CHAPTER 149. A LITTLE RE
FLECTION ON MY BOOK OF NUMBERS. 1981 - 1982
Dad couldn’t get the Chevette started either, so we had it towed to the Granite Run Mall. Eventually, I got the vehicle towed to a garage and running again. Car trouble, just what I needed on top of everything else.
I wasn’t over confident in the Chevette any longer. I had traded in my Toyota for it. I didn’t want to chance any long trips in it. My mother and Grandmother took us and the kids to Sesame Place, near Oxford Valley Mall up above North Philadelphia, on August 25. That is Lois and Laurel climbing the steps and about to be gobbled up by Big Bird.
We managed to attend the Wilson Family Reunion near Pottstown on August 30 and Lois and I took a two-day trip to Pennsylvania Dutch country September 1, but in between I had difficulties with starting the car. Therefore, on September 21, I bit the bullet and we bought a new conveyance, a 1982 Pontiac J2000 Hatchback.
at the time. Nothing on the road looked quite like it. Everywhere we went it drew attention, so it would not have made a very good get-a-way car. People constantly came and asked us what it was. We thought it was pretty cool looking and we enjoyed the attention it gathered.
Pontiac produced a H-bodied, rear-wheel-drive vehicle called the Sunbird. (left, 1980 Sunbird.) They ceased production of this model in 1980 and so no Sunbirds were produced in 1981. In 1982, Pontiac introduced the J2000 as a replacement for the Sunbird. It was a J-car with a front-wheel drive. A year later, in 1983, they dropped the J from its name and marketed it as a small version of the Pontiac 6000. By 1984 they put the Sunbird label back on it.
The rest of 1981 went on its
way relatively peaceful. I took Lois to New Hope for dinner for her October birthday. Thanksgiving was held at my parents with the usual turkey feast. We also went to my parents on December 12 to celebrate Noelle’s first birthday (Left). December pretty much finished out with my parents visiting at our place for Christmas.
A BOOK OF NUMBERS
Statistically, I had 17 address changes so far, including my birth home. It had gone this way: Modena, Whitford, Downingtown, Glenloch, Downingtown, Downingtown (different house), Bucktown, which made seven for my growing up years until I married at age 20.
Then we had Malvern, Drexel Hill, Bucktown (brief separation from my wife when I moved back with my parents) Philadelphia Apt. 1, Philadelphia Apt. 2, Aldan, (so far all my homes had been in Pennsylvania, but now some state variation),.
Cherry Hill, NJ, Pine Hill, NJ, back to Pennsylvania, Springfield, Pa house 1, Springfield, Pa. house 2, and finally at age 40, Drexel Hill, Pa. once again, making 11 since marriage and 18 in total between age 0 and 40 when we decided we were going to stay at the house in Drexel Hill for a while. It seemed like I was always packing up the car and moving. And my pile of books kept growing!
I also had over those first 40 years a number of jobs, working in
several types of industry: farming, oil refining, publishing, banking, food processing, steel fabrication and medical provision. I started working for hire at age 10, you know, hustling up any chore from any neighbors who would pay me a pittance to do it. This included picking up items for people from the corner store, mowing lawns, washing cars, pulling weeds, grounds keeping and garage cleaning.
By the time I reached 13 there became more formal positions, meaning I worked for some kind of business under supervision: celery washer, paperboy, parking lot snow shoveling for a restaurant (winter only, of course), tomato picker at a Wilson Farm, strawberry picker for Ridge Farms, truck loader and door-to-door sample distributor for Proctor & Gamble.
In November 1959, at the age of 18, I finally landed the first of my adult jobs at Atlantic Refining. I was a Junior Clerk in Sales Accounting, Graphotypist, Addressograph Machine Operator, then supervisor of the addressing unit, Traffic Lading Clerk, Parcel Post Clerk, Accounts Receivable Ledger Clerk, Accounts Receivable Control Clerk, Accounts Receivable TBA Ledgerman, Regional Ledgerman, Assistant Regional Group Leader and then I quit ARCo.
I was a ghostwriter for college students. I worked at a gum manufacturer as a Wad Slinger and Bubblegum Welder. I got a job as a Circulation Manager for a magazine publisher. I began writing book, movie and theater reviews and features. I became a profession writer of short fiction and poetry.
the Supervisor of Operations Accounting. I moved on to working for an egg breaker as Office Manager and Cost Accountant. When that company closed after a year I was employed by a steel structural tubing company as an Assistant Bookkeeping. I quickly became the Chief Bookkeeper, then Assistant Control, eventually also the Manager of the Computer Department.
When that company moved to Chicago, I moved on to a large medical center as the Budget Director. Nearly two years later I was hired in a bank as the Operations, Methods and Project Manager. This is where I was at age 40, at that bank in that position and working there not quite three-quarters of a year by my 40th birthday.
The names of the companies I worked for over those years were Philadelphia Bulletin, Procter & Gamble, ARCo (Atlantic Richfield Corporation), Philadelphia Gum Company, North American Publishing Company, Philadelphia After Dark (feature writer and reviewer), Health-Knowledge, Inc. (short fiction writer), Lincoln Bank, Olson Brothers, Inc., Welded Tube Company of America, Mercy Catholic Medical Center and Wilmington Trust Company.
This gave me a wide range of experience.
I also had gained a wide range of education in my first 40 years.
As a child I attended and graduated from Mrs. Helms Private Kindergarten, Downingtown East Ward Grade School (Downingtown), West Whiteland Elementary School, East Ward again, Downingtown Junior High School, North Coventry Senior High School and Owen J. Roberts Senior High School.
While in high school I studied via Art Instruction, Inc. for Commercial Art. After high school I graduated Florence Utz IBM Tab Operation and Programming School, Writer’s Digest Short Fiction Course, ARCo’s Introduction to Computers, Temple University (Sociology Major), IBM Corporation System 3 Computer System School, Sperry-Rand RPG-II Programming Course, Sperry-Rand BC-7 Computer System School, Camden County College (Systems Anaylsis and Computer Programing Major), University of Delaware (Data Processing Systems) and at age 40 was newly enrolled at Widener University’s School of Business Administration (Accounting Major).
For most of the years from age 22 until 40 I had been working a full-time day job, going to college in the evenings and doing freelance writing on the side, not to mention the time we were engaged in child ministry. Somehow my wife and I found time to be together and engage in fun things such as talking, going out to places and regular sex.
How? How was this possible?
Granted, I had a great ability for organization and compartmentalization. However, I think the emotional hang ups the two of us had actually helped. My wife suffered from Bipolar Disorder, although neither of us were really aware of this yet in 1981. I will come back to my wife’s situation in a later chapter. Here I want to deal with my own disorder, Social Anxiety. This is an irrational fear of interaction with other people in social situations, especially with new acquaintances. It is often perceived as shyness or perhaps aloofness. Here are some of the main symptoms.
- Being introduced to other people
- Being teased or criticized
- Being the center of attention
- Being watched or observed while doing something
- Having to say something in a formal, public situation
- Meeting people in authority ("important people/authority figures")
- Feeling out of place socially ("I don’t know what to say.")
- Embarrassing easily (e.g., blushing, shaking)
- Meeting other peoples’ eyes
If you read many of my earlier chapters you would have noted some of these things. For instance, throughout much of my childhood narrative you will find me speaking of the teasing, bullying and criticism I endured. In the sections of my early days at ARCo you might remember my explaining I had a problem when I was speaking with other people feeling, I was shaking. I had even went to a psychologist to help deal with this phenomena.
I had all these problems, some to more or less degree than others. I
would shrivel inside when introduced to other people for the first time. I couldn’t make small talk with anyone, I never knew what to say. I hated being the center of attention, I would rather be ignored altogether than praised. I could not function if I felt I was being watched or observed.
Remember how I told you about first meeting my future wife. She and I worked in different departments on the same floor at ARCo. We would pass in the hallway daily and she always said hello, but she thought I was stuck up because she didn’t ever hear me say hello back. I walked with my head down averting other people’s eyes and spoke in a low voice.
When we did go to some social gatherings, whether family or otherwise, I would hang in the back, often finding a chair in a corner. If there was a magazine handy, I would bury my face in it and seldom engage in conversation. People might find me somewhat strange, but this hiding in plain sight was my way of coping with my discomfort.
Over the years I found little way to cope with my anxiety. By luck and sometimes design, I managed to get jobs where I could do most of the work on my own. I could come in, go to my desk and pretty much be left alone. Yes, there were some occasions where I was a supervisor or manager, and I always hated such positions. I never considered myself very good at being a boss. I also did my best to avoid meeting with higher executives or big bosses. My quietness was misinterpreted by most as modesty or deep thinking. People took it as a sign of intelligence that I wasn’t always speaking out as many others did. Thus, if I did say something, they really listened because they assumed I was saying something profound. My embarrassment of drawing attention for some achievement was taken as humbleness.
At school I always took a front row seat. That may seem the opposite of what I would be expected to do, which was to go to the back row and hide behind the others. I found the front row safer. I could see and hear well from the front, but more importantly I could forget there were other students in the room. They were behind me, I couldn’t see them, thus it was as if they had disappeared. I could speak when need be or answer the professor’s questions for the same reason. If I sat to the rear, then if called upon every head would turn toward me. Sitting up front I didn’t see their attention and didn’t feel like the center of attention.
I did gradually train myself to look in other people’s eyes when talking to them.
The other oddity, I suppose, was that “Having to say something in a formal, public situation.” For the most part this didn’t bother me. I was perfectly at ease getting up in front of a group and speaking or acting. Why? I don’t know, I just was. It was talking on an individual level where I went all to pieces.
One thing that surprised long after the fact was the number of girlfriends I dated. During my school years I always bemoaned my inability to get a date or ask a girl to dance. My friend Richard would constantly jitterbug off with some girl at the sock hops while I hung back against the wall looking over the prospects and seeing rejects right and left in my mind. This is exactly how it played out, too. I would finally work up nerve enough to approach someone and invariably she would turn me down. I often cried on my mother’s shoulder how I would never, ever have a girl.
I probably was late starting. When we moved to Bucktown, I actually dated Helen Seibold for a while. She was the daughter of the man who sold us our new home. After Helen, I kind of hooked up
Richard and I went to Wildwood with my parents in the summer of ’57 and there I met Jeannette Siravo and we became an item. Then I dated PeggyWhitrly and we became steadies, until I met Carmella Cressman and Peg and I broke up. Carmella’s parents came between us and I began going with Pam Wilson and Suzie Cannell at the same time. I even manipulated a way to take both of these girls to the Senior Prom. Soon after graduation I fell madly in love with Sonja Kebbe. When she dropped me I hooked up with a tall redhead named Louise Crothers. Then I dated Anita Guida from work until I met Pat Gormley. Pat and I got very serious, but she proved another girl whose parents stepped between us and that was when I started dating that girl who always said hello in the hallway.
Her name was Lois Heaney and I married her. After several years married, the proverbial seven-year itch hit (she had an affair) and we separated for a time. I dated two more women, Janice Griffith and Mary Ann DiPipi, before Lois and I patched things up and got back together.
If I counted correctly, my wife was the 13th girl I went with. You add the two while we were separated, then I had 15 girlfriends. That number shocked me years later when I actually added up the score.
On top of that, I got Lois pregnant 9 times by the time I was 40.
Seven babies died, but the last two lived by God’s mercy. I expected no more of that.
In 1981 I hoped there would be some settling down. We would stay where we were and not have so much constant change and upheaval in our second half of life, except perhaps in the matter of cars. There had been already a Ford, a Studebaker, another Studebaker, a VW Beetle, a Chevelle, a Toyota, a Chevette, a Pontiac and a Chevy BelAire, which we called the Big Blue Shark. But cars wear out and we would have several more in the decades ahead
As a side note, my wife and I had one of our rare arguments as I was writing this chapter. I was trying to remember when we had certain cars and I asked her about the Chevrolet Chevelle we owned. She had no recollection of ever having a Chevelle. She said she remembered having a Malibu, but that rang no bells with me. I insisted we had a Chevelle and she said we didn’t at the time I thought. She kept saying we had a mid-sized car then, not a small compact. I said the Chevelle wasn’t a compact car. She then mentioned we had a mid-sized Malibu and she remembered it was a golden brown, shining, not a dull brown. I said, yes, that is what the Chevelle was, a shiny golden color.
This argument went on a couple days until I began Googling. Turned out that in those years Chevrolet made a mid-sized car called the Chevelle Malibu. We had been arguing over the same car, we just recalled the name differently. Aren’t we often glad there is Google.
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