[5-6 years old - 1st grade]
I feel like I need to take notes on my notes.. random memories keep cropping up. Might as well get the unpleasantness out of the way. Shortly after my grandfather died in 1981, my grandmother sold their home in the city, and moved down with us. My parents built a small house directly behind theirs for her, which of course I affectionally called "grandma's house"... I have to consciously avoid calling it that even today. It was like a permanent vacation having her around; we'd play, she'd make milk toast, etc. That summer she would drive into the city to take me to swimming lessons at the YMCA. One day, she was going to see Lena Horne that night, and playing around in the back yard. I remember coming into the house and seeing her on the floor, half dressed, and thinking she was taking a nap. I still wasn't really familiar with the idea of death, certainly not regarding my grandmother. I went back out to play. Some time went by and I came back in and told my mom. My grandmother never woke up. The ambulance came and I remember them trying to save her, but it was too late. To this day, I blame myself for my grandmother's death. I should have gone to tell my mom something was amiss as soon as I saw her, but I didn't. It might have saved her life, it might not have. I'm crying even getting this down. It was a pivotal moment in my life. This is when the fear crept in, that would dominate my persona and strangle my attempts to reach out. I remember being told by someone that if you stood up straight during the full reading of the passion at mass, you could wish a soul to heaven. I did this in earnest for many years and put all my energy into it, trying to save my grandparents souls. It would take a few more years for the complete disillusionment to set in.
When it came time for first grade, my mom sent me to the same Catholic private school that my siblings attended. Mrs Reynolds was my teacher, and she was fair but strict. I was made fun of and belittled almost from the moment I stepped through the door. I was chubby at the time, my mom bought "husky" pants for me, and I was too smart for my own good. Rather than turn into a bully myself, I usually replied verbally, and it got my mouth washed out a few times. We still had sisters at the school, Dominicans, and they were definitely from the old school when it came to discipline. But I have to say, all in all, I loved them. Maybe that was because I towed the line and didn't get into too much trouble.
One day, after school, I remember walking across the parking lot to my dad's truck, getting in, and seeing a box in the floorboard. Inside was this tiny jet black furball staring at me. My older siblings had had two dogs, Babyface and Snoopy, who I remember vaguely, but this black lab was *my* dog. He was named Colonel Rebel, or Colonel for short, and he shadowed the rest of my childhood. At some point my dad rented a backhoe at made a pond on our property. I'm pretty confident most of my dad's home projects were done in order to make mowing the grass easier. If you look around my parents backyard you will notice almost everything is curved off, there are few if any corners on anything. Also everything inside the house is on wheels. Wow am I the worst storyteller on the planet or what. The point of that was that my dog absolutely loved the water, and would go happily swimming across for no reason and come back to shake water all over me. We actually had some chickens for awhile as well, and I remember picking up a box of chicks over at the co-op on old 78. I got to name them (after smurfs). Not really my best naming scheme decision ever: there were multiple smurfettes.
I remember once, I was having problems with a certain bully, and when my mom came to pick me up, my brother Vince happened to be in the car. He got out and asked me to point the bully out.. he proceeded to walk over there and scare the shit out of the kid. We have had issues relating over the years (I have trouble relating to just about anyone anyway, when you peel back the bullshit) but that incident sticks in my mind. Another memory from that year or very close. My sister had moved into an apartment with a boyfriend who, for lack of a better term, was a piece of shit. Well one day, word got out about something (I'm guessing he was hitting her) and me and my brothers went over there and straightened shit out. I am a total pacifist but my middle two brothers? Not so much. We got her moved out of that environment and things turned out for the best.
So I had been yammering on about getting a computer of my own for awhile, and my parents came through in a big way. I still remember oohing and aahing at Service Merchandise, which btw was the ultimate store for a kid on earth. For the uninitiated, you didn't actually pick up items off the shelves at Service Merchandise. You decided what you wanted, paid, and walked to the back. There, in the back of the store, was this reaaaally long conveyor belt, with a constant stream of boxes issuing forth from the warehouse at the back of the store. To a kid, this was pure unadulterated magic. I imagined an entire cadre of elves getting an order and whisking about to retrieve it. The item in question was the Commodore C=128, with a 1581 disk drive, a 1902 monitor, a 1671 (upgrade!) disk drive, and a thermal printer. I was set for life. Hell even the box was orgasmic, or whatever the age-appropriate term for orgasmic is. My oldest brother, 16 years older than me to be exact, was in college at the time, and his roommate was a huge nerd from the neighborhood, who went on to do computer work for the military. He had a massive collection of pirated Commodore games and utilities, as well as a thick stack of Commodore magazines, which he replenished periodically on his visits back home from campus. I taught myself BASIC and religiously copied the machine code from Commodore magazines like Compute!, Run, and Ahoy to make all sorts of interesting creations. Included with the C=128 was a precursor to DOS called CP/M, which I delved unknowingly into for hours on end. Even got to play around with one of the first GUIs, GEOS. It was fairly useless (hint: UIs still are!).
Also procured from Service Merchandise: the Odyssey/2, an old game system which was pretty entertaining. My friends down the street had their own systems, Johnny had a ColecoVision, and Chris had an Intellivision. Together we conquered many worlds and consumed many a snack. Sweet Tea with approximately a kiloton of sugar from Chris's mom, pepperoni and cheese plates from Johnny's mom, a former new yorker. Life was fairly good back then, I have to say.
I did well in school; I've always enjoyed the act of learning, but I sometimes need to be pushed to start. To be continued!
