This is the MySpace survey I referred to in the previous post…

Remember 1996?

Well…yes as a matter of fact. I also remember 1986, and 1976, and 1966.

Body: Ten years ago today, it was June 16, 1996. Take this survey, post the results, and see how many things have changed since then.

Okay…I’m going to change the rules here a tad to suit myself. Let’s take a deeper look into the past. Twenty years ago it was June 1986. Thirty years ago it was June 1976. Forty years ago it was June 1966. I am not so old that I can’t look back into those days too. And an interesting trip it is too…

1) How old were you?
1966: 12
1976: 22
1986: 32
1996: 42
NOW: 52 (and I can still subtract 10 from a quantity)

2) Where did you work?

1966: I did chores around the house for a small allowance. I think it was about five dollars a week in 1966. But for a kid in 1966, five dollars went quite a long way.

1976: Infomatics General. As an office clerk. I didn’t like it, but I had the whole future in front of me, so I wasn’t worried. Someday, I would be just where I wanted to be, I just knew it…

1986: Self employed Architectural Modelmaker. But I was having to take on Manpower type jobs to make ends meet. Sometimes I mowed lawns for extra money. A few times I let construction contractors pick me up off the street for something ("Hey…you… You want to make a little money"?) I figured I wasn’t the hottest thing on two legs in cut-offs, so it probably wasn’t sex they were looking for…not that I would have picked up on it if they were. I figured my future was living on the poverty line, somewhere, hopefully, above the starvation line…

1996: Contract Software Developer, working at Becton-Dickinson. I was beginning to have some confidence that this business earning a living as a software developer wasn’t just another fleeting moment in my life, but something I could actually count on to make me a decent living. Maybe. Finally.
NOW: The Space Telescope Science Institute. Have I died and gone to heaven? Some days I think I must have…

3) Where did you live?
1966: Rockville, Maryland – two bedroom apartment I shared with mom and her mother, who didn’t much like me because I looked too much like my dad, and sometimes acted a bit like him.

1976: Ditto, but mom and dad were seeing each other again, and grandma had passed away, which made it a bit more safe.

1986: Ditto. But mom was going to retire soon, dad had passed away, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life then…

1996: Cockeysville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, in my second one bedroom apartment. It was the apartment of my dreams. Solid concrete walls and floors to keep the sounds of my neighbors out, a full sized washer and dryer Right In The Apartment(!!!), and a nice quiet balcony with the loveliest view I could have ever dreamed of having: Four miles across Hunt Valley to a low ridge of hills in the distance. I could watch the weather forming up on the horizon, could sit and watch brilliant red and yellow sunsets. I’d lived in garden apartments all my life and this was the best one ever. I was beginning to think I’d made it after all.

NOW: Baltimore City, in my first house. I actually own a house now. Property. Land. Okay…a little noodle of land 110 feet long by 16 feet wide. But it’s mine. I still can’t believe it some days.

4) How was your hairstyle?
1966: Cut to my parent’s tastes.

1976: Long, randomly trimmed.

1986: Long, professionally layer cut.

1996: Long. Just…long. But Keith would soon dump me and I’d cut it all off as an alternative to taking the scissors to my throat. I have this fine baby hair, even now, and it took me six years to grow it all back.

NOW: Long. A tad gray. Well…more then a tad…

5) Did you wear contacts?
All Years: No

6) Did you wear glasses?
1966: No. I had excellent vision.

1976: No. Still 20/20, 20/14

1986: No. As above.

1996: Occasionally for reading

NOW: Always for reading. I can sense that I’m on the cusp of loosing my distance vision now too. Damn. I want my twenty-something body back…

8) Which of your pets were still alive?
1966: No pets of my own just then, but grandma had a canary named Goldie. Beautiful singer…I often took care of it.

1976: Ti, my green parakeet. But he would get cancer and die soon.

1986: Pepper, my black cat. I think I stopped wanting pets after he died in ’90. I don’t handle death very well.

1996: No pets

NOW: No pets.

9) Who was your boyfriend/girlfriend?
1966: I think I may have had a pre-pubescent crush on Mark. I know I drove a lot of my male friends nuts during that time with the intensity of my feelings toward them, because they later told me so. I was a high maintenance friend back then. But in my defense I was a completely devoted one. I would just get…well…jealous. And easily hurt. Friendships were always emotionally passionate things with me. Drove them nuts.

1976: George (a crush I was circling around, but didn’t have the nerve to actually ask for a date)

1986: Dale (another crush I was circling around, and eventually got around to mustering up the nerve to ask for a date. He said no.)

1996: Keith. He said yes. Then he said no. Then he said yes. Then he said no. Then he said yes. Then he dumped me.

NOW: No boyfriend. Single. Lonely as hell. Thinking maybe this is how it will always be…

11) Who was your celebrity crush?
1966: I think…I was too young for that then. But I remember being riveted at the TV screen whenever a Bomba movie came on…

1976: Peter Frampton. I had a thing for him ever since I saw him in Humble Pie.

1986: Robbie Benson. A couple years previously I’d sat in a movie theater in stunned jaw hanging open amazement watching "Harry and Son"…and…those…cut-offs. Man oh man. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it since. Oh…and the movie was good too.

1996: The Nelson Twins. They were (and still are) beautiful, they could sing, I had their posters all over my apartment.

NOW: Gil Ofarim. Not so much a crush as "Damn boy…I wish I’d known someone like you when I was a twenty-something…" He’s better looking then in the Wikipeda picture. But I’m probably a tad too old to be hanging posters of twenty-somethings on my walls now. Robbie Benson is still a fox too. So are the Nelsons. Haven’t seen any recent pix of Peter Frampton. Man…Leif Garrett didn’t age well did he? I hear that heron and cocaine will do that to a guy. What a waste.

13) How many piercings did you have?
1966: Well…that summer I stepped on a rusty nail and had to have a tetanus shot. But that’s probably not what you meant…

All Other Years: None. I’ll do a lot of things in the name of fashion, but poking holes in my body isn’t one of them.

14) How many tattoos did you have?
All Years: None. I am a canvas only metaphorically.

15) What was your favorite band/singer?
1966: The Beatles. The Four Tops.

1976: Pink Floyd. Led Zeppelin. Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Weather Report. Shostakovich.

1986: I listened to classical and film scores mostly during this period. Some Michael Nesmith. Some David Gilmore. Shostakovich. Bruckner. Ralph Vaughn-Williams. Rachmaninoff. Jerry Goldsmith. John Williams.

1996: Swing Out Sister. William Ackerman. Glen Miller. Benny Goodman. Ralph Vaughn-Williams. Jerry Goldsmith.

NOW: No particular favorites. Some big band swing. Some Trance. Ralph Vaughn-Williams is still a favorite classical composer. I’m rediscovering my old Motown favorites. You may think from this that I don’t listen to music all that much, but I listen constantly, and my collection is huge and varied. I just don’t listen to one particular thing obsessively like I used to. Well…except Vaughn-Williams… I think Vaughn-Williams has become the background music to my life. But I listen to a lot of other stuff as well.

16) Had you smoked a cigarette?
1966: Me and some friends found an unopened pack in a construction area behind our apartments and passed them around. I took one toke and swore I’d never do that again as long as I lived. I never have.

All Other Years: No. But let me rephrase this question…

16b) Describe your cigar habit
1966: Enjoyed the smell of cigars when adults around me were smoking them, but would never want to smoke one myself. I was later to discover that dad liked a good cigar.

1976: Experimental.

1986: Making regular trips to the tobacco store.

1996: Own a nice geeky sort of humidor and stock it with expensive cigars I can afford because I only smoke one a week or so, or daily when I am under deadline pressure at work.

NOW: Cutting back. Maybe one or two in a quarter year now. I have to remind myself to maintain the humidor’s humidifier. I still enjoy a good cigar, but my body rebounds from the nicotine high badly.

17) Had you gotten drunk?
Let me adjust this question a tad…

17b) Had you gotten drunk or high or just messed with your head in general?
1966: Could not fathom why adults did that to themselves.

1976: Yes. With friends often. Alone and pondering the Big Questions, every now and then.

1986: Not nearly as often, and never alone. This was a low point in my life and when I am miserable I do not get high.

1996: Maybe a few times.

NOW: Not this year so far. Got kinda buzzed at the office Christmas party last year. Good thing I can walk home…

18) What kind of car did you drive?
1966: A Schwinn (okay it was a bike, but I was only 12) that I technically wasn’t supposed to have, but which I fished out of a junk yard and put back into service as best I could and hid in the bushes behind our apartment. See…my parents had this fear that I was going to break something if I had a bicycle. So I just wasn’t allowed. My secret bike got stolen eventually and I was heartbroken for another few years until I found another junker and restored it. By that time I was old enough to insist I could own a bike I’d restored with my own two hands and they let me keep it in the apartment at night. When I got my first car I gave the Schwinn away to a neighborhood kid.

1976: ’73 Ford Pinto. My first car and I’d bought it new on the income I had working at Industrial Photo. It was my ride for the next 11 years, establishing a pattern of holding onto a car until it was undrivable. I did nearly all the servicing on it myself, including brake and clutch changes and got 135k miles out of it. This was back when getting better then 70k out of a Pinto was considered an achievement.

1986: Too poor to own a car. Borrowed rides a lot.

1996: ’93 Geo Prism.

NOW: ’05 Honda Accord.

19) Favorite place to be?
1966: A certain hillside behind our apartments where I could watch the sky, and sunsets.

1976: Ocean City New Jersey.

1986: Taking a walk or a hike somewhere, usually around Great Falls. Sometimes around Sugarloaf Mountain.

1996: Sitting on my Balcony looking over Hunt Valley.

NOW: On the road, seeing something I’ve never seen before.

20) Looking back, are you where you thought you would be in 2006?
Let me adjust this question a tad…

20b) Looking back, where did you think you would be in 2006?
1966: I thought I was going to be an artist and my cartoons would be in newspapers and my oil paintings would hang in galleries and homes all over the world.

1976: I thought I was going to be a professional photographer, with a few photo books published, and my photos and oil paintings in galleries all over the world.

1986: I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.

1996: I was beginning to think that maybe I wouldn’t die poor and on the streets after all.

NOW: Looking back…I needed a bit more nerve earlier on. I should have gone to art school after graduation. I should have told TA how I felt about him sooner. I should have treated dating after high school more like gorilla warfare then Harlequin Romance. I should have kept my cameras second to my easel. But then I wouldn’t be here. Here is good. Here is very good. I just feel sometimes like there’s this big hole in the middle of my life, most of the 1980s, that seems wasted. There are pieces missing. Maybe that’s just the way it always is. Life is one damn leap of fate after another. Sometimes the landings are hard. And it’s not always "pick yourself up and go on"…sometimes it’s "stagger away and regroup". Life will enrapture you, then break your heart, then enrapture you again. It doesn’t care. I think that means that we have to. Love yourself. Love your neighbor. Love life, even when it doesn’t love you back. Make the leap of fate worth it.