Beefchunks

I am alive

2007-02-15T20:25:09Z

In case there are people reading this and I know there are cause friends have commented that I have stopped posting. I am alive.

Its tax season and so I can't break away too often so I don't have too much time for musings. I do not intend to abandon my site I just have to work on taxes so I will be back with renewed passion when tax season ends. For now, just know that I am alive. I am still on my diet and have lost 92 pounds so far and have 30 more to go.

I'm busy as all get out with taxes and miss my kids in this empty nest in a big way.

All my love

Friends

2006-11-03T23:06:44Z

I have good friends. I am a lucky person.

Anyway. Its another day in the neighborhood here.

Halloween justed passed and the doorbell only rang like 8 times. Boy the times have changed from when I was a kid.

Weather got a little warm but is starting to settle down now and I like it when it gets cool. We have a quiet weekend planned . Tomorrow Patty and I will go to help set up for the church carnival and then watch the gators play Vanderbilt. Maybe do a few chores around the house.

Today I stayed true to my diet despite the fact that I wanted to binge a little. Sometimes its truly hard to stay focused but I have a lot more weight to lose.

The muse for writing has been difficult to find. There was a time when the words just flowed but for some reason I struggle with the ability to write something meaningful and earth shattering. I still have to pick up my life chronicle. My last entry about my past was Senior prom.

Way back in those days I had a lot of good friends. Some who don't want to be mentioned in my journal and I will repsect their wishes tho I struggle to understand why. Even when I promised to change the name to protect the innocent.

There was one fella named Mike C. He was a friend of Steve B. in Deer Park High School band and Steve introuduced him to the gang. Mike C. (I will call him Mike for the rest of this story but anyone who knows my past should not confuse him with the other Mike's I know) was a funny guy. The first time I met him he drove us around town in his Mustang. We cruised Deer Park Ave and did the usual stuff like visit Jack in the Box for Tacos and onion rings. Back then the only kind of taco I ever knew was from Jack's. You could buy them 4 for a dollar and the amazing thing is they were not like any other taco you can get today. They were deep fried. Years later when I moved to Florida and went to taco places like Taco Bell I used to get real upset because no one else deep fried the tacos. They sold the regular tacos which I thought were lousy compared to Jack's. Jacks was a great place. No Jack in the Box in Florida.

Anyway, after the night of cruising was over Mike asked if I wanted to be dropped off at my front door and I said yes. I lived in a single family home on a quarter acre like everyone else in those days. Mike pulled up to my house. He drove up the curb. He drove up on the grass. He pulled his car right up to my front stoop right at the front door. He didn't use the driveway. He just drove up on the grass and dropped me off right at the front door like I asked. I was freaking out of course cause I figured my Mom was going to kill me for letting a friend do that and I started yelling Mike - "don't do this". All the gang in the car were laughing at my distress and there was no convincing Mike to get back to the driveway. I just had to get out and he was smiling and said he always delivered his passengers curbside. I wanted to kill him but Steve B said that Mike was always the kind of guy who did stuff like that and because of that Mike would always make us laugh.

I didn't get in trouble at all for the curbside service and it turns out for many years that we hung out together I always got this type of dropoff despite my protests. I wasn't alone cause he did it to all the gang. As often as Mike did this dropoff he never peeled out on the grass and so never caused any damage and in looking back on those times, it really was a funny thing for him to do. But it always turned out the same. I would freak out from the joke and all the gang would laugh hysterically at it but then it would be their turn and he did the same thing to them. Mike was always good for making us laugh. There are so many other stories I can tell about Mike. They all had him doing some outrageous thing like curbside service. A lot of them were kind of illegal and so I am actually afraid to tell the story for fear it will cause some embarrassment for him or me or some of the other gang. But let it suffice that there are tons of things Mike did that made us laugh and the memories are wonderful. A lot of the stories took place at Mike's cabin in the woods. His dad would let us stay there for short winter trips. And when you put 6 or 7 19 year old boys in the woods with no supervison and no one around for miles you can get into a lot of mischief. And we did. Great times they were too.

To this day I hear from Mike now and then and he even comments on my blog now and again. He is a great friend and one of the things I can say about him is he has the biggest heart. Even to this day he tells me of stuff he does that could only be done by a great human being. I wish he wasn't so far away cause I would love to have a beer with him every now and again. But I live in Florida and he is in NY. Such is life.

Ok. Time to make dinner. baked fish and vegetables. I eat that crap every day. Man I want some fried chicken and pizza.

The meaning of Life

2006-11-02T22:11:56Z

I think I think too much. I analyze everything.

In many years of my life I went thru several periods of intense reflection and somewhere in the last 20 years I pondered the meaning of life. I was elated when I finally discovered what it was. Life was about raising a family. And I spent the last 20 years working on that premise as if it was a solid gold truth handed down from heaven and my life revolved around family and I was content.

OK so now I have a problem. I have finished raising a family. Sure there are a few remaining minor details to work on while the kids make it through college but the job of raising is family is basically over. So here is the problem. If raising a family is the meaning of life, is your life over when the job is complete? Well truth is, I don't think so. so now I have a problem, I have to spend more time trying to figure out the Real meaning of life since my earliest premise has some falacies to it. This is why I say. I think too much.

Earlier today I got a flu shot and the Dr said it might make me feel a little feverish. Guess what - he was right. I feel a little crappy right now. Time to curl up in bed and spend some time thinking about my meaning of life paradox.

Love to all

News since the summer

2006-10-30T14:55:53Z

63 pounds. That is the amount of weight I have lost since my trip to Costa Rica. I have been kind of quiet in my journal cause lot of things were going on in my life that were unsettling and one of those things was my health resulting from being overweight. I had a health crisis this summer. My extra weight was doing real havoc to my body. After years of ignoring Drs advice I had gained and gained and now it was coming back to bite me in the a##. The crisis was an eye opener. My reaction was instantaneous and extreme. I started going to weight watchers and OA. I increased my workouts at the gym. I started to meditate and read inspirational weight loss literature. My efforts are being rewarded. I am going to the Dr on a regular basis. As a reward. I now have normal blood sugar. I now have normal cholesterol, I have normal blood pressure. My body feels healtier than ever. I am more mobile. I have less knee pain. 63 pounds. I only have 99 more pounds to go. At least that is according to all the medical books and formulas that you read/hear about on the internet. Some resources suggest to me that I should only lose 59 more pounds. That would bring me to the weight I was when I graduated college. I was still a fat guy then but life was fairly manageble. My goal is to keep going until I can fit into a size 36 pants waist. I am curious to know what that weight will be.

I am scared that I will waiver. I am afraid that I will give up. I don't want to, but food is such a pernicious thing. I love to eat and willpower is tough to maintain for a long period of time. I am working on it. I am praying about it. My friends should pray for me about it if they pray at all. Since starting this change in July I have focused on the diet plan unwaveringly. I have not cheated once. I am afraid that one cheat will lead to another and then the avalanche of eating will come. Today I am focused on it and I have hopes that I can maintain. It's one of the most difficult things I have ever done and it is probably the most important thing I can do for myself and my family.

Patty is dieting also and she has also had some great success in weight loss too. Its a lot easier to diet when the only other person in the house is also on a diet. we eat a lot of fish and baked chicken. She is my inspiration.

In other news. The kids are at college, the dog is dead (he died in August) and life at home has changed so dramatically. The house is always clean. The phones rarely ring. The house is always quiet. Dinner is a very quiet affair. Patty and I have gotten used to it. It is certainly a change for us. We miss the kids but are so glad they are doing the things they are supposed to be doing. Patty and I have a lot more quiet time together but thank God we are suited for each other because she makes it all worthwhile. We started night class last week and are learning ballroom dancing. My volunteer life as a scoutmaster is over as well as band dad so our weekly schedule is a lot quieter. We have stepped up in our efforts with volunteering with Marriage encounter. We are the Secretary couple for the south Florida chapter. Its a pretty good thing.

One other piece of news. You remember that girl I went to Junior prom with. She emails me now and again and recently wrote that her husband and she were vacationing in Florida, so last month the four of us met for dinner. I had not seen her in more than 30 years. We had a great time. her husband is a nice guy. We had a lot of laughs. Its funny too how my perceptions of her have changed. I remember her as a very quiet and shy girl. At the recent dinner she was laughing and enthusiatic and social. Either she has evolved or my memory has failed. But it was a nice time. Its amazing how people can remain friends despite years of separation.

That's all for now. I promise to start posting more soon. Business has been very busy and I have had little free time but Fall is here and that is always a slow time for me.

Hello

2006-10-25T19:33:56Z

Its been crazy for me these last couple months. Tax season did not end until only a couple days ago - I had all these late filers who were on extension. As a result I have not been able to post at all. I have not forgot and I have had a lot of news happen so I will do a real big posting tomorrow. This posting today was merely to get things rolling again in a small way.

Fatherhood.

2006-08-25T16:01:04Z

I remember the day David was born and the times that followed. I wasn't sure I would be a good father but I wanted to be. I didn't have much practice and the little guy seemed so fragile. After having him around for a few days I discovered something wonderful. I could make him smile. It was so easy - all I had to do was connect my eyes to his and smile and in return a big giant gummy grin was my reward. It was soooo cool!!! I was able to do it again and again and it was like drugs. It felt great and I couldn't get enough. I had to keep going back for more I was so addicted. After some time passed I noticed that just connecting the eyes no longer worked. I had to start doing goofy faces or make goofy noises but if I tried the smile would come. As time passed I had to work harder and harder at it and in time I had to start doing things like giving him toys or playing with him and his toys. But if I worked at it I would get my reward. As more time passed, greater effort or greater expense had to be incurred to get the smile but if I worked at it hard enough the smile would come. Of course he grew up to be an adult and with each passing year it was harder and more expensive to get that smile but it always came. The bonding from these smiles was incredible. When Frank came into the picture I discovered it worked with him too. Make a goofy face - get a smile. but he too started to grow older and greater efforts were needed in each passing year to get the same result.

Both David and Frank are in college now. They are in a happy place and as a result they smile all the time. At least I know they are smiling cause when I see them I can see how happy they are. Sending them to college was the thing I needed to do to get them to smile. And just as it has always been, greater efforts and greater costs were needed to get the smile up. I have never minded the greater efforts. The effort I needed to do for the smile became a challenge to me and I would never change any of the things I needed to do to make them happy.

The sad part is that here I am making my greatest effort and greatest expense and I know they are smiling but I can't get to see the smiles except for holidays and weekends when they come home. I have been cut off from my addiction and now get my fix only on the occasional day. I don't regret the effort but I can't help but note and observe the irony of the situation. Life sure is funny.

Anyway with the house empty it's easier to keep clean. There are some advantages to the empty nest but they pale in comparison.

This is just a random thought from a loving father. Time for lunch.

empty nest

2006-08-23T22:04:34Z

We got back late last night from droppong Frank at School.

When I got home I looked into the empty boys bedroom.

I had to turn away and close the door. I don't think I can look into it again without feeling sad.

empty nest

2006-08-16T13:10:27Z

My postings have been sparse as of late. I had a last minute tax season with clients who rushed in to get their work done before the August 15 deadline. And I have been distracted by the last changes in my life. I have started Weight Watchers, Yoga, daily cardio and other health activites in an effort to get my weight, blood pressure and blood sugar down. (BOY THAT IS A TOUGH JOB).

And finally today has come and a new chapter begins in my life. For the last 21 years I have been the head of the house with children at the family table. A father - first last and always. Today my youngest son goes to college and we become empty nesters. And now I become a father - sometimes.

I have to reinvent myself. I am no longer a soccer coach, scoutmaster and band dad. I am something else. I don't know what that is and I have to spend some time and figure it out. Thank God I have Patty.

Today Frank Dave and I drive to Orlando to UCF to move Frank in. Then Patty joins us on Friday and Patty and I will do a few days of Florida travel and reflect.

I love my family. See you in no less than 7 days.

high school

2006-07-31T12:42:28Z

High school was more than just proms. it was an experience. It was a new life stage and adventure. It was like a metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. At least for me.

I loved high school. I never took the early bus home. i always took the late bus and either stayed late to hang out or just wound up in some new club. I was in chess club with this friend named george Westwater. That guy was so smart. he built a tesla coil that shot sparks 2-3 feet across the room. he used to shock me from across the room. Funny as heck when he did it but I am not sure how say it was in retrospect.

Once he rigged his tesla coil to a string of lockers and laid foil on the floor in front of the locker. the foil looked harmless like some sort of decoration or something and when anyone went to his locker (as much as 40 lockers in a row were attached to each other) they would step on the foil, open the locker and get this huge shock. george and I would watch from down the hall and we would scram down the hall after someone got it all the while laughing our heads off at the scene.

What a great time high school was.

I have been contemplating the near and soon departure of my youngest to college. After he leaves in 2 weeks Patty and I will be empty nesters. I need to find another way to occupy my time and I have always joked about writing a book. well it turns out I think this blog is my outline for my book. I hope I can make something entertaining out of it.

I got slapped over my senior prom

2006-07-19T13:58:13Z

I got slapped over my senior prom.

Well, it was more like a punch, but it sounds funnier when I say slapped because anyone who gets slapped at 2 proms in a row, well that’s got to be a great story right.

Senior year for me was even better than Junior year in high school. I was happier than ever. I was better at playing trumpet. I had the best friends and the best times with these friends. I loved high school life so much, I set up a website about my High School

( http://ladcpa.com/hf.htm ) . The school no longer exists but the memories are superb. I hung out with a great group of people.

I didn’t date any girls cause I was still quite inexperienced in the matter and very gun-shy as my earlier efforts had proved very stressful. But I knew a lot of girls and I was great at getting them to laugh when I wanted them to. I considered myself a real wit when it came to making a girl smile. I got a real charge out of it. And I worked my magic on a lot of girls back then. However, there was a girl named Jane who I focused a lot of my efforts on. It was so easy to make her laugh and/or smile. Now granted if you ask her she might say something like “Don you made me laugh cause you were such a goof” - truth was I was not a goof. I acted like one on purpose cause I knew it would make her laugh.

Let me emphasize in this story that Jane was my friend. She was always a friend and to this day she remains a friend and for this I am grateful.

I didn’t know much about relationships. I had always thought if you had a girlfriend, she was bound to be your friend, so I figured why can’t you turn a friend into a girlfriend. And that is what I tried to do with Jane. At great effort I might add but to no avail.

Jane was a violin player. She liked Ed Canava and wanted to date him (at least that was the impression she left). Ed was my friend and so the 3 of us hung out together a lot at the bandroom (problem was Ed did not like her and he told me so). So I figured I would capitalize on my position. Here was a girl who I was exposed to at a regular basis, she wanted a boyfriend so I figured I would work myself into the right position and become the guy she was looking for. So several months before Prom came I worked the courage up to ask her to the prom.

She surprised me. Big time. She said “I will go with you Don on one condition – We go as friends and friends only. No boyfriend girlfriend stuff, just friends. No kissing, nothing like that” RATS – FOILED AGAIN. I ALWAYS SEEM TO GO TO PROMS WITH GIRLS WHO LEAVE CONDITIONS. WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT? Anyway, what did I know? I figured, OK you got your foot in the door. Maybe you can work and massage this thing so it will build up to something better than just friends. I mean, how can she resist my charm once I put it on thick. So I accepted. But my plan was to bombard the girl with non stop opportunities to take the relationship to the next step. So Jane and I started to make plans for prom and we had 2-3 months to get ready for it.

It didn’t take long for me to approach Jane and say “Hey Jane, lets go to a movie this weekend” She would say “Don, you know we are going to the prom as friends, why are you asking me to a movie” I would say “Sure, I know, but can’t 2 friends go to a movie” After much massaging on my part, Jane would finally agree to go. I would take her to a chick flick and sometimes to dinner. Jane would try to pay for her meal and go dutch but I would always insist on paying. I figured if I keep doing this I would wear her down and she will start to change her mind and we can get past this friends thing. We did this routine on a regular and frequent basis and despite my total belief that my charm would win her over, I never got any success in my campaign. What a frustrating experience!!! Week in and week out Jane would not budge. We had a lot of great times together, saw a lot of movies. Had a lot of laughs. Made a lot of great memories. (There are some rerun movies I watch today and they immediately bring back memories of going to that movie with Jane). We even played padiddle which Jane might say was evidence that she did budge but truth was she was so much faster than me that all I ever really got out of it was a seriously sore arm at the end of every night (padiddle is a game where if you see a car with one headlight you shout padiddle quick. If the boy says it first , he gets a kiss (no tongue) but if the girl says it first she gets to punch him in the arm) All I can say is ouch. Funny thing is despite how frustrating it was for me, it was also some of the best fun I ever had in High School. All of life was ahead of us and we were so innocent, happy, and hopeful about the future. I can tell you of no other experience like going on a date with Jane. There was never any sadness. No sniping. Just laughs and clean youthful fun. In retrospect Spring of 73 was a very happy time. But while I was living it, I was one frustrated fellow.

Anyway, even though we were “friends” people knew we were dating and going to prom. Maybe people thought we were boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe even Jane thought it without expressing it or changing her approach. I say this because the next part of the story talks about the bewildering surprise that came with Spring Concert.

I was still frustrated. I was getting no where with Jane and it looked to me like I was never going to get anywhere. I was stuck in the LIMBO of 2 friends hanging out together. It killed me cause she was so cute and her mom liked me. I thought - she would be a perfect girlfriend but I knew I was getting nowhere.

Comes Spring concert.

I was a great trumpet player. I was proud of it. Sister Sheila came up to me and said “Don, I am going to conduct the chorus in a Herb Alpert song “This Guys In Love with You” and it requires a trumpet solo. Will you be my soloist?” I was delighted. On the night of the concert I came on stage and played my solo to perfection. After the song ended I walked backstage to watch the rest of the choir perform. While watching, I saw a beautiful girl in the choir faint while they were in the middle of a song. Sister Sheila signaled to me to come to the girls aid while the song was still being sung. I ran over, picked her up in my arms (she was small) and carried her out to fresh air. She stayed in my arms in a daze while I gazed at her and thought “GOD I AM HOLDING A BEAUTIFUL GIRLS IN MY ARMS. SHE IS GORGEOUS. WOW WOW WOW”
My head was racing and my heart was beating fast and as far as I was concerned, it was love at first sight. When she came to, she smiled at me, put her arms around my neck and hung on to me for quite a long time. I never wanted to put her down and she seemed content for me to hold her forever.

Anyway, we both knew something was going on. We introduced ourselves to each other. Her name was Eve. The concert ended. I asked her if she was going to the after concert party at a band members house. She agreed to go with me. We went to the party and when we walked arm in arm to the party room, everyone turned and stared. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. No one understood how I could hurt Jane in this way.
Here is where old age sucks. I can’t remember if Jane was there. But I do remember Jane’s reaction to it, the first chance she could talk to me about it. I think we talked privately the next school day. Anyway, we got alone in the room and she slapped me. Actually she punched me in the arm but the story seems funnier when I say she slapped me in light of being slapped for Junior prom. She was mad and she was upset. She acted like she was my girlfriend and acted angry that her boyfriend had two timed her. I was amazed, shocked and so pleased with myself (you see her reaction was proof that my campaign of unrelenting charm had worked – she had just kept her change of heart a secret from me. Who knows why? I still did not understand girls at that time. In truth, I still don’t understand them much today. But I am so glad to be married to the love of my life Paty anyway – the mystery of girls is one of the reasons us guys like them so much). Anyway she was mad –“how could you do this to me when the prom is only 2 weeks away?” Can you figure that? Well I told Jane “You were the one who wanted to stay friends despite my efforts to the contrary. Now that I have found love you should be happy for your friend. Besides, I still plan on taking you to the prom. I intend to keep my word” That calmed Jane down.

Prom came. We had a terrific time. We went with Don Koehler and Cathy Ciuffo who have been married close to 30 years now. We danced, we laughed, we shared Senior prom together and the night was wonderful and magical. I will always treasure that prom night with Jane. We went as friends. We didn’t kiss. We parted as friends.

Jane had always said that if we got into a serious relationship we would lose the friendship that she cherished and she never wanted to lose that. Well she got her way. The friendship never ended. We are friends to this day. I haven’t seen her in 30 years but we trade emails. She belongs to a marriage encounter group in NY and I belong to the same group in Florida. In a year there is supposed to be a marriage encounter reunion for all couples throughout the US and if lucky we will both be there to see each other and get to meet each others spouses. UME marriage encounter is a great thing to help married couples strengthen their union. I am glad to be a part of it.

After prom, Jane and I stopped going to movies. I was too wrapped up in my new girlfriend to make room for other friends. It was probably a wrong thing to do. But I was totally in love with Eve. I will tell you her story soon. But the funny thing was Eve eventually moved on and dumped me. I was a big emotional mess from the breakup. One of the first people I called after the breakup was Jane. She was a good friend. She talked me through some of the very bad times (the awful loss of Eve was felt by me for 3 years). We wound up going to movies and dinner again. And as Jane would have it, we went as friends, despite my determined efforts and infernal belief that I could win her over with my charms. Jane and I did this on and off through my early college years. What would happen is I would find a girl, date her, stop going to movies with Jane (This time I continued to talk with her on the phone and such), then I would break up with the girl and then I would start going to movies and dinner with Jane again. The cycle would repeat over and over again until one day Jane moved to California. My life went on. I met my wife Patty in 1976 married in 1978. Jane’s life went on. She married George and raised a family. So ends my blog journal chapter about Jane. I have much more to say about high school. They will be addressed in upcoming chapters.

I got slapped at my Junior Prom

2006-07-18T15:10:15Z

I have been holding back on this next story because, while it is one of my favorite stories told time and again, it involves a girl who, while I have not seen her in more than 30 years, is now an internet friend who reads my blog and I have come to appreciate her visits and feedback.

So the story usually generates a lot of laughs. When I tell it, I tell it so the laughter is on me. I am sort of the Ziggy character where everything goes wrong and from whence the humor is derived. The girl in the story is merely the setup for the humor. So I tell this story with the hope that my internet friend does not freeze up and send me every kind of angry response because the story might make her look like a kook. I hope she can laugh at it too just like I do. The moment was just a small passage of time in our lives and the both of us have gone on to have normal productive lives and so everyone should know that the players in this story are not kooks – just people. I hope I have apologized enough here cause my intent is to remain friends with this girl after the story is told.

The girl asked me to change her name, so for the rest of the story I will call her Susan.
Now the story is true – to the best of my memories. Having told it a number of times I have discovered the best way to tell it to get the most laughs and so the desire to please has melded with the facts of history and thus the story has an embellished aspect to it. But it is a true story and Susan surely must remember.

Junior year in high school. What a great time it was. I was one of the happiest guys in the world going through one of the happiest times of my life. People were nice to me. All the old bullies lost their power over me. I was semi-popular in school. I went to parties. I had friends. I even talked to girls. My life seemed to have purpose and every time I picked up the trumpet for band I was the king. I was getting better at it and I was proud of my music. I was involved at school and my grades were terrific. No one was better than me and I loved high school.

I didn’t have any experience with girls. Even though I felt really comfortable talking to them and making them laugh. I still had this huge fear of rejection (grammar school horrors still had a huge influence on me). Friends of mine were dating girls and I watched and I thought – these guys were no better than me, if they can do it, so can I.
But I still hadn’t dated a girl. I had never kissed one (although I wanted to). I had never even been alone with a girl in any situation. But I knew I could do it. I had to. Junior prom was coming and I was planning to go and I needed to find a girl to go with me.

I had watched the different girls in my school, the super pretty ones seemed unreachable to me, even though I wanted to date one more than ever. So I decided to go for the more attainable. I figured my best bet was to ask a girl who was always nice to me. I looked around at the girls who had no boyfriends and one girl named “Susan” not only was nice to me but she was nice to other people too. I figured “ask her –she’s not mean and if she does not want to go she will say so nicely”

So a couple months before prom, out of the blue I approached her and asked her to prom.
That was like the hardest thing I ever did in my life – work up the courage to ask a girl out. It was the first time I had ever asked a girl out. I had rehearsed it a thousand times and even so I was frightened out of my mind to do it. Anyway, I blurted it out and she smiled and said yes. So I said great, that I was going to work out the details with my friends for table seating and other things, and that she and I would talk soon about it in greater length.

A couple hours later Susan approached me in the hall and said “I have to qualify my acceptance to your invitation, - I don’t dance the slow dances because it’s immoral for boys and girls to dance so close together.” I was shocked and unhappy but having no experience in these matters and not wanting her to back out; I said “OK no problem”. Then she said “I also don’t dance to rock and roll music because all that crazy body shaking is also immoral”. I tried to talk her out of this but she was determined and there was no changing her mind. Again I did not want her to back out of the prom so I weakly agreed to her conditions and went home very unhappy.

I went on planning the prom. In those days, a prom date was more than an evening out. The tradition was that you would go with your friends to prom and then afterwards go out to a restaurant or a club for more socializing and fun. The next day you would meet your friends and all go to an amusement park (Rye Beach) and the next day you would all go swimming at Fire Island or some other activity. So I started talking up these activities and within a few days, Susan approached me again and said she was not going to be able to participate in the amusement park or the beach swim because her father was very strict and would not approve of her getting so close to a boy so quickly. I argued with her and she was adamant. I asked her, could I please meet her father and talk to him because surely after meeting me he would see I was a nice boy and might reconsider some of this decision. She refused to allow me to talk to him. I did not put up a big fight because I had already set plans in motion and people knew I was going with Susan and if I backed out now, they would laugh at me and maybe I would not find a date replacement in time so I agreed to these new changes.

A few more days passed and Susan approached me again with new demands. She said “I have to be home by 11PM on prom night”. Now, the actual prom ended at 12:30 and the gang had all planned to go out to a nightspot afterwards. I pleaded with her to change this decision and she said the matter was out of her hands. Her father had put his foot down and there was no changing his mind. I asked, please let me talk to him and she said no. I was miserable. I was going to the prom – my first date – with a girl who promised me no dancing and no socializing. I was miserable. It was too late to back out now, the tux was rented, and seating arrangements were organized. I had to follow through or I was going to look like a reject. I already felt like one but I didn’t want the world to see I was one. So I agreed to her terms and I was really unhappy.

Prom night came. I picked Susan up. We went. We all sat at the table. Susan never danced. The gang tried to convince me and Susan to go out after. I explained about Susan’s curfew, so suddenly they all agreed – Well if Susan has to get back at 11PM, then we will all leave the prom before 10PM go to a local restaurant and achieve some kind of extracurricular activity anyway. We now had a plan. The gang asked me where we should go. I asked Susan where she liked to go and she wouldn’t give me an answer. They gang suggested Chinese, I asked Susan if that was OK. She said yes.

The evening progressed little by little. At one point while the music was playing my group had gathered at the edge of the dance floor and all the gang with their girlfriends were in a circle talking and telling stories. Susan was on my right. I watched as the other kids stood close to each other. Every single guy in that circle stood with his girl at his side and each guy had his arm around the waste of his date. It looked so nice. I wanted to fit in too and do the same. I had never put my arm on a girls waste before. I had barely touched a girl at this point. I had to work up some courage and finally made the gargantuan effort to do it. I slid my arm around her. It was in good taste. It was not sexual or immoral. It was nothing to be ashamed of in public. But Susan reacted. She started to pull away but I was persistent and then she let me have it in front of all my friends – she turned to me and publicly stated “Get that Thing off of me”. My friend Jim Nuzzo bent over in laughter from hearing it (later he said he practically peed in his pants). He thought it was the funniest thing to hear this girl say that to me. The rest of the gang tried to be socially responsible about it but you could see they tried real hard to suppress the laughter and failed in the attempt.

I was mortified. I wanted to scream at Susan. I turned to her and said “Let’s dance”. Rock and Roll was playing and Susan said no. I didn’t care because I wanted to get away from the embarrassing scene to finally tell her off. I dragged her to the dance floor and started giving her a piece of my mind about the whole fiasco the prom was becoming because of her actions. I was mad. I yelled at her. She yelled at me. In the course of the shouting, I stepped on her dress and it ripped. She turned beet red and let go with a huge slap to my face that almost stopped the music and dancing because it was so public. She ran out of the dance hall. I followed behind.

We had a big fight outside. It was awful. No one won. But we agreed to return to civility for the duration of the evening. We went back to the gang. Then all of us left the prom to go on to the remainder of the night. We headed out to the Chinese restaurant.

We got there. Everybody ordered Chinese except Susan. She ordered cooked ham. I begged and pleaded. “Susan please order Chinese food at a Chinese restaurant. It looks very bad to be eating ham.” I could not convince her. Her food came out. Jim Nuzzo made a crack about me not being able to afford the price of a decent meal for my date.
I was mortified.

The meal ended. It was time to end the nightmare. I brought Susan home. I was going to leave her at the curb because I had no more strength for anything. I just wanted to get home. She begged me, “Please come in and meet my father” If you don’t, I will get in trouble with him. Please.

I went inside because I am a gentleman and I did not want her to get in trouble. I still wanted nothing more to do with her but I figured it’s just for a few minutes and then I will never have to deal with her again.

I went inside. Her father was a nice fellow. We talked a little about this and a little about that. Nothing in particular was said. But one comment by Dad really upset me. He said “Gee you guys got home awful early tonight” “I wouldn’t have minded if you stayed out a little later” “Isn’t it a tradition for prom kids to do all sorts of extra activities the night of the prom and the weekend that follows” “Do you guys have any plans for tomorrow?”

I quickly made my excuses to leave. I went home much poorer. I was tired, humiliated, confused, and frustrated. I had just completed my first date. God if they are all like this I was destined for a life of frustration.

The next school day everyone was talking about the prom. I got teased like you wouldn’t believe. It was hard to go to school that week. I bumped into Susan. I was pleasant and social. I said hello. She said hello back. I pretended we never went to the prom. She responded in kind. We bumped into each other again and again at school for the rest of junior year and the following senior year and we never talked about the prom ever again. I pretended she was just a girl in my class with no special aspects to her. I spent a good part of that remaining time avoiding the possibility of ever talking about it to her. This is how we ended the relationship (if you can say we ever had a relationship). Little did I know that I would get slapped at my senior prom as well – but that is another story yet to come. Little did I know that with time the embarrassments seem less annoying until they have now become cherished memories. I have told my junior prom story now a hundred times and I will always get a kick out of telling it again. In person I get a lot of laughs for the story. Little did I know that via the internet, Susan and I would come to dropping each other a line on a regular basis and share a laugh and family stories. She is married with children. I am married with children. We live 1000 miles away but we are now friends for the first time in 30 years. So I hope my retelling the story will not get her upset and I encourage her to tell her side because we all know there are 2 sides to every story. My wife Patty is probably tired of hearing my side and I bet she would get a laugh if she heard Susan’s side

Well that’s it. A bit long winded but I couldn’t tell the story any other way.

Senior year is coming soon.

Costa Rica Weather, animals and adventures

2006-07-11T00:45:01Z

Adventures, animals and Costa Rica Weather.

When we got to Costa Rica is started to rain. It rained all day. It was OK because we had 9 more days of vacation. The next day we woke up and it rained. The day after that it rained. We were OK, cause tomorrow would be another day and when it came we ventured out and it rained. You see I didn’t think much when I read the guidebooks and they told me I was visiting a rain forest, in the rainy season. I just figured that like tropical Florida, the tropical weather would be an afternoon rain and then clear skies. That’s what we get here. In 9 whole days in Costa Rica I only saw a blue sky on the last 2 days and at that it was only for an hour.

A funny thing about the weather in Costa Rica, - It is 70 degrees every day all day and at night the temperature drops to 68 degrees all night. That is because we were up at a high mountainous elevation and that brought the nice weather. I mean nice too. Because even though it rained, the air was not humid. If you got soaked from rain all you had to do was step under an overhang out of the rain and in a few minutes you would dry up. The air had little or no humidity. The humidity was all in the rain coming down and the air was dry. The only time I wound up sweating was if I deserved it (you know working hard hiking up mountains or something) so in effect, even though it rained, I thought the weather was terrific. If you got wet, the rain was like 75 degrees, so you didn’t get cold. The whole thing was weird but great. And because we wanted to see the country we went out in the rain and did stuff in the rain and it was fun anyway. Visibility stunk because the clouds hung low over the mountains and you couldn’t see the mountaintops, and the roads were frequently buried in new rivers that washed across low points everywhere we went so travel was impeded. But in truth the weather was great.

So we ventured out in the rain and we did terrific things. Nature was everywhere. That is why you go to Costa Rica - For nature. All the adventures we took brought animal encounters. Another thing, I thought that since I was going to a tropical jungle, I was going to have problems with mosquitoes, biting bugs, ticks, giant cockroaches, scary shit that you read about in the encyclopedia. I was wrong again. I never saw any of that stuff and I was outside in jungle places all the time. In the whole week, the only thing I saw was butterflies and I will tell you about them in a minute.

On the first day Patty and I hung on the ground while Dave and Frank hooked themselves to quarter mile long pulley type clothes lines that spanned 2 small mountains with 500 foot valleys below. They would then jump off a cliff and ride the clothesline to the other side of the valley at speeds that looked like 60 miles an hour. The experience covered a distance of 2 miles and they called it a canopy ride.

On day 2, the 4 of us rented 4 wheel ATVs and raced for a wild 4 hour ride across the countryside, visiting waterfalls, butterfly gardens, swimming holes with rope swings. On the way we saw goats and cattle walking free on the roads and got close up to a rat the size of a small dog and the animal is considered a protected species there.

On day 3 we took a riverboat ride on The Cano Negro wildlife refuge and saw all kinds of birds, and lizards and bats. We saw a 3 toed sloth, Howler Monkeys, White Faced Monkeys, Spider Monkeys and capuchin Monkeys. The howlers were the best because they would be in a tree all stoned out from chewing coca leaves and we would make a monkey howl noise below and that would freak them out so they would howl back at us. On the river, we saw these huge lizards called Cayman’s (they look like alligators with short noses and are almost as big) Frank rescued a Cayman with our river guide. One of the animals had a huge fishhook and rope in its mouth and was going to die on the rivers edge. The river guide, a tourist, and Frank yanked this animal out of the water tried to free the hook but couldn’t so they locked the animal in the back of the boat so that later they could load it onto a bus and take it to a vet for first aid. Before putting it on the bus they had to tie it up with duct tape so they could load it in bus storage below the seats.

On day 4 we went horseback riding up to the top of the volcano. On the way (a very scary ride by the way) we encountered free range Brahman bulls, toucans, howler monkeys. You could hear the volcano going boom boom every time it spit out a rock.

On day 5 we went for a ride around Lake Arenal and walked on the hanging bridges. These are tourist places where suspension bridges made of very shaky cable hung hundreds of feet into the air and you walked on these saying things next to the tree tops. We saw more monkeys; we saw the most poisonous snake in the country from only 2 feet away. We saw poisonous frogs which will cause you to hallucinate if you lick them. None of us took a lick. The shaky bridge was a scary event for me who has a real problem with heights.

On day 7 we went to the waterfall gardens where we saw a butterfly garden that would amaze you with the thousands of many colored butterflies all over the place. The same place had a hummingbird garden where you could stand so close to the hummingbird feeders that you could hear the hundreds of birds hum as they flew past your ears. That part was so amazing that yesterday I went and bought my own hummingbird feeder for my own garden.

On day 8 we went to a dairy farm and watched hundreds of cows being milked. We also toured a coffee plantation where the coffee for starbucks is grown. We brought some coffee home.

It was a great trip. It was the best vacation I have ever been on. Better than a cruise and cheaper than one. And in my opinion the food was better too.

Ok I am probably boring you all with all this vacation talk. I think tomorrow I will return to my life story and discuss Junior Year of High School. You will be interested to read that one MK.

Costa Rica Food, People and Shopping

2006-07-07T14:29:59Z

Costa Rica food was delicious. Because of the climate, this country has so many types of fruit and vegetables that every meal has a huge volume of the stuff and it’s all fresh. They also have stuff not normally found on an American table like Chayote, green oranges, orange limes, veggies of unknown name,

They love cooked plantains and black beans and rice on corn tortillas. Great stuff. They have the best best best best best beef. The stuff is so tender it would melt in your mouth. The food we ate was by far better than any cruise food we ever ate and cheap cheap cheap. These people are great chefs. We would be driving along and would pass by a hovel that called itself a restaurant. The place would look like a mess from the outside but it would be the only restaurant in town. It would typically have a tin roof and maybe not have 4 sounds walls. But since we had no other choices we would stop. But once you got inside, the place would be clean and neat; appealing in look and the menu would be varied and sumptuous. And some of these places had the most incredible views in the world to eat by. The food was incredible everywhere we went. And you could get a complete full meal for $3.00. Once I ate a giant platter of fried pork with a salad and tortillas for $2.00. Steaks were the best.

The people were also an anomaly. They all by far looked incredibly healthy – more so than Americans. Everyone was slim and had great complexions. The women were beautiful. I don’t know if they were in great health because everyone walks everywhere and thus get a lot of exercise or maybe the eternal spring weather has an impact or maybe the available nutrition which is so varied and plentiful but they all looked great – men and women – no matter where we found them or what their occupation or status in life. In the whole week I saw only one ugly fellow because he had a harelip but the rest of this man suggested health and vitality. The people as a whole don’t speak English except for those in the tourist industry and even then I had to use a lot of Spanish. But all were very friendly and helpful and the country has a high literacy rate. I was warned by all the guidebooks and by friends “guard your wallet wear a money belt” We never went to the city so maybe we didn’t see any bad people but the people we saw never seemed like they were going to take my money away. In fact they all seemed like they wanted to be friendly and they appear to dislike conflict of any sort.

Shopping had its shortfalls. The largest store we ever saw of any type was no larger than a corner McDonalds. All places seemed to abhor air conditioning so everything was open air buildings and sometimes the lights would be turned off to save on the electric bill. In some places we found security people walking around these tiny stores and that made us a little uncomfortable but not too. Buying comfort foods from home was difficult. Dave made a point to seek out sunflower seeds – his favorite snack - and there are none to be found in the whole country. Other items like ketchup and mayonnaise and laundry soap are sold in sealed baggies- not bottles or boxes. Very different. These stores were few and far between and none had parking unless you parked on the street blocking traffic which seemed to be a standard method throughout the country. Gas for cars was available but the stations were few and you constantly had to keep an eye open for a station in case your gas was running out. Bathrooms (unless they were at your restaurant) did not come with toilet seats or toilet paper – you had to supply your own and if you had none you used the open toilet bowl with no seat in the best way you could figure out. There were some significant cultural differences between this country and ours.

Anyway, tomorrow I will write more about our activities and adventures and the animals. Bye for now.

Costa Rica - Chapter 2 - The lodging

2006-07-05T18:32:50Z

Costa Rica Lodging:

We stayed in Costa Rica in the mountains. We stayed 6 nights in La Fortuna and 3 nights in Poasito.

La Fortuna is a town that is 5 kilometers from an active volcano named Arenal (4 hours north of San Jose) and Poasito is a small town that is very close to a semi active volcano named Poas (1 hour north of San Jose)

In La Fortuna we stayed at a resort called Arenal Paraiso. It’s a beautiful place that allows each guest to have his own cabin with porch that faces directly to the volcano so every day you can sit on your porch and watch red lava (at night) and belching rocks (during the day) spit out of the volcano mouth as you listen to the volcano make constant rumbling noises that is reminiscent of thunder. We observed the volcano doing these things every day and the best show is at night. We did have some view obstruction cause the low lying clouds blocked our view due to the constant rain but there was no question – we saw the volcano in action.

The resort had 16 hot water pools fed by the brown mineral waters of the volcano. The pool at the top of the hill had scalding hot volcano water and this overflowed into a pool just below it thus causing the water to be a little cooler than the pool above and another pool was just below it receiving runoff from the second pool and thus this water was cooler yet and this continued on and on down the hill until the last pool was just lukewarm. The main unheated pool stood next to a pool with sunken bar (which was also volcano heated) and you could sit in a stool in the hot water as you sipped down a cold beer from the bar which was also in the pool with you. Very relaxing.

The resort had a special place for massages and mud baths mud facials and the like and Patty took advantage of this feature.

Every day after coming back from our adventures, the hotel maids would take white bath towels and fold them in such a way as to look like animals and we had different towel animals lying in our bed every day, from elephants, turtles, snakes to all kinds of unnamed species. They had TV but most of it was in Spanish so we spent a lot of time at night playing cards and doing quality family time.

Breakfast was included in the hotel and each morning we hiked downhill (returning uphill was exercise) to the breakfast buffet and ate quite well.

The second hotel called the Poas Volcano lodge was a bed and breakfast that was originally a dairy farm farmer’s residence. The house was huge and we took the master bedroom, complete with our own fireplace and stock of firewood.

The farm was still operating and we ate food from the farm like fruits, vegetables, and fresh milk straight from the farm’s cows. The kitchen made its own granola, jam, bread, and fresh squeezed juice. The food was excellent and I ate things I had never seen before. Every meal was family style and you sat at a table with other lodge guests and quickly became friends with these travelers from all over the world.

The lodge had a giant living room with fireplace, game tables and plenty of games, which was good because again there was no TV. The lodge also had a pool table, ping pong, and trampoline. I felt like a rich guy with all these servants and butlers running around taking care of us. Very nice. Outside the lodge were several nature trails for bird watching.

The hotels were in a word –Terrific.

Costa Rica and the roads

2006-07-05T16:16:25Z

I just got back from Costa Rica yesterday.

What a beautiful country! What a great time.

All the family went. We arrived and rented a car, drove 4 hours in total rain. The roads are horrendous 2 laners with potholes the size of cows. Rain causes new rivers to be formed crossing the highway and eventually washes part of the road away so frequetly you have to share half a road with 2 way traffic (including huge trucks)

Frequently, the asphalt ends and you have miles of mud and rocks to drive on. It’s a mountainous country so the roads snake back and forth with treacherous hairpin turns.
Stop signs and lights are just warnings for the speedy drivers on the country roads. Frequently on 2 lane roads people stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason so you go around a curve and you have to slam on the brakes for a full stop when you discover such a road obstacle. Extremely mangy looking Dogs are all over the roads sitting in the middle of the street. Sometimes, there are hundreds of cattle or sheep blocking passage as they are herded by farmers. People are walking the roads all the time cause the have no cars. They also have no sidewalks so they too are obstacles on the highway. Frequently landslides and trees fall on the road and such hazards must be avoided as well. Every bridge on 2 way highways in Costa Rica is a one lane bridge, so if you are lucky you won’t have to go halfway across and then have to back up off the bridge because the guy in from of you can’t back off his end of the bridge for one reason or another. We came upon a sign that said in translation “Bridge ahead is in bad condition” and we had no other choice to cross it but the old rusty bridge had wooden and metal pieces missing and what remained was rusted and loose and as you crossed a loose plank across part of the bridge you can see through the holes below your car to the 500 foot drop below. None of the streets have names or numbers. If you follow a road that is clearly marked on your National Geographic American made map and you get into a small city the road suddenly dead ends in the middle of the city. Of course you intended to take this road through and pass to the other side of the city so you want to find where the road went but everywhere you look, the once efficient thruway type road becomes invisible and no matter how many times you back track you can’t figure out in the maze which is the right alley which leads to the road out. So you show your map to taxi drivers and pedestrians and anyone who cares and ask them where the road went and everyone looks at you like they never saw a map before in their life and everyone has a different opinion as to the way out so you talk to 10- 20 people before you get to the other side. Everyone wants to help but they speak fast Spanish and have no concept on how to answer a question I create that clearly requires only a yes or no answer. For example – I would ask in good Spanish “Is that the road to San Isidro” they would not say yes, they would not say no, instead they give me 6 or 7 hundred words of unintelligible Spanish, and my panic button would race like mad. When we drove at night there were no streetlights and the roads were pitch black.

Despite all that we got to our hotel after much stress and have lived long enough to return and tell our story.

Stay tuned for additional chapters of Costa Rica. We will talk about lodging, food, people, adventures, animals, weather, technology and vistas.

Sophmore Year in High Scool and Cost Rica

2006-06-23T13:04:05Z

Moving on with my reflections on life.

High School Sophmore year was an eye opening born again experience for me. It was the beginning of 3 wonderful happy years. It was a complete turnaround of school life for me. It was a time when my whole spirit got revitalized and self confidence soared like an eagle. It was when the real personality of Don Ladolcetta fought its way out of its shell and the person that most people know as Don Ladolcetta today, was formed. Wow.

After a year of being invisible as a freshman, I began to realize that my days of being teased by my school mates was over. I had a lot of good friends at the school and I was about to make a move that would secure a guaranteed positive social life for the rest of my time there. I joined band.

Don Koehler - a St Cyril's chum had told me about stage band and I watched the kids play the great music and I said I want to do that. Don played trumpet and I signed up for trumpet in Sophmore year. as a kid my parents made me take guitar lessons and as a result I had a real good music foundation, so all I needed was trumpet skills and I was in. I knew I was a year behind everyone else and so I had to play catchup, so when I had the chance I practiced all the time and joined every musical I thing I could. I loved the sound a trumpet made and I listened to Herb Albert play and I was inspired. The additional wonder of it all was that as soon as I joined the band I met a ready made bunch of friends who became my extended family. These were great people who were nice to me and they wanted a social life too. Now when I went to school I knew there would be a pile of people ready to smile and say hello and sit with me for lunch. We did things together on weekends and we stayed every day after school to practice and have a few laughs. they were beatutiful times. Another benefit was girls. they belonged to the band and as a result of being part of the band I automatically had the right to strike up a conversation with them without being shunned or laughed at. I learned in Sophmore year that girls were not only interesting people, you could actually talk to one up close and if you were witty enough you could make them laugh and that was such a head trip. I loved thinking on my feet, walking up to a girl and provoking a smile or a laugh out of her. I started off slow at first but before long I found I could do it on a regular basis without much effort and with no negative affects whatsoever. This was the coolest thing ever. And there were plenty of girls in band to practice on and all different kinds from the plain and mousy to the gorgeus and vibrant. I didn't discriminate. I worked all the girls. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't dating these girls, cause I was still too naive and afraid to take the next step but I was working on my future skills and I was getting good at it, And before long my life looked like it was taking the turn it was supposed to. I started to have normalcy. I had friends (boy and girl) I had direction. I had confidence. I had fun. My three year in the band were the best in my life. I no longer felt sorry for myself and the future looked great.

The band performed in so many ways. jazz band used to go to other schools and play daytime concerts during assembly.
Pep band used to play at all the football games. Pit Orchestra played at all the school musicals. Brass choir traveled to churches and played at religious functions. And of course there was orchestra and concert band. I practiced hard at these things and got to join all of them. I worked hard at them and watched, as over time I moved up slowly from 3rd trumpet 4th seat upwards toward the ultimate goal of 1st trumpet 1st seat - the one Ed Canava used to have and the one I could never get but I was always nipping at his heals for it.

I played music for the nicest man on earth - Michael Nardotti - our music teacher. This man was a saint on earth, a mentor, a friend, a father figure, a leader. he never yelled, he loved music and he loved the kids that played for him. he was always inspiring and always trying to help you do better. I wish I could tell this man how he touched my life and made it so rewarding. While he was my teacher, I never thought to say to him "Gee Mr Nardotti, thanks for all you do" It's only 30 years later, long after he is dead and gone that I can lay this tribute on him. If there is a heaven I am certain this man is there and he is playing the most heavenly music in the most heavenly orchestra.

There were other teachers too, Like young Sister Sheila, chorus director who was never meant to be a nun - her parents made her do it. It was good for her that she eventually left the convent and got married. I thought she was pretty. Of course my upbringing made sure that I treated her with nothing but the utmost respect and dignity. She was a special friend too.

OK so now you have the foundation for what the rest of my high school life was like. I will talk about Junior year when I get back from Costa Rica. the family and I are taking a little vacation there.

OK Don. you don't like the heat, you don't like the sun, you don't like humidity, you don't like the jungle. you like civilization and airconditioning, a good meal, a nice nap. So what in God's name are you doing flying to the equator to vacation in the jungle of a 3rd world country.

I am going to be sleeping at the bottom of an active volcano that I am told makes booming noises all night so you can't get a peaceful sleep. friends have told me of cockroaches the size of grapefruit crawling on the walls of their hotel room and watching with fascination as the big wild iguana swoops out from under the bed and scoops them up in from of your eyes. These friends have shared stories of being stalked by jaguars while on a hike.

I have recently watched travel channel shows on Costa Rica and see strapping young healthy explorers freaking out at how hot it is along with huge amounts of bugs bites they had. These same shows talk about the huge volume of poisonous snakes and third world roads with potholes as large as cattle. My guidebook says I should wear a money belt to guard from pickpockets in the small villages surrounding the country.

I am going to this place. Am I crazy. Tune in next week because when I return I will regale you with horror stories of my life in the jungle.

Love to all.

Uncle Jim

2006-06-22T15:51:15Z

Uncle Jim Died today

High School

2006-06-16T16:00:20Z

My friend Mike (the vermin- I don't call him that he calls himself that) has been anxiously waiting my foray into high school. I had to cover the early years first and then of course current events interfered with the normal course of events but today is the beginning of my discussion about High School life - I have a lot of stories so it may be a few entries before I get to that parts with Mike in it. Don't worry MK I will also have a story about Junior prom so I am not forgetting you although this too will be a few stories into the process. I mention MK because she and Mike the Vermin are the most consistent of my readers and posters to my blog. I am told I have a lot of other readers but they say they don't post comments except for rare and occasional entries and that's OK too cause I am writing this blog for myself. It has become a sort of therapy for me.

Anyway- to leap to high school requires a quick refresher of my life at Elementary School. I spent 1st thru 8th grades in misery. I was teased. I was bullied. I was a loner in those grades. You can read this stuff in an earlier story I published. I just bring it up because the psychological impact of those horrible years shaped the person i was when I entered the doors of Holy Family High School for the frst time.

I had only a few not so close friends from St Cyrils. And a couple of them wound up at Holy Family. The school was so big compared to what I left and kids from all over Long Island went there. A lot of the kids that bullied me did not go to HF and so what happened was, that I went from being humiliated on a daily basis to being totally ignored and unimportant to everyone at the new school. At first I could not believe it. I was so conditioned to being tortured that I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and the torture to recommence. day after day I would take a low profile hoping that in doing so no one would notice and I would get by with another day without being crapped on. And truth be told, no one crapped on me. It was wonderful. I learned to hide in plain sight so no one would bother me. I did this day in and day out and realized after a time that the horrible phase was over.

Of course with this new realization, I still was not so sure that being invisible was still helping me but I was afraid to stick out in the event that the crap might come back. So I stayed invisible for the first year of high school, not knowing if it was helping to stay the torture but too afraid to change for fear change might bring back the monsters. So I was shy and careful with who I spoke to and with who I hung out with. Little by little I opended up to a couple people, folks like George Westwater, Kevin Knowles, Bon Offenhieiser, Suzanne Hayes, Debie Richardson, Jim Nuzzo. I learned that these were people who were going to be civil and decent to me. It was wonderful. I soon started to like school and even opened up more to old St Cyril acquaintences like Don Koehler who were nice to me in the old days. I did everything possible to avoid bumping into the old St Cyril bullies and so I stayed away from things like sports where all these guys now hung out. Occasionally I would bump into them and occasionally they would bust my chops like the old days but for some reason it did not sting as much because their message was no longer the voice of a whole school but instead their message was coming from a very small minority and soon, as a result I came unto my own. each day brought a little more confidence for me than the day before. each day was one where I hated life less and suddenly suicide did not seem to come to my mind so frequently anymore, In fact I thought of it very little and it seemed like my old stressful days were a thing of the past. Life was good and it was getting better.

I started to join some of the more obscure clubs like the AV squad and the chess club. A friend of mine in the chess club suggested I help out the drama club in putting on some of its shows by becomeing a stage hand. Granted, these were nerdy things to join, but after experiencing school life like I had done in the past, they seemed like the best experiences in the world to me. Life was starting to become my friend and I was really looking forward to going to school.

Of course I also experienced some great self confidence boosters in class. I was alwaya considered a smart kid but suddenly I was put into advanced Math and science classes and I was getting A's. I don't want to come across too egotistical but I was verging on the edge of genius. My mind was flowering and expanding and growing and being challenged every day and I was getting super grades and all the teachers liked me and all the kids in class knew they could get help from me with regards to some of the class issues that they needed help in. this experience of success combined with reduction of the old negativity from schoolmates became a major source of sustenance to bring my self esteem levels out of the hole it had been buried in and up to a level where I began to like myself. God - Life was good. How did that happen.

Today I am 50 years old. One of the great fears in my life was that I would raise kids who had my genetic makeup and they would grow up to face the horrible grammar school experiences I went through. It would have been torture for me to see my kids being mistreated, because I was so ill equiped to advise them on how to escape such problems seeing as I did such a poor job of helping myself out. I guess I was lucky. For a while there, in 4th or 5th grade I saw some activity in my son Frank's school life that paralleled my own and I thought Oh God, please don't let it happen to him. some kids were being mean to him and the teacher was allowing that (even supporting it in her classroom seating chart) to occur in the classroom. So I approached her and told her what a bad teacher she was and she turned and rearranged the seating chart to eliminate the effect she was creating. The teasing issues seemed to stop and Frank seemd to be out of trouble and as far as I can tell neither one of my kids ever had to go through the hell I went through.

Of course looking at the successful trail my life took after St cyrils, I don't suppose the situation really hurt me in the long run. The scars are still there and when I think of it in great amounts I still get a choking feeling in my throat. It might have made me into a better person. I am certainly a different person. I always root for the underdog now. I always help out the underdog. Other than that my life seems unphased. I will tell you that if I ever met these bullies today, I bet you their life is pathetic. even so I would like to punch a couple noses and kicks a couple shins, I wonder what those people are up to now.

Ok so this is the essence of my freshman year in high school. I was an invisible guy with a lot of shyness and yet a lot to offer poeople. The next 3 years would show a huge metamorphasis. And that will be discussed in the next entry. Love to all.

Taking a healthy outlook on life

2006-06-15T16:00:54Z

Here is my latest life goal to keep myself busy in the season that is not tax season. I am going to try and follow this schedule every day to make my life more meaningful. The schedule is deigned to address each different aspect of my humanity. Life has to be about variety. A healthy person is well rounded. Soemtimes I let myself get too focused and narrow my perspective to one or 2 areas. Not good for mental health. I am going to change who I am.

6:30 Physical-exercise

8:00 Environment – Do A Yard thing - something small

8:30 Industrious – Make Money

11:30 Humorous – read a joke - find humour in something

11:45 Creative - do Music or Write blog

12:15 Lunch

1:00 Nap

1:45 Spiritual – Pray or Reflect on something

2:00 Intellectual – read from a boook and/or Learn something new

2:15 Industrious/Possessions-Do a House Thing - like clean bathroom or Make Money if there is office work to do

4:00 Physical-Exercise

5:00 Friends - Call a friend/make a friend/do a friendly thing

5:15 Family - Call a relative

8:00 Spouse - Do something nice for the wife

8:30 Recreate –Listen to Music , Watch TV or fireplace. Play a family game

Our dog popcorn died yesterday.

2006-06-13T13:39:38Z

12 years ago we lost the family dog named Missy and to keep the kids from being sad, we bought a new dog named Popcorn. He was a Beagle. I am going to start my story about his good points first because he had many and then I will talk about why I just could not stand him.

The dog was sweet and affectionate. He loved everyone. and everyone in the neighborhood knew him and liked him. He would escape from the house all the time (He was an escape artist) and travel around the neighborhood blocks visiting everyone. He was very much like Snoopy in peanuts. When he was a young dog, he would not sleep in his doghouse but instead he would jump up on the house and rest on top of it. He could hop fences. He could open doors. He got around. Little kids loved to come over to pet him. People I never met would be riding their bikes and walking past the house and they would shout - "Hi Popcorn". The neighbrohood knew and loved him. The neighbor across the street told me a story once about Popcorn. He apparently managed to work his way into their house. He found himself a nice cozy spot on their living room couch and took a nap. My neighbor had no idea the dog was in her house and she nearly had a heart attack when she found Popcorn, happy and comfortable on her couch.

He loved to steal socks and run around the house with them. He would get a dog biscuit and spend hours all day trying to find the perfect place in the house to hide it so he could get it later. He loved to snuggle up to my wife and kids. He was truly a family dog. In his old age he still had lots of surprises for us. He went through a second childhood and started to act like a puppy again. When he came in from the out side after he got to be 12 years old he started a new routine. He would scamper around the house back and forth again and again for 20 or 30 minutes. This was a new thing. It did not matter that his old bones would cause him to trip over himself while running or that his eyes would fail and he would run into a wall or even into a person nearly tripping them over. He ran and ran like a little puppy happy about life. As an old dog he also started to act like a kitten. He would come and visit me in my office and crawl under my desk so he could rub against my leg like a cat. He would do this again and again.

All in all even though he was lovable, I could not stand him. The dog had a mind of his own. He refused to be house trained and every day for 12 years he has pooped and peed in this house. (Lord knows we used great efforts to break him of this) I wanted to get rid of him but the kids convinced me they would take care of the poo poo and so for 12 years I have made every effort to step tall over the piles while the kids would deal with it later. Of course I still managed to pick up my share of piles too. He loved to knock over the household garbage can and spread garbage all over the house. When we put him outside he would bark incessantly until neighbors would leave anonymous notes on our door asking us to shut him up. We once tried a shock collar to get the barking to stop but Popcorn did what Popcorn wanted to do, so he would bark continuosly and get an electric shock each time and each time he would continue to howl despite the pain so that before long we had to take the collar off for fear we were going to electrocute him or cause him to die of exhaustion just from the electric torture. We couldn't take him anywhere. If we went camping and tied him to a tree for an hour we would comeback and find our tent would be eaten by the dog. He ruined 2 tents on us. One cool day we parked the car under a shade tree cracked the windows and went into a fast food place for 30 minutes. When we came back we found Popcorn had eatn through my seat belt. One night we had to leave him in the house alone so we locked him in the bathroom with lots of food and water. When we came back we found he had been freed to roam the house and he tore pillows and cushions apart and spread them all over the house. It turns out our neighbors heard what sounded to them like the wailing of a woman coming from the house. They thought someone was going to die so they called the cops. The cops called my parents and forced my dad to come over in the middle of the night and told them that Popcorn could not be allowed to continue to howl so my folks had to let him roam the house and destroy it. Even though dogs were not allowed on the furniture, We always managed to find him asleep on some couch somewhere.

OK so he drove me crazy and I should be glad that he died right?

Well no I'm not. Amazingly, I find myself really really sad and I miss him. Yesterday I cried over his death and today I can't stop thinking about him. Everytime I pass his food bowl or his bed I get sad. This morning at the gym I couldn't get the picture of him out of my mind.

Popcorn had pulled one of his escape routines. We did not even know he had left the house. I was having my morning coffee when the phone rang. It was the family vet calling to inform me the bad news that someone found our dog dead on the side of the road. I did not believe the vet. I ran through the house calling his name and looking for him. I woke up both of my sons and shouted "Popcorn was hit by a car and is on Taft street on the side of the road. Wake up lets help him". The kids raced out of bed at lightning speed (something they never did). We drove to the spot and there he was, covered in a sheet. Passed away. David could not look as the tears welled up in his eyes. Frank and I picked him up to bring him to our truck and Frank began to cry in great heaps. We brought popcorn to the vet and as I made the arrangements I began to cry and I have been sad since.

Popcorn was my dog too. Suddenly all the things that drove me crazy about him suddenly didn't seem to matter. Popcorn was my dog too.

Only recently I was worried that with Frank leaving college in August the house would seem really empty. Now it seems the house will seem even emptier.

RIP Popcorn

Uncle Jim and Uncle Stan

2006-06-09T13:38:36Z

You know growing up in NY was so neat in so many ways.
One of the things I liked so much was that there was always family around. When we moved away to Florida, family became less and less of an aspect of my life. I still loved the family and the memories but the distance made it so hard to keep the reunions going and over time the contacts got less and less. And then when you start raising your kids you find more and more excuses to stay in your own little world and not keep in contact with the people you loved in your childhood.

I have 2 very dear Uncles who have only weeks left to live.

Last time I saw Uncle Jimmy was at least 10 years ago and the last time I saw him on a regular basis was when I left NY in 1976.

All of my dad's brothers are alive as we speak but they are getting older. Uncle Jimmy was the second youngest of dad's brothers and as dad was the oldest I got to grow up while Uncle Jummiy was still an unmarried man. This meant all sorts of special things for me. We would trek in to the city to visit Grandma & Grandpa and uncle Jimmy lived with them, so we saw Uncle Jimmy a lot. And since Uncle Jim was not married he always had time to horse around with his nephews and he always had a quarter in his pocket to give to his nephews. He always had a sense of humor and seemed happy and content with life. he played a mean harmonica and drove the coolest but strangest of cars. he was and is a good man. he does not have much time left in this world cause he is suffering from liver cancer. I intend to write him a letter today. he is married and has kids. He will be missed.

Uncle Stan lived 2 blocks away from where I grew up. he worked for Entenmans so we could always go over to his house and get some chocalate cake. he also bought pepperoni and salami and Coke (or was it Pepsi) but in my house we never had soda so when Uncle Stan offered a soda or a snack ( we didn't have pepperoni or cake either) it was a real treat. Uncle Stan worked real early so he got home real early. So if I visited his house by bike he would be there. Sometimes we would hang out in his garage while he worked on his boat motor. he always teased me with an big wide affectionate grin cause he just wanted to make me laugh and he succeeded. he was a good man. He too is suffering from cancer and also has very little time left. I intend to write him a letter today. he is married and has kids. he too will be missed.

I don't know if either of my uncles know the affect they had on me. they were good examples of fine men raising a family. I had always wondered what would happen to me if my parents died. I wasn't too afraid cause I knew I had good uncle's and they would take me in. I had always thought that they were wise men and had hoped that someday they would be able to impart their great wisdom to me and I would be able to carry on with that wisdom despite all the tragedies of life. I had hoped that they would be there for me when my parents died to shore up any terrible feelings I had into feelings of self reliance cause I was sure that I would desperately need it.

I am praying for them. I will miss them.

I was not as good an Uncle to my nieces and nephews as Uncle Stan amd Jimmy were to me. My brothers kids are a continent away and have always lived in a different world. Patty's sisters kids while physically closer seemed to have grown up in an alternative universe. Their families were so different than ours that it was hard to connect. I do know however I connected a little. yesterday, niece Winter called and we chatted over her memories of the first vacation she ever took in her life. She was maybe 12 years old and we took her with us when we went on a 2 week family summer vacation camping in Arkansas. she said it was the best memory of a good time she has ever had in her life.

I will miss Uncle Stan and Jim. I dread what is happening because I believe it will be a precursor of more loss between my other relatives of their generation. I wonder when all of them will be gone, who will be left to give me the wisdom I seek to carry on.

Sorry for this morbid entry.

The weekend is coming and we are having a party on Sunday to celebrate Frank's graduation and patty's 50th birthday. Everyone who reads this blog is welcome to come. I will write about it next week. Love to all.

Mom and Dad and life home in Leave it to Beaverville

2006-06-08T13:01:07Z

I don't remember if I have written about Mom and Dad so here goes.

I grew up in the town of Deer Park which could have been the inspiration for Beaver Cleaver's hometown. All the dad's took the train to work and all the mom's stayed home to clean, cook and watch the kids. The town was a safe and happy place to live and grow up. All the neighbors knew each other and all the mom's hooked up for coffee in the day and all the kids played ball on the front lawn.

My Dad was a banker in New York City. he had a stable job and we were never afraid of going hungry. We were never rich, but there was always healthy food on the table, reasonable clothes on our backs and a good roof over our heads. Every day mom would drive dad to the train station in the morning and then pick him up in the evening. My brother Gary and I would climb in the car with mom and wait at the station for Dad to come. Then we would all go home to eat the delicious dinner mom had made. Dinner was always served at 6:30 and it was never late or missed.

Mom was good with a budget, she knew how to make Dad's money last and so the table always had a bit of meat and carbohydrates as well as vegetables. later we would eat apples or oranges for dessert. We didn't have steak or lobster cause there was no money for that. Maybe it was meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. Sometimes mom would forego eating her meatballs and give her meatball to me and Gary cause she knew we liked them so much, Mom always did that from the earliest day I could ever remember. she knew we craved meat and so she would give up hers so we could have an extra piece.

We always had clean clothes and mom knew how to sew. Thus, on Holidays and Sunday's Gary and I were dressed real good in the special nice clothes mom made for us.
Gary and I shared a big room upstairs and the bedclothes were always fresh and the house was always clean. Things like health and teeth were a part of our life. Mom and dad made sure we visited the Dr when needed and had our teeth taken care of. we brushed out teeth every night and said daily prayers at bedtime and mom made sure we did our homework and studied for school like we were supposed to do.

There was always love in the house. This was never a question. Weekends would come and go and sometimes we would go to a movie and lots of times we would visit or be visited by relatives. we had lots of relatives. My Aunt Angela and Uncle Stan lived a couple blocks away with my cousins and Dad was one of 5 brothers whose families were spread throughout the Long Island and Brooklyn Area. Mom had another sister - Aunt Mary in Brooklyn and we were regulalry bombarded by visits from Mom's family in Newfoundland where she grew up. we had oodles of cousins and Uncles everywhere and of course there was Grandma and Grandpa. So there was no shortage of family love around and there was always some family thing going on. It was a pleasant life.

Dad was always good for an outing to the city to visit the museaum and the city sights. Dad was always ready to play a board game in the basement while we all listened to dad's cool stereo music. dad had the best music and we loved to turn up the volume and hum along.

We had a nice finished basement with a Piano, a pool table and a great table to set up our electric cars or trains. In the summer we had an above ground pool out in the backyard and there was always a friend around to join us for a swim and barbecues were a part of life. Sometimes the family would make it to Fire Island beach or Cedar Beach for a picnic.

It was a fine life for a young man to grow up in. One could ask for nothing more and one would not expect more. Don't get me wrong we had our occasional bouts of strife and turmoil just like any other family. Life would not be life without those things. But in truth, the family was so strong and good together that no matter what turned up we always had a solution to the problems and we stood by each other so that when the strife was over, we were back together again loving each other and making the next day as good as the last.

I love my Mom and Dad and my brother Gary. I always will and this will never change.

Senior Summer

2006-06-07T22:02:32Z

I jumped ahead a little in today's entry because I am trying to address the times I live in. I do plan on getting back to chronological order of my life and pick up with a discussion of the beginnings of my high school life but because of other events in my current life I am now addressing Senior Summer

What a difference 30 years makes. In June of 1973 I had graduated High School. I was on top of the world. I had just completed the best 4 years of my life via a successful high school experience. I was full of myself. I was self confidant, happy, smug with success. I had a job, I had a car, I had a girl. I was preparing to go to college. I had the best friends a guy could ever want. Colleges were offering me scholarships even though I never even asked for any. The future was going to be a place where I took control and like cream in milk I was certain to rise to the top. No one was better than me and I was certain I was better than most. I had my health. I had my family. I had a high school history of fun and excitement. I had my summer freedom.

I just described my mental state of the time. The anticipation of my future was rosy and getting better.

The truth of reality was a little different. Truth is I was also scared a little because I was leaving many of my high school friends and I was uncertain if I would ever make new ones. I was also going to a college I hated. While all my band friends were preparing to go live in dormitories at the colleges they picked, circumstances forced me to attend a commuting school. I hated the commute. The place was so big, I was a number among thousands and it was impossible to make a friend and even if I did that new friend probably commuted from the other direction and it was likely he lived 2 hours away from my house. My commute which should have been 35 minutes long, went with New York City Rush hour traffic and thus took an hour and a half each day, each way, so I spent 3 hours a day on the road alone with my thoughts. And my thoughts sucked. I had just broken up with a girl who I thought was the girl I would marry and my life was misery and depression. I got home from school each day and was forced to work 25 hours a week to pay for the car insurance and repairs to keep my car running so I could commute to school. I was miserable. I missed my band friends I had from high school and spent the whole of my free time trying to relive the good old days. All of the stress drove me to do things I never would have done in my high school life. I turned to smoking pot almost daily so I could forget all the pain and suffering I was going through. My grades fell like a lead stone in water and before long the school pulled my scholarship and I just spiraled down and down and down until I could go no lower. Of course there were some good aspects in my life during this time. I did manage to keep my Deer Park friends who also commuted to local colleges and I will say that because of them life was bearable and I am sure that it was due in great part to their friendship that I was able to fight my depression so I did not commit suicide or some other bad pursuit. I thank them dearly and love them dearly to this day. But despite the lifesaving they did for me personally, they were not able to lift the depression from my soul that had hovered for so long. And so only via time and other circumstances was I later able to rise above it all and snap out of my mental state to find happiness later in life. But if any Deer Park friends read this – know that you are dear to my heart and I thank you for being there.

OK so I laid a lot of depressing stuff down here. Let me tell you why. 30 years after my own college pursuit had begun, I now face a new college pursuit only this time it is for my youngest son Frank. I love both my sons and I am always at heart a Dad. With Frank recently graduating and preparing for his college, we spent the last weekend helping him to prepare for this great change in his life. My oldest, David, is currently at UF in Gainesville and soon Frank will be attending UCF in Orlando and our house will surely be an empty place when he is gone.

I look at Frank’s Senior summer and I can’t help but compare it to mine. While Frank may argue the point, I see so much of myself in him. Our personalities are so similar. I hate to think what could happen to him if he takes a bad turn like I did. I worry about it in an almost obsessive fashion. He dates a sweet sweet girl. I wonder how he would take it if she ever left him. I hope he is stronger than me. I hope he can resist the urge to do the same stupid things I did at college. It was such a destructive turn that I took.

All I can say is that I pray about it a lot. And while we are similar he has many virtues that I do not. He is also full of himself, self confidant, happy, smug with success. He has a job, a car, and a girl. He is preparing to go to college. He has the best friends a guy could ever want. Colleges offered him scholarships even though he never even asked for any. He has his health, his family and a high school history of fun and excitement. He has his summer freedom. Of course he is also an eagle scout and he is going to live at away college and he is not expected to work to pay for his car, his friends will all live 5 minutes from him (I bet he will make the best friends of his life). He has 2 parents who will miss him but know enough to let him go because it is the right time. It is time for us to let go. It is time for him to fly.

It will be so quiet in the house when fall comes.

Jobs

2006-05-31T19:59:14Z

Jobs

I just cleaned off my desk from a wild and crazy tax season. Now all I have left is a little of this and a little of that. Return a few client calls, work on payroll, etc etc.

So I have work but its going to come at a decent pace with little stress. Tax season was good for me this year as it is most years. I guess I should be grateful that I have work that pays well and keeps me sustained. Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not.

The work can be boring and stressful. It also gets lonely when you work alone. But I also have to think about the good stuff - I’m home to take care of home things and family. I have no commute and I write my own dress code which is “comfortable” I get to take naps in the middle of the day when things get crazy and no one can fire me. I suppose I can do this for the rest of my life until its time to retire. Oh yeah I forgot – there is no pension unless I take care of it myself. So I have to save save save or eat catfood when I get older.

I look back at all the jobs I have ever had in my life and they are so varied.

I was 11 years old when I became an envelope stuffer for the March of Dimes.
I was 12 when I delivered newspapers for Newsday on Long Island – that’s a challenging job for a kid.
When I was 13 I got a job working at Mister Softee, the neighborhood Ice Cream Truck guy and my job was to fill ice cream in the trucks freezer and eat all the ice cream I could- I gained a few pounds that summer.
When I was 14 I got a job at a stationary store in Dix Hills where I helped an old guy named Ben with Arthritis man the store.
When I was 15 I took a job in a german Deli stocking shelves
When I was 16 I took a job in another Stationary store and ran the store completely on my own when the owner went home for the night
When I was 17 I took a great job at Wilmark pharmacy and delivered prescriptions and manned the cash register. I had that job all through my Long Island college years.
When I was 20 I became a sandwich maker at Football sandwich shop in Miami and made lifelong friends with the people there and to this day hold those people as my best friends.
When I graduated college, I became an insurance inspector for Equifax services.
I started my banking career at the age of 22. I did that for like 4 years and quickly found the job to be stressful and unrewarding.
I became a full time forms salesman for Uarco at the age of 26. I did that for a couple years until I could no longer handle the constant rejection of people refusing to buy my product.
At 28 I went back into banking. I had a bit of success with that and kept at it until 1996 but I found the banking industry was way too unstable to keep a steady job. The whole time was spent fighting to keep a job in companies where unknown senior management people cruelly controlled my destiny. Too many mergers and downsizes were prevalent and I wound up working for 6 banks in 16 years and today none of those banks exist. I finally gave up that work to become my own boss and run my small accounting firm which to this day just grows every year.

Ok so there’s my career history. I have reinvented myself again and again and I have survived. I have never been unemployed in all those years. As a result of this persistence, as well as marrying a competent and frugal wife, my finances are finally starting to stabilize and my money worries are beginning to dwindle. It’s been a long road and there were many frightening financial moments, but things have settled down and I am very grateful. Hope it stays that way.

I look at my kids and the jobs they have had and it amazes me how things have become so different than when we were kids. Both my boys have jobs but the jobs have taken a lower priority than compared to my childhood work and rightly so. Life just seems to constantly force change. I wonder what is in store for them and me in the future.

Florida beach vacations

2006-05-30T14:54:33Z

It was summer 1968. I was 13 years old and my brother Gary was 15. The family was about to embark on our regular vacation destination. In those days it was a routine thing for New Yorkers to pack up their family and take a road trip to the vacation destination of most New Yorkers - Miami Beach. It was the place that eveyone went to and it certainly was a place that we had been to a number of times. We'd would wake up early in the dark hours of the morning, load up in the car and start driving south. The roads were getting better but I-95 was still not totally finished so there were many situations where we would get off the highway and travel thru rural southern towns via US1, the pick up 95 again and then get back on US 1. The trip took 2-3 days by car and as a family we would pass the time by playing road games like 20 questions, read, sleep, talk, whatever. It was a nice experience because we all knew that the trip would end up at the mecca of vacation pilgimages - Collins Avenue on Miami beach. Collins Ave Miami Beach was so different back then. For miles and miles, up and down this road - both North and South of 167th Street the beach side of the street was packed with Motels - Kind of like Kissimme today. Each Motel was 1 or 2 stories high. They had beautiful storefronts that lit up bright at night. The lobbies were interesting because all the hotels were themed. The places were frequently owned by Mom and Pop operations so there was a lot of individuality in the tastes and decorations. they all had nice pools and the back yards of the hotels faced the beautiful sunny atlantic ocean. there was a dearth of motels so even if you had no reservations, you were going to find a place to stay. the main street had restaurants and tourist shops. You could and would stay for a 2 week vacation and never have to go far from your motel for food or fun. the destination was a big splash for all and when you went there you thought you were king of the world. the place was a destination that allowed you to connect with your family in great conversations, afternoon swims, meals shared and card games in the evening after dinner. some beautiful times.

Then something happened, one by one, year by year, the motels started to sell their oceanfront land to developers, who would demolish the beautiful places and then build a 30 story condominium tower and sell the condos to people all over the world who who use the condos 2 weeks out of the year and then leave the places abandoned the rest of the time. One by one the vacation places disappeared and before long, the only people who could afford to see the beautiful atlantic ocean were the rich who could own one of those very expensive condos. Today, there is not a motel in sight of the Collins Ave.motel mecca that we used to go to. the excitement and the flair is gone and the experiences are no longer being shared by the masses who come to town by car. In fact, the car travelers don't come down to Miami anymore because there is no destination for them and thus they stop now at Disneyworld in Orlando.

I missed those wonderful beach days. But something funny happened to me after I grew up. About 16 years ago when I was really poor and had 2 weeks off, my wife and I decided to take our kids to a campout up the Florida coast in an area called Sebastian. When we got there, the park ranger told us not to camp because the biting flies were driving everyone away. poor and dejected we drove off and felt like vacation was about to end. But my wife said - lets see if any of thesse motels on the beach are cheap enough to stay overnight. these place we saw were kind of like the places we used to visit in Miami Beach when I was a kid, only they were spread out a lot more and there was less of them, less congestion and less restaurants. they looked like they would be expensive but my wife was persistant and before you know it we found a place for $35/night called the Sea Grape Manor. The manager apologized because we would have to climb the stairs to our second floor motel room. we went up, threw open the back door to soak up the most spectacular ocean view we had ever seen in our lives. We were amazed that the man apologized to us for what we thought was a piece of paradise. The best part of it all was that the hotel only had 8 rooms and we were a half mile away from any other building so the whole beach was ours for the keeping. we communed with nature that week, enjoyed the surf, cooked some meals in the kitchen, played some family games and even learned to surf fush which is a sport I have learned to master and have since become the man who could bring back enough fish for a delicious fish fry. i would catch them and 45 minutes later they would be fried up in a pan and taste so freaking delicious. My children never eat fish but the did eat the fish we caught and cooked up at that beautiful place.

Sea Grape was my little secret. But I told the best friends in my life and one by one they all asked if they could come up with me sometime and one by one more and more would join us and every labor day and every memorial day we would all go as a group and journey up to Sea Grape and take over the motel and then the beach would be all ours to keep and we did not have to share with anyone. It got to the point where we took over all 8 rooms each of those holidays and year after year (twice a year) we would,as a group connect with each other in great conversation, afternoons swims, shared meals, and board games at night.

These people became my extended family in the same way my own little family celebrated vacation when I was a child. we have been doing this pilgrimage now every year for the last 16 years. we watched as all of the families raised thier children and each year the kids would grow bigger and bigger and they grew up right before our very eyes. We started out when my own children were running on the beach in diapers and here today my youngest son is now a high school graduate and going on to college in the fall.

The old sea Grape no longer stands, it succombed a few years ago to change and development and today the land is being prepared by developers so they can build a huge condo and sell them off one by one to people who will use them only one week a year. Development is going up at other plots of land near Sea Grape and they are all going condo. And one by one, year after year, the land will be taken so that no other family on a car trip can enjoy the beautiful beach like we did in those beautiful days of yesteryar. Sure, my group of friends still migrate to the area on Memorial day and Labor Day and now we are in a different motel that in our eyes will never equal the quality of Sea Grape. The crowd has grown and the crowd has evolved (It is still evolving to this day) and some of the kids have now grown up and don't get to come back to the beach with us. But sometimes, we are blessed because a child gets to come back all grown up and rejoin us. and sometimes we are saddened because we know that another child has made his last visit with us this summer because he will be far away in college by the time labor day comes.

The motel we are now in is a dying breed. Since Seagrape's passing we have changed motels 3 times. And in each case these other motels have been torn down to allow developers to sell condos to people who will use them for only 1 or 2 weeks a year. And we know it is only a matter of time before the place we are now in will turn condo. It gets harder and harder to find a new place and someday it may get so hard that a Memorial day will come and there will be no place for us to go. I worry about things too, like "will my sons someday give up in coming with the gang" or "When my son goes to raise his own family and tries to share with his children the kind of place they grew up on, will they be able to find the perfect place or will it be paved over with condos" - the thought makes me sad. But despite these worries, I am still ready and able and excited and look forward to the next beach holiday where my extended family will meet for beach fun, conversation, shared meals and games at night. I love them all and I love how they love me and I know when you have family like this, everything will be all right.