Good News

Brian's doctor gave him the all clear today to go back to work next Monday. He started his new manager position and then the big bucks start rolling in. Rolling into the bank to save for his own place! YAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer of 1962 Visit to My Dad's

The story I posted on April 20th should have followed this one, but I'd forgotten I'd even written this one. These two stories will join the others I've started organizing as part of my memoirs for my son. I'll fill in the blanks with more stories about my life whenever the mood strikes me.

Hmmmm, I think smell another blog organized like the one I made just for my army stories. It makes reading about those time a a lot easier than randomly browsing this blog for those stories.

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My parents were divorced when I was about 12 and my mother was given custody of the three of us. I was very close to my father and when he left, it hit me very hard. Sure, he'd come back for a visit once in a while, but that wasn't very often. He never stuck around very long, because my mom and him didn't get a long at all. Then when he moved to New York, I almost never saw him. One day my mom told us my dad had remarried to someone we always knew as Aunt Ruth. I think like most children of divorced parents, they never stop hoping that their parents will get back together. My father's remarriage burst that bubble. From then on I resented Aunt Ruth, because I just knew she was responsible for breaking up my mom and dad. Many years later my mom told me that wasn't true. Her and my dad had drifted apart and had planned on separating, but when my little sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor, they decided to stay together for now.

It dawned on me how my father's and Aunt Ruth's relationship developed. My father met Ruth at the Spudnut Shop she owned. Spudnuts are just like donuts, but are made from potato flour instead of wheat flower. They struck up a friendship and it wasn't long before Ruth and her husband and my mom and dad were good friends. We used to go over to Ruth and Frank's house and visit them a lot. Those were fun times. Ruth had two boys the same age as my older brother and me, Eddie and Rickie. We always had a ball.

They didn't live that far from us so sometimes I'd ride my bike over to visit my pal Eddie. I remember one time when I went over to visit Eddie, his cousin Sandy was staying with them. Sandy was in her late teens and a very pretty girl. She was taller than us and had beautiful sandy blond hair. A real looker as they say. Sandy came out of her room with a back massager on her hand in. The vibrating part was on the back of her hand and it was held on by two springs you that you stuck your hand through. She turned it on and touched our hand to show us how it felt. We giggled because it tickled. Then she touched Eddie's balls and he jumped a mile high. I laughed, so she reached for my balls, but I pulled away and ran out of the room. So did Eddie. It only worked when it was plugged in, so she couldn't chase us with it. She just stood in the door way laughing at how much of a chicken we were. We were such idiots for running away. Hindsight of what might have been still haunts me to this day.

During the summer break from school before I started the ninth grade, I took a Greyhound Bus from Jacksonville, Florida to New York to visit my father. He picked me up at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City. In the beginning of the 18 hour trip, it was exciting to see all the new sites. The stops for meals at the rest stops was an adventure in itself. It soon became very boring watching mile after mile of the same old crap. That bus ride became the longest 18 hours of my young life.

Sometime the next day we got close to New York City. I remember being in awe when I saw the bridges, tall buildings and all those people. They really were amazing sights to see. Pretty soon the bus pulled into the Port Authority and we got off. Boy did the air stink! I couldn't believe how bad the City smelled. It didn't dawn on me that most of what I smelled were the fumes from the buses exhaust.

I got my bag from the bus driver and followed the other passengers through the door and into the terminal. I saw my father immediately. My dad was over six feet tall with the same white hair I have now, so was easy to spot. Next to him was Aunt Ruth and Eddie. We were together again, just like the old times when the four of us went fishing together.

My father drove us around the City for a while and then we stopped at a Horn & Hardart's automate for something to eat. That was the coolest place. They had all kinds of food and drinks. You put a few coins in the slot, opened the door and pulled out what ever your heart desired.

After we ate, we took the 60 mile drive to their house in Smithtown out on Long Island. Wherever that was? I stayed with them for most of the summer. I resented Aunt Ruth for breaking up my parents marriage, so I didn't treat her very well while I was there. I refused to call her mom or anything close, because I already had a mom, and Aunt Ruth sure wasn't it. No one let me know that it bothered her so much, but even if they did, I wouldn't have cared.

When summer was almost over, I took the Greyhound bus back down to Florida in time to start the ninth grade. My mom and sister had moved into the city of Jacksonville while I was away, so I didn't even have my old friends around anymore. My life had completely changed. Just like so many other times while I was growing up in Florida, I would be living in a new place and attending a new school. I wouldn't be staying here for that long though. Sometime in February I would be moving again. This time it would be back to New York to live with my father and my step mother, Aunt Ruth and this time it would be for good.

Masturbation Cuts Cancer Risk

I'm so excited. Australian researchers have come to the conclusion that men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation:

They say cancer-causing chemicals could build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly.

Men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life.

I may live forever...

TGIF

Well, that's another week under my belt to add to the other 3,091 I have under my belt already. Tonight Lori will be here like always, TGFL Thank God For Lori. Speaking of God, here's a link my old pals Linky & Dinky sent me today in an email. It's to a web site with a bunch of letters written by kids to God. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

PS
I know I will. My son is staying at his girl friends tonight and that means the Nudist Rules are in effect at my place. Anyone want to come over and hang out? ;-)

Flashback Rerun HNT

About a week ago I received a telephone call from my mom's doctor in Michigan. She requested a family meeting in Michigan to discuss my mom's rapidly progressing dementia and the beginning of the onset of Alzheimer. My mom is forgetting to take her medicine and sometimes even eat. The doctor thinks it's time to get someone to visit her daily to make sure she takes her meds and prepare her a meal or two. My brother and I will be flying there probably next week.

That call brought back many memories, so last Sunday I posted a story about the years after my mom and dad were divorced until 1963 when my mom sent me to live with my dad in New York. I decided that today I'd relive a few more memories of my childhood and repost a story from last year about some carefree days when I was seven.

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I lived in Florida from about the age of 4 1/2 until half way through the 9th grade in 1963. My father was a lineman by trade and my mother was a housewife. When the work got scare for my father in one place, we'd move to where ever he could find work. My mom told me that sometimes my father would come home on a Friday tell her to pack. We had to move right away and be in a new place on Sunday, so he could start a new job Monday morning.

I remember living in these places; St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Boynton Beach, Starke, Hypoluxo, Jacksonville. I'm sure there were more, but that's all I can remember. We lived in three different places in Jacksonville alone.

In 1955 we moved from St. Petersburg to Clearwater. Here we are doing what we did practically every weekend, fishing. We didn't have very much, but one thing my father made sure of, was that we always had a boat.








In Clearwater, we lived in an apartment above the garage behind our landlords house. I loved that place. The house was across the street from a park with a playground. The best part about living there was sliding down the banister of the stairs that went up to the apartment.

These are my father's parents. If you guessed they are Polish, your right. This shot of us was taken on Christmas Eve in 1955. We always opened our gift on Christmas Eve.

My grand parents lived near us no matter where we moved. We'd move and not long after that they moved too. My father had a 'love/hate' relationship with my grand father. Every once in a while they would have a big argument, and my grand parents would move away. But it wasn't very long before they'd move back near us again. I loved having them around so much. My cousin John from Pennsylvania told me that he almost never saw our grand parents, so I guess I was lucky.

I carried that air rifle around with me everywhere and almost never took off that holster.










I think my grandfather loved fishing as much as my father did. I remember the day they brought this tarpon home. It was the biggest fish I seen up to that point. All the neighbors came over to take a look at it.





"I love you mommy."

This shot was taken during Christmas 1956. Miraculously, we still lived in the same apartment. I really have a lot of great memories of living here. Like the time in third grade I was arrested for breaking and entering. Well, not arrested exactly, but my friend and I were taken out of school by the police and reprimanded to our parents custody.

But that's story for another day.

Happy HNT Y'all!

The Bride and Groom's First Dance

Remember that first dance the bride and groom dance at the reception as a married couple? It's usually so tender and sweet and sometimes it even brings a tear to your eye. This video is of a bride and groom's first dance and will certainly bring a tear to your eye, but not because it's tender and sweet.

Click on the picture to watch the video.

Life wasn't always this good.

My mom struggled to raise three kids after my dad and her were divorced. I was about 12 at the time. My mom was a house wife that hadn't worked in 20 years, so of course her secretarial skills were obsolete. She eventually got a job working in a hotel office in Jacksonville for $60 a week. It was the early 60s and that $60 paid for little more than rent and bus fare for her to get to work. That didn't leave much left for anything else.

We ate a lot of bacon and eggs, grits, pancakes and cottage cheese with pineapple for dinner. She'd fry the bacon and then break the eggs over the bacon, which made for a very greasy meal. My brother still doesn't like eating eggs to this day because of that. When there wasn't enough money to go to the laundromat, our clothes didn't get washed, so my "clean" clothes came from the bottom of the laundry pile. I guess they somehow were cleaner than the ones at the top of the pile. When the kerosene ran out and there was no heat, we put old newspapers between the blanket and sheet. My brother read that newspaper was an insulator and we would be warmer. You couldn't prove that by me, so often slept in my clothes.

We lived in one of the poorer areas of Jacksonville on the second floor of a two story house not too far from the Gator Bowl and right down the block from a bridge over the St Johns river. There was a church on the corner across the street and a small grocery store on the far corner. I lived at the "white" end of the block and the "colored" lived at the other. That block was a "neutral" block, but neither the whites or coloreds dared cross the line and enter the other's territory or risk getting their ass kicked or worse. I never did cross the line.

I walked the couple of miles to school, Andrew Jackson Senior High School. Past the Chock Full of Nuts coffee plant and other plants whose names I've long since forgotten. Andrew Jackson was an inner city school with a Georgia clay play ground that we played tackle football on. Officially we played touch football, but the coached didn't stop us when we played tackle. I was on the play ground the day the word came that JFK had been shot. During math class, the principal made the announcement over the intercom that JFK had died and he was dismissing us for the day. The old man that taught us math broke down and cried. Many people cried that day.

I hung with the tough crowd at Andrew Jackson. Not because I was a tough kid, but because I was a skinny Yankee kid that would have gotten my ass kicked if I didn't. I was on the fast track to no good. I drank, smoked, broke into lockers at school and acted tougher than I really was. I wouldn't listen to my mom and pretty much did what I wanted to do. My older brother was in the navy, so he couldn't do anything about it either. Wednesday evening, midway thought the 9th grade, my mom told me to pack my bags, because Friday morning I was coming to work with her and she was putting me on a Greyhound bus for New York to live with my father and step mother. She explained how much they all worried about me and thought that living with my dad was best for me. Of course they were right.