My Mom was 18 when she married Dad. He was 20. As my Mom put it, "we went from children to playing adults. We had hardly dated anyone..except each other, never lived on our own or had supported ourselves. We had no education, had little job experience, had no money or life experiences to draw upon. We made terrible choices, big mistakes and did bad things to each other and ourselves." But despite that, they loved each other very much and ended up making a good life together.
Today's TALE FROM THE ORANGE ROOM took place when I was in high school and living in THE ORANGE ROOM. My Mom was probably born 10 years too early. She loved Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and loved to socialize. Party Till You Puke was the Mantra of the day! In fact, during the mid 70's, as I was going through high school, My Mom and her friends had some of the craziest parties I've ever seen. Streaking? Oh yeah, I saw that! I had a friend over one night and we both witnessed my Dad's best friend run down our street in mid February naked as a Jay bird waving his whity tighties in his hand and yelling, STREAK....STREAK!!!! as every neighbor's outside light came on in perfect synchronization to his naked journey down the snow filled road.
On another evening, I came home from a Limestone football game and was met by a woman in her late 20's in pink hot pants at the door. She asked if I was Bev and Jims son and then before I knew it, wrapped her leg around mine and pulled me into her web. I hadn't even got my coat off before we were dry humping against my parents front door. A complete stranger. WOW!!! These parties were fun for a 17 year old!!! Another time, I came downstairs after being out and discovered at least 20 couples in BIB OVER ALLS...WITH NOTHING ON UNDERNEATH!!! By that time of my life, it was just another party at the Peacock house.
At school, I'd tell my friend of the previous weekend and many did not believe me. So one night before a football game, I asked my Mom if I could bring a couple guys over after the game. My parents were hosting a party that weekend and I told her not to disappoint me. Don't be boring for goodness sake!!!! That would make me look like a liar. So about 10:30, I rounded up two of my friends and had them follow me home. We could see from the front window that they were sitting at the kitchen table. OH NO!!! HOW BORING!!! I was going to look like a DOOFUS!!!! I was exaggerating after all!
As we came onto the porch, things began to happen. My buddies weren't sure what to expect as we entered the front door into our living room. Before we took our coats off, the lights were dimmed and 8 - 10 people sat around the round kitchen table with several lit candles. As our eyes adjusted to the dark, we could see they were all wearing paper napkins on their heads and began reading from several bibles in unison!!! As we walked closer, we could see a Winnie The Pooh board game opened on the table and obviously in between dice rolls. WHAT???
My friends faces were frozen in between shock and amazement. We soon noticed that everyone was wearing tee shirts with various sayings like PARTY TILL YOU PUKE and I WAS AT MA'S. Funnier still, everyone had JELLY BEANS attached to their tee shirts like NIPPLES. Some green, some red but one lady had two brown ones. To our amazement, her husband reached over and PINCHED hers.....and it became evident that her nipples were REAL!!!! Two holes had been cut out of the shirt and her real nipples were poking out like two Army Generals
at attention!!!
It was the greatest entrance we had ever seen and my friends talked about that night for years. Things like that just didn't happen at their houses. We retired to the ORANGE ROOM and put on a record....laughing the rest of the night!!!
コメント