A year of transition 1977 January 19, 1986
Oddly enough, I can’t recall anything major happening to me during
the year of 1977, something distinct, which stands out, bring neither joy nor
misery.
Yet, the year was filled with smaller, less significant memories,
some less cheerful than others.
I remember being ill for most of the year, spending a good
deal of time getting treatment from a doctor in Caldwell, thinking it was hypochondria,
when more likely my lung issues came as a result of breathing in cosmetic fumes
and warehouse dust.
I spent a great deal of time contemplating how I might make
my escape from Donald’s warehouse, seeing it as a trap, and kicking myself for
making the wrong decision when I chose to work as a warehouse worker and driver
for Donald after leasing the Drawing Board, when I could have been the manager
of an electronics communications company, or even taking a yearlong vacation collecting
unemployment.
I had already gotten weary working hard labor in one dead
end job after another.
John Telson had come to Donald’s place at some point between
1975 and 1976, followed by Cliff O’Neil.
An injured knee had ruined Cliff’s potential for a
professional football career coming out of college, but not his love of sports.
He and I spent most of the summer of 1977 going to New York Yankee games in The
Bronx.
Perhaps the most significant event of the year was my uncle
Ted and his wife moving out of the old house in Clifton to take up new digs in
Toms River, taking my mother and grandmother with them. When I wasn’t going to
Yankee games, I was making the trek to the shore to see them, staying overnight,
often wandering down to the river or to Seaside Heights.
Oddly enough, Hank was also a regular in the area after
having met a girl named Rona who lived there, a strange coincidence, Pauly took
advantage of, coming with me in his never-ending pursuit of pot – not just in
summer either. I recall one winter he, Hank, Ronna and me wandering out onto
Island Beach State Park surrounded by starving seagulls.
At least twice, Hank’s car broke down along the highway, forcing me to rescue
him. But too much familiarity, seeing him too much (as we had while working at
the Drawing Board years prior to that) caused a lot of friction, and we drifted
apart, somewhat bitterly – so we did not get together on Christmas Eve, which
had been our tradition for years. I spent the evening with Pauly in front of
roaring fire in Towaco, getting high and playing Master Mind.
I recall the announcer on July 7, 1977, declaring it the luckiest
day, only to take it back less than a week later on July 13 when the region had
a black out.
Elvis died that summer. Pauly’s band, Sleeper, played around
the area, going to see them play was my whole social life, even though I rarely
got laid. It was a gathering of lost souls, men and women, all of his clinging
to each other for lack of anything else in our lives.
Because I had bought a new car in late 1976, I moved back to
the rooming house in Montclair. All the original people were gone, and it felt
strange and lonely living among a bunch of college kids from Montclair
state. It was there that I ran into my
first hard core feminist, a woman who spent a lot of time teaching other women
about the death of the family.
I suppose this threatened me. I didn’t take on well with the
woman.
On Christmas Day, another woman in the house had a nervous
breakdown, threatening to kill herself, crying and banging on the walls. She
reminded me of my crazy mother when I was growing up.
That fall, Donald made me night manager and I became a night
person for the first time since my living in LA, a position that pissed off the
day manager royally – he was threatened by me, and for good reason, Donald was
grooming me to replace him and frankly, I wanted no part of it, already
wondering how I might escape.
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