Pages From The Memory Vault Book II Part 5

Writing the sentence I'm about to write is literally something I'd never thought I'd ever put to paper. I watched a guy attempt suicide inside a power transformer. Now let me explain, because chances are it's as bizarre as you can imagine.

At one time, there was a pretty wide trail that led from the west side of Suffolk to Oakland, and then it was just a quick hop from that point of Oakland (which is, by the way, now one of Portage's Fire Stations) to Kerry Frieben's house in the adjacent neighborhood. This path sort of became like our little Adventure Area and reminds me now of something out of a Stephen King novel. It just had some kind of eerie quality, and we always managed to find one odd thing or another. Now on this trail was the entrance to a pretty massive power transformer that provided electricity to our neighborhood. I'm assuming its still there, but I honestly don't know since I haven't looked closely in a while, as the Fire Station is now directly in front of it. This path was ours; no one else was ever on it, and the more I think about it, it might have been a private drive due to the fact that id had such a close proximity to the power station.

It was summer, and I only remember because it was incredibly hot, and the outfit on the guy we were abut to meet seemed a little out of the ordinary. We were cutting through the path coming back from Kerry's and heading to our neighborhood; it was Chad, Kerry, and I and we were planning on swimming. As we passed the transformer we noticed something pretty out of the ordinary in the form of a guy inside the guard fence dressed in a dark coat and pants messing around with some kind of tool. Now we weren't overly familiar with how workers did what they did inside one of these powerful structures, and we definitely had no knowledge of anyone having been in there before wen we walked by, but how the guy was dressed and what he said to us triggered more than a few alarms. As we stopped and just looked at what he was doing, he turned to us and said, "I'm just working in here, but don't tell anyone, okay?"

Don't tell anyone? Why would a worker care if we said anything to anybody? Well, we sort of nodded in false agreement, and quickly covered the distance between the transformer and the end of the path planning on absolutely telling someone. We got about  a yard onto the actual street wen we heard a deafening BOOM echo over the treeline coming from where we had just been. We turned on our heels and sprinted back to where we saw the man, all of us just knowing that 'boom' could not be the result of something good. Little did we know that the power in or neighborhood had completely gone out, something we'd become aware of all too soon. 

 We arrived in a panic back to where the transformer was, and were met with the acrid smell of burning metal and singed wires mingled with the wretched odor of cooked flesh. Lying in a heap exactly where he stood was the man, covered in charred skin and bubbling blood. He looked like a shocked and cooked corpse from a bad horror movie. Smoke rolled off his clothes as dying flames fluttered out, and most of the hair on his head was replaced by roasted scalp. We stood there awestruck as the guy slowly rolled in agony and pleaded for us to get help. We didn't need to be asked twice, and we took off for my house. When we arrived, we bolted through the door and immediately told my mother. Though our power was out, and she'd heard the explosion, the phone was still operable and she quickly dialed the police. We wanted to go back to make sure the guy wasn't dead, but my mom insisted she go with us. We ran back to the transformer and found the man writhing in agony exactly as we'd left him.

As it turned out, the police were already on their way, as was a cadre of fire fighters, EMT's, and even a few power trucks; they'd all heard the explosion, and, presumably, the electric company got some kind of warning, as well. So we stood there and watched in rapt fascination as the man -clinging to life- was taken care of. We were interviewed by police as well as a reporter from a TV Van that arrived, it might have been WWMT, but I don't remember. Our regaling was in the Kalamazoo Gazette the next day, and as far as I know, my mom has the article somewhere. As for the man, I'm not sure how that ended or whether he lived or died.

Now I've seen thousands of horror movies and repulsive make-up jobs, but nothing can ever prepare you for someone burnt and bloody in the real world. It doesn't even compare. Also, I might be some kind of hero, but I'm not going to dwell on that.   

Pages From The Memory Vault Book II Part 4

So let's talk about my friend Matt Durian. I don't think the Durians lived there on Suffolk when we moved in, the more I think about it. In fact it was maybe a year later when they arrived, but either way, Matt and I became fast friends. It was nice having a neighbor right next door who really appreciated G.I. Joe as much as I did. I think of all the toy action figures I owned, I owned the largest number of Joes. I watched the cartoon religiously, and to this day I'm not convinced they were using guns with bullets in that show. I'm pretty sure they were lasers and that's what we adapted when Matt and I played. Just sayin'.

We got together a lot and gathered our figures and prepared for really strategic and intense battles, and the best part was the fact that his dad built him a giant table (much like a train table without the trains) for his G.I. Joes with the USS Flag -that massive aircraft carrier- right in the middle. It was such an impressive set-up and we had so much room for both of us to move around, set up our troops, and just go nuts.

But one time they had a fire. It wasn't much of a fire -if you can say that- inasmuch as it didn't burn the house down, or really even at all. But what did result was basement damage. Where our G.I. Joe table was. I'm not sure how the blaze began, but it destroyed much of their stuff in the basement before they got it under control to the point where they could put it out. Yeah, the Fire Department was called out and we all stood around at like 3 in the morning watching them make sure it was all out. We had a fire hydrant right at the end of our yard, so that was convenient. But, as I said, the table burned and a lot of his G.I. Joes. It was a sad day.

Well, over the next week or so I told my mom just what burned in their basement, and it was some of our favorite toys. My mom suggested I help and I could use my allowance. So, rather than go to the store, I perused our neighborhood garage sales... and there were a ton, I managed to get about a dozen Joe figures for about 10 bucks, and I gave them to Matt. He was very happy and we were back in business. I felt damn good about myself.

Oh, and his dad rebuilt the table. Awesome.    

Pages From The Memory Vault Book II Part 3

How about a ghost story?
You like spooky ghost stories, right?

Especially when they're true?

Yeah. I thought so...

Kerry Frieben and I enjoyed riding our bikes at night. I can't actually remember what the reason for it was, other than heading the mile from his house to the once-called Stop N Go for candy and pop. I'm assuming that was probably it... I mean it wasn't like we were hooligans or anything. Well, for the most part...

You see, on Milham Road, just off Oakland right outside of both of our neighborhoods was the Stop N Go party store, and directly across the street was a cemetery and a church. Both the hallowed grounds still stand, but the Stop N Go has gone through several changes to become what it is today: a Circle K. And let me tell you, strange things were afoot at the would-be Circle K that night... if I may paraphrase Bill and Ted.

For some reason Kerry got the idea to go into the cemetery. Fortunately for me, the back of the grave yard butted up to a dead end street that literally ran right into my street, so rather than leave from his house on this fateful night, we'd leave from mine. As far as my parents were concerned, I was going to Kerry's house. So we gathered our wits about us (or should I say I gathered them, because as far as I was concerned, Kerry was just about the bravest guy I knew), and pedaled to a destination neither of us had ever been.

As we arrived through the back entrance -which really was nothing more than where the gate ended, since there really was no need to block the back side from harm, apparently- we left our bikes at the edge of the woods (a small strip of wooded land separated the church grounds from where the dead-end met the foliage) and walked the rest of the way. By this point it was pushing ten, and in mid-summer that meant that the sun was just snatching away the remainder of the day's light. But we hesitated. Before we went in it was decided that it would be best if it were dark. So we hung back and discussed not only our strategy, but what exactly we were doing there in the first place. As it turned out, Kerry had a plan.

For some odd reason, Kerry wanted to push over a tomb stone. I didn't ask (I didn't really want to know) and as an easily persuaded kid, I just went along with it. In fact, some part of me -deep down that had never been tapped into before- really thought it was just about the coolest idea of all time. So we twiddled our thumbs in pregnant anticipation until the final bits of light faded away and night draped the sky. It was time to do a little damage. Minor as it might have been.

As we slowly crept into the grave yard, it occurred to just how tantalizingly frightening it was being in a place I knew damn well housed corpses and, likely, roaming spirits. It sent a flurry of shuddering chills down my spine and I fought the battle between wanting to run back to the woods like a baby, and wanting nothing more than to explore this land of the dead. Curiosity won, and we moved deeper into the Cemetery. Fortunately, it wasn't very big and we spotted our target almost immediately: a tall grave marker in the shape of a person with a head on a flowing cloak of some kind. I'd seen it from the road a hundred times. This was to be the target of our mischief, and I began shivering with a mix of excitement and outright fear.

Smartly, before we did the dirty deed, we looked out across Milham just to ensure that no one was watching or driving by. As far as we could tell it was clear. So we stood like two stolid strong men, positioned our hands on the stone, and gave a great shove. Even with what we thought was all of our might, the statue barely budged. We felt it give, but it just settled right back into the ground like nothing happened. We'd have to push even harder. But something was amiss...
A car had parked on our side of the road directly across from the Stop N Go, and it's lights were on and the engine was running.
Uh Oh...

Kerry told me to stay hidden behind the stone and he's go check out what was up with the car. I was in no position to argue, especially considering I was now scared almost to the piss-pants point, and Kerry was older and, therefor (presumably) wiser. I crouched down and watched him sprint back to the fence line and around the outside. I lost sight of him in the shadows and just kept my eyes stuck to the running car just to make sure no one got out and came after us. It wasn't a cop, that much was obvious, but you never know; it might have been someone who worked at the church, ya know? I sat there hugging my knees to my chest fighting off the nearly overwhelming urge to just leave Kerry and hightail it back to my bike. But then I sighted him rounding the gate on his return run. He made it back to me, and between breaths explained that yes, there was someone in the car (UH OH), but the dude was asleep or passed out or something... even with his car running and the headlights on! What? Well, I felt a bit better, but that was still weird. Did we still want to risk the reason we came here in the first place?

Kerry said he did, since there was no reason to believe the guy even had any idea anyone was in the cemetery and was likely drunk. I supposed I saw the logic, but I still questioned our actions. Regardless, we set ourselves against the head stone and prepared for a huge push. With every ounce of strength I could muster -based a lot on the ever rising scale of fear I was measuring the event against- we leaned into it and with a surprisingly soundless fall, the statue hit the ground with a muffled thud. My ears were prepared for a much more resounding smack, but since none actually came, the instant quiet was painfully deafening. We exhaled deeply, and shared a high-5 as we surveyed our little bit of deviousness.
And then we saw the real extent of the damage.

What we assumed was just a fairly innocent tomb stone tipping had instantly turned into something far worse. As we looked toward the end with the head, the dull glow of the fluorescent flood lights from the church itself illuminated the real issue: the head had broken off. This was definitely not in the cards.

We scrambled in a flurry of panic. I grabbed for the head as Kerry took off in a run to check the car again. We knew right then that someone had to have seen us, if not heard us. As quiet as it was, a breaking piece of stone is still pretty audible when you were as close to us as that car was. Immediately I picked up the head -it was about the size, shape, and weight of a standard bowling ball- and cradled it under my arm. We had to fix this somehow, and we had to do it fast. But then Kerry called to me from the other side of the gate and told me to meet him by the car. Was he kidding? What could possibly be that important? I set the head down by the little mound of sod the tipped statue had pulled up, and ran to meet him.

I arrived panting at the car and looked at Kerry as he stood there with his hands cupped to the closed, slightly-tinted windows. He motioned for me to look, and I did. The car was empty. The engine still ran, the seat was reclined just as Kerry had described it when he saw the guy sleeping, and the lights were still on. We exchanged a glance that was both quizzical and terrified, and we took off back the grave. The few seconds it took to return, Kerry had a wide-eyed look and he swore that there was a person in that car, and neither one of us had heard a door open or shut. This was just plain nuts.

We arrived at the tipped stone, and it was immediately obvious what we had to do. With a heave, we righted it and walked it up as straightly as we could. We stamped the ground back to true, grabbed the head, and ran like timid rabbits back to our bikes. Once we got there, it became all too obvious that we had to do something with the stone head. And so we came to the decision to bury it, right there in the woods, using two sticks. And there it stayed. We biked back to his house, cutting through or neighborhood just so we could have that feeling of being back in some kind of sane civilization. It was only 11:15. The whole ordeal took less than an hour. Our adventure was over for that night.

Fast forward to the future: our current time. Yes, the statue is still there and you can see it even now, still at that skewed angle we left it some 28 years ago. Maybe folks just figured it fell on its own and no one bothered to worry about it. However, the woods that were the separation point have since been dug out and replaced with more houses. Can you imagine being the guy operating the machine that unearthed the head we buried? I bet that was a sight. As for the car with the ghost... well, a ghost to us, anyway... we never did figure that out. But it remains as a really interesting tale I like to regale every now and again. And yes, it is all true... save for a few... shall we say 'Writer's Embelishments' just to hold the audience. But the facts are all facts. I just wish I knew what was up with that car...

Pages From The Memory Vault Book II Part 2

Strangely, I don't really remember how I met many of my friends from the tail-end of my Elementary School years; those same friends who would go on to follow me to Junior High at Portage North Middle. I'm sure a few were just from class itself, and I do know some were met in Cub Scouts, but the recollection is hazy at best. But what I do know is that the three main kids I hung out with were Chad Mickel (my backyard neighbor), Jayesh Mehta (who lived just a few houses down from Chad on Belaire), and Kerry Frieben (whom I mentioned not only lived a bit of a hike away, but was also the kid I really looked up to in terms of age and experience). We were pretty inseparable. We had sleep overs, birthday parties, and just hung out all the time. These were my friends outside of Scouts, but we all went to school together, and we were best pals to be sure.

We were all very big into Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and, of course, Transformers. In fact, Chad owned quite a few more of the toys than I did, so between his collection and my slightly more meager supply, we had quite a lot of good times running through our yards and having boy-typical battles. Thanks to these times, I'd imagine, I'm still a bit of a toy, cartoon, and Sci-Fi nerd to this day.

Kerry, on the other hand, wasn't much of a toy guy. But what he did do was build my love for Horror Movies thanks to one fateful occasion I will never forget. It was sometime in 1985, because A Nightmare on Elm Street had been released to the theaters a year before and had just hit the home VHS market. We were having a sleep-over at Kerry's house in his none-too-innocent looking basement. That is to say: it was dark, it was rife with tools and the eponymous older looking water boiler, and it had spooky back rooms. So, we settled in to watch a few movies. One of which was some Sci-Fi thing, maybe Krull, that he kind of greased my palms with, and the other was A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was not about to watch that, thank you very much. At that point I was pretty much a chicken and a half, and I would do everything I could not to watch horror since my freaky behind-the-couch viewing of my parents viewing of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer a few months earlier. That movie was bad enough, and there was no way Kerry was gonna get me to watch Freddy Krueger and his nightmares. Ah, but that was all about to change.

Kerry made me both a deal and a threat somehow wrapped in a promise. First of all, you have to understand that I was an avid MAD Magazine collector. I had a big pile of them, but none that were really old at the time. I began collecting in 1983, and Kerry had a bunch from the 70's that I really wanted. And so this would be the first part of the deal: he would give me five of his older MAD's. Okay, so far I was falling into this little snare. Secondly, and this was the kicker, Kerry said that I couldn't feign sleep during the movie's run or else he'd punch me in the balls. Yup: he promised NOT to punch me if I stayed awake and watched the flick. Um... I guess I couldn't lose and what choice did I have? I was trapped. But ya know what? I can't thank him enough...

And so we watched. And yes, I was pretty uneasy. But ya know what? I loved every gory second of it. I was on the edge of my seat more for the great movie itself than for the horror. We had a ball, and from that moment forward, I was hooked. My interests turned a little bit toward horror; horror I was only able to really get at Kerry's house since my parents both didn't know and likely wouldn't have allowed it for an eleven-year old. That night was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between horror and I, and to this day it takes an awful lot to scare me. Maybe I'm still worried about being hit in the balls.

Oh, and he gave me TEN MAD's that day. Kerry was a cool kid.

Pages From The Memory Vault Book II Part 1

We moved to 1712 Suffolk in the Summer of 1983. I was almost nine and was preparing to leave the comforting confines of Central Elementary to the new hallowed halls of Haverhill. Sometime between 1981 and '83, I joined the Boy Scouts of America as a tenderfoot Cub Scout, and for a time we had meetings at the Portage United Methodist Church, but our base of operations was about to be relocated to my new Elementary School under a new troop number. And this would become the troop where I would spend a large part of my childhood doing those wonderful things that Scouts do: camping, hiking, Pine Wood derby car building, and, eventually, attaining Eagle Scout granted by our once Governor, James Blanchard. But, once again, that's getting a little ahead of myself. Let's begin with the new house.

Just so you understand, I actually only lived under this roof for the better part of four years, but it was definitely some of the greatest years of my life. They were adventurous, exciting, and just rife with maturity. Yeah, I really felt like I grew up over this time, and part of that thanks goes to a friend of mine who was at least three years my junior named Kerry. But again, we'll get to him later. Before I go off on another tangent, lets remember the house, shall we?

Our new house was quite a bit bigger than our little Liszt ranch. First off, it was a 2-story with two bathrooms and three bedrooms. The family room and the kitchen were connected by a hallway that led to the stairs. Off the kitchen was a wrap-around dining room that led to a 'living room' (kind of a misnomer since we never went in there except for Christmas and special occasions... I hate rooms like that) and eventually to the front door landing and met up with the hall that connected to the stairs. In that little hall way was bathroom one and the little laundry nook. Upstairs we had two room on the right (the first was my brother's and mine, and the second was my parents) and two other rooms on the left (a bathroom and my sister's room at the end). It was a great house and, best of all, we had an amazing in-ground-pool! Oh it had a diving board, a really cool slide (that never really worked) and even (drum roll) a HOT TUB! It was dope! Sadly, there wasn't much of a back yard since it was so full of watery goodness, but the front yard made up for that and we played much of outdoor shenanigans there. Well, shenanigans that weren't water oriented. Anyway, to wrap up this little thought (little?) it was a great place in which to live.

My street was Suffolk, as I said, and it was a fair bit longer than Liszt. That is to say; more neighbors, which, once a year, also equaled more places to Trick or Treat! Anyway, right next door, on our right if you were facing it, were the Durians. Matt was my age, and we often played G.I. Joe's and Transformers. More on that another day, too. A few houses down but on the opposite side of the street were the Cosby's. Yeah... they were white. Just sayin'. Anyway, Bob was my age as well and we used to play toy guns and ride bikes a lot. To our left, there was a path that ran between our house and our neighbors (The Himillers who were a wonderful elderly couple) and led to the Mickel's back yard. That was the house of my very good friend, Chad. Boy oh boy did we get into a ton of adventures. But, once again, those stories are for another day. Now across from Chad and on the corner were the Fords and my friend, Mike. It was -and is- a sprawling neighborhood and I loved every second of it. Oh, and as for Kerry, he lived in another neighborhood just a bike ride away across from Oakland Drive.

So there's your lead up. Isn't it amazing -especially after reading my past 14 entries of scattershot memories- just how much I can dig out so readily? Yeah, I don't get it either. But, there are a ton of stories in my head about my four-year tenure on Suffolk, and I can't wait to regale them all to ya. So stick around!

Pages From the Memory Vault Part 14

Well, readers, I think this is going to be the last bits of memories from my life on Liszt, and it once again comes in the form of small nuggets that are primarily unfinished thoughts and littler chunks of malformed pieces of my life. I often wonder what it would be like to do this little blog had I not gone through about a 4-year period where I'm relatively sure I became an alcoholic. Oh well, such is life. Now, on with things I do recall...

For the first one, it's actually not even a memory that I personally remember, but one my mom does because apparently I was only like 3 or so. I've been told this a number of times, and it's definitely a testament to 'A Sign of the Times', because I can only imagine the events that led up to this being totally frowned upon in this day and age. Anyway, it seems that my mom had put me down for a nap in my crib and had gone next door to a friend's house for coffee or something. Literally (before anyone tilts a brow at how irresponsible) RIGHT next door... like you could spit to the house from our front porch. Anyway, my mom went over there while I supposedly slept. Well as you might be assuming, I awoke to find no mommy in sight, and rather than just shrug it off and go back to sleep, I climbed out of my crib with a mission. Much like Stewie Griffin from Family Guy, this particular Stewie was bent on vindication. I wandered to the family room and proceeded to destroy all of the potted plants that were hanging out in the house. Ones on little pedestals, ones that just sat on the floor, some on the window sills... all were fare game for my mellifluous rampaging. Fortunately, my mom did have the wherewithal to come back home rather rapidly -likely hearing her motherly alarm blaring- and discovered the mess. I'd like to think I shrugged and wandered off in my diaper, but she only says she couldn't spank me because it was her own fault. Moral: never leave plants out when you decide to ditch your kid for a few hours.

I've mentioned the Motyckas many times in this blog thus far, and it stands to reason since we always hung out with them. But there were times in particular when we often played the same game over and over, and those times always fell on Jenny's birthday parties. We'd go over there, play a few games of Pin-The-Tail and Red Rover and such, but they always led to one game that I had a devil of a time remembering. In fact, I'm starting to assume this was just a made up game by Mrs. Motycka herself because even the Internet hasn't heard of it, and that's borderline impossible. Either way it featured a character, probably the birthday party recipient, going on a trip and she had to remember to pack a bunch of stuff, including a pair of special Patent Leather Shoes. I don't remember why these were special, only that she (Jenny) had to have them. As for the rules of the game or how it went... I have no Earthly idea. Funny enough, this little tidbit came to me in a dream. And no, I don't remember why.

I vaguely remember getting really sick when I was in Kindergarten. According to my mom it was due to a really nasty staff infection. Evidently I got staff infections quite a few times when I was a kid, but it was this initial case where the doctors at the hospital figured out I was allergic to Penicillin. They dosed me up with it, which in turn made me sicker, and viola: longer hospital stay. I really have almost no recollection of my term in ward there, other than the fact that my teacher, Mrs. Fulton, had all my classmates sign a giant card for me, a card that my mom says she actually still has. That's like an artifact now, or something! And also they got me a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal that became a best buddy to me. And that's honestly all I can remember.

Well, folks, I think that's about it. Beginning with the next entry we will be following my memories to my life on 1712 Suffolk. That's right: all new adventures, and a fare bit more of them, too. See ya soon!

Pages From The Memory Vault Part 13

As the well begins to dry up a bit more and the memories either fade or don't really form themselves into anything coherent or useful, it seems it's almost time to move on from my life on Liszt. This doesn't mean I won't be revisiting when necessity calls and when I can conjure up something with a bit more substance, but it seems that I have a whole lot more vivid past life experiences from when we moved and I, consequently, got a little bit older. In fact, you even get to hear my real-life ghost story which did, eventually, lead to a few others as well. So you're likely going to have to suspend disbelief a little there, unless you already believe... in which case, good for you. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to tie up a loose end before moseying on to greener pastures. And so, I give you: The Blizzard of '78.

I was four. Well, I wasn't even four yet, actually. I would be four in July of that year and the blizzard hit in January. And, from what I'm reading while I write this, just for historical accuracy, it hit on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of that month, just before my brother's first birthday. Hm, I didn't realize that. Anyway... on to what I do remember!

From what I can tell by re-reading, we suffered through roughly 20 inches of snow, and that doesn't account for the blowing and drifting. I do remember some of the drifts reached the roofs of many of the houses in our neighborhood, but weather or not our house was one of them, I can't be sure. If I remember correctly -since my parents speak pretty knowingly about the event- we were likely buried since they had to dig out the front door and actually tunnel to the road. I think all I cared about was just going out and playing in it, and since we had no power and my dad was stuck home from work, we ventures outside and attempted to mole our way to anywhere else.

One thing I do remember is that the corner store (the very store I spoke about when I used to go on candy runs) was open and we needed to go there just to get basic necessities since every major road out into the city was shut down. So we walked what typically would have been a half-mile or so -roughly a block I guess- and under normal circumstances would have taken all of ten minutes, in an hour. I might be exaggerating, but I don't think so. I do remember my dad bringing the shovel and just moving snow as we went. And, since I was in tow and not especially useful as a 3.5 year old, it was a trek. And for some odd reason I remember -among all the other things we got just to get by like milk and bread- getting Mountain Dew in a glass bottle. This was of course back when parents cared a lot less about the acres of sugar that soda offered. It was just a reward for being there, I guess. Anyway, we went back home and watched as other people did the same thing: trudging to the store and returning with bare essentials.

The more I think about it I can't shake the thought that our house was, in fact, buried under a drift because I seem to remember sledding off the roof with... someone. Likely a parent and maybe a friend... I can't be sure but I do remember the sledding part. Our house was a ranch style, so just one level, and I can imagine climbing the drift wouldn't have been too difficult. Hm... anyway... sledding.

Well, if you want to read about the storm, here's the WIKI ENTRY. I'm glad I can remember these things just enough to find most of the info online. It looks like we'll have one more entry from the Liszt years as I'm suddenly recalling a few more little tidbits. So, see ya next time!