The Wedding Part II

 

It was nice to be back in the hotel after a day that was fun, interesting, terrifying and slightly funny all rolled into about twelve hours.  I am just pretty good at getting myself into stupid situations.  One minute I can feel like the innocent and backward country bumpkin and the next minute  bask in the ability to go forward unscathed in what could have been a serious situation.

Charles was glad to see me and asked all about my visit with Erin.  I told him how much fun it was to see her and everything we had done.  I did leave out all of the more interesting parts of the adventure.  Somehow I thought it might make it sound like the really dumb things I could manage to get myself into.

The next day dawned bright and beautiful which was a good thing as the wedding was to be in the garden.  Charles and I arrived at the Mansion shortly after lunch with his business partner, Allen and his wife. The wedding was to be at 4:00 followed by dinner and dancing.  I wandered around watching the bustle of the caters, the wedding planner lady dashing around barking orders and the nervous bride sometimes laughing and sometimes in a rage over something. Actually I did my best to stay out of the way.

I had never attended a Jewish wedding much less a Jewish-Catholic wedding complete with both a Priest and a Rabbi.  I must say it was an interesting and really a beautiful event. While the wedding party spent two hours taking pictures most of the eighty guests visited the bar. Once seated in the huge dining room I discovered I was sitting at the head table next to Charles with his daughter, Jamie, on the other side. Things went well with all of the toasts and the speeches but after they were over Jamie stood up and in a very loud voice demanded to know why I was sitting next to her Dad.  Every head in the dining room turned to stare at us.

Naturally I had no answer for that...well maybe I did bit I certainly was not going to say it.  No one said anything.  I was a little surprised that Charles did not say anything but then Jamie had never had her Dad say anything negative to her in her life.  I just sat there wanting to disappear or cry or pop her in the mouth none of which sounded like a good idea.  When no one responded she finally just disappeared.   It was about the same time that Charles' business partner, Allan came and said her and his wife needed to get to the airport as they had an flight back to Detroit that evening.  We had all come in the same car from the airport the day before so Allan needed someone to take them.  Guess who volunteered?  I needed to get out of there as I felt like everyone was discussing Jamie's outburst.

Armed with a map, Allam driving and my excellent map reading skills we made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Since we had not had any dinner and I was not in a hurry to go back to the wedding party I went into the airport with them and we had dinner.  Then I watched as their plane took off for Detroit. I really wished I was on the plane with them.

It took me a couple of hours to get back to the wedding.  Charles said he was beginning to get worried about me and I just said I got a little lost.  That was not the whole truth as I was just driving around seeing the sights in order to avoid going back.  It was obvious that Charles was not going to say anything about Jamie's behavior which was disappointing.  She kept her distance from me and somehow I managed to get through the rest of the evening. Detroit was very nice to get back to the next day.

I don't know if Charles was expecting me to bring up the subject or not but shortly after we got home he suggested we go to counseling.  He was a big believer in it and it was apparent that maybe our relationship needed some help.  The first time we went together but the counselor said she thought it might be good for me to come in alone.  I learned a lot about myself like why I was so non confrontational and of course, all my issues with my Mother.  The interesting part of it all was how long it would take me to actually change some of the patterns of my behavior. Sometimes the status quo is just easier. 

Life got busy that fall.  Wally started the ninth grade at Seaholm High School.  Work was very busy plus it was costume design time with the ice show.  Busy was good as I did not have very much time to dwell on the situation with Charles or his daughters.  One evening I was glancing through the Detroit Free Press newspaper which I rarely ever looked at.  It would be interesting to know just what made me look at the paper that day.  As I was flipping through the pages a headline caught my attention or maybe it was the picture.

  "World Famous Speaker To Give Seminar"  and there was that smile I knew so well.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The Wedding Part 1

 

The Alder Mansion

I have put off writing about the wedding which occurred the middle of August.  Over all it was such a great summer I hated to put a damper on it by telling interesting, eye opening, good time, a little scary time, bad time and the cause of future events.  That in just three days time.  But here goes.

Charles had two daughters.  The youngest, in her mid twenties lived in Detroit.  Jamie was cute and the typical Jewish American Princess in that anything she wanted or needed Charles provided.  Jobs, places, to live and boyfriends came and went very quickly.  The longer Charles and I were together the more she tried to cause problems between us.  If I answered the phone when she called she never said hello but just "I need to talk to Daddy".

Breann was thirty and lived with her boyfriend, Rob, in White Plains, New York.  They had been together for seven years, owned a great old townhouse together and were fun to go and visit.  Rob collected architectural salvage which I thought was just pretty cool.  They decided to get married which was interesting as Rob was Catholic and Breanne was Jewish.

Charles flew to New York several times during the summer to help with plans.  Actually I figured that it was to pay for this or that as Breanne's mother lived in the same area and you can bet she did a lot of the planning.  Weddings have to be huge and expensive in her view. Those were the days before debt cards and Charles did not have credit cards but did all transactions in cash.  Even when it was large sums of cash. It did not dawn on me at the time but the trips to New York were to pay for things.

We flew to New York on a Friday morning arriving around 10:00.  There was a luncheon planned at a restaurant for many of Breanne and Rob's friends and a few relatives. Since I had a college suite-mate that lived in Soho I made arrangements to meet her for the afternoon so Charles dropped me off and headed for lunch.  I met up with Erin who I had not seen since my New Jersey days.

Erin was a high school counselor with a PHD. For years she had lived in an apartment that she rented when all of a sudden her landlord decided he wanted his mother to have the apartment.  Erin had to leave with no place to go.  Rent had gone up all over the city and Erin told me stories about how there were hundreds of women with good paying jobs living on park benches because they could not find a place to live.  Erin went to her parents and they helped her purchase a condo in Soho.

The halls of the building were so narrow that your shoulders almost touched the walls as you walked down the hallways.  The condo could not have been more than six or seven hundred square feet.  It was all one room with a couch that folded out to make a bed, a tiny kitchen in one corner and the bathroom was smaller than most gas stations. The saving grace was that it had a patio, well actually a roof top, that was as big as the condo.  She happily paid $93,000.00 for it so she never had to worry about being homeless again. I rather liked it myself.

We had a great time catching up, wandering around Soho and looking at all the shops. Erin had an Italian restaurant picked out for us for dinner.  It was a very tiny place with only about a dozen tiny tables for two.  Our reservations were for seven and I was starving by then. Interesting was that the waiters could not speak English.  The menu was also in Italian but Erin said to just pick something out and to answer yes to anything that sounded like a question.  She said everything on the menu was out of this world and that you would be happy with it. She was right!

It was after 9:00 when we finished with dinner. I had not planned on staying in the City that late but time flies when you are having fun.  I asked Erin how could I get to White Plains hoping she had a car.  No such luck as it is two expensive to have a car in the City so she pointed in the direction of Grand Central Station so I could take the train.

Grand Central Station certainly lives up to it's name.  Open in 1871 but in thirty years it was obsolete in handling the daily traffic.  It was redesigned with everything grand thrown in.  There was the belief that people arriving to New York for the first time needed to see the beauty and the grandness of the city.  Originally it handled trains coming and going from other places but the need for commuter service in the city slowly transformed it into a regional commuter hub.

After I wondered around taking in all the beauty of the huge building I looked for some information on how to buy a ticket to White plains.  I was directed to a wall of machines that would pop out a ticket to any where. I was completely confused as to what to do when I was approached by a man, not very well dressed and not one I wanted to have a conversation with.  He asked me where I was going and I told him.  He immediately found the ticket window for White Plains and told me how much money I needed.  I gave him the money expecting him to run off with it but instead he put the money in the machine and got a ticket.  I thanked him, he asked for enough money for a cup of coffee but I gave him enough for dinner so he walked me to the correct platform and disappeared.

The train ride was fascinating.  The train was an elevated tracks as we went through the city.  People who worked, had been to dinner or the theater came and went from the train. Although the car was pretty empty at times a man with a bottle in a brown paper sack sat down next to me.  This one I did not want to talk to under any circumstance so while he rambled on I looked out the window and totally ignored his ramblings until he got bored and left.

One would have thought that upon arrival in White Plains there would be a station of sorts with people and taxi cabs around like you would see in the movies.  No, there was a platform with stairs to the ground, not a sole in sight and a phone booth. Time passed slowly as I tried to figure out what to do when another train arrived dropping off a couple of gentleman. A taxi arrived, came to a screeching halt and the two gentlemen jumped into an already filled cab.

I managed to get the driver to answer a the question as to how I was supposed to get to the Holiday Inn.  He informed me that his cab was full, going in the opposite direction and their was no room for me.  I guess I looked a little desperate as one of the passengers asked him if maybe they could take me to the hotel.  The taxi driver argued but finally let me get in with a total of seven people in that cab and we struck off.  It did not take me long to decide that perhaps I had not made the right decision.

I could tell by the road signs we were going away from White Plains. In my many lectures I had heard about not being a victim from police officers it dawned on me that you never go to location number two or you never return.  I asked why we were going in the wrong direction and the driver explained that he needed to deliver everyone else first and I would be last.  I wasn't crazy about that thought and there began to be a vote from my fellow passengers as to what they should do. Finally taking me to the hotel first won and the taxi sped back to White Plains. I don't think I took a breath until we stopped in front of the Holiday Inn.

Charles and some of the wedding party were in the bar when I arrived.  I missed the Bachelor dinner but Charles did not seem upset.  He asked if I had a good time and I did tell him about the afternoon and the pleasant train ride.  I did omit the story of what had been a very scary taxi ride as I did not want to look like a total fool for doing something like that.  Jamie kept telling how great the dinner was and how bad it was for me to be a no show.  It did not bother me at the time as I was just thankful to be alive and maybe just a bit proud of myself for getting out of what could have been a very bad situation.

I went to sleep that night thinking about how much fun I had with Erin, how much I loved to be in New York and curious about the actual wedding the next day.  Did you see the movie Crocodile Dundee?  The film had come out the year before and there was a scene where Mike Dundee goes back to New York to meet his girl friend's parents.  The house is huge with a circle drive in front. That was Alder Mansion in Yonkers.

The Alder Mansion was built in 1912, also know as the W.B.Thompson Mansion, as a weekend home all 65,000 square feet of it.  The Thompson family lived there until the mid-20th century and it was willed to the Archdiocese of New York. It became a high school, then a junior college and finally Iona College. Other buildings on the property were repurposed but the mansion fell into neglect.  The Irish American cultural organization bought the mansion and holds events there and rents it out for movies and weddings to raise money for its restoration. It sits 300 feet above the Hudson River with extensive gardens surrounding it. There is even  a tiled swimming pool on the second floor.  

This will be the location of the wedding, the reception, the dinner and the dance the next day.  What a day!

The Best Summer

When I delivered Jean's newly redone hide-a-bed I mentioned that I was going to go pick up Wally at the summer camp he had been attending.  She told me that she and her husband, Jim, had a cottage not very far from the camp.  Since they were going to be up there at the same time I was going to pick up Wally and his friend, Chris, why did I not take an extra day or so and come visit with them. That sounded too good to pass up.

Funny but if I had still been married to Dennis I would never have accepted Jean's invitation.  Dennis would not have gone since he didn't know Jean and he certainly would not have wanted to spend a couple of days in a cottage in the woods.  The "new" me just told Charles I was going to pick up Wally and stay a couple of days with Jim and Jean.  He thought that would be fun for me.

Their place was located a few miles west of the south end of the Mackinaw Bridge. Of all the places I had lived before moving to Michigan there were none more beautiful.  Leaving Detroit and headed north the highway was dotted with small towns almost like ones you see in storybooks.  In between the towns there is nothing but trees and beautiful natural lakes.  If I had a care in the world the scenery could dissolve it twenty miles north of the city.

The location of Jean's cottage - ah, correction - Jean's lovely A-frame home nestled on the side of a hill surrounded by a forest of trees was lovely.  They had built the cottage when their children were small and spent every summer there plus many ski trips in the winter. There was not really a town nearby but on the bank of the lake there was a huge log restaurant and bar where all the people in the area congregated  for food, drink and music.

 The three days with Jean and Jim were really relaxing and fun.  We hiked and swam by day and sat around the campfire each evening.  One of their sons and his family arrived on Friday with his family.  More family stories that made me feel like part of a family that I had missed living away from mine for so many years. It was rather sad to have to head off on Saturday morning to pick up the boys but was invited to come back anytime.

Wally's camp had very interesting instructions as to how to get there.  I was to drive across the Mackinaw Bridge to the Upper Peninsula to Barbeau.  Go to the bar in Barbeau and use the pay phone to call the Pine River Camp which was located on Neebish Island in the middle of the St. Mary's River.  The camp would then send a canoe or a row boat to pick me up.  Those had to be the most interesting instructions on how to get to someplace I had ever heard but in just a few minutes a row boat arrived to take me to the camp.

From the stories Wally had told me through the years about the camp I knew it was not some county club type camp but to see how really rustic it was kind of surprised me. There was a big central kitchen and a lot of small screened cabins for the campers to sleep in.  Everything has a sort of very weathered wood look to it.  The campers bathed in the river and I guess if they ever thought about washing clothes that happened in the river as well.  My reaction to the place was how cool it was!

The boys were  glad to see me and had fun taking me on a tour of the camp.  I am not sure how excited they were for camp being over and having to go home.  One of Wally's favorites parts of the camp was being taken to Lake Superior Provincial Park in Canada for real wilderness camping.  The cost of the camp was not cheap but to see Wally grow in self-confidence and an awareness of nature was well worth the price.

The ride home was lots of fun with Wally and Chris's stories about what they did and all the new friends from all over the country that they had made. We did have to keep the windows of the Bronco open as we flew down the highway.  There was a rather distinct aroma of clothes that had not been washed in three weeks floating through the air. 

Back home it was back to work for me, Wally hanging out with his friends, a couple of camping weekends with Charles and Bowser and Wally made a few trips to Cleveland to see his Dad and Wes popped up at our house for visits.  The big news for Wes was that he finally turned eighteen and the race car was ready to drive.

In September Wally started high school at Seaholm High School in Birmingham.  It was an interesting school in that you could find kids of every nationality and many different languages among the 1300 students. I was never real sure how comfortable he felt with changing schools so many times. But Seaholm was certainly considered one of the best high schools in the state.  Would you believe the official mascot was The Maple Leaves?

In early September Wally and I drove to Norwalk, Ohio to watch Wes get his NHRA Competition license and race for the first time.  I could not remember a moment of Wes's life when the only thing he wanted to do was to drive a race car. Since he was old to enough to draw race cars were the only thing he drew.  He never missed a chance to go to the drag races and he would disappear.  Dennis always worried he would get run over, I figured if he did someone would come and tell us as he had met and talked with every race driver at every race we had ever been to.

It was really a fun evening and just the beginning of watching Wes fly down the track through the years.  People would ask me if I was worried about him going so fast.  Actually I wanted him to go faster as that was his dream.

If I had to pick one of the most fun summers I ever had that would be the one.  There was one exception however that I have left out.  Maybe I should just not tell the story but then THE WEDDING triggered some very important events.

The Interesting Summer

It was both a good and a bad thing to find out how far behind I had gotten with my income producing job while spending four months playing ice show.  Bad thing as there were a few customers who thought I had died but a good thing that I still had a roof over my head and food to eat thanks to Charles.

Several good things happened as far as work went.  I had a neighbor lady stop by and asked me about my decorating business.   She and her sister were both from Ireland and liked to go back every summer for a visit.  Both were married to husbands with good salaries and lived in nice houses but they were adamant about making their own money to fly to Ireland.  They cleaned a couple of houses on Thursday and Friday but heard I did painting and they thought that might be fun.

Stroke of luck in that I had been putting a huge job off lacking the time or the energy to do it myself.  I hired them for the next week.  Those two were amazing  in that they made instants friendships with the customers, were both very well educated and best of all  they were meticulous in painting and cleaning, so meticulous that they cleaned a room before we painted.  I was not a fan of spending a day or two taping anything off as it was much easier to be neat to start with.  The three of us flew though paint jobs in record time, there was lots of laughter and we went home with not a drop of paint left anywhere even on our clothes.  

While I was playing Dorothy Hamill ice skating I did not have time for my Thursday's with my friend Claire.  Our lunch and visits to Saks and Macy's got put on hold and I guess Claire needed an excuse for me to hang out again and be a friend.  Her house was pretty well completed but she always had something she thought she needed to purchase.

What was funny about our shopping trips was that both Claire and I were the two worst shoppers to enter a store. Claire had money to spend but nothing was ever perfect enough to buy.  I had no extra money but it was sure fun to try on $700.00 dresses to see how they were made and how great I could look if I had money. After checking all the clothes out we would go hide in a corner and I would make sketches and notes on ones we liked.  Claire figured since I made all those beaded and sequined ice show costumes I could certainly make something up for her.

Charles thought I worked too much and did not charge enough.  He once to told me for the hours I put in I should be a millionaire. There were beginning to be cracks in the relationship.  With his daughter getting married in New York at the end of the summer and the youngest daughter, who lived in Detroit, I began to get the impression they were not too crazy about me. 

There were things you learn about someone after you move in with them.  I had a problem living with him and not being married even though I did not want to get married. There were times when I heard Wally trying to explain just who Charles was to his friends which was difficult. There were other things that popped up as the months went by.

I knew almost from the first time I went out with Charles that he smoked marijuana. His explanation was that it had been the cool thing to do since the seventies.  Maybe  for some, but I had missed that whole hippie, marijuana generation.  I had been too busy going to school, having Wes and Wally and drag racing. I will admit that at the age of thirty-eight I did try it once but hated it.  It was certainly not what I wanted Wally to think was okay although he knew Charles smoked it as you could smell it in the car at times.  After I tried it once Charles never smoked it in front of Wally or I.

In June, actually on my birthday, Wally graduated and finished the eight grade which was middle school.  Charles had gone to New York for wedding plans so Wally and I went to see Dick Clark's Musical Show at the Pine Knob Event Center.....outside.  Wouldn't you know that it decided to be 45 degrees that evening in June.  We wore winter clothes and wrapped in a blanket but had a great time.  The show was decades of rock and roll hits with the dances and music by The Temptations, The 5th Dimension and several other groups. When you are having fun maybe you do not notice your are actually freezing......in June!

That was a good beginning to a very busy but a very fun summer. Wally and I had certainly taught Charles to love camping.  He missed going when we were involved with the ice show so there were several trips with Charles doing his favorite thing about camping.

When we stared the ice skating lessons a few years before the teacher, Jean, was also the director of the children's ice show number.  She was the one who suggested that I try out for the show so Jean was responsible for my involvement.  We became very good friends during the past couple of years and one day she asked if I could upholster her hide-a-bed.  Since I never said no to any thing new, I yes.  After all my business card said complete interior design. Was I actually going to admit that I had no clue as to how to recover a hide-a-bed?

The hide-a-bed was an experience but a good learning one.  First I learned that if you are going to redo a hide -a-bed, leave all the metal bed part at the customer's house.  Have you ever picked one up?  They are much easier to work with without all that heavy metal on the inside.  It really isn't difficult you just take the pieces off in the order the manufacturer put them on, use them as a pattern for the new fabric and staple away. I am not going to say I did not have a few frustrating moments but it turned out really nice.

Ever since the 20th Reunion of the Muskogee High School Class of 1964 I had kept in Touch with Lisa and Gretchen, two of my fellow classmates.  It was now time for the 25th reunion the end of June.  After the disaster that the 20th which was due to my dear husband at the time I wondered if I should even go.  Luckily he was now the ex-husband and there was no way Gretchen and Lisa were going to take no for an answer.

Mom had called shortly before it was time to go to Muskogee and wanted me to go on a horseback trip and camping in the Canadian Rockies at the same time as the reunion.  It did sound like fun but so did hanging out with people I had grown up with.  Much to Mother's dismay I chose the reunion over the all expense paid trip to Canada. I am not sure she ever forgave me for not choosing her trip but somehow the reunion sounded like more fun.

I flew into Tulsa and was met at the airport by six of my classmates.  When I told them that no one in Michigan knew what Chicken Fried Steak was we all headed off to locate some which is very easy in Oklahoma. That was the beginning of the most memorable weekend of my life.  I probably should not tell the whole story of the weekend but as long as I do not use names I may be okay. 

My high school class had five hundred kids in it.  I never felt like I was all that popular but I tried to be nice to everyone.  Many of the people I hung out with that weekend were not ones I ran around with while in school.  Actually I was pretty sheltered since my Mother thought if you went to a seven o'clock movie you should be home by nine-thirty or that why would you go to a slumber party when you have a bed at home?  It was a blessing that I had no parent or husband to stop me from having fun.

Four of us girls had a motel room at the Holiday Inn, the official hotel of the reunion.  Friday night was a meet and greet at the Elks Club.  Good thing for name tags as many had changed a lot in twenty five years while others looked exactly the same.  I hadn't changed that much but was maybe forty pounds thinner than in school.  There was lots of talking, laughing and beer drinking until 2:00 in the morning when the Elks Club shut down.  There was a group of about twelve or so that really did not want to call it a night.  One of the male members of the class decided we should all go over to his house so off we went.

Interesting what a group of slightly inebriated people can think of to do.  Our answer, although I just smiled and agreed not planning on participating, was a wet T-shirt swimming party.  Shorts and t-shirts appeared and dress up clothes disappeared and a swimming party it was. I begged off for awhile until someone presented me with a shirt and a pair of shorts preferring not to look like the prude in the group I joined in.  One of the guys cooked breakfast and at 6:00 in the morning we headed to the motel.  Much to my surprise it was really fun.  There were a couple of first time events in that one evening.  More beer than I ever drank at one time and the first time I ever stayed out all night.

There was not much time for sleep as Gretchen had a beauty shop appointment at 9:00.  Then there was the picnic at Honor Heights Park at noon followed by getting ready for the banquet and dance that evening. We were all pretty well behaved that evening partially due to the fact there was a group of us that stayed up all night.  It was hard to believe the weekend was almost over. The next morning a group of us met for breakfast which lasted almost to lunch as no one wanted to leave but I had a plane to catch and we all finally hugged each other said our good byes. 

The most interesting thing about the weekend was that it felt  so good to be around all those people you grew up with.  It was so easy to talk to everyone sort of like you just saw them yesterday, not that twenty five years had passed.  With all the moving around I had done, all the friends I had made and left when I had to move on I really felt like I had come home.  Before we all parted it was decided that from now on there would be a reunion every five years which sounded great to me.

Wally headed off to camp for three weeks and got one of his friends from school to go with him.  I told Jean I was going to go pick him up when camp was over as I was curious about where I had been sending him every summer.  Jean and her husband, Jim, had a cottage on Lake Michigan not far from the camp and invited me to come up and visit with them for a few days on my way to get the boys.  Ahh...the nice thing about being self-employed.  Taking time off from work was so easy.  

With Wally gone to camp I had three weeks to catch up on work which was pretty easy to do.  Work kept me busy enough that I did not have time to stop and think then about how some aspects of my life were perhaps about to change.  Dennis and I had been divorced for three and a half years.  Charles had been the only person I had even dated and although he was really good to both Wally and I and let me do things Dennis would never have dreamed of letting me do.  But maybe the seventeen year age difference was not such a good thing. Did I love him or was he, just as a divorce book said, my transitional male.

It was certainly becoming an interesting summer.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 

The Best of the Ice Shows

With Christmas over it was time to get to work  on the basement.  Wally desperately needed a larger bedroom and one that wasn't a short cut to get to the family room.  With both costumes and draperies to be made I needed a place to sew that did not involve crawling all over the carpet to lay things out.   

I did not realize until we started the project that Charles did not know anything about carpentry or carpentry tools.  He had a few tools but the few times he attempted to use them should have made Wally and I aware that this was going to be very interesting. Luckily in my previous life I had helped on a few construction projects and had a full set of Time Life do-it-your-self books. In order to attach the studs to the exterior concrete walls Charles purchased a RamsetHammerShot0.22 Caliber Single Shot Tool.  In plain English that was a gun that shot nails through the stud into the concrete.

Anyone who knows me knows that guns are not my thing.  The only time I ever fired one was when I had a cute guy ask me to go rabbit hunting in the snow in college.  I fired the gun once to scare the rabbits away so they would be safe.  Needless to say the RamsetHammer thing scared me to death. But Charles happened to be a real gun loving person who owned a lot of vintage firearms as well as those things people use to kill each other. So, Wally and I would cut the studs to length and Charles could fire away.

When all the walls were built and in place it was past the time I needed to be working on the ice show costumes so the rest of the basement was going to have to wait.  I was very excited and pleased that Wally made the cast.  It was also a little scary from the aspect that he was only fourteen without ten years of ice skating behind him.  The good thing about Wally was that he had been roller skating since he could walk.  The conversation from roller skates to ice skates is very easy.  Put a pair of roller skates on an ice skater and get ready to watch them fall down.  There is something about the weight of the wheels that they have a great deal of difficulty in knowing how to handle the wheels over little thin blades.

From the first of February to showtime the last weekend of April always seemed to just be a big blur of busy days and nights.  Between Wally and I there were seven costumes to make and one that I was in charge of. Add into that I did have a business, Wally had school and poor Charles only got to see us coming or going out the door.  By the first part of April you begin to wonder if you are going to live through this, why did I ever sign up for this and everyone just gets sick of rehearsal and everyone in the show.

Then the magic happens.  The sets begin to be built, bleachers fill the empty space around the ice, the forty foot tall curtains are hung and the arena takes on a totally different look.  You can begin to see how awesome this show will be and how the routines you have spent hours learning fit together.  The Las Vegas number has a huge slot machine with a teflon ramp the skaters will fly down, the Gypsy number will have a huge circular box that will move across the ice with skaters on top and all those glow in the dark orange costumes will be beautiful as the skaters fly across the ice under black light in the Main Street number.

From opening night through all eight sold out performances you tend to forget how many hours and how much work it took to get through the show.  Wally did really well skating with all the seasoned skaters.  He even got over the fact that he had a pink spandex suit with huge ostrich feathers on his shoulders or how much he hated the sixties costume with only fringe covering his belly. I can remember that years later he said none of his friends ever got to skate in an ice show. I took that as a positive comment.  Hopefully he will be ready to be in the show again next year as it was fun to have him in it with me.

Real life was hard took go back to.  There was always a feeling of let down for a week or so after the show was over. Wally was finishing up middle school and the final band concerts with the best band teacher ever was hard for him. He had summer camp to look forward to and Wes would get his dragster license that summer.  Charles' daughter in New York was planning her wedding for August.  All in all, it turned out to be a very interesting summer.

Much Happier Holidays

 

Well, after two months of living "in sin" as my Mother put it things were going pretty well.  I somehow managed to be a nice polite daughter as Mother raged on how awful I was.  It really did not bother me that she said she would not come to visit if I was living with "him".  Naturally she would not call him by name as it might sound like there was some possibility that one day she would change her mind and like him.  I would miss the shopping trips tp New York and lunch at the Plaza Hotel with her, but I would not miss having to act like I was the perfect twelve-year old daughter she expected me to be.

I always hated holidays when I was growing up and all the years I was married to Dennis.  My parents were not good with the extra time off work that meant they had to spend more time together.  Holidays gave them too much time together in the house. Usually they were not speaking to each other after the first day.  Thanksgiving was always quiet as we had no big family get togethers.  A few times Uncle Tom was invited to come over for dinner which made for the only pleasant Thanksgivings we ever had.

Dennis had grown up with tons of family around for every holiday.  There were years when we went to Warner and joined in the melee but most of the time his parents came to our house.  Seems like I spent the day cooking, then cleaning up while everyone else watched television or took naps.  I was never a big fan of turkey but only liked the dressing.  That was a good thing since there is that chemical in the turkey that causes drowsiness and I certainly could not have gotten things cleaned up if I had eaten any.

Thanksgiving with Charles was a big deal.  Since Christmas was not his thing Thanksgiving had to be special.  The first year we were going together I had his daughter, Jamie and his ex-wife for dinner.  His ex=-wife, Claire, liked to point out that I could be quite attractive if I wore more make-up and nicer clothes.  It was quite humorous as she said all this while standing in front of me with more make-up than the cosmetics counter at Saks carried and so much bling on her clothes you were temporarily blinded by the sight.

But this year Wally went to his Dad's for the eekend while Charles, Jamie and I flew to New York.  Charles's oldest daughter, Brianna, lived in White Plains with her significant other, Rob, so the family was gathering at their home.  It was really a fun weekend with the announcement that Brianne and Rob who had lived together for seven years decided it was time to get married.  The wedding was to be in the spring so there was lots of talk about the wedding plans.  Charles and I managed a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  They were having a special showing of the work of Diego Rivera, the artist who painted the twenty-seven murals depicting the history of Ford Motor Company and the Industrial Revolution at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  It was outstanding but my favorite section of the Museum was the Egyptian section with all the artifacts from the Pyramids.  Every time we went to New York Charles had to go visit the Museum which made every trip fun.... even with Claire tagging along.

When it came to Christmas Charles wondered if we were going to have a Christmas tree.  Guess he did not realize that in the Christian world the Christmas tree is one of the best parts of the holiday.  So, we went and got a tree.  He got to learn the art of putting it into a stand that was made for a much smaller tree an how much work it was to make it the most beautiful tree in the world.  Some how he did not realize the tree did not need to have a bare two-foot trunk or that he should have gotten the salesman to cut it off.  A Skill saw is difficult to use on a tree that was too big to hold still.  When Wally carried seven moving boxes in from the garage Charles did not know they were lights and decorations that would take two days to get on the tree.  Wally and I had lots of secret smiles over his learning process.

The best part of the entire holiday was Charles asking me if he should take Wally shopping for gifts for me.  I thought it was incredibly sweet as Wally never had money to go shopping unless I gave it to him.  They went one evening and both came back all smiles.  Wes arrived on Christmas Eve, so it was a fun day.

After Christmas Wally, Charles and I went skiing at Cadillac, Michigan.  They had night skiing which Wally and I tried once.  Once was enough as you could not see the moguls in the dark.  We both went flying a couple of times but did not get hurt.  This was the beginning of snowboards being used.  I was happily skiing along when suddenly, I had something hit me in the back and I went flying.  Some jerk on a snowboard hit me and then just kept going.  No more night skiing for me.

Wes stayed at Charles's house while we were gone and worked at the skating rink in Troy.  Somehow Bowser got the remains of the Pumpkin Pie and chowed down on it.  Pumpkin Pie does not seem to set well with dogs and Wes needed a lesson in how to clean dog poop from carpet.  It was a good thing Charles loved Bowser more than any of us and just felt sorry for the poor Bowser.

All in all, Christmas was the best especially since my friend Claire had a Black-Tie Christmas Party.  Charles rented a Tux and I got all dressed up and we both had a wonderful time.

Ron had cast Wally in the ice show so in January we started going to the ice rink in Birmingham to get Wally's skating up to par.  Most of the guys in the show were past the age of thirty and had been skating since they could walk.  The younger guys were all junior champions of one sort or another.  This plus all the costumes I oversaw and the ones I had to make for Wally and I were going to keep me terribly busy for the next few months.  This was going to be an interesting year with the ice show.

What About Charles?

 

Wes went back to Cleveland; Labor Day came and went, and Wally started the eighth grade.  I was usually a little sad when summer was over and Wally was back in school.  This year especially because the summer had been a lot of fun with both boys there.

Quite to my surprise that summer Charles bought a house almost directly behind mine.  He had lived in an apartment somewhere in Southfield for more that ten years and never said anything about moving or buying a house. The house was a typical 1950's ranch and the previous owners had done an extensive remodel.  They had done away with two bedrooms, created a larger bathroom and added a family room on the back of the house with a fireplace.  It had been for sale for a long time as it is difficult to sell a one-bedroom home.

Naturally the house needed some fresh paint, new carpet and window coverings.  Charles was in luck as he happened to know someone who did all that stuff.  By the end of September the house was ready for him to move in.  That was when he asked Wally and I if we wanted to move in with him.  That should not have been a surprise, but it was.

This was 1988 and not the 1960's.  I grew up with a set of morality rules that were outdated now but extremely hard to change.  Did not Barney and I break up back in our college days because he wanted me to move to Chicago with him without a ring on my finger?  It was a huge concern of mine to worry about what other people would think of me if I moved in with Charles.  There was also the fact that I could not honestly say I was madly in love with him.  In the three years we had been dating we had lots of fun and the relationship was just comfortable.  He never once gave me advice on what I should or should not do, was always super nice to both Wes and Wally, we never even had `a small argument and he did love Bowser and the cats.

There were positive aspects to moving in with Charles.  One was the fact that I would lose Dennis's monthly alimony payment.  I never wanted the alimony in the first place and it was the main reason Dennis and I could not have a civil conversation about anything.  Wally and I loved our little house but it really did not have anyplace for me to work except one small bedroom.  Plus, there were times when it was difficult for me to pay the bills. Charles was willing to finish the basement in his house adding a bedroom for Wally and a sewing space for me.  For better or for worse I made the decision to move in with him adding that I would pay half of the house payment each month.  Somehow that made it seem like I was not just being a "kept woman".

We moved in the end of September.  Perhaps he wanted us to move in as the furniture he had in his apartment only filled the living room and bedroom.  With the addition of mine it became a fully furnished home.  There was an exceedingly small room off of the kitchen that we made into a bedroom for Wally until we could get the basement done. The surprising thing about moving in with Charles was that nothing about our relationship changed. Charles had become such a fixture in our lives that we just saw a little more of him everyday than we had when we were living in two separate places.  There were a lot of particularly good times before problems started popping up.

Halloween rolled around and of course Wally  could not decide what he wanted to dress as until shortly before the big day.  The band was going to be in a parade downtown and they all had to be in costume. Wally decided he wanted a Sgt. Pepper uniform which was fun to make.  The day before Halloween he came home from school and said his friend Jeremy did not have a costume.  Jeremy told him he wanted to be a cat so off we went to the fabric store to purchase a pattern and several yards of fake fur.  If I was proud of Wally for getting me to make the Sgt. Pepper jacket early, I ended up staying up all night making a cat costume for Jeremy.  I guess it would not have been Halloween if I had not had to stay up all night making a costume.

Oh, and by the way, it also is not Halloween if you do not have second degree burns on your hands from making hundreds of popcorn balls!

It was about this same time when I got very tired of my two tenants in the Dearborn house.  In the six months with the two of them living there they still had not worked out whose turn it was to mow the lawn, use the washer/dryer and were still calling me at 2:00 in the morning complaining about the other one. One of them had not even paid rent since the first month she lived there. Perhaps I was not cut out to be a landlord, so I did an easy fix for the problem.  I put the house up for sale, took the dining room table, china cabinet and buffet plus the antique Detroit Jewel Stove home and sold the house in one day for a few thousand dollars more than I paid for it. That problem solved!

Naturally it was time to gear up for the ice show.  Ron had given me two costumes to be the chairman of and both were a little complicated.  The auditions for the show were the week of Thanksgiving and Wally had turned fourteen so he was old enough for the adult cast.  He wanted to try out even though he was not a very strong skater and would need to replace his hockey skates with figure skates.  This was going to be interesting.

Wesley

They grow up so fast.  I imagine that I am not the only mother who could not wait until they could tie their own shoes, be glad when they are old enough to go to school,  wondered who the brilliant person was that invented little league sports or could never understand how such a skinny little body could have so much energy or talk so much.  Then suddenly, they are graduating from high school.

Wesley, my first born and known as Wes, was somewhat like living in the middle of a whirlwind.  When he learned to walk, he could only run.  When he learned to talk, he was never quiet. As he went through twelve years of school I watched him turn into a pretty amazing kid.  He became a fantastic artist even though he would only draw race cars or drag strip layouts.  He was highly intelligent but did not have time for homework.  He was involved in soccer, baseball, speed skating and bicycle motor cross.  He made friends easily and seemed to survive four moves across the country and four different school systems.

There were lots of girl friends but a few months before the Senior Prom he had been dating a girl named Michelle that I have to admit Wally and I really liked.  When he brought her home for dinner she actually ate and talked and laughed.  That was a pleasant surprise over some of the other ones that came to dinner.  We really fell in love with her when I cooked Passover dinner for Charles, and she loved all the food even though she was not Jewish.

The Prom was at a huge hotel in Detroit and my favorite picture I have of Wes is the one where he is giving Michelle her flowers.  How did this boy I had chased around the front yard with a broom, made numerous trips to schools to talk to teachers and principals, took to the emergency room more times than I can remember or would force himself to throw up after breakfast so he did not have to go to school (it never worked) turn into this dashing young man?

I had no idea what time Wes got home from the Prom, but his car was in the driveway when I got up.  I tiptoed upstairs to check on Wes and Wally and much to my surprise there was Michelle asleep in Wes's bed in one of his t-shirts.  Wally was in his bed but no Wes.  I breathed a big sigh of relief when I found Wes asleep in the basement.  Wally and I heard how much fun they had at the Prom during breakfast then Wes took Michelle home in some of my clothes. Guess times had changed since I went to a Prom as I would have been dead showing up the next morning in someone else's clothes.

After school was out and graduation was over Wes settled into working at the skating rink close to our house. He and Wally made a few trips to see their Dad in Cleveland, then Wally went off to summer camp.  The big surprise of the summer was the day my college roommate, Cathie rolled up in our driveway unannounced.  Having her around was always a happy time for us all.  Wes had been in love with Cathie since he was five years old.  When he was about twelve and she came to visit us in New Jersey she would pick him up after school and whisk him off to a drugstore where they would eat M & M's and drink cherry cokes.  His friends lined the sidewalk at school to see the beautiful blonde that took Wes out every afternoon.

One evening Charles wanted to take us all out to dinner and since Cathie was a vegetarian we went to a vegetarian restaurant.  Wes was not happy with the choice of places to eat but he was always at his best when Cathie was around.  He ordered something that required mustard which arrived in a small bowl but was not quite the color of mustard he was used to.  He rather loudly inquired if they had any American mustard.  He did not have the chance to get an answer as Cathie told him in a very sweet voice to put some on his beautiful lips and try it.  He ate all the mustard without a complaint.  I think Charles became quite smitten with Cathie that same evening, but I had learned many years before that she had that effect on everyone.

One weekend late that summer Wally, Charles and I went camping with a warning to Wes that there was to be no party while we were gone.  That fell on deaf ears.  When we arrived home the house looked too clean.  A trip to the basement revealed two huge garbage sacks full of beer cans and liquor bottles.  Too bad they cleaned but forget to take the trash out. Upon quizzing the next door neighbor I found out it had been a weekend of young people coming and going.  I asked why he did not call the police and he said that with Michigan law about teenagers and parties I could have been arrested.

I guess I lost it and called his Dad to come and pick Wes up.  He was scheduled to start college at Kent State in a few weeks, so it was not that big of a deal.  When Wes got home that evening I told him I knew about the party and that his Dad was coming to get him the following weekend.  I guess he was grown up enough to realize he was not supposed to have a party and now he had to face the consequences.  He left on good terms with me which made the whole thing a lot easier.

I learned several things having Wes around that year.  First, as a parent you will worry about them their entire life.  Graduating from high school or college or going out on their own or getting married does not change that.It is a parent thing. Second, I learned what a good kid Wes really was.  For all the silly slip ups he had made that year and how upset he was when I divorced his Dad he realized that I was still Mom.  I realized how really lucky I was.

I Loved My Job

All seasons in Michigan are beautiful.  I cannot say which was my favorite as I loved the snow and wearing sweaters in winter.  Spring was always an awesome sight with leaves popping out on the trees and the flowers blossoming, summer was nice and fall was beautiful with all the colors of the trees.  Mother's Day was the first real hint of spring and we had a Mother's Day tradition.

When we bought the first house in Carrollton, Texas and Wes was newborn the idea came up that if you planted flowers on Mother's Day they would do well.  After the divorce the boys did not have money to buy all the flowers, so their job was to dig the holes and plant what I had purchased.  
(Interesting that I took the boys shopping for presents for their Dad.  Nice me!)  This particular year was a disaster and shows that I had my "bad Mother" moments.

The day started out beautiful and I was up before dawn.  I placed all the plants where I wanted them planted and was really looking forward to the day.  Then 9:00 came and went, 10:00 found the boys still sacked out in their beds.  For some reason I just totally lost my cool, charged up the stairs and yelled "When are you going to get out of bed and wish me a Happy Mother's Day?"  Do I need to say my outburst did not go well?  They were totally shocked and more than a little mad.  Although I tried to be nice during the planting and then later out to lunch it took them a long time to get over my outburst.  I must admit it was terrible and it is something they bring up occasionally around Mother's Day.

My awful attitude that Mother's Day was probably because I was horribly behind in work partially due to the ice show.  I loved being self-employed since I could make time for the boys, go ice skating, go to school things and whatever else came along.The problem was finding the proper balance.  When I did not balance everything there was no money in the bank.   Having a real job, as I have always called them, might have been easier but not nearly as much fun.  Besides I was not sure what I could do with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry.

Decorating was something I had always done for myself  because it was cheaper.  I had developed a dislike of "real" decorators who arrived at a client's home all dressed up and laid out expensive plans never taking the homeowners ideas to heart.  In Kansas City in the neighborhood we built a house in a certain decorator was called upon to do most of the new homes.  I used to laugh because everyone of them had the same draperies in their living room as their neighbors.  Maybe just a difference in fabric or color.  Through the years I learned that if you asked the right questions and listened more than you talked it was easy to come up with a decorating plan that worked for them and their family.

A friend once told me the reason I stayed so busy was I did not send contractors to a house to paint, wallpaper, install draperies, pick up pieces to upholster or do some small carpentry job.

They only saw me with whatever crew I had working at the time.  I was not ever dressed to the nines but might have a little paint or wallpaper paste somewhere on my clothes.  The best part was the clients who became friends and all the nice people I met through the years.  Because I did all my own sewing of drapes, bedding, valances and headboards and hated to make more than two of anything alike it gave me the opportunity to be creative.  It was a dream job except for the hours as it took many all-nighters to get everything done.   Guess Mother waking me up everyday at 5:00 am taught me to not sleep much.    

As May slowly turned into June it was soon time for Wes's graduation events.  Charles came by almost every afternoon to see Bowser and maybe take us to dinner.  I guess he decided he needed to see more of me as he announced that he had bought a house directly behind mine.  Not sure if that was good news or not.                                   

                                 

Learning Lessons

In the world of the Southfield Ice Company the putting the production together took all year.  Once  one show was over the plans for the next show began. It was a good thing that for the working mother of currently two boys a lot could be done at home until the first of March.  It was at that time that the ice hockey games were over and the ice belonged to the show.  Practice began which meant every evening and all day on Saturday and Sunday until showtime the last weekend in April.

I was lucky, in a way, not being in very many numbers so practice for me was not everyday.  Also nice that I finally decided that Wally was old enough to stay home rather than me dragging him to the rehearsals
and Wes was around most of the time so he was not alone.

The bad part but good at the same time was that I became friends with the show director, Ron.  I was amazed by his ability to put all aspects of the show together.  He chose the theme, the skating numbers, the choreography, the music and the set designs. He also designed the costumes and to my fascination, made all the headpieces and hats. Instead of just showing up for costume meetings or rehearsals I found myself going by the arena during the day when I had time.  There were other women who showed up everyday to sew or help with other aspects of the show.  

Ron was a perfectionist in every thing he did.  There was good reason for me to have been quite frightened of him for the first two years of being in the show.  He was not shy about yelling at people for the slightest mistake in front of the entire cast.  Every piece of cut fabric needed to have a perfectly straight edge, every costume look exactly the same, every drop of hot glue precisely where it belonged and never was there an excuse for someone to be absent from a rehearsal unless they were competing in the World Championships.  That may sound harsh but that was the reason Southfield had the greatest amateur show in the country. 

For all his expecting perfection from the entire cast and crew he was always willing to teach everyone anything they wanted to learn.  It took me taking what little spare time I had or what time I stole from work to realize how much I could learn from Ron. What I learned from him about every aspect of the show like costume design, drafting patterns, sequining and beading, the construction of the hats and headpieces and set construction was invaluable to me in later years.  The fact fact I had led a little sheltered life and not really known any gay men was a real life lesson.  He had his ups and downs in relationships and was very open and honest when he talked about his feelings.  It did not take me long to realize that he had the very same feelings as a heterosexual person. I will always consider myself very lucky to have had him as a friend and teacher.

                                                                              Ron
The show went off very well that year with the usual sold out performances.  There were no major errors and Ron did not have to yell to much.  It was always a terrific let down the day after the show was over.  It was something you had worked on for pretty much a whole year and the all of a sudden it was over.  But I always managed to live through the "letdown" as I did have other people that depended on me.

Perhaps it is a rite of passage but there is something about being a senior in high school that makes kids, maybe more so boys than girls, think they can do just about anything.  When I was growing up the legal age for boys to purchase beer was twenty-one but for girls it was eighteen (or at least that is what the guys told me).  There were numerous occasions when I would purchase a couple of cases of beer for the guys on a Friday afternoon.  Not stellar behavior on my part but girls make dumb mistakes themselves.

One weekend in May Wes was driving the Ford Van leased from Ford Motor Company that was the vehicle they dragged the race car trailer around with.  He was off on Saturday night and went to hang out with his high school friends. He was home that evening at his curfew hour or at least close to it.  On the following Monday his Dad calls me and tells me that the van had been involved in a beer theft on Saturday night.  He wanted to know how I let that happen.  Since Wes was at school and I could not think how I let that happen he said he would come to see Wes that afternoon.  Need I say he was not a very happy camper?

Dennis arrived before Wes got home so I did not chance to talk to him first.  Wes tried to play stupid at first when Dennis told him that the Chief of Police in Royal Oak had contacted him to let him know the van had been involved in a beer heist.  The Chief of Police had gotten Dennis' name as the leasee of the van from Ford Motor Company rather than to just tell anyone which Dennis said would cause him to lose his job, send him to jail and would probably be the cause of the end of the world. He always exaggerated just a bit.  

So the story, partially from Dennis and a few admissions from Wes, was that Wes and five of his friends went to this liquor store.  Everyone but Wes went in as he had a brace on his knee from some soccer injury and some of the boys got the owner busy while two of the boys ran out with two cases of beer. The owner got the tag number of the van before they got away and the police wanted the names of all of the boys. Wes would not budge on giving out the names.  His Dad left in a fury and told him he better give him the names and the police only knew about Wes.

Wes was busy that night talking to his fellow criminals and no one wanted to have their parents find out what they did.  Wes was on the hook but I had to actually commend him for not being a snitch.  All of the boys came from really nice homes and Wes told me it was just like a prank. Senor boys do tend to have huge gaps in their thinking at times.

As the next few days passed discussions with the police Chief revealed 
that the owner of the liquor store did not want to press charges but he wanted each boy to pay him $200.00 dollars.  The police Chief did not have to think very long that wanting the boys to pay him amounted to extortion.  How dumb do you have to be to announce to the police you want to blackmail someone rather than press charges?  Needless to say the Chief was ready to press charges against the store owner himself and stated he could not even believe the heist really occurred.  That was the end of the Great Beer Heist of 1988 as I named it.  

I think the boys realized that what they had done had very serious consequences and was not just a humorous prank.  It is amazing how brains can go dead when all of the boys knew better.  I do have to admit that I had to hide in the kitchen to laugh when Dennis lectured Wes about losing his job as I had heard that when I dented a fender or got a speeding ticket for years in a company vehicle. I think the boys learned a good lesson and perhaps the liquor store owner did also. Maybe Wally, who was so terrified his brother was going to jail, learned a lesson from the whole episode.

Oh, the days before cell phones were great for excuses.  One morning I got up and Wes' car was not in the drive and he was not in his bed.  Being a mother I could think of horrible things that had happened to him.  It was six o'clock in the morning and I started calling around to all of his friend's homes.  I finally found him sleeping in one of the boys basements as he had gotten too drunk to drive home.  The rule I had set forth was that if he was going to be late all he had to do was to call and tell me.  I guess Wes was not thinking when he said he could not find a phone.  Excuse me Wes - how are you talking to me now?  No answer but I did tell him to get his little behind home pronto and I did take his keys away for the rest of the weekend.  Their can't be a worse way to spend a weekend than with your mom and little brother especially when I drove him to work both Saturday and Sunday.

Detroit was a twenty-four hour city.  Because of the automoble plants and their working three shifts a day people did activities at all hours of the day and night.  There was good reason for skating rinks, movie theaters and bowling alley to fill every corner and be open all hours.  Somehow we all like to go bowling.  It was fun, relatively cheap and pretty good entertainment.  There was a bowling alley not far from our house and was the sight of Wally's very first date.  Cute quiet Wally had a huge crush on a really sweet girl named Sarah.  He asked her one day to go bowling and together they walked to the bowling alley.  No sooner had they gotten to the bowling alley but Wally had the nosebleed of the century.  He didn't know really what to do .  Sarah ended up walking home as did Wally.  He arrived home in tears because everything had gone so wrong.  I think it took him a long time to get over his first date but he and Sarah stayed friends for years.  Wally was not the "Joe Cool" his brother was which was not all that bad as their were no beer heists in his future.

Similar to the east coast school was not until the middle of June.  The end of the school year was always fun with Wally's band concerts.  Then we would have all the Senior activities with graduation, sports banquets and of course a senior prom.  Before school was out Wes got a job at a skating rink just a few  blocks from where we lived.  Guess he decided to stay with us until it was time to go to Kent State.

Almost made it through the summer with great stories.......almost.




































                                                                                                                                                                                 

1''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''Phs time to go to Kent State in the fall.