Wednesday, June 16

Click to enlarge

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.

Monday, May 31

Click to enlarge

May 31, Monday - very quiet day. Marv and Bud worked on bait shop. I ironed a little and that's about all I did do. Marv is so patient with me. I can't stand myself, but he takes everything so well that I'm ashamed of myself.




















Mom continues to do battle with her self-image. Understandable.

You might remember that May 30 was the original date for Memorial Day before it became a three-day weekend with an observed date, the last Monday in May


The old folks called it Decoration Day, and that name had been passed down since the late 1860s, a date to remember the deaths in the American Civil War.

Memorial Day in 1965 wasn't a big deal for most people. They decorated the graves of their loved ones, and paid special attention to the remembrance of fallen soldiers. Retail stores didn't have massive blowout sales, and we city kids knew that summer was right around the corner. 

For me, the big deal was that the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race was held on May 30.

The 1965 500 had a good freshman class, including Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Sr., and Gordon Johncock. A.J. Foyt, was back behind the wheel after a horrific stock car crash at the Motor Trend 500 at Riverside, California.

Rear engine cars were making inroads against the older front-engine Offenhauser roadsters, and Jim Clark of Scotland won the 500 in a rear-engine Ford Lotus. The front-engined cars were definitely living on borrowed time, as were cars fueled by gasoline. The incredible second-lap crash at the 1964 500 made a number of teams turn to methanol or methanol blends, but their performance wasn't good enough to keep up with the high-octane gasoline cars. Eventually, all Indy cars would change to methanol, thus leveling the playing field, and promoting safer racing at Indy.

Jim Clark's Lotus Ford

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Bud and his dad worked on the bait shop, and mom did ironing.

Tuesday, May 25

Click to enlarge

May 25, Tuesday - Did washing, then to ______ for bra. I'm a pair again. Delivered bait and then stayed home for the evening. Talked to Marie and Patty

May 26, Wednesday - Sore from new bra. Also tired. Big storm in the middle of the night. Marv did ironing before I got up. He's so good to me. He's begun to relax a little since I've been home.

May 27, Thursday - Have been a mess today. Depressed and full of self-pity. I hate myself and everyone else. Cool today - high in the 60s.

Mom was fitted for a prosthetic bra in place of her missing left breast. The one she chose was inflatable, and had a hose that she could use to inflate by mouth, and a release valve to adjust the size if needed. She was embarrassed by it, and thought the idea absurd. She adjusted her thinking as time went by, but it added a chapter to the family humor collection later this summer.

Mom was mistaken about one detail - my dad never, ever relaxed. Ever.

The struggle with her emotions continues.

Sunday May 16

Click to enlarge

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.