Picking Up The Leftover Pieces

I left off posting about my life back in October of 2017. That post was titled, "An End to Something". I didn't mean to make it sound so final. It was the end of several things, but certainly not the end of me.

Much changed, but some things continued.

We were still doing family things and the kids had continued in their own pursuits. However, they were little kids anymore, so changes were coming there as well.

In 1996, I moved up to  Manager of Darryl's Little League team. We were still the Phillies, defending our league championship from the year before and Darryl was leading again in most offensive and defensive statistics. We repeated as League Champions again, but finished second in the playoffs.

It was Darryl's last year in true Little League. He was too old for the 8 to 12 year olds and he moved up to the Junior
League, playing for a team sponsored by Wilmington Trust.
He was named to the All Star Team again and played in the outfield. It was his next to last year of organized ball. He was tired of the grind after more than a half-dozen seasons.

It was my last years as a manager. I had managed one more year in the minors without Darryl on the team.  The next year I went over as a bench couch in the Junior League on his team, but I wasn't enjoying it either. I was struggling with my eyesight and it scared me to shag balls in the outfield. I could no longer pick up the flight path.

Noelle was doing a lot of art by now.  She had paintings selected two years in a row for displaying in the Young Brandywine Artist exhibits.

She also had joined SADD (Students against Drunk Driving). Noelle is the girl with her back against the Drunk Jack o'Lantern in this photo.

She was in Honors Classes and in 1997 she would be an exchange student living with a family in Torgua, East Germany.

We had that families daughter here staying with us. Her name was Katja Noch. She gave us interesting perspectives, having grown up mostly under Communist rule. Her parent's careers had

been dictated by the regime. For instance, her mother had been an English teacher forced to become a Russian teacher.  The photo on the right is of Katja while she was here with us.

She and Noelle kept in touch for a number of years, but the last I heard of Katja she was working for the United Nations.

Darryl, meanwhile had joined the ROTC at his high school, Mt. Pleasant. He is pictured on the left.

Laurel was continuing to ride at gateway Stables and participate in horse shows, where she won a

number of First Place ribbons. In school she was involved with the music programs and playing parts in shows.  She was a member of the Green Knights Chorus, who competed in a festival in Florida, and won. They also got to tour and appear in the Epcot Center. (Laurel is in the top row on the extreme left.)

Laurel was also in Honors Classes.

She graduated in 1996. Mt. Pleasant was being renovated that year, so her classes were held in the former Claymont High School. The kids were not happy about this, they wanted to graduate at Mount Pleasant. The kids called it Claymount..

If the family was seeing some changes, where I felt them the most was at work.

A Normal Year, except for the death and destruction

January 21, 1993. deja vu all over again, as Reba Greenleaf called to say my Uncle ben had been taken to the hospital once again. This time it was a bad infection in his arm.On the 24th my parents and we visited ben in his room. He looked terrible. The Doctors didn't know what had caused the infection, so didn't know how to teat it. They were calling in a specialist.

The hospital called my parents on the 28th and said if anyone wanted to see Ben they better come at once because they thought he was going to die. Dad called my Uncle Francis and Aunt Doris and all descended on the Hospital. They found Ben asleep from the painkillers he had been given. All went to dinner and then came back. They were shocked to find his room empty, but it turned out he had simply been moved to a different location.

Ben was still alive on January 30 and my parents went to see him. They were surprised to find him alert and trying to talk. He was even moving his bad arm about. He was still having some trouble getting his breath, but seemed to be gaining new life.

At 7:00  AM on the 31st, the hospital called to say ben had passed away.

My parents went to the MacLean's Funeral Home in Coatesville to make arrangements. The viewing was at the home on February 3 at 6:30 PM. The actual funeral was held in a hillside cemetery in Coatesville the next day. It was a military funeral. Uncle Ben had been a highly decorated Army Air Corp veteran in World War II.  He served on a B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber as a gunner.

He was awarded theDistinguished Flying Cross, the Air Metal with three oak clusters and a Purple Heart among others.

There was a celebration party of his life after the funeral at the Ingleside Diner in Thorndale.

On March 13 Henry, Reba's son called to see if Uncle Francis was going to pay the undertaker. Dad called Francis, but got Aunt Doris.

When he got off the phone he said Francis is keeping the check. Dad had gotten tired of listening to Doris' stories. He told her to enjoy the money and hung up.

At the beginning of the month my parents were down for Laurel's 15th birthday.

Back on February 20 a Karate Tournament was held in the

Edgemore Community Center (Now the bellevue Community Center). Laurel took 2nd and Noelle got 3rd all around, each earning a trophy. Darryl was disappointed that he did not win anything.

For some reason I had been feeling fatigued as the year continued. I was sent out for tests, but nothing was showing up to explain why I was so tired all the time, unless it was my medication. The doctor told me to stop taking my thyroid pill every day.

Darryl's Little League team this year were the Angels. The Manager was a man named Chris Lacy.  Chris's son pitched and played shortstop, pretty typical positions it seemed for the Managers' sons. Mr. Lacy seemed a good Coach in the beginning when the Angles were doing well, but he changed as the season progressed and the team didn't. He was especially hard on his boy, constantly berating him. You could see Chris Junior was unhappy and only playing because his father made him.

When became a Bench Coach the next year and throughout Darryl's career, I determined  would never be like a lot of the coaches. I would never yell at my son or put his play down in front of others. If e did something wrong I left it to his Manager or the other Coaches to correct him. I was discuss with anything needing discussion in private. It is a kid's game for kids and they should be enjoying it. If you are a frustrated ballplayer as a man, don't take your own disappointment out on your kid.

As it was Darryl got named to the All Star team. He played left field that year.

Laurel was in another Horse show at Gateway Stables on May 15. My parents came down for this. Odd how my parents made so many of my kids events when he seldom found time to come to mine when I was a child. Laurel competed in three events. She took a First, Seond and a Third.

On the left is Laurel receiving her First Place Blue ribbon.

In August my parents joined us as we took the kids down the The Wildwoods on the Jersey Shore.

To be honest, I mainly go now for the Boardwalk Fries. I get a big bucket and then we watch the kids
on the rides. You couldn't pay me to go on some of those things, not with my fear of height. Merry-Go-Round and the Teacups and Tilt-A -Whirl are about it for me. I sure didn't go on that swing thing with the kids (you ca just see them on the right). Of course, that was n 1993. Today I am content to just walk about and sit and watch. It is also true, now that the kids are grown, we really don't go down to Wildwood anymore.

On September 1, Lois went back to work. This time she got a job at Delaware Technical Institute
(DelTech) as a Tutor in the Computer Center. (By the way, people think their Driver's License photos are bad, that DelTech Id photo is awful.) Very interesting that Lois became an instructor in a technical college teaching students how to use computers.

We had left Highlands Episcopal Church at the end of 1992 and returned to the fold at Bethel Baptist. We were back in the groove, more comfortable being somewhere that the Bible was the center of preaching and teaching. We were going Sunday Morning and Evening and to Wednesday night Bible Study and Prayer meeting. We were headed for the church on September 8 when disaster struck.

I hit a kid.

I was angry at that boy for a long time. He caused me to get the only traffic ticket I ever got.
I had turned down the road going toward the one where the church stood. A DART (Delaware Authority for Regional Transportation) Bus was parked on the narrow shoulder just before the next cross street. I slowed way down as I passed the bus. Just as the front of my car came even with where the driver sat, a boy dashed from in front of the bus into my path. He hadn't checked the road, he just ran out and saw me too late for hm to retreat or for me to stop.

I hit the brake, but what was there, two feet between us, if that. He jumped in the air and next crashed across my windshield, smashing it inward, a cobweb of shattered safety glass. Lois was screaming; my three kids in the back seat were screaming.  I don't think I screamed. I eased the brake pedal down. I feared any sudden stop would send him flying. He had rolled up off the windshield onto the car roof. One foot dangled down in view.

I didn't follow the road, but kept a straight path ahead until came t a stop. When the car stopped, he rolled off the roof, down the hood and into the road. My first thought was, "I killed him". I got out, hoping no vehicles came about the curve ahead from the other direction. The boy lay on his back upon the macadam and he began to get up. I knelt and gently pushed hm back down.

"Stay still," I said, "don't try to get up".

But he was trying. "I want to get up," he said. "I want to go home." He point to some home on the cross street. "I just live back there."

I wouldn't let him get up and thankfully in want seemed like only a couple minutes we were lit by flashing red and blue lights. Response vehicles came from everywhere and filled the street. There was a cop car, a rescue van, an ambulance and even a fire truck. Some paramedics had surrounded us and took over tending to the boy. I stepped back. A policeman in a patrol car motioned me over. I walked over, glancing back as they lifted the boy onto a gurney. They put one of those restraining collars around his neck and that worried me.

I leaned on the patrol car window. First question the officer asked was, "Have you had anything to drink." That annoyed me, I was on my way to a Bible study at a basically fundamental Baptist church; I was hardly going to be drinking. I realized they had to ask that; they have to try and pin alcohol to everything.

He asked me some routine questions, than said he was giving me a ticket for passing in a no-passing zone. I looked at him. "I didn't know it was illegal to pass a parked vehicle, " I said as he handed me the citation.

"It is if the parked vehicle forces you to cross the center line," he said.

Seriously, because the bus was too wide for the shoulder and I had to go over the white line while going by, I was considered passing in a no-passing zone.

I didn't take us to church. I drove home with my shattered windshield. All of us were in a state of shock. I called the insurance company first. They said not to worry, they would take care of everything, which they did, even my windshield replacement. I then called my minister. I was as shattered as the windshield. I didn't know where to turn. I was scared. And God's shepherd was the only one I felt I could turn to.

I knew I wouldn't get him, of course, because the Bible Study was still in session. I got someone in the office, explained what had happened and ask to have Pastor Ryle call me as soon as he could.

He didn't call me that night. He did not call me the next day, or the next.

What had made thing worse that night was my oldest kid knew the boy, His name was also Larry. He was 15 years old, the same as Laurel and was in some of her classes. On Friday, two days after the accident, Laurel reported that Larry was back in school. He was fine. He had spend one day in the hospital for observation and that was all. What a relief!

Pastor Ryle still did not call. He finally stopped by the house two weeks later, almost like a routine social call. He had little to say. It didn't matter anymore. I needed the solace and comfort two weeks prior, not as an afterthought, which his visit appeared to be. I stopped going to Bethel for quiet a time after that. I didn't lose faith in God, just in my minister.

I still had a court date. I showed up. It was a magistrate. He was very friendly. We catted a bit, then I plead "no contest, neither guilt or innocent, aid my $56 fine and left. I didn't raise any objection about being ticketed for passing a parked vehicle, even though I felt it was unfair. One concern, given the times as they were, was this was a Black kid I hit. I feared a fuss or protest if I got off Scott free, even though I felt it was the kid's own fault, not mine. I was angry at that kid for many years because he caused me to get my one and only ever traffic ticket.

I hear he was a nice kid. I'm glad he suffered no injury, but I hope he learned his lesson about running into traffic from behind parked vehicles.

On October 29 Darryl and Laurel received their Black Belts in Karate. Noelle would get hers a few months later since she had started later. This was not easily earned. It was four years of three nights a week without breaks, except for Christmas, plus tests. They earned those belts.

I went to work as an M&M on Halloween.

Thanksgiving was celebrated at my parents and Christmas at our place.

Kid Stuff

Dog days of August. We did some car trips. On the 2, mom came with us up route 340 to the Gast Classic Car Museum in Strasburg and had dinner at Joe Myers Restaurant out on the Lincoln Highway. Like a lot of places from my past, both are gone now. Joe Myers Restaurant changed hands at some point and it is now Lapps Restaurant. Gast Classic Motorcars Museum is simply gone the way of the Stanley Steamer.

Seems as if we escaped to Dutch Country a lot in my life. My grandparents would take me there as a child. Back then it was mostly farms, windmills and Amish. You couldn’t go on many a road without being slowed to one horse power speed by a Amish buggy. The tourist business gradually seeped in exploiting these strange Plain and Fancy folks. The tourist spots grew and grew and the simple life the tourist came to see dwindled and dwindled. It used to be a quite ride, then a pleasant diversion. Lois and I were up a week ago and it has become a nightmare. Man can’t be trusted in any Garden of Eden; he eventually ruins it.

On the 23 we were at Dorney Park, a large amusement park near Allentown, Pennsylvania. It has been in existence all my life. My folks use to take me there as a child. Of course, it predates me by a bit. Solomon Dorney began converting his trout hatchery over to a public attraction way back in 1860. When I was a kid there was no waterpark added yet and the central attraction was a rickety wooden roller coaster, which I have never ridden. 

My fondest memory, however, is of the park's envy arcade. They had these machines that dispensed old cowboy movie scene on postcard sized cardboard. They were a penny a picture. Except for old coots like myself most people probably wouldn't recognize guys who were once big stars, Hoot Gibson, Bob Steel, Tim McCoy, Johnny Mack Brown, Ken Maynard, Lash Larue, Whip Wilson and others.

The yearly Wilson Family Reunion came on August 26 in 1990. It always fell on the last Sunday in August.
A big elm tree fell over against my neighbor’s house on August 30. It didn’t do much damage, thank goodness. It basically just leaned up against the rain gutter on the side of their house.

This was the year Laurel went to her first slumber party at a friend’s house. Several other girls were invited. Laurel is the girl on the far left of the top row.

She had a great time; however, the next week she was sent home from school. She had lice. For someone of my generation that is a statement of out and out horror. When I was a boy in Downingtown having lice was a disgrace. I was told to stay away from certain kids because they had lice, which meant they came from a dirty home. I remember kids with shaved heads because they had lice. Last thing I ever wanted to hear was my girl had lice.

It didn’t seem to be as big a deal as when I was Laurel’s age, at least, it didn’t carry as much

stigma. We were told to get this stuff from the drugstore called Rid. We had to shampoo her hair and use a very fine tooth comb to scrap out the nits. It was a lot of work and Laurel cried a bit.  We had to wash everything in sight, too. The school sent a paper home announcing lice had been discovered on a student and everyone should check their child for the bugs. I don’t know who had the lice, but I hope the girl was cured. Of course, maybe the infestation was in the home of the party host.

The remainder of the year was typical. We dropped the kids at my parents while we celebrated our 29^th wedding anniversary. My mother gave a large dinner party (13 people) on October 30. People attending included Lois, the kids and I, George and Ethel Garnett, friends of my parents, Dot and Elmer Lentz, long time buddies of my father, and one of my oldest and original friends from Downingtown, Iva Darlington and her husband, Olin Seivers. On the 29^th, my parents came to Laurel’s horseshow. Laurel won a second, two thirds, a fourth and two fifth places. Thanksgiving was at my parents. They came on the 3oth to see Darryl take a karate test. On December 9 we celebrated Noelle’s birthday. (Despite the tree in the background, this photo was of Noelle’s birthday.) My parents were there as was Evelyn Weinmann, whom my mother kept spelling as Wineberg. Christmas was at our home and then…

Just like that it was 1991.

Noelle came home one day and told us the Bonavita’s cat had kittens. “Can I have one?”

What can you say? We had allowed Linda to give Laurel a cat a couple years earlier. You need be careful not appearing to slight one child over another. Yes, Noelle could have one of the kittens. She brought home this little gray Tabby and named him Tigger.

Tigger was very much Noelle’s companion. He looked for her and he slept in her bed at night. For some reason Darryl didn’t pester us for a cat. I had no reason to suspect what was coming later in the year, how the flood gates would open or should I say the cat gates.

On January 16, the United States declared war against a brutal, thug dictator Saddam Hussein of Iraq over his invasion of Kuwait ( or is it Quwait, and why in the world did they start calling it Cutter). This little to-do in the Middle Eastern desert would have ramifications for us in the near future as well. The ground war began on February 23.

Back on February 23 my Uncle Ben was taken to the hospital. He had fell and now had a broken collar bone and cracked pelvis. When visited at the hospital his arms were wrapped because he had skinned them and they were badly bruised. He remained in the hospital until February 17.

It was also in the chill of February that Darryl went to tryouts for Little League. He was 7 years old, but since he would be eight before September he was allowed to try and make a team. Our first barrier was his birth certificate. It was required to produce his certificate to prove his age and I duly showed up with it, except it wasn’t his birth certificate. I always thought it was, but it was a certificate given by the hospital, not his official document. I would later discover I had the same problem. I thought it would be difficult, especially since Darryl had been born in Pennsylvania. I anticipated driving to some government bureau in Harrisburg and getting bogged down in red tape. Amazingly, it was relatively easy. I made a phone call, got a form sent to me, paid $10 and within a week had the proof I needed. It would become even easier years later when I needed to obtain my own. The internet existed by then.

Darryl went to tryouts and he was drafted onto a team in what was called the instructional league. His team was the Orioles. This was certainly a step up from T-ball, but still a training ground for first time ball players. Darryl was a catcher, exactly the position I had when I first started playing ball as a child. It was kind of ironic. Usually you saw heavy kids in the catcher position at this age. You might have expected to see the kid to Darryl’s left, the only kid taller than he on the team, in that position. I believe that boy broke in at first base, a position Darryl would star in a few years later. (Despite his height, Darryl was one of the youngest kids on the team.)

It wasn’t a great challenge being a catcher in the instructional league. He didn’t have to signal pitches to the pitcher, because there really wasn’t a kid pitcher. One of the three coaches lobbed the ball in and all Darryl really had to do was keep it in front of him when the batter missed, which at this age usually was the case . There was also no base stealing at this level.
Actually, there was a kid placed in the pitcher position and a few times that was Darryl. The photo on the left was taken of him looking like a fierce pitcher. Like I said, he didn’t pitch any balls toward the plate. He mainly stood over to the side and a bit behind the Coach, who was lobbing the pitches, and try to field any chance hits that came up the middle of the infield. At this level these were few and far between, but that was good, because at this level fielding was also close to nonexistent.

But Darryl was enthusiastic about playing, while all I could think was “one more thing I got to get him to”.  It was getting jumbled. Three kids in karate three times a week, Laurel taking weekly horseback lessons, Darryl in Cub Scouts and now also Little League Baseball. Oh, Noelle, beside Karate, she had joined a Brownie Troop. (Noelle would turn 11 in December 1991, then she would graduate up from Brownie to Girl Guide, that’s my little blond bombshell on the right.)

Let me get this off my chest while we’re on this particular subject. As mentioned a bit earlier, I was Treasurer for the Cub Scout pack. You can toss in my mix of getting kids around the pack meeting, the den meeting and planning meetings for the officers. One of the things that came along was fund raising. I’m not a big fan of fund raisers as a parent. There was always something to peddle and parents with children would tote a lot of this stuff into work to sell. Usually it came down to, “You buy my kids offerings and I’ll buy yours”, which meant we parents were actually doing the buying. We already were doing much of that, of course, shelling out a good bit so our kid didn’t look too bad. In m childhood there were very few of these. There were some, like selling seeds in Grade School, but nothing like in the 1990s. We had fund raisers for Cub Scouts, Karate, Horseback Riding, School, Chorus. Little League and the one which took the cake, or should we say, the cookie, for me was the Girl Scouts.

There was an aspect to fund raising I didn’t care for besides turning small children into door-to-door salespeople. Let’s call it, “Who gets the benefit.” In the presentations the kids did, but in reality they got very little of the take. Most went elsewhere with a good chunk to the manufacturer of the product. We Cub Scouts sold popcorn and believe me I did not think our share of the proceeds was very satisfactory. I looked at our budget and figured out we could charge each Cub $10 a year and cover our expenses. I did not think $10 a year was a great handicap on anyone. Most were spending more on the popcorn anyway.

My feelings were intensified when I became the Cookie Mother for Noelle’s Girl Guides troop. Yeah, you heard right. I had a little saying about our family:

My son was in the Girls’ Club, my one daughter was in the Boy Scouts, my wife was a Road Runner, I was a Cookie Mother and my other daughter wore combat boots. We were one mixed-up family.

Let me explain. When both my wife and I were working during Darryl’s younger years. We had to put him in an after school program at the Community Center. The after school program was run by the Girls’ Clubs, so Darryl spent a couple years in the Girls’ Club. Laurel as a teenager got interested in the justice system. The Boy Scouts ran a program for teens on jurisprudence. Laurel had to join the Explorer Scouts to enter the program, which she did. They had speakers and lessons on the law and court system, even taking the Explorers to Wilmington’s Court House to attend some trials. I already told about my wife being the Road Runner mascot for the kid’s grammar school, so that just leaves me to become a Cookie Mother.  That is Cookie Mother, not Monster.

Somebody had to do. None of the moms stepped up and Lois was tied up with her job, so I volunteered. Seemed simple enough. Sent in the cookie orders. Receive cookies. Distribute cookies as sold. Record each Brownie’s sales. Collect Brownie’s customer money. Send receipts in. Okay, here is the reality and how it worked.

The Troop decided how many cookies they believed we could sell. Once they determined this I sent the order to the Girl Scout Councel cookie liaison. In about a week our stock of cookies was delivered. We were a small troop, but it was still a lot of cookies. We stored them in one mom's garage.

When you ordered you had to put down a quantity of cartons. Thus you received cartons

filled with individual boxes of cookies. Each carton contained a certain type, like Thin Mints in one carton, Trefoils in another carton and so on. We as a troop had to pay the council for every carton we ordered and opened, whether we sold all the individual boxes or not. If a carton was unopened it could be sent back, but if we had to remove one box from a carton to fulfil an order, then we had to pay for the whole carton. When you see Scouts standing at a table outside your favorite supermarket, they are selling off their left over stock, which they had to pay for. If they can’t sell it, then their troop probably loses money. The local troops get very little of the proceeds anyway, so pretty much have to sell every box to make anything for themselves. The biggest chunk of the monies for sales flows to the Girl Scout Council confers, out of which the cookie maker gets a good slice.

Our goal was to get enough profit that our girls could go to camp. We had two girls in our troup, sisters, although their last names were different. Their mother had a different last name from the girls as well and all had different names than the man their mother was then living with. These two girls sold the most cookies of any in the troop. Each girl alone outdid every other girl. However, all the other girls collected from their customers and brought the money in. These two girls collected the money, but didn’t bring it in. Their “parents” spend the money of drugs.

Well, there went the troops camping trip money. We were in debt to the Girl Scout council for those cookies. The Council Liaison was coming to me for the payment. I wasn’t going to pay it. The two girls and their “parents” disappeared. Last I heard the Girl Scouts were pursuing them. The Girl Scouts don’t let people get away with such things. They want their money. I believe these people were caught.

I didn’t volunteer to be Cookie Mother next time. Too much drama for me. If I want this stuff I’ll watch “Cops”.