random thoughts on what was going on 50 years ago...pt 1

       before i forget most of this stuff i suppose i should write it 

down.

lets see,april of '68 we had been in Germany for 4.5 months.we were 

living in base housing at Kaiserslautern.the third floor of a pretty huge

apartment complex .there were 4 stairwells in each building,with 8 units per stairwell.

big buildings in rows on each side of the street.there were hundreds of families,

military dependents all.the single soldiers and airmen live in another area.

i had several friends in my own building and some across the street.there was a family

from west virginia whose mother spent her days hanging out of the window,

chain smoking cigarettes.little did she know(or maybe not care) her 3 kids,

kimberly,13 yrs,kimly 8, and kimber,who was 6.they all smoked cigarettes like 

little chimneys,as of course so did i.smokes were very easy to obtain,so...

there was a black family whose kids our age hung out with,smokers all.a couple

of ww2 vintage guys with japanese,korean etc wives and families lived there.

there were mexicans,native americans italians.it was great.the big melting pot

where we all got along,got in trouble,hung out

and just generally had fun.

lots of my school friends lived in the same area,i remember only a few

 names,charlie mora,mike terrel,monika ivesivic and really,thats about it

teachers lived in separate housing,some of them off base.miss nakishima,

who was my english teacher.go figure.very cute and petite.i already had a thing

for her lifelong as it turns out.well,not just her but asians in general.only other 

teacher whose name i recall is mr seeley,who taught math.and he hated *new*

math as it had been called for a few years,it was a different take on doing

math stuff and it sucked.you would have to be of a certain age to know what 

i'm talking about.his idea of punishment when we frequently got too unruly,

was to make us write essays.he didn't care about content...just wanted

 a certain word count.300,500,a coulple of 1000's and once 5000 words.

i had just learned the lyrics to norweigan wood by the beatles.so thats

what i wrote for every essay.over,and over and over.it got to be kinda

fun,but don't ask me why...

random photo time

dad and sis,easter sunday 1968,

mom and dad,same day 

patty politano,mom and some sullen prick,

who was really wishing he was standing

next to patty,instead of his mother.patty and her 

family lived right below us.matter of fact,her dad

sold me my very 1st guitar