Tuesday, September 28

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September 28, Tuesday - 

September 29, Wednesday - 

September 30, Thursday - 

Saturday, September 25

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September 25, Saturday - Felt extra good today. Had a busy day. The way I push those kids in the front end, it's a wonder any of them speak to me.

September 26, Sunday - 22nd anniversary, and I pouted the whole day. Went to church, then took Bud downtown and took Marv fishing and he made me stay. I'm a mess, sure hope I improve.

September 27, Monday - 

More of the same - Dad probably wasn't the most appreciative or demonstrative guy around when it came to anniversaries.

The thing is, mom apparently blames herself.

Wednesday, September 22

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September 22, Wednesday - Threw Ryan's medicine away. Made me break out in a rash. Dizzy as ever. Marie is back - bless her. Couldn't operate without her.

September 23, Thursday - Bud brought home his band uniform today. Showed everyone in the neighborhood. he has to have white shoes.

September 24, Friday - Worked a while in checkstand. Went to Dr. Sims. Bless him! He told me to take water pills and no salt.

Mom's relationship with doctors was a bit of a hit and miss proposition. Her regular doctor, Dr. Sims, seemed to agree with her, and she would take his advice no matter what anyone else said.

I had just started the ninth grade at Northeast Junior High School. It was a bit weird in Kansas City, but the Junior Building, which was cater-corner from the Senior Building, had grades seven, eight, and nine, while the Senior Building had grades nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. The split between the two schools for the ninth grade was, I think, based on birthdays. At any rate, I was a high school freshman attending Northeast Junior High. As a freshman, I was in Harry Bianco's band class. Bianco was the band and orchestra teacher at the High School, and recruited for marching band from the junior high A Band.

I went to the band room at the High School and picked up my uniform - purple pants with white side stripes, a purple suit coat, a silver metallic shield overlay, and a silver metal-flake Shako hat with a purple feather plume. As I recall, the pants were just a tick highwater on me, but that was to be expected - my clothes often fit better in one direction than another. The piece that would complete the outfit was a pair of snow-white bucks.

This always struck me as a bit odd, as the premier event for marching bands in Kansas City was the annual American Royal Parade. Five miles winding through the streets of downtown Kansas City. The American Royal is a livestock show, horse show, and rodeo, and as such, featured horses. Lots of horses. Horses weren't trained to do their business at the curb, and the parade route was a minefield of horse crap. If you were lucky enough to get a place near the front of the parade, your trip was relatively sanitary, but if you were a second-tier school like ours, and started way at the back of the line, and I do mean way at the back, you were walking into horse-poop hell.

Later iterations of the parade tried putting all the horses at the back of the line, and there were attempts to have cleanup crews police the horse poo. Over the years, the parade lost much of its luster, and became a so-so event in Kansas City, far from its original high-stepping glory. 

Part of that was Kansas City's ongoing inferiority complex. You'd see headlines in the paper like, "Is Kansas City more liveable than New York?" and "Can Kansas City Hold Its Own Against Larger Cities?"

In the early part of the twenty-first century, Kansas City started coming into its own. Low cost of living, central location, and progressive leadership made the city an attractive locale for startups and urban immigrants from both of the hyper-expensive coasts. You could sell a house in San Francisco and buy an apartment building in Kansas City.

Anyway, after my first American Royal Parade, my pristine white bucks were a soft green color. Pretty tangy, too.

Sunday, September 19

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September 19, Sunday - went to church. Marv went fishing. Bud and I stayed home. We're not a family. Just three individuals under the same roof.

September 20, Monday - Went to Dr. Ryan. Gave me two prescriptions. Have doubts that they will help me. Marv took us out to supper. He's good to me.

September 21, Tuesday - Feel worse today. Made appointment with Sims for Friday p.m.

This is one of those entries that fifty-five years later, just stops you cold.

What I knew:
Mom didn't like our current situation, hated the neighborhood we were in, and always dreamed of moving. She tolerated the bait business and the fishing, because dad made a decent living at it while still being able to keep house.

What I didn't know:
How much dad's indifference to her wants and needs hurt mom, and how much she sandbagged her feelings. I'm sure her mother didn't help things much, especially now that Grandpa was gone. Mom wanted to be closer to her family, and dad didn't understand the draw of mom's tight-knit clan.

Other than that, life goes on.

Thursday, September 16

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September 16, Thursday - So busy today. Marie feels pretty bad.

September 17, Friday - Another big day.

September 18, Saturday - 

Monday, September 13

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September 13, Monday - Went to Dr. Williamson. He ordered support for back and ordered me to go to ear doctor. Can't get in to see Ryan until next Monday.

September 14, Tuesday - Marie worked today. She looks so bad.

September 15, Wednesday - Marie didn't make it in today.

Friday, September 10

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September 10, Friday - 

September 11, Saturday - 

September 12, Monday - 

Tuesday, September 7

September 7, Wednesday - Got hair fixed. Hot today. Marv did huge washing.

September 8, Thursday - Things are easier at the store. No checking.

September 9, Friday - 

They're not all gems, you know.

Saturday, September 4

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September 4, Saturday - Patty came and took Bud with them to Pomona Lake. He always has a ball with them Feel some better, I think. Feel so guilty about not working.

September 5, Sunday - Marv got Bud a transistor radio for his birthday. Bud is bemoaning going back to school. A whole summer wasted, he says. Kids!

September 6, Monday - Got up and put on clothes. Boss called and said things wold be easier for me. I hate to have special favors, but I do appreciate it.

Mom's still struggling, but improving.

My aunt Patty and my cousin Susan were my favorite relatives, hands down. Funny and smart, they made every day enjoyable. Aunt Patty, however, made me eat cold green beans. I will never forgive her for that. Pomona Lake was in Pomona, Kansas. Go figure. It had a beach. With sand.

It's my 15th Birthday! I remember this conversation with mom. It's a theme I carry with me to this day - the idea that there's really no rush to get anything done, and then, whammo, you're out of time, and it's back to reality. So the summer ends, but at least I got a transistor radio. 

These were the vanguard for the Japanese import market. They were pocket-sized, ran on a single nine-volt "transistor radio battery" (what a coincidence!) had a speaker the size of  a silver dollar and sounded like someone shouting from the basement of a tin outhouse. The dial was marked with the locations of the two Conelrad Stations, in case the Russkies decided to lob a few missiles over the poles. For private listening, it came with a teensy cheap-ass ear-plug that sounded exactly the same as the crappy speaker. It didn't matter, we had portable music, twenty years before the Walkman.

Close your eyes and try to imagine this: 

You're fifteen years old, and your favorite song on the Top 40 is The Beach Boys' "California Girls." It is on regular rotation, but since it's in the bottom third of the chart, it gets less airplay than the Rolling Stones' "(I Cant Get No) Satisfaction." You have to wait until it comes around again on the radio to be able to write down the lyrics.

If you decide to buy the single, you have to also buy the B-Side non-hit, "Let Him Run Wild." If you sink for the entire album, you may have several clinkers to deal with. There were actual times when, after I started driving, I would actually stop the car when a good song came on. The idea of streaming, buy-it-by-the-track music, and anything on demand was as unlikely a concept as a Mars landing.

By the way, the guy on keyboards for "California Girls" was Leon Russell. You're welcome. If you're able to use that at bar trivia, I get a cut of the winnings.

Teenage radio listeners in Kansas City were of one of two radio camps - WHB, AM 710 and KUDL, AM 1380. KUDL was affectionately nicknamed "Cuddle". My aunt Gladys was a KUDL person, as were a few of the kids I knew at Northeast. I and most everyone I knew were WHB fans. The "World's Happiest Broadcasters" were a product of Storz Radio. 

I am told that Todd Storz created the Top 40 format. Starting out at KOWH-AM and KOAD-FM in Omaha, Nebraska, Storz turned the stations around when he realized that people actually enjoyed hearing popular music on the radio.

Over the next ten years or so, Storz acquired stations in New Orleans, Kansas City, The Twin Cities, Miami, Oklahoma City, and St. Louis. Each of them offered the Top 40 hits in rotation. 

All we knew was that WHB played our songs, and had the best on-air personalities. Over the years they were the voices we knew better than we knew our parents - Phil Jay, Johnny Dolan, J. Walter Beethoven, Young Bobby Day, and my drag racing pal, directly from St. Louis and the Alton Illinois Dragway, Richard Ward Fatherly. Late at night Walt Bodine did a call-in talk show called NightBeat. 

The WHB studios were at the top of The Pickwick Hotel* at 10th and McGee in downtown Kansas City. On several occasions I had cause to visit the studios, and on one of those trips, my friend Steve  and I sat in the control room, learned to cue up records, and was ultimately interviewed on-air by the late great Richard Ward Fatherly. My fifteen minutes of notoriety at Northeast High School. My fame was as fleeting as it was amazing. Fatherly and I stayed in touch on and off over the years, even after he became a Limbaugh** conservative. Incredible baritone, nice guy, drag racer.

WHB put out a weekly list of all the songs on their Top 40 countdown - their 40-Star Survey, and if you didn't have it as soon as it came out every Friday, you were a social outcast. I was anyway, so it didn't matter. We would hotfoot it down to Katz Drug Store to grab the Survey after school on Fridays. The front of the Survey was the list of that week's chart-toppers, but the back was solid gold - the lyrics to a current hit.

I found out that the lyrics were transcribed by the secretary/receptionist, which also explained why some of the lyrics were, well, a little odd, like this Beach Boys nugget:

"Just a little deuce coupe with a flat end wheel." 

We called and corrected her whenever we could. I'm sure she hated to hear the phone ring when the Survey came out.

WHB 40-Star Survey for April 21, 1967

• *The old Pickwick has been converted to apartments. I have my eye on that place if life takes me back to Kansas City.
• **Rush Limbaugh was on KC radio under the nom de airwaves, "Jeff Christie." He also worked in the promotions office of the Kansas City Royals. Couldn't keep a job in KC. 

You can hear the dulcet tones of my pal Richard Ward Fatherly here:

 

Wednesday, September 1

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September 1, Wednesday - Tried to get on my feet long enough to do book work, but couldn't even do that. Dr. Hesser wants me to go to the hospital, but no soap. Xrayed from head to tail bone. In bed for a week.

September 2, Thursday - Marv brings me my meals and helps to the bathroom.

September 3, Friday - Still flat on my back.

I have no idea what's going on here. Mom is obviously having a hard time, but your guess is as good as mine.