Chapter III

We moved to Victoria Road in the summer of 1966. It was a nice house in a nice neighborhood.

Ashley Merrick was my second best friend. We used to sing old Monkee songs in his back yard, using baseball bats as guitars. I loved music as a kid. The Monkees, The Beatles, I could listen to them for hours. I often did in my room.

My dad hated rock n' roll, but he never discouraged me from listening to it. Whenever he came back from a cruise, he always brought me something, sometimes a guitar, sometimes a set of maracas. One Christmas he even got me a drum set. I would close my door, and bang away, thinking I was Ringo Starr. I literally wore those drums out.

I also sang in the choir at school. Mind you, it was somewhat due to the fact that Kelly Hollywood sang too. Boy, she was pretty. I was seven years old, and already liking girls. Boys were supposed to pull hair and trip girls out in the schoolyard. Not me, I liked to hold hands, walk them home, and sometimes even get a little peck on the cheek. I haven't changed much I don't think. Some people would think of me as a flirt, I like to think of it as being a hopeless romantic. When I was eight it was Nancy Hughes.

If I had known then what I know now, I think I would have been an athelete. Then again, I know now what I didn't know then and it didn't really help much.