Early Creativity

Okay story, my life continues here. List the things you do as a child to express your creativity and what drew you to each one.

Well, I like to draw always during the church bulletins. I always drew pictures of superheroes of transformers in the church bulletins. I had to do a lot I did or didn’t school. I had my notebook, but I had to tear out the pages. I had to tear out the pages with doodles. So doodling was a big thing.

I like building model kits. That was a big thing. I was a young model, tip builder or the Month Club member, where you got snap tight models and eventually got models that need cement, which I never completely understood. Liking just super glue it watch at the summit that always lasted. Like it took a while to form that bond where it’s super glued, form it right away.

So that was a form of creativity that I had doodling building model kits, building toy displays, just, you know, putting the action figures in a certain way in the play set that was always creative and then compiling my own videotapes of tape shows was actually a a creative endeavor as well. I would always draw my own labels. Sometimes I had to draw my own covers. I drew labels on Atari cartridges for the labels that faded Yeah, building computers later as I was a teenager, that was the thing. So those are just the different forms of creativity that I had.

An object of which, from my childhood I still own I think I have a rock Only it’s not a rock. It’s a piece of molded plastic. But I always thought it was a rock and I always thought it was pretty cool. And I forget where I found it probably in my backyard. But I kept it and I still I still have it somewhere yeah, that was that was definitely a thing. I have some of my childhood blankets as well.

My best friend as a youngster was a guy by name of Matt Newman. He lived on last hollow road I think in Dillsburg used to stay at his house overnight. We did a yard sale together. We hung out together a lot. He came to my house I went to his here’s a good supporter at school. Heard him once or twice in adulthood. Not often.

In high school. My best friend was Shannon and I did. I used to take her school every day and we hung out a lot after school and on the weekends. I was just driving around and hanging out and talking and sharing and she had keys to my car in high school as well. We weren’t dating. She wasn’t my best friend. And you know, I close the loop on that last year, I think for the most part yeah, that was that was that was important to me.

And then there was the last one I had in Goldberg named Megan 10. I don’t know what happened to her. She was definitely a close friend and Dillsburg during my high school years and I wish we kept in contact but we didn’t and I don’t know why. Why exactly that was

You know, my mom cooked a lot. And some of the things I liked. She made a potato sausage chowder, which I had the recipe somewhere she made a big a casserole, of which she did send me information on the recipe which included putting cheese in it which I would have never thought she made meatballs to she taught me to put eggs and dehydrate minced onions in it to give them some form of consistency.

Chicken Corn Soup was something that she made. She made something called sukiyaki a nascent dish made meatloaf, roast beef. Just a few of the things that I could find in the refrigerator at any given moment London Broil that was a birthday favorite. Yeah, I don’t know anything about drinks that they made. But that was definitely the food Chicken Corn Soup is definitely something that I’ve carried with me. It’s something that I make on the weekends on most Sabbath’s most Saturdays.

Whereas in Pennsylvania you can buy in the store by the cam or by the container here in south half to make him there. You know if I go through my emails My mother has passed, but I can probably find the recipes plus I have a recipe notebook thing in here somewhere. So I’m sure I could dig them out and give them a try. Unfortunately, she’s not here to ask so childhood vacations.

Went to Wildwood, New Jersey once I think we went to Hilton Head in the Carolinas once. Most of the time it was Woodlock pines, which I have outlined in depth in my story about her passing so I’m not going to read cache it here.

I do remember also a disastrous trip to Colonial Williamsburg. It was too warm. I don’t know why I got dragged to that trip. My mother knew I was suffering through it. I was just eyeing in knockoff transformer in the gift shop the whole time. I was supposed to be educational. However, this reenactment of Waynesburg wasn’t for me. And that was a challenge you know, I was raised largely by my mother’s so I think I hit more of the emotional beats, that she had more of the sensitivities that she had, whereas my father was paired with my sister mostly and I don’t think that I have his aloofness and his coldness.

But yeah, I think for the most part, I pick up the sensitivities of my mother, I think I pick up some of the impatience of my mother. I think I picked up some of the frustrations that my mother would have.

So I think two of the big things that happened during my life I can remember where I was was the Challenger accident. I remember being in school and hearing that the Challenger went down well used to watch was to watch Space Shuttle launches on the TV. I don’t think we in particularly watched that one but I remember hearing about it in the classroom.

And then 911 I remember specifically I was in New York City working in Midtown East 45 Lexington Avenue slash 750 and 7/33 Avenue at TIAA CREF. However, specifically, a guy named Scott Israel yelled, it’s been a hit. There’s been a hit I mean, indention so heavy on the desk writing that Patrick from Charlotte was calling our office.

We couldn’t go home because the markets were so open. I remember being able to get in contact with my mother and my father telling them both that I was okay. But we weren’t allowed to leave because the markets were still open. Eventually, when we were allowed to leave there were armed people on the ground.

And I remember the twin towers which were in my skyline of my bedroom for actually the living room window. They were no more I remember going down to Ground Zero and I could smell death I had grown up around death. So I knew what death was. I know what the smell of death was. And that was the smell of death. There was absolutely no question that was the smell of death. I knew I knew exactly what it was.

And that has affected me in a way I used to go onto the Trade Center for work. When I worked in lower Manhattan. Used to go into the Trade Center we used to make runs up to the Trade Center where I worked at Sam Goody at South Street Seaport. There’s a SAM Good to see port Sam good and the Trade Center and we will make friends back and forth.

So that to think that I could have been making one of those runs or I could have been under the Trade Center at the time before I switched jobs. That was something thinking about the scariest thing that’s happened to me is challenging, I think I was in a couple auto accidents during my parents divorce.

I think it was a lot of self destructive behavior and not intentional price conscious. took on a 18 Wheeler and lost pieces of my car were strewn all over the bridge. Then there was another accident where I got t boned in new Cumberland first one was my Honda Accord second one was my Honda Civics those that one sent me to the hospital so yeah, there were some major accidents then.

And then one other I think, you know, scary thing. I think I can. I can definitely say was losing my place to live. That’s journaled somewhere else but the short version is I had asked to find my place so I was given the price and what I would need to get in the loan and then before I knew it sold out from under me in an assembly deal.

And then I was yelled at for, you know, some of the damage that happened in the home that obviously I didn’t have a chance to address and then related to my cats, which they knew I had the landlord slash owners knew I had, I had told them as such. But of course they had to act surprised when when they were doing the sale, and then the new property owners slash landlords were just horrible and then ended up among other things.

They would send me 30 days to vacate notices that were illegal then they would rescind them saying they knew they were legal and they were mistake. I ended up changing the locks at one point just by myself time eventually find another place to live. But it wasn’t ready yet sign up in the Motel Six with my cats in a camper.

And it was five weeks of just slowly losing my mind as all my belongings were in a storage unit. My cats were in a camper and I was in the Motel Six and I think by the last week I just wanted to pull a bullet through my head. It was a very very dark period. So that was scary

So my parents parenting style. My father I just don’t think cared. My mother was overly protective. So I didn’t feel that I could go and do anything. I had to negotiate with a counselor for my bike ride time.

I think ultimately, that was about the freedom that I had was going on long bike rides in the country. I think it was two hours and it was four hours that I could go and just really that was my way of getting freedom was getting on my bike and just riding a bike Yeah, had a lot of freedom with my father, just you know, he was working and I would go walking near his workplace, but my mother was definitely over protective and restrictive.

The most memorable family holiday that I had was probably the Christmas with the Atari which I think I told that story earlier but my parents had gotten the Atari before it was the Atari 2600 It was Christmas snaking at something and they stayed up all night and played video games themselves. So it’s just