Chapter 2

School started up and we would make the walk up our street and over a couple of blocks to St. Lukes. It was a nice school with a large playground and decent ventilation in the spring and fall.

A couple of weeks into the school year and the girl scross the street, Fran, would sometimes be waiting to walk with me to school. We would chat and discuss our favorite teachers, and the classes we liked.

At one point she started offering me her snack, or an extra, as we trotted up the hill to our school. It became a daily ritual for her to smile at me and ask if I would like a snack for lunch. Do you think I realized what she was doing? Do you think I knew she had a crush on me? Hah! I was clueless and only now, looking back, can I say that my reaction at the time was: "you can't like me. You really do not like me. I'm not likable."

And I never offered any encouragement in any manner and we drifted apart not long after.

School really became boring to me. We were covering many topics that I already knew. It was evident in my A's on quizzes and tests. I never spoke up. I never showed anyone all the doodling I was doing in most of my classes. It was my norm.

I turned 11 in January of 1970. I am sitting here and do not have any recollection of Christmas that year. Nor New Years. Oops. Wait. I just recalled my first ever Western Guitar. I got it from Santa. Wink wink. My sister was still only 6, and wouldn't be 7 for a few months. I don't even know if I still believed. Was that shattered "fantasy" already done in for me?

My grandad was the custodian at the school. I can recall helping him mopping up the floors in all my classes. I can picture us changing out light bulbs in the overhead lights. I can remember him taking me with him to pick up supplies. He had this battle tank of a 1965 Chevy. It was black. It was automatic. It did not have power steering. And yet he made it look so easy to drive that monster.

While we are on cars. My aunt, who lived with my grandparents, had a 1968 AMC Javelin. My brother and I would inherit that when she purchased a Volvo in a few years. I think we both ended up driving that car until its last gasping breath. That was sometime in 1980. But I have jumped ahead once more. Sorry. The mind plays games.

I think I nearly got killed that year. This would be my first brush with death. I was walking to school and, if I had been running late, the gigantic (and heavy looking) tree branch that fell about 5 seconds after I passed that spot on the sidewalk would have surely flattened me. We had received an ice storm the night before that. I think it was February at that point.

Not very long after that my brother borrowed some cigarettes from one of the smokers in the house. At that time only my grandmother had never acquired the habit. We went to the local playground and lit them up. I can remember coughing my head off and getting a horrible headache. I swore I would never smoke. How could people get any enjoyment out of this nasty thing?!