KEEPIN' FIT WITH RONNY J!

by Ronald Jickstoom

"Ronny J is our buddy's father. He used to play basketball for the University of Detroit-Mercy. He throws these great parties every time they earn the right to lose in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. Now his daughter plays for them too. Who are we to ignore his expertise?"-Rival Room Editors

I don’t think I’ll ever meet another girl like Peggy Orlovsky. Specially in the sixth grade these days. Now don’t quote me as one of those guys looking for little girls in middle school, but I have a daughter, and I’ve seen the lasses coming through the system these days. Short skirts, piercings on their tongues and navels, clear heels, and no regard for the cautionary tales of those before them. I don’t want to get all high and mighty about the girls back at Irving Stokely Middle School, but they knew how to tease with class. They didn’t need to suggestively show the uncovered backsides of their knees and lower thighs to wet the appetites of myself and the rest of our gang, the Sayers Blvd. Boys.

The imagination is an amazing thing. And it’s an even more amazing thing in us guys. That’s why for my ante, as a lad I would have rather had to wonder what’s underneath those wool stockings and saddle shoes. Ugly toes? Not a problem if I don’t have to look at them all. A badly shaven pair of rapidly growing struts? No skin off my back if I’m not tempted to accidentally skim one with my fingertips as I grab for my Biology book in a crowded classroom aisle. I don’t know how these kids today do it. If I were my son Chris, I’d be begging to go to private school, not bitching about it.

Sh*t. Lost my train of thought again. Is it Metamucil that helps with memory, or Ginko Baloba. Neither of those are one of those new “male-enhancement� drugs, are they? Wouldn’t want the whole world to think I need that pathetic crutch to give Mrs. Jickstoom her anniversary present. Mrs. Jickstoom is the bright orange pylon in the ball-handling drill of my livelihood. She knows I love her with all my parts, er, heart. And if we’re talking “parts,� I'd make sure to remind her that they all still work. At least 2-3 times an NBA season, depending on Chauncey Billups’ shooting percentage. But in naming the slyest fox in the Eastern Conference, I remind myself once again of the sly fox that holds my attention through many sleepless nights and desperate dreams: Peggy Orlovsky.

She should have been mine. Now she Mrs. Frank Cermak. It’s not like these days, when fellas test-drive every sports car in the lot before they decide to spend their eternity with a low-mileage Ford Focus. We used to find what works and stick with it for the long haul. We knew a winner when we saw one. And Goddamn Frank Cermak sees a winner every time he looks across the breakfast table. Cause he found Peggy when she was young and held on for the ride. But don’t you worry, every time he hugs his lovely wife, he’ll be looking over his shoulder for Ronny J. I’d be quite surprised if he’d fight for his wife like I fought for her 6^th grade incarnation.

But he won’t forget. It’s hard to wipe the memory of being bound to a your father’s barbershop candy-cane poll, pants around your ankles, and your fate in the hands of Ronny J and his right-hand man, Dwayne “Big Supper� Czarnicky. He can’t shake the thought of us laughing like hyenas as we smothered his package with shoe polish and slapped him with entrails left out behind the butcher shop. As if that humiliation wasn’t enough, I can’t imagine what he went through to clean himself off. Shoe polish back then was impossible to take off of human skin. That olive skinned half-guinea must have rubbed his junk down to the skin tone of a Scot. And to the size of one too.

Hey, if any of you do know the name of any of those new pills for us older fellas, put in a call to our good friend Mr. Peggy Orlovsky, because I’m sure he needs them after his bout with Big Supper and me. And if his wife answers, ask her how she’s doing. Try to bring me up in conversation. See if she remembers me. But if she doesn’t, don’t let Ronny J’s failures discourage you from your quest for one of the good ones. You’ll find yourself a winner, no matter how many pickled bologna loafs you have to force-feed her boyfriend before he looks like a pathetic twerp and you win her heart.