Who's on your wall? Farrah? Evel Knievel?

Taking a slight detour. We'll get back to Maine later. Did you ever get to decorate your room as a kid? Paint? Wallpaper? Furnishings? I got to put up posters. That was about it. Not every place we lived but just at a couple. Now most people may have had posters of rock stars, sport stars, cars, and others. I had a couple of those black light ones. They were leftovers from some book fair thing we had at school. A neighbor had put a whole bunch of them out by his trash can. I mean boxes of them. I got a few of each one and shared them with kids in the neighborhood. I'm not sure if the fuzziness made the ultraviolet rays more favorable or not. I had the striking cobra, grim reaper on a chopper, and the black panther. I think everyone had the panther. I must have handed out about 30 of them to the other kids. My posters changed from season to season. A few weeks to a year. No set time. Just when you get tired of one it comes down. The new thing goes up. I never really followed trends. I didn't just get a poster because someone else did. As a matter of fact, one of my walls was covered with maps from National Geographic Magazine. In addition to reading about places, I would plan out places that I wanted to visit and chart my courses. A couple of posters were actually purchased and strongly recommended.
One of which was the famous Farrah Fawcett in the red bikini.

Farrah

I think everyone I knew had that one. I didn't really think she was worthy of my wall. Another thing was I didn't think Sheelah would be too excited about me  putting up posters of girls in bikinis on my wall. In sixth grade, I got busted for taking one of my dad's Playboy magazines to school. The school called home and Sheelah came to get me. She wasn't mad. She was foaming at the mouth, crazy with rage, ready to go postal. I got a high volume lecture from her and a beating from Bob. I thought having any kind of a picture of a girl on my wall would lead to a long and anguishing death. Latter, I covered up Farrah with a brunette wearing a tank top and daisy dukes. "HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO FARRAH? WE BOUGHT YOU THAT POSTER!" I said that I just liked this other girl better. They were worried about me. Who didn't like Farrah? Everybody was supposed to like her, but I didn't really think one way or another about her. Bob and Sheelah were always asking me if I liked girls . I said yes.  I cant explain the logic, on a number of occasions they offered to buy me condoms. They wanted explain how they worked and everything. I declined the offer. Rather than being happy that I was now seeing girls for more than just objects d'art. there just had to be something wrong. I don't know why they were so set on this.

Evel Kneivel

Another poster that was recommended was Evel Knievel. I actually saw him jump a couple of times. Evel was a hero for the kids in  my neighborhood, but he just wasn't mine. I was greatly impressed by his jumping and sometimes crashing skills, but that was it. My dad thought I should like Evel more than everyone else. I had a poster of him jumping buses. Later for Christmas or a birthday, I got the Evel Kneviel Stunt Cycle. Just like the real thing. He'd go for a little bit and then crash. I used to crank that winder so fast I thought the wheels would fly off the bike. A few times, Evel(the toy) would just shoot out of the launcher rather than ride down it. I could get him to go about 12" before tires hit the sidewalk. The toy was still pretty cool.
We used to set up ramps in the street and jump our bikes off of them. Good fun. The ramps we made were thrown together without much thought. They usually broke or collapsed. We just made them with anything we could find. Old rotten plywood, milk crates, trashcans, etc. Those were some pretty good days. Just me riding my bike and being away from the house.