HENRY J. INMAN

Happy Birthday Daddy (RIP)

2010-11-18T10:22:00.000-05:00

Today would have been my dad's 89th birthday. RIP

The Good Old Days

2009-12-10T12:15:00.003-05:00

(I didn't write this, but I like it...I hope you will like it, too! I did, however, do some editing)

Those of You Born Between 1930 - 1979

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. (some of us anyhow!)

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon (but some of us are paying for it now) :) We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight.

WHY?

Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Wii games, Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS, but we went outside and found them -- in person, live, en vivo!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League baseball had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Gee, imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! (Ask my brother about his "day in court" and what our dad had to say to the judge...a close friend)!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!

88

2009-11-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Were he still alive, my father would have been 88 years old today. RIP.

Veteran's Day -- 2009

2009-11-11T14:19:00.001-05:00

To all my fellow Veterans -- I'll never forget you!

Just Jeans -- School Jeans (Fourteenth in a Series)

2009-08-12T09:10:00.003-04:00

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!

Happy Summer!

2009-07-01T15:00:00.002-04:00

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.

Tornado Alley (Thirteenth in a Series)

2009-06-04T13:22:00.003-04:00

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!

In Memoriam Day

2009-05-26T15:32:00.001-04:00

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.

Sacerdote in Temporalis (Twelfth in a Series)

2009-05-14T11:29:00.001-04:00

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.

Plain as Black and White (Eleventh in a Series)

2009-04-05T17:53:00.005-04:00

There she sat nested on the floor of the display-front window at the OTASCO store in the downtown plaza, just to the east of Lockheed Drive.

She had beautiful legs. She had a nice body, and I had been drooling over her for several months. I would even stand there in front of the window and just stare at her when my dad was inside shopping. She was huge by 1959 standards, but “she” was a beautiful 20-inch Sylvania Halolight® Television. That TV was my every-night dream.

It came in one basic color – semi-dark mahogany with a sharp veneer finish. It was a very simple, very rectangular design with only two large control knobs on the front – one for the volume (on the left just below the “tube”) and the other for channels (there were a whopping 12 options, but you could really only get three, maybe four at the most if you had a public TV channel). It started with Channel 2 and ended with Channel 13. Wow!

One day my dream finally came true, and my mom and dad had saved enough money to buy her and bring her home!

We weren’t the first ones on Bolton Place to get one, but we were close. The new set was placed in between the front door of our home and just to the left of the whole-room, squirrel-cage air cooler that was hooked up to the outdoor faucet. You couldn’t run the air cooler when the TV was on because 1) you couldn’t hear your favorite shows and 2) the old cooler would occasionally spew out a drop or hundred of water!

Our new black-and-white tube television was the center of our universe – of course, after the homework was completed. Mom and dad loved it, too. They would even invite friends over maybe just to watch an “I Love Lucy” show or some other wholesome program of the 50s.

My dad and I personally loved “The Game of the Week,” as emceed by the grammatical kings of baseball, Messer’s Harold Henry Reese and Jerome Hanna Dean, a.k.a. Pee Wee and Dizzy, respectively. I can hear old Diz tellin’ Pee Wee, “If he’d a slud in there, he’d a been safe!” Then Dizzy, an erstwhile member of the St. Louis Cardinals’ famed Gas House Gang, would break into an earthy rendition of “The Wabash Cannonball.” Can you imagine Chip Caray or Joe Morgan singing a Toby Keith song in between pitches?

One of Dizzy’s great pre-“Funniest Home Videos” bloopers occurred in a lull in the action during one game. A TV camera spotted a young couple nestled in the bleachers as they were diverting their attention only partially to the game. Pee Wee commented, “I don’t think they’re watchin’ the game, Diz.” But Dizzy defended the couple and said, “Yes they are, Pee Wee. They're follerin' ever pitch. He’s kissin’ her on the strikes and she’s kissin’ him on the balls!”

Dizzy and Pee Wee notwithstanding, my dad’s love of the TV and baseball were never more manifest than when the World Series was on. It was ALWAYS the first week in October, and ALWAYS during the daytime. My dad would take some of his vacation days just to watch the Fall Classic. We hated the New York Yankees, but I idolized Oklahoma native Mickey Mantle. Fortunately, Mantle always did well – especially in the 1950s – but, alas, unfortunately, so did the Yankees.

Outside of baseball, there were only two other specific events I recall watching on our black-and-white TV. Both made worldwide news and both were only about three months apart.

The first was on November 22, 1963. That day is memorialized in my brain and likely the brains of millions of others. It was the day that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy, our president. We were mesmerized by footage of the President’s motorcade as it sped past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas…We watched in disbelief as a nation witnessed LIVE when Jack Ruby shot Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police station…We cried as we watched young “John-John” salute his father’s casket, and we were near comatose from the macabre sound of the muffled drums that guided the entourage to Arlington Cemetery…

The second event was much more pleasant. It came on February 9, 1964. It was the U.S. debut of a band of four lads from Liverpool, England. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and “Ringo” Starr brought their mop-top haircuts and their fancy boots to the stage of “The Ed Sullivan Show.” A mostly teenage girl audience of 703, and a TV audience estimated at 73 million people watched and listened as The Beatles sang All My Loving, Till There Was You, She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. That performance is still in the top 25 of the highest rated television shows in the U.S.

I came of age on Bolton Place – watching that black-and-white television.

PErshing 2-8139 (Tenth in a Series)

2009-03-05T08:49:00.004-05:00

Long before there were cell phones, text messaging, speed dialing and area codes there were good old party lines.

No, these weren’t numbers to call if you wanted to 1) go to a party; 2) find a party or 3) announce one. Nor were these the precursors of chat rooms (or maybe they were!). Every neighborhood and every street had its own party lines. This was true on Bolton Place in the 1950s.

In Ma Bell’s formative years, they couldn’t quite figure out how to connect one specific home to another one, but they certainly had the handle on hooking up a bunch of people to another unwitting group. The best way to explain it is that it’s like today’s conference calling, but in the case of party lines, when your mom answered a call from your school, chances are your next-door neighbor’s phone was receiving the same call. In short, with a party line, you were ALWAYS on a conference call with your neighbor even though you didn’t want to be.

The sages at the phone company tried to resolve this issue by giving each home phone a unique “ring.” (Some of you modern-era readers might refer to this as a “ring tone.”) However, these rings didn’t play your favorite rap song or school alma mater. To today’s listener, they all sounded the same – one boring traditional ding-a-ling. However, if you were a connoisseur of Morse code, you knew if the call was specifically for you by the number of “short” or “long” rings or a combination thereof. It was a marvelous bit of chicanery from the phone company, but we didn’t know any better.

As near as my memory can recall, our phone had three semi-long rings and a short one. If you picked up a call with any other ring, you were “rubbering” or eavesdropping – which occurred quite frequently. And if you wanted to call the Inman’s, you had to dial (yes, put your fingers in a rotary dialing device) and circle P-E-2-8-1-3-9. The PE stood for “Pershing” as in General John J. Pershing of WWI fame. I guess the phone company didn’t think folks in that era could remember a huge string of seven numbers in a row, so they prompted them (us) with a familiar name.

The party line thing never really bothered us, though. Our phone had a built-in device that solved the eavesdropping issue very well. It automatically encoded most of our incoming messages. We called it “Spanish.”

My sister, Jeanette, and I rarely received phone calls. Our major means of communicating with our friends was – shock of shocks – face-to-face! The phone was primarily an “adult” thing. Since my mom and dad were members of the later category, the few calls received at PE2-8139 were for them. My dad, of course, never got phone calls, so mom had the majority of them, and since she was Puerto Rican, most of her friends were blessed with the same heritage. Therefore, most of the conversations were in Spanish. My sister and I learned early on such staple phrases as: “Ay Dios mio,” “No me diga,” “Si,” “No,” and “Gracias por llamar!” We were virtually fluent and had a decent grab on Spanglish long before the movie came out. And we didn’t need a speakerphone back then, either. The entire neighborhood could hear the Spanish conversations as the more excited mom got, the louder was the conversation, especially if the call came from Puerto Rico or Miami – long distance. It was great!

This special Spanish encoding also frustrated the eavesdroppers like Mrs. Williams whose husband was a painter and parked his paint truck in the same place every night after work – at a 45-degree angle smack dab in the front yard...If Mrs. Miles could hear at all from next door, she would have been able to decipher the Spanish, but she was always too busy retrieving errant baseballs that we’d hit over into her yard…The “Sheriff” who lived several houses down the street, could’ve cared less. He was always too busy cleaning his Indian Territory-era pistols.

The phones also came in a multiplicity of colors – basic black, dull black, semi-glossy black, faded black, two-tone black, dusty black and spilled-coffee black! The family of one of my friends, George Zizzo, actually painted their phone white – what rebels they were. An added feature to the phone was that it also served as a physical fitness device. It weighed slightly less than a refrigerator, and lifting the receiver several times a day would produce biceps that Alex Rodriquez would envy.

There were many conversations via PE2-8139, but the only specific phone calls I remember are the ones you’d like to forget. There were only two – when my Abuela died and when Grandpa Mack died. My mom and dad, respectively, wept unconsciously. Damn that phone!

Cornucopia of Bad Habits (NInth in a Series)

2009-02-22T17:26:00.002-05:00

One of the rituals of manhood for a young boy growing up in Oklahoma during the 1950s involved tobacco. The kids in the country concentrated on the chewable type while their city counterparts preferred the more chic-looking (or “cool”) variety that you had to ignite – typically with a Zippo lighter.

Cancer sticks, coffin nails, cigs, and refries were some of the more popular nicknames for cigarettes. Country guys could always get some “Red Man” or “Mail Pouch” from buddies or even fathers. It was an accepted custom in the rural areas of the flatlands. However, city boys had to be a bit more creative in acquiring their cheap thrills.

I know this sounds disgusting today, but on Bolton Place, a few of the more bold guys would wait for drivers to toss out their cigs onto the hot pavement, and run and pick them up and take what puffs remained in the filthy things. I didn’t do that more than once. The other way to procure a cigarette was to be a little more cognizant of sanitary conditions and rip one off a relative, usually a father. Since my dad didn’t smoke, I did the next best thing and used a lifeline. I phoned a friend.

Bobby Herbert’s dad smoked like the proverbial chimney. After all, Mr. Herbert had a fairly stressful job – he was an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman! Needless to say, the cornucopia of bad habits was always full at the Herbert residence.

One summer day, Bobby came over to continue our backyard whiffle-ball home run world series. By all measures, Bobby was leading in this never-ending fracus, 735 home runs to my 682 dingers. This was our second-favorite pastime. The first was collecting baseball cards, or at least smelling and chewing the bubble gum that came with each penny or nickel pack then seeing how much gum you could stuff into your mouth. Needless to say, when you hit that many home runs – per day – or chew that much gum, you had to take an occasional break.

“You wanna stop for a while?” I asked Bobby.

“Sure. C’mere!” Bobby beckoned.

He reached into his back pocket and revealed a slightly smashed half-pack of Camel cigarettes. Then he looked at me and smiled, “I got ‘em from my old man,” he boasted. He followed the pack of Joes with a scuffed up Zippo lighter.

“Where can we go?” he said.

Knowing that my mom was still inside the house and my sister and brothers were likely there, too, I thought a second or two and then said, “Let’s go in the attic!”

This was an exceptionally incredulous idea since it WAS the middle of summer when the thermometer usually went to triple digits during the day and “cooled off” to the 90s at night. Sure, the attic – where the Oklahoma heat would convene and you could toast marshmallows in the open air – would be an ideal spot to make withdrawals from the bank of bad habits.

The only way to get to the attic at 315 Bolton Place was through the garage. So Bobby and I opened the cumbersome front door then spied the built-in ladder clinging to the west wall. We climbed up and kept looking around to see if anyone noticed us. We were safe. No one suspected we’d be there puffing away.

We were about 5 minutes into our stealth-like ritual when we saw a diminutive, very familiar little head popping through the hole at the top of the ladder. We quickly smashed out our cigs and literally tried to clear the air. Then we heard the heavily accented voice emanating from the coal-black head of hair.

“What are ju boys doin’ up heer,” blared my mom!

I was uncharacteristically speechless.

Tears almost started from Bobby’s eyes as he begged hysterically, “Please Mrs. Inman. Please don’t tell my dad!” Bobby ambled home. I went “to my room” and my punishment would greet me when my “father came home!”

Mom said she knew I’d try something like that and added, “I hope you learned your lesson!” I did, too. While I had an occasional toke in college and the Navy just to relieve tension, I didn’t acquire the habit – although I must admit, I did inhale!

Multi-Cultural Home (Eighth in a Series)

2009-01-20T08:41:00.002-05:00

Growing up in Oklahoma in the 1950s was educational, and 315 Bolton Place – our home – fostered an open attitude toward a lot of issues. It started with mom and dad. We weren’t told that we should love each other and our neighbor – we were shown.

Imagine being raised a devout Roman Catholic in a 98 percent Southern Baptist city and state. Catholics were like the plague. Don’t get too close to them because “their holy water” might make you dance in public! Or even worse, you might feel inclined to take a secretive sip of that great Jewish Mogen David wine (that was only offered maybe once a year). Throw in the fact that all the neighbors would make fun of your mom’s heavy Spanish accent, and today the ACLU would have a field day. We just thought all of those things were normal and didn’t really pay much attention to the subtle digs at us. We were content with ourselves and our own way of life. It was very simple.

We also didn’t think anything about inviting friends to our home. Of course, we had the usual suspects, the very close Puerto Rican friends, with whom mom continues her relationship even today. We also had frequent visits from our pastors and assistant pastors, Father Henshaw and Father Vrana. But my dad also had a few friends at work – Tinker Air Force Base – with whom he was proud to invite to 315 Bolton Place. One of those good friends was Benny.

Benny had a large family and lived in the near northeast side of Oklahoma City close to the old state fair grounds and the present day site of Douglass High School. Benny and dad shared a love of God, a love of family and a love of neighbor – regardless of ethnicity. Benny was an African-American. On occasion, our family was invited to Benny’s home for dinner and socializing and we reciprocated. Can you imagine the gossip in our old neighborhood when they saw “Negroes” getting out of a car and coming into our home? Mind you, this was in the day when Blacks couldn’t eat in the same restaurant as Whites; use the same restrooms; sit in the same area of the bus; worship in the same churches, etc. This action taken by my parents and Benny’s family was tantamount to rebellion!

We thought it was just very normal to do this. I’m not tooting any horn or pounding any chest because of our family’s open attitude. I guess we just didn’t think anything of it. It was part of our up bringing.

That openness was valuable to me when I went to a multi-cultural high school, Mt. St. Mary’s, in Oklahoma City. The “Mount” was a microcosm of what an ideal world might be today. We were blessed with a liberal sprinkling of Native Americans, African Americans and Hispanics. We studied, worshiped and played sports together without any second thoughts.

The “family” attitude was never more evident when one day our loyalty to our teammates was tested. It was in a road trip to Tulsa by our basketball team. We weren’t worthy enough to play the local public schools (even though we would have beaten most of them anyhow) because they might have contracted that “Catholic plague” or something. Anyhow, after our game with Bishop Kelley, coach Del Heidebrecht (a former University of Oklahoma all-American), marched us into a cafeteria in T-town. I wasn’t at the front of the entourage, but, as a dutiful underclassman (and non-starter), hung at the back of the pack.

In a few short minutes, guys at the front started coming back my way with sour faces. I said, “What’s goin’ on?” I thought that maybe it was closed or something. It wasn’t. My Black teammates said, “They won’t serve us.” Just then, coach Heidebrecht came through and said, “Let’s go. If they won’t serve all of us, we won’t give them our business!”

That wasn’t the last time we experienced that type of treatment. It happened in football and baseball, too, and even when John Wytch and me tried to grab a burger at a local grease joint near the Mount. We turned and left, there, too. It also happened at, of all places, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Oklahoma City. We later returned and joined a peaceful picketing of that establishment. Today, that particular restaurant doesn’t exist.

So when I see the events of today’s inauguration of President Barack Obama, I am reminded of my parents and what they stood for. I know my mom is proud of those achievements that the country has made. I am also proud and grateful for the education I received from her and my dad – the education that started at 315 Bolton Place. My dad and Benny would be proud, too.

Ohio Winter Poem

2009-01-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

It's winter in Ohio.
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.

Oh, how I love Ohio
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Ohio
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground!!

Happy New Year!!!!

2009-01-01T09:30:00.002-05:00

May God bless you and your families with a healthy and happy 2009! There were many great events during 2008 (births, pregnancies, etc.) and we are excited about the new year and the prospects for even better things. Let's pray for health for all of us. I know it sounds corny, but we're not living in a Reece Witherspoon environment, so let's also pray for peace all over the world. It wouldn't hurt to toss in a request or two for an improved economy, and regardless of your political affiliation or leanings, pray for our new leaders that they might make decisions in consideration of all the people for whom they represent. But, in all instances, pray!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T11:31:00.002-05:00

To all of our family and friends, please have a wonderful and happy Christmas today and every day of your lives. May God be with all of you!

Christmas Past and Las Cucarachas (Seventh in a Series)

2008-12-11T13:41:00.002-05:00

There was no better time on Bolton Place than Christmas.

Mom and dad worked all year to ensure that we would be more than twice blessed during the holidays. We knew that even if the pickin’s were slim for our birthdays, we would recoup at Christmas. The people at Oklahoma Tire & Supply Company, OTASCO, in downtown Midwest City loved the Inman’s. Mom and dad bought most of “Santa’s” goodies there.

Mom thought that handling 4 kids wasn’t enough of a punishment for a masochist so she would “baby-sit” other children to make ends meet. She also cooked for the nuns at St. Philip Neri, our parish. In addition, she would “hire out” to iron clothes. Meanwhile daddy supplemented his income from his job as a clerk at Tinker Air Force Base with part-time work delivering dry cleaning in his 1946 Chevy panel truck or working at Vossen’s filling station pumping gas. All of this was done to support us – especially at Christmas.

The Christmas holiday season actually began with Thanksgiving – my dad’s favorite holiday. As soon as the turkey and pumpkin pie (also his favorite) were consumed, mom began preparing the traditional Catholic ceremonial Advent Wreath. When that came out, we knew Christmas wasn’t too far behind.

The more conventional preparation began with the selection of the tree – NOT my dad’s favorite activity. Begrudgingly he would pack us into the black 1949, two-door Chevy coupe (a few years later, he bought his first new car, a gray-and-white, four-door 1956 Ford) and point it in the direction of one of the many Christmas tree lots that adorned Midwest City. We would arrive at the lot, explode out of the car like mice coming out of a year-long confinement in a shoebox, and start scurrying through the lot in separate directions in search of “the perfect tree!” That prize was long-gone months ago in some forest or tree farm in Michigan, Ohio or some northern state from whence they cometh. We grew up thinking that all trees were naturally dry, and a little bit of water would bring them back to life. Not so.

Then, in a scene reminiscent of a similar one in the movie “Christmas Story,” my dad, likely in frustration, would say, “Okay. I’ve got one! Let’s go!” We loved it nonetheless.

I think the reason that my dad liked Thanksgiving so much was because he didn’t have to do anything but eat. I think he would much rather have pumped gas or delivered dry cleaning than engage in all of the Christmas requisites. Putting up the tree was another chore – especially the lights. With bulbs almost as big as golf balls, untangling the spaghetti-like clump of lights took endless minutes, and with each passing second you could see his face turning redder and his jaw tightening on his teeth like a vise. Once that ordeal was over and the lights were tested and old ones replaced, we got the fun part – decorating it.

After the “fun” was over, the great waiting game began, and as Inman-Paonessa’s, we were cursed with the dreaded gene of impatience. The crescendo of the Impatient Aria was always reached on Christmas Eve.

It was our tradition to place all the wrapped gifts under the tree as they were accumulated. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, the presents outnumbered the pine needles left on the tree. It was glorious. We would usually go to mom and dad’s best friends, the Browns, for a short evening get-together before heading to Midnight Mass. When my sister Jeanette and I reluctantly became “too old” for Santa, we would help mom and dad set “Santa’s gifts” out for our brothers Johnny and Dennis. It was almost as much fun as being surprised at our own presents from St. Nick.

By the time we returned from Midnight Mass, we were near comatose. My dad wasn’t a night person so his impatience indicator was already at its maximum level by the time we got home. The verbal mandate, “now get to bed!” was all we needed for motivation. Then, the waiting game began in earnest.

I doubt if my sister and I ever got more than a few minutes of sleep after Midnight Mass. We were too excited about the pending visit of Santa. I recall getting up at regular intervals throughout the night and taking a peek at the tree to see if “he” had come yet. I would pop my head around the corner of our bedroom, and squint over at the tree in the nearby corner to see if there were any new shapes that had appeared since my last check. I wouldn’t dare turn on the lights – for two good reasons. I didn’t want to wake up my mom and dad, and also I didn’t want to “wake up” the cockroaches (las cucarachas) that would flit about the hardwood floors as soon as a light came on.

When I did see the gifts – even if it was 2, 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, I’d first wake up my sister to alert her of “the coming.” Of course, if it were that early (which in several instances was true), daddy would let us check out the toys then go back to bed. It was a grand experience. It didn’t get any better.

The strange thing, though, is I don’t ever recall seeing my mom and dad putting gifts under the tree. Maybe there is a Santa Claus after all! Merry Christmas to all – and don’t let the cockroaches get you!

The Night Shift Gas House Gang (Sixth in a Series)

2008-12-02T08:39:00.008-05:00

Vossen’s Sinclair filling station took up a wedge on the corner of SE 15th Street and Midwest Boulevard. The station was so close to the streets that you could almost fill up someone’s gas tank as they waited at the four-way stop sign. Mr. Vossen employed only his son on a semi-fulltime basis. He hired part-time help only if they were very reliable, trustworthy and punctual. By all measures my dad, Henry, certainly qualified, so he was hired as the part-time mechanic, gas-pumper and car-washer.

Mr. Vossen’s son, Johnny, was the regular grease monkey. When he wasn’t changing a car’s oil or replacing spark plugs, Johnny would talk to anyone about baseball, his former employer.

Johnny was an Oklahoma all-stater at Harrah, and had tryouts with the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. The Cardinals and Yankees had scouts hovering all over the state in search of another native son the likes of Mickey Mantle, Warren Spahn or Carl Hubbel. They thought the fair-haired Vossen might follow their example.

In 1952, Johnny played for the Miami Eagles of the KOM (Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri) League. Johnny led the league that year in hitting with a .335 batting average, but the Eagles finished second in the regular season to the Iola Indians. However, Miami got revenge and swept the playoffs, two games to none on the heels of sterling pitcher Jim Owens’ arm. Owens had struck out an astonishing 300 batters and had a splendid 1.76 earned run average that year.

In 1956, Johnny made a cameo appearance in the Basin League at Winner, South Dakota, halfway between Rapid City and Sioux Falls. But Johnny never made it to the “Bigs.” I met him in the car wash bay, my dad’s first night working at Vossen’s.

“Hi kid!” Johnny yelled while spraying water on the hood of his shiny red 1958 Ford pickup truck. “Wanna gimme a hand?”

“Sure,” I said.

He pointed to a 50-gallon barrel near the opening of the bay and said, “Grab a mitt from that barrel and start wipin’ her down.”

I walked over to the container, looked into it and saw what appeared to be a dead squirrel floating in a swamp of Canadian River mud. The liquid was warm and the washing mitt was a magnet for the red Oklahoma clay that floated in between molecules of water.

“I gotta change that water soon, I know,” Johnny yelled. “But don’t worry. That stuff ain’t gonna melt your arm off!”

A washing machine ringer, likely swiped from the nearby laundromat, split the top of the drum in half and was secured on each side by three-inch bolts. It still wobbled when I took the mitt and served it through the squasher.

“Just start wipin’ down the bed,” Johnny said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

I pulled down the tailgate, jumped into the back of the truck and began scrubbing the wooden floor of the pickup. Other than the introduction to the bay wash, the only other memorable piece of education from Johnny was his introducing me to the filthy bathroom’s “rubber” machine – “just in case I ever needed one.” That was the last time I saw Johnny in person. My dad never talked about him much and neither did Mr. Vossen, but everyone knew that Johnny had talent and it was a shame that he ended up in the grease box instead of a major league batter’s box.

Like many things in life, the highlight of Vossen’s Sinclair filling station was just inside the front door. It was the peanut machine – sitting appropriately next to the Coke machine. The peanuts were a penny for a handful and the Cokes were a nickel. For just six measly cents you could enjoy a great Southwestern delicacy – peanut-flavored Coke. It was a simple recipe, really. First, pop the top of the Coke with the opener right on the machine, then take a small swig to give you some space for the peanuts. Then, drop the peanuts in, watch them fizz a little and then take a big gulp!

Can’t understand why Coke never took advantage of that great combination. Might have been a hit in Texas and Oklahoma. Could’ve called it “Poke.”

Happy 2008 Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T12:14:00.002-05:00

To all my family and friends, hope you eat a lot of turkey and enjoy it! May God bless everyone!

Grandpas

2008-11-18T06:01:00.000-05:00

I never had a grandpa. Don’t get me wrong. Like every child on this planet, I had a maternal grandfather and a paternal grandfather, but I never knew either of them in the way I wanted. My mother’s father lived in Puerto Rico, and Abuelo died two years before I was born. My dad’s father had remarried and moved to California and he died when I was six. The only thing I remember about him was how hard my father cried when he died.

I grew up never having the benefit of a grandpa. Grandpas take their grandsons and granddaughters fishing. They show them how to make things. They show them how to play a sport, or they might even teach them a bad habit or two, but it’s all done with love. Grandpas go to football, basketball and baseball games. They might even go to a soccer game or two just because that’s what they’re supposed to do. They might not be as visible or vocal as grandmas, but you know when they are there.

Grandpas often take a back seat to grandmas, but that’s okay. And grandpas will never take the place of grandmas. That’s just the way it is, and they know it. Grandpas aren’t special. That adjective is reserved for grandmas. Grandpas are like a silent partner. They are often in the background of gatherings and not predisposed to attract attention. The only problem about grandpas is that they often leave us way too soon.

Today is the birthday of one of those grandpas – my dad.

Downright Tastee (Fifth in a Series)

2008-11-17T17:47:00.004-05:00

During the mid 1960s, Harold’s Tastee Freeze in Del City served up some of the biggest and juiciest hamburgers this side of the Red River.

Proprietor Harold Yokum and his wife, Betty, bought the place with visions of turning it into a precursor of Baskin-Robbins. Unfortunately for them, Messer’s B&R already had a jump start on H&B and left the later tending their Solo cups, solo.

Yokum wanted everyone to call him Harold. So Harold it was.

Harold always had this preacher-like grin on his face like he and Betty had just spent a wild night in Del City, guzzling 3.2 beer and eatin’ pork rinds topped off with a heated roll in the hay. It was ironic, too, because Harold looked every bit the part of a TV evangelist, and to add to the reality check, he was a member of the local Baptist church.

He had very thick, slick-backed white hair with every follicle spaced equally apart and lying neatly in place like rows of corn in a 160-acre field. The architecture of his hair was only surpassed by the ivories in his mouth. They were likely the creation of a skilled orthodontist. The whiteness rivaled the color of the soft ice cream he dispensed sporadically, and Coalgate couldn’t have picked a better smile for its advertisements. Nonetheless, his teeth, too, were perfect regardless of origin.

I frequented the place until I ran out of money. Then I asked the Yokums if they needed any help. Harold interviewed me for my job.

“We pay $1.25 an hour and you get a free lunch – not to exceed 75 cents – on the weekends,” he sermonized. “We expect you to be clean cut, always wear a white shirt and arrive 15 minutes before the start of your shift.”

Wow. All that and a free inspection? I needed the money so I agreed to all the terms. Besides, it wasn’t too far from my home and right behind it was a bowling alley.

“When do I start?”

“You can start on Saturday,” Yokum said.

Even though she was a neophyte in the business world, Betty was the real manager. But her learning curve was only exceeded by the size of the curves on her chest. She would always try to make light of her gift, but we all knew that her breasts looked bigger than Dolly Parton’s. Come to think of it, they were, because we were a heckuva lot closer to Betty than to Dolly.

Harold’s had a serving counter inside the front door, squeezed into the right corner of the store, but Betty did her best work when she would glide to the walk-up window – which was about three feet up from the ground – lean towards the opening, then bend over the order pad, look at her chest and simultaneously say in a hushed prayer-like tone to no one in particular: “These darn things just keep gettin’ in the way!” Then in a normal voice, she continued, “Y’all ready to order?”

The perks at Harold’s certainly outweighed the less-than-subsistence hourly wage. The biggest perk, of course, was the food – although if he were around, Harold would always keep a mental tab of your consumption habits. You were only allowed to “spend” 75 cents for lunch, but that was no problem. I had two favorite meals – the large hamburger (35 cents retail) and the Southwest staple, Frito chili pie (at 25 cents a veritable steal). I’d preserve the entrée with a large Dr. Pepper (15 cents) and complete the two-course meal with a butterscotch Sunday (a whopping 15 cents).

Chili was always bubbling in the pot just around the corner from the walk-in freezer. On my frequent visits to the back room I would make a side trip to the chili pot; lift up its heavy glass lid and, waving my hand, palm towards my face, inhale the steam that escaped. Bursts of chili pepper singed my nostrils and tears began to well in my eyes. Man it was great!

It was greater, though, when I began preparing my own ecstasy.

Creating a chili pie was a three-step process. In the summer of 1964, Frito-Lay, a Dallas-based company, was generous in sharing its profits with its customers. A nickel bag of Fritos corn chips easily filled the bottom of a 10-ounce cup. Today, you can barely get enough to fill a sipee cup!

Then came the pies de resistance. The fermented chili thickened as the hot summer morning clicked into hotter afternoons. A scoop was the only method of pouring the chili onto the chips.

Once the first two steps were completed, the coup de gras was a liberal sprinkling of longhorn cheddar cheese. A frequent swig of 10-2-and-4 kept the chili pepper from attaching itself to virgin taste buds. Each plastic spoonful became like Holy Communion, consumed slowly and devoutly with eyes closed, Amen! The butterscotch sundae facilitated release of internal discardings – or at least that’s what I was led to believe. I think I was led astray.

Veteran's Day 2008

2008-11-11T06:39:00.001-05:00

First of all, please say thank you to a military veteran today. In great part, this country owes its existence to the price that every soldier, sailor or Marine paid by defending our freedom.

I am proud to have served in the U.S. Navy Seabees during the Vietnam era, and while I did not have to raise a weapon against a fellow human being, I volunteered to defend the constitution of the United States. I was very fortunate to have escaped conflict. My father and father-in-law each served this country proudly during World War II and the Korean War, respectively. Other family members, too, have or continue to proudly represent our families and our country. I pray for them daily. You, too, should pray for them.

My unit, MCB-1 was a microcosm of America. They were white, black, Hispanic, oriental, college-educated, little or no education and had varying views of how the country should be run. While many of us abhorred war and the nation’s presence in Southeast Asia, we nonetheless obeyed orders and dutifully performed our roles as professional military men and women. I believe that professionalism still exists with our military and we should respect and honor those courageous individuals who often sacrifice their own lives so that we might live ours in a free country.

While this nation in the future might take a different approach to armed conflict, we should not forget the commitment of our veterans. Regardless of our political leanings, we need to show the world that we are unified in our resolve to promote democracy and that we indeed can peacefully coexist and get the job done in spite of our differences.

After the elections, both President-elect Obama and Senator John McCain spoke of that need to maintain unity:

Said Obama: ''In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people . . . While the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.''

Said McCain: ''It's natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.''

Amen! May God bless our military and our leaders!

Just a Little Off the Sides (Fourth in a Series)

2008-11-01T09:06:00.003-04:00

Haircuts were very simple during the 1950s and 60s.

They came every week regardless of the need. You could pay 25 cents for a regular cut or 50 cents for a flattop – and not blow-dried. Or you could get a free buzz cut – at home – depending on whether or not dad had made enough money at Vossen’s Sinclair filling station or Harrison’s Dry Cleaners.

The flat tops were the most popular. Why? Maybe it was the hair oil, or more appropriately axle grease, that gave guys an automatic “macho” appearance. Maybe it was the smell of the Butch Wax that turned the girls on, or maybe everyone would think you were a football player or a Marine.

I wanted a flat top for two reasons: My all-time favorite football player, University of Oklahoma halfback Tommy McDonald – number 25 in your program – had a flat top (as did most of the football players of that era, thank you); and my best friend at school, Michael Amann, had one. Michael and I also wanted to go to West Point and, of course, we were halfway there with a flat top. In our eyes, the other half of the U.S. Military Academy prerequisite, the West Point jacket, already was purchased. Hell, we were almost plebes!

Peer pressure and machismo notwithstanding, my flat top always needed the axel grease because my hair was not course or thick. It was as fine as silk on a corn stalk. My thin follicles were more suited for the regular cut or the home chop shop. As far as the flat top went, I never could understand the reasoning behind the increase in price for depriving you of fewer hairs. Today, men pay 10,000 times that amount just to get hairs put back on their heads. Oh well.

My dad had his favorite barbershop. It was on Southeast 15th Street, about 10 minutes or three stop signs away. Traffic lights were meant just for the big city – Oklahoma City, seemingly hundreds of miles away. The manly haven was called Coburn’s Ideal Barber Shop. A visit to Coburn’s was a weekly ritual of Oklahoma manhood, but it was far from ideal.

Coburn was a short, bald man with glasses. He always had the same uniform of the day – the white smock with a couple of combs and a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes sticking out of the only pocket. The three-quarters length smock just barely covered a couple of tattoos that Coburn picked up on shore leave in Hong Kong in the big war, dubya-dubya two. You could see one of them real well. It was the traditional ship’s anchor with “mom” dutifully inscribed on a banner right above the top of the artwork. The other one, well, Coburn would only reveal its entirety – quite proudly – when asked its contents.

She was a beauty. My dad and I both saw her – unbeknownst to the other – but we never admitted to each other that she existed. I’m certain he marveled at her, too.

Like a foggy morning in San Francisco, a cloud of haze -- smoke -- always hung around Coburn’s shop . It was generated by Coburn and his long-time fellow barber, Oren. Each puffed away on their unfiltered habits like it was the last toke before execution. After my dad and I were serviced one day, my dad asked Coburn, “I see your shoe shine stand is empty. Think my boy could help you out?"

Coburn scratched his bald head, thought for a second or two then looked at me and said, “Ever shine shoes?"

“No sir.”

“Well that’s okay,” he said. “We can show you. When can the boy start, Henry?” he asked my dad.

“Right now, if you want.”

I looked at my dad and felt like he wanted to abandon me, but such was not the case. It was his one way of exposing me, at an early age, to the job market. I was hired, as they say, on the spot. I was 10 years old, and hadn’t yet become familiar with Brylcreem – a little dab’ll do ya – Shinola and its proverbial antagonist, or the rite of manhood – exchanging the latest dirty jokes.

Unlike Coburn, Oren was a man of slight build, and ostensibly, a quiet and reserved worker. He had worked for Coburn for a number of years and they were like Laurel and Hardy or Carson and McMahon. Coburn was the extrovert. He was the glad-hander and back-slapper. Visitors often asked him if he was ever going to run for mayor.

“Nah,” he’d say. “I got more important things to do than sittin’ around with a bunch of politicians and talkin’ bull shit.” Then he’d laugh and say, “I can say what I want right here and still keep my job.”

By contrast, Oren was at the other end of the personality spectrum. If he wasn’t cutting your hair and running those shears next to your ear, you wouldn’t know he was there – except when someone would ask, “What’s the latest joke, Oren?”

It was as if the spotlight just came on and was focused on him. He could relate the most recent yarn with the flair of a polished stand-up comedian. The jokes were essentially the same, but it was Oren’s delivery that made everyone laugh. On cue, he would click off his shears, and begin his often-archaic anecdote. The clippers and long comb – his security blankets – remained in his hands at all times. He would give the opening line, turn the clippers back on, trim a little, turn them back off and continue the story.

He would go through this routine with every line until the story’s end. Then, unlike the polished comic, he would grin, smile and show the customers his best Deputy Dawg laugh. The guffaw was the best part of each joke. I guess he never realized that the men were more entertained with his laugh and delivery than the content of his homily. I learned more off-color jokes in that summer than I have learned in the subsequent years of my life.

Besides Oren and his jokes, the next best thing about Coburn’s was the bubble gum. He had a big fishbowl type jar sitting on the counter behind him. When he was done removing the hair from your head (or face), he’d brush off the excess with a small whiskbroom – no electric vacuums in those times. Then he’d remove the bedspread-size cloth from your body that diverted the fresh-cut follicles from you and your clothes, reach back into that jar and give each “young’n” a chuck of Bazooka bubble gum.

The sweet and everlasting smell of the Butch Wax, Bazooka Bubble Gum and Brylcreem sifted with secondary smoke and off-color jokes cannot be duplicated today. It seems like there are laws against all of that now. God Bless my former America!

Baseball and just being kids (Third in a Series)

2008-10-14T08:15:00.007-04:00

“People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

– Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones) in the movie Field of Dreams.

The youth baseball field was ground out of the deep red Oklahoma clay next to S.E. 15th Street, just across the road from St. Phillip Neri, my grade school. That appropriately colored red brick building sat two blocks from 315 Bolton Place, the home my mom and dad bought for $8,000 in the mid-1950s. St. Phillip – both church and school – sat on Felix place, just south of 15th Street.

The practice field was on the north side of 15th in a huge empty field. When you sat on the players’ bench along the third base line, you could look straight ahead across the field a couple of hundred yards away and see the front of the public high school, Midwest City, that bore the same name of the city – named after a direction. How brilliant was that?

“Got everything?” Bobby Herbert asked.

“Yep. I got my mitt, cleats and hat, and all I need is my bike.”

“Okay, let’s go!”

In 30 seconds we were at the end of Bolton Place. Then we turned left onto Felix, rode past the other end of Moiselle and in 16 more seconds we were at 15th Street where the cars were zooming by on this major thoroughfare in near-north Midwest City. We did a quick right turn and in seven seconds were at the practice field, the first ones to show up.

“Wanna toss the ball around?”

“Sure,” Bobby said.

A spot with a few tufts of grass breaking up the red clay field served as our makeshift diamond until the rest of the team arrived. We paced ourselves about the same distance between first base and shortstop, where we would normally play during game. Bobby and I were sports mates.

He was also the fullback on the 8th grade football team and I was a wide receiver. In the past season, our team had won the state parochial school championship and Bobby and I hooked up on our favorite play – 39-deep post! We used the play about six times during the season and we scored a touchdown every time.

Like most schools in Oklahoma in the 1950s, the St. Phillip Neri Beavers were primarily a running team, and the play always faked out the other teams. Bob Smith, the quarterback would take the ball and pitch back to Bobby Herbert who was a big guy for our team and huge by the day’s standards. Bobby faked a run to the right, stopped, and in one motion tossed the ball to me as I ran a post pattern.

Worked like a charm.

Every time the play was called, Bobby and I would look at each other and grin, because we knew the other team was gonna be sucked in, thinking it was a run then, boom, it was six points -–as automatic as the summer was hot.

We relived 39-deep post each time we tossed the baseball back and forth on this blistery summer day.

“If we’d a run that play more, we’d probably been undefeated,” Bobby said.

“Yeh. Maybe that’s why Bob Smith never called the play…he wanted more glory for himself.”

We laughed.

The one-on-one baseball-tossing ritual didn’t last too long. Jimmy Wiley, our original carrot-top, rode up on his bike, freckles glowing and red hair blowing wildly in the hot Oklahoma sun.

“Hey guys, come on over,” Jimmy shouted. “I got sumthin’ to show ya.”

We stopped. Then Bobby yelled to me, “39-deep-post – hut, hut!”

He made the motion of receiving a handoff from the quarterback on our football team. He took a couple of steps back from his original spot. I dropped my glove and took off in the opposite direction from him and towards Jimmy.

Bobby broadcasts. “Herbert’s back to pass…he spies Inman open deep down the middle…he lets go…Inman stretches out…he’s got it…touchdown Beavers!”

Boom! I ran right into Jimmy.

“Hey. Watch where you’re going,” Jimmy said.

Bobby laughed. “Looks like Jimmy is the only one who’s ever stopped us, huh?”

“Yeh. Good thing he didn’t play for St. James. Whatcha got, Jimmy?”

“I got my old man’s cigarette lighter. I wanna show y’all sumthin’.”

“You got any cigarettes?” Bobby said.

“Nah, but I got sumthin’ just as good.”

“What’s that?”

“Let’s go up here,” Jimmy motioned us to joint him near the fence behind the backstop that was about 25 feet from the backyard of a house on Felix. We were puzzled.

“What ya gonna do?”

“I’ll show ya.”

Jimmy went behind a hedge that gave a small bit of privacy to the homeowners so they wouldn’t have to watch kids play baseball all day. Next to the fence and winding its way through the links was an ill-fated grapevine. The plant had seen its better days and certainly was no match for the scorching Sooner summers.

“Watch here,” Jimmy said.

He grabbed at a section of the vine that was dry – and dead as a fried red ant – and split it into two with his fingers. Then he took the longer section and snapped it completely off. He smiled and began breaking the foot-long section into pieces about three inches each. Then he handed each one of us a section, and saved one for himself.

“What’s this for?” Bobby asked.

“I’ll show ya,” Jimmy said.

Red took his three-inch piece and stuck it in his mouth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chrome-shiny Zippo lighter that he had swiped from his unsuspecting dad. With the skill of a veteran smoker, and in one herky-jerky motion, Jimmy flipped the top on the Zippo and ran his left thumb over the tiny lighter’s wheel.

“Shit! I was doin’ this for about an hour and was gettin’ it to light about half the time,” Jimmy explained.

He went through the same machinations again. This time, he moved more slowly and was more methodical in his attempt to be cool. It worked. A nice flame erupted from the small, shiny box. He raised it to the stub of the grapevine that he clutched in his teeth. A flame of equal proportion rose from the pseudo cigarette/joint and Jimmy sucked in several deep breaths, coughing and choking with each one.

“What the hell are you doin’, Jimmy?” Bobby quizzed him. “Are you tryin’ ta kill yourself or sumthin’?”

“Nah,” Jimmy choked. “My older brother showed me this. Once ya get it goin’ it tastes okay, and gives you a little buzz. Y’all try it.”

Reluctantly, but having taking copious mental notes along the way, Bobby and I mimicked every move Jimmy had made. We were even less proficient than Jimmy with the Zippo, but nonetheless created a flame and began to fill our own lungs with putrid smoky aftermath of long-gone grapevines. God it was horrible.

Thankfully, we were saved by our earlier-than-normal arriving coach, Mr. Gesel. We stomped out our mini campfires and exited, hedge-right, quicker than we’d ever run to school, for sure.

“Hi boys,” said the coach. “Whatcha all doin’?”

We knew there was only one good excuse for our actions. We were quickly sworn in; took the stand; looked the judge straight in the eye and said, “We were takin’ a leak, coach.”

“Okay,” the judge pounded the gavel and without hesitation proclaimed us ‘Not guilty.’ “You guys ready to practice?”

“Sure, coach. We can’t wait,” Bobby said. Jimmy and I guffawed.

Tragedy in the skies (Second in a Series)

2008-09-29T11:14:00.009-04:00

Sitting underneath the shade of an old and sun-scarred elm tree in the summer of 1959, in Oklahoma, you could hear the crackle of the dried Bermuda grass on the lawn as it scratched bare feet and toes. About a dozen cicadas – although it sounded like thousands – rattled away in the old elm tree and just got louder as the heat-filled breeze slapped my face. The sound of those red-eyed locusts was so deafening I could hardly hear myself gulp as I took a swig from a glass of ice water.

Earlier I had grabbed a lemon from the refrigerator, and a saltshaker from the cabinet. Now firmly in hand, I surveyed the sun-yellow fruit. I didn't peel it, but just poked a hole in the top with my thumb. Then I poured salt – just like the little girl on the side of the circular carton – until the hole filled up. Then I started sucking out that acidic juice with the force of a hungry lion chomping down on a huge chunk of beef. Man, it was good. I couldn’t hear the juice ooze down my throat, but I could feel its cleansing drip and could almost feel the acid burning away at the insides of my stomach. I closed my eyes and squinted, as if I had been blinded while looking straight into the sun without my baseball cap to block the sun’s rays.

The taste slurred around in my mouth and lingered while I thought of pending baseball practice later that afternoon – after the sun had baked the red clay a few more degrees to the hotter side of 100. George Zizzo, a fellow teammate of the St. Philip Neri Beavers baseball team, was coming by on his new Italian-made motor scooter, and we’d ride over to the field – just three blocks away.

A car sped by – not a rarity since Bolton Place was a shortcut from Moiselle to Felix Place. It saved drivers probably 2.5 seconds and a tenth of a mile, enabling them to hit the northbound lane of Felix on their way to the public high school.

George was right behind another car and putt-putted into our driveway with his new scooter – the one his dad, a postman, recently bought for himself and the family. The scooter was almost George’s – at least he thought so. On the handlebars, he put a decal, which was a replica of the side insignia on an F-100 jet fighter. Revell, maker of the plastic models, usually tossed in a few extra decals. They really didn’t have to do that because Lord knows it would have likely saved them thousands of dollars. Our parents wouldn’t let us stick them to anything in the house, so we used the next best thing. We put them on our bikes, willing billboards for our hobbies.

We collected model airplanes because we wanted one for each one we saw fly over us on its way to nearby Tinker Air Force Base. Some days, we would sit in the yard and count the jets as they passed over us. At times, we swore that we could see the pilots waving at us.

This day, to while-away the time before practice, we were at our looking-perch in the backyard, and watched a trainer jet plane make an approach to the main runway, heading into the routinely southerly Oklahoma breeze.

Right at the point where they would normally descend and put down their landing gear, we spotted something flip from the top of the jet. Then milliseconds later, a larger object followed it – then a parachute opened. Within a flash, the jet took a sharp nosedive.

We couldn’t see over the nearby housetops, but there was no doubt what had happened when we saw a large plume of smoke and flames gush from the site where the fighter went down.

When we saw the flame, George and I jumped on the scooter and opened the throttle. We arrived at the site in the Glenwood addition at about the same time as the first fire truck. The heat was too intense for us to get very close, and, in those days, the crews working weren’t concerned about security or spectators – they just did their jobs. It was clearly understood that you had to stay out of their and harm’s way.

The jet had disappeared into one house that was engulfed by huge clouds of smoke and terrifying flames. A firefighter ran from one of the houses carrying something in his arms. It was a child. George and I didn’t look at each other, but we knew we felt the same. Other emergency vehicles arrived. They could only minimize the damage. Four houses were destroyed and several others charred and all would be eventually demolished.

The victims of that tragic crash were three children and their mother. The pilot was killed as his parachute didn’t fully open. Many years after the accident, the city bought all the homes along the flight path, razed the houses, an elementary school and turned the former housing development into a haven of wild rye grass.

We never forgot that day and how vulnerable were those who lived in the path of those planes whose duty was to protect our country. How ironic, too, that the local high school chose as its nickname, the “Bombers.” That school was about 200 yards from our baseball field where we later headed to practice.

Arroz con meat loaf (First in a Series)

2008-09-29T11:10:00.007-04:00

Everything at 315 Bolton Place centered on dinner, but the time was flexible – it had to be that way.

Daddy always had at least two jobs; I was always playing football, basketball or baseball – the normal triad of athletic activities for a baby boomer growing up in the Midlands; My sister Jeanette was close behind with volleyball – she would have played other sports, but Title IX wasn’t invented yet; my brothers – Johnny and Dennis -- were just normal, attention-crazed rug rats; and when mom wasn’t doing her housewife thing, she was cooking for the Felician nuns at St. Philip Neri Convent.

Food, good, bad or indifferent, was always on the table when any of the family was ready for it. And, although she would disagree, mom wasn’t the best cook in the world. She had many other great qualities. After all, she was born and raised in Puerto Rico and her parents were fortunate enough to have cooking and cleaning help. That’s a switch, huh?

Meat, potatoes and rice – not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all-inclusive – were usually the staples of at least the evening meal – come hell or sporadic bursts of water from the sky. It usually consisted of various forms of gourmet, cooked-till-it-was-really-done meat loaf – meat loaf with onions; meat loaf without onions; meat loaf with capers; meat loaf without capers; meat loaf with capers and onions; meat loaf without capers and onions – and the household favorite, meat loaf with nada and water.

If you were really lucky, ketchup was available to moisten the offering, facilitate its digestion and keep from loosening a tooth filling. The usual side dish to meat loaf was green peas or corn. In either case, the morsels were shriveled, looked like they were freeze dried and were the consistency of M&Ms and obviously not even half as tasty. On top of that, no matter how long the meal had sat in the oven to keep it warm, it was always cold. Sorry mom.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but our family was likely the 1950s equivalent of a recalcitrant 1970s vegetarian commune. As bad as it was, we were happy to get meat loaf because it was usually the only meat we’d get that week. Therefore, rice and potatoes were the alternative.

The Irish would have been proud of us. (if there were any in Oklahoma at the time). I never knew there were so many ways to serve mashed potatoes. There was the lumpy variety – with chunks of potato about the size of marbles; there was the mashed potato soup; there was the “volcano” with a thick outer crust and molten lava inside; (This was caused from conventional oven reheating); and of course, the old monster mash with God-knows-what mixed with it.

When the potatoes weren’t mashed, they were baked – and there were several strains – including, again, the popular vintage, volcano; the dud spud – a miniature version of a misfired scud missile; and the open-faced filled with whatever it took to kill the taste.

While meat and the variances in potatoes weren’t from the Martha Stewart cookbook, the Spanish rice was a delicacy unto its own.

Arroz con anything was special in our house!

You could throw dog bones that our cocker spaniel, Danny, had discarded, into mama’s rice – yellow or white – and it would be a delicacy. My favorite was the yellow. Actually, the rice was more orange, but I guess the forefathers of marketing determined call it yellow would be more appealing to the consumer. Regardless, the colored rice was tops on my list.

Mom would always toss capers into her batch. Capers are those little dark green things that resembled match heads – not the pee-pee sized matches, but the Diamond variety – killed 10,000 trees to get this. Didn’t know what they tasted like, but didn’t care, either. The rice taste overwhelmed them anyhow.

On special occasions, the Goya rice – Uncle Ben’s was too American and would be mixed with the Puerto Rican staple, chicken – as in arroz con pollo (pronounced ah-ROSE cone POY yo). While visiting my cousin in Miami one year, my sister made the mistake of pronouncing the Spanish word for chicken the same as if she were pronouncing the name of the game played on horses with sticks. I can still hear my late cousin, Yvonne, still laughing.

To paraphrase a popular saying, life at 315 Bolton Place indeed was like a bowl of arroz con pollo – you never knew what you were going to get, but it was always enjoyable, a big hit. It was likely the only edible (or inedible, come to think of it) thing in the house where there was a consensus opinion. Needless to say, we had it for all the big holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas (deck da hall wiff bowr of horry), Dia de los Tres Reyes, Catorce de Mayo (my birthday), etc.

Life was great back then -- at 315 Bolton Place.©

Three Decades in Ohio!

2008-09-18T10:29:00.012-04:00

Today marks the 30-year anniversary of my arrival in the State of Ohio. Yes, I've been here for three long decades. I've been here longer than any other place I've lived.

Many events and occurrences have filled those years. I'll share my thoughts and memories with my family and close circle of friends and not use this public forum for such reminiscing. As those who know me will tell you, I'm basically a private individual. However, in general, I can say that there have been more good times than bad and while I sometimes regret leaving Oklahoma (the cultural center of the universe), I don't look back on the decisions I made on behalf of my family.

It has been an educational experience for me. Yesterday, I spoke to a group of advertising executives in Cleveland and I told them the same thing I told my oldest daughter when she left for college: "You will learn a lot in the classroom, but you will learn just as much outside of than environment!"

Life is like one large kindergarten class -- you meet someone new every day and they're all different. You learn, you play and you take an occasional nap. Then you go home and feel warm and fuzzy.

Life is fairly simple, really. It's the two-faced people who complicate things. They lie right to your face and do exactly what's best for themselves. Show me an individual who tells you the truth (of course in a non-threatening way) and I'll show you a great person. We place too much emphasis on sports, athletes, movie stars, politicians, etc. The true heroes of today, yesterday and tomorrow always have been the family. Check it out. Look at your own families. They have diversities of opinion; diversities of culture; diversities of religion, politics, etc., but when the proverbial "push comes to shove," your family will be at your side as an unsung hero.

We need to transcend the trivial discussions that occupy most of our lives and focus on each other. You can't save the world unless you defend your family first!

9/11

2008-09-11T10:53:00.000-04:00

Our prayers go out to those innocent victims of the 9/11/01 attacks. May those victims rest in peace and may their families, friends and supporters rest assured knowing that their sacrifices will never be forgotten.

End-of-the-week Musings

2008-09-06T09:54:00.002-04:00

A lot has happened since I started this blog in late July. I thank God, the surgeons, the support of my family (starting with my wife, Karen), and Plavix that I made it through a heart attack. The professional staff at Akron General's Stow emergency unit and the main surgical unit downtown were just awesome. I'd recommend them any time. Still muddling through different combinations of medication, but cannot complain about the results.

A major traumatic event such as this helps you to focus on your priorities in life. They aren't sports (which are grossly overrated in importance to occupying this planet), and they certainly aren't politics. Aren't you tired of politicians (most of them) who, during pre-election activities will promise you everything then deliver mostly nothing? It happens on both sides of the pendulum -- left and right!! In the true spirit of the great Southwest where I grew up, I am independent minded!

I have a philosophical difference with a political party that says it's okay to kill embryos, but you can't kill adults. By the same measure, I have a hard time understanding where the other party says its NOT okay to kill embryos, but it's okay to kill adults!

Aren't they both speaking with "forked tongues?"

Sports

2008-07-31T07:09:00.002-04:00

The importance of sports to society is highly over-rated! The critical nature of a national DEFENSE (as opposed to offense) is proportionately under-rated!!

2008-07-30T13:56:00.000-04:00

The rain in Northeast Ohio is suspended in mid-air and hangs there until it gets too heavy to maintain its position. Then it drops like marbles in great quantities. That's all I've got to say about that!