Tocky's Tales

[Tocky]

You asked for it. You are gonna get it. Not all of it is going to be scintillating literature. Hell, some of it may be rambling boring mess, but you get what you pay for. I figure I have to start at childhood and lessons learned so here goes.

At around three to four I had a nanny. A black nanny named Lara pronounced Lay-rah. Both my parents worked and she lived close. I loved her. We snapped beans together and watched soaps. She made fried peach pies and home made ice cream and told me what a good boy I was. When she arrived in the morning I would run to her arms and be smothered in her love. Almost literally. She was a big woman and she had big love. Big love and shining dark eyes that let me know it.

These days folks wash regular but in those they worked hard and sweated and in winter bathed less. She smelled of wood smoke and bacon grease and always always of that burned copper so very distinctly a mark of black folks. Blacks and whites smell different. It just is. It must be on some genetic level or a function of greater melatonin but whatever it is it is undeniable and I would be able to point it out in a smokey juke joint blindfolded. Like I say, you would never know it these days.

One evening after hugging her goodbye and running to my mom I overheard my parents talking about how I smelled just like her. Great! What a wonderful thing. She was one of my favorite people and I was pleased as punch to smell like her. I proudly told her of it the next day. It never crossed my mind there would be anything wrong with that. I hadn't a clue of the civil rights issues of the day or how some tried to shame blacks with the way they smelled. My parents would never do that but they did make note of it.

I could not figure out what had gone wrong. The world was alright the day before. Perfect in fact. Now my favorite person was upset and hurt and I couldn't figure out why. There were undercurrents sweeping through that I couldn't grasp. My parents would never call her a name, would never insult or belittle. Nevertheless I knew she was hurt. And every day thereafter I got a bath before my parents came home. I hated that. Not long after spring came and my sisters stayed home and babysat and the next year I was babysat by a woman who made me sit on her couch and not move all day long like some torture. It took a long time to fully understand what had happened.

In my teens I found out she moved to Jackson with her children. I had never even considered she had any. I thought then of how it must be to leave them to babysit a little white boy and how she cried that day. The things she gave up for a meager pay and me. I hoped she understood my parents enough to know there was no slight meant but knew it was a hard time and she likely did not. I wondered if she ever thought of her little white boy who loved her so. I thought of all the stupid misunderstandings and stupid people who find a way to inject themselves and their misguided opinions into the lives of good people they never even meet. I wished I had gotten to tell her the little boy still remembered her and always would.

[Chade]

You know, I didn't seriously expect you to take the suggestion up, but I'm glad you did.

You read about colonialism or civil rights, and it's so easy to forget that this isn't ancient history: it's just a few decades ago. I remember seeing a video of my dad as a young boy growing up in Nigeria, a bunch of white families recreating middle-class England in the middle of Africa, native servants underfoot everywhere, almost invisible to the people who were there at the time but so painfully obvious to modern sensibilities. Thanks for the story!

[scumble]

Fascinating story there Tocky. The innocence of childhood and the barriers adults put up later. I don't want to grow up.

I wish I could get stories of my life to come out like that. My life seems a fragmented mess when I look back on it.

[Tocky]

I don't think I ever did grow up. I don't think anyone ever really does. What we do is get older. When I was a kid I thought there was some magical dividing line where we suddenly became wise. I've been very disabused of that notion.

I'm blessed and cursed with a very good memory. I recall sights and sounds and smells and they trigger other ones and on back it goes. All it has to be is important to me and what has always been most important is people. What is most difficult to do is cull memory down to a point it can be put down coherently. There is too much and I wander wide afield. Within one paragraph I've culled many other stories I've thought of and have to wrangle myself back to just the essentials. I may think of a flower print dress and it goes on to become my grandmothers basket of fabric squares or her hands as she sewed them into a quilt on a frame let down from the ceiling when all I wanted to do was recall the way that print dress looked stretched across the hip of a beloved woman making biscuits.

We all have the most amazing stories if we can just dredge them up and cull them down. I fully believe that. One of my favorite times as a kid was when storms drove us into a shelter on my Aunt and uncles farm nearby. All the locals, many of them family, would crowd inside and without TV or any distraction just talk about things past. I once called this place my storm shelter. I often wander in drunk on a weekend and still make it so.

I feel so grateful to have lived my life with all the wonderful folks in it. It feels so much as if I should have learned something but it eludes me and this is just another way to chase it.

[Starker]

Life was very different on the other side of the curtain. Our parents would just leave us home alone if it was for a day or two or drop us off at our grandparents or aunts or uncles otherwise. I remember one of my professors from America talking about how they cleaned their own toilet, as it would be too weird to let the cleaning lady do it, and being strangely proud about it. Well, we would never have a stranger come in our home to do the cleaning or to look after the children.

[Craeftig]

Is this the leaked plotline to Get Out 2?

[Tocky]

There really aren't any strangers in a small community. When I went trick or treating anywhere I went and no matter where I went was someone I knew. I would like to hear your stories of life behind the curtain Starker. It would be a peek into another world. I would appreciate it not being some east west contest or even comparison but more of a straight experience sort of thing.

Part of the reason I wasn't left with a grandparent all day every day was they were so old and young children are tiring. The aunts and uncles are often working as well or a distance away too far. Part of it too was that Lara needed the money and it suited both purposes. There are always a hundred things that go into any decision and nearly all of them are positive.

This is the only response of this kind I'm going to make. This thread is for stories. Straight out personal stories. Yours. Mine. No judgement laden crap or I will have the admin wipe it. So although I've yet to see Get Out I will certainly say it. And you will be. If not then I will be. This is MY story thread. I was urged to write it. You may of course post your own stories and I would love to read them. What I will not have are snide comments from the peanut gallery (about my stories or yours) and it turn into a shit fest. Such things are a vexation to the spirit and certainly to the intent of the thread. An honest story from YOU, from YOUR perspective, about YOUR life. Can you do it?

[Starker]

No worries. No more comments from me. This is your thread about your life and it was rude of me to post in it.

[PigLick]

I dont think Tocky was talking about you Starker.
One story I would like to hear Tocky relate is how he came to TTLG forums in the first place. I understand you arent really a gamer as such, and pretty much everyone here found this place through love of TTLG games, then stayed because its awesome.

[Tocky]

Sigh. I just want stories. I thought perhaps folks had read the thread this came from- http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148428 - and could go with that. And no, the last paragraph was not about you, Starker. I seriously would like to hear your stories. I mean that. What I don't mean is any offense. And I warned others about about posting offensive things about any story of mine or yours or anyone's. Any comments I insist be encouraging or informative in order to spur others forward with their stories. That I say not for you but for everyone.

[Tocky]

I had wanted to go forward in time without too much skipping, Pig, but okay.

I do game but only on computer. When my daughter was 15 I got her a computer for Christmas and pretty much ignored it for years. Then I thought it might be fun to get her some games and like any big kid I wound up playing them myself. Thief in particular was interesting. Even the box was triangular compared to everything else. I had played Omicron and enjoyed it very much being a Bowie fan so I loaded this one.

I spent way too much time sneaking down alleys and bludgeoning guards like all of you. One mission had me baffled. Messenger. I followed the guy keeping well back and missed the point he threw the letter on the ground after turning a corner. I snuck all around that courtyard. I laid waste to everyone. Not a soul awake and I couldn't figure what the devil the game wanted me to do. I managed to follow him all the way down the next alley to the point the game just ended to let me know I had failed.

Well maybe the computer itself could help me find out. I had never looked anything up before. Did not know what Google was and didn't use it this time but found this place none the less. The solution was so obvious once it was simply pointed out he had dropped the letter. This was around the time of 9-11 and I wondered what folks around the world thought of it. Some of the responses left me floored at the vitriol but there were enough fully reasoned and well thought out responses to teach me many things. I like intelligent (though I quite often come from an emotional perspective) conversation so I stayed. Soon after I discovered I liked many of the people too. It was a window to the world.

Anyway that's it. I miss many who no longer drop in. I don't much understand that. I understand not dropping by so often, as life is busy and varied, but to never come back is like cutting out a section of your friends and never seeing them or speaking again. I frequent other forums now and facebook but this is still top of my browser and I will always stop by. I never let go unless I see I'm hurting someone.

[Tocky]

Back to vanity press. Hopefully I can save all these and print them out for my deathbook left among all the amazing array of memorabilia I've collected so my kids can stumble on it the way I did my dads book.

Violence. I don't like it. Who does? Assholes that's who. How do you deal with assholes? Dad was worried I was too "tender hearted". I found a string of bullfrog eggs and raised one egg from tadpole to frog and let him go in a pond next to the house. I was always doing things like that. I raised a baby robin too but that is another story entire. When he bought me a BB gun to help me keep up with my cousin who hunted I mostly plinked at cans. One day I got the nerve to shoot a red bird. I actually never thought I would hit it but I've learned since I'm a very good shot. I cried. It was the most horrible thing to watch it die and know I did it. Never again would it sing and I was responsible. My chest hurt from the knowledge. Oh I got used to hunting and never lost my dead eye aim but for a long time I was "tender hearted". You need to be tougher when you are country and Dad worried.

In first grade there was this kid named Sammy. Everybody knew he wasn't quite right. Cliche' special right down to the hurr hurr. One day he was playing with a kid at the heavy wooden door and got his finger smashed in it. Shut right on it bursting through the nail and bleeding like crazy. The teacher had gone down the hall for something and everyone was just staring. Sammy was wailing. Snot streaming wailing. I got the idea to take him to the sink at the back and run cold water on it. He was still snuffling and wailing but now he was looking to me to make it better and I felt obligated. The cool water did seem to slow the snuffles. I wrapped it in a wet paper towel and he looked at me with the kindest eyes until he began to concentrate on the pain and snuffle again.

The teacher arrived, Mrs. Bealer, and took over. The same teacher whose long red nails cut through my shirt to discipline me during the pledge of allegiance leaving little C's of bloody cuts because I held my hand over my head instead of heart was very tender and kind with him. We didn't see him for a day or two but when we did it quickly became obvious he had glommed on to me. I was his new best friend. I sure as hell didn't want to be. It embarrassed me. Who wants a retard always at hand like a puppy ready for a little notice? He had no focus but me after that.

We were let out at recess with the second grade and in that second grade was Robert McCullough. Every day he picked on a different first grader. He looked liked an evil red headed pan. Gleefully he would harass and bully a kid for the whole twenty minutes of recess. You just hoped it wouldn't be you. I was pretty lucky. I hadn't been pushed around or even spoken to by that evil little bastard. But Sammy was. He was a big target. You really couldn't miss the one retarded kid in the whole bunch.

He got Sammy at the swing. I saw it all. He pushed and slapped him. Sammy cried. Long streams of snot streamed to his shirt and his cheeks were red from the blows. The words likely hurt just as much. He was a brutal little bastard. He also had a couple of henchmen to snicker in a me too sneering chorus. I wish I could say I came to his defense. I pussed out. I saw what was happening and pretended I didn't. He kept slapping him for so long. I kept a distance and said nothing for fear I would be next. I died a little then. I just hoped it would never be me.

The next day it was. I was cornered at the monkey bars. I was held against the hard steel and suffered the same as Sammy. There was one difference. Sammy came to my aid. He pushed between us and defended me. The things he said were stupid and dull compared to the intelligent meanness of Robert. He was just as an embarrassment as always in the things he said but he shone. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt his friend. Robert turned on him and at first I was as relieved as the puss I was. But then something happened. He began slapping Sammy again and the snot and tears began to flow. I watched myself step between them this time. It was just something that just had to be.

He was slapping me then and after every slap he would rock back on his heels in laughter. Do you know how something inside you just speaks to you sometimes? It said punch him in the mouth when he rocks forward again. I did. It was a perfect punch and compounded by his forward movement. He was bleeding instantly. And crying. And accusing. And wouldn't you know the same teachers who ignored every damn thing were there to coo over him and his bleating. Oh I hated him. Those beady eyes and elfin features. But I was staring him in the eyes now.

I was feeling pretty good till he started telling me he was going to get me as they led him away. I got two weeks without recess. Sitting inside by myself while he came by the window and banged on it and told me how he was going to beat me when I got out. I have thought and thought but I just cannot recall whether he did eventually beat me. I remember the fear and acceptance of the fact he could beat me but not the actual beating. In the end I don't think it matters. I had turned. The worm had turned. Sammy had done that. For the rest of the year I looked at him in a different light. He was still retarded as hell but he was my friend, my first true friend.

The next year he just wasn't there. We all sort of figured he was sent to a school more fitting for him. I have no idea what happened to him. I hope he is alive today and has had a life worthy of the little man he was.

[scumble]

This was around the time of 9-11 and I wondered what folks around the world thought of it. Some of the responses left me floored at the vitriol but there were enough fully reasoned and well thought out responses to teach me many things.

I actually dropped in to post for the same reason. I'd visited the Circle once or twice for help while playing Thief Gold in 1999 I think, on a University Computer. It popped back into my head when the 9/11 reports came in and I hadn't bothered with any forum previously, and I haven't managed a connection with any other one. I have a habit of dropping out for months but have always come back, and I'm similarly sad that so may who used to turn up have disappeared. There are at least a few who've been posting for 15+ years on and off.

[Tocky]

Chicks, man.

There was a neighbor girl a few years older who took me to her grandparents barn before I was of school age. The sun shone through the slats and the smell of hay was pungent. I recall freckles and her lips. It never occurred to me that to know the things she did she must have been abused until much later in life when things suddenly fall into place. This story is not about her though. And I don't think I'll leave that story for my kids to find anyway.

In second grade there was this brick alcove where the janitor would leave his mops to dry. Romantic right? Well there was also this game many of the girls played where they chased you and if they caught you you had to go with them to the alcove and let them kiss you. I was really good at running and dodging. There was one persistent girl that was really good too and I nearly got caught a few times. Poor girl. I sort of wish now I had let her at least once.

And then there was Tori. Long sandy hair and long legs. She was a bit awkward and gangly but I ran a bit slower for her. Seems she would catch me at least once a day. Do you like me? Check yes or no. Yes. My first girlfriend. We held hands on the way to the bus until someone would make fun and we would drop them... then reach again when they had passed. We stayed together till third grade when I got her the wrong present for her birthday. I told Dad no girl wants hankies and perfume, they want dolls, but he insisted. Always trust your own instincts.

On my first date with my wife we told our life stories and when I got to this one I told her she better run fast. She was a slow runner too.

I'm likely losing the few who follow this so I'll skip ahead to how I got my second article fifteen in the Air Force next time.

[PigLick]

the one about how you joined ttlg is the best so far, more like that please

[Tocky]

I had always wanted to join TTLG but it hadn't been invented when I was 20 so instead I joined the Air Force. Heh. I can only do that one once.

There was this English girl who I would hang out with on occasion. We met in the NCO club at Upper Heyford, USAF base. A casual thing. I would visit her flat in Oxford or hang out in a pub with her. It was kind of like friends with benefits. I was determined not to be serious with any woman at that period of my life and she seemed to fit the bill. Also she flattered in just the right way and I'm a vain ass. "You're always so cool. It's like James Bond entered every time you step into a room". Who wouldn't eat that shit up?

Anyway I had gotten tonsillitis. Bad. Fever, chills, body ache even, and I was laid up in my dorm. No females allowed in the men's dorm and no men in the women's though I had snuck out of it early in the morn many times. She showed up bringing me home made chicken noodle soup. No idea how she found out I was under the weather. She did make me feel better and I found strength I didn't know I had. We fell asleep in the afterglow and all was right with the world.

The next morning the senior master sergeant burst through the door. We both sat up, her boobs a bouncing. He took one look and said "I didn't see anything" and closed the door. Bless him he was trying to give us a moment to stash her but we were still sleep addled and there was no time anyway. In comes the wing commander, the full bird colonel, the guy who never comes to our dinky base. He was steaming. "What's this girl doing here?" I'm saluting like an idiot and tell him I'm sick. "I brought soup" she says helpfully, never bothering to cover her bare breasts.

I was bad at being Air Force. I was a good medic but I was never serious enough about all the fold your underwear in six inch squares and never get in trouble stuff. I was hauled down to the SP station with her and on the way I was apologizing and telling her it never occurred to me there was a big wig inspection and I felt terrible for her. For me it was just an ongoing thing but it was a hell of a lot like being arrested for her. And yay fifty pages of forms in triplicate for us to fill out once we get there. She still continued to see me even after that. She was pretty damn cool her damn self.

That was my second article fifteen. It's like a demerit where they take some pay and if you get three they take a stripe.

Yes I got three. Anybody want to hear about the others?

[scumble]

Carry on, although I'm starting to feel I haven't lived yet...

[SubJeff]

I remember seeing a video of my dad as a young boy growing up in Nigeria, a bunch of white families recreating middle-class England in the middle of Africa, native servants underfoot everywhere, almost invisible to the people who were there at the time but so painfully obvious to modern sensibilities. Thanks for the story!

This was us. I grew up in Africa in the 1980s and 90s. We had servants but I wouldn't say they were everywhere. We always had a cook/"houseboy". A houseboy in those days was someone who did the housework, like a cleaner++. They made the beds, peeled the potatoes, did the laundry (and there were no washing machines, this was by hand in the yard on a washer board) and ironing. I didn't make my own bed until I went to boarding school at 11.

Most of the time we had two servants; a houseboy and a gardener. We did have a cook, houseboy and gardener at one point though and, depending on who my father was working for at the time, sometimes a guard at night. One guard we had would sleep all shift, stoned. Now you got to remember that marijuana grows everywhere in Malawi (I'll tell you a story about "Malawi Gold" one time) and people just smoked this really potent smelling leaf. And it was pure leaf, no resin or anything like that. The guard would throw the seeds into a flowerbed and one time I came back home from school and my father proudly showed me the amazing crop we had. But that's for another time.

Our servants became part of the family if we had them for long enough. My best friend when I was 8 was a Malawian kid called Timothy. Timothy's father was head cook at a big school and he went to my school, something that our cook's kids would never have been able to do. Anyway, we used to have Timothy over for dinner and after the second time this was planned our houseboy had an emergency back home. I'll have to explain "back home" another time, but he left for a couple of days. It was weeks until we had Timothy over for dinner again and the next time we invited him our houseboy had the same emergency back home - the same relative had died. He never came back. My mother always thought it was because he felt demeaned having to serve another Malawian.

[Chade]

Keep going, Tocky! If you're not getting many replies it's only because we don't have the history to match. Well, that's my excuse anyway.

That's really interesting SE, funny what hangups people have. ...

[nickie]

I'm busy reading, no time for posting. And you're unleashing truckloads of my own memories some of which I hoped I'd forgotten.

[heywood]

Well there was also this game many of the girls played where they chased you and if they caught you you had to go with them to the alcove and let them kiss you. I was really good at running and dodging....

We didn't quite have that, but there was a kid named Jim who used to frequently challenge me to race him at recess. We were pretty evenly matched. One day, to raise the stakes, he proposed that the loser would have to be kissed by a girl named Tanya. She agreed to it. He lost by a hair, but wanted to call it a tie and race again. We did, and I lost by a hair. My first kiss was a little weird, but I agreed to race him again the next day, and from that day on I would make sure I lost the race by just a little bit.

[Tocky]

That's the only way to lose, heywood. And I'm sure it's not easy to understand all the nuances of culture, SubJeff. You puzzle over some things your entire life. nickie, no bad memories allowed unless they make you smile after the cringe. And Chade, I bet you have plenty of stories if you just think about them.

My first article fifteen requires back story. I'm a stoner. Okay done. No wait. That 70's Show? Something like that if you throw in motorcycles and winning a few smarty pants awards. Anyway we aren't starting in the seventies but boot camp 1980. We were honor flight. Nobody had failed a test or screwed up but in the third week we got a setback. A setback is a guy who washes out of the group before and keeps getting sent back to an earlier group. Basically they are just wanting him to give up and sign ultimate washout papers. He got a bunk next to mine.

Everybody said not to speak to him. He had been caught with a joint in his luggage. Who the hell takes one to boot camp? Still, I had to ask if he had any more. He found it funny. We found we had a lot in common, music, mushrooms, general life philosophy. Not a bad guy at all. They let him continue two weeks with us and washed him out a week before finish. They hounded him. It made me die a little just to see it. The guy did not have a chance once the ass brass had it in for him. That was the Air Force in a nutshell.

So I arrive at my base in England after tech school and the welcome wagon is a great bunch of guys called the degenerates. It's a long story. We go to The Barley Mow and get soused and they pump me for info and then we go back to the dorm and smoke a number. One of them takes my picture mid toke. I'm pissed but he says they have word OSI (office of special investigations) is sending dupes to infiltrate. Paranoid but if he promises to hide it well I'll let it ride. He did. Off and on those guys and me had a great time. Stories galore.

A year later I'm giving CPR to half a plastic woman to keep certified and get called in to the OSI bend over room. Turns out they weren't paranoid. OSI was looking to make a sweep and clean up the division or something. Somebody had fingered me for smoking a hash pipe at an off duty party in Banbury WE KNOW YOU DID IT RAT ON ALL YOUR FRIENDS. Yeah no. That was tobacco. AND IF IT WASN'T? It was. ARE YOU SURE YOU DON"T WANT TO BE A PIECE OF SHIT AND TELL US LOTS OFF STUFF WE HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT? Pretty sure. ARTICLE FIFTEEN. They had a nice little panel with lot's of brass and everything. But I. ARTICLE FIFTEEN! But. THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS AND YOU ARE NOT A SERIOUS BUSINESS. Well you got me there guys.

Turns out it was Barney (airman Barnhill) who had been called in and caved on everyone he knew including himself who was the worst of the lot anyway. The ass did acid on duty in the ER. None of us even so much as drank a beer on duty. Just a little off duty parties with locals and stuff. They had already promised Barnhill immunity. Brilliant guys. Give the only guy who really is a shit a free ticket.

Anyway, Tim took down the pic from where it had been taped on the top of a ceiling tile and we went out for a brown and bitter and burned it. But once they decide you are going to take a fall they stick their foot out every chance they get. Just like the setback they zero in and maybe, just maybe, if you keep your head down and are a serious person you can squeak by. Heh. That ain't me.

Number three tomorrow.

[nickie]

Was that Upper Heyford, Tocky?

[SubJeff]

Great airforce stories Tocky!

I'm sure it's not easy to understand all the nuances of culture, SubJeff.

Yeah. That's how it goes. I only told that story because of yours and Chade mentioning Nigeria. It's one of the countries we lived in too. My brother's first language wasn't English, it was Swahili he learnt from his nanny in Kenya. He's forgotten it all now though. I wonder what would happen if he went back...

[Purgator]

These are awesome, Tocky. It's like a HBO version of 'The Wonder Years'!