I got that email from Ap this morning. [I remember that the boat belonged to Parkers landlord. He was renting a house on the lake at the time. I don't know if it was crooked lake or round lake or what but sure remember the tipping of the boat. Parker wasn't a very good swimmer so was lucky a fisherman was nearby. He told us he knew we were crazy the way we rocked the boat. Rick rocked the wrong way just as I turned the motor the other way and right over we went.] who ya gona believe me or the guy that was there) at least I think I got the liquid lock right. I guess it pretty much destroyed the motor
That triggered a lot more memories. I was known
as Bry, Larry Appleman was Ap and I guess Richard Parker was just Parker. Parker
died a few years ago but Ap and I still keep in touch via email. [I think about the old times, Walking home
Dundee was about 10 miles from Lulu. We rode an old steam train from Lulu to Dundee. The train was usually late so it was dark when the poor kids that lived out in the country had to walk home in the freezing cold. I should have felt sorry for them but as I remember I was just glad I lived close to the tracks. Ap had to walk over 2 miles. The upside is he doesn't have to lie when telling the grandkids about walking to school.
Ap and I had a lot in common as we both enjoyed messing around with things but I'm not sure about Parker, maybe we hung with him because he had a car and he put up with us because.... The kids now-a-daz have a lot more stuff than we had, gangs, drugs, TV, rap... How the heck they can grow up not being murdering sex craved drug addicts is beyond me. If any of that stuff had been available to us I'm sure we would tried it and maybe we wouldn't have grown up to be the fine upstanding citizens we are :-)
Ap still lives in Michigan not far from where we grew up. Parker lived in Grass Lake, Michigan (up north) and I moved out here to southern California. We were all in the service, Ap was in the Marines parker was in the Navy and I was in the Air Force. Did you notice we all served an extra 2 years to beat the draft? Maybe we had more in common then I thought.
I had a teacher that tried to tell me that I had potential and if I tried a little I could be making better grades. I guess I showed him, I think I graduated 35th in a class of 35.