Dr. Wayne Dyer
Kids; we never know in advance how impactful things can be in the future. Cause and effect is ever present. One of the first books I read which was written by Wayne Dyer was Your Erroneous Zones. I began reading self-help books at about 7-8 yrs old. I found a book in my brother Mike’s bookshelf called How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. Looking back, I know that reading that book gave me some confidence that needed to grow.
Dr. Wayne Dyer passed to the next adventure recently. As a small tribute to Wayne Dyer, I am confident that his wisdom has had a profound effect on my life. Most of my closest friends find his thinking resonating with some inner part of spirituality that we all have.
Thank you…thank you…thank you!
Tough Times Never Last, Tough People Do!
The times I am going through right now reminds me of my dad, or pop, as we all called him. As a child, I remember him saying that sometimes you have to be “hard-nosed”. I smile as I realize that I thought the saying had something to do exclusively with his nose. You see, my dad had a real schnoz.
I realize also that his hard nose policy got him through many things in life, including a handicapped child, cancer, divorce at 80 years of age. Whether it worked for him in all life situations is a good question. All I know for sure is that I adopted the same method of dealing with difficult situations.
Impact My Life
Kids; There are many times in our lives that have meaning that can only be realized years later. Gary Bolstad is one of those people who may have little to no realization of just how important he was in my life.
It all started one summer night in downtown Berlin, Germany in 1968. I was getting off a bus near my Kudam apartment when I spotted a hitchhiker with a guitar case in one hand and his thumb pointing towards traffic. I noticed that he had a small American flag on the shoulder of his jean jacket. His hair was long, which signaled that he was not military. I found myself blurting out; hey, are you an American, living in Berlin. He quickly chirped, Ya! Without much thought, I said will you teach me how to play guitar? He said sure.
I invited him to my small, efficiency apt and we began a relationship that has spanned nearly 45 years. Gary, and later, his to-be wife, Kristie, came into my life at a most impressionable place and time. I was living in a foreign country for the first time in my life. By being in the military meant that I was experimenting and experiencing everything twice, just to make sure.
Gary helped me buy my first guitar in Berlin. He simultaneously helped me create an interest in photography. I bought my first Pentax in Berlin, cost $132 in 1969. The military base had a darkroom lab. I would go there many times to learn darkroom techniques from a very interesting Berliner who had been separated from his mother when the wall was erected.
When I moved from Virginia back to Ohio, Gary introduced me to Ralph Leesburg. Ralph, Gary, and I have remained long distant friends for many years.
Mother
I was raised to love my parents, no matter what they did to me. At what point does parenting cross the line to abuse and trauma? Sorry just does not cut it. I have lived my life, as well as my siblings, always trying to overcome the PTSD that resulted from being beaten as a child. I am not talking about a small pat on the butt to get me out of the street and back on the sidewalk.
I am talking about being hit so hard with the back of my father’s hand at the dinner table that my chair flew backward and I landed on the floor. Not a word was spoken by anyone at the dinner table. I picked up my chair and began eating again. After what seemed like an eternity, my father said, “Don’t have your hand on your glass and eat at the same time, it shows you are too anxious about life.” He would repeatedly tell me that I needed to learn the lessons quickly because he was old and didn’t have enough time to teach me over again.
Several thoughts have emerged as a result of this past weekend being Mother’s Day and so many social venues almost piffle over how much people loved their mothers and how much mothers love their children. Was it love from my mother that allowed her to stand in the kitchen preparing dinner while my father had my brother and I on a fold out couch with our bare asses exposed, while he beat us with a 2×10, so he could hit us both at the same time? Was it love that allowed her set dinner and sit quietly as my brother and I were forced to sit at the table, humiliated, abused, traumatized and in desperate need of comfort and affection from a nurturing parent?
Restoring a 1934 Packard Twin Six
Opportunities will often come right up to your face and scream, I’m here, yet many people for whatever reasons, will miss out on some of the best memorable events. My Dad gave me that opportunity and I jumped on it.
When I was fourteen years old, my Dad gave me the same proposal that he had given my two older brothers; spend the time restoring the 1934 Packard which had been sitting in the garage for some twenty years and it would be mine for $1. Dad agreed to invest all the money it would take to restore it. It was my job to invest the time. It was 1962 when I started dismantling the car in the garage.
Now, 1962 was the beginning of the British Invasion. At the time I was working, underage, at two jobs. I worked as a bowling machine mechanic, which meant being behind the machines, ready to spring into action when a bowling ball or pin became lodged and needed a little push. For that service, I got to hang out with the real mechanic and learn about machinery. At the same time, I worked the evening shift pumping gas (yes, in those days, an attendant serviced a car with gas, check the oil and washer fluid, clean the windshield, while smiling the whole time) and repairing flat tires at a Shell station next door to the bowling alley. That job, my Dad didn’t find out about until I had to call him for help. Point being, that I was busy, even at fourteen. I needed money to impress the girls, but as usual in my life, I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to. Every available hour I spent in restoring that car taught me a lifetime of experience.
- When dismantling something, keep the parts separate and label everything you can, because memory, alone, will not work in reassembly. The four bolts that held the front bumper on were all machined individually, which meant the same looking bolt would only thread in one spot.
- Patience is vital. Letting bolt-release sit for days, returning each day to only apply more breaker juice. Shearing off the head of a bolt that is threaded into an engine head block, made of solid aluminum, is not an easy, inexpensive repair job. Thanks, Dad, for loving me…oh, and yes, also for the time I ignored the oil indicator light on the 1955 Chrysler Imperial and the engine seized at the side of the road, and you paid for the towing and the new engine as long as I put it in. And, oh yeah, my first car accident when I didn’t know what you meant by “pump the brakes on wet pavement”.
- Some people are as thick as a brick. Dad had the Chrysler dealership in Akron complete the repainting of the exterior. The guy that started stripping the old paint used a lye-based paint remover. He mishandled the material twice, putting him in the hospital, twice, with third-degree burns from the paint remover. The next guy took a sander to it and left marks that took hours to remove. These were their best specialist painters. They finished applying 16 coats of undercoat, hand sanded between each coat, followed by 12 coats of lacquer that made the most incredibly deep shine. Come to think of it, I think Dad paid $800 and that was overpayment due to the hours the two guys racked up.
- When something is right, you will know. The frosty spring Saturday morning that Dad and I drove to where the mechanics were prepared to start the engine for the first time in over 20 years. Two old guys (about three days younger than dirt) had laid on their backs under the Packard, grinding the crankshaft, by hand, because in that engine, the crankshaft could not be removed for servicing. It was a Norman Rockwell illustration right out of Saturday Evening Post or Esquire Magazine, this old wooden garage, tucked back under some trees, in what had been the repair shop area of Akron some fifty years prior. It was a frosty, yet somehow foggy spring morning. My Dad insisted on stopping on the way into town at a small store to purchase two lead pencils. He did not explain until we got to the garage their purpose. Imagine four old guys and my Dad, all proudly looking at this beautifully restored gem from a bygone era, and they gave me the privilege of starting it up. It was then that Dad stood the pencils upright, on the top of the radiator to balance vicariously while I, first, turn the key, and then push the start button on the dash. I remember so vividly pushing the button and not hearing any engine noise. I was watching Dad, who was watching the pencils – they did not move at all, indicating the engine had been tuned perfectly. I got out and could hear the hum of that 12 cylinder engine as it just purred into life resurrected. Dad stood there with the biggest shit eaten grin as he just stared at that engine, along with the mechanics as they all pointed and smiled. It was a fine day.
- I think it was the following Saturday that Dad and I went to the auto registry office in Akron and he signed over the ownership to me for the mandatory $1 required as the minimum sale amount for a vehicle. I was sixteen and it had taken me two years to complete the total restoration of a 1934 Packard, Twin Six. I had completely dismantled it and put it back together and it worked!
- I can remember many a time when Pop was not home, John and our friends would push the Packard out of the garage and stand on the running boards, pretending that we were Al Capone gangsters. We would take turns pretending we were driving. What childhood fun!
- I kept that heirloom until a guy walked up my driveway in Columbus, Ohio and offered me enough money to start my trek to Canada that summer of 1973 – but that’s another story, kids.
Remembering Eleven & Mrs. Camp
When I was eleven, I had a paper route. Where I grew up on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio, a paper route was a license to slave for money. I inherited the route from my best friend and next door neighbor, Marc Ciriello. Seven days a week, I walked a paper route that stretched a quarter mile in one direction, plus empty return, equaling a half mile walk. An additional, fifty houses throughout the only subdivision built on my parent’s partitioned-off farmland were included in my route to bring a total customer count of approximately seventy-five deliveries.
There stood at the end of Revere Rd, at the corner of West Market St, a mansion from a by-gone era. Built sometime in the early 1900’s it was the epitome of the exquisite Tudor facade found at the edge of a gentleman’s only, ladies forbidden course. The driveway, composed of perfectly laid interlocking brick, led to a multi-car garage at the rear base of the four-story lavishment. The white, windowed garage doors opened by hand, one to right, one to left, allowing the 1956 solid black Cadillac to emerge. It was the first heated garage I had ever experienced.
Mrs. Camp owned the home, and her driver, Mr. Clean, would be described as the inspiration for the movie, “Driving Ms. Daisy”. They were both so kind to a young lad. Because it was the last house on my route, I often spent time enjoying the time with older, wiser folk.
Mrs. Camp had an outdoor pond with live goldfish in it. I spent many, wonderful times mesmerized, just watching them swim. The pond was so deep that the fish would over-winter outside – amazing.
There were no sidewalks; I simply walked from one yard to the next, no fences or gates to separate neighbors. I would reach a slight decline toward the edge of the Camp property, just above the fish pond, which in spring would be ripe with water lily flowers. At that level, I could see the kitchen window at the back of the house facing large wooded grounds where the tree canopy shaded and cooled the entire area. The house was cloaked in ivy which shook so rhythmically when rain drip, drip, dripped from one leaf to another. It was so peaceful there.
From that vantage point, Mrs. Camp could see me as I began my decline. Because there were no steps, she habitually worried about me falling. Every day, like clockwork, I would see her face in the kitchen window, and as she would wave to me and I returned the shake of a childhood hand, I would feel the existence of commonality to the human spirit. Two observers of life, and seventy years apart spending moments together, for no other sake that to experience the now in each other’s company.
If she was in the window, I would take the paper to the side door to the kitchen pantry, which she would open slightly so I could let myself in. From there she would always invite me into the living room for milk and cookies. Cookies, which were savagely consumed by an eleven-year-old, especially after having walked an hour and a half, with a half hour walk yet to go to get back home. Yes, and it was uphill both ways because there were several large gullies that had to be travailed!
Mrs. Camp also had an enormous parrot that she would let me feed, to my great enjoyment. Please imagine this wonderful home with what seemed like twenty-foot ceilings, paneled walls, dark curtains stretched from ceiling to floor to accent the tall windows. Imagine large opulent chandeliers and over-sized furniture. And in the middle of a huge living room space, was a large circular pedestal with a large green and multi-colored parrot wobbling back and forth in anticipation of my treat. I want to believe that it knew me and spoke to me.
I can say I felt great joy when Mrs. Camp was available to invite me in. I guess in return, I provided the listening ear of wonderment, complete with questions that a grandmotherly type would enjoy answering. She told stories and I would listen. I always felt close to wisdom.
Figuring Out What Life Is All About
I think as we grow older; which by the way is not for the faint of heart, we begin to reflect more. I guess partly because we have more to reflect upon. Does that take away from forward thinking? I think more about recording the past in some way, in order to keep from losing it.
I remember in my younger years, I just wanted to forget the past and focus on the future, which for me, was to work more hours, in order to amass more material goods.
I have become a business owner, starting out young. I remember as early as eight years old. I read on the back page of a comic book that I could purchase all-occasion cards from a company in White Plains, NY, and sell them to my friends, relatives, and neighbors. All I had to do was come up with the seed money – I’m thinking $20. I’m not remembering what I did to earn it, but earn it I did – mowing and raking lawns, and delivering papers, probably.
My best friend, and next door neighbor, Marc Ciriello, had a paper route and I helped him deliver. He earned $30 a week! Holy crap, that was a lot. Because he was a year older, he sold his route to me. I was in the delivery business even then.
I also caddied at the Fairlawn Golf and Country Club, and occasionally at the Firestone Golf and Country Club (a PGA course).
The reason I was so driven by money was instilled in me by my Dad who made it so painful for me to ask for money. Mostly I had to earn it by cleaning the mortar off of recycled bricks that he wanted to use on the outside of the house. He paid me a penny a brick. I remember having to be taken to the hospital because a chip of mortar embedded itself into my eye when I put a hammer to chisel.
So when I asked my Dad for money, he would take out this enormous ledger book and open it. Imagine this old, crusty, gray, monstrous book, making a creaking sound as it opened, like a basement door, opening upon a black abyss in a horror movie. Then, slowly, carefully, accurately, he would write, Jim, 1 dollar. How painful is that? It drove me to earn and never ask him for money.
Consequently, it led to me working for money, and more of it. I worked at a bowling alley at 12 years old, fixing and removing lodged bowling pins in the machines. Then at thirteen, I took on a second job at the filling station next door to the bowling alley. My Dad said I was too young to be responsible for closing the station at midnight on the weekends, but I did it anyway.
I became an assistant janitor at a Catholic 1-8 grade school – age 14. I did that until I was 17, while at the same time washing dishes in restaurants and other jobs. Then, I lied about my age and got a job at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, OH, as an orderly. My best friend, Marc had become an orderly and I wanted to be like him, plus the work was interesting, and it was helping people. It paid, $1.21 an hour, and that included uplift for working evenings while attending high school.
I was one of the few that owned their own car in high school. The problem was that I had to work; Monday, Wednesday, Friday to pay for the car. Then I had to work Tuesday and Thursday to buy gas for the car. Then I had to work Saturday and Sunday to have money when I got to where I was going. So what did I have to say when my friends said; let’s go out Friday night? I can’t, I have to……go to work.
It took years for me to hear the words my father repeatedly told me; son, get your money situation over early in life, so you can then figure out what life is really supposed to be about.
The money situation is still not to my liking, but I have definitely figured out that life is not about work!
Turning 60 Thoughts
The advantage of looking back is you get to use a filter of greater wisdom.
My friend, Tilly Rivers, recently said that we may set ourselves up for failure by trying to fake ourselves out by committing to New Year’s resolutions that are fruitless, and self-deprecating. I agree!
What I have learned in over 60 years of life – holy crap, am I that old; is that we have all traveled around the sun, on this satellite planet we call Earth, on a journey through space and time. The real question is: is the planet, and the universe, better off because we have been here?
Wikipedia says we travel each year 590 million miles around the sun. Each and every year. For sixty years, that’s more than I want to calculate. So, some 6 billion people travel a huge distance through space each year. Each of us travels, almost like ants, from home to work and back again every day. Turning around in circles, (from door to door, bedroom to bathroom, to kitchen, to car door, to office door, and back again) and think we are adding substance to our existence.
Here is my question: Do I add substance to the planet and universe because I am here? Can I make a difference? Is the world a better place because I am here? My resolution each year is the same: not will I lose weight, or accomplish my monetary goals for this year, but will I be remembered for having made some significant impact on friends and the planet because I existed?
Can I bring friendship and pleasure to those who know me? Would my parents say, well done? Can I look back and say, that one person is happier because I thought, and acted, for their betterment?
I hope, pray, and wish this for all who know me.
Wikipedia says we travel each year 590 million miles around the sun. Each and every year. For sixty years, that’s more than I want to calculate. So, some 6 billion people travel a huge distance through space each year. Each of us travels, almost like ants, from home to work and back again every day. Turning around in circles, (from door to door, bedroom to bathroom, to kitchen, to car door, to office door, and back again) and think we are adding substance to our existence.
Here is my question: Do I add substance to the planet and universe because I am here? Can I make a difference? Is the world a better place because I am here? My resolution each year is the same: not will I lose weight, or accomplish my monetary goals for this year, but will I be remembered for having made some significant impact on friends and the planet because I existed?
Can I bring friendship and pleasure to those who know me? Would my parents say, well done? Can I look back and say, that one person is happier because I thought, and acted, for their betterment?
I hope and wish this for all who know me.
Guelph Ontario 1978 – Dublin St
Kids; My first year after becoming a landed immigrant in Canada, I attended York University and worked at Toronto Western Hospital as a Respiratory Tech. I soon realized that York and I did not agree. Liz got accepted to U of Guelph, so I drove to the university and paid a visit to Mr. McNally, the counselor and my admitting road block. He told me there were no positions left. I informed him that I would attend classes without credit as I was there for knowledge, not a piece of paper. He suddenly said, wait a moment, picked up the phone, and asked the registrar for an admitting number. A perfect example of: If you can’t boggle them with your brains, baffle them with your BS”. It worked. That gentleman became my confidant and supporter during my undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph.
Liz and I found an apartment in a duplex on Dublin St. in Guelph. Our first neighbor moved out and gave me his 10-speed bike. In order to get the bike free, I had to take in his Jack Dempsey fish and 50 gal fish tank. Jack and I spend many hours together – another story.
103 Dublin St
Love the hair! I still have the Guild that I brought with me to Canada
Red Cat – my favorite. He loved to eat melon of any kind
Mia just was, that is it. 
Great rocking chair.