Sunday, May 25, 2014

Pure Dumb Luck... A Tale of Two Knuckleheads









Dumb & Dumber...


A quick tale about
2 knucklehead kids
without even the hint... of a clue!







My philosophy on...


Pure Dumb Luck



Here's my replay of how life's destiny was altered for two knucklehead kids by nothing more than pure dumb luck.


And if for some reason you ever find yourself searching for a real life metaphor or definition of what dumb luck is, then this quick story
is just oozing with both.


And as luck would have it,
this luck, was good!


When my friend Billy and I were both around
9, maybe 10 years old, which would have
made the year 1970/71.

((This is the same Billy who threw up in the cat-tails
when we got chased off the baseball fields... LoL))


We walked down to our corner store on Simonson Ave in Staten Island, New York to purchase some more baseball cards to add to our collection.


Cool right!?


But when we got there, for some reason we decided to pool our money together and purchase a pack of cigarettes instead.


And now remember that this was 1970/71.
And there were no rules or regulations whatsoever forbidding this sort of behavior. Meaning a 9/10 year old kid
could walk into any deli and purchase
whatever the fuck they wanted!


Especially since we knew the store owner,
and I was already buying my mom's cig's there
(Kent) for sometime now before she quit.


So there were no hassles at all.


The only problem we ran into was that Billy and myself couldn't decide on what brand to buy!


We stood there at the counter for what seemed to be hours. Getting smacked in the head by morning papers, pushed aside and stepped on but we held our ground.


Until finally,
we decided on a pack of Belair.


Why Belair?


Because it looked cool that's why.
With the diagonal separation of the white on one side and the blue sky with clouds on the other. Too cool.

Pack of Belair ciggerettes


Hey, we were fuckin' kid's,
give us a break will ya.
Look at how neat that looks!


Well, we immediately walked back to our hangout by the Simonson Ave brook. We lit up, chocked, turned blue and choked some more.


Beautiful man!


Finally... we were cool!


LoLoLoL
Two little brainless knuckleheads!
LoLoL


When we finished choking we stuffed the cigarettes and the matches into the coffee can where we kept all of our playboy magazine pictures. Oh yeah!


Then we hid the can under the brook wall so no one could find our secret stash.


Kids huh?


Hiding there most prized possessions in a moist, muddy, bacteria ridden “safe spot.”


Get this... it took us both the entire week
to smoke all 20 cigarettes.


Some people smoke that in a single day!
Half'a day even. And when they were gone, we hit the corner store again, looked up at the cigarettes, then at one another, shrugged our shoulders and went right back
to buying baseball cards.


But why?


I'll tell'ya why.


Pure dumb luck my friend, pure dumb luck! That's all I can tell you.


Why those stupid baseball cards meant more to us then choking on those really neat & cool sticks of fiery death I'll never know.


Don't get me wrong though, I'm so glad we decided to go back to the cards. But really,
it could have gone either way.


Now that...
is the definition of pure dumb luck!


Let's see... uuummm...
a healthy life...
or a yellow-toothed,
fingertip-stained addiction??


That week could have changed
both of our lives forever!


Gives me the chills just thinking about
if we had bought that next pack
instead of heading back to the cards.

Early 1970's pack of baseball cards
I'm thinkin' that it was that horrible piece of bubble gum
that came with each pack of cards.
We couldn't get enough of that cement-like crap! LoLoLoL


The fuse was lit leading to a life of addiction, but thank goodness “good luck” had enough sense to stamp it out. Because if it were left up to us two dingbats, we'd probably both be those
yellow-toothed, fingertip-stained fuckers
to this very day.


So you see, sometimes luck, can fall towards the “good” side of the meter. You don't always have to be unlucky knucklehead.


Like when you were playing third base and that bad-hop smacked you right in the mouth...
oh man that hurt. Now that's bad luck!


But leaving the cig's behind, nothing but the best of luck for us both. It just had to be luck because believe me, we weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer... LoL


We did eventually get used to smoking the cig's, but in the end, the baseball cards
meant more to us.


So, we were both
"one of the cool kids"
for at least 7 days!


But both so lucky
to have gone back to being
baseball card collecting geeks
for the rest of our lives!








No comments:

Post a Comment