Saturday, May 31, 2008
The 340 club
The 6th Day of 340
6B Phil departed the 338 in November 1983. John & Sue on 2/29/84 and Sil & I on 6/30/84 and it was all over.
The only good news is tomorrow is the 7th day of 340.
February 29, 1984
Sil & his wife met at 328 so the 340 Club is 2 for 2 on marriages!
On February 29 (does that mean they've only been gone six years), 1984 the young couple fled the 338 and made their move. That meant, for the final months, Sil & I would be the only inhabitants of the large house.
As you will note, I have almost no memory of these last four months.
Friday, May 30, 2008
The 45s
Archie Bell, Bar Kays, Barry McGuire, Beatles, Blues Brothers, Bobby Vinton, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Buffalo Springfield, Creedence Clearwate Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Engelbert Humperdink, Four Tops, James & Bobby Purify, James Brown, John Fred & the Playboy Band, Kim Carnes, KISS, Link Wray & the Wraymen, Manfred Mann, Marvin Gaye, Napoleon XiV, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, Queen, Rare Earth, Rolling Stones, Sam & Dave, Sam the Sham, Sly & the Family Stone, Styx, Supremes, Sweet, The: Beach Boys, Capitols, Clash, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Doors, Human Beinz, Kinks, Magnificient Men, McCoys, Moody Blues, Righteous Brothers, Shangri- Las, Sharks, Shaynes, Toys, Troggs, Vapors, Tommy James & the Shondells, Wilson Pickett … and in reserve: Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Bay City Rollers, Devo, Grand Funk Railroad, Heart, Janis Joplin,Led Zeppelin, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Mott Hoople, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Police, Rod Stewart, Swinging Medallions, The: Animals, Jackson 5, Temptations, Who, Thin Lizzie, and Young Rascals.
Next order of business: the souvenier program, PowerPoint, and preparing the Archival Exhibit. Oh yeah, getting the Bear ready. Hopefully, Phil will sell some tickets. I need to give the Knights a number on Thursday.
Mitch Ryder, Godfather of Detroit Rock
And one of his from the juke
Back in the day
Later
1983
FEB – Groundhog sees shadow
MAR –
APR – 340 Club moves to 338 West King Street; Life Goes On
MAY –
JUN – Mayor Morris visits 340 Club
JUL – Leo, Sixers, Summit Bowl, Sally Ride in space
AUG – Benigno Aquino Assasinated in Phillipines
SEP –
OCT – Birds/Phils, 237 Marines killed in Beirut, Grenada invaded
NOV – Phil departs
DEC – Times Square w 103
1983 was in the book
President Ronnie Raygunz
Governor Dick Thornburgh
Mayor Art Morris
CPI – 99.6
U.R. – 9.6%
Life exp – 74.6
Violent crime – 51.8
World Population – 4.69B
U.S. Population – 233.8M
Best Picture Oscar – Gandhi
Ted’s # 111
NCAA BK – North Carolina State 54-52 over Houston
Indy 500 –
NBA – Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers sweep LA
NHL – New York Islanders sweep Edmonton Oilers
MLB – Baltimore Orioles over Philadelphia Phillies in 5
Horse of Year –
Hvwt Champ –
NCAA F – Miami, 11-1
NFL (1/84)
Where are they now: Randy?
I don't know ... however he is scheduled to spin records at the 340 Club reunion and I have spent the day selecting 81 45 rpm records to make the trip. Lemmee tell ya they are classics. However I have no clue as to Randy's whereabouts and no solid phone number.
In typical 340 fashion this one's going right down to the wire ...
From the Mighty 340 Club Juke Box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nql4Bk-Xp7Q
another one about the night we will hold the reunion
Collage V
Collage IV
Collage III
Collage II
"Pabst,Quality since 1844" and the SUB itself being supported by a case of John Em's Straub Beer.
The 5th Day of 340
We inked a lease, effective March 1, 1981 and automatically renewing every month, and moved in late February. We were back.
Collage # 1
Woody K. said he had some pictures of our West King Street days. Unfortunately time has not been kind to them and they seem to be permanently stuck in a photo album.
Woody then took the entire album page and scanned them and sent them to me. Here is the first exhibit.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The 4th Day of 340
On the 4th day of the 340 Club the sun set. As Phil evacuated the 340 Club in late November 1978, I suppose we all thought that civilization, manners, and decorum would disappear forever from that
DISCLAIMER
Clearly this Blog – the “virtual” 340 Club – is now just as out of control as the “actual” 340 Club
JULY,4th,'83
This faded archive reads;
Actor being resident/person in control of property. Did have a party w/loud music and loud people. This constituted a noise disturbance which extended more than two property lines.- On complaint/condition observed by Off's. Actor advised prior.
Apparently some neighbors,probably non-Americans, must have called the police. Some of Lancaster's Finest then appeared at the Club and told us to tone it down. Well of course we did,for a few minutes anyway. The party continued.
The next thing I remember, an employee of Zangari's South's kitchen,named Scott,came up to my bedroom and woke me up. It was about 6:00 AM or whenever the sun rose that day. He said there was a policeman at the door and he wanted to see me. I hastily stumbled out of bed,probably already dressed and went downstairs. The front door was blocked by the Mighty 340 Juke Box hanging out on the stoop,laying on its side with the music blasting full force. I hurdled over it to greet the officer but I could not hear what he was saying due to the music. I clumsily endeavored to find the volume control but to no avail, either the machine didn't function well on its side or my blurry eyes couldn't focus on it so I went back inside and pulled the plug.
The Officer said we had been warned before and now we were being charged with a Noise Ordinance Violation. There was no valid reason to argue with the Juke Box being outside the Club and playing at full throttle. I signed for the citation. Tee I believe was in Pittsburgh that weekend and I could not disagree when he said the fine was my responsibilty since he wasn't there. I think it was $35.
The Cult of Bachelorhood
Some years later in the late 70's when I lived out in the country outside Mount Joy, after finding my belongings out on the porch one summer, another divorcee took me in for a couple months out in Penryn, only to realize he preferred the solitary life and so suggested I find another place to "winter". Then, just in the nick of time, Mr. Tim (Getzloff) announced that the former Occupant of the second floor, first room on the right, had stripped a gear and his room was now vacant. In moved DaveP for the winter. It is because I only stayed there for a season that many 340 Club alum don't recognize my name.
This short stay at the Club nevertheless scorched several memories on my brain"
1) The still smoldering matress in the alley below my room when I moved in.
2) A Christmas sleep-over with my 3-year old daughter Ligeia, while a holiday party ensued below.
3) The introduction to the scary side of urban bachelor culture to well-bred young ladies.
4) The always occupied ,first floor, front room, which served as TV and living room.
5) The darkest, most toxic kitchen I've ever seen.
6) A total absence of memory of the bathroom.
7) The sound of Tee making "gaming noises" hour after hour in the top floor headquarters.
After leaving The 340 Club in the Spring, I found other digs out in the northern Lancaster County countryside and lived there for about 10-12 years, serving once a gain as a refuge for another host of buddies. Many close calls, but "trouble" was avoided. Looking back on it now, I'm still amazed.
Today, decades and several lives later, I'm back living in rural Lancaster County, finally happily married and still teaching English after almost 40 years. But, every time I drive down West King into the city, I make a silent, mental genuflection---Eyes, right! But, dare I look? Is it still there? Does it look the same? What ghosts haunt those rooms? Is the kitchen still toxic? When I take friends and family on driving-around tours of Lancaster, I think that 340 must strike them most, give them pause. What they think I cannot say. But, I never leave out this drive-by.
Many people see adult bachelorhood as arrested development, an extended adolescence, a self-indulgence, a failure of sorts, or worse. (I remember when the nuns called it a "vocation". What ever happened to that view? Do nuns still say that?) But, call it what you want. A cult, an aternative lifestyle, men-in-groups, am unconscious choice, a state of mind, Hotel California. No, it's not always depraved or not always ennnobling; it's almost always a bit of both.
Zappa said that nostalgia is a waste of the mind, but I think he just didn't live long enough to realize that it isn't.
The Last Pile (ver 1.1)
When my mother died on August 29, 1989 I was living with Phil. I was 38 and had lived in the Delta House since leaving home in September 1974. I did it backwards; I graduated from college and then moved into the frat house. Whether the address was 328 or 340 West King Street, 72 Howard Avenue (the Outpost of Humanity), briefly back home, back to 340 and 338 West King Street, and finally, surprisingly the longest consistent address, 48 Seymour Street, directly connected to a tavern, with my consummate roomie, Phil. The total was 15 years of sleep deprivation, fast foods, pretty ladies, cold pizza, beer, rock ‘n roll, little if any responsibility, chasing both the dream and the nightmare. Suddenly, with two phone calls my life changed forever. My sister called me one morning at work to tell me my mom had suffered a fatal heart attack in Pittsburgh while visiting her sister, my Aunt. An ex-girl friend called the following week to let me know that she was pregnant with my child. It was time to leave the frat house.
I was alive; I had not overdosed, nor died in a fiery crash, nor lost my job, nor had my body betrayed me (yet), no warrants had been served on me, I beat my DUI (after all, I was an innocent man), I had avoided the altar despite knowing more than a few well qualified young ladies. All of these happy circumstances were but for the grace of God or fate and most certainly not due to any personal course of action. However, there are two specific escapes of which I am more grateful for than others – I never became a smoker. Clearly I had demonstrated myself as a weak glutton who followed his desires more than common sense or duty. I probably lit less than a dozen cigarettes in those years and never finished a single one of them. Given that both parents and my only sibling smoked like chimneys (Lucky Strikes in my parent’s case) I thank the Lord daily for this happenstance. The other habit that gratefully I never took up was recreational drugs. I truly remember buying a young woman a dime bag in the early 70s for her birthday but have absolutely no recollection of ever purchasing so much as a single narcotic pill or tab after that gift. Consequently, when the mad days on West King Street were in full effect I was usually oblivious to drug use and in my own beer induced stupor. Having said that, I never turned down a joint, a hit, a pill or a line. My participation was limited by the code of the lost boys that every now and then it was your turn to buy, share or chip in.
That having been said I present my version of The Last Pile:
Late one, Friday (or Saturday), at Zangari South (after the 340 daze, likely around 1986) probably just before 1:00 a.m. I was drinking my Pabst at the bar with Coach, and other 340 Clubbers, street hockey players, b-girls, and junkies. Typically, I’d be drinking beer as if prohibition started the next day with an eye on the door desiring #134 to walk through the door. Coach, meanwhile, would be sitting there likely down the bar after having taken a berating from me for his far left politics. Others, Jeff Hull, the Future’s Bright would be down at the other end of the bar having taken a similar berating for their right wing views. I did a lot of berating and another thing that I escaped during my tenure in the Animal House was a good ass whipping. Lord knows, I deserved a few but I digress. Coach, by his own admission, was in possession of an 8-ball, was desperately looking for a place to party in private. Now, I must interject the bartender into the picture – Phil. Unlike my stance which was my drug of choice was the nectar of the Gods; Phil had evolved into pretty much an anti-drug stance based in part on some very negative familial experience. If Coach waited till the bar closed he knew that my roomie, the bartender, and my roommate (i.e. the homeowner’s son), would frown upon someone laying out lines in his home. So, Coach asked me if I wanted to go next door (to my & Phil’s house) and party. [NOTE: Coach tells it that I invited him over to watch a movie. Obviously, one of us is wrong... That’s why this is my version.] I saw the situation for what it was and grabbed a six pack and Coach & I went to my home which was next door and, contrary to PLCB regulations, could be accessed through the interior of the bar.
As coach states, he “thought this would also be a great place to get away from a few of my eager friends who wanted to party and with my party goods. I (Coach) just got an eight ball which usually last me to early dawn … I dumped the eight ball onto the mirror which was about 5 or 6 inches in length and laid out two lines the length of the mirror.” Here is where Coach and I again differ. In my mind at this point he did one of the lines, offered me the other, left the mirror and went to the bathroom. I simply took him up on the invitation and inhaled one of the lines on the reflecting surface. I then grabbed a Pabst and returned my attention to the “movie.” Meanwhile, coach comes bouncing down the stairs vibrant and ready to go and sits down in front of the mirror. Again, I turn the story back to Coach: “I looked at the mirror and saw only the one line left! Tee did the entire pile i.e. the eight ball! I glared at Tee and said, WTF?” I looked at Coach, not realizing what I had done, and said: “what’s wrong Coach, you told me to do a line”? I had mistakenly scarfed up poor Coach’s supplies for the night in one breath. Until reading Coach’s description I never fully grasped his lack of belief in my version. It was simply a mistake, quite hilarious to me and to Phil whenever he found out about it.
Coach and I both concur that he didn’t stick around “movie” or not. Phil came home at 2 and we likely had a couple of beers and called it a night. For obvious reasons Coach never turned me on again.
There, but for the grace of God …