GROWING UP...SCHOOL YEARS
Michael Joseph Stilson was born on Saturday, February 6, 1971 at 3:15am weighing in at 10 pounds 13 ounces, 22 1/2" long His name was given to him by his mother, Linda J. Stilson, as it means "like unto God, an addition".
Michael was in St. Joseph's Hospital for ear infection at age 20 months. He climbed out of hs crib so they put a net over it and he climbed out and walked down to another ward. Next day he was in a stainless steel crib enclosed on top and sides with lock. Was that another sign he was going to be high maintenance and active?
Mikey looked so much like Mikey from Life. One time when we were staying at a hotel in Paramas NJ we walked to the Paramas Mall. I was finishing paying for my purchase and called "Mikey, come on, I'm leaving." and these woman started calling out "Look, there is Mikey from the Life commercial." Next thing I knew I had a group of ladies and kids surrounding me and wanting his autograph. I told them he wasn't Mikey from Life but they insisted he was and that they heard me call him Mikey. To avoid being trampled, they had Mikey sign his name which he could write Mikey, and I told them that he was signing his name Mikey because his name was Michael and I called him Mikey but he wasn't the commercial actor. He was so excited about it.
Michael learned to ski when he was almost
four years old. He was too small for the t-bar
so they would put him in with any grown up
going up the hill. Lori and Scott couldn't
understand how come Michael could ski
better than they could being so young. but
they soon found it had advantages as they
asked him if he knew how to get to the
expert slope and sure enough he knew.
He was suppose to be on beginner slope,
so when Bill found him on the expert slope
Mike told him the reason why "This
hill goes faster!" Instead of skiing down in
a zigzag style, Mike would take the hill
straight down and hit every bump he could
find "cause that was fun".
I knew I was in for a ride with him from then on.
Mike loved fishing, this one was a tough one. Told you he had no fear. Mike went out on a charter fish and caught a huge fish (flounder) and had his picture taken for a magazine. He also caught an eel and blowfish. He loved fishing in North Carolina off Long Beach. When he was about ten he went smelt fishing with friends of his father. He came home at1am on school night with over 500 smelt that had to be cleaned right away. We worked on them for over three hours when he had to get some sleep. I fixed the smelt for dinner and he didn't like them. Gave them to my father and made him happy. Those guys knew what they were doing giving them all to Mike. They said they almost had to put a rope on him because he was so excited and kept getting further out and they were afraid he was going to end up over the falls.
Mike and his high school friend, Tom Russell made a card for the hostages being held in Iran and brought it around the neighborhood for people to sign and sent it to the hostages. Newspaper heard about it and interviewed them and they made the news in The Leader .
Michael played Jr. Varsity and Varsity for Corning Painted Post High School all through his high school years. He was active with YMCA Soccer and Little League Baseball and enjoyed fishing. We took the bus to New York City to go to Yankee Stadium and also Shea Stadium. He got to sit in first row next to greens and got to shake hands with Dusty Baker and some other players. Once he caught Oscar Gamble's ball that came into the bleachers. Everyone kept hollering "some little boy got Oscar Gamble's ball!" We lived near Watkins Glen racetrack and we used to take him to the races there so he grew up watching the Bodine brothers. He loved Nascar Racing and was a Dale Earnhart fan. Not even his mother could interrup Sunday raceday while he watched the races.
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