Sunday, August 1

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August 1, Sunday - Picnic tonight at Bob's. First Sunday back at work. Worked in deli. Got along pretty well.

August 2, Monday - Had to hunt a place to get my hair fixed. Mary Kern finally did it. Bud bought his car. Sold my last bond to buy it. Am I burned up!

August 3, Tuesday - Short on help as usual. Hot today. Didn't call home today on lunch hour - they were surprised to see me tonight.

Last things first. Mom always called home on her lunch hour. She did this to make sure we didn't need anything from the store, sometimes to let us know she had stops to make on her way home - just general stuff. That she didn't call home is a big deal.

So this:

The car in question, the reason that mom's hair is on fire, is a 1956 Chevy two-door post. I bought it from my pal Mike up the street. To be more accurate, my dad bought it from Mike, because I was too young to own a vehicle, much less drive one..

It was in pretty fair shape, and just had a fresh coat of Chevrolet Midnight Blue applied. Under the hood was the workhorse 235 c.i. Chevy Stovebolt inline six cylinder backed by the dependable two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. The lifters were noisy, and like many Stovebolts, it had an accessory top oiler added in an attempt to muffle the clacking a bit. This drove my dad crazy, and would eventually lead him to trade in my car while I was at school. I come from a long line of worrying, crazy, people with bad decision-making skills.

1956 Chevy

The thing is this: I paid $300 for the car. On top of some seed money from dad a few years back, I had saved almost $700 from various projects, piecework in dad's bait factory, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, you name it. This was always the "car money." Mom was on board with this. It was more than enough cash to buy the car, and pay for the tags. Dad went ahead and put it on his insurance - I was too young to drive it anyway.

From here on out, my income went to small cosmetic fixes - chrome wheels, seat covers for the ratty bench seats, a glaspak muffler, and few sparkly trinkets here and there from Arrow Speed Shop on Independence Avenue. Yes, I had fuzzy dice. By the time a new school year rolled around in 1966, I'd have been able to swing the cash for aV8 engine swap and I'd be ready to take my position in the hierarchy of teenage death-wish motorheads at Northeast High School. A '56 Chevy would move me to the top of the lower-middle tiers in no time. Quite an achievement for a sophomore.

Cars were not ubiquitous at urban high schools back then. There was no student parking lot. It wasn't necessary. Of the pack I ran with, I was the only one with a car until late my senior year. Other guys were able to borrow their parents' car, but it wasn't the same.

Somehow, my dad had pulled a fast one, but I can't figure out what he did with the money. $300, in today's buying power would equal well over $2,400! What the hell? That mom had to cash her last bond for this is a tragedy. No wonder she was pissed.

Speculation: I can imagine a scenario where somebody in the neighborhood would put the touch on dad. He was as soft as they come, and a bit of an innocent. Our neighborhood was full of sob stories, and dad, the househusband, was always around to hear them. Yeah, I can see that happening. Car problems, medical bills, lost jobs, all would have activated dad's sucker gene.

Mom had always assumed that someday, if they worked hard, they could find a place of their own, stop paying rent, and join the Great American Illusion. The mean home prices nationwide in 1965 were around $20,000, and mom's last few bonds would have made a decent down-payment. I remember driving with her looking at bungalows around Northeast. She particularly like a couple of places on Denver and Quincy streets, just north of Budd Park. The disappearance of the last bond was her dream in flames. I can barely write thinking about this.

I honestly don't know the whole story here. I will never know, but it was obviously a pivot point in my folks' lives. I'm surprised mom didn't kill him in his sleep.

Wednesday, June 16

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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, February 22

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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.