I entered Staunton Military Academy (SMA) in the fall of 1961 as a senior in C Company, played halfback on the League-Champion varsity football team and ran track (hurdles). Graduating in June of 1962, I returned as a post graduate that September until leaving in March of 1963. Following is my story of a exciting life at SMA.
“I reported to football camp [at SMA] in August of 1961, two weeks before classes began. We practiced in a sunken gully with no air in the hot and humid summer days of Virginia. Practice was exhausting. In those days you did not get to drink water. You had to “be tough.” We never ever heard the word "hydration".
So here I am, a 17 year old, short, Italian kid surrounded by men. There was one guy, if I remember, who quit the team. He was 6'6”/270 lbs, and soaking wet I'm 165 and 5’8”. There were a lot of high school all-stars, especially from Philly, on the team and guys wanting one more year of play before college. I made the team in spite of being the lightest player by 20 lbs. and scored my one touchdown for the team against Fishburne Academy in a game we won 63 to 0. Halfback Sweep Right 25yds.
During the winter of 1961“, to get ready for track season, I would run
continually on the track in rain or snow. In the spring, when the season started, I was in near perfect shape and began winning the high and low hurdles every meet by 10 - 15 yards. I was kinda fast.
About halfway thru the season, a back injury kept me from running at practice at all during the week, so I would just run once or twice a week in the meets, after getting a shot in my back for pain. I kept winning, but because of the injury I would win by less and less each week. The high hurdles were a bitch.
Finally at the Virginia Military School Championship, I was again about to race everyone I had beaten, but couldn't even take a trial run over a hurdle. With my parents and sister in the stands, I came in fourth or fifth or last I don’t remember. I was crushed. That disappointment helped to mold my life. I was really into to being a winner. Later I had to give up an appointment to the Air Force Academy due to the injury. That and 3 kids kept me out of Vietnam.
“Now here’s some good school boy stuff.
'Door slams': On cue, we slammed every door (75) in south barracks (a three story U shaped building, with open courtyard and guard house in middle) on the ring of “the Bell”. It was like an explosion. Happen a couple of times on my watch there…What planing!
"Another time, when the bell rang, we flushed every toilet and turned on every shower at once blowing out, what we were told, was the original water main for south barracks. Running out and looking to my left I see water gushing down the hill.. We blew a hole in the street as I remember... If we only had smart phones."
"My second year at SMA, I came back as a post graduate and was given the rank of Sergeant First Class, a real sword, and a platoon consisting of mostly football players who, like me, definitely lacked discipline. I met a "Town Girl" And started going AWOL at night to see her. Town Boys wold lend me their car for gas money. I set the SMA all time recoed for AWOL with out getting caught. My 70th time I got caught, was busted to private, given a rifle and spent many hours walking penality tours. A year later I married the town girl. Fast forward six years in my life: It’s 1969, I'm living in Claymont Delaware, married, 3 kids working in the retail business. It was two weeks after Woodstock, when I answered an ad in a Philadelphia paper ‘Looking for Drummer’ (I had been playing a couple years). It was placed by two 16 year old budding musicians, Frankie Gilcken and Frank Ferrara. The three of us hit it off immediately and I became part of the Capitol Records rock band BANG with a slogan ‘Music shot from guns’. We were called Americas answer to Black Sabbath and helped coined the phrase 'Heavy Metal.
