By Mary Hill
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| http://seriously-shawn.blogspot.com/ |
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| http://stacysrandomthoughts.com/ |
Here is my niche. Creative writing and blog hopping. How many blog hops can I find each week that fit my niche is this week’s challenge. That question is one I am going to try to fulfill everyday this week as part one of my 5 is For 5 linkup yesterday sponsored by http://www.fantasticallyaverage.com.
One of my five goals was to grow my readership. One tool to help grow the number of visitors to your blogs is taking part in blog hops. I have put all the links to blog hops I am participating in throughout this post. So here goes for the first one hosted each Tuesday by Josie Two Shoes in Texas.
Your choice of word prompts for Tuesday, July 9th are:
green or believe
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| http://www.josie2shoes.com/2013/07/two-shoes-tuesday-35-green-or-believe.html |
Don’t Skip School with a Big Dummy
By Mary Hill
It is 1979, I am in the sixth grade at Lauderhill Middle School. It was time to walk to school. First, we dropped off my sister at the elementary school. My mom had already carried my little brother to the daycare center on her way to work at the laundromat My brother and I met up with a friend named, Troy. I can’t remember his last name. It might have been Hooker, but Troy Hooker may have also been someone that I graduated with years later at my high school in South Carolina.
I really can’t remember the season, but that doesn’t really matter in Florida. It was a warm 70 degrees on the way to school that morning as we walked the eight plus blocks to school. Eight blocks was a little too long that day because our friend, Troy, dared us to skip school. My brother and I were game. We decided to go fishing in the canal behind Troy’s house. First,we ran to our house for our fishing gear and then met Troy at his house.
We watched as boats rode up the canal and saw a few gators sunning themselves on the other side.
“You know, a big gator came in our back yard once. It was huge, probably 20 plus feet,” Troy bragged. “Dad ran it off by firing his rifle in the air.”
I looked a little nervously around the yard as we set up our gear on their boat slip. They had a huge boat parked in it.
“Too bad, I don’t have the keys. We could take it for a spin. I know how to drive it,” Troy bragged again. He was a big bragger.
David didn’t like the idea. “We would only get stopped and get into trouble. You can’t drive that boat anyway because you aren’t old enough.”
“Yea, let’s just fish. We don’t want to get caught,” I said as I fixed up my line and put my first night crawler on it.
A few minutes later, Troy screamed.
“Why did you use such a big hook?” I heard my brother saying as I walked down to see what was wrong.
Troy had this gigantic fish hook snagged in the palm of his hand. It was the kind meant for deep sea fishing. I don’t know how he managed to do this because I wasn’t watching at the time. He looked a little green and like he was about to throw up.
My brother got needle nose pliers to get the hook out of his hand. Troy cried with the pain.
“Shush, you are going to get us caught.” My brother tried to yank the hook out of his hand.
Troy screamed. “Stop, that hurts.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “We have to get it out.”
“It is not coming out without help,”David looked at Troy. “We have to take him to mom.”
I could almost hear the sound effects of “dun dun.” Remember, our television with the little line through the middle of it. We only heard talking and sound effects. We left and walked to the laundromat where my mom worked about six blocks away.
Needless to say she was not happy to see us. We were supposed to be in school. The rest of the day went down hill from there. Mom had to call Troy’s parents who came and got him to take him to the emergency room. We were sent straight home with orders: no listening to the television and stay in our rooms until my parents got home from work.
My dad was the first home at about four. He got out the truck and put his hammer and tool belt up into the back. He wasn’t happy to see us either. Our punishment: write 1000 times, “I will not skip school.”
This tale of misfortune is also brought to you by:
Next Blog Hop:
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| http://theaustinfamilydiary.blogspot.com/ |
Tuesday Topics: Three Favorite Quotes
Other Tuesday hops, you might want to join:
(I will join this one next week:)
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
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| http://leslyni.blogspot.com/ |
Leslyn selected this tune this week which is my daughter’s current favorite. She will not let me change the radio channel when it comes on:
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| http://dysfunctionsjunction.com/ |
I was always afraid to skip school because I didn’t wanna face the fury of my father. 🙂
I’m visiting from Two Shoes Tuesday. That was quite a story! I didn’t skip school, but I love to fish! This certainly made me think of some fishing stories!
Maybe you’re right all along about Troy’s last name – Hooker. He got his hand hooked ;o)
Happy Two Shoes Tuesday to us and happy bloghopping too! ;o)
Visiting from the humor blog hop. OUCH to fishing hook! Not the same scenario but it made me flashback to a scene probably 1979ish that my cousin and I were sitting in the car while his mom was in the bank. She was taking forever and we were bored. My cousin pushed the cigarette lighter in and then decided to touch the red part to see if it was really hot. We were so scared about what his finger looked like and the smell that came from it. We were more concerned about getting in trouble. So we were trying to fan the burnt skin smell out of the car. I think we got away with it. I have no idea what my cousin did about his burnt finger.
But really, isn’t this song amazing?! I just love listening to it!
Thanks for linking up! 🙂
I hope this is the right spot to comment on your Two Shoes Tuesday story, because I loved it! A really good lesson on making choices… skipping school, obviously the wrong one (but fun); not wanting to go for a joyride in the boat, definite right one; having to go to your mom for help, not a fun choice but a necessary one; getting tasked writing for a punishment – not the worst fate in the world. I believe that seeing Troy there with the hook in his hand and turning green was a pretty good example of the lesson that crime doesn’t pay! Loved this story, most of us have experienced the repercussions of such choices at some point in our young lives. Now the real question is, did you skip school again? 🙂 Thanks for sharing this childhood adventure with us at Two Shoes Tuesday, it was a great read!
Thank you for linking up today with Tuesday Tunes. I love this song too and the video is very fun. Holli