I'm hoping to start writing again. Continue the story up until 1970 or so. If anyone is still out there and still interested, the stories are in my brain just waiting to come out. How I Learned About Sex, Part 2 will be next. Stay tuned.

How I Learned About Sex: Part 1

  It had to come to me somehow. I had to know. What were these feelings I was having towards girls, and what was sex, anyway? I wasn't close to my older male cousins now, and I didn't have an older brother, heck, I WAS the older brother and I didn't know anything. It's just that, well, I have these dreams, and I have these feelings, and I can't stop looking at all the girls' legs during class at Gateway. Girls wear very short skirts, so there's a lot of skin showing, you know?
   I have dreams. Lots of dreams with the girls from my class in them. I wake up and my penis is hard and stiff. Sometimes I wake up and my penis is throbbing and my underwear is full of this white, sticky goo. Sometimes this happens more than once a night. What am I, a pervert? I can't stop dreaming about girls. I dream about kissing them and touching them, but it's all quite murky because I really don't know what to do or how to do it. I can't tell my mother or father about these dreams or what happens to me in the middle of the night. I try not to make too much noise coming down the steps at night to clean myself up in the bathroom. I hope my mother doesn't notice how many pairs of underwear I'm going through all of a sudden.
  What's going on with me, anyway? I need to learn about sex and I need to learn right now. But how? One day I find out. Well, I find out a little. I'm left alone at home while my parents go out with my brother and sister. I'm playing with our dog Max, chasing him around the house and I end up in my parents' bedroom. Max is under the bed and I lean down to get him. There under the bed is a small stack of magazines, magazines I've never seen before. One is called "Gent", and the other is called "Nugget". These magazines have pictures of naked women in them. The women aren't particularly attractive, not like Ursula Andress or Kim Novak, but, they are NAKED! There aren't a lot of photos, but I can see what a woman's body looks like without clothing on.
  As I'm looking at the photos, I realize my penis is throbbing and getting stiff like when I wake up from those dreams. There's this clear fluid coming from my penis as well, and my heart is racing and I feel all animal-like or something. It's uncomfortable, it's scary, yet it's exciting too. Pictures of naked women in magazines! I still don't understand anything, but I know I need to see more. What my parents are doing with these magazines is beyond me, but I'm glad I found them. I resolve to check under the bed every time I'm left alone from now on. I place the magazines back as good as I found them.
   I feel different now. I know something. I know what naked women look like. Not just bare breasts like in National Geographic. I know what a totally nude woman looks like now. I stare at the girls in school in a different way now too. I know what's under their clothes, and it makes my imagination go crazy. I have to be careful though. I can't stare too much or my penis gets stiff like when I have those dreams or look at the magazines, and I can't embarrass myself here in school.
   I'm having more and more of those dreams. I touch and kiss girls I know in school, and the ladies I see in the movies too. Seems like I never know what's going to happen in my dreams. Girls I don't even like that much show up and I'm kissing and touching them too, and I find myself going up and down the stairs every night, cleaning myself up, my underpants filled with white, sticky goo. I try not to think about girls when I go to bed. I don't want to have to get up in the middle of the night and have to wash myself off. What is my mother going to say about all the dirty underwear? How can I go to school and keep my mind on my classes, knowing what I know, dreaming what I dream? I'm a bit scared by all this, and yet I need to see more. I need to know more, but I'd really like to go to bed at night not having to worry about soiling my underpants or getting the sheets wet, or trying to creep down the stairs to the bathroom as quiet as a mouse.
  Are the other guys my age going through this, or am I just a pervert with a brain that just won't leave me alone? Becoming a teenager is crazy, you know?

Sex Ed: 1965

I'm 13. I'll be 14 at the end of the year. I think about girls a lot more than I used to. A lot more. I don't do anything about it, mind you, it's all just thinking. The female body has become a lot more interesting. I notice I pay more attention to things like the swimsuit competition during the Miss America pageant.
I know next to nothing about girls, and I know absolutely nothing about sex. I know someone is supposed to have a long talk with me about the birds and the bees one of these days, but who will it be, my father? My father finds it hard to express any emotions, so I doubt he'll be the one to tell me about sex.
I hear we'll have some kind of sex education in school some day. I can't imagine what that will be like. Guys laugh out loud in class when the word bird or cock is read aloud, what are they going to be like if we're in a classroom and the teacher actually uses the word penis?
What will sex ed. be like I wonder? Will they give us kissing lessons using one of those CPR type dummies?
How are they going to explain it to us?
Will it be with diagrams like when I make a model airplane? Insert penis (A) into female vaginal opening (B), and commence thrusting and gyrating?
How is a teacher going to explain all that to us and not get embarrassed?
How will the teacher keep us all from laughing?
There are guys in gym class who cover up their genitals when we shower, how are they gonna react? I bet they pass right out.
I want to know. I need to learn this stuff if I'm ever gonna have the confidence to ask a girl out on a date.
I just wish I knew who was gonna tell me about it.
Maybe they could explain these dreams I'm having and what happens to me after I've had them.
I'm going through a lot of underwear.
Man, this becoming a teenager isn't easy, you know?

Writer's block

I know, I haven't written anything in a long, long time.
Something's coming I just don't know when.
I've been doing public readings of the blog and they have been very well received. I'll be reading again in June, and I hope to write some more as well.
Writer's block be gone!
Stay tuned.

Spring Fever

Spring is here and I'm counting the days until summer vacation. I can't wait for this first year at Gateway Regional High School to be over. No more gym class or industrial arts, and I certainly won't miss the cafeteria.
It has been a tough year, getting used to a new routine, new classmates and teachers. I'm looking forward to a few months of not worrying about whether or not I remembered to bring my gym bag or if my book covers need replacing.
I'm getting good grades at Gateway, but I don't feel comfortable in this school yet. You don't really get to know your teachers very well since you don't spend all day with them, just "periods" in the schedule. There are several kids I'd like to be better friends with, but they live in other towns, and we're all only thirteen, so it's hard to see each other.
I don't even see many of my former classmates from Woodbury Heights, either. Mostly Steve Kay and Vince Fitzgerald. Sometimes I'll play baseball with Paul LaPann and Billy Hills and some of the other guys from the Heights, but mostly just Steve and the younger kids who live in my neighborhood.
The news seems to get worse. The civil rights movement and the war over in Vietnam; violence on the TV every night. I still worry that the Russians might start a war over something in East Berlin again, and India and China seem to want to start something as well.
I lay awake at night thinking about all this stuff, and I don't want to. It makes me nervous. I wonder why I don't have the nerve to ask girls out on a date, even though I'm attracted to a lot of them. I don't see a lot of the girls from Woodbury Heights in my classes now. I meet a lot of new girls. Sue Parker and Linda Williams. Jill Springer and Marilyn Wernig. Hard to get used to not seeing Joyce or Sheila or Judy.
Despite the fact that I don't date anyone or even ask anyone to date me, I think a lot about girls now. They look different, that's for sure. The girls' bodies seem to be developing faster than the boys, you know? They're looking less and less like little kids and more and more like young women. I'm not sure, but I think I'll miss being around these girls over the summer. Maybe if I mow a lot of lawns and ride my bike or play war with Steve a lot I won't think about them so much.
I'm thinking about the class trip that's coming up. I can't wait for that. The school is taking us to the World's Fair in New York, and I've been there several times already, and I just can't wait to get there again.
Such promise for the future is there. So many amazing things to see. A lot of my classmates haven't been there yet, so I can have fun being a guide to the place. This will be a great trip, a chance to forget about the world blowing up, a chance to see the future again. It will be a great way to end the school year.
We've got final exams coming up, and the Bookmobile will come again, and I'll get a chance to buy a lot of paperbacks about history. The Bookmobile is one of my favorite things about high school. Books on wheels, and they come to you! I've never seen so many books about all the different wars throughout history. It's a dream come true for me. I love the smell inside the Bookmobile too. Reminds me of the way the newsstand in Woodbury smells. Wood pulp and ink, the aroma is intoxicating to me.
Just a few more weeks now and the school year will be over and the summer can't come quick enough for me. Tests and more tests, and then the World's Fair and freedom!
Maybe if we're lucky the world will calm down for a while, you know?
Just for the summer maybe?

Differences

It's hard to understand, this civil rights stuff, all this black against white. For years now I've watched people getting beaten, knocked down by fire hoses, attacked by police dogs and I've seen the bodies of those who have been murdered on the evening news. White people who marched along with the black people have also been killed and beaten, and I tell you I don't understand. Do my classmates understand any of this? Our school is all white except for one. Just one dark face in this sea of white. A girl from Wenonah - Michelle Smith is her name, and I don't know her. She's in the Seventh Grade like I am but she's not in any of my classes, so I don't ever have much of a chance to talk to her.
Michelle's mother is Irene Smith, one of the leaders of the local NAACP, and I've heard she was responsible for stopping the minstrel shows that used to be put on in the Heights. When people mention Mrs. Smith's name in Woodbury Heights, they seem to spit it out, and you can feel their anger.
I don't know if Michelle Smith is treated poorly here in Gateway Regional High School, but there must be some kids that don't want her here.
What must it be like, I wonder, to be the only black kid in the school?
Does she get threatening notes from other kids? Do the girls talk to her, or do they shun her? I don't hear anything, but then again I pretty much keep to myself, and I'm not part of any group, so what do I know?
It's got to be scary, I think, with all this racial hatred going on and you're the only one who's "different".
This is South Jersey not Alabama, but the hatred is there. I've heard all the words and the jokes, and we don't socialize with the black families who live across the street from us even though they are our neighbors.
Every now and then there are stories in the newspapers about crosses being burned on the lawns of black families, or the letters KKK painted on their houses and their churches, but the stories say it's just people playing bad practical jokes, that the Ku Klux Klan isn't really responsible.
This is South Jersey not Mississippi, but there are no black kids swimming in the Woodbury Heights lake in the summer, not yet, not in 1965.
It is something I do not understand, this hatred, this black against white, and yet I'm a part of it, we're all a part of it here in Gateway Regional High School.
Most of us don't pay much attention to it really, even though it's always in the news.
But there is one of us who knows.
Just one dark face in this sea of white.

On The Defensive

President Johnson had said that the United States was not seeking a wider war in Vietnam. We would only be advising the South Vietnamese army, training their soldiers and providing artillery and air support in their war not a war with the Communists in the north.
More and more American "advisers" were sent to Vietnam in 1964. They get killed no matter what we call them.
In January of 1965 President Johnson sent more American planes to Vietnam in order to help defend the South Vietnamese. Purely defensive the government tells us. We must prevent the Communists from toppling all the other nations of South-East Asia. If we don't they will fall like a row of dominoes.
Here in March of 1965 I watch United States Marines walking ashore in South Vietnam. Three thousand, five hundred United States Marines. They are touted as the first American combat troops to enter South Vietnam. I am confused by this. Aren't the Green Berets combat troops? The pilots and the soldiers and sailors who are protecting South Vietnam - aren't they combat troops. I guess not. I guess they are just teachers in this war not a war.
Ho-Chi Minh, leader of the Communists in North Vietnam asks us if we want to make war like the French, and if so he and the North Vietnamese will make war for twenty years or more if that's what we want. He says that he does not want to topple the other nations in South-East Asia like a row of dominoes, and if America would like to make peace he would make peace.
It is complicated, this war not a war. The North Vietnamese claim they just want to unify the country, and our government claims they want to take over the world just like all Communists want to do.
So we will send in the Marines, like we always do.
"Yeah," I think, the Marines.
This war won't last much longer now.

Blood In Alabama

More violence on the evening news. More people killed. The black citizens of Alabama are marching on Selma. A voters' rights march. What do we understand about it, all of us here in Gateway Regional High School? A story on the evening news.
March 8, 1965.
We've seen this before.
Tear gas.
Police on horses.
Protesters, black and white,
Beaten
Bloody
Attacked by police.
George Wallace
Defiant
Denying black Americans
The rights they are entitled to.
March 9, 1965
We see it all again.
Beatings
Blood
White ministers attacked
By the good ol' boys.
James Reeb, a white minister
Dead
More violence on the evening news
A terrible story to be sure,
But we have book reports to finish
Looking forward to Easter.
The civil rights movement
Does not falter
Dr. King will continue
the march
from Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama.
Despite George Wallace
And the Ku Klux Klan
And police with clubs.
March 21, 1965
On the highway they march
Black and white
Protected by the army
And the National Guard.
Four days later
They rally in Montgomery, Alabama.
Songs of freedom sung
And Dr. King asks,
"How long?"
Later that night
Viola Liuzzo, mother of five
White mother of five
Detroit mother of five
Shot to death
Driving marchers
To and from the rally.
Viola Liuzzo
Shot to death
Another terrible story
On the evening news.
But I've got a book report
And Easter is coming
After all.

Just Because?

Malcolm X was shot the other day. Lots of white people were afraid of Malcolm X, hated Malcolm X, they did not like his ideas. I don’t know much about him really. I had seen him on the news talking about how black Americans needed to defend themselves by any means necessary and that black people should form their own country because all white people were devils. That kind of talk really scared white people like my father and my relatives and my neighbors. Another black man hated for his ideas.

It’s early in the year, this year of 1965. I’m watching something on the news that I’ve seen before. I’m watching black Americans marching in the streets down in the south. The black people down south are marching because they cannot vote, eat in a restaurant, ride a bus or go to school. Every school day I and all of the students at Gateway Regional High School stand and pledge allegiance to one nation, with liberty and justice for all. We stand as one, believing the things we pledge to and sing to. These are things I take for granted, these are things we all have a right to, don’t we?

I don’t understand this hatred any more. Why must men like Martin Luther King lead protest marches? Why do men like my father hate black people so much? I guess it’s easy for him to be afraid. From what I’ve seen on the news and in Life Magazine, there’s so much to be afraid of. I’ve watched Americans, black and white, fighting in the streets. I’ve seen black people beaten, attacked by police dogs, knocked down by fire hoses, and I’ve seen little girls blown up in church.

On the TV and in the papers I've seen black and white Americans killed by people who didn't like their ideas.

I don’t feel this hatred. One of my earliest friends was a black girl and I didn’t worry about the color of her skin rubbing off on mine if we touched – didn’t think I’d get cooties from her if we drank from the same glass.

Malcolm X sounded like he had the same kind of hatred for white people that my father and other white people had for him and Dr. King and every other black person in America. It’s been said that after he took a trip to Africa that Malcolm X might have changed some of his ideas, and that other black Muslims didn’t like what he was saying now. Malcolm X was shot to death - shot to death by black men who didn’t agree with him.

Americans killing other Americans because of their ideas.

Lack of Posts

Yes I know, I haven't been posting for a long time and I keep promising to.
Ideas are forming. More to come, so stay tuned if you haven't given up.

Curse words, nocturnal emissions, racism, Vietnam, scary adults on alcohol, a swimming pool in the back yard, Gateway Regional High School.

It's in my brain waiting to come out.

We Can't Lose

Up until now the war that was going on in Vietnam wasn't considered a war, at least not for our country. American soldiers were over there, but officially they were just there to train and advise the South Vietnamese army; to help them beat the communists from the north.
But now here in March of 1965 I see on the news and in Life Magazine that American Marines are landing there. Over three thousand marines walking ashore. Real combat troops. I guess we're not just policemen and teachers anymore. I suppose I'll be reading about great battles and sweeping marches and jungle warfare in the papers now.
I can't imagine those Viet Cong guys in their black pajamas standing up to United States Marines.
Marines, aircraft carriers and jet fighters, American artillery all backing up the government of South Vietnam. There's no way the communists will be able to win now.
President Johnson said last year that he wasn't seeking a wider war in Vietnam. He's only sending a few thousand so I guess that means the war should be over quickly.
Just a few thousand marines - that's all it should take.
Yeah, this war should be over soon.

Mystic Revelations

In the spring of 1965, around Easter, my mother decided that I should be baptized. My sister was going to be christened, so she figured to have a multiple ceremony which would include me, my brother Carl, Dad and Cheryl all together.
I couldn't figure this out. It didn't make any sense to me since I had stopped going to church altogether and I had made it quite clear to my mother that I didn't really believe in all of this god stuff. I guess she didn't take me seriously. Maybe she figured that if I had some of that magical holy water splashed on me that I'd see the light or something. I had a vague recollection of Dad going to church once or twice, but he was almost always working on Sunday, so he wasn't really a church-going man at all. Carl didn't care one way or the other, but I'm sure he'd rather stay in bed on Sunday morning, and little Cheryl is only two-and-a-half, so she doesn't get anything to say about it.
I never liked church or Sunday School. I didn't see the point of it all. To me these were interesting stories, but they were just as fantastic and as unbelievable as the super heroes in all of the comic books I read.
Rising from the dead, making miracles, getting swallowed by whales and destroying cities by blowing horns all sounded good, but come on, did they really think I'd believe all of that stuff?
I could learn just as much watching Davey and Goliath on TV, and I could stay in my pajamas.
I was always trying to be a good person and I didn't get into trouble much and my grades were good in school, so why did I have to give up a perfectly good Sunday morning just to listen to people telling me why I should be good? I mean, I already had that covered, you know?
I don't talk about religion to anyone. It seems if you tell people you don't believe in it that they don't take too kindly to you. We don't have a national religion in our country, it says so in our Constitution you know. We used to have to pray in school. It was a Christian prayer, and everyone was forced to say it no matter what they believed. We're supposed to be a country where everyone is free to believe what they like, so I say leave me alone when it comes to religion.
Maybe if we could be christened like the black Baptists from Jericho did it, I'd be more interested. They get together and stand in the lake down the street and sing songs and then you get dunked under the water. They always look like they're having a good time.
We have to get dressed up in our best clothes and go over to the Presbyterian Church on Elm Avenue and stand there while the minister prays or something, and then he's going to drop some water on our foreheads. Big deal.
What is this going to do, give me some sort of Christian force field or something? Will it make me a better person?
After it's all over I don't feel any different. I don't "see the light" or anything like that. I'd rather go home and get into my dungarees and a T-shirt, but no, we have to go around to all of the relatives now and tell them we're all official Christians now.
I guess this makes Mom feel better. I guess she thinks we're protected now or that we'll have a better chance of getting into heaven now that we've been watered.
I doubt it. My brother could still care less, and my little sister really doesn't know what's going on. My bet is that Dad will still stay away from church as much as possible, and there's no way I'm going, so I still don't see the point of it all.
So, keep the faith if you have to.
I'm doing fine by me.

Just Getting By

Soon it will be 1965. 1964 was a mixed bag for me. The first half of the year I was still in Sixth Grade, still with my friends from Woodbury Heights and getting a little more confident. I was looking forward to the Seventh Grade until I learned that we'd be going to a new school with kids from three other towns. I never took to drastic changes very well. I preferred the familiar, and I would have liked two more years in Woodbury Heights Elementary School, being one of the older kids, sitting at the top of the roost.
Now I've got to go back to Gateway Regional High School. Six years maneuvering my way through those halls, avoiding the tough guys, anticipating the chocolate pudding and fruit cups being hurled my way in the cafeteria.
I dread gym class days. Recurring nightmares about forgetting my gym suit - humiliated by Mr. Williamson in front of the other guys in class. I hate gym class and yearn for the days of recess, plain and simple.
I did get to go to the World's Fair several times. Such a wonderful place, such promise for the future. I'm hoping everything I saw and learned there comes true. A world at peace filled with marvelous machines that will make life easier and more fulfilling for us all. Wouldn't that be something?
I'm getting good grades in my first year at Gateway, but I'm not having an easy time of it. I struggle at Math. I sweat out every test, the numbers swirling around in my brain. I excel whenever I have to stand in front of a class to give a book report or talk about history. I love public speaking, something which seems to scare the living daylights out of the others.
I'm not a popular person. I lack confidence in myself when it comes to the girls. I consider myself goofy-looking, a kind of Jerry Lewis in miniature, and it doesn't help to be practically the only boy left with this awful crew-cut hair.
I'm not tall or handsome like guys like Paul Albright. I don't join any of the athletic teams but I play sports all the time with kids after school. That's why I'm so skinny. I'm always running or riding my bike. I play football with Butch and Billy Clay and my brother and other kids. Whenever Paul LaPann, Billy Hills, Jim Matsuk and others ask me to join them at the old school for a game of basketball, I go. I'm not very good at it, but I play my best, even though they pretty much laugh at my efforts.
My best friend is still Steve Kay from Woodbury Heights. He and I play Avalon Hill war games and we still play with our Airfix toy soldiers down in his basement. Every once in a while Jack Wiler from Wenonah joins in with us when he can get a ride home.
I like Jack. He and I share a love of Marvel comic books and we talk about history a lot. Guys like Jack and Gary Lundquist are the type of boys I like to hang around with. They seem to know more about current affairs than I do, and I know they've read more books than me, so I strive to learn more and to read more so I can keep up with them.
It's a weird feeling going to Gateway Regional High School. I'm in Woodbury Heights but it doesn't feel like I'm a part of Woodbury Heights. It feels maybe like being in Berlin, you know? Like I'm in a separate zone peering over the wall or something. It's hard to explain but it's uncomfortable.
Six more years of this?
I hope it goes by quickly.

I'll have a blue Christmas in 1964

It was difficult to get excited about Christmas. My Nanny Gardner had died the night before Thanksgiving, so that was a somber holiday for all of us. Now that Christmas is upon us I'm missing her presence even more. It's odd for me to go to her house now. Pop-Pop is still there, and soon Uncle Pat and Aunt Irene along with their kids Janet and Patti, will be moving in with him, but it's strange that it won't be Nanny's house any more.
Nanny's little dog Tippy does not take her death well either. She hides under Nanny's bed and won't come out for days. My mother finally coaxes her out, but she's not the same dog any longer. Tippy broods and cowers. She trembles when you try to pet her, and finally she begins snapping at everyone. Tippy gets more and more withdrawn and her temperament worsens. Eventually she is put to sleep.
I didn't go to Nanny's funeral. I just couldn't face looking at her dead body lying in a coffin. I stayed home from school that day, but no one and I mean no one could drag me to her funeral.
I ask for things for Christmas like I normally do. Some Airfix toy soldiers, the Afrika Korps board game from Avalon Hill and yes, I do ask for a G.I. Joe. Doesn't really matter to me anyhow. I'm not in a very festive mood.
Dad doesn't help matters very much. His choice of Christmas trees usually isn't very good, and this year he brings home the worst one yet. This thing doesn't even look like a tree it looks more like some hideous shrub, even more scraggly than ever. Mom and I decorate it but that doesn't help, it seems to emphasize its ugliness.
The only consolation for me is that I can escape Gateway Regional High School for a while, and hopefully it will snow over the holiday and I can lose myself in the thrill of sledding down Freund's Cliff. It's pretty cold on Christmas Eve so maybe there's a chance of some snow in our future.
No such luck. I wake up Christmas morning and find out it's almost sixty degrees outside. It feels like spring more than winter. The unusually warm weather makes the whole holiday seem ridiculous, and I feel like I should be playing baseball rather than singing about winter wonderlands.
The warm air sticks around for several days and even then it doesn't get really cold until almost New Years'. We get some rain mixed with wet snow, but that just makes things more miserable. It's gray and rainy on New Year's day too, so I'm tortured by the Mummers parade on TV. I have to retreat upstairs to my room and my piles of comic books, losing myself in the adventures of Spider Man and the X-Men and others.
This is not my favorite Christmas, not by a long shot.
Nanny's dead, our tree is ugly and the weather just stinks.
Who ever thought I'd look forward to getting back to school?

Thanksgiving: 1964

My grandmother, my Mom's mother, who we all called Nanny, died. She died the night before Thanksgiving. She wasn't sick as far as I knew - she just died. Nanny seemed to know it, at least according to the grownups, because I heard them talking about how Nanny had gone shopping during the day and bought a goose to cook. "I don't know why I bought the damn thing," Nanny said, "I won't be alive to cook it." Sure enough, that evening she died.
The only death that had affected me up till now was when my dog Whee-Zee had to be put to sleep last year. I'm still upset about that, and now my Nanny has died. Death is hard to cope with. Our family won't be the same without Nanny Gardner.
No more food tricks. Nanny tried to fool you into eating and drinking things under assumed names. She would cook liver and try to con you into thinking it was steak.
She never got me with that one. I could always tell by the smell that it was liver, but she never stopped trying, never gave up the game.
A glass of Tang was orange juice, and a corn fritter was a pancake, but didn't she know we could tell the difference?
The worst thing she tried to pass off on us was A-Toast. A-Toast is a syrup that you mix with water - it's supposed to taste like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but it doesn't. It tastes more like soda that's been sitting in a glass all night and now there's no fizz left. The stuff is made in Burlington County, and some people claim they like it. They put seltzer water or club soda in it and then they swear it tastes just like Coke or Pepsi, but to me the stuff is just plain horrible. Still, Nanny would keep trying to pull a fast one with it.
Nanny was eccentric. She was my fun grandmother, the one I liked to visit because it was always fun to go to her house.
Nanny belched. She belched real loud and didn't apologize for it.
Nanny had a blue Parakeet named Billy. Billy had the run of the house: oh, he had a cage, but Nanny left the door open for him so he could fly all around the house.
She had a yellow Canary too, but it was always kept in its cage.

No more Nanny Gardner?

When we go over to Nanny's house the day after Thanksgiving the place seems empty. There's a stillness to it that's never been there before. The big cuckoo clock in the kitchen sounds louder; there's an echo that I never noticed before. It's all too quiet.
Nanny's little terrier Tippy sits in her dog bed shivering. There's a deep sadness in her eyes. She can sense that Nanny is gone and doesn't know what to do except sit in her bed and shake with grief.
The big cuckoo clock tick-tocks louder and louder.
Nanny's not here to try and fool me or to give me candy mint leaves or lemon slices.
Tippy keeps shivering.
The clock keeps ticking.
There's no joy here anymore.
That clock keeps ticking.
I pet little Tippy and try to make her feel better.
She just shivers and looks even sadder.
There will be a funeral-Nanny's funeral.
I make up my mind that I will not go look at Nanny lying in a coffin.
No, I will not do that. I will not say good bye.
I'm going to be thirteen in a month, I'm supposed to be grown up now.
Grown up? What does that mean at a time like this?
I don't know enough to feel grown up, I don't know enough to help me cope with death.

Well,grown up or not I do know one thing: I miss my Nanny Gardner.

November 1964

The warmth of the October Indian Summer gave way to the dreary damp and gray skies of November. Lyndon Johnson was elected our new president. There seems to be a lot of people who don't like Lyndon Johnson. During the campaign it was claimed that he was a corrupt politician who was guilty of fixing elections in Texas, and now some people are saying he knows something about the murder of President Kennedy. What do I know of it? I'm only twelve years old and I'm trying to deal with pimples and becoming a teenager and all that.
I am kinda glad that Barry Goldwater wasn't elected. He scares me. He's got a stern look about him and he seems unconcerned about dropping bombs on the Communists. During the election campaign Mr. Goldwater said a lot of things about using force in order to defend freedom, so he seems pretty much like a warmonger.
Our new president, Lyndon Johnson, sounds like he wants to make our country better. He talks about ending poverty and giving medical care to senior citizens when they retire, and he seems like he wants to try and put a stop to racism. His opponents call him a "socialist" and a "communist", but in my mind it seems like he's trying to help all Americans. President Johnson has also said that he will continue to support the government of South Vietnam against the Communists. A lot of people are angry about that. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I've been taught to be a true-blue American, so I guess it's the right thing to do. More and more people in our country and around the world are starting to say that we should get out of Vietnam; that it's none of our business, but shouldn't we be fighting the communists? It's all so complicated.
I'm watching the TV and there's lots of stuff about the Kennedy assassination. It's been a year since the president was shot, and just like then it seems that's all that's on TV right now. I think I've had enough of it. It doesn't seem real, you know? There's a lot of talk about Lee Harvey Oswald and that maybe he was part of a plot to kill President Kennedy; that maybe it was Castro or the Mafia or even the CIA that plotted to kill him. All it does is confuse me. I don't want to hear about death right now. It's time to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I've got to get through my thirteenth birthday and becoming a teenager and all.
Christmas! What do I ask for now that I'm going to be thirteen? Do I stop asking for toys now? I'd like to get that G.I. Joe soldier, but it feels like I'd be asking for a doll. I will ask for some Airfix toy soldiers to reinforce my Afika Korps army for my battles with Steve Kay down in his basement. I guess I'll ask for that Monopoly game too. That seems like what an older kid would ask for. My brother wants spy stuff. The James Bond briefcase or the Man From UNCLE one. I hope he gets them - then I can play with them too.
I guess we'll be going to Aunt Bette's farm for Thanksgiving again. Almost all of my Mom's side of the family gathers there every year for a great big dinner. We'll fill up the kitchen and spill out into the dining room, and all of us cousins will play hide and seek in the barns. But....

It's the day before Thanksgiving and the phone rings. My Mom is talking on the phone and she sounds worried and serious.
Something's wrong.
It's something about Nanny, my grandmother, Mom's mother.
I think she's very sick or something, and Mom says she's got to go to Woodbury and see what's wrong. Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Avis will keep an eye on us until she gets back or until Dad gets home from work.
Nanny - sick?
No, not Nanny, she can't be sick. I know she's very old and all, but she's the center of our family, nothing can happen to her, can it?
I don't like this feeling I'm having.
No nothing bad can happen, can it?
I'm standing in my hallway, looking out through the picture window in the living room. Mom is driving away looking really worried.
No, I don't like this feeling.
I don't like it at all.

Awkward in Autumn-1964

It's weird, this autumn of 1964. I'm trying to cope with going to this new school, this Gateway Regional High School. My body is going crazy, with pimples bursting through my skin, and my scalp flaking off, and now I'm going to be thirteen in a few months. Thirteen! Me, a teenager? Today I am a man and all that crap? I don't feel ready. I mean, I'd like to get one of those G.I. Joe action toys for Christmas, but if I'm going to be a teenager should I be asking for a doll for Christmas? I tell myself that it's not a doll, it's a large toy soldier that you can change uniforms and equipment on, but hey that IS a DOLL, isn't it? I'm gonna want one and I know some people will feel it's stupid and I'll feel it's stupid, but I'll probably ask for one anyway.

It's October and like most Octobers the Yankees are in the World Series again. This year I'm more interested in baseball than ever before. I understand the game more and I can play it better, and this summer was pretty exciting watching the Phillies almost win the pennant. It's a shame they blew it, but it's pretty much what people have come to expect from them. Still it would have been pretty cool watching the Phils play the Yankees. Dad probably would have gotten tickets to some of the games. I could have seen Mickey Mantle play ball in person, right across the Delaware River. Instead I rush home at the end of the school day to catch the last innings. The St. Louis Cardinals are making things tough for the Yanks. The series goes to seven games and I'm disappointed when the Cardinals win. What's really weird is after the Series is over the Yankees fire their manager, Yogi Berra and hire Johnny Keane, the guy who managed the Cardinals! A strange way to end things, that's for sure.

It's a strange feeling I have this autumn in 1964, like I'm living in two different worlds. I live in Woodbury Heights, and my friends are my neighbors from Woodbury Heights, but when I go to school my friends are mostly from Wenonah and Westville and National Park. But they're only my friends at school, we hardly ever see each other outside the walls of Gateway.

The world is strange too in this autumn of 1964. The presidential election is between two scary looking men, Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. A lot of people say Lyndon Johnson is a crooked politician who fixed elections in Texas, and Barry Goldwater seems to be someone who's determined to start a nuclear war with Russia. Even if I could vote I don't think I'd pick either one.

This October more East Germans tunneled their way under the Berlin Wall to get to West Germany and freedom. I still can't understand it all. I can't imagine what it's like to be a kid in East Germany, wondering if I'd ever be able to be free again. What do those kids ask for at Christmas?

I decide I'm not going out for Halloween this year. That's one thing I think I'm too old for now. I'm gonna stay home and hand out the candy and try and guess who is under those costumes. Mom can take little Cheryl out trick-or-treating, I'll stay home and hold down the fort.

My grades are good and I make the honor roll. I have to study harder and it seems like there's no end to the homework our teachers hand out, but somehow I get through it all.

Soon the election will be over and we'll have a new president. A big Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Bette's farm,and then thoughts of Christmas. And yeah, I'm going to ask for a G.I. Joe, doll or no doll.

I don't want to think about my thirteenth birthday too much.
I don't need another pimple.

Woodbury Heights

This is a map of Woodbury Heights as it is today, but pretty much as it was in 1964 as well. Find the streets I talk about in my other posts. My house is at the corner of Walnut Ave. and Tanyard Road, with Gateway Regional High School right behind it. You can see my walk to school changed dramatically. The elementary school is on Academy Ave. where Asam Ave. meets it. St. Margaret's is all the way over on Second Street, off of Central Ave..
Freund's Cliff is behind the former TYCO site.
Double click on the map to enlarge.

Stay Tuned

For those of you waiting, if there are any, more posts will be coming shortly.
Heading towards the end of 1964 and my thirteenth birthday. I'm going to try and tackle some hard issues, and I hope I'm up to the challenge.

For those of you who venture over to Jack Wiler's World, I must tell you that Jack passed away on October 20 of this year.

I will miss my old friend. I will miss his inspiration. I shall try and rise to his challenge - to write hard and write true.

Stay tuned.
More Maddox Corner to come.

A Short Note

I haven't been posting lately. Family matters and personal situations have taken priority. If you're still reading and would like to see more, I hope to be back soon.
Stay tuned.