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Born in 1946 and grew up in Warren, Ohio in the 60s. My grade school was visible from our house and we rode our bikes everywhere. We would take the bus downtown to the Y on Saturdays morning and go to the movies that afternoon. We’d always get home in time for dinner. We were really on our own most of the time – there was never any parental supervision when we were out of the house.

The only organized sport was Little League – and you had to try out to even be allowed to play. Not everyone made the cut. We’d play sandlot baseball and muddy field tackle football every chance we got. No one knew what hockey was – but we’d play a sport called half-ice in the winter that was really nothing more than football on the ice. In the fall we would hunt pheasants and in the summer we’d fish – sometimes with our Dads/Grandparents and sometimes just by ourselves. We were trusted and allowed to be on our own. Just be back home by the time the street lights came on.

Our neighbor got a TV in 1951 and everyone came over to their house to watch TV. My Dad told me that once after a big storm, I found a TV antenna that had been blown off someone’s house and had brought it home so ‘we could have TV too!’

In the 50’s and 60’s Warren and it’s bigger neighbor, Youngstown, were very much controlled by organized crime and we got away with all sorts of stuff that today would have landed us, well….just say I was lucky. Ohio at that time allowed kids between 18 and 21 to drink 3.2 beer, and, the minimum age of 18 was really just a suggestion most places. And almost every night would end at the Warren’s famous ‘Hot Dog Shoppe’ were we would get two dogs with sauce, a half-order of fries with sauce, and a root beer for 63 cents. That would ‘freshen’ your breath in case your Mom or Dad might be awake when you got home.

A friend’s brother who was three years older than us went off to Whittier College in 1962 and came home in the summer of ’63 with a bright red Chevy 409 door SS coupe. It had been modified a bit with an Isky 505 cam (that wasn’t advertised so that it could still run in the ‘stock’ class at the local dragstrip) headers ‘by Doug,’ American mag wheels with Denman tires, a hot ignition system (I think it was a Mallory Mini-mag), traction bars, and a ram induction system that we fabricated by taking out one of the headlights on each side. We ran it that summer and the next one at Sunset Drag Strip in Sharon, PA – icing down the engine after each run with ice we had liberated from the Holiday Inn to keep it cool. At the same time, we were also racing our family’s cars.

I would take my Dad’s 1962 red Buick Invicta station wagon that had a 340 HP V8 and a Dynaflow transmission and enter it into D/Sa races and did pretty well - as Sunset was a 1/5 mile strip. We’d open up the exhaust system for no flow restriction, pop off the wheel cover, take off the air cleaner and paint the car with white shoe polish and other water soluble paint – turning it into “Crow’s Fire Wagon” and then washing it off on the way home. I also tried to race my Mom’s 1962 Pontiac Tempest with no luck – what a pig!

I was really fortunate to have had a great childhood and learned a lot things that have helped me along the way. I began working at age 12 and still am today. Surprisingly, my best friends today are the same guys I grew up with in Warren.