We Were Just Kids, Iz All { A Tale Of Tango & Catechism } - Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

Fourteen was a boring year to have to bear
as a kid, unless of course you or one of your
crone friends had the talent for innovative
thrill, albeit that in most cases this 'thrill'
rarely wound up as it was originally planned.
We loved girls, but they weren't too wild about
us. My 14th Summer was fun, but we lived miles from
a pool with no cash for cabs or buses
and my parents both worked. Anyway,
it was only April of that year when my friends
and me began to(how should I say it) rear our
devil horns?

We'd sit on the crooked front steps outside
of my mom and dads 3 family house in Kildare,
drinking bottled Orange Crush from a bag,
after carefully removing every label,
with the mildly sharp tips of our thumbs.
If anyone passed by the four of us, they'd
stare, and some would call us hooligans.
Well, it did really look as if we were
all saucing it up on a dollar ninety-eight
glass bottle of Tango....,
at least that was the intent as we passed
around the worn brown bag which went soooo
well with a dollar box of mallomars, until June,
when the summer sun turned them into meltamars.
So, we'd have to settle for Mister Chips to
accompany our home made concoction of knock-off
Tango. Loved the coconut ones they used to make.

Now, personally, I have never been one for
quoting clichés, as far as I was concerned,
they were 999.9% euphemisms for either
scolding, insulting or feigning deftness.
Except for one, that never seemed to fail me
though I prayed every night that it would!
It's a saying that is arguably older than
we are now, you know the one......Yup!
''What goes around...Comes around''.
Well, that saying must have been created
by Jesus Christ, Himself...as one afternoon
while cavorting our pie-eyed charade to
a group of cute girls, all of a sudden
who was behind them, but grumpy Father McGee,
Principal and Pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows,
both our school and church, and soon, (I
felt concrete certainty) where our funerals
would be taking place in the next 72 hours
give or take, depending on the wake.
I swear I could picture it all in my head,
as the brown bag shook in my hand like a
Ice Cream shaker...I could envision it all...
pipe organ, Ave Maria, and a smiling
Father McGee, giving our eulogy with
'Goes around, Comes around as the theme!

He stopped dead in his own footprints,
and there wuzn't a grain of sand around.
He looked at us, all four of us,
and then with words I will never, ever forget,
he said in his deep baritone voice:
'Don't just sit there with criminal looks
on your drone Catholic faces. Stand Up, praise God,
and pass that bottle to your thirsty Pastor.
Heck, it's been years since I had a gulp of Crush,
even longer since I pulled that Tango stunt.
Oh, and that brown bag thing...dead giveaway.
Always remember to twist the top of the bag tautly,
so as to make a perfect fit around the bottle top.
It's so much more authentic, you know, at least
my friends and me thought so back in '52''.

Four jaws and eight eyes dropped and bugged,
and not a single syllable passed our lips.
Then Father winked, and bid us a God-blessed day,
and that's the day all four of us converted......
..................................................
...................................to Milk!
Some forty years later all I can say is what I
said that day, some forty years ago...
''Eh, We Were Just Kids, iz all''.





Author's Note...................................
The Above Short Story was fictional. I got far
more into trouble than this and I'd tell you all
about it if I weren't damn certain both my post
and me would be null and void deleted from Site!

Originally posted 04-16-15
*Revised/Reposted 07-27-16