Here I Thought I Was Normal: Micro Memoirs of Mischief Read online

  Here I Thought I Was Normal

  Micro Memoirs of Mischief

  By Frank Rocco Satullo

  ZoneFree Publishing

  Dedicat ed to

  Rebecca, Cara and Dominic

  Mom, Dad and Linda

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to all who read these stories as I wrote and shared them privately to be sure that they are indeed not just my memoirs but validated by others. Although these are true stories, many names were changed to protect the innocent from potential embarrassment.

  Special thanks to Rebecca Satullo, Kathleen Satullo, Sandy Satullo, Linda Satullo, Cara Satullo, Dominic Satullo, Mara Cox, Matt Ackerman, Scott Hosier and Michael DeGiuseppe.

  Eric Kaswell (R.I.P.)

  Here I Thought I Was Normal

  Micro Memoirs of Mischief

  Copyright © 2013 by Frank Rocco Satullo

  Published by ZoneFree Publishing in Middletown, Ohio

  ISBN 978-0-9724030-2-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  © Copyright 2013: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, except for excerpts provided by Frank Rocco Satullo for promotion.

  Cover design by Michael A. DeGiuseppe

  Cover photograph by Scott Hosier

  ZoneFree Publishing: 6358 Castle Hill Dr., Suite #210, Middletown, OH 45044

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: The Mischievous Years of Youth

  Chapter 2: Wild Times in High School

  Chapter 3: Being All I Could Be in The United States Army

  Chapter 4: Growing Up But with Relapses of Immaturity

  Chapter 5: A Responsible Family Man – Sort of

  Some Closing Thoughts

  About the Author

  Introduction

  By the time I was in my early twenties, people said I should write a book because I had already experienced more than many people do in a lifetime. Now well past my twenties, I wrote quick reads to share with family and friends about the past. They shared these stories with others and then feedback started leaking back to me by strangers. They enjoyed my stories, even though they didn’t know me, because they identified with much of what I had experienced. In a way, my stories were their stories – mostly. Not only that, they said the micro-reads were wild, funny and touching. Who hasn’t had such moments in life? I will admit, perhaps I have had more adventures than the norm and some crossed the lines beyond others’ comfort.

  CHAPTER 1:

  THE MISCHIEVOUS YEARS OF YOUTH

  Hand Caught in the Cookie Jar

  My life of mischief began in a sandbox with a friend, Eddie. At least it’s the first adventure I can remember.

  It was an early summer morning and we wanted cookies but my mom said, “No.”

  I knew of another friend, Kyle, down the street and his mom always had a full cookie jar in her kitchen. So Eddie and I were off to get our fix even though I knew Kyle was at his dad’s.

  The house was locked and nobody was awake so we did the natural thing and slid through the doggy door. We were little tykes so we staggered the kitchen counter drawers to use as climbing steps.

  I was on the counter, hand in the cookie jar, when Ms. E. appeared as a silhouette down the hall leading to the kitchen, “Rocky, is that you?”

  My middle name is Rocco. I was named after a saint.

  Ms. E. rubbed her eyes in utter disbelief as if she were still dreaming. The next thing she saw was two tiny butts squeezing through that doggy door, simultaneously.

  Minutes later my mom stepped outside to see us in my sandbox and asked, dumbfounded, “Were you in Ms. E’s house just now?”

  Tasting chocolate chip on the corner of my mouth, I licked it and then said, “No.”

  Taking Candy from a Stranger

  It was a very unusual day “down at the house,” which is how everyone referred to my grandparents’ place in Cleveland. If it were Sunday, there would be about 20 people there. But this was Saturday.

  Grandpa must have been taking a nap because he and his vicious poodle were nowhere to be found. Grandma was where she always was, the kitchen. My parents set me up with my Batman and Robin coloring book in the living room and said they’d be back. If I needed anything, let Grandma know.

  I kissed them goodbye, opened my book and colored. I got lost in what I was doing and never heard the strangers come inside. When I heard my name, I turned to look. I had been on my knees using the couch as a table to hold my coloring book.

  “They’re going to take you out for some candy,” Grandma said, calmly.

  I panicked. Scared stiff, fear consumed my entire body. Who were these people? I don’t ever recall seeing them.

  “Don’t worry, this is your uncle,” Grandma said, noticing my hesitation.

  My dad came from a family of eleven. This was a younger brother of his. Maybe this sibling had been away or maybe he was busy doing other things or maybe I just never noticed him before. The big ole house could get pretty crowded and I’d be out playing with my cousins most of the time.

  I wanted to cry for help, but instead went quietly with my captors.

  My dad and his brothers and sisters grew up in two eras – the greasers listening to Motown and the long-haired freaky people who didn’t listen to Motown. This was the early 1970’s and this uncle character looked an awful lot like a guy they had statues and pictures of all over my church. He and his lady friend were all smiles, trying to make me feel comfortable. I wasn’t.

  They put me in the enormous backseat of their car. My feet only came to the edge of the seat I was sitting on. I didn’t have to wear a seatbelt so I positioned myself in the middle so I could see the windshield between the front seats. I never said a word. Try as they might to get me to say something – anything, I wasn’t talking. I just stared at them. I think it made them uncomfortable.

  Better than candy, they thought, was ice-cream. That was sure to win me over. But I just ate mine and never even said thank you. They looked unhappy. This was not how they had planned for it to go, I could tell.

  They took me back to Grandma.

  I walked in, past Grandma and went straight to my coloring book and resumed a position as if I had never budged from the couch. I did not turn around again until my parents got me.

  On the drive home, I broke a silent spell by saying, “I took candy from strangers today.”

  Runaway

  Three houses down; that was the length of my leash on a bicycle.

  I was a beginner and loving the freedom my new wheels gave me. Our street didn’t have sidewalks, at least not down by my house. Still, it was safe.

  The third house was approaching. I was on the edge of the road traveling opposite traffic. A car was coming from behind me as I turned into the middle of the road. I was startled when the driver beeped at me. Not a hello beep but an angry one.

  Back home, I came to a stop against the side steps. This was the only way I could end a bike ride without crashing to stop. We had a long driveway. Mom was outside and I was about to go in for a glass of water when a police car pulled all the way up to the house. This was an incredible sight for me. The officer spoke with my mom and I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. Finally, he approached me. Mom just stood off to the side.

  Mesmerized by the uniform, holster and all, I didn’t pay one bit of attention to a word he said. But I caught the gist. It was a lecture about bicycling safety. I was intimidated to say the least. In my mind,
when you do something wrong and the police come, there’s but one conclusion – jail!

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I squeaked out.

  The officer paused, looked at my mom and she said to be quick.

  I was quick all right. I sprinted to my bedroom, grabbed underwear, a shirt, my favorite stuffed animal (a monkey) and then found a towel in the bathroom in which to wrap it all up. I only had cartoons and kids’ shows as a guide, so in lieu of a stick to tie it to, I improvised and used a yard stick. I slipped out another door and was headed for the woods when my mom saw me.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  When I stopped and turned, the yardstick snapped and my sack flung to the ground.

  Now I really did have to use the bathroom.

  Instead, I had to listen to the rest of the safety lecture and then got the bonus lecture on running away. It all seemed so threatening to me. As the black and white pulled out of the driveway, I remember being very surprised that I wasn’t in cuffs in the backseat.

  After my bust I felt on the lam, always looking over my shoulder.

  Brownies

  I looked up from my chair, which was attached to my desk, and wondered if I had heard my teacher correctly.

  Yep! She said it again – “…brownies!”

  I put my pencil down from doodling on the desktop and refocused on the classroom.

  “…So if you want to stay after school tomorrow for brownies, you’ll need a note from your parents,” she concluded at the bell.

  When I got home, I promptly remembered to relay the information to my mom. She didn’t bat an eye, wrote a quick note and tucked it inside my folder for tomorrow.

  At the end of the next day, my mouth was watering. I gazed at the clock three times and all three times the long minute hand didn’t budge. One minute to go and it seemed to take an hour.

  Then, finally, brownie time!

  “If you’re staying after for brownies, line up here,” my teacher directed.

  Bam! I was second in line, eagerly waiting to satisfy my sweet tooth. My focus slowly turned foggy as background noise penetrated my one-track mind. It was laughter.

  “Rocky wants to join the Brownies, Rocky wants to join the Brownies …” was the chant gaining volume around me.

  I looked around. I was the only boy in line. My teacher looked at me with an expression of …unease.

  “Rocky, boys can’t join the Brownies. Brownies are Girl Scouts.”

  Free Money

  Our moms were shopping together at the mall. Eddie and I were tired and didn’t want to go into another store so our moms said we could wait by the fountain. We sat and stared at the water.

  “Look at all that money,” I said.

  “People just give it away so I think, if we wanted, we could just take it,” said Eddie.

  “I don’t know. Something doesn’t sound right about that,” I contemplated the options.

  “It’s just going to sit there forever so why not use it?” Eddie wondered out loud.

  We looked around, rolled up our sleeves and stretched as far as our bodies could go without getting wet. That is, except for the rolled up sleeves pushed way up by our biceps. We raked in some coins, cupped them in our hands to show each other and see who had the bigger score. We smiled, looked around, shrugged and went fishing again. Before long, it just made sense to kick off our shoes, roll up our plaid pants and wade in to get that which we couldn’t reach. Nobody said or did a thing. Granted, it was not crowded. Once we had filled every pocket we had, we put our shoes back on and stood looking at each other.

  Instinct kicked in and we decided to flee the scene and fetch our moms. We casually squeaked away. Standing in the doorway of the last store we knew they had entered, we got on tippy toes and looked but could not find them. When we turned to exit, a security guard was in our way.

  “Boys, boys, boys, what are we going to do here?” the guard said with what was a straight face. Although something seemed off, like he wanted to smile but couldn’t.

  “We didn’t do anything, sir, except take some of that free money out of the fountain,” I said.

  “Oh, is that all?” he said back, looking down at our clothes.

  Water was dripping from our saturated pants’ pockets that bulged with our wet money.

  “That’s considered stealing. The mall owns that. You’ll have to put it back,” the guard continued.

  So, we left a puddle where we had been standing and a trail of water across the hard mall floor back to the fountain. Later, maintenance was on the scene drying our path.

  Instead of dumping the money back into the fountain, we tossed one coin at a time, making wishes.

  About ten minutes later, our moms showed up, suspiciously looking at us and looking around.

  Slowly and uncertainly, they mouthed the words, “Why are you so wet? And where did you get all of those coins?”

  The Gift That Took

  There was one gift I couldn’t wait to play with after my birthday party. It was the metal tool box with real tools inside, albeit kid-size.

  I opened the latch and lifted the lid to a world of possibility. I thought to myself, which tool should I use first?

  Dad always had projects going on but he wasn’t home. He worked half days on Saturdays. It sure would be nice to work next to the old man on something but I was too impatient to wait for him. I pulled out the hand saw. It was the largest thing in my new tool kit. I ran my finger along the saw blade to see how sharp it was. It pricked so I quickly pulled my finger away thinking I drew blood but I didn’t. Holding the saw up, I examined it while thinking of what I could cut with it.

  I went to our driveway next to our house and looked high into a majestic oak tree. The trees in our neighborhood towered over the houses. I walked back inside where Mom was still cleaning up from my party.

  “Can I cut down a tree?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be but figured it was worth a try.

  “Oh sure honey, have fun,” Mom said to my amazement.

  She knew me better than I knew myself. She knew what I had in mind and she was right. I went straight to the majestic oak tree and started ripping that saw blade across the thick, rough bark. My leverage was wrong so I abandoned the slight scrape – hardly even a groove – that I had started with 20 or more forward and backward motions. I took off my shirt like a real man, dabbed the sweat off my dripping face and went at it again, but lower this time. I kept at it, alternating my arms until both felt like they’d fall off.

  Sitting against the tree trunk, defeated, I looked across the driveway at our house. I rationalized, if I get this sucker down, it might crush our home. I couldn’t risk it.

  I went inside and asked for lemonade. Mom mixed me up some, fresh.

  “How’s the tree coming along?” she asked.

  Chugging the entire cup down in one, long, pulsating gulp, I tossed the empty into the sink and said, “Fine.”

  The cup was still rattling around the metal sink bottom when I hit the door. I was refreshed and ready to conquer.

  This time, I picked on something more my size – the crabapple tree I remembered Dad planting a year or so earlier. I could have gone for the younger, flowering tree he planted just that spring but the older tree posed more of a challenge and, therefore, would be more of a triumph when I toppled it. Anyway, it met my new criteria of being tall enough to be worthy but not too thick to saw through it.

  I cleaned the caked saw dust from my new saw blade with one of the old rags Dad kept in the garage. When the saw shined new again, I tossed the rag inside my tool kit just like I had seen my Dad do. Then I went to work.

  Oh I felt good! I felt real good. I was cutting through this trunk with ease. The smell of victory burned each time I sawed into the wood. I gained strength and rhythm. As I neared the halfway point, a grin spread across my determined little face, ear-to-ear, anticipating…

  “OH MY GOD! ROCKY! STOP!”

  Mom fl
ew from the front steps into the yard, screaming hysterically.

  I dropped my saw and stepped back, “You said I could, you said I could, you said I could…”

  The Gift of Not Receiving

  It was a spring party at my grandparents’ house in Cleveland’s West Park area. This was my mom’s side of the family.