Cousin J

Steve had an older cousin who I'm just going to call "J" (even though his name does not start with J). And although these stories don't have much of anything to do with me I've told them often enough that they merit inclusion in the blog...

The first story starts on an almost completely unrelated topic:

Our garbage man on Mohican Street in Denton, Texas back in 1971 was a car guy and would always stop and chat whenever I was out working on the Charger... And whenever he found car parts in my garbage he would invariably get all excited and ask if he could have them... I figured "whatever floats his boat" and gave him blanket permission to take whatever he wanted. But he still always asked anyway... And the whole point is that he seemed like a nice enough guy - albeit not the sharpest scalpel on the surgical tray... And that may (or may not) be relevant to what follows :-)

Fast forward a few months:
Steve and I were visiting J at his apartment in Dallas and at some point the topic of Phyllis George (who had just been crowned Miss America) came up... Now - I knew that she was from Denton but I had not know that she was Steve's cousin and had gone to high school with J...
It all started with cousin J expressing skepticism about her whole "clean and wholesome" image, claiming that she'd had a somewhat different reputation in high school. (Yeah - I know - total hearsay...) And to emphasize his point he dug out his senior yearbook... So - here's "Miss America" and "Miss Denton High" side by side:

Yeah - she definitely had an "edgier" look about her in high school. But that's not the punchline of the story... After looking at Phyllis's picture I glanced over at the picture of "Mr. Denton High" on the opposite page and instantly recognized ... (drum-roll please) ... my garbage man... Yes - apparently the lives of people who are popular in high school don't always follow similar trajectories :-)

Postscript: Many years later I was watching the CBS morning news and Phyllis George was interviewing a man and woman who were in the "national spotlight" because the man had served 6 years in prison for raping the woman and she had just recanted her testimony. (He was later fully exonerated by DNA evidence.)
The interview was (as one might expect) extremely tense and uncomfortable - made even more so by Phyllis being all happy and bubbly throughout the whole thing... And when the interview ended Phyllis actually tried to get them to hug and make up on national television... Yeah - I almost blew coffee out my nose. It was one of the most horrific things I've ever seen on TV. They politely declined but Phyllis just wouldn't give up. She urged them to at least shake hands... I was like "OMG!!! She totally doesn't get it!!! She can't possibly be that dense, can she?" But apparently she could... Yeah - I guess being a beauty queen does not automatically qualify you to be a journalist (or vice president, for that matter).

And that's not the only story from that evening:
J and his roommate (who sometimes thought he was Satan) had a kitty that was really tiny because (apparently) feeding it hallucinogens and amphetamines had stunted its growth - go figure... (BTW: I really don't know why anyone would want a "stoner" cat - it's not like they aren't freaky enough already...) As a result of all the hallucinations the poor thing was deathly afraid of the light and spent almost all of its time hiding under the living room sofa...
So - Steve and I were sitting on the aforesaid living room sofa when this tiny ball of fur came flying out from under it - unplugged the table lamp - and returned to its "fortress".
It all happened so fast I almost thought I was hallucinating :-) I figured it had to be a fluke, but J plugged the lamp back in and a couple of minutes later the kitty came flying out and unplugged it again...
Cousin J explained that they had quit using the overhead light because the kitty kept turning it off at the wall switch. So they started using the table lamp instead, but then the kitty figured out how to swat the plug out of the outlet while bouncing off the wall next to it...
Yeah - I know... It's actually rather tragic... I can only imagine how scared the poor thing must have been to have figured out that the power cord had something to do with the light - let alone how to unplug it... Cats usually aren't that motivated :-)

And on to the next story:
One evening a few of us were shooting hoops in Steve's driveway when cousin J started freaking out. Apparently he'd had some LSD wrapped in tin foil stuffed in his underwear and it wasn't there anymore. A quick search of the immediate area turned up nothing so we had the usual "Are you sure you had it when you got here?" discussion and J assured us that he did, so we kept looking.
We eventually came across a piece of tin foil some distance away from the driveway, but it was completely shredded and there was no sign of the contents. J couldn't tell if that was "the" tinfoil or not so we kept searching. But after 20 more minutes we finally gave up...
The next day Steve's dad was like "What's wrong with the dog???" We went outside and the German Shepherd was lying there flattened against the ground as if it was holding on for dear life... The poor critter stayed that way for 2 days - completely motionless except for his eyes (they tracked us as we passed by)...
We never did figure out what possessed the dog to take the acid... It's not like it was in sugar cube form or anything. Still, there must have been something about the scent that he found appealing... And it must have been one hell of a trip :-)

Finally - this is one of the best "bad luck / good luck" stories I know:
It came to pass that J's roommate (during one of his "I am Satan" episodes) tried to kill J by driving the car they were riding in into oncoming traffic. (J had been wondering why the guy suddenly fastened his seat belt...) It was an older car (63 Dart?) that was not equipped with "safety glass". J's head went partially through the windshield and as he fell back into the vehicle the jagged glass almost tore his face off. That was (obviously) the bad luck part.

Here's the good luck part:
The hospital they took him to was hosting a conference on plastic surgery and most of the top reconstructive surgeons in the country were there when they brought him in. He was in surgery for 12 hours and a week later you had to look really close to tell that anything had happened to him... It was absolutely amazing!

Yeah - he found a different roommate after that...