|
Always Looking For Trouble
When I was young all I wanted was for people to stop telling me what they wanted me to do . Damnit I had my own ideas of what to do. Sometimes that involved me getting into trouble, sometimes not. Either way I was more independent than a person ought to be, if you know what I mean. When you're a foster kid it's sort of weird. The non-troubliar thing I did that went against what other people thought I should be doing, was reading. Due to my trouble-making, my teen years were spent being sent off the island, from one foster home to the next. I was residing in McKeesport, Pennsylvania at a place known as "Boystown of the East". It was a place for orphans and troubled kids like me. For the most part they did a decent job of making institutional living seem homey. I have some fond memories of that place. I won't digress about getting to third base (third base is copping a feel, right?) with some darling in the woods behind Boystown. We got interrupted by a counselor (I think we called them), named Frank, who'd been tipped off by all the guys yelling out the back windows, "GRRRUBBBBB!" and other stuff I won't repeat. But me and what's her name couldn't hear it until we walked the distance back, separated by Mr. Councilor FrankN'dick. Back to the story. While there, a couple of guys I'd met in school (I attended a public vocational school) (graphic arts) (I hated it) (it was all "make a football poster") (I don't care for football) (and there were no computers back then, we had to DRAW each freekin letter perfectly) (I'm not real big on drawing) formed a band. We even practiced. I remember Harry had an amplifier with a blown speaker and we liked the sound of it (we had to, there wasn't anyway to get another one). I don't recall if, because in 1966 we had this distortion guitar thing goin on, we were ahead of our time or we said hey that sounds like so and so. Anyway, we got one gig so it was my first gig ever. It was for a Masons' Banquet. I still have the handout. On the cover:
Inside the handout (an 8 1/2 x 11 folded in half) is the Program and who's giving the introduction and who's the toastmaster, and then a group of speakers under the heading "Remarks". The last of these is listed as so and so, Sr. Gr. Tall Cedar. Needless to say. We got the gig because Harry's dad was a one of them, you know. Now our band needed a name and I had to settle for "The Creations", because they wouldn't go for my idea, which was "Renobs" because it sort of spelled BONER backward. It was an outdoor affair, a nice sunny not quite Fall yet day. Harry and I and Mark the drummer were all set up under the pavilion feeling a little out of place. I don't believe anyone there was under 60 years old and to a 15 year old 25 is sort of pushing the limits you know. Oh and in those days the cultural divide between the under 30/over 30s' was deep. Sharp. Wide. But not quite as divided as it would be within 5 years. So we hit it with "Gloria G-L-O-R-I-A" which was our best number because it was only three chords and the lyrics were most properly screamed as loud as you could into the mics that plugged into the same guitar amp with the busted speaker. If you didn't yell yer lyrics way loud you probably weren't going to get heard over Harry's fuzz lead. Except for the time they approached the pavilion with hands clasped tightly over their ears shouting "TURN THAT THING DOWN!" they tolerated us well enough. As well as they could ignore us. We played "Gloria" maybe 30 times that day but at volumes too low to be appreciated. I got to sing because drummers aren't supposed to sing, and Harry couldn't sing and play lead guitar at the same time, and I couldn't play lead if my life depended on it (still), but I could beat the hell out of a guitar and yell at the same time. I don't know, it just felt so me. But all that's beside the point. I was in another gig-less band before that. All we ever did was practice (it was quite the thing to do back then, be in a band). This one was me and Robin. Robin, like myself, was in Boystown for being troubled. He knew how to play lead and he taught me how to play the lead part to Louie, Louie and made me practice it until today it is the only lead I can still approximate. I had quite a collection of 45s (later stolen) which would be worth a fortune today, and among them was an obscure number I forget the name of done by an even more obscure band. But it was a very nice tune, and Robin and I practiced it and after a while could even play it. Robin started telling people that this 45 was done by him and I and our band (where this band was supposed to be I never found out), and then we'd sit down and play it and prove it fairly convincingly. But it was all his idea, he was more troubled than me, really. Anyway, Robin was from Maryland. I was from Virginia. We were from within 50 miles of each other. One day he told me that a family was going to take him in back in Maryland. A couple and their son, our age, who played organ wanted him to come live with them so they could put a band together. I'd read far too much not to recognize flamboyant embellishment when I heard it. It was probably years later I realized troubled people like myself, and Robin, used embellishment to create realities we didn't have and wouldn't be "allowed" to have. So anyway, off he went. I'd been through a lot of off they wents. Life moved on. I hooked up with "The Creation's [sic courtesy of the people who made the SPLINTERS handout and listed me as Rob Grubbs]" and the rest was history.  Until a few months later, I get a letter from Robin. He's doing great in Maryland, they have started the band, he has played them THE RECORD WE MADE (and which he thereby admitted to stealing from me, though he didn't realize this admittance), and they are knocked out! So, they want me to also come live with them. I almost wanted to believe Robin. It wasn't "happening" for me where I was. I wasn't doing what *I* wanted to do. Stupid hand-painted football posters. Plus some guy beat the hell out of me on the way to walking to school (up hill I swear to God), because I copped a feel off of his girlfriend behind Boystown. A week or so later I get a phone call on the public coin phone in the main hall of Boystown. It's Robin "didn't you get my letter?" and I let him know as gently as I could that I knew he was as full of shit as they come, what with him being so damned troubled, and he was all "No! No! This is REAL, Grubbs! They want you to come down here and be in their family and be in the band and SING!" Anyway, long story short. It was real. I went to live with this couple and their son Johnny and firstly-adopted Robin. The couple, nice laid back folks in a home they'd built in a nice bordering-rural neighborhood, thought I should be called Robby, so they could refer to Robin and Robby I guess, but even before that they demanded Robin and I perform the tune on that record he'd told them was us. I had to go along with it, you know. Well in a few months we'd put together an 8 piece soul band (we had a rather tight horn section) . Johnny played organ, Robin played lead, and I sang. I wasn't deemed good enough for guitar, I was there to sing. So at 16 I was singing the standards by James Brown, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and stuff. And doing them moves, you know. Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually break out in a cold sweat? We played a few places for free, mostly we practiced. When we practiced people would usually come over and party to our music. Even the parent's of the band members. Again, what is not so strange today was strange back then. The parents' dug our sound too. When we weren't being schooled, or playing music, we did other stuff. All of it fairly redneckish in nature. Like once they gave me a 22 rifle as a gesture of comradery (they all had shotguns) and we went out to the woods to do some squirrel hunting. I actually shot and killed one. I felt so awful after. I never killed an animal again. Except maybe a possum, but I was doing 50 and it was night. I didn't see the poor thing. Counting my kill, we took back 8 or 12 squirrels and someone I didn't watch or want to know about skinned them and then one of the band member's mom cooked them up, and served them to us for dinner. "MMmmmmmmm" went everyone but me and I couldn't eat it. So right there they knew I was a tad bit strange. Well, these sorts of activities appealed to me less and less and I took to reading more and more and soon Johnny's mother wanted me to leave and go back to Boystown because she had brought me here to play with Johnny not read, damn it. Johnny was no needy kind now. No shortage of friends. It wasn't like I was brought there to play with a handicapped person. But in Doris' defense, she drank way too much so she probably didn't know what she was saying at least half the time. So then, Robin - who is pissed off at me for something I don't remember - tells everyone that the record *I* said was him and I was really not us at all and that I had made the whole thing up and well right there my credibility was shredded in spite of my "Midnight Hour" rendition. So that was that. I was going back to Boystown. Not so fast says the squirrel chef lady who had been Doris' best friend until they had some fallout, "I'll take Robby!" she yells. So whatever paperwork adults do was done and I went to live there with her and her husband and their two sons who were in the band. But you know, they didn't take me in out of any concern for my welfare. They took me in to piss off Doris and get a monthly check. Oh they were nice people. Not at all ill intentioned. I didn't fit in. I was apt to sneak off to my girlfriend's place in the middle of the night. We'd meet in her family's stables out back and make out. Despite my best efforts I never got beyond third base. (right?) Getting caught doing that sort of thing, I don't know, seemed to ruffle people's feathers back then. The horses did more than we did, damnit. Soon Mrs. SquirrelStewer also complained about how much time I spent reading in my room. Reading like that just wasn't done in their world. After a few months I overheard a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear about sending me back "there". I called my Mom in Virginia and begged her to let me come home. She wasn't at all pleased, but she was my Mom. There were all sorts of conditions. The worst one was that I couldn't get into any trouble. So I moved back to Virginia, dropping out of the 10th grade in the process and took a job as a busboy awaiting the court's decision as to what to do with me now. My Mom didn't object too hard about me dropping out, as I flunked all my courses and did nothing but get in trouble for making jokes during classes. Perhaps the teachers didn't appreciate satire and parody and expressions of "I won't let you tell me what to do, watch this". A few months later the "courts" (I don't ever recall being present at these things) decided I had one of two choices (because I'd been such a troublemaker and wouldn't adapt to foster life and I was certainly too incorrigible to live at home). Go into the Job Corp or the military. Not wanting to get stabbed over my paycheck, I opted for the military and set about figuring out which branch would be the easiest sentence. I settled on the Coast Guard. I went to the recruiting office and took their test and they said yeah okay, but you have to wait until you turn 17. So I did. Thinking back on that time in my life, I recall how troubled I was, performing terribly in school, just doing what I wanted to do and not giving a damn about what others wanted me to do. And I also think about how much I read. And about how very often I practiced. Alone and on a team. The simple breakdown: they wanted to teach, but I wanted to learn. I knew way more about what I wanted to learn then they did. I'm still pretty much a do what I want to do sort of person, and still regarded as troubled by folks with different ideas about what's worth doing. I'll not apologize for not having a squirrelhead hanging on my wall. I still practice. And read. Stuff like from the back page of the SPLINTERS Banquet handout... 
"The objective of the Splinter's Club in our Church is to interest non-affiliated Masonic members in our church and to interest our church members in Masonry, which we are accomplishing little by little as is evidenced by our increase in membership. "This endeaver takes the effort of each member working hard to achieve all the goals we have set as our standards. "Note: It is way past time to elect a new President of our group, so each one think of someone you would like to have. Thank You"  Christmas 1965 |
