52 Stories From Dana

My first trip on my own was a road trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Ocean City, NJ that I made with 3 girl friends. It was the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. We rented a little house just off the boardwalk and spent 2 wonderful weeks enjoying the sun and sand. It was my first time to see the ocean. The farthest I've wandered from home was a trip to Europe with 2 girl friends from college between my junior and senior years. I paid for it with E-bonds my grandfather had been sending me for birthdays. Best money I ever spent! It began with 7 days aboard a student ship ( meaning all the passengers were students from all over the country - how fun was that?!!! ) from New York City to Rotterdam, Netherlands. There we rented a car and spent the summer traveling to Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, England and back to Netherlands and Rotterdam to board the ship back to NYC. We had a general plan for our route but the only reservations we ...

Ah, the good old days! A brief glimpse... In my school days dress codes were in full swing. No jeans - period! Guys had to wear slacks or khakis - with a belt and shirts tucked in. Their hair had to be cut above their shirt collar. Girls had to wear skirts - knee length, please. And I don't think tank or crop tops even existed. If they had they would surely have been banned in school. Another little aside - I was pre-Title IX (Look it up). Basically it was a law that addressed certain inequalities in education and even sports. To me it meant certain classes and activities were not available to me. At my school the only way girls could participate in competitive sports was to be a member of the marching band ( musician, majorette or rockette ), and take the field at half-time, or be a cheerleader. I was a cheerleader. School colors were big! Ours were blue and gold. However, traditionally each senior class was allowed to choose "senior colors" they could display on special...

This particular new year's memory happened while Bob and I were independent contract drivers for Mayflower. We were in Los Vegas, Nevada and had just emptied the truck and were awaiting reload instructions. We stayed the night there and somehow ( I don't remember how ) we acquired tickets for the Red Skelton ( well-known comedian of that era :)  ) midnight show. I don't know what I expected - having never been to a Los Vegas show before - but it exceeded anything I could have imagined. Not only was he hilarious but also he seemed to be enjoying the occasion as much, maybe even more than the audience. So much so that he went way past the time when a normal show would have ended. Perhaps it was because it was the last show of the night and it was New Year's Eve, but he just kept coming back for encore after encore after encore! I don't remember what time it finally wrapped up but it was definitely way above and beyond! To this day it remains the funniest and the most ...