The Leishmans lived at 8801 Fairway, which was directly across the street from our house.
During each of the four years that I was an undergraduate at Michigan I came home for the Christmas holiday. A very unusual event occurred in one of those holidays. I think that it was the first one, 1966, but it might have been 1967. During the fall I had been alerted by my parents that my cousin and my classmate at Rockhurst High School, Terry Cernech, was getting married. The bride, Debbie Leishman, lived directly across the street from my family’s house in Leawood. They wanted me to be an usher at their wedding.
Terry, who lived nearly twenty miles away in Sugar Creek, had met Debbie during the production of a musical that featured performers and crew from Rockhurst High School, which both Terry and I attended, and Debbie’s high school, Notre Dame de Sion, a Catholic preparatory school for girls. Strange as it might seem, I had absolutely nothing to do with them getting together.
Terry and I were seniors when the play was staged. Debbie was a year or two younger. I am therefore pretty sure that she was still in high school at the time of the wedding. Terry was in college. His Facebook page says that he “studied at University of Notre Dame.”
The ceremony might have been held here at St. Ann’s church in Independence.
If there was a bachelor’s party, I was not invited, or maybe my parents neglected to tell me about it. I am pretty sure that the wedding ceremony was at a Catholic Church. Since the Leishmans were not Catholics, I am quite sure that the ceremony was not at our parish, Curé of Ars. So, I figure that it must have been held at the Cerneches’ church, St. Ann’s in Independence, MO, Harry Truman’s home town. I am almost certain that Terry went to grade school at St. Ann’s school.
So, why did the happy couple choose December for this occasion? Well, it probably wasn’t for tax reasons—both the bride and groom were full-time students. Everyone knew the answer, of course. In the language of the day, they had to get married.
Terry’s brother John was the best man. Before the ceremony he talked for a while with my parents. He said that he had been up all night talking with Terry. According to John, his brother had ingested a large amount of “Dutch courage” to prepare himself for the big event. John was dubious about the whole situation.
My job as usher was trivial. People sat where they wanted. I don’t recall that I had to wear a tuxedo or any other kind of costume. My real responsibilities began at the reception where I discovered that no one in the Leishman household was talking to anyone on the Cernech side. My dad did not get along particularly well with either Terry’s father, my Uncle Dean, or Mr. Leishman. So, I was drafted to pass messages between the two patriarchs. I do not precisely recall any particular message, but the flavor of most of them was something like the following:
“Tell that son of a bitch that if he thinks that he is going to …”
“He said what? Tell that worthless sack of shit that that will never happen until hell freezes over.”
“That’s NOT what we agreed on! You tell that two-faced bastard …”
“That’s it. I’ve had enough of that asshole. Just tell him to shove it.”
Needless to say, I sanitized the messages a bit before I delivered them. For a while I found this farce slightly amusing, but eventually it wore me down.
The marriage did not last very long. I don’t know what became of any of the Leishmans. Terry remarried; in 2021 he lives in Springfield, MO.
I did not die from it.
During the exam period right before Christmas, in December of 1967 (I think) I came down with influenza. When I have recounted this story, I called what I had the Russian flu. However, apparently the disease, which started in November in Michigan and Florida, was actually popularly known as the Hong Kong Flu. I somehow got through my exams, but I was completely wiped out. I slept through the entire plane ride to KC, and then I spent another day or so in bed at my parents’ house. This was my last real illness until my tuxedo-wearing cat Jake gave me cat-scratch disease in the mid-eighties.
A different member of my high school class, John Williams, also got married and had a son while he was going to college. He invited me to attend a play that his younger brother was in. This must have happened either over the Christmas break in my senior year or during one of the summers. John was driving, and for some reason his wife was not there.
At some point John was talking about the toddler. When I asked him a question, I mistakenly called the kid “your brother”. At least three of my acquaintances fathered children while I was in college, but I never actually saw any of them. I was so immature and aloof that I could not internalize the fact that people my age were reproducing.
One baby that I did see was Dr. Colburn’s youngest daughter. When the child, whose name escapes me, was baptized, I stood in for the real godfather, who could not make the trip to Ann Arbor. The event occurred in September of either 1968 or 1969. This was the last baptism that I ever attended.
In 2020 I discovered evidence of two events that I am quite certain that I never attended. I found these two football tickets among my dad’s possessions after he died in 2011.
They did not even call it the Super Bowl.
I have no recollection at all that he had attended one of the most famous football games of all time, the 1969 Super Bowl. This was the game between the New York Jets, quarterbacked by Joe Namath, and the Baltimore Colts, led by Johnny Unitas. The Colts, who had defeated the Cleveland Browns 34-0 in the NFL1 championship game, were heavily favored, but the brash Namath guaranteed that the Jets would win, and they did.
In fact, it was not a close game. The defense of the Jets completely stymied Unitas and the Colts, who were held to a field goal in the fourth quarter. The final score was 16-3.
The game was played in the Orange Bowl in Miami, FL, on Sunday, January 12, 1969. I would have been back in Ann Arbor by then. I have no recollection that my dad went to this game. Of course, it had no effect on me; I was probably either at a debate tournament, returning from one, or busily preparing for one.
I wonder if my mom also attended this game. My dad often traveled on business, and some of those events included entertainment for the local salesmen. If this was part of the company’s annual convention, then my mom also probably came. In that case, they would have probably needed to get someone to stay at the house with Jamie, who had been a teenager for eight days when the game was played. Surely this would have been a topic of discussion over the holidays, but I have no memory of it whatsoever.
I definitely do remember the other game.
Michigan played against Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl in my senior year. I watched this frustrating nail-biter at home in Leawood. I am pretty sure that both of my parents attended, but I don’t remember if they left Jamie with me (I was twenty-one, and she was almost fourteen), or if someone stayed with us.
Southern Cal was undefeated. Michigan was coming off of its best game ever, the upset of undefeated Ohio State in Ann Arbor. I had missed that game because of a debate tournament in Chicago.
Both teams in the Rose Bowl had very stout defenses and unimaginative offenses. The game was tied 3-3 at the half. The only touchdown was a thirty-three yard pass from Jimmy Jones to Bob Chandler. Southern Cal won 10-3..
The backs of both of these tickets have diagrams of the seating in the stadiums. In both cases the tickets are on about the twenty-five-yard line, a little less than halfway up. Those are very good seats! Note that the price of the Rose Bowl ticket was only $8.
My two fondest memories of Jamie occurred, I think, during one of the breaks from college. The first one was in 1966, the year that Barry Sadler’s song, “Ballad of the Green Berets”2 topped the charts. We invented a dance to accompany this song. It involved standing at attention next to one another. Then one of us would stand on tip-toes for a beat while the other squatted. Then we returned to attention. On the following beats we reversed roles, and so on until we could not keep straight faces any longer.
At some point when I was not paying attention Jamie learned to play the guitar. She had a Bob Dylan songbook that contained the words and music for a dozen or two of his early songs. A few times we made music together; she would play the chords and I would sing. I can carry a tune, the songs were in a key that stayed in my range, and I could do a passable imitation of Dylan’s voice. We should have recorded one of these songs—I had a tape recorder. It would be fun to hear what we sounded like.
1. The NFL and the AFL had not yet merged. The first four Super Bowl featured the champions of each league.
2. This horribly unimaginative song tied “California Dreamin'” as Billboard’s top song of 1966. Surely this was the worst song ever to become so popular. Sadler was a medic in Vietnam. His one hit made him a lot of money, but his life subsequently went quickly downhill. In 1979 he was charged with second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Nashville. He went to prison for thirty days. In September of 1988 he was shot in the head in a taxicab in Guatemala City. He died early the following year.
Could a relationship between a preppy lad from Kansas and a country lass from Connecticut last? Continue reading →
For the few weeks that I worked in the Variable Annuity area of the Life Actuarial Department at the Hartford, my desk was behind Sue Comparetto’s, and we shared a phone. She was the head clerk in Bob Riley’s section. This meant that she was the only person there entrusted with an electronic calculator. Those silent marvels would soon replace the gigantic noisy Fridens, but they still required an AC connection and cost about $1,000.
I am pretty sure that Sue’s first impression of me was negative. Our only noteworthy interaction was when I was called upon to talk with someone on the phone. My desk had no phone; I had to use hers. I never called anyone, and most of the calls that I received were nerve-wracking; I perspired all over the receiver. I wiped it off before I gave it back, but it was still rather gross.
I did not know Sue well, but what I heard about her was somewhat disconcerting. She lived in East Hampton, CT, with Diane DeFreitas and, I think, another young woman. She did not have a car. A “Cuban plumber” sometimes gave her a ride part of the way to the Hartford. She hitchhiked the rest of the way. She had picked up a black Labrador puppy at a flea market and named him Siddhartha. At some point she must have realized that this situation was not sustainable, and she took the dog to the pound. Someone else may have catalyzed the decision.
I remember that one day both she and Diane decided to dress slutty for work. Sue did not like dress codes. She told me that she had been suspended from high school for vigorously protesting the dress code. Her parents were not amused by this behavior.
Oh, yeah. One other thing—Sue smoked. My dad smoked, but hardly anyone else with whom I had ever spent much time did. John Sigler also spoke, but he hardly ever lit up in my presence.
The Shoreham has been gone for decades.
After I was assigned to the Individual Pensions area I only saw Sue in passing and at the Friday evening gatherings at the Shoreham Hotel’s bar, situated very conveniently between the Aetna and the Hartford. At some point one of the most important events of my life occurred, and yet I have no clear memory of the details. For some reason Tom Herget set me up with Sue for some event. I don’t remember when it was or even what we did. I have a vague recollection of the Aetna Diner (Sue liked their moussaka) on Farmington Avenue, but maybe that was on a different occasion. I am pretty sure that Sue told me on that occasion that I reminded her of her husband, and she was astonished to learn that my middle name was Dennis. She explained that her husband’s name was Dennis, and his middle name was Michael.
I don’t think that I previously knew that she had been married. This explained why she did not look even vaguely Italian. I certainly did not know that she was still legally married. I had to make a snap judgment whether being with her was a mortal sin or a venial sin. It was a tough call, but I was pretty sure that any further contact would move the needle over the line. For twelve years I had attended Catholic schools, and I had never missed going to mass on Sunday. Not once. I probably confessed more impure thoughts than I actually had. You have to confess something.
I somehow quieted my conscience and had a good time that night, and Sue and I started “seeing each other.” By this time she had moved to Rockville and rented a room in the basement of a house owned by a female employee of the Hartford named Jackie. She also had somehow persuaded a bank to finance her purchase of a 1972 Dodge Colt.
During this period Sue was also, at least in theory, studying for Part 1 of the actuarial exams. She was at a huge disadvantage compared with others taking the test in Hartford. Most of them got study time and took classes in the subject. She did not pass.
It must have been on an evening in October that Sue offered to fix a steak supper for John Sigler and me. Jackie must have let Sue use the kitchen; Sue’s apartment barely had room for a bed and a couple of chairs. We all sat around after dinner drinking Mateus, talking, and listening to Leonard Cohen records. Finally John departed. I spent the night with Sue on her small waterbed, a totally new experience for me.
Over the next few months Sue and I went to numerous places together. A bunch of us walked down to Constitution Plaza together to attend a noontime rally for George McGovern. 1972 was the first time that I was allowed to vote in a national election. In 1968 the voting age was twenty-one, and I was only twenty. Sue, who was born in 1951, was barely old enough to vote this time. I really hated Nixon. I suspected (correctly, as it was later revealed) that he had deliberately scuttled the peace talks in Paris about Vietnam. Never mind his secret war in Laos and his part in the overthrow of the democratic government in Chile. I never had to serve in Vietnam, but I blamed Nixon for stealing two years from me when I was in my prime.
Sue and I both voted for McGovern. I even put a McGovern-Shriver1 sticker on Greenie’s bumper. I felt as if I had gotten McGovern one more vote than he would have otherwise received. Of course, it made no difference. Most Americans believed Tricky Dick really had a “secret plan” to end the war, they were afraid of the godless communist menace, and for some reason they did not like McGovern.
Sue and I attended a couple of movies in theaters. I seem to remember that there was a theater in West Hartford that showed older movies. I am pretty sure that we saw Blow-up together and at least one Marx Brothers movie.
We ate at a few restaurants in Rockville. I am certain that we shared a ham and olive pizza a small restaurant on Main St. near Route 83. It must have been part of a chain. It had a number after its name. Sue liked to go to Friendly’s. At the time their menu consisted of overpriced hamburger, overpriced cheeseburgers, overpriced “Friendly Franks”, and ice cream. Sue focused on the ice cream.
Gone forever?
I cooked a few meals for us in my apartment. For example, I fixed a sirloin beef roast using McCormick’s Meat Marinade2, a trick that I learned from my mother. Sue was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. She said that she had never liked beef roasts. She explained that when her mother cooked them she left them in the oven until they were grey, dried out, flavorless, and chewy. I tried to fry a chicken, but it did not work out too well. I had to put it in the oven before serving because some parts were not done. Microwave ovens existed, but I did not have one. After that we stuck to extra-crispy chicken from the colonel. However, I bought at least three cookbooks, and I developed a few very tasty specialties.
I took Christmas very seriously in 1972. It was only the second holiday season that I had spent away from my family, and this time I was really on my own. The feeling was much different from any previous Christmas. I spent a lot of time shopping for little gifts and writing personalized Christmas cards for my friends. Sue and I attended the Carol Sing at the Hartford Times Building in downtown Hartford. The Times3 published a half-page photo of the huge crowd that was assembled. My off-white cowboy hat and fleece-lined suede coat made it easy to spot us in the photo. We showed the clipping to all of our friends.
My first New Years in Connecticut was also memorable. I decided to roast Cornish game hens for supper, and we invited Tom Corcoran and Patti Lewonczyk to join us. The four of us were also invited by Tom Garabedian and Gail Mertan to a party at Tom’s house in East Hartford. The meal was a big success. I think that Sue cooked some kind of vegetables, maybe her famous carrots Lyonaise. Of course, we also served wine.
We all probably ate too much. No one felt like going to a party. However, it was less than a mile to the Garabedian house. So, we all piled into one of the cars and drove there.
The only two people in the house when we arrived were Tom and Gail. Evidently Tom had persuaded his parents to make themselves scarce. Tom and Gail had laid out a cornucopia of food and beverages—enough for several dozen people. No one else ever came. It was not much of a party, but if we had submitted to the lethargy induced by the supper, it would have been a disaster.
Over the holidays I got to meet some of Sue’s family. Her parents, Art and Effy Slanetz, and siblings all lived in a farm house on North Maple St. in Enfield. Sue was the oldest child; she had two sisters, Karen and Betty. They were nothing alike. She also had a brother Don. I met Effy’s dog, Queenie, and a bevy of Sue’s uncles, aunts, and cousins, all of whom lived within a few miles of the Slanetz’s house4. Many of them seemed to make a living by driving trucks in one way or another. Their favorite sport was NASCAR. I did not contribute much to the banter.
Behind the house was a fairly large field that was actively farmed by the Polek family that lived in the house that was between the Slanetz’s house and a warehouse in which Art stored all kinds of old mechanical junk. Sue told me that that the field was their family’s land at one time. When she was little they raised potatoes.
The winters in the seventies were brutal. Early in 1973 (I think) I was driving Greenie, and Sue was riding shotgun after a snowfall of a couple of inches. We were headed south on I-91 through Hartford. I was driving at a very reasonable speed in the right lane, and, thank God, there were no cars nearby. All of a sudden my car’s rear wheels began moving to the left, but the front wheels did not. The car performed a spin of about 315°, and my left front bumper whipped into the guardrail on the left, which brought us to a halt.. Neither of us was injured. We were both wearing seat belts—I never let anyone ride in my car without a seat belt. It was amazing that my car suffered only a negligibly small bump, and the vehicle was positioned so that I could quickly steer back onto the highway. This scary event made me realize that I had to be very careful with this car in dicey road conditions.
Sue had a very large number of friends. My favorites were Bob and Susan Thompson. Bob worked in a small factory. He complained about the smell of the chemicals there. His job might have had something to do with linoleum. I think that Susan was a teacher. They had a house in Coventry and an extremely amorous dachshund. Once he gained purchase on a pants leg he was difficult to detach. Bob owned a Plymouth that saw its best days in the Eisenhower administration, or maybe earlier. In snowy weather he liked to take it into an empty parking lot and make it spin donuts.
When we had not seen Bob and Susan for a few months, I asked Sue why. She said that she had loaned them some money, and she was pretty sure that they were avoiding her because they could not afford to repay her.
On Valentine’s Day 2013 I bought Sue a present and a card. She had forgotten about it, and therefore she did not reciprocate. I took it a little hard.
Eventually I learned that Sue and time just did not get along. She regularly forgot holidays, birthdays, and appointments. She also could not gauge the passage of time. She might think that events occurred a week ago actually happened two months earlier. If she said that something would take fifteen minutes, it usually took an hour or more. If any food (e.g., beef or lamb) needed to be cooked for a specific amount of time, I had to do it. In retrospect I marvel that she had chosen to grill steaks for John Sigler and me. I cannot remember how they turned out. I was not paying too much attention to the food that night.
Sue was always late. I adopted the habit of carrying a book around with me for the inevitable waiting periods.
The fridge that we moved wasn’t wrapped.
I recall that in February of 1973 Sue and I helped one of her many friends move to a new place. The woman who was moving might have been one of Sue’s roommates in East Hampton. I remember that I was one of the people assigned to get an old refrigerator up the staircase. We succeeded, but I could not describe what technique was employed beyond brute force. At one point the woman who was moving asked what day it was. I said that it was Saturday the 24th (or whatever it actually was). She said “No. I mean, what month?”
I decided that Sue’s twenty-second birthday on March 2 should be Sue Comparetto Day. I offered to buy her anything that she wanted. She wanted to shop for a camera. We drove to a camera shop of her choosing, and she selected a thirty-five-millimeter camera with a leather case. I would have inserted a photo of it here if I knew where it was. I guarantee that it is in the house somewhere. Sue would never have thrown it out. I did find the case, which still had one of her combs in it.
We went to two concerts together in March. The first was at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford on Tuesday March 6. The headliners were Loggins and Messina, whose only real hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance” was very popular at the time. Sue and I must have attended in hopes of seeing the advertised opening act, Jim Croce. Neither Sue nor I can remember him appearing. Apparently he canceled for some reason. Almost everyone in the audience was at least five years younger than we were, and they enjoyed the L&M performance a lot more than we did. By the end of the show we really felt like old fogeys.
The other concert was at the Palace Theater in Waterbury. Pink Floyd had just released “Dark Side of the Moon”, which is widely considered their masterpiece. There were huge speakers blasting out sound from all four corners of the theater, and there was an abundance of strobe lights and other dramatic flashes. The crowd went crazy, but I was definitely ready to leave after fifteen minutes. You can listen to the whole two-hour concert here.
On April 1, 1973, Sue’s husband Dennis committed suicide. Sue went to the funeral. He had attempted suicide at least once in the fall. Sue had visited him in the hospital on that occasion.
When the weather got warmer Sue and I enjoyed a very pleasant trip to Gillette Castle, a bizarre structure that overlooks the Connecticut River. It was built of local fieldstone by the actor William Gillette. He is most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes more than 1,300 times on the stage, once in a silent film feature, and twice on radio programs. The estate is now a state park. I found it to be a very interesting place. The grounds were very relaxing. There was even a small train that had been used by Gillette himself. We had a very nice picnic.
We also spent some time in the interior5 of the castle. The extremely ornate inside was at least as fabulous as the grounds and the view. This was one of my favorite days in my first trip to Connecticut.
At some point Sue decided to quit her job at the Hartford. She found a new line of work at Travelers Equity Sales. She had to take a test to become a registered rep. She passed on the first try and worked there through the spring and most of the summer. While she worked at the Travelers she became a close friend of Diane Robinson, who originally came from Passumpsic VT, and Karen Peterson.
Around the same time that she changed jobs Sue moved to an apartment on Jefferson St. (or maybe Washington St.) in Hartford. I don’t remember much about it. My only clear recollection is of the only time in my life that I ever ran out of gas. I was about two blocks from her house and perhaps one hundred feet from a gas station. Even though it was slightly uphill I was able to push Greenie up to the pump all by myself. I was only a little stronger then; Greenie was very light and easy to push.
During her time at T.E.S. Sue and I started to grow apart. She was a whirlwind of activity, and I often felt left out. She had a gazillion friends of both genders, and sometimes I became jealous. She probably started to think of me as too clingy.
This one is 18.9′ long.
When I met Sue, she already had a boa constrictor named Puca, but he was barely six feet long and skinny. She did not feed him much, and when she did, all that he got was a dead mouse heated over a light bulb to fool his heat-detecting senses. One evening we visited her friends Stan and Pat Slatt in Marlborough. They had a ten-foot boa constrictor that Stan fed live rats and a thirteen-foot python that regularly ate a full-grown rabbit. I had no fear of Puca, but these two monsters gave me pause.
In the summer of 1973 Sue moved to an apartment complex on Wales Rd. in Andover. Her apartment was right across the street from the one that Scott and Cindy Otermat lived with their huge dog Cinders. I saw her only a few times before her big trip.
Sue, Diane, and Karen decided to quit their jobs and drive to Alaska. I am not sure that their plans were any more specific than that. I don’t know what they used for money. Maybe they knocked over a bunch of banks in those states along the Canadian border, or they might have found a big nugget of gold in the Klondike. They did not take Sue’s car. She left it at her apartment, which she “sublet” to a guy who worked on roofs for a living. I am pretty sure that they were “involved” before she left. He also was supposed to take care of Puca, but the reptile escaped from his cage either just before Sue left or just after.
This was the greatest adventure in Sue’s young life, but I was absolutely miserable. I felt sorry for myself. It was hard for me to face all my friends. I took a lot of long walks.
During the trip the three ladies all hooked up with Air Force guys stationed in Alaska. Diane ended up marrying Phil Graziose. They lived in a trailer park in northern Vermont for a number of years and then bought an old house in St. Johnsbury with a storefront in which Phil ran a locksmithing business.
On the trip Sue became seriously involved with an Air Force guy name Randy, who came from, of all places, my home town of Kansas City. I refused to listen to the stories of her adventures, but I could not help overhearing that there was one incident in which someone nearly drowned.
This matchbook cover is the only trace of Fast Eddie’s that I could find on the Internet.
Meanwhile, back in the lower forty-eight Friday, August 17, 1973, was a memorable day. Since it was my twenty-fifth birthday, I invited everyone to help me celebrate. At least eight or ten of us went to Fast Eddie’s bar on the Berlin Turnpike. I had never been drunk in my life, and I had no intention of overindulging that evening. The problem was that we were drinking beer by the pitcher, and people kept refilling my glass without asking me. I never asked for a second glass. My mother had drilled into us that if there was food on our plate or beverage in our glass, we were expected to consume it. If there was a possibility that we might not want it later, we were not to put it on the plate. Once it was there, however, …
At any rate, this was the only time in my life that I have driven a car when I definitely should not have done so. Fortunately, Greenie pretty well knew the way back to my apartment, and there were no incidents. The next day I awoke with my first hangover and played my epic tennis match with Jim Kreidler. It is described here.
Tom Corcoran and Tom Herget had been living in a large old house at 345 Hartford Avenue in Wethersfield. The third housemate had been a guy named Monty. Herget had furnished the house from items he picked up at second-hand stores on Park St. in Hartford. In August of 1973 Monty had to leave for some reason. They asked me if I wanted to take Monty’s place. It was a no-brainer. The rent was less, and life would surely be more interesting. In addition, I would be rid of a lot of scenery that connected with memories that now seemed bitter to me.
In August of 1973 I bought and read the popular book I’m OK—You’re OK by Thomas Anthony Harris. It described the research on hemispheric separation in the brain that showed that under certain circumstances people clearly have two (or more) relatively independent decision-making mechanisms. We identify with only one of them, the one that can read and talk. When something happens that this portion of the brain did not order, we are likely to say “I don’t know why I did that.” Understanding that the first “I” and the second “I” in that sentence are largely independent agents really helped me to understand people, including myself, better.
During this period I was being paid to study for Part 5 of the actuarial exams. The subject matter was indescribably boring. Can you think of anything more tedious than studying the history of mortality tables? I liked my work, and I had made some great friends in Connecticut, but there was one aspect that I really missed—debate tournaments and the thrill of competing at the highest level. I began to think about going back to college to coach debate. I wrote to Bill Colburn at the University of Michigan to inquire if that was feasible. He replied that I needed to apply to graduate school. He thought that he could arrange for financial assistance for me. I also did a little bit of research on my veterans’ benefits.
I heard that Sue had come back from Alaska, but I did not see her for quite some time. Finally she came over to the “345 Club” one evening. For some reason I was up in my bedroom. I think that the two Toms tried to talk her out of it, but she came up to see me. I don’t exactly remember what happened, but she ended up staying the night with me.
The Little Aetna’s building on Elm St.
I learned that Sue had landed a new job at the “Little Aetna” section of Connecticut General. When she returned from Alaska she discovered that the roofer had not been paying the rent. My recollection is that her car was also repossessed. She eventually found Puca—alive—between two towels in a linen closet.
So, Sue and I began what I think of as the “toll bridge” section of our relationship. In those days the Charter Oak Bridge and the Bissell Bridge had toll booths in both directions. The fastest way from the 345 Club to Sue’s apartment was via the Charter Oak Bridge and I-846. One could save a little money by buying a book of prepaid tickets, and that is what both Sue and I did.
The worst ice storm that I have ever seen hit central Connecticut on December 16-17. More details are provided here. The storm affected Wethersfield much worse than it did Andover. So, like my housemates, I abandoned the 345 Club, brought some clothes to Sue’s apartment, and stayed there for a while.
One morning during that winter—I don’t remember if it was before or after Christmas—I was driving from Andover to Hartford. Greenie was headed westbound on the portion of I-84 between Manchester and Bolton. It was early in the morning; the sun had just come up. The road conditions did not seem too bad, and I was going a moderate speed in the right lane. This time my rear wheels decided to go to the right. My car did a 180° spin before coming to a stop in the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway. I waited for traffic to clear and then, taking advantage of Greenie’s extremely small turning radius, executed a tight U-turn. I then continued on my journey. My mantra was the same as that of every male in his twenties: “No harm; no foul.”
I had decided to fly to Kansas City at Christmas to visit my family. Sue was somewhat shocked when I asked her whether she wanted to come with me, but she said yes7. We were only there for a few days, but she got to meet a lot of my family, including Fr. Joe and my grandfather, John Cernech, who by then had become very nearly deaf. She must have slept on the roller bed in Jamie’s room. My recollection is that Jamie had a date on most of the evenings while we were staying there.
Mad Murphy’s was in this building on Union St.
Another event that I remember clearly during the subsequent few months was the night that Sue and I and a group of friends grabbed a table at Mad Murphy’s, a bar near the train station in Hartford. We came there to listen to Sue’s neighbor, Carl Shillo, and his band. We stayed until the closing time, and we had a great time. The highlight was when they played “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” just before closing. Everyone marched around in a long conga line and sang along.
Passumpsic is an unincorporated village in the town of Barnet. The community is located 3 miles south of St. Johnsbury, the last civilized outpost on I-91.
By April or May I had arranged to coach debate at U-M. I asked Sue if she would come with me. She, who was in those days always ready for an adventure, agreed.
Sue and I drove up to Passumpsic to see Diane and her many siblings at least once. I don’t remember when. Tom Herget came with us. I don’t think that Phil had arrived yet. The Robinsons held a barn dance, which I cannot say that I enjoyed much; dancing is definitely not my thing. My favorite memory of this trip was when Diane’s father claimed that he had always wondered why he and his wife had so many more offspring than the other couples until someone explained to him what caused it.
I am pretty sure that Sue made other trips without me. She considered the three-hour drive an easy one, and she was enthralled by the simple lifestyle of Diane’s family.
In 1972 the Hartford recruited three single guys named Tom. The next year two married actuarial students named Jim were hired—Jim Cochran and Jim Hawke. Their wives were Ann and Lesley respectively. The Cochrans were from Wisconsin. The Hawkes were from Texas, although Jim had a bachelor’s degree in math from UConn. I don’t know how they ended up in the Land of Steady Habits.
I remember at least one evening spent at each of their houses, although I cannot say when either event happened. The Hawkes lived in a house in Manchester and a son named Ethan8. Sue and I had supper with the Hawkes and spent most of the evening enjoying Jim’s renditions of rags by Scott Joplin.
A short time after that Jim and Ethan joined Sue and me on an excursion to her property on “Bunyan Mountain”9 in Monson, MA. We parked well below Sue’s property and climbed up. I think that we had some sandwiches and toasted marshmallows.
Sue took photos of this occasion. If she can locate any of them, I will post something here.
Ann Cochran.
Jim and Ann Cochran lived in a house in Glastonbury. They invited us over to play the state card game of Wisconsin, Sheepshead. Neither Sue nor I had ever heard of it. I don’t think that anyone outside of the state of Wisconsin has ever played it more than once. Jim and Ann patiently explained all of the rules to us. Then on the first hand something—I don’t remember what—occurred. As a result both Jim and Ann triumphantly yelled out “It’s a leaster!” They then introduced a whole new set of rules as to how this particular hand would be played.
A brief glance at the Wikipedia page for this game lists some of the “variants” to the rules and hints at many others. Even though tournaments of games are allegedly held in Wisconsin, I suspect that the real purpose of this game is to lure unsuspecting non-cheeseheads into playing the game under a small subset of the rules. The Wisconsinites can then introduce new rules often enough to make the foreigners so confused and frustrated that they leave. Then the Wisconsonites can enjoy their fondue in peace.
Sue’s family played a trick-taking game called Setback or Auction Pitch, which has the benefit of far fewer rules. I played a few times, but there did not seem to be much to it. When someone in Sue’s family asked if anyone wanted to play cards, they meant Setback.
In June of 1974 I broke the patella (kneecap) on my right leg playing pickup basketball. The event itself is described here. I had to miss a few days of work, and I was unable to drive at least until the cast was removed. I decided to move in with Sue in Andover. This also seemed like the best time to tell my parents about that she would be taking care of me in her apartment. They were not thrilled by the idea, but at least they did not commandeer a plane and come to rescue me from her clutches. They weren’t too surprised when I told them that she was going to accompany me to Ann Arbor in a few months.
The rest of the summer was rather blissful for me. I could not play softball or golf, but I attended all of the Mean Reserves games and all the other get-togethers. I cannot remember any unpleasant occasions.
1. Senator Tom Eagleton was nominated for Vice President at the 1972 Democratic Convention. Shortly thereafter he resigned from the ticket when it was discovered that he received psychiatric treatment for chronic depression. The Republican Veep candidate, Spiro Agnew, was a crook, but his crimes did not come to light until after the election.
2. Sue and I returned to the castle in the summer of 2020, but because of the pandemic the interior was not open. We had another nice picnic, and I took some spectacular snapshots of the river beneath the castle.
3. For some reason McCormick’s discontinued this wonderful product in 2019 or 2020. Someone has started a “Bring Back McCormick’s Meat Marinade” Facebook page.
4. The Hartford Times was a moderately liberal paper owned by Gannett and published in the afternoon. In 1972, however, it endorsed Nixon. I wrote a letter to the editor in protest. They published one or two of the hundreds that they received about the endorsement, but not mine. The paper was sold in 1973. In 1976 it accepted the fate of most PM papers and ceased publication.
5. I did not realize at the time that I had only met the Lockes, Effy’s side of the family. The Slanetzes were not homebodies at all. They were widely dispersed. Only one Locke had moved away, Sue’s Uncle Bob, whose family lived in western Michigan.
6. Prior to 1984 the interstate highway that runs from Hartford to the Mass Pike just north of Sturbridge was called I-84 from Hartford to Manchester and I-86 east of Manchester. The never completed road that led from Manchester toward Providence was called I-84. Since 1984 the former highway has been called I-84, and the latter I-384.
7. Sue helped with the production of her high school’s musical Oklahoma. She strongly identified with the character of Ado Annie, the “girl who can’t say no”. I hereby affirm that I have hardly ever heard her turn down an invitation to do something, although she will sometimes cancel later when she realizes that it would be impossible for her to be in two places at once. This may be the biggest difference between Sue and me. I have almost never committed to anything unless I was certain that I was willing and able to do it.
Ethan Hawke and his daughter Maya.
8. The youngster grew up to be Ethan Hawke, the famous actor.
9. Evidently this “mountain” is actually part of Chicopee Mountain. Sue obtained this property as part of an agreement with her father-in-law, Chick Comparetto. There is a nice view of the valley from one spot that is either on or near her land.
Although my last official day of active duty1 in the army was Monday, April 10, 1972, I had most of the last week off for out-processing—visits to the dentist and doctor, filling out forms, etc. The only thing that I remember vividly about April 10 was that there was still snow on the ground at Seneca Army Depot (SEAD), which made it ninety-two snow-covered days in a row since the day that I arrived.
My plan was to stop in Ann Arbor on my way back home. I missed U-M much more than I missed KC. By this time I had lost touch with all my high school friends, but I had exchanged letters with Bill Davey, who was finishing his first year at Law School. Some of the guys from Allen Rumsey House, notably Frank Bell, were probably still there, too. My plans were not very specific. I would stay in Ann Arbor until I ran out of money or stopped enjoying it.
I still wear this occasionally.
I remember nothing about the trip to Ann Arbor. I probably took the reverse of the route that I had taken in January to get to the Rochester Airport. Then I flew to Detroit Metro, and I must have caught a bus to Ann Arbor. I would not have paid for a taxi, and Bill did not have a car. I think that I must have been wearing my uniform, but I don’t remember whether it was fatigues or “class A’s”. All my meager possessions were in my duffel bag. I am pretty sure that I did not bring a suitcase to SEAD. They let me keep all my Army clothes, including my field jacket, which I still have.
I must have walked from the bus stop to Bill Davey’s apartment. I slept on a couch or the floor there for the time that I was in town.
What did I do during the day? Well, mostly I walked around the campus and the surrounding area. I visited Allen Rumsey House, where I talked to Frank Bell and a few other guys. I walked down to the I-M building to see that AR’s record score for 1969-70 posted on the wall. I might have dropped by the Frieze Building to say hello to Dr. Colburn. I also have a vague recollection of attending some sort of hockey game with guys from AR. It wasn’t a varsity game. Maybe it was an intramural contest.
It is still at least two miles from the U-M campus to a McDonald’s.
McDonald’s was the only place that I could fill my belly for $1, but there were none near the campus. I remember walking to the one on the west side of town at least twice. The no-nonsense hamburgers were twenty-five cents; I ate four of them on each visit.
The old B-School building has been replaced by a much more modern complex.
I spent one afternoon at the placement office of U-M’s Business School. Someone there provided me with a list of actuarial contacts at quite a few large insurance companies.
After a few days in Ann Arbor I began to feel like an outsider. I decided to fly home and figure out my future in the comfortable environs there.
At home in Prairie Village I composed and typed letters to thirteen insurance companies. I explained my situation—just out of the Army with two actuarial exams. All thirteen responded. Ten companies said that they were not interested. Three in Hartford—Hartford Life, Aetna, and Travelers—wanted me to come in for an interview. They agreed to split the cost of my airfare and hotel expense. They put me up at the Hilton, which was within easy walking distance of all three.
This is the old Hilton on Asylum Avenue. In 2021 there is a parking lot on the site.
I flew out by myself and took a taxi from Bradley to the Hilton. I do not remember too much about the interviews. I definitely talked with Jan Pollnow (a guy) at the Hartford. I remember that the atmosphere at the Hartford seemed much more open and relaxed. It reminded me of BMA. Even the buildings were similar towers.
At both the Aetna and Travelers there seemed to be rows and rows of clerks with mechanical calculators, real numbers factories. The Hartford had plenty of clerks also, but they seemed better placed, and there was more open area.
I think it was the Aetna that made me take the Actuarial Aptitude Test, which had two parts, verbal and math. I got all the questions right. The guy who escorted me around told me that I was the first person who ever did that. He said that plenty of applicants scored 100 percent on the math part, but no one else had ever gotten all the verbal questions right.
I received identical offers from all three companies at a starting salary of $13,000 per year, which seemed to me like a truly enormous amount of money. I had never made as much as $300 per month in the Army, and I did manage to save part of that. Another way to look at it was that my first year’s salary was much larger than the total amount of out-of-state tuition for four years at a top-rate university. Things were different in those days.
I accepted the offer from the Hartford and started making plans for my move to the Hartford area. The first order of business was to buy a car. My Army friend Al Williams had purchased a small Toyota in Albuquerque. I rode in it several times, and it seemed like a cheap, practical, and reliable car. My dad, who served in the Pacific in World War II, had a very low opinion of anything Japanese. He advised me to buy an American car, but there were none as cheap as Toyotas and Datsuns. Furthermore, most people who had not been strafed by the Japanese thirty years earlier thought that the Japanese cars were at least as good as what came out of Detroit in the seventies.
However, more and more I looked at Datsuns and Toyotas, and I decided on a Datsun 1200 hatchback. I would be able to fold down the back seats and cart an enormous amount of my stuff from KC to Hartford. I picked a bright green one, which I called Greenie. I never had a problem finding that car in a parking lot.
I tried to negotiated by myself by playing one dealer against another, but I am pretty sure that they had an agreement. They certainly were not desperate for the sale. At any rate, I did get to witness the Fargo scene in which the salesman pleaded my case with the sales manager. I think that he threw in an AM-FM radio and floor mats rather than reduce the price, which was around $2,000. My dad co-signed the loan.
No “girlie stuff” on either greenie.
The car was totally devoid of “girlie stuff”2: power steering, brakes, or windows, automatic transmission, etc. It did not have a manual choke, but I learned how to set the one on the motor. It was a nice car on the inside, but it was awful on snow and ice, had too little power too carry a big load over the hills of Pennsylvania, and, in its twilight years was very difficult to start in the winter. Still, I loved it. It was mine.
I did not leave for Hartford immediately. I bummed about for a little bit, and then my sister got mononucleosis, and I had to help my mother out. Jan Pollnow called to ask when I would be coming to work. I set a date in June. It may have even been July.
I loaded pretty much everything that I owned into Greenie, said goodbye to my family, and set off on a route similar to that of the big family vacation of my youth. Thank goodness for the Interstate Highway System that made my drive a lot easier than my dad’s. I left very early in the morning, but I did not try to make it all the way to Hartford. I never exceeded the speed limit.
My recollection is that I stayed overnight in Hazleton, PA, but I don’t see how I could have driven that far by myself in one day. I can easily see myself leaving at the crack of dawn, but I would lose one hour by traveling east, and I definitely remember that I did not speed. To tell the truth, Greenie was uncomfortable at any speed over 60. Furthermore, I would not trust myself to drive very far after dark. Maybe I stopped at motels for two nights, once in some less memorable place in Indiana and once in Hazleton.
I had no credit card. I paid cash for everything. That, of course, was not unusual in the seventies.
The Shoreham was torn down and replaced by an office building decades ago.
I made a reservation for a couple of nights at the Shoreham Hotel, which at the time was located between the Hartford and the Aetna. I spent the evenings looking for an apartment. I used the want ads to locate two furnished apartments. I went to see both of them. One was very close to the Hartford. I was not crazy about the neighborhood. Instead I put down a deposit on one in East Hartford that actually had two addresses, 45 Olmstead and 23 Spring St. It looked like a motel that had been converted into apartments. It had a swimming pool in the back. This is a satellite view in 2021 of the area that in 1972 was occupied by the apartment complex, which I think was called “The California Apartments” or something similar. The apartment building and the pool are completely gone, but the parking lot on the right is the one that was formerly used by residents of the apartment. I resided there until August or September of 1973.
The KFC is still on Burnside Avenue, but it has been spruced up.
I unloaded all my stuff from Greenie. I had to walk upstairs, but in those days that was nothing to me. I had not brought anything that I could not carry by myself. I opened a bank account at Connecticut Bank and Trust (CBT—the bank that listens—and deposited the money that was in my KC account. Then I went shopping at the JM Fields department store on Silver Lane. I bought everything that I could think of that I would need—pots, pans, linen, pillows, towels, dishes, silverware, a cookbook, and all kinds of soaps and cleaning materials.
On the way back to the apartment I stopped by Kentucky Fried Chicken (not yet KFC) for supper. I am pretty sure that I ordered the eight-piece dinner (extra crispy), which in those days was two meals for me, and a large Coke.3 It was not as good as my mom’s chicken, but it was still tasty.
I knew almost no one at all in New England, but I had been in the same situation in 1966 at U-M. It felt good to be on my own, and I was primed for a new adventure.
1. Draftees were required to spend two years on active duty, two in the active reserve, and two in inactive reserve. When the active duty period for draftees was reduced in 1972, the active reserve period was concomitantly increased. So, I was in the active reserve until October 5, 1974. Since the Army had made it clear that it did not want the draftees, there was not much danger of being called up to active duty during that period. However, for three summers rather than two I was subject to being called to go to “summer camp” for two weeks of training.
2. I purloined this phrase from Rosemary Boxer on the British television show Rosemary and Thyme. She was disparaging the later Range Rover models for the inclusion of such frills.
3. Diet Coke was not introduced until 1982. The only low-calorie cola drink that the Colonel offered in the seventies was Tab, which had that horrible after-taste.
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.
TV can be educational.
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.
This is 7717 Maple in 2020. We moved into it in 1955. The house that I remember was much different:
It was light blue.
There was only one garage.
The window to the left of the door was a picture window, not a bay.
The shutters look different. I am not sure that there were any.
The addition on the right is new.
The trees are much larger. I am not even sure that there were any trees in the front.
A maple tree on the right between the houses is gone. It is possible that it grew into the huge tree on the right. It was small and skinny when we left in 1962.
Rooms have been added in the back, too.
Our version of the house contained three small bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. There was no basement. It was difficult to entertain company, but it was much more comfortable than the house on Thorp, and it was OURS.
The yard, especially in the back, was steeply sloped. Nall Avenue was at this point quite a bit higher than Maple. The best places to play on our lot were the two side yards, both of which have now pretty much been eliminated by expansions.
I remember an occasion on which my dad and I were playing catch in the backyard. He threw it to me with a lot of loft but not much distance. I ran downhill to catch it, which I did. Unfortunately I my momentum carried me into a corner of our barbecue grill, and it took a small chunk out of the left side of my forehead. It was not that big of a deal. Four or five stitches took care of it. It left a small scar that wrinkles have long since rendered invisible.
Pictured at the right is Maple Street. Nall Avenue on the right is a major street that runs north and south. Tomahawk Road, the street at the top is one of the few streets in the area that is not perfectly straight. To the left (west) it runs to Tomahawk School, which is where Jamie went to kindergarten in 1961-62. At this point it straightens and becomes a north-south street that terminates at 85th. To the right Tomahawk dead-ends at Nall, but at 75th St. it resumes its diagonal route northeast to the Prairie Village shopping center and beyond.
My recollection is that all of the houses on Maple Street were simple ranches. Some had basements, and some did not. The Nall Avenue end of the street was significantly higher than the Tomahawk end. The slope of the street that was south of our house was steep enough for sledding in the winter. The bottom of the cul-de-sac was also lower than the main road, but the slope was not as steep.
Car traffic on Maple was very light. Virtually always the cars entering from Tomahawk or Nall pulled into a driveway. Parking on the street was legal, but people seldom took advantage of this. Kids playing in the street were common. The residents knew to look out for them.
A creek (pronounced “crick” in our neighborhood) ran behind the houses on the west side of Maple. I am not sure of its function. I do not recall finding more than a few inches of water there. It certainly was no barrier to me and my friends if we wanted to go in that direction on foot. Occasionally it was a source of discovery and adventure. I remember that what we called crawdads occasionally appeared.
In 1955 our house was near the southern edge of civilization. A few blocks to the south of us were fields that had been farms only a few years earlier. I remember that while exploring a field I once discovered a mouse nest complete with babies. By the time that we moved the frontier was much farther south.
I inserted house numbers on the above map for all of the other houses on Maple. They may not be the right mailing addresses for some. My purpose was to simplify the references in describing our neighbors, starting with the side on which we lived, the east.
I am not sure who lived in the house labeled 7701. I have a vague recollection that it was an older couple with no kids. I do remember that the house on the Tomahawk side of 7701 did not exist during the period that we lived on Maple. The lot was vacant. I played football there with Don and Steve Wood and a fellow named Tuftadahl who lived on Tomahawk.
The Woods lived in 7703. Don was my age. Steve was one or two years older. They were both athletic and strong. I went down to their house many times through the fifth or sixth grade. I am not sure what happened after that. The family might have moved away.
There was no baseball field within walking distance, but we still spent a lot of summer days involved with the game. I remember many hours spent playing 500 with them. This is a baseball game that involves one player hitting fly balls to the other players. When a player on the receiving end had earned 500 points, he became the hitter.
Seldom does a runner escape a hot box.
Our other favorite diversion was hot box, which required three players. Two guys have mitts, and one of them has the ball. The other guy is “in the middle”. He tries to get past one of them. The guys with mitts try to tag him. They can throw the ball back and forth. This process is called a “rundown”. I was good at both aspects of this game, and it contributed to one of the greatest moments of my young life. It is detailed here.
I played on the Sunflower Drugs 3&2 League team with Don. Those adventures are detailed here.
Watching the All-Star Game together in the basement was the highlight of the summer. We all knew all the players from their trading cards.
The Woods were more into army games than cowboys. So, we staged quite a few mock battles with toy guns. I had a pretty realistic double-barreled shotgun that I brought to these engagements. As with the western scenarios the most important thing was to die heroically or at least spectacularly.
In bad weather we played games in their basement. They enjoyed a variation on Monopoly with which I was not previously familiar. The main change to the rules was that if someone rolled doubles, he (there was never a she) was not automatically awarded another turn. Instead, whoever could grab the dice got the free turn. Most of these games ended on a roll of doubles that quickly became a wrestling match over the possession of the dice. I never was involved in any of this grappling, but I did watch in awe when Don and Steve went at it. It usually ended when Mrs. Wood came down and yelled at them.
I don’t remember who lived in 7705. Kim, who rode on the Bluebird with us to QHRS, lived in 7707 or 7709. I don’t remember who lived in 7711, 7713, and 7715. No kids lived in any of those houses.
A family moved into 7719 a few years after we arrived. They had two boys. One was a little older than I was. The other was a little younger than I was. I can picture them, but I can’t remember their names. We played together pretty often, but I only have one really vivid memory. These guys each had a pair of boxing gloves. We had a series of boxing matches. Both of these kids and a few others were there. In the only bout that I was in I hit the other guy quite often, and he hit me almost never. The match was ruled a draw because the other guy “showed that he could take it.” I was upset for a minute or two, but I did not make a scene. Maybe I should say that if I made a scene, I don’t remember the details.
I only had one interaction with the lady who lived in 7721. One winter, probably 1960 or 1961, we had a pretty big snow, close to a foot. She hired me to shovel her walk. I did, but it took me a long time. It was almost dark when I finished. She paid me what we agreed on and added an additional dollar or two. I was grateful enough to remember the incident decades later but not enough to remember her name.
On the west side of the street I never met the occupants of 7702, 7704, or 7706. The Beesons lived in 7708. I think that the father, Bill, was one of our scoutmasters. There were two boys, John, who was one year younger than I was, and Mikey, who was another year younger.
PV Pool. There was no slide when I was there, but there was a regular pool, a diving pool with two or three boards, and a kiddie pool.
They must have moved in in the late fifties. I don’t remember them being around when I played with Don and Steve Wood. I spent a lot of time with John, however, after that. Both of the Beesons were strong swimmers, much better than I was. Since there was no swimming pool in the neighborhood, we must have gone up to Prairie Village Pool together. It was east of us near Shawnee Mission East High School. I did not really like to go there much. I always got cold, and it was embarrassing because my very flat feet left distinctive footprints—like a duck with toes.
I remembered that we played three-on-three football games on the island of the cul-de-sac. It was especially fun in the snow. I don’t remember who the other players were.
I don’t remember who lived in 7710. Michaelene Dunn, who also rode the Bluebird, lived in 7712. I don’t remember who lived in 7714.
7716 was the home of Ed and Ina Leahy. They were older than my parents by quite a bit, but they were probably their best friends, at least in the neighborhood. Ed was retired. He previously sold some kind of agricultural equipment.
One year Ed drove my dad and me to the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. It was 210 miles away, but driving west through Kansas you can make pretty good time. The roads are straight, and the traffic is usually light. I was in the back. I got very tired or maybe just bored. I tried to sleep in the car, but I could not get comfortable.
My clearest memory of the fair was when the guy in the dunk tank sang “The Old Grey Mare” when Ed walked by. He was trying to taunt Ed into buying tickets to rent a softball to throw at the target next to him. Hitting it would send him into the tank. Ed didn’t fall for it.
I was not too impressed with the fair. I had no need for a new harvester, but Ed knew a lot of the guys who had exhibits. The rides have never interested me very much. I never liked the scary ones, and the others are just stupid.
My .410 looked a lot like this one. The stock was plastic.
Somehow I had acquired a .410 shotgun. I had fired it at tin cans with Fr. Joe once or twice. Otherwise it remained mounted on my wall. I thought it was cool for it to be there, but I never so much as touched it or let anyone else touch it.
Ed took my dad and me hunting once. It might have been on the Hutchinson trip, but it might have been separate. We drove to a farm somewhere in Kansas to shoot at pheasants after the fields had been harvested. I fired at one at about the same time that someone else did. It came down, but to this day I do not know if I slew the bird, or the other guy did. He had a 12-gauge or a 16, both much more powerful than mine. So, I was probably blameless. I don’t know what happened to the bird’s carcass. I never went hunting again.
The Lotzkars lived in 7718. I think that they moved in a few years after we did. They had two or three kids, the oldest of whom was several years younger than I was.
One year there was a neighborhood picnic and party. I think that the Leahys sponsored it. Someone had a movie camera and showed the result later. I was the oldest kid there. I spent the time showing the Lotzkars how to slide like a ballplayer and climbing the T-shaped clothesline poles.
I babysat for the Lotzkars a few times. I recall that once the parents did not return home until pretty late. I watched Stars and Stripes Forever, the biopic about John Philip Sousa. on the Late Show. I have a low opinion of marches now, but I liked this movie well enough at the time.
Bob and Eleanor Anderson lived at 7720. If they had any kids, they were grown up. I remember my dad talking politics with Bob in the Andersons’ yard in 1960 after Kennedy won the Democratic nomination. My dad opined that the Republicans should have nominated Nelson Rockefeller. Bob replied that the only thing that doing that would prove was that somebody born with a silver spoon in his mouths could bedome president.
One summer day Bob took me to Municipal Stadium for an A’s game—just the two of us. It was a great time. We had very good seats on the first base line. Bob had a foghorn of a voice. Throughout the game he ruthlessly tormented the A’s second baseman, Jerry Lumpe. I did not like Lumpe either for reasons that currently escape me.
Bob’s voice carried so well that people all over the stadium were looking at him. Several ballplayers, including Lumpe, turned their heads in our direction.
I don’t remember the result of the game, but Lumpe went hitless. I think that he made an error in the field, too.
Lumpe was one of those players that the Yankees traded to KC when he seemed to be past his usefulness. To be fair, his best season was 1962, when he hit .301 for the A’s. He was a skinny guy, but he also managed to hit ten home runs that year. His average for the A’s was slightly better than his average for the Yanks. Lumpe died in 2014 at the age of 81.
I think that Bob died before we moved to Leawood. Eleanor continued to live in their house on Maple by herself.
The Wallaces lived across the street from us at 7720. I think that Mr. Wallace’s name was Ken. Her name was Jean. She and my mom were good friends. The Wallaces had three kids: Kenny, Sandy, and Gary. All were younger than I was. Gary was Jamie’s age.
I remember that one day I was for some reason home alone. Jamie must have been with my mom. I did not know where they were, and I got very upset. I think that I was even crying. Jean Wallace saw me and comforted me. A few minutes later our car appeared in the driveway.
Next to the Wallaces in 7722 was the Stivers family. Bill and Marie had two kids, Barbie was Jamie’s age, and Brad was a couple of years younger.
Bill Stivers claimed to have only one vice, fireworks. He bought a lot of fireworks for July 4, and he shot them off well into the night. For some reason this really irritated my dad. The dogs also hated it.
I don’t remember who lived in 7724 and 7726.
My first friend in the area lived in the house on Nall Avenue behind ours (7717). Michael was my age and the oldest son of Wally and Cherie Bortnick.1 Michael also had a sister Donna who was a couple of years younger. There may have been one or two younger kids, too.
A big twister hit nearby Ruskin Heights in 1957. It killed 44 people
Their house had a basement. Whenever there was a tornado, which seemed to be every Friday in May, we would troop up to the Bortnick’s house (and I do mean up) and congregate in the southwest corner of their basement. This was a blast. The chances of getting hit by one of those midwestern tornadoes was minuscule, and if you did get hit, you were probably a goner no matter what. So, it was a great time to party, and we did.
I also remember that for a short while Wally and Michael and I ran around the Nall-Maple-Tomahawk block once or twice in the morning before school. This was in an era when nobody went jogging. I liked doing it, and it might have influenced my later decision to run regularly.
Michael had a chemistry set in the basement. We used to do half-assed experiments together. I enjoyed messing around with it, but it did nothing to inspire me to study the sciences.
The Bortnicks moved away after a couple of years. However, I think that they stayed in the KC area. Michael joined our class at Rockhurst High in sophomore or junior year and graduated with us.
I don’t know who owned the empty lot south of the Bortnick’s house. No one seemed to claim it. Vacant lots just seemed to exist in those days. That one was probably too small for another house.
A girl named Louise lived in the house north of the Bortnick’s. Her last name escapes me. Her mother threw a birthday party for her, and I was invited. All that I remember about it is that we played pin the tail on the donkey. No donkeys were injured. The paper tails were affixed with scotch tape rather than pins.
1. I was shocked to discover that Donna Bortnick died in 2013, and Wally, Cherie, and Michael had all preceded her. In all, Wally and Cherie had eight children—four boys and four girls.
2. This horribly unimaginative song tied “California Dreamin'” as Billboard’s top song of 1966. Surely this was the worst song ever to become so popular. Sadler was a medic in Vietnam. His one hit made him a lot of money, but his life subsequently went quickly downhill. In 1979 he was charged with second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Nashville. He went to prison for thirty days. In September of 1988 he was shot in the head in a taxicab in Guatemala City. He died early the following year.
