The Group

Rob, Eric W., John G. and myself. Eric and I were friends with Rob, Eric and I were friends with John.  John and Rob, not so much. Generally we hung out in twos or threes, sometimes supplemented by Jeff (with John) or Chris and Tom (with Rob)

Eric, John and I go back to second or third grade at Lee School where we all had Mrs. Fickus. I got to know Eric through the first bowling league I joined in 5^th grade. I had Sandi and Suzie M. on my team along with a kid from Weaver whose name I forget. John and I started to hang out in sixth grade. We had Mr. Reichardt. I don’t remember what started the bond between us. He and David T were totally into the Three Stooges (to the extent that Reichardt was concerned). I hung out with Charlie C., Chris R., Steve A. at this time too.

Rob came to Lee school in the 4^th grade. He had Mrs. Nash and later Mr. Wilkinson. For years I thought Rob’s name was Cliff because everyone called him by his last name: Clifford. I remember him totally cracking me and Eric M. up (This Eric was my stepbrother for a while, another story) by calling someone a dildo. We had just learned that word. In fact not long after, my mom overheard me calling someone a dildo and said
 “Do you know what that means?” I didn’t really…I knew it was something “bad” but wasn’t sure exactly what or how. So, she told me to go look it up…which I did. I wasn’t completely sure what the definition was telling me, or what it was actually for, but mom seemed satisfied that I wouldn’t use the word so indiscriminately. I thought “Cliff” was gone by the time we were in sixth grade.

So, John, Eric and I all ended up at Oak Jr. High for seventh grade. John and I had the industrial arts electives and English together. I don’t think I had any classes with Eric, but we all ate lunch together. We, along with Charlie and Steve made fun of guys that looked like Joe Poor (he was a guy that lived behind me, we weren't actually making fun of poor people) and were constantly on paper detail for popping our cups and milk cartons. Woodshop was great. Some pretty bitchin’ chicks were in that class: Sue S. and Kelly S. They were always trying to get Starbursts out of our pocket. I really could have turned that more to my advantage.Dang!

After woodshop and metal class (each one for a quarter) we had home ec(onomics) which we called home wreck. The teacher was poor Mrs. Spencer who had a major lisp. She was rather Victorian in disposition. One time John and I were practicing and racing on the sewing machines and got going to fast and my machine stalled. I yelled “shit!” right as she was standing over me…she grabbed my arm and hauled me outside for a dressing down. Well not long after that Mr. Granger said he wanted me in the advanced band so I transferred out of home wreck. Band was cool. We had a kickass band and orchestra. Easily at the level of most high schools. Granger was a great director, later studied with Herbert Blomstedt. He’s now conducting the Santa Cruz Symphony.

In eighth grade I started bowling again. Eric was in the league with this new guy who I didn’t know. Then this new guy was introduced to our Sunday school class at Congregational church on Katella. His name was Rob and he lived near Mike, our teacher. I recognized him from bowling so we started talking about …bowling. We also had similar tastes in music: Queen, Zeppelin etc…It was like a year or so later that I figured out this was “Cliff”. In fact, I think it was Eric M. who made the connection.

There was a Christmas craft fair at the church, must have been 1977. Rob and I must have looked bored because his mom suggested we go to their house where his stepdad was making dinner: filet mignon and lasagna. It was pretty bitchin’.

Rob was the first guy I knew who got ONTV, a precursor to HBO etc…They showed porn late at night. I went over a couple times to check it out. One time it was the movie Easy with Jesse St. James (what a memory!) This would have been 1980 or maybe 1981. In a compelling performance she portrayed a teacher who started doing her students and later turned prostitute. Now, it was really cool of Rob’s mom to let us watch, but it was on early enough that she was still up and crossed the living room into the kitchen a few times during the course of the film. Rob would yell, “Mom, don’t look!” “Hurry up!” She’d be like, “I’m not looking, okay!” It was kinda hard to get into the movie under those circumstances. I mean to be honest, its hard to get into them while watching with another dude anyway, but when mom might walk through at any time it was just too much. I think we learned a lot by watching that movie.

It was with the help of both Rob and John that I built up a  collection of porn. John worked at a truck dispatch place for a while and would run across all these magazines. Since his folks really didn’t approve I had to keep them first in my fort in the garage rafters and then in my room. I had a tacit “don’t ask don’t tell” agreement with my mom. I used to “read” them behind this Reader’s Digest coffee-table book The World Around Us, the perimeter dimensions of which were larger than the magazines. Once mom came in and saw me struggling to keep a mag behind the book and said “You don’t have to hide anything, you know I don’t care what you read.” (I was probably 16 at the time) That was cool of her to say but of course I denied it; there are some things you just don’t want to openly admit.

Beginning probably in 1978 and continuing for the next 4 years or so, Rob’s grandparents (who were the nicest folks you would ever want to meet) took us to Baja each summer where his great aunt and uncle had a beach house. Those were damn fun times. Boogie boarding, curio shopping, buying switchblades (we weren’t in a gang or anything, we just thought they were cool), chess sets, firecrackers. And the food! They fed us well and often. The running joke line between me and Rob since those trips was “Here, have another tort!” We had tacos one night and his aunt kept offering me more, more, more! It was sweet, actually. And she made the comment about her sons who “go ape over bananas” That just killed us at the time.

There was a terrific pizza place, Giuseppe’s, where his grandpa let us have a bit of beer. The first kind I ever actually liked the taste of. It was Corona.

There was a sandwich place next door that advertised “pustrami sandwiches.” Um, we never went there.

There was a really cute girl Jackie, who I think was a friend of Rob’s family. She came out a couple of the years we stayed there, just for the day each time. We talked to her but both of us were too socially inept with the opposite sex to do anything more. 

Rob and I slept in this kind of loft which happened to be where his uncle kept his stash of Playboys and Penthouses. Needless to say we availed ourselves of this library and as we were packing to leave we both concurrently had the idea of absconding with a few issues. So we did and traded them back and forth over the years.

Now, here is an example of how cool Rob’s grandparents were: When we bought the switchblades they warned us that if on the way back home the border guards asked if we had them we would have to tell the truth and they would be confiscated…fair enough. Well, after we got through the border without a hitch Rob's grandma said that they would have reimbursed us if they had taken our knives. His grandparents would have paid us back for our confiscated contraband! That is certainly beyond the call of duty. I hope my fourteen year-old self would have had the strength of will to  refuse the offer had it become a reality.

I accidentally left the big brick of firecrackers I bought in my duffel bag and they went through the wash. There were many piles of dog crap that thus remained intact!

Dr. Demento was huge with all of us at the time. We each had several shows on tape, dang I wish we still had them. That was where I first heard punk rock/new wave. Devo: “Mongolid” and “Shrivel Up”, and Tuff Darts “Your Love is Like a Nuclear Waste. I also became familiar with Tom Lehrer of whom I am still a huge fan. Dr. Demento did a 50^th birthday Tom Lehrer special in 1978 and I taped it all. Not long after some friends from church lent me his albums which Rob and I taped. Jennifer E., the daughter of a professor my mom had in college introduced me to Dr. D. We had met a few times when we were babies and then again when we took a trip back east in 1972. They lived in South Hadley Massachusetts at that time. Well, Jennifer’s parents got divorced and she and her mom moved to Irvine in 1977, I think. So we met again at age twelve. We had a lot of similar interests, Sci-Fi, animals, Monty Python, Pink Floyd, champagne. We got to have a little champagne at her mom’s birthday where my mom served champagne and peaches. Of course model of moderation that I was, I chugged a full glass and got a bit wasted…age 13.  This fact my sister not long after matter-of-factly shared with my Christian Scientist grandparents. All considering they handled it well.