Me and The Red Death - Oct.23, 1995

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEANDERINGS

This started as a joke, but people keep telling me how compelling it is, so I keep adding to it. I hope you enjoy it. Yeah, it goes on a bit.

I was born at 12:21 AM on April 2nd, 1956 in the Ouachita Valley Hospital in Camden Arkansas. Before the age of six I had lived in Camden, Magnolia, Camden, Magnolia, Hope, Lewisville, Magnolia, and Camden again. In that same timespan, my sister, Lauren was born, my mom got divorced and remarried, and my dad (not my biological father) adopted my sister and me, and I got my name all switched around from Robert Kenton McMahen to Kenton Robert Adler. I was confused. It stuck.

My brother, Barry, was born during that last stint in Magnolia, just before we moved back to Camden. I was at Miss Broadway's Kindergarten then. I hung around with a cute little next door neighbor named Melinda Kelly, and the girl across the street, Robin Gordon. I found out early on that it is more fun to spend your free time with girls.

When we moved back to Camden that last time I was enrolled in Cleveland Avenue Elementary School in Mrs. Hardy's first grade class. I met people then who would remain important to me for the rest of my life. Roberta is a great example. Danny Tate, Reed Hollis, Cliff Gates, Sammy Tyson, Danny DuBose, Jim Taylor, Mike Proctor Mary Margaret Crowder, Martha Gayle Gammill, Janet Gilleland, Becky Lee, and Lisa Barnes were all good friends too. I haven't seen most of them lately, although I talk to Roberta pretty often, and Danny and Reed once in a while. If you know one of the others, tell them Ken says hey.  Actually, someone recently told Becky, and we swapped a couple of e-mails.

Reed brought"Meet the Beatles" to school in second grade and set me on the road to ruin. It got me wanting to have long hair, play guitar and write songs. I started with the writing songs part. My first one came in third grade, and was about Roberta. We managed to make a recording of it on a cheesy old portable reel-to-reel at KJWH radio, and they thought it was so cute that they played it. A lot. We also got written up in the Arkansas Gazette. Our teacher, Mrs. Waddell set that up. We tried to make it to Ed Sullivan, but only got as far as the other classrooms. Showbiz!

In 1965 Dad moved us out to a suburb of Denver called Aurora. I went to Virginia Court Elementary and hung out with Tom Gibbons and Mickey Van Valkenburg. It was Mickey who taught me to spit properly. A crucial right of passage.  Mrs. Graff was my teacher there, and she was a very nice lady who really tried to make it a pleasant experience for us.  I liked a little girl named Denise Van Slyke, who looked liked Haley Mills. I never got over my first love though. I missed Roberta and my friends in Camden like crazy, and Denver scared me to the point of making me sick. It was huge, and pretty impersonal, and cold, and they didn't have any trees. We did have fun tramping around in the wheat fields all day though, and I learned to ride horses and ski.

I played drums in the school band, and in the fifth grade was in a garage band with Tim Hedrick, and a high school guy who played guitar named Gary Geisinger. He was really good, and he taught us all these cool Byrds tunes, and along with the Beatles and Herman's Hermits stuff we already knew, we put together a tight little set. Most of the neighborhood kids were around my garage on a given Saturday afternoon.  Sam Houston, my neighbor a couple of houses down, joined up with us for a while too.

In sixth grade I had another one of those teachers who was really special. A guy named Tom Alison. I scored in the 99th percentile in reading on the Iowa basics that year, and you couldn't beat me in a spelling bee back then. Mr. Alison let me read whatever I wanted, and he let me write plays and put them on for the school, and do some pretty creative stuff. He also started the first school newspaper, and made me editor. I thought it was cool. I had some problems that year though. One of my cousins had died accidentally the summer before, and that was very tragic and traumatic, and then a month later my Grandmother died. We were very close, and I was pretty shaken up. I'm pretty sensitive, and that stuff really sticks with me. She had been a big influence on me in terms of music. She sang all the time, and listened to gospel music on the radio. I think that's where I got my ear for harmonies. She also taught me a lot about flowers. I had gotten a Stella acoustic guitar though, and was learning to play like the Monkees. That stuck too.

Junior high school sucked for the most part. I went to South Jr. High and had to walk about three miles to school. It was pretty miserable when it was raining or snowing. I played football for a little league team in 7th grade, and found out I didn't have the killer instinct. I was also physically small then and got my butt kicked around the field pretty regularly, so I didn't enjoy it much. Subsequently, most of the other guys on the team thought I was a wimp or something. You know how that gets. I lost a lot of self confidence and got painfully shy. My only redemption during that period was due to the fact that I learned to play guitar (out of a book called "Learn To Play Like The Monkees", hence the earlier reference). I also happened to have a great set of pipes (as in singing ability) and I could play by ear like crazy. In eighth grade I got into this band with Steve Cox and Howard Searle called The Sundown Explosion (Hey, it was 1969). We never played anywhere except Howard's basement and a couple of parties, but we were good, and people realized I could really sing, so it took the stigma of being a lousy athlete away a little. I was still really shy though.

The object of my affections went from a very sweet, pretty little blonde girl named Robin Ford, to a real knockout named Vickie Varela.  Vickie was stunningly beautiful, and very intelligent.  She had a sort of glow about her.  One of those girls who seemed grown up already at 13.  She had poise.  She was also completely uninterested in me.  I don't blame her either.  God, I was scared to death to talk to her and wrote her these sappy love notes all the time.  She probably thought I was a kook.  My interests turned to Sue Wilson by eighth grade. I stayed mad for Sue until she ran off and married an Air Force guy in 11th grade. Heartbreaker. She was really something. Tall, with long brown hair and blue eyes, and great cheekbones. She was movie-star pretty. She was dating college guys by the time we were in 9th grade. I was always the one she turned to when she had a problem, however.

I spent time back in Arkansas in the summer between 9th and 10th grades. My uncle was going to school at Arkansas A&M (now U of A Monticello), and I lived with him and his family for most of the summer, and for a while with my aunt in Clarksdale MS. When I got back to Colorado, I started high school at Aurora Hinkley. I was pretty much a non-entity, except in Miss Becker's English class. Some of my best high school friendships developed out of that class, and Miss Becker thought I was a good writer, and encouraged me to do more. I was also in Air Force Junior ROTC, which is hysterical because I had long hair, and refused to cut it for the class. Major Benkesser gave me an F every Monday on inspection day because I couldn't wear my uniform, but I got A's on my tests, and he needed numbers so he couldn't kick me out. I got B's in the class. I mostly slacked in everything. I could barely stand being there.  I used to moon after this girl named Denise Combs.  Still too shy to talk to her and I doubt she even knew I was alive.

It got to the point the next year that I only showed up when I felt like it, which wasn't too often. the only class I REALLY liked was Concert Choir (Melton Bernard Harp, Director). Uncle Mel was the best. We had a repertoire that most college choirs would have been very jealous of, and with 80+ voices, we could really belt it out. The trip we made to Delta, on the western slope, was about my favorite thing that happened all year. I managed a date to the prom too, with a pretty senior named Linda Laughlin.. We had never even gone out together, and we were just friends really, but I thought she was too cool to have not been asked. I found out later I had absolutely devastated a couple of other girls by not asking them. I was extremely stupid in those days, and didn't realize that this really cute girl named Kim in my Algebra class, for instance, had a big crush on me. Very stupid indeed, because I thought she was adorable, and she made me sweat just to be around her. Man, if I could just get that year back. I really don't know how I got out of 11th grade. I was hardly ever there. I didn't get caught ditching because my mom was in Europe and the orient a lot that year, on business. I ditched around her work schedule.  I had a GREAT summer that year.  I worked for Maddox Ice with my friend Mark Atchison.  It was literally a cool place to work.  Most of the time I was in one of the cold rooms filling nine pound bags with crushed ice.  I filled two refrigerated trucks every night for the next day's deliveries.  I was in killer good shape.  My family all went on vacation for a couple of weeks too, and left me at home alone.  I was drinking a six pack of Pepsi every morning before heading to work.  Breakfast of champions.  That summer was the only time I've actually had a girl tell me she couldn't go out with me because she had to wash her hair.  Thanks Jamie.  :)  I went to Clarksdale MS late in the summer and stayed with Aunt Susie and met some cool people.  Did a lot of guitar playing, and some songwriting. It was the first chance I ever got to play an Ovation guitar.  It belonged to a guy named Charlie Fowler and started a lifelong love affair between me and those guitars.  I still have four today.

The next year was a complete turnaround for me. I transferred to a brand new school, called Gateway. I loved it, except we were called  The Olympians and our colors were orange, yellow and white. I always thought the Hinkley kids on the committee were responsible for that. A cruel thing to do to a new school. I played varsity soccer, and was pretty good at it, was president of concert choir, and was in pops ensemble, and I was becoming very well known for my guitar playing. I got invited to all the cool parties, and got good grades. I had a sweet, pretty girlfriend named Kim Hart, and was tight with Brad Westhoff and Dave Dawes, and had lot of other good friends as well. I just heard Dave died.  I don't know when or how, but it's hard to believe.  He was an awesome guy.  Cliff Gates, of the early Camden days, moved to Colorado and we got got together a couple of times that year.  I did theater, and played at a couple of dances with pick-up bands. I got to do a solo and kiss Susie Buckley in our production of Fiddler on the Roof. I got a standing ovation at the talent show, was prom king, and voted "most talented boy". Can't complain about any of that year, except Kim broke up with me for a while during the middle of it, and again at the end. We're still friends today. I never was much of one for holding a grudge, and she thinks I'm funny. I think I'm a dope for not asking Jeri Elio out that summer.  I did go out several times with a very lovely girl named Pati that I'd known since we were about 10.  I thought it was a very good possibility, but I guess she thought otherwise.  I mean, we went to the drive-in once and she wanted to watch the MOVIE.

So, after a summer of working in a hardware store, a bit of a letdown after having been a star in the Class of '74, I lit out for college at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I went back to my old ways of not attending class, and I spent most of my time searching out altered states of consciousness and walking the halls in the women's dorms. I spent a good deal of time having long conversations, listening to music, and having my mind opened at least a crack by Paul Bieber, who had been a friend back at Hinkley. We just happened to have gotten rooms on the same floor of Wiebking Hall after he transferred from C.U. I met a lot of real cute, real nice girls ( Heather Weaver, where are you now? ), and got to be a very good kisser. Needless to say, that did nothing for my grade point average and in December they asked me to leave. In March they insisted.

I went back to Denver and got a job at Stapleton International Airport loading meals and equipment onto airliners. I loved that job. On the ramp all night with the big jets, and I met lots of flight attendants, and had a very cool partner who was going to law school at DU at the time, so the conversation was great, and we ate well. I also learned how to make a liquid hand grenade out of a can of pop. Unfortunately, that only lasted about six months because the company I worked for lost some important contracts, through no fault of ours, but just business. You know how those things go.

After sitting around listening to my mom gripe about me being out of work for a month, I joined the Navy on the delayed entry program, and headed back to Arkansas for the next six months. I lived with my Uncle Chuck, crashing on his couch, and made money cleaning up at a construction site, and by playing some guitar in a little bar over in Clarksdale Mississippi with a group of guys I met while visiting my aunts. We played acoustics in a big circle, and did every style of music imaginable, but mostly we played "Throw Another Log On the Fire" for Ursula. Goatropers need love too. That's when I started hanging out with Freddy Bolm. We still get into bands together every once in a while, almost 20 years later. One of the most fun episodes during this period was going over to Ft. Worth with my cousins Kathy and Karan to see Bob Dylan with his Rolling thunder Revue tour. Joni Mitchell made a surprise appearance, and Mick Ronson was there, and Joan Baez, and T-Bone Burnette, and Kinky Friedman. My fave of the evening though, was Roger McGuinn. He did some classic Byrds tunes, and a couple from his then current album, Cardiff Rose. Can't go wrong there.

I got back to Denver the last week of June, and spent the Bicentennial with my mom and dad and brother on a picnic at a lake outside of Boulder. I went into the Navy on 8 JUL 76. Bootcamp was in Orlando Florida. I picked that bootcamp because... that's where the women went. I figured if I had to be going through that, I would like to at least see some women from time to time. In case it hasn't occured to you by now, I really like women. I really liked bootcamp too. It gave me a real sense of belonging, and I liked the discipline and knowing what to expect every day. I was First Platoon leader in Company 358D. The D was for drill, and I made drill team. Dad, we were sharp. The best drill company there in over a year. I managed to meet a really cute blonde named Marcie Climber while we were doing a performance at Cape Canaveral. She was in a sister company performing there at the Kennedy Space Center. We managed to do some smooching in the back of the bus, which was nice after being with 80 guys for a month and a half. We carried on a very pleasant letter writing campaign for the duration of our stay, but I transferred out an lost touch with her. I got voted Honor Recruit by the guys in my company. It's an honor I still carry very proudly to this day. My sister had a little girl while I was off in bootcamp, and named her Erin. I couldn't have asked for a cuter little niece. She's still cute.

I went to A School in Lakehurst New Jersey, home of the Hindenburg disaster. My first class was in the giant dirigible hangar they had built for her. There was a mock-up of an aircraft carrier in there by the time I showed up. I had wanted to go to Memphis for AW school (Anti-Submarine Warfare), and get on flight crew, but was assigned to AG school (Meteorology) instead. In the long run, it would prove to be outstanding work. Probably some of the best duty in the military. I was with an elite group of very bright people, and really enjoyed my work. I had a nice time in Jersey, managing a couple of trips to New York, and then I got stationed in Memphis after all. Just a short drive back down to Clarksdale, and a short hop over to Uncle Chuck's in Arkansas.

While I was in Memphis I worked as a surface observer at the NWSED. I took hourly observations of cloud cover, temperature and dew point, winds, visibility, and good stuff like that to keep pilots out of trouble. Did you know that the World Meteorological Organization lists 27 different types of clouds, nine in each of three etages? I knew them all. I hung out with a very cool guy named Cecil Johnson. He was a black guy, married to a Filipino woman named Pia, and the three of us made quite a sight running around downtown Memphis together. I was there when Elvis died, and watched the funeral on TV. I was also there when Memphis banned Soap from their TV screens. It was pretty hysterical really. I had a couple of real loser roommates, and didn't much care for my leading chief. Most of the guys in our office were really terrific though. I met a lovely woman named Judy Molzon, and I think we would have gotten something going, but my time was about up, and I got transferred out. While I was stationed out in the Indian Ocean she wrote me a letter saying she had met this really nice boy from Mississippi. I had a good tenure in Memphis though. I played lots of guitar down in Clarksdale, and spent a lot of nights by bonfires at Friars Point. I also managed to see the Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones with my buddy Bill (KR) Schmalfeldt, Jethro Tull, and Jackson Browne in concert. I met Gary Lewis (of Gary Lewis and the Playboys) on a plane from Atlanta to Memphis after I had gone to Pensacola to do a show. Pretty funny story, but I'll bet he doesn't remember.

So, after a year and a half of a nice time in Memphis, I got transferred. The military is strange that way. They sent me to upper air school in Rantoul Illinois. Funny place to be a sailor. Cornfield Navy. I hung with Mike Groves. One of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. We played tennis almost every afternoon while we were there, after classes let out.

After I had learned to properly inflate and track a 1200 gram meteorological balloon and interpret the data, and prepare the code and a Log P Skew-T diagram, I took a month of leave in Denver and then got on my way to my new duty station, Diego Garcia, Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory. Diego is about as beautiful a tropical island as you would ever want to see. I worked from 4-11 AM almost every day as the RAWIN Department Supervisor, sending up balloons. Nice work if you can get it. My partner was another great guy named Tim Rush, that I had met in Illinois. Our afternoons, while most guys were still at work, were spent on the beach, working out in the gym, napping a bit, snorkeling in the lagoon, playing tennis, chess, reading, and such. We drank a lot of beer out there. I also played darts with my friend Bobby Colquhoun. We played in the NCO club against the Brits. Good bunch of guys. A couple of the other good folk to work with were LT.j.g. Jan Curtis, Chief Bobby Johnson, AG1 Rube Harlan, and Pil Dineems (hey Steve).  I worked as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio in my evening hours, spinning jazz every night for a while, then switching to a once a week show playing rock. I learned to sail while I was there. We had a neat little yacht club. I also got to visit an Australian island called Cocos for a few days. A highlight for a number of reasons, some of which it would not be prudent to divulge, but I met some real neat people, like the Trevor Johnson family who were wonderful to me and my friends, and snorkeling the Cocos reef was a rush, and they had girls there, which we didn't on Diego at that time. You know how well I handled that for a year. It drove me mad, and forced me to build fake UFOs from huge weather balloons and lights with water activated batteries and sail them out across the lagoon, weighted down with rocks.

I went from Diego back to the States the week before the hostages were taken in Iran. I was transferred to the U.S.S Enterprise, in dock undergoing overhaul in Bremerton Washington. I stopped off in Denver again in transit. It was at that time that my mom was forced to undergo a radical neck dissection for removal of lymph glands. Cancer. Nasty business. She and Dad were going through a divorce too, which put a lot of strain on things in general. When I finally got up to Washington just after Thanksgiving things were sort of bleak. I didn't care for being on a ship, and thank God I was able to get a house in town with two excellent roommates, Kevin Haun and Les Letner. I had gotten a meritorious advancement while I was on Diego, and was a Petty Officer 2nd Class, and could afford a pretty nice place to live with those guys. Kevin had been a buddy on Diego, and we got along really well there. Les got me guitar gigs in Seattle and Tacoma and other towns, and we had a nice little social scene going there with parties most weekends, and I met a lot of great musicians around Seattle. I fell for a beautiful college student at Western Washington U named Andrea D'Asaro. She had a sort-of boyfriend named Bryce though, so we never really got happening. We became good friends nonetheless, and stayed in touch with other for nearly ten years. I will also admit to having learned a great deal about better living through creative chemistry during this period. Believe me kids, I was a trained stuntman, and you don't want to try this at home. I didn't do it while I was on duty though, and that's why all of you remained safe from the threat of Communism in spite of my weekend cheap vacations. I got out of the Navy on July 8th, 1980 with an Honorable Discharge, a couple of medals, a pocketful of cash and a desire to be somewhere dry. So I went back to Denver and got a job at my dad's printing company. I was there about six months before I met The Nacho Men. You're gonna LOVE this.

I met the Nacho sax player, John Fabiano, at a hockey game. The Rockies were playing the Bruins. He was a friend of a business associate, who was also a member of the band. He was going on about this great band that they had, and how all they needed was a drummer and a PA for this big gig they had coming up. I had a PA, and a set of drums, and knew a drummer, so I asked if they wanted to get together and they said, "Sure!". When we rehearsed, they only knew about six songs, and the bass player didn't know how to play bass. The gig went okay though. It was just a party. We had fun, and they asked me and the drummer to join up full time, so we did. I brought my brother on to play bass, and there we were: C. Frequently (sax and vocals), K.S. Rhino (guitar and vocals), C.S. Buck (that was me, on guitar and vocals), E. Chipmunk (???), Kid Coconut (my brother, on bass), and B. Face (drums and sex cymbal). We were a riot. We played all sorts of fifties and sixties tunes all over town. The highlight of our career was definitely the Antista wedding, where we almost got killed by the groom for playing the theme from The Godfather on kazoos. It was John's idea. "I'm Italian. They'll love it". Not! Ziggies was our once a month gig. A real dive in north Denver. Their saving grace was that motorcycles had to be parked out back and no colors or weapons were allowed in the club. The men's room was wallpapered in centerfolds. Real class. Nothing like the sight of all those bikers stopping their pool games to watch our twist contest. First prize was a bowling trophy with the ball snapped off, so it looked like someone dancing. We also immortalized the alley on the east side of the building as the place to go during breaks for a little energizer. Barry and I used to drive home together all covered with blood from where we had cut ourselves up by hammering on our guitars for four hours. I was dating a tall, very pretty Catholic girl named Barb, and I didn't even mind the Barbie and Ken jokes. She dumped me, for being too wild I think. Either that, or I had just gotten too good at croquet and it overwhelmed her. Really brought me down. It wasn't the first time I had to deal with real depression, but it was the first time I came pretty close to doing something stupid about it. I was sad. You want to know what was really sad? There were bars in Denver that wouldn't hire The Nacho Men because they were afraid our name would attract Mexicans. Now THAT is stupid!  We had a hopping little band there, but Barry and Face got tired of it, and when they bailed I began to lose interest.   I hung with the Nachos for a year and a half. After Barry and Stu quit  we replaced them with Paul Crisan on bass, and Dennis Richard (aka Nosmo King) on drums. It got sort of nasty. Paul and John kept bumping egos, and it wore me out.  When the band took a turn in another direction than I was wanting to go, I too stepped out.

I got REAL sad for a while there.  I did a little therapy, that really didn't do much good. I think the therapist had more problems than I did. My biggest problem was just that I was damned lonely. I'm sort of a weird guy. I guess I come on all cocky, and funny and self assured, but I really feel pretty isolated most of the time, and I consider myself a little shy in a one-on-one situation. I am still a good kisser though, so I got that goin' for me.

I just spent about a year after that going to school at Metropolitan State College, and working for my dad at the printing company he owned. Mom had moved to Dallas to be a vice president in the Zale Corporation, and I went down to visit her whenever I could. I really like Dallas. I also started getting calls from Paul Crisan, who had gotten the boot from the Men, about starting a new band. He said he had a drummer, and that everybody was wanting to know what happened to me.

I finally gave in and went to play with them. Our first rehearsal was spent over at drummer Bruce Murrell's house, playing rock and roll, and watching "Inside Seka" out of the corners of our eyes. Bruce's roommate was a sex fiend. Hi Bob. We wound up calling the band The Mechanics, and we stayed together four years, and we got a lot of decent gigs, but not much attention from anybody that mattered. I also started collecting guitars about that time. I was getting sick a lot, and after getting poked with a bunch of needles and the like, finally figured out I'm allergic to yeast, so I pretty much quit drinking altogether, and stopped eating bread for the most part. A lot happened in that four year period. I'd have to write a bloody book to tell you everything. Even just the good stuff. The most significant event, I would have to say, was meeting Helen on the 8th of February, 1985, at Herman's Hideaway. That's this bar that had great bands. We started dating, and fell in love, and lasted three years. That's a whole other book.

I graduated from college in '87 with degrees in Psychology and Art (It's actually a degree in Visual Communications with an emphasis in Advertising Design, but Art is easier). That summer Helen moved to New York, and I figured we were pretty much done, even though we still cared for each other very much. I started taking flying lessons. It's the only time up to that point my dad ever really seemed to approve of what I was doing. He still didn't like the long hair. Anyway, I was flying Dad's little 1946 Cessna 140. Great little airplane. If you can fly a taildragger out of Aurora airport, you can do anything.

Mom had remarried, to a great guy named Buck who also worked for Zales. (A note from 20 JUN 06 - I recently heard that Buck has died, and I'm sorry to hear it.  He was a true gentleman.)  They had moved to San Francisco, and I fell in love with the town the first time I went there. It's still one of my favorite cities. On one visit we went to all four nights of Wagner's "Ring Cycle" at the San Francisco Opera. Major production. Ranked right up there with any rock concert, and I've seen the best of them. Really! Saw Springsteen at the Auditorium Theater when I was in Memphis. Can't beat that. Mom and Buck moved to Tucson, because Mother's cancer was definitely wearing her down, and San Francisco was too cold for her. Barry was a pilot too, and the two of us flew down to visit. We flew to several places and did some pretty funny stuff. Old Barry got sick as a dog from drinking Jack Daniel's out back of a dorm we were staying in when we went to Paul Bieber's wedding. I'll bet the maid is still talking about that room. It was a nice flight to Kansas and back though. The next bit is going to be the real tear jerker part.

Helen had gone to Florida from New York, but things didn't work out for her down there, so she came back to Denver just before Christmas of 1987. I was delighted. Especially because she had called and said she wanted to work everything out and would do whatever it took to make our relationship work. I was out of school, and making good money and I really wanted to marry her. She was, and is, a kind person. One of the dearest hearts in the world, but she had some things to resolve. That's her business though and not my place to tell you about. My part was just this other stuff. My mom died two weeks after Christmas. It was no surprise. She had been deteriorating rapidly since about September. It was 16 degrees below zero the day she died. Buck called me from Tucson at about 2:00 in the morning. Even though I knew it was coming, I still laid there for four hours in the dark just thinking about her. She was a remarkable woman. Self-made largely. She was extraordinarily beautiful. Seriously. My friends used to come over when we were in high school and freak that my mom looked like that. She did one or two semesters at Southern State College in the mid 50's, and everything else she learned on her own. She worked in newspaper ad sales after her first divorce in '59. She managed with two little kids in a time when there was a real stigma attached to that sort of thing, and then after she remarried, and after we had moved to Colorado, she climbed the corporate ladder of first the May Company, and then higher with Zales. She was something. A little on the stiff side. I only heard her tell one joke ever. I think she wore her hair pulled back too tight. The pipes burst in my crawl space the day she died too. It was nasty cold and the water froze. It wasn't my best day ever. 

Six months after Mom died, Helen called one night and said she didn't want to see me anymore. This after I had just told her a week before that I wanted to get married, and that I would do whatever she needed from me to make our relationship work out. I found out later that she had been dating The Antiken for a couple of months on the sly. I know you want to know all about that, but it wouldn't be fair to her to tell you. She is still my dear friend and I wouldn't do anything to hurt her. She was doing what she thought was right at the time. It still freaked me out. I was physically unable to smile for a month. I lost 20 pounds, quit my job, and basically went nuts for about a year. The high point of my day was to go outside my townhouse and walk over to the mailbox to see if I had anything besides bills. I was spiraling in hard. Two things saved my life, literally. I got hooked up with a good therapist this time, and I met Kurt Ottoway, the lead vocalist and heart of Twice Wilted, a very wonderful band from LoDoTo in Denver. If there was any sort of justice in the world, we would all be on the same record label and hanging out by the pool drinking stuff with umbrellas sticking out the top. I had continued playing, in this band I started with Dennis, from the second Nacho incarnation, and Freddy, who had moved to Denver from MS, and a succession of bass players, including my brother Barry again for a while. He had another band called Beat Therapy though, and couldn't stay with us. We wound up with our original choice Jock Mirow finally, after he settled some personal matters. Everybody has something boy. Anyway, Kurt and I are sort of poetic soulmates. He always made me feel like the music and lyrics I was writing were really something special, and he encouraged me to keep going, and helped me feel like I had a purpose. That's really all that kept me from painting the walls with my brains during that period. I bailed out on my house, and gave it back to the government. They had blown the property values by 50% in my neighborhood anyway, so they deserved to get the damned thing back. Who can live in 542 Sq. Ft for $600 a month anyway? It was ridiculous. I went through a lot, including a couple of skate jobs, met this absolutely gorgeous blonde named Sue Reynolds and went out with her a bit. We wound up friends too. I have that affect on women it seems. Had a great trip with Twice Wilted to Austin for an appearance in the SWSX Music Festival. Man, we looked like the circus blowing into this truckstop diner at 7:00 AM outside Wichita Falls. Kurt had lime green, chest length dreadlocks, My hair was all long, and golden and wavy and I was all dressed in black, Matt had pieces of colored yarn glued in his hair, and pretty little Chanin Floyd, was this pixie with dark red hair, and Gregthedrumgod looked like some model from a surf movie poster. The cowboys loved us. Anyhow, about Nov. of '90 I took a job teaching arts and crafts for the Boys and Girls Clubs in Denver. They made me cut my hair, which I hated and will NEVER do for a job again, but I was desperate at the time. Barry invited me to move in with him over in Lakewood.

So there I was living with Barry and having a pretty swell time. He had a nice house on nearly an acre, with big trees. It was a short drive to work, and his rates were reasonable. He lived upstairs, and I lived in the finished basement. I had a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and we shared the laundry room downstairs, and the kitchen upstairs. We spent a lot of time together. We would watch Star Trek TNG re-runs every night at ten, which was a little after I got home from work. We would watch the new shows every Saturday evening, and we often made tacos or had pizza or something. We went to a lot of shows together too. Twice Wilted warehouse shows, and bands that played The Garage At XXIII Parrish, or Herman's Hideaway. We both knew quite a few musicians. Barry played part of the time I was living there, with a band called Francis Theory, but he got tired of that. Mostly he was into mountain biking. He dated a lot. He was really good looking, and had several very cool vintage cars, and made good money so he could afford nice nights out. I introduced him to Kelly, and that had a thing for a while. She was a mountain biking trainer, and real nice. He was really pretty hung up on Ann though, and wanted to marry her. I have to preface this bit by telling you that I loved Barry more than just about any human being from the minute I first saw him as a baby. This gets really complicated, and I don't feel like making it any longer than necessary, so I'll just tell you that he had knee surgery in the Sept. of 1991. After that he started getting really depressed and lost weight and stuff. He didn't have much to lose. He was all lean and muscular. Through Christmas he was feeling really crummy, but he started snapping out of it, and was eating this Joe Weider weight gaining junk and was able to start riding again as his knee healed up, and he seemed to be doing alright. On Jan. 8th of '92, I came home and the house was all dark, and he wasn't around anywhere, and he never came home. I stayed up until about 2:30AM talking to a friend on the phone and then went to sleep. Dad woke me up with a phone call about 7:45, and said Barry didn't show up for work, so I went upstairs to look around for him. I found him in the garage, lying across the front seat of his '64 LeMans convertible. He had been dead since about 4:00 the previous afternoon, and I just didn't know it. Like I say, I'm leaving a LOT out. You can write me for details if you want. Anyway, it was shortly after that I decided that I'd had enough of Denver and was going to move back to Arkansas.

It was pretty much that simple. Barry left me some money from insurance, so I went out about three months after he died and bought the hottest, red '66 Corvette I could find. We had talked about it years before. He was my beneficiary too, and said he would buy a red Ferrari. I always figured that was more likely to happen. Our friend Stu said to me, "You're the one we always hid the butter knives from".

SIDE NOTE: I still don't think Barry committed suicide. He definitely killed himself, but I think it was just a stupid mistake. His bike tights were laying out on the bed, like he was going to work on the car then go riding. He was wearing his work clothes, and he didn't feed the cats. He would have definitely fed the cats.

Anyway, I bought the Red Sled, and then I drove my Celica down to Fayetteville and stayed with my cousin for a week and shopped for a house. Found one, and bought it. Flew back to Denver and rented a U-Haul, packed it to the gills and moved. I towed my Landcruiser behind with my kayak tied to the top. I got into a heavy crosswind in eastern Colorado and the kayak blew away. Some farmer is probably still scratching his head about that. I made it though. Took another trip back about a month later and picked up the Corvette and drove it down. Got really sunburned, but it was a blast.

I opened a little vintage guitar store which did nothing except drain my checking account, but it looked like I was doing something, and it gave me time to just sort of chill out and write some songs and think about Barry a lot. Then I started looking for a local BBS. I found a couple and started posting stuff up. That's how I met my favorite Melanie.

You're only going to get my side of this, as usual. If you want her opinion you can ask her. We met by swapping e-mail on a local BBS I found shortly after moving here. She asked where all the good men had gone, and since I consider myself pretty good at being a man, I responded. We got along great via the board, and were writing each other several times a day, and then began running into each other on different boards as we found them. I just loved her. She was smart and had a great sense of humor. I didn't make any effort to meet her because I figured it would be a let down for one or both of us. We wrote back and forth for a month or more, and then school started up at the University. She was in grad school then. I started playing guitar at this University sponsored coffeehouse, and she said she might come to see me play. I did this really hot set the next time, and was bouncing off the wall with nervous energy after I had finished, and right after I left the stage this beautiful, beautiful woman with short reddish/brown hair, and great lively hazel colored eyes and a willowy figure bounced up with a huge smile and said, "Hi, I'm Melanie." She was so pretty I just about croaked. I couldn't believe that somebody I had already fallen for over the computer would turn out to be so physically attractive to me as well. It doesn't work like that too often. We talked, and I walked her back to her office later, and really hoped I would see her again soon. I did, as she invited me to a party shortly after. I don't like going to parties with people I don't know, but I would have gone to hell to see her again. I stayed late, but we never did wind up alone. There was another gentleman there that gave me a bad vibe, and I really didn't want to leave with him staying behind. I don't think she wanted me to leave them either. We kept leaving each other notes, and talked on the phone, and got to know each other a bit better, and I made a little picnic for her and we had it on the lawn in front of Old Main. What a great day that was. I was walking about a foot off the ground going back to my car. A week or so later she stopped by my shop (and all the guitar geeks hanging around in there were oohing and aahing as she walked across the street in her jeans and this sleeveless floral print blouse. She asked me if I would like to meet her and some of her friends at a local bar later for a couple of beers and dancing. I declined because I didn't want to horn in on her plans. I went home, and she called about 10:00 from home and said she hadn't gone because I didn't go, so I said we should go riding in the Corvette with the top down. We got caught in a rain storm and got a little wet, but it was fun, and romantic. We went back to her apartment, and sat and talked, and I FINALLY worked up the nerve to kiss her, with a little help from her. We started talking just about every day and I was really excited at having this brilliant person in my life. There were a couple of weird times together, mostly involving a couple of strange acquaintances of mine sticking their noses in where they didn't belong, but overall I thought we were really getting along great. I even told her that when her lease was up in April that I would like her to consider moving in with me, and I had never said anything like that to anyone. Not even Helen. Melanie is this really extraordinary person. She is a staunch feminist, and still manages to maintain her femininity in a major way. She is intelligent without being a boorish snob, or without making other people feel inferior. She is warm and thoughtful, and a lot more easily damaged than she gives the impression of being. I say without hesitation that if I were going to create the perfect woman for me, she would be exactly like Mel, except madly in love with me. I really thought I had found the right woman at last, but she thought I was going too fast or something. I wasn't trying to put any pressure on her, and I think she believed my expectations of her were higher than they really were. I was just excited and totally in love with her. I guess it wasn't right for her though. That seems to be something I'm pretty good at too. Just about two months into it she called me after a picnic one afternoon and told me she couldn't see me anymore. I was absolutely devastated. We have both gone through a great deal of trials and tribulations since then, but we are still good friends, and I still adore her. I hope that's a pretty good representation of it, from my point of view, without getting too graphic or anything. She knocks me out so much, it's hard to keep it at just that.

I don't lack the ability to go out on dates. After breaking off with Melanie I dated a lot of girls. More twenty and twenty-one year olds than I did when I was that age. I've held up pretty well, and having a Corvette and being a guitar player, and living alone doesn't hurt. I hadn't met anyone new that compared to Mel in any way, shape, or form. Someone old did come back into my life, however. That will come in a little bit. We're almost up to date.

I decided to go to grad school, and I love History so I picked that. I got in, and finished all the coursework for my Master's and started looking into a thesis topic. I got this great job at Computing Services though, and it initially really cut into my time, so the thesis sort of dropped off to one side. I never finished it. I sort of got the impression that some of the History Department didn't give a damn about me or my thesis anyway, so I haven't really pushed it.

I've played with a couple of good bands. First Barking Logs, which didn't last too long, then Mimosa, which was an acoustic band. We had great harmonies, as all four of us were strong singers, and a cool sound with Rich Hartrick moving from guitar to mandolin to violin and back as appropriate, and Steve Katsikas built up his percussive array. The other member was Fred Bolm, who I had played with in Korvettes, and back in Mississippi. We keep winding up in the same places together. After that, Steve and I stuck together, and he went back to keyboards for a band called Big Mean Turtle. We got this killer guitar player named Paul Morstad, who is one of my dearest friends, and a couple of guys from Steve's former band, Tim Carnes and Bill Terry. We had a few good gigs, and made a decent little record in Steve's basement, but then he had to move to Miami to finish his PhD in Psychology. Paul and I tried to keep going with BT and Tim, and they are great guys, but just had a way different paradigm than ours, so it sort of fell apart. I still hang with Pauli sometimes though. He still works at Computing Services, and his wife, Lisa is one of the most special people on Earth. Paul is like a replacement brother. They are now the proud parents of the lovely Ms Lena.  As far as guitar, I've been playing solo acoustic lately, and I really like it that way.

I got hooked back up with Roberta. You remember her from when I was little. She's married now and lives in Texas, but I've gotten to see her a couple of times. She's still all beautiful and a dear person I will always be friends with and love to death.

I also came close to getting involved with a girl who asked to remain nameless. She is cute, smart, and very sweet, but just not the future Mrs. Adler.

I started playing bagpipes in September of 1995, and it has changed everything. I spent a couple of hours a day practicing, and I went to band practice twice a week, and we played pretty often. It's a gas to get into the kilt and all the fines and go out and make a little noise. I've played for Margaret Thatcher among others over the last couple of years. Dad bought me my first stand of pipes. I hope to make them an heirloom one of these days. It's great.

My romantic life changed too. Sort of.  I fell in love with a very beautiful woman who is an incredible musician, and one of the wisest and most compassionate persons I've ever known. She asked not to be identified here, and I respect her privacy.  She was such a good friend, as well as a love. She is still a good friend in spite of some things.  She is too far away now though, figuratively as well as literally. We met through mutual friends Tom and Mary, even though I was pretty hesitant about it. She lived in another state, and was a good bit younger than me, and I was all wrapped up in learning to play the bagpipe. Still, she started writing me letters and I thought she was just brilliant, and that turned into talking on the phone, and I KNEW she was brilliant. Then, after a few months,  I went to visit for a few days and was blown away. I cried for two solid hours after I left her and started the drive back to Arkansas. It felt like I was leaving a very important piece of myself behind. We kept up the long distance relationship for two and a half years. During that time we would visit one another or meet halfway as often as possible. She told me she wanted to get married, I said "Me too" and had a beautiful ring made for her. I gave it to her in a very romantic fashion and we should have lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, she changed her mind. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she always felt the same way and I just didn't know.  Anyway, it all turned to something other than exquisite in my hands. The situation continues to evolve. I wish her the best though. I wasn't just talking when I told her I would love her forever. I let her in more than anybody before, and I got further in with her than I think she knows. Things are not what they seem sometimes.

I'm still playing pipes (more than ever).  I'm  in Batesville, AR which is more north/central. I was offered a position at Lyon College as Instructional Technologist in 1998. It allowed me to move back to a small town environment and to work at a very well respected academic institution in a challenging position, and to play with their first-rate pipe band. I did that for a couple of years, but resigned from the band in October of 2000.   The pipe band here was WAY more intense.  I was back to practicing 2-3 hours a day trying to catch up and raise my standard of playing. I love the pipes though, and didn't need much of a social life. I'm pretty self contained.  As I got higher up in the competition grades the focus and the time required increased, like it would for someone training for the Olympics or something.  I dated a really lovely woman named Joy for a while, whom I cared about very much, but I think we were on different wavelengths.  She took all the time I spend with the pipe real personally.  I don't blame her.  Unfortunately I later had to leave the band in order to keep my sanity, and I wound up not having the girl or the band.

Here's a photo my friends Julien and Gaelle took of me playing my cittern at a  performance at the Depot Diner in 1999: 

I sold my house in Fayetteville.  I  bought a cool little house just a half block from the college where I work.  It has a great room downstairs for piping, and guitar playing, and recording.  Nice yard out back.  It'll have to have new carpet in a couple of years.  They re-did the inside of the house just before I bought it and went with the industrial grade stuff.  It'll last for years, but it's UGLY.

I was asked to join Oklahoma Scottish Pipes and Drums as a sort of playing instructor for the competition band and I  enjoy playing with those guys and helping them get better.  I wish I were closer to OKC so I could play with them more often.

For summer vacation 2001 I went to France, England, Scotland, and France (I liked France so much I went back).  I visited with my friend Julien and we hit the beaches of SW France.  We also attended the European Pipe Band Championships in Ayr, Scotland (my favorite band, Field Marshall Montgomery, won it). 

FMM leaving the field at Ayr, Scotland - 23 June, 2001

Then we buzzed down to Birmingham by train and attended a GREAT party hosted by my friend Mike Oborski, Honorary Polish Consul to England and all around groovie guy.  Mike and his wife, Fran, live in Kidderminster.  You should visit Mike's web pages.  He and Fran do MANY good works, and you can get a lot of information on their interests, and the charitable organizations they are involved in.  Mike wrote a very engaging book called "Bigos and Chips" that describes what it was like for him to uncover and nurture his Polish roots, and to become involved in the Polish struggle to escape Soviet domination.  In return, I promised to record a disc of 60s covers.  Working on it Mike.

Here I am playing a borrowed guitar in the Oborski kitchen.  That's Mike on the left in blue..

Julien and I went from the Oborski's back to London for a couple of days, then  zipped back over to Paris for a few days after that.  Man, I could live inside Le Pere Lachaise.  What a cool place that is.  We visited the graves of Camille Pissarro, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and the mandatory trip over to visit Jim Morrison's resting place.  Amazing, the damage people have done to the surrounding grave markers.

September 11th peeled my wig.

Julien came back over to the States for a brief visit in April 2002.  We had a pretty good time running around in Memphis, and then hanging out at my house for a few days.  Much less exciting than London and Paris.

I spend a lot of free time driving all over the central part of the US playing in piping competitions.  In 2002 I was in Oklahoma City in March, here in April (with a BIG contingent of my PIPERS-L friends) as the Arkansas Scottish Festival.  First week of May 2002 found me in St. Paul MN at Macalester College.  Two weeks later was Springfield IL.  June 8th was the Kansas City games. I had some successes at those games, and a few setbacks.  I have issues with one of the judges I run into on a pretty regular basis.  I wouldn't play in front of his bench again on a bet.  2003 will find me at a number of those venues again.  I hear Macalester is dropping the Scottish Faire.  A real shame, as it's such a nice setting for a piping competition, and VERY well attended.  How they could've been losing money is beyond me.

St. Patrick's Day 2003 found me playing in Kansas City with OSP&D in front of about 300,000 of our closest friend.  Man, was that fun! They put us up in the Westin downtown, and were first class hosts.  The parade was very well organized, and the folks of the City Tavern put on a great breakfast buffet for the pipe bands. 

OSP&D marching in to massed bands at OKC - MAR 03
I'm toward the back on the far side.  You can just make out a braid.

The following weekend I hooked up with the band at the Oklahoma Scottish Games and Gathering.  Got to meet Chris Hamilton, then Pipe Sergeant for City of Washington.  Very nice guy.  We've known each other for years through the Internet.  Always nice to put a face to a person though.  The band played okay, but not as well as we're capable of playing, and we had third.

In 2003 I acquired a really nice Rivera R100-212 guitar amp, and am back to playing more guitar these days.  Bought myself  myself a a surf green Stratocaster too.  I haven't had a Strat in quite a long time, and always wanted a green one since I saw one in the music store window in Camden in 1964. 

As of 2004 I was back in the Lyon College Pipe Band under the direction of Handsome Jimmy Bell and just DIGGING it.  We're playing some good stuff, and having too much fun.  Band practice is like it should be.  Hard work, but everybody having fun and laughing as much as anything.  Tristen Dean, Danny Vaughn, and the rest of the new crew that've come on board are just first-rate.  You should visit the Scottish Heritage webpage and read The Pipe Band Diary.

I was honored in spring of 2003 by being asked by the ZBT fraternity to serve as their advisor.  I accepted.  You wouldn't think "fraternity" if you saw me walking down the street, but it's a great bunch of guys and I enjoy the interaction with them.

I've gotten a couple of e-mails from Cliff Gates.  He's in the Denver area, and in fact lives REALLY close to where I used to be on Chatfield Ave. during the 80s.  We had a great conversation by phone over the past weekend and got caught up a bit.  Very glad to have him still in the circle.  A nice guy, and a good friend when we were little.  I'm also in touch with some other old friends that turn up occasionally thanks to the wonder of the Internet. 

Significant stuff in the recent past.  My dad died in December of 2005.  I had just been visiting at his house at Thanksgiving, and so had seen him shortly before.  We really had a nice time together, though I sensed he was really slowing down.  He'd had cancer for several years, and we knew the end was coming for him.  He stayed in pretty good overall health right up until the time of his death, and he went out quietly in his sleep in his own house.  Could've been a MUCH worse scenario.  I established a memorial scholarship in his name here at Lyon, and he will continue to be a supporter of the pipe band and be remembered for many years to come.

The band  went to Scotland in August to compete at the World Championships.  We had a good crack at winning it.  Jimmy had put together some good tunes for us, and we were playing them well.  We had a great big sound.  Can't ask for much better than that.  Our piping was sharp, and the Boehm twins are making great strides in drumming.  We had a nice mid-section as well.  We were #2 in our morning qualifier, but some things went against us in the afternoon.  We hope to go back and try it again.

And then there's this girl...

Well, here it is May of 2008, and the girl worked out pretty well.  We got married in April, and so far she hasn't hit me in the head with an ashtray.  She's a bright, lovely person.  I almost never have to explain something I find funny.  She's pretty, smart, funny, gracious, and makes a MEAN pork loin.  We bought this great house, and we're getting it put together.  We also have a really funny Irish Wolfhound puppy that we named Cuchullain.  Nancy is in school here at Lyon and playing tenor drum in the band and is working on her piping skills.

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