My Short Exciting Perilous Time With The Folk Sensations "The Travelers"

If you’ve been in a theater recently you’ve probably seen a trailer for a documentary called, “Rainbow Microphone: The Short and Fantastic History of the Travelers.” The Travelers, for the few of you who might not know, was a one of folk music’s biggest acts from 1963-1967. I should know because I was a member. 

The documentary somewhat sensationalizes our brief history though in fairness that short, wild ride doesn't need a lot to spice it up. 

The group came together at Chuck Nunley’s house one early Spring afternoon in 1963 and within a few weeks we were playing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco and by the end of the year had appeared at the Newport Festival and on the Ed Sullivan show. Our mercurial rise was possible because Chuck, a veteran of the folk scene mostly as part of the legendary group The Amblers, was good friends with Cy Goldfarb, the super agent of folk music. Cy saw something in us. We had a special sound that was unique in the folk music world. Our songs all told stories but with verve and energy often missing in traditional sometimes staid folk music. 

In addition to Chuck the Travelers were composed of his wife Kitty, my then girlfriend and current wife Rachel Ann Clack and little ole me.

Rachel Ann and I had befriended Kitty in high school. She was a student teacher and we were seniors at the time. She had us over to the house one afternoon for a barbecue. I brought my guitar and Rachel Ann her banjo. Chuck got out his bass and we started to play and sing some folk standards like Yellow Dog Beatdown, Road to Utopia and The Answer My Friend. Chuck knew Kitty could sing a bit and had thought of recording and touring with her but what really blew him away was us two kids and how well we played and harmonized with Kitty. The following weekend we played for Cy and the next thing we knew we were on the road, prom and high school graduation would have to wait.

In the Fall when Rachael Ann and I were supposed to be starting college we were in a recording studio putting the finishing touches on our debut album, “Travelin’ With the Travelers.” We covered a few standards but Chuck had also written us original songs like: Flattop Blues, Suburb Morning, When Willie Ran Away and Love Spiral. Love Spiral was our first single and it went platinum. 

We spent most of 1964 on the road. We had gigs everywhere. I believe we played in 35 different states and sixty or so cities. We ended the year with a brief European tour. They loved us in England. For eighteen-year-olds like Rachael Ann and myself it was a dizzying, amazing experience. We played to sold out auditoriums before adoring crowds. Needless to say there were groupies. This ended up being a cause of friction between Rachael Ann and I. We’d been childhood sweethearts dating since the seventh grade. But women were throwing themselves at me and I occasionally succumbed to their advances. Occasionally, hell, I couldn’t resist. Rachael Ann would be hurt and furious in equal measure. There was worse to come.

We had a special sound that fans loved. Chuck was the mastermind, writing, composing and arranging. Kitty did the lead vocals and played tambourine. Rachael Ann with her banjo and me with my guitar provided the instrumentals and background voices. We blended like a perfect recipe. 

Meanwhile the money was pouring in. I’d been raised in a lower middle class family with usually no more than a nickel in my pocket. I don’t know how much we made that first year but it was enough to buy my parents a house and a car and set aside a college fund for my kid sister, Leena. It was also enough to buy seemingly anything I wanted. Rachel Ann and I ate at five and even six star restaurants every night. I bought tailored suits, a sport cars and threw money around at clubs like it was going out of style. I didn’t save a penny.

So what happened? Why did we go from the heights of fame to total obscurity in just under four years? The simple answer is internal squabbles. I was cheating on Rachael Ann with virtually any skirt that came along so she began shagging our equipment manager Ross. Kitty had on and off affairs with everyone from Bob Dylan to two-thirds of the Kingston Trio to Johnny Cash. Chuck and Kitty had terrible fights about her infidelity while Rachel Ann and I would go through long periods when we wouldn’t talk to each other. Kitty and I began to drink heavily and do drugs and before you knew it her and I were sleeping together. This led to Kitty and Rachel Ann refusing to talk to one another and Chuck being angry at me. I wasn’t angry at anyone because I was always too high to care.

The tension started to affect our performances. It was easier to harmonize when we were all living in harmony. Our performances were stilted. It was like four strangers having been thrown together and told to perform. You’ll see in some of the footage of our later concerts that Chuck would sometimes stop playing and simply glare at Kitty or I. You’ll also note Rachel Ann elbowing me when we shared a microphone. On top of that both my singing and picking fell off dramatically because of all the drug use. Same with Kitty whose voice grew raspy from all the whiskey she was drinking.

By 1966 we were no longer headlining anywhere. We were reduced to an opening act. We didn’t get any more TV gigs and before you knew it we were playing at county fairs. 

The final straw was when on successive days Rachel Ann caught me in bed with Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Mary Travers. She left the group. I was crushed, for despite my myriad dalliances I was still madly in love with Rachel Ann. Then Chuck filed for divorce and kicked Kitty out. She went into rehab. Chuck and I thought about finding another lead singer and continuing the act but I wanted no more to do with show business.

After insisting that I’d mended my ways, Rachel Ann took me back. I’ve been both faithful and sober ever since.

Kitty got sober too and had a successful career as a solo act. Chuck turned to producing and concert promotion and did quite well for himself.

Sometimes I miss being a celebrity. It was a helluvan adrenaline rush to perform before thousands of adoring fans. The money was incredible too. But I wasn’t made for that life. Rachel Ann and I have been better suited to farming which we’ve done now for most of our lives. We’ve raised a big family, seven children, three of whom were adopted. 

I haven’t seen Chuck since the act ended but we recently went to one of Kitty’s performances on her farewell tour. Rachel Ann and I went backstage and had a fine time chatting about old times with Kitty.

I’m grateful for my short and exciting time as one of The Travelers. It was fun being interviewed for the documentary. Life takes you to all kinds of places if you’re willing to pay for the ride.

I Have a Not So Spicy but Mature Encounter with an Adult Hookup Website

Fascinating. Well to me it was anyway. I had no idea. I knew that there must be a lot of lonely women of all ages out there, many of who were solely interested in sexual hookups, but the breadth and depth of it all was, to me, staggering.

I switched over from a Yahoo account to Gmail about seven years ago (one of my wiser choices) but I still occasionally visit the Yahoo account to see if something has accidentally turned up there. It’s been a year, maybe two, since someone sent anything to that account but I make periodic checks nonetheless. I note that despite not having used the account for so long it’s still chock full of emails, 100% of which are junk. I quickly delete everything and get on with the rest of my life. However recently I saw something that piqued my interest. It was an ad for a website called Spicy Mature Encounters. I checked it out.

Why did I check out a website that is clearly designed to facilitate adults meeting one another for sex? Good question. First of all it is totally unrelated to my marriage which is soon to reach the 38-year mark. That marriage does not feature any cheating by either party. Simply not interested. No, I was simply curious. What I saw probably shouldn’t have surprised me but it sure did.

First of all I had to register to see anything at all. I offered as little information as possible and did not include a profile pic. I accidentally gave my age as ten years younger, making me 61 (the good ole days). I then “checked out” the offerings.

I limited my search to women who were roughly in my age group. Though I later included younger women, again out of curiosity. The women I saw came in all sizes, shapes and colors. There were two pictures of each women. Most had one that revealed their breasts or more and one in which they wore clothes. Some women were more modest. I was surprised to note that a few women had photos of their vagina and nothing else. In others naked women sat spread eagled. Seemed a little over the top and frankly not very classy. Maybe they think it will indicate how serious they are.

What also struck me was the little bios they provided. Most women were quite graphic about what they wanted and I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess what. Some wanted to provide oral favors, others wanted to receive them, a few wanted both. Some wanted to “do it” outdoors, at least one in a car, one in a swimming pool. Many women professed that they were quite randy and complained that they hadn’t had “it” in a long time. Some of these complainers were married or living with someone. Yes, the site teemed with cheaters. In most cases women were their specifically to have their sexual desires met though some indicated that they wouldn't mind a relationship blossoming. 

There was something quite odd about extremely normal looking women baring their breasts and expressing their desires. It's not what one sees in popular culture. In films it is almost always the beautiful young people who are getting it on. Older people having sex is fodder for comedy. 

But adults of all ages have sexual desires. Sex is exciting. It makes us feel wanted. Fulfilled. It creates a connection. It can make older people feel young again. Sex is good for the soul. Sadly, there are a lot of lonely or sexually unsatisfied people in the world. It can be a huge void in your life to "not be getting any." Poor darlings.

But was it all real? And were all these women really near me? Presumably, based on the criteria I established in signing up, they were all either in my city or close by. Are there that many horny women walking around?

But the shocking part to me was the messages I received. Lots and lots and lots of them. (Had I wanted to respond I couldn’t have because to send messages costs money and brudder, it ain’t cheap.) Again women of all kinds were messaging me, I who had virtually nothing in my profile and no photo. They wanted to know if I’d like to chat. They wanted to know if I’d like to meet. They wanted to know if I could come over tonight to…..Let’s say, go all the way. They acted excited by my mere presence. And these messages were not just coming from my “desired” age group, I got them from women in their thirties, their twenties and one who was nineteen! Attractive young women soliciting sex from someone who was forty years their senior? What the hell? And many of the younger women suggested we get together as soon as I could come to their place. Really?

Now I really wondered if all of these women were on the level. I also — I suppose quite naturally — wondered what it would be like for me if I was single. Would I really have dozens and dozens of women offering to go to bed with me? Sounds to be good to be true. Is it?

I did a little sleuthing on ye olde internet and discovered the answer to my question is a definite: maybe, kind of, sort of.

There was very little specific about the particular site I visited but I learned that in general there are plenty of legitimate women looking for love and there are also plenty of bots. From my reading I guessed that a lot of the younger women who messaged me were bots and most of the older ones were not. Scams exist but so do people desperate to get laid.

I had mixed feelings about my time with the site. For one thing I felt like I was cheating on my wife despite the fact that I had no interest in meeting or even chatting with any of these women. But it felt wrong nontheless. I also felt that I was leading women on just by being there. They assumed that I was someone looking for a romantic evening. I gathered that there were a lot more women looking than there were men available, at least among those people above fifty.

The experience made me a little sad. To realize that there are so many women whose needs are not being met. Many were widowed or divorced while others were with men who couldn’t fill their needs. It’s got to be one helluva lot harder to meet someone when you’re sixty-five.

If the site is totally legitimate then they’re providing some hope for women (I noted how women used the word “hope” a lot and seemed so desperate to meet someone). This is a good thing and I wish them all well. Sorry I can’t be of service ladies, I’m spoken for.

Coda: After two days I deleted my account.

Back by Popular Demand It's Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I Loved Greatly

Walkabout

Moonstruck (1987) Jewison. Cher was brilliant and Olympia Dukakis top notch. But the rest of the cast — oh my —- talk about overacting. Director Norman Jewison tended to get broad performances in his films in this is a classic example. It’s amazing that Cher was so wonderfully restrained and I suppose if you care about Oscars, here's was well-earned. But Moonstruck is more notable for slapstick sitcom level acting from the likes of Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia and Julie Bavasso. A different director could have taken the same script and made a more realistic, more believable and more compelling film. Jewison’s version felt like a case of a lot of people trying too hard. As love stories go it's terribly unconvincing. This was my first viewing since the film came out. It’ll be my last.

His Girl Friday (1940) Hawks. My favorite film. Period. It’s perfect. It’s hilarious. It’s smart. It’s innovative. It’s good some points to make (about politics and the press). It’s as perfectly-paced a movie as has ever been made. It’s got Cary Grant in one of his greatest performances (along with Mr. Lucky, Notorious and Talk of the Town). Rosalind Russell was far from the first choice to play Hildy, indeed they’d gone through most of the women in actor’s equity before “settling for” Mr. Russell. They couldn’t have done better. (That’s the kind of luck you need to make something this good.) As always in pictures from Hollywood’s Golden Age the supporting cast is crucial and here they came through with flying colors. I especially take notice of the cynical, world-weary newsmen played by Regis Toomey, Porter Hall, Frank Jenks and Roscoe Karns. And Billy Gilbert deserves plaudits for stealing his two scenes as the governor’s messenger, Joe Pettibone. His Girl Friday is like the Beatles, everything came together at the right time and right place and you can’t imagine it being any better.

The Magnificent Seven (1960) J. Sturges. Not really so magnificent. Of course I loved it when I was kid, the presence of Steve McQueen was enough to make to great picture in my mind. It was based on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai which is to say it was re-imaging a classic. But it was ultimately a poor imitation. It would have been infinitely better if the Mexican villagers were allowed to speak Spanish, I mean beyond an occasional señor and gracias. All but one of those characters were cardboard cutouts. And speaking of one-dimensional characters, there were Eli Wallach and the the rest of the bandits. They were about as menacing as Yosemite Sam. And why is that the bad guys in movies back then happily ran towards gun fire? Even McQueen couldn’t save this picture. For one thing this was not the Mr. Cool we later got to know in movies such as The Great Escape and Bullit. Yul Bryner, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Charles Bronson were all wasted by a script that allowed for no real character development.  

Stardust Memories (1980) Allen. One of Woody’s best which is saying a lot in itself. I have no idea how many times I’ve watched the film since I saw it in Boston upon its original release. But I do know that I’ve enjoyed every viewing. I recall that some critics were miffed by how it seemingly poking fun at them. Evidence of their own thin skins and an ability to dish it out but not take it. Woody was clearly having fun spoofing everyone including himself. No one would make such a film who didn’t deep down appreciate his fans. No one would make such a film who was not introspective and thoughtful. No one would make such a film who wasn’t a comic genius. 

Walkabout (1971) Roeg. I’ve been watching Australian films on the Criterion Collection lately and though there’ve been a few misses, I’ve discovered several classic such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, My Brilliant Career and this film. Director Nicolas Roeg didn’t make much and even less that I’ve enjoyed but my goodness he hit it out of the ballpark was this look at a young brother and sister stranded in the Australian outback, ultimately finding a teenaged aborigine to guide them. It’s as beautifully shot a film as you’ll ever see and a masterclass in direction (how is it that Roeg didn’t do this more often?). It's meditative, original and a wonderful commentary on how modern culture isn't necessarily the best culture.

Action in the North Atlantic (1943) Lawson. Of course I like this picture. It honors the merchant marines serving in World War II. Though he later joined the army, my father was a merchant marine serving in World War II. He was at the helm of a ship that was torpedoed in the Arabian Sea by a Japanese submarine. So North Atlantic honors men like my dad who risked their lives to transport goods and weapons to the allies during the war. North Atlantic is — especially for a film of its era — a realistic account of what it was like to navigate seas swarming with enemy submarines. The cast is led by Humphrey Bogart and that’s a great start right there. Raymond Massey and regular supporting players like Alan Hale, Dane Clark and Sam Levene also feature. This film is one of many made during the war that was designed as war time propaganda. Like some it managed to both rally the Homefront and tell a rollicking good story.

Oh The Places I've Seen -- Well, At Least Some of the More Memorable Ones

Omaha Beach in Normandy France

In a few weeks the missus and I are going to the United Kingdom. We’ll be spending time in London and going for for our first ever stay in Scotland. It’s got me thinking about some of our recent journeys and the particular sites that have been most meaningful to me. Here’s a look at some.

I was walking from the city of Compiègne, France to the Armistice Memorial where the armistice ending World War I was signed. About half way there I noticed an abandoned railway line. I chanced to look down where there was a plaque noting the fact that from this site thousands of French Jews were boarded on trains for Auschwitz. It was chilling and I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so obscure. Seeing the plaque was as memorable as visiting the museum and memorial. To stand where so many had been transported to horrible deaths is…. Well you can imagine.

Just before we went to Berlin a historian I follow on Instagram had been in the German capital. She recounted finding, with the help of experts in the field, the spot where Hitler’s bunker was. This was where der Führer spent his last days and ultimately committed suicide. As did Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels and family. Their bodies were burned on the site. There is no plaque there nor anything to memorialize the site less neo-Nazis use it to celebrate the fiend. It is as nondescript a spot as you can imagine between two buildings and near a parking lot. Standing there was, frankly, weird, realizing who and what had taken place there decades previous. 

I once took what was billed as a D-Day tour. This took me and others to the various beaches where allied forces landed on June 6, 1944 as well as to the American cemetery. Most moving was being on Omaha beach where the largest force landed and there was much slaughter. It was incredible to stand there and imagine the carnage that once took place on the very spot I was standing. Having seen Saving Private Ryan and having read extensively about the day I had a sense of what it must have been like but being on the actual site was moving. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

Last year I went to the Charles Dickens home/museum in London. To think of the great writer in those rooms and to see his desk and other personal effects, to know that he had created so much great literature there was extremely moving.

Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam put a lump in my throat and that’s without having had the opportunity to go inside. I was, however, dismayed to see people taking photos outside the house  smiling broadly and making the V sign. Disrespectful.

I found visiting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to be a moving experience. The site itself is magnificent and knowing that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” there was humbling.

Visiting 30 Rockefeller Center in New York is fantastic. Just contemplating the many great performers who have been in thebuilding, from Paul McCartney to Bill Murray to George Carlin to Tina Fey to Robert DeNiro to Martin Short to Gilda Radner and on and on and on.

In Rome  we saw the Roman Forum, an amazing site in the middle of a modern city. Here your transported back not a century but a millennium. Similar to this is Coliseum which also gives one a sense of awe, it having stood there for so very long. But as a cinephile what really struck me was the Trevi Fountain where the famous scene with Marcelo Mastrioni and Anita Ekberg from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita was filmed. Now that’s history.

Living in Berkeley I often venture through Sproul Plaza. Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement began there and it was there that Savio delivered his famous “Put you bodies on the gears and wheels” speech. Dr. King spoke at Sproul once and of course it was the site of numerous demonstrations and police riots in the Sixties, some of which I attended. Occasionally when I walk through Sproul I’ll pause and remember what I saw there and what so many others have experienced on that site.

The Muse of White Ludwig Nine-Nine with John Oliver: Four TV Shows and a Book Are Here Discussed

Ludwig

There was much ado about nothing regarding season three of White Lotus. I enjoyed the first season and thought season two of the show was positively brilliant. But this latest iteration of the Lotus was comparatively flat. It was a slow build to nothing. I enjoyed most of the characters. I’ve always liked Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Walton Goggins and Sam Rockwell and they were, not surprisingly, the highlights of the season. I particularly enjoyed the scenes with Rockwell. He was great with Goggins and his sexuality monologue was pure gold. But in the end the show itself petered out without providing any satisfying conclusions. Characters arcs that didn’t arc.

Meanwhile the missus and I are very much enjoying Ludwig, a new show on Britbox, the latest streaming service we’ve added to our TV arsenal. The title refers to the pseudonym of the title character, a nebbish and brilliant puzzle maker who steps in as a police detective when his twin brother disappears. He impersonates his brother in hopes of solving the mystery around his absconding and goes about using his genius to solve homicide cases. The show is set in Cambridge, which like other smaller venues of detective and cop shows has a sudden outbreak of murders. All the better for viewers. Ludwig is not your typical hero cop by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s great fun. We’ve watched four of the first six episodes of the inaugural season and enjoyed them all.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver continues to be the best thing on television. His most recent episode on Trans Athletes is a perfect illustration of this. Oliver makes compelling fact-based arguments and manages to inject humor into even the most depressing of topics. He also brilliantly skewers the pompous, the wrong-headed and the arrogant, always using the weapons of logic and truth. Like most great comedians Oliver is clearly a very intelligent person. Humor often comes from insight and being able to view the world from different angles. In looking for what is funny in given situations the comic explores different aspects of both the mundane and the critical It would be criminally unfair to praise the show and not mention the outstanding team of writers and researches who work on it.

Over the last few years I’ve been watching various beloved sitcoms chronologically . I’ve delighted in such programs as Seinfeld, Schitt’s Creek, Community, Parks and Rec, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Frasier and currently Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It’s impossible for me to mention Brooklyn without noting that it’s star, Andy Samberg was a student of mine in days of yore. I can say that I made him what he is today. It wouldn’t be true but I can say it. When the show first aired I watched it to support Andy not expecting much but it quickly became must-watch television. Like most good sit-coms it had a terrific ensemble cast, clever writing and lots of laugh. In it’s later years the show took on social issues. In the wake of the George Floyd murder it zeroed in on abusive police officers and the failure for cops to truly protect and serve. It was mostly successful. Occasionally laughs were sacrificed in service of the message but that’s not a bad sacrifice to make. The performance of Andre Braugher as Captain Holt and his relationship with Samberg’s Jake Peralta has shone through as one of the key’s to the show’s success. Sadly, Braugher died of lung cancer two years at the age of 61.

I recently finished reading a book called, Muse of Fire: World War I as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets by Michael Korda. (It is worth noting that this is a recent release in paperback yet the author is 91 years old. It gives us old writers inspiration.) Muse of Fire tells the stories of six British warrior poets from The Great War, four of whom died during the conflagration. The two who survived the war were Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves both of whom lived long, successful lives spent in the public eye. Sassoon, who lived until 1967, authored a three volume fictional autobiography called the Sherston Trilogy which I can heartily recommend. Graves, who died in 1985, was a prolific author most known for his memoir, Goodbye to All That (again I can offer a personal recommendation) and the historical novel, I Claudius. Two of those who didn’t survive the war remain well-known among poetry fans, Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen. It’s also interesting to note that four of the six poets were either gay or bi-sexual and two (Sassoon and Owen) were almost certainly lovers. Much and indeed all of the later war poetry depicted the horrors of war, the madness of it and the incompetence of the generals and political leaders who continued to send generations of young man to be slaughtered. Muse of Fire provides many things including mini-biographies, an overview of the war and how the poet’s muse can work in strange places. Powerful, even at times beautiful poetry can come out of war and indeed all manner of human suffering. We often make art of what we can’t otherwise comprehend. Love and war are two prime examples; what better way to make some semblance of sense out of them then by creating art. Excellent book that deserves a very wide audience.

The Horror Movie That I Lived Through, Memories of Mother

My father was working in Lake Tahoe helping build an apartment complex that he would co-own with a group of investors. My mother and I had been up to visit him. We’d returned to Berkeley and received an invite for dinner at my Aunt, Uncle and cousins house in Orinda. I always enjoyed visits there. My three cousins were like sisters to me, especially the oldest, Helen with whom I was close.

We had a nice visit including a big dinner prepared my Aunt Elsa who seemingly had magical powers when it came to meal preparation. We returned home and as it was Summer I looked forward to the coming days and hanging out with my friends. I was about eleven years old.

But as soon as we got home my mother started angrily yelling. I don’t remember the specifics of what she said other than, “I hate those people,” in reference to those we’d just visited. I made a particular point not to recognize or remember exactly what she said in such states as if to do so would make them them real and her mania normal. 

I was torn to pieces when she started raving. I’d been enduring such horror for as long as I could remember. One never gets used to their mother raving like a lunatic. You just want it to end, you want to be left alone. You can’t bear the horrible sound of your mother’s voice in such unprovoked, unreasonable anger. It was an affront to normalcy. Ugly. Cruel. Heartbreaking.

Sometimes her ravings were directed towards a wall or a lamp but on this day, though she wasn’t “speaking” to me, I was in the direct line of fire. She even followed me into my bedroom. There was no escape. Mom was so close that covering my ears did no good, nor did playing a record on my little turntable. How I could have used noise-cancelling headphones!

It was amazing how long she could go on without succumbing to exhaustion or without her powerful voice cracking. (Odd to remember that her elocution and diction was so perfect.)

That day I had to take it, she’d invaded my space and there was no getting her out. I’d have rather taken a physical beating, it would have made more sense.

After I don’t know how long (time is an odd concept in such circumstances) she stopped and left my room. I immediately forget that anything out of the ordinary had happened. What else was I to do? Dwell on it? I never cried, I never brooded, I never grew philosophical and I never told a soul. I wanted to put it out of my mind. I wanted to live in a world where my mother was normal or dead. 

No one else knew. My mother could turn it off when others were around, at least until I was about thirteen when she could contain herself no longer and the demons came out in front of my father and later others including my older brother who’d left home for college a few years before.

But for now it was our little secret. I couldn’t imagine saying to my father, “sometimes when you’re not home Mom starts raving like a loony bird, screaming and yelling and saying foul things about any and everyone.” No, that would have been impossible. At least for me. So it was my burden to carry. 

I don’t know this for a fact but I’m relatively certain that later than night while I slept Mom came into my bedroom and put the covers back on me because I had a tendency to kick them off at night. Sometimes I was aware of her presence. It was weirdly comforting. The next day she would have done the chores around the house and made sure I had a nice dinner. I never went without a meal and Mom never neglected the laundry, dishes or anything else. That was for later years when she’d added heavy drinking to the mix.

The next day I would have gotten out of the house early and connected with friends. I’d have not thought about the previous day for one second. I had a remarkable ability to compartmentalize. The awful scenes propagated by my mother were in a box. 

Only when I returned home would I dread my mother. As I approached the front door I would have been full of trepidation. I never knew what was on the other side. Would mom be “normal”? Would she be raving? Maybe worst of all she would be perfectly fine as I entered the house and found a snack and sat in front of the TV only to start raving and raging after I’d gotten comfortable. It was impossible to completely relax when I was growing up. I could never be sure what was next.

Thankfully she could and would turn it off when others were in the house. Then I was protected. How I hated it when my father went to work in Tahoe. I had no protection. Once he was back the nights, at least, were safe.

It was about two years after the evening described above that it all came tumbling done. Mother could contain the beast no longer. Dad and later my brother were exposed to her lunacy. She coupled this with moving out of the master bedroom and denying my dad any manner of affection. She also went on wild spending sprees, buying junk mostly. Jewelry, a chest of drawers we didn’t need, expensive knickknacks. My poor father was devastated. His world had collapsed underneath him. He could make no sense of it. He tried gamely to tell me it was menopause — something I’d never heard of. But I wasn’t buying it. I knew she was nuts and had been for as long as I could remember. Even at this point I said nothing to my father about how this was no new condition but merely something she could no longer control.

Then she started drinking. Bad got worse.

My father and I went to see the family doctor. He said that absent her being a threat to herself or anyone else we could not commit her. Well, she was no physical threat but she’d done a fair amount of damage to me in ways that still manifest today. PTSD forever.

You can imagine how I welcomed high school graduation and escaping to a college that was hours away from Mom. I spent the rest of her life avoiding my mother. Who could blame me? 

I’m occasionally visited by the awful memories of my youth (as well as the many good times I had). I still don’t cry over it. I’ve talked about my mother to a string of psychiatrists and therapists and counselors over the years. The fact that some have been skeptical of my story has compounded the pain. I’ve written a lot about mom too. Who knows how much it helps? It all happened, it’s all over and it was all painful beyond words.

I don’t generally watch horror movies. I lived through one.