Redford Memories:
barbas drug store, stayed out of the old mill. giving cigarettes to tough guys. hanging out uptown, band, foot ball games, marching in parades, rotc, field days, other schools with black people doing marching drills more like dancing, marching in parades in rotc uniform , junior achievement meetings, rosedale brushcuts and my elvis vaseline haircut. no blue jeans allowed after ninth grade, college prep classes. my poor handwriting, my c+ average, friday night drop in dances,(i go to senior drop in dances now), a prom, a trip to new york and washington d.c. ( where i was born ) martha griffiths and soapy williams at the democratic meetings at carpenters hall with my parents where i met and danced with a girl named grace. co-op meetings for groceries with my parents. picking tomatoes at a farm north of town for my mother to can. my friend having postum for breakfast. getting yelled at for mischief my friend wayne james did when i was nearby as we both wore a band uniform and the teachers thought i looked like him. once he called a lady teacher an old biddy and she started a vendetta against me. one man teacher got after me for being in favor of teachers unions and i had no idea what he was talking about. i spent all morning with my mother riding the bus downtown, where she worked as a legal secretary for miller canfield paddock and stone law firm in the penobscot building, memorizing 100 wagons for my english class, took the bus back to school, and the first thing, the teacher sent me out into the hall with some girl cause he did not want to hear it. when the teachers are insane its hard to fix it. well i got to move to california when i was 16 so there you are. one time the head of the engish department gave me an A as a final grade. he said i had potential. i enjoyed rifle shooting for a while but i couldn't squat for 4th position so i had to quit. i still do some rifle shooting. i still feel bad about mary anderson. the guy was a coward. i hope she is a success. getting harrassed prepared me for my life in a corporation so i never thought of bringing in a gun and shooting up the place like some people. i always know people do bad things out of envy, like jimmy stewart said in the movie 'harvey'. i think bad people like that are funny except for the damage they do. karma takes care of us good guys. we make mistakes but they come out ok.