This year has been interesting. I have graduated from third grade and I am 9 this summer. We took a summertime vacation and drove from El Paso Texas to New Jersey. Went through Wichita Falls up to St. Louis, saw the arch, skirted the northern states and went thought Pennsylvania, where there was this restaurant over top of a tunnel on the interstate. The tunnel went through the mountain and you could go up to the restaurant and over look the traffic on the interstate below. I spent a good deal of time here, I forget how long, but long enough to spend the Fourth of July here and see my bestest friend in the whole world, my grandmothers next door neighbors son, Joey.
My grandmother, Nana, and her next door neighbor Mrs. DeLuccia, well they had been good friends for awhile. I was a year older than Joey, but who cares we used to play together all the time. There was maybe five feet of distance between Nana's house and Mrs. D's house. Nana was pure Italian, and always had something cooking. Lillian, Mrs. D., was Polish and always had something cooking there. It is a wonder that us boys, and Joeys older brother Michael, weren’t as big as house. Now the most interesting thing about this house was two things. First Nana’s bedroom window looked right into Mrs. D’s kitchen window over the sink. These two instead of picking up the phone would holler across to each other for borrowing things, coming over, whatever. It would always start out “Yoohoo, Mrs. Bloom!” Which I found out later came from a 1950’s sitcom the Goldberg’s where it was a similar situation, lol. The D’s got an above ground swimming pool, I forgot what Mr. D did, but Poppop, my grandfather, ran his plumbing business form the basement of this house, Cherry and Zekes Plumbing. He used to name his trucks, one was Leaping Lena, named after Nana, lol, there was always something going on. A picture of the three of us can be seen in my just me album.
The DeLuccia’s had a bigger lot, with apple trees and cherries and a whole lot of things surrounded by a bush on all sides, so you couldn’t really see in (this got us into a bit of trouble in 1971. A memorable and notable incident happened on the July fourth celebration. We were over at my other Grandma’s in Sterling, visiting my moms side of the family and my cousin Joey (not the same person as aforementioned), and my great-grandpa and grandma Cortese, moms grandparents, still talked with the Italian Accent and still made his own vino, in the bath tub. The love his life was his birds, it looked like millions; he had parakeets, pigeons and many others, in a coop outside. All my great cousins lived in this building. The incident happened at Aunt Toni’s house, we had all the cousins there my mom had her three sisters and their husbands (except Aunt Roseanne who was widowed) and my cousins, Andrea, Ronnie, Cheryl, Terri, Kim and Mark. The top four were all a year apart, so we ran around together. While throwing firecrackers, my dad, after a long lecture on firecracker safety, allowed me to throw just one fire cracker. It happened to be an M80 (which got me into trouble mentioned earlier in 1971). Dad got his cigarette and lit it, I was getting ready to throw it when my littlest cousins, Terri and Cheryl, ran in front of me, so I held it, looking for a place to throw it, watching the fuse get shorter. When there was an opening I tried to throw it far, but it exploded abut 6 to 10 inches from my hand. My ears were ringing and my hand hurt like hell, even after sticking it into ice water. Nothing broken, or damaged though my hand did swell and stayed that way for a time. I blame this incident on why my handwriting sucks so bad, it used to be pretty good.
The next incident that starts my long journey after we headed back to El Paso, was dad got orders to go to Germany, he left before Christmas, and was go9ing to get everything set up for us to come over there. Mom had applied for a civil service job as a secretary, to help make ends meet. She was worried about passing the exam and tells the story of that night she was visited by her Dad who told her not to worry, everything would be okay. See, Grandpa Leonard died before I was born, even before mom and dad were married, about 5 months before. This year was the start of my otherwise (I thought boring) interesting life, because from here everything starts to happen so fast that a lot of it is still a blur. We ended up going over there and living on the economy, that means off base, in a little town called Sands. Taking off in a plane, BOAC, we had a long flight, we had a long wait at the airport. When the plane landed it had blown a tire. After they finished changing it, and were taxiing it blew two more, so they had to change all the tires, overall about a four delay which also had a thirteen hour flight time afterwards. We landed in Frankfurt Airport, and man it was amazing, everything seemed new and different. Dad was stationed up the road, in Missau. Our landlord would watch me after school, and take me to a butcher shop, where they would buy the food for the day, and the butcher always gave me a sample of something. Brasunschweiger was my first, and I loved it, until I latter found out what it was (second time in Germany, but the Braunschweiger tastes different than its American counter part, liverwurst). I also went to a German school, since there was no room in the American School on base and it was easier this way. This is memorable for a number of reasons, the first is a good look into the German culture I was immersed in and the second was a lesson. In the school, I could not speak English, until English class, and then in English class I was told I was speaking it wrong, guess I was speaking American, lol. The rest of the year is just a blur, except that dad got a scar on his head from an accident he was in (before we got there), which stayed with him for the rest of his life. We had a Mercedes to drive, well dad did.
Memorable events that happened during the year
Events: The Tet Offensive occurred, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Zodiac Killer begins his/her reign of terror (and had never been caught), the first flight of the Boeing 747, first successful heart transplant, the firs explosion of a Hydrogen bomb (by the US), the first Big Mac was sold for 49 cents, Evel Kneivel made his famous crash at Caesars Palace, and the Frito Bandito is born.
Movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Dave, don’t do that Dave. My God, there are stars), Night of the Living Dead (memorable time in 1977 watching this movie), Yellow Submarine (bubble gum machine lol), The Love Bug (go Herbie go), Planet of the Apes (Charlton Heston: It's a mad house. A mad house. And: Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it.
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!). Rosemary’s Baby (Mia Farrow), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Dick Van Dyke), Ice Station Zebra, and my top two all time favorite John Wayne Movies: #2 The Green Berets and #1 Hellfighters (If this movie ever comes on and we are supposed to go someplace, you better just go, because I am not going anywhere, lol).
Music:
Johnny Cash sings at Folsom Prison, David Gilmour replaces Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd (landmark), the Yardbirds disband, the New Yardbirds or Led Zeppelin perform for first time. Albums: The White Album (The Beatles), Beggar Banquet (The Rolling Stones) and Electric Lady Land (The Jimi Hendrix Experience). Songs of the year were: Sky Pilot (The Animals), Lady Madonna and Hey, Jude (The Beatles), Suzie Q (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Sunshine of Your Love and White Room (Cream), Hush (Deep Purple), Hello, I Love You (The Doors), This Guy’s in Love with You (Herb Alpert), In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly, a good reason not to name songs when you are blown away really was to be In The Garden of Eden), All Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix), What A Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong, the Great Satchmo), Sitting on the Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding, became #1 after his death), Mrs. Robinson (Simon and Garfunkel, I forgot to mention in 1966, one of my favorite songs by these two, Sounds of Silence), Born to Be Wild (Steppenwolf), Jumpin’ Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones), Love Child (The Supremes, RIP Florence), Mony, Mony (Tommy James and The Shondells – later I would love dancing to this song), Magic Bus (The Who – Yes, it is the same ShuShu and Becky).
TV: Rowan and Martins Laugh-in (Soc it to me Goldie, Verrry Interestink), Adam-12 (one adam 12 see the man…), the Ghost and Mrs. Muir and the Mod Squad.
Cartoons: The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour (Beep, Beep, everything from the ACME Co., lol), Wacky Races, The Batman/Superman Hour and Archie (hmmm Betty or Veronica, the world may never know!).
Well that is all my knowledge for now on my year life in 1968!
Thank you for stopping by my mind.
