Melvin worked at Sears. In the shipping and receiving department. No one had really paid much attention to that fact until it became clear just how valuable such a position could be.

For “us”.

Ronnie figured it out. Ever since Melvin had paid rent one month by giving everyone in the house a car stereo, all the other cool stuff in his room began to make sense. And then the next month he brought home a belt sander and a few other pretty pricy tools. Ronnie sold em for the cash and again, the rent was paid. Then Ronnie did some more figuring and quickly came to the conclusion that Melvin’s access to free tools would go nicely with his plan to get a bunch of road signs to improve the pot smoking room.

He knew that the key to not getting caught would be to work fast. So Ronnie needed to be able to pull the van up to a sign and have his crew ready to jump out and grab it as quickly as possible. He had done his homework and knew all the sizes of the bolts that would be securing all the signs he wanted. (This of course was a time before the now universal use of theft resistant bolts) Ronnie figured he needed two ratchet wrenches each, for the four guys working. With both sizes of sockets so they would be sure to be ready for the two possible bolts they would be encountering.

So that morning after the epic party, all night smoke session and of course… the morning of the burning couch, Ronnie put it to Melvin how he could be so cool.

“Geek Boy” Melvin was convinced in a nanosecond. He just needed a few days to secure the stuff and all would be set.

It went off without a hitch. I came home from work one night and found Ronnie and “his crew” doing it up big time. The smoke room was darker than it had ever been. Two speed limit signs (65 and 45 mph respectively) had fit nicely in each of the big windows. They leaned against the thick blankets and cut off all possible light from there.

Several other signs decorated the walls between the black light posters, the most notable being a big Yield sign placed directly above Ronnies big recliner. Thick black marker had been used to make clear the message that one was required to…

Yield
To
Ron

Heh… well my adult self would like to be able to say that I didn’t think this was pretty cool indeed. That my good boy/man sensibilities wouldn’t support such bad behavior but…

I not only thought it was cool. I’m pretty sure I was jealous that they had gone and done it without me. In a previous post, I mentioned how much I didn’t like Ronnie and that was very true, so perhaps I had said that I didn’t want to come along. I don’t really remember those kinds of details now and it doesn’t matter.

What matters for the purpose of my stories here, is that this event was the beginning of a whole slew of thievery for everyone in the house. It was like the deed and the coolness of it’s success had opened a whole new world of possibility for our little East Center Street gang.

Thievery that would accompany a whole slew of life-changes for me as I moved closer to, and eventually ended up on that adventure road. The road I have already begun to write about in the story starting with this post.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again. I first will need to talk about Tinklers. I’ll need to share the story of what it was, how I got there and how that facilitated all that came after.

Stay tuned…