11. HEY KID, WANT ME TO GUESS YOUR NAME?
In 1970 I went to work at Kramer’s’ Shoes, in the down town shopping center in Oak Ridge. I worked for Homer for several years. I lived not far from the shopping center in one of those apartments built for the Manhattan Project, not but a few blocks from where we lived 10 years earlier. I lived there with my good buddy Steve and another buddy of our’s, John.
I sold a mountain of shoes and mingled with a lot of different people. I had a knack at this shoe selling, but most importantly I started learning a great deal about myself.
Lots of little kids would come in there with their parents, and I’d try to guess their names, just to try to break the ice, and make them a little more comfortable. Just playing around, I’d say how’s little George doing today, and he’d reply, “How’d you know my name?” Done this 6 or 8 time, and for some strange reason I would get them all right. I didn’t have a clue how I had guessed their names, but I really did get all of them correctly.
I thought it was just lucky guesses, but started entertaining the thought that something was wrong or at least just a little strange in me. So thinking about it all night, I was determined to go to work the next day and purposely run a test on myself to see exactly what was going on. So from then on I’d ask the child if I could guess their name. The condition was that I would get three tries. Many would say that I could never guess theirs, and some would say that even their friends didn’t even know their real name. Anyway, the whole time I worked there I never missed guessing one of their names.
I studied on this for several years and determined that what I was doing was reading body language. As predicted, the first guess was almost always wrong, but the way they would express themselves, would somehow give me a clue. They’d say something like I was a long ways off or maybe I was close or a little close. Anyway there was something I was picking up on.
Half a dozen times over the next 10 years, I told this story to people that wouldn’t believe it. So as a test they would ask me what their real name was, and one guy said nobody but his wife knew what his middle name was.
It didn’t matter to me if they wanted me to guess their first name or thier middle name. Lo and behold, I never did miss. The feller that said nobody but his wife knew, accused me of asking his wife. His name was Rueben.
I told this short story to say something later on in this book. So I’ll explain more in my later years.
Let me tell you about the time Steve and I were bored, and spent the day trying to figure out what we were going to do over the week-end.
Now in 1970 or 71, somebody was putting together a shin-dig called, or that we called Woodstock Festival. Now the real one had already taken place and this was the sorta follow-up festival, much bigger and it was in Atlanta, GA.
“Let’s go!” It didn’t take a lot to talk each other into doing something, anything, and this sounded as good as any. Off we went in Steve’s’ 1963 Chevy, proud of our decision, and singing all the way. The closer we got the thicker the traffic got. Those last 10 miles probably took 3 hours. People in their cars, on bikes, on motorcycles, walking, and many were hitching a ride on the trunk or hood of most of the cars. Anyway, we got there. Parked the Chevy in a cow pasture, probably over five miles away, and stated walking toward the music we could hear in the distance.
After walking, looking at our feet, because it was easy to trip or step on someone, for about another two hours, we might have covered half the distance. A feller had to watch the ground, if not we would probably be laying on it instead of walking on it. So after about 2 hours, I looked up. This was the first time that I had looked up. WOW All I could see was people; I’m talking a lot of people. All I could see was people. As far as the eye could see was people, and we could see for over a mile. Just people. (They claimed there was over five hundred thousand.) Did I mention there were a lot of people? Anyway, there was this ambulance going by, siren going and movin’ real slow, but movin’. We both jumped on the back bumper and hitched a ride all the way to the band stand. The crowd was so thick; I doubt the driver even knew we were on it. To speed things up, the Hells’ Angles were walking in front of the ambulance to clear a path from the crowd so they could get there. It still took us another 45 minutes to make it to within 200 feet of the stage. Some girl had over dosed.
There was a lot of that going on over the next few days. Jimmy Hendrix, the Chamberlain Brothers, Joan Bias, Janis Joplin, Richey Haven, Country Joe and the Fish, just to name a few were on the stage. In fact just about everybody was there but Elvis and The Beatles.
Sometime after 3:00 in the morning, Steve and I thought we’d make our way back to the car for a little shut eye. Two hours later we finally made it. Exhausted, we were down for a short nights’ sleep. Those big cars back then had real seats in them. Steve took the front and I took back. Didn’t take us long to be in that dream world.
Slept good in the time we had, but a shaking and a noise woke us up a couple of hours later, right after day light. It was those dad-burn Hells’ Angles. Two were asleep on the hood, two on the roof and two on the trunk. The big guys on the roof had their feet hanging off the top, and from their knees down had all the doors blocked. We couldn’t get out, and we sure as heck didn’t want to stay in. You know the two of us set in that car very quietly and without moving for about 4 or 5 hours. Hey, those fellers needed their rest too, and we sure didn’t want to deprive them of it. I’d like to say I wasn’t scared, but that would just be the half of it. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t pee, we were stuck. But at the crack of noon when they got up and left, we still had our faces.
Ok; I’m reluctant to tell this story, I’m not at all proud of myself for what happened or how it happened, but, for better or for worst, here it goes:
Remember my first high school girl friend Carol? One afternoon I’d gotten a phone call that was from Carol. She called and asked if I would meet her, because she had something to talk with me about.
So we met and enjoyed seeing each other again. We talked for several hours, and then she told me that her flame for me had never gone out. Hey. I was a little astonished, but not about to say no to a pretty girl like her. My answer, “OK, sounds great to me”.
As it went, Carol was married and had a 2 year old son. I was either 20 or 21 at the time and definitely too stupid at this point in my life to do the right thing. So we had an affair.
About 3 months later, Carol said she was pregnant and I was the dad. She was still living with her husband, and said that she’d already told her husband (Johnny) about the coming baby and that I was the father. I didn’t know what to think, so I just sat there with this stupid look on my face.
We talked and then talked some more; She wanted to leave him and come to live with me. So, after talking more, we started making plans in that direction.
Wanting to get this story over with, I’m going to give the abbreviated version.
She said to me one day that her husband was willing to forgive her and that they would raise the child as theirs, and put the relationship back together. That’s a pretty big man.
At the time I was still in the band The Swank, and one night while playing at a dance, Johnny came up to me and asked to talk. We went outside, and I was more than a little scared. This guy was older than me and about six inches taller. Yeah, I was scared.
His first words were: Ross, “I know about you and my wife, and I know about the baby”. Saying I was frightened wasn’t even close to what was going on inside of me. My knees were shakin’, my speech was slurred, my hands were sweating. I wanted to run so bad that I even had a taste in my mouth.
Then he went on to say; “I want you to back away and let Carol and I raise this child as our own”. What was I to say? I don’t know if I wanted to be cool, or just a stupid kid, I mean man. So I looked up to his face, said no and I spit on him.
Thinking that I was fixin’ to be jumped on like a duck on a June-bug, I braced myself.
He wiped the spit off his face, hung his head down low, and said “I’m sorry you feel that way” and just turned around and walked away.
Well, as it turned out, Carol had a miscarriage and was in the hospital when she called me to come and see her, but I never did. That made her mad and we never did see or talk to each other again.
Over the years I would think about this situation on a weekly basis if not almost daily. I rehashed it thousands of times over the decades. This definitely was a major part in my life changing, in the years to come.
I will certainly explain more about this later.