I think I moved into my Dad's place during the school year. I should point out that up until now, I was used to having my own room and no siblings to have to share with. This was going to be a new concept for me. I would be sharing a bedroom now with my step brother Ray. The room had seperate entry door to from the outside. The bedroom had all ( Read more... )

I thought I had been handed down what would be my life sentence. No band and now I was sure everyone had heard about my latest blunder. I lost all interest in everything. I was basically a C average student to begin with. Math and Science were my absolute worst subjects. I had always hated Gym class, because I wasn't interested in sports at all. I ( Read more... )

Al grew tired of the gas station business. When you have a franchise type business, you are still beholding to the corporate name and all the bullshit that they dish out. On top of that you have competition from other guys with franchises, and now even the Blue Chip Stamp people were thinking their shit didn't stink either ( Read more... )

I started going to Junior High School. This was sort of the three year transitional thing before high school. Here you had a homeroom, and different rooms and teachers for each subject. You also still had the "A" and "B" classification before the grade you were in. The first year took some getting used to. You had a gym class, and you took showers ( Read more... )

My dad and stepmother moved nearby into this large new gated apartment complex that was across the street from one of the main shopping centers in town. It was big boring place. They had a big pool and a big grass field, but beyond that, there really wasn't anything to do there. At some point the phone company sent him to work up in Sacramento for ( Read more... )

Now that the pool was in, it was time for me to learn about life in the so called real world. I was 12, and needed to learn some responsiblilty, so I went to work at Al's Shell station. This was actually one of the best learning experiences I had growing up. This would have been around 1967 I believe. I can't remember if I started working there ( Read more... )

At this point I can't recall which order this all happened in, but I'm going to guess the pool came first. Al new about landscaping, and one of the many jobs he had in his life was building swimming pools, and now it was time to put in a swimming pool. I was glad to have anything that would replace me having to pull weeds, or so I thought. There ( Read more... )

I don't know if it was the expense, or the less than the bang for the educational dollar that was the reason for me being taken out of Christian school, but by 5th grade I was back in public school. The school was up the street from my grandparent's house. I knew about a third of the kids in my class, because they all lived and played on my ( Read more... )

First grade showed me I couldn't read, write or do arithmatic. Summer came, and since my mom had to work during the day, she needed to put me someplace. At the time, she and my Grandmother were still on the outs. So she put me into a Jewish day camp. We weren't Jewish, and nobody in my family was. Being Jewish wasn't a requirement for belonging to ( Read more... )

Since both of my parents had jobs, I stayed with a babysitter on the weekdays. This was going on before and after the divorce. My mom tells me about one woman I used to stay with at the beginning, and I guess I vaguely remember her. The one I do remember was a woman named Pauline. I don't recall her husband's name, but they had two older kids, and ( Read more... )