At the time, however, I only cared about the camping. I cared nothing about ranks or merit badges, even though I learned enough to qualify for a shitload of them. I never made it above First Class, and the Explorers simply don't have ranks. They have job titles, and they consider themselves elite anyway.
Hamilton couldn't hack it and dropped out after a year. He hated the hazing all first year scouts get. The final straw for Ham had been when he was diagnosed with the dread disease 'ear lobes', which required the bottom half of his ears to be painted with mercurochrome. I actually enjoyed it, and then dished it out when I was older. In later years Scouting became all politically correct, and hazing wasn't considered nurturing and progressive. I remember one camporee where a buddy of mine and I spent two hours being sent from one campsite to another in search of a left-handed monkey wrench. I don't recall it leaving me feeling un-nurtured. Nobody ever died from searching for smoke shifters (keeps the smoke out of your eyes at campfires), skyhooks (to hold your tent up if the pole breaks), tent-stretchers (obviously to stretch your tent), or a hundred feet of shoreline. Likewise, sending a bunch of 10 and 11 year old boys into the woods with a stick and a bag to catch snipes (they actually exist, but not in the woods) is an excellent means to burn off their energy. Snipe-hunting was a time honored tradition in the Boy Scouts of the Sixties and Seventies.
I loved it. Between Boy Scouts and the church youth group Pastor Joe took camping, I could count on a camping trip every month, rain or shine, no matter what the season. I liked it and I was good at it. I had all the gear, and when I moved to the Explorers it just got better. Explorer posts specialize in something. Many specialize as police or EMT or firefighter auxiliaries, but the one I joined specialized in canoeing and camping. By the time I went to college, I was an expert, and could confidently tackle Class V whitewater rivers. I even had a waterproof World War II surplus UDT diver's backpack for keeping my stuff dry in rough water. It was a seriously cool Post.
The major change that happened in the summer of 1969 involved a major remodeling of the house. Nana, my mother's mother, was moving in. This was somewhat of a mixed blessing the first time around, and I suspected it would be this time also.
Pop-pop, Mom's father, had died when I was twelve, almost two years ago. He and Nana lived in Baltimore, in the Highlandtown area, which is where Mom grew up. They were a real pair of characters. He was at least ten years older than Nana, was from London, and around the turn of the century had run away from home and gone to sea on a whaling ship. For the rest of his life he earned a living from the sea. One winter he got snowed in at Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. During World War II he had been a civilian deep sea diver for the Navy, moving mines around ports. After the war he had his own deep sea salvage yard. I remember his deep sea diving suit and helmet down in the basement of the house. He kept a double-decker pigeon coop in the backyard for racing pigeons.
Nana was a crusty old battleaxe, born around the turn of the century. Her parents were German, and came here during the massive immigration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her parents must have found a way to get busy on the boat, because she was born about 8½ months after they arrived. She used to make beer in the bathtub during Prohibition.
Anyway, Pop-pop was sailing a different sea these days, and Nana still had the place in Highlandtown. Last year, during the riots in Baltimore after Martin Luther King was killed, Dad had me get dressed in case he and I had to go into the city to rescue her. It didn't have to be done, but it got my mother very nervous. She was going to come out to live with us. If ever I wondered whether my father loved my mother, this was the ultimate proof he did; the old bat could be cantankerous as hell! Every week she would buy the National Enquirer, the worst of the tabloids, and she believed every word, because 'it's a newspaper!' Because of that, we didn't need to spend all that money sending men to the moon, because the aliens were actually landing somewhere in New Mexico. Besides which, all those rocket launches interrupted the soap operas she set her life by.
She really hated the moon launches. Not only did we not need to spend the money on space, we should keep the money here, where it could help all the poor people. It could be used to increase Social Security! Dad went nuts when she got on that kick. She was living under his roof and eating his food and not paying one red cent, and he would be damned if his taxes went to raise her Social Security payments when she didn't spend penny one!
On the other hand, she was an easy touch for us kids, and was always slipping the three of us a buck or two. What really cost her money was that twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, she played Bingo over at the VFW in Perry Hall. On Tuesdays Mom would go with her and sit with her, but Thursdays I got the task. For at least a couple of years, no matter what the season, even during school sessions, I ended up playing Bingo on Thursday night. She must have been the unluckiest Bingo player on the planet, because I don't recall her ever winning, not even once.
The house we lived in was like every other house in the development, a split-level. They were like an upscale Levittown, built in the mid-Fifties. You could get the house right-handed or left-handed, in-line or tee-shaped, and in brick or clapboard. A total of 8 styles, and they must have built about five thousand of them! Miles and miles of these things! I could go into any friend's house in a five mile radius and know where everything was.
No way could we fit Nana into the house. First, a contracting crew built a big utility shed on the end of the house. Then, after it was finished, Dad and Hamilton and I moved everything out of the garage and moved it into the shed. Once the garage was empty, the contractor ripped out the garage door and converted the garage into a giant bedroom for Ham and me. This was the blessing end of the deal. Our bedroom actually became the largest room in the house. Our old bedroom would become Nana's.
My first thought was that Suzie was getting the short end of the stick, but she didn't mind. Her bedroom was the smallest in the house, sort of an upholstered closet. Still, she got along great with her grandmother, and Nana bought a beautiful cherry bedroom set for her new bedroom, with the understanding that when she passed away, Suzie was to get it. Suzie cared for Nana from the day she moved in, which was a hell of a job to ask of an eight year old. Suzie never complained once, and when Suzie became a nurse everybody, including Suzie herself, acknowledged that she became a nurse because of taking care of Nana.
I got my first lessons in both practical and theoretical construction that summer. If anybody was ever to tell me I would eventually spend over thirty years at a construction company, I'd have said they were nuts. I was going to be a scientist! It's funny where life takes you.
Chapter 8: Ninth Grade
Fall 1969
By the time school started, I had grown one more inch, so now I was 5'1" tall. The ninth grade had seen a huge growth spurt for me, and I was really looking forward to it. From the time school started until the time school ended, I grew nine inches in nine months. I shot up like a beanpole. I was 5'10" tall at junior high graduation. Mom was beside herself the entire year, trying to keep me in clothing; I would outgrow everything I owned every month or two! It was ridiculous! After school ended I would only grow another inch and end up being my final 5'11" height.