CHAPTER 191: IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET CHANGE OF THGE DECADE B STILL HAVING FUN 2005

 CHAPTER 191 CHANGE OF THE DECADE  BUT STILL HAVING FUN  2005 

I sent out a number of resumes and visited possible job sites during the beginning of 2005, but with no positive results. I even hit the fast food joints. I wondered how much my very visible psoriasis may have turned off the managers. “I don’t know what he has, but he ain’t touchin’ my food” It isn’t easy being a freak like the Alligator man.  Toney the Alligator man,  pictured left did not have Erythodemic Psoriasis as I did, but he had similar dry scaly skin of a disease called Ichthyosis.

My psoriasis at one point had become Erythodermic and this endangered my life. Fortunately, treatments got it under control and I was never so bad again. However they believe stress can induce flare-ups, and I had certainly been dealing with high levels of stress.

Noelle had come off her deployment to Iraq in the fall of 2904 and she returned to her once a month reserve meetings at Fort Dix and her job as a VetTech at the Delaware Humane Association.  In April she was named the DHA’s Employee of the Month an honor she would receive several times.

However, her return to a somewhat normal life was  interrupted once again on May 5, when she was deployed to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa as part of the Task Force Against Terrorism. This time she was Marine command at Fort Lemonnier, an United States  Naval Expeditionaty Base near the Djibouti-Ambouli airport. This is the only permanent U.S, military base in Africa, and had once been the base site of the French Foreign Legion.

Sergeant Meredith played a role in  forming this mission, which she had volunteered for. It was to engage in basically human and animal services through out Ethopi and Kenya. They were to steer clear of Somalia, which often called “The worst place in the world”. The country was best known for the pirates terrorizing the trade waters off its coast. 

In Kenya, her outfit was treating livestock and keeping the
native beast healthy. This was mainly sheep, camels and goats.

 

They went in-country (the abbreviated form of the Military designation called “Indian Country, usually a hostile area), to treat the medical needs of many Ethiopian in Gode. Long days, sometimes in 40 degree heat, injecting people, giving and medicines and doing diagnosis. This was on mostly  women and children.

 

This was Noelle’s cadre in the 401st Airborne.

On July 6 I took my own excursion to the duPont Hagley Museum. This is where Eleuthere Irenee duPont founded his black powder mills alongside the  Brandywine Creek in 1802.  The DuPont’s first home in America was up on a nearby hill, and today the house and garden’s are open for touring. These were Calle the Eleutherian Mills. A school for the workers was also construct and today school children can attend a summer camp here.

You buy your tickets in the separate gift house, then board a bus to ride up to the mills locations. It is a beautiful place to walk around on nice days and learn the duPont history, 

People in period costumes man the various sites and ofter give demonstrations. 

You also catch a bus to go  see the home on the hill.

On July 18, Lois and I decided to purchase a new car. We settled on a Chevy Cobolt, which had just come out on the market. Lois was somewhat reluctant because  it was such a new model, but once we test drove it she was sold. She did insist on the orange color, though.

On August 18, Darryl wanted to have his independence
now that he had  a job, so transferred to the Radio Shake store in Dover and moved to an apartment in just on the East side of town.   It was called Autumn Run.  nHow odd to see his room vacated and empty. Now we were down two kids.  Darryl was in Dover and Noelle was still in Djibouti 

Laurel remains at home. 

Darryl was 23. After high school he had lived at home for four years, but now he was on his own and began acting like a single twenty-three year  old.  After work at the Dover Mall, he was getting together with his friends at Bubba’s, a bar along the Dover Strip. 

At twenty-three I had been married going on 4 years, with
a house and a mortgage,  and going to night college. I never experienced that sowing one’s wild oats time. Darryl was out meeting girls and getting drunk. Celebrating “Funky Shirt Night at the bar.

Lois and I went to one of our favorite places for two days, Gettysburg, staking in the Travelodge right off the  Battlefield. 

 

We had lunch in the
Dobbins House the first day, which was directly across the street from our lodging. It was pitch dark when we entered, taking a bit for our eyes to  adjust and find our way to a table.  This portion was on the lowest  floor and decked out as an old pub, called The Springhouse Tavern. The servers dressed in costume from the Civil War era. 

The only illumination in the base room room was by candle. 

We spent our days touring the various Gettysburg Museums of which there are a number including:

The Steinwehr Lincoln Train Museum

 

The Jenny Wade house,

Hall of Presidents

Soldier’s National Museum

 

The Baltimore Gettysberg Village

 

Among others.

‘

 

I went on my own and walked about the National Cemetery, where Lincoln gave his Gettysberg address.

 

We ate lunch at the Spiritfield Pub, right across from our motel. That first day we had dinner at the Dobbins  House, but this time upstairs in the formal dinning

room.

 

The next morning we caught a tour bus that took us on a tour of where the  three days of battle actually happened, following the order the actions had  happened.

I still can’t figure out how they hid all the monuments when they filming the movie “Gettysberg. 

Now, if you go to the battlefield and take the tour, you will travel a road called Meredith Avenue.  

It was named after General Solomon Meredith, who had a command at Gettsyberg

Lois on Lttle Round top returning to the bus. 

  

We had dinner the second night at the Farmsworth House. 

If you wish you can count all the bullet holes in the side wall, be my guest.

 

On October 19 we joined Ronald, some friends and
Captain Morgan at the Brickside Grill inn Exton’s Eagle Village. 

On December 11 we continue out long  tradition of having dinner at Casey’s in Upper Darby,  

Then visiting this house with a giant Christmas Light display in Drexel Hill. 

 

Lois got together with her girlfriends, in a group they called the Upper Darby Butterflies on December 17.

Somehow in this year, Stuart Meisel and I managed to
write the book and music for a play we called “Life Ate My Homework.

YOUNG ART (Still behind Young Bobby.)

We better get going.

YOUNG ART turns on his heel and moves back toward the car. MARGARITA slips her arm around YOUNG BOBBY'S arm. WHITNEY gives her an odd look and takes his other arm as the three walk to the car. YOUNG ART opens the car doors and MARGARITA slips into the front passenger seat. WHITNEY looks miffed. YOUNG BOBBY looks at YOUNG ART.

YOUNG ART

It has to look as if she is your date when we arrive. We'll switch inside the gym.

WHITNEY and YOUNG ART get in the back seats. YOUNG BOBBY gets in last as driver. All four bounce up and down and
all make a grr-rrr-rrr sound as if the car is moving and the engine is running. After a few seconds they pretend to stop and get out of the car. MARGARITA grabs YOUNG BOBBY'S left arm, looking up at him. WHITNEY takes his right arm, glaring across him at the other girl. YOUNG ART trails behind as they go into the dance. They sit and the two girls surround YOUNG BOBBY. MARGARITA and YOUNG BOBBY adlib talking and then they get up and dance. WHITNEY sits and fumes. As they dance, a spot picks up OLD BOBBY keying in the background. They continue to dance through the song, but on the last chorus the downstage lights off.

OLD BOBBY (Singing)

I'm not proud to declare

My inebriation in her dark embrace,

In the moonshine of her hair.

Her eyes were wine decanters

In the wondrous bouquet of her face.

I am not proud to share

I became an alcoholic afloat in space, 

Intoxicated on air

Beyond reason and care

Except the drinking in of her face.

I wanted just a taste

To explore its mystery

To claim it as my drink

Obtain some mastery

On the high beyond that face.

This is my confession,

I have no precedent; I haven't a case.

It was an act of passion,

A rash and foolish action

I was becoming drunk on that face;

I was addicted to that face.

Spotlight off.

OLD BOBBY (Spoken)

Nope, I'm not proud of it, guys, but when I saw Margarita’s dark beauty I wanted her. I got to the dance and Whitney might as well been the crepe hanging along the walls. Trip home wasn't much fun. Pretty quiet ride after I dropped off Margarita and Art, and I don't think Whitney said boo to me again.

Excerpt from Life Ate My Homework, 2005.

by Stuart Rayfield Godfrey Meisel

   and Larry Eugene Meredith.

On the right is the face I wrote this song about, Carmela was her name.