Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but I've had a good life all the way...

The following pages are a "semi-true" story of Ed Zeiser's life. I grew up during the Cold War of the Fifties, survived the Sixties (actually remembering some of it!), and reached adulthood in time to see the Millennium pass. I have much to be happy about and have accomplished so many of my dreams.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
J.R.R. Tolkien

1947 Stamps

It's a semi-true story
Believe it or not
I made up a few things
And there's some I forgot.
But the life and the tellin'
Are both real to me
And they all run together and turn out to be
A semi-true story.
Jimmy Buffet

Winning a baby contest at two. It's been downhill ever since.

My first memory is being on a boat - not a real boat, but a child-size boat at a carnival. It was like a merry-go-round in water. I was two or three at the time.

The world's still a toy
If you'll just stay a boy
             Jimmy Buffett

I grew up in the age of the ideal family. One of the first TV shows that I remember watching was I Remember Mama on Friday nights. Later, along came the famous TV families of the Fifties: remember the Nelsons (Ozzie, Harriet, Ricky, and David), the Andersons (Jim, Margaret, Bud, Princess, and Kitten), the Cleavers (the Beaver - Theodore, Wally, June, Ward, and of course my namesake - Eddie Haskell), and the Stones (Donna, Dr. Alex  Mary, Jeff, and Trish). Families are rarely ideal and I certainly didn't understand much about family dynamics growing up.

Television is the third parent.
Buckminster Fuller

I was the son of a sailor. My father's life and only love was the Navy. He was in the Navy for 20 years. That was the high point of his life. My mother had been severely abused as a young child and was removed from her home. One can only imagine what happened to be taken from her mother and step-father's home in the 1920s. My mother could only love little children and dogs. My mother would tell me that if you could read, you would never be lonely. She was wrong. Books don't replace people or experiences.

An excellent, though rather academic site with Fifties links can be found at The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s. (I always thought that fallout shelters were neat. I can remember the "duck and cover" drills in elementary school where you would get under your school desk and cover your face. I would have rather seen the flash from the bomb...) Check out the Virtual Atomic Museum for a perspective on the Cold War mentality of the Fifties.

I did OK in elementary school, but never produced up to my potential. I was active and medicated for being too active at one point. In retrospect, I was just a normal boy. I loved reading and devoured books and maps. I dreamed of being a mystery writer. I thought that the pen name Frank Slane would be the perfect pen name for a mystery writer. It was a very masculine name and I liked the play on words in the surname. In eighth grade, I wrote a play based on Longfellow's poem Evangeline. It was long and risque at time because it ended with the lovers kissing.

      
Canoeing at Camp Woodstock

At Camp Woodstock, if you did everything right - behaved, helped others, cleaned up the cabin, and didn't complain about the "bug juice", you could become a Son of Woodstock. You got a small certificate and had the honor of sitting behind the campfire on stone steps facing the regular campers. I finally made it after going to the camp for six or seven years. I still have the certificate.

My other accomplishments at Camp Woodstock include: swimming the lake - Black Pond is about 5/8 mile across, passing Red Cross Junior Lifesaving, and learning how to row a boat, paddle a canoe, and sail in a sailing dinghy. That was the start of my love for sailing. I also tried smoking grape vine like Tom Sawyer might have done - awful stuff.