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The Adventures of Todd - The Saga. (Abridged)
I grew up In Virginia ... born in Richmond at the University Hospital. My birth name was Phillip Todd and my friends called me Petey... It wasn't until years later I realized they were calling me P. T.
The Phillip was after a relative on my father's side... so after my folks divorced my mother decided to get rid of the Phillip and had my name changed. She liked the Todd part as it came from her side of the family (Yuk ... I would rather be a jimmy or Sammy etc) but I did get to pick the second name kind of. She put names she liked in a hat and I picked out Loren for my middle name. Not one I would have chosen but its better than Sue.
I went to Mary Mumford Elementary where I took advanced math starting in the 4th grade. The highlight was in 5th grade where I licked a frozen hand railing and got my ... ung uck un e ail .... (tongue stuck on the rail)
while everyone had a good laugh. I had a crush on a girl named Ellen.
My next door neighbor on Grove Ave. was Stevie Archangel. He was about my age and was always drinking a 12 ounce glass of red wine vinegar (He liked it I guess). One day when I was 9 he threw the vinegar in my face it burned my eyes so bad I ripped the upholstery off their couch trying to rub my eyes. I was blind for several days. Another time Stevie and I put lighter fluid in a cottage cheese cup and lit it (yeah I know it was stupid) ... what was really stupid was throwing the newspaper on it to try to put it out... it splashed on my lower leg and next thing I knew I was laying at the bottom of the steps peeling off skin. Heeled up without any scar though. I went fishing one day on the James River with my friend Bubba Chandler and his big brother Scott. I lost my balance and fell and started floating down river in a fast current... Scott pulled me out... Thanks Scott! Went to a dentist for a cavity filing and it was in the back... he was giving me a novacaine shot back there and he hit right on some nerve and I jerked and the needle broke off still on the nerve ... I was screaming and the nurse and receptionist had to hold me down (screaming all the while) while he dug out the needle off the nerve. I think most of the folks in the waiting room left. I tried to avoid dentists as much as possible after that. I got a bb gun for Christmas and I was out front shooting at trees and Bruce Winsted a neighbor guy about 20 came over and asked to try it ... he shot out a street light handed it backed to me and left .... and you guessed it the police came... last I ever saw of that BB gun and no one believed me that I didn't shoot out that light. At my 6th grade birthday party a girl at the party named Alice got hit by a car in front of the house... She got banged up but was back to school in a couple of weeks... lousy birthday. Those were tough times... Truly.
After I graduated from Mary Mumford Elementary I went to Westhampton Jr. High. I took advanced math there too. The first week I was out on the playground and there is this guy named Barry who looked like a 10th grader and he was terrorizing a really tiny timid kid. It pissed me off (I hate bullies) and I told him to leave the kid alone ... we got in a fight, if you can call it that... I got him in a headlock and punched him in the eye that was it. We both got suspended ... pretty bad for 12 years old. Of course after that ... the school hoodlum, a nice fellow named Branch White (cool name) became my friend. Branch was 16 in the 8th grade. That same weekend they have these regular dances Friday nights on the schools playground. I'm sitting there minding my own business and this gorgeous (I mean really really gorgeous) Red haired girl I had never seen in our School asked me if I wanted to make out. What ...??? I'm 12 I never kissed anyone except my old baggy Aunt because she gave me $5 for Christmas. But I said YES and we went over to an isolated area called the rose garden back behind some trees. We must have been in there 1/2 an hour... all we did was kiss (no tongue). Anyway I am walking back toward the front of the school and 3 guys come up blocking me ... apparently it was the girls boyfriend and his 2 buddies talking revenge... I had never boxed before but I figured they were about to kick my butt so I swung an upper cut and heard a crack just like in the movies when it hit him square in the jaw... he fell down and I took off running like Forrest Gump. Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression ... I wasn't a hoodlum or even a juvenile delinquent... these 2 weeks were just a series of circumstance and so far are the only fights I've ever been in my entire life.
I also had this friend named Mike Perry who lived on the other side of town and went to a different school. We used to hang out under the Monument Ave Bridge. One day Mike and I went chilling in our under the bridge clubhouse and these 2 girls came walking up the tracks... Vicki Reed and Julie Gentry ... Out of the blue Vicki said they want to be our girlfriends (she for me and Julie for Mike). Now Mike was kind of chubby in those days but had a personality to make up for it. Anyway I told them Mike and I needed a conference so we went up top. Now Vicki was gorgeous, and Julie was skinny with freckles and just kind of cute but for some reason I liked her better and talked Mike into swapping... (He didn't mind a bit). Unbelievably the girls agreed ... albeit Vicki reluctantly. Now Branch White was also friends with a friend of Vicki’s ... a cute well appointed girl named Roslyn Ragland and Branch had a car, a little Corvair. So you could knock me over with a feather when Julie shows up at my door at 8:30 on a school night with these giant rollers in her hair and wearing a scarf over it and asked my mother if I can come out with them in the car and then my Mother said YES... If you knew my mother you'd say NO WAY DUDE... YOU'RE FIBBIN! In the car were Branch, Roslyn, Julie and Vicki. Mike Perry never did hook up with Vicki then or in the future. So we went to some secluded spot and necked for 2 hours. During a break Vicki came over and said to me "that could have been me!" What do I say to that?? Anyway Julie and I dated for several months... I never got past the 2nd button on her blouse... but I wouldn't have known what to do if I had. She was a sweetie. If I had chosen Vicki I would probably have lost my virginity much earlier than I did... oh well Monday morning quarterback. I had an opportunity to be with Roslyn Ragland once too ... she came over to me at the park and was stroking my palm with her middle finger... I didn't know what it meant so I missed out.
There was another fellow from school, Baker Davenport. Baker was an only child, spoiled, big for his age, a little chubby, and very insecure... (I liked Baker but a lot of people took advantage of him) Baker had a habit of making a popping sound with his lips constantly... very irritating. His family was wealthy and Baker had a charge account at the drugstore soda fountain across from the school. He was always buying people sodas and candy etc. Baker, me and Steve Thacker even took a weekend trip to his parent’s penthouse apartment in Virginia Beach one weekend. (Remember I'm still 12).
Baker had a crush on Roslyn Ragland so he got me to ask her to come with us (Baker, me and Julie) to this fancy private club restaurant in downtown Richmond. So we all go downtown on the bus and all the waiters are in tuxedos and they set the dessert on fire at the table... it was cool... Baker signed for the check. On the way back on the bus we are all sitting on the back seat that stretches across the whole bus. There are maybe 7 or 8 other people on the bus... and of course Baker is popping his lips... so everyone is often looking at him. Well he does this big noisy stretching yawn and drops his arm around Roslyn’s shoulder... The entire bus including the driver watched the whole thing and burst out laughing ... I mean they laughed for a whole city block. I really felt sorry for Baker that day.
For several summers I'd been a 6 week member of Camp Bear Wallow in Orkney Springs Virginia. A really cool place. 6 cabins on a hill with a counselor, counselor in training and campers in each. Down at the bottom of the hill was a pool, a rifle range, and a huge old Victorian hotel where band camps and cheerleading camps would go. We had our meals in a huge dining room there and were very friendly with the waitresses. The closest town was Mt. Jackson about 10 miles away and Orkney Springs had one general store and a post office/candy store. There was also a stable with 10 or 12 horses and we went on overnight trail rides out in the mountains. This particular year I was a cit (counselor in training). Some of the counselors were dating the waitresses and us cit's had our own waitress crushes. My crush was on Susan Stoneburner. We had a club called SAABA which stood for "smooth as a baby’s ass". We would check the waitresses’ legs each day to make sure they were saaba. One day the waitresses decided to "play a trick" on the counselors and cit's so while we were out on a hike they went to the clothesline outside our cabins and painted the inside jock part of our bathing suits with some kind of liquid cinnamon extract. I not sure if they were aware what it would do ... but it burned like hell! So to repay them we did a mission impossible (yeah we hummed the theme while we did it). We snuck down to the hotel where they had their bathing suits hung on a line on the wraparound balcony... we painted the insides and threw feathers from a feather pillow on the paint. We got a big lecture from the coach (the head of the camp) the next day but our punishment was only 1 lap around the football field... (I guess he felt we got the worse end of the deal). That was the last year that I was to attend Camp Bear Wallow. I was the ping pong champion that year just like Forest Gump.
Now right about this time I also started smoking cigarettes. My mom worked for the Richmond TV station as a promotion manager and since the station was owned by a tobacco company with their weekly check they got a carton of cigarettes. They were all non standard brands. Mom smoked Larks and that wasn't one of their brands so she took dominos because they had these coupons on the back you could use like green stamps. I used to carefully open the bottom of the packs take a few cigarettes out of the middle and seal the pack back up. I thought I was sneaky. I remember they had a cigarette machine at the standard drug store where cigarettes were 26 cents ... you put in 30 cents and the package had 4 pennies change taped to it. Maryland now charges $2 taxes on each pack of cigarettes ... (drive to Virginia)
This was also about when I drank beer for the first time. A couple of guys I made friends with at the rec center near the monument street bridge Bo (can't recollect his last name) and Sam Dipp. They heard about a teen dance at some firehouse way across town and we had planned to get someone to buy us some beer and get drunk first. Sam looked the oldest so he hung out by the entrance to this place called the tempo and asked an older guy to pick us up a 12 pack. I drank about 3 cans and was drunk as a dog... I vomited after we got off the bus at the dance.... after that I kind of had a good time. It was certainly a major adventure... for me anyway. There was this guy that hung out near the bridge and rec center named Tommy Richmond. He was 18 and a real alky... He would brag all the time that he could drink a case still not get drunk. We thought that was cool... till we grew up and figured out what a lousy financial deal that was...
Ok so it’s back to school and in the 9th grade I'm going to Augusta Military Academy in Fort Defiance Virginia. It's located about 10 miles outside Staunton Virginia. It Closed a few years after I went there... as did most military academy high schools. Anyway I was reluctant to go there... but after I was there for a while it was okay. I made the honor roll. Now I don't think I am smarter than anyone else ... but some people have to study their butt off to get a C and some have to study hard to get an A and other people like me can sometimes not study at all and get an a or a b. I admit I did study a little there because there really wasn't much else to do. Math was a breeze because all the classes I had was stuff I had already learned in the advanced math class years before (algebra 1, 2, and 3). My room mates name was Tommy Meadows. He was ok, came from Virginia Beach Virginia... I visited him there during one semester break.
My Mom came up to visit one time and actually brought me a carton of cigarettes... and I thought I had been so sneaky ... That’s only the 2nd time she's shocked me... the other I mentioned earlier was Julie Gentry.
They had a formal dance at the school once a year with Stuart Hall a girl’s prep school in Staunton Virginia. We all wore full dress uniforms... white gloves ... hats ... the whole bit ... the girls wore formal gowns. Most of the cadets were just standing in a group on one side and the girls the same on the other side. Well I was totally surprised when a girl came up to me ... turns out she was a friend of my sister's from school (Linda ... sorry Linda I don't remember you last name) and I had met her before. We talked and I gave her a tour around... we held hands and danced a little and when everyone was outside and the girls were getting on the bus she gave me a long kiss. Now several things happened after this. First I caught hell because apparently both the schools chaperones were terrified and looking for us while I was showing her around ... asking everyone if they knew where we went. Now because of this and the holding hands and goodnight kiss I was temporarily elevated to hero status among the cadets. I don't know what those chaperones thought we were doing... well I do know... but no we weren't. The second thing that happened is I came down with mono and was laid up in isolation in the infirmary for 6 weeks. Maybe that’s why I can't remember Linda's last name.
We had a couple of other events that year. Two of the cadet officers at the school I knew from Camp Bear Wallow where they had been counselors ... Bob Crozer and Craig (can't remember his last name) Craig died in a car accident during a semester break. One night after taps there was a bunch of noise like a party coming from the room next door. My room mate Tommy Meadows went over there and opened the door and they punched him in the stomach and threw hit back out onto the walkway. We found out later it was a pot party and they thought he was the sentry.
By the end of that year my Mom had moved from Richmond Virginia to Alexandria Virginia to take a job as director of the Alexandria tourist council so I spent that summer in Alexandria... nothing too eventful. I did go out with a couple of my sister Lisa's friend. Connie Maxwell was a real sweetie with Dolly Parton attributes... she was very nice and attractive but sometimes theres just no chemistry. I also went out with Sandy Stempler (I think that was here last name). She's the first girl I every dated who wore a full girdle.
Summers over and its time for a new school. I don't remember why I didn't go back to Augusta, but I wouldn't have minded it... Anyway the new school was a boys boarding school in Severna Park Maryland called Severn School. It’s closed now. At the time Severna Park was a sleeping little town on the outskirts of Annapolis Maryland ... now it’s a metropolis and you really can't tell where Annapolis ends and Severna Park begins. I only remember 2 people from the school... Jesse Hall who was my best friend... he was from Galena Maryland, and Mr Spicer ... The nazi like disciplinarian vice principal.
There was a church about a block from the school that had a rec room were some of us hung out. That’s where I met Kathy McDonald ... we had a crush on each other all year... she was my second best friend and we never got romantic until the last week of school (I still regret to this day not following up on the Kathy Mcdonald relationship).
There were several crazy times at Severn. Jesse had met these 2 girls in Annapolis so we hitchhiked over there and they had black lights in every room... they played Led Zepplin II and we drank beer. It was the first time I ever heard Led Zeppelin...
I was walking along the shore of the Severn river down below the school and met this girl that lived in one of the nearby house ... she was really cute and really perky .. We made out sitting by the river and over a few days she got really possessive... it was kind of freaking me out... like a stalker. Anyway the church where the rec room was that we hung out in was having a teen weekend retreat so I signed up. Well Meg found out I had signed up so she signed up to. Great... and I was trying to avoid her and that certainly put a damper on my weekend plans. Everybody had to find there own ways to the "retreat" which was 3 huge cabins dorm style one big room with about 20 beds each and about 1/4 mile away was the main building with the dining hall and other rooms. Now being a church retreat the idea was boys in one cabin and girls in the other. Well the only adults there were staying at the lodge so the dorms quickly became coed. I met this girl named Lindy Lamins ( I'm not sure if that’s how you spell it) I'm don't know why I was attracted to her ... her face was cute enough but she was skinny as a rail and her personality was on the weird side and her teeth were really sharp when you kissed her .. But I did like her. She helped me hide from Meg Keppel all weekend (successfully). Later that night we were all in the cabin and about 1am there were about 10 of us still awake (out of about 30 in our cabin mostly 2 to a bed). Their was a couple sleeping on one of the single bed cots together (most others were bunk beds) ... the girl had her feet by his head and her head toward the back of his legs... well the sleeping guy cut this huge loud fart right in her face that woke her up and she started slapping the jesus out of him.. Poor guy didn't know what the hell was going on... Everybody else was roaring with laughter... one guy fellout of the top bunk from laughing so hard and that got everybody laughing even harder... it woke up everybody in both cabins.
At the end of the school year we could leave on Friday or Monday ... so I told my mom I was leaving on Monday and I told the school I was being picked up on Friday (clever huh?).With my unaccountable plan me and this black guy who was a transient hippie I had met at the rec center decided to hitch hike to Ocean City Maryland... we hung around there for a while then hitched to Keansburg New Jersey which is way up by the NY state line so he could visit an old girlfriend there .. We got picked up for hitch hiking by the police in NJ but they just checked us out and let us go... We met a lot of nice people on the trip and one couple took us to dinner Saturday night at a bonanza steak house. When I got back Sunday night ... as usual all hell had broken loose ... apparently my mother had called the school on Friday to find out what time to pick me up Monday and they put 2 and 2 together. The school cordially invited me not to enroll the next year ... huh... imagine that and I wasn't even skipping school. I turned 16 while I was at Severn.
As I mentioned earlier Kathy McDonald and I had had a mutual crush on each other the entire year I was at Severn and we only discovered we both had felt that way at the end of the school year... I remember the first time we touched hands... I was reaching to help her out of a car...and I knew... the minute I touched her hand I knew... It was like going home... only to no home I had ever know before ... it was like ... magic (OK...yeah that line is from the movie Sleepless in Seattle.. but that really is what it was like). I came back for a visit about a month later and Kathy skipped school and we were sort of... ahem... were romantically involved on the path down from the school that leads to the river. Apparently someone from the school saw us head down there because the cops caught us in a ... ahem ... slightly askew situation ... They took us both to Kathy's school and gave us a lecture and the Cop told me to go home and took me back to the highway. That was the last time I ever saw Kathy. I can say unequivocally now that in my entire life there was only one women I should have married if I had the opportunity ... Kathy McDonald ... she was so sweet , so kind, she was modest and not a false modesty, she had a huge heart, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. The are other notables ... Sandy Costlow , April Maquire, Dawn Fedori, Janet Transue. You will hear about them later ... but alas they are all regrets of opportunities missed that I still remember today.
Next it is on to public school at Francis H Hammond High in Alexandria Virginia ... I remember the next few years as the crazy years ..........To be continued
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