The real obstacle to our success depended on whether Scarey Blaze would catch us or not.
Scarey Blaze was older than us. He had mental problems and his elderly mother cared for him.
He had never really "hurt" anyone but he'd do things like scream at the train as it went by and hit himself in the head repeatedly. He had this "thing" about shaving all the cats he could catch too.
People in the neighborhood lived in fear that Scarey Blaze would capture and shave their cat.
"What in the meow meow hell???"Maybe he and his mother had a hat business or something? We never figured it out.
"Wow! This is the PURRfect hat for me!"You never know with some people, but yeah...he really would shave cats.
Scarey Blaze would walk down the road, speed walking and making this, Hhhnnnnhn, Hhhhnnnhn noise repeatedly as he walked.
He NEVER looked you in the eye but instead waited until you passed and stopped, then turned and stared at you.
You could literally feel his gaze burning a hole in you.
The other thing that scared us all about him was that he kept trying to set fire to his house. His mother kept buckets full of water all over the house and two hoses were pulled through holes in the wall to make sure he didn't burn himself up.
We all knew he wasn't right in the head and it worried us. The thought of him catching us creeping out behind his house was almost enough to make us give up our foolish plan...
Almost...but not quite.
Beer is quite a motivator, you know?
As for getting past Lady Elaine Fairchild and Bogarts house, we weren't worried about it at all. The back of the house had no windows and the bamboo patch sat a few yards out beyond that. Besides...it would be after nine.
They would both be in bed.
Lady Elaine Fairchild was my Pa's sister and none other than Goldie and Upsma's mother. Bogart was their father.
I couldn't do a better job describing her than Mr. Rogers has already done by creating Lady Elaine Fairchild.
She acted just like Lady Elaine Fairchild and even looked like her...
Crazy but true.
Bogart was their dad and when I call him Bogart it's mainly referring to his role in the African Queen. He could have been a dead ringer for Charlie Allnut, right down to the gin swilling,smoking,unshaven and unconcerned day to day guy he was.
All in all, he was quite a character and I'm sure I'll have a few stories to tell about him some other day.
When Saturday finally rolled around, we were all nervous. We spent the day walking up and down the road past Scarey Blaze's house. He sat outside on the front steps of the house petting a half shaved cat. He didn't look at us, but sure enough, when we had passed him he'd look up at us and STARE at the back of our heads.
It makes me wonder what he was thinking. Did he think about sticking an ice pick in the back of our heads or something creepy like that?
The Gusfartingson boys were convinced that Scarey Blaze somehow KNEW what we were up to.
"Let's go up the road past the Valhalla house and then in behind Corvette's house to get to Beachy's house instead," they suggested.
"And who's going to sacrifice their balls so the rest of us can get past Lady?" asked Potato Greg.
Lady was Corvettes dog. It was a mangy beast, covered in black fur and for some reason it HATED men.
She had clamped onto more than one crotch in her time. It was so bad that packages were automatically left at a neighbors house. I would have survived the trip out behind Corvette's but the boys wouldn't have been so lucky.
"We can't get by that dog and you know it," said Belushi."We'll just go ahead with the plan we have."
Eight o'clock rolled around and Belushi kept the Olsens occupied while Spock stole an entire case of Budweiser from the stock room.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
The Skinnystrom boys showed up all dressed in black from head to toe.
We all laughed at them. They looked like freakin ninja's.
The parents left around nine and Spock drove the case of beer to Beachy and Way Way's house, hidden safely in the back of the go-cart. They played basketball in the driveway(which would serve as a distraction)and the rest of us walked down the road to Scarey Blazes house.
The house was completely dark.
It was quiet too.
"Maybe they're both asleep?" I said.
"I sure hope so," said the oldest Skinnystrom boy.
We crept along the side of the house, staying close to the bushes that lined the driveway. It was really dark and we strained to see where we were going. The youngest Gusfartingson tripped and fell into the bushes, making A LOT of noise.
We all held our breath and waited, expecting Scarey Blaze to come rushing out of the house to shave us or set us on fire.
It was quiet.
After a few minutes we started moving again, going in behind the house, which, much to our horror, sat closer to the woods than we thought. The house only sat about 15 feet from the woods. We would literally have to creep along side the house to get past it.
Potato Greg was the first to attempt it.
"I'm going," he said and then he bravely crawled on his hands and knees across the back yard of Scarey Blazes house.
We all followed him on our hands and knees, crawling like babies.
It seemed like it took forever!
Finally we reached the other side of the house and when we did we all got up and ran like crazy until we got in behind Bogart and Lady Elaine Fairchild's garage.
Breathing heavy, partly from the running and partly from being scared, we stopped to listen for trouble.
The only sound we could hear was Way Way and Spock playing basketball and talking about the Red Sox.
Everything seemed safe enough so we moved on, going in behind the garage and then through the bamboo patch where we triumphantly came into the back yard of Beachy and Way Way's house!
We all got through the back door without incident and we drank the case of beer, listening to our Bob Seger, Nazareth,Kiss and Dire Straits albums (yes, albums. It was the 70's after all.)
It was a lot of fun, no one got sloppy drunk. The night went better than expected.
Then it was time to leave.
I guess we didn't even consider the fact that it was midnight and no one on the street would probably even still be up, so we left the same way we came.
Out the back door, through the bamboo, in behind the garage and then across the lawn. All without incident.
By the time we reached Scarey Blaze's house we weren't worried about him catching us either. After all, we'd made it the first time without being detected, why worry about getting caught this late at night?
I went first, with Belushi hot on my trail. We crawled because we were smart.
The rest of them decided to walk, because they were stupid.
As they walked, Potato Greg looked in the windows of the house. As he passed the last window, who should he spy looking back out at him but Scarey Blaze!
He screamed like a little girl.
Then everyone screamed!
Belushi and I were well ahead of the rest of them so we didn't get the full show, but according to what Potato Greg told us later on, Scarey Blaze came running out the back door in his tighty whities,making that "Hhhnnnnhn Hhhhnnnhn" sound as he ran after them.
"Potato Greg and Scarey Blaze share a moment together (the part of the story we DIDN'T hear about)"Luckily for them, he did not have shoes on and they were able to lose him by running down the dirt road next to the tracks. Although he had stopped chasing them, they all hid in one of Potato Greg's family's potato houses for a good half and hour while Belushi and I worried they wouldn't make it home before the parent's got back.
They finally got the courage to leave and make their way to the store, where we heard their exaggerated version of what happened,(which involved chainsaws and near decapitation). Of course Potato Greg filled us in on the "real" sequence of events the next day while drinking cokes on the front porch of the store.
Were we smart enough to try to figure out a different way to get to Beachy and Way Way's house after that?
HELL NO!
Trying to survive getting by Scarey Blaze became as intoxicating to us as drinking the beer and hanging out.
Hey!
There's not much to do when you live in a small town...I'm just saying...Believe me...we found PLENTY of stuff to get into.
