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Post by RangoA@live.com on Jun 26, 2008 17:01:22 GMT -5
 Boley STRA was a place where they taught people lessons like in the documentaries 'Scared Straight.' We had no choice but to comply with treatment because we were on lockdown except when staff would take us out on outings and after we complied for a week or two, we could have passes of our own for the day or overnight on weekends with family members for example. I met a lot of people whom I became friends with. I knew them for several years and a lot of them are gone now. My Aunt Irene was living in a supervised apartment on fifty-eighth street and ninth avenue north. Not too far from Fred and Lucille's house at 2900 sixty-fifth way in St. Petersburg. They were just several blocks from my mother whom lived on fifty-fourth avenue near the corner of Park Street. My mother would allow me to come to her apartment on weekends when I was inpatient at Boley STRA and we would play bingo together at Holy Cross Catholic Church just east of where we lived. I used to walk to mass there every once in a while. I remember how hot the sun was back then and taking these medications didn't help matters much. I got out of Boley STRA and was placed in one of their supervised apartments in Clearwater. I had no car at the time unless my mother would let me use hers. Davine used to visit and stay with Fred and Lucille once in awhile, more than her brother did. David was living in NYC and he was closer to my brother at the time. Davine was closer in age to Nanette, Leonard and Brian who were her first cousins. Davine's mother was Lucille's sister as I've already written about. I was second cousins to them since my mother was their great Aunt and their grandmother's sister. I remember the first job I got in Florida was working at Albertson's not too far from where all of us lived at the time. I lasted about two weeks. I didn't like it because it was too hot to do the type of work that was required for that job. I remember my cousin Lucille saying to me that my mother and I would get used to the weather after about one year. That's how long she said it usually took people to get used to Florida weather after moving from colder climates. At the supervised apartment complex, that was also part of Boley Manor, there was a lady whom I fell in love with. She and I started going out. Her name was Janet and she worked at a chinese restaurant right down the street from our apartment complex. We would have to go to a day program Monday - Friday and Janet worked a few nights a week. She didn't have a car, either. Almost everyone that lived there didn't have a car. So, Janet and I hit it off. My mom would let me borrow her car and we started going to lots of movies, seafood restaurants and discos. We got our own apartment together within four months of me living at that place. We moved further north in Clearwater. One of my roommates moved out around the same time and moved into the same apartment complex we did after living with a lady (who he married about five years later) in a mobile home almost across the street from the apartment complex Janet and I moved into first before they moved from there into our apartment complex. We moved in together because we just couldn't stand the medications we were taking, like I said it was like swallowing a nuclear bomb, the day program was just going through things that we both knew years before, we didn't like having to obey such strict rules for example when and how to clean our apartment, when we could go out and when we had to come back to the supervised apartment and that type of stuff really got on our nerves so we got an apartment together. Boley Manor then hired me as a Social Network Leader and I did odd jobs for my former roommate and future neighbor at a furniture store he and his father owned. Janet went to work at another chinese restaurant not too far from our apartment. My mother bought me a car and Janet's family wouldn't buy a car for her. It had something to do with her first marriage and her running off with someone in a 'cult' according to her parents and she wound up in a commune in Minnesota. Her parents had such a terrible time trying to get her out of that commune. They were afraid if she had a car, she bolt again and they didn't want that to happen period. I was encouraged by my brother to go back to college and finish my degree. I applied to the University of South Florida and was accepted and attended one class called an Introduction to Sociology. I majored in Social Work at the time. Janet's family used to come over to our apartment a lot and I used to play tennis with her sister and brother-in-law. Her brother-in-law got me into the McMullen Booth Tennis Club and we used to play in a couple tennis tournaments together. Janet's eldest brother owned a lawn service company and he would let Janet and I work for him on weekends once in awhile. We used to go over his house in Largo and play with his kids while having dinner with them. The youngest child from Janet's parents was younger than Janet, all the the others were older than her. Her younger brother was a father from a broken marriage at the time and lived in Dunedin with his son, I think. We weren't very close to him. My mother still lived here and she knew her family and we would go out to eat a lot. My second cousin David started visiting me then. He stayed with Janet and I at the time. He said, that he was trying to make it big in NYC as a lead singer for a rock group and got to meet and party with band members of Guns & Roses. I started listening to their music around that time and I liked the band. They were pretty cool. So, David, Janet and I would visit my first cousin Lucille and Fred in St. Petersburg. Nanette liked that I had someone whom I cared about and she cared about me. Nanette, David, Janet, Brian and I got much closer. Nanette soon moved to Massachusetts after that. Brian was finishing up undergraduate school at the University of South Florida, David went back to NYC, Davine was living with her father and his second partner in Jacksonville, FL. Davine graduated from the University of Cincinnati and got a job as a textbook distributor and that's why her father and she moved from Texas to Florida after she graduated. I love/miss all them so much, I haven't seen them in way too long.
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Boley STRA was a place where they taught people lessons like in the documentaries 'Scared Straight.' We had no choice but to comply with treatment because we were on lockdown except when staff would take us out on outings and after we complied for a week or two, we could have passes of our own for the day or overnight on weekends with family members for example. I met a lot of people whom I became friends with. I knew them for several years and a lot of them are gone now. My Aunt Irene was living in a supervised apartment on fifty-eighth street and ninth avenue north. Not too far from Fred and Lucille's house at 2900 sixty-fifth way in St. Petersburg. They were just several blocks from my mother whom lived on fifty-fourth avenue near the corner of Park Street. My mother would allow me to come to her apartment on weekends when I was inpatient at Boley STRA and we would play bingo together at Holy Cross Catholic Church just east of where we lived. I used to walk to mass there every once in a while. I remember how hot the sun was back then and taking these medications didn't help matters much. I got out of Boley STRA and was placed in one of their supervised apartments in Clearwater. I had no car at the time unless my mother would let me use hers. Davine used to visit and stay with Fred and Lucille once in awhile, more than her brother did. David was living in NYC and he was closer to my brother at the time. Davine was closer in age to Nanette, Leonard and Brian who were her first cousins. Davine's mother was Lucille's sister as I've already written about. I was second cousins to them since my mother was their great Aunt and their grandmother's sister. I remember the first job I got in Florida was working at Albertson's not too far from where all of us lived at the time. I lasted about two weeks. I didn't like it because it was too hot to do the type of work that was required for that job. I remember my cousin Lucille saying to me that my mother and I would get used to the weather after about one year. That's how long she said it usually took people to get used to Florida weather after moving from colder climates. At the supervised apartment complex, that was also part of Boley Manor, there was a lady whom I fell in love with. She and I started going out. Her name was Janet and she worked at a chinese restaurant right down the street from our apartment complex. We would have to go to a day program Monday - Friday and Janet worked a few nights a week. She didn't have a car, either. Almost everyone that lived there didn't have a car. So, Janet and I hit it off. My mom would let me borrow her car and we started going to lots of movies, seafood restaurants and discos. We got our own apartment together within four months of me living at that place. We moved further north in Clearwater. One of my roommates moved out around the same time and moved into the same apartment complex we did after living with a lady (who he married about five years later) in a mobile home almost across the street from the apartment complex Janet and I moved into first before they moved from there into our apartment complex. We moved in together because we just couldn't stand the medications we were taking, like I said it was like swallowing a nuclear bomb, the day program was just going through things that we both knew years before, we didn't like having to obey such strict rules for example when and how to clean our apartment, when we could go out and when we had to come back to the supervised apartment and that type of stuff really got on our nerves so we got an apartment together. Boley Manor then hired me as a Social Network Leader and I did odd jobs for my former roommate and future neighbor at a furniture store he and his father owned. Janet went to work at another chinese restaurant not too far from our apartment. My mother bought me a car and Janet's family wouldn't buy a car for her. It had something to do with her first marriage and her running off with someone in a 'cult' according to her parents and she wound up in a commune in Minnesota. Her parents had such a terrible time trying to get her out of that commune. They were afraid if she had a car, she bolt again and they didn't want that to happen period. I was encouraged by my brother to go back to college and finish my degree. I applied to the University of South Florida and was accepted and attended one class called an Introduction to Sociology. I majored in Social Work at the time. Janet's family used to come over to our apartment a lot and I used to play tennis with her sister and brother-in-law. Her brother-in-law got me into the McMullen Booth Tennis Club and we used to play in a couple tennis tournaments together. Janet's eldest brother owned a lawn service company and he would let Janet and I work for him on weekends once in awhile. We used to go over his house in Largo and play with his kids while having dinner with them. The youngest child from Janet's parents was younger than Janet, all the the others were older than her. Her younger brother was a father from a broken marriage at the time and lived in Dunedin with his son, I think. We weren't very close to him. My mother still lived here and she knew her family and we would go out to eat a lot. My second cousin David started visiting me then. He stayed with Janet and I at the time. He said, that he was trying to make it big in NYC as a lead singer for a rock group and got to meet and party with band members of Guns & Roses. I started listening to their music around that time and I liked the band. They were pretty cool. So, David, Janet and I would visit my first cousin Lucille and Fred in St. Petersburg. Nanette liked that I had someone whom I cared about and she cared about me. Nanette, David, Janet, Brian and I got much closer. Nanette soon moved to Massachusetts after that. Brian was finishing up undergraduate school at the University of South Florida, David went back to NYC, Davine was living with her father and his second partner in Jacksonville, FL. Davine graduated from the University of Cincinnati and got a job as a textbook distributor and that's why her father and she moved from Texas to Florida after she graduated. I love/miss all them so much, I haven't seen them in way too long.