YEAR TWELVE: I was given a vaccination against public schools. Swell inoculation, as public schools, in the St. Louis region at least, gave me welts.

Out of grandmatriarchal pressure, we started going to Bethel Lutheran church a couple years prior to my twelfth year. Ma's mother gagged on her own chin when I couldn't recite the lord's prayer on command one summer. Even more aghast that I'd rather memorise dirty limericks and playground songs with diarhea themes than the ten commandments. That is still the case today by the way.

Bethel had gone through a hippie revival that was popular with American christianity for a stint in the early Seventies. Much to the dismay of cane weilding ancient practitioners who beat their genitals useless with heavy hardback catechisms every day after breakfast.

The whole, god and being wrestled out of my cozy bed every Sunday morning to worship and feed money to him thing, made me wanna flush the weekly event. Bethel, being bent slightly liberal had some decent points. Sis and I were allowed to do regular shows with puppets that we made with Pop. I even directed and performed heavily in a sketch comedy show one night on the church's basement cafeteria stage. Did Flight Of The Bumblebee by spastically shaking my head back and forth and vibrating the tones through my flapping lips. A serious benchmark in my entertainment career.

I became an altar boy during the twelfth year. Demeaning overcooked vegetable feeling. Few perks though. First, scoring remnants of communion host wine. A foul grape, but firewater none the less. Second, the cool candle gadgets. Part of the altar boy's tasks was to ceremoniously light and snuff the altar candles. Long golden shafted tools. The snuffer had an air bladder to squeeze and puff out the flames. The lighter had a wick that was pushed out with a thumb button. My favorite part about that was when a candle wouldn't spark after trying for a minute, and then skipping it, a hushed groan throughout the pewed crowd would rustle. Last, the gown. Sure it made me look like a panty waist. But it was made out of a thin silky material that felt awful good on my wandering mind erections. Sitting off to one side during a hymn, mostly hidden behind a pulpit. Girls in their Sunday best dresses unwittingly letting their knees drift. All a twelve year old boy needs to see is cotton and it's off to the erection races.

Bethel had a Kindergarten through Eighth grade school annexed to it. Filled to the rafters with kids imported from the island of misfit toys. Seemed like a perfect place to enroll me in after my tax funded schooling pass was revoked. Not quite as shameful as getting your ghetto pass revoked.

Five years prior I breathed heavy over the first photographic evidence that pussy existed. Year twelve heralded the initiation into breathing heavy over pussy live on stage.

My boy Ant dared this chick, Darlene, into a peep show in the back of class. Christ was she the kind of gal that made your jimmy thicker. No need for Colt45. Light skinned Black girl, looked tastier than Prince dick draining protegees Appolonia and Vanity combined. She had the early curves and butter cream lips. I would have drank a gallon of her bathwater.

I heard in the background Darlene say "show me your's first". Now, I had no inclination what in the conversation had gone down prologue, but that statement was intriguing enough for me to investigate. Next thing I know Ant his showing his tallywacker to Darlene. The scenario came clear to me like a rush of crystal clean spring water. I positioned myself properly. I was priveledged a view of her spicy trinkets as her jeans slid down her wonderful thighs. Pushed her panties out of the way and her amber flower was glistening in all it's naked glory. Sigh.

Been wanting me some of that ever since. Pussy that is.

The desks used in class were old school chemistry lab joints. Had metal divets in them to insert lab experiment rods. We created nets out of paper and masking tape so we could play table top golf with BB gun pellets. The acid resistant stone tops were the perfect material for paper football. Errant folded notebook college ruled triangles occasionally landed on Mr. Belke's ( the teacher ) desk. Getting the point of a paper football embedded in your face during extra point attempts through finger and thumb goal uprights was an acceptable risk.

Started buck-a-bag with the brother duo that lived three houses down from me. Concept started and based on the idea that we charged a buck per trash bag of leaves raked and collected for someone. Even wrote out a "company" philosophy and pricing statement. We did lawn mowing, gutter/eaves cleaning, dead tree branches clearing, weed picking, snow shovelling, car washing and anything else manual migrant labor style for cash. The three of us were easily clearing a hundred bones a week. Sweet deal for a bunch of grubby kids.

Funny enough, often I'd be working on other people's yards so much that I was too exhausted to do any homebase chores. Ma did most of the lawnmower pushing in the family. One Sunday in the twelfth year I was in the backyard sawing down a dead branch that had fallen from one of the oaks, ma was cutting the grass. Deep base grinding noise and bits of fur torpedoed out the sides. A mommy bunny had set up a nest in the ground. Ma gave her a haircut. Left behind a hefty litter of babies.

We built a pen made out of chicken wire and loose lumber. Fed them milk from a bottle till they could chew greens. One day they mutineed and breeched the wall. Chasing half pint bunnies all over the place. Most of them survived, had to keep a diligent watch on the hood cats. Set em free in the woods when they seemed old enough.

It's like that. What?!? And that's the way it is. Huhn! Yeah ninjas, RUN DMC was in full cold cut effect. Fat Boys had the beatbox b-d-d-d-d-d-d stick'em, hah hu hah, stick'em. Herbie Hancock's Rockit. Kraftwerk's Tour De France and Trans Europe Express. Friends, how many other's have them, friends, ones you can depend on, let's be friends. They're playin bas-ket-baaaaaaall, we love that bas-ket-baaaaaall. Plus the freaks come out at night, the freaks come out at night. Breakin was the way to be. Whole lot of fun on raggedy ass cardboard refridgerator boxes.

I do think Rappin Ronnie gave me nightmares. Picturing that wrinkled faced fucker with his shaky senile fingers on the nuke button. Can't be all upswing in the world of white boy's appreciation of Hip-hop.