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CHAPTER 1 

Leaving Home

In July 1986, we buried our dad. He had suffered a massive stroke, and after a week of looking like he would pull through, he took a turn for the worse. My significant other, Kathy, elected to drive my Chevette in the funeral procession. I rode in the crowded limousine with Mom, my son Tony, and my brothers Ron, Jim, and Larry.

The funeral home workers parked my standard transmission beastie on a steep incline right in front of Larry’s ex-girlfriend’s sharp-looking Camaro. Kathy hopped in the Chevette after the service, and promptly rolled backward into the Camaro. I was grateful that no one told me until after the services were completely over.

It was only a week later that Kathy told me she had run into her first ex-husband (not his car). It was at a Pink Torpedoes show at Irene’s. They hadn’t seen each other for several years because they had broken up when they were living on base in Germany. Within days, Kathy announced she was getting back together with him. I offered token resistance, but true love between the two of them trumped my flowers and love letters. Sic Itur Ad Astra.

My friend Lux had told me about ten times over two years that I needed to move down to Bloomington because the music scene and general atmosphere there was a drastic improvement over Kokomo. He suggested college and audio technology as a major. Larry lived in Bedford and was willing to put me up for a while, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Leaving Kokomo was a one-day process that began and stopped when my clutch started acting up. It punked out on me at the very last minute. This gave me an extra week to reflect on my life up to that point. Perhaps I would make up for the mistakes of the last seven years of my life and get it all together. Yeah, that’s what was going to happen. As soon as I got my car back, I hit the road.

Mom thought she was going to have to go back to work to make ends meet but was surprised instead by a life insurance policy through Dad’s job. We had a large house with two empty bedrooms, and after thinking the matter over, Mom decided to sell the house to our cousin Gary, who had always loved the place. We were now devastated, uprooted, and forever changed. We got Gary’s house in the trade, so Mom, Ron, and Jim were not homeless, and I had a place to go back to if absolutely necessary.

I left Kokomo for the next phase of my life on my birthday, and I pulled into the parking lot next to my friend Lux’s house around noon. We walked to Opie Taylor’s for lunch, and we talked about all the cool things happening in Bloomington. We stuffed ourselves with burgers and fries, and made our way back to his place.

We stepped into the air conditioning for a while. Back then, we all had thick skin, and were immune to high temperatures in a way that we cannot approach anymore. The air conditioning made me feel very, very cold. I burped up some burger flavor propelled by the three glasses of coke I drank with my meal, and Lux said he had some friends he wanted to introduce me to. When the burp was finally over, I said, “Sure!”

I believe we must have taken the Chevette to do our visiting. I was smoking Marlboro Lights, a habit I picked up from my ex-wife. They were soooo good, and extra soothing during hay fever season, which was in full swing by this time. I don’t know exactly where we went, who I met, or who was closest to Lux at which house. It was impossible to tell, because they all seemed to hold him in high regard.

Someone prepared a “nice to meet you bong hit” for me, and I choked on it, and had what has been revealed to me as an asthma attack. I could not cough, and could not get any air for what seemed like fifteen seconds or more. After I was finally able to gulp some air, it took two or three minutes to recover. Then, it took about five minutes to finish the hit. It was a good thing no one was waiting on the bong. No one said anything, except to offer me another.

Then, the entire process was repeated at each of the five different rental houses and apartments, where Lux’s friends lived. I don’t know if I ever met any of those folks again. I bet I scared some of them to death with the asthma. These attacks and several others happened in the hay fever seasons of 1983-1986.

Before dinner, I decided to go down to Bedford. Larry lived in a smallish 1950s-style single-story L-shaped house. I don’t remember my room there at all, but I remember the house was on R Street. North and South streets were the alphabet, and East and West streets were numbers (strange but true). Bedford was the home of Bedford stone, which was blasted from quarries all around the area and cut and shaped in local mills. That’s why many of the locals and nearby neighbors called Bedford “Bedrock.”