One Winter.....

 

There are times in our lives that stick with us and other times that just slip away.  Today I’m thinking about the time when I failed my draft physical and, with $124 in my pocket, ran off to Hawaii to visit friends.  It was the winter of 1971 - 1972 and I still remember what we did, what we ate, what we drank, what we listened to and who we hung out with.  Here are a few of those memories.

My friends Irv and Emma were living in a 3-story cinder block apartment in Waipahu shared with a guy named Dave and a few geckos.  The geckos had the run of the place and chirped at night but were seldom seen.  When I expressed concern about sleeping with a bunch of lizards they told me that in Hawaii I could either sleep with Geckos or with cockroaches and scorpions.  The apartment was located just a block off the Farrington Highway on the corner of Leonui and Leokane.  It could be said that we weren’t in one of Oahu’s garden spots.  Low metal buildings, barb wire topped fences, wrecked and abandoned cars everywhere.  Irv and Dave were in the Navy and about to be discharged, Emma had a part-time job at a natural food store across the highway and I had a roof over my head until I ran out of money. 

North Trunk Sewer Line

 

 Bridgehunter.com - 280032-L

Prior to the southern extension of the North Trunk Sewer Line to Pine Street there was no sanitary sewer in Madison Park.  Sewage was mostly piped into Lake Washington with the hope that lake water would dilute it to a safe level. A “Bathing Beach” on the southern border of what would become Edgewater Park Apartments had a sewage outfall on both ends of the swimming area. At that time Madison Park had few real houses but there were many rental cabins leased out by the McGilvra Estate.  If Madison Park was going to become the upscale neighborhood that developers aspired it to be houses would need toilets that didn’t flush into where the home owners went to swim.

c1915 - SMA - 944

My Descent Into a Life of Crime

I suspect that even the most hardened life-long serial criminal looks back and regrets some choices that they made, people that they hurt and costs that they incurred.  Maybe they think about the circumstances that led them to commit their first crime.  Did it happen by accident or intent?    Were there social, economic, educational, parental or peer influences driving them?  What about drugs and alcohol?  Were they simply fated to live outside of the law? 

It was different for me. 

None of those things drove me to commit my first of many crimes.  Had I been born a century earlier criminologists of the time might have struggled to understand my behaviors.  How was it that this semi wholesome-looking freckled-face boy with a normal sized head with right-sized jaw and ears had been compelled to such behaviors.  It’s true that I was small for my age and, given nothing else to go on, they might have been left with that to explain my miscreant tendencies.  But there was something else.

I don’t think that anybody ever figured it out, but I could have told them if they had asked because I can clearly remember the exact moment when I formed the intent of transforming myself into a lawbreaking malefactor and menace to society.  Overnight I became a juvenile delinquent with a determination to break the law, inconvenience, disappoint and hurt loved ones, be a bad influence on friends and lose the respect of peers.  I became “that kid” that parents warned their children to stay away from.  I became known to the Seattle Police Department who seemingly watched for me to commit my next crime.

The Almost Famous Collection

Originally published 12/22/22

Leslie Conway Bangs

Courtesy of San Diego Reader 

If you read rock journalism during the ‘70’s you were probably equal-parts delighted, astounded and repulsed by the writings of Lester Bangs.  His opinionated demeanor was established as a child when his Mother pushed him to become a Jehovah’s Witness and bolstered by his successful campaign to refuse to dress for PE class.  Being much smarter than the average bear and a pushy bastard to boot he was described by some as America’s Greatest Rock Critic while others considered him a drunken buffoon.  The man spoke his own truth no matter how badly it hurt to read and though he spoke his truths of others he kept his insecurities and self-truths to himself. 

In the 2000 movie, “Almost Famous”, Cameron Crowe gives his own semi-autobiographical account of his life as an aspiring 15 year old rock journalist on assignment for Rolling Stone Magazine and we are introduced to Lester who is masterfully played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  As Lester mentors young William (Cameron) he breaks character and shares some of his insecurities when he says:

“We are uncool and though uncool people don’t tend to get the girl, being uncool can help you develop a little spine.  It’s too easy out there for the handsome and the hip. —Their work almost never lasts.  The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you are uncool.”

Those words rang out to me and I realized that many of my stories share self-deprecating accounts of my own uncoolness or attempts to cast my truths in a more favorable light making me, in the words of Lester Bangs, a very wealthy man.  With that said, I welcome you to explore this collection of short (and some not-so-short) vignettes which I have called the Almost Famous Collection. 

Go ahead and click on the “Almost Famous” tab above.  I have lots of material to add.  

 

Test Pattern

 Originally published 7/12/21

We weren’t the first of families to own a TV set.  They were novelties then and whenever relatives were together, if a TV was available, we would gather and watch.  There wasn’t much in the way of programming at the time.  Whatever the programming was it was in black and white and I don’t recall channel choices during the ‘50’s in Kansas. 

I do recall sitting on the floor in front of the TV before the Saturday broadcasting began staring at the test pattern that featured the Indian Chief and listening to that test tone.  My God, the anticipation of staring at that image while having that unwavering low fidelity tone blast through my head.  It was divine in such an unacceptable way by today’s standards.  In order to distract kids during the pre-programming test pattern period some crafty entrepreneur packaged up a clear vinyl film with a few crayons and sold them to frazzled Mom’s.  We had one.  The film was pressed onto the screen where we would “color” the test pattern.  The crayon could be wiped off of the vinyl with toilet paper so every day the Indian chief could be a different color.  Of course, you couldn’t get too imaginative because there were only 5 color crayons. 

The One

 Originally published 10/26/2022

A time of change in a young life where an established place had been found but no longer fit. 

Now, on the bottom rung, looking up, who do I trust? 

Looking for a face that is slightly less afraid than my own

Or one that will accept me as you I am, fears and all.  

Hoping for an open door it seemed like forever.

But it was just a blink of an eye in the arc of a life before that face found me.

In Spanish class where there were two “Juans” so I was called, “Eduardo”.

There was only one “Mel-veen”.

The door cracked open and we became Mel-veen and Eduardo.

I was safe.

Time moved on. 

We grew. 

Friends came and went. 

Some disappointed.  

A precious few stood the test of time and remained to prop us up when we faltered.

The few become fewer.

And then there was only one.

The one that I wished I was more like.

 The door remained wide open

The brilliant sun shone in

Ideas and experiences were shared

Some not-such-good ideas but always something learned

And always there was trust

With “The One” who was always there.

“The One” who would always tell me the truth about myself

Especially when I needed it the most but didn’t want to handle the truth.

“The One” who encouraged me to seek and find my own direction

Nudging, leaving breadcrumbs, but was sometimes forced to resort to a 2 x 4 across the head to gain my attention and make me listen

“The One” who also shared his concerns and fears and looked to me for ideas when I  felt unworthy.

And then one day the call came.

The door was closed.

What had I missed?

Where to from here?

Empty Chair

 

Empty Chair - Prologue

 

I was ten years old when I first set foot on that little islet in Union Bay.  It was about 150 yards northwest of the northern tip of Foster Island at the eastern end of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.  Channel traffic was crowded between the islet and Fox Point creating an obstacle for watercraft bound to-and-from Lake Washington.  Even to a 4^th grader it seemed oddly placed.

My sister, Ginger, and her friend Chris had gotten our mothers to write notes giving the University of Washington permission to rent us a canoe.  My “chaperones” were just three years older than me, so it was definitely a different time from a legal standpoint.  As I recall the rental fee was $1.25 / hour.  A totally reasonable cost when split three ways.  Chris had learned a bit about canoeing from her father who was a member of the Seattle Mountaineers and active in the outdoors.  Conversely, Ginger and I had never been in a canoe and we flailed about, as though as though both of us were paddling with a different intent.  Without Chris’s scant expertise it is doubtful we would have made it the 200 yards across the ship canal and back before exceeding our rental budget. 

Eventually Chris got us close to Foster Island and guided the canoe out to the islet.  After some discussion we decided to try to land so she drove the bow of the boat up onto the marshy mass of cattails and scrub willows. Stepping out we found that the island wouldn’t support our weight as it was just a blob of floating vegetation.  There were some boards, though, that distributed our weight enough that we could stand without sinking.  They seemed to have been placed in some sort of pattern.  Cattails and weeds were growing up between them, but we found an area measuring about 10’ by 10’ that was covered by boards and mostly clear.  In the middle of the clearing sat an old dilapidated wooden chair.  It was surrounded by weeds and bore the scars of being marooned for, who knew how long?  I sat down gingerly on it fearing that it would fail as its loose joints crackled and shifted under my slight weight.  I wondered how long it had been there.  A year or two.  Maybe three?  

The islet and the chair were the impetus for a whole series of misadventures that stretched over the next several years and I continued to think about them long after the mid-1960’s when the Corps of Army Engineers scraped them off the bottom of Union Bay to be added to the bulk of nearby Marsh Island.  I would have never guessed that the chair had been on the islet for a quarter of a century or how it got there.  If someone had been able to tell me I would never have believed them.

Then, four years ago, a friend showed me a newspaper article from the February 25, 1934 edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer about an 81 year old Norwegian Immigrant who was living on the islet.  I was fascinated and determined to learn what I could about him.  His name was Martin Olsen Moen and this is his story.