Lessons in Life

By Dorian Heroman

In sixth grade, every child was musically tested to try to grow the marching bands in high school. I wanted to play a saxophone. The band directors wanted me to carry a tuba (since I was one of the bigger children). I compromised (to myself) and got a friend in junior high to teach me to play drums whereupon my parents fretted that I would do drugs. I surprised them by playing in rock and roll bands for about seven years. My first big project as a structural engineer was the inner dome to Space Mountain for the Buena Vista Corporation in a place called Kissimmee, Florida. As a project engineer, I learned to coordinate designs for constructors to build. My dad thought I would be an architect since I liked to draw. (In my hometown's phone directory, there were two pages of architects but only a third of a page of civil-structural engineers. Easy decision.) I have enjoyed stories from firemen I have associated with. They can be very humorous. I have enjoyed Justin Wilson's stories and Jerry Clower's funny wit. God bless them. I wish they were still alive so I could autograph my book for them like they did for me. Not that this is on their level, but I try to present my life stories to entertain and just make the reader feel good, have some memories, and smile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639852000

Book preview

Lessons in Life

DORIAN HEROMAN

Copyright © 2022 Dorian Heroman

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 978-1-63985-199-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-200-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

This collection is dedicated to my teachers that helped me overcome a stuttering problem. They did not have to do so, but they spent a slight bit of time here and there that got through to me and answered prayers. Thank you all for guidance through life and bringing me to a place where I can help people smile.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1: Cap Pistols and Screwdrivers

Chapter 2: Cowboy and Indian Tent

Chapter 3: Airplanes on a String

Chapter 4: Christmas Bikes

Chapter 5: Color TV and Superman

Chapter 6: Camping Trip Snake

Chapter 7: Our Goldfishes

Chapter 8: Flit at Night

Chapter 9: First Day of Junior High and Changing Classes

Chapter 10: Chemistry Set and the Carport

Chapter 11: Front Yard Touch Football Game

Chapter 12: My Brother the Cow Wrangler

Chapter 13: Giving Bryan a Ride Home

Chapter 14: Girlfriends and the Priesthood

Chapter 15: Junior High School Talent Shows

Chapter 16: The Car Cigarette Lighter

Chapter 17: Painting the Old Chevy

Chapter 18: Drums with Bob

Chapter 19: Dancing with a Friend’s Cousin

Chapter 20: High School Colors

Chapter 21: Chemistry Smoke Bomb

Chapter 22: Cousins Hunting Beer

Chapter 23: Cousins Hunting Birds

Chapter 24: Cousins’ Adventure Three

Chapter 25: The I-10 and I-110 Split

Chapter 26: Strength of Materials Class

Chapter 27: Coming Home Really Late

Chapter 28: Watching Construction through a Fence

Chapter 29: Decatur, Georgia

Chapter 30: Playing Music at the Circus Lounge

Chapter 31: My Younger Brother’s Science Lab

Chapter 32: Sports: Dad’s Broken Leg

Chapter 33: My Basketball Practice

Chapter 34: My First Golf Ball Drive

Chapter 35: Fall Football and Tire Practice

Chapter 36: My Brother the First Baseman

Chapter 37: Moving the Antique Icebox

Chapter 38: Sick in a Storm

Chapter 39: Shooting at a Weather Balloon

Chapter 40: Meat in the Cooler

Chapter 41: Breeze in the Tent

Chapter 42: Hand in the Car Door

Chapter 43: My Brother the Pilot

Chapter 44: My Uncle and Lizards and Gizzards

Chapter 45: Wisdom Teeth

Chapter 46: First Time Getting Off a Ski Lift

Chapter 47: Meeting with a Mouse

Chapter 48: Making a Calculator Choice

Chapter 49: A Special Surgery

Chapter 50: Fishing with Bubby

Chapter 51: Eagle and an Ace

Chapter 52: Bubby and the Chain Saw Movie

Chapter 53: Softball Game and Chewing Tobacco

Chapter 54: Dinner at Maw-Maw and Pa-Paw’s

Chapter 55: Bubby’s Pa-Paw

Chapter 56: Bicycles

Chapter 57: Pizza Ordering

Chapter 58: Hidden Treasure

Chapter 59: Flowers from the Side of the Road

Chapter 60: First Balloon Animals

Chapter 61: Remember to Have a Backup Plan

Chapter 62: Late Again for a Parade

Chapter 63: Girl Laying Down

Chapter 64: Cheerleader Push-Ups

Chapter 65: Firstborn

Chapter 66: The State Fair: Bungee Falling

Chapter 67: Doc Gives a Piggyback Ride

Chapter 68: The Tent Guy at the Fair

Chapter 69: Lost / Not Lost

Chapter 70: The Circus Box

Chapter 71: The Circus Telescope

Chapter 72: The Nephew Seeing Double

Chapter 73: A Shadow Box

Chapter 74: Coffee Time

Chapter 75: Rodeo Bull Ride

Chapter 76: Jam Session after Dust and Dirt

Chapter 77: A Mardi Gras Parade

Chapter 78: Golf with a Preacher

Chapter 79: Hitting into the Wind

Chapter 80: Challenging a High Schooler

Chapter 81: Golf with Roland

Chapter 82: Beast Feast

Chapter 83: Dr. Fred and a Bobcat

Chapter 84: Brother’s Phone Message

Chapter 85: The Right Girl

Chapter 86: Splashing Water and Motorcycle Riding

Chapter 87: Teaching and Learning

Chapter 88: Sunrise in the Mountains

Chapter 89: Lizards and Dogs

Chapter 90: First Grandson

Chapter 91: Seeing Dad Cry

Chapter 92: The Right Prayer, the Next Gift

PROLOGUE

I have read a lot of books. Well, not as many as my teachers wanted me to while I was in the first fifteen years of my schooling. Apparently, you do learn English principles and formatting when you least expect.

When I was five to seven years old, I guess I read because while I was learning how newness of words was a fascinating event filled with expectations. New meanings, new spellings (which I was not very good at), and new content. In fact, spelling for me was never a picnic. I would beg my elementary teachers to let me try early in the spelling bees so I could sit down early rather than later and bear the brunt of the short time of ridicule that all children who lost would surely have to endure.

When I got to my early teens, I found an interest in comic books, sports magazines, and being a Boy Scout, the monthly receipt of the Boys’ Life magazine.

Fact is I was in a doctor’s office just a few days ago, flipped through the magazine rack for one of those quick-look types one seeks because you never do know how short or long time will be before being summoned to the second-tier waiting area and eventually the exam room where the doctor zooms in, pops on the gloves, and tries to not frighten you while asking if you think an MRI will help him understand your state of health. And, bam, there it was—a Boys’ Life magazine—for the first time in forty-five years.

Well, I dwell. I have been told by my wife to never dwell when talking, but at times, it just soothes me.

In junior and senior high school while preparing for college and future life experiences, we were given lists of books we should read. These did not titillate my brain, not many in any case. A few did seem to point me away from Shakespeare, Homer, and Chaucer. I began to get interested in some poetry (and I mean a very few) and adventure books and novels. The first book to really open my mind to a movie of insight was The Call of the Wild. I use this movie reference because it was truly that. While reading the book, it was an experience like a movie going behind my eyes and being drawn on my inner skull like hundreds of street artists around a town square on a Saturday in a small town all trying to sell their sketches, paintings, and prints so that you will continue to enjoy them well after you are home and awake the next day to see it all again.

In college, I was immersed in technical reading, relationships of physics, math, laboratories, and technical papers. Reading for enjoyment had to wait a while until I had time for relaxation interspersed with long periods of work.

Lately, I have come to realize the books and materials I enjoy the most are those that get my mind off work and into the rest of the world. I do not mean the problems of the world. No. I refer to those letters on paper that bring me to places, events, people and implements that can bring joy, inner happiness, laughter, and smiles. I even enjoy reading books (so elementary) to my grandchildren if they will sit till long enough to enjoy them with me.

I am sure some of these snippets I write down will not interest all people. But I write them so that maybe, just maybe, after reading them, people will want to share them with whom they think they can enjoy together. And maybe have a smile on their facial muscles simultaneously. (I hope my English teachers read this and realize that I can write using words with multiple syllables, and they smiled.)

ONE OF MY PASSIONS IN LIFE

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CHAPTER 1

Cap Pistols and Screwdrivers

I come from a family of three boys and a sister. Mom and Dad were typical post-World War II small-city people. My mother was from a really small town in south Louisiana and spoke with a slight (she swore she had none) Cajun-French accent. We played simple games of cards and board games, and when something was on the television she wanted to see, we were sent outside to play. My older brother and I were a mere eighteen months apart. We would play soldiers and cowboys and Indians. We had Roy Rogers’s vests, chaps, and holsters with cap pistols. We had stick horses, not just a stick but one with a vinyl head and a heavy string that was supposed to be a rein. One Christmas when we got the cowboy outfits, I was sick, had fever, and just felt neuralgic all over. We opened presents, and Mom let me dress up for a picture, but my brother would not stand too close because he wanted to get a chance to play without getting sick. All became really quiet with interspersed times of caps going off. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Man! I wanted to get out of bed to play with my cap pistol. Then silence.

After a goodly while, I could not stand it too much longer. I got up and went to the dining table to see what was happening. My older brother was there with both his guns and mine! But they were in dozens of pieces. He had a screwdriver in one hand and metal pieces in the other. He turned to me and told me to go back to bed, but not to worry. He would have the pistols back together in no time.

I ran back to bed crying and heard Mom asking my brother rather loudly, What are you doing?

To which he replied, My pistol stopped shooting the caps, so I took apart his gun to see how they are supposed to work.

Well, Dad spent what seemed like hours putting the pistols back in working order. I mean, what good is it to have a mechanical engineer for a dad if he can’t put together a couple of simple cap pistols? Right? Well, it seemed my brother’s worked fine, and mine worked kind of intermittently. (Dad was really an engines and power sort of engineer, not a cap pistol guy.) I carried a small, tiny grudge against my older brother for what I thought he did to my pistol. (For all I knew, he had my pistol, and I had his.)

Lesson learned: One has to learn patience. Lord, give me patience, quickly.

CHAPTER 2

Cowboy and Indian Tent

The grudge between me and my older brother lasted several months until one day, we played cowboys and Indians. We had set up our Boy Scout tent to pretend it was an Indian’s teepee. I went inside my tent. (I was the Indian, which I liked. I even got an Indian lore merit badge in the Boy Scouts later.) My brother raided my camp and tied me up. No, he hog-tied me up. Too well! I began to scream for him to untie me, and he got worried I would be mad at him for tying too well. He was really worried to the point of leaving me in the tent to hide from me.

I proceeded to get madder and madder and madder. He would not come back. I managed after sixteen to twenty minutes to loosen the knots and work my way from the rope. I was so steamed that I went inside to get some help.

I pause here to ask a rhetorical question. (See, my English teachers again will be pleased with my word usage.) Does everyone remember the bow-and-arrow sets where the arrows had rubber-disc tips to stick to hard surfaces?

Well, I proceeded to yank off the tips and hurriedly pass the wooden arrows through the pencil sharpener to make a stick my brother would run from, and my grudge would be settled for good. As I went back outside, I slowly and carefully went to the corner of the carport to peek around to see where he was. As I began to knock the arrow, from nowhere, this arm came over my head, snatched the bow from my grasp, pulled it up and away, and began to hit me on the thigh while a voice asked, What do you think you are doing?

My mom had seen me sharpening the wood arrows while in my vengeful, upset state of mind and followed me out the screen door, I assume, while she anticipated my thoughts. So I ended up getting punished for trying to shoot arrows at my older brother while he simply smiled because he had gotten away with hog-tying me in the tent.

Lesson learned: If you’re about to get hog-tied by your sibling, make sure it is in sight of one of your parents and not inside a tent.

CHAPTER 3

Airplanes on a String

Another Christmas and some more presents to open. My older brother and I got model airplanes with fuel engines. Mine was a yellow wing-on-top plane, and his was a blue wing-under type. Both planes had the same small fuel engine. Mine had a two-blade propeller while his was a three-blade propeller. We were given a metal case—like a fishing tackle box—to hold the fuel cans, extra rubber bands to secure the wings in their slots, a few small tools (screwdrivers and pliers), and airplane string lines to attach to the wings to move the elevators of the plane so they could be made to go up and down as you went round and round trying to make yourself into an expert at airplane maneuvering. And while you got only partly dizzy. Amazingly, when focusing on the plane’s movement, you would not get too dizzy. That and the fact that the fuel tanks only held fuel for about three minutes of turning.

I managed to help my brother fuel his plane. (He had been to a friend’s house that had an airplane like this, and he had some expertise that I did not.) He started it up and told me to jog counterclockwise and gently toss the plane ahead of where I ran and slightly upward. Success! Flight!

It worked. However, our backyard was not large enough for two airplanes to fly at the same time. I, being the younger brother (but not the smallest), had to wait my three minutes while the blue plane rounded the yard with its small engine sound whining, and I became more and more anxious for my turns (no pun intended). Finally, the noise stopped. The blue airplane slowly rolled on the grass, stopped suddenly, and flipped back to front. (I was told that was the way they land on the grass.)

My turn. Yes! We fueled the yellow plane. And as I started my plane and began to look for my brother to toss my plane for me, the string line tightened, and he yelled for me to Toss the thing like you did before.