* * * WARNING * * *

Long Story Ahead!

 

 

Foreword

 

I'd like to have this all handwritten (neatly of course!) and in a dusty, leather bound notebook to be found sometime after I'm gone, in a musty old trunk.  I don't know where it'll be found, but typewritten will have to do… it not being handwritten is just a part of this lazy streak that's plagued me all my life with some things, and for that I'll always feel some regret. I'm going to be frank and honest about what I write here. Some of the things will embarrass me, but if you really want to know me, then you'll have to bear with reading it as much as I have to bear with writing it. Writing this is almost an obsession for me now. I've been infected with the idea of writing my memoirs, boring though they may be, and leaving them for my kids and their kids. I wish that my father had done such a thing for me. Even though he didn't, I'll never hold it against him. I loved and respected him more then he would have ever known.

Here and there, I've gone back through what I've written, adding and updating things…. Memories I'd forgotten, and then for no reason remembered, and wanted to include. For that reason, you may notice that I'll occasionally back-track. I'm trying to keep it all in perspective - that is to not write about something that occurred when I was seven years old, in the portion about my teenage years. I may reference past things, but I'll do my best to keep my time line straight. Please bear with me.

As I write this, I'm in my 37th year, writing desperately, trying to catch up to the present day, so I can write about current goings-on in the world. I look at that number: 37. Where has my life gone? I have to say this, just as my parents told me (and like most kids, I never took it seriously); study hard. Have a good time with your life, but plan ahead. I didn't and here I am in my late 30's, struggling paycheck to paycheck, with no money in savings. I want the best for my wife, Donna, and our kids Sarah, William (his real name is "Wolfgang" but he decided he likes the name William better), Nathaniel, Zachary, and our baby on the way. I feel like I'm letting them down, by not being at a better station in life, but at least within the last year or two, I've begun to realize this, and begun trying to correct it.

I guess what I'm saying is plan ahead…. Even if you're young now, start now. Don't wait til the last minute to make things better for yourself and your family. If you do, you'll end up being sorry for it, and that's no way to go through life.

Having said that, here's my story…

 

Being a kid -

 

September 1964. That's when I was born. September 7th, to be exact, in Toledo, Ohio's Parkview Hospital. Some years back (as a teenager, that is) I vaguely remember my mom showing me the area of the hospital where the delivery rooms and nursery were… of course, things had changed some in the years between, and it wasn't exactly the same as it had been. If I was to go back there now, there's no way I could possibly find where it was at in the hospital. Anyway, my mom showing it to me was like I said, a vague memory, at best. Even to this day, I still think it's an interesting idea for one to be able to go back as an older child or an adult, and see where they were born.

That's why I hope that someday, my daughter Sarah will venture back to Gilmore Memorial Hospital in Amory, Mississippi to see where she was born. And the same for Wolfgang, who was born at the Scott Air Force Base Medical Center at (you guessed it) Scott Air Force Base, in Illinois. I'd like to think that Nathaniel and Zachary will also do the same, the both of them having been born at Ehrling-Bergquist Hospital, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. To me it seems like an important thing for a person to do.

Just to see where you came into this world, and think about that, and all that you've done between when you were born, and when you came back. For me it seems like so much has happened… and it has! Sure other people have had more interesting experiences, and have done more than I have, but still… I've seen and experienced so much…….

My earliest memories were of my life at our house at 4904 Ridgedale Road in Toledo. It was the late 1960's (around 1968, I'd guess), and our driveway was made of dirt. A little grass strip up the middle, where the tires of the family car never touched, as mom and dad drove in and out. Our house was only one story tall, with a crawlspace beneath. I can remember playing in the dirt with my trucks little shovels… digging and scattering dirt around. My play area was the spot beneath the kitchen window. Probably so that my mom could look out the window from the place it seemed to me that she spent a great deal of her time; the kitchen sink. I can remember that playing in the dirt seemed to occupy so much of my time. And the funny thing was that many days I'd be playing in the dirt, having a great time, and then it would happen. Far off in the distance I'd hear it. The long, baying whistle of the train that crossed Tremainsville Road, near Start High School. It was probably a mile away, but it always scared me. I can remember that whenever I'd hear it, I'd gather up my toys and head into the house, terrified that the train would somehow run me over. I had to take my toys with me… they were too valuable to lose to a train!

I can remember in later years, telling my mom this. She said she could remember me doing that, although for the longest time she never knew why I would suddenly get up, in the middle of my happy play time, and run in to the house. She said that my dad knew what was up, and once he explained it to her, they would watch me and laugh to themselves, never letting on to me that they knew. As far as I was concerned, it was my little secret, and no one else knew. Even at such a young age, I was embarrassed to have anyone know about it!

This all happened before I was in school.

In our living room, the floor was bare tile, black and white checkerboard pattern if I remember correctly, with a large vent in it. It had a grate over the top of it, and to me it looked really deep, although I think it was really only about four feet deep. The light in the room lit up the inside of the vent nicely, and I could see all the way to it's bottom. The vent was so big (and I was so small) I could sit completely on the grate, and did quite often, playing. Funny enough though, I don't remember ever dropping any toys down into it. The heat that came out of it in the winter was great! I can remember playing on the vent one time and looking down in there and seeing my dad! He was down in the crawlspace beneath the house fixing something, and he came into the vent for something. I remember waving to him. That was so cool! Sometime after that, the furnace conked out in the house (on a really cold morning, too!) mom and dad got it fixed, but soon after that, they had a new furnace installed (by K-Mart or Sears, I think). This one had smaller vents along the base boards all over the house. Dad boarded up the old vent, and for some time after that, I can remember still feeling the grate beneath the carpet they'd had installed. It was kind of sad… that grate and the vent had been such a part of my life for as long as I could remember. And it took me a long time to get used to the new furnace. It made strange noises. Before it came on, it would clang and clank in a faraway kind of sound, deep down in it's pipes. In my mind's eye, I imagined that deep beneath the house, in the musty, cobweb filled crawlspace, skeletons were banging on the pipes with rusty old hammers. It really scared me! I can still hear the sound. But on a more positive note, the house as a whole, seemed heated better.

I can also remember a strange illness I had as a very young kid. I can't remember for sure, but I think it happened before I started kindergarten. I was nearly unable to play outside because of it. My friend Brian Thabit would come over wanting to play, and he'd knock on my door to see if I could come outside. Sometimes, I'd be allowed to go outside and play, but it seemed that always, I'd get dizzy, and hot and nauseous and have to come inside and lay down to rest. I was never able to play outside for more than a few minutes at a time, before I'd have to go in, feeling absolutely miserable; miserable because I was sick, and miserable because Brian wanted to play so badly, yet everytime I'd have to leave and go lay down and quit playing. I don't remember ever going to the doctor about this, but I must have been taken to see one by my mom and dad. I say this because it was decided that my tonsils needed to be removed to correct the problem. And a trip to Parkview Hospital (again back to the place of my birth) and they were removed. I think that I spent the night in the hospital for this. I remember that I shared a room with a slightly older kid, who was bossy when it came to the television in the room. I remember too, that he really loved the green jello that was served with the meals. The jello had a dried foamy type surface to it. I wasn't too impressed by it, but he seemed to love it! I don't remember why he was in the hospital, but it could possibly have been for the same reason since he seemed to have a lot of jello. I couldn't have been in the hospital for more than a day or so, total. But it seems to me that my symptoms cleared up soon after that, so indeed the tonsils had been the root of the problem. To this day, I don't know what function tonsils serve, or how they could have had such an impact upon my well being, but they did.

It must have been sometime soon after that, that school started for me. Kindergarten must have been half days, instead of full days at school. I don't really remember it at all. However, I can remember my fold-up sleep mat that I used in school. I don't remember using it in school, but at home. I'd be sitting in the living room of my home, and I'd fold up the mat so that two sections of it went up to form a point, which in my mind looked like the steeple of a church. I'd play and have my little toy people walking in and out of it, while my mom sat in a chair across the room talking on the phone… probably to either Evelyn Steele, or Barb McBee or Betty Kennedy. They were dear friends of hers from church, and although I don't really remember much about those women, I remember their names… probably because I'd heard them so much growing up.

Only two other things can I remember from kindergarten; my teacher (her name escapes me) drawing a picture for us. it was a picture of a shopkeeper. He had a white apron on, and I can remember her describing how to draw him, as she did. She described how to draw his feet as drawing "hot dog" shapes for feet.

That and I can remember playing with blocks…. large cardboard blocks about a foot long, and six inches wide, and six inches high. They were the color of red bricks. I can remember playing with them, with a friend of mine; Eric Kennedy. Eric and I knew each other in kindergarten, then he moved away, across town. Several years later he moved back, and later on in my life was to play a very important part.

That's all I can really remember of kindergarten.

At that age, I can remember a bit of church. My mom and dad raised my brothers and I in church. At that time we were members of  Westwood Baptist Church on Alexis Road. At that time, the church was one large church building with a basement, and a small one or two room building next to the church that was used for social functions after services. Mom and dad had a job on Saturday afternoons cleaning the church. I don't know what they were paid, if anything, but I can remember many times playing with some of my toys in the church while they cleaned.

It was around this time that my older brother Garry enlisted in the Marines. It was a dangerous time to do so; the war in Viet Nam was in full swing, and thousands of young men across the country were going off to war, much to the protest of many of the folks here at home. I was really young, so I don't know a lot of the details, but I do know that Garry enlisted, and eventually did go off to Viet Nam. As it turns out, he was an administration specialist, so he never saw any combat, yet that did little to ease the minds of my parents. It was a tense time in our family. I can't explain it, but even though my dad never was in the military, it was kind of an inner knowledge that us boys (myself and my three brothers) had to serve in the military. Dad never told us we had to, but I think we all just knew it. It's our sense of honor, I suppose. In any event, Garry came home, relatively safe and sound (he was in a plane crash while there, not related to combat, and got cut up and burned slightly). He hated flying after that. Having him come home was cool because he brought me a toy airplane with folding wings and a big red toy fire truck.

One evening, while Garry was home on leave (I don't think his enlistment was up yet), there was a special on TV about the war in Viet Nam, and he and my mom and dad really wanted to watch it. For some reason, I decided that I needed their attention. I kept trying to talk to them…. about what I can't remember, and they ignored me. Repeatedly! How dare they! So I decided that since they were going to ignore me, I'd run away. So while they watched their show, I went to my bedroom, took out my suitcase and gathered up everything I could think of that I'd need after I left home. My superball. A small blue rubber ball about the size of a golf ball. I put that in my suitcase and prepared to leave. But when I told them (mom, dad and Garry) about my plans to run away, they still ignored me. Since that ploy didn't work, I went ahead and gave up on my idea to run away, and put my suitcase away.

My early school years were spent at Wernert Elementary School which sat at the corners of Douglas, Laskey and Tremainsville roads. I don't remember much of the first few years of school there. A name here or there… Mrs Mason was my first grade teacher, Mrs Wolfe my second grade teacher. Mr Perkins the gym teacher, who loved to show off how high he could bounce on the trampoline. It seemed that he nearly touched the ceiling! And that was a mighty high ceiling.

It seemed to me that I had a hard time in school. To this day I'm not sure why. I remember distinctly in fifth grade that a large part of my class grade was a report on the American Civil War. My teacher was Mrs Harrison, and this assignment was a huge portion (maybe 1/3) of the total class grade. The report had a lot of requirements; at least 10 pages in length, one chapter each on advantages of the north and the south, disadvantages of each,  and so on. It was a huge report. Huge! yet all the other kids in my class seemed to have no problem doing it. I didn't even bother starting it til a few days before it was due, and it was a half hearted effort at best when I did. Why? I don't know. To this day, I still don't know.

The principal at the time was a Mr Michaels, and he was feared throughout the school. However, he was on a leave of absence at the time, for hernia surgery. His fill-in was Mr LeRoy. I can remember (vaguely) spending a lot of time in his office with my teacher. I can also remember spending a lot of time with my teacher and my mom and dad. What it came down to was that I was given a few days extra time to finish the report. When I turned it in, it still was not a good effort, and Mrs Harrison failed it.

Odd as it is, I don't remember all the details of it, but I do remember that right after that I was given an ultimatum; either make up the work, AND spend time in summer school, or else repeat the fifth grade. At that point, I knew this was serious, so I applied myself and spent a lot of time after school in the principal's outer office (where Mrs Moon, the secretary could keep an eye on me and make sure I was actually working!). I remember too, having to call my mom at home and let her know when I was about to leave and head home. Our house was about ½ or ¾ of a mile away from the school and I walked there and back every day.

I did the make up work (I don't even remember exactly what it was…. I think it was the report, plus some extra credit work). The funny thing is that me, with my family history, was uniquely qualified to do a great job on this report if I'd done it right in the first place. Garry spoke with me about helping me understand the causes and effects of the civil war. He'd been an avid historian of the war himself as a youngster. My mom and dad both came from Tennessee, a southern state in the Civil war. They both knew a lot about the war, and I could have gotten a lot of information from them both. If only I'd applied myself from the beginning. I felt really stupid about the whole thing. Every day when I got home from school, my mom would ask me how school went, and I'd tell her it went good. I felt really bad, but I'd done it all to myself. After that, mom was always keeping on me about my school work, not trusting me to get it done on my own. I can't say I blame her.

The school year came and went, and at the end of it, I had to go to summer school. I don't really remember mom and dad saying much to me about it, but I know they were really disappointed in me and that I let them down. I went to summer school at DeVeaux elementary school that was on Sylvania Avenue, just down from Douglas Road. Each day I had to get up and ride my bike down to the school. All I can remember about it was that I had a pretty teacher, Mrs Aborne. I don't remember anything about what I studied or learned. I credit that to the fact that it was so long ago.

Summer school only lasted a month or maybe six weeks, and one day near it's end I had an interesting experience; as I was riding my bike home, I went to turn a corner and my handlebars turned, but the bike didn't… the handlebars broke right off, and I crashed. I didn't get hurt, but I ended up having to push my bike all the way home.

That was my purple bike. I remember it, because it was a gift from mom and dad. I think it was a birthday present, but I remember for sure that I walked in on my dad while he was putting it together. At the time, I only got a glimpse of it, before he yelled at me to shut the door (he was in the shed in our backyard working on it). Several days later, I got the bike (like I said, I think it was on my birthday). It was beautiful! It was bright purple, with a long sparkly purple seat, and big, tall handlebars. It was so cool! I remember that it took me ages to learn how to ride it. It seems to me that I must have been six or maybe seven years old before I could ride it. I just couldn't seem to get the knack of keeping my balance, while in motion.

My friend Brian, who was my age had a bike of his own that he could ride great! It was smaller than my bike, and Tim, my older brother was frustrated at my inability to ride a bike, so he talked Brian into letting me learn on his bike. I can remember sitting on Brian's bike, while Tim pushed me, yelling "Pedal! Pedal!" I was too terrified, and didn't pedal, so naturally I crashed, and scraped up my elbows. It was a hard time. Sometime around the same time, mom and dad were frustrated at the fact that they'd gotten me a bike, and it sat idle because I was unable to ride it. Somehow they connived me to get on it, and when I did, I found them pushing it, and me cruising through the yard at a high rate of speed! My feet came off the pedals and were in the grass to slow me down, and I coasted to a stop and promptly tipped over. My dad had followed me through the yard and I heard him say to my mom something like "well, if he won't ride it, then we'll just have to take it back". I loved that bike! The color, the shape, everything! Within a few days, I was riding it like an old pro! I guess my dad knew the proper way to motivate me. I back tracked a bit to tell the story of how I got the bike… all this took place well before my fifth grade year. I think I learned how to ride it when I was about six or seven.

Sixth grade was a bit different for me. Eric Kennedy was a classmate of mine, and we were developing a good friendship. That was hard to do under the gaze of our teacher, Mrs Saxton. At the time, I could think of almost nothing good to say about her. She was gruff, grouchy, and demanded that all of us kids use proper grammar when speaking (making sure we'd say "My brother and I" rather than "Me and my brother"). She seemed like she was always there to catch a little slip or mistake when we'd speak.

I can look back on her now, and appreciate what she was doing. I didn't like it at the time, but she was very much pushing us in the right direction, with our speech and manners. Even today, I find myself mentally referring back to some of the things she taught us.

One of the things she did, that I always liked, was to read to us. Every day after recess, we'd come in and sit quietly at our desks. We could either put our heads down, or sit up… no sleeping! And she'd read to us. It was usually from a "classic" of children's literature. Something Like "Charlotte's Web" or "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". For a half hour every day, she'd read to us. It was a relaxing way to unwind after recess, and get us in the mode to learn again for the afternoon. For all her grouchy, meanness, she was a good teacher, and I thank her to this day for teaching the way she did.

I was on TV during the sixth grade. It was only for a single show, called "Sixth Grade Report". At many of the elementary schools across the city, students wrote reports about different things going on in their schools, and someone (I don't know who) judged the best ones from each school. Each week, a different school's students reports were evaluated, and the students from that school got to go on TV and read their reports. When it was my school's turn, I won and got to go on TV and read my report. I remember the ride to the TV studio… or at least part of it. I got to ride in a car with Randy Bryan (a kid in my grade…. he was a popular kid, and his nickname was "tomato-head" because if he got embarrassed about something, his head turned red!). He and I and several other people got to go to the TV studio out on Byrne Road in Toledo. There we did a recording for the show, and it aired a day or two later. I can still remember it…. it was 1976, and my report started out "Mrs Saxton's sixth grade class is doing a series of reports called We're Strong For Toledo….."

Other than that I don't remember much of it. But I do remember sitting with mom and Tim, watching it. Dad didn't get to see it, because he was at work.

Not long after that, dad and mom decided that we were outgrowing our house as it was, so dad (who worked for a warehouse that stored plywood, and other building materials, and who loved working with wood and with his hands) proceeded to put a second story on our house. The back prt of our house had always had a flat roof, so it was a relatively simple matter to put a second floor on. He had a professional company build the framework for the new room. I can still remember, after the frame for the walls and roof were in place, walking around on the roof, which would soon be a floor. Dad let me climb a ladder to stand up there with him, and walk around. I remember the wind blowing gently through the open frame, and dad telling me where the closets would go, and the general layout of the room. It was decided that Tim and I would get the room. The staircase he was going to make was going to lead right up into the room.

Dad did the finish work, applying the outer walls to the frame. Then he did the inner walls, and the insulation, too, putting a nice whitish-grey paneling up inside the room.

There was no carpeting on the floors, and the walls needed a little bit more work, and the only light was a bare bulb in the ceiling. But I didn't care…. our house had a second floor, now! The hole where the staircase was there, but we didn't even have stairs yet… all we had was a crude wooden ladder dad had made. Even so I can remember on Sunday evenings when we'd get home from church, I'd change into my pajamas, cut a slice of cake (it seemed like mom always had a cake she'd freshly baked, in the house), get a glass of milk and a comic book, and head up the ladder (it usually took me two or three trips to get everything up the ladder). There I'd sit, on the bare floor, reading, eating and enjoying every minute of it! After a little while, I'd come back downstairs, and get ready for bed, dreaming of when it would be a complete room, that Tim and I could move into.

It was sometime around this time…. around 1975 or 1976, that we had trouble at church. I was pretty young, so I don't really know all the details, even to this day. The old pastor, Brother Lawson (in our church, all men were called "Brother…." and the ladies "Sister…." As in brothers and sisters in Christ) retired. He'd been the pastor of the church for years. I guess ever since mom and dad had started attending Westwood Baptist Church. I don't know when that was… they moved to Toledo sometime in the early 1950's. They'd known Brother Lawson for years. When he retired in the mid 1970's, a new pastor came in. His name was Brother Carmichael. From what I can remember, things went well for a while. I even know that he and his family lived on Foth Road, off Alexis Road near Douglas, not too far from where I'd eventually go to high school.

Dad was a deacon in the church, and I can remember many times him standing near the front of the church with other deacons, and helping to pass the collection plate. From what I understand, Brother Carmichael began hinting at things in his sermons… making his own interpretations about what certain things in the Bible meant. Well, this didn't sit well with my dad, a deeply religious man. Apparently it didn't sit well with other members of the congregation, either. This went on for a while, and eventually my dad, and a few other men who were of like mind, confronted the pastor about it. There was another group in the church, who sided with the pastor, and the two groups got together and couldn't decide who was right and who was wrong. Matters reached the boiling point, and my family, along with the families of other men who agreed with my dad, were told that they were no longer welcome in the church if they wouldn't conform to what the pastor wanted. My dad felt very strongly about it, as did the others, and none of them would bend. Suddenly we all found ourselves without a church. A very odd situation for our family, indeed! We'd been literally kicked out of the church, and told not to come back!

For the next several weeks, we drifted through several different churches, trying to find the one that mom and dad felt was right. Many of the people that we'd known from Westwood had done the same thing. We tried Liberty Baptist Church on Jackman Road once. Then we tried Antioch Baptist Church (somewhere near Telegraph Road is all I remember), where we met the Lohrs... a family we'd known from Westwood. Lloyd, Betty, and their sons Joe and Tim (Tim was close to my age). They'd settled at Antioch after the breakup of the church at Westwood. Mom and dad for some reason, soon settled on Liberty Baptist Church, and we began attending there regularly. I don't remember any other families from the Westwood incident coming to Liberty, and I felt really alone. At that point in my life, church was more of a social get together, than a religious one. However, soon afterwards, the Lohrs switched churches and they became members at Liberty, also! I felt more at ease after that.

Sunday mornings were fun for me, because Liberty Baptist had a large Sunday School program, divided into quite a few different sections that kids could attend, based upon their age and/or grade level. there was a nursery, a pre-school department, one for grades one through four, and so on all the way up through high school and college levels. And finally there was a Sunday school class for adults, too.

By the time we started there, I was in one of the younger grade level departments. The section I was in had at least one hundred kids in it, because Liberty had a large outreach program; Sunday mornings, buses would leave from the church and fan out all over the city on preset routes and pick up kids who wanted to go to church but had no way to get there.

The department I started in was run by Mr and Mrs freiheight (I probably misspelled that!) and they were very nice. They would always teach a lesson from the Bible, but teach it in a way that kids could understand. They'd occasionally use puppets, or set up a play for us kids. It was a fun class, and they had long tables with small folding chairs for us to sit on. We'd sit, and they'd tech. With that many kids in a room (a good sized room, but an enclosed area nonetheless) there was always a problem with keeping our attention. So in order to keep the chatter to a minimum, they had a policy where the best behaved kid in the class would get a prize at the end of the lesson. I distinctly remember winning it twice. Once, I won a set of two small plastic airplanes that could be launched with a hand-held slingshot type device. I saw it before class began, and I wanted it so badly! I did everything I could to behave, listen, participate… anything I could do to draw attention to the fact that I was listening, I did. And it worked! I won the planes and after church, I was in my front yard playing with them! It was so cool!

Another time, I won a small Mickey Mouse car that would roll around the floor after you pulled a pull string on it. That was cool, too!

Every week, after Sunday school, I'd go to the front of the church, and sit with my mom and dad for the main service. Usually, after that we'd go out to eat at a steak restaurant called "Bonanza" which was just up the road from our house. Eating there was pretty much a weekly ritual for us.

The pastor at Liberty was Brother Leach, and he was a fiery preacher, just like Brother Lawson had been. He didn't pull any punches. I don't remember much about him, but sadly he passed away within a year or so of us moving there. I can barely remember his coffin lying at the front of the church, and everyone filing past.

Soon afterward came Pastor Harold O'Bryan. I remember quite a bit about him. A kind man, he wasn't as loud as Pastor Leach had been, but he was very compassionate, and very caring.

Within a year or two, I felt I'd settled in to Liberty quite well. Tim (my older brother that is) was just about 16 years old, and he hung out with the other teenagers about his age who went there, so he was fitting in quite well. I began, at the insistence of mom and dad to get more involved with the youth groups at the church. I was approaching Junior High School, and there was usually an organized activity on Friday and or Saturday nights for kids my age. It was usually a get together to go bowling, or to a ball game, or to play softball, and eat some food. Things like that. It was the beginning of a time in my life that was very formative, and to this day I think about those days quite often.

Between the ages of about 10 years and 14 or 15 years, much of my life is a blur. I can remember only mainly the major incidents in my life. Such as the "Great Blizzard of 1977". It was in January, I believe. Freezing rain fell for hours one day, laying down a thick coating of ice on everything. Then in the evening it switched to snow. A thick wet, heavy snow. And snow it did! All evening and night. Tim and I were playing in my backyard that evening, during the heaviest snow. We had a great time throwing snowballs at each other, digging in the snow, and admiring the occasional flashes of lightning we saw through the snowfall. It was really cool! The next day, we got up, and listened to the radio intently, to see if school would be cancelled. We had to listen for them to announce "Washington Local School District". And they did. We really had no doubt that they would. The streets had several feet of snow on them, and the snow was still falling, although not as heavy. Nearly every school district in the area was closed for the day (heck, it probably was every school district!). Looking out the window, everything was covered with a huge thick white blanket of sparkly snow. It was beautiful outside! There was at least three feet of snow on everything. Dad even stayed home, which was rare! He'd never take the day off from work if there was any way around it. His work ethic was far too strong for that. Later that day, as we were in the house just enjoying not having to go to school, our day was interrupted by a loud crash from the back of the house. None of us could figure out what it was! We knew something was wrong when we tried to look out the windows at the rear of the house, and couldn't see anything. Dad quickly got dressed and went outside to see what was going on. He came back in a few minutes later, and informed us that the awning that covered the back patio had collapsed under the weight of the snow! The support braces at the outer corners had buckled, and the awning, still bolted to the house, had folded down against the back of the house. It was really something!

Sometime during the late 1970's mom and dad bought Tim and I some special snowsuits to wear outside. They were one piece, all black with yellow stripes up the side. And wow, were they warm! Tim had a small 1972 (I might be wrong on the year) Rambler. It was a cool little car for him to drive around, although it was in a state of disrepair. Anyway, quite often during the winter, Tim would drive himself and I over to a park in the suburb of Toledo called Ottawa Hills. The park was Ottawa Park. It was a more expensive part of town to live in, and it had a lot of wide-open space and gentle, rolling hills. It was a great place to go sledding. Tim and I had a seven-foot long wooden sled called a tobaggan, and we'd take it to Ottawa Hills and go sledding. Used to be that we'd go and wear several layers of jeans, sweat-pants, socks, a thick shirt and a heavy coat and a hat. But after mom and dad got us those snowsuits, that all changed. These suits were so warm, and convenient (being only one layer of clothes) and waterproof nylon. Before the suits, when we'd go, our clothes would end up all wet and cold, and that would usually end our sledding trips early. But the snowsuits were great! They kept us warm and dry. And they got us boots, too. Boots that were soft plastic with cloth sides, and thick wool inserts. After these, our feet stayed so warm, we couldn't believe it! Sledding was so much fun after that. We'd usually, but not always, go late in the day, and end up sledding around dusk. It would be getting dark out, and the snow on the hills always seemed to have an eerie bluish tint to them. The hills in the park were a favorite place for sledding by people from all over the area, and the snow on them was usually packed down hard and slick by the time we got there. It made for great, high-speed sledding. We'd always keep the tobaggan in the shed when it wasn't being used. I'd frequently get out a bar of soap and rub it all over the bottom of it to make it more slippery. Sledding was great! We always had a blast, and came home exhausted.

Around that time in my life, Tim and I were playing a lot of football in our backyard. One of those times was in the fall. It was a cool damp evening, and there were leaves all over the yard. What neither one of us realized as we threw the ball around was just how slippery the ground and the leaves were. Tim had a shed in the backyard. Dad had two sheds, that were connected on the inside. He stored tools, bikes, and all manner of wood, paint, etc inside them. Right next to them, connected on the outside was a shed that Tim and my dad built. Every boy wants to have a fort of some kind, and Tim was no different. When he was about 14 or so, he and my dad built it together. Tim had the inside of it decorated with old carpeting. The wall had a poster made of black velvet, with Elton John as the "Pinball Wizard" on it. It was cool! The shed even had a cord coming down from the ceiling that had a light bulb on the end. We could pull the cord, and extend it's length a few feet, so what we used to do is extend the cord, pull it out the door of the shed, and drape it over a nail that was above the door. Then we'd unscrew the puny 60 watt bulb that it usually used and screwed in a 100 watt floodlight, that lit almost the whole back yard! Dad didn't like that because of the amount of electricity it used. We did that whenever we wanted to play in the back yard after dark.

Anyway, one damp fall night we were playing football, and I was running with the ball. I rounded the corner and somehow got past Tim headed for the goal line near the patio. Tim was caught off guard and reached out to bring me down. Somehow he ended up getting hold of the back of my jacket and pulling me down. When he did, my right leg twisted beneath me and I went down on my back, and somehow this whole action sprained my ankle. I remember hearing it pop, and then searing pain in my ankle! I lay there screaming, and crying…. I was in so much pain. Tim lifted me up and carried me to the patio where he proceeded to examine my ankle. I don't remember too clearly what happened after that. I do remember that I didn't go to the hospital, yet I missed school the next day. The following day after that I went to school with a pair of crutches. I think it was an old pair we'd had in the shed. That was one of the many times in my life that I've sprained/twisted an ankle. The "Famous Rutherford Ankles" as my brother Garry likes to call them. All us boys have weak ankles.

At around the age of 14 or 15 I can remember listening to the radio in my bedroom… listening to "WMHE, 92.5fm". It was a soft rock station that played a lot of soft moody rock, and love songs. Great thing for an adolescent whose hormones are running rampant to be listening to. I'd sit at the top of the stairs (I adopted that as my favorite place to sit), and listen to that radio station. One minute I'd be playing with some model spaceships I had, or some toy soldiers, and the next minute I'd put it down, feeling like I must be too old to play with that stuff. The next minute I'd be ready to cry for no reason. I knew I was growing up, but that didn't help me feel any better. I had these weird moods I'd never experienced before. I felt like I wanted to be in love. I was a bit of a mess. I knew that it was because I was growing up, and I felt so out of control. I was in junior high school and as I look back on it now, I can see how much I missed out on; I really wish I'd gotten more involved with activities or sports at school. I think that with the proper coaching, I'd have made a decent place kicker on the football team…. I've always liked kicking the football. I still do to this day. But I never got any proper leadership, or coaching with it.

As it was, my day consisted of going to school, and coming home and watching TV. I liked to build plastic model kits quite a bit. We had to go to the Laundromat to wash our clothes every week (we never had a washer and dryer in our house). Friday evening was laundry day, and we'd gather up all the dirty laundry and head down to the laundromat at Miracle Mile shopping center, at the corner of Laskey and Jackman. Friday was also my allowance day. I got four dollars a week, and mom and dad usually gave me the money right before we'd go to do our laundry. After we'd get there, I'd ask mom and dad if I could go to Hobby Center. That was a store that was near the Laundromat, and they had all kinds of cool stuff in there, but mostly they had a huge selection of plastic model kits! And a lot of them fit right in to my price range. I'd buy one, and bring it back to the Laundromat, my head filled with visions of how I could paint it, and make it look really cool!

I'd show mom and dad what I bought, and listen to them tell me that I should be saving my money, not spending it all…. this usually dampened my enthusiasm for the model a little bit. Then I'd put it in the car, and go help them fold clothes, and place them in the basket to bring home.

This was nearly a weekly occurrence for me, and as a result I had a pretty good collection of model glues, paints, paintbrushes, etc. I kept them in a small metal tool box I had in my room (I think it was an old tool box of my dad's) and would sit in my spot at the top of the stairs, and put it together. I was never one to have the patience to take my time and do a really good job on them. Usually I'd put it together in the one night, and as a result ended up with a shelf full of crudely painted models, that had only a slight resemblance to the great looking ones on the box. Not cars too much, but airplanes were my big thing. And spaceships if I was able to find them.

I remember distinctly one day coming home from school, and noticing that something in my room looked out of place. After a few minutes, I realized that one of my models was missing. It was a cool one too! It was from a TV show, and it was a stylish looking alien moon car, with a cool looking alien figure. It was gone! That model was so cool, and now it was gone.

I don't know if I asked my mom if she'd seen it or not, but I know that later that afternoon, I saw my brother Tim. I asked him if he'd seen it, and he said yes. "Where?" I asked him. I remember him mumbling some non-commital answer, and said something about it being outside. Now why on earth would it be outside? That was no place for a plastic model. They're far too fragile.

I went outside and looked around in the patch of dirt near the shed. And there I found it…. in pieces. Tiny pieces. Broken, and shattered. I later found out that Tim and his friend next door, Marty had earlier in the day, decided to shoot their BB guns and needed a target to shoot at. My model somehow got volunteered, and so it was that it got destroyed.

This wasn't the first time Tim was involved in the loss or destruction of my things. Once when I was younger and had gone to Franklin Park Mall with my mom, she bought me a helium balloon. It was really cool, and she even tied a loop in the string so I could put it around my wrist. It was really cool. It cost all of 50 cents.

After I got home and played with it in the house for a while, Tim came home from somewhere. I was maybe eight or nine years old at the time. Tim saw the balloon and how excited I was about it. But he was excited too… excited at the prospect of watching it float away. He knew that he couldn't just take it because he'd gotten in trouble for the model kit incident, so he had another idea. He found out that it cost 50 cents, so he said he'd pay me 75 cents to let it float away, so we could watch it. He talked the whole thing up really nicely, and made it sound so good! How cool it would be to watch and see how high the balloon would go… and on top of it all, I'd have 75 cents too…. how could I lose? So he gave me three quarters and we went outside, and I let the balloon go. We watched all excited as it took off! It was cool… for about the first three or four minutes. Then as the balloon was a tiny speck in the sky, and Tim, no longer very excited about it, I realized that it was truly gone. He walked back in the house and there I stood, with three quarters in my hand. I felt awful, because now I had money, but no balloon. And even though a new balloon was only 50 cents, I had no way to go to the mall to buy a new one. I felt awful. But even now, I don't hold it against him. After all, he was just being a punk big brother (haha!)

At one point when I was about 12 years old (I think) my dad, out of nowhere, asked me if I wanted a fort. I said sure, and he built me one! He just up and built me a fort! Dad always had power tools and wood around and I know he loved working with his hands and building things. I think that's why he did it.

It was on the spot where we'd had a grapevine growing for years, but which had been recently removed. It was a one room fort with a small plywood desk in one corner, and a fold down plywood cot type thing on the other side. Tim found some old metal pipes from a weight set he used to have. The pipes were about eight inches long, and about an inch in diameter. We took them (three of them altogether I think) and drove them into the walls at a downward angle. Once we were sure they were secure, we took some candles and inserted them into the ends of the pipes, and we'd light them and so we had light! It was cool! Tim was pretty much beyond the whole fort thing, because he was older, but he didn't seem to mind helping me set it up. Besides, he had his own fort (he called it a shed) that dad had built for him several years before. It was directly across the yard from mine, and although it was attached to dad's two tool sheds, you couldn't go from one to another. Now the tool sheds, that was another matter. Dad had built them so that while inside one, you could walk thru a doorway and into the other one. That was the theory anyway. It was much easier said than done, due to the amount of clutter in them. Not only was there tools, but bikes, knick-knacks, and other things we had no other space to store were in them also. It was difficult to go from one to the other, but not impossible. Like I said, dad loved to build things.

My friend Brian Thabit, who lived across the street from me had a small fort in his backyard that we used to hang around in. It was cramped! Brian, myself, Todd Hillebrand, and Tom Giovanni (other kids from the neighborhood) used to play in there. It was maybe three feet wide, by four feet long, and about four feet high. It had a very small loft in it, which theoretically was so that one of us could climb up into, and peer out a spy hole (this was a secret club we had, y'know) and keep us safe. Realistically though, the loft was way too small for any of us to climb into. Brian had built the fort himself, and it was really cool. Eventually, he made friends at school with Keith Curson, a kid on the next block over, behind Brian's house. Keith was a smart kid, and Brian enlisted his help to get electricity into his fort. They built a small room off the main room, and put some kind of electrical equipment in it, and strung a single wire with a bare bulb at the end into the main room of the fort. And just where did they get the power for this? Part of their plan had a long extension cord running out of the fort's back room, buried just under the top of the soil in the neighbor's yard. The cord ran to the neighbor's garage, and in through a back window, and plugged into an electrical outlet. They were stealing electricity from the neighbor's!

Sometime shortly after that is when dad built my shed. Did I mention that we could stand up inside it, and walk around? That was something we couldn't do in Brian's fort (which we'd named the "D.B. Club". Seems Brian was on a "Daniel Boone" kick at the time, and he named the club to go along with the coonskin cap he wore).

I don't remember what happened to cause it, but Brian and I had a falling out, and became bitter enemies.

One night while I was home alone, I was watching a movie on TV called "The Hindenburg", about the German Zeppelin that exploded in 1936. It was a cold and snowy night out, and mom and dad had gone to the grocery store. When they got home, they asked me who'd come over. No one, I told them. Mom said that someone had been in the yard because there were clear footprints in the snow, showing that someone had walked into our back yard. While they were unloading groceries, I bundled up and went outside to investigate. The footprints were clear indeed, and they went from the street, into our driveway, back through our yard, and right up to my fort! I opened the door, and looked inside, and there was snow on everything! All over the floor, all over my desk and my cot! Everywhere! I had to get it out before it could melt (fat chance of that in the freezing cold that we had going on) and ruin my floor. I grabbed a broom out of the tool shed, and swept furiously to get the snow out. It took a while but I did it. I went back inside and told mom and dad. They asked if I had any idea who did it, and I said I was sure it was Brian!

Later that night when Tim came home I told him about it. He said he'd help me fix it.

So the next night, Tim and I went into the yard to "play" as we told mom and dad. But we had more on our minds than that. We went across the street and crept into Brian's yard. We went to the back of the yard and opened his fort. Then we began hurriedly packing snow into his fort! As much as we could as fast as we could. Tim did a quick search of the yard and found a broken old concrete planter. It had been outside for ages, so it was packed with snow and ice and it was heavy! I was inside the main room scooping as much snow as I could into the fort, putting plenty of it into the back room. We must have had a foot of snow through his whole fort, when Tim told me to come on out. I did, and he tossed in the broken, heavy planter, which landed on the floor with a thud/crack. We closed the door and ran. Back to our own house and into the backyard, where we could see Brian's house. We ducked down low, so the fence in our yard would provide us some camouflage. Then Tim proceeded to lob snowballs onto the roof of Brian's house, where they landed with a "thump". It took five or six of them til there was a sign of life from their house. Lights came on, and Brian and his dad came out of the house looking around. They couldn't see us, but we could see them. Snickering to ourselves, we watched and Tim commented sarcastically how tough Brian was when Brian picked up a lump of snow and packed it into a ball and looked around menacingly.

I don't remember what happened next, but at some point, Tim and I went inside, and the incident was quickly forgotten. Several days later on the school bus I heard Brian commenting on how someone had packed his fort full of snow, and that it had melted and ruined the flooring in it's back room, and that he'd have to tear out the floor in that part of his fort. I tried not to laugh, but at the same time I felt kind of bad about it. He'd put a lot of work into that fort, and I'd gone on a whim and ruined part of it. To this day, I feel like I should look him up and tell him about it. I wonder if he'd even remember?

It was during this time that a strange event happened. Mom's brother, my uncle Tommy, lived with his family over in Toledo's west end. For years they'd lived on Detroit Avenue, and I have vague, fleeting scraps of memories of visiting them there when I was no more than five years old. Uncle Tommy's wife, June died of cancer when I was very young. I have a picture in my mind of her sitting on an old vinyl reclining chair, her knees drawn up to her chest, smoking a cigarette, chatting with my mom. She was a heavy smoker for years, and eventually cancer killed her. I can remember that my mom's mother  (whom I called Mam Maw) lived with them.

Mom was never in a good mood when she talked about Uncle Tommy. She didn't approve of the way he was raising his kids. They were always running around with bad kids, and staying out late, and such. Completely opposite of the way mom and dad were raising us. It seemed like they had about ten kids. Two of them, Randy and Robby were very close to my age, and I played with them when we visited.

After Aunt June died, Uncle Tommy started seeing a woman who'd been working for him as a housecleaner, and the whole family packed up and moved out to a house in west Toledo. Mom still was always mad when she talked about him. If I remember, mom thought that he remarried too quickly. Oh and mom was also mad because when Aunt June was near death in the hospital (and from what mom told me, she died a horrible, prolonged, agonizing death, as the cancer slowly ate her alive), uncle Tommy sent a large amount of money to Jimmy Swaggart or Oral Roberts, or some other TV evangelist. The purpose was so that they'd pray for Aunt June, and Uncle Tommy was convinced that it would work, and that she'd recover. From what mom told me, Uncle Tommy called up the evangelist's organization and was told that they needed money to properly pray for Aunt June, and that when they got his "donation" they'd pray and they guaranteed a miracle. They told him that Aunt June would be cured in September. This was in either July or August when mom found out about this. She was really mad.

"Tommy!" she said. "June needs prayer now, not in September!" She was so mad.

After Aunt June died and his family moved, his kids (my cousins) started to really hang out with bad crowds. One of his kids was named Wayne. Wayne was older than me. He was at least Tim's age, and he might have actually been a year or two older, but I'm not sure. I honestly don't remember ever seeing Wayne when we visited, although I'm sure I did. I'd for sure heard his name a time or two.

One Saturday morning while I was doing my weekly ritual, watching Saturday morning cartoons, mom and dad came into the living room, from the kitchen where they'd been talking.

"Steve" mom said. "Your cousin Wayne died."

"Really? When was this?" I asked, not sure of how to react or how to feel about the announcement of the death of a person I didn't know.

"Last night." she said. I wasn't sure what to think, or what to say, so I went back to watching cartoons, and mom and dad went back to the kitchen. To this day, I feel really weird about the way I reacted. I honestly didn't know what to say or think, so I reacted in the only way I knew how. Remember, that I was probably only eleven or twelve at the time.

From what we heard, Wayne was beaten to death on his own front porch. The story was that Wayne had been out one night with friends. He came home, stumbling up onto his porch, injured. The noise he made brought his family out to see what the racket was, and found him doubled over claiming that he'd been beaten. While they called an ambulance, Wayne related to them a story of how he was minding his own business when a group of men attacked him, for no reason. They beat him, and kicked him, and knocked him down. He said that then two of them grabbed him, and held him while a third one kicked him hard in the belly, and then they threw him down on the ground and left. The ambulance came shortly afterwards and rushed Wayne to the hospital, but it was too late, and he died.

Mom and dad found out, however, that Wayne (how they found this out, I have no idea) was a heroin addict. His arms and legs were covered with needle tracks and later mom and dad commented that it all made sense now, why he never wore shorts or short-sleeve shirts, even in hot weather. A medical examiner stated that there was no evidence of physical trauma of the kind that Wayne had described. In particular there was no bruising of the lower abdomen, as there should be with the kick to the belly Wayne had described. He theorized that Wayne had overdosed on heroin and was in fact already dying as he stumbled onto the porch, having hallucinated the beating as a way to explain the terrible, painful spasms that wracked his body.

I don't remember the funeral or the wake in itself, but I do remember seeing Wayne lying in his coffin, in the same room at the same funeral home where my parents would lay some years later. He looked as if he were sleeping, in a brown suit, with his curly hair brushed back to reveal a high forehead. This is the only memory I have of my cousin Wayne. His arms were at his sides, yet bent so that his hands rested on his chest, his left over his heart, and his right just below his breast bone. It was awkward looking I thought and very unnatural looking, and strangely enough it would play a big part in my memory.

I don't remember what time of year it was, but I think it must have been in the summer. I say this because I wasn't in school at the time, and was at home on my own quite a bit, while mom and dad were off at work. I don't remember where Tim was. I think he was off on his own playing with friends and such.

Seeing my cousin laid out in the casket like that had a profound effect on me, being as young as I was. Usually I hung around with my friends, mainly outside, because mom didn't like the idea of my friends and I being in the house by ourselves. At one point, my friend Brian had come over, and was at the back door of the house, talking to me through the screen. I was getting ready to go outside and play. It was partly because wanted to play, and partly because I had to get out of the house! All morning long I'd been hearing things, like footsteps, or creaking floorboards. And I felt really uneasy for some reason. I couldn't get the picture of Wayne in his coffin, out of my head. Then, just as I thought I was going to get away from it, I headed for the back door and as I passed mom and dad's room, I saw it…. Wayne's coffin, with him in it, was standing upright, in the doorway to mom and dad's room! I caught a glimpse of it, and took off running for the back door. When I got outside, Brian asked me what was wrong, and I told him. I was terrified!

He didn't believe me, I knew, but he listened anyway. Then he went over and got another kid from the neighborhood, Tim Hillebrand. He was a punk. A kid who was halfway between my age and my older brother, Tim. He was the kind of kid who was nice to you one minute, then bad-talking you behind your back the next. Not necessarily a bad kid but one my dad didn't want me to hang out with. I don't know what Brian told him, but when he got to the house, he was smiling, and he ran right up to the door and yelled through the screen "Wayne! We know you're in there! C'Mon out!)

Brian volunteered to go in and look around. I didn't want to let him because I didn't want to disobey my mom's wishes, and I for sure wasn't going in there! I was literally petrified! Finally, somehow, Brian talked me into letting him go in and look around. He did and was inside, out of my sight for a few minutes. Finally when he came back, he said he hadn't seen anything.

Reluctantly, I came back inside, and the two of us walked through the house. It was quiet and cool, despite the fact that it was really hot outside. Brian was in the living room, while I walked, with my heart in my throat, back in to the room where I'd seen the coffin standing at the door. There was no coffin now, but there was a pair of shoes sitting out in the middle of the room, where they hadn't been before! I frantically called Brian and he came running to see. He could see that I was terrified. How did the shoes get there? I hadn't moved them. He said he hadn't either, and it was right then that I knew he had. He was trying to frighten me even more, and it had worked for a moment. Then I realized what he'd done and I got mad. Didn't he know what I was going through? Obviously he did and didn't care. He just wanted to see me sweat. Brian had a mean streak in him, and that was how he showed it. Although I don't remember how that afternoon ended, Brian and I remained friends. Other summer days were spent riding my bike or playing baseball with friends in the lot across from our house. The summer days were bright and stifling with heat and humidity, and the inside of the house was always cool and dark. It was  strange way to spend my summer but it was necessary, and so it seemed normal to me.

Mom's job was as a home care person. I'm pretty sure it was because there was a financial need behind it, and she got a job housekeeping for an older couple, Mr and Mrs Rack on Tremainsville road. Mom eventually got to the point where she called him "Pop Rack" because he was such a nice man, and he treated her like one of his own kids. Mrs Rack was very bad off, both physically and mentally. She was wheelchair bound. Mr Rack was not as bad off mentally, but he was in poor health. He was rather well off, having made a lot of money with a welding firm he owned in Toledo. I don't know if he still owned the firm, or if he'd sold it, but he and his wife were quite comfortable, from a financial standpoint. His family took an immediate liking to mom, calling her Roxie (where that came from I'm not sure). But they all liked her, and what she was doing for their father.

She was their housekeeper for a year or so. During that time, Mrs Rack passed away, and Mr Rack began a rapid decline. There was one instance where he'd disappeared from his home one night. His daughter and son-in-law showed up one morning at his home, and he was gone. They frantically called my mom, who was scheduled to show up there shortly afterward, and asked for her help finding him. The authorities found him bundled in a sleeping bag, laughing and joking, in someone's yard just a few houses from his own. Shortly after that, his family admitted him to a nursing home where he could receive the full time care he needed. He passed away shortly after that.  My mom was out of a job, but the Rack family showed their gratitude for having taken such good care of him, by selling mom a car that Mr Rack had, and that she'd admired quite a bit. It was (if memory serves me correctly) a 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass. It was in good shape except for the paint job. It had been a deep blue color with light blue interior. By now it had faded somewhat, but was still nice looking, and was mechanically sound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Teenage years -

 

At around the age of 14, just as I was entering junior high school, several major events would happen in my life, that changed me forever: my interest in art began to really take off. A new youth minister came to our church. And my dad died.

I had always liked to draw, even as a very young kid. The artwork I did back then is terrible. I don't have any examples of it, but it was bad! But even so, the desire was there. At that time in my life I was always creating something, whether it was building models or drawing. Up until then it had been mostly models that I was interested in. But when I entered the 8th grade that all changed.

As I was at the end of my 7th grade year, we students were tasked with filling out a form that stated what kinds of classes we'd like to take in addition to the required ones. These additional classes were called "electives". Some examples of these electives were wood-shop, metal-shop, drafting, home economics, typing and art. Typical of me and the way I still to this day, do things, I waited til the last minute to fill out my form. My teacher, Mr Loeffler was calling out our names in alphabetical order to bring our forms to the front of the class, so he could record our choices and send that information off to the necessary offices. I realized I was in trouble! I had no electives written down! I asked a friend, Nick Rowan, to help me. He helped me figure out the form, and write down the information I needed, by choosing the elective I wanted from a catalogue of available courses. What did I choose? An art class called "ART 1". It just happened to be the first one that I saw. I had no particular interest in it, but I wrote it down just as the first thing I saw, and just finished writing it in the appropriate space as the teacher called my name!

The step up to junior high school was a rough one for me. Suddenly I was thrust into a school where I had a "home room", and for my different classes, I had to go to different rooms. It never worked that way in elementary school. There, the teachers came to us. And I was in a place where students from all over the school district were now in school with me. Before it was just me and the students from my school. Many of them were kids I'd known for years. Now I saw less and less of them. That took some getting used to. Another thing that happened, which I'm embarrassed to say, is that I knew very little about hygiene. No one had ever said anything to me about it. I suppose that my mom and dad thought that I already knew. I didn't. At that point I was bathing only every Saturday night. During the week I didn't wash or comb my hair. Only by the end of that year did I realize how badly I must have smelled and looked. I had dandruff, and I know I had body odor. At the time I didn't realize it, but something happened at the end of that year (what it was, I still don't know) that opened my eyes and then I began taking much better care of myself, much to the relief I'm sure of my classmates.

I still was quite naïve about a lot of things at that point in my life… still trying to "find myself" I suppose you could say. I was the focus of several bullies, one of whom was smaller than I was. I was picked on constantly by this kid. It was in my gym class, and I could have made him stop, but I didn't want to fight him. I wanted to but I was afraid I'd get in trouble with my mom and dad. They had told me "don't let me hear anything about you getting in any fights in school". So I didn't try to defend myself. This kid (Bob Billion was his name) was constantly pushing me, daring me to fight him. Small and scrawny he was but I didn't want to get into trouble. A lot of the other kids in class didn't understand why I wouldn't do anything to make him stop.

One day I came home from school, all upset and frustrated, because I knew I could make him stop if only given the chance. Mom asked me why I was so upset and I let it all spill out. She could see that I was mad and angry that she and dad would have stuck me in a position like this, where I wasn't allowed to defend myself. After dad got home from work they sat me down and talked to me about it. They explained that I'd misunderstood what they wanted. They didn't mean I could defend myself, but they meant that they didn't want me to go around starting any fights. They apologized for it and let me know that if this kid wouldn't leave me alone that I was to "bust him in the mouth, and make him stop".

I went to school the next day with a renewed sense of hope, and waited for Bob Billion to make his move. He did and I pounced… so to speak. I stood up, a full three inches and probably 20 pounds heavier than he was. I told him, as I shoved him away from me, that if he ever laid a hand on me again, that he'd truly be sorry. I don't remember exactly how I worded it, but I know that he knew I meant business…. because he never bothered me again after that.

At around the same time, I was making a good friend in a boy named Bob May. Bob was in my art class, and he seemed to be obsessed with comic books. Reading them, drawing the superheroes in them. He lived with his divorced father in a small apartment above Penguin Music store on Sylvania Avenue near it's intersection with Tremainsville and Jackman roads. I went to his apartment a few times, and he came over to my house a few times. I know that my dad didn't like Bob. Bob used terms that my dad didn't like; terms like "bumming around" when he was saying we could go to his apartment and hang out. Bob also, by the time our sophomore year of high school began, had his temporary driver's license. That meant that he could drive, as long as there was also a licensed driver in the car too. Bob didn't care, and he already had a car that he drove anyway. Truth be told, I think that Bob was in reality a bad influence on me. Not because he drank or smoked… he didn't do either of those things. As far as that went, Bob was clean. But he didn't have any clear direction in his life. He was a rebel… a rule breaker. His parents were divorced and his dad, whom worked at Weissenberger Chevrolet on Sylvania Avenue, was never around.

Bob wasn't a bad kid, but he just wasn't the kind of kid my parents wanted me to hang around with. He had a heck of an influence on me artistically and creatively speaking. He was always into the idea of creating his own superheroes and writing and illustrating his own comic books. I started taking a great interest in that myself. Between Bob's comic book interest and my Art I class at school, my artwork began to take off! I'll bet that if I was to see any of it today, I'd probably think it was putrid! But it was a starting point for me.

I created a group of superheroes called the Crusader Legion. They had their self appointed leader, a guy named Steve Randall (guess where I got the first name from?). I can remember that he had the ability to shoot several different kinds of rays from his hands. What they did, or how he gained this power, I had written down, but I can't remember. They had their own space ship that they traveled in… "Odyssey" it was called. I drew it and it looked like a cross between a Klingon ship from the 1960's era TV show Star Trek, and a toy spaceship that I'd seen in commercials. It was fun, and I enjoyed it greatly, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I didn't have the background skills to draw the heroes well enough. However, all the drawing I did at the time helped me to learn how the human body's musculature works. It was a time where I learned the groundwork for much of my drawing today. The art class I'd taken as a freshman helped some, but it was a broad spectrum of art subjects… drawing, painting, sculpting, and building. Not what I needed but it was fun at times.

As my sophomore year went on, Bob and I began hanging around less and less. We were still friends, but at that point I'd begun taking more of an interest in the goings on with kids my own age at church. I'd tried several times to get Bob to come to church with us, but he wasn't interested. In church, it seemed that there was a program in place to give guidance and direction to high school kids. It was a youth program, and it was mainly for kids of freshman through senior in high school in age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Church grabs my interest -

 

I don't remember when he came to our church, but I do remember the influence he had. His proper name was Ricky Joe Stone, but we called him Brother Rick, or Brother Stone. At about the same time, I went on a church sponsored activity for my mom and dad's Sunday School class. It was all adults and at 15 years old, I was the only kid there. Except for one other kid. He had come with his mom and dad, too. They had recently switched churches. He was the same age as I was, and naturally we gravitated to each other. This get-together was at a place called Pearson Park in southwest Toledo. His name was Kevin Howell, and he and I went off walking around and before long we found ourselves walking along the trails through the woods. We got lost, and spent a couple of hours trying to find our way back to the picnic area where everyone else was. We finally did, and found that his parents and mine were the only folks left! Everyone else had gone home! My mom and dad were so mad at me! Kevin's were mad at him too.

But we found that since we were about the same age, we had a lot of similar interests. Kevin was more athlectically inclined than I was though. I tried to be, but it came naturally to him. Tall and slim, Kevin was a basketball player at his high school in Rossford, a suburb of Toledo's east side.

After that day at the park, Kevin and I became the best of friends. At church we always hung around together, along with a friend of our John Cockerill. John was a good guy, but obnoxious without meaning to be. He tended to try too hard to be a friend; getting right in your face to talk, and thus was unwittingly obnoxious.

Tim Lohr was a close friend too, but he was two years younger than we were.

We were inseperable. We sat together in church. Sometimes one of us would go over to the other's house after Sunday morning church services, and we'd hang around together during the afternoon. Then we'd go back to our own house after evening services.

It was a strange, but good time for us guys. I remember that at the time, my brother Tim was dating a girl named Gayle Kuhnle. Funny thing was, that she was about my age, which I thought was quite a strange thing, being that Tim was six years older than I. She and her family lived way out in Maumee, Ohio, near Toledo Express Airport. Her father was an attorney, and he really didn't like Tim at all! He thought Tim was a Casanova, and only after one thing. He forbade his daughter from seeing Tim, and if I recall correctly, he even threatened Tim with Jail once or twice.

For Tim and Gayle, it was a miserable time. They both seemed in love, and even my own mom and dad disapproved, saying that she was too young. I don't remember for sure, but it seems to me that Tim and Gayle somehow sneaked around and were able to see each other. But it wasn't too long before the pressure of their "forbidden romance" got to them and they called it quits.

At the same time, girls had become something quite interesting, to me. I was particularly interested in a girl named Shelley Baker. Kevin and John and I sang in the teen choir at church, and so did Shelley. There was once a church get together out at the Kunhnle's house. A big bunch of us teenagers were down in their basement watching someone play a pinball machine (they had a pinball machine in their basement!) I stood next to Shelley, and was in heaven just standing near her. Jeff Kuhnle (Gayle's older brother) walked up behind me and tried to move my arm, so I'd put it around Shelley's waist. I resisted, and looked at him and he chuckled and walked away. It wasn't that I didn't want to, but it was just that I'd never been in a situation like this before, and didn't know if she wanted me to or not, so I let a crippling case of shyness overtake me and I just stood there. This type of thing would continue to haunt me for many years to come.

I wanted to go out with her, but the fact that I was only 15 years old limited me…. I wasn't able to drive and so I couldn't see her away from church. I had no way to get to her house, which was a half hour away in Michigan. She came over to my house one Sunday afternoon and we spent the afternoon together. I can't remember a thing we did, but I remember feeling all warm and good inside. Later that afternoon, back at church, I kissed her. It was my first kiss, and it was nice! I guess you could call it dating, but it wasn't much.

Later that evening, when it was time for me to go home, I climbed back aboard the church bus (the youth department had used a bus from the church to get there). Shelley stood outside the bus motioning for me to come back out. There was time…. Everyone was milling around, and in no hurry to go. So I went back outside, and without a word, she ran up and threw her arms around me and hugged me, a long slow hug, and it was nice!  She was my first crush and when we "split" it really hurt. Kevin was dating a girl named Laura Van Wormer, whose uncle owned a funeral home on Secor road (why I remember that, I have no idea!).

During this time, Brother Rick Stone was always organizing activities on either Friday or Saturday night for us young teenagers. We all really liked him a lot! He was in his mid 20's and was very much like one of us. He loved to clown and joke around, and he was a great person too. He and his wife Rachel, and their daughter (I can't remember her name) had moved into a house that was just off Douglas road, not far from where I lived with my mom and dad.

Prior to Brother Rick becoming the youth director at our church, there were a few activities here and there on weekends, but there was nothing very exciting about it. Mom and dad tried to get me interested because they really wanted me to be involved with the church… the right kind of people. I remember one instance where there was something going on at church on a Friday night. I was sitting in my favorite spot at the top of the stairs, and mom stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She asked if I wanted to go to the activity (I don't remember what it was). I said "no". She was disappointed, and said that I really needed to be involved with church activities. I remember telling her that I wasn't interested in doing it, because I was a loner (I'd learned that word recently at school, and thought it applied to me).

However, after Brother Rick came to church, something changed. I can't begin to tell you what it was. But he really seemed to care about us teens and really wanted us to have fun… the right kind of fun, with the right kind of people. He really fit. He was exactly what we needed. As a matter of fact, in a sense, he was a kind of "glue" that held the youth department at church together. He was one of us. He was a great guy, and a good friend. Whatever activity he had planned, you could bet it would be fun!

Sometimes it might be bowling at the small bowling alley at the University of Toledo. Another time it might be a hayride up in Michigan. It might be a Friday night get together at the church, where we just sat and watched Laurel and hardy films and ate hot dogs. Sometimes it would be a friendly game of basketball with another local church youth group, I the gymnasium of a local school. Whatever it was, it was fun! And there was always a good turn out for it! Brother Rick was the guy! He really jump-started the youth department at the church. In some ways, he and the pastor didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, but the pastor knew a good thing when he saw it, and he knew that Brother Rick was exactly what the youth department needed. Their slight (emphasis on slight) conflicts were mainly due to the fact that the pastor was educated at Bob Jones University, a Christian college in Virginia (I think that's where it's at). At that school, emphasis was placed on a quiet meditative approach to worship. Slow, soul-searching type hymns were the only types of songs heard there. Brother Rick went to a different school (although I'm not sure which one), where the attitude was one of "be happy, and excited about your relationship with God". Be loud and excited and happy to tell everyone about it. Brother Rick was just what the church needed. His unorthodox methods and ability to relate to us as teenagers really was the key. He was an authority figure to us, yet he was one of us. We loved him like an older brother.

For two years he organized trips to Hammond, Indiana during the summer. Why? Hammond, Indiana was home to the First Baptist Church of Hammond. It was a church run by Reverend Jack Hyles and his son, Dave Hyles. The church had a regular Sunday attendance of over 10,000 people, and it was a huge place! They also had a small university nearby. From Monday afternoon through Friday afternoon teenagers from churches across the country converged on Hammond, Indiana. We would stay wherever we could. One year we stayed in the gymnasium of a high school, sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor, surrounded by hundreds of other kids, who were there too (of course the sleeping areas were separated by gender). Every day there were five or six hour to two-hour-long seminars given by preachers, youth directors, you name it. Some seminars were designed for the girls, and all the boys would have to go to another place for their seminar. I remember many of them being in the church itself, and some being at their University's gymnasium. Some of the seminars were separated by gender, others were for boys and girls. I can remember many of the seminars had skits performed by other teenagers from the church. For most of a week it was like this. And it was hot and humid in northern Indiana. During the trip when we stayed in the school gymnasium, Kevin, Tim, John and I went out to a local drugstore between seminars and bought squirt guns. Later that night, after dinner (most meals were at McDonalds or some such fast food place) we were in the gymnasium, bedding down for the night. At least we were supposed to be….

We stayed awake, laying down and pretending to sleep. Then after a short time, one of us would lean over, and squirt someone in one of the other groups. We'd hear the person gasp "what the…" then we'd quickly re-assume the sleeping position, trying to fight back the laughter. We did this several times, and were having a great time listening to other kids say "water's dripping on me!" Then we'd hear others from across the gymnasium say "Shhhh!". We were having a great time. Then I leaned over Tim Lohr's back to squirt at some kids. I squirted the gun, and the kid I got wet sat up really quick, and I tried to lay down really quick, and when I jerked my arm back, I hit Kevin right in the eye! He yelped in pain, and was really mad at me. The next day he had a slight black eye, and I felt so bad…

During that same trip (before or after the black eye incident, I don't know), me and the guys decided to explore the high school one night after everyone was asleep. I don't remember the name of the school, but I remember that it literally dwarfed Whitmer, the high school where I went. The place was huge! Looking around we found that it had an indoor swimming pool. So, we decided to help ourselves.

We were swimming around in the pool, and clowning around in the locker room. Several other boys from our church had come along on the trip, and they went to the swimming pool, too. One was a boy named James Baker (whom I nicknamed Bames Jaker), and the other was a boy named Brian Foster. We had all stripped down to our underwear to go swimming. None of us had brought along anything like swimming suits. Why should we have? We didn't think we'd have the time or the place to use them. So here we were swimming around, and James (Bames) decided that he'd be a wiseguy and "pants" Brian. He swam up behind him, stripped off his underwear and threw them out of the pool. Brian, now naked, refused to get out of the pool, instead yelling for someone to throw his underwear back to him, while he clung, huddled up to a ladder at the side of the pool. No one would, and we were all laughing, and James (Bames) was saying "if you want 'em Brian, c'mon out and get 'em. What are you afraid of? Do you think you got something we don't got?"

We must have been louder than we thought, because as I was walking around the edge of the pool getting ready to dive back in (I remember that the water seemed warm and slightly salty) I saw one of the youth directors from another church walking down the hallway toward us. He was a heavy-set fellow whom we'd nicknamed "Goodyear" as in the Goodyear blimp.

Anyway, he came down and busted us, and made us get out of the pool. So we did, and Brian got his underwear back. On the way back to the gymnasium, we decided to clown around in the locker room, and I neglected to remember the fact that a tile floor is slippery when wet. My feet were wet, and as I was running down an aisle between lockers, I slipped, fell on my behind, and proceeded to slide along the floor and close three open locker doors with my head as I did. I knocked me silly for a moment, and as I came to my senses, I looked up to see Brother Rick standing over me. He helped me up, and after making sure that I was okay, he said he needed to speak to me.

He sent the other boys back to the gymnasium, and proceeded to sit on one of the benches to speak to me. He said that something had been troubling him for some time, and he needed to speak to me about it. He said that he was concerned about my brother Tim's recently ended relationship with Gayle, and said he'd heard a rumor that Tim made a bet with his friend Gordy Downes. The bet was that Tim could "screw his way through every girl in the youth department".  At that time in his life, Tim was very wild, and I told Brother Rick that I hoped it wasn't true, but that I didn't find it very hard to believe.

To this day, I'm not sure what to think about the whole thing.

I believe it was the next year, we went again to Hammond, and were staying (us boys, that is) in some spare dormitories they had for use by the university students. I remember there was Kevin, Tim Lohr, myself (I don't think John was there that year), another boy named Delmar, Brother Rick, and another fellow that was co-director of the youth department, Dick Anello. The dorm where we stayed seemed to me that it must have been near a swamp or something because the mosquito problem was so bad. Good grief! The place consisted of (if memory serves me) a main living area, two separate bedrooms, and a bathroom. I remember the first night we were there, someone discovered that the bathtub didn't drain properly… it was incredibly slow. Add to that the fact that apparently this had been a problem for some time, and no one had ever done anything about it. The way I understood it, the people who usually occupied the place we were in (two male students) had moved out for the week to make room for us. This went on at every dorm… ours was but one small house sized building in a row of about twenty. One of our group went in to take a shower, and by the time he got out, discovered a large clump of hair clinging to his leg. Apparently hair had built up in the drain for quite a while, and with the drain not working properly it floated out of the drain and was sitting on top of the water waiting for an unfortunate victim to attach to.

Of course Tim Lohr (I believe it was him) came out and told us all about this gross and disgusting thing, so we all had to go in and look at this hairy mass floating on top of the water in the tub. It was truly nasty. Then came the inevitable subject of who would clean it out. Everyone was saying "Not me!" and finally I volunteered, just to get it done with. So, as they all left the room, grossed out, I took a wad of toilet paper, and reached bravely in and took it out. Of course I had to parade it around, showing everyone before I threw it away.

Over the next few days, we were constantly harassed by the mosquitoes. There was no air conditioning, so we had to leave the windows open at night in hopes of a breeze. We'd wake up in the morning to mosquitoes buzzing all around in the room, and I'd get up, and promptly smash them with a pillow. Someone else's pillow. You see, frequently those mosquitoes had just finished feasting upon someone and were gorged with blood. So, smashing them would leave a bloody mark on the pillow and on the wall they were smashed against. I didn't want that stuff on my pillow!

Everyone started getting mad at me for messing up their pillows and as luck would have it, it was during that trip that I lost my pillow! I don't know how it happened, but to this day, I have no idea where it went to. I don't even recall realizing that it was gone, just that for the last day or two of that trip I had the worst, most severe neck-ache I've ever had! I could hardly turn my head and it was sheer agony!

On the day or two leading up to the neck ache, I had taken a fancy to one of the girls in our youth department that had come on the trip. I knew her name, and that was about it. Her name was Tracy Metroff. I thought she was cute, and she apparently liked me, too. We ended up sitting together for one of the co-ed sermons at the church. We were way up high in one of the church's huge balconies. After sitting there for a while, I worked up the courage and reached over to hold her hand, which she eagerly accepted. My right hand was holding her left had, and she somehow coiled her left arm around mine, while still holding my hand. Then her right hand began to stroke my right forearm. Pretty cool I thought, until she began pulling the hair on my arm. Gently at first, which was weird, but not altogether unpleasant. Then she began pulling it harder and more frequent.

Like an idiot, I didn't want to let go of her hand, and so I went along with it. Grinning stupidly, while grimacing inside, because it stung! It was really strange. We sat like that for the rest of the seminar, and then hung around with each other during the afternoon, and when all of us went out to eat at McDonalds for dinner.

The next day, there was another seminar scheduled at part of the church's nearby college campus. It was set to take place in a gymnasium. I met up with Tracy there, and she was giving me the cold shoulder, big time! She acted like she didn't want to have anything to do with me. It was very odd, and it was also the last time I recall ever wanting to have anything to do with her.

The next day, my infamous neck ache began. Strangely enough, at one of the seminars at the church, I ended up sitting next to another Tracy. Tracy Crawford, that is. She was the daughter of Vince and Dorothy Crawford, whom my mom and dad had known for years.

My neck was killing me! So much so, that it was bringing tears to my eyes. Tracy was sitting on my left,  very close to me. Very close. For some reason, toward the end of the seminar, I saw out of the corner of my eye, that she was resting her hand on the set next to her. I reached down, without a word, and took her hand, and held it. She seemed to enjoy it, and despite my neck I felt much better. It was the beginning of a relationship between she and I.

At the end of the week our youth group went home to Toledo. Now, I can't remember exactly how it went, but there are several things that happened during this time in my life.

I think this part went before this most recent trip to Hammond; Most Friday evenings, I would spend time with Roger Ray. He was a Senior at Whitmer High School, and I was a Sophomore. We also went to Liberty Baptist together. He had a job during the evenings, cleaning office buildings behind Westgate shopping center on Secor Road. Roger had a driver's license, and he'd gather up some of the kids from the youth department (including me) and we'd go bowling or driving around or stuff like that.

At some point around then, Gayle Kuhnle (Tim's former girlfriend) and I had begun a relationship. I'm not sure if it could be called dating or not. It began during an outing of the youth department. We'd gone to another church in Fremont, Ohio (I think) for a basketball game or some such thing. When we went to leave, we got back on the church bus, and wow! It was cold! Gayle had her legs covered with a blanket, and had an empty spot beside her and said I was welcome to sit there with her. I did. I was sitting there no more than five minutes when she reached out and took my hand and held it. It was very nice, and I looked at her, and she just smiled. It felt really strange because I knew that she and Tim had dated for a while. I felt like I was betraying Tim somehow. But being with her felt  very nice.

After that we always sat together in church, and held hands. Tim was working at a store called Lane Bryant, in Franklin Park Mall, and was rarely in church most of the time. Gayle and I sat together, along with Kevin and his girlfriend, Tammy, and Tim and his girlfriend, Lee Ann. It was a happy time for all of us, and holding hands was such a big thing for us. I would get home from school and Gayle would call me. She called me once I remember, from her high school. Classes were done for the day, and she called just to chat. I remember her joking around with some of her classmates in the background. My mom was really happy about it for several reasons;

1) Mom really liked Gayle, and vice versa.

2) Tim wasn't dating her (mom had never approved of Tim dating her, because of the age difference and her father).

It was a strange time in my life. I was busy trying to find out exactly who I was, and I was subject to huge swings of mood, as the teenage hormones surged through my body. One of the stabilizing factors in my life at that point, was the presence of Brother Rick Stone at church. He was only about ten years older than me and my friends, so it was easy for him to relate to us. Without him in our lives, we all would have spun out of control, and ended up doing who-knows-what.

Now this next part may sound a bit strange, but bear with me. It was sometime around this point that my dad died. I don't remember exactly what events were going on in my life, but I do remember that I was 15 years old, and a sophomore in high school. February 28th was the day. I remember everything about that day and the events leading up to it, but where that event falls into place, relating to all the other things in my life I can't say for sure.

Here is how I believe it happened (since it was such a turbulent time for me, I may have written some things out of order, while trying to include everything. I'll try to briefly straighten it up):

Shelley Baker and I had split up, which was excruciatingly painful for me, since she was my first crush. For a few weeks I didn't want to do anything other than lay around the house, and feel sad. I seemed to recover fairly quickly (although at the time it seemed like it took forever!). Shortly after that, Gayle and I became an item. I remember that we just seemed to enjoy spending time together. During this time, I was feeling the beginnings of my artistic urges. I was constantly doodling pictures of sunsets and such. Brother Rick Stone saw one of them… a doodle of a lighthouse on a rocky shoreline, with a reddish orange sunset in the background. He then approached me and asked me to paint a large mural of it on his office wall. I was flattered, yet very humbled, not to mention frightened! It was the first time anyone had ever asked something like this of me, and I didn't want to let him down. I had to learn about paints, too… what kind to use for this job. I learned using some of Tim's paints. A girlfriend of his, Lisa Reed, had bought them for him, and he used quite a bit of them, but still had some left. So I used them. I learned that watercolors really weren't the best paints for the job. Neither were oil paints, which took far too long to dry. I finally settled on an enamel paint.

Anyhow, Gayle volunteered to help me, and I said "sure". Our parents would drive us to the church on Saturday afternoons so we could work on it, and after three weekends it was finished. It was a huge mural, probably standing three feet high by three feet wide. A tall lighthouse, with a large orange-red sunset behind it that reflected off the water. For my first work like that, I was very pleased with the way it turned out.

It was around this time that dad retired from his job as warehouse foreman at Champion Building Products, on Campbell street in South Toledo. Retirement didn't suit him very well. Dad wasn't the type to just sit around all the time. He always had to be doing something, whether it was gardening, working with his power tools (dad had a lot of power and hand tools, as well as a large stash of plywood in the backyard and he loved building things).

 

Mom kept the car, and had said that several years down the road, when I turned 16, and got my driver's license, the car would be mine. My memory is somewhat foggy here, because I can't remember the car being there at the same time as my dad. I remember that after school I'd come home, and take the car keys and sit in the car and start it, sitting there with the engine running, imagining what it would be like to drive it.

During that time, mom got another job as a cleaning woman at the Lion Department store at Franklin Park Mall. She worked there with Linda, the wife of my older brother Garry. They'd go there in the mornings before the mall opened and vacuum, and straighten and such. I remember my mom getting up early in the mornings… very early. My dad had always gotten up early, but I think that mom was getting up earlier than he was at the time. These were the last few months before my dad passed away. He was pretty sick at the time, although he continued to work at Champion Building Products warehouse.

I remember the last summer before he died, that we (mom, dad and I) went on a trip to Tennessee, spending a few days in the town of Caryville. We'd gone on many family vacations there before. Mom and dad were from small towns near there. Dad was born in Vasper (between Caryville and Lake City, Tennessee) and raised in Bearwallow (or "Bearwaller" as he called it in his Tennessee accent). Bearwallow was at one time an old coal mining town, and it's since ceased to exist. Mom was born in Block, raised in Hickey, and went to school in Turley, which is also very close to Caryville. Mom and dad were fiercely proud of this.

This was the summer when I was 14 years old, and Tim was 20. He had a job, and other interests, so he didn't go with us on family vacations. Mom and dad and I went to Tennessee, and stayed at the hotel at Cove Lake State Park in Caryville. The hotel has since been torn down, although the park remains. It was a nice hotel, and the area was beautiful, in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains. To this day, I can still close my eyes and smell the food in the restaurant, the smell of the rooms, the air outside, and see the beautiful views of the misty, forested mountains. This was where mom and dad were from, and without ever fully understanding why, I always felt like I belonged there…. I felt homesick whenever it was time to go home to Ohio.

Tim and I went there with mom and dad many times as kids, and I can remember many times getting up in the mornings and going down to the picnic area near the side of the lake, and playing around while dad cooked breakfast over our portable Coleman propane stove. Bacon and eggs were always on the menu, and again, I can still smell the bacon frying, and hear the sound of the stove making it's customary hissing sound as it worked. Those are memories I'll never, ever forget.

That last summer I remember that we went down to Caryville, and met dad's brother Bob and his family there. Uncle Bob, his wife Orine, and one of their sons, Jeff came by. I remember that Jeff (a tall, lanky kid, more about Tim's age than mine) and I were out in the parking lot riding around on my skateboard (a green plastic one I'd gotten for my birthday), while the grownups were inside chatting. I think that Uncle Bob and his family were only passing through the area, because I don't remember seeing them other than that afternoon. Later during that trip, we went for a drive back into the backwoods areas near Caryville, back near where mom had grown up. Her dad had been a Baptist preacher at a small one room church across a creek from where her house had stood. The house was no longer there. Just the foundation remained among the tall weeds at the base of the mountain. This was almost directly on the other side of the mountain from where Cove Lake State Park was. What had been the back yard of mom's childhood home was the side of the mountain, rising up at about a 45 degree angle. Across the gravel road from the old foundation was a shallow, muddy creek, with a rickety metal bridge across it. We walked around and checked the area out. We made our way across the bridge, and saw an old building that mom said had been the church where her dad preached. The building was old and run down, and looked like it was about to collapse. But if I listened hard enough I could almost hear the old time congregation and hear her dad preaching. I never knew him… he passed away in 1967, and although mom said he saw me several times, I don't remember him.

I remember dad and I walking around, following a trail the led around a bend and into the woods. We followed it and the closed in trail opened up into a large clearing where a bunch of old rusty, bullet-riddled machines, pickup trucks and train equipment had been abandoned. Dad and I cautiously looked around them, not getting too close. That seemed like a good idea considering the fact that an old pickup truck housed a large hornet's nest!

Dad was quite sick at the time, yet he was more alive, more vibrant than I'd seen him in a long time. He was home, and loving it. Sick as he was, he hiked ahead of me on the trail, stronger and faster than me! I couldn't keep up with him. He was amazing!

At one point I caught up to him, and he stood staring at a small tree, slightly larger than a sapling. He took out his knife, and peeled a piece of the bark off, several inches long, and handed it to me, telling me to gnaw on the inside of it. I did, and to my surprise it tasted like peppermint! He saw the surprise in my face and smiled, telling me that that's where candy manufacturers get their peppermint flavoring. I was in awe that he would know that. Mom told me some time later that dad could look at any tree in the woods and tell what kind it was, and all kinds of facts about it. Apparently he knew a great deal more about such things than I'd ever expected. I don't know if any of my brothers knew this stuff about dad, either.

It was also during this trip that we traveled about 45 miles away to the cities of Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge, in the heart of the Great Smokey Mountains. Both of them are tourist towns with the usual things you'd expect to see there: all kinds of stores, souvenir stands, theme parks, etc. I don't remember an awful lot about these places, but several specific things come to mind;

In Gatlinburg, there's a small museum devoted to Elvis Presley. We didn't go in, but inside the front window display there was a set of cancelled checks that had been hand-written by Elvis. I don't remember the amounts. I also remember that there's a small, but fast moving river that had a restaurant built across it. A person could sit in there and dine and look out the windows at the river flowing under them. Down at the end of the main road (which was crowded with people and traffic) there was the foot of a mountain, and there was a small golf course built onto it. It wasn't a real golf course, but a series of putting greens, and there was a small cable car that took people up the steep slope of the mountain to get to them. Even so, they weren't very high up the mountain…. only about 50 or 60 feet.

The other thing I remember is a place in the city of Pigeon Forge there was a place we went to called "Porpoise Island". It was a small place with a Hawaiian type theme, complete with hula dancers, seals, porpoise shows, etc. Dad swore that it was a coincidence that while we were there, he managed to take quite a few photos of the hula dancers. Mom laughed and said it was on purpose. Dad laughed back and swore it was a coincidence. We had a really good time. I think it was the same day, in Pigeon Forge, that we saw a roadside sign for scenic helicopter tours of the mountains, and decided to go! It was a spur of the moment type thing and it was great! Dad and I (mom decided to keep her feet firmly planted on the ground!) climbed into the helicopter. It was small, and had a big glass bubble on the front so you could see everything, and it was just big enough for the pilot, dad and me. I remember that there was no door to close on the pilot's side… just an opening. And the pilot insisted that dad and I wear our seat belt, which we were happy to do, yet he didn't wear his! It was cool! It was about a ten minute flight that took us up and over the mountains. It was so noisy we couldn't hear each other talk., but it was so much fun! Dad seemed a bit scared, and I don't blame him. I think that was the first time flying for either one of us. I believe to this day, that the ride was really just for me. I don't think mom or dad would have even considered it, if I hadn't seen the sign and gotten so excited. I think they did it just for me, and I was so happy! I feel that dad was scared of it, but did it for me. After we landed he seemed like he'd had a good time, and mom listened as both dad and I chatted excitedly about the flight. It was such a special thing. Sadly, a check of the internet shows me that Porpoise Island is no longer a listed attraction in the city of Pigeon Forge, so I can only assume that it must have closed down.

One more place that I can remember us visiting -  and I'd nearly forgotten it! -  is a place called Cade's Cove. They told me that dad had been looking through a copy of National Geographic magazine some time back and had seen an article on a place where time seemed to have stood still. It was a small, isolated valley deep in the Smokey Mountains, where people still lived just as their parents and grandparents had lived. Dad was intrigued by the idea of visiting it, and since we happened to be down in the area, they decided that that's just what we'd do.

I'm not sure how they found exactly where to go to get there, but they did. The first sign we saw for Cade's Cove said that it was 30 miles ahead. Well, they must have meant country miles (as my parents would have said, a country mile being a fictional measurement, much longer than a regular mile) because it took ages after that to get there. The road curved, and twisted and turned. And it wasn't an ill-repaired old gravel road, either. It was a main road that was well kept up, and we passed quite a few cars. Finally, after ages, the road turned in between two mountains, into a small, quiet valley… and there it was.

It was a peaceful looking place and had a few cabins here and there. Tall, forested mountains rose on all sides. these (like the rest of the Smokies) weren't like towering snow covered rocky mountains that typically come to mind, but they were large nonetheless. Covered with trees, and just beautiful, they were. To this day, I can't really begin to describe how they make me feel. When I was in Tennessee, I felt at home, although my real home was over 400 miles away in Ohio. Later in my life, Tim said that that feeling was my heritage coming out. When I close my eyes and think about them, it feels so peaceful. My heart aches with a longing to be there again. It's a good thing though. Perhaps that's how mom and dad felt about Tennessee.

I can remember dad walking around some of the cabins and looking into them. People still lived in some of them, and although the place now seemed to be set for tourists to visit, there weren't that many other people there, and the folks living there didn't seem to mind. I really can't remember an awful lot about it, but I do know that dad was really happy that we visited.

Before I forget about it, I have to pass along too, that some years before that, when the whole family went down to visit, we went to visit some relatives. Standing outside the restaurant there was a stone deck that sat between two rows of hotel rooms. From the deck, you could look out, down across the rolling green field that led to the edge of Cove Lake, about a quarter mile distant. The lake was about a quarter mile across, and beyond that was a mountain. We had to drive across that mountain to get to my aunt Verdie's house (I believe she was a relative on my mom's side, but exactly how we were related to her, I can't remember).  We had to drive on a run down road that was narrow, rutted and covered with gravel, and loose stones. I remember a joke I'd heard about roads on mountains like these; the joke goes that the turns on these roads are so sharp, that while going around them, you can stick your hand out the window, and touch the rear bumper of your car! An exaggeration, maybe but those turns were sharp… and very frequent! And on top of this, the road was frequented by huge dump trucks that were delivering loads of coal down from where they'd mined it at the mountain top. It all made for a frightening ride. I was probably no more than 10 years old at the time, and I can't remember much about the visit itself, except that Aunt Verdie and her family had a nice home, back off the road… seems to me it was made of brick. And also that there were a lot of kids playing and running around. I can only remember approaching the house from the outside. The house's interior is long gone from my memory. It's funny how certain things stand out in your mind, while others fall away.

But back to the visit to Cade's Cove…. dad was very happy that we'd gotten a chance to see the place.

Within a few days we were on the way home to Ohio. Dad was always quiet and I suppose reflective when we left Tennessee. As we would get back on the highway (Interstate 75) and begin heading north, he and mom talked a little bit, and looking back now, I can tell that he was sad to be leaving. The highway climbed up and around one of the nearby mountains, and looking to the right, we always looked down into the valley and could see Cove Lake and Caryville one last time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My dad's passing -

 

That had been in the summer and during the following autumn, dad was quite sick. Growing up in that house, I'll always remember some things about my dad. He was always working, or doing something. Dad was never one to sit around and not do anything. It just wasn't his style. I know that in his last few years he began regretting some of the things he'd done with his life. Not many, though. As far as I'm concerned, he didn't have anything he should have felt bad about. But I know that he did feel bad about not having spent enough time with us boys, doing things. I don't remember dad ever playing baseball with us or throwing a football with us, or anything like that. Mom told me some time later that dad regretted it, and wanted to make it up to me…. He knew it was too late to do anything about it with Benny, Garry or Tim, but he still had a chance with me, because of my young age. But now that he had retired from his job at Champion Building Products, and he had the time, he was too weak, and too sick. His heart was giving out on him. His years of working in the coal mines in Tennessee had caught up to him; his lungs were black with coal dust, even all these years later. And his years of eating greasy fried eggs and bacon had clogged the arteries around his heart with cholesterol. For years, no one knew that eating this way was bad for a person. But now, this information was coming to light, and dad was the proof. He sat in a recliner that we'd gotten some months before. I don't remember if mom got it for him, or whether it was his idea, but I do know that it was "his" chair. When dad was home, that was his chair, although it was never said… we just knew. I believe that he'd gotten it about a year before, because I can remember him sitting in it with our cat, Pepper. Dad had rescued Pepper as a kitten from a cardboard box by the side of the road where he'd worked. Someone had dumped a mama cat and a litter of kittens there.

They made a home in the box, and one day while foraging for food for her kittens, the mama was hit by a car and killed. One by one, the other kittens wandered off, until only one was left. A beautiful black kitten with a patch of white on her belly. She was alone and hungry, and dad knew she'd never last on her own. So he devised a simple box trap to catch her. He baited it with food, and caught her, and brought her home. From then on, she was always with my dad. She was his girl. I can remember her sitting on his lap while he was in his recliner.

But as I was saying, dad was quite sick. I don't remember any of the doctor's appointments, but there must have been a lot of them. I can only vaguely remember mom and dad telling us that he was going to have an operation because his heart was so bad off. I remember I went with them to an appointment with a doctor Montesinos at Toledo Hospital. He was a cardiac surgeon, and he'd recommended a procedure called coronary bypass. We all went into his office, and told us about the surgery which was scheduled for the following week. He explained that they would remove several small vein from dad's ankle. Veins that they could remove with no danger. They'd then take the veins and open dad's chest, and sew one end to an artery that was blocked. The other end of the vein would be sewn to the artery on the other side of the blockage, thus bypassing the blockage, and restoring free blood flow to the heart muscles. There were I think three arteries that were blocked to one degree or another. I remember the doctor saying that dad was going to feel like a new man after the procedure. He wouldn't be tired and short of breath anymore…. He would have "a new lease on life".

The following weekend, on Saturday, dad and I stayed at home while mom went shopping somewhere. We watched some movie about a boy lost in the wilderness, with a grizzly bear and something about lost treasure. I can't remember anything much about the movie, but I remember during one of the commercials dad said something about being tired, and how he couldn't wait to feel better. How he couldn't wait til the time when he wasn't tired anymore. I remember telling him that the surgery (scheduled for the following Monday) would fix all that. That he'd feel better, and have more energy. He didn't have the energy to say anything more than "I sure hope so". And we went back to watching the movie.

Monday came, and we went to the hospital bright and early. Dad had been admitted the afternoon before. I didn't pay much attention at the time, because I didn't think it would matter in the long run - I was sure dad would be alright - but mom spent a lot of time with dad that day. I don't remember if I stayed at the hospital or not. It was 6am and they were prepping dad for surgery. It was scheduled to start at 8am. I remember a lot of nurses and orderlies coming and going. It was really busy for so early in the morning. I remember too, that it was cold in his room… very cold. I remember kissing dad on the cheek, and holding his hand as they wheeled the gurney with him on it, down the hall. He didn't have his glasses on which was a strange way to see dad. I remember he asked where Tim was. Tim was on his way, but didn't get there til after dad was inside the operating room. Because of that, Tim didn't get to see dad that morning, and to this day Tim doesn't know that dad asked for him. We've always thought that it would break Tim's heart to know that. As it was, the whole event broke Tim's heart enough. Dad and Tim weren't seeing eye-to-eye on a lot of things as it was. It was the typical rebellious teenager/father clashes that so many households seem to have. But even so, they loved each other… of that there was no doubt. Dad loved all of us boys, without question.

I remember seeing dad go down the hall, seeming so calm about it all. That was the last time I ever saw him, and I'll never forget it completely. I've forgotten it partially, probably because I want to… that is, I don't want to remember dad all sickly and frail lying on that gurney.

They'd said the surgery was very complex and could take up to ten hours, so we were looking at about 6pm for them to finish up on dad. Again, I have to say here that it's strange the things that a person remembers. I remember that as we sat in the surgical area's waiting room, and the day wore on we all became more restless. The details of the room itself? I can't remember them. Besides mom and me, who else was there? Don't know. I do remember that Tim showed up sometime during the day and he took me back to the house for a while. I don't remember for sure but I think he had something he had to do there, and I just tagged along. I remember grabbing some magazines to read. One of them was a copy of a magazine called "Starlog". It was a magazine devoted to science fiction in the movies, and on the cover was a photo of William Shatner in his most famous acting role, that of Captain James Kirk, from the TV show Star Trek. But this photo of him had him in his outfit for the newly released movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". It was my most treasured magazine at the time, and that's saying a lot because at the time I was really getting turned on to science fiction. I took it back with me and sometime during the afternoon I got angry with my niece, Andrea, because she took a pencil and drew a mustache on him! I was really upset!

At different periods during the day, a nurse would come in and tell us how the surgery was going. According to her, everything was going just fine. Our pastor, Harold O'Bryan stopped by the hospital to visit with us. I remember him praying with us, asking God to guide the surgeon's hands and to bring my dad out of the surgery alright.

During the day, mom refused to leave the room, to even eat, afraid she'd miss something, some news or such. It was a long, strange, and very tiring day for us. Finally 6pm came and went, and it had been a while since we'd heard any news. We asked the nurses at the nurses station, and they hadn't heard anything. Finally it was around 7pm when a nurse came in and told us they'd run into some complications…. I don't remember what they were. But for the next few hours it was really intense. At one point, mom agreed to leave the room to get a bite to eat, and I remember her remarking as we approached the cafeteria, that it was strange how things seemed different now that dad was knocking at death's door. What a strange thing to say, and I remember some time later, thinking that even as she was saying that, dad had knocked at death's door, and the door had been answered, and he'd stepped inside. Isn't that a strange thing to think?

I don't remember eating or going back to the waiting room, but back we did go, because I just remember being back there. It was quite late by this time, and one of the nurses came out to tell us that things weren't looking good. The bypass itself went okay, but when they tried to remove dad from the heart-lung machine (a machine that takes over the body's vital functions while they operate… dad's heart was stopped while they did the surgery) and get his heart to start beating again, on it's own, they couldn't get it to work. They tried all manner of things, including internal heart massage and inserting a pacemaker, with no success. At around 9pm they told us that they were doing an emergency fly-in of a cardiac specialist from Cleveland. Someone in the family had called pastor O'Bryan again, and it was around 9:30pm when he came back again. I remember a bizarre, surreal scene of my brothers and their wives, and mom and the pastor all huddled in a circle, crying and praying out loud.

At one point I went in to use the restroom, and my brother Benny was in there too. I remember he and I were both shaken by everything, and to ease things a bit I told him a joke I'd recently heard. A joke about a Rabbi, and some little doll-sized people called Twids. It got a nervous chuckle from him. The air was heavy with the tension. We were both terrified, but trying not to show it. We went to leave the restroom to go back out into the waiting room, and that's when I heard the scream.

It was Tina, Benny's wife. We ran over to see what was going on, and mom was lying on the floor in a heap. There was doctor Montesinos, dad's surgeon, and Tim ran up to me from nowhere, threw his arms around my neck and was bawling like a baby.

"Dad's dead!" He screamed "Oh God, dad's dead!!!"

Pastor O'bryan was crouched over the figure of my mom, trying to revive her. She'd fainted from the shock of the news. The doctor was sitting in a chair, in a very casual manner, with one leg crossed over the other. I can remember thinking how unaffected he seemed at having had to deliver the news. It was a surreal scene straight out of a nightmare. How long we were there, after that, I don't know. But I remember mom somehow eventually got to her feet with help. Everyone was crying. It was the only time I ever saw my brothers crying. All three of them were there, and we all cried so much. At one point as we were walking out of the waiting room, mom was sobbing, being supported one either side by Benny and Garry, and over and over again she kept crying that she'd never be able to set foot in the house again. Tina, Benny's wife, tried through her own tears to comfort mom by telling her that dad was even now sitting at Jesus' feet thanking him, and praising him. All mom could do was cry, and I suppose she was feeling the same way I was; that I didn't want to hear that! I wanted dad here with us! That's where he belonged, and all I wanted to hear was the doctor saying that dad was really okay. But it wasn't going to happen.

I have no idea what time we left, but I believe it was after midnight. I remember that I went back to the house with Tim. He was driving his car, the old Rambler, which he'd parked in the parking garage. As he drove to the exit, there was a booth where a man stood, taking the money from people for parking there. Tim stopped, rolled down his window, and handed the ticket to the man. He told us what the fee was, and then took the money Tim handed him. Then, he said "Thanks. Good evening" to which Tim replied

"What's so damn good about it?!?" and sped off into the night.

I don't think either of us said a word the whole way home. He parked in a small vacant lot across from our house, that we'd always used for playing baseball and such. We arrived about the same time Benny and Tina, and Garry and his wife Linda did. It was so cold out when we got out of the car, but even so I stood there for a moment, thinking about the fact that I'd never see dad in the house again. It was awful. Eventually we went up to the house. Benny was still trying to help mom, who was still sobbing, into the house.

Mom's sobs echoed through the house well into the early morning hours, when she finally was able to sleep. I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that I remember mom had taken a tranquilizer to help her sleep. She wasn't able to get out of bed all the next day, and a good part of the day after that, and she cried the whole time. It was so awful to see mom's heart broken. I felt awful about dad being gone, but even so I felt worse for mom, and what she had to go through. I remember her saying that she'd always hated the word "widow" and now she was one. The whole thing, to this day, is so unreal. It has a nightmarish quality that'll never go away.

People from church began coming by the house the day after dad died, staying for only a minute or two, and dropping off dishes of food. They were all so helpful, and kind. It was during the day when I got a very odd phone call.

Mom and dad had been very good friends with Mike and Sarah Talamantez, a couple from church. Apparently even though word of dad's passing had gotten around the congregation, they didn't know. She called the house, and I just happened to be the one to answer it, and she said hi, and then asked how dad was. I hesitated for a moment, not quite knowing what to say. Tina approached, and saw me, hesitant on the phone, and asked who it was. I waved at her as if to say "Don't worry, I've got it". I wanted to handle this strange situation, to prove to myself that I could. So, as gently as I could, I said

"well, he uh… he passed away late last night."

"Oh, you're kidding!" She stammered. Now this struck me as one of the oddest questions I've ever been asked in my life. Why on earth would I be kidding about something like this?!?!? I know she didn't mean for it to sound the way that it did… she was just shocked by this unexpected news. We all were. I don't remember what we said after that… I think Tina wanted to speak to her. I don't remember.

Mom was in bed, and the house was quiet all day, except for her intermittent sobs. Someone was always in her bedroom with her. That whole day was a blur. A few people came by to express their sympathy. One of them was a girl I liked from church, named Lisa Ray. She and her family came over, and she and I sat in the living room and chatted. I have no idea what we said to one another. I was still numb.

Sometime later that day, the inevitable moment came; decisions for dad's funeral had to be made. What he would wear, where it would be, and such. I remember mom being helped out of bed. She was too weak to do it on her own. She went to the closet and cried, and cried as she looked through his clothes. I know that dad was in heaven, looking down with a broken heart, because of what mom was going through.

I don't remember what shirt she decided he would wear, or the pants either, but I do remember that she wanted him to wear his brown sport jacket, and brown tie. She decided that he would wear no shoes in his casket for two reasons; no one would see his feet anyway, and she had recently bought some brown, ankle high dress shoes. They were more like very short boots, and dad had really liked them. I think that because he'd liked them so much, she couldn't bear the thought of them being buried with him.

Dad died on Thursday night, and sometime over the weekend we, as a family, went to the funeral home and arranged to have the funeral on Monday. The night that he'd died, I remember before we left the hospital, Benny and Garry had talked to the hospital officials. They'd asked what funeral home we wanted to make arrangements with. Benny and Garry told them that the best choice would be H.H. Birkenkamp Funeral Home. I suppose they chose that one because it was close to the house. It sits at the corner of Tremainsville and Alexis roads. When we went there, we had to go into the back room and decide what casket to use, and where he was to be buried, and such. I don't think mom went with us. It would have just been too much for her. I believe all the details were left to Benny and Garry, them being the oldest of us four boys.

Monday came, and it was time for us to go to the funeral home. Mom was in bad shape. Benny helped her out of the car at the parking lot. It was a slow walk to the front door, and I remember mom trying to pull away a time or two, crying, saying she just couldn't go in there. It took some coaxing, but finally we went in and met with the funeral director, a quiet, pleasant man, with very nice manners. He showed us the room where dad was. It was quiet, and we were the only ones there, because it was before the scheduled time for visitors. It was time for us to be there alone, with dad and make sure that everything was okay… or at least as okay as things could be, considering the circumstances.

It seemed like a mile from the back of the room to the front where dad's casket was sitting. It took forever to get there, and I remember not wanting to look in and see him. I was fifteen years old, and terrified. This couldn't be my dad in the coffin. It looked kind of like him, but not completely. I can still see it. It's February 25th ,2001. nearly 21 years after dad died, and I can still see it all quite clearly. Dad was in his brown jacket and tie, just like mom wanted. His arms were at his sides, with his left hand on his stomach, and his right hand on top of that. His neck was swollen. So much so, that it looked as if he had no neck. His chin went straight down to his chest. It looked strange. We spoke to the funeral director about this, and he asked if dad had passed away during a surgical procedure. Benny told him yes, and he said that some swelling of the body was normal if death occurred during surgery.

Mom stood at the casket for a long time looking at dad's body, touching him. I remember she was showing us that his hands weren't stiff.

"Look at how limber his fingers are" she said, moving his finger up and down. She expected it to be stiff and unmoving, but it wasn't. I didn't touch him. I never did. I felt really uncomfortable with the idea, because I was afraid, and because this wasn't my dad… my dad was alive, but this was just an empty shell. My dad was not this cold, unmoving thing.

Mom had also discovered something disturbing. Dad's chest was being held together with clamps of some kind. The opening where they'd been working on his heart was closed with clamps! Mom was telling Tina about it, running her hand over his chest feeling them through his shirt. At one point she was trying to unbutton his shirt so she could see them, but Tina stopped her, and convinced her that she didn't really want to see them. Those things weren't dad. Finally after some gentle pleading, mom was convinced, and she agreed not to open his shirt. I don't know for sure, but sometimes I wonder if she ever took a look when no one was around.

Later on, friends from the neighborhood and the church began to arrive to pay their respects. There were people whom I was so surprised to see. A man that lived two houses away, named Mr Whacker. I knew where he lived, but had never ventured into his yard. He lived there with his wife, and he'd lived there as long as I could remember. A nice enough man from what I'd known of him, but a man who kept very much to himself. I can recall seeing him only a handful of times in all the years I'd lived there, and here he was. I remember him approaching Benny and Garry, and kidding them around about the fact that they'd used a BB gun to shoot out the windows in his garage when they were kids. Benny and Garry were shocked to learn that Mr Whacker had known all about it. He was in good humor about it, no doubt due to the circumstances in which they were speaking, and the fact that it had been years since it happened.

I saw Mr and Mrs Hillebrand, the parents of friends of mine. Parents who had never seemed to like my folks. All in all it was a very surreal time. For a day or two this went on; us at the funeral home, with people I knew and didn't know coming and going. People I hadn't seen since we'd left Westwood Baptist Church came by. It was like some weird who's who from my past.

I remember asking Benny if I could talk to him privately. I asked him if dad would be understanding that I wasn't crying. I explained that I felt like I should be crying, but I couldn't do it.  I don't know why. I loved my dad. I loved him so much, but I couldn't cry, and I felt so guilty for that. Benny said it was okay, and that dad would surely understand, and that he, after all, wouldn't have wanted me to be sad anyway. Dad was in a better place now. A place where he wouldn't be in pain all the time. A place where he had a new body. A perfect body, and that he was much better off, and that he'd want us to be happy for him. So it was okay if I didn't cry. I tried to buy into that, and I think I did. But I still felt guilty. I think it was the utter shock of it all that kept me from crying, and made me question the way I was feeling. I thought at the time that by not crying, I was in some way giving off the message that I didn't really love my dad. I knew that wasn't true, but I wondered nonetheless. I was afraid that that's what other people who saw me would think. It was such a confusing time, and the entire episode of dad's death haunts me to this day.

It was cold out on Monday. Cold and windy, with snow on the ground. The entire funeral was so…. Unreal. How could it have been real? The entire world had been turned upside down, in a matter of just a few days. I remember Pastor O'Bryan speaking at the funeral, but I don't remember what he said. Brother Rick Stone, the youth director at church, sang a hymn that was one of Dad's favorites. It's called "Until Then". I can remember only a few lines from it, but those lines still tug at my heart like nothing else. Because as I hear these lines in my head, I see dad lying in his coffin, in a cold still room, that smells of flowers;

"Until the day my eyes behold that city…. Until the day God calls me home".

I remember the funeral director telling us what order the cars would be in as we drove to the cemetery. We as the family, were in the first two or three cars behind the hearse. Cold, snowy, windy and so lonely. Those are the words that come to mind as I recall the drive to the cemetery. It was even colder once we got there. There was a green canvas awning set up over the grave site, with a green grass-like carpet set up around the opening to the grave itself. There were four poles at the corners of the grave itself, with straps running between them, which would hold dad's coffin as we took it out of the hearse, and placed it over the grave. I say "we" because I was one of the pallbearers for dad. Us boys all were, along with a family friend, Lloyd Lohr, and someone else, whom I can't remember. I don't remember much of the graveside ceremony… there really wasn't much of one, because it was so cold out. Most of it was done back at the funeral home. To this day I can remember how heavy the coffin was. Even with five other people lifting with me, it seemed so incredibly heavy!

The next few days are a blur. I remember that I didn't go to school all that week. Benny had called the school on Monday to let them know why I wouldn't be there. Finally toward the end of the week, mom was able to get back out of bed. After the funeral, and the burial, she'd gone back to bed to grieve, and I remember thinking about it and wondering how she'd ever be able to get over it.

Tim was sharing an apartment with a guy from church… Greg Prince I believe it was. So mom decided that she'd be sleeping in my room, since there were two beds there. She just couldn't bring herself to spend the night in the room she and dad had shared for years. I couldn't blame her. Toward the end of that week she was finally able to function again, but it was far from normal. I don't remember her crying very much those first few weeks, although I'm sure she did, and just didn't let me see. Some years later she told me that in the months that followed, she could hear dad's footsteps in the house, and feel him watching us. Since then I've wondered if she ever tried talking to him. What did she say? Did she ask him if he knew why it happened? I just wonder.

We found out that there were several factors that played a hand in his death.

For years in the 1930's and 40's (dad was born September 6th, 1925) he worked in the coal mines of east Tennessee and Kentucky. It was hard, dirty, dangerous work. Like many other miners, later in his life, he was diagnosed with an affliction called "miner's asthma", or black lung. This was caused by continuous breathing of coal dust. Much like any naturally occurring disease of the lungs, it decreases lung capacity, and can leave it's victim gasping for breath, much like cancer, or emphysema. Dad had also smoked cigarettes for a while in the 1950's and 60's which didn't help. And sometime during the 1970's he suffered a minor heart attack while shoveling snow. So right up front, dad had two strikes against him. Apparently, the doctor thought that dad would be able to overcome these factors, and expected him to pull through the surgery just fine.

When mom moved into my room, I could understand it, but still felt uncomfortable about it at first, but I managed to get used to it, and I'd spend my evenings watching TV in my room with mom, and it was okay. I always had a good relationship with mom and dad, and that helped out a lot. It was a lot to go through, especially for her, but eventually she began to pull the shattered pieces of her life together again.

Sometime right after dad died, Tim decided to join the military. He joined the Marines and was due to leave for basic training in California in July. He later confided to me that he joined the Marines to get away from Ohio… he just couldn't face life without dad around, and he thought running away would solve his problems. Tim had caused dad many a sleepless, or at least restless, night, worrying about the people he hung out with, and the things he was doing. Tim was completely grief stricken by dad's death, and to this day I believe that's why he "ran away" to the Marines. It was just too much for him to stay in town and deal with.

A week after dad's funeral, I went back to school. I was a sophomore at Whitmer High School, and it was a strange time in my life to begin with, as any teenager could attest, and dad's death had hung a pall of unreality over my entire life. It couldn't have happened in our family. But it had.

I remember one of the first people I saw in the hallway was my friend Bob May. I hadn't been hanging around with him much lately. He walked up to me and said "Hey Steve, I was really sorry to hear about your dad."

I think he also said something about if I needed anything to just ask him. It was quite touching in a way, because it was something I'd never expected. Bob wasn't much of one to express his feelings and it was really nice of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some new friends -

 

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but soon after that I started hanging around with Eric Kennedy, a guy I'd known for years. In kindergarten he and I were in the same class. Then he moved away for a few years, and moved back sometime after that. The next time after kindergarten, that I remember seeing him in class was probably in 6th or 7th grade. Eric, and another boy, by the name of Scott Ragan and I became good friends in 7th grade. In fact we were always goofing around, causing trouble and disrupting class. I got my rear end whacked by the teacher, Mr Huffer several times for our horseplay. We never hurt anyone, but we were always being a nuisance to the teachers. And that was in 7th grade.

As we moved into Junior High and High School, we were still good friends, yet we drifted apart somewhat, partly due to the massive amounts of new kids we now saw on a daily basis. However, after my dad died, we all started hanging around together. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but every day before school, Eric walked over to the bus stop where Scott Ragan and I caught the bus. It was out of his way, but he did it just to hang around with us while we waited for the bus.

Once we arrived at school, the three of us would go to the cafeteria and sit down at a table and just chit-chat with Eric's cousin Mike, and a friend of his. The five of us would just sit there and talk and joke around for fifteen minutes or so til the bell rang and we had to report to our classes. It was a lot of fun. Then one day, after school, I asked Eric if he wanted to come over to my house, and he did. He and I just hung out, watched TV and joked around and such. Soon after that, it became a regular thing. After school he'd come over and we'd just sit and talk, and such. I had a hobby of building plastic model kits at the time…. I especially liked model airplanes. They weren't the kind that would fly. They were just for display. I had a TV videogame system, also, called Atari, and while I worked on my models, Eric would play games on Atari, and we'd just talk and such. I know it sounds boring, but it really wasn't. Eric and I had similar interests and enjoyed each other's company a lot.

And one other thing…. Eric could relate to me in the sense that he'd suffered through the death of a close family member. When we were in 6th grade, his sister Margaret died. I think she passed away of some kind of kidney disease.

Around that time, Eric and I became interested in playing a game called "Dungeons and Dragons". It's a game where a group of characters are created by the roll of a dice, and each person within a small group assumes the identity of one or more of these characters. The characters are humans, elves, and other creatures, who travel about in a group searching for adventure, and encountering dragons, monsters, etc. They fight them, and gain points for experience, which helps them move up in levels, and thus have a better chance of surviving their next encounter. The group of people who represent the characters are presided over by a person called the "dungeon master" or "DM".

Someone in the group will say something like "We're going to go ahead and walk straight down this road toward the mountain." And the DM would say

"You notice that there's a small pyramid shaped building rising out of the forest on your left. It has strange glowing letters on it's side. What are you going to do?"

"We'll step off the road and check it out."

Each character within the group has special talents and shortcomings. For example, a thief (one of the characters I liked to play) would have the special ability to examine the pyramid, looking for hidden entrances into it, and to steal and hide anything of value.

The DM would control the environment the group moved through, to include any monsters or other groups of characters. Along the way, characters could find magical swords, bows and arrows, treasure, etc. And the outcome of any battles were determined by the roll of a dice, the numbers corresponding to sets of tables and such, held by the DM. It could all become very intense, with a person literally speaking the part of their character, almost becoming the character.

A person could play a certain character for months (the game never really ends) and one day, the character might not survive an encounter with a dragon. If the character dies, then for the most part they're gone. However, another member of the party may be a wizard or a magic user, who could cast a spell and bring back the dead character, and thus a very advanced character wouldn't have to be gone forever. It could take months to develop a character from a brand new one into someone to be reckoned with.

So Eric and I became interested in this game, and we really wanted to try it. Somewhere along the way I met up with a couple guys at school named Scott Herrick, and Eric Zahnle. The four of us got together and found (through Scott) a guy named Bob Baker, who was looking for a group he could preside over as DM. So the five of us would get together on weeknights (more on Friday nights than any other day of the week) and play Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D as we liked to call it.)

My mom wasn't too thrilled with the idea, because she'd never met these other guys. She knew that Eric and I were the best of friends, and that was okay because he was over at our house so much, she knew and trusted him. Eric and I hung around so much together that he became like a member of the family. We'd ride the bus home from school, and instead of going to his house, we'd go to mine and bum around playing Atari video games, building models, watching TV or whatever. He'd usually end up staying until late in the evening… like 9 or 10pm, then he'd go home, and the next day the process would repeat itself. It just so happened that he and I fell together as the best of friends. A lot of times we'd end up playing a card game called "UNO" with my mom, or sometimes we'd play scrabble.

To most people this would sound boring, but we enjoyed it. To this day I think that this simple activity of playing games with family (because by this point, for all intents and purposes, Eric was a family member) had a lot to do with the way I look at life and the outlook I have on life and manners, and the way I treat people. We bonded and mom and I had a very good relationship from then on.

In the summer of 1980, my older brother Benny and his wife Tina borrowed a motor home from Tina's sister and her family and decided to take a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida, and somehow mom and I ended up going with them. Tim had just recently left for boot camp in the Marine Corps. It was a cool trip, and I remember as we were heading down Douglas road I was sitting at the dining table, which was placed next to a large window on the side of the vehicle. As I sat looking out the window, who should drive up beside us but Brother Rick Stone! It was a neat thing, and I waved at him and he waved at me as he turned down Grantwood road toward his home.

Oddly enough I don't remember an awful lot about the drive south. I remember that when we got to the state of Georgia, it seemed like it took us forever to get through it. That's a long state driving north to south! I think this was all in late July when we went, and it was unbearably humid. We stayed at campgrounds along the way, where we could plug the motor home's electrical and sewage lines in. It was a cool trip, and a lot of fun. When we got there, we stayed at a campground that was a part of the Disney World complex. I remember that it was way out away from the main complex and to get to it, we took a train-like vehicle. It was like a train in that it had a main car that was an engine, and it pulled several open cars made to transport people. But it was unlike a train in that it ran on the road. This vehicle made the rounds to the different campgrounds and picked up visitors to take them to the main gates.

Once there we boarded the famous monorail train. It's in a lot of photos of Disney World; a sleek, white futuristic looking train that rides on rails high above the ground, and passes through a large glass and steel hotel. It was really cool! Disney World is great! I sincerely hope that Donna and I can take our kids there someday. It's a wonderful place for a kid to see.

We spent two or three days there, because the place was so big it was just impossible to even consider seeing it all within a single day. I only remember a few things specifically. Those were the ride "Space Mountain", a roller coaster inside a tall mountainous white building, the haunted mansion where ghosts seem to ride in the cars with you! It was spooky, but in a fun way, and a real blast! There was the hall of presidents, where robotic versions of the past presidents speak and walk. The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse was cool too. It's a huge artificial tree (probably four stories high) with a treehouse built into it, with walkways between the different portions of it. Very, very cool. And realistic, to boot.

There was a thing called the "Tiki Room" where hundreds of mechanical birds serenade visitors. It was a cool trip, and we had a fun time. I'd recommend Walt Disney World to anyone, child or adult. I really do want to take my kids there sometime!

After a few days there we left to visit other parts of Florida. We stayed at a campground near Daytona Beach, and spent a day or two swimming in the ocean. That was cool, because Ben and I could wade out several hundred yards and the water was still only chest deep. It was cool. That was the first time I'd ever seen the ocean, let alone swim in it. It was a lot of fun. We had the motor home parked right on the beach during the day and at night we were at the campground. I'll never forget how humid it was! At night the air seemed to be completely saturated with moisture. The trees were dripping! We hung out at a small entertainment area that was at the campground. It was a small room, maybe 20 feet by 30 feet, and it had a pool table, a TV set and a video game or two. There was also a soda machine out in front of the building, and I remember that there were frogs stuck all over the front of the machine! Not big frogs, but small tree frogs. They were small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, but there were a lot of them. They were actually kind of cute. I suppose they were drawn to the light coming from the machine. It was an experience unlike anything in Ohio.

Swimming in the ocean was a bit scary at first, mainly because it was such a new experience, and because the movie "Jaws" (about a huge killer Great White shark) had come out only five years earlier. Ben and I tested our strength by trying to "tackle" waves as they rolled in toward the shore, only to have mother nature bowl us over repeatedly. It was fun!

Eventually we left Florida and headed north, toward home. We'd been on the road for nearly two weeks and I suppose it was the stress of being on top of one another all the time in the motor home, that finally started getting to us. A day or two after leaving Florida, we stopped in Tennessee to spend the night at a camping area at Cove Lake. I hadn't been feeling well at all for most of the day, by the time we arrived, and that had me in a grouchy mood.  My stomach was hurting, and I'd been having to make a mad dash for the bathroom occasionally throughout the day. I'd been sitting in the passenger seat up front, and was as comfortable as could be in between trips to the bathroom. Everyone else was just puttering around not doing much. Mom asked me to step in the back and clean up something (probably some clothes of mine…. I don't remember for sure). I got up and walked into the back to do what she'd asked, and I didn't know it, but when I did, Ben Jr. (about 8 years old at the time) jumped into my seat up front. When I finished, I turned and headed back up front only to find that my seat had been taken. I asked him to move so I could sit down, and he refused. I asked again, and he absolutely refused, so I stormed back into the back and plunked down onto a chair near the dining table, and that's when Tina stepped in. She said something about how when there was work to be done, I suddenly felt too bad to participate, implying that I was just using feeling sick as an excuse to get out of any work.

Darned if I can remember how it went from there, but I remember that heated words were exchanged, and I found Tina grabbing me by the shirt, and yelling at me. I grabbed her shirt back, just as she was doing with me, and I was yelling too. Benny yelled

"Get your hands off my wife!" to which I yelled back

"Tell her to get her hands off me!"

At this point there was a lot of yelling going on, and Ben Jr started crying. Ben Sr turned and yelled at him to quit crying. A few minutes later, I stormed out and left walking away from the whole big mess, including a box of firecrackers I'd bought in Florida, which ended up spilling across the floor of the motorhome. I eventually ended up sitting on a rock by the lake, well away from, but still in sight of the motorhome.

After a while I saw mom come out and start walking towards me. I was so far away, it took her a long time to get to me, and as she walked, all kinds of thoughts were going through my head. What would I do? I didn't want to go back into the motorhome. Not after that. But obviously, I had to. How else would I get home? I was really mad, and felt sick and just didn't know what to do.

Eventually mom got to me, and sat down next to me, asking me if I wanted to talk about it. I did a little bit and told her how unfair I thought it was that just because I felt ill, Tina would jump all over me about it. Did she think I enjoyed having to run to the bathroom like that? That I enjoyed being in pain?

Mom told me not to worry about it, because when I was a little bitty kid, Tina had tried to spank me for doing something. Mom stopped her saying that I wasn't her child, and thus she had no right or business spanking me. Only a parent has that right. And then mom said something that nearly floored me; She said that Tina said "Fine. Go ahead and let your kid fuck around however he wants to."

Mom said that to me. I never, ever in a million years thought I'd hear that word come out of her mouth. I tried to keep it in perspective, that is that she was just quoting what she'd been told.

I asked her what I should do. How should I swallow my pride and go back in there? She told me not to worry about it. We'd figure out something. So off we walked to the park office. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to us, or where we'd go. Once at the park office, mom used the phone to call a taxi.

Once the taxi arrived we climbed in and my mom asked him to drive to Jacksboro, a town about a mile or two down the highway from Cove Lake. My mom's uncle Abe (mom's mother's brother) lived in a small home with his wife Katherine there, and that's where we went. I don't remember a lot of it, but I figure mom had to have explained to them what happened, and they gave us a place to spend the night.

We'd visited Uncle Abe and Aunt Katherine before, and it was always relaxing. They lived in a small housing development, and it was a quiet neighborhood. Sitting on their patio, we could look down a very small hill at the neighbor's house, then beyond that to a mountain that rose about a mile distant. I can remember sitting there looking up at the mountain. It was all covered with trees, as were all the mountains around there. They weren't the large, craggy, mountains seen in Colorado, but tree and grass covered. However, sitting on their patio, which was covered with an awning (which really helped in the summer heat of Tennessee!) I could look up at the mountain, and see a slab of stone peeking through the trees about three quarters of the way up it's side. It was a cliff, and I imagined what it would be like to be up there walking around. To be walking around the mountain and to come upon the cliff's edge and look out over the valley and see Jacksboro, LaFollette and Caryville. It WAS a nice house in a nice location. I couldn't begin to tell you how we spent that evening…. I just don't remember. But I do remember the next day…. There came a knock at the door. Uncle Abe looked out and saw the motorhome parked out front. He'd never met Benny, but he guessed that that's who was at his door knocking. He answered the door, while mom and I stayed out of sight. I heard him ask if this was the residence of Abe Marlowe. Uncle Abe answered "No".  After a minute or two of questions like "Do you know where Abe Marlowe lives?" and such like that, mom walked over to the door and let Benny see her. She went out on the front porch to talk to him, and to this day I don't know what was said… I didn't even see them talking. However, mom decided that she and I would get back home to Ohio by Greyhound bus. I'd like to think that Benny and mom apologized to one another, and even hugged before Benny got back in the motorhome and drove away, but like I said, I don't know.

Again I don't remember much about the next day or so. All I remember for sure is that we ended up on a bus headed north. I can't even remember going to a bus station! Perhaps I've blocked it out of my mind as a painful memory that I just don't want to remember.  I just remember being on the bus late in the afternoon, near sunset. I told mom that I wanted to go to sleep, but I wanted her to wake me up as we crossed the Ohio River into Ohio. Something happened and she didn't…. I think she'd fallen asleep, too.

We arrived in Toledo sometime early the next morning, and Tim met us the bus station downtown. Our lives returned to normal and the next time I saw Benny and Tina was in church the following Sunday. I sat with my friends for the main service and mom sat with hers. And as things were settling down for it to begin, who walked in but Tina. She went up and sat with my mom. I heard it later that day from mom, that Tina apologized to her, the hatchet was buried, and all was well again.

I don't really remember too awful much about the rest of that summer. That, it seemed was enough. The following school year I was a junior in high school and I remember being pretty excited about it. I remember walking through the halls of the school with Eric the first morning of school, and yelling "Juniors!!!!!" and we felt like we were kings of the world. It was really something. Ask me to name some of the things we did that school year, and I wouldn't be able to. I just don't remember. That's how important it was to me.

It was that year when I got my driver's license (although the actual term is "operator's permit").

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sixteen year old milestone -

 

One thing I do remember is that I was finally able to get my driver's license. It felt like it was so long in coming! I felt so let behind because everyone (or almost everyone) I was in school with got their licenses their sophomore year. But because when I was going into Kindergarten my parents just got me into the school under the wire so to speak.

The way it usually works is that when a person is allowed to enroll in school is based upon their birthdate. My birthday is the 7th of September. If I'd been born a few days later, I'd have not been allowed to start Kindergarten when I did. I'd have had to wait til the following year. Because they started me in school when they did, I've always been behind somewhat age-wise, compared to my classmates. So, technically speaking, I should have graduated high school in 1983, rather than 1982 like I did.

In Ohio a person needs to be 16 years of age to get a driver's license. Most of the people in my sophomore class were either 16 when the year began, or turned 16 during the school year. Not me. I turned 16 the following September, and so I wasn't able to get my driver's license til my Junior year. Mom knew how much it meant to me, which was to play a huge role in the whole thing.

And it was pretty strange how it all happened, too. First of all I was sure that not being able to drive myself around was a cramp in my ability to date girls. Shelley Baker and I had agreed to a mutual split quite a while before, because we felt as if we weren't going anywhere in our relationship. I never saw Gayle Kuhnle outside of church because I had no way to get to her house. On Sunday afternoons, I went to church about an hour (maybe two) before the evening services started, because that was practice time for the Junior Choir. Brother Rick Stone had started a choir within the church's youth department. Kevin and John and Tim and I were in it, as well as several other girls from the youth department (both Shelley and Gayle included). Sunday afternoon's were time for choir practice.

Mom would drive me to church and drop me off for choir practice, and then she'd go back home til it was time for the evening service. But the summer after my junior year in high school was different. When mom would take me to church for choir practice, she'd stay for a bit, and she'd let me drive her car around the parking lot. It was great, because it got me to feel how the car felt, and how it responded to me. It was good too, because at that time of the day there were very few cars around, so I felt un-threatened driving around there. It was cool. So once the school year started, and I enrolled in driver's education, I was already an experienced driver…. Just not road experienced.

I don't remember the whole story behind it, but something happened where they didn't have enough driving instructors. Part of the class was classroom, part of it was a driving simulator (which wasn't at all like real driving), and part of it was actual experience behind the wheel in a car with a driving instructor. There were so few instructors that I wasn't going to get behind the wheel til after the New Year! Mom found out about this, and she was really mad. She knew how much I wanted my license… how much it meant to me, especially since everyone else in my class already had theirs.

So mom enrolled me in the ABC Driving School on Sylvania Avenue. The coast was around $150 and mom paid it so I could get my license within two weeks. It was so cool of her to do, and it meant so much to me. And true to their advertisement, the school enabled me to get my license within two weeks. Several things about that time stand out in my mind. One was the fact that they had a very limited classroom experience, which consisted of several written tests covering the signs and rules of driving. Most of the school consisted of behind the wheel driving with an instructor. They figured that anyone can read signs, but that practical driving experience was necessary to create a good driver, and I believe they were right. According to the state of Ohio, a person requires a certain number of hours behind the wheel with a driving instructor, in order to get their license. I can't remember the number of hours required, but I remember that they'd come right to the house to pick me up. That was cool! The first instructor I had was a man who was rather small in size. He had a page-boy haircut, a bushy mustache and small round glasses. He had a twitchy way of blinking his eyes, too. That is when he'd blink, his face rather scrunched up. He seemed like a nervous type, but he was a good instructor.

Another one was a middle aged man who smoked a lot, and who got excited anytime we drove near a field where there might be wild game. He liked to hunt and once when driving by a field, a small flock of pheasant flew out of an overgrowth and took off.

"Hot damn!" He exclaimed, and I thought he was going to jump out of the car! Soon after, he lit a cigarette, and suggested we stop somewhere to eat. We ended up stopping at a Dunkin' Donuts shop in Sylvania, Ohio. We sat there at the counter, eating and chatting with the waitress at the shop for about two hours. The instructor credited this as time spent actually driving, so it counted toward me getting my license. I thought that was really cool!

I know that I eventually got a certificate stating that I passed their course and was ready to take the final state-run driving test. I don't remember getting the certificate, but I did get one. Mom and I went to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles out near Reynolds Road and Heatherdowns. Part of that test was written and part of it was driving with an instructor. I passed the written test missing only one question out of 20. Then a driving instructor got into mom's blue car with me (it was the one she'd let me drive around the church parking lot) and take the driving portion of the test. It consisted of a short drive about three miles down the road, several turns, and such. Then back to the parking lot, for a test of skills backing up and pulling forward through a series of obstacles. I passed that with no problem, and shortly afterward, I went inside to show mom the certificate they gave me stating that I'd passed! I sat down in the chair, and they took my photo for my license, and that was it! It was so cool! Mom even let me drive home.

Once we got home, I sat there in the living room thinking about it. Wow. I was a licensed driver now. After a short time, I asked mom if I could drive down to Miracle Mile shopping center. I had to go to Lane Drug Store to drop off some file to get developed. It was part of a film I'd shot as part of my "Filmmaking 101" class at high school. Mom was surprised that I wanted to strike off on my own so soon, but she understood, and let me borrow the keys to the car. This time I didn't drive her car. I drove the car that she and dad had owned together, a light green 1974 Chevrolet Impala four door. It was a huge car. I drove it down to the store, and I remember being struck as how quiet it was with just me in the car. Even with the radio playing, it seemed quiet. It was the first time I'd ever driven anywhere on my own, and it was exciting, but at the same time I tried my best to remain focused. It wouldn't do for me to get in an accident or get a speeding ticket my first time out on my own.

After that I drove the Impala a lot. I drove it to school sometimes. Mom no longer had to drive me to choir practice on Sunday afternoon, as I could do it myself. I was able to drive to go on dates! It was great! I went on another date with Shelley Baker, thinking that since I now could drive, it might have some difference and our relationship might blossom. It didn't. We went on one date, just walking around at the mall. We both could feel it, though… there wasn't anything there. So we both agreed that dating wasn't in our best interest, and we'd just be friends. Surprisingly, that suited me well. I didn't think it would, but things were cool. We were friends after that, and nothing more.

It was somewhere around this time when devastation fell upon myself and the entire youth department at the church. After the evening church service one Sunday, there was a get together of the youth department in one of the rooms in the back of the church. We all got together and had a small party where we just fellowshipped with each other, and had punch and cake. After a half hour or so of this, Brother Rick asked everyone to give him their attention. Some of the parents of us teenagers were there too, and the room got very quiet. By the look on his face we could tell that something was wrong.

Before he began speaking, my mind played back all the get togethers we'd had since he took over the youth department. The Halloween parties, the Friday night trips to the bowling alley, the hay rides…. And a hundred other things I can't remember off-hand. All of it had been fun. He'd even gotten a youth department basketball team together, so we could play against other city area church youth groups. Numerous times he'd arranged it so we could practice after hours at local high school gymnasiums. Before him, the youth department had been stiff, and formal. After he arrived it was fun! We had fun times in a safe and positive environment. We were all more than friends… we were family. And he was the greatest big brother that any of us could have had. We loved Brother Rick, and we knew that he loved us.

Suddenly I had a feeling that it was all about to change. And I was right.

I don't remember how he'd worded it, but he said that he was resigning as leader of the youth department, and he was going to move on to another church. We were devastated. How? Why? The room was left in utter silence. And just as bad as it was for myself and everyone else, we knew… could see… that it was tearing his heart out too. Tears streamed down his cheeks, as he openly cried. Someone (it might have been me, I don't know) asked him why. He said that God had called upon him to move. He knew that Kevin, John and myself were going to be moving out of the youth department soon, and on to the "College and Careers" department in the church. He said that God had told him that because of this, he no longer was needed there. He said that he pleaded with God to let him stay, because he didn't want to go. He wanted to stay, but God had said no. If he wanted to continue to serve God, he needed to move on. He stepped down and I had to leave the room. I walked, crying, back to his office. I turned on the light, and sat down, staring at the mural I'd painted for him. I was looking at it through my tears, in utter disbelief. How could God do this? First he'd taken my dad; someone who in my opinion didn't deserve to die. I knew it wasn't my place to judge or to question, but I was doing just that. First my dad, and now brother Rick. How could this be happening? My whole life was in a shambles. Several other people made their way into his office, and we cried and hugged. I vaguely remember Brother Rick coming in and us hugging and crying. It all seemed so unfair. Our lives as a group were ending, and it was tearing us apart. I don't remember going home that night, and I don't remember how long it was after that til he and his family moved. Things were never the same.

Soon after that a new youth director came into the church. His name was Brother Steve Hall. He was a good man, but it just wasn't the same. He was stiffer, and more formal than Brother Rick had been, and we never had as good a time as we did before. I rebelled in a way. He wanted to be called Pastor Steve, and I refused. He wasn't my pastor, he was my youth director, and so I called him Brother Hall. He wanted us to openly recognize him as a leader, and honestly I just didn't feel it. I know that I didn't make it easy for him. The last several months of our senior year were under his guidance. We even went to the big get-together at First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana with him. While we were there, it just wasn't the same. Brother Stone liked to joke around and have fun… like I said, he was one of us. But even so, we always knew where the line was drawn with him. He was one of us, yet he was our leader - our mentor. It was a very fine, delicate line he walked, and he did it perfectly. Brother Hall didn't like to joke around very much. He did some, but it always seemed as if he was trying too hard to be our friend. Things were never the same.

We were all getting a little older, and our lives were changing. Kevin was dating a girl in church named Tami (I can't remember for the life of me her last name). Something happened between the two of them, and they had a bitter breakup. After that, he wasn't in church too much. He started dating another girl, and attending a church on Toledo's east side. The hurt feelings were too much for him to attend on a weekly basis, the same church as Tami. I think that the whole ordeal with Brother Stone leaving had something to do with it too. The whole church seemed to be different now. I remember that during the time Brother Stone was there I felt like I was on fire with the Holy Spirit of God. Church was a place to socialize with good people, and learn about God and all he's done for us.

Being in the teen choir helped that out a lot. I felt like I had something to say, and the only way I felt comfortable was by singing. I was told that I had a good voice, and Brother Stone gave me a few solo parts in some of the songs we sang. We had several songs that we sang regularly, and I had solo parts in them. Kevin had a great voice too, and he also could play the piano and the organ. His voice was great! He could sing slightly higher and slightly lower than I could. In any given song, he would sing the lead male vocals, and John and I sang harmony with him. Those times were great!

But they were gone now. Brother Stone was gone. The feisty, energy charged spirit was gone from the youth department. We felt as if our hearts had been torn out. They were in fact broken. The youth department, and the church as a whole, were empty shells. Shadows of their former selves. Going to church now was more painful than anything else. Everywhere there were painful reminders of the joy that had been.

At first, Kevin and Tim Lohr went along with Brother Hall's request and called him Pastor Steve, and they attended many of the youth department functions. I didn't. I couldn't. I think they were trying to recapture some of what was lost. After Kevin stopped going to Liberty, it was just too much. During Brother Rick's tenure there, Kevin was my best friend in the church

It was sometime in the fall of 1982, just after I'd turned 18, John got a job and wasn't in church too much anymore either. I went to church because mom wanted me to, and because I was dating a girl from church named Tracy Crawford. I wasn't interested in the church anymore. I was interested in Tracy. Not too long after that I got a job, too, working at Lawson's Food and Deli about a half mile from home. By this time, mom was letting me drive her and dad's old car. It was a lime green four-door 1974 Chevy Impala. For all intents and purposes it was my car. It was a huge car, too. The car that mom had bought from Mr. Rack's family after he passed away, she had sold to some old family friends, the McBee's.

So now, in addition to having a job and a car, I had a girl that I was steadily dating.

She was the daughter of a man named Vince and his wife, Dorothy. They'd been friends of our family for years… I believe they had also been members of Westwood Baptist church. I didn't realize til after I went to see Tracy for the first time, that I'd been there before. Many years before, dad and I were at someone's house, and we were in their garage. It was nothing more than a vague scrap of a memory.

I remember dad and I standing there while someone closed the garage door, and cut a piece of wood with a large, noisy power saw. For some reason I got it into my head that the door would be stuck shut, no one would know we were there and we'd be trapped forever. So, to vent my fear, without upsetting my dad, I whined/screamed quite loudly, careful not to move my mouth,  while the saw was running. When it quit, so did I, and my dad never suspected. The saw ran several times, and I whined several times, certain that no one would ever hear from us again.

It wasn't until years later, when Tracy and I dated, and I went to her house that I realized that that entire incident had occurred at the Crawford's house. They lived up on Whiteford road, just past the Michigan side of the state line. I used to drive up there to see her several times a week, but stayed later on Friday and Saturday nights. We'd sit and hold hands while watching television, and sometimes we'd go out to see a movie or to the mall. We dated for a few months, and there really wasn't much to it, although I felt quite close to her. We broke up in a rather unusual manner;

Tim was home from the Marines on leave and he and Eric and I decided to have a guys night out and go see a movie. We saw "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" at the Franklin Park Cinema near Franklin Park mall. Somehow, Tracy included herself in the outing. I thought that was strange, but Tim said it was cool since she was my girlfriend. So all four of us went to the movie.

While we were there, she decided to sit between Tim and I in the theater. I didn't care for that since he was my brother, home on leave from the military, but then it got worse. She started flirting with Tim. I mean really obvious flirting. She was ignoring me and flirting with my older brother! Tim was ignoring her, and doing his best to give her the brush-off, but she persisted. She got me so mad! This went on through the movie, and afterwards I confronted her with it in the lobby of the theater, and she acted as if she had no idea what I was talking about… and acting like I had no business being so upset. She was mad at me, for being mad at her for flirting with my brother! I was so mad! Just then Tim came walking up and suggested that we go to the mall and hang out. So we did.

She kept on going at the mall, flirting with him, ignoring me. Finally when it was time to leave, we headed out the door, and Tracy, pouting because her flirting had gained her nothing sat down outside on a bench near the door. Tim, Eric and I kept walking and I stopped, walked back and asked her

"Are you coming?" She didn't move. Her legs crossed, leaning forward with her chin leaning on the palm of her hand, defiantly ignoring me.

"Fine." I said as I walked away. "Bitch." That was our last date. After that I heard through the grapevine that she began dating some guy from her school named "Dean." I was a Senior in high school and she was a junior. After that I just wasn't interested in dating for a while. Some months later, at home, mom said she needed to ask me a question. She asked if Tracy had been acting strangely… saying anything unusual. No, I told her, and then asked why. Mom handed me a handwritten note that she found in her purse. It read:

"Tracy Crawford smokes pot. She's trying to get Steve to smoke pot, too" She had no idea who put it there, and said she'd found it Sunday afternoon, thinking that someone at church had slipped it into her purse. I told her that Tracy had never asked me anything about it, never mentioned it, nothing. I've never smoked marijuana in my life. Never have and never will. If there was any truth to that rumor, I think it might have been because Tracy wanted me to loosen up a bit. I was always nervous around her. We made out a lot, and came close to having sex a few times over the course of our six months of dating. But I was always too nervous to do it…. Honestly, it's because I didn't know exactly what to do. I know that probably sounds rather comical, but no one ever told me anything about it, other than the cold, mechanical facts about sex. I knew how it was done, but didn't know if I could do it. I wanted to. I really did! But could I do it good? I didn't know. I was always somewhat shy around girls, and this was just another manifestation of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goin' to college, and breakin' rules -

 

It was sometime that year that mom got a letter from the Social Security administration. Back in the fall of 1980, after our ill-fated trip to Florida, mom had gotten sick. She was going to fly to Portland, Oregon to visit a friend of hers, Barb McBee who'd moved out there. But a few days before her trip (it would have been her first plane flight) she went to the doctor, complaining of spots before her eyes. The doctor determined that the arteries running up the sides of her neck were clogged, and she was a prime candidate for a stroke unless she had surgery right away to clear the blockage. Her trip was postponed indefinitely and she had the surgery. Unfortunately this incident helped put her on a permanently disabled status, as far as work was concerned. So, she couldn't legally work anymore, but she collected a monthly check from Social Security.

So, during my Senior year of high school she got a letter from them stating that if she were to continue getting a monthly income from them, I (as the only son remaining at home) needed to be going to college. But how on earth could I go to college if I was going to high school already? The answer was simple: I'd go to high school during the day, and college at night. Yeah. Real simple.

So, I enrolled at the University of Toledo for night classes. I had no idea of what I wanted to major in. No idea at all. I had a leaning toward art, but mom convinced me that that was no way to go, because there was no future in it. She said that I needed to go into electronics, because that would be the way of the future. I told her that I had no desire to study electronics, because that didn't interest me at all. She argued that it didn't matter, because it was a good field to get into, with a potential for a large income down the road.

We went back and forth on this, and finally (I don't remember how) I arrived at the idea of studying to be a pharmacist. It sounded cool. Then I had to start studying. I had to study biology, chemistry, algebra, sociology (this was a required course). I hated it!

I learned a few fancy words, and felt so engulfed! I was going to school during the day and at night, too. I noticed a few things that were strange to me, but seemingly accepted by everyone else;

In college, if you need to use the bathroom, or get a drink, or if you just want to leave class, you just get up and go. You don't need to ask. You just go. You're an adult, and they treat you that way. That took some getting used to.

Another thing that struck me as odd was that the professors have the right to change their schedules as they see fit, with no warning, and students have to work around it. For example, I was taking a class in English literature, and the professor was a self-confident, non-bathing, jerk. He always smelled bad! The class was scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am - 11:30am. At the start of class, the first day, he explained that he also would have to include a one hour class on Wednesdays in order to complete the cirriculum. One of the other students complained that she couldn't take his class on Wednesday, too, because she had an art class on Wednesdays. She'd planned it around the course schedule that had been available when students signed up for their classes. He said she'd have to decide for herself what was more important, literature or art. She said that that wasn't fair because she needed his class to complete her studies, but art was her major. It wasn't fair that she should be forced to choose. All he said was "That's not my problem" and continued lecturing. She dropped his class.

The only way I can describe many of the professors I met up with is to say they were eccentric. In the spring of 1982 I was getting more and more disillusioned with college. I didn't want to be there. I was being bogged down with school, when all of my friends were out partying and planning how they'd spend the summer. They had their freedom… their teenage freedom! And I didn't. I began skipping class, and going to the library and reading. At that point, the only reason I was even going to the university was because I wanted my mom to think I was still going to class. She had no idea that I was skipping class. I dropped my English Literature class and spent more and more time in the library. It was a huge seven story building. My favorite place was on the fourth floor. There was a chair and a small table set back in a corner, not far from the history and mythology section. I was fascinated by the American Civil War at the time, and I was also interested in mythology and fantasy. There, at my table I could sit and read, and look out the large window that sat in front of me. I sat there and when I wasn't reading, I'd look out the window at the other students walking across the campus, and wonder what they were thinking. What their lives were like. I began to rethink my priorities.

I knew that I had to stay in school for mom's sake, but I didn't want to be there. I just didn't. Maybe it would help if I changed my major. I decided to instead study to become an English teacher. I wanted to teach high school English. In particular I wanted to teach composition. Here and there in high school, I'd had creative writing classes and really enjoyed it. I wanted to spread that joy, and to see what other creative people were doing. So that's what I did. Mom didn't care for the decision, but she knew she wouldn't be able to talk me out of it.

So I rearranged my schedule and began taking courses that fit with what I was heading toward. It worked for a while. I even had one class where I was a teacher's aid at a local Junior High school (McTigue Junior High) somewhere off Reynolds road in Toledo. The teacher I helped was an art teacher. The strange thing is that no one was able to tell me what I could expect, and so I never felt like I truly fit in. The class was an art class for kids with emotional problems. I never felt like I did anything constructive there… never felt like I contributed. And once a week, the other students from the university and myself would meet and exchange stories about the things we'd experienced during the week. Other students had stories about how they helped students do this and do that. I never had anything good to contribute. I tried to fit in as a teacher's aid, but I just didn't know how, and so I didn't do very well. I found my mind wandering more and more often, and soon found myself skipping classes again and spending more and more time in the library. Soon, I knew that things just would not work out this way. But what could I do about it? I had only one course that I liked: creative composition, with a young professor named Joe Scheffler. He insisted that we call him Joe. He was a great guy, a lot of fun, and the class was interesting! I liked creative writing! I was truly disappointed when that class came to an end.

I don't remember how or when, exactly, but it was sometime around the age of 17 when I started hanging around with my older brother Garry. I think back on it now, and it seems that I was looking for a father figure… I was at the age where I really needed a positive male role model, and Garry and I seemed to get along quite well. He invited me to go out shooting his rifle with him once or twice. Garry had always had guns in his house, and he always was hanging around with his friends hunting or shooting, so one day he asked me to come over to his house and go hunting with him, and from then on, I was at his house nearly every weekend.

One Saturday I went out with Garry and his wife, Linda, and their two Girls, Andrea and Abbe. We were shopping I think, and we went to Pizza Hut for lunch. After ordering the pizza, Garry ordered a beer to drink with it. He asked me if I wanted "a brew" as he called it. I said no, but was intrigued by the idea. I'd never had a beer before in my life. I had to think about it.

Garry and I were pretty close. He was quite a bit like an older brother to me. I could talk to him about anything. I talked to him about how I felt about going to college, and how dissatisfied I was. He was a good listener without being judgmental. He'd even convinced mom to let me use some of the social security income to buy a rifle that I'd had my eye on. It was a Ruger brand 22 caliber rifle. The perfect rifle for the beginning shooter, and it only cost about $78 at K-Mart. At first, mom wasn't thrilled with the idea of me having my own firearm, but Garry talked to her and reminded her that I was a good kid. He told her that I was responsible enough for such a big responsibility, and before long she was convinced, and I had a rifle.

Eric and I were hanging around quite a bit still, and one weekend he came with me over to Garry's house. We hung around in the basement, which was where Garry had his gun cabinet. He had a corner of the basement set up as his personal area. There was a bar stool, a gun cabinet, one or two folding chairs, and a tool chest. It was a typical guy's hangout. It was set up so that as a person came down the stairs into the basement, his area was right under and behind the stairs. Across the basement was a small, narrow, walk in room that he kept vegetables that he'd home canned in. We set up a small metal container, called a bullet trap, in that room, and we used to shoot our rifles across the basement. The trap would do just what it's name implies: it trapped the bullets that we fired, so that it was possible to shoot in an enclosed area without fear of ricochets. The metal was about 1/8 inch thick, and it worked fine for my 22 caliber rifles. However, Garry had a rifle called a 22-250, and we found out that the bullet trap wasn't enough to stop a bullet from it. Although technically still a 22 caliber, the bullet it fired was longer, and more powerful… and it was much hotter. It would literally burn it's way through the bullet trap and bury itself into the cinder-block wall, spraying chunks of stone out into the room. Of course, as guys, we thought that was great! And it was much louder too. It shook the house when we fired it, which prompted Linda to pound on the floor.

Soon, it was a weekly occurrence for Eric and I to go to Garry's house, and before too long, we started drinking beer when we'd go. At first, I didn't like the taste of beer, but it wasn't long before I started to! Aside from the taste, it made me feel relaxed and loose, which I thought helped me shoot my rifle better…. we'd have shooting contests, in the basement, and I thought that the drinking helped me relax and shoot straighter.

Not too long after that, we started going hunting with Garry. One of his favorite hunting spots was a place he called simply "the tracks". To get there, we'd drive south of south and east of Toledo, off the interstate we'd take a side road, and before long we were winding our way over roads winding between farmer's fields.

Far off the interstate, we'd follow a road between huge waving fields of corn and soybeans. The road rose up, and passed over a railroad bridge. After crossing the bridge, we'd pull over to the side of the road, and park. We'd get out, and walk back to the railroad tracks, and look around for a few minutes. This was our hunting spot.

It was a long straight stretch of railroad tracks that went on as far as we could see. It was far out away from the city, and amid a few massive farmers fields. On either side of the tracks were huge fields of soybeans, and it was here that we hunted our prey: woodchucks. Also known as groundhogs, they love soybeans, and this was a prime area to find them. The railroad bridge crossed over a large creek, so the area had an abundant supply of water. There was plenty of food in the soybean fields and there were very few people around. On a typical day, if we spent 3 or 4 hours at the tracks, we might see one or two cars pass by us on the road we'd driven in on. A train or two might pass, also, but the woodchucks didn't seem to mind. They were used to trains. And when the trains went by they were going fast! Way out here in the open country, away from a lot of roads and buildings they had no need to go slow.

It was during the summer when we'd go, and on any given Saturday when we'd go, it was hot out. Oppressively hot and humid. Good woodchuck weather. Way out here, it was quiet and peaceful. It was usually somewhat windy, and as I write this, I can still feel and hear the wind blowing through the trees on either side of the tracks. There was a large stand of woods on either side of the road, and I can still hear the peaceful sound of the wind blowing. If we stood there without speaking, all we could hear was the wind. The hot wind. The noisy, yet quiet wind. Far out away from the city. Away from the highway. It was such a peaceful place. Out there, there were no worries. It was good place to go to relax. We could look up and down the tracks and see for miles in either direction. The tracks would extend toward the horizon and disappear in a blurry haze, as the heat from the ground caused strange mirages far down and away from us.

And it was great! Even if we didn't see any woodchucks, we had a good time going out there enjoying hanging around with each other. It was a lot of fun.

We always had beer with us.

Before I go on any further, I must say, that we did some really stupid things around that time. Hunting AND drinking AND driving. How stupid that was! I look back on it now, half a lifetime ago for me, and realize how dangerous it all was. Not just for me and Garry and Eric, but how dangerous it could have been for anyone! It was stupid, and in no way do I now condone it. I'd never do anything like that now. I have too much going on in my life to do anything that dangerous.

Usually it was a while before we'd see any woodchucks. But I can't recall, in all the times we went there, not seeing any of them. On one trip, there was a railroad coal car that had been temporarily left on that section of the tracks, so we decided to use it. We theorized that woodchucks, coming out of their dens, would be on the lookout for any signs of danger. But that they'd only be looking at their eye level, a few inches above the ground, or maybe just a little above that. Anything higher up, they wouldn't see. So we climbed up the ladder on the side of the coal car, and climbed inside. The top was open, and as we stood inside, only from our armpits up was exposed. So it was a great spot to sit in, and wait for the woodchucks to come out in search of food. We were about 15 feet off the ground and had a great view all up and down the tracks.

I don't remember whether we shot any woodchucks that day. I just remember that it was a good time. Nearly all our trips out there blur into one big memory, of fun times, and good company. Most of the time it was Garry, Eric and I. Sometimes, it was just Garry and I. Those were good times. Not too far away there was a drive through liquor store where we'd go if our supply of beer ran low.

They were all good times, but a few memories do stand out. Like the time Garry shot a woodchuck while I was spotting for him with binoculars. That day was so hot, and so humid. Both Garry and I were lying down in the stones between the railroad ties, facing down the tracks near a crossover. A crossover is a place where someone has built up a thick layer of asphalt near a portion of the tracks. The point is so that the person (in this case a farmer) who owns the land on either side of the tracks can drive up the thick layer of asphalt, and cross from one side to the other without having to go way out of their way. Garry was lying on his stomach with his rifle set up on a sandbag that he sat on the crossover. I was lying next to him, looking down the tracks through a pair of binoculars, while Garry looked through the scope of his rifle. We were looking at a brownish-gray mass that was several hundred yards away from us. I say "mass" because that's all we could tell. It was so hot out, that all we could see were hazy, blurry colors moving around in the distance. Whatever it was, it was moving.

Garry swore it was a woodchuck. I couldn't say for sure, but he was certain. I was looking intently, trying desperately to focus my eyes and the binoculars. All of a sudden there was a thunderous "BOOM" from right next to me. I hadn't expected him to fire yet, and the sudden noise caught me off guard and I moved, losing sight of our target. But the instant before I moved, I saw what I can only describe as what looked like a red carpet being waved in the air. Like a matador would do. I looked back through the binoculars, but whatever it was it was now gone.

Garry jumped to his feet, and so did I and we charged off down the tracks to see what had happened. When we got there, it was a mess. Blood was everywhere…. On the rocks, in the grass and weeds, on the tracks. And in the middle of the tracks lay the corpse of a recently deceased woodchuck. We checked it out, and figured out what had happened.

The round that Garry fired off had torn through the side of the woodchuck's throat, severing a major artery. The waving red carpet I'd seen through the binoculars was the woodchuck flopping around in it's death throes while it's severed artery pumped a fountain of blood into the summer air. It had died within seconds of being shot. What a mess.

Another time, I was the one doing the shooting while Garry spotted for me. It was hot and humid again, and just like before, all I could see was a brown mass moving around, except this time I was the one with the rifle. I told Garry that I didn't have a clear shot…. My sight picture was just too blurry from the heat. He told me to shoot anyway, I might not get another chance. Still unsure, although encouraged by the beer and his greater wealth of experience, I squeezed the trigger. The rifle thundered, and I saw through the scope what looked like a small cloud spray up in front of the brown mass.

"Dammit! You hit the ground! Shoot again!" Garry yelled. The bullet I'd fired struck the ground right in front of the mass which now moved back and forth in a frantic motion. Garry's rifle was a bolt-action rifle, so I pulled the bolt back, and shoved it forward again putting another round into the chamber, took a quick sighting and fired again. And again, unconvinced that my second shot had been any more effective than the first. All of this happened within a span of no more that ten seconds. The brown mass - oh, heck it was a woodchuck, who was I kidding - had disappeared. Garry, frustrated by my inability to hit the target, began to lecture me about getting the proper sight picture, relaxing, controlling my breathing, etc. He said we should wait five or ten minutes and see if it came back out again. So we did. We sat there in the hot sun, waiting. And waiting. Finally, we decided to head down the tracks and see if we could maybe find it's den, so we'd know where to look in the future.

We walked down and looked around. Garry was looking in the weeds on one side, for a hole that would suggest a woodchuck den. I looked on the other side. We were right near the bridge, and I looked down and saw what looked like a woman's wig lying near the edge. It looked like it could fall right off the bridge and into the water. I called Garry to look at it, and just then it moved! I realized it was the woodchuck! Garry ran over, and right then we realized I had indeed hit it after all. Sort of.

The cloud I'd seen spray up in front of it when I fired was in fact where the bullet had struck the rocks right under the woodchuck as he'd stood there. The bullet had split apart sending a spray of rocks and bullet fragments into the lower part of it's body. One of the fragments had torn it's rectum wide open, allowing all it's insides to spill out, yet they were still attached. The woodchuck saw us, and struggled to get away. It couldn't walk, but dragged itself toward the weeds, it's guts trailing behind it. It was nauseating to both of us. Realizing that it was going to die anyway, Garry put it out of it's misery, and what must have been horrible agony. He pulled out his handgun and fired one round into the back of it's head, killing it instantly.

It was a weird experience. Garry often spoke of a friend that he used to hunt with - Carl Smith - who had moved to Texas. Carl was part American Indian, and as Garry said, "could cook anything". Garry said Carl had taught him how to cook up a woodchuck and make it taste great. we often made plans to do so, but never really did. So this woodchuck, like several others I shot, was wasted. We threw them off into the bushes to be eaten by scavengers. It was stupid of us. I realize now, that what we should have done was to eat whatever we killed. It was wrong of us to kill just for the sake of hunting.

Around this time I went on several hunting trips with Garry to an island in Lake Erie. South Bass Island, or Put-in-Bay as it's better known, is a huge tourist spot in Lake Erie, not far from Toledo. On one end of the island is a small town that has a tall monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a hero of the war of 1812. He defeated the British fleet on Lake Erie, and turned the tide of the war in favor of the United States, so there's a tall stone monument to him. There's a bunch of small souvenir shops, some restaurants, bars and miscellaneous shops. There's also a small marina where people dock their boats.

At the other end of the island there's a wooded state park, with the ruined foundation of a hotel that once stood there. You can go over to the edge of the park, where there's a 30 foot drop to the rocky beach below, and look out for miles across the lake. People come there to camp out, fish, and just enjoy the scenery. In the middle of the island there's a small residential area, with a few homes and a lot of wooded property.

I don't know how Garry and his friends ever discovered this area (the wooded area in the middle) as a hunting area, but it was great.

On my first trip there, I accompanied Garry and his friend John Blevins. We left on a Thursday afternoon, and headed east out of Toledo (I can't remember the highway number) toward the very small town (more of a village really) called "Port Clinton", on the Lake Erie shore. It's about a 45-minute drive. Once there we made our way to the ferry landing, and paid a small fee to drive Garry's station wagon, loaded down with several days worth of camping supplies (and beer), onto the ferry boat. It took about 20 minutes for our car and several other cars to be loaded onto the ferry, and then we were on our way.

Put-in-Bay is about three miles out into the lake, and the ferry takes about 20 or 25 minutes to make the trip. Along the way, it bounces up and down slightly over the waves, with a bunch of seagulls hovering close by the rear, ready to snatch pieces of food out of the air, thrown to them by passengers. It was in late September when we made the trip, and it was cool and misty on the trip over to the island.  A cool spray blew at us as we bounced over the waves on our way to the island, in the distance. We alternated between sitting in the car, and walking around on the deck. We had already had several beers each, on the way to Port Clinton, and were feeling quite relaxed, and excited about the upcoming weekend.

After a short while the ferry pulled up to the dock on South bass Island, and we drove off the boat and were on our way. From the dock, the island looks like it's nothing but forest. In fact, quite a bit of it is, and part of that is where we were heading. We drove up a short road away from the dock, and turned left (west) following a main road on the island. It's a two-lane road and as you're going along, it has a slight rise. You can't see the road on the other side of the rise, because it drops slowly back down. But what you can see is the lake. Before cresting the top of the hill, all you can see ahead of you is the lake extending out to the horizon, and it looks as if you'll get to the top of the hill and drive right off into the lake! It's an awesome sight, exciting, and breathtaking. You know that you won't really drive off into the lake… that it's just an illusion. As soon as you pass the top of the hill, you'll find the road still there. But it's still exciting to see. Even though it was mid autumn, the weather was very pleasant. In our jeans, and sweatshirts we were quite comfortable. We put the windows on the car down and drove down the road, letting the clean, fresh air spill in, the wind slightly cool.

A mile or two down from the dock road it turns in toward the state park, where we were going to camp. I don't remember if we had reservations or not, or whether it was simply first-come, first-served, but we got a camp site. We pulled the station wagon into a spot between two small trees, and got out. The camp ground had trees everywhere, and the canopy of leaves blocked out a lot of the sun light. It was cool and quiet there.

We began to unload the supplies, and started to set up our tent. Before too long, it was finished, and we sat back to admire our handiwork, and drink a few beers. It's hard to explain, but half the fun of the entire trip was just sitting around the camp chatting. It was a cool autumn afternoon, and we went ahead and started a fire to sit around. We didn't really use the fire to cook, because we'd brought a portable camping stove. We just enjoyed having a warm fire to sit around. "Drinking beer and bullshitting" as Garry called it.

The first afternoon and evening we ate and drank a lot and drove out to the woods to see where it was we'd be hunting. We didn't actually do any hunting that day, though. We spent a lot of time just sitting around drinking  and talking and laughing. You can't believe how good it felt. How great it was to just be there.

We stayed up til well after dark, walking through the campground, walking near the cliff edge, and drinking a lot of beer as usual. Granted those two are a pretty stupid combination, but we'd done dumber things before. I was so drunk by the time we settled into the tent for the night, that I fell asleep immediately.

When Garry woke John and me up the next morning, my head hurt so bad that just moving made me feel queasy. I realized then what a horrible mistake I'd made in not bringing an air mattress. I'd slept in my sleeping bag on the floor of the tent, and my back and legs were killing me! The ground beneath the tent was anything but smooth, and every little rock and stick had poked into me all night long.

I finally managed to crawl out of the tent and into the chill morning air. The sun wasn't even up yet, and Garry stood over the stove cooking eggs and sausage for breakfast. In the darkness the only light came from the Coleman lantern we'd brought, which lit up our campsite quite nicely, without being overpowering. Looking around there were no other lights on in the campground, and the only sound was the quiet hiss of the lantern, and the low sizzle of breakfast cooking. There's something about that moment…. The smell of the food. The hiss of the lantern. The silence from everywhere around you. And the circle of light that illuminates the campsite, and nothing else. Put all those together and it's magic. There's no other way to explain it. Magic. Even now, as I write this, over 20 years later, I can close my eyes, and I'm still there. A song by Gordon Lightfoot comes to mind; "Whispers of the North". Listen to that song and close your eyes. Fall into that hauntingly beautiful music. Let it take you away. Do that, and you're at Put in Bay, in the pre-dawn darkness. A magical time and place that will be forever in my mind.

The three of us sat down to eat. It was a quiet breakfast. Not much talking. Anything we did say, we said in hushed tones. Not whispers, but just quiet talking. I think part of it was because we all were hung over somewhat, and also partly because it would have just been wrong to speak any louder at that time of day. It would have been almost sacreligious.  We ate, talked quietly and then cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Cleaning them up consisted of me taking them down to a hand pump at the base of a small hill, pumping out cold water onto them and scrubbing them with a brillo pad. More water to rinse them and I was done.

Our plan was to make three trips to the woods, or assaults as Garry called them. Once after breakfast, again after lunch, and finally once again after dinner. After the third assault we'd retire to the campsite, and chat about the days adventure, and of course drink beer around the fire.

I don't remember a lot of the details from that first trip to the island… undoubtedly due to both the length of time since then and the large amount of alcohol I drank. I remember the first morning (hung over) and going into the woods. It was just after we'd (I'd) finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes. We got our gear together and piled into the car. It was still dark out, and we had to use the car's headlights to find our way out of the camp. No one else around the campgrounds was stirring.

We headed out of the campground and onto the main road. We drove through the darkness and eventually turned down a side road, where we eventually pulled off to the side and parked. The first traces of sunlight were beginning to filter through the trees as we got out, and walked to the back of the car to get our gear out. We spoke in quiet tones, although there was no one else around us. It just felt like a quiet moment. We were all dressed in camouflage clothes, and ready for the first assault. All we needed were our rifles and our web belts (a special belt made for use by the military… it's used to hang gear and equipment off of).

After a few minutes of putting the final touches on our hunting attire, and good-natured chatting amongst ourselves, we were ready to head into the woods. We'd planned the night before that since it was my first time there, I'd follow Garry closely, and take a few pointers from watching him.

We crept forward into the knee-high grass, mindful of each step we took and the noise it made. We tried to make each step quieter than the last. John went off to the right a little bit while I shadowed Garry. Within the first few minutes, we heard the leaves in the tree above us rustling. We stopped and looked up, straining to see in the thin early morning light. There, about 30 feet above us, a squirrel was walking along a branch. Garry saw him first, just a silhouette against the sky. He pointed at me then up at the tree. I looked up and saw it too. Garry raised his rifle, to take a shot, but the squirrel moved out of his line of sight. He wouldn't be able to see the squirrel to shoot at it, without moving from where he stood. And the noise of him moving could potentially scare the squirrel. So he was stuck. He lowered his rifle, looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I looked up, and the squirrel was directly above me, silhouetted against the sky, a perfect target. I raised my rifle (all of our rifles were .22 caliber, loaded with a kind of ammunition called "CB Caps" which were a low powered .22 caliber bullet, normally used for hunting small game, such as squirrels) and sighted in on the black, shadowy form moving above me. I didn't know if I should take the shot or not considering how dark it was. I was afraid I might miss. But a moment later, the squirrel stopped right in the cross-hairs of my scope, and I knew that I had to take it. If I didn't he might move, and I wouldn't get a second chance. I squeezed the trigger, and heard the round fire off, sounding like a small cap gun rather than a rifle. Within a few seconds I heard the sound of the squirrel crashing through the leaves and branches as he fell, and then he smacked into the ground a few feet in front of me. I stood in disbelief for a few moments. Then I walked forward a few steps, and crouched down to look at the squirrel's body, making sure he was dead. That he was. I looked up and saw Garry looking at me, smiling, and he said "good job!". I picked up the carcass and put it into the canvas bag I had strapped to my belt, a sense of pride washing over me. I couldn't believe it! We'd been in the woods for less than five minutes and here I'd gone and taken a squirrel, before anyone else, and I did it with a single shot. My first shot! I was excited!

I don't remember too awful much about the rest of the day, except that around lunchtime, Garry and John and I met up and left to head back to camp to eat (and drink a few more beers!). Garry and John both said how impressed they were by my skill and luck that morning. It was great to have the approval and admiration of two people that I looked up to so much.

Just as planned we made two more assaults that day, and if memory serves, I shot two more squirrels. There is one point about the whole trip that I must admit, I'm ashamed about. It takes a lot for me to say this, but if you're going to know me - the real me - then I must say it. We took the squirrels we'd shot, cut off their tails and threw away the carcasses. The tails were all we kept, as souvenirs. I feel bad to this day about it. Garry, usually would skin the squirrels and cook prepare them and cook them, taught how by his friend Carl. However, and this part I'm REALLY ashamed of, when he tried to skin and gut them, I nearly got sick. Watching him pull, stretch and tear their skin, to get it off, then cut them up the middle and pull their insides out, I nearly got sick. I could hear their bones breaking and the cartilage snapping as he yanked and pulled to get the insides out, and leave only the meat.

He could see that it was bothering me, and he kidded me a little about it, then quit, and threw the carcass away. He made light of it, saying it was no big deal. Honestly, I think he was a little disappointed in me over it, but he never came out and said so. We talked about it later, and he reminded me that they were dead and couldn't feel anything. I told him I knew that, but something about the sound.

To this day I regret the fact that we killed the squirrels and threw the carcasses away. That was wrong of me to do. The proper thing, since they weren't animals that were bothering anyone, would have been to cook them up and eat them. It bothers me even today. I think that my dad would agree with me. He liked to hunt back in his younger days, growing up in the mountains of east Tennessee. Although I don't know much about him from those days (mainly things my mom told me after he'd passed away) I think that he would have been the kind of person who wouldn't have hunted for the sport of it. That's basically what we were doing. Hunting for sport.

The way I look at it now at least, is that the only thing that justifies killing a wild animal, if a person doesn't intend to eat it, is either in self defense or if the creature is a pest (such as one who eats a farmers crops, or destroys property or hurts people). I think that my dad would be somewhat disappointed in me for what I did that day. I shot an innocent animal, and didn't eat it. In fact I wasted it. I've often thought that perhaps I would have felt differently if it had been my dad who taught me to hunt, and such. I know, from what my mom told me, that later in his life he regretted not spending more quality time with me. In fact I also heard that after he retired, he'd finally felt he now had the time to spend with me that he'd missed earlier in life. He wanted to take me fishing especially. But, by the time he felt like he had the time, he was far too sick to do it. I feel bad for him. Not for me, but for him. The sense of regret must have been a heavy load for him to carry. If I could talk to him right now, I'd tell him not to worry about it. No matter what he might have thought, we (my brothers and I) always knew that dad loved us very, very much.

In any event, the rest of our trip was one big drunken hunting trip. I can't possibly remember all of the details, but I do remember that it was a fun trip.

Another time, possibly a year later, Garry and I made the trip. It was just the two of us, and we had a really good time. One memory stands out from that trip;

I was in charge of doing the dishes, and I took our plates, pans and a container of Ivory liquid dish detergent down to the water pump to clean them. I washed them and returned to camp, after which we went hunting. Later that afternoon when we got back to camp, we opened a couple of beers, and started a camp fire. It was warm in the cool autumn air, and it was a great time. Garry fired up the small portable camping stove, and popped open two cans of Dinty Moore brand beef stew. That's great stuff! It's got huge chunks of beef in it, along with pieces of carrots, potatoes, and peas, all in a thick brown gravy. Delicious it is! Or should have been. This time, though it wasn't quite right. We sat at the table, each eating it. After my first bite, I realized that something was wrong. I looked at Garry as he took his first bite. His brow furrowed as he tasted it. He said nothing, but I could tell that something wasn't right. I took another bite, and so did he. This was awful! Beef stew was supposed to be delicious.

"Steve". Garry said. He was approaching the subject delicately, trying not to offend me, I think. This tastes like shit!"

"I know" I said through a mouthful of the terrible stuff. "I don't know what's wrong…" I started. Just then I realized what it was. Garry did too. It tasted like dish detergent was mixed in with it! It was revolting! I leaned out over the table and spat out the mouthful I had, as did Garry. We then dumped out our platefuls of food near the fire, and tried to wash the taste out with beer. Garry then said he'd wash the plates, and he walked off to the pump with them. It's a lesson I learned well, and practice to this day; Always thoroughly rinse your plates when washing them!

It was a good time, even after the Ivory liquid incident. I can't really describe adequately how I feel about Put-in-Bay. It's an almost magical place to go to get away from things. When you're there, you're so far away from civilization, yet so close to it, too. Camping out is such a fun thing. Being out in nature… there's nothing like it. It's truly awesome. I don't remember an awful lot of memories from that trip. I do know that I had a good time, because I never went to Put-in-Bay and had a bad time!

I don't remember exactly why Eric never went with us to the island either of those times… it may have been because he was working or something like that. I know that he and I were close like brothers back then. Many weekends around that time in my life, were spent with Garry and Eric out at our hunting spot at the railroad tracks. We'd go there and either hunt woodchucks or target shoot. For our target shooting, we'd go stand on the bridge looking over the creek. We could see about one hundred yards or so down the creek. There were dense woods on either side, and the canopy of trees reached up high and grew together over the top of the creek, forming almost a tunnel. Down past one hundred yards, the creek turned to the right and out of our field of view from the bridge.

We'd stand on the bridge and shoot at random things at the turn of the creek (a can or a bottle, or such). Sometimes we'd bring things with us; empty beer bottles, empty plastic cases that our ammunition had come in, or sometimes Eric and I brought old plastic models that we didn't want any more. I remember one time that I brought a model of the space shuttle that must have been about two feet long. It was huge! It had fallen from a shelf at home and was slightly broken anyway.

Anything we brought with us, we'd climb down through the weeds and grass by the side of the bridge and walk along the creek til we got to the bend. There, we'd set our targets up, sticking them into the mud on the bank. Then we'd walk back to the bridge, clamber back up, and begin shooting. Garry and I had 22 caliber rifles with scopes on them. Eric had a 22 caliber lever-action single shot rifle. More often than not, we'd shoot down the creek with CB caps, which was unique. Since a CB cap is basically a low powered 22 caliber round. The bullet travels somewhat slower than a regular 22 caliber round, and so when we'd fire one down the creek, it would take a noticeable second or two before the round would strike the target. We'd shoot "pow!" and then a second or two would pass and then we'd hear the bullet strike the target. It was a lot of fun, and it was nearly a weekly ritual for us.

Every Saturday, we'd go to Garry's house, and either drink a lot of beer there and shoot our guns in his basement, or we'd go pick him up, go out to the tracks and drink a lot of beer while hunting and shooting. Sometimes we'd go out to a secluded outdoor shooting range, not too far from the tracks, and drink beer and shoot out there. It was out away from town (Genoa was the closest town to the tracks and the range) and sat just off the road. It was a field about 300 feet long, with a huge dirt mound at the far end, to stop the bullets people fired there. There was an outhouse off to the side, which in a strange way added to the rustic charm of the place. I remember that at one time, Garry had rigged up a special "toy" for me.

At some time in the past, I'd found my dad's old 20 gauge shotgun in the trunk of the green Impala. It had been in there for some time after he'd passed away. I remember that when I was a senior in high school I'd found it and used it as a prop in a movie I'd made in my "basic filmmaking" class. I'd written a script about a bigfoot type monster and some hunters trapped in the forest by it. The shotgun was a prop, and since the story took place in the winter, and I filmed it as such, snow got on the gun. Some friends from school were the cast members for me. Anyhow, after I'd finished filming, I put the gun in the trunk and forgot about it.

When I rediscovered it, the barrel was covered with rust, and the wooden stock was all scratched up. It looked pretty battered, and unusable. The shotgun was a 20 gauge, single shot, which means that it could only hold one shell at a time, and to load and re-load it, you had to flick a small lever, located near the thumb, to one side, and the shotgun would split open from the top. If re-loading it, the spent shell would pop out, and you were now free to load another shell into the chamber. With a click to close it, you could now pull back the hammer and it was ready to fire. However, when I rediscovered it, the firing pin was broken and it would not shoot. Garry and I looked at it, and decided that it was in bad enough shape to just throw it away. That's what we could have done…. but we wanted to try to clean it up.

So, I bought, at his suggestion, a wire brush (called a bore brush) at the gun shop. I bought one that was for a 12 gauge shotgun, which is a much wider barrel than a 20 gauge. The reason for this was because the inside of the barrel was so badly rusted, we wanted something that would scrape the inside of it very roughly, and clean as much out of there as possible.

I did that, and cleaned the inside good, then sanded down the outside of the barrel somewhat to clean up it's pitted, rusty surface. Then something interesting happened.

The length of the barrel was in really bad shape. The only part that was really salvageable was the portion closest to the stock. So, Garry let me use a plumbing tool he had, called a galvanized pipe cutter. It's a clamp shaped like a letter "C" that can be mounted on a pipe, the bottom portion of which has a hardened metal wheel on one side. You clamp it onto your pipe, and spin it around. As you do, the metal wheel cuts into the pipe. You spin the clamp, tightening it every few turns so the wheel cuts deeper and deeper. You repeat this process until the pipe is cut all the way through.

I used this on the barrel of the shotgun, and cut it down to a length of about 12 or 13 inches. Garry then used a saw and cut the stock off. He took a plumbing compound called "durabond" which is a clay like putty that can be shaped, and dries hard as stone, after which it can be sanded smooth. He used the durabond to form a smooth, tear-drop-shaped pistol grip. He wrapped it in black cloth tape to give it a softer, yet tacky grip. Now we had what is a very illegal weapon known as a sawed-off shotgun. I bought a new firing pin for it, and it was ready to go.

One cold, late fall Saturday, Garry, Eric and I went to the shooting range, and took our new "toy" with us. No one had fired it yet, and we were all anxious to try it! On the way there, we of course drank several beers, and by the time we got there we were quite relaxed.

By the way, let me say something that's a bit of a side note;

 

Don't drink and drive. Don't drink and use guns. I look back on it now, and realized how stupid it was. It may sound like fun the way I so casually talk about it. And I suppose it was fun, but it was really a bad idea. I look back on it and realize the danger I put other people in. Other innocent drivers or bystanders…. so many times I did those things and never thought much about it. But drinking and driving or shooting is just not a good idea. One mistake and someone's life is ruined forever! Don't do it!

 

Now back to the story. By the time we got there, I really had to, uh…. relieve myself. As I said, we'd been drinking on the way there, and I had to urinate really badly. So, I did in a bush near the car. As I was doing so, I heard the sound of the shotgun being assembled (after we sawed it off, it was really quite simple to break it down into three pieces… it made it easier to keep it hidden til we were ready to use it). I heard the pieces clicking together, and when I finished, I walked back to the car and there stood Garry proudly admiring his handiwork.

"Not a bad piece of work, if I do say so myself" He said. He asked if I minded him being the first one to fire it. I said no, I didn't mind. After all, he'd done most of the work on it. So he proceeded to open it up, and place a shell inside the chamber and close it.

Eric and I watched , eagerly as he cocked the hammer back, and held the gun at arm's length, like a handgun, which I thought was rather odd considering that even though it was small like a hand gun, it was still a shotgun.

He pulled the trigger and with a BOOM! a huge ball of fire belched out of the barrel It was awesome! But within an instant, Garry had dropped the gun and was shaking his hand in pain. we went to see what was wrong and that's when we saw the blood. The webbed skin between his thumb and forefinger was torn open, and bleeding profusely!

We could tell that it wasn't a serious wound but it was a really painful one. As Eric and I stifled our laughter, Garry cursed under his breath, and went to the car to search for a cloth or something to put on his hand. It was bleeding like crazy!

I picked the gun up, and opened it up to load another shell, determined that I would hold it properly; one hand on the pistol grip, one hand on the barrel. I could tell already what had happened. He'd held it like it was just another handgun, not thinking about the tremendous kick that a shotgun packs. When he fired it, the kick pushed the gun back and the lever used to open the gun drove back and into his skin, tearing it open.

While Garry was wrapping his hand with a towel (a white towel!) I had in the car, I picked up the shotgun, and reloaded it. He came out of the car, still cursing to himself.

"Here" I said to him. "Let me show you how to do it." I held the pistol grip in my right hand, and the barrel in my left. I knew, even before he'd fired it, that it would have a strong kick to it. I looked around for a target, and saw a metal 55-gallon drum that someone had brought out there as a trash can. I aimed at it, from a distance of about 10 feet away, and fired. With another loud BOOM! It blasted a hole the size of an orange in the can.

"Whoa!" Eric said. Then he wanted to try it. We fired the gun several times and then fired our other guns a few times. Despite the beer he had continued to drink, Garry's hand was really hurting, so we cut short our outing and headed home. Needless to say that after we dropped him off at home, I ended up having to throw away my towel… he'd bled a lot and there was no way I was going to even try to get the blood stains out of it. I'd need to get another one, though, as I used that one to wipe down the windows in my car when the condensation got to be too much.

That's another thing… that car we were in that day was my car. It was a 1980 Dodge Omni,that my mom had bought for me. I don't remember exactly when, or even why, but mom bought me a car. I remember that she'd talked about it, and found one that suited me. It was around the fall of 1981 when she found it for sale. A man named Smitty was selling it. He had a well known auto repair place at the corner of Jackman and Alexis, just a ways down from the church. Mom found out that he was a Christian and decided to take her car there for some repair and ended up quite satisfied with his work, prices, etc. She was so impressed that she wouldn't take her car anywhere else (by this time mom was driving a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass, sky blue with a white vinyl top).

She swore by Smitty, although Garry tried to convince her otherwise; he'd said he'd heard other people call him "shitty Smitty" because he never quite fixed whatever you'd bring your car in for. Therefore you were always forced to bring it in for repeated repairs. That way he could charge a person over and over again for related repairs.

Mom wouldn't hear of it; he was a "good Christian man" and that was good enough for her.

In any event, for some reason that I can't remember we got rid of the Impala, and mom knew I needed a car to get back and forth to college with. So, she took some of the money she'd saved from Social Security, and bought the car. It was a dark blue 1980 Dodge Omni, two-door, with light blue interior.

I was with her when she bought it. He told her it was $4,200, and she started to write the check for it, and said with a smile "$4,000". Then he leaned over her, smiling back and said $4,200" emphasizing the "$200". She laughed, wrote it out, and handed him the check and we were on our way. I don't remember a thing about setting up license plates or anything like that. But I sure remember that car.

Looking back on it, I have to be completely honest, when I say that I think mom got me that car for more than one reason. She never said it, but at the time it seemed that she got it for me so I could drive back and forth to the university, and I was alright with that. What teenage kid wouldn't be?

But now that I have the luxury of roughly twenty years to look back on it, I think there was another reason. As Tim was going through his teenage years, he was really rebellious. He had been hanging around with what mom and dad called a bad crowd. He smoked and they knew it. He was experimenting with marijuana, and I think they knew that too. They didn't approve of his girlfriend, and on and on the list went. He caused them numerous sleepless nights.

I don't know why, but I just wasn't like that, and mom knew it. But I think she was afraid that I would start doing some of the same things, and she thought that buying me a car would somehow appease me into staying a good kid.

Again, this is all conjecture. I don't know if any of it is even remotely true, and mom please forgive me for thinking such a thing, because it's not nice. But, that may be what was going on. If it is true, then I think that mom may have been feeling like she wasn't quite sure how to finish raising a teenage son on her own, and so she was willing to do something major, such as buy a $4,200 car for me, in order to keep me happy enough so that I wouldn't stray into things like Tim had. Our family was anything but rich, so that's why writing out a check for that amount was such a big deal.

I never, ever had any thoughts of hanging around with people who did drugs. I never had even the slightest interest in that. Drugs are such a horribly destructive thing, that I never had any inclination toward them. In that aspect I find my theory hard to believe. I know that during that time, I was really getting into drinking beer at Garry's house on the weekends, which was wrong. But, I suppose that I've always looked at drinking and doing drugs as two very different things. And the fact that the people I did all my drinking with were family members (Garry and Eric) rather than out doing drugs with a bunch of teenage delinquents from school, added to that distinction for me.

The way Tim did his teenage rebelling, was very different from the way I did it. On any given weekend, mom may not have known exactly where I was (out at the tracks or out at the shooting range), but she did know who I was with. To look at the basic thing of what I'm saying, in my mind, because I was hanging out with people who mom knew and trusted, what I was doing on the weekend was okay.

In some ways, I think that mom buying me the car was a bad idea. Bad because I didn't have to do anything to earn it. I didn't learn any of the lessons a kid needs to learn about the rewards of hard work. If I'd had to work to earn the money to buy that car, I think it would have meant more to me and I'd have learned more from it. I too think that I wouldn't be in the spot with money that I am now. Right now (October, 2001) Donna, the kids and I are living paycheck-to-paycheck. I never learned any of the valuable lessons about saving money, and such. I'm learning them now, but if mom hadn't bought me the car, possibly I could have learned them many years ago.

Looking back again, I think that mom knew I was drinking. One time she came up to me and said she needed to ask me something. She asked me if Garry had ever offered me a drink. I said "No".

"Look me in the eye and say that" she said. I did, although it was terribly difficult. I was having a good time hanging out with Garry and Eric, and the way I looked at it (although I now know I was wrong) I wasn't hurting anyone. I didn't want to give that up, and I sure didn't want Garry to get on mom's bad side, so I lied. I lied to my mom. It was an awful thing to do. She was only looking out for my best interests.

All this reminds me of something Tim had said to me a few years earlier. Shortly before my dad died, Tim and I would sometimes go out to play basketball with the church youth group, or maybe go to a movie, or some such thing. It didn't happen very often, because Tim was dating a lot then. But one time, we'd been playing basketball, and were heading home afterward. I remember it being cold outside, and the heater in his car took a long time to get going.

While he was driving, Tim reached under his seat and pulled out a plastic bottle that had a label on it that said "Power Hitter". Within a few moments I realized what it was. It was a bottle that collected smoke from a joint (marijuana cigarette) that was inserted in one end of it. Once the bottle was full of smoke, the user squeezed it, and the smoke gushed out the other end and into the person's mouth. I knew that Tim had been experimenting with marijuana already, but to actually see it was a shock for me, and he could tell. He asked if I wanted to try it, and I said "No".

He said that was fine, but he also told me something that I'll never forget. He said that if I ever decided to try it, he wanted me to come to him, not to try it with someone from school. He didn't want me getting mixed up with any of those people.

I look at my teenage drinking with Garry, and Eric the same way. I was doing something that I probably shouldn't have done, but I was doing it with family…. People I trusted.

I can remember one particular episode that Garry and I had. I don't remember why, but Eric didn't go with us. We were driving around in my car through the small town of Genoa, Ohio. It's a small, quiet town east of Toledo. A very peaceful place where I wouldn't mind living. It's a town where a person living there probably knows everyone else. I'm guessing it's got a population of about a thousand people. It's got a main street, lined with homes and trees, and a school at one intersection. Several small stores line side streets. It looks like a place where you'd want to raise kids.

Driving down the main street will take you from one end of town, right through and out the other end. A mile or so past that is a place we called…. Boot Hill. That's a reference to a cemetery in the old west where a lot of gun fights and such were said to have taken place. The Boot Hill we went to was actually a place called "Woodlawn Cemetery". It was a small cemetery that sat next to a rock quarry.

To get to it, you had to turn left off the main road and drive about a quarter of a mile down a dusty road. There were no trees or such along the dusty road, and you could see the cemetery clearly from the main road. On those hot, summer days we'd go there, and park in the cemetery to hunt. I know it sounds strange, hunting in a cemetery, but Garry and his friend John had gotten permission to hunt there from the caretaker at one time. He wanted them to hunt there, because the woodchucks were tunneling all over the cemetery, and causing damage to the lawn. In some instances, they'd burrow around the caskets, and then their tunnels would collapse under the weight, and cause the graves to sink in. Families would come to visit their buried loved ones, and the gravesite would be sunk in about six inches, forming a large depression in the ground. The caretaker tried to keep the woodchucks out of the cemetery, but he just couldn't keep up with them. So when Garry and John met up with him, and asked if they could hunt there, he welcomed their help. I don't remember if Garry ever told me how they came to hunt in a cemetery in the first place. But we used to go there quite often. One of our weekend hunting/shooting excursions would consist of a trip to the tracks, where we'd be for a few hours. If things were slow, we'd make a trip to either the shooting range or maybe Boot Hill, or both.

One time, when Tim was home on leave from the Marines, all four of us went out hunting one weekend, and part of that trip was to Boot Hill. Two things really stand out in my mind about that trip;

1)   Tim, used to partying hard with his Marine Corps buddies, could really drink! I tried to keep up with him, because I didn't want him to think I was a wimp, or a "non-hacker"… a term that Garry came up with.

2)   I scared off a group of people

 

Here's what happened. We pulled into Boot Hill, and parked the car. We'd been drinking during the entire drive out there, and were all drunk to one extent or another by the time we got there. When we stopped ready to get out of the car (in Garry's car this time) I still had almost a full bottle of beer… I'd only taken a few sips of it. Garry said I should finish it before we got out, and I tried to oblige him. I tried chugging it… drinking the whole thing at one time without taking the bottle away from my mouth. I tried… I really did! But my belly felt full already from all the other beer I'd been drinking.

Tim, ever the encouraging brother, took out a new one, unscrewed the cap and said something like

"C'mon. Let's go" Then he started chugging his, and I did the same with mine. By the time I'd finished my half a beer, he'd finished all of his. Ugh! I felt so full. I was so full of beer that almost immediately, I started to feel the effects of this one, too.

We got out of the car, and went around to the back, and opened up the hatch to retrieve our rifles. Then we split up a bit to check out the place.

Boot Hill is a quiet place, with a small section set aside for some really old graves. There's a large barn-like building that the caretaker used to house his lawn care equipment. There's a hill at the opposite end from the road, where if you stand up on it, you can look down into the quarry. The only sound, on a hot summer day out there, is the not too distant (but sounding very distant) sound of the trucks in the quarry, rumbling as the drive around, or beeping as they back up. It's a very relaxing place.

Not long after we got out of the car, I saw a woodchuck over by the hill. I didn't see him long enough to get ready to take a shot at him, before he ran behind an old tombstone. I ran after him, but by the time I got there, he'd disappeared into a hole that probably led to his burrow. Garry said that he'd seen that one before. He was an elusive one, and Garry knew where his burrow came out at, from having watched him before. He said it came out near a tombstone some 30 yards away, and suggested that I go over to it and position myself nearby… but not too close, or he might not come out. So I did just that.

I went to the tombstone he'd pointed to, and saw the hole where, hopefully, the woodchuck would come out again. Then I backed off about ten feet or so, and crouched near another tombstone, rifle in hand, to watch for him. I waited. And waited. I looked up and Garry, Tim and Eric were off at the other end of the cemetery looking around.

I knew from my somewhat limited experience, that patience is necessary when stalking woodchucks. So I knew I had to wait. A short time later, a car came driving up the road into the cemetery. My vantage point was right at the end of the road into the cemetery, and they were driving right at me, slowing down as they saw me. The car finally came to a stop about 20 feet away from me. It looked like there four people inside. They sat there for a few minutes, and it appeared that they were looking at me. I ignored them and went back to watching the woodchuck hole. The car sat there, and no one inside moved, that I could see. After about five minutes, without anyone ever getting out, the car backed up and drove away.

That's all I can remember from that trip. However, another time when Garry and I went, we had a big adventure!

I don't remember the trip itself, as much as I do the aftermath. We'd been at Boot Hill and hadn't seen anything, and after a while decided to leave. We put our rifles in the back seat, left the cemetery and when we got to the main road, took a right and headed back into town. About halfway through town, we took another right and stopped at a small convenience store and bought a six-pack of Miller beer. Then we decided to drive back out to Boot Hill for another look around, and we each drank a beer as we did. We were only at Boot Hill for a short time, only long enough for us each to drink our one bottle of beer. We threw away the empty bottles as we drove away. Again, we took a right on the main road away from the cemetery and drove through town. This time we didn't turn, but went straight past the side road we'd turned down before. We were near the other end of town still on the main road, when a police car passed by us.

We'd already each opened another beer, but had yet to drink any of it.

"There's a police car" I said, as he passed us.

"Just keep your beer down" Garry said. I had my bottle placed on the seat between my legs, and Garry had his beer likewise. I looked in the rearview mirror, and to my shock I saw the police car turn around, and begin following us.

"He turned around and he's coming up behind us" I said to Garry.

"What? Are you shittin' me?" He said. Just then, the blue flashing lights on top of the police car turned on. We were the only car in front of him, so I knew it was us he was after. My heart sank! I looked over at Garry I suppose with a look of "what should I do?"

"You might as well pull over. He's got us."

So I pulled to the right hand side of the road, and stopped on the shoulder. We took our open beers and placed them back into the carton. So now, we had a six-pack carton with two missing out of it. Two more were opened, but completely full, and the remaining two were unopened. I put the carton on the floor of the car, behind my feet and pushed it up against the base of my seat as best as I could, trying to hide it. The police car stopped behind us, and a few moments later the officer walked up to the window.

I rolled down the window, and he said

"Good afternoon, sir. Do you know how fast you were going?"

"No, sir" I said.

"You were going 35 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone. I'll need to see your license and registration, please."

Right then he looked down and saw the beer, crudely hidden behind my feet.

"Oh, I see you have some beer, there. Let me see it please."

I took it out from behind my feet and showed it to him. He took a look at the opened ones, handed them to us, and said he wanted us to pour them out on the street. So we did. He said he'd take the remaining ones.

"Sir" he said looking at Garry "I'll need to see your license, too" Garry handed it to him.

"Oh, by the way, those rifles" he said gesturing toward the back seat "aren't loaded, are they?"

"Oh, no sir" we both said at the same time. They were loaded, but we didn't want to admit to that…. That's highly illegal. Gee, like drinking and driving isn't though.

"All the same, go ahead and put them in the trunk please. I'll be right back." He walked back to his car, while we got out, put the rifles in back, and then got back into the car, and waited.

It was taking a long time for him to come back.

"I don't like this" Garry said. "I'll bet he's calling the meat wagon to haul us off."

"Geez, what's mom gonna say?" I asked.

"I don't know, but she's gonna kill me!" Garry said. Even though he was an adult, married with kids, he knew that mom would be seriously angry that he'd bought beer and let me drink some. Finally, after an eternity, the officer came back. He handed our licenses back to us, saying that they didn't have anything on us.

"I'm going to let you go this time with a warning. But don't you ever come into my town like this again." Then he leaned into the open window, and pointed at Garry "And Garry you ought to know better than this. Now you two get out of here."

"Yes sir, thank you sir" We stammered. He stepped back and we slowly drove away. Relieved beyond belief, and feeling like I needed to throw some humor into the situation, I asked Garry if I should screech the tires as we drove away. He looked at me and chuckled.

The whole drive home, we were in shock and in disbelief at how lucky we were! That police officer could have really thrown the book at us! But he decided to let us off with a warning! Let's see;

1)   Speeding

2)   Open alcohol containers in the car

3)   Weapons (loaded) in the back seat

To this day, I still can't believe that we got that lucky.

 

The last months of school -

 

It was my senior year in high school, and things had changed for me over the last two years, and had now settled into a comfortable, and yet dull routine. Church was no longer a big thing in my life. Brother Rick had been gone for a while, and my friends and I from there had gone our separate ways for the most part.

Every morning at school, Eric and our friend Scott Ragan and I would ride the bus to school. Once there, we'd have about 20 minutes before time to report to our first class, so we'd make our way to the cafeteria. There we'd join up with a cousin of Eric's, named Mike, and his friend. The five of us would just hang out and chat til it was time to go to class. The hallway outside was buzzing with hundreds of students, all doing their own thing, while we did ours.

This was something I enjoyed. You see, I was never very popular in school. Sure I had my small group of friends, but we were never part of the "in crowd" and that suited us.

When I was in high school, there seemed to be three distinct groups of kids there; The burnouts (those who smoked dope  and did drugs all the time), the jocks (the guys and girls who were into sports) and the others (those of us who didn't fit into the other two categories). The burnouts didn't like us, because we didn't do drugs and listen to the deep heavy metal music they liked (bands like Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc). The jocks didn't like us, because they thought they were better than everyone else, and to talk to us or hang out with us was a colossal waste of their time.

So, we were in a group all our own. Our group consisted of a hundred other small groups of kids who didn't fit into either of the other two. Because of this, I didn't like school, for the most part. I felt like I didn't fit into the overall big picture of what school was supposed to be. However, there were a few teachers and classes I liked.

Mr Ogrodowski, who taught World War II history. Mrs Cannon, who taught English Composition. Mrs Brown who taught Literature and Composition, and Mr Sidor who'd taught Basic Filmmaking. By far, though, my favorite class was "Oil and Watercolor Techniques" with Mr Taylor. It was a class that taught us the basics of painting. I really liked that class because it addressed what I liked to do; paint. It didn't waste my time with art techniques that I was interested in, like sculpture, or candlemaking. It was painting, and I really enjoyed it. We studied how to paint textures, and moods and such. And the best part was the way the course cirruculum was set up. The class was two hours long, right after lunch. The first few weeks we got our supplies (paints, brushes, etc) and went over techniques for using the different styles of paints. Then after that all we were really required to do was turn in a painting every two or three weeks. That was it! I couldn't believe it! I was getting good grades in the class for doing something that I really enjoyed and was interested in! Remember, at the time, I was going to college at night, and that was miserable for me. This class helped make up for that!

Mr Taylor was a very talented teacher, with dark wavy hair and olive colored skin. He looked to be of  Mediterranean descent, and the girls in the class found him very handsome. Oddly enough, he found the girls in the class quite attractive, too. He was always looking over their shoulders at their work, or holding their hands, guiding their brush movement. There was one girl Carol Sheperd, whom he particularly liked, and he indulged her artistic whims a lot. He was always complementing her paintings, and such. Once he even helped her construct this huge three-dimensional canvas to paint on. It was a very abstract looking thing. A wooden frame with canvas stretched over it, that had many different angles and surfaces. It took up almost an entire table, and her idea was to paint the different surfaces with different parts of a picture. And only when you looked at it from a certain angle would you see the whole picture. Looking at it from a different angle would let you see a different picture. It was a cool idea… it reminded me of something that would be found in a museum. It just seemed a bit much for a high school student to be doing. Maybe it wasn't… maybe it was the way he indulged her in the whole thing. Other students noticed it too, and we sometimes spoke about it. He spent so much time with her and her project that the rest of us felt left high-and-dry by our teacher.  I remember at one time, while thinking about all of this, that I wondered exactly what art credentials he had… that he seemed more interested in the female students in the class than anything else. Then, I came into the class one day and there he was painting a portrait. It was a portrait of the singer Neil Diamond, from one of his album covers. He was just painting, waiting for us students to show up. And his painting was good! He really was quite talented. After that I never questioned his credentials, but his method of teaching.

I can remember that at the time, a popular item of clothing was a down vest. Lots of guys wore them. It looked just like the name implies; a vest made of the same material as a down coat. It had a polyester outer part, with a thick down interior. Typically worn under it was a plaid, red flannel shirt. I adopted this style of dress for a while, and I can remember that somewhere at home we'd gotten one or two of these vests with the logo of "Champion Spark Plugs" on them. I can remember wearing one to painting class, and getting paint on the bottom hem of it. Many times, I'd have a small tabletop easel on my desk, with my canvas propped on it. Sitting on my chair was sometimes uncomfortable, reaching for the top portion of the picture when painting that area. So, many times I'd just sit on my desk to paint, and unknown to me at the time, my vest rubbed across the desk top, and right across my palette. So I ended up with paint stains on it. That's one of those funny things a person remembers.

On warm days, sometimes Mr Taylor would let us go outside to paint. The outer door was just a few feet down from the classroom door. Sometimes we'd ask and he'd let us go outside and sit on the outer porch or in the grass to paint. That was a nice break. I can still remember sitting there with the warm sunshine on my face, painting happily. I made a few friends in that class. But they weren't the kind of people I'd go out of my way to hang out with… they were just good friends in the class. I had a lot of fun in that class. It taught me a lot of basic things about painting and such. Mom was so impressed with a couple of my watercolor paintings that she hung them up at home. Looking back on it now, though, I wish that I'd done some things differently. In addition to that class I'd have taken "Commercial Art" a class that was five hours long. My friend Bob May took it, and he liked it. It was a class that focused not so much on painting, but on different aspects of commercial illustration, and how to use those skills in the job market.

If I could go back, I'd have taken painting a year earlier, and then moved on to commercial art. However, I can't do that, so I'll just go with happy memories of what I did do.

At the time, there was a new television show on a public broadcasting channel. It was called "The Joy of Painting with William Alexander". He was a stout man with a heavy German accent, and he painted with oil paints. In the span of a half hour show, he could start with a blank canvas and end up with a wonderful, realistic landscape. His program was basically a "how-to" show, and he was so happy doing it. He was always talking as he painted; a "happy little tree" here, or a "beautiful cloud" there. It was a great joy to watch him, because he was always so excited about it, and his excitement was infectious! It was also a great inspiration to watch him. Mom and I used to watch him together, and she always wanted me to paint her a picture in his style. I tried, but was never quite able to master the technique. Sad to say, but I usually went a little cheap on the materials. That is, I substituted some paints for others that he'd recommended, and my results were never quite as good. If I'd not skimped in those areas, and if I'd practiced more, I'm sure I could have done it. In any event, both from class and from that TV show I learned a lot.

In school, Eric and I had only one class together that I can recall; corrective gym. A strange name that implies that anyone taking it has a fault that they're trying to correct. However, it was a useless class for the most part. Us students sat around lifting weights if we chose to or talking if we chose to. The teacher was useless. He'd take attendance, then leave. He'd usually come back toward the end of class in time to tell us we could leave. There was no set cirriculum. That was the last class of the day for us. Afterward, we'd clean up and leave to catch the bus. Our ride home was usually one of discussions about school and such. He had a class that was either four or five hours long, called "Communications Electronics". It was a class dealing with construction and repair of TV's, radios, etc. He had a lot of fun with it, and it showed. Eric had a CB (Citizen's Band) radio in his room, with an antenna on the roof. Sometimes we'd go and talk on it. A CB radio is a radio you can send and receive messages over on a series of frequencies dedicated for average citizens to use; that is, it's not made for police or fire departments to use.

Sometimes we'd go and shoot the breeze with people on it, when we were drunk. That was fun! At that time, home computers were in their infancy, and Eric had one called a Vic 20. It was no more than a small keyboard, with an internal memory of just a few megabytes (computers currently have upwards of 20 billion megabyte memories!). He'd connect it to his TV screen, and whatever he was doing would be displayed there. Games for the computers then had no graphics… they were text based games. For example, he had one game where you would assume the role of a security guard in a nuclear power plant, trying to track down and eliminate a saboteur. He'd get these games from computer magazines. The game would consist of a couple of pages worth of text that you had to type into the computer manually. Then you could run it from the computer. I think once you typed it in, it could be stored on a disk.. it couldn't be stored on the computer itself. The computer didn't have an actual drive on it for storing things. It only had enough power to run programs, but not store them.

In the power plant game, words would come on the screen saying something like

"You're walking down the hall, on your nightly security check of the power plant. Suddenly ahead of you, you see someone run from one door and into another. You're supposed to be the only one in here this time of night. What do you do?"

Then you'd type in an answer like

"Run after them"

Then the computer would show the sentence

"I don't understand what you mean"

When it said something like that, it was trying to tell you that you needed to use certain specific words to get it to understand what you wanted your character to do. In this case it might be trying to tell you that you needed to use the specific word "follow" in some way or another. But if you didn't get that, you might type in

"Run" to which it would answer

"I don't know how to 'run' something"

"Go"

"I don't know how to 'go' something"

"Follow them"

"You walk down the hall to the door they disappeared into. What do you want to do?"

"Look inside"

"I can't."

"Step inside"

"I can't"

"Open the door"

"You try to open the door, but it's locked"

"Unlock the door"

"You have no key to unlock the door. What do you want to do?"

And at that point, you might have to have your character go back the way he came from, and locate a key, always careful to word it just right, or you wouldn't be able to do it.  Got so frustrated at those games!

And Eric was always so excited about them! I was always disappointed that they didn't have any graphics. A lot of times, Eric and I spent our spare time (and spare money!) at video game arcades. There was one at the corner of Tremainsville, Laskey and Douglas roads. It was in a building that years before had housed an A&P Grocery store. Now it was a video game arcade called "Happy Harley's". We'd go there and play video games. The place opened up sometime in 1981 right at the height of video game popularity. It was great! Some of the games they had were "Space Invaders" which is the predecessor of all video arcade games. They also had "Pac Man" and "Mrs Pac Man", "Donkey Kong", "Tron" and so many others. Back then the video games came in a large wooden cabinet that you'd stand in front of. The cabinet was usually painted with scenes from the game. They had a glass screen in the front, where you'd look in at the screen and play, by pushing, pulling, turning the various buttons and joysticks on the front.

We'd go there after school, and spend a few dollars if we had the money. You'd slide a dollar bill into the change machine slot, and for a dollar you'd get four quarters. Most of the games were a quarter per play. A play usually consisted of three lives or spaceships, or whatever, depending upon the object of the game. Happy Harley's was a cool place, because they always had the latest games to come out. A lot of the kids from school went there too. In the middle of the place there was a dividing wall, and on one side were the video games, and on the other side were billiard tables and foosball games. At first, the place was so cool!

But eventually, it began to attract a different kind of people. A lot of freaks (heavy drug users) began to hang out there, too. Gradually the place began to get run down. Eric and I didn't go there as often anymore. There were other arcades to go to. One was called "Red Baron" at Franklin Park Mall, at the corner of Talmadge road and Monroe street. Another was just down Monroe from the mall, and it was called "Putt Putt Golf and Games". You could go there and play a game of miniature golf, and also play their huge selection of video games.

During those days a typical evening for Eric and I would be to go to Putt Putt and then go to a place called "Mind Games". It was a store at the corner of Central avenue and Reynolds Road, and their specialty was selling role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. Eric and I played D&D a lot those days, and we were both obsessed with collecting and painting the miniature figurines that went with them. We did that a lot and over time we built up a very extensive collection of them.

Typically the figures were small… between a half inch and an inch tall, and made of lead. I had an extensive collection of paints from my model building days, and we used those to paint them. We'd often take them with us when we'd play D&D with friends.

I had met up with some guys in school in my algebra class. One was named Scott Herrick, and he introduced me to some of his friends that played D&D. Eric and I started playing D&D with them quite a bit. There was Scott Herrick, Eric Zahnle, Jim Baker (who had a constant role as our dungeon master) and Eric and I. We all played D&D a lot down in Scott Herrick's basement. After a while though, Eric and Scott started not getting along. Scott was becoming kind of a pushy type of person, and that didn't sit well with Eric. He always insisted that we play at his house, and always seemed to want to do things his way.

The final straw between them came one day in my car. Odd as it may sound, somehow, Eric Zahnle and Scott had talked us into having wars with BB guns. The really bad thing is that it sounded exciting, and Eric and I readily agreed! It sounded exciting and it was! It was also incredibly stupid! But we didn't think about that. It was fun to run through the woods with someone chasing you shooting at you. Sure, getting shot in the ass with a BB gun stung, but it did no permanent damage. The thing is, what would happen if you got shot on some other part of the body? We wore no kind of protective gear or clothing, but again, we didn't think about the bad things that could happen.

One time I was hiding from all three of them. I was hidden in huge clump of fallen trees and bushes. I was trying to ambush them from about thirty yards away as they walked down the trail in the woods looking for me. I quietly poked the muzzle of the BB rifle I had out between some leaves, sure that they couldn't see me. I fired one round and quietly laughed as Scott yelped when the BB struck his thigh! Suddenly one of them said, "There he is!" and BBs began flying at me! I jumped up to run out of there, and scratched my face on a bunch of branches, one poking me in the eye. I stumbled back, clutching my eye, just as a BB ricocheted off my right hand pinky finger, with a whine.

Swearing, I staggered back and yelled "I give up!" I dropped my rifle, and stumbled out of the fallen trees I'd hidden in, blood streaming down my hand, from my finger. One of them had seen me grab my face before, and now saw the blood on me, and thought the worst.

"Oh my God! You shot him in the eye!" Said one of them.

"No, it's my finger" I said. I looked down and the BB had hit my knuckle at a strange angle, dug into the skin and pushed it, resulting in a furrow from my middle knuckle almost all the way to my fingernail. The BB hadn't lodged under the skin, but it had torn the skin open rather badly. It was aching and bleeding like crazy.

Like I said, none of us ever thought about the damage that could be done. If they were like me though, they thought about it, but never really believed that anything really bad would happen. What kid would? I've heard that kids (when I say "kids" I'm also talking about teenagers) feel like they're indestructible. Like nothing dangerous or deadly could ever happen to them. I know I did!

If you could go back and visit me back then, a day or two before that BB gun injury and ask me "Hey, don't you klnow that's dangerous?" I would have probably said "Sure. I know." But would I really have meant that? Doubtful. It's just like the whole drinking and driving thing. I might have said I knew it wasn't a safe or smart thing to do, but I wouldn't have realized it until something bad happened. Fortunately, for me and for anyone else who happened to be driving on any of those nights when I was really drunk and driving back home, nothing bad ever did happen. I look back on it now, and realize just how stupid that was. It that whole thing about the wisdom that comes with age, I suppose.

So, we all decided to call it quits for the day, and we headed back to my car, and went home. I'm looking at my knuckles now, as I type this, and I realize that it didn't leave a scar. As a matter of fact, I don't remember too much about the incident after that.

Not too long after that, Eric and I stopped haning around with them, because of what Scott Herrick did. Eric and I picked up Scott, and were driving along Alexis road to get Eric Zahnle and the four of us were going to head to the woods for a BB gun war. Eric and Scott already didn't really like each other, and got along under an uneasy truce. This day would bring it all to a head. Eric Zahnle lived with his mom, in an apartment on Alexis and we pulled into the driveway there. Eric jumped out of the passenger seat to knock on the door. He did and a minute later he got back in and said "He'll be out in a minute."

Scott, who was sitting in the back seat with the BB guns, decided that he wanted to liven things up a bit. So, while we waited, he lifted one of the BB rifles, and placed the muzzle an inch or so away from the back of Eric's left arm... and pulled the trigger.

Eric yelped in pain, andturned to see Scott laughing and hold the rifle. I thought Eric was going to jump into the back seat and kill him! As a matter of fact he probably would have if his arm wasn't in so much pain.

"What the hell did you do that for?!?!" He hollered.

"Did it really hurt that bad?" Scott asked, and again I thought Eric would kill him. We looked at the camouflage shirt Eric had been wearing and saw a tiny hole in it. Eric took that shirt off and we saw a huge red pimple-like thing on his arm. I tired to touch it and Eric said not to, because it hurt.

Just then Eric Zahnle got and and seeing the commotion, asked what was going on. We told him, and he was in disbelief that Scott would do something so stupid.

I said I thought we should just call the whole thing off and Eric said, no it was okay.

So we drove down a block or two and stopped into the K-Mart store at the corner of Alexis and Jackman road to buy more BB's as we were running low and wanted have enough for our trip to the woods. But while we were inside, I could see that Eric was in a lot of pain. Scott meanwhile, was still laughing here and there. He obviously thought that Eric wasn't really in that much pain. But I could tell differently. So I said that I didn't want to do it anymore. We left the store, and I dropped Scott and Eric Zahnle off at their houses. Eric and I drove back to my house, and went inside. I had Eric take off his shirt so that I could look at it again. It looked more swoolen than before, and I was kind of worried. Eric couldn't really see it very well since it was on the back of his arm. He had to crane his neck around and use his right hand to "twist" the muscle around so he could see it. And even then he could barely see it.

As he was doing that, a little trickle of blood oozed fromt he tip of the swelling and then it stopped and I could see the shiny surface of the BB! It was embedded in the back of his arm! I told him that and he tried to squueze the thing and pop the BB out, like he was popping a pimple. But it didn't work.

I don't really remember what happened immediately after that, but I know that Eric went home that evening, and ended up watching the kids of some neighbors across the street, which was something he did a few times a week. The dad was a long-haul truck driver and the mom was a waitress, and they had to leave their kids in the care of a sitter several times a week and somehow Eric fell into the job.

Eric told me later that when he was there that evening, the dad (I believe his name was Vic) saw Eric fidgeting with his arm, in obvious pain, he asked what was wrong and the whole story came out. So, Vic took a look at it, and asked Eric if he wanted help getting the BB out. Of course the answer was yes, so he gave Eric a few drinks of whiskey to deaden the pain and relax him. Then he took out a razor blade, made a tiny slit in the skin next to the hole where the shiny BB could be seen. He gave it a gentle squeeze and out it popped. He then doctoredd it up with some alocohol (the medicinal kind, not the drinking kind) and put a tight bandage over it. We never hung out with those two kids after that. Can you blame us? I believe that Eric would have beaten the daylights out of Scott if he'd seen him again.

Eric and I still went to the arcades after that, and we still got along really well. For some weird reason, we both liked to run around in the woods. We'd drive out to some local woods, find a place to park the car and go hiking. We'd explore the trails other people had left, and just enjoy being outside. It seems strange, that around 18 years of age we liked hanging out in the woods. But it was fun. We enjoyed the outdoors and we weren't hurting or bothering anyone, so that was our version of fun.

 

My first job -

 

It was time for me to graduate high school. Big deal. I suppose it was. I mean heck, it was a milestone for me! But compared to other kids celebrations and such upon graduation, mine couldn't have been more low key or more boring. After the ceremony, which was huge, Eric and I met up, and walked through the parking lot together. Cars and excited kids were everywhere! It was loud, and raucous with a lot of car horns honking. We ended up going back to my mom house. I remember taking off my graduation gown and sitting there in my nice shirt and tie, sitting on the exercise bike in the living room, fiddling aimlessly with the tension meter. Eric sat on the couch and my mon was hanging around chatting with us asking us what it felt like and and things like that. I remember the whole thing feeling so... anti-climactic. It felt like we should be out partying, or driving off on a trip to Florida or some such thing. It was a huge thing in our lives, but it just didn't feel like it. To this day, I wish we'd have gone out partying or something. Anything! In that respect, graduation was a huge letdown. I think we did eventually go out driving around or something, but I don’t remember what we did. I was so much what I hadn’t expected.

Mom had been bugging me for the few months prior to that about getting a job. I had put in a few applications here and there, and not long after graduation, I was sitting at the top of the stair drawing, listening to some music on the headphones, when I heard a "thump" sound. I looked down and saw mom standing there. She'd had to bang her hand against the wall to get my attention. I took the headphones off and she said

"It's the manager of Lawsons on the phone for you."

I had to think for a moment… Lawsons? Oh, yeah. Lawsons was the name of a convenience store down on Douglas Road, maybe a mile at most, from the house. Sometime earlier in the month, I’d been out submitting job applications at different places, and Lawsons was one of them.

I went downstairs and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Sue Burton, the manager at Lawsons. I’m just wondering if you’re still interested in working here?”

“You bet!” I said.

She said that was good, and we arranged for me to come down to the store for an interview in a day or two. I don’t really remember the interview, but I do remember that I was fascinated that I got to go into the back room at the store for it. That seemed really interesting to me.

Although I don’t remember it, I do know that she asked me if I would have any problem working the overnight shift, from 11pm til 7am. I said no, and she hired me. She arranged for me to report to a Lawsons store out in west Toledo on Byrne Road for training, even though I’d be working at the store there on Douglas.

So several days later I showed up there, in a suit and tie, the same light blue one I’d worn for the interview. She’d never said how I should dress for my training, so I went ahead and decided to dress nicely…. I didn’t want to under-dress. I don’t really remember the training but, I do know that the lady who trained me told me that the next when I showed up, I could dress more casually. So the next day I wore blue jeans and a short sleeve shirt with a collar.

I hate to keep saying it, but I don’t remember what all happened for the next few days. How many days was I in training? Nope, I don’t remember that either. I vaguely remember someone teaching me how to make submarine sandwiches with the meat from the in-store delicatessen. The store was actually called “Lawsons Food & Deli”, and so the glass case with the meat in it always needed to be stocked with lots of sandwiches.

Finally, a few days later I worked my first shift in the Douglas Road store. I was technically still in training so I could learn how things worked at this particular store. I was working with a middle-aged woman named JoAnn. It seems like it was a week or so before I was ready to work on my own.

I’d be working the overnight shift, from 11pm til 7am. I’d been working the same shift with JoAnn, learning what things needed to be done. It was a lot different from the day shifts I’d been working while in training at the other store. Overnight, items on the shelves needed to be restocked, as well as ice cream in the freezers out on the sales floor. We had a soft drink fountain that needed to be refilled and set up for the upcoming day. Sub sandwiches needed to be made, and meats in the deli needed to be restocked as well. There were few customers during those late night hours. Usually between midnight and 5am there were fewer than five customers, so there was plenty of time for re-stocking…  the never-ending chore.

Usually I’d try to space out the tasks I needed to accomplish. I did that because if I hurried and got them all done within the first hour or two of my shift, then I’d be bored for the rest of the night. I’d take a small radio that usually sat behind the register, set it up on the counter, and tune it to K100, a country radio station in Toledo. I’d turn up the volume (no need to be quiet at that time of night) and work while I listened to country artists like Earl Thomas Conley, Ronnie Milsap and others. It was a pleasant job, although slow at times, especially if the deli case didn’t need a lot of re-stocking. And I can tell you this…. You meet a lot of strange people late at night. I met more than my share while I worked there. One stands out to me, especially;

She came in with a man at about 1:30am, and they wanted to buy some beer. I wasn’t allowed to sell any alcohol between 1am and 5am. They were already quite drunk, and were distraught when I wouldn’t sell them any beer. They pleaded and begged, but I wouldn’t give in.

“Nobody’ll know” she said.

“Yeah, just let us buy it and we’ll go” he said. But I wouldn’t relent. So they decided to go wait in their car in the parking lot, til I could sell it. So they went out to their car on the far side of the parking lot and got in and waited. I can only imagine what they were doing in there…. Probably having sex, I suppose. About an hour later she came back in, still drunk, and asked if there was a bathroom she could use. I told her that I couldn’t let her use the toilet because it was in the back room. She began pleading again.

“Really… I gotta pee so bad. Pleeeease.” But again I wouldn’t give in, so she left the store.

A short time later I was in the freezer. It was a small, closet like room where ice cream was stored til it could be restocked in the freezers on the sales floor. I was gathering containers of ice cream to bring out, when I thought I heard something out in the store. I opened the door and looked out. The store was quiet. So, I chalked it up to my imagination, and went back into the freezer. A few minutes later, I came back out and went over to the freezer on the sales floor to fill it with half-gallon cartons of ice cream. Humming and busy, I went on about my business. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement, and when I looked up this woman was standing about three feet away from me! I nearly jumped out of my skin!

“What are you doing?!”

“I told you I had to pee. I came in and you weren’t here so I went in back and used the bathroom.” She slurred her words.

As my heart rate was returning to normal, she walked out and went back to her car.

Then promptly at 5:01am, they both came into the store and bought a 12 pack of beer and left.

I worked at Lawsons for probably a year or so, at one point working 11pm-7am Monday through Friday and 7am til 4pm on Sunday. My tenure there came to a sudden end. I went in to work one night at 11pm, as usual, and my boss Sue Burton was there. What was she doing there at 11pm? That never happened. I went in and said “Hi, Sue, what are you doing here?”
She said she had to talk to me. She took me aside and said that she had to let me go. The regional manager had been doing surveys of the store, and I’d violated the rules for having excessive amounts of money in the register, one time too many. Overnight and during the early morning hours, it was against the rules to have more that $25 in the register. Any amount over that had to be placed in a small brown envelope, labeled and slipped through a slot where it would drop into the store safe