Poet's Alibi
The Autobiography of Job Clifton Conger, IV -- Chapter 2
Fourth Grade
Before school began or sometime soon after, for a short period, Dot
returned from nurses training in Leavenworth and she slept on the sofa in the livingroom.
St. John’s Hospital had announced its new nursing school, she enrolled and soon found
an apartment on Fourth Street with a girlfriend, also a nursing student, named Pat Fultz,
I believe. Pat was incredibly good looking, daughter of a successful physician and great
fun. Every friend Dot brought home for dinner or around the house was wonderful to be
around. Another friend, who she dated about that time was Jim Davis, son of another
physician. We went to the Davis’ home on the west side of Lake Springfield. Often,
Dad would not let Dot go out on a daytime date without me (sometimes Bill and me, I’m
guessing) tagging along.
This is how I got to know a couple
of interesting eateries: The Milk Bar, on MacArthur, a few doors south of Ash, which had a
great juke box, and was a sunny, friendly place, and The Sugar Bowl at State at South
Grand. It was a little modern and cleaner, but also a wonderful place to eat lunch. After
The Sugar Bowl closed, the place was renovated and for years, it was the Avenue Food Shop,
a terrific grocery store, one of the last surviving family owned places that was about as
large as the long-gone Piggly Wiggly on the southeast corner of Ash at MacArthur. These
were good times for a brother.
The details of how I started fourth grade are lost to
my memory. I believe that I attended Lawrence for first semester. The school district
decreed that kids living north of Ash Street would complete grade school at Lawrence, and
those who lived south would attend Blackhawk. This was excellent news. What is not
excellent is that I have no memory of attending CLASSES at Lawrence. But I do remember
saying goodbye to friends there one day. In putting this autobi together, I am beginning
to suspect that we all went to Lawrence for a few days and moved during the first month to
Blackhawk. I remember friends who were not moving with some of the rest of us. Friends at
Lawrence -- John Forneris, Bob Briggle, Loretta Whitney -- did not move to Blackhawk.
My teacher was Mrs. McGrath, a mature woman,
trim as a whistle and probably married to a physician or a lawyer if the way she dressed
was any indication. I had not one complaint about her and too few memories at all.
Things were different in the new school.
Everything sparkled. Tile replaced wood floors. There were basketball courts and hopscotch
grids on a large area of asphalt fify feet from the back door. And there was a sense of
discipline imparted by the principal, Mr. Blair, starting with lunchtime when we would
line up at the end of our hall, and Mr. Blair would personally open the door to a
perpendicular hall that led to the lunchroom ne inside gym, ne auditorium. At the end of
the hall where we lined up, right across from the administrative offices was a tall,
gold-painted statue of Chief Blackhawk of the northern Illinois tribe of the same name, I
think. Every day, Mr. Blair would caution us to "walk-don’t-run
singlefilenotalking"to the lunchroom.. There we would buy half-pints of white
or chocolate milk and consume sack lunches, Mom-prepared, usually two baloney or summer
sausage (some said salami) sandwiches on white with Hellman's. Sometimes a banana or an
apple, Golden Delicious of course. The fragrance of the room was of cleaning fluids, a
sweet, clean scent that to this day, I connect only with Blackhawk School.
The reason my first day at Blackhawk is not set in rock as September is
the memory of what happened after what I believe was my first lunch there. On that day I
left the lunch room and accidentally exited the building through a door that opened to a
part of the school grounds I had never seen before. I remember a chill in the air like
nothing I'd have encountered in September. I found myself alone, out in this parking lot,
with no idea of where I was and suddenly "lost" again! This time I didn't go
looking for strangers for help. I walked out to what was (I know now) Lenox Avenue, looked
east and west and headed east walking the length of the school building. Then I saw
recognizable turf on the building's east side, a familiar door, and went back inside the
warm hall where I recognized my room and arrived a few minutes late from lunch. There were
traumatic consequences from my tardiness. The grownups behaved as though nothing out of
the ordinary had happened. The two minutes of incipient surrender to my doom stayed with
me for a long time. Still there was the positive side that I had not panicked, and I found
my way "home."
We returned to our rooms as we went to lunch: lined up and quiet
before we were dismissed. Usually we didn’t march back, we raced back at the quickest
"walk" we could execute. I was usually at the front of the line waiting for the
bell to ring, and it was always a race for me. We would all arrive at the door in a small
mob and usually wait for Mrs. McGrath to arrive, unlock the door and let us in. One day, I
was feeling exceptionally frisky after lunch, and I arrived at the door, put both hands
around the handle, pulled, and the door opened, breaking the rest of the hall side of the
door where the lock had been holding it shut. I had literally opened a locked door! I was
as surprised as the rest of the kids and our teacher. It was an accident, and there was no
disciplinary action taken.
Each classroom had a large display area behind a glass window.
Periodically, the classes would display colorful exhibits relating to the season or
holiday or history. For about a month, well into the school year, Mrs. Norvell’s room
had a display of some really well-built plastic model airplanes. They were very
neatly painted, and I dreamed of building them as well some day. It didn’t take long
to learn that a 6th grader named Larry Small had built them. I was very
impressed and still remember the Monogram kit of the Douglas Invader, complete with
painted anti-glare panel on the nose. Later I met Larry and we joined the same Methodist
Youth Fellowship (MYF) at Laurel Methodist Church.
It was natural for me to become involved with MYF in about fourth
grade. I had been attending Sunday school at Laurel for two or three years. In fact, when
we went to Leavenworth, to see Aunt Stelle, I even attended a Methodist Sunday school
class there so I could maintain my perfect attendance record. My record lasted two years,
second and third grades, I think. We met in the church basement. I had several friends
during the Sunday school years, Harry Najem and Jack Wood and others for sure. I would
continue with Sunday school and MYF until 9th grade.During that time, did not
attend ONE church service. Mom and Dad always dropped brother Bill and me off at Sunday
school and picked me us up after. In sunny, warm weather, we would walk home, about four
blocks. It was fun. The summer of that year on the way to fifth grade is totally lost in
memory.
I believe this was also the year that my sister Dorothy
graduated from St. John's Nurses Training School. Ceremonies were held at Blessed
Sacrament Church on the edge of downtown Springfield. We all attended, and it was my first
experience in a Catholic church. The knee pads used for praying were a surprise and a
minor confusion, but I was impressed with the dignity of the place. We were all incredibly
proud of Dorothy Conger on that day and ever since.
Fifth Grade
On my 10th birthday, September 5, 1957, Dad had invited me to come
down to the store at closing time, and promised we'd go out for dinner. And we did.
We had dinner at a place Dad frequented called Drach’s on Washington Street between
Fourth and Fifth. We then visited a record store on Sizth Street called The Record Shop or
something like that. Dad knew the owner. I bought a new 45 big hole recording of Eddie
Cochran singing "Summertime Blues." It took me about three plays to memorize the
great lyrics, a joyful record. We then visited Hobby House Toyland, a place owned by Jack
Means, across from the Orpheum Theater, more wonderful to me than any Disneyland. We
picked out a flying model kit, a Veco Redskin, a complex team racer that I knew Dad would
have to build, but that was okay. We also bought a Victor Stanzel kit of the ABC Trainer,
a simple kit that I would build with his help.
A few days later, when Dad got into the car as Mom, Bill and I
picked him up from work, he showed me the engine he had purchased for the ABC trainer and
ultimately for the Veco Redskin. It was a McCoy .19, a dependable engine that would be all
the power either model needed as long as we didn’t build them too heavy.
We also arranged for me to join the Springfield Prop Busters
(might have been Propbusters) control line model airplane club. I attended five or siz
meetings, but will always remember my second meeting when I took my ABC trainer. Dad and I
had anticipated some problems with this kit because it had been designed for Mono-line
control (which never really caught on, like Beta movie videos) and we wanted the club to
explain to me how to adapt it for the dual line control line flying. When we turned club
attention to my model that night, the president of the club -–a terrific fellow whose
name I cannot remember showed me how to mount the big 36 inch wing span solid wing to the
top of the fuselage. At the end of the explanation he said "And that’s how it
is, building this model, Job. Ten minutes putting the parts together and the rest of the
evening scraping the glue off your fingers." Great words I never forgot. Later
parents purchased the Springfield Prop Busters club shirt with my first name embroidered
above the left pocket. Years later Mom sent the shirt to charity To My Profound Regret.
Also TMPR was the fact that Dad and I never completed either
model. Someone sat on the trainer and after finishing the sing and a lot of the fuselage,
we set the Redskin aside and never finished it. I later almost-completed some flying model
kits (a Berkeley Ramrod 250, Berkeley Colonial Skimmer, Top Flite Whipsaw, Goldberg
Li’l Satan, Goldberg Li’l Jumpin Bean, Goldberg Ranger and a Veco Papoose, but
completed and flew few of them. I still have half the wing of the Veco Redskin and the
dreams that were a part of it.
............ Everybody knew there were no easy
tickets going into Fifth Grade at Blackhawk School. Mrs. Croft was a clone of Miss
Kessberger, the terror of my Third Grade. And though Miss. Croft may have been as affable
as a drill sergeant with a boil on his behind, Miss Ruppelt was that drill sergeant's
platoon commander. Mrs. Croft was the human being that Miss Ruppelt could never be since
fighting with Jesus and being sentenced to eternity as a Fifth Grade teacher on earth.
Naturally, fate and a God with a heckova sense of justice placed me in the loving care of
Miss Ruppelt.
The good side of my sworn adversary for nine months was a gift
that probably made me most of what I am as a poet. Every Friday, she would write a poem on
the greenboard, which we copied into our notebooks and memorized. First poems were easy:
"I never saw a purple cow" ditties, but those which followed were longer and
more of a challenge. This is where I learned Edna St. Vincent Millay’s A Road Might
Lead to Anywhere. and from that poem (…"or past Miss Pipp’s, the milliner
with her hats for every head."…) I learned that a milliner made hats. We learned
Frost’s The Road Not Taken and Sandburg’s "There was someone who said that
it couldn’t be done . . ." and I still remember most of it. Many poems
didn’t leave a lasting impression, and in looking back, I can’t believe we did
it every week. I do know that we did it almost every week, and that some weeks I tried,
and that some weeks I did not try as hard. The poem I did not completely memorize was
Poe’s The Raven. I thought it tedious and a stretch in some places. I still do. Most
of the kids did okay with memorizing, and I was not a standout in that regard. Many never
memorized a poem. The key gift from this grind – which I did not resent, by the way,
and did not consider time wasted because I believed (and still do) that memorizing poems
is fantastic exercise for the brain – was that I demonstrated to myself that I could
do it. It was one of just a few gifts of confidence I would receive in my entire life. If
I had been as lucky in lust as I was with poetry, I’d probably be a married man
today, but that story will have to wait.
From the other side of the Miss Ruppelt experience comes my more bitter
elucidation of her pedigree, noted at the start of this chapter. The morning had arrived
in rain that gave way to overcast April sky by lunchtime. While other kids were playing
hopscotch shooting baskets or plotting the overthrow of China, I busied myself, clad
safely in tall rubber boots, stomping around in some mud puddles, trying to achieve
maximum splash coverage as I honed my skill near the east side school door. Miss Ruppelt
was pulling security watch from that door, and she considered my cavorting in the mud,
un-American and a threat to the future of the world. She cautioned me to stop, and of
course I did. To this day, I will follow to the letter, any admonishment or warning by any
hummin’ bean named Ruppelt. When she closed the door and apparently went inside, I
resumed my frolicking . . . a dumb move. Less than three seconds into my reprise of
splashing, the door opened, Miss Ruppelt appeared and called my name, entreating me to
come inside which I did posthaste.
I can still remember her hand around my right arm between the
wrist and elbow as we marched down the hall toward the music room with her favorite
percussion instrument (a long paddle with holes drilled in it to make it hurt more) in her
right hand. As we marched, she asked Mrs. Croft to accompany us. Even then, teachers
needed a witness for what was about to happen. She didn’t waste time. Bend forward,
hands on the desk and slightly spread the legs. A count of the whacks,-- ONE (one thousand
two thousand) TWO (one thousand two thousand) THREE (one thousand, two
thousand……) five in all while explaining to me that my conduct was unacceptable
and she hoped this was the only underscoring of that point she would have to make. The
pain was enough to get my attention, but enough to disappear in 15
minutes. The lesson never disappeared. And I received no further paddlings or even
detention in high school.
During fifth grade, I played more hopscotch than baseball. I
feared and disdained baseball. Even in third grade when we all took physical education at
Lawrence School with Mr. John Liebman, I had not enjoyed the challenge of hitting that
ball (I never hit it) and catching the ball (I seldom caught it. I more often tried to
politely just miss it.) I can’t explain the fear. Maybe I had had my nose bloodied
one too many times by a ball that rolled out of my mitt, up my arm and into my face. I
never became a sports fan or an athlete, though I’ve been known to waste an afternoon
or evening during the World Series, imitating a statue in front of my TV set.
Ed Fitzsimmons lived on Pasfield at Cornell. For awhile, I’d
stop by his house as I walked to school and we’d make the trek together. One
Saturday, I visited him and we worked on a plastic model kit I believe he had been given
for his birthday: a Lindberg kit of the B-17 with an amazing 209 parts. As we worked at
the kitchen table his mom brought in a solid wood model of a P-38, very well built and
finished. About 20 years later I was able to determine the solid model his uncle had built
was made from a Dyna Model kit. I acquired a Dyna Model kit of the P-38 and I have decided
not to build it. I could not come close to the one encountered in fifth grade.
In the spring, after staying late at school, I
met two high school kids who had come to the Blackhawk School playground to fly their
U-control model planes. They used part of the smooth asphalt to take off on. I was
enthralled, just watching them, savoring the aroma of model engine fuel and talking
airplanes. Trying to impress them, I said I was working on a Cleveland kit of a SPAD WWI.
Not true. They pointed out that the WWI was not a part of the plane’s designation,
that it had flown in World War I. I was embarrassed by being caught in the lie, and
determined to pay more attention to details in the future.
During fifth grade, I became well
acquainted with the streets around my home and school, thanks to my first big bicycle. For
years I had owned a red Huffy, my first real bike, but that year, I became a paper boy and
to celebrate, with dad’s help, bought the best bike in the world: a Schwinn Jaguar
IV, purchased after considerable deliberation at the Schwinn store on Laurel between
College and Spring for $84.95. A LOT of money, but it had a
headlight, a horn, battery powered rear red light and mud flaps. It was built like a tank,
but it was as elegant to me as any Harley-Davidson.
I don’t remember how I obtained a
paper route, but I remember that I enjoyed the life. I delivered the Chicago Daily News,
which I preferred delivering to the local Illinois State Journal (morning) or Illinois
State Register (late afternoon) because the big Daily News paper was delivered on Saturday
mornings. We had Sundays off. From Monday through Friday, I came home, brought my papers
in from the street curb where they had been dropped off earlier in the day, folded them
and packed the canvas bag which sat on the front fender of my Jaguar IV with straps
stretched tightly through "S-rings" which were attached to the ends of my
handlebars. My first paper route ran from Laurel to South Grand, from Spring to Second
Street, probably 35 papers. The Chicago Daily News was a thick newspaper, even
during the week. Our Wednesday papers were as thick as the local Sunday papers. When the
weather was good, I sat folding papers on my front porch with the newfangled family
transistor radio keeping me company. One day’s headline remains with me: FIFTY –
IT’S NIFTY announced Hawaii’s new statehood.
Listening to WCVS
radio as I folded papers, I soon had a favorite show. J.A., short for Jim Austin, was the
top disk jockey of the city. One day he did a remote broadcast from The Bootery downtown,
and on this day he announced that he had left his records by accident at the radio
station. All he had with him was "Tan Shoes and Pink Shoe Laces." He played this
record between commercials and chatter with customers and staff at the store, for the
entire time it took me to fold papers that day. He kept asking for that radio station
people to bring him more records. But for 35 minutes it was hilarious radio! Later, J.A.
attempted to stay awake for a record time, spinning records at the Dodge dealer where we
had bought the 1956 Coronet convertible. It was a great thrill to go to the dealer and
watch him entertain. If my memory is right, he was the only personality from WCVS during
that marathon. I even spoke to him and asked him for an autograph. He wrote "Later!
J.A." I was too square to understand and appreciate this cryptic scribble. It
affected how I would sign my first books of my poetry, 40 years later.
Delivering the Chicago Daily News no matter what the
weather was a matter of pride with me and I enjoyed it. My greatest challenge was on a
late, darkening winter afternoon in heavy sleet. Halfway into the route, things became too
icy for me to ride, so I walked the bike. Along the way, sometime after 5:30, my mom
pulled up and offered to let me put my bike into the trunk and carry me the rest of the
way in the car. This really touched me, but I thanked her and sent her home. I knew
I’d be okay, and I was. Dinner tasted great when I arrived home.
On Saturday mornings, Dad would awaken me about 6:15 and the two
of us would fold the thick weekend editions at the kitchen table, talking and drinking
coffee. Minutes after returning, he had a great hot breakfast waiting for me. I was always
done by 8 and I had the entire day for fun.
As long as I lived at 2016 South Whittier Avenue, Dad cooked
breakfast for the family. He was always up by 6 and starting mom’s breakfast. Eggs,
pancakes, French toast. Bacon, sausage. Coffee. Early into kidhood I drank coffee because
it was grownup to do this for breakfast. The rest of the time I drank milk or iced tea.
Mom and dad would eat, she would come upstairs to get ready for work, and Bill and I would
take second shift at the table. Then we’d head up, shower separately and get ready
for school and head out. Bill had his schedule, his friends, his way of doing things, and
I had mine. We never went anywhere together unless it was a family thing and there were no
alternative options on the table.
Besides delivering the paper, a few times a year a station wagon
full of newspaper boys went canvassing in strange and interesting neighborhoods all over
Springfield. Mr. McDaniel, our district manager, would pick us up and drop us off in pairs
in pre-planned streets. He then drove the territory, checking on us often. There were
sales contests, and I always did okay with them. I still remember some of the
neighborhoods we visited during these adventures. I can to this day, not glance at the
State Capitol Building driving east on Monroe street without glancing at the dome without
remembering that as a newspaper boy for Chicago Daily News I sold newspaper
subscriptions on this street on a spring night, many years ago. W h a t a f e e l ing!
The only part of the Chicago Daily News career I did not enjoy
collecting the money, knocking on doors and asking for anywhere from 55¢ to a few dollars
a piece from people who sometimes tried to avoid me. A major annoyance to my parents and
an unhappy portent of traits to come, was my habit of using money I collected from
customers and spending it on hot dogs, Hires root beer, model airplane kits and candy at
Sears. Often they made up my shortages with their own money. They never let me forget my
literally stealing from the newspaper and their coming to my aid frequentl,. and to this
day, I regret doing it.
Earlier in our lives, Bill Marshall, Mike Price and Mark shared
the thrill of smoking cigarettes and Tiparillos (with plastic tips to be placed into the
mouth) for the first time. On a summer day, they came over to my place and we went out in
search of a back yard to smoke in. Any nice back yard would do, and it didn’t take us
long to find a great one with the first weeping willow tree I had ever seen in the back
yard. Bill and I threw up violently near that willow tree probably half an hour into the
smoking experience. I would not pick up another cigarette until high school.
My paper route continued with little inconvenience and thrills a
plenty. In sixth grade, I was offered a route closer to home: from Whittier to Second
Street, Ash to Lenox, blocks from Sears. I accepted it with the understanding I could find
someone to take over my old route. Thus came a competition between my friends Bill
Marshall and Mark Swartout. Mark had a terrific pole house in his back yard on Spring. He
lived almost across the alley from Bill Marshall on First. We were all airplane
enthusiasts..
The contest I had for the paper route involved giving each
bags to carry part of my papers and then giving each an address to deliver a paper to as
we traveled the route. Bill won the contest, and soon after Mark started attending private
school. Both were terrific friends!
During fifth grade, Dorothy married Bob Shymansky, a
movie-star-handsome fellow whom, I believe she met two years or so earlier. The first time
I had met him, he had pictures of the U.S. Army tanks he had been connected to when he
served in Gerfmany. He was a nice guy, and the family (me included) liked not only Bob,
but his parents, Margaret & John Shymansky who lived on North Fifth Street south of
Springfield Junior College at the time. They moved to St. Louis where Bob worked for Selig
chemical company, or something to that effect. Dot stayed home and took care of the house.
After they settled in, my family visited them one weekend during the school year. We
visited a huge amusement park which has since been torn down, the St. Louis zoo, and
learned that all the kids in St. Louis were playing this new game called soccer. Bob and
Dot predicted it would become as popular as baseball in the USA.
One of the nifty things about fifth grade was that I established
some healthy, innocent relationships with girls: Mary Ann (forgot her last name) and Linda
Walden. These were days when eye contact and smiles meant a lot. Black hair, light
complexion and convivial, always a smile. Conversation was consistently fun with Linda,
and would grow more fun in the years to come.
Sometime between fifth and sixth, I
discovered a hobby shop on South Grand between State and Glenwood. I visited there twice
on my bike. It is still my dream of a hobby shop, small enough to see the ownner when
entering the store, full of the fragrance of Aero Gloss dope, balsa and glue. The fellow
who owned it built flying models, and several hung from the ceiling. I didn’t spend
any money at the store, but I wanted to. I always wanted to return with money for a
plastic model kit, but by the time I had the momey, the shop was gone, replaced by a big
funeral home that still stands there. During my second visit, I watched a man come in and
explain that his son was ill, and he wanted to buy a model kit. He departed the shop with
an ITC kit of the Stinson Model U trimotor. Many years later I collected an example of the
same kit.
Sixth Grade
My sister knew Miss Edith Kolaz, my sixth grade teacher,
but that didn’t keep me from falling in love with her. Probably a few years older
than Dot, Miss K could have been a model .Miss Allen of second grade could have been a
model too.
Writing -- more accurately, reading -- became more important that ever in my life.
That’s because Miss Kolaz had a book report program and a time at the end of the week
set aside for book reports. Students who gave 10 through 19 book reports received a
certificate, suitable for framing. For every ten books more than the first ten, a gold
star was placed on the outside border of the certificate. Many students read more books
than the 18 I reported on. At the end of the school year assembly, Jeffery Halden, my
long-time friend, received a certificate and 19 gold stars! I impressed as the Dickens by
his feat (to say nothing of his ankles). I knew he had done the work. He was the smartest
kid I knew. On the other hand, I had not done the work.
Later on in my life, a few days before I was to leave Springfield
to manage a Lums restaurant in Carbondale, Illinois, Jeff Halden called me and I drove
over to visit him at his apartment on the 700 block of West Monroe. He told me his life
story, that he’d served with the US Navy in Vietnam, intelligence work in Saigon and
was now working for Illinois Bell, bored as hell with the service calls he was making. We
parted as friends again, and I headed for Carbondale, promising to call him again when I
was back in town. I didn’t. About three weeks later, I learned Jeff had committed
suicide. I can’t drive down Monroe to this day without looking at the duplex where he
lived that summer and wishing I had known him better.
In sixth grade, I joined the Junior Scholastic paperback book
club and purchased books regularly sometimes one at a time, sometimes three or four at a
time for 25¢ and 35¢ each. Mrs. Kolaz had a problem with my book reports, not with the
quality of my writing or oral presentation, but with my consistent choice of non-fiction
and almost-always aviation. One fiction book I cherished at the time
was Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Machine. I re-read it often and held onto it
into junior high. Another club book I purchased was X-15 Man’s First Flight Into
Space by Martin Caidin. It’s probably the first book I ever bought, and I still
have it, in well worn, but complete condition, today. Copyright 1959. We didn’t have
to show our books to the teacher, and as a result, I gave a book report for a book I did
not read, a book that did not exist. I was inspired to do this by more than one report
given by class mates in which they "did not remember" the authors. My false book
report, which I gave as an oral presentation began, "The name of my book is Bird
Dog, the Story of the Cessna L-19 and I forget the author." and I made up the
rest of the two-minute report. I never did another false book report. Miss Kolaz took me
aside one day, walked me to the bookshelves and placed into my hand Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Treasure Island. She told me that the next book report I shared
with the class would have to be fiction: this book, or any other fiction book. I thumbed
through it, took it home, read something about huddling below decks and gold, and stopped
reading. This kind of story didn’t turn my crank. I returned the book to Miss Kolas
and did not produce another book report. My final "book" report had been Bird
Dog, the Story of the Cessna L-19.
Before winter set in, I ended my career as a
newspaper carrier and never saw another Chicago Daily News.
During the school year, if my memory serves, Dot
came to Springfield to give birth to Robert Lee Shymansky, their first child. Later, Bill
and I spent about a week, maybe less, visiting them. During this time we visited Lambert
Field, and Bob took pictures of F-101 Voodoos taxying to and from test flights from
McDonnell Aircraft Comany across the airport from the airline terminal. What an incredible
place it was! I still have a couple of the pictures, and I can't look at them today
without thinking, gee if we had only had a telephoto lens! It was during this longer visit
that I purchased a Revell kit of the Vought F8U Crusader. I worked on it on Dot's dresser
in their bedroom and I accidentally spilled some white model paint. This was just about
the worst trouble I would be in during my interaction with Bob & Dot. Dorothy had a
fit. No physical retribution; just great disappointment in me for spilling the paint.
I considered myself pretty lucky. All it took
during dinner with Mom and Dad at home was to tip over a glass of milk for Dad to send the
offender (Bill or me) to our room, regardless of how far through dinner we were.
In sixth grade, mom and dad gave me my first guitar. It was a
Kay, they bought it from Fishman’s, and it cost $15. Mom brought home a few books
from the library with the hope I would teach myself from these books. They were written
for grownups and way beyond my comprehension. I probably should have asked for guitar
lessons, but I believe I was still disenchanted with instrument teachers from my piano
days. I didn’t imagine I could ever play this thing with six strings.
Still, I wanted to learn. Finally, two years later, when parents gave me my first
Mel Bay guitar book, I began to have fun with the instrument.
In the meantime, I had fun with the instrument, pantomiming (they
call it lip-synching today) to the Everly Brothers "Problems, Problems" and
believe it or not, their song called "Bird Dog." I loved Elvis and wanted to be
just like him, but I wanted to play the music of the Everlys, Neil Sedaka ("I Go
Ape" "Breaking up is Hard to Do")
My introduction to social dancing.—as in square and Virginia
Reel – was uninspiring. I was became a dangerous clutz with big feet. It all seemed
so complicated. Beverly Sheretz stands out in memory as tied to my "learning how to
dance" epoch. We danced together during dance instruction time, but we were not close
away from that anguishing time. Thank God she was patient and had a sense of humor!
Soon after that experience, I was "made" by my
parents to take dance lessons at the YMCA, at that time still on Seventh Street across
from City Hall and Lincoln Library. I attended, and learned some steps, but I was born
without the "social dancing gene." I always had an inkling to learn ballet. At
home after school, I would play an LP of Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue," or
"An American In Paris" and dance around the living room like a ballet star,
jumping, sweeping my arms, letting something in me and in the music move me. But not a
soul ever knew about this time of my life until this autobiography. At the end of this
period of maybe six months to a year, I decided I would never make a good ballet dancer. I
could never deal with the clothes and dancing on my toes. I gradually came to understand
my future lay not with tights and talcum powder, but with words.
In sixth grade, I wrote my first poem and held onto it for
several years. It was getting close to Thanksgiving, early in the school year, and Miss
Kolaz asked us to write a poem or short story about the day. In the probably half an hour
she gave us, I wrote a three-stanza poem. All I remember of it today is the first stanza.
We thank the Lord for all of
these
For honey sweet and honey
bees,
For flowers so small and
trees so tall
And for the people that we call
Mom and Dad!
Miss Kolaz asked me if I was
"sure" I had written it, and I replied that I had. There were no books on my
desk, and I didn’t copy anyone else’s poem, and I hadn’t memorized a poem
just in case we had an assignment like that. When I took it home, parents were impressed
also.
My only brush with major school
trouble occurred this year. I was always exploring dad’s old photography things in
the basement before he sold most of it. There were flash attachments, lots of dark room
chemical developing trays, and enlarger, far more than I could ever appreciate or
understand. One day I discovered some 3½ x 5 inch pictures of a drawing of the ABCs. What
made these pictures special was that they were drawings of naked men and women in
positions that formed the upper case letters. At this time I didn’t even know about
"making whoopie" and saw nothing more than "funny" about the drawings.
But soon after taking probably 20 of these prints to school with me and passing them
around to some friends who found them VERY INTERESTING, I found myself in Principal John
Blair’s office and mom and dad arriving in states of high wrath. I was lost to the
importance of the incident. All I knew was that I was expelled for three days for passing
around "dirty pictures." For all I know, I’m still on file somewhere as a
sexual threat to society, though I’ve never put an angry hand on anyone in my life.
The aftermath at school is lost to me. I don’t remember being shunned by the kids or
treated differently by the teachers. Decades later I encountered John Blair at a social
occasion, and he remembered that incident and me. But he smiled over it. He did what he
had to do as a principal, and I never blamed him for that. He seemed to respect me since I
had made it all the way to my 20s without going to the electric chair. And as I always
had, I thought the world of him. He was one of the good ones.
Sixth grade music
classes were held behind closed curtains on the auditorium stage. Often during these first
experiences with singing with other kids, I would test the patience of the music teacher
by intentionally singing just sharp enough to make her hear the dissonance from somewhere
in the middle of the kids. I might sing with a Southern accent. Other times, I’d drag
the beat for a measure or two, just to add a syncopated edge. Most of the kids around me
didn’t seem to notice, but she sure did, and I always stopped before she became
angry. But occasionally, she’d comment, and that was all I needed to get me back in
key. The hard part was stifling my giggles and playing innocent while enjoying the smiles
of a few kids who were aware of my tomfoolery, understood it, and enjoyed it.
That year, two "mostly
talking" hit records became very popular. One was "Transfusion" by Nervous
Norvus, and this was an adult kind of hit which mom and dad discouraged me from reciting.
The other was "Russian Bandstand," a comedy farce that played about three
minutes on the radio stations. In just a short time, I memorized both to the extent I
could ape most of each just for laughs in class. Everyone seemed to enjoy my antics.
I became a patrol boy
(traffic guard) in 6th grade, and I wore the patrol belt with the "Z"
across my chest with pride. Gloria Owen, a classmate of mine, was the leader of the group.
We arrived early to stand in middle of the street to let the kids cross and we stayed
later in the afternoon to help them get across the streets going home. This was good fun.
We could arrive late for morning classes since we followed the kids to school, and
we’d leave afternoon classes early to walk to our corners before school was
dismissed. At the end of the year, we had a party at the Coca Cola bottler on Sixth Street
near Iles Park.
For about the first four weeks of 6th grade, I
was a student of the cello. Mr. Bowen, the orchestra teacher, based at Lawrence (still
going strong as an elementary music teacher) had visited our fifth grade class late in the
year. He said he was going to start a young person’s symphony at the new Benjamin
Franklin Junior High School, which was going to be built some blocks away on Outer Park,
west of MacArthur, a looooong stone’s throw from my house, but easy travel on my
Jaguar IV. Mr. Bowen explained the different instruments, and I was attracted to the cello
from the start. I liked the musical mid range and sound when he played one briefly, and I
was impressed by the fact it was almost the only symphonic instrument which had to be
played sitting down. The only problem: cello players needed to have a "tree"
constructed, a simple T-shaped device that was placed underneath the chair with the middle
part with holes drilled for positioning the instrument sticking out so one could practice
and play without damaging the floor. I might as well have had to procure a piece of the
sky. For some reason, I was afraid to ask my dad to build me one. He was an excellent wood
worker, and could have built one for $1.38 and one arm tied behind his back.
Another factor against my becoming
the next Pablo Casals was my patrol guard duty. I could not be a patrol guard, return to
school and then carry my cello all the way home, even if I walked to school. I tried. I
carried it home one day, and knew for certain that I could not continue that way. My
then-friend Marty Rogers agreed to walk it home for me, but the first day he said he
would, I was approached at my patrol guard station by a friend who said Marty was PLAYING
the thing in the middle of the street. I left (my time was almost up anyway) and ran to
the corner where I saw him standing bent over with his foot on the neck of the instrument
and sawing on the strings with the bow, as though he was cutting firewood! This
arrangement did not work out. I do remember cherishing the three or four lessons I
received in the Blackhawk School music room, learning how to bow and how to really
read music. I always WANTED to learn to read music, here was a situation in which I would
never get by on my "ear" and I blew it because of coincidentally unkind
circumstance. I still love the cello.
In late spring of 1959, dad gave me a simple box camera and
changed my life. The first pictures I took were of the beautiful silver-grey Buick Electra
(Parents purchased the first ’59 Electra in town.) I took the camera to school the
final day, but those pictures were lost subsequently. Also took my first airplane
pictures. The first a Talos guided missile on a flatbed (touring to show the public our
modern weapons) trailer at the Illinois State Fair. I still have that picture. Most
pictures I took after that were airplane or model airplane pictures.
Seventh Grade
As I was destined to be in the first class to enter
Blackhawk School, I was also privileged to start attending Ben Franklin Junior High at
entry (seventh grade) level. I rode my Jaguar IV to my first day of school and rode it
every day I attended for the next three years, in major rain and snow, at 10 degrees below
zero. I know this because I paid attention. And I was proud to do it. I didn’t ask
for rides. Riding my bike was more fun!
Mrs. George was my first homeroom teacher. The idea
of homerooms, of leaving to attend other classes was all new and exciting. As I remember
getting lost at Blackhawk my first day, I remember cocking my head and listening to the
sounds and savoring the fragrances of homeroom on the first day at Franklin. There was
light rain that September day. Confidence and lofty expectations wafted through the room.
Early into the first week, we elected a
homeroom class president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. Gloria Owens nominated
me for treasurer since, she explained, I had been a newspaper carrier. So I became
treasurer. Dad and I set up a bank account for the class, and things
went okay. I did spend some of the class money, drinking milkshakes and Cokes after school
with Steve Meyer, a new friend at Franklin. Steve was a sharp fellow I thought destined
for a career in law. Don’s Drive-In was terrific, with small juke boxes along the bar
where we usually sat.
Also in about the first week, we were asked to share our thoughts
regarding our future as students. Did we feel we were going to attend college after high
school, or did we anticipate that we would enroll in a trade school that they were
planning to build in the near future? At the time, I thought I’d go to a trade
school, but when I told mom and dad what I said, I was surprised how mad they were with my
response. Of COURSE I was going to college! How could I have been so stupid, to think I
was NOT going to college? What kind of career would I have if I DIDN’T go to college?
I better set my target on college if I wanted a CHANCE of success. There was no talk of
what college was all about. I knew my sister Dot had gone to nurses’ training school;
not college, and she was going pretty well as a surgical nurse at St. John’s
Hospital, living in her own apartment -- so I was surprised by parents’ passion for
me going to college. So I changed my mind, not that I changed my course studies.
Across the hall from homeroom was the choral room and Miss
Broche, the choral teacher. Band people attended band in a separate room on the ground
floor, but the rest of us took singing. Mrs. Broche – like a diamond broche –
was a hefty woman with a powerful, accurate, long range voice for song. She was the
quiintessence of the adage: "The opera isn’t over until the fat lady
sings." This was Mrs. Broche: a joyous, convivial, enthusiastic and competent
teacher. The first day of class, I remember walking in and sitting down and considering
silently, whether I wanted to continue to have fun goofing off in class OR settling down
and trying to learn something about singing, even if it meant not misbehaving. I chose the
latter course, and before we started a second song, Mrs. Broche said "We have to stop
here. During the song I heard a voice that really stood out, and I need to find him now.
She had a few of us sing a few notes, and when I sang just a few seconds, she said
"Stop! You’re the one."
From that day on, I was moved, like a floater, to sit next to
kids so they could hear my voice and follow it, so they could sing more in tune. I
even sat next to altos and sopranos and somehow sang their parts! One fellow I sat next to
a LOT was a bass with a great profundo sound but no accuracy. His name was Randy Roland.
During this time, I didn’t sing solo parts. There weren’t many solo parts for
seventh grade singers, and that was okay with me. I KNEW I had something significant to
offer, because of the esteem shared by Mrs. Broche and because I always seemed to be the
first to learn the tenor parts of songs. Sometimes I sang bass, but had more fun with the
melodious tenor parts.
Every boy took shop class in seventh
grade, and I hated every minute of it. The teacher was a terrific fellow, Oswald Holtman,
another icon, deserving of a statue or at least a painting. He was a great guy, and not
even my incompetence at the drafting table, or slow progress learning a printers’
box, or three thumbs in wood and metal shop kept me from appreciating the gold I saw in
the qualities of the man. He told some great stories of working the iron refineries in
Pittsburgh, pouring liquid steel and refining it, the need for so much old steel to blend
in with the raw ore to make new steel.
The year whizzed by. A year of gym classes where you had to
buy and wear your own Ben Franklin Junior High School gym shorts and tee shirts at Black
Hardware Sporting Goods Department downtown. As luck would have it, John Liebman, my
physical ed teacher at Lawrence, was the boys’ phys ed teacher at Franklin. And he
was a taskmaster. He challenged the kids, talked eloquently about the virtues of staying
in shape, he knew every sport ever invented, and he knew how far to push us. He had been a
professional boxer briefly. I’ll never forget his talking about the importance of
never getting angry in the ring. "The only time I ever got hurt in a fight was when I
got angry." That stayed with me for the rest of my life. He was a gentleman and a
great teacher. I never could do more than three chin-ups, but I didn’t feel like a
sub-human as a result. He gave me a measure of dignity as a human male, a gift I would not
receive from most of my family.
Another major teacher was art instructor John
Ashworth, a cool, reserved, man of few words and slow, deliberate actions. During a
citywide art contest, he entered my pen and ink drawing of a U.S. Air Force pilot running
for the cockpit of a Convair F-102. It was chosen to be part of the big student art
display downtown.
During this year, Town and Country Shopping Center,
today a historic landmark, next to Franklin Jr. High, had not been built. They were
clearing the meadow timber that fall and beginning its construction in the spring. There
was also a large mansion behind trees on MacArthur on the north side of Outer Park. Only
the vaguest memories remain of seeing that house and regretting in later years that it was
paved over and replaced by a Woolco, a Venture, a K-Mart and now a big empty building and
asphalt in a large yard where children used to play.
Bob and Dot had moved to Champaign-Urbana so
Bob could return to the U of I and finish college. He had been drafted into the army, and
getting his degree meant the world to him ... and to Dot. Our family visited them at their
small apartment one weekend. Before we piled into a car for a tour of the community around
the U of I campus, Dot put a meatloaf into the oven, so it would be ready when we
returned. It was a fine tour, and I was very impressed (intimidated might be the more
appropriate word) by the campus. What an august, rich, wonderful place to study!
When we returned, we discovered Dot had not correctly set the
temperature for the oven, and we didn't realize it until we began passing it around. It
had been cooked but barely. We laughed about this for years after.
During this visit, during conversation in the livingroom, I
became acquainted with the Beat culture and beatniks, which Bob and Dot explained were the
current movement on campus. And from that point on, I imagined myself to be a beatnik with
the beatnik's language, though never the beatnik's wardrobe. I was not into dark
sweatshirts and wearing cigarettes in my mouth.
Also during this visit, I picked up a book called Samurai
by Saburo Sakai and Martin Caidin with some other authors of Japanese ancestry
thrown in: Roger Pineau was one if I remember correctly. I started reading this book and
could not put it down. Following our return to Springfield, one of the happiest moments in
my life (up to then) was when I was able to borrow that book from Lincoln Library. I
almost inhaled the story, it was so engrossing and inspiring, even though the story was of
a Japanese Navy fighter pilot who had killed many US aircrews. This was THE BOOK that
hooked me on aviation history as worthy of my further serious study.
This year we had sock hops after school.
We’d leave our shoes outside the gym and dance in our socks. I didn’t do much
dancing, but because I was a social creature, enjoyed being with good people, I attended
the dances. Linda Walden and I were friends, but there was nothing hurling us together.
The years at Franklin were the happiest years
of academe for me. Some would suggest that I have spent most of my life in the early
pubescent state of mind that I grew into there. And I would have to think awhile before
denying it.
to be continued.............. in Chapter 3 here
return to Chapter 1 here
return to my home page here