MEMOIR

Dave, Deb, Doug, Diann & Darin

As the youngest of five children, I’ve got stories to tell.

Story of Me is a collection of short stories recalling my childhood, adolescence, teen years and beyond.  These stories have been told and re-told at family gatherings and among friends.  Many have said, ‘You ought to write that down!’  Okay.

Excerpt from Story of Me:

Matthew Marvel, Robbie Frazier, Mike Schmidt, Peter Marks, Greg Griffin and me – we ruled the streets of our sleepy neighborhood. Between us we had enough G.I. Joe action figures and accessories to take over a small country, or at least someone’s back-yard.

Peter was the Jewish kid. None of us really knew what that meant except that, at Christmas time, his family didn’t set up a tree and cover it with lights. And Santa skipped their house. Greg Griffin told us that was because Santa didn’t like Jews. I believed it for years.

Robbie Frazier was sort of a wimpy kid. He decided he liked Big Jim action figures more than G.I. Joe. Big Jim and his friends wore flannel shirts instead of fatigues. They had campers instead of tanks; campfires instead of landmines. What the hell? “He’s gay”, Greg Griffin concluded. None of us knew what ‘gay’ meant, but Greg assured us that Santa didn’t like gays anymore than he liked Jews.

Greg said a lot of stuff that would turn out to be false. Eventually all of our moms forbid us from hanging around with Greg Griffin. He was a bad kid, they concluded. He took his G.I. Joes and left our gang. Shame, too. His backyard was the best battlefield we had, complete with rocks, trees, and a mud patch when it would rain. Damn.