Late 1983, I was 16 years old. I had discovered a condom vending machine in a local gas station restroom.

I and my best friend of the time decided we really needed to have a condom for the opportunity that we knew would inevitably arise, soon. It’s always good to be prepared, and first sex was not a situation we wanted to find ourselves in unprepared. The two of us discussed it, and we made a plan.

The restroom was located outside the station, around on the left side. We’d drive into the parking lot (using our freshly earned driver’s licenses) via the left entrance to the parking lot, and park right in front of the restroom door. We’d both get out of the car together, but only one would go into the restroom at a time. The other would hang outside the door keeping watch.

The one inside would put in his two quarters, turn the dial, and get his condom pack. He’d come out and take watch for the other to go inside. We’d then both get in the car and drive away, out the left exit from the parking lot.

Our biggest concern was that the ladies room was adjacent to the men’s room — what if a woman walked up to or came out of their door? We’d have to be fast so to reduce the chance of that happening.

At the time, we were very serious with our plan. We were shy, 16-year-old boys secretly acquiring something that only adult men with mustaches needed. Having a condom was the first step into the Playboy mansion, we thought.

We also believed, without actually saying it aloud, that just having a condom would increase the chance of having that first sex experience. I mean, if you’re prepared, it’ll give you confidence to pursue that first experience. Right?

We drove away from the gas station a little faster than we should have, but we both had our treasure. The package was a thin square box with the brand name on it (not Trojan) and the fine print instructions and warning that no one actually reads. Neither of us had actually seen a condom “out of the box,” but we weren’t about to waste ours by opening it prematurely. We were confident we could figure it out when the time came to use it.

I don’t know what my friend did with his, but I hid mine in my bedroom. I had a big stereo system (a hand-me-down from my dad) with an 8-track tape player. I didn’t own any 8-track tapes — I only had vinyl records — so the tape player was useless, mostly. It became the treasure chest to conceal my condom.

The first couple of weeks after buying the condom, I would carry it with me, in my jeans pocket when I went out to the mall. But soon, I all but forgot about it. It just stayed in the 8-track tape slot all day and night, every day and night.

A few months later, when I came home from out somewhere, my mother met me in the kitchen. “What’s this?” she asked, holding up the thin, square package.

I stammered incoherently for several seconds. “Um,” I at last managed to squeak out, “where did you get that?”

“Your brother found it in your room,” she said.

Through the embarrassment, I thought, Why did he look in my 8-track tape player slot? It still, to this day, confounds me, what made him look in my 8-track tape player slot? Why would he even look in it? It’s just a slot in my stereo system.

I was sent to my room. Sitting in my room, on the edge of my bed, I was trembling with embarrassment. I was also strongly angry at my 11-year-old brother for nosing through my room enough to find the condom in the perfect hiding place.

My mom never followed through with anything on the situation. I figure she thought the embarrassment was enough. My older step-brother told me, a little while later, that he had suggested to my mom that it was probably something passed around on the school bus, and I just ended up with it. My mom seemed to accept that as an explanation, and I never disabused her of that idea.

But then I didn’t have a condom available if the need for one came about. I sure as heck wasn’t going to buy another one any time soon. And without feeling prepared for the occasion, I lost my false confidence (it was a confidence I felt only when no girls were in sight) for pursuing my first experience.

My mom had taken away my mojo. And it was all because my brother was friggin’ nosing about in my room. Damn being a teenager, with an attentive mother and a nosy little brother.

Bullgrit

When I was in high school (grad 1985), my friend’s older brother somehow got a hold of
a bunch of STP stickers. When I say “a bunch,”
I mean at least a hundred.

He spent a whole school year sticking these stickers up in numerous and various places throughout our town: road signs, buildings, convenience store gas pumps, school windows, sidewalks, dumpsters at the mall, etc., etc., etc.

It was a cool secret for those of us who knew where these stickers were coming from. In big cities, kids used spray paint to tag their nicknames on buildings. In our small town, it was one kid with a box of oil treatment promotional stickers. Hey, at least they didn’t damage what they were put on — they could be taken off, in theory.

Some of these sticker placements lasted for years. There was one stop sign near my friend’s house that sported this STP logo for at least a decade. I haven’t been around that way in a long time to see if it’s still there.

I never heard if any authority figure learned who put out the stickers. I never heard of my friend’s brother getting in trouble over it. I hope he didn’t. He never put a sticker on anyone’s car or other really personal property, so it was just some juvenile fun. It was better than when some kids at my high school went out playing mailbox baseball.

* * *

Back several weeks ago after I set up my Cafepress store, I ordered a few items to ensure they were going to look good. The t-shirts are good — I have a black, long sleeve one, and Cowgrit wears a white, short sleeve one to bed. The stickers are good — I have a GOB on my laptop computer at work, but my BULLGRIT is sitting on my bookshelf, as yet unstuck.

I’ve been trying to think of where to stick the BULLGRIT bumper sticker, but no really great place has come to mind. Of course, it’s a bumper sticker, so the obvious place would be on my bumper. But I feel it would be over doing it to have a BULLGRIT sticker on the same vehicle that I have a BULLGRIT license plate. (Yes, my license plate is that cool.)

I could put it on Cowgrit’s van, and that will be where I’ll stick it if I can’t think of anywhere more interesting (read: entertaining). I’d rather put it somewhere more original. Somewhere where it would get attention, without violating vandalism laws.

So I’m open to ideas and suggestions. Where do you think I should stick this sticker?

Bullgrit

May 1985. For my high school senior prom, I was part of a double date. The other guy in our foursome had an uncle who worked as a limousine chauffeur, so he arranged for us to ride in style to our dinner and prom.

I drove my own car to my date’s home, and there the limo picked us up. “Uncle Bob” treated us like VIPs, opening the doors for us, calling us “sir” and “ma’am,” and drove the four of us to our fancy restaurant (fancy for a small town of less than 25,000 people).

Unbeknownst to us, Uncle Bob spent the hour while we ate dinner in the restaurant bar, drinking. When we were ready, he escorted us out to the car, opened our doors, and then drove us to our high school gymnasium.

While we were dancing and socializing at the prom, Uncle Bob had gone back to the bar. When 11:00 rolled around, our limo was back to pick us up as planned. But this time, Uncle Bob wasn’t alone.

Good ol’ Bob had two younger women up in the front seat with him. Now, note that Uncle Bob was a married man. Not knowing what to say about the situation, we teenagers were uncomfortably quiet during our ride towards home, along the rural back roads. And then halfway home, a sheriff’s deputy came up behind us and turned on his flashing lights. Uh oh.

Uncle Bob pulled the limo over. There was talk in the front seat about Bob’s breath smelling of alcohol, so one of the women gave him her chewing gum, right out of her mouth. The evening had gone from blissful ignorance, to uncomfortable silence, to surreal worry. What happens to a group of 16, 17, and 18 year olds (I was 17) if their limo driver gets arrested for DUI? Would our parents have to come pick us up? And we still had no idea who these two 20-something women were up in the front seat.

Well, after a brief conversation between the deputy and Uncle Bob, Bob was handcuffed and stuffed into the back of the deputy’s cruiser. The deputy asked the women to drive us prom kids home and then take the car where it belonged.

After the deputy left the scene, the women discussed what they were gonna do. We told them where to take us, and during the rest of our ride home, they debated where to leave the limo. Who would they tell? What to do with the keys? What about Uncle Bob’s wife? — they apparently knew he was married.

Well, we teenyboppers were dropped off, and the women drove away in the limo. The second half of our ride home had been even more quiet between the four of us than the first half had been. Having free limo service for our prom night seemed like such a great idea the day before.

I later heard that the two women drove the car back to Uncle Bob’s home, told his wife that he was in jail, and asked her to drive them back to their own car at the restaurant bar. This last bit of the tale is a bit apocryphal, as I wasn’t personally present, but I don’t dismiss it as not possibly true.

Bullgrit

Continued from yesterday. Our guns for this day were: two 9mm semi-automatics, a .22 semi, a .22 revolver, a .357 revolver, a .38 revolver, and a 7.62mm SKS rifle. Since we couldn’t set up a proper target for tracking our shooting, there was no competition for this outing. We were just shooting for the fun of it.

We used proper safety — we all wore earplugs, the only loaded weapon was the one on the line, and those not shooting were behind the shooter. Since my 7-year old son was with us this time, I made sure he knew and understood all the rules we were following.

I grew up with guns around me. My dad owned a few guns, but they were usually just for owning and/or target shooting. They were always unloaded and put away up in a closet. My step-dad owned several guns mostly for hunting. Although they were usually stored in various closets, sometimes one was loaded (especially the one he took hunting daily).

My exposure to guns at an early age — being used to having them around, and occasionally actually shooting them on a range — gave me a healthy respect for the things. I didn’t have the urge to show them off to a friend or to sneak peeks at them when my parents weren’t around. All the kids in my family understood guns — their use and their danger. I believe this respect kept me and my siblings safe from accidental death that too many kids were and are vulnerable to.

I want to instill this understanding and respect in my boys. I don’t want them afraid of guns; I want them to respect them. I want my sons to understand what they are, know how they work, and understand that they are very dangerous. I don’t want them to be a forbidden secret that becomes a siren’s call to experiment with them without adult supervision.

If either of my boys are at a friend’s house and the friend says, “Want to see my dad’s gun?” At best, I want them to say, “No,” and then tell me. At worst, if they do look at the gun, I want them to know better than to play with it — to know it’s not a toy.

So I exposed Calfgrit7 to guns for the first time during this outing. He was interested and willing to learn. He watched the adults shoot some first, and then I took him to the firing line and helped him shoot for the first time.

I instructed him on how a gun works, how to hold it, and how to aim (and when, where, and why to point a gun). I stood behind him, with my arms around him helping him hold the gun. He shot several rounds from the .22 revolver. He handled the gun calmly and comfortably, describing the gun as “bouncy” (referring to the kick/recoil).

A few minutes later I let him take a shot with the .357. That sucker has a kick, and it’s really loud compared to a .22. He handled the gun and himself well enough, but he didn’t want to shoot it anymore.

During everyone else’s turn on the shooting line, Calfgrit7 spent more time playing and drawing in the dirt behind us, than watching our sport. I take that as a good thing — it shows that he’s not afraid of guns, and he doesn’t have a potentially dangerous fascination with them. Even though I don’t have any firearms out in our home (there’re stored away in the attic, without any ammunition) I want him aware and smart about guns.

It’s just like he can play in the kitchen while we cut with sharp knives, and cook with a hot stove. And like he can play in the front yard while cars may pass on the street. He’s not afraid of knives, stoves, or cars, but he understands their danger, and so he’s less likely to be harmed by them — because of someone else or through a dangerous curiosity about the “forbidden fruit.”

Bullgrit