TOO.com is a place I call home. I don’t really visit any other forum and logged off of Facebook a month or 2 ago so too is it for me.
Some of the members and I have had a group text going on for the better part of a year and we just send random stuff and one of the guys made mention of his son asking his mom if she’d like to go fishing for mother’s day. I’ll let him finish the punch line but it was CUNY.
Him saying that sparked a memory of close too 40 years ago. It was in 1979, summer, and I grew up in Youngstown and was still living there. No real jobs too speak of and you actually had too know someone to get a job at the local McDonald’s . I had a few jobs while in high school and a few more afterwards. I was 20and was laid off from aluminum extrusion company, that happened a lot back then as they’d hire you and when they got caught up they’d lay you off until the next contract came in. I’d gone thru this a few times since graduating. I had filed for unemployment and was waiting to get a check. A buddy who I had been friends with since we were 5 or 6 lived outside of Salem (where I currently reside) said come on over hang out with us. So with nothing else on my plate at the time I had enough gas in the car to make the trip.
Drove over and hung out for a weekend with him and some of his friends who lived in and around Salem. The usual cruising and sitting at the local eateries and talking and checking out the girls going by.
A bunch of cars were parked in a local bank parking lot as it was after hours. My buddy had a 75 3/4 ton Silverado. It was orange and I mean the same color of orange as the Chevy blocks
I was sitting in the truck finishing listening to a song I liked back then and for the life of me I can’t remember which it was but I’d imagine it was either Van Halen or AC/DC
There was a car parked next to us and a girl walked by looked at me in the truck and made a comment. I couldn’t hear what she said as the radio was loud
After the song was over I turned it down and asked her what she had said. She had commented on my T-shirt as my brother had been to Dayton beach earlier that year and brought one back for me. Well she’d just graduated that June and had gone to Dayton for graduation and was asking me about all these places she’d been too down there. Well I didn’t have a clue I fessed up and told her I’d never been out of Ohio other then back to Pennsylvania to visit on family vacations
Well that was the first time I’d ever talked too my wife, we dated for the summer and went our separate ways for about a year. She off to Virginia for a job and I off too the Air Force. The summer of 1981 I came home on leave and she was home at the same time for a few days. A mutual friend I ran into said she was home and I should look her up. She gave me her phone # and I called and we we went out that evening. Unlike our first date, I actually had money in my pocket. We went to a movie and a local bar too shoot pool and hang out with friends.
Our first date we went fishing as we were both broke, we had a great time and that’s when I realized she was a down to earth person who didn’t care about material things.
We’ve been together ever since. We were engaged in 83 and married in 84. She moved to Illinois where I was stationed and when my enlistment was up we ended up in Columbus, her with the Red Cross and me with Rockwell International. We relocated a few times since then but we came back home to settle in and raise our family.
Amazing how a great memory can pop up with just a simple little story of a little guy asking his mother if she’d want to go fishing on others day....
Some of the members and I have had a group text going on for the better part of a year and we just send random stuff and one of the guys made mention of his son asking his mom if she’d like to go fishing for mother’s day. I’ll let him finish the punch line but it was CUNY.
Him saying that sparked a memory of close too 40 years ago. It was in 1979, summer, and I grew up in Youngstown and was still living there. No real jobs too speak of and you actually had too know someone to get a job at the local McDonald’s . I had a few jobs while in high school and a few more afterwards. I was 20and was laid off from aluminum extrusion company, that happened a lot back then as they’d hire you and when they got caught up they’d lay you off until the next contract came in. I’d gone thru this a few times since graduating. I had filed for unemployment and was waiting to get a check. A buddy who I had been friends with since we were 5 or 6 lived outside of Salem (where I currently reside) said come on over hang out with us. So with nothing else on my plate at the time I had enough gas in the car to make the trip.
Drove over and hung out for a weekend with him and some of his friends who lived in and around Salem. The usual cruising and sitting at the local eateries and talking and checking out the girls going by.
A bunch of cars were parked in a local bank parking lot as it was after hours. My buddy had a 75 3/4 ton Silverado. It was orange and I mean the same color of orange as the Chevy blocks
I was sitting in the truck finishing listening to a song I liked back then and for the life of me I can’t remember which it was but I’d imagine it was either Van Halen or AC/DC
There was a car parked next to us and a girl walked by looked at me in the truck and made a comment. I couldn’t hear what she said as the radio was loud
After the song was over I turned it down and asked her what she had said. She had commented on my T-shirt as my brother had been to Dayton beach earlier that year and brought one back for me. Well she’d just graduated that June and had gone to Dayton for graduation and was asking me about all these places she’d been too down there. Well I didn’t have a clue I fessed up and told her I’d never been out of Ohio other then back to Pennsylvania to visit on family vacations
Well that was the first time I’d ever talked too my wife, we dated for the summer and went our separate ways for about a year. She off to Virginia for a job and I off too the Air Force. The summer of 1981 I came home on leave and she was home at the same time for a few days. A mutual friend I ran into said she was home and I should look her up. She gave me her phone # and I called and we we went out that evening. Unlike our first date, I actually had money in my pocket. We went to a movie and a local bar too shoot pool and hang out with friends.
Our first date we went fishing as we were both broke, we had a great time and that’s when I realized she was a down to earth person who didn’t care about material things.
We’ve been together ever since. We were engaged in 83 and married in 84. She moved to Illinois where I was stationed and when my enlistment was up we ended up in Columbus, her with the Red Cross and me with Rockwell International. We relocated a few times since then but we came back home to settle in and raise our family.
Amazing how a great memory can pop up with just a simple little story of a little guy asking his mother if she’d want to go fishing on others day....