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You
don't work in this business for 30 years, and not
have some stories to tell! If you have a favorite Bob and Carl story, just click
the link below, and send it in. I'm sure if the police enjoyed it,
everyone else will! PORK RINDS AND
BUCKEYES
We were
both 15, out of school and not very bright.
That’s about the only excuse that I can give for this brilliant
idea. (Although I know for a
fact that it was Carl who came up with it). Hanging
around Travis Hamburgers in Mt. Clemens with our high school friends
sooner or later was going to get us into trouble, and as it turned out,
this Saturday was the day. Most
of our time spent within our small circle of friends consisted of immature
name-calling and stories of girls and how we were going to conquer them.
For some reason, on this particular Saturday, Carl announced
somewhat out of the blue that we were going to ride our 10 speed bicycles
from Mt. Clemens to Sandusky Ohio and back again.
All in a weeks’ time! (I
didn’t even have a 10 speed). Now
announcing something totally stupid like that would not be out of the
ordinary for either one of us, but to make an idle boast in front of our
most trusted, and despised friends, customers and the world in general
just didn’t seem wise to me at the time.
Let’s be honest, we came up with dumb ideas all the time, but we
never really vocalized them to anyone. Be that as
it may, we were now faced with having to “sell” the idea to our
parents, the people that knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how goofy we were
capable of being. Little did
we realize just how much our parents wanted to get us out of their
respective houses, no matter what we were getting ourselves into.
After a while, the idea of riding bikes from our comfortable
“white bread” world in suburban Detroit to the unknown and uncharted
remote wilds of Sandusky Ohio’s Cedar Pointe theme park seemed like a
simple, yet enjoyable task. Then
again, I would imagine that most disasters begin along those lines.
Anyway, it
was agreed upon that if we were both going to undertake this formidable
journey, we would have to seriously train like we had never trained
before. (Actually, we had
never trained before). Carl,
(being the aforementioned mastermind of this fiasco), decided that all we
needed was a short tune-up ride to become “one” with our machines. Coincidentally, Carl also wanted to buy some “bootleg”
8-track tapes from this store that his parents wouldn’t let him go to.
So on a typical Saturday morning, we set off for a leisurely jaunt
down Gratiot Avenue to 7-mile road and back.
As I look back, this small excursion went exceedingly well, so in
our minds, we were more than ready to tackle a simple ride to an amusement
park. What
stands out in my mind about the whole thing is that fact that I never once
questioned what we were undertaking, or why.
It never occurred to me at all that it might be a wee bit difficult
for bike riders of our caliber. Or
even possibly a little like actual work to pedal a bicycle 70 miles.
We also had to get there in a given amount of time.
And had to navigate our way on our own.
On the other hand, it was not like we had never done stupid things
before, in fact that was something that we excelled at. The plan
was to leave bright and early on Monday morning and ride straight down
Gratiot Avenue until we either died of exhaustion, were run over, or
actually made it to Toledo Ohio. We
would sleep over night at rooms provided by the Toledo YMCA.
Tuesday morning we would again mount our bikes and travel to
Sandusky Ohio where we would stay the night at the Sandusky YMCA branch.
If alive, we would spend all day Wednesday at the Cedar Pointe
Park, enjoying the amusements and fine food, as well as the ambiance of
one of the Midwest’s premier theme parks. Thursday morning would see us jump on our bikes, renewed and
refreshed for a wonderful ride back to the fine city of Toledo for another
night’s stay. By Friday if
all things go as planned, we would be back home safe, and sound all the
better for the experience. That was
the plan. However, the
reality was somewhere in between.
On a crisp Monday morning we assembled at Carl’s house all bright
eyed and ready to go. And as
a sign of how times have changed, Carl’s mother and my father told us to
enjoy ourselves and please be safe. And
with a quick picture taken by my dad, (“to identify the bodies”), we
turned right out of his driveway and were on our way. I really don’t think that it would be possible to have a
better summer day to ply any endeavor, but this one seemed somehow a cut
above all of them. The birds
were singing, the squirrels were squirrelly and there was a song in our
hearts as we raced down the road to our new adventure.
Actually the day went quite well with us stopping to have lunch in
Trenton I believe and feeling quite up to the challenge before us.
And as the end drew near to the first day of our trip, it was
evident that we would arrive in Toledo ahead of schedule. (Carl’s schedule that is). We arrived
at the Toledo downtown branch of the YMCA and registered ourselves into
one of their deluxe 5 by 5 rooms with a view.
(Of the back alley garbage dump).
However, as we went on a self-led tour of the building, one of the
staff recognized my t-shirt that had emblazoned on it the logo from our
local Macomb YMCA and stopped us in our tracks.
Startling us beyond our 15 years he yelled . . . “Macomb YMCA . .
. do you guys know a Fred Wallace?”
Well we did in fact. My
father had given him his first job as a program director at our local
YMCA, and I had known him for years.
Unknown to us, he was now a director at that YMCA, and we soon
found him and caught up on old times.
Fred told us that he would find a better place for us to stay than
the room we were given, and he was right!
He took us down to the Members private locker-room, and made us at
home there. It was the most
perfect place in the entire world for two weary 15 year olds.
We had deluxe showers; message tables our own private sauna,
Jacuzzi and steam room. Not to mention that when they closed the Y, we were the only
ones there! We enjoyed
playing in the shows and everywhere else like we owned the place.
The best part was that when it came time to go to sleep, we were
introduced to the greatest place of slumber in the entire world.
(For the living anyway). The ”Nap
Room” as it was known was one of the undiscovered wonders of the modern
age. I am quite sure that
whoever invented the concept, just as quickly learned to keep the
knowledge to only a select few trustworthy people.
If any news of this heavenly vestibule were to leak out to the
world at large, all work and commerce would immediately cease and desist. Here was a room about twelve feet long by about 8 feet wide
that had nothing but comfortable cots for snoozing and relaxing.
When you closed the door, every thread of the outside world was
cut. Looking back I now
realize that it was an early form of the sensory deprivation chambers that
would become popular in the 80’s, and we had it all to ourselves!
What a nights’ sleep! We
awoke refreshed, renewed and refocused on our little quest to the Pointe. We knew
that the second day would be a little more difficult because we would
still be a bit fatigued from the previous ride, (and saddle sore), but we
were young and ready for another challenge.
However, the one thing that Carl in al his infinite wisdom did not
plan out meticulously was: the
weather. We dressed, grabbed
our trusty 10 speeds and exited the YMCA in preparation for another joyful
jaunt, when we stepped outside into 40-degree weather and a steady cold
rain. This is the type of
weather that ducks normally stay indoors and play cards in, but hey, not
us, we were on an adventure! A
$^&(*&_))(*+%^ng adventure!. This day
would soon become one of the longest, nastiest, most singularly
uncomfortable and annoying days that we have ever endured.
Tooling down some forgotten Ohio roads that stretch into infinite,
we did our best to stay on track and schedule while the rain pelted us and
the wind assailed us.
And on top of that, every four minuets, we would be almost blown
from the road every time one of America’s finest tandem rigs would roll
by us at seventy miles per hour. The only thing keeping us going at that point was the thought
of something hot and warm at the end of our painful journey.
On top of that, with the elements impeding our forward progress, we
were making terrible time, and might not even make it to the Sandusky
"Y" before it closed. Exhausted,
beaten and drenched, we sat under a tree in a yard across the street from
a tiny country store. Too
tired to do anything other than stare, we watched with vacant expressions
as powerful cars and trucks whooshed past us on their way down the road to
rest, warm beds and ultimate happiness. After
a time, we struggled to our feet and ambled over to the store to at least
get out of the rain for a few precious moments.
We sought temporary sustenance as were going to have to assemble
what little strength we could muster and climb back into the saddles to
ride to our destination, before the dark and the rain totally enveloped
us. Standing in the small
country store, I am quite sure that we looked truly pitiful.
So bad in fact, that a complete stranger approached us and
generously offered to by us food. However the aforementioned food turned out to be . .
. a huge
bag of genuine, lightly salted, pork rinds.
While I am not knocking pork rinds as a rule, and I am certain that
a large demographic of our population truly enjoys them. There are some
parts of animals that even the American Indians did not indulge in.
Sometimes you just have to say no!
Ah, apparently, this was not one of those times.
In our weekend, diluted state, the thought of dining on a diet of
unused animal fat did not seem to slake any type of hunger that we had
acquired. That being said, we
now considered ourselves men of the world, and as worldly travelers we had
instantly become, we did both carefully sampled them.
After spitting them out and throwing the bag away, we dragged
ourselves back to our place under the tree to die. Yet, at
our darkest hour, as if sent by some higher power, a mysterious stranger
in a Chevy pickup truck pulled up in front of us, leaned over and after
surveying our hopeless plight, asked if we would like a ride to Sandusky.
Once again, something I am very sure you would never do in this day and
age, we bolted to our feet, threw our useless bicycles in the back and
jumped into this complete stranger’s truck. I do
believe at that point, it wouldn’t have really mattered where he was
taking us, or what he was likely to do when he got us there, at least we
were out of the unrelenting rain, and on our way to somewhere that we
didn’t have to pedal to. As
it turned out, he drove us right up to the front door of the Sandusky
YMCA, waved and drove off into the night, like the temporary miracle he
was. Once inside,
we found out that there was a group staying overnight in the YMCA,
and we would have to sleep on our sleeping bags on the floor with all the
other kids. No problem, just
let it not be in the rain! The actual
visit to Cedar Pointe itself was enjoyable yet somewhat anti-climactic.
Nothing really memorable happened.
We awoke on Wednesday morning, got there early, (we had to walk),
and we also had to find the best route and remember it, or suffer the
consequences. If we didn’t
the “Y” would be closed when we returned and we would be on the
outside looking in. We spent the entire day there, and didn’t miss riding on
anything. We even had the
pleasure of having a young couple change their baby right next to us on
the picnic table as we tried in vain to eat our lunch.
Soon the park was closing, and we set off for the YMCA through the
dusk and the impending fog. Carl
decided (as he has a habit of doing), that we should attempt a
“short-cut” which sounds like a great idea when you are tired at the
end of a long day. Yet as it
turns out, wandering through a strange graveyard in the dark wasn’t the
best of ideas in retrospect. However,
I will say this, the YMCA was right where we left it, and right where he
said it would be.
However, the doors were
already locked and everyone was gone. We were now officially
abandoned in Ohio. We had no clothes for the night other than
what we were wearing. No transportation, as our bikes were inside,
and no means to remedy the situation. But, we were, even at that age
somewhat resourceful. We walked to a gas station, used a pay phone
and called my father in Michigan. He looked up the "Y"
director who ran the Sandusky YMCA and called him at home. This seemed
to work, because within the hour, the director himself showed up and
unlocked the doors to let us rest for the night.
Thursday
morning we awoke surprisingly enough with lots of vigor and determination
to start the long trip home. While
dressing in the locker room to head out, the Sandusky YMCA executive
congratulated us on our quest, thanked us for staying and gave Carl a
token to remember them by. It
was a “Buckeye”. A nut
indigenous to the Ohio area, and a very memorial souvenir and keepsake.
I can still picture it today, one of life’s great moments.
It was an unlooked for treasure that to most people would not mean
much, but to us it was if it was made of gold.
The ride
Thursday was hot, but for the most part, we were now getting stronger and
stronger by the mile so it did not even phase us. We relaxed that evening at the Toledo Downtown “Y” once
more, and took full advantage of the “Nap Room” to refresh and renew
us. Friday
morning was mostly a blur with us wanting to be back at home with our
loved ones. We rode with
hardly any breaks or rest stops, and zoomed alone mile after mile without
tiring. In fact I remember
riding past the spot that we stopped on the first day to have our lunch in
Gibraltar, and thought to myself, “I don’t even know who those guys
are anymore.” The young
immature, naive 15 year olds that had lazed about on that spot several
days earlier, were now replaced with older, wiser, stronger, worldly men.
Our last
stop was downtown Detroit in rush hour.
Driving faster than the normal traffic, we were a blur whizzing
along at about 20 miles an hour between lanes of traffic, and getting even
stronger with every mile. I
didn’t stop until I rode all the way back to the countryside of Mt.
Clemens and home Fueled by
our transformation, we rejoined our friends on Saturday at Travis and
related our story. It was
easy for us to tell them exactly what we did on our journey, but it took
almost thirty years to realize how we were forever changed by the
experience. That
summer, we reached our
destination, by realized our journey had just begun. Bob and
Carl A BACK DESK FULL OF
NOISE
Growing up around the YMCA, you learn to do a lot of different things. Things that maybe you never would do if you had any choice in the matter. Yet as I recall, we started this job on purpose, so I will have to find a way to blame someone for it, but as of yet, have not been able to. It seemed that we needed money. As I look back, I really don’t know what for. But kids always seem to want stuff they don’t have. I guess I still feel that way most of the time. So working at the “Y” at the back desk seemed like an easy way to make some. We worked on Saturdays from 8:00 am until 5:00. And some days, when the night guy was sick, we would have to work all day. It was really a one-person job, but we managed to stretch it in to two by both of us doing about half of what was expected of us. It was a simple operation, when people came in, check the membership cards, get them a towel, maybe even help some kids if we had to. We were also in charge of people’s valuables that they would leave with us for safekeeping. The interesting thing about our time at the back desk is that after about 2 Saturdays on the job, we learned every aspect of its operation. Backwards and then forwards, sideways, in, out and upside down. We needed to find something to occupy our time, and as luck would have it, the opportunity soon presented itself. Meeting a lot of people from all walks of life was one great thing that the YMCA has to offer anyone, and since we were in charge of the entranceway to the other side, we met everyone. One of those people was Gary Miller, a body builder, scholar, poet and as it turned out local guitar player and musician. It was the early seventies, we were in high school and always trying to find new, sure-fire was of getting girls. (Some things never change). Each Saturday, Miller would come in, stop for a while to chat at the back desk, and offer to show us a chord or “lick” on the guitar. (We were desperately trying to learn how to play ). So his visits were always entertaining. Miller also happened to use the YMCA for his band to practice at when the place closed on Saturday nights. Somehow we told him that we both played instruments in our high school, and offered to be an instant horn section. So for the winter we practiced and played with his band, newly named: SUPERMAN. This consisted of four of five “musicians” wailing away on their high-powered instruments in an all-out effort to be louder and more powerful than the person next to you. Songs would sometimes last for forty minutes each, while every person took turns trying to impress the other with an impromptu solo. But what was really interesting about those days is that we were so very loud it was truly impossible to hear anything. In retrospect, I think that this was the only band that Carl or I played in that never actually had a concert or engagement of any type. That was all right, the music we were trying to play was not really anything that most people wanted to hear anyway. But it was interesting, that’s for sure. We did learn some things to do, and a lot of things not to do in music. If you can believe it, we would spend an entire “jam session” blasting out notes as long and as loudly as we possibly could, and still were not able to hear ourselves over the din of two guitars and a tone deaf and rhythm deficient drummer. It was never dull though, and eventually opened the door to other musical opportunity. Each week, it seemed that we would bring more and more equipment to work with us, until we had two guitars; amps and a synthesizer all set up and ready to play. At one point, we even had a reel-to-reel tape deck there for special effects. We would give a sudden concert to anyone that showed even the slightest bit of interest in us. And all for free! One thing that I remember having fun with, (and it sure seems like we really never did any work at all there, but I know we must have), was our proclivity to make extremely elaborate “Domino” patterns on the desktop for our endless amusement. The YMCA supplied small Ivory soaps to the members, and as luck would have it, they were about the same size and shape as Domino chips. So of course we would start stacking them next to each other when bored, (and that seemed a great amount of the time) just to watch them fall. Now the back counter was shaped like a C and had a very large counter area. This was coincidentally perfect for our proclivity to put two useless objects next to each other. (No comments please!) We would stack and stack those soaps, (sometimes we would have to tell the members that we were all out of them), for hours upon hours until we would have a grand finale at the end of the day. What great fun, and to think that kids today will never know the simple joy of knocking things down that you spent hours building. You might say that “Everything we needed to know about life, we learned at the back desk at the YMCA”. And yo would probably be right. If we had learned anything. Rb
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