FAVORITE TV PROGRAMS

I can’t remember exactly when we got our first TV set. I suppose I was five or six years old. It was a big wooden console model (black and white of course) with a screen perhaps a little bigger than my computer monitor. I recall that the screen was not rectangular but curved on the corners. It took about 3-5 minutes to warm up and our antenna on the roof picked up ABC (WTAE Channel 4), CBS (KDKA Channel 2), and NBC (WIIC Channel 11). Once in awhile we could get WQED and WJAC. I recall endless hours of adjusting the vertical and horizontal hold dials. Since TV was such a “magical” thing – sound and pictures coming out of a box in your living room, the family gathered around the box every chance we got. Since I was in bed early on school nights, Friday and Saturday evenings were the times I remember most. My brother, sister and I usually sat on the floor “Indian” style and my folks sat on the couch. Here are a few of the programs I recall.

Everyone enjoyed the variety shows like Red Skelton, Ed Sullivan, Burns and Allen, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Mom was a big mystery fan and loved Perry Mason. I became quite familiar with Perry’s personal secretary, Della Street and his sidekick, private detective Paul Drake. I also learned to dislike Perry’s courtroom adversary, DA Hamilton Burger.

Dad loved Lawrence Welk. I still remember when Rob Hilgar got the first color TV of any of our friends and invited the whole family over to watch this show. We were all amazed! Dad also got a kick out of William Bendix in The Life of Riley.

Everyone enjoyed the antics of the Ricardos and Mertzes on I love Lucy as well as the Kramdens and Nortons on the Honeymooners. My dad was especially fond of Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko.

Then there were the all American family shows like Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Donna Reed, Make Room for Daddy, Bachelor Father, and Father Knows Best.

Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Fury and My Friend Flicka were some of my favorite animal heroes.

Gunsmoke with Marshall Dillon, Chester, and Miss Kitty was one of those shows nobody wanted to miss. I recall that George Jack, one of the regulars at the bowling alley was nicknamed “Gunsmoke” because he always had to leave in time to get home to watch it. Other westerns we watched with toy guns in hand were Have Gun Will Travel, Wanted Dead or Alive, Bonanza, The Rifleman, Lawman, Rawhide, Sugarfoot, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Broken Arrow, Wagon Train, and Cheyenne.

One of my favorites was Mike Nelson on Sea Hunt. I loved his underwater feats, especially the fights where he would cut his opponents air hose, forcing him to surface into the hands of the law. He could also tap out a Morse code message on his air tank with his knife.

None of us had ever been on an airplane and we didn’t even know anybody who had flown so Sky King and his plane “Songbird” amazed us. We envied Sky’s student pilot niece and nephew, Penny and Clipper, who got involved in all of the escapades like helping Mitch the sheriff capture criminals. We couldn’t wait for the announcer to start the show with his exclamation, “From out of the clear blue western sky… comes Sky King!” Whirly Birds was another aviation favorite.

We were enthralled by Highway Patrol where Broderick Crawford effortlessly wheeled his huge black and white ’55 Buick while gruffly barking, “10-4” on the radio. I loved Sargeant Joe Friday’s matter-of-fact deadpan on Dragnet – “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

I tuned in with baited breath to see the TV heroes and their trusted sidekicks like The Lone Ranger (and Tonto), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (and King), Roy Rogers (and Dale Evans, Pat Brady, Bullet and Trigger). I also loved the predictable closing lines like, “Who was that masked man?” Or “Well King, this case is closed.” Or the melodic “Happy Trails to You.”

When I got a little older I enjoyed “hip” shows like 77 Sunset Strip (with Kooky and the gang), Dobie Gillis (with Maynard G. Krebs) and Route 66 (with Buzz and Tod zooming around the country in the early 60s Corvettes). I also got scared to death by Rod Serling on the Twilight Zone.

Other than the network shows we enjoyed local programming like Paul Shannon’s Adventure Time (featuring the Three Stooges), Ricky and Copper, Kinish and Rodney, and Studio Wrestling (with Ringside Rosie, Bruno Sanmartino, and Johnny Valentine).

It is unbelievable how the medium has changed between those early years and today. I wish I could say it’s for the better.

THE SLIPPERY ROCK I REMEMBER

Fifty years ago the small college town of Slippery Rock was so much different than it is today. So is the university that bears the same name. Here’s a walk down Main Street as best I can recall from the late 1950s.

We lived at the southern edge of town on South Main Street. It was a coincidence that we lived next to the Ford dealership and the Catholic Church while my dad worked at the Chevy dealership, and we went to the Methodist Church. As I would walk north toward town I would pass the college on my right.

At that time it consisted of only about a dozen buildings (the SRU website lists 70 today). First I would pass West Gym. The neighborhood rabble that I ran with could usually find a window that had been left open at this deteriorating old brick building so we could sneak inside for a basketball game. Beside it was East Gym. It was in better shape and had a pool in the basement where I learned to swim. A hundred feet from East Gym was the chapel. The college choir sang a Christmas program there each year and they brought kids from the elementary school to hear it. My sister recalled how it had padded pews which was unique for a church in those days. Next you would come to East Hall, the only boys’ dormitory. As I recall it (like many of the buildings) was in pretty bad shape. The life there may have made “Animal House” look tame by comparison. It was a place you stayed away from. On the other hand, North Hall, the girls’ dormitory was one of the nicest buildings on campus. It also housed the dining hall. I can recall we used to hang out around North Hall on our way home from school for a possible chance meeting with one of our student teachers. I always had a crush on one of those beautiful young women. Behind North Hall was another frame building that was sort of dilapidated. It was just known as “The Hut”. I suppose it was the forerunner of the student unions of today – a hangout for the students where you could get a sandwich or a milkshake. Nearby was the Science Building that overlooked the tennis courts, the power plant and the football stadium. The stadium was smaller than many high school facilities these days. It had steep grass slopes down which we would slide on big pieces of cardboard (until the grounds crew ran us off). A stones-throw away was the college dump where we used to shoot rats and grackles (see article on Shooting Sports).

On the town side of North Hall was a cluster of buildings - the Maltby Library (the only building then that was named for someone), the president’s residence, Old Main, and West Hall (a classroom building that probably should have been condemned). Finally there was the Laboratory School. The “Lab” school for short was somewhat unique. It was a K-6th grade elementary school which my pals and I attended; however, it belonged to the college. Since Slippery Rock was founded as a state teacher’s college I guess they figured we kids were like lab rats for the student teachers. The baseball field was atop the hill behind the president’s house and where we had our last day of school picnic due to its proximity to the Lab School. That was it – the entire SRU campus in the ‘50s.

Across Main Street from the college’s entrance was Watson’s store (later to be known as Lape’s, Hines, Dunkle’s, and more – it changed hands often). It was probably no larger than 30’ x 40’ but it contained all the essentials for the “convenience” store of the day – two pinball machines, two glass penny candy cases, pop, milk, bread, lunchmeat, ice cream, cigarettes, magazines, etc. We spent many an hour trying to “beat” those pinball machines with money we got from returning pop bottles for the deposit. I can still hear that load crack that the machine made when you won a free game. There were two benches out front where we spent a lot of time “loafing.” I remember one time someone had left a pack of cigarettes there and we pounced on them with the intent of smoking them – until someone piped up that it may have been a trap and someone might have “mouthed” them all before they put them there. We threw them away.

Another block north on Main Street, past a small park with a war memorial one would come to the main business district. On the west side of the street there was the post office. It was a new facility at the time but has since been replaced with a newer one. Across the street was Joe Spitaro’s barber shop (where my buddy Bruce Gannon first worked after he got his license). Down the street was Bill Matthews’ barber shop where I got my hair cut. Dad would call Bill and tell him to give me a crew cut. Then I would ask Bill to make it longer and he would just say, “Sorry, I’ve got orders from your pap.” Ord’s Pharmacy was next. (Mrs. Ord was my 5th grade teacher and the one with whom we listed to Mazzeroski’s homer in the World Series after school.) Nearby Fred Meyer’s hardware store was next to Dale Taggart’s jewelry store (I think Dale’s daughter still runs the place). The Isaly’s restaurant/soda fountain was there as well. Isaly’s was the place to go for all the gossip going around town (and a cherry coke or chocolate malt). My sister’s friend’s father, Joe Zanhiser owned the store at the time. He was a rotund, red-faced man with thick glasses and you could always find him behind the counter. It seemed the same group of patrons (like Crankshaft West, Harry McConnell and Heavy Boyer) were there all the time. One time the Pittsburgh Steelers were having training camp at the college and Preston Carpenter struck up a conversation with my sister in Isaly’s. It was a big deal and noised all about town! Later on a high school friend Bob Allison’s dad bought the store from Zanhiser.

If you can believe it Slippery Rock supported two small groceries situated close to one another on Main Street – the A&P and Freidman’s. These were not the modern supermarkets but the old fashioned groceries that were partial self-service and partial “the grocer will get it for you” stores. There was also the Roxy theater where owner, Ed Shaffer walked the aisles to control the rowdies and couples trying to make out in the back row while his wife sold popcorn and jujubes. (The cost was a quarter for kids and 60 cents for adults.) The News Stand sold various magazines, newspapers, cigarettes and cigars. The Slippery Rock National Bank was there as well.

Across the street was one of the town’s three restaurants – Hubers – a small stone building that still houses a restaurant (now the Camelot). The Ben Franklin five and dime was next door. I spent lots of time there, mostly wishing not buying. Then there was Ubers furniture and appliance store right next to their funeral parlor.

There was a gas station on the corner and if you headed east on Franklin Street you came to the town’s second pharmacy and third restaurant (their names escape me). Across Franklin was Curley Martin’s butcher shop and then the three protestant churches right in a row – Methodist, Presbyterian and United Presbyterian. On down Franklin Street a half block was my dad’s car dealership (JW Cheeseman, Inc. at the time). Behind the dealership was the little league baseball field.

That was pretty much the town. It was such a great place to spend your childhood. There were homecoming parades, big football games, Christmas decorations, major snow storms, and so many other neat things to see and do with family and friends.

CHRISTMAS AT OUR HOUSE

Throughout my life Christmas has been a big deal. I don’t know of any other event that I’ve looked forward to so much each year (other than deer season during certain years but that has a chapter of its own). I suppose it has a lot to do with presents when I was younger and family times when I got older.

As usual given my failing memory it is hard to remember Christmas in my early childhood; however, certain events do stand out. My earliest recollection of Christmas was probably when I was 5 or 6 years old. I can remember vividly of getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. In our small house a trip to the bathroom meant passing by the living room. This afforded one a sneak peak of the Christmas tree and presents thereunder. (I doubt I really had to go. I certainly didn’t have an enlarged prostate at that age. I’m sure it was just a ploy to see if Santa had been there yet.) I recall that the lights on the tree had been left on and the glow from them bathed the room in an almost magical light. That year I was looking for a rocking horse and toy cowboy guns and holsters. I tried to gather all the intel possible from that quick glance without risking the disaster that might result from disturbing Santa or waking my parents. I know that I didn’t see a rocking horse. That would have been obvious. The guns were still in play though as they would be wrapped up in a box. I don’t remember anything else about that Christmas other than I did get the guns. (Later Christmases would bring real guns as gifts from a father that never met a weapon he didn’t like.) What an exciting time for a young child to get something so special! I really wonder about kids these days who receive so many expensive gifts from parents and other relatives. It seems they get everything they ask for and can’t decide what to play with first. For an entire year I was Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Hickock, Cheyenne Bowdie, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy all rolled into one.

Opening the presents I believe first began with a free for all with everyone going after their presents together. Later we decided Christmas would last longer if we opened presents one at a time. My parents talked us into this by saying we would be able to see what our siblings were unwrapping but the bottom line was that they knew it made the fun last longer. My dad; however, loved to devil us by saying that he had to shave before we opened presents. After shaving there might be another excuse to delay the procedure.

We always got the Lionel train set out at this time of year. Of course my brother was the big mover behind this effort. He would get new cars or locomotives for Christmas to build the layout. I remember some of his prized possessions were a transformer with dual controls, a platform that loaded logs onto a flatbed car and another that loaded milk cans into a boxcar. It’s too bad that in later years Dad either threw out or gave away these trains that he didn’t realize had become quite valuable. Later on our fascination with trains was replaced by slot cars. I remember the first set we got was pretty crude. The cars had front wheel drive and the back end would slide out wildly around the curves. Little did we know then that we would be driving such FWD cars routinely in the future.

If we got a new board game for Christmas (I can recall Monopoly, Clue, Life, Risk, Camouflage, and Scrabble) there would always be marathon games in the ensuing days. Sometimes we would also get a jigsaw puzzle that would occupy a household table for weeks. Other significant gifts that come to mind were an erector set, tinker toys, a CO2 BB pistol, football helmets, baseball gloves, hockey skates, hockey sticks, and sleds. Clothing was rarely on our wish list but we often received socks, handkerchiefs or the like from well-meaning aunts or grandmothers. We always appreciated my bachelor uncle who lived next door buying us small trucks and cars. It seemed he knew what boys really wanted for Christmas.

I remember my dad cutting down Christmas trees from our backyard. Years earlier he had planted spruce trees as a border between our yard and the Ford dealer next door, as well as along the back of the property. This Christmas tree cutting program was really more of a “thinning operation” (in forest management terms). These trees had not been trimmed to be properly shaped so they were just spruce trees brought inside and decorated. (Our cat, Kumquat, used to climb up in the Christmas tree creating quite a stir.) I can’t ever remember getting a tree anywhere else until such time as my parents went to an artificial tree. At that point they really disturbed their children by putting up a four-foot table-top silver tinsel tree in front of the living room picture window. I also recall that we had a big plastic Santa face on the front door with a light inside. Also Dad decorated the outside pine trees in the front yard with the largest size colored lights imaginable. These lights were in series as opposed to parallel so that if one light went out, the whole string went out. One year he used those same lights indoors on the Christmas tree. They generated tremendous heat and I suppose it is no wonder there were so many house fires at Christmastime in those days. In retrospect I guess our household wasn’t all that much different than the one featured in the movie “Christmas Story” (without the Bumpis hounds).

We always hoped for snow at Christmas and living in Western Pennsylvania we got it quite often. This meant you could try out any new winter gear like skates or sleds. As I got older we might get a new shotgun to take hunting that afternoon.

As with most holidays food was a big part of the celebration. We would always entertain grandparents, aunts and uncles. The Christmas meal was a big deal with lots of cooks in the kitchen. My sister even made fancy place cards to denote where everyone was to sit. I’m not sure why but one old family photo (discarded years ago) still sticks in my mind. It was taken out of the picture window of our house of my grandfather walking up the driveway past a 1958 green and white Eighty-eight Oldsmobile. There was lots of snow on the ground and you could see how the driveway had been shoveled and the snow laying in piles. On the street was Grandpa’s 1954 Chevrolet. Grandpa had on a Woolrich coat, a brown ivy league cap, and eight-buckle galoshes. He held his pipe in his teeth and carried a large wooden box under his arm. It turns out he had made the box in his basement shop (and it stayed in our family for years to come). Inside the box were mason jars full of apple butter that he and Grandma had made. I can almost see this scene made into a Courier and Ives Christmas card. In my mind it is symbolic of a simpler time in my life and in our society.

There were always special programs at church and school. I played a shepherd, a wise man, a caroler, a child (one of my easiest roles), sang in countless choirs and choruses, and played in the band or orchestra. There was always something going on and the times leading up to Christmas were busy. Music was also a big part of the celebration at home. We loved to gather around the piano to sing Christmas carols while Mother played. My brother would get out his trumpet and play “Oh Holy Night.” Dad would even get into the act on the trumpet. (He had been a bugler in the Army.) To this day that carol is one of my favorites for this very reason. While most remember the words to the first verse I always thought the third verse worthy of pondering. “Truly He taught us to love one another. His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, let all within us praise His holy name.”

I recall that when I got old enough to drive, Dad would rely on me to deliver Christmas candy and nuts from his auto dealership around to all the vendors in Slippery Rock with whom he did business. It made me feel special and I enjoyed the spirit of giving, in some cases to individuals whom I didn’t think deserved a gift. But I guess that is indeed what Christmas is all about. We (all of mankind) got the greatest gift of all that we didn’t deserve when the Savior was born! I guess that’s what makes Christmas such a special time of year. Too bad the feeling can’t permeate every day.

MEMORABLE EVENTS

In everyone’s life there are certain events that you can remember as though they occurred yesterday. You can recall time, place and exactly what you were doing at the time they took place. Here are a few of mine.

The shot heard round the world – No I am not old enough to remember the beginning of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord. I am referring to the Pittsburgh version (Bill Mazzeroski’s homer in the bottom of the 9th in the final game of the 1960 World Series). This was the first such event that I can recall having a major impact on me. I was ten years old and fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Ord, was going to stay after school to listen to the series on the radio (there were no night series games in those days). She invited those of us who were “walkers” (we walked to and from school) to join her. What a cerebration there was when Mazz hit the homer to end the series over the hated Yankees. The Pirates were world champions. I had never been a part of anything like that before.

JFK Assassination – I was 13 years old and sitting in my eighth grade math class when my teacher, Mrs. Huzzard, was called out of our class for a few minutes. She returned and stated succinctly, “The president has been shot.” As you can imagine, 13 year olds had never heard that kind of news before and it made a significant impression. My parents were not Kennedy fans (after all, he was a Catholic democrat – a double whammy) and so I was not as concerned about the loss of him personally; however, there was great fear that perhaps the evil Russians might be behind this and that we would be plunged into World War III as a result.

My First Car Crash – It was late 1966 and I was 16 years old with a brand new “Cinderella” drivers license. So named because the holder of such a license had to be home by midnight (or, as they said in that day, you would turn into a pumpkin). Chevrolet was just introducing the new Camaro as a 1967 model. While these were as scarce as hen’s teeth early in the model year for some strange reason my father took the first one off the truck as a demonstrator. It was a beautiful, striking Rally Sport coupe in butternut yellow with black vinyl bucket seats. The RS meant it had electric doors that covered the headlights, enhancing the exotic nature of the car. While sporting only a 2 barrel carburetor the famous 327 Chevy small block V8 still produced impressive power in a light car. The rear wheels could be broken loose at will. It turned everyone’s head in the small town of Slippery Rock as the only one of its kind on the streets (especially when it was laying a patch of rubber at a stop light). Now in those days I often wondered about the advisability of some of the decisions my father made. In most cases a few years of hindsight proved them to be wise. Not so in this case. Such a demonstrator in a home with two teenage boys was not a wise choice. At least he (with my older brother’s help) wisely limited my time behind the wheel of this dream car. Who knows why but my brother was able to remove the original air cleaner and replace it with a small chrome racing-type cleaner. I doubt that it improved performance but it made an absolutely intoxicating sound at full throttle. All that air being sucked through the low-restriction air filter just howled like a pack of wolves under a full moon. This then made full throttle the right foot setting of choice. I could digress into many stories about trying to get tree sap off the car or trying to clean the mud from it after my date and before my brother’s scheduled date. However, the most famous story is, alas, the last story of this car. It was New Years’ eve of 1966. Who knows why I was driving the Camaro and not my brother on such a prestigious “date night”. Perhaps because I was using it to attend a watch night service at my girlfriend’s (now wife’s) church. Her house was about 20 minutes from mine and so I waited until about 11:40 PM to start home. A cold rain was falling but I wasn’t worried about road conditions, only about making it home by midnight. Just a few miles from home I came up behind a car going only about 35 mph. Little did I know at the time why he was going so slowly. He knew the cold rain was beginning to turn the asphalt to black ice. At that point in my 6-month old driving career I didn’t know what that was. We crested a hill with a long flat stretch ahead and nothing was coming in the other direction. It was time to let those wolves start to howl and beat the clock home before it struck 12. No sooner had the howling begun from under the hood than the rear tires joined the wolves squealing like a bunch of stuck pigs. As the rear tires broke loose this new driver became nothing but a passenger. I reacted the only way I knew how my mashing the brake pedal. The ensuing spin must have been something to see but I had my eyes closed. The car went off the road and through the ditch coming to rest in the Spencer’s yard (friends from our church), inches from a large maple tree. As was the case in those days, the family that I had passed stopped to see if I was alright and helped to get the car back onto the roadway. After a hundred yards or so on the road, the clunking and clattering noises (much more disconcerting than wolves and pigs) coming from under the car signaled that the butternut coupe would require a wrecker to make it home. I pulled it into a nearby gas station (closed at that hour in the days before convenience stores) and the nice man I had passed gave me a ride home. I don’t know this fellow’s name but he went the extra mile, and then some, by accompanying me into the house and telling my mother that the road was icy and the wreck was not due to reckless driving on my part (perhaps he couldn’t hear the wolves and pigs). This was a valuable lesson in grace for a 16 year-old. My mother was awake as she was the designated family worrier. She never, ever went to sleep until all her children were safety in bed. She awoke my father who was very disturbed by the turn of events. I honestly believe that he wanted to hit me but all he said was, “I’m glad you’re safe, we’ll discuss this in the morning.” The next morning’s discussion was pretty simple. Dad said, “I don’t want you rushing home to get here by midnight anymore so from now on you have to be home by 11:00 PM”. While this put a crimp in my social life I really felt I had gotten off pretty easy. When the Camaro entered the dealership on the wrecker’s hook the next Monday the crash became the talk of the town. The car wasn’t totaled but did require substantial undercarriage repair. As I recall it was sold shortly after it came back from the body shop. It was in our care for less than 4 months but what an exciting time it was.

The Immaculate Reception – Just before Christmas (Dec 23rd) in 1972 the family had gathered at my parents’ house since both my brother and his wife and sister and her husband were home from maryland. In those days Steelers’ home games were not broadcast on TV if they were not sold out. Such was the case as they played a conference playoff game against the Oakland Raiders that afternoon. I recall vividly that all the men of the family were in the basement playing pool and listening to the game on the radio. We were all bummed out as the Steelers seemed destined to once again end their season early. With only 22 seconds left in the game the announcers indicated that Terry Bradshaw had thrown an incompletion to end the game. Then they suddenly corrected themselves and screamed that Franco Harris had plucked the deflected pass from thin air at his shoelaces and was rushing toward the end zone. It appeared that the Steelers would win the game but we waited as the officials met to confer as to whether the pass had been touched by Oakland’s Jack Tatum. They ruled that Tatum had indeed touched the ball (which he denies to this day) and that it was a touchdown. We all went crazy. I can still remember the feeling that the Steelers had finally won an important playoff game and that maybe this would be the start of something big. Boy was I right.

The Day Dale Earnhardt Died – We were living in San Francisco in February of 2000. Although I was a big NASCAR fan we had lots of things to keep us occupied on Sunday afternoons. Also the three-hour time difference from the east coast didn’t help. I remember that we were walking down the street in North Beach after supper when I overheard two men talking on the street. They were talking about the Daytona 500 that had been run that afternoon and I heard one man say, “I think Dale Earnhardt died in the crash.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought they had to be mistaken. Dale was larger than life – almost super human in my eyes (as with most of his fans). I couldn’t imagine that a mere racing crash could take him out. We hurried back home and I turned on the news to learn that my worst fears had been realized. My late brother (a huge Earnhardt fan) and his wife were in Ireland and their daughter couldn’t reach her dad for solace. She e-mailed me and we chatted about how much Dale meant to all of us. We talked about how Darryl Waltrip’s wife had pasted a Bible verse onto Dale’s dashboard before the race – Proverbs 18”10, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe.” My niece and I discussed how Dale was now safe from worldly hazards. It is really hard to imagine how much a racing celebrity can mean to someone who follows the sport closely. Years later I recalled the same verse upon my brother’s sudden death.

911 (September 11, 2001) – I was at work in my office in the Pittsburgh Federal Building that morning (I was Assistant Chief of Operations at the time). It must have been about 9:00 or 9:30 when a co-worker came into the office and said that he had heard on the radio on his way into the office from a dentist appointment (it’s amazing the details you remember about that day) that a “small” plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. This did not seem like that big a deal at the time as everyone assumed it had been an accident. It did not take long; however, until the tone of the workplace changed with the news that not one, but two “commercial” airliners had been purposely rammed into the buildings. In addition there were other planes in the air and unaccounted for. I thought that I remembered that our son was flying to Washington for a conference either that day or the day prior. I prayed that he was already there or at least not in the air at the time. I called both his phone and his wife frantically trying to get some news but to no avail. Then there came news that there may have been a hijacked plane heading toward Pittsburgh, possibly targeting the USX Tower (obviously this is the one that crashed in Western PA on its way to Washington). This created some real panic in the Federal Building and people began the stream out of the building on their way home. A huge traffic jam ensued. The Corps leadership decided we should relocate key staff members to our emergency alternate office on Neville Island. I got a GSA vehicle from the garage, loaded in with “fly away” kits (suitcases full of communications and other gear necessary in an emergency) and headed out of town. It took almost 2 hours to make the 10-mile trip. Once there we set up shop and pretty much just watched the horror of 911 on the TV news. We were there until about 7 PM at which time a co-worker drove me up to the Evans City park and ride lot to pick up my car (I had taken the bus to work that day). As I look back on that day it is interesting that I still recall how mad I was at the terrorists and the Arab countries that were celebrating the attack. It is such a shame that so many people have forgotten how they felt that day. It seems that the media has convinced so many Americans that we somehow deserved the 911 attacks. The media has aligned with the rest of the world to tell us that we had it coming because of our arrogance and the way we flaunted our wealth and power. I for one am still glad that our government responded with a strong message that we would seek out terrorists wherever they hid and make sure this never happened again.

CHILDHOOD GAMES

I can honestly say that I had a great early childhood from as far back as I can recall. The 1950s were obviously a simple time in our nation when most mothers were home with their kids and children were pretty much free to roam their local neighborhoods without fear of sexual predators or other hazards. Not that hazards weren’t there, we just didn’t recognize them as such. Parents today seem fearful of anything out of the ordinary that might impact their children. Growing up on North Main Street in Slippery Rock was a blast. My best female friend was Linda Mayhew who lived right across the street. Just up or down the block were Pauletta Locke, Debbie Duncan, Candy Hines, and Sharon Dunkle. Further out the road were the Cooper twin (Sharon and Karen). My best male friends were Barry Rose and Dan Birnley. Others were Kirk Jancse, Roger Markham, Don McConnell, and Danny Corso. When I was very young I played with my brother and sister and their friends but as I grew their interests outgrew the neighborhood. I can recall in the summer that we would all leave our homes after breakfast and flow around the neighborhood playing various games until our mothers called us in for lunch. Then it was back out until suppertime. When it rained we would play on someone’s porch or in a basement.

I recall on one such occasion Linda Mayhew and I were at Candy Hines’ house when we heard that there was a tornado warning (still not sure if there actually was one or not). The three of us took shelter in a walk-in hall closet, only to find that the door had locked behind us. We were trapped like rats! I, being the ever ingenious one, solved the problem by utilizing a canister vacuum cleaner as a battering ram. It was a wooden two-panel door and I took the bottom panel out cleanly. Candy’s mother was non-plussed when she returned home.

Below are listed some of the games we used to play as a group.

Cheap Monkey Grease Man – This was the earliest (and most famous) of made-up childhood games that I remember. It got its name from mechanics and service station attendants of the day who were known as “grease monkeys”. I suppose I am to blame for the adulteration of the title into Cheap Monkey Grease Man. (Like one time I said that I had been, “sleeping with my ear trunks open.” Sayings like that live in infamy in our family.) The game was played on the sidewalks between our house and the one next door. It was pretty simple – you chose a mode of transportation and rode it around the sidewalk, stopping occasionally to get service from the (you guessed it) Cheap Monkey Grease Man (CMGM for short). Normally my brother, Johnny, would play the part of the CMGM. In exchange for some Monopoly money he would feign some sort of needed service and send you on your way. His service station was normally one of the front porches on either house. In between service we would pass the time chatting with other “drivers” we encountered on the sidewalks, much like we saw our parents do as they ran errands in Slippery Rock. We had three modes of transportation to choose from in my early days (5-10 years old). My father had ingeniously fabricated a “kiddy car” (sort of a 3-wheeled push tricycle) and a wagon from odd bits of wood and metal rods and wheels from the radio-controlled target airplanes he had flown in the service. My older sister, Barb, had a blue 24” girl’s bike as well. As you can guess I was normally relegated to the kiddy car. Eventually Johnny got what we called in those days an “English” bike. It had thin tires, a three-speed shifter, and was totally different from the fat-tired “American” bikes. I inherited this bike when he began to drive, which meant I never had a bike of my own until after I was married. It is hard to imagine that such a made-up game could occupy children for hours at a time but it did.

Release – This was a glorified game of tag. The person that was “it” would hide their eyes and count to 100 while all the others hid. (Normally boundaries were set regarding how far away you could hide.) Then the person who was it would look for the hiders. When he found someone he would return them to a home base. There they would remain until a brave hider (not yet found) would sneak in to touch home base and yell, “release.” Then the game would begin over again.

School – This was an unbelievably simple game played on the steps of Linda Mayhew’s front porch. There must have been about ten steps from bottom to top. We started on the bottom step and the one who played “teacher” would hold a stone in one hand behind their back. When presented with the two clenched fists the “student” would pick one. If they picked correctly they would advance to the next step (grade), if not, they stayed on that step until the next round.

Orphans – Like Cheap Monkey Grease Man this was a very simple game invented by my sister. We would pretend that we were orphans and were out in the world on our own (homeless as it were). In the field behind our house, where the timothy grass grew tall, we would stomp down areas where we could crouch or lay down and hide from the rest of the world. Sometime we would make “rooms” that adjoined each other or pathways in the weeds between the grass “houses”. Obviously these were days before TV or formal indoor games.

Army – Playing army didn’t require much more than imagination, although it helped a lot if you at least had a toy gun. (In a pinch we just pointed our fingers at each other.) Birnleys had a number of army “supplies” that we utilized - toy machine guns, helmets, German luger pistols, and toy grenades. If you didn’t happen to have a grenade an apple would suffice. Perhaps the most challenging part of playing army was the ability to make just the right sound with your mouth when depressing the trigger or lobbing the grenade. A single shot or explosion was not difficult but a machine gun burst required much more sophistication. It was a good thing that none of our parents could afford braces or that could have put the kibosh on the army game. Our games were normally team games (or nationalities). For instance, we younger kids might play the American Army and our older brothers might be the Germans (Krauts or Gerries as we used to call them). Sometimes the opposition might be Japanese (Japs or Nips). We really never knew much about the Korean War so we did not have “Gooks”. A great home base was the crawl space under Birnley’s house. It had a 4’X4’ hole on each side that allowed for easy ingress and egress as well as moderate protection from incoming grenades (or apples).

Softball – Softball was played in a vacant lot next to Sharon Dunkle’s house or on the college tennis courts. There were always two captains that chose sides but I really can’t recall how the captains were chosen. I suppose the biggest or best just sort of appointed themselves and the remainder never challenged them. Players were chosen by the captains based on a strange mixture of talent and popularity. Even if you weren’t very good but were a good friend of the captain you had a good chance of being selected somewhere before last. Nobody wanted to be chosen last but somebody had to be. I recall one time that Willis Kennedy hit a “homerun” from the college tennis courts right through a window in the greenhouse atop the science building. We all stared in silent shock until the sound of breaking glass prompted the courts to clear in a matter of seconds.

Football – I remember one year in the mid-50s for Christmas my brother and I got tan and red leather football helmets, shoulder pads, and a football. We thought we had died and gone to Heaven. In later years after we got a TV I recall vividly how we would watch the pro football games and then at half time we would pester my uncle who lived next door to go out in the back yard to play football with us. He would be the quarterback and my brother and I would take turns going out for passes.

Winter Activities - In those years before global warming put an end to all of Pennsylvania's snow (tongue firmly in cheek) we always enjoyed spending the day sledding, building snowmen, or having snowball battles behind our snow forts. Dr. Vincent owned a piece of land across Kiester Road from where the middle school stands today. They used to flood a flat portion of it in the winter for ice skating. We had just enough cash to but some cheap hockey sticks but we had to be real careful not to lose the puck. There was even a small shack on the property where you could get warm or change your skates. We also used to build a fire to warm ourselves between games.

Board Games – When the weather didn’t support outdoor play we might get out Monopoly, Risk, Clue, or some other board game and settle in for marathon sessions. These sometimes lasted for days (especially Risk).

Kissing Games – I guess most elementary age kids have a fascination with the opposite sex, especially when it comes to kissing. We were no different. Before we were old enough to kiss at dances or the movies we “cut our teeth” (no braces pun intended) with kissing games. Our favorite game was spin the bottle although I can recall a few variations (if no bottle was handy). Sometimes the kissing was done right there “in front of God and everybody” as the saying goes. However, there were other times when the lucky couple got to lock lips in the privacy of a closet, the basement, or a nearby car. Parties (especially birthday parties) were favorite times for such games although you never knew when an impromptu game might break out when we got bored with softball.

SRHS CLASS OF 1968 FUN FACTS

This listing of random thoughts and facts was prepared for the 40th reunion of the Slippery Rock Area High School Class of 1968

Did you know that?

· The Sarn actually published Bill Albert’s nickname as “Whop”?
· Other colorful nicknames were, “Snipe, Alf, Caveman, Ding, Shorty, Tiny, Bat Frad, Turtle, Bun, Farmer John, Diamond Jim, Frog, Grakus, Oss, Moss, Dumbwaiter, Horse, Foxie, Chunk, Camel, Indian, Anaheim, Sugarlips, Bass, Squeak, Sudsy, and Wildman.
· Bill Basham’s goal (along with 10 others) was to become a beautician?
· One of the most popular future goals was, “undecided”. Others were, “work”, “military service”, and “college”.
· Jim Lewis did NOT list a future goal of “pastoring five churches at the same time.”
· An incentive for making the varsity basketball team was you got your picture taken in your warm-up suit instead of short shorts like the JV team.
· One of the most frequent compliments when people signed your yearbook was that you were “tuff”. As in, “To a really tuff kid. Remember all the great times we had. Never change. AFA, Mole”.
· Doug McCool got suspended for wearing his hair in a “Beatle haircut” in 8th grade.
· Our Sarn had at least three examples of fathers and sons represented in photos. The obvious is Tim Benton and his father the teacher. The other two were Gene Allison and his father in his Isalys advertisement and me and my father in his car dealership ad. Of course the Cooper twins, Debbie Bussard, Barry Rose, Gary Baierl, and Marty Holtz had their mothers featured in staff photos.
· Mini Sharma, the class valedictorian, received a year’s subscription to the Reader’s Digest as a reward.


Do you remember?

· There were 185 in our graduating class
· Large wooden red and gray hall passes
· Getting caught in the hall by Mr. Nitowski without one
· There actually was a Latin Club.
· There was also a Library Club (I wonder what they did).
· There were both Rifle Team and Rifles Clubs.
· There were also clubs for future teachers and future nurses (I wonder how many actually achieved those goals).
· The cafeteria strike.
· Terri Lachuka, our foreign exchange student.
· Never seeing a girl in pants or a boy in jeans.


1968 Happenings

· Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were both assassinated that year.
· New songs in 1968 - “Lady Will Power”, “Jumpin Jack Flash”, “Honey”, “Spooky”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude”, “Up up and Away”, “McArthur Park”, “Yummy Yummy Yummy”, and “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”.
· The TV shows “College Bowl”, “Laugh-In”, “Hollywood Squares”, and “60 Minutes” premiered.
· The Packers beat the Raiders in only the 2nd Super Bowl.
· Major League Baseball set its minimum salary at $10,000.
· The musical “Hair” opened in NYC.
· Nixon defeats Humphrey for president.
· OJ Simpson won the Heisman Trophy.
· First Boeing 747 produced.
· Man orbited the moon for the first time.


If I had to go to High School today at age 58

· I’d expect the teachers to do a better job since my tax dollars are paying their salaries.
· I’d have my arm around my girlfriend as we walked the halls so she could hold me up.
· With an enlarged prostate I’d have to ask for a hall pass about every half hour.
· The only drugs I’d be concerned with would be those that address heartburn, high blood pressure, arthritis, headache, allergies, and erectile dysfunction.
· With a pocket calculator I could immediately tell Mr. Webster what 13 times 15 was instead of having to memorize it.
· Now that I’m driving a car (or minivan) with a big back seat I’ve forgotten what to do back there.
· I wouldn’t be concerned about getting suspended for smoking I’d just be concerned if I could afford a pack of cigarettes.
· I don’t need to get drunk on the weekend to forget the week’s stress. I can’t remember what happened during the week, let alone what stressed me out.
· The teachers may caution me about wearing my pants too high instead of too low.
· No one would go out for the football team but the golf and rifle teams would be full.How did we ever graduate without cell phones, text messages, calculators, computers, or the internet?

SUMMER JOBS

I've forgotten an awful lot about my childhood years but somehow the things I learned on my summer jobs have stayed with me.

My earliest recollection of doing work for compensation (an actual job) was mowing lawns for our neighbors. This period was probably from about 1962-1965. Sometimes I used our mower and sometimes I would use the homeowner’s. I believe the least I got paid per lawn was $1 and the most $3. That sounds pretty low but I guess when you figure the price of gas then was 25 cents and the price now is $2.50 to $3 that would be like getting paid between $10 and $36 per lawn. That sounds about right when I consider the size of the yards I mowed. (My “allowance” in those days was also a quarter/week.)

Before high school graduation and also one summer thereafter I worked odd jobs at my father's car dealership. I did whatever nobody else wanted to do or anything out of the ordinary. I helped out behind the parts counter, performed inventory, maintained the landscaping (mostly mowing grass), and performed general cleanup around the building. Most of my work; however, was detailing new or used cars for sale or delivery. It’s not hard to figure that is why I’m the detail nut I am today. Working at the dealership put me in contact with all sorts of employees with all sorts of values and personalities. The best were life-long employees like Rob Hilgar who would do anything for you and worked as though he owned the place. The worst were low-lifes who came and went and exhibited neither personality nor values. Needless to say a teenager learned a lot about life in such situations. Everybody had a nickname. There was Prior, the Kid, Higgie, The Jew, Rollo, Fixey, Duke, Hulie, Lolo, Jackson, and many more. I was “Tiny” as my brother, "Rollo" had dubbed me.

The summer after high school graduation was spent at Slippery Rock State College (now SRU). I knew that my upcoming ROTC enrollment at Penn State would require some extra credits if I was to graduate on time so I took three Phys Ed classes at SRSC in 1968. They were two swimming courses and a tennis class. It didn’t matter to me, I just needed three credits. In the afternoons I worked at the college library (mostly returning books to their rightful place on the shelves). I became well acquainted with the Dewey Decimal System. I developed terrible headaches and went to the college infirmary for them. They diagnosed my problem as never focusing my eyes on anything further away than a few feet for hours at a time.

The next summer (1969) I also took a couple classes at SRSC (one was Philosophy and I think the other was a history class but I’m not real sure). I worked at the dealership after class. It turned out that these extra credits actually enabled me to graduate from Penn State in March instead of June.

My first full time summer job was in 1970. My dad knew I guy who worked at the Kennametal Tire Stud factory in Slippery Rock and he got me a job that paid minimum wage ($1.90/hr.). I remember that they needed a photograph to attach to the application (I used one of my senior pictures from high school). At the time I wondered why they needed a picture and later figured the process would assure that they only hired clean cut white boys. My position at Kennametal was “Test Driver”. Can you imagine – a 20 year old kid as a test driver? I thought I had the world by the tail. That is, until I found out what a test driver did. My responsibility was to put miles on a Chevy Impala that had experimental studs in all four tires. You can imagine the noise they made (good thing the AM radio worked). I worked the afternoon shift. I clocked in at 4 PM and picked up the car from Butch English (who became a good friend and eventually an usher at our wedding). I drove down to Cranberry to pick up the turnpike and took it to Breezewood. I then took US route 30, 66, 356 and 8 from Breezewood back to Slippery Rock. The idea was to spend half the shift on the interstate and half on rural roads. Sometimes the route was shorter as I had to measure wear on the studs before heading out. The high point of the summer was when they asked me to take a sexy, Kennametal-yellow, Olds cutlass coupe to Pittsburgh International Dragway and drive it for a photo shoot for a national tire magazine. They wanted lots of tire smoke which was right up my alley. I still have the picture of me inside the car (you can’t tell who’s under the helmet) with the caption, “Kengrip testing doesn’t stop on icy roads” (see above photo). I only got one traffic ticket (a miracle) that summer. Luckily the cop didn’t have a clue how fast I was going (well over 80), he only knew I was passing a string of traffic in a no passing zone.

The next summer, 1971 between my junior and senior years, was my first professional experience. I applied for a ranger job at Moraine State Park since I was getting a minor in recreation (I still believed my future was in the forestry field). When I interviewed with the Park Superintendent I was stressing my recreation courses and all he was impressed by was that I was a forestry major (as he had been). I think I got the job primarily because a good friend from high school had worked there temporarily for several summers and put in a good word for me. At this point I was getting old enough to pay some attention to supervisory styles as I thought I just might be a supervisor someday. I learned lots about how not to supervise from the superintendent. He was the sort of guy that wouldn’t give you the time of day during working hours. He made sure you knew that he was the boss and you were insignificant. However, if he saw you on the street or in a social situation, he was like your best friend. A 21 year old is not prepared to understand such demeanor, at least I wasn’t. I loved the head ranger, though. His name was Mel Hayes and he had grown up with my dad. He told me that my grandmother used to bring soup to his family which was much poorer than Dad’s. She told them she had made too much but he knew that she was just trying to help them out. Mel was the antithesis of the superintendent. He had a great sense of humor and got a kick out of everything. He smoked big El Producto cigars which he would remove from his mouth and look at when he was giving this youngster advice. On the side Mel ran a used car lot. I can still remember him saying that his customers couldn’t go wrong with his 50/50 warranty. “Fifty feet or fifty seconds,” Mel would say, “then it’s theirs!” Mel taught me how to make a cigar last by waiting until just before it went out to puff it back to life. This job was both stressful and boring, and scary and exciting, depending on what day of the week it was and what the weather was like. A rainy Monday was boring. A sunny Sunday was unbelievably stressful. Especially when the park reached its carrying capacity and had to be closed. Sometimes I would spend hours at a time standing in the sun on hot pavement directing traffic. I can’t count how many times I heard, “Why can’t I park here, there’s lots of room on the grass.” I used to pray for rain on the weekends. Beach patrol could be exciting, strolling along watching bikini-clad women. It could turn real bad though when the lifeguards asked you to “handle” tense situations involving local thugs from nearby New Castle. I am ashamed to admit that the authority to write tickets went to this 21 year-old’s head. One time I cited a poor guy driving his family home from the beach for going the wrong way on a one-way road. He made an honest mistake and didn’t see the sign. I should have given him a warning but I gave him a ticket “just because I could”. If I had been the manager I would have fired me for doing something like that. Just one of many things I did in my youth that I’m not proud of. Other than the drownings (pulling dead bodies from the lake), I guess the most memorable part of this job was asking and obtaining my two days off for one week on Saturday and Sunday and my two days for the next week on Monday and Tuesday so I could have four days off to get married. There was no such thing as annual leave or vacation days on this job and if you didn’t work you didn’t get paid. I couldn’t afford a day without pay so I had a very abbreviated honeymoon (Sunday through Tuesday). I suppose this would be unheard of today.

After college graduation I was blessed to obtain a professional position and never again had to work temporary or part-time positions. I know I was a better professional for the experience I gained those summers.