Wednesday, April 28

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28 April, Wednesday - Went with Marv to pick up ingredients. Spent the rest of the day at home. Mary goes into the hospital Monday - operated on Tuesday

29 April, Thursday - Went to store and then to see Gladys. She felt pretty bad. Came home and relaxed. Felt pretty good.

30 April, Friday - Didn't sleep well. Got up and had a fight with Marv over Bud. Got hair fixed. Went to see May Fair Lady with Mom, Patty, Walt and Bud. Real good.

Dad's supply trips were epic adventures into the world of fish bait ingredients. Dad regularly picked up 100 pound bags of wheat shorts and flour from Robin Hood in North Kansas City, huge whey blocks originally designed for poultry farms, 55 gallon drums of cheese trimmings for catfish bait, 55 gallon drums of blackstrap molasses, (Yep, the trunk of the Cadillac could easily hold a full 55-gallon barrel, and my old man was strong enough to wrestle it out by himself.) and my favorite trip, every loaf of two-day old Taystee bread that dad could squeeze into a '55 Cadillac sedan. The back seat was jammed to the roof, and usually the trunk and as much of the passenger side of the front seat as dad could muster and still have room for me to ride along.* Dad had cultivated a friendship with someone at Taystee, and they just gave dad all the bread he could cart away, sometimes twice a week. They couldn't sell it, and the bread was destined for the dumpster, so what the heck. Dad found he could use bread as a replacement for wheat shorts and flour for some of his bait. The bonus factor was that the bread that was "Baked While You Sleep" was already infused with industrial strength preservatives, which meant dad didn't have to buy big bags of mold-killing sodium propionate to add to bait. Dad, like me, could be frugal to a fault. 

Tastee has Wheaty Flavor

If you're inclined as this point to compare your Uncle Ferd's homemade corn-flake dough bait to dad's stuff, you can pretty much stop now. Dad spent years in R&D finding the combination of flavorings and ingredients that made his bait unique. The running family joke was that the minute you walked in the back door, dad would thrust something under your nose, and say, "Here! Smell this." This madness was his method, and over the years he isolated flavors from other foods - cumin, curry, fenugreek, hops, whey, celery, and many others that he eventually incorporated into bait or other flavorings. He built a small distilling device for extracting essences of flavors that didn't exist on the market. Yes, we had a still.

Dad's baits didn't spoil, didn't get hard in the container, and never failed to catch fish. Four years after dad died, I went shopping for a gift for an angler friend of mine. I found a couple of cans of his Big Thunder Carp Bait at a bait and tackle shop in Independence, Missouri. It was still good. It was soft and pliable, and still had that distinctively sweet molasses aroma. Dad definitely knew his business. Your Uncle Ferd doesn't know shit about fish bait.

What could make mom and dad fight over me? Hard saying, but I never saw any of it. I only saw mom and dad fight one time, and that was about fish bait. Truth is, I think mom was concerned that dad was spoiling me into the ground, a theory that I can confirm without hesitation.

"My Fair Lady". If my mom and her mom were going to a movie or a theatre production, you can bet your valve oil and harmon mute it's going to be a musical. 

*Why dad didn't buy a pickup truck is still a mystery to me.

Sunday, April 25

April 25, Sunday - Took care of Greg today. He was fussy in the morning, but did fine afternoon. Mickey stayed for supper. Maxine was here, Mom Simpson came and stayed all night. Gladys was worse.

April 26, Monday - Went to see Gladys first thing. She's better. She had a case of nerves. Went with Marv to pick up stuff. He treats his mother shamefully. Bud was pooped this morning, but went to school anyway.

April 27, Tuesday - Took our laundry over to Mom's and helped her do her laundry, too. Stopped and got a hamburger and donuts for lunch.

Greg was the infant son of mom's coworker Mickey. Mickey was, as I remember her, entirely mom's opposite - a loose cannon, prone to cocktails and misadventure. She drove a British sports car - an MGB, I think, that mom described as riding like a "lumber wagon". The process of getting my mom in and out of an MG would have been something to see.

When my pal Vic went to Coast Guard Basic Training in 1970, I took care of and regularly exercised his Triumph Spitfire while he was gone. Horrible little car. I shoehorned mom into it for a road trip Leavenworth County, Kansas to see the family reserve one day. It was comical, at least for me. She never screamed once.

Maxine was our longtime family friend. My dad never said as much, but Maxine was our lesbian friend. Dad the Baptist showed remarkable restraint in not bringing that up.

My aunt Gladys had a case of nerves. I don't know what that means, nor did I know had dad mistreated his mother.

I was recovering from a weekend at the lake with Ron and his dad. Beer, water, boats, mosquitoes. I went to school because that's where Patty was.

Dad's supply runs could be anything - paper containers, plastic wrap, flavorings - almost anything. See the next post on April 28 for more on that.

Hamburger and donuts for lunch. That's my mom!

Thursday, April 22

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April 22, Thursday - Went with Marv to buy paper, and then tried to get to St. Luke's hospital. Never did make it. Came home and went to bed. Had to take Bud to library. 90°

April 23, Friday - Got Bud all ready to go to Ozarks with Ron. Went fishing (sigh) with Marv and Sandy. Mom went to Topeka for convention. 90°

April 24, Saturday - Had quiet day.

Remember libraries?

Dad buying paper is shorthand for buying packaging supplies for the bait business. Usually at Wayne Paper and Cordage on Prospect Avenue.

This Lake of the Ozarks trip was a real adventure for me. Ron lived up the street from me, and we ran around a lot together. He was a couple of years older, and had a car, so he was my escape mechanism when I really needed one. He also had a half-sister, the doe-eyed Linda, who was, in my mind, the most beautiful girl I had even seen, so I turned up at Ron's every chance I had. So, anyway, off to the Ozarks. Ron's dad and step-mom had a cabin on a cove somewhere near Sunrise Beach, and they kept their boat there for shits, giggles, and water skiing.

Ron's dad drove trucks for a living, and was a decent man with a wry sense of humor. The trip to the lake was an adventure because Ron's dad always kept a beer between his legs all the way down. He was good for five or six beers for the duration of the trip. This was amazing for a kid like me from a family of absolute teetotalers. By the way, beer doesn't smell or taste like that any more.

The weather late in April in Kansas City is unsettled. We were having a heat wave - temps in the 90s, and the idea of hitting the lake seemed like a good idea. Friday night we got out the boat and headed to the marina for gas and beer, and looked forward to some serious water time on Saturday.

I've never been much of a swimmer, and Ron's dad didn't want to take any chances, so he got me a ski belt, and Ron and I headed for the dock on the opposite side of the cove. We jumped in, and as I plummeted into the thirty-foot deep water, I realized that it was still April, and the water was probably forty-five degrees. About halfway down, I gasped, and filled my lungs halfway with green Ozark lake water. When the ski belt's bouyancy kicked in, I bobbed back to the surface. I was quite sure I was drowning, and flailed like a carp on a stringer, until Ron's dad reached down and pulled me out. The rest of the weekend was spent on dry land, or lounging in the stern seat of the boat. I know when I'm out of my element.

Grandma went to a convention, it was probably for The Navy Mothers

Mom got rid of everyone and had some time to chill.

Monday, April 19

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April 19, Monday - All in today. Spent most of the day in bed. Took Bud to Wards and got him pants.

April 20, Tuesday - Feel better today, but Patty goes to St. Luke's May 2 to be operated on May 3.

April 21, Wednesday - Went to mom's for lunch today. Margaret came over and fixed my hair. 80°

More of life in the margins. For some reason I need pants a lot. My pudgy ass may have been splitting the seats out of them, or one of my surprise growth spurts may have made the old pants look like Capris.

 Remember, this is 1965, and you couldn't wear jeans to school. "Dungarees", they called them. I did get a brief pass when I bought some White Levis. Almost got away with it. I felt like a rebel, if only because the radio ads proclaimed that "Poor Fat Marvin can't wear White Levis. Well, fuck you, Levi Strauss, Marvin wore them anyway! When Mr. McDaniel realized they were jeans, I was sent home to change, and awarded ten suspension hours. "Eighth Hours." It was back to slacks. Black slacks, white socks, suede Chelsea boots. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There were huge cultural differences between regions. My snooty second cousins came down to visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary all the way from their Topeka suburbs and openly sneered at our urban white socks and pointy-toed shoes. I popped him right in the snotlocker. Broke his nose. That's how we dealt with smartasses at Northeast. Sent them packing, and never saw them again.

We were a Montgomery Ward family. Wards had a massive store at the corner of St. John and Belmont. Sears was actually closer to us over at Truman Road and Cleveland, but we did Wards. My aunt Gladys called it "Monkey Wards". We bought everything there - clothes, furniture, tires - my first real camera, a Mamiya/Sekor 1000 DTL SLR came from Wards. Mom bought it for me in 1969, trying to save my miserable life. Eventually, it worked. More on that later.

My first 35mm camera: Mamiya/Sekor 1000 DTL

Mom's sister Patty goers in for an unknown surgery. This family is a medical TV series in the making.

Friday, April 16

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April 16, Friday - Went to store this morning. Nice and warm. Stopped at mom's and then Dr's office. No treatments for two weeks yet. Drove car for the first time. Appended: Store sent me $36 again. 

April 17, Saturday - Got my first check from union. Went to Kansas store.

April 18, Sunday - Easter. Went to church, then to Patty's for dinner, then to mom's. Saw everybody, but sure was pooped.

The Union finally started paying.

$36 is $296 in 2020 dollars.

Mom got back behind the wheel again in spite of the residual pain from her surgery. When they removed her left breast, they also took as much of the lymphatic tissue they could get to, and the resulting scar tissue was very tight, and made it extremely difficult for mom to raise her left arm. In typical Patton fashion, mom made her stretching exercises a point of humor, and my cousins and I often stretched with her, in a motion that could only be described as poultry in motion.

Her big old '55 Cadillac 62 Series was easy enough to wheel around with power steering and all, but mom was just barely five feet tall, and was just not designed for a rig that size. She managed, though. She valued her independence so greatly that the idea of not being able to drive would surely drive her mad.

$36 in 1965 is roughly equivalent to $296 today. Think about that. These collections were likely driven by mom's front-end people, but everyone contributed something. Absolutely amazing.

Easter Sunday at Bales Baptist Church, dinner at her sister's, and the usual gathering at the Pattons'. It may have been Easter, but it didn't vary that much from any other Sunday. Mom's family was always first. You'll notice that dad isn't mentioned. He was often along for the ride, but just as often he stayed home and did nothing. I feel as though my dad often felt inferior to mom's family. They were a more cohesive group than dad's family and they were smart, funny, and eager to help one another at the drop of a hat. Dad's family was harder to get to know, and while they were all good people, they were less ambitious, less able to adequately express themselves, and not likely to get together unless it was a major family event - wedding, funeral, or visiting relative.

Tuesday, April 13

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April 13, Tuesday - Felt less tired today. Cold and damp today. Patty called, said her doctor recommended surgery. Hope she doesn't put it off too long.

(tilt)

April 14, Wednesday - Didn't get check from union. Called Roberta. She called and then turned it over to (unknown name).

April 15, Thursday - Marv and I went to Northeast's Easter Assembly. Bud was in it. Very good. Depressed today. Talked on phone a lot - an hour with Florence.

The Pattons continue to help keep up the doctors' Lincoln payments.

Roberta is mom's Union Shop Steward. The union provided for lost wages during sick leave. Retail Clerks Local 782 was a monster union in grocery retail in Kansas City, outmuscled only by the Amalgamated Meat-cutters Union. This association by proximity will become more evident later in the year.

The Easter Assembly. This seems hard to imagine here in 2018, when religion in public schools is relegated to the close cover of the individual. In 1965, the schools didn't so much as participate in the establishment of an official religion as allow the majority Judeo-Christian faction to express its majority openly. It's just the way things worked back then.

We had a Christmas Assembly, an Easter Assembly, and others as needed to support the beliefs of the residents of Northeast. As a musician, I was always somewhere in the mix, usually in the horn section, playing Christmas carols or other music in support of the holiday.

The Easter assembly was one of the few school functions held during school hours that was well-attended by parents and family. It was a big deal, a series of living tableaus staged by the previously mentioned freshman Drama Club, "Taming of the Crew".  It depicted The Last Supper, The Crucifixion, and the Resurrection and Ascension. If the school year lasted another 40 days, they probably would have celebrated the Pentecost, but I digress.

The scenes depicted were taken from famous works of art - The Last Supper was modeled on Da Vinci's 15th century mural in Milan. The Crucifixion was actually the Descent from the Cross, as depicted by Rubens. The source of the Resurrection's artwork is lost to me, but I remember it being a simple depiction, probably also by Rubens.

Here's how it worked. The stage was set with the basic set pieces and props, but without actors. In my part, The Last Supper, there was a long table center stage, set with plates and cups, Judas' salt cellar and various other pieces designed to recall the Da Vinci fresco. I kept imaging the whole thing laid out with Fiestaware, Melmac, and depression glass. The cups and the Holy Grail might have been some of those colorful anodized aluminum tumblers.

Aluminum Grails, Non-Holy Variety

Between the stage and the audience was a semi-sheer scrim in white. It lowered the amount of detail visible on the stage, and gave the scene a painterly effect, with several small lights sweeping across parts of the scrim. More light equalled less detail.

Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
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Portrait of the artist as a disciple. Bartholomew, the missionary; also Nathanael

At a signal, the orchestra began to play. I don't remember the music, but I'm sure it was something subdued and reverent, probably a simple Bach piece rendered entirely unlistenable by the screeching eighth-grade violins and shrill clarinets. On the same cue, the actors started to drift onstage, in full costume and makeup, and made their way to the table. It looked like total chaos, until, at the last possible moment, the players snapped into the positions depicted in the painting. There was a crescendo from the orchestra, an audible gasp from the audience, and we heard someone in the auditorium exclaim, "Oh, my God". We were truly awesome.

Offstage, someone read the account of the Last Supper from the Bible, probably from Mark 14. I can't imagine who it would have been, as no one in our group had the voice to carry it off, and most were on stage. You certainly didn't want a pre-pubescent male channeling "Our Miss Brooks'" Walter Denton. It might have been Mrs. Womack, the drama teacher. I don't know. I knew a couple of eighth-grade guys that were shaving twice a day, and might have been able to lend a solid baritone to the proceedings, but it was unlikely that they were actually able to read, much less evade detention long enough to participate.

I was Bartholomew, on the far left, mostly because I was so tall that I could lean over the table next to James and Andrew and still maintain the height relationship. St. Bart had flowing robes, and greasepaint-enhanced facial lines and wrinkles. I don't remember who played Jesus or some of the other major characters, but I do remember being relieved that I didn't have to play Judas. My dad, the Sunday School teacher, would have had a litter of three-legged calico kittens if I had been chosen to portray the betrayer of Christ. 

Parenthetically, many years later, one of my professors at seminary was known to say that the actual event, if it happened at all, would have been a rough, crowded, and a wholly unruly affair. He should have seen the level of chaos that a bunch of Junior High School kids brought to the story. Maybe they should have had it in the cafeteria.

In retrospect, it's probably a good thing they didn't try this with Christmas, too. Anyone playing a 14 year-old pregnant Mary would have been the laughing stock of our rowdy and somewhat unruly blue-collar school, although I know who they should have picked for the part. 

Ahem.

Saturday, April 10

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April 10, Saturday - Took Jean to hospital - did clean-up job. Should be home tomorrow.

April 11, Sunday - Went to Mom's for dinner - real good. Windy all day. Paul and Linda and Joyce were at Mom's too. Felt pretty good.

April 12, Monday - Went to Jean's. She's feeling pretty good - rather pale. I'm so tired. Going to cut down on tranquilizers.

More doctors, pills and hospitals. Jean's pills obviously didn't do the trick.

Paul is mom's oldest brother, his wife Linda, and my cousin Joyce.

Dinner at her mom's was always an adventure. While mom classified it as real good, my dad was afraid to eat Pansy's cooking. Her housekeeping skills were suspect, and her food was, well, inconsistent to say the least. Her kitchen had a particular smell to it. Dad once got so sick from Pansy's brisket that we almost had to take him to the hospital.

Grandma's kitchen was a collection of works-in-progress, as well as medieval cooking instruments - pressure cookers, vacuum coffee makers, and assorted Mason jars full of god-only-knows what. At the end of the kitchen was a rickety set of narrow stairs that led to the basement. The walls were lined with jars that grandma said contained tomatoes, green beans, and peaches, but they looked like they could have come from The Island of Doctor Moreau. One jar of tomatoes had eyes! I swear!

Her Norge refrigerator, situated out on the porch contained dark green bottles that had once contained prune juice, but that had been repurposed for "ice water". Ice water that tasted vaguely like prunes. Joy.

There always seemed to be a thin, sticky, film of some kind over everything in her kitchen, and if I could, I'd go back to that time and place and have it tested. I'm probably better off not knowing. The house no longer exists, and I'm told it burned. I truly believe it was a Superfund site that was razed and buried.

When I see an advertiser claim "Tastes Just Like Grandma's!" I run as fast as I can in the opposite direction.

Mom can't keep up with her drug habit, and nixes the tranks.

Wednesday, April 7

April 7, Wednesday - Patty went to take her x-ray - won't know the results for a day or two.

April 8, Thursday - Went to doctor - doing fine. Went to store first, saw everybody. They had taken $35 in collection for me. So much friendliness I feel so unworthy. Jean called tonight and said she had just had a miscarriage. Appended: We took Bud to Southeast for concert and went and got him.

April 9, Friday - Doctor gave Jean some pills. If they don't work, she'll go into the hospital tomorrow. The family is falling apart. Bob said Mary was full of infection.

It gets hard to keep up with all the medical doings with our family. Jean, mom's sister, has a miscarriage and gets pills for what amounts to a chemical D&C, Patty gets x-rays for something, Mary, mom's sister-in-law is full of infection.

Mom's kids at work raised $35 for her. In today's adjusted dollars, that has the buying power power of $270. I know the people mom worked with were like family to her, but this is amazing. This becomes a recurring theme. Mom had insurance through the union, but it doesn't sound as though the money has started to flow yet.

Sunday, April 4

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April 4, Sunday - Felt terrible today. Gloomy day. Spent most of day in bed. Patty and Walt came over in evening.

April 5, Monday - Bill and Sam were over - felt good today. Talked to Mary a couple of times. Didn't take tranquilizer. Went to store today.

April 6, Tuesday - Felt pretty good. Didn't sleep too well last night. Took tranquilizer today. Mr. and Mrs. Kirkpatrick came over  - brought geranium and pretty red rug. People have been so nice.

Again, mom's sister Patty and her husband Walt. Bill and Sam are mom's brother Bill and his wife Althea, "Sam".

The Kirkpatricks are, I believe a church couple acquaintance of mom's from Bales Baptist Church.

In all my years, I never knew my mom to take a tranquilizer, sleeping pill, or so much as a sip of alcohol. Later on, as I approached my twenties, she mooched a couple of cigarettes from me, and went through the motions of smoking them, but never inhaled. I suspect this was an effort to shock me into quitting. It worked - twenty-five years later.

The idea that she was wrestling with the idea of taking tranquilizers at this point tells me that mom was really struggling with the unknowns of having cancer, and what the future had in store for her once the radiation and chemo treatments started. She was, simply stated, scared shitless.

Thursday, April 1

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April 1, Thursday - Had a real nice day. Patty and mom came over and brought some thank you cards. Wrote a few - will write some more tomorrow. Kroger office girls sent flowers. Felt real good today.

April 2, Friday - Went to store today. Pooped out afterward. Gladys brought me some gowns and 2 pullovers.

April 3, Saturday - 

Patty, you'll remember is mom's sister, Gladys is dad's sister