Sunday, August 1

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August 1, Sunday - Picnic tonight at Bob's. First Sunday back at work. Worked in deli. Got along pretty well.

August 2, Monday - Had to hunt a place to get my hair fixed. Mary Kern finally did it. Bud bought his car. Sold my last bond to buy it. Am I burned up!

August 3, Tuesday - Short on help as usual. Hot today. Didn't call home today on lunch hour - they were surprised to see me tonight.

Last things first. Mom always called home on her lunch hour. She did this to make sure we didn't need anything from the store, sometimes to let us know she had stops to make on her way home - just general stuff. That she didn't call home is a big deal.

So this:

The car in question, the reason that mom's hair is on fire, is a 1956 Chevy two-door post. I bought it from my pal Mike up the street. To be more accurate, my dad bought it from Mike, because I was too young to own a vehicle, much less drive one..

It was in pretty fair shape, and just had a fresh coat of Chevrolet Midnight Blue applied. Under the hood was the workhorse 235 c.i. Chevy Stovebolt inline six cylinder backed by the dependable two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. The lifters were noisy, and like many Stovebolts, it had an accessory top oiler added in an attempt to muffle the clacking a bit. This drove my dad crazy, and would eventually lead him to trade in my car while I was at school. I come from a long line of worrying, crazy, people with bad decision-making skills.

1956 Chevy

The thing is this: I paid $300 for the car. On top of some seed money from dad a few years back, I had saved almost $700 from various projects, piecework in dad's bait factory, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, you name it. This was always the "car money." Mom was on board with this. It was more than enough cash to buy the car, and pay for the tags. Dad went ahead and put it on his insurance - I was too young to drive it anyway.

From here on out, my income went to small cosmetic fixes - chrome wheels, seat covers for the ratty bench seats, a glaspak muffler, and few sparkly trinkets here and there from Arrow Speed Shop on Independence Avenue. Yes, I had fuzzy dice. By the time a new school year rolled around in 1966, I'd have been able to swing the cash for aV8 engine swap and I'd be ready to take my position in the hierarchy of teenage death-wish motorheads at Northeast High School. A '56 Chevy would move me to the top of the lower-middle tiers in no time. Quite an achievement for a sophomore.

Cars were not ubiquitous at urban high schools back then. There was no student parking lot. It wasn't necessary. Of the pack I ran with, I was the only one with a car until late my senior year. Other guys were able to borrow their parents' car, but it wasn't the same.

Somehow, my dad had pulled a fast one, but I can't figure out what he did with the money. $300, in today's buying power would equal well over $2,400! What the hell? That mom had to cash her last bond for this is a tragedy. No wonder she was pissed.

Speculation: I can imagine a scenario where somebody in the neighborhood would put the touch on dad. He was as soft as they come, and a bit of an innocent. Our neighborhood was full of sob stories, and dad, the househusband, was always around to hear them. Yeah, I can see that happening. Car problems, medical bills, lost jobs, all would have activated dad's sucker gene.

Mom had always assumed that someday, if they worked hard, they could find a place of their own, stop paying rent, and join the Great American Illusion. The mean home prices nationwide in 1965 were around $20,000, and mom's last few bonds would have made a decent down-payment. I remember driving with her looking at bungalows around Northeast. She particularly like a couple of places on Denver and Quincy streets, just north of Budd Park. The disappearance of the last bond was her dream in flames. I can barely write thinking about this.

I honestly don't know the whole story here. I will never know, but it was obviously a pivot point in my folks' lives. I'm surprised mom didn't kill him in his sleep.

Thursday, July 1

July 1, Thursday - Went to Royal Gorge and back by way of Phantom Canyon Road and Rampart Range Road. One way roads some of the time. Called Marv and told him we'd be back by Saturday noon.

July 2, Friday - Patty had car fixed and we finally got away from Colorado Springs about 1:30. Drove to Hays, ate supper (fried chicken) about 8 and went to bed at Fort Hays Motel at Hays.

July 3, Saturday - Left Hays about 8:30 and got into KC about 1:30. Stopped at both restaurants on the Turnpike but couldn't get waited on. Nice to get home. Sure had a nice trip.

Phantom Canyon Road and Rampart Range Roads are, even now, not for the faint of heart. We're in a 1962 Chevy convertible, and the road is rocky, steep in places, and very narrow in others. Mom was white-knuckling it all the way. 

Mom doesn't mention going up Pikes Peak on the bus, but it was a highlight of the trip. The bus drivers negotiate the hairpin turns and steep drop-offs as though they were headed to Whataburger for a sandwich. They seemed totally oblivious to the not-so-muffled screams of their oxygen-deprived passengers.

Mom learned a valuable science lesson that day, as well. Remember, mom is wearing an inflatable prosthetic bra because of her mastectomy. About two-thirds of the way up Pike's Peak, my aunt Patty pointed out to mom that her left side was twice its normal size. After the appropriate fit of sister-laughing, mom reached into her purse and got out the tube she used to inflate and adjust the bra. She reached inside her jacket, attached the tube, and started bleeding off the extra air, an action accompanied by a loud, whistling, hissing sound. 

The man in the seat on the opposite side of the aisle looked all over for the source of the sound. He saw my aunt Patty about to explode from the stifled laughter, and Patty looked right at the guy and said, "My sister is under a lot of pressure these days."

That set off another round of uncontrollable, gasping, red-faced laughter, and when we finally got to the summit, we were absolutely exhausted, as well as suffering from oxygen deprivation. We visited the summit house, bought a snow globe souvenir, had a donut and a cup of coffee, and went outside to wait, blue-lipped and woozy, for the cog railway for the trip back to the bottom of the mountain. I slept all the way down.

Not sure what was wrong with the car. It was a small-block Chevy in the summer, so it probably had to do with an overheated starter, but apparently, it was easily repaired, and back across Kansas we go.

Fort Hays Motel - Photo: Frank Brusca

Fort Hays Motel was pretty typical for Kansas crossings in those days. A long, connected strip of attached rooms in a row or sometimes in a horseshoe shape. Kinda like the Bates Motel. If those walls - and showers - could talk.

The Kansas Turnpike  - The KTA - was a marvel in the early days of the Interstate Highway experiment, but getting fed on the turnpike was an adventure, and usually a disappointment. Under the signature light-bulb-shaped water towers there was a gas station, and a restaurant. The gas station gigged you on the price of gas, and the restaurant had the worst service imaginable. I suppose it had a lot to do with their locations, and getting help out there was probably difficult. All the same, mom and my aunt Patty would have eagerly stopped at Junction City or Topeka if they had known how bad it would be on the 'Pike. Harvey House it wasn't.

Home again, with lusty tales of high adventure in the Rockies.

Tuesday, March 16

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March 16, Tuesday - What a day! Real busy in store. No help, of course. Lights went out, had a flat tire, rained and hailed something fierce. Bud went to bowling alley and got home about 12:30. Didn't sleep well.

March 17, Wednesday - Not too much doing today. Mike and Ron came down. I went to bed about 9. Cold 15 tonight Bud wanted me to take him to a used car lot to look at a car, but I declined.

March 18, Thursday - Marie and I in the front end, as usual. Not too busy, though. Still cold.

I remember the hail storm so well. It came through about 4 in the afternoon. I was riding with Ron in his 1957 Chevy convertible. We were headed west on Anderson Avenue near Kensington or Cypress when the first hailstones started to fall, small stones at first, then progressively larger and larger until we were being pummeled with icy rocks the size of baseballs falling from the sky - onto a convertible. We noticed one of my classmates, Mike Rittermeyer, walking west on Anderson and we honked at him and told him to get in. By now the convertible top was in shreds, and we were trying everything we could think of to protect ourselves from the onslaught. I wound up with two big goose eggs on my head, and Mike always joked that he would have stood a better chance out in the open. Houses all over Northeast were damaged - windows, roofs, siding, and of course, the cars. Ron's Chevy was a dimpled mess. The hail broke the steering wheel and bent both sun visors like tacos. The windshield was completely gone, and broken glass was everywhere. It was a scene from a war zone.

That was the first day I met the Rittermeyer family - Al and Carolyn, and their four boys Mike Mark, Matt and Marshall. They would become my surrogate family for the next fifty years and more, and to this day, I still consider Mark to be my brother. Mike died suddenly from a heart attack a few years ago. We did the things brothers do. We got in trouble, we got out of trouble, we had as much fun together as any nuclear family has ever had. I can go on for hours about the good times we had together, the motorcycles, the trips to Keokuk, Iowa and Lenexa; the Saturday night house parties and all the music we made, but suffice it to say I am so much better as a human being for being a part of  this remarkable American family.

The Rittermeyer Brothers - Mike, Mark, Matt, and Marshall

Me with my brother Mark.

Moving on: As usual, Bud is trying to put the strong-arm on mom. In my defense, I wasn't aware of what mom was going through with her upcoming surgery, how terrified she was, or how sure she was that she wouldn't survive this ordeal.

The car in question was a 1948 Packard Henney Hearse. I saw it a used car lot on Independence Avenue, right across the street from Katz Drug Store. I'm guessing it weighed 6,000 pounds, and had a torque-monster flathead straight eight under the mile-long hood. It wore a velvety patina of age appropriate for its years. I saw a hearse as my ticket to fame and teenage alpha notoriety, and after all, I was only eighteen months from being able to drive it legally. I think I was just weird enough to pull it off.

This isn't the actual hearse, but the year and model are correct.

The guy at the used car lot actually let me drive it around the block a couple of times, and to this day, I have seen few vehicles that ran as smoothly and quietly as that Packard. When it was parked with the motor running, you couldn't feel any vibration, and if you didn't know for sure, you couldn't tell if it was actually running or not.

Still, mom prevailed, and the hearse sold a few days later to a guy from East, a rival school over on Van Brunt Boulevard, south of Truman. He swapped out the straight eight for a big-block 396 from a totaled Impala Super Sport, and was headed to North Kansas City to have it painted when a gas line popped off the carburetor, and the Packard burned to the ground on the ASB bridge. Hi ho.

Monday, February 22

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February 22, Monday - Bud, Dr. Williamson. Got Bud a pair of Beatle shoes. He was very happy. Got my hair fixed, went to the store. Had Bud's foot x-rayed. I love that kid! Sure wish I could afford him. Cold today - 15° - 30 °

February 23, Tuesday - Snow all day. Slid all over coming to work - 7" of snow when I went home. Cold. Ron and Mike came down - first time I've seen Mike in some time.

February 24, Wednesday - Cold 7°, but sun is shining. Am taking cold feel miserable. Stayed till almost 6 tonight getting caught up. Marv is so nervous.

First of all, they were Beatle Boots, mom. Secondly, they were just a hop and skip away from what we used to call Puerto Rican Fence-Climbers. These were the signature shoes of the neighborhood tough guys, characterized by their pointy toes, Cuban heels, and the sound they made when they walked up behind you. It was shoes as a terror weapon. It was a sharp, metallic, click caused by full-metal horseshoe taps on the heels. If you heard them coming up behind you, you knew you were in a for an ass-kicking. Some of the bad guys caused fires as they shuffled along as they walked, kicking up sparks. Okay, I made up that last part. But horseshoe taps, and the half-moon toe taps that some others added as well, made so much noise and created so much damage to the floors that schools outlawed them. As you might expect, when taps are outlawed, only outlaws will have taps. I still can't watch Fred Astaire. 

Horseshoe taps

At any rate, the Beatles, invaders from the mystical east, wore Cuban heeled Chelsea boots as their signature footwear, and as with all things Beatle, the shoes soon became the only acceptable things to have on your feet if you were fourteen. My dad was quite sure I was headed for a lifetime of feminine pursuits, caused not only by my choice of brown suede Beatle boots, but also by my un-Brylcreemed, beach boy haircut, augmented with just a hint of peroxided auburn glow on the bangs.

The advance guard of the British Invasion - The Beatles

The Boots

With my boots installed on my feet, and the added height that the Cuban heels provided, I waltzed back into school, confident that I was about the coolest guy in the house. Nope. I was still dumpy and bookish, but I had Beatle boots, dammit.

Dealing with winter weather in 1965 was a bit more problematic than it is today. There were no M/S rated radials or traction tires - in fact there were precious few radial tires of any kind this side of expensive sports cars. The first radial tires I remember seeing up close were on Vic Smith's Triumph Spitfire. I called it The Sitfire, because it was plagued with two problems: multiple carburetors that required constant fiddling, and Vic Smith himself. A few years later, Vic left it with me when he went to basic training with the Coast Guard. I drove it once - it was too finicky for my V8 tastes, and when I drove it I looked like a circus bear riding a tricycle while juggling flaming beachballs.

Snow tires, and the installation and removal of same were a fall/spring ritual, and snow tires never seemed to last more than a couple of seasons. At best, snow tires gave you a fighting chance against the weather, but it wasn't a fair fight. The snow always won. The snow then gave way to ice, which always fought dirty.

Ron and Mike were two friends from up 11th Street. Ron was a couple of years older than I was, and so was first to have semi-reliable wheels. He drove his mom's '64 Chevelle until he wrangled the money to get a '57 Chevy convertible. The ragtop was stylish, but cranky, and Ron wasn't particularly mechanically inclined. The '57 Chevy will appear again later in the year. Ron also had a beautiful heartthrob of a doe-eyed half-sister, Linda, that haunted my dreams for years. Linda went on to graduate from the Kansas City Art Institute and became an accomplished artist and printmaker.

Mike was part of an interesting family - half-Irish/half-Italian. It was the loudest household I can remember. No one ever talked in normal tones. It was a constant shouting match. In today's world, it would make a perfect John Waters film family. Mike's dad was a veteran, and on disability, and was the designated winter-weather school delivery system. He drove a Chevy Corvair Greenbriar Wagon and would swing by to pick me up for the trip to Northeast Junior High, thus saving my Beatle boots from the ravages of winter slush and snow on the one-mile walk to school.

Corvair Greenbriar

The air cooled Greenbriar was one of the butt-ugliest and coldest-natured rigs ever to come out of Detroit, and if the trip to school had been a few hours longer, it might have had the chance to warm up a little.