My fabulous memory

—“How does he remember this stuff?” My sister yelled.
I wrote a gigantic trivia quiz for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in 1991.
The party was in south FL, and by then my parents were in assisted-living (I guess) in an apartment we children called “the last motel.”
My quiz asked the name of the Fire-Chief in our little south Jersey suburb during my childhood (the ‘50s).
“Philpot!” my father snapped.
“He knew it!” I shouted.
“How does he remember this stuff?” My sister yelled. Me or my father, I don’t know who. But I been told I have an incredible memory.
I guess I do, but what I always said was “how can I forget?”
In 1956 I dressed up for Halloween as Elvis Presley, complete with charcoal sideburns.
The infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my hyper-religious Sunday-School superintendent neighbor, sanctimoniously declared Elvis to be the “bane of western civilization.”
How can I forget that: etched in my mind til the end of time.
Ed Sullivan had Elvis on his TV program, but only pictured from the waist up.
Swiveling hips were Of-the-Devil back then.
My how things changed!
What passes for music now is continuously repeating the F-bomb to thunderous jabbering — totally devoid of pitch.
At least Chuck Berry and Little Richard could carry a tune.
The last rock ’n’ roll album I bought was by Def Leppard with “Photograph.”
Now I listen to Bach and Beethoven. And the good radio is oldies from the ‘80s.

So now for a fond memory from long ago.

In 1959, 1960, and 1961, at ages 15 through 17, Yrs Trly was on the staff of a religious boys camp in north-eastern MD.
My job title was Counselor-in-Training (CIT), but I also was stable-staff.
Since I was willing to muck stalls and teach horsemanship, everyone else on stable-staff could play cowboy. I hardly could ride horseback at all, so was assigned a nag.
The camp was on Chesapeake Bay, which allowed excellent canoeing. All the camp had were canoes — sailing was after my time.
Most memorable is when me and another staffer “borrowed” a canoe, so he could go out onto the bay and smoke his beloved Marlboros. (Fortunately I never smoked.)
That staff-member was kitchen crew, the most sinful employees on the staff. How they were hired by Bible-beaters is beyond comprehension.
How they hired me is also beyond comprehension, a disgusting agnostic. But I could spin a good story — as I’m doing now.
It was dusk, and the bay was placid = no wind. Plus no speedboats to roil the surface.
Far away in the distance a giant 50,000 foot thunderhead loomed. It was probably deluging northern DE. Lightning flashed cloud-side, but we were too far away to hear thunder.
That image is still in my head. Lightning-bolts cloud-side, but silent.
Images like that I never forget. Perhaps my sister would, but that thunderhead is goin’ to my grave.
Along with “Big-Daddy” Don Garlits at Cecil County Drag-o-Way in 1965, a P-51 Mustang flying aerobatics at Geneseo airport, and restored Nickel Plate steam-locomotive 765 doing 70 mph on the old Chesapeake and Ohio railroad in WV.

• RE: “Don Garlits at Cecil County Drag-o-Way in 1965……”—He laid rubber the entire length of the quarter-mile dragstrip, and his car was so loud you had to cover your ears. Flames fifteen feet high came out of the header-pipes, and when he finished the race you smelled model-airplane fuel = nitro-methane. He was racing a 900-pound unblown fuel-burning Chevy. The Chevy red-lighted, but Garlits beat him anyway!