Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Just Jeans -- School Jeans (Fourteenth in a Series)
One of the many signs that heralded the upcoming school year was not a sign at all. It was a smell.
It started with, of all things, shopping!
The Big Chief notebooks with a Native American “chief” in full headdress adorning the cover (likely modeled after the “chief” in full headdress on a can of Calumet baking powder, or the Native American who adorned the top of a TV test pattern) were, of course, staple items. They went with the big, thick pencils and transparent rulers (with NO metric scales yet) in the late-summer shopping spree right before school started. But buying school clothes was the most revered of rituals at 315 Bolton Place. And that meant only one thing for boys (sorry, but girls had to wear dresses back then) – jeans, glorious jeans!
Lee jeans were the chinos of choice (Levis also were popular, but were more expensive), and the fave store was Langston’s Department Store in Midwest City. While today, Wal-Mart, Target and the big franchises are the trendy stores for the middle class, Langston’s department store was the clothing enterprise for all classes in mid-America Oklahoma of the 1950s and 1960s.
The OTASCO store (Oklahoma Tire & Supply Company) could address the vehicle and entertainment requirements – tires, spark plugs, oil filters, radios, TVs and a limited selection of toys. On the other hand, Langston’s had everything a family needed to clothe themselves – jeans, shirts, dresses, boots, socks, underwear (only tidy-whiteys, mind you), and a smell that could make you think you were in your grandmother’s house.
Established in 1913, Langston’s flagship store was located in the stockyards area of Oklahoma City. It was built there because that’s the area where cattlemen, ranchers, etc., came to “sell their wares.” With that type of clientele, it made perfect marketing sense to peddle jeans and “western wear.” But knowing the needs of Oklahoma families, Langston’s also sold the other essentials, too.
Even though we went to a Catholic school, jeans were the universal attire for all young boys in the Sooner state. Jeans were not just staple items, they were mandatory. And while the label wasn’t that important, there were several key characteristics to being properly draped.
First and foremost, they had to be NEW! There was never a more pleasing smell than new jeans. Combined with the inherent “stiffness,” the smell of new jeans is something that I will always remember. Just thinking about that smell reminds me of the happy times of my youth. Baseball cards, Mickey Mantle, Tommy McDonald, Bud Wilkinson; playing whiffle ball with Bob Black in the back yard; carefully mowing base paths and a pitcher’s mound in the back yard; hitting a home run into our own version of the “Green Monster,” daddy’s well-trimmed hedge; watching (and laughing) as our cocker spaniel, Danny, charges the barbecue grill and leaps up and devours our cookout!
Another element critical to the proper jeans was “fullness.” Tight-fitting jeans weren’t an option. Hollywood hadn’t landed in Oklahoma City yet! If – God forbid – you got a hole in your jeans, or there was a “wear spot” in one of the knees (or both), you might as well take the scissors to them and fabricate “cut-offs.” They were totally useless, not to mention non-chic and a fashion faux pas.
The crowning jewel of well-dressed jeansman was the crease that was dutifully ironed into each well-starched pant-leg. No zippers, here, either. The correct jeans had metal-buttoned flies. Sloppiness was not allowed. Comfort was not the intent of the jeans-maker or the wearer. The creases were military-type – no breaks, and they had to be centered. When the crease wore out (which was often the case after one wearing), the jeans were deemed unwearable until they were washed and prepared again. This was an inherent Catch 22.
Of course, the jeans had to be revitalized, but, alas, washing them took the newness out and they took one more step towards the jeans graveyard. No one would be caught with faded jeans!
There were only a couple of acceptable options, or accessories to jeans, and they were a definition of your place on the geographical grid. Cowboy boots – Justin or Tony Lama – and big belt buckles were ostensible signs that you either lived outside of the city limits or you were a Cowboy wannabe. City guys wore sneakers or regular shoes – not their original Converse Chuck Taylor’s, though, because they were only for the basketball court. It was admissible, too, to put a cuff on your jeans – folding up the bottoms till the length was right.
Lee and Levi, likely to facilitate assembly, hadn’t worried that much about the length of their jeans and if you had a certain waist size, well, they came in only one length. Pity the poor guys who were either too short or too tall. They just had to live with it.
On top of that – we all wore our jeans properly – they were girded at the WAISTLINE, and if your tidy-whiteys were showing, you were a pervert! And while I’m on it, the only people who wore tattoos were ex-Navy guys and circus people!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Happy Summer!
Haven't had a post in a while, but it doesn't mean that I am not writing. Eau contraire. I am busy with a new client and a new year-long project that culminates in a large industry trade show in Cleveland in September 2010. We'll be off to Pennsylvania next week to visit Gina, Jason and our grandsons Travis and Jack! We really look forward to that. It will be the extent of our summer vacation this year, but we've got a couple of trips planned for the fall -- each is business-related.
To while-away the rest of the time, we are biking (did a 17-mile jaunt on Sunday through the Metroparks bike trail), walking and watching the hapless Cleveland Indians!
Wish we could see you more often, but can't afford much more than short excursions these days. Hopefully, the economy will improve and along with it, my business. In the meantime, hope you have a great summer.
May God bless you and your families.
To while-away the rest of the time, we are biking (did a 17-mile jaunt on Sunday through the Metroparks bike trail), walking and watching the hapless Cleveland Indians!
Wish we could see you more often, but can't afford much more than short excursions these days. Hopefully, the economy will improve and along with it, my business. In the meantime, hope you have a great summer.
May God bless you and your families.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Tornado Alley (Thirteenth in a Series)
The habitual springtime winds blew at hurricane force out of the south. Then, like a hawk searching for its prey, the same warm gusts circled incessantly seeking something to abate their force – maybe a tree, a hill or even a house. Void of an arrester, they eventually lifted the red soil off the ground like a magnet attracting metal shavings, and pulverized the clay into micro-bullets that could strip the paint off a car.
This particular evening the rains followed the path that the preceding winds already had marked. They were so forceful that you couldn’t tell from which direction they were coming – the sky, the house across the street or the ground! A cacophony of thunder and lightning completed the meteorological symphony. It was tornado season in Oklahoma!
A metal awning, repositioned by the elements, was banging against the back door of our home on Bolton Place. Tired of the noise that “disturbed” the other natural clattering, my dad decided that he could at least take care of the awning noise. He flicked on the back porch light, peeked out the window, surveyed the situation and knew that a good tug of the errant blade of the awning would at least mute the sound. He opened the door and, of course, the wind and rain immediately became partners with the kitchen floor.
“Damn,” he mumbled.
Then he stepped outside onto the porch, closing the door behind him. My mom, brothers and sister were all watching nervously. In a few seconds, we heard the clattering stop, and my dad opened the door and came back into the kitchen – drenched from the thinning hair on his head to his shoes. He didn’t say much – he never did – but let out a big, “Whew!”
He got a towel and started drying himself off, and had just started towards the living room when there were two simultaneous loud noises. One came from outside the back door and appeared to come from the light. The other was more definitive. There was a big fireball that appeared on the electrical socket that housed the toaster next to the kitchen sink. Both sounds exploded with an ear-deafening “BANG!”
We all screamed.
When we realized that the world wasn’t coming to an end, logic told us that the loud noise and resultant electrical ball of fire were the designs of a bolt of lightning. Then later, we began counting our blessings because the heavy rains prevented the wood-shingled roof from catching fire and, most importantly, our father’s timely exit from the porch prevented him from being a victim of the lightning.
The winds and rains continued to pelt the house, and fearing the worse, daddy thought it would be best to head to a shelter. Fortunately, every neighborhood had at least one home whose family had a “cellar.”
Now cellars in Oklahoma aren’t the same as they are in Napa Valley or the Ohio Valley. The underground rooms in the Sooner state aren’t built to age wine or accommodate rec rooms, pool tables or washing machines. Cellars are used only for huddling the masses to escape twisters and cyclones – tornadoes! But they can be just as much fun as the northern variety. In fact, when our dad told us we were going to the cellar, we were jubilant. It wasn’t because we were masochistic or thought we would be more safe there than in the house. After all, we never ever thought we would be consumed by a dark whirlwind. We were happy to have an impromptu neighborhood “meeting.”
There was always a standing invitation by the Richards, our across-the-street neighbors. If anyone wanted to duck a tornado or bad storm, all they had to do was head to the Richards’ home. This was an event that we actually looked forward to.
It was always great to see my good buddies, Jimmy and Donnie. We did a lot of things together – baseball, bike-riding, etc. Their dad drove a truck for Acme Brick, and he would usually park his rig in front of the house, often packed with a load so he could get a head start the next day. We would often hide underneath his trailer and aim our peashooters at passing cars.
Because of his profession, Mr. Richards likely got a good deal on his cellar. It seemed like it would hold every family on Bolton Place. Of course, it was in their backyard, right next to the house. The cellar door was just outside the back garage door. There were no windows in the structure except for a small rectangular “porthole” on the south side, just a few inches off the ground. Inhabitants would wedge their faces toward the opening to gaze at the sky to see if any tornadoes were dropping.
I grew up loving storms – especially tornadoes. They were exciting times, and the “men folk” would usually stand outside, often on top of a cellar, talk about Bud Wilkinson, Sooner football and whether or not one of the clouds would spawn a big one. It was a grand time, and whoever said misery loves company didn’t ever spend any time in the Richards’ cellar during a springtime storm!
This particular evening the rains followed the path that the preceding winds already had marked. They were so forceful that you couldn’t tell from which direction they were coming – the sky, the house across the street or the ground! A cacophony of thunder and lightning completed the meteorological symphony. It was tornado season in Oklahoma!
A metal awning, repositioned by the elements, was banging against the back door of our home on Bolton Place. Tired of the noise that “disturbed” the other natural clattering, my dad decided that he could at least take care of the awning noise. He flicked on the back porch light, peeked out the window, surveyed the situation and knew that a good tug of the errant blade of the awning would at least mute the sound. He opened the door and, of course, the wind and rain immediately became partners with the kitchen floor.
“Damn,” he mumbled.
Then he stepped outside onto the porch, closing the door behind him. My mom, brothers and sister were all watching nervously. In a few seconds, we heard the clattering stop, and my dad opened the door and came back into the kitchen – drenched from the thinning hair on his head to his shoes. He didn’t say much – he never did – but let out a big, “Whew!”
He got a towel and started drying himself off, and had just started towards the living room when there were two simultaneous loud noises. One came from outside the back door and appeared to come from the light. The other was more definitive. There was a big fireball that appeared on the electrical socket that housed the toaster next to the kitchen sink. Both sounds exploded with an ear-deafening “BANG!”
We all screamed.
When we realized that the world wasn’t coming to an end, logic told us that the loud noise and resultant electrical ball of fire were the designs of a bolt of lightning. Then later, we began counting our blessings because the heavy rains prevented the wood-shingled roof from catching fire and, most importantly, our father’s timely exit from the porch prevented him from being a victim of the lightning.
The winds and rains continued to pelt the house, and fearing the worse, daddy thought it would be best to head to a shelter. Fortunately, every neighborhood had at least one home whose family had a “cellar.”
Now cellars in Oklahoma aren’t the same as they are in Napa Valley or the Ohio Valley. The underground rooms in the Sooner state aren’t built to age wine or accommodate rec rooms, pool tables or washing machines. Cellars are used only for huddling the masses to escape twisters and cyclones – tornadoes! But they can be just as much fun as the northern variety. In fact, when our dad told us we were going to the cellar, we were jubilant. It wasn’t because we were masochistic or thought we would be more safe there than in the house. After all, we never ever thought we would be consumed by a dark whirlwind. We were happy to have an impromptu neighborhood “meeting.”
There was always a standing invitation by the Richards, our across-the-street neighbors. If anyone wanted to duck a tornado or bad storm, all they had to do was head to the Richards’ home. This was an event that we actually looked forward to.
It was always great to see my good buddies, Jimmy and Donnie. We did a lot of things together – baseball, bike-riding, etc. Their dad drove a truck for Acme Brick, and he would usually park his rig in front of the house, often packed with a load so he could get a head start the next day. We would often hide underneath his trailer and aim our peashooters at passing cars.
Because of his profession, Mr. Richards likely got a good deal on his cellar. It seemed like it would hold every family on Bolton Place. Of course, it was in their backyard, right next to the house. The cellar door was just outside the back garage door. There were no windows in the structure except for a small rectangular “porthole” on the south side, just a few inches off the ground. Inhabitants would wedge their faces toward the opening to gaze at the sky to see if any tornadoes were dropping.
I grew up loving storms – especially tornadoes. They were exciting times, and the “men folk” would usually stand outside, often on top of a cellar, talk about Bud Wilkinson, Sooner football and whether or not one of the clouds would spawn a big one. It was a grand time, and whoever said misery loves company didn’t ever spend any time in the Richards’ cellar during a springtime storm!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
In Memoriam Day
Today is the anniversary of my father's death -- May 26, 1986. In his honor, I putzed around the garage and just thought of him. RIP.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sacerdote in Temporalis (Twelfth in a Series)
In a sad ironic twist to my love and affection for 315 Bolton Place, at the malleable age of 14, in the fall of 1960, I abandoned the warmth and comfort of that home. It is one of the decisions in my life that I truly regret.
Graduation from eighth grade at St. Philip Neri was just three months passed, and the fall winds of the Great Plains had blown me to a place that seemed thousands of miles away from my Midwest City home. In reality, it was just some 25 miles away, in the far northwest corner of Oklahoma City, but it could’ve been in Siberia or some other isolated enclave.
For the next two years, I would be sequestered in an all-boys school. Technically, it was a boarding school designed to mold young minds intent on becoming a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood. It was called St. Francis De Sales Preparatory Seminary.
The winds blew often and hauntingly at St. Francis, especially in the dormitory. They whistled their somber tune through the screens and funneled in between the gray, military-type lockers that were un-ceremoniously placed next to our bunked beds. The all-tile floors and cinder-block walls gave an asylum-like décor to the dutifully aligned sleeping quarters. Dust found no comfort zone on the windowsills that stretched half the length of a football field on both sides of the second-floor residence hall.
The entire complex had been dedicated just a year or two before my arrival, and it resonated sterility from the faculty’s residences on one end of the edifice to the gymnasium on the other end. The solemnity of the structure was accentuated by its position atop a small hill overlooking a wooded area dotted with elm and blackjack trees that surrounded a natural pond.
During the day, you could hear a few cars zoom by on state highway 3. At night – and when the windows were open in the dorm – pond frogs and crickets broke the monotonous sound of the southerly breeze that kept continuous vigilance over the complex.
I was catapulted into that environment not against my will, but in contradiction to my heart. It was an experience a young boy shouldn’t have until later in life, if at all. One minute I was a content, almost well adjusted youth, and the next minute I felt like an ostracized prisoner – and I grew up way too fast.
For most of my 13 previous years, I had been a devotee of everything the Catholic Church had offered. I was an altar boy (they call them “servers” now) who had won the Ad Altare Dei award, and I had even “practiced” being a priest at home, making “hosts” out of slices of Wonder Bread that I had smashed and cut up into wafers. My sister usually was called into duty as my “server.” We constructed our altar and mini-chapel in the back room at Bolton Place that my dad added on to serve as another bedroom. This was all fun and harmless.
I studied my Baltimore Catechism, as they say, religiously, underlining all the important words and sentences to aid my recitation at school. My Pius X missal was always nearby in case of a home emergency. By several overt measures I was comfortable with advancing my religious curiosity well past my grammar school years.
However, St. Francis did not provide the solace I had sought, but only acerbated the invisible abyss in my heart.
There was not one day or night that I missed my home, my mom and dad and my sister and brothers. The infrequent Sunday afternoon visits that they allowed my parents only aggravated my homesickness because I knew that I would always have to say goodbye to them. I often cried, and had trouble with sleeping and other associated malaise's.
Academically, I was a David among Goliaths, and I didn’t even have a slingshot. I studied hard just to get average grades. All of my friends were brainiacs. I felt inferior in every class. The only areas where I felt comfortable were in athletics, the debate team and schola (choir). However, even then, the school only competed in varsity sports in basketball – not my forte – and I was disappointingly cut from the squad my first year. We played touch football, baseball and handball. Of course, I loved baseball the most.
The most memorable positive occurrences were spent on the rare weekends that we could venture into town! For those instances, the school would hire a bus to drive us into Oklahoma City to do whatever we wanted, unsupervised. We usually went to a cafeteria to eat then we just walked the streets and gawked at windows – and girls! We’d also get one of the more bold guys to go and buy some cigarettes, then split the pack between all of us. On one occasion, we found a pool hall and spent most of our time ducking the low lights and puffing on the cigs. This was strange, too, because St. Francis had its own pool tables right next to the TV room where we could only watch Saturday night movies.
The other extracurricular highlight was watching Father Donovan, our 300-pound history teacher from Bowlegs, Oklahoma, test the ice on the pond in the wintertime.
In short, I could take St. Francis or leave it. So, in 1962, after two depressing years, I left. Bolton Place was never more pleasing to my eyes – and my heart.
Graduation from eighth grade at St. Philip Neri was just three months passed, and the fall winds of the Great Plains had blown me to a place that seemed thousands of miles away from my Midwest City home. In reality, it was just some 25 miles away, in the far northwest corner of Oklahoma City, but it could’ve been in Siberia or some other isolated enclave.
For the next two years, I would be sequestered in an all-boys school. Technically, it was a boarding school designed to mold young minds intent on becoming a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood. It was called St. Francis De Sales Preparatory Seminary.
The winds blew often and hauntingly at St. Francis, especially in the dormitory. They whistled their somber tune through the screens and funneled in between the gray, military-type lockers that were un-ceremoniously placed next to our bunked beds. The all-tile floors and cinder-block walls gave an asylum-like décor to the dutifully aligned sleeping quarters. Dust found no comfort zone on the windowsills that stretched half the length of a football field on both sides of the second-floor residence hall.
The entire complex had been dedicated just a year or two before my arrival, and it resonated sterility from the faculty’s residences on one end of the edifice to the gymnasium on the other end. The solemnity of the structure was accentuated by its position atop a small hill overlooking a wooded area dotted with elm and blackjack trees that surrounded a natural pond.
During the day, you could hear a few cars zoom by on state highway 3. At night – and when the windows were open in the dorm – pond frogs and crickets broke the monotonous sound of the southerly breeze that kept continuous vigilance over the complex.
I was catapulted into that environment not against my will, but in contradiction to my heart. It was an experience a young boy shouldn’t have until later in life, if at all. One minute I was a content, almost well adjusted youth, and the next minute I felt like an ostracized prisoner – and I grew up way too fast.
For most of my 13 previous years, I had been a devotee of everything the Catholic Church had offered. I was an altar boy (they call them “servers” now) who had won the Ad Altare Dei award, and I had even “practiced” being a priest at home, making “hosts” out of slices of Wonder Bread that I had smashed and cut up into wafers. My sister usually was called into duty as my “server.” We constructed our altar and mini-chapel in the back room at Bolton Place that my dad added on to serve as another bedroom. This was all fun and harmless.
I studied my Baltimore Catechism, as they say, religiously, underlining all the important words and sentences to aid my recitation at school. My Pius X missal was always nearby in case of a home emergency. By several overt measures I was comfortable with advancing my religious curiosity well past my grammar school years.
However, St. Francis did not provide the solace I had sought, but only acerbated the invisible abyss in my heart.
There was not one day or night that I missed my home, my mom and dad and my sister and brothers. The infrequent Sunday afternoon visits that they allowed my parents only aggravated my homesickness because I knew that I would always have to say goodbye to them. I often cried, and had trouble with sleeping and other associated malaise's.
Academically, I was a David among Goliaths, and I didn’t even have a slingshot. I studied hard just to get average grades. All of my friends were brainiacs. I felt inferior in every class. The only areas where I felt comfortable were in athletics, the debate team and schola (choir). However, even then, the school only competed in varsity sports in basketball – not my forte – and I was disappointingly cut from the squad my first year. We played touch football, baseball and handball. Of course, I loved baseball the most.
The most memorable positive occurrences were spent on the rare weekends that we could venture into town! For those instances, the school would hire a bus to drive us into Oklahoma City to do whatever we wanted, unsupervised. We usually went to a cafeteria to eat then we just walked the streets and gawked at windows – and girls! We’d also get one of the more bold guys to go and buy some cigarettes, then split the pack between all of us. On one occasion, we found a pool hall and spent most of our time ducking the low lights and puffing on the cigs. This was strange, too, because St. Francis had its own pool tables right next to the TV room where we could only watch Saturday night movies.
The other extracurricular highlight was watching Father Donovan, our 300-pound history teacher from Bowlegs, Oklahoma, test the ice on the pond in the wintertime.
In short, I could take St. Francis or leave it. So, in 1962, after two depressing years, I left. Bolton Place was never more pleasing to my eyes – and my heart.
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