Remember The Coop

  The name has come up in several of my blogs so far so I thought I might take some time and introduce you to the man himself. First, I’m dropping the gauntlet.  I gave him the name Coop.  I don’t care who else claims it, it was me.  He was wearing one of his moms old tshirts from an Alice Cooper concert and it said “Remember The  Coop” on it.  That’s where it started and it’s still pretty much what he’s known by to this day to many.  I have no idea why it stuck but it did.  His real name is Adam Lamb.  He is my first cousin and he was my first cousin on the Kelly side of the family.  He’s also the older brother of the other Lamb that I am spotted with most frequently, Mike.  But Coop came first and was my closest relative and friend growing up.  I’m two years his senior but that was about all that separated us.

There are so many memories I have of me and Coop growing up that it’s hard to pick out just a few for the benefit of this piece.  I guess I’d have to start with RA camping trips.  As kids, this was as good as it got.  A weekend in the woods, playing football in tents, fishing, scaring each other and eating campfire grub.  I don’t even know if those things still happen but if they don’t, kids are missing out.  Coop’s dad, my Uncle Lee, was the head honcho on these trips so we always had a little more parental supervision than the other kids.  But what we also had was Uncle Lee’s peach cobbler.  I still don’t really know how it was done except it was cooked under ground for a looooong time and was usually the Saturday night treat.  I would typically rather have apple pie or cobbler on any given day but that particular peach cobbler was always unbelievable.  We went to several places around Georgia.  Okitayakani had the big generator in the middle of the pond that scared us.  Seminole had the grassy water that made canoeing particularly shady.  There was one campsite, I don’t remember which one, where every night we went to bed, we could hear gators grunting in the lake.  Me and Coop would race canoes, play football in waist deep water and try to scare everybody when it was time to go to bed.  Man, things were so much easier then.

One thing about Coop is he’s always had an unfortunate relationship with the camera.  Two of my favorite photos illustrate that.  The first one is from one of our trips to Disney World with the family.  Our papa has always had some sort of time share or something in Orlando and the whole family went.  It turned out that Coop was not a big fan of the mine train and somebody was able to snap a photo at just the right time.  There was a time when he really didn’t like that photo and got mad when you brought it up but I think we are past that now. 

 The other photo was from the skating rink.  I believe it was my birthday because there are several photos of different family members skating that day.  Ole Coop took a tumble and again, somebody was there to snap his picture and he had one of his classic, “what are you looking at” faces on. 

 
As we grew a little older, we both fell in love with basketball.  Coop had a dunk goal in his backyard and had a concrete court with flood lights covering it.  We would play on that court day or night, rain or shine.  We would play to 100 and once we got there, would start all over again.  I don’t know what our career record ended up being but I think I got him in the head to head.  We would team up though and take care of most of our competition.  Except one team.  There is one battle that lives on in my head and will never fade.  Dewey and Lee.  We had baited them and baited them and they finally gave in and played us at the lake.  And they won.  I don’t know how.  They just beat us.  It wasn’t skill and it wasn’t luck.  It was just them overpowering us and beating us.  That’s the only way I can justify it. We would beat most everybody we played at lunch at MB but our dads will forever be 1-0 against us.  That one stings.  I know it does for Coop too.  We both took it hard that day.  We should’ve just played Chase and Michael and this would not be a lingering issue.  Of course, when we rounded out our team with Brewer and Munt on Saturdays at the Westwood gym, it was a thing of beauty.  Along with real basketball, we also competed at NBA Live, Double Dribble and any other video game we could get our hands on.  You are probably familiar with the “Go Reggie” story at this point.  

Speaking of video games, there are some great stories from that arena.  Our thing was staying up all night and playing Tecmo Football or Basketball or Contra or Bases Loaded or Double Dragon.  Whatever was hot at the time, we were on it and we would play until our eyes crossed and thumbs ached.  One night we weren’t supposed to be up playing but Coop couldn’t contain his excitement, which happened often.  He got a tad rowdy and Uncle Lee bolted into the living room and came real close to throwing the Nintendo in the yard.  Another night (around 3 am), in a fit of exasperation, he was sitting on my couch and threw the controller in the air and smacked his arms against the wall behind the couch.  Above him was a shelf that had trinkets, tea pots and anything else that made a tremendous amount of noise.  This shelf came down and Pam was in the living room before everything settled on the floor.  Parents-2, Coop-0.  The funny thing though was Coop was always less phased by all of it than I was.  It didn’t really get to him.  The parents scared me to death but I really think Coop liked that sort of thing.   

 Things weren’t always peachy with me and Coop but even those times have their spots in history.  I remember when me and Trent wanted to play football and Coop had an RA basketball game THE NEXT DAY and needed to “rest up” and caused the whole shabang to go off the rails.  We were so mad about that.  Then there were the fights when we actually did play football at BeBe’s at Christmas.  Those video games led to some pretty contentious moments too.  With the old Nintendo, you could angrily reset the game with very little effort.  And I may have taken a little too much pleasure in some of his moments of discipline from his dad.  His famous “What a crock” comment that was met with a stearn, “What did you say boy?” comes to mind.  And I almost got to see what it looked like to have one’s teeth wrapped around their neck, thanks to our relentless repitition of a made up dumb word.  One time, as a prank I promise, I pushed him from a moving golf cart and he broke his wrist.  But maybe the angriest I’ve seen him though is the day he got his panties in a bunch over the most famous line from our childhood….”It’s a sardine, get Adam a cracker.”  I don’t even know what made him so mad about it except we all laughed.  A dead fish on the bank of the lake and a random comment from his dad sent him into a blind rage that day.  

There were so many good times though that outweighed those fights.  We successfully navigated Dalton’s horticulture class as a two man gardening assault team.  We both made fun of the same basketball players for getting schooled.  We both took pleasure in beating Southside in RA bball.  We both pounced on Trent in the “that’s why your mama doesn’t love you” incident.  We both even had the same sworn enemy after high school.  We did a lot of stuff together before life took us in different directions.  Even though it did, we still see each other and laugh about the same things.  We still talk basketball and we still talk about the good ole days.  Cheers Cooperelli!