Memoirs

John Marshal High School had an “open campus” in those days. The school day wasn’t quite as free of a scheduling system as the brand new and modern modular scheduling we’d experienced in Junior High, but it was pretty liberal. We could come and go from the school grounds as we pleased, as long as [...]

It's mid-afternoon on a Saturday in December, 1976... my senior year at John Marshal High School in my home town of Rochester, Minnesota. I'm driving to school and I need to pick up Nancy on the way. I don't know why I agreed to do this, but then I never know why I do anything [...]

Yes, my dad was a good man. Yes, I loved and respected him. Yes, I didn't want to disappoint him. Yes, I lied to him without thinking twice when I felt I needed to. Well... I thought twice when the second thought was to come up with a better lie. I don't think I'm alone [...]

The older I get, the more I have been enjoying the small, subtle ways I can see how I am very much like my Dad. ---------------------------------------------- I do so love the memory of my Dad. And not only the obviously admirable stuff. My adult self now, can see and really appreciate the things I share [...]

It's a lovely autumn morning. A cool breeze greats me as I begin to wake, only to be jolted into full consciousness by the loud  quacking of "Daphne" our new pet duck. She was given to us by friends of the family. IBMer's who live in the IBM owned burbs of Rochester. They only realized [...]

Dad looked at me with an intensity I rarely saw at all, much less experienced anything like it being directed at me. His anger hit me like the solid punch in the face I would only be on the receiving end of twice in my life, and of course never from him. I never experienced [...]

” …if you can get that old junker to run, it’s yours. You can do whatever you want with it. I’ll pay to get it licensed and I’ll even pay for the insurance, and then you’ll have a car to drive all winter.” -------------------------------------------------------- I do so love the memory of my Dad. Looking back, [...]

I’d been saving for a while and although I would soon get my permit, It would be some time yet before I had my license. Danny reminded me that I could drive a motorcycle right away with just the permit. ----------------------------------------- What I didn't mention in yesterday's post is that when Dad found out I'd [...]

That old Belvedere I wrote about in Thursday's post didn't last long at all. It had been so neglected, the thing was practically dead on arrival at our place. I got to drive it around the yard a bit though and got to hear what a car sounds like in that condition... clunking, coughing, sputtering and [...]

Ok... the topic for the moment is "cars and dreams" so... here are a few dream experiences from those days of my first car experiences. I remember two distinctly. They were reoccurring dreams. Remember, I was fourteen. First is a dream in which my entire family is killed in a car crash. I inherit the [...]