A Birthday Story for number 67

Most of you who know me, know that I can be a little excessive when it comes to birthdays.
Since my birthday obsessions didn't hurt anyone, I was humored by some and encouraged by most.
Five years ago, I sent a birthday spam which attempted to describe my birthday ten years earlier, and twenty, and thirty and on until all my birthdays with years ending in "5" had a little story.

David Clauss, the webmaster of gatashman.com (thank you David) and the editor of my babble (double thank you) assigned the name to that essay.
"The fives" defined 1945, 1955, 1965, etc.
OK but I wasn't sure about the name.
I wanted to repeat the essay in 2006 and then again in 2007.
I began both years and in 2008 and 2009 didn't get past the title page.
But in 2010, I got the muse and was on my way.
I was up to 1990 when I decided to look up something on the Web.

I don't remember what I "googled" but the fourth entry pointed to my web site.
On the home page is a link to a page formerly called "the fives" and now named "1945 - 2005"
However, in Google, the page title is "Gary Tashman 1945-2005"
Looks like I was born in 1945 and not '43 and that I died in 2005 and was not told.
I haven't been able to write since then.
At least not the "decade" writings.

So instead of the "tens" I want to tell a story around my 18th birthday.
For those of you who have a short attention span, you need not read any further.
It's OK my feelings are not hurt - even a little.
I do not expect everyone to be interested in my personal obsurentia.
But for those of you who might be curious here goes...

I was living in Alexandria, Virginia with Mother, Father and Brent.
My 18th birthday was to be three weeks after my graduation.
But I was a baaaad boy.
I flunked and did not graduate.
To celebrate, my best friend and I were planning on going to Ocean City, Maryland for a long weekend.
Fuzzy graduated and he and I were joined by "The King" (David Gottshall), who dropped out a few years earlier and who I was trying to emulate (or so said my father)
Mother, had promised use of her car and in spite of my father's objections she let us use it.

A pea soup green, fake wood, Rambler station wagon.
Watch out Maryland babes in bathing suits!
We bought a block of ice and a couple cases of beer and hit the road.
I don't remember, exactly but the drive was four or five hours.
When we were about two miles from Ocean City, we were pulled over.
No question, we were drunk.
And therefore thought it was an adventure.

We were loaded into a paddy-wagon and taken to the precinct jail.
We were charged with drinking under age (21 was the age in Maryland but not in Washington D.C. where we bought the beer.)
We continued to party in the cell, thinking that we would pay the 5 dollar fine and go about to laying in the sand.
Our court hearing was 8AM the following morning.
Be we had two big problems.
Fuzzy and I were not 18.
If we were minors, our parents wold have to drive to Ocean City and pick us up - not an option.
That was problem one.

I had gone out the one night before leaving for the trip.
I drank way to much and lost my wallet.
I took as an ID, my "learner's permit" and my "temporary license", both having expired two years earlier.
Turns out this may have been the one good thing about the whole trip.
For a birth date, both expired permits indicated "June, 1943" as my date of birth.
So I conveniently chose the 6th as my birthday, making me 18 in their eyes.
Fuzzy had David Council's ID which showed him to be 18 also.
The King was 19 and had no age issue.

David Council was a tough kid.
In the Council family, he was the "black sheep"
In our family he was (affectionately) "Killer"
It was known by very few of us and no one was allowed to tell, but David was his middle name.
His first name was Gaius - the actual first name of Gaius Julius Ceaser.
This was a problem on two fronts. Every time they would call out for Gauis, none of us reacted making the cops suspect.
The second problem came when Fuzz had to call someone - the cops would place the collect call from Gaius Council which was a real problem.

So the following morning, after very little sleep in the cell, and with powerful hangovers, we went to see the judge.
The courtroom was on the second floor of the same building which housed the jail and police station.
It was one large room with folding chairs facing a pair of wooden desks.
The entire wall was windows, opened to the repressive heat even at 8AM.
We sat near the back row, about concert row M I would guess.
An hour of "cases" were heard before our name was called.

It was becoming clear to us after the first few miscreants were fined $50, $100 and $75 and the like.
Well beyond our budget of $60 among the three of us.
The Bailiff announced Council, Gottshall, Tashman and we stood.
The sun was so bright we had to squint to see the judge.
Still he was just a silhouette with a nasty demeanor.
"How do you plead?" was barked by the bailiff.
Talking with the cops earlier, they clued us in that we would be sent to a County Jail to await our cases if we plead "Not Guilty".
And that we would be fined if we plead guilty.
It was up to the judge the amount of the fine.

We all plead guilty and before we could take a breath, the judge announced our sentence.
One hundred and fifty dollars each, plus $2.50 court costs.
Talk about a slap on the face - we were devastated.
What if we don't have the money, can we mail it was the first question asked when we returned to our cell.
After a hearty laugh we were informed that we had 24 hours to present the judge with the entire fine.
We were also told what would happen if we didn't get the money in time.
Off to Cherry Hill.

Most of our fellow prisoners left that afternoon for Cherry Hill.
Not Cherry Hill, New Jersey, but Cherry Hill, Maryland.
Somewhere in the middle of the state we could work off our sentence
A dollar a day.
A dollar a day!
One hundred and fifty days of hard labor.
I wasn't a fat guy then, but hard labor was not an immediate attraction.
One hundred and fifty dollars.
One hundred and fifty days.
I did not want to spend my "Real" eighteenth birthday doing hard labor.

Who could we call?
David G. could not call home - his parents had no phone.
And they had no money - none.
Fuzzy couldn't call home because he wasn't who he claimed to be.
I had to call my father.
One thing my father lived for was for me to graduate from high school - in fact he died less than a month after I got my diploma.
Now I had to call and ask for his help.
Just like every other time I was in trouble (which was plenty) he came through.
He didn't have enough to bail out all three of us but got enough to get Fuzzy and I out.
And he got a hold of David's folks who contacted a cousin in Texas who wired his fine.

I mentioned earlier that I had lost my drivers license in one of the clubs I visited earlier in the week.
Well they were not going to let me get away with that.
As they interrogated each of us and filled out their reports I caused the sergeant to get upset.
When he asked where I was born, I replied truthfully: "Shanghai"
"China?" he responded (note to Allison - not Wyoming)
"Yes Shanghai, China"
I tried to explain how it happened that I was born in China.
Not a possibility in the eyes of this cracker.
"OK, young Stud, no more wise ass remarks - Where were you born" (he never referred to me by name but as "Young Stud" - so take that)
This back and forth continued until he wrote me a ticket for no drivers license.

In the afternoon while we were waiting for our money to be wired, I got called up to the judge's chambers.
The sergeant told the judge that I refused to cooperate and that is why he charged me.
I could not convince "his honor" either.
Given one more chance to state my place of birth, I finally confessed (lied) -
"San Francisco, California"
I was fined one dollar for no valid drivers permit.
Oh yes and $2.50 court costs.

I guess the happy ending was the new-found relationship with my dad.
I got a job, and returned to school for a final semester and finally graduated.
Fuzzy went off to college.
David Gottshall went off to marriage.
And I made a radical shift in my life.
One that got me here.

Happy Birthday everyone!!