Westbrook, Maine

Cloudman Court. Can it sound any dreamier than Cloudman Court. This is the street we moved to from NY when we moved to Maine. Cloudman Court, a peaceful little street in a peaceful little town just out of Portland. The downside, it was a pulp town and it had a smell to it. But I have never lived in such a small town. My school, pictured above had four rooms and it only went through 3rd grade. I spent three year there finally reaching the first grade, I'll spare you the math; two years in kindergarten.

There were a lot of kids that lived on or near Cloudman Court. There are actually pictures of me having a real live birthday party in our backyard there, cake and everything. At the end of the street there were woods and then the river. I remember running home from those woods screaming after either the kid I was with or myself stepped into a wasp nest. As one can imagine, it created quite a stir at home..racing in with the entire wasp population of Cloudman Court chasing after me.

We lived on Cloudman Court for about a year. I have never heard a reason - but knowing how cheap my old man was I am sure that my mother was the one who rented it and when he had the time he found cheaper digs. We soon moved closer to the pulp mill, right off main street near a warehouse. There was our little rental and some old apartments, teeming with horrible punk kids and the warehouse. It was right next to the rail road tracks and along with the horrible punks from the apartment, we hopped the trains to get to school. It sound real hard core and dangerous, but the trains went slower than we walked; it was just cooler to jump aboard than to walk.

The horrible punks in the apartments were truly a vile bunch of kids. The one kid I remember always wanted us to call him "Gillette" and I do not remember his real name. We ended up calling him "Toothless" as that summer his brother knocked all his teeth out playing full contact badminton. It was a horrible thing to see. The other big news that summer is that their family finally bought a car. A brand new Chevy II. It was the first brand new car I had ever seen and I remember being very impressed by it.

Across the main road ( a very busy street) was the little league field. I was too young to play, but my brother Bruce played for the Eagles. I was so envious of his uniform, his hat and the fact that he was "in the game". We all played baseball everyday behind the warehouse using the lime from the rail cars for chalk. But that could never compare to the real thing the Little League games played before a real crowd.

And once again the warehouse wall served as my full time playing catch partner.