Tabishland

Natives. Particularly appropriate for Indianaians. Indianaians?

Anyway, I was born in Indiana hospital on March 8, 1967....okay, it was 1960....and I never left Indiana until I went to college. Which is probably why I practically had a nervous breakdown when I went to college.

My impression was always that the new kids were ALWAYS the cool kids, they were just accepted as popular until they proved otherwise, at least in high school. I always kind of wished I could be one of them.

But I really thought Indiana was the center of the world, and people came and went from the world, but in the end...it was the world. It was normal.

I don't think anyone took my father's job.
 

Most of you know that I'm a native; my father and paternal grandfather were both born in Indiana. My family never looked on new arrivals as taking jobs away. In those days, the 60's and 70's, Indiana was booming. There were plenty of jobs and lots of people made lots of money. Coal was King, and there were lots of other jobs at places like Robertshaw and Campus Sportswear. These jobs spurred lots of growth in all the other expected areas--housing, schools, shopping, etc.

When I went to kindergarten, I wsa supposed to have attended Ben Franklin, from all the way across town, because East Pike Elem wasn't built yet. But Ben Franklin was over-filled so we were "transferred" to Eisenhower. Imagine, Ben Franklin, as large as it is for Indiana, was jammed with kids!

Interestingly, 35 years later, Sean's first grade room was the same room where I went to Kindergarten. It looked so small all those years later but I could remember vividly so many "kindergarten moments".
 

Kim, this is an aside, but I was wondering after mentioning it on Saturday, how did you like Syracuse? I ask because I just LOVED going away to the city and I loved being in Pittsburgh. I knew you weren't happy when I'd see you there, but Syracuse is HUGE. Maybe I liked Pgh because I was still in a small-town-like environment up on the bluff.
 

I also moved to Indiana from California, northern CA/foothills of the Sierras in my case.

It was problematic in that I started in 7th grade, so it was the first time all the different grade schools were tossed together and everyone quickly banded with their elementary school gangs, so I felt like a leper. The thing I most remember, and this is definitely a "boy" thing, was Ahhzies (or Ozzies, I never knew the official spelling). I couldn't figure out for the life of me what the hell was going on and why everyone was sneaking up behind people and rubbing their throats yelling "AHHHHHH"!

Probably shouldn't have mentioned that as it moves the blog dangerously close to an NC17 rating, but I know there are a number of people here who are getting whiplash from the memory of "The Oz".

As I noted before, Gene and Anne were the first people I actually met. I didn't meet Chip until 8th grade I think, and I actually met him at a Penns Manor Football game out in Alverta. Ian, Eric, Jeff I met in 11th grade.

I already know Kim and Nell are going to ask what an Ahhzie is and I'm too shy to tell them, so it's up to.....

(Gun loaded by Pino, trigger pulled by.....)
 

Okay, someone fill us in...


Joe, what the heck were you doing at a Penns Manor football game in 8th grade? Checking out the marching band?
 

By the way, at the risk of getting my head wacked and offending Dame Nell, does anyone else find it amusing and fitting that she picked Jane Jetson as her icon?
 

My dad taught there and Chip's Uncle was the head football coach.
 

Look, I'm not ALWAYS sensitive. And I AM Jane Jetson.

and that makes sense.
 

Is that something you figured out yourself or something that was pointed out to you by another? I don't know you as well as most on this blog, but I think it is dead on and it cracks me up as much as the sock puppet Ian did.
 

That's my impression, totally me, chosen by me. I've been Jane Jetson for a long time. I'm glad I'm amusing to someone besides myself.
 

You all are scaring me- I just posted this thing, like 30 minutes ago and there's already 10 "comments"
 

It's been a long tedious day and a little blogging is taking the place of copious amounts of alcohol. I've also written about ten emails while doing this.


Cough, cough, nerd, cough cough
 

I'm feeling pretty relaxed myself and I feel like talking, and I don't have skype...yet...
 

Okay - the aaahsie. yeah, I have no shame. I'll explain it. Last Fall I directed a show with full frontal nudity for the first time in my life! So, I'm going to hell no matter what.

It was horrible- terrifying homo-erotic sexuality run rabid through the halls of Indiana Jr. High (with some spill over to the Sr. High). It wasz truly bizzarre. You may or (hopefully) may not remember- boys were always putting their hands over other boys chins and saying "aaah." If you were the boy getting the hand under your chin, you were not happy. - It meant that- and I'm not kidding here- that you were, how shall I say it, pleasuring the other boy. He was putting his hand under your chin to, how shall i say it, sooth his...you know, (Jesus, i'm pretty shy too) Scrotum. In other words, it meant that you were giving the other boy oral sex. If however, you were the "stroker" (they also called them strokes)that meant that you had gotten the better of your fellow boy.

What was truly bizarre about the whole thing is that the ritual appealed mostly to the Ty McGary/hard-ass, redaneck type. the rest of us were victims. It didn't help that, generally when someone puts their hand under your chin, you laugh because it's ticklish.

This thing was all over the place. i mean, walking from one class to another, it probably occured 30 times.

I was dumb struck one day when one of the hard ass gym teachers gave one of the boys in the class an "ahhssie." Talk about Blue Velvet!

By the way, they were called "ahhsies" because you would trick people into getting one by saying something like. "You know what my favorite movie is? the wixard of AAAAAAhs." or maybe even more disturbing- "My favorite TV show is AAAAAAAhzie and Harriet."

The whole thing was creepy, unsetteling and, franky, the summary of Jr. High for most boys in indiana during that era.

Nell's daughter will see this post and she'll never talk to me again.

Oi.
 

By the way, Joe has the ability to delete that last entry if anyone is concerned about family hour.
 

I do remember seeing this going on between classes but had no idea.

Ian, sadly, as embarrassing and degrading as this had to have been, so much worse goes on in jr and sr high now, this seems tame. Truly. Emily honestly wouldn't think twice. Her amazement would be that something like this happened "so long ago".

Why would a show with full frontal nudity send you to hell?
 

It was a production of HOUSE ON POOH CORNER for children.
 

.....In my living room.

JUST JOKING!!!
 

Well, that would be a reason. Now my face hurts from laughing.
 

Geez! Will you three get a LIFE!
 

I have a picture of A.A.Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, that I keep in my wallet. (Is that something Jane Jetson would do?)
 

wwjjd?
 

I keep a picture of Evil Knieval in my wallet.
 

The picture of Evil Knevil that I keep in my breast pocket once saved my life.
 

Was nine when we moved to Indiana, from upstate NY. Can't remember meeting any of you (apologies if I've offended anyone; I have a very very bad memory). Except for Gene-- we were going on a field trip and his lunch bag had ripped so I offered him my spare from my double bagged one.

(On a blog is it ok to go back to a topic that faded away about 20 entries ago-- or does that make you look really stupid?)
 

"returning to earlier entries on a string makes the blogger seem highly intellegent to other bloggers. Other bloggers may look up to and admire said blogger whithout consciously knowing why"

- Dr. Quentin Larch, BLOGGING FOR DOALLARS
 

Gee, I hate to wake up in the morning and feel like I missed a really good party last night. No, Liza, I think going back to the topic is always a good idea, esp. with this group. Nice touch, Joe, claiming the blog is a substitute for alcohol. Makes it seem very sanctimonious to blog.
 

If we can agree that alcohol and drinking is a low level search for God, what's blogging?

We moved to W Pa when I was in 7th grade--tough time to uproot--and I felt so welcome I immediatedly joined the Trapping Club. I would have joined the Branch Davidians or the Michigan Patriot Militiamen had they been around, I was feeling so misnanthropic at the time.

Met Geoff's brother Gary that first summer at a summer day camp at Blue Spruce and in fact that's how GD introduced himself to me later that fall in school and help my reintegration back into the warm, fuzzy world of jr high social biopolitics. Billy Riddle was less welcoming.

GD also helped me get my first theatre gig as the curtain guy in Swingin' High. In case you weren't aware, he STARRED in that show. David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman had other committments.

My former brother-in-law Jim Shoff, of course was the star the year before. Small world, eh? Just wouldn't want to have to paint it.
 

Ohhhhh... my aching head. What's the morning after cure for too much blog the night before? Two aspirin tabs and orange juice? Or hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you? I'll opt for the latter.

Just don't type so loud.

Gary Day. That rings a bell. Was he in my grade or older? Did he beat me up after gym or something?
 

Gary Day was class of '79--and did no ass-kicking to my knowledge.

Here's my story, but you better have a real drink handy Joe 'cause it won't exactly be a thriller...
...moving from a small-town Eastern PA subdivision to small-town Western PA subdivision... where we played lots of backyard whiffle ball with the Jenkins and Moreau boys and Don Fritz the younger.

From this vantage point, especially because I have a 10-year-old girl who does none of this stuff, I see lots of classic pre-pubescent boy stuff in this story.

We played a war game in the woods behind our house, and our "swords" were...whiffle bats. And "capture the flag" and "catch the leaves" and "nerd ball"--all of which I recall as being Jenkins inventions, or things that the Jenkins introduced us to. Also Dave Jenkins used to make up brilliant Risk-like global domination games. When we needed a break, my mom brought out watermelon and we drank water from the garden hose.

Speaking of water, in moving from eastern to western PA, the most challenging immigrant issue I faced was the language: I never learned to say "pop" instead of "soda" but I did learn to say "WAH-ter" instead of "WOOD-er." Also, when I started going to Ben Franklin in 2nd grade I was placed in a special-needs class with several future 305ers.

I think it would have been a lot harder to move to Indiana later in life, like some of youn's.

For more excitement, anyone up for another farm report?
 

I grew up in a University Community in L.A. County in the late sixties. We used to hang from the trees in my friend's backyard while his dad's students (he was a theatre prof at Pomona College) performed theater of cruelty stuff in white face. Another friend of mine- Ben Parks- had a father who was an artist- he would do plaster body casts of naked women in his studio behind the house.

His Dad used to let us read his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers underground comic books. One of my fondest memory was one rainy winter afternoon going with my sister Robin to a double-feature of let it Be and Terry Southern's Magic Christian.

The college town was at the height of the "mellow southern California end of the sixties" thing. Even the kids all had long hair and wore sandels. On May Day every year we would pick wild flowers and leave them on a neighbor girl's front porch and ring the door bell and ran.

I played Baseball and listened to the Beatles, loved Planet of the Ape Movies and loved learning new swear words and peppering my speech with as many as I could.

I moved to indiana- on the first day of school in 5th grade- I saw a kid with a crew cut- I thought either he was from Bazooka Joe comics or was going to kill me with a knife as soon as the opportunity lent itself.

I was a pretty good baseball player then (I remember Jeff, Dave Putt and Wonsuck Kim - they were also players on other teams- some of us got to play on "major league" little league teams when we were two years younger than some of the boys. It was weird, though. In California the teams had names like the Bulldogs and the Eagles. here the teams were named "McCreary Tire & Rubber" (my team), Creps United (what's a Creps?) and Delany Chevrolet.

One game the Manager of Delany Chevrolet ran out of the dugout, face all red, veins popping out and threatened our mananger with a baseball bat.

Kids were always getting into fights after school. I didn't get this at all- it scared me to death. I seriously thought someone was going to stab me with a knife and I might die.

Kids were always going on about my hair- was I a boy or a girl? That kind of thing. I just didn't get it. This kid Amber George saw me pick up a penny while he, Dave Putt and I were walking down the alley and he called me a "jew." I was so confused and bewildered. It didn't help at all when I went home and asked my Mom why that happened- I was even more confused.

Indiana was always a hard nut for me to crack.
 

Like Kim, I came to see Indiana as "normal." Not good or bad, just the way things were.

I must say that this wave of nostalgia (or just memory!) that's going on here has got me thinking, and I miss dahn-tahn stores like Brody's, Waxler's, and Troutman's. And the old newstand on Philadelphia St. (between 6th and 7th?) where I bought baseball cards. My mom, as I recall, would pay us a penny or something NOT to chew the hard slab of pink bubble gum inside the baseball card packs.
 

I live in middle to upper-middle class suburb of New York City - very diverse and with a huge Jewish population - and I'm sorry to say the jew/coin thing persists to this day, even here.

For what it's worth, I had a REALLY bad time in 7th grade. Even coming from a local sixth grade, unlike Joe's perception, my elementary school friends were scattered all over the place and I was surrounded by strangers in a big, scary place, and people made fun of me now and then, seemingly for no reason.

Of course, if I'd had any brains at all, I would have joined Fly-tying, Bear-trapping, or the Stab Ian clubs, which I understand were very popular.

PS, Amber George lived next to my Aunt Dorinda, and I think all of his problems can be explained not only by his first name, but by the nickname given by his mother, which was, I kid you not, "Dolly." She would yell that name when calling him.
 

Jeff, it's not so much a wave of nostalgia as it is a popularity contest. The more comments your blog posting gets, the more chance you have of getting into Key Club.

The fact that Ian was uprooted from SoCal--I hadn't known that-- explains alot for me now. IAHS ain't not Ridgemont High.
 

Jew know what I mean?
 

Gee Joe. Thanks for re-kindling those long lost aaahsie memories. And thanks to Ian for the psychoanalysis.

Indiana was always an odd mix of blue collar and white collar kids and families. I don't see it as much here in Morgantown, where there are TWO high schools.

I think if a survey were done of many junior and senior high schools were done, they would find similar instances of odd behavior deeply rooted in some sort of sexual innuendo. I don't know if that is as commonplace today with the Internet as the world wide web seems to be homogenizing the actions and thought of many kids. Or maybe it's just melting their brains.

All these memories are most interesting as there are common threads among many of us. For me, Ben Franklin Elementary, Indiana baseball teams (at least one year for me), playing in the woods behind the house, and stray rude comments from the Amber George crowd all strike a chord.

Occasionally other odd memories pop up like attending matinee Godzilla movies at the Manos or Indiana theatres, riding with my Dad on the new four-lane (119) just after it opened, actually seeing a train at the railroad depot (train-nut that I have always been), riding my bike all over town, watching the big earthmovers transform a field into the Regency Mall, going to McDonalds just after the first one opened, stocking shelves at Gatti Pharmacy, playing ping-pong at the IUP student union with Ian, Dave Putt, and Jim Gordon....there are others that come and go every now and again. Sometimes they are odd, sometimes the memories seem almost bucolic.

I lived in Indiana all my life until 1985 when I moved to Morgantown, W. Va. I did go away to college, but came back for a coupla years.
 

What's interesting to me is, I don't think we perceived a difference between blue collar, white collar, or the other various classes. I don't remember even being aware of it, much less caring about it. That is NOT the case today, that's for sure.
 

So, by Tim's reckoning, then, Ian should be, like, the President and Homecoming King and Injun Mascot of Key Club, and Don (Daw-ohn) Taybish is totally out.

Check out his letter--only ONE comment (though it was from Dr. Popular himself, which counts at least triple, I guess).
 

7th grade was a nightmare for me, too. I came from little St. Bernards with a class of something like 30 so I didn't stand a chance of knowing anyone in my jr. hi classes. Which probably explains why my grades were so good.
 

Jesus Jeff- Dr. Popular. How on earth did your remember that? I had completely forgotten about it until this very moment.

Eric was ALWAYS much better at seeing the good side of things- a real enviable quality.

I didn't real understand bluecollar/white collar until much later. My Dad's and Mom came from very poor labor class families (not even working class) and, even though he was the Dean of the Graduate School, they always had a very working class ethic- this was not a good or bad thing, but both good and bad. Of course they were commies- which made things even weirder.
 

El Doctor Popular esta muy guapo y el tiene muchas energías estupendas. El doctor es amó por las muchachas.

"he don't need no stinkin' hall pass."
 

La popularité est détestée par le Français et nous détestons les Espagnols et nous et nous vous détestons.
 

Sorry- one more before I get off this subject (not Dr. Popular- I will always be on that subject)-

I find the tension between folks in Western PA interesting- Here's a link about a terrible disater that happened in Ernest that most of us had never Heard of. i am seriously thinking about writing a play about it. (which no one will see and will just sit on my shelf for five years until I get sick of looking at it)

http://www.lib.iup.edu/spec_coll/articles/ernest_mine_disaster.html
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

Ian, the link doesn't work, can you re- post?
 

For some reason, I'm having some trouble, so i'm going to try and do something fancy.

here

 

Here's another play idea, Ian, or at least a title: "Dr. Popular and Jesus Jeff"--the gripping tragedy of two Drama Class wallflowers whose sole dream was to perform in "Death of a Saleman"...and of the evil teacher who sadistically kept them down by making them do fake Japanese accents.
 

It's been done so many times!
 

Kim- click the "here" in the above comment.
 

I was just going to write a snide comment about how Ian is now brazenly trying to up his comment number, then I read the article and sobered up. Then a giggling naked 2-year-old boy climbed into the chair behind me. Haven't had mood swings like this since I was about 16. I still think Ian is shamelessly increasing his comment total to get the record...and title of Fascist Dictator of Key Club.
 

Okay, I read it. Perhaps one of the reasons we didn't know about it was because there were so many mining accidents in PA during that era. AND, there were many, many worker fatalities of all types across American in the late 19th early 20th century. Conditions were abyssmal - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, deaths while building the Brooklyn Bridge; I think we read The Jungle in high school, THAT'll depress the hell out of you. Ian looking like Connie Kunkle, I tell you, the whole world is a mess.
 

But Kim, that can all be solved by puchasing this lovely cubic zirconia pendant. These are so elligant that they won't last long. And look, if you turn it into the light just right you can see a set of prayer hands.
 

My aunt had one of those sets of praying hands, they were so damned creepy even SHE thought they were creepy.

(Please - change the pic. Be me if you have to)
 

But Kim, what would I change my picture to?
 

Keep it the way it is now. I love cows.
 

Ok- one last little thing about moving to indiana- professional wrestling. As a little kid, I loved professional wrestling. My favorite was the champ- a good guy wrestler named Freddie Blassie. In those days, the pro wrestling business was localised- so when I came to indiana, the Pittsburgh station had this weird guy named Bruno Samartino as champ and the righ was all wrong. It was clearly in a TV studio and they had about 4 rows of "fans" and behind them was a big wall painted to make it look like the crowd went on forever. Of course, the sound effects didn't go along with it.

Anyway, from time to time who should appear but Freddie Blassie. But this time, he was a villain. he want by the same name and everything. He was freinds with Mr. Moto! Mr. Moto, for chrissake!

This is how I learned that there is no tooth fairy.
 

Hey! My little guy just lost his first tooth. What's the going pay rate from the tooth fairy these days?
 

Liza- ooh, tell me when you find out- my daughter has her first loose one.
 

I've given my daughter $1 for each of 2 or 3 teeth she lost in my presence in the past few years, figuring on inflation since ca. 1970 when I was getting a dime or a quarter, can't remember which.
 

When the Tooth Fairy visits our house, she leaves $1, but it's a Sacagawea coin.
 

Ah! Ok. I remember leaving a pack of Pokemon cards for my older daughter 10 years ago instead of moola.

Thanks for the update on current Tooth Fairy practices...