Things You Did As A Kid

[kb2vxa]

The Left Coast had her out of La La Land, home of real life Hollyweird vampires and ghouls. She also had an out of character cameo in the closing scene of Cheech Marin's movie Born In East L. A. sitting on the back of the front seat of a pink Cadillac convertible. The Right Coast counterpart was John Zacherle, professionally Zacherle (pron. zak-er-lee) The Cool Ghoul host of Chiller Theatre on WCAU TV 6 Philadelphia, WOR-TV channel 9 Secaucus, NJ and later Disc-O-Teen, yet another American Bandstand clone on WNJU channel 47 licensed to Newark, both transmitting from The Gorilla Building in NYC. Dressed like Dracula with awful makeup he was extremely popular doing his Mystery Science Theater type bit with the engineer putting him as a cameo in classic horror movies when he wasn't live chatting with his unseen wife in a coffin and Gasport, a bouncing rag bag that made sounds like Cousin It before there was The Addams Family on TV. I have a rare clip of his Disc-O-Teen show and two parody song albums, Dinner With Drac and Spook Along With Zacherle on the Cameo-Parkway label in my CRYPTic archives. Oh, we can't forget his stint as a DJ on WPLJ Rock Radio 95.5 FM NYC, the call letters taken from Frank Zappa's much better remake of WPLJ (White Port & Lemon Juice) by The 4 Deuces in 1956. Hover your mouse pointer over the image for a chuckle.

Zacherle bartender hic KABOOM.jpg

The greatest prank Kevin and I ever pulled was The Invisible Rope Trick one night under the only streetlight next to a small woods across from a small county park on a small island in small Rahway, NJ where we grew up. When an occasional car came we crouched down on opposite sides of the road, when it got about 10 feet away we stood rearing back like we had a rope stretched across the road between us. Some drivers just kept going, some stopped looking around and went on their way, one panic stopped screeching to a halt up on the curb... THUMP! The driver enraged chased us into the dark woods we knew every inch of, he didn't. Behind us we herd him crashing into trees, tripping over roots and rocks doing face plants in the dirt, and we learned a few new words that night. I ran across the river on some large rocks, Kevin circled around behind him getting him to give chase where Kev ducked into a large concrete pipe, the storm sewer outlet under the bridge. I ran up across the river and watched the bloke chucking rocks into the pipe missing Kev in a square manhole chucking them back out at him. Oh no, that wasn't enough, I chucked the biggest rocks I could hitting him in the crossfire. That's when he skedaddled up onto the road, got in his car and high tailpiped it out of there tires squealing. We would have LOVED to have been flies on the wall when he got home and his wife asked how he got all bruised, wet, and muddy clothes all torn. That's ONE bloke who learned that road rage can have its consequences. (;->)

[N8YX]

The greatest prank Kevin and I ever pulled was The Invisible Rope Trick...

Not too far from where I live is the Ohio-Erie Canal. It's now a national park and has a very well-maintained walking/biking path, which itself was the old tow path - where horses and mules used to pull canal boats.

Growing up, the area was a little different. People actually lived on the strip of land between the canal and the Tuscarawas River, and sections of the tow path were cordoned off - by poles supporting large diameter wire rope. Since no 4-wheeled vehicles could easily get into the area it was a natural magnet for those of us who had dirt bikes, mini bikes, pedal bikes, guns, fishing rods and girlfriends.

I'm not sure of the circumstances but one of my cousins had a 12 year old friend who hit one of those wire ropes at high speed on his mini bike one evening - at dusk. The tow path was still coal and cinders back then (unlike today, where it's all crushed limestone) and the wire rope was dark and rusty without hazard signs attached. This rope was placed by the city - not by the land users/squatters.

The kid broke his neck and died. Needless to say it didn't go over well downtown, and any shenanigans involving things strung across throughways will IMMEDIATELY draw the ire of our local constabulary.