#6-Next- ...The summer ’84 bike trip- What ‘s that noise ? Whoa!!!!!!!!!!!...
My job at the Lung Assoc was a lifesaver for me in many ways ,coming off the double whammy of begin laid off from my profession as a teacher and realizing that my musical aspirations had been pretty well choked off. It was more fundraising than education for my taste, but one of the more interesting funding efforts was coordinating 2 young guys who volunteered to get sponsors for a cross-country bike trip if the LA would pay for the bikes and packs and handle the publicity and donations. Unfortunately, one guy bolted several days before they were to take off together –but overall it worked pretty well and I got a renewed interest in biking myself, nothing heroic ,just the desire to get out and do so miles for exercise and stress management-which I needed a lot of because after leaving the Lung Assoc I returned to teaching at Silver Lake going full tilt with creative classroom attempts with some very difficult combinations of adolescents and health related programs for the high school and school system. (By the way I remember that on the last day of that difficult year, I had attended the teachers end of year
yahoo! and came in the back door of our Sea St home, breathing a giant sigh of relief and I walked into the livingroom to greet Cyndy and she was sitting there connected to an IV pole! What the hell? Is this for kicks or had I missed something odd over this busy school year? …seems at the health center she had a head ache and in her haste taken a side by side Diabenase rather than a Motrin off the shelf and to treat her hypoglycemia when juice and food did work and rather than face the ambarassment of the ER she convinced Fred Dolgin to start an IV at home….) Anyhow since noone else was available I figured I would take a solo trip down Rte 3A on to 6 and Hyannis, take the ferry to Nantucket for 2 days ,then bike down to Provincetown and take the boat back to Boston. It all seemed quit reasonable –hey when we were 13 Hobbsie and I rode our 3 speed bikes from Quincy to Scusset Beach at the Canal and back, 110 miles in about 14 hours, so this was not such a big deal, less miles in a day and hey I was only 34.
With some good rides for conditioning and panniers packed I kissed Cyndy and was off on an August weekday morning. It was sunny, a little hot ,no wind as I cruised easily along Rte 3A, stopping for a breather and lunch in Plymouth I again hit the road…it was about 3 o’clock this Friday afternoon ,I was feeling good ,on my way to a nearby hostel for the night, thinking back over the year when WHAM! I heard a very near explosion and in the second as I was questioning what was that? I was on the windshield of a car, the brakes screeched and I literally flew through the air, landing on my arse in the middle of the lane I whipped around and there was the car skidding toward me, the bumper was not much more than a foot from my head, with my bike totally pulled under it. I did a save my life reverse crab walk on all fours to avoid being crushed- it’s amazing how instinct to survive kicks instantly in and how fast you can move when you live or die need to! The car skidded to a stop on the shoulder and I stood up …I never thought of this before but from her vantage point the driver likely thought she had driven right over me and was shocked when I stood up in front of the car. Anyway the details from that point are sketchy in my memory, but I do recall the woman driver being quite upset, the police coming and both of us going off in ambulances to get checked out at the local hospital …her husband came to pick her up and inquire about me. I was OK I told them and assured them that if they would drive me to the hostel I planned to stay in and next day bring me to a bike shop and replace my bike and bags, once I got the anti-freeze washed out of my clothes I would be happy to ride off down the road as planned and not hold them further responsible. Hey I was fine, just a little shaken up, not legal suit-happy at all and just wanted to do my long anticipated bike trip. They agreed and dropped me off at the hostel. I called Cyndy and gave her a report on my day’s travel minus any mention of the accident after all I was OK; I did not want to upset her, have her come rushing down etc. and I expected to be on the road next day. I promised to call next eve from the Nantucket hostel and signed off with love. I was a little riled up as every time I closed my eyes I heard the sound of the crash, but finally I fell asleep.
In the morning the driver's husband true to his word picked me up and within several hours with clean clothes, new same model 12 speed and panniers I was off ,finished Rte 3A and on to 6A to Hyannis and caught the ferry to Nantucket as I planned. I checked into the hostel an old lighthouse/coast guard station then rode into town to check it out,found myself in a bookstore and the first book my eyes settled on ironically and portentiously was “Life After Life” by Raymond Moody MD, stories of the back from the dead and near death encounters – the common denominator in each case an experience of death as not of pain and to be feared and people coming back because it was not their time yet -and this encouner profoundly changed the course of life and anticipation of death. I bought it and rode back to the hostel and about 8 called Cyndy to let her know how I was doing. She sounded a little off asking me how my day went. I said great and she came back with “Well how did you like your ambulance ride to the hospital yesterday? Oh damn I came back how did you find out about that? “The ambulance company called me yesterday and asked how would Michael be paying for the ambulance? “ She told me how she was so upset and confused until she figured out the timing that I had called her last night after the time of the ambulance ride –so I just had not mentioned it to her during my call. “Why didn’t you tell me? ” I answered back somewhat sheepisly if truthfuly –“I was fine and did not want to get you upset and feeling like you had to drive down to pick me up; the plan seemed reasonable to get back on the road and I’d tell you when I got home.” As I thought about it I really had left her unfairly if well-intentioned out of the loop. “It was really scary for me and we need to have a big talk about this when you get home!” After “I’m sorry and I love you” I hung up with the promise to call in the eve of the next 3 remaining days. I read the near death book with lots to think about, I slept pretty well and next day before catching the ferry went to the beach; it was overcast and I fell asleep for a little while and ironically ended up with a sunburn on my belly way worse than any minor aches I had from flying through the air off a carhood! After the ferry back to the mainland I continued on down to Provincetown where I got a closet sized room for overnight , strolled around the main street surplus and book stores,rode out to the National Seashore and the P-Town side streets, continued eating my special diet plan of preservatives and sweets. I did a lot of thinking about the accident- as so often inches and seconds make the difference between life and death, health and injury. Looking back I never figured how the driver hit me, such a big target at the side of the road, wearing a white T-shirt, no impediment to visibility; alcohol did not seem to be a factor – may be she sneezed or was changing the radio station …it happened and I was able to ride away gratefully with no ill effects (I have never been the kind per foregoing episodes to call James Suesalot or other personal injury vampire attorneys (I did learn later that there are individuals who when funds are low or a special need arises find themselves on the floor of the frozen food aisle of the nearest big super market.) Next day I was on the big boat for the 3 hour trip to Boston. I had told Cyndy I’d just ride my bike home from South Boston but she insisted in coming to pick me up, I could put the bike in the car trunk. Well we had a happy reunion, with a promise for future full disclosure . I had my bike trip and much more that I had bargained for…a lesson in sharing at the heart of our relationship and yet another close call for me and the moral – not my time yet, fear not the reaper , continue to be careful,roll and bounce with the punches , live fully and happily.
Monday, March 28, 2011
#5- Lightning Fried Clams- Almost (with Brother Bernie)
#5- Lightning Fried Clams Almost … with Brother Bernie
When you tell people that you dig clams for a part-time job,often times they will say “oh, that must be fun!” – well not really…it’s damn hard work on the back and legs in all kinds of heat and cold, in calf-high mud with very pesty insects horseflies or gnats swarming and biting , sometimes good and other times very slim pickins, sometimes on the beach and sometimes by foltilla out to the sand bar exposed at low tide- don’t get caught in the rushing tide. I got into it because of Robbie who was an ace, just had the knack for finding the good digging spots. It was good money under the table and really good exercise during the summer.
FYI the master diggers would buy the clams brought up from the beach and bring them to the plant in Newburyport for clorination, as all the areas were posted as contaminated. Each digger was required to have a license from the city @$25 and the state @ $50 and eventually to report the money per rack = 2 heaping 5 gallon buckets which is a lot of clams ( varied on demand from $18 - $40 plus which traditionally had been under the table and “back in the hey-day” the good diggers would get a barrel = 6 racks on a tide and sometimes would dig in the morning and evening. Many noted the mis-management of the clam flats over recent decades and the decline of the flats.
There were of course lots of characters in this “racket”. Jim Foster master digger from Brockton who used to answer Robbies phone calls as to whether there was digging from his toilet seat. Jim would reward us with a warm Tab from his festering cooler when we humped all our clams up from the beach and after going through the “brokies”- hey after digging for 4 hours on a broiling day and having used all our own water we’d drink anything. I still remember coming up from Wollaston Beach to the parking lot on a scorcher , absolutely parched, drinking the first drops of a tepid Tab which just foamed explosively right out from my mouth and nose. Foster’s son “Skippy” was at least partially deaf and dumb and often blitzed and I remember watching him staggering on the Germantown beach in gradually smaller sircles until he fell backwards and fortunately missed impaling himself on his clam fork. Master Joe Malik with his overalls and classic Zen rejoinder “The less I know the better I feel”- seemed inane at the time ,but is a good one in the “whatever and it is what it is” era . …There were guys named “Hog” and other cute appelations, a number of “brew afficianados” and those “chemically enhanced” all drawn by the variable hours, and loose work requirements.
My brother Rick aka Bernie- a much better mollusk harvester than I , joined me out on the clam flats during our summers off from teaching,but in 1981 due to the tax cutting Prop 2 ½ we were both laid off from our jobs with no rehire in sight and to supplement our unemployment out we went to dig in earnest desperation . I had finished the SeaBright album and the band had dis-banded and despite hundreds of attempts to sell my music it turned out that I was not going to support us by being a song-writer and sometime performer and some real 2- punch anxiety set in as I realized I was not to be a teacher either- Well in January I did get a redemptive job with the Lung Association …having learned much with the help of counseling and medication to cope with life crises…
Sometimes going to the flats in the very early AM Robbie would drive, the legendary Lance in the front seat ( who at times hid in the eel grass to avoid the clam wardens as he did not have a license to dig) Ricky and I in the back seat with Robbie’s “psych” music blasting…I was 31 at the time and just felt sonically assaulted. As the fall progressed I got more desperate. On one ocassion Robbie talked me into bootlegging in a closed area in Braintree- he charactericzed it as “loaded” and on a Sunday morning we were digging away, he looked up and yelled ,”Shit ,it’s the Green Meanies!” (Environmental Police) coming in every direction with no escape for us. We were relieved of our clams, photographed (I made the weirdest face I could while pulling a stocking cap low over my face – please don’t publish this in the Ledger under “Former Teacher Disgraced” ), and we were issued $100 dollar fines which Rob could make in a day or two and it would take me 5. Thankfully the photo was not published and my car not impounded, and I went to the courthouse and paid the fine. Speaking of clam dreams I had a classic- I was digging next to Robbie,not finding a single clam, ending up in a hole 2 feet over my head and he yells just feet away as I climbed out, “Mike you should have dug over here; it was loaded “ ,as he used a bobcat to pile football size clams into the back of an almost full pick-up truck! Another phenomenon was an eye strain looking for clams in the sand/mud whereby when you closed your eyes you could see clam necks coming out of the dark!
Rick and I had some truly bleak November mornings when we scratched Wollaston Beach for 4 hours in the wind and cold and made only $8 for ½ a rack … eventually we both got back to professional employ, thank goodness.
But back to the near- miss tale. Rick and I were digging off the Adams Shore beach (just down from what would be the Roche-Cotter residence on Post Island in 7 years.) It was the summer of 1980, an August evening, very humid, coming on dusk and it started to pour, just pelting rain and we were both soaked. We could hear thunder and see lightning over Boston and Rick ,the science teacher exclaimed, “Hey Mike maybe we ought to get out of here; that lightning is getting close.” Older Bro Mike, the English teacher replied, “No, don’t worry. That lightning is 25 miles away!” The Y on away was just out of my mouth when there was a huge explosion and blinding flash and we both jumped straight up in the air. Looking up we could see where lightning had struck the chimney of the house not 100 feet from us,smoking bricks were still in the air and the residents ran out holding their ears from the concussion. Ricky and I soaking wet, jumped up out of our water filled holes, dropped our metal buckets and forks and ran up to the car to give ourselves a grounded breather…man that was as close to getting fried along with some clams as I ever want to be!
When you tell people that you dig clams for a part-time job,often times they will say “oh, that must be fun!” – well not really…it’s damn hard work on the back and legs in all kinds of heat and cold, in calf-high mud with very pesty insects horseflies or gnats swarming and biting , sometimes good and other times very slim pickins, sometimes on the beach and sometimes by foltilla out to the sand bar exposed at low tide- don’t get caught in the rushing tide. I got into it because of Robbie who was an ace, just had the knack for finding the good digging spots. It was good money under the table and really good exercise during the summer.
FYI the master diggers would buy the clams brought up from the beach and bring them to the plant in Newburyport for clorination, as all the areas were posted as contaminated. Each digger was required to have a license from the city @$25 and the state @ $50 and eventually to report the money per rack = 2 heaping 5 gallon buckets which is a lot of clams ( varied on demand from $18 - $40 plus which traditionally had been under the table and “back in the hey-day” the good diggers would get a barrel = 6 racks on a tide and sometimes would dig in the morning and evening. Many noted the mis-management of the clam flats over recent decades and the decline of the flats.
There were of course lots of characters in this “racket”. Jim Foster master digger from Brockton who used to answer Robbies phone calls as to whether there was digging from his toilet seat. Jim would reward us with a warm Tab from his festering cooler when we humped all our clams up from the beach and after going through the “brokies”- hey after digging for 4 hours on a broiling day and having used all our own water we’d drink anything. I still remember coming up from Wollaston Beach to the parking lot on a scorcher , absolutely parched, drinking the first drops of a tepid Tab which just foamed explosively right out from my mouth and nose. Foster’s son “Skippy” was at least partially deaf and dumb and often blitzed and I remember watching him staggering on the Germantown beach in gradually smaller sircles until he fell backwards and fortunately missed impaling himself on his clam fork. Master Joe Malik with his overalls and classic Zen rejoinder “The less I know the better I feel”- seemed inane at the time ,but is a good one in the “whatever and it is what it is” era . …There were guys named “Hog” and other cute appelations, a number of “brew afficianados” and those “chemically enhanced” all drawn by the variable hours, and loose work requirements.
My brother Rick aka Bernie- a much better mollusk harvester than I , joined me out on the clam flats during our summers off from teaching,but in 1981 due to the tax cutting Prop 2 ½ we were both laid off from our jobs with no rehire in sight and to supplement our unemployment out we went to dig in earnest desperation . I had finished the SeaBright album and the band had dis-banded and despite hundreds of attempts to sell my music it turned out that I was not going to support us by being a song-writer and sometime performer and some real 2- punch anxiety set in as I realized I was not to be a teacher either- Well in January I did get a redemptive job with the Lung Association …having learned much with the help of counseling and medication to cope with life crises…
Sometimes going to the flats in the very early AM Robbie would drive, the legendary Lance in the front seat ( who at times hid in the eel grass to avoid the clam wardens as he did not have a license to dig) Ricky and I in the back seat with Robbie’s “psych” music blasting…I was 31 at the time and just felt sonically assaulted. As the fall progressed I got more desperate. On one ocassion Robbie talked me into bootlegging in a closed area in Braintree- he charactericzed it as “loaded” and on a Sunday morning we were digging away, he looked up and yelled ,”Shit ,it’s the Green Meanies!” (Environmental Police) coming in every direction with no escape for us. We were relieved of our clams, photographed (I made the weirdest face I could while pulling a stocking cap low over my face – please don’t publish this in the Ledger under “Former Teacher Disgraced” ), and we were issued $100 dollar fines which Rob could make in a day or two and it would take me 5. Thankfully the photo was not published and my car not impounded, and I went to the courthouse and paid the fine. Speaking of clam dreams I had a classic- I was digging next to Robbie,not finding a single clam, ending up in a hole 2 feet over my head and he yells just feet away as I climbed out, “Mike you should have dug over here; it was loaded “ ,as he used a bobcat to pile football size clams into the back of an almost full pick-up truck! Another phenomenon was an eye strain looking for clams in the sand/mud whereby when you closed your eyes you could see clam necks coming out of the dark!
Rick and I had some truly bleak November mornings when we scratched Wollaston Beach for 4 hours in the wind and cold and made only $8 for ½ a rack … eventually we both got back to professional employ, thank goodness.
But back to the near- miss tale. Rick and I were digging off the Adams Shore beach (just down from what would be the Roche-Cotter residence on Post Island in 7 years.) It was the summer of 1980, an August evening, very humid, coming on dusk and it started to pour, just pelting rain and we were both soaked. We could hear thunder and see lightning over Boston and Rick ,the science teacher exclaimed, “Hey Mike maybe we ought to get out of here; that lightning is getting close.” Older Bro Mike, the English teacher replied, “No, don’t worry. That lightning is 25 miles away!” The Y on away was just out of my mouth when there was a huge explosion and blinding flash and we both jumped straight up in the air. Looking up we could see where lightning had struck the chimney of the house not 100 feet from us,smoking bricks were still in the air and the residents ran out holding their ears from the concussion. Ricky and I soaking wet, jumped up out of our water filled holes, dropped our metal buckets and forks and ran up to the car to give ourselves a grounded breather…man that was as close to getting fried along with some clams as I ever want to be!
Friday, March 25, 2011
#4- Nobody's Driving That Car!
- We were driving one of our "old balloons" full of friends home from Cambridge , crossing the bridge over into Charlestown when a car coming in the opposite direction started to drift right into our lane. I was driving and as I veered over to the right side the car seemed to hone right in to us and as it got closer I noted that there was no one behind the wheel! The car caught one end of ours and pinned us up against the guard rail. I ran over to the other car and the driver was sprawled across the front seat…I seem to remember shaking him to see if he was all right and he came to with the strong smell of booze on his breath…he had passed out drunk and was not driving the car! The police came soon and as we had minimal denting we took a look over the side of the bridge and it was quite a drop so that had we been forced over would have resulted in bad injuries or deaths. The police took our statement, that he was intoxicated and said we could go and they would handle it from there.
Later that night or the next morning as I thought about it, the really close call it had been I called the MDC precinct and found out the guy had been held and released….this was before drunken driving was taken serioulsy and thankfully things changed over time…but what ever happened to that guy and what could have happened to us?
Later that night or the next morning as I thought about it, the really close call it had been I called the MDC precinct and found out the guy had been held and released….this was before drunken driving was taken serioulsy and thankfully things changed over time…but what ever happened to that guy and what could have happened to us?
#3- The Fecal Finger of Fate
”The Fecal Finger of Fate- or Death and Dying and Diaper Delivery”
It was the Summer of 1971,just a few months after our incredible VW bus misadventure/Spring Break visit to Bev Roper in Orlando(and that’s definitely another story to be archived). Cyndy, almost one-year-old Joe, and I had our third apartment on Melville Ave. in Dorchester-some wonderful old urban mansions
and gaslit Wellesley Park in that neighborhood, but we had the opportunity to buy my Grandmother’s home on Kilby St, UPS was on strike and we needed to come up with a $1000 down payment and the best and nearest available job turned out to be at National Laundry /diaper division on Dorchester Ave.
I was to be a route driver, delivering the pristinely clean cloth diapers in exchange for the “poo-poo” ones-hey ,we really needed the money ,this was close by and the lucre clean, even if the diapers weren’t.
The route was “Greater Boston” a rather large territory and a rather large bellied foreman named Charlie
who had been with the laundry for ten-plus years was to show me the ropes (or as it turned out the “nets” for diaper dispatch.) He gave me a building tour to start including the garage of 40 or so delivery trucks ,similar to ,but smaller than the UPS route trucks, but the “brown” would be inside the diaper trucks and they were much the worse for wear. Two old-timers were the mechanic department and responsible for keeping the vehicles rolling . I remember that they were disgruntled, having toiled for 25 years for this place and the “cheap bastard” owner would not give them an overdue raise that seemed pretty reasonable to me considering the hard and very important work they were expected to do. They might even just leave the dump and “let him see what happens then!”...
Each day for the first week I’d report at 7:30 and Charlie would orient me to a different route. He would drive and I would write down directions to each residence, some in the tonier neighborhoods, some in the less affluent. Routinely we’d ring the customer’s bell, he’d introduce the “new guy “ to the variously beleaguered /relieved new mom, we would proceed to the room “de diaper pail”
whether bed or bath, I’d empty out the dirties into a net bag careful lest there be any leakage, drippage or smearage on person or property ;he’d deposit the cleans with a bill to be paid forthwith -cash, or on account and we’d be off with a “see you next week” (unless a dire diarrhea developed and necessitated an emergency return earlier).
We repeated the same process over and over responding to the fundamental physics of what goes in must come out somehow in the end, a universal “urine-alysis” of the human condition- and seeing some very cute little human “food and fluid processors”. Half way through the day we’d pull the truck into a McDonald’s for a lunch break and the looks from vehicles parked a bit too near reminded us that on a hot summer day a diaper truck is not a welcome neighbor - a “Phew” vehicles even elected for the drive-through. By the end of the day I was really pooped and I returned home to our apartment, and our own toilet-training saga ...well that’s definitely another story ...
The second week out with Charlie I was driving and he was fine-tuning the directions . I headed up St.Margaret’s Hospital (where our dear Joe was born the previous July 27th) hill, applied the brake at the stop sign and ...NOTHING ! ...the pedal went thumping to the floor and the truck began to roll backwards down the hill; I shifted into first ,let it stall and it stopped to my great relief (must have been a primitive survival strategy imbedded in my cerebral cortex from those standard transmission driving lessons Grandpa gave me on Great Hill, rolling back toward the cliff over Quincy Bay...)
So I turned to Charlie and declared,”That’s it, we can’t drive this truck, no brakes!” I was already remembering the unhappy mechanics who had in fact quit in the meantime. “Just pump them; they’ll
come back”, Charlie said. “We can’t just do that”, I shot back ”besides were up on the top of a (BIG!)hill!”
“Let me show you “,he said as I relinquished the driver’s seat and took his position standing up on the passenger side holding on to the door frame. He restarted the truck and we crept over the top of the hill and the brakes seemed to respond to his repeated pumping-but just over the crest he turned onto a side street ,the truck started down the decline and “thump...thump” to the floor ,NOTHING! again and we were heading downward! I remember those next Dali-esque /slow-motion moments as Charlie turned to me with a horrified
look and a trembling panic in his voice shouted to me-”Jump,Kid !!!!!!” There were cars parked along most of the street on both sides ,we were picking up momentum=speed very fast, but I caught sight of the bottom of the street and my decision came in a flash- at the bottom was a busy intersection with rush hour traffic and dead ahead a variety store with a plate glass window and I new in an instant that if I stayed with the truck I would either be killed ,crushed in a collision with a car or truck in the intersection or have my head cut off by the plate glass window beyond.....”Jump!!!!” Charlie yelled again and as much as I hated to abandon him at the wheel, I could not stand the thought of reading over someone’s shoulder from the afterlife in the next morning’s Herald headline “Diapers and Death in Dorchester!” So I launched myself out that side door, there was a fortunate gap in the parked cars, and for a second or two I was running backwards at thirty mph while the truck sped on .By second number three I was rolling heels over head and I remember beholding the miracle over my shoulder - for an incredible instant, no vehicles
crashing into poor Charlie at the bottom (and shades of do or die/adrenaline stunt driving )as I got to my feet and kept running ,instead of the expected collision with the store window and Charlie’s head airborne, he yanked the wheel all the way over, the truck careened onto the street beside the store and the hit several cars parked along the curb sending pieces of their fenders flying, and the diaper truck rolled to a stop. By this time I had run across the intersection and up to the truck as Charlie stumbled out on to the side-walk, a much lighter shade of Caucasian and his belly was going up and down like a dribbled basketball propelled by his labored breathing . “Kid”, he gasped ,”that was friggin close!” “No shit”, I said completely amazed that I had escaped with only minor clothing and skin scrapes and he with a case of the cosmic shakes. We had not been killed or killed anybody else. After the necessaries with police, tow truck and laundry company ,Charlie repaired to a neighborhood oasis for a tonic to soothe his jangled nerves and I went home sweet home to Cyndy and Joe ,with scrapes that would heal ,a new lease on life, and after 2 months of no more accidents and paying my diaper dues ,a down payment on our first home of our own. The Moral- some experiences are shitty, but life on the whole is sweet indeed...
It was the Summer of 1971,just a few months after our incredible VW bus misadventure/Spring Break visit to Bev Roper in Orlando(and that’s definitely another story to be archived). Cyndy, almost one-year-old Joe, and I had our third apartment on Melville Ave. in Dorchester-some wonderful old urban mansions
and gaslit Wellesley Park in that neighborhood, but we had the opportunity to buy my Grandmother’s home on Kilby St, UPS was on strike and we needed to come up with a $1000 down payment and the best and nearest available job turned out to be at National Laundry /diaper division on Dorchester Ave.
I was to be a route driver, delivering the pristinely clean cloth diapers in exchange for the “poo-poo” ones-hey ,we really needed the money ,this was close by and the lucre clean, even if the diapers weren’t.
The route was “Greater Boston” a rather large territory and a rather large bellied foreman named Charlie
who had been with the laundry for ten-plus years was to show me the ropes (or as it turned out the “nets” for diaper dispatch.) He gave me a building tour to start including the garage of 40 or so delivery trucks ,similar to ,but smaller than the UPS route trucks, but the “brown” would be inside the diaper trucks and they were much the worse for wear. Two old-timers were the mechanic department and responsible for keeping the vehicles rolling . I remember that they were disgruntled, having toiled for 25 years for this place and the “cheap bastard” owner would not give them an overdue raise that seemed pretty reasonable to me considering the hard and very important work they were expected to do. They might even just leave the dump and “let him see what happens then!”...
Each day for the first week I’d report at 7:30 and Charlie would orient me to a different route. He would drive and I would write down directions to each residence, some in the tonier neighborhoods, some in the less affluent. Routinely we’d ring the customer’s bell, he’d introduce the “new guy “ to the variously beleaguered /relieved new mom, we would proceed to the room “de diaper pail”
whether bed or bath, I’d empty out the dirties into a net bag careful lest there be any leakage, drippage or smearage on person or property ;he’d deposit the cleans with a bill to be paid forthwith -cash, or on account and we’d be off with a “see you next week” (unless a dire diarrhea developed and necessitated an emergency return earlier).
We repeated the same process over and over responding to the fundamental physics of what goes in must come out somehow in the end, a universal “urine-alysis” of the human condition- and seeing some very cute little human “food and fluid processors”. Half way through the day we’d pull the truck into a McDonald’s for a lunch break and the looks from vehicles parked a bit too near reminded us that on a hot summer day a diaper truck is not a welcome neighbor - a “Phew” vehicles even elected for the drive-through. By the end of the day I was really pooped and I returned home to our apartment, and our own toilet-training saga ...well that’s definitely another story ...
The second week out with Charlie I was driving and he was fine-tuning the directions . I headed up St.Margaret’s Hospital (where our dear Joe was born the previous July 27th) hill, applied the brake at the stop sign and ...NOTHING ! ...the pedal went thumping to the floor and the truck began to roll backwards down the hill; I shifted into first ,let it stall and it stopped to my great relief (must have been a primitive survival strategy imbedded in my cerebral cortex from those standard transmission driving lessons Grandpa gave me on Great Hill, rolling back toward the cliff over Quincy Bay...)
So I turned to Charlie and declared,”That’s it, we can’t drive this truck, no brakes!” I was already remembering the unhappy mechanics who had in fact quit in the meantime. “Just pump them; they’ll
come back”, Charlie said. “We can’t just do that”, I shot back ”besides were up on the top of a (BIG!)hill!”
“Let me show you “,he said as I relinquished the driver’s seat and took his position standing up on the passenger side holding on to the door frame. He restarted the truck and we crept over the top of the hill and the brakes seemed to respond to his repeated pumping-but just over the crest he turned onto a side street ,the truck started down the decline and “thump...thump” to the floor ,NOTHING! again and we were heading downward! I remember those next Dali-esque /slow-motion moments as Charlie turned to me with a horrified
look and a trembling panic in his voice shouted to me-”Jump,Kid !!!!!!” There were cars parked along most of the street on both sides ,we were picking up momentum=speed very fast, but I caught sight of the bottom of the street and my decision came in a flash- at the bottom was a busy intersection with rush hour traffic and dead ahead a variety store with a plate glass window and I new in an instant that if I stayed with the truck I would either be killed ,crushed in a collision with a car or truck in the intersection or have my head cut off by the plate glass window beyond.....”Jump!!!!” Charlie yelled again and as much as I hated to abandon him at the wheel, I could not stand the thought of reading over someone’s shoulder from the afterlife in the next morning’s Herald headline “Diapers and Death in Dorchester!” So I launched myself out that side door, there was a fortunate gap in the parked cars, and for a second or two I was running backwards at thirty mph while the truck sped on .By second number three I was rolling heels over head and I remember beholding the miracle over my shoulder - for an incredible instant, no vehicles
crashing into poor Charlie at the bottom (and shades of do or die/adrenaline stunt driving )as I got to my feet and kept running ,instead of the expected collision with the store window and Charlie’s head airborne, he yanked the wheel all the way over, the truck careened onto the street beside the store and the hit several cars parked along the curb sending pieces of their fenders flying, and the diaper truck rolled to a stop. By this time I had run across the intersection and up to the truck as Charlie stumbled out on to the side-walk, a much lighter shade of Caucasian and his belly was going up and down like a dribbled basketball propelled by his labored breathing . “Kid”, he gasped ,”that was friggin close!” “No shit”, I said completely amazed that I had escaped with only minor clothing and skin scrapes and he with a case of the cosmic shakes. We had not been killed or killed anybody else. After the necessaries with police, tow truck and laundry company ,Charlie repaired to a neighborhood oasis for a tonic to soothe his jangled nerves and I went home sweet home to Cyndy and Joe ,with scrapes that would heal ,a new lease on life, and after 2 months of no more accidents and paying my diaper dues ,a down payment on our first home of our own. The Moral- some experiences are shitty, but life on the whole is sweet indeed...
The Big Blow-out of '67
#2-Actually –also before the first encounter, the “Fecal finger of Fate” /actually #3 -was the blow out on the way to Sealtest Ice Cream… In the summer of 1967 when I was 17 my Dad had arranged a summer job for me at the Sealtest plant in Framingham. This was my first real full time summer job, having done custodial work for the church, some babysitting as the only responsible young lad in the neighborhood, and going as a helper on milk trucks with Dad or his compatriots. Dad even let me drop him off to get a ride to work and take his car so I could work that 6AM to 2:30 PM shift. My position was as general helper – which included everything from making ice cream base in a giant cauldron- recipe= grind 30 40 lb blocks of butter fat, add 2 feet of water and bring to a boil before the masters added flavorings…grab the milk cans for the overflow ice cream when the delivery line was blocked but it was too onerous to stop the automatic fill, which when we ran out of metal milk jugs, barrels and baskets just ran out on the floor…to working in the city block size freezer chest in arctic gear at 5 degrees chipping novelties, fudgesickles etc. from broken packages off the floor with a long chisel. (Getting deluged by fudge when a 100 gallon drum broke while I attempted to attach an agitator motor to it and rescuing a 5 gallon container of Frozen Pudding for my future father-in-law …these were all benefits of this unusual employ.) Back to the close call on the way to work. I had dropped Dad off , and as I had for the previous month I sped along route 128 at 20 to 6 at the 65mph speed limit, listening to the radio, with all the windows rolled down in the cool morning when suddenly the driver side front tire blew out with a terrific explosion and I struggled to steer as the car veered and swayed violently, so much so that I thought I might get thrown out the open passenger side window. The station wagon finally came to rest across the high speed passing lane with the car almost tipping over. I jumped out of the driver’s side door and scrambled across the break down lane onto the grassy shoulder, my heart racing as trucks and cars zoomed by with narrow misses. Fortunately the State Police pulled up in very short order, directed traffic as I pulled the car off and was able to change the shredded tire for the spare. I really don’t remember if I was actually wearing the seat belt at the time, but I clearly remember that helpless feeling of nearly being thrown out the passenger window , and I always have worn a seat belt ever since!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
#1 Learning to Drive Standard Shift with Gramp -on Great Hill
#1-Learning to drive standard with Gramp
Flash back to my first vehicular near miss, probably in 1966 at age 16 not too long after I had taken Driver’s Ed ,passed the Registry written and driving tests so I had that ticket to mobile freedom, that teenage proof of passage, my driver’s license. I was careful and responsible, did fine with the automatic transmission car my folks would let me borrow, but there was another challenge to master- the standard transmission. Gramp lived on Kilby St (later our first home) and had a Chevy Bel Air ,a brand new one at that ,but true to his pioneer background the absolutely most basic model- no radio, no AC and no automatic – he probably would have opted out of the seats and windshield if that had been an option. Gramp, though a bit gruff and very old fashioned, was very good for so long picking us grandchildren and friends up so often ,mostly after school at St Anne’s- He had his own free style style of driving, would occasionally call out the car window heartfelt colorful expressions we kids did not understand at those who beeped their disapproval. He had a low tolerance for kids behaving like kids in the back seat, admonishing them to what sounded to us like “wish” ,declaring that once even when he accidentally slammed the car door shut on the hand of one of his young passengers.(no serious damage done) Being the oldest I sat in the front passenger seat on these drives , no seatbelts then and I would hang on tightly to the door as he made his usual full speed brakeless turn into Peterson Road with the other kids rolling around in the back seat.. One more driving memory: for some reason Gramp picked me up down the Neck when I was walking with babysitting Cyndy and 3year old brother Robbie who whispered but not very quietly from the back seat-“Hey Cyndy, why is Mike’s Grandfather driving and wearing a parachute?” The parachute was actually his ubiquitous and anachronistic suspenders – but a parachute would at times have been appropriate and I’m gradually getting to a particlar for instance.
Gramp offered to teach me how to drive standard shift and actually he was not a particlarly patient explainer. This I knew from being his helper on a few family carpentry projects. I just mostly watched, handed him tools and grimaced thinking of his missing fingers when he turned on the skill saw with the safety guard tied back because he insisted it got in his way.
Anyhow he imparted the basics of shifting as I drove down Sea St and we headed up Great Hill along the back bayside road. We turned the corner, I headed up the hill and he ordered me to stop…time to learn how to stop and start on a steep hill. With him sitting beside me I tuned the key and as soon as I did the car slid backward so I jammed on the brake with the other foot all the way down on the clutch. “No,” he said,”Turn the key and step on the gas and throw out the clutch!” I did not really know how to throw out the clutch –other than when the Stooges would literally rip it out of the floor and send it flying out the window. It must have something to do with tension on the clutch but I tried this seemingly impossible gymnastic maneuver repeatedly and each time the car rapidly slid backward and stalled when I jammed on the brake- all the while Gramp yelling “Throw out the clutch!, Throw out the clutch!” Stalling and restarting each time the car slid back I shot a glance in the rear view mirror and all I could see was the fence at the edge of the hillside and the Quincy Bay looming below and beyond and I really did not want to turn a driving lesson in a death by drowning for me and Gramp…so on about the 6th desperate try somehow I got the balance of gas and clutch close enough to leave a patch of rubber and progress jerkily up the hill. “Now you’re getting the hang of it like I told you!” Gramp said, “You just have to throw out the clutch!” I passed this test enough to satisfy him and he was generous in letting me borrow the car to go out on dates…but for a long time and everytime I stopped at a light even on a level stretch the car would jerk and buck as I started up and tried to get that right balance between the gas and that other troublesome pedal…a muscle memory responding to Gramp’s admonishments in my ear …”Throw out the clutch, Micheal, throw out the clutch!”
(Less dangerous but memorable- I was helping Gramp shingle the driveway side on some staging when I was about 13, (1963) he would have been about 68 I guess, when there was a loud crack as his rigging split and the next thing I new I was on the pavement maybe 6-8 feet below and he was pulling me up off the ground and asking if I was all right…no problem for him as in past ladder jumping and falls from roofs several floors up this was nothing!)
Flash back to my first vehicular near miss, probably in 1966 at age 16 not too long after I had taken Driver’s Ed ,passed the Registry written and driving tests so I had that ticket to mobile freedom, that teenage proof of passage, my driver’s license. I was careful and responsible, did fine with the automatic transmission car my folks would let me borrow, but there was another challenge to master- the standard transmission. Gramp lived on Kilby St (later our first home) and had a Chevy Bel Air ,a brand new one at that ,but true to his pioneer background the absolutely most basic model- no radio, no AC and no automatic – he probably would have opted out of the seats and windshield if that had been an option. Gramp, though a bit gruff and very old fashioned, was very good for so long picking us grandchildren and friends up so often ,mostly after school at St Anne’s- He had his own free style style of driving, would occasionally call out the car window heartfelt colorful expressions we kids did not understand at those who beeped their disapproval. He had a low tolerance for kids behaving like kids in the back seat, admonishing them to what sounded to us like “wish” ,declaring that once even when he accidentally slammed the car door shut on the hand of one of his young passengers.(no serious damage done) Being the oldest I sat in the front passenger seat on these drives , no seatbelts then and I would hang on tightly to the door as he made his usual full speed brakeless turn into Peterson Road with the other kids rolling around in the back seat.. One more driving memory: for some reason Gramp picked me up down the Neck when I was walking with babysitting Cyndy and 3year old brother Robbie who whispered but not very quietly from the back seat-“Hey Cyndy, why is Mike’s Grandfather driving and wearing a parachute?” The parachute was actually his ubiquitous and anachronistic suspenders – but a parachute would at times have been appropriate and I’m gradually getting to a particlar for instance.
Gramp offered to teach me how to drive standard shift and actually he was not a particlarly patient explainer. This I knew from being his helper on a few family carpentry projects. I just mostly watched, handed him tools and grimaced thinking of his missing fingers when he turned on the skill saw with the safety guard tied back because he insisted it got in his way.
Anyhow he imparted the basics of shifting as I drove down Sea St and we headed up Great Hill along the back bayside road. We turned the corner, I headed up the hill and he ordered me to stop…time to learn how to stop and start on a steep hill. With him sitting beside me I tuned the key and as soon as I did the car slid backward so I jammed on the brake with the other foot all the way down on the clutch. “No,” he said,”Turn the key and step on the gas and throw out the clutch!” I did not really know how to throw out the clutch –other than when the Stooges would literally rip it out of the floor and send it flying out the window. It must have something to do with tension on the clutch but I tried this seemingly impossible gymnastic maneuver repeatedly and each time the car rapidly slid backward and stalled when I jammed on the brake- all the while Gramp yelling “Throw out the clutch!, Throw out the clutch!” Stalling and restarting each time the car slid back I shot a glance in the rear view mirror and all I could see was the fence at the edge of the hillside and the Quincy Bay looming below and beyond and I really did not want to turn a driving lesson in a death by drowning for me and Gramp…so on about the 6th desperate try somehow I got the balance of gas and clutch close enough to leave a patch of rubber and progress jerkily up the hill. “Now you’re getting the hang of it like I told you!” Gramp said, “You just have to throw out the clutch!” I passed this test enough to satisfy him and he was generous in letting me borrow the car to go out on dates…but for a long time and everytime I stopped at a light even on a level stretch the car would jerk and buck as I started up and tried to get that right balance between the gas and that other troublesome pedal…a muscle memory responding to Gramp’s admonishments in my ear …”Throw out the clutch, Micheal, throw out the clutch!”
(Less dangerous but memorable- I was helping Gramp shingle the driveway side on some staging when I was about 13, (1963) he would have been about 68 I guess, when there was a loud crack as his rigging split and the next thing I new I was on the pavement maybe 6-8 feet below and he was pulling me up off the ground and asking if I was all right…no problem for him as in past ladder jumping and falls from roofs several floors up this was nothing!)
Intro to Surviving Close Encounters of the Worst Kind
“Close Encounters of the Worst Kind” or It’s so good to be alive after coming so close to being killed!
At times it is literally a matter of inches or seconds which separate us from life and death, a step either way could settle the basic debate over the afterlife and underscores the more evident and important one -
“Is there life before death?"
So what follows are an amazing number of "close ones" that I have had or Cyndy and I have had together...life is fragile,strong,strange and good!
At times it is literally a matter of inches or seconds which separate us from life and death, a step either way could settle the basic debate over the afterlife and underscores the more evident and important one -
“Is there life before death?"
So what follows are an amazing number of "close ones" that I have had or Cyndy and I have had together...life is fragile,strong,strange and good!
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