A question of timeline

 The very existence we know happened on a summer night in one smoky moment. The thick night air suggests an invisible fork in the trail. We never woke up understanding that it was possible. Instead, we innocently and ignorantly rambled down the trails to a junction that we did not know of. 

Some of these were portals to a different destination, and others were conduits connecting past, present, and future on a single thread. One that makes you exist in more than one time making those periods timeless themselves.

It does surprise me that in my journey, there have been so many of these junctions. It is an amazing existence, and I know that for some reason, it is unique. What these junctions have given to me, I am deeply thankful for.

Maybe even just a surprise now and then

 So easily, we have fallen into that pattern just like two years ago. That one where it seems to rain in waves of severe downpours every 90 minutes. I find myself preoccupied enough to where in some ways it doesn’t really matter. I know that I’m in denial. At some point, it all conflicts with what I want to do. 

Decompression of pressure upon me continues. This is creating extensive fragmentation in my thoughts in my direction in my planning. Someone asked me last night, is it because you have been so busy you do not know which end is up? Or is it because you don’t know what to do without all the pressure on you? My answer was, I think it’s actually both of those.

For those not engaged in hand-to-hand combat of that which awaits on the other sides of doors or around corners, down dark alleys, and up around the next bend, I think you really need to think about where you want the next few hours to go.

In telling my eighteen-year-old self’s stories I can see my training of moving through a day as though I were Jackie Chan moving through a crowded shopping mall. Always allowing the day to take me where it would at Lone Oak. Friday night, never knowing who I would be on Sunday night. The Southern Tier Expressway is driving me and me not driving it.

As I contemplate that, I wonder if my way is the better way. Are the lights of Binghamton more of a site to me, who feels like the last man on earth at 3 AM, or are they better for someone, planned, rehearsed, and predictable? I have got to believe that reservations are just plain boring at times! Yes,  I make some now because of how ridiculous the world has become, and that works, but I miss the letting it happen factor! Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s you.

1984 Chapter 7: 2279-Belonging nowhere

 It was dark. It had been over an hour since I saw the lights of Danbury. During that time, it was like I was viewing my life from the outside looking in. Eighteen years had disappeared in a moment, and now even though those years were everything I knew, I had no idea what was next and I did not think about the future. It was strange, I knew my future would come no matter what. Music played. Wings Over America, Eliminator, Low Budget. 

I thought about the last day, the hours leading up to my departure. Tom could not understand why I wanted to travel at night and I thought of it as a way to keep traffic to a minimum, to keep from working the car in the heat of the day, and I liked stealth. Tom and I had gotten up and went for coffee. He told me that there was really good chrome paint at a parts store in town. We went there and bought some. We also went looking around a junkyard for no apparent reason. 38 Special's One Time for Old Times played again and again on the stereo in the red 77 Nova.

Early afternoon, Tom and I went to my Aunt and Uncle's house. Now I had to say goodbye to them and Amy and Bobby. It was so hard to leave them. Amy and I had fought with a vengeance over the years just as she and Brooke and Brooke and I had. When we thought about it though, we all loved each other very much. I am very blessed. Bobby was only twenty-one months old and I would certainly miss him. Leaving was overwhelming. When Tom and I returned to the Nova in the drive, the tears welled up in my eyes. "I know, it's so hard", he said quietly. I could tell in his words, that he knew exactly how this felt.

Tom was tired. His job made him irritable. He could not seem to have a good time on this last day of mine in Connecticut. No matter what I thought of doing or how hard I tried to make light-hearted attempts at cheering him up, it did not work. After painting the rims of my car with the new chrome paint we went back inside. We took a nap. I had planned to anyway because I was to leave at midnight tonight. Sleep came easy to Tom, but not to me. When on the threshold of such a great solo expedition, sleep is impossible. I thought of how I had overcome so many hurdles.  Months ago, my car had been beaten into the ground. I did not let this stop me from my trip. Tires and windows were replaced with even better ones than the originals. I installed a Superior steering wheel at the helm and a fine split bench/bucket seat to navigate from. A Panasonic car stereo that I rebuilt for good measure. In a few short months, I had come a long way.

I did not get to sleep. If anything, I got rest which counts for something. If the nap did anyone good, it was Tom. He was revitalized and a new man when he awoke. Tom's refreshment came with a good idea. He suggested we go to the movie theater and watch Star Trek III The Search for Spock. I loved this movie! It became my most favored Star Trek Movie ever.

"My God Bones, what have I done?" asked Admiral James T. Kirk as he and his crew stood on the surface of the Genesis planet and watched their gallant Enterprise burn up as it entered the atmosphere in a massive fireball. It gave me chills as I sat there and saw it for the first time and it still does every time I think of it.

The movie ended at 11:07 P.M. We headed back to Tom's house. Now, echoes of the day; saying goodbyes, the paint, 38 Special's One Time for Old Times, all reverberating inside of my mind mixing with the heavy, moist night air. The air that I breathed reminded me of when I was much younger and my family would get ready for a trip down to the beach at Sherwood Island.  We would get up at around 4 in the morning and prepare to meet the rest of the family for the long road trip down to the coast. 

 Less than an hour before my departure brought a silence about. This was really going to happen now. Certainly, Tom and I would miss being able to hang around together. We had no idea when the next time would be when we would see each other again. We were the best of friends.

11:45 P.M.

I got into the Dodge and turned the key........... I thought at that moment of how I had not run my car since I had arrived at Tom's house the evening before. I thought of how there was a noticeable oil leak that I had no idea of its origin. I heard stepfather telling me that driving a car to Texas with 109,000 miles on it was foolish.......and of course, that sweet 225 slant six engine of Victoria-Lynn started right up on the second revolution of her starter. When I placed my hands on the steering wheel it felt like home, but new at the same time.  I felt like I was turning the handles on doors never touched before.  I could feel myself soaking in this feeling. Tom and I talked for a few minutes, long enough to allow the temperature gauge to move up to a normal area.

11:57 P.M.

Tom shook my hand and said that he would at least have the privilege of being the last person in Connecticut to see me (except the gas station attendant in Danbury anyway). I shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway. I was underway and in a state of shock that my long-awaited mission was finally underway. I had planned this trip only forever now. 

The New Day Sunday, June 24th, 1984 12:01 A.M.

That faithful 225 made its friendly tip tip-tip-tip noise under the hood such as they normally do. The roadways were pretty vacant. I slid the tape into the tape deck that I had made at Tom's house. When I arrived in Port Aransas, the tape would be named the 2279 Rock Tape since that was how many miles the odometer would acquire en route. Lots of Paul McCartney of course, mostly from the Wings Over America LP They all played on; You Gave Me the Answer, Go Now, Band on the Run, Magneto and Titanium Man, Listen to What the Man Said. By the time I was washed by the night lights of Danbury, ZZ Top's Legs played. It seemed that I had somehow been out of it up until now. Numb really. My computer-like mind kept flashing back to the past fall, winter, and spring. Toys R Us, Lone Oak Campsites, Kennedy High School. Nights the previous winter, staying up all night every other night. Suddenly the flashbacks dissipated with the cutting-edge bright lights of Danbury, with its signs warning of the impending New York state. ZZ Top Eliminator songs played along with the city.

New York, The Empire State the sign read. I knew that it would be a long time before I would see Connecticut again. My real driving experience only went back to the previous fall. I had my license for longer than that but did not drive all of that time. I did lack experience. Sure, Waterbury was no picnic. It would be nothing compared to what was ahead. Traveling in the summer means that road construction is everywhere. I became very familiar with this over the next few days.

Everything was new. It was 1984, so concrete slab highways were still a thing. They had their own way of keeping you awake. 1:30 AM. This being my first journey outside of Connecticut, I was borderline paranoid about the noises that I had heard while driving along. I drove as one would if he were expecting a wheel to fall off at any second. Grooved pavement really spiced things up for me. This concrete slab grooved stuff made a noise like air escaping from a tire. I even got off an exit to walk around and make sure all was well at one point. 

The Southern Tier Expressway. I turned onto it, and my travel took on a sweetness. Although 17 was mostly a limited access highway, it had its times when the speed limits would reduce and you could find yourself actually driving through a small town. I found my new highway, New York State Route 17, The Southern Tier Expressway. On this road, it was like a no man's land. I was beginning to feel like I was the last person in the world. The road was a concrete slab and very noisy as the radial tire slapped the joints again and again. Every now and then, I would turn on the dome light to get a look at the speedometer. To my surprise, I was only traveling 45-48 miles per hour. I tried to speed it up a little. The feeling of belonging nowhere was the finest of new discoveries.

3:15 A.M.

The bright lights of the city of Binghampton, New York shook me out of my misty dream world. I had been watching my gauges, alert for any adverse occurrences.

I began to acquire a fondness for Route 17. Like the first trip I ever made in the fall of 1983 to Lone Oak with my car,  this was my next big open road. It was more than just the beginning of the journey. Route 17 slowed down for many towns along the highway so that you could really dip into their quaint naiveté but for only a moment and then blaze onto the next village hidden in the gentle mountain green. Crawling along at 45 miles per hour I was really enjoying my tour and even more so, wondered what was further on down the road. Although I was somewhat inexperienced with real traveling, I did not worry about where I might sleep at the end of this night's travel. There was certainly a bit of excitement of sweet anticipation for where I would stop, where I would eat, whom I would talk to, and of course, the biggest one of all, seeing my father after four years. I shook my head at life's ironies. Here I was an adult now. On the radio, the great WKBW in Buffalo filled my radio with a strength I never had the honor to have before.

It was the summer of 1976 in Torrington, Connecticut. The year of the Bicentennial. My Grandfather had given me a short-wave radio from 1962. He showed me how to hook this radio up and attach a speaker to it. There was a television antenna hanging off the attic ceiling. I hooked the radio to this. The radio was soon whisked away up to my secret clubhouse sort of thing. In the attic, there were 3 rooms. my friend Frank and I decorated this small attic room you could not even stand up in and had one of the coolest 70's pads one could imagine up there and from the slanted wall ceiling hung one huge American Flag and posters etc.

Frank and I continued to listen to WQQW at night. We were very much into staying up late. Unfortunately at midnight, QQW would drop off from the airwaves. I really thought QQW was a very noble station at the time since during Hurricane Belle, they stayed on the air all night. I told Frank, "WQQW is a night station." This really meant that after nine at night, I had heard them get serious and play some really heavy tunes, like Peter Frampton. QQW dropped off the air on July 13, 1976. Frank being his old irritating self states, "I thought you said WQQW was a night station, and yet here at midnight, they sign off. We have no music now.

1680 is down at the very bottom of the AM dial. I take hold of the massive tuning knob and turn it counterclockwise to back up the dial. A voice. A sweet voice. A sweet woman's voice. Music follows. Good music follows. We listen. I continued to listen to WKBW for many years like it was an old friend. Right now KB radio was warning me that it was raining in western New York. Sooner or later, I would see rain.

Campville, Oswego, Waverly. I pulled off the highway in Waverly just as the daylight was coming about. My projected stop was Allegheny State Park, but for now, this was a coffee and donut stop. The town was small and quiet. I sat behind the wheel, checking mileage, gas consumption, and oil usage. It looks like my car decided to take care of the mysterious oil leak that had plagued her in the weeks preceding.

I went inside the donut shop I was parked in front of. The woman inside hardly said a word. I was the only one in there. The aroma of coffee weaved in and out of my senses while I felt the calling of my vehicle from beyond the glass window. I did not understand that as a person of the male species, I would be one of those individuals who when traveling wants to do nothing but drive constantly taking in all of the sites at a comfortable 60 (or 48 in this case) miles per hour, stopping only when the gas gauge induces blackmail. I envied John Steinbeck. His wisdom and worldliness allowed him to hold great conversations with all he encountered in his travels. For now, deficient, I gave in and went back out to the Dodge. I would never learn about the silent woman, her struggles, her dreams, or her family.  She was no more than a highway road sign or a kiosk I was passing.

I knew after looking at the map that if I were to sleep over at Allegany State Park, I would have to drive for much longer than I had already. In other words, Allegany was not going to be. I knew that I was too tired to drive on for that long. Reality is a curious thing I was finding out.

The next town was Elmira. This was the first biggest town since Binghampton that I had encountered since cutting through the misty darkness of that lonely city in the wee hours of the morning.

It had begun to rain. I continued up route 17, perhaps even too far. I was tired. The day before spent with Tom was a long one. Hard to believe that was all within the last 24 hours. It amazed me how one can disconnect so easily. My eyes were getting heavy. I decided that it would be best if I stopped to rest for a while so as not to risk falling asleep at the wheel. I pulled into a rest area. I got out of the car and checked the map in the rest area directory. I was 30 miles north of where I should have been. This proves I was not awake. I bought a Coke from the machine on site and took a couple of sips. I fell back into my faithful Dodge and cleared away the pile of maps and tapes I had already accumulated on the front seat. I then curled up on the front seat and drifted off to sleep.

I had tried several measures to make sleeping on the front seat of a 1972 Dodge Dart more accommodating before I left Connecticut. My best failed idea was to remove the rear seat bottom, then push the front seat as far back as I could. Then I could insert the back seat bottom in front of the front seat bottom to make a double bed if you will. O.K. idea but in reality, it did not work. The seat would have to be jammed into place and this would cause the brake lights to stay on. Sleep here in Bath, New York had certainly done me some good because I was now right to drive. Rain still poured down on this gray Sunday morning. Despite this, it felt so good to be doing what I was doing and I looked forward to the miles and days ahead.

For now, I decided that if I could make a 30-mile mistake, I could continue to make mistakes all day on a rainy Sunday. I resolved to find a place to get some real sleep. I consulted my ALA travel book. The book advised that 34 miles up the road lay a quiet refuge in the village of Alfred called Squirrels Nest Motel.

The book was correct. I followed a highway billboard to a very well-groomed the finest touch. I laughed as I thought of how this was a place that would have cringed should Tom, Gary, Steve, and all of the rest of us pulled into the parking lot in convoy fashion as we so enjoyed and packed down with guitars, amplifiers, and the rest, well, you know.

People received me quite well despite the look. Here I was eighteen years old and lucky if I weighed 125 pounds. My hair had just been permed the weekend before and this permanent did not take too well. My hair was certainly a mess. I had the beard that wasn't. I had waited all of my life to grow a beard. I would not let a few bare spots stop me from having one. In the wonderous wisdom of hindsight, I unquestionably would have waited a couple of years. Despite my rude outwardly appearance and the tiredness that had worn hard on me by now, the proprietor was very courteous. She was a pleasant yet intense woman at least old enough to be my mother.

My well-tailored hostess led me into this small sitting room after making out the registration. There was coffee and pastry in this room against one wall. This room was apparently built or possibly remodeled in the early to mid-seventies. The ominous paneled walls and low drop ceiling made me wonder if it took one or two weekends to build this room.

We sat down in chairs across from each other. This woman had a talent that at this point in my life I did not understand. "I hope the rain does not amount to much", she said as we watched the raindrops bouncing off of the window sill. She told me of terrible rains that had recently pounded the small village of Alfred, causing tens of thousands in damage. I was my usual polite self as always. This woman's secret screening technique which I was totally oblivious to came to a close and I looked forward to retiring to my room and a real bed for a few hours of rightful sleep.

It was no big deal. My first motel room as an adult happened here. I was proud that I found such friendly accommodations for $24.95. It had one of those massaging beds which I knew, would not be necessary to put me to sleep. I climbed into crisp sheets and felt the weight of the blankets on me. My back ached in mild approval. I could still feel those p185 75r14 Goodyear Vivas running down the concrete slab of Route 17, (thump thump, thump thump, thump thump) almost like a heartbeat. I drifted off into a motion memory sleep. I belonged nowhere, and it was sweet.

1984: Chapter 6: The sun sets the star appears

 Chapter 6

The sun sets, the star appears

Turning the page by moving to Bristol increased my daily intensity. I still needed to pick up my sisters and take them to school. Then an interesting twist. My mother had hired my ex-girlfriend Margie 3 years ago to babysit my half-brother who was now a year and a half old. Of course, I was elected to pick her up on my way into Waterbury. She was very pregnant herself and I got to watch her say goodbye to her husband many mornings in the run-down side of a city that I hated. 

Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing left but friendship. I just did not care for her husband based on my conversation with Brian on New Year’s Eve. Our drives were pleasant enough and we talked mostly of our families. The detour was not convenient and added extra to my mad rush mornings. For a moment I got to see my mom each day for 2 minutes. This was the casualty of the vandalism. Since the fall of 1978, I used to have coffee with my mom. We talked for a while each morning and it was really great. I always imagined that we would sort of wind down, knowing when this morning ritual was going to end. Instead, it was torn from us one very cold morning. It taught me that we take things for granted and we shouldn’t. With a small exception, we really never got to regain these morning coffees. 

In late March, my sister also moved in at my grandfather’s house. Now she joined me on the drive to Waterbury. Kathy and I drifted apart, not out of any falling out, but more so because our lives had each gotten busier. When May happened, she was on her way to Oklahoma. I knew June and the journey to Texas was coming fast. I spent all of my study hall time planning the trip. It was easy to plan on paper how far I would drive each day and where I would stay. It never occurred to me that actually doing it would be something totally different. There always seemed to be people that I was giving a ride to before or after school.  A different Cathy approached me one day asking for a ride.  With a car full, she sat in the middle of the front seat.  As I dropped people off, she was the last one to take home.  She stayed next to me when she could have slid over. I stopped in front of her house.  I carefully told her that I was so flattered, but could not start something right now. 

April came and I got the fever. It was the call to return to Lone Oak Campsites in East Canaan. My friends and I were coming of age. I had my Voyager HiLo camper still sitting on my site on Chuck’s Circle. Come mid-April we all started meeting on Fridays or Saturdays as our schedules would allow. Tom stated coming up again, all of my Rhode Island friends, Gary from Southington. Gayle came up too, this year with her fiancé Paul. It was an incredible bond I had with these people. I soaked in every weekend knowing that very soon I would no longer be able to do this. I wanted to savor these, what I considered to be probably the best days of my life.

We had a couple of large camping weekends in which we actually camped on alternate sites having invited an army of friends up. We did this funny thing wherever we went, we would take every car that we had. So when we arrived at the diner in Canaan for breakfast we arrived, filling the parking lot. Same with State Line Pizza, we arrived like locusts. Wherever, movies, hikes, and grocery stores. Late-night trips to Millerton, NY, where the drinking age was still 18 to buy beer was the only time it was ever a single-car mission.

Memorial Day weekend we had a giant group and even my sister and cousin came up and camped. We had a lot of guitars that weekend and being a holiday weekend, we attracted other people to our group. They were okay,  but they were your stereotypical stoners who could play guitar and we were looking to lose them. We mentioned that we were going bowling, to bingo, then to midnight mass. I can still recall the oldest guy in the group of stoners, sitting there on the picnic table bench.  In his very slow, slurred, almost Tommy Chong sort of way: “Bowling? Ok, that’s cool. Bingo? I guess so. But, that midnight mass? I don’t know man.”

The weeks flew by. I was preparing to leave Connecticut. I was painting my car red, it was gold. I sent a photo ad to the local sales paper advertising my camper for sale. One weekend, Tom was not going to have enough time to drive up to Canaan, so we all went to him. We hung out at Candlewood Lake and had a great weekend. I could feel it, my time was getting short. Final exams were underway at school. At some point later in June, the people in the class of 84 would be walking across the stage, getting their diplomas, and departing. , I was probably going to be somewhere in the middle of Missouri by then. Good riddance. I did my time. I served four years in this jail, the failing, rusted, cracking, decaying city of Waterbury Connecticut.

Back in 10th grade, we had an assignment in which we were to write a letter to someone important, like a congressperson, with the goal being to improve our community. I wrote to Leonid Brezhnev the President of the USSR, asking for just one Soviet ICBM to be fired at Waterbury, stating that this alone was Waterbury’s only hope.

It was Tuesday, June 19th. I had already finished working for Toys R Us last week. This week I had a lot to do. I sat in Mr. Sweeney's Accounting-3 class of 3rd period in school. As usual, I was not really paying attention and talking to Mark Tumulis. Sweeney had me for three years out of my four there. He knew me well. He knew what I was planning. We were engaged in nonofficial conversation around the room. I said aloud that I really had better things to do than to study for finals. He knew I was right. Mr. Sweeney understood that I could do nothing in class, not do any homework, ignore all the happenings in class, and still pass tests and finals to pass Accounting with a 65-70 average. He also knew that after being here for four years, he wasn't about to change my ways now.

"You have no reason to be here," he said replying to my statement. I got up told him I would see him tomorrow and left school. I went down the Old Waterbury road towards Bristol. I had not finished painting the Dodge and Steve had been right. The red and black front end and the gold rear end were a hideous combination. I found a spot off the road in Plymouth to pull away from all other civilization. I opened the trunk and finished painting the car. After I was done with the red, I painted an R/T stripe around the trunk. Finally, it was done. This of course was no custom paint job, but I was proud, nonetheless.

My last final exam was done, I was out the door of JFK High School, and I did not look back. I visited with my relatives and especially my wonderful Grandmother Violet Jackson. I was really going to miss her.

I said goodbye to my friends at Gary’s house in Southington on Thursday afternoon. Steve was there with Robin, Mark's girlfriend. Robin's hair was now short. She was headed into the military. We took some pictures and listened to the Kinks Low Budget tape with amusement. These songs, the studio versions of the live ones we had played all last summer were a reminder of all we had been through together. The summer of 1983 was incredible. Spring began with my new camper and having only the most exciting site in the campground. Fast times, loves, and losses. Summer was a way of life. We would meet new people every weekend and who was to know what would happen next. Everything was always a surprise. We were young and many stories would come from the times we had all spent together. Now we stood in the street at 8 Luty Drive in Southington seeing an end to this era of our friendships. We didn’t know it, but all of us here today would never be together again. I drove away feeling sad, yet the gravity of my long-awaited journey sent power through my soul that I could not suppress.

I really did not have enough money for the trip yet. Everyone said if you put a photo ad in those shopper papers, you always get your price and get lots of calls. No one called.  I went up to Lone Oak for the last time. Gayle and her soon-to-be husband Paul made me an offer and I took it. It was appropriate, she had spent many hours in that camper, playing music, meals, laughing, singing, and just being us.

I returned home to Bristol to do my final pack out and the phone rang. A guy told me that my ad had a typo in the phone number, it read 582 instead of 583. I never noticed it.  I would have gotten more having sold it this way, but, my friends bought the camper. The one I bought at 16. I was not disappointed. I said goodbye to my mother as she was going away for the weekend.  I would see my sister Amy and brother Bobby at my aunt's house this weekend. I said goodbye to my grandfather in the driveway in front of his house. When I shook his hand, there was 100 dollars in it. I thanked him. He presented the British salute, palm facing out, fingertips almost touching the beret as if he were wearing one. “Salute the Phoenix, the great bird rising from the ashes of destruction.” This is something my Grandfather would do every time he saw this car after a long time of not seeing it. It was a reference to it being destroyed in the vandalism attack and then coming back from the dead. Deep down I knew, Vicki-Lynn was worthy of such respect.

1984 Chapter 5 Destruction and Defiance

 Chapter Five

Destruction and defiance

It was Monday morning and I had to go to god-forsaken school again. I hate this place! After the warm springlike week that I had spent driving around with Kathy, winter turned its cold-hearted attention to us once again. A cold front came through during the night and it was just about zero degrees this morning. I walked out to my Dodge where it was parked around the back lot of our apartment complex. I began parking it back here ever since it was given to me in early December. Identity, I guess.

As I walked across the frozen ground down the grass hill, the Dodge came into view. I saw frost on the windows, or at least this is what I thought it was at first. The reality of the scene began to warp and distort in my mind. Comprehension began to break down. It was like my vision twisted. I felt the bitter cold penetrate my clothing and a different sort of cold hit me. At this moment something changed before my eyes, in my mind, and in my life. Suddenly the image of my car itself twisted and distorted but became then crystal clear. It was actually sitting very low on the ground and the frost on the glass edges was not frost at all. My car had been beaten brutally. There she sat in a pool of broken glass and all four tires were cut and flattened. It was a feeling of violation like I had never known before. I did not have much, yet this simple vehicle was my salvation from Waterbury and now Waterbury had destroyed her.

Anger surged through me! I turned back toward the house and I swore blatantly in front of my Mother as I entered the kitchen. This was not something that I would normally do but these were not normal times. Mom understood.

School was no longer an option. I called my uncle Brian. I had seen Brian a couple of months ago and he and I carved out what I believed to be a gentleman's agreement to assist the other in times of need. He said that he was on his way with tires and a floor jack.

I also called the police. This was undoubtedly a severe waste of time. Oh, sure, the officer showed, but this was it. A car was vandalized in the city of Waterbury, Connecticut!!! How is this possible!!!???

Time passed by slowly. I drank coffee with my mother as I waited for Brian to arrive. The Dodge sat in frozen ruins in the back lot. The highs today might reach 20 degrees the radio said. It would also be windy. Winter was back.

Brian and my Grandfather arrived in my Grandfather's Ford station wagon. I did not know that my Grandfather was coming, but I was not disappointed to see him there. We removed two tires and brought them to Goodyear where Margie's step-dad Brian worked. Brian was very quick to help just as he always was. Brian was visibly disappointed to see what had happened.  He knew that this was only a car, but he knew what it meant to me. This was my first car. This is a catastrophic event for me. This was the car that was due to carry me to Texas later this year. Later this year! Time was ticking away. March was now upon us June was now only three months away. The sight of my destroyed vehicle made it very hard to believe that it could really ever shuttle me to my new life in three months.

Brian mounted the two tires, a couple of bias-ply snow tires my Grandfather had in the garage. We went back to the car, removed the next two flat tires, and then brought them to Goodyear to be replaced by a couple of used radials from my grandfather's garage.

Getting the tires on the vehicle was only the beginning of the task. After work at Goodyear, Brian came over and checked out the car. He told me that there was a junkyard in Oakville that had a windshield for forty dollars. This, at the time, was a lot of money for me. My weekly checks were about sixty-six dollars from work.

My stepfather took me down to the Waterbury Police Station. He demanded that something be done. They just gave him the "what do you want us to do about it treatment." They affirmed that although I may be a hard-working eighteen-year-old who does not cause trouble, many cars are demolished in this city each day and that most of the bitter dealers of such abuse are never apprehended.

He told the police that he suspected Sherry's ex-boyfriend was responsible. It turned out, that the guy lived in an adjacent apartment building to our own and could clearly see Sherry's car at our house back in January, then me following her home and staying till morning. All of this is circumstantial to something more going on.  They wanted proof, which there was none, despite it being a perfect motive. My stepfather even called Sherry to ask if he was capable of this.  Evidently, there was a history of this sort of retaliation, but when she called him, he claimed to know nothing about it.

 We returned home with no hope of action.  I looked out the window at my frozen and crippled car in the dark and malevolent world of Waterbury, Connecticut. If I hated Waterbury before, it was petty compared to the detestation that I now held for it. I decided that Vicki-Lynn may still be vulnerable. Vicki_lynn was what I named my first car. Lynn Nettleton, 1st girl I ever asked on a date in Torrington, and Vicki Magro, a girl I dated after Margie, whom I made a promise to name my first car after.  I went out and drove her over to the far end of the housing complex and hid her the best I could. My dilemma was clearly that my opponent was hidden from me. I felt certain I knew who did this, but I needed more.

I spoke to Brian on Tuesday. He instructed me to pick up the windshield today and he would come over to help me install it later on after work. I went to the junkyard and walked out back with the operator, a guy about forty years old and glasses with wild curly hair. He cut the windshield out with a utility knife. We placed it in the back of my mother's Chevy wagon. Little did I know it but this car we took the windshield out of would be the source of many enhanced parts for my car before we became residents of Texas.

That evening Brian came over and for nearly an hour he tried to install the windshield. Windshields in 1972 were installed by inserting a thin rope in the outer edge of a thick rubber gasket.  I imagine that this is pretty easy on a hot summer day.  This was not that. Icy winds screamed, blowing snow all around us and the rubber on the gasket resisted with the end result, Brian telling me he would think of something else.

Wednesday came and it was still winter. Hell came to Waterbury Sunday night and I felt imprisoned. My mother drove me to school each day this week. I felt broken as if I actually had lost an arm or leg. 

As the week continued everything felt so desolate.  Currently, my car is hidden, but I cannot hide forever.  I made a decision, I was going to move 3 towns away to Bristol to my grandfather's house. Thursday night, I told my stepfather that I was moving to Bristol. He was angry. He argued that I was running away from my problems. "If I knew who did this to me", I told him, "I could confront this person and settle the matter and life would return to normal. That is not possible." He told me that I was fleeing at the first sign of trouble. I told him that my reason was practicality. On my part-time salary, I could not endure a second hit. "Will you buy the next set of tires and glass for me if this should happen again?!" That hit home. He would not do that. I was speaking in terms that he could understand, money. It was settled then, I was going.

On Friday I stayed out of school because Brian had a new plan. He told me to drive the Dodge, without a windshield to a glass company a couple of miles down the road from Goodyear.  Over all this would be about a 7-mile drive.  Driving a car without front glass at 30 degrees would not be something I would wish to ever do again.

Brian had so many friends.  He was in the repair business his whole life and did things for people all of the time.  He was the kind of guy who could call in a favor and the backing he got was incredible. The guys at the shop took my windshield and still yet another new gasket and with four of them pounding on the outside and one pulling ropes from the inside, successfully installed it. I could hardly bear to watch since they told me there was a chip in the glass and that it would most likely break. Fortunately, it did not break.

The windshield was in, and although I had a long way to go, it was drivable. The back window was covered in plastic and duct tape. The driver's window was done in the same fashion. Broken glass was all over the inside of the car. I went to vacuum it out at the Merit Station. I must admit, I still felt vulnerable and realized that my freedom really seemed to rely on the well-being of my car. The world was now a more untrustworthy place to live. My awareness was acute now. I headed to my house and gathered my things. I was moving to Bristol to live with my grandfather and uncle Brian. 

 The person who saw fit to take my car down was not man enough to face me. He was concealed behind some unknown shadow of purpose which he felt important, not to reveal to me. I knew for sure this had been some sort of retaliation. I could not prove who the person was and what it was that I had done to cause this reaction. Sherry's ex-boyfriend was the best lead I had, but I did not even know what this guy looked like.

Over the next few weeks, my naive self gave way to an awareness.  I was sure at different times I was being followed.  Each time it happened, I would reroute my driving to smoke it out and once that proved true, I would make moves that would cause the person to know that I knew I was being followed and they would inevitably fall away. One Saturday,  I was walking into Toys R Us after lunch on a long day working at the store.  Two guys pulled up in a red and white square-body 1970s blazer. "Hey, punk!"  I heard behind me, I turned around and walked to the blazer.  "What?" I was eye to eye with the guy in the passenger seat.  I had never met Sherry's ex-boyfriend, nor had I even heard a description of him. But, I knew, this was him.  His eyes looked into me like he was searching for the truth.  "We saw you walking around at the edge of the parking lot around those cars.  I had a vehicle vandalized a couple of weeks ago over there.  We were thinking you were messing with them."

In his own way, he was introducing himself to me and was looking for a status update.  "No, I work here, I have to park over there.  But, listen, I sympathize with you.  Someone did the same thing to me a few weeks ago.  Dirtbags couldn't even face me, had to mess with my only car in the middle of the night."  He just looked at me quietly, searching again. "I have to get back to work," I told him.  "I hope you find out who did this to you, it really sucks."  As I turned, he called after me, "Hey kid!  I am sorry I called you punk, I apologize."

After that encounter, there was no more feeling of being followed.  Obviously, he was satisfied that what he thought was happening with his ex-girlfriend never happened at all. I spent the next 3 months before moving to Texas living in Bristol, but going to school in the swill that is Waterbury.  In late 1986, I attended a dinner at Sherry and her new husband's house in Farmington Connecticut.  I learned that night that after I moved to Texas, she had taken that ex-boyfriend back for a time.  During this time, he admitted that it was he who had vandalized my car.  He told her that he really regretted doing it after he met me.  Whatever that was worth, I guess at least I had closure.

The passage

 It is a remarkable thing to be stuck in a cycle of preparing to change for years. As those changes at long last come to be, I think I feel surprise and disbelief. Where do you go? What is next? Some of these questions inevitably are answered right away. Others take time. But for now, the war is on and the fire is large, and what are you doing? Dreaming about it being over? You are not there yet. So, what happened on December 8, 2228?

1984 Chapter 4 Unsuspected Friends

 Chapter Four

Unsuspected Friends

The previous fall had been a strange, new experience for me. The graduation to the age of eighteen was fascinating and I felt like the world was new. All of my life I looked back on my life. (I know. How dramatic for one of such a young age to reflect like this.) 1970, 1971, 1972. These years seemed to me like the world was new. The sun seemed brighter, and the air seemed cleaner.  As time passed by the world became old, dirtier, and less appealing. Clearly, this is the result of understanding more of the things that go on around you and their respective complexities and complications. No longer, however. 

Here at the age of 18,   I was seeing what I was made of in some ways. September brought about Texas enthusiasm. October brought about my new job at Toy's R Us working with many great people. During September and October, I began to drive on a regular basis and by November, I was given my mother's 1972 Dodge Dart. Late November and early December had me working very late at the store for the Christmas season. I had stayed up all night long every other night just so that I would not oversleep the next morning. As am 18 years old, I was terrible at answering the alarm clock on short sleep cycles.  January was different though. The hectic days and nights of the retail holiday season at a toy department store were over.  The Trivial Pursuit, Apple and Commodore 64 computers, and Cabbage Patch Kids Riots were behind us.  

January felt dead. This time of year was for me to reflect and envision my place in the universe, or at least that is what I did any other January. This January was no different. I decided one Sunday to take a ride to my cousin Tom's house in Northville, Connecticut. My stepfather argued that I should not be driving a car with over one hundred thousand miles on it all over the place before I drove it to Texas. There was not much you could tell me at 18. In my estimation, one hundred thousand miles on this car was nothing anyway.  I was born with confidence in things that below the surface, were in tune with mechanical aptitude.  It is just like being able to read body language on a subliminal level.  I was not worried.

I drove to New Milford and met Tom at the Barkers department store parking lot. The red and white 1977 Nova was easy enough to spot. The first thing he did which was so characteristic of him was to intensely hold up a red pack of Marlboro Box cigarettes and say, "You see these, not a word to anyone else about them!" 

 He led us to the little sub-township of Northville. He lived in a one-room apartment in a very old colonial house that was constructed in 1718. The apartment actually had a hand-drawn picture of the house in 1718 on the wall as you entered the apartment on the left. This place had significant charm and I marveled at how the colonial continuity had been done so well, yet somehow inexpensively. It was good to see Tom. We had spent some time last fall up at Lone Oak Campgrounds but he was busy working for Kimberly Clark Inc. swing shift which really trashed his social life.

We played records. Tom and I were severely interested in music. He played some Paul Mc Cartney tunes. He was a big McCartney fan and I was the die-hard Lennon fan. I told him how excited I was that in just a couple of weeks, John Lennon's "Milk and Honey" LP would debut. We recorded music tapes and drank coffee. We talked about short-wave radios and guns too. We stayed up fairly late despite Tom having to work the "A" shift in the morning. We made plans for him to come up to Waterbury when my mother and stepfather went away for the weekend as they do each year in February.

This was a neat visit. Tom and I shared a friendship that spanned years. It began when we were young kids. We met when I was five and he was nine. Tom was a geeky type of info-maniac as a kid interested in Star Trek and spaceships and radios. As much as I would like to say that at five I would be interested in these things, I was not. Not understanding the exceptionally of these interests one tends to wonder what is up with the person who is interested in these things.

Years passed and by the mid-seventies, I really began to understand Tom. He was very seriously interested in Paul Mc Cartney and Wings. The Wings thing was about as big as it got in the mid-seventies. I really liked the music. We had this in common. He became a mentor in the world of music and we had many long conversations about radio and music despite the fact that I was merely twelve and he was sixteen. This grew into him coming up to the campground with me every weekend in the fall of 1982 as he became one of the boys at the campground.

I did not see Tom but a couple of times in 1983 until the latter half of the summer. Then he was once again with us all the time. His intellectual aspirations complemented our group of people. Some people may have thought that with his being two to four years older than the rest of us he was just there to buy beer. Not so. In Canaan, Connecticut back then I could walk into the grocery store and buy five cases of beer and no one would ever ask for ID.

Tom and I awoke that Monday morning. Echoes of McCartney's music played in my head from last night. We headed down the road, each in our own vehicles to a roadside store for a hot cup of coffee. From there, Tom went to work and I headed back over the mountain through Bridgewater, Morris, Woodbury, et cetera.

The intellectual stimulation of last night's conversation still was heavy in my thoughts. The mountains were covered by a very heavy but scenic fog. The mist formed fountains from the mountain tops. Splendid. The action in the hills was like the pronunciation of what my soul was doing this morning. Things were so much clearer than they had been yesterday. Individuality was raining down upon me and it felt like freedom but I could not understand it. I was full of fire and creativity. The road was nearby and I could feel it and yet not know what it was. It was a call that I would become all too familiar with for the rest of my life.

I arrived home in Waterbury to write a piece called "Fountains in the Mountains." It was nowhere as stupid as its name and although it no longer exists, seems in my memory to be somewhat like "Taking What is at Hand" a piece I wrote on March 4, 1985, the day of the fateful Dodge Space-Time Disaster. I was certainly buried in the depths of winter. Things became in the winter, how should I say, "Heavy". My thought process was always so deep at this time of year. Sometimes I write a lot about one thing alone, Time. Time was my best friend and my arch-enemy. The following pieces of the work called "I Can't Hide" show all too well what I was thinking of too often...

Everything passes by slowly.

There is too much wasted time.

Even when we are awake there is no sunshine.

I can't hide from the stars in the sky.

They bring me back to the summer night sky.

I can't hide from the clock in the cupboard.

I can't hide from the calendar behind the closet door.

Reaching out for you I am shot and dead.

Just the same as yesterday, so many had to pay.

I can't hide from the bitter cold.

I can't hide from getting so old.

Everything is a mess. You will never get home.

So you can't feel sorry, you've got to make it alone.

On and on it went not only here but throughout my life. A formidable struggle with time. It took me many years to realize my struggle with time is no coincidence. It would seem that I am very conscious of its binding down restraint on things I somehow already am aware of. In the previous piece, I am convinced that since I am writing so emotionally about something so unlike what was happening to me in January of 1984 I am actually writing about future events in my life. The parallels are too startling to ignore. There is something about the confines of winter that brings the weight of existence down upon you like nothing else can. I compare this to the weight of mortality during a fierce mid-summer night electrical storm. There are some things in this world that were put there to make us feel small.

It was during this time in January that a strange alliance took place between me and my friend's ex-girlfriend Kathy. Scott and I kind of drifted apart right after New Year because although he and I were hired together in September at Toys R Us, he was laid off with all of the Christmas help that was hired, but my job in maintenance was not seasonal. I know he did not blame me, but he wasn't happy about it either.

Kathy was attractive and fun to be around. She was not like the typical Waterbury type that I chose to stay away from through high school. I began giving her rides home along with her friend Debbie. Nothing special. It was something that happened naturally. We quickly considered each other friends.

I had even talked with Kathy about the possibility of dating Debbie but Debbie was involved at the time. Debbie too was different. Debbie however, did not happen. Kathy and I would continue to spend plenty of time together each day.

My parent's weekend away came and I invited Tom up for the weekend to hang out with me and to go to Cheapskate Records with me. In a conversation on Friday night Tom and I decided that he and I would cruise over to Kathy's house and play a joke on her and tell her that Tom's car, his hot-looking 77 red and white Nova was mine, and that this would be what we would be riding in each day. At its conception, this idea seemed really great. 

 We drove all around for three-quarters of an hour. Suddenly it was time to return to Kathy's house and I realized that this was not a joke at all, or perhaps a stupid one. I had to tell her the truth and when I did, she looked quite stunned. She took it well, but inside I thought of how she must think I'm some sort of idiot. We left and I could not shake my feeling of screeching guilt. Tom was empathetic too. I think in the beginning he thought it was a lighthearted prank as did I and now he felt bad for me because he knew I liked Kathy.

Cheapskate Records was a hole in the wall, second floor, one small room outlet where extraordinary treasures in record albums could be found. There was plenty of Lennon and McCartney stuff there which is what drew us into this quaint establishment. The moldy carpets would fill the senses as you walked into the Bank Street business but the quest upon which commenced at this threshold was splendid. If you told this guy who ran the place that you wanted to hear a reggae song recorded by Dean Martin, Julie Andrews, and Ozzy Osbourne in Bangladesh, this boy could come up with it.

Tom and I found some great treasures and brought them back to my house where we played them. Tom decided that he was going to go home a day early. I really did not want him to leave but there was nothing that was going to change the mood now. He had to work Sunday night at Eleven PM and I could not blame him for wanting to be rested for that. I told Tom before he left that I was going to call Kathy and maybe pick her up and make it up to her. Tom told me that he thought this would be a good idea.

Kathy was gracious on the phone and made me feel that what I did was not so bad after all, even though I knew it was. I drove over to her house and picked her up. We cruised around the western side of Waterbury and headed towards Bristol. We went down the darkened Old Waterbury Road. Kathy and I talked and talked. It seemed that we could talk about anything at all. She really opened up to me telling me things that most girls would not tell a guy.

On the way back to Waterbury, Kathy wanted to drive. She did not have a license yet but I let her anyway. We were doing well until an oncoming car with its brights on blinded her and we came within centimeters of the guard rails by the dam. I yelled, "Hey!" In reality, I was yelling at Kathy but it actually appeared, (and quite smoothly I might add) that I was yelling at the other car with the bright lights so rudely left on. This left Kathy at ease and my knee-jerk reaction was nicely camouflaged.

On this mild February night, Kathy and I found that we were quite comfortable with each other. The evening ended at around 11 PM and as she got out of the Dodge she told me to stop by tomorrow if I wanted to.

The following day I picked Kathy up and we drove all over the place talking all the way. Kathy was a big Journey fan. Steve Perry was her idol. John Lennon was mine. We were very different despite our ability to communicate. Kathy loved to drive.  We got into this habit where she would sit right next to me and she would steer. This may sound odd but it became a very common thing for us to do. We did have a lot of good times. We spent every day together during the February Vacation. The days were unseasonably warm. We even hit 70 degrees a day or two. The world felt alive and spring just had to be coming early.

The weekend came and I had to work at Toys R Us all day Saturday. On Sunday I picked up Kathy and headed west over the mountains through Woodbury Washington and Bridgewater. I told her it was a secret where I was taking her. We drove all of the way to Tom's house but he was not there. We drove back late that afternoon. We talked even more about deeper subjects, she looked at me, "Boy, are you ever different", she told me as we talked about very personal stuff.

Being 18, there was a part of me that screamed inside, 'You are in the friend zone stupid!"  I wondered to myself why couldn't I just be normal! I find it interesting though that in the 80's there seemed to be an unwritten requirement inside a male that said if you were hanging out with a girl, there should be more.  She was cute. She was the kind girl who rocked a Journey t-shirt, designer jeans, and white sneakers. In stereotypical 80's movie style, she would knock me off my feet if she opened the door in a beautiful dress. It was her.  Being able to relate to females the way that I could seem to be a burden at times. I was raised around so many women, I understood them much more than most males my age. But Kathy and I were friends.  It came so naturally, and I am glad it did.  It was what we were best at for each other.  I remember her with fondness as she does with me.  A couple of years ago, we had a conversation over social media 37 years after last seeing each other.  I told her, "Every time I hear a Journey song, I think of you." She countered, "Every time I hear a Beatles song, I think of you."

We arrived back in Waterbury and I took Kathy home. Kathy said to me, "You know that I'm moving to Oklahoma City in a couple of months, you should stop down and see me on your way to Texas ." "Sounds great," I told her. An event on the Will Rogers Turnpike in June would make this not possible.

1984 Chapter 3 On a Cold Winter Night

 Chapter three

On a cold winter night

It is strange how sometimes a seemingly insignificant event can change the course of your life.  In late January, my mother and stepdad invited a work friend over for a social get-together on a Saturday night. Her name was Sherry and she was 31 years old. She arrived with her two sons and it was a lively night with everyone getting to know each other. The evening began with dinner and worked downstairs into the recreation room to the bar. Music played all night conversations floated around the table. We drank beer and smoked cigarettes into the early morning.

Like it always did, writing came up in conversation, especially when you are asked by someone about what you intend to do with your life.  I was 18 and this was a question everyone asks 18-year-olds. I was excited when Sherry revealed that she had gone to school for writing.  In 1984 11 years before my first dalliance with the "information super highway" I felt like I had struck gold!  I had a million questions!  I wanted to absorb every word of wisdom that she was willing to share.  As the night progressed, this became the main theme of the conversation. I was definitely older than my age and Sherry clearly saw it. I was well-read and could hold my own in any age group respectively.

Midnight had passed and it was time for Sherry and her two sons to go back to Naugatuck where they lived. It was suggested that since she had something to drink I would follow her home. Looking back on this, it was a useless exercise.   It started out OK, I led the way. I understood the plan to be we would stay out of normally high police-patrolled areas. 1984 was a different time altogether.  As I look back on this rationale I am in awe of the ignorance.

I proceeded to yield over onto Watertown Avenue, but it immediately went bad and she continued straight right onto Route 8 a state highway resembling an interstate. I stomped on the accelerator and tried to loop back to the east to change course. Unfortunately, I lost her car somewhere. I headed towards Naugatuck. I really had no idea what I was doing. This mission was one of those things that one just falls into for being a nice guy. Somehow, however, I had messed it up.

I got into the area where some camping friends lived in Naugatuck. I went to a pay phone and called home. My stepfather said Sherry called from home with directions to her house. Getting lost may have confused someone who might have had me under surveillance at the time, but getting lost may not have deterred such a person if there was really one. I knew nothing of this in that time and place, unfortunately, it was really happening.

Sherry lived in an apartment complex that I found easily with directions. We sat down at the kitchen table and she made breakfast. Sherry was thirty-one years old. She was intelligent. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a hardness about her, there was no doubt she worked hard and had a tough time somewhere, or everywhere along the way.  

Sherry had a lot of advice about what I should be doing if I chose to take writing as a career. She was extremely direct. Her conversation with me had all of the feelings of a mentor, a teacher, even a strict aunt if you will. Our conversations could be described as philosophical and not personal, which put me at ease. At about five AM I left with two of Sherry's writing textbooks and a healthy complement of good advice which I would not practice for many years to come.

The ride home was easy. Music played as it always should in my vehicle and I was pleased to hold the conversations with this trained writer, who, yes worked in a factory, but still, went to college to write. The road, a small strip of Route 8 between Naugatuck and Waterbury was easy. The road was always sweet to me.

I stopped in to see Sherry one afternoon in February. This time I took over some of my writing. She more than gave me honest opinions of them. She called me out on statements I made.  That was different for me.  Usually, readers would just say, "Oh you are so talented...way with words...blah, blah, blah.  Not Sherry, she interrogated me and virtually slapped me around, demanding an explanation for my abstract charges on life, age, and wisdom.  It was foreign to me and exciting as well.

 At this point in my life, writing came so naturally. I confess that I wrote so often that there was more quantity than quality. Sherry's observations reflected that, although by no means was she critical. The more we talked I saw more of that struggle on her face, she had not had it easy, perhaps even recently.  She had just ended a very turbulent relationship. I learned that her ex-boyfriend was for lack of better words, psychotic. I did not see Sherry again after this visit. I had no idea then, but this simple encounter would drastically change my life. There was just no way to see what was around the bend.

1984 Chapter 2: Lennon's Last Album is a Gem

 Chapter Three

"Lennon's last album is a gem"

As expected, John Lennon's final album was released in January 1984. It was a beautiful piece of work. It showed everyone that had John lived, he would be putting out some of his most profound work ever. There were critics who looked at this and 1980 Double Fantasy differently, but let’s face it, when you take a man with superhuman creativity and allow him to step back from the limelight and be content with who he is, stand back. These compositions made declarations of this and once stated, there was no telling what amazingness lay ahead. The 1980's would have belonged to him. 

Only hours before John was killed, he was asked what he saw ahead for popular music and was disco on its way to finally dying.  He replied that disco was not going to die, but that it would actually mix into the rock and roll of the day and become a part of it.  If this wasn’t a perfect definition of what popular music of the 80s was, I don’t know what is.  There was really no better way to describe popular music in the 1980s.

Some may find it foolish that I start a chapter based on the former Beatles album release but at this point in my life, I was really obsessed with John Lennon. I think it took me 40 years to realize though that this was completely something other than simple obsession.  There were components of this person that really spoke to me at various points in my life. I myself have told the more current generation that had it not been for Lennon/McCartney, we'd still be listening to crap like Tears on My Pillow.

The Milk and Honey album made everything seem incredible to me. It was an album of vast maturity, I thought. Song after song, it delivered John’s trademark honesty but with incredible contentment and humility. The album brought on a brighter side to my normally gloomy winter disposition. It had a certain effect on me. January is deep within the dark caverns of winter. Nothing can really just yank me right out of its grip. The new album however created enough light to have a nulling effect on the usual gravity of January.

I think nothing said it so well as a piece I wrote while on my lunch break, sitting in my Dodge in the parking lot of Toys R Us. I was listening to the John Lennon song Nobody Told Me. I watched people walking in and out of stores and getting into and out of their cars. I marveled at how this scene played so well with the music. I used to write a lot back then. I wrote a piece called “Face Up To It”. It was a reflection of how this song played as a soundtrack for what I was watching in the parking lot. Largely a forgettable composition, I felt that it ended on a high note with the simple phrase: “No longer happy, no longer sad.” It would seem that John had somehow nullified my January depression and teenage angst. It happened on this day Saturday, January 28th, 1984. Now many years later of course I know that in 24 short months from this moment, Challeger will fall from the sky. There is no way to not mention it. It is one of those fixed points in time.

1984 Chapter 1 Promises in the Dark

 1984

By Mike Jackson

As time goes by I am finding myself in fear that I will somehow forget the things that made me who I am. The experiences that came and went over the years are quite rich, but what could I do should I somehow no longer remember them? To prevent this perhaps, far-fetched idea, I write to make sure that my experience carries on. Writing is my child. My writing child carries my thoughts and experiences beyond my mortal existence. It is my mark, however insignificant, on the world.

Speaking of insignificant, there was a time in my life when I was sure that I would not be just a face in the crowd. I was eighteen years old. Eighteen is a magic age, and 1984 was a magic time. George Orwell had hyped 1984 as did Van Halen that year. 1984 was a year in which I was truly coming of age and it is because of those growing pains that I must reflect on it so fondly.

Chapter one

Promises in the dark

I awoke around ten o'clock on the morning of January 1st, 1984. My laser blue bedroom in the basement was dimly lit by a small amount of light coming through the narrow basement-style window by the ceiling. I drank quite a bit last night. It was a good time, lots of family and friends. Mom and my stepfather had a get-together in our basement rec. the room that was right next to my bedroom. Despite the good company, I could feel the anchor of doom in my stomach. This was a trademark sign that I had said something that I was probably not sincere about last night while under the influence. There was no mistaking this feeling, I am never wrong about it. Foggy memories of last night began to float in. Oh yes, now I remembered.

Brian was at the party last night. He was a very good friend of mine. He had been like a father figure to me for the 2 years that I dated Margie from 1979 to 1981. I finally broke up with Margie in October of 1981 when I realized that I was looking forward to hanging out with Brian. He reminded me of my father in many ways. I was not intentionally doing it and the moment I realized it, I was torn apart inside because I really cared for Margie and more importantly, I respected her far too much to not be honest and end our relationship.  In a very painful two-plus hour phone call, I ended it. 

 In the months and years to come, Brian and Louise, Margie's Mom, remained friends with my Mother and stepfather. It was at this New Year's Eve party that gave Brian and I a chance to talk like we had not in years. Brian and I went to his house to get some music to liven up the party. We had already had a few beers and I was feeling very good. Brian and I got onto the subject of Margie, who was now married. "He won't even buy her a decent coat," Brian said as we were driving to his house. I missed Brian. I missed these talks. I felt bad for Margie, we had some awesome times. "If I could go back in time," I told Brian, "I would have done things differently," I told Brian that had I married her I would certainly be more ambitious than the way Brian described this guy. I must admit, I was on a roll. I was not trying to deceive Brian, I really only felt bad for Margie whom I shared a good couple of years together. I felt she deserved better. I had no understanding of it yet, but I really wanted to rescue her from this, and with the influence of alcohol, I certainly thought that I could. I am sure that Brian thought it was touching that I was telling him this, but useless.

The Shaffer worked its way into these thoughts. It was time to introduce Joe Jackson to his son again. I sat at my table, gentle summer humidity blowing in with a strong hint of pine, and wrote my Dad an eighteen-page letter telling him how things had gone since he and Mom had divorced in 1976. I also told him about my views and prospects in life. I found that the influence of alcohol did wonders for the letter writing abilities. Seeds of a great plan were planted here, for in this letter I mentioned to Dad that next summer I might like to come down to Texas. I mailed the letter and continued on with my summer' end.

Sitting there on the edge of my bed in the morning thinking about the night before, I knew Brian would think no less of me today, yet guilt was all over me because I said these things, and if you were to call me out right then and there, now that would have been something. To this day I wonder if Brian ever told her any of what I said. That was really my biggest worry because I had done the tough task 3 years earlier to show honor to her, and here after a few beers honor gets thrown out the window?  It really bothered me. 

 I coached myself internally insisting that there was nothing I could do about my stupid mouth last night, especially when it happened before a man of quiet integrity as Brian was. It was time to move ahead, despite its beginning, 1984 was going to be a fantastic year.

Last September while I was up at Lone Oak Campgrounds, I decided that right after I graduated, I was going to Texas. I was really excited about it. Only six more months now! As time went by from 1979 in junior high school at Memorial Boulevard School in Bristol, teachers warned me that it was important to know what I was going to do for a career. I decided to ignore it completely, with the slight exception of considering possibly (but not seriously) writing or even working for radio broadcasting. I went through three years of high school aimlessly. I lived to return to Lone Oak Campgrounds where all of my friends would once again join me on some warm day. That was all that it was about. One afternoon at Lone Oak changed something though. I put back a few Shaffer long necks that sat in my small trailer refrigerator one day after a long day at work. My trailer was exceptionally quiet that day. It was late August and summer was winding down. As a matter of fact, the best summer of my life was winding down. I had just lived on my own in my travel trailer without the aid of my parents all summer. I came and went as I chose and did all necessary tasks as I should. I was pondering the fact that three years ago, Joe Jackson packed up his 1970 Ford van and headed for Texas and left behind a fourteen-year-old son. I was a completely different person now. Sadly, my Dad was practically imaginary now after so much time had passed. Aside from a few telephone calls, we had no relationship.

In October, I went to visit my Grandmother Jackson in Bristol after returning to reality for school. She had spoken to Dad on the phone and he said anytime I wanted, I was welcome. Years without a plan ended. For the first time ever, I had a plan! I was moving to Texas in 84. Had no idea what I would do for work or career once I got there but I was going for sure!

The facade of summer

 There is a time of great forgiveness. A time in which it is deemed the hard times are over. The power of the sun makes us second guess the dark and uncertain of our overall existence.

A common saying, to “ make hay while the sun shines” is more profound than it may seem. It is real courage and real power to do what must be done because incredible imbalance awaits. To be a person who sees it all is a great gift.

I’ve been through 4 completely different lives now and can honestly say I have walked both sides of the barrier. The scars, even though they are scars, in latter years have graduated to trophies. It is odd how much chaos can fortify you and bring peace in a world losing its gravity.

Like a fiery aircraft landing in a jungle, the destination will come. All of the days struggling and all the days coasting, they suddenly make sense, like geometric calculation. I would like to say I always knew, but really, no one could. But in my heart, there was something, yet, I could never imagine.  You just know.

Monday morning coming down

 Into the night, a life unexpected unravels into adventure and task. It takes all and provides intense journeys into reward, fatigue, peaks of mountains, and depths of valleys, all too opposite of the life that supports it all. 

In the name of need, advancement, and recreation, a few short days provide an alternate existence. In the big picture, it is supposed to help the overall goals and daily life, but when Monday arrives, it does not feel like that. It is a changing of gears that seems incredibly impossible.

It is a sudden drop into an ice bath after a warm heated blanket. It is a change in velocity, light, sound, and genre. It is a bitter pill to take, but take it I must.

Makes me wonder if it is supposed to be that way.

There is a war Part 3

 All of my love by Led Zepplin plays in the background as I sit, sipping perfect coffee in front of the campfire after a rainy night. It was 1979. My 14-year-old innocence unsuspecting of the daring moves ahead to remove me from my cloud-like nativity.  That power that pulls a young person into the complex fourth dimension of existence. It is a detour that one’s older self would tell the younger one to avoid at all costs. 

It still rages on. There is a war indeed. Now that I am older, I watch my own sons take the detour. I know it’s power. I know the conviction of the heart of a young man to act as a human shield. Is it a right of passage? Is it a gauntlet that files down the rough edges of our souls? Is it better or is it worse?

But it’s all a mystery when you find you’re still on the road.