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, June 4

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June 4, Friday - Thinking about leaving Marv. We are incompatible to the last degree and he insists on fishing twice a week with Sandi. So! (See how unbalanced I am.)

June 5, Saturday - Bad storm last night, about 1:30. Treatment today - may be my last. Dr. Allen told me to take my nerve pills, but I doubt that they will help. If I hear about Sandi much more, I'll scream.

June 6, Sunday - To church - sure hope it helps. I'm so discouraged. We took Bud to shoot pool - shot my first game, too. Quiet evening - paid bills. (Marked through: Hate to break up my home, but it's coming.) 

Imagine reading this for the first time some forty years after your mom's passing. I knew there was tension because of dad's fishing buddy, Sandi, but I didn't know the extent of the pain.

Our house sat next to a row of identical houses on a "street" called Jackson Court. If you wanted to drive to a house on the court, you had to drive down a narrow alley outside my bedroom window, or a back alley on the other side of the houses. Only a couple of hundred feet from 11th Street to the end of the court, the six houses were at a right angle to ours. Houses two, four, and six were occupied by their owners, while the remainder were rentals.

Jackson Court

Jackson Court

House four saw a parade of renters - my buddy Sharon and her extended family when I was six or seven, a big, rangy guy named Bob a few years later. He had a dump truck and a '37 Ford. I thought the Ford was pretty cool, until I realized that it wasn't a hot rod or a retro statement. It was what he could afford.

During this time period, another family, whose name escapes me, moved in. Sandi was the oldest child in the house, the wife's daughter by a previous misunderstanding and just graduated from high school, maybe one or two years out. She and dad struck up an immediate friendship centered around fishing and fish bait. Dad had given her some of his products, and she was so impressed, she wanted to work for dad. He rejected that idea, because it would have cut into my piecework income from the company, but he encouraged her to go fishing with him. Dad, with a regular fishing friend, would have poured on the mentor charm, and Sandi was receptive to the mentorship.

Dad and I share a natural ability to flirt, even if follow-through is a bit iffy in places. We were and are both generally clueless about such things, and always surprised when someone takes us up on our offers.

I could be wrong, but I don't think dad had any real romantic interest in Sandi, but mom, in her current state of mutilation, as she see it, and the state of mind that accompanies it, sees Sandi as her nemesis. Even mom, by her comments, indicates that she thinks she's overreacting.

Piecework. Dad's fish bait was shipped in 8 ounce squat paper containers, with the bait enclosed in plastic bags. My job was doing all this packaging. Dad mixed his dough bait in a huge vintage Hobart commercial planetary mixer. Imagine your Kitchenaid countertop mixer, but six feet tall, and you'll have a good idea of the mixer's bulk. He then muscled the huge steel mixing bowl out of the mixer and turned the dough out onto a large work table. He divided the dough with a cutter, then hand-packed the dough into a container of known capacity, turning out cup-sized lumps of dough. He stacked those onto another board that could be shifted to my workstation around the corner. I took each lump of dough, inserted it into a plastic bag and set it off for finishing. After the entire batch - some four dozen packages were bagged and my bait-covered hands cleaned, I went back and twisted the bags and inverted them into paper cartons and put lids on. I tallied my day's progress on a small slate near the door.  Dad would come back later and attach the appropriate labels to the top of the containers, box the bait two dozen to a carton and get them ready for shipping or delivery. For my part in this process, I was paid five cents per unit. $.05 x 48 = $2.40 In today's money, that's about $19.00 in buying power. A good Saturday manufacturing run might produce ten batches. I was rich. Some summer months I made upwards of $250. I squirreled away the money so I would be able to buy a car.

Mom says, "We took Bud . . ." It was just me and her.

I took mom to a pool hall in the blue-collar Armourdale district of Kansas City, Kansas where we futzed around with a few games of 8-ball. I knew of the joint because of my half-step-cousin Danny*, who had taken me there several times on the q-t. My mom, obviously twisting in her pain over her marriage with my dad, played pool and drank a beer. Let me say that again. My mom drank beer. The house bought it for her. They knew she didn't belong there, much less with a beer in her hand. They called her mom. We laughed all the way home. She made me promise not to mention the whole excursion in Sunday School. I reminded her how highly unlikely it was that I'd be anywhere near Sunday School.

"I'll pray for you."

That's my mom.



*Too complicated to explain

Friday, April 16

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April 16, Friday - Went to store this morning. Nice and warm. Stopped at mom's and then Dr's office. No treatments for two weeks yet. Drove car for the first time. Appended: Store sent me $36 again. 

April 17, Saturday - Got my first check from union. Went to Kansas store.

April 18, Sunday - Easter. Went to church, then to Patty's for dinner, then to mom's. Saw everybody, but sure was pooped.

The Union finally started paying.

$36 is $296 in 2020 dollars.

Mom got back behind the wheel again in spite of the residual pain from her surgery. When they removed her left breast, they also took as much of the lymphatic tissue they could get to, and the resulting scar tissue was very tight, and made it extremely difficult for mom to raise her left arm. In typical Patton fashion, mom made her stretching exercises a point of humor, and my cousins and I often stretched with her, in a motion that could only be described as poultry in motion.

Her big old '55 Cadillac 62 Series was easy enough to wheel around with power steering and all, but mom was just barely five feet tall, and was just not designed for a rig that size. She managed, though. She valued her independence so greatly that the idea of not being able to drive would surely drive her mad.

$36 in 1965 is roughly equivalent to $296 today. Think about that. These collections were likely driven by mom's front-end people, but everyone contributed something. Absolutely amazing.

Easter Sunday at Bales Baptist Church, dinner at her sister's, and the usual gathering at the Pattons'. It may have been Easter, but it didn't vary that much from any other Sunday. Mom's family was always first. You'll notice that dad isn't mentioned. He was often along for the ride, but just as often he stayed home and did nothing. I feel as though my dad often felt inferior to mom's family. They were a more cohesive group than dad's family and they were smart, funny, and eager to help one another at the drop of a hat. Dad's family was harder to get to know, and while they were all good people, they were less ambitious, less able to adequately express themselves, and not likely to get together unless it was a major family event - wedding, funeral, or visiting relative.

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.

Thursday, March 25

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March 25, Thursday - Got up yesterday five times. Got up today & sat in chair while Karen fixed my bed. Go to bathroom quite often. Flowers and gifts and cards. Everybody has been so nice.

March 26, Friday - More flowers, more cards, more visitors. I have such nice friends and family. Johnson was over today. Mom has a terrible cold & went to the doctor today. We're sure doing our best for the medical profession.

March 27, Saturday - Hesser was in & took off some of the bandages. I have to take at least 15 xray treatments. I'll probably go home next Wednesday.

There really isn't much to add or illuminate here. Mom is dealing with things in her post-op hospital life, a smaller world than she'd like, but one still inhabited by her family and close friends.

She found out that she'll have fifteen Cobalt treatments to come, but home is on the horizon.

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.

Sunday, March 7

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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, March 1

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March 1, Monday - Bud home with a cold, I spent most of the day in bed - just tired. Sleet and snow. Cold tonight. Put gravel in driveway and back yard.

March 2, Tuesday - Had store (zone) meeting today. Came home and went right to bed - sore throat & cold. Bud went bowling until 11:30

March 3, Wednesday - Feel better today. Got things pretty well caught up in office. Went to chiropractor. Falling apart.



Another short post. Mom is increasingly tired and feels listless much of the time. Some of this is the winter blahs, some of this is a general sense of futility. An additional factor will be revealed soon.

Bowling until 11:30 for an eighth-grader. Who's spolied? A Tuesday night men's league has several important functions: 1. Bowling with men whose games are far superior to my own helped me become a better bowler. 2. It started to pull me out of my shell. 3.The guys on my team looked the other way when I sneaked a drink of their beer. 4. I learned a lot of interesting new words.

Friday, February 19

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February 19, Friday - Slow business, but Ruby, Ethel, Eva and I had a ball. At lunch & on our breaks we laughed till we cried. Went to the program with Bud. Good! Marv still doesn't feel well.

February 20, Saturday - Dr. Gripkey. Marv wants to go to California on vacation. Weight 167 - I've lost 35 pounds. Sure get around better. Bud asked Pat to go bowling Monday. His social life will bankrupt us. 70º today - 20° by morning. I hope I get to go to church.

February 21, Sunday - Slept till 9:00. Bud and I went to church. Ate lunch and started out to new airport. Too much traffic, so we came back to Municipal.  

Mom always had great friends in the stores. While I don't know these people by name, I know they kept mom happy in her work.

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what this school program was, but I can't put a finger on it. It almost had to be a band event of some kind, but I'm not sure.

Dad's health is a constant concern. While he was a large man, and strong as an ox, his heart disease weighed so heavily on his mind that he was often convinced of his own frailty and impending death. He had worked hard all his life, and until his heart attacks, was a two-pack-a-day Pall Mall smoker. After his heart finally and dramatically betrayed him, we became a salt-free, caffeine-free, nicotine-free household. Dad's worry was contagious. Sometimes he would nap on the couch, and I would stop as I walked by to watch his chest rise and fall and make sure he was still breathing. Crazy begets crazy.

I think Dr. Gripkey was mom's weight-loss advisor. She's down to 167 from just over 200. My mom is 5'-2" on her best day. Dad wants to go to California to see his son Bill and daughter Sonnie. I have it on good authority that this trip won't happen.

Apparently, I had asked Patty Saunders to go bowling. On a Monday night. You would certainly think I would remember that, but I honestly don't. It would have taken me four years at this point to work up the nerve to ask her to do anything with me, although we were pretty consistent phone buddies. . It's very likely that afterwards, we would have been dad-chauffeured down to Allen's Dairy on Independence Avenue for carhop-delivered hot fudge sundaes. There's nothing so sexy as a chubby kid having a panic attack sitting next to a petite blonde in the back seat of a baby-blue Cadillac. My hands are sweating just thinking about it. Patty and I still converse via the occasional email. Hi, Patty!

I am a high maintenance, extremely expensive, 14 year old, but one very smooth date.

Mom and I went to church - Bales Baptist, with its thundering pipe organ and horseshoe-shaped sanctuary. The pastor was probably still Reverend Moad, the minister that baptized me a couple of years before.

Airports were, and remain to this day, an important source of entertainment for me. All during the late '50s, my dad and I would trek down to Kansas City Municipal Airport, (MKC) and head up to the open-air observation deck atop the south terminal. There, we watched Vickers Viscounts, Convairs, Douglas DC3s, and Martin 404s take off and land. As the planes taxied to the gate, they feathered their propellers and shut down all but one engine, but there was still enough prop wash to knock your hat off. The real star of the show was always the Lockheed Super G Constellation, the "Connie", still, to my way of thinking, one of the most beautiful airplanes ever manufactured. It looked like a swan with a distinctive triple tail and four thundering Wright radial engines.

Lockheed Super G Constellation in TWA livery

It was later in the fifties when the first jets appeared at Municipal, and if you were fortunate enough to be on the Intercity Viaduct when a Boeing 707 took off to the south on runway 19 in the days before noise abatement, you received an eardrum-busting treat as the plane flew over you at an altitude of a couple hundred feet. More than one driver, hypnotized by the big jets, drove straight into the guard rails as the mighty 707s flew over.

Municipal Airport was built in the crook of the Missouri River, and had no room for expansion. Jets required more runway than Municipal's 6,500 foot north/south could provide.**

 To help drag Kansas City, kicking and screaming into the future, they built Kansas City International Airport, (MCI). It had three circular terminals, each of which provided for short sixty-foot walks to the gates from the drop-off area. It was a pretty big deal in Kansas City, and mom and I set out on the 25-mile trek to see it. At that same moment, it seems 75,000 other Kansas Citians thought the same thing, and headed north to see the new miracle airport. We got snarled in Northland traffic and gave up. Back to Municipal where we belonged. I still hate driving in traffic.

When I owned my studio, my favorite work-avoidance venue was Downtown Airport. I would sit at the south end of Runway 1-19 with my aircraft radio and listen to air traffic control. You can seriously kill off several hours that way with no effort at all.

Municipal Airport - now the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC)

** I think it was ahead of the 1992 election when George H.W. Bush visited Kansas City. They flew that big ol' 747 Air Force One into MKC - KC Downtown Airport.  Lou Holland Drive - the road immortalized as "Road Song" in 1967 by photographer Pete Turner -  was barricaded and they parked that monster out near the Airline History Museum. I got to the airport about four hours ahead of Bush's announced departure,  just to watch the launch.

I don't know who was at the controls of that aircraft, but that sucker came up out of the airport at full throttle like a rocket off of Runway 19, kept climbing as it banked right over Kansas City, Kansas and was well on its way to cruising altitude before it got to Worlds of Fun five miles to the northeast. Wow!

Unrelated detail: my first cousin, once removed, Johnnie S. Simpson, after 27 years in the military became, in 1947, crew chief of "The Sacred Cow." The airplane was designed so President Roosevelt could navigate his wheelchair around the cabin. 

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

Monday, January 4

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January 4, Monday - The usual routine. Picked up Marv's glasses, which he likes. Took Marv to Dr.
Bud went bowling & came home sick.

January 5, Tuesday - Doug and I are in the office together. Very discouraged today. My mouth is too big.

January 6, Wednesday - Got home today and Marv was real sick. Got a prescription from (Dr.) Miller and he slept pretty good. Hate my job this week.




Marv is my dad. Marvin is his middle name, like mine. Like my mom, he was from a family of six, but the comparison ends there. The Simpsons were friendly enough, but they were not close, at least to the casual observer. His dad died in 1954, and his mom lived in the little house in Fort Scott, Kansas where the family moved sometime around 1920. Dad would have been ten.

Dad and his Cadillac, ca 1967. This is a rare photo, as he seldom looked at the camera.

My dad and his family.
No one looks at the camera, a defensive move against the
powerful output of the M5 flashbulbs that were so common back then.

Our glasses came from Chick McBratney's optical shop on Minnesota Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, a relationship that dad stuck with for decades.

Dad's regular doctor was Wilson H. Miller. When dad first started seeing Dr. Miller, he was working out of a small office upstairs at Independence Avenue at Monroe. At the time of dad's death in 1974, Miller was Chief of Staff at Research Medical Center, and had an office on the Country Club Plaza. Dad paid for that office.

Dad's health was always teetering between bad and worse. His heart attacks in 1962 left him nervous and afraid of dying. Please remember, the treatment for a heart attack in 1962 was Demerol and weeks of bed rest. In dad's case, sixteen weeks flat on his back at St. Joseph Hospital on Linwood Avenue in Kansas City. The Demerol made him think the nuns were ghosts, and the pigeons on the ledge outside were eagles. He gave up cigarettes, stopped using salt, switched to that godawful Sanka instead of coffee, and always kept a small bottle of nitroglycerin tablets in his pocket in case of an angina attack. It worried him ceaselessly that any day might be his last. If he had been born a few years later, bypoass surgery might have extended his life by decades.

Bowling was central to my teenage years. I bowled several leagues at Allen's Bowl on Independence Avenue. Dad sponsored a couple of my teams. I tried to maintain my dignity in spite of wearing a blue-trimmed King Louie shirt with "Simpson Baits" embroidered across the back. I wasn't all that good, but I was determined as hell.

Doug was an unknown Kroger employee - I think he was a manager trainee or co-manager. See January 7.