Sat. Aug 1, 1964- Dec 31, 1964:::: ____ age 14 ____ UNDER CONSTRUCTION ___ NOT PROOFREAD ______ AUGUST 1964::: ______ Saturday AUGUST 1, 1964 to Sunday AUGUST 9, 1964::::_______ ::::The moment I got back, a Saturday, I ran into Dale and started telling him everything that happened in the starnge town of York,Pa and how it was a zillion times nicer than NYC, especially for someone like me. I recall the moment I was telling him in front of the candy store 1 1/2 blocks around the corner from our houses. It was a bright day. Now I wanted back to that twon as quickly as possible. My parents had been trying to get a house in Eastern Pa so why not there instead? Of course, as a kid I had no idea that they had been looking within commuting distance to NYC so they wouldnt have to give up there jobs there. At least I now THINK they were trying to do. I had no idea of 'pensions' or how it was for people without degrees to start over in a small city far away. ............. Wed Aug 11, 1999 1054am: Now here is a mystery I have been trying to figure out. As badly as I wanted to move to York for some weird reason I have no memory at all of when I knew we would or when we actually bought the house. I have the following bits of info: 1) My father has always complained of how my mother "bought the house without his knowing it". How and when could she have done that? The one day she was in York to bring me back? (Friday, July 31, 1964). When she was in York with him later on? And where was I then? 2) I know my father was in York with the three kids and I wasn't. He took them to see "It's a Hard Days' Night" at the drive-in. I certainly wasn't there when he did that. I looked it up in the Gazette and Daily. That movie played at the Stony Brook Drive-In (I had no idea where that was at the time) for $3 a carload from Wednesday, August 4, 1964 until Tuesday, August 11, 1964. It ran with Jerry Lewis' "The Patsy". Open 7pm. 3) Now I also know that one night I was sitting up in bed with the kids talking about my father and how he might spend money on them. That was in July. Did I then SPECIFICALLY know he would be coming up? And how? My mother arrived on the afternoon of Thursday July 30 and did she tell us he'd be coming up? And why? Why wasn't I just brought back and that end it and then I never hear of York again for years? (Recently, in 1997, a friend of mine shocked me with a theory that I had never thought of. My mother wanted to move out of NYC much more than my father. My friend suggested that she may have deliberately sent me ahead to York as an excuse for her to go there alone to pick me up with plans of moving there. That would explain why my mother, who always feared sending me away for the Summer where someone could sexually move on her Catholic boy would send me off like that. She figured that it was worth the gamble to get away from perverted NYC forever.... NOW, unless my father was on vacation he went to York the very next weekend after my mother took me home: That would be Friday August 7 through Sunday August 9, 1964 in order to coincide with that movie. But did he go there without my mother? Did he go with her and I was to stay home and watch Major, my dog? Beats me. Did my mother go along that weekend and then agree to the house without his knowledge? (I know that my mother told me that my Uncle Gene, one of the nastiest people I ever met, bluntly said to the real estate agent, "Now dont you go and put my sister-in-law in any nigger neighborhood" (He made Ty Cobb look like a nice guy. Well, if a man won't let his own kids in the same room with him he's obviously not very friendly.).... / NOTE WHAT HAPPENED DURING THIS PERIOD ABOVE:______ SUNDAY AUGUST 2, 1964: DEFENSE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES US DESTROYER ATTACKED AT PLACE NAMED "GULF OF TONKIN" BY NORTH VIETNAMESE.__________ TUESDAY AUGUST 4, 1964: US DEFENSE DEP ANNOUNCES TWO US DESTROYERS, MADDOX AND C. TURNER JOY WERE IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS WHEN ATTACKED.____ LBJ GETS ON TV TO ANNOUNCE AIR RAIDS ON NORTH VIETNAM IN RETALIATION, __________ WEDNESDAY AUGUST 5, 1964: AIR ATTACKS STILL GOING ON AGAINST NORTH VIETNAM WHICH CLAIMS IT NEVER ATTACKED US SHIPS, The three missing civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney found dead, LBJ ASKS CONGRESS FOR GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION, __________THURSDAY AUGUST 6, 1964:: SENATE AND HOUSE BEGIN JOINT HEARINGS TO GIVE LBJ GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION,,,,, S.VIET PREMIER DECLARES MARTIAL LAW, KHRUSHCHEV ANNOUNCES WILL "STAND UP FOR" NORTH VIETNAM, LBJ GETS HIS GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION. VIETNAM WAR BEGINS.// So between my returning to NYC on August 1 and my father taking the kids to see A HARD DAYS NIGHT a week later, the whole process beginning the Vietnam War took place. ______________ _________________ _______________________ Friday the thirteenth, August 1999: While waiting to take my father to the physician yesterday I went to the library and courthose. I was surprised to see that my parents did NOT buy the house in the Summer of 1964. Here is the info: deed Book 56Z, page 592, House purchased NOVEMBER 27, 1964. 11:51 am, Cumberland Valley Savings and Loan, West Market St. The Friday during Thankgiving vacation. Parents neglected to use the zip code that existed since 1963 and still called our home Astoria, 2, New York. The owner was Lewis J.Hyde and his wife Lillian had died on my fathers birthday in 1962. Notary Robert Stover. And Jack Barton's name was there. I met him in 80s when he was in same politics as I. Yet, my image of seeing the house for the first time was of it being on a warm sunny day with Billy leading us there from Vi's. (Sun 8-15-99 910pm)Now August 27 was when the house was officially signed over but when did my mother first see it, and when did she agree to it. I asked my father and he said that she came up by herself and my aunt and uncle took her out looking and that's when she decided all by herself to get it. I also had always been told that the owner wanted out of it quickly because his wife had died in it but she died way back on 8-24-1962!. Anyway, if my father didnt come up when she agreed to it exactly when DID she come up? I have no idea. _________ age 14 ________ Monday AUGUST 10 to Monday AUGUST 31, 1964:::: Actually, all through August from my return I was trying to get myself interested in the rock music that they were into in York. I would take a pocket radio with me every night and go to the Astoria Park with it. I'd sit on the swings or sit on some steps by the north little-used entrance to the park listening at night. I did that a lot from early August 1964 until June 1965 but I never could develop the teenage excitement about it all. I learned to like it enough to make it more pleasurable than not listening to anything. And for someone so excited about getting back to York I sure don't know when I next got back. If we didn't own the house until Nov 27 that means it wasn't in August or September that Billy took us there. So maybe I didn't return in August at all. Maybe it wasn't until September or even later. I did continue following the pennant race, though. And I made up my own game to play on the bed and my own standings. But I knew nothing about the individual players as yet, at least not enough to make a logical game. I recall that the two pennant winners were the Kansas City Athletics and the Mets, which were the two worst team in baseball in real life..... I think I went back to using that string and pencil thing to strengthen my eye muscles.... I don't even know if I got back to York before school started in September..... I do recall that once I went to the United Nations Bldg and headed towards the downstairs stamp collectors counter. There were a group of girl tourists standing a couple of yards in front of it. It was recessed and I would have had to go through them as I couldnt get around. One of them goes, "Look"- at me. Another goes, "God, he's cute". I embarrassed easily so I suddenly turned right and got out of there. ......Mon Aug 16,1999:: I remember lying on the couch a lot bored while watching TV while my parents were at work and counting off the seconds to when I'd return to York....... I don't recall when I finally got back to York but it eventually happened. Either in August or September. I THINK it may have been the time we wound up in Harrisburg late at night and had just missed the bus. (Why didnt we take the car? I recall going many times by car.). I recall standing there looking out at the night with my parents as they must have been discussing things. The night we were stuck there we then took a cab to York which cost a fortune. Anyway, whether it was the 'missed bus/cab night' or not I DO recall winding up at Vi's house before Sunrise! I remember standing in the living room when it was still dark with morning not far off and we were all by the television and, I believe, the fishtank light was on in the dark and making noise. Vi and gene were down with us. Then Billy and steve came down and were cheering my return. And I wondered where Loralee was. For some strange reason she didn't come down. I dont remember when she finally came down but for some reason she had now turned on me like a snake and I couldnt figure out what had happened! She now either snubbed me or was rude to me! Suddenly, for no reason I could figure, I now seemed to have an enemy within my own family. And she stayed that way for the next TEN YEARS!!! Now I was REALLY screwed. I was a shy person and my idea was that as Loralee was my age she would just automatically introduce me around. Now if and when we moved to York I would be totally on my own; friendless in a strange town. Knowing noone and being expected to meet people on my own which had always been impossible for an introvert like me. The two boys were much to young to know people my age... age 14 ... I recall the boys and I went along the railroad tracks together without her and we turned right at the street that ends at the tracks. There was a little gulley there and trees around it. And for some reason a bunch of male and female underwear and beercans. When we went back later the boys told Lora and she suddenly wanted to go and see it! I couldnt believe it, I thought it would be too obscene. What sort of female was this? She was nothing like the girls in my Catholic Catechism classes. The boys and I also walked farther down Wallace Street and I think I might have brought a few firecrackers to set off at night which was a big thing in York then. I dont know if it was that trip or a later one but I do recall the three of us going downtown like the old days and my trying to get on Lora's good side by buying her a soda at McCrory's and the kids teasing me about it. (At that age I did not know what a 'user and golddigger' was but that was what Lora was but it would take me years to realized it as one never believes one has one in ones own family or especially that one would act like that towards her own cousin!). I don't recall how long we stayed on that return trip but just that I slept in the same bed and that Lora was now a total s.o.b. towards me. Now she suddenly hated everything about me. And when we tried to play cards on the floor of her room she said, "This isnt what we played". Well, I couldnt recall if we played 500 Rummy or Gin Rummy so I tried both but neither seemed to please her. She had turned into a bitch and stayed that way forever.... My father worshipped his dead mother and when Gracie Allen died on August 28 it really upset him as his mother was such a Gracie Allen fan. He then got really angry at me for not being a Gracie Allen fan!! I was 14 and Allen had retired long before I noticed the media. I only vaguely even knew who she had been. I said, "I have to be a Gracie Allen fan because your mother was?" "YES!" He demanded and he wasn't kidding. He was always that way. Everything he liked (most of which he had gotten from his mother) everyone else also HAD to like or else they were INSANE or EVILand he had the "RIGHT" to attack them! Same with all his other opinions. Well, there were NO opinions to him. His ideas were OBJECTIVELY RIGHT!!! And any deviation in even the smallest things by others drove him crazy! WEIRD!! And dangerous!..... My father was big on movies back then and constantly tried to get my mother and me to go along. I went along to see two movies after returning from York. They were on Broadway, the street down south which bordered Astoria and Long Island City which Nixon took his cab on when returning from LaGuardia to his Pepsi Cola job in LIC. I recall we'd go down 21st ST, turn left at Broadway and then park a couple blocks up. Before Crescent Street. A bunch more blocks would have been Steinway. 10?. According to the NY Times LADY IN A CAGE was being shown at BRANDT'S STRAND, Bway/Crescent on Wednesday August 12, 1964 and starred Olivia DeHavilland. I wondered why my father would take me to such a gory movie and now I see why, also showing was THE LONG SHIPS (Vikings) with Sidney Poitier, a movie we all went to see in Greenpoint in the 50s. I guess we went on SATURDAY AUGUST 15, 1964. I guess this means that my father took the kids to see HARD DAYS NIGHT in York,Pa on Saturday August 8, and then came back to take me to see THE LONG SHIPS/ LADY IN A CAGE on August 15 and then ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS/ LAW OF THE LAWLESS on Saturday August 26. I think those were the only two times we were ever in that movie house. Mon 8-22-99 1234pm. (Injected in wrong spot)... We also went to see ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS which, NYT says was at the same theatre on WEDNESDAY AUGUST 26, 1964. HAD A HUGE!! AD!! Also showing was LAW OF THE LAWLESS (Cowboy). I guess we went there SATURDAY AUGUST 29, 1964. (I had always thought we went to CRUSOE first) ..... REVIEW for "ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS": Aug 27, 1964, for LADY IN A CAGE: June 21,1964. But when on Broadway, Queens? Did my father and I go in August? A HARD DAYS NIGHT: August 12, 1964, ZULU JULY 8,1964 NYTimes________ age 14 _________ ___________ _______ SEPTEMBER 1964: My cousins may have looked forwards to going to their Archie Comic Book type high school in York but my first year of high school was a nightmare. I had to go to Long Island City High School LICHS (I still have the gym shirt) which was the most dangerous one in New York City!.. "60 Minutes" TV show would later do a segment on it as such. ... age 14 .... The dilapidated school (which was only recently closed in the late 90s) was FAR away on the other side of the borough of Queens. Close to Greenpoint but on this side of the Pulaski Bridge. Near where my father left me off by his shop (Todays Displays) for the Fair and not too far from my mothers job at Macys Central Warehouse. We were now ALL in Long Island City..... ... The school was also overcrowded so I had to take the later shift. Instead of 830 to 300 or whatever I now had to be there at 930 or 1000 and was there until 430 pm! So I'd get up as my parents were ready to leave. I'd say goodbye to them and then I'd turn on the radio to the British Invasion music stations as they reminded me of York. ... age 14 ..... I'd leave at the last minute and walk around the corner to where the stores were but now I had a new favorite grocery store. I'd walk down 24th Ave past the candy store, bar, regular grocery, drugstore, cleaners?, butchers, corner grocery, and turn left as there was another little grocery a few yards up where the people were very friendly. Each and every day i got the best roastbeef sandwich i ever had on a seeded roll for 35c with the best round French Crueller I ever had. And we'd talk about central Pa. They knew someone who lived in Reading and I thought that Reading was much farther from York than it really was. I was 14/15 and didn't know..... ..REMEMBER TO FINISH EARLY 1964 STUFF.. .... 8-16-99 303pm... 317: ..... Then I'd either take the bus or the elevated train. In the beginning I always took the bus as I knew it best. At least in the OTHER direction that i had taken it since Feb 1959. I think these were the first times I ever took it southwards under the Triboro Bridge, thru Astoria Square, past Broadway,Queens and its shopping center, past the projects, past where Dr Bizarro was in early 64, past the new power plant by the river whose photo showed up all over Environmentalist books many years later. It was a long, LONG ride each day and I was one of the first ones on it if not THE first. Miserable with my head against the window where I tried to always sit: in the far rear seat on the left. Day after day. All the way south for many miles without knowing anyone and not wanting to. More and more LIC students getting on as we went. Then we'd eventually pass under the Queensborough Bridge (see 1978-1983) turn left and go along side of it. Past a fancy car that was always parked diagonally to us that had a round eagle on the back (Chrysler New Yorker?) with an AuH2O bumper sticker (Goldwater). Then a couple blocks to the main Queens stop with a row of buses next to the elevated train entrance. The whole huge crowd of us would then get out, me usually last, go up the metal stairs shoulder to shoulder, and into the huge elevated station above the huge Plaza. Had to zig zag in at the top of the stairs. The token booth (15c) was on the left. Many turnstiles and metal doors on the right (and left?). It was quite a LONG walk up in the air over the wide, wide plaza. It was at least a BIG block wide as it contained all the lanes to and from the bridge plus the avenues on either side. Its amazing how one could do something that seemed as one was doing it forever and suddenlt its 35+ years ago! Each morning I'd go up the same stairs, through a metal barred door, through a turnstile, past the ticket booth, thru the crowds way above the street, thru the long long station with all the turnstiles. On the other side one could either go down the metal stairs onto the sidewalk and then rightwards to the corner and then left to the school or straight ahead into a building with stores in it and then down the steps onto the sidewalk. For some reason my misery at my situation always got worse when I reached the top of the stairs and passed the booth on the left. Crowd and gloom in there? Then I'd walk the 2,3 blocks to the school. Felt like I was doing thsat forever from Sept 64 to Jan 65. Time goes slower at that age, especially when you want out of a situation badly. I probably only did it about 80 times but it seemed like a thousand. Meanwhile Dale was somewhere else in LIC at Aviation High School and Jimmy was at another high school there somewhere. At some point I started taking the elevated train. Possibly because Dale could and he went to Aviation. But the train was much farther away. The switch may have been about December 1964 or Jan 65. But shortly before switching to the train I started taking the bus one more stop, just like I did at JHS 141. It then went a long block up along Queens Plaza and turned right. Then it stopped next to the Queens Plaza subway stop and its tunnels under the huge plaza. To get to the train from that grocery store I had to walk about a mile or more to the elevated station at Grand Central Parkway/Triboro Bridge. Where we took the train to the Fair. I never knew when the train would come. Sometimes right away. Sometimes I'd see it sitting at Ditmars (last stop) for 45 minutes and I'd be very late for school. (I still owe detention). I recall a "Thoroughly Modern Millie" poster and times I was standing in the wooden stairhouse at the top of the stairs when it rained outside. For the first time I wondered about my physique in relation to what girls might like. I started wondering if my rear end was too pronounced. Actually, it was because the rest of me was so very skinny. Way too skinny. Even with the malteds... The train would take me in a usually empty car across Queens looking down on the rooftops to the Queens Plaza elevated train stop. Come to think of it I still took the bus half the time (maybe) so it may have been 130 times I walked over that plaza. Well, whichever mode of transportation I was taking in Jan 65 to June 65 I then almost went UNDER the huge plaza rather than over (see 1978- 1983). Mon 8-16-99 350pm. Tues 8-17,148pm: Of course, being back in NYC was quite an anti-climax from the previous summer. But at least I wasnt back in JHS 141. On my first day in class the homeroom teacher sat me right up front. First seat in second row from the window on the left of me. Oh, great. I was used to hiding in the back whenever possible. And the girl in the seat next to me in row one looked like a homecoming queen. Worse, a PATRICIAN- looking Homecoming Queen. And, wonder of wonders, she immediately took a shine to me. She went out of her way both semesters tp be friendly to me. Even doing my homework for me without my asking. It had all gotten so bizarre. From 4th grade thriough ninth grade I was the lowest of the low, flaming, picked on nerds. No one was lower. Not even another nerd. Now all of a sudden good looking girls were acting like I was at the Top rather than the bottom of the teenage pecking order. All because I grew 14 inches in one year? ?? Beats me. Maybe my bone structure proportions changed as well. And there were other girls in other classes who started giving me things. Naturally, no one from JHS141 or PS122 was there to tell them what a supernerd I was considered for years before. I totally lost my interest in comic books. Amazing how sudden that was. I built my world around them and worried about them and now, suddenly, it all stopped. I now sometimes wonder what was the last comic book I bought before my cousins showed up and I went off to Pa. with them. There was a book out showing the covers of Superman comics in that period and I may have found it. And the first one I missed as well. My TV habits changed. I came home much later now so I could no longer see the ones I saw in June. Actually, it was even later as now I would often wait a couple blocks down for my father and then we'd wait an hour for my mother. At night I was always out although I watched whatever was the first rock show was (Shindig? Hullaballoo?). But I couldn't develop the rock-fanaticism of normal IQ teens. I think I may have purchased my Waterloo military game about then. .... age 14 ...... There were no doors on the lockers at LICHS due to drugs and weapons so i had to carry all my stuff everywhere each day. During the FIRST week, though, I was waiting in the back schoolyard for classes to start and a bunch of white guys jumped me and wrestled my pocket radio from me. The one with the arrow dent in it. But it wasn't psychologically damaging like getting picked on as they would have gone after anyone not in a gang. And it take a bunch of them while I tried to fight them off. But I was still disgusted at being sent to the worst school in NYC after sampling Pa. I 'played hooky' for the first time in that I just walked out of the building and walked all the way home up the street that was parallel to 21st St or maybe Crescent Street. First and only time I did that. Walked miles to home. Told my parents. They told the school. I was called to the Asst Principal's office. He mostly lectured me about taking a pocket radio to school. I told him I didnt know anyone there and it was a long, long busride. They didnt find them and I didnt expect them to. I really wasnt disturbed though as they didnt actually pick on me. The whole school was full of such people attacking anyone. But the attack may have been fortuitous. My parents went to the Board of Education in Brooklyn to get me transferred ANYWHERE but there before I got killed. They refused to budge. It made my mother DETERMINED to get me out of that school as quickly as she could. She really pushed for a move to York after that. .. age 14 ..... The high school brought in a psychiatrist from NYU with a tape recorder and once a week I went down one flight of stairs from homeroom and to the end of the hall and into this little room where this guy would ask me questions and talk to me for an hour. About why such a former whiz kid from 1955-1959 who was still pulling huge scores on IQ tests wasnt working up to his potential. More 'potential' crap. But I wasn't about to come out of the closet as being a battered, terrorized nerd for five years with a crazy violent teacher and an only child/latch key kid dodging perverts of both sexes grabbing me between the legs while I was a deeply religious Roman Catholic. All I wanted from New York City was OUT!!! But what I did do, as LICHS was MUCH easier than JHS141 and I had no bullies attacking me specifically each day, was to get my grades up that first semester so they'd get off my back. (Every now and then I'd run into some tough guy jerk but I was now 6'2" and confident and wouldnt take any crap so word got around and I was left alone.).... Meanwhile back in York,Pa; Tues Aug 4 was Downtown York Sales Day, WED Aug 5 had the 6th annual floating circus at Kiwanis Lake, On Wed Aug 19 York got a new ladder truck, On Friday August 21 HUDSON PARK got a new lightpole. On Thursday Aug 27 the courthouse cafeteria was shut as the blind operator had meningitis, On Sat Aug 29 the Codorus Furnace was improved and on Mon Aug 31 it was decided that the street car-washing ban would stay in place. On Mon Aug 31 the catholic schools opened. An 18 year old girl was convicted of murder of a woman on Dec 12, 1963, GREAT PHOTO OF DOWNTOWN YORK in 9-2-64 issue, On Friday Sept 4, 1964 a LINCOLN HIGHWAY RELIEF ROUTE WAS PROPOSED "For the economic interests of the city" (US 30 helped kill the city), another good photo of downtown York in fri 9-11-64 issue, (stopped here at papers)

Once a dog followed me under the Plaza and I couldnt get rid of him in a way that would protect him from being run over in all that traffic. I finally ditched him in a safe place but I was then so late I just went home. Screw it. I didnt really care about school that much any more. I had enough detention just with the trains being late all the time...... One time while taking the bus south I heard a girl on the side of the bus facing the sidewalk go "Ohhhhhh! LOOOK!!" and other girls ran over. I looked out and saw two big bodybuilders walking along. They had weights in our gym class but they were just the handweights and noone showed us how to build up. I would just lift one and thrust it one time into the air. I got to where I could put increasingly heavier ones up one time apiece but thats not how one builds muscle but I didnt know that. .... I always, if possible, sat in the very back of the bus. I never trusted people behind me as I got attacked from behind for those 5 years too many times. I figured that most people were evil and degenerate as thats how they always acted towards me... ..age 14 ..... I recall once hearing the song Liberty Valence on my radio and wondering why I never heard of the movie or the song as the song was so good. Well, when it had come out I didnt listen to the radio and I only went to those matinees.... I'd usually just sit back there alone miserable about my situation in that evil city.....____________ ____________ ______________ OCTOBER 1964: I do remember the 1964 baseball pennant race very well. I had really gotten into it. I kept voting for St Louis to win at the Worlds Fair NY Daily News booth and I bet some money against long odds and I won. The Phillies flopped, losing 10 straight when 6 1/2 ahead and the Cards and Reds came up in a roar of ten straight wins themselves. And it was my METS who determined it! The Cards came into NYC in first place and had to win just one game out of three from the last place 1964 Mets. The Mets beat them once. Then beat them again, knocking them down into a tie with Philly. Then Cinn beat Philly and they were tied for second place one game behind. If the Mets could also win the third game there would be a three way tie for the pennant! But this was the ONLY time in my life I rooted against my Mets as I wanted St Louis to win the pennant. The Cardinals won and went on to play the Yanks. So, weirdly, I would now also be rooting against the other team my father worked for. ....... In Early 1964 I listened to the World Series on my pocket radio. I must have replaced the stolen one. I listened in class and then on the bus. I used to get the bus home right where I got off in the morning where it just turned out of the huge Queens Plaza. I recall listening to it daily on the bus going south farther down in Queens before turning right (east) and then right again to come all the way up north. I recall well the seventh game of the Series going south and then west as the homeruns were hit, especially the one by Mantle off Schultz. What a topsy-turvy year. I rooted against my fathers teams, the Worlds Fair, the new school, discovering York, greatest pennant races, growing so much, peoples attitudes towards me reversing themselves, etc. .... WED 8-17-99: I just swiveled around and looked up the first game of the 1964 WS. NYTimes Tuesday Oct 6, 1964: LBJ RIDES IN BUBBLETOP FOR FIRST TIME SINCE JFK SHOOTING.... Yank mound plans set with Ford facing Cards in series opener tomorrow in StLouis (vs Sadecki, 20 game winner). Photo: bleachers $1.00. Stottlemyre named Int League MVP today.. 13-3 1.42 with Richmond... Sadecki pitched Sat. but shelled by Mets in 4 run inning. WORLD SERIES SCHEDULE:: Wed Oct 7, Thurs Oct 8, 1964 in StLouis. Fri Oct 9- travel, Sat Oct 10 and Sun Oct 11 and Mon Oct 12 (Columbus Day) in NYC. Tues Oct 13- Travel, Wed Oct 14 and Thurs Oct 15 in StLouis. All games start at 1pm local time. NYTimes Oct 7 Kubek out of Series with wrist injury, Schultz hero of first game, Cards win 9-5. Length of game 1:42.... Now if it started at 1pm StLouis time that would be noon NYC time and that it lasted until 3:42 CT or 2:42 ET so that game I had to hear in school secretly. But I know I heard games on the bus.... age 14... . NYTimes friday Oct 16: KHRUSHCHEV OUSTED FROM TOP POSTS, BREZHNEV GETS CHIEF PARTY POSITION AND KOSYGIN NAMED NEW PREMIER. LABOR PARTY IS THE APPARENT VICTOR IN BRITISH ELECTIONS (Prime Minister out also!). CARDS WIN WORLD SERIES, DEFEAT YANKS 7 to 5, UAW STRIKES AMERICAN MOTORS!, HAYES, OERTER, SCHOLLANDER HELP US TAKE 8 OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS!. COLE PORTER DEAD! STOCK MARKET PLUMMETS IN WILD TRADING! Whew, lot of news that day. I recall being in the candy store under the el on 31st St by Ditmars the night before when the news hit on their radio. But here are the series game times: 2:42, 2:29, 2:16, 2:18, 2:37, 2:37, 2:40. That means they ended (NYC time) at 242pm, 229pm, 316pm, 318pm, 337pm, 237pm, 240pm. Now, as i didnt even get out of school until 430 normally, how do i have such clear memories of being on the back of the bus listening to the games? Could there have been some half days there for some reason? Midterms? There were other LIC guys on the bus.And Monday was Columbus Day but that was a travel day with no game. Beats me! The sixth game had HRs by Mantle, Maris and Kubek, though... age 14. ... The bus took forever to get me home each day as it kept going south for a while, then east, then back north for miles and miles to my house. Weird to get off at the Cheesebox stickball park under the bridge at night after getting on there in the morning for years. Symbolized reversal of my life since those visitors came for the Fair. At some point in Late, Late 64 or early 1965 I just let my father take me home. To do that I'd then walk out the front of LICHS and walk a couple blocks west towards the East River and stand across from a huge Taxi garage (That looked just like the one on the Tv show 'Taxi'). And wait for him to come. Usually about 20 minutes in the cold. We'd then go turn right near the school and go through the huge Queens Plaza. That meant he had to leave his 'shop' go west to 21st St, go up it and turn right to get me. Then we had to go south again and left through Queens Plaza (Funny how I dont even recall making even one left turn in there) and go thru the rest of the Plaza and over the bridge over the railroad yards . Were we still in LIC over there or was that Sunnyside or what? Anyway we would then go through the warehouse dustrict to near where my mother worked. But she didnt get out for another hour, I guess. So we'd go to a diner a few blocks from her place where they had GREAT burgers or we'd park a couple blocks up from where she worked near the huge plaza they had there with the giand moving stapler sign and the huge Chiclets boxes. Honeywell's huge bldg was also there and it made me think of Honeywell and Todd of TOPPER. But by the Chiclets Bldg was a hotdog vendors cart who had great hotdogs. We'd stand eating in the cold. BOSTITCH was the stapler place. Once we were there discussing Yogi Berra being fired while eating in the cold and another I recall that the song RINGO by Lorne Greene was big and I figured it reached number one because girls probably thought it was about Ringo Starr. (HMM. I can look up Berra's firing and the RINGO record)...... Once on the bus on the way down the driver stopped and threw some trouble making kids off in the middle of nowhere..... At that time Dale was getting into weight training and hanging with nastier kids than I was. He was at Aviation High. Nice looking school with a long escalator in LIC. He was getting less kind to me..... In Biology class I got in trouble by refusing to kill a frog. That was late 1965, way before the big thing about it 25 years later. I stood alone for such animal rights in those days. Being constantly assaulted by classmates for 25 years as well as neighbors putting up with Lor's crap gave me a LOT of empathy for the pain of other living things. But I considered most PEOPLE to be fantastically EVIL and cared nothing for that one species.... In English class i thought a big guy was trying to pick on me one day but before I decided what to do another guy who knew him told me that it was just his rough way and to either kid back the same way or tell him to stop. So I told him to stop and he did. But my classes in LICHS were so easy compared to my classes at JHS 141 that I did virtually nothing and was in the honors classes. And with no one picking on me I no longer feared school and my grades rose without even doing anything! My biology teacher was also the only black teacher I ever saw. .... I was in the schoolyard one day (must have been warm as we were in our gym clothes) and some other 14/15 year old boy was talking about models so I mentioned that I had this girl cousin in Pa. who planned to be a model. He shocked me by saying, "yeah, that's what they always call themselves" Huh? I asked him what he meant. He said that all whores list themselves as models and in the end they all whore themselves for money or whore themselves in marriage to some guy who has money. I never heard any of that before.... I hated lunchroom. There wasnt enough seats. Some kids actually stood up to eat. I sat with total strangers who didnt like me but not one of them put a hand on me. Everybody seemed to hate everyone else at that school. All local cliques and gangs. I almost always brought lunch but I bought something a couple of times. They had teachers at each end of the rectangular hall as it was a dangerous school..... In study hall there was this guy sitting to my right who looked like a young Tom Snyder. He had hair like mine but it had a much nicer sheen and he grew it real long in front and had a great wave across his forehead. Jet black like mine but even straighter hair. He told me he put a lot of work into it. This was the period of the Dave Clark Five and British Invasion and long hair just having come into vogue but not yet Hippie hair. I tried wearing mine that way but mine never behaved as well. I know now that his hair was healthier and he had to wash it daily which was very unusual in GREASER NYC..... I must have gotten a book from the library once because I recall sitting in that same study hall reading it. That was the first 'study hall' I was ever in and we were NOT allowed to do homework there..... I missed a gym test once and I recallthem making me do a situp test in the teachers office. Yet they never taught us how to build up for these tests. We played basketball in that gym and I was suddenly a star due to my height!! It was great! A totally unearned attribute made me popular. (This may have actually been the Early 1965 semester, I dont know), But I once screwed up with the ball as I didnt know the rules and we lost after we had won many in a row. But noone was angry as others didnt know it either. It was some weird version of b-ball...... I used to stay up late at night until 1;30am secretly in bed waiting for one specific radio show to come on. It played OLDIES from the Early 60s. Somehow I thought of it as more enjoyable music than the present stuff. But there was always this really horribly long commercial to buy land in Florida. As I could get up late for school, getting to sleep at 2am wasnt that bad. But the show was only about 20 minutes long with five for the commercial. There were no 'oldies' stations in those days. Even in a place as big as NYC oldies music was simply GONE once they moved out of the charts. ..... (((START HERE TOMORROW))).. ____________ ____________ I dont recall my 15th birthday on Oct 30, 1964. I vaguely recall Halloween on Oct 31, 1964 as it was the first one upon which I did not Trick or Treat. I had always wondered what it would be like to not be young enough to be allowed to Trick or Treat anymore. It never occured to me that one year Id really want to and the next year I'd have hit puberty so I couldnt care less... During October 1964 I probably went to the Worlds Fair at least once and to 34th St and to Hoyt Schermerhorn and to the Museum/Planetarium (No, I dont think I did anymore). I was at the park a lot at night trying to get into rock music from my radio. We probably came to York once. There was no new US 30 then so we'd go across Penna. to Harrisburg and then down. I tried it a couple times when I had my Montego. Really boring route. . .____________ ____________ ___________ NOVEMBER 1964: .. Just turned 15... I recall following the 1964 election. I had a booklet with a lot of information and I recall my father, who was for LBJ say that BG would probably do better than expected. I marked in my booklet how I thought they'd do and I gave BG a lot more states than he actually got. ............. I dont recall Armistice Day (Veterans Day) Nov 11, 1964.. ............ THANKGIVING DAY,THURS NOV 26, 1964: Believe we ate this at home. FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27, 1964: SEE ABOVE. THIS IS THE DAY WE BOUGHT THE HOUSE. So I guess this is the day that Billy showed us all how to get there. Or did my parents then give them time to move out and we go in the next time we came? Or did they, upon knowing the thing would be signed on this day, already move out as they already had their other house? Anyway, I recall that we kids were over on or around Wallace St. And the adults were all there already. And Lora didnt know how to get there but Billy did because of something else he had gone to. He said what it was but I didnt understand it at that time. So we walked into town but kept going. For the first time we went farther down Market to the creek. First time I saw it? Whenever the first time was I remember it really shocked me as no mention of any water was made and I never expected to see any way inside PA like that. We turned at Pershing and Market (I didn't know its name then). At the next corner, we were on the lefte, and diagonally across was a lot with rows of toilet bowls for sale. We kept going up. I dont recall anyone pointing out William Penn or what was across from it then: Old Hannah Penn, soon to be demolished to be the St Patrick schoolyard. (Whats weird is that we NEVER went to town that way all summer so I had no idea it was ever there or being torn down at the time). At some point we wound up on Manor Street but I dont recall the walk in between seeing those toilet bowls and seeing my house for the first time. We were on the right side of Manor passing the school there and approaching the corner and I looked across the street and the door on one of the rowhouses was open and I realized it was ours. I recall crossing the street to it but I dont recall anything for sure about entering it for the first time. I have only very vague memories of being in it then and they may be false. But I do recall my mother saying the third floor could be mine. ...... This may also be the day that Billy, Steve and Lora showed me another way to get to their house. We left my house, perhaps on this day, and walked east. Then we went through the new Hannah Penn. I guess it was already being used before they tore down the old one I never knew about. Next thing I know we are approaching housing projects!! I never suspected York would have such things. We were on the left side of the street and Lora pointed out a home and said that there was a girl in her class who lived there and whom they sent home as she had bugs in her hair. (Leave it to Lora to only speak when it was something mean. She was totally silent almost the whole walk except for that and something mean at me). Then we turned left and up a hill. And Lo! and behold! We went over the hill and there was "Masury- Connerlys" as I called it then. And Market and Sherman. I walked that same way hundreds of times in the future. ... age 15. ..... We went from Astoria, Queens to York, Pa many, many times between July 1964 and June 1965. We'd go down 21st St to under the Queensborough Bridge (59th St Bridge song bridge), turn left and up the weird circular ramp they added in the 50s, down Manhattan to where the squeegee bums were at that wide avenue stoplight. Right across Very Lower Manhattan. Left into the Holland tunnel. Through that long, long tunnel. Out and over all those weird old elevated highways so far up in the air and so rusty. They past the main factories for many major NYC products. And past WMCA whic was actually in NJ. Farther on past the huge restaurant that looked like a ship. To, I believe, Camden in a big circle. Over the bridge to Pa. Across Pa. along a big barren area of nothingness. To Harrisburg. There was always a factory with a revolving loaf of bread (or was it milk? I forget which was first) right where we got off one highway and into another. And straight down south into York. We'd pass large bldgs along the highway on the way down. And we'd always get off at George Street. Well, not always. I recall in the very beginning we'd come in from the East on the street that was there before US 30 was built and then turn right to go to Vi's house. Where we turned off the highway across Pa. to get there I dont know but there was no New US 30 then. Perhaps we got off and went down to Lancaster and over. But it seems to me that it was more often than just once a month from August 64 to June 65. i especially got a kick out of the "Chew Mail Pouch" tobacco signs near York painted on barns. Real 'country'. ...Tues 8-24-99 1202pm ________ _________ DECEMBER 1964_____ I recall vaguely following the AFL football season in late 1964 as my father was an usher. ..... In late 1964 and early 1965 we did go back and forth to the house 200 miles away via bus or car. Many times we stopped in the Lancaster bus depot on the way back and i was depressed as I didnt want to return to NYC. ____________ _____________ ______________ _____________ GENERAL LATE 1964: I actually went with my father to the movies on BROADWAY on the avenue between Astoria and Long Island City. Only time I ever was in those theatres at all. One was "LADY IN A CAGE" by Hitchcock, now forgotten. I recall just a couple of scenes: The girl in a bathtub (couldnt see anything)and the woman gouging out the guys eyes (when it suddenly turned to color) and his head being crushed by a truck. ... The other one was ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS which has just been discovered as a sci-fi classic as it was so realistic (But it had no mindless 'action' to bring the idiots)..... I went to the HUGE 5&10 in Manhattan between Macys and Gimbels and I liked a girl who worked there but she was too far away. It may have been there that I bought me first album. I wanted what ever had Dusty Springfield's "Wishin and Hopin" on it. Noone had it. But they had one that had the song by Burt Bacharachs black singer, Dionne Warwick. And get this: It was a MURRAY THE K album with he and the Beastles on it entitled, "Murray the K Brings You Their Favorite Golden Gassers'. I couldnt get away from them. But it figured that the one song I wanted was messed up and I tried to fix it and then my father got involved. I always hated it when he got involved as he always got really nasty and made things worse.... Missed a lot of school in 1964-65. We kept going back and forth top the new house. We were there for vacations and then extra days on weekends and I'd take off whole weeks. Over and over we'd get in the car, go to Manhattan, go across in to the Holland Tunnel entrance, through the weird elevated roadways of Eastern New Jersey and out to Pa. We always passed a big restaurant that was shaped like a ship. But we never ate there. I was always so excited about going there. It was almost like going to Freedomland or to the Worlds Fair in the earlier part of the year. i think we always went into Camden by a big clocwise loop and then over a bridge into Pa. I couldnt wait to get there and see the town. But I'd lay in the back seat most of the way only getting up now and then to watch the scenery. There being no new US 30 then we'd go across Pa. to Harrisburg and then down. The last 25 miles from Harrisburg were always the most exciting. I recall many times passing the billboards in the dark. There was one I'd always wonder about. It showed a young couple living among a fine housefull of furniture. How would they get all that money so young, I wondered. I learned how in college: from their parents. (The more people have, the less they earned- I learned later). We left at different times so we'd get there different times. I forget where we'd stop to eat. If at all. Howard Johnsons had a monoploy in those pre-fast food days. ...... There was then a grocery across the street that had the best salad dressing we ever hadand we all started eating salad because of it. (Store at Cottage/Manor), And a butcher shop around the corner at Manor/Jackson. I knew a guy in Astoria named W.Jackson and here was W.Jackson street (I played b-ball with him in the morns before school). And a block and a half west and a half block upwas another candy store I discovered later on. It was run by a quiet smiling lady who never spoke but loved kids. Yet the poor lady looked like a witch but she was happy and gave things to kids. ... I was in the back of the bus once and heard how badly the NY Giants with YA Tittle were doing and I thought, "Good. Time for someone else to win for a while. I dint know then that even though they always won the division they always lost the final championship. But I was rebelling against NYC. Funny how both the Yankee and NY Giants dynasties ended right when we left NYC... age 15. .. I became a real chocoholic and piled up on it on the way to school each morning. But one night I woke up in the middle of the night and immediately had projectile vomiting! I had lefet my Original Stalingrad game on the floor a few feet away from my bed with all my pieces on it and my cocker spaniel, Major, slept next to it. great dog, didnt bother it. I threw up and covered him and the board with pure chocolate. My father rusehed in and jumped all over me and really pitied the dog. I'll never forget how that poor dog looked. He stood up with a bewildered look with his hair all plastered down with chocolate. Didnt even stink. Just smelled of liquid chocolate. I had to send away for another game board and some pieces. I was able to keep some pieces of the original boardthat I used on new instruction sheets. ....... I dont recall CHRISTMAS 1964. I didnt care about such things anynmore as all I wanted was to get OUT of NYC and into YORK.. But I do believe I rode the subway to the same places just for nostalgias sake, including out to Jamaica between XMAS and New Years 64/65. .... I DO recall New Years Eve 1964/65. I was in KLEINS at 14th Street and everyone was rushing as it was about to close and I recall being up in one area (toys/games/models?) and the last few people at a register on the left as they were busily closing up and I was leaving and thinking about what a weird year 1964 was for me..... UNDER CONSTRUCTION... NOT PROOFREAD. THURSDAY 8-18-99 215pm

__________ JANUARY 1, 1965 to JUNE 1965 ___ (I'm afraid to fix typos as it keeps erasing whole lines on me today)___ __ age 15 ________ ::: Fri 8-19-99:: Actually, I dont recall precisely which things occurred in Late 1964 and which in early 1965. Obvously, many things were in both. But I know I took the train more often in early 1965 than I did in late 1964 yet I went UNDER the plaza more in early 1965 than late 1964. Unusual as the train entrance/exit was more than a bloc away. I must have walked the extra block just for the PRIVACY of going under or else I didnt take the train as much as I think I did. But anyway, I sure recall going under that plaza through those tunnels day after day. Unusual configuration down there. And ver private which is what attracted a very private person such as i was. In actuality when one walked down that flight of stairs after getting off the bus on the far south end of the plaza one saw a wide underground area. I guess it must have been 50, 60 feet wide. And hundreds of feet long to the other side of Queens Plaza, all underground. And not one other human down there but me when I went down. Very rarely did I see anyone else. There was one more stair entrance on the left from around the corner on Queens Plaza itself. And there were a coupld of staircases to go down to the next level where the trains were. One could hear the distant sound of trains below echoing in that huge mausoleum of a place. However, one could not walk just anywhere. They put up floor to ceiling iron fencing which forced one to walk along the left side for a while, then the right. So I'd get off the bus after returning from my Summer in York each day and go down there with my earpiece in while trying to listen to British Invasion music as I walked alone across the huge place. I can even recall the very few times i passed another human being on that long walk who came down the way I was going out. Usually I saw noone and all I could hear besides the earpiece was my own stride echoing in the cavernous place. I was trying to enjoy the mindless fun of most 15 year olds. But it just didnt seem to work on me. I always had to be too serious all my life as everyone expected so much out of me and my 'great potential'. (If I could be reborn I'd come back as a 100 IQ Catholic boy who married a Catholic girl right after high school and worked a regular job.)...age 15 .... The second semester I took an art class. The other people, being punks, wanted nothing to do with it. The teacher told us to buy a whole bunch of equipment! So after school one day I let my father go on without me so I missed my ride home and walked over part of the wide plaza to where the art store was and bought all the stuff. Then I get back that monday and the teacher announced the class was too crowded so a few people would be kicked out and into ANOTHER boring study hall instead. So out of all those people guess who he drew out of the hat? ME! I ran up and said, "Look! I'm the ONLY male who bought all this stuff you listed and I'm the only male you're throwing out!!!" He just turned and shook his head. Story of my life. The good decent civilized one being shafted by all. ... In the second semester three guys who knew me from JHS 141 appeared from other schools they were in the previous semester. But they were three who never bothered me. One Catholic, one Jehovahs Witness, One Prot. The prot guy, W.Jackson (Billy), ran into me at that grocery store where I bought my lunch each morning and suggested I play with a football with him at Astoria Park each morning before leaving for school. So I'd go over to the empty park before school (how weird to do something outside for a while before school) and we went to the south end, near where I listened to the radio at night and by the tennis courts, to try to kick a football over the goalposts. Then we'd go home. I dont know how he got to school. The three of them started sitting with me the second semester. Those rotten guys from the first semester vanished but I was still at the same table. Then some girls started coming by from the first semester including one from my new Geometry Class. The guys were impressed. They were the only guys at LICHS who knew I was a flamingly picked on nerd at JHS 141 and here they saw pretty girls approaching me and giving me things. "What happened?", they asked. "Beats me", I answered. I had NO idea at that time why everything had reversed so dramatically.....age 15.... Sometime in early 1965 I was on my bed watching a show about human intelligence. At the very end of the show they had someone speaking as the show as going off the air. His voice was speeding up faster and faster. At the very end the voice was going extremely fast and the last thing it said was "If you can still understand this voice at this speed please contact us at- and it was some address at a Scientific Institute at a New York University. I started to write it down as i could understand it and then I stopped myself. Is it worth bragging to them that Im one of the few who can when all such abilities ever get me is more deamnd for more work and less fun for nothing in return and more crap about my 'great potential'? No way! So I threw it away....... One time I was waiting for my father and some woman came out her door and asked me to help her get something she needed from a dreugstore right away. Put me in a bad spot as I was a person who always kept his appointments. My word meant everything to me. But it was a special situation so I ran and did it but missed my father as I thought I would. I then ran all the way over to the place where we picked up my mother miles away. All the way across the tracks and plazas of Long Island City. FINALLY got there and explained what happened. Surprisingly, he wasnt upset. ........ I recall how shocked I was to find that Julius Caesar actually wrote a book, "Caesar's Commentaries" and I would read it in study hall......... . Another time I was sitting in the car to the right of my father and we were stopped at a light. Some long-haired girl a year or so older than I walked across in front of the car and kept staring at me. My father laughed, "Look at her checking you out", he said. I was embarrassed. That girl could have destroyed me in bed. ...... Once I was across from that taxi place and the Math class girl surprised me by walking by across the street and waved at me. I wondered where she lived but I knew I would be moving to York at the end of the school year so I did nothing. A good Catholic boy, I always thought in terms of a permanent relationship.....__________ _________ _________ EASTER VACATION 1965 ________: Easter 1965 was April 18. Easter Vacation was from Good Friday April 16 to Sunday April 25. But my parents also kept me out from April 26 to May 2, 1965. Full moon on April 15 waning to New Moon on May 1, 1965:: Easter 1965 was memorable. My father and his friends, Benny and Charlie Gielbeda had gone up to York to put down the tile in the living room on top of some carpet that was there. Obviously, we were there earlier for my mother to pick it out. (I do recall being in that linoleum/ floor tiling place on West Market (which is still there. I was in it in 1998). So we may have gotten the tile that day. Father said he bought them a case of beer and they worked around the clock all a previous weekend. My mother and I were then to take the bus up and scrape the black glue off the edges of the tiles. A REALLY tough job. We then had to paint the second floor rooms. We'd work every day for two weeks. Think I had a radio on. The house was empty except for one cot to sleep in. My mother insisted I use the cot in the living room while she slept on the floor next to me. But not only was that unchivalrous but I couldnt fit on that little cot anyway so after the first night we changed places. This was the first time I REALLY got to start to know York. Every day I'd run downtown and check everything out and also go to the East side of town. I also bought almost a battleship model a day those weeks. Think they were $2 apiece back then. Still have them lined up in the third floor 'china closet'. Cost a lot of money but for some reason I had it. As the only entertainment we had in that house was the radio while we painted or scrubbed tiles we had it on all day. No TV or record player. Empty house. Many hours of WSBA "British Invasion Era" music... That was a wonderful two weeks even though Lora always treated me like garbage except when she needed my help for something. I think that for the first time in my memory I wasnt even constantly worried about having to somehow get into college, somehow pay for college in those pre-loan days, somehow survive being drafted (and NOW shipped to Vietnam) or total strangers picking fights with me.. (Or living up to my f--king 'great potential' sh-t.)... Compared to NYC back then being in York was still like being in the country. I recall that on the second floor my mother would paint the strip along the top and id paint the rest of the wall but my father said the strip was the hard part when he came up later to drive us back. I ran around with Billy and Steve a bit but we had a big age difference. Once I was coming out of the newstand on South George St and a cop outside stopped me and asked me why i wasnt in school. They were strict in those days. I told him I was from NYC and I guess he could tell from my accent. They had comics in there and although I had suddenly outgrown them I noticed that the DC comics were now having a problem competing with the new Marvel Comics and they had now put weird checkerboards across the tops of their comics and asked the kids to buy only them. How pathetic. My mother and I walked into town daily together and always by going straight out West Cottage to George Street and then towards town. But it took forever as my mother liked all the fancy shops they then had on South George. It seems incredible now but that used to be an upper-middle class and upper class area. The old mansions are still there. And for many years the Outdoor Country Club was where York Junior College had moved to in 1959. And college was a much, much bigger thing in those days. So the stores down George Street were designed for people with some money. We'd stop in them on the way to what I then called 'The Square' as the radio ads always said, "Continental Square in York". Billy and Steve would tease me about calling it that. Just this past week (8-99) I walked into town that way for nostalgia's sake for the first time in many years it is so bad now and it really takes much lomger to go that way even without stopping than through the Penn park diagonal way. Then we'd get into town and I'd follow her through the department stores for a while before often just going my own way. They once had a sidewalk sale but I dont recall if it was Easter or that Summer. But I had the last two weeks of April 1965 away from NYC. Fri 8-19-99... I recall being in the boys room with their little TV on across the room from their beds. It was at night and FREDDY AND THE DREAMERS were on TV with Freddy jumping like a jackass on stage. Was it Ed Sullivans show on Easter Sunday? Or the Sunday fater it? I say this because I just came across their song being #1 on Easter 1965. Anyway, Loralee then popped in from the other room and giggled at Freddies antics and made comments to the group of us. At least she wasnt insulting or teasing me. ____________ ___________ ___________ BACK IN ASTORIA/LONG ISLAND CITY: Only once in my whole life do I recall my father ever driving all the way down to the Carvel in Long Island City to bring back some ice cream for my mother. On that ONE day a policecar stopped him the moment he pulled out of the lot with the ice cream and refused to tell him why. Decided to run a check to see if the car was stolen. I seem to recall that car as a little station wagon yet I thought that was the time he still had the 1964 car before the crash (whenever it was) or the 'tank' (a Nash). Anyway, the cop keeps us sitting there for 20 minutes in the hot sun and then lets us go. My father held his temper all the way home. Just a look of disgust at his bad luck. But he was rightfully angry that the ONLY time he promised his wife to bring back ice cream was the only time he got stopped...... I recall standing out in a hall at LICHS waiting for a teacher to show up to unlock a door and people either playing or kidding about Herman's Hermits songs. "Don't Know Much About History", etc. Was I in a History course Ive forgotten?....Fri 8-18-99 409pm .. _____ _____ THE BIG CRASH:: (And its relationship to the future death of my mother):: Monday Aug 22, 1999 (My father's birthday is Aug 24, 1922): My father picks me up one day across from that Taxi garage a couple blocks west of LIC HS. We go up and then turn right as always. We stop at the corner redlight and wait for our chance to go across the huge, huge Queens Plaza. The light changes, we start to go and here comes this car careening madly down the plaza from our left (east). It's bouncing off other cars and going through the lights. My father hits his brakes but the front of his car hits the other car and it spins around and around and across the large plaza before finally coming to a stop. Good thing it was that plaza so it could keep spinning without hitting anything else. Turned out the woman driver was on the same drugs my mother I recall standing behind the refrigerator and how bad I felt as I'd gotten attached to that car. It was the one that took me to so many things in the past few years. ... ..... ...... At some time after this we got the car I called "The Tank" as it was such a square box. It was a NASH. Not a Nash Rambler. An old Nash. Some old lady in Queens had it in her garage since her husband died and I went with my father when he bought it. She didnt know what it was worth and asked too little but my father gave her more. He was a yeeling weirdo but scrupulously honest about such things. Actually, he was always more interested in being honest and kind to others than to my mother and me. He seemed to crave impressing others while not caring about what we thought of him. My boy cousins and I would kid about the 'Tank". I dont know where that little station wagon came from unless it was my mothers when my father was teaching her to drive. ...... That second semester I was flunking both of my Moron/Memorize courses that took no brains, just memorization (French and Geometry) with flying colors. French was nothing but memorizing for hours a bunch of illogical, unscientific crap. ))))). In German the guy sitting next to me was flunking badly and he started loudly mocking the teacher. He'd tell him off and then get on me for not doing the same. "Hey, we're flunking anyway so what's the difference?" Well, I didnt hate the teacher. I hated the mindless memorizing. I just wanted to wait for the Regents to pass. They had to give you a final grade within one grade of your Regents score. I do recall i kept saying the Polish pronounciation of a word instead of the French. Something like Dzusska instead of Jusca. .... I who was in the TOP ONE PERCENT in the country in Math ability all my life and was quite a whiz with equations was carrying a 45 in Geometry. Thats equal to a zero. It was the lowest the school could give you. I missed many weeks and many tests while in York, Pa. I HATED mindless memorization and would NOT do it. And that girl who had the biggest crush on me of all the girls who did that year was in that class. My 45 didnt matter to her. (Funny how she only knew me at the one year I was bad in Math and didnt know what I did on my Regents on the last day of school) Yes, New York had the REGENTS EXAMS. And the whole state was tested. And the tests had to mostly be the REAL Math so they could be graded quickly. There couldnt be many proofs to memorize as the grading had to be done by computer. So the rule was that whatever your REGENTS grade was the teacher HAD to give you a final grade within one grade of it one way or the other. This teacher really disliked me. She expected me to be her star pupil and I was her worst! I was already sick and tired of everyone expecting so much out of me all my life because of my so-called "great potential". I never got a damn thing out of it other than work and worry and I had to miss so much of my childhood to try to be what grown-ups wanted me to be. Then many of the same grown-ups would wonder why I was so weird and different from others. Well, duh! So I studied up for the REGENTS. I lay back in my bed and simply read the book cover to cover. Just a thick softcover. I can learn and understand quickly but I wont memorize. The test day came and I went through the test like it wasnt there. I scored a big "A+" on the statewide test. How it must have grated on that teacher when she HAD to raise my grade from an F to at least a B. All she had cared about was the mindless memorization of unexplained proofs rather than the intelligent equations. On my report card was her original 45 F with all the insults crossed out and a "B" in its place. That B was the lowest grade she was allowed to give me.... I don't recall if it was in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade but there was also a test called the IOWA ACHIEVEMENT EXAMS. It told you what you were best in. Had about twelve categories. A "50" meant you were average and normal. I got mostly 99s which also caused another shrink to be called in to interview me and tell me that I should do nothing with my life but work around the clock to realize my 'great potential' (Yeah, thats why the Unabomber cracked and why he was a 55 year old virgin ).... ..... At some time probably in May or June 1965 I finally saw my first REALLY LONG-haired male of the 60s. I was at Hoyt- Schermerhorn, on the far end at the fanciest dept store with the elevator OPERATORS and I was approaching the escalator. In front of me on my way there was a male about my age, maybe a year older, with hair down to his shoulders!!! I just stared at him from behind. There was a guard to the left of the escalator and he looked back at me and shook his head............ I still remember my very LAST DAY of school at LICHS. I came up from the subway that morning after listening to music all through the tunnel and I stopped and stared diagonally to the left at the top of the stairs out of the subway. A HUGE school. Much bigger than York High would be. And I thought, "This is my last day of school in New York City and I recall my first day of Kindergarten. And I'll soon be in York to go to THEIR really SAFE, NICE high school and Ill be in that town which is so much, much better than NYC."... At lunch on that last day I was sitting with the two guys who showed up from JHS141. We had to clean out our gym lockers and we were all waiting for lunch to end. My last lunch there. William Jackson, Orlando Tanzi, Davis Diakoff and me. I started absently tapping my lock on the table. NOT on purpose. Then Billy did it as well. Then the other two guys. Then it spread and the whole overcrowded lunchroom was doing it in an enclosed room with no windows. Teachers went nuts trying to stop it and dragging people off. They FINALLY got everyone quited down. They knew it started in our area but didnt know whom to blame. Things are quiet for a couple of minutes. Then Billy tries to start it all over again by tapping his. This time they are on him like a shot and he gets dragged off for punishment on the last day of school. I never saw him again after all those football mornings and lunches. To this day every time I go one block towards York College or York Hospital etc. and cross W.JACKSON STREET I think of him... . My father picked me up in his car (tank) to pick up my mother on the last day of school and, for some reason, he went around the school. And there on the porch was the really handsome guy who looked like the star of THE MAN FROM UNCLE. He was sitting on the side steps with a beautiful girl on either side of him. (Mon Aug 22, 1999, 210pm)...... During all the years I lived in NYC I never once heard another kid seriously talking about driving a car. Not even at Long Island City High School. NYC simply did not have the car-culture of smaller towns. Many families were too poor for even the parents to have cars. And the driving age was higher than other places and even then they didnt want NYC people to have cars so it was almost impossible even for people older than teenagers to pass the test. The whole idea of driving a car was not in my mind even though my parents actually had one. 8-25-99......... (I came up with more info over the weekend. I'll add it somewhere later)

My Snazzy List of Links