Their stories were so fanciful and magnificent that they HAD TO BE TRUE. I seem to recall one story about how they were being chased in the house (by ghosts) and jumped out the second story window to escape. I remember asking them how they didn't hurt themselves from the fall and they explained that they landed in the bushes (all safe and sound).

It was almost if they pulled the story from the previous episode of Scooby Doo and ran with it – because no matter what we brought up – they had a quick explanation. The stories got more ridiculous as the months went by.

What surprises me the most is that these were moderated by the teacher. I guess she just got a good laugh at watching the looks on our faces.

I'll see Chris in October at our 20th class reunion.

And I'm asking him if those stories were really true…

1983, Return of the Jedi just came out. Being a Star Wars fanatic, I was there opening day. My next door neighbor, however, wasn't allowed to see movies unless they were rated G, so he was SOL. Me, being a mean little bastard, decided to mess with this unfortunate kid's head by regaling him with the plot of ROTJ, albeit with some major plot revisions.

By the time I was finished with my "directors cut" of the film's plot, I had the kid convinced that Chewbacca joined the dark side and became Darth's apprentice, Han Solo was defrosted only to die a slow death from freezer burns, Leia and Luke discoved that they were sibblings yet decided to hook up and have some inbred chilluns, Boba Fett was unmasked and revealed to be Han Solo's long lost brother, Lando Calrussian along with the Millenium Falcon got destroyed by the Death Star, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was ressurected from the dead so he could have a final light saber battle with Darth Vader, mainly so Luke and Leia could be safe to produce one-eyed babies.

The kid ended up sharing what he "knew" about the movie at school, to everyone's ridicule. When he confronted me in front of several of the kids, I denied everything.

On a gorier note:

Before I saw "Empire" myself, a kid on the playground told me Luke had his whole arm cut off. I sneaked a peak in the Marvel comics adaptation, so I knew it was just his hand, but the kid said the comic couldn't show the whole arm getting lopped off.

The same kid also claimed he saw an episode of Wonder Woman (of course it was the night before & I missed it) guest-starring Batman & Superman. Wonder Woman died in a truly horrible way – something about a wood chipper – so Superman & Batman prayed (?!?) and brought her back to life.

I think that kid walks the streets, a free man, to this day.

Oh, and my brother went into great detail about the German mechanic guy & the airplane propeller from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

the West Mountain in Hamilton circa late 70's/early 80's was a weird, weird place…..

Seriously… you let a kid with the last name of "Buttars" hassle you? There's no way Chris Butt-tard would have had a chance in my 4th grade class.

http://laura.moncur.org/archives/2009/07/06/best-boss-an-angel-ever-had/

I feel a little guilty for being the BS perpetrator on this one, but it was worth it.

If you let me go to third base with you, I'll show you my rare King Kong jeans…