A look back

Another big change and the Appliance from Hell

2009-10-18T05:01:00.000-07:00

So now I was buried in debt even farther and struggling once again.
Winter was typically the slow season for my shop as well, so I answered an ad for a security guard at the Dow AgroSciences plant in Harbor Beach, and landed a midnight shift job there and was still able to work in my shop during the day.
It was exhausting to stay awake all night then work some during the day, but I was catching up.
Looking back now, it seemed to be a time that, despite all the hard times, I was able to land on my feet most of the time.
The job as a security guard didn't pay a lot, but through it I befriended several truck drivers from a company out of Port Huron that would come in at night to haul out loads of liquid waste.
This worked to my advantage when one of the drivers quit to take over his fathers family business. All the other drivers recommended me to their company to replace him, as I had experience driving tanker trucks, and I wound up with the best job I ever had.
I was able to keep the truck at my home, and every night at midnight I would go to Dow and get a load and take it to a landfill near Cleveland, Ohio. Once I got there, I had 3 hours to take a nap before they opened. It turned out to be 12 hour days, and the company paid time and a half for anything over 8 hours a day. A full 20 hours of my weekly paycheck was overtime.
The company also had the very best health care coverage and our whole family was covered 100% for everything medical.
I caught up on bills in no time and we were actually living a comfortable life for a change.
We were able to enjoy life and take little weekend getaway trips here and there. Sandy bought herself a shiny red Mustang and I bought myself a nice old Chevy pickup that was big enough to tow a camper I bought from my sister Kathy, and rebuilt it from the ground up.
The owner of the company I worked for started construction on a waste water treatment plant in Port Huron and began to pass the word around that, upon it's completion, Dow could send the loads there (a distance of 60 miles) rather than all the way to Ohio. They would also be RECYCLING the waste rather than burying it- a big plus PR wise for a huge company. The contract would have been very lucrative for my company as rumor had it, Dow was paying the Waste Management landfill nearly $12,000 a load to take them.

For the Fourth of July weekend that year, we took the camper up north and visit her sister Gladys. There was also an old time festival in a nearby town that weekend that was also a lot of fun.
When we got to Gladys' that Friday night, she was showing us the new computer she bought, mainly to help her children with their school work, but she had also found that on this new thing called the internet, there was a multitude of people to talk to that had the same interests, as well as a lot of strange people and groups.
Sandy was intrigued by it, and her sister began to show her all the things she had found, so Jerry and I set up my camper and we visited for awhile, and cooked some chicken and burgers on the barbeque.
Jerry asked the second oldest girl Andrea to start preparing all the side dishes for the supper, but she complained- “Aww do I gotta do it AGAIN? I thought mom was doing it?”
“Yeah...she was supposed to....but if we wait on her, we'll be here all night.” was his response.
Andrea stomped off to do as she was asked and Jerry gave a heavy sigh and told me-
”She (Gladys) doesn't get SHIT done since that damn thing came into this house.”
Once the barbeque was done and Gladys kids took care of everything else, we all prepared to have a meal together. Sandy and Gladys were still checking out the internet and came out to the table and filled their plates and went back to the living room and the computer, rather than take a place at the table.
“You should check this out! There is EVERYTHING on this!” Sandy told me as she went back to the living room.
“No thanks” I told her. I really wasn't up on electronic gizmo's, so I really had no interest in it at all.
After dinner, we went outside (other than Gladys and Sandy) and Jerry built a nice campfire and we all took out lawn chairs and sat around it. The kids cooked marshmallows and made s'mores and Jerry and I had a few beers and talked awhile. I always looked forward to coming up here. It is a very laid back, back in the woods rural area which suits me just fine, and sitting around the campfire shootin' the shit was always a high point.
After a few hours, the kids began to toddle off to bed and Jerry and I were running out of things to talk about. It was evident the women were not going to join us, so we put out the fire and went inside. The mosquito's were getting thick and up here they are the size of hummingbirds as well.
They were still planted in front of the computer, their empty plates from dinner still sitting on a nearby end table when we came in the house.
“You have GOT to check this out! There is literally anything and everything you could want on here!” Sandy told me again, her eyes all bleary from staring at the screen.
“No thanks.” I replied.
“But seriously...there are all kinds of people with all kinds of interests...you really oughta check it out...” she continued.
I watched TV for awhile with Jerry and at midnight, I told Sandy I was heading off to the camper and to bed. I'm not sure she even heard me, and she didn't answer, but I was dead tired. I had worked the previous night, took a 2 hour nap, then drove five hours to get here.
I tucked the kids in one more time and flopped down on our bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
I awoke the next morning sun shining through the window and birds singing and realized I was alone in bed.
How the hell long did I sleep? Is everyone awake and gone already?
I glanced over at the kids bed...they were still sleeping soundly. I looked at my watch to notice it was only a little past seven AM.
Oh well, I'm awake. Guess I'll go to the house for a cup of coffee.
I could hear Gladys and Jerry's kids running around and muffled voices inside the house as I stopped to pet Charlie, their yellow lab/Chow mix that was tied out to his doghouse.
“Sounds like everyone's awake, ain't they?” I said to Charlie as he took in the petting, his tail going a mile a minute.
“Mornin' Uncle Tom” Andrea greeted me as I went in the house. She had the youngest child Greg, who was almost a year old on her hip, and was busy making breakfast for him.
“I made some coffee if ya want some” she told me.
“Thanks Andrea” I told her as I poured myself a cup. I noticed her mom and Sandy were already in front of the computer screen again.
“They got up pretty early to be back in front of that thing already.” I said.
“Ppffftt! They haven't moved.” Andrea said. “They've been on the stupid thing all night.”

And so the weekend went on. We all did go to the festival and had a fun time, but as soon as we returned, Sandy and Gladys planted themselves in front of the computer again.
For the whole five hour trip home, all I heard about was all the people she met and talked with online, and by the next weekend we had what I would come to refer to as The Appliance from Hell in our house.

Much like her sister Gladys, Sandy was spending the majority of her time at the computer, joining groups, meeting new people from all over the world and telling me I should check it out.
I still didn't want anything to do with it. I was beginning to hate the damn thing even though I never touched it, just because of the fact that, much like Jerry, I had to pick up the slack around the house. Nothing quite like working all night, then having to stay awake to do mundane chores that had been left sitting for days. We both worked odd hours and shared household chores, whoever got to em first did em. But now she just wasn't doing them at all.
Work progressed nicely on the water treatment plant the boss was building and he continued to promote it. Unfortunately, word eventually reached Waste Management about it as well, and fearing losing the contracts to have the waste hauled to their facility, they sweetened the deal with Dow with one condition...they would send their OWN trucks to haul the waste.
It was big business self preservation for them, but it would be bad news for me.
Dow doesn't like to put all their eggs in one basket, so they did keep my company on board, but we went from four loads a night, five days a week to only two or three loads a week. It was a huge blow to my company and being low man on the totem pole, I didn't get the highest paying Dow runs, they went to those with more seniority.
Gone were the days of having the truck at home. Instead, my truck was now kept back in Port Huron and I had to drive my own vehicle 65 miles each way every day. I was given runs between Port Huron and Detroit that were relatively short runs, so I was getting very little overtime as well.
It was still good money, but the commute was costing quite a bit too, not to mention I was racking up miles on my own vehicles.
Back on the home front, Sandy continued the addiction to the net and began to make trips to a casino nearly two hours away to meet her sister Gladys for nights of fun. Eventually Gladys wound up getting a divorce and began her hunt for something better on the net (if she hadn't already).
One night I got a phone call from an older woman I worked with as a security guard at Dow. I had always gotten along with her, but she wasn't very popular with others, mainly due to the fact she took her job seriously. Maybe even a little too seriously. It wasn't a high security site by any means, in fact, security was in place more or less to save on insurance costs. We were, at best, $7 an hour scarecrows.
She called to tell me that things had gone to hell in a handbasket in the security department. The supervisor that was in place when I was there had resigned and the man they put in his place was doing an awful job. She went on to tell me she had contacted the corparate head of security in Indianapolis in regards to the matter and wondered if I'd be willing to talk to him.
I remembered the man they promoted to supervisor, and he did seem to be the last person I would have given the job to, so I agreed to letting her give the corparate guy my phone number. I didn't know what possible light I could shed on her situation, but what could it hurt.
A short time later I did get a call from a man who introduced himself as the Global President of Security and we talked for awhile about what I felt about the whole situation.
When we were done, he told me that everyone he spoke to back in Harbor Beach spoke highly of me and felt I did an outstanding job when I was there. He also asked (to my disbelief) if I would be interested in a position as head of security in Harbor Beach.
I didn't know what to say. Despite all the travel and now lower hours and pay, I loved my job and the people that owned the company were the nicest people I ever worked for.
“How much are we talkin'?” I asked the Dow exec.
I was shocked to find out I'd actually be making a few dollars more working for Dow and I'd be 5 minutes from home. I asked for a week to think it over.

A lot of things entered into my decision. I would have more time at home to spend with my kids and with Sandy's addiction to the net, they needed me now more than ever. There was the expensive commute. The idea of sitting in a comfy office versus driving a truck weighing 160,000 pounds with a load of liquid sloshing around in it on icy roads was rather enticing as well.
Plus that title...head of security...sounds so high tone doesn't it?
I considered who I'd working with at Dow and knew I got along great with all of them. The older woman who put me on to the job could be a little grating, but she thought I hung the moon so she wouldn't be an issue either.
With a heavy heart, I resigned from the company I was working for, and accepted the position at Dow. They understood, but both of us were sad to see it end.
My new position meant I'd have to learn about computers, so much to my chagrin, I began to explore on our computer at home. I found Sandy was right...there are a lot of interesting and helpful things on the net and I was fast becoming used to it as well and had my own little circle of friends too.
Nothing quite like having a bunch of people from all over the world that care about you, and for me in life at home, I really didn't have many good friends. I could see how this was addictive.
One day Sandy asked an odd question out of the blue. Gladys had been talking to a wealthy young man from Alaska on the net and the two of them were getting quite close. He was flying in to meet with her, but Gladys, having never met him in person, wanted Sandy to go with her.
Seems like a reasonable request. After all, a person can say they are anything on the web, right?
The odd part of the question was Sandy wanted ME to come along as well...but tell the guy I was her BROTHER, not her husband.
“Why in the world would I do that??” I asked.
“Well...it's complicated..Gladys kinda told him you were my brother” I was told.
Probably just be easier to go along with it.”
I refused at first and the more I thought about it the more angry I was becoming. Just who was interested in this guy...Gladys or her?
I did go though, mostly to see if my suspicions were correct, but stood firm on having no part to do with the “brother” part.
Turned out the wealthy young man was nearly 70 years old and pretty crusty, so neither of them were interested, but both of them were traveling quite frequently to meet with people “purely for Gladys”after that.
I found I was spending more time on the net myself and belonged to a group ran by a lady that lived in Sandusky, which is only 40 miles away...small world. The group was a lot of fun and I made a lot of friends there. One night in the chat part of the group a woman close in age to me was talking about her toothache and all were giving condolences, etc., but we began to talk and found out we have a lot in common.
Her name is Nancy, and over time we become close. She lived over 500 miles away, but eventually we decided to meet as well.
As we both set off to meet at a halfway point, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I was still married....well sorta. My marriage had that it's still there till she finds Mr. Right feeling.
I asked myself as I drove along- am I throwing my life away?
What life, I reasoned and drove on...I was back to being a bad boy again...

What I really need is a whole lotta speed...

2009-10-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

Soon after the ordeal with Dad, the winter season set in, which is not my favorite time of year.
I used to love it as a kid, and could play out in the snow for hours, but the older I became the more it became a hassle.
It went from sledding and skating to shoveling and trying desperately NOT to skate while driving...and all the bundling up just to go out. What a pain in the ass.
That winter hit me very hard. I missed Dad and wondered if I'd ever see him again. He had been taken to the city, first to live with Nancy, then eventually to nursing homes down there when his condition worsened. I was becoming an amateur private investigator to find out what home he was in, and once I did find him , he'd be moved to another, and the search would start over.
I was getting fed up with it. I was getting fed up with just about everything.
Sandy and I were becoming more and more distant as she buried herself in her work and I in mine. I'd like to say I didn't blame her for all the problems with Dad, but deep down I knew I did at least a little.
It was freezing cold out, snow was flying, there was nothing to do and having spent a small fortune in legal bills, money was very tight again. It was going to be another long boring night in front of the TV when I heard the unmistakeable sound of a snowmobile engine in the front yard.
Oh great, now we got some asshole diggin' ruts all over the yard and driveway, I thought till I heard it pull up near the house and shut off.
It turned out to be Mike Holdwick, who had recently come home on leave from the Air Force. He had gotten an old snowmobile he and Henry had when we were still in school running again, and stopped by.
He had heard of my ordeal, and what a grumpy old bastard I had become as a result.
“Get your shit on” he said as he came inside and took his helmet off.
“We're goin' up to Halfway”.
Halfway Tavern was a bar a few miles from our home, named because it was located roughly halfway between Harbor Beach and Bad Axe.
“Naw...I can't” I said thinking of my empty pockets.
Oh yes you can!” he said “even if I gotta drag your ass out”.
“I don't have any money” I said.
“Don't worry bout that! We're goin' dammit!”
How could I refuse? Maybe a night out would do some good anyway.
I put on my insulated coveralls, heavy gloves and a full face stocking hat.....purely as an afterthought, I grabbed my old motorcycle helmet too. It would help keep my ears warm.
After Mike got the snowmobile started he stepped back off and told me- “you can drive”.
I had only been on a snowmobile once before. It was one I bought from a friend of Dennis Cruegers that was a huge engine on an older frame that went like hell, but I hated freezing my ass off so I sold it shortly after. I wasn't an expert by any means, but I knew the basics.
I shrugged my shoulders and hopped on the sled with Mike behind me. I figured the best route would be along the shoulder of the highway, it would be smooth and an easy ride.
As I went down our road towards the highway, the snowmobile began to tip to one side, but we were able to lean into it and bring it back.
“What the hell ya doin??” I heard Mikes muffled voice yell.
“I Dunno...it just went suddenly”
After I had it reeled back in, I gave it gas and we were underway...till it began to tip again.
“Lemme try it” Mike shouted as I brought it to a stop.
Mike got on it and I climbed on behind him and we were off again with no problems. Musta been my inexperience. As we reached the highway, we began to zip down the shoulder a little faster, until it really took a tip suddenly, nearly throwing us off.
“Must be the crown of the road” Mike yelled. The shoulders of the road were gradually sloped so water would run off, and it was tipping towards the down side, so that made sense.
“We'll turn on Minden Road and take that” Mike said.
Minden Road was a dirt road, which are typically flat as a pancake, so the crown of the road would not be there. It seemed to work great...Mike took it easy and on the first part of the road it was handling beautifully, so he opened it up to full throttle.
I have to admit, flying along at top speed did feel good. The rush of the wind and adrenaline I was feeling was putting a smile on my face for the first time in a long time. I had no worries, no cares, just the wind in my face and the snow whizzing past me and raw SPEED.
I remember briefly feeling a tipping sensation, before I was instantly sliding face down on the road, Mike was on top of me and the snowmobile was on top of him still shrieking at full throttle and upside down. We slid for what seemed like a week to ten days before the sled tumbled off of us and began to flip end for end down the road and into the ditch.
I rolled on my side and slid into the other ditch and wound up laying flat on my back. What the hell just happened?
“You okay??” I heard Mike ask.
I began to take inventory of my senses and realized I was okay...no broken bones or any serious injury other than my knee hurt a little. My helmet had some nasty scrapes and my coveralls were torn by my sore knee, but other than that, I was intact. Mike had a few lumps but was in good shape as well.
We walked over to the snowmobile still idling in the ditch, and other than a broken windshield, it was surprisingly in decent shape too. We yanked it out of the ditch expecting a broken or missing ski to be why we flipped, but found no real damage, so we jumped back on it and carefully continued on to Halfway.
As we drank a beer and began to shoot some pool, I also began to warm up, and the warmer I got, the more my knee was throbbing. I decided between shots to go in the bathroom and take a look at it.. it must be scraped up pretty good to hurt this bad.
I was shocked when I dropped my pants and seen the skin had been torn completely off of my kneecap and was hanging by a sliver. Inside my knee was full of small stones and dirt and as I began to pick them out, my knee began to bleed.
I wrapped it in toilet paper and went back out to the bar and told Mike we needed to leave NOW.
When we got back to my house, Mike and Sandy were picking the gravel out and cleaning it out.
“”You need to go to the hospital!” Sandy told me, but I refused. I had no insurance and figured I had enough big bills thank you...I'd be just fine.

I did wind up going to the hospital the next day anyway where they found more gravel in it and I got a bazillion stitches.
A couple years later I even had to have surgery to remove more and I still walk with a limp and occasionally use a cane, especially when it is cold and damp out.
It's my old war wound....

Maybe there is some hope after all

2009-10-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

You said you didn't need me in your life
Oh, I guess you were right.
You know I never meant to cause you no pain,
but it looks like I did it again.
Now I wish it would rain down
Yes I wish it would rain down on me....

It was obvious that Nancy had been abusing her given powers over Dad's affairs and to stop what was happening my other sibs and I had to petition the courts to have her Power of Attorney taken away. With all the evidence given, they did appoint a temporary court appointed Guardian till a suitable permanent one could be put in place.
Dad eventually got out of the hospital and back to his home once we were able to get everything turned back on, and a health care worker was hired to stay with him.
My sibs and I set about having my brother named to handle his affairs, as it should have been in the first place.
We contacted a lawyer, gave him a BALE of money and he assured us that having my brother named his guardian would be absolutely no problem.
He was the oldest, financially stable himself and a police officer to boot. We were assured he would be a shoe-in and the court appearance would be little more than a formality. He wondered why the court didn't suggest him in the first place.
We had tried but the courts let Dad choose who, and he chose Nancy.
At that time he was slipping and forgetful, but still deemed capable to make that decision. Tests had shown his illness had now progressed to the point he was now unable to think rationally enough to make them. He was now deemed a legally incompetent adult, or L.I.A. based on the tests given.
It was all legal mumbo-jumbo. At least now we knew Dad would finally be properly cared for.
I visited with Dad every day and over time, we got back to what we once were, before all the mistrust, before my wild stage.
He had a couple of great health care workers that he enjoyed having around and his health and his attitude vastly improved.
Nancy stayed away for awhile, but as the court date loomed near, she began to call Dad on the telephone and the health care workers noticed he would change after the calls and become less sociable.
I happened to be there when he got a call from her one time and I carefully listened in on an extension line and found out why. She was telling him that the health care workers were my idea, and they were costing him a fortune. She was telling him to tell the workers to get out of his house, he didn't need anyone there. She was telling him I had set a court date and was going to tell them he was crazy and try and get all his things and money. Don't trust him, she pleaded with him. She hung up quickly when I asked why he shouldn't.
True to form, after the call he was confused, quiet and a little standoffish.
“Are you going to court to take my things?” he asked straight out.
“No Dad”
“But she said you had set a court date?”
“Well” I said, wondering how to put it so it didn't sound bad. “you do need someone to make sure your bills are paid and that you have everything you need..”
“I've been doing that.....haven't I?”
As much as I wanted to tell him all that had been done by Nancy, I didn't want to take that road, it just wasn't my style. It would only ad to the confusion for him, and he likely wouldn't remember it by later the same day anyway.
“Well, no someone else has been doing it and they messed it all up....so we were thinking maybe we should let Mike do it....would that be alright?”
I could see the confusion on his face and the mistrust starting to well up inside him.
“I guess” he said nervously as he walked to his desk where he used to keep track of everything in small notebooks before his illness.
“Where are all my books?” he asked as he rummaged through some papers
“Someone took them...”
“Don't worry about them, they are...”
“Did you take them??” he asked.
“I don't have them, but they are safe...you're gonna have to trust me Dad.”
The look on his face was anything but trust and he began to retract into his shell.
“Dad, I don't care one bit about your money or your things. In fact, I'd just as soon not have anything to do with any of it, as long as I know you are safe.” I told him.
“Yes, there is a court date, but it is only to appoint Mike to take care of your bills and such.” I continued on. “but it's not for my benefit or anyone else's...it's for your well being ...can you trust me?”
“I guess...where'd ya say my books were?”
“The court has them”
“Did you take them there?”
I thought long and hard about telling him more.
“No...the person that was taking care of them had to give them to them...just till they appoint Mike.”
He was still confused but seemed okay with everything.
The court date finally came and Dad and I met up with my brother Mike and sister Kathy at the courthouse assuming Nancy would be there as well.
As the time for our appearance before the court drew nearer, we were surprised she hadn't shown yet. About fifteen minutes before our scheduled time our lawyer arrived and greeted us all and met Dad. He assured us all again it was all a formality and would be over soon...he just needed to have a conference with Dad before it began.
We all breathed a sigh of relief as he led Dad to a small conference room. It was embarrassing to go before the court with a family quarrel like this, but as he said it will soon be over.
A short while later our lawyer came back and told us he had good news. He had had a conference Dad and the lawyer for the other side and had reached a deal already so the hearing would be just to give the details.
“Other side?” I asked “I thought this was just going before the court to appoint Mike.”
“Oh no” he said nonchalantly “The court NEVER appoints another family member guardian once a member of the family has already been dismissed and there is bickering involved...they always appoint a 3rd party person...it's standard procedure.”
“Who is it then?” we all asked in unison.
“It's time for court...c'mon...you'll see. He told us.
As we went into the courtroom, there sat Dad, Nancy, the lawyer that had petitioned to give her Power of Attorney and an older man no one recognized.
The old gent was quietly talking to Dad as the proceedings began with confirmation that Dad was now considered an L.I.A. (legally incompetent adult)
The judge began by asking all of us if we agreed to the fact Dad was of this mental state.
When I said yes, Nancy leaned over to Dad and whispered “See? Told ya”
I'll never forget the look he gave me that day.
The old gent none of us knew then asked to speak to the court and introduced himself as a senior rights activist and gave a speech to the court how he was fully aware about how Dad had been taken advantage of (to which Nancy sat and shook her head in agreement) and that he would not tolerate it in the least. This man was a veteran, he shouted to the court, and should never had been treated as he was (again, Nancy giving the amen's to his sermon)
He assured the court that Dad would be well cared for like he had never been before under his care and that he would see to it PERSONALLY he was never taken advantage of again.
Nancy's lawyer moved to have him appointed guardian, our lawyer seconded it and the judge banged his gavel. It was a done deal.
Dad had seen me before his own eyes tell the court he was an L.I.A., just as Nancy told him I would.
An old gentleman that was a half bubble off of center that Nancy had befriended and briefed was now his legal guardian and both were on a mission to protect Dad from me.
It lasted 15 minutes, cost us $2500 and would be the last time I would see Dad in a coherent state.
Dad would be bounced from nursing home to nursing home in the city. Each time we would find out which one, he'd be moved to another, and the search would go on.
Eventually he had a massive stroke that left him incapable of speech, whereupon he was moved to a home in Sandusky where I could visit him, but had no way of communicating with him.

The family woes heat up...

2009-10-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

Scratch my back with a lightnin' bolt
Thunder rolls like a bass drum note,
Sound of the weather is Heavens ragtime band.
We all fell down from the Milky Way
Hangin' round here till the Judgement day,
Heaven only knows who's in command.
Barefoot children in the rain...
Got no need to explain
we're all swingin' on a ball and chain
Barefoot children in the rain.

Can't help but get a mental picture of my kids when they were young every time I hear that song. One of their favorite things to do was go out and play in the mud puddles in the driveway after a rain storm.
Wouldn't it be nice to live a carefree life like that? Maybe I ought to go stomp in the mud next time it rains.....
Sandy's kids eventually grew tired of having to do what they were told, and went to live with their real dad for awhile. Although I loved them like they were my own, I have to admit it was a relief. Sandy had a good job and was rarely around for them.
I think that may have made them more rebelious as well. I was the “bad guy” they had to listen to, and more and more, they no longer referred to me as dad.
So it went to me and my fairly busy shop and my own two kids and Sandy who worked long and often weird hours. (some tell me that was the reason we were married for 15 years...lol)
The kids loved having me home. We'd have breakfast and lunch together and they'd help me cook supper. At bedtime it was story time and they would take turns picking out what book I'd read them and I think I could still recite Johnny Tractor (my sons favorite) and PJ Funny Bunny (my daughters) to this day.
Saturday nights we'd stay up late and watch the Red Green Show.
Good times...
It was fun, and this was one of the happiest times in my life, mainly because I could spend time with them, rather than spend time away at work somewhere.
Sometimes in the summer, I'd take some time here and there, and go swimming or fishing, especially if they had been good.
We had taken a fishing trip one day down near Forestville, and I had planned to stop in and see Dad, if he were around. I really wanted to visit him more often,and wanted him to see his grandkids, but with my busy schedule combined with him spending a lot of time away with Nancy, it just wasn't happening. I had also come across as the bad guy in all the bickering when Nancy had filed for Power of Attorney as well, so sometimes he wasn't all that friendly.
We stopped in at a bait shop that some friends owned and as I talked to the owners wife about fishing conditions, weather, etc, she said
“Sorry to hear about your Dad”.
I assumed she was talking about our strained relationship when she also said
“Is he gonna be okay?”
Hell if I know, I thought to myself, feeling bad about how long it had been since I last seen him.
“Yeah, he'll be fine” I lied.
“Oh good!” she said “Ron told me that when they picked him up, they didn't know if he'd make it.”
“Ron?” I asked, thinking of my old boss Ron.
“Why would Ron pick him up?” I asked
“Well he IS on the ambulance crew...” was all I heard even though she was still talking.
“Wait a minute....are we talkin' Ron Nowiski??”
“No” she told me “Ron Umbreit...from Forestville...he was saying they had to take him to the hospital and he was in bad shape”.
“When was this??”
“Last week” she replied, staring at me in disbelief that I had no idea.
“What hospital?”
“Deckerville....you didn't know?”
I was mad and ashamed. How could this happen? Why didn't I try and visit more?Why the hell didn't anyone call me?
“No, I had no idea” I said. “but thanks for telling me”
She was apologizing for not calling me, but it didn't matter....I had to get to Deckerville.
When I got there I was met with a cool response from the nurse in charge when I told her who I was...that was odd.
When she finally let me in to see him, I was shocked. He weighed next to nothing and was so frail I almost didn't recognize him. An IV tube was in his arm, and he was hooked to several monitors. The official word...or at least what they'd tell me... was that when he was brought in he was unresponsive.
He turned and looked at us when we entered the room and as he glared at me he struggled out-
“Is there anything left at my house, or did ya take everything already?”
The nurse that had given me a hard time gave a hearty “harump” and walked out of the room with her nose in the air. What the hell is her problem?
I would soon find out my sister Nancy and her had become close friends and she knew all the “dirt” on me, including a made up excuse that Nancy had left me in charge of Dad for a week and I basically left him to die....I was only interested in Dad's things after all.
Word had spread through the hospital what a creep I was and I was as welcome as the plague there, that was until the head nurse who had been on vacation came back the next day.
She just happened to be my best friend Don's mother, and she set EVERYONE straight as to what was going on.
Over the course of the next few days we learned that all the concerns we had about Nancy handling Dad's affairs were very real and then some.
She and her gentleman friend had moved from a small apartment in a bad neighborhood to a condo in a nice gated community, despite very meager income.
She had bought a brand new car for Dad despite the fact he could no longer drive. (she was driving it with no legal license or insurance too)
She had bought the house next door to his house, again, with no explainable means of doing so. She had also not paid any of his household bills and he had been left sitting in his home with no electricity, heat or water.
It was back to the court and time for round two of the family battle.

Why some chickens are darker than others...

2009-10-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

Once my son began school, my daughter and I spent a lot of time together during the day. While my son was very much a boy and into cars, tractors and just overall boy things, my daughter was every bit a girl...a lot of pink dresses, white tights and bows in her hair. She didn't spend a lot of time in the shop, but she loved to go with me wherever I had to go.
I had to go to a farm supply store in town one day to get some welding supplies and she was really excited to go ...it was Chick Days!
The store would sell baby chickens, ducks and rabbits in the spring and that was one of her favorite things to see.
After I gathered what I needed, it was off to the back of the store to see the baby animals. She stuck her little fingers in each rabbit cage and touched each ones fur and then went on to the large empty watering troughs they kept the chicks in.
First, she peered over the top of the baby duck pen and watched them scramble about, then on to some tiny yellow baby chickens, where she giggled as they cheeped away and scratched at the bottom of the pen.
The next pen had some dark colored baby chickens in it, and the way the pens were laid out, the heat lamps to keep them warm for that pen were clamped to the outside of the pen, rather than the inside like the others.
As she stood on her tip toes and wandered down the side of the pen she began to draw closer to the lamps and felt the heat coming off of them. She would back away, but kept going back towards the lamps.
She got fairly close to one at one time, and rubbed the side of her head as she backed away.
She peered into the pen again...then looked back at the yellow chicks, and back to the dark colored ones.
“Daddy! She exclaimed. “'dese ones is BOINT!!

Out of the mouths of babes...

2009-10-18T04:15:00.000-07:00

The initial shock of Dads troubles (and the bickering) calmed after awhile and life went on.
Sandy had taken classes and became a nurse, which paid very well, so life got a little easier.
I was growing tired of working at shops that paid such a little percentage and I was developing quite a following of loyal customers that wanted me to work on their cars on the side. I thought why not just start my own place?
I took some business classes to learn the ins and outs of bookkeeping, taxes and the day to day of running a business and sold my beloved ‘57 Chevy to get enough money to put a small garage up at our house.
The business took off rather well and the kids enjoyed having me back home again. My son Jacob was now six years old and loved to follow me around the shop and became my helper of sorts. Where ever I was, Jacob was nearby. He was an excellent “wrench getter” and came in handy with his little hands to reach bolts in tight spaces.
It was also about that time I became friends with a man named Denny.
Denny was somehow distantly related to Sandy, and when he started coming around, Sandy warned me...be careful around him, he used to hang around with a pretty wild crowd. (Sound like someone you know?)
We instantly hit it off very well and even if he wasn’t getting his car worked on, he’d come over and hang around now and then. He had the same passion for old cars I did and even had an impressive collection of nice cars of his own. Denny was a retired GM worker and he did relate a lot of stories about those he hung around with that sounded all too familiar to me.
He was at the shop one day looking over my new shop truck...a sort of rolling business card if you will. It was a 1980 Chevy El Camino that I had painted up to show what I could do and I had also put in a powerful 350 truck engine in it.
Denny marveled at the light little car/truck with nearly 300 horsepower and naturally asked- “How’s it run?”
I tossed him the keys and told him to take it for a spin...see what ya think.
Jacob and I went back to work and after awhile Denny came back with a huge grin on his face that told me he had enjoyed his ride.
“Well...whatda’ya think...fast enough for ya?” I asked.
“Holy shit!” he said “that thing goes like a cat shittin’ peach seeds!!...oops” he said as he seen Jacob standing there smiling innocently at him.
Denny apologized for swearing in front of him, but it was no big deal...he’d heard worse than that before.
A few weeks later when a lady from town came in to get an oil change and some maintenance done on her car .
The lady was a very good and increasing loyal customer that paid well and always on time, but she was extremely religious. (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
She was one of those who went to church every day and even had a prayer room in her house. Her car was plastered with religious symbols and even had a plastic Jesus statue glued to the dash and a cross and rosary hanging from the mirror.
Her daughter is a NUN at the Vatican...that’s how hardcore religious she was.
As I toiled away at her car, Jacob had made himself a good host. The two of them were in the driveway just out of the shop and he was making conversation with her on a wide variety of subjects from his age, his pedal tractor, school, his sister, the weather...everything.
He was a veritable chatterbox.
As the sun shone down on my nearby El Camino the lady began to admire the deep blue paint with extra sparkly metal flakes in it.
“My... that car sure looks nice.” she said to Jacob.
“That’s my dad’s car.” I heard him say.
“Did he paint it too?”
“Yep”
“Bet he’s really proud of it, isn’t he?”
“Yep” Jacob told her
“An’ ya know what else?”
“What?” she asked as she smiled at this precious little child.

“That thing goes like a cat shittin’ peach seeds!”

2009-10-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

I arrived at his house the same time the police did and Dad was by himself but very shaken.
According to his accounts, the “two big guys” left after he told them he had a gun in the house and if they didn’t leave, they’d be sorry. (So much for don’t argue with ‘em Dad)
The police asked him to describe them, or their car, possibly a license number and
all he would tell them was they were wearing suits and they were big. One time he described them as both white. A few minutes later, one of them was black, the other white.
The suits they were wearing changed in color too and the car description went from a black Lincoln to a light blue Cadillac.
I could tell he was very confused and scared and told him to come and sit down so he could gather his wits. His accounts and descriptions continued to vary so much he just wasn’t making any sense.
He did keep one constant- despite the fact he couldn’t describe them with any accuracy, he was dead sure it was the same two guys we (as in He and I) borrowed “all that money from”.
I told the police I had NOT borrowed any money from anyone along with Dad.
“Are you sure it was me? I asked
“Yes...dont’cha remember?”
“It wasn’t Mike or Kathy ?” (My brother and other sister)
“No”
“How ‘bout Nancy?” I asked.
The police even noticed the change in him...he went from rattling on and on to saying hardly anything at all.
“I don’t think so” he said quietly after an awkward silence.
As the police tried a few more questions I noticed a piece of paper taped to the wall near his phone in Nancy’s handwriting that listed her phone number as well as that of her gentleman friend and her two daughters along with explicit directions to call if he had any problems.
Another faded sheet of paper that had been there for years with my brother Mike’s number, my sister Kathy’s number as well as the number I used to have, had lines drawn through the numbers with a black magic marker so the numbers weren’t legible.
I noticed a business card from the Ford dealer in Sandusky I had given him many years ago sitting on the counter near the phone. As I picked it up and looked at it, I realized for the first time the numbers for the dealership and the place I now worked were only a few numbers different.
Apperently when he called me, he dialed the numbers wrong and against incredible odds dialed where I NOW worked by sheer accident. (thanks again Mom)
The police eventually left, telling me there wasn’t much they could do because of how much his story varied, but if anything this happens again don’t hesitate to call.
“Has he been getting forgetful? Misplacing things? Maybe feeling confused lately?” they asked me.
“Not that I’m aware of” (how’s that for a politician’s answer?)
After the police left, I sat and talked with Dad for awhile and he began to calm down. I was happy to see him again and we began to catch up. I showed him a picture of Margaret, the granddaughter he hadn’t met yet, and a recent picture of Jacob in his favorite summer outfit, blue jean bib overalls with no shirt and tiny light brown work boots.
He chuckled at the picture and said-
“He sure is growin’...that’s Jimmy, right?”
“No, Dad..it’s Jacob...remember the little bruiser?” I said as I made the same Hulk Hogan gestures with my arms Dad did when he seen him for the first time. (Jacob was a BIG baby and had arms like Popeye)
“Oh yeah” he said as he looked back at Margaret’s picture.
“And this one....that’s Debbie....right?” (Debbie is Nancy’s oldest and, at the time, 14 years old)
“No Dad...that is your new Granddaughter Margaret, Eillen...and her initials are M.E.G....just like Meg McKechan...remember her?”
“Who?”
“Meg McKechan.”
“Never heard of her.”
It was starting to become clear to me Dad was beginning to slip. Meg was a big part of our lives and her and her sister Flora helped take care of Mom when she was sick.
“So, now that you’re calmed down a little...can you tell me more about the guys that were here today?” I asked.
“What guys?”
“You called me and said two guys were here...wanting money?”
“Ooohhh, Those guys.” I listened intently, hoping he could give me clearer details.
“You didn’t have to come here after all...the cops chased ‘em away.”
I didn’t really know even IF anyone had been there at this point, and what they wanted if they were. I only knew Dad was showing signs of Alzeimers and felt he needed help.
I thought of calling Nancy, to let her know what happened and see if she had been noticing the signs I did, but I wisely called my brother instead.
To make a long story short, all of us agreed Dad was needing help of some sort, at very least someone to check on him every day. I volunteered to do that as I was 20 miles away and they were all over 100 miles away. Nancy seen the logic in that, but it was clear she wasn’t happy about it.
Next, with Dad in this state someone had to manage his finances, and Kathy and I felt Mike was the best choice for that. He was the oldest, most level headed and didn’t take sides when it came to Dad. I wasn’t surprised to see Nancy volunteer quickly to handle his finances, but I was surprised to hear Mike oppose that.
Through some police work on his part (he was a Detroit cop), he uncovered a lot of unsettling facts.
First, and foremost, Nancy’s gentleman friend was quite a con artist and owed a LOT of people, some of them quite shady, large sums of money.
To make matters worse he had given his home address for a lot of his “ventures” as DAD’S address, rather than his own address back in the city, so there could very well have been a couple of “knee breakers” at Dad’s house that day.
Nancy didn’t seem to have a good handle on her own affairs as well, and it made us all angry she had crossed out our phone numbers. He needed all of us at that time.
Nancy filed papers with the court to have Power of Attorney over Dad’s affairs and despite the rest of us pleading with Dad to reconsider, the court allowed it to go through.
She was able to convince Dad that he had to give it to her as the rest of us were trying to get his money and, once again, seeing Dad was going to get harder and harder, only this time it wasn’t by choice.

2009-10-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

It really hurt to hear Dad say he didn’t want me coming around anymore.
I may have not been the best of person for a few years, and I’m sure I gave Dad many a sleepless night worrying about me, but I surely didn’t think I deserved that.
I went home and asked if we had any towels from Dad’s place but I already knew we didn’t. The more I thought about it, I wondered how a towel could last the fourty plus years it had been since Dad was in the military.
When I asked Sandy about the towel, she told me about a time when we were all at Dad’s house for a summer BBQ a few months prior, and Nancy and her had , unbeknownst to me, gotten into an argument.
Sandy had gone in the house to get some silverware and Nancy came in and found her rummaging in the silverware drawer and laid into her, asking what the hell she was stealing now and how tired all of them were of her CONSTANT stealing and how bad a gold digging wife/person/mother/cook/dresser she was...the whole nine yards.
A call to Nancy on a pay phone verified her story. She admitted to getting into a fight with her. She admitted that discussions about Sandy had been going on for a long time...even before we were married. She told me of all the crap that had been going on behind my back and how Dad had been telling her all about how I was behaving...and all the things that were missing from the house since “she” came into my life, using the exact same contempt with the word she that Dad had.
I asked for a list of what was supposedly stolen and she refused to tell me...she laughed and said I HAD to already know what was missing...after all, I was married to her.
I was pissed on too many levels to comprehend them all.
I was pissed all this was going on behind my back for so long.
I was pissed Dad could do such a thing and not tell ME how he felt.
I was pissed no one could/would honestly tell me what was missing, other than a 43 year old towel no one could describe or even remembered seeing.
I was pissed no one would believe me when I told them if Sandy had been taking things, I’d have known about it.
I was pissed if she really was doing what they thought, they also thought I was in on it.
Well, if they don’t want me around, fine.
I went back to Dad’s, loaded all of my personal things that were still at his house in my car and told him to have a good life....I’m outta here.
So began the worst part of my life.
I was dirt floor poor and out of work, except for the kindness of friends and neighbors with odd jobs for me here and there. I really didn’t have any friends nearby to talk to...they were all gone, or still riding that merry-go-round I had jumped from and could care less about the problems of a married dad.
And I just told my Dad and family to kiss my ass.
Life went on and I stayed away from Dad, but too say I was happy was a bold faced lie.
I never did believe Sandy had taken a single thing, but there was always that “it came down to a choice” thing rattling around in the back of my mind.
She wasn’t turning out to be the nicest person to be around with her mood swings either. Her Jekyll and Hyde routine just grew over time.
Her kids were also getting older and began playing the vast differences in child rearing between us to their advantage. She also seemed to be much more lenient with her daughter, but ruled her son with an iron fist, and expected me to be the one to carry that out as well.
We constantly knocked heads and the kids just became more and more incorrigible. Our son as a baby was quite fussy, hard to get and keep asleep once he was. I was up to my neck in diapers and dirty dishes. I also had two mouthy preteens to deal with and virtually no backup.
My head hurt, my feet stunk and yes, I did NOT love Jesus.
All the while I had to show how happy I was with the choice I had made. I’ll be goddamned if I’d give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops.
The worst part was running into people who knew Dad very well who would ask how’s he doin’ and have to give them the same “just fine” generic lie. After they left, I’d wonder how he was doin’ myself.
I did find another job at a mufflers, brakes and shocks type auto repair place, but again, it was in Sandusky, and only paid a little better than the Ford dealer, but at least it was SOMETHING.
I was beginning to reach the end of my rope when we found out Sandy was pregnant again.
My son had grown out of his fussy stage and was the apple of my eye, but I really wasn’t looking forward to another round of all nighters with a crying baby.
I wished Dad could have seen her when she was born. I named her Margaret, after my Aunt that raised my dad when he was young, and her second name is Eileen, for Mom.
She had red hair just like Mom and turned out to be a perfect baby. Where my son had to have precise amounts of formula, rocking in a chair (in both amount and angle) and just the right amount of pats on the back to get the burps out and total silence to get to sleep, Margaret was happy with whatever you gave her, gave a healthy burp as soon as the bottle came out of her mouth and was good with putting her in the crib wide awake...she just fall asleep on her own.
Looking back, my two kids were the only thing that kept me from losing my marbles back then. I just keep getting more proud of them every day too.
One day at work, the boss came out into the shop and told me I had a phone call.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Sez it’s your Dad....” he said shrugging his shoulders.
I went to the office wondering why he called...better yet, how did he know where I was working and the phone number?
It didn’t matter...he was calling.
“Dad??” I said as I put the phone to my ear.
“Tom? Those guys we borrowed money from are here” he said with a shaky voice.
“They want their money and said they are gonna start takin’ stuff if I don’t give it to them....do you have any money?”
I hadn’t borrowed anything from Dad, even at the lowest points in my life. He wasn’t making any sense.
“Who is there??” I asked.
“Two big guys...the ones we borrowed money from... dont’cha remember?” he said, his voice sounded very worried.
“They told me if they didn’t get the money today, they’d start taking my stuff.”
“Dad, I’ll be right there....don’t argue with em though, ok? I said.
“....ok...” was all I heard and he hung up.
I told my boss to call the police and Dad’s address and there was possibly a robbery there and that I had to go NOW.

the uphill climb

2009-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

We were managing back then by going on public assistance. At least it meant we’d all eat and if any of us were to get sick, that would be covered as well.
The job at the Ford dealer eventually fizzled out and I was let go when the economy went into a deep recession. It wasn’t as bad as times are now, but jobs were scarce.
We found we could do without a few of things for awhile and one of them was a telephone. If we needed to make a call, we went to her Mom’s place or my Dad’s...kinda a pain in the ass, but ya do what ya gotta do.
I would soon find out that was one of many things that were silently brewing behind my back.
Sandy did manage to find work as a nurses aid at a local nursing home, which helped and with no job, I became “Mr. Mom.”
I actually enjoyed taking care of the kids and found I was quite good at it. I was
also the only man officially on W.I.C., or Women, Infants and Children, a government
program that gave away free food for low income mothers with small children and babies. These mothers were required to jump through a lot of hoops to be eligible for the program, but because Sandy was working, I was allowed to attend the mandatory mind numbingly boring classes on how to properly manage a home (so you wouldn’t screw it all up anymore) and the berating tone one had to endure to get the food coupons.
I did spend more time with Dad, now that I had settled down. I felt bad about the times I hadn’t been around as much. He had spent a lot of time alone, but did drive down by himself to visit my sibs now and then.
Remember how we used to visit them and endure each one talking about the others behind their backs? I would eventually learn that they had some new fodder to kick around...namely me and my new wife.
Most likely out of concern for my well being, Dad had been telling them about my change of character and how I’d been hanging around with some pretty shady people, many of which he didn’t care for. He had told them about finding a bag of grass that Dennis had left under the seat of my car. He told them about weekend long binges and sometimes not knowing where I’d been for days.
He also told them about the dire straits I had fallen into since I had been married and, mostly my sister Nancy, felt it was all Sandy’s fault.
She believed she was just another part of this rough crowd (which couldn’t be farther from the truth) and she was just a gold-digger out to ruin me supporting her and her kids and even getting pregnant to boot.
She believed Sandy had disconnected the phone on purpose, so they couldn’t reach me directly.
While it was true taking on an instant family didn’t help my finances, the majority of the blame fell square on my shoulders. It was me who was not thinking any farther ahead than the next beer during my wilder days and had not been saving for unforseen emergencies like the loss of two jobs.
Nancy festered a deep hatred towards Sandy and was relentless at discreetly talking bad about her both during Dad’s visits and on the phone.
It eventually got to a point where I was seeing less and less of Dad. If I went to visit he’d be gone. When I did see or talk to him he was becoming less willing to talk or be around me.
He quit coming over for supper and seemed to not care for Sandy’s kids, which was odd...he adored them when he first met them. He’d play cards with her daughter for hours and Hot Wheels with her son. Now he just didn’t seem to have the time.
Family get together’s, especially if Nancy was there, were tense to say the least. And I still had no idea what was going on in my family. I could sense some didn’t like Sandy, but it was my choice.
It all came to a head one day when I went to visit Dad, who by then seemed about as happy to see me as a severe case of the clap.
After several minutes of him giving me the cold shoulder I simply asked him-
“What’s wrong?”
He went on to tell me that he didn’t want me to come around anymore...especially if she was with me. Stunned, I asked why he didn’t want me around.
“Because she is stealing things from me” he replied.
“Like what?”
“I’m missing a towel...she took it” each time he said the word she, it was with comtempt
“Dad, I don’t know anything about any towels, but I’ll ask her about it...what color was it?”
“Never mind” he replied, going back to the solitare game he was using to shut me out.
“No Dad, just tell me and I’ll...”
“I said never mind!!” he shouted “I’d had that towel since I was in the WAR...and now it’s GONE!”
“Can you just describe it to me? I’ll look for it” I pleaded.
“Just get the hell out.” he told me, not even looking up from his card game.
I spewed out a long line of profanities that I was immediately sorry for and left, slamming the door.
The whole situation eventually left me with a choice to make. It was between my Dad and family or my “new” family...which do I choose?
I hope none of you ever have to make that choice.

Married with Children

2009-07-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

I guess it was back in ‘63
When eatin’ my own cookin’ was gettin’ the best of me
So I asked the girl I was going with
To be my wife.
Well, she said she would, so I said I do
But I’d have never said I do
If I’d only knew, how sayin’ I do
Was gonna screw up my whole life.

Funny little Jerry Reed song wasn’t it? Lyrics may have given too much away as to what I would experience though...lol.
When I got married I thought I had it made. I was making excellent money and had someone who cared about me and her kids loved me more than their own dad. Even her widowed mom considered me the son she never had. (They had 3 girls)
I kept my ‘57 and the new Harley I had bought (Dad had let my use his 1942 Pontiac for collateral to get a loan to buy it) and bought a five acre parcel of land in the country and a brand new pre-fabricated house. Sandy and her kids lived in the lower half of a small house in Harbor Beach, but now they’d have their own rooms and a big yard to romp in.
The first clue I would have that I wasn’t in an ideal situation was an anonymous letter I would get in the mail just before we were married urging me to reconsider. It lamented on what an awful person and mother she was...and those poor kids.
Sure didn’t seem that way to me. She appeared to be a great mom and the kids loved her as well. I wrote it off as someone who was maybe interested in me and jealous, or someone who just didn’t like her. Being it was anonymous, I had no way of getting further information either.
We were going out to the property to see how the progress in the foundation, water and septic system was coming, and her son (who was four at the time) was being contrary, and wanted to keep riding his new bike rather than go for a ride out to the property.
Sandy was using the "count to three" method with him, which I had noticed worked extremely well with both kids...never did see her get to three, as either child would be bookin’ it long before two...that was until that day.
When she reached three I seen a transformation from Dr. Jekkyl to Mr. Hyde.
She became furious, launched into a tirade in Polish and stomped over to her son and ripped him off the bike by his right arm and began to wail on his behind repeatedly with her other hand as she held him in mid air.
I watched in horror as she finally let go of him and shoved him towards the car where her daughter and I waited. She was still screaming at him as he got into the back seat of the car sobbing and I noticed how nonchalant her daughter appeared as the whole ordeal went down...like it was something she was used to seeing, but glad it wasn’t her ass gettin’ tanned anyway.
The whole way out to the property, she muttered to herself how no kid was gonna tell her what they were gonna do...their gonna learn to listen dammit, the whole time her face was beet red.
Once her son had stopped crying enough to speak, he began to sob he just wanted to ride his bike.
"Shut up!!!" she screamed " or when we get home you’ll get Ludwig!!"
Ludwig, I would later learn, was a leather belt.
"Geez, calm down would ya.." I said. Poor kid was just wanted to ride the bike I had just bought him. I kinda felt guilty for getting it at that point.
She began to tell me how when she was a child, she had to LISTEN, or her dad would get out the strap. Many a night she or her sisters were sent to bed without supper if any of them stepped out of line. These kids have it too damn easy these days...think they are gonna tell HER what they are going to do and when. Well they got another thing coming. If it was good enough for her, it was good enough for them dammit.
I couldn’t remember a time in my life my Mom ever raised her voice to me, and she NEVER raised a hand to me. She had "the look" which was enough for me. I could only recall a few times dad yelled at me, but nothing like this, and looking back, I deserved it.
The couple of times I did get a crack on the ass, it was ONE good swat after I bent over Dads knee, and it was with one of those wooden paddle things that have the rubber band and ball attached that the ball had fallen off of. I hadda go get it for him, which was worse than the actual spanking...lol..
Not once did I ever miss a meal for misbehaving... many a time I wished Mom had made something else, I'd get into a Mexican standoff with them as to whether I was going eat it or not, but food was always there.
I made a pledge to myself to convert her way of thinking, but would find that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Our conflicting views on child rearing made it hard for the kids as well. That became so frustrating for me, I found I was letting my temper get the best of me and I’d let it fly now and then too just to get them to listen to me. Something I’m still not very proud of.
When our new home arrived six months late, they sent the front half first, meaning it had to sit on the side of the road till the next day when the back half, which had to be set in place first, arrived.(they come in two sections that get put together once they reach the property)
I had to sit all night behind the half of a house that partially blocked the road in my car with the flashers on, so no one would hit it, and once the house was set up, it was one problem after another.
I began to wonder if it was all worth it or if I had made a right decision. The house issues seemed to almost be a sign of some sort.
Nothing was going well...nothing went smoothly and to make matters worse, Sandy lost her job to downsizing in the company she worked for, so now money was becoming an issue as well.
Sure I was making good money, but we had a house payment, a motorcycle payment and the usual bills. I had also pissed away all the money I had been making during my wild days too. Then we learned she was pregnant.
The birth of my son was one of the greatest moments of my life, all 11 pounds, 4 ounces of him. It seemed we became a complete family then and things went a lot smoother.
It was funny how we hadn’t picked out a name for him, but once he arrived, both of us though Jacob, a variation of my Dad’s name, fit him perfectly. I also wondered who was more proud of him...my Dad or I. Her kids just loved their new brother as well.
So even though money was tight, we seemed to settle into a happy life after my son’s birth.
I went to work one day and Ron told me he had been offered a job as an insurance claims adjuster and had decided he was going to take it and close the shop....in two weeks.
I inquired about buying the business. I didn’t know how the hell I could afford it, but I had to have a job, now more than ever. He said he wasn’t interested in selling the business as the shop was at his home, but he had lined me up a job. The job was in Sandusky, some 40 plus miles from home at a large Ford dealership. I really didn’t want to drive that far to work, but I had little choice but to take the job. Times were tough, nothing else was nearby and I had a mountain of debt.
To make matters worse, this job payed flat rate per job, or whatever amount of time the guide set up by car companies said it would take to do each job, not by the hours I actually put in.
More often than not the time given was much less than the actual job would take as it didn’t take into account having to remove other parts, etc, as well as rusted bolts and the like which occur over time, plus I took a little pride in my work and took my time at it. Dealership body shops are typically expensive and therefor not as busy, so if there was no work there was also no pay. Many a week I’d earn less than $100 and had driven 80 miles a day to get there.
This was a far cry from the 50% of the take I was getting from Ron, which averaged between $350-$600 a week that I had based my debt on. It didn’t take long to fall behind at that rate. The Harley was sold for a loss and I still owed the balance and as each month pushed me deeper in the hole, we had no choice but to sign up for public assistance, or welfare...a very dirty word in my community.
Once you were on welfare, you had reached the bottom of the barrel.You were less than a human being. Pond scum was held to a higher level than you. You were more or less worthless trash no one associated with.
That wasn’t the intent of the program, and we were using it as the safety net it was put in place for, but it does have it’s share of those who abuse the system to avoid work altogether, which is why the general public hates those who are on it.
It became our little secret, and I remained well thought of. Should anyone have known, we would have immediately become trash. It just appeared we were getting by on our own and friends and neighbors marveled at how well we managed despite the tough times. A neighbor that owned a milk hauling business taught me how to drive a semi and I’d drive huge loads to the city now and then. My next door neighbor offered me a job during harvest season driving trucks as well.
We must really be smart and ambitious! Not like those welfare assholes....

things begin to wind down

2009-07-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

I got everything I need...almost
I got friends who like me
Cause I got lotsa jokes
People recognize me wherever I go
I don’t got trouble gettin’ high,
But if I don’t get you
I believe I will die.
I got everything I need ...almost
But I don’t got you
And you’re the thing I need the most.
Wouldn’t an English teacher have fun with that song? Can’t ya see em cringe with the words don’t got/ don’t get?
I had a lot of fun during this time in my life, and still smile and laugh to myself when I think of it. But I also remember how lonely I was becoming then.
Bob had his girlfriend Joann, which through the years was an on again, off again thing. When it was off, Bob still managed to find a string of smoking hot model quality bubble headed girls to hang around with.
Same for Dennis. In his time, he was quite handsome...the rebel without a cause (or in his case, without a clue) with boyish good looks and all that black hair. He never had a problem attracting women, married or otherwise.
I was a few years older and for some reason, looked even older than I really was.(likely the truama of losing Mom combined with the fact we’d party for 2-3 days straight) I didn’t attract the young girls like they did, and even overheard some ask Bob or Dennis "who’s that old guy you’re hangin’ round with?".
I could have been with a lot of women that hung around the haunts we did, but the fact everyone else had been with them too at some time or another didn’t appeal to me.
It just didn’t seem worth the trips to the clinic, and truth be known, I wanted more than just that. I seen what Bob had with Joann, not just someone, but a friend as well.
One night, we had all gone to a country club that had live bands on Friday night and ran into a lady named Jan that worked in the store in Forestville. We all knew her well as we’d stop in to buy beer or lottery tickets before going out and would shoot the shit with her for awhile. Turned out she had brought her single friend out that was visiting from a suburb on the west side of Detroit for a fun time.
She lived near where I went to college, and we began to talk and have fun together. Turned out we really seemed to click (it also turns out Jan had brought her there on purpose, as she figured we would and knew I’d be there) and we sat and talked and danced the whole night. The next day her car wouldn’t start, and they called me, and I got it running for her.
We began to see each other on weekends, most of the time I’d go down to the city and we became inseparable, and in what I thought was love.
At Christmas time, I got my yearly bonus from work and it was over $2000 this year (it had been a good one indeed) so I decided to surprise her and went to the mall and picked out a nice shiny ring with a big diamond on it.
When I gave it to her, it was a total surprise...for both of us.
I had hidden it in another gift and when she found it she asked- "What is this for?" I went on to pour my heart out, telling her how right things felt, yadda, yadda, yadda, expecting the storybook ending where we’d live happily ever after but instead got-
"Oh honey, I already have someone I hope to marry someday...we were just having fun on the side..can’t we just keep it at that?"
Umm, yeah...I don’t think so.
I was crushed and slithered back home, back to my friends and ironically back to the scene of the original crime, the country club we met at.
As I sat there sullen, I heard the lead singer announce the next song went out to me. It turned out to be Back on the Chain Gang by the Pretenders. As I listened to the singer do her impression of Chrissie Hines, I chuckled at how befitting the song was.
I was back in a black t-shirt, a chain hanging from my wallet just like all my friends. I looked up to see Joann smile at me and give me a thumbs up. She walked over and gave me a hug and told me "We’ll always be here for ya"
They may not have been the most upstanding, law abiding people, but they were good friends.
It wasn’t long after that I came into work one day and Ron told me someone I knew from school had called and was bringing her car in for repairs and insisted that only I do them.
"Who?" I asked.
"Said her name was Sandy Winkle " Ron told me.
I did remember a Sandy Winkle back then. She was someone I admired from afar, a smart very attractive blonde girl that was the valedictorian of our class. I had heard she went to England after college and was very successful.
Why would someone like that be so insistent that only I should work on her car? I barely knew her then, but I was impressed and looking forward to seeing what she had been up to since school.
It turned out to be Sandy Winkel, who I had known in school as Sandy Grzybowski. Henry Holdwick idolized her and she was sorta his girlfriend back then.
She had married (and divorced) Chris Winkel ( a putz) from our class and had two small children a boy and a girl.
I fixed her car, and she offered to make me supper. The next weekend I offered to make her supper. What did I make? Reservations...lol.
To make a long story short, we became involved and as I took her to (ironically) Henry’s wedding, I realized it may be time to get off the merry-go-round and settle down. We seemed to get along great, her kids loved me too and I finally had that love/friendship thing I wanted. I couldn’t help but realize how I had more or less abandoned my dad as well.
I would have loved to have my instant family and my wild bunch friends and honestly tried to make it work, but ya just can’t have both.
Joann eventually left Bob and he found a hot, leggy blonde with big boobs and a Shelby GT350 Mustang. They moved to California, where Bob was involved in a serious car crash that paralyzed him from the waist down. She left him but he went on to be a very successful engineer and, last I heard, up for a promotion that would mean moving to China to run a GM plant there.
Dennis eventually restored a 72 Chevy Monte Carlo that showcased his immense talent. It was black and arrow straight and should have been his ticket to wealth and fame.
He couldn’t keep away from the drugs and booze and now lives alone, does small menial paint jobs, has a bad liver and looks 40 years older than he is.
I closed one door and opened another one. Sandy and I were married and Dad treated us to a trip to Hawaii for our honeymoon.

Shaker Do vs, The Galaxian Star Cruiser

2009-07-03T04:26:00.000-07:00

When you’re drivin’ down the highway at night,
And feelin’ that Wild Turkey’s bite.
Don’t cha give Johnny Walker a ride
Cause Jack Black is right by his side.
Just another night with nothin’ to do,
We broke a case of proof 102
And started itchin’ for that wonderful feel
Of rollin’ in an automobile.
You could say we was outta our minds,
And lemme tell ya we was flyin’ while blind.
Another thing Bob and I had in common was a love to drive at high speed and remarkably both of us were very good at it. One night we both wound up at the Double D and closing it down for the night (actually morning..it was 2 AM)
I had my 57 and Bob had his 1964 Ford Galaxie he had nicknamed the Galaxian Star Cruiser. Bob’s dad had brought it back from Georgia where it spent most of it’s life as a Georgia State Police car and you could still faintly see where the star and Georgia State Police lettering had been on the sides. It had the biggest engine you could get in it back then, still had spotlights mounted on the A pillars and something we didn’t know existed, a 160 MPH speedometer. (Most at the time they only went to 120). Most likely during it’s law enforcement days it was used to chase moonshiners in souped up cars and it could really move down the road.
Sometimes when we’d close down the bar in Ruth, we’d go to Deckerville, a town 16 miles south of there to an all night breakfast diner. One time, with four of us in the car, we made it there in Bob’s Galaxie in just over seven minutes and he slid it around and right up to the curb in front of the place, ala the Blues Brothers. I still remember the looks on the people faces inside the diner as we got out of the car...lol.
That night we decided to pass on breakfast and just head back to Forestville. As I left the bar I stepped on it a little spinning both back tires and sending a cloud of smoke into the air. (Bob would later tell me an old guy that was standing at the curb said "that old car sure has some giddyup doesn’t it?? Huh huh huh" Of course Bob told me in the same old guys toothless voice!)
Bob left right after me and by the time we reached the town limits was right beside me in the other lane. He didn’t pass, he just stayed there and we drove all the way to the shore ( a distance of 7 miles) and the road leading to Forestville doing 70 MPH, side by side.
When we reached the two lane road to Forestville, we did the same, settin’ the pace at 70, side by side, till we reached a curve in the road, whereupon Bob tucked in behind me and drafted so close I couldn’t see his headlights, just the glow of his headlights and my blue dot tail lights reflecting back off of my car and on him with an evil grin on his face.
After the curve, the road is perfectly straight and flat for 10 miles into Forestville, and Bob swung back out beside me and the race was on.
Both of us were side by side, foot to the floor, that’s all there is and there ain’t no more. My speedometer had long pegged at it’s 120 MPH limit, and Bob would later tell me his 160 MPH speedo was also pegged, so we were doin’ at least that, all the while side by side. (It takes an incredible amount of trust to do this, so don’t try this at home kiddies!!)
As we approached Forestville, there were a set of tail lights coming up ahead of us so we knew one of us would likely have to back off and settle for second, but an odd thing began to play out.
The car ahead of us began to weave from side to side, and eventually wound up right smack in the middle of the road, leaving us a half a lane on either side and the small paved part of the shoulder of the road to pass. Okay at 55- 60 MPH...a little trickier at over 160.
I was slightly ahead and chose the right side of the car, figuring Bob would fall in behind me...wrong!
Bob chose the LEFT side and we wound up blowing by the car on both sides and still wound up rolling into Forestville side by side.
When we stopped in Forestville, the car we passed came rolling up to us and it turned out to be two guys we knew, Craig Whitney and Roy Patterson.
Craig had been driving and was white as a sheet, Roy was laughing his ass off. He told us they didn’t know what the hell was coming, just a shitload of headlights and very quickly. Craig told us he thought it was maybe an airplane at low altitude.
That was fun then, but I think back on it now and how lucky we were. Had a deer run out, either car had a mechanical issue or if Craig would have moved an inch to either side during the split second we went past him, there would have been some serious consequences.
BTW- I still see Craig now and then, and he still remembers it!

The wild bunch

2009-07-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

You look like who you say you are
so scoot over, let me drive your car.
Roll down the glass and gimme some wind
lock all the doors, I’m on the loose again.
Never set behind the wheel like this
Since that job in 1956
Can’t wait till I can do it again
Can’t keep my nose clean, livin’ in sin...
Dennis and I did become friends whether I wanted it or not. It was an odd friendship at first...I had always been a good kid, never in trouble, always trying to do what was right, didn’t smoke, drink (well a little) or have any bad habits to speak of.
He, on the other hand, had been busted for pot possession when he was 14 years old, smoked, firmly believed one must drink till they fell down (otherwise what was the point?) and would do any illicit drug put in front of him. When we met he had just gotten out of jail after doing time for stealing a car. The only thing we had in common was a love for old cars, and he was quite talented at body work and paint too.
Over time he began to straighten up a bit and have some manners like me, and I began to develop a bad side. Nowhere near his bad side, but definitely not like I had been.
We started out havin’ a few beers, workin’ on cars, and once it was determined I was "ok", I began to get woven into a crowd I didn’t even know existed in the area.
Those above lyrics from Thugs by ZZ Top fit a lot of the people I would come to know through Dennis perfectly as most of the people he knew were small time thugs that were either wanted for crimes or in the system already.
There was one guy whose name was allegedly Larry, or Larry Barry, as everyone called him, that was tall and fairly muscular, probably early thirties and had that same black slicked back hair as Dennis and was full of tattoo’s. He never took off his dark wraparound sunglasses, spoke as little as possible in what sounded to me to be a "pushed" deep voice. When I first met him he seemed quite intimidating. A huge switchblade knife hung from his belt and he spoke of the many times he had been in prison, how he’d been in some serious gangs downstate, etc, the typical big bad biker type.
But the more he talked and the more I seen of him, the more it became apparent to me that he was just a poser.
He still lived with mom and dad, didn’t work, and the big bad BSA chopper he had in the garage along with a bazillion copies of Iron Horse Magazine didn’t even run with any consistentcy.
Best he could do was roll it into his dads pickup once and a while and drive around with it. (His version of takin’ his bike for a ride)
Larry was handy to have around if you got in a tight spot though. As long as he was around and he kept his mouth shut, nobody would dare try anything against you.
That would come in handy when it came to another one of my new found compadres named Todd Todd was strong as an ox, and when sober, one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, but get 2 or 3 beers under his belt and he wanted to whoop everyone he came in contact with. Add beer, instant asshole.
Too make matters worse, Todd couldn’t stop at 2 or 3 beers, he wasn’t happy till he was in a booze and/or drug induced stupor. Definitely not the guy ya wanna take to a party. Seemed the more ya tried to avoid him, the more he’d sniff us out too.
There was another young guy named Claire. Dennis grew up with him and the two of them borrowed an old farm truck from Claires dad and would cut and sell firewood.
Claire bore a striking resemblance to singer Huey Lewis and was the "Don Juan" of the group. He was also very heavily into drugs...not just pot or other relatively harmless drugs of the time, Claire had a penchant for heroin, acid, mushrooms and cocaine. When he could afford it, Claire would be "gone" for days at a time. Again, when sober a great guy, when not..well ya just didn’t know.
There was another young guy named Bob that I really seemed to click with right from the start. He had the same warped sense of humor I did, had a fleet of old Ford Mustangs, even a rare Boss 302 so it was obvious we’d hit it off.
Bob was tall and lean (Big Kenny from Big and Rich is spookily an exact twin in both looks and twangy voice) and had a steady girlfriend named Joann, and the two of them were always great fun to be around. Like me, Bob also had a very good paying job (at a nearby stamping plant) and few bills to pay.
You never knew what would come out of Bobs mouth with his warped sense of humor combined with a MENSA IQ. One example was one time when he came into the bar we all frequented and as he took a stool beside me I asked, "what’s up?"
"So I sez to this chick...take BACK your million dollars! Money can’t buy my love! And she did, so here I am." was his response.
We also came up with a riddle (over several beers) to perplex people-
If you were going down the road in your canoe and all four wheels fell off, how many pancakes would it take to cover the roof of a doghouse? When people would look at us dumbfounded, we’d respond- TEN dummy! Ice cream don’t have bones!
(Yeah, there were questions regarding our sanity)
Through Bob, Dennis was eventually able to get a job at the same stamping plant, so it became mostly the three of us, all able to live a very indulgent life and the rest of the guys, along with some other small time hoods, wannabes and drug dealers were tag a longs.
Being new to the group some were hesitant to me...there was a lot of "questionable" behavior going down, and just where the hell did I come from?
What solidified me as a member was actually two young girls named Trina and her younger sister Katie. Both were drop dead gorgeous leggy blondes and dressed in clothes that left little to the imagination. They were also huge flirts and regularly came on to everyone.
To say all the guys in our group would have done anything to be with either of them was an understatement. But to me, something just didn’t add up. They were supposedly underage, but they sure as hell didn’t look OR act it. Also, any of the people we knew could drive up to their home and drive away with them, day or night, no questions asked, especially if it were one of the more "enterprising" thugs out there.
What kind of parents just let that happen? If it were me, I’d meet some of ‘em with a shotgun.
Either they were horrible parents, or something was up. Plus they acted like complete nymphos and no one had ever gotten close to either of them.
I began to question that and as suspicion about them grew, it didn’t take long for the two of them and their "family" to move out of the area.
I was "in" after that.

I got the attitude
And that’s all I had to say.
Don’t have to tell nobody
How their tail oughta lay.
I had a sudden revelation
The heights that I’ve sunken down to
And I don’t mind
That I can’t find
My way out da witches brew.
Livin’ for the lizard life.
It was the good life for the three of us as we all had money to burn. Before trips to clubs or parties it was off to an exclusive restaurant for prime rib or lobster dinner.
The Double D tavern in Ruth became a regular hangout and the beer and whiskey would flow freely. If we got bored we’d make trips to Windsor, Canada to visit clubs with exotic dancers. The sky was the limit and cost was no concern.
Live hard and die fast was our credo, and a lot of the things we did, we were lucky the die fast part didn’t come true.

one of my favorite cars

2009-06-28T05:19:00.000-07:00

I laugh at my behavior
I never let it bother me
The devil is my savior
I don’t pay no heed
I will go on shinin’
Shinin’ like brand new
If I never look behind me my troubles will be few.

I needed a car to replace my Mustang...sure I had a fleet of old cars I could drive to work, but they were more or less toys and certainly not something to put out in salty winter roads. I needed a daily driver sort of car, something that was just a car, nothing special, know what I mean?
I wound up buying a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.
Why did I chose THE most iconic of all classics as a daily driver? Well, I always wanted one and now I could actually afford one. Plus this one was an incredible deal.
At the time, one could expect to pay no less than $3000 for one that at least ran and was salvageable and chances were to get one that cheap it would have the crappy 6 cylinder engine, not a V-8. If it was a V-8, it’d surely be a less desirable 4 door sedan.
I found mine advertised in an auto swapper magazine with not only a hopped up V-8, but a ultra rare close ratio 4 speed transmission found only in the most powerful of the musclecars. It was also a two door and rock solid but needing paint and advertised for an asking price of $1000.
Hadda be a misprint I assumed. I called on it anyway, expecting the owner to say the paper left a zero off the price, it was actually 10K, but was surprised to hear it was the actual price.
When I went to look at it I fell instantly in love with it. It was a two door sedan (my favorite) and had been sitting in a garage for nearly twenty years. It had been painted a deep metallic purple at one time, but the paint was more like patina now and old hard drag slicks were mounted on the back and tall skinny tires up front. It was like someone had open a time capsule to the drag racing glory days and it was just as I like them, all business. To me, nothing looks cooler than a mean 57 sedan, and it took me back to my childhood and memories of a friend of my brothers similar car. It was stripped down and shook the pavement when it drove past and was a regular winner at Detroit Dragway. It was a sinster dark green and I remember a cartoon rendering of it that was painted on the trunk lid depicting a Rat Fink driving it doing a wheelie and the words "Shaker Do" under it.
Within minutes I was ready to tell the owner I’d take it, when he sheepishly told me that he probably should have mentioned it when we spoke on the phone, (and before I drove an hour and a half to get there), but the rear axle was broken and the car was not driveable.
Ya think?? I was disappointed, but still wanted it. It was just now I had to come back with a trailer to get it. To sweeten the deal he said he’d take $900 and throw in some extra parts. (which would turn out to be almost a whole cars worth)
Being I had no bills and a good income, the car went on to be what I always wanted in a car....FAST.
My old 48 Chevy sounded the part, but this car not only had the sound, it was brutal. I painted it the same dark green Shaker Do was and cost was no object as far as the drivetrain was considered. I built an engine for it using only the best parts available, the old 4 speed trans was beefed even stronger, and a new rear axle was put in with gears that would optimize all that power. There was no mismatch of cheap or free parts here and when you stepped on it, you better be holdin’ on to it or she would be headin’ for the rutabagas real quick.
Zero to sixty could be covered in under 4 seconds. Trips down the 1/4 mile at nearby Ubly Dragway could be made in just over 11 seconds at speeds in excess of 115 MPH.
I never did find what it would do as a top speed...my nerve would run out long after the speedometer had already been pegged at the 120 MPH limit and it was still pullin’ like a freight train. Shaker Do number two was born.
The car was in your face loud, mean and nasty and an absolute blast to drive. Sorta like the movie Christine, the car changed me as well. No, we didn’t go on rampages killing the bad guys, whereupon the car would sulk into a corner and repair itself while I talked to the cops like nothing happened , but I did become more reckless and a risk taker.
I had a fast car, money and nowhere to go.
Dangerous!
I also had few friends my age as I was really the only one who came back home after college.
One day as I rumbled through Forestville, I spied a young guy flagging me down. His name was Dennis Crueger and he was a younger brother to a set of twins from my grade. The twins were part of the stoner set back in school, but not excessively, but Dennis was well known as bad news.
He had been in some form of trouble with the law since he was 14, and even looked the part with his slicked back black hair, cheezy goatee and ever present leather jacket and cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. A chrome chain hung from his wallet and he had that "Fonzie" swagger to his step.
I pulled over to see what he wanted and he just opened my passenger door and climbed in as if he knew me all along and said-
"Cool car....let’s see what this sumbitch’ll do"
As I dumped the clutch and rowed through the gears that day, I didn’t know I was heading down a new road, with new friends, new adventures and dangers.
Buckle up folks! It’s gonna be a wild ride!

the next step

2009-06-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

I believe in what’cha say
Is the undisputed truth.
But I have to have things my own way
To keep me in my youth.
Sweet devotion
Its not for me
Just gimme motion...set me free
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame
Come tomorrow, feel no pain.
Good bye stranger, it’s been nice
Hope you find your paradise.
Tried to see your point of view
Hope your dreams will all come true.

Those lyrics fit me pretty well back then, and kinda still do. I had always been kinda a lone wolf and admittedly spoiled too. My life was about to take a turn though, both family and personal, which would eventually leave me with most of the scars I carry to this day.
The family bickering was something Mom had a firm handle on and she always knew when to step in, when to diffuse it and how to reason them all through it. We weren’t the Cleavers by any means, but we were a family and I got along great with all of them.
Dad, on the other hand, tended to let them rattle on about each other, which I guess in a way translated into silent agreement. I was just as guilty though, and we would put up with visiting each one seperately and nodding in agreement till we moved on to next one and it would start all over again. If I’d only known how that was going to bite me in the ass later in life, I’d have said something then. (A bit of advise for all you youngun’s readin’ this!) Looking back now, I can say we slowly stopped being a family.
Have you noticed no mention of a serious girlfriend in my ramblings yet? That’s because there wasn’t one. Yeah, little Tommy was now a young man and never been kissed.
My brother in law Dave use to joke the only way I’d notice a girl is if she had a nice car and I think a lot in my family began to wonder about me.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, it just seemed so time and labor intensive for lack of better words. I was also set in my ways and seen the compromise relationships required...no thanks. That and I bore easily.
Even with cars, which seemed to be the only thing I had a "devotion" to, I wasn’t able to be happy or stay with one for long. The only commitment I had in life was the car payment and high insurance rates on my Mustang, and even though it was my pride and joy, that was wearing thin.
At O’mara’s, work typically slowed during certain periods of the year, and from time to time I’d have to do different things to make up my time. They had a body shop there as well, and the man who ran it was one of the very best. His name was Don Will and I used to watch him and absorb everything like a sponge, just for use on my own fleet of old cars. If work was slow I’d help him hanging sheet metal or sanding on cars.
Don was quite a character himself. He was big and burly with a full beard (picture a young Charlie Daniels) and full of life and good humor.
Often he work away singing songs while chomping away on a big cigar, (and he actually had a great voice too) but he would raunchy up the lyrics a bit now and then.
One example was Kenny Rogers song Lucille, only Dons version went- "In a bar in Toledo..across from the depot...on a bar stool she took off her clothes. I walked on over..because I was bolder...and asked her if she liked to blow.."
Hank Williams Jr.’s song Family Tradition was also one of his favorites and I’d often hear "Hank, why do ya drink...why do you roll smoke" echoing out of the spray booth while he painted away.
One day a 1975 Olds Cutlass came in on trade that was a HUGE rust bucket. It did run excellent and had a perfect interior but the silver paint was flaking off everywhere and the entire car was littered with rust and holes. Don was approached to repaint it, which he REFUSED because rust was the one thing Don would not touch (and still doesn’t).
Work was slow, so I offered to do it. It wasn’t like they’d be out much, the way the car looked it was worth nothing, and I did have a few old cars I’d done for myself as proof I could do the work. Even if I screwed it up it would still be worth the same amount.
The car actually turned out fantastic, and I even two-toned it with maroon accents to match the interior. What was going to be something that was bound for the auction (where dealers took cars with problems to unload them) wound up on the front row of the used car lot and sold within a week for a huge profit.
Don told me nice work, O’mara told me he thought I’d missed my calling and the car caught the attention of a young man named Ron Nowiski.
Ron had started a body shop of his own between Forestville and Harbor Beach, and although he wasn’t as talented as Don, he was a good business man as well as an excellent bull shitter, which was a good thing for his business. He had successfully used his BS degree to charm up a LOT of business and couldn’t keep up with the work, so he offered me a full time job making almost FOUR times what I was making at O’Mara’s. How do you say no to that?
I left O’Mara’s and went to work for Ron. It did turn out to be a profitable move, as I did make huge amounts of money as long as I watched the bullshit trail carefully.
I sold my Mustang to get away from the payment and high insurance, and because I had taken such good care of it and made improvements, I actually sold it for more than I paid for it new, leaving me with a nice chunk of change in my pocket.
I was an unattached young man with no bills and LOTS of money...a dangerous thing indeed.

Something I think about every winter

2009-06-28T05:14:00.000-07:00

One of the things Dad decided to do with his new found time was travel, and I became his travel companion. We took a trip to Florida one winter and met up with his best friend from his military days he hadn’t seen in years.
With my cousin Nancy living in Hawaii, we took turns buying airfare to visit her for a few winters, as she was more than happy to put us up for a couple weeks as well as see family again. Both of us enjoyed every minute we spent there, and I took up scuba and snorkeling and even rented an underwater camera one time and took pictures of the undersea life there.
One year a friend of Nancy’s that was in the Navy graciously offered us the use of her huge condo in Pearl Harbor as well as the use of her Ford Escort during our time there, as she was out to sea for a few months, and it was better it be used than sit for long periods.
The three of us had gone to a beach one day, and Nancy suggested we lock everything in the car well out of sight as it was a poorer area, and locals thrived on whatever they could boost out of tourists cars. Dad locked our cameras, etc in the glove box, and for some reason the key broke off in the lock when we went to open it again, leaving us with no way to get in the glove box, trunk or lock the car again.
The next day we took the car to Honolulu Ford, to get the lock repaired and as we waited in the service area, I noticed a nearby mechanic working on another Escort that was idling very rough and belching black smoke.
I overheard the mechanic and service manager discussing everything they had checked over to correct the problem to no avail, but I recognized the problem as one I was very familiar with back home.
"Have you checked to make sure the carburetor jets have not come lose?" I asked. The pair turned and looked at me rather puzzled.
"In the TSB’s (technical service bulletins Ford issues to dealers for fixes to common problems that crop up after cars get some miles on them) there is one to correct that...the engine is prone to vibration and jets rattle loose. The cure is to glue them in with Loctite." I explained, giving them the number and suffix to look it up.
"How the hell did you know that?" the service manager asked.
"I work at a Ford dealer back in the mainland" I told him. "It’s actually an easy fix too. You don’t have to take the carb apart, just take off the bracket that holds the air cleaner on and the jets are right under that.
"He’s right...they are loose." the mechanic said and after tightening them the car ran like a watch.
"You know anything about V.V. carbs too?" the mechanic asked. I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was an incredibly complex variable venturi carburetor on full size Fords that was a huge problem child requiring precise measurements and adjustments using a dial indicator. They were very hard to get set up right, due mainly to a slight flaw in the tool Ford supplied to adjust it. Once you were lucky enough to get it adjusted right, it would often blow out a diaphragm inside the carb that was made from a material not all that compatible with, of all things, gasoline. Once that was replaced you would have to go through all those complex adjustments again. It was an attempt at fuel efficiency, but it was literally a pile of crap they gave up on after only one year and went to fuel injection.
"Oh yeah, I know them all too well." I said.
I showed to pair exactly what was wrong with the tool and how to fix it as well as the fix the service manager and I back at O’Mara’s had come up with for the rupturing diaphragm to make them last longer.
The service manager thanked me and shook my hand for the helpful tips I had given him and out of the blue asked-
"How would you like a job here?"
I didn’t know what to say. My cousin Nancy was renting a small house with 2 others and one had just moved out leaving them with an open room as well as added expense for them making up the difference in rent, so I would have gladly had a place to stay relatively cheaply.
I had grown very fond of being near the ocean, diving, catamaran rides where often whales and dolphins would cruise along beside the boat. I loved the laid back lifestyle there and open air dining areas in restaurants where small birds would come sit next to me looking for a handout. There was even a thriving car culture there too.
The thought of living there was something that never really crossed my mind, but it was a place I couldn’t wait to get back to every year.
I thought of the staggering task as well as expense of getting all my belongings there. I’d be better to sell everything and start anew. Did I want to do that?
I thought of how Nancy would long for our visits just to see ANYBODY she knew in the family or back home..this isn’t a place you can hop in a car and go visit friends and relatives if you feel like it, it’s a major (and expensive) undertaking.
I thought of Dad, who was still numb from Moms death. Other than me and my sibs, he had pretty much shut himself off to the world. After awhile, some widowers in town had expressed an interest in a simple friendship which he vehemently opposed. Anyone who tried to get him to at least consider it got the full brunt of his wrath. Most of the friends he did have were work related as well, so he really didn’t have much there other than me. The sibs were all 100 miles away and had busy lives of their own too.
"Thanks for the offer" I told the service manager "but I think I’d better stay where I’m at for now." He gave me his card and told me to call if I changed my mind, but I never did.
Now, every time it’s the middle of February, it’s 40 degrees below zero and I’m shovelin’ snow up to my clattering teeth, I wonder about that decision....

Life after Mom begins

2009-06-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

After Mom passed away, it was a tough time to say the least.
I went with Dad to help make the funeral arraignments and couldn’t help but think about the week I had spent with her before she died.
The freak middle of October snow storm was something any meteorologist would say can happen in Michigan and would likely dig up info about one other time in 1908 when it actually did, but to me it was simply a miracle. It was like someone granted her a wish.
I couldn’t help but wonder about the "Jimmy" she was seeing, and wished I could have seen what she supposedly did. Again, to me just another unexplainable miracle. Do the sappy movies have it right? Does someone we know really come get us from the other side?
I experienced another miracle a couple days later as well.
My nephew Jimmy and I were sitting at a red light in my shiny Mustang waiting to turn left and go to the funeral home, when I seen a young black man in an old beat up car coming up on the intersection from my left way too fast to make the right turn he was attempting. It all seemed to go in slow motion as I watched him turn the wheel farther and farther, but the car just slid towards us and, sure as shit, WHAM, he hit my car right in the left front fender with a horrible screeching crunch, pushing me in the other lane and spinning the steering wheel right out of my hands. His car was badly damaged. The radiator was steaming, the hood was buckled up and the grille and bumper were dangling by a thread.
Still, we watched as he nervously put it in reverse and backed away from my car and began to speed away. As I turned to try and get a license number, or at least part of it, his car quit and he coasted off to the side of the road.
Great. I just lost my Mom and now my car (my pride and joy) is wrecked too. I was PISSED and got out of my car to see the young man walking towards me and sheepishly apologizing, but I said nothing...I wanted to see how bad he screwed up my car before I let him have it for wrecking me AND for trying to take off.
I went to the front of my car and found absolutely NO damage. His car sat steaming on the side of the road, and my car didn’t even have a scratch. I was expecting at least a bent wheel, flat tire...surely some damage, hopefully not bad, but I could find nothing at all. How the hell could that be??
Other than sitting almost sideways between the lanes of traffic, there was nothing out of the ordinary with my car, not even a scratch. I made two trips around the car to double check...nothing wrong.
Bewildered, I told the young man we were fine, no harm, no foul and he beat it back to his car, got it running again and took off before any police could show up.
Then I thanked Mom.
After the funeral, Dad and I came back to an empty house, at least in our minds. Dad took some time off from work as, understandably, he didn’t really want to be near anyone and answering questions, etc, at that time. He spent a lot of time keeping to himself at home as well.
He never really had an easy life. Since he was a young boy, his life was one tragedy or hardship after another, but I could tell losing Mom was by far the worst thing that ever happened to him.
The young black oncologist telling Mom she should have never taken up smoking when she first learned she had cancer was something that hit him hard then and now she was gone. No one ever blamed him for her death, and really to do so would have been unfair, but I can’t help but think he may have felt some guilt from it.
Doctors will quote statistics showing the rate of getting cancer is greater if you smoke, but I think it has more to with your own chemical makeup. I’ve seen many people who smoke, or have been near it all their life and not be affected. Dad never did quit and although he smoked 2-3 packs a day, his lungs were clean as a whistle.
Another thing I’ve found over the years is that whether you smoke, drink, wear your seat belt, exercise or sit on your ass and eat Twinkies all day, when it’s your time, it’s just your time, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.
"It’s just not fair" he would eventually tell me, "I was supposed to go first."
A couple of times he tried to explain away her illness...she knitted a lot and could have inhaled a lot of fuzz...maybe it was something in her workplace. I suppose it was an attempt to pass the blame the doctor had inadvertently left him with, but the simple fact was, shit happens, and it’s best we don’t know why.
Dad managed to muddle through the tasks of filing for life insurance claims, getting everything put in his name, etc and all the rigamarole of it, which wasn’t easy for him. Not only because he had to deal with it, but because Mom had always been the one to do such things. Dad just worked and let Mom take care of everything in the household, she was good at it anyway.
As I said before, Mom and Dad had always been frugal as well as good at planning for the future and saving for it. Dad was getting a military pension, as well as a pension from the lumber yard he worked at back in Harper Woods. They had also sold the house in Harper Woods and invested the profits, so while they weren’t rich, they could live comfortably.
Being good planners, and because of the ever present bickering of my sibs, they also had a Will made out as soon as they first learned of Moms illness.
One day, for whatever reason, Dad showed it to me and, along with the usual stating of who gets each material possession, it showed they had taken out certificates of deposit for an equal sizeable amount in each of our names. I was also named to get our house, as I lived there.
"You guys are gonna be all set when I go" Dad told me.
"No Dad, this is yours, not ours". I told him. "I want you to enjoy it, while you can."
Eventually, he did go back to work, but it was short lived. He decided it was time to retire, bought himself a shiny new black Ford Thunderbird, and happily, did take some time to enjoy himself.

I was her Baby

2009-05-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

My brother said that I was rotten to the core.
I was the youngest one, so I got by with more.
I guess she was tired
by the time I came along
She’d laugh until she cried..
I could do no wrong.
She would always save me..
Because I was her baby.

I still have a tough time listening to that song. Way too close to home.
To make a long story short, cancer was something that could be beaten back in those days despite the odds being stacked heavily against it. God help you if, or when it came back, because it was usually much tougher and widespread throughout your body.
Such was the case with Mom. We all dug in again and helped give her encouragement. Hey you beat it once, lets do it again everyone would tell her, knowing the odds were much greater against it this time. As cancer began to spread to more and more parts of her body, her struggle went from beating it, to making it to important events, like birthdays, anniversaries, etc.. On October 9th, 1981 (6 days before her 52nd birthday) she had to be hospitalized for some more treatments.
Dad wished he could stay with her at the hospital, but bills had to be paid, so he had to work as well. It was getting almost as hard on him to survive her illness being torn between two places 100 miles apart. I had a weeks worth of vacation time coming, so I took it to be with her and give Dad a break as well.
She loved that photograph of all her family.
She’d always point us out for all her friends to see.
That’s Rick, he’s doin’ great.
He really loves his job.
Ronnie and his two kids...
How ‘bout that wife he’s got?
And that one’s kinda crazy...
But that one is my baby.
The names of the sibs in that song may not match, but she was quite proud of all of us, and yes, despite me being 20 years old and a foot taller than her, I was also known as the baby.
Mom and I spent the week together remembering funny things that my sibs and I did over the years and I’d help her little things like getting to the bathroom, which was fast becoming a journey of epic proportions. The shoe was now on the other foot, it was now ME that was saying you can do it, good job, and mostly, we can beat this.
She began to talk of things she was going to miss when she was gone, not just the obvious things like Dad, us kids and her grandchildren, but little things like the smell of fresh mowed grass, or the lilac bush outside her bedroom window, butter pecan ice cream and one of her favorites, to see the first big snow of the winter that covers the ground in pure white.
I told her to stop...she’d have all the first snow’s she’d like, and the lilac bush would still be there when she got home. The first snow big enough to blanket the ground was at LEAST a month away...she’d be home by then.
Later that day, as she napped, I took a walk to get some fresh air and get away from the gloom and doom of the cancer ward. When I stepped outside, I wished I had brought a coat as it was clouding up and getting quite chilly, even for fall in Michigan. The state is known for the saying if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes...it’ll change. Oh, how true it was that day.
As I returned to her room, Mom was sitting up in bed smiling from ear to ear. Through her window overlooking the courtyard of the hospital, there were huge fluffy snowflakes falling so hard the buildings across the courtyard were a blur. The snow clouds then parted as quickly as they came in and the sun shone brightly on the courtyard covered in the whitest snow I had ever seen.
As the week went by, mom was becoming weaker. Dad made the trip down after work in
the middle of the week and friends and family filtered through from time to time, but mostly she would sleep. When she would get tired of laying down, I would carry her to a chair where she could sit for awhile, but she seemed embarrassed to have me do that.
It’s no big deal, I’d tell her....you used to carry me around, so now I’m returnin’ the favor.
Towards the end of the week she was sitting in the chair and out of the blue she sat staring wide eyed at the doorway to her room. I turned to see what she was looking at and seen nothing out of the ordinary. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
"Mom, what’s wrong?" I asked. She said nothing to me, I don’t know if she even heard me, she just kept staring at the doorway. A tear began to roll down her cheek and she whispered-
"Jimmy? Is that you?"
I turned to look again, expecting my sister Kathy and her oldest son Jimmy, but I still seen nothing but an empty doorway. Must be the heavy medications I reasoned.
Everyone came to the hospital that Saturday...she had made it to her birthday, yet another milestone along the way. Dad was going to stay the weekend, so I decided I’d go home and have Sunday to myself before I went back to work on Monday. Although I wouldn’t have traded that week for anything, it was grueling, and I was looking forward to home, time to myself and the day she could come home too, so we didn’t have to do this.
As I drove home I thought about the week and all we’d talked about, and that out of the blue snow squall. I was glad she got to see that. I still wondered what the "Jimmy" thing was.
I was only home a short time when the phone rang. I was glad to hear my Aunt Dot’s (mom’s sister) voice on the other end, she was a favorite of mine. She began to talk about Mom and how she was having a tough time, and I told her I knew about it, I had spent the week with her, hopefully she’ll be okay and all that.
No, she told me, You don’t understand. You need to come back as quickly as you can. She isn’t doing well at all.
"Tom" she said "if you want to see her, you’d better come back right away."
I got a call sayin’ come as fast as you can.
Cause your Mom is getting weaker,
And she’d really like to see you...
She might not make it through the night.
The whole way I drove 80...
Because I was her baby.
I made the two hour trip back in an hour and 38 minutes, thinking all the while how I’d left her. She gave me a big hug and said "goodbye", and I said "No...see ya in a few days". No way was I going to say goodbye. I’d spent the week trying to get her to think positive, and goodbye sounded too final.
Did I make it there on time? It’s the end of that song that makes it hard for me to listen to so I way as well let the song lyrics finish the story-
She looked like she was sleeping
And my family had been weeping.
But the time that I got to her side...
I never got to say goodbye.
I softly kissed that lady,
And cried just like a baby.

From what I was told, after I had left and right up till her time of death, she continued to "see" Jimmy despite no one else being able to see anything.
If you have followed along in this story of mine, you would know I came along after the tragic death of a young boy whose name was Jimmy.
Really makes ya wonder doesn’t it?

The struggle to survive

2009-05-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

The news was, to say the least, a huge shock to everyone in my family, especially Mom.
Remember this was 1979 when she got the news, and back then cancer research was in it’s infancy, so the doctors would, more or less, try things and see how they worked. If they did work, well, you survived a few more years. If they didn’t, your chances were less than a year.
Either way, you better get your things in order. Imagine getting that news...you are going to die, it’s just a matter of how long.
Mom was determined to beat it, and once again she and her sisters enlisted their faith to make it happen.
Chemotherapy treatments began right away and they would make her extremely sick for weeks..sometimes she’d barely recover from the last when it was time for another round.
But they kept on praying for a miracle.
She began to see and do other things that broke her heart as well. She had to resign from her job, as the treatments were just taking too big a toll on her physically. Her long auburn hair was also falling out in large clumps, till all she had left was a thin layer of wispy gray hair.
But they kept on praying for that miracle and she bought a wig.
While going through treatments down in the city, she would stay with her sister Doe, who looked after her, and Dad or I would take turns going down to take her to her appointments. When she was able to come home between them, she would stay at Meg and Flora McKechan’s home during the day while we were at work. She had gone from roughly 140 pounds down to 89 pounds and was getting very weak.
And she kept busy praying for that miracle.
After several aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, the doctor told her the treatments seemed to be working and they could be scaled back for a while and see what happens from there.
This was great news and much easier for her. She actually had time between them to get some of her strength back. The treatments were still very hard on her, but she had more strength to fight them and recover from them faster.
Still, she kept on praying for her miracle. A Capuchin Monk named Father Solanus that was based in Detroit that seemed to have healing powers for the sick was also enlisted to pray for her and I remember we made a trip to a St Anne De’Boparte’, a church in the far northern reaches of Quebec that was known to mysteriously heal those with terminal illnesses. It was a huge cathedral and crutches, wheelchairs and all sorts of various medical equipment were fastened to the interior walls, all sent there by people who had been previously told they would never walk, talk or whatever incurable malady they were suffering from that were unexplainably "cured" after visiting the church.
Hey, it couldn’t hurt, and she needed all the help she could get.
A couple of months later, she went in for her checkup and was told the treatments had worked and that she was in FULL remission. She didn’t have to go through chemotherapy/hell anymore. She had gotten her miracle.
"Whatever you’re doing to help," the doctor told her, "keep it up, it seems to have worked."
They threw a huge party, no expense spared, to celebrate. She and Dad renewed their wedding vows and they took a trip to Hawaii with her sister Doe and her husband Jack to visit their daughter Nancy, who lived there.
Given a second chance at life, she and dad began to slow down and enjoy life more.
They had always been pretty frugal and usually saved for that "rainy day", or anything that us kids would suddenly need, but now they gave in to urges now and then.
Things deemed too expensive, or something they would have waited to get once they both retired were bought now instead..Dad and I began to aggressively restore the ‘42 Pontiac I bought him, so they could have fun with that. Little things they always wanted to do were done as well...like the trip to Hawaii. They realized that you just never know when your time is up, and I never seen them happier.
Mom still had to go in for periodic checkups, but it appeared she had beaten the odds. If she stayed in remission, she was told, she would live a long life.
That was a good thing, as looking back, Mom was the glue that held our family together. There always seemed to be some sort of quarrel amongst my sibs, especially my sisters, but Mom would hear NONE of the backtalk about each other, and was always trying to get them to get along.
I even remember one Christmas we traveled downstate to see all of them, and an ongoing quarrel meant we had to visit each one individually, instead of together, as a family.
We wound up eating Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant that year, as it was the only thing open and all of my sibs had mistakenly thought one of the others would have the dinner for us.
Her illness showed them all how fragile life is, and for awhile anyway, the bickering seemed to stop.
This euphoria lasted nearly two years, till Mom went in for a regular checkup and found out the cancer was back.

Just shoot me now, would'ja?

2009-05-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Just shoot me now, would’ja?

Mom’s cough persisted..it just seemed to be one of those coughs that just won’t let go. Ever had one of those? Aren’t they a pain in the ass?
Just when it seemed she was over it, it’d come back again. She did go to the doctor and he prescribed some stronger than over the counter cough medicine, but she didn’t like taking it unless it was absolutely necessary because it would knock her out, so she spent a lot of time just putting up with it. Follow up visits to the doctor revealed nothing. Her lungs and bronchial passages sounded just fine she was told...the doctor didn’t know why she kept having coughing jags.
After a while, she began to notice that certain things seemed to trigger it. Women wearing strong perfume that smelled as if they had bathed in it was one. There was a young girl that worked in the courthouse that seemed to really take a shine to Mom that was like that, and loved to have lunch with her and things like that. She even found out where we lived and would pop in for unexpected visits. Mom liked her too, but didn’t know how to tell her that her perfume was bothering her so it was something she endured and eventually tried avoiding the young girl.
Certain foods and spices seemed to have an effect too, but we could never pin that one down. Seemed one time a food would trigger it, the next it wouldn’t.
Dad’s cigarettes seemed to trigger it every time. He was also a very heavy smoker. He actually started smoking during his time in WW2 by the suggestion of a doctor. He had gone from a kid in Detroit to the front lines of war almost overnight, which understandably made him quite nervous...the doctor prescribed cigarettes as something to calm his nerves. (Times sure have changed!)
I remember him putting the cigarette he was nearly finished with in the ashtray, so he could light the next one and not have a gap between them. A cloud of smoke hung in our living room most of the time.
Mom began to plead with him to quit, and he did try a few times, but he was just way too hooked. At best it became he wouldn’t smoke at home or near her, and he’d make up for lost ground at work or in the car.
Because Mom had noticed certain things triggering it, she went back to the doctor and he set her up an appointment with an allergist and he made tiny incisions in her back and placed known allergens in them. The tests all came back negative...there was nothing the doctor could see that she was allergic too. Like the general doctor, he also told her he didn’t know why she was coughing.
Her cough was getting worse, she felt like shit most of the time and she was just sick and tired of feeling this way. Mom and Dad decided that it would be best if she went to a doctor back in the city, where they were more advanced in the latest medical studies.
Through a referral from our old family doctor back in Harper Woods, she eventually wound up with a young black specialist who we were told was one of the best in the state regarding asthma (which the Harper Woods doctor figured it was) and other lung related issues.
The specialist ran some tests and took some x-rays and called Mom and Dad to his office one day.
He told them that Mom had lung cancer, and that it was in an advanced stage, so surgery was not an option. The best he could do was heavy doses of chemotherapy and hope for the best and the odds were not in her favor. Left untreated, he gave her six months to live. With aggresive treatment, and a whole lot of faith, he told her she could go on a couple of years, but offered no guarantees. It all depended on her will to live she was told. After discussing options and apologizing for having to break the news, he told her she probably should have never taken up smoking, not knowing she had never touched one in her life.

After school

2009-05-10T04:58:00.000-07:00

I was 18, didn’t have a care.
Workin’ for peanuts, not a dime to spare.
But I was lean and solid everywhere.
Like a rock.
My hand were steady, my eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose,
My steps were quick and light.
I held firmly to what I felt was right.
Like a rock.
Life back in Forestville and working in Harbor Beach was great. Because I had been staying with relatives in school, I really didn’t have a whole lot of expenses, so I had begun paying on my student loan as soon as I started working at Sellers and had it paid in full by the time I graduated.
I was also living back home, making decent pay at O’Mara’s and had no expenses and a stellar credit rating. I now had money to put in my ‘48 and it got a nice paint job, some upgrades and it became a refined, finished car. I also bought a brand new bright red Mustang for a whooping $5,2 56! (Try that today!)
I had it made back then and the song Like a Rock pretty much sized me up perfectly. I had become a solid young man. I had learned a trade from some of the best of the day, and could fix things like transmissions, internal engine problems and other serious problems that O’Mara had been previously sending out for repairs, as that was out of the realm of the few mechanics he did have. It opened a new and highly profitable market for him, and I began to draw a following of customers.
I was working for peanuts too, when you compare what I was bringing home to what he was making off of me, but I was happy. I had two cool cars, either of which I could hop in and drive anywhere I wanted. (I actually had more, but they were projects)
I usually had enough cash in my pocket to get whatever I wished for, and the Mustang got a racy exhaust, new wheels and a lower and better handling suspension system and a Porsche style whale tail rear spoiler.
Mom and Dad had settled into good jobs as well. While Dad began working in Port Huron, which was far from home, the owner soon found he knew the lumber business very well, and began to send him out to other yards he had in and around the Thumb area, to straighten them out and make them much more profitable. The reward for his efforts was a managers job at the yard much closer to home in Bad Axe once he had all the other yards running better.
Mom started out as a secretary for the county Magistrate, and when he retired, Mom was elected to take his place. Her job was an interesting one. She was basically a judge and handled minor traffic offenses, freeing up the regular courts for more serious matters. Anyone who had received a misdemeanor traffic ticket that felt they were wrongly accused, or wished to bargain down to lesser fines, etc, if there were extenuating circumstances, could appear before Mom along with the officer(s) that issued the ticket and she would hear both sides and give a ruling.
One case she heard actually gave me quite a day to remember. It involved a prominent business man in the county who had received a ticket for running a stop sign, which is a serious offense, which big fines and a large amount of points on your license.
How it involved me indirectly was that the man had run the stop sign in a 1932 Cadillac.
He pleaded his case that he had begun to stop, but the car which had a low charge in the battery, began to stall out, and in the struggle to keep in running and stop, the car never technically came to a FULL per the law stop.
Since he did attempt a stop, there was no traffic he impeded and no one was hurt, she dismissed the ticket THIS TIME, saving him a possible loss of his license as he already had other previous offenses (he tended to have a lead foot when he drove in his regular car).
After the hearing was over he thanked her and she told him he was welcome and she understood...she had a son who loved old cars too and knew how cantankerous they can be.
He graciously invited the both of us to see his vast collection of old cars anytime we wanted and we got to take a tour of his climate controlled garages full of high end luxury cars. (actually it was more like a museum of sorts with tile floors and painted walls with expensive art hanging there as well )
He had everything of historic value there including one that was built in the 1800's that was one of first cars ever built, which was little more than a buggy with an engine, along with other cars such as Duesenburgs, Pierce- Arrows, Hispano-Suiza’s and other exotic brands I had only read about. He even had two hand built German luxury cars that were documented to be of only a handful specially built for Hitlers highest ranking Nazi officers. Cars like the huge V-16 Cadillac he got the ticket in were what you could call his "cheap" beater, get in and drive ‘em around cars, and they were worth six digits back then.
Mom and I spent the better part of the day there as he gave us a tour and explained the history of each car and significant features they had. As we drove home and marveled in what we seen, Mom told me she was bushed from all the walking and seemed to be developing a cough. Probably just coming down with something, it was cold and flu season after all.
I could have taken the tour a couple more times on pure adrenaline alone...lol.

another trip around the sun

2009-05-04T04:53:00.000-07:00

People don’t know ‘bout the things I say and do.
They don’t understand...
All the shit that I’ve been through.
Been so long since I’ve been "home"
I’ve been "gone"
I’ve been gone for way too long...
Maybe I’ve forgot all the things I miss.
Somehow I know there’s more to life than this.
I’ve said it too many times, and I still stand firm,
You get what you put in, and people get what they deserve.
Still I ain’t seen mine...
I’ve been givin’, just ain’t been gettin,’
I’ve been walkin’ that thin line.
So I guess I’ll keep a walkin’
With my head held high.
I keep movin’on, and only God knows why..

So here I am at age fifty...the big one..the big 5-0..black balloons and all.
Like everyone who hits this milestone, I’m sitting here thinking of what I’ve done with my life and if I’m happy with it so far.
Looking back over these ramblings and stories of my youth, I can see I’ve become a compilation of a lot of who I was around or influenced by through the years.
I’ve become the old codger that young kids come to for something to weld or repair, or for car repair advise. Only now I’m not a codger, I’m "old school".
It’s funny how, more often than not, when they ask how much for whatever I’ve done, my response is - "buy me a Goddamn cigar when I start smokin’"
I also understand why Chet did that now too. I can see they don’t have two nickels to rub together, just like I did back then, and the look I get when they realize they aren’t in debt is worth it.
Despite being fifty now, I haven’t lulled into "acting my age" either. I haven’t become a frumpy old man listening to Glenn Miller, yellin’ at kids to get offa my lawn,(although I do like his music) I’ve become the old man who falls asleep in front of the TV at 8:30...lol
I still listen to (and rock out to) Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Seger and all forms of music and entertainment, even some of the new stuff, as long as it doesn’t promote violence or belittle someone, I’ll lend an ear. Be it classical, blues, country, soul, rock or heavy metal, if it’s got a good beat, cool guitar riff or a good message or lyrics, count me in. Wanna make fun of me for listenin’ to it? Go ahead...I couldn’t care less.
In fact, I’m open to anything and anyone’s opinion. Not sayin’ I’ll LIKE it, but I will respect it.
I don’t immediately draw a negative opinion of someone with pink hair, covered in tattoo’s and enough piercings to rival a pin cushion either. I listen to ‘em and go from there. You’d be amazed how intelligent some of ‘em can be. I also realize there is good and bad in everyone and some people are just as dumb as a mud fence.
Color, sex, creed, dress code, hair style and sexual orientation have NOTHING to do with it.
(Thank you Flora!)
I’m still not what I’d consider a very religious person, but it burns my ass to see how much religion is being shunned by politics and society in general. A few verses that have the word God in them pasted up in a government building is enough to offend some people. My advise? Stay the hell outta the building then. That, or respect what is part of our history, just like we do for your beliefs. Seems so simple to me, and probably much easier than avoiding buildings and symbols.
Same goes for all the politically correct crap these days...can’t we just go back to sayin’ what it is and bein’ who we are for chrissakes??
Sorry...got up on my soapbox for a minute and got off track...where was I?
Oh yeah, looking back on my life...
Looking back on all the memories (of which I’ve only got a handful written down) and stages I went through, I have to say I have come through it all relatively unscathed. I do naturally have what-if’s-
What if I’d reached for the stars when Motech placed me? Hard to tell what could have happened there.
What if I’d taken that job offer at Honolulu Ford? Wouldn’t that have been something?
What if I’d not went through that wild stage? Hard to say...lot of fun times, lot of money pissed away, possibly a lot of opportunities wasted and I’m lucky to be alive, but it also makes me smile thinking about it.
What if I’d not gotten married? Certainly would have been a lot less heartache, but then I wouldn’t have the two greatest kids ever born either.
I could sit and come up with more, but it’s like the old saying-if the dog hadn’t stopped to take a shit, he might’a caught the rabbit. I can’t go back and change it, best I can do is learn from it, and as the song says- keep movin’ on...and only God knows why.
Each one of these trips around the sun, seem to come faster than the last, and the past few have been the hardest. So, for this birthday, I plan to just take it easy. I’ll likely get a few phone calls to wish me a happy day, call me an old fart, etc, open some presents and eat some cake.
My ‘42 Pontiac is gassed up and ready to roll, the weather is picture perfect, and I’m goin’ for a ride, to where I’m not sure..maybe to some old haunts I’ve written about. Where doesn’t matter, the car is just a wonderful escape to memory lane.
All the shit of today will still be here when I get back!
(And I’ll likely have a better handle on it)

I leave the nest part 2

2009-04-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

There was a young black kid named Leroy, who resembled JJ Walker and was every bit as funny. He had an old Barracuda that was cool and scary fast. I remember another student who was from a rural area, much like me, but this guy was really a country bumpkin-sorta a wholesome Jethro Bodine with an appetite to match. At our lunch (supper) break, he could clean out the vending machines stocked with food and snacks.
I remember Leroy once staring wide-eyed at the pile of food he brought to our table and telling him "You’se ain’t a growin’ boy wit a appetite...you’se a boy wit a GROWIN’ appetite!"
His response- "Hey- I was hongry!"
There was also an Italian kid there with well coifed black hair, a row of perfect white teeth and a muscular build that always wore gold chains around his neck and never, ever, under any circumstances buttoned the top three buttons on his shirt. He even had the shop uniform shirts we were issued altered to fit better and tighter He also had a ‘70 Challenger T/A he was restoring. I don’t remember his real name either, but we all called him "Guido".
I also remember another kid that was very funny, but gave the impression he wasn’t wrapped tight. He was shorter but very stocky and muscular. The kid had that big strong crooked football player style nose, a thin moustache and constant five o’ clock shadow and arms like tree trunks. His claim to fame was he that could walk around on his hands...not just for a few minutes or "steps", he could for however long you wanted. We once seen him (on a bet) do it all day, much to the chagrin of the teachers. He acted a lot like the funny, but dumb as a stump one in every cheesy comedy made, and even had that funny gravely, stoner huh-huh-huh laugh down pat, but he really was fairly intelligent and strong as an ox. This kid didn’t stop at picking up an end of a Volkswagen, we seen him pick up the end of mid sized cars as far as his waist and set ‘em on jack stands. If sure if he coulda found a way to grip it, he coulda carried a VW around like a ladies handbag.
There was also a "Jesus freak" amongst us. The guy was a few years older, looked like any picture (or artists conception) of Jesus himself any even wore robes and sandals a lot of the time. He drove a beat up old Gremlin (which kinda threw me, as I always pictured Jesus as an old beat up four door Ford Falcon type...but anyway) and would praise the Lord when he learned something new. He was a nice enough guy and although he was a card carrying Jehovah’s Witness, he didn’t constantly force his religion on ya...maybe just a subliminal message here and there, but that was ok.
There was another one whose dad worked for Chrysler and the two of them were restoring a ‘46 Dodge pickup together, not just the take it apart and clean and paint everything resto, these two were doin’ the anal, search out rare 1946 air to put in the tires, every cotter pin bend is measured with a micrometer type of restoration. It was cool to see pics of their progress, but I often though they were going to extremes for such a mundane, one of 12 million just like it, pickup. You’d think they had a Duesenburg or sumpin’. (they did finish it and took several 1st place awards with it, but NEVER drove it...sad. Poor ole truck spent the rest of it’s life bein’ rolled in and out of a trailer)
There was even an older guy who looked remarkably like George Carlin, and even had the same warped sense of humor, and drove a hippy van.
We had one guy that sorta gravitated towards us too that gave everyone the creeps. He was a short slightly overweight guy that had almost pink complexion and honestly had kinda a pig snout sorta nose and the skin around his eyes was puffy, so he always looked as if he were squinting. He walked extremely stiff, his arms never swayed at all. Even if you waved at him, he’d wave back without bending his elbow, very swiftly and return his arm stiff and straight next to his body just as swiftly as he’d raised it and he rarely talked. When he did he was very quiet and hard to understand, and if ya asked him to repeat himself, he seemed embarrassed to do so.
It seemed he wanted to be a part of our group, or any group, but lacked social skills completely. He also seemed to really like an older gay woman student there that dressed and acted like a guy. She even tried to reach out to him, but it was very hard. I sometimes wonder if someday in his future he eventually snapped and went up on the water tower somewhere with an Uzi...sure seemed the type.
I enjoyed my time there. Work was easy, school was fun and by rotating staying with sibs it kept everything fresh and no one had time to get on each others nerves. I remember a morning radio show on WRIF where the DJ did voice impressions of Popeye, who was sorta the color commentary of the show, Rocky and Bullwinkle who did annoucements of upcoming events via "Mr. Know-it-all", race driver Jackie Stewart, who did traffic, obviously and a parody of wrestler Dick the Bruiser who did color commentary as well as remakes of popular songs of the day. My favorites were Lets Cruise, a remake of Lets dance byDavid Bowie that was about the popularity of cruisin’ in cars on a summers eve, and a hilarious song made to the song Boys of Summer by Don Henley that was about Strohs beer closing the brewery on Gratiot in Detroit and moving production to St. Louis. The show was absolutely hilarious. The song was hilarious too, but was meant as an in your face, look at all these jobs your messing with poke at the management that took over Strohs.
To this day, I can’t listen to the real song (by Henley) with out singing to myself (in Dick the Bruisers gravely voice)- I can see you...your brown glass shinin’ in the sun...ya got yer caps popped off...Bohemian, baby...
Despite the normal being litle more than a "number" way of life in the city, I found I was getting used to it, but still, when Friday rolled around, it was throw some shit in the car and head north and back home.
The year flew by and before I knew it, I had successfully completed my schooling, As part of the deal, Motech asked where I’d like to go...it was time to begin my adult life and they were going to put me in any place I desired to do so. I could stay with Sellers, they’d be happy to keep me and move me up to where I’d make great money.
I could chose a warm sunny climate...maybe even close to the Hot Rod culture I loved so much. Maybe even working FOR one of the shops I seen in magazines. The school had unbelievable clout and means to place me anywhere I wanted. Just say where and they’d find me a place. The world was my oyster.
I chose to go to O’Mara Ford....in Harbor Beach.
I was going back to Forestville.

I leave the nest

2009-04-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Gonna cruise out of this city
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey. It’s me!
I feel like a number
I’m not a number! I’m not a number!!
Dammit, I’m a man!!
Graduation day snuck up on me too fast, and, as I said, I was too busy having fun and working on cars to realize everyone in my circle of friends had a plan except me. Don was heading to Columbus, Ohio for college to pursue a career in electronics, Henry was going into the Air Force and his brother Mike still had another year of school. Jim Schumacher was off to college to learn how to be an accountant (or likely teach the professors a thing or two!) Everyone in my class was going somewhere and beginning their adult life except me and Milt Lloyd, and he was going to jail. I watched them all one by one leave and we said our goodbyes.
What was I going to do?
I had thought about following dads footsteps and joining the Air Force myself, but dad told me he’d break both my arms AND legs if I did. (It would be years later when I read what he went through during his stint that I’d understand why)
Since I had such a huge passion for cars, it seemed only natural to pursue a career in auto repair, so I chose an automotive trade school named Motech. The school was in Livonia, a suburb on the west side of Detroit, and sponsored by Chrysler.
It seemed to a good choice in many ways. It was only a year program through which I’d learn everything about the inner workings of cars from some very respectable people in the automotive world. Veteran drag racers Ron Mancini and John Tedder were among the list of highly qualified teachers there. With enrollment I would also get a set of tools and toolbox and they would find me a part time job while attending school and place me in a career anywhere in the country I desired once I successfully completed the course. I also had plenty of family in the area to stay with.
I took out a student loan, which I’d have to start paying once I got out of school and had an income, and I was on my way back to Detroit, where I would take turns staying with my brother and sisters.
True to their word, the school did find me a part time job at Bob Sellers Pontiac, a huge sprawling dealership where I was known as employee #17 in the prep and warranty dept. the place was so big, there were two service managers, and they got around the place on golf carts.
I did small repairs such as rattles, wind and water leaks, loose trim, etc as well as check over new cars to make sure everything was working before they went on the lot.
It was a gravy job, really. I got to check over and drive brand new Trans Ams, Can Ams and other cool cars and got a small paycheck to boot. I would work there from 8 AM till noon, then had to be in class at Motech across town by 2PM til 7 PM where I was known as student #1573.(starting to see why I chose lyrics from the song Feel Like a Number?)
The time gap was just enough for me to get across town, get a homemade sub from a mom and pop party store and go to Hines Park and people watch for awhile while I ate.
I did settle into a small group of friends at college too, and they were much more diverse and odd than my group from school.

School hi-jinx

2009-04-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

Its poetry in motion
And now she’s making love to me
The spheres’re in commotion
The elements in harmony
She blinded me with science!
She blinded me with science!!
And hit me with technology...

Remember Mr. Tippit? He taught several subjects and was actually quite a good teacher. His behavior was so bizarre and out there, you couldn’t help but retain every word he said.
One year we had him for a science teacher, and, as in all of his classes, he gave extra credit for those students willing to do presentations of how stuff worked.
Don and I came up with an idea for a demonstration for splitting an atom, the basic principal was an electron would hit the atom sending parts scattering to create more atoms and so forth. Believe the thing we were demonstrating was called nuclear fission? Forgive me if the scientific names of these parts are wrong, its been years and the info never really pertained to any of my careers. Besides, it was Don who knew EVERYTHING about it, I was more or less his "Igor".
Anyway, we had a good sized box which we covered nicely and labeled it "atom" which we would then drop in the "electron" that creates the split to discharge the parts to make more atoms, or something like that. Inside the box was fifty mousetraps, all set to go off and on top of each one was a ping pong ball, representing the parts that scatter about when the atom splits. (This part was my idea...lol) We tested it at Dons "laboratory" (an old chicken coop at his step-dads farm) and you would not believe the commotion that occurs when you drop ONE ping pong ball into a box of fifty of ‘em on loaded mousetraps! (Yeah, we DID have waaaaayy too much free time) We never could get all of them to go off at the same time, but there were enough to prove a point of the tremendous amount of energy released when an atom splits.
The day we gave our presentation was one I’ll never forget. When we told Mr. Tippet we were going to demonstrate splitting an atom and nuclear fission, he was a little apprehensive. Picturing the school going up in a mushroom cloud, he demanded to know more...and all we would tell him is "trust me" (add an imaginary Mooo-haha here)
I was excused to go out in the hall and set up the demonstration while Don spoke about splitting atoms, the history of who, what, where, when, etc., (at great length, as it took awhile to set all the traps and put a ball on each one without setting the whole thing off) before I re-entered the room and announced the demonstration was ready.
Did I mention by then I was wearing a white lab coat, long welding gloves and welding goggles? I had also mussed my hair so it stood on end. (Another larger, more sinister Mooo-haha here)
By now Mr.Tippit was REALLY unsure about this- especially when I asked him to hold the door for me and asked everyone to please.. PLEASE... be as still as possible.
I rolled the box in very carefully on a projector cart we borrowed from the AV room, taking extreme caution to roll it over the transition from the tile on the floor in the hall to the differing tile and seam for the classroom, even gritting my teeth while doing so. (are you humming the theme from Mission Impossible?)
"Ok, what’s in the box" a wide eyed Mr. Tippett asked as he reached for the closed flaps on the top of the box.
"NNNNOOOOOO!!!!" I shouted, startling everyone.
"It’s all perfectly safe...just, whatever you do, please DO NOT touch the box ..."
I wasn’t picking up on a whole lot of confidence it WAS safe, but I was allowed to continue...for now.
Everyone was sitting very still and wide eyed as I rolled the cart slowly and carefully past them, other than Mr. Tippit who was fidgeting about the back of the classroom, pacing back and forth, holding the sides of his head, muttering under his breath..."I dunno..I dunno.."
When I reached the front of the classroom, I gritted my teeth and slllooooowwwly opened the flaps on the box as Don began to wind down the verbal part of our demonstration. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye and even scrunching down a bit while he moved a step or two away.
A few students begin to squirm, some began to slouch in their desks, in the event they should have to dive under it, they’d have a head start . Don handed me the ping pong ball labeled "electron" and announced-
"My colleague will now demonstrate..."
I carefully held the ball over the open box and shielded myself with my other hand. As I let it drop I noticed Mr. Tippit in the back of the room, mouth wide open, arms out limp to his sides with a oddly sorta relaxed deer in the headlights look on his face. What harm could come from dropping a single ping-pong ball in a box?
When the ball entered the box, the box erupted with the combined sound of fifty mousetraps going off as well as fifty (actually fifty ONE ) ping pong balls bouncing off the insides of box at high speed before launching out of the box and all over the classroom.
Every single trap sprung and every single ball came out of the box, bouncing off the walls, ceiling, desks and raining down all over the room. Every girl (and some boys) screamed and a lot of students wound up on the floor.
When the balls began to settle, all six foot four inches of Mr. Tippett was found huddled in a small ball in the back corner of the classroom.
When everyone realized they weren’t going to die, they all began to laugh hysterically. Mr. Tippett unrolled himself and, much to his delight, the classroom was still there...lol.
Oh, by the way, our demonstration (and resulting commotion) was heard all over the school...we even got the PRINCIPAL to come to the classroom to see what the hell was going on.
Our grade for our demonstration? A+!
Looking back on my school years, I have all sorts of memories like this one. School was fun..it was a shame the classes got in the way. I was an average student and didn’t spend a minute more than I had to learning what was taught, and retained only what I thought I’d need, which was very little. I did spend a lot of time doodling car cartoons and making paper airplanes, I even had one that would come back to me every time. As my school years began to dwindle down, I realized I was one of the only ones who really didn't have a plan for what to do next.

A special lady and friend

2009-04-30T03:51:00.000-07:00

Out here in the streets, I fought for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don’t need to fight to prove I’m right
I don’t need to be for-.giiiive-eeeennnn....

That song brings a smile to my face when I think of it and a special lady I knew.
One of my lawn jobs during the summer months turned out to be some neighbors down the street, two older Scottish ladies, Meg and Flora McKechan...no guesswork on their nationality..lol.
They lived in a huge house on the lake with nearly 10 acres of grass to mow, but they had a big Sears riding lawnmower they let me use, so cutting their lawn was a treat. Flora was a widow, whose husband was an engineer of some sort that had passed away some time ago. She had also been a very well renowned Highland dancer back in the "old country"(more on that later). Meg was Flora’s older sister who had never married and made the best shortbread cookies I ever tasted.
Both had serious accents, especially Meg, who spoke in a more gritty back streets brogue, and I could listen to them talk for hours. It was through them I heard of the comedian Billy Connolly for the first time. Meg had a collection of cassette tapes of his routines and I became good friends with them over the years. With me, they had someone to have tea with, and I enjoyed stories of the old country and became Meg’s taste tester for all sorts of baked goodies.
Shortly after I got my drivers license, Flora needed a ride to a doctors office in Cass City, a good distance away, and Meg (the only one with a license and car) either wasn’t feeling well or something, so I was asked if I could take her, which I happily agreed to. Hey I was young and just wanted to drive, drive, drive. Where didn’t matter.
Anyway, I helped her in my car (dad’s old 69 Camaro) and we set off for her appointment. The car had an 8-track tape player (remember those?) and I had been listening to The Who, Who’s Next.
I didn’t think Flora, who was likely over 70 at the time, would appreciate it, but it was new and I sorta wanted to listen to it, so I left it in the tape deck but kept the volume down.
If she complained, I reasoned to myself, I’d gladly turn it off.
It wasn’t long into the trip when Flora asked about the "wee radio thing" under the dash, and how it worked to play music. She was fascinated by the fact I could listen to, in her mind, smaller versions of the reel to reel recordings she had in her home, but while driving in a car.
The song Teenage Wasteland came on (or what we now know as the CSI New York theme song) and as the hypnotic synthesized music at the beginning of the song played, she asked me to turn it up a little.
OK, I thought it a little bizarre someone this old wanted to hear MY music, but I obliged.
"That’s wonderful! Turn it up a wee bit more..." she said. I turned it up a good bit farther...louder than I’d ever thought she’d have tolerated.
As the synthesized music slowly began to fade into the background of the first few chords of the piano, a wide grin came across her face, and when the drums and cymbals began to pound their way into the song, she actually began to play a set of air drums as she gyrated around on the passengers seat of my car, moving perfectly to the beat, the little bun tied neatly in her gray hair bobbing back and forth.
"Oh, Tommy! (What she called me, and it sounded like toe-may), Who is this??"
As I opened my mouth to answer, the opening lyrics began...
"Out here in the fields!...I fought for my meals!...I get my back into my liiivvvviiiinnnggg!!!!
Flora sat straight up, her back plastered against the seat of the car, arms at her sides, hands gripping both sides of the seat bottom and her eyes and mouth both wide open. I wondered if she were having problems till I seen her eyes and mouth close as she smiled and gently began to sway to the song.
"I don’t need to fight!..to PROVE I’m right!....I don’t need to be fooor-give-eeeennnn!!!
She ferociously went back into her air drums, as the drum beats in the song were now being driven hard by guitar riffs. A look of intensity washed across her face...she was now IN the band. As she played along and learned the lyrics, she became a backup singer as well.
I couldn’t believe my eyes...so I turned it up farther.
She shot me an approving half laugh, half smile and nodded her head.
"Smashing! Just sma..." she shouted, cutting herself off to get back into the beat of the song...daring not to lose her place, and let the rest of the band get away.
Both of us were bobbing around halfway through the song and laughing out loud. When the song neared the end, the slower more melodic violin music played and she sat back with her eyes closed and her arms around herself as she swayed to it. When the pace of the violin part of the song began to pick up again, she began to hold one hand in the air above her head, the other on her hip and danced in place to the ever increasing pace. As more instruments came into the mix with a fury of fast played music, her small feet were a blur of activity on the floorboard of my car, taking her back to her dancing days.
When the song came to it’s sudden halt, she appeared to have been snapped back to reality for a split second, then she cheered and began to applaud wildly.
"Oh Tommy! That wee band is bloody fantastic! Who did ye say they wer-r-re??" she asked.
"The Who" I answered.
"Aye...the band...who are they??
We both had a good laugh once I was able to explain the name of the band was The Who.
Over the years I found that Flora had a lot of good qualities I try to emulate, but admit, it is a very easy wagon to fall off of.
She always kept her heart and mind as open as a shrine and respected everyone and judged no one. That was something to be left to a much higher power in her mind. Besides, the more time you spend judging, the less you have for yourself, she would tell me.
She also had no set parameters by which to act in respect to age. Hell, she even watched Soul Train (a black American Bandstand) religiously till she passed away at age 98. She liked it, and that was all that mattered.
I honestly feel the world would be a much better place if a lot more acted as she did.

Winter fun

2009-04-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

I wake up in the morning and it’s 40 below
The weather man tells me it’s too cold to snow
I look out the window and I know that he’s lyin’
The car’s out of sight, and the snow’s still flyin’...
I’ve always lived in Michigan, so I was used to winter. Back in Harper Woods, we had snow- it would start towards the end of November and by Christmas there would be enough to start sticking to the ground. By the end of February, it’d be pretty much gone. We’d still get snow till the end of March, but nothing that would really hang around for long. I don’t recall it ever snowing hard and certainly not for days on end...after all it was Michigan, not Alaska.
I sure got a rude awakening to winter when we moved to Forestville...lol.
I remember a trip I had made with my mom back to Harper Woods that first year in early November for some things out of the old house. It was just a day trip on a Sunday to retrieve some things and come back. I had school the next morning.
We were probably only 30 miles from Forestville on the way back, when some light, fluffy snowflakes began to lightly fall. What a pretty sight! And so early in the winter season too!
They began to fall a little harder, and within minutes I noticed the road and all it’s lane markings were no longer visible. Mom began to slow down as she was starting to have a tough time finding where exactly she was on the road- everything was completely white, and now it was snowing so hard, it was hard to even see out the windshield.
By the time we had reached Forestville, visibility was almost zero, we were doing 20 MPH, and we could hear the bottom of the car dragging through the snow on the road.
This has to be a freak occurrence...certainly this is something that will go down in history as a major event, right?
As we would come to know, it was something quite ordinary...and what we drove through wasn’t "that bad" according to locals. I’ve seen times where it has snowed much worse since then and sometimes for days on end too. Welcome to northern Michigan, where winter begins as early as late October and lasts till at least April!
As a kid, I found I enjoyed the snow, for one, it could snow so hard here it was possible to miss school because the roads were too bad....that never happened back in Harper Woods.
Secondly, I found that our hill overlooking the highway was an excellent place to slide down on a sled. I started out with the cheapie roll up sheet of hard plastic that rolled out into a sled and worked my way up to a wooden toboggan, and also found that our old dog Snoozer (a Sheltie mix) loved to ride with me. By the second year we were there, I had inherited another dog as well, Rinnie (a Shepard mix), that just showed up at our house one day and stayed.. Rinnie wouldn’t ride on the sled, but he was a big, powerful dog and loved to pull me around on it. The three of us would spend all day finding hills to sled on, the best one being near my fishing hole in the creek. It also had a fairly long grassy area at the end of the hill where you could see how far you could continue sliding. Sometimes if conditions were right, I could make it all the way to a row of pine trees near the creek.
The boy that lived nearby also had a sled and we began to search out bigger and steeper hills. We found one on the west end of town in what used to be an old campground that looked like a widow maker to me...it was nearly straight down for a hell of a long way and emptied into a frozen pond.
All I could envision is going down it at warp speed, falling through the ice on the pond and drowning......no thanks!
We eventually got up the guts to go down it and it was every bit the thrill I assumed it to be...but we never went through the ice..lol. We did find an old hood off a ‘46 Ford at the bottom that we drug up the hill and turned upside down and used it for a sled too. It worked remarkably well and the hood ornament also made it quite easy to steer!
Eventually, my group of friends at school became interested in trying sledding, and I had a huge wooden toboggan that held five so we decided to have fun one night. Plans were made to go down the hill by my creek as it was plenty thrilling, and the widow maker hill was way too steep for five people on a sled....hard enough to keep one person on it there.
Don, Henry and his brother Mike and Milton Lloyd and I all met up at the top of the hill and we figured with all of our weight combined we were gonna set a record for distance at the bottom...maybe even for speed down the hill too. We thought of taking turns separately for a while, it might even pack the snow down to make a few runs before we all got on it at the same time, but we decided to just go for it instead.
I was in the front steering, Don was behind me and everyone crunched together on the sled for the record run. We were hauling ass down the hill...faster then I’d ever been on a sled. The air was rushing past so fast I couldn’t catch my breath at times. When we hit the little diptie-doo towards the bottom, we never touched the bottom of it...just a split second of silence, then a return to the sound of snow under us. We went across it so fast we didn’t even feel the slightest drop.
The G-forces we hit when we hit the transformation to flat ground at the bottom had all of our guts down near our buttholes as we began to streak across the flat ground at a high rate of speed...lets see how far we can slide!
I steered the sled gracefully through two trees in the row of pine trees and into uncharted territory...we did it! We went farther than anyone and were still haulin’ ass!
"Yeeeeeeee-whooooooo!!..Hey! Waszat??"
I looked directly ahead and in the twilight I could see a row of neatly spaced sticks of some sort sticking up out of the snow....sticks hell! Those are friggin’ steel pipes!!
"JJJUUUMMMPPPP!" was all I got out before I heard the awful crunch of my sled splintering down the middle followed by the pop of my nuts hitting the pipe and the sudden stop that took every molecule of wind out of me.
Everyone else was scattered and sprawled out on the ground moaning, but I was still sitting on the BACK of the two halves of my sled (that now looked like two really wide skis) hugging the steel pipe and in a LOT of pain.
Turns out a local Putz, Jackass, Gunkie, Old Crab Ass dude in town didn’t want to see kids sledding down the hill and possibly going all the way to the creek and getting hurt (falling into three feet of powdery snow on top of six inches of frozen water), so he put the pipes in to keep them from going that far. Ya, steel pipes are MUCH safer to hit, dumbass.
We should have tracked him down and shoved his pipes up his ass..I consider it a lost opportunity...

My first car (of many)

2009-04-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

In my fly ‘41, with a strap on the door
We was goin’ to the country, for what we came for
I’m sure you smell the trees in the air
The best of motor cruisins’ just the joy to get there..
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, ride my Chevrolet
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, ride my Chevrolet...
Lyrics from the song Chevrolet, by ZZ Top....A song that brings back a special day like it was yesterday...lol. The song was about a ‘41 Chevy the lead singer for the group once owned and dearly loved. Ironically, the song came out the same year I became a car owner, but I wouldn’t even hear of the band for years.
Remember that rusty old ‘48 Chevy?
I kept after the dealer for an amount to buy it and one day I must have worn him down...either that or he was tired of this damn kid askin’.
It was close to my 15th birthday and I had just finished mowing the lawn of the old bitty who was the postmaster in town, when I noticed Paul Geyer, or"PG" as everyone called him, standing in front of his dealership across the street, wearing his usual bright yellow plaid pants, shiny white shoes, green suit coat and white straw hat with a rainbow colored band. He was puffing on a fat cigar, looking over some new Chevy’s that had been delivered that day.
Once she paid me, I hopped on my bike and rode over to the dealership. PG shot me a "oh here comes that damn kid again" look as I rolled up next to him
"Still interested in that ‘48, if ya figgered out how much" I said (as I did every time I approached him over the past few months).
" Ya don’t want that heap, kid" he said.
I was shocked. It wasn’t his usual "ga-home kid", and no belly laugh either.
"Whatcha need is one-a dose" he went on, taking the cigar out of his mouth long enough to point it at a gleaming brand new ‘70 Z-28 Camaro that was dark green with white stripes.
"Come back when ya got money kid, and we’ll put ya in one" he said as he turned to go back inside.
"I do have money...and I’m not interested in that! Well, I guess I am interested...it’s a nice car and all..but it’s not what I want."
Or could afford I thought to myself.
"So just tell me....how much for the ‘48 in the boneyard.?"
"You just ain’t gonna let up, are ya kid?" he turned and asked..
"Nope"
"Ya say ya got money too, huh?"
"Yep".
"How much ya got?"
I thought of the five bucks I had in my pocket and began to tally how much I knew I’d stashed in my piggy bank back home. I figured I had a little over 100 bucks.
"Thirty five bucks" I said sheepishly, giving myself bargaining room and figuring his loud laugh would be heard all over town.
"I’ll be damned" he snorted. "That’s exactly how much I figgered it was worth!"
"Looks like ya got yerself a car, son" he said as I stared in disbelief.
I had my first car! I had no licence, no idea if it even ran and no real income to fix it, but I had it. Oh yeah, one more small detail. I still hadn’t even brought it up to mom and dad.
I figured I’d tell them about my plans that night, and we’d figure a way to get it home (assuming they would say ok) from there. Later that day, as I practiced what I would say over and over, and came up with answers to everything I thought they would throw at me, I heard a truck pulling up the hill leading to our home.
When I looked out, I seen Rick Lautner, the mechanic at the dealership in an old Chevy wrecker backing in to our driveway with the ‘48 hanging off the back of it.
"Whatcha gonna do with this pile a shit?" he asked as he lowered in down off the wrecker.
"I’m gonna fix it and it’s gonna be my first car" I replied.
"Yeah...good luck with that..." he snorted.
"Hey, it ain’t that bad" I lied.
"Kid, you and all the money in the world ain’t gonna fix this dog turd" he said as he shook his head. Rick always was an arrogant SOB that I didn’t care for, but deep down I wondered if he was right.
"Besides, you’re just a kid...what do you know about cars. With any luck, you’ll fuck it up so bad it’ll never see the road." he muttered as he climbed back in the tow truck and drove off.
That cemented what I thought of him as well as my resolve to someday, somehow drive this car.
Hello Muddah..hello Faddah....
About the car in the driveway, ummm....
So much for breaking the news to mom and dad about what I was PLANNING to buy. It was already sitting in the driveway and two of the rotten tires had gone flat again by the time mom got home with a bewildered look on her face.
When dad got home the shit hit the fan. I had lost my mind. I was reminded of the front axle for nothing that still sat in the yard that we had to cut grass around.
Had I thought of how I was gonna fix it? And what was I gonna use for money? Did I have any idea how hard it was to find parts for old cars...and how expensive they were??
I stammered through some half assed, half thought out answers to each of his questions til he announced he was going up to Geyers to give HIM a piece of his mind, but I pleaded with him. I’d do anything he asked...just let me keep it. I think what cinched it was the statement I made about me soon being a teenager with a license and at least they’d know where I was. Besides, it was only thirty five bucks...and it was my money, right?

I was able to keep it and bought a new battery and starter switch for it with what was left of my money and got it running too. It went about two blocks before losing its brakes AND seizing up the engine.
Okay, so it was gonna take some more parts, time and money.....
I subscribed to Hot Rod, Popular Hot Rodding and Car Craft magazines and poured through how to’s in each issue. People like Gray Baskerville, Lil John Buttera, Pets Chapouris, Magoo (Dick Megourac) and Barry Lobeck became my idols. I hung on every word Gray wrote about the latest works of the iconic builders and studied the pictures to learn how to do it myself.
Mom and Dad bought me a 12 issue car repair encyclopedia of sorts, each issue was for a different system in a car such as engine, chassis, etc that explained how they work as well as how to make them work better, and the set became my bible.
The car was the first of many cars I’ve had, but it technically didn’t make it as my first car, as it was no where near driveable by the time I was sixteen. That honor fell on my dads ‘69 Camaro, the same one he bought from under my sister. I would also inherit his ‘71 Caprice and a beloved ‘68 Dodge Charger my brother found at a police action before I actually drove the ‘48 for the first time 4 whole years later, but it was worth every skinned knuckle, bloodied hand, shed tear and mountain of hard earned dollars to do so.
Why would all that be worth so much to me?
First off, I did it. And I did it myself with no formal training. The only thing not done by me was chroming the bumpers and the upholstery, but that was done by my Mom after I took the seat covers apart for patterns so she could make new ones. The bumpers were actually done by Chet Beneicki’s son for a bargain price.
Was it a showstopper? Not hardly. It still wore a coat of rattle can hot rod red oxide primer. It wouldn’t see it’s burnt orangeish brown paint for a coupla years yet. It had a set of used chrome reverse wheels that were slightly pitted that I bought at a swap meet for 10 bucks and looked decent enough..To those I added just the right size big’s and little’s (tires) and it had just the right stance. The body work had been done over and over till it was straight and surprisingly didn’t look like a 15 year old kid did it.
What it did have going for it was a shag-nasty sounding 327 Chevy V-8 that made all the right sounds. It was a mismatch of parts that really didn’t compliment each other well. It had a racing cam three sizes too big for a street car, a restrictive stock two barrel intake manifold with an adapter plate to mount a two barrel Holley and it was all bolted to a lowly 2 speed Powerglide transmission.
It also had a rear axle out of an old Nova that had a gear ratio not at all suited for performance. All were parts I got for Christmas, for free or next to nothing, which was my budget at the time. The thing sounded like it was ready for the Winternationals, but could barely wheeze out of its own way on takeoff. Nobody had to know that. With the rake, the hot rod primer and hot sounding engine, it had the look, and that was good enough. It would also give me the proudest moment in my life, but that will come in a later story.

support your local sheriff

2009-04-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine
Three deuces and a four speed
and a 389.....
Ah, the Forestville cop car....lol. The town population was 101 in the summer months, 48 in the winter. Talk about being from a small town! Forestville was at the farthest north reaches of the county, and should any emergency happen requiring police, it would take light years for the county sheriff to respond, if they could actually find Forestville, that is. (Don’t laugh, I’ll share an story later where this actually happened)
The town council hired a colorful local man named Chet Beneicki to be the village policeman. The Sheriffs Department deputized him and he painted the doors of his own blue‘68 Pontiac GTO white and stuck some star shaped police insignias on it and a red light on the roof and that was the Forestville police cruiser.
Chet himself was quite a character. He wasn’t the biggest guy I have ever seen, he was actually kinda skinny, scrappy and weathered looking, but you could tell you didn’t want to mess with him. He took no shit and told everyone exactly what was on his mind. He had a sorta Andy Griffith-ish/cowboy look to him, just a little thinner and beaten down. Make no mistake, he was no Andy Griffith in real life, he grew up in a tough neighborhood, cursed like a sailor and showed every one of the lumps he took over the years. He wasn’t the least bit afraid to take more of ‘em either.
He and his wife Grace and two of their sons Gary and Larry were also Detroit transplants, and had moved up a few years before us. It turned out Chet ran a welding shop directly across the street from the lumber yard my dad worked in back when we lived downstate, and dad even remembered taking equipment and trucks to his shop for repairs. Small world!
He gave the welding shop to his oldest son Jim, who turned it into a extremely successful chrome shop that did all of the work for high-end custom cars and motorcycles throughout the state. Chet himself kept a few welders in the garage behind their trailer house and still tinkered around with welding jobs on the side
This would come in handy for me, as before I had a car to customize, I had a lot of bikes that I’d chop up and customize. Many a time Chet would find me at his door with assorted bike parts such as forks or frames to extend or change around for my latest two wheel dream hot rod.
I’d ask if he could weld this or that for me and he’d always reply the same way...a lot of gruff cursing and grumbling thinking I was asking if he was capable of welding what I had rather than what I really meant, which was did he have the time.
"I can weld a goddamn bird to a goddamn birdcage if ya want me too!!" was one of my favorite responses.
It eventually became a game of sorts, where I would bring something I was sure he’d say he couldn’t do that, but he’d always amaze me with his welding skills. The best one was when I wanted him to move a welded on seat bracket at the front of a banana seat farther ahead so I could actually mount the seat farther back and lower to give the bike a chopper look. The seat still had red metalflake vinyl upholstery on it, which I was sure would be a problem with the welding heat but he had the solution again. He propped the seat up so the vinyl was in a bucket of water and welded the seat with no damage.
I was always willing to pay him for what he would do for me but always got the same response- "Oh hell no! Goddamn it, ya wanna pay me, buy me a goddamn cigar when I start smokin!"

Thoughts on religion

2009-04-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it’s like "up there"
They call it paradise, I don’t know why...
You call someplace paradise, kissin’ it goodbye.
I come from a very religious Catholic family, yet I wouldn’t consider myself that way...at least in the strictest cut and dried way. I do believe there has to be a higher power, and that there is something beyond this, but typical religion baffles me at times. Too many conflicting ideals and that.
I don’t think my dad’s side of the family was real hardcore Catholic, but my moms side definitely was, in fact, two in her family became priests. She herself not only went to church every Sunday, she partook in all of the weekly activities as well.
When dad was shot down over Germany during World War Two, mom and her family firmly believe they prayed him to safety. Dad has admitted he believes he seen the angel of his dead mother pull him out of the wreckage of his B-17 bomber as it fell from the sky in pieces. He was one of only two to survive. The plane was hit directly behind him by another plane and blown to smithereens.
As I mentioned before, I was an alter boy back in Harper Woods, mainly because of the fact I got to go to Tiger games a lot, but it was fun too. When we moved to Forestville, we of course, began to attend church there every Sunday as well, but I found myself not wanting to go a lot of the time. Maybe it was because I was getting older. Maybe it was because of the fact the church held less than 100 people and, at capacity, it was Sardine City.
But staying home was NOT AN OPTION. (See very religious family above)
Because it was a small community, with a small church like most of the surrounding communities, we shared a priest with nearby Helena. The Helena church was a little bigger, and they had a house for the priest to live in, so he would commute every Sunday to our church. He was an old priest (we’re talkin’ old enough to have been AT the last supper old) who did the mass in a barely audible monotone voice and gave sermons that lasted nearly half an hour, which would put half the church to sleep. Couple that with the fact he moved so slow ya hadda mark his spot to see if he’d actually moved over the last few minutes, and you can see why I didn’t care to be there.
I remember the choir, made up of mostly older local women that held themselves as being of superior moral standards, despite the fact they gossiped about and looked down on everyone. (Ironically, the choir sat in a balcony ABOVE the congregation.) They all sang as if they had their nipples clamped in a bench vise. A couple of them, the ones who thought they were the holiest of the bunch, would always manage to have their voices heard over the rest, even if they had to scream. I remember having to hold back laughter because of them when they’d hit high notes. I even caught mom and dad holding back too as they ribbed me to stop giggling.
Eventually the old priest retired, and the diocese sent us a new one, a much younger, vibrant one named Father Walt. First off, I thought the fact he went by his real name, just plain ole Walt, was great...a common name, not the Father Ignatius-borgeous-fatima-loyola-holycrap-my-name-is-long handle most priests would be given. Looking back, I have to say, he changed my outlook on church at a time when it was the last place on earth I wanted to be.
He was probably in his early thirties, very tall and balding with a neatly trimmed beard and had a lot of charm and spoke with a funny Bronx "fagitaboutit" accent.
He was one of a handful of priests I ever knew that would talk to you and listen as if he really cared about you, and it was obvious he did. He became extremely popular, especially with the younger crowd.
Almost immediately he had gotten me to volunteer to be an alter boy again and the church always had people standing in the back, sometimes all the way outside on the steps.
He’d often start his sermons with "Ok, so dis’ Priest and a Rabbi goes in’ta dis bar ya see....". His sermons were never long, or it didn’t seem like it, and they often left the church roaring in laughter. In the end, he left you with an important lesson, all without preaching down to anyone.
When’s the last time you heard laughter (and by that I mean please stop, I can’t breathe anymore laughter, not a chuckle here and there) as a normal part of church services?
Many a time my family would have him over for dinner, and I enjoyed him so much that at one time I actually thought about being a priest. To me, he taught what a priest should- to be a caring, giving part of society. To care about everyone, no matter who they were, or what they’d done. To forgive and forget, as everything anyone does is just flawed human nature. We all had ‘em, even he did, he’d tell me.
Because of his unorthodox methods, he became quite unpopular with the choir crowd. They were shocked at his behavior, especially telling jokes during a sermon...this was outrageous!
In their mind, church was NOT a place for fun and games, it was a place to be SERIOUS and atone and pray for all the wicked that the congregation had done (themselves excluded, of course). Being holier than thou, they muscled their way into most of the church committees, where they regularly voiced their outrage and even made calls to the diocese to complain about the unfit priest they had been sent.
Eventually, Father Walt left, whether the diocese simply got tired of hearing about him, or he decided he would leave of his own accord, I never knew. All that happened was one Sunday, before he started mass, he dropped a bomb and announced he was leaving. He then said a somber, normal, per the book mass, with no sermon, and we never seen him again.
It took the choir ladies less than a month to start a rumor he had left because he was seeing and having an affair with a woman back in New York.
We were then sent another older, sedate, monotone priest and life went back to what they considered the way church should be...an hour an a half of criticism and self loathing complete with a long drawn out sermon that led to nowhere but la-la land.
The church eventually closed as there weren’t enough people coming to mass to warrant it being open, which I thought was befitting at the time.
I have come and went in a few different parishes thought the years, but have found the same group of holier than thou’s exist in EVERY church, so I just quit going...what was the point? Instead, I try and live as I’ve been raised and how Father Walt would have suggested I do, although I know he would have insisted I still attend church, and not let them bother me.
Guess I just don’t feel I need a building, or being looked down on by a holier than thou to act as I should.
The way I see it, all I have to answer to is myself for now. My luck, when the day of reckoning does come, I’ll wind up someplace very, very hot!
That’s ok...I hate snow now that I’m an adult.
Wouldn’t mind being there when some of the holier ones have to ‘splain themselves though...

2009-04-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

When I was young and they packed me off to school
And taught me how not to play the game
I didn’t mind if they groomed me for success
Or if they said they I was just a fool....

School was 16 miles away, in the next town, Harbor Beach, so there would be no riding a bike to school now. I remember getting on the bus full of kids from the Forestville area for the first time and the stares I drew. Who was this new guy? Where did HE come from? I’d spent so much time in my favorite haunts, no one knew I even existed. Hell, there was even a boy my age down my street that didn’t know I was around till that morning when we both met the bus on my corner.
I was the mystery boy, tall and skinny and kinda lerfy in a bus full of big and stocky farm boys, used to lifting hay bales. I was also the only one wearing a pair of bell bottom pants and a buttoned shirt mom had bought me back in the city. I was used to strict Catholic schools and dull uniforms, so she had gotten me new hip clothes, so I’d blend into my new public school surroundings, which, had I been going to a public school back in Harper Woods, I would have. But in a bus full of straight cut levis and T-shirts I stuck out like goddamned Carmen Miranda. All I lacked was a hat full of fruit. Some boys and girls said hi and this and that’s to me to be polite as I found my way to an open seat, but mostly I felt sorta like a goldfish in a bowl as most just stared at me.
Once we got to school, I was met at the door by one of the teachers, Mr. Tippit, a tall wiry man with acne scars so bad it looked as if he had been in a horrible fire. He had big buggy eyes and curly rusty red hair that stood on end and looked as if it hadn’t been combed in awhile and flitted about like a Chihuahua on speed. If I were to describe Mr. Tippit today I’d say he was a red haired Kramer from Seinfeld in both looks and actions. He led me to a small library with other new students where we would fill out some papers, meet some teachers who would try and take away our new school jitters and learn more about the new school.
Most of the students there were also local farm kids that had previously been attending one room country schools in the area that only taught to 7th grade, whereupon they would have to come to public school, so again, I stood out. That was until I noticed another student.
Across the room was a stocky young boy with glasses wearing a striped shirt and dress slacks and his white T-shirt stuck out from under the front of his shirt, but that wasn’t what made him stand out in a room full of 13 and14 year olds.
It was his full beard.
We struck up a conversation and soon learned we shared a lot of interests, like cars, the outdoors and animals. We also found one of us could start reciting a line from a Looney Toons cartoon and the other could finish it without missing a beat. His name was Don Wright, and like me, he and his younger brother Tom had moved to the area not long ago from a city setting when his widowed mother married a farmer in the Ruth area, west of Forestville.
He quickly became my best friend, and still is to this day, although we live a great distance apart. We eventually did settle into a small group of friends
That was one thing I did notice about school life in Harbor Beach- the groups.
In my previous school we all wore identical uniforms, so there really wasn’t anything to set anyone apart. Here, there were very distinct groups.
There were the farmers, sons and daughters of the biggest farms in the area. The boys all wore jeans and white T-shirts or plaid shirts buttoned to the neck under blue FFA jackets they wore like a badge of honor, even to class. The girls all dressed like June Cleaver and followed the boys around, tending to their every need.
Then there was the stoners- an interesting group to say the least. Tall platform shoes (the gaudier the better), hip hugger pants and loud polyester shirts was the uniform here along with long hair. All would gather between classes and at lunch at the smoking area in the parking lot to hang out and smoke cigarettes. That was something that still blows my mind today...the school had SET UP an area exclusively for smoking for students too young to buy cigarettes.
There was also the jocks- those that played in every sport, wore their jerseys to school every day and acted like the second coming of Christ, which was largely fueled by pep rallies in the gym every Friday to purposely tell these jackasses how great they were. The cheerleaders were the only females in the group. I had the impression they kinda had to be there.
Naturally, there were brainiacs- those that wore dress clothes every day, some even a tie. They were all very well spoken, courteous,well behaved and mannered and regularly made the honor roll. Picture a lot of white taped glasses, pocket protectors, long plaid skirts for the girls and way too short (high water) pants for the boys.
The group I wound up in was an eclectic group that really didn’t fit into any of the above. Don was certainly a brainiac, especially in science, but he was a bit of a slob, so he was shunned by that community. Same for another friend Jim Shumacher, probably the brainiest person of the group. He could do math like no one else and was in trig while most of us were tryin’ desperately to get algebra 1, but he had very bad acne which kept him out of the brainiac set. They did acknowledge his abilities, but pimples couldn’t be a part of the elite group. Sorry, missed it by that much...
There was Henry Holdwick and his younger brother Mike along with Brian Koss, who were all very intelligent, but they were hecklers for lack of better word. Henry could have easily blended into the brainiac or farmer group seamlessly. Mike and Brian could have also been a part of the brainiacs too, but dressed like stoners, Brian even had hair to nearly his waist, but they didn’t fit that group either as they were both capable of coherent thought.
They preferred to watch from the sidelines and poke fun at all of the groups and they eventually funneled into our group as most thought them to be a big goddamned pain in the ass. We enjoyed the comments they would have about the other groups. It was great entertainment.
There was also Milton Lloyd that came from a very poor family that moved up from the city. His dad didn’t work, (strike one up here, BIG TIME) his mom dressed provocatively (strike two) and his older brother was in jail back in Detroit, which would turn out to be the final strike three, once word got around this small community. I enjoyed him though as we shared a love for TV sitcoms like Chico and the Man, Sanford and Son, etc. He was also from Detroit and we had an unspoken bond there as well.
Me? I was the class clown of the group, tall, skinny and full of acne, but I could recite old Cosby and Carlin routines flawlessly and always had a joke or prank goin’. I could also amaze them all with my knowledge of cars and could hold them spellbound as I would rattle off little known car maker facts and horsepower and torque figures.
There were others that came and went, along with girls that were outcasts in some way or another, but for the most part, it was us, and we just didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of us.
Mostly, I looked forward to summer, no school, the beach, fishing and my usual haunts as well as a house to myself as both mom and dad worked. I was free to do whatever I pleased.
If it rained I’d build model cars and watch Looney Toons, The Price is Right and Match Game.
If it was nice out, I’d be outside, going everywhere. All that was required of me were a few simple chores I could whip through in no time. My love for old cars still festered and junkyards and abandoned homes that still had derelict old cars sitting around were added to my regular visits.I found an old Chrysler at an abandoned farm that was pure junk, but I’d go visit it, just to lift the crusty old hood and see the 392 Hemi engine in it. The engine was also junk, and even had moss growing on it in places, still I dreamed of somehow sneaking it out and rebuilding it. The local Chevy dealer had a chunk of property a couple miles out of town where he parked (dumped) cars that didn’t run anymore, were wrecked, or just weren’t good enough to sell on the lot.
There was an old Chevrolet that I instantly fell head over heels in love with there. It had been painted black with a brush, and had parts of old screen doors screwed and riveted over rust holes. Someone had painted the wheels silver with a spray can covering half of the tires too. It looked as if someone had tried (operative word) to dress it up to sell, but that never happened, so now it sat forlorn, relegated to its post next to a tree in the far back corner. I researched it (through pictures in books about cars I always had readily at hand) and learned it was a 1948 Chevrolet. I admired the long sweeping fenders and hood and sleek lines of cars of that era. Sometimes I’d just sit behind the huge steering wheel and look out the tiny windows and imagine driving it. Of course in my dreams it was in pristine condition, not the rusting hulk sitting in the briars on two flat tires it truly was.
Someday, I would tell myself, I’m gonna have me one of these. I began to give up some fishing trips to cut lawns for older people around town for money so I could buy an old car and even got up the guts to ask the guy who owned the Chevy dealer how much it would cost to buy the ‘48, but he would give me a hearty belly laugh every time and tell me "ga-home, kid".
I even bought a front axle and radius rods out of an old Ford for 10 bucks because I liked the way it looked, and it was like those I’d seen in Hot Rod Magazine.....I was a sick child.
I lived, breathed, ate and slept cars. I’d even imagine I was driving whatever hot rod of the day while I rode my bike, and when I rode in the back seat of the family car the window crank was my shifter. I remember being mesmerized watching old cars drive by in the area, and being a poorer rural community, there were a LOT of them.
I could spend hours looking at a 67 SS 396 Chevelle a young man in town had that had custom paint and murals all over the car. He worked at a custom shop in a town south of Forestville and I used to plant myself on the hill overlooking the highway behind our house every morning to watch him rumble past on his way to work with open headers, racing slicks and a huge hood scoop that covered two big Holley carbs. Once and a while, he’d see me and stab the gas, sometimes even lifting the front wheels in the air. That was COOL!
To borrow a line from the show Home Improvement, where Tim Allen admits to his addiction to cars "I shoulda checked myself into the Henry Ford Clinic."

The big move

2009-04-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

They watch the news, see young men dyin’
They watch em bleedin’ and they listen to
Em cryin’
And if their normal- if they can see
They just reach down and change the channel
On the TV.

Life in Harper Woods went on, and although we were in a good neighborhood, we were only a few blocks from the northern edge of Detroit, which was in flames as the race riots raged. Police cars patrolled our block quite frequently, and my friends and I were not allowed to roam as freely as we once were. Mom, or sometimes Kathy, used to drive me to school, where I used to ride my bike. Mom used to send me on my bike to a small market on Six Mile in Detroit to get a box of Creamette elbow noodles and a block of store cheese for Friday nights macaroni and cheese supper, but that stopped too. Soon after it burned to the ground. It was the same neighborhood, the same people were there, but overnight, it just wasn’t the same.
My Grandpa Shea became ill and I remember him looking terrible. His skin a weird shade of yellow, and shortly after that he died. I still remember listening to Mitch Miller records with him and watching him take a big puff of his huge cigar and sending several smoke rings in the air and riding with him in his old Studebaker. Grandma Shea didn’t last much longer before she was gone too. It was said she died of a broken heart, having lost the one she was married to for nearly sixty years.
A little more than a year later, I learned my Grandpa Glide had passed as well.
Flat feet kept brother Mike out of Vietnam and he married his high school sweetie, Shirley and went on to become a Detroit cop. They had a boy named Patrick and a girl named Laura.
Kathy married her boyfriend Dave and they had two boys Jimmy and Jeff. They moved to New Baltimore and lived in a trailer park that had the oddest thing I had ever seen; a creek with a cement bottom. It was likely some form of drainage system made from an existing stream, but I vividly remember catching pike in it with Dave. I have a lot of memories of fishing with Dave... he knew how much I liked it and always took me with him.
Nancy began to hang around with a young man named Bill with slicked back hair, a black leather jacket and a motorcycle. It was no secret mom and dad didn’t like him at all. There were several heated discussions I recall before Nancy and Bill eventually took of on their own for Kentucky. I remember we didn’t hear from Nancy for quite awhile, and then remember lying in the back seat of Dads ‘69 Camaro, listening to a broadcast on the radio of the astronauts land on the moon during the trip to Louisville, Kentucky to reunite with her and see her new daughter Debbie for the first time. Her and Bill eventually moved back to Michigan and they had a second daughter, Christine. Mom and dad still didn’t like Bill, but they put up with him to see Nancy and the kids.
I became Uncle Tom, and enjoyed every minute of it. Being I came along so much later than the others, I was somewhat close to them in age, and it was more like a huge pile of friends rather than relatives.
It wasn’t long after that until mom and dad made an announcement that would change my world forever.
It had always been their dream that once all the kids were grown and had lives of their own, they would retire and move to Forestville. The city was changing, it was becoming angrier and I was still in the 7th grade. A deal had been struck with my moms family to buy Grandma and Grandpa Shea’s cottage, a bigger home, made of cement blocks with running water and heat, and they were going to move sooner than later and hopefully find work up north.
I was moving to Forestville.

I’m a tidal pool explorer, from the days of
My misspent youth.
I believe that down on the beach
Where the seagulls preach
Is where the Chinese buried the truth....

To say I was happy to LIVE in Forestville was like saying the Pope is a little bit Catholic.
Dad once again, bought an old Ford truck, and used it to haul up new hand built kitchen cabinets and our belongings every weekend and day off he could get that first summer and transform the cottage into a home. Mom eventually quit her job and she and I moved up to get everything set up once dad had the basics done.
This was a great time for me. I had the whole summer to do everything I loved best, rather than two days or two weeks. Our dog Snoozer and I tramped every inch of ground we could find. Once again, I was free to go wherever and do whatever I pleased. I would lash my arsenal of fishing poles and tackle box to my bike, tape my trusty transistor radio to the handlebars and ride to the beach, to a secluded old pit in the middle of a woods or even to a county park five miles away in search of the next big catch.
There was my favorite spot too. I found a small fairly deep pool in a bend of the creek near our home and decided to drop a hook in to see what, or if, anything was in there. Turns out it was chuck fill of creek chubs, small bluegills, rock bass, even an occasional trout. A little rolled up ball of bread torn from a slice on a simple hook was all I needed, and the fish would bite it almost as quick as I could put it in the water.
The dog and I could spent hours there and I began to find that that was when I was the happiest, alone in the woods, at a stream or just in nature in general. It’s not that I was anti-social or anything like that. I just loved the quiet and seclusion. I loved being able to sit quietly and have deer, birds, an occasional racoon or two come within a few feet of me and not run off. I became more interested in that than making new friends.
Dad moved up that fall and got a job at a lumber yard a whole 50 miles south of Forestville in Port Huron, and Mom got a job as a secretary for the county magistrate in Sandusky, some 35 miles from home. As they would soon find out, living in a remote area, everything is at a distance.
That coming fall also meant I’d soon have to ditch the fishin’ pole, shorts and t-shirt for new clothes and books. Soon it would be off to a new school in the next town, a new neighborhood and new people.

My own version of a pirate looks at fifty

2009-04-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, no, I’m not a pirate, (been damn near everything else...and pirate is definitely a bad word now!) but I am staring down the barrel of 50 and thinking of events in my life over the years and how I’ve come to where I am today. I thought I’d be a good idea to begin to write some of ‘em down. Maybe to have ‘em when my addled brain loses em. After all, I can remember these events and people like it was yesterday, but forget what the hell I’m doing by the time I reach the other side of the room.
Or maybe I want to do this to figure out where I’m going from here (and why am I sitting in this handbasket). Maybe I just want to leave something behind for someone in my life to read someday, and know more about the real me.
Thinking back on what I’ve written so far, a lot of it is events that have made me who I am today. You’ll definitely meet some colorful characters along the way influenced me more than even I knew they did. I’ve been remembering a lot of these moments through song lyrics, so I’ve included some of those along the way too.
Some of it is just memorable stories, the good bad and the ugly, some are magic, some tragic and some just funny. Come along for the ride if ya want!

I was born on the cold side of the mountain
I wanna wake up on the warm side of the bed
How I start here, and how I end there
That is the part I ain’t worked out yet
Every day I climb a little bit higher
Every night, I learn something new
I’m writing it down, in case I forget
One day it will be my story to you.
I was born May 4th, 1959 and grew up in Harper Woods, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit) the youngest of four. My family was a typical one for the times. Dad was an WW2 vet with a good job at a lumber yard and Mom worked part-time doing the books for a church. We had a nice two-story brick home and they bought a brand new Chevy every two years, which would become Mom’s car and Dad would drive the old one. They were living the original American dream.
My brother Mike (the oldest) was my hero- he always had a cool car, and if you read long enough, you'll see cars are a big part of who I am.
I probably spent the most time with my sister Kathy though, who loved animals and took me with her in her car all over the place. My sister Nancy had a huge collection of Bill Cosby and Smothers Brothers albums we’d listen to and laugh til we couldn’t breathe. I was the youngest, born a full ten years after my sister Nancy, but there were two before me, a sister Mary, who I learned had died at birth, and a boy named Jimmy who had tragically been hit by a car and died.
We never lacked for anything that I can remember, and being the youngest, I have to admit I was spoiled, although I likely didn’t think so at the time. My spoilage was most likely amplified due to the fact that I came along after the two tragic events that led to my birth.
I was friends with several of the kids on the block. We’d clamp baseball cards in the spokes of our bikes and race around the block, or set up a makeshift Tiger stadium in my front yard. The edge of the bottom step of our front porch was home, a square of concrete in the sidewalk that ran through the neighbors driveway, and ours was first and third respectively, and the sewer grate on the other side of the street was second. We all would play our favorite Tiger and I was Al Kaline.
I remember the Catholic elementary school I went to, Our Lady Queen of Peace, complete with nuns for teachers. My first was Sister Mary Bernadette, but I couldn’t say Bernadette well, and everyone got a kick out of how it sounded like Sister Mary Burned-ta-death.
I also remember a teacher in the later years there whose name I can’t recall, but in a school full of stern nuns who all looked constipated, she sure stood out enough to remember her.
She was the only teacher that was NOT a nun, she was a bubbly, tall and fairly hefty in size and dressed in loud colored clothes and hung posters in the classroom of her hero, and, at least in her mind, love interest, Joe Namath. (The New York Jets quarterback)
She had a loud happy voice, and kinda reminded me of Johann Worley from Laugh In (in retrospect, as the show had not aired yet)
A lot of what she taught was sung by her as she strummed away on an acoustic guitar. We also listened to records a lot and she’d ask the class what we thought the singer seemed to be telling the listener. Most importantly, she did NOT possess a steel edged ruler like the nuns did! It was the only class we did not have to sit at attention, so needless to say, this teacher was wildly popular with the students.
I became an alter boy and joined Little League to pursue my dreams of becoming the next right fielder for the Tigers, once Kaline retired. Through both the church and Little League, I went to a lot of free Tiger games at Tiger stadium. I really loved that place.
My mom had three sisters who all had at least four kids of their own, leaving me with lots of cousins. Family reunions were big to say the least! .
My dad was an only child, and the only family I knew on his side was my Grandpa (Grandma died when dad was just a boy), my Aunt Margaret (she was actually DADS aunt, we all called her that) and her son Kenny, who really took a shine to me, most likely because of my love for cars. He was an executive for Ford, always wore a suit and tie and drove a huge Lincoln. His wife Kay always wore nice clothes, a fur coat and large shiny jewelry dripped off of her everywhere. When they would visit, he would always bring me a model car, and never a cheaper one, always the very precise, expensive brands.
I remember going to car dealers with my sister Kathy in her beat up 64 Chevy Bel Air. She was in the market for a new car and we would go from dealer to dealer looking at, sitting in and testing out cars. She found her dream car in a brand new light green 69 Camaro, but when she took dad to see it (likely as he was her co-signer) he immediately shot down the idea. Why, this car was unsafe, he ranted. It didn’t even have a FRAME under it...it was a unibody car, and so on. She would up getting a behemoth light blue 2 year old 67 Bel Air that looked remarkably like her 64, just in better shape.
I also remember how PISSED she was when dad came home with his new car a couple months later...you guessed it, a 69 Camaro, and it was even light green to boot.
The summers are hot, the winters are cold
Not a lot smarter, but another year old
Sometimes I’m still at the fishin’ hole
And ya never needed bait where we us’ta go,
Just a safety pin hook on a bamboo pole
Take the big ones home, let the little ones go...

A lot of my fondest memories are of the summer cottage we had in Forestville in northern Michigan. My grandpa and grandma Shea owned a large parcel of land and put up a summer place on the corner lot and divided the remaining land into four parcels and gave them to each of their four daughters. Dad bought an old panel truck, the faded lettering of a previous owner H.Humprey Jones still on the sides after the war and hauled lumber up and built a small cottage on moms parcel with a screened in porch and an outhouse. A slab of driftwood was nailed to the front porch that read Humprey’s Haven.
I had a different name for it- Heaven. On weekends and during the summer, we would make the trip up and I’d pretty much be gone most of the days. There were wooded areas to explore, creeks with fishin’ holes and frogs, turtles and crawdads to catch and Lake Huron to swim in.
When I wasn’t exploring, I was in a huge hole in the back yard playing with Tonka trucks and Hot Wheels with cousins Keith and Kevin. None of us knew why the huge hole about the size of a grave but much shallower was there, but it sure was fun, and cool on hot days. Looking back it was likely an attempt to install a septic tank and sewage system that either ran out of money or enthusiasm. Everyone was more relaxed here, and if something didn’t get done, it didn’t matter. The outhouse stood, and we had a play hole.
A hobby farmer next door grew sweet corn with ears as big as a loaf of bread that didn’t even need butter. We’d fill a big kettle with water from the outside hand pump on the well and Mom would cook a big pot of it and we’d sit around a picnic table on the porch and eat till we were ready to bust, then relax on the porch in old lawn chairs and chaise loungers and enjoy the breeze that flowed through and listen to the Ernie Harwell give the play by play of my beloved Tiger games on a radio. Sometimes at night, all of us kids would walk down to the cliff that overhung the lake at night and sit on the edge and watch the stars, the moon and, now and then, heat lightning shimmer off the calm water.
It just couldn’t get any better than that. Or could it?
Although I loved my life back home in Harper Woods, they usually had to drag me into the car to go back home every Sunday night.