SAVED BY THE SCHOOL

We went to Catholic grade schools. Then came time to choose a high school. One came along that was PERFECT for me! It was in the heart of downtown Chicago, and even though I had yearned to be in or near LA throughout my life, Downtown Chicago was the next best thing at the time. I desperately NEEDED to get out of the suburbs, and experience life in the Big city or at least a big city for the time being a training ground, if you will! It also had a separate dormitory for suburbanites to be able to commute that wasnt very far from the school. So, I would ALSO be able to get out of the house and away from my parents and be sort of on my own! I was always very independent. I wasn't a trouble-maker by any means! I just had a very clear vision of my future at a very young age, and I just wanted to get on with it as soon as possible! I could tell and feel from the slides that it was very community-oriented. It gave off a very home-like kind of feeling. I instinctively sensed that I'd be very comfortable there. I just KNEW that was where I was destined to go! Right then and there!

The building itself was incredible, too. It was one block down the street from the famous Hancock building, and literally surrounded by other tall skyscrapers, famous larger-than-life hotels, the hustle and bustle of the city, and more. But there it was - very old and in its own little world appearing to be from another time long ago. It took up an entire city block (That's really large in Downtown Chicago!) It was built in 1905 becoming alma mater to generations of men many of which became priests, bishops, and even cardinals. Their class pictures past to present lined the halls inside. Their faces peering back at you from ages ago. Outside, the school looked like a cross between a medieval palace and a European cathedral. Its chapel alone was bigger and more grand and majestic than most entire churches. The courtyard was complete with gargoyles on the rooftops. There were winding, three-story, marble staircases. The building was full of foreboding secret passages, underground tunnels, and creepy attics - all just waiting to be (secretly and mischievously) explored! It also housed the first and coldest (!) school swimming pool in Chicago history.

The only catch was that it was a SEMINARY high school - meaning it was the school to go if you were interested in becoming a Catholic priest! That was NOT at all what I mind! However, it was MUCH too perfect in all other ways NOT to go! Well, before that day in seventh grade was over, I had concocted my plan! Knowing how religious my mother was, I knew my wanting to go there would make her incredibly happy! She had wanted me to become a priest, so with this decision, I knew shed feel I was playing right into her hands! But I also knew that she discovered that I wanted to go for the wrong reasons, she would never let me do it! I had it all figured out by the time I went home. I would allow her to assume that I was interested in priesthood until the middle of junior year. By that time, we' all be much too comfortable with me being there (and much too late) for her to try to pull me out. Then I would announce that I had decided NOT to become a priest after all. And that's EXACTLY what I did years later! When I came home with my little announcement, she threw her arms around me, and hugged me till I thought I'd lose consciousness! It had worked! That was it! I was going to go! Okay, so I'd have to put with her THINKING I was interested in becoming a priest for a few years! No big deal! I could handle that! I'd been through much worse, after all! And I had my plan, and it was already working! And okay, I was the ONLY one from my junior high class going there! Okay, the kids wouldnt listen to me when I tried to explain my REAL reasons for going there, and they made fun of me like there was no tomorrow. Who Cares?! So, what else was new anyway?! I knew something they didn't! My life was about to drastically change! I was about to become unsheltered, and live in the Big City! I was taking GIANT steps forward in moving on in life! I was headed for much bigger, more exciting things! Quigley Preparatory Seminary North and Downtown Chicago, here I come!

BIG-CITY-EXPLORING & THE DORM

The school was everything I knew it would be! It was very strict, of course, but I was used to that at home. I wasn't a troublemaker anyway. But I WAS / am an adventurous spirit who couldn't be held down, and THAT got me into a lot of trouble! Not at school, but at the dormitory! I was SO fascinated by the city, that I went exploring all over downtown and the surrounding areas wealthy and run-down, dangerous areas alike. I wasn't afraid! Most often, I did this with friends, but there were plenty of times I went by myself. I wasn't worried about getting lost, because no matter where I wandered off to, I could still see the famous John Hancock building, which was just across the street from my high school, and a block and a half from the subway station that would take me back to the dormitory.

This is how I've seen achieving my goals ever since! I compare the two experiences. My goals are like that Hancock building. I can see exactly where I'm going. It is in plain sight. It's just that its off in the distance, so I don't know exactly HOW I'm going to get there. Sometimes, I'd have to zig-zag, cut through alleys, back-track a little now and then, but I KNEW for CERTAIN that I'd get there!

The only catch to my Big-City exploring was that I would get SO caught up in it, that I would lose track of time! We were supposed to be at the dormitory named St. John Vianney Hall by 5:30pm (17:30pm) for dinner. We'd then have until 6pm (18pm) to finish it, and be upstairs in our bedrooms. This was our homework time. We were not allowed to LEAVE our bedrooms between 6pm to 8pm (18pm to 20pm) unless we absolutely HAD to use the restroom. Next was Chapel time. We had a little prayer room down the hall. We all gathered there at 8 (20)pm to pray for 15 minutes. After that, it was recreation time until 10 (22) pm. We had a pool table downstairs in the recreation area (It was the same room we had our meals in.). Next to it was a ping-pong table. There was a stereo-tape and record player (Remember those?!) also in the room. There was a stash of board games in the stereo cabinet. No computers back then! Off to the far side was a little TV room. One TV - 14 guys! (VCR werent common yet, so we didn't have one. Otherwise, being the movie buff that I am I would have been in THERE a LOT more!) A couple of chairs and a couple of couches, and an end table filled the room It was also where the only available telephone was! One phone - 14 guys! One of them became a life-long best friend, even though he did not stay into the second year (he just commuted from his family home in Skokie from there on) The others either picked on me, or didn't deal with me at all. But there was ONE guy there who became SORT of my arch nemesis, for lack of a better way of putting it. He gave me a LOT of hell my first two, and his last two there. But years later, I unexpectedly got my chance or gave him HIS chance to make amends. He was further proof to me that people can and DO change! My life-long friend and neighbor, Michele and I noticed that Robert Frost, the first PUBLIC school we went to, was having open house. We thought it would be interesting to go check it out for memory's sake. To my surprise, who had become one of the teachers there of all areas of all places but my former arch-enemy?! But we were both very cool about it! In fact, we were able to joke around with each other about those old high school and dorm days. I, laughing, reminded him of how much of an "asshole" he was. He, also laughing, admitted that, deep down, he had always thought I was a pretty normal - even cool guy - regardless of how hard he had tried to convince me otherwise at the time! It's funny how life will arrange things so that you can fix old situations like that!

But, back to me and my exploring! I would get home late. Not meaning to, of course, but it often happened that way regardless. The disciplinary system at the dorm was points as they the two priests that ran it with the help of two college guys who were our monitors called it. A point was a chore like scrubbing toilets and urinals, for example, during your next evenings recreation time. Those monitors gave me so many points that I don't think there was ANY kind of chore imaginable that I DIDN'T do there at least ten times! Not just for coming home late, though.

We were also supposed to be PHYSICALLY in bed with the lights out by 10:30 (22:30)pm every night. I just wasn't tired until about midnight. I tried and tried to lay there and let or make myself fall asleep, but it just wouldn't work! So, I'd be up writing (fictional stories I was working on, or drawing listening to music on my headphones. I wasn't causing anyone any harm. Actually, I was being quite productive! But, unfortunately, UNLIKE with the crazy things I did back at home, HERE I very often got caught. And, of course, given points!

FINAL PUNISHMENT AT THE DORM:

The final straw concerning the dorm itself came toward the end of my sophomore year. I was in the schools annual musical, "South Pacific" that year. At this point in life, I was only given a supporting, ensemble role. They wanted me in the sections that involved the most dancing. I was turning out to be quite a good dancer, thanks, in part, to a Latino friend of mine who taught me a lot of street dances. Break dancing was brand new and very big at the time! I had / have a lot of rhythm for a white boy as I was / am told!

Well, one night, play practice was canceled, and it was my cousin, T.'s birthday (The T. I had mentioned earlier that I had grown up so closely with). She and her family - her Mom, my Aunt Frisbee, her Dad, my Uncle Joe, and her younger brother, G. - had always meant SO much to me (Still do), that I just couldn't miss it. I had to go visit them. I mistakenly took advantage of the fact that play practice was canceled, figuring that the priests in charge of the dorm wouldn't know since they were not the least bit involved in the show. I didn't think they would be told. But even if they were, I thought the priests would understand that this was a family issue...that I hadn't gone out partying or even exploring the city this time. This was a family member's birthday, and my family and their's had grown up so close. I would expect to be punished if they did find out, but I never expected what actually happened. Well, I came home late to discover that I had been VERY wrong about that!

What was my punishment for this one? They expelled me NOT from the school, (thank God) but from the dormitory for the rest of the year! (And I have to admit...I DID suspect the guy I talked about just above for possibly being the one who ratted me out telling them that play practice was cancelled that night  - knowing I would get into serious trouble for not coming home. He knew others that were in the play. If I wasn't there, it would be easier for him to not have to think about what he did. And it was also interesting that it was to be only for the rest of THAT particular year as he would be graduating and not around the next year...when I WAS allowed to come back to the dorm again.

I'll never know for sure. But I considered it a very strong possibility, and I felt highly suspicious. I should have ratted him out right then and there. I thought about it. I was REALLY tempted to take him down with me if he had been behind it. It was soooo tempting. But, in the end, I didn't.)

I was now going to have to commute an extremely long distance from the suburbs by way of commuter train every day until the beginning of my junior year. My parents were furious! I was grounded for the rest of the year, including what was to be my very first concert - the classic rock band, Styx...and that was just the starter!

But the thing that sucked the most was that I was going to have to deal with abuse from my parents on a daily basis again. That was the worst part of this. I didn't feel that just taking a risk and visiting other family members on a birthday deserved THAT much of a punishment. But of course, nobody knew that. However, as a result of having to deal with them again, I HAD reached a point of no return. My patience with them had been worn out. And it got to where they knew I was going to fight back now if it became physical again. And that was a milestone for me. So, by the time I went back to school for my junior year, I had become quite a bit more toughened up. I had finally defeated my own parents and put a stop to at least their physical abuse. And I was going to defeat anybody who gave me a hard time at school as well. It was my main focus and goal that year to do whatever I had to to earn my respect from everyone. I wasn't going to put up with anybody's shit anymore. And I didn't!

So, I DID wind up earning respect finally. It cost me a handful of demerits here and there (which I wasn't used to getting before), but it was worth it to me. I didn't care about a clean record on my demerit cards anymore that year. Anything negative that anybody said to me, I had a much worse retort to throw back at them. And I was always ready to back all of it up with my fists. I got in a few fist fights. And won. The other students weren't expecting all that from me at first. It took them by surprise. I can't count how many times for awhile there I heard a few "Whoooaaaa's!" from the guys when I started shooting my mouth off, or shoved somebody back, or punched someone that pissed me off. I didn't start any fights. I still had my ethics. But I sure wasn't afraid to finish them anymore. The school staff did notice and was initially concerned about the changes in me. But I cooled them down by continuing my good grades, though. By senior year, everything had balanced itself all out. I hadn't been considered a joke to anyone anymore by that point for a long time. I didn't have to play the bad-ass to prove myself anymore as I had spent all of junior year doing that. I was still considered an excellent student. Everything was just right finally.

MISFIT FRIENDS, SECRET PASSAGES, AND GHOST-HUNTING

I still continued to attend Quigley North, though, and later graduated there. Along the way, I had made a small band of close friends. I have remained friends with them to this day! Like me, in some way or another, they were all considered misfits. Big, loud-mouthed, funny, obnoxious Rich, outrageous, yet determined Monty Python fan, Jim (Jim, by the way, was the ONLY one from our entire class who actually became a priest!), Dan, the rebel, Kevin, the sarcastic cynic, Joe, the ultra-laid back, Mike, the strange and Gothic, Chris, the break-dancing, Latino ex-gangster, and Jeff, the philosopher. Then, of course, there was me - the dreamer! At the school itself, the ONLY trouble I ever got into was when my friends and I were caught carrying out MY idea exploring all the secret, age-old, closed-off passageways! Each time, I got a demerit on my demerit card (I only got a few every year.), and had to write lengthy essays on why I shouldn't and wouldn't do it (Which, of course, I would!) Luckily, I wasn't ALWAYS caught doing that! Most of the time, I wasn't. But, how could I resist?!

I got involved in EVERYTHING in high school! The school newspapers as both a reporter and an illustrator/cartoonist, I was on the Tennis Team, the Bowling Team, the Ski Club, intramural sports, soccer, and I managed the basketball team alongside Rich and Jim all four years, and managed the swimming team alongside Rich for my last two years. But there were many other things, too. The Art Guild, the Choir, the Movie Club, the War Games Club, the Dungeons and Dragons Club, the Math Club, the Liturgy Team, in which I helped plan out our student body religious ceremonies and masses, and I was an Extraordinary Minister, meaning I was authorized to distribute communion (hosts / wafers) during our masses. I volunteered for the bike-a-thon that benefited charities, I was in the annual school musical EVERY year (Unfortunately, they didn't have a drama club during my years there!), I helped plan our bi-annual retreats to gorgeous, spacious St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. Our secret, fun thing to do there was find the boarded-up room that, according to legend, was boarded up because it had been demonically possessed since the sixties or maybe it was the seventies. The legend was, that the priest who lived in that room was studying demonology and exorcism, so that he could become educated in performing exorcisms. During his studies, the crucifixes on the walls and the bed and furniture began to spin, the walls themselves began to bleed, and numerous, strange, unpleasant voices could be heard. The room has been boarded up ever since. Our teachers upon arriving, warned us NOT to go looking for that room, insisted that the legend was NOT true, that there WAS no boarded up room to find, and that anyone caught trying to investigate would be in SERIOUS trouble!

Well, of course, we still investigated! We discovered that our teachers had lied to us! It took us awhile, but eventually we FOUND the boarded up room! We couldnt hear anything going on in there at the time, but the room DID in fact exist! Our other favorite activity there was to go ghost-hunting! MANY true ghost stories came from that place! Again, our teachers and the other priests who resided there denied it all before we even got a chance to ask anything about it. We saw no apparitions, but found MANY cold-spots! These were meant to be SPIRITUAL retreats. I don't think our teachers had THIS particular meaning of the word spiritual in mind when they planned these weekends for us! However, despite our adventurous tendencies, our retreats still had the desired effect on us. We couldn't leave, however, with my buddy, Rich putting his black "Blues Brothers" fedora and sunglasses on a statue of Jesus. And I don't remember where we got the cigar, but we put one between his fingers. (The statue's fingers) We had to show, after all, that Jesus really was one cool dude!

MOM'S SELFISH TRICKS

Well, it came during junior year to choose colleges. Shortly before, I stuck to the plan I had made back in seventh grade. I finally announced to my parents that I was no longer interested in pursuing priesthood. (If youl'l remember, I had mentioned earlier that I never really was!) She wasn't too happy with that idea. But, as I knew years earlier, by this period in time, we'd all be too comfortable with the situation for her to try to pull me out this late in the game. Plus, she wanted me to continue anyway just in case I'd change my mind again. Little did I know she had a much more elaborate hidden agenda than that!

It was college mania time in high school! We were getting all kinds of recruitment gimmicks thrown at us from every school imaginable. We were even offered two college course to take during senior year of high school that would count in college credits. These were psychology and anthropology two subjects I found fascinating, and did very well in the following year. But back to the year at hand junior year. Just as I had with high school, I knew EXACTLY which college I wanted to go to Columbia College. It was / is a School of the Arts college. It didnt have a campus, really. It, too, was in the heart of downtown Chicago. (That was great, because I wasn't about to leave big city life after four years of it!) It had three separate buildings each a few blocks apart. And, best of all, it catered to everything I was really interested in.

We were given financial aid forms to fill out. I filled out everything I needed to. I saved only the part my parents had to fill out. Then they'd mail it, and it would be done. I put Columbia College down as my first choice, of course. I remember Princeton and Harvard being on my list as well. In the meantime, everyone began getting letters of acceptance from various colleges and universities. Strangely, I wasnt getting any except from Niles Seminary College - the next level up in the seminary system. My mother had been pushing and pushing me to go there instead. (My father didn't know the first thing about colleges, and stayed out of it completely except to back my mother up completely, though just because it was something I didn't want.) I refused to accept going to Niles. I began wondering if I had suddenly gone from being a great student to being considered an idiot by other colleges. I did very well on the tests. It didnt make any sense. Until one day

I happened to be home early enough to get the mail myself one day. I sifted through everything, and found my copy of the financial aid form. Eagerly, I opened it. Glancing over the section where I had listed my choices of schools, I noticed that THEY WERE GONE!! Whited out! All that was there in the top line, in my mother's handwriting, was Niles Seminary College! I had been tricked!! Now I wouldn't get financial aid for any other school!! I realized that now, I had NO CHOICE but to go there, or not go to college at all! I was FURIOUS!!

I went in and immediately confronted my mother. Upon my discovery, instead of being embarrassed, or the least bit sorry, she got very smug, and proudly announced that was not all she had done! I HAD been accepted to SEVERAL schools after all. But SHE had opened, read, and immediately thrown out each and every letter of acceptance!! As livid as I was, I felt there was nothing I could do. I had to accept treachery and defeat, and go to the appointed meeting with the rector (principal) of Niles.

Now, as good as an actor as I can be, I HATE the idea of having to act in real life. When I went in to see him, I tried very hard to seem interested in going to Niles. But my heart was not in this AT ALL, so my performance was not convincing. He saw right through me. He knew I had been up to this. He probed, and broke down and told him everything my mother had done. He wound up being on MY side! In fact, he wrote my mother a very stern letter about what she had pulled, and wrote that it would be on her conscious if she didn't let me go where my heart told me to go Columbia College. She got the letter, and finally realized that she wouldnt win the battle. Though she agreed through gritted teeth, I would attend Columbia after all. The catch was that, because of what she had done, we would now have to pay FULL PRICE for me to go there.

DAD GETS INJURED ON THE JOB

On top of this, my father got injured at work stepping backward into an open manhole while signaling a machine. He fell, and ripped several ligaments and tendons. My mother's theory as to what happened from there is that his boss had bought out my fathers own lawyer behind his back. He got screwed out of his workmans compensation. After nearly a year out of work, he was allowed to come back to work by the judges order, but they immediately found some lame excuse to fire him after twenty years of blind loyalty to the company.

LITTLE GRANDMA FLASHBACK

As if enough werent happening, my parents were running out of funds to keep my grandmother. Little Grandma, that is. A couple of years before, she had developed Altzheimers Disease. They took her out of her home, which had been in my mother's family since she was an infant, and sold it. Then they put her in a very run-down nursing home. It was heartbreaking to me. To say that my mother never got along with her own mother was an understatement. My father's relationship with her was even worse. They yelled at her constantly as if she were an unruly child. I remember she'd always wind up crying, and begging them not to yell at her anymore. I loved her dearly, and I couldn't bear to think her in a place like that. Aside from all the wonderful times I had had with her, I'll never forget the night she really stood up for me. My mother was combing my hair in the bathroom very hard digging the teeth deep into my head, as she always did. I couldn't help but moan in pain. She warned me to shut up. I tried hard not to make any sounds, but it was just impossible not to. She reached her very short fuse, and began beating me - hitting me all over - especially in my face, holding me by my hair, and shoving me hard against the counter. My grandmother, who was visiting for a few days, came running in, demanding to know what Mom thought she was doing. This made Mom even angrier, and as she screamed at my grandmother to mind her own business and get out, she beat me even harder. At this, my grandmother shocked me by suddenly grabbing my mother by HER hair, shoving me to safety, and hitting HER face! She screamed back at her that she better not even THINK of harming her grandson again - especially not in HER presence! If I weren't as stunned as I was, I might have started applauding her! I had NEVER seen my grandmother stand up for HERSELF, much less for me! Of course, both my parents did as they pleased time after time, but, as I mentioned earlier, I wound up putting a stop to all THAT myself later on in my life. Well, getting back to the time period in question!! Mom and Dad began tapping into my college funds both to support us, and to help pay for Little Grandma's nursing home bills. Like I had much left after having to pay full price for that first year!

GRADUATION FROM QUIGLEY NORTH

Senior year in high school went by so fast, it made my head spin! Next thing I knew, it was graduation time, and it hit me that I wouldn't be coming back there anymore, except to visit. (And, of course, I have.) Although I had always been anxious to move on in my life and goals, it was sad to leave everything here behind. Attending Quigley Preparatory Seminary North had changed my life so much on so many levels. (For the better, of course) Though I would keep my friends all these years, I remember walking through those doors as a student for the last time with many mixed emotions. But I was incredibly excited to get to the next level!

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

Columbia College was great! True, I wasn't getting to experience real campus life, but I was pursuing my interests, and I was still in a big city. And THAT made me very happy! I took courses in theater, film, music, writing, art, and more! I also remember an entire course based on the Old English author, Chaucer. His writings were very - um - spicy for his day - even by todays standards!

A fellow student in one of my acting classes was an elderly woman. She was very nice. She inspired me. She was living proof that it is NEVER too late to go after your goals! I remember our teacher lining us up one day. He would go up to us one by one, and have us say, "F--k you!" to his face, and he wanted to feel that we meant it. I was very amused by the sight of this older woman cussing at our teacher. She hissed it at him, and it was very convincing, because he seemed taken aback by it as well! We did some plays both in and out of class. One of them was Neil Simons "Barefoot in the Park". I played the role Robert Redford portrayed in the film version, and the elderly woman played the mother-in-law. I remember the scene in which I had to carry her up some stairs! Not easy! She was a little heavy set! But it made the scene THAT much more real!

Another fun assignment by another acting teacher involved created a spoof soap opera. He split us up into four groups, and gave us a few rules. One all characters were to have a hidden goal that we were to reveal to NO ONE until the actual performance. Two all characters had to have slept with everyone else at some point. And three in the end, we had to discover that somehow, all characters would wind up being related to each other. Talk about a fun assignment!

Our group started our first huddle, and I was afire with ideas, AND names they loved. They decided to go with them. I remember a few of the names I came up with Marsha Fields - the wife of the owner of a chain of department stores. She had married him for the money, and was having many affairs n the side. Ah, yes! HE had been murdered, and she was one of the main suspects! There was the male model, Manna White, and others I can't remember. My character was James Mean - the town teenage rebel who was also, (wrongfully) one of the main suspects. I wound up being Marsha's son even though we had had a brief affair awhile back not knowing, of course, until the end. We had a BLAST!!

One of the students in this class was a film major. They were making a lot of student films. After this assignment, he began introducing me to other film classmates of his, and the next thing I know, I'm barraged by offers to be in their student films!!

A few of them included a role as an unfortunate individual whose soul was the prize in a poker game between God and the Devil. Another was an assistant to the general who decides he has no choice but to start a nuclear war. Another was the president of a professional School of Theft. We spoofed those cheesy career institute commercials. I also played a homeless teen, and a gay character in love with a passionate kissing scene in bed and more. In an onstage skit, I played a troubled teen back in the 1800's who can't handle the fact hat he is developing a sexual appetite due to the very strict society and day he lives in. I enjoyed performing the controversial scene in which he is reading suggestive material off of a scroll by candlelight. This passage arouses him, and I had to mock masturbation and orgasm under the nightshirt I wore as a costume. But he is so conflicted that he later kills himself. I wish I remembered the title! I'd like to perform that role once more when my theater company is up and running again! I'll have to research it.

Alas, my college days were coming to a temporary end. We were running out of funds. And I had heard too many horror stories concerning student loans! There was some glitch that prevented me from getting enough future financial aid as well. I took a job with friends doing telephone surveys. But I hated bothering people. The one thing that was good about that job was that I got one of my life - long gimmicks from it. It was so boring and tedious, that it made our day when we came across an unusual or comic answering machine message. We'd write the umber down, and pass it along for everyone to call. I determined then and there that I would ALWAYS have something fun and / or interesting on MY machines or voicemail when the time came! Thus, my tradition of using film clips or bits of music as outgoing telephone messages was born!

ADVENTURES IN SNEAKING OUT

While the physical abuse had long stopped at home back during the last quarter of my sophomore year in high school after having to punch my father, the emotional abuse more than continued. Here I was college age, and having to be home by ten, for one! Getting screamed at and called every name in the book if I was so much as a minute late! I was denied use of the car regularly for no apparent reason. Many nights I just didn't feel up to the arguments I knew I'd lose anyway. So, I would do one of two things. Most often, I would have my friends park down the street and wait for me. I'd lock my door, and fill up my bed to look like I was in it just in case. Then, after making sure I could hear BOTH my parents snoring, I would simply hop out the window, and join my friends. Either that, or I'd do most of the above, and sneak OUR car out instead putting it in neutral, and steering it so that it would coast down the driveway, and turn down the street. Then I'd wait until I was far enough away from the house, and started it up leaving the lights off, though. I'd turn them on when I was further down the street. I would circle the block, park away from the house, climb back in my window, and made sure I could still hear my parents snoring. I'd circle the block one final time and repeat this. Finally, Id be satisfied that I was safe, and head to visit friends and so on.

One such time, I had a VERY close call! Remember the movie, "Ferris Buellers Day Off"? Well, I LIVED that movie a good few times! There are too many to mention, but I'll tell you about ONE such time for now!

One night, a pair of twins, Maurice and Chantal, and their friend, Michelle wanted to go to a party in Waukegan, Illinois, and needed a ride since their car was in the shop. They invited me, and asked if they could get a ride. We'd been good friends for awhile, and I was happy to drive them, but in order to do it, I'd have to sneak the car out. So, I did my usual routine, and we went down there. They didn't get good directions and they also forgot to bring a phone number with them, so we wound up getting lost. After awhile, we decided not to go to the party since it was getting too late. I had to get the car back before 5am because that was when my father left for work in the morning. I also needed time to let the car cool down before he got into it, so he wouldn't know that I had taken it!

We couldn't find our way back, either! We wound up on residential streets. I had never seen one-way streets in any suburban residential area before, and neither had anyone else in the car. So, we didnt realize it when we were on one! The next thing we knew, we were being forced to turn and pull over by a cop! We didn't understand what we were being pulled over for, but I was glad to have someone to ask directions from! I was very polite about the whole thing when he walked up. I explained that we were lost, and asked him to tell us the way back. But he was throwing major attitude, and was obviously on a huge power trip. He gave me a ticket, and when I nicely asked him for directions, he yelled at us again, and gave me another ticket for PULLING OVER the wrong way on another one-way street! Regardless of the fact that he had MADE us pull over that way! He refused to be any kind of a help, and now we were REALLY in a race against time! In our attempts, we wound up somehow going further AWAY from our destination much further out into the boonies! We wound up in Zion, Illinois. If that weren't bad enough, we discovered that we were somehow going in circles, because no matter what we did, we kept winding up in the SAME SPOT in Zion! After about the fourth or fifth time, to say we were running out of time was the biggest understatement possible! At that point, I just gave up on trying to use logic, and taking any more advice from the peanut gallery, and went on my own pure instinct. It worked! FINALLY we had gotten to an area that I recognized.

It was almost 5am now, though! I still wasn't even close to getting home on time! I didn't have time to drop everyone directly at home. Luckily, Michelle lived right near the twins. I had to drop them off just NEAR their homes, were they had to cut through other peoples back yards to get home. There was no traffic in my lane except for the car just ahead of me. But lucky me I wound up being stuck behind the slowest driver in town! I couldn't pass the car either because there were too many cars going the opposite direction in the other lane. Needless to say, I screaming at the top of my lungs at the driver (Not that I could be heard outside my own car!) Finally, I got home at 5:30!! Fearing the worst, I pulled up, readjusted everything the way it was before I had gotten into the car (I had this down pat by now!), ran to the back of the house, vaulted over the fence, jumped into my window. Just then, I heard noises that made it obvious that my father was running late that morning himself! Just as I was beginning to settle in, he was just leaving! I waited awhile before allowing myself to relax just in case he happened to touch the outside of the hood of the car! If he did, he would feel the heat, and come running in bellowing at me any second! My father was NEVER the silent type! He would gt angry right off the bat, and would let you know right then and there! I waited and heard him pull away. Nothing had happened! He didn't find out! Good thing I had kept the heat off, and the windows open most of the way back, so that the INSIDE of the car would stay rather cold, at least, to match the weather! I never heard anything about it. We had somehow made it back without getting caught!

THE POPEYE GIG

I was getting more and more desperate to get out of Illinois, and move to Southern California. I was at my wits' end with just about everything! I did have SOME fun during this time period, though, thanks to doing a lot of community theater, and a fun side job. This side job was to be my first gig as costumed cartoon character! It would HARDLY be my last! A new shop in the nearby, usually INCREDIBLY boring shopping mall, Randhurst. The only shops I liked there were the music, video, and novelty shops. This new shop was dedicated to selling all cartoon-character related things. Since I loved performing, I HAD to apply! I wound up playing Popeye! My job was to walk around the mall interacting with people, taking pictures with them, and signing autographs to promote the new shop for about a month. I had a BLAST doing it! We were not supposed to talk as the characters, but I had his voice and his laugh down pat, and did it anyway much to the kids' delight! I danced around just like him did that walk - hop thing he often did in the cartoons. It was a lot of fun! I couldn't believe I was getting paid for this!

COMMUNITY THEATER

As for theater, my parents were against my doing it all the way. I think it had something to do with the huge contract my mother had been offered in opera when she was a teenager. She had said she turned it down to marry my father and that it would give them too much control over her personal life, but I always felt there was more to that than she was telling me. Something much more deeply disturbing to her had to be in there somewhere to make her as against my getting into entertainment as she was. As for my father, he felt that it wasnt practical, and I shouldn't even TRY to do anything that wasnt practical, or the least bit risky. To him, doing theater, even as a hobby, was a complete waste of time (despite the fact that he had done it once before in the opera, which was how he had met my mother in the first place!) He believed in being the ostrich and burying ones head in the sand. Not ME!