December 8, 2023:

There's a vending machine next to the northern doors. A friend is deciding what to buy. It's 1969: "Come Together" is playing on someone's transistor radio.

Outside those doors an evil little boy's hard rock older brother threatens to kick my ass. I've been hearing that expression for four years now but still find it hilarious, with its inevitable mental image of some kid jumping up and down on one foot aiming blows with the other, like the Black Knight in Monty Python.

Fast forward to 1978 or 79. I lock my bike in the racks beside the western doors, if I've wanted a bike ride. Elsewise I just walk. To sit in the café or in a booth near the lanes, with french fries and a shake and Papermate Flairs and volumes of Louis Althusser.

RIP Clairemont Bowl.

December 7, 2023:

"The smart one and the pretty one," said Miss Nebraska Let's Make a Deal 1969 to her first and second born. Which they quite rightly heard as "the stupid one and the ugly one," logic being always ultimately invincibly transitive.

Toxicity and narcissism begin at home.

December 6, 2023:

I loved the roller derby.

This was the 1960s version, skated on banked tracks far larger than the small ovals today. The banks and long straightaways allowed speed and drama not possible now. Of course, the games were rigged, which as a child I didn't understand. Only that the Thunderbirds (home team) were the good guys, the visitors skated dirty, and Ralphie Valladeres was a hero.

Home from grammar school, T-Birds on TV, the great malingerer, faking illness, to escape.