Friday, March 19

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March 19, Friday - The usual Friday. Bought groceries - $18.00 A little warmer today, but not much. That bunch of girls I work with are goofy. Sure have a ball. Marv had supper ready, as usual. He's so good.

March 20, Saturday - Got my hair fixed this morning. Stopped by mom's, then to work. Turned in my keys - feel as if I'm leaving for good.

March 21, Sunday - Carol's shower. Bud and I went to church, home for lunch, and here I am in Room 521. Didn't even get to my room before they started taking blood.

Mom is just treading water here. She's headed for the hospital for a radical mastectomy on Sunday, and she's just trying to hold it together. If she played one game of solitaire in front of the TV that week, she played a hundred. Mom usually reserved solitaire for the times when she didn't want to deal with dad. It was her mute switch. It was her sole foray into the world of the passive-aggressive. The sound of riffling cards makes me nauseous to this day.

Knowing my mom, the idea that she had to turn in her keys would have felt like jumping off a cliff and into the void. She loved her job - most of the time - and it kept her centered and grounded. Kroger was like home to her, the people she worked with were like family. This was my mom, in a nutshell. She created a new family in every setting. People depended on her, and she relished her role as the rock. 

Saturday, February 13

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February 13, Saturday - Bud had to have a model. Sure hated to come to work - beautiful day. mom has a terrible cold. Dropped by there before and after work. Took some cough syrup by.

February 14, Sunday - When I left the house Marv was having chest pains. Wonder what's around the corner. Stopped at mom's on way to work. Not too busy. It's nice to come home and have supper ready. Marv is a good cook.

February 15, Monday - Nothing spectacular. Beauty shop, laundry, rent, store, and downtown. Bought Bud some pants for his program Thursday and Friday nights. He'll probably wear them tomorrow.

It's only now that I realize how expensive I was as a kid. A typical model kit by AMT or Revell in this days cost about 4 bucks. There were a few that I bought just to have parts for customization, and there were the additional costs of glue, paint, body putty (a sort of scale model Bondo) and other raw materials. A trip to Northeast Toy and Hobby might have set my mom back five bucks on average. In 2017 dollars that's a whopping $39 in buying power. If I had been my folks, I would have considered putting me up for adoption, or at least selling me off for scientific experimentation.

Dad was a good cook, in a basic meat and potatoes sort of way. Compared to my grandmother, it was Cordon Bleu. The chest pains were a fairly regular part of dad's life, and continued to make him crazy and a little hypochondriacal. Since his 1962 heart attacks weren't remedied in any way except for bed rest, there was always some residual angina and his teeny nitroglycerin pills were always with him.

Another Monday for mom. I got new pants for an unknown program at school. Mom has doubts that I can hold off wearing them until the program. She's probably right.

It bears noting that mom went downtown to get her shopping done. At that time, there was really only one shopping "mall" in Kansas City, "The Blue Ridge Mall". It sat at the confluence of 40 Hiway and I-70 in eastern Jackson County, some nine miles from the house. Mom preferred going downtown because she could could walk a couple hundred feet to the bus turn at 12th and Jackson and ride into the city instead of navigating the freeway east. Most of the downtown stores she shopped at were within a block or two of the bus stop at 12th and Main, so it was really an easier option all around. There was no advantage to the mall - at that time it was open air, with shops lining both sides of a central pedestrian mall. Later, in the early '70s, they enclosed the mall and it became a four-season shopping area.

Blue Ridge Mall, ca. 1958

Parentehtically, after they razed the Blue Ridge Mall, the built a WalMart Supercenter on teh east side of the property, and a Lowe's on the west half. That Lowe's was to become my store from 2010 to 2016, and when I stood watch at the front door at closing time, I was standing near the ghost front door of the old J.C. Penny's.

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.

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

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.