For as long as I could remember back, during most of my pre-teen years, my dreams were an exercise in lurking terror followed by wild flight and occasional escape. It was an almost nightly rerun and there were many variations on the theme as to who or what might be doing the chasing, but the story always followed the same linear plot line. It began with an unknown fear masking itself in the dark, although I could sense its presence. Then as it revealed a partially shadowed self I would try to nonchalantly walk away from it, hoping against...
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What a weird, weird thing that junior high ‘shop class’ thing was, and what was the point really? Of all of the nonsense that I created in shop class, none of it could have held a spec of worthiness compared to ‘home ec’ (home economics). You have to cook to eat or sew to keep your clothes in one piece but nobody needs a coffee pot wall-hanging made out of a coat hanger…nobody. But ‘home ec’ was for girls and ‘shop’ was for boys and I’d say the girls came out ahead on that sexual pigeon hole. So I...
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It didn’t take a detective to see that there were aspects of my childhood that struggled for lack of a paternal influence and with my biological father (father #1) hiding out in parts unknown, avoiding his children like the plague, and my adoptive dad (father #2) just plain ineffectual, my mother decided to pull a card from beneath the deck and took me down to the Big Brothers of America office. I have to say I didn’t see this coming. I was in Junior High School by this time and somewhat resigned to being ignored for the remainder of...
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No, not that Pipeline, the mammoth coastal waves located in Hawaii, because that would involve a near-death experience with a surfboard and water rolling over head. Mmmm, not so much on that one. The Pipeline I’m referring to was born in the very un-surfer-like Detroit area and was the name that teenagers gave to an anomaly in the local phone system that allowed faint, random crosstalk after the dial tone ceased. This was the mid-sixties, before the advent of the phone company’s recorded message urging you to hang up the phone, followed by the endless, ear splitting aural reminder...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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The atmosphere in America during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was extraordinary to say the least. With the immediate threat of annihilation in the forefront of everyone’s mind, the collective consciousness of the public moved through their lives with the insane thought that if things didn’t go right in Cuba we’d have to figure out ways of surviving a nuclear holocaust in our own country. Much like the psychological craziness that has dogged us since 911 and the extreme reactions to it, in ’62, and even prior to that, people were all suddenly finding the idea of building...
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