Three 'TEENAGE' stories from my '12 Dead Frogs' memoir-(1) about STARFISH, (2) an unwanted BOXING MATCH, and (3) saved by 'a Voice' @ 120 mph.!

("12 FROgs" in paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0777FHXX2

STARFISH (1958)
Probably the first good friend I had in California was Danny Sullivan, a boy I had always admired because he was tall, attractive, a little shy, and a good athlete on the soccer field. He was someone another young person could admire. One day I was sitting on my bike outside the corner candy store in his neighborhood when he rode up and said hello. From then on, we rode our bikes together the three miles back and forth to school and played together regularly .

One Saturday we were down at our coastal town’s wharf when we spotted a bunch of starfish on the pilings. I think it was Danny who got the inspiration of collecting all these crustaceans and selling them for souvenir lamp stands, supplying our product to gift stores around town. By the time we finished our job we had amassed over 50 starfish of good size (at least a foot wide), and hauled them back to his house for drying. We laid them out all over his property – front driveway, walkways, back porch, sidewalk – and I rode my bike home. We agreed that we would discuss the next step in our get-rich scheme later, after the weekend.

When I met Danny for our school ride the following Monday he looked pretty depressed. He said his father had scooped up all our starfish and tossed them out. It seemed we had made one critical mistake. Because we had placed them right-side up, it had taken only a few hours in the sun to melt them into pancake-shaped globs. From what I heard, the stench from those baking crustaceans was almost unbearable (his mother had laughed about it, but I could tell from her grimace she was pretty upset). In any case, we learned the hard way that the correct position for drying starfish was placing them upside down.

THE FIGHTER (1958)

Once, when Danny and I were at a playground near his house, a group of about fifteen kids suddenly approached us. One guy was bobbing around like a boxer on TV and he seemed to require that one of us pair off with him to duke it out. There were boasts, the main one being that the kid was “the best fighter in the school.” Great for him, I thought. I’m glad I don’t have to fight him!

The threats increased from their side, with the gang insisting on a match. “Which one of you two will fight him!” they demanded. Danny suddenly pointed to me, blurting out, “He’s the fighter!”

What? I said, astonished. I looked over at Danny, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. I was too surprised to be angry. Suddenly, before I knew it, the whole group had encircled me and the dancing boxer, with Danny fading somewhere into the background. It was quickly apparent that this guy was going to try and knock my block off. Since I certainly wasn’t a fighter in any sense of the word, and wasn’t comfortable with faking some boxer stance I hadn’t learned, I basically stood there, quite still, arms barely up in defense. I tried to avoid the pugilist as the human ring tightened around us. But I figured he’d be on me soon. What was I going to do?

Suddenly, halfway through one of the boxer’s little sidesteps and shadow punches, I surprised myself by hurling my body at the guy, rushing at him with all the speed and might I could muster. As he missed his one chance at a punch, we collided, and he went flying to the ground, with me landing on top. I guess I could have throttled him senseless at that point, but I didn’t know the guy, wasn’t mad at him at all (I was probably madder at my friend for getting me into that mess!), and never thought for a second of actually hurting him. I held him down for about twenty minutes, my knees pinning his arms, trying to talk him out of fighting. He tried in vain to escape my grasp, then finally conceded the fight. When he promised to not hit me if I freed him, I let go.

As soon as he was erect, he threw a punch to my head, knocking me down. I cried a little bit then walked back with Danny to his house, to nurse my black eye. For some reason, I never did hold that odd misspeak against Danny, never mentioned it again.

UNLEASHING THE HORSES (1960)

When I got my driving license at age 16 it felt like I’d sprouted new wings of freedom. In Chicago I had once traveled alone to the faraway Riverview Amusement Park, which required riding an IC train downtown eight miles to the Loop, then boarding a bus for a hundred blocks, transferring to a second one for another couple hundred blocks before finally arriving at my destination. I wasn’t much past 12 then, but I met my needs for exploration. So suddenly, with a driver’s license in hand, it was just like in my earlier childhood. I could again travel to the far reaches of my known universe. But some serious, high-speed dangers lay ahead.

The first car I drove was my parent’s 1956 Buick Century sedan, “a very well-made and safe car” they informed me. They didn’t go out of their way to also explain how fast it was. On my way to a party one evening, after picking up five friends, I cranked the Buick up to about 100 miles per hour, traveling south down highway 101 toward the party. Because of the great suspension and superior horsepower, it didn’t seem all that fast. So I edged it up a bit more. I watched the speedometer rising; 105...110...115. Finally, I hit 120 miles per hour. We whizzed along to everyone’s joy, my young riders totally exhilarated. The problem came at the next bend in the highway.

In a long sweeping curve, somewhere along the ocean, I started to feel the car sliding out of its lane. If the car next to me on the right hadn’t bailed out, hit the gravel shoulder as I began sliding, it probably would have been scraped or worse by my car. I don’t think that my occupants were screaming, but the interior of my cab suddenly became very loud, so much so that it just registered as a weird roar in my ears. Then, suddenly, things quieted down in my mind. It was as if I’d been magically transported into a recording studio that could muffle all aounds and reality. In that unusually silent head-space I remember hearing a voice, a man’s voice, which ordered me clearly and emphatically; “Don’t over-correct!”

As I began to ease the car back left, out of its right-side spinout, I followed the mental command and turned the steering wheel about half as much as I figured it needed. A split-second later, the car careened left, just missing the dangerous raised highway curb––if caught with tires that would have most probably sent us flipping end over end down the road. Luckily, the Buick suddenly straightened out and shot straight down the road again, correctly positioned in the left-side passing lane as I decelerated.

At the party, my five friends and I pretty much just sat there shaking for about a half-hour. Then we excused ourselves when all agreed we wanted to go home. I was a meek and careful driver the remainder of that evening. Later, of course, I had to wonder about “The Voice.’ It seemed different than just a warning from “my own mind.” Who and/or what was it then? I have my own pet theories. Let me hear what U think!

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