Did He Deserve It?

When dad's sister Judi was about 13 yrs old, she came running frantically into the house, screaming, "Mommy! Mommy!" My dad was scared to death. Convinced that whatever it was that made Judi freak out like that had to be horrific! He thought for sure his dad had had a heart attack or something awful like that. Dad comes running out to see what happened and he hears his sister tell his mom, "Diddle tried to run me over with his bike!" ("Diddle" was her nickname for their little brother Carl). So all this commotion, that led him to believe his father had met his early demise, was just his little brother torturing his sister - apparently a fairly common occurrence. He got so mad at Carl for causing all this anxiety in him, that he promptly went out and beat him up. Just to make sure he knew not to scare him like that again! ;-)

Suicide Hill

There was a place down a ways from dad's house called "Suicide Hill". He took me there once when I was a kid, but it didn't look the same as it did when he was little. When he was a kid, there was a cluster of trees in front of it. Like a small wooded area, then a steep drop-off after that. When the NJ turnpike had been built, they had all this extra dirt that they piled up, making this large hill. As the rain waters came, it washed out part of the hill, making it super steep, with large and deep crevices - making it quite dangerous. Thus the title "Suicide Hill". Just the place for boys to ride their bikes, of course!! They would also throw tires down the hill and watch as they hopped down, rolling into the ditches and popping back up again. Or, if it went down just right, it would hop over the ravines. When they rode their bikes down it, they would keep the brakes on the whole time, so they wouldn't go too fast, that way they could have better control and avoid falling into the ditches and hop over the sandy parts that would stop you dead in your tracks and throw you from your bike. And always they would stop before they got too far down at the bottom of the hill, because there was a large, 12' deep crevice at the end that would cause serious harm to anyone who fell in, so they would ride their brakes and stop before they'd get there. And, once they got to the end, they'd walk around to the side that wasn't as steep, carry their bikes up, and do it all over again! Now, dad and Carl's bike was this old metal, springy thing, that wasn't very fast. It was ok, but not really great for riding down Suicide Hill. Their sister Judi's bike, however, was a dream! Yes, it was a girl's bike, but it was fast! One day when Judi was off doing something else, dad and Carl decided to "borrow" her bike and take it to Suicide Hill. Dad wanted to see how much faster he could go with her bike. Now, not a lot of kids rode their bikes down this hill. It was just too dangerous, but dad - being the daredevil that he is - decided to give it a go. Dad started going down the hill, his friends at the top cheering him on, riding his brakes like he was supposed to. Now, I mentioned above how there were sandy patches you had to avoid. It was actually one sandy patch and you had to let go of your brakes to ride through it or you would be flipped from your bike. The timing had to be just right. Now, I don't know if dad got too carried away with the thrill of riding his sister's super-fast bike or if the cheers from his friends got to his head, but he was a little delayed in letting off the brakes when he got to this part and he was flipped off the seat of the bike, landing not to gently on the girl's part of the bike. It caused a great amount of discomfort, but not enough discomfort to distract him from the fact that he now was barrelling down Suicide Hill without the aid of brakes! He tried dragging his feet to slow himself down, but it wasn't working. He was just going faster and faster, the large 12' ravine getting closer and closer. He was convinced at this point he was either going to 1. fall in the ravine and get seriously injured or 2. fall in the ravine and kill himself! Neither one was a very favorable option. One foot from the ravine, he finally got that bike to stop. Literally one foot from certain death, as he put it. He said it was surely an act of God that he stopped at that point, because he was so out of control. Why he didn't make himself crash by tipping the bike over, I'll never know. But, he made it. He said the rush of adrenalin was overpowering! He was exhilarated and scared to death at the same time. His buddies shouted down to see if he was ok. In a falsetto voice (remember he landed on the bar earlier) he called up that he was fine and when he got back up to the top of the hill, they all checked to see if he was good and he shook it off, enjoying the glory from his crazy bike ride. After all the excitement, his little brother Carl wanted to give it a shot. Dad was so scared that Carl would have the same experience he did that he refused to let him do it. Even threatening to beat him up if he tried. That was the last time he, or any of his friends that he knew of, ever went down that hill.

Talky Blog - Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UtH5VdkhvQ

This is the last of the talky blogs I did with dad. This is the end of our conversation about his favorite players and a little story of bitterness directed at his sister Debbie for being responsible for keeping him from one of the greatest moments in history. ;-) Enjoy!

Talky Blog - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L2uAXLWbCc

Here is part 2 of my conversation with dad about his baseball card collecting and his favorite players. Again, you may want to wait for it to download a bit before you start watching it, so it doesn't keep stopping on you.

Talky Blog - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEq2V5GLww

Well, after many attempts at uploading the videos directly on here, I decided to upload them to youtube and post the link here. This is the first part of our conversation on why and how dad started collecting baseball cards in the late 50s. You may have to wait until it downloads a while before you start playing it or it'll keep stopping on you. Enjoy!

Freedom to Play

Times were so much different than they are today. And, I don't think it's more evident than in the way kids play today. Today there are scheduled playdates. Calls made to parents, notes sent home from school, etc... All in an effort to get kids to play with other kids. It wasn't like that in the 1950s. Kids ran around and played with other kids from the neighborhood from sunrise to sunset. Dad had a group of kids he played with for many years. All within a few blocks from his house. This group consisted of Butchie Briton - who was the oldest and toughest in the group, Eddie Hopkins, Jimmy and Oliver Bathhurst, Phil Musmaci, Phil DePetro, Rocky Cennio (he was only there for a couple of years, but they became really good friends), Dave Wallace, Don Beavers, and Bob Hassick. His brother Carl would play with them many times as well. And the two girls of the bunch were his sister Debbie and Eddie's sister, Faye. That's a large group of kids! I can't imagine seeing a group that size playing together nowadays. But, play they did. They played hide-and-go-seek, kick the can, manhunt, cowboys and indians and, of course, any variation of baseball they could think of. This was a close-knit group of friends who didn't have to wait for their parents to set up playdates or worry about having a guardian there to babysit them. They would race out the door to go to a buddy's house or head to the playground across the street and enjoy the freedom and fun of just playing together. What an innocent time it was back then.

How My Dad Met My Mom

I asked the kids what story they wanted to hear about from their grandpa and Madie wanted to know how dad met mom. So, here's the story:

Dad was a freshman at Philadelphia College of Bible and his friend Ron Roberts was friends with mom. Her name was "Roper" and his was "Roberts", so they sat next to each other in several classes and were friends. So, towards the end of dad's freshman year, he had been introduced to and started to get to know mom. They went away for the summer, didn't correspond or anything, but when their sophmore year started, they became better friends. Mom was dating a friend of dad's named Cruiser Baxter and dad briefly dated mom's roommate, but mom and dad just sort of hit it off and would pal around together and really just had a great friendship. Towards the end of their sophmore year both mom and dad went to an end of the year campout for all the sophmore class. It was a small class of about 150 and the chaperone was mom's roommate's brother who was studying to become a minister. He decided to do a mock wedding ceremony to practice and dad asked mom if she would be in the wedding with him. She said yes, so this guy mock-married mom and dad. When they got back to school that Monday, dad would call her "wife" (something he still does to this day) and even got her a little fake ring, which she wore. She would write him notes signing them "from your wife" and dad would write her notes saying "your husband John". Even though they were dating other people, they continued to write during the summer and dad said he looked so forward to letters from her. They were falling in love through their letters and not even really realizing it. :-) A couple months after they returned to school, mom said to him, "Are you ever going to ask me out?" "Well, sure." he said and he invited her to come back to his hometown of Runnemede (since he was a commuter) to go to a football game at his old high school on Nov. 2, 1968. Now, because this was a conservative christian college, they weren't allowed to touch, but after they got off school property and made their way to the bus stop, dad reached over and started holding her hand. And, she let him. They took the bus to his house and he introduced her to the family. He said Grandpa loved her instantly and she just fit right in, helping around the house and everything. When he said goodnight to her that night, he told her he had a wonderful time and said goodbye. No kiss or anything. And, she said the same. That night he couldn't sleep. He realized he loved her. They dated 2 more years after that. He proposed to her before he left for seminary and they got married after his freshman year at Grace, in 1971. They just celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary last month and it all started with a mock wedding in 1968.