The Life of Brian

1986 

No fires, no injuries, no problems.  Nineteen eighty-six would start out as a good year in my little world.  I would continue my education to resist alcohol and drugs.  My Teacher at Topa Topa was Mrs. Lessing.  My favorite topic in school was Heads up Seven up.  Quite the fun game once you figured out how to cheat.  If you held your head just right, you could peek out of the opening just below your elbow.  All you needed was to see the shoes and you were golden.  My teacher actually caught on to this eventually.  When the "picked" kids stood up and she saw them immediately look at the shoes of the "pickers", she knew something was up.  Smart teacher that one was.  I would get into a teeny bit of trouble in sixth grade.  Must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed one morning.  As my class lined up to go to lunch, I decided I wanted to be line leader that day.  The kid who was already in the front of the line didn't take kindly to me stepping in front of him.  Some pushing ensued and of course the one who pushes last, gets caught.  Not only did I push last, but I also ended up last in line, and got a mouthful from Mrs. Lessing.  The look on her face was one of shock.  Why?  Because I was actually a very good kid.  That's the only trouble I'd cause in my tenure at Topa Topa.  The only trouble I got caught at anyways!  

January of that year, a tragic event in the outside world would occur.  The Space Shuttle Challenger would blow up in midflight.  One of the crewmembers was a high school teacher by the name of Christa McAuliffe.  The mission of this flight was to deliver a communications satellite that would study Haley's Comet.  At 46,000 feet the shuttle suffered a massive explosion and everyone on board was killed.  The launch was aired live in many schools and hundreds of thousands of kids saw it occur in real time.  I do not remember watching it.  For some reason we were out at recess when it happened.  When recess was over, we were all lined up and told of the unfortunate events.  Honestly, it didn't affect me in any way.   I did not know those people and remember thinking to myself that space flight was inherently dangerous.  Tether ball, and basketball were still my favorite games to play.  I very rarely played handball anymore.

 Interestingly, somehow, I got introduced to lead in sand.  Some kid had brought a magnet to school and used it to drag through the sand pulling out the black metal stuff.  He and I would collect lots of it.  Don't ask me what we did with it!  Most likely, it probably ended up in my parents' carpet.  I would graduate this year.  Not before busting my head open, again.  The first time at the age of 6, I tried to fly.  My parents steel frame bed stopped me quite nicely.  This time, I slipped off a rock in the creek by my house in the mountains.  The fall was about four feet.  Problem was I had a lizard in my left hand and a lizard catcher in the other.  Now a normal kid would have tossed both and used their hands to break their fall.  I was not normal, I held on to both and instead used my head to stop my fall.  Do you see a pattern here!  My forehead would land on a rock in the creek bed causing a fairly nice cut above my eye.  The walk back to my house was probably roughly a quarter mile.  As I came down the driveway, blood running from the wound above my eye, my oldest sister Angela was out front washing her car.  I asked her to get me a washcloth, to which she replied, " I'm busy, get it yourself".  To this day she swears she did not see my injury.  It's ok.  I survived.    I would have a bandage on my head up to graduation from this event.  The picture above is my class photo.

Our bus drivers would change quite frequently during the first two years of moving up the canyon.  One of them comes to mind.  He was a big burly dude, with tattoos.  He also wore big rings on multiple fingers.  When he drove, we had the quietest bus in the district!  We were all afraid of that guy.  Truthfully, he was probably a very nice man.  All that sprinting for the kid Olympics would pay off.  Our driveway was fairly long and getting ready for school was always annoying.  If we heard the airbrakes from the bus while we were still in the house, the race was on. I do remember missing the bus at least once.  I think Angela had to drive us to school.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.  My life living in our new house across from the campground was a dreamworld.  I could hike, ride my bike around the nature trail and the campground, and go fishing just about every day.  Hiking was not done on any trails; I would hike through brush in various locations.  On one particular hike, while descending down a hill, I would find a small piece of Indian pottery.  My parents thought it might have been used for water, or maybe even food. Whatever it was used for, I still have it somewhere.  Hiking in the area was really quite easy after the Wheeler Fire.  It only took a couple of years for the brush to grow back, however.  After that, it was impossible to walk through some areas that saw significant re-growth.  I'd hike up the canyon behind our house with my sister.  We actually found crystals up there one year.  I've always wanted to go back up there and look again but have yet to do so.  Came across a number of rattlesnakes while living in that house.  Most of them were discovered by our cats.  We'd hear the sound of water running only to walk outside and find one of our cats just sitting there, looking at a coiled-up rattlesnake, with its tail buzzing away.  Using my BB gun, I'd dispatch most of them.  After about fifty rounds to the head and body, the snakes would finally pass out.  Heeding my dad's warnings, I'd always cut the heads off with a shovel so as not to get bitten by a dead snake still capable of biting due to nerves.  One day, I would get my dad's 12 gauge shotgun out of the safe and use it to kill a snake.  The only rounds my dad had were double ought buckshot.  It only took one round to end that snake's life and gave me a valuable lesson on how to tightly hold a shotgun while firing it!  My lip was only swollen for half the day.  The 00 buck round completely split that snake apart!

As mentioned before, my friendship with David would end after sixth grade.  He and I both would acquire different friends.  Our family also stopped doing things with the Nettles.  Not sure why, but when you move, even if it's twenty minutes away, you tend to stop doing as much with the people who lived really close by.  I would have other friends.  For the most part though, I would do a lot of things on my own.  Once the bus dropped me off at home, there was no way for me to go anywhere.  Both my parents worked full time.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing.  Doing things by myself never bothered me.  I spent most of my free time outside.  Within the first few years of living up the canyon, I had the entire campground memorized.  Even the creek that ran down the middle of it.  I could walk up and down that creek at night with very little lighting to guide my way.  One evening, after my dad had rehydrated sufficiently enough, I somehow was able to talk him in to giving us kids each a hundred dollars!  He claimed to not remember the promise from the night before, but my mom had overheard it as well and held him to it.  In those days, a hundred dollars was very good money.  Of the things I purchased with this money, a calculator watch was by far the coolest thing I bought.  There were some jealous kids at school when I showed up wearing it.  For all you gen Z ers out there, when I say calculator watch, I mean a watch that actually had a keypad calculator below the screen.  lol. 

Our annual trip to New Mexico would occur over Christmas break this year.  This trip stands out vividly in my mind.  We always drove on our trips.  Our family did not ever fly anywhere.  In fact, my first plane ride would happen as a young adult for my honeymoon at the age of 20.  This trip to New Mexico could have easily been my last trip ever.  As we tootled along at sixty miles an hour through the high desert.  We came up to a bridge that had iced over.  There was a car coming at us in the opposite lane at probably the same speed.  When this car got on to the iced over bridge, the driver lost control.  Sliding almost sideways on the bridge. We had nowhere to go.  Impact seemed un-avoidable!  My dad and I were the only ones awake if I recall.  His eyes, my eyes, the driver of the other vehicles eyes, and their passengers' eyes were as wide as a full moon.  Then, at the last second, the other vehicle regained control and straightened out resuming travel in their own lane.  This was very close to being a head on collision.  We probably would have killed the driver of the on-coming car.  But all was avoided.  Maybe a higher power was watching over us?  Maybe it was just good luck?  There was no screaming involved between my dad and me.  We just kept on trucking down the road, humming to Alabama's Dixie Land Delight.  We'd spend that night in Williams Arizona.  The snow was a couple of feet deep in town.  At our luxury Motel Six, there were icicles about a foot long hanging from the eves.  That night we would all awaken to the sounds of two people apparently in an argument over how long those icicles really were!  lol.  The police would eventually show up and they either ended the argument by measuring the icicles, or possibly took one of the participants to jail.  No, it wasn't really an argument over icicles.  Definitely a domestic dispute. These family road trips were awesome.  I loved every minute of them and to this day prefer to drive when we go on trips.  You definitely see some cool little towns when traveling by car.  I have a few more good stories to tell about these road trips so make sure to keep coming back.

Home prices in 86 averaged around $111,900.00.  New cars averaged around $10,500.00.  This price was 6.2 % higher than 1985.  Today, in 2024, car prices are triple that amount.  Minimum wage was still close to $3.59 an hour.  Gasoline was 93 cents a gallon.  A dozen eggs were 87 cents.  Gallon of milk, $2.22.  World population was 240 million, Reagan was President.  The unemployment rate was at 7.2%.  Inflation at 1.9%.

On the big screen movies such as The Color of Money, Out of Bounds, and Where Are the Children were popular.  Comedies included Little Shop of Horrors, and Tough Guys.  I think the only one of those I've seen is Little Shop of Horrors.  Do any of you remember the movie with Willie Nelson called, Red Headed Stranger?  One of my favorite books of all time was published in 86.  Hatchet by Gary Paulson.  Just a couple of years ago, I bought the entire series of these books.  Hatchet is by far the best.

The longest running number one song of 86 belonged to Dionne," That's What Friends Are for".  I'm almost certain this song was played at my graduation!  The Bangles sang "Walk Like an Egyptian".  Whitney Houston would debut her hit," How Will I Know".  One of my favorite songs was by Peter Gabriel, "Sledgehammer".  Another of my favorites, Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors".

On T.V.  My family was hooked on The Greatest American Hero.  Come on, you know the opening tune... "Believe it or not, I'm walking on air, I never thought I could feel so free".  Why we were so enamored by a dorky curly blonde-haired fella in a tight suit, I'll never know.  Ok, Ok.  this show actually aired in 1981 and ran up until 1983.  Matlock, La Law, and Alf all debuted in 86.  Remember Perfect Strangers?  That was a good one too.

What were you doing in 86?  I was loving life for sure.  Although I played team sports at our local rec center, next year, in 87, would be my first year belonging to a school team.  By eleven years old, I was already sporting two pretty good scars over my left eyebrow.  I had not broken any bones yet.  Life was good.  Bring on 1987.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

-Ronal Reagan 1986 News Conference