Even Gods Die (Whatever The Hell That Means)

When I was a senior in high school, I did the musical Godspell. I filmed everything. And, Oh yeah, I also stole a lawn ornament.

I’m sure the statute of limitation for stealing a statue has worn off by now, right? Just in case, I won’t give you too many details other than to say, I was a bored teenager.

A handful of us were out one night and saw a statue (AKA lawn ornament) in someone’s garden. We felt it would be perfect, NOT in their garden anymore. It would be wrong to rat out my accomplices at this time. But if you really need to know, Steve Berger & Mike Dionne could shed some light on that for you.

We were dicks and we absconded with the concrete kid under the cover of night.

The statue, depending on who you asked, was a little boy or a little girl decked out in a bathing suit, as well as a pair of swimmers goggles on top of a swimmers cap. It was probably bought as a gift for the home of a young championship swimmer who has since gone on to compete at an Olympic level. I still feel bad about that (the theft, not the Olympics).

We had named the statue “Bob,” and “given” him to my buddy Jim. Jim was going away to the Naval Academy, while to rest of us would be loafing around the summer before entering college.  These are out Outsiders days (minus any of us saving a kid from a fire, though I wouldn't put that one past Dionne). Since openly displaying stolen contraband is frowned upon by the US Navy, it was decided that Bob would remain at my parent’s house while Jim was away.

The rest of the summer, Bob sat silently on a bulkhead overlooking my parent’s pool. I’m sure the temptation to dive in was at the forefront of his concrete mind. However, his embedding dive would not result in meeting water. Instead, a strong gust of wind would knock him off the bulkhead, sending him plummeting about 5 feet to the cement pool deck. The impact destroyed Bob’s legs and much of his torso.  This was most unfortunate, as we had recently concocted the plan of sending photos of Bob having fun throughout the summer to his rightful owners, with the intention of returning him once the Summer ended. Now it seemed that behavior would be cold and callous.

So there was only one thing we could do…get rid of the evidence in a Vikingesque Funeral.

We waited until Jim was able to take a break from the military Academy to properly eulogize Bob. That date would come sometime in the late Fall or early Winter of 1995 at the beach…where the water was FREEZING COLD! And of course for good measure, I filmed it.

What follows is a video entitled “Even Gods Die.”

I have no earthly memory of why we felt we needed to bestow the power of a god on this sedentary monument. Perhaps out of the same teenage boredom that saw us nab him in the first place or, as previously mentioned, because we were dicks.

But alas, this deity is no more…unless you happen to end up with a chunk of rock in your foot while down the Jersey shore. IN which case, please address all lawsuits to Jim McCabe.