------- YORK HIGH 1965-1967------NOT PROOFREAD ---------- SUMMER 1965::: _____ me: 16, Father: 42/42 8-24-65, Mother: 37/38 7-17-65, Major: 5/6 6-30-65____::: So in late June 1965 on some date I should have remembered I wound up with my mother in York. This was to be permanent. I forget when much of the furniture was brought up or bought. But I recall that I was given the third floor all to myself and I had a double bed with post lamps. Perhaps we bought the bed dowtown on West Market Street earlier that year. I recall being in the bedding place then (and not again until about 1997). But this could be a false memory. I might have still just had my regular bed there and not gotten the big one until later. (Because I also seem to recall that when I had the big fancy one in the center of the room and wanted to push it to one side in 1969 my father wouldnt let me. He said I now had a beautiful room like the magazines for the first time and I wasnt going to mess it up. So maybe I didnt get that bed until later. But at some time I sure do recall carrying a bed up those stairs.)But a bed of some sort had to come into that place between Easter when I slept on the floor and June. All I can recall of my room then was that I had the bed to the right with the head against the right wall and the foot aimed at the windows across the room and right between the windows I had a record player on a stand. I cant recall where anything else was. As soon as I could I ran right out towards York. In those days I didnt even know the diagonal routes to Downtown so I would go all the way along Cottage to South George and then north to town. Beautiful walk in THOSE days. It was hot and very bright out my first day there. I went past the Post Office and right at the corner south across from the post office there were a few black bums on the corner just hanging out. That shocked me. I had never noticed poverty in York before. Or black people. One asked me for a coin and I gave it to him. He then asked me if I knew his son at York High. I told him I had just moved to York that day and hadnt started school yet. That was my first experience as a regular resident. I recall thinking how horrible it must be for his son to have an alcoholic father begging money downtown. I then went through downtown and out Market Streetand for some strange reason i really recall the floor covering shop at the corner of Market and Ridge Ave. By York Barbell. (That place closed briefly in 1998 and reopened and still looks the same)I forget if I had gone through the stores again but I went looking for Billy and steve and they werent there. So I just walked nostalgically around the places they showed me almost a year before. I recall I went thru Allen Field to its north side for the first time ever and I turned left to see what was there and I wound up going over a bridge in the woods- over both I-83 and the Codorus Creek. I was surprised that they had never taken me there as it was so interesting ..... I remember the very first time I walked over to the Colonial Shopping Center with my mother. I was pulling one of those two wheel carts (we'd do it many times, I recall the wheel finally came off and we both kept trying to jerry-rig it). We went up Springettsbury. And we turned right at that corner at George. I especially recall turning that corner like it was today. Then we went on to the supermarket that used to be there. We didnt know it at the time but the whole center had just been renovated. I only know that now as I looked thru the old microfilms. We had no idea that it was just redone, we just thought it looked nice. I dont recall what we bought or even moving around in there but I do recall that at the checkout there were MAD magazines and I was thinking how the 'new' ones (1965) would never be worth anything but my 'old' ones (1950s-1964) would. As if a year would make a differnce. But a year is a long time to a 15 year old. Then I recall pulling it all back. We brought the old refrigerator from Astoria but the one they left was so good we used it instead and put the other one in the garage. (Does this mean that my first trip to that center could have been when we were there around Easter? Did we have the electricity on and it plugged in?? )........ WELCOME WAGON came to the new homeowners. I had never heard of it before that. Everything in our living room was all set up (This means a LOT of work was done between May 1, 1965 when my mother and I returned from painting and scraping and late June when we finally moved in for good). I sat in the chair near the hall entrance and I forget where my mother and the woman sat. But she kept giving us all sorts of freebies. Big cans of potato chips. Six packs of various sodas from different companies. Candies. And lots of gift certificates. I recall that soon after she left we went downtown to get a bunch of them and one was for a plant at the flower shop on West Market past the Bon Ton. She also was telling us all about the York Little Theatre. That was the first time I realized York was a snack food capital....... . The silence on the third floor was unbelievable. Just like over on Wallace Street. And the papers said they had just destroyed all the main lairs of mosquitoes the days before. So unlike Astoria where the mosquitoes drove my mother crazy with their bites (And me with their buzzing), there were none all Summer.... from the third floor I could look out and all the way across to the reservoir and its huge flag. It was York Junior College then and the neighborhhod was all privately owned homes with the owners living in them themselves. very quiet and very clean and prosperous end of town..... My mother and I went downtown to a street fair soon after arrival. I recall standing next to her on the southeast corner of the Square by some booths. I found a stand on the south side of West Market with Pittsbiugh Steeler souvenirs and I wondered if there were Steeler fans here. The Steeler fans were terrible in those days. I had NO idea that they were mostly Baltimore Colt fans here in Pennsylvania. The presence of the Steeler stand once again gave me the impression that we were deeper into Pennsylvania than we were. I bought a 1964 plastic Steeler Helmet bank that I still have and something else. I forget what..... For quite a while my mother and I went downtown by going straght east on West cottage Place until we hit South George Street and then straight up George into town. Not only because we had no idea what was diagonally between our house at Cottage/Manor (might have been winding streets as far as we knew) but because George Street was then so nice with such fancy little stores. But had we walked diagonally through the mich more boring residence area we would have seen them tearing down the old Hanna Penn north of Penn Park and east of York High and next to St Patricks Church. I never knew it was ever there until many, many years later (1980s?, 90s?) and I only this past week, 8-24-99 today, saw photos of it. (tripod was down for a while so I just added more to my Angelfire page on North George St 1964)... .... Within a few days of moving in I went downtown in an afternoon and found myself in a big factory complex I didnt realize existed but was just south of the Greyhound. I recall being in the alleys with factory buildings on each side of the constricted ways. Just this week i found a photo in the microfilms taken in those alleys, or walkways between buildings. Yet the silence did not seem unusual to me. That means i must have been there either on a weekend or on July 4. It wasnt until much later that I learned that they were the abandoned Farquar Tract that would still be there in the early 70s. I then thought they were part of a thriving factory.I also recall it was a weird very bright yet cold Summer day. And very silent. In the 90s I had forgotten all about that and i was walking through an alley across the street on a Sunday that was very bright, very cold for Summer and very silent. I had a feeling of deja- vu. Then I went home and watched the 6pm news which said that the day had tied a 1965 record for cold on that Summer day...... There was a grocery store across the street which had fantastic salad dressing and we wound up eating a lot of salad just for the dressing. It was "Aunt (somebody's) Salad Dressing" (Nellies???)..... We heard about Ordell Brasses Tremont Restaurant down the street by Cleveland Avenue but we didnt know who Braase was...... The Bon Ton had all this Boy Scout stuff on the Mezzanine. Never saw it in NYC. Boy Scouts mainly a small town middle class thing....... I found the church that was connected to that steeple I had always wondered about when I watched softball games at Allen Field. It was on East Market a block before the Lincoln Hwy Garage..... My mother once said, "I dont like this thing they do with the tires here". I later found out she meant when they made a noise starting off from the stop sign in front of our house. Which I learned in York High was called 'burning rubber' or 'leaving rubber'. Teenagers didnt drive in NYC.....I noticed there were no planes close overhead. One never heard them at all. Only ones visible were way, way up in the air.. age 15 ... A 'diaper truck' went down Manor Street periodically. Never noticed that back in Astoria..... age 15 .. ...I'll never forget the night of July 4, 1965. I had my windows opened, my screens in and I heard not one explosion!!! Unlike in NYC where it was as noisy as a warzone....age 15 . ... One night I recall well was my very first Friday Night in downtown York (which means that the first night I called home was either a Wednesday or after I finished this trip later): I kept going up North George Street for the very first time from town. Just before the rr tracks (North St.) I noticed a large group of men standing outside the corner bar waiting for something. Then I noticed there was a sign about crabs coming in fresh from Baltimore. So I figured they were waiting for them. Yet they were looking north which was something I couldnt understand unless they were shipped to Harrisburg and then came down from there. I kept walking north. It's funny now how LONG the walk seemed as it was at night and the first time. I was looking to see if there were any more store areas to find. This was before i went to either Queensgate or Fields or York Cty Shop Center. I went over the bridge. I looked up and saw nothing. I dont recall if this was just over the bridge or up farther at the foot of the big hill next to the cemetary. But I saw a whole lot of traffic coming out from the right and not down George Street so I surmised that it must be the way to the stores. But when I turned that way I found nothing so I turned back. That walk is ridiculously short now but seemed so long and strange and unfamiliar then. The only thing I can figure is that the traffic I saw was coming out of Small Athletic Field. But what was it for? If it was for a friday night football game that would mean that I had gone all Summer without trying to go north and that this incident didnt even happen until September 1965. When are crabs good to eat? If so that means that we did not see JM FIELDS until even later than that!!! (I thought this was a July 65 incident and it may be a Sept 65 incident!. I know that supermarket up there sure impressed me. It was bigger than any one in Astoria and even had a big import section. ....age 15 .. ... I recall walking with my mother over to Vi's but I am unsure if these memories all took place on the same day or even if they were all in the Summer of 65 or also in April 65. Anyway, we walked down Cottage to George, down George to Market, and out Market towards their house. We stopped for a soda at where Broad Street is now. In those days there were no housing projects there and there was no Broad Street through there either. Broad started at Market Street. That was a very long block on that side. There was a gas station there where Broad ended and a cooler inside with bottles of soda in swirling cold water. I got one and we moved on. Next to the gas station was a restaurant. And at Fulton around the curve there was the theatre and a bunch of stores where that one large bldg is now. But my mother and I eventually got to Vi's. I went upstairs to look for Billy and Steve and they werent there. So I waited in their room reading a comic or something. I noticed that Lor's room was different. She got a new four-poster bed with canopy and it was now with its headboard against the sidewall at a right angle to the doorway. The old one was parallel with the doorway. (I just thought of something this instant! Was that why I got that huge fancy new bed and multi-colored light posts? My mother was the keep-up-with-the-Joneses type, like many women, and maybe she got me mine because of that. I do recall she had the habit of comparing Vi and Lora with herself and me and always offering to buy me the same things Vi got for Lor AND her brothers. As if it was some sort of " I love my one kid more than you love all of yours" thing. She wanted to move out of NYC but she picked York for me and would even ask me if I wanted the Cottage house walls to be redone like Vi's house. Hmmm? Maybe THAT led to that fancy bed I got. Problem was that I almost never had any of the same interests as other boys, much less girls). Anyway, the boys never came back to their room but Lor did and she walked right past me without any acknowledgement of my existence. This combination of snubs and insults would go for years. I then left... age 15 ... I was then trying to get into rock music like other teenagers but I couldnt seem to get anywhere near their level of excitement. Being scientific and systematic I bought a couple of albums that explained the beginning of and development of rock and roll starting with 1964 and the earliest music. My logical plan was to start at the beginning and get albums up to the present and maybe I could figure it out. I did like some of it but usually the softer type and it wasnt anything I was able to get hysterical about. So one day Vi comes with the three kids. Probably Lor was dragged against her will. They all came into my room on the third floor and Lor mostly had bad things to say. She also looked at my couple of albums and said, "EWWW! You dont have anything good!". That was typical of the way she always was towards me and anything about me. I talked my parents into moving to York only to find a new bully within my own family.... age 15 ... I remember that at the end of my very first night in downtown York until 9pm, which had to be either a Wednesday or Friday I went over to the gas station that used to be by the Market Street bridge over the Codorus and on the sidewalk on Pershing Avenue to its side was a phonebooth and I remember calling my mother at home... age 15 ... We were always getting a lot of wrong numbers for "Grim" and it ticked my mother off. I later found out it was the business which is right off Mt Rose Avenue a block away from where Gruvers? pharmacy is. Theirs was something like an 854 to our then 843 or whatever. Our old 1965 number has been the number for the second hand furniture store on South Pine for many, many years now. .... I dont recall what I did on Sundays then as they had Blue Laws then and everything was closed. ... age 15 .... Every morning I sat in the chair by the backdoor and read the Gazette and Daily and followed the 1965 NL pennant race and the collapse of the Yankees.... I remember walking a couple/few blocks up South George Street to a store that had a bookrack in the window and taking forever before choosing a softcover book on ROMMEL, THE DESERT FOX. Cover was black and red. I still have it. Wish I dated it. Earlier movie made from it. Now that I was no longer a comic book fanatic I was looking for something else to read while eating.... Some times we'd take the cab somewhere in York. I remember they had a LOT of room in the back and a folding seat for an extra passenger..... Once when my father came to visit we were coming back to park late one night and as we pulled into a spot at Manor Street around the corner from the house we saw something huge running. My mother got excited. "What was that??!!", she jumped. Later we learned about 'groundhogs'. We had never heard of them...... Bridge in those days on Market Street had gratings and if you went over at the right speed it looked like you were flying over the river. It was interesting to cross there as well as you could see the water below... age 15 .... I didnt want to look bad in gym as I did in NYC so I spent a lot of time on the third floor trying to teach myself flips and other gymnastics...... ...... At some point I learned that WEISTS downtown had wargames! A little town like this! I didnt realize it may have been because we were so close to Baltimore (Avalon Hill).. age 15 .. I dont know when I first learned of Bear's Cafeteria.. age 15 .. Couldnt get the NY News anywhere on my side of town yet Vi got it over where she lived at the Market St newsstand. Maybe she reserved it.... My mother used a cleaners on East Market Street for a while. That was a long walk. It was a while before we learned there was a much closer one on a street that curved just a couple blocks from our house..... There was a butcher shop at West Jackson and Manor Street. We'd go in the back door. So trusting in this town then. Sawdust on the floor. Mother would get meat there. There were many little shops within a block or two of our home then.... Tuesday 8-24-99 fathers birthday, 354pm... wed 8-24-99, went to Glen Rock, then to eat at The Authors Cafe next to the movies at Queensgate, PSU kids all back today, made many inserts above and on other 1964/65 pages. 314pm: ...... One night my mother and I heard a lot of noise at the door and we thought someone was trying to break in. Suddenly my father, who was supposed to be in NYC, came in following Major on a leash. I was looking over the second floor railing with my mother at him when he looked up and said, "I took Major for a walk and we wound up here" (Im sure of the first six words but not perfectly the rest). We were very happy to see him then. (He was always nice for the first few days after one hadnt seen him for a while. Then he got mean again).....age 15 ...... The boys got a new bike. They rode it all the way over to visit. I think that was the very last time they visited without being driven over. I recall standing at Cottage/Manor in the street at Manor and them telling me to try it. I was nervous as I hadnt ridden a bike since when? 1963? I got on and rode down to Jackson, one block, and then back. I didnt ride a bike again until 1976.... age 15 ..... My mother and I would play badminton in the back yard. The tree was still back in the lefthand corner then and there was still a garage. We played until my father moved in and accepted a plant from his nephew in Japan and planted it right in the middle of the yard in total disregard to our badminton. That is how he really was. We never could play badminton again and that weird plant is still there and needs constant trimming.... .... I bought a jacket like the one I saw Murray the K wearing on the cover of that Golden Gasser album. It was black with a red 'V' from the shoulders. Got it at that 'special' teenage clothing shop on South George (The Hub). didnt know until later that it was one of the 'acceptable' places for York High people to get clothing.. age 15 .. During the Summer I bought ENEMY ACE comics about a WWI German flier modelled on von Richthoffen. Great stories and art. Also had an ad for a VIETNAM GAME!! Shocked the heck out of me. It was a new war and noone really cared about it the way they did about past wars. It was named 'GRUNT', which I did not understand and it wasn't Avalon Hill and only sold via the comics. WWII vets put an end to ENEMY ACE comics for showing Germans as humans. They were the same old jerks who would equate Ho Chi Minh with Hitler trying to conquer the world and support non-guerrilla tactics in a guerrilla war..... age 15 ...... I wonder when I bought that AFRIKA CORPS game?.....Did I mention that soon after we got to York in the Summer of 65 we saw a Cadillac in front of that music store on S.Beaver near market and all its chrome was painted black and we thought they were strange Amish rather than Mennonites..... .. Discovered 'Ice Cubes' candy at a store across and south from the post office, where a drugstore is now. Mother pointed out it had Hazelnut flavor in it which appalled me as I avoided nuts. But I still thought they were great.... Also kept getting rock candy at Peoples Drugs.... Jan 1965 to Jan 1967 York had a Congressman who WASNT a Goodling but I forget who. We moved in during that LBJ landslide period...... ... I built a model of the Russian Badger nuclear bomber, hung it from the ceiling and put on a card I bought saying 'None would dare bomb this place and end all this confusion". My father thought a Russian bomber was improper to have. But it stayed up until the Hurricane of 1972 knocked it down... age 15 .... One Night in Summer 1965 I noticed there was a thing in the window of Cumberland Valley on Market Street advertising against "War Toys". Leftie propaganda, I thought. I was walking from the west so I must have started coming up past Penn Park the way that Billy showed me the first time. I still had never down the diagonal route...... Another time they had a great display in there of all the ships in the sea battle of the Spanish American War!!! That I still recall well. ... I especially liked the idea of a bank letting people do things like that. It never happened in Astoria... age 15 .... I used to like to run at night as York was so safe and nice but Vi told me I shouldnt or the police would think I was running from something.... Billy and Steve told me that Lor had gotten injured by the push-carousel at Hudson park when I was in Astoria and she later told me she got involved with a girls softball team there.... age 15 ..... Thurs 8-27-99 111pm: From July 17 to August 1,1965 I was VERY aware that it was the first anniversary of my two weeks in York in 1964 and how vastly everything had changed. For me, everything for the better except for Lor suddenly turning against me...... I remember the first time I went to JM Fields with my mother. Vi told us about it. So we got on the bus somewhere. (Funny how I have NO memory of where the downtown busstops were in the 60s) and we went up North George Street in the old buses the private company used. I still have a vivid memory of looking out the window up just before we turned left from George Street. There was no Dunkin' Donuts on the left there yet. It was a gas station. I was surprised to see JM Fields and the huge supermarket next to it. In what was then not US 30 but a large avenue far fewer bldgs. I dont recall the first time I was in it or the trip back. I did note that I should have continued walking up that other night I was wondering what was up North George.... age15 ....... My mother and I went way out East one summer afternoon. I guess we went to the York County Shopping Center for the first time. At the very first intersection from it towards town (where there are three gas stations now) there was a square glass restaurant on the northeast corner called THE DOGHOUSE that served hotdogs. My mother got something with fries and I ate hotdogs? hamburgers?. But my mother couldnt eat most of the fries so she pushed them onto my plate. A couple minutes later two waitresses came over all bent out of shape asking me where I had gotten the fries. I dont recall if they just thought they had forgotten to put the fries on our bill or if they had a rule about shifting fries but it was embarrassing. They made us feel like scrounging bums and we had money then..... age 15 . ..... One night I was walking by the old little gas station that used to be where the all-night Sunoco on N.Sherman is now and I saw a weird sight. There was a car jam-packed with men shoulder to shoulder parked in front of it. Suddenly a guy got out of each side and started yelling at me to come to them. No way. I figured they were like subway 'homos'. I just kept walking away. Finally, one guy pulls out his badge and yells, "Police!". So then I stop, turn around and approach them. "Why didnt you come when we called?", he asked. "I didnt know you were police", I said. They then told me they were trying to find someone who was breaking windows with rocks along Allen Field. They let me go....... I went under the little bridge over the RR tracks by Sherman and used some soft rock as chalk to write my name under the bridge, watching out that I wouldnt get in trouble. (In 1969 kids used SPRAY PAINT all under there!)... age 15 ..... I recall having sodas and coffee in the old Delphia. I never could understand the teenage love of pinball machines. They had one in the back left corner that was always being used. You could also go in and out the back door there.. ..age 15 ........ One thing my mother and I really did get a kick out of was how one could go from store to store downtown via the alley as they all had back doors. Some had registers by their back doors on small tables. Very trusting..Thurs 8-27-99 146pm.......... Across from the big Catholic Church on S.George there was a candy store downstairs where they sold 5c comics. I wound up buying some to read in bed at night. Bldg is still there.... I'll have to look it up but one night I was getting ready to take out the metal can of garbage (No big plastic garbage bags yet) and I heard that the two football leagues had agreed to play the very first Superbowl! I remember thinking of it as I carried the big heavy metal can through the tunnel between row houses. (I wonder why the NY Times INDEX doesnt have a section just listing the big news of each day? .... age 15 .... My mother took me through the front doors of York High to enroll me there for the first time. We went in the back and they said they did not yet get my records (which I guess implied that my mother had applied for them) and they were going to put me into normal classes but my mother would have none of that and started telling them how smart I was and all that stuff. As mothers will. So they signed me up for smart classes again and also made me take an IQ test which I whizzed through. (Later that year I was told to go to my guidence counselor's office. I went in and he wasn't there but my test was showing and it had, in red, a 150+ with a red circle around it so I guess it went up to 150 and I got a 150. 140 is supposedly 'genius' but I never met a genius, not even in Astrophysics)...... age 15 ...... I recall well the very first time that Vi took us to Pinchot Park. I remember riding there, especially when we made the right turn off the main road up the hill. And I recall lying on the beach near my mother as Lor walked from left to right glaring meanly at me wondering what the hell was wrong with her for the past year. I tend to think of this as the Summer but as I learned that the Neffs had a tradition of going there on Labor Day it may not have been until Labor Day 1965. (see 1965 Calendar)..... age 15 ...... I recall being in that fancy supermarket next to JM Fields and my father being there. I recall being in the back left corner with employees going in an out a grey metal door and all the produce around....... At somepoint I discovered 5c Hershey ice cream... Thursday 8-27-99 302pm....... On the second floor of our new house my mother made herself a sewing room out of the room in the very front that had a bay window over the sidewalk. The door to it was right across the hall from the stairs that led to my third floor room. One day the kids and Vi were over and I was upstairs. (This may or may not have been on the same day as an incident above). I thought all of them were on the first floor. I went down the stairs and there was Lor just inside the room sitting alone on a couch along the wall next to the door. She was just staring straight ahead and thinking and thinking. Beats me what she was so serious about. But I quietly snuck down the rest of the stairs, around the corner and down the hall as she would have just been snotty to me... 8-31-99 9-1-99: THE GREAT NEW YORK CITY BLACKOUT hit the town right after we move out after all those years of living there. It didnt reach York, Pa thank goodness. My father directed traffic with the light on 21st St out. ...........

------------ AUTUMN 1965?? ---- age 15 ----- ::: mod, go-gos, turn-on, Julie Christie, Swingin london, Edwardian suits, poor-boy sweaters, pants suits, bell-bottoms, skateboards, white go-go boots, thigh-high skirts, op-art, pop-art, camp, slot cars, pop-tops, paper clothing, James Bond, Man From Uncle, anti-Vietnam, search-and-Destroy, teach-ins, Medicare, War on Poverty, head Start, Job Corps, John Lindsey, black-out, Watts, Lady Bird Beautify America, koufax, Mays, round-top shoes, Ringo's marriage, Astrodome, LBJs scar, Deaths: Churchill, Stevenson, Schweitzer, Murrow, Nat king Cole, Sam Cooke, Make Love Not War........ My mother and I walked all the way over to the little group of stores on East Market st next to the theatre by State Street to go into the 5&10 there to buy stationery for school. I have no idea why. Maybe we had a Welcome Wagon coupon. Maybe there was a newspaper ad. Maybe we were going to Wallace St. That was the longest time I ever spent in there as my mother wanted to root around...(That store got ruined by a train going off the track a couple of years later).... age 15 ..... I well recall waiting outside for my first day of school. I had met noone that Summer. Too bad I had no relatives my age rather than that damn Loralee. I had no idea how they dressed or anything else and I didnt want to start off looking like someone completely weird. I stood fo a long time waiting for the bell to ring. I stood near the corner of Pershing and College but up towards the school a few carlengths. I saw all the other teenagers farther up the block on both sides of the street. I must have stood there 20 minutes or more just waiting. I knew noone and knew where nothing was. But the bell finally rung, I waited for most of the others to go in first and then I went in. But I had to search for the room as I had never been through the halls before and I recall walking in what would be the wrong direction up a ramp. I finally got in late and told them I was new. ...... These guys had mostly never met a New Yorker before and it seemed to work for me rather than against me. It turned out that small town teens were a bit impressed by NYC which to me was just a nasty place. Whenever anyone mentioned my accent to me I'd say that they sounded to me like they had a slightly southern accent and we could vote on who has the accent: 50,000 Yorkers vs 8,000,000 New Yorkers...... My first day in my World Cultures Class the woman teacher announced who I was and where I was from. Suddenly the girl sitting right in front of me turned around and said, "You're from New York City??!!!!" She had the very first "Breathtaking" face I had ever seen!! Unbelievable beauty. And she was impressed by me. Name was Darlene. That figured. .... Nowadays,1999, York is awash in New Yorkers due to both York College mostly recruiting them and people running from NYC to here to live. But back then I was one of a kind...... My mother got a job at the Bon Ton. In the basement buyers office using her Accounting Certificate. Sometimes Id walk her home from work. Sometimes she'd walk home at night from work alone through Penn Park which was perfectly safe in those days. It must have been in the Fall after signing me up for school that we sometimes would walk through the park either way. I recall the huge, wide fountain and the old statues and the bandstand. There was as yet no vandalism.... age 15 .... My mother and I took the bus to the York fair. I seem to recall they had this weird tradition of having one day of school and then giving the kids the very next day off to go to the Fair. We got on the bus downtown somewhere and went west for the very first time. I remember vividly seeing Salem Square for the first time and thinking we were so very, very far from my house on Cottage when in fact it was just south of the square and over the bridge. I remember the statue and the park around it well. We went in through the East Market Street gate which in those days was across the street, not from a Giants shopping center but from a department store with steep steps (Kings??). We went into the fair and the very first thing there was a freak show to the left at the entrance. They since moved it to the back. I dont recall anything else about being there. Then we WALKED home. It was, to me then, the longest walk I thought I ever took. As it was all new to me. I dont recall the walk itself but I recall coming up West Cottage place from the west and being shocked to see my new home. I had never approached it from that direction before. I remember stepping up on the porch..... We were in that store across from the Fairgrounds sometime after that. I remember that the stuff was piled up so high one could not see very far. I also recall being in there when my father was along..... Once soon after arriving in York (maybe this should be in Summer) a car pulled up and the driver asked us where Kurtz Ave was. We had never heard of it. Turned out it was just one block north...... The first friend I made was in 'Health' class which was really sex education class. There were no more seats left. Guess I started late or something so they brought in one with those built in bookrests and I had to sit right up front aside the teachers desk on the opposite side of the room from the door by the windows. Not fun for someone as shy as I was-and in an all-male crude sex ed class. I forget the guys name who became my first friend but he was sitting next to me in what would normally be row one seat one. He led me diagonally across Penn Park after schoo one day in the opposite diagonal from what my mother and I took to Town.(which I still called Continental Square or The Square after Astoria Square. I wondered where he was going as he wasnt heading towards the street (Cleveland?) by the church. But there, lo and behold, was a small entrance right at the place where the houses turned the corner of the park. On the sidewalk just wide enough for maybe two people but not a car. And it led into a small weird courtyard with people all around and home entrances all around. I think I later took my mother to see it as it was so weird and unexpected. I followed him and it turned out he lived at 252 EAST Cottage Place. I was at 252 WEST. ..... age 15 .... That sex ed teacher would talk about all sorts of weird things. He looked like a roly poly factory worker, not a teacher. He spoke of how he had no idea how birds had sex ("Damned if I know") and his first use of a hospital bedpan. In terms too crude to put here. And how when he was a kid they worried about 'night air' being bad for people. And he said it in such a way to infer that many Yorkers still believed in such things and I thought, "Jeez. This town is getting scary. Its even MORE backwoods than I had thought." Once he shocked me after I said something by saying that he thought I was the type that didnt like girls! Did he mean asexual, not yet into puberty, mysogenic or homosexual? I've heard that so many times in my life because Im not a rutting low IQ animal like so many males..... I was shocked to see we were allowed to do our homework in study hall- they even encouraged it. And that we could sign out to go to the library. The school was MUCH easier than my nightmarish Junior High School where they really expected us to do nothing but study around the clock. Compared to JHS 141, York High's Honors Program was a joke! I did almost nothing. We were given far less to study and far less homework and we could do the homework in study hall. Once Lora said I had a rep for being 'studious' because I was seen taking my books home. I lied and said my father told me to. The truth was that after living in NYC for 15 years I didnt trust leaving my books in my locker. But I did NO work at home anyway. I did it all in my two study halls as there was so little compared to JHS 141..... I was with that new friend by E.Cottage/ S.Pine one day with other guys and someone suggested we play ball somewhere after eating. So I ran all the way home to E.Cottage, gobbled down my food and ran back and waited. Noone showed. After a long time I banged on my friends door. He answered. "Oh! We changed our mind and cancelled", he said. That was the first time I got a dose of how Yorkers virtually NEVER keep their appointments and think nothing of leaving people flat. If you add Vis not showing up at the museum in July 64 it was the second... age 15 .. Some time after that though we did wind up playing a game in the Jackson Street schoolyard (But was it with them or some other kids). I hit the first pitch for a homer over the roof and THEN they tell me its an out as they dont want to lose balls that way. Yet they didnt tell me their rules beforehand. As a 6'2' shortstop I was always great. Great relexes. I kept nabbing balls for double plays but the firstbaseman was NEVER near the base so we got none. I started off hitting well and then I went cold. That was the first and last game we played. Yorkers were not like New Yorkers. New York kids always played out in the streets. Yorkers NEVER did. They all just stayed in or waited to drive or went around with girls...... ..... I was in World Cultures Class one day with that beautiful girl in front of me (Rare that I would notice a girl is correct. I usually wasnt visually stimulated like most guys) and all of the sudden the teacher is saying something to me and suddenly ends it with " because you have such a nice smile". Im shocked. Right in front of the class. Naturally I get a lot of teasing later... Thursday August 26,1999 406pm ...age 15 ......... Friday Aug 27, 1999 324pm. Only have a few minutes here before campous closes for Spanier speech (PSU Pres.)::: I remember sitting in the stands my first day at York High gym class and the teacher telling us what we had to buy for gym. But he said something I didnt catch. So I bought everything else and went to gym. One day we were doing leg-ups on our backs and he's walking along and he stops and says, "Karwicki! Where's your jockstrap? (was he deliberately checking up everyones shorts for insurance reasons?). I said, "I never heard of that. We didnt have those in New York". He answered in a hunorous roar, "Don't you have B---S in New York ?" and everybody laughed. I did as well but I still didnt know what he meant. So I went up to him after class where he was sitting on the stands and asked. Before I could say anything he said, "Seriously, you didnt have them in New York?" I said, "No". So he just told me to go to the drugstore downtown and ask for a 'jockstrap'. I had no idea that that wasnt the PROPER name. I then went to PEOPLES DRUGS in the center of York and there was a girl my age in the back corner behind the counter and i said, "Excuse me, I want to buy a jockstrap". And she got all blushy and didn't say a word but got one for me. Then I saw on the box that it said "Athletic Supporter" and I realized what it was for..... The VERY first day I went into the MARTIN LIBRARY downtown I went around and above the main desk where the card catalogue said the war books were. I'm walking back out up there and some guy inside the stacks suddenly shows me a book photo of naked dead people in a Concentration Camp and he says, "I really get my rocks off on these dead bodies". What a ghoul!! In York. I keep going but he keeps sort of following me at a distance. I finally lose him and I figure I'm okay. And I can leave through the only exit I knew which was the way I came in. So I start to go as i havent seen the ghoul anywhere but I run into two guys I had just met in school. By great luck, it turned out. We all go out the front door and there is the weirdo on the left waiting for me and I would have walked right into him. But he does nothing as there are three of us. Counting the one that sat behind Loralee before she turned into a bitch, that was TWO of them. Unless it was the same guy!...... I was over at Allen Field with the two boys one day and they told me about Lor's new boyfriend. And here he comes with her following him like a puppy dog. A real weirdo, naturally. Doesnt say a word and tries to pose as cool. He then suddenly walks off to the left from the big green stands towards the direction of the tracks or democratic club and suddenly Lor jumps and runs after him. I then figured that Lor was a bitch to everyone EXCEPT whomever was new in her life..... The York High lunchroom was strange to me because boys and girls sat together. They did not do that in either my Junior High School or even my High School in NYC...age 15 .... I recall standing up by the window in one classroom and looking down at St Patricks wondering what type of church it was. I originally thought all the churches in York were Protestant..... I went all the way out to the ROLLER SKATING RINK one night. Wow! Did it seem to be far away way out in the country to me then. As did the Lincoln Woods. I dont recall how I got out there. Bus? But I recall the area around it and a DINER right before it was crowded with kids. I went into the diner and it was REALLY crowded and every booth was full of teenagers and many were standing. I was quite shy about being alone in a room full of strange teenagers. I kept waiting to be served but it was so crowded I finally left. I then walked out and stood on line alone to get into the rink. I had NO idea how to skate. I'm on line and all of a sudden someone hits me on the left arm. (The line was like two or three wide and Im on the outside). I turn left and a few girls had just past and one gestures for me to follow. Why me?!! Im thinking. Why do all the embarrassing weird things happen to me- out of all these other teenagers here in this line. I dont know if she or they saw me in the diner or not. But I wasnt going anywhere with some loose girl. I recall being inside and some girl from one of my classes who was very active in social things treying to get me to buy a ticket for some dance. What's weird is that I was standing on the wooden rink talking to her when she was above with the snack bar behind her. I guess they didnt start yet. I just told her, "I don't date". (I just wanted to get through high school and into college)...... My mother and I commented on how they should use the York Fairgrounds for other things than just the fair. As only the fair sign was up outside we thought that was all it was used for... . age 15 .... I was in Lor's room once with her two brothers and she put shampoo on her hair at her dresser by the door to the boys room where I was standing. She then suddenly told me to rub it into her hair for her. She knew I wouldnt as I wasnt into touching people, especially girls but she loved to embarrass and humiliate me. And tease me about being shy. Girls complained about grabby guys yet they humiliated decent guys. And in the end they all married the degenerates and not the decent guys and complained about degenerate guys acting like degenerates. Well, duh!... 356pm Fri 8-27-99..... When I left that skating rink I forgot to mention it was pitch dark out. There was nothing across the street but a huge dark field. I sure felt like I was 200 miles from NYC and way out in the country. I think a farm was there then. (It's now where the York Mall/ Wal-Mart is). Nowadays I think nothing of walking home from there but then I had never done it and it seemed a million miles away and I was dreading the walk. There was some other guy out there in the dark with me who was a couple of years older and said he was on leave from the military. He suggested hitchhiking. Well, I had never done that and was too chicken to do it. But he wasnt. He was wearing his uniform so he got the first car to stop. I got in the back and he did all the talking up front. First time I ever went through there at night along East Market Street. They dropped me off in downtown York which was completely deserted and I walked hom from there. No fear of crime at all in those days. I never saw those two again. That Lincoln Woods bar also seemed like something else to me in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 as it was also so far out of town and only people over 21 could go in. In NYC the drinking age was just 18 and they didnt even enforce that. Those people seemed so OLD to me..... ...... I was in someones car one night and was shocked to see that at the A&P on South Edgar Street they left all their watermelons out at night. In NYC they'd all be stolen or destroyed.... age 15 .... I still constantly had insomnia at night and nightmares every night as I would from 1959 to 1980 due to all my worrying about being all the things that were expected of me and getting the money to pay for it all but I had no problems in school or town in York. Unlike NYC..... age 15 ...... Teenagers didnt wear jeans in those days or those clamdiggers they wear now. They wore 'continentals' and sometimes a watered down 'Mod' look. Pinstripe shirts, leather loafers, light colored dress pants. It was the one era where it was cool to dress neatly. Before 1964 it was jeans and greasers and after 1967 it was jeans and hippies... age 15 ... The first friend I made, whose name I now forget, wound up on the 600 block of South Queen Street. On the west side 3/4 from Cottage, 1/4 before the alley. He took me in the backyard and pointed out the old car (not running) in his old garage and bragged at how he had sex with his girlfriend in it. In front of the house he pointed her out as she was coming up Queen from Cottage on the other side and bragged about how good-looking she was. My thoughts were that these York kids were sex-crazed and degenerate as even in NYC they didnt build their whole lives around dating and sex at that age..... age 15 ........ At some point we put an expandable wooden gate across the front porch so Major could be on the porch with us and not run off... age 15 ....... I bought an Afrika Corps Game. In those days such things only came out once a year as there was only one company. I recall discussing it with the guy next to me in Drivers Ed class so I must have gotten it back in NYC right before coming to York. Unless I got it in the Summer somehow. But I only had Stalingrad throughout 1964 so I had to have gotten it between Jan 65 and Sept 65........ I absolutely could not believe it when the guidence counselor signed me up for a Drivers Ed class. In NYC it NEVER crossed my mind that I'd be driving a car before my relatives arrived for the Fair in July 1964. It still was something I and everyone I knew on my block in NYC and in my high school in NYC never thought of doing. Then suddenly Im in a place where people take drivers ed at 15 and drive at 16!!! It boggled my mind to drive at 15! I went to the place everyone went behind the YWCA (Broad Street still did not go through the area yet) and applied. The guy went up and got it and gave it to me the very next day!! And I and the guy next to me would sit in the back right and tear all the written tests to pieces. The teacher would get angry when he'd ask whether each student wanted his grades read out loud and the two of us never did. We always got the two best grades as we were competing against NORMAL people for the first time in our lives. He was chosen by the local U.S. Congressman to go into a military academy............ From April 1964 when the Worlds Fair started and the 1964 baseball season began and turned into the greatest dual-pennant race ever (or since 1908) my interest in baseball stats kept going up and I was also looking for a substitute for comic books to read while eating so I started to buy baseball magazines and take baseball books out of the library. In study hall I read every baseball book they have. I have a Top One Percent mind and when I WANT to really learn something everything sticks easily so I went from knowing far less than most boys to far more over the past year. ..... age 15 ....... I got sent up and down those stands in gym once. I forget why but I had to do it all alone so I'll never forget it.... age 15 ....... I could never get used to those overnight lockers.... age 15 .... I was surprised to learn that Lora did not know what terms like 'Bronx cheer', 'the raspberry' and 'Victorian' meant. Then I realized they were probably NYC terms....age 15 ... To open a bank account to shift my college savings to I had to get a social security card in York at the Cumberland Valley Savings and Loan in either Summer or Fall 1965....... My hair was then so thick that the barber would tell me he had to thin it before he could work on it. My main barber was around the corner towards my house from the Tremont Restaurant. His little shop was actually against the right wall of the restaurant and surrounded by a yard on three sides. I'd go in without an appointment on Saturdays and just wait my turn. He had a poster on the wall from the Robin Hood show which had an ad for hair creme. Place was ancient on the inside. At least to me. Was all 40s and 50s stuff on the walls. When I let my hair get too long he'd try to talk me into a crewcut like it was 1960 rather than 1965. Nice guy but a little conservative. When Tremont burned down I dont think it was touched but it was no longer used until they finally tore it all down.... age 15..... I also went to a barber on S.George around the corner from West Cottage. His big glass window is still there. He was VERY right-wing with posters and stickers supporting the war and condemning Hippies. Seats on the right when one went in the door. Also complained about long hair. (Years later these guys who gave us a hard time lost their customers. They then desperately tried putting signs in their windows saying "Wear it long but let us trim it". But it was too late.)... age 15 .... I recall asking and being told where the State Police Barracks were to take the written test for driving. I then discovered still another part of York I never suspected existed. It kept getting bigger and bigger than what my July 1964 concept of it was. The test was way up on Penn St.. age 15 . I remember sitting in the back seat with another kid as a girl had to drive first. I still could not believe I was about to do this. These kids had been psychologically ready from birth to get behind the wheel of a car at 15. They had a 15 year head start on me. I recall the girl had trouble along Penn Park at the Lafayette St stop sign that Ive passed thousands of times since.. Interestingly I canr recall the very time I first got behind the wheel of a car. But it was before my 16th birthday of Oct 30, 1965.. I recall driving slowly up that same street (Pershing) by the park and then getting rady to hit the brake. And yet HE suddenly did. I asked why and he said it looked like I wasnt going to stop. Then I realized he did the same thing to that girl. So from then on I did my stops even sooner. Sure suprised me though as I was a shy cautious person. I forget if he had me turn down Cottage or Jackson but I do recall I was on Edgar Street for the first time ever! He had me turn right and stop at the foot of that steep hill. I had NO idea where I was so he must have been having me zig zag to it. Anyway, I lucked out and started off just right on the hill. I did do extremely well in the class but the family car was in NYC with my father so it was many years before I actually got a license........... I may have been 15 but I was vastly more the romanticist than almost all males. I had a real misguided view of girls as I did not know any when I was growing up. In fact they were as wild and crude and unromantic as boys. They were into cokes and drive-ins and rock music and I was into fine wines and stage shows and Bach. I didnt want to dance the Frug. I wanted to dance the Vienna Waltz above the Danube. I later learned that many high IQ types are that way...... age 15 ........ Some guys would actually stand outside during lunch and chew tobacco! I NEVER saw anyone chew tobacco in NYC and they also had FARM REPORTS on TV and that INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER by Vi's house. Really in the sticks.... age 15 ......The homeroom teacher asked me, just me, my ward number! I had heard of 'wards' but really didnt know what they were. Then he jumped all over me for not knowing. Heck, my parents didnt know. I said, "But I'm a kid. I can't vote". But he said I'd vote some day and I should know it anyway. None in NYC ever asked me my ward.... age 15 ......... I detoured for the very first time while walking from my house to Vi's and decided to go north one block on Broad and go on that 'bad' block the kids werent allowed on. After all, my parents never gave me that order. No sooner do I get on it than there is that super-beautiful girl sitting on a raised concrete area with some guy next to her. She said hello and so did I but I kept walking my usual very fast pace. To me, as much as I liked York, it was still just a rest stop before college. Nothing more...... age 15 ........ Every day after I got out of school I'd go home and my mother would make me three hotdogs to eat. I would go down from my third floor room, pick them up with a soda, and carry them upstairs. I'd then lie there with them on the left side of my bed eating, reading, and looking out the window at what was then a quiet, peaceful, very prosperous end of town with all families owning their own homes. (What a change from today)...... age 15 ........ Each morning the local German Protestant church would play Deutschland Uber Alles! and I couldnt believe it. (It was years before I learned it was originally a Protestant hymn)................. My World Cultures teacher once made the statement in class that we were all creatures of habit who took the same route between classes each day. Well, I didnt. I always took different ones. A habit from when so many kids were in the halls to attack me between classes from 1961 to 1964. But I wasnt going to bring that up.... age 15 ....... I was in some class and some girl suddenly comes up in front of me and says, "Would you like to sharpen my pencil for me, Walt?" and I go "Huh,? Why would I want to do that?" Then some other girls come up to me and tell me that, "(her name, which I never knew) has a crush on you, Walt" and all this other stuff. And I thought, "Cripes, with these people its all cars and dating". That made four girls that I knew of and I didnt know about the neighbor girl and I didnt know if any others quietly did and I didnt know what that super-looking one thought of me but I wasn't interested in any of them but I did not want to hurt anyone's feelings either. And God only knows waht that teacher who blurted to the class that I had a nice smile thought of me. Strange town.. 8-31-99 407pm ..9-1-99: The World Cultures teacher had me go get a library card somewhere. Martin? York High? And for some reason they wouldnt give it to me. No local ID yet? She wanted us to read about Africa. The library wouldnt let me have a book from the grown-up section but only from the kids section. So I came back and told the teacher. I recall standing in front of the room telling her and she got all flustered and then says, "Tell him go ahead tell him what they did" - and she pointed to some guy in the front row. I'm thinking, "Why would she tell me to tell another kid?" ..... age 15 ...... Now comes the big glitch in my Junior year. Due to the damn IQ test they put me in an Honors Physics Class that really was one. The one really tough course I had. This guy, Cessna< was a fanatic. He lived with his mother in Gettysburg and drove in just to teach the class. It was as bad as the monster classes I had in Junior High. He wanted us to devote our lives to his course and loaded us down with homework and had us working in class constantly. He was a supernerd and wanted us to be the same. No way!! This was the year I was finally going to be a "real boy" just like Pinocchio and I moved 200 miles for this chance. I didnt do anything. So he flunked me by one point. I didnt care. I had my fun. I retook the course in Summer School and aced it so fantastically that the teacher, vice principal and my guidence counselor kept saying for years after that when I ran into them: "I cant see how you failed that class!!! Must have been a personality clash with that teacher" Yeah. He wanted me to work hard, which was correct. But I had enough of 'great potential' crap and moved 200 miles just then to avoid it.... age 15 ... Guess my mother was still working at the Bon Ton and walking home through Penn Park, even at night. But I recall all those hotdogs at 330pm so I dont know when she started or what her hours were.... ...... I bought a couple of matching naval lamps either that Summer or Fall for my room. Think they were from one of the 5&10s downtown. Also some photos of ships I liked. Now that I moved away from the ocean I seem to have noticed it. (I think my father gave away the standing lamp to his mistresses kid without asking me. He always was a thieving bastard who thought he could give away the family things as well as my things whenever he felt like it)..... age 15 .......... Some guys actually showered at the York High gym unlike at LICHS. Much safer here. Actually most of them did but they didnt put pressure on the rest of us. I was much older before I'd take off my clothes in front of anyone of either sex..9-1-99 227pm................. ............................................ ............................... .......................................................... .......................................... ........................ ................................................... ..................................... .................................................................. .......................................................................................... ............................................... ....................................... .................... ...

----- THIS IS STILL AUTUMN 1965----- THIS IS STILL AUTUMN 1965 CONTINUED::: I met Mike in one of my brainy classes. We were talking about Astronomy and he said he had a reflector telescope. I had a refractor. So for the first time I stayed out all night to look through a scope. I was down in his basement and he invited me to try curling this big barbell. So I tried and it was much to heavy to curl. I completely fell backwards and thought I was going to injure my self severely. It caused me to run backwards helplessly! But I fell on a lawn couch and bent it horribly but it saved me from breaking my neck. He thought it was hilarious!! Jeezuz! Ghouls everywhere. Even in York. So much for him. But I did stay the night and saw a number of things I had never seen before in the bright night sky of NYC. And it was better to FIND things with his reflector and then ENLARGE them with my refractor. So the two scopes worked well together. But after his childish cruelty I never brought my scope back again as it would commit me and make it harder for me to leave. He couldnt be trusted now. But I saw DEW appear in his backyard- first time in my life. He lived in a nice little house at 333 (something) Street right down the block from Bookland/Edgar Street. His father drove me home at sunrise and I recall saying something while in the back seat and he used the word 'facetious' which I heard for the first time and never forgot. The father didnt seem to work. All he did was hang with friends at Sunnys Surplus downtown. But he had a huge library and received the expensive CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. Turned out his wife had money. Over the years I'd learn the hard way that that was how people got their money: being born into it or marrying it. All my life I heard my father say, "I work more and harder than anybody. But where do all the rest of them get all that money??" It was never EARNED, dad............. I was walking across the edge of Allen Field one day way over by the rowhouses on the other side and there were some girls on the porches. One of them says something like "Look. Theres that new guy in our (something class)" I detour and walk away............... Some guy whose name I forgot had a father who worked in a shoestore on the first block of West Market Street downtown across from the McCrory's store and he was talking styles with his son. He then goes, "Look. Look at what your friend is wearing now. Theyre five years ahead of us in New York. That's what they'll wear here in five years". well, I knew that the penny loafers everyone was wearing were something I saw in 6th grade and couldnt believe 16 year olds would wear such things. But I didnt think of them in terms of year/style; I thought of them in terms of age. To me they were little kids shoes. They also wore wingtips! in both York and Indiana which were considered bumpkin things in NYC........... Amazing how few DIFFERENT places I actually went to considering that I walked for hours every day. i just went on George and Market and Philadelphia and never bothered with the other streets as I figured they were all just homes.............. The closest friend I had in 9/65 to 7/66 was Jim. He was much better looking and better built than I and a nice guy. He washed dishes at Pennsupreme back in the days when it had the long soda fountain counter and all the windows to look out to the street. But I was so shy I only went in a couple of times when he took me in and no more. (Later they kept the counter but covered all the windows so it was gloomy. Then when they brought the windows back in the late 80s they got rid of the long counter. So after the late 60s or early 70s they never had both again at the same time). After work or after he and I would go out or to the movies we'd walk down Market to the Donut Shop at Market/Newberry (Which is now the parking lot for the all-night restaurant) and there was a small walk-in donut shop there. Then we'd walk to Penn St, turn left and down to College. He lived a half-block or so up College which was all white then. Then id walk home. He had a chicken in his back yard the first time I was there.(Just like country) He said it was one of the Easter 1965 chicks (that I saw). I recall seeing THE BLUE MAX with him and whatever the name was for the remake of "Food of the Gods" which is now such a cilt classic because of the present and future stars it had. That time they made us sit in the minor's section!! It was disgusting. They were teenagers my age but acted like infants with all the childish 'EWWs' and 'Ohs' and low IQ emotionalism. We went up to where I saw ZULU with the kids in July 65 but an usher with a flashlight caught us and made us go back down.... He was in a home ec cooking course with all these girls and he spoke of wanting to be a chef. ... Once we were walking down market and some girl in a car and he were exchanging barbs and she said 'Its better than that shoe leather express' which I found amusing as I had never heard it before.. His family was quite poor so he had no hope of having a car but he was so very good looking the girls loved him. However, he'd bang on my door every Friday night to go out. Too bad there were so many great shows on Friday nights back then. I'd just wait for him to walk over the Penn St bridge to drop by. Sometimes I'd go over to his place. In those days there was a regular little complex of stores all around that corner on the south side of the bridge. And a gas station where I'd get a Pepsi on the way to his place. (They were all razed and a fake hill was built and its a little park by the bike path).. He once said, "I never had a buddy before". York was weird like that. In NYC guys knew each other well and girls were an outside thing. In York the guys were mostly atomized and everything was based on dating. Jim sure knew the girls, though. But he was no more chasing them than I was. I recall standing next to him at the movie house mirror and thinking , "Wow! I look sickly next to this guy. I'd better start getting more into better diet and exercise"...... ...... I forget if we brought Major to Pine St Animal Hospital for anything...... ...... Back in 1964 Vi gave us some money that Summer I was visiting to go to a restaurant on East Market. We went down Wallace to Tremont and then up and then East and it was across the street. Now I went in there alone one day for some reason and who was working there but Darlene, the beautiful one. But I didnt say anything to her................. When my father would come we'd go to GINOS fast food burger place and my father would always complain that they put both catchup and mustard on his burgers. But it was a German area where they'd even put up German language bulletin boards for Christmas........... I went to the Wetsons in East York with some other teen in a car in 65/66. It was then where the Kentucky Fried Chicken place is now. Across from the EASTERN FARMERS MARKET............ I went out with Jim to buy two dress shirts at KINGS Dept Store by Hannah Penn. I chose a dark blue. He talked me into a light blue as well. My mother liked his choice better. So did everyone at school. In NYC I would not have dared to wear anything that wasnt very dark............. I brought some firecrackers from NYC that I bought for 2c a pack and I got 50c a pack for them in York!!............. My mother got talked into buying an expensive coupon book at the 5&10 between McCrorys and Woolworths (Grants?). She saved nothing by buying them but now had to make a monthly payment and had to buy a lot of stuff there. My father got on her for that. I got a nice grey and black sweater out of it in Late 1965 which I STILL use and is right next to my bed............ I got a near-orange shirt from somewhere that I STILL have and wore constantly for 25 years the fabric was so good. Then I got it for days they wanted us to wear blue and/or orange for football games. I started out being rebellious and then I thought it was silly to be against a place I wanted to attend. I considered such things hokey and NYC wasnt hokey but hokeyness is traded for violence............ Barradcuda jackets were all the rage. Thin jackets that cost a fortune!! But kids bought them to be 'cool'. Storekeepers really made a sucker out of them. I had a yellow jacket from NYC with a flap in the back and some people actually thought it was a Yellow Barracuda! I also had a gray jacket I wore as I was self-conscious about how skinny I was. Kids would tell me it was against school rules to wear a jacket during school hours but noone ever said anything............. I'd hang just outside the lunchroom every day with Jim and a few of the girls he knew. Righoutside it were the stairs to the old school building that was still on campus then. Think it was torn down just a couple of years later. We'd be all at the landing at the first flight up from the lunchroom when it was cold out. Once Jim borrowed my pencil to write something on the overhanging wall over the landing where the stairs started again. Suddenly a teacher started coming up the stairs from below and he quickly flipped the pencil and then announced that he was ERASING something someone else wrote. He was a good actor............ Gym teacher had us run around Penn Park once. One guy was so fast he made a school record. I was second but far behind. Then came everybody else................... There was a short-loved place for teenagers to go right next to the Martin Library and down in a basement but I never got into it............ I did go to the SHADY DELL a few times, though. I kept hearing about what an wild, dangerous place it was. And it was within walking distance. So I walked right down South George Street and down to where there were no sidewalks and the steet was so constricted one could get hit easily. Then up the steep shady dell road. I got there and found a building out front which was just a restaurant with a long L-shaped counter in an old building that served cokes and burgers. And behind it was a building where there was first a record player sitting on the floor and teenagers dancing. This was wild? Maybe by small town standards. I came a few more times and now and then I'd see kids take alcohol out of their car trunks but nothing really bad. I ran into some of the guys and girls I vaguely knew from school...age 15.. At some point I met Dennis who would be on the York High football team but who dropped out to go into the army. He had pigeons and my mother would complain that he smelled of them....... Once he and I were walking along East King Street at Pine Street which is REALLY dangerous now. Back then it was as affluent as the rest of York. We stopped in a store there on the southwest corner which is now boarded up. I got a baseball magazine and so did he. .... age 15..... In that York High Library I read Mickey Mantle's "The Quality of Courage" which I had never known existed. Sometime after that I somehow got a Balt Oriole Yearbook that Dennis wanted and he swapped me a HARDCOVER FIRST EDITION of that same Mantle book............. I took the SATS at some point on a Saturday in the lunchroom at York High. I recall exactly where I sat. In those days very few people took the SATs as very few had any hope of getting into college in those pre-loan days. Thats one reason why the SAT scores keep dropping. In those days only the Top Few Percent took them. Now every moron does as every moron gets into college........... age15... For some reason having to do with the Anniversary of World War One 1915 style Iron crosses started appearing on a lot of kids. I even got one. But the teachers forbade their wearing as they recalled WWII and insidted there was no difference between the wars. And York was a very GERMAN town then.. age 15. In what I think was the first baseball magazine I bought was a coupn for the STRAT O MATIC BASEBALL GAME based upon hugely complicated formulas. A few months later I sent for one and have had fun playing with the formulas ever since.............. I was in one guys car once in either 65/66 or 66/67 and was taken to the all-night JAYS store in northwest York. Once again I was surprised by something being out in the middle of nowhere. I think one cousins husband was the manager there about that time....age 15.... MY WEEKLY READER had ads for Phisohex (sp?) and later the Hexochlorophine was banned so they had to change the name. But that was many years later. The stuff was for acne. I had some acne but not much. I still do at the same rate....... One comic advertised for another one coming out called SCOOTER which had a teenager decked out like the typical small town 16 year old of 1965/66. I thought it looked like Jim and mentioned it to my mother........ Scooters must hav ebeen in (MOD!)as when they had a stage event for people to win prizes by selling school candy they brought a scooter on the stage.... age 15...... I was across from the HOLIDAY THEATRE where I saw MAD WORLD in 64, with Jim and he was thinking of getting some min-car they had for sale in that lot. He couldnt afford a regular one and this one had a washing machine engine... age 15... They had the homecoming court parade up the center aisle in school and Darlene was on the court but not the Queen so I could see it was by popularity and not beauty (which was an unearned attribute anyway). A lot of girls hated her as a danger to their boyfriends...Wed 9-1-99 412pm: Thurs 9-2:: I walked down to the KINGS Dept store one sunny afternoon to buy a gas plane I saw there. I went in through the back and, I believe, into the basement and straight to the back where they were lined up on a shelf, each diagonally on a shelf. I chose a black Stuka with those bent wings. I still have it in the original box. I never flew it. It cost me $5 which one has to multiply by 8 or 9 to be in todays dollars. It might have been with Birthday money...... ....... I very much remember a piece of my 16th birthday on OCTOBER 30, 1965. I recall kidding with my mother about not throwing me a Sweet Sixteen birthday party like they do for girls. Then I remember walking up Manor Street to the hill where it turns into an alley along side of the ice house. As I was walking up the hill I was wondering why they did not have an equivalent coming of age birthday for males, whether it was on the 16th or some other year. Of course, in NYC the 18th birthday was the big one for everybody as it was the drinking age there. But after thinking that for a while I went over to Jim's house. I dont know what we did on my birthday but I recall feeling very lucky that it was on a Saturday.... ......York shocked the hell out of me by not having Trick or Treat on Halloween. It was aways on my Birthday instead. So I guess the kids were doing it that night when I was out on my birthday and not anywhere near home. But Halloween was nowhere near the huge thing it was in Astoria, Queens where every kid participated and it was all day long and almost all the homes participated. We got lots more loot in NYC than these kids in York did........ The next day was my first Halloween in Pennsylvania . However, I also knew it was a Sunday and thats a bad day for Halloween to fall on. The reason they had Trick or Treat in York on Oct 30 was because they always had the big Halloween Parade on the night of Halloween. (Yet the first one was on my birthday, Oct 30, 1949, a Sunday and was held by the firehouse near Market and Sherman where I stayed that Summer of 1964). The York High kids had painted many of the store windows downtown with Halloween motifs and that was an added bonus for a near-Halloween baby like me. The parade started at sundown and marched in the dark in a very safe York,Pa. Many floats were illuminated and it all had a nice Halloween effect. But a few times I was there with my parent(s) it was FREEZING cold. We always stood in front of the Donut Shop next to the Sporting Goods place near where the RR tracks cut across W.Market St just by the Codorus Creek Bridge. It was so nice and warm in that Donut Shop but people had to rotate out for others. (I should look up the COLD ones in the microfilms). The parade claimed 100,000 viwers and it was sure crowded in those days. (Years later they moved it to Sunday Afternoons when people were getting mugged but its now not 1/10th as Halloweeny. I tried standing at our old place [stores abandoned] but the people there are now nasty). We'd then walk home through Sherman or in my parents cars (my mother later had her own spot by the creek where the city bus main stop is now)..age 16..I always had to be very careful to not do anything that would screw up my future. The kids in NYC never had any plans for their future like I had from early childhood. They expected to just stay there all their lives or never thought of it at all. They lived for the day. The kids of York were mostly the same way. They were born there and expected to just stay there. Even the ones who spoke of college always thought in terms of little local colleges I had never heard of. It really didnt matter if most kids grades were good or bad or what level class they were in as they would always be in York anyway. It didnt really didnt matter if they got a girl pregnant or got married and stayed married or got divorced. But I had plans for my future since childhood and unlike kids whose daddies had money I had little leeway for mistakes. Most poor kids stayed where they were no matter what they did and most rich kids rose up no matter what they did. But I was a kid who, only if he was very careful and alert and worrying at all times, could rise up out of his situation.. It was like crossing a big chasm: The rich kids were carried over the bridge by their rich daddies. The born-into-the-middle-class kids were carried more than halfway across the bridge by their daddies. The poor had NO way of getting across so they didnt even try. And i could get across if I was willing to walk a tightrope... ... .... Every day on the way to school Id cross Manor/Kurtz just one block away and there was a tombstone on the corner of the yard there that was a part of a low stone fence that went down both streets. I always wondered if the woman whose name was on that 200 year old stone was buried there. Just this year I ran into a guy whose father owned that house back then and this guy said it was he who put it there but that it wasnt found on that exact same spot so she wasnt under it. But it also added to the 'country' feel of York in the 60s...age16... I forget what I did for Thanksgiving 1965 but my father was probably in York for it. (Now I wonder if the time he and major visited wasnt during the Easter 1965 two weeks my mother and I were in the York house as Major should have been with us otherwise).... age 16.... I got in trouble with my chubby old biddy English Comp teacher. Out of nowhere she wanted ME ALONE to do a report about Christmas in New York City and I simply would not do it. First of all because I thought it was a combination of church and state and secondly I wondered why only I had all the extra work of a large report and thirdly because I was very self-conscious with all these strangers and she expected me, alone, to stand in front of the class and do this silly thing. Because I wouldnt do an assignment that noone else had to do she lowered my score for the quarter marking period by one grade. Then when that wasnt enough to lower me for the entire year she then ILLEGALLY went back and lowered another quarters past grade that was already in the permanent files so she could lower me a grade for the entire year. But all Icared about was Astronomy and being a normal kid so I wasnt all upset. ......... I recall watching from the very beginning that great special playoff game between Baltimore and Green Bay when the two teams had tied for the Conference title and an extra gane had to be added and Baltimore had to use Tom matte as a QB as the other two were injured. I could barely get it in on a very fuzzy screen from Baltimore so I sat inches from the screen. Baltimore really won that game. I was a Colts fan that year as Pittsburgh was going nowhere and I wanted to be 'local' and not too strange once I learned how far away Pittsburgh was. Had they called the field goal attempt correctly the Vince Lombardi myth would have been much less as he would have been 2-2. (He lost to the Eagles years before)...age 16.. I dont recall Christmas 1965. Maybe thats when I really got my big Hockey Game I loved so much...age 16... NEW YEARS EVE 1965/ NEW YEARS DAY 1966:: My father never stopped being totally inconsiderate to others. The man was gone for so long and then he shows up for New Years and the jerk brings all these embarrassing films of me as a child from Astoria and takes them and all his projector stuff over to Vi's on a very cold, very icy New Years Eve!! He didnt give a damn when i told him that it would embarrass me (at that age). I remember walking the street of York alone that New Years night white hot with anger against him and Vi and Loralee, my three bastard relatives who thought that a son/nephew/cousin was just someone you could walk all over and who couldnt tell you to go to hell forever. As if an only-child looks at such things the same way as these goddamn obnoxious bullying big-family-people. I recall even phoning my father from a pay phone to try to get him to stop. That was the first time I was on far-Poplar street and walked down that weird bent street over the tracks by the junkyard. A cold, ice-covered street empty night with everyone else indoors celebrating the New Year 1966..Thurs 9-2-99 (MAYBE I'LL REMEMBER MORE HERE) _____________ ______________ ______________--- EARLY 1966:::: ___________ EARLY 1966:: Me: 16, Father: 43, Mother 38, Major: 6 ______ :::: There was a huge snowstorm in Early 1966 Im trying to locate it now. But I want to be sure before I write all I remember about it... age 16.. Also want to be sure about when I shovelled my neighbors walks.... age 16.... My mother mentioned to me that she'd like to be something called a 'buyer' like a woman in her office was. That was the person who went out and found the clothes they sold in the Bon Ton..... ...... I think I bought a cheap pea-soup colored military jacket at this time that had a lot of pockets. A number of people had them. I think some called them 'battle jackets' and they may have been from SUNNYS SURPLUS..... ...... The girl next door in 254 had a crush on me but I never knew about it until her father told me around 1990. So did a few girls in school. Must have been my face as I was embarrassed by my skinny physique.. age 16...The 'Hippies' were starting to appear about now. I sure didnt connect my jacket with anything political but it may have been worn by anti-war lefties for all I know now. ...age 16.... I was in the office outside of the guidence counselors rooms and when I was sitting there he came out with either the principal or vice principal and said, "I want you to meet Walt. He's one of our stars". Considering I wasnt ever even doing homework at home or studying anywhere other than study hall it was interesting. Junior High was vastly more difficult..... ....... Think this is when we subscribed to those once a month square brown military history of WWII books. Then they suddenly sent us the whole remining pile at once with monthly payments which rather ruined the monthly treat. My father later put the air conditioner above them and they got mildewed and had to be thrown out....age 16... Nasty thing happened in homeroom class that surprised me. Some guy told off and defied the teacher right in the front of the room. But the teacher, a short guy, just stamped towards him one step at a time and the bigger guy backed off. Seemed more like something in NYC...age 16. We had a right wing teacher either this year or next who would embarrass the girls by saying things like "Do you think I would let some Communist come in here and rape (girls name) -- While pointing at some girl in the front row seat nearest the door. And he'd keep repeating it as the girls blushed... age 16.. Had a chemistry class. Once I had to get hydrogen gas out of something while the teacher pushed and pushed and made me a nervous wreck even though I was doing it right in the first place. What an ass. And there was a girl who sat in front of me and was in a number of my classes who would tease me about having blonde hairs on me and I'd claim honestly that they were from my blonde cocker spaniel. The teacher also worshipped this paper he kept locked in the cabinet in the back. Constantly worried about people touching it. One day I was back there at the lab tables and their sinks and some jerk was giving me a hard time. He had the sink full of water and had the gas going from the Bunsen Burner hose to make bubbles come up in the water. He also had another one lit on the side. I grabbed a big handful of the precious paper, stuck it into the flames, and threw it into the gassy water. It went up in a mushroom cloud and all the other paper on the bench caught fire and he desperately tried to put it out. I nonchalantly walked to the door in the middle of the room where the teacher was standing in the doorway talking to someone and as I walked out I said, "Just look what that jerk is doing back there". The teacher went ballistic when he saw the fire and the hose under the water and his precious paper burning up and jumped all over the guy... age 16.... EASTER 1966: APRIL 10, My father probably came up from NYC.... age 16.. They had colored chicks in the basement of McCrorys every year. They were right in the middle downstairs.... age16.... Think this is when I went with Dennis to see his relatives on Prospect Street which was all white at that time. It was just past Broad Street BUT there was no Broad Street there then. It hadnt been cut through yet. They lived on the left where the turn was just before the old chain works. There was and is a block of old rowhouses there. That was the FIRST time I knew that street existed.... age 16... Actually, Its amazing how little of York I saw in the 60s. I just kept going the ways the kids showed me and I never rooted around. I even never went on the first block of West King which I am now on daily and which then had the GAZETTE and DAILY on the north side and the YORK FEDERAL BANK on the other. All those mornings I read the GAZETTE and I never bothered to walk one-half block off George to see where it was... age 16... Down in my basement I still have a six pack of small glass bottles from sodas from 1966 and they are in the original cardboard carrier. (They arent from the Welcome Wagon of 65 are they?). I also still have down there a picture of a battleship on the workbench from a model I built and a sign that says METS 1966. I recall my father asking, "Is this your workbench or mone?".... ..... Across from York High and right behind where I waited to get in on my first day there was a statue of a deer on a high round platform. Guys joining some York High fraternity had to lick the underside of the 'whole' deer. I was surprised that a high school would have a fraternity. (THe deer turned out to be hollow when vandals destroyed half of it years later)..... ....... Viola sent the boys two beds to us when she got them new ones. Those were the ones that we slept on in July 64. One went into the garage and one went into the house. I dont know which was which. (I now sleep in one of them and have for years even though I have two virtually unused huge twin double beds to choose between.).....age 16..... Although two blocks from the York Junior College campus I still had yet NEVER stepped onto it. I thought that they were like private clubs that you couldnt enter until you matriculated. Actually, in those days one HAD to apply for admission to take a class. You were a member of a college or you werent... age 16. I think a guy who lived on the 'avenues' and whose parents owned two houses there and bought him a car was the first one to take me down into the COLONIAL BOOKSTORE on South George. I was impressed by how upper class it was. South George was really something in those days. Hard to believe now...... ....... I was over by Violas once and Lora ran over and wanted me to get a bird. It had an injured wing and ran under the porch to hide from predators. I knew there was nothing that could be done and any human attempt would scare it to death but Lora insisted. So i reached for it under the porch and it then suddenly died. Probably of fright of the big monster grabbing it. So THEN Lora says that I scared it to death! Just what I knew in the first place but she insisted. She was always a f--king pain in my a--. I would NEVER have thought of doing that if it had done that at my house.... age 16...... Now I dont know if this happened in 1966 for sure or not: I was walking past Vi's house on a warm night and was shocked to see Lor sitting on the front porch alone. She was usually out throwing herself at some low-IQ, degenerate, unromantic guy (Like the rest of my generation of girls). Well, I was going to go in as I thought she was out but it would have been too obvious to now turn around because she was there. So I walked right past her without saying a word. She looked up. "Where're you going?", she chirped. Actually I was now just out for the walk but I wasnt going to tell her that or she'd invite herself along just to be mean to me. "I have a friend on the other side of Allen Field", I lied. "I'm going to visit". I didnt know anyone over there but it kept her from getting up. I was then committed to walk all the way over until out of sight and then double back.... age 16..... I think Dennis dropped out of school about here and joined the army........ Monday Aug 30, 1999 400pm..... ..... I HAVE MORE TO ADD FOR 1964, 1965 and 1966 ABOVE...

-------- Summer 1966-------- :::::::: I dont recall what I did in June 1966. Or on July 4,1966. But I went to Summer school for the first time in my life in July 1966. We had one for Physics and it was held in the same room my Chemistry class was in. And now I sat right up front a little right of center instead of I started to get on when suddenly Jim started pushing it around faster and faster before I could get my legs in. The moron didnt even look to see the predicament I was in. There was broken glass all around it and i was trying to get in and then just trying to stay on as I was wearing shorts! for Gods sake. The idioy didnt stop or slow down or even look up. Was he trying to impress her? Her was the one guy I had NO trouble with and now he turnd out to be like every other low IQ idiot my age I had to deal with. Finally, i got thrown off. Right into the concrete and glass with my bare knees. Blood all over. What a mess. I limped over to Vi's house, went upstairs (Boy, did that hurt) and tried to clean up the mess. One knee was worse than the other. I actually got a slight peep of sympathy from Loralee, the only time from July 1964 until the 1970s. I have no idea how I got home that night as I lived miles away. I think I did go to some physician as I wound up with a borrowed crutch and a bandaged leg. I hobbled to summer school each day then and stretched my leg out in front of me. I dont think anything worked out between Jim and Loralee. But my opinion of Jim collapsed....... age 16 ......... While I was still injured Dales parents, Howie and Gertie, came up to York. Her family was from Lancaster and they were there to visit. Howie, who was a pretty snotty guy yet not totally obnoxious, kidded me as I was hobbling up the stairs. he said, "Look. He's favoring the other leg" As if I was kidding. I was too young and shy to state that both were hurting and by putting all the weight on the lesser-dam and some only showed up to see the teams they liked best. Even before I was an usher my father would take me to the ballpark and have me carry a rolled up towel and as we went in the employee entrance he'd say, "He's shaping up". Even though everyone knew he was just taking me to the game for free. I think we got about $4 for working and the rest was in tips which could be anything from $15 to $25 where I was and better where my father worked. Multiply it by seven or eight for inflation. Once they forgot to pay me for a game and i was sent in to talk to M.Donald Grant, who ran the Mets, himself. I recall standing in the back right with him as we tried to figure out what game I didnt get paid for. I kept thinking Old Timers Day but it wasnt and there was nothing else like it listed on the calendar. But later it suddenly dawned on me it was Senior Citizens Day so I went running back and I got my money. The big pitcher that year was DENNIS RIBANT who became the first winning pitcher the Mets ever had and led them out of last place for the first time.(PUT MORE LATER)))))))))))))).... The Beatles went to Philadelphia to perfom on the evening of AUGUST 16, 1966. According to the records there was an electrical storm with continual lightning and the rain started just after the finish of the last set. The Phila News on its 1999 aniversary said that only 10,000 showed up due to some sort of screw up....... But the came to NYC's Shea Stadium the same Summer I was an usher for the Mets saving money for college. It was AUGUST 23, 1966. We went into the ushers room just like always but this time they rattled off all sorts of numbers that I missed and I had no idea what they were talking about and I was too shy to ask. So I just went to the section upstairs where they assigned me as that I understood. The crowd kept getting bigger and bigger until it reached 44,000 according to the records (New Beatles day-by-day diary at Spencers Gifts). Then the sent people upstairs to get ushers and I was one of them chosen for some reason. They brought me down to ground level and into the most coveted field level part through the guards and city police sealing it off as it was the place from which one only had to hop a low fence to get onto the field. They had me just standing there right next to the field. teenage girls, going crazy, were all leaving their seats elswhere in the stadium and trying to get into the section I was in but were stopped by guards and cops. One guy behind them was waving big bills at me to let him in. But it would have cost me my job and I wasn't dishonest. But the girls who already had the most expensive seats in that section kept crowding at the fence so people couldnt see the groups that came out before the Beatles to perform. (NY Times 8-24-99?). A woman a few rows back from the fence kept complaining to me how the girls were blocking her view and that of her daughter. So I kept going down to ask the girls to back up but they kept going back. Finally, the woman lost her temper, went up, and violently grabbed the girls and threw them back. Then I was told to hop the fence and go onto the field. I was careful to not fall on my face as I was no athlete. Luckily, it was low. They then had us stand in a double line, announced the Beatles, and the roar went up. They then came running out inches from me and i thought how my Beatlemaniac nasty cousin would love to be this close and I couldnt care less about them. We then had to form a circle around the bandstand to guard then as they performed right up above me. I couldnt even hear them play as the screams were so loud. Ringo Starr later said he only hit every other beat as noone could hear him anyway. People were trying to force their way out on the field. One guy hops the fence and comes out swinging, determined to fight his way through to them. A guy! And I was 16 and he looked a little older than I. Naturally, he came for me out of all those guys! I grabbed his arm, spun him to the guy on my left who was huge and he smashed the guys head into the police barrier. The guy fell down, got up, and wobbled back to where he jumped the fence. Then he fell over it. The music was eventually over and the Beatles left towards the back outfield. We were then told to move to the edge of the grass to protect it. Some girls asked for some grass for a souvenir and the guy next to me bent down to pick it up as he was a nice guy. The girl then says, "Not you! The handsome one", supposedly meaning me. I then gave her some but what an insult for her to say to the guy who was being nice to her when I had ignored her. Typical girl of my evil generation. Couldnt care less about hurting the feelings of the nice guy who was being good to her. After we left we went out into the parking lot putting flyers on cars. One girl came running over to me to give me one. "What's this?", I asked. "Goodies!", she relied. They turned out to be forms for the first Computer Dating I'd ever seen. I wonder if Jimmy was with us that day? I seem to recall a third person getting into our car. Was that car the 'tank'? The next day was my father's 44th birthday. (I'm now 49)................. I was in Astoria the rest of the Summer. Often in Dale's cellar which he and his brothers fixed up. I bought a tape recorder for college at a place that was going out of business and advertised it cheaply. I recall getting it and it being handed down to me from a shelf. I brought into Dale's cellar and we'd read old comic books into it while adding humor. I was shocked to see my few record albums down there that my father had lent him while I was gone without my permission. Dale had gotten into playing the drum and would play to my Gene Pitney album. (This could also have taken place in Summer 1967, I forget). We'd ride the subways and go over to Manhattan and Staten Island on the ferry. We were crazy enough to walk along the Manhattan waterfront under the suspension bridges at night. And we'd play my Careers game while eating Knickerbocker Jelly candies (mine). I think we did these same things in the Summer of 1967 as well but he also had a good-looking girlfriend one of those Summers. It might have been both as I recall he met her while working in a supermarket one summer but when I recall going down to Brooklyn with him to where she lived Dale wasn't working and was flat broke. But i know I met her in his front living room and she was a person who kissed people hello and goodbye on the mouth but I insisted she kiss my cheek instead. .................. I recall in late Summer my father and I in Richards house in York. I was at one end of a couch or in a chair closer to the front window and my father was at the other end of the room on the same side trying to talk Richard into letting me live at his house for my Senior year.. Fri 9-3-99 ________ I am going to put this here as I have no idea whether it happened during 65/66 when I stayed with my mother at the Cottage place house and my father would drive up and sometimes bring Jimmy along or if it happened in 66/67 when my parents were in NYC and I was at Richard's house and Loralee was also going to York High which was close to my home.::: My father showed up in York with Jimmy. I was in my Cottage Place house with my parents and Jimmy. And Loralee and a friend of her came to the door. She had NEVER come to visit when my mother and i were living there nor when my father came up alone the other times. But now, because Jimmy was visiting, here comes Loralee with a friend. So I'm in the living room with the two girls and Jimmy. A little while later my parents went somewhere and the two girls and Jimmy go into the kitchen. I stay in the living room because all that Loralee ever did was do or say things to hurt or embarrass me. So they're in there for a little while and Jimmy asks, "Aren't you coming in, Walt?". So naturally Lor starts going, "He won't because he's SHYYYY". Yeah, and why is that? Because I'll be the receptor of Lor's cruelties now that she has decided she doesn't like me any more. But throughout the gibes I just satya sitting on the couch by myself and let them talk without me. Anytime there is more than one person around me my age I become the one to gang up on so I'm not going in there. later I recall I was still sitting there and so were Lor and her friend. I dont know where Jimmy is. Or my father. But my mother is in the kitchen. The two girls wait a very long time. Its obvious they are hoping my father drives them home. Finally, they give up and Lor jumps up to lead her friend out. After they left my mother is angry about how Lor never cares about anyone elses feelings but her owns. "She just came over here to see Jimmy! She never gives a damn about coming here to see us. Doesnt that girl realize how insulting that is? She expected your father to drive her home after pulling that!? Let her walk home! Vi is always talking about that Loralee. I dont know what she sees in that girl. There's nothing to that Loralee. She's so selfish." 9-7-99_____________

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