An Old Friend Shows Up...

So this morning, I get a WWF challenge from an old friend… I’ve played him before, without much success, but hey… it doesn’t take much time or energy to play the game and I’m past the point of ego limitations (at least as far as WWF goes). So I accept the invitation and then begin thinking that he’d appreciate reading the story I’ve managed to put together. Then I realize that he belongs in the story and for some crazy reason, 100% oversight, I never wrote him in.

Now I’m thinking that I can’t send him a link to the story because he’s going to think I excluded him or never considered him to be a significant friend. As a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that, while he was ‘in the scene’, he was also one of the truly inspired/inspiring people I met during those incredibly creative times. And here’s the scoop on Michael…

People look back and say the music of the 70s was ‘off the charts’ in terms of creativity, innovation, and it’s really easy to understand why when you take the time to listen. It was a ‘coming out party’ for the baby boomers as much as it was a ‘generation gap’ moment for those that preceded us. Moving away from Doo Wop, Country, Rock and Folk, the sounds on the radio were impossibly different. Chuck Berry may have brought electric music to America but it was the Woodstock lineup (including those that didn’t play there), that embodied the creative explosion that occurred. Bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service, Ten Years After, Iron Butterfly, etc. pulled musical expression into a new place that millions of young people dramatically embraced.
Well, Michael wasn’t about music. He was about the other revolution that was happening just beneath the surface at the time. He was all about innovation and technology. Around the same time that Steve Pfeifer introduced me to computers, Michael was already on the cusp of things. He was innately curious and entrepreneurial at the same time. I remember the story of him visiting somewhere in South America (I think it was Brazil but it could have been anywhere), and being unable to find a bulb for his flashlight at any reasonable price. The bulbs were a penny or two in New York so he goes home and fills a suitcase with these little bulbs and heads back to Brazil. I don’t remember the outcome, but I don’t think he got rich. More than likely the Brazilian authorities seized the bulbs saying he hadn’t filled out the proper paperwork, then sold them and made a fortune themselves. But the point is that Michael wasn’t about the hippie culture. He was about being smart and creative.

This was before Windows was a thing. It was a time when MS-DOS was still being compared to PC-DOS and there were no such things as graphic interfaces. It was all keystrokes all the time. ASCII and DOS commands ruled the fledgling internet and the biggest things revolved around modems and dial-up speeds. In 1981, Hayes invented the ‘smartmodem’ and nothing was ever the same after that.

The Smartmodem was an otherwise standard 103A 300 bit/s direct-connect modem, but it was attached to a small microcontroller that watched the data stream for certain character strings representing commands. This allowed both data and commands to be sent through a single serial port. The now-standard Hayes command set included instructions for picking up and hanging up the phone, dialing numbers, and answering calls, among others. This was similar to the commands offered by the internal modems, but unlike them, the Smartmodem could be connected to any computer with an RS-232 port, which was practically every microcomputer built.

“The introduction of the Smartmodem made communications much simpler and more easily accessed. This provided a growing market for other vendors, who licensed the Hayes patents and competed on price or by adding features. Through the 1980s, a number of new higher-speed modems, first 1,200 and then 2,400 bit/s, greatly improved the responsiveness of the online systems, and made file transfer practical. This led to rapid growth of online services with their large file libraries, which in turn gave more reason to own a modem. The rapid update of modems led to a similar rapid increase in BBS use, which was helped by the fact that BBSs could control the modem simply by sending strings, rather than talking to a device driver that was different for every direct-connect modem.”

What is a BBS? Well, to me, it means Bulletin Board System. And when I was introduced (by Denis I think) to Michael, a whole new world opened up to me. It was as radical as taking my first hit off a joint. In 1985, Michael had created a BBS based in his loft in lower Manhattan called The Invention Factory. It was one of the first of its kind and, again, was pre-windows or any other graphic user interface. It was all about communication and totally primitive by today’s standards. It was the wild west of a digital revolution. Everything was new and anything seemed possible. And Michael had thousands of people connecting to his Invention Factory BBS. Yes there were forums and other internet platforms but the BBS was easy to use, easy to connect to, and literally a window on a new technology.

Here's a link to InfoWorld, a magazine that gives a glimpse into that time and place. https://books.google.com/books?id=YToEA ... &q&f=false
Michael was the SYSOP (System Operator) and as time went on he must have had a hundred phone lines installed in his loft (literally in the shadow of the World Trade Center). I remember putting my PC on auto-dial and waiting an hour to get connected. It wasn’t uncommon to get a $100 phone bill for BBS online time.

Then came the Mosaic browser, Windows, and America Online was born. My first reaction was “This graphics thing is for dummies. Real computing is done with keyboards and computer language. This is the dumbing down of something truly wonderful.” Windows? Not for me! I stuck with MS-DOS until the bitter end. Michael, though, saw immediately that there was no comparison between the clunky keyboard driven communications and this new platform that was accessible to everyone. The future of computing was the graphic interface. It took a few years, but the BBS universe was completely coopted by AOL and all the keyboard driven interactions became ‘old-school’.
At the time though, I could see that Michael was at the forefront of some new unseen universe. Who knew then? Michael seemed to know. And his excitement was contagious. Anyhow, we were all players in those days and we all had our addictions. Some were addicted to mind-numbing drugs, others were into psychedelics, some became obsessed with money. Michael wasn’t any of those.

He was obsessed with innovation and the amazing new world of communications that we were about to enter.

How much of his obsession was funded by ‘the business’? Some for sure… Did it matter? Hell no! He was into a new world that went beyond pot-induced mind-bending. Anyway, his world changed radically on September 11, 2001 and he’s now living happily somewhere in Brooklyn. I’m betting he reads a lot and knows more about the social aspects of digital technology than anyone around.
Now if only I could beat him in WWF… just once…

Not Happy With Dad...

It almost feels sacrilegious to write about it but I think I went numb the moment I saw my Mom lying back on the chair cushions in the big recliner in their bedroom.  Her face was almost colorless and it was immediately clear to me that she was not breathing.  Although I instantly grabbed the phone and called my Dad (who ran around the corner and up the 3 flights to our apartment within 30 seconds), and then 911, I was acting in a state of detachment and denial.

And somehow, looking back, it was this behavior…  this reaction…  that enabled the subsequent madness.  You can’t do dangerous things successfully without detaching yourself, without being able to look at yourself from a distance.  If you only see things as they appear looking outward, you are almost guaranteed to be blindsided by something you never saw coming.  On another level, you end up with tunnel vision, only seeing what you see…  another path to tremendous success or abject failure.

I’m going to skip past a lot of additional death stuff here because…  well… I’m not in the mood to dwell there and, after all, it’s my story and I can do what I feel. 

So Mom was gone almost a full year before I began working at the Times…  But it wasn’t long after that year ended that my Dad met a Connecticut widow from Bridgeport at a Catskills hotel (Grossingers), and began courting her. 

One thing I’ll say for the generation that lived through hard times during the Great Depression is that they had a whole other sense of entitlement than those that came afterwards.  We were basically the beneficiaries of all that suffering.  They were the sufferers and, at the same time, capable of justifying selfishness to the extreme.  And, that’s what happened….  Dad decided he was going to marry this woman and move to Orlando Florida.  That part of his plan was reasonable and hey, he wasn’t 50 yet and he didn’t want to live out his life as a bachelor.  He also didn’t cook hardly at all…  an inability he passed on to me.  Yes, I can cook up a decent meal but it’s not something I ever want to do. 

What I didn’t expect, and what I still refuse to accept was how he treated Gramps in the aftermath of losing Mom.  Gramps, (Mom’s Dad) had taken him into the stationary store (or candy store) business as a partner and treated him fairly…  from what I understood, splitting everything in the way of profits.  Gramps had no problem sacrificing when necessary, knowing that the welfare of his daughter and his grandchildren were beneficiaries).  Dad contributed very little to the creation of the business and only joined Gramps when he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find work elsewhere that suited him.

Now, Dad is moving to Florida with another woman…  Larry is overseas in the Air Force…  I’m living in the apartment and in college…  working for Queens Two Way Radio cab company as a radio dispatcher.  The rent was just $85/month, fell under rent-control, and frankly, it was just a perfect financial arrangement for me.  $85 a month?  I could afford that easily and even had enough room in the apartment to take in a roommate… 

What does Dad do?  He pulls together every penny he can get his hands on.  He has me sign over all the childhood gifts I had gotten that Mom considered a ‘college fund’.  He does the same to my brother.  He announces that he’s closing the store and proceeds to sell every last piece of furniture, every saleable bit of merchandise…  and what he can’t sell, he returns to the wholesalers.  And he leaves Gramps (who was around 70 at the time), with little or nothing, expecting that he’d get by with help from my Aunt and Uncle.  To me, that was unforgiveable and no matter how I rationalize it, it bordered on criminal malfeasance without being strictly illegal.  His selfishness was off the charts and I’ve never forgiven him.  Frankly, I didn’t need the college fund but leaving Gramps holding an empty bag was totally inhuman.

Death Happens

Since I've managed to bring my Mom's passing into focus, this seems like a logical place to go into some detail about it.  Mom had rheumatic fever as a child and, with medical science where it was in the 1930s, she suffered the after-affects of that illness.

For the unfamiliar:

Rheumatic Fever Facts. Rheumatic fever is a complication of a streptococcal pharyngitis infection (strep throat) that can cause damage to the heart, joints, brain, and skin. The most serious complication of rheumatic fever is rheumatic heart disease.  Most significant of the complications are cardiac in nature. 

Patients with rheumatic fever who develop carditis may develop long-lasting heart dysfunction. Often the mitral valve or the aortic valve is affected, and if patients are not responsive to medications, surgical valve replacement may become necessary. Atrial fibrillation (irregular fast heart rate) and heart failure can occur. Sydenham's chorea can be the most difficult complication to treat, and the individuals with this complication may get recurrence of the disease. A few people remain very susceptible to reinfection with GABHS and may require lifetime antibiotic treatment.

Of course, back then there were no valve replacements and few antibiotics.  The post-fever advice she was given was to avoid stress and not have children.  Fortunately for my brother and I, she ignored that.  Unfortunately for her, it ended badly...  I guess...  Unless she was at peace in the knowledge that she had risked everything to bear and raise children.  At her passing, I was 20 in college and my brother was 24 in the Air Force in Southeast Asia.  Who knows how to judge such things in life?

Anyway, I was working on a term paper that was due right after the holiday, pecking away at my typewriter, focused on getting my assignment completed.  My father was at work with my grandfather (maternal) in the candy/stationary store around the corner.  It was New Years Day so Mom was off work, home cleaning our spacious 4 room apartment.  I remember hearing the vacuum…  Some time later…  might have been 15 minutes or 30 minutes…  I realized it was quiet and figured she had finished with the Electrolux.  Another few minutes and I went out to read her something I had written.  She always had a good fresh slant on things and I always relied on her to check my language.

At 20, I had exactly zero experience with death.  Yes, my grandmother (maternal) had died in August of 1959 while I was away at camp as a 12 year old.  And I recall visiting my grandfather (paternal) in a hospital shortly before he died a few years earlier.  I remember his appearance as someone who was wasting away, likely a cancer victim.  We were never close but he was dead shortly after.  Working in the store, I would hear that this one or that one died.  And on Yom Kippur, I knew my grandfather (maternal) would always go with my mother to the synagogue to attend the special Yizkor service for the deceased.  Dad would always stay outside…  I never understood why but he never went in.  Meantime, death was something that ‘happened’…  To me, it was an impersonal event that meant a life was over.  There was nothing emotional about it.  Looking back, I can’t believe how coldly I thought about it.  It was a clinical thing…  divorced from any sense of loss or grief.

Today, I look back and want to believe I was living in a bubble with a hard shell, protecting myself from any feeling.  Somehow, feelings were a sign of weakness.

The Sideways Event

I think the point at which it all went sideways was New Years Day in 1967, the day my Mom died. While it’s sort of normal to lose a parent, and as much as it sucked, I have to confess I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to recognize the obvious. First, my Mom died decades prematurely… At the time, I was like 19 and thought 46 wasn’t that young. After all, she lived a life, had married, had a career, had children, enjoyed life, Right? Nope, I can’t begin to relate how wrong that was. She had so much life left to live, so much more to give to her family and friends and the world she left. It was an absolute tragedy that she passed so young.

Now, as I approach 71, I can see it so much more clearly. I’m embarrassed to think of how I related to it at the time. I remember thinking of it as a ‘bad break’ when the policeman tried to offer solace to me. And how stupidly inadequate my emotional reaction seems today. It’s embarrassing to my sense of self but I can’t change how it happened at the time. It was actually decades later that I was able to recognize the truth and I’m forever shamed by the shallow nature of my reaction back then.

And, my redemption is rooted in that precise realization. People can change and I, for one, have done so. Yes, I can’t (nor do I really want to) undo the crazy events that ensued, after the early demise of my Mom.

Suddenly, I was living with my Dad and nothing was the same. For a few months, he mourned… and we’d often dine out at the Greek diner on 31st Street near Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria. It was, frankly, just sad. He was ill-equipped to parent on his own… and, at 20, I was hardly a child. You could say the results were inevitable, except they weren’t. The course of events were sealed in place during a unique moment in time. Hey, I’m not saying I was special or that I did anything that hundreds, if not thousands of others did, but I am saying that it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Things went on like that for almost a year... until he hooked up with a widow from Bridgeport and that changed everything... really... everything...