Baltimore (part two)...a dog, another dog and a bird

Well, I am continuing on with my memories of living in Baltimore. If you read the last blog, then you know that I have absolutely no memories of going to school even though I went to Dulaney Valley High School for both my 10th and 11th grade years. I don't remember any friends that I might have played with and I don't really remember a lot about our time there. I do have strong memories of the following.

Pharaoh, my sister and my mom

Like all families, we had pets. The first pet I remember was a Basset Hound named Pharaoh. We had Pharaoh in Wilmington. He was an indoor/outdoor type of dog. I don't remember playing with him much. I think he was really my dad's dog. What I do remember was that dog really smelled and slobbered all over the place. I don't think that is so unusual because I think the smell and slobbering comes with the breed. Anyway, I remember Pharaoh being a good dog that never bothered anybody. My parents would let him out to do is business and he usually came back home in a very short time. Pharaoh died while we were in Wilmington and I remember that my dad said that he was poisoned by a neighbor (Pharaoh was probably using this neighbor's yard to poop). I don't remember the exact time that he died but I do remember my dad being really upset. I don't remember how my mom felt one way or the other.

George

After Pharaoh, we got a miniature French Poodle as a pet. His name was George.  I can't remember if we got him in Wilmington or Baltimore but he turned out to be a great dog. I think my mom liked him a whole lot more than Pharaoh mainly because the dog didn't smell or slobber. I do remember that George barked a lot. Anytime anyone would ring the doorbell, that dog would go into hysterics. As George got older (in San Antonio), not only would he bark at guests at our front door...he would always greet them by peeing out in the open somewhere. I think that was his way of marking his territory. I also remember that George always smelled good. I think that after our first dog, my mom would spray her perfume all over him...and why not, he was a French Poodle!! George eventually died in Oklahoma City. I don't really remember when.

I have to mention one more pet we had while we were in Baltimore. Most families have dogs and cats but not many families have birds. Leave it to my dad to come up with something unusual. One day he brought home a Myna bird. I am going to refer to a Wikipedia description of what a Myna bird is and why not every family on the block has one. I think that was the appeal to my dad.

Henry....Dirty Bird

The myna is a bird of the starling family. This is a group of passerine birds which occur naturally only in southern and eastern Asia. Several species have been introduced to areas like North America, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, especially the Common Myna which is often regarded as an invasive species.
Mynas are not a natural group; instead, the term myna is used for any starling in India and surrounding areas, regardless of their relationships. This range was colonized twice during the evolution of starlings, first by rather ancestral starlings related to the Coleto and Aplonis lineages, and millions of years later by birds related to the Common Starling and Wattled Starling's ancestors. These two groups of mynas can be distinguished in the more terrestrial adaptions of the latter, which usually also have less glossy plumage except on the heads and longer tails. The Bali Myna which is nearly extinct in the wild is highly distinctive.
Some mynas are considered talking birds, for their ability to reproduce sounds, including human speech, when in captivity.

Read that last line again...."some mynas are considered TALKING BIRDS.....YES, a f**king TALKING bird. Was my dad nuts! Well, he didn't think so. This bird cost a fortune and I'm sure that my mom expressed her feelings about this bird the first chance she got. My guess is that my mom probably withheld some favors over this bird, giving my dad more time to train it. It was noisy, messy, pooped everywhere and was able to throw it's birdseed out of the cage and all over the floor. BUT IT COULD TALK!!! This bird was going to be the life of all my dad's future parties!!

OK, now we have this bird that has the ability to talk....all my dad needed to do was spend time teaching the bird words. Well, you can see where this is headed. First, my dad named this bird HENRY...yes, Henry. Don't ask me why...we have no idea. The first thing the bird learned was his name...his first sentence was "Henry is a dirty bird"...so when you walked into the room...the first thing you would hear was..."Henry is a dirty bird". Then Henry learned the "wolf whistle" and that bird knew pretty women because it would only whistle at the pretty ones...not really sure how my dad taught that bird NOT to whistle at the ugly ones. I remember thinking at the time that my dad did not have time to help me with my homework but he found plenty of time to teach this bird to talk. I swear, if he could have....he would have taught the bird to smoke and drink too!!

Other things that bird could say were...."shut the front door", "Henry looks like the devil", a variety of dirty words and a few more phrases. Henry was building a huge vocabulary. Henry was very good at picking up words and phrases and one phrase would cause his downfall. My mom would always be calling her dog, George...the Poodle...remember him. Well, my mom called that dog so much, Henry picked up the phrase, "here George", here George" and started repeating it all the time. Henry would start calling out "Here George, Here George" and of course the dog thought it was my mom calling so it would go running into the room where the bird was, looking for my mom but not finding her. This happened over and over and that poor dog was run ragged by that bird calling him all the time.

Well, the inevitable happened. We don't know exactly how it happened  but our guess is that while we were away....Henry, the bird started calling George the dog and the dog finally had its fill of being fooled because when we got home, we found the bird had strangled it's self between the wires on the cage. My guess is that George, the dog, got up on the table where the cage was sitting and literally scared the bird to death. Needless to say, we did NOT replace the bird.

Baltimore Maryland...A Strange Stop during my Cosmic Journey

We lived about where the red dot is

My dad in the parking lot of the Baltimore business.."cool dude"

OK, we have left Wilmington Delaware in the rear view mirror and are now in Baltimore Maryland (to be accurate...Lutherville/Timonium). This would have been mid-1961 to mid-1963. I would have been 15 to 17 years old during this time. My dad did such a great job in Wilmington that the DuPont family I spoke of decided to expand to Baltimore and they put my dad in charge of getting the business up and running.

I left some good memories in Wilmington, especially my girlfriend. As mentioned before, her parents allowed her to come and visit us in Baltimore. She would come by bus and we would drive into Baltimore to pick her up. It was only about 100 miles from Wilmington to Baltimore. This happened two or three times but things cooled, as they will do when you are 14 and little by little the boyfriend/girlfriend thing died away. We wrote to each other for awhile but that died away too. As they say, you will never forget your first and I don't.

My Dulaney Valley HS picture

Baltimore was a strange stop in my cosmic journey. I have memories but they are of specific things. I have absolutely NO memory of going to school and you would think I would since it was my 10th and 11th grade years. How strange is that. I found myself in the Dulaney Valley High School yearbook but I have no memory of going there, no real memory of any friends, no memory of attending any classes....it is the oddest thing.

Our house was just above the Hwy 146 oval above the red finish button

The fishing cabin

The Lake not 10 minutes from our house

Lock Raven from the air

The fishing boats you could rent on Lock Raven

Since I don't have any real memories of school, I will hit on some others that I do have. The first is Lock Raven Reservoir. My dad did not want to live in Baltimore proper. He wanted to live where there were good schools (which I don't remember) and a neighborhood that was safe. Baltimore was getting kinda iffy if you know what I mean. As mentioned, we lived in Lutherville/Timonium in Dulaney Valley. Not 10 minutes from our house (by bike) was Lock Raven Reservoir. Here, I could rent a little boat...head out to the middle of the lake and go fishing....something I remember doing a lot. There was also a very nice country club out there that my dad joined. He was also still a member of Kennett Square Country Club but that was now about an hour away. I just remember hanging out at the fishing lodge and talking to the owners and the fishermen that were coming and going. I also remember going with my dad to play golf. If he had a foursome of adults, I would just drive the cart, but if it was just him and me...he would continue my golf lessons.

Our boat and house in background

The Sunfish sailboat I learned on

Since we were so close to the reservoir and also had access to a summer cabin on the Severn River...my dad decided to buy a small boat. I think we all knew that he was never really going to use it but he bought it anyway. I do have some great memories of that boat and also some bad memories. I have more memories of that boat after we moved to Texas, but that's for later blogs. We had the best time taking that boat to the cabin, launching it into the Severn River and heading for the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay....right in front of the US Navel Academy in Annapolis Maryland, just about 5 miles from where our cabin was. We would do our fishing and crabbing right there. The crabbing was excellent. We would catch a couple bushel baskets of crabs, put them in a cooler and head back to the cabin and have a crab bake with all the neighbors. My dad was still the social butterfly and knew everybody. He would make a few phone calls and by the time we got back to the cabin, there would be bunches of people waiting for the crab bake and beer drinking party. My mom was still social but not as much as she had been while in Washington DC. I also remember taking our boat right up to the boat docks at Annapolis, tie up and walk the grounds. The Navel Cadets would meet us, make sure we tied the boat up securely and then watch the boat for us until we returned....I think that was part of their training. I'm pretty sure you couldn't do that today. I also learned to sail while we lived in Baltimore. Our next door neighbor on the Severn River had a small sail boat and he would take me and his daughter out into the calm part of the Chesapeake Bay and teach us how to sail. Boy, did we have a great time. I learned to sail a small sailboat called the Sunfish and I thought I was in hog heaven!! I also really remember his daughter's two piece bikini. She was my age and was really filling out. She and I had a really good time sailing the little boat up and down the river and talking to all the neighbors on both sides.
Before I leave the memories about the boat...I have to mention that my dad and I went to Power Squadron school together. That was an organization that taught new boat owners how to handle a boat correctly. That was fun and one of the better memories of my father and I doing something together.

This would become my car but it was the blue of the convertible

I will talk about one final thing. It was about time for me to get my drivers license and at the same time, my dad was buying another new car. He was always a Buick fan but he knew a guy that could get him a Chevrolet at a real good price. He bought a blue 1960 Chevy Impala two door. I didn't know it at the time but that would become my car as soon as we moved to San Antonio. I have included two pictures of the 1960 Impala. The convertible you see was the exact color so use you imagination and put that color on the picture of the hard top and you will get an idea of what my first car looked like. I needed to get my license so I had to start learning to drive. I remember my dad taking me out to a parking lot on a Sunday morning to teach me to drive. I do find the humor that he was teaching me on a Sunday morning while all the while swearing at me for every mistake I would make (my favorite was...."Goddamn it, you're going to kill us both")....the beers in the car didn't help. Apparently he thought he needed to bring some beer along during my lesson to give him the courage to ride with me. My mother was really the one who taught me to drive. She was sick and tired of my dad coming home after one of my lessons and being pissed off the rest of the day, so she decided to take over. The day of my test, I had to go to downtown Baltimore to take the test. My mother refused to go because she really didn't like downtown Baltimore. In those days, it was dirty and very unsafe. Anyway my dad drove me down to the testing station and I passed both the written and driving tests with flying colors. We headed out to the car and I headed to the passenger side and my dad said, what do you think your doing. You just got your license so you drive home and give the old man a break. I got in and started up and the next thing I remember was that my dad had me getting onto the the expressway at rush hour in Baltimore Maryland, driving towards home. I was scared shitless, I didn't have that many hours of driving experience under my belt and now he had me out there with thousands of cars driving 70+ MPH. I wanted to pee so bad that I almost let it go, I was scared so bad, but I got home and when I pulled in the driveway, I felt so good that I had really accomplished something.

Well, I'll stop here for today but in the next blog, I will remember George, our Poodle,..... Henry, our Mynah bird, Johnny Unitas and bowling, and a few other memories that made my short stay in Baltimore interesting!!

Wilmington...final thoughts before we move on to Baltimore Maryland

                                                                                                                                                                          Well, I've talked about some of the main memories that Wilmington Delaware left me with. I did a lot of growing up in Wilmington....we were there about 6 years so I was between 8 and 14 years old. Yes, I got into some trouble but those days were rapidly coming to an end. My infatuation with matches and setting things on fire was over. I had a bike and strong legs and no fear so Michael and I went everywhere. There was nowhere we wouldn't go. I talked about going to Philadelphia to play with the South side kids, we went to the Delaware River often....we either rode our bikes downtown or we took the bus. One of the cool things about the buses in Wilmington was that each bus had a bike rack kind of contraption so when we rode our bikes downtown, we didn't have to ride our bikes back.....all we did was to put our bikes on the rack, get on the bus and pay our tokens. It sure made coming home easier.

I mentioned that I had my first real girlfriend in Wilmington. We lived right across the street from each other. She was Irish Catholic and went to St. Helena's Catholic School....I went to Mt. Pleasant Junior High School. They were both just off Philadelphia Pike so we always walked home together along with other neighborhood kids. We only did this when the weather was nice. She was fun and I guess you could say we went through puberty together. She came from a pretty good size Catholic family and had lots of brothers and sisters. She knew more about the birds and bees than I did and she was willing to explore. Her parents would let us sit in the basement game room watching television with no lights on. Her mom would keep the other kids from coming down for a certain length of time. I remember her mom, telling us she was about to turn the lights on so "get decent". I think she was kidding. She had an older brother who was made to take us along with him on some of his dates. I remember him having a black convertible but I don't remember what make. He would always take us to the outdoor movies on warm nights. We always sat in the back seat but that never stopped him from making out with his girlfriend in front of us. Anyway, we had that storybook first young love, at least for a couple of years...always wondered what happened to her. I have done a lot of different types of searches but with no luck.

One of the good memories I have was of Brown's Drug store. It was on the way home from school so if we were walking..all of us would stop there for a coke. They were an old time drug store and had a soda fountain behind a counter and tall, green stools to sit on. They had every drink imaginable along with lots of different flavors of ice cream and they even cooked food like hamburgers and hot dogs. One of the not so good things I remembering doing was this. Next to Browns, there was a little convenience store...not like we know of today...it was more a small mom and pop grocery store. They sold all kinds of sodas by the case and they also took deposits on the bottles they sold. Some of you might remember paying a two cent to a nickle deposit on a coke bottle. Well, when I need some extra money for the drug store.....I would ask the drug store for an empty bag, then I would go around back of this little grocery store and grab me a few empty coke bottles....the grocery store stored them out back until the coke truck came by to get them. I would then fill the empty bag up with empty coke bottles and come around front and walk in the grocery store and head up to the counter. I told them that my mom sent me there to get our deposit back....they would give me about .60 to .80 cents and I would head back over to the drug store to spend my ill gotten gains!! I know, it wasn't right but hey...

One thing that I learned early on and kinda liked about the Catholic religion was this whole thing about confession. If you did something wrong, all you had to do on Sunday, was go into this little phone booth looking thing with a door and a small window in the wall. Once you were in there, the little window would open up and this guy would ask you if you had sinned....when you said yes, he would absolve you and make you say a couple hail Mary's and rub some beads and your sin would be erased.....how great was that. Of course, I wasn't Catholic but I did go to an Episcopalian Church on Sunday....I figured that the Episcopalian and Catholic religions were very much the same but without all the kneeling and all that Latin, so I pretended to confess while I was at Church, then I would absolve myself....say a couple hail Mary's...I didn't have any beads to rub...and I would be good to go, till the next Sunday. Hey, this confession thing was pretty cool!!

A quick note about my girlfriend. She really liked me because when we moved from Wilmington to Baltimore her parents would allow her to get on a bus and come and visit me on weekends. This happened a few times but I think the flame burned out because she quit coming. Hey, we were fourteen, what do you expect.

Another good memory I have about my time in Wilmington is that's where I started to like sports. My dad was teaching me and paying for golf lessons and I was pretty good.....I would get better but for a thirteen year old kid....I was doing well. I also was a walk on track team guy in junior high. This story is kinda interesting. The track team always practiced after school and one day I walked on to the field during practice. One of my friends was a short distance runner and he was on the track doing wind sprints. I walked down to him and ask if wanted to race a 100 meter dash. He said yes and off we went. Mind you, he was one of the fastest kids in the state of Delaware. I lost to him but by only a few steps. I guess the track coach saw us running and called me over. He ask if I would like to try out for the team and I said sure. I made it and ended up earning a letter in track and field. I ran 100 and 200 meter sprints plus I did the broad jump. I was pretty good. Good enough to get on the Senior High track team when I went from 9th grade to 10th. The unfortunate thing was that I was at Mt. Pleasant Senior High School only two months before my dad was transferred to Baltimore.

Well, these were the highlights of my time in Wilmington Delaware. I have a lot more memories of Wilmington and might come back to revisit. Ask me sometime about the 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy.....I ended up with lots of campaign buttons from both sides. In one of my future blogs, I will mention how I got them....maybe in the blog about antiques.

Now it's on the Baltimore Maryland (actually Lutherville-Timonium Maryland) for the next chapter of my great adventure in growing up!! Coming attractions...getting my drivers license, my first car, our first and only boat, answering an alarm with a loaded shotgun, Lock Raven Reservoir, Brownstones and great fresh fish!!

Wilmington Delaware (part) 2...Freedom, S. Philly & Bandstand, and Negros fishing!!

Well, I've covered the family tree for perspective, I've talked about my dad and mom a little bit and I have talked about some memories I have of Wilmington Delaware so far. We were in Wilmington from about 1955 to about 1960 or 61'. That puts me between 9 and 14 years old. I am starting to grow up by the late 50's. I'm starting to notice girls and the parts that make them different. The late fifty's and early 60's were still kind of innocent for me. The urge to set things on fire had about past. I have my first girlfriend and she lives right across the street. Things are changing for me. The thing I remember most about the late 50's in Wilmington was that with my bike I had freedom. I could go anywhere....permission or NOT. Remember when I mentioned that my mom would usually say no when I asked her if I could do certain things.....well, she never said no more than if I ask if I could go somewhere on my bike or bus. I had no fear.....I knew about crime but it never phased me. We lived in a all white, Catholic neighborhood where the only crime that ever happened was crime my friends and I were involved in and fortunately, I was growing out of that period of my life. I wanted to go places, I wanted to see things outside my neighborhood and I had the means to do just that. Our neighborhood was right on Philadelphia Pike which meant that I could catch a bus and be in downtown Wilmington in a matter of minutes or go north and be in South Philadelphia in maybe 30 minutes.

Like I mentioned before, my dad went to work for one of the DuPont daughters. She was not in the family business of chemicals and gunpowder...she had married and she and her husband started this new business that they thought my dad quite capable of running. Working for a DuPont in Wilmington directly like my dad did.....brought him (and us) a lot of perks. My dad joined Kennett Square Country Club...a very nice private club west of Wilmington (where I first took up golf), he was able to buy a piece of the Ocean Grand Hotel in Hollywood Florida (where we would always go for vacation around Thanksgiving time) ...he drove nice cars and he got to meet lots of people. I remember going over to his bosses home a lot to play with their kids. They had two girls and a boy. One of the girls was my age and the other girl and boy were my sisters age. They lived on a huge ranch/farm with all kinds of hired help. They had beautiful horses and that's where I tried to learn to ride. I really never developed an liking to riding horses. Going over to their house was like going to summer camp. They had everything to play with that any kid would love including a pool!!

Anyway, there was a TV show coming out of South Philadelphia called American Bandstand. Dick Clark was the host. My dad came home one evening and ask if my girlfriend and I would like to go and be on it. He had met someone who was directly involved with the show. I was about 13 or 14 at this time and I said to my dad that I thought we were to young but he said he already mentioned that to this friend he met and that guy said it wouldn't be a problem. By the way, my mother had me going to dancing school twice a week so I figured if I appeared on American Bandstand....I could make some brownie points with my dancing teacher. Anyway, to make a long story short....my dad drove us up to the studio where this little TV show was coming from and we went in and got to dance with the "big" kids. My girlfriend and I were able to do this more than once. This was long before American Bandstand moved and became a huge national TV show it was soon to be. When we where there, it was only a local show. It was just viewed up and down the East Coast. I do remember seeing their musical guests but I don't remember who it was. Being seen on that show by my friends certainly did great things for my reputation and helped me with the girls too. I remember those times as being so much simpler than my life was going to be by the time the late 60's would roll around.

Like I said, I was free to do anything and go anywhere. We were always driving through South Philadelphia for something....one reason is that my mother had an aunt living in Drexel Hill. I don't remember much about her other than she was very rich and lived in a very nice house. We would also go to the Philly's baseball games once in awhile at the old Connie Mack Stadium....going there took us right through South Philadelphia...right on South Broad to North Broad. The reason I mentioned all this is that as we drove through these South Philadelphia neighborhoods, I noticed all these kids playing stick ball, wall ball, Lacrosse, and other games right out in the street. Remember, I did not see color...all I noticed was all these kids having fun. When I got back to Wilmington, I would tell my friends that we should go and see if these kids would let us play with them. It was only a short bus ride and we could be home before dinner. So that's exactly what we did. Once the local kids got over their shock of a few white kids asking them if we could play with them....we had the greatest time. This could not happen today but back then....it all came so natural. Another memory of this time was that in the summer, the inner city kids got real hot playing in the street so they figured out how to take the caps off the fire hydrants and play in the gushing water....what great memories I have of that time.

The last memory I will write about is the one I have of going down to the Delaware River. Stonehaven, the neighborhood we lived in was just west of the river....We could get on our bikes, head east and be at the river in maybe 15 minutes. I remember the first time that I went down to the river. I asked my mom if it was OK if Michael and I could ride our bikes down to the river...her answer, of course, was NO, it was to dangerous. Well, like usual...I didn't listen and off we went. We got down to the river bank, parked our bikes and started to walk the shore. I noticed that Mike and I were the only white people in both directions. As we walked up and down the shore, all the people who were fishing were black....and they were laughing and singing and having all kinds of fun. I remember asking one of the guys what he was fishing for and he said dinner. I noticed he had his whole family with him and they were all fishing. I asked him what type of fish he was fishing for and he said gar and carp. I said, is this what you ate for dinner and he said yes, almost everyday. He asked us if we had ever fished before and we said yes but only in a small pond, not ever in a huge river. He then went up to his car...got two more cane fishing poles and asked us to fish with them...the only thing was that if we caught anything, we had to let him keep it.....that was OK with us...we didn't even know what a gar or carp was. I tell this little story because I never saw color...I knew that other peoples skin was different in color but that really didn't register to me. I heard the "N" word but I really didn't know what it meant. Anyway, we took the cane poles, he pulled out this god awful smelling bait and he showed us how to put the bait on the hook. In retrospect, here was a black man I didn't know teaching me things that my dad should be teaching me if he wasn't working all the time. I came to have those thoughts often. Well, we sat there with his kids, with our lines in the water listening to stories, listening to all of them sing and laugh and just having the best of times. The day was coming to an end and we knew we didn't want to get home after the sun went down because then our parents would start asking questions....and we didn't want that. We told our new friends goodbye, we got on our bikes and headed home.....this would not be the last time we fished with our new NEGRO friends....something that later would get my mom and dad madder at me than they had ever been...but that's for another time.

My Mom.....Police (again!!), a Car Accident and Uncle Sam!!

                                                                                                                                                                                     Well, writing about my mom may be more difficult than writing about my dad. My first memories of my mom start when we lived in Chevy Chase Maryland. As noted in previous posts, my mom hired a nanny (America) to take care of my sister and me. She and my dad were extremely social people, especially when they live outside Washington DC in Chevy Chase. After we moved to Wilmington, things changed and I really don't know why but my mom became less social, even though my dad stayed the way he had always been. Plus, we didn't have a nanny after America so I guess my mom took over the parenting of my sister and me.

As I got older, I think I became my mom's best friend. Because my dad was gone so much, I think she started to rely on me more and more to become "the man around the house". I'm not sure that was such a wise idea but that's the way it was as soon as I hit the age of about 12. Most of the memories that I have about my dad, also apply to my mom. Vacations, trips, special events...all those memories are the same so I will zero in on specific memories of things my mom and I did or experienced together.

The main thing I remember about my mom was that she ALWAYS said NO, especially when my dad was away. Mom, I want to ride my bike to the river...NO, mom, I want to go over to Robbie's and swim in his pool...NO, mom, I want...NO, mom, I want...NO. It was like that all the time...Obviously...she was very protective of me, plus if you have read the previous blogs...you can see that I really wasn't very trustworthy so there was good reason for her concern!! How did I respond to my mom always telling me NO......I did it anyway. As the quote goes and I learn this at a very early age....“It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”. I still go by that philosophy today!!

I did so many things to drive my mom nuts that I won't relate all the different stories but here is one I really have a good memory of. After we moved to Wilmington Delaware....the urge to play with matches was all but about gone with the exception of one last time. My friend Michael and I decided that we needed to entertain ourselves by hiking down to an old barn that was on some farmers property not far from where we lived. Once at the barn we were trying to decide what to do, so we started throwing rocks onto the metal roof of the barn so we could hear the cool noises the rocks made as they rolled down this metal roof....cool, huh??
The next thing we knew was that one of the rocks we threw went through a glass window and we thought...wow, let see how many windows we could really break. We kept doing this until the farmer started chasing us. We knew we could get away because we could run faster and we had a good head start. Plus, this farmer had no idea who we were. We started running home and I decided that if the farmer called the police..we could divert their attention by setting the field on fire. That way, the police would be more interested in a burning field than a couple of kids. I started a little fire in the dry grass and started running again. At the age of twelve or thirteen, our little criminal minds were working in overtime. Well, we were about to get fooled. We made the mistake of running in the direction of our neighborhood...the only neighborhood around at the time. The police were smart enough to figure out that, that's the neighborhood where these two young criminals lived so all they had to do was drive around the neighborhood. Another thing we did not know was that the farmer had seen the jacket that Michael was wearing. He ALWAYS wore a blue New York Giants baseball jacket in a land where there was a  99.9999% Philadelphia Philly's fan base. The police drove into the neighborhood and asked the first set of kids they saw, "who in the neighborhood wears a NY Giants blue jacket"?... and I'm sure every kid in unison said Michael C_______, and when the police asked these sames kids, "who was Michael's best friend"?...I'm sure they all said in unison....Andy H_______. The next thing I knew was my mother calling me to the front living room. "Andy, she said loudly...why are two police cars sitting in front of Michael's house"?....."I dunno", I said....that my answer to every question my parents ever ask me. "WHAT HAVE YOU TWO DONE NOW"?!!...... "I dunno", I said.....well, the jig was up....mom then said "look, one of the police cars is headed this way"...WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU TWO DONE"??...."Well, mom....I think we broke a window", I said...the doorbell rang and my mom made me answer the door...the policeman said..."are you Andy H____, "yes sir" I said, thinking that I would win him over by showing him how polite I could be. "Is you mother home"? he asked....."yes sir"...again with the politeness....I called out her name and my mother came from around the corner. To be honest, the first thing I thought of was that my mother was a beautiful women in her 30's and I was hoping that her beauty would distract this policeman and I might just get off....at 13, this was the way I was already thinking. Well, my mother tried the best she could to talk the cop into letting me off but after the policeman explained to her that we broke more than 30 windows and were suspects in setting a field on fire....there really wasn't much she could do. The farmer wanted to file charges and the police wanted to set an example to the other kids, by arresting us so that's exactly what they did...I was put into the police car in handcuffs in front of the whole neighborhood full of kids. Michael was also arrested. The police told our parents that they needed to keep us for about 4 hours at the police station, then they could come and get us. Needless to say....my mother was PISSED!! Four hours later my mom and Mrs.C__________ showed up at the police station to gather up their thirteen year old criminals. They were told that if they (we) paid for all the damage, the farmer would drop all his complains and our records would be clear. We also found out that since nobody saw us set the fire (we never admitted to that), there was no retribution. This is where Michael and I were introduced to a new form of punishment call "community service", a term that I would get very accustom to in the next few years. Our parents paid the cost to replace all the glass and Michael and I were "sentenced" to 4 months of picking up trash along the road in front of the farmers house along with a section along Philadelphia Pike, the road that went by the police station. Did we learn our lesson...not really but we did decide that we would think long and hard about the consequences before we committed our next crime. Little did I know at the time, that both Michael and I would have our first girlfriends and our days of crime would almost be over....isn't it funny the influence a girlfriend has over you!!

My next specific memory was when my mom got her new car....a Nash Metropolitan...it was a cute little car that didn't weigh very much and my mom loved to drive it. She got it in the winter and we went to the store one afternoon when the roads were a bit icy. My mom was really a tomboy at heart...what I knew about her childhood, she was always bucking her parents authority and doing things she shouldn't have been doing...(and you wonder where I get it!!). One time my mother ask her dad (this was about 1935 or 36) if she could borrow the car....the answer was no so what did my mom do.....she got the keys and basically stole the car out of the driveway...she drove around picking up her girlfriends...while driving downtown, she lost control and drove my granddads car through the front glass window of a barbershop...scattering men in every direction. To her chagrin, a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch (the local newspaper) was in the barber shop  and not only did he write the article but took pictures......and put it on the front page (must have been a slow news day)...with the headline..."Daughter of Prominent Local Physician Drives Through Barbershop Window". So you see, I come by this stuff naturally. Anyway, back to the Metropolitan...as we were driving home (this is in Lutherville Maryland) on Seminary Avenue...my mom decided to play around on the ice....she was pretty good with a standard transmission but this car was so light, it didn't take much for her to loose control and off the road and down the hill we went. I use to always kid my mom when she was driving by saying "we're gonna die, we're gonna die", everytime she did something silly in the car. I stayed with the car as she walked home to call a wrecker. We both laughed about that for a long time. I had to promise not to tell my dad...but he found out anyway!!

The last memory that I will talk about was when I was inducted into the Army in the mid-60's. Some of you will have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention military draft but those of you who do...will understand some of this. The rule was that as long as a male was in college and had passing grades, he would be classified 1S and be exempt from the military draft until he graduated or failed. At the time, it was popular to stay in college as long as you could so that you NEVER would become a 1A...meaning eligible immediately for the draft. Well, I was cooking along pretty good until I had a little trouble at Trinity University in San Antonio and was asked to leave for a semester. It was incumbent on the school to IMMEDIATELY inform the local draft board of a male students draft classification change....and they did!! I went from a 1S to a 1A and was eligible immediately for the draft  (there is a whole story to tell but I'm not going to get into it at this point). Anyway....the day came where I had to report to the local draft board and be inducted into the Army. I packed a small bag, took a few dollars and got into the car so my mom could drive me downtown a to the draft board. I think my sister came with us. There was a tearful goodbye, my mom knowing that she was probably never going to see me again (Vietnam you know!!). Well...not so fast...without going into a lot of details....I was found ineligible for the draft and by late afternoon, I was making a phone call home to my mom, so she could come downtown to pick me up....what a change of emotions that had to be for her. Again, I will write about this whole episode in a future blog but if you have ever seen the movie "Alice's Restaurant" starring Arlo Guthrie...you will get a pretty good idea of what happened to me during those very weird 9 hours at the local San Antonio draft board!!


I have other memories of my mom but I think I will stop here....again, thanks for reading and see you at the next blog!!

My Dad...The Cat's in the Cradle....and other introspective stuff

                                                                                                                                                                              
OK, let me get this clear from the get-go....this is NOT going to be me at a shrink session, lying flat on my back on some couch somewhere with a box of tissues on my stomach and spouting out a lot of psycho-babble.
At the same time I'm not going to blame my dad for not being around all the time. I know it's fashionable for son's to blame their father's for not being around....the Harry Chapin song, Cat's in the Cradle expresses that sentiment very eloquently!! 
I realize that during my fathers generation and to some extent, mine too, husbands and dads that are trying to climb that corporate ladder of success have to be away from their families more than other dads who don't have the same corporate pressures to succeed. Husbands and fathers become an easy target for their wives and children to blame all the dis-functionality that is going on in the family unit.

I will have to admit that I thought this way once but not any more....I have had a tremendous amount of time to think about this and it's not fair to my dad!

My dad died at the ripe young age of 57 (I was with him when he died), just when I was starting to get to really know him. My son was just 6 months old when he died so he didn't get to see what a great kid my son was or what a great man my son is growing up to be. My religious beliefs do vary from time to time (usually when it suits my needs) but if there is a heaven...then I hope my dad (and mom too) are looking down on him with awe and respect! I'll have to admit, I am a little mad at my dad for dying so young because I do believe that his life style was the major contributor to his early demise. I'm not going into all of that but let's just say, he didn't take care of himself the way he should of.

I do not have a lot of memories about my dad...as noted, he was away a lot. My first real memories were when we lived in Washington DC. I remember helping him work in the yard (when he did that kind of thing). The picture above was one of those times...my dad gave me my first beer at the age of four or five. I remember him taking me with him when he went to play golf on weekends. I would ride around in the cart. I think he took me when my mom wanted me out of the house. I remember him taking me into The District of Columbia and him taking me into these large office buildings. I'm sure he was working but not real sure at what he was working at. I remember him taking us sightseeing in Washington and always bumping into people he knew. It seemed like he knew people everywhere. I also remember him leaving us with our mom while he walked away and talked to these "friends" of his. Like I said...during that time in Washington I really did not know what his real job was but I think it was something very interesting. For the most part I have very good memories of my dad. I remember car trips to Florida and Columbus for vacations. I remember when we bought a boat and the both of us attending Power Squadron school together. I remember our little cottage on the Severn River down by Annapolis Maryland and him and one of his friends taking me out into the Chesapeake Bay to sail. I remember trips to Atlantic City, Ocean City, Wildwood and Rehoboth Beach. To New York and out to the Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard to be with my Grandmother. I remember him speeding...he always drove fast and I remember him getting stopped by the police and getting  tickets...especially in small town America. Maybe that's why my son and I drive fast...it's an inherited quality that has been passed down. I'm sure that if I knew my fathers father, I would have learned that he drove fast too...my dad's dad was one of the original car guys. My grandfather has a real colorful story to tell but since I don't know all the details then I'm not going to delve into it. At the turn of the century my paternal grandfather was a very successful man in Ohio and was on his way to becoming more and more successful....then the Depression hit! I remember lots of good thing but that's just it, they are things but any memories are good memories.

My only really bad memories of my dad is when we were living in San Antonio and I had graduated from high school and was attending a variety of colleges, mostly to stay out of the draft. It was the mid to late 60's and the culture was changing every day. I think both my sister and I pushed the limits on just about everything  we did. I will talk about this period of my life in a later blog but needless to say...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I remember my mother ALWAYS being the referee between me and my dad...I also remember my mom taking my side more often than not and I think that created a lot of tension between my parents. My dad was ALWAYS on me for my hair, my clothes, my friends, my music, my cars, my lifestyle, my education, my thoughts about military service and everything else that was important to me at the time. I will have to admit I was an over indulged asshole with lots of money during this time. I had a day job while I attended college but I also found ways of making money on the side. No, I didn't sell drugs but I did find legal ways of making lots and lots of money, especially for a kid my age...and oh yeah...I had a pretty good allowance!! Because of my dad's job during those times, my sister and I had a new car to drive every six months...you don't think that was a trip. My sister is 5 years younger than me so I was able to take more advantage of the car deal my dad had. To sum up this period, I remember what my dad told me when he was transferred to Oklahoma City from San Antonio. I was reluctant to move with the family to Oklahoma...I was having way to much fun in San Antonio with my so called friends. When I told my dad that I was really not wanting to move (I was over 18 so I could make any decision I wanted to back then)..he sat me down and talked to me "man to man" and this is what he said..with a tear in his eye....he said.."son, if you don't come with the family to Oklahoma and make a new start...you will die here or go to jail for the rest of your life". WOW...REALITY JUST SET IN!!

My dad died in mid July, 1976...just after the Bicentennial celebrations. My dad was attending a show that was going on in Tulsa Oklahoma. The show was being put on by the company I worked for at the time. It was a tradition for my dad to rent the nicest Presidential suite he could find in Tulsa and put on an "after party" for the big wigs of my company. No, I was NEVER invited....it wasn't until after his death, I found out what these parties entailed. Again, I won't go into the specifics. Around two in the morning our telephone rung and one of my dad's coworkers was on the phone telling me that I needed to get down to the hotel as fast as I could because my dad had fallen ill and there was an ambulance taking him to the hospital. As I drove up to the front of the hotel, the ambulance was sitting out front and I saw my dad inside. The medics were working on him and I noticed they all had very grim expressions...I climbed into the back of the ambulance and took my dads hand...he looked at me and smiled...then one of the medics told me to get out and follow them to Hillcrest hospital, just two minutes away...and that's all he said. I got into my car...pulled into the emergency parking area and went inside...then I waited, and waited and waited...seemed like forever....then I remember a nun like lady asking if I wanted to wait in the chapel and I said HELL NO!! I know she was just trying to be nice but at the time...I looked at waiting in the chapel as bad karma. It wasn't long after that, the doctor came out and said the usual stuff...."we did all we could do, but he was to far gone to save...yada, yada, yada". Quite frankly, after those words, I really don't have any memories at all. I don't remember if Teri (my wife at the time) was with me or not..I don't remember my son being with me...all I remember were those words. My next memory was that I was going to have to call my mother but I decided to call my sister instead. My sister and her husband were in Oklahoma City and I thought if my sister could tell my mom, at least she would be there to console her and take care of her. So that's what I did...I called my sister. There's an old adage that says...any phone calls after midnight are NOT good news!! Jody will have to take up the story from there.

There is an after story to this but again, I'll save it for another time...all I can say about that is to not die in a hotel room in Tulsa Oklahoma!!

Thanks for reading and I will tackle memories of my mom in my next blog.

         

Family tree....for a historical perspective

                                                                                                                                                                          I think before I go on about my dad and mom....a little family tree review is required to put things into perspective. This will be the boring part but I want my son to know the lineage. I'm not going into detailed facts...mainly because I don't know them all (sad, uh?) and really...who needs to know. Our family, especially the Howe side can be traced way back to England long before Columbus discovered America (well, he and a few others). I do think there is a weird connection that Columbus discovered America and I was born in Columbus and had a nanny named America...kinda spooky, uh? I believe my Aunt Betty, my father's brother's wife did a tremendous amount of research on the Howe side of the family. The Fletcher side (my mom's maiden name) has also been traced way back....long before the Mayflower landed on the upper East Coast shores. Both sides can be traced back to passengers on the Mayflower (you know what that means..remember who those passengers were...they were people England did not want). I do know some facts and yes, like all families....our tree is filled with the good, the bad and the ugly (ugly does not mean physical looks). My sister is a member of the DAR and because of that....she too, had to do a tremendous amount of research to get her credentials. This is what it takes to be accepted into the DAR...Who can be a member of DAR?
Answer....... Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution, is eligible for membership. DAR defines a "patriot" as one who provided service or direct assistance in achieving America's independence.
Boy, can sis do that....she had one of the Holy Grails of Patriotism on her side.....a signer of the Declaration of Independence.....John Hart as part of our family tree.  She also had a huge dilemma....General William Howe is a direct descendant....he was the British general sent here by King George to put down the Revolution. How the hell do you explain THAT to a room full of DAR members??

John Hart

General William Howe

Signing of Declaration of Independence

Anyway....I'm not going to go that far back...I'm just going to go back a couple of generations. My sister and I came from the couplings of my mom and dad. My dad has a brother and a sister....both I knew very well and loved and adored, even though I didn't get to see them very often (family dispute, don't you know). I never did get to know (remember is probably a better word) my dad's dad. He died while I was still very young. I did know my dad's mom but did not get to be with her as much as I would have liked...again, family disputes. My dad's brother and wife had three children...two boys and a girl....I got to know and who are all still living today. My dad's sister and husband had three children...again, two boys and a girl. I got to know them too but again, not as well as I would have liked. They too are all alive and well.

Now for my mom's side. My mom had two sisters...both I knew and loved very much. Unlike my dad's side, I got to visit my mom's sisters and their children every time we went back to Columbus for a visit. I did get to know my mother's father and mother. My grandfather and grandmother were divorced while I was still very young so I knew my grandmother so much better. My grandfather remarried and I instantly had a new aunt...my grandfather's second wife. I did not know her all that well...I think my mother had a problem with the whole situation but at least she allowed my sister and I to spend time with her father and his new wife!! My mother's older sister and her husband had two children, a boy and a girl. I spent many a happy summer with them. My mom's younger sister and her husband had two boys and yes, I got to know and visit them often. I'm happy to say that all my 1st cousins  are alive and well and have wonderful families of their own. I have to thank Facebook because not only does it allow me to keep up with my 1st cousins...but it allows me to chat back and forth with the children of my 1st cousins....how cool is that!!

Now for my son....he was only six months old when my dad died (history sure does repeat itself) but he was fortunate enough to have his grandfather on his mother's side...a "man" in all sense of the word and who loved my son as much as my son loved him. My son got to know my mother but for only 5 years but again, my son is fortunate to have his grandmother on his mother's side and who is still alive and kicking as we speak. As for cousins, my sister has one girl child and my son gets to see her from time to time. He has three cousins on his mother's side and again...he gets to see them from time to time.                                                               

Well, that's the abbreviated discussion of the Howe/Fletcher family tree. It is a very colorful family tree with lots of twists and turns and a tree who's roots go very, very deep!!





                                            

Wilmington Delaware (part 1)....New School, New Friends, Catholic Discipline and a 8mm movie

                                                                                                                                                                           Well, we have left Washington DC along with America (my Nanny), her husband George, Stephen (my best friend) and my juvenile record and we are putting down roots in Wilmington Delaware. While in Washington, apparently my Dad did well in his chosen profession and got to know many influential people. One of these people (by the way, in some cases I will not use names because I do not have their permission) was one of the DuPont daughters. Along with her husband, they came up with a new idea for a business and got ahold of my dad to see if he would be willing to run it. Apparently he said yes because the new business was going to be based in Wilmington and that's where we were moving to. For those of you who don't know....the state of Delaware at that time was owned by the DuPont family...and probably still is. This has to be around 1956 or 1957...putting me at 10 or 11 years old. I didn't realize it at the time, but my Dad, working for this family was going to have a lot of perks.


We moved to a neighborhood called Stonehaven. This neighborhood was built on the highest point in Wilmington. The name of the hill where this neighborhood was built was called Penny Hill. Both my sister and I have great memories of the Penny Hill sub shop, the Penny Hill donut shop and Brown's Drug Store.

Because this neighborhood was so high, we always looked forward to the winter snows because it would allow us to sled from the top of the hill in our neighborhood down for almost a mile before we reached bottom. The ride down was a blast but the walk back was a bitch. Lucky for us my dad and other "grown-ups" in the neighborhood, would wait for us at the bottom of the hill with cars and trucks and give us a ride back up the hill so we could do the sledding all over again.

This was also a Catholic neighborhood full of young Catholic families and what do young Catholic families do for entertainment on cold winter nights....they make babies and lots of them. The reason that was so cool was that both my sister and I now had lots of kids to play with....unlike Washington, where there was hardly any kids to play with!! I had two best friends....one was Michael and the other was Robbie. Robbie  

did not live in our neighborhood, he lived in the neighborhood behind us. There was a big woods that separated us but as we grew up, that wooded area would become our friend.                                                 .
                                                                                                                                                                    I attended three public schools in Wilmington along with one Catholic school (there is a story here). I attended River Road Elementary School, St. Helena Catholic School, Mt. Pleasant Junior High and Mt. Pleasant Senior High. Apparently I wasn't the model child for River Road Elementary because not long after my enrollment, the principal called my parents and asked them to take me out and put me in a private school where I could be watch more closely and disciplined more often (I guess my Washington "wild" streak was still with me). My parents had a decision to make...they could either put me in a private school that was close to our neighborhood or they could send me away to military school. For awhile there it looked like military school was going to be the decision because there was a well known military school in Gettysburg and it just so happened that my Grandmother's brother had a big farm in Gettysburg. I remember even driving up there one weekend so my parents could look it over. In the end, my parents opted for St. Helena Catholic School because it was close to home and the nun's (penguins to me) had a bad ass reputation for discipline. Well, I stayed there through the sixth grade and made it out alive. I did seem to get into trouble while at St. Helena but not as often and not for anything to bad. I do remember more that once getting my knuckles rapped with a ruler and my butt smacked with a paddle!!                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                              Now it was on to Mt. Pleasant Junior High....wow, I made it out of grade school in one piece and now I was going to get to play with the big boys (and girls). This is where I will recount some of my junior high memories but will save all but one for the next blog. The one I want to write about here is the most vivid and was to set the tone for later years.

One day, after school, my mom received a phone call from the principal of Mt. Pleasant Junior High. Those type of phone calls were not an unusual occurrence in our household. She was told (mind you, TOLD) that there was going to be a special meeting if the Jr. High PTA the next night to discuss some "outrageous" behavior that was happening at the school during lunch hour and the meeting was to discuss how to put an end to it. She was also ask to bring my dad if it was at all possible and to bring me. Remember, this was in the late 50's and I was around 12 or 13 years old. Well, she hung up the phone and ask me what I had done THIS TIME to deserve this type of phone call. I told her I didn't know what they were talking about and I was telling the truth. Ever since leaving the hell that was Catholic school, I was pretty much on the straight and narrow.

Well, the next night my mom, dad and I went to this meeting and I was surprised to see some other kids I knew, both boys and girls. One was my best friend Robbie and the other was a girl we both knew who was named Lucky.  The principal was the one running the meeting. He thanked us all for being there (yeah, right) and explained that there were some activities going on with some students that needed to be addressed. He said that before they started the discussion, he wanted to show a short movie. It turned out to be a homemade 8mm movie...for those of you who remember those. He lowered the lights and this movie came on showing the playground, a small grove of trees and various groups of boys and girls not only kissing, but learning a little bit more about the "birds and bees" than our parents were willing to teach us. It panned around and clearly showed Robbie and I getting to know Lucky a little bit better and also getting to know the "ins and outs" of a training bra and Lucky learning the complicated workings of zippers.  The lights came back up...there was a discussion among the parents about what kind of discipline was appropriate and what further action to take to put an end to such vile behavior on the playground. It was decided that the parents would handle it in their own different ways and that there would be more teachers assigned to the playground area. The meeting was over and we all walked out together, the parents talking among themselves and us kids talking among ourselves. I remember my mom and dad saying "what a waste of time....at least he didn't burn anything down". Then my dad turned to me and said...."the next time you and Robbie decide to do something like that....make sure you both were completely BEHIND the tree"!! I think at that moment, my dad and I became best friends....at least until the late 60's. That statement also turned out to be the metaphor for my life!!