1975

1975

Woodbine Avenue

Overbrook Section

Philadelphia, PA

     and

Long Beach Island, NJ (summer months)

My age: 19- 20

School- Penn State University- junior year.   I studied Adolescent Counseling with the hopes of someday becoming a high school counselor.

• My dad insists that I buy season tickets ($12/6 games) to the Penn State football games. I had never heard anything about this team and football doesn’t interested me so I just gave my tickets away. People offered me money for the tickets but I couldn’t be bothered.
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•  I had stopped out of college for a semester.  This decision just about sent my mother over the edge because she was certain I would never go back and she would have a lazy, college drop-out on her hands.  But I did go back and I was determined to do the best I could.  However, I had one lecture class that was dreadful. there were 200 of us in the 8AM class.  It was winter time and cold and snowy.  The Teaching Assistant was boring.  SO, I skipped a few classes.  Then I looked at the syllabus and calculated that a midterm was upon me.  I went to class, as prepared as can be for someone who’s missed three weeks of class.  I sit down and the teacher is handing back the mid-term.  I missed it.  I fucking missed the mid-term. I was just about to throw up when the TA confesses that there is a problem with the class.  More than half of us missed the exam and those who did take the exam, performed poorly.  The TA agreed to own part of the problem.  He threw out the test, rescheduled it and change the format of the class so that it was more interesting.  I FUCKING LUCKED OUT.

Work-

• During the summer, I worked at the Crust and Crumb Bakery.  We sold Elephant Ears, “a flaky French pastry with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans.”  I probably said that line 100 times a day. We used to call this place the Crust and Crud Bakery. I think I made $1.35/hour.
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• During the fall semester, I stopped out of college.  To fill my time and to make money (which was a desperate need) I was a server at the Sander’s Nursing Home in Philadelphia. Mostly I poured coffee for the old people, which was their greatest vice. They. that were middle class residence who were paying lots of money to live there.  And most of the workers were indifferent to them and their needs. At one point during my three-month tenure here, my brother needed a job and coincidently there was an opening at work. I told Chris he could work there and then I told my boss that my brother was immediately available.  My boss told me he had reservations as he never liked to hire siblings as that usually resulted in worksite bickering.  He didn’t give me a “NO” so I went home and told Chris to come to work with me the next day.  We arrived at 630 and my boss didn’t show up until 9.  I thought he could come in and see what a good worker Chris was. Sure enough, things worked as I had hoped.  I left in December to go back to school and Chris worked there or another three or four years.

Music- I started to listen to music more as literature and poetry rather than background music.  I could listen to the same song again and again and again. A lot of great artists capture my interest:

• ·      Joni Mitchell- The Hissing of Summer Lawns:   Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" is my favorite song on the album
• ·      Joan Baez- she sang a lot of war protest songs
• ·      Judy Collins
• ·      John Sebastian
• ·      C, S, N & Y
• ·      Phoebe Snow
• ·      Roberta Flack
• ·      Van Morrison
• ·      Laura Nyro
• ·      Johnnie Rivers
• ·      John Denver
• ·      Emit Rhoades
• ·      James Taylor
• ·      Livingston Taylor

Movies- I didn’t go to many movies in the theatres now because they were just too expensive and they cut in to my beer funds.  There were old movies shown on campus for 50 cents.  I’d go to them from time to time and catch a movie I didn’t see when it was in the theatres.

Books-

• ·      I’ve started reading Japanese literature form the 1950’s and 60’s.
• ·      I read JD Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenter which I loved and eventually would read every year in the spring for the next 15 years.

Television-

• ·      I waste my summer afternoons watching soap operas.  I don’t watch them at all when I am in school but once I start working my summer job, I get hooked on All My Children and General Hospital.
• ·      I start watching 60 Minutes and find myself becoming interested in political issues.

News events

•   Margaret Thatcher becomes the 1^st female leader of the Free World. At the time, she seemed bold, decisive and strong.  When she died, almost 40 years later, Brits came out in force and celebrated her death and condemned her leadership. This takes me by surprise.  I didn't know she was so hated.

•   Oil prices surpass $13.00 per barrel and the price of a gallon of gas begins to rise.

•   The Vietnam War ends. The United States’ involvement ended as the last American military members escaped in helicopters taking off from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. 

•   The US Carries out Vietnam "Operation Baby lift" bringing Vietnamese orphans to the US. We watched hundreds of babies leave their country and come here to start a new life. It seemed as if all of us wanted one of these babies.

•   US pulled out of Cambodia. At last, we are not at war.

•   Betamax videotapes and VHS taped hit the market and our world of movie viewing is never the same.
Jaws, is released during the summer and it becomes the highest grossly film of all times. Everyone is afraid to go in to the ocean.  I didn’t watch this movie until recently and I found the movie to be laughable with it’s obvious shark attacks.

•   The IRA bombs London Hilton Hotel in Park Lane.  It seems as if the IRA is bombing London every other week.  And although I support the IRA’s cause, all their bombing unnerves me.

•   Jimmy Hoffa, ex teamsters boss, disappeared. There are hundreds of rumors as to where he ended up.  I don’t know what happened to him but it wasn’t a happy ending.

•   Patty Hearst joined the Most Wanted list and was arrested for armed robbery. Her bizzare story was riveting.

Family and friends

• ·      My grandmother went to Florida for Christmas. This was her first Christmas without my grandfather and it would have been their 50^th wedding anniversary. We thought for sure she would be so sorry she left us at this time.  She called us on Christmas day and told us she was having such a fun time that she was going to move to Florida.
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• ·      My two sisters and I work for John Maschal who owned Bay Village. on Long Beach Island, NJ.  This enterprise is run entirely by college students. There are over 200 of us and we are not allowed to pay cash for anything we purchase at this village of 20 stores.  We must pay against our paycheck and if we stay for the entire summer and through Labor Day, we get 20% back as a bonus.  This sounded great until the first paycheck came in and way too much money went to a bar bill I accrued at The Tide Bar.  Some of my friends spent all their money there every week.  They went back to college with zero money.
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• ·      My college roommate is Jewish which is very different from my all Catholic environment.