i first met dan shade when we were both in 8th grade, he wasn't a great athlete or extremely smart but he was fun to be around and he had a mini-bike my brother's and i had a honda 50 a small child sized motorcycle. we first got together in bob borings 8th grade industrial arts class dan was a good carpenter and i wasn't. one of the first things i remember dan saying was,"old macdonald had a cow, the dr.'s don't see how," i also remember his father or mother picking us up after football practice, they lived down around buckeye lake, in a trailer while his father was finishing up a house he was building not more than 30 ft. from the trailer. later that 8th grade year someone(dwight brown?) began calling dan, ernie because he resembled ernie on my three sons.in 9th or 10th grade brian jones hit ernie knocking out two of his front teeth,ernie was the type of guy you occasionally felt like belting but i never did. ernie played football and the only time he played was snapping(hiking), the football for punts, he was probably pretty good but i'm really not sure. after high school graduation dan went to osu in newark at least for several quarters, i also went to osu in newark where we did little or no studying, dan and i majored in partying with a minor in partying, i don't think either one of us was meant for higher education. for several years after the osu experience i lost track of ernie. i married then divorced and ernie had married and was living at some apartments in thornville with his wife and child and step-child, ernie was working as a dry-wall dude in the construction union, and making good money,"although he was still ernie." in 1979 when ernie was still married and living in thornville he and i played tennis probably several times a week, we were actually getting sort of good, we also drank a good amount of beer. in 1979, september, i was involved in a automobile accident, i was in the hospital for 4 months, when i was still in the hospital toward the end of my stay they would allow me to go home over the weekend it must have been on a saturday night that i visited ernie and his wife and kids and our old buddy jim walser also dropped by, the next thing i knew i was falling in the bathtub,"after going to the restroom,i wasn't exposed," just to much punch. shortly after getting out of the hospital ernie,wife, and kids bought a house in newark, it was a nice house on the semi-poor side of town, i don't think they lived there all that long before they bought a home on buckeye lake, a very nice home not far from ernie's parents or thornville. this must have been in 1980 or 1981 i'm really not sure but we were partying as often as possible and just enjoying life. eventually ernie and his wife decided on moving to oklahoma, they were there for a short time before deciding to divorce, so ernie moved back to ohio and the party continued.it was sort of bad for me that he did decide to move back i spent far to much time partying but it was fun. i forgot to mention that ernie wrecked his motorcycle one day at work when his wife went out west before they moved. i never did really like her but whatever.back to dirty dan: it seemed like to me at least, after the motorcycle wreck then his wife leaving him ernie sort of gave up, he no longer had a job, he had one girlfriend make that two girlfriends, but he smoked pot and drank at every opportunity. in 1984 i got married and eventually moved back to thornville to the house in foster manor where i grew up, i really didn't see ernie much, but one day my wife gini and i had a silly fight and i took the car and drove off, down the road towards buckeye lake i happened upon ernie and some ugly girl he was living with(non-sexual). i or we got out of our cars and decided to meet at a bar(the copperpenny), before going in the bar we each took a slug of some 151 gin,that ernie a his friend had been drinking. at the bar we had several beers making getting around quite a chore. ernie and his ugly friend,"she had some dopey looking tattoo's on her arms," and i were discussing god only knows what when for some unknown reason we were asked to leave, it was probably the first time that i was asked to leave,but i did a friend of my little sister,"well she's not really little,i should say younger," she drove me home and boy was my wife mad. i later found out that ernie had been killed going back to newark, and the girl was injured. that was in 1986 ernie would have been 29 or 30, now it's 2009 and ernie was sort of worthless but i miss him.
also: dan "ernie" and i went to several concerts primarily in the 70's while partying.
