---- Third addenda--- 1959/1960----_____ ______ _____ GENERAL THINGS OF CHILDHOOD:: -- In the 50s and early 60s "Made in Japan" meant it was cheap junk and couldnt compare with anything American-Made,,,, My father was always into gum. He could never understand why I had NO interest in gum like he did and all the other kids. Where other kids were told NOT to chew it and they did anyway, I was always offerred it and never wanted it. I couldnt see putting anything in my mouth I wasnt going to eat,,,,, In the 50s and 60s I especially liked the Secondary Comic stories they had in the Superman Title Series: Tommy Tomorrow, Space Cabby, Congorilla, Silent Knight. I recall when in the 60s they ran the origin of Congorilla and it was WRONG because I still had the very first issue of it from the 50s,,,,,, I didnt like it when Aunts handled me. I was NOT a physical person. Cant leave an only child alone every day and then expect him to be outgoing,,,,, I used to get REALLY angry at my mother's relatives even though they were always nice to me. Because they ALWAYS had problems and then my parents would have to leave to help them. I saw my parents so little and then they kept taking them away. Big family people NEVER seem to stop and think about the different world of the only-child,,,, I never could choose between Fudgsicles and Creamsicles. Liked them equally,,,, From 1959 to 1965 I had bus passes. One month worth of rides for some ridiculously cheap amount. In October 1959 I was given NUMBER ONE!!! for the whole system. But on OCTOBER 31 I got on the bus and the driver COLLECTED them! They almost NEVER did that but he had to do it the time I had it! (I guess I took off my birthday instead of Halloween as he took them the LAST time we could use them, coming home from school at 3pm on the last day of the month. Or was the last day of the month on Sat or Sun that time so he'd take it when I wasnt expecting it???). To get the buspappses we had to go to a special room to buy them each month,,,, All through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s my father pulled the same crap on me: He and my mother would go out to get groceries. He'd yell up the stairs (or whatever) to ask me if there was anything I wanted. He'd come home later and NEVER have it!! SAnd he always got angry at me even though he always set me up. He'd always say, "Do you know what that costs??". Oh, bullcrap! I never chose anything really expensive. It's just that he always bought the CHEAPEST of everything and I'd ask for something that wasn't the absolute cheapest. His mind was always in the Great Depression. Heaven forbid one wanted anything but the cheapest Generic version,,,,, My mother bought a lot of what she called 'Junk Jewelry',,,, Under the Triboro Bridge, a couple blocks from where we kids played, the oldsters would always play bocce,,,,, Every time I rode a bus past any Catholic Church I'd always make the Sign of the Cross as did every Catholic kid,,,, Other kids would always do things like step on other kids feet, shine lights in their eyes, bite them. I NEVER did those things and was totally disgusted whenever anyone else did it whether to me or others,, 7-29-99,,,,____________________ ______1959_______ 1959________ 1959 ____ age 9____ 4th/5th grades_____ 1959_____::::: Feb: The kids on the block took me to Astoria Park for the first time and showed me the giant sewer outlet for the area which was right at the left edge of the park and down at the water's edge. My fellow nine year olds had an obscene name for it and these were the good kids. They would go in and out of it over the years while I obeyed my mother who told me to never go beyond the line of the black metal fence at the park's edge. Sometimes the huge sluice gate inside would start to open when they were in there and they had to run out. This was before environmentalist acts about open sewage.... age 9 .... In that crazy teacher's class we had to choose between subscribing to the NY Times (leftwing) or the NY Herald Tribune (rightwing). I was one of the very few who took the Tribune. Although I knew far more about International affairs than 99% of nine year olds I really wasn't all that interested. I just loved SCIENCE....... The teacher also decided we had to have 'hobbies' and a scrapbook. So I went with my mother to Astoria Square. Around the corner on the right in those days was a steep set of stairs leading up to a small department store. So in Feb 1959 I went in with her and bought a scrapbook. Then I had to clip things out of it to 'collect' (as if I really cared) and she would GRADE these things.!!! I cut out pictures having to do with science and animals. I liked them but had no inclination to cut out pictures of them.... age 9 ... My father and I would go to the 5&10 on Ditmars with burned out TV tubes to try them in the tester and get new ones. ... age 9 .... There was another Mary called "Mary on the corner" whom children used to tease until she'd bribe them with chocolate bars. Hey, for free chocolate I did it, too, I still recall the first time I went for my first one. After that she just automatically did it when she saw someone. Naturally, the kids there before would tell the new kids to tease her just to get on the chocolate dole....... We'd play stoop ball off my front steps. Different variations..... The older kids would play 'roof de roof' at the end of the block where 24th Rd ran into 23rd St. Towards the bridge a little ways the houses were divided and steep driveways went between them so they could park in garages under the houses. And there were side entrances to the gargaes that were cut down into the sloped driveways about half way down. In the dangerous game kids would run and jump the distance between the houses. I'm amazed noone was ever killed. But it was done rarely.....There was a lot across the street from that middle of the block main grocery. It actually formed an 'L' with the lot on 23 St until Sept 59 when the other one was built on. ..... When walking to the elevated train along Hoyt Ave north there was a concrete park just before it and on the side away from the El there was always a line of buses to go over the Triboro Bridge. I don't think I was ever on them. There was no subway from Astoria to the Bronx.... age 9......The landlord, Siegel, drove a big Cadillac with the back seat torn out for hauling things.... No heavier burden than a 'great potential'.. _______________ _________________ __________________ _____________________ ____________________ _____________________ ___________________ ___________________ ______________________ ________________________ 1960_____1960 ___ age 10___5th/6th grades____1960 _____1960 _____::: John F. Kennedy Junior born Nov 25, 1960. Just after the election...... 8-18-99: In Astoria I always ate alone in my room. My mother made supper and I would take the food into my room and read comic books while eating. I always read while eating. I left my two parents alone in the kitchen.... age 10.. 8-18-99.....
------ Third Addenda------- 1961---- age 11--- 6th /// 7th grades (JHS)----- (SUMMER 1961)This was probably the July 4 my father and I could not get to the fireworks that Macy's was setting off in the East River (Or it could have been 1962). We went by car over the bridge (Triboro?) to the west side of Manhattan. We drove up and down for an hour or more. Maybe two. Looking for a place to park. Finally we had to go all the way south, park the car, and take the subway back up. JUST as we were entering the west side park we saw everyone coming out towards us.My father was so angry he said, "I'll NEVER drive into Manhattan again". And he kept his word. I never saw him do it again after this debacle. We only went into Manhattan by car to go through it to get to the tunnels to New Jersey. He took the subways from then on... age 11.... My mother continued to train me to be a gentleman. She still had me pay for meals by handing me the money under the table, still had me walk near the curb and so on.... age 11.... Today they brought up Gus Grissoms space capsule that went down exactly 38 years ago today, July 21, 1961. So I guess the parade in NYC for the Astronauts was in Fall 1961.... age 11..... I got my first comic book subscription in 61?. Little Lulu. What a mess. I kept seeing each issue on the stands days before I got it in the mail. So I wound up buying each issue TWICE as I wouldn't take the chance of missing it. Problem was that the comic companies were all in NYC and they sent out the comics by mail the same day as they did by truck so I lived in the one area where the newstands beat the mail....age 11..... (FALL 1961).... In the bestseller, THE RIGHT STUFF about the 7 original Astronauts the author says it was 'like magic' how the route from LaGuardia Airport to the Triboro Bridge was packed with cheering people. No, it wasn't. Our principal, Solomon Kimmel ("ole Sol") was a big space buff. He gave every kid a slip to bring home to his/her parents ahead of time to get the parents and kids to be there along the Grand Central Parkway that was between LaGuardia and the Triboro. We were all directly across from JHS 141. I forget how they worked it. Did our parents pick us up at school? Beats me. But my father was there with his 8mm movie camera taking pictures and we still have them.. age 11..7-21-99 945pm..... Everybody seemed to think I should love so-called 'science' fairs and do well at them. I didn't. First of all they were NOT science fairs despite the name. They were ENGINEERING Fairs. I loved math and science equations. I HATED working with my hands. Like most REAL scientists I was all-thumbs and had NO interest in working with my hands. Anthony and Freddy liked working with their hands and wanted to be Engineers. So exhibits depended upon how well a kid could work with his hands to build one. And how artistic he was as well. Secondly, the guys from the richest families OR who could get big grants for equipment always won. They spent hundreds of dollars on theirs. Wed 7-27-99......... 8-18-99 : sometimes Id find a cheese sandwich in my lunch or a jelly sandwich. That meant to me that my mother ran out of meat and forgot to get more. Could only eat a little of the cheese sandwich as they were always too 'rich' as my mother tended to put a lot of butter on everything. Even meat sandwiches were always with butter. Maybe she was trying to get milk in me. I never once said Id like less butter on the cheese to make it less rich though. I avoided any type of confrontations with anyone..... 8-18-99
---------- Third Addenda------- 1962---- age 12--- 7th/8th grades--- 1962--- (Probably Winter 62, Jan-Mar):::; FIZZIES were big. They were tablets that were, I believe, ten on a aluminum strip. Drop one? in a glass of water and one had a soft drink. My favorite was rootbeer which had a nice foamy head but cola was almost as good. (They were banned in 69: cyclamates, although I did not know it at the time)...... I watched the ~7pm Tv show 'Biography' a lot..... To get to the entrance of the Astoria pool one had to go down a steep long staircase on either side of a steep hill. That hill was great for sliding down on garbage can lids.(It wasn't until many years later that they sold plastic discs with handles). I wonder when the last day i went sledding was?/..... There was still that bowling alley under the stairs to the Ditmars subway station that we went to at times. Did they still have pinboys?..... On TV they were always relating the early 60s to either the Roaring Twenties or to the old Roman Empire. Also many Roman Empire movies came out from the 50s until 1964.... age 12.... I bought a BROADSIDE game based upon the anniversary of the War of 1812...... Chris Gielbeda was trying to teach me how to dance at her house..... While sledding on the side of the pool closest us in 62 one kid went headlong into the pools big brickwall. His sled was demolished and they took him away in an ambulance.... age 12 .... I caught pneumonia one night. I was always nervous about sledding when the other kids did as I was always getting picked on so much so I waited until most of them were gone and i'd sled mostly by myself until after it got dark. I recall one night still being out there and getting sweaty but still doing it. I was standing where the path divided in two and finally decided to go home (I recall it like yesterday). I wound up with pneumonia, gasped for air for hours, and was unconscious and dilerious for days while my parents wondered if I'd die. Nothing more awful than trying to gasp for air but also afraid that breathing in a little more mucous will clog your windpipe completely. In the future physicians would ask if I smoked much, even though I never did, as my lungs were damaged...... Jimmy's father got the baseball usher job for Dale's father who got it for mine. It was all word of mouth..... My mother told me to ALWAYS check a glass I took from above the sink before using it. I always did. But ONE time i didnt, I filled it with water and went to drink, and there was a roach in it. After that I knew my mother was always right... age 12... I was buying baseball cards in 62 for the pretty stickers they had which i put all around my big wooden mirror. They are still there today. .... age 12... I named the big Maltese guy 'Moose' out of Archie comics. It stuck. Everyone called him that from then on. (In 1973 I returned to visit and he had a Lou Gehrig-type disease and his brother had to lift him onto fenders to talk. He was still called Moose. "YOU did that", he said..... (Spring 1962??)::: I finally was able to climb down into the little yard in front of Dale's house. It wasn't that i couldnt get down it was that before then I hadnt the strength to get back up..... Someone made a date for the kids on our block to play another team in stickball on the other side of the park. I even went. What a mismatch. They were older, bigger, nastier and stole bases like mad. We didnt have steals. Whomever agreed to it stupidly also agreed to all their rules and at there place......... Jimmy's sister's boyfriend saw the LIFE magazine photo of an atom and said he didnt believe it. Said it was just a piece of dust... age 12... There was an accident at the corner of 24th RD and 21st ST. Car totally demolished. People off to hospital. Gasoline flooding out and down the gutter by the curb. Firetruck came to wash it away... age 12 ... A teacher took us to another museum somewhere. maybe the Museum of the City of New York where they had a miniature city as it was under the Dutch before 1664 and they gave us a lecture in the 'please touch' room where they made replicas of old household things........ Just past where i saw the puppet show in 59 were the tennis courts and their bathrooms. I went into one with someone else (Wayne?, Jerry?) and he went nuts wetting toilet paper and thrwing it around while I was in the stall. I came out of the stall to see the attendant who had just cleaned the place come in and grab him by the collar. I ran like hell out the door... age 12.. I sent away for a TWENTY MULE TEAM BORAX model. I still have it. Unbuilt... age 12.. At the end of the school year my English teacher signed everyone's notebook and put something very nice in mine and said, "I really mean this". That's because earlier in the year I used to tell people to cover their test sheets so i couldnt see them and she announced thet there was only one person in the whole room she had never seen cheating. Me... age 12 ... One terrible late Spring Day I was on my way to the corner candy store and on the diagonal corner from it. I heard a dog whimpering. I looked and it was coming out of a box with blood on the insides but I couldnt see the dog. (Paper on top? The angle? I forget). I then walked across the street to the candy store to ask what happened. Turned out that a girl my age who lived around the corner from me on 21st ST was going to the store and her dog ran after her somehow (I forget what the story was) and got hit by a car. The father came, saw that their was no hope for the dog, and just put him in the box to die. I thought that was horrible. It was as if the dog was garbage. The dog was just left there to suffer all that time until death took him. I went around to see the girl and she was crying on her front step about how her dog was suffering. Some guy came a few minutes later and told her the dog was still wimpering. i knew it was an anti-Catholic sin but I decided to lie and i said he was wrong, that the dog's suffering was over and was with God. He then caught wise. No sense in causing her any more harm. In those more barbaric days there wasnt much to do for animals anyway. Far fewer vets. No animal ambulances. Almost impossible to find an animal cemetary. But her father should have done SOMETHING. (But I had already long since stopped expecting to find any kindness in the world)... age 12 .....(Summer 1962)::: I learned I could go inside the huge base of the Triboro Bridge. The fence was cut and I could pull myself up the huge concrete blocks and up to the little oval metal door that went inside. In there was a ladder that went to the very top of the highest point and there was a landing every so many feet all around the stairs so people could rest. Also kept people from falling more than a few feet.. age 12... On 24th St near 31st St one day i saw a new store that had baskets and baskets of unshelled nuts. I put my hand into one and the guy ran out and yelled at me. A few days later i was there with my parents who did the same and he didnt . Guess he figured I was going to steal some... age 12 ... On that same street, a few blocks west I bought a Little Dot comic that summer. I recall i was searching for a different type of title for a change and was all over the place on a very hot Summer day. (Hmmm, this may have even been 61 as I had not discovered Marvel yet. Maybe I didnt discover Marvel until Sept 62???) ... age 12.... I discovered the library west of Astoria Square and bought a notebook at the new Towne Square Shoppe and took notes on things..... I always thought Barbara's Wedding was 1963 but they were playing a lot of Twist music there so it may have been 62. I was trying to do it with the other kids (Pushed into such an indignity by the big-family people) and my mother said, "You should go up and down like the others". So I did. And Barbara's mother told mine, "I still have two other daughters for your son". All the adults were quite looped. At the beginning they brought out all the bridesmaids and the guy gave a speech for each one and he called Chris 'vivacious' and I wasn't sure what it meant ("And the vivacious Miss Christalie Gielbeda". They sat me with other teenagers which I wasnt thrilled about as I always preferred adult company, if any. And we were all given Manhattans. There was a young 'couple' there and the girl wanted everyone's cherry. I had a rough time drinking my first 'hard' drink at age 12 and I knew it was a Confession Offense. That was one hell of a long day and I recall being in many places in this huge hall in Greenpoint on Greenpoint Avenue and listening to many adults but now I forget what was said. .......... age 12 ............. On July 5, 1962 or thereabouts we had firecrackers, I had the most, and were exploding them in Astoria park right half way between the swing park and were we sled. I start to go towards the swing park and I suddenly see a cop coming up over the hill. I turn and run. He catches the other guys, though. Later they said the cop said, "Your buddy sure did run".... age 12 .... Bunch of Gielbeda? kids in my house one night. (Was this later in the year?). I'm hungry for candy. There was a big glass jar with a glass jar full of candy I had in my room for a long time. Old candy. I ate it. Stupid me. I developed a terrible headache. My father puts all the kids and me in the car for a long ride all around Queens. Big deal to them. They're jumping all over. I'm sick as a dog. Head splitting. One of the longest nighttime rides of my life. Still recall glancing up at passing night scenery with a haed that weighed a ton... age 12 ....... On bike on Crescent Street. Turn down 23rd St (or next one) towards home. My bike runs over a rock and it bounces to sidewalk and almost hots some guy. He thinks I threw it. He starts to come after me and stops. But now I'm wary when I go on that street in the future..... Was at the Bronx Zoo for first (and only?) time. At elephant cage. He decides to suddenly pee. Splatters on me... age 12 ... Had an old box camera. Went across the white gravel parking lot to the garbage pit on 24th Ave on other side of my block. Climb on top and take photos of toy spacemen I had. Top of little white bldg looks like lunar landscape. Forgot film. In 1972 I found it while working at JC Penney camera Dept in York. They came out fine... age 12... There were LONG blocks between 24th Ave and Ditmars. Had WIDE concrete areas down middle of blocks for cars to get to garages back there. One night Im walking back at night thru one and there at the end of a block is a woman sitting sideways by her window in front of a mirror in just her underwear. Now she knows what her window faces. Exhibitionist. I told Jimmy about it as he was the only one on the block into girls and he said he knew all about her... age 12...Wed 7-21-99 234pm..... 7-22:; When did comic book prices go up to 12c? Either 62 or 61. I heard it on the radio and Dell went up to 15c and then back down to 12c, DC went to 12c.. age 12 .... I dont know when my parent's affluence started to rise but it because of the coming 1964 World's Fair. It could have begun slowly in 62 or not until 1963.... age 12 ..... My most fanatical Catholic stage was probably from when i made my Confirmation in 1962, through 1963, to July 1964......7-22-99 1133am:: One morning we went fishing out in Long Island. I always loved the sequence. Mother usually woke me up. 3am?? Very groggy and sleep but excited about going. Dressed in dark in my room which was either next to last or last. The rooms were all in a row so I'd turn around to my door and the next two rooms would also be dark and i could see my parents three rooms away in the kitchen getting prepared. (But my mother usually chose not to go). Then I'd groggily walk thru the rooms to the kitchen where we'd have coffee and maybe cake. Then out the door with all the fishing equipment. I had both my own fibreglass rod and reel plus a bamboo pole. Go thru the long hall at night. Out to the street where all the other houses were dark and it seemed like a special privilege to be up and out in the relative quiet. Warm up the car and off we'd go. Sometimes we'd stop first in the city at 4am as with the time we went to the White Tower and then again out on L.I. Sometimes we'd go right through. But in the pre-highway days it was a long, long ride in the country. We went to different places. But this one time really stuck in my mind because we got off the main road and drove north and up this steep hill where one could not see the other side. Then we go over the top right at sunrise. And the street has stores on this steep hill (one side? both?) and the hill goes sharply down right into the sea with the morning dawning. We pull over and there is an all-night restaurant. So I get out and I'm looking down this steep sidewalk hill into the sea with the sun just coming up. We go in to eat. (I should make a page just for fishing)... age 12 ... Once Dale and one of his brothers and i were going to walk to LaGuardia airport. We set out down east 24 AVE with our backpacks and don't get much farther than Steinway when they quit and start to go back. But I tried to keep going but then I was bored alone so I went back. (Hmm probably earlier than 62) They started to run from me but stopped...... What some of the kids did which horrified a good Catholic boy like I was was to go to the main entrance of the pool and then run into and through the women's locker room and run past the stalls in which they were changing. More corruption, I thought..... A bunch of us are standing on the front steps on Dale's side of the steps. I'm at the bottom of the steps and Jummy is at the top and Wayne is in the middle with his hand on the wide brick bannister. Jimmy is holding a large clothespin squeak toy. Suddenly, Jimmy hits Wayne's hand with it. Wayne runs in crying. Dale's father comes out. Jimmy takes off. Howie says, "I'll lose my shoe up your ---"..... (FALL 62-Dec62??):: Built a new bldg in that lot across from the main grocery store.. age 12.. We played football in the dry Astoria Pool, perhaps against the same big kids who crushed us before. We got squashed again. Couple kids started crying when got hit hard. But the bigger kids taught us to set up low to hit low. I made sure I was off on one end so I wasnt sandwiched between to get smashed. Those two games were ridiculous. ....... I was walking on the north side of 24 AVE where the stores were and kept going on a few blocks to the next candy store. A block or so later, while reading a comic book and not watching where I was walking, I walked right into the cement a guy was knealing down spreading out. Naturally, he got angry but not half as much as my father would have...... When the new Towne Square Shoppe opened I think they put in a TV tube tester so we didnt have to go to Ditmars anymore..... CHANNEL 13, which was privately owned and had the Gumby cartoons and some others, was having trouble. People watched stations from lowest number on up: 2 cbs, 4 nbc, 5 DuMont, then metromedia, 7 abc, 9 wor, 11 wpix and then 13. And 9 and 11 had the Met and Yankee games ( 5 used to have the Dodgers). So 13 tried this big promotion entitled "THIRTEEN IS NEXT TO TWO" and kids would send in drawings that they'd show like thirteen shirts on a clothes line next to two shirts on another one. It went for a long time but didnt work. People would not go the other way on the dial. (There was a UHF black spot on the dial between 2 and 13 and New Yorkers never heard of a channel above 13). Later on it became part of PBS...7-22 1202 pm........Fri 7-23::: Played some one man, sometimes two, basketball under the triboro Bridge that Summer for the first time (but did a lot more in 63). Baskets were on other end of concrete small park than where the games were played..... Had an Art class taught by a gay? guy who looked like he died his mustache. Used to assign us Tv shows to watch at night but I never did. Had an excellent artist in his class who, for some crazy reason, drew a lot of table scenes with the edge of things always corresponding with the edge of the table. Even I knew better. Teacher finally lost patience and called him on that. Teacher also once gave us a sheet of paper and told us to tear it to make whatever we wanted to show artistic ability. Mine, at 12, was nil. That other kid made the Triboro Bridge!..... Mother walked in one day and said why don't I make a window Halloween decoration like what was hanging in the Mellinger's window. I go out to look. Gary, the family artist, did an elaborate scene of a farmyard with all sorts of things. I had not his talent. That half of my brain never worked...... One year, was it 62 or before? I had my birthday party and we all wound up on the other end of astoria park playing under and on the Hellgate Bridge. Even the Gielbeda kids were there......I know that at my last two b'days i turned very traditional and had all those apple bobbing and apple on a string things. ........ Was in the park with someone. Who? We were near the entrance by the Triboro Bridge at Hoyt Ave by the huge round parking lot. Whomever it was wouldnt move. Had piles of dry leaves under the bench. I lit them. That got him up. Also got the fire dept there but we were gone before...... Found a vibrating football game in the garbag pit. Was it the Mellingers??.... There was a girl in my classes who lived even farther from school than I did. One block more on 24th DRive by the Cheesebox. Jimmy got to know her. She didnt like me and said bad things about me. I had never spoken to her..... Kids called a lunchroom strike which was actually a boycott and the principal got angry. Said only adults had the right and knocked kindergarten 'graduations' (which I didnt even know existed)..... THANKSGIVING 1962. Dont recall. Know went to parade (Macys) and ate turkey..Maybe that was the year we went out for 'Anything for Thanksgiving?" or an earlier one? (Probably).....Teacher asked , "What is Life?". I mumbled to myself, a game, a cereal. The other kids heard me and shouted it out as if it was hilarious..... i discovered the hardware store next to my barber and across from the other stores. It had a Lionel dept of Plasticville buildings and tracks and lubricating oil. I started to buy things there. ..... Included in my Xmas 1962 stuff was a box of many different types of Lifesavers candies..... I think that New Years Eve/Day 1962/1963 was the one I spent at the Mellingers and when the parents were gone the kids went into the bathroom and into the closet and brought out their father's Playboy Magazines. Always other kids would introduce me to these non-Catholic things...... Fri 7-23-99 321pm
---------- Third Addenda---------- 1963------ age 13---- 8th/9th grades--- 1963 ---- In all my years in NYC I never once heard any other kid talking about owning a car someday. First of all, most of the parents I knew never had cars. Secondly, the city of New York did not want too many people driving. The driving age was 'officially' 18 but I never met an 18 year old who drove. The city flunked everyone it could for as long as it could as there were too many cars on the street already and there was an extensive public transportation system. I did not realize it at the time but this was a GODSEND for teenage males as in smaller towns everything depends wheteher or not one has a car and how impressive it is which in turn depends upon how rich one's daddy is. (In plain English, small town girls are glorified whores and I didn't know it yet as such a crazy 'car' situation didn't exist in NYC. ("What kind of car do you drive?" is the obnoxious low-IQ thing one hears all over small town America).... age 13 .. 7-21-99 928pm:: ___________________ _________________ __________________ EARLY 1963____::::(WINTER) I may have been in PRINTING CLASS in early 1963. I recall where i was in the room. Facing the front I was to the right and about halfway back at my 'California Job Case'. I forget was it was I 'printed'. I do recall making a rubber stamp. I was surprised one day when Orlando, a good Catholic boy suddely said, "Do you know what a (something) is?" I didnt even recognize what he said but it was two long words in length. Probably four syllables and five syllables. I went, "Huh?". Then he said a phrase that I wouldn't put here that was sexual. Surprised me as it came from him. ... In that Printing class I also learned that the big cult film that year was The Day of The Triffids. I didnt go to see it. I was a "non-conformist by" then who hated other teenagers and would not do what they did.____________ ________________ ___________________ (SPRING) I cant recall if it was in Early or Late 63 that I had to stand in front of the class and make my speech on UFOs. I was then asked questions and the teacher collected student comments. Surprisingly, not person attacked me viciously as they had always done. And the nicest comments were from the prettiest girl in the class. 1963 was getting weird, in a much nicer way. ________________ SUMMER 1963________________Starting with Summer 1963 I sure went out of the house a lot more than ever before and spent more time with the guys on my block and a lot more on the subways....age 13 .... 8-18-99.. Once Dale and I were sitting on the couch in the second room from the front (seems weird that it was there. Not sure of year but not too early in Astoria) and my parents made us both a pastrami sandwich with POLISH mustard (Kosciusko). I warned him that it takes a while to get used to the HOT mustard but he didnt believe me. He sure needed water quickly. You dont have to be Polish, you just have to build up a tolerance.. age 13 ..8-18-99... . They started building a long thin small house on the lot across the street on 24th Rd where they said they were going to burn my eyes out that other year... age 13 .. I was looking for firecrackers but I kept missling the 'Chinaboat' which was an old station wagon with covered windows from which adults sold fireworks illegally. I also went over to Chinatown and to the kid on Crescent Street... age 13 .. The kids came from Missouri as previously mentioned and they said WE had accents. They had southern drawls and THEY were in our town... age 13 .... More outgoing or not, there was no way I wanted to go to Summer Camp. Nor did my mother. She wasn't too clear about it at the time as i was still a very naive 13 year old when it came to sexual development but she had seen too many boys go off to camp without siblings with them who came back sexually weird because they were then away from their parents protection and either some more mature boy or a counselor would drag them quickly forward into their first sexual experience and it would skew them towrds homosexuality as first impressions mean a lot and a kid can be deviated from his original orientation at that age when he's just coming into puberty.... age 13 ..... _______________ __________________ _________________ ________________ ____________________ AUTUMN to DEC 1963____:::: Thursday 8-18-99 ;;;; I dont know when I started sneaking out of school for lunch but it was at least in the beginning of 9th grade. We were forced to sit with our classes which had been the ultimate nightmare for me. At least in Elementary school i could get away from the reptiles for an hour. But in Junior High we not only could not go home but we couldnt even sit with whomever we wanted. I had to sit right next to my enemies who ganged up on me while i was trying to eat. But they did let us go through the doors to the bathroom in the hall and that same door, if passed through, led to a door on the left to the schoolyard. And the windows were always covered. So I'd go out each day and around the L-shaped schoolyard to where there was a fence that was loose on the bottom. I remember the place well. I would then have to be a little athletic and slide under it and drop to the ground below. Then I'd head to the left and into Ditmars/31st ST where I'd get a Flying Saucer chocolate ice cream sandwich for 15c?. Then I'd hang around and eventually come back. Sometimes I just walked diagonally across the street to where their was a couple of small steps in front of a sealed door under a little canopy and I'd stand there alone and eat where I wouldnt be attacked. Sometimes in the rain. Dale was also sometimes out there with me. I dont know if I told him or he told me about the hole in the fence (The gates were locked) but we were both picked on as kids. Even though he was much more athletic than I.. 8-18-99 ..... I gave a couple of ceramic painted apples I made to Mrs gielbeda in her house and was all embarrassed by the attention... age 14 ... For Christmas 1963?? I got a big metal hockey game I had wanted for a long time. Quite expensive. But I thought it was missing the Montreal Canadiens so I mailed away for them and I got, in a small burlap sack, a duplicate of what I already had. I just had not recognized the weird logo they had.. fri 7-22-99 342pm__________ _________________ _____________________