Chronicles: Alan B. Rowley II - Success Warrior - ECoach - P90X

This is not natural

The story that I promised to Cherise - Episode IV

CV Rick and I lived in Phoenix the winter after we got out of high school.  I don’t know why we went down there and we only stayed one winter before returning north.  He went into the Air Force and I went to college when we returned.  It was a fun winter and we had a bit of game going during part of the time we were there.

Let me say right up front that it was a stupid game but we were teenagers and prone to doing silly things.  I was only 17 so any blame for this idiocy should probably be placed on Rick who was 18 and should have known better (being the more mature . . . I typed that with a straight face).  I could have probably filed charges for contributing to the delinquency of a minor but he did pay half the rent.  This game was one of the least dangerous games that we played and so I will tell you about it now without shame.  I can do that because although I took part in this bit of silliness, this story is really about Rick.

We bought our butter or margarine or whatever generic imitation butter flavor spread we used in those big plastic tubs.  We didn’t go so far as some bachelors and wash out the empty ones to use as cereal bowls but that’s probably because we didn’t eat cereal.  We had friends in the complex who didn’t buy dishes because they reused all kinds of weird things like this.  You might be surprised to find out what passes as a plate in a bachelor apartment.

I don’t know how the game started.  I don’t know who started the game.  I don’t know how this kind of bizarre thinking even takes place.  As far as young guys out on their own working construction in Phoenix Arizona, we were pretty sober.  Neither of us drank or did drugs.  We didn’t even drink carbonated drinks.  We drank mostly water and every once in a while, Flav-R-Aid, which was some kind of super cheap Kool-Aid knock off.  We didn’t drink that very often because it wasn’t very good.

Sober obviously doesn’t mean “not silly” is the only thing I can add to this disclaimer before going into this story.

Here’s how the game went.  It wasn’t so much of a game but more of a contest.  After having some toast for breakfast, the lid was placed back on the margarine tub.  The contestants (me and Rick) had two options at this point.  We could go for distance or we could go for height.  One player would strike the edge of the margarine tub trying to get the proper effect.

Now, it does seem a bit odd to say this now, but there is a definite art to how you strike the tub depending on whether you are going for distance or height.  As a side bet, we also counted the number of rotations that the tub made on its flights.  Distance was most often the contest (because it’s less technical in nature and again, I admit that it’s odd to talk about the technicality of striking a butter tub but anyway . . .) and it started with a simple challenge of trying to jump the stove.  When we had both become masters (masters of butter flipping?  What the hell . . .) of this move, the tub was moved back further from the stove but we still had to make it across the stove.

A couple of smacks each, a victor for the day was declared, and we were off to work.

Winter in Phoenix isn’t really "winter" as many of us know it.  We arrived in Phoenix in September and stayed with some family friends.  They had an outside pool (common down there) but they wouldn’t swim in it because it was too cold.  It was only getting up to 105 degrees in the day time. Prior to moving down there, I had spent two years in London and Rick had spent 3 years in Idaho.  We were melting and jumped (literally) at the chance to get in the water.

As winter went along, the weather did cool off to where it would get into the 30s at night but in the day it was still up into the 70s or 80s.  We tried out the pool at our apartment complex a couple of times but the water really was too cold because it wasn’t heated.  We didn’t swim in it that much because it didn’t warm up enough during the day to compensate for how cool it got at night.  Some of you may remember that lesson from Physics class.  I remember it from a winter spent in Phoenix.

We had a basketball court at the end of the parking lot of our apartment complex.  Rick always loved basketball.  I was into soccer.  An odd twist occurred many years later when Rick was in Oklahoma and I was in Utah.  We were talking on the phone catching up on events and told each other about the sports leagues we were in.  I was playing on a city basketball team and he was playing indoor soccer.  When we were in Phoenix, he was still trying to convert me to basketball.  I was able to kick the basketball into the hoop but Rick assured me that this was generally frowned upon in an actual game.  In my defense, I think it’s harder to do that than throwing the ball into the hoop.

We also tried our hand at three-wall racketball, which quite frankly, sucks (Rick, can I get an Amen?).  No offense to three-wallers out there but after being used to using four walls and a ceiling, the game was too different and we only played a couple of times.  The final straw came when I slipped in a small puddle of water and smacked my knee against the concrete hard enough that I limped for weeks.

But I digress.

Back to the winter Olympic sport of butter flipping.

(to be continued . . .)