If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor Read Online Free PDF Page A

year. Thankfully, the following year, some creative guy came as the Upside Down Man and snatched the title away.
    THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
    I'm grateful for my old neighborhood's tolerant view of adolescence -- without it, I wouldn't have been able to engage in the tomfoolery I did.
    There was something about those dark, warm summer nights that induced Don and I to roam the neighborhood like wild dogs. Many evenings, we'd pitch a tent in the backyard and be long gone by the time darkness fell.
    What do adolescent boys do at night? Do they play hide-and-seek? Flashlight tag? Sometimes, sure, but that stuff gets boring after puberty kicks in. Don and I decided to cut to the chase and look into the windows of unsuspecting women -- at every possible opportunity.
    "Copping a perv" was harder than you might think. Even though our neighborhood had no streetlights, and crickets provided a fantastic blanket of noise, it took great discipline to sneak up to a girl's open window and actually get close enough to see anything worth the effort. The sound of crunching leaves is unmistakable, and if a girl's window was right next to the woods, as was often the case, we'd be screwed. Second-story windows also sucked, but Don and I excelled at climbing trees.
    If it's any consolation to the shocked reader, our success rate was very low. After countless outings, I can recall only one time when we hit the jackpot. It was an extended, topless view of Carla, more woman than girl, and I will state, for the record, that it was worth every other failed attempt.
    We took every advantage the cover of darkness provided. On our way to toss water balloons at cars, Steve Davis, Scott Tyler and I would make a swing past old man Morris's rhubarb patch to load up on the sour stuff. It wasn't that we really liked raw rhubarb, because it was too sour to eat, but it became a good dare. Mr. Morris by no means deserved to be a victim of such theft, but his property was our access to Maple Road -- the water balloon staging area.
    There was an art to knowing when to release your water balloon at a passing car. Early on, we discovered that no matter how good your timing was, most balloons bounced off their intended targets. In order to get the full effect, you had to bite a microscopic hole near the knot of the balloon. This tiny weakness caused the balloon to unzip instantly upon impact.
    One night, my plan worked a little too well. As a truck passed, I let my bloated balloon go, but saw no effect whatsoever. Then, down the street, we heard the unmistakable sound of air brakes. We ran for cover and witnessed the angry trucker walking up the road, soaked from head to toe. Apparently, the water balloon had gone through an open window of his truck and hit him point-blank.

    FEMALES OF THE OPPOSITE SEX
    My family used to vacation on Lake Michigan several weeks out of every summer and walks along the beach were not uncommon. One day, while rooting through the water for a decent Petoskey stone, I caught the silhouette of a girl at the top of the sand dunes above the beach. As I squinted into the July sun, I saw an image that remains indelible today -- a girl with dark hair, wearing a dress that flowed seductively in the warm breeze.
    Although I couldn't see her face, I sensed that she was looking directly at me. Entranced, I held her gaze for an indefinite length of time, until her parents met her at the edge of the dune and led her out of my sight. As she walked away, in slow-motion, the girl watched me the entire time. Whether this was true or not, my memory has logged it as indisputable fact.
    When I was ten, I attended Camp Leelanau in the same part of Northern Michigan. It was an all-boy camp, but near the end of my three-week stay, we were bussed to the sister, "girl" camp for a day of "integration." I can only recall the terror of exiting the bus and seeing a line of cute girls across the road to greet us. My impressionable mind simply shut down and I don't