The seventies were crazy times. Like the self-indulgent children of the 50’s, the children of 70’s were just as self-indulgent. But while the 50’s children were reprimanded by strict parents, the 70’s children enjoyed the freedom their parents were denied. The children were free and loose – as expressed in the Hippie movement at the time. While these 50’s children, now adults, expressed their indulgences through material possessions, the children of the 70’s turned and rejected material things – this, apparently, sometimes included their clothes.

Streaking had actually been going on for years – in fact, hundreds of years. Historically, the first streaker could have been one of our Founding Fathers – John Adams. Rumors have it that as a student he streaked across the Harvard campus. It was documented that George William Crump in 1804 streaked cross Washington and Lee University. More recently, Dartmouth College had a long history of streaking across the Green. In fact, it was already a tradition at many college campuses by the mid-sixties.

So by 1974 the trend was spilling off the campus and getting noticed by the media. How could it not? Naked teenagers running through neighborhoods, on to fields during sporting events, through school campuses – what had started out as college dares were turning into a national phenomenon.

Check out this Chicago news story about a streaker that went through a Northwestern classroom:

As the media took notice, Ray Stevens took advantage of this growing fad and scored a hit with his novelty song “The Streak“. Ray Steven’s song tells of his wife’s three hapless run-in’s with a streaker. Ray Steven’s was not a One Hit Wonder though, he had already scored a #1 hit with “Everything Is Beautiful” so he was no stranger to the music industry. Ray knew just what was he was doing when he recorded “The Streak.”

At eleven years old, I had not seen an actual streaker but I was definitely keeping my eyes open as I rode my bike around our new house in Des Plaines, ‘The Gray House’, as we called it. We loved ‘catching’ The Streak on the radio, it was our first time hearing a novelty song on the radio. This was followed in the fall with another novelty song by Cheech and Chong – their first hit single “Earache My Eye“. These were audio gems. When one came on, you would run through the house yelling “It’s on! It’s on!” And whoever was within earshot would listen and laugh at the crazy adventures of The Streaker or the father and son wake-up call.

But unfortunately, my family was not immune to the craziness of the seventies. It had infected our family as well. In a way, I guess, our family’s ‘craziness’ was caused by that same search for freedom the Hippies craved – Mom wanted freedom from Dad in the form of a divorce. The Hippy movement that was turning over that ‘Father Knows Best’ perspective, was also turning over in our family.

And to say I didn’t see it coming would not altogether be accurate, but I wasn’t expecting it either. I guess no kid ever ‘expects’ their parents to get a divorce. On the other side, I think any kid could somewhat ‘justify’ their parents getting a divorce or at least to themselves. Mom and Dad fought – but didn’t all parents? But children live in a self-centered world. A marriage could be falling apart and we will idly sit around and watch the Partridge Family – and I did. If the fighting got too loud I would turn the volume up. For example, I didn’t know Dad had left us for two weeks when we lived in the Red House. I didn’t know things had gotten so bad at home that we had Peanut Butter sandwiches for a week while he was gone. Maybe it was because I actually liked Peanut Butter Sandwiches so I didn’t remember this as a bad thing. And to be fair, while I remember Mom and Dad fighting they weren’t fighting constantly. Maybe they hid their fights or maybe I tuned them out or maybe I just don’t remember. But apparently, their problems were irreconcilable.

One of my strongest memories, and what shook me awake to the situation at hand, was Dad bringing me into the den the summer of ’74 and having a ‘serious conversation’ with me. Now just because your parent tells you they want to have a serious conversation, doesn’t mean its actually something that’s really that serious – like sex or drugs. You never know if it’s actually a serious conversation or something they just think they need to talk to you about. This actually was a serious conversation.

Dad explained that he and Mom were not getting along and he wanted to know who I would want to live with. Holy crap! he was asking me to choose between him and Mom! I didn’t answer – I couldn’t answer. He said he didn’t need to know right then but I suspect he knew the answer because I couldn’t hold back the tears that had welled up in my eyes and fell down my checks. I didn’t want to choose – but if he had forced me to answer I would have chosen Mom. But I didn’t tell him that. It was then that I realized how serious the situation at home had become.

So when I came home from school that October afternoon, Mom said we needed to pack up some clothes and things for the weekend, I was numb to the situation at hand. Dawn, Dave and I went upstairs, and Dave and I went to our room and silently packed clothes, a couple of books and a few toys into a paper bag. Eventually, we heard Lee in his room putting his stuff together as well.

We were already downstairs and packed when Hope came home. When Mom told her, she screamed at Mom that she didn’t understand and she’s didn’t want to leave. “I don’t know why my parents just can’t get along!” – words we all wanted to say but Hope actually said them. Mom ignored her outburst but the truth cut into me, and I suspect the others too.

We piled into the VW bus and silently drove south. Mom had the radio on but the Cubs were finished for the year so there wasn’t a game on. And had we known that Watergate hearings were going to mess up our Saturday morning cartoons, we would have noted they were starting this week too.

As Mom drove I recognized we were going to Park Ridge and when she turned down Potter I figured we were going to Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s. Mom didn’t say a word she just drove. Eventually, she turned down their street and pulled into their driveway. Normally when we came we usually parked in the street behind their cars but there didn’t appear to be anyone here so Mom pulled all the way to their garage.

Mom got out of the bus and went to the door. She opened the screen door and dug in her purse. Finally, she found a key and opened the back door. This was weird. It wasn’t unusual for us to go to the back door, but it was unusual for Mom to have a key to their house. This was just making a weird situation weirder. Soon Mom had the door open and motioned us to come in. “Bring your things,” she said.

In we walked into the Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s kitchen. “Put your things in the living room for now,” Mom said “until we figure out where everyone is sleeping.” So we went to the living room up and dropped our bags on the floor. There was no one home.

Five blank faces looked at Mom as she explained that Aunt Betty, Uncle Richard, Brian, Keith and Judy were gone for the weekend and they were letting us use their house. We were staying here until Sunday. She explained we were hiding from Dad and we had to follow a few basic rules: we could not go outside, we could not turn on the lights or TV’s and all the curtains had to remain drawn.

That early fall evening the shadows of the houses stretched across the street and darkened Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s house. We had been to their house many times but never like this. It felt strange. The house was familiar but we weren’t supposed to be here – not now. The normally warm house felt odd and uncomfortable. Like a shirt whose collar was caught but you couldn’t fix it.

Actually none of this felt right. The silence permeated this normally familiar home. Us kids playing quietly – yea, that was unusual too. The tension was stretched tight between the walls and I didn’t know if it broke if it would pull the walls in on us or blow them apart. So when the living room light clicked on all the oxygen left the room. Mom ran in from the kitchen. “It turned on by itself, ” someone said.

“They have it on a timer, ” Mom said quietly and turned back to her hot dogs in the kitchen that she was making for supper. Mom may not have heard it but I could hear five hearts ease down from their reckless pace. And the oxygen levels returned to normal.

We ate our hot dogs at the Stein’s kitchen table. The formalities of grace abandoned, we focused on finishing our quiet meal as fast we could. With just the crunching of potato chips and polite requests for more Hi-C or chips we finished our meal. Dave and I were exploring Brian, Keith and Judy’s stash of games and toys in their basement. That’s when the phone rang.

“Don’t answer it!” Mom said.

Once again this showed how tense our situation was. None of us kids were going to answer a phone in somebody else’s house. What was more worrisome was Mom’s reaction to this. Everyone froze as the phone continued to ring. Dave and I came up from the basement. Three, four, five, six, seven. I’m sure all of us were wondering how many times the caller was going to let it ring – it eventually stopped.

“OK,” Mom started, “No one answers the phone. Only a few people know we are here and if they want to call us, they will let the phone ring three times, then call back and let it ring two times, and then its OK to pick it up.” Our strange weekend just got turned up a notch.

You have to remember this was 1974, before cordless phones and Caller ID. This was before you could actually buy your own phone – phones could only be rented from AT&T. Touch tone phones were available – for a monthly fee. And the only way to know who was calling was to pickup the phone.

Mom had called someone when we arrived but she had called from the kitchen when we were all in the living room or putting our stuff away. Was it Aunt Betty? Aunt Joyce? Pastor? All likely choices. Dad? Very doubtful.

The rooms were getting dark and the only light we had was the light on the timer in the living room. It seemed the darker it got outside, the closer together we were drawn on the inside. Moths to a flame?

It was only 7:30 and I was already getting tired for reading. Despite my new interest in ghost stories,  I was over half way done with my latest ghost story book, The Thing at the Foot of the Bed by Maria Leach and I hadn’t brought another book. Ever since I couldn’t stay up to finish a scary movie about creatures living in a chimney, I’ve been reading ghost stories instead of my plant books. Or maybe it was when I heard the psycho stories from that kid at Girl Scout camp.

OK, let me explain. A few summers ago, Mom was Hope or Dawn’s Den Mother when they went to Girl Scout Camp – which was just a Day Camp at the Des Plaines River Forest Preserve. Lee, Dave and I also went to Girl Scout Camp and were assigned to a den made up of all the guys who’s moms were Den Mothers. Actually, it was baby sitting.

There was this one kid who kept telling us psycho stories. Stories about psycho’s who would cut off babysitter’s legs or dismembered siblings and spouses. They always started out the same – a warning over the radio of a psycho escaping a prison or mental hospital and eventually dismembering everyone in the house or apartment or car – except the ‘lone survivor’. These stories awakened a morbid curious in me which lead me to my interest in horror movies. Then ago, it could have been my collection of Monster models I had been building since first grade. But this weekend I was scratching that itch with a book full of ghost stories.

By 8:00 someone or all of us must have complained enough that Mom announced we should go to bed. After various rounds of fruitless negotiations, I found myself laying in my cousin Brian or Keith’s bed staring at the ceiling – a strange ceiling filled with strange shadows from the street light outside. This completed the strangest that had pounced on us when we first came home from school and curled uncomfortably around us all evening. I felt like I was being punished and sent to bed early. It wasn’t fair because we hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet I understood we had to hide from Dad. Actually, no – I didn’t understand why we had to hide from Dad. To be honest, I didn’t really understand what was going on; all of this was uncomfortable and all of it was strange.

Mom and Dad were getting a divorce which meant Dad was not going to be living with us anymore. From what I understood from TV and what kids talked about, that meant sometimes you would go over to Dad’s house or wherever he was living but just for visits. So then I started wondering where Dad would live. The TV show Odd Couple was about divorced husbands and they lived in apartments. Maybe Dad was going to get an apartment. And when we had ‘a visit’, Mom and Dad could just switch places. Mom could go to his apartment and Dad could live in our house for the weekend. Maybe Dad could get a little house like the one we used to rent to people – but maybe a lot nicer. Or even better, maybe we could ask the West’s, the people who live in the basement apartment of our Gray house, to live somewhere else and Dad could live there,  that would be perfect! The more I thought about it, the better I liked it. But when I thought about from Mom’s perspective, and figured she may not be too keen on that idea.

I started running through different scenarios, what if there was something at school, would Dad come? So would getting a divorce mean Mom and Dad would get along better? Would we go to church together? Would Dad come with to the Brumm picnic? Could we go to Dad’s softball games? Did Dad even play softball anymore? Why are we hiding from him? Is Mom teaching him ‘a lesson’? Why is she so mad at him? What did he do? Why doesn’t he just apologize? Why is this happening? I don’t want to be here – I want to go home – to my own bed, my own ceiling and my own shadows. I don’t like any of this. This is scaring me – scaring me way more then my ghost stories. I don’t want them to get a divorce, I want things to be the way they used to be. I want to play with my dinosaurs and watch my cactuses and ants. I want to watch TV with Dave and Lee and have Mom come in and change the channel to the Cubs game when someone got a hit while she was listening to it in the kitchen. I want Dad to come home from work and kiss Mom and yell for us for supper. I want my friends to come to my birthday party and Mom and Dad to drive us all to the theater to watch the latest Godzilla movie. And come home to have cake and ice cream. I want everything to be GOOD and everyone to get along. Why couldn’t they just get along? But the strange shadows on the ceiling were silent, and I realized even my own thoughts were becoming strange to me.

 I heard a click and the light from under the bedroom door was gone. The timer on the light must have clicked off. I heard Mom walking around downstairs and the front door jiggle – she must be checking the locks. Eventually I heard her climb the stairs as she went to bed in Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s bedroom. And the strange house just got darker – and stranger. I hated all the questions that kept popping up in my head. I didn’t like being scared. But not like a spooky ‘being scared’ – scared about what was going on. Uncomfortable. Strange. Not fitting. Itchy. Scared. Then finally – sleep. No more questions.

The next morning it was still strange but I always like the mornings better. Dave was already out of bed and Mom and Dawn were also up. I found Dave downstairs in the basement. He had discovered our cousins’ 45 collection and was playing “The Streak.” The interjection of humor was exactly what we needed to help offset this weekend. We joined in when Ray Steven’s yell to his wife, “Don’t look, Ethel!” only to be warned by Mom we needed to be quiet. When the 45 ended and then the best part came – we could just play it again. And once again Dave and I were laughing as Ray Stevens’ warned Ethel over and over again not to look.

Eventually we moved to different 45’s and then started digging through the Stein’s games and pulled out Trouble to play. Typically I could usually beat Dave at most games but not this morning. The Pop-o-Matic was definite popping his way. And while I would usually beat Dave, believe it or not, I wasn’t always the most gracious loser. In turn, this made Dave less then humble when he won – which he eventually did.

While Dave and I got along pretty well, it wasn’t hard to get mad at him. He knew which buttons of mine to push and I, well, I would typically just punched him. Or shoved him, or pushed him. The problem was even though we were only a year apart, I had Dave by 80 pounds or so. And believe me, Dave didn’t weight thirty pounds. So he would typically taunt me from afar – and that was his mistake this morning.

While he was standing over me doing his stupid winning dance, I grabbed his foot and pushed into the couch. At the same time Mom was yelling in her loudest whisper, “I told you two to be quiet!”

Dave hit the arm of the couch and landed on the seat cushions. Dave and I both heard a muffed ‘crunch’.  I had thrown the ‘listened-to’ 45’s on the couch and Dave had fallen on them (yes – with my help). As Dave rolled off the couch to see what had ‘crunched’, there laid the 45’s we had listened to – luckily they were all OK, with one exception – “The Streak”.

“You pushed me!” Dave blamed.

“What is going on down there?” Mom whispered, as loud as she could.

And I had no response. And the brief normalcy Dave and I had evaporated. My first thought was to hid it – which I may have tried at home. But Dave would never had let me get away with it at home or here. I quickly realized how bad my situation was. We, OK – I mean ‘I’ – broke Brian or Keith or Judy’s 45 and I would have to tell Mom.

I walked to the stairs and held up the 45 to Mom, “Dave and I were wrestling and he fell on the 45 and broke one,” I said. I tried to put as much blame on Dave as possible.

“You pushed me!” Dave started.

“Quiet! you two,” Mom cut off. “You are going to have to buy them a new one.” And then she turned back to the kitchen.

Normally I would have happy getting off without any punishment, but I could tell from Mom’s face the broken 45 was not her biggest concern. And that sunk me back to our situation and our imprisonment. What had started out as a somewhat normal or even fun morning had reverted back to this weekend’s somber theme.

Mom didn’t really make breakfast, we just ate cereal to quiet clicking of spoons and bowls and the occasional “pass the milk, please” or “can I have the Fruit Loops, please.” Mom got a couple of phone calls via the ‘secret code’ and made a couple herself. We all played games and read our books or played with our toys to pass the morning. Lunch passed like breakfast and as we got to the longest part of our stay – the afternoon.

The sense of prison was there – not that I had any real sense of what a prison was like. Actually, confinement would be a better word. While it was cloudy the sun was bright and that only heighten the sadness of our confinement. I wondered if our guinea pigs felt like this? But they wouldn’t be hiding from their dads. They wouldn’t understand the complexity of divorce or how a marriage dissolves into games and moves. Or in our case – lack of moves.

At some point in the afternoon the phone rang but only once. At this point we knew the code – three rings, then two rings, or it just rang seven or eight or nine times until it stopped. One ring was strange. It rang again, this time twice. I had been upstairs in Brian and Keith’s bedroom and had come out to look at the ringing phone – which really didn’t make any sense. From the stairs I saw Mom standing in the living room with her arm out to keep anyone from answering the phone. No one was moving toward the phone. We were all too scared. Again, that didn’t make sense, it was just a phone.

The phone began ringing again – one — two — three, and then stopped. The silence followed. I didn’t understand why I was scared. The phone just started ringing again – one — two — three — four — five — six — seven — eight, and then it stopped. Dad’s trying to find us. Apparently he knows there’s a code to answer the phone. Who else has he been calling? Has he come by the Stein’s house? The phone had been quiet for 3 or 4 minutes when it started ringing again – one — two, and then it stopped. More ringing – one — two, now more stopping. Two more rings, more silence, then five or six rings. We were all staring at that stupid phone.

Dad was trying to find us. We knew it was Dad.

But why shouldn’t he find us?

– Because Mom didn’t want him to.

Why?

– Because we were hiding from him.

Why were we hiding from him?

– Because they are getting a divorce.

So?

– So what?

Why are we hiding from him?

And its because I couldn’t answer that question that I was scared. Actually I was scare because I wouldn’t ask the next question. I couldn’t ask the next question.

What would he do if he found us?

That is the question I couldn’t ask and never asked until I wrote it. Dad was Dad. There was no fear with him outside of a spanking, and those had ended years ago. But there was one time we woke up to find the kitchen door window covered with cardboard and Mom wearing a bandage. I asked what happened to her arm and she said she cut it cleaning up the glass. When I asked more questions I was told to leave the subject alone.

Actually, the real question was – what would he do if he found Mom?

I would learn a phrase years later – ‘there’s a thin line between love and hate.’ I think Mom had crossed that line a while ago. And whatever was happening this weekend – I think that Mom thinks it will now put Dad on the other side of that line as well. Divorce papers? Restraining order? I didn’t know what going on at the time and being trapped at Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s and watching a phone ring off as Dad tried different codes to try to find us. This was outside of any child’s childhood. So if we were supposed to be hiding, why did I feel so exposed? What if he guessed the code?

Eventually, the phone stopped ringing and with the new silence, we could tell Dad had stopped trying – for now. He tried again later in the afternoon but his guesses were way off. And the only way Mom would have answered is if he guessed the code the first time. Dad’s attempts left the afternoon like yesterday – strange, apprehensive and scary. We again retreated to our books and games. The bright light from the thin clouds deepened my sense of being a prisoner. And while we had now spent twenty-four hours in Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s house, we still felt like strangers. Mom received and made a couple more calls.  Dad had given up his attempts. The phone sat in silence with the rest of us that evening.

The evening passed like yesterday did – unwanted and slow. I finished “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed.” And we all played some more games but, frankly, we were getting tired of being cooped-up. We went to bed early again but glad to know this would be our last night. I was amazed how tired I was of being bored and that played out on the strange Ceiling Shadows games again that night. My mind again spun through what Mom and Dad being divorced meant to us kids – actually, what it meant to me.

It was going to be different, and yet it wasn’t. I didn’t usually see Dad before school because he left so early. He usually didn’t get home until supper time and then he, or sometimes Mom, worked at church cleaning stuff, setting this or that up or fixing things. When he was home we mostly watched TV. Lately, I would ‘play’ with my cactuses (actually sit and watch them while they sat in pots on the front porch), or collect ants for my ant farm; or play with some of my new friends. But I really didn’t do much with Dad.

So their divorce wasn’t really going to change what I did too much, I didn’t think. I figured I, actually we, would have to visit him at his apartment like the guys in Odd Couple. I guess that would be like going to Grandma and Grandpa’s – Brumm or Zilligen’s. I think I could deal with that. Maybe this won’t be too bad – and that’s what I kept telling myself as I fell asleep.

I’d like to say we got up the next morning, got in our VW bus and went to church (which was pretty close to Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s house), met Dad and everything was fine. Or something more dramatic for you the reader – as Mom backed out of the driveway, we found Dad sleeping in his station wagon outside Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s house and there was a car chase through Park Ridge until the police pulled Dad over and we got away. But the reality is I don’t remember what happened. I think we got our stuff together, got into the VW bus and drove home. Lee said he remembers the house being completely dark when we came home so that would have meant we spent all of Sunday and Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard’s. And Dad wasn’t there. And life went on.

To this day I don’t actually know why we were hiding from Dad. As I said earlier, I’ve always assumed he was being served either divorce papers or a restraining order. I don’t remember Dad being around that Fall and Winter. We did have a few visitations – he took us to a movie, ‘The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams‘ but I remember the movie more than the actual visit.

I remember Dad took us to Grandma Brumm which I thought was weird. Weird because because she was Mom’s mom (not really but I didn’t know that at the time) and secondly because we had lunch there. Grandma and Grandpa Brumm had a tiny house. An upstairs I had never been in, and the main floor that was consisted of living room, a tiny room to the east where they used to put their Christmas tree. There was a tiny kitchen to the north of the living room with a table for two and a bed to the west of the kitchen. On our visit with Dad, a table had been set up in the living room and we had lunch. The room was so small you could not get around the table when everyone was sitting down. We rarely ate meals at Grandma’s.

After that lunch, Dad stopped at Aunt Bernice and Uncle Ray’s. We pulled into the driveway, Dad got out to see if they were home but they weren’t. Why we stopped there I don’t know. Again, Aunt Bernice was Mom’s sister so why were we stopping there at all?

Those were the only two visits I remember. I don’t remember any interactions between Mom and Dad during either of those visits.  I think Mom just stayed in the bedroom when Dad picked us up.

Fall turned to Winter and like the temperatures outside, Mom and Dad’s relationship began to freeze. Actually, freezing wouldn’t be the right word because a relationship is based on interactions and those were being minimized. Us kids would go between a somewhat normal week at school and then to the occasional awkward visits with Dad – a reminder that things were changing. A new reality was emerging.

With Christmas, more realities emerged. Wrapping paper was replaced by newspaper – a sign that money was tight. There was no Christmas Eve trip to Grandma Brumm. Santa had replaced Jesus for all of us.  (This is not to imply that Jesus wasn’t part of our Christmas. We always went to church and Sunday School each week and also Advent and Lenten services. This Christmas we no longer had to play the ‘Santa Game’ for Dawn’s sake.)

And while the divorce had been public knowledge for a while, the realities and the mechanics of this new life were now beginning to be felt. Dad’s small role in our day to day lives was getting smaller. The skin on this new life was very thin and very sensitive. And while I could still go to school and play with my friends, I kept the divorce packed away and left at home. But on Dad’s visits, I would have to strip out of my old life and bare this new skin.

We all, I think, felt exposed, Mom and Dad, included. And at those moments I would have liked to run away but only in my old comfortable skin. But this new skin was here to stay until that one got peeled away too – a few weeks later.