SECTIOn THIRTEEN
-13-1- DIAOIR
Gonna be A LOT of bridges getting repaired and rebuilt in the near future. Water pipes collapsed and rotten in big cities need to be replaced. Everyone trying to be millionaires with the overlapping pyramid schemes and resource destruction. IF we can reduce military spending we can do what we need to do here in the USA.
-13-2-
I AM FROM is this in compendium yet?
This last section has personal things and memories. Articles for myself to read.
Reading this 4 years after I started the original 300 word writing prompt, I'm already reading memories I think I would have forgotten at this point. So I get the detail down now to entertain me later when I'm sewing a quilt starving to death in a cold Chicago apartment during a power outage.
WRITING PROMPT
I AM FROM
I am from flooded rivers
at my fence and fallout from nuclear bomb tests. I am from black and white TV
and from a bigotry banned home.
I am from the Great Elm and the Nathaniel Foote statue at
the foot of the Town Green. Fourth of July horses running up the steps and
Thanksgiving smells at Grandmas house.
I am From Kitt Peak and Cat Mountain. Hiding from
hailstones behind a Saguaro and looking uphill at a herd
of Peccary's.
Peaches in the desert and Peaches at Cape Cod. Peaches in
Central Florida where they never grew before and dead squirrels and live snakes
falling out of trees.
Confidentiality agreements and bankrupt developers.
Eucalyptus became Simpson Stopper.
I am from hobos at the train station and hopping the
train to get to Mickeys Restaurant.
I am from outhouses that became Condominiums. Skating
under the interstate highway during the coldest winters. Ice bombs on
trains and rocks in my eye and head. Running from the police and losing a
bicycle in the Connecticut River.
Tommy's friend drowned at Mill Woods and ten years later
we toasted his memory in the park nearby. I
am from vodka blackouts and dragging
gasoline station signs in the road and driving the wrong way on highway 84 and
picking up a confused hitchhiker. We turned around and drove him to his exit.
I am from ill-fitting poor people skates and rutted
driveways. Film tricks with 8MM movies and monster movies shown in school. I am
from (censored) and drinking stolen priest wine.
Sunsets in three corners of the country and interrupted acid mowing.
Illusions of prosperity and the Independent Majority Party. Yahoo Answers, Pagan
Space, Witchvox, Treebord and Greenhammer.
Dogs gone mad with diabetes and jumping through windows.
Razor blade fights with cats. I am from appreciating boy scouts only as an
adult.
Driving a bicycle drunk downtown to get home and cycling
60 miles to the Connecticut Shore. Rain or shine 10 miles to the food co-op and
ten miles back with the goods. I am from Black Mountain, Beaver Brook and
Cotton Hollow. Bums at dawn and executives on break. Shiny, city slicker
elevators and flatbeds.
I am from the Marian Cult and French slang. Tabarnac mon
aci. Smoking in church and looking out
the cellar window as Bridey walked by and the snow piled in drifts. Manly
florists and feminine truck drivers.
Pulling the magic down from the air and thrill bumps at
the end of Close To the Edge. Druids and Witches and unbridled cultural
appropriation.
Chills in
the graveyard and a mason by trade, born 1666. Finding a bloody ancient dagger
with my cousin and leaving it there. Falling in unfinished houses and wheelies
on an unbuilt interstate. Gripping girders, hitting one over the fence.
I am from running right through people and looking past
others. Jumping off the roof and climbing 60 feet up the Greer's Pine. Richie slapping
frogs on concrete and praying when the bad boys tried to drown a cat.
Planting trees for uncertain futures and promoting shrubs and bird gardens. Butterflies
as food and Indigo Snakes in my arms. Dead snakes and diapers at the mall.
I am from Roger Maris and Fran Tarkenton. Concussions and
crawling home. Rainbow spokes and Jupiter with my dad. Jupiter much later from
Holst. I am from Hail to the Hammer and Tarkus. The Blue Beats and Cry for a
Shadow. Elegy and energy. Snow boarding with art class easels and fireworks
with cigars.
My own brown scapula and blessed throats. A John Paul
confirmation and Uncle Joe jettisoning bigotry after church. Forceful
conversion was slapped upside the head and refusing to work during the blizzard
of ‘78. They needed a fourth for cards since it was certain there was not going
to be any school any time soon.
I have skied from a rope tied to a car on snow covered roads. Drove a go kart
with no brakes. Reached 47MPH on a bicycle. Hopped the train regularly to go
get a clam roll at Mickeys. Threw dirt bombs but didn’t play “Army” with the
boys. Used unsafe bicycle jumps at Kevins and Carlin. Three on a bicycle, and
an accident at Mill Woods. Trying to make swings flip over. Found a boat to go fishing
in flood waters. Broke windows at the Foundry and the abandoned Railway
station.
Jumped off the elementary school roof to run from Mrs. Walters. Played in
abandoned buildings. Walked across Middletown Avenue on the Rt 91 girders and
almost fell off laughing at how shocked people were. Threw chunky iceballs on
the train and got chased by the police.
Tried to cook blackberries on the railroad tracks and burnt all the dry grass
around the distribution center and ended up with the fire chief talking to my
parents. Crawled halfway across the Connecticut River catwalk and spit on the
Dolly Madison. When Bruce moved, I became the wheelie king.
Stole bowling shoes on the Bicentennial and got arrested for
4th degree larceny. Yesterday was dads birthday, he would have
been 92 and pretty feeble. Hope him and Mom are okay. Heaven to him would be to
join a good combo. Or maybe a gang of ukulele players.
At 13, Pete
introduced me to Time Magazine which expanded my view out into the world. The
rules of the church were hysterically irrelevant. The real world was merely
silly. How were women second class citizens; they were the smart ones?
Weights, baseballs,
insecurities, forced and boring education, midget football, rainy Saturdays and
afternoon movies. Laughing at the boy scouts and their silly para-military
uniforms while we were throwing chestnuts at each other’s heads. Jumping on the
hay wagon for a gag and found ourselves going 30 MPH down Middletown Avenue …
too scared to jump off.
Riding our bicycles
behind the annual Paul Reveres ride or whatever it was on the fourth of July.
First time this suburban boy saw a large animal other than a cow take a shit.
Lifted its tail and it’s a visual I can’t unsee. We had no pets, and I never
saw nothing like that up close, at the Bronx Zoo. The horse kept on down to Broad St and
the amazing thing was when the post rider and the horse climbed up the steps of
a house, went in, and had a beer. Wow! That was a pretty cool tradition. Then
over to the Historical Museum and corny as it may have seemed, the Fife and
Drum were kicking.
I don’t think I saw a gun
till I was out of school. We broke our necks every day in one way or another,
but Wethersfield was a damn safe city. I saw the conversion of the farming
community into a suburb. There was Ollie, smelling like shit all the time,
except when I went collecting on Friday night after he’d had his weekly shower.
He had about six cows and near the end, his barn began leaning pretty bad.
When Bruce the wheelie
king became an adult, he lived in Freddys barn, and we’d party our ass off.
Freddys parents were blind and nearly deaf and never knew we were going there
at 1:00 in the morning to bring Bruce a buzz and get loud.
The next year I lived
myself on the weekends in a barn. I agreed to clean out the barn so I could
live there on weekends. Steve the boy was too busy with his slut girlfriend to
hang out, though there were some authentic Polish breakfasts I got to partake in
with his mother. He’d be hungover with four hours of sleep under his belt and
I’d be all perky from sleeping on hay and hiking down the railroad tracks. It
was like a house from 1825 or something, one of the newer historical houses.
The barn I’m guessing was 75 years old at least.
Five years previous I was
recalling Ollie and his barn. Another indelible image is when Ollie paid me one
freezing Saturday afternoon and a globous frozen snot, looking like a
stalactite, hung off his nose. He must have been 80 and someone finally got him
to quit farming. Maybe he worked off the books and had no social security. With his
barn leaning dangerously, he disappeared from the scene and shortly after the last working barn on the street was gone.
To the north of my house on
Middletown Avenue, the Clarks had cows. They retired them a few years before
Ollie did, and we played baseball in their field there. Me and the Middletown
Avenue gang played at the Green and mostly Adams field. The games in the Clarks
cow pasture included the girls. One of the best interactions of a group of
people. Never a fight, no boy girl tension because from us quiet guys, the
girls got total respect. Not much toxic masculinity in our direct neighborhood of approximately 20 houses.
Maybe I was a nerd. Super Geek George was one of the few other people who were making movies and showing them at school. He was on the AV squad and was far more technical than us but when George went to make a big project about the Battle of Tours, this mini-neighborhood congealed into a troupe of historical figures. We used real horses and wouldn’t I love to see that flick again?
The Clarks had one cow
left because there would occasionally be a cow pie that had to be avoided
“second base..ewww,” and there were some old hard ones from previous months
still in the field.
I love this picture of
the 1955 Flood. 
This area was also a cow pasture and was owned by Red Schumann who gave up his
cows before Ollie and The Clarks. The picture shows how it began as a grassland
in 1955, and by 1965, the field was a mass of large shrubs and small trees when
I became old enough to play in the woods. There was a Pear Tree I remember most
of all. Tough hard Pears that never seemed to ripen. They were Wild Pears once upon a time, and
now Pears from subsidized mega farms all look and taste the same. The
basis of my, “what have we lost” theme. Tasteless Pears? No, the integrity of the genome.
I hadn’t thought about the
field behind the house in a big way for a long time. Suddenly tonight I was 12
again and standing around looking at the various plants. Almost tears in my
eyes. What else was there: blackberries, Dogwoods and oh yeah 12 Yellow Jacket
stings. Learned to watch where I walked when I was ten.
My working life. Ten
years old and we lived on our bicycles. It was 1964 and the Greatest Generation
thought nothing of throwing their garbage out the window. You literally saw
napkins and watched other shit being thrown out of car windows as people drove by. In this
accumulation, however, there were 2 and 5 cent returnables. So off we’d
go with our 82 cents to buy some soda and candy at Dougherty Drugs.
But I wanted more. I
wanted to accumulate assets. So when I was 11, I got a Hartford Times paper
route. The afternoon paper which I delivered for a year. Then after missing out
on playing football and baseball with the boys after school, I decided to get a
morning paper route and consequently called the Hartford Courant (est. 1764 “older than the
nation, newer than the news”.)
#406 on the Wethersfield
Green was available and Gorski trained me for 3 days and I was on my way. When
I was 16, I added #420 which was the route on my street, Middletown Avenue.
With both, I had about 70
daily customers and over a hundred Sunday papers in total. I ended up with Dads
Caprice Station wagon in 1970 and this also enabled me to go to Dunkin Donuts after
work after delivering 800 pounds of newspapers.
I graduated high school
and we moved shortly afterwards to Bloomfield. I respect my mom and dad, in
retrospect, for trusting my judgement the summer after graduation when I wanted
to get a motorcycle. I tried Community College and appreciated how much more
interesting it was. I often drove my Suzuki 250 for two hours before class to
explore the back roads and to see the October foliage before class.
Then I realized that a
career in bookkeeping and accounting wasn’t what I wanted to do with my adult
life. Rich Carling, our buddy, was killed riding his motorcycle, and when it
came time to renew the insurance and do some repairs, I quit the motorcycle and
converted to a ten speed after putting 16,000 miles on My Suzuki named Wally.
I would routinely ride
from North Bloomfield to the Wethersfield Green on the ten speed. Taking the
shortest route possible it was 15 miles in about an hour and a quarter under
ideal conditions, whereas it was 30 minutes and 25 miles by car.
There was 15 year old
sophomore Joe Volvo. who had a full beard and looked 25 so he bought us beer
during Senior year which was my first year with intoxicants. Then when we
graduated there was the perfect storm. The voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972
when I turned 18. Connecticut thought that the drinking age should be lowered
to 18 and that was passed. The Blue State realizing that if you go to war and
you vote and are out of school, why the hell not have a toddy now and then.
Alice Coopers “I’m 18”
was out in 1972 and really we had had enough of school by the end of senior
year and we sang Schools out as we fled the scene of the unspeakable
brainwashing of a stultifying education.
Me and other
Wethersfielders would plow through the corn fields in the meadow (fuck their
monocultural F1 hybrids.) The Suzuki had highway speed but a thick metal shield
under the motor for dirt bike purposes, and it had raised pipes for sharp turns
and mud bogging. I loved it and loved those times of unexpected blessings.
But then Ritch died on his motorcycle, and I converted to the ten speed. Thank goodness I gave up the mortorcycle, because as a reckless 18 year old I would take my classes at Manchester Community then get on the interstate to get back to Bloomfield. I learned if I followed in the wake of tractor trailers it was much warmer not realizing how completely dangerous it was to be going that fast and that close to a truck.
The lowest temperature I drove in was 14
degrees. No smart phones, in the old days we use something we called an outdoor
thermometer.
1973 “How are you going
to get to school when it starts up again next semester”
“I quit.”
My Uncle Gid had gotten
my dad a job when we moved to Bloomfield and dad got me a part time job at
Vincent School. Cold, snowy, it didn’t matter, I got there on the bicycle. Then
I applied for a full time job that came up at the new Bloomfield Middle School.
I cleaned up the fifth grade wing and was not disillusioned that I was a janitor
while my friends went to Boston so they could get the piece of paper that said
they were smarter and more qualified as workers, and therefore entitled for more
money.
Broke today because
I thought the system would have crashed by now and why I never bought into it.
I don’t regret it and came to the conclusion that this myriad mix of
experiences would never have happened without being free of the capitalist
system. Glad to have not bought into making every day about accumulating assets as it turned out.
The
summer of ’73 and school was out. The big cleanup for the janitors, but at
least we could work the daytime shift for a couple of months. Strip and re-wax
the floors. I was “the mouse” because I was the only one thin and agile enough
to clean out under the giant gym bleachers. Also I was the one who climbed the
24 foot ladder to clean all the asbestos dust off the top of the fluorescent
lights in the large Shop Class room.
I
worked with skinny white Larry who had his own separate part of the Middle School
Complex. I was in the 500 wing and Bob Jones was in the 600 Wing. He would scratch
his back on the door frame like a Bear and I got to hear every joke told the
previous 30 years bu old Bob. Black Larry was in 700 and he had a handicapped daughter. He
got mad at me one day when I made a dumb comment about cripples. Mario was the
boss and a total guinea. He talked about his weiner like it was a cartoon
character or something.
After
work I went to visit the other young man I worked with the summer of ‘73.
Forget his name but he was a cool guy from New Jersey and it was a second floor
room. He didn’t seem worried about the cannabis smell, “‘ol Mr Lynch don’t care
as long as you pay the rent.” In August, he told me that he had to get back to
Jersey and I got the notion that 75 bucks for rent was easily handled since I
made 400 a month. The minimum wage was $?.?? at that time.
Conveniently,
I got switched to the second shift Junior High job which was right down the
street, and though I had gotten the black Econoline Van, I rode the bicycle.
When the cream puff day shift job came up at an elementary school like my dad
had, I lost it to Adinolfi. I technically had more time I was assured, and
I still have the letter in my “scrapbook” which indicated he had a family and
needed the cushy job more than I did.
Honestly,
as I thought about it, I can’t remember the sequence of which schools I was a
janitor from 1973-1978. High School 75-76. I met Lori with an I and used to get
high with yellow eyed Dewitt. “You got?” I think it was the Middle School that
was last. This is why I’m writing shit down. In case I’m stuck getting old and
feeble, at least I’ll have something to read. I don't watch TV anymore.
At the
Middle School I would put a card or something to make the door unlocked so I could get back
in. Then I would sneak over to Cliff’s house down the street to get high. Neighbors
across the way Norm and JoAnne were pretty hip New Yorkers and I met their
friend Sherry in 1977, and after a 6 month stint back with my parents I moved
to East Granby with her and Cheryl and Eddie and Carls sister.
We had
an epic band with Paula the flute player and Bernie on drums and Cliff on folk
guitar, me on bass and an amazing vocalist who sounded just like Lee Morse. We
played a gig at Trinity College, but that band broke up after the gig. So Carl joined Bernie and I and we became a bit
more metal doing songs like Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath. Bernie saved a
recording of it.
So
losing the plum job to Adinolfi nudged me into thinking more seriously about
the vacation in Tucson the previous year. Maybe there was opportunity there. The union fracas
with the town of Bloomfield was interesting but when new guys got hired, they
started at 132 dollars a week, and there I was still making only 125 a week, after like, two years. Enough fuckery, I wanted freedom.
Just
so much bullshit, I had enough. Connecticut’s economy was clotted with
hierarchy, nepotism and entrenched favoritism and I had had enough of how
crowded the state was.
Hold
the phone. I just checked on what the minimum wage was during those years. It
was $2.65 in 78 and $2.90 in ’79. So off we went to Tucson, the Three
Musketeers. My first job was at the Triple T Truck stop on Interstate 10. Like
a diner, I don’t have many memories of that other than mopping the floor and the Scorpion I found
behind the paper box and observing some skeevy
nightlife. This is why you have to let it go sometimes and try something new.
The
place reminded me of the diners on the Berlin Turnpike back home, but more
oriented to long distance truck travel.
Then I
got hired on with Larry Sadowski doing third shift janitorial work at Kings
Tables and Village Pizza. He was a mean bastard to his kids and wife but
respected my effort, while keeping me productive and on my toes. One day we had
a bit of a philosophical talk and he said I was not on a career path and asked
what I really wanted to do. Tom and I did a lot of gardening on our patch at
Flying A on the west side of town and suddenly I found myself recalling my dads
influence with gardening via osmosis.
I’d like to do gardening I told him in 1980 and a month or two later he got me the garden maintenance work at the Kings Table we were working at. I learned about how Barrel Cactus’ grew towards the Sun and I had to replant a bunch of them still leaning so they could be better seen out of the window of the restaurant.
Larry
lost the Village Pizza account and laid me off but with that gardening
experience on my resume, I parleyed a job with a landscape company. Not sure if
I qualified for unemployment at that point but the state unemployment service
had a most excellent way of listing jobs and soon I got on with Casa Verde
Landscaping. That was a great crew with Rick and some others and John Bloom the
blonde surfer dude boss from California. Mr. Bloom found his little niche of profit in
Tucson and I became motivated to learn about plants. We all got high while maintaining the very best accounts in town as it
turned out.
Meanwhile, Sherry got laid off and while looking for a job we came across the caretaker
positions at the Kingston Ranch. We applied, what did we have to lose? Beating
125 other applicants we moved to a 40-acre ranch and lived in a converted tack
room which was quite luxurious. At Casa Verde my gardening skills had served me
well and I was promoted to my own gig at Park Mall as the indoor and outdoor
gardener. No more singing “Tube Steak Boogie” with the boys as we went to the
next job but some work I could really sink my teeth into. 520 sprinklers heads
in an area so vast I had to use a bicycle to get to the stations I turned on.
Park Mall and the
Catalinas. Not many pictures from that time
So in 81-83 I had the Park Mall gig and the outdoor work at the Kingston Ranch working about 50 hours a week in the desert sun and life couldn’t be sweeter. Between us and the 8000 ft plus Catalina Mountains was Paul McCartneys house. A 40 foot by 8 foot pool kept us cool in the summer. Then the Mall job was underbid, and I was looking for work and got hired on by Jeff as an electricians helper.
When I say I talked to a lot of people in my life, I mean
to say we mingled with other contractors and ate lunch together as just one
example. Did that a lot at Orchid Island in the 90's.
Electrical
work was interesting and we were running wire in a bunch of different kinds of buildings and
I really got to understand how houses and housing complexes are built. We even
rewired a college dorm which I remember well. Blue collar ne'er do wells keeping snooty preppies from electrical fires.
Alas,
we became bored with Arizona by 1984 and despite having seen and experienced a whole new
world in those six years, we still yearned to be New Englanders again. I was
once again the scout looking for a place to live while living at Norm and
Joannes. They had gone off for a month somewhere and it was just me and Freddy Ehrenzeller the dog for three weeks, then our cats came in on an airplane.
Looking
for a New Englandy place to live, I went to the Boston area first. I got pulled
over by a cop trying to find my way around a tight little neighborhood in
Boston in my search for a home and the only way out was going the wrong way on
a one-way street… and there’s a cop. I talked my way out of it and went on for
a quieter town between there and Salem.
Then I
realized that maybe Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were far from the
people we knew, and Enfield Connecticut was quite New Englandy in its own way
with its old houses and farm stands. At the end of April I had been at Norms
for two weeks. They spent a month or something in Cape Cod and I was house
sitting which, all in all, was a pretty cool transition to New England. Taking
care of Freddy the dog and shepherding the arrival of Dickens and Rocky, our
cats.
I
applied at Tarnow Nursery which was down the road about a half a mile and got a
job. Minimum wage had risen to $3.35 an hour and despite a pretty good
horticultural resume by this point, I started at $3.50. Owner John was a well=known skinflint as I found out from his nieces Nancy and Susan who had set up
the nursery the previous fall and ultimately ran the place. He barely paid them 4 an hour
to run the place, and they were kin.
There’s that pattern emerging that most guys wanted to be millionaires. The nursery owner probably became a millionaire eventually, on the backs of 100, mostly dedicated young people of course. As did Tom Collins in later years with lots of turnover and probably 1000 employees at Captain Hirams. As did the owners of Rock City leaving 5000 disgruntled employees in their wake at least. In the pattern of Jim Click the crooked car dealer these wealthy slave drivers knew to give a pittance to charity and make sure it got in the paper.
Joe
from Springfield came along at Tarnow Nursery and he was a young, but balding and old
looking college grad, and he became the boss and Susan and Nancy went back to
the main store to work, except weekends when Joe was off, and they were the
bosses. We spent a lot of time talking on the weekends and there was quite a
bunch of interesting kids that came through that summer. That was a good crew.
At 32, I was the oldest at the jobsite and should have been well on my way to a capitalist career and accumulating assets and investing for retirement, but I wasn’t buying into this system.
I had learned quite a bit about plants the
previous four years with the mall and caretaker job, and I quickly learned
about Connecticuts favorite plants.
I
thought I had quite a good sales approach and we were taught to handle two
customers and go between them while, you know, keeping the elbows and ankles
flying when Joe was there. I started by being a loader and met many of the
Enfield people who frequented the store and they lauded the variety of the plants.
This was no vegetable stand with plants, it was a slick professionalism that
mostly people liked and Tarnows quickly became Enfields favorite nursery and I was an accesible employee.
The
end of the summer came, and it was pumpkins and fall decorations and selling
the fall planting concept. The kids working the summer went back to college and I became the main
sales person (except when the college edumacated Joe and that lazy guinea
schlub from the Main store worked there). He was lazy as fuck and immediately
had an effect on productivity. By November Michelle ran the Christmas shop and
I was the everything else person. She was sharp and knew how to please the
little old ladies buying Christmas fluff.
So my
first winter since 1977-8 was set to arrive. We came back to experience the
seasons, right? My partner and I had moved to the Thompsonville section of
Enfield and it was like a slice of Boston, a dose of “Southy” that had dropped
down in the Connecticut River Valley. There was Ragnos where they served the
food I had missed out in Arizona. A little further away was the best Polish
Deli I had ever hoid. Our daughter was born and then baptized at the very old
church down the street. A little further on, a Norman Rockwell Christmas emerged
at Freshwater Pond when the ice froze. There was talk of the giant mill being
converted into condos.
It was
exciting and I realized at this point that I had truly created my own path. My
peers were buying houses and working in cubicles or kicking and clawing up the corporate ladder, but I decided to carve my own
way through the hubris of capitalism. I was creating my own horticultural college experience in a pull up your
bootstraps way. There was Tiny’s Little criminal enterprise next door in a pool
hall and a host of characters living in 8 rentals in two large houses. Add
loose soap opera here.
I
bought some choice little evergreens and had planted them on the side of the
house. Rocky and Dickens would run up the steps to come in because the back
steps were missing. I was planting in this grey dust they called soil and
people were digging it. “Looks good” said local murderer Wilmer Paradise.
My
partner was working downtown, and I went to the local employment agency to find
another job when I got laid off after Christmas. When you make peanuts, the
unemployment was very minimal and a couple weeks before Valentines day I got a
job with a wholesale Greenhouse.
Former Ball Seed Vice President Peter Stanley was one of the most manic people I’d ever met. He had reconstructed two 440 foot greenhouses and was striking out on his own with his patented concept called Jet Plugs. Instead of the usual 75 cent plugs these were much smaller and only about 35 cents if I recall, so that was 40 cents a plant profit. I learned the long road from producer to purchaser with Stanley.
One day running between greenhouses I caught the top of my head on a round
eyehook. Shouldn’t tear my head open since it wasn’t sharp in any way but that
was a trip to the emergency clinic and 13 stitches. My nickname was Zipperhead
for a while.
So
there I was off to a new job in early February with the temperature around 10
degrees and a dry, wicked wind was blowing so it felt like it was well below
zero and I was reminded of one of the reasons I moved to Arizona. It was COLD!
Everything was frozen and the loading dock area looked to be abandoned with
4’x4’ flattened boxes blowing around and other litter was being blown around. I
was looking for a job here? It looked like a disaster area.
Peter
was short on employees, and this was his problem. So he hired me on at $4.25 an
hour which was 25% more than I was making at Tarnow Nursery. An employee was
walkie talkied to come and give me an orientation. She was one of those fantasy
Nordic women who cursed very fluently. We got on pretty good, I was always
monogamous, so there was never sexual tension with female co-workers.
In the world of capitalism, men are sheltered from the minorities, and they were the bosses of the women and this is why so much sexism still remains. Boomer men seem to be clueless braggers and I avoid them best I can.
At the Mall job in Tucson I had lunch on the regular with the three prettiest women in the whole place. You treat a woman like a dude and they respond in kind. At the mall I also talked with dozens of the employees from every demographic. I reject the notion that I “don’t know how to communicate”. At Tarnow Nursery I met practically everyone in town who came to check out the place. I had the gift of gab when I was younger.
I
don’t remember the flaxen haired Valkyries name but she walked me to the first
Greenhouse and it was a moment like no other. Except the time at the Victorian Greenhouse. People with glasses know how they
fog up in changing conditions. Ten below zero with a wicked wind chill and it
was like Dorothy opening the door to the colors of Oz.
I took my glasses off and there were tropical
plants as far as the eye could see and a temperature to match. Plants poised
for the Valentines Day sales. Here was a new experience to jump into, fer sure.
Many tales I will relate later and just one to keep the flow. Bosses such as
Jim the asshole came along and Dwight from out of state who was a hired gun and
a spectacular dude. No college for him either and he was older than me and was
also into a wide variety of job experiences. He and his friend from Pittsburgh
completely refurbished the existing greenhouses and brought another one into
service.
When
all was said and done, our little family moved to the field office of
Consolidated Cigar that Dwight and Marian had lived in. There was always a boss
over me and they all got fired or quit and I was a constant for Stanley
Greenhouses and now lived across the street in the cutest little white house
you ever saw.
Summer
of 86 with my first biological child who was a fun little baby and it was an
exciting time. I believe the wife quit her job to be a mommy since I was
putting in 60 hours a week and making enough. A typical day would have me at
7:00 walking over to begin venting around 15,000 sq. ft. of greenhouse.
By
then the Weather Channel had become the bomb, and I would vent accordingly,
depending on that days conditions. Rolling carts waited on the very large
loading dock and sometimes I took a smaller truck and loaded from the
greenhouse. Then I would drive and deliver for ten hours going to Mattapan or
Poughkeepsie or over Mt Adams with a ton of wet plants. I’d come back and close
the vents to keep the greenhouses at 75 degrees, then walk home after a 13 hour
day. But it was interesting, you know. I set up plant displays at BJ’s
Wholesale and delivered to every Paperama in southern New England out to the
Hudson in New York.
Work
hard and be rewarded was the message of my youth but then I learned from a
friend that I had to work smart. That made sense. But did it mean conniving to
scratch and claw my way above other employees? Yes it did. The secret to the
American Dream, if you wanted financial security you needed to be the boss. To
be able to manipulate people to work harder than they should. Squeezing productivity from underpaid employees was never a
lure to me.
The
boss at Walmart making sure no one talks to each other. The warehouse manager
not caring about workers injuries. The head nurse that all the CNA’s hate. My
philosophy is that I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like BEING the boss.
So
here I was with caretaking experience, a difficult mall gardening job that
included irrigation work, and then some electrical work. A nursery job and
greenhouse experience. I was training myself in Horticulture. So, by 1987 Peter
ratcheted down his business because his mercurial bossmanship just wasn’t
making the money he expected, although of course he blamed the employees.
He even had me set up a retail shop the spring after Dwight left and people recognized me from Tarnows. Then there were the BJ Wholesale sites where I set up the indoor displays and returned weekly to replace plants in ‘86.
I
reckon it was the winter of 87 and I decided I needed indoor plant experience
on my resume. The good thing about interior plantwork was that it was a way to
work through a New England winter. I spent nine months at Plantations who had
some very professional training. I forgot how I left that job.
Then
there was the Plantscape job where I was the only dude. When they went big on a
pink and black theme with uniforms and stickers and what all else, I found it
amusing and pretentious and they found a way to frame and fire me since I refused to go along.
In
spring of ’88 I got a job with probably one of the best crews ever. There was
the boss, another Lori with an I, who was a dairy farmers daughter. She had
grown up with machines and tractors and got the notion to start a landscaping
business. Dwarf Evergreens were trending and the plant selection was minty and
the boss was calm and organized.
There
was Bob the biker. A big bear of a guy with a big beard but was described
as more a Teddy Bear than a Grizzly. There was Randy the Redneck and there were
many interesting discussions altogether between all of us. A big gun enthusiast
and one of the first Preppers I ever met. He had enough food for a year at
least and even an underground gasoline tank. Randy and his Super Swampers were
such a caricature.
Armageddon
happens and people are hungry roaming the land for food and shelter We asked
him what he would do if dozens of hungry people and their children were walking
up his driveway looking for assistance. His answer was that he would “mow them
down like zombies.” Then there was Mike Two Hawks, who said he was derided as
“only” a quarter blood Mohawk by his peers, but who seemed to be fully
authentic. He taught me ceremony and quite a bit else though he was younger.
There
were always side jobs such as Tony and “big boobs” Barbara who often wore a
sweatshirt that asked, where did you get those tomatoes with two big tomatoes on
the front. There was Dat Shenoy and his family. He was a tech dude who quit the
biz and wanted to be a landlord so he would be buying houses and I would
renovate the landscaping and help him clean and paint the indoors. I’ve like
Painting ever since.
I don’t
know what years those were with Dat and his lovely family and where they fit in
with all those other Connecticut jobs I had, but it was certain that no
one could cite my lack of hustle. A 50 hour week was quite normal for me in the
80’s. I had packed in quite a bit of training in horticulture and with Lori I
had the classic experience of driving a 1949 Ford tractor down the state road
creating a traffic jam. In the nineties I was the tractor guy in an exclusive gated community.
With
my greenhouse experience I stayed on with the landscaper when it got too cold to
plant Junipers in the frozen ground. There was Joe Gidvelas with his mafioso
persona. He cursed all the time and was very gruff, except when he was planting
tissue culture jet plugs and he treated those like newborn babies.
In ’89
we got an offer to come to Florida to be manipulated by my in-laws who felt a
need to manipulate our life when we got there. My dad drove my rusted Datsun pickup
and I drove a Hertz rental truck like the ones Stanleys had. Without cell phones and global positioning satellites, we
always had a place where we would meet if we got separated. This was important
going on the six lane I-295 around Washington DC.
I felt
pretty confident and adaptable in a new state and got a job within two weeks.
I got
a job at Atlantic View, a seven story condo with ocean views. Well one day the
boss was caught smoking crack on the fifth floor. He got fired and my New Age
buddy Dave was suddenly boss. Turnover such as it is in Arizona and Florida,
Dave was funny and smart but definitely suffered from IED. Intermittent
explosive disorder. He ended up getting fired too and there I was two months in
Florida and I became the boss.
South
American investors with alleged old school drug gang connections. It was
reputed they were laundering money. Fred Stresau had done the landscape
design and I learned he was a bestselling author. He wrote “Florida, My Eden”
which remained the landscape bible through the nineties for many in Florida. He
had died before the project was finished and I never met him, but Fred Stresau
Jr. visited the site, and he was such a dick.
The project manager was also a dick. A developers hired gun, he fucked with
everybody but respected me for some reason. On December 24th, one
of the worst freezes in decades was predicted for all of Florida. It snowed on Christmas
Day in Titusville we found out and even though I had a difficult time whipping
the boys to be 100% productive, arms and elbows flying, I negotiated with them
constantly to increase their productivity.
There
was nothing we could do to protect the 70 Coconut Palms out by the street but
we had many plants in pots that weren’t going to get planted and
were bound to be frozen by this freeze. This was one of those worker
moments when the workers grabbed the initiative. Paul the pot dealer and a seriously
redneck dude from West Virginia and the guy that looked like Jesus. A 6’4”
Jesus. All great sincere men who respected each other and they got the notion
to build a greenhouse.
“Are you kidding” the developer said but we didn’t need to buy a thing. The developer said "don't bother". They made a 15 by 10 foot greenhouse to house the more rare material. I planted tree seeds I had ordered from catalogs in 89 that I had hoped to grow in Florida. I forgot how we heated it but they built the entire thing from what was in the dumpsters. Plastic and wood, it was a work of genius with this incredible cold front headed our way. You want to see working people motivated. Let them create once in a while.
Clamps and nails from home they built it in three days, everything survived, and my
seeds even germinated. Mesquite, Palo Verde, Acacias from around the world,
Poinciana and others. What didn’t fit in the greenhouse we placed next to it
where it was warmer. Our fifth guy, a young troublemaker but a good egg,
didn’t have anything to do at xmas so he came in and checked on the heater.
By
February or March, I got tired of the fancy condo landscaping and so I quit and
got hired by Biogreen. The dude had an interesting pamphlet on his methods that I
still have. Feather and Blood Meal. Natural fertilizing materials I’ll discuss
later. Azalea Lane Apts with his much older but foxy girlfriend. His
scattershot methods became scatterbrained and it was the Organic experience I
needed to get back to my roots and I went into full research mode about Florida
plants though I ended up getting laid off .
On May
30 1990 I got hired on to Orchid Island and worked there till June 2001. More
horticultural things than I can encapsulate happened, and these issues will
blow up this story later.
By the
spring of ’01 my ankles and arms were on the verge of total spasm after five
years of mowing greens and heavy landscaping with a chain saw and my tractor
and trailer. The knee problem had healed in large part to Doctor Dave who lived
in Orchid Island. But then one day after 5 years of professional greens mowing,
I was going to mow the practice putting green and when I brought the gate down from
the trailer my back went into total breakdown. So much pain I had to sit on the
ground and wait for help. My strong back was ready to snap. I had had enough
precision mowing for one lifetime.
I had
been in discussion with Rick about my pending departure at Orchid Island and he
promised me 15 hours. So I was paid for like six more weeks and after six weeks
of physical therapy I quit. Take this job and recycle it elsewhere. With my ten
years I had just qualified for three weeks vacation and was making almost 11 an
hour which only long term help earned. 22,600 a year. Kind of a lot for me and
why would I risk all wifey asked.
I
already had Delval and three other side jobs and Ricks 15 hours and the Flower
Girl started getting me work and I ended up making 22,600 in ’01 and ’02 and
like to feel I didn’t miss a beat going to self-employment. Support instead of
doubts would have helped, but I persisted.
I
picked up Crawfords at Orchid and Reynolds too and then the funny dude who
lived between them. Orchid customers like that I could talk greens or fairways
and the short holes on #8 and #15. I explained to them some of the
environmental issues I’d failed to get implemented in my discussions with
management.
I said
that the invasive pest plant Brazilian Pepper needed to be removed and native
plants put in their place. I tried to promote these mainstream environmental
standards but couldn’t make a dent with the profit machine.
Meanwhile
the children are 19, 18, 16, 12, and 6 in 2002. Three teens, Master Gardener
volunteer and Tree Board Advisor, while planting small plants for future growth
in the yard. The ones from the rare fruit council seemed to be doing great at
that point.
Needless
to say, maintaining a customer base for twenty years leads to a lot of communicating.
There was a time when I enjoyed communicating with people though now I despair of all the programming and brainwashing they are under.
I AM
FROM Hartford Hospital and Pepe’s Lincoln and learning how to go to school in
miserable conditions and how there had to be something better than wet galoshes
for the foul weather. Taking naps in first grade and peeing my pants in second
grade. Staying in class through lunch that day and I was driven home by the
principal since mom had no license.
Another
day that I got driven home was when I fell flat into a big puddle at lunch
break outside in our play area on the pavement. Completely wet, but not
embarrassed, they called my mother, who was one of the few people in town that
didn’t drive. Colleen and Paula in fifth grade made me realize love was in the
air. Mr Domino was a male influence, aside from my dad finally, as my sixth grade teacher. Dad
seemed great, both parents were always busy but a boy needs more positive male
influence than the father. Girls need mentors too, I’m sure.
Too
many rural kids are raised with killing things and learning boys will be boys
and that misbehavior can be excused by their male influencers. The suburban experience of the sixties and
seventies was the best of both worlds. It wasn’t the oppressive country life of
getting up to milk cows. I liked getting up early and have been a morning
person since I was 12. The dude who brought me my bundle of papers at 430 in the morning
was pretty cool and sometimes I’d get out there early enough to see him and
have a little chat. Then teenhood came along and it became about sports and
being a feral child on my bicycle.
Adult
world stuff I remember was the trouble Auntie had with Uncle Eddie who beat her
with a phone in one cruel incident and he was finally forced out. This was racist
Joe’s son and my cousin Dennis’ dad. Two cousins near my age, they showed
me different things like abandoned buildings and driving a go-kart on the
sidewalk along route 3. With no brakes. Thrills that parents would find unsafe
today.
Favorite hiking places. Back yard Meadows on Middletown Avenue. Bloomfield
tracks and Pennwood. Eagle Cloud Mountain. Somewhere southwest Of Tucson.
Coronado National Forest. Rt 5, Hazardville Freshwater Creek watershed.
Sebastian Greens and the Stormwater Park.
The
Portuguese side always had good suppers and a bathroom wallpapered with fairies
on a aqua blue background. Another younger cousin was retarded
but he ended up working at Tony’s corner market. He died at 18 from
complications with his brain problem that sounds like encephalitis. He greatly
benefitted with Governor Dempseys programs.
I like
to say I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like being the boss. So by the age
of twenty I was done with mom controlling me and she told me I was going to be
a pall bearer for Daves funeral. Not really feeling grief for my dead cousin or
even knowing what a pall bearer was so I said no. Tired of being told what to
do. I had been living on my own for a year. Maybe if Tony asked me or something. But, another mistake I made from
immaturity.
Junior
High was like 1966 and the spring and summer before was filled with tales of
horror. “Ninth graders, like, knock your books out of your hand ‘n shit.” “You
gotta be naked after gym”. Oh no, everyone was going to know about my hairy
legs that I had managed to keep hidden.
Somehow I shaved them where they could be seen between socks and thigh pads in midget football. That naked bullshit was downright weird. Suddenly, a class full of boys were naked with each other, after being taught modesty at home? Then what was REALLY creepy was high school where the coachs office was like, 15 feet from the showers. With pervs like Sandusky, Ludwigsen and that Olympic coach in the news, I find this especially creepy. Everybody is all about the legendary head coach but I know the dark side. "If the ref ain't lookin', kick 'em in the gut." He thought he was Vince lombardi.
“So
they can make sure no hanky panky is going on.” I’m told. Another what the hell
moment that only crystalizes into adult awareness. Now I look at the Jerry
Sandusky scandal and the abuse in the boy scouts class action lawsuit and now I
wonder if there is some sort of homo-erotic thing with men. When
Randazzo the neighbor saw a huge stump one day he goes “bicep contest”.
Everyone put their elbows on the stump and flexed and I’m like WTH is this? I found most male bonding really strange.
Luckily
I was bereft of any sort of male influence regarding guns and sex and being
told killing things is OK. Like I said Ritchie with his beating frogs on cement
was beyond my comprehension. He done kilt a rabbit and chopped its foot off and
showed me one Saturday. I was like what in the fuck is this? This is why I
assumed he was in jail as I got older. Or dead. My psycho friend.
Janis did yield some insights. The boys were all about coercing
the girls for sex she told me. You know the upstanding citizens of Wethersfield
High School like Mike B. She mentioned other names but I forgot them. Then
there was Ed Duggan the King of coercive assholes. I read his comments on
facebook and I’m like how do these women tolerate this misogyny and even find
him endearing?
Now
he’s dead and people are like what an adorable guy and bought him, like, a park
bench or something. A memorial plaque. More like a royal plague.
There
was 10th grade football and the Charleys and Jims of our 1-7
season in 1969 were being hyper jocks, but somehow always had lots of excuses
for missing practice. One thing I distinctly remember is that I didn’t miss a
single practice. Smallest dude on the team at 5’6” 140, I certainly took my
lumps but did the running up and down the bleachers with a uniform on …barely.
Then rode my Roddy one speed 4 miles home. Entering the working world i could easily beat back all the "we had it tough" diatribes.
So
this is a pattern I like to think I created. Tough everything out. I was
blinded by Jimmy Pierces rock and the doctor said no football or baseball for a
year, so I sat out 9th grade Jayvee football and when I could
play baseball again it was with all the neighborhood kids in Clarks cow field.
I realized I’d never be a baseball player at that point, the pitching was just
too fast. Another form of bullying. One year of senior league in 8th grade
and I was 9 for 39 with a strikeout in the world series.
I
could nail a runner at home from center field but when a 14 year old is
throwing 85 MPH from 38 feet away (66 feet in the major leagues), it was
downright scary. I couldn’t swing fast enough. I also learned about branding
when I found out the name of my team was Wethersfield Optical. We were The
Opticals? That was like Shaun playing soccer for Riverside Lawns. “Go Lawns”
I’d shout at the games. “Get psyched”.
Back to 2020, I see these male creatures with their “I just broke a beer bottle and I’m going to kill you in a barfight” attitude, and the dudes with their gym muscles and I am not getting it. They need a constant reassurance of their manhood or something, but now I realize it’s a show. Everybody working on their brand, marketing their masculinity. Everyone craving fame and greatness.
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