From: IMRud@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 2:20 PM
To: Clark, Wes
Subject: Re: Micheltorena 2nd grade


<<Okay, let's play "Do You Remember?"

    - Do you recall the Micheltorena kid who had a double amputee (arms)
mother? She came to school one day and explained how she drove a car, using
a special apparatus. My guess is that if you were there you couldn't forget
it!>>

No, I don't remember this.  And you're right.  I'm sure if I'd seen it, I'd 
remember it.

<<- Do you remember the Little Rascals episode with the haunted house,
with floating skeletal fish in a fishbowl (I have this on video). If you do,
tell me and I'll put it on your videotape.>>

This does sound familiar.  Sure.  Send it along.

<<- How about riding skateboards all over creation? See attachment.  
<<skate_board.jpg>>  On the video I'm sending, Kitty is very briefly shown
trying to use mine.>>

In Avocado Memories, you talk about how a crack in the sidewalk could stop 
these skateboards, but my memory is that even a pebble of the right size 
could do the trick, jamming that front wheel and sending you flying.  I mean, 
they talk about all the things you can do with a skateboard today, but back 
then, just making from one end of the block to the other was a form of 
X-treme sport.   Also, what I like about the name Roller Derby #10 Skateboard 
is that it implies there was a Roller Derby 7, 8 and 9, before reaching the 
present level of perfection in the #10.  What in the world could the Roller 
Derby #1 have been like?

As I remember, our homes were at the bottom of a slight hill and I can 
remember one day coming down FAST on my skateboard, and I don't know what 
happened or why, but suddenly the skateboard is out from under me and I land 
HARD on by back, scrapping it up pretty good.  I mean it really hurt.  But I 
knew if I told my mom what happened, that would be the end of skateboarding 
for me.  So, looking about as causal and natural as Frankenstein, I stiffly 
enter my house (because any kind of upper body movement really stung), smile 
a pained smile at my mom, and take a really painful bath.  This went on for a 
few days before my back started to scab over and feel better.  I guess my mom 
never found out because I continued to skateboard.

Also from this time, I remember kids dismantling skates, and nailing the two 
different ends to a sturdy piece of wood.  Maybe that's what the Roller Derby 
#1 was like.

<<- Those pool floats we customized with crayons and ran all over the
neighborhood with, pretending they were (spaceships)? Yours spat water, I
think.>>

This sounds familiar.  I also remember some toy at the time that attached to 
the window of a car and flipped around or did something as the car moved.  I 
don't remember ever getting this toy, but it seems like we came up with 
something of our own, and whenever our moms drove us around, we'd hang these 
things out the window.  I don't think our moms were real thrilled about this, 
but they put up with it.

<<- Pounding brick fragments into dust in the Thrifymart parking lot?>>

This rings a bell also.  Was there a point to it -- or was it just the simple 
joy of being destructive?

Jim