If we ever get Bob Bishop started on this thing... we can all sit back, prop our feet up, and laugh for hours.  It was Bob Bishop that introduced me to 'sneaking out the window during the night and roaming Avondale when everybody else was asleep'.  I would never have imagined such an adventure and would certainly never have had the 'intestinal fortitude' to do such a thing.  My room growing up was on the second floor of our house.  It had windows at each end of the house.  My parents bedroom was at one end of the first floor so my 'escape window' was at the other end over the driveway.  Gene alluded to the sternness of my father's discipline and how such a fearsome figure he could be (he had the Coach Ramsey kind of presence that included respect and fear... only my father had a rifle which he frequently carried after 10.00pm when he thought people might be outside snooping/peaking/etc.).  Bob Bishop introduced me to this practice of climbing out the window at 4.30am, meeting up with several others, and following the Milkman around to houses that received chocolate milk.  I never even imagined people got chocolate milk from the milkman.  Bob had this all 'cased-out' ahead of time and he was right about there being something very special about sitting on the curb chug-a-lugging a quart of chocolate milk and watching the first tones of daylight on the horizon.  But I can remember then going back home and having to climb up on the ledge of the kitchen window to reach the ledge of the second floor window with my fingers and doing basically, a chin-up against the bricks to pull myself up and through my bedroom window.  The whole time the adrenaline was pouring through me with such force that I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  I fully expected every time I pulled up and looked into the darkness of my room to see the barrel of my father's rifle slowly reach out and explode in my face.

If we can get Bob started ... I'm sure he has some real stories that will amaze us all.

Harold

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[I reprinted this as it was the beginning of Harold’s adventures into the night ending with the sunrise.  Bob, you can start anytime now!]

March 2000