The Ogre in the Basement: And Other Strange Tales From the 1960s and 1970s

By Nick Vulich

If you grew up in the late 60s and 70s, you need to read this book.

It follows the life of a Baby Boomer who was raised by hard-working World War II Era parents who are still not convinced he has learned to wipe himself. He has gone to college, dated, gotten jobs, gotten married, become a father, lost jobs, gotten divorced, learned how to use a computer, and tried to fulfill his civic responsibilities. Like many others in his generation, he followed the time-honored steps which were supposed to guarantee a successful career, a happy marriage, and a comfortable retirement. Instead, he is struggling to keep the wolf from the door. He is checking out online dating sites, and praying Walmart will have an opening for a geriatric greeter when his arthritic fingers can no longer pound a keyboard.

Looking back over his life, he is unsure where it all went wrong, or even if it did.

His wife and kids turned him into the Ogre in the Basement, but even there he has his doubts. Was he mean like Shrek, or was he more like the whiney snot-nosed kid everybody liked to laugh at in the third grade when he threw a crying fit?

Is it any wonder Katharine Hepburn said, "Life is hard? After all, it kills you."

If you are not careful, life will kill you, or turn you into the Ogre in the Basement.

Read The Ogre in the Basement. Laugh, cry, and get a new perspective on life, the Universe, and everything else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Vulich
• Release date: Apr 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215001639

Book preview

The Ogre in the Basement and Other Strange Tales from the 1960s and 1970s

Copyright © 2017 / 2023 Nick Vulich

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Getting Started

The Night Jughead Talked and Other Strange Shit in Iowa

If Jobs Are So Easy to Find, How Come Everyone Doesn’t Have One?

How to Not Panic, Duck and Cover, and Save Yourself from Nuclear Fallout

Raise your hand if you should be dead or in jail by now

Boobs, Vaginas, and Other Miscellaneous Lady Parts

Getting Shit Done Is Easier Said Than Done

Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff; It’s the Little Shit That Will Kill You

Remember When John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus?

Happiness is Wishing for Things You Can Never Have and Still Trying

If It Wasn’t for Sex, Dating Would Be a Lost Art

Have Women Gotten More Masculine, or Have Men Gotten More Feminine?

Why Control Guns? It’s the Bullets That Should Worry Us

Marijuana – The Other Rocky Mountain High

Would You Like to Supersize That?

The Last Honest Politician

Help! My Television Is Holding Me Prisoner

Religion is Seeing What Your Eyes Can’t Believe

Politics 101: Liberals, Conservatives, and Other Strange Life Forms

Education Makes Us Think We’re Smarter than We Are

Why I Wear a Packers Hoodie. What It Says About You, Me, And the Guy Next Door

How I Ruined Three Companies, Lost A Small Fortune, and Initiated A Life-Long Curse for My Future Employers

The Ogre in the Basement

What Blazing Saddles Taught Me About Life, Liberty, Racism, and All That Other Stuff

My Advice to the Class of 2015

Money Isn’t Everything, but Try to Get a Date Without It

Death, Dying, and Other Sad Shit

Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

Retirement is a Fantasy Everyone Reaches for, but Very Few People Find

If You Didn’t Bother to Read Anything Else, Be Sure to Read This

Bonus Excerpt – 1963: Life at the Speed of Sound

Getting Started

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Some days you’re the dog, and some days you’re the hydrant.

Anonymous

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This book began life three years ago as Life Without the BS. For a month, it hovered between one and two in the Political Humor category. Then, I got the idea to make it more political.

What a can of worms that opened up.

I handed out 25,000 copies of the book in a giveaway. Unfortunately, many of them got into the wrong hands, as often happens when you dish out freebies.

It didn’t take long for the bad reviews to start pouring in. They said I was childish, an aging racist, and outdated.

Readers enjoyed the observations about growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. They thought my comments were spot on. And, funny in a Dave Barry Kind of way. Someone else said the book gave them a lot to think about and reminded them to pay attention.

Another reader couldn’t help laughing out loud while reading this book.

But then I added politics to the equation, and things took a sudden turn for the worse. People began hating the book and me. The best suggestion I read after that was to keep the book in the bathroom for when the toilet paper runs low. That reviewer was probably on to something because another reader called it total crap.

What I’ve done in this edition is go back to basics. All the political mumbo jumbo is gone. Instead, this book contains what everyone liked. It’s filled with observations on life and growing up in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.

Let the lies begin...

The Night Jughead Talked and Other Strange Shit in Iowa

I tried marijuana once. I did not inhale.

Bill Clinton

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Remember that old saying about how you should never stick anything bigger than your elbow in your ass and never take medicine the doctor didn’t prescribe?

I should have listened.

But it was 1971. I was thirteen, and you know about kids, peer pressure, and all that other crazy shit.

I was reading an Archie comic book. Jughead jumped out and talked to me.

You can probably guess the rest of the story.

My friend Mike and I were camping out in his backyard that weekend. His parents had one of those foldout units, sort of like a tent on wheels. There wasn’t a lot of room. We had a couple of flashlights, a shitload of pop, candy, and chips.

It was sure to be a great adventure.

Man, against the wilderness. Or, in this case, boy against the backyard. So the night began with a long walk to nowhere, two purple pills, and a big gulp of TAB.

Up until a half-hour before that, the most potent substance I had ever ingested was a bottle of Coca-Cola. Now, I’d swallowed my second purple pill. Only God and Timothy Leary knew what a strange ride I had before me, and neither of them was talking.

There was some serious mumbo-jumbo going on here. What it was, I wasn’t sure.

The reason I bring this up is then, as now, schools, parents, and the authorities did all they could to discourage kids from trying drugs. But, unfortunately, then as now, they did the wrong things or used the wrong approach to stomp out the drug epidemic.

Case in point, insisting marijuana is a gateway drug.

The gateway drug is whatever substance is handy. Kids aren’t picky about what they’re willing to experiment with. It can be marijuana, beer, acid, Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine, or whatever substance kids get their hands on.

It’s not the substance. It’s the opportunity.

Dish up some crazy purple pills, stir in some peer pressure, and add an opportunity to put them together. That gives you a recipe for disaster.

For some kids, it’s a tube of glue, a can of WD-40, or some expired prescriptions they discover in the medicine cabinet.

Boredom is part of the problem. So is curiosity. Kids hear a lot of stuff. Some of it makes them wonder, what if... What if I swallow the whole bottle of pills? Mom and dad take a swig from the bottle. Why shouldn’t I?

Curiosity is natural, but remember what it did to the cat.

Kids get a lot of distorted information.

While heading out to the movies on Friday night with the gang, dad sets down his drink and tells the kids to have fun but not to overdo it. Then, as he takes another swig from his beer can, he reminds the kids not to drink or smoke any of that funny stuff.

Anti-drug TV commercials and drug education programs suffer from the same ambiguity.

When the police gave anti-drug programs at Clinton High School in the early 70s, they brought these drug boards loaded with pot, pills, and other strange potions. Rather than tell us not to take drugs, they showed us what they looked like and explained how to take them.

Hell, they even provided reviews about what we could expect. If you smoke a joint, your head starts to spin, and everything slows down, and you’re gonna eat a lot of munchies. If you drop acid, you will see a lot of bright colors and things that aren’t there.

How convenient. We could step out of the classroom, amble down the hallway towards the gym and place our orders now that we knew what we were looking for.

I’m not sure the cops ever understood the