Saturday, June 19

Click to enlarge

June 19, Saturday - Took Bud to Susan's for swimming. Marv and Sandy went fishing. Such a quiet day. Baked a cake, waxed the floors, and took a bath.

June 20, Sunday - Father's Day. Mom's birthday. Nice day. went to church and then took Marv to dinner at Waid's. Good meal. Went over to Mom's in evening. Frank and Jean were there. Jean's hearing is much improved. Thank goodness.

June 21, Monday - Marv and I washed. Then I paid rent and went to store. Stayed home in evening. Not much doing. Went downtown and bought two new dresses. Bud went to drive-in and got in at 1:30 a.m.

My cousin Susan was my closest relative on the Patton side of the family. She lived near the Wyandotte-Johnson County line in Kansas City, Kansas. We had always been pals, and when the family gathered at Pansy's, we always found ways to entertain ourselves.

Susan belonged to the Sun and Surf Swim Club out on County Line Road. Although I was recovering from the Mother of All Sunburns, I jumped at the chance to go hang out with Susan and her pals. Susan was two years older than I was, and was thus far more sophisticated and way more clever than I was. Her friends were smart, confident, and popular. They teased me mercilessly. It was like landing on Venus.

Most of my time this trip was spent preening and trying figure out how to wear my hair. I had given up the little dabs of Brylcreem and the polished Princeton haircut I had been wearing for years in favor of a more Beach Boys inspired fluffy mop, with just the right amount of front coverage. Not Beatles-style by any means, but certainly not my previous L7 square look, either. I'm sure I looked a fool, but I was so unaware of my place in the universe, it really didn't matter. I added a light spritz of peroxide to the front to add a bit of highlights. Jesus, really?

It must have been a special day indeed to break out of the Crane's Cafeteria rut and head over to Waid's for dinner for Father's Day. We always made a fuss over such days.

My aunt Jean's hearing has improved. Good thing. We were starting to yell at her so she could hear us. Family gatherings had started to sound like Sundays in Little Italy, except we didn't have anyone named Anthony to yell at, and there was no Caruso to be heard.

Monday is wash day, and mom went to Cirese's and paid the rent, ran downtown and just generally puttered. I get my puttering gene from mom. Man, I really hate puttering.

Mom and dad rented their house on 11th Street from Joe and Mary Cirese. My uncle Lawrence worked for them as a handyman and maintenance worker. When we moved into the house in 1955, the rent was set at $60 per month. That equals the buying power of about $575 in today's dollars. When the Cirese's son died in a horrific car crash in 1960, mom and dad sent flowers to the funeral home and visited before the funeral mass. Mary Cirese took my mom aside and told her that as long as she lived, she would never pay a dollar more in rent than she did on that day. My mom moved out of our house in 1978 to live in an assisted living complex. Her last rent payment was for $60. Mary Cirese was a saint. She died in 1999 at the age of 97.

I went to the drive-in, although mom doesn't say who I went with. There are only two possibilities - I might have gone with Ron and Mike, or I might have gone with dad's fishing buddy Sandy. I preferred Ron and Company because of the movie choices. Ron would have been more likely to go see Beach Party movies, and Sandy and her friends were more chick-flick and drama prone. There were, however, additional benefits to hanging out with Sandy.

Usually, it was Sandy, one of her girlfriends and me. We sat three across the front seat, gnawing on drive-in corn dogs and pizza, and slurping huge Cokes, and more or less tried to track with the movie. Sometimes we parked ourselves on a blanket on the hood of her car.

It took an entirely new turn the first time Sandy invited two friends. Sandy and her original friend sat up front, and I shared the back seat with a younger girl, who we'll call Friend Number Two. (Kevin help me, I can't remember her name.) She was maybe five feet tall, slightly built, freckled, had short-cropped hair, and was a bit high-strung, as I remember. The second it got dark enough for the movie to start, she peeled off her shirt and settled in, now topless, to snuggle up against me and watch the movie. I sensed that I was the unwitting and red-faced butt of a giggly girl-joke, but I really didn't care. It's difficult to explain how unprepared I was for all of this.

For a shy fourteen-year-old, the proximity of compact and unfettered teenage breasts in the back seat of an old Dodge was like a birthday, Christmas and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. My blushing, stammering overreaction to her sudden partial nudity made her laugh. She encouraged me to make the best of the situation. This routine happened maybe a three or four times that summer.

I kinda wish I could remember her name. Nah.

Thursday, April 22

Click to enlarge

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.

Tuesday, March 16

Click to enlarge

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.

Sunday, March 7

Click to enlarge

March 7, Sunday - Took Ron, Mom, Bud and Marv to the airport. Tried to go to church, no place to park. Had a good time, took mom home and watched TV in evening.

March 8, Monday - Carol did my hair, did washing. Marv found out about my left breast & rushed me to Dr. Sims. (Now what?) Sims rushed me to (Dr.) Hesser. Took Marv out to his birthday. May be pretty busy on 3/29, or I may not be busy at all.

March 9, Tuesday - Low day. Blue, blue, blue. Told Johnson about my operation - he was so kind and understanding. I bawled like a nut. Tomorrow will be better. Worked on the front end - real busy, too.

Again with the airport. No one is traveling anywhere - we're just going to look at the airport. It's real Wes Anderson stuff.

Then the shoe drops. Mom found a lump in her left breast the size of a golf ball. If I remember the conversations properly, she had known about the lump for more than six months, but didn't think it was alarming enough to see a doctor about. Dad wasn't so calm, in fact he was furious that mom had sandbagged the discovery.Her regular doctor, Dr. Sims, was equally concerned, and immediately sent mom to see a surgeon, Dr. Hesser, the same day. The surgery was scheduled immediately and would take place about two weeks later at Bethany Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas; the same hospital I was born in some fifteen years earlier. They had the nerve to tear it down in the 1990s.

Bethany Hospital's Early Days

Mom took dad to his birthday celebration early - which can mean nothing besides a dinner at Crane's Cafeteria at the corner of Truman Road and Hardesty. Crane's fried chicken was and still is, to my mind the best I have ever eaten, and while they closed years ago, the very mention brings the taste back to me as though it were hot on my dinner plate. This was pretty much the only restaurant my mom and dad ever went to on any kind of regular basis. Cafeterias were, in general, the venues of choice for my family. Cranes. Myron Green's, Putch's - we knew them all, plus a few more in Topeka. Standing in lines as we pushed trays along seemed like second nature. It was the time of the factory worker. 

Crane's Cafeteria

Dad's real birthday is March 29, but mom didn't know if she would be able to follow through when that date rolled around. My mom was strong, but the reaction of dad and the doctors terrified her, and rightly so. In today's parlance, mom had Stage III metastatic breast cancer. It was entirely likely that they would take her breast, some muscle tissue, and as many affected lymph nodes as possible.

The reality of what's about to transpire has hit mom, and she's laid low. I'm sure she dreaded telling her store manager the news. Mom's manager, Kenny Johnson, was a strong manager, and he treated his people like family. Mom, and most everyone who worked with him, was crazy about the guy. My mom was the store mom, and a lot of the employees there would have walked on hot coals to keep her out of the hospital.

We all would have.

Monday, February 22

Click to enlarge

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.