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Category Archives: about_me
A Memory Bubbles to the Surface
While sitting on my hammock this evening watching Chloe and Gabriel chase each other around our lightly leaf-strewn back yard, an often-revisited memory dragged itself back to the surface of my consciousness. In the months following my father’s death, my mom made every effort to sort of bring the family together. There were gifts and trips that I remember. My brothers were old enough that they decided not to participate, but my sisters were up for it. My mom decided that the big family trip that summer was going to be a vacation to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebago_Lake]Sebago Lake[/url] in Maine with several stops along the way.
My mom, my two sisters, aged 10 and 15 and my cousin Melody who was about the same age as my oldest sister set out in the family station wagon and headed north. I don’t remember much of the trip. I do remember pulling into the campground and playing with my Matchbox cars and watching while everyone else set up the tent (I was only about 5 at the time). The first night of our stay, the weather was threatening but my mother sent us kids down to the bandstand of the campground where there was some kind of show or concert or something going on. At some point, the rain began and the skies opened up with lightning and thunder and buckets of rain. The four of us started running back to our campsite – my oldest sister practically dragging me along as I frantically trying to keep up. I’m sure she would have picked me up in her arms to make the trip faster if I hadn’t been such a fat little kid.
As I watched my children running after one another, dragging their toy lawnmowers behind them and screaming with joy with the slowly darkening sky overhead, their shrieks melded with the ones ringing in my head as my memory played out. I was a timid child and probably moreso after my father’s untimely and sudden death a few short months before. There wasn’t much that scared me more at the age of five than lightning and the crashes of thunder that followed during a strong summer storm. I was undoubtedly out of my mind with fear as we ran back along the dark, wet paths to our campsite. My memories are jumbled – a snapshot of my sister’s face looking back at me frozen by a flash of lightning, feeling lost and confused about where to go…. When we finally reached our destination, we piled into the station wagon where my mom was waiting. I don’t remember if she was getting ready to drive down to pick us up or if she was just waiting out the thunderstorm. In any case, I can imagine that I clung to her as we watched the rain drops slide down the windows of the car and the lightning became less and less frequent and the thunder quieter as the storm moved away.
That’s the memory that sticks with me most strongly from that time in my life. Sure, I remember some other things about the trip -the girl who drowned at the lake a day or two later and stopping at [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox_(Maine)]Fort Knox[/url] to “explore” the historic site, but none comes back to me so clearly or as often as that one.
I Miss…
I miss the feeling and sound of dialing an old rotary phone.
[img]http://vintagerotaryphones.com/blog_photos/gallerybest.jpg[/img]
There was something exciting about choosing the next number that you needed and then spinning the dial until you’re finger stopped at the little metal hook. You let go of the dial and “vvvvvrrrrrt!”, you’re ready for the next one. The solid-feeling handset felt good as you held it up to your ear to hear the “click, click, click” of the spinning rotary and lastly, there was some finality to really hanging the phone up on the metal hook when you were done with your call that just doesn’t exist in these days of button pushing.
A Chip Off the Old…foot?
Got back from the podiatrist a little while ago. Apparently that bump or lump or whatever on my foot is a bone chip! The doctor was surprised looking at my x-rays and asked me if I had any idea when that happened? I said “Would I have known it?” and he said “Well, most people know when they break a bone in their foot.”
I can’t imagine when that would have happened. I’m sure it was in training, but I can’t remember a definite injury. Oh well….
A few more down
Big layoff (or Force Management Program in AT&T parlance) day at work today. The office is not a happy place to be although most of the people who got let go have already left the building.
Thanks to the outsourcing and offshoring of a large number of support jobs, these people get a few months of paid “vacation” and have to start looking for new careers that most likely won’t pay nearly the same as what they were getting here.
On Easter
So, not much going on in the life of Don. We continue to get snow on a regular basis here in lovely NJ. In fact, we got a few inches of heavy, wet snow on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to the steadily warming weather.
East is this Sunday. Whenever I think of Easter, two mental images are conjured up from my subconscious. The first is one beautiful Easter day many years ago. I must have been about 9 or 10 years old. I think it was one of the years that my birthday and the holiday ended up on the same day – or it may not have been. I received [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810909650/bujinkanmartia0b/]The Book of Gnomes[/url] from my grandmother as a birthday gift. Perhaps my grandmother didn’t get to see me on my birthday and she gave me the gift when she came to our house for Easter dinner. In any case, I was captivated by the beautiful artwork and the interesting story of these little beings. The matter-of-fact tone of the book and it’s format lead me to question whether gnomes really existed. Anyway, the weather that day was perfect for early spring. The snow had melted and the cold New England wind was replaced by a warm breeze out of the south that carried the fragrance of new life. The sun had begun to coax blossoms out from hiding on the tree branches around our house. It was a perfect day to be 9 years old (or 11 or whatever – I will have to check the inscription on the inside cover of the book to see just how old I was) with nothing to do all day except enjoy the outdoors and my new book.
The next memory that comes to light was also on my birthday, but it is a bit less happy. My father’s mother – who we called Meme – and I shared the same birthday. I am 90% sure that this WAS Easter sunday. My mother and grandmother had gone to Meme’s house to visit and celebrate the holidays. As we were enjoying the day, my grandmother suddenly became very ill and went to lay down on the sofa in her living room. Most of my memories from that day are jumbled, but I remember that she continued to be ill and my aunts and uncles decided to call an ambulance because she was now having chest pains as well. The paramedics arrived and took Meme to the hospital where, we soon learned, she died. It was quite a traumatic day – having gone from enjoying the birthdays to the passing of my grandmother.
It’s interesting how two such drastically different memories can exist side by side in our brains. It’s also interesting that the happier one surfaces first and only by really “digging” below the surface of the darker one can I remember the details of that day.
Ass Pictures
I used to hang around in a basement…a lot! In fact, I practically lived in my friends’ basement for about a year. We used to call ourselves “The Cellar Dwellers”. It was my friends Chris and Shannon’s parents’ basement. We set it up to make it fairly live-able – heat, seating, fridge.
This was during a time in my life when I had no direction. I had planned to go to college after high school. In fact, I was the recipient of the “Oxford High School Janitorial Scholarship”. No, I didn’t want to be a janitor and I didn’t hang out with the janitors – they just put together some sort of scholarship and gave it to someone who was deserving. Based on what criteria, I have no idea, but I got it. Little did I know it would barely cover 1 semester at any of the state schools in Massachusetts. I had applied and been accepted to Fitchburg State College. I have no idea why I wanted to go there – I honestly do not recall what I wanted to do. Now, I needed to make some money.
So, after graduation, I got a job working in the warehouse of Millbrook Distributors. Fine purveyors of just about anything you could purchase at your local CVS – shampoo, skin care, makeup, condoms – you name it. So, I worked at this place for almost the whole summer. Five days a week from 6:30 am to 4 pm. I had to get up so early that I found myself going to bed at about 9 o’clock most nights. Yeah, that summer was a blast! It got so hot in the warehouse that walking in from the break room was like walking straight into Hell. It was hot, smelly and dark. Flashing lights from the forklifts assaulted your eyes while the sound of pallets crashing and conveyor belt motors blasted your ears. Anyway, I worked there most of the summer. From June until late August.
The slacker in me took over. I started calling out sick – a lot. Eventually, I just stopped going in to work so I could spend more time goofing off with my friends. Luckily, I had saved a fair amount of Millbrook money – enough to keep my car running. The date for scheduling classes at Fitchburg State came and went. Soon, I found myself just hanging out. With no job and nothing to do but have fun. It was no fun going back home. I felt like a bit of a failure and I didn’t want my mom asking me about school. So, I started to stay in my friends’ basement more and more. It got to the point when I was only going home once every few days. When I did go home, my mom didn’t hassle me because she was just happy that I was back!
So, what does this have to do with ass photography?
Well, one day, Chris and I were hanging out alone in the basement. We were probably just acting stupid and drinking cool-aid when we saw George’s camera laying around. We thought it would be funny to take some humorous shots and surprise George when he got the film developed. There was the obligatory facial close up. The ubiquitous Chris-making-faces-at-the-camera shot. Then Chris bends over and moons the camera. Not just a normal moon, mind you. Chris actually spread his butt cheeks for the camera. I quickly snapped the shutter and we laughed about how there was no way that one was going to come out since his ass was so close to the lens.
About a week later, George shows up at another mutual friends’ house. He was a bit angry. It seems the roll of film in his camera was for some important event – maybe our high school graduation – I don’t exactly recall. Having completed the roll, George gave it to his mom to get developed. She picked up the developed images and proudly showed them to her coworkers without having looked through the whole roll first. Mixed in with photos of smiling graduates and family snapshots, she was stunned to find a crystal clear, textbook quality photograph of Chris’s anus staring her in the face!
Oh, lest you think I have the picture displayed somewhere on my site – I can assure you that it was destroyed, negative and all. Right along with George’s mom’s opinion of Chris and I!
On Belay!
As I was telling you last week, my friends and I used to undertake a lot of covert “missions” while we were growing up. These missions usually consisted of dressing up in military BDU fatigues or black ninja-esque outfits and sneaking into places or onto land where we weren’t supposed to be.
One particular night stands out in my mind because of how silly the whole thing was in hindsight and how it could have cost my cousin Scott his future unborn children!
One Friday night (I am pretty sure it was a Friday because Scott would come to stay at my house almost every Friday evening), we decided we would plan a mission around the highway bridge that was about a half mile from my house. The bridge spanned I-395. The cool thing about this area and the reason we spent a lot of time down there was that the median strip, which is usually just a small strip of land or concrete barriers separating the highway lanes was a sort of bluff 40 feet high and about 75 feet across in this area. The median made for great climbing once you crossed one of the highway lanes. Anyway, we donned whatever clothes we were wearing and Scott grabbed the 100 foot length of climbing rope that I had bought earlier that year. I had no idea what he had planned for it, but I thought it was cool.
We trekked down to the bridge using fields and the woods to stay off the roads. Once we got to the bridge, we moved over towards it. Scott clambered up the side of the bridge (it was a simple climb) and ran out from the edge about 30 feet. Here, he secured (and I use that word loosely!) the rope to the railing and tosed the rest over the side. I sat hunched in the brush at the side of the highway, wondering what he had planned as he hopped the rail and leaped back down to where I was.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered as he came running towards me.
“I learned how to belay this week at school.”
Scott and I didn’t attend the same school, but most of the high schools in my area seemed to have Outward Bound-type courses as part of their curriculum during the 80s. I guess it was part of their character building plan. Regardless of the reason, we were all required to take these courses as part of our phys-ed classes. They consisted of team building activities, ropes courses, problem solving and CPR training. I enjoyed it, but I never remembered the details of the knots and things that we learned to the point where I would have tried this stuff outside of the supervision of our instructors! Apparently, Scott felt compelled to try what he had learned at school.
“We learned to make a rope harness and a simple belay.”
I knew this was going to be ugly as Scott pulled out a length of cotton cord from his pocket and proceeded to tie it around his waist and crotch like the familiar web-sling climbing harnesses we used at our high school. When he finished tying the knots and turned around to show off his work, the sling looked pretty good.
“I’m going to belay down from the top of the bridge.” he said as he gestured over towards the highway. “I need you to stay near me down here in case I need help.”
We both ran over to the bridge. Scott climbed back up the side and I sat with my back to the concrete footing on the side of the highway. Scott had tied the rope about 25 feet from the beginning of the overpass. At that point, the drop to the ground was about 35 feet and he would still be mostly concealed from oncoming highway traffic by the concrete footing. He attached his harness to the climbing rope (I have no idea how he did this – I think you need a carabiner to do this, but I could be wrong!) and hopped over the railing – luckily there was very little traffic on my road so his chances of being seen atop the bridge we pretty low. He stood on the edge of the bridge testing the ropes. Everything seemed tight and he whispered “On belay!” to no one in particular. Technically, this was not belaying because there was no safety rope and he had no spotter actually belaying his fall, but this didn’t appear to bother my cousin.
Scott slowly leaned back and away from the bridge and began moving foot over foot down the side. At the point where the bridge girders ended and open air began, he seemed to hesitate and his descent slowed a little, but all looked good. Stepping off into open air, I heard Scott grunt a little as his homemade harness tightened around his thighs, but the descent continued.
It continued until his combat boots hung about 8 feet from the ground!
Scott, just dangled in mid air. “The harness is getting really tight and the rope won’t slide anymore!” he whispered. I detected some desperation in his voice so I came over from my hiding spot and looked up at him. “Can you loosen it?” I asked.
“I’m trying. You’re going to have to stand under me and let me stand on your shoulders so I can relieve some of the tension on the harness.”
I moved over to stand below Scott’s legs, but they were still about 3 feet above my shoulders. I raised my arms and pushed up on my cousin’s feet to lift him a bit. This didn’t do much because it was hard for Scott to keep his balance in this position.
After about 5 minutes of this, Scott was still unable to continue his descent.
“You’re going to have to cut the harness!” I suggested. I didn’t want my precious climbing rope cut!
Scott pulled out his survival knife and began trying to figure out what rope to cut. He was probably also mentally preparing for the fall. A few seconds later he told me to get out of the way and he made the last few cuts.
He tumbled to the ground, landing in a heap at the edge of the highway. As we both stood, I noticed that Scott was holding his balls and rubbing the insides of his legs.
“That was really tight! I was starting to lose feeling in my feet!”
Needless to say, we never tried anything quite like that again….
Here are some shots of the overpass as it looks today.
[img]http://don.oninohana.com/images/bios/overpass.d.jpg[/img]
[img]http://don.oninohana.com/images/bios/overpass.b.jpg[/img]
[img]http://don.oninohana.com/images/bios/overpass.c.jpg[/img]
Will you do me a favor? – part 3
Okay, well here it is. The reason this series of stories was called “Will you do me a favor?” So, I was talking about working as a long distance operator and how we used to get some unusual customers.
Well, one night I was working the late shift – probably 11pm-7am or something like that and I got a call from this dude that would occasionally call, always from a payphone and ask us to do him a favor. The funny thing about this guy was that he would whisper “Will you do me a favor?” and we would always say no. That night I was feeling pretty funny so I figured I would see what it is that he wanted. Here’s the exchange that followed as best I can remember it:
[b]Weird Guy:[/b] Will you do me a favor?
[b]Don:[/b] Sure, what can I do for you?
[b]WG:[/b] You’ll help me?
[b]Don:[/b] Yeah, what do you want me to do?
[b]WG:[/b] Okay, is there a girl near you?
[b]Don:[/b] Uh, yeah.
[b]WG:[/b] Is she pretty?
[b]Don:[/b] Yeah, she’s attractive.
[b]WG:[/b] Okay. Go over to her.
[b]Don:[/b] (still sitting in his seat) Okay, I am walking over to her.
[b]WG:[/b] Is she there?
[b]Don:[/b] Yeah, she’s right in front of me.
[b]WG:[/b] Okay, take her shirt off (at this point Weird Guy’s voice is really beginning to betray his mental instability!)
[b]Don:[/b] Okay, her shirt’s off. Now what?
[b]WG:[/b] (breathing is getting heavy) Now rub your hands up and down her.
[b]Don:[/b] You got it (I can’t imagine the kind of guy who would really think that I was doing this at work!).
[b]WG:[/b] Now…uh…take her pants off…uh…uuuh
[b]Don:[/b] No, I can’t do that (completely breaking the illusion).
[b]WG:[/b] What? You have to! You said you would help me.
[b]Don:[/b] I can’t do that here! I’ll get fired!
[b]WG:[/b] (sounding very over-the-edge)P…Please! Please. I will give you a million dollars! Please. I will give you a million dollars!
[b]Don:[/b] Okay, but we’re going to be here for a long time. Please deposit the first $3 in coins now.
[b]WG:[/b] (click….)
The funny thing about this to me is picturing this guy in a phone booth somewhere with his pants around his knees, severely abusing his member with one hand and digging for change with the other!
Well, there you have it. Probably a little anticlimactic (no pun intended) but I hope it was worth the wait.
Will you do me a favor? – part 2 (Jan 2000)
Last month I said that I would say a little more about working as an AT&T long distance operator. Well, December is nearly over and you’re probably wondering where part 2 is…here it is. And you will find out why I called this “Will you do me a favor?”
We used to get calls from all kinds of people. Since we were one of only two call centers in New England, there were several prisons that we serviced. Prisoners were only allowed to make collect calls so we talked to almost every prisoner who was making a long-distance drug deal or just trying to talk to his wife who’s cheating with his best friend while he’s in the clink. Some of these guys were okay, others would try to get you to put calls through for free or to connect them to 800 numbers and the like in order to pull off some scam. Some of the younger women we worked with were caught chatting with the prisoners from time to time and they were reprimanded. I guess it was the ‘danger’ that was the attraction – who knows?
There was also this other guy – not a prisoner – who we called Mr. Miller. This guy was a wacko who had had a legal problem with AT&T somewhere along the line and he was no longer allowed to have phone service at his home. I don’t know exactly what the problem was, but he had been calling and berating the operators on a regular basis for many years before I began working there. I guess he now had some mail-order bride chick in Nicaragua. He would call every day and have us place a coin-paid, person to person call to his Nicaraguan sweetie for him. The funny thing about this was that she would always tell him that she was going to come to the States next month and he would send her airfare like every month! This happened for the whole 4 years I was there! No doubt she was livin’ large on his cash!
Here’s a typical conversation with Mr. Miller.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Hello operator.
[b]Op:[/b] Hello, Mr. Miller.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Operator, coin paid person to person call to Lea in Nicaragua, please.
[b]Op:[/b] Okay Mr. Miller, please deposit $3.25
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Okay. [sound of depositing coins] Make sure I don’t get cut off this time, operator.
[b]Op:[/b] Don’t worry, I will make sure you get connected, Mr. Miller.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Okay, that’s $3.25.
[b]Op:[/b] [hearing only $2.00 drop] No, Mr. Miller, that is only $2.00. Please deposit $1.25 more.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Okay [deposits $1.25]
[b]Op:[/b] Okay, I will connect you now and after I get her on the phone, I will have you deposit $2.25 more. Okay?
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Yes operator. Make sure I get a clear connection this time. I couldn’t hear her last time.
[b]Op:[/b] I will.
[phone rings in Nicaragua, Lea’s mother answers. operator asks for Lea. Lea eventually comes to phone.]
[b]Op:[/b] Okay, please hold. Mr. Miller please deposit $2.25 for the first 3 minutes.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] I just did. The coins must be jammed.
[b]Op:[/b] No, you didn’t deposit anything. Please deposit the coins.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] [drops a few coins in] Okay.
[b]Op:[/b] That was only $.75
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Okay. [drops a few more coins in – eventually gets them all in]
[b]Op:[/b] Okay, I will stay with you to make sure you don’t get disconnected [note: this was not standard practice, but we did it with Mr. Miller because he was such a pain in the ass]
[b]Lea:[/b] Hello Lee [in thick accent][yes, their names were very close!]
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Hello Lea. How are you?
[b]Lea:[/b] Fine Lee. How are you?
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Good. I will send you the money next week. When are you coming here?
[b]Lea:[/b] Next month, Lee.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Good. How is your mother?
[b]Lea:[/b] She is fine, Lee.
[b]Mr. Miller:[/b] Good. Operator, I can’t hear her well. Is there any way we can connect again?
[b]Op:[/b] The connection sounds fine, Mr. Miller….
This would go on for about 15 minutes. About every other day or so, we would get a call from Mr. Miller and he would say that he had been disconnected and that he needed a refund. We never allowed him a refund. Some days, he would be very nice and others you would have to take a break after you spoke with Mr. Miller because he would make you so tense.
Oh, look at that! Where did the time go? Looks like you will have to come back next month to see why this is called ‘Will you do me a favor?’. Sorry!