Middle School Memories

 

It was September of 1978 when I began my three years at Butler Middle School in Waukesha, WI.  7^th, 8^th and 9^th grade.  I had just moved from Schenectady, NY to Waukesha in 1977 so I was fairly new to the area and still making friends.  I was desperately trying to make my way through puberty while overcoming all of the usual obstacles that seemed insurmountable at the time.  In addition to being a new kid and coming to a new school and trying to fit in, I had to get braces the day before my first day of 7^th grade.  I was in great pain and felt like a freak with a mouth full of metal.  I would have to learn how to smile and make friends with my mouth closed.  I remember trying to eat a hamburger in the lunchroom the first day after getting my braces and I was appalled at the massive amounts of food stuck in there.  It felt and looked ridiculous and I was convinced I would be eating no solids foods for the next two years.  At least they told me I would have them on for two years.  Of course that stretched to three years.  In fact I got them off the day after 9^th grade ended, so my time in braces neatly bookended my Middle School career…from September of 1978 to June of 1981.

 

In addition to my funky teeth, I was quickly realizing I had funky eyes.  I found myself squinting to see the chalkboard in class.  Instead of sitting in the back of the class with the cool kids, as the days wore on I gradually migrated row by row to the front of the class just so I could see what was going on.  Pretty soon I was in the front row with the nerds.  Even then I had to squint and eventually I had to break down and tell my mom that I was nearly blind.  She took me in for an eye exam and my 20/400 vision meant I was getting a new pair of cool glasses to go with my awesome braces.  I hated them and never wore them unless I was sitting at my desk not talking to anyone and looking at the chalkboard.  I hated them so much (flash forward to high school) I remember being on a date with my new girlfriend Dawn Blaedow and almost getting us killed on an off-ramp because I was too embarrassed to wear glasses on a date, even while driving blind.

 

To increase my nerd-quotient I also played the cello which I had to haul to school every day on the school bus.  So instead of sitting on the back of the bus with the cool kids, I had to sit by myself up front with my cello picking food out of my braces.  One day I was sitting at a table during lunch with some kids who were talking about the musical instruments they played.  One guy said he played the guitar and the other guy (I think it was Bryan Belmer?) said he played bass.  They were talking about getting together and jamming and maybe putting a band together.  The bass?  I naively thought he meant an acoustic stand-up bass that people played in my school orchestra.  But I never saw that guy in there.  Maybe he took lessons outside of school.  Enthusiastically I broke in and said I played the cello and that I would love to join their band.  They both stopped talking and looked at me like I was an alien, trying to figure out if I was just joking or if I was really that dumb.  I just sat there smiling hopefully until it was apparent to them that I was that dumb, so they ignored me and continued their conversation with their backs to me.  I eventually got good enough at the cello to be invited to try out for the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.  That was my cue to quit what is one of the most beautiful instruments in the world.  I regret it now of course, but I had to do whatever I could back then to shed my nerdness.  I was never going to get a girlfriend hauling a cello around town.

 

I remember one day in 7^th grade sitting in the lunchroom and a bunch of guys were all hunched together at a table giggling at something.  It was a Sports Illustrated.  I sat down and asked what was up and one of them handed me the magazine.  Except it was more than a Sports Illustrated…much more.  Hidden inside the sports mag was a Playboy!  Oh boy.  It was genius.  We would never get caught because anybody walking by would think we were simply reading a Sports Illustrated!  I eagerly flipped though the Playboy, shocked and delighted in ways that I was only just beginning to discover.  I was completely lost in the magazine.  I tuned out everything in the world except the voluptuous delights laid out before my eager young eyes when suddenly I felt a strong firm hand on my shoulder and the magazine was ripped from my grasp.  Hey!  Oh.  Uh, oh.  It was the science teacher Mr. Prust walking by who noticed the magazine and came over to investigate.  All of the other kids at the table melted away and it was just me and the teacher with the rest of the lunchroom staring at us.  He took the magazine and told me to be in the principal’s office in 5 minutes.  Dammit.  I finished my sandwich and headed to Mr. Fink’s office.  When I got there he was kicked back in his chair holding up the magazine sideways checking out the centerfold.  I cleared my throat and he quickly folded it back up and laid it on the desk.  He asked me if this was mine and I said no.  He asked me whose it was and I said I didn’t know.  You could tell he was trying to act angry, but in reality he was amused at the ol’ Playboy-inside-a-Sports-Illustrated trick and was doing his best to keep from laughing.  He let me off with a warning and told me to never be seen on the school grounds holding a Playboy ever again.

 

One thing I learned in Middle School was how to be a dealer.  I noticed there was a guy who used to carry a box of pencils around.  Sometimes when a kid or even a teacher needed a pencil they would borrow one from him.  Hey I thought…why lend out pencils when you could sell them?  I got an old cigar box I found in my garage and started collecting pencils.  Whenever I saw a pencil laying around I would grab it.  Pencils from home and pencils from school laying in the hallway or left behind on desks or in the library.  My eyes were constantly on the alert for pencils.  Any size from stubs on up to new ones.  I carried my cigar box full of pencils and a little pencil-sharpener around with me at school all day every day.  After awhile I had enough pencil stock to start my business.  I let it be known that my pencils were for sale, 1 penny per inch and I would sharpen your new pencil free of charge.  If you needed a pencil and the guy with the free pencils wasn’t around, you could buy one from me.

 

That was okay for awhile.  I made a few cents here and there which seemed like a lot in the 70’s (a white milk carton from the cafeteria was 2 cents and chocolate 4 cents for example) and it felt cool to be ‘the guy’…making money selling stuff people needed.  But I wanted more.  More money…more power.  So I turned to something less legal.  Gum.  There was a gas station a couple blocks from my school so in the morning I had just enough time after I got off the school bus to run to the store and use the 50 cents my parents had given me for lunch to buy gum.  At first I was buying Juicy Fruit for 20 cents a pack.  There were 7 sticks in a pack and I would sell them for 5 cents a stick so I was almost doubling my money.  But it was about then that Bubble Yum was invented, with Bubblicious and Hubba Bubba soon to follow.  The soft bubble gum craze was on.  Packs of this stuff were also 20 to 25 cents with only 5 pieces per pack, but I would sell those for 10 cents apiece to regular people and 5 cents apiece to the cool kids.  This new gum was so popular that I could barely keep it in stock.  I was making good money as well as making headway with the cool kids.  My mom did not allow my sisters and I to chew gum, so I was following the dealer’s age-old adage:  Don’t get high on your own supply.  My prowess at dealing gum however soon led to widespread gum usage which in turn led to the school banning chewing gum in school.  My empire was beginning to crumble, but I was not deterred until eventually I got busted and hauled into Principal Fink’s office.  He took all the gum I had on me but he let me off with a warning…no more selling gum in school or I would be in big trouble.  I was not sure what ‘big trouble’ was, but I did not want to find out so I quit dealing.

 

Another fond memory was the school-wide field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  One warm spring morning all of us kids were loaded on to school buses and hauled down I-94 from Waukesha to Chicago.  It was 2 hours each way so we left as soon as we got to school which got us to the museum around 10 am.  We had to leave the museum by 12:30 pm to get us back to school by 2:30 pm, so that only left us about 2 ½ hours to explore the museum.  I was in 8^th grade and had recently started talking to a girl in class named Jill.  She was not especially pretty or smart or popular, but she was a girl and she was talking to me.  When we got off the bus I asked her if she wanted to check out the museum with me.  She nodded yes and we headed into the deep dark vast maze of corridors and rooms to explore.  We kept on walking and walking and eventually we ended up in a back back exhibit room.  We ate our lunch there and I noticed we were the only ones in the whole room.  We started holding hands and then I leaned over and kissed her!  This was like a dream come true…I was making out with a chick while on a school field trip!  We completely lost track of time and after awhile an out-of-breath teacher came running into the room, saw us kissing and let out a huge sigh of relief.  He was really pissed off though.  He grabbed us each by the arm and marched us out towards the entrance, letting us know that the entire school was waiting for us.  Per policy nobody could leave till everyone was accounted for.  He got us out into the blinding sunlight and there were 3 or 4 waiting school buses full of kids all staring at me and Jill.  I did not know whether to be embarrassed, proud or scared of being in trouble.  I ended up being all three.

 

Middle school was a time of puberty, getting uncontrollable boners in class for no reason, getting naked for the first time in the school locker-room (no boners in there btw), the presidential fitness award, glasses, braces, crushes on girls (Vicky Ross, Kelly Welch, Stacey Anders, June Hansen, Tracy Lapp, Megan Rowlands, etc.), hot teachers (a big rumor was that Ms. Carlson was a Playboy model before she was a teacher), awesome teachers (Miss Bischoff taught us all about the Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Who while listening to their albums in class), bad teachers (Mr. Harding’s nickname was Mr. Hard-on because he was such a tool), my awesome music slide-show, school dances, algebra, elective classes...so many good times and bad.  It was a precursor for what was to come in high school.  If you made it through these formative years relatively unscathed mentally you were ready to take it all on.  Middle school was scary, fun, humbling, exciting and a good learning experience.  High school was mostly an all-out total blast.  We will get to that some time down the road…

Massage Fun

I woke up a few months ago on 'Super Sunday' with a weird neck ache.  It was 2/1/15 and Super Bowl XLIX was ready to kick off that day in Arizona and I had a pain in my neck.  I figured I had just slept on it wrong and it would be fine.  But over the next few days it got progressively worse, moving down to my back and eventually my left arm.  I kept thinking it would get better but it did not.  It felt like there was knife sticking into my upper left back, with pain and numbness running down my left arm to the point that I could not feel my elbow or pinkie finger.  The only slight relief I could find was if I hunched my left shoulder up and mashed my left cheek onto it while raising my left arm over my head.  I could not walk around like that though because it looked like I was giving some weird Nazi salute.  The pain was constant, day and night, making it hard to sleep.

Finally a week later I realized it was not going to get better on its own so on Tuesday the 10^th I made an appointment to see my chiropractor.  She is a totally cool lady and fun to talk to and I hoped she could fix me up.  She cranked on me for awhile and told me to give her 4 appointments and she would have me back on the right track.  It felt a little better but not much.  I went back two days later on Thursday and she cranked on me again and told me I should get a massage.  The pain was not getting any better but she said a deep tissue massage would help.  I had done a little research of my own on the problem and I was starting to think it was a pinched nerve, but she insisted that I should get that a massage so I said I would.

My wife Nadia had a gift certificate for a $100 massage at Simonson’s Salon & Spa that she had gotten for Christmas.  She said I could use it, but I was a little dubious.  Was I, a guy, supposed to be going to a beauty salon?  With relief I then remembered I also had a Christmas gift card for a massage with the awesome daughter of a friend of mine from work.  I had been to her a few times in the past and she has magic hands.  She is so good though that when I tried to make an appointment with her she was booked out at least 3 weeks.  I could not wait that long as I was getting no sleep with the constant pain and needed help right away.  I guess I was going to have to go to the salon.

So I called Simonson’s and was told that their female masseuse was on vacation so they only had a guy available.  He could see me the next day on Friday.  Really?  My only option was to get rubbed down by a dude at a salon??  I hesitated with the girl on the phone and said I didn’t know if I was cool with that, but she said that guys tend to have stronger hands and if I am having a medical issue it is better to have a guy.  I stalled for a bit and finally relented…she talked me into it.  My massage was scheduled for the next day at 4 pm after work.

I had strong reservations the second I hung up the phone.  I have had probably ten pro-massages in my life, but they have all been with girls.  I had mixed feelings.  A guy??  Rubbing and touching me…touching and rubbing.  What if I enjoy it?  Usually I have had them done by the daughter of the work friend I mentioned.  She is female, but she is a lesbian so I know there is no possibility of anything sexual.  Although lesbians of course turn me on in general, I have known her since she was a kid so I do not think of her that way…even when she is rubbing me and getting close to my good parts.  I was not sure if I was going to feel comfortable having some dude oiling me down and rubbing my whole body and getting close to my good parts.  It seemed very weird to me.  What if…what if it moved?  I felt exactly like George Costanza.

The next day was Friday the 13^th.  I did not sleep very well…a combination of pain and uneasiness.  I thought about it all day at work.  Should I just call and cancel?  I could do that.  I did not have to go to the salon.  I could pay the $100 and go somewhere else.  It would be good for me though I finally decided.  One of life’s interesting little roadblocks that builds character as you maneuver through it.  I pulled into Simonson’s Salon & Spa in Plymouth, MN at 3:45pm that afternoon.  I thought one last time about ditching the whole thing as I parked next to a pink and blue ‘Molly Maid’ car.  What if someone I know sees me?  With a sigh I decided to go for it and quickly walked inside trying to act cool.  I had a cool black leather jacket on.  Was that cool enough?  I looked around and saw that I was the only guy in there.  My heart sank.  I was not supposed to be here, but I got in line with the rest of the women.  There was an incredibly large woman right in front of me that I could sort of hide behind which was nice.  But then an incredibly hot woman got in right behind me.  It did not matter though because I was not a man anymore…I had no illusions of trying to be cool.

When I finally got up to the counter I whispered:  “I’m here for my 4 o’clock massage.”  She asked me if I had been there before, and when I quickly shook my head ‘no’ she dutifully and carefully took down all of my information while the hot chick waited behind me.  Then she told me ‘Lanier’ would be with me in a bit as she led me down a hall and introduced me to a back waiting room with a few other ladies in there reading magazines.  I took a quick glance at the magazines strewn about and of course there was no Sports Illustrated or ESPN…just Glamour and Cosmopolitan.  So I sat down with my cell phone and tried to pull up ESPN, but I was not getting any reception back there so I had to stare at my phone and pretend to look at my manly messages while waiting for my masseuse.

Lanier came and got me after a few minutes and led me further down the hall to a back-back room.  It was dark, warm, and unpleasantly pleasant.  We stood there and sized each other up.  Lanier was short, muscular, Latino, wearing a skin-tight muscle-shirt and thankfully a man of few words.  He asked me if there was any particular part or parts of my body I wanted him to focus on, or should he give me the general full-body massage I had signed up for?  I told him about my back problem, and then I tried to tell him that my calves were also sore but it came out all wrong.  I wanted to tell him that I had been to a rock concert over the weekend (I had gone to see ‘The New Orleans Suspects’ at Bunkers Music Bar which meant a long night of rocking and partying), but for some reason it came out:  “Yeah I was out dancing at a downtown nightclub over the weekend so my calves are really sore.”  It sounded incredibly gay as I heard the words I was saying and I gave a nervous chuckle.  He politely laughed and said he would take care of my calves.

Then he left the room so I could get undressed.  I was not going to go commando so I stripped down to my boxers.  It was then I noticed I was wearing ‘Family Guy’ boxers that had a picture of a naked Stewie on the front looking like Cupid with the words ‘Sex Party’ in fancy writing beneath him.  “Well that’s just perfect” I thought.  Lanier totally thinks I’m gay, and now these boxers are an invitation for him to have his way with me.  When he came back and started in on my back with the oil I got scared and told him to abort the full body massage (“ABORT!”) and that he could just work on my back for the whole hour.  I tensely held on to the front of the table in a white-knuckle grip as his strong, firm, experienced hands slowly worked the oil into my back and my neck.  After a few minutes I began to relax just a little bit.  I gotta admit, he was good…but I am definitely going to stick with women from now on.  I tried the other team, but I am happy to report that it did not move and now I’m back baby!

Poor Lanier…I guess I totally led him on.  I am sure he probably wanted to massage my 12 lbs of dangling fury and instead he had to settle for just my back.  I gave him a nice tip though and then ran out of there as fast as I could.

Robby Krieger - 3/13/15 At The Medina Ballroom

On July 30^th of 2011 keyboardist Ray Manzarek of The Doors was playing a gig at the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis.  He was there playing with slide-guitar legend Roy Rogers.  I love the Doors and I knew it was going to be a great show, but I decided to skip it.  If I remember correctly, I believe I went to a picnic at Karl Bremer’s house that Saturday afternoon and had a great time.  It was a long hot day, I was tired and slightly buzzed and did not feel like driving to a concert later that night.  I reasoned that I would just see him the next time he came to town.  Unfortunately the time never came around as Ray was taken down by cancer less than two years later at the age of 74.  A chance to see a member of the freaking Doors came and went and I blew it.

Well a couple of months ago I learned that the guitar player for The Doors Robby Krieger was playing a concert on 3/13/15 at the Medina Ballroom, just a couple of miles down the road from my house.  I was not going to make the mistake of missing the only remaining touring member of the Doors again.  At the age of 69, who knows when/if he will be touring again.  I think I might have seen him and his band back in the early 1990’s at some outdoor rock festival in Chicago, but I am not sure I am remembering that correctly.  Anyways, about a month ago I logged in to my computer to get a ticket for the show and I scored a seat in the front table, dead center of the stage.

Reserving a spot at a certain table however just guarantees you a seat at that table, but not which seat.  That is on a first-come first-serve basis.  The doors opened at 7:30 pm so I got there at 7:00 pm just as people were starting to show up and I was the first in line.  When the doors opened I ran to the front and scored the best seat in the house next to the stage.  The eight of us at the table were all excited as we introduced ourselves and ordered drinks while waiting for the show to start.  In addition to running into a few old friends including Pat and Patty Sundberg a couple of tables away, I made some new friends at my table.

The guy sitting directly across from me was a huge blues guy and he was so impressed that my uncle Tony was a famous harp player that he bought me a drink and he gave me a poster.  I also stunned my table (all of them complete ‘Doors’ freaks) with the story of how my uncle had actually sat in and played with the Doors on November 10^th, 1968 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.  Then before our show a KQRS radio DJ came out to talk-up the crowd.  He put the mic in some guys face at the table next to ours and asked him his favorite Doors memory or story.  He mumbled something while everyone on my table was trying to get the DJ’s attention so that he could ask me the same question…they wanted me to relay the ‘uncle-with-Doors’ story.  No such luck.  But I did catch a couple of tee-shirts they were tossing out from the stage.  They were medium Sniper shirts from the recent ‘American Sniper’ movie which I had zero use for though so I gave them to a couple of girls near me.

It was all-around a fun show.  In the front-center table I was kicked back in my seat with my left arm on the stage.  It was great seeing a living legend while he is still able to play, at a nightclub just down the street.  Most fans know practically every Doors song by heart, note for note, and it was cool seeing the guitarist make those notes happen live in concert 12-inches in front of my face.  The drummer and keyboard player were awesome and I got the keyboardist’s autograph after the show.  The kickass journeyman bass player Phil Chen played with Jeff Beck on the ‘Blow By Blow’ album, as well as with many other musical heroes including Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to name a few.  Robby’s son Waylon Krieger on vocals was a bit rough and made me cringe a few times, but who other than Jim wouldn’t make me cringe singing those songs.  He got better as the night went on, but the main focus was Robby of course.

Before the encore Waylon was signing a couple of autographs from the stage.  The guy next to me was practically wetting his pants he was so excited but he could not get Waylon’s attention.  So I took his cd and waved it to Waylon who came over to sign.  Then in a burst of inspiration as I was handing him the cd and Sharpie I asked him:  “Do you think you could sign it – ‘Jim Morrison’?”  He looked at me like he didn’t know if he should laugh or punch me, so I cut the tension by laughing and slapping him on the shoulder and saying I was sorry, just kidding and that he had done a great job.  All in all it was a great night.  Here is the monster set list on this first night of the tour.  Judging by the much shorter set lists I found online for the following nights, we got a good one.

1. Break On Through (To The Other Side)
2. Love Her Madly
3. Moonlight Drive
4. Wild Child
5. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)
6. Back Door Man
7. When the Music's Over
8. Five To One
9.  (Robby solo flamenco)
10. Spanish Caravan
11. People Are Strange
12. Peace Frog
13. Wishful Sinful
14. Maggie M'Gill
15. Riders On The Storm
16. L.A. Woman

Encore:

17. Not To Touch The Earth
18. Light My Fire

Girl Scout Cookies On Sale ($3.99/box!)

Our daughter Autumn is in her first year of Girl Scouts and we have all kinds of cookies for sale.  You’ve tried the rest, now try the best!  But don’t take my word for it.  Read startling testimony from current satisfied customers:

Jessie ‘The Body’ Ventura – “As a former Navy Seal, I’ve hunted everything from man to cookies, but I gotta tells ya, me and Theresa think Autumn’s Girl Scout cookies are the bomb!”

Oprah Winfrey – “When I get tired of losing weight, I turn to Autumn’s delicious Girl Scout cookies…for some reason they just taste better.  You go girl!”

Mike Yeo (head coach of the Minnesota Wild Hockey team) – “Before the start of every game I like to spread 30 or 40 boxes of Autumn’s ‘Thin Mint’ Girl Scout cookies around the locker room.  They look like little hockey pucks and the players love to practice shooting them into each other’s mouths.  They’re delicious, chock full of vitamins and minerals, and they’re thin so they don’t slow my guys down while giving them that extra “umph” to make it through a grueling game.”

Bob Dylan (folk rock singer, 60’s icon and Minnesota native) – “Whenever my ‘Never Ending Tour’ takes me through Minnesota I always load up on several crates of Autumn’s delicious Girl Scout cookies.  My roadies like ‘em because they’re the best.  Why do I like ‘em?  The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.”

Lydia Cornell (beautiful, smart, funny actress who played Ted Knight’s daughter Sarah Rush on the beloved 80’s sitcom ‘Too Close For Comfort’ – “If all you did was just look for things to appreciate, you would live a joyous, spectacular life.  And I like to start every day by appreciating a box of Autumn’s spectacular Girl Scout Cookies.”

Cookie Monster – “Me like cookies.  Me like Autumn’s cookies.  Me like Autumn’s Girl Scout cookies!  Even the boxes taste great!  Gimme cookies!!”

Well there you have it.  If you’re like these celebrities and you want the best, get a hold of me or Nadia and stock up on that delicious wholesome goodness that is Autumn’s Girl Scout cookies.  Ask for them by name!

I Remember...

I have been so busy at work the last few months with end-of-the-year stuff that I have not had time to write down any stories.  I was laying in bed a few nights ago though thinking about the past and a lot of snippets of various happy, weird, scary, fun memories came to me in a rush.  Here are a few that I thought of…a bunch of short stories that I have been jotting down over the last few days instead of one long story.

I remember driving alone on a dark country road in Wisconsin in the late 80’s when suddenly the sky started shifting and doing weird things.  I thought my eyes were going bonkers so I pulled over.  Nobody was around for miles.  I got out and there were green and red and yellow lights filling the sky above me and shifting all around.  I seriously thought I was losing it.  I was completely in shock and unsteady so I sat down on the side of the road so that I would not fall over.  I decided it must be an acid-flashback so I closed my eyes, counted to ten and told myself to ‘come back’.  I opened them and it was still happening…the shape-shifting sky was just as trippy as could be.  Was the world ending I wondered?  Had I gone insane?  Then it finally hit me…maybe it’s the ‘Northern Lights’!  I had heard of them of course but had never seen them.  Yes!  That’s it!  I am not crazy I decided!  I went from being completely scared shitless to immense relief…and then awe.  The amazing dancing lights were beautiful and huge almost beyond belief.

I remember one time in about 1996 I was in bed with my girlfriend Angela Harrison at my house in Madison, WI.  It was late at night and we were sound asleep.  Suddenly we were awakened by red and blue flashing cop-lights blasting through my bedroom window.  We poked our heads up to look out the window above my bed and the cops were parked right behind Angela’s car out in the street in front of my house.  There were two cops shining powerful flashlights into Angie’s car.  “Holy sh*t.” I said in terror as I thought about the quarter-pound of marijuana in the trunk of her car that I had procured earlier that day for a friend.  I was ready to throw on some clothes and run out the back door, but Angela wanted to go see what the hell they cops were doing with her car.  I thought it was obvious, they were here to put me in jail, don’t go out there!  But she insisted so she got dressed and went outside while I slunk down under the covers and awaited my doom.  A couple minutes later the cops left and she came inside.  What?!  How did she do that??  She explained that the cops were chasing a guy and thought maybe he was hiding in her car.  They were not looking in her trunk for weed, just for some guy on the run.  Phew!

I remember in the late 90’s being backstage at a Radiator’s concert at an outdoor music festival in Colorado with my buddy Mitch Marshall.  I was drinking a manly beer and I looked over to see Mitch holding a light-reddish orangey drink.  “What the hell is that?” I asked.  “Well, I just pour some vodka over ice, add a bit of cranberry juice, and then just a littttle touch of orange juice.”  I raised my eyebrows and started to say:  “Do you even ___ _ ___?” but after only getting the first three words out we locked eyes.  He knew where I was going with this and we both simultaneously burst into laughter and doubled over trying to hang onto our drinks.  Wiping away the tears I looked up at him and managed to weakly croak out what I had been trying to say:  “Do you even have a dick?” and we both burst into laughter again.

I remember right around the same time frame going to a music festival in the heart of Wisconsin called ‘Cornstock’.  It was mostly local bands, including the ‘Bol Weavils’ which was the band of our friend Jeff Gauss.  We had partied all night and as the sun came up it started getting unbearably hot in me and my girlfriend Mugsy’s tent.  I gave up on the idea of getting any sleep and as I crawled out I looked up to see Mitch’s wife Carrie Marshall crawling out of her tent too.  We both stumbled over to the hood of my car and laid down with our backs on the windshield.  We did not say anything for awhile until I asked her:  “Do you ever see little squiggly things on your eyeballs if you de-focus and let them appear?”  “Yes!” she said, “I’m looking at some right now!”  “Me too!”  It was perfect conversation fodder for two hung-over derelicts, and to this day whenever I see those little alien-like creatures on my eyeballs I think of Carrie.

I remember in the late 80’s me and my girlfriend Lona and our roommate Claudia Tribbiani and my best friend Mark Smith used to go on late-night cycle-blasts.  Bored of the party, we would get on our motorcycles and cruise up and down the River Road by the U of M campus in Minneapolis along the Mississippi River.  Usually with Claudia on the back of mine and Lona on the back of Mark’s, we would go just as FAST as we possibly could up and down that curvy road with absolutely no fear or inclination of danger.  So crazy-stupid.  One time I was going around a right-hand curve so fast that I could not stay in my lane and ended up going around the left side of an on-coming car.  Another time we were going so fast around a curve that my back wheel started bouncing sideways.  Somehow we made the turn and kept it upright…but looking back, it is amazing that we never got arrested and are all still alive.

I remember in the early 70’s when I was about 6 or 7 years old sitting with my best friend Craig Fellows in my tree-fort in the front yard of my house in Schenectady, NY.  Craig’s dad worked for a plexiglass factory and Craig and I had just installed windows in the fort with scraps that his dad had given us.  Craig’s older brother Mark was walking down the street and we started yelling down to him, bragging that our fort was rock-proof now because we had unbreakable plexiglass windows.  Of course Mark immediately gathered a pile of golf-ball sized rocks and started hurling them up at us.  I was a little worried, but I trusted Craig’s promise that we were perfectly safe as the rocks bounced off the fort.  Suddenly Craig let out the loudest blood-curdling scream I have ever heard in my life before or since then.  There was a golf-ball sized hole between the ceiling and a wall and somehow one of those rocks had fit perfectly through the hole and found Craig’s head.  Blood was everywhere as Craig continued to scream and Mark ran away.  My mom came out to help, but Craig had to go get stitches.

I remember the summer of 1983…I dubbed it the ‘Summer Of Love’ because we spent all of our days over at pretty Heather Owen’s house down the street (see the 7/13/12 blog entry entitled “Those Mysterious Little Creatures”).  In addition to all the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll’ over there, we used to do stupid stuff like jump off the roof of Heather’s two-story house into her pool.  It was kind of hard because the part of the roof facing the pool was slanted down so you had to run downwards and then try and jump up and out when you reached the edge of the roof.  You had to jump far too in order to clear the grass in the yard 30 feet below, then the wooden deck surrounding the pool, and then into the water.  So we decided to haul up a large plywood board to give us a runway leading down to the jumping-off part.  We wore tennis shoes to make it easier to run, but after a couple jumps the board got wet from our feet.  I was on about my 2^nd or 3^rd jump that day when I started to run and my feet slipped on the board as I got to the edge.  It threw me off-balance and I tried to abort the jump, but I was right on the edge of the roof now with my arms wind-milling as I was trying to keep from going over the edge.  My momentum was too great though and I realized that I was going to go over the edge one way or another, so from a forward-leaning standing position on the edge of the roof and without the benefit of any pre-run I jumped out as far as I could hoping to make the water.  I didn’t.  I made it right to the edge of the water though and as my legs buckled from hitting the deck I rolled into the water trying to transfer as much of my weight forward into the water and off my feet.  As I surfaced and floated in the water I quickly realized that I was alive and nothing was broken, but my feet were numb and sore for quite awhile.

I remember this morning my 3-year old son Jack crawled into bed to snuggle with me, like the way we start most days.  As we were laying there talking about superheroes he started playing with a birthmark/mole thing on my upper arm.  He giggled and said:  “Dad, is this your nipple?”  He knows it’s not, but he just wanted to be funny so I went along with it and indignantly said:  “Noooo that’s not my nipple!  I don’t know where you keep your nipples, but mine are over here.”  He was totally cracking up as only a little boy can and while laughing continued on:  “No daddy, this is your nipple!  That’s not a birthmark!  You have a nipple on your arm!  This is your nipple!”  It was so damn funny…for some reason it is hilarious to hear a 3-year old say “nipple”.

I remember being in a bar in St. Louis Park, MN in the year 2005 with  my now-wife Nadia and the rest of the guys and girls from our work’s coed softball team.  This was after a game, and before Nadia and I were even dating.  We were all downing pitchers of beer lamenting our most recent loss (I do not think we ever won, seriously).  Suddenly a couple walked into the bar with a little baby and me and Nadia were both ooing and ahhing over it.  I was 39 and Nadia was 32 and our biological clocks were ticking if either one of us were ever going have kids.  Looking at the baby I said:  “I want one.”  She laughed and said:  “Me too.”  But then quickly added:  “But not with you!”  Ten years and two kids later, I got the last laugh.

Growing Weed In Madison

In the fall of 1990 my girlfriend Lona and I returned from a 6-month trip to Europe.  We then moved in with her parents in Waukesha, WI until the spring of 1991.  Our savings were running low and we decided to move out on our own.  We had just enough money left for a first month’s rent and deposit and that was about it.  We would have to get jobs immediately wherever we moved to.  I had wanted to return to Minneapolis where we had gone to college and where all our friends were, but Lona wanted to stay in Waukesha where all her family was.  We both had strong arguments for each city.  We had roots in Minneapolis and all of our close friends were there, but Lona’s family were awesome and her parents were not just another set of parents, they were also like my best friends.  In the end we compromised by moving to Madison, WI.  It was a city in-between that neither of us had any ties to.  We would make a fresh start in a new place and get new jobs and make new friends.  It was a little scary, but mostly exciting.

Our first apartment was just that…a one-bedroom apartment in a complex that did not allow cats.  We had a cat named Jo-Jo but we did not let that deter us and we rented the place.  That lasted for a few months until we got busted for having the cat and we had to move.  We decided apartment life was not for us so we rented the bottom half of a house on Center Ave. near Lake Monona.  By this time I had a part-time job working at a telemarketing company doing phone surveys.  We would cold-call people’s houses in the evening trying to get them to take surveys, including Jeffrey Dahmer's house.  It was about a week after he got busted in 1991 and Dahmer’s name/phone# came up on my list one evening on my 4-8 pm shift.  I called, hoping maybe a cop in the apartment would answer, but it just rang and rang with no answer.

I have a lot of stories about my time living in Madison and I have posted a few, but this one is about growing pot.  The house we rented had an average sized basement full of the usual boilers and water heaters and pipes and we stored a lot of our crap down there, including a 1000 watt metal-halide grow light and a 400 watt sodium-pressure grow light.  I used to dabble in growing pot in Minneapolis and so one day I decided I should take up growing pot again.  I did not smoke pot, but it is a fascinating plant and extremely fun to grow as you can manipulate the light cycles and trim it to make it grow into exactly what you want it to…which is a female plant full of sticky buds.  So I rounded up 20 plastic milk jug containers, cut out the tops and planted a seed in each one.  Then I hauled out the powerful lights, hung them from a rafter in the basement and started my grow operation.

After a couple of months of 24-hour/day light and tender-loving care and nurturing, I had twenty nice 2-foot pot plants growing in the basement.  One day though the very kind, very old landlord came a knockin’ and said he needed to get to the water heater in the basement because the upstairs tenants were having problems with their hot water.  Oh boy.  The entrance to the basement was through the back door of our main-floor unit so that is why he was knocking on my door.  I stammered, hedged and hawed for a minute trying to think of a single reasonable explanation of why I could not let him in.  I thought maybe I could forbid him entry because he had not given the customary 24-hour notice…but we had always been on friendly terms and that would just be weird.

So I opened the door and as he was passing me I said:  “Don’t mind all the tomato plants down there, I am just getting them started indoors but will be moving them outdoors soon.”  Maybe an old guy like him would not know the difference between a pot plant and a tomato plant?  I could not bear to go down there with him, so I went out back and hung out awaiting his return.  After about 10 minutes he came back up, announced that he needed to get a part for the hot water heater and would return tomorrow with the part to fix it.  Then he took a big breath, sighed, looked me in the eyes and said:  “Son, those are not tomato plants, and they had all better be out of my basement when I return.”

Crap.  Now what?  I went to my 4-8 pm telemarketing job and told a co-worker about my predicament.  His girlfriend was my supervisor, so he took me into her office for a meeting.  They lived together and he thought it would be cool if I moved the plants in to their apartment, that night.  After some deliberation she relented and it was all set.  After work I went home and loaded all the plants up into my 1987 Toyota Corolla hatchback with the back seat folded down.  I put the grow lights in the front passenger seat, and every single cubic inch of the back of the car was full of plants.  It looked horrible.  It was nighttime but there was no way I could drive the several miles from my house to my manager’s apartment without somebody happening to glance over and see the felony-on-wheels passing by.  I grabbed the sheets off our bed and carefully laid them over and around the inside perimeter of the car, trying not to break any stalks on the precious cargo.  It was a passable job, but there was still a few leaves poking through here and there and it of course reeked like marijuana.  If I happened to pass a cop, or god-forbid got pulled over for anything I would instantly be arrested.

I decided to go for it though and jumped in, staying clear of the main roads and taking residential side streets until I got to the downtown area and had to drive on main roads.  I got to my first stoplight and was nervous as hell.  My head was on a pivot looking anxiously around for cops.  I was still at the light when suddenly a carload of drunk college kids pulled up next to me on my left, hooting and hollering about ‘partying’.  Had they noticed the weed?  I looked over, nodded, smiled and mumbled something like:  “Yeah, alright, party on.”  The kid in the front passenger seat misheard me and shouted to everyone in his car:  “Hey, this guy knows where there’s a party!  Follow him!”  The light turned green and I frantically started shaking my head yelling:  “No!  No!  No party!”  But they did not hear me as they had already slowed so that they could get behind me to follow me to ‘the party’.  F*cking hell, now what?

I did not want to be driving around anymore than I had to, as I just needed to get to my boss’s house as fast as possible.  But I did not want these f*cking drunks following me there and finding out that it was about to become a grow-house.  And I did not want to stop and chat with these guys and have them see the weed in back and maybe jump me and take it.  So I circled back to the residential streets, going left, right, u-turns, hoping these guys would give up and leave me alone.  But no, they were following right behind me and were not going to lose me.  I started getting desperate…sooner or later I was going to run into a cop.  So I decided to be an assh*le and started flipping the car off and yelling at them to f*ck off and leave me alone.  All of a sudden their joy turned to anger when they realized I did not want them following me.  I got just the reaction I hoped for as they roared past me, yelling and swearing at my while the whole carload of them flipped me off.  Phew.  Now I just had to make it the last mile or so to my boss’s place and unload the plants.  I got there without further incident, nervously making it through a few stoplights without running into the drunk guys or the cops.

Unfortunately moving the plants there ended up being a bad idea, as the couple ended up taking all the weed.  Every time I would go over there to manicure or check out the plants, there would be buds missing.  I kept telling them to stop that...wait until they are mature and we can pick them then and I will split it with him.  But they kept taking the buds and not only did I not get any real weed to speak of out of the deal, I ended up getting fired from my job for some stupid reason.  Not the cool couple like I had originally thought.  Live and learn.  So I decided to drastically downsize my grow operation.  I planted just a couple of seeds and put them under the one 400-watt light in the spare bedroom with the windows covered with sheets.  I kept one female plant and grew that to maturity, getting a few nice buds which I gave to a cool local musician.

Madison was a fantastic place to live.  After a couple part time jobs I had finally cut my long hair and scored a real job at WPS Insurance.  This is where I met dozens of friends, many of whom are still close friends today including my best friend Mitch Marshall, as well as Lauren Hatch, Brad and Erin Pronger, Daddy, Bonnie & Clyde Donstad, Sherri and Derrick Goetz, Glenn Kampson, and of course our pain-in-the-ass-but-always-good-for-an-embarrassing-laugh-friend ‘Marshall’.  The house that Lona and I rented was about two blocks from the lake, but more importantly we were two blocks from The Harmony Bar & Grill which would soon turn into my version of ‘Cheers’, where 'everybody knows your name'.  Countless nights were spent in there playing pool and darts while draining pitchers of beer with my friends from work.  Many more blog stories will eventually be written about our adventures in Madison...