1948-1970 Dad and Me

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Mike

I have limited the period covered by this entry to the years before I left for the army in October of 1970. The few face-to-face contacts that I had with my parents from my arrival in Connecticut up to the last time that I saw my mom are listed in the “Mom and me” blog entry.

James E. Wavada was born on August 25, 1924, or at least that is what he has always claimed. For some reason he was never able to locate his birth certificate. I learned about this when he encountered difficulty in obtaining an official ID card in 2005 after he moved to Connecticut. He was the youngest of the three sons of Henry and Hazel Wavada. They lived in Holy Name parish in the Rosedale section of Kansas City, KS. His two brothers were named Victor and Henry Joseph (Uncle Vic and Fr. Joe to me).

The Wavadas: from the left Fr. Joe, dad, Uncle Vic, Grandmom Hazel, and Grandad Henry. My mom probably took this photo with her Brownie.

Hazel’s maiden name was Cox. My dad said that they were “Scotch Irish”, descended from the people whom the British government transplanted from Scotland to Northern Ireland. Hazel once confided to me that the Wade Hamptons¹, powerful figures in South Carolina in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were among her ancestors.

Henry was fifteen years older than Hazel. I think that they were both employed in the meat packing industry in some capacity. Henry’s ancestry is foggy to me.² My dad considered himself Irish, but the first Wavadas (or whatever the name was originally) reportedly set sail from Marseilles and lived in Alsace. They apparently settled in Fort Wayne, IN.

Jim was decidedly left-handed. Swinging a golf club was the only thing that he did right-handed^.3 His writing method involved curling his hand around so that he pulled the pen instead of pushing it. My understanding is that that meant that his right hemisphere was dominant and his cerebrum was contralaterally organized. The script that this produced was illegible to nearly everyone except for mom and his secretary.

As a youth dad reportedly had a temporary episode of alopecia totalis. It must have been very embarrassing for him, but all of his hair eventually grew back. I judged that the somewhat weird fact that his scalp hair was still dark when his eyebrows had turned white⁴ was probably related to that illness in his youth. I might be wrong.

For a while he called himself “Pibby”. Evidently he had difficulty saying “Jimmy”.

My dad never had anything good to say about his father, who was an alcoholic. He told me that Hazel had to pull him out of bars. Other anecdotes about Henry and his family have been posted here.

My dad and his two brothers grew up during the depression. It must have been extremely tough on Hazel, but she was up to it. She lived longer than all of my other known antecedents. She died in 1989 at the age of 90.

This, believe it or not, is the dormitory in which the three Wavada boys lived while they

Jim and his brothers all matriculated at Maur Hill, a boarding school run by the Benedictine monks. It was located in Atchison, KS, approximately fifty miles from KC KS. Hazel reportedly negotiated a deal with the Benedictines that one of the boys would become a priest if all three were given scholarships. I know only a few things about my dad’s time at Maur Hill:

The photo of Jim Wavada in the *Maurite* for 1942

His yearbook lists the following activities:
- Course: Classical
- Tatler (the student newspaper): 3
- Honor Roll: 2,3
- Sacristan: 2
- Pres. Servers’ Society: 4
- Student Manager Athletics: 3.
The fact that no activities were listed with a “1” leads me to think that he probably attended Ward High as a freshman and then transferred.
He won the school-wide oratory contest in 1942. This was not in his yearbook, but I learned about it when the school invited him back to judge the contest decades later, perhaps in 1962. I accompanied him to Atchison.
He confided to me that he had been terrible at math (especially geometry) and French. The French teacher reportedly said that he had the worst French accent he had ever heard. I suspect that he got through the other subjects using his incredible memory and his writing and speaking talent.
He learned to play back-handed ping pong. I played him once. He could not handle spin, but his reflexes were much better than mine.
He learned from other students that smoking was cool. He became addicted to cigarettes for more than forty years.
He learned to play golf, but the only clubs available were right-handed.
A man named Henry Etchegaray, who lived in Mexico City but was in dad’s class at Maur Hill (and lettered in football!), visited us one time. I remember no details.

At some point while he was in high school he evidently met my mom. Maybe it was shortly after he graduated and she was on summer break . They never told me the details, and I never asked. I am pretty sure that they communicated by mail while he was in the army, but I have not seen any of the letters.

The guy on the right is dad. The other gentleman is, I think, the man named Louis that we visited in Colorado.

Shortly after high school he enlisted. He told me that he was rejected (in World War II!) by the navy for “insufficient chest and shoulder development”. Maybe it was just as well; he could not swim. I never saw him in a swimming pool or pond, but he did take a motorboat out on Cass Lake in Minnesota a few times.

He was six feet tall and weighed 123 pounds when he first donned the olive drab. His performance on the mechanical aptitude test that the army required new enlistees to take was so bad that the guy running the test accused him of cheating on the other tests.

He served in the Pacific in WW II. He almost never talked about it except to say that he did well in ping pong. He ended as a sergeant, but something that he mentioned once seemed to indicate that he had been busted a rank or two at least once. He had little respect for most of the other grunts that he served with, but he made one life-long friend in Jake Jacobson.

I would love to know where dad and mom were when this photo was taken and who took it. Note that dad has his cigarette in his right hand, probably as a courtesy to mom.

Fighting for more than two years against the Japanese definitely had a permanent effect on his world view. Our family never had rice for supper when Jim was in town. If he ever ate any oriental food, it was not until late in his life. He firmly believed that the two nuclear attacks ended the war. I wondered what he would have thought when historians began to assert that the Japanese government and military leaders were more concerned about the Russians’ invasion of northern islands than the immolation of civilians.

Nearly all of my dad’s friends went to college on the G.I. bill. He did not. I am not sure that he even considered it.

This is my favorite photo from the wedding.

He married Dolores Cernech on September 1, 1947. His brother Joe, who had been ordained only three months earlier, officiated at the wedding in St. Peter’s cathedral in KC KS. What transpired in the year and a half between my dad’s discharge and the wedding? Decades later he disclosed two nuggets of information about that period: 1) Mom’s father was against the marriage, but Clara, her mother, somehow persuaded her husband that it was for the best; 2) He might have gotten into serious trouble if he did not get married. There were no more details, but he also mentioned something about pinball machines, which in those days were common in bars.

Life in KC KS 1948-54

The couple lived for seven and a half years in the house owned by Dolores’s parents, John and Clara Cernech. As far as I know, dad never worked anywhere except Business Men’s Assurance (BMA). I assume that he was employed there when he got married, but I could find no proof of it. As an employee he would have almost certainly received free health insurance. Otherwise, I cannot imagine how he could have afforded all of the medical bills my first few years on earth certainly generated.

Dad and J.K. Higdon, president of BMA, in 1951. I know only one other person with a head shaped like dad’s.

I can only imagine what my dad thought when he heard about my hare lip. He never talked about it later. In fact, I cannot remember him talking to me much at all in the years before I started school. The only memorable conversation was when he lightly reprimanded me for trading my Mickey Mantle baseball card to someone for a Vic Power card.

Dad was apparently pretty active at BMA. He started at the bottom, but by 1951 he was president of the KEO (“Know Each Other”) social club and one of four staff members on the company’s internal newspaper. In a short time he was transferred tp the sales department, where he eventually rose to the rank of Vice President. I think that he may have played a little baseball or softball there, too. The only equipment that he had was a first baseman’s glove. Although he sardonically referred to himself as “a natural athlete”, I never saw that side of him.

My only vivid memory of my dad in the house in KC KS involves the train set that he and Joey Keuchel set up “for me”⁵ in the basement. I am not sure how much my dad actually participated in that effort. I cannot remember ever seeing him use a tool as complicated as a screwdriver.

How dad got to work in the five years after my birth is unclear. Perhaps he took a bus or “street car” (trolly). In 1954 he bought a blue and white Ford. My recollection is that he had quite a bit of trouble with it. The word “lemon” was frequently employed.

I am pretty sure that Jake Jacobson visited us at least once before we moved to the suburbs. I remember that he had a big car, perhaps a convertible. He claimed that he could steer with his belly. When I got rambunctious he would cheerfully shout, “Michael, decorum!” I am pretty sure that the three of us rode with him to Swope Park for a picnic. A fair amount of beer was consumed. I remember a contest of pitching empty beer cans into the trash receptacle. In the fifties this was considered highly responsible behavior. People in those days thought nothing of hurling litter out of car windows. Let the prisoners clean it up.

I have a vague recollection of Fr. Joe taking me fishing at least once at Wyandotte County Lake. I don’t remember if mom or dad (very unlikely) was present. I seem to remember that there was a “gas war” going on. The going price was $.199 per gallon.

To my knowledge the only vacation that the three of us took was a long drive to Colorado to visit a man named Louis, who was one of Hazel’s relatives. I don’t remember his last name. This trip has been recounted here.

Prairie Village

In early 1955 the three of us moved to 7717 Maple, Prairie Village, KS, about twenty miles south of the house on N. Thorpe. My dad may have been in a car pool for work. Several BMA employees lived nearby.

I could hardly believe it when I found this picture. From left on the couch are Grandad John, me, Jamie, Clara, Hazel, Henry. On the far right is my dad. I don’t know who the person leaning in on the left is. I assume that the photographer was mom.

This was a big deal for me. We were in a new parish, which meant that I finished first grade at Queen of the Holy Rosary School instead of St. Peter’s. The Ursulines at QHRS seemed much nicer. Dad actually knew a few of them who had taught at his grade school in Holy Name parish in Rosedale.

When my sister Jamie arrived on the scene in January of 1956 dad must have been at least somewhat involved in picking her name. I don’t know how they came up with Jamesina. No St. Jamesina can be found in Wikipedia. They certainly did not ask my opinion. No one ever called her anything but Jamie.

Sometimes dad brought work home. On those occasions he sat at the kitchen table and filled up pads of paper with writing that reminded me of rain. Otherwise, he stretched out on our green sofa and read the newspapers (the Kansas City Star still had two editions), Time, Newsweek, or something about life insurance or marketing. He took no notes. He was not researching; he was absorbing.

If he read a book, it was non-fiction. I remember him reading only one novel ever, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.. The salty language put him off.

He never watched movies. He said that he could not suspend disbelief. He saw people walking around furniture saying words that other people had written and feigning emotions. He attended one movie that I know of. It was a biopic, either Lust for Life, about Van Gogh, or The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo. He said that the movie was good, but, as far as I know, he never saw another one while he was in Kansas.

The only things that he watched on television were sports, especially football, and news. Occasionally he would peak at something that Jamie and I were watching. Batman comes to mind.

Dad and I watched football games as soon as they started appearing on television. I remember that the pros used a white ball for night games, and runners who were knocked down could jump back up and continue running. His favorite team was the Chicago Bears; mine was the Cleveland Browns.

We did no projects together, mostly because the only project that I can remember him doing was working on the lawn. I did the mowing,_⁶ but he did some weeding, planting, fertilizing, and lots of watering. The results were mixed. I helped only when coerced. To me the weeds had the same esthetic value as his Kentucky bluegrass.

Dad took me to several games of the hapless Kansas City A’s, who played their games in Municipal Stadium, which was in a fairly rough neighborhood. My recollection is that we parked on the street for those games. These events have been described here. I don’t remember us talking about anything at the games except how pitiful the A’s were. We were definitely present for the legendary 29-6 loss to the Chicago White Sox on April 23, 1955.

We also took in one home game of Maur Hill football. I don’t remember who the opponent was, but they probably lost. I also have a vague recollection of attending a game at the University of Kansas. Since I remember no details of that event, I may have fantasized it.

Dad and I drove with our neighbor, Ed Leahy, to south-central Kansas one weekend. I don’t think that the Interstates were completed yet. We drove mostly at night. I remember sleeping in the back seat.

We spent one day hunting quail or pheasants and one day at the State Fair in Hutchinson. This adventure has been described here.

The family’s big vacation to the East Coast is detailed here. Dad did almost all of the driving.

I remember two other trips with my dad. I am not sure whether my mom was along. On the first one we visited dad’s Uncle Vic Wavada (Henry’s brother) in, I believe, Nevada, MO. I remember no details at all. Great-uncle Vic died in 1962. By the way, the town is pronounced locally as nuh VAY duh, miz URR uh.

On the other journey we visited an older man named Crispy Ward somewhere near Jefferson City, MO. He might have been a salesman for BMA. We went fishing together in a small boat. I doubt that my dad participated. I had trouble with my line getting caught up in the vegetation. Crispy nicknamed me “Snag.” Fortunately, it did not catch on.

Dad and I did not do very much together. He played catch with me occasionally. The only thing that I recall that he ever taught me was how to wash myself. My reaction was a silent “Well, duh.”

Did my dad have any friends in the area? He talked to a few of the neighbors. He and mom went to social occasions at the homes of some of the other BMA employees a few times. The only other friends that I can recall were Boots and Fay Hedrick. I seem to recall that dad, mom, or both knew them from KC KS. They had a son named John who was about my age.

You could probably do it with one hand in a pocket.

I started wearing glasses in 1958 or thereabouts. My dad also wore glasses when he drove the car. Otherwise, he shunned their use. He nagged me about the fact that I put mine on as soon as I woke up and wore them continually until I went to bed. I took them off when playing football and whenever large amounts of water were involved. He could not understand why I always wore them. I wanted to see, and my prescription was much stronger than his was. The year before I got them I batted .000 in 3&2 baseball. It was humiliating. Give a kid a break.

The other thing that he nagged me about was putting my hands in my pockets. Whenever I heard him say, “You can’t climb the ladder with your hands in your pockets” I would spin my head around to see which ladder he was referring to. I never saw it.

Leawood

At the end of the 1961-62 school year the Wavadas moved south and east a few miles to 8800 Fairway in Leawood, KS. This house was much nicer than either of our previous two residences. It had three bedrooms, a large living room, a dining room, a rec room, a two-car garage, a basement, and an attic. It also had central air conditioning and a large fan in the ceiling of the hallway by the bedrooms. Every summer evening my dad would order the air conditioning turned off and the fan turned on. All the windows were opened except for the ones in my bedroom. I left mine closed and shut my door when I went to bed in order to muffle the sound of the fan.

My dad joined a car pool to BMA. Its members included Malcolm Holzer, the company’s treasurer, and Mac Dolliver, an actuary whose family lived only a block away from us. There was at least one other person in the car pool. In inclement weather they would drive me to Rockhurst High School. On most other days I walked.

For one of my birthdays my parents got me a wooden basketball backboard and orange rim of iron. My dad and, I think, my grandfather, John Cernech, mounted it on the roof above the driveway. The backboard was not quite vertical, and the rim broke in one place, but I still played there extensively.

A later Christmas present was a six-foot pool table that dad and mom clandestinely set up in the basement. Its surface was wood covered by felt that quickly warped, but I did not care. I practiced on it many evenings, especially in cold weather. While I did so I listened to my records on a portable turntable that I acquired somewhere. Nobody could beat me on my table because I knew how to play the “break” in the southeast corner.

At the new house dad had a much larger front lawn to maintain. He cared not a lick about the bushes, the side lawns, or the much larger back yard. I think that he was secretly competitive about this hobby. Our neighbors to the north, the Westergrens, had a thick lawn, but the grass was fescue, not bluegrass. Dad considered fescue to be weeds. It completely took over the lawn on the north side of the driveway. My dad concentrated on the 90 percent of the lawn that was south of the driveway. He waged a war against any fescue that somehow crossed the driveway.

By this time we had a self-propelled lawnmower. I was an energetic teenager; mowing the lawn was actually somewhat pleasurable for me. However, once a year dad rented a heavy machine that sucked up loose vegetation from the lawn. It was not self-propelled, and it was a huge pain to push.

As before, dad spent nearly every summer evening listening to news, sports, or talk on his small transistor radio. Never music; he no appreciation of music. Once in a while a song would strike his fancy, but I could not name even one song that he liked that was released between “Oh, My Papa” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Seriously.

Dad had two season tickets to the Chiefs’ home games, which took place at Municipal Stadium until Arrowhead Stadium opened in 1972. Sometimes he took mom. Once or twice a year he took me. In 1965 he let me bring two friends from Rockhurst, Ed Oakes⁷ and Dan Waters. Win or lose, I had a great time at these games. From 1966 to 1969 I could not attend because I was in Ann Arbor. After that I never lived in KC in the fall.

I cannot remember anything about our communication during the games. We talked mostly about the players and strategy.

Why so much responsibility for the pinkies, and only one fat key for one thumb?

Dad had little involvement with my schooling. I sometimes rode to Rockhurst with him and the other members of his car pool. The only other involvement with my high school years that I recall involved speech competitions. He let me have his old Time and Newsweek magazines. I used them in my competition in extemporaneous speaking. They were very helpful.

Dad worked on projects with a Benedictine named Roger Rumery. Fr. Roger somehow obtained a book that explained in detail the process of learning to type. I spent a lot of time with it and an old Royal machine that was, I think, my mom’s.⁸ I became quite proficient at the keyboard. I used my new skill to type evidentiary quotes on index cards, arguments, and entire speeches. Later this skill became even more useful. Only God knows how many millions of words I have typed over the last sixty years or so.

Health

My dad was almost never ill, but he had problems with his back. At some point I am pretty sure that he had an operation that only helped a little, if at all. I have a vague recollection that he occasionally suspended himself in a closet in order to stretch something in his back. I never saw this, and I may have just concocted it from stories. At some point it must have gotten better. I don’t remember him wincing or complaining about it after the early sixties.

The only exercise that dad got was on the golf course. BMA purchased a family membership for the Wavadas at Blue Hills Country Club. Dad played there on weekends. He seldom used an electric cart. He walked with his bag in a two-wheeled cart that he towed behind him.

I must mention that although dad loved the game of golf, he was not very good at it.⁹ He had a good excuse. He was left-handed, and he was using right-handed clubs. He never mentioned this, and he never tried to swing left-handed, at least not to my knowledge. He did experiment with left-handed putting.

Dad and I played together several times per year. Did I enjoy it? Not really. He made me very nervous. He was always watching the group in front of us and the group behind us to make sure that we were not holding anyone up. I was (and am) not a good loser. When I hit a bad shot, I beat myself up over it. I had made a pretty detailed study of the golf swing (described here). I knew how to correct a slice (often) or hook (almost never). It frustrated me enormously that the balls sometimes did not go where I planned.

Nevertheless, playing with him raised my game up to respectability. I did enjoy the competition when I was playing as part of a pair or a team. I played on my company’s team in the army (related in some detail here) and in the golf league at the Hartford. My partner John Sigler and I were in first place in the entire league when I broke my kneecap. Those adventures have been chronicled here.

Occasionally he asked me for evaluations of his swing. I never volunteered an opinion. If I had, it would have sounded something like, “Well, your grip is wrong, and your stance is wrong. It is hard for me to say anything until you change them.”

His reply to my silence would be something like, “I think that I am pushing the ball”, “Am I swaying?”, or “I need to swing through it more.” I had no idea what any of these meant in terms of body parts involved in a golf swing.

My dad played golf until he became lame and blind in his eighties. For decades after I left the Hartford I could afford neither the time nor the expense of the game. In my seventies I had absolutely no regrets about giving it up.

Friends

My parents seemed to have a lot more friends in Leawood than they did in Prairie Village, but not in the neighborhood. Most of them were parishioners at our new parish, Curé of Ars. The two that I remember the most were Mike Goral, a golfing buddy, and Phil Closius. They were both transplants from the New York area.

What I inherited from my dad:

Physical build
Hair color
Head shape
Speaking and writing abilities
Political tendencies
Love of travel, although I did not witness this much as a youngster.

1. The three Hamptons named Wade were very influential in South Carolina in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If Hazel was a direct descendant (she might have said “related to”), I suspect that Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. would be able to tell me exactly how many slaves they had, but rest assured that there would be a comma in the answer.

2. A fairly large number of Wavadas lived in the Spokane, WA, area. One of them has done genealogical research. My dad had a copy of her findings, but, unfortunately, when he died Sue got her hands on it, and it entered the black hole of her existence. If I had to guess, I would place it in her garage, which has long been impenetrable.

3. Not quite true. I found one photo of him with a cigarette in his right hand.

4.Mine was just the opposite. My scalp was almost completely grey when the first white hairs appeared in my eyebrows.

5. I had no say in the design, and I only was allowed to handle the controls a few times under strict supervision.

6. I would have been too small to handle a lawnmower in the first few years in PV. Someone else must have done it. My money is on my mom.

7. My recollection is that Ed did not bring a jacket and was shivering by the second half.

8. It must have been. My dad certainly did not know how to type. He hunted and pecked.

9. For some reason he was pretty good at using a 3-wood from the fairway. Most people consider this one of the most difficult in the game. He was also a much better putter than I was.

2011 Jim Wavada’s Funeral and Estate

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Mike

The last of the Mohicans. Continue reading →

My dad died at Hartford Hospital on Tuesday, September 13, 2011. At the time he had been living in Connecticut for almost six years. That period has been described in some detail here. After his death it fell to me to make all of the arrangements for his funeral, disposition of his estate, and other such tasks.

My wife Sue definitely helped, and my dad made it easy for me by making a lot of preparations. He had written a carefully worded will, and he made me its executor. He had also added me as a signatory on his bank accounts and beneficiary of his investments.

The first thing that I did was to call my sister Jamie and notify her that he had died. I asked her to attend the funeral and told her that there was enough money in his accounts to pay for her and her five children to come to the funeral that I planned to schedule in Leawood, KS, where my dad had spent the bulk of his adult life. This was the first time that I had talked with Jamie for several years, as explained here. She thanked me for taking care of him, but she would not consider coming to the funeral. She said that he would have hated her being there, which I am quite certain was not true. None of her five children attended either. I don’t have any evidence that she had anything to do with their decisions, but …

My dad and mom had been active members of Curé of Ars church. I called the pastor, Monsignor Charles McGlinn¹, to arrange the funeral mass. Somehow the subject of Boy Scouts came up. I told him that shortly after my family moved to Leawood back in 1962 I had joined Troop 395 and was the troop’s first Eagle Scout. I had spent most of my scouting days in Troop 295 at Queen of the Holy Rosary. He had also been the pastor there, but well after my time.

He remembered my dad and mom, and he scheduled the funeral mass for 10AM on Friday, September 23. I told him that my dad wished to be cremated. He said that that would be fine. In fact, it was the usual practice for deaths in distant locations. This surprised me quite a bit. I had been taught that the resurrection of the bodies would occur on Judgment Day. I supposed that if you believed that, you could imagine some way that the body could be reconstituted from ashes.

I had been composing dad’s obituary in my head while he had been in palliative care at the hospital. Since newspapers charged by the word for obituaries, dad would have appreciated that I kept it short and to the point. I sent this to the Kansas City Star.

James E. Wavada, 87, died on September 13, 2011, in Hartford, CT. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Curé of Ars Church, 9401 Mission Rd., Leawood. Jim grew up in Rosedale, matriculated at Maur Hill, and served in the Army in WWII. He worked at BMA for almost four decades, starting in the mail room and ending as a vice-president of public relations. He had a great love of words, except for “I,” which he almost never used. His astounding memory could produce an apt literary quote for any occasion. After he retired, he wrote Yup the Organization, a tongue-in-cheek guide to climbing the corporate ladder. The best day of Jim’s life was when he married Dolores Cernech. The worst was when she died more than 50 years later. Jim is survived by his son, Mike, daughter, Jamie, five grandchildren, and innumerable friends and admirers.

Four decades? Where did I get that? Well, as usual, nobody checked my work. I was very proud of this little essay at the time, but given another chance I would at least remove the commas after “son” and “daughter”.

I am sure that there was some sort of reception. I think that my dad’s friends had set up something in the vestibule, and there was a reception line there before mass. I don’t remember going to a funeral home there.

I don’t remember calling anyone else about the funeral. Sue might have called the Raffertys. They probably notified their friends and others who knew dad. Two of my cousins lived in KC. One of them probably saw the obituary and notified the others. Charlie, Vic, and Cathy were certainly there. I am not so sure about Margaret Anne.

Somehow dad’s old army buddy, Jake Jacobson², heard about it and came down by himself from Milwaukee. I think that he might have called me to say that he was coming.

I was thrilled that he was able to make the trip. I knew that he was five years older than my dad, but he seemed to be quite vigorous. However, he confessed to me that whenever he changed locations, he made sure that he knew where the nearest bathroom was located.

The other surprise was Joan Dobel³, the mother of Pat Dobel, my friend and classmate at Rockhurst High School and my very first debate partner. I had never met her, but evidently she had been A friend of my parents.

Sue and I made arrangements with Leete-Stephens Funeral Home in Enfield. We decided not to hold any gatherings in Enfield. The people at L-S took care of the cremation privately. They gave me an urn containing the ashes. I was shocked to learn that I was required to carry them on the airplane as carry-on luggage.

Sue and I flew to KCI a day or two before the day of the funeral. We certainly rented a car from Avis.

I am pretty sure that we stayed at the Hampton Inn that was near I-435 in Overland Park. We may have made arrangements for Jake to stay there, too.

I have a vague recollection that Sue and I picked up Jake at the airport, but I am not positive. If I did not, I have trouble imagining how he got around. I don’t remember him taking taxis.

The funeral mass itself was well attended. My parents had a lot of friends in the area. One of the ladies that had worked closely with him at BMA was also there. Dad sometimes talked about her when I was still living in Leawood many years earlier, but I cannot remember her name.

I did not take an active roll in the ceremony. I don’t think that anyone spoke about my dad, but I could be wrong. This was a marked contrast with my mom’s funeral as posted here.

I remember that Sue and I rode in one of the funeral home’s cars out to the cemetery. It seemed like a long drive. We were in the same care as Monsignor McGlinn. I felt uncomfortable, but he did nothing to cause me to feel that way.

By far the highlight of the entire trip was supper at RC’s in the Martin City neighborhood of KC MO. My dad and I frequented this restaurant on my visits to KC (documented here). All my cousins and some of their kids joined Sue, me, and Jake. Cathy’s future husband, Patrick Wisor, was also there. My dad’s estate picked up the tab.

I don’t know what about the atmosphere at RC’s⁴ made this such an enjoyable evening for me. I don’t remember any of the details of the conversation, but I do recall that everyone seemed relaxed and having a good time. It helped to cement some relationships between me and my cousins. We had known each other for decades, but we had spent very little time together.

Disposition of the estate: This was a surprisingly easy job. My dad left his financial records in remarkably good condition. He had previously added my name to his accounts, and his will was straightforward. I was the executor. The will left everything to me, but in private conversations he told me that he also wanted to take care of Jamie’s children.

I made one or two visits to the office of Richard Tatoian, a probate attorney in Enfield. I told him that I was worried that my sister might give me some trouble about the will. He advised me that my dad made his intentions very clear, and he did not think that anyone could contest it. The total estate was worth about $180,000. I sent checks for $9,000 each to Cadie and Kelly Mapes and Gina, Anne, and Joey Lisella. After the first of the year I sent a second check for the same amount to each of them.

After Sue and I had taken the few things that we wanted (electronic equipment and mementos) from dad’s apartment Sue contacted Golden Gavel Auctions in East Windsor to pick up all of the rest of dad’s stuff at Bigelow Commons. They were able to sell some of it, but it barely covered the cost of carting away the rest of it.

Dealing with Bigelow Commons was a pleasure. They waived the right to the rent for the rest of the term of dad’s lease. They also told me how much they enjoyed having my dad as a tenant.

Many years later I discovered in my dad’s papers two very interesting tickets: one for Super Bowl III (the Joe Namath game) and one for the 1970 Rose Bowl, Bo Schembechler’s first.

1. Monsignor McGlinn was the pastor of Curé of Ars from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Before that he had been the pastor at Queen of the Holy Rosary, our parish for eight years. He died in 2020 at the age of 78. His very revealing obituary has been posted here.

2. Jake died in 2023 at the age of 103 and a half! His truly fabulous obituary is posted here. It is by far the best that I have ever seen. The obituary contains a story written by his son Paul (introduced here). It mentioned, among many other things, that Jake was in counter-intelligence in Europe in WW II. This surprised me greatly. My dad was in the infantry in the Pacific. I wondered how the two of them met and managed to develop a relationship that lasted for so long. I could not figure out a way to contact Paul to see if he knew the answer.

3. Joan died in 2013. Her obituary has been posted here.

4. RC’s changed hands in 2023. Its history is documented here.

1955-1961 Part 5: Events and Activities

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Mike

Daily life in Prairie Village, KS Continue reading →

Jamie: The biggest event, by far, of my years in grade school was the birth of my sister Jamie on January 4, 1956. Since I had been hoping for a younger brother whom I could shape in my own image, I was bitterly disappointed at the news. I was seven years and four and a half months old, in the middle of second grade in the weird split class taught by Sr. Lucy.

I remember little about those first few years. She quickly became a very cute little girl with blonde hair and dark eyes. Both of my parents had very dark hair and brown eyes. I inherited their hair, and she got their eyes. Her hair got darker as she got older. My eyes constantly changed color but never turned completely brown. I can’t remember Jamie having any serious health issues while we were in Prairie Village.

We would often watch Romper Room (with Miss Virginia) or Captain Kangaroo while I waited for my school bus to arrive. Our favorite parts were the Tom Terrific cartoons, especially Might Manfred the Wonder Dog. Jamie called me “buzzer”, and when the Bluebird arrived, she happily announced “Bus school!”

War! The player on the bottom wins all ten cards in the middle.

When she was older we sometimes played cards seated on the floor in the living room. Her favorite game was war, which she almost always won. I have never been known to take losing very graciously. On one occasion, after a few defeats at war, I was frustrated enough to suggest that we play a different game called sevens and fives. I invented rules as we went along, always with some reference to seven or five, for example, “Oh, you got a deuce, 7-5=2, so you must give me five cards.” She never caught on, and I was finally victorious.

My parents sometimes joined us in the Game of Life. I did not cheat.

My dad worked in advertising and public relations. His company, Business Mens Assurance (BMA) required him to travel a few times every year. My mom also usually attended the annual meeting, which was held at some resort location like Sun Valley, ID, or Banff in Canada. On those occasions we had a babysitter. I think that my grandmother Clara took care of us once or twice, but usually the sitter was hired. Jamie and I did not like this. The ladies were nice enough, but we were used to delicious and nutritious meals every night. None of the sitters came close to reaching this standard.

On the other hand, if my dad went on a trip by himself, our meals actually improved. There were a few really tasty dishes that my dad banned from the table. There were several of these, but the most memorable one was chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and chipped beef, covered with mushrooms, and baked in cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. She served it over rice, which my dad detested.¹

Jamie went to kindergarten at Tomahawk School when I was in the eighth grade at QHRS. I paid scant attention at the time. However, much later she told me that she had to walk to school, and on one occasion some older kids had assaulted her in some way, verbally or physically or both. That is all that I know; I have no recollection of this at all.

Jamie liked to go to Fairyland, a small amusement park on the Missouri side. Our parents took us a few times. I did not enjoy it much. Rides have never been my thing.

Medical/Physical: My health was generally good. My mom had to take me to Dr. Batty’s office to get stitched up a few times. Other than that I was pretty healthy; I probably got the flu once or twice, but I remember that I had close to perfect attendance nearly every year. I never even broke any bones.

I got the left side but never the right.

Like everyone who was around when the polio vaccine effectively removed one gigantic worry, my mother definitely believed in inoculations. Since I hated needles, this was a problem for me, especially since my smallpox inoculation never “took”. I had to go back every year or two to try again. Several times my mother sat me down and emphasized that if there was ever an outbreak of smallpox, I must try to get inoculated.

My dental health was essentially perfect after the water got fluoridated. I had hyperdontia, an extra tooth between my upper incisors and the left canine. The dentist checked it every time that I visited his office. Finally he decided to pull it, and all of the other teeth just adjusted themselves in my gums. I never needed braces.

I got my first pair of glasses in 1959, and until the end of high school every time that I went to the optometrist I needed a stronger prescription. After I reached forty I needed reading glasses, but a decade or so later, my need for both types of lenses decreased.

I have hypermobility in the joints of my hands. In grade school I could painlessly touch every finger and my thumb on my left hand back to my wrist. My right hand was only a little less flexible. I could also slip any finger in and out of the lowest joint. I could still touch my left thumb all the way back a few years ago, but it hurt. Now my fingers sometimes painfully slip into the wrong joint by themselves, and I have to force them back.

I entertained the guys and grossed out the girls with these tricks. I also liked to show how I could wiggle my nostrils and my ears. I learned the former from a pet rabbit and the latter (both at once or one at a time) from Howdy Doody’s goofy friend, Dilly Dally.

Pets: I have a dim recollection of a pet rabbit that got away and got caught by a dog a few houses down the street. That did not end well.

I know that I also had parakeets at least twice. One was named Mickey, and one was named Nicky. I taught them both to talk.

One day a black and tan dachshund showed up in our back yard. He would not leave, and he came inside as soon as we opened the door. My dad wanted nothing to do with him, but my mom, after placing notices in all the proper places, gave him food and water. I named him Sam.

After a couple of months, when everyone but my dad had fallen in love with him, some people from a few blocks away claimed Sam. We let them have him back, of course, but the three of us were pretty upset about it.

At the time my grandmom Hazel also kept in her apartment in KC MO a slightly chubbier dachshund with the same coloring named Tippy. At some point after Sam’s departure she gave Tippy, whose real name was Donnys Perry von Kirsch, to us. He was a little more difficult to love, but, once again, three of us came around.

The problem with Tippy was that he liked to bite ankles. He had a wonderfully intuitive sense of where every creature’s Achilles’ tendon was located, and he had strong jaws. There were a few small incidents, but we learned to control him.

Tippy liked to sleep with me in my bed, and, after we had moved to Leawood, he loved to play ball with me in the living room. I would throw a handball against the brick base of the fireplace. He would chase it when it bounced back. Then we would fight over the ball, and he would growl with pleasure.

I remember that on one Easter Sunday my mother had baked a rather large ham in the morning. I don’t know why, but while we were at mass she left it on the kitchen table. Tippy somehow got up on the table and devoured about half of it. Needless to say, my mom was upset, but there was instant karma. Tippy was miserable with an upset stomach for several days.

Sports: My parents occasionally visited their friends, Boots and Fay Hedrick², to play poker. They had a son, John, who was my age. He had a deluxe Erector Set, and a basketball hoop was in their driveway.

For some reason, I spent the afternoon at his house once, and we watched the Celtics on TV. Ever since then I have been a Celtics fan. I have never seen an NBA game in person except for one exhibition game to which Tom Corcoran invited me in the nineties.

I played football and basketball at QHRS. Separate posts document my heroics on the gridiron and (posted here and here) the hardwood (posted here).

I was an avid but not fanatical baseball card collector. I also read all of the box scores for every Major League game every day. Since there were only sixteen teams at first, this was not that burdensome.

I played 3&2 baseball. My travails and glory on the diamond are detailed here.

There was not a lot of space around our house. I was therefore very excited to discover the Wiffle Ball shortly after its commercial introduction. It allowed baseball games in confined areas. I saved up my allowance money and rode my bike to the Prairie Village shopping center to buy the original set, which consisted of a skinny wooden bat and a hollow plastic ball with holes on one side to facilitate curves.

The holes provide wind resistance. Thus, a Wiffle Ball will go nearly as fast as a hardball when it is thrown or hit, but it will slow down much more rapidly. To make the ball curve, the holes must stay on the same side of the ball throughout flight. Any spin added by the fingers or wrist is counterproductive.

The best pitch, in my opinion is thrown perfectly sidearm with the holes down. This causes the ball to sink, and, since the harder part of the ball is on top, it normally produces hard grounders or soft fly balls, both of which are usually easy outs. The spectacular pitches are straight overhand with the holes on one side or the other. Whereas a major league curve ball might break two or three feet, a Wiffle Ball will often break twice that much (over a much shorter distance), and the right curve and left curve are thrown with exactly the same motion. It is also possible to throw a sidearm riser, but the hard side is on the bottom, and so fly balls carry pretty well.

The balls did not last long. They tended to crack and tear because the bat had no “give”. Seldom did a ball last a week. A few years later a 32″ yellow plastic bat greatly improved the durability of the balls. My training with throwing and catching a Wiffle Ball did not greatly improve my performance in hardball, but i put it to good use in our pickup games at Sandia Base in 1971.

I also collected football cards and played with them in the hallway. I remember being astounded by the Charlie Ana card because his weight was listed at 300 pounds. This is a vivid memory, but it must be wrong. There is no trace of him on google.

My dad and I watched NFL games together. He liked the Chicago Bears. My favorite team was the upstart Cleveland Browns. My favorite players were Otto Graham, Lou “The Toe” Groza, and, a few years later, Jim Brown.

I went bowling at Overland Bowl a few times. They charged ten cents a line and had human pinsetters. I was not very good. I could not get the ball to curve on demand, perhaps because of my super-flexible wrists. My best game was 180, a record that stood until I rolled a 190 when I was in my fifties. That was the last game that I ever bowled.

I also remember that my grandmother Clara took me and my cousins Johnny, Terry, and Ricky bowling at least once in Leavenworth. That establishment also employed someone to set the pins. I remember this as a great time. I am pretty sure that my grandmother also treated us to some ice cream.

I never took bowling as seriously as other sports. I did not have a ball, and I had to rent shoes. I remember, however, that my parents bought Jamie and me an indoor bowling game that had vinyl pins and a hollow plastic ball. We set it up in the hallway of the house on Maple St. It was the perfect width.

King Louie was the big name in bowling allies in KC. They had automatic pinsetting machines and projectors that displayed the scores above each lane. They charged a lot more than a dime. Some of their buildings seemed like palaces to me.

My dad could not swim. My mother insisted that I take swimming lessons in the morning at the Prairie Village Pool. I think that I did this for two years, but I don’t remember the details.

I did not enjoy this activity. It usually seemed chilly to me before entering the water, and I was so cold after I got out that I could not stop my teeth from chattering. Another annoying factor was that I was a below-average swimmer. It was obvious that no matter how much I practiced, I would never be very good.

I often rode my bike to swimming lessons. One morning a German shepherd came sprinting toward me from the left. I have never been afraid of animals, but this one jumped up and bit me on the left thigh. I don’t remember what happened next, but the dog’s owners had to keep him chained up for a month to make sure that he was not rabid. My wound was not serious; I don’t even think that I needed stitches.

One great benefit of the swimming lessons was that I was able to earn the Swimming Merit Badge without much difficulty. I also took a Red Cross class that rewarded me with the Lifesaving Merit Badge, at that time the biggest impediment for most guys to attaining the rank of eagle.

No skiing or skating.

Fads: I could make the hula hoop spin for a few minutes, but I was not great at it.

In 1959 or 1960 trampoline parks started popping up like dandelions in Johnson County. I never went to one. Suddenly they all closed down, presumably because of lawsuits from people who broke an arm or leg.

The only songs on the radio that I really liked through my years in grade school were novelty songs like “Beep Beep” or the ones that featured a guy imitating Walter Winchell.

Scouting: I spent a lot of time in the Boy Scouts. I became a Cub Scout as soon as I was eligible, and I went right up all the ranks—Wolf, Bear, Lion, Webelo. My mother was a den mother for a while. We wore our uniforms to school if we had a meeting afterwards. I remember that “A cub scout follows Akela,” but I never had any idea what it meant.

I was also in Boy Scouts. At the end of the summer after eighth grade, I had achieved the rank of Life, and I only needed one merit badge for Eagle.

Getting lost in KC is almost unheard of.

My favorite merit badge was for hiking. It required three or four hikes of a few miles and one longer hike. I took the long hike with Gary Garrison and maybe one other guy. There were no adults. We walked out to Swope Park, had a picnic lunch, spent at least an hour or two at the zoo, and returned. We did not solve any of the world’s problems, but we at least defined the crucial issues concerning our friends, our families, and our school. It was tiring, but we had a great time.

I almost always enjoyed extended periods of time spent with friends. I loved going on camping trips. I never missed one. Our troop usually camped out in a field, which still abounded in the KC area, at least once per summer. On one of these outings I first tried coffee. I could tolerate the bitter taste if I added quite a bit of milk and sugar. I never drank coffee regularly until I started working on computer programs ten or more hours per day in the eighties.

I attended all the Camporees, held on one weekend every year. We had to put up our own tents and sleep on air mattresses or whatever we brought. Patrols competed against one another in various events. The one that I remember is knot-tying. I also remember frying steaks in Italian dressing. It was an accident, but they were absolutely delicious.

The most memorable one was when the clouds exploded one night, and I awoke to find myself afloat on my air mattress outside of the tent. We packed up and abandoned the field on which we were camping at dawn. It was great fun!

I absolutely loved going to Camp Naish for a week every year. We slept in permanent tents with raised wooden floors. We used straw mattresses. They supplied the straw and bed frames; we supplied the ticks and sleeping bags.

We sang interesting songs at meals, and there were huge bonfires most nights. We did all kinds of stufff—orienteering, capture the flag, many varieties of games with pocket knives such as stretch, mumbley-peg, and chicken. I cannot remember any medical emergencies, but I have trouble imagining how they could have been avoided.

I have many other memories, too, but I think that I will keep them to myself. I will just say that you grow up a little bit each year at scout camp.

I was never homesick. I have absolutely no negative memories of summer camp. My only negative memory of any camping trip was that Camporee night in which the field in which we were camping transmuted into a shallow lake.

One year Boy Scout Troop 295 (or maybe Cub Scout Pack 205) must have needed money. We were all asked to sell upscale candy bars to our neighbors. The person who sold the most won a new bicycle. I knocked on a lot of doors, and I did sell a lot of candy. However, Mike Kirk sold more and won the bike. I won the second prize, twenty silver dollars, which are still resting comfortably in an envelope in my sock drawer as I write these words. I suspect that they are worth a lot more today than Mike Kirk’s bicycle.

I read Boys’ Life from cover to cover every month. I especially enjoyed the fiction, which for several months involved the adventures of an alien being.

Me wearing last year’s pants sitting on my saxophone case with QHRS’s best lunch between my feet. I was probably waiting for the school bus. The shoes puzzle me. I could swear that I never wore loafers.

Music: I did not have much interest in recorded music until the eighth grade. However, QHRS did have a band of sorts. My parents agreed to purchase an instrument for me. My inability to pucker eliminated the brass instruments. I ended up selecting the saxophone. The cheapest available model was an E-flat alto, which is what I got. If I had it to do over, I would pick a piano or a string instrument, which would have forced me to learn more about chords and keys.

The band director was Rocco DeMart. My mom would drive me to lessons with him in the basement of Jenkins Music Store in Prairie Village. The band put on at least one concert, and Mr. DeMart also held recitals. I played in at least two of them.

I did not really enjoy playing the saxophone much. My mother had to nag me to practice. My only clear recollection from those days was Mr. DeMart’s pleasure when I unexpectedly played “Was that the human thing to do?” in double-time. He thought that the way that I played it sounded better than the way that it was written.

The saxophone mysteriously disappeared when I was in the Army.

Reading: I read a very large number of books. I can’t tell you why, but I read David Copperfield twice. I really enjoyed Robert Louis Stevenson and anything that had sports or adventure.

Movies: I remember going to a few films. I am pretty sure that I saw Gone with the Wind in the theater with my mother and some other people. I slept through most of it.

The movies that I saw with friends were mostly westerns or war movies. I remember standing with some friends in a very long line at the Overland Theater to see Sink the Bismarck. We got all the way to the front of the line. However, rather than sell us a ticket, they told us that it was sold out. We all had to ride our bikes home, but we saw it later. It was not worth all of that effort.

Birthday Party: One year my parents said that I could have a birthday party. I got to invite two guests. I chose Joe Fox and either Kent Reynolds³ or Rick Ahrendt. I don’t remember any other details. Hardly ever did any of my friends come to our house.

I also threw myself a party for my thirtieth birthday in 1978. Other than that, none.

Visits: My dad would occasionally bring home one of his company’s agents or sales managers for supper. These were basically non-events for me. After supper I would retreat to my room to read, work on model airplanes, or play with my baseball cards.

I am not sure of this, but I think that occasionally my mom would host three ladies in the afternoon to play bridge. I might have watched a few hands. I know that by the time that I was in high school I had a reasonably good idea of how to play. It seems plausible that I might have learned something by watching. I think that we had a copy of one of Charles Goren’s books. If so, I undoubtedly read it. I read all the books that my parents had.

My dad’s army buddy, Jake Jacobson, visited us at least once. I am not sure of the year, but I clearly remember several things. It was warm out, and Jake drove us around in his convertible. In those days he was portly enough that he could use his stomach for steering if he needed both hands for something else.

We drove out to Swope Park in KC MO for a picnic. Mom was there, but I don’t think Jamie was around yet. Jake and dad drank beers and threw the empty cans into trash cans from long range. Such antics were new to me. When I got rambunctious, Jake would say “Michael, decorum!” My dad really liked that phrase.

If my dad and Jake ever talked about the army days, it was in solemn tones.

Work: I mowed our lawn. My dad must have mowed it when we first moved to Prairie Village. I cannot remember that ever happening, but I don’t think that he would have hired someone. Maybe my mom did it. She could do anything. By the time that I was ten or so, regular lawn-mowing was part of my chores. My recollection is that my allowance was a quarter per week.

I have no clear recollection of mowing any of the neighbors’ lawns when we lived on Maple St. in Prairie Village, but I might have.

Somehow I got involved with selling Christmas cards every year. I don’t remember the details, but I showed samples to a lot of people. I also took orders and delivered the cards when they arrived. My mom definitely helped.

1. I think that his prejudice was largely due to his experiences in World War II. He associated rice with the Japanese, and he had no use for them. I purloined this recipe and have prepared it to enthusiastic receptions dozens of times. I omit the chipped beef because it is too expensive and the dish has plenty of flavor without it.

2. Fay Hedrick lived to be 100. She outlived Boots by thirty-four years. Her obituary is posted here.

3. Kent Reynolds’ LinkedIn page is here.

1955-1961 Part 4: Vacations

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Mike

Two great trips Continue reading →

My dad very seldom took a day off from work. He saved up his vacation time for big trips that were always in the summer. We took several family vacations while I was in grade school. I think that our first big vacation probably occurred in 1955. I don’t remember my mom being pregnant. So, either I have the year wrong, I was oblivious of her condition, or we left Jamie with a babysitter or grandparents.

Our destination was the Colorado Springs area. Although Colorado is immediately west of Kansas,¹ Colorado Springs is over 600 miles from KC. My dad drove our ’54 Ford. Mom was navigator, an easy job in Kansas. The back seat was my domain. Of course we counted cows, right side of the road vs. left side. However, for much of the trip I stood up and practiced clapping as loudly as I could. It must have driven my parents crazy.

The Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs.

I remember that they let me fish at a trout farm. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, which I thought was great fun. We drove up Pike’s Peak. We visited the Garden of the Gods and a place where we had a chuckwagon buffet, which I really enjoyed. We also went to a bar/restaurant owned by a relative of (I think) Grandmom Hazel. His name was Louis Something. He served me a Roy Rogers with a tiny umbrella in it. I thought that it was fantastic.

We also went to a race track. I found it fascinating that people discarded their losing tickets on the ground. I gathered up a bunch of them in hopes of finding a winner. No luck.

Before writing this, it never occurred to me that this trip introduced me to both bars and gambling.

I am pretty sure that I only played one card.

My most vivid memory of the trip was when we went to a huge bingo hall. I called out “bingo’ at the same time as one of the other players. There was some controversy. I don’t remember the details, but they ended up awarding the prize to the other person. I was upset about this. I may have even made a scene.

Somehow I came into possession of a Pinocchio doll that was as large as I was. Maybe it was a prize; maybe my parents bought it for me to shut me up. I don’t think that I liked it. I punched it in the nose quite often during the return trip.

All in all I had a very good time. I have always loved to travel.

Our biggest vacation was, I am pretty sure, in 1959. I would have been nearly eleven, and Jamie three and a half. My dad drove all four of us all the way to New England in our ’57 Ford Fairlane and then down the East Coast to Washington, DC. I sat in the back seat with Jamie. On the way there we took the northern route through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. I kept track of our progress on a map. I don’t remember what Jamie was doing.

The first day was an unqualified disaster for me. My mom had prepared a picnic lunch for us. Our first stop was was at a park with picnic tables in Mexico, MO. After lunch we drove east for an hour or so, at which point I realized that I did not have my billfold. I only had a few dollars, but that was a big loss to me. Each dollar bill could purchase 110 baseball cards, if one bought the packs enclosed in cellophane that held eleven cards and cost a dime,² as I always did. Besides, I had never left anything of value behind before, and I felt stupid and irresponsible.

I felt even more stupid when we stopped for supper. My dad ordered a steak, and so did I. I was later told that we could not afford the vacation if I ordered a steak every night. I didn’t much care what I ate; my tastes have always been pretty eclectic. I just wanted to know what was expected of me before I made more mistakes.

Most of the rest of the trip was delightful. My dad did almost all of the driving. The Interstate Highway System was only three years old. Therefor, large portions of our drive was on two-lane roads that served as Main Street in town after town. We started looking for motels without “No Vacancy” signs when my dad announced that he was getting tired. Since this was the peak season for automobile travel, the rest of us found this somewhat stressful.

Our first major stop was in Albany, NY, the home of my dad’s army buddy, Jake Jacobson. We spent one or two nights at his house. We got to meet his wife Ruth and his son Paul, who was a year older than I was. Jake took us out to eat at a restaurant that served something that I had never before encountered, antipasto. I remarked that it sounded like Andy Pafko, who played his last season in 1959 for the Milwaukee Braves. Jake liked my little joke, which in turn made me like him. Afterwards he showed some home movies. All that I remember about them was that they showed off Ruth’s legs.

The next day I got to play hardball with Paul and some of his friends on a field with fences and everything. I was very happy that I got a hit or two, and my team won.

We then drove up to Maine and traveled through each of the six New England states before we ended up at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. I think that we stayed overnight in a motel in Maine or New Hampshire. I remember that I slept through the entire state of Rhode Island.

The Jacobsons joined us in New York to watch a the A’s at Yankee Stadium. We sat near the right field line. We had a very good view of the “Pennant Porch”. Joe DeMaestri, of all people,³ hit a home run for the visiting A’s. The four Wavadas were the only people who cheered. It did not feel like it at the time, but this was the best of all the teams in the thirteen-year history of the A’s in KC.

All of us took the elevator to the observation floor of the Empire State Building, and Paul and I climbed the stairs to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The most memorable event, however, occurred in our car. My dad got confused somewhere in the Bronx and ran a red light. A policeman pulled us over. When he saw on my dad’s driver’s license that we were from Prairie Village, KS, he could hardly contain his mirth. He let us proceed after lecturing my dad on the differences between driving in Gotham and on the prairie. For example, there are fewer buffaloes in NYC.

Our next stop was the Chalfonte Hotel in Atlantic City, which at that time was a thriving tourist town not yet overrun by casinos. We spent our time there on or near the boardwalk, but we did take the opportunity to watch the high-diving horse on the Steel Pier.

Stopping in Atlantic City was a good idea. New York City and Washington, DC, are intense places. I hate to drive in both of them. Atlantic City was fun and relaxing.

Our final major destination was the nation’s capital. We stayed at the Mayflower Hotel. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the reflecting pool, the congressional buildings, and the White House. The most memorable aspect of this part of the trip was very puzzling. Somehow my mom and dad were unable to find the Smithsonian Institution. The Metro was not opened until seventeen years later. So, we couldn’t just get off at the Smithsonian stop. Still, …

In the above map the White House is at the upper left, and the congressional buildings are at the lower right. The teardrop shapes are Smithsonian buildings. Admittedly some of them did not exist in 1959 or were not part of the Institution, but it astounds me that we were unable to locate any of them, and we looked for hours.

Couldn’t find them? The Natural History Museum, which is the one that I really wanted to visit, was only 1.5 miles from our hotel, and we were much closer to our purported objective than that several times. I was very frustrated, and I may have shown it. Jamie tried to console me. To this day I cannot explain this experience (or lack thereof).

Our return trip home was not very eventful. We were all ready for home. My recollection is that because my dad had never been in South Carolina, we selected a route that allowed us to “dip a toe” there. Then we just headed west toward God’s country.

1. Kansas borders four states: Colorado on the west, Nebraska on the north, Missouri on the east, and Oklahoma on the south.

2. Bruce Smith Drugs in Prairie Village provided two options for buying baseball cards. For a nickel you could get five cards and a piece of gum in an opaque paper wrapper. For a dime you could get eleven cards but no gum. However, you could see both the top card and the bottom card. This could help you avoid the disastrous possibility of buying five cards that you already had. Nobody liked the gum anyway.

3. DeMaestri hit only hit six homers in 1959.

Wavablog

Memoirs, bridge, popes, travel, and other stuff

Tag Archives: Jacobson, Jake

1948-1970 Dad and Me

2011 Jim Wavada’s Funeral and Estate

1955-1961 Part 5: Events and Activities

1955-1961 Part 4: Vacations