Sunday, June 13

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June 13, Sunday - More rain. Feel droopy.Went to church. Brought Mom over to our house for a while. Rained like crazy. Bud didn't feel well from his sunburn so we went to bed early.

June 14, Monday - Cleaned the whole house and baked a cake. Cool. Bud still doesn't feel too well. Blisters all over his shoulders. Today was my last treatment. Thank goodness.

June 15, Tuesday - Have to see both doctors next week. Hesser on Wednesday - Allen on Saturday. Was going to town this morning, but felt too badly. Went fishing with Marv and Bud this afternoon. 

 The sunburn aftermath continues. I had huge blisters all over my shoulders. Had to sleep on my stomach. I have never experienced another burn like this since, thank you. I'm surprised I've never had an issue with melanomas. (Knock wood)

Not much else going on - mom is taking her last Cobalt treatment, and hanging out with dad and me at the lake. The only cake mom ever made was Angel Food.

More fishing at 40 Hiway Club Lake. My tolerance for carp fishing isn't great. If you're not a carp angler, the process for fishing for the overgrown koi doesn't involve boats, waders, fly rods, or anything that looks like the standard wade-in-the-water style of fishing. If you want to catch carp, you sit. And sit.

Common Carp

My dad's rig was something like this - an open-spool level-wind bait-casting reel on an eight-foot fiberglas rod. (Spinning reels were for posers and children.) The reel was spooled with 28-pound test braided nylon line. At the fish end was a split nylon leader with two treble hooks, one six to eight inches higher than the other. Directly above that was a lead sinker. When dad was ready to go after the scaly monsters, he baited both hooks with one of his patented (fact) dough baits, reared back and cast this whole mess out into the lake. A good cast was somewhere between forty and sixty feet from the shore. Dad would then set his rods into rod-holders that he and my uncle Lawrence had designed and welded together. Then he waited. Seriously. For what seemed like days.

Bait-casting reel

The idea was to watch for signs of the carp messing with the bait - a wiggle of the line, a soft tug and the hook, a ripple in the water. Then with a flick of the rod, you set the hook and held on. A good-size carp can work you over for a half-hour or more, and the big ones never give up until they're nearly dead. I caught a 27-pound carp when I was twelve. It took 90 minutes to bring him in. You worked them closer to the shore a few inches at a time, finally coaxing them into a huge landing net.

Carp glamour shot

The only thing left to do was take a picture of the damned thing, usually on a rope or a clip stringer. My family history is told with hundreds of pictures of carp hanging on ropes near relatives.

Carp on the doorknob, Bud at the window, 1951

My granddad William H. Simpson, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1947, with fish

I know of people who ate carp, but we didn't. They are an oily species, and I'm told that they're chock full of Omega-3 fatty acids. Residents in poorer neighborhoods in Kansas City could often be seen fishing in Swope Park or Troost Lake, usually for carp, sometimes catfish. The lunkers weren't sport to them, they were sustenance.

We generally gave them away to people with less-finicky eaters at home. Years later, one of my interns at the studio, a student at the Kansas City Art Institute, told me of her winter in Prague.

As it happens, in the Czech Republic, a traditional Christmas dinner is carp that has been cooked in milk. The story was confirmed by one of my employees at Glacier National Park last year. I'm told that Prague rivals Paris for sheer beauty, but I think I'll visit in summer.

My strategy for amusing myself on fishing trips was a big can of Turtle Wax and some rags. While dad sat on the bank and tried to outsmart the clever bottom-feeders, I waxed the Big Blue Cadillac. That sucker really shined up nice. 

My personal Wes Anderson movie continues. Our narratives have much in common.

Thursday, June 10

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June 10, Thursday - Bud didn't have to go to school today. Hot. Not much doing. Spent the evening on the back porch. Thelma was up. Mom went to Denver last night - will be back Sunday.

June 11, Friday - School is out. Hot today - 85°. Bud went swimming. Marv and I had to bring Lambs' car home. Jean goes to Memphis Sunday to have her ear operated on.

June 12, Saturday - Nice quiet Saturday. Sold some bait in morning. Rain all afternoon and evening. Mom called from Salina - will be home about 12.

Kansas City Public Schools year ended in June in those days, and reconvened after Labor Day. My birthday, in the first week of September, was often the last day of summer vacation.

Back on the back porch with the neighbors. Thelma is my friend Leonard's mom. While it was hot and humid, dad never wrestled the window air conditioner into place until the first day that it hit 95°. Installing the huge, energy-gulping window unit was an ordeal on many levels. This was before the days of window units that one person could easily manage. This thing was a behemoth. Dad, of course, being dad, had a system. He kept the air conditioner on top of mom's hope chest, and in the corner of their bedroom. When it came time to install it, he put the chest on a pair of carpet pieces, slid the chest into the living room, and through a series of short lifts and feats of superhuman dad-strength, slid the monster into the window. It was always a joy to feel the cool air fill the house, and to feel the humidity drain away. The neighbors may not have agreed, though. When we switched on the massive Frigidaire, all the lights in the neighborhood dimmed.

I went swimming with my step-cousin (!) Marsha at the Raytown Swim Club. There's that "club" handle again, shorthand for "whites only", though I wasn't aware of all this for quite a few more years. Marsha was my newest cousin, having arrived only the year before when my uncle Bob married her mom, my new Aunt Mary. There was a lot of weird sexual tension between me and my new cousin, but after a few nervous slap-and-tickle sessions, we worked through it.

Our day at the pool was spent entirely in the water, splashing and goofing around. All day. Hours and hours in the sun. Years before the invention of sunscreen. When I got there, I was early summer fish-belly blue/white. When I left, I was bright rose-red, and getting redder by the minute. It was the single worst sunburn I've ever had. I'm just so grateful that I had a full head of hair back then, otherwise, my brain would have cooked in my skull. It was just horrific.

By the next day, my shoulders and back were covered in blisters. I asked for morphine, but all I got was a lecture and a small fan. It didn't help. I couldn't move. When my back peeled, it came off in huge, crinkly sheets. I molted like a cockroach. This is not Kafka. I was not transformed.

From the What Goes Around Department: The Raytown Swim Club became Super Splash U.S.A sometime in the 1990s. I did two location shoots for them not long afterward, enlisting a group of ten or twelve parent-approved and model-released kids to do what kids do in pools in the summer.

Raytown Swim Club, now Super Splash USA

My aunt Jean, mom's sister, had issues with her hearing, and years later, after my mom died, she had issues with me. When mom was facing her end-of-life issues from her third go with cancer, she moved from her efficiency apartment in Temple Heights Manor, a Baptist-sponsored high-rise assisted-living facility, and into Jean's house for a while. When it became clear that mom wasn't going to get the care she needed at Jean's, she moved to a nursing home in Raytown. After mom died, I went to Jean's to get what was left of mom's stuff, and was informed that she had decided to keep a number of items instead of letting me go through mom's things - pictures, letters, etc - as well as some furniture and other effects. I may well have said some unkind things. I'm not sure, as I was blind with rage. I found out later that several members of mom's family gave Jean a dressing-down over all this. I wanted nothing to do with her.

My aunt Jean described herself as the "mean one", and after nearly thirty years had passed, she and I buried the hatchet, and we found common ground as she joined me in my search for my ancestors on her side of the family. May she rest in peace.

The Lambs are Sandi's parents. They always had car issues. Cars are the bane of poor people, more so in a spread out town like Kansas City. It's the Los Angeles of the Plains. For no more people than it has, it takes up massive amounts of real estate. House lots and yards there are huge, with ample spacing.

Thursday, May 13

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May 13, Thursday - Felt miserable today - treatment 10. Asked Mary how many more - she said quite a few. I knew that. Nice weather 80°. Rain tonight.

May 14, Friday - Treatment 11. Went to store and then to take treatment. Windy. Bud went to ball game with Steve Fairhurst.

May 15, Saturday - Gladys and Lawrence came up and spent day. Lawrence and Bud mowed lawn. Bought mower from Lawrence for $20

More radiation treatments. She's not very far into the process, but I remember her feeling a little crazy in the routine, and the helplessness she felt.

Steve Fairhurst was one of my neighborhood stalwarts - the smart one. Steve had a brilliant mind, and a knack for details. In later years we joked that if we had the computing power available in 2000 when we were kids, we'd just now be getting out of jail.

Baseball was a big deal for us. This was a tragedy because we lived in Kansas City. The A's never had a winning season in Kansas City, even though toward the end, they had the nucleus of the Oakland A's' winning teams of the '70s.

From our corner of 11th and Spruce, we walked the one block to the bus stop at 12 and Jackson, took a bus to Brooklyn Avenue, and transferred south to the stadium at 22nd Street. General admission tickets were cheap, and because so few people went to the games, a GA ticket was as good as a box seat once the game started. For this night game against the Minnesota Twins, the total paid admission was just a tick over 6,000 diehard fans.

The Twins, an American League expansion team in 1961 were the former hapless Washington Senators. The A's held the Twins scoreless as the home team marched three batters across the plate - one in the fourth, and three more in the seventh:

Kansas City Municipal Stadium - probably pre-Charlie Finley

As we sat in the big, green, extremely fan-friendly behemoth that was Municipal Stadium, it looked as if Kansas City might pull one off. Nope. The Twins chalked up three runs in the eight, and two in the ninth to win 5-3. The A's record after that game was a dismal 5 and 21.

The incredible groundskeeper George Toma with Harvey, the Athletics' ball delivery rabbit

Gladys is dad's sister, Lawrence is her husband. Lawrence could fix just about anything. He brought down a power mower with a 2-cycle Clinton engine that he had rebuilt. 2-cycles, for the uninitiated, use a mix of gasoline and oil instead of straight gas. It looked a lot like this:

It was probably a Wizard, from Western Auto.

There was no recoil starter - the rope you used to start it was separate. You wound it around the starter spool on top, and gave it a good yank - it usually started. You kept the rope, with its T-handle, tied off to the mower handle, where you were certain to lose it at the worst possible time. If you were me, you invariably ran over the damned rope, shooting it and the handle across the street. To shut it off, you had to ground the spark plug until the engine died. I carried a screwdriver for this purpose. This mower was half the size you would have probably wanted for a yard our size, but poor folks have poor ways, etc.

After I got the hang of the mower, I had dad take me to the hardware store to buy a screw-eye and at least fifty feet of rope. I drilled a hole in the back of the mower deck and bolted in the screw-eye. I could now attach the rope and lower the running mower to cut the steep terraces that Northeast was famous for. A regular yard fetched $3 to $6, but a terraced yard brought almost $10. I made a lot of money that summer, burned up the Clinton motor and went out and bought another mower, and still had a ton of cash left over for my nefarious teenage plans to take over the world.

Terraced yards in Northeast - fun to mow
Google Maps Street View of houses across the street from ours.

Tuesday, March 16

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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.

Thursday, March 4

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March 4, Thursday - Snowed all day. Took groceries to mom after work and slid all the way home. Got stuck in front of the house.finally backed into driveway. Called Sonnie to tell her about the snow.

March 5, Friday - Terrible driving this a.m. Slick and still snowing, took an hour to get to work. Margaret and I planning a shower for Carol jo March 21. (Tilt)

March 6, Saturday - Everything looks better. Sun is shining - first time in a week. Went to sleep in the chair before I went to bed.

Every time it snowed, we had to call Sonnie. Or every time the leaves budded out, or the leaves turned brown and fell into the yard, we called Sonnie. Sonnie and her husband Harmond and their two boys, my nephews Brian and Mark, moved to Southern California in the early sixties. So did my brother Bill, his wife Pat, and my niece Cindy.

That's where the similarities ended. While Sonnie pined for the change of seasons, Bill celebrated Christmas by building a fire in the fireplace and cranking the AC as low as he could get it. Then, he'd pack up the family and head to the beach. Bill lived out his life in Southern California, while Sonnie and Harm fled for the Chicago area, and ultimately, Denver.

Bill

Sonnie and the Boys

Meanwhile, Mom says the world looks better. This is a temporary condition. Stay tuned.

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.

Sunday, February 28

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February 28, Sunday - Raining today: So tired. Mom is feeling better. Marv ordered more gravel for the driveway, ordered new tires. Have a full schedule for tomorrow.

Our lives in a nutshell. New tires and gravel for the driveway.

Our house sat on what was once the space for six houses at the corner of 11th Street and Spruce in Kansas City. I don't know what happened to the other five houses, but we had a lot of yard to deal with. 

Our landlady, Mary Cirese, approved the addition of a gravel driveway from the 11th Street side, and it climbed a slight incline until it was even with the house. It then came around the back of the house, up to the back porch, a rough structure that today would be referred to as a deck.

It took several dump-truck-loads of crushed 1/2" aggregate to cover the driveway, and a lot of muscle work to even it out. Dad always threw in a truckload of fine-crushed gravel, colloquially know as "chat", to fill in the rougher gravel areas and make a smoother surface to walk on. More shovel work.

This is the actual house. The driveway is long gone, as is most of the yard.

Not sure, but it sounds like new snow tires late in the season. Bad weather on the way. 

Thursday, February 25

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February 25, Thursday - Cold again 5° Getting starter fixed. Fell in the store. Hope I didn't injure myself. Bud and I made out his schedule for next year. He's taking band at my suggestion.

February 26, Friday - Stopped at Mom's this morning. She's better but not her old self. Busy today, warm - 50° at 6 p.m.

February 27, Saturday - Had a good day. Felt real good and got a lot done. Spring day - 70°.

Not much to see here, but it bears mentioning that I would have been in band, no matter what Mom suggested. The push here was to step up to Varsity "A" Band at Northeast High School while I still had classes across the street at the "Junior Building". This put me in marching band, for what that was worth, at Northeast. The marching unit was a small, ragtag, group, 25 members tops, with questionable musical talent, and marching skills to match.

Truth be known, I was pretty excited about the whole thing. After six years of trumpet in the public schools, private classical lessons, and suffering through the hormone-infused middle-school shenanigans of eighth-grade band, "A" band seemed like a free ride to Juliard. They had uniforms in the Viking signature purple and white, and silver metalflake Shako hats with white plumes. It was Meredith Wilson's "Music Man" come to life, and I loved it. Did I mention the white bucks?

I'm glad no recordings of our actual playing exist. It would be horrifying to hear that today. The best connection to come out of Varsity Band, under the direct tutelage of one Mr. Harry Bianco, was Stage Band, what most might call Jazz Band today. Here I learned to improvise, 12 bars at a time. It was a small, select group of high school musicians playing hits from the Big Band era. We visited tea rooms, women's clubs and nursing homes and played the music of their lives.  This connected me back to my folks in interesting ways. Because of this connection and a family dedicated to the musical TV stylings of Mitch Miller and His Sing-Along Gang, (don't judge) I still have a soft spot for the music of the forties. Mitch helped me appreciate mens' choruses and Welsh Mens' Choirs.

Magnus Chord Organ

My dad had an emotional attachment to music that I never could put my finger on. He encouraged me at every turn, and the songs he reacted to the most were songs that I wouldn't have guessed he would have a connection to. He bought me a Magnus chord organ from Jenkins Music when I was about twelve. I wanted something I could noodle out trumpet arrangements on, and a piano was out of the question, money-wise.

The Magnus was actually pretty cool. It was a reed organ, which meant that it was basically an accordion with legs. There was a motor inside providing air that was channeled through the reeds based on which keys were pressed. It had thirty-seven piano keys and twelve chord buttons on the left side - six major, six minor. The sound was not at all unlike a parlor pump organ, a harmonium, or a large Melodica. Sheet music was available for these things that had the key notations by number as well as the chord designations. I didn't need the numbers because I could sight-read but the chords were pretty handy, because my left hand wasn't.

Outside of Christmas and the ever-present Baptist hymnal selections, dad's request list was pretty short - "The Band Played On", "Back Home Again in Indiana", "The Banks of the Wabash", "Yankee Doodle Dandy", and not much else. I always suspected that these were songs that reminded him of his first wife, an old flame, or just another time, but dad never really said as much. There was definitely a connection to Indiana, or so it seemed. He had never been to Indiana that I was aware of. I know he was envious of my ability to read and play music, but he grew up dirt-poor, and music was a luxury when there were eight people living in a 700 square foot house in Fort Scott, Kansas.

Music was a gift my dad gave me that has lasted my entire life. He bought me my first horn and signed me up for classes without even checking with mom when I was six, and used his connections to get me a classical tutor from the Kansas City Philharmonic, and it has made an incredible difference in my life. I really should have stayed with it and done more with it, but the fact that it occupies such an important part of my being is good enough. Thank you, dad.

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.

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. 

Tuesday, February 16

February 16, Tuesday - (In the margin - Stayed up late last night & watched "Tall Story"! Cute.) Snow was forecast, but the sun is shining. Bud did wear his new pants to school. He gets initiated into the speech club today.

February 17, Wednesday - Had cash audit at store. Thought sure we'd get written up on bad checks, but after juggling, Ray said we had to have 2! Happy Day!

February 18, Thursday - So tired today. Bud in program tonight and tomorrow night at school. Mom's cold is some better, but Marv doesn't feel very well.


The movie "Tall Story" must have been the Late Movie on channel 5. Would have aired at 10:30 p.m. or so. None of the three stations stayed on the air after midnight. There were distinct differences in their respective sign-offs - WDAF, channel 4, the NBC affiliate, signed off with a baritone singing "The Lord's Prayer", albeit a Baptist version  - "debts" versus "trespasses". KCMO, channel 5, representing CBS, signed off with a display of martial firepower superimposed over an American Flag while The Star Spangled Banner played. I honestly don't remember what KMBC, channel 9, ABC did to sign off. In all cases, after the sign-off, the screen went to static and white noise, usually until 6:00 a.m.

Of course Bud wore his new pants to school. It was the Bud thing to do. Today I get my badge of honor from Taming of the Crew, the Speech Club.

I'm not sure what program I was in. There are really only two choices - a band concert, or a speech event, probably an oratory. Since mom didn't mention helping me work on my speech coming up to this, I'm going with band.

Sunday, February 7

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February 7, Sunday - Damp and foggy. Went to church - communion. Mom took Bud and me to see Mary Poppins. Outstanding. When we got out of the show, freezing rain. Supposed to snow. More war in Vietnam.

February 8, Monday - Took Bud to school, got a permanent, cashed a bond - (didn't want to) did the laundry. Picked Bud up. Marv doesn't feel well, real peevish.

February 9, Tuesday - Wore my glasses all day. Got along pretty well. Business slow. Marie and I are in the dog house (home). Bud joined the Speech Club. So foggy I couldn't see across the street.

Couldn't tell you from Mary Poppins. I remember seeing it, but it felt like a fever dream to me. Flying nannies and all just didn't resonate with a kid from a tough blue-collar neighborhood.

Baptist communion was grape juice and teensy little host wafers - about half the size of Chiclets. Low-sodium, and not at all filling. The "Welch's wine" made it through the horseshoe-shaped sanctuary of Bales Baptist Church in one of several chrome trays with little half-shot glasses and the wafers were passed around the church on plates with little doilies on them. I often wondered if there were official Baptist doilies, or if these were off the rack. My confusion grew quite a bit the first time I attended a Catholic mass at Holy Trinity, right around the corner from home. That was really hard for my tiny Protestant brain to wrap around. They got big crackers and a visit with the priest, but no table service. Catholics had all the cool stuff - statues, candles, medieval vestments, and a standing routine that parishioners could recite in their sleep.

Several times, mom refers to cashing bonds. These were mature U.S. Savings bonds, and mom and dad burned through their nest egg just trying to keep their heads above water. This was particularly evident in winter, when dad couldn't make fish bait. We always ate better in summer.

Marie Cook and mom were the glue that held the front end together at the store, but somehow when one of them got in hot water they both did. This was most often because of a short till, or for a bad check that came back.

Speech club was a branch of Mrs. Womack's speech class, and went by the all-too-clever name of "Taming of the Crew." During the pledge phase, established TOCs, who always traveled in packs like coyotes, could stop you in the hall, and require you to perform "buttons." A button was a maneuver where you stuck one arm out to the side, placed your opposite index finger on your nose, and then proceeded to do deep squats, the number determined by the sadistic drama-nerd coyote ringleader. Since I was fresh from my broken foot, I was exempt from the buttons embarrassment. Instead, I was usually handed a script of some kind, and ordered to recite, as loudly as possible, in the middle of the cavernous concrete halls of Northeast Junior High School. One "I'm a little teapot" is plenty, thanks.

One morning, I was lassoed  at the close of the morning pledge to the flag assembly, and dragged up on the auditorium stage, where I dutifully recited, in my pre-pubescent tenor voice, an excerpt from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in front of probably 800 or 900 students. They stood in rapt attention, watching the pudgy fourteen-year-old spew Tennyson, while flop-sweat poured down his face. My voice cracked when I read "theirs is not to reason why,". When I completed the assigned performance, some of the kids in the auditorium clapped, others catcalled and whistled. A few yelled. I earned my badge. Later that day I received my official TOC pin - a pin-back felt badge in red and black of the classic Comedy and Drama mask. It was quite an honor, and validation of my innate hamminess. The show must go on.

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.

Monday, February 1

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February 1, Monday - High 10º - Very cold - quiet day for me. Got my hair fixed and did the laundry. The rest of the day I loafed and took a nap. Marv is so good to me.

February 2, Tuesday - Cold today - the same old thing at Kroger. Zone meeting at the store Mom says she will take us to see Mary Poppins Sunday.

February 3, Wednesday - Went to Dr. Williams and had my back cracked. Getting ready for the weekend. Looks as though we'll be busy. Every man looked like Dad today.

A typical day off, another couple of days at work, and a trip to the chiropractor. A zone meeting is the Zone Manager, in this case, I think it was Charlie Gamper, plus all the store managers from his zone, converging for a butt-chewing day of motivation. Grandma Patton is taking us to see Mary Poppins next weekend.

Mom still misses her dad terribly. He died suddenly about four months earlier. It was one of the few somber funerals I can remember in our family. Most of our funerals were light-hearted, even fun to attend. When Grandma Patton died in August of 1971, the services at the Fulton-Nickel funeral home in Kansas City, Kansas were serious, but not somber or tearful. She had been in declining health for quite some time, and her last days at the nursing home on Benton Boulevard were painful to watch.

As we formed the half-mile-long funeral procession that would take her body to our family cemetery near Leavenworth, Kansas, I assured my date - yes, I took a date to grandma's funeral - that the lighthearted party she had just witnessed really was our family's way of remembering Grandma Patton.

My mom and her family were in the limousine following the casket-bearing hearse and a heavily-laden flower car. My dad gave the driver directions through Leavenworth, and out onto Highway 92 west of town. Somewhere after the Highway 92 turn, things went horribly wrong. Dad got a little confused, and got us a little lost.

The hearse, and subsequently, every other car, made a series of wrong turns and eventually onto a three-block-long dead end street near the edge of town. As the hearse driver realized that there had been a horrible mistake and began to turn around, the centipede of cars scrambled for a way to get back in line behind all the black Cadillacs. The limo that I was riding in came to a stop directly next a woman in a flowered duster who was weeding her yard.

She waved at our car, and we rolled down the window. As the hearse pulled even with us on the other side of the street, she informed us, "You can't stop here, this is a dead end!"

This brought the parade to a complete stop, as everyone, included the staid and double-starched funeral director broke into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Eventually we negotiated our way out of Leavenworth on Highway 92 and pulled into the little oak-shaded cemetery on the northwest side of the road - there was only enough room for six or seven cars on the cemetery grounds, so the rest were parked down the highway toward Easton. When everyone had assembled graveside, the minister began the service: "Pansy Elizabeth Patton . . . and everyone just came unglued. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and no one was crying. Pansy loved to travel, and had zero sense of direction or the time involved to actually get anywhere. She would have loved the meander to her final resting place.

The girl I was with talked about my grandma's funeral for years afterward, although I'm fairly sure she thought we were all batshit crazy. This funeral was the most fun I've ever had in a cemetery. Check that - it was the second most fun I've ever had in a cemetery. Ask me about that story some other time.