Saturday, February 13

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February 13, Saturday - Bud had to have a model. Sure hated to come to work - beautiful day. mom has a terrible cold. Dropped by there before and after work. Took some cough syrup by.

February 14, Sunday - When I left the house Marv was having chest pains. Wonder what's around the corner. Stopped at mom's on way to work. Not too busy. It's nice to come home and have supper ready. Marv is a good cook.

February 15, Monday - Nothing spectacular. Beauty shop, laundry, rent, store, and downtown. Bought Bud some pants for his program Thursday and Friday nights. He'll probably wear them tomorrow.

It's only now that I realize how expensive I was as a kid. A typical model kit by AMT or Revell in this days cost about 4 bucks. There were a few that I bought just to have parts for customization, and there were the additional costs of glue, paint, body putty (a sort of scale model Bondo) and other raw materials. A trip to Northeast Toy and Hobby might have set my mom back five bucks on average. In 2017 dollars that's a whopping $39 in buying power. If I had been my folks, I would have considered putting me up for adoption, or at least selling me off for scientific experimentation.

Dad was a good cook, in a basic meat and potatoes sort of way. Compared to my grandmother, it was Cordon Bleu. The chest pains were a fairly regular part of dad's life, and continued to make him crazy and a little hypochondriacal. Since his 1962 heart attacks weren't remedied in any way except for bed rest, there was always some residual angina and his teeny nitroglycerin pills were always with him.

Another Monday for mom. I got new pants for an unknown program at school. Mom has doubts that I can hold off wearing them until the program. She's probably right.

It bears noting that mom went downtown to get her shopping done. At that time, there was really only one shopping "mall" in Kansas City, "The Blue Ridge Mall". It sat at the confluence of 40 Hiway and I-70 in eastern Jackson County, some nine miles from the house. Mom preferred going downtown because she could could walk a couple hundred feet to the bus turn at 12th and Jackson and ride into the city instead of navigating the freeway east. Most of the downtown stores she shopped at were within a block or two of the bus stop at 12th and Main, so it was really an easier option all around. There was no advantage to the mall - at that time it was open air, with shops lining both sides of a central pedestrian mall. Later, in the early '70s, they enclosed the mall and it became a four-season shopping area.

Blue Ridge Mall, ca. 1958

Parentehtically, after they razed the Blue Ridge Mall, the built a WalMart Supercenter on teh east side of the property, and a Lowe's on the west half. That Lowe's was to become my store from 2010 to 2016, and when I stood watch at the front door at closing time, I was standing near the ghost front door of the old J.C. Penny's.