Sunday, May 27 1979 New Britain, Pennsylvania

Low 55
Hi 60

Cool and mostly cloudy with some wind. Slept late. Carol and I went with Dave (Spurlin) to North Wales, also to the mall and looked around. We ate in McDonald's-wasn't too good. Later, prepared a cooked outside meal-Carol's sister (Dorothy Padden Trosky) and boyfriend Bill came over. Dave didn't want to stay, so he left. Afterwards we found Dave at Buck's shop and we went to Montgomeryville to see a movie "Alien", but we couldn't get near the place. We sat outside the 309 drive-in in audio range and watched it. OH GOD! Was good!
Especially for the price. Took a short jog later. Ate well today.

Modern note on this period in History:

Dave Spurlin would often cruise around with us. I had met him when I was 14 as he raced his dirt bike at the track behind my house-I got into bikes too and we became nearly lifelong friends. Usually we went around in his blue hot rod Chevy van, which only in 2006 was finally retired due to metal fatigue. Today married, in high school and long after he never had a girlfriend, and like everyone else, was in love with Carol's best friend Chris Brady. She actually lived in a junk yard and Dave was a parts buff motorhead like me. They never did really get together. Carol's sister Dottie reminds me a lot of Rhonda. She was nice, and a computer person in on the ground floor. She had been a teacher in Manheim, near Lancaster. We were all close. She had married a pharmacist (Trosky) young (I forget his first name).

They had an ugly divorce and I remember being around 17 and moving her furniture out as hubby looked on. It was said he couldn't just not help himself to his own drug supply. I really don't know the details. When we visited Manheim, I would leave the girls alone and walk around the town. I recall going into an empty unlocked church and just staying there a long time, playing with the piano. Later when Dottie started to date, our approval of the boyfriend was always required-she had some real winners. But Bill mentioned was a nice professional guy.

He had an old Ford Falcon Sprint, a 1966 I think (a small square car with a V8 engine). Since I was "Mr. Mustang" he often consulted me. We took them on a trip to the spooky Pitcairn estate (Bryn Athyn?) on really bad roads. It was there said the famous and reclusive heirs to the PPG fortune lived. We glimpsed a "Glass house", where genetically defective children supposedly were kept. They said the family always intermarried and that was the problem. I am not sure about that, but along with 'The one armed man", and the "Axe Man" tales told then in Bucks County ,it made for nice romantic scary trips with teenage girls. Those were the days. The private security guards in jeeps would always chase us away, so there was something up.

Dottie had been a teacher and was rumored to have had an affair with a student, a strapping high school kid I met. It was very odd. It was after that she got divorced, left teaching and went into computers. All rumors as far I am concerned, but something sure got fouled up.

I was every bit as close to Carol's family as to Shel's. Rhonda's family was always tense and effected, except for R's sister Janice (Urffer), who was a nice, beautiful Christian blond woman who had 13 kids. Mostly to annoy their mother, Myra Rosenberger. Just this past year I would attend the same Baptist church in Perkasie that Janice Urffer and her kids used to attend, during my "EIC" period in Ottsville. R's other sister Wendy was pretty nice and is an Air Force NCO. The youngest sister Sonia was a very pretty blond who mom doted on. I always thought they had been meanest to Rhonda. R was forced to leave home at 18 and marry Louis Sinoff. Sonia had a paid arts education and stayed home until Mr. Right came along.Talk about being surrounded by the German's-it never seems to end!

Janice had won a high school summer scholarship to study Spanish in South America. When she refused to return after being overwhelmed by an ardent Latin lover,the family created a story to get her home. They made it up that mom, Myra Taylor Mercer Rosenberger, was dying. Janice came home and was essentially kept under lock and key, as it was recounted to me. Janice never forgave her mother for that. Myra also always resented having children. She made her husband and children pay for it. This sometimes caused dastardly deeds to be committed, which I will not recount here out of courtesy. I think my own Rhonda resented the children , too-with tragic consequences, that are sadly I am afraid, permanent.

But I am a bit sad that when these break-ups occur you lose so much family. I guess the same things happen when people die. Why my friendship with Dottie ended when Carol took off with Greg Kolasa, or why my own kids cousins are alienated, and why the very close bond I had with Shel's sister Kim Becker (Kim calls me "Hogg"), the nieces, nephews and the really great times I had in the Rockies with Shel's brother's and the Konig's, shooting and fishing must be lost is an unknown. I guess it is the change in status-but it sure is sad.

Tuesday May 27 2008 Summerside, PEI

Well today was very windy and cool, then it was warm enough for a bit to don the shorts and a tee shirt again. I took a walk and caught a few minutes of rays from warm sun. Its now about 6:30 PM and dark cool clouds and raindrops loom.As usual I can open the big old windows for air, but only for a short time. I will be going back to Moncton for a second meeting tomorrow. I am to be there at 2 o'clock. The environmental manager will be in town and David wants me to speak to him. I also had a call from a lady in Calgary about a sales position with an equipment manufacturer. It sounded somewhat interesting too.

Regarding my trip to Phoenix around the ninth of June, I still have no confirmation. The principal involved will be on vacation with his kids at Disney World until the sixth. With some luck, Joey and I will be in a campground somewhere by then-I told the headhunter in Scottsdale to try and set everything up and I will contact him on the sixth or seventh. I have concerns about all this travel at this particular moment, but it is time to push forward.

Shel was here last night somewhat an unexpected surprise. I didn't make enough food for her to have dinner, which made me a bit sad. She was here a long time working on her computer issues. She needs to send her story to a writing contest by Friday. My printer is out of ink, and I can't tell her that until tomorrow. If she comes in before Friday, I may be able to one of these other printers working. She called her mom last night. Apparently, Kim is having a lot of problems with Denise. There are some bad problems in all that. I feel we were really able to help and support Kim when we were out west. Now she is at the mercy of Shel's unforgiving family-a feeling I have known well almost 18 years.

So tomorrow should be interesting. After that, it will be time to ready all for the trip south. I am waiting for the final decision when I talk to Joey Thursday and finally see Shel Saturday. There are still a bunch of details to work out. Its been quite a while since I have been off island and out of Canada. I really miss it just thinking about it. It reminds me of when I left New Britain to go to Harrisburg to work so long ago. But I have been travelling my whole life. The road usually renews me. Maybe, finally, this will be the last difficult trip.