Time passages...


So today is March 15th, 2011.
The Ides of March! (One hit wonder = Vehicle) lol

But there are more subtleties...

For example:
March 15th, 1968: I was in 6th grade. Mr Jevcek was our student teacher for that grading period in Mr Palmateer's class. It was a Friday - and it was Mr Jevcek's last day. We had a party for him that afternoon. Flash forward to dinner. Mom, Linda and Lisa and I were eating. The phone rang. Mom answered and went hysterical. Dad had his first heart attack and was headed to Lutheran Hospital after the nurse in the Bank's commissary pumped him full of Vodka Martinis to ease the pain and dilate his blood vessels.

I became the man of the house that day. For most of the remainder of dad's life, I handled all the manly stuff around the house... cut the grass... vacuum the pool .... paint the house.... everything. I was 12 years old.

March 15th, 1974. Senior cut day - our first. It was the 74th day of the year and we were seniors... nuff said. Since I was already 18 and seniors could write their own excuses.... but dad the poet wrote an excuse letter that Mr Gibson (assistant principal) loved so much he kept and framed it!

I headed out to Hinckley in my big ol' 66 Ford Galaxie with my baseball equipment in the trunk, next to my Styrofoam cooler full of quarts of Busch Beer (3.2 beer was LEGAL for 18 year olds).
After a mis-calculation on my part and returning, I found Whipps Ledges. By noon, so many of our classmates had shown up that the Rangers tossed us out so we wouldn't scare the returning Buzzards.

We spontaneously headed to Brushwood. I followed Mark Karras and we formed a caravan of sorts. Tom Hach tagged along with me and - again we got lost. Tailing Mark in his MG and Lenny Zevcek in his Javilin, my big ol' Ford Galaxie tailed on the twisty turney parkway roads of Brecksville reservation. We had empty quarts rolling around under the seats - a testament to the "dead soldiers" we polished off.

Finally, Dale Maharidge found us and we followed him to Brushwood. The party had grown, as Juniors and Sophomores joined in. Bismark Newman streaked. We began a softball game and I left my baseball stuff with Kathy DeMattie as I had to go to work at Cerinos that night.... drunk - or not.

That wasn't the end of that weekend, either. The very next day, the band I was in "Morning Star" played the back party hall at Carrie Cerino's for Ron Kirk's demolay party. I remember Cindy Petrov in the front row - slack jawed. Evidently, she and her co-horts were unaware of my being a drummer. CUDOS ensued. My head grew.

I should have never given up drumming...