21 Cut My Hair for Baseball. Song:“We Gotta Get Out of This Place”. Photo: Hair Lengths.

When I moved to rural Ohio from Grosse Pointe, MI in the middle of my 11th grade, I thought that Madras pants would be as cool in my new high school as they were in Grosse Pointe. I thought that being the son of the owner of the new ski area would also be cool. Madras pants had just become the hype in Grosse Pointe, MI. My parents had given me permission to purchase a pair of pants at the trendy Village Shop in Grosse Pointe, so I decided to make the students in my new high school understand what was the latest style people were wearing. But, when I actually moved, I realized that I may never get to wear my new pants at all in rural Ohio if I didn’t decide to get ballsy, and wear them, anyway, in my new high school. I figured since the reason that I bought them in the first place was to wear them in school, that’s what I did.

I transferred from Grosse Pointe MI to a rural high school in Ohio in the middle of my junior year wearing Madras pants. Big mistake, because it created a scene after my homeroom class. Less than a minute after the first class bell rang, I barely made it from my home room to my first class. Some students ran ahead of me in the busy hallway, and began bouncing off lockers, and slamming on them as I walked causing a loud audio frenzy, and slowing the flow of students, nearly blocking them off completely. They continued banging on the lockers as if to “hail the new idiot who arrived wearing madras pants”. As I continued walking to my first class, some of them were banging on the hallway floor in front of mimicking the monkeys who banged into the dirt in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and I could tell that my new high school was going to be very different, but some of my friends who I already knew who worked at Brandywine jumped in immediately, and so I survived.

There I was, a new student in a rural Ohio high school wearing madras pants with long hair. Fortunately, there was a guy from England also arrived, and he had even longer hair than mine, so students realized that long hair was not just cool in MI, but in England, too. Plus, he had a British accent, so looked AND sounded cool. But for me, there was no putting the cat back in bag. Imagine what it would have been like if I showed up with purple, or orange hair. Or nose rings, and eyebrow rings, which seems to be what kids do these days.

My high school in Grosse Pointe, MI had nearly 6000 students until when the new high school opened, and it became known as Grosse Pointe South. My rural Ohio high school had just a few hundred students. I wasn’t thinking about my hair, but when I asked my gym teacher (he was also the wrestling, and baseball coach) if I could try out for baseball, it seemed that he was only thinking about my long hair, because instead of giving me any answer, he just barked, “Cut your hair!”. I didn’t know what this the gym teacher hated more… me, or my long hair. But, I wanted to play baseball so badly that I cut it on the same day he ordered me to. And, when appropriate, I very nicely, and very respectfully asked him again during gym class. He responded by resting his thumb on his jaw while smoothing his chin with his index finger. This was moments after he had asked me, and I had answered him telling him truthfully that I was number nine in the draft. In his answer to my question, this man who unexplainably hated me with extra passion, squinted his eyes as if searching for ideas which had nothing to do with my asking him about trying out for baseball… I believe that was when he began thinking terrible things based on his newly added knowledge of me being number nine in the draft, and in that moment, he walked around me with a menacing look in a quick very threatening close-by circle, then slithered away only to bark back over his shoulder, “Cut it again!”

I made it back to the same barbershop again after school, and had it cut again. Then in gym class when I asked him again if I could try out for the baseball team, he answered me for a third time scarring me by putting his nose right into my nose, and I felt a REAL electric static shock in the same instant in which he screamed into my face, “CUT IT AGAIN!”. I had it cut for a total of three times in that one week at Michael’s Hair where, coincidentally, the barber’s name was Michael. I gave up having long hair in order to try out for baseball. Regardless, this gym teacher never had any intention of giving me a chance to even try out for baseball. I had no idea why he developed his abusive habit of singling me out (just like my own father decided to start doing with me at Brandywine), but learned to just accept being around him, and my own father on a daily basis who both very obviously had serious anger management problems.

Soon one of the jocks on the football team who may have worked at our competitor ski area Boston Mills, punched me in the face while I was on a short band break when my band played on one of their weekend dances. He hit me so hard when I turned from the urinal, that the back of my head cracked the wooden two-by-four separating the sink from the urinal. Soon, another football player who apparently “owned” a bar seat which he had abandoned, came back after having temporarily leaving “his” seat, to realize that I had innocently sat down on that bar chair, and said to me,“That’s MY chair”! So, I got up! But, he either decided that he didn’t like my attitude, or who I was(?), or decided that I had taken too much time, too, so he also slugged me. And, again, my head ricocheted…this time, into the bar’s polished black iron support pole. Ouch!

The following happened before teachers were held accountable for their actions. My gym teacher, the principal, and a teacher in my new high school had it in for me basically because my dad owned the new ski area, and for that reason alone I believe disliked me, wanted to bring me down a notch, and ended up hating me so much that my gym teacher simply couldn’t wait for their terrible plan against me to come to fruition before my gym teacher assaulted me. Had my gym teacher waited for their plan to work, I would have been blamed for something I think which all three knew I hadn’t done, and they probably knew exactly who the guilty student was (but the principal, the gym teacher, and the one teacher who definitely knew that it wasn’t me, all wanted me to be the one blamed).

It was already a difficult work situation for me to be thrown into the middle of a difficult school situation when my gym teacher singled me out, and walked me alone with him from out of the gymnasium where the entire school population had assembled because someone had supposedly called in a bomb scare. (For the first two supposed bomb scares, I think only the students were evacuated outside.) Now it was Monday, and there was (supposedly) a third bomb scare, and this time, the whole school was herded into the gym (instead of outside)! In the gym, the gym teacher singled me out by announcing MY name in front of the whole school, and brought me down from the bleachers in the gym to walk me out through the empty hallway. I thought, “Why was he singling ME down from the throngs of students all stuffed in the bleachers in the gym?… But, I knew that once they got their hunch that I had something to do with anything I was doomed. My gym teacher always looked at me as if he was in the throes of planning a way to either hurt, maim, or kill me but I wasn’t aware that he was currently actually involved in a real plan for a way to have me arrested, expelled, and thus immediately drafted. He knew that I was number nine in the draft because he asked, and I told him. This was when the war in Vietnam was in full swing.

I was informed by a student who I swore not to identify, who revealed to me that I was going to be the fall guy being framed by planting evidence in my locker which would prove that I (the one who was NOT guilty) was the guilty one. However, my gym teacher couldn’t wait for their plan to have me arrested, and he assaulted me in the hallway during the time that he was walking me from the packed gym to the school’s office. He stopped me in the lobby as if he wanted to talk to me. I noticed that over his shoulders was a big square wooden board blocking the light which had been put in place over the door of where the school’s lobby window had been. I only noticed it because it was directly in my line of sight sight over his shoulders while he smoothed his chin thinking with his fingers again.

Because I had discovered that we had a spring fed lake at Brandywine, when my dad’s plans for Dover Lake Park were approved, my dad was so happy that must have been the reason why he had just started letting me drive to school. In fact, he was letting my drive his Dodge Charger to school! So, because I hadn’t been taking the bus to school for the last several days, I wouldn’t have been arriving, and walking into school via the front lobby where, on Monday, a large wooden board had been put in place of the shattered window over the school lobby door which someone had blasted out over the weekend. The gym teacher definitely already saw when I had started driving my father’s Charger to school, because he policed the rear parking lot right outside his office where all students driving to school had to park. So, It probably would have been obvious to him (during the time that he stopped me in the lobby, and placed me facing toward where I would have seen that boarded up window over his shoulders) for him to know whether I had any clue about that window actually being blasted out, or not. And, since I really did NOT have any clue about it, I believe that he actually deduced that I was NOT the guilty one. However, whether they were going to go through with the plan to plant what I had left with one of the teacher’s son, in my locker or not, is moot because before that plan could come to fruition, the gym teacher halted me in the school lobby. He started reasoning with me by ridiculously suggesting that I should just quit school. And, he tried to make me honestly believe that if I did so, then I’d be able to drive my father’s new Dodge Charger all over town all day instead of having to be in school. Since he sounded to me so unlike what any good teacher should sound like, and since he was acting that way right after he had confidently and pompously embarrassed me in front of the entire school population (including teachers) by singling me out, and walking me out of the gym, and he did so with such obvious hatful intent, I couldn’t help, for once in my life, to respond to him defensively, and even flippantly. That made him instantly punch me in the face so hard that it bloodied, and permanently disfigured my nose. To this day, I wonder which scenario that day would have been worse for me.

The way that my gym teacher reacted after hitting me in the face, was that he suddenly looked like he was almost actually sorry for losing control, Then, he continued walking me through the lobby into the office where the principal happened to be standing just inside the door waiting, and I was given a kleenex for my nose. Then, the principal explained that they were going to let me drive home for the day, and they conned me into believing that all I needed to do was sign a form which the principal explained was just a standard form which allowed students to drive off of the school premises during the school day. Plus, I was further conned into believing that I would have to show it to police if I was stopped while leaving, which made a lot of sense to me (especially in my traumatized state), because I had noticed that there was an array of police, ambulance, and even firetrucks around outside because someone had, supposedly, called in a third bomb scare in the last seven days.

I know all of this only because a fellow student (who knew who the guilty one was) told me that there was an actual plan to have evidence planted in my locker, and to have me arrested by police after having me accompanied to get my things out of my locker to leave. Now, I remember that for only the first two bomb scares, the school population was evacuated outside, but then for the 3rd bomb scare, the school population was only all directed into the gym, and not outside. Now (50 years later) I realize why… there probably was no bomb scare at all, and it was all, indeed, a strategy, or conspiracy to shift blame to the new guy instead of one of their own, and the bomb scare was all a hoax so that they could make sure that nobody was around in the hallways, so they could plant what was indeed actually mine, in my locker without any possibility of anyone seeing them doing so during school while everyone was not in the hallways. The drummer in my band was the school janitor, and he may have been the reason why they wouldn’t have chanced planting what was actually mine in my locker, after school (because they didn’t want the janitor, or any others possibly seeing it in the school hallway). I won’t reveal who my friend was who told me this because it was in confidence, but after 50 years, I think that I can at least tell the story, and it’s true, because If there was a REAL bomb scare, why would we have all been put in the gymnasium?

Because the gym teacher injured me, I honestly believed that they were going to let me go home for the day. But the truth of the matter was that their paper I signed actually meant that I couldn’t legally ever come back to “their” school, and it would have also meant that they would be notifying the draft board immediately followed by me entering straight into military service. Miraculously, my high school from hell story ended on a better note than all of that because unbeknownst to me, my father had recently purchased a house in my name in the development located over the top of the other side of the Brandywine property which happened to be zoned in an entirely different school district! I guess I’ll still never know whether my father purchased that house for me, for me to be able to finish high school or not, but purchasing it most likely saved my life, because otherwise I would have been drafted immediately. Consequently, I got to finish high school at another high school where I remained my same easy going self with a good sense of humor (albeit less impulsively), got all good grades, and stayed 100% out of trouble.

Whether I was at work (where my father decided that I was only capable of, and permitted to do mundane tasks), or at school (where my father had ordered me to stay entirely away from, and out of the workings of the ski club), I was simply, and intentionally, left out of all the loops. What I never realized back then, was that the employee who my father had let train with the safety patrol, let use the hand held radios, and gave so much authority to (as well as let take my place standing with my mother helping hand out brochures at the Cleveland ski show booths while I attended college), was actually that gym teacher’s son! LIke the Dalai Lama once said: “We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, OR we can let them soften us and make us kinder. You always have the choice”.

My younger sister had a hard time adjusting to changing to a rural Ohio school, too. She was exploited just like I was (just for being who she was…the child of the new local ski area owner). I wish that I could have always been there for her, and I wish that she could have been closer with her big brother (me). After we started our respective schools in rural Ohio, she was still in elementary school. I bought her a guitar for her birthday, and taught her how to play it, then bought her a record player for Christmas, and helped her learning by ear, how to play Carole King songs on guitar etc., but soon she started being influenced by an older girl “friend” who I think worked in the kitchen at Brandywine, and often visited our rented house after school.

I always feared and respected my father, so when I purchased a motorcycle while working in Kent before college ever started, I never dared to ride it to Brandywine, but had been joyfully riding it home from my rented room in Kent to our second rented house on twenty minute drives for quick visits where, since my little sister thought that I had no wheels, when I walked in, I learned that she had become bold keeping up with the influences of her peer’s pressures. I’m guessing that my father grew up experiencing the same types of experiences as my sister, too. I’m also guessing that they both chose to keep experiencing their experiences.

I got a rush of adrenaline by running everywhere, and skiing. (See photo, above) of me going fast over frozen icy snow on the “lip” jump right at the top of “Champagne Bowl” at Brandywine.

It took me nearly all week to mow the 40 acres of grass at Brandywine, and during some of my 15 minute breaks I would occasionally go back to the lodge to get a cold soda refill and use the restroom, but had to remember that the ski lodge bathroom door had very loud squeaky springs which made the wooden door slam hard. I learned that I had to be careful that my father wouldn’t hear the door slamming from his office, catch me in the lodge, and then scream at me for being there! After coming into the lodge to use the restroom, I then snuck into the kitchen because I was dying of thirst from working all day in the heat, and after getting a refill from our commercial soft drink dispenser, I noticed that one of my father’s three outside workers came into the lodge to use the restroom, too, then when that bathroom door slammed, I realized (more than once) that was also when I noticed my dad walking from his office, straight into the men’s bathroom. I wasn’t ever thinking, back then, that it was at all odd that my extremely busy father went into the bathroom under that scenario more than once. I probably only figured, back then, that it was just to innocently chat with his workers. Now, I remember what I saw my father doing with a man in a bathroom when I was standing there with him when I was just three, but during all of the time that I worked at Brandywine, I had still repressed everything. Whatever the case at Brandywine, I learned to be sure not to let that bathroom door at work slam on ME, because it meant that my father would automatically appear, and catch ME inside during the work day, again. Now, I realize that my father engaged in those sad shenanigans his whole life, and I think because I refused engaging in such shenanigans, that that may have influenced why my father never assigned me to any position in management.

Finally, during a future break while mowing grass, I had forgotten, and let the restroom door in the lodge bathroom slam behind me on my way in. Sure enough, and right on cue my dad came out of his office. He looked obviously as startled to see me as if he had just seen a ghost, as he looked when entering the busy kitchen when the winter season started, and seeing me working in the kitchen. He stood at the urinal right next to me without saying a word, then while I was on my way back outside, he threw a whole new roll of toilet paper hitting me square in the back with it! It bounced off me landing on the cement, and partially unrolled on the gravel outside as I was hurriedly walking out of the lodge. I just kept walking as he angrily shouted in his army sergeant drill voice, “I want you to use that in the woods from now on, DO YOU UNDERSTAND”? But, It wasn’t a question. It was an order. All I knew, then, was that he was very serious about me not being allowed in the lodge even to use the bathroom! That was the same bathroom that he didn’t allow me to be in during the day, but required me clean every day well AFTER I had finished clocking my required 8 full hours cutting grass. However, there was no way that I was going to use the woods for my bathroom, rules or no rules, so from then on, I tried to use the bathroom in the trailer behind the lodge, and then negotiate to go get a refill. Instead of his rules (like for me to stay out of the lodge) teaching me discipline, they had the opposite effect making me angry and defiant, and I learned again, again, and again, that it was his way or the highway.

It was a total surprise to one day see a huge boulder which had appeared right in front of the lodge cafeteria window which obscures the view toward the slopes as you can see in the photo, and I cannot say what the reason was that my father had it put there (see photo)

. I actually have no idea where it come from. Was it a comet? Had he ordered his outside employees to do THAT? Is that what the Army Corp of Engineers did on one of their Brandywine practice exercises while I was attending college? Was it symbolic of my father’s ego? Or, was he making his own Stonehenge?