1984: Heartbreak and a Year of Living Dangerously

 

1984: Heartbreak and a Year of Living Dangerously

Back in 1980, I packed up my whole life and moved to South Florida with Melissa, my wife. I’d landed a job as Chief Engineer for Firedoor Corporation of America in Miami. That title sounded mighty important at the time—had a nice ring to it on a business card—but truth be told, it didn’t change much. I was still doing the same kind of work, just with a shinier label. Still, the pay was better and I thought I was climbing the ladder.

Melissa and I settled into Hollywood, Florida—just a stone’s throw north of Miami—and except for a guy named Tom Stone, an old co-worker of mine, we didn’t know a soul down there. That kind of lonely gets into your bones after a while, but I was chasing something I couldn’t quite name. More money, more status, maybe just trying to prove something to myself.

My folks back in Leeds, Alabama, used to say they wished I’d find what I was looking for and settle down. What they meant was, “Come on back home, son.” But I’d gotten a taste of city life—restaurants, nightlife, even had a membership to the Miami Playboy Club where I’d take clients for lunch. Yeah, it was that kind of life.

Then everything changed.

Around 1983, Melissa started showing signs that something wasn’t right. She was off balance, got weak and confused at times. Eventually the doctors told us she had multiple sclerosis and sarcoidosis affecting her brain and lungs. It was like getting the wind knocked out of us, and the first doctor gave us hope that never really showed up.

After a few months of hospital visits and no improvement, we brought her back home to Birmingham and checked her into Brookwood Medical Center. That’s when we heard the hard truth. She wasn’t going to get better. We decided she’d stay with my folks in Leeds so I could keep working. They took such good care of her—waited on her hand and foot like she was royalty.

I brought her back to Florida for a while, but it was just too much. She couldn’t be alone, and I couldn’t be there all day. She started imagining things—wild stories she’d tell me when I got home, stuff that clearly hadn’t happened. That’s when I knew she was slipping away. Another doctor gave us the final blow: there was no recovery in sight. I sent her to spend some time with her family in North Carolina. We talked all the time, but my work started to suffer.

She came back to Florida one more time, but things got worse. She fell into a coma not long after being admitted to the hospital again. Her folks and younger brother came down to be with us.

On Valentine’s Day 1984, the doctors told me she wouldn’t make it through the night. That same day, my sister Lisa was in labor with my niece, Cory. I leaned down and whispered in Melissa’s ear, “Please don’t go today. Lisa’s in labor.” I like to think she heard me because she hung on a couple more days. She passed peacefully on the evening of February 16.

Her body was flown home to Birmingham, and two coworkers drove me back to Leeds. I was numb. I remember almost nothing from those days, just flashes. What I do remember is this: the love people had for Melissa. The funeral procession stretched for miles. My dad said, “If you want to know how much she was loved, just look behind us.”

I went back to Miami, but I was just going through the motions. I didn’t pray. I didn’t lean on my church. I was mad at God—angry in a way that only a broken man can be. I started drinking, then spiraling. The nights got longer, the mornings got harder. I’d wake up with hangovers in strange places—sometimes in Liberty City, sometimes in Little Havana. Bars, backseats, bad decisions.

I started mixing in drugs—weed, cocaine. I saw some dark things in that world. Beatings. A shooting. Honestly, I think I was trying to die without doing it myself. I just didn’t want to be here anymore. But, somehow, God didn’t let me go.

Then one day, Larry Masters called. We’d worked together back in Leeds. He said the company we worked for had moved to Dothan, Alabama, and they needed an Engineering Manager. I said, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” It was the first good decision I’d made in a while.

I flew to Dothan, took the job, rented a house, and started digging myself out of debt and despair. I still cried most nights, but work kept my hands busy. The new company was learning how to deal with custom architectural jobs, and I was the guy explaining the ins and outs of it all. That challenge helped steady me.

Then one day, Vic Shultz walked into my office.

Vic was all swagger—red-haired, straight outta Wisconsin, and full of confidence. He threw a little get-together at his apartment clubhouse and made it his mission to pull me out of my funk. We'd talk, sit around listening to music, and slowly I came back to life. Vic had just gotten out of a bad marriage—I never asked questions—and he was always chasing women. One day he was dating a convenience store manager named Margaret, and she had a roommate named Susan.

One night, Vic tells Margaret, “There’s this guy I work with, widowed, sad, good heart—you need to set him up with Susan.” Margaret brings it up to Susan who replies, “Fine, but the guy better not be expecting any hanky-panky.” (Her words, not mine.)

We went to dinner and then out dancing at a place called The Red Barn. I danced one dance—I’m awful—and then we mostly just talked. Susan could talk up a storm. She loved her kids, Tiffiny and Michael, and told me all about them. I liked her right away, but we didn’t see each other again for a while.

A few months later, I ran into her at the convenience store where she worked. We started talking again, and eventually we went out a second time. That night she told me more about her life, her friend Pat who was like a mother to her, and her family in Leesburg, Florida. When she talked about her kids, her whole face lit up.

She invited me over to meet them. Tiffiny put on a whole show, acting like a movie star. Michael came bursting in from outside yelling, “Mom, he’s got a limo!”—because of my tinted windows. I laughed harder than I had in months. When I left that night, all three of them hugged me. It felt like coming home.

The more time I spent with them, the more I felt like I belonged somewhere again.

One night, I told Susan I wanted to marry her—but I asked the kids first. Tiffiny ran to get Michael, and when I said I wanted to marry their mama, they both lit up. Michael hugged me and said, “I’m gonna have a Daddy!” I cried like a baby. We got married the very next day. Vic was my best man.

Not everyone tells this story the same. There are things about 1984 that are just between me and God. There are parts of Dothan I’ve left out on purpose, and Vic, bless him, has kept those chapters closed too.

I don’t see Vic much anymore—haven’t laid eyes on him since 1995—but he’s still in my life, in that quiet way only old friends can be. He shows up in my Facebook feed, and I know he’s still watching out for me.

So Vic, if you’re reading this—mark your calendar for the end of August. I’m coming to see you. We’ll drink to old times and new ones, to the wives we love and the kids that saved us. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll smoke a stogey and remember what it felt like to be invincible.

Tunnel Rats in the Rew Development

Tunnel Rats in the Rew Development

“Tunnel rat” usually refers to soldiers during the Vietnam War—men who volunteered to crawl through the tight, dangerous underground tunnel systems built by the Viet Cong. But in our little corner of the world, the Rew Development, “tunnel rats” had a whole different meaning.

This story is about me and my sisters Janet and Lisa. Dana had not yet been born and she missed out on a lot of our childhood exploits. But me, Janet, and Lisa, we were weird kids. Adventurous, fearless, and always on the hunt for n ways to have fun. If there was a sinkhole near the sewage plant or a treehouse in the woods across from Valley View Baptist, you could bet we knew about it. And we’d probably already explored it.

The Rew was laced with a stormwater drainage system—pipes big enough for a scrawny kid to crawl through on hands and knees. The hardest part was getting into the storm drain in the first place. Most of the openings were only about eight inches high, so if you weren’t small, you weren’t getting in.

Me, Janet, Lisa, and another neighborhood kid, Terry Penny, used to shimmy into the storm drain at the corner of President Street and Montevallo Road. From there, we’d crawl all the way down to Cleveland Street, then take a turn and head another block to Robert E. Lee Street.

At the intersection of Cleveland and Robert E. Lee—right in front of the Sisson house—there was a chamber where pipes came in from three different directions. There was even a manhole overhead in case you needed to get out. That spot was just big enough for four small kids to sit comfortably in a circle—and that’s exactly what we did. Most of the time, we never went farther. Only once did I go past that, up to the cul-de-sac where the Uptain family lived. The pipe seemed narrower up there, and I didn’t want to risk getting stuck with no room to turn around. Crawling backward for a whole block didn’t sound like a good time.

One afternoon after school, the four of us made our usual crawl into the chamber in front of the Sisson house. James Sisson, Ronald Uptain, Gary Holder, and Paul Thomas were all out in the yard playing around. We sat in our little hideout listening to them for a while. Eventually, we got bored—and that’s when the bright idea hit us: we’d shout up at them.

We pushed up on the manhole cover, peeked out, and started hollering silly stuff before slamming the lid shut again. At first, the boys couldn’t figure out where the voices were coming from. But it didn’t take long before they narrowed it down. They ran over and tried to pull the cover off, but it was harder to lift from above than to push from below.

We didn’t stick around to see if they could manage it—we turned and started crawling back toward Montevallo Road, planning to head home via President Street. But it didn’t take long before those guys figured out where we were going, and they followed us along the road, probably just a few feet above our heads the whole way.

When we finally reached our exit, we tried to shimmy out—only to find all four of them waiting. We were afraid to come out, so we just crouched there in the dark, hoping they’d get bored and leave. They eventually did, but our troubles weren’t over yet.

The commotion had attracted the attention of a couple of local bullies. Every time one of us tried to squeeze out of the drain, they’d hurl rocks at us. Not huge ones—just big enough to sting. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes, until even the bullies got tired of the game.

We finally crawled out, dirty and sore, and made it home just in time for dinner. That was the last time we ever climbed into that storm drain. We took it off our list of cool places to explore.

Years later, I walked down to take a look at that drain. It looked impossibly small—like something only a squirrel could fit into. I could hardly believe we’d ever managed to crawl through it, let alone sit down there for hours laughing and yelling and plotting our next move.

Still, it’s one of my favorite memories from childhood.

My Favorite Time Of Year

Winter is finally over, the trees and flowers are in full bloom, and the kids are playing in the fountain at Coolidge Park again. Today was absolutely clear and 71 degrees. It just doesn't get any better than this.