The 4th

I need to take a short step back to the beginning of July, 1971 to talk about fireworks and such... By the end of the 1960s the concept of "safe and sane" had spread to most of the states. Texas was almost there, but you could still get things that would blow your fingers off... So a few days before the 4th I stopped by the fireworks stand in Argyle.

Aside: I couldn't believe the racial terms they used to describe some of the fireworks. I shall not repeat them here - I remember shaking my head in disbelief. Not cool...

After careful consideration I ended up just buying a few packages of firecrackers... The fuses were intertwined (forming strings) but it was really easy to separate them and I figured it would be a lot more entertaining to set hundreds of them them off individually than to light off entire strings in a matter of seconds. (Yes - I've always been that cheap...) And since I'd never had the opportunity to experiment with fireworks before I spent the next few days figuring out exactly what those tiny little explosive devices were capable of... (Not much, it turns out.)

First - there were these spiders that lived in underground nests in the back yard so I dropped firecrackers down their holes... Unfortunately, it didn't produce the chaos I was hoping for. Their reaction was more like "Seriously? You can't think of anything better to do?"

So I switched my focus from fauna to inanimate objects. The thing that really triggered my OCD was seeing how high I could launch a mayonnaise jar lid off the patio using a single firecracker. (BTW: I got the mayo lid from the garbage, not the fridge...) It was impossible to launch it without some spin so I experimented with controlling the degree of rotation by altering the placement of the firecracker under the lid - and once I got that "dialed in" I started placing small objects around the firecracker to decrease the chamber volume and direct the force upward.
I no longer recall exactly what "recipe" produced the highest altitude (it was only like 9 feet), but I do remember being frustrated by the variation between the firecrackers. (Darn those Asian factories and their substandard quality control.) ... Nonetheless - it kept me entertained for many hours :-)

Of course, I did save some of the firecrackers for the evening of the 4th of July. I started out setting them off on the ground but that just wasn't very satisfying - they needed to be airborne... I tried throwing them but they were too light to go very high. So I taped some to paper airplanes, but it was hard to get the plane balanced properly and the explosion did almost no damage. (I was hoping for confetti...) And paper plates were too unpredictable when used as a "flying disc toy". (I'm avoiding using the trademark so I don't get a "cease and desist" letter.)

Aside: It just occurred to me that some of the terms in the prior paragraphs might set off triggers in the software that the FBI and/or NSA swear they don't use to analyze every bit of network traffic in the U.S... So in case they're reading this: "I'm talking about paper airplanes and tiny little firecrackers - and it was over 40 years ago... So lighten up!"

I finally settled on taping the firecrackers to small rocks and tossing them skyward, but I still had to figure out how long to hold the rock after lighting the fuse so the firecracker would explode at the peak of the trajectory... It was tricky because the fuses didn't burn at the same rate and the weight of the rocks varied. But the biggest issue proved to be the consistency of my throwing arm... Still - did I know how to have fun, or what??? :-)

The following year I was in an apartment in Dallas, followed by a couple of years in military barracks - then marriage and more apartments... Debbie and I did buy a house in the spring of 1976 but I was on TDY in Boston over the 4th of July and the following year we had an infant son to look after... So July of 1971 was the first time - and the last time - I ever played with fireworks.

Born Again and Baptized

This topic is a bit strange for me to write about because I'm not exactly what you would call a "person of faith". As a matter of fact, I'm rather the opposite... But there are many things in life that I don't understand - and this is one of them...

As it turns out, being "born again" is a very real experience, one that can fundamentally change your life... So - is the experience exactly what evangelical Christians claim it is? ... Heck if I know... My rational brain tells me that it's all nonsense, but my rational brain also tells me that the universe can't possibly exist - so I guess it's a wash :-) Furthermore - I long ago concluded that I don't need to understand the exact nature of the "experience"... It simply doesn't matter...

You know - it took an awful lot of soul searching to get to that point... I mean - I knew that everyone in the church wanted me to "turn my life over to Christ", but I was highly resistant to the whole idea... I would have to get up in front of the whole congregation and everything - how embarrassing :-)
But then I got to wondering exactly what it was that I was clinging to and why it was so hard to let go of it. The answer was pretty obvious: I didn't want to turn control of my life over to some unknown, unseen force...
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was already at the mercy of forces unknown and unseen -forces that manifested themselves as amazing and wondrously balanced mathematical certainties and uncertainties... Yes - nothing fascinates me more that the fact that our fate as a group seems to be statistically predetermined (e.g. "X number of people will die in traffic accidents next year") yet our fate as individuals is not ("we have no idea who those people will be").

Aside: When I talk about statistical predetermination most people look at me like I'm crazy. They're like "Well, duh!"... But the only reason we're so comfortable with the concept is that we've seen it in everything around us since the day we were born. We know that roughly X number of people will grow to be Y inches tall - and that Z students will score in a particular range on a given test... But why is everything is so predictable??? ... Yes - I know it's the "law of averages" - but exactly who made that law and how is it enforced? If you can get past the notion that it's "just how things are" you begin to realize just how bizarre and inexplicable it is... I mean - how "free" is our "free will" if we (as a group) are bound to statistical certainties? ... And if the universe came about "at random" how come everything in it adheres to such strict mathematical principles??? But I digress (slightly)...

So it came to pass that on July 25, 1971 I was born again... I still remember it like it was yesterday - truly an amazing experience. Really indescribable... And afterward the sleepless nights stopped... The compulsive drinking stopped... OK - the stress didn't stop - but there was a lot less of it.
The interesting part was that I was still who I had always been. When I was a teenager I was afraid to change anything about myself because I thought that it would somehow change me... But those fears were completely unfounded. I learned that you can change your appearance - how you behave - even what you think and believe - and still not change who you are... Cool...

You know - from time to time I've tried to come up with a rational explanation for the whole thing. There may well be one - I don't know. I'll have to leave that up to the psychologists. And if they tell me it's a delusion, then fine - so be it. It's one that I'm happy with... Honestly - if we didn't suffer from delusions from time to time we'd most certainly all go crazy :-)

Of course, I also had to be baptized again. I don't remember my Catholic baptism on account of being an infant and all... I'm told that I farted when the water touched my forehead. Yeah - that should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me very well. According to my mother the priest claimed that I was "shooting at the devil", but it's really just something I do...

OK - I did not know that Baptist churches were set up to do total immersion. Yeah - there was sort of a hot tub thing in an elevated area behind some curtains up at the front of that church. The water was about waist deep and had a glass panel across the top front so the congregation could see you "go under". There were stairs at either end of the tub, so when it was your turn you'd step down into the water (where the minister was waiting), cross your arms in front of you (holding your nose), and he would cradle your body and lean you back under the water for a couple of seconds. Then you'd go up the steps at the other end where someone was waiting "in the wings" with towels...
There were (I think) about 5 or 6 of us baptized that day. They gave us these white robes to wear over our skivvies and we formed a line at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the platform from which you descended into the pool... Now - those stairs were really steep - almost like a step ladder - and it should come as no surprise that what I remember most about the whole event is glancing up at the teenage girl at the top of the stairs ahead of me... I swear it wasn't intentional. (White cotton, by the way) ... Yeah - I guess some things just never change :-)

So exactly what do I believe in? Well, it's something... I'm really not sure what - but it helps me cope with the world around me - and it helps me get to sleep at night... And that's good enough for me.

More Odds and Ends

I'm having some difficulty with the timeline of my life around the summer of 1971. I think it's because there was so much going on at that point. There was family, and the church, and cars, and girls, and the Denton Community orchestra, and the trip to Glorieta and the move to Denton... It doesn't seem like it all could've possibly happened in one summer, but it must have, because the prior summer I was in Tyler and the next summer I was driving a delivery truck in Dallas. (And the next I was in the military...) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First - about migraines: I've heard lots of people say "I'm having a migraine" but I think a lot of them have no clue what they are talking about... I had my first one that summer and I was sure I was going to die. It started with the spots floating before my eyes followed by overwhelming nausea, and finally excruciating head-to-toe pain.
I had to seek medical attention and since my mom was out of town (and Karina was "who knows where") I had no choice but to drive there alone. So I fired up the Fairlane, stopped at the end of the driveway, looked both directions and pulled out to the left. That's when I heard the horn and the screeching tires... The other driver avoided hitting me but I was left wondering what the f*ck had just happened. That's when I realized I couldn't see a darn thing to my left which, of course, scared me even worse... The drive to Denton was nerve-wracking because I wasn't sure if I was actually seeing what I was seeing. (When given incomplete data the brain fills in the blanks - it's kind of fascinating, really.)
After running some tests the doctor informed me that it was "just" a migraine and I needed to drink more water on hot days, and maybe drape a cold wet towel around my neck... Really? It's that simple?? ... In retrospect, I think the whole thing was exacerbated because I was also having panic attacks - but I didn't know of such things back then...

Speaking of panic attacks: I occasionally let Karina drive the Fairlane on the back roads around Argyle with me as a passenger. She didn't have a learner's permit yet and didn't get her license until years later... I recall that she tended to stay way too far to the right. She was apparently more afraid of oncoming traffic than she was of hitting mailboxes. Yeah - that was scary... I also tried to teach her to parallel park in the driveway. I don't recall what I used for markers, but I do recall that it was hopeless :-)

Next - Chaela:
Chaela was the cat we had gotten in Tyler - the one that ended up with a broken hip while I was out of town for the weekend... Anyway - she loved country life. Despite being a tiny little thing she quickly became a stone-cold killing machine :-) And it wasn't just mice, rats and birds - I'm talking snakes and rabbits too. (That will come up again later.) Yeah - and she celebrated her freedom by immediately getting pregnant and having 2 kittens. (There rest were stillborn.)

So - when it was time move from Argyle to Denton I put Chaela and the kittens in a big cardboard box and stuck it in the back seat of the Fairlane. Everything was fine until the car start moving and Chaela freaked out. She forced the box open and the next thing I knew there were kitties all over the car... That wouldn't have been a problem except one of the kittens got under the brake pedal as I was approaching a stop sign. Luckily, I managed to nudge it aside with my foot at the last second... (I was on the verge of panicking.)

Lastly, that was the summer I learned I could be useful:

First up was the children's Bible Camp at the church... Steve, Royce, Sam and I were in charge of teaching archery. That apparently meant making sure the kids didn't shoot each other with arrows. I found it quite interesting for 2 reasons:
1) I had never spent any time around kids before (they're weird little people).
2) Providing encouragement and positive reinforcement was completely foreign to me... I was like "You mean I should tell them they're doing great even when they're sucking???"

Next: The church decided to convert a storage area in the attic into a "youth group room". That entailed finishing the walls, adding lighting and outlets and installing an air conditioner, all done with volunteer labor... Now - I had worked on cars before (always alone) but never did anything "handyman" like. And I had honestly never been around men who pitched in the way those church members did... They had me doing electrical work because they seemed to think I was smart. (I wasn't sure.) ... Yeah - it was almost like being a grownup :-)

Aside: Debbie and I were just talking about how the adults in Argyle treated me as if I were much older that other guys roughly my age. She thinks it's because the others had always been kids to them, while I had arrived fully grown... She's probably right... Steve in particular seemed to resent it, but then he still acts like a kid :-)

But my first exposure to the whole "pitching in" thing had been earlier when one of the elderly church members put her car into "D" instead of "R" and ran her front tires over the "stop" and off the edge of the retaining wall out front... All the men immediately headed for the car. One ran up and made sure she was OK while the others grabbed the front bumper - and I just stood there watching... One of them noticed me and was like "Um... A little help, please??"
So, we got the car back up onto the pavement - and it was a lesson learned that led to a lifetime of helping out...

Funny - I was just thinking back and I don't recall my father ever "just helping out" during his entire life. How sad...

Along Came Brenda

Now that I've stepped back in time and covered that visit with my father (and stepmother) in New York we're back in the present, which for the purposes of this blog is April to June of 1971 in Argyle, Texas.

At this point I've already discussed my friendship with Steve, Royce and Sam, and also said a bit (probably too much) about one of the Beckys... The rest of the girls in the Chosen Few were all very nice - and although some were cute most all of them were still in junior high (just a bit on the young side for a 17 year old guy)...

Aside - I don't think I've mentioned the "clothing" issue yet:
I don't know if it was a southern thing, or a church thing - or what. But I swear most of those girls changed clothes 3 or 4 times a day. No matter what we were doing - or where we were going - whatever they were currently wearing wasn't "right" for the prospective activity... Or maybe it was the temperature - or the humidity - or the time of day - or the day of the week. It was always something... A simple change of venue invariably morphed into a major production requiring intricate planning and execution. And to make matters worse, the process became exponentially more complex when multiple girls were involved because they were all intimately familiar with each others' wardrobes and every apparel choice had to be discussed and mutually agreed upon... Yeah - I tried not to listen because I was afraid my ears would start to bleed :-) But I digress...

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but shortly after my arrival one of the Brendas attached herself to me. Yeah - it was as if the girls got together to decide who had "dibs" on me and she won (or lost?)... Regardless - none of the rest of them showed much interest in me from then on.

OK - I've got to tell my favorite Brenda story here. It's one of those "You've got to be kidding" things:
When she was little her family was heading down the highway at 50 MPH and she managed to open the car door and fall out. Amazingly, she suffered no broken bones but she was a bit torn up...
Now, I wouldn't describe her family as "poor" (to me, that's more about attitude than circumstance) - they just didn't have much money. And as a result they didn't take her to the doctor... I remember listening in stunned horror as she described how her mom had picked the gravel out from between her teeth and gums with tweezers. :-)

Now - Brenda was cute enough, and incredibly nice - however, she was only 14 years old, and not really my type... But I think she was exactly what I needed at the time.
There's really not that much to tell. We were only "together" for a few months. Sometimes we played miniature golf or bowled, but we mostly just hung out... I'd never been close to a girl before so it was all new to me. We talked, held hands, and occasionally hugged - all quite innocent - we never even kissed. It was just really nice having someone around who actually seemed to care about me.

Aside: One day Brenda and I stopped at a "Tastee Freez" type of place in Denton for a quick snack. The song "If" by "Bread" was playing on the jukebox. ("If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you", etc.) ... She decided that was "our song"... Yeah - I would have preferred something like "Voodoo Child", but the whole thing was still kind of cute :-)

I'm still not sure why it ended... I remember hearing rumors that there were rumors floating around that we were doing the things we weren't doing. (Church groups seem to be the worst for that kind of drama.) Or maybe her parents were starting to worry - I don't know... All I know is that one evening Brenda got all teary-eyed and said "I can't do this anymore"... I remember sitting there wondering "Can't do what? We're not doing anything!"... She wouldn't elaborate. I talked to some of her friends but they either didn't know or wouldn't say. So yeah - it remained a mystery...

You know - it probably "got to me" more than it should have because it was so hard for me to open up - to trust - to be vulnerable... Aside from my family, I can count the number of people on one hand who I've let get that close to me... But I couldn't be angry with her. It's not like you can hold a 14 year-old girl responsible for your psychological well-being... I knew that, but it still hurt a bit...

Yet another aside: A lot of the older folks in Argyle didn't really trust me very much. It was one of those communities that didn't allow dancing (apparently that leads directly to fornication). And I was an outsider with long hair and a foreign (yankee) accent who had played in a rock band... The irony is that I was one of the few young men in town they actually should have trusted with their daughters... Yeah - they had absolutely no clue what their kids were up to. And I'm still not going to tell :-)

Epilogue:
It's hard to believe that a mere year and a half later I was in basic training at Lackland AFB... I'll have much more to say about that later, but the relevant point is that a few weeks into the process you end up so physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted that you don't even know who you are anymore. (That's kind of the point.) It was the most alone I've ever felt - and that's saying a lot.
It was around that time we got our "mail privileges" back so (in addition to writing to my mom) I reached out to Brenda for comfort and reassurance. (She would have been about 16 years old at the time.) She was kind enough to exchange letters with me and she sent me this picture:


Now - I just now dug this out of my "box-o-pics" and when I flipped it over I couldn't stop laughing... I had totally forgotten about that note on the back. Yeah - I don't think she had any clue just how harsh that was :-)

So, I eventually got over the "basic training blues" and a year later I started writing to Debbie, so everything turned out the way it was supposed to (if you believe in that sort of thing). No harm - no foul? Still - Brenda cared about me at a time when not many people did... And that was ... nice.

Assault and Guidance

There were 2 incidents that drove my decision to part company with my dad and return to Texas.... I will describe them in chronological order.

First off - I need to preface this by saying that my dad was an amazing person, but like a lot of amazing people he had some deep flaws... And one of his flaws was that he could be abusive to those closest to him... Now - I've thought about trying to "sugar coat" all of this, but I'm just not going to... That fact is that when he got mad at someone he would scream at them and (on very rare occasions) assault them... He never did any serious physical harm (that I know of) but after he lashed out he would usually chastise the victim for "making" him do it... Yeah - he could be a serious asshole at times.
Although he yelled at me a lot when I was growing up (and occasionally threw things) he had never hit me. I think he was afraid mom would kill him in his sleep. (I'm not kidding about that.) ... But mom wasn't there when I visited him in New York.

I don't recall all of the details, but the incident started when Karina did something involving the friend of theirs she was having a relationship with. (I think his name was Richard.) ...
We were at the dinner table and Lillan demanded to know why Karina had done whatever it was she did... That was an incredibly stupid question. The only reason Karina ever did anything back in those days was because she felt like it. (Duh!)
But Lillan would not let it drop. She kept yelling at Karina - louder and louder... Even after Karina begged her to stop - over and over - Lillan would not let up... It got to the point where Karina was screaming at the top of her lungs - her ears covered - her eyes closed - obviously in extreme emotional distress - the neighbors were pounding on the walls - and Lillan just kept on yelling at her. They were both totally out of control.
Now - I had seen Karina in that state a couple of times before and (in my judgment) if somebody didn't do something quickly it was going to end very badly... I kept waiting for dad (the "Lord and Master"of the house) to try and calm Lillan down, but he wasn't doing a damn thing... So I yelled at Lillan to shut up and (amazingly enough) she did... Crisis defused...

That's when dad gave me a black eye...

It really wasn't that bad - I saw it coming and was moving away from the blow when it landed. But it was still a crappy thing for him to do given that I was only trying to protect my sister - his own flesh and blood...

The "insult to injury" part of the evening came after Karina and I left the apartment. We didn't have a penny on us so we went to see an acquaintance of theirs (a school teacher) who lived in an adjacent building... We told her what had happened and asked if she could put us up for the night, or at least spot us some money for a cab and a motel... But she refused. She informed us that my father was a "prince of a man" - the finest man she had ever known - and would never do any of the things we had described... (!!!???) ... We had no other option but to go back to dad's apartment, and (as usual) he acted like nothing had happened...
But that incident forever changed how I felt about both him and Lillan. Just thinking about it still enrages me... Any doubts about where I stood were erased forever...

Aside: Have I ever mentioned how frustrating it was to have two parents that everyone absolutely adored? ... I never knew quite how to react when they told me how incredibly lucky I was :-)

And finally:
I think it was a week or so later that we were out shopping with the women folk and dad took me aside to talk about my future. I remember we sat down in the cafeteria at one of the department stores and he told me there were basically 2 options: Either attend a trade school - or a 4 year college, and if I chose college he would pay my tuition... (Yeah - and I actually believed him. That will come up again in a later post) ... I remember thinking it was kind of strange that he was suddenly concerned about my future after ignoring me for six years, but I did appreciate the gesture...

I responded by explaining that I had no desire to become a member of the "educated elite" and a cog in the American corporate machine... I was perfectly happy being amongst the "unwashed masses" :-)

OK - I need to take a step back and mention that the entire time I had been in New York dad had been talking about genetic predetermination. He had recently finished reading a book by a proponent of the theory (I no longer recall the author's name) and dad was quite enamored with the idea that genetics rather than environment determined success or failure. Yes - some of us are simply "better by birth".
So - dad insisted that it was impossible for me not to end up as a highly educated, successful professional... I could fight it, but the genetic imperative would be too strong to overcome... (Resistance is futile.)

At the time I laughed at the idea because I knew that the only thing I would ever be good it is playing the guitar... But it turns out that he was absolutely right... It was never my intent to become educated and successful. I just found myself constantly seeking out interesting and challenging things to do, and education and success were the natural byproducts :-) But I digress (sort of).

We had a rather heated discussion about business in general. I shared my Utopian vision of all companies being 100% employee owned. He told me the idea was unworkable - businesses could not succeed in the marketplace without continual growth fueled by capital investment.
It ended with him being totally frustrated with my apparent lack of ambition and he said that if I I didn't want to continue my education I should just go back to Texas and work on my "shitty Ford".

You know, I wish he had left my car out of it... I mean, I could deal with the black eye, but why did he have to go and "disrespect" the Fairlane?? That really hurt...

So I flew back to Tyler (to work on my shitty Ford) and shortly thereafter mom and I went to the DMV so I could take the driving test. I figured that compared to Manhattan it would be a piece of cake and I was right. I scored in the high 90s...

The Boston Trip

One morning in January of 1971 dad, Lillan, Karina and I squeezed into the '68 Barracuda convertible (with our luggage) and headed from New York to Boston for the weekend... I remember the drive quite well because it was the first time I had ever been to Connecticut or Massachusetts - and for a couple of other reasons too.

First: Dad and I "got into it" over how fast his 2-bbl 318 Barracuda accelerated. He was of the opinion that it was really quick. I disagreed, having recently ridden in cars like a 68 Hemi GTX and a highly modified 427 Vette. By comparison the Barracuda was a dog.
The argument got to the point where dad threatened to drop the "women folk" off at a rest stop and show me just how quick it was. (I assume the intent was to go back and pick them up afterward.) That's when I dropped the subject...

Aside: What is up with the use of "righteous indignation" to deflect criticism and/or win arguments? I've observed that people in positions of power do it all the time (especially when they are clearly wrong) and it is surprisingly effective...

Next: At one point we ended up behind an old man wearing a hat driving slowly in the left lane. (I no longer recall if the vehicle in question was a Buick or not.) Dad could have gone around on the right but chose instead to tailgate him while blinking his high beams. The guy eventually got over and dad pulled up beside him honking his horn and making "you're crazy" gestures while ranting about old men wearing hats while driving. He was of the opinion that it caused their brains to overheat... Although I do feel that dad seriously overreacted, I completely agree with the sentiment... So - just in case anyone was wondering - that's where I got it from :-)

Now - the stated purpose of the trip was to visit a friend. But I think there was a secondary motive. Dad mentioned a number of times that the friend in question held a highly influential position on the Harvard admissions board... More on than later. (Haha. I said moron...)

We arrived in the late afternoon. The house we were visiting was a magnificent old place on a large piece of property with a private ice skating rink out back. The guy was in his 60's and his wife was in her late 30's (about the same age difference as dad and Lillan) and they were childless. (Thank goodness.)

I remember that the guy (I think his name was Hal) asked me a bunch of questions about my educational background. (Which I think was the purpose of our visit.) ... I recall telling him that my high school GPA was 2.5 and I hadn't really applied myself... He was unimpressed... And after a bit of back and forth he finally said:
"So... Why aren't you in Vietnam???"
My initial impulse was to kick him in the nuts, but I figured that might be considered impolite. So I just explained that I was barely 17 and left it at that :-)

Eventually we had dinner, and afterward there were cocktails and conversation... I have to say that the man's wife was one messed up lady. She had been raised by her father and after a couple of drinks that's all she wanted to talk about. No matter what the topic was she'd end up saying something about how it was with her and her father...

So after suffering through a couple of hours of "daddy issues" it was time for Karina and I to leave... Yes - dad and Lillan were spending the night but we weren't invited. So dad dropped us off at a motel - I think it was was the Quality Inn in Lexington... Now - that was totally fine with me because it got us away from "daddy's girl" and gave us a chance to compare notes on the day's festivities... But Karina was really upset about it. The fact that dad had no qualms about staying somewhere his children weren't welcome just reinforced the sense that we weren't a very important part of his life...

Aside: To be perfectly honest, I stopped expecting much from dad when I was 9 or 10 years old, but I don't think Karina ever did...

So - I think I've covered everything relevant from that weekend except for one final incident:
On the drive back to New York we stopped to eat at a restaurant in Sturbridge and there was a woman there with curlers in her hair... Dad and Lillan immediately started in about how they couldn't believe she was wearing curlers in public - how rude and impolite it was. They were like - "How dare she???"
I was absolutely mystified by there reaction... Finally, I just couldn't take any more and asked: "Why exactly do her curlers bother you that much???"
Their answer was something like: "Oh, no! It doesn't bother US at all! ... We're not like that! ... We're just concerned about everyone else in the restaurant! ... It's disrespectful to them!"...

Well - I looked around the restaurant (which was quite crowded at the time) and I'm certain there wasn't a single other person who noticed the curlers... But it was pointless to argue so I just rolled my eyes and dropped the subject...

I think the reason I remembered that incident so well is that they actually believed that they weren't being judgmental snobs... Yeah - dad and Lillan (and my mom) possessed many admirable characteristics, but self-awareness was not among them :-)

Day to Day

There is a lot I don't remember about my time in New York... I don't even recall exactly how long I was there - somewhere around 4 to 6 weeks, I think... But the things that I do recall are etched in my memory... There are stories to be told but I'll leave those for subsequent posts. For now I'm just going to talk about the day to day odds and ends.

For the first couple of years after dad brought Lillan to the U.S. they lived in Boston. But at the time of my visit dad was working in Manhattan and they were living in a highrise building in Riverdale (north of the Bronx).
Aside: It's odd that I don't recall where I slept when I was there... I think it might have been on a sofa in the living room. (A pull-out sleeper?)

I don't specifically recall the drive from JFK to Riverdale on the evening I arrived, but I do remember that the freeway traffic there was (generally) insane. I had been to L.A. many times but New Yorkers took it to a whole different level... In L.A. people tended to slow down when traffic got really heavy. But not in New York... I'm talking about 2 car length separation at 60 MPH. It was unreal... And any car left on the shoulder was stripped - I mean wheels, doors, hood, trunk lid, seats... I had never seen anything like it before.

OK - I do recall walking into dad and Lillan's apartment for the first time. That's because it was strangely familiar... Most of the furnishings - like the couches, lamps and tables - were the ones I grew up with. Even the dishes were the same. They had been dad's Christmas present to mom in '62 or '63. (I remember when Karina and I went with dad to Wanamakers in Philadelphia to pick them out.) ... It all kind of conveyed the sense that mom had been "replaced".

Most days were uneventful - somewhat boring, actually... Karina was having a "thing" with one of dad's younger acquaintances. Like most of her relationships it was "on and off" so she tended to drift in and out...

Since dad and Lillan only had one car (a '68 Barracuda convertible) dad typically commuted by train. He'd get home in the evening (usually grouchy) and start mixing Rob Roys (his drink of choice). Like I said - it was all strangely familiar.
One evening when he got home Karina and I were sitting by the stereo listening to the Abbey Road album - not even very loud... Dad came in the door, walked right to the stereo and turned it off - without saying a word or even so much as looking at us...
Karina and knew exactly what the other was thinking: "What an @ss!"... I mean - all he had to do was ask... It was yet another reminder that in his mind he was the only person who mattered...

BTW: Dad's surliness didn't seem to faze Lillan one bit. It was a totally different dynamic than I was used to. She just ignored the things that used to set my mom off...

Then there were the trips into the city... I remember wondering how so many people could live so close together and yet be so distant from each other... It was as if they were all in their own little protective bubbles...
One evening on the news they were showing footage of a gas explosion at a Manhattan restaurant. (The news crew got there before the emergency responders...) Customers had been blown out the windows onto the sidewalk and were lying there dead or seriously injured. And pedestrians were just stepping over them - not even breaking stride or looking down... Nothing could shock a New Yorker out of his/her little bubble.

OK - on to another topic:
My mom had never been much for cleaning... She had a plaque that read "My house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy" and that pretty much summed it up. Of course, the "clean enough" part was debatable :-) I don't think I mentioned this before, but in Philadelphia we had a hand-crank type can opener mounted on the wall. We used it for both people and dog food - and I don't recall it ever getting washed... Also, I'm pretty sure I can count the number of times I saw mom move a piece of furniture while cleaning on one hand.

Lillan, on the other hand, spent her mornings vacuuming and dusting every square inch of the apartment. That included removing the sofa cushions and getting under every piece of furniture... And all the while she'd be singing and humming - just having a wonderful time. Yeah - I've always tended to avoid cheerful people. They interfere with my depressive brooding :-)

BTW: Lillan was an amazing cook. I always looked forward to the meals whenever I visited them in the years that followed...

Next: At that time I still had a learner's permit and had never driven anywhere more hectic than downtown Tyler, Texas... Dad, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to have me drive around Manhattan... I still remember how terrifying it was. Lane markers and traffic signals didn't seem to hold any particular significance there. Let's just say it was "memorable".
Then (I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here) when I was returning to Tyler dad insisted that I drive to the airport... So there I was - southbound in the left lane on the Van Wyck Expressway - when the car in front of me suddenly shifted right, thus revealing a vehicle abandoned in my lane. There was no room to stop. The only thing I could do was change lanes... Luckily, the motorist next to me saw it coming and slammed on his brakes to let me over. Otherwise there was no way I could have avoided a collision.
It was a valuable lesson (one I've never forgotten) about expecting the unexpected and being aware of everything going on around me.

Finally: I've already blogged about my efforts to "unlearn" my childhood affectations - becoming "born again blue collar" - disavowing any notion that I was better than anyone else... And visiting dad reminded me of just why I had gone though all of that trouble...
It was an environment where everything was "special"... The antiques, original artwork, their friends, the music they listened to, the wines they drank, the TV they watched - even the way they dressed and behaved. They just didn't have very much in common with the average person...
Now - I know that dad and Lillan would be deeply offended at the suggestion that they were in any way "elitist" - yet they knew so little of mainstream America that it was almost comical at times.

So yeah - it was all a bit strange... Lillan was only 3 years older than Karina so it was hard to treat her as an "adult"... And dad really wasn't used to having us around so there always seemed to be tension in the air... All in all I'm not sure why I stayed as long as I did... I guess I just didn't have anything better to do :-)

Getting Reaquainted

I think I need to take a step back and spend a bit of time setting the scene for my visit to New York in January of 1971:

The "journey" actually started in mid April of 1965 when dad (having been out of work for over a year) sent us off to Germany, claiming that he would join us as soon as the house was sold and the loose ends wrapped up... Yeah - that's not what happened...

BTW: It wasn't until decades later (after dad passed away) that I found out he told Lillan (his second wife) that mom left him (ran off to Germany with the kids)... So let me introduce into evidence dad's own words. Here's the last paragraph of a note he sent me dated 4/30/65 (two weeks after we left Philadelphia):

We didn't hear from him for a month after this note. Then mom got a letter asking for a divorce... Now - I don't know what happened to him during that month - and I never will. Maybe he actually managed to convince himself mom had left him - who knows... But I do know that when he'd had enough of something (or someone) he would just walk away, saying "I wash my hands of (insert name here)"... I don't know how many times I heard him say that - usually after some angry words about "disloyalty"... And at the time it sure felt like he had decided to "wash his hands" of his family.

For the next couple of years Dad would show up (usually unannounced) every now and again for a day or two - always asking mom for a divorce. (Mom was still hoping they could reconcile...) Then in August of 1968 (when we were in Winnipeg) mom finally gave up and signed the "Juarez" divorce papers... And that was the last I saw of dad until that day at JFK in 1971.

So, as I saw dad approaching from the other end of the concourse the biggest question in my mind was where I stood with him... Every time we had talked during the prior 6 years we never seemed to get past him explaining that everything was mom's fault... So I was left wondering - exactly why did he want to see me? What did he think of me? And what did he expect from me?

There were other questions too - mostly about Lillan... Now, I must re-emphasize that I thought she knew dad had walked out on us and she just didn't care. And that played a significant role in how I felt about her. So, this is what was running through my head at the time:

When she met dad in Paris... She was 19 or 20 and he was 40-something... Seriously! I'm sure he was charming and all, but he was her father's age - and married - with kids! ... What was she thinking?? Was she not aware that the money he was spending on her was money he wasn't spending on his family? Did she not care??
Funny how he could afford to wine and dine her all over Europe but couldn't afford to send us a few bucks for medicine. (His excuse was "You can't squeeze blood from a turnip". Those words left a very deep scar...)

Then to top it off they got married on MY birthday!!! Yes - it's every boy's dream to have the dad who walked out on his mom marry another woman on his birthday... Unreal... I couldn't believe it never occurred to them just how not OK that was!

Needless to say - I was really mad at Lillan before I ever met her...

So it came to pass that dad and I exchanged pleasantries in the concourse at JFK then headed back to the restaurant to meet the evil temptress who had stolen him away from his family...

Aside: Karina was not there to meet me... I no longer recall if I knew she wasn't going to be there. But I'm sure if I was surprised I would remember it - and I don't so I wasn't. But I digress...

OK... You know the scene where Mad Max is fighting to the death in the Thunderdome? And Blaster's helmet gets knocked off to reveal that he's not actually a monster - just an overgrown kid with Down's Syndrome? And Max can't fight him anymore?

Meeting Lillan was kind of like that :-) As it turns out, she was pleasant... You know - always upbeat... Attentive listener... Never says anything deep or controversial... Sociable - always appropriate... Nice looking, but not unusually attractive... Not unusually anything... Well - she was unusually "top heavy"... But aside from that she was just pleasant...

I was seriously taken aback... I mean, my mom had been brilliant, challenging, intense - a Prima Donna - a force of nature - incomprehensibly gifted. Her mere presence left people gasping for breath - truly one of a kind... And her replacement was - pleasant... Go figure :-)

But the main thing I remember about that brief time we spent in the restaurant was how casual and nonchalant it was... I mean - dad hadn't seen me in years - and Lillan was meeting me for the first time - so I expected some level of emotion... But it was almost like I was the pizza delivery guy: "Oh, you're here! How's it going? Here's a $5 tip!" :-)

To this day I am still puzzled by his apparent indifference toward me on that (and many subsequent) occasions... I guess it's one of those things that will forever remain a mystery...

To Be Continued.

Tyler to New York

Sometime in late 1970 (when we were still living in Tyler, Texas) Karina headed to New York to stay with our dad. And since "misery loves company" she soon began lobbying for me to come keep her company... Now, mom didn't like the idea one bit. Although her relationship with Karina had always been a bit rocky, I was her little angel and she didn't want to "give me up". So I had to sit through the "I never should have been born" routine, and after some back and forth she finally closed with: "You want to live with your father? Go live with your father!" ... I don't think she really meant it, but I really needed a change.

So I booked a one way trip to the Big Apple (dad paid for it) and early one morning in January 1971 I took a cab to the Tyler airport. (Mom was out of town, and yes, she was aware...) Unfortunately, some fog had rolled in overnight and my connecting flight to Dallas was cancelled at the last minute. To make matters worse, the ticket agent was not particularly helpful - only offering to rebook my trip for a different day. (This was WAY before the internet and cell phones. Changing travel arrangements was not that easy.)

I was standing there like a deer in the headlights, trying to get a handle on the situation, when I overheard a couple of salesmen talking about renting a car and heading for Love Field. Now - I really didn't want to rebook the trip but I was also really hesitant to approach the businessmen because of my long hair. (Let's just say I'd had some experiences)... But I was nicely dressed, and there was still some "polite" left in me from my Catholic school days - so I went ahead and asked... I was a pleasantly surprised. Not only did they invite me along, they wouldn't even let me chip in any money.

Aside: The irony is that most of the people in the south who hated "hippies" were basically good people. They were just behaving irrationally because they felt like the country was coming apart at the seams... That was 1971. Now it's 2011. A couple of years ago the financial sector almost took down the entire economy. Unemployment is near 10%, homes are being foreclosed left and right and people are camping in city parks (Occupy Wall Street). Once again, irrational fear is driving us apart when we need to be coming together... Some things never change, I guess...

Another aside: It occurs to me that someday someone reading this will know how the 2012 election turned out - and how long it took to turn the economy around (if it ever recovered). And they will know how history will remember Obama. And whether Bill Clinton will be remembered for balancing the budget or sticking a cigar in Monica Lewinski... And what about our current crop of Republicans? Like John Boehner, John Perry, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Herman "I did not sexually harass those women" Cain? Will they still be considered bozos by anyone but the staunchest conservatives? Interesting questions... But I digress :-)

I think I remember the drive to Dallas so well because I kept checking my watch every few seconds trying to decide if I was going to make my flight. The driver told me to just relax, so as we cruised westward along I-20 I tried to kick back and let myself be amused as I listened to the salesmen swap stories and talk shop... I remember being struck by how different their lives were from mine... How odd. We were riding in the same car - yet we were worlds apart :-)

I breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled off I-35E onto Mockingbird Lane. There was still 1/2 hour left until flight time - it was tight, but I was going to make it. There was just a few more blocks, then across the train tracks and left into the airport entrance... Did I say train tracks? ... Yeah - it was one of those days. The train was really long and moving really slow. I swear we were stuck at the crossing for almost 10 minutes. I was so stressed out that the driver was about to turn around and find an alternate route when the gate finally lifted.

Both of the salesmen had later flights so they dropped me off at my terminal before returning the car. I thanked them profusely and (long story short) made the flight - just barely.

I have to say that I enjoyed air travel a lot more back then. That was before deregulation. The airline schedules were government controlled thus ensuring that less "popular" destinations were adequately served and you could get pretty much anywhere at a reasonable time. Ticket prices (also regulated by the government) were quite high, but the flights were usually uncrowded and on time. Also, the meals were much better, there was more leg room - and the airlines actually made money... But most importantly, the flight attendants were young, female, attractive, wore really short skirts and bent over a lot... Yeah - when you're 17 you can't help but notice those things... Luckily, as you get older you learn to pretend not to notice :-) But I digress (again).

The flight to New York (JFK) was uneventful and mostly pleasant, except I couldn't stop thinking about the last time I had been at JFK when Dad sent us off to Germany without any hint that our lives were about to be torn apart... The circle was almost complete - ending right where it started.

Despite having departed Dallas a bit behind schedule (thank goodness) there was an unexpected tailwind and we arrived at JFK 20 minutes early. Back in those days there weren't flight status monitors all over the airport so Dad and Lillan (his new wife) were still having dinner at one of the restaurants in the terminal when I landed.
I stood around at the gate for a minute or two before deciding to head for the ticket counter to have dad paged. Meanwhile, dad noticed some people coming from the direction of my gate and interrupted his dinner to come check if I had arrived early.

I still remember that strange mix of relief and apprehension as I spotted dad approaching from the other direction.

To Be Continued.

ThirteenThousand Words

I've poked around a bit online and came up with pictures of a number of people who were mentioned in my recent posts.

First up are 3 teachers from John Tyler High School:

The one on the left is Mr. Maxwell, the Physics teacher who actually seemed to "get me". He's the one who blew up the lab equipment and drew the "core tore" on the blackboard.

Next is Mrs Whitman, the English teacher. Yeah - her makeup was a bit colorful and she misspelled words from time to time... But I have to admit that she's not nearly as funny looking as I remembered. And this picture reminds me of just how much she enjoyed teaching and how passionate she was about it. Apparently I let the fact that I'm a cynical asshole color my opinion of her :-)

Finally - the one on the right was the drafting teacher who kicked me out of his class (thereby inadvertently saving me from entering a dying profession). You know - I went back and reread my post on the topic and not once did I mention how much he resembled a pig... I can't believe I let that slide :-)

Next are 4 more girls from Tyler. Three of them were juniors at John Tyler High and the last one had already graduated from Robert E Lee:

Girl #1 is Kathleen Osborn. Her house was sort of across from the one we rented on Chilton and her cousin was the first girl I dated... She looks even more "waif-like" than I recalled...

Girl #2 is Karen Hatfield. She's the one who invited me in to her house and proceeded to lie on the couch and I still have no clue what that was about :-)

Girl #3 is the sweet young lady (with the partially unbuttoned blouse) whose seat I was was standing next to on the school bus. She looks exactly like I remembered.

Girl #4 was drummer Bobby's girlfriend Laura. She's the one he was arguing with when the doorknob came off in his hand... OK - so I thought she was pretty...

Last are pictures of some of the older members of "The Chosen Few" (click to enlarge). All of them went to Denton High:

Starting on the left is the infamous Becky. I've probably already said too much about her :-)

Next we have one of the Lindas (spelled Lynda) and then Lee Ann. They were (obviously) both kind of skinny. Funny - I had totally forgotten about Lee Ann until I saw her picture... I didn't have much to do with either of them...

Finally, we have Royce, Steve and Sam. (Took me a while to find Sam's pic because that's not his real first name - yet another thing I totally forgot) ... And I remember thinking this picture of Steve looked like something off a mid-60s British rock album :-)

BTW: These aren't all the members I found... I left out the preacher's son because I'm deliberately ignoring him. And I didn't include the ones who left the group around that time (or just drifted in and out)... I also found recent pictures of a lot of these folks and considered posting them but that would have just been too cruel :-)

For my next post I need to take a small step back in time because I completely forget about something major that happened before we left Tyler: Karina and I spent a month or so in New York with our dad and his new wife... I'm sure it will come as no surprise that things didn't go well...

Girl #1

Before I get to the topic at hand I just remembered an amusing (to me) incident that happened around the same time:

Shortly after we moved to the house in Argyle, Bernie Baker (the amazing jazz/classical guitarist we knew from Tyler) came to visit and brought us a bottle of "sparkling wine"... After his initial attempts to open the bottle by gently nudging the plastic stopper failed, he gradually applied more and more force until he was yanking and twisting on it with all his might - the freaking thing just would not budge... That is - until he decided to check for instructions on the stopper and pointed it at his face. That's when "cartoon physics" took effect... Bernie wasn't even touching the stopper when it blew with such force that it bounced off his forehead, the ceiling and and a wall before coming to rest on the kitchen floor... He was standing there - stunned, confused and bleeding profusely (he had to go get stitches) and I could not stop laughing... It was just such a "Wile E. Coyote" moment - as if the bottle was made by "Acme" and the fine print on the label said "open by pointing at face" :-) ... I don't think he ever forgave me for that one.

Now - on to the topic at hand:

As I mentioned a few posts ago, there were a number of girls in music group at the First Baptist church in Argyle back in 1971... At first I thought it was odd that none of the guys dated any of them. I later realized it was because of how close knit the girls were - getting too close meant becoming entangled in an incomprehensible web of emotions and drama. It was too much of a hassle... But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

Sidebar... (I'm going to get myself in trouble for this but that's never stopped me before):
I've got absolutely nothing against "petite" women. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm attracted to all types... It's just that (for example) if I saw a bunch of cheerleaders in a pyramid formation I'd probably be most attracted to the one at the bottom... You know - the one that can support the load without collapsing... The one with bone structure and muscle mass... The one you could envision working at a construction site. Kind of the way female gymnasts look after they go through puberty (only taller)... I'm not talking about overweight - or buxom - just "substantial". (Seems like there should be a more concise term... Maybe Amazon???)
Now - I honestly have no clue why I find that so appealing. I just do... Probably for the same reason that I'd rather own an old school muscle car than a Ferrari... It's not that I don't find Ferraris attractive. (I even lust after them sometimes)... I'd just rather have a car I can drive the hell out of without worrying about ultra-expensive maintenance and constant breakdowns. (Of course, I've never driven a Ferrari - so who knows?) ... And having taken the analogy a bit too far I'll stop there :-)

As I entered the church that first Wednesday evening I was immediately attracted to one of the Beckys (for the reason stated above). She had just turned 16 and had that "southern country girl" vibe going... But she apparently wasn't interested in me... Yes - she uttered those seven deadly words that every guy dreads: "I only like you as a friend".

Here's a few memories:
I probably shouldn't mention this but I will anyway: In the 6 month period after I moved to Argyle Becky "matured" considerably. (Like from a B to a D). It probably wouldn't have been quite so noticeable if the physical change hadn't been accompanied by a change in demeanor and choice of clothing... It was a frequent topic of conversation among both the guys and girls - although for different reasons :-)
Next: Shortly after she got her driver's license she borrowed her brother's new Ford LTD for a trip to Denton. It was a rainy day and on the way back to Argyle she tried to pass another vehicle, hydroplaned and spun off the road through a barbed wire fence (thus discovering why the other driver had slowed down). If that wasn't bad enough, the woman driving the other car threatened to sue Becky claiming a dislodged piece of trim from the LTD had scratched her paint.
Becky was a total basket case afterward. She wouldn't even attempt to drive... I once made the mistake of giving her a ride... I didn't mind the "back seat driving" as much as the blood curdling scream whenever you drifted ever so slightly from the center of your lane. It was way beyond annoying :-)

Finally (and I still feel bad about this):

In 1976 (when I was in the Air Force and recently married) I was returning home from an extended trip to the east coast and had to change planes in DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth). The previous flight had been delayed out of Boston and the next flight was in a different terminal so I barely had time to make the connection. And to make matters worse I had to go through security again. As I hurriedly tossed my bag onto the conveyor I heard the attendant say "Peter - you old ass - what the heck are you up to?" I looked up - and it was Becky...
I didn't have time to say anything more than "Hi" and "Bye" before running off to board the next flight... So (of course) I spent the rest of the trip back to Sacramento thinking about Becky. (Freaking OCD...) And apparently, upon finally arriving home to be reunited with my wife after a six week trip, all I did for the rest of the evening was talk about Becky - Becky - Becky... Seriously - who knew wives were that sensitive about other women???

Yes - I was that clueless... And (even 35 years later) Debbie is still that mad :-)

Steve

Steve... How to explain this? ... You know that little voice inside your head that warns you when we are about to do something stupid that may get you maimed or killed? The one that you sometimes ignore but it's always there? ... Steve was apparently born without that little voice. That's the only possible explanation for some of what he did.

Like when he tried to catch a rattlesnake with his bare hands. It was huge - sunning itself on the road near the elementary school. He took off his shirt and was waving it in front of the snake. The idea was to grab it behind the head when it struck. He tried numerous times but couldn't quite get hold of it. The snake finally got tired of playing and headed off into the brush...

Or borrowing a friend's Honda 750 street motorcycle and taking it off road - including jumps and hill climbs... Or firing a shotgun straight up in the air in a herd of cows to see if they'd stampede when the pellets started coming down and hitting them... Or shouting obscenities at total strangers to try and start fights... Not to mention the things he did to cars - they rarely lasted more than 6 months in his possession...

Yeah - he was the kind of idiot who would notice some old folks sitting on their front porch, drive up onto their lawn and start spinning cookies just to see the expressions on their faces... Never a dull moment :-)

Steve was probably the best baseball player in the area. His batting average was around .500 and it seemed like he hit more home runs than singles... I think he was that good because he didn't care - baseball wasn't his thing :-)

He also had a way (his way?) with the girls :-) And again, I think it was because he really didn't care. (He figured they were like streetcars. It's no big deal if you miss one - there will be another one along in a few minutes.) I remember that he used to cruise the junior high school. He was 16 at the time - I thought that was a bit creepy... He said it was because teenyboppers were easier to impress than high school girls. Then he mimicked a teenybopper being impressed with him - it was pretty funny :-)

BTW: I once asked Steve if it was possible to determine how far a girl was willing to go without offending her. His answer was stunningly simple and quite brilliant. I won't disclose what he said because I feel like I would be doing a disservice to society... And, just for the record, I never did try it :-)

And I guess this is where I tell my favorite Steve story:

It was in the fall of 1971, after Mom, Karina and I moved from Argyle to 1819 Mohican Street in Denton, Texas. (Yes - I'm getting ahead of myself again.) ... And you might want to bring up a map for this one :-)

It all started around 11PM... Steve and I plus a couple of other guys (not Sam and Royce) had been out running around in Steve's "hotrod" Volkswagen Beetle and he was heading back to my house to drop me off before returning to Argyle.
Steve turned north on Shawnee off of Mingo, then right onto Creek and left onto Nevada. That's when he noticed a teenager on a dirt bike talking to some friends in the Inca Road cul-de-sac. So Steve stopped the car, rolled down his window and (quite loudly) expressed the opinion that the young man was a f*ing c*sucker...
Yeah - that didn't go over very well... We spent the next 5 to 10 minutes driving random patterns through the neighborhood at speeds up to 50 MPH - sliding sideways through the turns with the dirt bike right on our tail. It was absolutely insane... Finally, Steve took the left onto Cherokee so fast the the dirt bike wiped out.

Our relief at having shaken our pursuer was short-lived because just around the next bend (Cherokee onto Boyd) there was a Texas Highway Patrol car sideways in the road... It was a sight I will never forget: The patrolman standing in front of the car, wearing a smokey hat and holding a shotgun - dressed in his PJs, bathrobe and slippers... (Apparently we woke him up.)

As Steve got out of the car to confer with the officer (hoping that would reduce the chance of a search) he whispered "Hide the bayonet!!!"... Yes - there was a WWII bayonet in the back seat of the car. I had no idea why - I never asked :-)

Unfortunately, none of us had any clue how one goes about hiding a 16 inch long bayonet in the back seat of a Volkswagen. And that's when the guy next to me said one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said to me: "Pete - shove it up your pant leg!!" ... Uh - yeah... I'd much rather go to jail than try and hide a razor sharp bayonet in any part of my clothing. But thanks for playing :-) ... We just stashed it against the seat bottom and hoped for the best.

If you knew Steve you wouldn't be the least bit surprised that the car wasn't searched and that he got off with a ticket... He could "play innocent" as well as anyone I've ever known. He was like: "Thank goodness you showed up! We were just minding our own business when that kid started chasing us! We were scared for our lives!" ... Of course, it didn't hurt that there had been numerous prior incidents in the neighborhood involving the dirt bike rider.

It was just one of many times I "dodged a bullet" in Steve's company... My life (as a whole) would have been a lot duller had I never known him :-)

The Guys

During the time I spent in Argyle, Texas in 1971 I hung out with a number of guys from time to time (including a few from the trailer park). But the "big three" were Sam, Royce and Steve - all members of "The Chosen Few".

I'll start with Sam:

As I mentioned before, Sam was a Methodist - hence the Argyle Baptist church wasn't his principal place of worship - but he did spend a lot of time there... Sam was one of those "different drummer" types of people. He came across as mellow and laid back - but I think he just kept the turmoil hidden below the surface. He was also very quiet - never said much of anything unless he had something important to say... Still - his presence was comforting... There were times I pretty much talked his ear off. I suspect he was wishing he was someplace (anyplace) else, but he always listened. And even though his (rare) remarks were usually simple and obvious they were exactly what I needed to hear :-)

Next, there was Royce:

Royce was a big guy - he ended up going to North Texas on a football scholarship (offensive lineman). But despite his size he was amazingly agile. We used to go bowling a lot and Royce had the smoothest approach I've ever seen - downright unnatural for someone his size. He was so light on his feet and the ball was laid down so precisely that the first sound you heard was the explosion of the ball hitting the pins. The velocity on the ball was incredible - it seemed implausible given how controlled his approach was. It was almost disorienting to watch :-)

There were times I felt sorry for Royce because everybody took their problems to him - he was that kind of guy... At that time he was planning on becoming a minister but ended up as some sort of financial planner instead... I guess it's sort of the same thing - depends on how you look at it :-)

My most vivid memory of Royce involves a somewhat disturbing incident. I hesitate to tell the story but I will anyway:
For those who grew up in rural areas the term "rat race" refers to an activity you have to be seriously bored to engage in... Basically - everyone gets in their car, one guy takes off as fast as he can and the rest try and keep up with him (single file). The "game" can go on for hours (changing leaders periodically) and as near as I can tell the sole objective is to not end up like the police cars in the chase scene from "The Blues Brothers"... I only remember there being one rule: No "bat turns" :-)
FYI: "Bat turn" refers to the tight U-turns the Batmobile used to make on the TV show... Since none of us possessed jet-powered vehicles we had to approximate the maneuver by locking up the back tires with the parking brake while cranking on the steering wheel. And that's not a particularly smart thing to do when a bunch of guys are chasing you at a high rate of speed :-)

Anyway, one Saturday night a group of us were heading westbound on Crawford Road when Steve (I think) hit an armadillo and we all came to a screeching halt. The poor critter was seriously wounded but still alive and the consensus was that it we couldn't (in good conscience) leave it to die a slow and painful death by the side of the road... Now - the obvious solution would have been to shoot it, but for some bizarre and inexplicable reason nobody had a gun in their car. (Seriously - that kind of thing just doesn't happen in rural Texas.) All we could come up with was a baseball bat. (And now you know where this is headed.)
We still had to decide who would put the unfortunate victim out of its misery - and nobody wanted to do it... After a bit of back and forth Royce finally relented. It made a lot of sense - he was by far the biggest and strongest so we figured one quick blow would suffice. But he was also by far the most gentle and kind-hearted - a cruel irony indeed...
So - as it turns out, armadillos are not that easy to kill (what with the armor plating and all)... I can still see Royce standing there (in the glare of our headlights) - with tears in his eyes - clubbing the poor thing. It was traumatic for all of us - especially Royce... But the point of the story is that he was the guy you could always count on...

Aside: What struck me as odd about the incident was that Steve was totally into hunting - he would shoot darn near anything that moved without any qualms whatsoever... But the though of hitting an injured animal with a baseball bat was just too distressing for him? Yeah - I don't get it...

Another aside while I'm on the hunting topic:
This one time Steve and I plus another kid (I think it was Phillip) decided to go duck hunting... Actually - they decided and I just went along because I was bored :-) Despite my protestations Steve handed me a loaded 12 gauge shotgun, and as we were creeping through the brush next to a pond a huge flock of ducks flew over our heads. I raised the gun but didn't fire, and Steve and Phillip both missed...
When Steve asked me what the #$%#$ happened I said that the ducks were moving so fast I couldn't pick a target, but the truth was there were just so freaking many of them I was afraid I might accidentally hit one :-)

I have not yet talked about Steve (who later became my surrogate brother). But he is going to be rather challenging to explain so I think I'll leave him for another post... And trust me - this will all make sense eventually :-)

The Tools

In my prior post I said I was going to starting describing the "cast of characters" in Argyle... Yeah - those are not the "tools" I'm referring to in the title :-) ... I've decided to write about a different topic near and dear to my heart:

In the 4th drawer down in the top section of the roll-around toolbox in my shop you'll find a small red metal box (it currently contains some taps and dies). And if you poke around some more in the various drawers you'll find a ratchet and sockets that say "Husky" on them and some box/open wrenches that are marked "Proto Challenger"... The "Husky" tools originally came in that red box and I bought them together with the Proto wrenches shortly after we moved to Argyle. They were my very first mechanic's tools...

I still remember the day I got them. I took them out and examined them... Held them in my hands - felt the heft and the balance - caressed the cold steel... They represented something that I had always longed for but had never possessed. The power to restore life to the broken and discarded... To repair and improve...

Many of those tools have gotten misplaced over the past 40 years but the ones that remain are among my most prized possessions. At some point they have touched almost every vehicle I've ever owned - and many others... Back in the day they were even used to replace the timing chain on a friend's 65 Mustang GT 2+2 fastback with the pony interior and a K-code (high performance) 289 engine... (BTW: I could have bought that car for $300 before I offered to help the owner fix it.)

Throughout my entire adult life working on cars has been my comfort and my refuge - and those particular tools are the glue that binds it all together... So - when I'm dead and gone I hope you remember the significance and don't just toss them out... Well - I guess it doesn't really matter - I won't care :-)

Aside: This topic reminds me of something I started wondering about when I was 12 years old. (The "trigger" was seeing the massive printing press at the Philadelphia Inquirer on a field trip)... Here goes: All of society's machines were made using other machines that were made by other machines, etc, etc - forming an unbroken chain that goes back hundreds of years to the start of the industrial revolution... So - what if all of our machines were destroyed? ... Could we actually recreate the technology? Do we really know how? How long would it take? Would society ever be the same? Would we want it to be the same?
Yeah -those were the kinds of things I contemplated when I wasn't paying attention in class... And rightfully so - they were far more entertaining than whatever the heck the teacher was rambling on about :-)

And back to the story:

Of course, tools are worthless unless you know what to do with them, and that's where serendipity comes in:
Behind the rental house in Argyle was a little shed, and in that shed was a shelf containing a collection of hardbound Chiltons repair manuals covering almost every American vehicle made within the past 20 years...
Yes - I was in heaven! ... I spent countless hours poring over those books - not just learning the repair procedures but figuring out what was (and was not) different from model to model, make to make and from year to year... I quickly began to grasp the underlying principles and philosophies. And once you understand those you can fix anything.

BTW: Here's a picture of the back yard of the house in Argyle:

The Cadillac was mom's company car and the white car was my '63 Fairlane. In the background is the shed with the repair manuals and you can see bits and pieces of the landlord's submarine near the fence...

Next: Having the tools and knowing what to do with them is not the same as being able to do it. That takes practice. Seriously! It's almost painful watching someone use a wrench or a socket for the first time. Here's the problem: The tool is used to apply rotational force to a bolt, and unless the force is oriented correctly relative to the axis of the bolt the tool will slip, possibly rounding the bolt head and almost certainly resulting in a hand injury.
Furthermore - bolts are frequently are at odd angles and are difficult to reach and sometimes you can't even see them -you have to work by feel. Getting the tool correctly aligned and applying the force in just the right manner is a significant challenge, and no matter how good you are the wrench is still going to slip from time to time... Of course, one of Murphy's Corollaries says that whenever a tool slips there will be a sharp metal edge directly in the path of your hand. I refer to it as the "blood sacrifice" and I consider to be a favorable omen :-)

BTW: Another one of Murphy's Corollaries says that any object dropped while working on a car will come to rest under the exact center of the chassis. I have verified this to be true countless times...

You know - as an aspiring young musician I used to regard my hands as delicate instruments... That was before I got those tools. My hands have been accumulating scars ever since. And I still remember when I got most of them :-)
For example, I got the one on my left thumb while pulling the front seat from a Dodge Super Bee in a wrecking yard in Seaside, Oregon during a rainstorm in the late 1990s. It had been flooding and I was lying on my side in almost a foot of water reaching under the car pulling on a wrench when the bolt broke...
And the scar on the left knuckle of my right hand? I was hammering the drive shaft out of a tiller with a mini-sledge back in 1980 when I missed... But I digress...

I have to chuckle when I think back to my early repair attempts - like replacing the muffler on my Fairlane: The book made it sound dead simple. Just few bolts and a couple of clamps... However - the book didn't mention that it would all be rusted together and you pretty much need an oxy-acetylene torch to get it apart... After hours of frustration I threw in the towel and took it to a mechanic :-)

But I never stopped trying and I never stopped learning - and the rest is history... My history :-)

The Curiousity

Newcomers were something of a rarity in Argyle, Texas back in 1971 and given my mom's thick foreign accent and my long hair (and lack of a drawl) we drew a significant amount of attention.

And so it was when I arrived at the First Baptist church that Wednesday evening there was a great deal of curiosity, and after the initial introductions a lot of gawking and whispering...
As I mentioned in my prior post - the occasion was my first practice with "The Chosen Few" - the youth Christian music group associated with the church.

A bit more background:

The group had been performing at churches throughout the region for a few years, but I arrived during a time of transition. The older members were getting to the age where their interests were shifting elsewhere. And that wouldn't have been a problem except the leadership was changing too... But (once again) I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

One of the first thing I noticed was that there weren't many boys in the group: There was Sam (he was a Methodist), Royce, Steve and Mickey (who dropped out soon afterward)... OK - there was one more boy but he wasn't really "one of the guys" and that's all I'll say about that :-)
There was an abundance of girls and most of them were named Linda, Brenda or Becky. It got really confusing sometimes - you'd say a name and 3 girls would answer... I'm surprised they hadn't been given nicknames :-)

Speaking of which: One of the Lindas was called Sissie by her family and it wasn't until the teacher called roll on her first day of school that she found out that was not her real name... Apparently her folks were unaware that she didn't know - she was absolutely devastated when she found out...

Another thing that struck me as odd was that the girls who were near my age didn't seem very interested in me, but the "teenyboppers" were...
I eventually learned that many of women in the community had gotten married in their mid teens, so 13 or 14 year old girls going out with 16 to 18 year old guys didn't raise many eyebrows... I strongly suspect that the local "customs" have since changed, but even now a 13 year old girl can get married in Texas with parental and judicial consent. Amazing...

Prior to my arrival all of the "musicians" had graduated from the group, so the singers were accompanied on piano by either the youth director's wife Bobbie or a lovely young lady named Nancy, who always wore mini-skirts and looked quite amazing in them... Hey - I was a teenage boy - I couldn't not notice :-)

Aside: At the time Nancy was in her early 20s and had just graduated from college. So, of course, we saw her as an "adult" and it never even crossed our minds that she might be interested in hanging out with us... Then a few years ago my wife and I were in Argyle and visited Nancy. As it turns out she had thought of herself as "one of us" and was quite bewildered by our behavior towards her... I'm sure there's a moral there somewhere - I'm just not sure what it is :-)

Another aside: Bobbie (the youth director's wife) had suffered an injury as a child that resulted in her being able to hyper-extend her left elbow. Basically - she could bend her arm about 25º the wrong direction... If you've never seen anyone do that be forewarned that it makes you want to puke. It was one of the grossest things I've seen :-)

You know I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to tell the "story of Argyle". It's basically a few central themes surrounded by a lot of little side stories... I have to say that all the people in Argyle were wonderful to me and many of them had a major impact on my life... But at the same time there were some serious youthful indiscretions that I'm sure nobody would want their children or grandchildren to know about. So I'm either going to have to keep it all to myself or invent fictitious characters - and I'd rather not do that :-)

I'll spend the next few blog entries describing the main characters. And I think that's enough for now...

The Rev

As I mentioned in the prior post, the house we rented in Argyle, Texas back in 1971 was next door to the home of the minister for the First Baptist Church. His name was Dee Carpenter but most of the young folks called him Brother Dee... A recent Google search turned up his obituary and apparently his real first name was Otto - can't say I blame him for going by his middle name :-)

The best way to describe Brother Dee is to say that he was the "real deal"... I've seen a lot of phonies standing at the pulpit but there was absolutely nothing fake about Brother Dee... He was a simple, humble man - not an exceptionally skilled preacher, but his faith was genuine and his sermons came straight from the heart... And I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

We hadn't been in Argyle very long before Brother Dee inquired about my religious background. When I mentioned I had been raised Catholic he was actually a bit excited and asked if I happened to have a Catholic Bible he could borrow... Seriously! ... Catholics are not very common in the rural south and a lot of fundamentalists regarded them as pagans because they pray to the Virgin Mary and the Saints and they do rituals and tend to have statues and relics and rosaries lying around... And then there's the difference in the Bible: I don't think most protestants are aware, but up until the early 1800s the Catholic and Protestant Bibles were roughly the same. Then the protestants threw out all the parts of the Old Testament that weren't included in the Jewish Bible... ??? Go figure. :-) Anyway - brother Dee had been wanting to check out the "missing books" but the opportunity had never presented itself before.
So I loaned him my bible and he returned it the next day. I remember that we spent some time discussing the missing books (Tobias, Judith, etc)... He asked me a lot of questions about what I had been taught growing up. I reassured him that Catholicism really is focused on the teachings of Christ - all of the "pagan" stuff is secondary... He seemed somewhat relieved :-)

BTW: I no longer recall if I mentioned my "confession" problem to him... It all started when Father Wheeler yelled at me for not going to confession during the summer of 1960. (What if I'd been hit by a bus and died without my sins being forgiven???) So I never went to confession again. Then it hit me: I had been taught that God was "all powerful" except he couldn't forgive my sins unless I told them to a priest and said some Hail Marys first? Riiiight... That didn't make a lick of sense to me... But I digress :-)

Dee had also heard me playing the guitar and mentioned that his church had youth music group called "The Chosen Few" and I should go check it out. (They were short on musicians.) Now - I had played my guitar in church before (folk mass) and I would do darn near anything to play in public, so I went to the church the next Wednesday evening - that's when the group practiced.

Aside. I really should interject here and talk about "the big picture" again:
There's a whole spectrum of beliefs about how (and why) we are here, but there is one big, clear dividing line: Either there is a purpose behind our existence or it's all a big cosmic accident...
Personally, I find both notions to be inconceivable. I really can't figure out what kind of intelligence would go through all the trouble of creating an entire cosmos just for us. (What an abject disappointment we must be to that creator!) But it's also hard for me to swallow the notion that all of this just happened at random out of nothingness for no particular reason. The current theory posits that our universe is just one of many, and it is a 3 dimensional slice of 10 dimensional space - and, BTW, happens to contain approximately 54 quadrillion stars. (For those who are math impaired that's a really big number...) And somehow, on a spec of dust circling one of those stars billions of self-aware life forms came to exist - and I'm one of them...

I mean - the whole thing is so fantastically ludicrous that I can't say any explanation makes more or less sense than another. (My dinky human brain is just too limited to wrap itself around the problem.) Heck - if it weren't for the fact that I exist I could easily convince myself that I don't :-) But I have to admit that I do like the notion of a higher power - it makes it all seem less pointless. And as a result I find religion rather appealing (but not churches - they are primarily political institutions). I've just never been able to "commit" to it the way others do... and I'm really not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing :-)

The point of all of this is that I went to First Baptist Church of Argyle with an open heart and an open mind... And this is probably as good of a stopping point as any :-)