phil_stevens

Hello and welcome to the Phil Stevens blog.

Edarem and I met over 40 years ago and have remained good friends.

He sent me his life's story and asked me to post it on my blog so that his Youtube subscribers and fans will know why he no longer has access to a computer. Along with his bio, he sent me several DVD's of his short videos that he likes to make around the house and in the yard.

I will transcribe as much of his biography as I can and will add to it when I have the time.

In the meantime, this is his story...told in his own words....

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At 9 a.m.on May 1, 2009, there was a loud knock on the back door. My dogs, Buddy, Buster and Lady were in the house with me. I jumped out of bed wondering "Who the heck could that be? I went to the door and opened it a crack and 5 armed probation agents came in declaring, "Where's your computer?"

I was still groggy from sleep. I walked them to the living room where I also had my bed. "It's right here. What's the problem?" The lead agent said, "You're not allowed to have a computer."

The dogs were barking because of 5 strange people in the house.

"Put your dogs outside."

After putting the dogs in the backyard, I was instructed to sit at the kitchen table.
Two agents turned on my computer, one agent stood next to me, one agent stood by the front door and one agent walked slowly thru my house.

Back in 1986, when I was attending a birthday party in Orlando, Florida, I had fondled a 14 year-old family member. I was caught and arrested. I was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 10 years probation. That was my sex offense.

Now, here, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, 23 years later, 5 law enforment officers are in my house going thru my computer. The officer who roamed thru my house confiscated 6 cans of beer and my box of Franzia wine,

"Why are you taking my beer and wine?"

"You're not allowed to have alcohol."

I thought to myself, "What kind of craziness is this? I broke the law and paid for it with jail time and 10 years of probation (with no violations) and now, 23 years later, they're saying I can't have a glass of wine with dinner? I can't have a computer? How does that make any sense?"

After scrolling thru thousands of photos and videos on my computer, the agents were satisfied that there were no pornographic images. Even so, they confiscated my computer, monitor, printer, camcorder, tripod, flash drives, cables, and my dvds and cds, even the blanks. They then asked me to walk them around the property. Satisfied that I had nothing illegal in the house or outside, they left.

The dogs and I went back in the house. I sat there dazed. Then I got angry. Not at the officers who invaded my house and took my property. No. I was angry at the lawmakers imposing penalties and restrictions on ALL sex offenders regardless of their offense.
For example, anyone who urinates in public and gets caught can be charged with indecent exposure. If he's convicted, he will have to register as a sex offender and will be treated exactly the same as a rapist/kidnapper/murderer. That is plain stupid.
And, grossly unfair.

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Edarem's autobiography - in his own words...

I was born Edward Muscare on September 27, 1932 in Corona, Queens, Long Island, New York the youngest of seven children - Josephine, Michalina, Carmela, Joseph, Gasper, Aida and me, Edwardo. When I was born, Josephine, my eldest sister was 15 years old.

My mother, Angelina Triassi was born in 1896 in Caltanisetta, Sicily. She married Salvatore Muscare and they emigrated to New York in 1916. He was a tailor; my mother was a seamstress.

Salvatore Muscare left my mother for another woman while I was still a toddler, so my mother had to support her seven young children by herself. She found work sewing in a dress factory in downtown Manhattan.

Since I was very young, I don't remember who took care of me. Maybe neighbors in the apartment next door, maybe my sisters? I don't recall.

I do remember that we moved several times to other apartments in
Queens. One was a second-story walk-up on Roosevelt Ave where the elevated trains rumbled by just outside our windows.

In the early 1940's, my mother met and married Leonardo Piscione, an Italian carpenter, in his words, "a wood, wire and metal lather." For some reason, everybody called him "Mike" instead of Leo or Leonard. He, like my mother, spoke in broken English. Neither had gone to high school. But they managed to provide for the family.

We moved to a very nice 2-story brick house in Elmhurst, L.I. and I was quite surprised when I noticed that the house looks exactly like the house shown during the opening credits on the tv show "King of Queens." It could even be the very same house.

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World War Two was going on and my brothers joined the Service. Joe went in the Army and Gasper, the Navy. Josesphine, Michalina, and Carmela were married and raising families. Aida and I were the only ones living at home with Mom and Mike in the 2-story brick house.

I don't remember too much about my childhood - but, as we all do, certain memories and scenes come to mind when we reminisce about our childhood..

My earliest memory is of my 'father' hitting me with a strap as I tried to get into bed with my mother during a thunder and lightning storm. I guess I was about two or three years old.

- I remember throwing my baby bottle out of the window. (Apparently, I was getting too big for a bottle.)

- In kindergarten the teacher played "To A Wild Rose" by Edward McDowell. I still remember it because it was such a lovely melody. I like it to this day.

- The ice cream truck was coming. I called up to my mother to throw down 2 cents for a popcicle. She threw down a nickel but it bounced off my hand and rolled down the sidewalk and into the sewer. I felt bad about that.

- In grammar school, I remember sitting in class one morning as the sun's rays came thru the window and landed on the teachers pretty floral print dress. It was a quiet moment of beauty.

- I don't remember why, but one day, I went to the barber and had all my hair shaved off. As I left the barber shop, a wind storm came up and I remember standing with my arms out-stretched, leaning into the wind. I don't recall any repercussions about shaving my head.

- My mother smoked. At age nine, I began smoking. I used to walk along the street looking for cigarette butts in the gutter.

- Double feature movies on Saturdays for 10 cents. Coming out of the darkened theater, the late afternoon sun was blinding.

The radio programs I used to listen to included Suspense, Inner Sanctum, The FBI in Peace and War, The Lone Ranger, Mr. District Attorney, The Jack Benny Show, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Red Skelton Show, Baby Snooks, Burns and Allen and some that I can't think of. I memorized the announcer's introductions and I've even posted some of them on Youtube titled 'Golden Age of radio'.

- Playing stickball in the street and playing marbles in the dirt and pitching pennies on the sidewalk.. Oftentimes, when playing stickball, the balls would roll down into the sewers. Most kids would forget about it and get another ball. I thought "Why not try to fish them out?" I took a wire hanger and untwisted it and made a retrieval tool out of it and I'd go around the neighborhood looking for balls floating in the sewer and I'd fish them out!.

In 1942 (I was nine) I caught two beautiful butterflies in a vacant lot a couple of blocks from the house and I mounted them in picture frames, I can remember the date I marked on the glass. July 12, 1942. I feel sad about it now. Beautiful butterflies should be allowed to live their lives and flutter among the flowers.

- Coins for the taking. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. In the streets of New York, there were lots of iron grates on the sidewalks and oftentimes, I would spot coins down on the bottom. With a thin stick and chewing gum on the edge, i would manuever the stick over the coin and press down. Then slowly, I'd raise the stick and retrieve the coins.

- April 12, 1945. i was sitting on the curb about a half block from my house. I remember the date because it was the day President Roosevelt died. My sister came running. "Mama wants you home." I got up and followed her home. Apparently, the neighbor told my mother I had played "doctor" with her little girl. It was true. It took place behind the neighbor's garage, I was 12, she was about 10.

Today, I can understand why kids do things like that. When little ones aren't taught about sex (or anything else, for that matter) they do what comes naturally. When moral values are not taught to children, there's a price to pay.

And my life story is a living example.

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My family was Catholic...but, in name only.
Although all of us kids went thru Holy Communion and Confirmation, it was just something that was done. My parents didn't follow God's laws...so how could the kids they raised know any better?

Riding my bike, I remember hitching rides by holding on to the back of trolley-cars and trucks.

And somehow, it was great fun to place a penny on the trolley tracks, run and hide in the bushes and wait for the next trolley to come along and smash them flat. It always made a loud "thump-thump" sound when the trolley would run over the pennies.

Riding in the subways, I always rode in the lead car so I could look out at the tracks and the lights whizzing by and pulling into the stations. It was the same view the conductor had.

One quiet winter night, a light snow was falling and I went outside and stood in the middle of the street by a lampost. I remember looking up as the gently falling snowflakes, illuminated by the street light, drifted down on my face.

Those are some of the memories of my childhood while living in Queens, New York.

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Chapter Two - Going to Florida

In 1945, the family moved to Florida. Everybody moved there! Joe got out of the Army and moved there with his wife. Josephine and her husband and kids soon followed. Carmela and her husband and kids came. Gasper came.
We all settled in Hialeah, a suburb of Miami. Mike and Mom bought a little tract home for $5,500. And my life as a teenager had begun.

A block away from our house, there was a Mom and Pop gasoline station run by Al and Freda Morris and Uncle Walt. Shirley and Billy Morris were the children in the family. Billy was a year younger than me and we would become best friends. His sister Shirley was about 5 years older than us and she had an attractive over-sized bosom. At night, whenever Shirley would take a shower. Billy and I would go around to the backyard and managed to climb up on something to peek thru the bathroom window. Sometimes, we wouldn't get to see anything...and sometimes we did. It all depended on how securely Shirley drew the curtains.

Andrew Jackson Junior High school was about 8 miles away in Allapattah, a community in Miami. It was the closest school to my house. By the time I got to the 9th grade, they changed the name of the school to Miami Jackson High School. My favorite classes were Speech, English and the Glee Club. As with all kids that age, I hung out with 4 or 5 guys after school at the local hang-out, a drugstore across the street. They didn't have Malls back then.

In high school, Marilyn Patton was my girl-friend. A red-head with freckles, we had fun. She was a good kisser. She lived with her grandmother. Her parents were either dead or abandoned her...I don't remember which.

I remember singing a novelty song at a school assembly. I guess it was a talent show of some kind. I don't remember. I had my head wrapped in a towel like a turban and sang the song, "The Rich Majarajah of Magador." It was a popular song at that time. They threw pennies on the stage when I finished. And I stopped to pick them up, too.

Mom and Mike bought 5 acres of vacant land a couple of miles north of the famous Hialeah Race Track and built a big chicken coop on the land to sell chickens and eggs. Later, they converted that big coop to a house and we moved there while I was in high school.

We had a well outdoors and I can remember pumping the handle while Rex took a drink. Rex was a collie mix that we had. I don't recall what happened to him.

My first car, at age 16, was a 4-door 1929 Essex. The wheels had wooden spokes. The front doors opened opposite of the way that car doors ususally open. You can imagine how dangerous that could be if they were accidentally opened while driving along. I remember gas at that time was 18 cents a gallon.

I can't recall the date, but I entered a talent contest put on by Miami radio station WIOD. They also owned a newspaper. I sang "Dream" a song made popular by Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra. All of the contestants had family members and friends in the audience but I was there by myself.

I won first prize...a trip (by Greyhound bus) to St Augustine, Florida and a weekend at a beachside motel. Mom and Mike went with me. I have no recollection of anything that happened on the trip or the weekend. All I remember is - I won first prize.

In my senior year, I appeared in the Senior Class Play playing the patriarch in "Cheaper By The Dozen." Clifton Webb played the part much better than I did...but it was fun.

In the 1951 Miami Jackson High Year Book, I was voted "Best Personality." During the commencement excercise on January 6th, 1951, I gave a speech on "Democracy." I wrote it, but I'm sure I didn't have the faintest clue of what I was saying.

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After High School....what now?

I had no plans of what to do after high school. I went to New York and worked as a go-fer in Michalina and Dom's dress factory in lower Manhattan. I recall living with my sister Aida and her husband Pat Rizzi in Fairview, New Jersey where his family had an oil delivery business. Back in Florida, I worked for a couple of months as a 'carpenter's helper' for 50 cents an hour.

My friend Billy and I thought we were very clever we'd get into all sorts of trouble. We called ourselves, "The Versatile Villains." Eventually, we got into trouble with the law. The judge said, "You got a choice, boys. Jail or the Armed Services?"

I joined the Army. Billy joined the Marines.

You're in the Army now....

August, 1952, I arrived at Fort Jackson, South Carolina for basic training. 8 or 12 weeks, I forget which. On weekends, a bunch of us would go into Columbia and bar-hop looking for girls. One night a pimp propositioned about 5 of us. Two bucks apiece and we could have sex in the back of a sedan with his girl. We all drove to a deserted area and one by one, we would get into e back of the car with the girl. I was the last to go, but when I got in the car, I couldn't do anything. I just sat with her for a couple of minutes and got out. It just didn't seem right to me.

Of course, now, years later, I can understand why I felt that way. Sex is no fun outside of a loving relationship that is blessed by God.

Radio school. Morse code. 12 weeks. Assigned to an artillary outfit, we received orders to ship overseas. Half the company was going to Korea and the other half to Germany. On February 2, 1953, I set sail for Bremerhaven, Germany. It was a fun trip aboard the U.S.S. Darby. Good food, new friends, poker.

The U. S. Army...3 hots and a cot and $70 a month pay.

When we arrived in Germany, I remember my first encounter with the Frauleins. They were the servers in the mess hall. Danke schoen, Fraulein. Das ist gut! Ja Wohl!

From Bremerhaven, we embarked on a train to our destination in Southern Germany to a town called Augsburg, not far from Munich. We were billeted in a very nice Kaserne, which once housed German soldiers.

I bunked in with Bitter Bob - bitter because he hated the Army and missed his new bride back in Boston. Bob called me Eager Ed, because I had enlisted in the Army. I didn't tell him my option of not enlisting.

And so, my life as a radio morse code operator in an artillary outfit in post-war Germany had begun. Tomorrow night, guard duty. Whoever thought that 4 hours on and 4 hours off is a good system for guard duty? You fall asleep and 4 hours later they wake you up to stand guard in the motor pool for 4 hours on a cold February night. "This is ridiculous!" I got into one of the trucks and took a nap.

Thank goodness I didn't get caught.

After a few weeks of playing 'soldier.' I told Bitter Bob, "I can't take this for 2 and a half more years." That's how much time left I had to finish my 3 year enlistment. I had listened to AFN radio at night and I thought "I've got to get a job as an announcer."

I made arrangements to audition at the Frankfurt headquarters of the American Forces Network. It must have gone well, because two weeks, later, I received transfer orders to join the staff at AFN Bremerhaven as an announcer.

My life as a radio announcer had begun.

...to be continued

Tags: edarem autobiograpy