I sat in the rear of my 9th grade science class and I felt safe there because I could survey the entire classroom and dissect the sum of its parts (very scientific of me). It was all about perspective and I could watch interactions between students, interactions between students and the teacher; I had a nice view of the entire room. However, that was not by design because our seating assignments were based on alphabetical order and I just happened to be in the back.

Amidst that broad array of students, I became fixated on one particular person that would not leave my psyche alone and that was Diane, whose last name placed her directly in front of me, allowing a spectacular 3-D view of the lovely back of her head and a heavenly Smell-O-Vision scent that completed the hypnotic trance. I probably spent the majority of time looking at the back of Diane because I have little memory of science class. I had become the smitten, ‘Diane monitor’.

Diane had strong, Nordic features, long blond hair, and seemed very mature for her age. I had quite the crush going. I wanted to talk to her but I didn’t have a whole lot of self-confidence about this boy-girl thing and so, for a very long time, kept my attraction to myself. When I applied logic to the equation of she and I, she seemed out of my league, but then I thought that about nearly every girl in school until late into my high school years. Could I possibly be wrong this time?

In league or out, there was something about her that I couldn’t resist, something like a really great dessert that you finally give into because you just can’t stand it anymore, and so…

I wrote the note.

I know what you’re thinking…’not the note, not the deadly ‘cards on the table’ note that represents a Kamikaze dive bomb into hell. Not the note of no return because if this goes wrong, and how can it not, you will end up receiving the biggest social outcast facial in the history of 9th grade science class. Not only will Diane know but all her friends will know as well, and those friends will tell other friends’.

I wrote the note anyway and, worse than that, I delivered it by hand at the end of the hour and walked off to my next class.

Now, I’m not sure you need to know the particulars of the note, since that would elicit pity from the reader for an event long in the rear view mirror, but in general it professed an admiration and feeling for Diane and, ‘how’d you like to hang out?’

(Very long dramatic pause here as 24 hours pass and the next school day arrives with the result)

I was just ‘dead man walking’ down the hall to science class and already kicking myself for putting my puppy love on the line with somebody I didn’t even really know but loved from afar like some twit who lacks a sense of reality. I didn’t really want to go in to that class but it’s amazing how, in situations like that, your legs can keep moving towards danger while every instinct tells you to flee.

As I hit my chair, Diane, with no discernible emotion, turned around and dropped a note on my desk. I stared at the folded plutonium with a measure of dread and caution but I couldn’t let myself open it because, good or bad, I didn’t want her to see my response and with the care of a radioactive technician I slipped it into my pants pocket.

When I finally got out of class and in a secure location I unfolded the paper and read the bad news; she was not interested in me at all and pointed out how dumb it was that I even wrote the note in the first place, and then she let it be known that she had a boyfriend that would pummel me into the ground if I ever approached her on any level.

Now, you’d think that I’d be crushed to the point of despondence but that was not quite the case. Sure, Diane would never be my girlfriend and I had already intuited as much but she had also exposed her nasty side so I immediately lost any attraction to her I might of had, because if she were a reasonably sensitive 14 year-old she wouldn’t have responded by threatening to unleash her big shot/punk boyfriend on me.

But the very best thing about having written the note was that, in the end, I was enlightened as to who Diane really was and, on top of that, nothing earth shattering really changed in either of our lives. I quickly checked her off the list of girls I’d ever be interested in and 9th grade science class went back to being just science class and no more Diane monitoring was necessary.

Sure, I took a wild shot and crashed and burned, but my punishment was some embarrassment that I got past in record time and I, ultimately, figured out that I could take a risk (with the possibility of reward) and the downside was mild discomfort.

So, kids of America, if you’re sitting there day after day pining away after some classmate and you just don’t think you can get over it, take a run at it. You write a note, you (God forbid) talk to her/him, you profess some nutty infatuation, you ask somebody out to share an ice cream sundae, you stick your ass out there and sometimes get it kicked.

The good news is you don’t die; you just get more ice cream and a temporarily sore ass.

I worked on it in 6th grade but 7th grade really brought me around to fine tuning a fundamental style choice, one that had its roots in the late ’50’s and still had traction for many of the boys in 1963. Ours was a variation on the greaser look and, while lacking the leather prominent in its prior incarnation, still retained the D.A. haircut (D.A. was short for Duck’s Ass because of the fan tail that was combed into the rear of our hair), the tight pants, white socks and pointed black leather shoes. Shirt was open to interpretation.

There was a style clash going on in teen world at the time (isn’t there always?) and this one was fueled by the local radio stations that defined their listeners with callers being asked, “Are you a greaser or a frat?”. I think I was a hybrid with the heart of a frat and the fashion of a greaser.

I liked Brylcreem, that soft, white pomade that looked like toothpaste and turned your hair into a shiny oil slick that I’m sure repelled water although I don’t have an exact recollection of that happening. Brylcreem’s signature jingle used the hook “A Little Dab’ll Do Ya!” but we ignored the ‘little’ part and slathered it on there like we were basting a turkey. Comb a big rollover on the top that dropped into a spit curl down the forehead, go strait back on the sides and you had the hair equivalent of cool, at least we thought so.

The shoes had to be pointy to go with the hair and the pointier they were the more striking the look and to compliment the ‘points’, as we referred to them, you had to have very tight khaki pants with short legs and a fabric that was cotton but woven in a way that let it stretch. So when you jumped into a pair of these things they clung to you like Spandex.

In 7th grade I was 12 years old and there was a growing problem with the tight pants.

That growing problem seemed rather like it had a mind of its own and reacted to forces beyond my knowledge or expertise and before I even had time to call it by its proper name, the spontaneous erection was wreaking havoc with my fashion statement.

If I wanted to keep the pants I was going to have to figure out how not to reveal my growing problem which my pants so generously displayed at the slightest provocation. What the hell, sometimes with no provocation! I’d be sitting at my desk, minding my own business and out of nowhere the south rises again and it’s almost time to leave and go to my next class but I can’t get up without blowing the cover of the desktop.

So I’d sit there until everyone left class and then pray that the teacher and my erection would both leave at the same time. It was torture and an accident waiting to happen because those damn pants left no room for error and my only strategy was to remove even a hint of cerebral acknowledgment of the female figure which was nearly impossible in a school full of girls.

Also, for some reason, I had the ridiculous idea that I was the only one going through this. I knew the other guys were at the same juncture in terms of development but I mistakenly thought that my erection was a renegade; a free-lancer that could do anything it felt like doing without my consent or approval.

Any second over the classroom intercom might come: “Attention all girls of the 7th grade, this is the principal and there is a young boy with a loose cannon in the school. For your own safety please evacuate the building until we can locate the source of the offending member!”

My ‘johnson’ was carrying on like there was a party in my pants and the rest of me had to tag along, stand in the corner like a wallflower and hope to go home early. But don’t get me wrong here, this new hormone explosion was a delight in the right hands but in the school classroom or shopping mall it was a little terrorist waiting to surprise the hell out of me.

But I’d always wait the episode out by talking myself down and then slink out of class and down the hall to my next humiliation. One thing I refused to do was give up the tight pants that were not only a billboard for my crotch but a primary cause of the errant excitement. I was not going to sacrifice style for safety and part of me respects that in hindsight, but the other part, the part with better judgment, wonders what kind of adolescent is dumb enough to walk around in anti-puberty pants.

Fortunately, my pants outlasted my lack of control, but not without plenty of memorable moments. By the way, I should probably apologize for the scads of puns and euphemisms used in the above story but since I never apologized to the 7th grade for the tight pants, why start now?

I was still in grade school when I started playing Youth Football and my baby sitter had to pick me up from school and trek me over to the practice field every week day during the season and then the blur of practices began and that blur melted into the blur of league games.

It wasn’t a blur because I was unable to compete, it was a blur because I was playing ball for all of the wrong reasons. I loved sports but wasn’t the least interested in organized football at that point in time and was doing it for the sole reason of having my dad (father #2) see me play in what was his favorite sport.

As other stories here have mentioned in so many ways, the desire of attaining my dad’s interest in me was my own little Myth of Sisyphus where the struggle becomes the only thing achievable. I wanted it because he was ‘dad’ and I needed to look somewhere for that person and know that he wanted to see me and I’m sure that scenario has replicated itself ad nauseam for millions of children throughout time but it is nevertheless true, especially for boys and their fathers.

When I was small, I admired so much of what he could do as an artist and performer that I was willing to turn a blind eye to his failures if only I could have his attention. That’s why I joined the youth league that year because he told me he would come and see my games; maybe not all of them but at least some of them and that would be good enough for me.

I busted my ass in those practices and pretty much hated every minute of time I could envision spending elsewhere but I had a mission so I ignored my boredom and half-heartedly got back in the tackling line to smack some kid with my helmet.

My mother got me to the games and ended up working a little in the concession stand which became a minor blessing since I would rather have chugged hot dogs than play defensive end but duty came first and I’d trot out on the field to play my position and save the treats for after the game.

That’s when the trouble began.

Dad told me he’d be at the opening game and so I was keeping a lookout in the stands for his arrival. Unfortunately, I was doing this while I was on the field and if I was doing that then I wasn’t paying any attention to the fact that they were running a sweep left and it wasn’t until I got slammed to the ground by the pulling guard that I realized that there was a safety factor that I was forgetting here.

I tried to split my time between saving myself and scouting the stands but it was hopeless and I ended up getting splayed out several more times before the game came to a merciful end and I carted my bruises off to the concession stand for a junk food band aid.

Dad said he was sorry he missed that one but would try and make the next game and so the whole thing happened again and I got caught over and over looking into the stands only to wind up on my back. He apologized for missing that one but the pattern was pretty clear to me that he was never coming to any of my games and he never did.

During that season the coach would pull me out of games sometimes and ask me where my head was at but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I was embarrassed to say I was looking for my dad when I was supposed to be playing football. I was embarrassed to watch other boys interact with the their fathers before and after a game and hear them cheering for their sons. But I was mostly embarrassed that I took so many blind-sided hits because I was looking for my dad’s sorry ass to show up. Now how could I answer the coach’s question with any of that?

I know my mother felt bad for me but there was nothing she could do but get me another dog and bag of chips and make sure I got to and from the games. So I played the season out because I couldn’t bring myself to quit anything after I’d started it. I was a bit of a masochist that way.

In every situation there are those damn lessons to be learned and I suppose the most immediate one here was ‘always watch your blind-side’ but obviously there are larger ones. Although I never ceased trying, I couldn’t change the dynamic with my dad but I could experience what he couldn’t allow himself to enjoy. When I had the chance to be a presence in my nephew’s life I jumped at it without reservation.

Although I have no children of my own (an essay for another time) I can give that part of me to my nephew that I never received and in many ways it is a win, win for both of us. He knows that I love him and care about his life and what he does and I know that he values that and loves me in return. I may never have experienced a father that cared about me but I can know what it’s like to give unconditional love to a child.

It lifts you right out of whatever idiocy is flying around in your head and puts you squarely in someone else’s life and I think if my dad, depressed and alcohol dependent as he was, could have understood that he would have lept at the opportunity.

The first instrument I took up was the drums and began formal lessons when I was 8. My dad (father #2) sort of pushed me in that direction and, in fact, father #1 was a very talented drummer (they both knew each other and sometimes even played in the same bands) so perhaps it was assumed that my talents would most naturally blossom as a drummer.

I definitely had the musician in me and my dad knew it so he wanted to get me on the path, whatever flavor that might end up being.

I liked the drums but found the practice to be too tedious for my taste. Especially having to work on the practice pad, an angled block of wood with an 1/8 inch piece of rubber cemented to it, but that was what I was given before I graduated to an actual set of drums. I always wanted to take shortcuts but in music, as with anything, sometimes there are no shortcuts so I labored away at the practice pad until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I eventually got a small set of Rogers drums (snare, hi-hat and bass kick drum). It wasn’t much but it was a quantum leap from the practice pad so I was happy. One thing that I really enjoyed was working with brushes, the multiple long steel wire gadgets that took the edge off regular sticks and made it fun to swing and I just liked the feel and sound of them on the drum head. I began using them a lot when working with the Dixieland genre and I got good at it by playing along with my dad’s Dixieland records.

My dad decided to take me and my mother out to the White Lake Inn to see ‘Madman’ Miltie’s Dixieland band. I had met Miltie prior to this gig and he had given me a pair of very nice sticks and I was sort of smitten with his generosity and encouragement. I don’t know about my mom but I wanted to go and my dad sure as hell wanted to go because this was a ‘fun’ family outing that incorporated his two primary loves, music and beer.

For my 9 year-old self this was really cool stuff and I had already developed an affection for the New Orleans born genre so hearing Miltie’s band was pure enjoyment. Miltie was bigger than life with a huge persona made of a strong sense of humor, solid drum work and a signature goatee that set him apart from the usual clean shaven men of the time. My foggy mind’s eye recalls him looking like a cross between Frank Zappa and Salvador Dali. He even had a sign installed over the entrance to the men’s room stating that it was ‘Madman’ Miltie’s dressing room. He was a character and I was very drawn to people that were working the fringes.

It was Miltie who asked me if I wanted to ’sit in’. ‘Sit in’? You mean get up there with your band and your drum kit and play? Like…a song? I was scared to death but with that kind of fear that young people toss aside to do something potentially stupid. I didn’t know what was going to happen since I didn’t know these guys and more importantly, what song are we going to do, what tempo, what, what, what? Somebody stop me, I’m 9!

We settled on “Basin Street Blues”, a song I knew very well and so I climbed up onto the bandstand and into the saddle but I didn’t even have the luxury of the anonymity of the back of the stage where drum kits usually reside because Miltie was the star of the show and his kit was located front and center, ending right about where the dance floor began. The place was packed and somebody gave me a nudge and a count-off and away we went.

I was good enough to get through the song but the real interest for the audience in my being up there was the novelty of watching a little twerp like me play Dixieland. The ladies, especially, would whirl their dance partner right up past me to get a good look and I remember one of the women laughing and saying to her companion with that beer hall bravado, “Look at the little guy go!”, as they sashayed back to the bar for another round.

Obviously we didn’t have a song arrangement per se so the other musicians and I sort of eyeballed one another for a suitable ending and although I don’t recall how we got out of it, I remember the audience applauded, I hopped off stage feeling pretty good about myself and got rewarded with a 7-UP.

Albeit short and sweet, that became gig number 1 and I got a taste of being on stage and the focal point of the room and while part of me wanted to run for cover from these crazy people, the other part was eating it up. That dichotomy would become a permanent part of my brain and it made performing the most alluring and the most repulsive act, both at the same time.

Eventually I drifted away from the drums into more melodic instruments and singing but that trip out to the White Lake Inn presented the possibilities and what it might feel like, and Miltie…

I don’t even know what Miltie’s last name was and if I did it would probably just ruin the image anyway. What if it was Snellensnooter or something pedestrian like Smith? No, he just had to be ‘Madman’ Miltie; drummer extraordinaire, showman, comedian and inadvertent role model for a 9 year-old.

It was 1960 and he was cool man, real cool.