First Concert, My Dual Life as a Kid

 

 

 

So this one will be happier, that last piece I wrote pissed some off...ah, I'll continue to upload my life on here...regardless of what others think.

I was thinking on some of the best moments of my life and my first concert comes to mind, Frank Zappa. Yeah, it's an odd one but I had been bitten by the bug only because my brother would buy his albums and try to learn the leads. At first hearing of Zappa, you think, “What the fuck is this shit? It's awful!” But since it was playing in the background all the time, it slowly worked its way into me. I had been used to the 120 beat from 70's mainstream rock and the ever present disco, so Zappa took some time to “get.”

I was 14 and had thought I knew everything there was, till we hit the Providence Civic Center that night. I had never seen, in real life, a throng of freaks and weirdos like that were there. No one was violent, in fact, it was probably as docile as a Grateful Dead concert, but I had only seen hippies and freaks mostly on TV and none at the Civic Center were from the Manson Family.

The ticket cost..and you're going to throw up, $7.50. You can't get a decent burger for that now. Once we got through the ticket style and passed the security guards, we found our seats and of course, being the first time in there, I thought it was huge. Then it may have held 13,000 people and I had never seen that many in one place. The seats weren't bad at all, we saw the stage w/o too many obstructions considering they still piled the sound equipment on the stage, those line arrays they hang from the ceiling today hadn't been invented yet.

The lights go down and a few seconds later, a spotlight hits Zappa and he rips into “Keep It Greasy.” Everyone stands up including me. About 20 seconds into playing he stops and says in the mic, “Hey, sit down all of you, you'll be here as while, you're also fucking the PA up!”

By the end of the song, my brother had passed me a joint and then about three more were passed between him and me two other of his friends that had come. I was fairly baked. And that's when I could stand being high. Not now..oh noooo.

It's an old maxim but you can't just hear rock music, you have to feel it colliding with your chest as well. The song City of Tiny Lights has a guitar solo and what I liked the best, a deep synthesizer following up. That just thumped into my chest and then I knew why you go to concerts. 

The half time intermission comes and the main lights go on and I saw this, a massive slow moving cloud of marijuana smoke drifting inside the place. I had looked at a Providence cop who was stationed on the floor and...he didn't care. That was a first for me. With the lights up, this was my thought because I had never seen a crowd like that assembled before. “I bet Roman Emperors felt like I do...before the crowd..in awe...happy...” I imagined that I was Caesar, soaking it all in. Don't forget I was 14 and stoned to my gills.

During this half time, another joint was lit and by the time it got to me, I had it in my lips and for some reason I looked over my left shoulder and while sucking on it, I see a women three or four rows back staring back at me, my Goff Hr High English teacher.

“Oh...fuck.” I think as I turn away fast.

I turned back to see her again and she was staring straight ahead like I had never existed.

“Whoops..” I thought.

Looking back on it now, what the hell was she going to do? She was a Zappa concert and a fairly young teacher to boot. She was 70's “with it.”

The concert finishes up and I can remember walking back to the car, commenting on how my ears are ringing and asking my brother will it ever end? I was assured it would. I thought I'd be deaf forever.

We ended up at Sambos restaurant in EP after. Yeah, I know, it's in poor taste but there was such a place then and the food was good. I sat there, still stoned retelling all the songs I heard to my brother over and over again. The waitress was amused as well. First times for everything!

**

The next day was a school day and I had wondered, what, if anything, would transpire between that young English teacher and me when we met in class. So I go, sit down and she comes in, scans the class and our eyes met. I think we looked at one another for, what felt like a good 20 seconds, each sort of acknowledging last night and...then she just went on with the class. OK good, no news is good news.

There was one thing she did a week later that made me suspicious a long time after. Teachers were great for sending another teacher, usually a close work friend, notes. They'd recruit one of us kids to be the courier and it was a nice five minutes out of class.

So, English teacher asks me to deliver a sealed envelope to a Miss Van Dale, a blonde teacher all the young teen boys were enamored with and to wait to see if there's a response. No problem, I'll do it.

So I go into van Dale's class, watch her rip it open, read it and then she shoots a look at me I can't understand. It was sort of a mouth half opened, surprised look on her face. No teacher had ever looked at me like that. She just stares at me...then finally regains her composure.

“You want to send a note back?” I ask her.

“Uhhh....Noooo...” she says haltingly.

I leave wondering, “What the fuck was that about?” and forget that weird episode five minutes later.

I wonder if the note said, “This is HIM...This was who I saw at the Zappa concert”

Mind you I was an A student with a boring, stable reputation at Goff. My second life around my neighborhood was a different matter that the school need never know.

**

Here's another example of how I was sort of found out, wrecking the preconceived notion of who I was. No drugs are in this story...

As I said before in my last piece, the other kids in the class thought what I did to easily learn class material was “magic” to them. One day in Mr Agililo's science class, the kids are asking me how the hell I can take a test so easily. Mr. Angililo was there, leaning against a chem table listening to this.

So I decide to tell the kids how I do it.

“OK, imagine a test question asks, “What color is the sky?” Let's say you have NO clue to what the answer is but you have heard it before, you just can't think of it now. You have four choices, “Blue, Turquoise, Black or Polka Dot.”

“You have to wean the answers down....tell me...which answers do you know are wrong right off the bat?”

“Black and Polka Dot!” they tell me. “Good..you're right.”

“Now, out of the last two, which is it, still make believe you don't know the real answer is 'blue'?”

The kids struggle...talking to one another about it, the pros and cons of each. Meanwhile, Angililo is still listening to us.

“If you struggle with the answer..fight to find it...you'll never get it right.” I tell the kids.

“Huh?”

“Here's what you do, relax, stare at the last two answers...breathe slow...slow yourself down...sort of like you're falling asleep....and keep repeating the two answers to yourself quietly...Blue....Turquoise...Blue...”

“Eventually, one of those answers, will come forward, make more sense...it'll drift from from the back of your head to the front....quietly.”

“That'll be the answer you choose.”

It was then Angililo pipes up.

“You know, that's a very Zen answer, what you just said.” he says.

I was taken aback by that and before I can answer he asks:

“You practice TM? (Transcendental Meditation). This was the late 70s so it was very popular, though many still thought it to be just more whackadoodle California hippy shit.

I don't answer right away because if I do, I'll be exposed to all these blue collar Irish, Polish and Portuguese Catholics who would probably would think I worshiped the Devil himself. I knew they never had heard of TM in their lives. If this gets out then I'll have to explain a whole lot more too as their suspicions of me will grow.

“Do you?” asks Angililo again.

I cave in...”Yes.”

One kid, a L. Amaral, shouts out...”Whoa! You take Tai Kwan Dao or something too?”

One kid understood it.

That of course gets the entire class all curious and ask her a million questions about it...then to me.

Shit, now I have to explain this...they ain't gonna get the first lines to the Tao Te Ching at all.

**

A week later, four of the kids come to me and say they got a higher grade on the last test Angililo gave. Ok, cool, 4 out of the 15 that were going to fail anyway managed to “get it.”

Do I still meditate? Not as much as I used to, but it's great in the dentist chair to keep me from panicking like I had always done before. Dentists are Nazis anyway, who can blame me?

If you know me in real life, you'll know I can spool away a story, from a vast amount I have, I love telling them. My memory from those years past is silly scary clear. However, while typing this out, I had to wonder did I take the ground beef out to defrost. I had to get up to make sure and yes, I had. I just damn well forgot I had done so. Short term memory is a problem for me!

 

 

Here's the first song I ever heard live, "Keep It Greasy."  This girl reminds me of my brother who used to do the same thing, try and learn Zappa.

 

June 1979...On How Some are Too Stupid to Realize There is Honey Instead of Vinegar

 

 

The problem with being a genius in school is that all the morons want the answers for free. OK, I wasn't a genius but I did damn well enough in school to get the attention of dullards who wanted a free ride. Eventually it irked the hell out of me to help them. Most of them, 98% were of the “I'm too damn lazy to do the work myself” and the last 2% really did need help. I wasn't pissed with the 2%. I would help them freely.

Like any jr high school, girls form their “best friend” cliques, until one of them ruins it all with a fight over God Knows What. Boys, money, gossip...mostly malicious gossip.

There was a clot of three girls who I detested because all three were congeniality stupid/lazy and would never ever stop pestering me for the “answers.” There's be a test we'd have to take in whatever class and I'd get the tap on the back or whatever to quickly show my paper to one as she took down the answers then showed the other two as well. We were rarely caught as the teachers were staring out the window or, as I found out later, allowed cheating because it raised the general grade in the class making the teacher look “good.” How do I know that? Because years later at a local bar, I sat with a few of my older teachers and some let loose that tidbit. (cough..cough..Mr. Coughlin of Gen Civics and American Gov't).

Back to those girls..

There was Sandra, the leader, who looked pretty damn butch and could fight any boy she wanted. She also was the biggest simpleton of that group. As we were all 14 or 15 years old, puberty had hit and the girls were trying their best to change from 12-13 year old tomboys to young ladies. New, sometimes bad attempts at mascara were tried. They wore perfume and forever brushed their Farrah Fawcett feathered hair styles. Sandra, I will say, never bothered with that shit at all. She dressed like a boy and her hair style was the Prince Valliant cut. She wasn't a dyke, as I found out later, she just wasn't feminine at all, nor cared to be till she hit high school.

Her two followers were Karen and Beth. Those two were prettier and tended to try to dress “nicer” and more “teen girl” as well as they could. But, being from real blue collar families they couldn't afford the latest fashion nor the new Jordache jeans that were out. Each of these two were pretty dumb as well but it was from lack of even trying in class. They figured out you could skate along, doing little as possible and still make it to the next grade. In Pawtucket schools then, (prob now too) you had to be drooling and falling down in the hallways before they'd ship you to that “other” school, otherwise, they'd pass you onto the next grade, even if you never learned to read, I saw a few of those. 

**

Many of those kids in my class swore that all I had to do, was read something once, and it stuck in my head...for years. That wasn't true, it took three repetitions to stick. That ability I did have. Anyways, I actually did the reading, homework and tried to get good marks. Doing these things actually helps  you pass the class, but it takes effort..WORK.

So, when the dimwits would hit me up for the information I started to get pissed. Why? Because I felt like I was a god damn Welfare Office handing out checks to those who could work, but won't. In fact, I said that to those three once and their reply was:

“HA, We're smart! We pass all the grades and don't work like YOU do!”

No joke, they said that. In their minds, they adopted the slave mentality of long ago...”Do enough work to keep the lash off your back.” Doing as little as possible was the smart way to go about it and what I was doing, studying, was Fool's Errand.

(Shit, I still see this in adults now)

The point being...I did the work and they tried to get a free ride off of my effort. I got tired of it.

So...after being too “nice” for too long I really started to hate them and any others who tried to climb onto my back so I'd carry them around like a baby in a papoose. Most could get a passing grade but were too lazy to do it. So, I cut them off. “Stand on your own two legs you welfare slop muppets!”

Holy Shit! Did they start to freak out. Their well was closed and there was little other way to pass the tests, except to study for them. To do the WORK required.

The third quarter exams were coming up and how they kept hounding me for schemes to set up in all classes to cheat off of me.

“Fuck No” I said.

So, being lower class drogs that they were, they resorted to what works at their homes. “I'll get my brother to beat on you!” “I'll tell the principal who set off the M-80's in the lockers last year!” And the final one...”We'll tell everyone you sell pot!” (That was true, but only to a very, very few select individuals..and those girls weren't on the list)

So I say...

“Go ahead..tell them...tell everyone...who's going to believe that an “A” student who causes no problems at this school...is a punk?”

“I'm an angel!” I added. What I did at school and what I did in my neighborhood were two different things. I never mixed the two. It's a good work ethic to have as an adult too. Know what days to party...and what days not to. I had a decent reputation at school and around the neighborhood, I was a feral animal. I was even called that by a neighbor once.

A few days pass, the exams are getting closer and the clique gets more desperate. Their pestering won't stop.

“Ya know,” I tell them, “the MORE you ask me, badger me...makes me hate you even more!”

So what do they do?

The bug me harder. If you have no other tactics, you just raise the volume on the only one you have.

The day of the exam occurs and of course, they all fail miserably.

Some of the other kids, who were watching this all along, my “strike” and the girls trying to break it asked: “Don't you care they failed?

“Nope! I don't give a fuck!” I really didn't. Once you do a great job at making me hate your guts, it tends to stick for a while.

**

So the last quarter is upon us, then were free for the summer, just one more round of exams and we're done for the year. I had kept those three off my “help” list still.

But since they were in danger of failing for the year, they had to try again. I won't repeat here what they tried, basically it was the same shit, empty threats, begging, pleading and badgering. It didn't work at all. They never once thought of trying some positive...vinegar and honey, you know?

Goff Jr High was a prison-like school. We lined up for everything. Teachers and administration stood in the halls like prison guards when classes changed. The lunchroom was patrolled in the same manner. But for some reason, if you finished lunch, you were free to amble back to the classroom at your leisure, w/o a guard/teacher escort. Some kids took this freedom to amble on home, blowing off the last three classes. 

So I go back to Mr O'Donnel's class and there is just one other person there, Beth, the prettiest one of that clique who were at me.

“Why won't you help us” she says after I sit down.

I turn around, “Are we going over this AGAIN?”

“Why won't you do it? C'mon..just do it...”

I then say.

“OK, make it worth my while, I'll help all of you for $5 a piece.

“FUCK YOU!” she shouts at me.

“FUCK YOU TOO!” I yell back at her and I say further, really ticked off...

“You know, there's NOTHING you or the other two could possibly OFFER me at all to help you! You have NOTHING!”

I spun around in my chair, stewing and thinking. “God I hate those fucks...they never stop!” It gets tiring when you're being constantly hounded by those you don't like anyway....with the same request over and over and over again.

There are those times, in an argument where you come up with the best come back line ever. These lines aren't crafted in advance, they have to come from deep within and are immediate and they crush your enemy. I didn't even know where I pulled up this but it came to me quite quickly.

I turn around back to her and I lock my eyes onto hers. She's still pissed and glaring at me still.

“Ya know, I take that back. You're a girl..right? There is ONE THING you could do for me.”

I let that hang in the air, still staring at her.

It took about...5 seconds...and then she broke her glare at me to staring vacantly at the blackboard at the head of the room. I knew she got it.

I kept looking at her and she kept staring at the wall, trying her best to ignore the fact I'm in the classroom still.

To drive the nail even deeper into the wood I say:

“Look, I like you best out of all three, you're the prettiest. If you do this...I PROMISE to help you pass for the entire year....you can even spit it out if you want to too.”

Silence.

A few more seconds go by and I tell her

“Won't do that either...huh?”

More silence...

More kids filtered into our classroom as they came from the cafeteria. I sat there, amazed that that had come out of my mouth. Eventually I didn't care to tell the truth, those three were on me for months and I had had enough. 

All three never bothered me again. 

That was  42 years ago! Do I regret it? Nope! I can be VERY accommodating with people but I really despise being squeezed and wrung out like a cheap wash cloth. Want to win with me? Honey works, so does equitable treatment.   

By the way, this would work with you if you consider the numerous times you've been run over by the others in your life.  

And I Thought I'd Be Above All This...

 

I was a big proponent of believing you cannot compare your life to others. It's apples and oranges really. We all show up on Earth w/o any say on what genetics we get, who are parents are or even where on the globe we'll live. Add to that, you given a “hand” of cards you have to play as well as you can. Oh, and you'll have little control of forces outside your realm. Good luck!

Today, I was sitting across the desk of my attorney, D. I was redoing a will where I cut out various people who are no longer in my life and added a couple of others who are. Things change, especially since the last will was drawn up 18 years ago. I may do it again as life always morphs.

D and I go back to 1969. Well, he was my brother's best friend and being the kid brother, I saw him enough. He came from a lower middle class background but lucky for him, he was born handsome as the girls would note. Also, he had these absolutely killer social skills.

I've seen just two people in my life who had that skill. They both D and K, could walk into a room of people they do not know at all and withing 15 minutes, be the center of attention and well liked. How's that for putting your best foot forward. They were excellent readers of people as well and could adjust as needed. If you have that natural ability, you can get pretty far in life if you're smart about it. It's called the “Halo” effect, if people like you for a few given traits, they tend to think you're great at everything else too, even if you're not.

So, after we get done with the boring aspects of the will, he asks how I was doing since we hadn't seen each other in years. I had told him of my past year dealing with work, covid and the usual shit. He had told me he whittled his practice down to five cases. He was moving into something else.

**

I know there are “compassion clubs” in RI but I know little about them as I don't smoke. The stuff that's produced today would anesthetize a rhino and I can't keep up with that. Compassion clubs have to get their dope from somewhere and this is where D was telling me where he was going to come in.

He, along with a URI pharmacist professor, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the RI State Police, a few lawyers and two doctors from Brown University and a few others with some bucks had all piled their assets to build a 23,000 square foot growing operation in Cranston.

“23,000 square feet?” I thought. “Holy Shit...that's a ton and half of marijuana plants. A literal jungle!”

By the way. This is all legal. They have all the licenses and the Secretary of the State of RI and Dept of Business have signed off on it.

He turns his laptop around to show me the “products” they'll make, They intend to grow the plants and use the machines they bought to extract the oils. With that, you can now do edibles and vape pens and...i don't know what...everything?

“Here's my favorite..Happy Juice!” he tells me. It's like those energy shots you buy at the Quickie Mart register. Another was called “2/10,” a similar product but it's the concentrated oil (2 drops equals 10mm) that you drip into your coffee, ice cream, shrimp diablo or what not.

I look over to the wall, then the floor and see a UPS box opened. It's packed with vape pens. The wall above it has his Juris Diplomas, licenses and awards the legal community has given him throughout the years. Odd juxtaposition.

“Ronnie, we see the trend, complete decriminalization is coming or close enough to it. I want to be ready when it does happen...production, packaging, distribution....there's a hell of a market out there for this!”

He goes on...”Remember when you, your brother and I had to sneak a joint in Slater park and watch for the Pawtucket police? Now look at the times! Everything's changed! Who could've foresaw this back then?”

I couldn't. I have no crystal ball...

As I heard all of this, I couldn't get this out of my mind...”23,000 square feet.”

**

I sat there sort of stunned. I didn't know this was possible. Once I saw the list of investors and who they were...and I'll leave that out for now...I was just like a mouse hypnotized by the stare of a snake about to strike.

So I drive home, with my new will and I think. “Holy shit...MY life isn't like what D is doing now. I never had the skills he had, nor the ability to charm juries into letting go obviously guilty people and being able to captivate those with the start up money for ventures like this. What advancement..what success!”

No, I was a workaday schlepp all my life. Office/corporate work didn't really ever attract me and I had a starting career in social services which notoriously pays squat. Add to that was his good looks and ability to get girl's panties to drop which forever infuriated my brother who couldn't do that. (I am five years younger than those two, so everything was five years later in my life). I once saw him fling a snowball, pretty hard, into the windshield of a pretty girl stopped at a stop sign where were all standing. He smiled at her through that melting snow on the window...and then she smiled back at him. That was his come on line, whipping a snow ball. He managed to have her pull over a bit and talk.

I'd be arrested for doing that!

Halfway home I told myself...”Stop it! Stop it! D and I had different upbringings, different genetics, different parents! Stop comparing yourself ot him!'”

Was I green with envy? Sure...till I shook myself out of it...eventually. I'm OK now....maybe I can get a job misting the “house” plants they'll grow?

Apples and Oranges....gotta remember that. We are all different and our arcs in life are so too.

Sir! Your Table is Over Here...

 

 

Nearly every 4^th of July, for perhaps over 20 years now, I have attended Mick's yard party in which our old crew and families show up. I have to hand it to Mick for eating the expense of these parties but he gets a kick out of them. The costs are typical, the food for the grill, the free kegs and one item he really lavishes the $ on, the fireworks. Last night, he had several 4x8 plywood sheets mounted with 300 mortar tubes wired to go for a grand finale. When shot, it's non-stop bedlam for many minutes. It's such a good show that the cops show up too.

At any big family event, the generations tend to coalesce by their age group. The kids tend to stay with their families but they know this one fact: Their parents and the adults will have more than enough alcohol and soon enough, forget the kids are there. This frees the kids to tear ass through the yards, tables and whatnot with the least amount of supervision. That until one runs smack into a tree which sets off the crying and Mom coming to fix the situation. Fifteen minutes later, they're at it again after hardheartedly being told to “Knock it off!”

The teens are similar except they wander off into two groups. The teen girls form up tight circles where they whisper to one another and fall dead silent if an adult walks by. The teen boys will be about 20 feet from them, in a far looser circle and louder. Occasionally two or three of the boys will shoot obvious love sick puppy looks to a girl in that circle and be immediately caught doing so, by the said girls. The girls circle the wagons even tighter and get even more hushed once they realize one of them is in a boy's sights. Once the DJ gets the music going, all of girls are on the improvised dance floor with the boys circling them, watching. Boys want to see, girls want to be seen. Nothing changes!

Your next group are the 20 Something kids. They are the main drivers of the party. Their parents check in with them in the beginning to figure out who's going where the next day and that's all the supervision you'll see of that. Theses “kids” mix with their own and some are paired off boyfriend/girlfriend. The group took over three tables under the tent and you could easily tell where the “cool” ones where at. It was the table where the prettiest girls were and their loud, overconfident and sometimes douche-baggy guy friends. There's still a lot of “teen” in 20 Somethings. That takes more than a few years to wear off.

I saw this happen and it was kind of funny, proving to me that even if her Dad was there, there was not much he could do about it. A young college aged girl, in the latest NY summer fashion, strutted by us with a nightclub walk that made us 55+ year old guys feel underage. There was a circle of us, perhaps six, all old. We went quiet and our heads, including mine, locked onto her and then track her as she walked by. She had this shit eating grin on her face as well. She knew exactly the attention she was getting. She was the hottest daughter of one of the Dads at the party and made the other Dads/55+ ones forget their manners for a few seconds.

Once the alcohol was really flowing with these “kids,” the boys started hoisting their buddies onto handstands on the keg and shoving that plastic valve into their mouths. The others cheering and egging on the upside down one to keep chugging. Each one they did this too, I swear, once they righted them, had the look on their face like they drank a can of Raid. Later on I saw one get put back on this feet, then fire out his nostrils the very beer he managed to chug down. I've puked out my nose once in my life and it was due to norovirus, not keg beer.

When the boys get like that, they completely forget the girls are there. It's play time and the girls no longer matter. When ignored, they took over a table to whip out their cells and they all glowed in the dark while the boys had their fun.

Where was I? What table was I at....read on.

**

When I first walked into the backyard I was met with a horde of younger folk. I scanned the crowed for someone I could recognize and couldn't at first. I then unconsciously did something I realized later, I looked for anyone with gray hair. I then spotted a bunch at a table near the bar and I went over and there they were, everyone I did know. We are now all between 55 and 62 and are either bald, gray or fat or a variation on all three. Add to that most were sitting, not standing.

And then I realized...we...I...were at that table the old ones sit. You remember that table when you were younger, where the oldies sat! They eat and have far fewer drinks when they were younger and “get tired” and are pretty much the first ones to go home. Years before, I can remember watching one wife yell at her husband, “Ahhh...you're BORING....go HOME...I wanna stay!” At two in the morning, she and I were falling over one another on the fake dance floor that was installed onto the lawn, laughing our asses off. It was blatant and all too public display of infidelity but we were younger, who cares? Having fun was more important vs. keeping a staid, normal public face.

But now...she and I AND her husband were sitting at the same table last night, acting as if none of that happened. We were too old to care I swear.

Here's some snippets of conversations I had with my current oldies...

F. says to me: “Oh shit, It's spinal stenosis...my lower back. Even now I can feel it...I have to make a deliberate attempt to walk, sit or lie down now...I have to think about it before I do it because I'll get shooting pain there! I'm going to hate the surgery but that's all they can do now to fix it”

And this:

I say to Doug: “You had TWO heart attacks? When?”

“Hell, two in one year, last year, right before covid hit...guess you didn't know!”

Or this...

I ask, “So how old's Julia now?”

“Oh..24, she just got her Masters from Dartmouth.”

“Twenty......four?” I say with some shock. “But when I saw her she....”

I get cut off by being reminded I haven't seen her since she was 15.

There was far more talk about health issues, retirement planning and down sizing current homes. Gone was the silly drunkenness, staying there till dawn and eating enough to make a rhino puke. I think I had five beers total in five hours and six BBQ ribs. When I was younger, it would've been a 12 pack of Yueling, shots and watching the dawn light up the river.

At 1 AM I felt my legs becoming sore, I was “tired” and I wasn't even buzzed anymore.

Hey, I still enjoyed myself...but now we're all at the Oldies Table now.

How the hell did that happen?

 

 

 

 

Possessed

 

 

Ever know one of those houses in your neighborhood where nothing good happens there? I never believed in paranormal bunk like curses and such, but some homes...you have to wonder. There was one a block from me and I swear, whichever family moved into them, there was always tragedy or misery in one form or another.

208 Legris Street is a bungalow built in 1920, a much later addition of the first homes built in our neighborhood, the first being 1781. The street I grew up on wasn't created till the 1950s and that was during the boom when the WW 2 vets settled down.

I can probably use their real name as they have moved away, so long ago. The Lavoie's were of French Canadian extraction and mostly unhappy as I remember them, except for one. I became friends with the youngest one, Lisa, when I was five. She was a 'later' five so was one grade ahead of me in school but that didn't matter, we clicked. I remember her as fun, kind and surprisingly, not yet ruined by her crappy home life yet.

Her older brother Mike, I guess was about ten and though I didn't know it, was the first gay person I met. When you're five, you don't judge anyone really as you don't know anything yet about 'labeling' so you tend to give everyone a fair chance. That until you're told by the older kids, other parents which people are no good and pesona non grata. Mike, was a very effeminate boy who rather play with the girls, jump rope and when he walked, swung and swayed like a palm tree. He also could be pretty nasty personally if angry. That would've been my first exposure to flamboyant bitchiness.

Lisa's mom just did housework as I remember her never really stopping. There were few times I was in Lisa's house and I when I was in there, the walls had holes in them, there was laundry piled up and the place looked old and worn out. It wasn't “dirty” as her Mom kept most of it at bay, but I think it's tide was too much for her.

The late 60's still had a lot of Eisenhower overtones in our neighborhood and little girls wore dresses most of the time. Lisa was no exception. One time while I was in her Mom's kitchen, watching her work, when I noticed this large skin disfigurement on Lisa's upper arm. The summer dress she was in exposed her arms. The skin looked like it had melted like wax then solidified. Being five, I blurted out, “What happened to you??!!” Lisa responds, “My Dad threw....”

“Would you kids like Charms Pops?” her Mom interjected in a flash, cutting off Lisa's answer.

Being five, you quickly shift your focus when someone offers you Charm's Pops.

It wasn't till much later that I found out Dad flung a pot of water at Lisa, a pot from on top of the stove.

Lisa's house had a large shed where the dirt driveway was. It was a great “playhouse” except for one thing, it stunk to high heaven of tar in the summer. The entire thing was wrapped in roofing shingles, 50's EPA unapproved, DuPont made shingles which out gassed when the summer sun hit it. We would play in it, despite the stink, till her Dad came home. Every day around 5pm, Lisa and her brother Mike began the warnings..”We have to get out of here soon....it's getting late...we have to play elsewhere.” Some times we didn't get out before five and her Dad came home, ranting and raving about us kids being in there. The guy was one of the angriest men I knew as a kid and I couldn't figure out why. Hell, I was five, what did I know. After Dad got done chasing us out of the shed, he'd go inside and a new round of shouting started, sometimes followed by a loud thud. “Honey...I”m home!”

The Lavoie's weren't rich and bordered on poor nearly every day. Looking back, I assume the constant stress of paying a mortgage and having a shit paying job like her Dad did, plus Dad being a natural dick, didn't help matters. It was not a happy home.

But for some reason, Lisa was usually cheerful, open and ready for the next thing we kids would get into.

Her brother remained a prissy, complaining bitch most of the time though.

One day, Lisa told me they were moving. “Moving where?” I asked. She didn't know, only that they were moving. So we had a month or so of friendship when one day, she wasn't there anymore. Some neighbors were of the mind of, “Good riddance, they're GONE.“ but I ended up missing Lisa.

The next family to move in were the Dirter's. I kid you not, their last name was Dirter.

I never did know how many people were in the Dirter family. I suspected two because I saw just one, Jim Dirter, a kid a year older than me and a possible Mom Jim would talk about. The house remained a mess including the grass-less yard. I do have to admit it was a neat dirt yard, there was no junk lying about for months at a time.

Jim didn't associate with us much, he probably thought we were beneath him, we thought he was beneath us. The times we did see one another, we all noticed Jim's usual wardrobe consisted of dirty white tee shirts, and crummy looking, too big jeans. We would bust his balls about that but he didn't change, it was always the filthy white Hanes tee shirts, of course he would not change, he was a Dirter!

Since our paths didn't cross, we rarely hung around or knew what his family's story was and we didn't care anyway. If he had a Mother...or other relations in that house, they must've gone out around 2AM as we rarely saw them.

Then one day, he moved away.

Years later, he shows up driving a Ford Bronco. We were in our early 20's then and we found out his family had moved to South Kingston. We asked how did he manage to get a brand new Bronco and he tells us, “the job I have on the trawling boats in Galilee...I made $60,000 last year.” (This was 1985...60 g's for a 21 year old kid).

Apparently, he wasn't bullshitting us. We asked a neighbor who when younger used to fish. He told us that because of Reagan, the relaxed fishing limits, the 0% loans needed for boats and equipment and the new fangled computers that were installed on boats that had under water radar allowed you to make a killing. Everyone was doing it.

“If I wasn't so damn old, I'd be doing that!” he told us.

Jim Dirter wasn't dirty anymore. He even had nice clothes on that day.

The next family to move in were the Derry's. Now this was a much more normal, younger family. We had taken a liking to the Dad, Steve, as he was just only 10 years older than us, so just close enough to be part of our generation and young enough to understand us. He didn't mind that we hung out on his corner, drinking, as long as “we were quiet about it and didn't get the cops involved.” We liked him enough not to break that trust. Though a couple of us puked on his nice lawn from time to time.

He and his wife, I think, had three boys, two for sure I do remember. They were typical kids that rampaged across the neighborhood. Steve adored his first born as most parents do. He would take him fishing and hunting as Steve was one of those “outdoors types.” We see Steve come home on a Sunday night with a bloody deer strapped to the front of his truck. He and his young son would hop out, all clad in camouflage like they were Green Berets. It was one of those Dad/son relationships where they did everything together, and I mean everything.

So, we watched the boys grow from kids to teens and Steve being the woodsman type, wanted a house in the forest. He told us one day they were moving to Rehoboth, which to this day, is fairly wooded and a bit countrified. The perfect place for him.

Not a year later, we had received the news the oldest son was dead at 18 from a heart attack.

Being the times it was, late 80's, we assumed it was due to cocaine intoxication which will give any teen boy a heart attack if you snort too much. How the hell else can a teen boy die of a heart attack?

We never heard from Steve Derry again after that, but for one time.

Mike and I, after carousing in the Providence nightclubs...JR's Fastlane, we had ended the night at Bill's Restaurant on Newport Ave. It was open late to catch the drunks on a Saturday night and did a brisk business too. The food was typical diner fare and it was cheap and decent.

Mike and I opted to sit at the counter on those padded curricular chairs that spin all the way around when someone sat down next to us a few minutes later, clad in camouflage.

“Steve?” I say.

“Heeeeyyy....Ron! How's it going?” he says.

We talk for a few minutes about Rehoboth, his job and what not.

Ok, look...I know I have a trace of autism in me. My social skills aren't always on point and I don't read the situations always correctly....or I forget about some massive FACT about a person I should keep in the forefront. It's not malicious...it's just me being stupid..again.

“You know Steve,” I say to him, “You're the only hunter I know who would sit in a tree stand, in northern Maine, in mid December....freezing to death for a chance at a deer. Damn, you had that Rambo mentality that most deer hunters never had...what hunter risked hypothermia like you did.”

I then ask the wrong question because I was not thinking.

“Steve, you still hunt?”

He quickly looks at me, with a direct stare, and I can see his eyes are getting glassy.

“No...no...I stopped after Mark died.”

In my head I say...”FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! You DUMB shit!! You brought IT up! Of ALL things, you brought THAT up!”

I felt like a First Class Heel. I can have a special talent of shoving my entire foot into my mouth.

Now that I remember Mark's death, I steer the conversation to...less...shittier subjects. Steve kept up with me and Mike and when he finished his bagels, he got up and said good bye to us, walked a bit then turned around and said, “I remember you guys when you were young...what a crew you had then...you guys did stuff I'd never do when I was that age...and those times you all threw up on my grass.”

I could tell from that he wasn't pissed at me...Thank God!

Even more years passed, and I mean up to last year when I found out what really happened to his son.

Another neighbor, who is a terrible gossip yet has ALL the information on every family around here set me straight.

She too had a son near Mark's age and they palled around a lot. She also had a pool and every summer the kids would be in it. She tells me one day, she goes out and watches them and notices Marks lips are bluish and he's panting a bit. She goes over and looks at his fingernails and they too are bluish. She had asked him how he felt and he said “OK..this happens from time to time...but not often.”

She continued to watch him and he seemed to be OK.

I say to her, “Well, makes sense huh? A weak heart then you dump that much cocaine on it? It's going to go bust.”

“Cocaine? He didn't die of cocaine! The autopsy report found weak heart valves...it was a congenital deformity that barely showed itself. He died in his sleep in his bed....”

“Really? I say. “I didn't know that!”

“No one did...right up to the day he died...it was the coroner that found it...bit too late though.”

That's how an 18 year old dies from a heart attack.

The next family that moved in 208 Legris I know little about. It's because we kids grew up, became adults and are too busy with life to notice the neighbors.  Add to that the loss of the Eisenhower times when neighbors actually spoke to one another. All I know of the current owners is that they have a very active, barky dog that will yap at you as you drive by. The house since then has been improved, there is a lawn now and I know of no tragedies.

Perhaps the curse has been lifted?

 

 Our Amityville House

Ron Stoppable

 

 

(I've avoided talking about this for a while now. Either because of how any one can find stuff about you on the internet and also, I needed the time to shake all this out. But fuck whoever finds it. And things have shaken out enough now where I can see it for what things were)

I won that nickname, Ron Stoppable, from a co-worker. One night we had lost enough staff that even getting the basics of the job done an hour or two late was damn near impossible. Add to that the iffy operation of a dish machine didn't help matters any. It seemed it wanted to break to add to the work. Since my staff were short, I had to step in to make sure they didn't drown and at least assure that the basic, needed essential jobs were done. Everything else we also normally did I deemed a luxury and dumped them. Priorities, you know? We got out late as I suspected.

The last moment of the job included locking the door. I stood there that night, looking at it all...and thinking..”Fuck it...It's good enough. They'll survive the next morning and understand why. They won't drown.”

As I was locking up, that staff member had noticed the change in my countenance and said, as a compliment...”You're a...Ron-Stoppable!” He meant that as “Unstoppable.” I had dove into the work in emergency mode and did as much as I could for them. When I heard this, I smiled at him and secretly in my head I was saying, “Shut the fuck up.” I was too annoyed to even accept compliments. The drive home on 95 had me swearing like a sailor over the fucked up shit we had to deal with.

When I get put in those situations, I can shift into what I call “Plow horse mode.” Whatever is needed to be done, with whatever obstacles, I just dig down and yank that plow and pull and pull and pull...purposely ignoring any distraction that may tug me off my objective, including snubbing you. I know you're there, I'm just ignoring you as anything disrupting my focus will just slow me down. I'll get to you later. I get pig headed and single minded. I also get a “look in the eyes” too. It's a slightly pissed off, 'Damn the torpedo, full steam ahead!' look. Some have said it's slightly insane too...God, I hope not.

Tenacity is a skill derived from long term patience. But it's not one I like to pull out of my bag of tricks. If so, it means things have gone to Hell and requires that I bring it out.

 

***

In ninth grade, we had a ex-marine history teacher, Mr Holt, who sported an out of fashion handle bar mustache, and who, unbeknownst to us, subjected us to a watered down Rangers qualification test. We did not have to do the insane obstacles, exercises nor being flown blindfolded into the Panamanian jungle, with just a compass and knife and told, "Find your way home!"  No, he has taken some of the spirit of those tests and worked them down to 9^th graders.

One test involved a trough filled with ice water and we were to plunge our forearms into it and keep it in there till we couldn't take the freezing pain anymore. The test was timed and all us boys were Gung Ho to do it. The results were written on the blackboard above the trough. I lasted one minute and 10 seconds. That put me in second place.

Another test was an actual obstacle course outside in the school yard. Our teacher had told Mr. Charland, our gym teacher what he was up too and Charland loved the idea. We had to jump through tires, sway on overhead bars, grab a rope and land past a sandpit and finally sprint around the school to the finish line. I came in second again.

A Mr Petrucci? The typing teacher who was known for screaming his head off at the kids till his face turned red, had said to others that I had cheated. I was not known then, nor now, for feats of athletic prowess. That little gossip made it's way back to me in Mr Holt's class when I countered that accusation with, “every obstacle had a teacher standing right by it...that means if I cheated....THEY did too by not alerting anyone about it!” That was true, every obstacle had a teacher there to make sure. I then said, as a slap to Petrucci, that if he wanted to, he and I could run the course and we'd just see who would win. I never was taken up on that. I knew what I had said would get back to him and there'd be no offer.

There were other “fun” tests Mr Holt threw at us boys over the weeks.

Then one day, he asked that I and this other kid who I forget his name, but he was an overgrown behemoth football jock, to the front of the class. He then admitted to why he was doing all these little tests. He and I stood there not really comprehending what Ranger tests were all about. As some time went by it started to make sense what that was all about. 

Now, Mr Holt was not beyond rubbing salt into a freshly open cut.

“Only TWO of you? Just TWO that made it? “God...you people are SOFT!” He was bitching to the other boys who had fallen waaay below the mark, the cut off point, of these exercises. He was one for pontificating that today's kids weren't what they were in the past. Hell, I think every generation does this. The reason why is that kids, early 20 Somethings, aren't yet totally baked in the oven yet, they need more time. To a 40 year old who is baked and finally become stale and hard, these kids are “soft.”Of course they are, they're not 40 yet. 

He went on for a bit and I could see the faces of the boys as boys look like when they're being chewed out. Rolling eyes, looking at the floor or just staring straight ahead. Once Holt finally exhausted his tirade, he then said we two standing there, should be congratulated. The rest of the class was oblivious or secretly hating we two up there. He then thought it wise to ask us two why we had “won,” as a lesson to those boys who did not give a fuck about it all. 

 

I had said, “Don't quit.”

I had thought I had said the wrong thing as Holt rolled his eyes. He then bellows out to the class...”Dammit! You HEAR him?? That's WHY he WON! That's why HE'S up here and you all aren't!” Holt was rolling his eyes as that was the simplest thing those other boys should have known to begin with.

I was pleased with myself, coming in second along side a football gorilla who could have thrown me into the floor. It wasn't till years later that I understood “don't quit” really meant in totality.

**

Dads try to raise their sons to be men. Each Dad has a differing idea of that that is. My Dad's biggest Commandment was that, “If you are going to say you are going to do something, DO IT. Don't let others down with specious talk.” Be credible. Be reliable. The other Commandment that I was taught, but with less intensity, was “don't give up.” If it took me 15 tries to succeed, then so be it. The point being was to keep at it. I took that to heart and has served me pretty well, till a few months ago. Over the years, I had learned that unless I was completely in love with a goal, then the constant attempts to reach it were worth it. But...but, if I started to feel I was spending way too much to attain a goal that would've broke-even or felt like a loss when I reached it, why keep going? I had in internal Profit/Loss spreadsheet in my head.

But overall, Dad's advice on being doggedly persistent did pay off quite a few times.

**

Half a year ago or so, I was telling someone at work a revelation I had about myself. “You know, I'm really, really good about staying on my feet in an earthquake zone. I can survive and tolerate the chaos and unpredictability. I don't like it or wish for it but I can remain standing. I had learned that as a child when you have no choice but to cope with what you cannot control.

But a little later, after telling the coworker that idea, it occurred to me...”Why the fuck was I living on the San Andreas Fault line? There are OTHER places to live!” I sort of bellowed that out and the coworker understood that metaphor I created and finally...I had understood it. The obvious sometimes escapes you when you're focused on a survival mechanism that worked great at one time but I tend to whip it out and use it unconsciously without figuring if it's the right move to do. “Muscle memory” it's called. Do something 10,000 times and you automatically do it without a conscious thought.

I had spent over 20 year working in institutional kitchens and you tend to learn a few things about them. Rule One is NO DRAMA (or at least keep it to a minimum). Everyone works closely with one another, learn one another's habits, work styles and personalities and if you're lucky, the team gels and tightens. This means that the work load becomes far easier and you can do it in a shorter time. Everyone is happy then. Life is good. You actually like one another!

It also helps to have management that knows what they are doing as well and understands the absolute beauty of a team that “works.” Sure, it's not 100% everyday but 95% is so much better than 34%. If your team is independent, reliable and tends not to create headaches for higher regionals, you are LEFT ALONE to run the place as you see fit....FREEDOM!. Freedom if upper management knows enough to leave well enough alone. 

Or...

You can have a Conga Line of managers with varying levels of experience romp on through, fucking up the system the team created. Each one coming in may have dubious credentials and some with a HOLY mission to create change where there was no problem or reasons to “fix” in the first place. The funny aspect to that last one? After a few weeks the manager reverted to the old way of doing things, once you hammer it into their heads...or more likely, when reality hammers it in for them that the original way was the most efficient answer.

Our place of work had suffered six management changes in less than 18 months. I quit finally. After I left there have been more. I don't know what the count is now.

**

In the end, those bastards made me realize when to quit, give up, run away, surrender, throw in the towel. I looked at the ceiling one day and said, “Hey Dad..there are some situations you should quit, flee from...with a flame coming out your ass you know!” This was one.

I wasn't all keen on leaving though. I had known a few there for more than 20 years and they turned into a “work family” and social outlet for me. But, how many Richter Scale 9.8 earthquakes can one stand? Again, why was I living on the San Andrea Fault Line? There's that point where one says, “Enough.”

My length of employment at all the jobs I have had tended to be long term commitments. I wasn't part of that “Job-A-Month” crowd that seems to survive just handily. Those people somehow still make it with their patchwork backgrounds.  My leaving any job wasn't taken lightly. Which brings me to another point. Actually doing it.

I could leave my job because of some very fortunate, or unfortunate, however you look at it, occurrences. I own my house outright. The reason I do is because every single one of my family members died, one after the other, like a row of dominoes, leaving me the last one standing, with the property. I have won the Death Lottery two times in a row...to put it darkly. Long ago Dad was smart enough to have a life insurance policy that included various provisos should he drop dead. The mortgage was paid off in a month after he did drop dead one day, relieving my Mom of that monthly torpedo.

There are those who are jealous of my “good” luck. It's short sighted to believe that that kind of lottery is a panacea. There are other real losses associated with that kind of winning number. But you cannot convince the little minded fucks of that. So I don't. It would take a person with a certain maturity to understand my saying...”You want to be me? Well, that requires you would have had to live my life exactly as it was lived...for you to end up with the property. Are you so sure you want that? Having to live my life, sight unseen? with all the details you know nothing about?” No, your cretins would never “get it” and they continue to roll around in bitterness at this supposed fortune.

I was afforded a Get Out of Jail Free card in a sense. Or at least made it easier to pull off a resignation from a job. Add to that I'm a single guy with no kids to pay for, nor a wife, or a wife who wants as pair of $20,000 titties from the plastic surgeon (I do know one guy that had to relent to that). My overhead is low enough to swing, for a bit at least.

I held onto that card for such a long time, never using it, due to “toughing out” some shitty job situations. “Tough it out...things are bound to change” I hoped.

But, those tectonic plates never stopped shaking the crap out of everything. Each management change caused another quake. The simple thought that I could leave..move...leave San Francisco before it toppled, to a much calmer place, finally realized itself. 

Ron-Stoppable? Well, apparently I can be stopped. Though this time, it was probably a good thing. I swear, it takes decades sometimes for certain OBVIOUS truths to make themselves apparent because your so blind. Then again, I've been told by others fairly aged, that this is a common occurrence. You need that long term perspective to see the rhinoceros in front of you .. Am I dense? Hell, I can be, but most times it isn't for want of brain cells. Usually it's stubborn, typically male “I know I am Right!” attitudes.

By the way, I wasn't the only one to flee the San Andreas either. 

 

 

NorthRidge earthquake. There are quieter places.