Thursday, May 13

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May 13, Thursday - Felt miserable today - treatment 10. Asked Mary how many more - she said quite a few. I knew that. Nice weather 80°. Rain tonight.

May 14, Friday - Treatment 11. Went to store and then to take treatment. Windy. Bud went to ball game with Steve Fairhurst.

May 15, Saturday - Gladys and Lawrence came up and spent day. Lawrence and Bud mowed lawn. Bought mower from Lawrence for $20

More radiation treatments. She's not very far into the process, but I remember her feeling a little crazy in the routine, and the helplessness she felt.

Steve Fairhurst was one of my neighborhood stalwarts - the smart one. Steve had a brilliant mind, and a knack for details. In later years we joked that if we had the computing power available in 2000 when we were kids, we'd just now be getting out of jail.

Baseball was a big deal for us. This was a tragedy because we lived in Kansas City. The A's never had a winning season in Kansas City, even though toward the end, they had the nucleus of the Oakland A's' winning teams of the '70s.

From our corner of 11th and Spruce, we walked the one block to the bus stop at 12 and Jackson, took a bus to Brooklyn Avenue, and transferred south to the stadium at 22nd Street. General admission tickets were cheap, and because so few people went to the games, a GA ticket was as good as a box seat once the game started. For this night game against the Minnesota Twins, the total paid admission was just a tick over 6,000 diehard fans.

The Twins, an American League expansion team in 1961 were the former hapless Washington Senators. The A's held the Twins scoreless as the home team marched three batters across the plate - one in the fourth, and three more in the seventh:

Kansas City Municipal Stadium - probably pre-Charlie Finley

As we sat in the big, green, extremely fan-friendly behemoth that was Municipal Stadium, it looked as if Kansas City might pull one off. Nope. The Twins chalked up three runs in the eight, and two in the ninth to win 5-3. The A's record after that game was a dismal 5 and 21.

The incredible groundskeeper George Toma with Harvey, the Athletics' ball delivery rabbit

Gladys is dad's sister, Lawrence is her husband. Lawrence could fix just about anything. He brought down a power mower with a 2-cycle Clinton engine that he had rebuilt. 2-cycles, for the uninitiated, use a mix of gasoline and oil instead of straight gas. It looked a lot like this:

It was probably a Wizard, from Western Auto.

There was no recoil starter - the rope you used to start it was separate. You wound it around the starter spool on top, and gave it a good yank - it usually started. You kept the rope, with its T-handle, tied off to the mower handle, where you were certain to lose it at the worst possible time. If you were me, you invariably ran over the damned rope, shooting it and the handle across the street. To shut it off, you had to ground the spark plug until the engine died. I carried a screwdriver for this purpose. This mower was half the size you would have probably wanted for a yard our size, but poor folks have poor ways, etc.

After I got the hang of the mower, I had dad take me to the hardware store to buy a screw-eye and at least fifty feet of rope. I drilled a hole in the back of the mower deck and bolted in the screw-eye. I could now attach the rope and lower the running mower to cut the steep terraces that Northeast was famous for. A regular yard fetched $3 to $6, but a terraced yard brought almost $10. I made a lot of money that summer, burned up the Clinton motor and went out and bought another mower, and still had a ton of cash left over for my nefarious teenage plans to take over the world.

Terraced yards in Northeast - fun to mow
Google Maps Street View of houses across the street from ours.

Tuesday, May 4

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May 4, Tuesday - Went to deliver bait. Marsha came over to spend the day. Stopped by to see Mary. Took treatment. Bob and Flo came by on way home. Had a nice visit. (Mary was operated on. Everything OK. What a wonderful relief.)

May 5, Wednesday - Sonnie's birthday. So tired today. Took treatment.

May 6, Thursday - Took treatment early

Bait deliveries were another constant part of our lives. The were dozens of bait and tackle shops all over town that stocked dad's products, and he always delivered orders personally unless the shop was more than a hundred miles away. Even then, he was as likely to load up the Cadillac and hit the road with the trunk full of cases of bait. I remember trips to Trading Post, Parsons, Pittsburg, Coffeyville, and Fort Scott, all in Kansas, and at least one run each to Jefferson City and Rich Hill.

Marsha was my newest cousin, uncle Bob's step-daughter. We were pretty good buddies for quite a while. We gingerly tiptoed around our sexual tensions. I went swimming with Marsha later in this summer of '65 and got the Big Kahuna Cheeseburger of all sunburns.

You can't tell the players without a program - Sonnie is my half-sister, Bob and Mary are married, Marsha is Mary's daughter by a previous marriage, and Flo is Mary's mom. 

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.

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.

Sunday, March 28

March 28, Sunday - Went to church. Bill was up today, also Marv and Bud. Getting anxious to go home. Sure have lots of nice friends. Mary was up tonight.

March 29, Monday - Marv's birthday. Dr. Hesser took tubes out today. Talk about hurt! Had lots of company. Maxine and Mildred wound up the day!

March 30, Tuesday - Talked to the boss and Marie this morning. Have enjoyed the phone. Laid awake and talked to Marjorie till late last night. She's in bad shape.

Not much new here. You have to laugh to keep from crying, I suppose. Mom is stuck in a hospital room. She's just lost a breast to cancer, and doesn't know if she'll be alive in six months. Still, Marjorie is in bad shape and deserves Mom's friendship and steady counsel.

I remember dad and I went to Crane's cafeteria that afternoon.

Wednesday, March 10

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March 10, Wednesday - Things are better today. I'm glad. Couldn't stand another day like yesterday. Worked hard. Training 2 new boys - patience is a virtue. Bob and Patty called.

March 11, Thursday - Still teaching the boys. Trying hard to keep up my spirits. Should go downtown tonight, but will put it off until Monday. Mary called.

March 12, Friday - Dad's birthday. Worked pretty hard - short of help as usual. Have a yearning to see the mountains. Jean called. Everybody has been so kind.

Mom's life as a head checker for Kroger was a constant revolving door of new hires. Everyone had to know how to run a cash register, count back change, and bag groceries along with whatever duties came with their respective department assignments. The only department that didn't have to deal with my mom was the meat department. Their union was stronger even than the Retail Clerks.

This is the first birthday anniversary for Grandpa Patton since his death the previous October. Mom took her dad's death really hard, harder perhaps, than the rest of the siblings. This is what led me to my "Extreme stress or grief as trigger events for the onset of cancer" hypothesis. I don't know of any research institution that's taking my idea seriously, or even looking into it, but this, and at least a half-dozen other instances are all I have to run with. I'm quite sure that a lot of cancer is actually the product of a sort of genetic lottery, but I don't know much about it. 

Update: Recently, I have come to understand that the stresses associated with grief and loss are far more severe than I had previously thought. My mom was a tower of strength.

The family phone tree kicked in almost immediately, driven by the matriarch Pansy. Bob, Patty, and Jean are all mom's siblings, Mary is Bob's wife. This is a tight, tight, family in every respect. Their ability to support one another was amazing to see and experience.

When my dad had his heart attacks in early August of 1962, mom still needed to work as well as watch over dad in the hospital. I stayed with my aunt Patty for a while, with aunt Jean for a while, and finally, when school started after Labor Day, I became a latchkey kid until dad finally made it back home in late October, and my dad's sister Gladys kept an eye on me from time to time, as did the neighborhood moms - Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Fairhurst, Mrs. Stark, and Mrs. Billings next door. It was a real neighborhood, where neighbors cared for and about one another.