Let it Snow, Let It Snow...Oh, NOOO!!

This past Monday was President's Day. A lot of people had the day off.  I did too, though I never used to (except during my school years). I never really missed having it off, either. But now that I do get every third Monday in February off, I can't imagine not having it off. It's a good thing, having a three-day break during the doldrums of winter. In fact, I vote for one three day weekend every month.

The mercury climbed into the mid 50's on Monday, too, so not only was it nice being off work but nice outdoors, too. And today, still a week before March, it's 72 degrees. But it’s been a fairly mild winter throughout most of the country. Uh-oh; run for your life, it must be… climate change!!

 

We’re blessed though; all things considered winters in this part of the world are pretty tame.

Still, days like this make me wish it could be like spring in February all the time; especially when I recall what it was like here over Presidents Day weekend back in 1990. It wasn’t like spring that weekend. That was the weekend our little hometown was literally snowed under.


Nestled in the rolling Sierra Nevada foothills about 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, Grass Valley sits at around 2500 feet in elevation or, as the Chamber of Commerce likes to brag, just right- above the tulle fog of the Central Valley and below the Sierra snow line. And most of the time, that's true; the big winter storms coming off the Pacific generally remain rain events, and when the Valley is socked in it’s sunny and warm here.

 

And we’re not totally immune from the cold realities of winter. If the conditions are just right we’ll pick up an occasional snowfall, on the receiving end of anything from a dusting to a few inches. But when that happens, the effects are generally benign and short lived. Here today, gone (melted) tomorrow. But the Presidents Day Weekend storm of February 16-17, 1990 was a completely different story.

 

That weekend Grass Valley was buried under nearly 3 feet of snow. In the yard outside the house I lived in near downtown, I measured 34 inches.

 

I’d lived in some cold and snowy places before, including North Idaho, Spokane and Lake Tahoe, all areas prone to harsh and fairly significant snowstorms. But I’d never seen that much snow fall and accumulate in such a relatively compact space of time. In less than 24 hours, the 2-day storm left behind almost 3 feet of snow. At the 2500 foot level, or just above downtown, Grass Valley was submerged under 30 inches of Sierra cement. There was even snow down to the Central Valley floor.

 

Naturally, way up at Donner Summit, the massive storm delivered an even bigger punch than in Grass Valley. But for them, it was just another heavy high country snowfall. They’re used to it, prepared for it, know how to handle it. Life goes on. And for the kids in Sacramento, the dusting was a fun anomaly. But for us, the Presidents Day Weekend storm pretty much brought Grass Valley and Nevada City to a standstill. The area was almost completely shut down.

But some of the lower elevations in the foothills were hit even harder. Though the snowfall was less in Alta Sierra- at 2000 feet and ten miles south of downtown- than in the city, the nearly two feet of heavy wet snow was enough to bring down most of the power lines, as well as hundreds of trees. Many roads were impassable and the electricity was out for almost a week. Fortunately I didn't live in Alta Sierra in 1990, as I do now. If I had, after six days of darkness, I would've probably been ready to punch someone out. Also fortunately, back at the house in town at Pleasant and Walsh Streets where I was living, except for about 8 hours on the first day, the lights remained on.

Yet it seemed so strange to even be in the middle of a huge snowstorm because, just 5 days before, like today, it felt almost like spring.



On Sunday, it'd been in the 60's under a bright warm sun. Monday night, however, brought a dramatic shift in the weather pattern. A continental arctic high pressure system moved in, sending the warm air sprinting south towards Mexico and leaving behind a deep Yukon chill. Ninety nine out of a hundred times, though, this bubble of frigid air would slide down over the Rockies Mountains and spread east. This time though, it regressed westward instead and stopped directly over Northern California. From a high of 64 on Sunday, by Tuesday it only got to 39; a 25 degree loss in 48 hours.

 

Unusual? Not necessarily. It was, after all, still winter. We’d seen cold snaps before.

 

But all that cold dry Arctic air was on a collision course with a big juicy Pacific storm, the type that, under normal conditions, would usually drop a lot of rain. However, instead of pushing the entrenched cold air mass ahead of it and out of the way, the Pacific warm front was just going to slide over the top. Meaning all the moisture wrapped up in it could do nothing but come down as snow.  The confluence of these two wildly conflicting air masses was now almost guaranteed to fire off a major winter storm for the record books. Unless we could somehow nudge our half of the state closer to the lower half, by Friday morning western Nevada County was forecast to be ground zero.

Most were hoping the weather people were wrong, but this time they got it right. 

 

Thursday night brought an increase in clouds and wind and after a quiet start, the sky had grown dark gray and angry looking by mid-morning.  I was working at Grass Valley's KNCO and in the middle of my midday air shift when the front barreled into the foothills. The opening salvo came at 11:55, as the first flurries began descending outside the radio station. But there was no rain to snow transition, or flakes not sticking either. It all came down as snow, and quickly increased in intensity, from a flurry to a dumping.

At 12:15, the ground was completely white. At 12:25, towards the end of Paul Harvey's 15 minute News and Commentary, the electricity failed at the radio station, stopping 'ol Paul in mid-sentence and leaving us incapable of broadcasting. Just when people needed us most. It was dark all over the place, from East Main Street to the Brunswick area, Penn Valley to Nevada City and all points in between. The phones didn’t even work. Less than an hour later, the lights had gone out on nearly all of KNCO’s listening area, and by 2:00, with nothing to do and no electricity, nearly all KNCO employees had vacated our dark and cold workplace to brave the roads and attempt to get home. By then the snow was coming down around a couple inches an hour.

Greg Leis and I were the last two standing, answering the few calls coming in on cell phones (we had one for emergency crews to reach us), while we waited for the power to be restored. But even if the normal landlines did work, or Greg or I could get on the air, there wasn't much we could tell anyone. PG & E didn’t know when the lights would be back on, Pac Bell didn’t know when normal phone service would be restored, Caltrans didn’t know when all of the main roads would be cleared (side streets were being ignored altogether, and the weather service wasn’t promising any sort of break for another 12 hours. With the building completely in the dark, so were we.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, Greg and I continued manning the fort, with flashlights the only source of illumination, and the clothes we wore to work that day the only source of warmth. So far, though, with absolutely nothing to do and no way to broadcast, this emergency wasn’t living up its billing- it was kind of boring. Cold, dark and boring. Around 7:00, I was getting hungry, too, and offered to go out and fetch food. But (duh) not a single fast food place or convenience store was open. Nothing was open.

However, Greg said there was no reason for me to hang around. Sure, the electricity might come back on; but that could be in an hour or not until Saturday. I wanted to stay, too, but with no creature comforts and nothing to do but sit in the dark and listen to our stomachs rumble I took Greg up on his offer to hold down the fort and trudged out into the still falling snow to make my run for home. However, travel was still darn near impossible.

 

Even with a 4 wheel drive, the combination of slick, hilly streets buried under thick, wet piles of snow was too much for my Toyota 4x4. Three blocks from home, I managed to get it high centered and had to abandon it where it stopped. It would be going nowhere without a tow and a winch. Normally my "commute" from KNCO (such as it was) was about ten minutes. But that night, due to   roads clogged with snow, traffic and other abandoned vehicles besides mine, and having to hoof it part of the way, it took close to an hour. But miraculously, by the time I got in my front door (about 8:15) the electricity was back on- and so was KNCO. 

 

Normally we signed off at midnight, but not during a local emergency. And this blast of winter definitely qualified as a local emergency. Greg remained on the air all night until other staff members could begin filtering back in to help. That wasn’t until around daybreak on Saturday. So he put in a l-o-n-g day. And I felt guilty for not going back Friday night to help him out. But with my truck still stuck on Church Street, I had no wheels. Eventually I did, but not until Jay Cooper arrived Saturday morning to help un-stuck my truck. 

The snow did finally stop, but not completely until about 4:00 Saturday afternoon. But with lights and manpower and a full air staff, including yours truly, we were able to remain on the air and provide 24/7 coverage. On Saturday, still feeling as if I’d shirked my duty by leaving Greg alone, I pulled a 12 hour day. I helped answer phones, gather information for whoever was on the air, and pulled a 5p to 9p air shift myself, then stuck around another hour and a half answering phones again. Sunday I slacked off and was only there 10 hours. I didn't do an air shift, but anchored a few news updates and did some more internal office leg work.

 

But the long days I put in that weekend were hardly unique. Everybody on staff pitched in and did extra hours and air shifts until the crisis was behind us-or at least more manageable. That's what we did. That's what made working at KNCO so special- we were all in it together. Everybody pitched in. We liked to think of ourselves as a family. The community’s family too; we closed ranks like a family and worked though the problem- in this case, a crippling snow storm. Working inside the calming conduit of information during those stressful times, at KNCO, it’s just what we did.

 
But back to the Presidents Day Weekend storm of 1990. Though it's always referred to that way, not a drop of precipitation actually fell on Presidents Day. Mother Nature's worst was unleashed on Friday, February 16th and Saturday the 17th. By Sunday the 18th, though church services all over town were cancelled, the sky had begun to clear and things were improving. And on President's Day, Monday the 19th, the sun was shining brightly enough to start melting the mounds of snow the plows had pushed and started stacking up in parking lots and along the sides the major thoroughfares. The side streets didn't even see a plow till Sunday morning, but by then the area was slowly coming back to life.

They called that 1990 storm, "The Storm of the Century." But that was last century. Now that we're into the Twenty-First, we're probably due for another one. Hopefully I'll have moved or be dead by then. But due to our geography, elevation and temperate climate, the odds of a repeat of Presidents Day 1990 are not very high. Though that one was a whopper, we're much more likely to have a President's Day like this past Monday- partly cloudy and 55- than what smacked us around 22 years ago. But you just never know. 

 

El Nino and La Nina winters come and go in cycles and, as much as I'd like it to be, 72 degrees isn't the norm for February. Just check the record book. Today is February 23. It was sunny and spring like. But just one year ago, on February 23, 2011, Grass Valley was about to be raked by a ferocious winter storm that brought almost three inches of rain below 2100 feet  and over a foot of snow above it.

 

That meant Amy and I- at our current home in Alta Sierra- didn’t have to dig out from under another intense, but rare, Nevada County snow storm. However, if we’d still been living back in town, in the old house at Pleasant and Walsh Streets, we would have. If you don’t live here that probably sounds confusing, but the distance between Grass Valley and Alta Sierra, though only about ten miles also features a 500 foot drop in elevation. Our house is even lower, in a relative "banana belt" at 1800 feet.

 

So, last year on this date when it was snowing in Grass Valley, it was raining at home in Alta Sierra. Actually it was snowing in Alta Sierra, too- but at the upper or north end. It missed us by  about 3 miles, or just a few minutes’ drive time. But any near miss will never make me unhappy. I can go a whole winter without seeing a single flake of snow and be perfectly content. As they say, better wet than white.

However, some experts still want to point to global warming- or climate change- as the reason for all these year-to-year spikes and dips in climate. And to a small degree, they might be right. There’s definitely more cars, people and pollution on the planet than 30 years ago- when these same ‘experts’ warned of the coming New Ice Age.  Whoops; guess that didn’t happen, either.

 

And perhaps I’m just a simple guy, maybe too simple. But to avoid falling for the smart people’s sometimes well-intended, but more often, agenda-driven confusion, when I look out the window to see if it’s raining, snowing or windy, and go outside to feel if it’s cold, warm or hot, I’m content to believe that all those variables can be chalked to the normal ebb and flow of natural weather patterns.

 

Ya know; the kind of stuff that's been going on, oh, since about the dawn of time.

Playing Post Office, Part 2

So mail from my secret admirer kept coming. Two, sometimes even three times a week.

 

Sometimes she wrote a full letter, sometimes just a postcard with a few lines or brief note of encouragement. Though they were always positive, she continued to keep me guessing, never letting on who she was or if we were ever going to get together other than the vague, "See ya later". Which would leave me scratching my head and wondering when?  The girl never disclosed more of herself than was absolutely necessary. But the communication, though completely one sided, was cool and put a spring back into my step just as spring overtook winter. Good things were happening.

But on Tuesday, March 27, something not so good happened. At 10:05 that morning, KSPT's program director, Dave Wessell, invited me into his office. He said to close the door and take a chair. During the moment of anticipatory silence, my brain went into overdrive trying to figure out the nature of the meeting. I'd been off the air all of five minutes, so I couldn't have done anything to piss him off yet.  I think.

 

So I sat there, a shade confused and stared at him. Well, what now?

Dave finally cleared his throat and spoke.”I don’t know how to tell you this, except to just tell you. We’re gonna have to let you go.”

 

Uhhh, that was not what I was expecting to hear. It stunned me, like being hit in the head with a shovel.

 

“Frankly, your attitude recently has sucked. You’ve been uncooperative or argumentative on every request I’ve made and I just can’t put up with it anymore. Skip and I hashed it out over the weekend, and while I was still willing to work around you, Skip was not. He wants you gone” Skip wants me gone?  6 months earlier, I was his golden child.

Skip Bennefield was the president of Blue Sky Broadcasting, which owned and operated the two Sandpoint stations, KSPT and KPND-FM. And at a Labor Day barbecue for the whole staff out on Lake Pend Oreille's beachfront, he couldn't stop gushing about me. He thought it was the greatest thing since the discovery of the ohm to have me on staff. And on and on. Of course, all that praise in front of my new co-workers was most uncomfortable, especially coming from the station owner, and really unwarranted. I knew I wasn’t anything special, just a newbie, and there only because Blue Sky's opening coincided with my last days at Apple FM in Spokane. It was just one of those good timing things But Skip couldn't stop raving about the coup they'd pulled by getting me up there, and how glad he was having me in the fold.

That was September. This was March. So what the hell happened? 

 

“I’m really sorry, Rocket. You’ve got a ton of talent, but you've got a ton of negativity, too. Back in a bigger place like Spokane, you might be able to skate by on talent alone. But here you need to be a team player, and for the past couple months you've really been wandering off the reservation. I don’t know what the deal is, either. Things were fine, you were fine. Then I don’t know if something happened in your personal life or something here, but something’s not right and Skip just doesn’t want it around anymore. Whatever it is. Still, this isn't easy because I really like you; hell, everybody likes you. But it’s the way it’s gotta be. You can finish out the week, but as of Saturday we'll be parting company. Again, I’m really sorry”

 

He was sorry. But he still had a job. And I had 5 days to figure out what to do next.

 

But where did things go wrong? I'd always been a team player everywhere else, but Dave was right. I had kind of anchored myself on an island and refused to come off it. I’d become a headache and hindrance to just about everything he or Skip wanted to get done. Oh, it always got done, but not without a lot of rancor and bad feelings. So what came about at KSPT to cause me to commit professional suicide?

Well, that's easy- a consultant.

When I was hired in August of 1983, my first two months were spent at our sister station, KPND-FM, in the little cottage near downtown on Marion Avenue (see blogpost 12.31.11 "First Day Jitters, Part 1). But in October, John Goes –who’d hired me- and Skip, promoted me the big leagues (KSPT being the older more established signal). They put me on the morning show and made me the new music director. I was tasked with cleaning up KSPT's eclectic all-over-the-map multi format sound, and turn it into something closer to KGA, the big Top 40 country station I'd worked at in Spokane. Which I did.  

 

It took almost two months, but by mid-December KSPT sounded like KGA's little cousin. I can't say it was perfect, but it was certainly better than before. I thought I'd done a good job. So did Skip. So did Dave- who, in the interim, had been promoted from news director to KSPT program director. Maybe that’d where things went wrong.

 

John Goes, who I really liked and got along with, was now back running the FM. But Dave and I had a friendly relationship at first, too. However in January, though he was pleased with what I'd done with the station's formatics, Skip announced he'd had just hired a hot shot programmer from a big station in Houston to help "polish" things up. Oh,Skip ‘loved’ the work I’d done so far, but after a two month intense hands-on music overhaul, I suddenly didn’t have the skills or ear to do some ‘left over minor fine tuning”, as he called it? I felt insulted. And like a tool.

 

But if Skip had been "blown away" by getting a nobody former jock from Spokane like me on the payroll, imagine the spine-tingling thrill he must've felt upon acquiring the services of the top rated morning jock/program director at the #1 rated station in the # 5 media market in the nation. He couldn’t shut up about it. To say Skip was excited was the understatement of 1984.

And actually, at first, so was I. Heck, though I'd put a lot of myself into tightening things up around there, I certainly didn’t know everything; I was no radio guru or programming oracle. I never thought it was my way or no way, either. Not even for a day. I knew there was always room for improvement and, when I thought about it for a couple days, was actually looking forward to learn more about how "the big boys did it" from our new overseer from KYXX Houston.

But I never actually got to hear from Jeff personally; everything was filtered through Dave. I had no input, never got to discuss issues, ask questions or even talk to the man himself.  Jeff's "suggestions" always came through Dave. I felt like a puppet, with my strings being pulled from both 2000 miles away and from the office down the hall. Jeff second guessed my every move and Dave made sure those second guesses got carried out. I quickly resented it.

I guess that’s where things went wrong, because from there I lost the support of Skip and goodwill towards Dave, and eventually lost my job; signing off KSPT for the final time on March 31, 1984.

Ah, but what about “my secret admirer”? 

 

I hadn't received a letter from her since the Friday before the Tuesday Dave gave me the bad news. It was like she knew what had happened and didn't know what to say. But how could she? Anyway, I was so busy getting fired and settling all my affairs in Sandpoint that during those last few days, I almost forgot about her. I didn’t hear from her, anyway.

 

But as I drove away from KSPT that last day, my truck stuffed to the gills with all my worldly possessions, the sun sinking in front of me and Sandpoint disappearing behind me, as I headed out  town for the final time, I sadly thought I’d heard from my pen pal for the last time, too. 

 

However, six months later I’d finally landed in Grass Valley, working the night shift at KNCO. It was an unfamiliar town, an unfamiliar radio station and I wasn't 100 per cent sure I wanted to be there. Honestly, I wasn't even 10 per cent sure. Regardless, though my time at KSPT hadn’t turned out so well, I was still homesick for the Pacific Northwest and the life and people I left behind. Like my first few weeks in Sandpoint just a year before, I felt equally out of place and friendless in Grass Valley.

My new air shift ended at 10 p.m. and one late night during my second week on the job I decided to call a few old friends- just to see if I still had some. The only people I knew in Grass Valley were at the radio station and why would I call any of them? I saw them every day. But this particular Thursday night I picked up the phone and talked for 45 minutes with my long time-friend in Spokane, Brian Ayars and after hanging up with him reached out to my old Sandpoint buddy, Bryce Bollinger.

When I was doing mornings at KSPT, Bryce was doing afternoons. But as two young, single and often prone to uncultured behavior radio dudes, we killed a lot of our between air shift hours concocting new and silly ways to make each other laugh. I missed that and could've talked all night because he had me howling. But he'd been moved up to mornings and, well aware of how quickly that sign-on shift alarm came, I was about to let him hang up after about a half hour.

Before I did, though, I casually asked if any mail had come for me at the radio station after I left. I'd never told anyone at Blue Sky about the secret admirer letters, but talking to someone in Sandpoint again rekindled thoughts of the left behind unfinished business with my secret admirer. But no, except for my name still showing up on some of the mailers from record companies, no personal mail had come since my departure. Oh well. Guess she and I were never meant to be. Time to move on; nothing to see here. That was that. I said good night to Bryce, thankful to yak at him again, but glad I didn’t have to get by on 4 hours sleep anymore, too.

Two nights later, I was down the hill at Mom and Dad's house for a meal and game night. This was still close-to-rock-bottom time for me because, with absolutely no social life yet in Grass Valley, those evenings at Mom’s were becoming the highlight of my week. But that night, there was some mail for me, too. I’d left Sandpoint without a forwarding address and had been through a couple more since then. But with some junk mail and even some stuff from college still showing up at Mom’s address, the USPS finally caught up with me on this delivery; actually, two.

Both had been mailed from Sandpoint, Idaho. One was postmarked March 31- the last day I lived there- and the second was stamped May 8. One was in another red envelope, the other, a plain white, but both were from my “secret admirer.” It surprised me they hadn't ended up someplace in a dead letter file because neither had a return address. I was glad they reached me, though, and could hardly wait to get back home and read them. (There was no way was I going to open them at Mom's house. Since they looked personal and written in a girl’s hand and she'd already begun trying to pump me for information. No, I put them aside as if they weren't very important and told her I'd read them later).

Once home, I started with the earliest postmark, March 31, and three lines into it felt my heart starting to gallop. My friend had been ill and off work the last few days I was in town, and hadn't been up to letter writing until the last morning I was on the air. She said she was sad to find out I was leaving, wanted to know the circumstances and assured me if I left not of my own accord would never listen to KSPT again. But then she got to the good part.

"....But maybe I can at least talk to you in person now because I'm going to come out from behind the curtain and introduce myself. Are you ready? Drum roll, please.  But you already know who I am. You came in to where I worked at least three times a week, sometimes by yourself, sometimes with a couple of your friends from the station. I'm Cindy Keller, one of the girls at Dub's."

Oh DANG!! I never even thought of her. I was certain it had to be someone from work. But there were only a couple 20-something girls on staff at Blue Sky and neither had shown the least bit of interest in me. But Cindy? Wow. Yeah, I knew who she was. Like me, Cindy worked the morning shift at Dub's, the diner across the highway from the radio station. When I got off shift, I'd often head over there for a late breakfast or early lunch and she was the one who usually ended up waiting on me. I knew her name, but only because of her name tag, and knew she was the one with the big brown pony tail. But I had no idea she liked me though. How 'bout that?!

With a smattering of freckles and friendly smile, she was a fresh faced cutie, too. Small in stature, but not dainty, it was obvious the girl spent a lot of time outdoors and took good care of herself. Just as she’d described in her letters. Cindy was, indeed, a fine lookin' country lass. So why hadn't I thought of her? She was awesome. And maybe that's why- awesome girls seldom paid any attention to me. Besides, she always wore a ring so I just assumed she was married, engaged or spoken for.  Guess not. Continuing on, Cindy explained the purpose behind the letters; that she wanted to get to know me better without being too forward or coming across like someone with a high school crush. So she came up with the 'secret admirer' theme.

" After all, you were on the radio. A local VIP.  So I thought it'd be easier to remain in the woodwork until you got to know me better, or I get braver. I know you had no chance to respond either, but that's why I asked you to do things like cut your hair. If you didn't, experience tells me you weren't all that interested. But you did, which was a nice surprise. It made me happy. Are you surprised it’s me?"

Yes I was. And happy, too.  But V.I.P? Hardly.  I worked at the local radio station, but beyond the KSPT studios I was basically anonymous. Most people wouldn't know me from Adam. But then she made me even happier.

"Well, anyway, now that you know all that stuff, if you're still around I think it’s time we got together, don't you? I'd really like to talk to you face to face rather than through these letters. Does that sound okay to you? Here's my phone number so please feel free to call. Or now that you know it’s me and you kind of already know who I am, come by the diner sometime soon and we'll talk. But you have to order something! The boss doesn’t like people just coming in to flirt with the help. Ha-ha. Looking forward to seeing you. Love Cindy. Your not so secret anymore admirer." 

Wow! What a great letter. But it'd been written at the end of March. It was now the last week of September. A lot can change in 6 months. My life and career direction certainly had. But Cindy's words were everything I'd been wainting to hear for what seemed like an eternity--a living, breathing girl actually liked me. And I liked her. It was two hearts calling out to one another through time and space and finally finding each other. True love was just a phone call away. Well, maybe not. But at least I had an open invitation to find out. Cindy was waiting and, with no more time to lose, I dialed her number. 

But the call didn't get through. Instead of hearing Cindy, I heard the familiar three staccato Pac Bell tones followed by the recorded voice of the operator: "We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again." I did; I dialed the same 10 numbers and got the same recording. Uh-oh. Then I called directory assistance and got the listing for Cindy Keller in Sandpoint, Idaho. According to the Pac Bell data base, it didn't exist. Uh-oh again.

My last hope was Dub's. That number did exist. Though Cindy worked mornings and probably wasn't there, whoever answered might know how I could reach her.  But when I asked the guy if I could speak to Cindy, he sounded confused. "Who"?  I repeated Cindy's name and a brief description. "Oh, yeah, Cindy. Right. I'm, kind of new here. Yeah, she's still on her honeymoon. Won't be back for another week. Are you a friend or something?"

Yeah, I lied, just an old friend or something, calling to wish her well on her nuptials. But I'd catch up with her later, sorry for the bother and thanks. Then I hung up. I took a deep sad sigh. I didn't know why I felt sad. It's not like Cindy and I ever really had some sort of relationship. But I was sad anyway. I sighed again and spotted the second letter. The one dated May 8. The one in the plain white envelope. I quickly grabbed it and tore it open.


"May 8, 1984


Well, Rocket. It’s been over six weeks and I still haven't heard from you, you never called and you never came by. And by this long silence I can only assume you never wanted to get in touch or the whole thing was just a joke.  But I kind of put myself out there for you and it hurts you just shined me on. The kind thing to do, the decent thing, would have been to at least just drop me a note and let me know. You didn't have to give me any reason or tell me your new life story or anything like that. I just would've liked to know, so I wouldn't have wasted my time waiting around. You could've said something else came up, or you met someone else, or became a foreign spy. You could’ve said anything. But not a peep out of you. And you, this big time radio guy. What is it, cat got your tongue, or are you just always an asshole?

Sorry. As you can gather I'm a little pissed off. But I'm a big girl. I took a chance on you and it burned me. Lesson learned. Perhaps you're still here in Sandpoint, perhaps not. But either way I wanted you to know I'm not waiting around for you anymore. There's a guy that comes in every morning that keeps asking me out and I've put him off all this time, just in case I ever heard from you. But no more. If he asks me again, I'm saying yes.


Have a nice life Rocket but please don't try to get in touch.  I've already changed my number. And if you somehow get a letter to me, I will not read it.  Good bye. Cindy"


Wow. She pretty much told me everything except 'go to hell'. She didn't tell me I couldn't come to Dub's either, though even if I could what was the point? To Cindy, I was past tense. From an absolute high after reading the first letter, the second one plunged me into despair. Of course she had every right to be mad at me. But then again, she didn't. I didn't receive her invitation to get in touch until almost 6 months after the fact.  It's the Post Office's fault. I'm not an asshole.

I wanted to tell her that- scream it- but it didn't matter. If she ever thought of me again at all, it’d only be as an a-hole. And from now till the end of time, there was nothing I could do about it. I'd never be able to convince her otherwise. She'd moved on- probably with the guy who kept asking her out. But had I not left Sandpoint, or left a better forwarding trail to find me. I wondered if somehow it'd might have been ME and Cindy now. instead  of Cindy and him?

Oy! What a crazy mixed up world. I crumbled up the letters, then cursed the darkness and myself for my rotten luck and timing. But that didn't help much, either. Nor would it in an hour, a week or even a month. What was, was. Cindy may have had feelings for me- “had” being the key word- and even if she did, once she assumed I was the world's biggest jerk didn’t waste any time tearfully dwelling on her loss. I was history. There would be no more 'secret admirers'. There would be nobody. Not for me, anyway. Nada.  Ever.

I got up and stared out the window. Under the moonless, black, nighttime sky, and in the still unfamiliar surroundings of Grass Valley, I felt a long way from home, alien and lost and like nothing made sense. Yet it did. This was how the world always made sense to me. 24/7 status-quo: life sucked and whatever bad things happened, I earned or had coming. It's just the way it was. Why should it be any different now? Cindy was right to move on. I didn't much care for me either. And since she wasn't going to be with me, I allowed the companionship of dark self-condemnation to come alongside instead. It kept me company while I continued to gaze outside in hopeless silence, feeling empty and alone.

And crying like a big baby.

Playing Post Office, Part 1

Once I had a secret love. Well, not really. But I once had a secret admirer.

It happened during the final few weeks of my stay at KSPT in Sandpoint. It'd been a cold, mostly solitary all work-no play winter for me in North Idaho and with Valentine's Day on the way, the forecast remained unchanged: chilly, both inside and out. But one afternoon a few days before February 14, something happened that, for the moment anyway, rekindled hope within the cockles of my starved-for-attention little heart: I received a letter from an unknown admirer.

However, I almost missed it altogether.

On the day it came, unhappy with my program director- who was even more unhappy with me- and in a hurry to avoid crossing paths with him, I just tossed the red envelope on my desk- with a stack of other unopened mail- and left the building. I went home without reading it; then forgot about it; and then lost it, probably dumped in the trash can by accident. Oh well. What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.

But a few days later another piece of mail arrived, inside another red envelope, addressed the same way and written in the same hand. At least, I assumed it was the same hand. I couldn’t say for sure however, because I hadn’t really examined it the first time. The persistent writer, though, having deduced I'd somehow missed reading version # 1, repeated whatever they'd penned before and in version # 2, assured me not to be frightened or put off. "I'm a friend" she wrote. At least I guessed it was a she. It sure looked like chick’s penmanship.

 

But what if I was wrong? What if I got all worked up over this mystery person only to learn she was a he.  Ewww. No worries, though. The handwriting was perfect and flowing, just short of calligraphy. And no guy writes like that. The writer had taken her time with each letter and word, and upon opening it, the envelope released a sweet scent of perfume. No. No way was this from a guy.

And she did sound friendly, and buttered me up with accolades about my work on the air. So I guess it's true: the best way to a dj's heart is through his ego. Anyway, the writer felt I not only had a good voice, but kind of "sexy", too. Which was a very nice thing to say, nicer to read, and I appreciated the compliment. But there was also no denying the broadcast gods hadn't exactly blessed me with the pipes of a true radio deep throat. In fact it amazed me that, five years into my career, I was still getting paid real money to sit behind a mic, spin records and talk on the air.

 

It amazed me because I really didn't have the classic voice for radio. It was, to be frank, less than state of the art.  If there was a ranking system for such things, my voice probably would fall somewhere between “barely adequate” and "sucks", and carry all the sex-appeal of a pubescent duck with a sinus infection. So I was living a lark and my admirer was probably just blowing smoke. But whether she was or not, her words flattered me.

However, I knew first hand that 99 times out of a hundred, getting involved with a radio groupie- which was my initial perception of the letter writer- never ends well. I'd already been down that misguided road before with a KGA listener back in Spokane. (see blogpost 6.18.11; Life Before Match Dot Com). Somebody is disappointed, gets hurt or both. Or goes into hiding. And though her correspondences were kind of fun, I felt I needed to protect myself and decided to move on without responding. But she wouldn't let me.

Over the course of the next few weeks, more letters came. Of course, I was under no obligation to read any of them and could've tossed them all in the trash unopened, like the first one.  But as much as I knew I shouldn't, curiosity got the best of me and I eagerly tore each one open to see what she'd written this time. With each new missive, she heaped more praise on my morning show and revealed a little more about herself, too. And each time, it felt like I was slowly being reeled in. And soon I didn't care.

I learned she was 21, had brown hair, usually tied in a pony-tail, was slender, and not too tall.  But heck, even in a small town that could be a reasonable description of a lot of people. She also liked to swim, liked baseball and most other sports, too. But that wasn't much help either. So I had no idea who she was. Yet she seemed to know me and where I lived, too. The letters had stopped coming to the radio station and were now showing up in my mail box at home. But how did she know my address?  On one hand, this was a little disturbing. Was she stalking me, watching my every move? On the other hand it was flirtatiously exciting too. Whoever she was, the girl had spent a lot of time testing the water, teasing about herself and learning what she could about me.

 

Even without reading between the lines, I got the impression my new ‘friend’ was both fairly interested and possibly quite available; which, of course, left me wanting to know more.  But she never included a return address, never said what she did for a living, didn't leave a phone number or even accidentally mention her name. The girl was still a mystery and I was still clueless. There was simply nothing to identify her, except the handwriting which, by that time, I’d have recognized anywhere. Clearly, the only way I was ever going to meet this person- or even know more about her- was on her terms. So the game was on.

 

In the next letters, my admirer commented on my always long hair. She suggested it might be, perhaps, getting a little scraggly. She wrote: “You’d look so much cuter if it was cut. I mean, you look fine but with shorter hair, I don't know. I might not be able to stay in hiding much longer. Haha!"  Ha-ha, my foot. How in the world did she know what my hair looked like?! Wait a minute--was this person really my Mother masquerading as a 21 year-old honey? Just to get me to cut my locks? If so, I was going to disavow the family and change my name and never open another piece of mail again.

However, for the moment I decided Mom wasn't that devious and chose to call my secret friend’s bluff and visit a barber; which I wouldn't do voluntarily for Mom under any circumstance. Or  anyone else, for that matter. For my new mystery friend, though, I was willing to give it a go. As an act of good faith I'd take a chance, get my hair chopped and put the ball back in her court. So, the next morning I pulled into the parking lot at KSPT with a considerably shorter mane.

My work day started with the 5 a.m. shift and I arrived at the radio station at about a quarter till.  It was early March and still quite dark when I got there. I was alone and nearly invisible at that time of day, and nobody could've possibly seen what I looked like when I let myself in. Yet at a quarter to 6, when I passed through the lobby to refill my coffee mug, I noticed a letter- in a red envelope- on the floor by the front door. It'd been shoved underneath. It could have only come from one person.And in it my friend wrote, “Your haircut looks great! It means a lot that’d you’d do that for me. A lot of guys wouldn't. So thanks! You’ve just earned some extra points. Love, your secret admirer.”

Extra points? And "love", too? Wow. Right then, she had me. Maybe I was being an idiot, but she had me!  However the girl was so crafty and I was still so in the dark. And not because I started my work day at 4:45 a.m. Reveal yourself, girl!  The whole thing was a lot of fun, but oh so frustrating, too. The unanswered questions were killing me, including the latest one- how'd she know I'd cut my hair? I hadn't been outside in daylight and nobody in the office had seen me yet. And how did she arrive at the station in the dark, creep to the front door, and slide her letter underneath it without me seeing or hearing anything?!

 

To spy on me like that, she'd had to have been parked someplace close and using binoculars. Then sneak into the parking lot and, using the pre-dawn shadows as cover, tiptoe up the steps of the porch, leave the letter and run away. I'd glanced out the window once or twice to check the sky conditions, but except for cars racing by out on the highway, I hadn't seen one living thing or any unmoving or suspicious vehicles. So how’d she do all that and get away with it?? Apparently this was some sort of grown-up version of passing notes in class. Except I had no way to pass back.

 

Unless she made a mistake- which seemed highly unlikely - my nameless friend had all the power and leverage. It didn't matter what I thought or wanted her to do; SHE wasn't going to let anything out of the bag until she was good and ready. So who was this mystery girl? Was I ever going to meet her? Was true happiness for me in Sandpoint, at last, just one more postage stamp away?

 

We'll soon find out as answers are uncovered next time in the case of "The Zip Code Romance", right here in this blog. Same blog time, same blog channel...

Rocket: The Lost Years, Part 2

Besides finally earning the right to drive, the only other high points from my high school career came from playing sports. I made the freshman baseball team, and JV and varsity soccer teams.

 

Don’t get me wrong though- I’ll never be confused with as athlete. I still don’t know how I made the baseball team. Coach liked me, I guess, and thought I had spunk. But there weren’t a lot of other bodies from try-outs to round out his roster, either. I think Coach took my out of pity because as a baseball player, I frankly sucked. And soccer? That wouldn’t have been my first, second or even last choice as a sport of interest. Hardly. I wanted to play football.

 

I was 16 and a half, and hadn't had even a whiff of a relationship with the opposite sex since 8th grade. But guys on the football teams? They all seemed to have girlfriends. So I figured if I went out for junior varsity football, too, getting a girl would be a slam dunk, to mix sports metaphors. Heck, I'd played sandlot football for years and was always good at it- quick with skilled hands, able to withstand a hard tackle and dish one out too. As a JV football player it'd be only a matter of time before girls would be following me all over campus, just begging for a date.

 

Wrong.

 

The day I tried out, though he let me run some drills and show what I could do Coach Miller had already made up his mind. "Even in pads, you'd get killed", he said. “You’re too small”. Hells bells, I was almost five feet and a shade under a hundred pounds. How is that small?! He explained there was some sort of minimum height/weight requirement which I didn't measure up to. I was a couple inches too short and about 15 pounds too light. With the right type of diet, Miller mused I could probably put some weight on pretty quick. But the added inches? Short of full-time Rack reclining, I'd have to wait till my body was ready for a growth spurt." Not much we can do about that, son, is there?" No, I suppose not. Actually, I'm still waiting.

 

But while waiting to grow, Coach Miller thought I might want to give soccer a try. "Doesn't matter how big you are in soccer. If you're fast, in fact, the smaller the better:” I didn't know soccer like I knew football and baseball, except they played it on a huge field with a funny looking ball. And it was sort of like ice hockey, except no ice, no body checks and no pucks. But the next afternoon, I went over to the soccer field and tried out. And two weeks later, when Coach Terwilliger pared his roster down, I'd made the team. But for the record, soccer chose me, not the other way around. However, making any JV or team came with a letterman’s sweater- something that seemed to impress the girls-and I desperately wanted to impress the girls

 

However, I quickly learned, no matter what you were wearing, soccer players didn't get the girls like the football players did. The closest I came- and missed by ten miles- was the humiliating encounter with a girl named Cheryl (see “School of Hard Knocks”; blogpost 3.9.11).  She was pretty. My attempts at getting to know her better, weren’t. Enough said. Read the blog.

 

I managed C's and D's during my junior year- all passing grades, mind you- and even learned how to stay awake during Mr. Lehman's second period Algebra 2 class. To remain lucid during that hour, Phil Alexander, Dave Dill and I took turns playing "Hangman". While Mr. Lehman was boring everyone else, we'd smuggle the game page underneath our desks to each other. The winner got to choose the next word, scouring his brain for the most base and disgusting term; pulling words and phrases out of a crude language cesspool that only boys in high school dabble in when wanting to out-crass each other. So, this may explain the D- on my report card. 

 

But gosh Mr. Lehman was so dull, had they been around back them, just being in his presence would’ve caused a Red Bull to go flat. A lifeless old man, tenured and obviously playing out the string at the end of his career, he probably wanted to be there about as much as his students did. So "Hangman’ was about the only thing that kept my pulse moving between 10:15 and 11:10 each morning. However, besides getting real good at spelling out bad words, my junior year also exposed me to other unique concepts such as socialism, as explained by a real socialist, Mr. Larson.

 

A man who may have been even farther to the left Karl Marx, Jerry Larson found excess personal wealth un-American, and hoped Congress would sooner than later push through new laws and regulations to make sure the affluent shared their affluence with everyone else. ”It's the only right way to run a government” he used to say. ”I shouldn't get to make more than you, and you shouldn't get to make more than me. It’s not fair. We should all be on a level playing field". Right.  Of course, he didn't call this scheme 'socialism'; he usually referred to it as "Larson's Plan" or "What I'd Do If I Ruled the World".

 

Seeing what's going on in our country today, though, maybe Mr. Larson wasn't so wrong after all. Maybe he was simply ahead of his time. Or maybe just a big 'ol Bolshevik. But I remember Larson’s two main points, both woven into almost all lectures and discussions in his Government and Civics class, centered on no one being allowed to earn more than $100,000 dollars in a year or inherit more $10,000 in a lifetime. Any amount greater, he though the government should step in and re-distribute to those with less. Regardless, even if they understood it, I'm not sure any of us in his class bought what he was selling. Many didn’t trust anyone over 30, and nobody trusted the government. But I liked Mr. Larson. Though I disagreed with his politics, I wanted him to like me, too.  But since I wanted to make a million dollars playing center field for the A's, I doubt he'd have held me in very high regard, either.

 

And he really wouldn't have liked Jay Weiland, a kid who whole-heartedly endorsed and embodied the all-American dream; in other words, making lots of money. Jay was an unabashed capitalist, and probably the most entrepreneurial, go-getter guy I ever knew. We all mocked and laughed behind his back, too, but Jay was no fool; he had a plan and knew what he was doing and where he was going. 

 

When a new McDonald’s opened up near school, he was one of the first to eagerly apply for and land a position, even pre-emptively cutting his hair super short (as all McDonald's employees were required to do) before the interview. Crazy. Then after he'd been hired, he often wore his black slacks, red tie and white shirt workplace uniform to school.  To the unwashed masses on campus- um, that'd be me and a lot of my friends- Jay looked ridiculous. A major dweeb. He stuck out like a sore thumb.  He said he only dressed that way to avoid having to change for work after the last bell. However, we all suspected he just liked showing off.  

 

In addition to the strict dress code on the job, Jay also had to wear a goofy looking paper McDonald’s hat, which only added to the corporate suck-up look, a look he darn near perfected. One afternoon after soccer practice, some of us went in for Big Mac’s and fries and loitered at the counter to make sure Jay waited on us. We placed our order while giving him a hard time, and snickered as we watched him work. Jay just smiled at us and gracefully took it, was pleasant to his other customers and generally looked like he was happy and enjoying his work. I feel bad about it now because I’m sure he knew we were making fun of him. Nevertheless, Jay always said he could help get us on there if any of us ever needed a job. I'm pretty sure nobody took him up on his offer; I certainly didn’t. Me? Wear a funny hat and get a buzz cut? For a job? Never.

 

However, Jay eventually worked his way up from counter help to crew leader, to assistant manager, to manager and eventually bought the place. At 26, Jay was already a freaking local-boy-makes-good fast food franchise mogul. At 26, I was in Spokane struggling to make ends meet on 4 bucks an hour, working the graveyard shift at KGA. I could barely afford a radio, let alone own my own radio station. But it wouldn’t have surprised me if Jay ended up owning several more McDonald’s, then selling them all at a huge profit and retiring a millionaire. But all that time in high school, when I thought Jay was more pathetic than I was? I was wrong. Completely. He had it right all along. Jay was a winner and got even with all of us by being successful. And if I or any of my few friends had even a minimal clue back then how the world worked, we might’ve turned out as successful as our more ambitious classmate, too.

Right after Marxism 101, I mean Mr. Larson’s class, I had geography with Mrs. Bouffard. Yolanda Bouffard was one of my favorite teachers simply for being the butt of a lot of great jokes. You see, not only was she a very nice lady- which she truly was- very engaging and good at her job; she also had a very ample rear end. I mean, it was ginormous. Like a small continent. Her legs literally bowed under its weight, as if dragging around 40 pound sandbags on her hips. And unfortunately for her, Steve Phillips- one of the funniest guys to ever walk into her class- sat behind me.

 

Whenever the poor lady’s back was turned Steve would whisper some gratuitous remark about the south end of Mrs. Bouffard's anatomy. Something crude, merciless, hilarious. Of course this made me laugh, and the more I did the more obnoxious and outrageous he'd get. It’d get so bad I couldn’t stifle my hysteria anymore and she’d turn around, see it was me making all the noise, and I’d get bawled out for “disturbing the class”. I’d get extra homework; he feigned innocence, always smart enough to never laugh at his own stuff. Regrettably, I was always dumb enough not to.

During my senior year, on nice days Steve Phillips, Gary Nelson and I ate lunch on Senior Square, observing all the underprivileged underclassmen eating their hearts out because they couldn’t. Underclassmen weren’t allowed to place even a toe on Senior Square. If they did there was retribution, usually from a jock, and usually involved the perpetrator being dumped into a garbage can. I know. It happened to me three times. And now a senior and varsity athlete, I’d been waiting four years to return the favor on someone else.

 

But not one unsuspecting or careless freshman, sophomore or junior ever set foot on the sacred space, at least not while I was around. It wasn't fair. I'd been purposely pushed onto Senior Square by my friends, once as a freshman and twice as a sophomore and each time was summarily deposited into the nearest trash receptacle. I never went in head first, but was placed less-than-gently butt deep in wrappers, lunch remnants, paper and other crap while my so-called friends watched and laughed. Had I been on the other end, I guess I’d have found it amusing too. That’s what I was hoping for. I just never had the chance.

During my last semester at San Juan I took home-ec. No, really. Home-Economics was an elective course that a lot of my friends elected to sign up for because it sounded like another easy goof-off hour. So I signed up too. And we got it half right. We did goof off a lot, but the class itself wasn’t that easy. We had to bake cookies, create a household budget, cook a roast, and use a sewing machine without losing a finger. Most of the stuff we had to do I've long since forgotten, but the class was actually kind of fun. We didn't become too domestic or refined, though. During most of the baking projects, between prepping the pots, pans and mixing spoons, we spent a lot more time "reviewing" the recipe - which was usually a copy of "Playboy" someone had smuggled into class and inserted into the recipe binder. Oh yes, taking home-ed had been a great idea. That was fun.

 

But when time finally ran out on my high school career, I wasn't much more than your basic garden variety barely adequate average student. Academically, I worked hard enough to be scholastically marginal. Though I played sports, I still lacked confidence, was often sad and still socially ungraceful. I never had a girl friend and, except for lettering in baseball and soccer, never accomplished anything special. However, along the way I got my driver's license, had a few laughs, learned a few things and emerged from the halls of San Juan 4 years older and maybe a shade wiser. At least I had a diploma and could put those four forgettable years behind me forever. 

 

However just when I thought I had, thanks to Classmates dot com, they reached out and grabbed me one more time. Gary Nelson found me on the Classmates website a few years ago, contacted me out of the blue and set up a meeting. Back in school, Gary had been a tall skinny guy with a pretty thick head of black hair. But when we got together as grown-ups, though still tall, Gary's hair had made a full retreat and he was much more round than rail thin. It was quite a contrast from the guy I ate lunch with on Senior Square and shot hoops with at recess three decades earlier. But he was still Gary and we enjoyed catching up and laughing over old times.

During our discussion, he gave me the contact information for a couple other old buddies, Dave Dill and Steve Phillips. And during the month after getting together with Gary, he, Steve, Dave and I did l exchange a few e-mails and promised to meet up again sometime. But the messages quickly petered out, we never arranged to see each other, and I haven't heard from any of them since. Still, it was fun to hear from those guys and, for a few minutes, remember being stupid kids again. But it’s really hard to try and pick up where we left off all those years ago. We’re not kids anymore- well mostly- but in reality we’re all practically strangers to each other now.

I guess you just can't go back. But that’s okay because I really don't want to. I’ve never gone to a high school reunion and don’t ever plan to. At San Juan I was just a little dork without much going for me. Why would I want to go back and reminisce about that? Thank you, no, I’ll pass. It was a time I spent trying to evolve from the person I didn’t like into something I did; and failing. It was a time I sought love, and acceptance, self-esteem and pretty much failing at that too, except for the few friends I made with guys like Gary, Steve, Dave, etc. It's also a time I associate with people I knew dying young. So I prefer to leave all those awkward and awful days of high school where they belong- buried in the past.

I graduated from San Juan on the oppressively hot evening of June 7, 1973. It was over a hundred degrees that day and at 7 p.m., when the ceremony began, it was still in the 90's. Adding to the discomfort, we all had to wear the school's long heavy red cotton robes. Since everybody already knew it'd be hot, rather than long dress pants some of the guys planned to wear cut-offs under their robes. Nobody would be able to see or tell the difference, and comfort wise, it’d be a lot cooler. Going in cut-offs instead of stuffy slacks? You bethca. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

 

But Mom found out and rather angrily nixed the idea out of hand. And, as if there'd be any doubt Dad overwhelmingly backed her. I couldn’t make either one of them see the logic in trying to make a really stressful and uncomfortably hot evening a little more tolerable, by wearing shorts underneath my robe. Nobody would know. But they'd know. And that was the rub. No way, Jose. So I'd graduate in a hot robe over long pants, hard soled shoes and a tie, and sweat like a pig. Case closed. 

 

And on what should’ve been a special night, Mom and I had our 821st and last high school tussle over my appearance. And like the other 821 times before, with no other choice, I wilted and caved in. But who cares about a button down ceremony concluding 4 years of high school mediocrity, anyway? I didn't. By the time we arrived at school for the last time, I simply didn't care anymore. Mom wins, Rocket doesn't. Again. Just like always. So if my head wasn't into going through with the graduation hoop-la, my defeated heart certainly wasn't either. If there was such a thing as an angry apathy, that's where my heart was that night. I was pissed off and didn’t give a rat’s ass about it.

However, at least I was done with all of it. High school was over. Yet, there was still a part of me that wanted to hold on. As much as I hated the time at San Juan, I didn’t want to leave either. Though the years there had been tedious, hard on the ego and mostly a gigantic let-down, at least they were predictable. Up until the day of commencement, every morning I knew what to expect-- go to school, do my work, be bored, mess around with my friends, eat, sleep and do it again the next day. And of the few friends I'd cultivated, I didn’t want to say goodbye to them, either. However they were all charting their own courses and I wouldn’t be part of their lives anymore, nor they part of mine. For the first time in my life, the security of reliable friendships and established routines was gone. It was sad. And kind of scary.

 

For sure, I didn’t know what to do next. I didn't even go to any of the parties or on the senior trip to Disneyland.  I wasn't one of the cool people, so had no clue where the parties were happening. And I didn't want to ride a bus all night to Southern California then turn around and do it again 24 hours later on the return trip. So I had some cake and ice cream with the family and called it a night. Pretty exciting, yeah?  But growing up, that type of evening was considered a wild time. Our house was the place where good times went to die. Okay, it wasn't that bad. On the other hand, yes it was.

 

Later on that night I laid in bed wide awake, dripped in sweat with reflections of life dipped in layers of dread.  The disturbing truth that nothing was ever going to be the same again drowned out all other certainty. And as the last night of high school slipped into the maw of an unknown new phase of life that would start in a matter of hours with the next sunrise, I tossed and turned and waited for sleep while trying to fight off one recurring thought:  Oh, dear God, what happens now?