Thursday, January 28

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January 28, Thursday - Cold and snow this morning. Colder tomorrow. Felt tough today - took Bufferin all day. Went to bed as soon as I got home.

January 29, Friday - Snowed all day and grew colder. By the time i got home it was 15°. Bought groceries - $20.72. ($161) Have a cold, too.

January 30, Saturday - Temp - 5°. Feel miserable. Should have stayed home. Customer reported me to Johnson because I checked too fast! Got back a stolen check. Tomorrow has to be better.

The idea that a customer would report you for moving too fast is only foreign if you've never worked with the public. There were simply some customers that wanted you to pick up one item at a time, enter it, and wait for their approval before you went to the next item. At that rate, a full basket of groceries, which would set you back $30 or more, would take twenty minutes instead of five. Ain't gonna happen, sister. Over the course of my career with Kroger I was reported for checking too fast, sacking too fast, wearing my hair too long, wearing an offensive after-shave, and maintaining a snarky attitude. I can refute everything but the attitude problem. I was then, and now remain, a committed smart-ass. I can usually only say two serious things in a row. After that, I go for the laugh. I was never written up by my managers, because they knew how hard I worked.  Such is retail. The Johnson referred to is Kenny Johnson, the store manager at 31st and State.

The stolen check coming back is totally mom's fault because she trusted her gut instead of sticking to company procedure. Customers filled out a signature card with the store they did business with, and once checked and approved were given a number to use when they wanted to write a check. A card for my account might be something like S-390. If one of your checks came back, your card was pulled and put in the provisional file. Even with the number on the check, it still had to be approved by the head checker, head grocery clerk, or a member of management. If all the pieces weren't in place, it was incumbent upon the employee to turn down the check. If they took a bad check and it hadn't been cleared, it could come out of their check. It's some really nervous shit when a check comes back, even more so when your name is on it.

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January 31, Sunday - Today is better. We have a chance of getting our money for the bad check. Byron put his name on the check after I made the statement that I would pay for the check. I appreciate it but I take full responsibility for my mistakes - stupid as some of them are. Took my prescription to Schneider yesterday. Will get my glasses next Saturday. Blizzard warnings out for tonight. Signed up for vacation the 14th of June. May go to Colorado.

Mom is still battling the bad check, but Byron Scanlon, the store co-manager has stepped up and taken mom's side. Byron would be the first Kroger manager I worked for the following year at the store at 61st and Leavenworth Road, also in Kansas City, Kansas. Mom set me up with that store and Byron to help me keep my car on the road, even though it was almost fourteen miles from our house on the Missouri side. It paid $1.40 per hour - fifteen cents above minimum wage, but then again, gas for my thirsty 1957 Pontiac Hardtop was only 32 cents per gallon. I worked an average of 25 hours a week. You do the math.

Wait, Mom didn't get her glasses from McBratney?

Blizzard warnings = busy grocery store. 

Mom always tried to put her vacation sometime in the first two weeks of June. I was usually out of school by June 19 or so, and the weather for road trips across Kansas wasn't unbearably hot. It took a full day to get from Kansas City to Limon, Colorado. Most of the trip was on US 40, a two-lane that stretched from Topeka, the western limit of the Kansas Turnpike, to the Colorado line, 400 miles away. The speed limit was 45mph, and the distance you could travel without hitting a small town was limited, to say the least. 

Now, where was I? Whatever, here comes February.

Monday, January 25

January 25, Monday - Took Bud to school. Had hair fixed. Brakes are acting up. I think it would have been a good day to stay in isolation. Had my eyes examined. Marv did the laundry. Bud's cast is loose.

January 26, Tuesday - Didn't sleep well last night - got stuck in the driveway - drove to work without brakes. Streets were slippery as glass. Got brakes fixed. Nice to have brakes again.

January 27, Wednesday - Took Bud back to the Dr. for repair on his cast. He'll have to be off for another 2 days. No school tomorrow or Friday, end of semester.

It was unusual for mom or dad to take me to school. One of the neighbors, the dad of my friend Mike, often packed up the family bus and hauled us off to Northeast, at least in the winter. In better weather, and when I wasn't wearing ten pounds of plaster cast on my leg, I walked. It was barely a mile from the house on Eleventh Street to the school, though it seemed farther. I never had occasion to ride a bus to school. There weren't any buses, anyway.

Mom's basic Monday routine - hairdresser, a trip to Kansas City, Kansas to see Dr. Bosilivac for an eye exam, etc. Now the Cadillac's brakes are acting up.

Brakes handled, slippery streets in Kansas City.

Car brakes were drum-type, not self-adjusting, and at best, a compromise solution for bringing 4,500 pounds of Detroit steel to a stop. Getting it moving was enough of a challenge in bad weather. The Cadillac was a torque-monster, but cars were all rear-wheel drive, and winter driving was a lesson in controlling skids and slides.

Dad made it a point when I was 15 to take me to large, snowy parking lots and let me learn to control a slipping and sideways Cadillac. I still prefer rear-wheel drive.

Again with the leg cast.

Friday, January 22

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January 22, Friday - Still raining, snow tomorrow. Felt bad but worked hard anyway. Bought groceries $14.22 ($110 today) Bud had his cast repaired at North Kansas City Hospital. Would like to find another job. Weight 169.

January 23, Saturday - Snow forecast all day, but no snow. Tough! Took mom to the store before I went to work. Worked with Doug in the office. He's doing better.

January 24, Sunday - Slept until ten! Went to church. Bud and I went to the Kansas City Museum in the afternoon. Quite a place! Came home and relaxed. Feel better.











When we went to have the cast repaired, Dr. Williamson remarked that the next one might last longer if I lost "some of that tonnage". Well, kiss my ass, Doctor Four Eyes! Dad heard that and vowed never to return. He found another orthopedic surgeon, we had my records transferred, and the cast was removed at the new doctor's office. Do not mess with Orville's only child.

No snow! Not only is it a pain in the ass to drive in, but snow always means a busy day in the Kroger store. Chances are they were pretty busy, anyway. Weather forecasting in 1965 was a dartboard proposition in Kansas City. Tough place to forecast, even now, but back then it was a 12-hour lead, if that.

TV weather in the 1960s bears zero resemblance to what you're used to today. Since most of the broadcasts were in black and white and imaged through a black and white camera, ChromaKey, the use of a green screen to super a weatherman (they were all men) over a map hadn't happened yet.

Weather maps on TV were clunky, pasteup jobs. The better stations used felt boards to stick pictures of sun, clouds, tornadoes, and other weather phenomena to the map.

Kansas City's two best know TV weather guys were Dan Henry (Bowser) and Fred Broski. Look at their fancy maps! They gave Fred a pointer!

Atta boy, Doug!

The Kansas City Museum has always been a cultural stepchild in Kansas City, if only because it resides in the older Northeast area instead of the wealthier Country Club Plaza district of the classic  Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Kansas City Museum - Photo:Visit KC

Tuesday, January 19

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January 19, Tuesday - Doug worked in the office. Bob Baker came in and gave Marie and me a checker's test. Missed 2 - so did Marie. Turning colder and raining.

January 20, Wednesday - Took mom home with me for supper. Had a good meal. Doug took his checker test - missed 18!

January 21, Thursday - Marie sick today. Bud broke his cast - gets a new one tomorrow. Warm, started to rain tonight.














Mom's still dealing with the manager trainee Doug. It's becoming increasingly obvious that there's no love lost between them. This is not an unusual situation between trainees and head checkers.

Garvey Band Stamper

Think back before beeping red laser scanners in grocery stores. When product came in the back door, it was checked in, the boxes (and sometimes the product) sliced open with box cutters, and each and every item in the store was price-marked using the old standby Garvey band stampers, or one of a whole rack of "stick stamps". Grocery clerks valued their stampers the way a gunslinger valued his Colt .45, and good clerks could price-stamp merchandise so fast, you almost couldn't see it happen. The point of all this is to make sure the store's merchandise is priced properly and legibly.

Monroe-Sweda Model 46

The cash registers were, at that time, the new Monroe-Sweda model 46s, a smaller, faster version of the old gigantic NCR models of the '50s.

The checker  used a foot pedal to move the conveyor belt that the customer had piled his order onto, grabbed the item off the conveyor with his or her left hand, looked at the price, determined the proper department - grocery, meat, produce, liquor, health and beauty, etc - entered the information on the register without looking at the register, hit enter, and moved on. Each checker was expected to maintain the highest possible accuracy with the highest possible speed. (There were actual checking and bagging competitions where grocery clerks showed off their skills.)

To this end, checkers were periodically tested by what was called a "basket test" administered by a paid mystery shopper, or "checker's test" done by a company trainer. The best checkers in the business might miss one or two, like mom and her friend and coworker, Marie Cook. That her nemesis Doug missed 18 would doubtless have sent mom over the moon.

Tuesday TV in 1965: My Mother the Car, followed by Please Don't Eat The Daisies, but mom and dad were always there for The Red Skelton Hour at 8:00

I still don't remember Grandma Patton ever eating dinner with us, but I guess it must have happened. I know the meal was good because my dad cooked it. After he left the grocery business, he managed the bait business and kept house. He parlayed his experience with the meat markets to create some of the most remarkable meals from the crappiest cuts of meat. Dad could make a chuck roast as tender as filet mignon, and just as flavorful. Mom, however only ever cooked one thing: fried chicken. It was worth the wait.

Lyndon Johnson was inaugurated on January 20, but mom isn't likely to mention it. She and dad never felt like national politics had much effect on their real lives, and mom came from a hard-core Republican family. When grandma got a orange tabby that kept tearing up the house, she named him "Kennedy".

That plaster cast on my left foot was no match for Kansas City's wet, sloppy, winter weather and my bulky, 170 pound frame.

Saturday, January 16

January 16, Saturday - Ran errands before work. Bud had to have some models - Marv a tax book. Real busy. Doug had the books messed up. Will finish in the morning.

January 17, Sunday - Worked today. Not real busy. Mom spent the day by herself. Will have her over for supper one night this week. Marv clipped his dog - got too close - clipped him in the butt.

January 18, Monday - Took Bud to school. Got hair done, ran errands, groceries, laundromat - the usual. Picked Bud up and watched television till 10. 
30°

I probably milked that broken left foot for all it was worth, at least a couple of model cars to work on.

Mom was still dealing with Doug The Horrible Trainee.

Dad needed someone to talk to during the day, so he bought an AKC registered platinum miniature poodle from the Tutera family, a subset of Mary Cirese's family, and named him Rebel. He had him professionally groomed a couple of times, but decided that the cost involved was well beyond his budget. He bought a pair of clippers, and proceeded to do it on his own. Dad would have Rebel stand on the ironing board, and would proceed to give him an overall buzz-cut. There would usually be at least one instance of the plaintiff yelp of a bleeding poodle followed by dad cussing. We used the same pair of clippers to cut dad's hair. I have continued the tradition and have cut my own hair since 2003. I do not have a poodle. So it goes.

Mom's dad died the previous October, and the Patton kids watched over their mom pretty much all the time. Up until just before Grandpa Tom's death, my uncle Bob lived at home, upstairs at the house on Garfield. 

Monday - mom's day off, but never a day of relaxation - always a long list of things to get done. More television. Mondays were TV throwaway nights, but mom never missed "Andy Williams/Perry Como" or "Ben Casey".

Please keep in mind that our TV was an aging Admiral table model a lot like this one - tubes aplenty, a mechanical channel tuner, and certainly no remote control. I was the designated channel changer and volume controller, and woe to the child that spun the channel knob too quickly. In the middle of the front of the set was a gold removable door that covered the vertical and horizontal hold controls, as well as the brightness setting. We never put the door back on, because you had to futz with this stuff all the time. On top of the set there was always a pair of rabbit-ears that required a deft, nearly mystical touch to readjust for each of the three stations in Kansas City - WDAF, Channel 4, NBC; KCMO, Channel 5, CBS; and KMBC, Channel 9 ABC.

About every six months or so, the TV would go on the fritz, and Bert, our TV repairman, would come out and swap out a handful of tubes - 6AU7, 6AU6, 12AU7 - these were nearly always the culprits. Once replaced, things went back to normal for a while.

Come to think of it, we were completely surrounded by "Berts". Bert, the TV guy, Bert, The Manor Bread delivery driver, Bert the chiropractor . . .

Wednesday, January 13

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January 13, Wednesday - Finished inventory today. Good television. Helped Bud with his homework - speech.

January 14, Thursday - Worked hard today. Think Bud broke his foot again. Fell in the back yard and can't stand on his left foot. To Dr. Williamson tomorrow.

January 15, Friday - Going home and eat oats. Worked like a horse - just as well eat like one. Cold 19° at 5 p.m. Bud is back in a cast.

"Good television"? I don't know what mom was watching, but TV was pretty grim on Wednesdays. My best guess for mom's lineup that cold January night in Kansas City:

"The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", followed by "The Patty Duke Show", then "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", and "I Spy". 

I could never figure out what qualified as an "adventure" for Ozzie and Harriet, and most of the show was Ozzie looking lost as David and Rickie gee-whizzed their way through life. Most of those shows I could take or leave. We only had one TV, so I was probably doing something else most of that evening, and would have much preferred to watch "Lost In Space" in the Ozzie Nelson time slot, if only for the horrible nerd-crush I had on the lovely, talented, and doe-eyed Angela Cartwright. Oh well.

Almost a year to the date earlier I broke my left foot - my fifth metatarsal - during a Sunday visit to the Pattons. It swelled up like an eggplant, and into the cast it went. This year was just as bad, probably at the same point on the bone, and the remedy was a cast that went from my toes to just below my knee. It had a rubber platform molded into the bottom of the cast to walk on. It necessitated splitting several pair of slacks up the outseam so I could get dressed and go to school. The first week, I had to stay on crutches so the plaster could set properly. Yeah, right. Winter is no time to have a water-soluble foot covering. Today, they'd put me in a walking boot, and send me on my way.

I was met by howls of derisive laughter when I got back to school, where the challenges were just beginning.

Sunday, January 10

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Sunday, January 10 - Went to church - excellent sermon. God doesn't expect perfection - just your best. Helped Bud write a story. Drove over to Mom's for a few minutes. Patty & Walt, Paul & Linda were there.

Monday, January 11 - Nice day. Got my hair fixed, did the laundry, took Marv to the doctor. He has some kidney & prostate trouble. Bought me a new dress, purse, and Bud 3 pair of sox.

Tuesday, January 12 - Work as usual - inventory today. Felt better. Bud went bowling tonight, got home about 11:30


Mom loved church, and was always lifted by the message. At this point, I'm pretty sure she was still going to Bales Baptist Church, on 12th street. Later, she would move to Independence Avenue Baptist Church.

Mom was an excellent writer and storyteller. When I needed the seeds of help getting a project under way, she knew how to give me just enough to get started, then she backed away and let me move forward on my own.

Her mom, Pansy, still lived in the house at 1501 Garfield in Kansas City, Kansas. Mom's dad, Tom, died the previous October. They had been married fifty years at the time of his death, and the entire Patton clan kept a close eye on their mother's well-being. This is a tight-knit family, and proximity to her family is probably why we lived in Kansas City to begin with. When I was born, we lived in an upstairs apartment at 1932 N. 14th Street, just a block away from Tom and Pansy, and next door to my great-grandmother Effie Snavely.

Clusters like this were common in many families, including my dad's. When I was two, we moved to a rental house at 207 South Washington, in Fort Scott, Kansas. This was a short walk to my grandparents' house on Wall street, and close to my uncle Clarence's meat locker, where dad worked as a meatcutter.

When I was four, we moved back to Kansas City, into a rental house on the Missouri side at 4137 East 11th Street, owned by Joe and Mary Cirese. It rented for $60 per month, the equivalent of about $530 today. Mom and dad never lived anywhere else. When my mom, suffering from cancer for a second time, moved from that house in 1978, the rent was still $60. Mary Cirese will always be "Saint Mary of 11th Street" to me.

I'm all but sure that mom decided that Fort Scott was too far away from her folks for comfort. Then again, they may have wanted me to have the opportunities that a larger city's school district would afford.

Patty & Walt are mom's sister and brother-in-law. Paul, the next younger Patton is there with his wife Linda.

Monday, mom's day off. The normal things that people do: chores, shopping, errands.

Tuesday, back to work. Inventory in retail settings is always a big deal. Outside services come in and go through the store like a locust storm. No one looks forward to inventory.

Bowling again, since it's a Tuesday night, I can assume I was standing in as an alternate for one of the men's teams I bowled with. Late getting home on a school night. Spoiled rotten I was.

Thursday, January 7

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January 7, Thursday - A usual Thursday. Real warm 70°. Bud spent part of his Christmas money from Sonnie ($10.00) - bought a model. Hope my disposition improves.

January 8, Friday - This morning it was 62° when I got up. When I came home from work it was 15°. Bought groceries $16.00

January 9, Saturday - Went to Dr. Guptkey - lost 1 pound in seven weeks - 173. Gave me some bladder pills. They help. Doug and I did book work tonight. Trainees - phooey.


So there's the weather report - typical Kansas City January, or any other month, for that matter - warm, then cold, then freezing, then tornadoes. Maybe not tornadoes. Sonnie is my half-sister from dad's first marriage, "Sonjalee". Never thought much about halfs and others - always thought of her as my sister. Sonnie was twelve when I was born. She is pure Simpson - six feet tall.

Sonnie, with her two boys - my nephews - Brian and Mark. Photo ca 1963

$10.00 gift from Sonnie in today's money: $77.00

"Models" refers to plastic car kits. I discovered cars when I was about twelve, and threw myself into all things automotive with the same zeal that I applied to music and science. I built hundreds of car kits, customized and detailed them, and entered them in contests. There were also the occasional airplanes - especially B-25 Mitchell bombers. My dad helped build them during WWII. He was 4F, but went to work at North American Aviation in the old Fairfax District of Kansas City, Kansas as an assembly expeditor.

My car obsession quickly filtered over into real life. By the time I was fourteen, I could rebuild a small-block Chevy motor on my own. 

Mom bought a week's worth of groceries for $16.00. In today's dollars, that's about $124

Mom talks about her weight again. She's fighting a lifelong battle with heredity and lifestyle. Her mom was always fairly heavy, as was her dad. Her dad was Type I diabetic, and mom rightly feared the disease. Even so, she was an emotional eater. Happy? Eat. Sad? Eat. Bored? Eat. In this way she and I are close almost forty years after her death.

Back at work, she has to close the store on Saturday night with a trainee that will turn out to be a thorn in her side.

Monday, January 4

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January 4, Monday - The usual routine. Picked up Marv's glasses, which he likes. Took Marv to Dr.
Bud went bowling & came home sick.

January 5, Tuesday - Doug and I are in the office together. Very discouraged today. My mouth is too big.

January 6, Wednesday - Got home today and Marv was real sick. Got a prescription from (Dr.) Miller and he slept pretty good. Hate my job this week.




Marv is my dad. Marvin is his middle name, like mine. Like my mom, he was from a family of six, but the comparison ends there. The Simpsons were friendly enough, but they were not close, at least to the casual observer. His dad died in 1954, and his mom lived in the little house in Fort Scott, Kansas where the family moved sometime around 1920. Dad would have been ten.

Dad and his Cadillac, ca 1967. This is a rare photo, as he seldom looked at the camera.

My dad and his family.
No one looks at the camera, a defensive move against the
powerful output of the M5 flashbulbs that were so common back then.

Our glasses came from Chick McBratney's optical shop on Minnesota Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, a relationship that dad stuck with for decades.

Dad's regular doctor was Wilson H. Miller. When dad first started seeing Dr. Miller, he was working out of a small office upstairs at Independence Avenue at Monroe. At the time of dad's death in 1974, Miller was Chief of Staff at Research Medical Center, and had an office on the Country Club Plaza. Dad paid for that office.

Dad's health was always teetering between bad and worse. His heart attacks in 1962 left him nervous and afraid of dying. Please remember, the treatment for a heart attack in 1962 was Demerol and weeks of bed rest. In dad's case, sixteen weeks flat on his back at St. Joseph Hospital on Linwood Avenue in Kansas City. The Demerol made him think the nuns were ghosts, and the pigeons on the ledge outside were eagles. He gave up cigarettes, stop using salt, switched to that godawful Sanka instead of coffee, and always kept a small bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in his pocket in case of an angina attack. It worried him ceaselessly that any day might be his last.

Bowling was central to my teenage years. I bowled several leagues at Allen's Bowl on Independence Avenue. Dad sponsored a couple of my teams. I tried to maintain my dignity in spite of wearing a blue-trimmed King Louie shirt with "Simpson Baits" embroidered across the back. I wasn't all that good, but I was determined as hell.

Doug was an unknown Kroger employee - I think he was a manager trainee or co-manager. See January 7.

Friday, January 1, 1965

January 1, Friday Started the year right. Worked 10-7 - busier than I thought. Bud went to Patty's - color TV. Weight 174

January 2, Saturday Worked as usual. Made appointment with Dr. Curran for 25th. Marv goes to the doctor Monday. $100 short. Wish I was a chorus girl.

January 3, Sunday My Sunday to work. Since Thursday I've worked every hour the store was open except 5.

This is a pretty good baseline post. Mom is at work, the Kroger store at 31st and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. She is a head cashier, "head checker" in their parlance. Her job is to keep the front end of the store running smoothly, maintain cash accountability, and keep the books. Her Saturday entry indicates that her daily counts came up $100 short. She doesn't say whether it was from one till or total, but that kind of money sets off all kinds of alarms. "Wish I was a chorus girl". Mom had a love-hate relationship with her job at Kroger. I suppose all working-class heroes have that.

Mom, in the store office at Kroger.

Mom mentions her weight. It has been her cross to bear for years, but her weight always seemed to define my mother in her own eyes.

"Patty" is mom's sister, my aunt. Her daughter, Susan, two years older than I am, is one of my best buddies in the family. We vacationed with Patty and Susan, and I was as comfortable at their house as I was at home. We laughed a lot. That was Mom's family in a nutshell. Close, supportive, and always laughing.

L to R: me, my cousin Susan, my aunt Patty; Pike Peak, 1961

Mom was the oldest of the six Patton kids. She was born in a tiny house in equally tiny Jarbalo, Kansas in 1915. Her siblings were, Paul, Jean, Jane (Patty), Bob, and Bill.

Mom and the Pattons, Christmas, 1975