It was not long after our Summer 2000 trip to Myrtle Beach that it became rapidly apparent that the relationship that Lisa and I had been building for the past six years was coming to a close. I returned from the trip on Sunday, July 30 and the next day resumed my management training at the Fairborn Kroger store. It had been easy to take the past two weeks off because the scheduled area I was to be was the front-end, a job which I of course had had ample experience. At right is a photo of me taken at work during this approximate time period. This posting constitutes a virtual catch-all for the minutiae going in my life at this time. If you attempt to read it, you might want to prepare yourself a large bowl of popcorn and a flask of something hard and strong.
While I was learning a completely new job, Lisa instituted a change in her work practices too. She went on third shift, working three twelve-hour shifts per week overnight. Although there were numerous underlying problems in our relationship, I firmly believe that this drastic change in her schedule was the coffin nail of our marriage. We can both take the blame for some of this. I recognize that I underplayed the difficulty of her maintaining this schedule by expecting more out of her at home - with the fact that she was off work for four days every week firmly implanted into my mind. She, on the other hand, had difficulty sleeping on the nights that she was off, and so felt the need to continuously party and hang out with friends into all hours of the night, often not coming home at all. It only took a little over a month before this downward spiral caused her to bascially move out of the house for good.
I continued to busily go through training at work, and virtually ignored the issue, until she made the announcement that she wanted to stay with one of her friends for a while. The only good thing that happened during this time was that I had acquired the only two remaining episodes that I needed of my favorite TV show It’s Your Move from a guy who had contacted me through eBay when I was selling the 16 episodes that I did have. I fondly remember coming home from work on lunch, eating a couple of Hot Pockets and watching these two episodes for the first time in about a dozen years. You can see that my priorities certainly did not lend themselves to working toward a reconciliation.
However, Lisa did attend a get-together for the Kroger co-managers that was held at Dave & Busters in Springdale. We had a relatively nice time playing video games and pool with Don Fife. I remember impressing Don by telling him how Lisa and I first met. Speaking of work events during this time period, I also recall a relatively miserable time working as a management trainee where we all had to help out at the Kroger Senior Classic. Some of this time was spent preparing deli trays at Chef’s Choice Catering and some was spent bussing tables at the Kroger Hospitality Tent at the Senior Classic itself (held at Kings Island).
As Summer came to a close, I continued my duties as Grand Sheik of the A-Haunting We Will Go Tent of the Sons of the Desert Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, following the annual July hiatus (in which the biennial convention is generally held), by holding our tent’s annual picnic on August 27. This was held at my Dad’s house in Brookville and included a showing of some rare newsreel footage along with the feature Sons of the Desert and a couple of shorts. Being without an active newsletter at this point, I created a meeting announcement from a newsletter template on the computer. It was the only one ever created in this fashion. It also announced the goings-on of the new Sons Advisory Committee to which I had been elected at the Seattle convention. Our first priority was to conduct an eBay auction to raise funds to pay off the at-that-time inactive Intra-Tent Journal International Sons publication. The auction was simply a huge group of autographed photos that my friend Bob had donated and I arranged, posted, and concluded the auction for each one on eBay. The fundraising campaign was to begin on September 15…as if I needed something else to occupy my time.
As we reached this mid-September point, I did try to convince Lisa that we should try to work things out. I even took her to a KISS concert on September 13, 2000. This was in support of the band’s supposed ‘Farewell’ tour and the third time I had seen the reunited band in makeup. We went to this show with my friend Damien and a friend of his - and we brought Ashleigh along as well. I wanted her to have the opportunity to say she had seen all of the original members of KISS, even if she was only ten years old and couldn’t have cared less. Our seats were okay, Row 21 on the floor, but good enought to be near an area to which Paul Stanley would ride a cable and glide to, performing out in the middle of the audience (and to see a girl flash him!). I remember that the evening ended in disappointment as I had hoped that Lisa would come back home with me, but she did not.
The concert should have been the end-all-be-all to a KISS fan. Costumes from the Destroyer era, special effects like blood, fire, flying, and smoking guitars, classic songs, and a very energetic band to boot. Seeing Gene, Paul, Ace, and Peter was like stepping back to the seventies and my childhood. As it was, it was only mildly entertaining due to the circumstances that I was going through. If I remember correctly, we even left a bit early - before the encore performances. To date this is the last time I have seen KISS and no doubt the last time I ever will see the orginal configuration.
I could not find the set list from Dayton - but here is one that has to be very similar, if not identical, from five days later in Providence, Rhode Island:
Detroit Rock City
Duece
Shout It Out Loud
I Love It Loud
Do You Love Me?
Calling Dr. Love
Let Me Go, Rock n’ Roll
Shock Me
Firehouse
Heaven’s On Fire
Cold Gin
2000 Man
- Guitar Solo
Lick It Up
Love Gun
Psycho Circus
100,000 Years
God of Thunder
Black Diamond
-Encores
Beth
Rock and Roll All Nite
My ticket stub
The Laurel and Hardy eBay auction ran for several weeks before we finally reached our goal. As I recall we raised over $1000 and I wrote a check to pay off the printers that the ITJ owed money to. Although Bob’s donation of the photos was more-than-generous, the truth is that I did all of the legwork on this project, in essence saving the ITJ from ruin - all amidst the chaos going on in my personal life. This is one of the reasons that I felt so betrayed by the Sons and the publication when Jimmy and I were turned down several years later when we volunteered to take over when the opportunity arose for us to assume the editorship. Of course, this is now merely water under the bridge.
I had one more meeting during this time period - on September 24 at the home of Charles and Joyce Sexton. The featured film of the evening was Swiss Miss. It would not be until November that I would have another meeting; surely the messes and changes in my life going on throughout the month of October contributed to that.
September 30 saw my Beavercreek High School 10-Year class reunion. The night before, Friday, September 29, fellow graduate Bobby Stewart had held a private party for the graduates at this home in Beavercreek. There was an incredibly large turnout for this. Although Lisa had agreed long before to go with me to the dinner event on Saturday, she was nowhere to be found for this Friday party. I even invited Christi to go with me but she could not make it either. So instead of bringing a date, I got ahold of Jeff Flinn, my old best pal from junior high, and he came along with me.
This was the most fun event of the ‘reunion weekend.’ Here I saw such luminaries as Harry Knight, Lisa Baker, Brad Myers, Pete Bales, Mike Ross, Jim Dichito, and many, many others. I was drinking rapidly throughout the evening so I can remember few details. Just everyone standing around a campfire and imbibing. And I remember something about a bus. Pete (maybe) had been driving a bus around the country with his friends and brought it along. I’m not sure. Good times.
The next evening was the formal banquet at the Holiday Inn in Beaverceek which turned out to be the poorest-attended of the whole weekend. Lisa did attend this with me, although she was late in coming over to my place to meet me. I think we sat at a table with Lisa Baker and Patrick Leadingham. It’s funny that at the ten-year mark, not enough time had really elapsed since graduation to wax nostalgic about meeting up with these people. As I also would not do five years later at the 15-year reunion, I snapped nary a picture of these gatherings. Quite out-of-character for my modern-day persona, I must say.
Program from our reunion - with my name tag featuring my senior picture attached
The dinner wasn’t exciting, wasn’t well attended, but was extremely expensive. That is why most of my former classmates simply met up for a much larger gathering at Sugar’s, a bar inside the Holiday Inn, afterward. Lisa naturally did not want to linger around there very long, so I think she has someone pick her up and left me the jeep to drive home. I remember running into some additional old friends like Jodi Austin (who tested me to see if I could still write backwards in cursive) and Mike Minges. Overall, it was nice to see my old school chums, but an air of sadness loomed over the whole event as I remember telling Mike that I thought my marriage had about had it.
Since Lisa wasn’t around, I spent a few evenings hanging out with Christi over at Jackie’s house which was becoming party-central about that point in time. Jackie had a hot tub, which coincidentally had been purchased from Briana’s Dad Billy, and a gazebo constructed in their back yard. I know I had at least one enjoyable and relaxing evening within this liquid haven.
For the last birthday of my 20’s, I spent it without a partner on October 2, 2000, but on a so-called date with Amy the gorgeous pharmacist at The Phone Booth lounge, a place I had frequented frequently the past few years. Of course, this never lead to anything and this was really the last time we ever went out - even just as friends, but I still fondly recall the times we spent together.
As you can see at this point in my life I was headed nowhere fast. Married not much more than one year, I had reached a point where we either needed to reconcile or be done with it. I opted to try the former, but Lisa preferred the latter, having resigned herself to the fact that now she was also interested in joining the traveling nurses and carving out a new life for herself elsewhere.
I remember this as a tumultuos time, trying to keep my head above the water as I learned my new job, tried to keep up a new house by myself, faced a dissolution of my marriage, and had joint custody of Ashleigh who was currently living part-time with Christi and Jackie in less-than-desirable circumstances.
I was ready for a change and one was coming soon. And it all culminated on the night that Lisa and I made our last public appearance together as a couple.
To be continued… (now this is a soap opera!!)
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