For my friend Brandon
Mack, I don’t know where to start really. —————-Okay fine, ill start with topic started our first conversation back in summer school (cause we were trying to get ahead right?). Anyways, you were that quite kid. Yeah, that was you, hard to believe now but you actually wouldn’t talk much in class. I remember we were out on recess and I came up to talk to you cause you looked like a cool cat, and you mentioned you had a drum set. From that point on, I was in. I knew that if I could go over to your house, just once, I could play drums for the first time in my life. Something that I dreamed about…for about a month. I remember my dad dropped me off at 711 in Garden Road (GR WHAT) and with my skateboard in hand. You were already waiting with yours. I grabbed a coca cola Slurpee you grabbed a cherry and we skated back to your house. I remember we walked in, there was an over abundance of babies walking around. You didn’t say much about it, you just walked right in. Then we got to Billy. Billy was a crazy baby. You could tell he was one your favorites. You picked him up, did a weird scrunchy face that followed a high pitch voice scream, put him down, and walked along. Like it was normal. I soon began to realize, it was normal. We went to the backroom (good thing Linwood wasn’t watching his Skate videos) and we began to wurl away at the drums. We took turns and had our 10 minutes of fun and then moved onto something else. This was the first day our friendship began, little did we know what we would go through with the years that followed.
We got into mischief at an early age. I seriously think by 5th grade we aged carol 10-15 years. She became a second mom to me. She use to “baby sit” me while my mom went to work and me and Brandon just went to town on city of GR. We did everything, we knew everyone in that small area. If we weren’t skateboaridng, we were biking, or paint balling, or fireworks or making stain bombs…Speaking of which, this time I know you will never forget. We obviously were board, so what we did was grab the biggest zip lock bag we could find. We went around to big Linwood’s cabinets, grabbed shaving cream, soap, shampoo anything we could find that we thought would stain and started mixing it up in the bag. I even think one of us pee’d in it to top it off, don’t worry I wont let anyone know who it was ;). We had to sneak it past carol, so you created a diversion with baby Shelby while I snuck it out the front door. Then we were on our way to a victims house. No one in particular we just wanted to see if it would actually work. After walking a block or two we found a house that was at a four way stop. We thought it would be a perfect house to present our surprise. We both grabbed the bag (it was a really big bag) and we threw it high in the air going toward the person’s driveway. IT splat everywhere and we ran to the garden road fields. Soon enough I see my mom in her car right outside the Garden Road fields, waiting for us with dark dark stare. THEY FOUND US? How could this happen? We’ll the geniuses that we were left a stain trail the ENTIRE WAY from Brandon’s house, the scene of the crime and then to the fields, i guess there was a leak in the bag. :/
Our later years began very normal…you know the Toilet paper days, our first girl experiences, our first party, snowboard trips, Disney land trips, our first cigarette, our first beer, it all happened with me and you. I don’t think i would have ever wanted to do it with anybody else. You and me GOT each other. We understood each other. I would start a joke and you could finish it. Sometimes we wouldn’t even have to speak and our facial expressions would do the work. It’s crazy how you can connect with somebody in that sense. I spent countless days at your house, you slumbered at mine and we would just do the craziest shit man. Wrestling, REMEMBER WRESTLING. I like made you do it and you thought it was gay the whole time. Look how wrong you are NOW buddy. We did radio show and recorded it on cassettes. Remember we gave Jared San Nicolas a copy of our rap tape and he actually jammed it. I remember we skated by his house and he was outside and he was actually singing the lyrics. I was big Pete you were little Mac. I could never forget the childhood which was us. It was pure, it was fun, and we made a whole lot of life friends out of it. Think about it, if me and you never met, how could we have switched from the Skate Group in middle school to the Preppys and meet Ryan Koerper or Jeremy Velarde. Remember how Stan was in every ones group and always had funny hair to be like “woah look at me I’m the crazy kid whoe’s in all the groups, look at my hair”.
High school was a different story now wasn’t it? No “purene’ss” to high school was there? Those were the years were all became who we are a little bit today. We both started dating, you took on Brenna then Mandy, I took on Wise and when we all hung out and it was super fun. Like dances or movies or just when I had people at my house when Kris was gone. It was all really fun. But nothing compared to when US boys all hung out. Me, Kerp, John, Stan, Druck, Patty, Ray, and countless more homies. We all became a big family…But I have to give it to you, you always had the craziest ideas man. Palm Spring trips where we would rent out a house, Big Bear Snow Trips, Building Club Houses, Gumball Machines to be Millionaires, Puff Clothing, Mexico trips, the list goes on and on and on. Sometimes the ideas didn’t work out, but the processes were a blast. And that’s what mattered, spending time with everyone, having fun, laughing and just enjoying our time before we were becoming adults. You were a fun kid to be around. You never made anyone feel uncomfortable, you always had your friend’s back, you always were the first to cheer at Charger games, you were always the first to tell a joke. You were a funny, great hearted guy. You loved working with children, you genuinely cared about people and you cared how they treated you. You were outgoing always looking to make a boring situation into a fun one. I cant ever take that away from you. That was who you are.
You are Brandon James Mackey, aka Mack Attack aka Lil Mack, Big Ol Poway Kid, aka Bobby Jameson. And we all love you, and always will. And when the Chargers do actually go to the Super Bowl and actually win it, i’ll be thinking about you, and I know you’ll be the first one up there giving all those Raider punks the finger. Love you buddy.
