"OLD MEMORIES"

Here are some “old memories” of mine, from the Omaha days, presented for your amusement, and mine too. These are submitted in no particular order or priority. Say, why not submit some of YOURS?!

• Playing Stratego with Bennett in the summer. (I usually won, as I recall.)

• Driving through the cemetery on Center, at high speed, in Ashbrook’s yellow VW “AL 3000”. There was a section for infant deaths called “Baby Land”!

• Pick up softball in the Beth Israel parking lot with Bennett, Mike Forman, Steve Violet, and others.

• Psychoanalyzing Number 6 at my house while John Lennon’s “Two Virgins” played in the background.

• The Voice of Denmark speakers!

• Ashbrook and me lighting farts in my mom’s kitchen.

• New years eve party at Siref’s.

• Saturday bus and walking tours with Bennett through South Omaha. We would sometimes visit his dad’s barbershop, or spend the time talking about “old memories”!

• Practicing with Captain Hogfat and His Tolerance Band in the basement of 1322 N. 52nd Street.

• Chuck giving me drum lessons.

• Driving adventures in AL 3000 Ashbrook’s VW.

• Mr. Up’s coffee house.

• Freddie’s house. (I will say no more!)

• Ashbrook’s mom making us breakfast.

• Dinners at Mino and Evey’s house.

• Gefilte fish in Betty Weiner’s kitchen and Martin talking about his days in China.

• Ashbrook or Chuck put a sponge on a small plate, and then put it in the refrigerator in my mom’s kitchen. It remained there for 2 weeks before anyone noticed. Early demonstration of “chaos theory”.

• “The Adventures of the Professor and Bill!”

• John Heredia and me walking to the bowling alley at night to play pinball. There was a shortcut that we took by actually climbing OVER the roof of an apartment building.

• Spending all day Saturday at the old library.

• Number 6, Suzi Laier, and me going to see a James Bond double-feature at the old Astro Theater on a “snow day”. The streets were impassable by car. So we all walked from my house to the theater, and then walked back.

• “Has Anybody Seen Roger?”

• Watching Cyrano de Bergerac on PBS at Burke’s, while quaffing his home-made brew.

• Seeing John Hartford at the Orpheum Theater with Number 6 and Betsy.

• The New England and Canadian hitchhiking trip with Ashbrook, heh, heh. “Who’s on WHAT roster?” The Phoenix Bar shall rise from the ashes!

• Chicago and Ann Arbor hitchhiking trip with Number 6. “Der Schnakes! Der Schnakes!” And meeting very strange people in Ypsilanti.

• Number 6 and me checking out the Memorial Park police/hippie riots!

• The big party at Beth Greenblatt’s, Dec. 1970.

• Watching The Tonight Show every night in the summer, and then reading science fiction until 3 AM, the time when man is closest to death!

• Buy a sailor a drink?

• “Scrub Up!” and “This Whiskey’s Been the Downfall of Me”.

• 622 N. 50th Street

• “Bennett, Ruler of Galaxy!”

• For I can only see where there is light.

• Chuck’s car breaking down outside of Truth or Consequences, NM, on the Tucson trip.

• I was such a dork that I wore a peace medallion to the Old Market when I was 15.

• Sue Lozier once referred to Chuck, Evan, and me as “The Three Stooges”. A true compliment!

• Pool at the old Dundee Dell with Evan. “I Can't Get Started” playing endlessly on the jukebox.

• “Traduce not the slave who is beneath you!”