Westport High School, 1967

Some people are blessed with the existence of their Alma Maters.  I have only one left myself; Rollins Grade School - burned down; Westport High in Kansas City finally closed after more than 100 years; and Metropolitan Jr. College went defunct right after I graduated in 1969.  What I can say about the buildings themselves is they were brick fortresses made to last.  Apparently, I’m one of those who are always on the tail end of things, but at least I saw them in their better times.  The older I get, the more I sympathize with the English people who highly regard and esteem continuity.  I’m also sad to say my old Main Street neighborhood has crumbled and changed so much for the worse that I hardly recognize it.  It’s now like an entire culture and people never existed.

 

The photos show Westport High School at 39^th & McGee in Kansas City, Missouri and a corner of the old Metropolitan Jr. College across the street that many of Westport’s graduates attended.  It looks to me like they were built by the same company and, of course, there were no conveniences in those days.  When it got hot, it was really hot.  There was no carpeting.  There were no elevators and those stair wells went straight down to the concrete slab in front of the cafeteria; I was always careful not to get too close to the rails that only came up to a little above the knees.  Hallway lockers had those wire mesh doors which only partially aired funky gym clothes and the resident hoods were always prying them open.  On the other hand, fights were a rarity because the bad guys would be promptly sent to Coach Webster for swats or to the principal’s office for expulsion.  That was Mr. Evans' job.  Mr. Ball was the Principal.  This was before the Left and its mischief had destroyed convention, custom, and a respect for the law and its enforcement.  There were no drugs use at Westport and there was only a rumor or legend of someone getting stabbed.

 

Westport High School was more than a hot brick building.  The student teacher ratio could be 48:1 and I remember many of them (1962-1967).  Miss Bonnie, my Biology teacher, liked to show off the baby in a bottle she kept in her supply room.  It looked just like the one shown in the movie, 2001.  Coach Murphy, before he became the head football coach, used to walk to the showers in the most remarkable fluffy house slippers.  Dave Morton, a Kansas City TV weatherman taught at the same time at Westport and I had him for U.S. History.  I’m embarrassed to say he gave me an “I”, one of the two I received - ever.  Everyone liked him because he was easy going and always fumbled with his words, at least in class.  White haired Inez Pletcher, the English teacher, was a favorite of mine not only because I liked English, but because she knew I was openly “helping” Rod Patterson, our basketball star, with his and let me get away with it.  There were others:  Mrs. Riley, the flamboyant art teacher; Mr. Michaels, Math; Ernie Paris, the typing teacher; Mr. Blair, Shop; Fred Pohlman, Civics: Mr. Lehman, English; Mr. Miles, English (I think); Mrs. Batista, Chemistry, and Ray Dice, Algebra.  Others are found in the complete set of Westport High School yearbooks preserved in the new Mid-Continent Genealogy Library in Independence on Lee’s Summit Road.

Alborg and the Rusty Tanker Zeitz

My travels in Denmark were coming to an end with only two or three days to go before crossing over to Sweden on a ferry from Frederikshavn near the northernmost tip of Jutland.  The flatlands of Denmark weary the traveler, but other sights like its islands, inlets, harbors, and ships of all descriptions made the journey easier.  Did I mention of all the farmland I saw, I did not spot one strand of barbed wire?  From Thisted by rail, I had to go south past Viborg to Arhus and turn north on my way to the coast and Frederikshavn.

 

Despite the chill, the clear blue skies of the season made for good 35mm camera shots.  Downtown Alborg was like the best of American shopping malls; clean as a whistle, modern, and more easily traversed because all the shops were on ground level.  I saw Danish servicemen milling about smartly (hands in pockets) looking at the girls who were dressed in the bell-bottom trousers and clogs fashionable in 1977. I also noticed the big Danish bank, the Sparekassen Nordjylland, had a pleasant Neo-Classical Ionic façade instead if the International Style of steel and glass.

 

It was September and the icy water of Limfjorden, the narrow passage from the Baltic to the North Sea, was deep blue when I went for a long walk to the docks.  Alborg has a waterfront downtown and I saw a marvelous old rusting hulk there, the Zeitz, out of Rostock which is a German Baltic seaport.  The motorcar bridge that links the two parts of Jutland is in the background.  From the looks of Limfjorden it appears, besides being a passage, to be a safe haven during storms for smaller ships.  The bigger ships like the tanker Zeitz docked at Alborg to take on cargo or to be repaired at the dry docks.

When Ma Killed the Golden Eagle

West of Grandpa Newberry’s blacksmith shop and east a few steps from the chicken coup was his hawk trap placed on the top of a long pole.  I’d never known it to have caught anything; the weasels usually were the ones that slipped past the dog to do their dirty work.  At night chickens naturally leave the ground to roost in the fruit trees or move into coups where they are protected by farm dogs only too anxious to have it out with a predator.  You’d never think about chickens being in danger during the day.

 

Ma told me in her old age about how, in 1951, she noticed the disappearance of her chickens, one chicken every day for two days.  On the third day she saw a Golden Eagle finishing off another on the ground where it had been killed.  Before Ma could finish, I said it couldn’t have been a Golden Eagle, to which she replied, “I know what a hawk and an eagle look like!”  She also said it was colored brown and not a Bald Eagle.  She told me that she ran out of the house with a broom stick in hand and summarily beat the eagle to death.  Ma was quick to say, “It was either her chicks or my chicks.”  It’s not as silly or as odd as you might think.  People were poor even in 1951.  During the Depression in 1936 in the drought, old timers used to tell me that if it hadn’t been for turnips, they would have starved to death.  Sundays would be the time when families had meat and that meant chicken.

 

This is no ordinary story.  I’ve never heard anything like it, but it happened to our family.  I suppose to some it’s like the passing of many other chapters in the history of the Ozarks; Uncle Carl shot one of the last wolves in Howell County.  Grandpa Ike Cherry accidentally killed a wild turkey with a rock and was so terrified because turkeys were endangered that he buried it.  The deer were wiped out early on by legions of Ozark boys and so were the eagles, mostly by DDT.  After many decades with the Missouri Department of Conservation’s help, most of the animals are returning – even bald eagles. 

 

Although Ma’s story was personal and real it’s easy to exaggerate its significance.  I’m not particularly superstitious, but what happened to us after Ma killed the Golden Eagle, as recorded in the memoir side of the Journal of the Silent Majority, might prove that the eagle got its revenge after all.

Governor's Award 1992

 

A group of us from the State Office Building in Kansas City left for Jefferson City to receive the Governor’s Award for Productivity and Quality.  It was a periodic departmental award designed to reward achievements and to encourage competition among state employees.  In 1992 we had the right stuff.  Governor Ashcroft was to my right and most of the others in Facilities Management wore nice clothes and ties except me.  I’d earned my part not by dressing up, but by wearing the ordinary uniform of a blue collar worker.  So far, I’ve never driven a truck or run a forklift wearing a tie, but the recognition by the big shots was appreciated. 

 

For Maintenance the award reaffirmed the policy of preventive maintenance with the right tools and supplies.  Housekeeping earned it by proper supervision, inspection, and having sufficient supplies to keep the building from looking like Arrowhead Stadium after a game.  For Security their electronic upgrades to cameras, multiplexers, and VCRs paid off.  For the tax payers the award meant they were getting their money’s worth.

 

What the award meant for me was for the first time in my civilian working life group and individual efforts were formally recognized by management.  I judge it noteworthy enough to tell others that state employees earn their humble salaries and are, I believe, a notch above private industry employees.  When I worked for the state of Missouri there was an inherent professionalism that comes from the right mixture of good management and skilled and loyal employees. 

 

My particular contribution came as a humble Storekeeper I - which means I was a jack-of-all trades and master of none.  Whatever needed to be done, I did it, but mostly it was a combination of working on the dock and in my office ordering maintenance and construction supplies.  Over a couple of years I went from an IBM Selectric typewriter to Microsoft Word and from a Rolodex to online contract ordering.  Now that I’m retired on the family farm, maintenance and construction skills come in handy, but I admit no progress; I’m still a master of none.

 

 

 

 

Halloween at MSNBC

It might sound like an exaggeration, but there are times when I expect to hear the Marseillaise played in the opening moments of cable’s MSNBC TV shows.  I’ve often wondered what the boys and girls there would be wearing on Halloween because, of all nights, it would be a suitable one to unabashedly honor those whom they admire.  Of course, they could spoof the Right like the Tea Partiers, NRA or Republicans, but I trust the impulse to sport the raiment of the Left is too much of a temptation.  If a person is known by the company he keeps, it’s only logical to assume that what he wears might be an indication of what he secretly desires.

Do they ever get tired of talking-the-talk or walking-the-walk?  How about looking-the-look and why not?  The boys and girls at MSNBC could for just one night forgo their dialectic materialism lectures and their victimhood reports and speeches.  The vengeful braided wonder with the wavy hands and mile-a-minute mouth could remake herself with an Afro in honor of that venerable female icon of the Left, Angela Davis.  In making her Trick or Treat rounds she could openly raise her clenched fist somewhere besides the station’s Green Room. (I’m sure MSNBC’s retinue of oppressed minorities in the Amen Corner would understand.)  Even their best female host could use a night off and instead of relying on the transformational talents of the makeup artist, come out by wearing the most androgynous and politically correct costume of all, the Mao suit.

The frail Doonesbury-like boys at MSNBC with the granny glasses and soft hands might try to honor their socialist antecedents by dressing like them on Halloween.  Among the militant atheists, who would they like to imitate?  Forget Leon Trotsky; those conspicuous round glasses of the 1930s are definitely out as is the satanic Karl Radek look who also wore them and which one of them could pull off the coarse masculine look of Karl Marx?  I suspect, however, that the line-up of both men and women at MSNBC is a little too soft and bourgeois for them to be considered true revolutionaries.  That means they love their bully pulpits and are comfortable with their status even if they are considered by many to be Halloween characters themselves.

Thisted: Sand and Tall Ships

I once again set out on Denmark’s DSB past waterways, small cities and quaint towns with small streets westward to the large inland harbors in North Jutland past Aulum and eventually to Thisted, practically on the North Sea and accessed to it by the Thyboron Channel.  For aficionados of World War I the last all-battleship engagement was fought there off Jutland in 1916 due west of Thisted.  The sea is only 15 miles from the middle of town where I got a room at the Royal Hotel in Thisted’s City Center.  (It was fashionable at the time to string colorful Danish flags across the streets in the heart of small Danish towns.)

Since it was raining and cold, I didn't do much except walk around town which in 1977 was small enough for the most fatigued tourist.  Denmark's towns are small in comparison to the towns in the U.S., but they prove to have more content; I walked about three blocks in a furious wind and rain from the center of town and I found myself out in a pasture looking at some kids playing in a haystack.  Now, Google Maps shows a Thisted that’s busting at the seams compared to what it used to be.  At the time I noticed some of their new housing projects off in the distance that were painted maroon and purple.  In fact, in these climates in September, it seemed colors were sharper and brighter.

I lived in Muskegon Heights, Michigan for many summers in my youth and I could not help noticing its similarities with Thisted: vast expanses of sand dunes, lakes, wooden boats and ships, small harbors, a beautiful marina, and beach facilities which were unfortunately closed because of the lateness of the season.  At the marina, which the Danes call the Thisted Sejlklub, I discovered yet another slot machine right there on the dock.  Three fishermen were mending their nets when I tried to take a picture of them – too slow.  They were shy and turned away.

 A tall sailing ship was anchored among the rocks not far from the marina   I could never identify the ship, but it was spectacular.  The Earl of Pembroke, a tall ship of the Haratio Hornblower, Treasure Island, and Cutthroat Island movies was known to have been anchored at Thisted.  Still, after having some herring and potatoes at a small restaurant and seeing their Bronze Age collection in the town’s museum, I’ll always remember Thisted for being a beautiful, scenery-packed, and un-crowded tourist mecca that Americans haven’t discovered.

My Longest Day

With x-rays in hand the dental assistant quietly walked over to the Navy dentist who was examining me and in a soft business manner said, “He has four cavities.”  In a somewhat agitated reply he said, “Pull’em all!”  I’d heard stories about this familiar horror story from several old timers and only partially believed it.  Everyone knows the military is tough and impersonal, but to saddle a young man with dentures off the bat pushes the extreme; the place was like a bus station and the line was long. 

The day had begun quietly enough as if it was just an ordinary trip for three tourists going the Kansas City International Airport.  We’d left AFEES, the induction center, at about 5:00 P.M. with our orders in hand and, in my case, not much else except a yellow woolen sweater.  We were scheduled to arrive in San Diego’s Marine Corps Recruit Depot across from Lindberg Field at about 9:00 P.M. their time.  We must have had a layover in Denver considering it’s only about a two or three hour flight from Kansas City.  Of course, it being a special occasion, my two traveling companions promptly got sloshed. 

 

The staff sergeant who met us at the airport was a tall fellow who wore one of those modified Barry Goldwater monstrosities which, in combination with bald heads, provides Marines with one of the most effective birth control schemes ever known.  He hustled us into the waiting buses that quickly pulled beside those yellow footprints at the receiving barracks.  War movies show them, but they do not show scared guys jumping from the windows to get on them.

 

Even after 38 years, the memories aren’t that vague.  First stop: haircuts and I can say with all sincerity that it was almost worth joining the Marines to see the long hairs get wacked.  I can hear it now, “If you have a mole or wart, place your finger on it or it will be cut off.” (Several weeks later, one of my drill instructors discovered a wart on someone’s hand and actually cut it off in front of the whole platoon.)  When we were hustled off to the cow bins to receive our uniforms and pack away our street clothes, I was surprised that some recruits carried dope. 

 

I never liked group showering even after many years playing basketball in high school, college intramurals, and AAU.  I suppose to the homosexuals who enter the Marines now it’s like winning Powerball or their equivalency of a straight guy who gets to shower with the Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders.  There were 76 of us in there: blacks, whites, city slickers, good old boys, several Mexicans, a Hawaiian, an Iranian, a diabetic, mamma’s boys, fat, tall, and a felon - all equally worthless.  At 26 I was the oldest.

 

Of course, I pulled Fire Watch the first night and didn’t get any sleep, nor did I get any for days.  Several DI’s quietly filtered in the squad bays about 5:00 the next morning and told me to get up against the wall.  They commenced shouting and overturning the bunks of those who didn’t wake up.  For many days there was more processing.  Potent cocktails of serum were pressure injected into us by bored Navy Corpsmen and electronics was actually my best test score!  Oh, I forgot to mention that the guy with the cavities was not me.  I made sure I had a checkup before leaving for basic.