Chapter One
The Proving Grounds
There is an L-shaped scar on the left side of my chin. People always askme how I got it and I''ve told them everything from "One dark night inBombay," to "A scuffle with bad, bad, Leroy Brown ..."
In actuality, it came about because I was a fearless kid. I played outsidea great deal of the time, in any weather and in suburban Detroit, Michigan,that''s saying something. In this age where laser surgery rushes to correctevery imperfection, I''m not going to touch that scar—it reminds me of toomuch fun.
Bilbo Baggins would have felt right at home in my neighborhood—it wasa magical place. The Braes of Bloomfield was created by commuters hopingto get away from the faded glory of the Motor City, and the results wereimpressive. As a kid exploring the woods between these upper-middle-classhomes, the city might as well have been a million miles away.
Unlike the embarrassing names attributed to subdivisions today—like"Pine Meadows," where there are neither pine trees nor meadows—if astreet in my neighborhoodwas called Old Orchard, itwas because there used tobe an orchard on that veryspot. Rogue trees in manyof the yards still producedapples.
With street names likeBraemoor, Idlewyle, andDarramoor, you''d think youwere in rural Scotland.Most of the traditionalranch-style homes weren''tall that big, but they hadland around them. The best part of all is that there were virtually nofences—this was long before the "planned" communities of today, withguard gates, motion-sensitive lighting, and Neighborhood Watches.
Our neighborhood had an epic feel to it, and this broad range provokeda sense of unlimited possibility. As a result, the three Campbell boys (Mike,Don and Bruce) were "free range" and could explore at will.
I am the youngest of the three. Don is a year older. He and I wound upspending more time together than with Mike, six years our senior, but therewere plenty of industrious summers spent as a threesome.
Sibling Rivals
Don and I were often mistaken as twins, although I still wonder why—hisreddish brown hair and hazel eyes were a great contrast to my darkbrown hair and muddy brown eyes.
As is normal for siblings, we competed for everything—particularlyMom''s attention. That became obvious to me one school morning as Ileaned down to buckle up my rain boots at the top of the stairs. Don sawthis as the perfect opportunity to eliminate me from his world, so heplanted a foot against my butt and shoved. T tumbled forward, sure of myfate, but Mom jabbed a finger into my belt loop and held me aloft just longenough to grab the railing.
This incident, no doubt, contributed to an altercation in our front yardyears later. After provoking Don for some unknown reason, he chased meacross our front lawn in a rage. Somewhere along my escape route, Imanaged to snag a screwdriver. As Don swung his fist, I raised the Phillipshead and it promptly became impaled in his wrist.
"You stabbed me!" Don screamed, incredulous.
"I did not. You swung at me and I defended myself."
Aside from the occasional near-death experiences, Don and I actuallygot along well. As we aged and grew, our "roughhousing" became not onlydiscouraged but feared. Epic wrestling matches encompassed the entirehouse and resulted in broken furniture. The fact that we were both on thejunior high wrestling teamonly made things worse formy mother.
"What''s the problem,Mom? We''re practicing ..."
In the late sixties, warfilms like Kelly''s Heroes,The Devil''s Brigade and TheDirty Dozen seemed to beeverywhere. Our favoriteTV show, Combat, onlyencouraged this preoccupationwith war, and VicMorrow soon became myfirst favorite actor. He was the embodiment of laid-back cool and I lovedhow his cigarettes bounced on the edge of his mouth when he talked.
Years later, I worked with Michael Caffey, who had directed severalCombat episodes. Instead of asking him for motivation, all I cared to knowwas who could kick whose ass—Vic Morrow or his commanding officer, RickJason? Don, on the other hand, was partial to the character Kirby becausehe had the coolest gun—a Browning automatic rifle.
Don took all this make-believe stuff a little too seriously. The differencebetween us was fundamental: I''d watch Combat and think, Gee, it wouldbe fun to be an actor like that guy. Don would watch the same scene andthink, Gee, it would be fun to be that guy. He went on to join the armyreserves and got to play the ultimate "war game" in Kuwait during DesertStorm.
Don and I passed many hours with G.I. Joes. We had the basic ones—theRussian, the Cadet, the Japanese guy, the German—who didn''t? Theywere cool, but unless you were Billy Jazinski, the spoiled rich kid down thestreet, there was a limit to how many you owned.
Fighting with "Joes" meant that our military engagements wererestricted to "skirmishes." That wasn''t enough for the post-World War II,pre-Vietnam kids that we were—Don and I wanted to stage full-scaleinvasions!
The only way to do this was with those little green army men. Down atthe brand-new Toys "R" Us, a bag of what seemed like hundreds only costa couple bucks.
Somehow, it didn''t seem right reenacting D day in our living room. Toomay soldiers fell behind the sofa, so the great outdoors became the placeto rumble.
The backyard, however, was a no-go. Our basset hound, Nuisance,reigned supreme back there. The dangers of fighting in her territory weretwofold: running the risk of having entire platoons chewed to death or, evenworse, mounting a frontal assault through scattered piles of "dog dirt."
Our front lawn wasn''t much better. Therewere too many trees and tall grass, so battlesweren''t practical. We''d lose a dozen of themwith each "engagement" and Dad sliced anyMIAs to ribbons mowing the lawn eachSaturday. Of course, that wasn''t all bad,because we could round up their shreddedcarcasses and use them as "casualties." Evenat that tender age, we knew war was heck.
Our driveway proved to be a betterstaging area for campaigns. Because it wasdirt, you had a good color contrast and wenever lost a single green man. The drivewaywas also elevated above the lawn onfieldstone. This was ideal, because adefending army (usually Don''s) could hole upin hundreds of nooks and it might take anentire weekend to flush them out.
A garden hose added the element ofwater. With it, an army could be flooded outinto the open, where they could easily be massacred. The defending armyin this case (usually me) had a certain amount of time to build up damlikefortifications until the evil attacker turned the hose on, unleashing torrentsof water. The battles usually were declared over when either the waterbroke through the defender''s dam, or Mom came back from the grocerystore.
Eventually, the thrill of these games wore off, so Don and I resorted tomore drastic measures: burning the little green men into puddles of goo. Inthe late sixties, before Ralph Nader halted all the fun in the world, theplastic used in those army guys must have been toxic—they made thecoolest zzziiiiip, zzziiiiip, zzziiiiip noise with each burning drip. This gameevolved into "lava tossing," where you flung the napalmlike substance atyour opponent (or brother), as it dripped from the melting man.
Mom stopped us before Nader did, though, because one day a bigflaming blob of plastic sizzled its way into my finger. I am reminded of this,happily, every time I type.
Born in 1952, my oldest brother Mike was a child of the Cold War. Hisfavorite TV show, hands down, was Man From U.N.C.L.E., so everything hewas interested in revolved around espionage. To protect sensitiveinformation—sent mostly from himself to himself—he spent hours creatingelaborate codes and writing them into tiny paper books. There was theCode of the Pointing Sticks, the Words-for-Numbers Code, and who couldforget the O.O.R.A. Code (Off and On Reversible Alpha Code).
When not saving the world from evil invaders, Mike was making stuff.Never one for those goofy shop class projects, Mike went right to the realdeal—like a memory device, an electric "stop" light over his doorway, anda metal locator.
It made sense that Mike went into computers because his mind workedlike one. He made lists of everything: untrustworthy people (Don and Iwere often on it), his weekly income from 1959 through 1967 (in cents),and secret hand-to-hand combat routines. To this day, I still rely on"Routine number 6" (to "run headlong into them and tackle them")whenever I''m confronted by an enemy.
Rules of Engagement
Mike''s use of extensivelists came in handy when itcame time to determine the"rules" of our childhood. Ina household of three boyswho were always tormentingeach other, a systemof rules and fines wasdrafted and strictly adheredto. Many contained wording thatwould make a contract lawyer proudand all fines were "payable ondemand."
It became our own brand of justicethat addressed issues important to us all. A rule stating that Don owns halfof the hall in front of Don''s room was a key property right. The rule If Donor Bruce leaves or throws belongings in my room, they are mine unlessthey want to pay 20¢ seemed a bit harsh, but I''m sure it was just Mike''sway of saying "leave me the hell alone."
Simple crimes, like borrowing stuff without permission, calling names orsocking someone only cost the perpetrator 5¢. More obscure offenses, likehanging around doorway, fooling with light switches, or Mike''s legislativemasterpiece, squealing when I want to look at something Don or Bruce has,shot up to 10¢.
Some rules were obviously the result of either a pet peeve, or a veryspecific incident. There would otherwise be no explanation for the 20¢ fineof taking something from me while I was looking at it, or the 40¢ whopperfor damaging rocket controls. In our draconian world, you could even befined for suspicion.
Some rules, however, did make sense. In the tight quarters of a garagefort, it was simply a matter of decency to place a ban on "dirtey boots orshous" (spelling unaltered) and "letting gassers."
Of course, all of these rules did absolutely nothing to stop the siblingabuse. Mike once laid out detailed plans to raid Don''s left-hand drawer inhis half of the room (that he and I shared) that included an overheaddiagram, complete with escape routes and a comprehensive list of excusesto use if he got caught. For some reason, even though Don did "hit,disobey, lie, steal stuff, and destroy," I don''t think my mom would have letMike off the hook.
Because these "raids" happened so often, we each devised ways toprotect our "secret stuff." Mike hid things in every possible nook andcranny—I know, because I went through them all. Don often moved hisprecious things around, or hid them in "secret books." With a sharp razorblade, usually from Dad''s shaver, he hollowed out numerous hard-covermasterpieces from the living room. It wasn''t hard to spot which ones werebogus—War and Peace isn''t usually paired with The Cat in the Hat on a ten-year-old''sshelf.
Because invading each other''s room wassuch a big deal, I had to do it as often aspossible. One day, a plan to bother Donworked flawlessly. I raced into his room,made all kinds of noise and stole a whitegym sock. Don was close on my heels as Iran away down the hall and ducked into thebathroom. As he entered the doorway, hesaw me flush what he thought was his sockdown the toilet.
"What did you do that for?! I''ll kill you!"
In reality, I had ditched Don''s real sockas I entered the bathroom and flushed astrip of white toilet paper (preplaced) intothe septic tank. In the end, our finesevened out, because Don promptly gaveme a thrashing—roughly equal to my 30¢worth of transgressions. I wouldn''t havebeen surprised if Don invented a fine for pretending to flush socks downthe toilet.
Even the bathroom wasn''t a reliable sanctuary. There was a lock on thedoor, sure, but it could easily be opened with a credit card. To combat this,a drawer by the door could be pulled out to block the way. This worked untilMike drilled a hole through the wall of our linen closet and rigged a coathanger to the drawer itself.
I mocked Don through the door one day, protected by the door lock,only to look down and see the drawer magically slide back in all by itself.
"You were saying?" Don said, as he pushed the door open and beganbeating the grunt out of me.
Industrial-Strength Fun
Mike took charge of building a playhouse in our backyard. The endproduct wasn''t some cute cardboard house with a couple of windows—itwas a three-quarter-scale tank.
His plan was to make a mobilewar machine that could presumablyattack things and/or people.Taking into account all materialsneeded to build the tank,including plywood, two-by-fours,steering wheel, gunbarrel, catapult, rubberslings, mirrors, fan belts anda pulley system, Mike estimatedthat the total weightwould be 387 1/2 pounds withoccupants. I''ll bet he wasn''t faroff. The only scheme that nevercame to bear was mounting thedamn thing on Dad''s riding lawnmower.
To defend against attacking neighbors, we armed ourselves with crackerballs, rolls of caps, sparklers, balloons, squirt guns, sling shot rifles, rubberband shooters and the dreaded Ivory Liquid detergent bottles—theSuper Soaker of their day. We used to beg Mom to buy the Ivory brandbottles because they had the best nozzles and could blast water thefarthest. Mike was the best at this, because his hands were stronger. Witha good squeeze, he could drench Don or me from twenty feet away. Overtime, we learned to rinse the bottles out well—a soapy shot in the eye couldruin your whole afternoon.
The experience of building the tank only fueled other summer projects—likethe tunnel. To protect ourselves from parental meddling, we alwaysreferred to it by the backward code name of "Lennut."
The first challenge was to choose a good dig site. To insure privacy, wepicked a spot in the adjacent woods, but we had to be careful becausetunneling too close to a large tree meant hassling with roots. Once we hadthe site, we excavated a horizontal trench and reinforced the sides with two-by-fours.This was then covered with plywood, six inches of dirt and plentyof camouflage. Now, we could begin digging the main shaft, which wentstraight down, until we hit water. To communicate with the outside world,a garden hose was lowered through a hole in the roof.
Play time in the "Lennut" was anything but—it was backbreaking work.After school, on weekends and even during vacations, we''d dig with handtrowels, chop and burn off roots, reinforce the walls, then dig some more.To provide a better working environment, Mike came up with an ingeniousmethod of providing candlelight in a series of carved alcoves and evenmanufactured glow-in-the-dark candles from phosphorescent crayons.
Eventually, Don squealed about the use of candles, which wasforbidden, and Dad gave the order to fill it in. We obeyed, but soonthereafter, Mike built a doghouse, supposedly for our basset hound, but itwas ultimately just a front for a hidden tunnel entrance and we started theprocess all over again.
Most kids came home at lunch with grass stains. Mike, Don and I werea little more "earthy" than that, but it dawned on us that we could applyour extensive landscape knowledge to a project that wouldn''t collapse,wouldn''t get our knees muddy and didn''t fill up with water every ten days—agolf course!
The Campbell/Ebbing Miniature Golf Course was next door, in neighborMike Ebbing''s backyard. This club turned out to be very exclusive, mainlysince few people actually played it, and our rule book (as you might expect)was more restrictive than the PGA''s. People who brought in forgedcertificates or coupons, for example, were to be "escorted off the grounds,"a measure that also applied to people with "malicious intentions," whateverthat meant. No other "vendors" could sell their goods on or near the courseunless a vast majority of the profit (between eighty and ninety-ninepercent) went directly to the organizers—we didn''t even give cut rates forpeople who brought their own clubs or balls.
Even with rampant overmanaging, we did make money—37¢ one day,$1.72 another. Personally, I lost interest in this venture when Don caughtme in the bridge of my nose with a wicked backswing.
Soon, brother Mike was old enough to be more interested in girls andcars, so Don and I had to tackle any new construction projects byourselves. Michigan is all about trees, so we decided to build the "motherof all tree forts" in the Tylers'' backyard.
Our growing neighborhood provided allthe building materials we would ever need.At any one time, there would be half adozen homes under construction withinwalking distance. Don and T would sneakout at night, under the guise of going toScott Tyler''s house, and haul rolls of tarpaper, wood scraps and nails through thewoods back to our "house."
The completed palace was impressive.There was a main level, comprised of arumpus room, with several "guest" roomsoff to each side. The second story wasa smaller, single room and above it was acrow''s nest. Don was the only one whoventured up there because it was just toohigh. Built over an entire summer, thiswasn''t a fort—it was a fortress, with ashingled roof, wall-to-wall carpeting andpower, thanks to a buried extension cord tothe Tylers'' house.
This refuge also served as a proving ground for adulthood.
Here, commerce took on a whole new meaning. Judy, a close neighbor,was an adventurous lass. She was happy to dole out a "squeeze" at 10¢ apop. Let''s be clear—a "squeeze" meant wrapping a clammy hand aroundher breast and holding on until she brushed it away. My day in the suncame when I saw a dollar hanging out of Judy''s back pocket. Being anopportunist, I snatched it and bought ten of the most protracted squeezesyou could imagine.
My buddy Bruce Clark was a man of the world. He had, for a short time,co-starred in an English TV show, The Double Deckers, so he was thecoolest guy to hang around with. His garage fort was a great place to talkabout some of the cute girls he met while "on location." Though I had noexperiences to relate, the fact that we even talked about them was hugeand seemed to consume days on end.
Bruce was convinced that girls liked performers, so we put together adance routine to The Monkees "Last Train to Clarksville" and presented itto Ms. Butcher''s third-grade class. It got a big response from the girls allright—in the form of laughter.
I threw out my Beatle Boots as soon as I got home.
Ground Control to Major Mike ...
Mike was Chairman of Research and Development for OOMPH—theOrganization to Observe and Manufacture Phenomena of the Heavens. Thetranslation of this mumbo-jumbo was that he liked to build UFOs and sendthem skyward. Don and I were his willing apprentices.
A staple of the time was the Estes Rocket. They had to be assembledfrom a kit that included the rocket, balsa wood fins, rocket engine and theparachute. All we had to supply was a dry cell battery to ignite the engine.
These fancy rocketswere exciting to watch, butthe expense was prohibitive,especially when youconsidered the short amountof time they were actuallyairborne, so we opted insteadto build home-grownUFOs. These came in theform of a dry cleaning bag,held open at the mouth bya cross of balsa wood struts.Simple birthday candles,glued to the struts, providedthe heat needed to fillup the bag and keep italoft. Once we got the hang of it, a successfully launched craft would riseup slowly above the treetops, then hang for an eternity until a cross windcaught it and took it away to goodness-knows-where.
Continues...
Excerpted from If Chins Could Killby Bruce Campbell Copyright © 2002 by Bruce Campbell. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
