Eighth Grade Begins
Sunday, July 1st, 2007
After our Clearwater, Florida trip, I rounded out the rest of the Summer of 1985 collecting autographs, performing the duties of my paper route, and all of the other things described in my Summer ’85 posting. Occasionally my friend Jeff Flinn and I would bicycle to each others houses and see what trouble we could find. Smoking was often our goal. Other times, we just wreaked havoc around the neighborhood. Once I spit on Bud Nye’s truck when I was collecting for my paper route and they put me off until later. Kelly spotted me doing this from her windown and soon enough, Kenny Carroll was tracking me down, telling me that Bud was driving around looking for me. So I bit the bullet and went over to his house and apologized. Read the rest of this entry »
When I first met Darin Anderson, he reminded me of one of those guys from the fifties boys series fiction books, like one of the Hardy Boys maybe. He was straight-laced, lean, fit, and athletic – and he greatly enjoyed the outdoors: exploring, hiking, sporting, you name it. It was fitting that we first met at Camp Woodland Altars at the 
These interesting photos from our 1985 Florida trip tell the story of our visit with Ira and Mildred at the Teakwood Village mobile home in Largo, less than ten miles south of where we were staying in Clearwater Beach. All eight of us went: Bill, Dottie, Dad, Mom, Lora, Robby, Denise, and me. We played a rousing game of scrabble and sipped on ginger ale. Mildred made snacks for us. Dad didn’t play because he never plays games. Not sure why Denise didn’t play but she was probably fiddling with the organ. Ira didn’t play so he could hang back and chat with Dad…and snap four great candid shots of us around the table, rolling our dice. 
Rather fat and miserable, I embarked on another Florida family outing during the week of July 27 – August 3, 1985. This was a rather tumultuous trip, as my family had been shaken to its foundations by my parents marital problems. We all knew that my Dad would be leaving after we returned from this trip. Depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem were all setting in, not entirely as a result of the family issues, but the general oncoming of puberty and the awkward age. Still, no matter how low I felt, I still regard these times with a sense of fond nostalgia – mostly because all these negative feelings have now completely subsided.