On The Road With Denny D

The Unstable Stable Hand   In nineteen eighty-nine I got married for the first time. My then wife had a dream. She wanted to buy dog kennel. She was a groomer, so this sounded like a good idea. I supported her like a good husband should. I had one role and one role only. Clean shit.    Doggy do do   My job at the kennel was cleaning dog shit. Every morning, I woke to shit. Dog shit and in-law shit. I was glad to have my part-time sales job. It got me out of shit. If only for a little while. They needed me to get a full-time job. So, I looked for a new job. I needed to get out of shit with mother mafia or at least not see her as much. What persuaded to work, or should I say, who persuaded me to work at a greenhouse/petting zoo? Yup, my ex-mother in-law.  Why I applied to be a farmhand, I will never know. Apparently, for the comedy of errors that would soon follow and this opportunity to now write about it.    Do this. Don't do that   The ...

This is short story about a father, a son and a moment in time. My father had harness horses and I was a farmhand by default. I learned at very young age that if I wanted to see my dad, I had to go with him to the barn. He worked at Fords; his real job. Horses for lack of a better word was his side hustle. It was his dream. After work he'd came home to have supper, load up truck with bunch of us kids, sometimes the neighbors kids too. The best part of hard work was seeing his horses race. I was always glad to a tag along. My favorite memories is hanging around the clubhouse and paddock with my dad. I enjoyed our many trips to Windsor, Dresden and even Leamington raceway. I think I enjoyed Leamington the most; they had the best French fries. It was fun to watch the horses round the track. Especially, if one of the horses was my dad's. I think I enjoyed watching my dad painstakingly scribble his selections on the race form, while I randomly pick the winning horse the most. It wa...

I got a chemistry set for Christmas one year. The best experiment I learned was making smelling salts. The victim; my brother. While he was asleep, I slithered by his bed, concoction in hand and waited for just the right moment to unleash the stink. I had to contain my laughter while I waved it under his nose. Luckily, he fell asleep just as fast as he woke up so I continued to torment him. It didn't take long until the chemistry set was spent of its supplies, so I searched for alternative prankster opportunities. Enter Cavalcade of Comedy.   It was called the Cavalcade of Comedy. The perfect place for a little prankster kid to find a little ploy toy or two. Walking in there was everything from clown noses, to magic, to plastic model car kits and my favorite, prank goodies.   My father was a great man. A hard-working man. But everyone does it. Sometimes it just happens. Air must go somewhere. My Dad always said as the air escaped his boxers "you have to get rid of ...

I will never forget the corner stores of my youth. Starlight, was my favorite. Honorable mentions would include: Bulat's, Fred's and Stop 'N' Shop. Every store had what I wanted. I wanted candy. Koho's, mojo's, sponge toffee, pixie sticks, licorice pipes, cigars, babies, jaw breakers, black balls and chocolate bars. There are too many to mention, so I'll shout out my fav's.  Chocolate bars. Sweet Marie was my favorite chocolate bar or candy bar, if you're American. I don't see her anymore. She must have divorced Oh Henry, took Baby Ruth and move to America. That marriage was off the shelf. Literally. Another chocolate bar I liked was EAT-MORE. My friends thought I was nuts.  But it was good. That mixture of nuts, chocolate and molasses was delightful. Okay, truth be told, I ate them for one reason; to fold up the wrapper, so it read "Eat Me" Kids will be kids. The color of candy. Back when I was kid the color of the candy never offende...

Murder-ball was a game we played in the alley between Buckingham Dr and Westminster Blvd. The object of game was obvious. Don't get murdered. Escaping death under a pile of kids with the ball cuddled in your arms, was the only way to win. We used whatever ball we could find, usually a football. We'd hurled the ball up in the air and as it came down, like jump ball in basketball, we would leap to retrieve it but instead of batting it away to a teammate, we caught it. Our reward for catching the ball; premeditated murder. Someone was going to die, we planned it and we were all in.  It was a silly game and upon refection, one question comes to mind. Why? Maybe our roughhousing was just a well needed muddy group hug. I have to admit that I was okay to participate in the pile on but to catch the ball and be at the bottom of the mud bath, no thanks. I wouldn't try to catch the ball. Are you kidding me, they'd have send out a search party to find me in the mud. I jumped on top...

In the early seventies McDonald's came to town. Burgers were twenty five cents and cheese burgers were thirty five cents. Mom would pick up a bag every once in a while for us kids and of course for our elastic band grandma. Meme' loved those burgers. That tangy zip of mustard, ketchup and pickles was just the ticket and so tasty. There was only one place better.  We lived four houses down from the best greasy spoon in Windsor. The Hi Ho restaurant had it all. French fries, burgers, foot long hot dogs, curb service, hot babes, hot rods and strange little men disguised as short order cooks. It was our neighborhood hangout.  It was the place where if you were grumpy, you'd get a burger named after you but you had to eat it while six other hungry dwarfs stared at you. Sneezy, didn't have anything named after him for obvious reasons.  Our favorite Hi Ho food was their famous foot long hotdog. A toasted ten inch long flat sided bun opened wide enough to slather on must...