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Shecky couldn’t figure out the bike riding thing, even by the time he hit double digits. That shadow is his father, documenting another of Shecky’s many painful and humiliating flesh-on-asphalt moments.
What no one understood at the time was that Shecky’s vision problems made it very difficult for him to keep his balance. He now pedals proudly, and hopes his dad is watching from heaven, because having the right ride made all the difference.
Leslie couldn’t control his temper when people weren’t sure he was a boy, and many of his classmates at the Pennsylvania Dutch School of Hex Sign Painting were subjected to what Leslie liked to call the neck nick.
Leslie still gets a little hot under the collar when anyone questions his sexuality, his food or music preferences, or his overuse of cologne, but now that he’s a little older he likes to think he’s refined the neck nick to more of a neck knock.
Celeste will never forget that perfect summer when all the good things in her life coincided. Rocco was making decent money, and most of the time he wore long sleeves to hide his bruises. Better yet, his mother, Amadora, who was visiting from the old country, broke her leg and had to stay out of the kitchen. And her little bambino, Giuseppe, was at the perfect age to find it vaguely amusing when Celeste “pretended” to give Rocco a little kick in the pants.
Now widowed and abandoned by her son, Celeste spends most of her time imagining the day when she finally meets up with Rocco again in heaven. Mamma mia!, she is gonna give him such a whacking for leaving her alone all these years.
Dad always liked Eddie best; that’s why he got a life jacket and a safe poolside perch. But when Erwin said he wanted to learn how to swim, he got flung like a booger. Then Dad and Eddie laughed when he surfaced, choking back the tears and swallowing so much water that he threw up later.
Erwin eventually got over his aquaphobia, and had a successful career as a Wall Street broker, whereas Eddie inherited the family business, a bobble-head empire, and managed to run it into the ground within two years of their father’s death. Now Erwin lets Eddie rent the room above his garage and charges extra when he locks himself out.
“Damn it, Jerry, I know where I’m going,” Carla used to say. She always insisted on driving the boat, and basically every other aspect of Jerry’s life. She wanted to go fast, hard, and as long as possible. Unfortunately, that eventually led to their separating. Poor Jerry never stood a chance. Plus, Carla tended to be pretty abusive.
And that hasn’t changed one iota. Carla’s still going strong, burnin’ up the streets, and calling all the shots. If you ever encounter her on the highway, watch out, because she follows only one rule of the road, and she wrote it herself.
Lauretta never liked bobbing for apples, especially not at all-girl slumber parties. Her friends may have thought they were too old for trick-or-treating, but Lauretta would have preferred to be out getting free candy. She could already tell Pam was going to freeze her bra again, and probably try to make her pee in her sleep with the old hot water trick.
Lauretta would now prefer to return to her slumber party years, and dresses accordingly most of the time. She tries to be a good sport and to do her part to make Halloween fun, but the thing is, she’s one of those people who hands out apples, and today’s kids hate them just as much as she used to.
