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Following on from last episode: Graham, Alex, and Beej tell us their darkest memories.
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Yo Video closed? And presumably liquidated their supply of DVDS?

Yo Video, where some seasons of cH were available for rent?

Like Season One?

WHERE IS THAT SEAOSN OEN?1

So talk of early grade school reminded me of my 1st Grade class where the story isn't so much as cringe worthy as it is interesting to think back on.

I was moved a few weeks after the school year started and was put into Ms. Padillas(sic) who was a 1st year teacher. Long story short, she quit. Teaching. 2 weeks before the end of the year.

Our problem child was named Zack and he was in the principals everyday. Other incidents include on child attempting to kick another, missing, and breaking a light with a stray shoe. One kid hitting another during soccer and breaking the later's nose. One kid hitting Zack from behind with a chair. DAILY fights over blocks. And through all of it I was not explicitly tied to any incident, but was friends with everyone who was a terror.

I guess I was more a vizier than a leader or active participant.

here in florida we call "california kickball" kickball

Oh my god, why didn't you guys try this format earlier?

I mean no offense. I love AskLRR, especially because I do a little fanboy squee whenever my questions get addressed, but I love this topic-centric episodes because it feels like kicking back and just listening to you guys be you, which is fascinating and awesome and hilarious and fills me with warm fuzzies.

My own personal cringe story: it's new year's eve, I don't drink so I'm sober during this. Me and my friends are just sort of wandering around and we're in a parking lot of a grocery store and my friends are sliding into the snow bank on their butts because it's a bit icy. I decide to try a stomach slide. What happened more was like a belly flop onto frozen cement in a less than graceful manner. I was rather sore for the rest of the night.

In Michigan we just called it "kickball"

in California, we called "California Kickball" Kickball... are there more forms of kickball that I am unaware of?

Are we sharing our own cringe stories? Well, I don't like to be that guy who has to top everyone else's story, but.

In ninth grade, 1996, I went on a school trip to Russia for a week, helped repaint an orphanage and some charity stuff like that. I realized on the harbor as we were waiting for the ferry over to Finland I didn't have my passport with me, but that was just some average early morning life-or-death horror. We slept in sleeping bags in the gym of a school that had been emptied for the week just for us, which sort of sets the tone for my story. We had one toilet without a lid in a bathroom that didn't lock and the class had a lot of fun when the powdered soup I had brought with me for dinner rations turned my poop green, but that was just my life as a teenager. When I suggested we pooled together and stock up on amazingly cheap soda to nourish us on the 24 hour bus ride home for some reason the teachers listened to me and then no one wanted soda, but by then I was desensitized to shame.

The fun part happened on our second last day, when I could no longer avoid going to visit one of our host families who were generously putting up students in pairs so that we could get away from the gym and/or enculturate ourselves. Over dinner followed a parade of small embarrassments, some private, some public: Pompously teaching their little boy, whose hobby was learning English, the word "refrigerator" and nothing else, freaking out over having to drink a small shot of vodka, savoring the soup so much I looked like I hated it cause I had more than half left when everyone else were finished, that sort of thing. But then, after dinner, there was tea.

The mom asked if we wanted tea or coffee, and I saw everyone else quickly saying coffee and, having always hated coffee, I was scared I'd have to sit there with an untouched cup and look like I hated her coffee, and I blurted out "I want tea" awkwardly enough to make everyone look at me. Which should have given some indication I'd made a mistake.

And then, once the table was cleared, the mom started putting out tea for me. This continued for maybe ten minutes, while the dad, the son and my two classmates adjourned to the sitting room to watch TV and drink coffee. I got the kitchen table to myself, with the tea in an ornate teapot, and little pots of milk, sugar, lemon, honey and cream, and a silver tray piled with seven kinds of cookies.

Because I asked for tea.

This really happened.

I told myself this was really happening for a good fifteen minutes before I could accept it enough to react, by taking my teacup and joining the people and pretending it didn't happen.

It was weird but amusing for me to listen as I went to the same schools and had many of same teachers and Graham did (I am two years younger than he is). In grade five I was in the same situation as Graham was - the nerdy kid in Mr Duruso's 5/6 split class which had most of the kids with difficult behaviour.

iceaxe852 wrote:in California, we called "California Kickball" Kickball... are there more forms of kickball that I am unaware of?

In Pennsylvania, we also just called it "Kickball".

I believe calcium carbonate (chalk) is actually a remedy for heartburn.

It sounds like Alex and I had a few things in common growing up. Primarily playing with fire and explosives.

One time 3 of my friends and myself were in my garage screwing around, no adults home at the time, and we decided it would be cool to find every flammable liquid in the house and garage and mix them together. It was gonna be awesome. So we set about the task, gathering up hair spray, charcoal lighter fluid, some other stuff I can't really remember anymore, and of course gasoline.

We mixed them all together in a "Moose cup" from Hardee's, which is just a large 32oz plastic cup, stirred it up with a stick and then decided to try lighting the stick on fire. Obviously the concoction on the end of the stick lit right up, but what we weren't expecting was a flaming glob of stuff to fall off the stick and into the cup. FWOOSH! Huge fireball shoots up from the cup scaring the shit out of all of us, and in the panic someone managed to kick the cup over spilling the flaming contents all over the garage floor, making a small flaming puddle.

More panic as we try to figure out how the hell we're supposed to put this out. My friend Nathan runs outside, finds a 5 gallon bucket that was nearly full of water runs in and tosses it on the fire. Now our small flaming puddle is about 8 feet wide. We eventually grabbed a couple half sheets of plywood that were laying around and used them to snuff out the fire. It was probably the 2nd most terrifying incident I had while playing with fire. Looking back at all the mishaps it's amazing I'm not either dead or covered in scars.

I don't exactly have a cringe story, and being older than any of the LRR crew, I don't have exactly the same experiences because technology was slightly different when I went to school. It never really occurred to me that I was a "loser" in school, although I'm sure that's what the other kids considered me. They would occasionally stomp on my new shoes, or other stupid stuff like that, but I never really got too upset by it. (OK, that's a lie, it upset me a lot, but what was I going to do about it?) I remember hearing that the best revenge is a life well lived. Well...

My friends in school, who were basically all nerds, geeks, D&D players and gamers are now lawyers, doctors, C level management at large corporations, running IT departments for huge companies, programming fighter planes, medical research and financial programs and other amazing things. Fear not losers and nerds, if you get past your school and childhood, great things await you.

Oh yes, and attractive people of the opposite gender eventually do realize that geeks make good mates and will eventually seek you out, when they do, try not to blow them up with a firecracker or something, it's a little awkward later on.

Back in my day, we didn't throw walnuts. We whipped marker/sharpies at each other. They didn't really ever do real damage but they stung like a bitch. Plus we could do it in class as long as we all picked up our bits fast enough.

We just called it "kickball" in New Hampshire. Unless there's another variant of kickball somewhere else...

Edit: Searching online, I found this site that implies that in "traditional" kickball you run the bases clockwise, and that the California variant has you running them counterclockwise. I've never heard of anyone running them clockwise, though. It also says that in California Kickball there's no limit on players-per-base, which is really weird -- no forced plays whatsoever.

This site also talks about the "California Tiebreaker", wherein you start each half-inning with a runner on Second and two outs.



Related to Graham's story of "lying" -- In third grade I regularly didn't turn in homework on time, and my teacher was disappointed in this habit of mine. One time I had a book report due, and I had actually done it in advance! So leaving for school that morning, my mom asked me where it was, and I told her it was at school. Mid-morning comes and it's time to turn it in, and I can't find it, so I tell the teacher I must have left it at home.

After lunch the rest of the class goes out for recess, and I'm inside as punishment for missing the deadline on some other homework assignment, and I find the book report jammed in the cubby hole of my desk. I take it out and show it to the teacher, and she tells me that she had talked to my mom and they had figured out my supposedly contradictory stories, so I was given detention that afternoon for "lying".

It's the only damn after-school detention I was given my entire school career.

My sister and I would like to know what Beej played in band.