Monday, July 19

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July 19, Wednesday - Rained hard in the morning. Got hair cut and fixed. went home and stayed all day. Rain.

July 20, Tuesday- Bud called about 11:00 and said Marv was so dizzy he couldn't stand. Finally had to go home and take him to the doctor. Didn't go back to work. Johnson wasn't too pleased.

It's always something at our house. Dad lost his bearings and mom had to leave work and haul dad out to the Country Club Plaza to see Dr. Miller.

Her boss, Kenny Johnson, was not happy, but didn't have much to say about it.

Note: To this day, I have periodic bouts with vertigo caused by my inner ear, and have to take part of the day to readjust my otoliths. I've always wondered if this is related.

Friday, July 16

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July 16, Friday - Didn't work as hard today. Spent afternoon in office. Didn't feel too hot all day. Boss said I didn't have to work Sunday. I'm glad!

July 17, Saturday - Took Bud to hobby shop first thing. He told me I was one of the good ones. So is he! So ends my first week back. Hot today. 93°

July 18, Sunday - Intended to go to church, but slept until 10. Rained on and off all day. Went over and showed Mom Colorado pictures in evening.

The office in Kroger parlance was usually a square platform near the cash registers at the front of the store. For mom, it meant she could sit on a stool and count tills, make deposits and change for the checkers. I learned to count tills from my mom. She'll get through the next day and have Sunday off. Saturday was her day to work until close, finish off the week's books and make deposits. She would typically turn around and be back at work at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. Turn and burn.

The "Hobby Shop" is Northeast Toy and Hobby, directly across Independence Avenue from Northeast Junior High. Owned by the Collins family, the Hobby Shop was my Saturday addiction, mostly car models, greatly detailed, and way more expensive than I would have thought, considering. Model kits by AMT or Revell would have retailed for about $3.95 - about $32 in 2020 purchasing power. I had boxes and boxes of spare parts from other kits, and would use them to build custom versions and one-off hot rods. Jesus, I was spoiled.

The good news is that the time I invested working on 1/25 scale model cars returned benefits when it came time to work on real cars.  The analog is flawed when it scales up, but I knew where everything went, how most things worked, and I rebuilt my first small-block Chevy engine the following year. The Visible V8 Engine helped me there.

I can't remember, but I think the firing order was the same as Chevy's 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. You're welcome.

The rest of the kits were by AMT, Revell, and occasionally, Monogram. The vast majority of my cars were customs, hot rods, and a few race cars. 

Shoot, if I was doing this now, you could even get a White Freightliner Cab-Over.

That earworm is provided at no charge. I got all the way into July without posting a music link, or a reference to Lyle Lovett. This video showcases some of my favorite people in the music business doing a favorite Townes van Zandt song. They are all consummate musicians, but pay particular attention to Keith Sewell's amazing flatpicking skills. Bonus: one of the great drummers of all time, Russ Kunkel, not behind a huge drum rig, but perched on a little cajon. He looks happy to be there. (Russ Kunkel and I sport similar hair styles.)

Wednesday, June 16

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June 16, Wednesday - Did washing and had my hair fixed. Beginning to feel better. Went fishing with Marv until dark at Joe's. Real cool. (Marked through: Played Bud a game of golf. He won!)

June 17, Thursday - Marv did ironing. We took Mike fishing. Marv took a ten pound carp. Mike took it home. We had to go up there and clean it.

June 18, Friday - No fishing today! Went to the store - got my vacation check. I can go back to work as soon as doctor releases me or take two weeks more. Think I'll go to work.

Life goes on. Fishing goes on. "Joe's" refers to 40 Hiway Club Lake. They had a miniature golf course that fronted the highway, and it was a pretty good place to get away from the constant fishing.

I know I've mentioned it before, but it might have been the year before - memory fades - that I invited Patty Saunders to go fishing at Joe's with me. That seemed perfectly normal to me, and looking back, it was a loaves-and-fishes-level miracle that she agreed to go along. Maybe I was a wholly charming, if perpetually chubby schlub that was simply irresistible to cute petite blonde teenage girls. Nah.

Mike was my buddy up the street, and it seems that while he was proud to drag dad's lunker carp home, he was less enthusiastic about gutting, skinning, and prepping the scaly monster.

Mom seems pretty excited that fishing takes a holiday on Friday. She's waiting now for clearance from her doctor to go back to work, and she can't wait. Mom has been spinning in circles since her surgery. She has always worked for a living, and all the spare time is making her crazy. Plus, when she's at work, life is a lot more predictable. Mom likes a well-organized life. So do I.

Sunday May 16

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May 16, Sunday - Planned to go to church, but felt so bum I slept in. Went fishing with Marv in the afternoon.

May 17, Monday - Ran around all morning. Got roaster-broiler with TV Stamps. Marv and I did washing. Spent quiet evening. Rained Monday night.

May 18, Tuesday - Not much cooking today. Marv had car worked on and came home and ironed. He went fishing in the evening.

Mom fades in and out for quite a while after her mastectomy, as can be expected. Fishing. Always with the fishing.

Trading stamps. S&H Green Stamps were the gold standard, but Kroger handed out Top Value stamps. "TV." You received a certain number of stamps depending on how much you spent at the participating stores. You pasted the stamps into books, in this case, 50 to a page, and when you had amassed the required number of books, you headed off to a redemption center to exchange them for stuff. Mom picked out a countertop broiler for her collection of red and yellow stamps. 

Trading stamps had all but disappeared by the time I started working for Kroger in 1966, but they had just begun cutting their prices instead of offering premiums. (Their promotion was called "4,197 Deep-Cut Discount Prices"). They had big numbers splashed all over everything in the store.
 

Top Value Stamps Book

Later, when I was a store manager for Ed Gieseler's Volume TV in Kansas City - "Volume Makes The Difference" - one of our vendors handed out Green Stamps as a sales promotion. I got a Sunbeam hand mixer and a nice Southwestern-themed blanket, both of which I still have, and a Kitchenaid coffee mill, which has long since ground to a stop.

Sales promotions and spiffs make life interesting. When I managed the camera store for Hallmark, the distributor of Olympus cameras had a sales contest. I won two Olympus OM-1 cameras, two lenses, and a motor drive. Somewhere, there are two OM-1 bodies with my name engraved on their baseplates.

Cars needed to be worked on back in those days. Ignitions were distributor-controlled, and contact points wore out, spark plugs were expendable, and a car's running gear needed lubrication and the brakes required occasional  adjustment. We can talk about tires some other time.
Cadillacs should have come with a live-in mechanic, for what they cost to repair.

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.

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

Saturday, March 13

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March 13, Saturday - Made a trip to the hobby shop as usual, then downtown to get underwear. Margaret and Eva got me a pretty gown. Not very busy Gampper said I had a job as long as I wanted one.

March 14, Sunday - Pretty slow Sunday. Feel much better today. Myrtle and Lee came by to see me. Everyone in the store has promised to come and see me. Lois Ward is replacing me.

March 15, Monday - Paid rent, got hair fixed, went to store, did laundry, went to Dr. Hesser. Go to hospital next Sunday, operation Tuesday Went out for dinner and went downtown and shopped.

As usual, mom's expensive kid demands tribute in the form of ready-to-assemble plastic. Gampper, Kroger Zone Manager for Kansas City, Kansas just made a friend for life when he promised mom a job no matter what.

Slow Sunday at the store - Myrtle and Lee are mom's maternal aunt and her husband from Topeka. Lee Crawford ran a laundry a block west of the Kansas State Capitol building. Dad always referred to Lee as my rich uncle, and while he may have been well-off relative to our means, he wasn't a Patton family benefactor, and had a family of his own. His grandkids visited Kansas City a couple of times, but we really didn't hit it off. They were suburban kids, and we, the big-city mice, didn't agree with what passed for a Topeka sense of style.

Grandma Patton (Pansy) with Lee and Myrtle Crawford

Rent. Mom and dad moved us into our little house on 11th Street in 1955 after several years in Fort Scott, Kansas. My uncle Lawrence, aunt Gladys' husband, was employed by Cirese Investments, owned by Big Joe and Mary Cirese. They charged mom and dad $60 a month for the house on six lots. Lawrence and his son Frank helped dad excavate a large enough area under the house to serve as dad's bait factory. (Just thinking about that makes me cringe. There was a small area that held a water heater and room for a washing machine. They dug out five times that much area, hauling the dirt out in buckets. It was like something from The Great Escape.)

Dad's gigantic industrial Hobart mixer had a permanent spot on the original concrete pad, and the rest of the operation horseshoed around the basement, through the center grade beam, and over to the east side of the basement. Dad eventually put a ladder and trap door in our bathroom that allowed access, though not easy access, to our basement in case of a tornado or the beginning of World War III. Either seemed likely in those days. The original entrance, a short ramp facing south, was still handy for doing laundry or dropping off 55-gallon barrels of blackstrap molasses or cheese trimmings that dad used to manufacture various baits. Stick around, this gets interesting later in the summer.

Anyway, sixty bucks a month. In today's money, maybe $550. A few years later, when big Joe died, there was talk of raising the rent, but Mary held off. When dad had his heart attacks in 1962, Mary reassured mom that she would never have to pay more than $60 for rent. Mom finally moved out of that miserable little house and into assisted living in 1979. Her rent was still $60, the equivalent then of about $130. Anyone who says anything bad about Mary Cirese will have to answer to me. She was a saint.

Tuesday, February 16

February 16, Tuesday - (In the margin - Stayed up late last night & watched "Tall Story"! Cute.) Snow was forecast, but the sun is shining. Bud did wear his new pants to school. He gets initiated into the speech club today.

February 17, Wednesday - Had cash audit at store. Thought sure we'd get written up on bad checks, but after juggling, Ray said we had to have 2! Happy Day!

February 18, Thursday - So tired today. Bud in program tonight and tomorrow night at school. Mom's cold is some better, but Marv doesn't feel very well.


The movie "Tall Story" must have been the Late Movie on channel 5. Would have aired at 10:30 p.m. or so. None of the three stations stayed on the air after midnight. There were distinct differences in their respective sign-offs - WDAF, channel 4, the NBC affiliate, signed off with a baritone singing "The Lord's Prayer", albeit a Baptist version  - "debts" versus "trespasses". KCMO, channel 5, representing CBS, signed off with a display of martial firepower superimposed over an American Flag while The Star Spangled Banner played. I honestly don't remember what KMBC, channel 9, ABC did to sign off. In all cases, after the sign-off, the screen went to static and white noise, usually until 6:00 a.m.

Of course Bud wore his new pants to school. It was the Bud thing to do. Today I get my badge of honor from Taming of the Crew, the Speech Club.

I'm not sure what program I was in. There are really only two choices - a band concert, or a speech event, probably an oratory. Since mom didn't mention helping me work on my speech coming up to this, I'm going with band.

Wednesday, February 10

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February 10, Wednesday - Doug showed Gampper a bad check that I took. Gampper said to write me up. If he does, he'll have to write up Art Lane - he has one too.

February 11, Thursday - Started to rain in the morning, then got colder. By 5 o'clock, it was 15º and slippery in spots. Shooting at Wyandotte High School. War news is no better.

February 12, Friday - Pretty slow for Friday. Bought groceries - $20.00 ($155) The boss dressed down the trainee. Sure am crazy about that boy of mine.








Gampper is the zone manager for mom's store. He has the power of life and death over all the employees. Such power is not always administered with grace. Suits are suits.

Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas was mom's Class of '34 alma mater. Shootings were fairly rare in the area back then, even more rare in schools.

Mom always loved working for Kenny Johnson. He's who she's referring to as "that boy of mine".

Thursday, February 4

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February 4, Thursday - 16º this morning. Slept all night - first time in a long time. Worked like crazy. Doug told everyone in the store if they were friends of mine, they weren't his.

February 5, Friday - Another hard day. Bud had his cast taken off. He has to stay off it as much as possible. Went to Truman and Hardesty for groceries. What a mob!

February 6, Saturday - Bud had to have pencils before I came to work. Got my glasses. Another hard day. A day off tomorrow. Hoorah. Drizzle. $10.00 short.

Once again, Doug the Horrible Trainee rears his ugly head. I don't know exactly who Doug is, but I can imagine how this played out - Mom, a dedicated head checker, has the routine down pat, and does everything the Kroger way. Doug, fresh from college, has his own ideas how to make things better or more efficient. A couple of failed attempts, and mom had to go into recovery mode, and probably pinned his ears back. His college-trained sensibilities offended, Doug probably lashed out. This isn't too far-fetched, nor is the first time something like this happened. Mom had a sparkling reputation as an accomplished trainer, and after she spent a number of years as a head checker, the Kansas City Kroger office made her the area trainer. She taught checkers and grocery clerks how to do things the right way, and was responsible for opening a couple dozen Kroger stores in the region. I got to help sometimes, and was called in to build gondolas, stock new stores' shelves and work the front end on opening weekends.

Finally got that damned cast taken off. Mom mended my split slacks, and I was again made whole in the eyes of my peers. Sort of.

Mom stopped by what would eventually be my home Kroger store at Truman and Hardesty - K204. Fridays at K204 were as busy as Saturdays. The local steel mills - Armco and Sheffield, paid every Friday, and by 5:00 the Monroe-Swedas were spitting out register tape as fast as we could load it in. This went on until we locked the doors at 9:00. I always worked Friday and Saturday until close. Some fun. We even had a couple of double-basket orders that broke the magic $50 barrier. (That's $350 in today's dollars.)

Had to have pencils - that's code for "Bud is a real pain in the ass this morning."

Everything is an emergency for Bud. The world revolves around me. I'm definitely spoiled rotten, though that fact isn't made clear in my own mind for a few more years.

Monday, February 1

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February 1, Monday - High 10º - Very cold - quiet day for me. Got my hair fixed and did the laundry. The rest of the day I loafed and took a nap. Marv is so good to me.

February 2, Tuesday - Cold today - the same old thing at Kroger. Zone meeting at the store Mom says she will take us to see Mary Poppins Sunday.

February 3, Wednesday - Went to Dr. Williams and had my back cracked. Getting ready for the weekend. Looks as though we'll be busy. Every man looked like Dad today.

A typical day off, another couple of days at work, and a trip to the chiropractor. A zone meeting is the Zone Manager, in this case, I think it was Charlie Gamper, plus all the store managers from his zone, converging for a butt-chewing day of motivation. Grandma Patton is taking us to see Mary Poppins next weekend.

Mom still misses her dad terribly. He died suddenly about four months earlier. It was one of the few somber funerals I can remember in our family. Most of our funerals were light-hearted, even fun to attend. When Grandma Patton died in August of 1971, the services at the Fulton-Nickel funeral home in Kansas City, Kansas were serious, but not somber or tearful. She had been in declining health for quite some time, and her last days at the nursing home on Benton Boulevard were painful to watch.

As we formed the half-mile-long funeral procession that would take her body to our family cemetery near Leavenworth, Kansas, I assured my date - yes, I took a date to grandma's funeral - that the lighthearted party she had just witnessed really was our family's way of remembering Grandma Patton.

My mom and her family were in the limousine following the casket-bearing hearse and a heavily-laden flower car. My dad gave the driver directions through Leavenworth, and out onto Highway 92 west of town. Somewhere after the Highway 92 turn, things went horribly wrong. Dad got a little confused, and got us a little lost.

The hearse, and subsequently, every other car, made a series of wrong turns and eventually onto a three-block-long dead end street near the edge of town. As the hearse driver realized that there had been a horrible mistake and began to turn around, the centipede of cars scrambled for a way to get back in line behind all the black Cadillacs. The limo that I was riding in came to a stop directly next a woman in a flowered duster who was weeding her yard.

She waved at our car, and we rolled down the window. As the hearse pulled even with us on the other side of the street, she informed us, "You can't stop here, this is a dead end!"

This brought the parade to a complete stop, as everyone, included the staid and double-starched funeral director broke into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Eventually we negotiated our way out of Leavenworth on Highway 92 and pulled into the little oak-shaded cemetery on the northwest side of the road - there was only enough room for six or seven cars on the cemetery grounds, so the rest were parked down the highway toward Easton. When everyone had assembled graveside, the minister began the service: "Pansy Elizabeth Patton . . . and everyone just came unglued. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and no one was crying. Pansy loved to travel, and had zero sense of direction or the time involved to actually get anywhere. She would have loved the meander to her final resting place.

The girl I was with talked about my grandma's funeral for years afterward, although I'm fairly sure she thought we were all batshit crazy. This funeral was the most fun I've ever had in a cemetery. Check that - it was the second most fun I've ever had in a cemetery. Ask me about that story some other time.

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.

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.

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