There are about 12 people in the world that will get the title reference and they were all walking out of the Sherwood City Park, July 4th, 1989. Those people are still laughing their a$$e$ off after reading it. For the rest of you, that was the year of a big all school reunion in Sherwood and the town of about 350 swelled in population to about 1200 on that night. Ross Carter, the city cop must have assumed the masses could revolt at any point so he enlisted a couple of rent-a-cops for the eve. One of them was Scott Gilbraith, the other I don't remember (could have been Todd "Tigger" Johnson not sure), but they were each issued a radio and if I'm not mistaken, a piece (gun). In retrospect, probably not a good idea since most everyone over the age of 21, including them and probably many others underage had been drinking since 10:00 a.m.
Anyways, as a group of us were walking out of the park after a spectacular fireworks display at about 11:30, back pockets full of bottle rockets to do our devilment elsewhere, the call came across one of the police radios of one of the rent-a-cops directing traffic out of the park. "Two, four...... two, four. Possible riot on main street". Sherwood in it's previous 85 years had never seen a riot and hasn't since then. It didn't see one that night either, which made the radio call all that more ridiculous. The closest there was too a riot that night was when the country band on the flatbed trailer in front of the bar fired up a polka for the dancers. We still have a good giggle over that almost 20 years later. Truthfully, none of us were even sure what "Two, four.... Two, Four" meant. Maybe it was the call sign to signal a possible riot, maybe one of them decided he was cop number 24? Any experienced lawman out there that can shed some light?
Later that eve we got into trouble for having the largest scale bottle rocket war Sherwood had ever seen. Bottle rocket wars were like paintball is now, only we divided up into teams and shot bottle rockets at each other, sans safety goggles and safety equipment. I preferred a wiffle ball bat with the top cut off to shoot mine since it offered accuracy, but did sacrifice reload speed. John "Chunk" Eide favored the melee attack, by stuffing as many as he could into a pop bottle, lighting one, which lit the others and then running full force into the opposing side spraying rocketry everywhere and sent people flying from their hiding spots. Effective and a good player to have on your team. He abandoned that method after he stuffed the bottle too full one time so that none could shoot out and it turned into a melting plastic bottle of whistles and bright white explosions.
Eventually we just decided to lay in the trees along main and shoot mini crab apples with our slingshots at passing cars hub caps to finish the night off.
Enough of my childhood memories tho. I think I may be starting a riot on this blog by the following statement. We may not find out the sex of the baby......... Friends and family, mostly women I'm sure, are going ballistic reading that.
At first we were like "Well, it'll be so much easier to know". Then we thought, "How does that make it easier?"
First off, I'm not buying a house or a condo until after the baby and I'm sure Chuck the Apt. Dude isn't going to let us decorate that baby room with paint and stuff. Secondly, there's plenty of neutral clothes and baby things that can be bought beforehand. Diapers are diapers and onesey thingy's are onesey thingy's. I kind of like surprises anyways. If Katie really wants to find out and we have another ultrasound then we probably will. Then again, we might just say "tell us when the baby is born."
Either way, consider this a bottle rocket warning shot that we might not find out!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Here's my theory. Any time that Ross Carter gets to subjugate some of his power on to others and create is own de facto police force, you can bet he'll come prepared. His reasons for existence on this planet are not to ice fish and mow city property. Nay, he has taken a sworn oath to protect this community at all costs. If that means employing the likes of Tigger Johnson and presumably furnishing him a firearm, then so be it. (At what point do you think they would actually have to use a gun? Someone climbing the water tower? People with torches burning down the Senior Citizens Center? Mythological creatures attacking the innocent? I digress.).
You can bet Ross had been planning for weeks what he was going to do during the all school reunion, since he could not really partake in the festivities being he didn't graduate from high school. He was probably have coffee in the upstairs office at the school one morning when he noticed that all of the buses had call numbers and if he were to be legit and have any authority over the masses, he too would need call numbers.
As for the meaning of the numbers, I haven't the slightest clue. I looked for a famous Green Bay Packer with the number 24, because that is something Ross would do. The riot part might be explained by some unruly teenager blasting "Cum on Feel the Noise" on main street, and the officer who made the call wasn't sure if it was the Quiet Riot version or the one originally released by Slade.
As for the sex of the baby, we all know it's going to be a girl, because my God is a humorous and vindictive God, and He will make Scott sit through ballet and piano recitals when he is 42. Better yet, it'll probably be a boy and he'll have to sit through ballet and piano recitals. But I would love him just the same because I am a good uncle.
I think the cop part was an additional perk when you sign up to be water and maintenance man. Plus you get to drive the street sweeper and yell at Kale Tinglestad to finish painting the yellow lines on main st.
I about peed my pants laughing. Thank you for that Scott Miller!
Don't believe her Scott, she really did pee her pants. I now have two girls in the house that need diapers!
Well, I'm certainly glad that I can make people soil themselves. Stiv, sorry bout the larger diaper bill.
Post a Comment