Catholic School Adventures #2 - " The Bus Accident of 1963"

When I first started attending Bishop Gibbons, we rode on a big bus with all of the students in Rotterdam, who attended BG and Notre Dame. Then the boys and girls were in separate schools. For a crowded school bus it was relatively calm.

Like everything else when you're a kid there's a pecking order to things. The back of the bus was Seniors, then juniors etc.. Nick and I sat in the middle.

One morning, early in the school year, while we were stopped at a light the bus was rear ended by a small delivery van. We used to call them panel trucks. The bus driver pulled over and set the emergency flashers flashing. He got in the aisle and asked if we were all right? No one said they weren't but he walked up and down the aisle and looked at us to make sure.

He turned to us and said," Guys this is serious, so be on your best behavior." He smiled when a bunch of kids said,"Yes, Sir."

He exited the bus to talk to the guy that hit us and as soon as he did kids started falling out of their seats pretending injury.

Someone from the back told everyone that a Schenectady Police car had arrived and that the bus driver was talking to him. Shortly the two of them got on the bus. The Policeman went through the same " are you all right" thing. He told us, while standing at the back of the bus, that he was going to pass around a clip board and that he wanted our names for the police report. He handed the clip board to the Seniors in the back seat saying, "Put your John Hancock on this."

It took a while to get to the front, after which the two exited again. Almost as one the entire bus chuckled.

The Seniors kept us posted - "He's looking at it", "He's not laughing", " The bus driver looks pissed" and "Quiet down they're coming back!"
"O.K that was rather funny!" said the policeman. "Let's try it again."

Every single one of us had signed JOHN HANCOCK.

" Alphabet Soup"

In the early '60's my father put up a backboard and hoop on the garage. We played constantly. The fireplace chimney was on the left facing the basket so long shots were straight out or to the right. We measured and painted a foul line.
For hours and hours, we played "bull shit," our version of "horse". There was room for 2 on 2 but more than that and you had to rotate people in. I played alot by myself and used to bounce the ball off the chimney, like a pass. When we played 1 on 1 we had a rule that whoever had the ball could use the chimney to pass off of.

Over time this became a problem because my father slept during the day and worked nights. I used to peek in the bedroom and if he was snoring we could play. 99% of the time this worked but when we woke him up he would come out in his boxers and yell," Jesus Christ Glenn cut it out! Grow up, God dammit and let me sleep!"

He'd leave and we'd crack up.

Dad used to call Polish people, Pollocks to him, alphabet soup because they had so many letters in their names. The kid across the street, David Klyzsmdt, used to come over once in a while. His mother used to stand in the window and watch. She always ended up calling him home. Once when we were really little and were playing cowboys and Indians, we had tied David to a tree in the backyard and left him there. Ever since she watched like a hawk.

There were six of us that day, divided into 3 teams, me and Nick, Cary and Bill DeSorbo, David and Gary Bailie. All of us but Gary went to Bishop Gibbons together. The games started innocently and got progressively tougher. During a game that Nick and I sat out, Bill crushed David into the chimney. He looked like Wile E. Coyote hitting a wall. When we rotated back in we used the move alot on David. He went home sore and in tears. He was never allowed over again.

A couple of years later, we lost the backboard forever. I was lobbing passes to Nick, who was on the garage roof behind the backboard, dunking the ball. He must have leaned on the brace too hard and the whole thing fell to the driveway. Once again we heard the litany of our youth,
"Jesus Christ you two - grow up!"

"Kiss My Bony White Ass!"

LIPS - Yes, big red sexy lips - I always wanted to have them tattooed on one of my ass cheeks; so when I told someone to " kiss my ass!" they would have a good target.

About 6 months ago, I was loaned a lift chair. It is a recliner that also will lift me into a vertical position so that I can transfer to my wheelchair. This one broke in the down position. Thank God there were people at the house that could help me out of the chair.

I was loaned a second one. This one broke in the up position. Due to this about, I was forced to stay in bed and my wheelchair for two days. My wife and I decided to buy a new one to the tune of $1100. We figured it would be the smartest thing to do. WRONG!

I'm writing this sitting in my new lift chair, stuck in the reclining position, waiting for the 24 hour emergency technician to come during business hours. I've had it 6 days.

Pure Frustration is what I feel. Can't anyone build something that works?

I'll get back to you with what happens but until then - ALL YOU UNION LIFT CHAIR BUILDERS CAN JUST KISS MY BONY WHITE ASS!

"Make it Stop!"

For two days I was stuck in bed watching basic cable. No DVR and no digital. Being uncomfortable, something else started to pluck at my nerves - commercials! They continually show the same ones over and over. I especially enjoy it when they show a commercial twice or three times during the same break. And don't give a rat's ass what they say - the volume DOES go up!

I purposefully keep calling these people "they". Who the hell are the people that write this shit?

The Burger King ads are really starting to scare me. The King's coming off as a pervert. You think the writers for the King are the little AV club nerds from school? I'll bet if we could get the mug book on which kids ate paste they'd be the same kids. My guess is the same guys don't do the Victoria's Secret ads!

My recent favorite was the vehicle commercial where the "crossover" was driving along the edge of building roofs with subscript explaining that the car couldn't really do this.Paaaleeeze!

Can there really be this much erectile dysfunction and do they have to sponsor a Nascar team?

The side effect about needing to go to the ER if it stays up for four hours had to be written by a woman. First of all most adolescent, virginal boys can go days. Secondly, any adult male would be walking around pantless showing it off to his friends. " Hey guys, check this out! No she locked herself in the bathroom. Your wife around?"

I think that the FCC should make a rule that commercials have a shelf life; a fixed number of times that they can be shown. Let's say 200 times. It would be so easy a cave man could do it.

SORRY - CHAIR BROKE!

Sorry for not writing = my lift chair broke and I'm stuck in bed!

STAY TUNED!

" HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!"

"The '60's Sound I Remember"

"Comin to ya, on a dusty road,

Good lov'n, I gotta truck load,

and when you get it, you got someth'in,

don't worry,'cause I'm coming.

I'm a soul man!"

Sam Moore and Dave Prater = Sam and Dave backed by Booker T and the MG's. Now that was good bar music, danc'in music, get down get drink'in music.

I hear them and I immediately envision the old Swiss Inn and De Crosta's Tavern with the local band The Fabulous 4 Speeds; Jimmy Sinese, Dave King, Joe Vellano and Rick Bazowie playing fast and loud. Dancing the skate and the frug with any girl that would with us in our drunk'in state. I had to have that liquid courage to dance.

Draft beer was 25 cents a glass or 45 cents for a mug, $1.50 for a pitcher! I went to Bishop Gibbons with Dave and Joe and knew Jim through his brother Drew. No matter where they played we went. We always had a great time.

This was the day of the Chevelle SS, Corvette, Mustang, Hurst Olds 442, GTO and all other muscle cars. Many a night, I won or lost a weekly pay check racing my 1964 327 cu. i. 325 HP Corvette on the Crosstown; rubber burning, tires screaming, gears slamm'in with some screaming girl in the passenger seat.

I enjoyed being under age and bringing my equally under age date to a club for the first time. They were always excited and nervous. Little did they know that I knew each doorman or that they said the same thing each time,"Whoa, Glenn what's this Foxy lady doing with you?" (To be a Fox or Foxy was cool at the time)

The clubs were loud, smoke and people filled. A lot of daters but more singles both male and female. A couple times I went to one bar with a date at 9 took her home at midnight and came back out with another till the bars closed at 3 a.m.. I made the mistake of doing that once with girls that knew each other - "How could you have been out with him on Friday? I was out with him on Friday!"

1965 - 67 it was Soul music that was in the clubs. Some Stones, Doors, Mitch Ryder, The Temps, Four Tops, Sam Cooke, Righteous Brothers, Otis Redding - people wanted to dance!

When we went on a real bender we would go to Albany to the after hours clubs and get down with the brothers and sisters. That was real soul music; Bubba and Alena Dobbs, Cocco Diaz, Pops Brown and Missy Dufrain. Many a Saturday morning we ended up at Berical's Diner about 7 a.m. for breakfast totally trashed.

One time Ray Poteralski and I woke up in his 1966 Mustang Fastback parked in a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike. He remembered something about us wanting to go to Philadelphia.

It was a wild time!

"I'm a Soulman, day, da da, ta, da da da da da!

A Soulman!"