Month: August 2015

Lansdowne, PA 1971

I was riding my bicycle home after school when a station wagon blew its horn, passed me real close and cut me off. It had to stop for a traffic light, I caught up, passed the station wagon, ran through the red light and gave the driver the finger. Thirty seconds later I heard screeching wheels behind me. Oops. The station wagon was gaining fast. Fortunately, I found a one way street where I could turn left and make my escape.

Cooperstown, NY 1974

I was riding my Honda 360 motorcycle with Martha on the back. We were on our way to Cooperstown to visit Jim and Kathy. I was going about 60. An old car with two rednecks pulled out from the right and cut me off. I zipped by the car and gave them the finger. Ten seconds later I heard the engine roar behind us. The car quickly re-passed us and the passenger threw a can of beer at us. It barely missed my head. Martha was mad.

Boston, MA 1979

Martha and I had driven to the Boston area so I could interview for a job. We were driving our 1974 Ford Pinto that was missing a muffler and made a lot of noise. It was about 11PM and there was little traffic. We were stopped at a traffic light that seemed to be broken. There was a car beside us in the other lane. Finally, we decided the light was never going to change and proceeded through. There was no traffic.

The car that had been sitting beside us patched out, passed us, pulled in front, cut us off, then slowed down to about 20 mph. I pulled out to pass and the car sped up. We were going about 60. I slowed down, the other car pulled in front of us and slowed down to about 20. I tried to pass again, same thing. At one point we were doing 80. No way the Pinto had the power to pass the other car. At one point I slammed the brakes, did a U turn, accelerated as fast as I could. Didn’t work. The other car was behind us in an instant, passed us, pulled in front, and slowed down to 20. Martha was frantic.

I tried to pull onto a freeway. The other car pulled in front, then turned sideways on the entrance ramp and stopped to block us. The driver got out and walked back to our car. He was really big. He was raving like a lunatic, yelling something something incomprehensible. I rolled down the window to try to talk to him. He tried to pull me out of the car and Martha pulled on my other arm to keep me in the car. Finally the wacko punched me in the face, walked backed to his car and drove away.

I went to the job interview the next day with a black eye, but still managed to get the job offer. I turned it down.

Carnation, WA 1987

Martha and I were riding our tandem bicycle north through Carnation Saturday morning. A station wagon driven by a mom with two kids blew its horn, passed us real close and pulled in front. I gave them the finger. The car pulled over and the two kids jumped out – they were in their early teens – and started screaming and cursing me with words even I rarely used. Martha had not seen me give them the finger. She asked why they were so upset and I replied, “I dunno.”

 

The first year after we were married, Martha and I lived in Lansdowne, right outside Philadelphia, where we worked.  The year was 1973.  Martha was teaching preschool at Blankenburg Elementary and I was working at the AV department at Drexel University. The director’s name was Beatrice. Martha and I were happy and at the same time I was restless.

When B. decided to leave, I was offered her position. It was a dream job opportunity, but I was not happy with the salary offer. Drexel offered to pay me $10K, a 25% increase over my current salary.  Because I knew B. was earning $17K for the same job that’s what I thought I should get. (Yes, at 23 I was a bit naive.)

I suggested an alternate plan for both Martha and me: tell Drexel to go to hell, quit our jobs, travel and explore the country. We had little money saved, about $2k; we were also in the middle of a recession and prospects of getting employment anywhere were uncertain at best.  We were clueless.

Amazingly, Martha acquiesced, and then I vacillated for several weeks between the sensible choice and the stupid choice.   Eventually of course, we made the stupid choice and embraced the dream: go west, discover for ourselves the Rocky Mountains.  We quit our jobs, packed up our belongings. left a network of close friends from college like we would never again have, and drove off in our red Dodge Dart to look for America.  Our lives were forever changed.

Footnote

Nine months later we were settled in Cobleskill, NY, where Kathleen would eventually be born.  I had a job doing similar work to what I had been doing at Drexel, but at a lower salary.  Martha never again found a job like she had at Blankenburg.

We stayed in contact with friends from Philadelphia, but as years passed,  drifted apart.  For more than a year afterwards, I often regretted leaving Drexel, which built a brand new AV center, with many new toys and a budget to do many cool things.  I was working at a much smaller school with less money and fewer toys.  We never developed the network of friends in Cobleskill like we had in Philadelphia.

We were also living a dream shared by both of us – in the country, beautiful upstate New York, and we continued to dream of new adventures.

August 26, 1967 was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.  It was the day I met Alice.  She was 17, just going into her senior year in high school.  I was 19, home from my freshman year at Drexel in Philadelphia.  My friend Jim was dating her sister Barb, who he had met earlier that year.  They introduced me to Alice when we went on a double date to a lake in Pinchot Park, south of Harrisburg.

Coop and I were working at the Shop.  That’s how our family referred to the family business, MiKar Manufacturing company, named after my brother and me. It was mind-numbing repetitive work.  Coop quit working there when he got a better job working for the State of Pennsylvania.  That’s where he met Barb – it was in an elevator, or a parking lot, I forget which.

That was one crazy summer.  I was madly smitten with Alice from the day we met.  She was my first girlfriend. I went back to school in Philadelphia a few short weeks after meeting Alice, but came home most weekends to spend time with her.  It was a two hour trip by train or bus, longer if I hitchhiked.

My mom started giving me grief for spending too much time with Alice and told me to stay in Philadelphia and focus on school.  I came home anyway, often hitchhiking, staying somewhere else.  I remember sleeping on the couch at the house of my best friend Dennis.

In January 1968, I got my first co-op job with Bell Telephone Co. in Harrisburg, renting my own apartment in the north end of town.  Alice and I were together frequently for six months. The following September, I convinced her to come to Drexel in Philadelphia.  I don’t think her heart was ever really in college, but she and I were together constantly until December.

January 1969, I started my second co-op job in Rochester, NY.  Denis, Alice and I drove up there together, and the two of them returned to Philadelphia.  She flew up to visit me one weekend.  I flew to Philadelphia to visit her on Valentines Day. That’s when she broke up with me.

I was devastated, more crushed than I ever remember feeling.  I returned to Rochester and stumbled through life, living in a house with four other guys, working at a job that was not very interesting.  It was cold, dark, and I would walk to work over icy sidewalks. All I could think about was Alice. Walking home from work, the ice on the sidewalks had melted, and I would dream that she would be waiting at the house for me.  Sometime in March, I received a letter from Dennis saying he and Alice were together.  I went berserk.

That’s when I started smoking.  I got drunk a lot.  Several times I disappeared on weekends without telling anyone where I was going.  One Thursday evening, I recall wandering aimlessly in south Rochester, figuring I was going to skip town and disappear.  Somehow I ended up in Washington, D.C., probably by hitchhiking.  I remember going to visit Fast Eddie, who managed a strip club.  Then I went to visit my friend Mike from high school, who was attending George Washington University.  Sometime during that weekend, I decided to return to Rochester.

The six months that followed were difficult times for me.  Thinking about them is still painful.  Even now, nearly fifty years later, as I am writing, I feel these feelings. They hurt.