-NOT PROOFREAD ---- __________SEPTEMBER 1966 TO SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1966_____:::::: __::::: I dont recall the specific trip back to York in September 1966 but I know that Ronnie next door told us that Jim stopped by looking for me the month I was gone. So I went over to his place on West College Avenue down from Penn Street (which was almost all poor-white then) and his family had moved and left no forwarding address. I never saw him again. I also dont recall the first time I went into my new room at Richard's house. My first memory there was of me standing near the front door of the room and little Chrissy with her back to the opened door talking to me. (it was her room I was given)................. I dont recall my first day at York High in Sept 1966....... LABOR DAY: Monday Sept 5,1966.... ..... I know there was a small table at the foot of my bed as that is where I put cherry cough syrup I drank straight out of the bottle later on when it got cold but I also seem to recall one next to my bed on the left that my clock was on. Unless it was the same table moved later. .......... I recall waiting for the bus or for someone to pick me up on the corner of Wallace and some street a couple of blocks towards town. There were stairs exactly on the corner leading up to, I believe, some store that wasnt open yet. Was it a friend or a bus over there? .......age 16 ......... Pat was 'shocked' that I washed my hair 'so often'. She said she thought guys never washed their hair. I only washed it once a week and it was oily besides. I should have washed it every day. (It looked too greasy in my grad photo)..... age 16 ....... Pat suggested I try her bubble bath and I did once...... age 16 ....... They told me not to hold the refrigerator door open too long and I didnt from then on. took a while to realize it had to do with having such a big family always opening the door...... age 16....... Each morning I'd get up before them and make eggs in a pan. But Pat complained I left the sticky eggs on that were hard to get off so I was more careful. I had WSBA on during breakfast. It was Fall 1966 and every morning I'd hear, "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! AT US 30 DRAGAWAY! FUNNY CARS (What were they I wondered) doing whatever and a bunch of other references to cars and car parts I had NO understanding of. US 30 back then was Market Street!......age 16 ...... In the beginning I also recall I walked a lot to school. Down East Chestnut to the end at State St. South on State. There was a grocery at Chestnut/State and later they opened on at State/Walnut! I'd get cupcakes. Then down Philadelphia Street. I always did think of how weird it was that for the first 14 years of my life I had never known of York,Pa or the relatives there and then BANG, they show up at my house, I go to their house, we go back and forth constantly, my parents buy a house there, my mother moves there, then moves back, and now Im living in the home of a relative I vaguely knew 200 miles from my parents back in Astoria!............. I'd walk to school down Philadelphia, down George and the store on the southwest corner facing me was much taller then in September but they cut it down soon after. And a couple blocks farther on there was a PEP BOYS I'd always go by with the three giant statues (where McDonalds is now)..... age 16 ....... I think my mother sent me $5 which I got every Friday...Tuesday Sept 7, 1999 (Major died 7-7-70)... age 16 ...Now this was to be the most imporatant school year of my life as this was the one right before COLLEGE and it was these grades that would most represent me now when it came to getting in. So of course I not only wound up in a strange place during this important year but it was the only year of my life when my parents werent around to help me with guidance if I wanted to discuss anything important with them. I had to completely be on my own during my year before college and making all decisions with my 16/17 year old mind............ And now I had an extra-special nightmare looming in front of me because, for the first time ever I would be going to the same school as a relative, and it was going to be that heartless BITCH Loralee. She delighted in embarrassing me and making me squirm in public and now she'd be walking the same halls as I and was quite capable of embarrassing me as much as she could. "Girls are rotten to nice guys, nice to rotten guys and whore themselves to guys whose fathers have money " BUT as evil as girls were they did NOT include their own relatives in their evil- but Loralee did. Her purpose in life was to act like a competely obnoxious unfeeling jerk to me and I didnt need it to be done in front of the whole school. I now had to spend the most important school year of my life looking out for her and avoiding her from the moment I left for school each morning, during all changes of classes, and when I went home at night. And of course she could show up at Richard's, her brother, at any time just to be nasty to me.....age 16 ..... I have no idea of things in order here....... I played RISK for the first time at the kitchen table with Rich and Pat and her mother. I wound up going last and most of my pieces were gone before I even had a turn.......... In the Fall of 1966 I saw Star Trek for the first time. I thought it was going to be another campy LOST IN SPACE so I didnt bother watching it from the beginning. I remember telling someone (my father) that I heard it had a green alien but was corrected. My parents came up from NYC and we went over to Vi's and I saw it there for the first time. The kids were lying on the floor watching it and the first episode I saw part of while satnding way behind them with my parents was one with everything taking place in a mine. But there were TWO like that so im not sure which it was. But there is a book which lists all first airings and I wrote both down somewhere............. Another time (or was it the same night?) my parents and I were there we were standing in the same place and BONANZA was on and Lor yelled, "Go get 'em little Joe" and my father started lecturing everybody about what he thought was the immorality of the story on the TV..... age16 ....... In Richards I could always easily take naps on my back without moving in my bed. I cant sleep on my back anymore........... Walt Disney and Cardinal/Yankee manager Johnny Keane both died when I was there. I was a big fan of both. (Disney in late 66, Keane in Jan 67)....... I got along fine with Rich and Pat. Much easier than I did with my own parents. Rich was an older version of myself. As long as i wasn't a pain in his ass he had no problem with me.. Unlike everybody else they also never tried to force me, an only child, to behave like an outgoing big-family person..... ........ .. I had a bet going that the batting titles in both leagues would go up in 1966 from 1965 and I won........ Once in English class the kid sitting in front of me suddenly said, "Jew!" and I didnt know what he meant. Then I realized it was an insult in German York...... age 16..... Lor would iron her hair and her sisters said that all the girls now looked like Loralees as they all looked the same..... age 16.. .. I shocked my gym teacher by being able to climb the rope easily as they taught us in NYC. Yet he didnt teach it here but he tested people on it. Ironically, I was prepared for all the athletic stuff with flips and horses and highbars a year earlier as I had practiced in Summer 1965 but now when I had forgotten all about it we had it daily and I dreaded gym class. It was in gym that all the worry about getting into college, and paying for college, and problems while my parents were away, and avoiding Lor etcetera finally got to me and I started spitting up horribly-tasting green bile.......... I kept hearing about the CULTURAL REVOLUTION in Red China but didnt know exactly what it was. In those days it was illegal for the American media to go there and it was a mysterious country we only rarly saw grainy photographs of...... In 1966 the Computer companies were, in order: IBM (68% of market, Honeywell, Control Data, Univac, G.E., NCR, RCA, Burroughs, Scientific Data Systems, others: 0.7%...... .... Lor had one of those Polaroid Swinger cameras they were always advertising. "Meet the Swinger. Polaroid Swinger". ....... Richard introduced me to 1944 All Star Game winner Kenny Raffensburger over his backyard fence where ken lived. I always had ALL STAR GAME HISTORY magazines at my other houses but never there for him to sign...... age 16 ...... Chrissy recently told me she remembered me on the back porch with her and others talking at their house but I dont recall it.......... I was very good at punchball in gym as I recalled what Wee Willie Keeler said, and I actually thought of it as I hit: "Hit them where they aint"....age 16.. ... I had to take an eye chart test in a health course in a different room that the 1965-66 one. I didnt have my glasses and did poorly. I was sent to the nurse whom I told I had glasses but not with me. She asked, "Do your parents know you dont wear your glasses" and I said that they knew and I never need them except for the eye tests as I can read the board easily enough. (I still recall sitting there talking).......... That health teacher once left me in charge of the class when he went out. He rotated people. Half the class raised hell and he returned and asked me so thats just what I told him........ I used to go back and forth to NYC constantly for weekends. On Thursday nights I'd lug my suitcase in the dark down Chestnut past the Goode school and through the warehouses to the RR depot/bus depot. Looked the same as in 1964. I'd be alone in there as I put it in a locker. Then I'd walk home. On Fridays I'd RUN from York High to the station. We got out at 315pm and the bus to NYC left at 325. I'd get there, pull the suitcase out, and hop on the bus. I guess I bought the ticket the night before. Then would come the long lonely ride to NYC (In the dark in the winter months). Normal kids were spending their money on cars and dates and having fun Friday nights. I was on a bus. I'd get to Philadelphia and have to deal with the weirdoes who looked for young people travelling alone. I'd be there for an hour. Then we'd get on another bus to NYC. Often on those double-decker Scenicruisers that were still around. As photos of club members were always taken on Fridays Im not in the yearbook club photos. I never actually joined anything but I was automatically put in some intellectual things. When I'd get to NYC I'd be in the perverted Port Authority Building fending off weirdoes. I'd walk across it and down to the right to get the direct train to Astoria. At the Triboro Bridge I'd lug my suitcase all the way to the house alongside the bridge. Seemed really weird to be in Astoria then. There was no US 30 Superhighway then. So the bus would pull out of the station and go into the center of town and out along Market street (Did it do that in 64?). And all the way to Wrightville and over that old bridge as the US 30 bridge wasnt built yet. We'd always stop at the Lancaster bus depot for quite a while and I's usually be depressed with my head against the glass thinking about how if I were NORMAL from birth I'd be having a good time in high school and not riding buses on Friday Nights. I made that trip once or twice a month from July 1964 until June 1967. .............. I used to buy CREEPY comic magazine to read on the bus.......... I bought a model of a hatchback and Richard made the comment that they were N------ cars. I always had the knack of choosing the wrong thing whenever I tried to mimic what I thought I was supposed to be into....... Mike got really nasty that year and was angry at everybody. He talked me into riding in his car when he went over to stare at the house of some ministers daughter he had a crush on (by a park on the west end past Dentsply) and he wanted me to yell nasty things at some girl I didnt know. He came out of the closet as a Communist! (Just like the head bully in Astoria!). He hit a guy I knew named Steve in the face in the hall alongside the gym lockers and then threatened me the same way. I think it was all because he was not exactly an attractive teenage boy and probably knew it. But before all this happened I recall playing some Civil War game with him to a standstill and how he didnt even tell me all the rules until later in the game. ............ COLUMBUS DAY: Wed. Oct.12,1966.... PARENT'S 18th ANNIVERSARY: Mon.Oct.24,1966 (Also UN Day)..... My 17th birthday was OCTOBER 30, 1966. (A Full Moon fell on the 29th)..... THANKSGIVING: Thurs.Nov.24,1966.......... ....................... ................... ........... >>>>> ............... .............. .......... ........................ DEC 15,1966: Walt Disney died..... age 17 ................... Now here are two CHRISTMASTIME events BUT I dont know if either or both were XMAS 1966 or XMAS 1967: 1) There was a LOT of snow on the ground. I was walking WAY out on West Market Street towards SKELLYS Sporting Goods to buy a "Blitzkrieg" wargame. I was on the south side of the street in the dark all alone. Bad weather. A few blocks from SKELLYS. (Its right before where Friendly Ice Cream is now, back then I think it and the pharmacy next to it were the last stores). I THINK I kept looking for a bus that either never came due to the weather or came when I was almost there anyway. Or maybe they werent running. But I eventually reached SKELLYS. But I forget if I made it in time and bought it or if it was closed. I think it was my first time to Skellys which would probably make it 1965 YET I also think the first time I played it was on the floor of my room on the 3rd floor when my parents were in NYC which would make it 1966. But it was around Christmastime. ...... age 17 ........ Actually, here is another memory. I recall getting off a bus just before Xmas coming BACK from West York in the deep snow and I got off in front of the BON TON with crowds of Xmas shoppers in the dark. So perhaps I got the bus BACK from Skellys in whichever year that was. York was sure nice just before Xmas then. ....... 2) I was walking along the first block of West Market in the deep snow through the Christmas crowds at night. I'm just about up to WOOLWORTH'S and I see Loralee coming towards me on the left. We both stare at each other. I quickly move to the left and go into the Woolworth's before she reaches me, hoping she doesn't follow me in to cause me trouble. I go to the counter as far back as is open which was right before the first turn and I order coffee. They say it's late and they arent making any more that night but they have SANKA. So i drank Sanka for the first time in my life and waited for her to be long gone. It was nice to be downtown until she showed up. Now perhaps all three of these were on the same night. Or not. Or two of them? According to the old GAZETTE AND DAILY of Wed. Dec 21, 1966 six inches of snow came down all day on Tuesday Dec 20, 1966. And it was covering the ground of Wed Dec 21, 1966. The stores were always open until 9pm on Wednesdays. And the Wed. high was supposed to be 32-37*. (There is a great front page photo of DOWNTOWN YORK of Thursday Dec 22,1966 on the Friday Dec 23, 1966 issue of the Gazette. BUT the sidewalks were already pretty bare except for the piles of it that were shovelled into spots.. NOw here is something else: In NYC there was 7" of snow on DEC 24, 1966. So IF I was downtown in York on Friday of that week instead of Wednesday the stores would still have been open until 9pm and the NYC snow may have also hit York (There was no Dec 25 edition of the Gazette to tell of Dec 24 snow). And the stores may have been open all week until late before XMAS. The NY Times Index does not list any snowstorms near Xmas for anywhere but I still have to check the GAZETTE.. But I went back to Astoria to be with my parents for Xmas 1966 so when was school over and when did I leave? Did school go all the way to FRIDAY Dec 23, 1966? If so I doubt if I would have been in downtown York on that Friday night. I would have been on the bus back. .................. THE TRIP BACK TO NYC FOR CHRISTMAS 1966: What a nightmare! All our Xmas decorations were at the York house! So I got boxes of them into the bus with me. Did I carry them all to the bus lockers during the day before? Did I bring them to Richards house and then to the lockers the night before? Beats me. Anyway I get on the bus with all these boxes. Only time I did that. We get to Philadelphia. I get all these boxes off the bus somehow. I cant go anywhere as I have to keep near all these boxes. Im at a pinball machine (yes, I was bored, so i played it) and some black guy is talking to me. I dont know if this is also the time one tried to sell me a stolen watch and showed me rows of them up his arms. Anyway, he goes away. Later on Im reaching for my ticket and its GONE!!!! (Note: It never crosed my mind until I was 40 that that guy might have had something to do with it). Im searching all my pockets and the floor over and over. Nothing! I ask a woman to watch my stuff while I go to report losing it. The bus station master is really nasty to me. He thinks Im some sort of a crook or something! I then go out and find a friendly worker who helps me search everywhere. Of course i have to keep running back to keep an eye on all my luggage and boxes. We even go out to the big trash container out in the big bus area just in case I threw it in a trash can accidentally. The jerk manager comes out and, from a distance, tells him he's wasting his time as I made it all up! So I now get no more aid. This is going on for a long time. I finally give up searching and I call my father. My father then has to drive all the way from NYC to Philadelphia to pick me up with all that stuff. I have to stay near it all for hours more until he gets there. Worst bus trip of all. ...... age 17 ....... CHRISTMAS SUNDAY DECEMBER 25, 1966 .........DEC 30,1966: "The Harpsichord's influence in the world of music is seen as increasing" (see my story).......... NEW YEARS EVE 1966/NEW YEARS DAY 1967: I'm in New York City.

---- 1-1-67 to 6-67 :::::: NEW YEARS DAY WAS SUNDAY, JAN 1, 1967..... I return to Richards house from Xmas vacation in NYC and the moment I walk into the front door little Chrissy runs up and hugs me in the front hallway. I never got any type of reception like that in my life (and havent since)... ..... JOHNNY KEANE DIED Friday, January 6,1967. ......... MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6,1967: BLIZZARD HITS EAST COAST FROM WASHINGTON DC TO NOVA SCOTIA, NYC GETS 12.6 " ............ .... ...... .....MARCH 17,1967:(StPatricks Day) NYC GETS 3-5 INCHES OF SNOW, SUBURBS UP TO 8 INCHES.. ...age 17 ......... WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22,1967: NEW STORM LEAVES OVER 10 INCHES.... .......... ........... ........... EASTER: SUNDAY, MARCH 26,1967 ....... This could be either late 66 or 67: A friend of mine knew a teacher who lived on North Sherman Street near the Neffs right before Wayne Avenue and up those high,high fire escape stairs visible from the street. I was nervous about climbing them as I feared heights but I did. Inside, in the backroom, he showed us a HARPSICHORD he put together all by himself in its own little room. I loved the sound of it and from that moment I was hooked on Bach and baroque music. (Billy once asked me what it is with music like that that attracts studious types. It simply sounds more intelligent and more complicated. The more of a BEAT the more animalistic music is). I then planned on taking courses in it and buying my own someday. I later told my mother about this and she just told me to "watch it" due to her fear of homosexual guys and loose girls she always thought were after her only child........age 17 ....... I was looking for something to follow in the baseball off-season and one night I purchased a HOCKEY magazine on Market by the RR tracks near State Street where the little newsstand used to be. I read it on the bus to NYC. I noticed that goals and assists had the same numbers as homeruns and that goals allowed percentage were the same as ERAs. There were only six teams in those days. (Did I do this earlier- in 1966? Did I then get that HOCKEY game I liked so much for Xmas 1966???).. age 17...Friday Sept 10,1999.....Monday Sept 13,1999:.. So after all the years of waiting and worrying myself sick (I was having stomach pains often and occasionally spitting up green bile) about getting into college and how to pay for it the year to actually CHOOSE a college FINALLY came. I probably started looking in Fall 1966 and applying in Early 1967 but I'm not sure. When I was a kid standing on the stage and getting all those awards in the 1950s I wanted to go to the "smartest" college there was- whatever it was and whereever it happened to be. I also took it for granted that the 'smartest' all-around college, 'most prestigious college', 'college budding Astronomers wanted to go to', 'college having the most Astro classes', and 'college having the best Astro Dept.' were all the same thing. Well, as I got older I found out they werent all the same at all. For one thing there were TWO types of "prestige": The General Public had theirs and the scientists themselves had theirs. For example, Ivy League schools may impress the public but they didnt impress the scientists. Most research was done at huge state universities that could afford the equipment. Ivy League schools were also good at luring big names but the big names learned their stuff at non-Ivy League schools. And Ivy League schools were known for rich kids and teenage television and teenage movie stars- hardly people who have a rep for being studious. Prestige and intelligence dont automatically go together. Columbia is an Ivy League school that wanted me when I was just 14 but it didnt even have an ASTRO Dept! Most Ivy league schools didnt have bachelors degrees in Astro in those days. AND whether its Ivy or non-Ivy the overall school rep means nothing because what matters is the qulaity of the department YOU are in. The idea of 'averaging' in a Nuclear Physics degree with a Folklore degree as they do with college rankings is ridiculous. (Nowadays, the most difficult and intelligent degrees to get are probably the PhD in Astrophysics from U.Arizona and the PhD in Nuclear Physics from U.Chicago, and I think its been that way for decades. An ancient Einstein may have taught at Princeton but he did not learn his stuff at Princeton. ). And as I got older I developed more criteria for what I wanted in a college. After all the crap I went through being bullied horrifically from early 1959 to early 1964 I wanted to get as far away from NYC as I could BUT still be close enough to get home for the major holidays. And after the crap I took at the hands of a couple of my obnoxious relatives I wanted to get away from the whole Northeast. MY choices were all in the Midwest. Had there been an Ivy League school in the Midwest I would have applied there for my parents sake but their wasn't. I don't recall whose idea it was for me to apply to Yale. It sure was not originally mine. They didnt even have an Astro Dept then. At least I had never heard of it in all my years of reading about Astronomers/Astrophysicists. But SOMEONE (parents?, guidence counselor? other?) came up with the annoying idea. Someone also wanted me to aplly for a place I had never heard of : Rensellaer (sp?) Polytech, way up in NY State. Actually, I wanted nothing to do with the East Coast and my image of going to college was to be in a place that was far, far away from home, and away in the middle of nowhere on a huge campus next to a tiny college town far away from normal towns that also had the same seasons as the Northeast. So that let out the South as well. I really wanted to be at SOME big University in the Midwest. But for OTHER peoples sake I also sent out APPLICATIONS to Yale and Rensellear (sp)(look up). This was an expensive pain in the ass as each application was expensive and I could only afford a few of them. I went to the York High Library in 66/67 and looked through the college books during my study periods. The Astro Dept at the University of Chicago was absolutely great. Extremely intelligent and prestigious among real scientists. And in the Midwest. Just the right distance away. And it had access to the Number One refractor at Yerkes. BUT it was in a big city and the weather was terrible. But I applied anyway. The Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland had a great program. But it also had a big city and terrible weather. There werent very many places for Astro bachelors in those pre-loan days. Probably not ten in the whole country, if that many. Ohio State only seemed to have a Radio Astronomy program back then and it was a little too close and also in a big city. I wanted college to FEEL like college. That mattered in the 60s when college was still something special for the few. Then there was Northwestern. Its Astro Dept was even better than U.Chicago back then! It was a hell of a place to get into. But it was near U.Chicago and was also too cold and too much big-city-area. I did aplly and get accepted by the places to which I applied. These were all just fall-back choices, though! On the Yale application I had to state that Yale was my first choice as I guess they would be embarrassed if they accepted someone who then chose somewhere else. Well, at the time I filled it out I guess it was as I couldnt FIND the school I wanted. So IF they accepted me and IF they gave me money to go (God knows I couldnt possibly afford to go there with my family's income, I would have gone. To me it was an all-boys school too close to NYC and Id have to compete with the super-snobby and very-rich. Parents were to Yale as girls were to the Beatles. Great to them but not to young male science nerds like me. I'd be as impressed about going there as I was about guarding the BEATLES. (i.e. something interesting to tell people not not enough to PAY for). So time was running out and I couldn't find a college I wanted to go to. (Gee, I only had been given 17 years to find one.) So, I'm going through the books over and over in the York High library but, I believe, that Lovejoy was the main book. And I'm constantly looking under the words, "UNIVERSITY OF ------- " as there is a whole list like that and I'm reading about every one. Then came the great brain-flash. I thought, "It's not the University of Yale; it's Yale University. Maybe I should look under the leftover few that say, "-------- University"". So I give it a try. And I come across INDIANA UNIVERSITY. Indiana? A cow state? Oh, What the hell. NORTHWESTERN and U.CHICAGO are also in a cow state: Illinois. And their science grads eat Ivy Leaguers for breakfast. So I flip to the page and JESUS CHRIST!- a list of Astro courses as long as my arm. And a MORE HUGE list of Physics courses. And Math courses. And all in the same building. And here's all this stuff about their Observatories and their Cyclotron and their high ranking and how the Astro Dept has been big since the Civil War and has been famous among world Astronomers since then. And things I had heard of were discovered there by an Astronomer who also had some of them named after him. And who got his degree from YORK,PA. And the MAIN STREET of town that led up to the entrance of the school itself was even named after that Astronomer from York,Pa as was one of the Observatories and a campus building. Talk about being made to order. So far! But then the name of the college rang a distant bell. Those soft-cover books I was buying in the early 60s when I was practically living in the Haydn Planetarium. I went over to my empty house across town and up to the cold third floor and went through the boxes. Sure enough. The authors of the books I read as a gung-ho kid had Indiana University listed as one of their schools. Aha! Still another thing fell into place. But where was the damn place? Not up in northern Indiana near cold, big Chicago I hoped. A Big Three of Astro schools? So I looked it up. And there was Bloomington WAY down in the middle of nowhere in Southern Indiana! A two-lane road from Indianapolis a bumpy 65 miles to the school. And nothing near the school. With the next main city being Louisville, Kentucky. Thats like what it would be to take a small road from York to Baltimore IF there were no suburbs in between but just nothingness. But what did the campus look like? Well, it was often chosen most beautiful in the nation. And the guy who designed everything copied the whole school from Cornell and then went off to create Stanford as a copy of both. (They even have the same school colors.) And southern Indiana, it said, had the same weather as southern York County. (As Astronomer KIRKWOOD of the 19th Century would know). That school just EXPLODED to me. It seemed to have so many things calling me there. And at that time I had been rooting for the Whitesox to win the PENNANT for years and, with Indianapolis being a AAA Whitesox farm team city there would be plenty of Whitesox fans there during the fantastic 1967 pennant race. Indiana also was settled by many Poles and french and is the only state with two counties named after Poles. Catholic state. So that was far and away where I WANTED to go. I especially liked the distance. Cant even get there diagonally. My parents would be in NYC until late 1968 and they'd have to take that long train trip all the way to Indianapolis and then straight down through the nothingness until reaching the surprising oasis of Bloomington. .... age 17 ..... Some time later I was on the Greyhound bus, as I usually spent my Friday nights at age 16/17, and I was sitting in the back. I started talking with some very clean-cut intelligent guy who was, of all things, an IU grad whose car broke down. And by then I was getting piles of info from IU and he joked about what a very efficient department they had for sending out such stuff. ( This may have been after I was accepted, I dont know). But he kept telling me of all the wonders of the school and the town with it. Rather than be cynical as most young males are he praised it to the skies and regaled me with stories of this great place that noone knew about and that they prefer to keep to themselves as outsiders would swamp it and ruin it. (I was recently at Buchanan's Bookshop at 306 W.Market and the proprietor there also has a bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana and volunteered how amazing it was that such a place could be there in the middle of nowhere).... Did I mention that due to my high board scores the ENGINEERING SOCIETY invited me to a meeting with a couple of other guys as they wanted us to go to Pa. colleges with their help. But none had Astro. I was doomed to pay out-of-state fees..... I also did not get a DIME in SAT scholarship money like everybody else did and they all scored less than I did. Because I was going to an out-of-state college. My mother wrote an appeal but it didnt work. My father didnt like her doing that. ..... age 17.. Mon 9-13 403pm....... Tues 9-14: The Yale thing turned into a pain. It cost me much more to send them an application and transcript than to any other college. But I figured that would be the end of it. My plan had been to get east from NYC for high school: and I did it- 200 miles. And then to get to the Midwest another 600 or 800 miles from NYC and all its bad memories. Yale was a bad step back as far as distance went. But I then got a reply some weeks later (This may have happened in late 1966) to go to the Yale representative for an interview! I didnt even know they had those. So I had to get my sport jacket from NYC. I took the bus on, I believe, a Saturday, to the corner of Philadelphia Street and North George. I crossed and stood in front of the Strand theatre waiting for the bus down South George. I remember it like yesterday. I bought my first Sen-Sen for my breath somewhere and popped it in my mouth there. I got nervous as the bus was so late. It finally came and I got off past Cottage Place down at the Colonial Shopping Center. I then walked up Rathon Road. I had had no idea where it was and had to ask people before that day. I was shocked that it was so close to Cottage Place. But I had never been up that street. Rathon Road was designed differently then. It made a semi-circle into George St. It aimed at the restaurant there now. I went up it looking for the guys house. I found it on a corner. Entrance in front back from street and garage lower and around table. I went in and he sat me in the living room across a low big table from him and started asking me questions that I forget. Then I asked him the one I wondered about: what SAT scores would I need. He shocked me with some number that was lower than i expected and he didnt expect applicants to get it until they were 18. I had gotten more at age 16 and told him. Everything worked out and he said it seemed like I was in as I had the qualifications. I had mixed feelings about that. great prestige for my family and for 'normal' people. But no prestige for Astrophysicists. I would be interested in one of the few professions that werent impressed by IVY LEAGUE schools. I also did not want to go back near NYC. I also did not have anywhere near the money I needed for the fantastic tuition. And how would I feel in a school of rich kids when I had no spending money? Who would I date? Who could I afford to be friends with? Those kind of teenagers would have new cars and lots of money. He said that money wouldnt be a problem BUT I recall that I went month after month after month trying to either get the money or something in writing that I would. Because all the other places that I was accepted by kept demanding I tell them whether I was coming or not! If I told all the rest of them 'no' and then didnt get the money from Yale it meant that i would not be able to go to college ANYWHERE and that I would then be drafted and sent to Vietnam where a clumsy unathletic nerd such as I would be killed or maimed easily. The Yale thing was screwing up all my other applications and they were really letting me hang out there with nothing on paper for months... Same old story. Everyone just shows up long enough to make demands of me and screw me over but noone has the ability to help me do the things they want. I and I alone had to worry about getting accepted and figuring how to get all the money and not get drafted and shipped to Vietnam. I wasn't going to pester the guy and turn him against me so I just asked a couple of times over the weeks and then left him alone. Then one day Im by my locker at York High and a message comes over the intercom for me. Turns out that the Yale guy tried to contact me at our house on West Cottage Place but noone was there as my parents were back in NYC. So he told the old lady who lived next door and she called the school. So I phone him and he acts like it's I who is gumming everything up. He asks what is happening as Yale called him and said, "It looks like this guy isnt interested in coming here". Well, sort of. My parents wanted me to and I did what I could. But I had no MONEY! And until either my parents or the college DEFINITELY told me that the money was there I was leaving my options open. An acceptance without money meant a trip to Vietnam instead of college. The rich rep never had to juggle money and Vietnam as I did. (I also just had my first dose of economic culture shock. In Astoria I was the Richest kid in a poor neighborhood as I was the only kid whose parents had a car and who got his own presents for Xmas. When i moved to York I was suddenly one of the poorer kids as the other parents all either lived there for generations ans passed the money down or they worked for places like Caterpillar or other places that paid high wages while my parents were now giving up their good jobs to come to York and in York all the other kids had access to a car and I did not. If it was that bad just going from Astoria to York, just imagine what I'd be at Yale with the richest kids in America competing against me!) ........ For some strange reason my guidance counselor thought I wanted to go into RADIO ASTRONOMY. No way...... I would walk over to Smittys house a few blocks up Chestnut St to where he lived on the corner (Other street was the one that Jackie Bs is on) for a ride to school. His father always had their hunting dog in the back yard that had a doghouse. Id go in the backway up the stairs and wait as SMITTY would get ready while watching a little TV on the kitchen table. He always had the TODAY show on. Little did I know that I would soon be living near a young Jane Pauley in Bloomington, Indiana. His family had all these old Cadillacs. One brother died by driving like a nut and flipping his car over. The other one was a good looking guy who was all crooked-over due to his car accident from driving like a nut and Smitty would die in 1971 from the same thing. He had a Ouija board on his table and we did it once and it said one of us would soon get very sick and the other one would die. He'd usually park the car on Pershing either along Penn Park or a block up where someone had just turned a garage into a candy store just 1/2 block south of the Park across from where the corner store is now. It was all-white there then. At night, during the few times I was crazy enough to get in his car, he'd drive like a nut. He'd sit on a RR track and wait for the train to come before moving. He'd take corners on two wheels and then kid me for grabbing the dashboard. (He gripped the steering wheel). He once followed some girls at night trying to scare them until they led him to their house and then he took off. Bad nut. His father always called me 'slim'. I never knew why until I read his gravestone years later and saw that his name was also Walt. Once when we were up the Sherman St hill he pointed out where someone died trying to make a turn too quickly and then proceeded to do it himself. His poor long-suffering mother eventually saw two of her boys kill themselves in cars and the other cripple himself. And at the same time the father got cancer and died. Smitty was one of the people I went with as the 'cruised' the CIRCUIT and I could never understand why they did it. ....... For some reason I went to the Neff physician on East Market St east from Sherman. I was in there a few times for some reason. I know that once was for a physical. For whom? I remember being in the back as the doc said things to the nurse who was in another room and wrote them down. Once he said some term neither the nurse nor I understood and he said: "Barrel-chested- like me". (I wondered what that meant as I didnt have a big chest) They always had a little TV going up front in the small waiting room. Place was sort of sideways to the sidewalk.. ....age17...... i got in trouble a few times while at the Neffs. Only time I did and it all happened there. Once I went to my empty house with a friend and picked up some FIRECRACKERS I had there. Im lighting them as I walk along Cottage Place towards George St. Within a few blocks a cop car pulls up and catches us. Cop says it was reported to them. That was fast! So he puts us in the POLICE CAR and takes us to the police station. The guy with me gives them a hard time but I just answer their questions. And I, the good Catholic boy, insist that they tell my parents in NYC as I dont want to hide anything from them. I always run into the guns when Im in trouble. So he eventually phones them and tells them it was my idea and he winds up telling them what a good guy I must be and now nothing will happen to me. So he puts the sheet in his desk and says it'll stay there as long as I dont do it again and that ends it. The other guy gets into more trouble....

----- Early 1967 continued: ..NOT PROOFREAD... Another time I get into trouble its for leaving school bounds during lunch. In those days the back of Wm Penn had a park with BENCHES to sit at. Now there is a huge brick bldg on the corner of Pershing/Princess but then the park stared right at a corner candy store across Princess on the corner. So a bunch of us snuck across to get candy. We are in there and a teacher walks in and catches us. He leads us out and down Pershing. Then around the corner towards the front entrance. And here comes a gym teacher. He has a really angry look on his face as he walks up to the other two guys. Then he suddenly punches then both in the stomach and they collapse to the ground and the teacher who caught us stops him in case he plans on hitting them again. But he didnt touch me. We then go inside. I dont recall who I saw but we all got suspended for three days and got detention. One guy was going to have to go to court. So they let me go home in the middle of the day. I go back to Richards and I tell them what happened and they dont get upset. Later a phone call comes in and Im told to go to class the next day as my suspension has been retracted. After classes I go to DETENTION and there's the Asst Principal standing there waiting for me to tell me to forget the whole thing......... With Jim gone forever I would hang out with other guys outside the lunchroom. No longer in that bldg. We'd hang in the TUNNEL between the two halves of the bldg and slip inside during the winter. In warmer weather we'd be at those park benches. Once my Math teacher cmae through and I was mentioning having some NOSEBLEEDS and he asked me if I was near anything radioactive and I mentioned the trailer at Astoria Park that had the DANGER RADIATION sign on the side. There was also an occasional 'cat fight' between girls in that breezeway. I hated seeing people fight as I had empathy for the loser........ I think I talked to my parents on the phone from Richards house a few times..... .. Kept doing that miserable, boring, lonely BUSRIDE to NYC on Fridays along the OLD US 30....... Went down to Baltimore with Smitty and a couple of other guys once. Ate in car at a DRIVE THROUGH fast food place. As we are going out and Im about to put my trash in the can at the exit the rest of them just throw theirs out the window and all over the lot. Im appalled. Why are low IQ males always so damn disgusting and rotten??? I HATED being a teenager when it came to having to deal with others my age. It was always Be alone or be offended....... EXPO 67 opened in Canada early in 1967. I kept wanting to go up there but my money had to be SAVED for college...age17.. I used the Neffs basketball quite often to play at the hoops in the park across the street from them. Usually alone but a couple times with someone else. I played with the Neff kids a few times. Both there and in their backyard. I was still much taller but once I was about to shoot and Bill jumped and got it away and said, "Snuffed it!" I never heard the expression before. Other kids were always up on such things, not I.... age17.... There was a BARBER way up on East Poplar before it curves into Mt Rose Ave. I'd walk there at night for my haircuts. The one I have now was donr there by the daughter of the barber who lived then and her mother is the owner..... Once a week I'd walk from the Neffs up to Market Street a block west of the Lincoln Hwy Garage to use the phonebooth that was then by the field under those billboards and I'd call my parents COLLECT ....... On Wednesdays and Fridays when I wasnt going to NYC I'd walk up Philadelphia St to town. The PHILLIPS 66 sation just started calling itself that due to 1966 the year before. Behind it was a bldg with a steep wooden ramp from which the Yellow Cabs would pour out at night. ....... One night I came out of the Neffs house and there were the NORTHERN LIGHTS! They said that theyd be visible from York and they were- easily above our well-lit street. Never saw that again since. Virtually never expanded that much to reach this far from the pole. Havent been able to find that date yet...age 17.... JUNE 5,1967: There was a massive power blackout that included the top 70% of New Jersey and stretched from the HUDSON RIVER to the SUSQUEHANNA RIVER. My two homes were barely on either side... age 17... Had my graduation PHOTO taken at Blatners next to the Martin Library downtown. Way in the back. And he had me go into a room to comb my hair. Then when I sit down he puts "Dippity Doo" on it! Sheesh!....... The two 'Underground Magazines' then that we knew of were RAMPARTS and EVERGREEN. Two leftie things. But I didnt dare buy them to see what they were like until I got to college... I was shocked when I was told that my name was in the school PAPER. Turned out for one of those tests we always had to take that I did very well on..... age 17.. I was in a PHOTOGRAPHY Class which I figured would be important for Astro and who is in there with me but the President of the Student Body and the Quarterback of the Football team and a third guy who runs many of the school clubs. In-crowd types. But we get along as Im from NYC and I get points for that. I think there were five or six of us in that clas. We are taught how to use the camera and how to develop and then we are told to take the many miscellaneous photos for the 1967 yearbook. Guess they wanted to save money? So we walk around and do so. The silhouette of one guy is in there. We also got to walk around the neighborhood during school hours to take photos and I recall going into a candy store on S.George St. We'd also fill the orders for photos of each class from the negatives and sometimes the black guys would look like black OVALS. For being in it we all were put into Quill and SCROLL but I couldnt show up for the photo as I had to be on the bus that Friday..... The SMOTHERS brothers had just failed on a hokey show that I tried to watch. Then one day in the darkroom these guys ask if I saw it and I said I did and it stunk. But they keep telling me how great it was. I had NO idea that they had switched from the bad show which was a sit-com to the political one they got famous for. Besides I was always outside when I was at Richards..age 17... Tues 9-14-99 400pm.... Wed 9-15-99::.. Some guy I knew in the York High printing shop made me some "Class of 1967" cards with my name on them as a gift. They were a bit gaudy but it was still nice of him..... Richards cat was in the TREE in front of the house and pat waited for Rich to come home and get it out. "Why didnt you just ask Walt", he asked her. Ha! I had never climbed a tree in my life........ Little Chrissy cried because she wanted a BARBIE Doll. I just couldnt believe how kids were so susceptible to such things as I had gotten over that between 1957 and 1958. But in her case she was just 8 so no worse than I was...... The 1967 BASEBALL season had started and I walked out of Richads house listening to the very first game of the season on my pocket radio. It was to be the greatest pennant race. I turned left to go to the next block where there was a tiny store up the steps in the living room of a house where they had 5c Hershey ice cream...... I bought bluejeans for the first time after Rich had shown me his 'stovepipe' brand. I didnt know one was supposed to wash them first so I RUSTLED a little way down the block before returning and throwing them in the wash...... People at school would ask me what college I was going to apply to and they always mentioned little LOCAL COLLEGES I had never heard of. Growing up in NYC the idea that there were little colleges never crossed my mind. But I had no interest in going to some little school for central Pennsylvanians. I wanted to go to a huge university...... age 17... My math teacher taught us how to develop EINSTEINS equations two different ways: each only took one sheet of paper....... I was in a FRENCH class in an OLD little bldg on the York High campus. The teacher was from Poland and immediately spoke Polish to me and I had no idea what she was saying. There was a kid in the class who showed her utter contempt. Among other things he'd play poker for money in the back with others while she was teaching. He was also stealing late-slips out of teachers desks when they werent looking. ((On my very first day of work at American Chain Engineering in June 1979 I was being shown around and there he was. Now he was the most conformist person imaginable. But I never saw him after that first day!))..... Richard and Pat took me to their relatives house on East Market street right next to what is now the laundromat a couple of blocks before the Lincoln Hwy garage. Cookout in the back. At the time I really didnt recognize where I was...... I paid for a test to 'TEST-OUT' of college classes due to the honors classes I was in. I would FINALLY get something out of those things. Then one day Im walking along Philadelphia Street on a Saturday and it hits me that I FORGOT all about that test and it was now half-over!!!!!! The ONLY time I ever forgot a test in my life was the only time it was for ME to get credits and save money!!!. (I think this was in early, cold 1967)..... 9-15-99 9-16-99: Once Loralee suddenly starts putting a YORK HIGH jacket on me. She tells me to wear it. I had NO idea what was going on. Why is she lending me this? Is she giving it to me after all her rotteness against me since 1964? So I wore it every day to school for a couple of weeks still wondering what was going on. It was a nice jacket and I certainly couldnt afford one of my own as all my money was in a bank back in Astoria being saved for college. I had no idea what was happening. So I figure I had better just give it back. I go to her house, take it off, and I say, "I'd better give this back now". And she is shocked. "Huh?! You don't want to BUY it??'" Buy it?? I should have realized she was just trying to get money out of me. It was a nice jacket and I wish I could buy it but I had no money in York. I could not imagine SELLING something to a relative. You lend it or give it. You dont sell it. I should have realized that noone would ever be nice to me for no reason, especially Loralee....... Some guy started inviting me along with him as he went places in his car. Sometimes we'd go to the Rutter's drive-in or whereever. Sometimes he'd take his girlfriend along. That was another surprise that he would go out of his way to give me a lift when he'd see me. So after a while of my trusting him as this went on he finally mentions one day that he heard from someone that I have a key to my parents house while they were in New York. And he wants to borrow the key. What a jerk I was. I should have known that NO ONE would ever be nice to me unless they were just trying to USE me. So now I feel obliged. He then takes his girlfriend into my parents house to have sex with her. Something totally against my moral upbringing. Then my parents get back from NYC and my father comes to tell me my mother is horribly upset and he takes me into the kitchen. The idiot kid left a condom there for my mother to find!!! Now I had to explain to my father that it wasnt I but that I gave the key away and never got it back. He then had to change the lock on the door! I was always gullible. Always hoping to find a real friend somewhere but they all were just out to use me or mistreat me. ..... age 17 ....... I believe we had the first graduation that was ever held at the fairgrounds. We were all in the stands, first time I was ever inside there and we had to go down to a special platform to get our degrees. A bunch of anti-Vietnam War parents refused to stand for the national anthem and made a lot of other parents angry for doing it during their kids graduation. That was the first time I had seen an anti-war thing occur. I went up the stairs to get my degree and when I came back down the nicest gym teacher made a big deal of shaking my hand. After the ceremony I was out back by the car which was parked near the main gate on Market St. Viola and my mother were there. My mother said I should appreciate my high school diploma more than I did as it may be the only degree I ever get. ............. On graduation night I recall driving around with Mike who had gotten friendly again and who wanted to crash parties. Going over a bridge over the Codorus we saw our first street sweeper with the revolving brushes and, for some reason, thought it was hilarious. 9-17-99... 9-20-99: I recall when we left York for NYC in June 1967. I figured that it was the end of the last time I would ever be in York for a long time. I thought I would now go back to Astoria, then to college and only come back for summers and then graduate and get a job in some other town. So I then thought my 'permanent' residence in York was ending that day. We were leaving at NIGHT for some strange reason. And we were coming down market past the 5&10s dowtown in the dark and noone was there. We passed (or stopped in front of) McCrorys. The sidewalks were smaller than so we were on the inside much closer to the McCrorys window. There in the dark window was all this BATMAN stuff on sale. And I was thinking how passe Batman was as it was popular a YEAR ago in Summer 1966, not June 1967. I also recalled the times I went into McCrorys with Billy, Steve and Loralee before they all went their own ways. Then on we went along Market street Eastwards to Lancaster and NYC in those pre-US 30 Superhighway days.. 9-20-99 446pm.....

---- SUMMER 1967:__________WEDNESDAY JUNE 21, 1967: Wes Westrum resigns as manager of NY METS. Salty Parker finishes out season. _________TUESDAY JUNE 27, 1967: "The Odd Couple" filmed at Shea Stadium NY _______ __FRIDAY JUNE 30, 1967: Major's 8th birthday. I always got him presents. (also day NGUYEN KY FORCED TO WITHDRAW CANDIDACY for S. Viet presidential elections Sept 3)..... sunday JULY 2,1967: Gallup poll: GOVERNOR ROMNEY OF MICHIGAN WOULD TIE LBJ!!!!! ________________ Tuesday, July 4, 1967 __________ JULY 7-11 MCNAMARA IN VIETNAM ..... july 8: vivien leigh dies,53..... july 12: hew secy gardner calls for cigarette labeling..... JULY 16: NATIONWIDE RAILROAD STRIKE (This had me worried about my trip to Indiana), chinese copying mao swim ..... JULY 17, 1967: MY MOTHERS BIRTHDAY, benjamin spock to run for pres in 68, john coltran dies,41..... july 22: carl sandburg dies,89,, turkish earthquake..... JULY 23: DETROIT RIOTS, WORST IN US IN TWENTIETH CENTURY..... JULY 24: DEGAULLE CALLS FOR A FREE QUEBEC..... JULY 24 to AUGUST 5: GEN MAXWELL TAYLOR AND CLARK CLIFFORD GO NATION HOPPING OVER VIET WAR..... July 26: turkish earthquake..... JULY 29: USS FORRESTAL FIRE, 134 DEAD..... july 30 alfried krupp dies,59..... aug 2: french h-bomb test in pacific..... aug 3 lbj to increase by 45,000 more. Wants 10% inc tax surcharge..... aug 6: lunar orbiter 5: begins photos of moon., also on August 6: Dean Chance throws five inning mini-perfect game against Redsox for Twins 2-0 (Two pennant race teams) .... aug 11: us planes hit within 10 miles of china for first time..... aug 14: 415 nonwhite poor, 125 white..... aug 15; painter magritte dies,68, nasa director james webb says ussr will have more powerful boosters for years to come..... AUGUST 24,1967: MY FATHERS BIRTHDAY, henry kaiser dies,85..... AUGUST 25: GEORGE LINCOLN ROCKWELL ASSASSINATED, HEAD NAZI... Saturday August 27: Dean Chance throws no-hitter against Cleveland Indians during pennant race. Third no-hitter of 1967. Chance now 17-9, Siebert 6-11..NOTE: ALL THROUGH JULY BUSINESSMEN AND BANKERS WERE CALLING FOR TAX INCREASES!!?? and BIAFRA WAS BIG..... sept 1: siegfried sassoon dies,80_____________ I think Dale and I ran around that Summer before he went to Parris Island. He also had some new obnoxious pseudo-tough guy friend (who broke down in Boot Camp later). Was this the summer when he had the b-b gun and was shooting out the lights in the Astoria Park as we walked around it at night? We were no doubt in his basement that he had all fixed up. I guess it was the previous Summer when I went with him to see his girlfriend in Williamsburg. He and I went around the city a lot at night. Even through the most dangerous areas under the Manhattan suspension bridges. We were in Staten Island walking around and went there and back via the ferries. He commented on how he never saw me wearing jewelry before. That was the initial gold ring my Aunt/Godmother bought me. I do recall being in a fancy room standing with his mother as MARINES in full-dress uniform were standing around talking to people. (I really have to study the Summer of 1967 better so I dont get parts mixed up with 66 and 68)...... age 17. ..... JULY 21,1967: I was at Macys Dept Store in NYC sitting in a chair waiting for my mother who went into the main office. Something to do with her Macy's job? I think she may have returned to work there. Then I heard over the piped in radio that Jimmie Foxx died. I was then really into baseball history and I even had a plastic 'Hall of Fame' bust of Foxx. The voice said he choked to death eating. ....... At some point I got a pile of info from INDIANA UNIVERSITY and I recall sitting on the front porch looking through it all. I dont know if I got the info before graduation or if it was there in York on a Summer visit back. But I recall being out front reading some while my parents were inside but it was boring and I STUPIDLY stopped reading it. That lack of knowledge would hurt me later. ....... age17 ........ One day, I guess in July? I get this notice from IU for "Early Registration" and I think, "They expect me to go all the way out there, stay one night, register, and come all the way back?? Well, I guess so. After all, college is for rich kids and they can do it. Besides, most of the students are from the Midwest so its local for most. Im just majoring in something weird that they just happen to have" I 100% thought that it was a MANDATORY early registration for Freshman only. I showed the papers to my parents and thats what they thought,too. None of us knew anything about 'college'. I thought the Freshman were separated from the Upperclassmen as, in those days, you werent supposed to be on a campus unless you had METRICULATED (Been accepted full time for a degree program). You didnt just wander on and off or just take a class back then. In actuality, I could have waited until September. Heck, I had not known anybody who had actually ever gone to "college" College, in those days before Student Loans, was something MUCH more important than nowadays when any moron could get in. Back then colleges LOST money with each student they took! So they only wanted the ones from rich families who would donate money OR the very smartest who, they figured, would become the most successful and then donate. Nowadays the US GOVERNMENT bribes colleges to take any piece of human garbage. The government now hands $50,000-$100,000 to colleges for EACH so-called 'student' they accept. So naturally they will accept any idiot just to get the money. But we did have money in 1967 so I could go to Early Registration. ...... age 17 .......MONDAY OCT 11,1999 541pm:: Before leaving I had to make up my schedule for my very first Semester in college. I had NO idea of the differences between high school and college and I knew noone who had ever gone to college well enough to help me. I also had a high opinion of myself and my ability to study as hard as I needed if necessary. So, STUPIDLY, I filled out the schedule with an unbelievably huge load of courses. In actuality one was only supposed to go to a couple or few classes a day as each hour in school was supposed to assign work for two or three hours outside of school. And, in those days, each class assigned FAR more books to read than they did years later (I went to school with Jane Pauley: her husband Gary Trudeau did a Sunday DOONESBURY cartoon about how little work kids got in the 90s compared to the 60s). And we also had hours of 'labs' and 'discussion classes' attached later to the regular courses. Plus I had mandatory GERMAN classes and mandatory SATURDAY MORNING 830am classes and, due to my high school honors classes they were starting me at SOPHOMORE level classes in some subjects so i would have to compete with experienced students whose parents went to school. And on top of all this I thought I was supposed to fill in every hour on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!!! So instead of just a couple of classes those days I had them at 830, 930, 1030, 1130, 130, 230, 330 ??? I must have been crazy! And I was also just 17 with a budding ulcer. MONDAY 10-11-99 __________ SOMETIME in August 1967 Al Kaline got injured when he slammed his bat into the rack and broke his pinky. He was out for almost a month. I was actually glad to see him out as his average kept falling as he was in a bad slump and i wanted him to end the season with over a .300 average. Especially since he, not Robinson or Yaz was originally picked to have his best year and lead the Tigers to a pennant at last._________.......... On xxxday AUGUST xx, 1967 my parents took me down to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It was THEIR idea I take that train. Were it up to me I would have flown. But I recall that I got on some famous train so it may have been the Twentieth Century Limited which would be discontinued on December 2-3,1967 (9 hours late). I dont recall going there or boarding it. But I do recall us driving up to the station from behind and passing through the most horrifically impoverished area of NYC I had ever seen with real hoods hanging out. The electric schedule board inside was new since January 1967. They had the chalkboard before that. I know that the trains were then kept deliberately dusty and miserable to discourage passenger travel as they were trying to get rid of it. The train left the station and went due north in a long, long tunnel running under the city that I never knew existed. I only thought subways used tunnels under the city. So we skipped most of the bad Manhattan neighborhoods. Then we finally came out in the light and we were below ground in a dilapidated area and I wondered if hoods would throw stuff at the train. We then rose to ground level and the Hudson River was to my left. We followed it north all the way to ALBANY. Albany looked like a futuristic city. All new buildings. Some with bizarre shapes. I had no idea that it was being done. We approached it from above in the low mountains coming down and turning sharply. After leaving Albany we followed the old ERIE CANAL and went through Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo across New York State. We stopped at Erie, Pa and then went along the GREAT LAKES which I saw for the first time. Then we stopped in Cleveland at night in, I believe, an underground station. They kept us there SIX HOURS!!! They were selling us overpriced sandwiches and coffee to keep us from starving. I recall staring at the piles of mailbags on the platform. (In those days mail went via bus or train and airmail cost more). The train sure was dust-musty back then. Then we got rolling again at last. I was carrying a lot of money on me (none of us ever thought of Travelers Checks )and when breakfast was announced I waited a little bit and then walked to the dining car to eat. The dining car was just the opposite of the passenger car. It was pristine. And a black waiter came up to me and treated me like an adult gentleman. He sat me with a girl about my age. This was typical on a train as there was no room to give each person his own table. I was going across the OHIO countryside for the first time in my life as the sun was starting to come up. I ordered a regular big meal and ate it while talking to the girl as the sun rose over the unbelievably flat OHIO countryside. I could see to the horizon as the light increased after sunrise. It was a very expensive breakfast but very good and I could take my time as the black porters waited on me. I just savored being 17 and finally going to see what a real university looked like after waiting all my life. And I had always wanted to see the Midwest. I forget what the whole breakfast cost but I left an incredible two dollar tip. A dollar in 1967 was worth about seven in buying power nowadays. The breakfast may have been five bucks. Well, my parents told me to make sure I ate on the train. I forget if I brought anything to read. Probably sci-fi. After drinking a lot of coffee while watching the Ohio scenery to the horizon I went back to my seat. We did go through various towns where the train was right by the back windows of houses and where cars on the way to work in the morning had to stop for us. I had no idea what those towns were named. At some point on the trip, and it may even have been close to the beginning, a man came up and sat next to me (I was in the first seat on the lefet then, yet I wasnt in that seat at Cleveland so I wonder if this was the SECOND train ride in September??!!) He told me that HE was the engineer that drove this same train for many years and today was his last trip and he was on his way to retire. He told me stories of the past on the railroad and I was an avid listener. He picked the right 17 year old male. He got off long before Indiana. That was 32 years ago. He's proably long gone............. At some point I heard INDIANAPOLIS being announced so I looked out. I saw something really weird. We were not coming in at ground level. We were now WAY above the ground. And like most Midwest cities Indianapolis didnt just peter out. IT stuck up suddenly in the distance. For some reason we were still a few miles off and yet we were way up in the air like on the high platforms carrying the trains to the Hellgate Bridge. Or the Elevated train tracks only higher and more sturdy. We were WAY up in the air and I could see the elevated viaduct we were on going all the way into the city and it really, really curved sharply as it went in. When I was sitting in PS122 as a kid and saw the long, long viaduct carrying those trains to the Hellgate Brdge at eye level even though we were way above the ground and the way they curved way above the houses of Queens; that is how it looked. Only now I was on them. The stop was MUCH more impressive than any other along the way. INDIANAPOLIS was definitely a city. But it was a very OLD city. All the buildings looked like they were from the 1890s through 1920s. Nothing even looked as modern in style as the 1933 Empire State Bldg. I saw NONE of the Bauhaus all-glass bldgs that NYC had been putting up constantly since WWII. NYC had been putting them up for twenty years. Indianapolis had NONE. ( (NOW its almost ALL new. They went crazy in the 1990s when I was visiting and each year theyd tear down one or two whole blocks DOWNTOWN and replace them) ) The train took twenty-four hours to get there! ( Summer/Autumn 1967 song: "Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane, dont have time for a fast train, my baby wrote me a letter") We pulled in. I got off. And I was in this entire huge railroad staion way up in the air! I had never been west of East Pennsylvania before, and even PA. was new to me. Now here I was in Indiana. (In July 1964, after roosting in my home in NYC and not wanting to ever leave my room, if you told me I would have done all that bouncing around starting on my mothers birthday, July 17, 1964 I would have said you were nuts. I was FAR more against going anywhere until then than anyone I knew). And my first view of Indianapolis was from above it! ( Autumn 1967 song: "Everyone knows it's (W)Indy") I lugged my two suitcases and reading material along the platform and followed the crowd down the metal steps. They all knew where THEY were because they were way ahead of me. I got to the bottom of the stairs and just tried to keep an eye on where every one else was headed. I got out into a more open looking space and saw some people go out to the left and some keep going straight ahead. To the left it looked likethe door to the outside led to under the tracks as there was a wall across the way and cars speeding by. So I went straight ahead. Outside was a crescent for cabs to pull in. So I hopped in one and told him to take me to the GREYHOUND STATION. I worried because I had NO idea where it was. It may have been miles away and cost a fortune. We go right onto the adjoining street which turns out to be a major, if not the major, street in town. We just go up a few blocks and heres the station! I could have walked it. I go in and across the station and to a ticket lady on the right. I ask for a ticket to BLOOMINGTON. Im asked, "Which Bloomington?". There's TWO? I say, "The one with the University!". I'm asked "Which University?" There are TWO Bloomingtons around there with two universities? (Turned out the other one was Illinois State. And I believe the U of Minnesota is also at or next to a Bloomington). I say INDIANA UNIVERSITY. Im told I missed the last bus until the next day. So I put my stuff in lockers except for one suitcase and I asked where the YMCA was. 10-1-99 404pm 10-6-99: Now here is where my memories of the sequence get fuzzy. I dont know if I bought my ticket then or the next day. I THINK I put something in the locker for the next day ( A habit I got into for my York-NYC trips). (But why would I carry more than one suitcase for such a short stay? Especially as I think I may have been using those really heavy old wooden ones.) Then I believe I went out the Greyhound and to the right along the main street. I believe I then noticed for the first time the "FRISCHE'S BIG BOY" that was one (or 2?) blocks down towards the RR depot and on the corner across the street. I noticed that it was a restaurant. But I believe I was too shy to go into it. It looked awfully small. Or maybe it was closed if I got there too late for the last bus. And was it night yet in August?) I then walked past the street leading to the huge SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT that is second in size only to the Washington Monument. I think I kept walking on to see the 5&10 on that same side of the street just short of the RR station. It was 'L' shaped with an entrance on both streets. ( McCrory's?)I would be in there all the time for years to come while waiting for transportation to and from home. I think I may have then gone back and to the MONUMENT. On the one block from the main street to the monument there was another 5&10 (Woolworth's?) that had an entrance on that big side street, and facing the monument. Around the monument it was weird. The only traffic circles I had ever seen before were in small towns. Here was one with the monument in the middle in the center of a major city. Cars pulling in and out of it at fast speed, bumper to bumper, with tall buildings all around. So claustrophobic. It amazed me they werent constantly crashing into each other. There were stores all around the monument's outer ring. I saw a bus advertising Indy's radio station WIFE. In those days INDIANAPOLIS was the second blackest city in the USA but I saw no sign of this. In Summer 1967 I had read an article about how three American mainstays were dying out forever as they had been going down for years: HAMBURGERS (to Pizza), MOVIES (To television), and CARTOONS (To rising expenses to the guys who did them by hand in those pre-computer days). All three were predicted to practically die off completely in a few years. I think I went into both 5&10s. Across from the main street one, or a block before it across the street, was their big old dept store. I dont think I went into it on that first trip. Now at some point I asked the people in the bus depot where the YMCA was and it was a long complicated instruction. Yet, for some bizarre reason (and I really believe it was night now) I went right to it!! That amazed me. (In 1991 when I returned I searched all over and couldnt find anything that looked like it and for some weird reason it wasnt even in the city directory for 1967. But the whole area had changed and whole blocks were razed.) I went into the YMCA and paid for my room. I then went upstairs. I did not know about wakeup calls and hoped to be wake for the first bus in the a.m. But I overslept until almost Noon. And I think I recall rushing as I heard the maid coming down the hall. I went out past the desk wondering if I was supposed to tell them I was leaving as I had already paid. But they were busy so I kept going. I walked back to the bus depot and the streets were busy. I learned that the buses ran every two hours from platform 5 (Still 5 in the 90s) so I had about one hour and 50 minutes. I then walked around Indianapolis and checked things out. Interesting that I did not go past the train station as the biggest widest street in Indy was back there at a right angle to the street I was on. I didnt know it was there. (Note: I may have done some or most of the stuff on this day that I said I did the afternoon/night before. I may have even just gone to the YMCA from the depot upon arrival.). On the second day I noticed that BIG BOY again but Im not sure if I went into it or knew of its sandwiches. When I got back to the depot I eventually got on a line with others. I recall they always listed all the towns it went to and the very last one was always PADUCAH, which I didn't know was in Kentucky. I recall we went through some dingy areas of Indianapolis. It was a long, slow curving ride on a two-lane highway that made me feel like I was in the middle of nowhere. Hidden away from evil bullies, crazy teachers, and rotten relatives. Just nothingness for over 60 miles. The 'towns' that were on the map werent really there. They were just single bldgs where the bus dropped off or picked up packages with a few other bldgs in the distance. The foliage was nowhere near that of Central Pa and the highway was nothing compared with the then-magnificent ones of Penna. but as we went farter south the foliage increased and got quite dense on both sides of the highway. Quite a change from the sparseness to the north where there were only scraggly trees here and there. At some point the driver announced "Bloomington". I believe I was on the left side of the bus but I forget how far back. We then suddenly came out of the foliage and went across a wide street with bldgs on both sides (I think their may have even been a McDonalds on the left at the corner towards north then but I did not look that way and had no idea. A block later the street split! Our lane to the right around a big park between the lanes. And a shopping center to the right and a huge red wheel 'turning' for the BIG WHEEL restaurant. Then across another big street and towards a train underpass (Monon RR). I wondered where a train would go to that was East or West of here. The regular students were getting up to get their luggage off the rack so I did,too. I very much recall with vivid clarity seeing the few blocks beyond the overpass for the first time. I especially took notice of the A&W Rootbeer futuristic restaurant on the right. A&W was the new fad thing out East but all they had were little stands. Here was a whole restaurant. (But I think they were more into hotdogs than the 'dying' hamburgers). Right at A&W we turned left and I saw a WAFFLE HOUSE. I thought it was an old local mainstay but found out in the 90s that it had just opened in 1967. We immediately went up the sidewalk at an angle and up a short very steep hill and the bus swayed so dramatically I was thrown about and feared of falling over especially as there was a ledge between the depot and the Waffle House. But we stopped just as quickly and were along the side of the small depot between the little depot and the street. I gathered up my things and got off the front along with almost everybody else. It was a bright sunny day and there I was in a college town at last. It was something on my mind from at least Kindergarten. Wed. 10-5-99 (Note: From here you can finish this story or go to the York High Offshoot and finish York High and then come back through here to IU )

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