My bio is starting out near the beginning of 1964. I was sixteen and going to Lincoln High School. At this time I was in the tenth grade. That's the starting point to my life as a Longhair, Mod, Hippie, and last but not least, a Freak. All of those transitions were a lot of great times, but I think my favorite was the Freak period, I'll get into that later on in my bio.

The Beatle's appeared on Ed Sullivan Febuary 9th, and that was my turning point, (actually I didn't really like the Beatles then), not only with me but the world around me, and little did I know then that I would be a big part of that change.

Delmar and I were already friends at this point. I met him in 1963 and we became friends quickly, his family moved into my old neighborhood on East 38th street in Cleveland. At that time I was already living on West 7th street and going to Lincoln, but I hung out on the eastside with my old friends, and a few new ones that moved into that neighborhood.

Del's family moved to the Westside sometime near the end of 1964, he was living on West 14th now and going to Lincoln too!

It was during a study hall period when I met Paul. Somehow we started talking, and then we started playing paper football. That's where you make a tri-angle out of a sheet of paper, place it over the edge of a table then hit it with the palm of your hand, sending it toward your opponent, the tri-angle has to have a edge of it hanging over the table edge to score a touchdown, if it falls off the table that's no score. If it's a no score it's your opponents turn, but if you get a touchdown, you get to kick the tri-angle, your opponent forms his hands to make a goal post and you place the tri-angle on and end and flick it with your thumb and finger trying to get it through the goal post. (I hope that makes sense)

That was how Paul and me started out becoming friends, it was getting near summer break and we were hanging out more and more, and listening to the Beatle's and the Rolling Stones. Paul played lead guitar back then, me I played nothing but that was soon to change.

Lincoln High School, it was both a Junior High and High school together. It was located on West 14th street in Cleveland, Ohio. It has long since moved and I think they separated the junior and senior schools now.

The school was mostly greaser. I'll get into that in a minute or two. There were jocks, greasers and a few black's that attended there, I wasn't a jock or a greaser, I just was!

Greasers: Let's see, had normal hair cuts, shaved up the back, wore dress leather jackets, ban Lon shirts, kaki pants, and patent leather shoes that shined like a mirror. They use to put this really grease's liquid called Brillcream in they're hair, and when it would rain the stuff would roll down they're foreheads. We use to always tell them to stand on they're heads and slide on home.

They hated Hippie's with a passion, and were really brave when they had the numbers, 4 to 5 on one. We started having trouble with them in 1966. Lots of unbalanced fights.

My grades weren't great but I learned in Junior high how to beat the system (but I'm not going to go into that), but from what I've seen, they now pass people that can't read or write, and a lot of people born here who can't really speak English. Matter of fact you now have teacher's teaching that can't speak English worth a damn, to all them I say--Speak ENGLISH OR GET THE FUCK OUT!!

My hair was always long, not passed the collar, but close to it and blocked in the back, I couldn't stand that razor'd up the back of the neck crap, also the front of my hair was really long, I use to comb it straight back. It was near Spring break 1964 when my troubles started.

I was putting my books in my locker in the hallway when a teacher came up behind me and grabbed the back of my hair, I spun around and looked at him, hair's kind of long isn't it he said, I replied no it wasn't and finished putting my books away. Went to lunch, but couldn't shake the fact that he grabbed my hair. I was never disrespectful to teachers, not yet anyway, that too was soon to change.

Well by the end of the day the event was forgotten, for the next month all was fine. But all hell was about to break loose soon. My dad bought me a large radio, back then they weren't called Boom Boxes, matter of fact you didn't crank them up irritating people around you!

Anyhow I took it to school with me, something to listen to on the long walk there. I lived about 2 miles from school, and no we didn't have school bus's back then picking you up, the only school bus's back then was to transport the jocks and cheerleaders to the different school's games. Got to school only to find out it wouldn't fit in the locker, so I took it into homeroom with me. As soon as my home room teacher seen me with the radio he told me to take it and put it in my locker, radio's weren't allowed in school, I told him it wouldn't fit. He told me then to take it to the principle's office and have him take care of it, so off I went.

At first the principle (Mr. Varner) was cool(this is the first and last time you'll see me call him Mr!), he understood about the walk and the locker, well all was fine till he told me to put the radio on the floor behind him, as I bent over all my hair that was brushed back came forward. After putting the radio down and standing back up he told me I had to get a hair cut. I was pissed but didn't say anything to him; I still respected teachers at this point.

I started really getting into the Beatle's now and decided that since he wanted my hair cut I'd cut it into Beatle Bangs, that would end my problem with him. Ohhh how wrong I was!!

I cut the front into bangs over the weekend, now it was back to the daily grind at school. As I enter the school, humm, a lot of people staring at me, not a good sign, oh well, they'll get over it, then again maybe not.

Sitting in home room, some of my friends compliment my hair cut, other's think I'm nuts, not to bad sooo far. In comes my teacher, don't remember his name but as soon as he see's me it's off to the principle's office once again. While I'm sitting there waiting my turn to see him, here comes Paul, he takes a seat next to me, we look at each other, and then in unison we say hair huh!

I got called into the office first, when Varner (Bet you thought I was going to call him something worst--Didn't you?) seen my hair he freaked out, what the hell do you call that he asked, I politely told him it was a Beatle hair cut, and that, he said my hair was too long in front and now it wasn't. At that point he told me that I was suspended for the next two weeks. I was in shock, I never did anything wrong in school, and now I'm suspended because I did what I was told!! Something is wrong with this picture! But out I went, I decided to wait outside by the curb, I figured Paul was soon to join me. How right I was, he got two weeks too.

Now it came time to tell my parents I got suspended for two weeks because of my hair, my parents couldn't understand that, and neither could I, matter of fact to this day I can't understand it, and I'll explain why later! There is a reason, and it's a damn good reason I think. Well I'm not grounded, they are on my side, except my dad says he don't understand the hair cut, but as he said, it's my hair.

I call Paul later that night, his parents also don't understand how he was suspended, and no he wasn't grounded either. We plan to meet in the morning at my house, Paul shows up in his car, a 1957 Chevy convertible, red and white, what a car that was. Huh Paul?

I also think that was the day we decided to form a band even though I didn't own a drum set or even knew how to play them. We took off and went riding all over and taking about us getting kicked out of school, and what we were going to do. I told Paul, the thing that really was pissing me off about getting kicked out was that for eleven years of school and all the teaching they gave us about our Constitution and the rights we have (see I told you I'd get to this later) freedom of speech, freedom of dress, freedom, freedom, freedom, but apparently not for the two of us!

Well we ran the roads that day getting to know more and more about each other, man did we have a lot in common, music likes, bands, girls, etc. I told Paul I was going to ask my dad for the money to get some drums and start lessons. We were now officially a band, but with no name yet, we'd work on that later.

That night I ask my dad for a set of drums, he said ok a little too quickly, so I ask him what he thought they cost, around $100 he said. I told him it would be more like $500; he just stared at me for a moment, and then said he'd buy them for me. To tell the truth I was shocked because my parents really didn't have that kind of money to throw around. But I know he sacrificed for me because of the love he always showed me (I wish I would have realized all this then) but the saying (young and stupid) fit me to a tee back then. I called and let Paul know that I was going to have a drum set soon.

Well, Friday morning roll's around on our first week of suspension, I get up and my mom said the school called and wanted to know why I haven't been to school. Huh, I was suspended for two week's, what's going on? I told my mom that they did suspend me and Paul. My mom called the school back and told them again that they suspended Paul and me; they said they didn't suspend us, and told her they also called Paul's parents. They wanted us both in school Monday morning sharp.

I then called Paul to see if they called his house, yep, same story, we were never suspended according to whoever called. Paul's parents were on the mad side, but they too didn't understand what was going on, they knew Paul wouldn't lie about that. We didn't see each other that day but got together Saturday, and we decided to make sure to enter the school together come Monday!

Monday morning Paul comes by and picks me up, well its D-Day. Time to find out what the hell is going on.

We made it through the front door and started going up the stairs, at the top of them stood Varner. Out of nowhere he started yelling at us, I told you both that you were suspended, get out of this school. I looked at Paul and he at me (now starts my rebellion).

I told Varner I wasn't moving till he called our parents to tell them he did suspend us last week. He then started saying he was going to have us arrested for trespassing. I told him that would be fine, at least our parents would know he threw us out, plus I said I think the newspapers would like that story. He quieted down for a few moments then said he'd call our parents and tell them he didn't want us in school.

We didn't trust him now so we went into his office and made sure he told our parents the truth. Both our parents were mad now, not at us but a how the school had someone call and lie about what was going on. My dad that night asked me if I believed in what I was now fighting for, my hair.

I told him it wasn't only the hair now, but the lie's all though school that I was taught about freedom. He looked me in the eye's and said that he was behind me now no matter what, then he said to me to fight and fight hard for anything I truly believed in! I assured him I would (I also hope I told him how proud I was to have him on my side but somehow I doubt that I did--That young and stupid thing again!)

At this point a little about my parents, they deserve a lot but I won't bore you, just inform you. My birth parents decided they didn't like each other shortly after I was born, to be exact, six months after. All that's fine and dandy except one split to Illinois and the other to Pennsylvania leaving my two brothers and me in an apartment. My brother's were fifteen and thirteen years old, well our grandparents on my birth mom's side came and got us all to go live with them. I didn't learn of this till I was around nine.

My brothers left living with our grandparents before I was five, they joined the service. My grandparents started adoption proceedings for me when I was around six or seven I think, they won in court with no problem, my birth mom was there trying to fight it, glad she lost.

My grandparents (but now my parents) asked me if I wanted my last name changed to theirs, well I didn't know what was really going on yet but of course I wanted the same name, after all, to me they were my mother and father and my last name should be the same as their's.

I wasn't at the court thing, but all this time I thought that my grandparents were my mother and father, they were the first people I remember ever seeing, they were there when I was sick, and when I was in the hospital. They were there when I had bad dream's, they were there to give me love, they were my real mother and father!! (Mom, Dad even though your not with me anymore I love you both dearly).

At nine I learned everything about what happened, my birth mom was stopping by every so often from Illinois all through this, but till I was nine I thought she was just some friend of my mom and dad's, I too considered her a friend.

After I found out who she really was I lost a lot of respect for her then, as I went through my teen years she was ok, but not my mom. She remarried a few years after she left us and had another son, my brother Sledd, to which I'm very close too, even though we're four hundred miles apart. And we're both close to our oldest brother J R. Our other brother Reverend Bob past away quite a few years ago. To this day my mom and dad are the ones who raised me, some of you may not understand that but that doesn't really matter to me, it's my life!

A week later I'm looking at this Peal Red metal flake and chrome drum set, sitting in the one small apartment's kitchen. Wow what a sight! Too bad I couldn't play yet, actually, I could get my hands and feet to operate independently, but forget about rolling, and especially from drum to drum, like I said earlier, I could hold a beat, I have always loved music, and I never stuck in any era. My love for Rock n Roll spans from the 50's and into today.

Now we need a Bass player to become a band! I'm now signed up for drum practice, one hour twice a week, can hardly wait. Paul and I are hanging out together more and more, so now it's time to come up with a name for our newly formed band. Paul come's up with a good name after we go over a few other name's, we're the Spyders. Practice begins in that small kitchen, Paul is good at listening to a record over and over to learn the cord's, he never used music sheets they sold, he wanted to sound exactly like the band and sheet music didn't do that. I start banging on the drums; I can hold the beat but its tricky getting each limb to do something different, and forget about rolling, can't do that yet. Next Monday it's time to go back to school and see what happens.

Monday comes all too quickly; our first stop is Varner's office. In his office he starts telling Paul and me how the Beatles are just wearing wigs, we tell him that's not true that their hair is really theirs, he don't believe us of course. His next strategy is to tell us it's just a fad we're going through and it will be over with in three months, well if that's the case then he should quit kicking us out and wait and see if his theory is true! Of course I didn't think to tell him that though, well none of us are getting anywhere at this point. He tells us to go to class till he figures out what to do with us. Actually all is quiet for a week or two, then he says that if we get a note from our parents stating that we were in a band and that our parents didn't have a problem with the way we look all would be fine. He lied, one of the many lie's he pulled. We bring him the notes and------you guessed it kicked out again, two weeks again too!!

Man he loves that two week thing, actually we did too, during lunch time we'd go over by this all girl Catholic school and hang out with the girls at a little deli across from the school. We never went out with any of them though. That didn't last long; the nun's were going to call the cops on us if we didn't stop hanging out at the deli at lunch time. They already had Paul's license plate number. Needless to say we stopped going there, why I don't know, the cops couldn't have stopped us really.

Now comes the time we change the way we dressed. Out comes the band The Music Machine (they're hit was Talk Talk), dressed in all black and each wearing one black glove, (now this was way before Michael Jackson with his glove). Skin tight pants and black dress shirts by the end of the week my closet was full of our new dress style and my old clothes went into the garbage, (Paul was already wearing all black when we met), and the skin tight pants. And of course Beatle Boots, they were black suade with zippers facing the inside of your legs, and man when it would rain and they got wet---your feet would turn blue from the dye. If my mind serves me right they cost us $9.99 a pair. Wish they still made the Beatle boots, they sure were comfortable.

The Beatles are about to play at Public Hall, and their staying at a downtown hotel, news paper says high security at the hotel. Well Paul, Buzz (I grew up with Buzz on East 38th street) and I decide we want to test this great security. We get to the hotel, lots of cops, go around to the back and no cops, we see some girls by a back double door that was mostly glass, No we didn't break it if that's what you were thinking. Looking thru the glass they wraped a chain and lock through the push handles. But they never locked the doors, so we started pulling on them, all the while the chain is sliding, allowing the doors to part more, well we get all we can out of it. Paul now holds them outward, I climb up his back get to the top of the doors and slide inbetween the doors and building and drop to the floor inside the hotel. Buzz is next, now from the inside we push the doors outward toward Paul, he climbs over and in, then we let a few girls in before we take off on our own. Some how we knew the floor they were on, I think it was the 14th floor. Anyhow we sneak up some back steps and end up in a kitchen that wasn't being used, but there's freshly used trays of food stacked in there. We figure there must be one of these on each floor. Well Buzz is hungry so he starts taking and eating the food while Paul and I start scouting out the area, trying to get as close to the Beatles room as we can.

Well, so far so good, no one is paying any attention to us, and no cops around, hum, maybe we aren't on the right floor. Wait a minute, Paul and I both see Brian Epstien standing about ten rooms down the hall from where we our. Man, we're close now to meeting the Fab Four. A guy in a suit waves to us as he comes toward us, wow, maybe he's going to take us to their room or rooms. Wrong, as he gets really close out comes a badge, he's a detective guarding that floor, we are now being lead to the elevator. Mean while Buzz must still be eating. Well this guy isn't happy about the fact that we made it this far, and says to Paul and I that he should just throw us down the elevator shaft. Man I hope this guy isn't serious!

As we're there waiting, Buzz starts heading our way, he thinks this guy is helping us so he starts waving in our direction, the detective ask if we know him and both Paul and I say no. Buzz then calls us by our names, and of course the cop already got them. So you don't know him huh? By the time Buzz reaches us the cop once again has the badge out. The three of us our led down to the lobby and out the main doors with the threat that if we get back in we will be thrown down the elevator shaft.

Needless to say we don't try the hotel again, nope, instead we decide to try and break into Public Hall where they will be playing. It's now getting late and soon they will be playing and we still haven't gotten in the building. Well we try for a while longer and decide its no use and head home. Once home, I get some terrible news, news that I'll never forget! My dad ask where Paul and me have been all day, we told him and he started laughing. Here his friend Lou stopped by about the time we were getting into the hotel. Seems he had some friend that worked at Public Hall and was going to get us in, and to make it worse, he was going to have us back stage for the whole thing. I called Paul and told him the bad news, all he kept saying was, you got to be kidding, over and over!

Well all hell breaks lose when we showed up for school in our new dress clothes. We didn't even make it through homeroom before being sent to see our least favorite person. Varner claimed that only bad guy's wear black, hum, if we wore white would that mean we're ok?? I think Varner watched way too many cowboy movies as a kid. Strange thing was no one said anything to Paul about the way he was dressed till we both showed up that way! Anyhow, he allowed us to go back to class but we had to have notes again from our parents the next morning stating that those were our only clothes, and they were!

Well, the next morning we have our notes in hand; AND--Yes, the notes went into the garbage can again, and yes we're back on the streets once again. Other than that, things were starting to happen, started my drum lessons, not too bad, in fact the first lesson and quite a few afterwards were very lame, but when will I be able to roll?

It was now time for action, we call the Cleveland Press, a local news paper and give them the low down, they send a reporter over to take our story and shoot some pic's. We figured they probably wouldn't use the story but hey it was worth a shot. Man were we wrong!

Well our two weeks are up and it's back to school, and straight to Varner's office. Man is he pissed that we ended up on the front page of the news paper, and even more so since the paper printed the name of the school, and he let's us know it! Hell he was the one who started this stupid fight. (If this were a Rambo movie--He drew first blood), we were the only ones that had a right to be pissed, oh, but that's right--WE DON"T HAVE ANY RIGHTS What was I thinking! We're sent back to class though, for now that is.

A few hours later he has a plan or so he thinks. We're called back to the office to meet with him, he looks at Paul and me and starts yelling, stand at attention when I'm talking to you! Huh, what the hell, we're not in the army, and he's no General. We both look at him and tell him we think he's flipped. Then he starts yelling at me saying I'm dirty and that I never change my clothes, I tell him all my shirts are black but if he would look at the monograms he'd see that my shirts are different. He more or less calls me a liar, well Paul gets pissed now and tells him that I'm not dirty and that if he paid attention he'd know I change my cloths. Well he does calm down in a little while, but we're sure he's heading toward the loony bin. Now (here's his great plan, you won't believe how stupid he was) I've thought it over he says, and I'm going to assign you both all new classes, you will be in all girl classes except gym, since you look like girls. Paul and me look at each other with huge smiles on our faces, then back at him and eagerly say ok to his new plan, girls, girls, girls, man is that ever punishment!!

Whoa, maybe not a good plan huh Varner? Talk about walking backwards fast, he did the Moon Walk before Michael Jackson, (hum did Michael know him and the Music Machine). Wait a minute, you guys seem to like that punishment a little too much, (back to the drawing board huh Varner) ah, go back to class I need to think on this some more. Paul and I are laughing all the way out of the office. What a dumb ass!

We're back in class but all is not rosy, my first class was math I think, the teacher calls me up front and tells me I'm getting an automatic F in his class. Huh?? What?? How can that be if I pass the tests and do the home work! I'm told that doesn't matter by him, must have been the news paper thing. Paul is also running into the same thing in his classes. So I look at that teacher, then go back to my desk to retrieve my math book, I walk back up to him and hand him the book, what's this for he asked, well since your giving me an F no matter what, I don't need this damn book, it's yours, I leave it on his desk. All in all only two teachers are going to pass me if I do the home work and take the test's, one was my english teacher and the other was my art teacher (To both of you I say thank you), that wasn't going to cut it so I gave back all my books and I think Paul did the same. I did tell the two teachers that I did appreciate the fact they didn't hold our hair against us. By Thursday we were back on the streets, yes kicked out again!

A few week's later Pauls gets a call from a local radio station (WHK), they have a radio show called Harv Morgan's Contact. They want us to appear in the show! It's a show where they invite guest to come on and people call in, either for the people or against them, Harv usually played the bad guy, always against the guests. Paul tells them we would be happy to appear and air our thoughts about what all has happened to us. Man will Varner hate this! We're scheduled for the end of the week. Sad news Paul's grandma dies and he can't make the show, so I have to go it solo. I don't like that since Paul had the golden tongue for things like this, but I also don't want to miss this opportunity to get back at Varner! I let Paul know that I'll go. I get down to the station and they go over some things with me and show me how to que the mike etc, etc. Now I get to meet Harv Morgan, Paul and I listened to his show a lot before this, so I felt like I knew him already. He told me up front that he had to be against me on the show, then he told me something that shocked me! He was on our side and hated to have to play the bad guy against us!! Now I know why I always liked him, he was like us, just older! Well the show starts and I'm getting tongue tied and also slaughtered on the show by the people calling in. One jerk calls in and wants to know what my grades are? Well at this point they're all F's! Normally they'd be C's. Harv asks they guy what do grades have to do with what the school is doing to us. Well this jerk tell Harv that if we were straight A students that would make it all right to have our hair long! Wow, this guy is as bright as a ten watt bulb in a pitch black room!! Harv hangs up on this guy then we go to break time. Harv tell me and the station manager that he's no longer playing the bad guy against me, he's now going to be against the people that call in with stupid idea's like the last caller, his manager agrees with him and lets him do his thing. Oh, we also got a lot of calls from people on our side, I'd say it turned out about 60 % against and 40% for us.

Monday Paul and me decide to visit the board of education the see what we can do about what Varner's pulling. They claim they understand our situation but they have no control over how the school dictates what's exceptable, but if we can find another school to accept us that would be a different story. Well most of the schools we called knew our story, that's because they read it in the paper and now they wouldn't touch us with a hundred foot pole and they made that clear. Finally we found a school, it was Catholic, and even though we weren't of that religion, they would accept as just so long as we'd behave and do the school work, and that they would work around us having to take their religion course. wow, we're all set now, bye bye Screwy Louie Varner! Oops, spoke to soon, we go back to the Board of Education and give them the school name and the name of the person that ran it, so they could call and confirm they'd accept us. Now get this, that school isn't in our district, that's right, not our district. For many years now they've buss'd kids from one side of town to the other, but the extra 10 blocks we would have walked was illegal!

Varner said he would call us when we were allowed back into school; he was pissed about the new headlines in the paper. (Humm I really feel bad for him, NOT!) Yes, we called again, this time though they did a tiny article near the back of the paper, but the name of the school was in there again, our tale I guess was old news now. We no longer have a copy of that clipping or I would have posted it. But it more or less said we were still trying to keep our long hair.

Well our phones started ringing off the hook once the first article hit the paper; lots of girls want date's with us. We decide to set up meetings with these girls but we have them meet us out in the open on a main street, that way we could drive by and check them out before we stop, and also to make sure it wasn't a trap, and yes we were getting conceded by then, actually, everyone of the girls were really cute! Paul at that time owned that red and white 57 Chevy convertible, man if that car could talk!

A few weeks later were back at school, and of course the Board of Education let him know that we payed them a visit! A new plan for Varner, it we get a majority of the students to say they didn't care about the way we looked, we could stay, we got around 2,000 signatures in a school of 2,500, way more than we ever thought. We get called to the office once again, sitting on the now familiar bench waiting our turn, here comes Delmar, he too is now connected with the longhair movement. Paul and I are called in together leaving Del on the bench alone. We give the signatures to Mr. Wacko, he looks them over, get's up and throws them into the trash, hey, what gives, you said if we got a majority of the votes in our favor that this would end and we'd be allowed to keep our longhair. All we got out of him was, I changed my mind, now get out ofMY SCHOOL, oh, now he owns the school, great, just great!

Yes, Del gets thrown out to right after Paul and me. We meet him outside and he and Paul get to know one another, he's going to be our Bassist, he just doesn't know it yet. We don't spend long together that day, but that too would change a while later.

I don't remember the exact time I got the name England but I remember getting the name really well, it was on one of the time's we were kicked out of school and I decided to walk to Paul's house. On the way to Paul's house walking down Clark Avenue a couple of grade school girls seen me walking and ran over to talk to me.

They were in love with the Beatles and never seen a longhair before, they wanted to know where I was going, was I in a band, etc, etc, Once they found out where I was headed it was right past their school, they wanted to know if I would walk with them to their school, I said yes I would. We said goodbye at the entrance to the school, they were really cool for their age, I don't remember your names girls, but I'll never forget you!! I still wear the name proudly!

Back to the name, a few days later I'm again walking to Paul's, not sure why now, but here come those girls again, they join me and off we go toward their school, one of them or both, I'm not sure, looked at me and said, your name is England from now on. I thought that was cute but didn't take it serious till a few hours later while I was talking to Paul. From that day forth I became England, some knew me as Dave England, and other's just as England, very few ever knew my real name, back then it wouldn't have been bad for people to know my real name, but around a year later that was a good thing that people didn't know it! We'll get to that later in the story, and then you'll know why, if you don't already!

We are still out of school at this point. Well I get this brain storm idea and tell Paul we need to sneak into school to see the lunch movie, they use to charge something like $.03 to see the movie, they would show a half hour of it each day. The movie they were showing then was Godzilla, don't ask me how I remember that but I do. Anyhow, we sneak into school and get caught in the cafeteria by one of Paul's teachers; it's off to the office we go. First Varner's going to have us arrested for trespassing.

I mention calling the newspaper if that happens, so he decides instead, to have us go to class. Well we go see the movie and then another brain storm hit's me! (Probably not a great one at the time but hey, I'm pissed about the whole situation) I tell Paul to follow me into Varner's office; I let him know my plan before we reached the office though. We walked right in, Varner looks up and ask me if we forgot our locker combinations. I tell him no that's not the case, well what's going on here then he asked, I look him straight in the eye and tell him, you've been throwing us out over and over, now it's out turn, we're kicking ourselves out of school. At that, both Paul and me turn and head out, all the while he's chasing behind us saying we can't do that, he finally gave up following us part way down the street, Paul and me go into a laughing fit, he looks at me and say's I can't believe you did that. I look back at Paul and say, yes but look at you, you followed me! At that we're laughing so hard we're having trouble catching our breath.

Varner of course called our parents, they weren't really happy about what we pulled, but understood why. We were told to report to the school the following week for a meeting with teacher's from different schools to decide our fate on the longhair and the way we dressed.

Meeting day arrives, first Del enter's the main room, we can hear the teachers gasp from the room as Del enter's, Paul's next to go in, the gasps are even louder due to his hair length, I can imagine what will happen when I enter, for now my hair is on my shoulders, (Beatle hair cut is gone, I now look like one of the Rolling Stones) the whole room gets silent as I walk in, I did hear one, Oh my god. As I looked around the room, surprise, surprise, all the teacher's are from Lincoln High, and are the one's flunking us, not a single outside teacher!

We lost the battle before it began. Varner is sitting in the center of this huge U-shaped desk with teachers all the way around on both side's of him. He calls me before him and hands me a piece of paper with the school rule's on it, I look it over, let's see, no longhair highlighted, no dressing in black highlighted, no tight pants highlighted, no boot's also highlighted, looks as though they designed these rule's around us. Didn't see anything else on the paper, I crumpled it up and threw it at Varner, calmly told him and all the other teacher's to go F#@K themselves and headed out the door. I seen someone coming after me so I slammed the door as I got through it, and continued out the main doors, walked across the street to the main hang out at lunch time, it was a little beverage store.

I didn't have a long wait at the store, maybe a couple minutes, you got it, and here comes Paul. We look at each other and break out laughing again. After a little while Paul tells me I nailed the teacher, whoever it was in the face, I just shrugged my shoulders, at this point I didn't give a damn, our rights were being trampled!

And yes, we're kicked out again, they decided not to throw Del out if he'd trim his hair, they figured they could save him, but to them we were a lost cause. One that they created by educating us in the Constitution, and all the talk about our rights as citizens of the United States. Hell, you're not even free to die here if you're terminally ill! I get more and more pissed off at how the people of this country are letting the government strip more and more rights away each day. And then I read about this STUPID FAMILY (yes that's right S-T-U-P-I-D) that let implants be put in them to, where their every move can be tracked. Oh, our government wouldn't do that, humm, let's see, George Sr. fixes the election so George W can win, yes I did vote for him (but I see now that was usless), LSD feed to our soldiers without they're knowledge, and also in some orphanages, or how about Agent Orange, it only kills plants, humm, plants breath the air, soldiers breath air! WAKE UP!! And how about the money going to the peoples families who died in the Twin Towers, now lets see how many of you know that a soldiers family gets a whopping $6,000 for the death and a few hundered extra to bury their husband, wife, father, mother, son or daughter (thats a real crime), the Twin Tower families are getting over a million and want more, well lets give the family of an innocent person who a criminal kill's a wad of money, or how about my neighbors family when the neighbor dies in a car accident, what the differance, dead is dead!! The real terrorist is the government! What color of danger are we in from them, I'd say we're already in RED, hell I fear them more than any terrorist!! And you should too !!!

As I said earlier, I've had with all this; your in, your out, in, out, this is it! I go home and tell my parents that I'm done with school, and at this point even if I would agree to give up my freedom and rights it wouldn't mean a damn thing. I still believe that I would still pass two classes though, if I would have went back but, no way, after what we went through no way would I surrender my locks to the barber. I always hoped I'd run into Varner out on a street somewhere, but it never happened for me. Paul on the other hand got his day! Got you interested now didn't I? Well you just have to wait till our lives reach that point to find out about Paul's day. Wish I could have seen it live, or on tape, though live would have been better !

Paul also decided that his fate was sealed in that school, but his parents didn't want him to quit, and said they wouldn't sign for him to quit. We didn't talk over quitting with each other, but we both seen the writing on the wall. I quit about a week into our latest suspension, and I just didn't care anymore.

Paul, called me a few days later, he too was de-schooled, since his parents wouldn't sign him out he signed himself out, and the school never knew. Now we were free to practice being a band, could go anywhere we wanted and didn't have to worry about getting up to be somewhere, well for a little while that is. When you leave school at 17 you have to have a job, packing bag's at a grocery store, pumping gas, what ever. Man that sucked, seems like we did have to get up, but, we both noticed all the pressure was gone, it seemed like a weight was lifted off us. And dating, WOW is all I can say. I will not go into to much detail about that, I will mention a few names every now and then, and maybe tell you a little more, but not everything. That is between the girls and I! I never let anyone know what went on, it was private.

We were getting good as a band now, that is a band of two; Paul had written a few songs for us, one was an instrumental, which he dubbed the Spyder's Theme. It was really good, but through the years we've forgotten what it even sounded like! When we would practice now, the neighborhood kids would line up outside to listen. Now to show you how conceded we'd become at this point, and we didn't even have a record out, we made up the Spyder's moto, it goes like this:

We use to also look in every store front window as we walked by them, checking out ourselves and the length of our hair. Watching it get longer each month!

I have now moved upstairs to the small apartment, my father passed away shortly after I quit school and I couldn't take living in the apartment we lived in without him there. His death really hurt me.

Some info about that apartment, wild would sum it up best, but I think you probably want more in the way of details. So I will try and sum up the wild part and maybe some mellow stuff too! I was in the apartment a short time, and by now Delmar was with Paul and me all the time, he was also our Bassist now. Well his parents got mad at him over a party he had at they're house and told him he couldn't live with them no more so he came to live with me. We shared a double bed in that apartment, and no, we didn't have a problem sleeping in the bed together, we didn't have a phobia about it. I have to skip ahead at this point, you'll know why shortly.

One day during the week Paul and I are coming up the ramp at the old Terminal Tower, and what do we see?? Two guys like us, longhairs, and one is wearing a John Lennon cap. Far out! We spotted each other at the same time I think. We stood around there talking for awhile but then they had to be some place, they said they'd be back downtown Saturday so we said we'd meet in front of May Company around one PM.

Paul and I were really happy to meet some people like us, Cleveland wasn't exactly LA, longhairs were just beginning. Saturday arrives and were by May Company waiting for our new friends, the Oberrath's, David and Randy, Randy was the one with the Lennon cap. I'm not sure if David had one on or not. Shortly after we arrived we seen them coming from the direction of the Terminal Tower, there Was Randy, Gilley and David, wow a Beatle type girl with bangs, neat. Probably Randy's girl, she seemed to stick close to him as they're walking toward us. In my brain I thought, man is he lucky, she's really cute!

We hang out the whole afternoon in downtown that day, and we planned on meeting next Saturday same time same place. It wasn't long after we met that I found out Gilley wasn't Randy or David's girl, but soon she was going to be my girl, and Randy would see to that, but I didn't know that at the time. I know he looked after her and wanted to check me out some more first. Before meeting Gilley I went with a couple of girls, the one was a greaser girl, I don't remember her name, but I do remember she had a Bee-hive hair-do, that was hair piled high on top the head with tons of hair spray to hold it there. The other girl was named Ruth; we went together for a couple of months that I remember.

Now back to Randy and his helping to get me and Gilley together! We were walking around downtown, it was Randy, Gilley, me, and David (Randy's brother), I don't remember Paul being there this time. Well Randy kept lightly bumping into Gilley forcing her closer to me; it wasn't long before we were holding hands that day, and many months to follow. Randy was proud of himself for pulling that off, I could see the smile on his face. And me, I was on cloud nine, literally, I felt like I was floating many feet off the pavement!

Don't get me wrong, I love my wife Sue and always will. But Gilley will always share a piece of my heart too.

Now back to the 60's.

We were like Siamese twin's for the time that it lasted. You see her mom decided to take some college classes, one class that was my downfall with her was she took a psychology class and decided to try that crap on me each day I was at her house. The only thing she got out of trying to analyze me was very bad headaches and she'd start crying, she sure ate up a lot of aspirin's through those sessions. Each time she thought she had me figured out, I'd change what I told her before, example: the sky is blue one day, the next day I would swear I told her the day before that it was purple and so on and so on!