Updated August 28, 2009
See update list below for details
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of Bob Moats |
Updated August 28, 2009
See update list below for more details
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If you haven't signed the guestbook,
please take a minute to do so by clicking HERE. Thanks! I now have a page that covers my Profile created from from a couple of email forms I received. To see what I'm all about CLICK HERE.
After you explore this site visit my main webpage
with all the links to
Need to reach me? |
bobmoats.com or
magic1
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The story Is Finished! The book is available on
NOTE: The last few chapters are NOT included here in the free preview. So, Buy the Book! |
In September 2001, I moved back to my home town of Fraser, Michigan, after a nearly 30 year absence. It brought back old memories. One thing that struck me was the fact that so many of those memories will evaporate when I die. There is no one on earth who knows everything about my life who can pass the story on to my descendants. I have to admit I know very little about my grandparent's lives or those of my ancestors and unfortunately, probably never will. Well, I have been playing with computers and the internet for a number of years, so I decided to do something about it. This is my autobiography in web form for my son and any of his children to remember me by. I'm also creating a new internet related word: "Webio" which is for people who put their autobiography on the web. Kind of like the internet word "Blog". I also decided to leave out all the cute and fancy java scripts and animations so this page will accomplish what I want, to inform, and sometimes entertain but not take forever loading. Well, I will try to entertain a bit with my stories and maybe a few cute web tricks I have learned over the years but mostly I want this place to be easy to navigate and to learn more about myself. My Mother, bless her heart, saved just about everything and anything written or photographed about me along with all my baby albums and scrapbooks so I have quite a bit of materials to work with, starting with the picture above. It's one of the first pictures taken of me when I was one month, two days old. If you came here by mistake or found me thru a keyword and have no idea who I am, feel free to read my story. I remember someone on some TV show saying that you live beyond death by how many people remember your life. Please remember me well. What you will read and view here is picked from my memories and photographs, the good and the bad, baring it all. It may be boring but some of it may be interesting (no, I will not admit to hiding Jimmy Hoffa) so read as much as you can stand as I try to immortalize myself. This will be a work in progress, till I can remember no more, so visit often for any new stories or updates. How this works: Since I have started this page and the pages that follow I will be adding memories as they pop into my head, so if you read a page one day, it may seem complete but then it may have some new info the next day. This also applies to pictures too. I have tons of pictures available and I'm trying to sort them out and pick the best to present here. So keep watching and enjoy. Thanks, Robert James Moats, Jr. Update List Updated May 28, 2002: I found my first baby book and added some more facts. Updated June 26, 2002: Added stuff to my High School years and the years just before Army life. Updated July, 20, 2002: I dug around in my storage and finally found my high school yearbooks, now I have more pictures and info to work with for my high school years. Updated Nov-Dec 2002: I added some more info about my high school years. Updated April 2003: OK, I've neglected this place, so I'm getting back into working on my life story, check back. Updated December 24, 2003: This last July I moved to Las Vegas and have just now started to add a few more details to my story. Unfortunately I left all my photos back in Michigan, so I can't add too many more right now, but the story will continue... Updated January 5, 2004: Happy New Year! I've added a lot to the various pages this last week, you'll have to read it all again to find the new stuff :). I'm adding more so the story will continue... Updated June 25, 2004: I've started adding more to the pages that had just an outline, so there will be more info coming from 1980 on. I've also added links on the bottom of each page so you can jump around through my years. Updated December 14, 2004: I've been updating pages but forgot to add here. In September my son and I moved back to Michigan from Vegas. I added a bunch of pages to chronicle our trip back across the U.S. with lots of pictures, so enjoy. Updated December 24, 2004: Merry Christmas! Since my son and I moved back to Michigan from Vegas I now have access to all the pictures from my past that were stored in storage and added a bunch to the site, so enjoy. Updated January 24, 2005: It's a new year. I have added a whole bunch of new info to the site. Years 1976 to 1992 have all been added to with new memories and I will add some pictures later. Also I have finished the pages about my September 2004 trip with my son across the U.S. from Las Vegas to Michigan. Have fun reading. Updated April 3, 2006: Wow, it's been a year since I added here. Anyways I added updates to my present state of life here back in Fraser. It's back at the end of this site so you can jump there by using the links at the bottom of the page. Updated May 24, 2008: Another Wow, it's been two years since I added here. Just bored stiff and couldn't get myself motivated. Michigan sucks, the weather, the economy, my life. I plan on going back to Las Vegas when I can get out from my present situation, more on that later. I had an email from a classmate from Fraser and it jolted some memories. Seems we both had a crush on the same girl. More on that later. I'm determined to fill some holes in my story now, so watch for fresh content. To help you find new updates I will put an update notice and date on the top of each page I add to. So you can browse through the pages and see if anything was added recently to that page. Thanks. Updated May 26-27, 2008: I added a whole lot of memories to my years in the Army, so much I had to break it into two pages. I also added a bit to my life after high school page, covering more teen clubs. Enjoy the new info. Updated May 29, 2008: I've added a new page. It is a character profile that I put together from two emails I got from two friends. Rather than send them to 10 more people I put them together and put them here. So to find out more about me, you can CLICK HERE to visit this page. Updated JUNE 4, 2008: I added a bit more to my profile, use the link in the above paragraph to go there. Updated JUNE 6, 2008: I added some photos to my profile, use the link above to go there. Updated JUNE 20, 2008: I added a bit more to my profile, use the link in the above paragraph to go there. Updated JULY 5, 2008: I added a bit more to the bottom of my profile page, use this link [CLICK HERE] to go there. Updated JULY 6, 2008: I added a whole new page to update from 2005 to 2008 it's brief but there's not a lot going on here in Michigan, use this link [CLICK HERE] to go there. Updated JULY 9, 2008: I added a photo on this page about my childhood school in St. Clair Shores and some text. Updated JULY 10, 2008: I added a photo and new info about my time in Germany, see my Army link at the bottom of this page. Updated August 22, 2008: I added a bit more to my profile page, use this link [CLICK HERE] to go there. Updated November 3, 2008: I added a bit more to my profile page, use this link [CLICK HERE] to go there.
the story begins...
My first real home that I can recall was a house on Alger Street in St. Clair Shores, Michigan in the beginning of the 1950's. I don't have many memories of that place but there was a brother and sister living down the street named Kim and Shelly Woods who I played with. My brother, Michael Gregory Moats, was born while we were at that house and while we were at the hospital Kim managed to crawl through the milk shoot and dragged all my toys outside the house. We got back from the hospital with my new brother to find the toys all over the driveway. I also remember we had a collie named Lassie that one day some men came and took away, I don't remember why and I was told that we had a cat that I would occasionally throw down the basement stairs. Hey, I was very young.
My parents lived on Alger before moving a few miles in the same city to a
street named Share where we lived for about my next five or so years.
I fondly remember one Halloween there and how I had to go out twice in the big subdivision because my parents ran out of candy and had to use my first bag full. Those were the days when your big concern was how much candy you got and not what dangerous things were in the candy. My mother assembled a Zorro costume for me and it was handy after Halloween when I rode my bike, my steed, around the subdivision in full costume. At the corner of Share and Harper was a gas station and next to that was a vacant weedy lot. My friends and I would go down and pick up pieces of cardboard we put there and try to catch the garden snakes that would rest there out of the sun. The lady who lived next door, Vera Leshon, wasn't fond of snakes and I always liked to show her my catches. One day when she was out in the backyard (backyard and me in right picture) holding my brother, a grease fire started in her kitchen. She saw the flames from the back and we all had quite a day watching the firemen battle the small flame. My biggest accomplishment while living there was when I rode my bike on two wheels for the first time. My dad took the training wheels off at my request and held me up for a bit as I rode down the sidewalk. He let go, I coasted a bit then fell into the freshly seeded lawn of a neighbor. After I got up and got the mud off me I was a bicycle rider. I remember a huge toy box my dad made, he was a woodworker which was handy, and I would spend many hours playing in and around this toy box. My only problem with the box was the top would occasionally come down on my hands or fingers, but I was careful most the time. It was a great box to hide in also and my Dad or Mom had put elephant decals with balloons all over it.
I went to various schools there starting with Kindergarten in 1954-55 and my teacher was Mrs.
Webster who was replaced by Mrs. Gaines when I changed schools after they built a new one
closer to home. First grade was in 1955-56
(CLICK HERE TO SEE CLASS PICTURE) and my teacher there was Alice Luby, but it was second
grade I remember the best, which started out 1956-57 (Haven't found the class picture yet)
with Mrs. Doherty but I got a new teacher shortly after and that teacher holds fond memories
for me. Her name was Elvira Hauslein (pictured on left) and in addition to being a
teacher, later in life she was one of the first women pilots in NASA. She remains in my mind
as a person who enjoyed life and when we went on numerous field trips and she would get into
the spirit of them, such as dressing up in full fire fighting gear at the St. Clair Shores
firehouse. Years later I went back to visit her and she was, I think, the principal of a
school in the same district. We had a nice visit and talked about my school days.
I had my first crush on a girl in Miss Hauslein's class, her name was Denise Cole and I even
got close to kissing her, but it was on her hand while a friend of mine and I went to visit
her at her home one day. I think she couldn't stand me so, her loss. She was my earliest
remembrance of being interested in girls.
The last school building I remember attending there in St. Clair Shores was a tall skinny old structure that had a tube coming from the second floor to the ground, it was a fire slide. (SEE PICTURE RIGHT OF A FIRE SLIDE TUBE). From a small closed square door in my class one could slide down safely to the ground in case of fire. Of course the students were told not to play in the tube but that was a challenge for us and I have to admit I even tried to climb up inside the tube before being yelled at by the teacher watching the playground. The building was part of a complex of buildings making up the Lakeshore schools that my Mom attended briefly when she lived in that school district. I started third grade in St. Clair Shores in 1957-58 (CLICK HERE TO SEE CLASS PICTURE) but the family moved after building a new house in Fraser, Michigan, and I continued third grade there, details in the next chapter.
The picture below is taken from a newspaper article about my class trip to the St. Clair Shores city hall. Labeled are the then Mayor Thomas Welsh, Me, Miss Hauslein and Denise Cole, my first flame. Glad to see my memory hasn't failed me as I do remember a few of the names of the kids in the picture. |
I do have more memories of the home on Share, it was in a new subdivision and my parents were
one of the first to move on the block. There was a great storm drain (ditch) running behind
the house that held a fascination for me, it was a mystical place to wander even tho I was too
young to be back there. My dad built a bar in the basement to entertain guests (picture at
left of me by the bar) which provided me with a great place to hide and explore around.
Our neighbors on one side were a friendly family named Leshon (pictured right), George
and Vera, and they had four children older than I, George Jr, Nancy, Valerie and Mike. One day,
two of the siblings closest my age decided to cross a main highway (well, three lanes at the
time) called Harper, to go to an old run down farm and they took me along without permission
from my parents. I remember the aged and run down farm house formerly own by a man named Couchez
and it looked haunted to me. Viewing the basement from a side door, was flooded and looked
dangerous. We got back in time to find my parents were frantic about my absence and I caught
hell for it.
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Left: At Easter time at Grandparents house with
family dog, Lassie.
Below: (left to right)
Left: I still hate winter snow
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