It Just Sailed Right Out There

tommyrawblog@gmail.com

Okay... get ready for some childhood mischief at it's

snowy best!

We all did stupid things when we were kids right??? Right???

Oh please...

don't think for a second that I was the only idiot kid out there. I know damn well you knuckleheads were just as ra-tarded (from The Hangover movie) as I was as a kid!

Well you're about to read how even the most innocent of activities could go awry. When you're a young tommy mondello that is. Too funny.

I still crack the fuck up every time I read this mess... AND... get the coldest of fucking douche chills all at the same time!

Ya know something...

right at this very moment as I'm typing this out, I'm wondering to myself if anyone out there is having as much fun with this silly blog thing as I am?? Or even reading it for that matter... LoL Ummm... I hope so!

Also just want to send a shout out to my cousin Shannon... who not only gave me the idea to do this, but has also been proof reading & editing this dribble. Giving it the polished feel it so needed!

Thanx cuz!!

Have a great weekend everyone... and cheers... the sangria really does taste better when I know you guys are hangin' with me!! tommy

It Just Sailed

Right Out There

Following along with the crowd: one of those things mom and dad always said not to do, right?

“Damn it, use your own brain! If everyone else jumps off the bridge, does that mean you’re going to jump too?”

How many times have you heard that crap?

But man, isn’t it a great feeling to do something that you know damn well is absolutely the wrong thing to do. To just to say, fuck it,
and do it anyway.

Hey, that’s what made us kids. No, not saying fuck it, although I truly loved spewing that disgusting word as a kid... aaah who am I kidding, I STILL love saying it!


But the total lack of accountability. Dude, we were kids, fuck it!! To just go ahead and do it, whatever it was; we can’t get away with that bullshit today, now that we’re grown up
and supposedly adults.

But back when we were still little boys and girls, not giving a second thought to our actions was a way of life. Not giving a shit was our job, period!


We had enough confusion surrounding us at that point anyways. Like trying to figure out what the hell was that thing between our legs, and was it good for anything else other than peeing on the toilet seat, or writing your name in the snow.

Our brains had no room for any rules or regulations. And I’ll let you parents in on a little secret. You may think that your cute little offspring are accepting and understanding everything that you tell them.


But in reality, they aren’t! A child’s brain filters out all unnecessary bullshit. Which pretty much means everything that you have to say
as the parent.


Sure they listen when you talk cartoons, computer games, and Christmas presents. But pretty much everything else you say just sounds like Blah… blah… blah… blah… blah... blah!


Translation…
Do your homework! Eat all your vegetables and stop beating up your brother.


And believe me, I do realize that I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know!

Well, needless to say, I didn’t always listen to my parents. I followed right along with that crowd every so often, and this
was one of those times.

One cold December afternoon, the guys and I were hangin’ out. Ya know, just lookin’ for something to do when a voice broke through the cold air and warmed our little
ten-year-old blue ears…


“Hey, lets go up to the corner, and throw snowballs at buses!”


BINGO!
Everyone was up for it, including myself.

Well, we made our way up the block to the corner of Forest and Simonson Avenues on Staten Island, New York. This was our turf, baby!

Here it is... the corner of Simonson & Forest Ave's...
our stomping ground as kids!

There's the double church hill. And the quarry was to the right. And this is the corner where we stood to fire at the enemy. We also used to go inside the church hall to the left to watch a band practice. I forget their name, but one of the members, the singer, was a friend of my older brother Joey. Oh wait... they were called Lunatic, yeah that's it... Lunatic! They always practiced the song "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. Awesome! We were young teenagers at the time, fully buzzed on gallons of Budweiser, and ready to rock... LoL
What drinking age???
I have so many memories pouring outta me while looking at this fuckin' photo. This corner will also become yet another pivotal moment in my life when we get to the story... Public Enemy Number One! And yes, I become a huge penis... all over again... LoL  I bet each and everyone of you out there have a corner like this in your memory bank... you do right!? Cool isn't it...

We felt like kings standing up there
looking over our kingdom.


Our school was to the left. Across the street to the right was the rock quarry. And there you see the double church hill, where we would go sleigh riding along with playing hours upon hours of football and so many other wacky
"HockeyBall" type activities.


Two blocks to the right was Weissglass baseball field where we would shag fly-balls until the cover wore off. Yea, it was good to be king!

We started jockeying for position and getting some elbow room between us. This wasn’t a game, this was war! It was us warriors against that big, loud, exhaust spewing six-wheeled menace. And believe me,
we were going to win this battle.

In those days I had a pretty good arm and held my own. I only wish my sense of touch were a little more sensitive than it had been.
I blame it on the gloves.
(Wait, you’ll see)

Well, we were ready. We were anxiously waiting, standing right in front of the big billboard that towered over the corner. The only thing missing now was the enemy.


Clouds of frozen breath filled the air all around us as the anticipation of battle drew near.


Before long, the enemy was upon us face to face, eyeball to headlight. We were taken aback at first by its size; it always seemed smaller
during peacetime.


But we didn’t cower. Instead, snowballs started to fly muthafucka! Man, what a feeling! There’s nothin' like winging a snowball
at a moving target.


The first round of fire had been a success. The enemy never knew what hit him. As we marveled at our aim from the previous assault, we all scooped up handfuls of ammo
for the next victim.

“Here he comes!”
an excited lookout cried.
The warmth of his animated breath
nearly melted our ammunition.


“Get ready…… NOW!”
Man, I let loose a beauty.
I stood there and admired my toss.
“Look at that baby fly!”

Now in my head, I was Tom Seaver, all-star pitcher playing baseball for the New York Mets, standing on the mound in front of a packed Shea Stadium crowd, while hurling a no-hitter!


But, in reality, I was just a fuckin’ dickhead!


As I stood there and watched my snowball sail through the air, right past the bus, and smash into a car windshield. UTT OOH! Tom Seaver’s snowball must’ve had a rock in it.


I could hear my mom already.


“The rock probably fell outta your head! How many times have I told you… blah… blah… blah… blah… blah.”

But then…


“OH SHIT! FUCK, HE’S STOPPIN’!”


The chant of
“RUN TOMMY, RUN!”
began as the car slammed on its brakes. It then kicked into gear, turned, and started towards the mound. Imagine this shit, one wild pitch and I was being taken out of the game.

I just said… “Fuck this!”
Then turned tail and began running down the block. It was just me, with my newfound emotional friend, fear, leading the way. The king had been dethroned!

Okay... I know you've seen this photo before from the first entry about my first car... but now I need you to only concentrate on the sidewalk along the right side... and use the big screen in your head to envision what you're about to read. You're gonna crack the fuck up. It's SO fucking embarrassing
being me man... un-fucking-believable dude!
The car is parked right in front of my house. All the way up top is the double church hill and the infamous corner. It's a looooong way home, lemme tell ya. A long way! LoL

Now, this was pretty much a defining moment in my life. This was the moment that I found out that no matter how tough I sounded, thought I looked or thought I could be, that deep down inside, I, Tommy Mondello, was a pussy!


Flat out, a pussy!


And I don’t mean of the feline kind either.

There would be no yelling out for ADRIAN at the end of the fifteenth round for me, no sir. There was no Rocky to be found!


I realized that as I was tearin’ ass down the block with everyone screaming...
“Cut through the paths, use the paths!”

These paths led through the woods to Van Name Ave, just one block over. My corridor to freedom I guess you could say;
truly my very own
Great Escape.

This corner is just one block down from where we were standing.
So many of our friends lived on Van Name.
You'll be hearing more about this street in the stories to come!

Or at least I could’ve cut through a yard
and started hopping fences.

Crap!
I had fifty ways to elude this lunatic with a broken windshield, who by now was gaining on me.


Maybe Steve McQueen would’ve jumped the fences, with or without the motorcycle. But not me! What did I do for cryin' out loud?


I made a beeline straight for home, while screaming for my mommy.
That’s what I fuckin’ did!


“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”


Oh boy, what a douche I was!

Once again in my mind I must’ve been running about a hundred and one miles an hour. And sparks? Well, you know what happens when you squeeze chubby thighs into corduroy.


Man, my rear-end looked like a fuckin’ jet engine for goodness sake with flames emanating in all directions! There was a thunderously loud twang filling the air as the friction grew
between my twin engines.


And as I was running all the snow was melting behind me, and then re-freezing into a smooth sheet of pristine ice.


Fuck!
I was a human Zamboni Machine!
Ya feelin' my emotional pain or what?

But getting back to reality now. I was actually only running about one mile an hour. There were no sparks, no pristine sheets of ice, and no Zamboni machine. Just the thundering jet engine noise reverberating from my friction-filled corduroy pants. Oh dude, what a loser!

By now the lunatic had caught up, and was driving right along side of me as I was running. So yeah, we were both moving
at … one... mile an hour!


I turned and saw him tilt his head out of the car window. I thought for sure that I’d see the look of death staring back at me, but no, I didn’t.

Instead, I saw a dumbfounded, slightly disgusted gaze. I was confused!


It was as though he was thinking I can’t believe this stupid kid didn’t cut through the woods to elude me. What a pussy! And he was right, I was! And this pussy was leading the enemy straight home. Directly back to Headquarters. Right into the lap of the fucking President and First Lady of Tommy Mondello land.


And to make matters worse, this guy knew some of my neighbors. Can you believe that shit? Fuck, will the embarrassment ever end?

“Hey lunatic, how’s it goin?”…… “Not bad”…… “What happened to your windshield?”…… “Aaaah, Speedy Gonzales here just hit it with an iceball or something.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was having casual conversation with my neighbor while I was running for my friggin’ life!
Ya feelin' the pain yet or what?

Well, I made it home. I turned up the driveway and ran into the house. Lucky for me that the President was still at work, but immediately the First Lady knew something was wrong.


Before I could spill my guts, there was a knock at the door. My eye’s bugged, my heart pounded, and I just wanted to crawl into my own asshole and hide. No one in their right mind
would dare follow!

The knocking continued. And by now, the First Lady had a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t be Ed McMahon and the fucking Prize Patrol.


The door opened, and there he was…the lunatic. He was face to face with my mom. I couldn’t believe he had found me. Yeah right!

Well he had, and at this point, he was conversing with my keeper, the Judge and Jury, the Giver and Taker of life, my MOM!
Fuck, I’m a dead man walking!

The trial had begun and the opening arguments painted a grim picture. The judge disgustedly tilted her head back towards me, and shot one of those… You jumped off the bridge with the rest of those idiots, didn’t you… looks.

I cowered even deeper into my asshole.
(I really didn’t actually climb into my asshole mind you, but you get the picture right?)

They verbally volleyed back and forth for several minutes. Fortunately for me no punches needed to be thrown. Mom had a great uppercut! In fact, the lunatic wasn’t even a loon at all. He was actually a pretty cool guy. And it turned out that he and my parents dealt with the very same insurance company. So listen to this.

My mom picked up the phone and called the claim in right then and there and after hearing the story, the insurance agent had a great big laugh and thought that the whole thing
was oh so funny!


FUNNY! Fuck her, funny! I needed a clean pair of underwear and a boost to my ego after cryin’ out for my fuckin’ mommy in front of the guys, and she thought it was funny! Man, I oughta………

Well, after the agent got the ball rollin’ on the claim, a calm seemed to have come over the whole situation. The courtroom had been adjourned. The lunatic shook hands with the First Lady and went on his way while I slowly emerged from my asshole.

Now I knew that some horrible punishment would soon be coming my way, but I didn’t even care. I was ready to do my time! All I knew was that the lunatic was gone, and that yes, yes I say, this warrior would survive yet another ordeal, and someday re-join the ranks
of his fellow warriors!


Well, once I came up with a good enough excuse to give them for that cryin’ mommy thing,
of course!

Boy, I really dodged a bullet on this one, huh? I guess I really did learn a good lesson though. And that lesson would have to be without a doubt to never ever throw a snowball again.


Well not unless you’re really, and I mean really, sure that you’re gonna hit the intended target!
Aaaaaahhh……… Gotcha!

Now look at me... do I look like a trouble making fuckhead?? No way.
Oh I cursed my ass off mind you, but I was a pretty neat kid.
I'm standing there in my homemade Abraham Lincoln hat.
This was August 1968 in our house on Simonson Ave.