Mitchell Wayne
My name is Mitchell Wayne. I was born in 1963 in the smaller town of Red Wing, Minnesota. One hour south of the twin cities. It was a nice quiet town to grow up in, with lots of parks and lots of bluffs to explore. I was the forth child of four. 2 brothers and one sister. All older than me. Throughout this book I will refer to them as:
1. My brother, He is the oldest being 10 years older than I am.
2. Fly, which was his nickname. He was 9 years older than me, being born exactly one year after my brother, on his 1st birthday.
3. My sister, who is about 6 years older than me.
I grew up as close to being an only child as one could be. I can barely remember any siblings living at home when I was. My brother was a bare foot hippie from the sixties. Fly was a rough and tough redneck drinking his Schmidt big mouth bottles and my sister was the princess who could do no wrong.
I consider baby boomers to be the generation that spent their high school years with the Viet Nam war looming in their futures. One might think me and my sister being close but we are from two different peer groups. She was a good student that spent much of her time studying so she could get into a good college. I spent most of my time partying and skipping school. I ended up dropping out of high school in 11th grade.
Even though I did eventually straighten out enough to get my high school equivalency, and later received a two year associate degree in electronics. There were still many rough years in my future. This book is not intended to be a bunch of whining from me but rather to point as many good times as bad. I am trying to state “Just the facts”, as Joe Friday would say. From the confusion of life in my early years to the diagnoses of Multiple Scleroses in my early 40’s.
I think we were the first generation to grow up literally in front of the television. I used to rush home from school to watch Gilligan’s Island even though I had seen all the episodes 100 times. And family hour was just that. At 7 p.m. we would all retire to the living room, where the view from each chair was the TV, and see what the networks had on at “Prime Time”. Most of the dinner conversation centered around our favorite TV shows. The only break from this came during the summer, when the three networks ran re-runs, until the much waited new Fall Lineups came out.
I am still impressed when I visit my brother’s house and make note that there is no television on the first floor. He had to grow up in a different environment than I did. Today I consider the TV to be an expensive lamp, in that it is on all day, usually with th
Mitchell Wayne grew up in a small town in Minnesota. He had a wild youth. Later struggled with high unemployment. He ended up topping it all off being diagnosed with the worst kind of Multiple Sclerosis (Primary Progressive). He then moved to Eau Claire, WI. Cashing in his retirement plans to buy his condo.
I am going to end up bed bound anyway, unless I am lucky enough to die of something else first.
“Mitchell and Lory sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes Lory with a baby carriage.” This was the chant the other kids would say to me to piss me off. Lory Olson was who they said it about. I never had any feelings for her since the Olson’s moved away before I hit puberty. Lory was a naive little brat. I do remember in 6th grade the teacher asking if any of us still believed in Santa Clause. Lory gasped loudly and almost broke into tears with this new discovery.
My best friend at the time was Lory’s little brother, Ray. He was a couple years younger than Lory and me. The Olson’s moved to the twin cities the summer between grade school and Jr. high. It was still broke up with grades k-6 in elementary school, grades 7-9 in Jr. high, and grades 10-12 in high school.
Ray, Lory, and I rode our bikes the 3 miles to Jr. high to get our schedules and find out where our classes were in this enormous new building. It was late summer and Ray and Lory did this for my sake, both knowing they would not be here or will ever set foot in this building again. Ray was only entering the 5th grade anyway.
We got to the school and discovered we only had enough chain to lock 2 of the 3 bikes. We chose mine and Lory’s since Ray’s was the worst of the 3. It was a large bike rack with so many bikes in it; I told Ray to park his in the crowded middle and no one would notice it wasn’t locked. But I was wrong. We came home with only two bikes.
Little did I know, as I looked at the grassy field across the street from the bike racks, that within two years I would be standing there before school every morning with a group of friends smoking our morning ciggs.
Bill moved in to the house two doors away that same summer. He quickly became my best friend, being the same age as me. But I knew that he went to church school that took him to the ninth grade, so I was still on my own in Jr. high until 9th grade.
I was scared to death to go to this huge school. Other kids told me that there were knife fights there and my only real friends (Ray and Lory) were leaving me to fend for myself. And my new friend, Bill, wouldn’t be there until 9th grade. My mother even called the school several times before school started because of my intense fear of going there. But they still made me go.
I must have been about 12 when I bought my first motorcycle. Well, mini bike actually. It was a Honda 70 with the fold down handlebars so we could fold it up and put it in the trunk of the car. It had 3 forward gears with no clutch. Hardly a street bike but it did have turn signals and a brake light and could be licensed if you wanted to but I never did.
Growing up across the street fro
