slaughter that was now just a concrete junk yard filled with trash, wood, and railroad ties. These were large, very heavy rectangles of black wood the is laid down, then the track is laid on top of them. Well we decided it would be a great idea if we built a clubhouse for the gang in this area...being it was fool of junk to use, we played there a lot, and it was right in the middle for all involved.

We began on a bright and sunny Monday morning, Roy, Bryson, Greg, Jeff Besser, Jason, and myself. Josh Gregory would join us at a later interval to put finishing touches on the place. So we begin gathering up tools and wood that we need to make the clubhouse and lay a piece of wood down for the floor. We then began to make the walls out of the railroad ties as interior support, and then nail a board on the outside of these for the wall. Well needless to say the railroad ties didn't stack neatly and were fairly heavy. So half of us are holding the railroad ties and the outter piece of wood that will be nailed into the ties. As I can remember myself, Greg, and Jason were holding the ties up and Roy and Bryson supporting the outside wall when we realized that we didn't have the tools nearby. Well Jason takes it upon himself to get the said tools and lets go of the railroad ties and wall.

All I hear are the words get the hammer quick and Jason attempts to sprint across a 5 foot area to get the tools. Next thing we know there's a huge crash as Jason trips and goes flailing into the other wall with wood and tools knocking half of it down upon himself. As this happens the wall is too heavy and we let it fall in which one of the railroad ties hits a board and in a sort of teeter-totter motion sends a brick up into the air. Now mind you this took all of 30 seconds but it was one of those true slow motion moments in life as the brick flies through the air to land on Bryson's foot smooshing his big toe. Bryson screams in pain and grabs Roy, who happened to be closest, and starts pounding on him cause he's in pain. The rest of us are just rolling on the ground at what has just transpired.

After checking on Jason and Bryson who were fine except for some cuts and bruises we laughed for nearly 10 minutes wondering why Jason let go of the wall and tried to run in such a small area to begin with. Eventually we got a pretty badass clubhouse built with a carpeted floor, hidden place for porn, and everything else young boys needed. It was a great way to spend a Spring Break building something with a bunch of friends. However to this day I can still see Jason falling and the brick flying through the air in slow motion and can do nothing but grin.

Cheers!