Category: Gang Chronicles

In order to keep on the momentum of the last story in regards to Skippy’s ballistic personality I am going to tell the “My neck hurts” story.

Like most of the Skippy stories, this one took place years ago when we were about 19-20 years old. It was Spring Break, one of the most looked-forward-to times of the year when you are a college student. We had our trip planned to go down to Fort Myers to hang with Scooter. On this trip was Mark, Scooter, Jason, Skippy and I. Oh yeah, there was also a rookie to this crew with us, a friend of Mark’s from out at UNLV. This poor guy did not know what he signed up for with all of us.

Jason, Skippy and I all drove down from Cincinnati (just like the Buffett song) in Skippy’s Pontiac Phoenix which was his grandmother’s cast off car. The drive down was pretty smooth, unlike the drive this same crew made out to UNLV the year befor If that seemed like a setup for another story…it was.

So the first order of business was to go to Miami airport and pick up Mark and his buddy. All went well until we tried to exit the parking garage and skippy realized he had lost the ticket. The agent working the booth did not speak a word of English which made the conversation between Skip and her even funnier. To watch Skippy try and explain what happened and to get her to work with us through his crazy hand gestures had us rolling. Andule, andule, burrito, chimichanga, lost ticket, grande nachos. eventually she did give up on us and flagged us forward to let someone who spoke english to deal with us. After paying $20 for a half hour of parking, we were off. It was a little cramped with Skippy driving, Mark in the passenger seat and in the back it was Jason on the left, me in the middle and Mark’s friend on the right. And throughout this story I will be refering to him as mark’s friend as i cannot recall his name for the life of me.

Now Skippy was already a little angry as $20 at that time was a lot to a poor college age guy. So what better time than to throw some gas on Skippy’s smoldering anger. At the time I did not realize what set him off. All I knew was as he was driving, he became enraged and he yelled something and swung his elbow at me. Crack! It landed square on my nose. I felt the anger rise in me immediately from the pain and i swung with and open hand and struck Skip hard in the side of his head and ear. He got so pissed, he screeched the tires and threw everyone around in the car as he violently swerved to the side of the road. And before the car was even stopped he jammed it into park that caused the transmission to make a horrendous noise.

Now Skippy was trying to climb into the back of the seat to kill me and I just grabbed the back of his head and pushed down. In this position he could not get the leverage to make it back no matter how hard he pushed and fought. Now what I remember is hearing Jason cracking up for some reason. Also the look of panic on Mark’s friend who was shocked and scared about what was going on. Now mark, wh0 is used to this sort of thing from us just watched calmly shaking his head, probably still looking at the map to see where we had to go. Finally after a few seconds of holding Skippy and him fighting like a rabid dog to get free i asked him “Why did you elbow me?!” Skippy grumbled out “because you gave me a wet-willy!” Now if you do not know what that is, it is where a person wets their finger and sticks it in someone’s else’s ear. Not too mature, but hey we were still essentially teenage boys. This was also Jason’s favorite weapon of choice to fire Skippy up!

“I didnt do it!” I yelled. “Then who did?” Skippy shouted. Right then Skippy realized that the jackass in the back seat that could not breathe from laughing so hard was the culprit. Also wet-willys were Jason’s favorite weapon of choice to fire Skippy up! He then shouted an obscenity at jason and we were back on the road. All was good again. Except for the poor friend of Mark’s who look like he was suffering from post traumatic stress from the event.

Several minutes later Skippy started to rub his neck and tell us “Man, my BEEPing neck hurts.” “Quit being a baby Skip, and quit whining” Jason chimed in as he chuckled. The rest of the ride to Scooter’s house Skippy complained about his neck hurting. So in an effort to help him with his whining-addiction we implemented a rule that every time he says his neck hurts we get to punch him. Well believe it or not, after several good shots in the arm, Skippy did stop saying his neck hurt for a bit.

But during a boat ride he re-aggravated the injury while going into the water for a swim by falling backwards into the water “navy-seal style” he called it. Upon getting back into the boat he winced in pain. Jason trying to get a reason to punch him asked “What’s wrong Skip?” Skip stated “My…uh…” as Jason got ready to strike “…peepee hurts” He caught himself in mid-sentence so as not to get struck. Instead he opted for the sentence of a little boy, not sure which was worse as we happened to have the video camera on at the time and got it all on tape and still bring it up to him.

The rest of the trip when he complained, he got hit. A little game where we tried to do things to him to make him say “my neck hurts.” It became a past time for us. He was our home-entertainment-system as he called it.

At one point of the trip, being the young boys we were, we decided to have dinner at Hooter’s. Before we even went in we did a little pow-wow without Skippy around, hatching a plan to mess with Skippy. Upon entering the restaurant we chose a table near the back in a corner and proceeded to sit down with the mission of making Skip sit with his back to the restaurant. This way he would get angry because his neck hurt too much to turn around to see the girls in their skimpy shorts and tight t-shirts. We spurred it on by making comments like “Wow, look at her Skippy” and “That blonde is Hot! turn around real quick” and the likes, making him sooo very frustrated that he could not see a thing going on. He pounded his fist on the table and cursed at times. And if you know Skippy, he wanted to look so bad it was killing him. Now you know most of what we said was not even true, but just a way to get a laugh as every time we made a comment on a girl Skippy tried to figure out a way to wrench his neck around see what we were talking about without totally turning around. He just winced in pain. We laughed so hard.

Eventually his neck eased up, but not until after we got home. He complained for weeks about head aches and neck aches, blaming them on me. I am sure still to this day he blames any neck and back problems on me. I know he blames me for his one leg being shorter than the other because of what I did in Missouri to him, he even tried to show me xrays to prove it! That will be yet another story for another time.

Since the last flashback was so well received I have decided to write another. And partially due to the fact life has been pretty boring due to working so much that I have not had anything happen lately to write about. So in these dull times I am going to tap into the endless supply of old stories in my head so I have them written and don’t forget them as I get older. Plus maybe our unborn child will someday like to learn about his parent’s lives before he/she came to be.

Now this next story I am going to tell is a classic! After writing the “grab the rope story” I decided every week to write a different story about different friends. When i mentioned I was going to write this one about Skippy and Scooter, everyone I told knew it was going to be the legendary “french fry story” as it is a favorite of mine and others.

It was back in college at Ohio State that this story took place. We had just spent a crazy weekend at Ohio University where Sean was attending school and it was time to drive the two hours back to OSU. For reasons I cannot remember anymore, we only had one car for 7 of us to ride back in. Not a problem if you have a mini van or SUV, but we had a Datsun 280zx. And if you are not familar with those cars, it is a 2 seater sports car with a hatchback. So it was cramped to say the least.

It worked out through whatever system we devised at the time to decide who sat where that Scooter was in the front seat and Skippy was way in the back smashed against the hatch window. Shortly after taking off we decided to stop at McDonalds for food. And instead of unloading we went through the drive thru.

Gary, who was driving, placed all the orders and Scooter dished them all out. Everyone started getting their food passed to them until it was all divvied out. But someone got shorted an item. And who else but the person in the back to get shafted. Skippy calmly asked “Hey man where’s my fries?” And if anyone knows Skippy, they know he is not an even-tempered person. So when his question went unanswered he started to get a little mad. “Where’s my fries Scooter?” He asked again with a tone of anger in his voice.

This time Scooter told him there were no more fries in the bag. Skippy did not believe him and this time he was getting really upset, “Where’s my BEEPing fries!” (Sorry for the beeps, but I want to keep my stories PG rated and Skippy is not a PG rated personality 🙂

Now Scooter and Skippy have a history. Scooter has always taken great delight in getting Skippy riled up, whether it be scraping his sun-burnt skin with a comb, or pinching his arm while he drove, is was shear fun for all to see Skippy get irate. He would go from calm to off the charts mad in seconds. So here was a perfect chance for Scooter to stoke the flames of Skippy’s rage.

Scooter turned and looked back at Skippy with and answered “I don’t know Skip, you must not have ordered any” And he said this as he visibly was holding back a smile and putting french fries one by one into his mouth. Skippy was fuming at this and wriggling around as if to make his way to the front of the car to take the fries from Scooter. but it was to no avail, he was stuck. He bagan yelling obscenities. “Gimme my damn fries Scooter or I am going to kill you when I get out of this car!” Scooter just continued to look back and smile, popping in fry after fry.

We all joined in taunting him. “Skippy, don’t get so mad, those aren’t your fries” and statements like “just calm down.” Knowing full well this would only get Skippy more angry. We were all laughing now, Scooter could barely breathe he was laughing so hard and Skippy just was blowing his lid. Skippy was experiencing what people define as a ganiption!! I swear he was foaming at the mouth he was so mad.

But eventually Skippy became so furious inside he actually got a psychotic calmness to him and began plotting in his head what he was going to do when he finally got out of the car back at Columbus.

Once we arrived Skippy began again. “I’m going to kill you Scooter” he yelled. But we already had a plan to let Scooter go free and back to the dorm to lock the door. He got out and gave some last minute taunts to Skippy, who was still trapped in the car. Skippy pounded at the glass hatch in the back, trying to break it so he could get free to go after Scooter, but being so tightly squashed in he could not get any kind of strength. He was like a rabid dog trying to get out. But it was not going to do any good as Scooter trotted off laughing to the dorm.

Eventually we let Skippy out and he was fuming. He did not go after Scooter but just walked home and I am sure he was calculating his revenge. How maybe one day while Scooter was sleeping he would exact his wrath. I am sure he did something to get Scooter back, I just don’t remember what it was. But i do know that it must not have been enough because every time we bring up this story, Skippy’s face gets red and he starts to feel that anger he felt that day again. No one really knows whose fries those were that Scooter was eating, but Skippy, still to this day is sure they were his!

This is a flashback blog. Back to a story from 1994 that I make reference to in Volume 2, the infamous “Grab the Rope!” story involving one of my favorite subjects of my many stories, Kevin. I have only told this story to people in person but always wanted to get it down in writing, but never did. But lately a photo has surfaced of Kevin sitting on the grooved rock that was the catalyst for the story. So without further ado…

While living in Lexington, KY, Kevin came down from Cincinnati to visit and take a weekend camping trip to hike and rappel the Red River Gorge area just a few hours drive east. We were excited to reppel so we headed straight to a cliff Kevin knew of on an outcropping known as Half Moon. It was a 200′ shear drop with a view that looked down on the tree tops of the forrest far below. It was an incredible view and an intimidating drop.

We unloaded the gear and Kevin began securing the rope for us to reppel down on. If you do not know what rappelling is exactly, it is where you tie a rope to a place high up and you tie into the rope and position yourself to hop down the sides of the cliff, building or sometimes a bridge. Not for people with a fear of heights. So as Kevin started to tie the knots which would keep the rope attached to a nearby tree he pulled out a piece of paper. he studied the paper and looked at the rope, back and forth for a bit. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Making sure I tied the knots correctly” he responded hesitantly. “WHAT?” “Have you not done this before?” I questioned him on his competence with tying knots for a bit and concluded, he would go first for sure. You know to test it. not that I didn’t trust him, I just didn’t trust him 🙂

He finished tying the rope and seemed satisfied so he put on his harness and clipped into the rope somewhat nervously. I believe I made a comment about the knots coming undone that probably did not help settle his anxiety, but if you know Kevin, we rib him pretty well so it was pretty much mandatory to do.

Now as Kevin started to compose himself to plunge over the edge I noticed he still had his glasses on and pointed that out to him. “It’s alright, these are brand new, look” as he told me this he showed me that the glasses had the flexible metal earpieces that curve around the ear for security. “They can’t fall off” he said proudly as if he wanted to show me that he was not as dumb as he looked.

He know began preparation for the descent. On this particular reppel route you lower yourself over a large rock and settle the rope into a notch that has been worn into it. And as he was getting ready to go a couple of hikers showed up and were curious and wanted to watch. Kevin was now almost out of sight as he lowered himself to vertical. But something had not gone as planned. And it began apparent as Kevin took his second jump off the rock face.

Kevin had not properly placed the rope into the groove so hen he jumped outward the rope went slack and it slid down the side of the rock, somewhere around 3 – 4 which means about 6-8 foot of slack on Kevin’s end. I heard a girlish yell with a curse word involved, and a big thud. I ran to the edge of the cliff to look down and this is something I am not proud of, but I burst into uncontrollable laughter.

His eyes were the size of saucers and he was clutching the rope for dear life. He thought the rope had broke! He was alright except for some bruises from when the rope’s slack ran out and flung him into the wall. He yelled up to me “What happened?” I couldn’t answer through the laughing. I remember the hikers with fear on their faces, and looking at me like I was psychotic. I knew Kevin was fine, but knew this was a “Kevin Story” of a lifetime. When i heard him yell up “Dammit, I lost my glasses!” it just fueled my laughter.

I eventually stopped but it started again when he climbed back up from the bottom. I made him go a few more times before I felt confident the rope and knots were secure. We spent most of that day reppelling down through the trees with the hopes we would find his glasses to no avail, they were gone. And without him being able to see we decided to head home instead of camp.

On the drive home we were exhausted. Kevin leaned the passenger seat back and settled in for a nap. After a while I became tired and bored. He was sound asleep next to me when I got an idea.

I hit the brakes hard and slapped my hand on the ceiling of the car and yelled “Grab the rope, grab the rope!” He sat up lightning fast with his hands flailing in front of him trying to grab an imaginary rope, eyes as wide as they were when he fell. Then as i burst into laughter he realized what i had done, he punched me and laid back down, never to speak again to me the entire ride home. He was pissed, and rightfully so. but it was still so funny. It has become one of my favorite stories to tell.

It is stories like this that makes me realize how lucky I am to have shared such fun adventures with my great friends like Kevin. This is really just the very tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to the stories I have in my head about my adventures with my friends. Someday maybe I will write them all down before I start forgetting them. However what time has done so far is allowed me to embellish them and practice telling them in preparation for writing them down.