Page 50 - MN

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He later got a job in a ski shop and he and his friends would goof around with the skis, putting the mountings up towards the toe or way back just to see what they'd do. They'd also laminate weird stuff on top and I became the first skier up there to have plaid skis.
Tim later became a woodworker and furniture maker and taught woodworking at the University of Oregon. He's married to Cindy, a midwife who later became a hospital administrator and they live in Eugene, Oregon. He still is a great skier.
So my poor mom ended up with me, a college graduate who chucked it all to go sing in sleazy bars, Nan, who ran off to be a drug-addled flower child with a baby out of wedlock, and Tim, a draft resistor who went to prison. Mom was not a happy camper, and I think it messed her up.
Nan used to get letters from mom, and she'd have friends read them first so they could take out the crazy parts.
Dad? I think he got caught in the middle of all this. He was a businessman, and a good one. When he retired, he kept un-retiring and going back into business. I think mom was hard to live with. But she was also way ahead of her time when it came to women's rights and championing the underdog. As with all of us, a mixed bag.
Dad kept surprising me.
One day, late in his life, he turned to me and said, "I never wanted to be a businessman. I wanted to be an actor, but we got out of school in the middle of the Depression. There weren't a lot of choices."
Another time, and I should preface this by saying our family attended church regularly when we were kids, he turned to me and said, "You know, I've always been an atheist".
My immediate response was, “Why the hell did we have to go to church all those years?”
He said it just was what people did back then.
One final story.
Until I think of other final stories.
When I was part of a duo, singing in bars with Brian, we got booked to play
five Playboy Clubs. One was the Jamaica Playboy Club in Ocho Rios and it was a glorious gig with a great showroom, good sound and lights, beautiful beaches out front, and resort accommodations. And yes, there were Playboy bunnies serving drinks.
You know what else was great, and I'd never seen it in any club before or since? Each table had a card on it that said, "As a courtesy to the other patrons, please refrain from talking during the performances". How cool is that???