Another adventure! Great visit to Living Desert with Joy and Larry. A very educational and peaceful must see in the Palm Desert area. Did crack into the lower 90’s as the day wore on so the exhibits and observers both slowed down. However, in true adventure fashion, we ended the day with a stop at the Coachella Brewing Co. and then dinner at Bubbas Bones and Brew. Turns out if you put mac and cheese on top of a hamburger with barbecue sauce you have a winner!
Another great adventure with Joy and Larry. Have to thank them for motivating us to explore the area. Had not been on the Tram for at least 35 years. Wow – Wow – Wow. It had everything for an adventure — a little cold, a little hungry and a little scared – especially swinging at the five towers. Plus geology immersion.
Beautiful hike at the top along the Desert View and Wildlife trails. Not used to being at 8,400 feet. An excellent downhill start from the Tram station which turned into a leg burning, lung exploding climb at the end of the day to a delicious picnic dinner on the west outlook.
All in all a GREAT ADVENTURE!!
A great visit to PSAM with Joy and Larry. Museum suggested that 2-hours would be good. We spent almost two hours in one of four hangers. What a great find….
Photos from a successful balloon chasing morning! With Pat at the helm, she nailed the landing zone location!
After 43 years as a consulting hydrogeologist, it dawned on me that I had/have lost touch with geology.
I had the extreme good fortune to have had both an excellent primary education in the Catholic schools and then in (of all places) the Newburgh, NY public school system. There was one high school for the greater Newburgh area, Newburgh Free Academy (NFA). I think that this allowed the powers in charge to concentrate funding there. When I started my sophomore year there was a relatively new addition to the hallowed halls of NFA that among other things housed the science and math departments including a planetarium. While drawn to astronomy, the guy that taught it was a smoker and I had enough of that at home ( in the early ’70s most teachers that were smokers did so in class also — particularly social studies teachers — but I digress). I took earth science with Jeff Callister in my sophomore year and that hit a note with me. Jeff was the penultimate high school teacher, young, enthusiastic, smart, a great instructor and just an all around nice guy. He convinced me to take his geology class when I was a junior and I was hooked. One of his previous students had gone on to the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and because I was pretty geeky and had been exposed to a lot of mining and engineering growing up, he suggested that as a destination.
Out of CSM and into the work-a-day world, I had the good fortune to become involved with several hydrogeology and engineering geology projects that were largely driven by geologic observations and interpretations. As time went on and economy and other demands moved me more into environmental applications of hydrogeology, I migrated into techno-geek applications. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that! For me, computers and their application to solving real world problems were intoxicating. Without even realizing it, I became less of a “geologist” and more of a “technologist”. That was with living in California, which is certainly one of the primary centers of geologic diversity in the world. Sometime in 2017 or 2018, I heard or noticed the term exotic terranes in a geology article or podcast. Other than being offended by what appeared to be a wild spelling error and then being intrigued by the “exotic” modifier (geologists can be a little base) I was curious. In researching a little I became fascinated by this whole concept. Remember that in the 1973-1978 period at CSM, plate tectonics as a serious theory was relatively young after a very slow start in gaining general acceptance among the geologic community.
Bringing me to today. I am now regularly devouring geology articles, podcasts and maps and driving to or modifying driving routes to see geologic features and even taking geologic themed photos. For me it is a very refreshing and rejuvenating experience and an homage to my high school years when I fell in love with geology.
The move to Newburgh was truly an adventure. It was the summer before ninth grade. I was 13 years old, and Dad Hagar and I convinced Mom that going to a Catholic all boys school was not in the best interest of my social maturing. All in all, Newburgh was a whole different world. The first 13 years of my life the only exposure to racial struggles and interactions were through Walter Cronkite. LaCrosse, Mandan and Idaho Falls were lily white although the Germans and Irish did not get along in La Crosse. It was going to be interesting. The next four years were full of fun, adventure, friendships that have lasted a lifetime and growing up.
I don’t remember much about the first couple of days in Newburgh prior to moving into our new address. I was still getting over the whole leaving LaCrosse thing. Mom and Dad rented a place from old man Hoyer and Mrs. Hoyer on Albany Post Road just north of Balmville. They were an elderly couple who spent most of their time in Florida and he was n0t a pleasant individual (more on that later). I thought that it was a great house and a great address. Albany Post Road… it just reeked with history. The house sat down off the road and was an old red farmhouse with a very large yard (probably close to an acre). We had the south side of the house which was really just a large apartment that the Hoyer’s had carved out of the house. It had 3 bedrooms upstairs and a largish bathroom with no shower and an iron clawfoot bathtub – no shower??. There was a wraparound porch on the first floor, a large country type kitchen, small half-bath, dining room and living room and a huge side and back yard that eventually supported a large vegetable garden. There was a basement that was just that. Part of it had a dirt floor and the other side had a furnace that looked like it had been installed at the turn of the century (the 20th century). Mom and Dad spent a lot of time and effort while living there to spiff it up to their standards.
The best thing (IMHO) about the house was it was a short 10-minute walk to Grandma and Grandpa Casucci’s house. Grandpa Casucci was my step Grandpa, but he and Grandma had been married for 20+ years by 1969. I loved those folks. The great thing about grandparents is that when they had an opinion on something, they presented it quickly and most often largely unfiltered. I would outline some scheme to grandpa, and he would say in his Italian/New York accent, “Frankie Joe are you nutsy koo koo?” I spent a lot of time with them. Grandma would make sure that I stayed for dinner which was fun because my Uncle Ben would stop by for dinner pretty much every night, so it was always interesting and exciting. Grandma was not an innovative cook, but what she made was always good and there was a lot of it. I took to going to church with them on Sundays (part of the deal that got me out of the Catholic boys’ school) because Mom and Dad were late church goers and in my opinion that shot the whole day in the butt. On top of that, Dad was a very loud singer in church (because he could not hear himself very well) which for me, at the ripe old age of 13, was a little embarrassing. The other draw was that with the grandparents, we would stop after church and get some fresh baked kaiser rolls that we would toast and have for breakfast. I would help weed the garden with grandma or grandpa. They were a hoot (more later about them) and I can’t believe how lucky I was to spend so much time with them.
As we settled in on Albany Post Road and I fretted about how I was going to meet kids my age and try to fit into what was arguably a huge lifestyle change right in the middle of puberty I spent the first day staring out the window of my room listening to music and feeling sorry for myself. Then on day two after the move and settling down, I was staring out the window and Stefanie Antonucci walked down the driveway on her way over to Sylvana Luca’s house and like any good 13-year-old I fell in love…life was good again!! In my suave and debonair mode, I went out and met both her and Sylvana. There are a lot more stories that will follow involving the Antonucci’s as they lived directly across the street from us. Unfortunately, at 13, love is fleeting but being friends with your buddies’ sisters was not and the whole Antonucci clan of 5 kids and Mom and Dad Antonucci would play a big part in the junior high and high school years and to some degree post high school.
Lots of “firsts” in LaCrosse. I went to my first concert; Herman’s Hermits. I fell in love, or something similar, for the first two or three times. I made my first efforts to dance. It was square dancing and since they were telling me what to do, I did OK. I went to the emergency room yearly for one thing or another. I tried really crappy beer — Old Style — that almost put me off from ever drinking beer.
One emergency room visit sticks in my mind. The three musketeers were riding our bicycles home for lunch from school and I was riding my “beater” bike a 24-inch J.C. Higgins coaster. I slammed on the brakes to skid around the sidewalk corner and aim me toward the front door of the house and the front wheel of the bicycle kept going and I went over handle bars meeting with the sidewalk with the left forehead above my eye. Tim rode on hollering he would stop after lunch to pick me up. I stood up, put my hand to my head and realized I was touching the bone and had a pretty wet and red hand. I walked in, Mom saw the issue grabbed a towel and told me to hold it against my forehead and said we were going to the hospital. At that time we only had one car and Dad had it at work. Clarice Jacobs, Dads, bosses wife and big buddies with Mom had a two door T-bird with electric windows. She came over and gave us a ride to the hospital while worrying that I might get blood on the seats. No worries, I was holding the towel on it pretty hard and was distracted by opening and closing the little back window with the window switch. After picking gravel out of my forehead and pulling it back together with about eight stitches, I went back to school against Mom Hagar’s wishes but I had to go since it was very studly.
Other things that stick in my mind. Steve Johnson’s family had a big color TV so he would have us over to watch Star Trek in living color – that was living. There was a large city playground adjacent to one of the Trane Air Conditioning plants where there was a summer program. Leaving out all of the preamble; Jeff Hunt was on a swing and Bill Johnson (Steve’s cousin) had a board and went to swat Jeff in the butt as he swung back. Jeff put his head way back and got a pretty solid wallop to the back of his head. The end result was that for whatever reason his left eye sort of popped out of the socket, an ambulance came and they wrapped his eye in a warm cloth and were off. Jeff was back in action the next day. From that day on he was known as One-Eye.
During our stay in LaCrosse, Mom Hagar’s brother George returned from serving in Vietnam. He had returned via San Francisco and since his efforts to buy a new Rambler American for the sole reason that it had reclining bucket seats that he could sleep in overnight had not been fruitful, he ended up with a Jaguar Sedan. He drove across country stopping to visit us which was pretty memorable. The whole local kid gang gathered for a back yard barbecue and wanted to know how many bad guys he had offed.
One Christmas, I got a record player which immediately put me into a 45-rpm record buying spree. With my increased responsibility of mowing and shoveling while continuing not to belch or fart at the table while eating I had gotten an allowance increase to a whopping $1.00 /week. Every Saturday I would hop on my bike, ride over to the K-Mart where the latest hits could be had for the princely sum of $0.79 and made my record purchase of the week. Now and then, I would save up or take on an additional job around the house and pop for an album which I was always surprised that I did not wear out. Remembering back, the oddest album I had was a collection of songs by David McCallum who at the time was playing a Man from Uncle on TV and would eventually go on to be Ducky on NCIS.
So many things… Joe Tikle had a paper route and I would help him by folding, riding and tossing. I fell in love with the idea of getting my sailplane license which many years later, I did.
For whatever reason, I do not remember our departure from LaCrosse much except that it was mid-summer and I was severely bummed out leaving the gang. We were off to Newburgh, NY. Dad Hagar had requested the job assignment there so that I could have four years for high school in one place. I think that there was also the draw of most of his family lived in that area and we were only a couple hour drive from Hazleton, Pa., Mom Hagar’s home. I do remember that we went through Canada on the way to Newburgh going through the iron ore and nickel districts and stopped at Niagara Falls to see it because in 1969 they stopped the flow over the falls for studies on how to keep it from eating itself up. Yet another geologic influence on my young mind.
LaCrosse, Wisconsin was an idyllic place for a kid in 1966. The Mississippi River on the west side of town; Grandads Bluff on the east side of town; parks everywhere that they would flood for ice skating in winter and lots of kids, bicycles and of course G. Heileman and Sons brewing company. The town was a cultural melting pot. There are so many memories of that three year period, it is hard to know where to begin.
Mom Hagar put me in St. Thomas More Catholic school, a scant 4 blocks from our house. I went from 6th through 8th grade. I was an altar boy, in the choir and Father Schultz taught me how to box since I occasionally had to spend time in gym class having my attitude “adjusted”. Joe Tikle and I got thrown out of Spanish class one day because we couldn’t stop laughing about some now forgotten phrase that probably reminded us of school boy anatomy issues. That was worth several gym classes with Father Schultz and Mom and Dad Hagar had to visit with Sister Hildegarde, the principal. I did get to be a pretty decent boxer – at least at ducking and on occasion when my hormones would surge (translation: really PO’d) I could score a decent 12 year old jab or upper cut now and then. But the school was good and the learning was better and the friends were incredible.
We had our neighborhood “gang”. Tim Sciborski lived three houses down. Carl Newcomb and his 8 brothers and sisters lived one block over. There were a lot of other kids, but the three of us were pretty much inseparable. We rode our bikes far and wide across the city pretty much all day, up to bed time. From the banks of the river where there was a requisite rope swing, fishing and a lot of attempts at putting together rafts, to the trails and top of Grandad Bluff where we would take our BB pistols and have fun running on the trails and trying to shoot each other. It is a miracle that at the end of our stay in LaCrosse there were still six eyes between the three of us.
Of course at that age the whole concept of young ladies was pretty much front and center (no pun intended) on our minds. Tim had older sisters who were very attractive with lots of interested boy friends. If the boy friends got past the gauntlet of the three of us and Tim’s dad they earned a date. There was always a lot of speculation on what actually happened on those dates.
Carl spent a lot of time at our house. Mom Hagar would joke that she had twin sons that did not look at all like brothers. The competition for food and attention at our house was much less than at his. Carl just came and went pretty much as family. One of my favorite memories is still the day I said something that fired of Mom Hagar and she grabbed her famous wooden spoon and made a lunge for me. I saw in her eyes that it was a feet don’t fail me now moment and bee lined it out the door at a high rate of speed as Carl was coming up the front steps. I almost avoided knocking him backwards just as Mom was taking a swing. She missed and Carl was not hurt — much.
LaCrosse was a great bonding period with Dad and I. We had a basement that was sort of a man cave. We continued to develop film, enlarge photos, splice 8 mm movies, build model planes (his favorite) and ships, did woodworking and worked on radio equipment. We barbecued in the backyard with Mom furnishing ingredients and he and I burning a lot of charcoal. I was finally entrusted to mow the lawn – but it was one of those push mowers. I also had the job of shoveling the sidewalk. We had a hammock in the backyard which I utilized and Mom and Dad had a table and chair setup that was their martini spot.
Next: More memories (Chapter 3)
