They're nuts! Old fart talk.

Traffic is awful. When I work I go through my city, through the next one into Cambridge. There almost isn't street I drive on that doesn't have some kind of roadwork going on. On some street the surface ahs been grated down so much that all the man, uh, I mean person holes are sticking up 2 to 3 inches above the surface. Sometimes you really can't drive in a straight line. If you did you could eventually blow out a tire and or ruin a rim. Rims aren't cheap. They can be around $400.00 each.
Any way while all this is going on, there are plans to put a casino in the next city east of here. It was the site of an old Monsanto factory. I think that's where they made Monsantos. Anyway, I don't know if the building is still there but that's the land. This a city that borders mine. This could draw people from all over Metro Boston. Some of the streets in my were city laid out over 350 years ago. Where are you going to put all those cars? The city of Boston is involved and there are lawsuit, threats back forth blahh blahh blahh. 

Then there are the Olympics. It's would happen in about 9 years. Business men are drooling over this. They are assuring us that there won't be any public money used. Uh huh. Oh sure, of course! It's  good to trust a handful of grinning business men saying that it won't cost the tax payer anything. This is more insane than the gambling casino next door. Where would you put all these people? Sometimes living here is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's never boring though. Arlene and I were talking about maybe someday we might like to live in a quieter place. 

So my friend Dave and I sat in his living room talking about some of the things that went on 40 plus years ago. The circle of friends would gather in groups of 5 to about 9 and hang around in one of two places. Lenny's cellar or Richie's! Lenny's parents let us hang around there and never bothered us. Though they had plenty of opportunities to question some of the shenanigans going on. The crazy foam party. All I can say is, it quite resembled a Three Stooges pie fight. The silly string party. Fun. but a huge mess to clean. Neither idea was ever given much thought.

Then several houses down there was Richie's cellar. He lived there with his mother. They were tenants. Richie's landlord didn't much care for us hanging around the basement. It was what it was, a cellar. One night a group of about 6 of us were sitting around playing records, having a beer or two and whatever. Richie sat in a chair who's back was to the stairs that led upstairs. We really weren't doing anything but talking and listening to records. Suddenly we here a door open and someone starts coming down the stairs. You could see his legs when he was halfway down the stairs. It's the landlord. He yells at Richie and the rest of us. Then turns to Richie, still sitting, back to the stairs, and say's, "I TOLD YOU RICHIE, THAT I DON'T WANT YOU GUYS HANGING AROUND THE CELLAR!"
In retrospect he was entirely wise in his reasoning.

All is silent. The Landlord turns to go back up the stairs. 

At this point I would like to say that I will use the exact word that was said by Richie. So pardon my French.

The landlord begins climbing up the stairs. 3 steps up, legs still visible, the silence was broken by Richie.
"What an asshole!"
The landlord screams, "WHAT DID YOU SAY!" 
We were all stunned! Richie begins to stammer, "Uh...um...I didn't mean it the way that it sounded!"

As we all looked at each other it was obvious that we were all ready to burst in hysterics. The landlord comes back down and says, DIDN'T MEAN IT THE WAY IT SOUNDED! What am I, one of the NICE ASSHOLES!" 
The landlord stomps up the stairs. You hear a snort, a snicker. The door slams! And we all erupted with laughter.

We all took note of Richie's hamburger recipe. High flame, put the burger in the pan. When it's black on top, it's done.

I won't go into another Richie's cellar incident except to say it involved a very late evening game of hide and seek and the pipe that led to the oil tank.

We weren't a bad bunch of guys and gals. We had fun and at times did not act our age. Dave and I go back over 40 years and there are other stories that we had a good laugh about. I came of age during a rapidly changing times. Many things have happened in my lifetime. The war, nuclear arms race with Russia who vowed, "We will bury you!". 
The assassination of a President. The other assassinations, Martin, Luther King, Robert Kennedy. The Beatles and all that came of that musically. Watching a man walking on the moon in my living room. Inflation in the 70's. Gas suddenly tripling in price in no time. Rationed gas. Buying gas on odd or even days. Being limited to $2.00 worth a visit, to John Lennon being shot and killed. 911 and so on.

As we get talking about past events one of finally says, "Ok, now it's just old fart talk." I guess an old fart is better than a dead fart. I think Shakespeare said that except he would probably say, "Fartith."
I'm outta here.