19 “The Fyve” band practice in the Brandywine Ski Lodge (Above)& Songs, to listen to while reading.

Above is a photo of our 1960’s Ohio rock band “The Fyve”, taken during our weekly band practices at Brandywine Ski Center in Ohio. (For the full story of Brandywine/Dover Lake Park see page 18 on.)

Wearing the same thing was typical for groups, like the vest we all wore on gigs being worn by our lead singer, Joe Pisa, with drummer John Gronick, bass player Ed Hvorka, and lead guitarist Louie Lipchick. I played rhythm guitar (Doug Dover), and would have played keyboards too, but I didn’t have a keyboard yet. When the band organized, the Brandywine lodge was completed, and my mother insisted that my father share in the hosting of band practices equally with the other band members’ parents. So, “The Fyve” was permitted to practice weekly in the Brandywine ski lodge before Brandywine’s first winter snow ski season had begun. We started playing out on gigs — like at The Hideaway in Peninsula, all over Cleveland, and even at our competitor’s ski area called Boston Mills — but Brandywine’s owner (my dad) held his finger up, declaring “no favoritism” in response to me asking him if I, or either of my bands, could play at the Brandywine bar or for any of the popular dances at Brandywine or Dover Lake. He discouraged my music dramatically. Did he fear that his teenaged son would take away from his notoriety? Was that the reason why the piano in the lodge was a dilapidated antique upright that couldn’t be played — because all of the keys were permanently glued together somehow, and wouldn’t budge to play?

One of my dad’s stockholders named Otto Neuber had put me in his band “Paper Sun” while I still lived behind the Brandywine ski lodge, and I started leaving my amp and guitar at band practices because my dad had turned the room in the lodge I had been using as my little music studio, into the inside operations employee time clock room, and there wasn’t enough room to fit my amp and/or electric guitar in my trailer bedroom behind the lodge.  However, when “Paper Sun” changed the band’s name to “Freeport”, and band manager Otto discovered that I played piano as well, or better, than guitar, he rented a small sized upright piano which I very happily started playing on gigs.  Unfortunately for me, this was followed by organist Kevin Raleigh telling me that they were firing Otto, and replacing me with the guitar player that lead guitarist Erik Jansen had obviously been practicing with from the time I had first joined the band.  So, I landed a gig playing piano weekends on the Hunter’s Hollow Taverne vintage upright piano in Chagrin Falls on a monthly contract, and Marlon Brando happened to be the one repeat customer who was always there every night I played.  He always sat strategically just inside the entranceway where patrons coming in would walk right past him, and he wouldn’t be noticed, so could enjoy being in public while remaining anonymous.  He would read what people would think was the menu during the very busy times, but he was really staying glued to reading what were movie scripts, and sometimes necessarily kept his body turned so people weren’t able to see, or likely notice him.  That was obviously the way he liked it, and was where he was always sitting many nights in a row while I played on that old piano.  And, when he asked me if I could play the song “Tea For Two”, he spoke sounding just like the way that he talked in the movie The Godfather.  When I turned around and looked, he waved his index finger back and forth like a conductor keeping time with a seemingly knowing look of understanding of me on his face.  I honored him for being there so often when I played, and kept his presence a secret out of respect, while adding, and often repeating his requested song in whole, or in part into, or within my regular creative, continual, spontaneous, repertoire.  It seems (after I read about his life) that we had a lot in common as a result of things that happened to each of us, which gave us the same mistrust of some people in positions of authority.

I learned that band manager Otto Neuber’s house was nearby, and just right off of the road on my way to work at Chagrin Falls’ Hunter’s Hollow, so I started stopping at Otto’s house hoping to be able to pick up my amp, and guitar (seen in the band photo above).  In fact, I could always see my Fender Vibroxlux Reverb amp in plain sight right inside his house on the hallway floor, but every time I stopped, Otto was never there, and I never saw Otto, my Fender Stratocaster guitar, or my Fender Vibrolux Reverb amp again.  Despite losing track of the band, Otto, my amp, and my guitar, after my piano- only seasonal gig at the Hunter’s Hollow expired, because I remained determined to pursue my music, and because I was still working at Brandywine and able to drive one of my father’s third leased cars, I started using my acoustic Martin 12 string, rhythm unit for drums, and two mics one on an echoplex for a effects, with a 6 channel Shure P.A. system with half sized monitors, and I played solo on weekend engagements at restaurants, and bars in Cleveland contracted through player/booking agent Al Serifini.  But, Al died of a heart attack while performing on one of his Cleveland gigs, and then I had to move to Kent again.  I even played at JB’s on Water Street, and while I went to Kent State worked for Dominos where the manager/owner told me that I was the fastest delivery person he ever had, but my $50.00 Volkswagon couldn’t be turn off unless on a hill facing down. Working anywhere other than Brandywine continued being my only source of spending money, and after the Kent State shootings, and feeling desolate, my father promised he would double all he was investing for me to start receiving at age 65, so to make him happy, I joined the service.  

I learned that my father had put this photo of me (left) in a photo collage for Brandywine’s newsletter-mailing brochures, even though he never let me, or either band perform at Brandywine for pay, or for free.  I took my acoustic 12 string in the photo with me everywhere, including to the three day 1968 Miami Pop Festival after my dad lied to me when he convinced me that I had a “uncle” in Tampa who I never met.  (story on page 27 called “My(?) Uncle Ralph”).  “Uncle” Ralph turned out to be a violent alcoholic who also hated “long hairs”, so I quickly hitched to the Miami Pop Festival with my 12 string guitar, and got in free as a volunteer working in the Medical tent helping care for overdosed concert goers all day long, all three days of the festival, and tried to keep track of my 12 string playing around the huge bonfire in parking lot three every night, so never got to see any of the festival acts.  Then, when the festival ended, the one who picked me up hitchhiking, and let me keep my 12 string guitar in his car, moved his car, but found me in the crowd of 70,000, and handed me back my guitar (story on page #28 called “The guitar”).  The next time I left my Martin 12 string with someone I trusted, it was stolen. 

Our band “The Fyve”, played all of the, then, standard songs like “Midnight Hour”, “Mony”,  “Devil with the Blue Dress”, “Hang on Sloopy”, “Gloria”, “You Really Got Me”, “etc.  I had already written almost all of my own original songs, and I would have been eager to have had some of them like “The Purple Palisades”  listened to by any band members, but only “Paper Sun” drummer Bill Stallings was interested in the one called “The Purple Palisades”.  He said that he liked it because of the drum fills.  And, because he told manager manager Otto Neuber about them, Otto paid for, and scheduled Cleveland studio time to record my song “The Purple Palisades”.

“The Purple Palisades”

(Spoken): Conglomeration of molecules, absorbing brain-lit afterglows

Within our minds machinery, is life of thought, infinite galaxies, seas of words

Within your mind, do you have a place to go?  A place far away from time, away from sorrow, a way to see our lives tomorrow?

The Purple Palisades… (long guitar riff)

(Sung): Do you have a place to go… A place of tranquility?  Do you have a place to hide?  Is there such a place in the Purple Palisades of your mi-yind  (guitar riff)

Focus your eyes.  Focus your mind, to the changing of the ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-imes.  Color it with the innocence  of your mi-i-i-i-i-i-i-ind.  /Ah Ah (drum fills) Ah Ah(drum fills) Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah, Ah Ah Ah…Ah…Ah (guitar riff to end)                                             

One busy evening during the ski season my father walked by and saw me sitting in the lodge cafeteria in a ski patrolman class which was being held in the lodge because there were so many ski patrol 

applicants for certification that there wasn’t enough room to have the classes in the ski patrol shed anymore. My father embarrassed me, as usual, by walking by and asking me why I was in the lodge, and I explained that I was attending Wally James’ Ski Patrol Training classed, and tried to tell my father (the ski area owner) that both my mom (the manager), and Mr. James (the head of ski patrol) okayed me taking the class toward getting certified, but I was sure NOT going to mention that both had suggested it. My father quickly blurted out his lifelong trumpet sound like an army sergeant for my mom (which I still can’t help but hearing from this world to the next), shouting… “Dot!”, and he impatiently posed, waiting for her to instantly appear from where she was working in the busy kitchen nearby. When she appeared, he began whining with Mr. James. Dad said, “Wally, anything that my son does at Brandywine requires my pre-approval first.” The photo I took (above left) is of Wally James Manager of Brandywine’s Ski Patrol, and also Manager of Dover Lake Park. Unfortunately, my dad put an abrupt end to me staying in those first aid training classes, but I had no idea the extent which he could go toward being such an extreme control freak. However, I was more worried about my mother, than myself, and visa versa. 

Soon, and unbeknownst to me, the lease had expired for our second rental house where my mother and I had been sleeping all winter, and after I was off work at the 11PM closing, starting on that night, she would start staying at the lodge again, but I suddenly had no where to sleep, because dad had told her to turn in the key earlier that day, then they both apparently forgot that I would have no place to sleep.  That night my mom innocently explained this to my father, and sheepishly reminded him that he was the one who had instructed her to turn in the key in the first place.  This seemed to catch my dad off guard.  I wish that I could have remembered what I had repressed, because I could have possibly used it to calm him down somehow.  I would have happily stayed living at Brandywine again, just like my mom was about to do, again.  Then, besides continuing working days, I could have worked all night, too!  I would have had the energy to do so, and that happened to be precisely the time when they just started having the “Dawn Patrol” (skiing all night)!

I believe that because I didn’t/couldn’t do everything exactly the way that my father wanted me to, that was both the reason he wouldn’t consider allowing me to stay working full-time at Brandywine, or even sleep there after the lease had expired, when our mom had to move back to the lodge, and when I suddenly had no where to sleep at all! So, my dad takes me on this tour of his newly finished employee dormitory which was empty, so far, and I realized that it could be my one-time-first, and last, private tour of his newly finished employee dorm, depending on his mood.  He was acting as if he actually believed that he was showing me his dormitory which I hadn’t ever seen before! (It makes me think about when I saw the insides of the Vail CO day-dorm after he died, slept in my van while I parked cars at Winter Park, didn’t have a thousand dollars for use of the Vail day-dorm, and wasn’t permitted to meet my father’s friend who started Vail, who was still alive.)  I often slept in my vehicle at Wallmart to then go ski at Breck, A-basin, Keystone, Winter Park, or Vail, but I never had a thousand dollars for use of the Vail day dorm in Vail Village, nor could I get permission to get to meet and talk to my father’s friend who was one of the two who started Vail, and still lived right at Vail Village.  Unfortunately, his wife made it clear to me that his alzheimers comes and goes, and she wouldn’t let me meet him even to just say hi despite the fact that my father and he had served together, and my father started his own ski area, too.  I also wonder if the solo guitar player in the restaurant right at the bottom of the stairs where I was talking to Vail’s owner’s wife, was someone in their family.  There was a grand piano in the restaurant nearby, and another one across the walkway in the little church of Vail Village where I often went for giving thanks by playing that piano and singing the Lord’s Prayer.  I hope that pleased the Lord.

While I followed my father through Brandywine dormitory facility which was just past the new VIP teacher’s lounge, I remained silent out of respect. He silently walked me right through his new dorm as if showing me the dorm cots where I could have easily started sleeping beginning on that night, especially because our rented house lease had expired on that day, and the key had been turned in.  My mother had remained on pins and needles hoping that I, too, would be allowed to start sleeping at Brandywine again, starting on that same night when she would be, again.  After a speechless tour, my father walked me back over to where my mom was obviously waiting for him to announce his decision about where I could sleep.  Instead, he used the opportunity for making something unquestionably clear.  He simply pointed his index finger up emphatically, and very emotionally only proclaimed, “There is no way that YOUR SON will EVER stay at Brandywine ALL NIGHT, ANY NIGHT” (then, with a frozen-eyed icy stare directly toward me, spewed out), “work 24/7 at Brandywine”, (then louder), “or BE at Brandywine ever again without (very loud now) MY, AND MY ALONE EXPLICIT INVITATION”… (then said almost insanely loud enough to shake the building, and the walls),”IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”  Besides sounding scary, he sounded pretty much like a lunatic, but surely made his point clear and concise for us both!  Then he told me to go try and find an apartment he had described which was nearby.

I loved snow “skating” and could have been a fine working asset being allowed to help make snow with my father’s blessings, especially after I was allowed to replace using rental skis only, with my own first pair of skis, 205cm Rossignol Stratos. Then I could go much faster checking on the snow guns while on skis, and even skiing on flat or uphill snow surfaces, especially after the partially melted snow froze around the same time over and over again each night.

But, soon after the Dawn Patrol (all night skiing) began, I had no choice but to leave Brandywine for my first year of college, and I particularly remember the evening that our father had forgotten that our mother had already turned in the rental house key (as our father requested) to our second rented house, because the lease had expired.  That was the night that our mother (who he obviously wanted staying at Brandywine again) would be starting to stay full time at the lodge again, but I suddenly had nowhere to sleep.  So, my father used my predicament to cruelly emphasize that I’ll never work all night, or even stay all night ever again at Brandywine, and it was almost insane the way that he described “NO OVERNIGHT STAYS”, or even visits on my own while I was attending college, unless I had his invitation.

That night my father let me know about an apartment, and reluctantly handing me his car keys, ordered me to drive his Dodge Monaco there to sleep, but failed to tell me that I would find our lady bartender apparently asleep at that apartment.  On the second night that I stayed in that apartment, he drove me there himself, and no-one was there.  While on the way, he feebly explained that their was a reason that I couldn’t finish taking the Brandywine first aid classes which both my mom and the head of the ski patrol had agreed on letting me take in order to get ski patrol certified.  He said “Doug son, I’m not paying you to take first aid classes”.  Then, he tried to wedge into his conversation saying, “You are on the payroll to do only what I specifically want you to do, period”. 

I thought that I since I had already received my ski instructor certification that it only made sense for me to also be trained in first aid, but my father reminded me that I’d soon be off to college, and surprised me by informing me that he was allowing me to drive his new leased Dodge Monaco, myself, to finish high school.  That gave my mother a real big break because she was having to drive me clear around the mountain every morning to my last and final high school, and was picking me up after school for my first few days of my last few weeks where I was, very luckily, able to finish high school.

My dad enjoyed taking the air out of everyone’s bubble but his own, and he continued doing so for the rest of his life.  He told me during his drive to drop me off at that apartment, that he was planning to make his latest rule for me (which was for me to only be allowed to be at Brandywine when clocked in for working) and he was going to make that apply to all employees, including ski instructors, and ski patrolmen… In other words, ALL employees would only be allowed to ski, or even be at Brandywine on the days in which they were working.  It actually made sense because of the fact that by that time, it was almost always madhouse like busy during the ski season. It also made me realize that was how he could, then, “cherry pick” all employees, even ski instructors by choosing which ones he wanted there, and simply stop scheduling instructors, employees, safety patrolman, or anyone who didn’t jump thru ALL of his hoops.  Now, I realize that he allowed me to teach tons of skiers to ski only because it was when he NEEDED ME for teaching skiers, and I also realize how MONEY CAN BE THE ROOT OF EVIL.         

I used our Headco rental skis with Cubco bindings to ski, and for races at Brandywine because I had no skis of my own. I used the same mogul hundreds of times for air 

(see the photo left), but one time both Hedco rental skis fell off in mid-air, and dangled from their safety straps while I sailed through the air. Since I had just sharpened them razor sharp for a recent race, when I landed, one of the skis sliced a cut in my knee right through my jeans so deep that I received four internal, and four external stitches, and the doctor told me that because Brandywine sent the hospital so much business, that was the reason he agreed to let me watch him stitch me up. Soon afterward, I was out running errands picking up stuff for Brandywine at a Cleveland ski shop, and I was told to speak to my mom over the phone after I got there. That was when she told me that I could pick out my very own first pair of skis.

Unfortunately I was too hard on those skis, too, and I broke them after a “Carling Cup” finals dual slalom race at Peak and Peak ski area. After the race, and just before It was getting dark, I decided to try to do a back flip off of a jump which was constructed specifically for doing flips, but I stalled in mid-air never making it all of the way around. I landed a three point landing upside down on my ski tips, and my head. The skis were ruined, but I still have the same head. I should have learned doing flips into water, first, but had no clue where there was any, for learning and practicing flips. Since I knew that I had to get back to Brandywine always by strictly enforced scheduled times, and I didn’t want to risk losing the privilege of driving my dad’s awesome third car, I managed to drive straight home accompanied with a hell of a head ache, and after experiencing severe Deja-vu, but I survived.

At Brandywine, I was happy when my mother used me as a floater employee.  But, it was sad to see my father looking shocked (as if he had just seen a ghost), when he saw me working in the kitchen, or anywhere he hadn’t personally assigned me beforehand. (For some unknown reason(s), he wanted me always uninvolved or working somewhere by myself).  And, my mother and I usually just let him yell at us without ever saying anything back to him because we both understood how difficult it was for him running his business.  Sometimes when he saw me in the lodge, he would simply stop right in front of me, and POINT outside without  making hundreds of people at a time all be aghast when hearing him scream, “Douglas, OUT OF THE LODGE.”

I got used to not exchanging words with him, and just appeasing him by leaving his presence to go back outside to work and/or ski until the then 11PM closing. (He kind of controlled me by doing his pointing technique just like a dog and his master would do.) My mom, on the other hand, was the humble role model that I tried to learn to be, and have tried to 

remain being.

See the photos of the Brandywine ski parking lot; of the back side of the bar and kitchen, one of stacked firewood outside, and a view from inside the lodge looking out toward the slopes; I loved helping clear the woods for the slopes to be created at Brandywine, and I enjoyed cutting firewood for the fireplace inside the lodge.

Funny story when a very hefty stockholder named George Mayor stopped on his way out toward the Brandywine parking lot as I was splitting wood with my usual sideways baseball swing… He walked clear over to where I was working, and showed me how to make wood split cuts his way. He grabbed the axe, and in his hefty, gruff, masculine deep German accented voice said, “This is the correct way”, as he straddled the log & split that log, lifting the axe straight up, then going straight down the middle. So to appease him, I did it his way. I would have gone back to doing it my way, but he stayed there watching me doing it his way for so long, that I actually got uncomfortable, and that axe ricocheted off the side of the log, cut right through my work boot, and severely cut into my big toe. After that, I decided to stick to cutting firewood my own way. Mr. Mayor’s two sons, like head instructor Bert Fischer’s sons, were all lucky to take race classes 

which my father never permitted me to take, yet I remained within 100th of seconds close with them in race competitions. With no race classes ever, I still raced “Downhills” and “Giant Slalom” for three seasons starting at age 64, after not skiing for decades. While racing in the Rocky Mountain Masters in CO, I asked a former Olympian U.S. Ski Team member who was 

a lot younger than me who I always saw helping run the races, why he wasn’t racing, and he answered saying, “Are you kidding?… I don’t want to DIE!”  Indeed, there were some very serious accidents while I was in those races. A man my age fell on a downhill I was in at Aspen, and he remained in the hospital for four months in traction.  I feel lucky that I only broke my big toe after I had mastered jumping all five of the ski park jumps at Breck.  I became confidant doing spread eagles over all of them, and one day a waitress I saw out skiing who knew me by name said hello to me, then I saw her stop by the the 1st of the two large terrain park jumps at the bottom of Peak 9 to watch from there; Still having some “hot dog” blood in me, I hurriedly skied straight down to where I saw that she had stopped.  Because my wife and I knew her from eating at Eric’s almost every night, I wanted to hurry to make her see that this old man could jump the big jumps, too  But, because I was on my first run down that day, I hadn’t taken the normal necessary precautionary time tightening down my ski boots, which was what obviously caused me to land 

just short enough to “slap” land on the hard flat portion called the desktop, instead of a few feet further in the steep softer slanted downward landing section.  That put a tiny fracture in the same toe that I cut with the axe years ago, and hurt enough in my ski boots that had to quit skiing for the winter after I had already purchased a season pass.  Later, I learned that I could have paid a little extra for insurance for my pass and subtracted how many days I used my season pass, and with my proof of injury provided, gotten a refund if done in time.  My fractured toe happened when my brain said,”yes”, but my feet in loose boots said, “nope”!  Unfortunately, I also lost my two authentic Spyder turtlenecks which I had purchased from a member of the US Ski Team!  My first one someone snagged while I got x-rays at the Vail hospital radiology department, and my only other one (both irreplaceable) “Spyder” US Ski team turtle neck at the laundromat in Breckenridge.  Out of sight, out of mind! My bad.

After a Paper Sun band practice in Shaker Heights, drummer Bill Stallings (who became a popular Cleveland radio DJ), heard my original songs on guitar, and said he really liked the one I wrote called “The Purple Palisades” because of the cool drum fills he could provide:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhcAtJmIES4.  Drummer Bill also informed me that he had mentioned my songs to Otto our manager who was a Brandywine stock holder, and a week later told me that Otto had scheduled studio time to record them.  Unfortunately, I was hyper aware that the lead guitar player Eric Jansen never liked me from day one, and obviously never wanted me in the band, but I never met the guitar player who I replaced.  However, when the whole band found out that we were getting recording session time, I finally saw the guitarist who must have been the band’s other original guitar player, because Eric’s obvious friend had arrived after our weekly Shaker Heights practice at drummer Bill’s house, and was when I heard them all singing what was, obviously, a practiced song in three part harmony which I had never heard before.  Thus, that was when I knew that they were practicing without me knowing about it. 

Eric only wanted to do any/all of the songs that featured his ear-shattering lead guitar riffs, and Eric didn’t listen to, or do what Otto told him to do (like learn the songs we were supposed to have been practicing).  I just did what I was told to do while I was in both of my bands.  Although band manager Otto was a Brandywine stockholder who liked my mother, I think he hated my father.  Whatever the case, when Otto discovered that I had natural musical talent on guitar, Otto put me in his band “Paper Sun” playing guitar, and it really hurt when I realized, immediately, that lead guitar Eric Jansen didn’t even like me (I thought it was perhaps just for me being who I was… Brandywine Ski Area/Dover Lake Park owner’s son).  Then, when Otto realized that I played piano even better than guitar, suddenly there was a real piano for me to play which the band began to start hauling around with Kevin’s B3 organ.  However, very soon, Eric convinced them to fire Otto, all while I thought that the reason they changed the name of the band to Freeport Express, was because the name was like a train of vans or a couple of trucks which could have obviously then be needed to accomplish hauling around all of the added new band equipment.  We never got to start putting together much of a new repertoire using the addition of the added piano which would have made the band a lot more versatile, and I believe that we would have much more potential.  But, I also believe that lead guitarist Jansen never stopped his quest to do only the songs which featured his lead guitar riffs he never stopped practicing with his original guitar player.  I clearly remember how Eric always got got unglued when I couldn’t spontaneously play, in perfect harmony, the lead guitar riffs which he had obviously been practicing all along on with his guitar friend who I had no idea was still practicing, and planning on working with Eric.  In my opinion, Eric should have agreed to spent more time learning the variety of sons which was what Otto ordered.  That way, we would have learned more songs much faster, for the WHOLE BAND to compile TOGETHER which would have made all difference, but that’s just my opinion.  Otto explained that the band was lacking variety, and we wouldn’t get the higher paying corporate quality jobs without more variety.  And, when drummer Bill Stallings told Otto about my originals songs, that was when Otto orchestrated paying for studio time to record MY songs, but I think that was also when a frantic effort went into recording the songs that Eric, and (I’m guessing) perhaps bass player Craig Holt, and the other original guitar player quickly put together so they would use MY session time, to record THEIR song(s).  It was unfortunate that my father wouldn’t let me off work, and purposefully made me late getting to the studio in time to record my song “The Purple Palisades”.  And, it was unfortunate that they FIRED OTTO after all the work that he had done. 

I arrived at the downtown Cleveland studio on Euclid Ave thinking that that we would be recording my song “The Purple Palisades”, but I was stopped by organist Kevin Raleigh who was waiting at the recording studio glass doors, who told me that all of the band had already gotten there, and that I was too late.  He made me wait outside with the snow storming.  I was astonished to see that he was holding his hands up in a prayerful fashion pushed against the glass door pleading with me not to come into the studio, all while he was holding the door shut.  I was thinking about all of my songs, including one of them called “Bury Me On Top of the Tee”, because my mom liked the words, “life should be funny, so happy and free, I just wanna be me”.  A lot of today’s songs would be just as easy to write – just a lot of noise with easy lyrics which any audience can yell along with.

Drummer Bill Stalling would have very easily added the drum fills to my “Purple Palisades” song which we had just gone over at his house after the last band practice (so he was prepared for it).  Base player Craig Holt could have very simply added the bass, and with me playing guitar, and piano, my “Purple Palisades”, and/or my other songs could/would have been recorded quickly, and easily.  But, I couldn’t stay standing outside in a snowstorm pleading back with organist Kevin all night.  So, I walked back over to the curb, got back into my dad’s new car, and drove all of the way back to Brandywine, and went straight back to work (where I never got paid for any of the work I ever did).  

I was still in the band when we were billed as Freeport, and it was fun when we played in downtown Cleveland on the same 3 tiered stage where B.B. King had just performed the weekend before us on the same stage.  Otto was still in charge of the band when he had the piano set up opposite the B3 organ on the three tiered stage.  “One is the Loneliest Number” sounded great with Kevin, and me signing it in harmony.  We would have all easily been able to play many more cool songs with piano, if only the band had followed Otto’s advice in becoming more versatile.  Instead, lead guitarist Eric got his wish when on our next gig, there was only a small stage.  It was at at “The Psychedelic Lounge” in Geneva On the Lake, and there wasn’t enough room to fit the piano on the stage, so the other guitarist who Eric had obviously been practicing with all along, played.  After that, they replaced me with that guitar player.  Firing Otto was what may have led to the band’s demise.

Otto, the band’s manager, was also a major Brandywine stockholder.  I think that he had a falling out with my dad (Brandywine‘s largest stockholder), because there was a written clause added somewhere which meant that my dad could use a “stock option buy out”, to use his rights of first refusal in order to buy (in addition to the stock he already owned) more Brandywine stock from any of the stockholders who wanted to sell theirs because they wanted out.  My dad had obviously fooled the stockholders into believing that because of the exorbitant amounts of the electric bills for the mercury lights, and the rentals on two giant earth movers called pans, the huge payroll, a late season start, and other expenditures which combined made it look like the ski business wasn’t going to survive, and he “allowed” one or more of the stockholders to sell their shares to my dad.  This gave my dad the 51% ownership he needed which meant that regardless of the stockholders voting on anything, anymore, he had the sole decision making powers for anything regarding Brandywine (which surely surprised, and angered all of the stockholders).  Both my mother, and, I witnessed, and experienced the many ways in which my father’s newly acquired unabashed power carried into every aspect at Brandywine, and in his family life, too.  It became my dad’s way or the highway for everyone, including his wife and son.  When “the Kraken had been released”, my mother suffered from his selfish cruelty while she clung on desperately to keep her family together, and even her own job, and marriage intact. 

On New Year’s Eve 1968, Brandywine was still not open for the ski season because there hadn’t been a lot of natural snow all winter.  However, it had been snowing hard for the last few days, and they had been making snow 24/7 making preparations by building up a base before announcing an opening day for the ski season.  My dad had his own private plan New Year’s Eve 1968, and I had no idea a party was even planned, nor was informed that our opening day was happening the next morning.  My father’s plan was to not let me know about his New Year’s Eve party, or about opening day.  He purposely kept me out of the loop often by sending me back to the bar in the empty lodge, and that was also the way that he kept me out of the office whenever things were going on that he didn’t want me knowing about.  He even made sure that I wasn’t informed that we were officially opening on officially New Year’s Day 1968.

So, we were still closed on New Year’s Eve, but my dad still wanted to be sure that I wasn’t around, or in the loop, so sent me to go sit back in the Kitzbuhel bar like he often did after school.  First, he made sure that I was still clocked in (acting as if he was rewarding me even more largely by LETTING ME STILL BE clocked in).  I was happy with working, and was a very hard worker working whether I was clocked in, or not.  He often told me that he wanted me to go sit in the Kitzbuhel bar (and because I was both gullible and naive, with head injuries, he was able to cleverly conceal that he was having a party right under my nose).  He expertly, sincerely, and believably, said, “I NEED you back in the bar all night”.  I had often been sent to sit the Kitzbuhel bar after school as instructed.  So, while I sat back there, I could see that one of the phone line lights on our black multiline phone on the wall came on, and stayed on.  This was followed by my dad appearing, and instead of saying anything to me at all, he walked right past me, and picked up on that lit phone line.  He started talking as if the person had been holding for him, and although I had never seen him on that phone at any time, I had no reason to believe that he was actually faking his entire phone conversation.  It was all an act just to convince me that, supposedly, he needed a bartender for the Kitzbuhel Bar for New Year’s Eve.  But, I had understood, at least, that the whole ski area, and bar, was still, definitely CLOSED.  What I didn’t know, was that his was putting on his “dog and pony show” only in order to BE SURE to keep me IN the Kitzbuhl bar all night long.  It was, actually, his way to be sure that I would stay entirely away from what would really be going on that night.  He was pretending to be talking to a bartender, and I was gullible enough to believe him.  Unfortunately, besides still being gullible, I’m still the kind of guy that believes people, because I was raised to believe that most people are honest, and honesty is what’s most important in life!  

So, we were closed, it was New Year’s Eve, it had just recently been snowing hard, and although I knew that they had been making snow like crazy, I didn’t know that my Dad stood there only pretending that he was talking to one of the past people who he had either work last season, or at occasional functions as a Brandywine bartender.  He wasn’t really wasn’t talking to anybody (we didn’t even have a full time Brandywine bartender yet).  He was “play acting” insisting that this pretend bartender bartend in the Kitzbuhel bar on that very evening.  But, we were closed!  This was a perfect example of how my own father took advantage of me, and how confused I could be made to get (due to my head injuries).  And, both my father, and my big brother were experts at manipulating me into to believing them.  In fact, they were both able to take advantage of me in that way, because of my head injuries, for all of my life.  My dad continued talking the talk, then his all too familiar threateningly loud voice seemingly controlled the conversation, which accelerated into his all too familiar bark like authoritarian talk-yell-mode which usually ends any family conversation with him saying the phrase “Drop the subject”, or “Not another word”, or “With just the stroke of a pen…  He ended his supposed conversation with the bartender by taking the receiver from his ear, and yelling into the mouth piece, “OKAY, YOU’RE FIRED”, then slammed the phone back down into the phone holder, and briskly walked out through the kitchen, disappearing. 

My Dad (the ski area owner) came right back into the bar only a moment later, but he suddenly wasn’t as charged up. He more calmly told me that he was about to make a decision that he may regret for the rest of his life. As he paused and studied me, he announced, “Doug, I’ve decided that I am going to make you the bartender for tonight, but just for tonight only”, and I actually fell for his con-act job. I thought that anyone else he could have possibly had bartend for him on New Year’s Eve, of course, would have already had plans. They did have plans… to work at, or be at, my father’s New Year’s Eve party!

On that night (New Year’s Eve), my father had instructed me to remain in the back bar, and he demanded that under no circumstances whatsoever was I to disturb him, or my mother.  Although I had regularly broken my father’s rules by subbing as bartender when there actually was no bartender while I was working in the kitchen, on this night (of all nights) my dad had actually made me the “one night only” bartender, and even though we were closed, I was thrilled having just turned 18, and believed that maybe he was actually considering me to be bartender sometime in in the future?  Not.  I knew there would be a ZERO percent chance that anyone from the public would brave the muddy mile and a quarter dirt road (see photo) 

with pot holes, especially when we were officially closed, and still waiting to open for the winter season.  But, I was thinking that he seemed to thinking about it, although all he said was, “for one night, and one night only”. 

It was New Year’s Eve, 1968, and three people came back to the bar, but they were Brandywine employees, and just sat at a small round table whispering all night long.  They were who I thought were my dad’s outside employees, and they stayed together around a small table which they had dragged over, and placed where it would have potentially blocked me from exiting the bar by having to go around them on either side.  I know, NOW, that they WERE outside employees who I hadn’t seen all winter because I was working inside doing things like getting all of the skis and boots labeled and ready for the season.  The three outside employees remained huddled together all night long around one of the many little round tables, and were completely inaudible to me while very quietly whispering to each other which I thought was really odd because I wasn’t yet aware of my father’s orders for employees not to talk to me.  They never said a word to me all evening, other than waving a “no” from their tight circle when I politely asked occasionally if I could get them anything.  I realize, now, that they were the same employees that my dad took the army truck away from, and gave to me for my use when I had discovered Dover Lake!  Giving me the use of the army truck made those three have to walk everywhere at Brandywine, so of course they didn’t like me, and they didn’t say a word to me all night.  One of them was in my English class at school, and even in school never talked to me. Maybe THEIR job for that night was to STOP ME, if I tried to go see what was going on upstairs on the other side of the Brandywine lodge?

A few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1968, a whole group of people were making a commotion walking out of the Brandywine lodge main lobby doors all at once, and some leaked into the bar for a curious look. They were probably all new employees, mixed in with, I think, Ohio school ski club reps who were probably teachers from participating schools and colleges.  My dad had obviously organized a pre-opening-day New Year’s Eve celebration that evening, and since I had negotiated with my dad to be permitted to take my guitar with me back in the bar, I knew that I could play Auld Lang Syne at midnight in the next few minutes… My father usually said, “No guitar while you’re clocked in.”  But this time, he had agitatedly agreed, saying, “TAKE ANYTHING YOU NEED IN ORDER THAT ‘WE’ (he spoke for my mom even when she didn’t) CAN BE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT YOU WILL STAY BEHIND THE BAR ALL EVENING, AND THAT YOU DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DISTURB EITHER YOUR MOTHER OR ME.”  That was followed by a strictly stated, “IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”  So, just moments before midnight, people appeared out of nowhere putting their coats ON, on their way out!

My dad was very clear about making sure I understood his rule for me that night which was, “STAY BEHIND THE BAR AT ALL TIMES”,

but he DID let me take my guitar back to 

the Kitzbuhel bar (see photos) You can see that there wasn’t enough space behind the bar to stand and play a 12-string guitar strapped around my neck with a harmonica holder, too.  There just wasn’t enough room.  So, I HAD TO go out IN FRONT of the bar so everyone could participate in singing “Auld Lang Syne” in unison.  As I went out under the drop bar, and into the suddenly packed room, that same group of three guys started chanting, “Toast! Toast! Toast! Toast!, over and over again, rhythmically, until a few of the people who were on their way out joined in with them, and that was when someone handed me a little plastic glass of what I thought was champagne through the arms and bodies of a room suddenly full of people.  I drank that little plastic cup of champagne(?) down in one quick little gulp, found a barstool, sat on it, and got ready to play after the countdown… 

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 — and everyone sang together perfectly in unison, “Auld Lang Syne,” while I led them on guitar and harmonica. It went off without a hitch — a complete success. And then, suddenly, I started feeling very dizzy.I remember that I began slipping off that bar stool sideways, first to the left, then to the right, while two of the three guys who had been there all evening just happened to be on each side of me. Thankfully, they were right there to catch me just as I slipped out of consciousness.

The next thing I remembered was waking up in the pitch black hours later to the sound of my dad screaming for my mom… “Dot!”  He sounded like he was in a panic, and kept yelling for her as he was walking all around shouting.  I think that he was afraid that he had lost his car because he couldn’t find his car keys.  I realized that I was on a big soft leather couch in one of the office rooms downstairs from the newly built living quarters.  It was the first time since I lived at Brandywine that I didn’t go to bed in my trailer bedroom behind the lodge, and although I was dizzy (it was NOT from drinking too much on New Year’s Eve).  My dad (his NICKNAME was Mickey) sounded as if he was in a panic trying to find the car keys to his 425 horse power Dodge Hemi.  I woke up again when I heard him shouting, “THIEVES have taken everything from the bar AND the kitchen”.  Then, I heard my mother telling my father in the strictest tone that she had hidden his keys because she didn’t want him giving them to me to drive anywhere in my condition.

The next time I opened my eyes, my dad was very gently shaking me with one hand, and smiling encouragingly while dangling the keys to my mom’s station wagon over my face with his other hand.  He stated (with his eyes strangely encouragingly widened) … “Doug, I need for you to go buy some bacon grease for the kitchen right away, right this minute”.  It was the weirdest request that I had ever heard him ask me in my life, and I had no idea if bacon grease was something that anyone could even buy!  I was perplexed, and thinking that you just MADE bacon grease by (“duh”) frying bacon!  Then, as if he had heard my thoughts out loud, he interrupted them by shaking the keys, and impatiently explained, “I don’t care where, or how you get it, but you need to go and try to find some.  He said it again, more like an order… “I need for you to leave, immediately.  You can go anywhere you want, and take as long as necessary, but you have to go do this for me right now”.  He got enough of my attention with the “take as long as necessary” part for me to grab the car keys, and comply.  Up I stood, and out I went.  Although I knew we were preparing to open shortly, I was probably the only Brandywine employee who hadn’t been told that it was Brandywine’s opening ski season day, New Year’s Day, 1968.  Dad kept me away from his party the previous evening, and his employees were either happy to oblige him keeping me completely out of the loop, or fearful of him firing any of them who disobeyed him. 

I walked outside into the bitter frigid air which was filled with frozen snow crystals of perfectly mixed man-made snow gently drifting in the air to the nearly deafening sound of the giant snow-making compressors all parked outside the maintenance garage, and I headed for my mom’s car.  I was happy to be anywhere away from my father’s constant wrath, and utter disapproval of seemingly everything there was about me at that age.  I thought about my Dad’s instructions for me as I drove away… “He wants me to go get some BACON GREASE?” 

My next thought was… “Where do you go to buy bacon grease?”  My question now was, “Do you go to the nearest waffle house and negotiate with the chef there?” ….”Hey, I’ll give you ten bucks for all your bacon grease.”….Then I thought, “Where do you put the bacon grease after you’ve bought it?”  and, “Does it come in a bag, or a big container?” and “Will it melt or spill on the way home?”.   And I sure as hell wasn’t about to go back to ask my Dad any of those questions!

Just past the turn up the hill after the end of the three connected ski parking lots where the dirt road became a great deal muddier, suddenly the heater to my mom’s car kicked in.  The sun broke brightly through the clouds, and lit up the front window, dashboard, and the entire interior of the car just like a heavenly light.  In that same instant, a car came down the same hill in the

photo, left, and cutting around the corner into the bright sun, slammed right into the front left corner of my mom’s station wagon.  It was a silver Dodge Barracuda.  It was my dad’s leased Barracuda which had disappeared a year ago, and reappeared when it slammed into my mom’s station wagon!  His front end was smashed kind of accordion style, and my mother’s station wagon was barely damaged.  The employee got out of his car and was super nice to me when he recognized who i was.  I hadn’t seen him for so long because he was abroad in the service, home for just a day, and had already come back to work at Brandywine.  Obviously, my father hadn’t gotten to him to inform him of the strictly enforced “employees are not allowed to talk to me” rule, because he told me that my father had given the Barracuda to him before he left for the service, and all he had to do was take over the monthly payments so he had been making the payments the year that he was in the service, and unfortunately had just made the last payment.  (Maybe he grew up a little in the service, because he was a lot nicer to me than during my first weeks of high school.)  He was sincerely sorry that the accident happened, and he even helped me with the back hoe which we drove back out there together with. (He was ASSUMING that I had permission to use the back hoe because I was the owner’s son, and I was ASSUMING that he must have had permission to use the back hoe, because he was working with outside operations.)  In any case, we got the cars unstuck, he went to work, and I quickly returned to the lodge.  Luckily, I have never been involved in any injury related accident.

(I took the the photo, left, which shows the backhoe we used to pull my mother’s station wagon out from where it was stuck in the mud on the side of the road immediately after the accident). 

My father was happy that there was minimal damage to mom’s car. He never even mentioned the Barracuda, and immediately sent me back out in his car to Drive 3 hours to Strongsville for 3 cases of beer mugs with handles which were supposedly all stolen from the night before.

See an original Brandywine mug in the photo (left).  My dad had found his car keys to the 425 horse power GTX Hemi (the Road Runner), after our mother had hidden them from him.  She especially didn’t want him sending me out again in my condition immediately after my accident.  Regardless, he sent me on what I discovered was a dangerous two lane highway which went clear across the state of Ohio in heavy patchy snow storms which took all day long driving both ways.  This time, I even understood where I was going.  Usually, on New Year’s Eve anything goes.  On that particular New Year’s Eve, everything, supposedly, went!  I loved driving his awesome fast Roadrunner all day on New Year’s Day, even if I had to miss opening day.   

Our parents had thoughtful beneficial financial plans which they offered twice to all three siblings.  But, while I accepted to work both times, and neither sibling was IN THE LEAST BIT INTERESTED IN WORKING TO EARN ANYTHING FROM THEIR PARENTS, OR IN RESPECTING EITHER PARENT’S PLANS, WISHES, OR INSTRUCTIONS, both siblings defied both parents’.

While I WORKED toward EARNING my retirement, they each chose NOT to work.  Instead, they each chose to thwart what they were fully aware were both parents’ wishes for me.  Incredibly, my little sister (photo left) stole every penny of what I had earned working at Brandywine for herself, and my big brother stole what I earned working for my parents for 12 years in Naples, and both siblings did so without ever lifting a finger, or working a day to earn it (story on pages 46-49).

Unfortunately, during college I showed up just to ski at Brandywine, but it wasn’t on a Friday with the ski bus (Fridays were the only time my father recanted, and invited me to visit, but insisted that I come on the ski bus only, and like everyone else from Kent, or not ski at all) and the result when I came on my own, and he caught mom giving me a lift ticket, was that it was the very last time that I ever got to ski at Brandywine.  It may have even been on a Friday, but was definitely on a day when the hills and lodge were all packed with skiers.  My dad caught me just outside the main lodge while I was leaving walking toward the parking lot.  Did my little sister see me and report to my father that I was there skiing?  Whatever the case, when he saw me, he demanded that I follow him back inside te lodge.  I felt that he was probably going to parade me through the lodge as if I was someone he had “caught” and he was going to make an example of me.  I thought that this would turn into a confrontation with him and my mom, and he would publicly scream at her, too, in order to find out if she had given me a lift ticket like she had been doing whenever I had only occasionally made it from Kent to ski.  Maybe he was going to have me arrested for trespassing (after I turned 18 he could even do that)!  I definitely didn’t want to get my mother in trouble for giving me lift tickets, and I always wanted to avoid getting my mother screamed at demonstrating his savage like public rages, but I had no intention of causing any trouble, and I certainly had no idea what was about to happen…

I stopped just briefly at the door while I had to follow my father (the owner) obediently into the main lodge where hundreds of people were sitting just inside the door staying warm by the huge well fed, crackling fireplace.  I knew that I was in trouble for even being there, and I knew that my mother would be, too, because she felt, deservingly so, that she could give anyone a lift ticket that she wanted (especially to her own son), even if it meant giving me one when it WASN’T on Friday nights only, and even against my father’s orders.  She was proud that I was working, and had, for the second time, bought my own car, first a Volkeswagon, then a Mustang.  I naturally wasn’t in a hurry to follow my father to the office where I knew that my mom would be selling tickets, and I had to kick the snow off of my boots (like I had done in the past more than hundreds of times on the vertical wooden window frame next to the door).  So, I did so a bit nonchalantly, but it was only physically done as usual, so I wouldn’t slip on the smooth concrete lodge floor inside.  First, I kicked the snow off of my left boot, on the vertical side of the picture window frame left of the lodge door.  But, before I kicked the snow off of my right boot, my dad spun around agitatedly looking back at me, and because he had hurriedly whipped the door all of the way wide open, he was responsible for thoughtlessly getting everyone in the lodge nearly blinded by a huge, steady, blast of frigid air.  

(see photo, left).  He didn’t simply hold the door shut to decrease the flow of frigid air.  He was only intent on trying to make it appear that I was the one to blame for immediately changing the temperature inside, down, by twenty degrees.  He had purposely held that door wide open, impatiently waiting to try to HURRY ME UP.  I could only try to speed up my normal process of safely kicking the snow off of my boots while at the same time, I was quite afraid of what he was about to do.  I had already kicked my left ski boot into the wooden window frame squarely hard as usual.  And, all the snow had fallen away for safety sakes.  But, because he was insisting that I HURRY UP… when I kicked the snow off from my right ski boot, my right boot toe missed the door frame!  Because I was leaning inward at an angle while also trying to be in a hurry in order to appease my father’s anger, I tried to hurry finishing up  the safety process of kicking off the snow.  Instead of squarely hitting the wooden vertical window frame with my right ski boot, the toe of my right ski boot ricocheted off of the toe of my left ski boot, first.  This resulted in making the right ski boot slide on the horizontal bottom part of the wooden window frame right at the base of the actual GLASS part of the window.  So, I had accidentally put a hole the size of the toe of my right ski boot,

right through the bottom right corner of the thick glass picture window, and the rest was history!

My dad looked at the hole, looked at me, and for the second time, heard his phrase when he screamed, “You get the HELL out of here, and don’t you ever let me see your face again!” 

The first time I heard that was when I was kicked out at age 15, and now that I had turned 18, and was already not at all at home, I left Brandywine that day knowing that I would never be welcome back under ANY circumstances (but I was glad that I didn’t have to get my mother in trouble, too, that day).  I knew that if I still wanted to ski, I would have to apply to teach at our competitor’s ski area called Boston Mills, so did.  I was hired by owner Mr. Ludwig, and I was still able to free ski after I taught, until the 11PM closing just like I did when I taught at Brandywine.  Mr. Ludwig was strict just like my dad, but I had no problems with him.  At Brandywine, it was hard for me to separate the person who was my boss, with the person who was my dad (and I’m sure that the same went for my dad, trying to separate me as his son, and me as his employee).  Perhaps if my father would have given me an actual position in administration, or even one of the more important jobs to be responsible for at Brandywine, I would have established some kind of a “foothold” at Brandywine, as opposed to “foot-hole”. 

Fortunately, my dad let me continue working for him, and our mother in FL from 1990-until his death in 2002, where instead of clocking in, my hours were logged in by my mother in order for me to, supposedly, keep earning.  In 1985, our father had explained to me, again, that my investment accounts should continue to provide for me long after both parents were gone, and I believed him, especially because that was when he actually gave me a book of checks which I was permitted to give monthly checks to the house owner where I lived, payments specifically for “rent, and household expenses”.  Then, when I came to Naples in 1990, and I heard him occasionally reminding our mother to be sure to keep up on Doug’s (my) work hours which my mother recorded in several composition type

notebooks (see picture),,, (Since I was working at my parents’ house for a minimum of 30 hours per week that was what constituted my second ten year stint of working for my parents) all the while remaining semi confident that I was working toward never having to be paranoid about ever being “old, and indigent”.  Hearing my father commenting to my mother for her to be sure to keep up on my work hours in Naples made me feel that I didn’t need, nor felt to seek clarification that I was still working toward earning what my father had assured me was what I could count on for my retirement. Also, when he flew both siblings for a roundtrip family gathering in Naples, and offered them the same opportunity as me, he explained to them both, again, in a family meeting, what he had given go me for my choosing working for our parents. He had declared this again, to me, shortly after I moved to FL in 1990, but both siblings declined both offers. They first declined working at Brandywine in OH, and again, declined during our second historic family meeting in Fl.  Even after our father died, they declined the opportunity which our mother had offered to them which was to come and go, all expenses paid, and stay as long as they wished in Naples, while our mother was in and out of the hospital for her two operations.

While I grew to accept my father treating me as obviously condescendingly as my high school gym teacher, and Would History teacher did, I had no idea (until after high school) that my Would History teacher lived right next door to our rented house.  I thought that my father was being facetious when one day in my fifties, he suggested at the dinner table in Naples that I go to CLOWN SCHOOL, and I knew that he was being totally serious because he followed his suggestion with seriously offering to pay for it!  I used his suggestion to mention that I’d been looking into some things, and was very serious about the possibility of going to bartender school in Ft. Myers, and/or massage school in Bonita springs, but he wasn’t interested in subsidizing me for doing anything but clown school.  To get massage certified was just $500.00 at that time.  Now, it is between $5,000.00, and $10,000.00).