Saturday, July 31

July 31, Saturday - Hated to come to work today. Stayed in bed till 10:00. Had a nice day. Home by 9:30

Mom's life is flat right now. Her Saturday shift is noon to 9:00 p.m. She's trying to get back in a groove of some kind, but she's still worn out from the physical and emotional stress of dealing with her breast cancer, the treatments, and all her time off work.

Wednesday, July 28

July 28, Wednesday - 

July 29, Thursday - 

July 30, Friday - Pat Simpson called today. She got to town Tuesday for a month. Sonnie and Harm are not coming home.

Pat Simpson is my brother's wife. Sonnie and Harm are my sister and her husband.

Sunday, July 25

July 25, Sunday - Nice cool day. Went to church - went out to eat and took a nap. Went fishing a few hours in evening. Nice day.

July 26, Monday - Went to beauty shop and helped do washing. Took nap and went fishing in the evening. Nice weekend.

July 27, Tuesday - 

More tedium from the heartland. The only consistent theme in all this is fishing. Always the fishing.

Thursday, July 22

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July 22, Thursday - Worked pretty hard. Forgot to send in KMP order. Upset the whole Kroger organization.

July 23, Friday - My first paycheck since March. Hot

July 24, Saturday - Worked late with Johnson.

"KMP" is the order system for items carrying Kroger house brands. There were no computers, of course, just big - and I mean big - clipboards with pages and pages of items listed by category. I can only imagine how mom felt having dropped the ball on this major piece of the store's stock order.

When I finally got my shot at carrying the mega-clipboard in the early '70s, I found that the items you were trying to order were not listed in planogram order.

If you've never worked retail, a planogram is a visual shelf-space planning system for placing merchandise in a company-approved manner. At Kroger, planograms showed the item name, shelf placement on the gondolas, and the correct number for product facings. Most of the product resets were done by a traveling band of store merchandisers who swoop in, make lots of noise, reset the shelves, then swoop back out again.

By the time I went to work at Lowe's in 2010, planograms were largely executed by in-store Product Services staff, though most departments still had to deal with the process on a regular basis. At a warehouse store, though, the shelfs are fourteen feet high and able to carry tons of product, both at customer level and in high top stock, accessible by ladder and personnel lifts and by fork-lifts and reach trucks.

One of the highlights of my time at Lowe's was being to add "Fork Lift Certified" to my resumé.

Mom finally gets a real paycheck again. Soul-crushing, mind-bubbling heat in Kansas City, complete with wet-towel humidity.

Saturday night at Kroger. Man, that's living.

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, July 16

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July 16, Friday - Didn't work as hard today. Spent afternoon in office. Didn't feel too hot all day. Boss said I didn't have to work Sunday. I'm glad!

July 17, Saturday - Took Bud to hobby shop first thing. He told me I was one of the good ones. So is he! So ends my first week back. Hot today. 93°

July 18, Sunday - Intended to go to church, but slept until 10. Rained on and off all day. Went over and showed Mom Colorado pictures in evening.

The office in Kroger parlance was usually a square platform near the cash registers at the front of the store. For mom, it meant she could sit on a stool and count tills, make deposits and change for the checkers. I learned to count tills from my mom. She'll get through the next day and have Sunday off. Saturday was her day to work until close, finish off the week's books and make deposits. She would typically turn around and be back at work at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. Turn and burn.

The "Hobby Shop" is Northeast Toy and Hobby, directly across Independence Avenue from Northeast Junior High. Owned by the Collins family, the Hobby Shop was my Saturday addiction, mostly car models, greatly detailed, and way more expensive than I would have thought, considering. Model kits by AMT or Revell would have retailed for about $3.95 - about $32 in 2020 purchasing power. I had boxes and boxes of spare parts from other kits, and would use them to build custom versions and one-off hot rods. Jesus, I was spoiled.

The good news is that the time I invested working on 1/25 scale model cars returned benefits when it came time to work on real cars.  The analog is flawed when it scales up, but I knew where everything went, how most things worked, and I rebuilt my first small-block Chevy engine the following year. The Visible V8 Engine helped me there.

I can't remember, but I think the firing order was the same as Chevy's 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. You're welcome.

The rest of the kits were by AMT, Revell, and occasionally, Monogram. The vast majority of my cars were customs, hot rods, and a few race cars. 

Shoot, if I was doing this now, you could even get a White Freightliner Cab-Over.

That earworm is provided at no charge. I got all the way into July without posting a music link, or a reference to Lyle Lovett. This video showcases some of my favorite people in the music business doing a favorite Townes van Zandt song. They are all consummate musicians, but pay particular attention to Keith Sewell's amazing flatpicking skills. Bonus: one of the great drummers of all time, Russ Kunkel, not behind a huge drum rig, but perched on a little cajon. He looks happy to be there. (Russ Kunkel and I sport similar hair styles.)

Tuesday, July 13

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July 13, Tuesday - First day back. It all comes back (like a bad dream). The usual routine. So many people were glad to see me - it embarrasses me.

July 14, Wednesday - More of the same. Went fishing with Marv in the evening.

July 15, Thursday - Worked too hard today. Woke up in the middle of the night and the bed was spinning.

Mom finally gets to go back to work after her mastectomy. She was extremely popular with her Kroger family, and was a kind of store "Mom". She had her choice of stores in the Kroger system, but stayed with her store at 31st and Minnesota Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. It was about ten miles from our house in Northeast Kansas City, Missouri. That decision was obviously colored by her wanting to be in close proximity to her folks, who lived at 15th and Garfield, just a couple of miles away. Her family always came first.

As hard as mom worked, she seldom took breaks, and never complained, especially to her Kroger kids. Looking back, I'm surprised she didn't just drop dead at work.