1996
* 2026 reflection-It’s so weird talking about Putnam since I had class one week and shop the next. I was bored at certain times and in certain classes, but I also feel like I learned some valuable life skills and got to interact with nice teachers. I’m sure they must have felt as limited and powerless as I did at times and wished they could improve things for themselves and others. I think it’s hard for people to deal with someone like me, who likes to question everything and test limits, when other people are just trying to get by and don’t have any direction in life, they’re just there and I myself am actively searching for a clearer path. I don’t want to stay on this road that we’ve been on for decades.*
January
01-17-1996
When we came back from Christmas vacation, I was still bored out of my mind, we were always trying to come up with something to entertain ourselves, there was never anything to do, but sit around and find that something ourselves. I don't think 40 plus days of being suspended taught me anything, except to ignore my problems. lol
I'm not sure whose idea it was originally, it was probably mine, lol Either way, a few of us decided to take walkie talkies from the utility closet and see if we could cause some harmless trouble.
We thought our teachers and the police officers that the school hired as security were a bunch of buffoons. lol
One day early before school started, a few of us picked the lock to the shop, while the others watched for teachers, then picked our way into the utility closet, took a couple walkie talkies and started having fun.
I had way too much fun doing this, at the time a vice principal had recently fallen and broken their arm, this was after chasing kids who were skipping class. lol Seems like giving kids detention is worth running down stairs in dress shoes. lol
So I took this opportunity to moan into the walkie talkie, I thought that pretending I was hurt was hilarious.
One time one someone asked what I needed, I replied " I need a man to hug and kiss'. lol
We'd tell the people trying to help us that "we're trapped' , "Please help, they've got us" lol
Eventually somebody ratted us out and even though I didn't get caught with a walkie talkie on me, I got suspended for 10 days, because I had been accused, not because I actually got caught. lol
At this point in my life I was an anxiety ridden disaster, a hilarious disaster, but still a disaster.
We were a bunch of punks. lol I was still quite rambunctious and imaginative.
2-25-1996
2-26-1996
2-27-1996
2-28-1996
After the Walkie Talkie incident, and me getting amazing grades after the 30 day suspension, I think the school had enough of all the fun and excitement, plus they weren't happy that not only were my grades were great at this point, I appeared to be my same goofy self and didn’t learn anything from these experiences.
Officials acted shocked that I was able to improve all of my so-called "failing grades" . Like I was incapable of getting A's on everything, then they offered me the opportunity to go to night school. They said all I needed to do was to take one English class and I could graduate with the rest of my class. I was so excited, I accepted.
Ironically enough the class was also held at Putnam, I remember thinking it was dumb and a waste of my time, so I didn't take it seriously. I obviously passed, but my final paper was on why I thought English class was stupid. lol
I remember the teacher saying that my paper was really well written and recall him trying to be supportive, like he was trying to talk me into enjoying writing.
Looking back this was clearly not one of my brightest moments. I'm not sure what I was thinking, seeing I ended up needing to take a review for college writing when I sign up for STCC in the future, lol I guess I wasn't as smart as I thought. Lol It’s really hard to tell when I was just being a lazy kid or I was sick and trying my hardest, but still failing. I always seem to succeed when I try to do something, unless there’s an unknown obstacle in my way.
3-29-1996 p1
3-29-1996 p2
So of course I decided to leave high school, I quit the job at Olive Garden without leaving two weeks notice when I found a job at H.A.P.CO Auto Parts delivering parts all over Holyoke and Hadley and Chicopee. I took that night school English course and got a passing grade by writing a paper about how I think English is stupid. You have to laugh when you look back at how dumb kids are, years later I would take a college course review for college writing and learn to love writing, I might not be the best at it but I still love it
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H.A.P.C.O. auto parts 470-490 High St Holyoke.
This was such an easy job and I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t feeling well at the time and the driving was exhausting for me. I started in Holyoke, and got brief tours of the warehouse which I loved, then I transferred to Chicopee. The manager of that store was quirky like Billy, and he knew far more about cars than I ever will.
I ended up getting let go because I damaged the door on one of the vehicles. It was totally my fault. During a delivery I had misjudged the turn, scraped a short concrete pole and the modeling on the door popped, then curled out, so I had to remove it, so it looked like a strip missing along the car.
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April Vacation?
Before I had even graduated high school spring of 1996, I remember Mindy talked me into getting her pregnant. She got pregnant somewhere around here.
I was working delivering auto parts at the time, she was currently in 11th grade and still has another year of high school. We were both still living with our parents. I don't know what the hell we were thinking. This was before MTV started airing those pregnant in high school TV shows, so I don't know, maybe she was ahead of her time. lol but I followed.
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1996 Bartel Pools in East Longmeadow,
This job was a lot a fun, but also sucked physically. I think my cosuin Jermery got me this job, we worked with Rob S. and Tim Neal from the neighborhood, along with a few other guys, depending on the job. we installed in ground pools summer job-
I used to pick Tim up and bring him home. It wasn’t a big deal in the morning since he lived on Starling at the time and it was along my way, but I would still bring him home even though I was going back to Mindy’s, which was 2 minutes away from where we worked. I never said anything and
We used to meet at the parking lot behind AW Brown’s Garden store, then drive to whatever locations we were working at. On one drive I recall one of the Bartel brothers telling me I asked too many questions, when I asked why they didn’t install above ground pools. I figured with a team it would take an hour to set up a pool and was curious what people thought. The owners weren’t much for talking.
Kurt? Lol I think that’s his name. This guy had worked for the Bartels for years and acted like a hotshot. Lol He’d always show up near the end of a shift, after he’d been vacuuming pools all day and thought he’d give short demonstrations on how to shovel faster. Lol I used to think he was such a jerk. So one time I found a toad that recently died or was killed while working on a liner replacement, which happened to be one of the easier jobs, so Kurt always showed up. Anyway I took this dead toad and placed it in the little slot where he kept the van keys and as luck would have it he poked the dead toad when he went to start the van and was furious. Lol I can just imagine how gross that soft gooey body felt when he jammed his fingers in to snag the keys. I can’t remember if I ever told anyone I did that or I just acted confused. I wish I remembered if he tossed it at someone or not, but this still makes me laugh more than it should.
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I was dating Mindy around this time, she lived with her grandparents in East Longmeadow, with her mother and sister. She had a friend Bonnie that lived across the street and I remember stretching with her in her bedroom and talking about forming our own group and I joked around and called her Toad from the X-Men comics. It’s ironic that I’m in my basement now stretching, talking about stretching with somebody else 30 years ago.
They used to laugh about what a disaster Mindy and Carrie's father was, they talked about how he used to cry when he got upset, because he missed them, I remember Sue being very cold, static, like she didn't have a personality. She never did anything, she never had anything to say. She reminded me of my mother, she had an opinion, but she couldn't explain it and didn't know why she had it, so she couldn't even be sure it was her opinion or not. lol.
1996
Summer
1997? Aims department store- stock clerk
1996- Lawn care-Fall leaf cleanup
I should have loved this job, it was easy and paid better than most of my previous jobs, but I wasn’t feeling energetic, so I would need to take naps on breaks and nothing I did made me feel better. Thankfully I got to drive my car to different locations and follow the team, but I remember thinking that it was odd that the fat people always got to ride the mowers and the skinny people always handled the backpack blowers, loading the tarps with leaves and dragging them wherever they needed to be. *I’m writing this in 2026, so it’s easy to see that I was having some type of issues at the time and it wasn’t due to outside forces. I only point out that I wasn’t feeling well because this job worked out fine for me, it was a temp job and I finished the season, but I should’ve thrived, yet I remember struggling at things I love doing and have no issues with now, and that’s saying a lot because I have health issues now.*
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1996 Started at the Deli Shaker Road
I was a part-time dish washer here until I was in a car accident, so this was just a fun job I worked for a few months and it was more like standing around playing pranks, then doing some work, then chatting. Since this was a deli, there were bursts of activity and dishes would pile up quickly. I can’t recall if I was a helper or had a helper, but I worked with another dishwasher. This guy was a volunteer firefighter at some local fire-house and he used to have the funniest reactions to things, so I started leave little globs of mayonnaise on all the handle to our cleaning equipment, even the stuff I used, but I would grab it in a way to avoid the mayo, but made it look like I had gripped it firmly. lol
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November
I went with my brother, and I'm not sure who else, to the movie theater in Enfield to see Star Trek First Contact.
I remember being so excited for some massive space and then it lasted all of 30 seconds, what a let down, but what we got was still cool. lol I was still feeling the massive disappointment of Kirk dying in Star Trek: Generations.
Deep Space Nine was still on at this time, so I was always really hoping for more of a crossover in this movie, but we got our voyage crewmates, so that was cool .
I thought the new Enterprise looked awesome, so I bought a model of it at some point around this time too. I was the only kid I knew that loved to build models and I still love them 30 years later.
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December
I was never really close with my grandpa Landers, He's the one we got the PUCH moped from years ago. I received this card from him on Christmas 1996. For those who can't read cursive it says:
"Rick, this card is the best I could find. I went to three stores and they didn't have much of a selection for grandsons. All the cards in the other stores were for much younger grandsons, OK grandpa. Show this to your brother so he will understand why both cards are the same."
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