Dad was pissed, there was no doubt about that. From upstairs, we could hear his venomous, high-volume complaints. He was griping about something and somehow, instinctively, we knew we were in th’ thick of it. Amazingly, at just 14 and 11, my brother and I had already developed a well-tuned sense of impending trouble. Of course, if we’d kept our noses clean (now there’s a good one from the earlier generation) we’d’ve had nothing to worry about.
We cowered in Pete’s room, scheming multiple lies to cover whatever it was we’d soon be faced with. Of course . . . maybe we were worried about nothing. He could be mad at someone else.
Nope.
“Boys . . . .get down here!!” Reluctantly, we gripped the railing and moved like sheep to the slaughtering pen.
“Who th’ heck did this to my boots??!” Dad held up his new pair of RedWing work boots. “I bought these at Tulli’s Shoe Store three weeks ago . . . and now look at ‘em!”
The inside edge of each boot was worn at a near-perfect 45-degree angle. You couldn’t’ve done a better job with a belt sander. But I’d managed it just fine on the back of a 50cc Honda.
With legs longer than the little bike, the feet had to go somewhere. To steady my first couple of rides around the neighborhood, as friends cheered me on and with a smile wider than our native Galveston Island, I hit the throttle while feeling the steady, sandpaper-like zip of the street below, banking each turn with a small curl of rubbery smoke trailing behind each of the new Red Wings.
The abraded, lengthwise angle was so deep that it cut through three layers of sole and into the boot itself, maybe an eighth of an inch from my socks. Hey – I had only sneakers in the closet, so it only seemed natural to me that Dad’s new boots’d be the right riding gear. After all, real bikers wore boots, right?
For dramatic effect, Dad pushed his finger into each of the boots. Then he threw them to the floor and began to remove his belt as the ultimate threat. He’d never done that before and we were sure this wouldn’t be a history-changing moment. We stood our ground.
“Peter . . . was it you?” Dad glared at my brother. He shriveled, moved behind me and slowly shook his head: “No, Dad, not me . . . .”
“John! How did you do this?!”
“I . . . didn’t do it either, Dad,” was all I could blurt out at the moment.
They separated us. Dad yanked me to his office. Mom reluctantly pulled Peter into the living room – no doubt doing as she’d been instructed. This was the very first of many later crime-cracking routines, pulling us both in separate directions.
We should’a seen it coming. Navy SEALs or Army special forces could videotaped the encounter as a superb training tool. I later learned that Mom gave up on Peter after 10 minutes. But Dad launched a rigorous interrogation, wielding all form of threat and the fear of God. I maintained my innocence.
Then it hit me: “Dad . . . I think Eddie Haskell* may’ve done it. I don’t know how [because of course we weren’t about to admit joyriding on a forbidden motorcycle] . . . but I may’ve seen him with them on yesterday.”
If in doubt, blame Eddie. It was a ploy that never worked, but I tried it repeatedly anyway. The absurdity of my accusation hadn’t even dawned on me. How, after all – or better yet, why, would Eddie Haskell have taken my father’s boots from the hall closet? I wore my very best innocent expression.
Dad calmly picked up the phone and called Burt Haskell, just across the street. “Burt . . . is Eddie home? OK, right . . . he’s been away on a school trip since Wednesday. Well, thanks, Burt. No, no . . . it’s nothing. I just had a question for him. Thanks, Burt.”
Seeing the end of my charade, and to avoid any possibility that the belt would be next, I blurted,” “I did it, Dad. I did it . . . but I couldn’t keep ‘em on straight when we riding Tim Lane’s new bicycle. I was afraid my shoelaces would’ve been caught!”
Decades later I went in search of Tulli’s shoe store. They were gone, but the well-stocked shelf of Red Wings at the mall had Dad’s size, 8EE. The boot design hadn’t changed.
Forty years later: Happy birthday, Pop. Sorry it took so long.
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