Ron Martin:  

Ron is from Monroe, New York. He is single. His schools include Washingtonville High School. He later attended Orange County Community College (Sociology), Riverside Community College (Computer Science), University of California, Riverside (Computer Science), Presidio Of Monterey Defense Language Institute (Chinese Mandarin). He works(ed) at United States Postal Service. Ron's interests include Many to Mention, mieral and rock collecting, Jerry Sands. Music he likes includes Warwick & Framus, J.P. Casler, AMERICAN CORPSE FLOWER | Los Angeles. Books he likes include I Ching, Fiction. Movies he likes include Suspense thriller. TV shows he likes include Sixteenth Maine at Gettysburg, HISTORY. More about Ron:"I was born in the South Bronx Hospital, Bronx, N.Y.C., New York on April 3rd 1956. I was the first child of Ronald and Joan Martin, who two and a half years later created my brother Keith followed by a sister,Darci, 4 years younger. None of us look alike ,Keith had blond hair and blue eyes and Darci is over a foot shorter than myself. Only I really remember growing up as a child in the late fifties and early sixties in the Bronx. I learned several things that I still carry through in life I learned at that time. One was watch out at all times ,knew your surroundings as you look for potential predators and potential trouble on the streets. Also learn that if you peeled the lead based paint off the walls you could melt it down and use it to make lead soldiers from forms .Chewing the heads off the dead soldiers seemed at the time a cheap substitute for gum. I learned that if you needed on ball (pink rubber one) for stick or stoop ball, just open a manhole cover drop down and search. If I needed money, as I was never given an allowance as a child, you can go in the basements of the Brownstone building and look for the nest of a certain rat, who had the habit of collecting shiny little objects and putting them together near that nest. Not all nest had coins as bottles caps were plentiful, as well as can lid pull tabs and slugs . The occasional ring would be found but after joyfully showing my my or dad that item it disapppeared and was soon forgotten.. Now for the lesson on my first crime, It happened one day when my mom and myself were in a small store right down the street,it;s the kind of store that"s like a Walmart , but 2,000 times smaller. Well, my mom was looking around picking up stuff putting them in a little basket,the she saw this French soap ,picked it up, raised it to her nose and I watched as her smile was accompanied by my that just smells so wonderful, and then said naw , can;t afford that and put it back. I didn't understand ,just get it like the other stuff I thought, after all nothing else you had in the basket made her that happy. So I thought, I'll get it and make mom happy and put it in my pants pocket. We went home I went to my room smelling it and it did smell pretty. Then I heard my dad come home , I ran out hugged him and turned around with the biggest smile ,pulling out the soap from my pocket and said as I handed her the soap ,"here Mom, I got this for you" Well, I did not get the reaction of unbelievable happiness ,nooooooooooo, I got " where'd you get this? you have no money. You steal this? (Steal? whats Steal? , i thought) "iI got it from the store" ...You PAY for it? Uh, No I replied. "YOU STOLE THIS. Do Not Steal Do you HEAR me!. Yes , yes I replied. Come with me and there we went back down to the store , mom having me walk up to the lady at the counter and having to tell her that i got this here ,but I didn't pay for it" as I gave it back to her, The lady replied" Thank you , little boy, You're so hoinest " I was immediately grabbed by my arm and at the same time hearing my mom say" No, He's not good . He stole, And this will not happen again, WILL IT?" I shook my head "No" and started to sniffle , though i didn't know why really.From then I although i really didn't understand "stealing" I knew just to let mom get the stuff and I would from then on ,ask if she could get something if I wanted it , which came from and far between.I had another lesson , while in the city that seemed a little confusing too. Several of my friends and I were playing pitch and hit the boy ,like baseball except you don't run and everyone takes turns as pitcher,catcher, batter and ball chaser. Well, I was the batter and I was pretty good and swung rather well, for an 8 year old. The fact was i was bouncing the balls off the fence ,which was great . Here COMES the Pitch, I rear back swing... and the bat hit something on its way back wards , I turn around and ,there on the cement is my baby brother and he aint moving . I don't remember what happened ,but we must of yelled because someone called the doctor and next thing I rember is sitting by the bed watching the doctor as he got up and seeing my brother's small head with what look like a baseball that someone shoved under his skin on his forehead. Another lecture , "this time something about look where you're swinging (I was) and always look where your brother is (how can I if I'm looking at the ball. I'm not a chameleon that has eyes that are independent) I just said Yes Mom , Will he be O.K.? He don't look O.K.? I don't know what she said, but i stayed there with him til i feel asleep. There is a list of things I thought were true or real ,but later reality checks or adventures soon labeled these ideas as false. They include not all trees are planted by people, not all animals (except pigeons and rats) were owned by people.The whole world was not one big city, there was no such dinosaur as the Brontosarus. My best friend at the time (a P.R. Jew)moved to a better place,everyone was happy as well as jealous ,as he was lucky enough to live in "The Projects". To this day I am still not sure it was moving up or not, but I do know it wasn't "The Eastside". At grade school age my family moved to a house was land around it with grass growing,calling it a yard. this was gravely different than the fourth floor two bedroom apartment with iron fencng around the windows which I was used to in the Bronx. Oh I did forget to mention 2 things about the "Bronx period of my life, One was my Dad with his infinite wisdom got a puppy, a Great Dane puppy,who refused to walk up or down the four flights of stiars to get home so my dad had to carry up and down the stairs for walks. I also learned the secret of how to survive in the back of a refrigirated ,meat truck which transferred the recently killed and halfed cow bodies (minus the leather skin) hanging on hooks that swayed violently inside as the turn made turns or abrupted stops. You see the ignorant would think to stand pressed against the walls ,but that would be a painful , if not deadly mistake. You see, the trick is....... (I don't see how you may use this in some situation in the future as the berlin wall is down,..wait..Arizona/Mexican border) You climb on the side of a half cow carcass, get up as high as possible (at first you may have to ask your dad for a push,like I did) and you ride it, swaying does no harm. Oh you're thinking "why are you in the back of a truck with dead bloody cold meat smelling cows?" Well, sometimes there was no one to watch me when dad had to work. When I moved to the house in upstate I notice several situations basically I thought were the norm ,but obviously not. One was that people didn't sleep or lay dieing on the streets upstate as the did in new york. ( A memory that is so clear, even 40 plus years later, is the time the whole family went out to eat ,which was rarely happened.) When we went out to dinner we always had to take an extra cleaning shower with gel in the hair and had to dress in our "Sunday Best" . We always ate Chinese. What struck me funny was.... When we got near Chinatown there was never a place to park the car so we had to park several blocks away . Several blocks away, for those ignorant of the layout of Manhattan is the "bowery" during those days. Well, walking those blocks to the restaurant through the streets of the"bowery" we all would hold hands Only separating when walking around a body or two every block ,You had to watch down at your feet because you did not want to trip over a body then fall and rip a hole in the pants, your only dress pants ,never mind trying to use chopsticks with road rash covering both the palms of your hands. You definitely were getting yelled at as soon as it happened and every time you looked at the damage while sitting for dinner at the restaurant's table. Now ,let me tell you the transformation from an apartment ,street city type living to the house with lots of space and grass and land far beyond that is very scary. First, I had never moved before ,so all that was familiar was gone . The new stuff, fun? exciting? not right away! First there were the trees ,thousands, no millions and they grew wherever they wanted, . Nobody planted them ,there was no "johnny Appleseed planting these trees . OH, no ,these were WILD trees ,growing wherever they wanted to ,Hell they were right against the road .Every mile must have been 10,000 ways to hit a tree on the road while driving. Hell, I didn't know I thought you left the door open the window open and there'd be trees in your house ,in the garage, and the car. Wild, The animals there,nobody owned, no one had them on chains, or leashes or behind 10 ft fences , No these things ran allover the place and the variety, well it never seemed to stop, It took a couple years to see most of them. But through the time there you'd find a species . Damn. The first enter of a wild animal was .You''''re not going to guess. Go Ahead , I'll stop , Guess...... Nope ...A CRAWFISH. What the hell was a Crawfish , why didnt they just get bigger so they'd find themselves in that real cold aquarium in the A&P.I was with my new friend ,damn I'm lousy with names ,We went to this stream by the road , I thought O.K. He's going ...Expand for more