21 Cut My Hair for Baseball. Song:“We Gotta Get Out of This Place”. Photo: Hair Lengths.
Before I moved to rural Ohio from MI in the middle of the school year, my parents gave me permission to go purchase a pair of new pants at the trendy Village Shop in Grosse Pointe, and since madras had just become the hype at Grosse Pointe High School, I bought madras pants. But,I realized, after I got to Ohio, that I may never get to wear my new madras pants anywhere at all in rural Ohio, let alone my new high school, unless I got ballsy, and wore them, anyway. So, I wore them to school, anyway. However, after being introduced to my homeroom class as the son of the owner of the new ski area, I barely made it to my first class, alive. Some students ran ahead of me in the busy hallway, and began bouncing off lockers, and slamming on them as I walked by, which caused a loud large scene, and slowed the flow of students going to their classes nearly to a halt, as if to “hail the new idiot who arrived wearing madras pants”. As I continued trying to walk to my first class, some of the students started banging on the hallway floor in front of me as if mimicking the monkeys who banged into the dirt in the, then, recently released movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I quickly realized that my new high school was going to be very different than my old high school.
Fortunately, there was another new student who had arrived at almost the same time – another new person who, like me, had long hair, too. He had much longer hair than any students, and he was from England, so students realized that long hair, and even madras, was not just cool in MI, but in England, too. Plus, he had a British accent, so he looked AND sounded cool. But, for me, and my madras pants, there was “no putting the cat back in the bag”. I’m just glad I didn’t show up with purple, orange hair. or nose and eyebrow rings.
My high school in Grosse Pointe, MI had nearly 6000 students until the new high school opened, which was when they were renamed GP South, and GP North, while my rural Ohio high school only had hundreds. When I asked my gym teacher if I could try out for baseball, he just barked out the words, “Cut your hair“, and asked me what number I was in the draft, then began resting his thumb on his jaw while smoothing his chin with his index finger, and squinting his eyes as if searching for ideas which had nothing to do with baseball. From the moment he learned that I was number nine in the draft, I believe he began thinking of of ways of getting me drafted, which was a definite possibility for anyone with a low draft number, and for any reason, out of school. Again, I went to the same barbershop, and cut it again, but when I showed him, and asked him again, he just walked around me with a menacing look, slithered away behind my back, and barked over his shoulder while walking away, “Cut it again”.
For my third time in a week of having my hair cut, when I showed my gym teacher it was cut, and asked him again if I could try out for the baseball team, he answered me by scaring the wits out of me. This time, he put his nose right into my nose, and in the same instance that I felt a real electric static shock when our noses touched, he screamed into my face, “CUT IT AGAIN!” I had my hair cut three times in one week, and Michael, at Michael’s Hair, was the one who cut it, but the gym teacher had no intention of giving me any chance to even try out for baseball. He continued singling me out in school just like my own father was doing with me at Brandywine, so I became immured with being around two men with serious anger management problems.
I soon learned that one of the jocks on the school football team who worked at our competitor ski area Boston Mills, was the one who punched me in the face while I was on a band break while my band played at one of their weekend dances (my dad wouldn’t let us play, or even practice at Brandywine once it opened). This football jock hit me so hard in the side of my face, when I turned from the urinal to leave, that the other side of my face cracked the wooden two-by-four separating the sink from the urinal. Soon, another football player who apparently owned the bar seat which he had abandoned for the restroom, came back after leaving “his” seat, to realize that I had innocently sat down on “his” bar chair. He said to me, “That’s MY chair”! So, I got up from the bar stool. But, he either decided that I was taking too much time, too, or he didn’t like my attitude, or he was mad just because he possibly knew who I was. Whatever was the case, he, too, decided to smash me in the face, and this time, instead of my head hitting, and cracking a wooden two by four, my head ricocheted off of the bar’s polished black iron support pole. Ouch!
In the late 1960’s, teachers weren’t generally held accountable for many of their actions perpetrated on their students, including when my gym teacher, the principal, and one of the teachers in my rural Ohio high school conspired together to blame me for something one of their own sons did with my shotgun.I bought my Mossberg shotgun in 1967 on sale at Buckeye Sports Center for eighty bucks (they’re over $1,000.00 today), and I had entrusted it to him because he had lots of guns, and because I didn’t want to keep it in my trailer room where my sister, both parents, and I, all lived behind the lodge at Brandywine. Thankfully, before a criminal conspiracy against me at school came to fruition, my gym teacher smashed me in my face, which was way better than being put in jail for something I didn’t do! In the moments after my gym teacher assaulted me, the principal, and the gym teacher, got me to sign something that I thought mean that I could drive home from school, but what it really meant was that I quit high school, which was why I was driving during a school day. And, it would have most likely meant being immediately drafted into military service, and sent straight to Vietnam.
Thankfully, and even luckily, moments before I would have been arrested for a felony by someone placing my shotgun in my locker to be found in school, Instead, my gym teacher lost his temper, assaulted me, then he and the principal gave me permission to drive home using something I signed which they told me would give me the permission I needed. Had they waited only a few more moments, the plan to have police find the shotgun which I owned which blasted out the school lobby window, would have been found in my locker, and that plan would have likely succeeded… I would have been arrested, and sent to jail.
On a Monday, during the last, and supposed third bomb scare in the last eight days, my gym teacher escorted me out of the gym, and walked me alone with him through the halls. The entire school population had assembled in the gym because someone had, supposedly, called in a bomb scare. (However, it was very unlikely that there ever was a real bomb scare, because for the first two supposed bomb scares, not all of the students were evacuated outside, and for the third bomb scare, only the students (not the teachers) were herded into the gym!) Monday, was when there was (supposedly) a third bomb scare, but the whole school was only put into the gym, instead of ordered outside where it would have been entirely safe! While everyone (minus teachers) was in the gym, the gym teacher was the only teacher present, and he singled me out by yelling MY name in front of the entire school population. I thought, “Why was he yelling for ME to come down from the bleachers?” I knew that I was innocent of whatever was going on, but I had no idea that my gym teacher, the principal, and the teacher who was the parent of the guilty one, were all involved in a plot which may have included having me arrested, expelled, and/or immediately drafted. This was when the war in Vietnam was in full swing.
I was informed by a student who I swore not to identify, that I was going to be the fall guy being framed for a felony, in order to take the blame off of the guilty one. He told me that they were planning on planting evidence in my locker while everyone was in the gym, and doing so would prove that I was the guilty one who blasted out the school lobby window. However, because my gym teacher couldn’t wait for their plan to come to fruition, instead, he assaulted me in the hallway during the time that he was walking me from the packed gym, to the school’s office. He punched me in the face during the time that he stopped me in the lobby, and while talking to me, I noticed over his shoulders that there was a big square wooden board blocking the light which had been put in place over the door where the school’s lobby window had been. I only noticed that big square board because it was directly in my line of sight over his shoulders (and remember that he was smoothing his chin with his fingers again).
I had no idea about why there was a board in place of the lobby window over the door because I hadn’t been taking the bus to school, and walking in from the lobby. I had been driving to school for the last week, and the lobby window had been blasted out over the weekend, before that second Monday of my second week driving to school. Because I had discovered that we had a spring fed lake at Brandywine, and my dad’s plans for Dover Lake Park were just approved, and my dad was suddenly overtly happy, that was obviously the reason why he had just started letting me drive to school from that point on. In fact, he started letting me drive his Dodge Charger to school everyday!If I hadn’t been taking the bus to school for the last whole week, I wouldn’t have been walking into school via the front lobby. So, on that Monday, as I stood in the lobby in the morning with the gym teacher in an interrogatory stance, he would have most likely known if it would have been my first time noticing the large wooden board which had been put in place of the blasted out large lobby window over the school lobby door. I believe that he obviously knew that I had no idea about that window which had been blasted out over that weekend. However, the gym teacher definitely saw the very day when I started driving my father’s Dodge Charger to school, because I saw him my first day driving as he faithfully policed the student parking lot which was right outside of his office where all students driving to school had to park. Again, It probably would have been obvious to him (during the time that he stopped me in the lobby, and placed me facing toward that boarded up window over his shoulders) that I did NOT have any clue about it, and he would have obviously deduced that I was NOT the guilty one responsible for the crime. Were they were going to go through with planting my shotgun used in the crime, in my locker? Instead, because the gym teacher’s hatred trumped his jealousy, he assaulted me.
Before the gym teacher assaulted me, he tried reasoning with me, suggesting that I should just quit school, followed by trying to make an eighteen year old believe that if I quit school, then I’d be able to drive my father’s new fast cars all over town all day, instead of having to be in school all day. This sounded to me very much unlike what any good teacher should ever sound like, Only since he was speaking that way right after he had confidently, pompously, and authoritatively, embarrassed me in front of the entire school population (including teachers) by singling me out with obvious hatful intent, I couldn’t help, for once in my life, to respond to him a bit flippantly. Telling him he should make sure that his brain was engaged before putting his mouth in gear, made him instantly punch me in the face so hard that it bloodied, and permanently disfigured my nose. To this day, I wonder which scenario would have been worse for me… Being smashed in the face, and expelled, or arrested for the felony of having the shotgun which blasted out the school lobby window found in my locker, being arrested and sent straight to jail, then likely into the military. Soon, were the Kent State shootings, the college closed, and I had nowhere to go but to answer to my father ‘s policy of making me continue to live in the streets, but promised me he would match all of my earnings he had saved, so I volunteered for miltary service, anyway.
Judging by the way my gym teacher reacted after hitting me in the face in my senior year from my high school from hell, I think that he suddenly looked like he was almost sorry for losing control. He very gently walked me the few more steps through the lobby into the office where the principal happened to be standing just inside the office door waiting. I was given a kleenex for my bleeding nose, and while the three of us stood there, the principal explained that they were going to let me drive home for the day. They conned me into believing that it was because the gym teacher hit me, and I was thankful for being given permission to drive home! But, before I walked out, they reminded me that I needed to sign a form which the principal explained was a standard form used which allowed students to drive off of the school premises during the school day. And, as I looked at it, and gladly walked out to drive home, they distracted me by reminding me not to lose it because it will be what I will need to show police if I was stopped while driving home, which made a lot of sense to me (especially in my traumatized state), because I had noticed that there was an array of police, ambulance, and even firetrucks around outside because someone had, supposedly, called in a third bomb scare in the last seven days. Ironically, if I wasn’t assaulted by my gym teacher, and permitted to walk straight to my car to drive home, I would have likely been arrested by police as planned, if I had been accompanied to my locker.
During the first two bomb scares during last week, the school population was evacuated outside, but for the 3rd bomb scare which, supposedly, happened the Monday the gym teacher assaulted me, the school population was all directed into the gym, not outside. Now (50 years later) I realize why. There probably was no bomb scare, and it was only, indeed, a conspiracy to shift blame to me, the new guy, instead of blaming the guilty one, which was one of their own children. So, I believe that the bomb scare was all a hoax so that they could make sure that nobody was around in the hallways, in order so they could plant the gun used, which was indeed mine, and place it in my locker before the police showed up. With all students in the gym, there was less possibility of anyone seeing them putting my gun in my locker. But, maybe because the drummer in my band was also the school janitor, and/or maybe because they didn’t want to get caught, themselves, being involved in a conspiracy, gave them enough reasons not to choose planting my shotgun in my locker. Finally, if there was a REAL bomb scare, why would the lives of all the teachers and students have been put in danger by putting everyone in the gymnasium?
Because the gym teacher injured me, I honestly believed that they were going to let me go home for the day. But the truth of the matter was that their paper I signed actually meant that I couldn’t legally ever come back to school, and it would have also meant that they would be notifying the draft board immediately followed by me entering straight into military service. Miraculously, my high school from hell story ended on a better note than all of that because unbeknownst to me, my father had recently purchased a house in my name in the development located over the top of the other side of the Brandywine property which happened to be zoned in an entirely different school district! I guess I’ll still never know whether my father purchased that house for me, for me to be able to finish high school or not, but purchasing it most likely saved my life, because otherwise I would have been drafted immediately. Consequently, I got to finish high school at another high school where I remained my same easy going self with a good sense of humor (albeit less impulsively), got all good grades, and stayed 100% out of trouble.
Whether I was at work (where my father decided that I was only capable of, and permitted to do mundane tasks), or at school (where my father had ordered me to stay entirely away from, and out of the workings of the ski club), I was simply, and intentionally, left out of all the loops. What I never realized back then, was that the employee who my father had let train with the safety patrol, let use the hand held radios, and gave so much authority to (as well as let take my place standing with my mother helping hand out brochures at the Cleveland ski show booths while I attended college), was actually that gym teacher’s son! LIke the Dalai Lama once said: “We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, OR we can let them soften us and make us kinder. You always have the choice”.
My younger sister had a hard time adjusting to changing to a rural Ohio school, too. She was exploited just like I was (just for being who she was…the child of the new local ski area owner). I wish that I could have always been there for her, and I wish that she could have been closer with her big brother (me). After we started our respective schools in rural Ohio, she was still in elementary school. I bought her a guitar for her birthday, and taught her how to play it, then bought her a record player for Christmas, and helped her learning by ear, how to play Carole King songs on guitar etc., but soon she started being influenced by an older girl “friend” who I think worked in the kitchen at Brandywine, and often visited our rented house after school.
I always feared and respected my father, so when I purchased a motorcycle while working in Kent before college ever started, I never dared to ride it to Brandywine. However, I had been riding it home from my rented room in Kent, to our second rented house which was a twenty minute drive, for a quick visit home, and back. Unfortunately, since my little sister thought that I had no wheels, a couple of times when I walked in, I saw that she had become bold keeping up with the influences of her peer’s pressures. I’m guessing that my father grew up experiencing the same kinds of sexual circumstances as I saw that my sister did, and I think that they both chose to keep experiencing each of their own kinds of similar encounters.
I got a rush of adrenaline by running, skiing, and jumping (See photo, above). More often than not, I started my runs from the top of “Champagne Bowl” at Brandywine with first, getting enough speed by snow skating on the frozen icy snow each evening when the lower temperatures turned the snow to ice, then, by pushing off on the “lip jump” by the tree in the photo, I’d “get air“.
During the grass cutting months, it took me nearly all week to mow the 40 acres of grass at Brandywine, and during some of my 15 minute breaks I would occasionally go back to the lodge to get a cold soda refill and use the restroom, but had to remember that the ski lodge bathroom door had very loud squeaky springs which made the wooden door slam hard. I learned that I had to be careful that my father wouldn’t hear the door slamming from his office, catch me in the lodge, and then scream at me for being there! After coming into the lodge to use the restroom, I then snuck into the kitchen because I was dying of thirst from working all day in the heat, and after getting a refill from our commercial soft drink dispenser, I noticed that one of my father’s three outside workers came into the lodge to use the restroom, too, then when that bathroom door slammed, I realized (more than once) that was also when I noticed my dad walking from his office, straight into the men’s bathroom. I wasn’t ever thinking, back then, that it was at all odd that my extremely busy father went into the bathroom under that scenario more than once. I probably only figured, back then, that it was just to innocently chat with his workers. Now, however, I remember what I saw my father doing with a man in a bathroom when I was standing there with him when I was just a child. I repressed everything for years.
At Brandywine, I learned to be sure not to let the bathroom door during work hours slam on ME, because it meant that my father might automatically appear, and catch ME inside the lodge during the work day, again. After my father died, I remembered that my father engaged in those kinds of sad shenanigans his whole life, and I think that possibly because I refused engaging in such shenanigans, that may have been why my father never assigned me to any position in management toward staying working at Brandywine.
Finally, during a future break while mowing grass, I had forgotten, and let the restroom door in the lodge bathroom slam behind me on my way in. Sure enough, and right on cue my dad came out of his office. He looked obviously as startled to see me as if he had just seen a ghost, as he looked when entering the busy kitchen when the winter season started, and seeing me working in the kitchen. He stood at the urinal right next to me without saying a word, then while I was on my way back outside, he threw a whole new roll of toilet paper hitting me square in the back with it! It bounced off me landing on the cement, and partially unrolled on the gravel outside as I was hurriedly walking out of the lodge.As I kept walking back to mow, he angrily shouted in his army sergeant drill voice, “You are to use that toilet paper in the woods from now on, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” That was when I realized that he was seriously forbidding me not being allowed in the lodge during my work day, to even use the bathroom! That was the same bathroom that he required me clean every single day whether we were openned or closed, year round! And, I was required to do so whether I had finished my required 8 hour day cutting grass, off the clock, or not. After my father threw that roll of toilet paper at me, new rules, or more rules, I still went into the lodge kitchen on my 15 minute breaks in order to get a refill to drink (except when I discovered the little deli at the end of the service road, I stopped showing up during lunch for the rest of the cutting grass season, (And, I remember how my father appeared noticeably SO MUCH HAPPIER on the days HE DIDN’T SEE ME all day during the day). However, instead of my father’s rules teaching me discipline, they had the opposite effect of making me angry and defiant. Unfortunately, the result of breaking his rules made me learn again, again, and again, the hard way, that it was 100% his way, or the highway.
On one of my less and less often visits from Kent, I noticed that there was a huge boulder which appeared out of nowhere right in front of the lodge cafeteria window (see the above photo). I had no idea where it could have possibly come from, or what the reason was that my father had it put there. And, I have no idea where it come from. Was it a comet? Had he ordered his outside employees to do THAT? Did the Army Corp of Engineers do that on one of their Brandywine practice exercises while I was attending college? Was it symbolic of my father’s ego? Was it the aliens work? Or, was he making his own Stonehenge?