Wednesday, June 30, 2021

CHAPTER 171: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET NOT SUCH NIFTY NINETIES A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 1993 - 1994

CHAPTER 171 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 1993 - 194

 




Reba Greenleaf called that my Uncle ben had been taken to the hospital with a badly infected arm. My parents drove to the hospital on January 24, 1993 to see him. He looked terrible. The Doctor’s had no idea what caused the infection, so didn’t know how to treat it. They were calling in a specialist.

On the 28th the hospital called saying if anyone wanted to see Ben they better come right away because he was going to die. We contacted my Uncle Francy and Aunt Doris and all met up at the Lancaster Hospital. Ben was sleeping from painkiller, so they all went out to dinner. When they came back Ben had been moved to a different room, but he hadn’t died.


On January 30, my parents went to visit Ben. They were shocked


to fine him alert and  trying to talk. He was even moving his bad arm about. He still complained about having trouble getting his breath. 

The next day, the 31st, my parents were awoken at 7:00 AM and told Ben had passed away. My parent’s had to go to MacLean’s Funeral Home in Coatesville and make arrangements. The viewing was held at the funeral home of February 3. The funeral was on the 4th in a cemetery on a hill in Coatesville.


It was a military funeral. Uncle Ben had been highly decorated during World War II. He served in the Army Air Corps (the Air Force was not yet in existence). The flag was handed to my father and now I have it atop a bookcase in my office.



On February 20 there was a Karate tournament held in the Edgemore Community Center (later renamed Bellevue Community Center  and where my church, Iron Faith Fellowship held their services for their first five years). My parents were down for it. Laurel took 2nd Overall and Noelle got 3rd Overall. Darryl just got to be disappointed he didn’t win a trophy.


For some reason I felt tired all the time. I had tests, but everything came out normal. The doctor didn’t know what me problem was unless it was my medication. He told me to stop taking my thyroid pill every day.


Other than my fatigue, things were normal. Little League season started.  


Darryl's Little League team this year were the Angels. The
Manager was a man named Chris Lacy.  Chris's son pitched and played shortstop, pretty typical positions it seemed for the Managers' sons. Mr. Lacy seemed a good Coach in the beginning when the Angles were doing well, but he changed as they began to lose games. He was especially hard on his boy, constantly berating him. You could see Chris Junior was unhappy and only playing because his father made him.


When I became a Bench Coach the next year and throughout Darryl's career, I determined never to be like a lot of the coaches. I would never yell at my son or put his play down in front of others. If he did something wrong I left it to his Manager or the other Coaches to correct him. I would discuss with him anything needing discussion in private. It is a kid's game for kids and they should be enjoying it. If you are a frustrated ballplayer as a man, don't take your own  disappointment out on your kid.



As it was Darryl got named to the All Star team. He played left field that year.


Laurel was in another Horse show at Gateway Stables on May 15. My parents came down for this. Odd how my parents made so many of my kids events when they had seldom found time to come to mine when I was a child. Laurel competed in three events. She took a First, Second and a Third.


On the right is Laurel receiving her First Place Blue ribbon.


We had been on our trip in May 1992. Soon after we returned I was greeted at home by my children, jumping about me yelling. “We’re getting a dog!”


I thought, “Two cats aren’t enough?” I didn’t know then that two cats would not be enough either.


My wife said, “I just thought we should have a dog.” I was surprised by that, especially after the experience with Charlie. I had also never heard Lois express much feeling toward dogs, except grumble about a neighbor’s hound that constantly barked. She hadn’t grown up us with  dogs, as I had. I thought it would be the last thing she would insist we were getting.



We drove into the Delaware Humane Association shelter on A Street to look at pooches. There in one of the cages, between a dozen or more barking beasts, was this little Yellow Lab puppy. He came home with us and his name was Tucker. My wife’s dog, eh?. She promised to care for him and to walk him. I would not have any responsibility. Yeah, right! We brought Tucker home on June 15, 1993.


He was a smart little guy. In one day he was housebroken. He was
also full of energy and strength. It wasn’t long before Lois asked if I could walk him. She couldn’t control him. He was too strong for her. Good grief, he was only a puppy! Thus for the next 17 years I lost my free walk every evening to being a dog walker. 


But he also learned not to go to the bathroom on his walks. He was quite good at this, meaning I never had to carry a scoop and plastic bags. If he had the urge to go, however, he would make a beeline for home, dragging me behind.


I wondered what was coming next. 



Darryl’s Little League team held a swim party at one of his coach’s homes to celebrate the end of the season.  



I drove us home that night I
had the car radio turned on when it was interrupted by a social news flash. It was June 17 and helicopters were following a bizarre police chase through Los Angeles pursuing the Legendary football star  O. J. Simpson.  When we got home my wife had the TV on and he sat watching this surreal slow-motion chase.



Orenthal James Simpson had been accused by the authorities of the brutal slaying of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, at Simpson’s Brentwood home on June 13 at 12:10 A.M. He was supposed to turn himself in on the 17th, but instead fled in a White Bronco driven by his friend, another former football player named Al Cowlings, thus the strange chase. Simpson was arrested that night and the murder trail began on January 24, 1995.



 Well, our June Birthday celebrations and Mom and Dad’s 53rd Wedding Anniversary and Father’s Day of course. We all went to Chrishere’s Restaurant for dinner. 




Then came the annual Independence day backyard games.  I made up several competitions for the kids to do.



In August my parents joined us as w


e took the kids down t the The Wildwoods on the  Jersey Shore.


To be honest, I mainly went now for the Boardwalk Fries. I get a big bucket and then we’d watch the kids 




As to the rides, you couldn't pay me to go on some of those things,
not with my fear of height. Merry-Go-Round and the Teacups and Tilt-A -Whirl were about it  for me. I sure didn't go on that swing thing with the kids (you can just see them on the thing.. Of course, that was n 1993. Today I am content to just walk about and sit and watch. It is also true, now that the kids are grown, we really don't go down to Wildwood anymore.



 

On September 1, Lois went back to work. This time she got a job
at Delaware Technical Institute 
(DelTech) as a Tutor in the Computer Center. (By the way, people think their Driver's License photos are bad, that DelTech Id photo is awful.) Very interesting that Lois became an instructor in a technical college teaching students how to use computers.


We had left Highlands Episcopal Church at the end of 1992 and returned to the fold at Bethel Baptist. We were back in the groove, more comfortable being somewhere that the Bible was the center of preaching and teaching. We were going Sunday Morning and Evening and to Wednesday night Bible Study and Prayer meeting. We were headed for the church on September 8 when disaster struck.



 Little League had there opening ceremonies and first season game on April 20, 1994. They introduced each team and had a parade down Darley Road from the elementary school to the ball fields that lay just below the school grounds. Darryl had been drafted onto the Orioles that year. He was on a team with that name in the instructional league, but this one was actual Little League. 


You may notice the photo on the left we were all wearing
Baltimore Oriole Hats instead of the Claymont Little League with the big C on the front.   This caused some controversy because these weren’t office league caps. One of the coaches had purchased the caps for our team and we did wear them all season.


In the photo you see me standing to the back. I was the bench coach. Darryl is standing in front of me. the tall boy not wearing his cap. Mark Tracey, Sr. was the Manager and is on the right. The Tracey’s had just moved into the “death house” behind us, where the man shot his wife and held police at bay for 24 hours. Someone bought it, repaired the damages, then rented it out. I was over at Tracey’s when they moved in helping out when his youngest son came running in the front door yelling, “ It’s a jungle out there.” He was referring to the animals in our neighbor. 


Well, it kind of was a jungle. Besides the usual flocks of birds and the many squirrels, we had regular stray cats, raccoons, opossums, turtles, hawks, and even a fox lived back in our weeds for awhile.


The Tracey have since moved from that address. I don’t know where they live now.



I hit a kid.


I was angry at that boy for a long time. He caused me to get the only traffic ticket I ever got.


I had turned down Veale road going toward where the church stood. A DART (Delaware Authority for Regional Transportation) Bus was parked on the narrow shoulder just before the first cross street in Arden. I slowed way down as I passed the bus. Just as the front of my car came even with where the bus driver sat, a boy dashed from in front of the bus into my path. He hadn't checked the road, he just ran out and saw me too late for hm to retreat or for me to stop.


I hit the brake, but what was there, two feet between us, if that. He jumped in the air and next crashed across my windshield, smashing it inward, a cobweb of shattered safety glass. Lois was screaming; my three kids in the back seat were screaming.  I don't think I screamed. I eased the brake pedal down. I feared any sudden stop would send him flying. He had rolled up off the windshield onto the car roof. One foot dangled down in view.


I didn't follow the road around the coming curve, but kept a straight path ahead until coming to a stop. When the car stopped, he rolled off the roof, down the hood and into the road. My first thought was, "I killed him". I got out, hoping no vehicles came about the curve ahead from the other direction. The boy lay on his back upon the macadam and he began to get up. I knelt and gently pushed hm back down.


"Stay still," I said, "don't try to get up".


But he was trying. "I want to get up," he said. "I want to go home." He pointed to some home on the cross street. "I just live back there."


I wouldn't let him get up and thankfully in want seemed like only a couple minutes we were lit by flashing red and blue lights. Response vehicles came from everywhere and filled the street. There was a cop car, a rescue van, an ambulance and even a fire truck. Some paramedics had surrounded us and took over tending to the boy. I stepped back. A policeman in a patrol car motioned me over. I walked over, glancing back as they lifted the boy onto a gurney. They put one of those restraining collars around his neck and that worried me.


I leaned on the patrol car window. First question the officer asked was, "Have you had anything to drink.”


That annoyed me, I was on my way to a Bible study at a basically fundamental Baptist Church; I was hardly going to be drinking. I realized they had to ask that; they have to try and pin alcohol to everything.


He asked me some routine questions, than said he was giving me a ticket for passing in a no-passing zone. I looked at him. "I didn't know it was illegal to pass a parked vehicle, " I said as he handed me the citation.


"It is if the parked vehicle forces you to cross the center line," he said.


Seriously, because the bus was too wide for the shoulder and I had to go over the white line while going by, I was considered passing in a no-passing zone.


I didn't take us to church. I drove home with my shattered windshield. All of us were in a state of shock. I called the insurance company first. They said not to worry, they would take care of everything, which they did, even my windshield replacement. I then called my minister. I was as shattered as the windshield. I didn't know where to turn. I was scared. And God's shepherd was the only one I felt I could turn to.


I knew I wouldn't get him, of course, because the Bible Study was still in session. I got someone in the office, explained what had happened and asked to have Pastor Ryle call me as soon as he could.


He didn't call me that night.


He did not call me the next day, or the next.


What had made thing worse that night was my oldest kid , Laurel, knew the boy, His name was also Larry. He was 15 years old, the same as Laurel and was in some of her classes. On Friday, two days after the accident, Laurel reported that Larry was back in school. He was fine. He had spend one day in the hospital for observation and that was all. What a relief!


Pastor Ryle still did not call.


He finally stopped by the house two weeks later, almost like a routine social call. He had little to say. It didn't matter anymore. I needed the solace and comfort two weeks prior, not as a week old afterthought, which his visit appeared to be. I stopped going to Bethel for quiet a time after that. I didn't lose faith in God, just in my minister.


I still had a court date. I showed up. It was a magistrate. He was very friendly. We catted a bit, then I plead "no contest, neither guilty or innocent, paid my $56 fine and left. I didn't raise any objection about being ticketed for passing a parked vehicle, even though I felt it was unfair. One concern, given the times as they were, was this was a Black kid I hit. I feared a fuss or protest if I got off Scott free, even though I felt it was the kid's own fault, not mine. I was angry at that kid for many years because he caused me to get my one and only ever traffic ticket.



I hear he was a nice kid. I'm glad he suffered no injury, but I hope he learned his lesson about running into traffic from behind parked vehicles. This was not a school bus. 


On October 29 Darryl and Laurel received their Black Belts in Karate. Noelle would get hers a few months later since she had started later. This was not easily earned. It  was four years of three nights a week without breaks, except for Christmas, plus tests. They earned those belts.



I went to work as an M&M on Halloween. 


Thanksgiving was celebrated at my parents and Christmas at our place.




Tuesday, June 29, 2021

CHAPTER 170: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POETNOT SUCH NIFTY NINETIES Washington DC HAPPIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD 1992

 CHAPTER 170.  THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH  WASHINGTON DC  1992





 The year 1992 began like many others in this time period. We left the kids at my parents on Groundhog Day while we went driving off somewhere, which would have included dinner. A month later, on March 1,(Laurel’s 14th birthday) the Cub Scouts held their annual Blue & Gold Banquet. My parents came to it since it proved a double feature for them. This is because the Gentle Palm Karate Team was the entertainment. My folks not only got to eat with Cub Scout Troop 62, but saw Laurel and Noelle perform Karate.


Barney Taylor retired as Chairman of Wilmington trust on April 19, 1992. He had joined the Bank in 1979, one year before I did. Barney remained on the Board until May 1998. Barney Taylor died of cancer on August 6, 2005. H was 79.   Leonard Quill took over in those top positions.  


Leonard W. Quill (photo right) Died January 12, 2002 of
Pneumonia at age 71. He didn’t even outlive Barney Taylor. 



His son Timothy (photo left) 
was a film actor in Hamburger “Hill", “Argo” and “Hiding Out”. Tim Quill died on September 25, 2017 at the age of 54 from cancer. 


 



One of the best family times occurred in
1992 and somewhat accidentally. I had begun the year promising a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando. You can imagine the excitement that generated. What I planned also shows the level of earnings I had reached. I was going all out on this jaunt. Wilmington Trust had a travel agency located in the main lobby of the Wilmington Trust headquarter’s building and I stopped in one  lunchtime to allow them to plot the trip plan and do all the booking.



We would fly down on Delta Airlines, the flight included in our package. I had selected the Bungalows in the Polynesian Resort within Walt Disney World, which at that time was the most expensive of their on-sight hotels. (Pictured left) The monorail stopped right at our doorstep to whisk us into the Amusement areas. The park, entertainment, meals were all included. By the time I was done our vacation was costing several thousand dollars. It was going to be a blast.


And we never went. To this day I have never been to Walt Disney World or Disneyland or any other Disney attraction. I have seen Disney movies.


What happened?


Just as I was finalizing the details of the trip, Lois walked in and said she had left her job. This was staggering news. We were about to spend a huge chunk of cash and she was suddenly without an income. Together we had been making a very good income, but the idea of having to live on mine alone was a scary proposition and we decided this was not the time to be so frivolous as to blow our bank account on Walt Disney World.


 I had to eat some humble pie and tell the travel agent we were
cancelling the trip. I asked if we could design something a bit easier on the pocket book and what we came up with was exchanging one Fantasyland for another. Our trip would be to Washington DC. 



Washington didn’t have a bunch of rides or Mickey Mouse (although many of the politicians were pretty Mickey Mouse). No one called it the happiest place on earth, but it did have its advantages. It was a lot cheaper. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to visit a glorified amusement park, we would pay a  few hundred to stay where we were surrounded by history. Our biggest expenses were the AMTRAC train to and from Washington, and our stay for a week in the Embassy Suites, (which included breakfast). Breakfast was great, by the way. It had  everything one could want, fresh omelets, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, you name it. All the sights to visit in Washington were free. Our hotel was in Georgetown, but a quick cab ride costing but a couple of bucks delivered us to the action. Our only other expense was lunch and dinner. 



W didn’t get tickets to tour in the White house, bur they did get to
pose in back of the White House (left to right, Noelle, Darryl and Laurel.). Our kids loved the trip. They quickly forgot Walt Disney World, but they have never forgotten our trip to Washington. They still talk about it today.



Although we did stop by some sights, such as the White House and the Hoover FBI Building, we did not take the inside tours. The lines at these places were very long and there was plenty to see in the city that didn’t involve waiting around a couple hours. (Right, Noelle, Laurel and Darryl at the FBI building.)  At that time the FBI was housed in the Department of Justice building. Plans for a separate FBI center weren’t made yet.


Of course, I had visited both these sites in 1958 on my Senior High
trip to Washington. I suppose some things have changed. After all, I never did get to see President Blue’s room in the White House. If you don’t understand that statement or recall a President Blue, then I suggest you look  up Vaughn Meader on the Internet, a once popular comedian whose career died on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. In reality, this particular site didn’t exist when I was there as a teenager. 




I had created a quiz for the kids to answer while we were in Washington. It had questions like find the star on the Senate floor where John Quincy Adams died. There were about 25 odd sites to locate and we did find them all. I wish I still had the list. There was so much to do and see from riding a tram touring Arlington Cemetery, seeing Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was shot to the kids delight in just ordering pizzas from room service. We were never bored.  


You kept busy visiting the museums surrounding the National Mall, all part of the Smithsonian and all free. I think we hit them all including the National Art Gallery.


 One of the favorites of the kids (well, actually of us all) was the
Air and Space Museum, where Lindberg’s Spirit of St. Louis greets the guests. 



Darryl was especially enthralled with the  Insect Zoo within the Natural History Museum. That was where you could  gaze on dinosaur bones as well. 





They also got to lay hands upon a piece of the moon in this museum. It must have been an argument at some point about whether this moon rock (right) belonged in the Natural History Museum or across the way in the Air & Space Museum. Could have been both, couldn’t it?


Another popular tour was through the Museum of American


History. There was a room displaying every First Lady’s Inaugural Dress. The highlights were displays from our own time, like Fonzie’s leather jacket from Happy Days and Archie  Bunker’s chair from All in the Family. One  room contained antique automobiles, such as this three-wheeler (left).



Some things in the Smithsonian reminded me too much of my passing years, for instance, In 1959, after high school, I had graduated from an IBM technical school. The publicity for this school said, “Learn the job of the  future.” So I learned these machines, how to operate them, how to program them and how to wire the control panels, which were the brains that told them what to do. The photo on the right is a man holding one of these plugboards. When I had first started working at Wilmington Trust in 1980 I had seen some control panels laying around on a junk heap. I had not seen one for years since.  But here, on display in the Smithsonian were IBM plugboard control panels. My job of  the future was now the memorabilia of the past. 



We were walking in downtown o
ne afternoon, looking for a place to have lunch. We crossed this wide street and suddenly behind us was a loud crunch of metal on metal. Looking back, I saw a box truck had slammed into a car. I hurried everyone along because I had a scary feeling we may have been the distraction that led to the crash. 



We ate lunch in a second floor restaurant inside some kind of bazaar like place. There  were a lot of stalls with exotic and not-so-exotic trinkets for sale, as well as clothing, souvenirs and other sundries. Out the restaurant front window we could see the one end of the National Mall and the traffic on the boulevards. A waitress brought our order and as the server walked away we realized it was the wrong food, except for Laurel who took a hearty bite of her sandwich before we could single the waitress back. The waitress apologized, snatched up the plates and deposited them before several gentlemen a couple tables over. These men dug right in, including the sandwich that Laurel had started to eat. They never noticed the big chomp out of the center of one half.


We had dinner one evening at Blackie’s My wife and I had eaten


here on a couple of our  earlier trips to Washington when I had classes with the AMA. It had become a favorite of ours. It had been a landmark eatery for several decades, known as Blackie’s House of Beef, located on 22nd and M Streets NW. It had been founded  back in the early ‘fifties by Ulysses “Blackie” Auger along with his wife Lulu. It became a powerhouse restaurant and for a long time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dined there every Wednesday night with his friend, Clyde Tolson, who apparently may have been more that a friend (Hoover and Tolson on right.).


An old fashioned steak house, the servers were mostly older guys with long apron tied about their waists.  Our particular Old Guy had some problems juggling the food; in fact, a couple salads deserted his tray as he delivered them, smashing against a nearby wall. He was embarrassed, but the kids were entertained. They often remarked on the flying salads. 


Blackie Auger, who hailed from Pottstown,  Pennsylvania, near where I was a teenager, died in December 2004. He was 83. The restaurant closed finally on New Year’s Eve 2006. In its heyday it served such regulars as Bobby Darin, Harry S Truman, Hubert H. Humphrey and others. The cheesecake was a favorite of Jackie Kennedy. Lulu Auger (right) passed away on December 29, 2012 at
age 87. Apparently December was a finishing month for Blackie’s.


Monday, June 28, 2021

CHAPTER 169: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POETNOT SUCH NIFTY NINETIES CAR CRASHES AND PROMOTIONS 1991

 CHAPTER 169 CAR CRASHES AND PROMOTIONS 1991



 


In June 1991, we had finally had it with the Omni and decided to buy a new car. My wife was somewhat skeptical.  She had never heard of this car, understandable since GM didn’t start producing the models until 1990. Saturn was founded in 1985 as an employee-owned private brand until GM bought the brand. GM spent the mid-1980s presenting the Saturn as a concept car until they finally decided to market it as one of their lines of vehicles in 1990.


I had seen some marketing of the car and like the phrase, “A different kind of car company.” Their whole approach appealed to me and I thought it was a neat looking vehicle. She and I went down to the new Saturn dealership in Newark to check it out. It was different. No high pressure, a super clean building and very friendly people. After we bought one there was this big celebration upon delivery. The car was brought into a special area of the building and everybody there gather around to cheer us off. It was a bit embarrassing really.


The Saturn went quickly to the top of my favorite owned cars list. It was number 1, and I’d say still remains in that top spot. Following as number two was the Toyota 5-speed Corolla I had in the seventies, then the 1966 VW Beetle. Fourth of course, was the 1954 Ford; after all, hard not to always love your very first car.


I really liked the Saturn. It was sporty looking, painted a sparkling blue-green color. It was also deceptively fast. One of the features it had was this kind of sneaky overdrive thing. There was a button on the console by the gear shift and when you pushed it in the car got a real boost in power. I don’t think I ever lost a drag from a traffic light. (Yeah, right back to my teen years racing the main street of Pottstown.) I’ll never forget the shock on the face of a Porsche driver as we kicked off from a light. He had been sitting, revving, looking superior, but when the green snapped on I left him standing. It was an amazing car.


By 2005 the Saturn had about 150,000 miles on it, but I still loved it. It wasn’t as fast, since a new transmission had been installed. I had gone for pizza at Pat’s Pizza one twilight. It the dark. I misjudged the drive in and slammed the car up over the curb. After that I noticed something was definitely wrong and as it were, turned out I had ruined the transmission and had to get it replaced.


I still loved the car and I was shooting for eventually reaching 200,000 miles. It was not to be. In 2005, my wife was taking me in to work downtown Wilmington and picking me up in the evening. One evening I was waiting near the corner as usual, but she didn’t come and she didn’t come. Obviously I was getting nervous. I called home and one of the kids said she had left to get me nearly an hour ago. I went back to my waiting place. Perhaps there was a jam on I-95. Next thing I know this police car pulls up by the curb and my wife steps out of it.


If there was a jam up on the I-95 Brandywine Bridge then she wasin the middle of it. I thanked the police officer and called my daughter to pick us up. I then took Lois to the emergency room at Christiana, where we spent most of the evening. The lady she had hit was  also there, but we avoided her. Everybody came out physically unharmed, but the Saturn was totaled.Because the other woman was rear ended she tried to put the blame on Lois, but that didn’t fly and we got a nice settlement from her  insurance company.


It unfolded this way. It was not a nice evening weather wise. Lois had been coming in to get me and she came to a place where there is an exit ramp onto the Brandywine Bridge off of Route 202. The woman came zooming down the ramp, went directly across the three lanes of traffic on I-95 almost hitting the concrete divider. She then suddenly swung back across the same lanes directly into Lois’ path on the far right (no political inference intended). Lois trying to avoid her went off on the shoulder, but so did this lady and Lois slammed into her car’s backside. In the end the lady was able to drive away, but the Saturn wouldn’t. The police who investigated, after interviewing some witnesses, sited the lady for reckless driving and not keeping her vehicle under control.


It was very well that Lois was free and clear of any responsibility, but my beloved Saturn was towed off to a wrecking yard and we were left without a car.


 Meanwhile, back in 1991 my father sold “The Old Blue Shark” on


June 27 for $950. That was my 50th birthday by the way. “The Old Blue Shark” had been my father-in-law’s car, it was an older model Chevrolet Bel Air. I can’t remember exactly what year, but it might have been a 1969.  Chevy stopped producing the Bel Air after 1980. He died in 1981. We hated the car. It was huge and eventually my dad took it and just parked it in his back yard. (Right.)


On October 12, 1992, I was named an Operations Officer at
Wilmington Trust.







My dad was an eighteen-wheeler jockey. He was discharged out of the Navy in January 1946. Honestly, I don’t even remember that first year after he returned from the South  Pacific. I don’t know what he did or if he had a job somewhere. We still lived at 424 Washington Avenue with my grandparents after he returned. I started first grade at East Ward Elementary in September of 1947 and as far as I recall he wasn’t driving a truck yet. That began sometime in the fall of that year. I guess he didn’t want to go back to the jobs he held before the service, which were in the steel mill at Coatesville and the scrap yard in Modena. Can’t blame him.


 I think he was looking for something that gave him some freedom. He had a fondness for Western Movies, but there wasn’t much opportunity to be a cowboy in Downingtown. He had a good friend named Joe Bender. They had served together in the war. Joe was a mechanic at a truck terminal in Glen Lock, Pennsylvania and suggested my dad apply there. He told dad, “Don’t tell them you know engines or Old Man Hines will make you a mechanic.” Dad didn’t tell Old Man Hires he had such skills and he was hired to drive milk tankers.


 I don’t know where my dad learned truck driving. Prior to 1986 a CDL license wasn’t required, just an ordinary driver’s license. My dad didn’t test for or receive his Class A CDL until it became mandatory. He started off pulling milk tankers long distance. I don’t know from where to where, but I know he was seldom home during the week thereafter. His schedule stayed pretty set my entire childhood. He’d leave early Monday morning, stop home for a bit on Wednesdays, then be on the road through Friday.



He drove tractor trailers most of his life after that. He loved it. In his later driving years, he generally hauled Hazmat or wide loads, quite often to Buffalo. He had started at Hires, left them to haul steel and sugar for Atkinson Trucking out of Philly and worked for several other transports during his career, including A. Duie Pyle, the Miller Brothers and himself. (Photo left, dad driving for A. Duie Pyle, 1985.) During the late fifties into the sixties he had become what they called a “Gypsy”. During that period he hauled a lot of tomatoes.

 


But in July 1995 he called his boss in Buffalo and there wasn’t much work. He figured he was done truck driving. That was on the fourteenth. On the thirtieth he went to the OJR School District offices and applied for a school bus driver job. He was almost 77 years old. He had been a truck driver for 48 years. 


For the school bus job, for which he obtained a Class B CDL. He had to take a physical in July, then he had to pass a test. He took his first on October 4, but missed a few things. He took a second test on October 18. He passed everything except parking in a small space. All those years of driving the big rigs, but he is struggling with a school bus. On the 29th he was back again and this time he passed. He started working as a school bus driver on November 4, 1995 and continued doing so for the next 14 years. The school district finally took him off the buses in 2009. I suppose they didn’t want the kids driven about by a man about to turn 91 that fall.



Lois and I went out for our 30th wedding anniversary on September 16, 1991. The next day Lois brought home a dog from the Delaware Humane Shelter. Both of us were volunteers there. She helped out at the counter and I came in a couple nights a week to walk the dogs. My favorite dog was Shadow, a black and white Pit Bull with clipped ears that had been rescued from a terrible life. I would walk Shadow and toss tennis bowls across the field for her. She really liked chasing down tennis balls. She would fetch them and bring them back to me, only problem being she wouldn’t let go of the ball. I would carry several out with me. If I threw another ball she would drop the one in her mouth to chase, but no way was I going to try and pry a tennis ball out of that Pit Bull’s jaws. After chasing balls she would run over and jump in a plastic wading pool the DHA kept in the field for just such purposes. Eventually, Shadow got adopted into a nice home where she had her own room, plenty of treats and as many tennis balls as she ever dreamed of. 


 Now as I said, Lois brought home a dog, a Border Collie, named Charlie (right
). Charlie liked my wife and he was very protective of her and my daughters, but my son and I were in constant mortal danger. I don’t know the dog’s history. I do know his previous owner had been a woman. It was pretty obvious that Charlie did not like men. He would growl and snap at my son. After a terrify night when he came after me until I somehow got him contained in the basement, we sent him back to the shelter. I was angry, feeling they needed to put some history out when someone adopted, like dog eats men for breakfast. 


In November Reba Greenleaf called my parents. She was the lady living with my Uncle Ben. My Aunt Dot (left
)  had died in 1985, her death hastened by her alcoholism. At some point Ben met Rebecca Ora “Reba” Whiteman Greenleaf. She and he began to live together, which proved very good for my uncle, even though she was 10 years his senior.  Reba died in 2002.


 She reported that Uncle Ben wasn’t too good health-wise and so
they took him to the hospital. She called the next day to say he was feeling better, but he had fallen recently and was pretty banged up. He had a cracked vertebrae and they were taking x-rays of his gull bladder. He had come home from the hospital, but a week later she called to say he wasn’t doing well. He was having trouble eating, couldn’t get food down. By the 30th he was back in the hospital. He was in the Special Care Unit at Lancaster Hospital. Dad went to see him on the seventh of December and he was much improved. Ben was home for Christmas. (Left, Uncle Ben and Reba Greenleaf, 1990.)

As usual now, we had Christmas at our place.