I was raised in Howell Township, NJ. Of course at the time I was born, it was still referred to as Lakewood, since we didn't have a post office. Now with all the people living there you would never know it. It's not the same town I grew up in, that's for sure. Maybe that is the reason why I don't seem to have a problem with moving from place to place. I always tell people that the town I grew up in only retains the name. Otherwise, I wouldn't really know the place. And what's more: I really don't care for what it has become, either. Not that I have a problem with the town, it's just not somewhere I particularly care for.

I went to Howell High School, and then I decided that I wanted to become a merchant seaman, because a friend of mine painted such a grand picture of what life would be like as a merchant seaman. The only problem was that it turns out that it's very difficult to get a job as a merchant seaman!! I called, I pleaded and I begged. No result. Then one day, my brother said that he thought a guy who golfed at a nearby country club was connected somehow. After pumping my brother for information for a couple of weeks, I decided to take a job at the golf course and see if I couldn't "bump" into the guy. It turns out that this guy was connected to the training school that I wanted to go to, so he made a phone call and I got in. Just like that! I remember before I went out to the merchant marine school, I went on a fishing boat named the "Norma K II" out of Belmar, New Jersey, I believe. This was to test to see if I would get sea sick. I thought I should know before I started doing this type of work for a living! I ended going out on one of the worst days possible because there was a storm that day and the ship was tossing and pitching and rolling all morning. I didn't get sick, so I decided that I could proceed with my maritime career plans!
When I got down to the merchant marine school in Maryland, it was a quasi-military set-up. We had regular drilling and marching in formation. Baracks inspections and everyone was very serious. I was drinking a lot of coffee and not getting much sleep at all, but I loved it. Then, I went for a check-up and the doctor at the school said that I had tachycardia and I needed to go home and have that checked out. I came back a month later and went to a doctor at the Brookly union hall, who said I had a heart problem. So, I went to my doctor and he recommended that I stop taking any caffiene and see what happens with that. So, no more coke, coffee, chocolate or anything with caffiene. I went back up to the doctor in Brooklyn and he took an EKG and said my heart was not improved. I continued with the regimin and went to see another doctor. He told me to continue with no caffiene, but he also said that there was nothing wrong with my heart. I followed his instructions and returned to the doctor in Brooklyn, who said that my heart rate was still elevated. Next time I went to a cardiologist and he did a battery of tests on me and when I collected the results from him, I told him that I hoped this would be enough for the doctor in Brooklyn, and mentioned that I had been to two other doctors who said the same things to me but I was still rejected by this doctor in Brooklyn. The cardiologist got a bit angry and said to me, "Look. You tell this doctor that I am a board certified Cardiologist, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR HEART!" I went back to Brooklyn and they rejected me again! I determined that there were some politics going on which I didn't know about. I returned to the golf course and had another chat with my friend there. He said that he would give them a call down in Maryland. Meanwhile I decided to have my wisdom teeth taken out, and because I didn't know exactly when I would be called back to the merchant marine school, I thought I'd better have them all taken out at once. I scheduled an appointment for a friday, as I recall. My mother took me over to the oral surgeon, who's office was in Bricktown, NJ (now people who live there call it "Brick," they dropped the "town" part. I guess they think that makes it sound more sophisticated). I remember I wore a light-colored shirt. The kind of shirt which changes color to an extreme dark shade with the slightest drop of moisture. The doctor was about 4ft 10" tall, and actually was laying on top of me to get my wisdom teeth out. He gave me pain killers and my mouth was shot full of novacane. The teeth came out very nicely, but by the time I was finished, I looked like a wreck. I remember it was the beginning of July, so the weather was very warm, and my shirt was drenched with sweat because the doctor was on top of me pulling out my teeth. When I finally got up from the table, my mouth was packed with gause nearly my entire face was numb, so my mouth was not funtioning properly, and my hair was looking like Gene Wilder as "Dr. Frankenstein." The pain-killers were setting in, so I was a bit woozy. I remember walking out from the back of the office being escorted by my mother and looking up briefly at the people in the waiting room, I noticed that almost everyone was staring at me with a sense of horrid amazement. I wonder how many cancellations they had after I had left. At any rate, I went to the pharmacy for the prescribed anti-biotic and pain-killers, and then back home. About a half hour later the phone wrang. It was the merchant marine school. "Hi! We have a vacancy in the class and I was wondering if you would be willing to come down to the school?" He said. I was feeling no pain and as a matter of fact quite high off the pain-killers, so my reply was, "Sure! I can be down there in about 5 hours." "Well, why don't you enjoy the weekend, and we'll see you on Monday, ok?" "Sure!" I said. Not for once considering that I had just had all four of my wisdom teeth out and would probably be eathing soup and salad for the next month until my mouth healed. I didn't think about any of that until well after I hung up the phone and told my parents that they had accepted me back.

Actually I would have gone no matter what, after all of the difficulty I had experienced in trying to get into that place. I HAD to go back.
One of the first things that anyone said to me when I got back into that merchant marine school was, "Man, you're late." I guess he thought that I was scheduled for this class the same as he was. I didn't bother to explain. He probably wouldn't appreciate the trouble I went through to get there. As it turned out, he didn't last long there either. He was gone like most within about 5 weeks. After about 7 weeks, our class of thirty had diminished to 10. I graduated "Top Third" which meant that I and two other fellows managed to have the highest scores out of the remaining 6 in our class. I though that was icing on the cake as far as I was concerned. After all the trouble to graduate with honors -- such as they were. This was my first time away from home. I was twenty years old. My brother was about to join the Navy, so it looked like we were turning into a maritime family. I stayed at the merchant marine school an extra month after I graduated to "Upgrade" to 3rd Cook. This was an interesting time for me. Soon I would be on a LNG Tanker on the other side of the world! The furthest I had ever been was California to the west, Niagra to the North and Virginia to the south (Although when I was in San Diego visiting my sister a year or two before, we did venture to Tijuana, so I don't know, that might count for "furthest south." At any rate I was very excited to go and we left on a cold and cloudy day in November, 1983. I believe I left from Baltimore / Washington International Airport (BWI), although it could have been Washington National (renamed regretably to "Reagan National" or some such nonsense: I still call it "National.") I also heard an interesting story about someone who went on television stating that they wanted to change the ten dollar bill to include Ronald Reagan on the face of the bill. This, they justified by stating that the ten dollar bill was the only note that didn't have a US president on the face. The reply being, naturally, I'll bet you one hundred dollars that you are wrong (as the 100 dollar bill has the face of Ben Franklin, who also was not a US president). I believe this interview was on the commedy channel, where I have been finding a much more reliable news source than any of the cable or network newscasts.

My first job as a merchant seaman was on a LNG tanker: Very exciting! My first job was to wash pots and pans all day: Not so exciting. We went to exotic ports of call: Indonesia and Japan: Very Exciting! We only spent 12 hours in port (in Japan) and two weeks at sea: Not so exciting. I remember when I went on the ship for the first time, I was astounded by it's size. The ship was about 3 football fields long! I stayed in the "House" for the first few days on board. Then I ventured out with some ship-mates for a walk out on the deck. I might have gone on an exploratory journey on my own but as it turned out I had a guided tour. The ship was big. I primarily remember the hissing noise that the air conditioning made throughout the ship. I was working in the steward department, so it was food service and indoor maintainence. I only went outside when we were off duty, while we were at sea. Some people would jog around on the decks for exercise and others would sun bathe on the pool deck. Yes, there was a salt-water pool on the back of the ship, which I didn't partake in on my first tour. When we got to Indonesia for the first time, actually before we got there, I remember the weather foremost. The Pacific ocean and South China sea were much calmer than I could have ever imagined. There was something which happened when we got near the Phillipean island of Mindinao. The air was more pleasant, perhaps it was the humidity. It actually seemed softer than I had ever experienced. There was something else: A quiet. A Peace. Something I had never experienced before. There was nothing to look at, when I had the chance to look outside across the sea. It was calm. Sometimes like glass. So flat and motionless. not even a wave of any size was to be seen. It didn't stay that way all of the time, but there were particular times I remember -- especially near sunset or at least in the late afternoons when the South China sea was calm and motionless with nothing nearby to look at in any direction and we cut across this calm in a huge tanker ship like some sort of strange vehicle cutting across a desert but it was so quiet and so perfectly still sometimes that it would be like I would imagine the surface of a moon or another planet would be. At dusk the color of the sea would reflect the colors of the sky upon it so there would seem to be a seamless expanse -- the horizon obscured by light clouds in some cases. There was a mystical quality to this place in the world. A magic which I had never experienced before. I took every moment and absorbed it to my memory. There, in my memory, I can also smell the sweet smell of burning palm. Perhaps from some forest fire in the distance. Somewhere out of sight. There is a sweetness to the air and a spice smell faintly present. It calms the soul and prepares it for what is to come. You just can't experience this same entre when you fly. Soon we were crossing the strats of Singapore.

The entire experience was shattered by this metropolis in the haze of this near-equatorial heat. Fishing boats of every size were there. Oil tankers filled to capacity sloshed by other commercial vessels crossed our bow. Suddenly traffic like I had never seen. There was television, radio, and off in the distance: Islands. We were heading for Aceh. The island of Sumatera. The port town of Lhok Semawe. Within one day we would be there. But here the air was thick with the smells I had mentioned before. A combination of spices very strong in my memory, and still the palm smell, sweely filling the air. Soon a small boat was pulling up along side our mamouth ship. Four or five dark skinned men climbed onto the ship's ladder and purposefully climbed to the deck. They were met by ship's deck crew, boatswain and third mate. The Indonesian pilot and crew had arrived. Three went to the bridge and two went to the galley. They sat in the crew's mess hall. I watched them walk through with a stride of a cowboy. They were small in stature but had an air of confidence. They had dark navy uniforms with what looked like cheap plastic mid-calf boots. They had base-ball caps with something embroidered on them which I could easily pronounce, but did not know the meaning of. These were handsome people. Their eyes were almond shaped, but had a roundness to them as well. I had never seen people like this before. Soon they were getting a cup of coffee and sat down in the crew's mess to smoke. They smoked clove cigarettes. The smell was so pleasing to me. It was the first time I had ever smelled them before. I watched them as they fixed their coffee: Tons of sugar and milk. I listen to them speak to each other: Rapidly chatting about what I did not know. They saw me looking at them, One raised his hand and said, "Hello," as the other looked at me and smiled. Had there been pilots on board when we left Japan? I certainly did not see anyone when we left two weeks before.

These memories of twenty years ago are fresh in my mind. I could have experienced these things yesterday. But what I was about to experince when I went ashore would be life-altering. That evening, after we finished dinner service, we quickly showered and changed to go ashore. I and another Steward Utilityman, climbed into a mini van which was taking us to the downtown area, where there were shops and restaurants. So we left in this beat up mini-van through the streets of Lhok Semawe. And, there were lots of people there! People were walking calmly through the streets wearing their jeans and t-shirts and flip-flop sandals. I was on board with three other ship-mates. The deck and engine crews who were going ashore had already left. I noticed everything we passed. There were a lot of motorcycles and as we got into town I could smell the open sewers which were in the street. People noticed us as we rode by. Their eyes widened. The Americans were in town. There was always a curiosity about us. The town was very well lit for the night-time. Bright street lights blanketed the avenues with a glowing light. Then there arose a sound so sharp and piercing it went right through me. High up on a light pole, an amplifier sounded the Azan for Isha. The sound pierced me. More than that: It went through me: "Allahu Akbar ALLAAAAAAHU AAAKBAR!" I looked to see where this sound was coming from. The driver knew it was the first time he had seen me there. He looked at me and smiled a bit, and then said very matter-of-factly, "The Azan." He said this as if to answer the question which was never asked. I listened to the Azan, which seemed to drown out all of the street noise. I could not hear the buzzing of the motorcycles or the honking of car horns. Perhaps they stopped as well. It seemed as if everything went silent in respect or in awe of this call to prayer. And to me it had, whether or not it had truly silenced the rest of the noises of the town, it certainly had my full attention.
Maybe it wasn't my second trip there or my third, but soon I realized something: There was something very special about Indonesia. Something mystical, but not alien. I knew it had to do with the people but what was it? It seemed so familiar, but yet I couldn't understand it. It was like I was four or five years old again, with that grace that only children that age can have: Not necessarily suprised by anything in particular, yet excited about nearly everything. There was a connection which I can only discribe as a "knowing" between myself and the people there which I understood as a kinship, but with strangers. It was as if we had known each other through some sort of collective unconscious which was coming to the surface here in this place. I tried to figure out how, but it was impossible. I had to understand more about these people. Why were they so familiar to me?

My second job was on a cruise ship that circled the islands of Hawaii: Very exciting! I had to work a split shift and rarely if ever got a chance to do anything ashore: Not so exciting. So my time there was spent with a bunch of unusual people. My first experience there was finding my room, which was an event in it's self. There were so many rooms on that cruise ship and the crew quarters were spartan for sure. I suppose most were like mine: Battleship gray with a bunk bed for two people. Did we have a closet? The toilet was down the hall. I walked into my room and my room mate was sitting at a small table, cocked over to one side like he had been poured there in a plaster cast mold replica of one of Michaelangelo's sculpures. I don't remember his name. I just remember that he was a very tall Samoan guy, who didn't say much if anything to me. I think he groaned once or twice in the time I spent with him. He had a very thick head of hair which usually fell down over his eyes, so I couldn't tell if he was awake just by looking at him. There would have to be some sort of bodily movement to confirm life. He sat there looking purposefully casual, rolling the largest marijuana cigar I had ever seen. He sat there carefully rolling, rolling and re-rolling, until he got it just right. I had just got off an LNG tanker, where there were weekly inspections for drugs and a random urinalysis test, so I was a bit uptight that this human statue was polluting my chaces of getting back on an LNG ship. I guess if he was a friendly person, I wouldn't have minded. He just seemed pissed at everything, but I only made that out from the lower half of his face which I was able to clearly see. Perhaps his eyes were doing all of the smiling and I was blocked from experiencing that. I rarely saw him anyway with my work schedule. I was assigned to a Lifeboat. We had weekly lifeboat drills. I never found my lifeboat from the time I got on that ship, until the time I left. I was the 2nd assistant baker. I wasn't sure what that title meant, but I had just got out of my upgrader course of 2nd Cook and Baker, so I thought it might fit in. I flew out to Hawaii, because I heard that if you fly out to Hawaii you could get a job right away on one of those cruise ships. So, that's what I did. I flew out on a friday and got there late. I went to the Seaman's hotel, which was 6' X 12' room with a small bed and a very small desk. No guests were allowed in the hotel room, and a guard at the door made sure of that. Unfortunately they only called for jobs on the ships on thursdays, so I had to wait a week before I could throw in for a job. So I did what any red-blooded 21 year old American boy would do: I went directly to the sleazyest part of town [Hotel Street], and I proceeded to dive into the smut. There were topless bars to go to and lots of peep shows to see. There were all kinds of porn/adult book stores to go to and prostitutes on the streets. Samoan prostitutes. Big Samoan Prostitutes, of un-determined sexual status! Scary Large Samoan drag queens waited there on street corners with blonde wigs atop their massive 7 foot tall frames. They were frightening, but the entire experience was thrilling. One night one of these "women" took a shine to me. I think I was at some nightclub where the cocktails got more expensive the closer you got to the stage. Needless to say, I was WAY in the back, probably sipping on my usual club soda with lime. She latched on to me and I couldn't shake her. We talked I left. She followed me. I hailed a cab. She rode with me. I told her that she wouldn't be able to come into my hotel room with me. She said her uncle was the chief of police and that she could go anywhere she damned well pleased. At this point I began to question her sexual status. Sure she looked like a woman, but was that an adam's apple bobbing up and down as she talked?! Was she, "Nana Lanu" [Victor/Victoria]? I started to break a sweat. Luckily the guard at the door would not let her in. She pleaded. She insisted. She became irate! She told the guard that her uncle was the chief of police! The guard did not flinch. "Nobody is allowed in the hotel except the registered guests," he stated as if reading it from a card. He had probably had to say that fifty times per night, and MAN was I glad he did. I was really getting frightened by this "woman." She certainly did have a lot of spunk. Too much for a woman, I was beginning to realize. I told her that I would meet her at the same place where we met, tomorrow at 9pm. She reluctantly accepted. Needless to say I didn't make it by 9pm. Out of guilt I go back at 10pm, but luckily I didn't find here waiting there.
I managed to get my job on the ship and my supervisor was another cold character. He was the Chief Baker. He was a young guy, maybe in his early thirties. He had a good relationship and was quite friendly with everyone except me. My position was to make pancakes, french toast and waffles. In the afternoon I would assist with baking rolls for dinner, and in the evenings prepare the "night lunch" breads. The other guy who was working with me in the baking department was a Phillipene guy, who showed me a lot about what I needed to do. My supervisor not very helpful at all. I was very young and dumb and full of, well, let's just say I was naeve. The other principal character here was the Chief Cook. He was a massive man wide in girth and tall as well. He always the standard issue white chef's double-breasted outfit with a tall stove- pipe hat for an exceptionl effect. He also was Samoan. He was never in a good mood. He would come into work quietly in the morning, and within minutes he would be very upset. His office was directly across from my work station, so I had an unobstructed vantage point for his fury. Luckily the counter across from the griddle, where I made my pancakes and friench toast was a bit high, so incase anything were to fly from his hand, I would be able to duck below the counter for protection. He was a massive man with a very LOUD voice and a bad attitude. There was always something which made him rant and rave. It would start with a phone call, in his office. I would hear the muffled sounds erupting from his closed office door, which was directly across from me. Soon he would jump from his chair and slam down the phone. He would open the office door and slam it with enough force to gain everyone's attention. Who would receive his fury today. The sous chef? The grill line? Perhaps the bar tender? I would think, "I hope it isn't me, this time." It never was me, thankfully. But somebody got it. Whoever it was, everyone would hear him scold and repremand with his massive voice. It would vibrate the steel walls as he bellowed and yelled. He would go on and on for about five minutes, but it seemed like it would never end. I never wanted to get this guy angry at me. He was likely to bit off the head of his victim and swallow it in one gulp. The kitchen was a very tense place sometimes. Then I started noticing that I was being "observed," by certain members of the wait staff. This made me feel very uncomfortable. One of the waiters asked me out on a date. I declined politely, but he must of thought that I was playing hard-to-get, because he didn't take "no" for an answer. He started fawning over me. He was so gay. I had never met anyone quite like him before. I really didn't know how to shake him. He became completely infatuated with me. I really didn't know how to get this guy to stop. So, I ended up just ignoring him. And, eventually he went away. Here's and interesting anticdote: Once a waiter said that one of his customers had asked for "Silver Dollar" pancakes. I had never heard of "Silver Dollar" pancakes. I had no idea what they were! But, rather than ask someone, like I should have done, I just went ahead and made an order of regular pancakes and gave it to the waiter. Later, the waiter came back and complimented me. He said, "My customer said that those were the biggest Silver Dollar pancakes he had ever had!" At the time I thought to myself, "I must have done something right. What, I don't know." My days were jam packed full of strange and wonderful experiences like these. I grew concerned about my "Spliff-smokin'" roomie, and I asked if I could change my room with someone else. They let me change rooms, and my new room mate was a 65 year old guy, who was very friendly, but quiet as well. I was relieved, because I thought at least this guy won't be lighting up every time I see him!! Also at some point I was doing some laundry and I had separated my tidy-whities from my colors, and was doing my laundry. I left my underwear in the machine and went back to my room to wait for them to be done. When I returned all of my underwear was GONE! It wasn't just removed from the machine. It wasn't even in the trash. It was completely missing! No trace was ever found of my underwear. All of these experiences were starting to add up, and take their toll. The phillipean co-worker had shown me a lot of tricks like adding powdered sugar and vanilla extract to the butter for the pancakes, which the customers LOVED, and also how to scoop ice cream balls perfectly by using hot water on the metal ice cream scoop: A concept I had never considered until he had showed me. I was thankful to him for that, but the constant stress in that kitchen was not good. I decided to leave. and in order to do that, I had to fill out a slip and put it in a box to notify the chief cook. I dreaded the thought of that. I didn't want to have any contact with this guy. But it was either that or continue on board the ship, and I didn't want to do that either. I had to think about what I really wanted to do here. We were getting ready to leave Honalulu and if I was going to get off this ship, I needed to put my note in the box by the next day, so they could get a replacement for me. I needed to clear my head and think. I decided to venture out onto the fan tail of the ship, which was covered with streamers from the departure. There were a lot of guys out there, hanging out, drinking beers and smoking. I went out and wandered around a bit and came across my new (old) room mate. We started chatting a while, then he lit his pipe and started to puff on it. Then he offered it to me, and I thought to myself, "Not YOU too!!" My mind had been made up at that point. I needed to get off that ship. So, I filled out that little piece of paper and put it in the box. The next day the Chief Cook came in as usual and opened the box and went through the names. He came across my name and called it out. I said, "Yes?" "You're getting off the ship this trip?!" "Yes, I am." I said. Then, the Chief Cook completely changed his tone of voice, and said in a truly sincere and warm way, "Gee, I hate to see you go. I'm going to miss you." At this point I almost wanted to tell him to rip up the note and I would stay. He had that much of an impact on me. But I was so stressed out at this point, that I doubt I could have stayed on there for very much longer, anyway. And so that is the end of my days working on a cruise ship.

So, it was time to re-group. Maybe this merchant seaman stuff was not all it was cracked up to be. I took a job working in a German trading bank in New York City. My cousin was VP of the computer department there at the time, but I was working in the trading confirmations side as an input operator on a CRT: Not so exciting. But I really liked the people I was working with, so that made all the difference. I stayed there for a while, but I got the urge to take another whack at the seaman's life. I went back on the LNG tankers and stayed working with that company for about five years total. I met a lot of very interesting people overall. One of the most interesting was Abdul Wahab Ibrahim, who introduced himself as, "Wahab." I stumbled over the pronunciation a few times and then he just said, "You'll get used to it." I thought that was amusing. It turned out to be prophetic.

Wahab invited me to come over to Singapore and visit, which I took him up on. There, he took me all around Singapore and Malaysia. That was a trip that literally changed my life. I was exposed to a totally different life there. It made me realize that there is more to the world than just through the vision of politicians and newscasters here in the USA. The world is not just the USA, and "Them." This was the first time that I had considered such possibilities. I was also immersed in a Islamic culture, which I found to be beautiful and rich with history, truth and spirituality. A much different concept than I had been spoon-fed through my earlier years. Now I realize that generations in the USA have been exposed to the propoganda of oil merchants who seek to control this high value product. Not unlike organized criminals they control the value through supply and demand. It's not just Oil, it's all forms of energy including electricity, which we have seen manipulated though power-shortages in California specifically designed to qualify another market manipulation as well as price gouge. Now we have band of Oil merchant thieves in occupying the White House and controlling the executive branch of our government. We will have to suffer through their confounded ignorance. There seems to be a break between what the ideals of what the role of world power should be and the power that exists in this world. I often wonder what would happen if the abilities and resources that we have were used for some lasting good, as opposed to trying to preserve archaic notions of maintaining the imperialistic power structure though fear and intimidation. I guess we are just not there as a body of people yet, and It is a shame because we have the ability to do so much good in the world and we avoid it so diligently. What a shame: We continue to be subjected to a "Dog and Pony Show," by those who believe that is what the world is all about and even more disturbing to me is that fact that these people believe we all want to see this garbage. Well, I for one know a LOT of people who are fed up with the stereotype of government which we have been subject to over the past seventy years. Time to move- on, folks.

But that's my politics, and I'm sure you don't want to hear about that now. You want to hear all about ME, right?!

I guess my earlies memories as a child were very happy ones, playing outside in the back yard with my brother, sister and cousins. We lived between my uncle Joe and my uncle Pete and their families. It was ideal for me as I remember, because I always had other kids to play with and best of all it seemed to me to we had a great extended family. This makes me think of something that someone said to me, after looking at some of my pictures on one of my websites. He said that he didn't think that I was approachable. That perhaps I wouldn't be interested in holding a conversation with someone whom I had not already known. Well, people who know me, tell me that I am "Disarming". I know for a fact that I will talk with anyone about anything and hope to learn something from that experience. Why am I mentioning all of this? Because I believe it has a lot to do with the way that I grew up. And, this is all because of the interpretation of life I had as a child. I'm not saying that this can be proved through psychoanalytic process, I'm just saying this is what I believe. So I do have rather rosy memories as a child. Children often do have fond memories of when they were growing up. I can't say that is because of the times I was living, because certainly the mid to late 1960's were disturbing times to be living in. I just don't recall anything all that horrible, as say, someone older or even my parents might. I just have a lot of happy memories of playing outside in the summertime. Singing pop songs while playing on the swings, like, "Up, up and away... (in my beautiful balloon)," and, "Keep the ball rolling." I remember my mother singing, "High hopes," when it came on the radio. Going to the beach with my mother, sister, brother and cousin's wife "Tish." I remember going to work with my dad once or twice and having tuna fish salad sandwiches for lunch. I remember going to visit my aunt Snookie and my cousins who lived in Yardville: Lots of great memories there. It seems we always had a good time whenever we went somewhere. At least it seemed that way to me. I have memories of when I was about three years old, playing with my toys outside and of specific memories of when a friends of my mother came out to visit us from Pittsburgh, because they had a son around my age. I remember them coming back a year or two later, and feeling very much attached to them while they were with us. I remember their Volkswagen bus: the sound of it, and the "new" smell of the plastic interior. Strange, the things you remember.
Not all of my memories were happy ones, naturally. I just don't recall the tragic ones as well as the happy ones. I remember a car accident outside of my house and being frightened because it woke me up and hearing people yelling and crying outside in the night. I remember my sister bringing home a book from school which had a graffiti swastika inside and hearing my mother's explanation about the nazi's and the holocost, which I had a nightmare about, and I remember that as well: It was a childish vision of a huge black cauldron with a fire underneath it and hundreds of people inside being cooked. I remember seeing the newspaper after Robert Kennedy was assasinated with a picture of him and Martin Luther King on the front page. But these things really didn't affect me, most likely becuase I was too young to understand what was going on. I can't speculate as to wether I was actually shielded from it by my parents.
At any rate, those were happy times I remember growing up. They say you don't recall the bad times and I would have to confirm that. I don't recall anything really bad, just happy times with my family and get togethers with my cousins, aunts and uncles at Zizi's. Zizi was our great aunt. She called me her "Gentleman." She didn't speak much English. We couldn't say her name right either, "Zi" in Italian was a prefix for "Aunt" or even "Uncle" as well, but I'm not sure about that particularly. Her name was Maryann, so my uncle would call her zi-Mannanina, but we couldn't say anything that complex, so we would try to say "Zizi", but even that came out as "Tit-zee". My maternal grandmother, who was Irish, really didn't understand what we were trying to say to her at all, so she called her, "Tootsie." She just seemed to gloss over these details like the rest of us. Not really knowing or trying to understand what the real meaning was. Strange, how things have changed for me. I would always like to make sure that I am correctly pronouncing someone's name now. Back then, it was something not to give a second thought.
But, like I mentioned before, we always had cousins and uncles and aunts around us. So, we were always secure in knowing that there was someone there for us, which contributed to a worry-free childhood as far as I was concerned. I remember that I couldn't wait to go to school. When my sister went to kindergarten, I was very excited to hear her tell about what they did in school. They had cookies and milk at break time! They colored and wrote letters, and studied their ABC's. I think they even took naps in the afternoon. I don't recall all of the great things that I was expecting to partake in when I went to school. I know you got to ride on the bus every day. A big yellow school bus with flashing lights. Sometimes we would go meet my sister as she got off the school bus in the afternoons. The bus driver was a young mother herself. Her son rode the bus with them to kindergarten. My, how things have changed. Kids learn all these kinds of things in pre-school classes, which their parents pay huge sums of money for. I just remember saying silly things and doing a lot of laughing. I remember eating peanutbutter cookies and drinking a small carton of whole white milk with a small paper straw, which would collapse if it was in the milk for very long. I remember singing to the bus driver, most likely on a Friday, because she had those huge metal rollers in her hair, covered with a silk scarf, "Curlers in your hair! Shame on you!" That was some commercial I had heard on television, for "Dippity Do" or some other women's hair care product. I had no idea that it might be embarassing to her, if I sang that song. She did give me a look, though.

My experiences in grammar school were rather bland. I barely remember second grade or third grade. I remember fourth grade because I had a teacher by the name of Mrs. Friedland. She made everything seem very exciting. Sometimes she would reward us with candy, which had never happened before. But, she was a veteran teacher, who would probably have at least a few tricks up her sleeve. Most of my report cards during my early days of school had comments by the teacher stating that I was not working up to my full potential. This was probalby true. I don't recall racking my brain for homework. I sometimes waited until the very last minute to do it. For some reason I was really lost when it came to school work. At home I knew exactly what to do, but it seemed when I went to school, I really didn't have much motivation.

At this point I'm going to stop, because I've written all of this stuff and I need to fill in the gaps, so I will re-group and continue at a later date. If you have gotten this far, I congratulate you!