Thumbnail Sketches from a (nearly) 60 Year Old Part 2A (The 70's)

I could have easily subtitled this segment "A Tale of Three Places" because in many ways it's true,and that's how I'm going to share it.

 Connecticut

By this time,sports was becoming a huge thing in the Daniels household,which was interesting because in the interest of pushing books over bodies,sports were not emphasized.

Thanks to my grandfather,Sandy Evander Jones who from the time I can remember would travel from Washington D.C .to spend holidays at our Connecticut home and whom we would spend our summers with in his home,watching football was becoming a Daniels Brothers ritual.

In 1970,the Minnesota Vikings played the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.My brother Austin  because of their purple uniforms became a Vikings fan. Howie and I rooted for other teams,but for the Super Bowl we teamed up against the youngest Daniels. On a tiny cassette recorder,we recorded all the scores of the game.The Chiefs took up most of the 30 minute tape.There was however room on the tape to record our merciless trashing of the Vikings. Last words from a crying Austin: "The Vikings are still good". 

Then there's the memory of Christmas of 1971 with my Grandfather,my Dad,my Brothers,and some of the neighborhood boys glued to the TVwatching the longest game in NFL History between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins.

In 1970, I was part of a lesson in stereotyping gone wrong.Being one of a handful of black students at Watkinson,when I arrived on campus,it was assumed by many a white student that I knew a thing or two about playing basketball. Previous to my time at Watkinson,I played basketball enough to know I wasn't very good at it,and only played it when forced to in gym class.When invited to tryout for the team,I looked at it as an opportunity to show well meaning but naive kids that Oscar Robertson I was not. I was told prior to the tryouts that Watkinson wasn't very good. I should have listened.They were worst than I thought and I ended up as a starting player for all four years I attended school there.

In 1972,my grandfather passed away in my arms at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC.

In the summer of 1972,my mom and I  attended the Democratic Party Platform Commitee meetings in Washington.Saw Sargent Shriver become the Vice Presidential candidate.At a Youth for McGovern party,Maria Shriver became the first woman I ever hit on.(Thwarted when my mom showed up)

In the fall of '72 on a senior class camping trip at Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York I smoked marijuana for the first time.Returned from Lake George and started reading Thoreau,Emerson,and the poetry of Richard Brautigan. I was becoming the hippie folks were afraid I was years before!

Later in the fall of 72,I was accepted at Alaska Methodist University in Anchorage.

Graduated from Watkinson in 1973,and in the fall of 73,left Connecticut,never to live there again.
The Alaska Adventure was to begin..

Thumbnail Sketches from a (nearly) 60 Year Old Part 1

As many of you know,come January 4th of 2015,I'll be turning 60 years old. I happen to think that those "decade" birthdays,if one is going to recognize birthdays at all,are the ones  most noteworthy.(Though it seems like for various reasons, the 21st birthday looms larger than the 20th in the eyes of most).
When one hits 50,one begins to realize that one's lived a lot of life and has experienced a number of events that those younger will never experience. My grandfather and my mother would share stories of their experiences on December 7,1941. I could never experience it the the way they did. I can only pass their experiences down to those wishing to listen. When one approaches 60,it begins to dawn on,at least on me,that the odds are against being in this particular life form for another 50 years.


With that in mind,I'm going to begin,in not such great detail for now,how I experienced each decade of my life to date.Strangely enough,I can remember the exact years of earlier events much more vividly than those of  more recent times.

There are those out there who say those early memories are the formulative ones. Maybe they are,maybe they're not.,but I'm going to start there..

 I was born January 4th,1955 at Mt.Sinai Hospital in Hartford Connecticut. I am the son of Dr.Evans H.Daniels from Kansas City Missouri and Helen Louise Jones Daniels from Washington DC I am the oldest of 3 brothers. I can't say I have many memories from 1955-1961. 2 however DO come to mind. I do have a memory of being picked up from my crib as well as one of getting my diaper changed..

February of 1962,I remember getting pissed off at my brother Austin for having the audacity to come down with pnumonia when my mom and I were having such a good time watching the orbital flight of John Glenn on TV. Mom had to rush him off to the hospital,thus ending the all the fun for me.

The summer of 1962,I recall my mom,my brothers,and my grandparents loading up in my grandfather's car for a road trip from Washington DC to my grandfather's family in rural South Carolina. I would listen to my mom's and grandparent's conversations and would watch the news with them sometimes,so I had an inkling as to what what taking place in the South at that time. I'd ask "Is the Ku Klux Klan going to get me?" My grandmother's response would mostly be "Ku Klux Klan doesnt want you.",however I do recall a time when I aggravated her to the point of her saying "If you don't start behaving,I'll tell the Ku Klux Klan to come get you!"
Once in South Carolina,I remember the dirt roads and seeing my grandfather take off his shoes and walking barefoot like he did as a kid. Rode on a tractor too for the first time and saw my first snake.

There was the Fall of 1962,when my mom,grandmother and brothers gathered in front of this portable Admiral TV to listen to President Kennedy speak about nuclear missiles in Cuba,and my brother Howie asking "Are we going to Die?"

1963: A violent year. JFK is assassinated while I was in Miss Amato's third grade classroom studying math. A couple months earlier,I had been beaten by my Dad for failing math.On top of that,I was teased a lot by classmates. I felt as if I could relate to JFK because he found out what it was like to be hated. I decided then,that I was willing to be hated..and loved like JFK. Earlier in the year however,Mom,Howie,Austin and myself took our first cross country trip.First leg of the trip being with the Rowe family from Washington DC to Minneapolis where we dropped our car and the Rowe family who drove with us. Uncle Yancey as we called him,the man who never smiled was developing the zip code and had to spend time in Minneapolis. We then took the Greyhound to Yellowstone,and then to LA and Disneyland! On the return trip to Minneapolis,we made a visit to the Minnesota State Fair.
Summer of 1964,in one of the biggest days in my entire life,Mom took me to the Democratic Party Platform Committee Meetings where in one day I got a newsroom tour by NBC Correspondent Elie Abel,met Dr.Martin Luther King,was nearly run over by Robert Kennedy,and had lunch with Connecticut Secretary of State Ella Grasso,later to become the first ever woman Governor. That didn't prevent me however from,in my school's mock election from casting the only vote in the entire school for Republican Barry Goldwater. Had to be escorted home by teachers because of that vote,Earlier that year,I was escorted home for striking out with the bases loaded in the classroom championship baseball game.I knew nothing about baseball then.Teachers told my mom that maybe I should learn a little about baseball if for nothing else avoiding getting beat up. I soon afterwards began to watch baseball,and developed a fondness for the New York Mets. Seemed to me like people loved the Mets despite the fact that they sucked..
I wrote and directed my first play in 1964. It was based on a story about a battle during the Korean War. For the cast,I brought on some of the kids who earlier wanted to beat me up as well as those who liked to play with guns. (I never liked playing with guns). We went from classroom to classroom with our presentation.

In 1965,my 10th Birthday Party was held at an Italian Restaurant in Hartford that was a known hangout for Hartford politicians.The Mayor of Hartford made an appearance at my birthday party,but the biggest treat of the party was receiving the birthday present from my Mom- a flight ticket to Washington DC where I would be escorting my mom to the Inaguration of President Lyndon Johnson. My Mom forgave me for voting for Goldwater.
 The summer of 65 saw me witnessing my first live baseball game. a doubleheader at DC (later to become RFK) Stadium between the Washington Senators and the Minnesota Twins. Frank Howard! Harmon Killebrew! Earl Battey!

1966  First trip to Denver Colorado.Fun cousins and a trip to Buffalo Bill's grave sold me on the place.

In 1967,I received a scholarship to attend the Kingswood School, a prestigious all boys private school located in West Hartford Connecticut,the most affluent town in the Greater Hartford area.Graduating from Kingswood boosted ones chances of being admitted into an Ivy League college by 90%. I wasnt the most liked kid in the elementary school I attended previously,and I wasn't the most liked kid at Kingswood either.It was strange how in one year I went from the kid harassed because I didn't fit in inner city Hartford to the kid harassed because I was from inner city Hartford.

In 1968,I was spending my weekends leafletting and stuffing envelopes for the Presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. Dinner table discussions would be lively as I supported McCarthy,Mom supported first Johnson,then Hubert Humphrey,and brother Howie liked RFK.Because "Hippies" were known to hangout at McCarthy headquarters,Mom wondered if I was smoking marijuana.(Not yet) In March,King was assassinated causing riots in Hartford and Washington DC,and in June RFK was assassinated causing Howie to begin hanging out at Black Panther Headquarters. Also in June,I was kicked out of Kingswood School for flunking math. Was relieved both for not having to return there and not getting beat for flunking math this time.
In the Fall of 68 at the Mark Twain School,a public school in Hartford,I brought to school as part of a project a copy of Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. Kids at Mark Twain didn't tease me as much..they just thought I was plain weird,and the English Teacher who I later discovered was a friend of my Mom's encouraged my mom to watch out for "possible drug use."

1969 NEW YORK METS WIN THE PENNANT!! NEW YORK METS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!! 1969 also marked my entry at Watkinson School,another private school but not with the prestige of Kingswood. I was one of a handful of blacks attending Watkinson,but it lacked the aristocratic atmosphere permeating Kingswood. I was welcomed and began a four year experience that was by far the richest educational experience in my life.

To be continued...

Ode to Charlie Braden

Just heard the notes floating down from the clouds..
High Notes Low Notes
Notes from another dimension.
It could only be Charlie Braden
Notes Full with Quiet Intensity
Charlie Braden doing his thing
Charlie Braden Sax Man
Charlie Braden Music Man
I know that sound when I hear it
Braden getting down to business

It's good to hear it one more time.,

Lessons from the Court

My High School basketball team from Watkinson School in Hartford Connecticut was terrible..and that's being nice about it. When I first entered Watkinson,I never imagined myself playing basketball on the Varsity level. Initially,my primary reason going out for basketball was to utterly destroy at this predominantly white prep school  the stereotype of all black guys being good at basketball.
But that's another story for another time.

We were short. I was the second tallest on my team one year. We were slow. In Basketball,being short and slow is a fatal condition and with the Watkinson Varsity Basketball team of the early '70's it proved itself with 20,30,and 50 point losses not being uncommon.

The coach of this hapless team was Stanley "Skip" Jarocki. He doubled up as an English teacher at the school. How that worked out as a student also is another story for another time. Skip was part of the Haverford College championship soccer team,and never had been associated with a losing team..till he met us.

Skip was a Bobby Knight type coach. Tough on the refs. Would get called for several technical fouls. Tough on his players too. In a game against Milford Academy we had 5 consecutive backcourt violations. On the sixth try,we got the ball past halfcourt. I then traveled. On the ensuing time out,I thought he was going to strangle the entire team. The image on his face is burned in my memory forever.
 "DANIELS!!"
There's something else from Coach Jarocki that has burned in the heart ever since. When one is getting beatdown time after time,it would be easy to call it quits,and given certain situations,it would have made sense. With this team,the outcome of the game was often decided within the first few minutes of the first quarter. By the fourth quarter,even the opposing team would be laughing at us. Nevertheless,the thing that got you benched in a hurry was NOT the mistakes,but rather giving up no matter how out of reach the game was.

There have been those moments in life when it would seem like I'd be down 10 points within the first few minutes of a game. Life can throw one for a loop at times. I'd hate it when Skip would bench me,and generally would not permit it from happening.
When times have been tough,I still see Skip's image and hear the voice..and I keep playing. Hard.

By the way,we did beat a previously undefeated team once..
 

The Nor'easter that Never Happened

Chances are that if you lived in the Greater Hartford Area in the '60s or '70s,you began your morning listening to Bob Steele on radio station WTIC. Bob Steele played Big Band and Easy Listening music,told corny jokes,made poor baseball predictions,and made note of your birthday if you were 80 years old or older.

If you were a kid growing up in Hartford,you kinda hated him based on the music he'd play,plus the mere fact that your parents loved him,but on the other hand,you kinda liked him too. Chances are when one was younger,you listened to his Children's Story segment..something like Peter and the Wolf which he'd break up in segments throughout the week... "Part 3 Tomorrow" in his distinctive voice.
Later when you went to school,there was another reason worth listening to Bob Steele. During the winter,when there was a severe blizzard or Nor'easter,when school was cancelled,you'd hear it first from Bob Steele. If I knew snow was in the forecast,soon as I heard the radio going off in my mom's room,I'd peak out the window,and if it was snowing,I would strain to listen..waiting to hear the words "No School for..."

Stanley "Skip"Jarocki was my English teacher in both my sophomore and senior years of High School,and for me,one of the more memorable teachers I had during that time. Thanks to Mr.Jarocki,I was introduced to the writer who became my all time favorite-Richard Brautigan. Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar were both required reading! So was the Hermann Hesse classic Siddartha. Based on that,one might get the impression that Skip Jarocki was some non-conformist teacher,constantly in trouble with the Administration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Skip Jarocki was a hard nosed,highly driven man who also doubled up as the Varsity Basketball Coach. On the court,Skip was the second coming of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight..not afraid to send a player on his ear for a mistake made on the court,and not above yelling at the refs and incurring numerous technical fouls. Problem was,unlike Indiana and Knight,Skip Jarocki's basketball teams didn't win. In fact,losing by 20 and 30 points wasn't uncommon. In fact,there were games where his teams lost by 50 or more points.Before this experience,Skip had never been associated with losing teams..even won a soccer championship at Haverford College. It drove him crazy at times and while most of the time,Skip's basketball persona never entered the classroom,it was never a good idea for a member of the Varsity Basketball team to enter his classroom on a day after a loss unless one was absolutely on top of all the assignments.

After a 30 point loss on the road,I returned home to do my homework. Had a few assignments to complete but weighing most heavily was an English test in Mr.Jarocki's class. It was a test on a book I just could not get into and had continually put off completing till the night before the exam. The week before, during a discussion of the book,Mr Jarocki continually called upon members of the team in the classroom. When none of us gave the answers he was looking for,those in our classroom who never attended a Varsity game hear in true Bobby Knight fashion that we were not going to perform in the classroom like we did on the basketball court!
I knew there was going to be hell to pay by not reading the book,but I also knew there was something going in my favor...Weather forecasters were predicting a monster Nor'easter to be coming up the coast with enough snow predicted that would surely mean the cancellation of school.
I started to read the book,realized I wasn't retaining anything,put the book down and then began to devise a plan to spend my snow day absorbing this book.
When my mom's radio alarm went off at 6 am with Bob Steele on the radio,I didn't bother to look out the window.Instead I kept my eyes shut. I wanted to enjoy the fact that I would be able to stay in bed longer. I also wanted to lay and think as to how soon in the day I wanted to start reading this book again.I knew I would have to shovel some snow first.

Now when Bob Steele would announce snow days,he would often start with the cancellations of schools farther out of the Greater Hartford area.Many of those kids had longer distances to travel,and there weren't many roads for those kids to travel on,so I'd wait to hear about those schools first. Bob Steele would start with the school cancellations shortly after the hour and again shortly after the half hour. I thought it was strange that no school was mentioned after the hour.
My mom would start to get on my case about getting ready for school around 7. 6:30 comes and goes and there is the bad music,Bob Steele's "Word of the Day"..and no school cancellations anywhere. There's a little concern,but in my mind,I cant hear everything coming from the radio in my mom's room,and maybe I missed it.

7 am. My mom begins getting on my case. I want to resist and stay in bed,but unless Bob Steele gives the word,I WILL have to prepare for school or at least respond to my mom's pleadings. 7:05 and there's more music and no announcement. I look out the window,and instead of white,I see the ground.
The best Skip got out of me in that exam was my signature,signifying that I indeed was responsible for this 0 grade exam.
I think there was a lesson in there somewhere..

Christmas with Granddaddy

Sandy Evander  Jones was the Grandfather I grew up with. He was born and raised in rural South Carolina and moved to Washington DC after marrying my Grandmother,the former Annie Louise Moore. My mom was their only child.
After my parents divorced,my grandmother came to live with my mom and my brothers in Connecticut during the school year. During the summer,we'd all pack the car and spend our entire summer in Washington at my Grandfather's house.

We called him Granddaddy.

While we would spend our summers in DC,so that in part my grandparents could be together,there would be a few times a year when Granddaddy would show up at our Hartford home.Sometimes only my Grandmother would know when he was coming,other times he'd surprise everyone and just show up! Christmas, however were the holidays we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd be with us.

When Granddaddy would come to town,he would come via the Greyhound Bus,and despite my mom's willingness to pick him up at the Greyhound station,the only time I can ever remember him calling for a ride home was April 4,1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated,and something tells me if he could have gotten a cab that night,he would have. He'd leave DC early in the morning,and as soon as dusk struck,no matter what my brothers and I might be doing,we'd take time to look out the window in anticipation of his arrival.
..Then sometime in the evening it would happen. A Yellow Cab would pull up in our driveway. A moment or so later,he'd emerge,complete with his fedora hat and a single suitcase.

GRANDDADDY!!

 My brothers and I would yell,and we'd start to run out the door to greet him. We'd inevitably be stopped by my Grandmother. When I look back,I think my Grandmother was determined to be the first to greet him when he'd walk through our doors.

There's a saying "You can take the man out of the country,but the you can't take the country out of the man." That was  Granddaddy. Awake and doing something by 6 am..Grits and gravy with biscuits for breakfast. He never quite understood why my brothers and I liked to stay in bed in the morning,and after a couple days in town,there he'd be,trying to break us of that habit. My brothers and I would be on our best behavior when he was in town. Just his talk about "the switch" and using it was enough to keep us in line. He was a man of sayings and stories,some of which he'd repeat so many times,you knew the endings before he got to them. His stories and sayings had a moral tale behind them,so it was important for him to get the point across. One he'd repeat to me is "Cleon Jones (a New York Mets outfielder I admired) is not going to be around to help you when you grow up!"

 I was good at baffling him. For the life of him,he could NOT understand how I could name all the Presidents,get A's and B's in school and fail to see the piece of trash that was right in front of me..or not notice that my shoes were untied.At the same time,he was proud that I could do the things I could do.
Granddaddy never came bearing gifts at Christmastime. He could have if he wanted to,he was successful in Real Estate and owned various properties around D.C.,including a plot of land large enough to put a house on,but instead was used as a garden plot. The gift he'd bring was that of himself. His gift was making people want to be around him,and until his passing in 1972 the best gift one could ask for.. I'd be remiss if I didn't recall one of my fondest Christmas memories..That of Granddaddy,my Dad,my brothers along with some neighborhood kids watching the 1971 playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in what became the longest game in football history.

Ken Norton Robert Wren and Brooklyn

..Funny how one event triggers a memory of other events and times. In my case right now,it is the passing of boxer Ken Norton that brings back certain memories of a particular era,that of Brooklyn New York in the late 70's.
Before I get to that however,let me provide some background. Muhammad Ali first turned me on to Boxing.It wasn't that I enjoyed seeing guys pounding each other that drew me to the sport,but rather the persona of Ali,and his willingness to go against the grain. If someone like that was a boxer,then maybe,I thought,boxing was worth following.

I saw the first Ali-Norton fight on TV. It was apparent early that it wasn't Ali's best fight,but as an Ali fan I continued to hope that somehow he would pull off the decision. That didn't happen. Ken Norton beat Ali and from that day on,I knew I'd never become a Norton fan.

I moved to Brooklyn from Palmer Alaska in September of 1976. Sometimes I feel like I still reel from the culture shock of that move! Within those first few weeks in Brooklyn,I had been nearly killed by merely crossing the street,was the cause of a theft at house I lived in for failing to lock the door,and had the car I was responsible for stolen. Welcome to New York.

Ken Norton was to fight Ali again in September of '76. This time at Yankee Stadium. Ali won a close decision,but as big a story that day was the muggings and robbings that took place outside of Yankee Stadium after the fight. New York City Police,preparing to go on strike,for the most part stood by as it all was happening. Welcome to New York.

 When living in Brooklyn,I was part of a group called Gospel Outreach. G.O. as we called it was an outgrowth of the "Jesus Movement" of the late 60's and early 70's. It was a group mostly populated by countercultural types,and it brought a countercultural touch to Evangelical Christianity. G.O. was founded in Northern California,and one of the things it was noted for was its communal homes. Now in Northern California,Oregon,Washington State or even Alaska where I first encountered G.O.,communal living was not going to seem all that much out of the ordinary,after all during that time period,that's what a lot of "hippies" did.  Brooklyn was not Northern Cali however,and Brooklyn was not the small town or rural community that G.O. tended to be located.

G.O. had 2 houses in Brooklyn, both in the Park Slope neighborhood.One we called "The Shepherds House" the other "Sterling House". I started my life in Brooklyn at the Shepherds House,but most of my time there was spent at the Sterling House.

Park Slope in the 70's was not the gentrified neighborhood that it is today. It was part of the 'hood. Never saw what the cashier at the corner store looked like. Across the street from the Sterling House was an apartment building where one would be greeted upon entering with the aroma of piss in the hallways and where it was best for many reasons not to use the elevator. People would hang out in front of their brownstone buildings in Spike Lee "Do the Right Thing" fashion,and if you were walking down Sterling Place,one might never know that a service,complete with acoustic guitars and the like was taking place inside the Sterling House,because it was likely being drowned out by large speakers as "Disco Wars" were commonplace in the day.

Up till around 1978, television was not allowed in G.O. communal houses. In Alaska,my buddy Richard Twiss and I would arrange to be in Anchorage so we could watch Muhammad Ali fight at the Downtown J.C. Penney store.
Sometime in 1977,a man named Robert Wren came to live with us at the Sterling House. How he came to live there I do not recall. Like most of the rest of us living in the communal homes, he was not from New York. Robert Wren was not some ex-hippie. Robert Wren came from Oklahoma where he had been a biker and had previously been in a motorcycle gang. He was one big dude. Highly opinionated,and one not afraid to voice his opinions in a setting where voicing one's opinions was not particularly valued. One thing was for certain,even in the 'hood,someone was going to need to think twice before messing with Robert Wren.
Robert and I came from completely different backgrounds,but perhaps because of that inner rebel spirit,we became fast friends.
September 1977 Muhammad Ali was to fight Earnie Shavers in a bout that was to be nationally televised. TV's were still not allowed at the Sterling House,but there were few worries about missing the fight. Muhammad Ali fights were by then cultural events and one just had to walk the streets of Park Slope to get a glimpse of the fight from some TV or hear the cheers for Ali. Doing the same thing though we didn't do it together was Robert Wren.
By 1978,TV's were allowed in the G.O. Houses but what was watched and how much time spent in front of the television was tightly monitored.
Robert Wren would like to think it was his voicing of opinion that got it done,and who knows? maybe there was a fear of God involved in saying no to Robert,but of my fondest memories of Robert and of the Sterling House was that of myself,my other buddy Keith Marquette,houseleader Gary Crouthamel and Robert Wren watching the Ken Norton-Larry Holmes championship fight in the basement of the Sterling House.
To this day,the Norton-Holmes fight is considered to be one of the most exciting fights ever..
R.I.P. Ken Norton,and Robert Wren? I hope you are well wherever you are