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Outline and Notes: My Crazy Life

Avatar photoWritten by David Admin
Listen to The Written Word

Potential Book/Series names currently under consideration:

  1. My Crazy Life
  2. Searching for Me
  3. Never a Dull Moment
  4. The Choices

Organize the stories/incidents

  • Think in terms of a multi-season video series with x number of episodes. For example:
        •  SERIES – Searching for Me
        •  SEASON– Vietnam
        •  EPISODE– “This is the End.”  Surprise, then a few months of Sargent Peppers, Lonely Hearts, Club Band in Phu Bai.
  • All incidents and stories are from my life.  I’ll begin by writing about an incident from any episode in any one of the 5 Seasons  5 selected to be written at my discretion or as requested by a majority of my ‘Patreons.’
  • Each entire season will be presented to site members weekly in chronological order, as a  written text and possibly also as a video series.

Fill in the Big Story Picture …  Let’s build a data chart to make sense of all this:

Laid out like a tiled mosaic and either I or the group can provide the metaphoric ‘glue’ that holds all the individual incidents together.

Example:

Searching For Me

BIG LIFE CHANGES

Narrate and fill in background material like just moved in from Queens NY, a beautician friend of hers told her she spotted a for sale or rent sign in front of a retail store built into a residential row house in a Jewish neighborhood called Wynfield, in Philadelphia and that  full-on Dimner Beeber, Middle School, but start with Overbrook High School, Ricky, baby Miriam, Mom, and Dad all that era,

US Coast Guard Begin at the Lowe Movie Theater on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City (The night before the incident  South Pacific had opened and would run through the weekend and beyond –– Plump Italian teenage girl, dark, olive complected girl my age …. You look so handsome in that uniform.  I just love men in uniforms for some reason.  Her really big boobs pushed up against me in the scrim that happened when my fellow usher let the felt rope barrier strung between weighted shinny brass poles etc … 

Prologue: Aunt Jemima … Just so the reader gets some insight into what formed me.  Only cover the days I shuttled back and forth between Waterbury Connecticut and Queens, NY when my mom died and when I visited her in our small apartment as you can see HERE

Then, select any episode to write this week’s incident

GET ORGANIZED!  I think I’ve got to break this up into a smaller chunks because it’s becoming a gigantic document and I I’m just not going to be able find anything anymore I have to really start breaking these down and this this new text on this

 

 

Overbrook High School
Metal Shop


A short EXAMPLE/INCIDENT

Burke Below the Window

So, I’m cutting a rectangular piece of thin sheet metal when out of the corner of my eye I realized that Jimmy and Stan had stopped shapping a large sheet of copper hitting it with and banging on it with a ballpean hammer and stood wided-eyed and motionless looking in Tyrone’s the direction, standing  of Tyrone.  Tyrone always seemed like a nice kid, with no alarm bells, just a quiet kid.

But now, Tyrone stood expressionless, flat, devoid of any emotion as his arms shook precariously balancing a heavy-looking steel anvil in both hands high above his head, and he looked down, watching, three stories below as Vice Principal Burke walked slowly across the cement patio below.

Tyrone swayed back and forth, pulled down and forward by the iron anvil’s weight.  Before anyone could move, he caught his balance, looked and shouted, “Fuck you Burke!!!” and then he fell forward, opening his hands and releasing the massive hunk of iron to race down in bomb sight precision, until at the last tenth of a second the anvil miraculously avoided missing VP Burke’s left arm by inches before slamming into the concrete where the anvil dug down into its concrete strewn four by four-foot deep crater.

And Burke stood straight and perfectly still.  Frozen.

Other good high-school tales and thoughts at the time included:

The Three Cavaliers.  Whatever that meant, it rhymed with three Musketeers, and that was alright by me.

U.S. Coast Guard

My Path to Boot Camp

    1. My Dad standing up and clapping in the completely silent auditorium when they called me to the podium to accept my ‘Commercial’ Degree …  I had started my scholarly journey four years before at Dimner Beeber Middle School  –  (a historic middle school located in the Wynnefield neighborhood of Philadelphia) – for one year I had a hard time with Geometry, and flunked Spanish studies using a Book called ‘El Camino Real.  Then it was over to Overbrook High School for years where, for the last two years in the Commercial Education curriculum where I went to classes in the morning and then took the elevated and subway to downtown Philly, first working in the shipping department, and then in Women’s Shoes at  Blauner’s Department Store.
    2. Culminates after graduation with two lost jobs when we were in a rented summer Victorian house in Ventnor Beach, N.J.  One job as a movie theater usher, and the final one as a beach chair and umbrella sales, setter upper, and taker downer.
    3. Dad and I visit all the local, Atlantic City, NJ – military recruiting offices — I wanted to join the U.S. Air Force because I thought I would look good to girls wearing the light blue uniform, but the Air force recruiter was always ‘out to lunch.  Continue this, through the Army, Marines, Navy,  to finally, the U.S. Coast Guard and flunking the eye exam. My father called our local congressman and worked it out.

Then it was on to boot camp in Cape May New Jersey and that whole experience.

      1. First thing when entering our barracks was a seaman wearing regulation blue jeans, a light-blue long-sleeved shirt, and a metal bucket covering his head resting on his shoulders.  And he was repeating loudly into the bucket, “I am a shithead, I am a shithead over and over again.  I got the point, this Bootcamp stuff was not going to be fun.
      2. Get into the entire Boot Camp Experience:
        1. The born-again Christian kid from Alabama who came on like an innocent friendly kid etc.
        2. Short Sheeting
        3. Ratface
        4. Jew
        5. I was a real Schmarty Pants!  The smartest kid in the classes, Unfortunately, that was not a good thing, as you’ll see.
          1. Navigation
          2. Knot tying
          3. Seamanship etal
          4. Lead man on the live fire hose.
          5. Jumping off the 50-foot-high platform
          6.  Swimming test no problem. Jumping off the 50 foot high diving board also no problem.  My mom taught me to swim in the wadding pole at Jones Beach when I was 3 or 4 years old, and I was a Junior Life Saver, and proudly wore the round red cross patch on my swim trunks. (I did rescue the little girl from drowning in the freezing cold surf off the beach at Ogunquit Maine etc.)
          7. Smoked Lucky Strikes, like just about everyone else – except officers and chiefs, they mostly smoked Pal Malls, basically a tall version of the Luckys’, just pure tobacco, no filter..
            1. Strip and roll your cigs when finished. (Translated this means to roll the cigarette between your fingers to coax out the tobacco and sprinkle it out over the lawn, then squeeze-roll the paper into a teeny ball and flick it out too.)
          8. Had my parents send me my old beat-up trumpet that I never really learned how to play, and I talked my way into the Coast Guard Marching Band!
            1. Leading up to and featuring the scrub brush incident, pranks like short sheeting, foam shaving cream in between sheets, taunting about rat face, can’t trust a rat, then again, the born again from Alabama who was the ringleader. Sleep in reserve barracks right next to out barracks, then next day
            2. Reminder – The Band Chief and Cape May’s Commandant pinned a small golden trumpet on my uniform, congratulated me, and asked if I would stay in the band, here in Cape May, New Jersey.  I bowed out gracefully and rapidly knowing that if I had stayed, they’d realized that I couldn’t play the trumpet.
            3. Mom, Dad were there Miriam was only 2 years old and was home with (? Granny or Ruby)   while I gorged on fried clams, buttered halibut, coleslaw and french fries sprinkled with special malt vinegar, and a Coke.  I was  talking fast.

The Balance of My Coast Guard Experiences
AFTER BOOT CAMP

  • Flying into Miami …. — offered a choice of either San Juan, Puerto Rico or Riviera Beach Florida –  touching West Palm Beach and Palm Beach we could see from Peanut Island, on the south shore of the inlet.  On a small private island in the intercoastal water way at the foot of Lake Worth Inlet that flowed from the ocean into the intercoastal water way.
  • The bus trip up from Miami to Riviera Beach … a few hours, local bus with lots of stops.  My impressions of the Colored and White segregated rest rooms and water fountain at the bus terminal.  Then, I sat in my favorite seat on the right side of the bus behind the rear door.  Hey boy, you caint sit there?  Negro/black women — house cleaners?
  • Lake worth Inlet Lifeboat Station, Riviera Beach FLA, Peanut Island
    • Rejection, and acceptance
    • Playing boat games with “Boats” – Flipping in the channel.
    • Racing across smooth flat ocean, no wind, just bright sun and blue skys.
      • Let’s have turtle soup … ever had it? Nope let’s bring this guy on board and have cookie check it out.
        • Uh Oh, fifteen  foot shark circling.
    • Jason the cook picked me up from the shore with an 18 foot boat that looked like a mini wwII landing craft.
    • The rescue
    • Those three razor blades between the young fisherman’s right hand fingers,  used to cut nets quickly in case of emergency.
    • Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim‘s West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden Sept. 26, 1957, and almost immediately worked its way to classic status. The show was recorded by Goddard Lieberson of Columbia Records in what was then the new stereophonic process, and the original cast album
    • The Theater
      • West Palm Beach Repertoire Theatre
        • This season featuring such famous Melodramas as “Petunias Perils,”  and directed by the swishy and famous, in his own mind, King Page, from Chicago who brought with him a retinue of handsome but feminine ballet dancers who spent most of their time noisily bouncing around backstage while we were trying to rehearse on set.
        • The lead actor, Harvey Ladew Williams III.  (From wealthy Connecticut family.  His father was Harvey Ladew Williams Jr..
          • What was his girlfriends’ name?   The three of us were like the 3 musketeers …. sneaking in rum to add to the coffee at the local bistro’s.
        • Vice President Nixon and his wife and entourage attended one of my performances. (Met Nixon again when I was getting started at the Foriegn Service Institute.
    • GED Test
    • The Forgery
  • South Boston USCG – In transit ~30 Days
  • LORAN Station at Cape Christian NWT Baffin Island, Canada
  • St. Louis, Mo.

Germany & Italy
ITT Federal Electric, Paramus NJ
Thirty-days training.  Living in a cheap Manhattan hotel 
Eating lots of my dinners at a Horn & Hardart’s Cafeteria
Commuting daily using the Hudson Tubes subway

    1. Queens College   It was a cold and overcast late autumn day — I spoke to a man in the admissions department — I told him I’d like to attend and study to become an electronics engineer.  With my Coast Guard experience as a self-made electronics technician, and ET Second Class, plus taking an admissions exam and doing great on it  I was accepted into a 5-year matriculating program that included 3  years at Queens College followed by two more at Brooklyn Poly Tech for a master’s degree.
    2. Got a first-class letter from IT&T Federal Electric in Paramus, New Jersey.  How’d you like to learn about our microwave transmitters and multiplex systems, then go to Europe to help set up a communications network as a contractor for NATO, etc., etc., etc?

EUROPE

In Southern German’s Schwarzwald  —- In Tirrenia, Pisa Italy 

DERO Research
Huntington, L.I.

  1.  Vietnam
    1. First job after returning from Europe:  Dero Research Inc., Huntington, Long Island, NY.  Plan and design a production line to build sophisticated desktop military radios for the U.S. Army, then manage the “girls,” 7 line workers and beat the competition, a parallel production line that had more line workers and a manager with years of experience, while I was just 22, and ran it.
    2. Remember the interview scene, all the laid-off engineers, from Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky, etc. all vying for this job.  Long Island was in a high-tech industry-wide slump, and Dero Research was one of just a handful of small companies that were hiring.
    3. DERO Management was impressed and amused by the creative way I answered all the technical questions, even if I didn’t understand some of them… they got a chuckle about it and hired me on the spot and sent all the Master’s Degreed engineers home.
    4. Taking a test that required solving problems having to do with electronics etc.  My background as an ET in the Coast Guard, and my recent European tour for IT&T Federal Electric Co, Paramus, New Jersey, and Europe where I learned all about the microwave, troposcatter, line-of-site, and GTE MUX channels.
    5. I got Ricky, who was on Summer Break, a job at Dero doing menial work and we jointly bought a sixteen-foot sailboat with trailer and hitch that fit Dad’s old Chevy …. he had given this to Rick.  (It might have been called a “Sunfish”  but I’m not sure.
      1. Those rich kids on the L.I. shore running after us frantically screaming Tack! Tack!  Tack! when I couldn’t figure out how to not run up onto the beach without turning and capsizing the boat.
    6. We beat the other line by 3 weeks, I rewarded the girls on Friday morning. Out in the parking lot, I handed out small plastic cups to the “Girls” opened a chilled bottle of Champagne from the trunk, filled each cup almost to the top, toasted, and congratulated them all for doing a great job and what a great accomplishment they had made by beating our competition by 3 weeks, even though they were supposed to be more experienced.  Then I gave each girl a Bottle of champagne and told them to take off home and enjoy the rest of today, and the weekend, and said goodbye.
    7. I got heavily reprimanded by the President and his VP   …. Who gave you permission to give the workers a bottle of champagne each!  Who told you you could let them take today off?  Bla, bla bla.  I was expecting a raise, not a reprimand and I went home that evening a very angry young man.  When Mom got home at around seven, I told her what had happened. She said that if you’re working for someone who doesn’t respect you and the work that you do, if I were you, especially at your age, I’d maybe give them a chance to make up with you or I’d quit. I think I’d quit.  You’re valuable etc. etc. etc.
    8. I quit and wasn’t able to find another job in electronics.  There just weren’t many, and the requirements often required that applicants have a Master in Electrical Engineering.  (Like the one I would have had if I hadn’t turned down Queens College and Brooklyn Poly Tech. )

State Department Admission Test 
Manhattan Office within view of the United Nations Building

Date:

While I was looking in the paper for a job I stumbled upon an advertisement touting aptitude testing for a limited number of ‘Highly sensitive positions’  in The US Foreign Service.  So, I took the Long Island commuter train from Northport station into the City, to Manhattan, found the skyscraper that housed the U.S. Government Testing Facility, and took the test, consisting of American history, plus a bunch of logic questions, like if he did this, then what do you think the best response is … etc.  I thought that for the most part they all just required common sense, and so I logic’d them out.

Sol’s Dominion
Dates:

    1. Just a few days after taking the test I saw a help wanted ad in the East Northport weekly Penny Pincher looking for a worker to assist in a delicatessen that was located across the back wall of the local supermarket, Domino’s.
    2. The deli business and Sol doing his thing, like spitting on the corned beef, and passing off a pumpernickel as a “well-baked dark rye.”

Telegram Arrives
And it’s off to the State Department
Date:

    1. The telegram arrived after I’d been working at the deli for almost nine months.
    2. Flew from Laguardia down to D.C. and ended up sitting next to Richard Nixon.  He was sitting next to the window and I sat in the aisle seat next to him.  He was disheveled, in a wrinkled led blue suit, a loosened tie, unkempt hair, unshaven with dark black stubble, and he was sweaty, he kept wiping his face with a cloth handkerchief, and he had ‘Bee Oh’…  talked with him for a couple of minutes and he told me that now that he was  no longer V.P. he was working for a worked for a law firm in NY, he then excused himself, poured the contents of a miniature Jim Bean whiskey into the cup of ice on his fold-out tray, drank it down in one gulp, then leaned his head against the window, fell asleep, and had to be woken up by the stewardess on our descent to land at Washington National Airport.
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