Well it started off as a crazy year, my last semester in High School, get called to the guidance counselors’ office and find out that I need three history credits to graduate. I already had planned on having almost totally computer/free periods (completed all computer classes) for this last semester, and even maybe taking some college level courses. Damn, there goes my “easy” schedule. I figure that I would take Modern European History (since I have been back from Germany less than 2 years ago), Civil War History (since I am a civil war buff) and Modern Government. I will admit here that history is my worst subject, but figured these would be the easiest for me. Problem is all the dates basically coincide; I barely pass with a D, D and a C. My plans to design IBM Computers (the ground work as already laid down) disappear. To bring the grades back up, I go to a community college after I graduate (yes, I did graduate, barely though, but I graduated) where in the Computer teacher and I in the first weeks got into an argument on programming. After I proved my point, I never attended another class figuring that if she could not teach me, then what good is spending my time there (stupid 18 year old). This undoubtedly is the biggest mistake of my life, but I live with it. Disco comes to the front all though it has been around for a number of years (since the late 60’s), the popularity increases and actually I can remember dancing to most of this music. I won a dance contest during this summer and got into a fight with my friend over his girlfriend. I also remember dancing on roller skates at the rink, especially to Brick House. I also worked for two weeks at a carnival that had come to town, working one of the booths and helping to break them down. It was a Carnie that talked me out of leaving a go back home and get back in school, don’t remember their name, but I do appreciate it. Best advice I was ever given (though I did not go back to school until I was 35). Since I got stupid, I needed to earn money so I started working as a roofer, this is where I met two friends, Terry and Gary (whose girlfriends were good friends of mine), and I entered the work force. Terry was from North Carolina and came to the DC area for work. I remember that he went on vacation for a week (he was a piece worker) came back from work one day to find him and his Chevelle out in front of his girlfriend’s (Jill – sister of my classmate Sheri) house. He was drinking what looked like water in a jar, I went up grabbed the glass and bottoms up, before he could even get the words out “George, don’t …” Man, I never chugged white lightning again lol, it burned going down. In September I met the future mother of my daughter and son. She came up to live with her dad, he was Air Force, mine Army. They moved into the townhouse next to one of my other friends, two doors down form Sheri and Jill. Had fun that winter playing spades with her “step-sisters” cousin, Joe. During the winter, I came close to falling of a three story apartment building, but that same day Gary did fall off another building. It had been snowing the previous day, and the snow and pile of mud is probably the only thing that kept him from getting seriously hurt.
Me and my buds were pretty wild back then. During the same time as the carnival, my gang and I got recognized by a real motor cycle club “The Outsiders”, and termed us the insiders lol. Paul, Eddie and I kept having fun with cars, every once and awhile Sahid would also join in. Paul get reckless, as did I, and we both totaled our cars. Paul was drunk and hit a bridge (didn’t hurt himself, but totaled his Coronet) and the friend I had gotten into a fight with? Freddie, had made a comment (begins with n), in an all black neighbor hood and a brick went through my window and I plowed into a steel encases concrete pole (lucky, because behind the pole was a power substation). Oh, by the way, me and Eddie got into it again about his stupidity. Funny what beer will make you do, and he never did it again (at least not in my presence because I had friends of various ethnic, sexual and religious slants. I am the guy that gets along with anyone, don’t hate anyone (that is a wasted emotion) and will stick up for my friends. And that is basically my life in 1977.
MUSIC:
Songs to come out: Dancing Queen (ABBA), Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock (AC/DC), Walk This Way (Aerosmith), Year Of The Cat (Al Stewart), Undercover Angel (Alan O’Day), I Just Want To Be Your Everything (Andy Gibbs), So Into You (Atlanta Rhythm Section), Looks Like We Made It (Barry Manilow), How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees), Rock and Roll Never Forgets (Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band), Foreplay/Longtime; Peace Of Mind (Boston), Lido Shuffle (Boz Scaggs), Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon), I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick), Baby, What A Big Surprise (Chicago), Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (Crystal Gayle), Heroes (David Bowie), Hotel California; Life In The Fast Lane; New Kid In Town (Eagles), Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra), Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton), Don’t Stop; Dreams; Go Your Own Way; The Chain; You Make Loving Fun (Fleetwood Mac), Cold As Ice; Feels Like The First Time (Foreigner), Southern Nights )Glen Campbell), Rich Girl (Hall & Oates), Barracuda; Dreamboat Annie (Heart), Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Ian Dury), I’m Your Boogie Man (KC & The Sunshine Band), You Make Me Feel Like Dancing (Leo Sayer), Blue Bayou (Linda Ronstadt), What’s Your Name (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Blinded By The Light (Mannfred Mann’s Earth Band), You Don’t Have To Be A Star – To Be In My Show (Marilynn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr.),Black Betty (Ram Jam), Short People (Randy Newman), Tonight’s The Night (Rod Stewart), Car Wash (Rose Royce), Peg (Steely Dan), Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band), Give A Little Bit (Supertramp), Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent), Brick House (The Commodores), Best Of My Love (The Emotions), Father Christmas (The Kinks), Disco Inferno (The Trammps), American Girl (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers).
The Albums: Let There Be Rock (AC/DC), The Stranger (Billy Joel), Spectres (Blue Oyster Cult), Aaaa…The Name Is Bootsy Baby (Bootsy’s Rubber Band), Heroes (David Bowie), Slowhand (Eric Clapton), Rumors(Fleetwood Mac[The best album of the Year and of the band]), Foreigner (Foreigner), Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead), Little Queen (Heart), Running On Empty (Jackson Brown), JT (James Taylor), Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude (Jimmy Buffet), Point Of No Return (Kansas), Love Gun (Kiss), Bat Out Of Hell (Meatloaf), Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome (Parliament), Frampton Comes Alive! (Peter Frampton), News Of The World (Queen), Aja (Steely Dan), Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent), I Robot (The Alan Parsons Project), Tejas (ZZ Top).
Events: Alice Cooper enters rehab, EMI terminates Sex Pistols contract, American Bandstand turns 25, B-52’s debut, Sid Vicious new bassist for the Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd starts Animals tour, Supremes perform last time together, Elvis Presley dies, Marc Boaln of T-Rex dies in auto accident, Ronnie Van Zandt – Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd die after Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashes, Saturday Night Fever opens in theaters, INXS forms, Def Leppard forms, Whitesnake forms, Dire Straits forms,
MOVIES:
Airport ’77 (Jack Lemmon), Annie Hall (Woody Allen), Black Sunday (Robert Shaw), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Richard Dreyfuss), Demon Seed (Julie Christie), Exorcist II: The Heretic (Linda Blair), Freaky Friday (Barbara Harris), Greased Lightning; Which Way Is Up? (Richard Pryor), Heroes (Henry Winkler, Sally Field, Harrison Ford), High Anxiety (Mel Brooks), Oh, God! (George Burns, John Denver), Pete’s Dragon (Helen Reddy), Saturday Night Fever (John Travolta), Semi-Tough (Burt Reynolds), Smokey and the Bandit (Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Fields, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams), Star Wars [before it was Episode IV] (Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Sir Alec Guinness), Telefon (Charles Bronson), The Deep (Jaqueline Bisset), The Gauntlet (Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke), The Spy Who Loved Me (Roger Moore, Barbara Bach).
EVENTS: Apple Computer is incorporates, Legionnaires Disease Bacterium identified, snow falls for the first time in Miami FL, Bucharest earthquake kills 1500, crash between KLM and PanAm jets collide killing 583, first use of fiber optic cable for live telephone, Studio 54 opens, Stuttgart court sentences Andreas Baader – Gurdrun Enslinn and Jan-Carl Raspe to life imprisonment later this year they commit suicide in their cells, A. J. Foyt wins record 4th Indianapolis 500, Roy Sullivan struck by lightning for the 7th time, Groucho Marx dies, Food Stamp Act is enacted, Atari 2600 is released, Commodore Computers release PET, Bing Cosby dies, last natural case of small pox is reported, Guy Lombardo dies, Charlie Chaplin dies.
TV SHOWS:
Debut: Carter Country, CHiPs, Eight Is Enough, Fantasy Island, Hard Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Lou Grant, Roots, Soap (I really loved this show, lol), The Love Boat, The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour, Three’s Company.
Ending: Baretta, Bionic Woman, Chico and the Man, Emergency!, Fish, Kojak, Let’s Make A Deal, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, McCloud, McMillan and Wife, Police Woman, Sanford and Son, Six Million Dollar Man, The Bob Newhart Show.
Good Morning to all. I will be away for a few days celebrating my 50th Birthday, I have family and friends coming from all over! Lot of last minute details for the party to take care of, and if you remember, have a drink for me about 12 midnight EST. Many thanks to all my family and friends here on Fubar, for all you have done and continue to do and I will see everyone soon.
Love, “Doc” George
Oh the joy of Fatherhood, it changes ones perspective on many things all at once! Yet, this is not about me, but about my father. My dad was in the military, army to be exact. He was not a perfect dad, for I have found out later in life that there is no such thing. I spent a lot of my younger years being mad at my dad, because of things I couldn’t do “because he said so” or things that I didn’t get to have. But I loved him like child would. It didn’t upset me until later years that he and mom didn’t attend my football, basketball, baseball or bowling games and banquets or band stuff, but they loved me, I knew that, Dad was too busy all the time, army, American Legion, 40 & 8. Yet my teen years must have been the hardest on him, for as I also found out later, we were so damned much alike. I was rebellious, coming at the end of the hippie generation in my teen years, anti-establishment, and since dad was army that meant him too.
I grew up and had children, when my daughter was born, it seemed mom and dad were always on the go still, but this same man who could sleep through a nuclear bomb blast, could hear the lightest sniffle of my daughter through two close doors. This is the same man that would spend $300 at the base commissary on food for my kids when they came visit, buying them whatever they liked (we had over 10 boxes of cereal for a three week stay!), this was not the man who I grew up with that I had to beg for 25 cents and them make it up with chores, who was this man.
Even when my son punched a hole in the above ground pool and let all the water out, it was me that got made, and my dad just laughed. We had become estranged over the years, not by choice, or mean words, but distance. I would talk to him when I called home, but it was always brief.
Then the miracle happened. I cannot to this day remember what prompted the call, maybe it was mom’s birthday, but at the same time, and I can’t remember what that was either, I was fuming at one of the kids, doesn’t matter which because I can’t remember for it was not important. Neither was whatever they did. What was important was that day for some reason, I talked to dad, really talked to him, and the first words out of my mouth were “Dad, I am really sorry for all the shit I did and put you and mom through.” He chuckled, and said “What did they do?” I guess I explained to him who and what was done. None of that, as I said, is really important, what was important that day was that we talked, really talked and became friends. I thought that I knew it all and I thought I knew my dad, but during our conversation I came to realize I knew absolutely nothing about my father. A lot of the stuff that I couldn’t have or do, I really didn’t need, I realize that now, as I realize he did many things for me for my own good (though it never seemed like it at the time, but I know better now). I had always admired and respected him, for who he was, and this grew even more that day. A few yeas later, on April 25, 2002, less than a month before his 67th birthday, he was called home to heaven. Many people that knew him had come from different parts of the country and the world, to come pay their respects to my dad, many I knew and just as many I didn’t. At the time of his passing there were no regrets, we had mended oh so many fences and bridges, I just wish that I had known my dad the way I know him now, when I was growing up, but that will always be the way it seems with parents and children.
So when my grandson was born, and his mother (my daughter) was talking about the things he was doing to get in trouble, or the problems etc. (he is only 4 now, lol, just wait) I tell her, you didn’t come with an instruction book, as I didn’t and neither did my grandson, we just have to do the best that we can to be good parents, and it won’t always be easy (yes, there were times that my daughter said “I hate you dad”, though I know like me she doesn’t mean it, she is learning, thank God faster than I did, lol and we are good friends). I learned that day so long ago that is because of my dad, that I grew up to be who I am and the kind of person I am, and I am proud to say “I am just like my Dad!”
Happy Father’s Day, dad. Though you are no longer here on earth with me, you are and always will be my father, and you did a great job raising me. You are always in my thoughts and prayers. I love you and I miss you so much.
May 21, 1935 – April 25, 2002
As most of you know, I am an army brat from birth. If you have read the "In My Life" blogs, you also know I have been many places and done many things, courtesy mostly of my Uncle Sam. You may have noticed my status yesterday "Miss you Dad. RIP" I do sorely miss him, he passed on in April of 2002. He had served in the Army for 26 years. He was very active in the 40 & 8 Organization, and he and mom had many friends all over the world. Through all the good times, and the bad times (the 18 year old who knew it all, lol) we made our peace. I am still a member of the Sons of the American Legion, and these veteran organizations do a lot for our troops, vets and those we need to remember. It is at this time of year, Memorial Day weekend that I have the fondest memories of dad, even though I didn't get to see him much during this time. You see, dad was heavily involved in what is called the Tri-Grande Memorial Day Festivities. Anyone from the DC area knows about the 40 & 8 and the Tri Grande festivities. Dad was always in the middle of it on the committee and always doing something.
This is a mention of my most memorable Memorial Day Weekend because it happened the month after his passing. I had always looked for dad on TV, for he was always with his fellow forty and eighters, legionnaires and veterans at the laying of the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Yet, I did not know the activities that were put forth. On that Saturday and Sunday, many people, some I knew and most I didn't were still telling me how sorry they were for my loss. I barely remember what we did during the course of those two days, I know there was a meal and a tour to a lighthouse and boats and stuff, but it was the Monday that sticks in my mind.
We boarded a bus at the Greenbelt Legion (if memory serves me correctly) and headed down to the Arlington National Cemetery. Our bus had special privileges. Before we disembarked to the amphitheatre, we toured Arlington National Cemetery and stopped at 2 graves. I only remember one grave in particular, Jack" Pershing, who commanded the United States Armies in Europe from which members of the American Legion formed the 40 & 8.
After this we headed to the Amphitheater and the "Tomb of the Unknowns" where traditionally the President or his designated representative, would place a wreath at the Tombs. What is not seen is that many of the Veteran Organizations, the American Legion, the 40 & 8, the VFW and so many more that I can't even begin to name (or even knew they existed) would place wreaths also at the Tombs. The changing of the guard at the Tombs and all the respectful silence before the 21 gun salute and "Taps."
Many have forgotten why Memorial Day exists, except to barbeque and sales or day off work. The true meaning is getting lost. Even when most of the people did not like the President personally, they still respected the office and the position of the "Commander in Chief" because this all about those that served to protect our freedom and this great country called America. Not just those that died in battle but also those that died after serving in battle or in the forces itself, because these are the men and women who put their lives on the line daily to protect one document, the Constitution of the United States of America, one idea - Freedom, and one people Americans.
So dear reader, as we celebrate Memorial Day, thank a vet and mourn with them for their lost comrades, because they are also our comrades. Mourn with the husbands and wives, children, parents, grandparents and other family and friends who have lost loved ones to protect our freedom, as I will remember them this Monday, for I am grateful to be living in the greatest country on God's green earth, no matter our differences, our religions, our politics we are still and always will be AMERICANS.
I will remember those that served, people I knew and met, and those that I don't know for I have the utmost respect for all who answered the call to defend America, and most of all, I will remember a Master Sergeant, who was a good friend to many, a son and brother, an uncle, a cousin, a husband, but most of all
he was my Dad.