The time-frame surrounding June of 1972 is rather muddled in my memory. I know that I must have stayed at Karina's apartment in the Oak Lawn area for at least a few weeks but I have very little recollection of it.
Aside: I do recall that one evening I sneaked off to one of the "X-rated" theaters north of downtown Dallas to see "Dagmar's Hot Pants". (That was before it was re-cut for an R rating). But that's not particularly relevant to anything :-)
Here's the part that confuses me the most:
Back when mom was selling advertising for monitors at cattle auctions one of her regular stops was Ardmore, Oklahoma. And while she she was there she ended up becoming close friends with a couple of the local women. As it turned out, one of them had a son (Mike) who was around Karina's age. I recall that Mike was a drummer, looked a bit like Jerry Garcia, had type 1 diabetes and was legally blind. (However, that did not stop him from driving - and yes, I rode with him many times. It was frightening.)
Anyway - apparently mom had been visiting them regularly (with Karina) before getting sick... And after mom got out of the hospital Mike proposed to Karina... Yeah - I was in shock. (I had never even heard of the guy.) All I know is that very shortly after I arrived in Dallas we all headed to Ardmore for the wedding.
Aside: I probably need to mention that mom's improvement after getting out of the hospital was stunning. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone recover from a lengthy hospitalization so fast.
So - Mike was a nice enough guy. He was definitely not emotionally equipped to deal with Karina, but he was a good drummer :-) Also, he did me 2 big favors:
The first thing was giving me the best pair of blue jeans ever... Mike made a lot of his own clothes (despite being legally blind) and his specialty was bell-bottom jeans with 30 inch bells. (The "bell" refers to the bottom of the pants leg.) The "brand name" bell-bottoms back in the day had 12 inch bells - you couldn't buy anything much wider. A lot of people would extend their bells by inserting fabric in the leg seams, but that looked kind of "hokey". Mike's looked like they were factory made. We were about the same size and he gave me a pair of his - they were freaking outrageous!
The second thing he did was to introduce me to the Machine Head album by Deep Purple. It had just been released a couple of months earlier and the only song that was getting any air play was "Smoke on the Water"... That album is a masterpiece - (in my book) it is right up there with "Sergeant Peppers" and "Electric Ladyland". In the 40 years since I've worn out 2 vinyl copies of it and now have it on CD.
But back to the title topic:
Mike still lived with his parents and the wedding was held in their living room. There weren't many people in attendance and he was so nervous he had trouble repeating the vows. After a couple of "Say again!"s the minister started breaking it up into 2 or 3 word snippets... Yeah - even before meeting Mike I had a pretty good idea how it was all going to turn out... I felt kind of sorry for him.
After the wedding they still hadn't decided whether they were going to stay in Ardmore or return to Dallas. I recall that his mother was deeply concerned because he'd never been away from home before. (Yes - he was a total mama's boy.) But after hanging out in Ardmore for a few days (and meeting all his buddies) Karina decided that they should give Dallas a try. She never could stand being in a small town.
So Mike (reluctantly) loaded his stuff into his red Datsun 510 (those were really cool little cars, by the way - people still rally race them) and we all headed back to Dallas - mom and I in the Fairlane - Mike and Karina in the Datsun.
And that is the story of Karina's second marriage in as many years...
Yes - I was back in "Crazy Town" :-)
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Disappointment
Before I continue on with the story of moving to Dallas in May of 1972 there are a few more things I intended to talk about so, just for the sake of completeness, here they are:
The first story involves Texas Stadium in Irving, Tx (the former home of the Dallas Cowboys - opened in 1971, demolished in April 2010). The very first event held there was the Billy Graham Crusade (9/17/71) and I attended with the McDaniels and some of the other church members. We got there really early and the first thing I did was grab a couple of the programs, make paper airplanes, run up to the very top row and throw them off the stadium toward the parking lot. (This was before they added the sky boxes - there was a gap between the stadium walls and the roof.) Hence: I think I can legitimately claim to be first person to throw a paper airplane off the top row of Texas Stadium :-) ... BTW: I did enjoy the Crusade. Billy Graham is an amazingly good speaker. Did not disappoint :-)
Aside: This is a bit off-topic but still relevant... It was during that period that I grew to intensely dislike the Dallas Cowboys. It wasn't so much the Cowboys themselves as management's and the community's attitude towards the team. (They seemed to believe a football team could embody virtuosity and wholesomeness... As if...) And much of the problem revolved around Duane Thomas. He was the NFL rookie of the year in 1970 (as a running back for the Cowboys) and after that season he tried to renegotiate his contract. When Dallas refused, he stopped talking to the coaches, to his teammates - and to the media (which created a great deal of outrage amongst the good folk of Dallas). But despite being quirky (and somewhat disruptive) he always performed on game day. In 1971/72 he was instrumental in the Cowboys winning their first Super Bowl ever... Then during the off-season they traded him, largely because he was so hated and reviled by the general populace. He never played very well after that and Dallas didn't win another Super Bowl until six years later.
And this all goes back to one of my fundamental pet peeves: Valuing conformity over accomplishment. The fact that Thomas kicked @ss on the field didn't matter as much as the fact that he didn't follow the team's dress code or talk to the media... I'm sure that a lot of people will disagree with me, but I think society is better off when high performers are cut a bit of slack. Gifted and "quirky" frequently go hand in hand, and if someone can achieve a superior result by (harmlessly) coloring outside the lines it seems counterproductive to penalize them for it... And I'm off my soapbox :-)
Next: For those of you who live in places where church members go door-to-door spreading the gospel, yes - it is totally scripted. (My church even had a reference manual.) ... My main problem with it was that I was told not to listen to a word the homeowner said - just smile and recite the scriptures... Yeah - I can appreciate the rationalle behind that, but somehow I don't think Jesus and his disciples did it that way... But what do I know? :-)
Finally - there's the story of evangelist Bob Harrington, AKA "The Chaplain of Bourbon Street":
Sometime around late 71 or early 72 he held a revival at a rodeo arena in Fort Worth (I no longer remember exactly where) and the youth group from our church was in attendance. The morning before the event Bob had appeared on a Christian youth TV program making "all the right noises" about how wonderful America's youth were, how they were the future, etc, etc... Pretty much everyone in the youth group had watched the program and was really excited to go see him.
Then we got to the revival... Now - I don't know if Fort Worth is still like this, but "back in day" it was a decidedly "conservative" (i.e. redneck) kind of place, and the average age of the folks in attendance was probably over half a century... So it should come as no surprise that Bob's "message" was substantially different than it had been on the youth program. As a matter of fact, the majority of his sermon was a vitriolic rant on how America's youth were all worthless, lazy and morally corrupt and were destroying the country. (Apparently it could all be fixed if we gave him money.)
How bad was it? At one point some of the girls in the group went missing so a few of us went to look for them. We found them on the bus crying (that's how shaken up they were)... Personally, I wasn't surprised. My life experiences up to that point had left me jaded and skeptical, but for a lot of them it was their first encounter with someone who claimed to be "ordained by God" but clearly wasn't... BTW: Harrington himself later admitted that he had been "blinded" by fame and fortune during that period and had strayed from the path... Yeah - add him to that long list :-)
Aside: During the summer of 1972 Karina, Bernie and I went to see the movie Marjoe (a fascinating exposè of the tent revival circuit). It's a must see if you enjoy watching hypocrites get outed.
So - I was initially going to title this post "Disillusionment", but that wouldn't have been accurate... I wasn't really disillusioned - just disappointed...
The first story involves Texas Stadium in Irving, Tx (the former home of the Dallas Cowboys - opened in 1971, demolished in April 2010). The very first event held there was the Billy Graham Crusade (9/17/71) and I attended with the McDaniels and some of the other church members. We got there really early and the first thing I did was grab a couple of the programs, make paper airplanes, run up to the very top row and throw them off the stadium toward the parking lot. (This was before they added the sky boxes - there was a gap between the stadium walls and the roof.) Hence: I think I can legitimately claim to be first person to throw a paper airplane off the top row of Texas Stadium :-) ... BTW: I did enjoy the Crusade. Billy Graham is an amazingly good speaker. Did not disappoint :-)
Aside: This is a bit off-topic but still relevant... It was during that period that I grew to intensely dislike the Dallas Cowboys. It wasn't so much the Cowboys themselves as management's and the community's attitude towards the team. (They seemed to believe a football team could embody virtuosity and wholesomeness... As if...) And much of the problem revolved around Duane Thomas. He was the NFL rookie of the year in 1970 (as a running back for the Cowboys) and after that season he tried to renegotiate his contract. When Dallas refused, he stopped talking to the coaches, to his teammates - and to the media (which created a great deal of outrage amongst the good folk of Dallas). But despite being quirky (and somewhat disruptive) he always performed on game day. In 1971/72 he was instrumental in the Cowboys winning their first Super Bowl ever... Then during the off-season they traded him, largely because he was so hated and reviled by the general populace. He never played very well after that and Dallas didn't win another Super Bowl until six years later.
And this all goes back to one of my fundamental pet peeves: Valuing conformity over accomplishment. The fact that Thomas kicked @ss on the field didn't matter as much as the fact that he didn't follow the team's dress code or talk to the media... I'm sure that a lot of people will disagree with me, but I think society is better off when high performers are cut a bit of slack. Gifted and "quirky" frequently go hand in hand, and if someone can achieve a superior result by (harmlessly) coloring outside the lines it seems counterproductive to penalize them for it... And I'm off my soapbox :-)
Next: For those of you who live in places where church members go door-to-door spreading the gospel, yes - it is totally scripted. (My church even had a reference manual.) ... My main problem with it was that I was told not to listen to a word the homeowner said - just smile and recite the scriptures... Yeah - I can appreciate the rationalle behind that, but somehow I don't think Jesus and his disciples did it that way... But what do I know? :-)
Finally - there's the story of evangelist Bob Harrington, AKA "The Chaplain of Bourbon Street":
Sometime around late 71 or early 72 he held a revival at a rodeo arena in Fort Worth (I no longer remember exactly where) and the youth group from our church was in attendance. The morning before the event Bob had appeared on a Christian youth TV program making "all the right noises" about how wonderful America's youth were, how they were the future, etc, etc... Pretty much everyone in the youth group had watched the program and was really excited to go see him.
Then we got to the revival... Now - I don't know if Fort Worth is still like this, but "back in day" it was a decidedly "conservative" (i.e. redneck) kind of place, and the average age of the folks in attendance was probably over half a century... So it should come as no surprise that Bob's "message" was substantially different than it had been on the youth program. As a matter of fact, the majority of his sermon was a vitriolic rant on how America's youth were all worthless, lazy and morally corrupt and were destroying the country. (Apparently it could all be fixed if we gave him money.)
How bad was it? At one point some of the girls in the group went missing so a few of us went to look for them. We found them on the bus crying (that's how shaken up they were)... Personally, I wasn't surprised. My life experiences up to that point had left me jaded and skeptical, but for a lot of them it was their first encounter with someone who claimed to be "ordained by God" but clearly wasn't... BTW: Harrington himself later admitted that he had been "blinded" by fame and fortune during that period and had strayed from the path... Yeah - add him to that long list :-)
Aside: During the summer of 1972 Karina, Bernie and I went to see the movie Marjoe (a fascinating exposè of the tent revival circuit). It's a must see if you enjoy watching hypocrites get outed.
So - I was initially going to title this post "Disillusionment", but that wouldn't have been accurate... I wasn't really disillusioned - just disappointed...
Friday, July 20, 2012
On to Big D
My memories of the late spring of 1972 are a bit on the hazy side. I remember all of the significant events but not necessarily the exact order in which they occurred. So I will do my best to relate them as best I can recall. Here goes:
Karina was living in an old white 10 story (or so) apartment building in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. It had obviously been an "upscale" facility back in the 20s or 30s. (For example, each unit had a little compartment with inner and outer doors where once upon a time you could put your shoes to be shined. Little things like that.) But by the early 1970s it was a bit rough around the edges and the owner had placed a large cross on the roof. (Made it look kind of like a hospital.)
Aside: I don't remember exactly where the building was but I'm sure it isn't there any more. Karina's apartment had a magnificent view of Turtle Creek and downtown Dallas - definitely prime real estate. That area now appears to be all high rise offices and condos.
BTW: If you're wondering how Karina could afford it - she couldn't... Her rent was being paid by some old guy who looked like Colonel Sanders. (I only met him once.) He was married to an heiress and was using the wife's money to "keep" Karina on the side.
Then along about the end of April the doctors at Parkland wanted to start mom on intensive chemotherapy and she refused, saying she'd rather just die in peace. So mom made arrangements to move in with Karina at which point "the Colonel" stopped paying her rent. Bernie (Karina's ex-husband) was living in the apartment next door to hers (yeah - that was a bit odd) and agreed to help out...
For some reason mom wanted me to be the one to get her out of the hospital, so I drove down to Dallas in the Fairlane to pick her up. (I'm pretty sure I took some of her things with me.)
OK. This is very vivid (somewhat funny) memory:
I was waiting for mom down by the big doors near the emergency room when a number of people were wheeled past on stretchers - it appeared that there had been some sort of a major accident somewhere. One of the victims in particular caught my attention. She was a very lovely young lady and was all bandaged up and having convulsions. I remember staring in horror as they wheeled her past... And for a brief instant we made eye contact...
I was almost in shock as I sat there with my stomach churning - wondering what had happened to them - wondering if they were going to be OK. Then about 15 minutes later the young lady comes traipsing out of the ER (wearing an employee ID badge) together with all the other "victims". She didn't say a word - just gave me a big grin as she walked past. Yeah - it had all been an exercise - an amazingly realistic one :-)
I finally got mom out of there. She was pretty weak (she'd been hospitalized for over 3 months) but she looked better than she had for a long time. (I'm sure she was just overjoyed to be leaving. You have no idea how much she hated hospitals.) So I drove her over to Karina's place and hung out for a while before heading back to Argyle.
I stayed with the McDaniels for a couple of more weeks until the semester ended. Then I packed up the car (everything I had in the world plus the remainder of mom's stuff), said my goodbyes and headed for Dallas...
I can still recall heading out FM407 to 35E with the sun getting low in the sky behind me - leaving behind the only place I had ever really felt safe...Wondering what the future held... Yet another blind leap into the unknown.
Karina was living in an old white 10 story (or so) apartment building in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas. It had obviously been an "upscale" facility back in the 20s or 30s. (For example, each unit had a little compartment with inner and outer doors where once upon a time you could put your shoes to be shined. Little things like that.) But by the early 1970s it was a bit rough around the edges and the owner had placed a large cross on the roof. (Made it look kind of like a hospital.)
Aside: I don't remember exactly where the building was but I'm sure it isn't there any more. Karina's apartment had a magnificent view of Turtle Creek and downtown Dallas - definitely prime real estate. That area now appears to be all high rise offices and condos.
BTW: If you're wondering how Karina could afford it - she couldn't... Her rent was being paid by some old guy who looked like Colonel Sanders. (I only met him once.) He was married to an heiress and was using the wife's money to "keep" Karina on the side.
Then along about the end of April the doctors at Parkland wanted to start mom on intensive chemotherapy and she refused, saying she'd rather just die in peace. So mom made arrangements to move in with Karina at which point "the Colonel" stopped paying her rent. Bernie (Karina's ex-husband) was living in the apartment next door to hers (yeah - that was a bit odd) and agreed to help out...
For some reason mom wanted me to be the one to get her out of the hospital, so I drove down to Dallas in the Fairlane to pick her up. (I'm pretty sure I took some of her things with me.)
OK. This is very vivid (somewhat funny) memory:
I was waiting for mom down by the big doors near the emergency room when a number of people were wheeled past on stretchers - it appeared that there had been some sort of a major accident somewhere. One of the victims in particular caught my attention. She was a very lovely young lady and was all bandaged up and having convulsions. I remember staring in horror as they wheeled her past... And for a brief instant we made eye contact...
I was almost in shock as I sat there with my stomach churning - wondering what had happened to them - wondering if they were going to be OK. Then about 15 minutes later the young lady comes traipsing out of the ER (wearing an employee ID badge) together with all the other "victims". She didn't say a word - just gave me a big grin as she walked past. Yeah - it had all been an exercise - an amazingly realistic one :-)
I finally got mom out of there. She was pretty weak (she'd been hospitalized for over 3 months) but she looked better than she had for a long time. (I'm sure she was just overjoyed to be leaving. You have no idea how much she hated hospitals.) So I drove her over to Karina's place and hung out for a while before heading back to Argyle.
I stayed with the McDaniels for a couple of more weeks until the semester ended. Then I packed up the car (everything I had in the world plus the remainder of mom's stuff), said my goodbyes and headed for Dallas...
I can still recall heading out FM407 to 35E with the sun getting low in the sky behind me - leaving behind the only place I had ever really felt safe...Wondering what the future held... Yet another blind leap into the unknown.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Slice of Life
I'm pretty close to wrapping up the time I spent living with the McDaniels in Argyle Texas in the spring of 1972. All that's left are some "odds and ends". You know - "slice of life" kinds of things.
First off - there was a lot of conflict between Steve and his Dad around that time. It got pretty rough at times, and that was tough for me because I could usually see both sides of the issue. Occasionally Steve would "take off" for a while and I'd just try and stay close and make sure he was OK... I sometimes wonder if there wasn't some resentment because I was getting a lot of positive attention from his parents... Regardless - it seems like everything turned out OK in the end.
Next - bait for gas: As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Argyle gas station was also the local bait shop and that's where Steve got a lot of his gas. He knew of a couple of cattle ponds in the area that were full of crawdads. So he kept a seine (fishing net) in his trunk and when he needed gas we'd sneak over to one of the ponds and make a pass with the seine. (Yes - that involved wading waist deep in some pretty foul water.) That would usually net enough crawdads (pun intended) to trade for a few gallons.
"Leftover" Chili: When Steve and I had to cook for ourselves our standard meal was chilli over a layer of Frito corn chips. But there was a twist: Whatever leftovers were in the fridge got added to the chilli. It didn't matter what they were - that was the rule. We ended up with a lot of pretty strange meals - odd, but always edible :-)
Motorcycles: That was when I learned to ride. Dewitt had a Honda CB175 (small 2 cylinder street bike) and a 305 Scrambler. I was not allowed on the Scrambler (that was considered a pretty big bike at the time) but I spent a lot of time on the 175. I still remember the first time I rode it. Dewitt showed me the controls and had me ride it up and down the street a couple of times. There was no "learning curve" at all. Shifting and braking were effortless - almost like I was born knowing how. Afterward I was allowed to ride the 175 around on the rural roads whenever I wanted (as long as I promised to take it easy). I found it to be incredibly enjoyable. (And yes, I always wore a helmet.) I did ride some other bikes during that time period and my only comment is that they should not make street bikes with 2-stroke engines. They're kind of "temperamental" :-)
Campaign signs: I don't know why politicians bothered putting them up on rural roads in Texas. They just got blown to hell anyway... Enough said about that :-)
There's not really much else worth telling. It was cool being part of a "normal" family. And despite everything that was going on in the background it was one of the more pleasant periods in my life (to that point). But all things must come to pass and as the semester drew to an end it became clear that a move to Dallas was in my immediate future - and that's the topic of my next post.
First off - there was a lot of conflict between Steve and his Dad around that time. It got pretty rough at times, and that was tough for me because I could usually see both sides of the issue. Occasionally Steve would "take off" for a while and I'd just try and stay close and make sure he was OK... I sometimes wonder if there wasn't some resentment because I was getting a lot of positive attention from his parents... Regardless - it seems like everything turned out OK in the end.
Next - bait for gas: As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Argyle gas station was also the local bait shop and that's where Steve got a lot of his gas. He knew of a couple of cattle ponds in the area that were full of crawdads. So he kept a seine (fishing net) in his trunk and when he needed gas we'd sneak over to one of the ponds and make a pass with the seine. (Yes - that involved wading waist deep in some pretty foul water.) That would usually net enough crawdads (pun intended) to trade for a few gallons.
"Leftover" Chili: When Steve and I had to cook for ourselves our standard meal was chilli over a layer of Frito corn chips. But there was a twist: Whatever leftovers were in the fridge got added to the chilli. It didn't matter what they were - that was the rule. We ended up with a lot of pretty strange meals - odd, but always edible :-)
Motorcycles: That was when I learned to ride. Dewitt had a Honda CB175 (small 2 cylinder street bike) and a 305 Scrambler. I was not allowed on the Scrambler (that was considered a pretty big bike at the time) but I spent a lot of time on the 175. I still remember the first time I rode it. Dewitt showed me the controls and had me ride it up and down the street a couple of times. There was no "learning curve" at all. Shifting and braking were effortless - almost like I was born knowing how. Afterward I was allowed to ride the 175 around on the rural roads whenever I wanted (as long as I promised to take it easy). I found it to be incredibly enjoyable. (And yes, I always wore a helmet.) I did ride some other bikes during that time period and my only comment is that they should not make street bikes with 2-stroke engines. They're kind of "temperamental" :-)
Campaign signs: I don't know why politicians bothered putting them up on rural roads in Texas. They just got blown to hell anyway... Enough said about that :-)
There's not really much else worth telling. It was cool being part of a "normal" family. And despite everything that was going on in the background it was one of the more pleasant periods in my life (to that point). But all things must come to pass and as the semester drew to an end it became clear that a move to Dallas was in my immediate future - and that's the topic of my next post.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Fishing
Before I get around to the topic at hand I want to make clear that my life in the spring of 1972 was far from idyllic. I had no "permanent" home, I'd lost my beloved '66 Charger, my pets, most of my other possessions - and my mother was still terminally ill... When I was down in Argyle it was easy to forget about everything for a while, but when I was up in Denton at the college - not so much...
I'd usually wait until after my last class (Speech) before going to the hospital (after spending the entire day bracing myself for the possibility that mom would be gone). It made for a rough day... Especially that 1 or 2 hour break (when I hung out at the student union) between French and Speech classes... The anxiety became worse with every passing week.
BTW: North Texas had a world class jazz/rock ensemble. One day they were playing some "Blood, Sweat and Tears" style stuff out in front of the union. The musicianship was stunningly good... Then another time someone scheduled an anti-war protest but only 6 people showed up. (Yeah - the school had about the same number of activists as beauty title holders.) But I digress...
Eventually, waiting around until Speech class got to be more than I could handle so I stopped going. (After French I'd head right over to the hospital and then back to Argyle.) ... Sigh... Even the prospect of seeing the redhead "Amazon" teacher in an ultra-short skirt wasn't enough to outweigh the anxiety... I guess I should have dropped the class, but I didn't... I got an "F" - the only one in my 22 years of formal education. I honestly didn't care at the time. I had no idea that someday I'd be applying to engineering and law schools... Yeah, apparently I'm not perfect :-)
Then one day my mom's doctors told her they couldn't do anything more for her (translation: she was a very expensive patient with no money) so they transferred her to Parkland Hospital in Dallas... I'm thinking: "Great idea! ... Move her to the hospital where the president she idolized died..."
As it turns out Karina was living a few miles from Parkland at the time and started visiting mom regularly, so I finally got to take a much needed "sanity break". I only visited there once. It was a miserable place. Mom looked so bad it was hard to believe she was still alive...
Non-sequitur: I mentioned in a much earlier post that Karina had briefly been married to our friend Bernie (the guitarist). I just did a quick record search and they were wed in Dallas on 5/12/71. She had it annulled a few weeks later...
But none of this has anything to do with fishing :-)
Mr. McDaniel had an "old school" cabin cruiser. I don't remember what size, but it was powered by a single large outboard motor and had a small cabin up front plus a couple of bunks along each side. So - it slept six but it was still small enough to be towed by a full-sized Oldsmobile... And although Argyle is only a few miles from Lewisville Lake, Dewitt much preferred heading up Highway 377 to Lake Texoma (on the Oklahoma border).
Now - the only watercraft I had ever been on before were car ferries - some in Missouri and the one across Chesapeake Bay. So that first trip to Lake Texoma was also my first time in a small boat... I have to admit it was kind of cool - but not cool enough to make me want to own one :-)
Sam and Royce also came along (the "usual crew"). Not sure where Stephanie was - maybe staying with friends. Anyway - we launched the boat late on a Friday afternoon and after tooling around the lake for a while we dropped anchor near one of the bridge pylons (apparently fish like to hang out there).
I had never fished before, mainly because of the "sticking a worm on a hook" thing. I simply wouldn't do it :-) So one of the other guys would bait it for me... After a while I (reluctantly) started taking the fish I caught off of the hook and tossing them back in (we were mostly doing catch and release). All in all I caught around 7 fish - mostly drum and bass... We fished until well after dark using a lantern hung over the edge of the boat to attract the fish. (They are rather stupid creatures, aren't they?) And we were eating large quantities of taco chips with bean dip the entire time.
Yeah - apparently Frito bean dip had been in production for a number of years at that point but I had never encountered it before. And we ate a lot of it... Later as we were lying in our bunks trying to go to sleep it got kind of "polluted" in there...Really bad!
The next morning we met up with some other folks at a campsite for breakfast... I wasn't sure if they were friends or relatives or what... I often have no idea what's going on and that rarely bothers me :-)
Then we went back out on the lake to try and catch some "gar"... At first I had no idea what that was, so they explained that a gar is a large prehistoric sort of fish with a pointy nose and a couple of rows of jagged teeth. And you don't catch them with a hook and bait - you use a piece of nylon rope... Yes - you tie a knot in one end of a small piece of rope and shred the other end... The gar (for some reason) thinks the piece of rope looks tasty so it bites down on it, gets it tangled in its teeth and won't let go. In other words, it takes "stupid" to a whole new level (even for a fish)... Yeah - I really can't see being proud of outsmarting something with a brain the size of a peanut. Especially considering how much some people spend on tackle... But I guess that's just me :-)
For some reason the gar just weren't biting. (I swear I actually hit one on the head with my lure once.) That was kind of a bummer because I was really curious to see what they looked like close up. And thus ends another not particularly interesting and relatively pointless story :-)
Boats and fishing? Just not my thing...
I'd usually wait until after my last class (Speech) before going to the hospital (after spending the entire day bracing myself for the possibility that mom would be gone). It made for a rough day... Especially that 1 or 2 hour break (when I hung out at the student union) between French and Speech classes... The anxiety became worse with every passing week.
BTW: North Texas had a world class jazz/rock ensemble. One day they were playing some "Blood, Sweat and Tears" style stuff out in front of the union. The musicianship was stunningly good... Then another time someone scheduled an anti-war protest but only 6 people showed up. (Yeah - the school had about the same number of activists as beauty title holders.) But I digress...
Eventually, waiting around until Speech class got to be more than I could handle so I stopped going. (After French I'd head right over to the hospital and then back to Argyle.) ... Sigh... Even the prospect of seeing the redhead "Amazon" teacher in an ultra-short skirt wasn't enough to outweigh the anxiety... I guess I should have dropped the class, but I didn't... I got an "F" - the only one in my 22 years of formal education. I honestly didn't care at the time. I had no idea that someday I'd be applying to engineering and law schools... Yeah, apparently I'm not perfect :-)
Then one day my mom's doctors told her they couldn't do anything more for her (translation: she was a very expensive patient with no money) so they transferred her to Parkland Hospital in Dallas... I'm thinking: "Great idea! ... Move her to the hospital where the president she idolized died..."
As it turns out Karina was living a few miles from Parkland at the time and started visiting mom regularly, so I finally got to take a much needed "sanity break". I only visited there once. It was a miserable place. Mom looked so bad it was hard to believe she was still alive...
Non-sequitur: I mentioned in a much earlier post that Karina had briefly been married to our friend Bernie (the guitarist). I just did a quick record search and they were wed in Dallas on 5/12/71. She had it annulled a few weeks later...
But none of this has anything to do with fishing :-)
Mr. McDaniel had an "old school" cabin cruiser. I don't remember what size, but it was powered by a single large outboard motor and had a small cabin up front plus a couple of bunks along each side. So - it slept six but it was still small enough to be towed by a full-sized Oldsmobile... And although Argyle is only a few miles from Lewisville Lake, Dewitt much preferred heading up Highway 377 to Lake Texoma (on the Oklahoma border).
Now - the only watercraft I had ever been on before were car ferries - some in Missouri and the one across Chesapeake Bay. So that first trip to Lake Texoma was also my first time in a small boat... I have to admit it was kind of cool - but not cool enough to make me want to own one :-)
Sam and Royce also came along (the "usual crew"). Not sure where Stephanie was - maybe staying with friends. Anyway - we launched the boat late on a Friday afternoon and after tooling around the lake for a while we dropped anchor near one of the bridge pylons (apparently fish like to hang out there).
I had never fished before, mainly because of the "sticking a worm on a hook" thing. I simply wouldn't do it :-) So one of the other guys would bait it for me... After a while I (reluctantly) started taking the fish I caught off of the hook and tossing them back in (we were mostly doing catch and release). All in all I caught around 7 fish - mostly drum and bass... We fished until well after dark using a lantern hung over the edge of the boat to attract the fish. (They are rather stupid creatures, aren't they?) And we were eating large quantities of taco chips with bean dip the entire time.
Yeah - apparently Frito bean dip had been in production for a number of years at that point but I had never encountered it before. And we ate a lot of it... Later as we were lying in our bunks trying to go to sleep it got kind of "polluted" in there...Really bad!
The next morning we met up with some other folks at a campsite for breakfast... I wasn't sure if they were friends or relatives or what... I often have no idea what's going on and that rarely bothers me :-)
Then we went back out on the lake to try and catch some "gar"... At first I had no idea what that was, so they explained that a gar is a large prehistoric sort of fish with a pointy nose and a couple of rows of jagged teeth. And you don't catch them with a hook and bait - you use a piece of nylon rope... Yes - you tie a knot in one end of a small piece of rope and shred the other end... The gar (for some reason) thinks the piece of rope looks tasty so it bites down on it, gets it tangled in its teeth and won't let go. In other words, it takes "stupid" to a whole new level (even for a fish)... Yeah - I really can't see being proud of outsmarting something with a brain the size of a peanut. Especially considering how much some people spend on tackle... But I guess that's just me :-)
For some reason the gar just weren't biting. (I swear I actually hit one on the head with my lure once.) That was kind of a bummer because I was really curious to see what they looked like close up. And thus ends another not particularly interesting and relatively pointless story :-)
Boats and fishing? Just not my thing...
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Steve's Next Car
A while back I told the story of a car chase (in the fall of 1971) involving Steve's "hotrod" VW beetle and a kid on a dirt bike. You know - the one that ended with an a pissed off state trooper in his pajamas? Well, over the next few months Steve pretty much beat that VW to death. The repairs would have cost way more than it was worth :-)
So - Steve's dad replaced it with a '67 Mustang. (I think the color was "Clearwater Aqua" - kind of a teal blue). Dewitt was well aware of Steve's driving habits so the Mustang had the smallest engine available (the 200ci straight six) with a 3-speed manual. And despite the "gutless" engine it would still get up to around 115 MPH carrying 4 occupants - but how would I know that, right? ... Yeah - good times :-)
And here are some related stories:
Late one afternoon down at the grade school (I no longer recall why we were there) Steve asked Sam, Royce and me to pick up the back end of the Mustang. (Did I mention how strong Royce was?) Then Steve put it in top gear and floored it (with the back tires in the air) and when the speedo got up over 100 we dropped it... The back end bounced a couple of times and there was lots of tire smoke and stuff... It was cool :-)
Aside: Steve did a similar "tire smoke" thing with his dad's Chevy pickup too. Yeah - I'm not sure what possessed Dewitt to loan Steve his truck... Anyway - there was a bridge with a wooden deck somewhere north of Argyle and it was really easy to spin your tires on it. Steve stopped the truck with the back tires about a foot from the end of the bridge and got them spinning really fast. There wasn't much smoke until the tires got to the pavement. Then it got impressive :-)
A couple of months after Steve got the Mustang the clutch went out. (I wonder why?) So he gathered the usual suspects (Sam, Royce and I) to work on it... Now - replacing a clutch is another one of those jobs that seems like it should be relatively easy but it's not. And having multiple people working on it the same time seems to make it even harder... We were constantly misplacing parts (nobody was keeping track) and there were occasional "miscommunications". The worst was when we were putting it back together. Royce was underneath the transmission trying to get it lined up while Sam and I were on either side supporting it... Royce asked for somebody to hand him a bolt, so Sam and I both let go of the transmission at the same... Anyone else probably would have been injured but (luckily) all Royce got was a bruise on his chest...
Yet despite all the chaos and confusion we got the Mustang back together. (Yes, it actually ran)... And that's why I prefer working on cars alone :-)
The final story is only tangentially related to the Mustang but I figure this is as good a place as any to tell it:
One day Steve decided to skip school, and since I didn't have any classes at North Texas that day I decided to tag along.
Aside: Steve skipped school a lot. His mom wasn't really OK with it, but his dad figured Steve was going to be a steamfitter anyway and a high school education wasn't necessary so he didn't really push it... (I think that was Steve's last year of school.)
Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of the kids from Argyle skipped classes pretty regularly... I recall a number of occasions when a few of us would be riding around Denton on a school day and someone would yell "Hey Steve! There's your mom!!!" and he'd dive for the floor. It was pretty amusing... But I digress :-)
Even though it was a "skip day" Steve had agreed to give a few girls a ride to school. And since he was almost out of gas we had to stop at the local station before picking them up. That's where Steve caught the tarantula... He decided it would look cool dangling from his mirror (like fuzzy dice) so he tied a string around it and hung it up. It struggled for a minute before realizing that "resistance was futile" and decided to just play dead...
When we picked up the girls Steve insisted that one of them ride up front with him so I ended up wedged between the other two in the back seat. Yeah - I had mixed feelings about that.... Ordinarily I would have enjoyed a "girl sandwich," but I have claustrophobic tendencies and the back seat of a "first gen" Mustang is one of my worst triggers. (It probably has something to do with all the time I spent in the back of mom's '65 vert fearing for my life...) But that's not the point of the story :-)
We headed up to Denton on the back roads (Bonnie Brae Street?) and it wasn't until much later that one of the girls finally noticed Steve's new "ornament" at which point she said "Eww! Is that a dead tarantula hanging from your mirror?"... Steve's replied with a cheerful: "It's not dead!" ... And to prove his point he gave it a little tap which caused it to flail wildly.
Now - (according to my research) a human female's scream is roughly equivalent (in decibels) to a jet engine at 100 yards. And 3 of them screaming simultaneously (at slightly different frequencies) in a small enclosed space seems much louder... I covered my ears as quickly as I could, but it was too late. I cannot recall any other sound ever causing me that much pain.
When I regained my hearing all three girls were yelling "Let me out!" at which point Steve stopped the car and they bailed. (Actually, I think they bailed before he stopped...) When the girls refused to get back in Steve drove off by himself. (They were like "Is he coming back?" and I was like "I have no idea"). He returned a coupe of minutes later and after a bit of "back and forth" he reluctantly took the tarantula into the weeds to set it free. That was when I jumped into the driver seat and took off for a few minutes. (Yeah - I thought it was funny, but Steve wasn't quite so amused.)
So those are the Mustang stories...
And even though hanging out with Steve got a little "weird around the edges" at times, it was the closest thing to "normal" I had experienced in a very long time :-)
So - Steve's dad replaced it with a '67 Mustang. (I think the color was "Clearwater Aqua" - kind of a teal blue). Dewitt was well aware of Steve's driving habits so the Mustang had the smallest engine available (the 200ci straight six) with a 3-speed manual. And despite the "gutless" engine it would still get up to around 115 MPH carrying 4 occupants - but how would I know that, right? ... Yeah - good times :-)
And here are some related stories:
Late one afternoon down at the grade school (I no longer recall why we were there) Steve asked Sam, Royce and me to pick up the back end of the Mustang. (Did I mention how strong Royce was?) Then Steve put it in top gear and floored it (with the back tires in the air) and when the speedo got up over 100 we dropped it... The back end bounced a couple of times and there was lots of tire smoke and stuff... It was cool :-)
Aside: Steve did a similar "tire smoke" thing with his dad's Chevy pickup too. Yeah - I'm not sure what possessed Dewitt to loan Steve his truck... Anyway - there was a bridge with a wooden deck somewhere north of Argyle and it was really easy to spin your tires on it. Steve stopped the truck with the back tires about a foot from the end of the bridge and got them spinning really fast. There wasn't much smoke until the tires got to the pavement. Then it got impressive :-)
A couple of months after Steve got the Mustang the clutch went out. (I wonder why?) So he gathered the usual suspects (Sam, Royce and I) to work on it... Now - replacing a clutch is another one of those jobs that seems like it should be relatively easy but it's not. And having multiple people working on it the same time seems to make it even harder... We were constantly misplacing parts (nobody was keeping track) and there were occasional "miscommunications". The worst was when we were putting it back together. Royce was underneath the transmission trying to get it lined up while Sam and I were on either side supporting it... Royce asked for somebody to hand him a bolt, so Sam and I both let go of the transmission at the same... Anyone else probably would have been injured but (luckily) all Royce got was a bruise on his chest...
Yet despite all the chaos and confusion we got the Mustang back together. (Yes, it actually ran)... And that's why I prefer working on cars alone :-)
The final story is only tangentially related to the Mustang but I figure this is as good a place as any to tell it:
One day Steve decided to skip school, and since I didn't have any classes at North Texas that day I decided to tag along.
Aside: Steve skipped school a lot. His mom wasn't really OK with it, but his dad figured Steve was going to be a steamfitter anyway and a high school education wasn't necessary so he didn't really push it... (I think that was Steve's last year of school.)
Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of the kids from Argyle skipped classes pretty regularly... I recall a number of occasions when a few of us would be riding around Denton on a school day and someone would yell "Hey Steve! There's your mom!!!" and he'd dive for the floor. It was pretty amusing... But I digress :-)
Even though it was a "skip day" Steve had agreed to give a few girls a ride to school. And since he was almost out of gas we had to stop at the local station before picking them up. That's where Steve caught the tarantula... He decided it would look cool dangling from his mirror (like fuzzy dice) so he tied a string around it and hung it up. It struggled for a minute before realizing that "resistance was futile" and decided to just play dead...
When we picked up the girls Steve insisted that one of them ride up front with him so I ended up wedged between the other two in the back seat. Yeah - I had mixed feelings about that.... Ordinarily I would have enjoyed a "girl sandwich," but I have claustrophobic tendencies and the back seat of a "first gen" Mustang is one of my worst triggers. (It probably has something to do with all the time I spent in the back of mom's '65 vert fearing for my life...) But that's not the point of the story :-)
We headed up to Denton on the back roads (Bonnie Brae Street?) and it wasn't until much later that one of the girls finally noticed Steve's new "ornament" at which point she said "Eww! Is that a dead tarantula hanging from your mirror?"... Steve's replied with a cheerful: "It's not dead!" ... And to prove his point he gave it a little tap which caused it to flail wildly.
Now - (according to my research) a human female's scream is roughly equivalent (in decibels) to a jet engine at 100 yards. And 3 of them screaming simultaneously (at slightly different frequencies) in a small enclosed space seems much louder... I covered my ears as quickly as I could, but it was too late. I cannot recall any other sound ever causing me that much pain.
When I regained my hearing all three girls were yelling "Let me out!" at which point Steve stopped the car and they bailed. (Actually, I think they bailed before he stopped...) When the girls refused to get back in Steve drove off by himself. (They were like "Is he coming back?" and I was like "I have no idea"). He returned a coupe of minutes later and after a bit of "back and forth" he reluctantly took the tarantula into the weeds to set it free. That was when I jumped into the driver seat and took off for a few minutes. (Yeah - I thought it was funny, but Steve wasn't quite so amused.)
So those are the Mustang stories...
And even though hanging out with Steve got a little "weird around the edges" at times, it was the closest thing to "normal" I had experienced in a very long time :-)
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