by Tom Harvey
Those early HBO movies really stuck with me too. American Gigolo, Who Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe?, A Little Romance, How To Beat The High Cost of Living, and Flash Gordon. Young minds are impressionable, that much I know. After watching the Chuck Norris classic, Good Guys Wear Black, countless times, I became enamored with Porsches. Who can forget the black Porsche 911 with obnoxious whale tail? My love of the matte-black Porsche was forever cemented after watching the 1983 classic, The Big Chill, with my weed-smoking-friend, Don, at the Porter Theater.
HBO also had a show called Not Necessarily The News–a family favorite–even my little sister watched it, and she was only five. This show satired recent news of the day. The one scene I remember is the Pope stepping off a plane and kissing the ground. At just the right moment, the camera cuts to a close-up of the pontiff’s hands while he slips a discarded cigar into his white sleeve. The Pope–the real one–stands up and waves to the crowd. It was preposterous and perfect.
With all the forms of entertainment these days–from the internet to video games to hundreds of TV channels–it’s almost impossible to convey how special something as simple as HBO was.
When I told Ryan I took the bus after school, that was a true statement at the time. But it only took that first week at the new junior high to realize that I wasn’t a bus person for the simple reason that I wasn’t a morning person. I was more than willing to trade an extra half hour of sleep for riding my bike the mile and a half to school. It was also great exercise for the sport we soon discovered: bicycle motocross (“BMX”).
As soon as I started riding my bike to school, I learned from a classmate, Martin Szoke, that he raced BMX in Ivanhoe, a small town thirty miles to the north. With directions in hand, we piled in our 1978 Chevy Monza–Mom, David, Trish, and I–and on one Sunday in the early part of 1980, drove out for a look.
Getting to the track in Ivanhoe was a trick because it was, literally, built in the middle of an orange grove. And there were thousands of acres of orange groves in the area. We did find the track and after watching that first race, we wanted in on the action.
The following Sunday, I signed up with the twelve-year-old novices; David, with the fourteen-year-old novices. Wearing blue jeans and my Burton flag football shirt, David in gold corduroys and a long-sleeve Yamaha shirt, we promptly got smoked.5 Big time.
As the Sundays rolled by, we didn’t get discouraged and, in a couple months, we were qualifying for our respective Main Events with equal consistency. Trophying, however, was a different matter since only the top three finishers received a trophy; fourth through sixth received a small ribbon; seventh and eighth received nothing. David earned the first ribbon (a pink one at that) and taped it, facing outward, to our small, living-room window. Kids walking by began to notice the growing number of pink, blue, and yellow ribbons accumulating on the glass.
In less than a year, our bikes underwent major modifications, and we ditched the jeans for actual racing uniforms: colorful polyester jerseys and nylon racing pants. We were on our way. Ribbons came down. Gold plastic trophies went up.
Life in Mrs. Alexander’s class cruised along and my new friends realized that I was a serious student (either that or a royal kiss ass) after I couldn’t stop giving book reports in front of the class. Everyone had to do one but I did half a dozen, (I specifically remember Clive Cussler’s Night Probe!) much to Mrs. Alexander’s delight.
1979 gave way to 1980 and February 20, 1980, will forever be a day to remember. Having just finished my homework at the kitchen table, I walked into the bedroom David and I shared. Mom’s arm was draped around his shoulder and his eyes were red.
“Are you …”
I looked closer.
“… crying?”
“No,” he lied, “but Bon Scott is dead!”
He held out the Highway To Hell album as if to affirm this. I looked at the picture of Angus in shock.
He went on. “He died of alcohol poisoning yesterday. I just heard it on the radio.” Mom left the room with a sigh, turning the comforting responsibility over to me, the little brother.
With that, I hopped up on the top bunk and gazed at the album cover as he played the entire record from start to finish.
I’m embarrassed to say that I mistakenly thought Bon was Angus Young since the guy in the middle of the picture is always the lead singer, right? Bon had to be the guy with the horns, pitch-fork tail, and sneer, right? Remember that we didn’t have the internet information superhighway and MTV wasn’t yet born so, for at least the next ten years, when I thought of Bon my mind’s eye pictured Angus.6
One distraction from Bon’s untimely death was the ongoing Winter Olympics and, specifically, the U.S. vs. Soviet Union hockey game. What happened on February 22, 1980, is now known as The Miracle on Ice.
What made it so miraculous?
The Soviets masqueraded as amateurs but, by all reasonable definitions, were professionals.
The American team consisted of college athletes since most of the professionals that played on American NHL teams were Canadian.
In the same matchup a few weeks earlier, the Soviets beat us 10-3.
The Soviets didn’t know how to lose. They were the defending gold medalists for the last four Olympic games.
I wish I could say we watched the shocking upset live but that wouldn’t be the truth. Most of the country heard the outcome on the radio then watched it on tape delay–which is what we did. Even though we thought we knew the outcome, it was nail biting to watch the Soviets take the early lead, then have the Americans tie it–back and forth three times in this manner. With exactly ten minutes left in the third period, Team USA took the lead for good, 4-3.
The last ten minutes were amazing. The Soviets went on a tear, firing up shot after shot after shot. Even though we were pretty sure the news accounts were accurate, every one of the Soviet near misses built up the intensity. Every save by our goalie, incredible. Even on tape delay, the game was electric for a couple of Central California kids who didn’t know the difference between a hockey stick and a pogo stick.
What is sometimes overlooked is that The Miracle On Ice wasn’t even the gold-medal game. Team USA went on to defeat Finland a few days later in another come-from-behind victory to claim the gold.
Hockey, at least for a few days, took our minds off of Bon Scott. Miracle or not, though, Bon Scott was just as dead after the game as he was before it. As we mourned the loss and wondered if he was literally burning in hell thanks to Highway To Hell, (no stop signs or speed limit, damn!) another album spent time under the needle, the self-titled-debut, Loverboy. Released in the summer of 1980, the band from Calgary quickly became one of our all-time favorites.
It wasn’t all AC/DC and Loverboy on the music scene that year. We enjoyed live music in the sixth grade courtesy of Mr. Matsuda and his acoustic guitar.
Mr. Matsuda was a small Asian guy with thick glasses and a thick Asian accent. A couple of times a year, he’d sit on a stool in front of the class and take requests–just him and his beat-up guitar. This was officially considered “music class.”
A few girls closest to him quietly sang under their breath out of empathy and unfortunate proximity. Most of us either rolled our eyes or outright laughed at him. Being a back-of-the-class dweller, I was guilty of both. I do give Mr. Matsuda credit for busting out my two favorites, Greensleeves and Streets of Laredo. One time, after my usual request, he turned to the class in exasperation. “Does anyone have any other request than Greensleeves?” No one did.
It was about this time that Pac-Man made its appearance in the local Pizza Hut. The first time I saw the upright video game, a dozen excited kids surrounded it. Though we didn’t know it at the time, Pac-Man would become a cultural phenom and spawned a whole line of related video games, merchandise, and even a hit song (who can forget Pac-Man Fever1?). No one played it like my friend, Arthur Cowley. Every time I’d drop into Pizza Hut–not for the pizza, for the game–he was in the far
corner twisting and jerking the joystick enthusiastically. Wonka, wonka, wonka, wonka …
The location of the game was advantageous–as far away from the entrance/cash register/salad bar as possible. I suppose the management thought keeping the rowdy kids away from the eating patrons was a good thing–and it was a good thing, for the Pac-Man players. Arthur had the touch when it came to playing the game for free. He knew just where to smack it with his open palm to register a credit. With a lookout or two, he’d rack up ten to twenty credits in a rapid-fire exchange between his palm and the sensor inside the game. I smacked it once and scrambled the circuitry causing it to reset–losing all the credits in the process. The manager figured something was up when he went to unload the treasure chest full of quarters–after hours and hours of dedicated playtime–only to find a few dollars worth. They eventually caught Arthur red palmed and red faced and threw us out.
Banned from Pizza Hut. Does it get any worse than that?
Pac-Man was the beginning of our video game craze and we spent countless hours–and quarters–playing Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Robotron, and Defender. Some of my favorites were the lesser-known Scramble, Kangaroo, Popeye, and Make Trax (a Pac-Man knock-off). God bless Mom for feeding the cookie jar with money–our only source of revenue–as there were always a few bucks to feed the video game addiction.
Speaking of video games, David spent twelve hours playing Asteriods one day much to the chagrin of the local Mini-Mart owner. Twelve hours on one quarter didn’t even cover the electricity to run the game. For every ten thousand in points, my brother earned an extra spaceship and had them stretched all the way across the top of the black and white screen. I stood in during his quick bathroom breaks (through the stock room, past the cases of cheap vodka, first door on the left). He’d hurry back to a few less spaceships and, wired on microwave burritos and thirty-two oz. sodas, resume the monotonous assault against asteroids and agitated alien spacecraft. They kicked us out at midnight.
Burton was both an elementary and a junior high school. Kindergarten through fifth grade sat on one corner of the large square lot, sixth through eighth on the other; the playgrounds separated by a four-foot white picket fence. One day at recess, just after losing at Four-Square (I was good, but not as good as Chris Moore or “Paulie” Moreno–they both cheated), I noticed a group of kids waving from the other side of the fence. Looking closer, it was my sister and all her girlfriends. I walked over and chatted with her, bringing giggles from all the little girls peering up through the fence. The image of Trish’s shining face and short blonde hair still makes me smile.
I didn’t graduate out of the sixth grade–there wasn’t a ceremony like some schools have–but I do remember the last day of school. As David and I walked past the junior high lockers, I spread out my arms, pressed my face against one, and hugged a row of them. “Next year, one of you will be mine.”
David replied, “Uh, those are the girls’ lockers, dummy.”
1980 Fun Fact #2:
“Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” is released in theaters. Darth Vader is one bad dude.
CHAPTER 2
Our step grandpa owned a junkyard in Lindsay. I’m not sure if junkyard is politically correct nowadays, but that’s what it was: a big automobile graveyard. In his small, non-air-conditioned grungy office, he wheeled and dealed with the best of them. In the summer of 1980, he announced a road trip in his newest prized-possession: a worn-out, orange and lime green Winnebago. I don’t know what he traded for it, but I bet it wasn’t much.
Destination: Walla Walla, Washington. The adults had some making up to do with the brothers.
The reason that we didn’t have a birthday party in 1978 was because our dad died on the night of my tenth birthday. That mysterious call was the news delivered by our brother, Lorne.
Dad was a rough-and-tumble guy who lived in his small hometown in southeastern Washington State. He was an auto mechanic, a welder, a roadpaver–a bluecollar jack-of-all trades, really. He was also an outdoorsman and loved to hunt. To give you an idea how badass Dad was, he and his younger brother, Bart, killed a bear during one trip into the woods. No big deal? They got lost and had to sleep inside the warm, bloody bear carcass to keep from freezing overnight. If that’s not badass, I don’t know what is. The next day they walked out of the forest with a story for the ages.
He drowned the sorrows of his unhappy second marriage at The Green Lantern over cold Olympia and shots of Crown Royal. This only made home life worse.
On the night of February 8, 1978, he came home from the bar and an argument ensued with our stepmother. Behind the closed door of their bedroom, the shouting abruptly ended when his .357 magnum revolver went off with a deafening explosion. Lorne scrambled in to find Dad on the floor with a single gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet ripped through his heart and, despite a herculean effort by a local ER physician (who, ten minutes after the injury, fearlessly ripped open Dad’s chest, jammed his finger in the hole, and manually squeezed his failing heart), the damage was done.7
Thomas C. Harvey, Jr., dead at 34. Cause of death: accidental gunshot wound.
For years, the demons whispered that his death was my fault. They argued because he was out celebrating your birthday. You’re his namesake. It’s your fault he’s dead.
Which brings us back to the summer of 1980 and the reason for our trip to Walla Walla–David and I never got the chance to say goodbye.
Grandpa loaded up the small RV and away we went–Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, David, Trish, and me. A thousand miles down the road lay our destination.
The clunky RV was not much more than a box on wheels. It didn’t have a bed. It didn’t have a bathroom. It didn’t have air conditioning. It was loud and reeked of gas fumes and dried sweat. Grandpa loved it.
He had a favorite saying: “We were so poor we didn’t have a pot to piss in or a place to throw it!” He lived through the whole Oklahoma Dust Bowl thing, and, after reading The Grapes of Wrath, I sort of understood his meaning.
Not to be delayed with the biological mechanics of five human bladders operating on different clocks, he brought a pot when nature called. You could say he wasn’t as poor as he used to be.
Not an hour into the trip, Grandma announced she was going to use the pot–“eyes forward!”–and we plugged our ears to block out the sound of spattering urine not ten feet behind us. We had nothing to drown out the noise–Mom couldn’t afford to buy us a first generation Walkman cassette player and the RV didn’t have a radio. David and I exchanged looks of disgust while Mom patted us on the back in good cheer. We were stuck in RV Hell and she knew it.
When Grandma’s deed was done, I pondered the important questions.
How do we keep the pot from spilling?
Is that the same pot we cook spaghetti in?
How many bladders could the pot hold?
Anyone have asparagus in the last 24 hours? (All right, I didn’t think that as a twelve-year-old, but I’d think it now.)
My five-year-old sister could probably get by with a styrofoam cup.
These thoughts raced through my mind as Grandma settled back into the passenger seat, pot-in-question firmly fixed in her hands.
David and I sat at the small dinette table staring at each other glumly.
Without warning, Grandma gave the pot a quick jerk out the open window thereby ejecting the contents into the great-wide-open. Repulsed, I whispered to David, “I guess we’ve got a pot to piss in.” Without hesitation, he replied “and a place to throw it.” A light blue Datsun B210 passed us on the right, windshield wipers at full-speed even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
When we finally arrived in Walla Walla, it was the only time I saw both of my grandmothers in the same room. No one seemed anxious to visit the cemetery and this confused me. Wasn’t that the purpose of the trip?
“Aren’t we going to the cemetery?” I asked Mom.
“We’ll go,” she said quietly.
F
or three days I asked this question. By the time we drove into Mountain View Cemetery, I was excited. Finally!
Cypress 33.
When I think of my dad, I think of Cypress 33. His grave is located at the intersection of Lilac and Cypress–third row from the intersection, third marker to the right.
Cypress 33.
We piled out of the RV and made the short walk.
All the excitement and anticipation vanished as I approached the marker for the first time. There, on the ground, was my name–not once, but twice. Two Thomas Harveys, father and son, dead at 44 and 34, lung cancer and trauma, respectively.
No one said a word. Birds chirped in a far off galaxy.
The word I attribute to that moment is permanence.
Mom stood between her two youngest sons, her hands firmly clasped around our shoulders. Tears dropped from her eyes onto the dirty brass marker.
I fought back the urge to vomit.
This wasn’t fun. Dad was never coming back. He wasn’t gone on a trip. He wasn’t going to surprise us with a knock at the door. He was contained in a box six feet below my feet. This was … permanent.
David knelt down and pulled away grass that had grown over the edges of the concrete perimeter, wiping away tears with the back of his hands as he worked. When he was done, he stood up and drew in a long breath. With red eyes, he turned to Mom and asked, “Do you have a new penny?”
It was an odd question.
“Probably. Why?”
“I’d like to leave a 1980 penny to remind us of the year we were here.”
She produced one and, after carefully wedging the shiny coin in the ground, David turned and walked back to the RV in silence. Mom followed.
But I wasn’t ready to go.
I looked at the freshly-pulled grass and the shiny drops of tears dotting the marker.
