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Here are some of my writings. They range from research papers to short stories to childhood memories.
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I remember being a child. I had a lot of fun and adventures. I had times I never want to forget. Here are some of the memories of my childhood.
Fortune Cookie
On Broadway in Lorain, Ohio, there is an underpass that goes under a set of train tracks. Long ago, before the underpass was built and the traffic had to wait for any trains that would be going by, there was a train station where I remember seeing my oldest brother Bob off when he went to the service. Across the street was a Chinese restaurant called “The Golden Dragon”. It was around 1963 or later when my parents took me there, one day, and I got my very first fortune cookie. It read “You have a deep appreciation for music and the arts.” I was pleased and told my parents and the waiter “I do like music and I can draw too!” I kept that fortune in my wallet for many years until I eventually lost the wallet. Little did I know at the time just how much music and art would become a major part of my life.
Train trip to California
Before I started school, my mother and I took a trip by train to Fort Jones, California where she was born, so we could visit her parents. Fort Jones is a very small town only about 30 miles from the Oregon border. It is nestled in a valley and my grandparents’ house was at the foot of a mountain, part of which they owned. My grandfather was a leather worker, primarily a shoemaker, but he also made saddles, belts and other leather goods. He also made a model of the entire town of Fort Jones which was on display in his shop that was located in front of his house down the lane from the main street that went through town. Through the coming years, I would be back to visit them many times. It is the train ride out there, however, that I would like to talk about at the moment.
I had a stuffed dog. Actually, it was a kind of pillowcase. It had a zipper in front so you could remove the pillow before putting it in the washing machine. Anyway, I had fallen asleep with my stuffed dog. I think it was getting on nighttime anyway and other people were also ready to sleep. While I was sleeping, my mother who could not get comfortable, decided to use my stuffed dog for a pillow and she placed it under her neck and went to sleep. In a while, I woke up and realized my stuffed dog was missing. I looked up and to my horror, my dog was under my mom’s head. The blank look upon his face seemed so helpless and it looked like he wasn’t breathing. “Yer KILLIN’ him!” I yelled. “Yer KILLIN’ him! Yer KILLIN’ him!” My mother woke with a start. She looked around to see who was getting killed. The other passengers did likewise. My mother finally realized it was the stuffed dog I was yelling about. Looking embarrassed, she gave me back the dog so I would shut up. My poor mom. I hope somebody brought her a pillow.
The trip wasn’t over yet. I had befriended a little girl on the train and we sat next to each other and played and talked for quite some time. Then something occurred to me about the little girl that must have gone unnoticed in my innocent youth. Something that I had simply overlooked while we were playing, nothing really important, but something I suddenly noticed and had to bring up. I turned to the little girl and said “Hey…Yer BLACK!” My mother’s eyes got huge as she nonchalantly looked around hoping no one heard what I had just said. I can’t imagine anyone not hearing it because I said it with surprise and enthusiasm. I guess maybe I had never seen a black person before, or maybe I just never had the chance to play with a black person before, but it really didn’t matter. The subject was presented and dropped and we went on with our playing.
I imagine that by the end of the trip, my mother had gained a respect from the people around us. They must have thought of her as someone of great bravery and patience to raise such a child and still retain all her hair.
Space Boy in Pajamas
I loved Science Fiction movies and I loved the space program. I remember one day when I was a little kid that I pretended that my pajamas were a space suit and I went outside pretending I was floating through space, moving in slow motion, just like in the movies. I floated my way all the way to the park about three blocks away. Some adult found me (and back then, this was a good thing) and they probably thought something was wrong with me, but they took me back to my house. My mother answered the door. I was still pretending to float around. I guess I was a strange little kid, but my imagination was as boundless as space itself.
When the time finally came for Apollo 11 to land on the moon, I was ecstatic. SOHIO Gas Station had a cardboard punch-out model of the Lunar Module and I got one every time dad went for gas. I kept one intact along with my collection of newspapers about the Apollo program, which I hoped one day would become valuable, but someone got to them first just a few years ago. Anyway, we were all huddled around our black and white TV set watching Neal Armstrong descend the ladder down one of the legs of the LEM when suddenly, the picture folded into a horizontal line and then shrank to a dot. The picture was gone. We all rushed out the door and ran across the street to where our friends Harry and Donna lived so we could watch history being made. I remember looking up at the moon as I ran thinking about the fact that there were people up there and the first human footprint on the moon was about to be made. Of course, Harry and Donna were watching. The whole world was. We got there in time to see it all happen.
Soap suds and lightning
I don’t know how old I was, but I was big enough to just reach over the bathroom sink and get my hands under the faucet while my elbows were rested on the edge of the basin. I don’t know why, but for some reason on this day, I had become fascinated with how much lather I could work up with the bar of soap. Basically, I was playing in the sink. I rolled the bar over and over in my hands until I had worked up what looked like a huge gob of shaving foam. The only thing that stopped me was a disturbance from the living room. Being curious, I went to investigate. I assumed it would not take long to find out what was going on, and so I kept the foam on my hands. I wanted to return to playing with it after I had satisfied my curiosity.
Everyone was gathered at the front door, all looking toward the west direction down G Street. I poked my way between everyone so I could have a look. It was sunny outside, but a wall of hard rain was coming down the street toward our house. It was strange to see that we were not in the least bit wet, and in a matter of seconds, we would be included in the downpour. The wall of rain was three doors away when, without warning, and with a loud crack, a bolt of lightning reached beyond the rain, and hit the street. The whole tightly packed group jumped at once. An explosion of soap suds went flying in every direction. This, of course, only added to the confusion as everyone fumbled to regain balance from bumping into each other. Eventually, we all cleaned up the soap and had a good laugh.
The next day, we found out that the same bolt of lightning took out a good portion of one of the neighboring back yard trees. Lightning can also be a good laxative.
Old Al Rink
On the east side of Lorain, Ohio, on Colorado Blvd between Fillmore Ave. and Missouri Ave., there is a clearing in the wooded area where an old shack used to sit. A man named Al Rink used to live there. He had built his tiny shack from whatever he could find. He never bothered anyone and the city let him live there. After all, the area was only woods at that time.
We lived on G St. a couple blocks from the edge of town, about two miles from old Al. I don’t know how we initially got to know him. Maybe he used to take the bus. My dad was a bus driver at the time. Anyway, Al would fish to make a living. Once in awhile, he would bring us some of the fish that he had just caught from Lake Erie. The poor old guy smelled bad, mostly like fish, but he was very nice. I remember my mother would lay down some newspapers on the couch so he could sit while he visited. After he would leave, my mom would proceed to clean the fish. She would line the kitchen counter with news papers and scale the fish with a knife, cut them up and cook them for dinner.
Eventually, old Al Rink passed away, and his old shack was removed, but the clearing is still there, and I can’t help but remember the kind old man every time I pass the spot.
My first ride on a roller coaster
My first ride on a roller coaster was at Cedar Point when the only coaster there was the Blue Streak. I was so young then, and I don’t even think they had a height limit at that time. I was scared and I didn’t want to go unless my mom went too. What I meant was that I wanted to ride with her, but that’s not exactly how it turned out. My dad rode with me and made my mom ride too but she was seated behind us, by herself. I think we were in the front seat. The seats in the roller coasters back then were just flat bench seats with a safety belt and a lap bar. On the way up the hill I was scared but I think my mom was even more scared than I was. She was crying and I wanted to be with her. I felt bad for her. As we got to the top of the hill and started over, my fear suddenly turned into the most amazing feeling of excitement I had ever known. I was instantly in love with roller coasters. My mother was not. She was screaming and crying and covering her eyes. I still felt bad for her, but at that moment, I couldn’t let that spoil my fun. I was having the time of my life.
There was another ride there called “The Flying Coaster” but it was just a round ride with several couch seats connected in the middle that would ride around on a track with a single wheel under each seat. As the ride went round, the seats would ride up a jump ramp and come back down with a hiss of air. This ride was one of my mom’s favorites. One evening when all the lights in the park were on and my mother and I were on this ride and the lake flies were thick in the air, my mother’s hysterical laughter came to an abrupt stop. A lake fly had found it’s way into her mouth. She didn’t laugh too much for the rest of the evening, but it was almost time to go home anyway.
Games at the kitchen table
In a time before video games or even home computers, we used to sit around the kitchen table and entertain ourselves with simple games we could play using only pencils and paper. These were not point keeping games, but just fun games. In one game, everyone would make a quick scribble on their piece of paper and then pass it on to the next person who would have to try to draw something out of it. It could be a face or an object or anything at all. The object of another game we played was to try to make a phrase or sentence or object name by drawing pictures instead of using letters. A can sitting on a ball would be a cannon ball, and so on. Another game was called “Head, Body, Feet”. In this game, everyone would have a long piece of paper and at the top, they would draw a head and neck, and then fold the paper back so only the neck was showing. Then the paper would be passed on the next person who would draw the body down to waist line and fold the paper back so only the bottom of the waist was showing, and pass the paper on again so the legs could finally be added. After everyone was done with their drawing, we would all open them up and have a good laugh as we passed the papers around. I recently taught a few people how to play Head, Body, Feet and they enjoyed it.
We also played some other games like Monopoly, and Sorry, and Life, but one of the games we played the most was the home version of Jeopardy. I don’t know how many additions we had. I remember answering one question that everyone was amazed I knew because I was still just a little kid. The question (or rather, the answer) was “Of the three states of matter, solid, liquid or gas, this one can not be compressed.” I clicked in first and said “What is liquid?”. My brother Don who was the question master at the moment said with a lot of surprise “That’s right!”. Well, I had just learned that from a science show I had watched, but I have to admit, I felt pretty smart at that moment and really sucked up the praise.
The problem with pigeons
One of our neighbors had a pigeon coop in their back yard. He raised pigeons called “tumblers” because they would flip in mid flight if you clapped your hands when they flew by. I think it’s because they thought the clapping was gun shots, but in any case, it was pretty cool to watch. Unfortunately for the neighborhood, this same neighbor also had black berry trees in his front yard which the pigeons would eat, and then fly around depositing the remnants all over everyone’s nice clean cars, picnic tables, swimming pools, and anything else that happened to be outside. There was purple pigeon poop everywhere.
One day, my brother Bob was throwing rocks at the pigeons as they flew by as if he was actually hit one, right? He threw a rock strait up at a group flying by…and actually hit one. It came tumbling to the ground at our feet. It lay there hurt and we were kind of scared at what the neighbor might think. Bob carefully picked up the pigeon and we took it to the neighbor. We knocked, and when he came to the door, we explained what happened. My brother carefully handed him the pigeon. The neighbor took the pigeon, grabbed its head, and with a quick flip of his wrist, broke it’s neck. My brother and I stood there speechless. Our neighbor said “Sometimes they have a heart attack" and went back into the house. I guess they ate pigeon for dinner that night.
Flying with Mickey
I love airplanes. I’m not sure how old I was. I guess I was ten or twelve, but my cousin Mickey who was closer to the age of my brothers, invited me to go flying with him. I jumped at the chance. I asked him if he would be flying around my neighborhood and he said “Sure” It was a beautiful day for flying. He had a two man Cessna single engine plane. He took special care to inspect it before we got in and headed for the runway. We got in take off position and he revved the engine. It was really loud. The plane moved forward, and soon we were up in the air.
After gaining some altitude, Mickey worked on some of his maneuvers such as maintaining altitude in a turn and a thing called a slant 8. As we flew, he explained how the pedals and the yoke of the plane worked. After awhile, he turned to me and said “See the pedals on the floor?” “Yes” I said. Then my cousin said “Put your feet on the pedals and take the yoke. Keep us straight and level” I put my hands and feet on the controls as my cousin let go. I was flying. I was actually flying an airplane. It was so exciting. I didn’t do any turns, or try to climb or dive. I just flew straight and level like my cousin said. Finally after a couple of minutes, Mickey took back the controls. He asked if I had fun and of course I said yes. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. Imagine the feeling of being so young and doing something like that, and being able to say from that moment on, “I have flown an airplane”
This next story is kind of special - I hope you enjoy it
The hot air balloon
I had the instructions to make a model hot air balloon. I also had some tissue paper. It was not the amount that was called for in the instructions, but it was enough to make one about half the size. I knew it was going to be a fun art project. While I cut out the tapered panels for the sides and the round piece for the top, I pictured the balloon floating away high in the sky for all to see. I drew designs on each panel and then carefully glued the seams together until a rounded shape emerged. I then attached the round wire with the cross member that would keep the bottom open and allow a place to hang a cotton ball on a hook. Now all I needed was some wood alcohol as recommended in the instructions.
The next time my dad went to the store, I asked him to take me to where I could buy some. I had just enough money and it was going to be well worth it, even though I was only going to use enough alcohol to dip the cotton ball in for one flight. I never expected I would ever fly or even find the balloon again.
When we got back from the store, even my dad was excited about the balloon and he wanted to help me with it. I thought it would be more fun that way too. It’s always fun to share something like that. My dad took the balloon and laid it on its side on the sidewalk and opened the bottle of wood alcohol. I asked, “What are you going to do?” My father said “I’m going to pour some alcohol on the cotton ball.” I said, “Don’t do that. The cotton ball is on a hook so we can take it off and dip the cotton ball in the bottle.” My dad said, “No, it will be alright” and proceeded to pour alcohol over the cotton ball on the cement until a puddle formed and trailed its way toward the balloon, getting one of the panels wet. I said, “Now we have to wait for the balloon to dry or it will catch on fire.” My dad said, “No, it will be alright” and set fire to the cotton ball. The balloon burst into flames and a small bit of ash took off for the sky. The rest, carefully made and decorated, that I had envisioned floating off gracefully, lay burning on the grass, the cotton ball still hot with flame. My dad was feeling pretty small. He said "I'm sorry John". I said "That's OK Dad". After that, I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say that would bring the balloon back. The truth is that the balloon probably wasn’t big enough to work anyway. It was scaled down and couldn’t hold enough hot air to lift its weight, but it sure burned up quick.
Some years, decades later, just a couple years ago in fact, there was a group of people sending off hot air balloons from the park by the bridge. There had to be 50 of them or more. They floated overhead in slow procession heading for the water, their bright flames looking like reflections of the sun. One by one, their fuel ran out and they made their slow decent into the waves of Lake Erie. One of the balloons didn’t make it to the water and landed short on the rocks by the beach. I recovered the balloon and took it home. Then one night, when some friends were over, I refueled the balloon with some charcoal fluid, and several of us went across the street behind St. Anthony’s School on the shore of the lake. Several of my friends carefully held the balloon open while I lit the flame. We waited about a minute and then let it go. It hovered for a moment and headed for the water, and then it started slowly climbing into the night sky. The flame lit the inside of the balloon like a lampshade and we stood there mesmerized at its silent beauty as it climbed away into the stars, and I wished my father would have been there to see it. He had passed away a couple of years ago and at that moment, I really missed him. As the light of the balloon grew smaller, and finally to a small point, it suddenly flickered and went out, and it was gone. Maybe, some how, my dad did see that balloon. I hope he did. It was just like I wanted to be able to share with him so many years ago.
An amazing event
Dance of the Aurora
At the turn of the 70’s, my father bought a camper trailer and got a lot at a place called Woody’s Valley View campgrounds and during the next few summers, we would spend weekends there. My oldest brother Bob and his wife also had a spot a couple campers away from ours. The camping sites sat among the trees on higher ground that surrounded a small, quiet inland lake. It nestled itself like a bowl in its hilly surroundings. It was stocked with fish, and it was plenty big enough for people to have their small boats and canoes. There was also a diving board that was about twenty feet above the water and I spent a lot of time swimming there.
With plenty to do at the campgrounds, it was a popular place for people of all ages. The social center was large enough to hold a small store and kitchen, some picnic tables, an area for pinball machines and a jukebox and plenty of room for dancing. My father got to be good friends with the owner and his family, and Woody allowed my father to call square dances and give dancing lessons in the pavilion, which got pretty popular and became a regular event. Later, my father even helped Woody organize top name acts of Country music fame to come and entertain at the pavilion. Dolly Parton, among others, had shows there, which attracted quite a crowd.
I looked forward to weekends at the campgrounds. It was good to get away. Mind you, I was 14 at the time, and so I had to bring my weekend’s worth of homework with me, but I didn’t mind. Any chores like cleaning my room or cutting the grass was back at home. Here, I only had to enjoy my surroundings, the beautiful scenery, the fresh air, the sounds of nature. I would spend the days doing anything I wanted. At night, we would play guitars and sing and share stories around a warm fire that would dance and crackle and pop and send an occasional spark into the air. And the sky at night, out in the country, with no city lights to pollute it, would open up its splendor of so many stars. And the silence of no traffic and no phones and the total envelopment of only nature and its smells and sounds would awaken an inner contentment that would not otherwise show itself.
Then, one night in early August of 1972, while several of us were sitting in a circle, telling stories, something amazing began to happen. The sky began to shimmer and move. We all looked up and began to watch. There was a strange stirring none of us had ever witnessed before and it was growing more intense. We eventually realized that we were witnessing a most amazing display of northern lights. It covered from the north horizon all the way straight above our heads and another 45 degrees to the south so that three-quarters of the night sky was dancing in blue green curtains of light. We were mesmerized and we all lay down on the grass so we could look straight up into the sky and witness this stunning and rare event. We watched for most of the night. I had never seen the Northern Lights before this. There were times when I thought I might have seen them looking north over Lake Erie at night, but it may have been the lights of Canadian cities. With the stars as their background, blue and green patches of light crossed the sky, flashing, fading and getting brighter again, moving back and forth across each other in a random, yet evenly dispersed pattern. Nothing could take our eyes from the sky. That amazing celestial display changed us that night. We all felt closer, like we possessed privileged information or we were in a special club, but we had just witnessed something truly spectacular that would have never had the impact on us if any one of us had seen it alone. To see it alone would have been devastating. Trying to describe this occurrence to others would have been almost impossible and people might not believe you, but our little group witnessed it together out there in the countryside, away from the city lights. We knew that everyone there saw the same thing, and that’s what made it so special.
Walking on water
One winter, five or six of us decided to take a walk on frozen Lake Erie. We had some sticks with us just in case someone would fall in, but that was it. A few yards out (I don’t know exactly how far. 30 or 40 yards I guess) we came across a crack in the ice that went from east to west as far as we could see, but it was only 3 or 4 inches wide, so we crossed it. Quite a bit further, we came to a place where the ice had pushed itself up into a mountain range about 8 to 10 feet high, and again as far as we could see from east to west. We crossed that too. At this point, we could no longer see land. About another equal distance out, we decided to build a snowman. We knew that no one would ever see it. It was more of a landmark for our own use that would point us back home. We kept going. I don’t know how far we actually went out. Maybe it was a quarter mile, a half mile, maybe more.
We finally reached the edge. The other guys stayed on the white ice, but I decided to go a few yards further to the very edge where the ice was transparent. I walked out onto it. I could see through the ice under my feet. I went to the very edge where the water met the ice. I bent down, cupped some water in my hand, and took a drink. I did it just to say I did it. I should be dead. Only the Lord could have held me up from certain death. I turned around and left the edge with my heart pounding out of my chest. When I told the other guys what I had done, they thought I was nuts.
We headed back. We sighted the snowman and proceeded in that direction. We crossed the mountain range of snow and could see the place where we started our journey. Then we got back to the crack in the ice, but it was not just 3 or 4 inches wide anymore. It had grown to around 3 or 4 feet instead. We had to run and jump across the crack. Had we stayed out for too much longer, we would have been stuck and heading for New York and eventually, Niagara Falls.
The Homemade Rocket
My friend Terry and I used to fly model rockets. The kits included cardboard tubes and balsa wood for the fins. There was also a nose cone, a parachute and decals to decorate the rocket. The engines were sold separately and came in a range of powers and time delays for deploying the shoot.
I decided to try to make a rocket from scratch. I wanted it to look more like a Lander of some kind and so it had three big fins. The fins were about two thirds the height of the rocket. It wound up looking like a fat lawn dart. The book I was using for instructions said that I could test the aerodynamics of the rocket by attaching a string to the center of gravity and swinging it around to see if the nose of the rocket would keep pointing forward. It seemed to be A.O.K. as they would say in NASA.
I took the rocket to Terry’s house where I showed him how the rocket should fly properly while swinging it around on the string. We went to a parking lot at the school not far from Terry’s house and set up the launch pad with the new home made rocket. Terry’s old friend Domer was sitting on his front porch across the street and had great front row view for the event. The parachute was already packed into the body of the rocket and the nose cone was in place. We attached the battery pack to the wire fuse that was stuffed up into the bottom of the rocket engine and led the wires away from the pad and had the button ready. Finally, everything was ready and we started the countdown. 10…9…8… It was exciting because this rocket was completely homemade…3…2…1…ignition! With a loud hiss and a trail of thick white smoke, the rocket soared up…about 10 feet, then it turned on its side and flew horizontally for a few yards. It rolled again, this time toward us. It came whooshing over our heads and tumbled again back towards us. We were running and dodging the rocket. It was like a seagull trying to get the last bite of your fish sandwich. Domer was across the street getting an eyeful and laughing at us. After a few more passes, the rocket slammed nose first into the ground right in front of us. It bounced and flipped upright on its legs, then the shoot popped out and draped itself over the rocket, just like the beginning of the Yogi Bear cartoon when he jumped from the helicopter. Terry and I started laughing so hard we couldn’t move. Tears were rolling down our cheeks and we were doubled over in hysterics. That was defiantly, without a doubt, the best rocket I ever had. There was one thing I did learn that day. Sometimes it helps to actually be a rocket scientist.
Joe, the Fire Dog
Once upon a time, there was a dog. He lived near the high school, somewhere. We did not know his name, but we called him "Joe, the Fire Dog". He earned his name, because before school started in the morning, we would smoke a last cigarette before going inside. Every time we flicked a butt to the ground, Joe the Fire Dog would run over and eat it. He didn't even care if it was still burning. We grew to Love Joe the Fire Dog, and we would feed him our cigarette buts every morning. We felt safe knowing that the school would never burn down from a cigarette butt, as long as good old Joe the Fire Dog was there to eat it.
Taken by the Storm
Back in the 80’s we had a friend named Larry who lived right on Lake Erie with his father, and we used to all hang out at his beach. The beach was more like a pile of rocks with sand that would come in and leave depending on which direction the last storm hit. Some of the rocks were arranged into a very large chair, and there was also an enormous log to sit on and we even had a couch down there. Larry also had an extension cord so we could have some light and music through the night. There was a pier to fish off of and an old grill we used to cook on and next to the steps, there was a very large tree.
The level of the land is around 20 feet higher than the water level, and so the bank is actually a very steep hill. Larry had a set of old black iron fire escape steps leading down to the beach. They were bent and tilted and it was a bit of a challenge getting up and down them.
One day, several of us were down at the water when a storm started coming in. We decided to watch the storm from the beach, after all, it was a hot day and we didn’t feel like leaving. The wind came in, the clouds got very dark and ugly and then the rain hit. Lake Erie is known for the severe storm it can have and how fast they can come up. This one was on us before we knew it and we decided to get under the tree to get out of the hard rain. Now, this tree was big enough around, it would have taken three of us with our arms extended to reach around it. As we stood there huddled under the tree and the rain and wind kept building, the tree began to move. At first we thought we were seeing things, but sure enough, the tree was tipping. We backed away as the tree fell away from us and its root ripped from the earth. The tree came crashing down on top of the iron steps, crushing and mangling them and totally blocking any exit from the beach. We were now totally exposed to the heavy rain. I think it was the worst rain I had ever been exposed to. We had our t-shirts pulled over our heads to keep from being pelted by the hard hitting rain and as I tried to glance upwards to the storm, all I could see was a thick yellow sky. By now, the waves were raging and we tried to climb the bank to get to the house, but the rain had turned the bank into a potential mud slide and we could get no traction. The plant life we would try to grab on to would just pull out by the roots. We had no way to call for help. We had to hunker down and endure the storm and hope we would live through it.
Finally, the rain subsided enough for us to make our escape. We had to climb over the huge tree trunk that had crushed the steps which was no easy task even without the pounding rain. The storm was still bad, but we made it out of the danger.
The next day, we went back down to the beach. The couch was gone. The raging waves had taken it away.