And Then Death Took Steve

Among my Cargo of Despair band mate Steve's arsenal of laughter, giggles, snickers, and guffaws was the yuk yuk yuk of Popeye the sailor. He let it go most often at the arc of good humored digs between two people. I can hear it clearly at our practice space when our musical cohorts Huls and Scott turned from debating a point to playfully jabbing one another with damning charges that each other was mired in stubbornness. But the verbal conflicts were not just between those two. They were in fact rife among all four of us. A heated contention would occur in the midst of an evening given to jamming and practicing songs. Words would be exchanged over some trifle, and they would heat and escalate to the point where you thought it was a matter of honor to protest and that there was some point to be won. Frequently it was Steve who was on one side of the divide. One time for instance he and Huls were at loggerheads over whether Coca Cola would be almost solid if in fact it was 90% sugar. But it did not matter which of the four of us was verbally battling. Steve would still let go at the argument's height with a yuk yuk yuk.

Steve grew up in a neighborhood not far from mine but I did not meet him until I was in Jr high school and our two circles of friends overlapped. He marched as Thoreau put it to a different drummer than most of those I knew. His clothes were more outlandish and his taste in music was beyond our kind. There was a story too among us spoken in a kind of reverence heralded by laughter that he had taken his bike one day up on to the top of his parent's house and rode it off the roof, crashing to the ground. Years later while skiing at Mount Tom I encountered Steve in the lift line. He pulled me aside and whispered that he had jumped a ramp and landed on another skier. Ten minutes later as I rode the lift up there was the skier still splayed upon the snow.

In a simple way Cargo of Despair was the circular progeny of Steve. For it was through the influence of his two man group the Larry Mondello Band that our foundering member Carl B. enlisted Huls to start a band. A year later upon seeing Cargo of Despair's first performance Steve asked to join our band. Thus was a circle completed.

A couple of years later Huls and Scott and I went to see Steve's mainstay the Larry Mondello Band at Mather Hall on the campus of Trinity College. The music that night was maniacal and oozing with dread.

Such were not the qualities however that he brought to Cargo of Despair. With us he had a lighter and more buoyant touch. He exuded enthusiasm and passion for what we were doing and was always up for whatever direction whim might take us. Be it drums, guitar, bass, or vocals he gave it his unschooled all. And when we performed before an audience he had no qualms about appearing in a diaper if that was what the song called for. Thus over the years I saw him donning a Hitler moustache, laid out on a gurney, dressed as a caveman, and inside the skin of a soft-shoe dancing six foot tall plastic godzilla.

He was always a drinker. I can't remember him not having a six pack with him when meeting at our practice space. It did not strike me then as excessive. He seldom appeared drunk. Sure there were those times when he fumbled with things. But that seemed born of his nature rather than the results of too much drink. There was one time however when I rode home with him after a practice and we parked in the driveway of my parent's home. He spoke in a way I could not completely follow but knew he was in his way unburdening himself. The night was cool and I could smell the beer on his breath and he spoke at length. But I was unsure of the point he was trying to make. I only know that afterwards we shook on it and his grip was warm and firm.

Some years later after our band had folded and we'd all gone our seprate ways I would hear third or fourth hand that while carrying on with his duties delivering mail as a U.S. postal employee he was suddenly surrounded by gun bearing authorities who ordered him to get on the ground and spread 'em. The story goes that a disgruntled debtor to Steve had phoned in a lie that Steve had threatened to go postal with a gun. He was suspended without pay and in his collapsed world he took steadily to drink and later on suffered the ravages of crack.

I also heard it told that some months later while Steve was on his deathbed at the hospital his superior appeared at his side to tell him his name had been cleared and he could have his job back. But it was too late. Steve died a day or two later.

Now here we are some ten years hence and I find myself almost bereft of words to describe the bond we wove together while making music with each other. But try I will. It was it strikes me now in a spiritual state of blissful awe that we wrestled at times out of dissonance and feedback compelling melody. We would look at each other in that altered place derived from sound and nod our heads knowing that we had in those moments out-shined our limited means. And there would be Steve his face lit up with a beaming smile.

Toto and her kind

The way we got our pet dog was that one day I traded a flimsy pair of binoculars for a squirrel from a kid who it was rumored had a metal plate in his head. Word around the neighborhood was that the plate kept his skull from shrinking and squeezing his brain to death. As it turned out the squirrel was not his to trade. He didn't own it. That night the mother of the actual owner called our house to ask for the critter back. By chance the woman happened to know my mother, both of them were nurses and traveled in the same circles. Her family's dog had just given birth and she offered us the pick of the litter for return of the squirrel. (Months later while over their house we would dine on frog legs that were wrapped up in tinfoil and cooked on a grill. And, I'm here to tell you, frog tastes like chicken.)

On the night of the phone call we went over to the squirrel owner's house and picked out a black pup from the litter of mutts that were part Black Lab, possibly German Shepherd, and breeds unknown. My sister who was enamored with the Wizard of Oz got the honor of naming the pup. Thus the family pooch was christened Toto. She was a friendly and dutiful pet who as she grew came when called, heeled when ordered, and sat up when asked. She was much beloved and accompanied us on family vacations at Hampton Beach, and my father and her would go for early morning surf side runs before the arrival of bathers or dog barring officials. By the time she reached her middle years however she was a bit neurotic. She had to be sedated when left alone in the cottage. One afternoon while under the influence of her calming dose she ate her way through the front screen door and came looking for us. When she found us she bayed in unbridled joy and wagged her tail with her whole body.

During the time we got Toto I also had a pet turtle the size of a half-dollar. I kept him in a cardboard piggy-bank that was a replica of a McDonald's. It sat atop my clothes-chest and I rarely paid him any mind. One afternoon when I put him on the floor to mosey around a bit I found he was dead. It was my first encounter with death and I felt sick at heart that he had died. It was all my fault. I'd neglected him. When I told my mother what had happened she suggested a funeral at sea by way of the bathroom toilet. I flushed him down with a sad goodbye. I think his name was Sammy.

We had a parakeet for a spell around the time I was eleven. He chirpped and sang continuously. One time my father took him out of the cage and had the bird on his finger an inch away from his mouth. In what would later become family lore my father opened his mouth to the parakeet. Without warning the bird lunged into my father's mouth and headed for the depths of his throat. We watched dumbfounded as our gagging father grabbed the disappearing bird by its tail-feathers and yanked the would be avian spelunker free from reaching his esophagus and points beyond. Not too long after that we had the bird out of the cage and as we watched it walk around on the floor our family cat Smokey pounced on him and killed the parakeet before we could react. The birdcage went down into the basement and we were bird-less for evermore.

As Toto aged into the autumn of her years my father and her developed a special bond. My father who worked third shift would share the morning and early noon hours with her. She with the constantly wagging tail of delight at moments of attention rubbed up against my father's leg and was rewarded with pets and pats on her chest. In mutual affection they passed the hours together.

Over the years we also had our share of cats but not one that followed was viewed as fondly as our first cat Smokey. He could do no wrong. Later would come Morgan, Munchkin, and a small host of others. One was a stray that didn't last long enough to merit a name. He had an unlovable disposition and stayed in the basement pissing and stinking up a storm. We were quickly rid of him. Our next door neighbors a childless couple in their upper sixties who kept their lawn as pristine as a putting green fell in love with Morgan. They had a special chair for him and they fed him canned tuna and had up on their living room wall a picture of him. They were struck particularly low at his eventual passing.

Around the time I reached my cynical an uncharitable latter teens Toto could no longer control her bowels. I can see it clearly her running through the living room heading for the back door with her tail tuck up underneath her and a look on her face of utter shame as she voided against her will. In response I took up a cry, put her to sleep. A short time later in the face of the inevitable my father took Toto to the vet and held her cradled in his arms as the vet administered the lethal injection. When my father returned he stood at the kitchen window and looked out upon the back yard where Toto had played and scampered about. And my father stoic though he was broke down in tears.

Toto's demise was in its way a demarcation point for our family. My siblings and I were soon to venture forth and we had outgrown the need for a family pet to care for and rally around. We had by then concerns and visions and plans for life beyond the family home. And they did not in all their manifestations include a tag along animal, not even one that was dearly beloved.

Miami, Man.

The Miami Show or as it was otherwise known The Morrison Show came about as mostly a lark. I was at its inception living in Allston, Mass, with my fellow Cargo of Despair band mate, Scott Burland. We happened to catch an hour long documentary on the Doors in the course of which Ray Manzarek must have said "Man" four-hundred, seventy-four times, man. It was so silly it made us giddy. Soon thereafter we put on a bootleg album of excerpts from the Doors March, 1, 1969, Miami show in which authorities contended Morrison had exposed his mini Mr. Morrison. He is obviously in his cups as they used to say. He taunts the audience, "You're all a bunch fucking idiots.... How long are you going to let them push you around? You're all a bunch of slaves, a bunch of slaves...what are you gonna do about it, what are you gonna do? Hey listen I'm lonely up here. Why don't about fifty or sixty of you come up here and love my ass...Oh look. There's a whole bunch of you way back there that I didn't even notice." This show went on for an hour until Morrison turned his boozy gripes on to the Miami cops who were present. It pissed them off and they hauled Jim off the stage. End of show.

We wanted to pay homage to that night through a show that was unpredictable, mildly confrontational, and chaotic. At our next get together with the other two members of Cargo we hash together a framework for our performance. It was not an unusual approach for us. We were by nature an improvisational group who left much to chance. All we really ever needed was a small set of givens and we would make up the rest on the spot.

The performance took place one hot night in the foyer of an office building that housed both businesses and a bookstore called Primal Plunge. The bookstore featured fanzines, magazines, comic books, hardbacks of esoteric interest, and the paintings of clowns by the serial murderer John Wayne Gacy. The proprietor, Mike, organized and publicized the event and it was through him that we had that night an audience of some forty people.

On "stage" (the floor level space in front of our audience) and hanging from the ceiling was a life size black and white poster of Jim Morrison in his iconic leather wearing prime. We had cut out a square at his crotch level and replaced it with the screen of a black and white television set that was hooked up to a surveillance camera zoomed in on the bulging dungaree clad crotch of James. He was otherwise unseen and had joined our band some weeks prior after seeing a mention of us in the Phoenix newspaper. Before that he had fronted his own band called Frozen Hippo Whiplash. The reason why James' crotch was bulging was that he had in his pants a ten inch long and bulbous plastic replica of one of the giant sand worms featured in the movie Dune. To the right of the poster Scott and Huls were huddled on the floor. They had eight different cords affixed with contact microphones that were plugged into a couple amps. Steve was standing to their right. He was dressed in his Postal uniform and donning a policeman's cap and wielding a night stick. I stood at his side dressed in thigh high pants with my crotch bulging obscenely by way of a bunched together bath towel stuffed into my under-ware. A tape deck was also on stage. It was plugged into an amp.

Let the performance begin. Huls turned on the tape deck and soon a 60 second tape-loop was blasting through an amplifier. The tape featured Morrison shouting the "Come on, come on, come on..." introduction to the song Touch Me from the Door's album, The Soft Parade. The Come on, come on, come on was quickly followed by some of Morrison's ranting from the Miami show: You're all a bunch of slaves, What are you going to do about it? What are you gonna do? blah, blah, blah... It was a continuous sixty second loop that repeated over and over in the course of the performance. As this was going on Huls and Scott turned up the amps into which the contact mics were plugged. Now the thing about a contact mic is that it picks up every scrape, tap, scratch, or bump. Our original plan was to have the eight contact mics independent of one another and free for audience members to take hold of and join in the mayhem. Unfortunately however all the cords got tangle up with one another and struggle as they might to free them of one another Huls and Scott just couldn't untangle them. The amplifiers squalled with feedback and jarring amplified, scrapes, bumps, and scratches. It was Hellish. Steve meanwhile was walking through the audience while smacking the palm of his left hand with his night stick and telling folks to behave themselves and otherwise being a general nuisance. As this was going on I was tossing paper airplanes by the score into the audience. They threw them back at us and at one point someone toss one at us that was in flames.

On the television screen a hand kept playing and teasing at the zipper on the crotch in close up. I ventured into the audience and proceeded to prod people with my bulging crotch. I got a number of dirty looks. Morrison ranted on. After several minutes Steve started to badger me, telling me in classic cop speak to move along.

We were now about twenty loud and chaotic minutes into our performance. About that time the sand worm was slowly emerging from the pulled down zipper of the crotch in close up on the television screen. Steve and I were now both on our knees and back on stage. I felt we had shot our wad and I said to Steve, let's end it. He promptly punched me square on the jaw. I went tumbling on to my ass, laughing like crazy, and wondering what the hell that was about. (He would later tell me I thought you said hit me.) Scott and Huls meanwhile intuitively knew it was time to call it quits and the feedback and squalls and drunken taunting of Jim Morrison came to a silent end.

If we were paid for our performance I don't remember it. But it's not like it mattered. Cargo of Despair was never in it for the money. We were in it for the kicks and I know at least for me the hard won adoration. It was a real thrill to connect with an audience and we walked away from the Miami show with the conviction we had done what we had set out to do and along the way we had won over a good portion of our audience. The show was for the twenty odd minutes it lasted the embodiment of the compelling spirit of rock and roll that over the past couple of decades has set ministers in their pulpits to preaching against its uninhibited evils.

My perpendicular neighbors

One lot over and to the right from being directly across the street from us was the green house of my childhood friends Mike and Mark Shea. Their father Jim had once served in the navy on a submarine and Mark told me one afternoon that his father on occasion while still asleep would run through the house and down into the basement yelling as he went, "Dive, dive, dive." Mr. Shea owned an older black Volks Wagon and every Saturday afternoon regardless of the season he washed, waxed, and buffed that car with an attention that bordered on the erotic. One glorious Saturday after he had serviced his bug my younger brother reached out and touched the gleaming body. Mr. Shea as if he kept constant vigil instantly burst from the kitchen door yelling, "Don't you dare." My brother retreated in tears and after Mr. Shea called my parents to complain my brother sobbed in his own defense that he could not help himself. Such was the power of that shine.

Mike and Mark shared the same birthday and were born exactly one year apart. Mark was my closest friend and when it came time for me to be confirmed in the Catholic faith I chose Mark as my confirmation name. His family was of another faith and the day in catechism class that I was informed by a nun that every one not Catholic was going to Hell to suffer for eternity I began my fall from faith and a notion of a just and loving God. How could I pray to such a deity who condemned to eternal damnation anyone unyielding to Catholic faith or the pronouncements of His representative on earth the reigning Pope?

The Sheas and I used to go to the YMCA on Saturday afternoons in the nearby city of Springfield, Mass. It was virtually our first exposure to African Americans. There was at the time only a handful of black families residing in our town and none had children attending our grade school. That would change in junior high. In the meantime however through the Y we were exposed to a culture unlike our own. And it was as if we were of two different clans. We got along somewhat wearily. But we did beyond the racial awkwardness and disharmony have a grand time. There was basketball, dodge ball, trampoline time, and free swim periods. Afterwards we would shower and Mike Shea would comb his pubic hair and pet and talk to his penis which he called by a name that escapes me now. One afternoon after a workout in the gym I was down in the boy's dressing room hurrying to get ready to go for Mrs. Shea was due in moments to pick us up. I ran over to the heavy wooden door leading to the stairwell with the intentions of calling out to the dawdling Mark. I kicked it open. The door stopped abruptly with a thump and a cry. For in kicking the door open I had cleaved Mark's forehead down his center. The gash took a dozen stitches to close.

Down the end of our street was the proverbial sand lot where we played pick up baseball games. One morning Mike diligently cleared away all the brush and sticks and other impediments to a clean playing field. Later that same day for some perverse reason as if in undue retaliation I littered the field once again with all the debris Mike had painstakingly removed. In utter confusion upon discovering my deed Mike erupted in a guttural cry. Never before had I heard such pure animal anguish.

Mrs. Shea was a heavy drinker who played piano for a local church based theatrical group. One of the three bedrooms in the Shea household had been turned into a music studio with a black upright piano and a voluminous collection of sheet music running the gamut of broadway show tunes. At one point Mrs. Shea attended an AA meeting under the misconception that the organization would teach her how to drink reasonably. She was aghast to learn that they advocated complete abstinence. She never returned. A couple years later on an afternoon when I was eleven or twelve I stood in the doorway of their backyard sheet metal tool shed with a throbbing erection. I was at that moment enticing a neighboring girl of four or five to step inside the shed and relieve me carnally in ways I did not as of yet fully understand. Mrs. Shea who happened at that very second to look out her back window let go with a horrified shriek as she called out my name. Shocked into fear the little girl ran away in tears.

It was through Mark that I learned of another power, one that was more mysterious than lust. We were down in his basement when it happened. The afternoon before a television repairman had deemed the family black and white set beyond hope. Rather than toss the television out Mr. Shea had relegated the set to family basement with the thoughts he would later prove the repairman wrong. The back of the set was off and Mark and I had plugged it in. We stared transfixed at the glowing tubes and hot wires. I had a screwdriver in my hand and Mark as if in the guise of a straight man delivered his line, "What ever you do don't touch that wire." And I completing the joke replied, "What this one?" As I said it I touched the wire with the screw driver and a jolt of electricity mule kicked me some six or seven feet through the air. From that day forward I had a reverence for all things electrical.

When Mark and I were fifteen we each took a hit of Purple Haze and the world turned fantastical. Such visions we saw. I spent the night at his house and as we lay awake listening to the plaintive calls on a radio talk show I was convinced I heard beyond those voices a spaceship land atop his house. It was a night that passed for me in religious awe.

Shortly thereafter my family moved to neighborhood miles away. Mark and I went through changes in temperament and we drifted apart. I went on to strike up new friendships. And on melancholy afternoons I sometimes pulled out my collection of snapshots from earlier years. In one of them the Shea brothers and several other kids and I were supporting each other while forming a human pyramid. Were you naive enough you could almost convince yourself that we had the strength to hold one another aloft forever.

six elementary snap shots

My elementary school memories are as camera clicks with only rudimentary images captured. They are few but indelible.

22 November 1963 I was seated in first grade class when the overhead oatmeal colored speaker crackled to life. President Kennedy had been shot. We were to be let out early. I hurried with putting on my coat. I had to get home to tell my mother. The president I knew was Irish and Catholic just like us.

Years later. We sat silently at our desks working on the handout of word puzzles that our fifth grade english teacher had assigned us. I really enjoyed the challenge, so when she told us to pass the handout forward I wrote across the top of the page, "This was fun." After she'd gathered all the papers she told us to open our books to chapter four and read quietly to ourselves. We hadn't been at it more than a couple minutes when she barked out,"Robert." I was the only Robert in the class. "Stand up," she said. I did so and was startled to find she was glaring at me. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. I had no idea what she was talking about. "What?" I stammered. "This comment on the top of your page, 'This was fun.' What did you mean by that?" For a confounding moment all that existed was her withering look. I blurted out, "It was fun. I liked it." She looked me over every which way. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. "From now on," she said. "Keep your opinions to yourself. Now sit down." I returned as best I could to my reading assignment. But the words were swimming in myriad directions. I could not concentrate. And I knew from that day onward I would never again volunteer my secret feelings.

Some months after that in the height of spring Richard Delmonte with his sparkling eyes and dimpled chin came to school in shiny black shoes, tight fitting jeans, and a flashy white shirt with an upturned wide collar. His curly brown hair was that day slicked back in a 50's pompadour. He carried with him an acoustic guitar and was in approximation our very own Elvis. It created a buzz that swept through the school. When recess came a crowd quickly formed around him and as he strummed his instrument and warbled out a song made popular by the Memphis King the girls swooned and cried out in glee and abandon. At one point as he played on his act triggered a shrieking mania among the the girls. They pressed forward as if any distance was too far away from him. It set him fleeing. He was pursued by the girls in a trampling herd. The popular boys who had been left behind usurped by his act spoke vehemently of beating him up. I watched it all unfold as if a clinician overcome with envy and desire. (Seventeen years later I crossed paths with Richard Delmonte once again while at a tree lined park in Hartford, Connecticut. He obviously had succumbed to hard times and he told me lived in the woods of the park. His new name he proudly informed me with a glint of the old Elvis was Wolf Boy.)

In sixth grade I wrote a poem about a lion. There was talk of it being printed, perhaps in a regional magazine. Also mentioned was a prize being awarded. It was the first inkling that I might have something special. The talk was a soothing balm to my woeful sense of self.

Another day in that very year as I stood doing my business at a urinal my friend Jamie Mack kicked me in the ass to the derision and laughter of two of our classmates. It snapped something in me. Without zipping up I went after him. I got him in a choke hold and squeezed his throat. And nothing existed except for my rage. When the two other kids couldn't get me to stop with their pleas they pried my arms apart. Jamie sputtered and coughed and gasped for breath and once he founded it he cried out what the hell was wrong with me. He then challenged me to a fight after school. I fretted about it the rest of the day and by the time it came for us to battle I was my usual withdrawn self. A couple ineffectual punches were thrown before I was wrestled without resistance to the ground. The following moment I cried out, my eyes. I pretended there was sand in them and our skirmish came to a halt with concern for me. A few minutes later Jamie and I were once again friends. But I was not the same and had not been so since the incident in the bathroom when I discovered there was another darker self inside of me.

That self reared again shortly there after at recess one day when a blundering chunky kid with a questionable IQ tried to bully me. I'm not sure what happened next. But at one point as if coming out of a haze I found myself jumping up and down on his head. A teacher pulled me a way and brought me to the principal's office. Soon I was flanked by the teacher, principal, and nurse. There was a contention that I'd hit the other kid in the head with a bat. If I did I didn't remember it. The nurse stated that I might have deafened the other kid for life. The three of them needled and coddled me in a classic good cop bad cop approach. They wanted to know what made me tick. I was at a loss to shed any light. Somehow as serious as my actions were my parents were never informed or consulted. And I slipped as the saying goes through the cracks, and a few months later I left elementary school behind.

The Foundry

There were three Bobs at the foundry. First up was Bob the owner. He had three half fingers on his right hand. He'd cut off the tips of his digits on a rip saw. This I found hard to fathom. You would think that once he cut off the top of one finger he'd have the good sense or presence of mind to stop what he was doing and save the rest of his fingers from the whirring blade. But apparently he was in too much of a hurry to stop chopping off fingers at the loss of one. Bob number two was the head of the Grinding Department. He was rotund and ineffectual and the general consensus was that he had his job by way of nepotism. He was married to Bob the owner's daughter. And then there was me, Bob number three. Or Disco Bob as I later learned I was dubbed the afternoon I was taken for a tour around the foundry in the course of the hiring process. I got the nickname by the way I was dressed, garbed as I was in the attire of a disco smoothie given to garish and synthetic fabrics.

The foundry had four divisions of labor. There was Molds, a three man operation, Grinding and Painting with a half dozen employees each, and the Furnace which was manned by one worker. On any given day the Mold guys snapped together wooden boxes and filled them with a mixture of sand, adhesive, and a hardening agent that caused it all to heat up, turn green, and solidify. Then each mold was laid out to cool off. Every finished casting no matter the shape or size took two boxes, that is two molds, for each box had a corresponding half. Once the molds cooled they were taken to Painting where each one was painted with a nonporous agent. (The stuff was best applied in a room with good ventilation - because as the warnings affixed to the 55 gallon drums of it stated in so many words: inhale too much of the stuff and it will kill you.) After it was painted the mold would be sanded down and then the two matching halves of each mold were lined up and glued together. There was usually three to four castings per pour so the stack of molds was from bottom to top some six feet tall. The stack which had a steel plate on the bottom was then fitted with another plate at the top of the stack and then banded together. From there an overhead hydraulic lift would be lowered and clamped on to the stack to turn it sideways. A fork truck then carried the now horizontal stack over to the furnace where the liquified metal was poured into the molds. Afterwards the stack was taken over to grinding where the castings were left to cool down. Then the grinders would grind and sand blast each of casting free of burs.

My first job at the foundry was in Painting. At the time there were two women working in the department. They were both in their twenties and I thought of them as girls. One was the love interest of Joe who was the foreman of both Painting and Molds. He was a haunted and sallow alcoholic and some twelve years older than his chosen girl. One morning shortly after I was hired a stack of molds toppled over and landed on top of the other girl snapping a bone in her right leg in two. It was then decided that the foundry was not a fit place of work for a women. Joe's love interest promptly departed and Joe in turn wandered around forlorn.

I got dirtier by the hour while working at the foundry. In the morning I was splattered white while haphazardly applying the nonporous solution to the molds. Then I was covered with a fine dust from sanding all that I'd just painted. As the day wore on the smoke from the smelting furnace and all the grinders grinding would rain down on me in the form of ash and the smell would seep into my clothes until I smelled of industrial fires. (Once while cashing my check at a local bank the woman standing in line behind blurted out, "I smell something burning." I eased her concern by saying, "It's only me.") Every two weeks there was a sand delivery and the foundry would be choked of air by the accompanying voluminously billowing clouds of dust. And it did not matter that some of us chose to wear the company provided hospital masks. By the day's end no matter what the precautions we took we all had the taste of dust in our throats. Each night after work I labored in the shower scrubbing myself red with a hard bristle brush.

Around ten o clock each morning the Roach Coach would pull into the foundry parking lot and blare its horn melodiously. We'd scramble outside in our alloted fifteen minute break to purchase and wolf down coffee, breakfast goodies, and would be hangover remedies. We were save for Bob the owner, Pete the engineer, and the furnace operator copious consumers of liquor, cigarettes, and drugs. One morning during break a none too loved employee bought six bags of potato chips. By the time break was over and we all had to get back to work he'd eaten the contents of only three of the bags. Rather than picking up where he'd left off before break he took his three remaining bags of chips into the bathroom and there he perched in one of the weakly fecal smelling stalls munching away. Another employee who took a wiz heard the crunching of chips and reported it to Joe. He quickly took action threatening to fire the chip muncher if he didn't immediately return to work. And the chip eater's actions won him no new friends.

An us against them vibe existed between the other departments and Painting. This was due to the fact that all the employees working in Grinding and Molds, and also on the furnace were from the town where the foundry was located. They also as a whole had been working at the foundry for a number of years. Painting employees on the other hand came from all over and quit with regularity. Over the months I worked at the foundry I was somewhat reluctantly taken into the fold and invited to parties thrown by assorted grinders. These were guys only affairs. At one of the gatherings I watched the three hundred pound giant pear shaped guy who worked in Molds and reminded me of the cartoon character Baby Huey and who was lovingly called The Mayor guzzle down a fifth of vodka. In a matter of seconds he drained the bottle dry. He spent the rest of the night seated upright at the kitchen table with his eyes glazed over and hiccuping every so often. It was apparently the way he always drank.

Another employee who worked in Molds, Eddie Corpizinski, was gullible to the point that he seemed to be performing an unsubtle parody called "The Stupid Pollock." One afternoon when he was informed that live chickens were going to be let loose in the ducks that transported sand in order to clean them he responded with indignation that that wasn't fair to the chickens.

I'd been at the foundry a number of months when I was promoted with a small bump in pay to the position of furnace operator. It was an induction furnace that melted metals by currents of electricity and even a hint of moisture could set off an explosion. So caution was the word when working the furnace. Every day Pete the engineer who smoked more cigarettes than it seemed humanly possible would hand me a print out of weights and types of metal I was to liquify by the introduction of heat. Through a slow procedure of ramping up the temperature the cauldron's hold would melt and I would add more weight and skim from the mouth of the furnace slag and impurities. One day Bob number two gave me a new skimmer to use. It had been abandoned outdoors for a number of months and it had rusted. The instant I lower the skimmer and it touched the molten hold of the furnace the contents exploded hurling me to the ground and shooting out a spray of molten metal. Fortunately the skimmer did not then fall into the cauldron. Had it done so we would have suffered an eruption equaled in size to a diminutive Mount Saint Helen.

I had a two man crew who worked the pours with me. There was Ed (not Korpizinski) who drove the fork truck (and who would some months later head off to live in the wilds of Alaska.) Aiding him was Mad Dog. He had earned his nickname by the wine he favored, Mogan David. One Saturday morning when we were working overtime and Mad Dog was terribly hung over he was directing Ed forward while walking backwards. "Come on, come on," he instructed Ed who had paused the fork truck momentarily. He had paused because Mad Dog who was resting his body against the stack of molds did not realize that his back was less than an inch away from the sheet rock wall of the bathroom. "I said come on," barked Mad Dog. With a hint of merriment Ed did as instructed. He drove forward. In doing so he bashed Mad Dog right through the wall of the bathroom. After Ed and I ceased with our laughter and Mad Dog emerged from the rubble, threw up, and groaned, "Yeah. Funny," we got on with the pour.

One night with a few accomplices I stoled the company pick up truck and took to the neighboring hills. At a free standing mailbox of a house along the way, one that we had years ago picked at random and routinely blown up with fireworks ever since regardless of the owners attempts to fortify it, I backed up the pickup truck against the newly erected sturdy and cemented pole. After a count down from ten to one I floored the gas pedal and smashed the pole and mailbox flat to the ground. From there we went whooping and hollering until one of my cohorts threw the gear shift into reverse as we were cruising along at fifty miles an hour. It blew the transmission and we coasted to a stop. A good citizen who happened to be walking his dog nearby told us he'd call for help as soon as he got home. We said thanks and the moment he was out of sight we ran willy nilly through the woods until we reached the home of a friend.

A short time later I quit the foundry. Two months after that my brother and I and two of our friends loaded up a van and headed with uncertainty for points west.

Diamond days

I was deep in the outfield of one of the three baseball diamonds spread out in Powder Hollow shagging flies with a dozen other twelve years olds. For some reason that morning I was aggressive like I'd never been before, shouting out, "I got it,' as I chased down fly balls near and far. After running down and catching a rather hard hit ball a prospecting coach asked me for the third time what was my name? "I told you twice already," I barked. He grimaced and told me I had a poor attitude and paid me no further attention. I didn't care. I thought he was a jerk.

It was Saturday afternoon in the beginning of summer and I was taking part in little league open tryouts. My father who had accompanied me was hanging out with the other dads comparing and enumerating each kid's strengths and weaknesses. I'm sure he was smoking his pipe.

By the time the waning sun was casting crisscross shadows in the hollow I'd been scooped up as a healthy prospect by a diligent and good natured coach. He'd asked me my name just once. Later the following week we met for our first team workout. I tried out for a pitching. I was tall for my age and a bit lanky with a strong right arm. I took to the mound and burned them in to my catcher. A fast ball was about my only pitch. My curve ball had a habit of hitting right handed batters. Any other pitch I tried wound up as merely a flub. But my fast ball was intimidating as was my size atop the mound. It would come in handy when we met an opposing team.

Marty Prouty was also a pitcher for our team who's name I can't remember although I can clearly see our uniforms. They were off white with blue stripes and blue caps just like the New York Yankees. Marty like me had his battles with control. During one game after he hit three batters in a row his father got out of the pick up truck he was sitting in and stormed across the field. He dragged his embarrassed and protesting son off the pitcher's mound and back to the truck while yelling at him the whole way. The game which had come to an embarrassing halt was restarted by the umpires cry, "Play ball."

I loved my glove. My father had spared no expense when buying me it. The fit was first rate and the webbing was perfect for catching hard hit balls. If I remember correctly the glove was a Ted William's model. I had it for years in fact all the way up into my late forties. I was living then in a cramped studio apartment so I stored the glove along with other nonessentials in the building's dank basement. And there it sat for over a year until the day I was moving out. I went down into the basement and discovered that the glove and everything else I had stored there was rotted with mold. At that point I reluctantly tossed the glove away.

My little league days were family affairs. My father was a doting and instructive assistant coach. After games win or lose he'd treat the whole team to hot-dogs and soda or ice-cream treats from the Dairy Queen. My mother for her part was my most ardent fan. One night during a heated game I hit a ball deep into right field. As I ran for extra bases my mother called out encouragement and jumped up and down with such exertion she broke one of the planks on the bleachers where she had but a moment ago been sitting.

As it sometimes happens a better pitcher came along and I was relegated to right field. I'd stand out there daydreaming and only occasionally take part with the rest of the team in taunting the batter "You can't hit" and yelling "swing" at every pitch.

I had no baseball heros in those little league years (nor do I now). There was not a player I idolized or sought to emulate. I also cared not a wit for the professional doings of the game. There was no team I rooted for or followed. I was aware however of players like The Yaz and Pete Rose. I knew for instance that the latter was nick named Charlie Hustle. But beyond that my interest in the sport was basically nil. I rarely watched a game on TV for I found the proceedings exceedingly dull. I did however find playing the game to be a bit of fun. With that in mind I played in little league for a couple seasons.