Tuesday, December 22, 2009
WayneR's "Rant of the Day"
Let's see, everyone in Rhode Island would like to see the Obama Administration visit Rhode Island, everyone but the Firemen and Police?? What's that about ??
Twelve Steps To Marriage (Step 5)
STEP 5 QUITERRIA
So it's the fall now and I am at the University of Massachusettes @ Amherst..........and compared to where I have been this place is heaven! I've gotten a $2500 PELL Grant, some work study and my father is coughing up tuition.
I am sharing an apartment in Sunderland, at the end of the bus line.......My roommate is a guy I met at Berkshire Community College.......we were in some Chemistry courses together and became freindly. I called him the Buddy....and he calls me the same........
we pretty much had it made.....at least I thought we did......With our Associates Degrees we were starting at the halfway point.....I was now a Bio-Chem Major and it looked like I just might Graduate from a decent Four Year College after all. Mark was a very smart guy.......even though he was from Pittsfield........ He had a photographic memory........ which would allow Mark to pontificate on any subject matter what-so-ever even when he had no idea what he was talking about ............
Later it turns out Mark is basically "Full Of Shit " all the time! ....as I would find out increasingly over the course of our year living together.....
So I'm taking a full load of courses....Calculus , Organic Chemistry , Biology, Bio-Chemistry and for some odd reason "German", which I had taken in High School. But I am not a totally dedicated student. With 25,000 students there were a lot of distractions about.......I found mine after about three days wanderring around the campus......
I was in the basement of the Union somewhere and I stumbled upon the offices of the school newspaper "The Daily Collegian". They were looking for photo techs who owned their own cameras......... I walked in and was offerred a job photographing some professor who had just written a book...after that photographing some Fraternities........I caught Hell for show casing a Black Fraternity instead of a White Fraternity that had raised the most money during a Cancer Dance-a-Thon......I photographed Jerry Garcia, Holly Near, Dexter Gordon, and most memorably "The bare assed "Dancers from the Kingdom of Bhouton"
I was offerred the responsibilities of editing the paper's photographs one day per week. It meant I spent 4-5 hours every Thursday night helping put the paper together for Friday's edition. I couldn't wait to get my copy of the Collegian on Friday mornings.......It was great to see my photos in Print......I was taught the three
essential requirements for a good photo journalism, the three B's Baby's, Beasts, and Babes......
It was however the 1980's......and the University was sporting a very strong Women's Movement.....almost to the exclusion of men....... I mean it was much to difficult to hook up at the time.......it seemed like all the women I was attracted to were turning out to be lesbians......one after the other.......not that there is anything wrong with that.........but I went two whole semester barely registerring with the opposite sex.........
So while I was doing Great with my involvement as a photo tech in the school newspaper, and I was attending all of my classes, my grades were not so good. I liked my courses and all but I was taking some serious courses, that required some serious studying and well I was never a real serious student, not for very long anyway ....... After two semesters I summarily flunked out of college again and went back to spend another summer as a maintenance manager at camp "Johnny Appleseed" in Vermont.
I had to spend a mandatory semester off in order to return to the University....so I stayed at the Camp after the Summer...got a job working with some real Vermont carpenters ....I mean the guy's name was "Bud Carpenter"......building Pole Barns for "AGWAY" until the snow fell.......then I did my best to clean up the camp and prepare for the coming Winter.....I had been warned it would be rough!
It was fun for a while.....The horses hadn't been picked up yet and I got to ride them around a bit.... I had a couple of goats to milk ....and at least a dozen chickens.....and there was the pond, the sailboats, canoes, row boats, and the wonderful solitude of being alone in a cabin on a mountain in middle Vermont. After all I had always callled the place "God's Country"......I had been left the camp truck and I knew of both Middlebury College and the University of Vermont in Burlington......I could always drive up to them and look for companionship....here out in the middle of "nowhere" I wouldn't be having very many visitors!
It all got old very quickly...with all the snow and the cold I became increaseingly isolated at the Camp......I was heating with fire wood and I could not afford to let the temperture drop very much or my water pipes might freeze.......so I could never really leave the cabin for more than twelve hours......
Somewhere in late November I ran out of money, food, and firewood. I was determined to make it thru my first Vermont winter so I just dug in.....after all I had total access to 160 acres of farm and woodlands ..... There was a Mountain Pass Overlook in Middlebury where when anyone drove up to it with a load of firewood the locals would know you were in trouble and someone would help out by buying that firewood. It was for if things got real bad.......I decided I neded to sell some firewood and that's how I met Raymond.
Well before I know it it is 10 degrees out , there is two feet of snow on the ground, and I am outside three or four hours a day just cutting firewood for myself and some extra to try and sell on the mountain.....It takes me two hours to cut, split and load the camp pickup truck....it's an hour's drive and takes $10 in gas to get to the Middlebury Mountain Pass and back, and I still have to stack and deliver it...one full truck-load of wood sells for..... get this.......... $20! Like I said that's when I met Raymond.......
Raymond was a well known Middlebury Realtor and took pity on me with my load of firewood......he also took advantage of me and orderred Five truckloads all for $20 a chord! In his late fifties.....Real Estate was a struggle in Vermont...sometimes there were long intervals between checks....but Raymond had enjoyed some success...with an office in Burlington and a home and family in a fancy suburb off lake Champlian, Mallets Bay......he was a likeable guy and most importantly he knew people!
So here my plans to make it thru the winter are falling apart , I am struggling to make a living in the middle of Vermont with scant resources, a lot of pride, an amazing amount of grit........but not knowing anybody I am tremendously isolated.........I sometimes go for days with out speaking to anyone........the animals are gone
with the exception of the chickens.....but even they are disappearing one by one....I wouldn't find out until much later my neighbor's penchant for chicken dinner's..........
anyway ..Raymond takes me to Breakfast one morning at the "Crest Room" at Middlebury College. The
Cafe is open to the public and is the only place where both the locals and school community interact.
A Cheese Omelet with home fries, sausage, wheat toast and coffee is like $3.50.....Raymond seems to know everyone.....He decides for me that I need a better job, and he brings me before the President of Middlebury College at the time , if I remember right he was "Lawrence Rockefeller".......He tells Mr Rockefeller that I deserve and need a job and that is that!
So the next day I am flipping eggs for Middlebury College Dining Services, working in the coolest Cafe with Middlebury College Students and making $8/hour......it's warm as toast inside and I can eat all I want.......and as I am serving the locals, some making their living shoveling snow for the college, or the highway workers out in below zero weather I am tickled pink, that somehow and for some reason ...... Raymond has saved me !
I'm commuting twenty miles to work every day but this is the best job around....I am getting fed as much as I can eat, and I am making friends with the faculty, staff and students who come to the Cafe for breakfast and lunch...one Professor invites me to his class on Contemporary American Films....I get to see every film John Cassavettes has ever made....I'm not a student but I am being treated as one.......
That's when I decide to cut my winter short and that it's time to go back to the University of Massachusetts @ Amherst as soon as possible......while in Vermont I had aquired a large Chevy Van a model C-20 with a staight six cyclinder engine. Basically a large Bread Truck, like a UPS Van. I put a double bed inside suspended by rows of plastic milk cartons filled with books.....I wired it with lights and electric outlets.....
I cut a hole in the floor and one in a side panel to vent a small woodstove I would be using to heat the van with. I hadn't made alot of money during the winter and my plan to save money was to sleep in the Van for one semester. I figured to park it in the school parking lots or a friends driveway, eat out with the money I was saving from not paying rent, try to find somewhere on the campus to take showers and then just plug-in for the day or night! ........and...........whenever I went somewhere I would't have to unpack as everything I owned in the world was with me in the Van!
I am getting to Quiterria.............
So like I say it's the 1980's and there is this very strong feminine empowerment movement going on
at the college.....and some of it seems to be at the men's expense.....there were no White Male impowerment groups at the time.....after all we supposedly would be ruling the roost....no one seemed too concerned with White Male developement or empowerment..........
I am enjoying my classes......especially Bio-Chemistry which I ACE! I don't do so well in Mr Robinson's
Graduate Level Bio-Chem Lab though, barely eeking out a C......But My Organic Chemistry Classes are FANTASTIC and for the first time im memory I am excited by my teachers.....these guys are brilliant,
and it became a real honor just to listen to them lecture......even if I couldn't recite back every reaction they taught, like my roommate with the photographic memory.......I learned about Bio-Chemical Pathways, Acid/ Base Reactions, In class I was re-taught the three B's....the "Basic , Building, Blocks" of life, Molecular and Cellular Biology of life....of plant life, animal life, the evolution of human life.......I learned to seperate proteins,
using electro magnetic techniques, and centrifuge......I learned the differnece between an NMR and an MRI.
Before I knew it the Spring was over and it was time to go back to Johnny Appleseed Camp one more time again......I had been using the Van to move people after the semester ended.....The ads said "Man with Van" It was Good Money.... and my Van was Huge! I took some friends from Bio-Chem Class to their new gig in Boston......one was moving into Cambridge with her new boyfriend, a Harvard Professor......she had a friend with her, an exchange student from Humbolt College in Northern California........Quiterria Perrera...an exceptionally talented Chemist on a fellowship.... of Portuguese descent.....dark eyes, dark skin, long dark hair...and a curiosity and vivaciousness that would not only see her hooking up with me to spend the night and weekend but also would allow me to convince her to come to Vermont and spend her Summer at Johnny Appleseed Camp in Vermont with me.
Quiterria was a breath of fresh air.......her western attitudes, her laid back view, her inate incredibly patient understanding of herself and her relation to others......we were destined to meet...and to explore one and another.....and we spent about a month living together at Camp in a tent in the woods. I resumed my job
as Maintenance Manager and Quiterria was a counselor.....with a bunk of kids......and she did not like it....
she clashed with the Camp Director Dianna..........and it was soon time to go.......
We had become pretty intimate in that one month at the Camp.....We could almost see a future ahead
of us......but not in Vermont....and Quiterria had to go back home to California ....where there might still be someone.....we stayed in touch for quite a while....and again I went to visit an ex-lover in a far away city ...only to come back at a loss and empty handed......
It wouldn't matter, I had spoken to an old friend from home....he was working for the New York City Commissioner of Traffic, Sam Schwartz....and he had a job for me.....it started only as a spotter counting cars and traffic patterns at $8 an hour....but it could and did lead onto bigger and better things.....
moving to New York City was one of them!
So it's the fall now and I am at the University of Massachusettes @ Amherst..........and compared to where I have been this place is heaven! I've gotten a $2500 PELL Grant, some work study and my father is coughing up tuition.
I am sharing an apartment in Sunderland, at the end of the bus line.......My roommate is a guy I met at Berkshire Community College.......we were in some Chemistry courses together and became freindly. I called him the Buddy....and he calls me the same........
we pretty much had it made.....at least I thought we did......With our Associates Degrees we were starting at the halfway point.....I was now a Bio-Chem Major and it looked like I just might Graduate from a decent Four Year College after all. Mark was a very smart guy.......even though he was from Pittsfield........ He had a photographic memory........ which would allow Mark to pontificate on any subject matter what-so-ever even when he had no idea what he was talking about ............
Later it turns out Mark is basically "Full Of Shit " all the time! ....as I would find out increasingly over the course of our year living together.....
So I'm taking a full load of courses....Calculus , Organic Chemistry , Biology, Bio-Chemistry and for some odd reason "German", which I had taken in High School. But I am not a totally dedicated student. With 25,000 students there were a lot of distractions about.......I found mine after about three days wanderring around the campus......
I was in the basement of the Union somewhere and I stumbled upon the offices of the school newspaper "The Daily Collegian". They were looking for photo techs who owned their own cameras......... I walked in and was offerred a job photographing some professor who had just written a book...after that photographing some Fraternities........I caught Hell for show casing a Black Fraternity instead of a White Fraternity that had raised the most money during a Cancer Dance-a-Thon......I photographed Jerry Garcia, Holly Near, Dexter Gordon, and most memorably "The bare assed "Dancers from the Kingdom of Bhouton"
I was offerred the responsibilities of editing the paper's photographs one day per week. It meant I spent 4-5 hours every Thursday night helping put the paper together for Friday's edition. I couldn't wait to get my copy of the Collegian on Friday mornings.......It was great to see my photos in Print......I was taught the three
essential requirements for a good photo journalism, the three B's Baby's, Beasts, and Babes......
It was however the 1980's......and the University was sporting a very strong Women's Movement.....almost to the exclusion of men....... I mean it was much to difficult to hook up at the time.......it seemed like all the women I was attracted to were turning out to be lesbians......one after the other.......not that there is anything wrong with that.........but I went two whole semester barely registerring with the opposite sex.........
So while I was doing Great with my involvement as a photo tech in the school newspaper, and I was attending all of my classes, my grades were not so good. I liked my courses and all but I was taking some serious courses, that required some serious studying and well I was never a real serious student, not for very long anyway ....... After two semesters I summarily flunked out of college again and went back to spend another summer as a maintenance manager at camp "Johnny Appleseed" in Vermont.
I had to spend a mandatory semester off in order to return to the University....so I stayed at the Camp after the Summer...got a job working with some real Vermont carpenters ....I mean the guy's name was "Bud Carpenter"......building Pole Barns for "AGWAY" until the snow fell.......then I did my best to clean up the camp and prepare for the coming Winter.....I had been warned it would be rough!
It was fun for a while.....The horses hadn't been picked up yet and I got to ride them around a bit.... I had a couple of goats to milk ....and at least a dozen chickens.....and there was the pond, the sailboats, canoes, row boats, and the wonderful solitude of being alone in a cabin on a mountain in middle Vermont. After all I had always callled the place "God's Country"......I had been left the camp truck and I knew of both Middlebury College and the University of Vermont in Burlington......I could always drive up to them and look for companionship....here out in the middle of "nowhere" I wouldn't be having very many visitors!
It all got old very quickly...with all the snow and the cold I became increaseingly isolated at the Camp......I was heating with fire wood and I could not afford to let the temperture drop very much or my water pipes might freeze.......so I could never really leave the cabin for more than twelve hours......
Somewhere in late November I ran out of money, food, and firewood. I was determined to make it thru my first Vermont winter so I just dug in.....after all I had total access to 160 acres of farm and woodlands ..... There was a Mountain Pass Overlook in Middlebury where when anyone drove up to it with a load of firewood the locals would know you were in trouble and someone would help out by buying that firewood. It was for if things got real bad.......I decided I neded to sell some firewood and that's how I met Raymond.
Well before I know it it is 10 degrees out , there is two feet of snow on the ground, and I am outside three or four hours a day just cutting firewood for myself and some extra to try and sell on the mountain.....It takes me two hours to cut, split and load the camp pickup truck....it's an hour's drive and takes $10 in gas to get to the Middlebury Mountain Pass and back, and I still have to stack and deliver it...one full truck-load of wood sells for..... get this.......... $20! Like I said that's when I met Raymond.......
Raymond was a well known Middlebury Realtor and took pity on me with my load of firewood......he also took advantage of me and orderred Five truckloads all for $20 a chord! In his late fifties.....Real Estate was a struggle in Vermont...sometimes there were long intervals between checks....but Raymond had enjoyed some success...with an office in Burlington and a home and family in a fancy suburb off lake Champlian, Mallets Bay......he was a likeable guy and most importantly he knew people!
So here my plans to make it thru the winter are falling apart , I am struggling to make a living in the middle of Vermont with scant resources, a lot of pride, an amazing amount of grit........but not knowing anybody I am tremendously isolated.........I sometimes go for days with out speaking to anyone........the animals are gone
with the exception of the chickens.....but even they are disappearing one by one....I wouldn't find out until much later my neighbor's penchant for chicken dinner's..........
anyway ..Raymond takes me to Breakfast one morning at the "Crest Room" at Middlebury College. The
Cafe is open to the public and is the only place where both the locals and school community interact.
A Cheese Omelet with home fries, sausage, wheat toast and coffee is like $3.50.....Raymond seems to know everyone.....He decides for me that I need a better job, and he brings me before the President of Middlebury College at the time , if I remember right he was "Lawrence Rockefeller".......He tells Mr Rockefeller that I deserve and need a job and that is that!
So the next day I am flipping eggs for Middlebury College Dining Services, working in the coolest Cafe with Middlebury College Students and making $8/hour......it's warm as toast inside and I can eat all I want.......and as I am serving the locals, some making their living shoveling snow for the college, or the highway workers out in below zero weather I am tickled pink, that somehow and for some reason ...... Raymond has saved me !
I'm commuting twenty miles to work every day but this is the best job around....I am getting fed as much as I can eat, and I am making friends with the faculty, staff and students who come to the Cafe for breakfast and lunch...one Professor invites me to his class on Contemporary American Films....I get to see every film John Cassavettes has ever made....I'm not a student but I am being treated as one.......
That's when I decide to cut my winter short and that it's time to go back to the University of Massachusetts @ Amherst as soon as possible......while in Vermont I had aquired a large Chevy Van a model C-20 with a staight six cyclinder engine. Basically a large Bread Truck, like a UPS Van. I put a double bed inside suspended by rows of plastic milk cartons filled with books.....I wired it with lights and electric outlets.....
I cut a hole in the floor and one in a side panel to vent a small woodstove I would be using to heat the van with. I hadn't made alot of money during the winter and my plan to save money was to sleep in the Van for one semester. I figured to park it in the school parking lots or a friends driveway, eat out with the money I was saving from not paying rent, try to find somewhere on the campus to take showers and then just plug-in for the day or night! ........and...........whenever I went somewhere I would't have to unpack as everything I owned in the world was with me in the Van!
I am getting to Quiterria.............
So like I say it's the 1980's and there is this very strong feminine empowerment movement going on
at the college.....and some of it seems to be at the men's expense.....there were no White Male impowerment groups at the time.....after all we supposedly would be ruling the roost....no one seemed too concerned with White Male developement or empowerment..........
I am enjoying my classes......especially Bio-Chemistry which I ACE! I don't do so well in Mr Robinson's
Graduate Level Bio-Chem Lab though, barely eeking out a C......But My Organic Chemistry Classes are FANTASTIC and for the first time im memory I am excited by my teachers.....these guys are brilliant,
and it became a real honor just to listen to them lecture......even if I couldn't recite back every reaction they taught, like my roommate with the photographic memory.......I learned about Bio-Chemical Pathways, Acid/ Base Reactions, In class I was re-taught the three B's....the "Basic , Building, Blocks" of life, Molecular and Cellular Biology of life....of plant life, animal life, the evolution of human life.......I learned to seperate proteins,
using electro magnetic techniques, and centrifuge......I learned the differnece between an NMR and an MRI.
Before I knew it the Spring was over and it was time to go back to Johnny Appleseed Camp one more time again......I had been using the Van to move people after the semester ended.....The ads said "Man with Van" It was Good Money.... and my Van was Huge! I took some friends from Bio-Chem Class to their new gig in Boston......one was moving into Cambridge with her new boyfriend, a Harvard Professor......she had a friend with her, an exchange student from Humbolt College in Northern California........Quiterria Perrera...an exceptionally talented Chemist on a fellowship.... of Portuguese descent.....dark eyes, dark skin, long dark hair...and a curiosity and vivaciousness that would not only see her hooking up with me to spend the night and weekend but also would allow me to convince her to come to Vermont and spend her Summer at Johnny Appleseed Camp in Vermont with me.
Quiterria was a breath of fresh air.......her western attitudes, her laid back view, her inate incredibly patient understanding of herself and her relation to others......we were destined to meet...and to explore one and another.....and we spent about a month living together at Camp in a tent in the woods. I resumed my job
as Maintenance Manager and Quiterria was a counselor.....with a bunk of kids......and she did not like it....
she clashed with the Camp Director Dianna..........and it was soon time to go.......
We had become pretty intimate in that one month at the Camp.....We could almost see a future ahead
of us......but not in Vermont....and Quiterria had to go back home to California ....where there might still be someone.....we stayed in touch for quite a while....and again I went to visit an ex-lover in a far away city ...only to come back at a loss and empty handed......
It wouldn't matter, I had spoken to an old friend from home....he was working for the New York City Commissioner of Traffic, Sam Schwartz....and he had a job for me.....it started only as a spotter counting cars and traffic patterns at $8 an hour....but it could and did lead onto bigger and better things.....
moving to New York City was one of them!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Twelve Steps To Marriage (Step 4)
STEP 4 The Camp Nurse "Gail"
So I'm waiting around for the end of the semester......Pittsfield is well "the Pitts".......and I am dreaming about going to the Universityof Massachusettes@Amherst in the fall.....and I get a suprise visit from an old friend Danny Shornstein from SUNY Geneseo, a fraternal twin in fact, who after three years is finally taking me up on my offer to work with him as a Maintenance Manager at his mother's Summer Camp "Johnny Appleseed" in Brandon Vermont........
I hadn't many plans for the Summer....in fact I had none........so I agreed to go up early to Vermont and once again as part of a "Super Staff" to help open two dozen cabins, two kitchens, an infirmary, administrative office, and to put out the docks, prepare the stables etc....but this time it was for only 150 Staff and Campers, there was plenty of help, and plenty of women....
At the time my friends mother was one of only two female Camp Directors in the American Camping Association. Starting as a small baby sitting operation.....Dianna parlayed her gig into a full sized inter-racial Summer Camp Operation........and she had been doing it for twenty years now........the idea was to give the Camp to her son Dan who had been trained as a song leader and could lead a group of one hundred people in circles like the pied piper, and her daughter Amy who was good at "socializing" and cooking............he would learn to run and manage tthe finances, and deal with the kids, and I would help with the physical plant, the maintenance and daily administration....It was to be a six month a year job forever....and as a surrogate mother Dianna was providing me with what I needed most, emotional support, hard work, and a plan.
Dianna was like three credits short of a PHD......a PHD in Psycho-Analysis.......and she could be very shrewd.....she would have the Staff meet at night and encourage them all "to fuck one another"! And she wasn't kidding....she really believed a Happy Staff would lead to a Happy Camp.........she insisted on weekly encounter groups......she would practice her therapy on all of us, sitting us down in two chairs opposite one another and having us role play the different people in our lives........very "jungian".....
Her son Dan was incredible....he had spent his entire life at camp with his Mom....and he knew how to handle a crowd......he played a sweet guitar and he could lead a sing-along with a crowd of kids or adults around the camp fire like no one I had ever known.......we were as close as brothers can get .........
Well we are into the fifth week of camp and into the month of August before you know it.....some kids
have been getting stung by a bunch of yellow jackets and I notice a large Bee-Hive in a tree above my maintenance shack.
I get a long pole, wrap it with a towel, wire and cover the towel with screening material, soak it in kerosene,
light it and start burning down the Bee-Hive......30 feet in the air.......It's going pretty well and I am thinking
about how smart I am when just then I feel a sting on my left hand.......actually it feels like a dozen stings.
I drop my torch, look down at my hand just into time to see some burning flesh above my thumb go up in smoke. In less time than it takes to shake a stick at a Bee...I have second and third degree burns on 4 square inches of my left hand........I am screaming...........
I run in to the infirmary...........their was a new camp Nurse that month......I hadn't met her yet....I knew she was going through a divorce though, and that she had a kid......I hadn't noticed what a beautiful and attractive woman she was until that moment when she first treated my burnt hand......this woman was a real "farm girl" a natural beauty, with a real warm prescense and just so relaxed........
Johnathan Richman, her EX ,wrote a song about Gail......he just called it "Jeans and a Shirt"..........and I know fully well what he meant when he said..."he always liked her best, just in her jeans and a shirt" .......
Gail was the sexiest women I had ever met.....again 5 or 6 years older..........and we just jelled, I mean we did the "Love Thing" that Summer.......Good Loving .....All the time, Everywhere, In the Shower, In the Infirmary with the Sick Kids, In my Tent, In the Woods, In the Water.........When ever and Where ever we could, we were always fooling around....It was my Summer of "69"....
It took a full month for that burn to heal, and Gail took special care to change the dressing every day....she did such a GREAT JOB that today I can't even hardly see the scar.......
Like all good things....Camp ended soon enough......and as it was still my intention to go to the University of Massachusettes @ Amherst I moved to Sunderland MA......Gail went off to Boston with her son to try and reconnect with her husband Johnathan.....and once again I would go and meet a lover in the city.....and once again it would never be the same ......and we were never able to connect in the way that we had........our window of opportunity was up.......I don't know why we didn't stay together...... we were so happy ......... so attracted to each another....so much in love.......and ............we really liked each other!
So I'm waiting around for the end of the semester......Pittsfield is well "the Pitts".......and I am dreaming about going to the Universityof Massachusettes@Amherst in the fall.....and I get a suprise visit from an old friend Danny Shornstein from SUNY Geneseo, a fraternal twin in fact, who after three years is finally taking me up on my offer to work with him as a Maintenance Manager at his mother's Summer Camp "Johnny Appleseed" in Brandon Vermont........
I hadn't many plans for the Summer....in fact I had none........so I agreed to go up early to Vermont and once again as part of a "Super Staff" to help open two dozen cabins, two kitchens, an infirmary, administrative office, and to put out the docks, prepare the stables etc....but this time it was for only 150 Staff and Campers, there was plenty of help, and plenty of women....
At the time my friends mother was one of only two female Camp Directors in the American Camping Association. Starting as a small baby sitting operation.....Dianna parlayed her gig into a full sized inter-racial Summer Camp Operation........and she had been doing it for twenty years now........the idea was to give the Camp to her son Dan who had been trained as a song leader and could lead a group of one hundred people in circles like the pied piper, and her daughter Amy who was good at "socializing" and cooking............he would learn to run and manage tthe finances, and deal with the kids, and I would help with the physical plant, the maintenance and daily administration....It was to be a six month a year job forever....and as a surrogate mother Dianna was providing me with what I needed most, emotional support, hard work, and a plan.
Dianna was like three credits short of a PHD......a PHD in Psycho-Analysis.......and she could be very shrewd.....she would have the Staff meet at night and encourage them all "to fuck one another"! And she wasn't kidding....she really believed a Happy Staff would lead to a Happy Camp.........she insisted on weekly encounter groups......she would practice her therapy on all of us, sitting us down in two chairs opposite one another and having us role play the different people in our lives........very "jungian".....
Her son Dan was incredible....he had spent his entire life at camp with his Mom....and he knew how to handle a crowd......he played a sweet guitar and he could lead a sing-along with a crowd of kids or adults around the camp fire like no one I had ever known.......we were as close as brothers can get .........
Well we are into the fifth week of camp and into the month of August before you know it.....some kids
have been getting stung by a bunch of yellow jackets and I notice a large Bee-Hive in a tree above my maintenance shack.
I get a long pole, wrap it with a towel, wire and cover the towel with screening material, soak it in kerosene,
light it and start burning down the Bee-Hive......30 feet in the air.......It's going pretty well and I am thinking
about how smart I am when just then I feel a sting on my left hand.......actually it feels like a dozen stings.
I drop my torch, look down at my hand just into time to see some burning flesh above my thumb go up in smoke. In less time than it takes to shake a stick at a Bee...I have second and third degree burns on 4 square inches of my left hand........I am screaming...........
I run in to the infirmary...........their was a new camp Nurse that month......I hadn't met her yet....I knew she was going through a divorce though, and that she had a kid......I hadn't noticed what a beautiful and attractive woman she was until that moment when she first treated my burnt hand......this woman was a real "farm girl" a natural beauty, with a real warm prescense and just so relaxed........
Johnathan Richman, her EX ,wrote a song about Gail......he just called it "Jeans and a Shirt"..........and I know fully well what he meant when he said..."he always liked her best, just in her jeans and a shirt" .......
Gail was the sexiest women I had ever met.....again 5 or 6 years older..........and we just jelled, I mean we did the "Love Thing" that Summer.......Good Loving .....All the time, Everywhere, In the Shower, In the Infirmary with the Sick Kids, In my Tent, In the Woods, In the Water.........When ever and Where ever we could, we were always fooling around....It was my Summer of "69"....
It took a full month for that burn to heal, and Gail took special care to change the dressing every day....she did such a GREAT JOB that today I can't even hardly see the scar.......
Like all good things....Camp ended soon enough......and as it was still my intention to go to the University of Massachusettes @ Amherst I moved to Sunderland MA......Gail went off to Boston with her son to try and reconnect with her husband Johnathan.....and once again I would go and meet a lover in the city.....and once again it would never be the same ......and we were never able to connect in the way that we had........our window of opportunity was up.......I don't know why we didn't stay together...... we were so happy ......... so attracted to each another....so much in love.......and ............we really liked each other!
A "Quantum Leap"
A "QUANTUM LEAP"
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A "QUANTUM LEAP"
I had been waiting for a phone call for about 24 hours, I had an advertisement in the BMWMOA ( BMW Motorcycle Owners of America) Magazine that came out the previous day and I was pretty sure that the call was going to come....so sure I immediately checked for messages once I had reached home............... and then there it was.....
You see, I had been riding around one day, on my "trusty old motorcycle", a 1972 BMW R60/5, which I have ridden for almost 30 years.......that and my sudden realization that I have somehow become 53 years of age, forced me to the conclusion that I had some how become a "Dinosaur", that I was "Stuck in the Past" and that I was hopelessly lost riding around with yesterday's technology.........
1972R60/5
So.........I had an extreme idea! I would UPGRADE!!!!!
I placed My FREE AD in the BMWMOA MAG
Wanted ...BMW Motorcycle - GS1150 - Loaded...This Century...Up to $10,000! ...Call Wayne
I had placed that ad in the BMWMOA Magazine 45 days earlier.......knowing full well that in the middle of winter and the middle of a depression.....there might be "one" BMW Motorctycle Rider out there that was done riding for the season or for "Good"and just maybe for "whatever" reason ready to "Cash In" and pass along their ride!
and now here with that first , and only, call was that "old geezer! Fred Lipsky BMWMOA MEMBER#39008 and he was a "landsman"....a member of the "tribe"......
turns out FRED had been a BMWMOA member for 24 YEARS!
Fred had called to tell me he was ready to give up his 2004BMWR1150GS, one of the finest Touring Motorcycles BMW had ever produced.........and it had only 21,000 miles......low mileage for a World Class Touring Motorcycle of this sort........ In fact Fred had really practically just "broken in" the bike............and I was going to be buying it "loaded", for less than half the price of a new one!!!!
Compared to my old BMW R60/5 Fred's BMWR1150GS weighs about 70 lb's more, it has a center of gravity proably 6-8 inches above that of my older R60/5....even for me it's a bit of struggle to hold up.....Fred explained that at 5'8" and 76 years of age he was just no longer able to handle the bike .....and he realized he could no longer ride the bike safely.........that was his only reason for selling........
2004 R1150GS
The Bike is an 1150cc and has 105 horsepower compared to the 650 cc's and 39hp on my 72 R60/5.......It comes with a full WindShield, and heated grips.....and an advanced integrated front and rear wheel braking system using three disc brakes with an advanced ABS with a uni-lever suspension all of course "shaft driven".......It comes with a full set of luggage.....an additional top case....and a leather tank cover and bag.
Well you know the saying "One Man gathers what another Man Spills"....I could tell on the phone that Fred was still somewhat reluctant to sell and I knew I had only a small window of time.....to make the deal before he had a change of mind or someone else came forward to buy the Bike. I asked what Fred wanted for the Bike, it was much less than the $10,000 I was prepared to spend.....I was IN!
I told him I could collect the Bike in a couple of days....I needed to get a Cashier's Check....... I wanted to prepare my pickup truck to transport the Bike.......and I wanted the Motorcycle's Vin# so I could pre- check that the Bike wasn't stolen with the Police.......Fred had never heard of that ....but he didn't disagree.
So I went to the Pawtucket Police Department's Vin Check on Main Street........I had brought the Vin# Fred had given me and I asked if they could please just check the numbers so that I would know in advance if I was involved in a bad deal....... but they wouldn't do it! .....Then they went on to explain to me that if I did in fact happen to buy a stolen motorcycle they would immediately arrest me and confiscate the Bike!
Now I am a little nervous.....I know to look for a clean Title....to pay by check....and to get a bill of sale.....
but otherwise it's "buyer beware" when you are buying a used motorcycle from a magazine ad.....there are "no guarrantee's".....how do I know their are no other claims on the bike???? how do I know the Bike is mechanically sound.......what if it's some kind of scam.............
I decide to call BMWMOA Magazine and ask if anyone tthere might have some advice...... and am immediately handed off to Ray Zimmerman, a head executive at the Mag. I ask him what I can do to increase my chances that nothing go wrong with the deal. Ray has two suggestions.....first to make sure the Title is not a "Salvage Title" which would indicate the bike was rebuilt, and he suggests I insist on a letter from Fred's "wife's attorney" whom he is in the midst of a divorce with, clearing the selling of his assets.......
It was certainly "Good Advice" but I wouldn't do it....I wasn't going to embarrass Fred in that way ....I mean I did ask Fred about the divorce....but his word that the assets were his to sell was good enough for me.....Fred clearly held the Title to the Bike and as possession is Nine Tenths of the Law I figurred as long as the registration and insurance were current, and Fred turned over a Clean Title with a "Bill of Sale" I would be okay......
So with only my gut reaction to go by I load up the pickup , new ramp and all, grabbed my leathers, gloves, motorcycle helmet, and set out to New Jersey at 5:30am last Thursday morning.........I arrive 4 hours later....10 miles off Interstate 84,....... in the middle of no-where........
Fred's behavior immediately reassures me that I have "done a good thing" by buying this bike. In the first place, Fred is so in love with this Bike he is practically crying with the realization that he is "giving it up"! He immediately starts pointing out every scratch and flaw he is aware of......he shows me a log book where he has meticulously recorded the dates of all the oil changes for all his vechicles........he shows off the heated grips, the ABS, the aeroflow wind screen, he shows me how to pull apart the seat, how to lock the luggage, how to set the "throttlemeister"......
In the garage Fred has a second motorcycle....I want to say a 1983 BMW R100 with 120,000 miles and more impressively he has the fastest car BMW ever made , the M6.............He takes his time to explain the features of my "NEW USED" Bike,.....He wants to make sure I know what I am getting....and mostly I think, for me to know what he is giving up! I give Fred a big hug and Thank Him.......I am fully conscious......
.jpg)
A "QUANTUM LEAP"
I had been waiting for a phone call for about 24 hours, I had an advertisement in the BMWMOA ( BMW Motorcycle Owners of America) Magazine that came out the previous day and I was pretty sure that the call was going to come....so sure I immediately checked for messages once I had reached home............... and then there it was.....
You see, I had been riding around one day, on my "trusty old motorcycle", a 1972 BMW R60/5, which I have ridden for almost 30 years.......that and my sudden realization that I have somehow become 53 years of age, forced me to the conclusion that I had some how become a "Dinosaur", that I was "Stuck in the Past" and that I was hopelessly lost riding around with yesterday's technology.........
So.........I had an extreme idea! I would UPGRADE!!!!!
I placed My FREE AD in the BMWMOA MAG
Wanted ...BMW Motorcycle - GS1150 - Loaded...This Century...Up to $10,000! ...Call Wayne
I had placed that ad in the BMWMOA Magazine 45 days earlier.......knowing full well that in the middle of winter and the middle of a depression.....there might be "one" BMW Motorctycle Rider out there that was done riding for the season or for "Good"and just maybe for "whatever" reason ready to "Cash In" and pass along their ride!
and now here with that first , and only, call was that "old geezer! Fred Lipsky BMWMOA MEMBER#39008 and he was a "landsman"....a member of the "tribe"......
turns out FRED had been a BMWMOA member for 24 YEARS!
Fred had called to tell me he was ready to give up his 2004BMWR1150GS, one of the finest Touring Motorcycles BMW had ever produced.........and it had only 21,000 miles......low mileage for a World Class Touring Motorcycle of this sort........ In fact Fred had really practically just "broken in" the bike............and I was going to be buying it "loaded", for less than half the price of a new one!!!!
Compared to my old BMW R60/5 Fred's BMWR1150GS weighs about 70 lb's more, it has a center of gravity proably 6-8 inches above that of my older R60/5....even for me it's a bit of struggle to hold up.....Fred explained that at 5'8" and 76 years of age he was just no longer able to handle the bike .....and he realized he could no longer ride the bike safely.........that was his only reason for selling........
The Bike is an 1150cc and has 105 horsepower compared to the 650 cc's and 39hp on my 72 R60/5.......It comes with a full WindShield, and heated grips.....and an advanced integrated front and rear wheel braking system using three disc brakes with an advanced ABS with a uni-lever suspension all of course "shaft driven".......It comes with a full set of luggage.....an additional top case....and a leather tank cover and bag.
Well you know the saying "One Man gathers what another Man Spills"....I could tell on the phone that Fred was still somewhat reluctant to sell and I knew I had only a small window of time.....to make the deal before he had a change of mind or someone else came forward to buy the Bike. I asked what Fred wanted for the Bike, it was much less than the $10,000 I was prepared to spend.....I was IN!
I told him I could collect the Bike in a couple of days....I needed to get a Cashier's Check....... I wanted to prepare my pickup truck to transport the Bike.......and I wanted the Motorcycle's Vin# so I could pre- check that the Bike wasn't stolen with the Police.......Fred had never heard of that ....but he didn't disagree.
So I went to the Pawtucket Police Department's Vin Check on Main Street........I had brought the Vin# Fred had given me and I asked if they could please just check the numbers so that I would know in advance if I was involved in a bad deal....... but they wouldn't do it! .....Then they went on to explain to me that if I did in fact happen to buy a stolen motorcycle they would immediately arrest me and confiscate the Bike!
Now I am a little nervous.....I know to look for a clean Title....to pay by check....and to get a bill of sale.....
but otherwise it's "buyer beware" when you are buying a used motorcycle from a magazine ad.....there are "no guarrantee's".....how do I know their are no other claims on the bike???? how do I know the Bike is mechanically sound.......what if it's some kind of scam.............
I decide to call BMWMOA Magazine and ask if anyone tthere might have some advice...... and am immediately handed off to Ray Zimmerman, a head executive at the Mag. I ask him what I can do to increase my chances that nothing go wrong with the deal. Ray has two suggestions.....first to make sure the Title is not a "Salvage Title" which would indicate the bike was rebuilt, and he suggests I insist on a letter from Fred's "wife's attorney" whom he is in the midst of a divorce with, clearing the selling of his assets.......
It was certainly "Good Advice" but I wouldn't do it....I wasn't going to embarrass Fred in that way ....I mean I did ask Fred about the divorce....but his word that the assets were his to sell was good enough for me.....Fred clearly held the Title to the Bike and as possession is Nine Tenths of the Law I figurred as long as the registration and insurance were current, and Fred turned over a Clean Title with a "Bill of Sale" I would be okay......
So with only my gut reaction to go by I load up the pickup , new ramp and all, grabbed my leathers, gloves, motorcycle helmet, and set out to New Jersey at 5:30am last Thursday morning.........I arrive 4 hours later....10 miles off Interstate 84,....... in the middle of no-where........
Fred's behavior immediately reassures me that I have "done a good thing" by buying this bike. In the first place, Fred is so in love with this Bike he is practically crying with the realization that he is "giving it up"! He immediately starts pointing out every scratch and flaw he is aware of......he shows me a log book where he has meticulously recorded the dates of all the oil changes for all his vechicles........he shows off the heated grips, the ABS, the aeroflow wind screen, he shows me how to pull apart the seat, how to lock the luggage, how to set the "throttlemeister"......
In the garage Fred has a second motorcycle....I want to say a 1983 BMW R100 with 120,000 miles and more impressively he has the fastest car BMW ever made , the M6.............He takes his time to explain the features of my "NEW USED" Bike,.....He wants to make sure I know what I am getting....and mostly I think, for me to know what he is giving up! I give Fred a big hug and Thank Him.......I am fully conscious......
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Twelve Steps To Marriage (Step 3)
Step 3 PAULA
So here I am in the Berkshires, another Summer gone by and I am moving from the Summer Camp to Pittsfield in order to finish up my Associates Degree in Environmental Science at Berkshire Community College. It's January and it's cold as hell (?) here in the Berkshires....and it's quiet and compared to the Summer not many people around. I am rooming with two guys Tim and Tom , in a third floor apartment
on Brown Street. I am lonely as hell (?) and I miss my friends and the weekend retreats of the Eisner Institute.
It's 1979 and Disco is big here in Pittsfield. Erma Bomberg just wrote about Pittsfield in her infamous book,
"If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing here in the Pitts." and now that's where I am at deep in the "Pitts" .......no more cabin in the woods, no more private 600 acre playground, no more car, no more room and board...no more stealing gas! After three years at the camp, all I had was a motorcycle, bicycle, three trunks of clothing and a couple of dozen plastic milk crates full of books.....oh yes and the purpose for my moving here, I would finally finish up my studies and earn my Associates Degree in Environmental Science from Berkshire Community College, which would in fact guarrantee me entrance once again to the world of accredited colleges, this time at the University of Massachusettes @Amherst.
Yet in the mean time I had at least six months more to go in this one horse town, so starkly cold and devoid of culture. The town had fallen on hard times ever since General Electric, the largest employer in the Berkshires had started moving it's operations elsewhere. General Electric had badly polluted the Housatonic River with PCB's and I remember them under court order removing hundreds of 55 gallon drums with huge back-loaders, drums that they had just burried in the dirt alongside the riverside.
I had a full load of courses mostly about Water. There was a course in Wastewater treatment, one
in the Chemical Analysis of Water, one in Hydrology , one in Water Management. By the end of the semester I was swimming in water. Berkshire Community College was actually Academically Rigourous and I was kept fairly busy with classes, however there is only a small campus, and students were on their own socially. I was a litlle older than the rest of the class....
I went to the music festivals and the bars! As it was the late 1970's and there was some Great Music around
I went to concerts in Lexington and at Arlo Guthries Place in Lenox....I used to go to "Alice's Restaurant " for breakfast which was still around at the time in Stockbridge. You all know "Stockbridge" with the biggest Hotel in the Berkshires "The Red Lion Inn"...well downstairs they had their "Lion's Den" where we would sit for hours drinking beers and listenning to the best Jazz and folk singers around........another claim to fame "The Norman Rockwell Museum". I spent countless hours visiting the museum....Stockbridge is where the illustrator lived.....
and then there is the "Griggs School" where James Taylor spent the best years of his life in Rehab......and wrote "I've seen Fire and I've seen Rain".....remember the lines "though the Berkshires seemed dream like on account of that frosting, with ten miles behind me and 10,000 more to go...". well if you ever hitch hiked up Rte 7 from Lenox to Pittsfield in the Snow....you know what J.T. is talking about......
But Pittsfield??? There wasn't anything to do! They didn't even have a working Movie Theatre back then.
There were beautiful lakes, and one could go ice fishing if you had the mind....or maybe some X country skiing.....but Pittsfield was basically a cold, un-hospitable place to live in the winter........that's how and why I met Paula.
We met in one of these incredibly huge Disco Bars that lined Main Street at the time.....I mean huge......
like the size of a football field!!! With chairs all along one side and a bar all along the other........maybe two dozen people in the whole place....and loud music....really LOUD!! It was S T A R K !
One Satuday night, in the middle of winter.....I walk into this Disco.... and there's Paula , whom I
recognize from my Chemistry Class at B.C.C.. Paula's got it going on, she's an RN at Pittsfield Hospital,
and has been taken Continuing Education Courses at night. She is a well put together woman. I figure her to be about five years older.......she is a GOOD LOOKING woman....has a GREAT ASS......and by the way happens to be the perfect height and weight for me! At the time I was super attracted to this lady......
We bought each other some drinks, danced a little Disco, and then we Hooked-Up for the next 12 weeks......Paula was from Brooklyn and as a I am a Native New Yorker, we naturally got along.......We kept each other warm at night...we shared meals, evenings, weekends, mostly in her Queen Sized Bed, ......and we also kept our relationship to ourselves.......the sex was Great! The company was FUN!........but I wasn't writing home to Mom about Paula.....we weren't thinking long term.......we just knew it was good at the time, better than being alone.......but we were never "magically-in-love", and after all I was going to be finally leaving the Berkshires and heading East for UMASS and the Pioneer Valley in the fall....
Paula slipped out of my life as effortlessly as she had slipped into it.......and she didn't leave much.......not
even as much as a photo or a memento to remember her by......her image and the times we spent together, ...... have been thoroughly etched in my mind........ .............if not my heart!
So here I am in the Berkshires, another Summer gone by and I am moving from the Summer Camp to Pittsfield in order to finish up my Associates Degree in Environmental Science at Berkshire Community College. It's January and it's cold as hell (?) here in the Berkshires....and it's quiet and compared to the Summer not many people around. I am rooming with two guys Tim and Tom , in a third floor apartment
on Brown Street. I am lonely as hell (?) and I miss my friends and the weekend retreats of the Eisner Institute.
It's 1979 and Disco is big here in Pittsfield. Erma Bomberg just wrote about Pittsfield in her infamous book,
"If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing here in the Pitts." and now that's where I am at deep in the "Pitts" .......no more cabin in the woods, no more private 600 acre playground, no more car, no more room and board...no more stealing gas! After three years at the camp, all I had was a motorcycle, bicycle, three trunks of clothing and a couple of dozen plastic milk crates full of books.....oh yes and the purpose for my moving here, I would finally finish up my studies and earn my Associates Degree in Environmental Science from Berkshire Community College, which would in fact guarrantee me entrance once again to the world of accredited colleges, this time at the University of Massachusettes @Amherst.
Yet in the mean time I had at least six months more to go in this one horse town, so starkly cold and devoid of culture. The town had fallen on hard times ever since General Electric, the largest employer in the Berkshires had started moving it's operations elsewhere. General Electric had badly polluted the Housatonic River with PCB's and I remember them under court order removing hundreds of 55 gallon drums with huge back-loaders, drums that they had just burried in the dirt alongside the riverside.
I had a full load of courses mostly about Water. There was a course in Wastewater treatment, one
in the Chemical Analysis of Water, one in Hydrology , one in Water Management. By the end of the semester I was swimming in water. Berkshire Community College was actually Academically Rigourous and I was kept fairly busy with classes, however there is only a small campus, and students were on their own socially. I was a litlle older than the rest of the class....
I went to the music festivals and the bars! As it was the late 1970's and there was some Great Music around
I went to concerts in Lexington and at Arlo Guthries Place in Lenox....I used to go to "Alice's Restaurant " for breakfast which was still around at the time in Stockbridge. You all know "Stockbridge" with the biggest Hotel in the Berkshires "The Red Lion Inn"...well downstairs they had their "Lion's Den" where we would sit for hours drinking beers and listenning to the best Jazz and folk singers around........another claim to fame "The Norman Rockwell Museum". I spent countless hours visiting the museum....Stockbridge is where the illustrator lived.....
and then there is the "Griggs School" where James Taylor spent the best years of his life in Rehab......and wrote "I've seen Fire and I've seen Rain".....remember the lines "though the Berkshires seemed dream like on account of that frosting, with ten miles behind me and 10,000 more to go...". well if you ever hitch hiked up Rte 7 from Lenox to Pittsfield in the Snow....you know what J.T. is talking about......
But Pittsfield??? There wasn't anything to do! They didn't even have a working Movie Theatre back then.
There were beautiful lakes, and one could go ice fishing if you had the mind....or maybe some X country skiing.....but Pittsfield was basically a cold, un-hospitable place to live in the winter........that's how and why I met Paula.
We met in one of these incredibly huge Disco Bars that lined Main Street at the time.....I mean huge......
like the size of a football field!!! With chairs all along one side and a bar all along the other........maybe two dozen people in the whole place....and loud music....really LOUD!! It was S T A R K !
One Satuday night, in the middle of winter.....I walk into this Disco.... and there's Paula , whom I
recognize from my Chemistry Class at B.C.C.. Paula's got it going on, she's an RN at Pittsfield Hospital,
and has been taken Continuing Education Courses at night. She is a well put together woman. I figure her to be about five years older.......she is a GOOD LOOKING woman....has a GREAT ASS......and by the way happens to be the perfect height and weight for me! At the time I was super attracted to this lady......
We bought each other some drinks, danced a little Disco, and then we Hooked-Up for the next 12 weeks......Paula was from Brooklyn and as a I am a Native New Yorker, we naturally got along.......We kept each other warm at night...we shared meals, evenings, weekends, mostly in her Queen Sized Bed, ......and we also kept our relationship to ourselves.......the sex was Great! The company was FUN!........but I wasn't writing home to Mom about Paula.....we weren't thinking long term.......we just knew it was good at the time, better than being alone.......but we were never "magically-in-love", and after all I was going to be finally leaving the Berkshires and heading East for UMASS and the Pioneer Valley in the fall....
Paula slipped out of my life as effortlessly as she had slipped into it.......and she didn't leave much.......not
even as much as a photo or a memento to remember her by......her image and the times we spent together, ...... have been thoroughly etched in my mind........ .............if not my heart!
WayneR's "Rant of the Day"
Local City and Fire officials should be tarred, feathered and run out of town for allowing the developement of an Emergency Response Team the size of Texas here in little Rhody!
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