principal, Mr Larro, for my bad behavior. Mr Larro was quite a cool guy. He had obviously seen my grades fall and I believe he had checked my IQ scores and he was determined to try and get me back on track. And he knew the way. He knew that I was a crack shooter and took me up to the most impressive gun range that I had ever been to. During the hour drive, we talked. He was a hunter and enjoyed it. We talked about other things as well. Imagine, an adult that is interesting and is interested in me. What a unique experience for a confused teenager. We arrived at the New York Gun Club at a place called Thunder Mountain and he took out a 12 gauge shotgun and handed it to me. I loved it. He then showed me how to hold it, how to lean into it and how to target the clay pigeons. He then took the gun and said watch this. He yelled PULL and the pigeon came out fast from over his right shoulder and he fired and it exploded into oblivion. It was powdered. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Wow, wow, wow. He then said that he has worked with psychologists that have found that experience to be helpful to children and adults. So he gave me the large caliber and fairly heavy gun and said OK you do it. And I did and it was a phenomenal sensation. He then taught me the games of skeet and trap both which are very interesting. I was hooked on Thunder Mountain and shotguns.
We got to be buddies and went up to the range a few more times and he could see that I was able to master this new shooting technique. My attitude improved a bit more at school as his technique seemed to have worked for me. We even went hunting together one time for squirrels and he was impressed after I shot so many of them. By then I had bought my own shotgun, double barrel, side-by-side 12 gauge with a longer barrel and full choke that I could use for the game of Trap and for hunting small and big game including deer.
I do have to admit that it was still difficult to finish high school with the distractions of pot, chicks, concerts and a counter culture but I did. I also managed to figure out that I did want to go to college and study biological sciences thanks primarily to my sister for giving me those strong interests. My SATs were not that flash and I had to go to a community college as an entry level.
So off to Bergen Community College I went where I studied biological sciences and met some interesting people. There were some tremendous parties and ski trips up to New York State where we usually stayed at my good friend’ s Grandmothers house in Sawkill. Wow, did we have some major weekend parties at that house that we affectionally called Grandma’ s. There was no one living at the house and it was available to us whenever we needed it. This was my friend Dick Logan’ s relative and Dick was dating the infamous Barbara Sarubbi of the Sarubbi sisters, Candy, Donna and Barbara. Barbara and I had several biology classes together and we had so much fun in them just horsing around. We constantly had fun with them and their many friends who lived in the next town from New Milford. Interestingly, the other major party place for us was at Dick’ s house in New Milford. His Dad was the Mayor and his parents left the house free quite a bit of the time. His parents were super nice and accepted me for who I was and did not judge. I had meals quite frequently at Dick’ s house with his parents but when they were out holy crap did we have some wild parties with some wild and crazy girls.
Just prior to commencing college I had purchased an old Canon 35 mm film camera and I was determined to self teach myself photography, which I did. The first week that I bought it, I drove into Greenwich Village early one morning and as I walked around for
Dick Logan
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