Amberly Village borders Dillonvalle, but it was an entirely different world. We moved there when I was in the 7th or 8th grade.

It’s an older subdivision, with much larger homes, all of which are different. There were not nearly as many kids. Most of the people were elderly and Jewish.

We lived on the circle of Fontaine Court, which was a dead-end street. It was a nice four-bedroom house with a big front yard and a relatively small backyard. There was a two-car garage around back with an automatic door opener, which was a luxury back then. We had a basketball backboard on a pole opposite the garage. It had a chain net.

Shortly after moving in, we refinished the basement with paneling and a tile floor, which was the popular thing to do at the time. On one wall, set into the wall, was a large photograph of some kind of nature scene. I remember water and trees. Hidden fluorescent bulbs lighted it. Very fancy stuff – Middle Class American Chic. Just in front of the photo was a pool table. For one long period of time lasting many years, my Dad and I would shoot pool almost every night. We were both pretty good, but I would usually beat him. There was also a small bar down there with a liquor cabinet behind it. This is where my parents held their Glengary parties. It also became the hangout for all the kids and their friends.

Eventually, we built a fifth bedroom for my brother Bob in the basement just off the party room, as he needed a quiet place to study once he entered Pre Med.

Much later, my parents added on a large family room on the first floor out back, with bay windows looking out on Mom’s flower garden. She was a pretty serious gardener. There was also a large wooden deck just off of the family room, where everyone would sit weather permitting.

We had one of those showcase living rooms, which no one was allowed to sit in. This was my Mom’s dream come true at the time.

There was a fence along the back of the property that had a gate in it that led into the Becksmith’s backyard. They luckily had five kids also. This path became a major thoroughfare for all the kids in the neighborhood.

Across the street from them is where the Martins lived. They had three kids. Kevin, the eldest, was the same age as me. Chris was his year younger sister. She quickly became my girlfriend.

Behind their house was Rollman’s Farm, which abutted French Park a mile or two away. I spent oceans of time walking around Rollman’s and French Park. I went there, usually alone, almost every day. It’s like I needed it to keep my sanity.

I was still having my cosmic experiences, every day, every day, many times a day. There was such an otherworldly quality to that experience that made me feel very different than everyone I knew. It was like I could never really fit into society. I couldn’t enjoy, or be interested in, all that they seemed to be so excited about. I was just playing along, trying to be like them, do what they do – but there was no passion, no feeling of connection to any of it. I felt like an actor in a play that was not about me.

Conversely, I didn’t know what it was that I myself wanted to do, only that, whatever it was, it had to do with the cosmic understanding. I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it, because I didn’t know how to explain it. It was like being the sole occupant on an aircraft carrier parked in the middle of the Sahara desert. It was this HUGE thing, but I had no idea what to do with it, or why it was happening.

So I spent lots and lots of time alone, going for long walks in nature, which I found to be comforting.

I went to Moeller High School, which was an all-boys Catholic school. All the Catholic boys in the area attended Moeller. The girls went to Notre Dame.

At the time, we had to wear button shirts and ties. We were always protesting. I don’t know if they still do today.

Moeller was a serious football school. While I was there, they won the National Championship one year. Kids from all over the city would try to get accepted there, to be a part of their program, as it was a springboard to college football. Even the coach, Gerry Faust, went on to coach at Notre Dame (where he failed miserably and was let go after a few years).

I tried out for football my freshman year, but dropped out after a week or two. Playing football at Moeller was like having a full time job. I decided to focus on art instead.

My art teacher was Bro. Charlie Wanda. Charlie loved me to death. He was also in charge of putting together the school yearbook. The year I graduated, it might as well have been The Tim Folzenlogen Year Book, as there were so many photos of me all throughout it. There was even a photo of Chris and me on the cover. We were Home Coming King and Queen that year.

I was a pretty good art student; though not nearly as good as some of the students he has had since I left. I’d always visit whenever I was in Cincinnati and talk to the students. I’m famous there, mostly due to Charlie always talking about me, but also because I went on to show in NYC. Charlie and me are still great friends, though he has since retired from teaching. We keep in touch.

What I remember most about his class is that he would always play Barbara Streisand and Blood, Sweat and Tears music. That and the one wall was painted a deep dark vibrant orange. Twenty years later, when I got my second apartment in NYC, I painted our laundry room the exact same color.

While I was in high school the Vietnam War was happening. I loosely affiliated myself with SDS (Students for a Democratic Society – a radical group at the time), not because I felt strongly about it, but because I was an artist, and that’s what artists were supposed to do. I was always just going with the script.

I also became something of a hippie. I grew my hair long, and wore stripped pants or jeans with hundreds of patches on them. I also started smoking cigarettes, and later on pot, which is something I deeply bonded with. I really liked pot, and still do on the rare occasions it shows up. Pot was the closest thing that I had come across in the physical world that in some way facilitated all the stuff I was feeling, or at least allowed me to feel more comfortable about feeling it. It somehow made me feel less alone.

My Dad found out I was smoking pot and he told me I had to quit or move out. I told him I would quit, but the next day I told him that I didn’t want to lie to him, and that I knew that I was not going to quit, as I liked it too much and all my friends smoked it. He said I could stay, as if I moved out, it would kill my Mom. He got all choked up.

I tried acid once in college, had a year or two run with speed (which I liked a lot), but harder drugs never really showed up in my life, or I probably would of done them too.

I drank beer sometimes, but not often. One time I stole a bottle of gin from my Dad, as he had a couple of cases of it in the closet and never drank it so I knew he wouldn’t miss it. We went to The Rocks (popular hangout – huge pile of boulders along the Little Miami River) where we mixed the entire fifth with a half-gallon of orange juice and drank it all up. We then went to a high school dance at Notre Dame where I got busted for being smashed. My dad had to come and pick me up at the police station. He was really pissed, but we often joked about it in the years afterward.

By far, the greatest comfort in my life at that time was sex with Chris. We were two lusty virgins embarking on a great adventure, and we were both VERY interested in exploring everything about it. It was the most wonderful time and I am so grateful for having been able to have those experiences with her. I was forever crawling in and out of her bedroom window at all hours of the day and night, sometimes while her parents were sleeping in the next room.

Even so, afterwards, I never felt good about it. I always felt guilty. I just assume that it was all the Catholic up-bringing, as there was no doubt that sex was something that I personally enjoyed and wanted to keep experiencing.

One time my Mom found a Playboy magazine that I had been using to draw pictures of the naked women. It was under the rug, under my bed. She said she was vacuuming, and felt the bump. She got all upset, and said that Dad would die, but I don’t recall his reaction.

I do recall his reaction when “Deep Throat” first came out. He acted like it was the end of the world. “Do you know what that movie is about?!” he fairly screamed. I didn’t, and he didn’t say, but his face looked crazy.

I went and saw it the very next day. I had to drive to Kentucky to do it. It was my first porno movie. I had to leave, half way through, as it was too intense for me. Sexual over-load.

Chris’ Dad, on the other hand, was different. He subscribed to Playboy. They were much more wealthy and materialistic than our family. He owned some kind of metal fabricating business in Kentucky. He drove a big white Lincoln and smoked a pipe. Chris and I would watch TV on their glassed-in porch at night, and he would always be walking back and forth from bedroom to kitchen refreshing his drink of Scotch on the rocks.

They had a built in swimming pool with a diving board in their back yard. Chris would lay out there every summer and work on her tan. I loved those tan lines.

Their basement was refinished much nicer than ours. Their bar was like fifteen feet long and a permanent structure. They had boy and girl changing rooms down there for the pool. I still recall the coolness of the floor.

When Kevin turned sixteen, he got a brand new orange MG. It was a convertible.

Chris got a shiny red Pinto.

Our family had a metallic blue Mustang for the kids to use. It was a stick shift. It was a really great car.

I remember one time, I was home alone, and a big storm came up and the electricity went out. I went out and got in the Mustang so I could listen to the radio and find out what was happening, and it started bouncing around on the driveway. Turns out we had a tornado. It cut a house in half a block away.

We had a dog. Her name was Sadie. She was a beautiful dog, a chocolate brown and white basset hound. She had such a sweet disposition. She was more my dog than anyone else’s, because she would accompany me on my daily walks back on the farm. She loved to swim. She’d jump off Chris’ diving board, or I’d throw sticks into the ponds and she would dive in after them.

The only problem with Sadie was that she loved to roll around in cow pies. I’m sure it is some kind of instinctual dog thing to cover their smell, and she would always feel bad after she did it because she knew how mad I would get; but it was like she just couldn’t help herself. It was her drug and she was totally addicted.

Sometimes we would tie her up to the tree in the backyard, but she hated that. She’d bark or whine, so I would always let her off to run the neighborhood. One time a car hit her. It was me who had let her off. I scooped her up and Chris drove to the vet but she died in my arms.

Everyone was worried that I would blame myself, but I didn’t have that problem at all. She wanted to be free, and I let her. She died young, but had a wonderful life. I was just glad to have met her.

When all my friends were deciding career paths, I decided to be an artist because I was good at it and it seemed like a way that would allow me to keep my options open.

First year, I went to the University of Cincinnati, DAA (Design, Art and Architecture). I was a graphic design major.

I absolutely hated it. Hardly any of my classes were art related, and those that were were all commercial art.

I decided to transfer to the Art Academy of Cincinnati for my sophomore year and become a fine art painting major

I remember a big part of my motivation as being that I wanted to draw naked people.