The Sexy Sixties

   Recently, my older brother Dan mentioned something about “We need someone to write about their memories of the sixties” He has written extensively about the “fighting forties” and the “fabulous fifties” (he is 13 years older than me). He spent a lot of time on it, included pictures with the stories , and sent all his siblings a bound copy of his work. Well, I have taken his suggestion to heart.

   I was teenager in the sixties. The sixties were a time of radical change. We very quickly went from a time of “happy days”, innocent times, into a whole new decade that included the Vietnam war, the hippie movement, the discovery by the hippies of recreational illegal drugs, “Make Love not War” mentality etc. I did not go to Vietnam, even though the Army tried their best to draft me. I have a story about that, but I will save that one for last since that was in 1969.

   In 1964, we moved to a brand new house in Beavercreek OH . We lived on the corner of County Line Road and Rushmore Pl. I was 14 and somewhat of an onry, rebellious teenager. My buddies all lived in Belmont, the area from which we had moved. They loved to come to my house and get into mischief. It was fairly innocent stuff at first, but as I got older, it got less and less innocent. By 1965 , I had discovered rock&roll music and started playing in rock bands with my buddies. Wow, those are some of the best   times I can remember, god we had fun. I have a few stories about that too. By 1968, I was 18 and graduated from HS. By 1969, I was married and had a son on the way.

For those of you who do not remember the sixties time line, here are a few dates to remember:

1960: The birth control pill first became available (Yeh, free love, or was it just sex)

1960: My brother Dan marries Maureen Sullivan

1962: John Glenn becomes the first American in space

1962: Mom enrolls in nursing school

1963: President John F Kennedy is shot and killed

1963: My sis Sue marries Thomas Yahle , has a daughter names Lisa

1964: The Beatles invade America, the Rolling Stones do the same

1964: I move to Rushmore Pl in Beavercreek OH

1965: LBJ escalates the Vietnam war (shame on him, just my opinion)

1965: My sis Marjorie marries Michael McGlaughlin, has son named Christopher

1966: My sis Diane marries John Hartmann (Yeoman Warders play at reception)

1967: We watch the first superbowl football game(what teams played? Can’t remember)

1968: Martin Luther King is shot and killed

1968: Robert Kennedy is shot and killed

1969: Neil Armstrong lands on the moon

1969: James Raymond DeBord marries Bonnie Sue Ziegler, has son named Jason

So, by the end of the decade, we were all having SEX, and produced eleven grandchildren for mom and dad. I will start off with a story my memories from our time on Wayne Ave in the period of 1960-1963

Wayne Ave in the early sixties

I have so many memories from those times that I hardly know where to start. We lived in a double on Wayne Ave in Dayton, OH . My dad had his biz on one side, residence on the other. But the basement areas were connected. On the the office side we had a stereo room where my sisters played music by Elvis, Chubby Checker etc, Spin those 45RPMs with the auto drop. You get the picture

One time my sis M was dancing to the twist and her partner threw his knee out! My dad , a chiropractor, had to reset his leg! what a hoot. I got to use that stereo some years later. The first album I bought was “409” by the Beach Boys. “Giddy Up , Giddy Up 409” 409 was the size of the engine!

We had a pool table and a ping-pong table in the basement. Of course, the basement was at a slope to drain. Dad tried to compensate for the slope but, never did get it even. Every time I hit a ball, it ended up on a side rail!  But , it turned out to be an Ok surface for ping-pong and Pinochle. Dad used to to go down to the local bar, the Red Carpet I think. He would get a gallon jug of draft beer and bring it home for those pinochle games on Friday nights. The Red Carpet also had the best fish sandwich in Belmont. Remember that it was was sin to eat meat on Friday according to the catholic church. But it was not a sin to get drunk as a skunk 🙂 Sometimes he would let me play cards but not drink the beer. I remember that my Uncle Elmer was a hell of a ping-pong player, and not a bad pinochle player.

Of   course the next week , I felt the need to go to the confessional. I knew that I had a bologna sandwich that previous Friday for lunch. “bless me father for I have sinned. I ate meat last Friday”. And since I know that my aunt J, did similar things when she was alive , I feel the need to say indulgence prayers for her, since I know she is in purgatory , working off her sins, and the only way she can get out of purgatory and go to heaven is if I say these indulgence prayers for her. I have the prayer card here in my hand. I promise to pray for her as part of my penance for eating that bologna sandwich last Friday. I understand that , if I say this prayer, that I will get 30 days forgiven off her time in purgatory. “Well son. that is a good idea, also say 3 Hail Mary’s and 1 Our Father”

Another time, my sis M got sent home from school at St A when then nuns decided her tits were too revealing for her sweater. M was well endowed by 7th grade. My sis S was 1 year older and she decided to compete. She started stuffing her bra with toilet paper. Trouble was the TP started coming out of the top of her bra! whoops

Another time, my dad decided he was going to grow his own grapes around our property at Wayne Ave. The grapes grew well, but they tasted like shit! He decided he was going to make his own wine. So the sour grapes went through the whole fermentation process. He tried to give the wine away as Christmas presents to friends and neighbors. Even at 12 years old, I could see the friends graciously accepting the home-made wine. I bet every bottle got poured down the drain!

My freshman year of high school, I went to a parochial school called Carroll HS. Things were pretty strict in those days. The boys were separated from the girls. We wore ties and were made to march down the halls between classes with no talking allowed. One time a senior hood noticed that I was wearing Beatle boots. He stood me up on a chair, when the nuns weren’t looking of course, and spit on my boots!

I always hated going to gym class. We had 4 minutes to get from our last class to our spot on the gym floor fully dressed in gym clothes. It was like being in the military, but I was only 14 years old. If we were late , we got whacked on the ass with a paddle. The gym teacher was also the football coach, a bad combination in my opinion.

Anyway, I  was embarrassed about the size of my penis. It seemed like the guys in the shower around me had huge dicks compared to mine, and they had pubic hair! So , I started wearing my jock strap to school on gym days. After gym class when it was time to shower , I left it on, and wore it the rest on the day. It made for quite a few soggy underwear days!

Another time, The gym aides, usually seniors, decided they were going to work my ass to death. I was a chubby kid and really out of shape. I could not do a single chin-up. When it came time for us the climb the rope to the ceiling and back, about 30 feet, I gave it my best . I made it about 10 feet, and then pooped out. So , the aides decided to work me even harder. I ended up collapsing on the floor, not able to get my breath. Luckily, dad came to the rescue. He looked all official with his doctor’s bag etc. I can’t remember how that day ended. Did he take me home?. I just don’t know.

But, what I do remember is , by the the end of my freshman year, I told mom and dad that I was not going back to Carroll HS, and I meant it. They relented and let me go to Belmont HS in my old neighborhood, where all my buddies went. Dad still had his office in Belmont, so I had a legal address. I was much happier at Belmont. I started my first good band, the “Yeoman Warders”. We played mostly Stones music. Most of my best lifetime friends played in bands with me when I went to Belmont HS.

But things were not all that peachy at Belmont. I started growing my hair longer, like the Beatles. I took a lot of shit over that , which I will describe later.

Fishin on Indian lake

circa summer 1963,Doc DeBord & Jim DeBord, Bud Klinger & Jim Klinger left Dayton at dusk and  headed to Indian Lake on a camping/fishing trip.By the time we arrived at the state park it was dark and pouring down rain! We sat in Docs’ beige Dodge hoping the rain would stop.In the mean time(pun intended) the two cousins began to craft a song.After the long car ride,we naturally had to pee.Cuz and I looked at each other and said “I gotta piss”.Still pouring rain and with all four fishermen trapped in the car the we expressed our frustration by singing “Piss on Indian Lake”.At the time,their was a popular song on the radio called “Timey Kangaroo Downs Sport”,so we sang our new lyric to the melody of the refrain of the chorus.It went;Piss on Indian Lake Doc,Piss on Indian Lake,Piss on Indian Lake,Doc Piss on Indian Lake. Amused with our invention, we repeatedly sang it adnauseum until the dads had enough and made us pitch the tent in the pouring rain! We settled in ….

We awoke to a nice sunny day,a good breakfast in our bellies,we gathered our fishin gear and headed to the boat rental.At this time Doc only owned an old 5hp.Johnson outboard motor w/ 5 gal. gas  tank,so we rented a small boat,bought minnows and nitecrawlers and candybars and put out in the lake to do some serious fishin.It wasn’t long until we had our poles in the water, Bud fished out the front of the boat while the two cousins fished starboard and portside,Doc,at the rear helm, not wanting to miss any fish used three poles,a real multitasker!

Ah this was the life! but wait, just when it couldn’t get any better, the dads fired up big fat cigars and swigged on cans of Strohs beer,waiting for a bass or bullhead catfish to bite.The cousins laughed as we started a farting contest,remnants of last nights baked beans.The real contest began as the men offered $1 rewards for;the first fish,the longest fish,the biggest fish.We caught a lot of crappies and catfish that day which were destined for a fish fry at 3111 Wayne ave, but first the fish would have to be cleaned,that was the dads job.On the way home the cousins reverted to their old standby song to aggravate their dads;100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.The dads managed to ignore us and still stopped in DeGraff to the creamery and treated us to ice cream.We wolfed down the homemade food of the gods but also unknowingly absorbed the food that comes from bonding with the fathers.Oh those Halcyon days!

The Hose in the Tree

When I was 13, my buddies used to come to our house in Beavercreek and have a ball. My mom was very lenient with me and I got very little discipline, definitely not like my adolescent years, growing up in parochial schools where I got strict discipline from the nuns at St Anthony. One summer night, my buddies and I walked down to Belmont drive-in theater and snuck in through a hole in the fence. We watched the movie, sitting up front ahead of all the cars. When the movie was over, we started walking back home , which was about a mile away. About 3 blocks from home, we were eager to get into mischief and decided to  pull a prank. It was a Friday night and this was a 13 olds idea of partying. The prank was to grab a hose from someone’s house along County Line Road, pull it out to a tree by the road, attach it, and point it out to spray a jet-stream onto the passing cars. It seemed like innocent fun. After all, what could it hurt? We thought, the worst thing that could happen is that some car would get a free car wash!

So, we put the hose in the tree next to the road, turned on the water, hid in the hose owner’s bushes, and waited to see what would happen. Along came a convertible of greasers (hoods). They got a good dousing, and they did not like it. They screeched to halt , got out, and started to look for the pranksters. I’m sure they had every intention of evening the score. My buddies and I were so scared that we took off in every direction, meeting back up at my house.

As it turned out, the hose owner was awakened and we had scared the daylights out of his young daughter. He got into his car and went looking for the pranksters. When my buddies and I got home, I saw my mom at the door talking to a stranger. Guess who the stranger was? You guessed it. The HOSE OWNER !!! The only porch light that was still on, was at my house, so he stopped there to ask to use the phone to call the police.

 FISHIN on Lake Erie

One time my dad and I, Dick Miller, and cuz Klinger went out fishin on Lake Erie, you know, one of the Great Lakes (Huron, Michigan, Superior, Ontario). Lake Erie is at the northern most point of Ohio, bordering upon Canada. Erie was known for it’s great walleye fishin. We were in Dick’s 16 foot boat. When you went fishin on Lake Eire, especially in a small boat, you were always taking a chance. If a storm came up, and you were caught out on the lake unprepared, you could be in deep shit.

Well, you guessed it, a big ole storm blew up and we were fishin near an island about 8 miles out. “We had better head back” Dick said. So he tried to crank up the outboard motor on his 16 foot boat. Pull, Sputter, Pull, Sputter, but no go. Little did we know at the time , but there was a problem with the fuel line to the motor.

We started drifting toward the rocky shores of the island. Dick said, “jump in boys, we need to keep this boat from goin onto the rocks” So we did. Dad forgot to take out his wallet which he bitched about later. At least he still had his wallet in the end, but it was mighty wet.

We managed to keep the boat from crashing into the rocks while Dick fixed the fuel line. But by that time, there was a “red flag” warning out for small boats. The waves were maybe 15 feet, the size of the boat. So we tried to head back to shore, Boom, boom boom, the waves were hitting the hull like a  jackhammer. By that time , there was a Coast Guard warning out “Get off the Lake!”

Dick saw a woman on the island and yelled to her “call the coast guard, we are in trouble”

Those miles to safety were the scariest moments in my life. Boom. boom, boom!, as the waves hit the boat. I realized that we were the only boat still on the lake. Crash , Boom , Whack. The boat seemed to getting smaller , and the waves bigger. I prayed, God, if you are there, PLEEEEASE help us now. I am only 13 years old! And my cuz is 10. We tried to find to safest place in the boat   Crash , Boom , Whack, the 15 foot waves continued to whack at the 14 foot boat.

Well, we made it to safety , with the help of the Coast Guard. I was shaking like Dorothy in the tornado.(think Wizad of OZ)  So was cuz. LAND OH BEAUTIFUL LAND. Terra Firma. To this day I am skittish about going out in a small boat on Lake Erie when there is a chance of a storm blowin in. We , of course , went out on Erie many more times after that. And yes, we did catch some walleye pike. When the fishin was good , we felt good. When the fishin was bad, I thought, “why did I take off work to do this? What was I thinking” I am miserable and for what? A chance to be with my dad and brother?, a little comradery?. Yes, it was exactly that. There is nothing like a fishin trip to bring us men together. If we catch fish, we fry them up and eat them , after cleaning them of course. If we don’t, there is always a beer carry-out to sooth the wounds.

the Tornado

I believe it was 1966. My band was practicing in our garage on Rushmore Pl. The power was “browning out” and the wind was howling. People were home at our house but nobody came into the garage to say anything. Since the power was undependable, the band decided to take a break. I came into the house and looked out the patio door. Low and behold, I saw a sight that I will never forget. The roof on our neighbors house 3 houses down literally came off! At first I could not believe my eyes. Yea, it was windy out but, this was surreal. Me and my band buddies did not have enough sense to stay in the house. Needless to say, our neighborhood had been hit by a tornado. We ran outside and looked around. Yep , the neighbors roof was gone. We ran down there but luckily no one was home. We ran across the street to the Colony Apartments to see if anyone was hurt. We found a few people who were in shock but no one seemed to be hurt. We started back to my house and noticed that another neighbor’s car, a VW Beetle I believe, was lying upside down in a yard maybe twenty feet off the road. I said to my buddies, that car had to driving down County Line Road when the tornado hit. We ran to the car, jumping over downed power lines that were live and sparking. There was someone in the car. He was hanging upside down, dangling from his seat belt! We opened the car door and asked the guy whether he was Ok. His response, which was somewhat slurred, was “where is my bowling ball” We got him out of the car, found his bowling ball, and walked him home. What a hoot!

The next day, there were all these cars rubber-necking down County Line Road. Traffic had slowed to a crawl. I’m sure most folks were just curious, probably a morbid curiosity. We had not heard on the news that anyone was killed or even hurt. My bro-in-law John got a funny idea. “Let’s go out and interview some of the rubberneckers, pretending that we are press. So we did. I gave John one of the band’s microphones, and a clipboard, he and my sis-in-law went out to do the interviews. The interviews went something like this:

“Sir, could we interview you for just a minute?”

“Sure”

“What did you think about the tornado?”

“Well, it is amazing that no one got killed”

“Yes, I guess the family that had their roof blown off were not home at the time”

“ Yea , they sure were lucky”

“ It was almost like the hand of God was upon them”

“Well, I don’t know if I believe in God but, they sure were lucky”

“Have you ever experienced a tornado up close?”

“No, but my sister lives in Kansas, she has seen plenty of devastation”

“Oh, what part of Kansas?”

“She lives 50 miles outside of Wichita, in tornado alley”

“Oh, so she lives in Dorothy of Wizard of Oz country where whole houses can get swept up by one?”

“Yea, I guess you could say that”

“Have you ever known anyone who was killed in a tornado?’

“No, and I hope I never do”

“Well, thank you for your time sir”

“You’re quite welcome”

What a hoot. John should have been an actor. I found it hard to believe he could keep a straight face. He interviewed a few more cars and then came back to the house to share the story. Ok, I admit that I made up the interview conversation to keep it interesting, but the story is true

The Egg Toss

When I was 16, I was in HS and my buddies and I were into the rock&roll scene. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were very popular and we all wanted to be like them. We wanted to grow our hair long, and play Stones music. It was the hip thing to do.

At the time, growing your hair long, and wearing mod clothes was, well, still a radical concept. Most high schools still required that you get your hair cut above your ears and off your collar.  The greasers and the jocks hated the long-hairs. Maybe they thought that we were going to get all the chicks. Anyway, the greasers called us “pussies” and wanted to kick our ass. The jocks wanted to make sure that we never got to play sports or succeed in gym class. I will put gym teachers and football coaches into this category.

So, it was a constant battle for us, the long-hairs, to just live in peace (make love not war) and do our thing which was to be hip and play rock music. So, the battle begins: 

One time when I was in gym class a greaser decided to cut off a lock of my hair with a pocket knife while the gym teacher chooses to look the other way. My band plays at a neighboring HS for a dance and a greaser with a spiked rings sucker punches me from behind and I end up in the emergency room for 17 stitches in my lip. Greasers chase my girlfriend and I all over the north end of town, finally to catch up with us at her dad’s house and throw me into the glass storm door. I ended up in the hospital with a completely severed tendon on the ring finger of my left hand, the finger that is most important to guitar players, and on and on. 

One time , the football coach, I will call him Mr M., decided to set me up while he was on cafeteria duty. He said, you left your empty milk carton on the table. I said, “No I didn’t” which was the truth (it was my buddy’s milk carton) He said “you are lying” and took me to the principals office to receive 2 whacks and a 1 day expulsion from school.

But the guy we long hairs resented most was an assistant principal that I will call Mr S. Mr S had the power and authority to make our lives miserable. If we were 10 minutes late for school, he could give us detention.. If we missed a day of school and came in the next day without a note from a parent, he could expel us for a day, etc, etc. So, Are you starting to get the picture? We couldn’t win.

My band buddies and I used to cruise around in a white 1960 Buick station wagon. We called it the Warder Wagon because the name of our band was the “Yeomen Warders”. We had had enough of Mr S and were trying think of a way to even the score so to speak. We found out where Mr S lived. We decided to pay him a visit one night in the Warder Wagon with a couple dozen eggs that we could not wait to throw at his house and take out our frustrations. We pulled up near the house and parked on the berm. It was wet night and the berm was muddy and slippery. But we had our fun by god. We pelted his front porch with 2 dozen eggs and then ran back to the Warder Wagon, anxious to make our escape without being seen. Well, we got stuck in the mud long enough that a neighbor noticed the suspicious nature of the long hairs in the white Buick wagon!

Next day, we all got called down to Mr S office. He drilled us , but we did not admit a thing and he could not prove anything. We got away with it! The only thing better than seeing egg on Mr S face was seeing egg on his house 🙂

the Slippery Boat Ramp

Another one about my dad

Dad was a great fisherman. He loved to go out on the lake in his own fishin boat. Of course, boats can be a big headache some times. I mean you have to have a trailer to haul it on. You have to back the trailer down a ramp at the lake and release the boat into the water. Then of course you have to get the boat started, get out of the way so the next guy can do his thing. All went well until we returned to the boat ramp. Dad went to get the car & trailer and reverse the process of getting the boat back onto the trailer. We got the boat back on the trailer Ok. The trailer had to be partially under water to get the boat back on. And then you had to have enough traction with your vehicle to pull the boat & trailer out of the water at the boat ramp. Can you guess what happened? We did not have a 4 wheel drive truck or anything like that. When dad tried to pull the boat & trailer out of the water on the algae-covered ramp, he had no traction and the car & trailer started to slip backwards into the lake! I thought he was going to go into the drink , car , boat and all. The water was up to the car’s floorboard, then further, almost to the door handle. Luckily he got out alive and a big 4×4 came to rescue us before he drowned before my very eyes. What a hoot!

My Hippie Wedding

   It was 1969. I was in love with my high school sweetheart, Bonnie Sue Ziegler. We had been “going steady” since we were 16. I met her at a dance at Kettering skating rink. My band was playing there. I had long hair and was trying to be cool. I was not the type to easily approach girls so luckily she approached me. “Hi, my name is Bonnie” and the rest is history so to speak.

   Bonnie had a rough childhood, really rough. But I won’t get into that. We went to proms together. She went to Fairview HS, which was on the other side of town from Belmont HS where I attended. She came to all my band gigs. Some might say she was even a groupie. I didn’t mind a bit. I was glad have a girlfriend and someone to “spoon” with, like they like to say these days. She introduced me to her band friends from her side of town. I eventually hooked up with them and played in a band called “The Brigorian Knoll”.

   Anyway, by 1969, Bonnie had a “bun in the oven” and I did not want to shirk my responsibility, but more than that, I was in love, and I was starting to have warm feelings about that bun. I was a freshman in college at the time, maybe even a sophomore. So, we decided to take the traditional route and get married. I guess you could  say I was hippie at the time, or maybe a flower child, or maybe just part of a generation that liked to be unconventional, loved playing rock&roll music, and wearing the wildest clothes I could find.

   As a wedding present, my mom made me a wild looking shirt. I still have that shirt. She let me come along when she picked out the fabric. Wow, the fabric was surreal. Anybody who gazed upon me in that shirt probably thought they were trippin! I asked my best band buddy Dan, to be my best man. Hey, that rhymes.  I only invited friends and close family to the wedding. The wedding took place at the party room at Colony apartments in North Dayton, where her dad lived. Her brother’s father-in-law presided over the wedding. Bonnie looked so pretty in her white mini dress. The ceremony was short and sweet, not elaborate which was just the way we wanted it.

   The reception was a blast. My band, The Brigorian Knoll played. All my band buddies wanted to come to the wedding anyway. Ok, here is where the funny part begins. People start drinking, but not me, I was high on love. Someone spilled beer into Bonnie’s shoe. She was not happy about that but, she was willing to live and let live. My family bought us a night at the Holiday Inn South, a long drive away. We ended up giving my buddy Mike a ride home on our wedding night. He was too drunk to drive. We got to Holiday Inn and we both just relaxed. The idea of having sex for the first time had long past. I actually don’t remember much about my wedding night. We had no honeymoon.

   My sister had picked out an apartment for us in Kettering that was very California style. We lived there for a year and during that time, the bun popped out of the oven. We named him Jason (son of James) We lived there for a year and  then had to move back in with mom. This was a good thing, Mom just loved those babies. She did not care if those babies were ??? conceived before marriage, She just loved babies, She used to give them a pony ride “Pony ride, pony ride , won’t you be on my pony ride, far across 

My Army Draft Physical

   In 1969, the Vietnam war was raging. It had escalated in 1965 under LBJ. The Army needed a lot of bodies to send to the war. They instituted a draft system based on a kind of, I don’t know, lottery system? It was like “pulling straws” Everyone who was draft eligible got a number that was based upon their birth date. My number was 57 which meant I had a much better chance of being drafted into the Army than someone whose number was 157, 257, 357 etc.

   I was 19, married and had a son. But I had to drop to part-time status in college so I could work and support my family. So I lost my 1Y status and became eligible for the draft. Well, I got my notice pretty quick, saying report to such and such place in Cincinnati. I did not want to go to Vietnam, for reasons that I will explain later. The day before my report date, I decided that I was going to make myself undesirable to be in the Army. I took a handful of amphetamines(speed), I covered my penis in liquid dish soap. They idea was to make them think that I was a crazy druggie with the clap and high blood pressure, and therefore not good Army material. The next day, I got on the bus to Cincy, higher than a kite and my genitals crusted in dish soap. The physical consisted of a written test, a physical exam, a mental eval etc.

   During the written test, I started feeling really weird. The speed was doing a number on my body. I really started to feel like I was going to O.D. My pupils were as big as saucers. I went to the front and told the person in charge, “I think I am going to Die” They took me into room and started to examine me , shining lights into my eyes and saying things like  “ What did you take today son?” I said, nothing! Which was a lie of course. The physical exam required me to “drop my drawers” They looked at my crusty penis and did not say a word. So much for that dodge. I decided that the best thing might be to flunk the hearing test. “Ok young man, listen for the sound and when you hear it (through headphones) push the button, and then when you can’t hear it anymore , push the button again. So I waited about 3 seconds after hearing the sound before I pressed the button, and then anticipated the declining volume by 3 seconds and pushed the button again.

   So, why did go through all of this trouble? Because I believe to this day that Vietnam war was the biggest mistake that the US ever made. It was stupid of the government to think that they could stop the spread of communism by sending young men to fight in jungles of Vietnam. No one ideology will ever take over the world. It was not like WWII where our country was being attacked at Pearl Harbor and Japan had declared war on us. I saw too many of my buddies come back in boxes. My friend from across the street came back with no legs. Communism eventually self-destructed, and places like China , although still communist, have embraced capitalism and are now kicking our butts at it. 

   I have no regrets that I was a “draft dodger” I would have gone to Canada if I had to. If I had to do it again, I would not change a thing other than , nearly killing myself in the process of dodging the draft.

The pony ride

Jason was conceived in 1969. She just loved babies, She used to give them a pony ride 

“Pony ride, pony ride , won’t you be on my pony ride, dont say no ,can’t say no , far across  the sea. Giddy up, giddy up, Ohhhhhhhh my pony ride” She would bounce the babies on her knees and then when it came to the Ohhhhhh part, she would lower them down and pull them back up!

Mom had other songs she liked from her childhood. I am trying to think “go to sleep my baby” …???