Strangely, I don't really remember how I met many of my friends from the tail-end of my Elementary School years; those same friends who would go on to follow me to Junior High at Portage North Middle. I'm sure a few were just from class itself, and I do know some were met in Cub Scouts, but the recollection is hazy at best. But what I do know is that the three main kids I hung out with were Chad Mickel (my backyard neighbor), Jayesh Mehta (who lived just a few houses down from Chad on Belaire), and Kerry Frieben (whom I mentioned not only lived a bit of a hike away, but was also the kid I really looked up to in terms of age and experience). We were pretty inseparable. We had sleep overs, birthday parties, and just hung out all the time. These were my friends outside of Scouts, but we all went to school together, and we were best pals to be sure.
We were all very big into Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and, of course, Transformers. In fact, Chad owned quite a few more of the toys than I did, so between his collection and my slightly more meager supply, we had quite a lot of good times running through our yards and having boy-typical battles. Thanks to these times, I'd imagine, I'm still a bit of a toy, cartoon, and Sci-Fi nerd to this day.
Kerry, on the other hand, wasn't much of a toy guy. But what he did do was build my love for Horror Movies thanks to one fateful occasion I will never forget. It was sometime in 1985, because A Nightmare on Elm Street had been released to the theaters a year before and had just hit the home VHS market. We were having a sleep-over at Kerry's house in his none-too-innocent looking basement. That is to say: it was dark, it was rife with tools and the eponymous older looking water boiler, and it had spooky back rooms. So, we settled in to watch a few movies. One of which was some Sci-Fi thing, maybe Krull, that he kind of greased my palms with, and the other was A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was not about to watch that, thank you very much. At that point I was pretty much a chicken and a half, and I would do everything I could not to watch horror since my freaky behind-the-couch viewing of my parents viewing of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer a few months earlier. That movie was bad enough, and there was no way Kerry was gonna get me to watch Freddy Krueger and his nightmares. Ah, but that was all about to change.
Kerry made me both a deal and a threat somehow wrapped in a promise. First of all, you have to understand that I was an avid MAD Magazine collector. I had a big pile of them, but none that were really old at the time. I began collecting in 1983, and Kerry had a bunch from the 70's that I really wanted. And so this would be the first part of the deal: he would give me five of his older MAD's. Okay, so far I was falling into this little snare. Secondly, and this was the kicker, Kerry said that I couldn't feign sleep during the movie's run or else he'd punch me in the balls. Yup: he promised NOT to punch me if I stayed awake and watched the flick. Um... I guess I couldn't lose and what choice did I have? I was trapped. But ya know what? I can't thank him enough...
And so we watched. And yes, I was pretty uneasy. But ya know what? I loved every gory second of it. I was on the edge of my seat more for the great movie itself than for the horror. We had a ball, and from that moment forward, I was hooked. My interests turned a little bit toward horror; horror I was only able to really get at Kerry's house since my parents both didn't know and likely wouldn't have allowed it for an eleven-year old. That night was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between horror and I, and to this day it takes an awful lot to scare me. Maybe I'm still worried about being hit in the balls.
Oh, and he gave me TEN MAD's that day. Kerry was a cool kid.
We were all very big into Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and, of course, Transformers. In fact, Chad owned quite a few more of the toys than I did, so between his collection and my slightly more meager supply, we had quite a lot of good times running through our yards and having boy-typical battles. Thanks to these times, I'd imagine, I'm still a bit of a toy, cartoon, and Sci-Fi nerd to this day.
Kerry, on the other hand, wasn't much of a toy guy. But what he did do was build my love for Horror Movies thanks to one fateful occasion I will never forget. It was sometime in 1985, because A Nightmare on Elm Street had been released to the theaters a year before and had just hit the home VHS market. We were having a sleep-over at Kerry's house in his none-too-innocent looking basement. That is to say: it was dark, it was rife with tools and the eponymous older looking water boiler, and it had spooky back rooms. So, we settled in to watch a few movies. One of which was some Sci-Fi thing, maybe Krull, that he kind of greased my palms with, and the other was A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was not about to watch that, thank you very much. At that point I was pretty much a chicken and a half, and I would do everything I could not to watch horror since my freaky behind-the-couch viewing of my parents viewing of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer a few months earlier. That movie was bad enough, and there was no way Kerry was gonna get me to watch Freddy Krueger and his nightmares. Ah, but that was all about to change.
Kerry made me both a deal and a threat somehow wrapped in a promise. First of all, you have to understand that I was an avid MAD Magazine collector. I had a big pile of them, but none that were really old at the time. I began collecting in 1983, and Kerry had a bunch from the 70's that I really wanted. And so this would be the first part of the deal: he would give me five of his older MAD's. Okay, so far I was falling into this little snare. Secondly, and this was the kicker, Kerry said that I couldn't feign sleep during the movie's run or else he'd punch me in the balls. Yup: he promised NOT to punch me if I stayed awake and watched the flick. Um... I guess I couldn't lose and what choice did I have? I was trapped. But ya know what? I can't thank him enough...
And so we watched. And yes, I was pretty uneasy. But ya know what? I loved every gory second of it. I was on the edge of my seat more for the great movie itself than for the horror. We had a ball, and from that moment forward, I was hooked. My interests turned a little bit toward horror; horror I was only able to really get at Kerry's house since my parents both didn't know and likely wouldn't have allowed it for an eleven-year old. That night was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between horror and I, and to this day it takes an awful lot to scare me. Maybe I'm still worried about being hit in the balls.
Oh, and he gave me TEN MAD's that day. Kerry was a cool kid.
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