Nostalgia

Walt and Susan were listening to Rocketman and Roundabout, Elton John and Yes, respectively. They are married and were with me in school from the 6th Grade on in the Cinnaminson, NJ School System. Now most people have no idea where that is and like my friend Brandon from Ashtabula, Ohio, these are Indian names and because of that, they sound like they must be close to “Siberia” where I was closer to in my Concert Tour of Russia in 1978 which is also the year we graduated, both of them having higher averages than I.

Also, Walt was part of the “Jewish Legion” with Jeremy, Stuart and good ol Davey Boy (me and in the lower end of brain power of the 4). Yes, I have already admitted here at Medium that I may not have been the smartest bulb in the lamp, but.. I was dyslexic even though I did not diagnose myself until I was about 30. I take right instead of left, adn instead of and and teh instead of the and a lot more number changing and things like that. When I look at the back of the home photo in my Appraisal “Failure due to AMC’s,” if I need to look at it, I go crazy as it is reverse of the front. If I really need to know if something is on the left or right in the rear photo, I may have to print the photo and turn it backward so that I see it from “My” special perspective.

From what I hear, if you are diagnosed by a Doctor in today’s World, they may put you in special classes that are not for the “Normal” students. I am a prime example of how horrible that would have been for me if that were in place in nostalgia times.

You must know by now, that many postings I do here are nostalgia type of writing. I do current events as well. This is the first Presidential voting year that I am following every debate and news. I really think that Donny Trump “Upped” my Game! By the way, the Governor of Ohio is: Casick. I did not spell it right, but that is how it is pronounced, which is more than I gave when he said “Working Poor” in last night’s Debate. I wound up falling asleep, but have it taped on DVR.

Ok, back to nostalgia. I will not be sending this to Twitter or Facebook as I still do have relatives that are “Friends” that I don’t want to tell truth to.

There are also, people that I will not tell things about just because it would anger or upset them, even though this is stuff that took place so long ago, most people involved are old, like me. Who can believe old people did bad things? I just saw “Bad Grandpa” last night. This was the 1st time I really heard Robert Dinero curse and play with his penis and lots of other stuff. Zack.. I forget his last name, but he was the lead in the Movie of “Hairspray” and not only is a wonderful singer and actor, but is a beautiful man, face and body and you get to see a lot of that along with Bob’s body which is better looking than mine and he may be about 70. It does amaze me to know that even though I am now a part of the “Older” Generation, many people that are part of it and like Bob, the Generation before mine, look so young today. For men, I doubt if it is surgery. The Queens of facial and other type surgery that I know are women: Joan Rivers died at her Plastic Surgeon’s office getting something done to her neck. At the end, they pulled her face so tight, she had a constant smile: reminding me of Jack Nicholson as the “Joker” in the Batman Movie. His smile was caused by falling into a vat of acid. Not the LSD type either, which is another nostalgia place that I will not talk about today except for 1 incident. I did that and mushrooms. Not the type you eat on a dinner plate, but the type that is like LSD, I think is grown in Cow Dung. It tastes like that as well which is why many people put it in tea rather than chew it directly.

One quick LSD story. By the way: I am starting to realize the writings I do that people want to use for other purposes and ones like this one that will not be used for “Squat.”

Ok, it is 1978 and about 8 friends are in my bedroom in Cinnaminson, NJ, my Parents home dropping Acid. My Lil Sis was the only one that did not. She was the “Designated Straight Person.” And we needed her. My 1 friend had his head up to the speaker where music of original Genesis with Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd music was playing. He then would laugh and cry one after the other. It was a bit scary at the time as he had no control over his emotions. There was so much craziness going on, I could not take it. I went into the unfinished attic which was attached to my bedroom and had a lock on it. With the lights shut off I locked the door and was lying on the floor for an unspecified period of time. Let us be clear: Not Walt, Susan or any of the past friends did any drugs. This was after I broke away in Senior year. I went into some other things I did Senior year that on school nights, I did not get home until 2am and had my Mom write me notes. I had to take 20 Gym classes in order to graduate with a 3.2 average, lower than any of the prior Jewish friends. They tend to be smart and most likely helped bring me up from dummie to normal. Not to say non Jews were not smart. Come Stu, as we called him, was joint best Student in our class along with Marissa who was Catholic… showing that not just Jews are smart. We are; however, over achievers. Why? If I knew the answer, I would be President… but because of all the stuff I am admitting to, no way could I ever or would I ever get into politics. I was a Political Science Major at Temple University in Philly, my 1st year. Then I switched like 5 times.

Let us now retreat to the nostalgia of 12 and 13 when we were from 6 to 8th grade in Middle School or Pre-High School. We would be at a friends home and the top music for what we were doing was “Best of Bread” as each and every song was slow and like I said, I was even singing one of them today, not knowing I would be writing this.

My family moved from North Philadelphia in 1970 when I was in 4th grade and my youngest Bro was born. That is a 10 year span and may not have been a planned pregnancy. Today, women are having babies much later in life than we did back then, so my Mom was “Avante Guarde,” ahead of her time.

We would turn the lights out at 12 and 13 years of age and were in the basements of one of our friends homes. We would pair off and would be in our own secret locations for just the time of 1 song on the album which was only about 3 minutes. If it was not a good match, we were all friends, so we would talk. If it was someone you liked, more would happen, but for the most part, it was innocent. It was mostly kissing and touching. How much can you do when you are young and have only about 3 minutes. The fun was when the record was done playing. With “Best of Bread” you could flip the record over and have another full side. I don’t think “Roundabout” was used as it got fast and Rocket Man would have been used with Best of Elton John. I loved his “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” Album as I still can remember opening it up as 2 record set and every one was a hit. Rocketman was not on that one. But, as a kid, that was my fav. There was also the Columbia Record Club that sent you an album a month if you did not let them know you did not want it. That was how I built up a collection. Where does a 13 year old get the money to pay for that? Bar for a boy, Bat for a girl and ending with Mitzvah. At 13, as a Jew, you became a man or woman and could drink Manaschvitz sickeningly sweet wine after Friday Night Services at “Temple Sinai” which is still there with a large addition. For those non-Jews, there is no plate passing for money. You pay thousands for joining and extra for Hebrew School after school and on Sunday and pay extra for seats at “High Holiday” Services. They are the only important Jewish Holidays and occur 1 week apart. The Jewish New Year and then the “Day of Atonement.” I never got that last one. You were supposed to atone for your sins of the past year, not eat, “Fast” for 1 whole day and then after the fasting or not eating you had a “Break the Fast” party with bagel, Lox and creamchease. Some call it “Schmeeeer.”

When we moved from Philly to Cinn. in 1970, I thought it was mostly Jewish. Not until Senior year when I dropped out of all of the things I was active in my whole life did I realize that only a small % of people in NJ in Cinnaminson which does mean “Sweet Water” in the Native Indian Language. They originally had “Artesian Well Water.” When I was there, we did not have filters, but it did taste better than Philly water. Then again, any water is better than Philly water.

Why my life until Senior year was delusional thinking most people were Jewish had to do with my Mom. She set me up with an entire Jewish life. When you are young and all of your friends are Jewish.. you think that the World has tons of Jews. Truth is and told by a recent article that I spoke of before. In the USA, less than 2% of the Population are Jewish. It also said that because of Israel having a ton of Jews, the 6 million Jews killed during the Hitler Regime, have been made up for and we are about where we were before he made Europe a “Jew Free Zone” by doing horrible things. Read my writing on my Concert Tour of Poland and Russia in 1978, when I went for 3 weeks right after graduation from High School to them on a planned Concert Tour. During the days we saw everything and including the Warsaw Ghetto where they put all of the Jews before the Concentration Camps took care of the “Final Solution” which was to do horrible things that today, because of Youtube, it is not even possible to deny the real truth. When the Camps and Germany, Poland and France, Italy and any other places that the Nazis took over were bombed to the ground. The Europe you see today, for the most part, is a re-creation of what it looked like before Hitler or “Schickelgruber” his real last name came to power in the 1930’s through till 1945 at the end of the year, end of the war and starting of my Generation called “Baby Boomers.” After WW2 which was the Hitler/Japan fighting and we really won with FDR in his 3rd term, but he died at 63, just months before his VP, Harry Truman, took over and dropped 1 Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and because the Japanese did not surrender, he then dropped 1 more Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. That was enough for them. We were called “Isolationists” before WW2. We were in WW1 and did not want to lead the World. But, when Japan bombed Hawaii at Pearl Harbor, FDR and Congress had enough. Before that we were sending tons of stuff on “Loan” to England as FDR could get away with that. But no fighting of USA troops until December 7, 1941, the date that will “Live in Infamy.” When they bombed us, Hawaii was not even a State. I never understand how the USA has tons of military ships in a place that is just a friend of ours. And Club “Gitmo” in Cuba… we cut them off in 1962, I think, but still have Guantanamo Base that our President Obama wants to close. But, finally, because Castro’s Brother is more mellow than Fidel, it looks like Cuban Cigars will be back again. I just was doing reading on W. Clement Stone who was so rich and read that right before the embargo, he bought 3 warehouses and put in 3 million dollars of Cuban Cigars right before we cut ties with them. Gangster Meyer Lansky put his own money into a Casino in Cuba because the President Batista asked him to help make them not cheat people and use his system. Mr. Lansky may have been a Mob Boss, but “He always made money for his friends.” And it was honest gambling. They were cheating at the tables in Cuba. Meyer taught us that you do not have to cheat to make a ton of money at the casinos. Anyone who comes away with money, will put it back in and then some… eventually and Meyer Knew that.

Boy, did I go into nostalgia way further than my life…. don’t answer that.

Let’s end now as I could rant all day. Some things I write are for the Medium reader. Some things I write for friends and this and a few others, I write to remember for my own personal use in case I get Alzheimers and can print out all of this that I forgot about!

I want to end with a story that is true, but today would not be accepted and considered to be wrong. In my time, we were not so politically correct. President Kennedy and John John who, if alive, was born within a month or 2 of me and I was born the day after JFK was elected President against Tricky Dick Nixon on November 8, 1960. I was born at 12:31pm on November 9th. The Doctor asked my Mom who she voted for. She tells that she said: whoever you did Doc!

I was 10 years old. We just moved to Cinnaminson from Philly which is only 20 minutes driving from there. It was done so that my Dad could take the bus to the IRS Bldg. in Camden, NJ, which is where he worked. The bus came 1 block from our home.

My 1st baby sitter, I will not tell her name as she is now say 6 years older than I am, making her about 61. After my parents left to go out, my 2 brothers and Lil Sis being younger than I was at that time. She put me up on the coctail table and kissed me a lot. I loved it. She was about 15 or 16 and I was 10. Like I said, today that would look bad, but I was in heaven and could not wait for her to come over.

Things did take a turn when we did the “Hide and go Seek” game in our unfinished basement. There was a Quaker School next door to us that gave us their old gym mats and we had them in the basement and I hid there. She found me and said: either I do this… or you do this…. and this was more than kissing and it showed that I was 10 and I just ran. She got it and soon after, she moved to Northern New Jersey which was almost 2 hours away. When I was about 12, we visited her and her family in NJ and I thought to myself: what a dummie I was not to take her up on that offer I ran from.

Gang, life looks totally different in retrospect. I was not ready at 10, but at 12 I was. Not for all out sex, but for more than just kissing. But to this day, it is a fond memory and for sure: Nostalgia. I hope that shows you Walt: I am writing just a little more than Vaping News. Have a Wonderful Monday.