There was spending time with the Bursar in working out the finances with loans and grants. Arranging a work/study at Ritter Library, I turned over my whole check to the college via direct deposit and a payment plan that started the moment classes were to commence - I didn't want huge loan payments around my neck by graduation. However, it would be at least another four years past my cap and gown before the loan was paid for. And then the buying of text books and other needs at the student book store.

Meanwhile Delores was out getting bombed while I was away working on my degree. She didn't need to hide her drinking with the decision we would be getting divorced. She was continuing to bait me to take a swing at her so she could claim abuse and collect a higher amount...it wasn't going to work - I was nice to her and cooperative - she was too stupid to realize I was onto her!

Mona Sandy's brother, Mel, and his friend helped me move the big stuff out to Quarrytown Apartments in Berea. Meanwhile, I was taking the rest of the stuff over with one of Dody's young sons and a friend. The kids liked me, however it didn't stop them from taking off some loose trim work from the back seat. But I needed their help. After we were done, I'd order pizza and soda for the kids.

When I brought Delores over, she tried hard to pick a fight and make me as miserable as possible - I held my ground. When things were unpacked, I went to lie down in the bedroom. I already knew I'd be paying out big bucks to get rid of her, so I got a little curious to see how far she would go in the name of greed. When she walked in I said to her, "You know, with all the moving and stuff, we never did get a chance to consummate our marriage?" As I expected, she suddenly became all apologetic and wanted to have sexual intercourse - I was thinking, "Yeah slut, you just want to make sure that you don't lose on a technicality." So we had sex (it wasn't love) and afterward I knew I could count the minutes 'till she returned to her nasty self...didn't have to wait long - about ten minutes! To be honest, I really didn't think I'd end up walking out free and clear whether we had sex or not - Delores was greedy and stupid!

When I came back from classes, I walked in to see Delores tearing up personal photos, asking her what she was doing? I told her I wonder how she would feel if I would destroy her personal effects. So she handed over pictures of an ex-husband/boyfriend expecting I would tear those up. The photos showed the guy as robust and in subsequent shots showing how the guy deteriorated. I told her, I wouldn't stoop to such a practice and handed the photos back to her.

My short two week marriage to Delores was finally over, the only thing left was to get the divorce so I could concentrate on academia. I would have to juggle an internship, college classes, work/study and a divorce. The first quarter was going to be tough! And between paying a lawyer and a one time settlement and court costs, I was going to be financially sacked! What Delores wanted and expected, Delores didn't get!-)

Another problem began to crop up, and I have to admit to some stupidity on my part. The one thing I wanted to do is get along with my neighbors. A guy helped us in with some of the stuff, afterwards asking to borrow my car to pick up some food at a local grocery store. In a lapse of judgment, I let him borrow my car. As he was gone, I began to realize that it could have been a very serious mistake. Thankfully he brought the car back okay. and I thought to myself, I'll never do that again!

As the relationship with Delores was drawing to a close, the guy would knock on my door to borrow my car again. I told him my automotive insurance policy frowns (I could smell liquor on his breath) on the car being driven by somebody else than me - and I'm not covered for other (I was being honest) drivers. He sulked and went away. A few hours later I get this banging on the door (the guy was a fully drunken nut case) saying that he had been hired to force me to move out. I told him through the door that he was (lie) scaring my wife and it was causing problems between us and he needed to leave. I called downstairs to the management who had two CMHA (Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Agency) policemen take him away. One interesting note, the man's father was a preacher in Streetsboro, Ohio, and him and his wife didn't want their nut-case son moving back in with them.

With the five hundred dollars from the sale of the house and an extra five hundred dollars I could scrounge together, I took the money and made a Xerox copy of the serial numbers on the bills, I headed over to my attorney's apartment at Pine Tree Vistas in Parma, along with an old 17" Sony Color Tv set and Emerson VHS vcr I had repaired (I wasn't about to give her my 20" Sony monitor and Sony vcr) and dropped them off at the lawyer's. Next, Delores and I would head downtown together to see a referee at the Cuyahoga Courthouse to have the marriage annulled. Delores didn't hire a lawyer and that would cause some problems. The referee discovering that Delores wasn't represented told us we couldn't go ahead with the procedure if she didn't have a lawyer, but mentioned I could give Delores mine and the process would proceed. So my lawyer became her's and we continued. Nothing changed from the original agreement - so there was no additional loss.

Next, we met at my attorney's office to sign over the $500, pick up the color tv set and vcr. On the way back to her (my former house) apartment, she had me stop off at a Pick 'n Pay supermarket on Franklin Avenue where she spent $100 to pick up cartons of cigarettes. I thought to myself, "what a waste". I dropped her and her "goodies" off at the house and left. Post note - she kept the ring to pawn.

About a week later her oldest daughter (Delores had previously warned me she was a drug addict) came with her boyfriend unannounced wanting to just have a talk. I told her on the intercom that the marriage ended and I wished not to be bothered by her and her family ever again. A week later, I get a call from Delores saying the remote control didn't work? Delores was a definite "Dodo", the set had an old "click-style" tuner and the only way to switch channels was through the vcr remote with the tv on channel two or four. I explained how to work it...however, I didn't tell her that she wouldn't be able to change volume levels...I said quietly to myself, Fuck-You Bitch! Thankfully after that, I never got another call.

So what did I learn? Well, that you really can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse and that loneliness was far better than being miserable. And if the chick is an alcoholic or drug addict, stay clear! Considering everything, I got off pretty cheaply!

I had classes all over campus, I was lucky to now have a car this time around, otherwise, it would have been impossible for me - my schedule was as tight as a drum. I averaged six or seven classes a quarter, put in thirty hours at my internship, twenty-five hours at my work/study at Ritter Library and lots of time at research and writing assignments for my various classes.

The problem with wearing hearing aids paid for by a government agency is they choose the lowest cost model they can get away with, not what is best for the individual who wears it. I would fully agree to the fact that a bloated bureaucracy takes away from the amount available for the actual devices, however, the doctors and hearing aid manufacturers are making a killing on the distribution and sales. So, while I ended up with better hearing aid than they initially wanted to give me, I still ended up with a device that would squeal if it wasn't seated properly, making everyone else uncomfortable. The other problem is the battery life was very short and replacements were expensive to purchase. If you were in a room with one person, they were adequate - but in a crowd of people, all voice levels would be nearly the same and that would make it almost impossible to get any function out of them.

There were two incidents with feedback from the hearing aids(?) that made their use marginal. The first was during a lecture in a BW classroom. While I couldn't hear any problems, the teacher and fellow students were being distracted by something - but when I turned them off for a few moments, everything was fine. Two more incidents made me realize the ear buds were going into feedback at frequencies I couldn't discern, but everyone else could. Next, when I was seeking a new internship, my thoughts were at working at a home in Middleburg Heights, Ohio with physically-challenged learning disabled children and teens. There was this young guy who couldn't form words, and he got awfully squirmy when I turned on my hearing aids - I couldn't hear any problems, but he sure could! After a few moments I turned them off and he settled down. I had a funny idea the hearing aids were causing the problem, but decided to try again under controlled circumstances. I was at least seven or eight feet away and turned them on again, watching the poor guy squirm, I turned them off and left them off! I didn't land the internship and felt it was never meant to be.

Getting Cheryl to let me spend time with Jason was extremely difficult - she would use him as a carrot on a stick. I couldn't even get copies of his school pictures at my expense. I got very frustrated with the situation. For example, I called his school (I had to do a lot of detective work to discover where he was attending classes) to see if I could meet with his teachers and principle to find ways I could be a good father. So I called the principal to make an appointment for us to meet. I explained who I was and asked about an appointment. The principle told me there was a restraining (geez, I didn't get any notice on that one?) order and if I came to the school, Parma Police would be called and have me dragged away in cuffs and leg irons! I asked about if after school let out, same story! I kinda wonder what yarn Cheryl gave the school and what administrators didn't check to see if there was any real legal paperwork? I then asked if it was okay to send me a copy of his report card and whether I could order any school pictures? The principle quickly ended the conversation by saying he had to consult with attorneys on that - never writing or calling back.

This made it impossible to send him any Christmas or Birthday presents - if I took over the gifts, it would be considered stalking and I would be arrested. If I sent gifts, it would be considered harassment and I would be arrested...geez, he was getting initially $350 to eventually $500 a month in child support and I wasn't given one damned privilege to spend time with Jason as a dad! It was ridiculous! I tried to have my younger brother Mark take over gifts - but he was too scared feeling HE would be arrested as well! So, the last gifts I had attempted to send Jason - a digital shortwave radio and a book on shortwave radio frequencies sit on a shelf at Mark's house. Cheryl is very cunning and if things are not the exact way she wants them, then nothing happens at all. Dammed be my rights as a father!

Some friends told me I should fight fire with fire by hiring lawyers for visitation rights. Well, if one has a lot of cash to spare, possibly yes? But I had very few bucks to keep a roof overhead, let alone have a firefight with Cheryl over the matter. Most important, any pressure put on Cheryl would put greater pressure on Jason, and in my heart of hearts, I just simply couldn't do that to my child - I didn't want him to carry any more baggage in life than he was already carrying. He may never understand this, but I didn't want to cause him pain or embarrassment to watch his parents fight. He would eventually be an adult in this world which is difficult enough without painful memories. I wanted for him to have something I never got in my growing years - a life without fear!

Sociology is a study about the habits and experiences of groups of people. Demographically who they are, where they live, what they consume. Its a study of numbers and correlations. If one is in marketing and know what the numbers mean, it will help them in creating and in successful distribution of products and services from a practical viewpoint from the social thru commercial sectors. Where most commercial and social ventures fail is a lack of research on prime targets of interest. Give you an example. Pioneer designed a laser disc that was as large as a regular vinyl record using a laser instead of a stylus. It had marginal marketing success due to the high costs of both the equipment (hardware) and cost of the movie (software), that only an upper strata could afford such devices. RCA decided it too would bring out a videodisc, but it was woefully obsolete from the beginning. The disc came in a large (size of a 33" record) clamshell and required the use of a stylus, much like a needle on a record player. The dolts at RCA figured that people would flock to the stores to buy them at two-thirds the cost of the hardware, but at a comparable price of the movie! RCA's version was called "Selectivision" and consumers selected to stay away - of those few that initially did buy into the idea, they soon junked them at garage sales or thrift stores for $10.00 on the hardware and twenty-five cents per disc! RCA spent all that money for a product they should have never put out in the first place! What RCA was counting on is a public willing to pay for an inferior product in picture and sound as well reaping replacement costs when the thing jammed or broke - the consumer was on to that shit...ideas like this eventually caused RCA to go out of business, forcing them to sell off the consumer end to Thompson Electronics and the commercial side to General Electric!

In any case, Sociology was my minor. It has its practical applications, but it is a very dry subject area.

My major was communications and it too had its practical sides. Having worked in broadcasting, the course was within my element. We covered the basics of speech, writing and research to name just a very few of the things. We covered theater arts and production. Issues of giving a professional presentation and a practical study of the allied arts. To me it became a reinforcement of what I already knew.

However, as it was with my associate degree, I took a lot of core courses in working up to my minor and major. Partly physical education, history, math, geology and computer lab, research methods to name some of the highlights. While many of the courses will not have a practical application in one's career, it does help round out an individual - and as a writer, helped in attempting to learn ways in finding the best possible answers is crucial.

In a television production course, we had the assignment of coming up with an idea, taking it through its very stages of concept, writing, storyboard, stagecraft, acting, filming, post production and targeted marketing. Afterwards, were the meetings of how well the creation achieved its effects in a post-production meeting. I really think if one is taking a course, its better to own the equipment when you can, especially when its involving radio or tv production - there are so many students who need to work on a project that you run into two problems - complaints you are taking too long with the stuff and being the last to be able to use it. Oftentimes you end up rushed and can't do your best work. Of course at that moment, I didn't own a video camera - so I didn't have a lot of time nor choice to do what I wanted. 

Term papers required a lot of research for each subject, including dissertations in front of peers. So before and after work/study at Ritter Library, I would spend a lot of time there on my own research projects. I would do the final write-up's in the computer lab and on my home computer.

Ah, my first practical home computer. It was a Coleco Adam computer and came with everything but the monitor - a TRS-80 (color) CoCo on steroids. The printer was a step up from a dot matrix, using a plastic disc striking an inked-ribbon against a piece of paper. The internet was not even available to the general public yet, so as to elementary tasks like writing papers, it did fine. I had it since I began community college. The Adam was highly touted in advertising before it made it to market - and that was the problem. There was too long a wait between spreading the word and being able to actually purchase one, that by the time it hit the store shelves, nobody was really interested in it anymore. So what initially started out as a $500 list price became a discontinued model when I bought it new for $100. For writing college papers, it was a good deal. Coleco by the way was famed for making Cabbage Patch dolls.