Apparently this is the age I really started to talk...This page is where I'm going to plant some random memories... Most of this won't mean a damn thing to the people not involved. Some of them might not even be known to friends and family... I seriously doubt anyone reads all this stuff anyway...
Abandon hope all ye who enter here. There be dragons...
Dropping a rock on my sisters face – Sherwood park home. It was an accident I swear.
Sanford…..
Recurring Dream –
as a kid I had this recurring dream where I was banging on the oil drum in the basement of the Heritage Park house and suddenly it breaks open and this large tiger comes out. On of my sisters is there, and I yell to run, and the tiger is chasing me. I run up the stairs past another sister and I yell run… and down the hall and out the front door. As soon as I hit the outside it’s like I’m running in peanut butter... I can’t make any progress at all and I know this Tiger is chasing me.
So I had this dream over and over... maybe 6 months between occurrences... and after a while it got to be like, "Oh... this again." The first time it was scary, but after a while it just became interesting. I would be aware that it was a dream and let it unfold like it always did... and experiment with different running techniques when I hit the peanut butter. It stopped at around age 15 or 16 I guess.
China
Working at K-Mart – Manager of Camera’s and Jewelry.
Working at Mckel hany and Kirk…
Working as a security guard.
Working at Wilmington Dry Goods.
Joe Lavash – Bob Stevenson – John Conway????? Check the last name.
The Lions – Older guys with no clue trying to get us into their organization –
LEOS
The Gutter Gang.. hanging out across the street in the gutter.
Camp Memories
Lori Sarner – and our trip to the beach.
L
Lori and I took a trip down to Rehoboth one weekend. Stayed in t flop house.. basically a room full of bunk beds – one for guys and one for girls. – We talked a lot about things.. nothing important just yakking friends.. suddenly she jumps up grinning from ear to ear and says "I’m not pregnant."… apparently her period had just started Apparently her and "Meatball" had been having sex.. and she was worried about it. Now a sudden rush to find some Tampax.. lol
Bone of Contention concert…Held in a large hall at the ??????? Church. Great bands and Good vibes. One Santana sound alike was particularly good.
The coffee house was a great time. Every Friday night… working the food window.. listening to the bands… doing a trivia night where we gave dumb prizes to the winners and a rigged question where I got to give Barbara Kessler a pie in the face.
First learning to French kiss with Barbara Kessler…. We were making out on a couch when her father came home and "caught us" He didn’t say anything but you could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew what was going on.
Apparently we were each others first French kissers (14 I think )… And didn’t know it about the other one until we talked about it later.
First Glasses – I always had trouble seeing the board.. but when you grow up nearsighted you knot know it’s not normal. When I got my first pair of glasses I was stunned.. You mean you were supposed to be able to SEE the leaves ona tree? I think the first thing I ever said was, "So this is what it’s supposed to look like." They were black plastic all around serious engineer dork glasses. Later I went in for the John Lennon look with wire rimmed glasses.
Argentina
Pocono’s –
Liver Biopsy……. And the idea of cancer… Peggy Conte…
Living in a Coed Dorm…….
Trips to the south meant new tastes that we only ever got while on vacation. Grandma’s corn bread, Dr. Pepper. Orange Crush… I loved Orange Crush…. Grits (I hated grits... still do). Pecan Pie at Stuckey’s.
Howard Johnson’s on the corner of Milltown and Kirkwood. Going there for hotdogs – they were good hot dogs. And later... Fried Clams (they were terrible, but teenage tastes loved em). We would go there as friends, and friends worked there.
Arby’s on Kirkwood... used to have real horse radish that me and John Conway would pile on and enjoy.
Top wisdom teeth taken out……
Buying jeans at Good Will – downtown Wilmington.
My room in the basement… Dark Blue.. Tapestry ceilings, whore house couch.
Movie theatre in Wilmington… with a huge hole you could look down on the audience … between the orchestra and balcony seats… And years later, going back into that same theatre.. completely gutted.. with the seats laying all over.. this was one of those huge old movie houses that could easily hold a 1000 people… or so it seamed. Now it was slowly being restored.
The STATE theatre on Main St. Newark
Good films
Fun times.
Dorm Memories….
George Kenedy… the first gay person I ever met and talked about being gay with. (Other than my cousin allen mentioned earlier… at that time I didn’t know what gay was.
Making out with ????? between myself and Roert Tait…. In a room with a sort of orgy going on…
There was a party at someone’s apartment, and the whole dorm went there… and I got drunk. It was the first time anyone had seen me drunk, and they were amazed.. thinking I didn’t drink at all. Wrong.. I just don’t drink to excess often. I remember guys drinking so much beer that they would puke in the bathrooms, and that seemed tobe the goal of the whole process. Stupid.
Doing a small sacrifice out back of the dorm.
Dragging matteresses outside to sleep when it was so hot inside. I lived on the first floor of Harrington A dormitory. Rom 103…
Moving into the dorms early the second year so we could prep HTAC … the back side was completely flooded due to rains and people were splashing in the river that was there..
Skinny dipping in Bransywine creek with Nancy Limpert, Rusty Brohan, and Sarah Northrop. I am clueless how we all ended up there, but we did. Nancy and I were a thing, and I think Rusty and Sarah were too, so there was no fooling around going on, but it was a nice day and the water was perfect.
I HAD THIS IDEA FOR A NUDE PHOTO SHOT THAT I WANTED TO DO. I WANTED TO CREATE A PERFECTLY BLACK ROOM, PUT ONE VERY POWERFULL LIKGHT IN IT, AND TAKE SILOHETTE SHOTS OF A NUDE. The object being to capture just ehe curves of the body and not the details. I tried to get C.B to pose for me, but she wouldn’t. I wanted her because she had the right body shape to do it… very curvy. Try as I might, I couldn’t talk her into it. S.N. agreed though, and I set up the room in a corner of the basement using died sheets and black photo paper. I found a 1000 watt bulb (I didn’t even know they made them like that), and S. came over. I told her I would pay her some amount.. I can’t recall how much.. so I was prepped to use every minute of the time because it was costing me a bunch of money.
I had a ton of film laying around.. black and white TRI-X I think it was as that is what I used most of the time. S. Did every pose I asked, and Iit was all business.
Later when I developed the shots there were about 5 that came out worth something. One.. the best, doessn’t even look like a nude until you pay close attention to it.It looks like smoke curling up as from a a cigarette laying in an ash tray. Then your mind twists and you realize that it is the shape oa a neck and the and the top of a breast. It’s like the best photo I have ever taken.
Unfortunately the negatives were wrecked in a flooded basement in the Brookside house and the photo’s are not printable any longer. Besides, though S. signed a contract, she may have been underage at the time meaning to print those pictures now might be kiddy porn. Though that was never the intention… Just me, wanting to explore one of my atritic urges. I get them all the time and I need to let them vent.
How I met Vicki…..
I was taking summer school at the University. They let people live in the dorms at Pencader. These dorms were set up as 3 story buildings with 2 "quads" per floor. Each quad had a door that lead outside, and an inner door that shared a bahroom/ shower area with the other rooms in the quad. Well.. I got paired up with this guy who had a girlfriend living in a single upstairs. He wanted her to move in with him, so I swapped into her room, and shared my quad with the girls on that foor. I was the only guy doing this, and no one seemed to have a problem with it..
In any case, Ruth Lambert was living with Suzie Whitman in another building, and I don’t know how I eneded up in her room looking through her wallet, but as I was doing so I cam across this picture of thei really gorgeious girl. "Wow. I’d like to meet her some time." I said.
The next weekend, Ruth brought Vicki up to meet me. One thing led to another, and she ended up in my room.
Having learned my lesson from my first experience, and with Nancy, I insisted on using spermicide and a condom. It was her first time. …
We bagan to see each other pretty regular after that… I dorve down to see here and we would sneak off to a hotel. Her family didn’t like me at first sithgt.
The time Donny and Mom came out and "cought" us coming out of a friends condo after having sex for hours. Donny intimidating me and asking if I was ready to marry her… me saying no, because it was the truth… What an asshole given what I know about him now...
1954-1955
Nope. I'm not one of those people that remembers anything from being a baby. Don't know what I'd want to remember. Lack of coordination. Crying for food. Laying in my own shit.(wait.. that's old age, dang ) Nah.. that's okay. Let the brain do it's wiring thing the first year and leave the memories for later.
1955-1956
1956-1957
1957-1958
1958-1959
Apparently this is the age I really started to talk...Guess I didn't have anything to say before that.. though in fact I dont remember
Mrs.
Jaco's pre-schoolMrs. Jaco ran a pre-school on Milltown road, just a couple of hundred yards up from the entrance to the neighborhood I lived in (Sherwood Park). Now, I don't recallvery much about it, in fact this is probably the earliest memories I can dredge up. I remember playing on the equipment in the back yard, and doing "arts and crafts" in the large room of the house. I think we took naps too, but that's not really accessible. I'm told I walked there, but don't remember doing that. Still, the memories are surrounded by a good feeling, so I must have enjoyed it.
There was an article in the Wilmington News Journal just a couple of months ago (March 2004) about this school finally closing it's doors. Imagine that. I'm 49 now, and the pre-school I went to was still running.
1959-1960
1960-1961
CBS Children's Film Festival, their original series (1947 - 57),
The play ground there and how high you could go on the swings.- playing with pine needles in the woods - getting my finger sharpened. - the bus to Sanford School, asking the driver to go fast over the bump
1961-1962
TreesOne time, coming home from church in the spring, the maple trees were dropping their usual ton of seeds, so I picked some up and took them home and planted them. (Okay, it wasn't until years later that I learned these things are the "weeds" of the tree world.. and would curse them as I clean hundreds of small trees out of my rain gutters.) My parents encouraged this, though why is a mystery to me. Eventually when we moved from the house in Sherwood Park to the house in Heritage Park, they transplanted the tree, and it stands in the front yard to this very day. Kinda cool.
1962-1963
The way Sally Starr dressed, and don't forget the CowTown Rodeo
Elsmere Presbyterian ChurchThis is the first church I remember attending. We'd all pile into the car, dress up in Sunday best, and drive up Kirkwood Highway to the town of Elsmere to attend an old brick church under a bunch of maple trees. (I think they were maples.)
The inside was pretty much a standard Presbyterian church, but I remember behind the alter this large purple curtain... heavy material like velvet or something. While sitting in church I'd imagine that behind that curtain was some great dark secret place, like a doorway straight to God or something. I never got the courage to go up to that curtain and look behind it. Obviously my spatial abilities were not quite up to snuff, because I knew there was a large room behind the front wall of the sanctuary and that meant there was nothing behind the curtain... but still.. even then, I loved to play with my imagination and let it take me where it would.
John McCleary was the minister there for a while. John, and his wife Lila were good family friends. So goo in fact that I took a trip with them, but that's another section.
Sometime around when I began to develop memories of this place, the church finished construction of a new building that was just class rooms and facilities for community service. This became the "Sunday School". I can't recall a single thing I ever learned there, though I must have picked up something as I have the normal grounding in christian lore that all kids get indoctrinated with.
The only thing I DO remember doing in that building was playing a game of telegraph (where one person starts a message and it is whispered from person to person down the line until you compare the message at the end to the starting message) with a bunch of other kids. It was pretty darn funny and we all had a ball.
Doctor's Office in ElsmereJust up the street about a block from the Elsmere Presbyterian Church, was the office of the doctor that I used to go to as a kid. His name eludes me now, but I'll always remember the office. The waiting room was great, one of those classic waiting rooms from a Norman Rockwell painting. There were brown leather appostered chairs. A moose head on one wall. Old books and magazines. It looked like a "man's" study. You could tell that no woman had ever laid a decorative hand on it.. or would want to. I loved that waiting room.
Bent staircase between the two levels.. santa between the two floors
1963-1964
Moving to our new homeWe moved from our old development to our new one when I was 9. The house we bought was a model house, so it has some things built in that didn't come with other houses. One of these was a large bookshelf and cabinets in the living room. These eventually became the home of our National Geographics collection. Grandpa had started subscribing in 1908 and we had issues all the way back to there. It was always fun to look at the old car ads in these and see what was advertised, and how much it cost.
There was also a large cloth.. thing.. in the living room, that hung around until we put a piano there.
I don't recall my Mom and Dad going house hunting. I just remember them saying one day that we were moving and them showing us the house we were going to move into, and telling us it was a model home. It had a large W on the chimney that stood for "Winthrop".. the name of the model. We replaced this pretty quickly with a large "B" for our family name. Since the house was right at the end of the neighborhood entrance drive it quickly became a landmark for people giving directions .. i.e. Go until you see the large white house with the "B" on the chimney. Everyone knew that house. For years I'd tell people where I lived and thy would say, "Oh.. I know that house. You live there?!"
I always wanted a brother, and at the age of 9 I got my wish finally. Course, in the beginning he was pretty useless as a brother, being a baby and all. But as time went by, he got to be pretty good company and quite fun to play with. I mean, I was a teenager, and he was a kid, but we used to wrestle around... I always rather enjoyed the excersize and the ability to let him "hold his own" in any contest.
Though, the one time he split my lip open and I had to get stiches, well, maybe we were a little rough that time. To this day I whistle out the side of my mouth because of the scar tissue on the inside of my lip.
I recall how he was always so competative that if you phrased anything as a contest, he was always up and ready to go. I used to get him run around the house saying I'd time him. You know, funny thing is, I can't ever recall looking at my watch once when I was supposedly timing him. It was always.. That was good. Now do it again. That way I got to talk to my friends while my brother ran himself silly in competition with himself.
Hagley MuseumI actually do not remember the first time I ever visited the Hagley Museum, but this would have been around the right age for my first visit.
The Hagley Estate is where the DuPont Company first got starting in America making Black Powder. The musuem was a must see for all grade school kids in the whole of northern Delaware and surrounding Pennsylvania because it gave a really good window into the history of the area, of the time, and of the country in general around the time of the revolution. There were displays, dioramas, animated displays, and films that explained alot about how people lived in the mid 1700's and especially how important gun powder was back then.
Now, today when I tell this, people think I'm crazy or lieing, but basically every single school kid in northern Delaware when I was growing up was taught the formula for making gunpowder while they were in grade school. I kid you not.
(Potassium nitrate, 75 per cent, charcoal,15 percent, and sulfur 10 percent. Mix and grind... CAREFULLY)
The museum is just one part of the whole Hagely experience. Once you visit the museum you walk up the river to see the mills. Its a beautiful place to be.. very peacefull today, but you can imagine what it must have been like when it was a thriving industiral area.
This is one of the water wheel powered rollers used to make gun powder. These are the mill buildings - designed with thick walls in the back, but flimsy roofs and river side walls so that explosions would blow out into the river instead of back at the workers houses. It was one of the safest powder mills in the country, though people still died there in explosions. It was not a safe business.
I loved Hagley. I liked the sense of history there. I like being near the water. And I like seeing how water powered technology worked. I highly recommend it for a spring or fall visit.
Kennedy AssasinationI was 9 when Kennedy was assasinated. Unlike most people I can't recall exactly where I was or what I was going at the time. Hell, I was just a kid. But since my birthday is the day after he was shot, I would imagine it had some impact.
I do, however, recall the funeral. Kennedy lay in state for a time in the Capitol building. On the day of the funeral I remember sitting in front of the TV and watching the whole thing. I remember the casson carrying the casket. I remember the riderless horse (at the time I remember thinking, boy, they sure put alot of symbolism in this parade). I remember the family at the cemetary.
Years and years later (approx 2001) I visited Kennedy's grave. Of course, by this time it included Bobby and Jackie Kennedy.
And years and years later I watched the restored Zapruder film where it was re-photographed and enlarged. You can see the whole thing clear as day, and it really proves that there was one shooter and how horrific it was in the car when the top of his head exploded.
1964-1965
Loved it.. every year.
Soupy Sales and the pie in the face in every show. White Fang. - Lunch with Soupy Sales was the name of the show... and it was great.
1965-1966
Saturday Morning CartoonsI loved Saturday mornings. That was the time to sit by the tube and watch cartoons that I loved. Some of these were Top Cat, Johnny Quest, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Rocky and Bullwinkle.
I think Rocky and Bullwinkle were my favorites. Somehow, even then I knew there was alot of adult humor going on in this series and I liked that. Everything about this series was good... Fractured Fairy Tales, Sherman & Peabody and the WayBack Machine, Duddley Do-Right of the Mounties.. and of course "Squverl and Moose" as Boris used to say.
My second favorite cartoon was Top Cat. It too seemed to have plenty of adult appeal (having been based on an adult show to begin with - TC's character loosely based on Sgt. Bilko by Phil Silvers).
There was also an obscure cartoon called Clutch Cargo (poorly animated... Here is a web page...) It was so miniamaly animated that they would fake the lip movements on the characters using an overlayed cartoon and real lips.. haha. But for some reason I liked it.
Man is the measure of all things
Hay Rides - String Pulls - Mexican Hand Cuffs -
1966-1967
Finding an old log cabin in a pasture
Feeding Hogs
Getting snakes
Hike with my dad - gunshot
Humming birds for the first time.
Potatoes
Water stops... salamander in the pipe.
Yum's Lak Kraut?
Sitting in the back of the Plymouth Fury III station wagon for miles on end.
Motels with swimming pools
Mt Mitchell.. looking up. Mt. Mitchell.. from the tower looking down.
Grand Father Mountain here here here here - The "Mile High Swinging Bridge" and webpage
The Rhododendrons of Roan Moutain - the whole moutain in bloom.
1967-1968
The trip over on the Ile de France
London - Picadilly Circus - Westminster Abby - The Palace
Crossing the channel
The famous mercedes - even the star fell out - Stopping in Belguim while it gets fixed.
Wiedhoffen - Gasthouses - Mountains - Sontagberg - Skeleton in a glass case - The place my mother grew up - The pool - The movies - Drinking and getting tipsy - The hike up the mountain - Train to the lake
Paris - Eiffel Tower - Arch de Triomph - wax toilet paper -
Traveling on The FRANCE - the longest cruise ship ever built.In 1947, the Ile was returned to French possession and immediately went to the Penhoët shipyards for rebuilding. Spanning a period of two years, the refit would change many aspects of the ship both inside and out. The Ile's profile would be forever altered as new streamlined funnels replaced the old. The aft dummy funnel was forever and the Ile de France was evermore a two funneled liner. The ships accommodations were also altered to 541 First, 577 Cabin, and 227 Tourist class passengers. From the start of her first post-war maiden passenger voyage in 1949, the Ile de France enjoyed a prosperous decade of service. Her offering of First Class service and accommodation continued to attract passengers who enjoyed the renown hospitality of the French Line. The Ile de France brushed with notoriety on several occasions during her post-war career. In July 1956, she would aid in the rescue of survivors from the Andrea Doria-Stockholm collision. By 1959, the jet age was inaugurated and ocean travel was on a rapid decline. Yet another liner to fall victim to this trend, the French Line wished to quietly dispose of the ship and spare the ship any sort of undignified fate. The ship was sold to a Japanese scrapping company and departed Le Havre waters on February 16, 1959. Unceremoniously renamed Furansu Maru for the voyage, the send-off she received was one long remembered in the hearts of those who had occasion to sail aboard the French Line's most popular post-war liner. Her last public appearance would be as a floating prop for a Hollywood film entitled "The Last Voyage". Partially sunk, and victimized by Hollywood special effects and movie crews, the Ile de France fetched a $4,000/day lease rate from the Japanese scrapper. After filming was concluded, the ship was refloated and towed to the scrapyard for her final indignity as she was reduced to rubble, her grand interiors to be remembered only as the set of a Hollywood disaster film. Ile de France Vital Statistics: Gross tonnage: 43,153 (1927), 44,356 (1949) Length: 791 feet Width: 92 feet Machinery: Steam turbines geared to quadruple screw Speed: 24 knots Capacity: 670 First, 408 Cabin, 508 Third (1927); 541 First, 577 Cabin, 277 Tourist (1949) Built: Chantiers de l'Atlantique Shipyard, St. Nazaire, France, 1927 Demise: Scrapped in Osaka, Japan, 1959
Arieal of the Fort. The front of the fort. The officer's quarters in the fort. The mote around the fort. The fort from a distance.
Trip
to the Hospital to sew up my brotherOne day my brother and younger sister were "playing". Playing in my family often consisted of mild tormenting of a fellow sibling one way or another. (I did not drop that rock on her face on purpose I tell you !!!) Anyway.. apparently my sister ran off with some item that my brother wanted. She ran. He chased. She went out the front door. He went through it. The first I knew of anything going on was the sound of crashing glass as my brother put his whole arm through the glass window pane on the lower half of the front screen door.
When I arrived upon the scene I don't recall seeing John... but I do recall seeing Sue hysterical on the front lawn. I recall some time spent trying to calm her down that may have ended with a slap to the face. Hello.. you're not the one hurt here. Next thing I new, I was corralled into the back seat of the car with John, his hand wrapped in a towel. Mom was driving. It was my job to hang on to him while we went to the Doctor's office. I don't recall him crying or anything. The drive to the doctors office was quick, and we we hustled into the office as soon as we arrived.
The doc took one look at John's hand and said that we be better off taking him to the emergency room where they could handle sewing him up better. He had a long cut on the back of his hand, and the side was pretty well mangled up with lots of cuts in various directions. So, back into the car we went.
The emergency room was quite a drive in those days, but it didn't look like a situation that needed alot of hurry. My mother was pretty frantic too, as you would imagine, and kept asking if John was okay.
Well, at one point I looked down at him, and found that the entire front of his body was covered in blood. Apparently his right hand was not the only thing that had gotten cut. He had suffered some kind of stab wound from the glass near his armpit on the right side of his body. Health class had taught me there was an artery near there, and with the amount of blood I was thinking maybe it had got hit. So I clamped a hand down on this pressure point hard.
I did NOT tell my mother what was going on. She was driving as fast as she could safely do it anyway, and she didn't need this new information to get us where we were going. I didn't think telling her would "enhance" the situation any. So she found out about it when we got to the hospital. I think by that time Jphn's arm was completely numb from me having clamped down on it and holding on until then.
Anyway.. He did have a stab wound near his arm pit, and got a nice set of scars from the whole experience.
This was one of those incidents that sealed my reputation for being cool under pressure. Sigh.
1968-1969
My
friend Archie BradleyArchie was a big guy.. I mean.. HUGE. He towered over everyone and weighed more than any kid in school. Somehow, his size never made a difference to me. He was just Archie. We hung out together alot. Going to the same schools and and all. He lived about 4 blocks away in the same neighborhood. I don't recall how we met and became friends.
There were some specific good times I remember with Archie. Once we were down at Brandywine park with a group of friends, and I stripped off and jumped in the river. The water was great and I swam down stream a ways. Archie showed up eventually, and I think it was the first time he'd ever gone skinny dipping cause he turns to me and says something like, "Hey, this is kinda turning me on." Hehe.. I took a step away from him at that point. Didn't want to get to close if you know what I mean. When we got back to the rock with our clothes on it, my friend Laurie Sarner was there. She grabbed my clothes and threatened to steal them, assuming I would not get out of the water naked to chase after her. WRONG. I jumped out of the water and went after her and she was so shocked she just threw my clothes down and ran screaming. It was a good laugh.
Another time, at the Bone of Contention Coffie house I'll never forget, me and another guy were trying to wrestle Archie to the ground. Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. He threw me down, I got up and ran at him again, just as he threw the other guy through the air right into me. I remember seeing my glasses take off in the opposite direction of my body and thinking that was kind of cool, before we both hit the ground and tumbled down a hill
Another coffee house incident happened when I agreed to escort some girls over the the High School, which was next door because they didn't want to walk in the dark alone. While we were walking some guys passed us going in the opposite direction. I felt a tap on my shoulder and someone said, "Don't I know you?" As I started to turn I got hit by a round house punch so hard that all I saw was a flash of light. Next hing I knew I was flying backwards and a tumbled to land on all fours. One half of my brain was saying, "Hey, let's get the hell out of here." and the other half was saying, "No, let's stick around and find out what just happened." While they were arguing with each other the guy that punched me laughed and walked off.
The girls I was walking with came rushing over, helped me up, and walked me back into the coffee house. Someone thought there was some kind of joke going on since they said it looked like a pizza had been pushed into my face. All I remember is sitting in a chair while someone grabbed napkins and and ice pack and being told to sit there til my nose stopped bleeding. I don't recall it actually hurting very much. Someone also came in and handed me the two halves of my glasses.
When Archie heard about this he ran out to go look for the guy, to no avail. At least, to no avail that night. But apparently Archie really wanted to look out for me. The next week at shcool, here was this long haired hippy (me) walking around with the biggest black eye you could imagine. A funny picture when you think about it.
And about mid week, I'm sitting in the school newspaper office when in comes Archie with this other big guy. He tells me that this is guy who punched me out. The guy says he's sorry, that he thought I was someone else. I asked him to show me his fist. This guy had a fist the size of a brick. I looked at it and said something like, "Yeah, that's the one all right." and told him appology accepted. Hell, I got new glasses out of the deal so no long term harm done.
Years later he got married to a woman named Lynette. She was shorter than me. They had at least 2 children together, and later divorced, but reconciled.
Archie died in 2002. Heart failure. He and I had fallen out of touch when he became "born again" and got really involved in the fundamentalist movement. The last I heard of him we was working as muscle for an anti-abortion crusader. (The news article I read described him as a "goon".. he was overwhelming.. that's for sure.) It always pissed me off that he was traveling around the country crusading for unborn children when he had two kids of his own that he was not taking care of. But later I hear he went back to his former wife, which is good.
Going to the races in the summer.
1969-1970
That's a hell of a heading I will admit, but after I tell this story you'll get what I mean.
One day, in High School, I was with my friend Roger who was involved with the school newpaper, The Patriot. He had to stop in the newpaper office to pick up something or other, and I walked in with him. At the time the office was near the cafetria in a room just off one of the entrances to the school.
I walked in, and this girl, Beth Phillips, got off the table she was sitting on, walked over, gave me a hug and quick kiss on the cheek.
I looked at her, "What was that for?"
"You looked like you needed it.", was the answer.
From then on, I started hanging around the newspaper and yearbook offices. I met the group of people that I began to identify with, and still do to this day. The Hippies. I never had a relationship with Beth Phillips, and never looked for one, but something about the instant acceptance made me feel better than just about anything else in life to that point. Weird I know.
I call that the moment that my life took off in an interesting direction... affecting everything that ever came there after.
November 15, 1969 Anti-War Protest I went to the largest anti-war protest in the history of the Vietnam War. I got on a bus at the University of Delaware Student Center. The bus was run by the YAF - Youth Against Facism. (Okay, so at the time I didn't really know what Facism was... but it was a ride to Washington. I also didn't know that YAF was a Communist organization. Oh well. I guess McCarthy would have grabbed me too.) On the trip down we got "training"; on how to handle tear gas (don't rub your skin, no matter how much you want to - get a damp cloth over you mouth and nose) and what to do if arrested (go limp, don't help em move you to where ever it is your going to end up).
When we got to D.C. the crowds were UNBELIEVABLE. I have never seen anything like it since. The area around the Washington Monument was more crowded than I had ever seen it. The area in front of the White House was packed with people. At one point, in trying to make our way through the crowd the only way to get by was to troop through a trailer that was set up with toilets... there was a door on each end, and so we just used it to get from the park to the street.
Once on Pennsylvania Ave we were able to start moving toward the Capitol. We were shouting slogans ("Free Angela, free Erica, stop the war against black America!" - Okay.. I was young.. I didn't know who Angela Davis was, and I still don't know who "Erica" refers too. Got to Google that some time). I noticed alot of people standing around taking pictures. They didn't appear to be part of the crowd but just observers. I assumed they were part of the FBI shooting photo's to make files on people later or to try and catch someone known on film. I didn't hide my face. I figured it was all part of history and what did I care if the FBI had my picture on file.
We could not get very close to the Capitol because the crowd was so dense. People were packed in - standing room only. People were climbing statues and lamp posts. Speakers on the platform were talking, but you couldn't hear what they were saying. The whole point was to just BE there, and show America how big the opposition was growing.
It was a specatular day and completely peaceful. A month later there was another march, and this one turned into a riot. The police converted a stadium into a prison for a time. I remeber watching this on the news and thinking that it was a shame that it had gotten violent. I thought the peaceful protests were much more effective.
The 'Mobilization' peace demonstration in Washington DC had a crowd estimated at from 250,000 to 500,000. This event remains the largest single anti-war protest in US history.
Darkroom and paper office - art classroom - photography - Getting a hug that changed my life.
Where it was - when it was - outside party and inside party - smoking - getting my head bashed in - pie in the face for - pakring in church parking lot for school - getting stopped by the cops for "stopping on the highway"
1970-1971
My first car was a Ford Falcon - a bronze goldish colored thing (with a hint of rust here and there.. grin) that was a 3 on the colum shifter. It had a really crappy clutch, which was perfect to learn on as it would slide all the time. A tight clutch is harder to learn on because you have to get the easing out process just right or you stall the car. With a loose clutch you can just pop that puppy and the car goes and the transmission eventually catches up with the engine. Not that I didn't manage to stall it a few times.
My dad was really patient.. and a really good teacher. He'd watch the road and the environment while I struggled to get all the steps right just to get the car moving. We drove around enough so that I got comfortable with the shift... then he tought me how to hold it on hills, and how to kick start the car using the clutch. He even taught me how to double clutch to shift down gears at high speed (relatively... in those old transmissions you could not put it into first without first revving up the gear box... modern cars don't have this problem). All this held me in great sted when I got a in the summer with my Stick Shift abilities.
As I said above, my first car was a 1964 Ford Falcon hard-top coupe. I loved that car. I had a ton of good times in it. I was one of those kids who could not WAIT to get my driver's license. I've always loved to drive, and still do. And that car, with the shift on the column was a great car to learn to drive in. DANGEROUS AS FREAKING HELL it was. It had a metal dash board. No one had even heard of shoulder belts in those days. And accident in one of those was just asking for it. Fortunately I never had an accident (in that car).
It became known as the Wombat Mobile because of the noise it would make when there was a hole before the muffler and you hit the gas hard. WOOOOOMMMMMMbat. We fixed the hole, but the name stuck. I even put is across the front of the car painted on tape. (Duct tape as a car customizing tool.. cool).
I learned alot about auto mechanics on that car too. On todays cars you open the hood and it a mass of pipes and wires and not an inch to spare. On the Falcon, you open the hood to look at the shine on your shoes. There was the engine in the middle, and so much empty space on either side that you could have put storage bins in there for long trips.
One day, Dad finally decided it was time to fix that loose clutch. We dragged a couple of unsplit logs from the back yard, jacked the car up, put it on top of the logs, and that gave us enough space to work underneath on the transmission and clutch (real hill billy auto work here). With sufficient cussing and bitching I watched how he took the whole thing apart... at one point dodging out of the way when transmission oil started to flow freely... until the transmission was off, the drive shaft hanging down and the clutch plates exposed.
Now.. just to give you an idea how robust these cars where.. there were supposed to be 6 bolts on the clutch plate itself. But we found only 5. The other had worked itself loose and was not a fine metalic powder all around the inside of the clutch housing. No wonder the clutch was slipping. Grin
We put in a new clutch plate.. a new throw-out bearing, and put the whole thing back together. From then on I had a much tighter clutch... but by then I knew how to adapt to any clutch quickly and it was no problem.
While working on the Bone of Contention Coffie House, I got involved in the church that was it's sponsor. Bob Fatz was the pastor, and he talked a couple of us into making a trip to a Baptist camp up in the Pocono's to do some physical labor to get the place in shape for the summer. A couple agreed to go, and we were to spend a weekend up there working. I think we left on a firday and came back on Monday (there had to be at least 2 nights there.)
The camp was this huge place with a large building that may have been a hotel at one time. This is where the camp counselors and full-time staff stayed.
Well, after a days worth of work I met this girl by the name of Jayne F. She seemed to like me.. I sure liked the attention, and one thing led to another. That evening a group of us decided to sleep under the stars in sleeping bags on top of a hill behind the main building. Jayne and I ended up in the same sleeping bag and there was plenty of making out going on all that night.
The next day was again full of labor, but that night, Jayne took me to her room and we spent the night together. Now, she was 21 and I was 16. Needless to say the event was amazing, and quick. Hey, what do you want for my first time.
Well, the next day I hopped in the car and left.
A few months go by and I get this card from Jayne saying that she was going to send me a Father's Day card, but didn't because she had gone to New York for an abortion. Wow. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought I should go visit. I packed up some stuff, told my family I'd be back in a few days, and drove up to the Poconos to see Jayne.
Jayne apparently had a thing for younger (read under age) guys, and had a steady boy friend by the time I showed up. I wanted to hang around for a while to figure out what was what, so I asked the camp director if he had a job. As luck would have it the "camp driver" had suffered and injury in a game of chicken (I'll explain in a minute) and he needed someone who could drive a clutch. That was me. I now had a job that paid room and board.
I also had a complete blast of a summer.
The very day I arrived and got the cold shoulder from Jayne I met Carol W. We got friendly quickly... ie. that same evening. Now, the guys all said not to bother with Carol as she was "a cold fish"... later that evening when we were both naked I really had to wonder what they were talking about. This fish was plenty warm.
Now, having been burned once in the pregnancy department I was reluctant to "go all the way" if you catch my dirft. So we didn't. But things were still quite heavy for the entire summer.
My job consisted of driving and labor. Each morning we (the guys) would get up at 5:30 or 6:00 am and head down to the main camp about a half mile away. Mostly people would clamber into and onto my car (the Ford Falcon - the Wombat Mobile). We would arrive in the central kitchen where the master chef was making up breakfast for 200 or so kids. This was loaded into 3 cansiters that held the pots of "mostly done" breakfast (I'll explain in a minute). Then these canisters and 6 people would all climb into the panel truck (an ancient vehicle that needed a starter pedal to start) and I would drive. We'd go to one out kitchen, drop off 2 people and one canister, and then head to the second out kitchen where the next two people and a canister would get off, and finally to the last out kitchen were I and my partner would hustle the canister into the kitchen and start "finishing breakfast".
For example, if breakfast was going to be french toast. One pot in the canister would contain a bunch of bread, one a batch of scrambled eggs uncooked, and another finished bacon. My partner and I would fire up a griddle and start finishing the cooking process. Somewhere in this process in would troop 70 kids or so.. with their counselors who would break out the bug juice and get them settled down for breakfast. We'd finish cooking, serve it up, and eat whatever it was that was on the menu with them.
This might sound kind of tedious, but it was really alot of fun. The kids were always a blast, and certain personalities still stick out in my mind. There was this one kid, about 10 years old; could not sit still for the life of him. He danced. He danced constantly. And he was good. And he had a sense of humor. The kid was a laugh every time we saw him. (Bet he drove his counselors crazy.. but we only saw him at meals.. grin).
Where it was - the old house - the root cellar - the concert - tire riding - the fire hydrant - the new place church - PDR - OD Angie - stopping a suicide - driving late at night -
Longwood Gardens was a staple of mine growing up. It was the place the family would go to on a sunday to wander the woods and see the gardens and play in the topiary. The giant main green house was one of my favorite places
But there was this one time when, in order to leave the place, me and several others had to climb over one of the surrounding walls. The story goes like this.....
Tire
RidingOne day a small group of us got the bright idea of attaching a long chain to the bumper of my car.. and then tying an old tire to that. Then.. someone would ride on the tire while we drove around in a field of tall and short grass and puddles. This was the same field near Touchstone that we held the rock concert in. (It's amazing any of us made it to adulthood.)
This was a great game since the person on the tire just had to find a way to hang on... got slammed in the face with all kinds of bugs.. and wet when the tire hit a puddle and everything splashed up. It was fun.
Flight Simulator.. sound.. script.. "Fail Peace" - The plot being that one side unilaterally destroys part of it's arsenal by accident, causing the other side to escalate and destroy part of theirs. Eventually, both sides are left with no military at all and they look at the devestation and wonder how it all came about.
Winter Driving... Learning to slideI remember the first time I ever really lost control while driving. Archie and Jon were in the car with me and we had just turned the corner from Grendon Drive up to Skyline Drive. The roads where total ice. I hit the gas to hard coming out of the curve, and the car did a full 180 - ending up facing the opposite direction and stopping when it hit the gutter side ways.
Three teenage boys. What was the reaction? "COOL.. LET'S DO THAT AGAIN !!!!!"
I spent time in parking lots when it was icy... purposely skidding and getting out of skids.. practice that has gotten me out of trouble a few times. I recall my Dad giving me advice on how to get out of a skid, and I practiced it plenty. I'm a firm believer that people need to learn the limitations of their cars, and what to do when it all goes to hell.
1971-1972
My
Grandfather dies - Apr 15, 1971I don't recall how the news of my grandfather's death arrived. All I knew was that it had happened and that I was going to be a pall bearer. I was not looking forward to this task as I had the natural trepidation that comes with going to your first funeral. I'd never been to a funeral before, and did not know what to expect.
The night before the funeral was the viewing for my grandfather. I'd never seen a dead body before and was clueless about what to expect. We got to the funeral parlor, went into the room, and there he was. Casket at the front of the room open. I walked up to it, and, well, it looked like my granfather. But with the worst make-up job I had ever seen. Like a badly retouched photo. In fact, there was all the powder in the crease of his lips. I started to bend over with the intention of blowing it off, but stopped when the thought struck me I might blow off his whole face. Okay.. that would be embarassing.
The next day the service was to be held at Mulberry Church, right across the road from my Grandfather's house. I don't remember if we walked over or road over or what. But I remember the hearse pulling up and us pall bearers being lined up to get the coffin up the stairs to the waiting wheelie. My cousins Stanley and Allen were also pall bearers. Well, it was no big struggle, and eventually the open coffin was there at the front of the church.
I went up to my cousin Allen (who I had always been my favorite cousin) and told him he simply HAD to walk up to the front of the church and see the make-up job on Grandpa. He had not gone to the viewing the night before, but I persueaded him to walk up with me and take a look. We stood there silently for a minute, and then went to the downstairs area of the church.
We walked into the Men's room where there was some privacy and I say something like, "Well.. what do you think?" To which he answers (while primping in the mirror and flicking his hair in time to the sylables of the sentence) "That's the WORST (swish) make up job I have ever SEEN (flick)."
Okay. Call me naive. Allen was always my favorite cousin because he was just different from all the others. You could always depend on him for the "warped" point of view or the mildly twisted comment. Nothing too strange, just different. I've never had any "gaydar" and to this day I don't. Not that it matters. But that scene in the bathroom will always stick with me as the day I really realized that Allen was REAL different. Still my favorite.
The service was... average I guess. Grandpa had been a member of the church forever and so it was well attended.
Then came the ride to the cemetary and the pall bearing job again. We all got the coffin out and started following the funeral director to the grave site. Now, this idiot proceeds to walk between some bushes that are just fine if your walking alone, or even side by side with someone, but not if your walking next to someone with a coffin betwen you. I thought I was going to tear my pants on those bushes when we all tried to squeeze through. I was thinking, "great. watch us drop this thing." But all arrrived safely and there was a grave side service.
Years later I went back to visit my grandfathers grave site while doing genealogy work. Those little bushes are now a 15 foot hedge making the place where he is burried a semi-private little section of the cemetary.
Wilmington Housing Project workOne time, I don't remember the exact week or date, but Roger and I decided we could earn a little extra cash helping out his dad down in the Wilmington Public Housing projects. Roger's dad was a carpenter, and the people he was working for (The Rocky Marcianno Construction Company I was to find out years later) were going to be putting new cabinets in the public housing units. Course, the old ones needed to be tore out and that's where a couple of teenage boys come into the picture. We had 2 days off from school, and for those 2 days we went into people's homes and ripped out cabinets in their kitchens and dragged the remains out to the street.
Some of the places were immaculate. Neat as a pin and spotless. Some of them were roach motels that were fully booked. I learned alot about "public housing" then, and it ain't luxurious by any standard. But some people managed to make nice homes out of what they had. And some just didn't seem to care. People is people no matter what.
It was good work for 2 days, but 9 and 1/2 years later it came back to haunt me. As I will show later.
This is Wilmington Dry Goods, as it looked when I worked there from Market St. in Wilmington.
Ann R - Crush and rejection.. oh well....
Setting my leg on fireIf you read the interest page you will see that I enjoyed playing with model rockets during my teenage years. My introduction to these was in elementary school when the whole school (Lora Little) came out to watch someone shoot off some model rockets. Most of the worked fine, but there was this one that buzzed the crowed when it went off course. Most cool.
Any how, my friends and I never really wanted to leave well enough alone and we wanted to buld a rocket that could "blow up" when it hit apogee. So we decided to experiment with the explosive characteristics of the handiest flammable substance - gasoline. We all had access to gas as we all mowed lawns. So we took some up to Skyline and poured it into a rocket tube and lit it to see what would happen.
Gas burning in a container is .. boring. It just sat there and burned at the top, and none to energetically. After a minute or so we decide that unless we could arialize it, this experiment was a bust. So I walked up and, forgetting Newton's laws of motion in that instance, kicked the tube with the gas.
An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.... The tube was acted upon by my foot, but the gas wanted to stay at rest. So it splashed out of the tube and onto my leg. And it was ALL on fire now.
I started doing this kind of hopping dance.. holding up the flaming leg while jumping up and down on the other and batting at it with my hands. My two friends did what most guys would do in this situation... they fell down laughing.. offering helpful advice like "ROLL ON THE GROUND" between gaffaws of laughter and holding their belly's.
They kept laughing and I kept dancing until I managed to get the fire out. Then I too fell on the ground and started laughing. You have to laugh at how stupid you can be sometimes.
Then I looked at my leg. I had been wearing long pants, otherwise it would have been worse. Just first degree burns and no hair on that leg. I still chuckle when I think about it. Thanks guys. Big help.
1972-1973
1973-1974
1973, and to seven in the USA. When the 55 masterpieces chosen were at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., nearly a million visitors viewed them in 16 weeks, and the tour lasted for three years, encouraging the late Egyptologist Labib Habachi to comment: "Tutankhamen has been one of Egypt's greatest ambassadors!"
1974-1975
First play - The Romancers - how I got the lead
Children's theatre at hospitals
Falling stage scenary
Door on campus
Moving into the dorms early
Writting my own short play and getting it performed.
Punch and Judy - tone deaf lead - amazing costumes - being sewn into mine by Jeanne Baumbach.
Missing all my classes one day sleeping under a treeThere was this one day .. sunny.. pleasent.. I forget how it happened, but I had some time to kill before my first class. So I climbed under a tree near the library and dozed off. When I woke up, my first class was already 20 minutes over, so I figured I'd doze a little longer. When I woke up again.. well, the 2nd class was half over. It was 30 minutes til the next class so I may as well relax some more. You guessed it. By the time I woke up the 3rd class was over, and I went back to my dorm to get something to eat.
I loved college.
1975-1976
Giant pile of Moutain Dew cans - Old record player - Setting fire to Bob's sox - Frozen Hamburger and how to use a woodchisel with it - Bob Glop
Playing FLICK-A-STICK with BobThe best time to play FLICK-A-STICK is at night walking home from class, but Bob and I used to play whenever we walked to school. We had about a 3/4 mile walk from the apartments to the campus, and every once in a while one of us would pick up a stick, look at the other one, yell, "FLICK-A-STICK" and throw that sucker straight up. These weren't light sticks either.. these would hurt if they hit. Well, the object of the game was to "out stare" the other person. Who ever flinched first and ran to get out from under the falling stick lost.
The fun part was that... no one throws a stick straight up, so once the flinch came you ran fast in any direction and just hoped you got out of the drop zone. There were a couple of times that I would run, only to have the stick come down right in front of me. I don't ever recall getting hit though. Fact is, I don't ever recall Bob getting hit either.. strange..
Smashing Bikes with BobOkay. Right from the start. This was not my fault. Bob will deny this to his dying breath, but it was him who ran into me.. not me who "swerved" into him. Bob, if you want to offer a rebuttal I'll post it here.
We didn't always walk to campus. Sometimes we rode our bikes. Usually while doing this we would yak and try to kick each other while riding. We liked to fool around a bunch.
Well, there was this one hill, nothing to write home about, but you could get to going a pretty good clip on it. And in typical fashion we had been fooling around and one way or another Bob had gotten behind me. I went down the hill first and took the left turn at the bottom, and then was just waiting for him to catch up.
Bob comes barrelling down the hill at 90 miles an hour screaming LOOOKK OUTTTT.. playing like he's going to scare me or something. Manages to make the turn at the bottom of the hill and plows right into me.
I flew over the handle bars and landed on my back pack. It was a perfect sumersault, and I was completely unharmed. Once I realized this I thought about Bob. I turned around and called his name, just as he turned around to call mine. Apparently he had gone over his handle bars too and ended up just like me, on the ground and unhurt. We sorta crawled over to each other and spent a second or two convincing each other we weren't hurt. Then we both busted up laughing. People had come running to check on us when they saw the accident, but just walked off shaking their heads when we started to laugh.
It was laughter about how relieved we were that the other wasn't hurt, and how unbelievably dumb THAT was. Then we looked at our bikes and laughed even more. The front wheels on both of them were completely mangled. We only had about 2 blocks left to walk home carrying them, and we were chuckling the whole way.
Vicki could not believe it when we got back to the apartment and saw the bikes and the stupid grins on our faces. Oh well.. boys will be boys.
1976-1977
1977-1978
I married Victoria Ann Hall on Dec 10, 1977. We were married in Newark, Delaware at the Unitarian Church.
1978-1979
1979-1980
1980-1981
Video Games
Thesis & related stories Dr. Khalil
Sandy Carberry
Tuncay Saddam
Network class - independent study. Pau Amer
T.A. office.
Riding the powered wheelchair around
1981-1982
1982-1983
1983-1984
1984-1985
1985-1986
1986-1987
1987-1988
1988-1989
1989-1990
1990-1991
1991-1992
1992-1993
1993-1994
1994-1995
1995-1996
1996-1997
1997-1998
I was sitting at work. Mom and John called. They asked me if I was sitting down. I said yeah, what. They asked me again if I was sitting down. Now I was really wondering what was going on, and getting a little ammoyed that they wouldn't just tell me. I said, WHAT? WHAT'S UP? Then they told me that Vicki was dead.
"What? How?"
She had not shown up at work for a couple of days. Some co-workers began to wonder and went to the house. They went into the back yard and could see her sitting in the living room. She had died in the recliner. The death certificate says it was from an overdose of Alcohol and Thioridazine (a tranquilizer/Antipsychotic)
I was in shock. Denise insisted on driving me home from work rather than letting me drive myself.
I think I'll write more on this later..
1998-1999
1999-2000
2000-2001
September 11, 2001On the morning of Sept. 11th I was in Arizona working on installing software at the race track there. I was awake in my hotel room when Marv Fortman called me and said to turn on my TV.
The first building had been hit, and I tuned in in time to see the second building get hit live. Then to see first one, then both towers collapse. I sat in my hotel and could not believe what I was seeing.
Once we finally went to the track, all racing was canceled, and pretty much no work got done that day at all. All we could do was sit around talking about what we had seen and what it could mean.
I was supposed to fly out the next day, but nothing was flying. I had a rental car and unlimited miles. I also knew I had to be back in a week anyway for another update. So I drove home. Pheonix to Los Angeles to San Francisco.
The next week I drove back. At the end of that week I flew home. At the airport they checked under the hood and in the trunk and security was tighter than a drum. It was that way for a couple of months in Phoenix, and I got used to flying in and out under some really tight scrutiny.
2001-2002
My friend Darlene had been trying to get me to go to Burning Man for ages. I didn't know what it was, and I always put her off, but this year she said she had a ticket waiting for me, and Denise said "Oh, Go", and so I went. Amazing. My trip and impressions are more than covered in other places, so go there to read about it. But basically, I'm hooked.
20-Sep-2002My day Friday started different than I expected. I was driving to work going about 70 in the number 3 lane (in California, lanes are numbered from the middle going to the shoulder). About 50 yards (maybe a little more..) in front of me was a station wagon going about 65 in the number 4 lane. I would have passed him within the next quarter to half a mile. Suddenly I see him veer to the right like something has happened and he's going to the shoulder. I think, "Man, he's veering fast." I've seen people make sudden lane changes before. One time in my rear view mirror I see a guy change lanes so fast that he losses control and slams into the center divide. Anyway, this guy suddenly veers to the left, only instead of straightening out on the shoulder he keeps going straight. There is a curb and his car jumps it, continues on, and into some trees by the side of the road. All I see is branches suddenly moving. The car sort of just disappeared. This ain't right I think, so I pull over to the shoulder about 150 feet past where the car went off the road, put on my blinkers and run back. At first I can't see the car anywhere, there are pine trees about 15 feet off the road from the shoulder, and the ground is covered in pine needles and it's brown, like it is under pine trees. I'm thinking, he must have missed the trees and going through the fence that divides the freeway from a back road and golf course. If that's the case, then he took down the fence and flew over that road, I'll have a long way to look for him. Then I see it.
The car has smashed into a tree at 65 MPH. It's not car shaped anymore from the front. There is steam or smoke or something coming from what's left of the engine compartment. The left front wheel and strut assembly is detached from the car and laying a little beyond the tree. The car is brown so it blended in until I was right on it. I think fire. I hope there is no fire here in all these pine needles. I run around the tree to the drivers side.
All I can see is the top of a head, and an arm sticking out the side. The dash board, or what's left of it, is pushed up right against the head. The steering wheel is sort of jammed out the drivers side window, and the arm is coming out from under what's left of the dash board, and laying on the door. Nothing is moving. "Okay, he's dead.", I think to myself, and start to look for any other passengers that might have been in the car. I look through the window behind the driver. The back seats are down, so no one was sitting there. I run around the front of the car and make a quick check of the passenger side and the ground to see if anyone was ejected. No trace of anyone else, so I go back to the driver. I'm getting my cell out and dialing 911. 911 puts me on hold. No, that's not a joke. All our operators are busy, please hold for the next available operator.
That's when I see the driver's hand move. He's not dead. I can't believe it. I go over and put my hand on his arm. "Hang on buddy. We'll get you out." At this point, I'm the only person at the scene. None of the other cars that HAD to see this stopped. Then, some guys in golf carts have come up the road on the other side of the fence. They start asking me questions. How old is the guy? (Late 50's early 60's I guess.. I can only see his arm and the top of his head.) The 911 operator comes on. "We need an ambulance. This guy is pinned in his car." What's your location? That's when I realize for the first time that as this guy went off the road he took out one of those emergency call boxes. I don't know the mile marker, but I read the call box number laying on the ground to the operator. She also wants to know the make and color of the car. I'm standing at the back of the car now, so brown, Oldsmobile, station wagon. Now one of the guys on the other side of the fence is climbing over. He goes over to the drivers window while I finish up with the operator. I go back to the driver. Put my hand back on him. "Okay, we called 911. They are on the way." The other guy is telling him not to move as he's started to struggle a little. He says he can't breathe, so this guy and I try to push the dash board back. I grab the steering wheel and it just about breaks off, so that's out of the way. The other guy is shoving against the dash board, and now I can see a little of the guys face. He's disoriented and having problems breathing. The other guy reaches in and take his glasses off his face. Hands them to me. They are covered in blood. He's holding the dashboard as best he can, there's not enough room for 2, so I re-check for any other ejected passengers (looking further out and under branches and stuff) and walk back to look for the emergency vehicles. You can't really see this from the road.. it all blends in, so someone has to wave them down.
I'm pretty impressed at how fast the fire department got there. I wave them down, and they start to do their thing. The sheriff also shows up and asks me to hang around until CHP shows up as I'm the only witness. It's obvious that the fire department can't figure out where to start on this, but they have every tool you could imagine, including some really vicious looking cutters that look like they could take a vehicle apart. They are doing their thing and a CHP officer shows up. Comes over to me, and starts writing up his report. Where was I, where was the vehicle. How fast were you both going, did I see any collision... etc. etc.. He asked me if I saw any brake lights, and at the time I could not re-call, but thinking back, I don't think I ever saw the brake lights go on. And I don't recall seeing any skid marks on the road, or seeing the dirt dug up. Just a path through the pine needles right up to the tree. Eventually, this other cop shows up and says that if they've gotten all the statements, that the witnesses should probably leave the area (as the professionals have it in hand now - was the undercurrent). So I leave. Later that afternoon, a police sergeant calls me at work to verify some of the facts. I told him about the brake lights, but that was all there was to add. I didn't see any reason for this car to suddenly veer off the road at full speed. I asked him how the guy was doing. He said that he was at Stanford Medical Center somewhere between serious and critical, and that it didn't look good.
San Mateo Daily Journal, Monday, 23-Sep-2002
Victim Dies from Injuries A 60-year old man who crashed his car into a tree off southbound Interstate 280 died from injuries from the accident, the California Highway Patrol reports. Kenneth Wright died at Stanford Medical Center after he was airlifted to the hospital. On Friday, Wright was driving on Interstate 280 north of Black Mountain Road at approximately 65 miles per hour when he drove off the right side of the road for an unknown reason, according to a CHP report. The vehicle hit a call box before it smashed into a large tree.
I keep thinking about .... Why did no one else stop? Why did this car veer off the road? How was that he smashed into that tree exactly where it would be worst for him? 10 feet to one side and he would have missed, and gone through the fence... bad, but probably survivable. 10 feet to the other side and he would have side swiped the tree and smashed the passenger side into the next tree.. bad again, but survivable. He hit it dead on the drivers side pushing the whole front of the car into the drivers side of the car. I also keep thinking that I was glad that I did stop so that this guy could hear someone else's voice as soon as he got to be conscious. It's weird to think I was one of the last voices he heard.
2002-2003
Thank GOD. This time we hired some movers to do all the heavy lifting. All I did was spend ages in advance packing and organizing so that it could all go on the truck quick. Even still it was a mess, and took more than a couple of days to get everyting out of the old house and into the new.
When we moved in, my wife stated that she simply could not live in the house the way it was. The demand was made to fix it. And so... we tore out every single interior wall (the covering, not the walls). Re-wired. Put up new sheetrock and molding. Painted. Installed a new window in the Master Bedroom, and all in all spent every dime we had left over from the purchase of the house to make it liveable.
Course, the guy doing all the work was Martin. He would show up every day at 8:00 and work in the house until 5:00 every day. This guy was amazing. He basically lived at our house for 3 months. Pictures of the whole process can be found HERE.
2003-2004
I had and episode this year that I'm going to keep on the list of the most awful events of my life. This is not a very long list, but it has a few things on it. This one is going to be at the top.
I am an emotional stuffer. I stuff negative feelings when I should find a way to share them. I stuff frustrations. I stuff feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.
And one day my bag burst. I never want to go there again. I came within a split second of killing myself in the car. I'm taking steps now to be sure this never happens again.
The town of Jim Thorpe (who was he)
The Jail and the Handprint.
Another BUTT shot on the front porch.
You will have to go to the Burning Man webpage for this commentary. It's all there.
2004-2005
2005-2006
2006-2007
