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Remember
Dat Time Remember Dat Time is a collection of short stories that Mark Hopkins and Phillip Blackmon began pulling together several years ago. The idea was simply to remember as much stupid stuff as possible, get a few good laughs out of it, and just maybe, have something that could be shared with the public. A book perhaps? Well, that might be a stretch. So, they created a document that they passed back and forth, each updating it and adding comments. In some cases, it's hard to tell who is writing the story and who is responding. But, that doesn't really matter. The characters in the stories will know exactly who wrote them. It should be pointed out that JB Hopkins contributed one story as well. Soon
after Mark and Phillip started this process, it
quickly became apparent that the stories from prior to 1972 seemed to be
fairly benign. But the ones that came after 1972 presented a very
different and tainted perspective and, thus, could not all be
shared. So, below are the stories that made the cut, meaning, they
could allow their children or parents to read them. While they have
been somewhat sanitized, no names have been changed to protect the
innocent. The reason for that is simple. There are no
innocents. The people named in these stories are guilty as stated.
The truth shall set you free, they say, whatever that really means. Sadly,
Mark and Phillip's collaborative
effort was cut short by Mark's untimely death in March of 2008. This is
where they left off. But, others have contributed since, keeping this page
alive. Every story begins with Remember Dat Time because that's
how you start a story about old times. If you would like to contribute, send it to Phillip (boydblackmon@aol.com). Remember
dat time........ We
were all sitting on the back pew during church and Acka Packa fell asleep.
So, Jimbo took out his Zippo and heated the lid to ‘bout fi-hunnert
degrees and pressed it up against his leg. Acka Packa jerked
and
his leg kicked the back side of the pew in front of us.
KAAAWHAAMMM!! We just had to
buss out laughing. I mean we did that suppressive laugh until church let out. Remember
dat time........ Jeffrey
got stung on the lip by a yellow jacket out in the court in high school while
drinking a coke and his lip puffed out about 6 inches.
I'm in Zar Lamar's class and I see Newberry out in the hall waving at me.
When I look up he pulls Jeffrey in front of the door so I can see him.
I buss out laughing. It was
one of those laughs where you attempt to blow all the air out of your lungs so
you don't make noise. Jeffrey
looked like a freak. When I got
home he was on the bed with an ice pack on his mouth.
Remember
dat time........ We
were riding toward Lincolnton in his Mustang. We were
just staring straight ahead without talking, listening to Captain Beyond.
Johnny lit a cigarette and I had an
unlit one in my mouth. When he finished lighting his, I held out my hand and he
handed me his gold plated gas lighter, still looking straight ahead, not
talking. Anyway I lit my cigarette and promptly tossed the lighter out of the window. A couple of seconds later Johnny said, “Mark.”
I looked at him and said “What?” "Why did you do that?"
"Why did I do what?" "You
just threw my damn lighter out of the window." Huh? Man, I don’t know
why. He hit the brakes and bootlegged and we actually
went back and in 5 minutes found it.
Remember
dat time........ Newberry,
you, and me are coming off the back of Graves Mt. going 50 MPH down a dirt road
with 100 ft embankments on both sides. You
panicked and freaked and I was in the back seat, oblivious to the
danger, bent double stuck laughing. I
bussed a gut for 30 minutes. Yeah, he
scared me good.
Remember
dat time........ Duggan put
bubble gum in Leona's chair after she left the room for a minute. After she
returned she sat on it, then everybody giggled. Later, when she stood up, it had
really stuck to her dress and stretched about two feet then snapped. We really
busted out laughing and she got pissed, then went got Mr. Nash. Yes, and
when Mr. Nash came in and asked who did it. Nobody fessed up. But,
Duggan's face was beet red. Mr.
Nash had to know. Remember
dat time........ We went
into her classroom and threw her tadpoles up against the wall leaving green
algae spots in the paint, then put the de-ahd critters back in the aquarium. The
next Monday we asked what happened and she said she must have fed them too much,
even though they were bug-eyed and obviously had died from blunt trauma. Yes, but
had forgotten who was involved. She got
some new ones and we dropped an extension cord in the jar.
Dem tadpoles tried desperately to get out.
Deaht. Hilarious, isn't it? We’d go
up there after school. Leona was the only teacher who left her grade book in her
desk. We’d change grades, erase
behavior comments, and change the number of lines we owed her.
She finally caught on and started taking her book home. Remember
dat time........ Leona was
shaking her paralytic hand with a pencil cradled in it, and it came out and flew
halfway cross the room. Then everybody buss-out laughing, then she got pissed
and went got Mr. Nash. No, but I
can imagine it.
Remember
dat time........ For no
apparent reason, Leona got pissed, then she went got Mr. Nash. Mr. Nash was
asleep then he got pissed off, and nobody buss-out laughing. No, but I
believe it. Don’t, I
just made that one up. Remember
dat time........ I busted Mrs.
Sherrer's portrait of George Washington wide open with a slingshot, then Dean
Nunn ratted me out. Later that day, Dean came to Leona's door and told her that
Mrs. Sherrer needed to see Mark Hopkins. Then I went down the hall to plead my
case, telling her it was not an intentional act of vandalism. After sensing my
sincerity, she agreed to let me off the hook if I replaced the portrait. But, I
never did. Vividly.
I do remember the glass remained cracked. I'll go look next time I go up
there. It may still be on the wall.
If so, get it.
That sounds similar to the time I was
playing with Doug Pollock and pulled back a big green rubber band with a
band-aid on the end right up to his face. It slipped out of my hand and
whoppowww! Right under the eye.
We were standing at Mrs. Sherrer's door and she saw it happen. I had a hell of a job convincing
her I didn't mean to do that.
If it had hit his eyeball he’d be blind. Remember
dat time........ Redding picked a
bunch of those grass seeds that looked like spears and when Leona would turn
around to write on the board he'd throw a bunch of them and stick them on the
back of her sweater. By the end of
the day she had about 728 of those damn things hanging off her back. Hilarious,
isn't it? Yup.
Remember
dat time........ In the fourth
grade somebody left a wee
jobbie laying on the bathroom floor inside a stall? I instinctively kicked
it out
into the middle of the floor, did a quick Mexican hat dance around it, then went
about my merry way.
Redding went and told Mrs. Hopkins I went on the floor. She looks and sees the
wee jobbie, took it for face value and, I wind up getting my butt kicked from Tom and
Egbert. I didn’t buss out laughing. Remember
dat time........ Redding
threw that big rubber rat across the room. Leona looked around just in time to
see it sailing through the air. Redding
finally admitted to that one. It
was so much fun, relaxing actually, to have stuff going on and not be a part of
it. You knew you weren't going to
get in trouble. Remember
dat time........ Leona would leave the room and we'd throw spitballs on the ceiling, hundreds of them. They stayed there until the damn school was closed. Probably still there. Hilarious, isn't it? Hell yeah! From Leona's vantage point, I sat in the right rear of the class. The water fountain was just outside the window. Anyway, over the course of the year, I fired off literally hundreds of spitballs straight up with my gutted BIC pen. Layers and layers. Make you buss-out laughing, won’t it. 2009 update:
They are still there. Remember
dat time........ A
bunch of us were at the Tastee Freeze during the bi-centennial and Boots Gunter
walked up and started talking to us. We just kinda stood there like, not knowing
what to do. Right about then I decided to poke my head in the pass-thru to order
some fries, but the window was closed and my head broke the glass. I stood up
thinking, ooohhh hell, and we all stood there for about three seconds looking
like deer in headlights. All of a sudden everybody took off like bats out of
hell laughing and leaving me standing there frozen, face to face with
Boots. I finally said "Thought the window was open." But, he just stood
there looking at me, not saying a word. A few more seconds went by, then I
couldn’t take it anymore, so, without saying another word I bolted around the
corner, we all loaded up and took off. I never could look him in the eye after
that. We were all starving so, we retreated to the Pet Milk break room. There were so
many of these. I remember you and
Boots having a discussion about Pearl shampoo or something and you came back to
the car worried that he’d tell Egbert something was wrong with you.. I think that was the same night LV forced some
pizza on us and freaked us out. Scared
us away. Remember
dat time........ In Leona’s
class Stevie McCall was sent to Mr. Nash’s office. After a while, he hadn’t come back so she went to check on
him. As soon as she got into the
office Stevie pops out from behind the door to Leona’s room.
He’d been hiding there the whole time!
I thought I would die. So brave. Beautiful.
Remember
dat time........ We were at the
Pet Milk break room munching out at 2:00 am and this guy walks through with this
abnormally huge open end wrench hanging out of his back pocket.
We concluded that there was really no such thing as a wrench that big and
therefore, he must be messing with us. So, we left. Another
time up there Newberry dumps a bunch of trash on the street and a cop sees him,
stops, and chews his butt out. Remember
dat time........ Mama and daddy
were out of town and you were spending the night. We’d been drinking in the house and Crew came home from
work and raised hell, pouring out liquor and such.
He was all wound up because of football. He scared you so bad you left.
Neither one of us could talk you into staying. The next night Sally, Cody, Bohannan, and whoever else was
over there. Somebody had locked all
the doors and pulled all the shades. Uncle
James came over to check on us but couldn’t get in.
We had Pink Floyd so loud on the stereo we couldn’t hear him knocking
on the door or the phone ring. So,
he thinks we’re refusing to let him in. He’s
furious. The next day we’re going to Six Flags.
John Ivey brings Sally over before we all get up. She doesn't want
to wake us up by knocking. So, she sits outside in
the side starewell brushing and drying her hair in the sun. James sees her, notices she has no car in the driveway,
and is convinced she spent the night.
I had to convince daddy that we didn’t know who locked the doors or
why, didn’t hear him knock or call because of the loud music, and that Sally
didn’t spend the night. Tough work. Remember
dat time........ Mama and daddy
went out of town with Crew and Stevie M stayed with me.
My only job for the weekend was to feed the cows.
No sooner had they gotten out of the driveway, Stevie and I were on the
way to Augusta to see some girls. We
went back and forth several times over the weekend.
We were wild and free! So,
the folks come home on Sunday and, while standing in the kitchen, daddy asks me if I fed the cows.
Of course, he knew I didn’t because they were just out there screaming their heads
off. He caught me completely off
guard and the look on my face was telling.
I had not given those cows one damn thought all weekend. It took some convincing the next time they went off to
leave me at home alone. But, I had to
redeem myself. That’s
when I wrote “feed cows” on my bulletin board, where it remains to this day. Remember
dat time........ We tied ropes to the bicycle and rode around town pulling each other on a skateboard? I sling you around a corner on the square and you lose it and do a shoulder roll. Egbert just happens to be riding by and he yells out the window, “Son, you’re a fool!” That little game warped the wheels on my bike. Remember
dat time........ Benji Edwards,
Brant Long, and maybe JB, I don’t really remember, were riding around town one night.
We’re on bicycles. I grabbed on to a door handle and they took off.
We’re haulin butt (they later claimed 55 mph) down Robert Toombs in
front of the high school! I coulda been a statistic. Remember
dat time........ Dean Nunn got
busted in the head with a rock in the first grade out by the monkey bars?
He bled like a stuck pig and they carried him off for stitches.
Mr. Nash wanted to know who did it.
I never confessed. What
happened was, Newberry rolled the rock down the bank and it hit me in the foot.
I picked it up and tossed it over my shoulder. Whop!!! WAAAAAAAA!!
The beauty of it was, even though there were dozens of kids around, nobody saw
me or told on me.
I kept that secret until the 12th grade when I finally fessed
up to Dean and asked for his forgiveness. He
called me a dog. Remember
dat time …… In grammar
school we’d catch all those flies and keep them in our pencil pouches?
Redding had about 50 in his once. He’d
pull the wings off and play with them like pets. Remember
dat time …… We on a daktari
mission, which involves chasing cows in the car until they become tired enough
to ride. One time we got one cow in
the proper condition and Will Pierce rode that sucker off into the darkness
somewhere. Another time Newberry
was chasing a cow that grew tired of the game, turned on him, broke his rear
view mirror, and slobbered on his steering wheel. Remember
dat time …… Yup. |
