Mark's Nose

Mark’s Nose
By Jon Slone






Fifth grade was tolerable at best.
The bed wetting problem was wetter than ever.
And insecurities were blooming like poppies in The Wizard of Oz.

Then Mark broke his nose and scrambled his face and I thought, what's the point in living now?

I was fine with my bombardment shortcomings
The T.V in my room had fifty channels and 47 of them were snow.
My Haunted House how-to book was still lost in the mail.
My bottle of Rigid Collodion was almost empty.
My sleep-walking problem was way out of hand.
And the new step-dad was in place and as warm and fuzzy as a paper-cut on a hemorrhoid.

Then Mark broke his nose and scrambled his face and my universe caved like Lebron in the fourth quarter.

I played it off perfectly when I passed out during the afternoon film about open heart surgery.
Falling behind on my drum rudiments, no big deal.
Shirts and skins? Heck yeah, bring it!
“No pizza today? Sure, give me the mixed vegetables…it’s only my life here we’re talking about!”
Mom relocating my bed room to the knotty pine attic, why not. Sure, I was a kid with a vivid imagination and a propensity for horror films….but what-the-heck-ever right?! Throw my terrified eleven year-old butt up there in the dark, cobwebby garret! Lock me in with the pull-down-stairs door (Nice touch). I’ll probably be okay…

No problem!

No sweat!

Then Mark broke his nose and scrambled his face. And now, not only does he not look like Luke anymore but he sorta favors one of those Tauntauns.


Thanks a lot Mark!


You wrecked your face, crushed all of our dreams and indirectly caused me to start sleep-walking! And then you tried to play it off like that big nasty Wampa creature did this to you, but we weren’t buying it. No, we knew that that mangled-up funk-nasty face of yours could’ve only been rendered by a horrific car accident, say, one on January eleventh, 1977. (Just a stab in the dark Mark)



















Phone rings

Hold on, I gotta take this call…what’s that honey…they’re all out of Bagel-Bites? (Long disgusted pause) You know what, Mark is a busted-nose, sixty year old Wampa now,…(Pitiful, drawn-out sigh) just get me a bag of Mixed Vegetables.

Thanks a lot Mark!


Luke in 1976






















Some stranger dressed as the guy who plays Luke in 1978


























Jon all-in-good-fun Slone

Sorry-Looking Red Thing (Jeez, thanks Mom)

Seeing how we’re talking about lunches of yore…these were the lunch boxes that my ultra cool friends were toting back in the day:





























This, sorry-lookin' red thing in the middle is what my Mom sent me off with everyday…



















Jeez, thanks Mom!

Hey don’t worry about the fact that I’m 15 pounds overweight and I sniff toilet paper at night…sure, I’ll rock this pansy-lookin’ mommy’s boy lunch box!

Hey, I got an idea….why don’t you just shoot me in the head right now!

Creamy-Bland Blood Broth

Creamy-Bland Blood Broth
By Jon Slone




Back in elementary, do you remember lunch menus? Each home room teacher would get one at the first of the month and you could like not only see the food planned out for the week ahead, but for the entire month! Here are a few actual offerings as they appeared on a 1974 lunch menu:


Monday
Lasagna
Harvest Salad
Your choice of fruit cup or Cowboy Bread
Milk
Ranger Cookie

Tuesday
Seafood patty
Whipped Potatoes
Chuck wagon beans
Hot roll
Thanksgiving cake


Where do I even begin?

Everything had to have some fancy name remember? Harvest salad? Perfection salad? Ranger cookie? Are you kidding me with the Chuck Wagon Beans?

Thank God the roll was hot right?

If they hadn’t mentioned that I don’t know what I would’ve done!

And for the life of me, what in the Sam Hill was Cowboy Bread?


Hold that thought.

Hamburger day might very well have been the best. This is what it looked like:


Thursday
Hamburger
Oven French fries
Lettuce, Pickle,
Onion slice
Milk
Bun
Tonto cookie


Really?

Lettuce and Pickle seriously?

Onion Slice got its own line?

Was this some covert and elaborate way to try and teach us the love of words. Could this have been our second English class hidden behind a Ranger cookie?

Back to the menu.

The first thing I did was search out all the Pizza days and hastened to make mental notes! (This of course was very important you see) Remember how there was always one meal that you dreaded like portly kids and backward roll day in gym class! For me, that one repugnant repast was…..Grilled cheese/tomato soup day.

First off, why tomato soup? I mean, yes, the grilled cheese sandwich was no walk in the park, but I absolutely detested (And still do) tomato soup…and they would always put those damn things together….”Here guys have some fat back on Marble Rye and some balmy sweat in a bowl! Eat up you fargin stinky bastages!”


You never saw anything like this:


Tuesday
Grilled cheese
Your choice of Crab Bisque or Jambalaya soup.

Wednesday
Grilled cheese
Your choice of Spicy Sausage & Lintel or Potato and cabbage soup.


Heck frickin’ naw

This is the way it read to me:


Crudday
Partially grilled (Stiff, stinky and mostly moldy) cheese and a hard plastic bowl of creamy-bland blood broth.


On those days I would always opt for an alternative meal:


Jon: Yes, how fresh are your onion slices?
Cafeteria lady: (Growl)
Jon: Uh, give me four Ranger cookies please.



Check this out!

Andrew Peterson Sighting Number one

Hey everybody, this amazing artist just checked out my newest post here at Big HE little me. The insanely talented, word-nerd-extraordinaire known as Andrew Peterson (AP for short) just tarried about the ole' BHLM Lounge, sure it was probably for a total of 3 minutes but what the who-cares right, maybe he reads fast.

If, by some crazy chance, you've never heard his music, then you're that one kid at the Grand Canyon who forgot his glasses......in other words, you're missing out big time!

Dart quickly to your nearest store made of bricks and bulbs or rather finger speed and space and snatch up all of his promethean music, you won't regret it!

Thanks AP.
Thanks dear, Big HE little me readers!

Same Old Song

Same Old Song
By Jon Slone





Dad tells the son,
Oh the dreck that did tempt me!
The lot of it boy, was quite
Feckless and empty!

God had a plan
For me and I knew it.
And maybe down the road
I’d see my way to it.

Sure I got saved
As a boy back in Blairmore.

I guess it was the timing I just didn’t care for.

For my way of thinking,
Though now misbegotten.
Was before being top-shelf
I’d have to be rotten!

You see, after all
There were upcoming years.

To mouth-off to parents
And puke with my peers.

A time to get high,
A time for a buzz.

A time to act older
Then I actually was!

For parents and Pedagogues…
See the word, bail!

For rules and schools were dreadfully stale!

No matter how wrong,
If I shouldn’t or should.

I danced and I pranced
While I still looked good!

And that’s how I felt,
So that’s what I did.

Backsliding from God.
Two decades, I slid!

His Word and His Will were morsels untasted.
All of those years for my Savior, I wasted!

Says Dad to his son,
Those days weren’t fun.
So whatever you do
Don’t do what I’ve done!


Those famous last words went the way of the curse.
For the boy grew up and he stumbled much worse!




A tired turn-table
Spinning the same warped and monotonous song as always.
And nobody likes the music at all.
And nobody gets up to change it!

Sometimes I feel like we're just babysitting some Angel's Kid

Sometimes I feel like we’re just babysitting some Angel’s Kid.
By Jon Slone




So my daughter wants Mickey and then she wants Minnie
And then she wants none only then to want any!
One week it’s all Elmo
The next week it’s Winnie.
And she counts really well from one up to twenty.

She cries about stuff like naps around noontime
Every single day to her oughta be balloon time
She slurps really weird.
And she drinks like a Hummer.
And she glows like her innards were made out of summer!
She’s amusing and brilliant and never a ho-hummer.
And thanks to her Dad she might be a drummer.


Sometimes I feel like we’re just babysitting some Angel’s Kid.


She never gets tired when she climbs up the drapes.

And she eats all her grapes.
And she knows all her shapes.

When I reach for her coat,
The scene becomes dire.

As she jets like those Joe’s from Chariots’ of Fire.

Her skills with the big girl potty are lame.
She speaks five languages that all sound the same.
Her eyes do stuff that you wouldn’t deem groovy.
Like that sweet little girl in the Exorcist movie!

She sings about Jesus and row, row your boats.
(Have I said that she hasn’t really warmed up to coats?)


Sometimes I feel like we’re just babysitting some Angel’s Kid.


And one day that Angel will come back and knock on our door and say, “Gotta have the kid dude.”
And I’ll say, “Could you just take our Magic Bullet and our Ronco Record Vacuum instead?”

“And the Angel will retort, “I don’t know, that is a pretty sweet Record Vacuum…”






Hope this put a smile on your face.

Jon

Rants from a South-Paw

Rants from a South-Paw
By Jon Slone





I am left handed.
My wife is left handed.
My daughter, MacKenzie, is left handed.



Okay, so, I buy one of these Fisher-Price Doodle Boards…and, well…


Look at the picture above and pretend that you are left handed.


Houston, we have a problem!


The holder, the string and the pen are parked on the right side…to boot, the frickin’ string doesn’t reach to the left side!!

Mind you, it’s plenty long for right handed children to be happy all the live-long right-handed-day. Meanwhile, the left handed step-children are going mental trying to draw a damn hexagon with a string, and a pen and a pen holder and a toy company and a world that’s all conveniently bent toward right-handers.


What am I suppose to do, cut the righty-rope and try to keep up with the plastic pen?

Really?

In the words of Yo Samity Sam…







"I think not you, Fricka Sacka para-coda poller ratin’ dirty-shocka froca freakun…"