Me and my Brother

I liked when my brother would come to visit. My dad was on his best behavior. We would hardly ever get punished for doing anything wrong. That is saying a lot considering I was a very curious mischievous child. My dad had a 8 mm projector and we would watch silent movies. We would check the movies out at the public library. The movies would be the little rascals, or Laurel and Hardy. One day while our dad was changing reels, I had my fisher price farm set on the rug in front of the screen. Then my brother and I, heard a siren, and we rushed past the screen to the door to watch the fire engine. You guessed it the screen fell on to the pointed silo of the farm and poked a hole right through the screen. My dad yelled at us, but no belt, I wished my brother was around all the time. Did you ever wonder how long a slinky was? This was a question that came to me and my brother while in a 5 and 10 store called Claibers. I told my brother, there is only one way to find out, so he stood holding one end of the slinky, and I took the other end all the way down to the end of the aisle, about 50 ft. It was then my brother put a great idea in my head. He said,"don't let go", I wondered what would happen if you did let go of a slinky stretched 50 ft. So I let go of my end, and that slinky recoiled in a snap and some how wrapped around my brothers leg 3 times. A stock boy came by, and told my brother he shouldn't be playing with the toys. I always had a good time with my older brother. On the trips to and from his house (about 75 miles away) we would play auto bingo, and listen to his favorite song, by Roger Miller, "King of the Road" My brother and I went to our local park where a bunch of kids were playing a pick up game of softball. I had no idea on how the game was played, since my dad did not watch any sports on TV. We were the last 2 to join the game so to keep things even we were put on opposite teams. I just did what ever they told me, and was playing 2nd base. My brother hit the ball and was caught between 2nd and 3rd base. They kept telling me to tag my brother, I said what does that mean? They said just touch him with the ball. Well not to be out done, I made sure the ball touched him, so I threw it as hard as I could and hit him in the middle of his back. That stopped him alright, he fell face down in the dirt. I thought I did good, but found out otherwise. My brother wasn't seriously hurt, but that was the end of our playing softball that day.
Now I got into enough trouble on my own. I would place stickers on my moms back when she was food shopping. They would say rump roast, or half off, or any other humorous sticker I could find in a grocery store. I would also come up behind her and yell "BOO" which scared her most times. Another time, I was building a shack on the hill in the woods across from my house. I was rolling a section of log from a large tree that had been cut down. The log was about 2 ft around and 2 ft high. I had a time of it rolling it but was making progress, until it started to roll faster than I could control it. The log then rolled off the 20 ft edge of the hill out into the street, where there was a car heading right for the point of impact. It only missed the car by inches, the guy got out and I thought he was going to be mad, so I ran down to apologize. But he wasn't mad, in fact he put the log in the back of his car. He said he was a wood sculptor and this piece of wood was just perfect, go figure. To this day my parents never knew about that story.

A couple of humorous stories of my youth. We always had cars that were one step away from a junk yard. My dad who claimed to be a draftsman as one of his occupations, but had very little knowledge on how to fix automobiles. One day we were driving down the road and the hood flew up and hit the windshield. We pulled over and the hood was a bit mangled up, and did not want to stay shut. My dad got out of the car and started jumping up and down on the hood. Well at age 7, I wanted to help so I started jumping up and down with him. Just about then a cop shows up and says "are we having some car trouble?" I guess the cop thought we were jumping mad that are car broke down.

At about the same age, I had a little plastic blue and white boat that I played with in the bath tub. My dad said we were going to a county park with a lake to have a picnic. Wow a lake is a great place for a boat, so I got some string and my boat and was all set. When we got to the picnic site I wasted no time in getting my boat down to the water. I guess in the excitement, I forgot that I couldn't tie a good knot. Well you guessed it, the boat drifted away on the lake. My dad was quick to act, and started to try to hook it with his fishing rod. He than got yelled at by the county fishing commission, for fishing before the official fishing contest started. My dad had to explain to them that he was fishing for a boat and not fish. (some fish story) They kind of believed him but by then the boat was gone. We walked all around the lake asking if anyone had seen a blue and white tug boat go by. We got some strange looks until we explained the whole story to them. We got to the end of the lake, and a guy had my boat in his net. What a close call for my little tug boat.

Dad's Remote Control

You can always figure out an age by the year that technology changes our lives. In our house for as long as I can remember, we did not have cable TV with a remote control until 1981. That did not stop my dad from inventing a remote control. As you may have guessed everyone in the house (except him) was recruited to change the channels when he wanted them changed, along with playing with the rabbit ears to get better reception. It did not stop there, although the older commercials were at times more entertaining than the limited programming, we had to get up, turn the commercial sound off, then turn it back up after the break. Well, even at 8 years old, I still did not like to jump up and down all through a movie. One day we were at a thrift store, and I found the answer to my problem. It was a remote volume switch, with about 10ft of wire attached. I had a little money from my allowance and I bought it. I hid it in my coat pocket, because I wanted to surprise my parents. One day while they were sleeping I unplugged the TV, and took the back cover off. Wow a whole bunch of wires, I wonder what would happen if I turned this screw....POW a blue flash about the size of a soccer ball, some smoke, and then, what happened to the end of the screw driver? It was missing with a blue/black spot at the end of the shaft. I quickly put the TV back together, half afraid to plug it in. Hey, it still works. now what to do about the screw driver. I hid it in a bunch of tools that my dad rarely used. He found the screwdriver years later, but could not figure out what happened.

We would go to movie theaters from time to time. Since we were poor, we would never buy pop or popcorn from the concession stand. I don't know how my Mom did it but she managed to smuggle in 3 to 4 sixteen ounce glass bottles of Pepsi in her purse. My dad had a bit of a pot belly, so if he added some bags of popcorn to it, no one would notice. I think I was in charge of the cups and ice. If anyone went with us, they were recruited to bring something in. Now if we were at the theater and someone was talking or was too tall in front of us, my dad had a plan to handle that. He would bring in bottles of stink perfume. This stuff really smelled bad, like rotten eggs and sulfur. He would just open the bottle, and anyone around us would move. The other form of entertainment that we enjoyed was bowling duck pins. I was a little kid, so I did not bowl very well. When I would make a gutter ball, my dad would yell,"atta boy Luther" This was a line out of the movie "the Ghost and Mr. Chicken". When Don Knots character, Luther Spreg was in front of everyone trying to make a speech, he would mess up, and every time he messed up, somebody in the crowd yelled,"atta boy Luther". It was funny, because years later we watched the movie King Pin. In one scene during a bowing tournament, someone yelled out,"atta boy Luther". Do you think the Farley brothers might have been there when my dad yelled it at me, and thought it funny enough to put into a movie? could be

In the 1970s Drive In Movies were very popular. We had over 20 different theaters within 15 miles of our city. The drive-ins were popular with our family, because they were economical, we could bring our own food in without smuggling, and we could do something as a family. Well, one of the times, we went to see a very popular movie, but as of now I don't remember what it was. When we got to the drive-in, there was a long line of cars ahead of us. We waited no less than 40 min to get up to the area where you paid. I guess it was a combination of the Circus Peanuts and exhaust fumes from the gas guzzlers, that I started feeling nauseous. We got right to where you would pay, I flung the door open and spit up in front of the ticket taker. My dad turned the car around and drove home. I look back at it now, and that poor ticket taker must have thought, wow they waited 45min just to drive up here, and make this mess in front of me, then just drive away

One of my dads job was an advertising manager on a local free paper. He had a disagreement with the publisher and quit. We would pick up stacks and stacks of the free news paper and throw it into the back of our station wagon. My dad would then drive to the advertisers addresses and I would throw the stacks of papers on the street. My dad theorized that if the advertisers saw that the distribution of their ads was in the street and not to the consumers, then they would cancel their ads with the paper. I don't know if it worked, but I had fun throwing the stuff out of the car while it was moving.

As I got older the more covert our missions got. This one was for a garbage can. Back when the state highway used 55 gallon drums instead of cones, we decided to kidnap one or two of the barrels. My dad and me and my mom all rehearsed the kidnapping at our house. I was to be the lookout and had a blanket to cover the drum once we got it into the car. My mom was to open and close the tailgate while my dad picked it up and threw it in. We searched for our victim. It had to be in good condition with no flashing lights on them. The problem was most of the barrels that did not have the flashing lights were dented from cars hitting them. We finally found our perfect victim and successfully kidnapped a state construction barrel. In retrospect I guess we shouldn't have done it because, not only did my dad think the state was after him for cheating on welfare, but now they would be looking for a missing barrel.

If somebody said I couldn't do something, by gum I would figure out how to get it done. In the summer of 1971 I was at a city park, where they had one of these old 1930's fire engines cemented in the park for kids to play on. This one kid said," I bet you can't jump from the top" that was about a 4 ft jump, I said I could, so I did. when I started to walk something wasn't right. It hurt and I had a bad limp. My dad saw me and asked, what happened, I said nothing happened. He said we're going to take you to the hospital, I said NO, I will be all right. He saw a 3 year old running and said, can you run better than that, I said yes, but when I tried, I could hardly take a step. That did it for me for that summer, 4 broken bones and a cast for 3 months. The cast came off 2 days before school started, what a gyp.

SEX ,SEX well almost SEX

Well, I am on my way to school and the start of 2nd grade. My 2nd grade teacher Mrs Rosco, wore granny style dresses down to her ankles and her collar buttoned all the way to the top. She was about 55 years old and looked every bit of 70, I think she might have been a nun but was kicked out for being too mean. I honestly did not know what I did to get on her bad side, but I found myself standing every day, all day at the chalk board, as some sort of punishment. She would encourage the class to treat me as an out sider, by saying things like," there is one boy we don't like, and we all know who he is". She would send me down to the principal's office, with notes saying I should not be in 2nd grade. The principal had me reading out loud in front of her from a 5th grade reader. She would walk me back to class, and tell the teacher there is nothing wrong with him. The belittling and ostracizing continued, but when my dad heard that I had to stand every day, after getting over 4 broken bones in my foot, he came to school to talk to the principal. She said that there were at least 15 other students that requested transfers out of her class, and that she would not be able to transfer me. I don't know exactly what my dad said but in 2 days I was transferred to the other 2nd grade teacher Mrs Dorsh. Now Mrs Dorsh was about 23 and always wore short dresses or mini skirts. I was only in 2nd grade but she looked good to me, and I didn't even know why. During this time my dad was still selling magnetic signs off and on. He would come home late some times and would sing "its a beautiful day in the neighborhood" as he walked through the door and put his sport coat in the closet and put on his sweater. My dad seamed to know a lot of people around town. My mom and dad would visit these people, all couples and then send me to bed for a couple of hours while we were visiting. Come to think of it, I thought it odd for my parents to have a post office box, several miles away from our house.
My dad had established a "official" residence at his mom's house. He was collecting welfare, and would put on this big act when the case worker would visit. I would see him one day, clean cut and in a sport coat, and a few days later he would not shave and ware clothes that made him look sickley. The homeless would probably give him money if they saw him. My mom, being a case worker, would give him tips on what to say, in order for him to keep getting welfare. In return for my grandma allowing him to establish a "official" residence, my dad and I would fix my grandmas rental property. I also found out my dad was abused by his mom and dad, he would tell me stories while we were fixing the house. When we would need some extra money, my dad would repeat the stories to his mom, and out of guilt she would always come up with some money. I can't say there were many arguments in our house. If you did something that displeased my dad, he would yell then punish you. My mom must have done more things wrong than me, because she seamed to be getting punished all the time. I kept hearing the whacks coming from the other room, and she would always come out crying. I still could not figure out what he was whacking her with, she never had any black eyes or noticeable bruises.

When ever my dad thought someone was following us, he would pull the car over suddenly and let them pass. He would then write down the make, model and licence plate, along with the date time and location. He must of had at least 500 of these numbers written down. He thought the welfare department was following him. When my mom suggested he was a bit paranoid, there was a reason for a few more whacks. She got whacked for holes in his underwear. You know that a man hangs either to the right or left. The holes were on the same side that he was hanging. He said that my mom was deliberately soaking that spot with bleach, and that was the cause of the holes. My mom would try to say that the underwear was old and small drops of urine, over the years would cause the holes. My dad would always trump the argument with, "why should I believe you, after all you were screwing your wop boss at the cleaners while you were going with me" He would make her get new underwear,but not give her any money. This meant she had to shoplift, and she must have did this several times, and was caught a few of the times. I could not see Santa at Gimbles with my mom, because she was banned from the store and her picture was on the wall at the store. After a while my mom would not protest anything my dad would accuse her of, because the more riled up he would get the more whacks she would get. About this time our neighbor the cop and his wife were getting divorced, who would have guessed. Michael was in cub scouts, and they were having a pine wood derby. Since Michael didn't have a father to help him with the derby car and since his mother had a "nice puss" my dad stepped in to help him. The final product didn't win the derby but got 1st prize for the nicest looking car ( it had a driver with a steering wheel and a windshield)
         I had no idea what sex was, but I kind of found out. I was taken to this house where my mom and dad talked with mother whose husband was a long distance truck driver. My mom and dad and the truckers wife left and I was there with her daughter, Debbie who was about 8 her brother who was about 4 and the baby sitter who was about 15. After a short time the baby sitter, Debbie and her brother left the room. I waited and waited, but they were gone for a long time, so I went to find them. I got to the top of the steps and I saw Debbie going down on her brother, while the baby sitter was watching. I asked what are you doing, and the baby sitter said we're doing what we saw in these books. There were all kinds of books with naked people in all kinds of positions, but I still didn't know what they were doing. 

            During this time I was in the cub scouts and managed to amass about 10 friends that were in my little army. We also had a neighborhood bully named Bucky. Its funny all the bullies I ever knew had names like Biff, and Butch, no Phillips or Lesters. Well any how this bully decided to pick on my friend Bill and his brother Mike. Bill had a plan, if he could turn his house into a fort then Bucky couldn't beat him up. So Bill got all the kids he could together and paid them a dime each, if they would dig trenches and tunnels in his yard to protect him and his family from Bucky. There must have been about 15 of us, and we all dug trenches all around his house. We all thought that we were doing a good job, they must have been at least 3 to 4 foot deep with tunnels connecting them. Until his dad came home at 5:30 and chased us all away.
I used to play army in the woods across from my house. My dad got me a army shirt, pants pistol belt, canteen, knapsack and a wooden replica of a M1 rifle. I named it Wills Army, and we would go on hikes. On one of these hikes when I was 9 years old we met these 2 sisters, Marcy, 13 and Mary Lou 14. Marcy took a liking to me, so I told the rest of them to take a hike and I would stay back at the base. It didn't take Marcy long before she told me to take down my pants because she wanted to show me something, so I did and she took her pants down, and something started to happen to me that I never saw happen, I was getting hard. She told me to stick it in her, but about then the hikers were returning, so we zipped up. Mary Lou ask what were we doing, and I said nothing. She said', " I know my sister, and you were doing something more than nothing" I wanted to find out more about what was happening, but I was told we were moving in 3 weeks and never had a chance to figure it out.

The New Neighborhood

I was on top of the world when we moved in 1975. I almost had "sex" even though I didn't know what sex exactly was at the time, I had a band of friends that was "will's army", and had a steady girlfriend (not the girl that I almost had sex with). We moved in July 1975 and my dad allowed me to have an early birthday/Halloween party. All my friends came dressed up in costumes, and we all had a wonderful time. I guess that's why to this day Halloween is about my favorite holiday. I was looking forward to the move, my dad explained that we lived in a lower class neighborhood, and we would be moving to a middle class neighborhood. The one thing I really did not understand was that my last name was going to change when we moved. My dad explained that he and my mom were not married(I did not know, I mean I was a kid and kids don't ask their parents if they are married)and so that I could be on my moms medical coverage, it was easier to keep her last name. Now that my mom had a good job with the state welfare department, her insurance would cover me with any last name as long as I was her son. At 9 years old I was re-baptized with my new name which was my dad's last name. I met with the neighborhood kids, they seamed a bit wilder than my old friends. Besides playing kick the can and release, others would talk about throwing eggs or tomatoes at someones house. I never, went along with the vandals, because I had too much respect for personal property, and I came from a neighborhood where we would grow our own vegetables, because we could not afford to buy them. When I started school, my on top of the world balloon burst. First I was a new kid, second all my clothes came from the thrift store and I looked like I just came off the leave it to beaver set, third my dad did not like long hair so I did not have long hair like all the other boys did, and fourth my ears stuck out and I had an overbite. Most people are considered an outcast with 3 strikes against them, I had 4. My house was less than a block away from the school. I would cut through 2 yards and be there in less than 5 minutes. Kids in school would come up behind me and flick my ears, and name calling was constant. I was always last to be picked for anything. One day I had 5 boys try to beat me up on the way home from school, and took 45 min to get home. My dad said what happened to you, I explained that every time I tried to get away one or two of the boys would head me off and block me. He asked if I knew who the boys were, I said yeah and told him. The first boys house nobody answered the door, the second house, my dad talked to the boys mother. He said that 5 boys including her son ganged up on me to beat me up. She said 5 boys? I only see my boy and your son. My dad said, there were 5 of them at the time and they ganged up on me like a pack of niggers. She WHO ARE YOU CALLING A NIGGER? My dad said I am not calling anyone a nigger, but before he could say any more she said how dare you call me a nigger, I will have one of the roofers that are working on my house drop a load of shingles on you. My dad turned around and went home. He said we will go to the school principal tomorrow and straighten this out. Now it is 5:30 PM and my mom came home from work. She just about sat down and a loud pounding was at our door. My dad made my mom answer the door, and there was this big meathead of a man, with beer on his breath, saying WHERE IS YOU HUSBAND. She said calmly, what do you want. He said, YOUR HUSBAND CALLED MY WIFE A NIGGER, AND NOW I AM CALLING YOU A NIGGER. He then turned around and left. The next day, my dad and I went into the principals office. The principal was a quiet small built old man. When we explained the situation, he said what do you want me to do, it was off school property, and if I ask any of the boys if they beat up your son, they would all deny it. A few days later the one kid, that my dad talked to his mom about, knocked on our door, and ask is you dad going to apologize to my mom? My dad said he had nothing to say to your family. About a week later the boy came back and said, my dad wants to buy your dad a beer. My dad realized that this was this mans way of trying to work things out. So my dad, mom and me went to the guys house. My dad said he was sorry for even coming here and next time we will go to the local magistrate and file charges. The harassment of me continued, but it was much less than it was. Another year passed and I graduated 5th grade, I was now on my way to middle school. This new school had a reputation of being a bad school for fights, due to and experiment, classrooms with no walls. you would have 5 teachers teaching different subjects, in the same area, only separated by cabinets. After what I went through in 5th grade, in the summer of 1976 my dad wanted me to take karate. At the time karate for kids was pretty big, but my dad read in the news paper that some of these "karate kids" ended up crippling the other kids and the parents were being sued. My dad enrolled me in judo, which was more defensive and would still give me the confidence to handle myself. This was the bi-centennial year. To commemorate this year a wagon train pulled by horses went from Maine to California. They stopped in our town, where they had a long piece of paper on a roll. They said that people from across the country were signing this paper and then it would be put in a time capsule in California and opened in 2176. My dad and I signed it, and he put the title father and son under our names.I started my middle school in 1976. The teachers spent most of their time trying to control the kids, and if there was a fight (which was about 1-2 times a week) all the kids would leave their seats and surround the fighters. Do the math, 5 classes with 35 to 40 students per class, with 5 teachers to keep order. For me I found English boring, when I was in English class, my attention would be drawn to the history class. The only subjects I did well in was history, math and science. we would also have shop classes in which I excelled in printing, mainly silk screening. In 1977 Star Wars came out, not only did I collect every figure, every bubble gum card and was a member of the fan club, I also talked my dad into giving me an advance on my allowance so I could buy silkscreen materials and silkscreen Star Wars shirts. He agreed, and during a local arts festival, I was on the corner selling my shirts. I made enough to break even, until a cop told me I wasn't allowed to sell . This was all great for my academic achievements, but my mom always was in the dog house. It was like no matter what she did it was wrong. Now that I was a little older, I started listening a little closer to the whacks coming from the other room-whack-whimper-whack-sob whimper-THEN a slight clank like something was set back in place. When I would get up before anyone else I would lift objects up and then set them back to see if I could duplicate the noise. After several attempts I found it. It was a wooden men's hair brush, 7"long 3"wide and 1/2" thick. so my dad was whacking her on the backside with the brush, for my punishment he would use a 1/4" thick ruler and whack the palms of my hands, or wash my mouth out with soap, or make me write 1000 or 5000 time I must not ____.One time he missed with the ruler and came down and cut my wrist with the steal edge. My dad had rules for everything and if you broke the rules you were punished. My mom would have to make him breakfast when he would decide to wake up, and yes he was still cheating welfare. If she did not make it in "a reasonable time" he would do things like take an egg and throw it at the ceiling and make her clean it up, the one time while she was in the kitchen the breakfast was a little slow, it had to be deliberate on her part so the little 12" bw TV in the kitchen was thrown down the cellar steps, with him saying now you have nothing to distract you from my breakfast. My dad did not answer the phone or the door, I mean after all it could be the welfare dept. One day the phone rang, and my mom was taking a nap, she came running downstairs naked, telling me to close the curtain in the living room. I did and she answered the phone..wrong number. My dad grilled her for a while about who might have been calling, after he was satisfied that she really did not know, he went to open the curtain. It was stuck at the top, because I closed it too hard. He went into a rage, telling me I had no business touching the curtain. He saw that I was building a balsa wood airplane the kind you have to glue together with hundreds of parts. He kicked the table over with the plane and a Darth Vader head I made out of clay in art class. The plane did not get much damage but the head shattered in a thousand pieces. After he calmed down I told him I only did what my mom wanted me to do, to which he said I did not mean for you Darth Vader head to shatter, I thought I was destroying the plane you made, here is 2 lbs of clay, make another head. Back in school, I got into my share of fights, nothing major. I found I had a longer reach than most. so I would just choke the other person with my thumbnails in their throat, when they would start to turn blue or when they could not punch my arms any more I would let them go. This worked for most, but one time when I was in gym class, I would normally lift weights while every one else was playing basketball. This time the weight room was closed, but I managed to get behind the movable wall and lift weights, about this time this big 210 lb black kid came in and said, you ain't leavn here til you suck my dick. I stalled and stalled for time until the bell rang and he finally left. I went to the office with my gym shorts on, and told them what happened. About an hour later they called me into the office, and there was the same kid with this little old black woman (about 98 lbs), who was his grandmother. He was crying a storm. They ask me was this the student, I said yeah. His grandmother grabbed his ear twisted it and said just wait till I get you home.
As I finished this part of my life, at the time weird things were happening to my body. I was at a friends house and we were watching TV, then Wonder Woman came on, I started to get hard but I didn't know why. I tried to squish it down with my forearm but my friends dad saw what was going on. The next time I called my friend, he said my dad doesn't want my playing with you but he never said why. Another time I had to take a shower and my dad was taking a poop in the bathroom. So I took my shower in the cellar with just a shower curtain to surround me. I guess the water hitting me a certain way caused me to get hard, I thought it wad funny, and when my mom came down to do laundry, I said look mom I have a place to hang my wash rag. She must have told my dad, because he said I should take my showers in private from now on. I met a wonderful girl named Bridget, at first we would go to the woods and kiss. My dad would take us out on dates since I could not drive. One time after she had left my dad brought in a broomstick, and was showing me how to put this balloon on it he called a rubber. I ask, why do I want to put a balloon a broomstick? He explained to me what it was for, so the next time I saw Bridget, I wanted to try it out. I must have been 13, Bridget tried to tell me what to do, she said move it in and out, but I did not want to break anything, so I just stuck it in and left it there. After a few minutes, I thought this whole sex thing was overrated and boring (no punintended). I took it out and later told my dad, what's the big deal with sex?
Now I may have given the impression that my dad was an abusive fiend. When I was growing up I did not see it that way, at least from my perspective. He always treated me like royalty, when we would go somewhere I would always sit in the front seat with him, my mom would always sit in the back. He always encouraged me to do the best I could when involved with anything, but if I failed, he never treated me like a failure. He would encourage me to watch movies about real events in history, so when I was taught in school I would have an image in my mind of what happened, and the lesson went from abstract, to very real for me. We would fix my grand mothers rental property from time to time, and my dad always would try to include me in helping him, even if I was no real help to him at all. He did have some character flaws that were passed on to me, like prejudice.He did not care for blacks, I guess from the riots of the 1960's, and would refer to them by every derogatory term that you could think of. I thought it was funny that they made a song called "Boogie Town" because boogie was one of the negative terms he used, and now they made a song about a whole town of them. He also thought the movie "Planet of the Apes" was a sly implication by the producers, of the blacks taking over the world. The second prejudice he had was for Jews. He absolutely hated Jews. Not to the point of wanting to see them dead, but he would never miss the opportunity to slander them. I was a bit racist up till I went to high school. I read Mein Kampf in middle school, and had admiration for the SS.

The Columbian Connection

 

About 1978, my dad and I went to a local hotel to shoot pool. We picked the hotel because it had an automatic table and the games were only 50 cents. This one particular weekend, we got to the pool table and found 4 men in their 20' to early 30's playing pool. We decided to wait til they were done. After waiting for a while, we noticed that they were not speaking any English. So my dad ask them where they were from. Only one of them replied in broken English, that they were from Bogota, Columbia. A tedious conversation ensued, but we found out that they were electrical engineers from Columbia, and were getting their education recertified in America, so they would be able to work on projects in both North and South America. My dad ask how long have the been here. 4 months they replied, and they have 8 months to go. My dad ask how do you like the USA? They said, we don't know, because all they saw of it was this hotel and school. So instead of playing pool we took them out for a desert. When we got to the restaurant, they saw we had apple pie and cinnamon ice-cream. They said, Is good? We said yes, try it. They all enjoyed it, the man that spoke broken English said, in Columbia, we have pie, we have ice-cream, we never mixed. For the next 8 months we showed them the sites around town, took them on a picnic where my Mom made potato salad, fried chicken, and cherry tarts for desert. We showed them some silent 8mm films (no VCRs) Little

Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, and some cartoons. By the end of their stay, all of them spoke rough English, and the first man we talked to spoke fluent English. They thanked us for sharing our culture, and they would take some of our traditions back to Columbia. They sent us post cards from time to time, but over the years we lost contact with them.

Life goes very fast

I started high school in 1979.They started a new program in gym, that allowed the classes to be co-ed if you wanted. Well I was no dummy, and I picked the female gym teacher because I figured I would be among the few that would opt to go co-ed. I was right, out of a class of about 45 only 2 boys. That is where I met my friend Ron. He was a senior and I was a freshman, but we both wanted to be around the girls. He saw that I was being picked on due to my ears sticking out and the hair cut and the quasi 1950's clothing style that was direct from the thrift store. He was big into lifting weights and started to train me. I would go to his house before school and hang out on the porch which was directly across from the school. A lot of his friends would hang out there, and we would shout out cat calls to the girls, and make derogatory jokes about blacks. He had a gym set up in his basement, and a bunch of us guys would lift weights, while a few girls would come down to watch. He would tell stories about how he would burn cars and one time a house for kickbacks of insurance money. I never really believed him, but it was fun to listen to. He always had a knife, a sap, and brass knuckles on him. we would cut gym class and go over to his house to have a beer sometimes. In school, now that they had walls on the class rooms, I did very well. I was also in the print shop, which my dad, had to argue with the school counselor to get me in, due to the class was full. I went to my first summer camp with the scouts, my scout master kind of criticized my parents for being a fuss bucket over me, but I guess that was to be expected, being it was my first time away from home. We had a fund raiser in scout where we went door to door selling house hold products from a company called Tom Watt. The products would be like pot holders, a no spill drink cup for kids, address books, etc. We had a case of about 50 sample products and would write up the order and deliver the product in about 2 weeks. We had 5 days to sell as much as we could, and the profit (about 35%) would go into a personal fund which we had to buy scout stuff from.The first day out, I went to a house, no sale, second house, no sale, third house, no sale. This went on for about 20 houses, and I think I sold 1 pot holder. My dad ask why I was home so soon. I told him it was not worth all the steps just to make one sale, and that I could not really sell anything. He said I will make you a deal, for every dollar you earn for Boy Scout stuff, I will back it by a dollar that you can use for anything. That was a big mistake on his part, I went out and sold $1100 in 5 days which gave me $335 not bad for 1 week of work in 1979. One of the occasions while I was selling "tom watt' products, our neighbor, the "punk" answered the door. This had me perplexed for 2 reasons, one he did not live at that house and two, I was not allowed to talk to him. He opened the door and ask what do you have there? Attired in my full boy scout uniform, carrying a non descriptive box that only said "tom watt" on the side, I replied, well nothing that you would be interested in. He said try me. To which I replied, well they're female products. I didn't understand the humor of the situation until years later. I mean, he must of told his friends that the boy scouts are going door to door selling female products.
A word about pets, kids, and cars. My dad said if you had any one of these 3, you would have problems with your neighbors, in our case we had the whole tri-fecta. We brought our cat over to the new neighborhood, but that did not last long. Our cat was an outdoor cat and we would whistle for the cat at dusk and he would come home. Our neighbor which my dad nick named "bozo" had a 23 year old son, which my dad nick named "the punk". The punk one day, said my dad is allergic to cats, that is why we have 3 (very loud) dogs.We didn't think much about the statement. One day we went to the drive-in and our cat was on the front steps of our house, that was the last time we ever saw our cat. I was about 10 and put up lost cat posters around the neighborhood, but with no luck. Years later my dad and mom said they found the cat in our back alley, all shot up with BB's. The next day we heard the punk saying to his dad, "I bet I could shoot a cats whisker off with this BB gun. After the cat, my dad bought a German Shepard puppy. The dog and I grew up as friends, but my dad would discipline the dog with a rubber hose, which made the dog nervous, and would wet in the house. When the hose was not working and my dad was angry over the mess he would use a wood cane to hit the dog and then make me spray the dog down with a mixture of lysol and cold water. Our dog would yelp when hit with the cane. Again we heard the punk saying out loud in his yard, "I'll kill anyone that hits their dog" Then bozo came out and said "who are you talking to?" The punk replied,"Just talking to myself, pop". Needles to say, there was quite a bit of animosity between the punk and our family. I went to my first week long boy scout camp. When my parents picked me up from camp, I said I can't wait to see my dog. There was stone silence, and after a couple of minutes, my dad said we gave the dog away. I said aww, quit kidding I know my dog is waiting and will be happy to see me. When I got home it was true, they gave the dog away to a guy that owned a gas station. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing, it was no life for the dog, and my dad should have never have had any pets. a few years later, we read about our dog in the paper, the gas station was robbed and our dog went after the robber and was shot, but recovered from his injury. As you might have guessed, every activity that I got involved in, I was encouraged by my dad to be the best I could. I joined DeMolay (Jr. Masons)but found I was fighting adults (Masonic advisers) everywhere. It seems the janitor that did not want to give us blankets at the NOW meeting, was now my scout master. The scout master was also friends and in-laws with some of the masons. Because my dad pushed me beyond what was normal for most kids we caused waves also the fact that my dad pointed out financial discrepancies committed by the scoutmaster and his family to the troop committee, did not help matters either. In DeMolay our adult advisor introduced himself to me when I was 13 like this. Hi, I am Don Klutz, I heard some ugly rumors about your family. I will look past them, but just you understand, if you step out of line just one time, I am going to come down on you with both feet, welcome to our chapter. I had to fight that SOB on everything I tried to get done. Lucky for me their were a couple of older Masons, one of which was a "Past Grand Master" for our state, that stuck up for me. My schedule at the time was hectic, in high school, I was in the regular classes while I was freshman, and finished up the year with was 3.9 average. At the end of the year the school counselor said I should be in the scholars program, which is advanced learning, but he said you probably will not get the extra scholars diploma, since you will not have enough credits, unless you double up on math and science courses. One of my favorite classes was psychology. It was fascinating to find out how the mind works. I learned about the mid tricks that Hitler used, and came to a complete abhorrence for the Nazi's and the SS. In fact I found my self standing up for the rights and freedoms of all peoples, weather I had a vested interest in them or not. A psychologist or a printer, were going to be my target careers. For the next 3 years I doubled up on my courses, along with my judo, boy scouts, and DeMolay, I had very little time for anything. At about 13 my life was about to change but I did not know it. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. They told her she would need a mastectomy and her lymph nodes removed. Two days before the surgery, our sewer clogged, and our basement started to flood from the heavy rain. We all grabbed stuff and ran it up stairs, some in our pop up trailer, others to the living room. We got a plumber out to snake out the clog, but the day before the operation my mom was washing all the clothes and towels that smelt like sewer water.
as far as home life went, my friend Ron, got into an accident on his bicycle. This turned out to be a lucky break for him as he found out he was hemophiliac, which was caused by leukemia. The hospital said if he had waited another month, he would have no chance to recover. At best they told him he only had a 10% chance of surviving and that he would have to go to Seattle for experimental treatments. My dad did not know what leukemia was, and told me to stay away from Ron until he was cured. My dad spent his time swindling money from his mom, by making her feel guilty for the neglect/abuse he received as a child. He told her you did not give me a good start in life, but you can now redeem yourself by giving us money to start a business. I think she gave us around 10 to 15 thousand dollars to start a magnetic sign business. My dad would later get into arguments with my mom and say, you don't want us to get anywhere, so I will help you. He would then proceed to burn the money and my mom would put it out with her hands. Some times he would throw it out the window and me and my mom would run around the streets trying to pick it up. The punishments for my mom changed since hitting someone with cancer would show a lot of bruises. He would say, oh you don't want us to have nice stuff, well I will help you out, and rip up the calling tiles with a razor knife over on her side of the bed, so she would see it every time she woke up. He accused her of deliberately putting holes in his socks or underwear, and told her she would have to replace them, but give her no money to do it with. We used to go to Kaufmans in downtown, but stopped when I was around 13. I found out later that my mom had an record for shoplifting there, and they told her she was banned from the store. If she returned they would have her arrested and file charges. He would lock her in the cellar sometimes or take her out to a nice restaurant and bot me and him would order steak, but he would order a hotdog from the kids menu for her. One day my dad and I bought cat food at a discount store, the cheapest and fishiest he could find, I think it was liver and cod flavored. I thought we were getting another cat, but it was for my mom. When she would do something wrong or speak out of line he would say, well that is another can. One day he was really mad and in 3 ft letters on every wall in our house he wrote 24 cans. I would watch her cry as she ate the cat food, almost gagging at every bite. What outrageous behavior could trigger these punishments? Well, the scale would cause a lot of problems, my mom was to keep herself under a certain weight, if she didn't she was punished, even while on cancer treatments. She figured out that it would be impossible to keep her weight at a certain limit, so one day she tampered with the scale. My dad saw her getting heavier, but the scale said she wasn't. My dad ask me to bring down some weights that I used to test the scale. When he found it was wrong and saw tool marks, the shit really flew then. Other offences would include contradicting him, speaking in a condescending tone or sarcasm toward him, not being able to fully account for her time, or if she look at any other man especially if he was Italian or looked in any way like the guy she had an affair with. When I was about 15, I ask my dad why did he treat her this way. He said, first this does not concern you, it is between me and your mom. Second I think I treat her pretty well, don't you hear about men beating their wives, well I don't beat her and third, how do you know what is going on in other peoples homes, it could be a lot worse if she ended up with anyone else. I guess at 15 the answers made sense, and I was involved with a lot of other things in my life, so I assumed everything was normal. One day my dad said his socks were missing, and he questioned my mom. He said I put them on the TV in the hallway, and now they are gone. My mom denied knowing what happened to his socks, and so did I. He kept pressuring her and punishing her, until she admitted to taking his socks just to get him mad. A few days later I was talking to him, and he put his newspaper on the TV and knocked his new pair of socks behind the TV. When he reached down to pick up the socks he found 2 pairs. He said to me I must have knocked the socks off the TV the last time. I am going to have to make this up to your mom. He took us out to a nice restaurant and let her order anything she wanted. He got dressed up in his sport coat and gave her flowers. My mom ask, what's the occasion, to which he replied, you work hard and I just wanted to be nice to you, there is no law against that, is there? I stared making remarks about, well if families are honest with each other, there would be fewer arguments. After a while my mom ask, what is Will talking about? My dad said, IF YOU MUST KNOW I FOUND MY SOCKS, RIGHT WHERE I DROPPED THEM, ARE YOU SATISFIED? NOW YOU JUST RUINED A PERFECT EVENING. He then did not eat his dinner, and gave me a death stare for the rest of the night. To my surprise my mom was pissed at me as well, She said who cares where the socks were, I already took my punishment for it, and now this is one of the first times in a long while your father was nice to me, and you ruined it.
All the punishments were not just for my mom. When I was punished, I would be told the reason, and then the punishment usually was being grounded. When I was younger, my dad would pick a toy, that I recently played with, and cut parts off of it, or break it. I was helping my dad with the yard work, and I must have talked backed to him. He said,"I want to tell you something, but I will tell you later." From then on, I did everything he told me, without question, because I didn't want to be grounded from going to a DeMolay Dance that night. Even though I was dating Bridget, I still tried, and had problems meeting girls. He worked me all the way up to the time that I was going to be picked up. I barely had time to change and no time to shower. He said, I remember what I wanted to tell you...you smell bad, now have a good time at your dance.
I realized that I actually had 4 fathers in my life. These were the people that helped shape my morals and gave me an example of what a good person was. In scouting it was Mr. Waldgon our assistant scoutmaster.. Although Mr. W's kids were out of scouting he stayed, to bring the next generation of scouts up. On the Appalachian trail, Mr. W. at 64 years old, carried another boys back pack, because the boy could not carry it any further. On a winter camping trip Mr. W gave an ill prepared boy his sleeping bag and boots for the weekend, while he stayed outside by the fire. He was always involve with trying to make scouts better, not only for his troop, but for other troops in the district. One day at a troop committee meeting, my dad pointed out the embezzlement of troop funds by the scoutmaster. The scoutmaster replied, it doesn't matter if the funds are missing, because it would take a committee vote to ex spell me, and I can swing this committee any way I want. Mr. W. stood up, slammed his fist on the table, and said, any day you can swing this committee any way you want, is the day I resign. The scoutmaster replied, well take him (pointing to my dad) him with you. Mr. W. got involved with the district activities, and eventually got an investigation into the missing funds, which led to my scoutmasters expulsion. The road to Eagle Scout was very difficult for me, as I had the scoutmaster and the boys that he influenced, trying to haze me every step of the way. I did make Eagle, and had my old ex-assistant scoutmaster attend the ceremony. The second man that influenced my life was Mr. Volsoncroft. He was an advisor for the DeMolay Chapter I was involved with. My dad knew that Mr. V. very influential,so he told me tell him that you play golf, or that you like football (which I knew nothing about, because professional sports were forbidden on our home TV). Mr. V. always knew when I was lying, and would always catch me. Mr. V. tried to get me to be more independent from my dad, because I think he saw through him as well. Mr V. and myself restarted our chapter newspaper, which won best in state 2 years in a row . I won many earned awards in DeMolay, but the one that stood out was the degree of Chevalier, which is purely honorary, you can't earn it. In ill health Mr. V. still made it to the ceremony. All of our advisors in DeMolay were referred as dad(last name) I told dad Volsoncroft that advisor or not, he would always be referred to as dad, by me. The third influence was our high school printing teacher Mr. Mo. I only knew how to silkscreen when I got to his class, but he let me advance far beyond the text book. I took it upon myself to learn how to do 4-color separation on a process camera, in order to produce full color pictures that you would see in magazines. I won several first and second place trophies for our school, for graphic arts. I still run into students from his class, thy tell me that he tells them about what I did, encourages anyone that wants to learn beyond the text book. Of course last is my biological father. As cruel as he appeared, he always looked out for me and my interests. He would always give me pep talks when I had a problem. Now in my life, he still influences me. If I see that I have some of his bad habits, I try to change, so that I am not like him.

Good News?

Now it is coming up on my graduation. I did not have many friends due to my schedule. I guess I was one of those dorky kids, that every one in high school knows, but they don't really know him. The good news in my life is that my mom recovered from cancer. She would go for blood tests every other month and they were all good. It's been 2 years since she was first diagnosed. My friend Ron came back from Seattle, and he too had recovered from the leukemia. I graduated when I was 17 and this was to be my last summer vacation. My dad suggested that we go to Wildwood NJ. When the time came to go, my mom said if I go I will miss my blood test, but she said I guess it will be all right since they did not find anything so far. We went to Wildwood, and had a very good time as a family. By now things seemed to quiet down with the family, although my dad would at times remind her that she still owed X amount of cans. By the fall I got my first job and then a car. I called up a girl that I met when I was 15 but she broke up with me for no reason at that time. Her name was Lorna and me and her would go out and make out until the sun would rise. I ask her why did you break up with me, and she said your dad would just creep me out. My grandmother on my dad's side was getting old, and she wanted to move out of her house into the old folks apartments. They told her that she could not own her house and move into the apartments. She sold the house for $1 to her daughter, then moved into the apartments. This pissed off my dad, he wanted the house sold and the money divided between the 4 siblings. My grand mother said, well it really is not going to you sister, but to her daughter. Her grand daughter Carol married some Portarician. When she would come over and cook for her grandmother, they would slop the kitchen up with grease and food everywhere. This got the wheels in my dads head turning, he said if they are going to get the house, they won't mind a few extra tenants. He called upon me and my fried Ron to go to the black neighborhood and look for roaches. We went down at 11 PM in an abandoned building looking for roaches, but could not find any. About then this black guy came over and said, what are you white boys up too. We told him, and he laughed, he said you want roaches, come over to my house, you can take as many as you want. We went out in the kitchen, and picked up about 25 roaches and threw them in a jar. My dad found some reason to visit my grandma's house the next day and we released the roaches in the kitchen, I am sure they will be well fed in their new home.
Since my mom missed her blood test, she went to the next scheduled test, which happened to be a full 6 months since her last test. She was told her cancer returned, shortly after her last test. We were told that they would have had a good chance of stopping it if she had kept her last appointment. My mom was in the hospital, which left me and my dad at home. I don't know what was bugging him, but one day he kept going on and on about the punk, that lived with his parents next door. I got tired of hearing him, and thought to myself, all the talk in the world won't get the punk out of that house. My friend Ron and I came up with a plan, which I cant disclose on this blog. The only thing I can say is that, things did not go as planned, but it put enough of a scare into the punk's family that he was kicked out of the house the next day. I say scare, because nobody was hurt and no property damage was done, well nothing that a little paint couldn't fix. My dad would always talk about problems, I wanted to start doing something.
You might say, what happened with your brother? After my brother graduated from high school in 1977 we did not hear from him. We really did not know what happened to him. We heard about Jim Jones and thought he might have got cough up in that mess, and the Rev. Sun Young Moon was popular, so we thought he might have been a "moonie" John Wayne Gacy was in the news so we watched the names of the dead boys removed from his house. To our surprise, my brother joined the Navy. He contacted us in 1981 and by 1982 he invited us down to Charlotte, South Carolina to go on a dependents cruise on the nuclear ballistic missile sub. he was assigned to. I was 16 and my dad gave me a choice, he said I have been promising you a vacation to Disney World every year, now this year we could go to Disney or visit your brother on the sub, it is your choice. I said Disney will always be there, but this is a chance that only comes once in a lifetime. We took a train to Washington DC and another train to Charlotte. My mom was too week from her chemotherapy treatments to go. The doctor said if we did not go to wildwood, that she would stand a better chance of recovery,So it was just me and my dad on this trip, we actually had a good time quite the adventure, My mom spent time with my grandmother, gong museums and flower shows, when my dad and I got there we booked a room near the water The tug boats would com close and then transport the families to the sub. About 35 family members boarded the sub, we went out for about 12 hours and dove for about 8 hours, Many of the family members got a chance to control the diving planes along with the periscope. After the goodbyes were said, we each went our separate ways, not to hear from my brother for a while.
My mom was back on stronger chemotherapy, her cancer went to her bones , ribs arm and scull. the new therapy seemed to be working. Her strength would improve and she was back to work. I would go to my room to get changed for Judo or DeMolay or scouts, and my mom would be laying in my bed, because dad put a very large pad lock on their bedroom door. I gave my mom a hard time because I had to get ready, but she shot back with a very cutting remark, she said"someday you will wish I was in here" she also told me that your dad would hit me with his solid wood brush. I said I know, I figured it out a few years ago. She said did you figure he was hitting me in the back of the head where it would be hard to show anyone. If I flinched he would make me put my head up again so I would feel the full force of his punishment. I ask why didn't you leave or have him kicked out. My mom said there would be no tellin what he might do to this house, you or me. One thing both my mom and I talked about was that my dad never cried , not one tear, he would go through all the motions of crying the sounds, but would cover his eyes with his hand. When he removed his hand nothing, not even moist. It is a real theatrical event that you must see for your self. My dad ask my mom to marry him. This is what she always wanted, but re wanted to get married where they do not stamp the date on the certificate, because he did not want any nosey relatives or neighbors to give him a hard time on the date. We went to Winchester VA. I held the bowl that my mom would vomit in. The next thing was he had her make out a will that he wrote up saying everything goes to him, but a small clause that he would look out for my well being. He had my friend Ron witness it and sign it.We heard a knock at our door at about 1PM, It was my mom and we ask how did you get here? She said she did not know, but she had her full payroll with her, but did not remember going to the bank . We called her Doctor, he said bring her in now. He did some tests and found the cancer retreated to her spinal column and now she has it in her brain.They tried to give her kemo through a spinal tap, but this was too much pain for my mom. The doctor suggested that they put a shunt in her skull to relieve the fluid buildup. we said OK but after they did it my mom could not walk again. The doctor said that this was the most radical kemo around. If this does not work maybe we could set up a room for her in our house or hospice. While she was in the hospital I had lost my job, just as well, because now I could spend more time with her. Sometimes I would bring my girlfriend Lorna to the hospital with me. She stood by my side when I was low or start to cry. If someone close to you, ever came down with a disease that would probably kill them, then you know what our family was going through. If nobody in your family has had a long debilitating illness, then count your blessings. You hang on every word that the doctor says, you look for any sign of improvement from your loved one, but the next day turns out to be even worse. My mom stayed alive at the hospice for about 2 months. My dad and I stayed there almost around the clock, trying to monitor what she ate and how many drugs they gave her. On Feb 17 of 2006 my mom succumbed to her illness, she was 43. What do you do now. Their was just me and my dad. I found another job in printing, and tried to get on with my life. Tried? My dad did not want me to leave the house, except to go to work. I was assistant scout master, but my dad did not want me to go on the camping trips, he even relayed wrong messages from my girlfriend so I would miss our dates. He did not want me cleaning the house, because that was the way my mom left it. The more he tried to keep me at home the more I wanted to get out of the house. On weekends I would sometimes go out drinking with my friend Ron, to try to forget the whole situation. Other times I would go down to our basement to build WW2 models, which I was quite good at, some of the models were on display at some of the local hobby shops. My dad would talk about how much he missed my mom, and even would go through his fake tears act. In my whole life, I never saw him cry once. I was thinking to myself, boy you treated her like shit her whole life, why would you be upset now? I went down to my friend's house, and he offered me a beer. For some reason I said no. Then another friend came over and wanted me to buy his car. I said I already had a car, but he went on and on about duel carbs and a racing cam. I finally said, I would think about it, but he said, while you are thinking about it, do you have a place that I can store it because the inspection is expired. I said sure, over my girlfriends, because she has a garage. So he was following me to my girlfriends, and then I heard the duel 4 barrels open up, I knew he was going to try to race me to the ramp on the bridge. I hit the gas and beat him to the ramp on the bridge, but then my tire blew out and my car went into a spin, the next thing I knew I was heading over the guard rail into the river, but at the last second my car flipped onto the roof. I never wear my seat belt but that day, for some reason I had my seat belt on. I calmly turned the key off and crawled out the window. It took about 8 people, but we flipped the car over, put a spare tire on, and I drove it home with about 10" of window to look out of. The next morning I woke up, the sun was shinning bright, birds singing, and I thought it was all a bad dream, until I looked out the window. Nope not a dream.

TOUGH LOVE

On the home front, I tried to stay clear of my dad. I never caused trouble in my house, I knew what he was capable of. Around this time, my dad started dating again, yes less that 4 months after my Mom died. It did not bother me too much, as long as he was dating it sort of kept him off my back. He was with a group called Parents without Partners, and had a picnic planned with them. On the day of the picnic, my brother decided to drop in. My dad was pissed at him for just breaking all communication with us, and not showing up or even sending flowers or a card at my moms funeral. My Mom treated my half brother like a son, and harbored no ill feelings toward him, his mother, or step father. In fact when my dad was railing against his mother, my Mom tried to calm him down by sugesting the divorce was over and everyone should get on with their lives, she was quickly punished for that suggestion. Well, anyhow, my brother shows up at the picnic, I waited in the car while he went over and talked to him. After a short time, my dad came back with a puzzled look on his face. I ask what happened, did he say why he stopped talking to us? My dad said, I asked him what was his problem. He said you want to know what my problem is, I'll tell you, WAS I PLANNED FOR? My dad said, I really did not know how to answer him, outside of, I tried to be a good dad after he was born. Again that was the last time the 3 of us were together, well within 50' of each other. Down and the basement I was working on a world war 2 model, when my dad came down and said, I have a sock missing, it is my sock and I want it back. I ask him, are you accusing me of taking your sock? He sarcastically replied, ooooohh noooooo, I wouldn't ever accuse you of that, but it is my sock and I want it back. Another day he said the same thing about his hat, then a glove, then a TV guide. It was driving me nuts, because he would not directly confront me, but make insinuations every time I was around him. I was comforted by my girlfriend Lorna. She mad the suggestion fro me to marry her and move to Florida, to get away from my dad and Ron, both of which she thought were bad influences on my life. I told her I was too young to get married, and that my dad was going through a rough time after my mom died, that I should not abandoned him. That was a mistake, she decided to break up with me 2 months after my mom died. I told my dad that he was substituting me, for my mom. I meant that he was going from one whipping boy to another, but my dad pretended that, I meant it in the most perverse, sexual way possible. It was obvious that we weren't seeing eye to eye on anything. At this point in my life I took an evaluation of my circumstances, 1 my mom just died, 2 my dad was falsely accusing me of stealing, 3 I lost my job and had no money in my bank account, 4 the girl I loved, and at one time believed in me broke up with me, and 5 my car was destroyed. I thought, maybe I was supposed to die the night I flipped my car. I went back to my girlfriends house, and told her I would kill my self if she did not go back with me, she still said no. Right in front of her I dumped a whole bottle of dilodid, a pain medicine for my mom, down my throat. I drove to near by parking lot to die. If you ever tried to kill yourself with pills, one of 3 thing can happen. 1 of course you succeed, 2 someone finds you in time and they pump your stomach, or 3 in my case, I took so many pills that my body rejected it, and threw everything up. This was my lowest point in my life. From then on, I decided to be like Spock from Star Trek, and have no emotions and think logical. I got a new job, got my car fixed, and joined a dating club. I did try to connect with my dad, I did not tell him about the suicide attempt, but I did tell him I was very depressed, and that we needed to see a family councilor. He agreed, and said he would find a councilor, while I was at work. I met a few girls in the dating club, most were partiers, or just liked to go on dates with different men. I called this one girl up and we met a local family restaurant. The first thing I thought when I met her was wow does she have big hips, well bigger than any girl that I had dated so far. We hit it off, and I suggested, that we go on a moonlight dance cruise. I was a bit worried, since I told her I was 21 and was still 20. They carded her, but not me. We had a wonderful night of dancing, but when I took her home, she did not want to set up another date for some reason. I told her the dating club was having a Halloween dance, and ask her if I could take her. Then I got the ton of excuses, well IF I am not doing anything and IF my sister can come with me and IF me and my sister can find a costume and IF..I stopped her in mid sentence and said, look how about I just meet you there, If you make it fine and IF you don't well we will just meet again some other time. I was determined not to say much to my dad about her. I did not want him messing anything up, and now he was indirectly accusing me of taking family pictures, coins, in fact he had a whole list which I did not read. I tried to ignore him as much as possible, waiting for him to come up with a family councilor. Halloween came and I was making my costume for the dance. I had another hobby of making latex masks and costumes. If you remember "Benny Hill" where he had an outfit that looked like he was riding on the back of a little old lady, well that was my costume. I arrived at the dance late, but saw Mary, and her sister right away. She said, I didn't think you were coming, and then said, wait here we will be right back. After 15 min. I guessed that I was getting the brush off. I ask a few girls to dance but I think they were a bit put off by my costume. I went to a corner and started drinking beers as fast as I could. The dance was about over, they started turning on the lights. Out of nowhere, Mary comes up and says she was looking for me, she gave me a kiss, and this time we set another date. One minute you think you have nothing to look forward to, and the next you are on top of the world.
My dad started bugging me about the money that I borrowed from him, to pay for work on my car. Even though I was making payments to him, I guess he wasn't getting paid fast enough. He brought down a piece of paper, and said all you have to do is sign it and I won't bother you about your repayment. I looked at the paper, it had my name and it had the amount that I owed, and his name, as the person that I owed. He said I just wanted to have something for the record, in case you move out and decide not to pay me. I was going to sign it but I noticed that he was not letting go of the paper, and his thumb was covering something up. I told him I wasn't going to sign it until I saw the whole paper. When he moved his thumb, it said repayable at 120% interest. Of course I did not sign it. I told him we really have to see a councilor. I got my new girlfriend to lend me the $1800 that I owed him along with a receipt stating all debts paid in full. With much anticipation, the day to see the councilor had arrived. It was Feb. 16 1987. The group "Tough Love" came to our house to act as a councilor. Right off the bat, they said, your dad says that you have been stealing from him. If you do not sign this paper to repay him $10,000 + interest then you will have to move out or be removed by the police. I tried to tell "the councilor" about how my dad abused my mom, married her when he knew she would die, just to take possession of the house. I told them I didn't steal anything, I just didn't do it. They said that they did not care what my dad did, it was his house, and you are over 18. They also told me, that my dad had a right to put me in the nut house, because I told him that I was depressed, and that he could bring charges against me an incident where I assaulted him. I said what are you talking about? They told me that my dad went into the hospital 3 months ago and said that you broke his rib. I told tough love that never happened, but they said why would your dad go to the hospital, if it didn't happen. I told them that he is playing the system to control and manipulate me. They said that they did not care what my dad did, that those were my options, and that they would be there to support him. The next day, I went to move in with my friend Ron. I borrowed a truck and started moving my stuff out. My dad said, you had better sign the paper, or I am going to have you thrown in the nut house plus you will have to answer to assault charges. Then he started to ask me why did you steal from me and what did I do with the stuff. I told him, I didn't know what you're talking about then I heard a click coming from his shirt. He had a mini-recorder and was trying to get some sort of confession out of me. Tearfully I replied, one year ago to this day I lost my mom, today I lost my dad. I was only able to get about 1 load of stuff out of my dad's house, and ask my dad if I could come back to get the rest. He agreed and I started unloading down Ron's house. Ron said aren't you going back to get more? I told him my dad said I could come back tomorrow to get the rest. Ron said, I've seen this before, if you don't get your stuff now, you will never see it again. I argued with Ron,because my dad was always a man of his word. The next day, I went back, my dad said you got all your stuff, and there was nothing more in the house for me. I said what about my comic books, my DeMolay ritual book and papers, my models? To which my dad replied, I don't know what your talking about, and that if I didn't leave he would have the police remove me.

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NO, I AIN'T NUTS

Whew. Finally out of the house, not much money in my pocket, was able to get some clothes and a few personal items. With the help of mu girlfriend and my friend Ron, I will make the best of what I have and get on with my life. I was working at a small quick printer, not much money coming in, so I started a pop and candy concession at the print shop, on the honor system. This was doing quite well, I was able to bring in about $50 to $75 a week. One morning I was walking out the front door of my friend Ron's house with 2 cases of pop in my arms, when I saw 2 police men at my car. They ask me my name, and after confirmation, they said you have to come along with us. I ask what this all about, they said you are being taken to a psychiatric ward for observation. When I got to the nut house, they ask me if I told my dad that I was depressed. I said yeah, after all my mom just died and my dad was making false allegations about stealing things. They told me that my dad filed a report with them alleging that I was suicidal and that I was on drugs. I of course denied the charges, but they told me that when a complaint is filed by a "loved" one, all subjects must be taken in for observation. For a week I stayed at the nut house, at the end of it all there was a hearing to determine if I was a hazard to my self or someone else. They determined that although I seamed troubled, I was no hazard. Boy, I thought to myself, I wished that I had a chance to put my dad in a place like this, they would have a field day figuring him out. Back to getting my life on track. My job was doing well, so I decided to go back to my old print shop teacher, to tell him how I was doing. I hardly said 2 words to him, when he started asking some very odd questions. "Are you doing well with your cocaine addition,are you off heroin yet?" I said what are you talking about? Mr Mo replied, well your dad was in here a few weeks ago, and he was quite upset, I think he might have been crying. He told me all about your stealing from him to pay for your drug habits, all I want is for you to get better. I tried to tell Mr. Mo about the situation, but he did not want to hear about it, he only said well, your dad said that you would deny your drug habit, and that denial is the first symptom of addiction. I said denial is also the first symptom of someone that has been slandered. That is how I left, the teacher that started my carrier in printing. I called my grandmother, and got about the same response. She also told my dad that she didn't believe him. He responded, who would know better, a farther who watched his every emotion from when he was a baby or his grandmother who only saw her grandson part of the time. I guess that statement and the fake crying convinced her. I tried to tell her bout how he abused her daughter, but she said stop making that stuff up, just to get back at your father. I saw a pattern of slander, so I called "dad" Volstoncroft up to see if my (biological) dad got to him. He said, my dad did call him, but he really didn't believe him. He also said that if I were to petition the Mason's for member ship that I would be black balled because even though he believed in me the other Masons that my dad called feel where there is smoke there is fire, and they would not take a chance on my membership. I also called my ex-girlfriend Lorna, she said my dad call her and her mother, but they told my dad that he was crazy and that if I had any emotional problems, they were caused by him. I did not want to hear if my dad called my old assistant scout master, it would have been too hard to hear him talk about how bad my alleged dug abuse was. About a month went by, when I got a summons to appear before a magistrate, to face charges of assault and battery. I got to the hearing early, my lawyer did not show up yet. I had a chance to talk to the "impartial" magistrate. I ask, what would happen if I just pled guilty, would I just pay a fine, be assigned probation? He said,"If you plead guilty, I will throw you in jail for the maxim sentence, your dad told me about how you stole from him to pay for your drug habit, right after your mother died. I throw punks like you in jail every day, with a smile on my face." Yep I can see I am going to get a fair hearing from him. My lawyer was a no show, and we had to reschedule the hearing. Upon telling my lawyer about the conversation with a magistrate, he said we will take this to the county court, where your dad will not be able to get to the judge, since they only assign the judge on the day of the hearing. At the county court house, my lawyer got a plea bargain, charges reduce to simple assault, 6 months probation plus a fine and court costs. I took it, even though I was not guilty. I found out later, why my dad gave me all these problems, ya see I only had so much time to contest my mom's will. As long as I was kept busy, time was expiring, the second reason was to keep in fear of what he might do next if I caused him any problems contesting the will. My dad never knew how to play chess, but he sure knew how to play people and the system.

The Gorilla Football Player

I only have this story on blog, to show some of the stupid decisions we make when we are young. The year was 1987, and I had moved out of my dad house for about 6 months. There were about 5 of us guys sitting around Ron's house. Our recently married friend, nick named Kirmet, because his last name was similar to the famous frog, pulled up and he ran out of his car, yelling something like you guys got to help me. So we ask what was wrong. He said his new wife was already cheating on him, with this guy who was a semi-pro 260lb football player, who played center. He said that he was going out, but had only pretended. He came back and went to the basement of the apartment building he was living in, and had a wire tap on his phone. He said the guy was coming over in about an hour and he wanted us to beat him up. Well, not one of us was over 200lbs, so the guys were getting some weapons. Ron had a lead pipe, someone picked up a baseball bat, chains, razor knives and brass knuckles were grabbed. Ron ask me if I was going, but a little voice in my head said NO. It was the same voice that told me to put my seat belt on when I flipped my car. They all got some sort of masks, and their weapons and took off, leaving me alone in the house. I started thinking that they will all be back telling their stories about how they beat this guy up, and then ask me why didn't I help. After pondering this for about 15min, I went against my better judgment, and drove to the stake out point. They knew this guy would have to park in the parking lot which had only one entrance, so the circled the lot and would pounce on him from all directions. The car pulls into the lot. He gets out and starts to walk toward the apartment, when the signal was given, and we all sprang from the woods surrounding the lot. I did not have a weapon or a mask, so I took my shirt off and covered my face and head only leaving a narrow slit for my eyes. Well, it turned out nobody wanted to make the first contact, and this guy saw he was out numbered and did a little foot ball move and ran toward the apartments yelling call the police. Somebody yelled, trash his car. His car was like a ratty 1970's nova or something, it already looked like trash. But we smashed his wind shield and 1 headlight, and all of us ran over the hill into deep woods before the cops showed up. As we, the 6 masked men with weapons were running down the hill we could hear footsteps behind us. and this guy yelling I am going to kill you mother fuckers. The hill got very steep and we all started to fall. As I started to get up, I saw this gorilla football player straddling my friend Ron. He was punching him into the dirt, and I says to myself, I got to help Ron. I got behind the guy and put a triangular choke hold (thanks my Judo training) and to make it worse I put my foot into his back, and choked as hard as I could. My friend Ron scurried out from under. The next thing I saw was Ron lifting his lead pipe in the air, I pulled my head back as far as I could, because I didn't want blood or brains hitting my face. The next thing I knew everything went black for a second, and I saw Ron raising the bloody lead pipe to strike again. It was me that he hit, and I was not going to wait for a second strike, so I let go of the gorilla, and rolled over the hill. My shirt on my head was all bloody, so I threw it in a trash can, and visited my ex-girlfriend who also lived in the complex with her brother. Her brother answered the door and said how did you get fucked up, then the police started to arrive. I said let me in and get cleaned up so I could get out. I did not tell him much, but he gave me a shirt, I got cleaned up and left. I drove back to Ron's house, I was the first there, and again I was alone. I started thinking, did they get picked up by the police, are they coming to pick me up now? Why did I go? I knew I should have listened to that voice. About 45min later the 5 other guys came in, and they looked a mess. I said what happened did that guy put up that much of a fight. They said no, but while this guy laid on the ground, they were all pounding on him. There was not enough room left on this guy to hit, so they actually were inadvertently hit each other. The football player was taken to the hospital, needless to say his football and adultery carrier was over. I ask Ron why did you hit me? He said, you weren't supposed to be there, and I didn't know who you were, your face and head were covered. I said the only thing you should have known is that I was the guy helping you from getting beaten, why would you hit the guy helping you? He said, I guess I just got carried away in the excitement. Now for years I felt a little guilty, about the beating this guy, but 2 things came to mind, when you fuck with another mans wife, things like this do happen, and sometimes worse. And 2 why would you run into the woods after 6 mask men with weapons just tried to jump you? After all the only damage done was a cracked windshield and bad light, that should have been enough of warning. I guess like everyone there, we were in out 20's and the testosterone took over.
    Life at Ron's was like the movie Animal House. I was the only one that had a steady job, everyone else was in some sort of construction business. There were 3 to 4 bachelors living there at any one time, just about everyone had some sort of hard luck story. When times were good, for construction, everyone had money for booze and beer parties. The neighbors, called the cops on the house several times due to the noise. My friend Ron got back at them by throwing even bigger parties with beer kegs and partiers on the porch roofs, he also invited the son of the neighbors, so they would stop calling the cops. At one of the parties some guy egged Ron into playing Russian roulette. Ron said, so you want to see me play Russian roulette, sure so he picked up his revolver, loaded 1 shot then put it to his head, pulled the trigger...click. Then Ron said your turn, pointed the gun at the other guy and pulled the trigger, click again. Needless to say the guy did not stick around for round 2. Since I had some income, I carpeted and repainted my room, installed a ceiling fan, and refinished the fire place. I tried to get cable, but because the other people in the house did not pay their cable bills, the cable co. would not hook it up to my room. I called the cable co from my work place and they said if I could provide a rent receipt from Ron, that they would hook up the cable. So I called Ron on the phone, and he was acting very strange, he did not say much, long pauses, not answering my questions. I ask him is this a bad time to talk, he said yep and hung up the phone. I came home to find shot gun blasts in the floor in the ceiling, bullet holes in the walls, blood spots on the dining room table, on the walls, floor. I ask what in the hell happened? He said you know how we all place money in the drawer to pay for food, soap, cleaning supplies etc., well someone has been stealing it. I wrote all the serial numbers down, and we found the guy with the some of the bills in his wallet. We chased him around the house, shooting at him but I just wanted to scare him so I deliberately missed. I said what about the blood. He said well scaring him didn't seem to be a good enough deterrent, made him write a confession for stealing, then made him place his hands on the table, then we whacked his hands with a hammer. I didn't know the guy, he was one of the guys that worked with Ron on construction. Ron said when I called he had a 45 pointed at this guys head, while he was writing out the confession. Ron had a reputation for doing dirty deeds. I never saw him do anything, but he would have gobs of money in the middle of winter, he said it was from doing "night work" He told me he did freelance collections for the mob. He told me that the mob ask him to do "the big one", but he always refused, because he said if he did, then the mob would own him. I never ask about his "night work", but I tried to get him to stop. Ron would say, I never did anything to anybody that was innocent. These guys knew who they were borrowing money from, and they knew what would happen if the did not pay it back. I got into a few fights, trying to help friends out, but for the most part I stayed out of trouble. The other bachelor, would have a parties in his room until 5 am. I had to work the next day, so I waited until he was trying to sleep off the booze. I put all my stereo speakers toward his room and at 7 AM I blasted him with John Phillip Suesa march music, that would be the last thing you would want to hear when you have a hang over. This same guy came in the house another time at 3 AM and started making all kinds of noise down stairs. Ron came out of his room, and told him to keep it down or get out of the house. This guy was drunk, and said you just think you're so tough, why don't you come down and make me. Ron wearing only a towel, some how produced his 45 and shot 2 shots in the floor. The drunk guy was out of the house in a flash, he didn't come back for several days to give Ron a chance to cool down. For me the only trouble I got into was with girls. I had very little respect for females at the time, maybe from my upbringing. I was going steady with Mary, the girl that has stuck by my side through thick and thin, but I still cheated on her. My dad once told me not to burn my Bridgets behind me, so I had Bridget come over a few times, I also met up with a stripper while I was there, she was 12 years older than me, but she knew how to take care of a man. As chaotic as it sounds, everyone living at Ron's, had a set of common values. Never abuse or harass the innocent, never get involved in family feuds, never do something that will bring the law to the house, and if you do something wrong be prepared to do the time. Never lie to Ron. After 2 years at Ron's house, the police raids, the parties, I thought it was time I moved out. I rented a duplex and Mary moved in with me. Since my life was back on track, I thought that maybe I could patch things up with my dad. I talked with my dad at his house. He seamed to be back to "normal" but after a few times of going out with him, he said, I can't keep seeing you until you go to drug rehab. He took me to a support meeting where there were all kinds of people on all kinds of drugs. I found my self being hugged by heroin users, saying don't worry man we will be here to support you, while you kick the habit. Afterward I told my dad, I am not going back there, I am not on drugs, and never had been. We got into an argument, and I stopped talking to him again. Mary and me moved again into a rented house. About a month after moving in, I ran into an old friend. My friend told me that he was talking to my dad. He said my dad told him he had cancer, and he said I think he was crying. My friend said I don't know what your differences are with your dad, but if he has cancer, you should try to patch things up before he dies. So I called my dad, and guess what, no cancer. We talked for a while, and started seeing each other on the weekends. In 1991 I bought a small printing press and put it into my basement. This was the start of my business. One day my dad brought down some of my old military models, he also brought down some of my old comic books and even some family pictures, then he said by the way social security, sent me a letter, if you sign it I can get more money from them. So I signed it. The police called my house one day, they said that they were at my dads house and that if I didn't come over and vouch for him that he would be hauled off to a psychiatric ward. They said that my dad was talking to this guy and during the conversation my dad said he wanted to be with his wife. The guy said where is your wife, to which my dad replied why she is dead. This guy called the police for a suicide threat. When the got to the house, they found that my dad has not thrown anything away for years. Stuff like banana peels, egg shells, used cleanex, his house was filled with garbage from floor to ceiling, bugs crawling around every where. I had to promise the police that I would help my dad clean up the house, otherwise they were going to take him to the nut house. I made the mistake of vouching for my dad. This might have been the only time that he could have got help. It seemed at the time that if I let him go to the nut house, that I would be seeking vengeance on him. We were staring to patch up our relationship, or so I thought. My dad then started to borrow money from me, but would not pay me back. When I pressed him for the money, his answer was I guess you need the money more than me. I stopped "lending" him money and thing went down hill from there. He would say things like, I know why you won't admit to stealing from me, because I heard quote from a guy that said if you admit to doing something then you are weak, and I know your not weak, do you know who said that? I said no, who would say something like that. He said Ted Bundy, and Ted Bundy wasn't weak and neither are you. I hung up the phone. At the same time Mary had settled into domestic life. After knowing her for now about 9 years she went from 5'1" 115 lbs to 5'1" 167 lbs. I didn't want to see her naked, I didn't want to go to bed with her, so I broke up with her. Outside of Mary getting as big as a house, I started to like her sister, Sue. Sue and I had gotten fairly close, but it was all plutonic. Mary was a quitter when it came to problems, but Sue would do something about it. Sue read several motivational books on her own, like the magic of believing, how to win friends and influence people, etc. These were books that I had read, but Mary wanted no parts of them. Mary read the torrid romance novels with a half naked men (Fabio) on the front covers. When we went out I always tried to get Sue to go with us. It got to a point where Sue was able to finish my sentences. The trouble with Sue is that she always attracted nice guys, but were slackers with No ambition, and wanted to stay at home. I even wrote a very torrid love letter to Sue, but I did not have the balls to give it to her. Mary found the letter, and I somewhat talked myself out of it, but it further helped in getting Mary out of the house. My landlord who did not raise the rent the whole time that I was there, died in 1996. He loved Nascar, so his wife bought him a big screen TV for his birthday. One day he was watching Nascar on the big screen and had a heart attack and died in the middle of the race. Well now his wife owns the house that I am living in, and she says, I am putting the house up for sale, if you want it buy it, otherwise move out. I found another place across town, just 3 doors down from my former land lord. I used the extra money that I made from my business for the down payment. I worked days at my regular job and nights for myself.
Ron's dark side came out and was directed toward me and my house at a party. Ron had gotten very drunk at a little get together at my new rented house. He was so drunk he could not find the front door when he wanted to leave. Ron kept going to the door on the balcony, which we all tried to get him turned around, less he fall over the edge. On the third attempt to go out the balcony door our friend Keith (6'1" 260 lbs) grabs him to turn him around. In a split second blood was on my walls, for Ron sliced Keith's hand with his razor knife. Now everyone backed away from Ron and he was just standing there in the middle of the room clenching the knife with blood dripping off of it. As the host I knew I had to do something, so I ran and got my hammer, came up behind Ron and hit him as hard as I could in the funny bone, so he would drop the knife. It didn't work, so I hit him again and again, then I started hitting him in the back. All Ron did was start to laugh, in the most evil sound possible, he slowly started to turn around. The big guy Keith grabbed the hammer off of me, so I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest butcher knife possible. When Keith saw me coming around the corner with the knife, he some how dis-armed Ron. I still kept coming, because I knew Ron had more weapons. Keith managed to get brass knuckles, a sap. a buck knife, a 45 and a 38 off of Ron. Then Ron really went crazy, and started trashing my house. Just about then the police arrived, and everyone , froze and went quiet. The police looked at Keith and said, tough guy huh, well you're going to spend the night in jail, and I know you ain't going to like it. That is when everyone in the room pointed at Ron and said he was the guy that started it. Ron snapped out of whatever trance he was in and said, why officer I didn't do a thing. The police broke up the party, and everyone went home. I didn't talk to Ron for 5 days, but when I did talk to him I ask him what happened. Ron said he had no recollection of what happened, it was like he blacked out. I ask him if he has ever had black outs before. He said that since he was 5 years old, he has had the blackouts, and the green man takes over. What green man, I ask. He said when he gets into trouble or a fight where he is out numbered this green man shows up in his head. The green man always takes over and then I snap out of it safe and sound. Ron said that some times he has to try to restrain the green man because, at times this voice is saying, KILL THE MOTHER FUCKER, KILL KILL. Ron told me the green man looks like a gorilla with huge human like muscles and large fangs, and of course all green. From this point on, I did not want to be around Ron when he is drinking.