The Doctor's blog: "In My Life"

Well it started off as a crazy year, my last semester in High School, get called to the guidance counselors’ office and find out that I need three history credits to graduate.  I already had planned on having almost totally computer/free periods (completed all computer classes) for this last semester, and even maybe taking some college level courses.  Damn, there goes my “easy” schedule.  I figure that I would take Modern European History (since I have been back from Germany less than 2 years ago), Civil War History (since I am a civil war buff) and Modern Government.  I will admit here that history is my worst subject, but figured these would be the easiest for me.  Problem is all the dates basically coincide; I barely pass with a D, D and a C.  My plans to design IBM Computers (the ground work as already laid down) disappear.  To bring the grades back up, I go to a community college after I graduate (yes, I did graduate, barely though, but I graduated) where in the Computer teacher and I in the first weeks got into an argument on programming.  After I proved my point, I never attended another class figuring that if she could not teach me, then what good is spending my time there (stupid 18 year old).  This undoubtedly is the biggest mistake of my life, but I live with it. Disco comes to the front all though it has been around for a number of years (since the late 60’s), the popularity increases and actually I can remember dancing to most of this music. I won a dance contest during this summer and got into a fight with my friend over his girlfriend.  I also remember dancing on roller skates at the rink, especially to Brick House.  I also worked for two weeks at a carnival that had come to town, working one of the booths and helping to break them down.  It was a Carnie that talked me out of leaving a go back home and get back in school, don’t remember their name, but I do appreciate it.  Best advice I was ever given (though I did not go back to school until I was 35). Since I got stupid, I needed to earn money so I started working as a roofer, this is where I met two friends, Terry and Gary (whose girlfriends were good friends of mine), and I entered the work force.  Terry was from North Carolina and came to the DC area for work.  I remember that he went on vacation for a week (he was a piece worker) came back from work one day to find him and his Chevelle out in front of his girlfriend’s (Jill – sister of my classmate Sheri) house.  He was drinking what looked like water in a jar, I went up  grabbed the glass and bottoms up, before he could even get the words out “George, don’t …”  Man, I never chugged white lightning again lol, it burned going down.  In September I met the future mother of my daughter and son.  She came up to live with her dad, he was Air Force, mine Army.  They moved into the townhouse next to one of my other friends, two doors down form Sheri and Jill.  Had fun that winter playing spades with her “step-sisters” cousin, Joe.  During the winter, I came close to falling of a three story apartment building, but that same day Gary did fall off another building.  It had been snowing the previous day, and the snow and pile of mud is probably the only thing that kept him from getting seriously hurt.

Me and my buds were pretty wild back then.  During the same time as the carnival, my gang and I got recognized by a real motor cycle club “The Outsiders”, and termed us the insiders lol.  Paul, Eddie and I kept having fun with cars, every once and awhile Sahid would also join in.  Paul get reckless, as did I, and we both totaled our cars.  Paul was drunk and hit a bridge (didn’t hurt himself, but totaled his Coronet) and the friend I had gotten into a fight with?  Freddie, had made a comment (begins with n), in an all black neighbor hood and a brick went through my window and I plowed into a steel encases concrete pole (lucky, because behind the pole was a power substation).  Oh, by the way, me and Eddie got into it again about his stupidity.  Funny what beer will make you do, and he never did it again (at least not in my presence because I had friends of various ethnic, sexual and religious slants.  I am the guy that gets along with anyone, don’t hate anyone (that is a wasted emotion) and will stick up for my friends.  And that is basically my life in 1977.

MUSIC:

Songs to come out:  Dancing Queen (ABBA), Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock (AC/DC), Walk This Way (Aerosmith), Year Of The Cat (Al Stewart), Undercover Angel (Alan O’Day), I Just Want To Be Your Everything (Andy Gibbs), So Into You (Atlanta Rhythm Section), Looks Like We Made It (Barry Manilow), How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees), Rock and Roll Never Forgets (Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band), Foreplay/Longtime; Peace Of Mind (Boston), Lido Shuffle (Boz Scaggs), Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon), I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick), Baby, What A Big Surprise (Chicago), Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (Crystal Gayle), Heroes (David Bowie), Hotel California; Life In The Fast Lane; New Kid In Town (Eagles), Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra), Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton), Don’t Stop; Dreams; Go Your Own Way; The Chain; You Make Loving Fun (Fleetwood Mac), Cold As Ice; Feels Like The First Time (Foreigner), Southern Nights )Glen Campbell), Rich Girl (Hall & Oates), Barracuda; Dreamboat Annie (Heart), Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Ian Dury), I’m Your Boogie Man (KC & The Sunshine Band), You Make Me Feel Like Dancing (Leo Sayer), Blue Bayou (Linda Ronstadt), What’s Your Name (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Blinded By The Light (Mannfred Mann’s Earth Band), You Don’t Have To Be A Star – To Be In My Show (Marilynn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr.),Black Betty (Ram Jam), Short People (Randy Newman), Tonight’s The Night (Rod Stewart), Car Wash (Rose Royce), Peg (Steely Dan), Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band), Give A Little Bit (Supertramp), Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent), Brick House (The Commodores), Best Of My Love (The Emotions), Father Christmas (The Kinks), Disco Inferno (The Trammps), American Girl (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers).

The Albums:  Let There Be Rock (AC/DC), The Stranger (Billy Joel), Spectres (Blue Oyster Cult), Aaaa…The Name Is Bootsy  Baby (Bootsy’s Rubber Band), Heroes (David Bowie), Slowhand (Eric Clapton), Rumors(Fleetwood Mac[The best album of the Year and of the band]), Foreigner (Foreigner), Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead), Little Queen (Heart), Running On Empty (Jackson Brown), JT (James Taylor), Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude (Jimmy Buffet), Point Of No Return (Kansas), Love Gun (Kiss), Bat Out Of Hell (Meatloaf), Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome (Parliament), Frampton Comes Alive! (Peter Frampton), News Of The World (Queen), Aja (Steely Dan), Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent), I Robot (The Alan Parsons Project), Tejas (ZZ Top).

Events:  Alice Cooper enters rehab, EMI terminates Sex Pistols contract, American Bandstand turns 25, B-52’s debut, Sid Vicious new bassist for the Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd starts Animals tour, Supremes perform last time together, Elvis Presley dies, Marc Boaln of T-Rex dies in auto accident, Ronnie Van Zandt – Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd die after Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane crashes, Saturday Night Fever opens in theaters, INXS forms, Def Leppard forms, Whitesnake forms, Dire Straits forms,

MOVIES: 

Airport ’77 (Jack Lemmon), Annie Hall (Woody Allen), Black Sunday (Robert Shaw), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Richard Dreyfuss), Demon Seed (Julie Christie), Exorcist II: The Heretic (Linda Blair), Freaky Friday (Barbara Harris), Greased Lightning; Which Way Is Up? (Richard Pryor), Heroes (Henry Winkler, Sally Field, Harrison Ford), High Anxiety (Mel Brooks), Oh, God! (George Burns, John Denver), Pete’s Dragon (Helen Reddy), Saturday Night Fever (John Travolta), Semi-Tough (Burt Reynolds), Smokey and the Bandit (Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Fields, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams), Star Wars [before it was Episode IV] (Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Sir Alec Guinness), Telefon (Charles Bronson), The Deep (Jaqueline Bisset), The Gauntlet (Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke), The Spy Who Loved Me (Roger Moore, Barbara Bach).

EVENTS:  Apple Computer is incorporates, Legionnaires Disease Bacterium identified, snow falls for the first time in Miami FL, Bucharest earthquake kills 1500, crash between KLM and PanAm jets collide killing 583, first use of fiber optic cable for live telephone, Studio 54 opens, Stuttgart court sentences Andreas Baader – Gurdrun Enslinn and Jan-Carl Raspe to life imprisonment later this year they commit suicide in their cells, A. J. Foyt wins record 4th Indianapolis 500, Roy Sullivan struck by lightning for the 7th time, Groucho Marx dies, Food Stamp Act is enacted, Atari 2600 is released, Commodore Computers release PET, Bing Cosby dies, last natural case of small pox is reported, Guy Lombardo dies, Charlie Chaplin dies.

TV SHOWS:

Debut:  Carter Country, CHiPs, Eight Is Enough, Fantasy Island, Hard Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Lou Grant, Roots, Soap (I really loved this show, lol), The Love Boat, The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour, Three’s Company.

Ending:  Baretta, Bionic Woman, Chico and the Man, Emergency!, Fish, Kojak, Let’s Make A Deal, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, McCloud, McMillan and Wife, Police Woman, Sanford and Son, Six Million Dollar Man, The Bob Newhart Show.