18 Brandywine Ski Area/Dover Lake Park Photos & Stories Including 2 (Two) UFO Sightings. Song: “Land of a Thousand Dances-Medley”

This is the story of my memories of my father’s ski area called Brandywine. Our family (except for my older brother) moved from Michigan onto state park land in rural Ohio, where we lived through the first and second ski seasons while Brandywine was being built. Our father had been Director of Public Relations during WWII in UN Austria, and Czechoslovakia. After becoming the Manager of Communication for General Electric (Nela Park, New York), he moved our family from NY to Detroit in 1963 to be the Director of Corporate Communication for Chrysler. His achievements are listed in “Who’s Who in America”, and on page 50 of this website.

Brandywine ski area comprised the missing link of Ohio’s green belt with miles of undisturbed uninhabited land connected to the other Ohio state-owned park lands. During the last half of the 1960’s, when problems began looming at Chrysler, my dad decided on a shared Ohio business venture with a ski area called Mt. Chalet. Then, by purchasing two-hundred and thirty four acres of state land from the Hunt family in Summit County, Ohio, he started building his own ski area called Brandywine, all while “moonlighting” on the weekends. We moved into the work trailer behind the Brandywine ski lodge, and lived there through the first and second ski seasons. We rented two huge air compressors for the snow making, and two earth moving pans for building up the mountain, which were all eventually purchased. We started out with two bulldozers, a front end loader, dump truck, and an army truck, as well as a tractor with a grass cutting brush hog. Eventually, a back hoe, and grader were added while more ski lifts were being built, and a first aid hut, a ski instructors shed, and a separate lodge with another ski shop/office, and VIP second floor teacher’s lounge, an employee dorm, a second bar, a longer higher ski run, and a stand alone ski barn, newer better snow makers, wider chairlifts, a water park with slides and a wave pool, newer snow grooming equipment, campgrounds with an outdoor pavilion, and much more.

I started driving back and forth to Cleveland OH with my father on the weekends ever since I turned 14. While I was a 15 year old still living in Grosse Pointe, MI, I happened to walk into our living room at the precise instance that I saw my father throw a frosted plastic glass full of Tab at my mother. It barely missed her head with the icy liquid splattering all over. I impulsively uttered the “A” word under my breath, which made him lunge at me, then race toward me around our living room table like a madman in a menacing rage. Chasing me, he ran full speed out of the house down the street after me. He barely reached me, by pushing me screaming, ”You get out of here, and don’t ever let me see your face back here again”. Filled with terror and fear, which later turned to stubborn anger, I ran around the corner just happening to reach the bus stop exactly on time to step onto the bus, and with the forty five cents which my father, for some reason had earlier that same day made sure that I had in my pocket, I paid the bus fare, and left what I remember our father had described was our house in the lily white suburbs of Detroit. I rode that bus to the end of the line to downtown Detroit, and with fear and hatred, I was determined to never go home again. While roaming around in freezing November nights getting mono, tonsillitis, and pneumonia all at the same time, I spent a full week nearly dying in a hospital. My mother visited me, and she was determined to come back the next day to take me home, but I said I wouldn’t as long as he was there. I was so determined to never go home again, I snuck out of the hospital, and hitchhiked to Ann Arbor getting a job washing dishes at the Brown Jug restaurant. After I heard from my mother that my father had moved out of the house, I hitchhiked home.

My father eventually invited me to visit him where I assume was where he had always been keeping his third leased cars since we moved to Grosse Pointe from NY when I was 13, and he had already been occasionally driving them home starting with a 1963 Chrysler Imperial (with the awesome interior lights that auto fade up, and auto fade out when you open the door)! He even brought home Chysler’s experimental Turbine Car, and drove me to high school dropping me off in a Dodge 440 Super Bee. I discovered that he had an apartment at Detroit’s Lafayette Towers, and it had two breathtakingly corner views – one of Detroit, and one looking over the bridge overlooking Windsor, Ontario. There, he told me that as part of his job, they gave him the choice of leasing two new cars per month. I didn’t know he had an apartment, or about him leasing a third car, but I knew he had one new car each month for himself, and one each year for our mother, and he explained that was because it was in order to showcase Chysler’s newest models for neighbors, friends,(and/or anyone). And, they were always fully “loaded”. He also explained, after we moved to OH, and lived at his ski area, that because of what he called was a “golden parachute retirement package” for his job as Dir. of Communication, he could continue leasing new Chrysler cars of his choice at a very reduced rate, even well after he left Chrysler.

He showed me at his apartment that he had a third leased car which at the time was the Dodge Valiant (see photo) but he never said it was for my birthday, and I never dared to ask. And, when I went down to the heated outdoor pool to swim, I discovered that the only other person swimming was a gorgeous blond who explained was an actual working Playboy Bunny, and much to my surprise she invited me over to her place in the other tower for spaghetti dinner at 7PM! Unfortunately, my dad had obviously been looking down with his binoculars keeping a watchful eye from above, because he soon came downstairs, and intervened. When I excitedly mentioned that I was going to have dinner with her at 7PM (thinking that he would have been as delighted for me as I was), he rudely interrupted me by abruptly pointing toward the elevator snapping, “Douglas, upstairs”. When I paused, he sternly shouted, “immediately”, and he kept pointing threateningly toward the elevator until I was in it and gone. I didn’t get the car for my 16th birthday, or get to have dinner with the Playboy Bunny, but I remember that happened to be when my father seriously informed me that I had been being paid ever since I had started helping my dad with the driving back and forth on weekends to his ski area in Ohio (first to Mt Chalet, and then to Brandywine). I figured that was his way of being nice to me after keeping me in constant fear for much of my life. I would soon figure out that the requirement for driving any of my father’s future new leased cars had more to do with showing him loyalty than anything else whatsoever.

It made no sense to me how I could have had already been being paid on the Brandywine payroll ever since the time that I had started helping him with driving back and forth from MI and OH on most all of the weekends… I drove while he slept (me steering with my foot on the gas for the 3 hour drives each way on the turnpike which had started since I was age 14). However, on my 16th birthday, he explained that he was letting me drive his Dodge Valiant, myself, from his apartment in Detroit, to Brandywine in Cleveland as part of my job. He knew that I loved driving, and I continued being able to drive around on the Brandywine property in an awesome army truck which I got to use for pulling out tree stumps with the power winch attached to the front of it. I loved using that army truck, and a chain saw for cutting and clearing trees for the ski runs for Brandywine. The photo (below) is of me standing at Boyne Mountain’s chairlift. We drove to Boyne Mountain in order for my father to see their chairlift, and study up for building Brandywine’s identical first chairlift.

1967 valiant

After we moved to Ohio, my father explained a little bit more to me about how I wouldn’t ever be cashing, or keeping, immediately, any of my Brandywine paychecks because he was putting all of what I earned at Brandywine into interest bearing accounts so that I would never be both old, and indigent. That was how he got me to agree to sign over Power of Attorney to him, but I had no idea that my joint accounts with each parent, along with all of my years of earnings, ever could/would all be stolen in entirety by my siblings. My Brandywine paychecks, my interest accounts which were started with the sum total of all my paychecks, and all that I earned working for over ten years full time hours for my parents in Naples FL, was stolen (see documents for proof on pages 46-49).

Even a close neighbor took advantage of me by stealing my 12 string guitar nearly 50 years later in Naples which I had kept with me since I purchased it at Sojan Music in Cleveland in 1970. My neighbor, a realtor, lived just three doors down from me , and was moving. She asked me to help her using my trailer to move just one last thing of hers from one of her very full small storage units into another small unit. But, in order to fit it in my trailer, I had to take my 12 string Martin which I kept locked in my trailer, out, along with my own moving dolly, and some boxes. That was the only way that I could fit her last piece of furniture into my trailer. She promised that her son would stay and wait with my stuff, and promised that he would guard my stuff with his life. So, I placed my boxes, dolly, and guitar in it’s blue hard case, inside their old, empty unit, while trusting them both for the very few moments that it would take for me to help them. It took just a couple of minutes to get their one piece of furniture from one smaller nearby storage unit, to their other smaller nearby unit. Then, I returned to their larger old empty storage unit with her son still inside waiting, but I must have startled him when I walked in, because he turned around toward me so fast that he banged his head on the empty storage unit’s support pole. He banged his head so hard that I thought he needed immediate emergency care, and before I had any chance to even think about my guitar, moving dolly, and three boxes, he raced on his way outside. My only thoughts were that he needed to get to the hospital immediately. His injury distracted me so much, that I didn’t notice that my stuff had been moved from the exact spot where he banged his head. He left immediately, locked up the storage unit, jumped into his vehicle, and sped off without saying another word. Because of how severe he had hit his head, and probably also because of my own head injuries, I forgot about my own stuff, and only realized when I needed to actually use my guitar (which was after my neighbor had moved) that my guitar and spare dolly were gone. Then for a long time, I couldn’t figure out how my guitar went missing, and when I did realize, I simply couldn’t BELIEVE that someone whose mother had asked for my help, and promised that her son would guard my guitar with his life, wouldn’t help me in getting it back, which made her as complicit as her son. I had to sadly learn that possession is nine-tenths of the law, out of sight is out of mind, and unless my old neighbor, and/or her son cared enough to redeem their character, I’ll never see my 12 string guitar, either.

At the point when I needed the security of a good family situation, a good school, and a place I could call home, our house in MI (in the photo below) had been put on the market without my knowledge, and sold. I had to leave Grosse

Pointe MI., and move to rural Ohio into the trailer (below), where my little sister and I started attending our small rural schools. Family life became both parents working 24/7 getting the ski business started, while both my sister and I each had our own seperate problems adjusting to our small rural schools being known as the new ski area owner’s children when Brandywine was, at that time, in direct competition with the already established local ski area called Boston Mills. Now, Vail Resorts owns both areas.

I loved doing errands in my father’s 425 hp GTX Hemi Road Runner, 383 Dodge Charger, & 4 barrel Barracuda, or in any of my father’s numerous new leased cars. But, I had no idea, then, that he sent me on “errands”(?) more specifically in order to get me away from him, and Brandywine whenever he wanted me gone. That was his simplest way, at first, to get rid of his teenaged son who was only eager to do anything, and everything for Brandywine, and helping wherever help was needed. Most of the quarrel between my parents over me had to do with my father (who never gave up on demanding that I be required doing only one specific job, and stick to doing that job only), and my mother (who insisted that I be permitted to help her whenever she needed me, or would sent me, wherever she deemed help was needed most).

It became obvious to me that my father needed the money to build Brandywine’s additional ski lifts, but it was entirely unbeknownst to me until decades later that my father had three life insurance policies on me during my Brandywine years while doing time sensitive errands, and being a delighted teenager being permitted to drive his fast cars for visiting my friends in Akron on some of the weekend nights. And, because he demanded that I be back at Brandywine no later than one minute past 1AM, or be in trouble, many times I’d drive insanely dangerously fast on the Ohio back roads in order to be back to Brandywine on time, or risk having him take my driving privileges away (until of course my dad would need my fast driving skills for another time sensitive errand). After I wrecked my father’s Valiant, and he kept getting the newest fastest cars Chysler was making, he even began permitting me to spend extra time while out on errands. He insisted that was only for me finding an additional 40 hour per week job that he approved of (other than working at Brandywine), which I couldn’t understand, but it was even more likely because he couldn’t stand me being at Brandywine at all, ever… if it had been up to him. When he explained that another full time job would be in addition to my working at Brandywine, it totally confused me because I had no idea how that could be possible. However, I didn’t care as long as it meant that I could drive his awesome fast cars more often, and longer, plus THOSE pay checks I could actually cash, and keep. So, I eagerly found my first job at a can packing plant, but I had an accident nearly whacking off the end of my thumb with a gallon-sized-pancake-shaped-heavy-duty-can-packer-hammer!

It felt great experiencing cashing my own paychecks, and being allowed to, at age 16, drive my father’s newest fast cars. So, I found another job. It was driving a forklift loading trucks at American National Vending. I especially liked my job because it involved driving, and I was good at it, but an incident happened rather quickly there, too. For some very odd reason, a large box of gum balls had been obviously loosened, because it slipped right off the top of my forklift load. It landed hard on its corner, and broke open spilling hundreds of brightly colored gum balls which instantly went rolling fast, many disappearing underneath the pallets stacked on the highly polished smooth painted surface on the warehouse floor. I wasn’t fired, but one day on my way back from lunch across the street, a semi-truck was also arriving on the entrance service road, and it went very wide slowly over to the right side of the roadway, which made me think that it was turning right. So, I quickly gunned it in order to pass him on the left because I was hurriedly trying to be back exactly on time from returning from lunch at McDonalds. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that he was actually turning left, and his giant front steel bumper scraped the entire passenger’s side of my father’s previously awesome looking newest third leased car.

The truck driver got out, walked back to my dad’s car, nonchalantly tossed my door handle right past me onto the passenger seat, and sarcastically stated, “Here’s your door handle”.

So I learned the hard way about how trucks go wide the other way before negotiating turns, and practically on the very next day after my accident, because my father was so firecracker-like mad, without saying a word to me himself, he made my mother take me, and drop me off inside the grounds at the Northfield race track right outside the stall where she explained to me (as positively as possible) that my father had arranged a job for me working, staying, and living at the racetrack, specifically for learning how to care for the race horses. So my life changed overnight into getting up at dawn to start shoveling fresh horse manure all day everyday, then sleeping in a stable on a cot each night, which wasn’t all that bad compared to the little bedroom in the trailer behind the lodge at Brandywine where I had been ordered to often stay inside, and often told by my father that I had to be except when I was clocked in on my time card, and working. Since I knew that I suddenly had no choice but to be shoveling horse manure every day, at least I was able to continue learning how to care for horses. I just thought about wearing horse eye blinders, myself, and looked forward to learning all that I could about my newest job at the racetrack caring for the horses.

My mother showed up at the racetrack very briefly each week to say a quick hello, and to make sure that I had the basics needed to be adapting okay. However, on one of her visits, when I mentioned that I had lost all of my first weeks of paychecks playing poker in the stable where I stayed, she ordered me to grab my shaving kit, and come back home where she insisted with my father that I continued working at Brandywine, and living in the trailer behind the lodge with my parents, and little sister. I think that my mother had made my father honor some kind of a deal about me working at Brandywine, in order for her not to divorce him or something, but when my father made me live, and work at the Northfield Race Track, I learned from fellow employees who were friends that I had missed out on being at the first big Brandywine employee meeting. My father reasoned with me that by making me work at the racetrack, I would learn work ethic. However, I think that I had already learned work ethic by working at a dairy farm camp all summer when I wasnine or ten. And, at Brandywine, I had remained a willing, able, courteous, and hard worker. However, I accepted working, and living in a stable at the Northfield racetrack, because I really felt terrible about damaging the whole side of my dad’s car. I learned to drive a lot safer when I got to eventually drive my dad’s cool cars again, and at the racetrack, I learned a lot about horses, as well as to never play cards for money again.

I got to go back to live and work at the Brandywine thanks to my mother’s insistence, but my father continued putting his foot down insisting that I learn total self sufficiency, and although I thought I would learn so while working, and living at Brandywine, he thought that I would learn it by NOT working, and NOT living at Brandywine. I was totally confused, and I couldn’t “get” it until I actually turned 18. I had already suffered the numerous times that he kicked me out, and/or relocated me already. He confused me by announcing that before he would consider me working at Brandywine in any permanent position, I must become self sufficient learning a trade elsewhere, and only then, would he consider it, but held up his index finger saying,”But, I’m not making ANY promises”. This announcement came after he owned 51% of the Brandywine ski area’s stock, and suddenly started acting like a total prima donna even with his own wife and family. I was already confused because from the start of my working at Brandywine, I thought that my parents had both given me the choice to work at Brandywine, and I already learned a great deal about numerous trades which all went on around me while working there. Plus, that was what I wanted to do. However, even I knew that it wasn’t the best situation working for my own father.

The Dodge Valiant which I wrecked was replaced with a 383hp 4 barrel 2 door Plymouth Barracuda, and my dad would let me drive it on weekend nights while strictly requiring me to be back exactly by 1 AM or lose my driving privileges. But, when I drove it to a party in Akron where my friends tricked me into putting my coat inside a bedroom on a bed with all of their own coats, specifically so that they could take my keys, sneak out of the party, and drive my dad’s new Barracuda on a joy ride sliding it sideways over a curb in the snow, and damaging the alignment, I lost my driving privileges again, anyway. I found out 30 years later which one of them slid it out of control sideways over a curb. Doing that bent the frame slightly out of alignment, so my father held me responsible for it regardless of the fact that I had no idea how, or who damaged it, and when I found out that he gave away the Barracuda to a Brandywine employee, well, let’s just say I became a really confused teenager. When my father used the damage to his Barracuda to take away my driving privileges, again, that was when I had no driving errand work whatsoever, and strictly began clocking in working a full 7 day work week specifically in the rope tow hut. That was during the first two winters when I felt that I was actually needed, and appreciated even by my father, but I think that it was only because he could keep no other employee working doing my two jobs of working in the rope tow, followed by cleaning the toilets every night all winter long for the first two two winters. I’m not complaining about working, I’m complaining because I never got paid as my father promised.

Eventually, a stockholder named Otto Nuberg put me his band called Paper Sun, which became named Freeport. After the Barracuda damage, and my dad took away all of my driving privileges, because I couldn’t get to band practices, my mother came to my rescue by starting to drive me weekly to band practices while she patiently waited upstairs with the drummer Bill Stalling’s mother. That really made my father mad. You see, my mother believed me when I said that I had absolutely no clue about how the Barracuda got damaged, so she started driving me to my new band practices in Shaker Heights, and even to gigs. That was really the first time that I realized that my parents were in a serious battle over me. My mother who knew that I was trustworthy, and morally sound, and my father who thought I lied, like I learned some people learn how to do naturally. This was when my father started ordering my friends to drive me places (giving my friends authority over me), and when I realized that he was the kind of control freak who was using his cars as carrots for even my friends! This was also when I sensed that my own father was even interested in my friends in a perverse way, and I would soon realize that he was gay, which would have been okay, if he had simply shared that with me. He only did so in a very sad, and perverse way (explained).

I’m only writing about this, and about some of the stories in my life, because shortly before my mother died, she suggested that I do so. It took me 50 years to figure out why my father was so mean to me, and why he hated when my mother would tell me to go work in the Brandywine kitchen. He hated that so much, that when the profits poured in, my father became so controlling, he moved my mother, sister, and me out from the trailer behind the ski lodge, into a rented house in town. Then, and for no apparent reason other than not wanting me being in a new band my neighbors and I talked about forming who all lived in my neighborhood, he moved us into a second rented house. That happened very quickly after I simply him about a couple of horn player friends from the school band who I had just discovered lived within walking distance of me in the neighborhood, and they wanted to start practicing with me. I realize, now, that I never should have shared that information with my father, because it made him realize that I may have still been able to have band practices, and get to them even without a car because I could walk. believe that my father was so bent on controlling me, and even everyone who ever knew me, that when he heard about my possibility of practicing with some horn players in my neighborhood, he immediately moved his whole family into another rented house clear on the other side of town. I repressed what he did to me as a child until after he died, so I had nothing which I could use to control his anger toward me, or to soften his firecracker mad hair-trigger like rage. However, I think that both my brother and my mother used what they each knew he did to me as a child against him because that was both my brother’s, and my mother’s only way to keep him from directing his anger toward them. I wish that I could just forget all of it, but I can’t, and I can’t forget about all that I worked toward having, which was stolen. It was obvious that my father hated that I had a long life unbreakable bond with my mother, and as obvious that was what made my father‘s anger exacerbated. I think that he, too, was abused as a child, but only know that he was dragged around by his mother while she was selling Fuller Brushes. Rather than include a closeup photo of my father screaming at me which one of my ski instructor friends took during my Brandywine years, and gave to me, I’d rather remember my father as honestly believing that he was trying to be the best parent that he could be after never having any experience of knowing a father of his own. Although our father often exploded with anger, I consider myself very lucky, and very thankful for having both parents.

Unfortunately, whenever I asked my father about me or my band playing gigs at Brandywine, he cited no favoritism as the reason I couldn’t, and explained that the success percentages for musicians were terrible. Other times when I asked he just pointed his index finger up, and reminded me sternly by almost shouting, “NO FAVORITISM” which made it final, and authoritatively clear that he would never allow me to play in the bar when we were open, or my band to perform in the lodge for any of the Brandywine weekend dances. However, at the very beginning before Brandywine ever opened, he let me practice in the lodge with my electric guitar and Fender amp, and then let my band use the lodge for band practices only because my mother insisted that we should be reciprocating with the other band member’s parents who were letting us practice at their houses, which only lasted until our first ski season started, and when the lodge gate was locked (or dummy locked), and closed to the public. After our band began playing at the Boston Mill’s weekend dances, and all over Ohio, then I played on weekends as a solo performer, too, but my father continued insisting on “no favoritism” and never letting me, or either band that I was in perform in his bar, or in the lodge, despite having told me that the prerequisite for me playing at Brandywine was to prove myself somewhere else, first (which both my bands did, and I did, too, as a single performer)! I had no idea how my father may have thought about me being in a band, but I only wanted to play my music, period. I can definitely understand, now, how very strongly he would have hated me thinking that I was cool being in a band, just like the way that he probably thought about me thinking that I was cool being associated with Brandywine. While he felt whatever he felt, I felt that he hated me enough to permanently want to be rid of me, at any cost, and I remained confused like that for a long time.

Only now, can I realize the many ways in which my father/employer may have used me for his own selfish interests and needs, and now I can understand how other employers were like that with me, too. For example, I got a 40 hour work week advertised job for maintenence manager at a very old popular well known hotel in Blowing Rock NC where they had a very huge grand piano which anyone could play on their trek through a wooden floored room with no chairs on their way to the dining room. I saw it as my opportunity for the perfect 40 hour work week job while I was visiting my cousin for my mother’s sister’s funeral. After the funeral, I got the advertised job. Unfortunately, as soon as I finished my first job assignment of removing and switching out the hotels many decades old 8 (eight) public restaurant toilets, I discovered that the only reason that the job was advertised in the first place, was because the former maintenence manager had obviously quit because he wanted no part in doing that dirty hard work, obviously because as soon as I finished installing all of those toilets, he reappeared and took his old job back. Even my own father seemed to only keep me working until he didn’t need me anymore. I lasted at Brandywine only until he didn’t need me for teaching large groups of skiers, and doing the only two jobs which he couldn’t keep any other Brandywine employee doing without quitting (cleaning toilets, and working in the carbon monoxide contaminated rope tow hut). Regardless of losing every penny that I earned punching the Brandywine time clock, and working the equivalent of 10 years total at Brandywine, plus losing all that I had earned working 12 years full time recorded hours at our parents house in FL, I still feel very lucky to have had both parents, plus fortunate to have been able to choose to work for my parents’ twice. And, I’m glad that my parents stayed together. However, one of the things that I learned the best in my life was that money does not buy happiness.

My father was vocally adamant against me pursuing musical endeavors, and became extremely angry finding out from me that I had to be in Cleveland to record my original songs after Brandywine stockholder Otto Newber enabled me to record them with our band in Cleveland. So, instead of relieving me in time from working in the rope tow hut, he made sure that I was late. After suspending all driving privileges from the Barracuda frame damage, my father demanded me glued in that little rope tow hut, and it was during another snow blizzard which helped to make me late which prevented me from professionally recording my original songs, including “The Purple Palisades” “Misty Reflections”, and “Bury Me On Top of the ‘T’ ”. (‘T’ stands for a T-bar ski lift). Then, in the same family meeting when my father explained to my siblings about the accruing accounts I had earned working my 26 years toward having for my retirement, he explained that he was making them the co-trustees of his estate. That was how easy it was for my siblings to each steal my co-owned accounts which I had with each parent. So, my father made it so I never got paid for my 23 years working on the clock.

A year or so later, while I was driving on my way to Buckeye Sports Center in Cuyahoga Falls, I saw another UFO! This time, it was in broad daylight! I was driving on Route 8 going toward Akron, and it was only visible for a second as It whisked over the Cuyahoga River Bridge (see bridge photos, below). It wavered, paused, and corrected its trajectory all in an instant right in front of me as I drove in traffic over the bridge, then went speeding off downward disappearing from my sight over the other side of the bridge. I saw it good, but only because it had paused! It was rounded like a saucer (just like the much larger one I previously saw at night outside above the slopes at Brandywine) but this was only as big as a fat short canoe. It had a crumpled tin foil-like-looking sitting compartment in the middle which was about the size, and shape of an upside down old-fashioned sized garbage can. I was driving in a 45 MPH zone with heavy traffic going both ways across the bridge when It came over over at high speed at an upward angle and I think that the only way I saw it at all, was because it paused for an instant in midair. It was a real phenomenon to see a flying saucer pause so close-by. ALL OF THE CARS TRAVELING BOTH WAYS PAUSED IN THE SAME WAY, AT THE SAME TIME, AND ALL AT ONCE! Then, all the cars sped up again all at the same time, and it was gone.

The small flying saucer I saw fly over the above bridge was metallic-looking, and it looked different in daylight, than the large gel-like saucer with the lights which my whole family saw after dark at Brandywine (the verified one). This one looked all crumpled tin-like, and the garbage can middle part was the right size, and shape, as the square colored pulsating lights (like the large saucer’s windows we all saw from the ski lodge, at night, from inside at Brandywine a year earlier). Maybe the one I saw flying over the bridge in daylight, was just one of what were several at night which were the window-like pulsating lights emanating from the gel like saucer we all saw at Brandywine at night. Maybe what we saw was a few of these small ones all parked, and lined up horizontally, either inside, or outside of the large gel-like saucer. Maybe we saw them all docked alongside the larger one when it was recharging them! Maybe that was why they all had to remain there stationary, as well as why we happened to be able to observe them long enough to have it verified by the Summit County Ohio Sherrif.

Whatever the case, the Cuyahoga river below the bridge happens to flow right through the Brandywine property, and It would be about a 20 minute car ride from the bridge, to Brandywine, but only a few moments away, if one could drive going straight, via the river route. This protected government-owned uninhabited forestry known as Ohio’s “Green Belt” is still linked statewide, and that UFO could have easily flown, undetected, up and down the Cuyahoga river and area anytime, without any chance of being seen by anyone. It was only visible from the road for an instant, when I happened to be on that bridge as it flew over. It abruptly reduced speed and wavered, during the second it passed over the bridge in front of me, mistakingly, then correcting its course, it instantly sped off out of view below the bridge line. After remembering about this, and investigating it decades later, I can see in the photo I copied from the internet, how believable it is that it was a flying saucer which had wavered because of possibly narrowly missed hitting one of the many cement bridge arches below the bridge… (was he texting?), and that the saucer’s occupant chose to maneuver over the bridge, instead of continuing on its way underneath, perhaps in order to avoid a collision! Whenever I think back on this, I wish someone had been with me on that day to verify what I saw.

The photo (below) is where I stayed, and played six nights all summer while staying at a hotel all the while missing, and wishing I was back home in beautiful Ohio, and at Brandywine. My mother died in 2003. In her honor, I used my phone to record the Lord’s Prayer singing it while playing on piano shown in the following video… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8612XJcCs2o

I terribly missed being permitted to be at Brandywine, or work at Brandywine. Even during my college semester breaks, and after the Kent State shootings when my college closed, my father wouldn’t allow me to even visit. However, he made me aware that I had a choice. He would match every dime I would earn in the military, as well as double all of my Brandywine paychecks which he had invested which he told me were accruing, if I volunteered for the military. Or, I would have no choice but to live in the streets with little or no help of any kind. So, I started thinking seriously about that. He made it painfully obvious I would always stay at the bottom of the totem pole at Brandywine (he described it that way so I, and even his employees, would understand). Then, during his Brandywine battles with my mother which were usually over me, right after my mother caught him in the men’s room doing shenanigans with one of his employees, my father yelled at me, “Because of YOU, your mother and I are getting a divorce”. So, I decided to swallow a whole bottle of tranquilizer pills that the psychiatrist who my dad made me see weekly had given to me, with a bottle of his whiskey, then walk over the bridge after dark to lie down in in the deep grass to sleep, and leave him, too. But, he found me, and I woke up in the hospital to see all those pink pills in a metal basin which had been pumped out from my stomach by the same doctor who had recently let me watch him stitch up my lacerated knee. I think that the problem in our family was that there was way too much which was never discussed.