One time in
high school, I cut stuff out of the local newspaper and decorated
my math spiral notebook. Here
is the front of it, and this
was on the back.Personal Stuff
OK, this is a personal web page, a people usually put pictures of their family, pets, etc. on their web page. I'll do it a little differently. I'll let you paint your own picture of me by looking at the goofy stuff on this page. I have a scrapbook full of drawings, doodles, writings, etc. from my childhood through high school, and I have drawn on this stuff as a source for this page. I'm sure that the mental picture that you'll paint of me will be way off in some respects, and smack dab on in other respects.
Click here to go directly to the newest stuff ...
One time in
high school, I cut stuff out of the local newspaper and decorated
my math spiral notebook. Here
is the front of it, and this
was on the back.
In the seventh
grade I had a great teacher that encouraged creativity.
Therefore, the scrapbook is full of weird stuff from that
particular stage of my life. For example, for some strange reason
unknown to me now, I created a character named Winky Stinky Klodhopper. Here is his car. I wrote a little story about
him, which discussed the fact that this guy seemed to have a
fetish for monograms, having everything he owned monogrammed. His
car had a bright handcrafted golden clodhopper for a hood
ornament. Again, who knows why I came up with this stuff?
You may have noticed that Winky Stinky Klodhopper's
car (above) had a commode installed on the roof. I expanded on
this later on in a sketch from my
high school days.
After studying some ancient author in a high school
English class, I was moved to write a sonnet sequence called
"Security With Stupidity". Reading these now, I can see
no connection whatsover to classic sonnets. This example is, unfortunately, one of the
better ones.
I honestly don't remember the
inspiration for this picture, or
exactly what it is supposed to be. But I promise you that I never
used drugs, even though this picture may seem to indicate
otherwise. Lots of interesting details in this picture, such as
(1) an army tank with the body of a VW bus, (2) the driver of the
tank is Rufus Leaking, Hero Of Poland, Conquered Andorra, and (3)
a tiny tricycle in the front yard of the house.
Those of you who remember the long gas lines of the
early '70s gas crisis will be able to identify with this picture, which was drawn during
that period of time.
Some kids got in trouble in junior high school for
things like fighting, smoking in the boys' room, etc. I got in
trouble for publishing what school officials considered to be an
"underground" newspaper. Collaborating with two
friends, with my typewriter and another friend who had access to
a mimeograph machine, we created a four-page humor newspaper and
sold them on campus for 5 cents each. (I think that the fact that
we were selling them is the key part of our trouble.) Since I was
the 9th-grader, and the other two guys were 8th graders, I'm the
one that got called to the principal's office. Mr. Hamrick (the
principal) gave me a stern look and pointed out that the name of
one character in our paper (Buzzy Bowels) was a "little
shady". Anyway, I got what amounted to a "cease and
desist" order and was released back to school society.
Unfortunately, we already had our second issue printed and ready
for distribution, complete with a headline story about a cow with
diarrhea. Anyway, here is the front
page of the first issue. Obviously, the humor was created by
junior-high-schoolers, but we were quite proud of our creation.
To this day I truly believe that Mr. Hamrick was wrong in
stifling the creativity of a few students. (True story: while I
was waiting in the school office to see Mr. Hamrick, another
teacher walked by, looked at me, and said "Oh, you're the
guy with the underground newspaper, aren't you?")
This is something that actually isn't crazy! When I was in
the seventh grade in 1970, I was in the school chorus. Along with the
local junior high and high school, we recorded an album (yes, one of those old
33 RPM LP things). I have digitized this album, and all of it is
here.
More stuff to be added later as I find time ......
