Chapter One
Meet Al (That's Me)
My great-grandfather was born in a small village … Ha ha, don’t you hate it when you read a biography, and it starts several generations back? So I’ll skip all that and give it to you in a nutshell: I’m a character and a cheapskate who married a frugal wife. We were able to squirrel away our money so that we could retire early and do interesting things. While working, I was a neuroscientist (with a real PhD), a computer game programmer, a jazz musician, a chef, a CEO, a clam digger, and a technical writer.
By the way, for these childhood memories, I’ll invoke a quotation from Mark Twain: “When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter.”
I do remember that when in school, I was the class clown. For example, here’s a joke that I played on my best friend Steve—it’s something I’d never do today.
We were at the ocean on the south shore of Long Island. I decided to make him think I’d drowned. Nice friend, right? Somehow I was able to swim far enough underwater that I could come up undetected down the beach a bit. I even got up onto the shore behind Steve without him noticing. We were on a deserted section of ocean, and according to Steve, one minute I was there, and the next minute, gone. He grew more and more panicky, and ran back and forth trying to see me, yelling my name. When I came up behind him, laughing, he was relieved but angry. Terrible joke, huh? He still mentions it when we see each other.
That kind of humor gets socialized out of you. For example, a few years ago my older sisters were visiting me in Oakland, CA, and they were out walking on a deserted road. I was running, and I snuck up behind them and made a roaring noise like a bear. They both jumped off the ground. One farted and clutched her heart and the other wet her pants. So, although that sense of humor is inside me, I’ve had to learn to control it before I kill someone.
Perhaps the bear noise prank was some kind of unconscious payback for something that happened when I was six. My older sister was babysitting me while my parents were having a party. I’d probably been watching some crime show, and I wanted to know if I could get loose if I were tied up. So Sis tied me up, and even gagged me, as per my instructions, with a red bandanna. She then went down to the party and forgot all about me. I spent hours trying to get loose, and managed to fall between the bed and a table, with my sweaty, tear-streaked face down among the dust bunnies. My sister says that when she finally remembered, she raced up to free me, and as soon as she got my hands untied, I started hitting her.
The funny thing about that is that although this still haunts my sister to this day (she apologizes every time she sees me), I have absolutely no memory of it—the description above is from what she’s recounted.
In this next picture, taken in 1964, I’m the one holding the milk, and the blonde on the left is the one still holding the emotional scars from that episode.
One more story (and it’s bike related) to show you what I’m like: When I was 13, I had a steering wheel on my bicycle. I somehow bolted an old steering wheel from a junkyard onto the bike’s stem. It actually worked quite well (the bike had coaster brakes), and it let me use my favorite joke: “What’s the most unreliable part on a vehicle? It’s the nut that holds the steering wheel.”
So, enough about me. Let’s get to the trip, and I promise not to play any tricks on you.