Journey of a Lifetime (1971 - 1990) - A Memoir By Daryl and Heather Bellows

By Daryl Bellows and HEATHER BELLOWS

This is Book 1 in the Series.

 

There is an old African proverb that states: "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

This memoir is a glimpse into Heather and my library (1971 – 1990).  I have authored Heather's memories that she has told me through the years, as to not confuse the reader …and provide a consistent flow.

 

This book was written way after the fact and so these memories very distant and aren't nearly as vivid as the later memoirs.  If I could go back in time, I would have been better at journaling early on as a kid – but, hey what kid does that! 

 

The primary purpose for these books is to serve as 'memory back-ups' for many funny stories and memories that we really don't want to forget.  Our future …old …decrepit self's' is the targeted audience.  I'm sure when we are old, we will appreciate this little time capsule.

 

The secondary purpose is to provide something that can be handed down to our children - it is a sort of DNA time-machine for them.

 

This initial 2-decade memoir probably isn't all that unique from other 80's middle-American childhood experiences.  Hopefully, this read can ignite memories from your own childhood.

 

Please continue reading the other memoirs after this one, because I really think the other books contain way more interesting content.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daryl Bellows
• Release date: Jun 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393467786

Book preview

For Hillary, Drew, and Liam

Table of Contents

Preface

Moore, OK (Daryl: 1971-1980)

Upchucking

My Dog(s)

Singing

My parents dressed as a Gorilla and Big Foot

Cowboy Boot Projectiles

A biting problem

Saturday Mornings

Red Wieners

The Post Office scare

Playing in the neighborhood

Soccer

Hell’s Angels

Hide-and-no-seek

You shouldn’t run in church

The Swinging Lady of the Saloon

Casa Bonita

Stevie

The Ice Cream Truck

Throwing frogs

The Rocket

A 4-year-old door-to-door salesman

I almost failed kindergarten!

The P.E. Parachute

Jumping fences to get to school

A Snow of Bad Grades

S&H Green Stamps

Stretch Armstrong’s innards

Evil Knievel

Hobbit Book/Record

Building Blocks

Drawing

A Switchblade obsession

Battlestar Galactica

Planet of The Apes

The age of the Chick Tract

Eight is Enough

Trip to South Texas

Flash flood in Arizona

Tillamook, OR

My Brother, Mike

Sergeant York

My personal Seattle Kingdome

My first beer

The CB Radio

Convincing my brother that he was adopted

A nail de-shirt Dad

Favorite Movie

A Thief in the Night (Christian Movie)

Salem’s Lot

Backmasking

Miss America

Stigler - area (Heather: 1976-1991)

Heather gets mixed up with a Vietnamese baby!

Heather misses her mommy in head-start

Snuff

Shooting Copperheads

Riding on the back of the 3-wheeler with her Dad

Something Fury in Dad’s Shirt Pocket

The Halloween Candy Raffle

IGA 8-tracks

Beach Boys Record

Heather shortens the church service

Toilet water

Heather and UNO

The Stigler Theater

An Autumn Memory

Tales from the Darkside

The mouse in the car

Heather and Leigh Anne

Heather’s passion for singing

School Bus Stories

Dodge Ball

The Arrowhead

Playing a sad song to make Bret cry

Cricket in shoe

The Lunch Room

Juli Stories (Heather’s sister)

Bret Stories (Heather’s brother)

Heather and her Brother Bret had some fun

Family Vacation to Tennessee

Wrong Wranglers

Can’t Touch This!

Mangum (Daryl: 7/4/1980 – 11/1982)

Rattlesnake Derby

The Locals

Altus Lake

Activities

Dad’s Rodeo prayer

Claremore area (Daryl: 11/1981 – 9/1983)

Mike embarrasses me

Weaponized Cow Pies

My first pellet gun

The fake pubes incident

Dirty Glasses

Artwork of the timeframe

An Era of Blackmail

Tying Mike Up

The Antifreeze Incident

A Tornado Dog-bite Sunday

The beginnings of Band

Chariots of Fire

Music that I was into

Elgin (Daryl: 9/1983 – 6/1987)

Some of my friends

The dart incident

Secular music is the devil!

Record Clubs

Getting ‘thumped’ and returning the favor

Coming to age in the 1980’s

Permed Mullets and Spiked hair were RAD!

The Swirly

Testing theories out on my brother

Video Games

COLECO

Atari

Peeing Contest that got Awkward

Sport Stories

Football confusion (Stop Forrest, Stop!)

Temporary basketball star (15 minutes of fame)

Wrestling story (Hi mom and Dad)

The age of breakdancing

Do not iron parachute pants

I discovered fashion

My flying super-powers!

The infamous ‘Gay Christian’

Living with Steve Fuller

Epic sleepovers

On a dare, touch the water-tower in your underwear

My first job

Prank calling

The creepy kid next door

Vacation to California

San Diego and the Cops

A short video of that time

Smoke’n potpourri

80’s Music

Free Pay Channels

Train-track to 8-track

The age of the cassette medium

Favorite Movies

First Blood, Rambo II, and anything Chuck Norris

Fandango

The Hitcher

Strange Brew

Better Off Dead

Stand-up

Horror

Bicycle with duct-taped stereo

Working out

The video camera

The Wrath of the Vacuum Cleaner

Don King Jr.

The creepy house down the road

Church youth group

Lunch

Church Camp

My impersonation of being a British Foreign Exchange Student

Running off to church camp from the law!

Ghetto Slip-n-slide

Tube socks to get chicks

Max Headroom

Violent Femmes

Changing Grades

Boy’s Night out with my Uncle’s

Stigler (Daryl: 6/1987 - 1991)

Some of my friends

There’s too much room in the crotch!

Friendship Bracelets

My transition to skateboarder

The Illinois river flows in a circle

Jamming

Alternative Music

Waterbeds

The smell of my BURNING HAIR!

Police Scanners and Radar Detectors

Prank-calling the neighborhood pedophile

Sunday night song dedication

Falls Creek summer camp

Impressionable Movies

70’s Rock

Stigler Weekend Entertainment

Heather and I begin our journey together

Talent Night (Fun Night)

Heather and I become a thing

Band

The PXL-2000 camera

Our living soap opera

Our Song

David Loftus almost sat on Tori

My parents and $5 of Gas

Showing up in the First Baptist Church Van

Be careful about little ears!

I was really a lying, pain in the arse!

Summers

Eufaula Lake

Blackberries

The Canyon

The Age of the Car-bra

My brother, Mike steals a riding lawnmower and cruises main street

Music that we listened too

Bob’s Burger Ranch

Heather’s Art

Mole in a shoebox

Ralph’s teeth fall out

Motor cross on Beaver Mountain

Nuclear Band Wedgie

Bruised Lip

Music

Talking on the phone

Hanging-out

Army boot-camp

Gas mask incident

The grenade incident

ID-theft apparently wasn’t too big a problem

Heather attends my Army boot-camp graduation

Ft. Lee, VA

Going Airborne (has nothing to do with airplanes)

Trip to D.C. with friends

I slowly started to realize that we talk funny in Oklahoma!

Closing

Preface

THIS IS BOOK 1 IN THE Series.

There is an old African proverb that states: When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

This memoir is a glimpse into Heather and my library (1971 – 1990).  I have authored Heather’s memories that she has told me through the years, as to not confuse the reader ...and provide a consistent flow.

This book was written way after the fact and so these memories very distant and aren’t nearly as vivid as the later memoirs.  If I could go back in time, I would have been better at journaling early on as a kid – but, hey what kid does that! 

The primary purpose for these books is to serve as ‘memory back-ups’ for many funny stories and memories that we really don’t want to forget.  Our future ...old ...decrepit self’s’ is the targeted audience.  I’m sure when we are old, we will appreciate this little time capsule.

The secondary purpose is to provide something that can be handed down to our children - it is a sort of DNA time-machine for them.

This initial 2-decade memoir probably isn’t all that unique from other 80’s middle-American childhood experiences.  Hopefully, this read can ignite memories from your own childhood.

Please continue reading the other memoirs after this one, because I really think the other books contain way more interesting content.

Note: I have included a Table of Contents for ease of use to link straight to the stories. 

Moore, OK (Daryl: 1971-1980)

Best Places to Live in Moore, Oklahoma

MOORE, OK IS A SUBURB on the south side of Oklahoma City.  Moore is the longest amount of time I spent consecutively, during my childhood – 9 years.

838 Cardan Place; Moore, OK 73160

Upchucking

HERE’S AN EARLY PIC of me puking on Dad’s head.  My gut tells me I was being bounced around a little too much!  I think I might have had some close calls with a ceiling fan or two!

Mom laughs about a time when Dad once changed my diaper (cloth diaper).  He wrapped the diaper around my body and left the bottom open!

My Dog(s)

MY PARENTS GOT ME A black Labrador, and I named it Dark.  That dog got pregnant by some random dog and had two puppies.  I named the brownish puppy Fancy and the black puppy Blackie.  I didn’t have a large vocabulary.  We had to get rid of the dogs because we were traveling a lot in evangelism.

Singing

DAD WAS A CHRISTIAN Singer and performed in revivals across the country.  I sometimes performed with Dad.  This started at the age of 2 years old!  My token song was, I’m a promise – written for Bill Gather’s son. 

Dad met Bill Gather once and told him that I performed that song too ...and did a better job on that song than his son did!  Yes, he said that.  Bill Gather just kind of looked at Dad awkwardly.  Dad is notorious for letting things slip out of his mouth unfiltered.

Through the years I sort of worked as a ‘roadie’ and would help setup/tear down the sound equipment and assist my mother in selling records after concerts.

I specifically, remember being a roadie at this one weird church at Turpin, OK ...weird town in the panhandle of OK, with a very weird church!

My parents dressed as a Gorilla and Big Foot

ON HALLOWEEN, 1974, my parents attended a costume party at the church (Rancho Village).  They rented costumes.  Dad was the big black Gorilla and Mom was Big Foot.  A kid just doesn’t forget something like that.  I remember this clearly, and I was only 3 years old!  As I recall, they scared me pretty good!

Cowboy Boot Projectiles

I LOVED EVERYTHING cowboy-related and was obsessed with Cowboy Boots.  Mom tells many tales about me around 3 years old going around lifting men’s pant legs to get a good view of their boot design that was hiding under the pant leg.

There was this one time when Mom was playing the piano at church and I was probably 3 years old setting on the front pew.  I guess I got tired of having my boots on and I took my boots off and just threw my boots behind me ...in the middle of church! 

Imagine this:  You are just sitting in church about to fall asleep and the next thing you know,