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| Well, poop. |
I am not good at throwing. Not good at 'hucking' stuff in the parlance of my youth. In the small town of my youth, throwing power and accuracy accounted for about 90% of your popularity. Even though I knew I was helpless in throwing contests of distance or accuracy I would engage in them, hoping, as children sometimes do, that somehow without my conscious awareness I had gotten good at throwing and I would blow the other kids away. That never happened.
My friend Jordan and his brother Kyle came over with their parents and we decided to have a rock throwing contest while the adult sat inside and talked. Our contest was to see who could throw the rock the farthest across the road and into the recently vacated mobile home spot beyond. Kyle and Jordan were both able to throw their rocks consistently to the far end of the lot. To compete with their power I decided to get a run at it and give my next throw some real sauce. Unfortunately, I gave up quite a bit of accuracy in exchange for my unbridled power and threw the rock at about a forty-five degree angle from where I had intended. It went right through the back window of a trailer. Seconds later a man popped his head up through the broken window and started yelling at us. As it happened, he worked graveyards and was sleeping in preparation to going into work later that night when glass showered down on his face.
When his head pop up we ran behind the cars in my driveway and tried our best to hide. The guy came over and told on us and I confessed to my crime. My dad made me get a piece of cardboard, some tape and a tape measure to go over and temporarily fix the window and measure it for some new glass. I was so embarrassed throughout the whole process I wished I could just run away and hide. I had received a dollar a week for an allowance and until the 14 dollars for the replacement pane was paid I got none. 14 weeks is an eternity when you are six.
