My Summer of '62

by John B. Anderson

I had just finished the book, “My Summer of '42.” It was a tale of a young lad, coming into maturity, during one summer's vacation. This was not different for me, as the summer of '62 was a large adventure.

I had worked at “The Surf” restaurant for the previous seven summers, starting as a dishwasher when I was 12, then becoming a cook when I was 13. During that time, I had learned a lot about cooking, and I had considered making the restaurant business my life's calling. As you know, life changes dictate a lot of things – shit happens. During the summer of 1960, my boss, Nat Dellis, promised to financially help me with my college education, if I were to attend the Michigan State Hotel and Restaurant program. When I accepted my scholarship to the University of Chicago, and entered the business program there, Nat wasn't too pleased. Nat scheduled me to work a split shift during that summer, so I had to get to work twice each day during the summer of 1961. That pissed me off, so I searched for employment elsewhere for the summer of '62.

One day, I was talking with my Aunt Thelma on the phone. She suggested that I could get a job where she worked at Atlantic City Hospital in New Jersey. Aunt Thelma was a dietitian in charge of special patient diets at the hospital. She said that I should apply for a cooking job to Mr. Herrliman at the hospital, as he was in charge of the whole hospital kitchen. Mr. Herrliman was a French chef, who the hospital had recruited from one of the large Boardwalk hotels. My aunt said that I could sleep on the couch in her apartment in Ventnor City, and catch the bus to work every day. Mr. Herrliman said, “Yes,” and I said, “Yes.”

I took the Greyhound Bus from Manistique to Atlantic City – 27 hours for 27 dollars. It wasn't a bad trip, only long. I sat next to Jimmy Miller, whom I worked with at The Surf. Jimmy was on his way to Ohio, just before Cleveland. When I got off the bus in Philadelphia, I took a small bus to my aunt's apartment in Ventnor City. Ventnor City shares an island with Margate and Atlantic City. My aunt's apartment was two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean either west or east. The boardwalk was supposed to come out to Ventnor City from Atlantic City, but most of the boardwalk had been destroyed by a hurricane in the spring. It wasn't that I was going to walk the boardwalk to work anyway, because it was about 10 miles to the hospital in Atlantic City.

Atlantic City was the Monopoly board. The Boardwalk was, obviously, the most expensive property in the City and Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues were the least expensive, (ghetto). The hospital was on Michigan Avenue – easy enough to remember, right? I didn't have to be to work until 10:00 a.m., On my first day, I was given three sets of whites, and I was told that I couldn't have three new sets until the following week. If I were a sloppy cook, I'd have to wash them in between. When I arrived at the kitchen, I was introduced to Mr. Herrliman, who introduced me to the rest of the staff. It turned out that, out of all the cooks, I was one of two pale men. Most of the cooking staff had originated in Georgia, and had come north seeking employment. Their language was different. I was pretty used to Black city talk, but the cooks spoke rural, Black, and southern. I learned to cope.

The patients at Atlantic City Hospital ate better than any that I had heard about. Thursday was steak night, for example, with all other meals equally impressive. Even the special diet folks ate well. I was in charge of the nightly soup. The soup was prepared in a giant steam kettle. I started with two pounds of melted butter, added one heaping soup of flour, poured in about 5 gallons of chicken or beef stock from the cooler, and a heaping amount of “Accent.” “Accent” makes everything taste really good, but as it turns out with subsequent research, we were actually poisoning our guests. My regular jobs included a lot of prep work, such a peeling potatoes, washing asparagus, breading pork chops, or peeling carrots. On Thursdays we prepared salads for the hospital staff. The cole slaw, potato salad, pasta salad, carrot salad, were all hand decorated with different colored vegetables, such a boiled egg yokes, pimentos, green onion tops, sliced carrots into sunflowers, ships on the ocean and sunsets. Sometimes the designs were so beautiful, that the doctors and nurses would beg us not to cut into the salad to serve them.

There was an assembly line to serve up the patients' meals. The line started with a hot kiln that shoved a steaming hot plate on to the conveyor belt. The dietitian would call out what meat, potato, and vegetable was to be placed on that plate, and whether it was to be salt free or regular. We cooks would man our individual stations down the belt, and fill the plate with the correct food as it passed by. The completed plate was placed into an insulator, and placed on a tray so that with women dietitian staff could add the salad, the beverage, the silverware, and the dessert. We would eat after this and clean up the kitchen. A guy named Ike washed all of the pans. When Ike was done with the pans, and the kitchen staff had left for the day, he sprayed the whole kitchen with steam, killing anything that was moving.

We would finish our cleanup chores about 8:00 o'clock. Sometimes I would walk down the boardwalk for a ways, just to look at the crowds. Women from New York and Philadelphia would parade down the boardwalk, showing everyone how rich they were with their jewelry and firs. I found out later that most of these items were rented from certain boardwalk shops. Those women probably thought that I looked equally stupid in my kitchen whites. Most of the time, when I finished work, I would simply get on the city bus and head for home. Sometimes, I would get a beer from the 'fridge and just relax.

GET A BEER FROM THE FRIDGE? I was only 20 years old, and the drinking age in New Jersey at the time was 21. My aunt didn't care, and she had told the local grocer that I was of age. I didn't care for Eastern beers, though. The only Midwestern beer that I could buy was Millers, so that became my choice. Some evenings I would sit on the back stoop with Elaine, (younger), or Cassie, (older), and just shoot the breeze. They lived with their dad, a New Jersey State Cop, in the apartment below. I asked Elaine to go with me to see Paul Anka at the Steel Pier one evening. The performance was great. I was ready to go back home, but Elaine said that she was staying to see if Paul would kiss her hand after the show. She was swooning over Paul, so I left with an under the breath suggestion as to what she could kiss, and I headed home. I ran into Cassie on the back stoop, consumed a few brews, made out, until my aunt came looking for me. That wasn't the first time that Aunt Thelma had interrupted a fun evening.

Actually, Aunt Thelma was a fun-seeking lady herself. She would get herself all gussied up, complete with a large hat, and we'd head for the Club Harlem for a night on the town. I pretended to be her gigolo, escorting this older woman around town. The singers and dancers at Club Harlem were always spectacular, and the comedians were really funny. One comedian, Irwin C. Watson, I later saw on television.

Even in 1962, without the casinos, Atlantic City brought in top performers. Ray Charles regularly performed at the Black Orchid, the Four Seasons were a steady act at Steel Pier, and James Brown inspired the troops at the bottle club. I bought tickets to see Dean Martin and his “Italian Friend” at the 500 Club on opening night. Dean had no idea, (apparently), who his “Italian Friend” was, so, after a couple of Dean's songs, out walked Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. onto the stage. The show was supposed to end at 2:00 a.m., but they kept going until 6:00 in the morning. Frank didn't like the ice cubes in Atlantic City, so he, (supposedly), sent his pilot to New York to get some good ice cubes. I didn't bother going home to change; I just picked up another set of whites at the hospital laundry and went to work.

One day at work, I was assigned to crack eggs all day. Mr. Herrliman was making a 7- foot wedding cake for the hospital administrator's daughter's wedding. I learned that I could crack 4 eggs at a time into the huge pan. After the cake was baked, Mr. Herrliman decorated it by hand with squeeze bags – all 7 feet of cake. On the day of the wedding, we were issued new white uniforms and chefs' hats. A delivery truck pulled up to the loading dock, and we wheeled this 7-foot wedding cake onto it. It was our job to keep the cake from tipping while the delivery truck drove us to the Marlboro-Blemmin Hotel on the boardwalk. When we wheeled the giant cake into the huge ballroom, all of the wedding guests applauded. We were the heroes of the day.

Halfway through the summer, Mr. Herrliman hired a young man named William Oates. I discovered later that his nickname was “Sweet Thing.” His was an interesting story. Sweet Thing had been married in Florida the month before. The day after he was married, he went to his job which was harvesting clams, and fell in love with another woman. He tried to keep both women happy, but his wife eventually discovered his transgressions. She threatened Sweet Thing, so he ran away to his sister's home in Philadelphia. Fearing that his wife might find him there, he made his way to Atlantic City to find employment at the hospital as a cook. I know that you're not thinking so right now, but he was really a smart dude. We became friends.

About three weeks later, Sweet Thing's wife had tracked him down. She came into the kitchen one morning, picked up a knife and went looking for her estranged husband. One of the other cooks, “Johnson” wrapped his enormous arms around the young lady until hospital security came to take her away.

Sweet Thing and I used to drink in the ghetto bars. As I was one year under age, this was the safe way to do things. I was the only white person for blocks, so the bartenders served me without question, figuring I was mentally ill. Some evenings, after work, we would catch the crab guy at the corner, and buy some crabs from him. The were smoked and wrapped in an old newspaper, but really good. We would take the crabs into a bar on Atlantic Avenue, crack them open, and enjoy crabs with our beer. The bartender didn't complain, as we were good at cleaning up our mess. On evening, (probably drunk), we tried to integrate one of the boardwalk bars. This didn't go too well, so we had to leave quickly. Another night, we went to a gay bar, and tried to dance with a couple of lesbian women. That didn't go well either.

My summer of '62 was drawing to a close, when the Miss America Pageant started. Tuesday is the night for the parade down the boardwalk. I yelled at the previous year's winner, Nancy Fleming, a gal from Whitehall, Michigan, and she waived at me. Wednesday, I bought a Miss America general admission ticket at Convention Hall for $1.00. I figured that I couldn't get much of a seat for $1.00, but I watched this large lady run up the escalator to the balcony seats. I figured that she had been here before this, so I followed in quick pursuit. When I sat down, I was directly above Bert Parks.. Wednesday's pageant consisted of 1/3 swimsuit competition, 1/3 talent and 1/3 of the girls modeling evening wear. I discovered that there was a complimentary spot for Miss Atlantic City. In her evening gown, she looked like they recruited her from the Baltic Avenue Red Light District. Miss Michigan, that year, was a pretty girl from Roscommon, who recited a poem about fly fishing – lame! I missed the next three nights of the pageant, because I was on my way home, you know, 27 hours on the bus for 27 dollars.

The trip home had its good points. A lady got on the bus at Cleveland with three children. The baby was fussy, and the other two were restless, so I volunteered to entertain one of the older kids – my good deed for the day. When I got off the bus in Chicago at 2:00 in the morning, two of my college friends, Dick Dolnic and Kevin Krown, met me, and took me to breakfast at Dick's home in Winnetka. Dick explained that his family was the first Jewish family to move into Winnetka. After breakfast, Dick gave me a ride back to the Greyhound Bus Station, so I could catch the bus to Escanaba at 11:30. Dick was stopped for running a stop sign on the way, but he said, “Don't worry about the ticket. My dad will square it with the alderman on Monday.”

I've been to Atlantic City four times since that fun summer of '62. A couple of years ago, I asked the hospital staff if I could see the kitchen again, but the answer was, “No.” I haven't heard from or seen Sweet Thing since that summer. I hope that his wife never caught up with him. I went to Western Michigan University without a penny to my name, so I had to take out a student loan that following semester. The summer was worth it.

A Conversation with Frank Wills, Guard at the Watergate

I graduated from Western Michigan University in 1965. Sargent Shriver was our commencement speaker, who urged us to join the war on poverty, “The Great Society.” A month after that speech, I was still without a job. My friend, Tom, called me and said, “Tomorrow, go to Fort Custer at Battle Creek to the Job Corps Center, and tell them that you want to be a, Group Life Foreman.”

“What the hell is a Group Life Foreman,” I inquired.

“Never mind. Just tell them that's what you want to be.” So I did, and all of a sudden, I were one.

The Job Corps Camp at Fort Custer was an urban training facility for 1500 corpsmen from all over the country. After the 16 – 21 year old men attended vocational and academic classes each day, they came under the supervision of the group life department. It was during these after class hours that I met Frank Wills. Frank was a particularly nice young man from rural Georgia, I believe. Frank graduated from the program a couple of years later, and he was placed in a job at Chrysler in Detroit. That's the last that I saw of Frank, until a number of years later.

After a 7 year stint with Xerox Corporation, I returned to Michigan to work as a finance director for the Community Action Agency in Battle Creek. At CAA, we administered a lot of manpower programs including Neighborhood Youth Corps, Operation Mainstream, CETA, and others. The national CAA group called a manpower meeting in Washington, DC. The boss couldn't attend, so he sent me in his place. During the noon break, the CAA director from Boston introduced to the group, a very famous person, Frank Wills, the guard who discovered the Watergate break in. We all stood and applauded.

Frank looked at me, “John! John from Battle Creek! Hug time. Frank and I decided to have lunch together, so he could tell me his tale.

Frank told me that he had to leave Chrysler, because the company had placed him in a stamping plant. His asthma couldn't stand that, so he quit. Frank's cousin called and told Frank that he could get him a job where the cousin worked as a security guard.

Frank and his cousin worked as play cops at the Watergate. One day the cousin said, “Frank, let's call in sick tomorrow, and play some poker.”

The famous day arrived, and Frank's cousin really was sick, so Frank didn't call in, and he went to work as usual. As Frank was making his usual rounds through Watergate, (a complex with pricey apartments, along with a few offices), he noticed that a side door was taped open. He thought, “Damn those guys from Xerox, they were moving in copiers, and forgot to take the tape off the door.” Frank removed the tape, and continued his rounds.

After a short break, Frank started his second round of apartment checks and office checks. He approached the same side door, and found it taped open again! Frank returned to the office to get his boss. Frank and his boss, then, started checking all doors to all apartments and offices. When they got to the office of the Democratic National Committee, they found the door ajar. They, cautiously, entered the outer office. They heard some scuffling in the inner office. “What do we do, boss?”

“Well, we don't have guns,” he whispered. “Let's try this.”

The boss flung open the door. “WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?”

In the darkness, Frank heard, “Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk,” (five guns hitting the floor.) Frank whispered, “What to we do now?”

“Get their guns! Then we'll call the cops.”

The rest of the story has been written. Frank was puzzled, “From the moment these five guys dropped their gun, at every step, each guy squealed on the guy on the next higher level. That was strange.

I said, “You have to remember, Frank, they're all Republicans”

I've lost touch with Frank over the years. At that time, Frank was unable to secure employment in DC, as most jobs were government funded, with the funding controlled by a Republican government. For a short time, he supported himself by telling his story to CAA sponsored gatherings around the country. A later magazine article, (Life?), showed Frank returning to his roots in rural Georgia, still one of the nicest persons around.

Heroes

by John B. Anderson

I'm sure that we've all had heroes as we were growing up. One of our relatives might be a hero, perhaps a neighbor or a coach. This is a story about two of my heroes from my formative years, Frank Provo and Dick Berger.

Frank, Ronnie's dad, was probably one of the greatest hunters ever. Frank was so skilled that he kept meat on the table for a lot of years. A couple of us boys went with Frank to his cabin on the Stonington Peninsula one time. As we rode to the cabin, we passed fields with 50 to 100 deer in each field, (maybe fewer, but it seemed like a lot of deer.) At one farm, the garden was protected by a 20-foot fence. This is where most of the deer were hanging out. Frank explained that this was the game warden's house, and that the deer knew it.

That night, after supper, we had a campfire then off to bed. Frank told us some hunting tales about a friend from Escanaba, Dunky DuBoer. Dunky liked to play cards, but he was never known to carry a full deck. The other hunters would place Dunky on a snipe trail, with a bag, to catch the snipes when they started running at night. Dunky would usually give up around midnight and go to bed. The hunters also would have Dunky sleep on the beach, on a board, so he could be there at dawn to shoot the ducks and geese. When Dunky would fall asleep, the others would lift the board with Dunky and put it in the woods.

The next morning I looked from my bed at a plaque on the wall. I didn't have my glasses on then, so all I could read was the first word, “Vy,” in large letters. I thought, that's cool, Frank has a saying about his wife Vy, or Vivian, hanging on his cabin wall. I put on my glasses, and discovered that the plaque completely said, “Vy ist der more 'orses asses den der ist 'orses?” Oh well, that's cool too.

After breakfast, we were introduced to the .22 Hornet. I had fired a regular .22, but the .22 Hornet was twice the gun that the regular .22 was. That woodchuck did some fancy jumping 100 yards away.

Ronnie had obviously learned a lot from his dad. During the spring, Ronnie, Bill and I went to the woods in search of a fox den. At that point in time, The Conservation Department would pay a bounty for foxes and coyotes, ($5.00), male wolves, ($15.00) and female wolves, ($20.00). Ronnie found a den. We set a trap near the entrance of the den, covered it with wax paper, leaves and twigs, and left it to come back the next day. The next day, apparently, the mother fox had sniffed the trap, and she started digging about three feet away. We figured that the litter must be just below where she was digging, so we started to dig at that spot. As I was going down this narrow tunnel, I had visions of mother fox coming up the tunnel and biting off my face. As it turned out, she was outside the den. When I reached the bottom of the tunnel, I found 5 little black foxes. Red foxes are black when they are born, I discovered. They had died during the night. We put them into a box, and took them to town.

When we got to town, we ran into Mr. Barkley, the biology teacher. He told us that these weren't foxes at all, but little puppies. We took the little guys to the conservation department, where they pretty much echoed Mr. Barkley's analysis. The conservation officer said that he couldn't pay us the required bounty, until he could verify that they were really foxes. He said that he would mail them to Michigan State for verification. We were, of course, disappointed, but what could we do? After about a month, we got a nice letter from the Department of Conservation. It contained a check for $25.00, and a notification that these were the smallest foxes ever submitted for bounty.

The following year, after we discovered another den, we set a trap at the den's entrance. The next morning, mamma fox was in the trap. We quickly disposed of her, and started digging. We recovered 4 of the little guys in the den. When we took the foxes to the conservation department this time, the officer wrote us a check for $25.00.

Ronnie also taught us to fish for trout with a hook and line on a stick. We caught a few small trout from Gor Gor, (George Orr) Creek. We would take them up the hill and cook them over our campfire. Really good!

Another one of my Manistique heroes was Dick Berger. I always thought Dick was the finest basketball coaches ever. It might have been the fact that Dick taught us when we were at the learning ages of 15 and 16, but I still felt that he was a great coach. Dick believed in conditioning. Each practice we would drill, drill, drill. We would dribble, pass, and run the length of the floor at least 50 times every practice. Dick's belief was that the team that was in the best shape at the end of a close game, would win the game every time.

I embraced that philosophy when I coached St. Francis elementary to an undefeated season. St. Francis even played Cooks that year, to make us county champs.

We had shoot-around at the beginning of every practice. Dick would stand in the center of the floor and announce, “If you can sink more buckets from the center of the floor than I can, you won't have to run laps at the end of practice. We all ran laps, but we got better from the center of the floor. The proof of this was when Ronnie Provo sunk the final winning shot against Marquette Graverett. The shot was from the free throw line at the opposite end of the floor. I played in the pep band at the time. I blew my trombone as hard as I could, but, because of the crowd noise, I couldn't hear my horn. I'm surprised that the roof remained on the gym. You, like WLUC, (With Luck U See), Marquette tv station, thought it was a fluke. It was just another day at the gym for Ronnie.

What's for Lunch?

by John B. Anderson

Lunches during my career at Lakeside were pretty uneventful for the most part. My mom was at home then, so I always got a good meal at noon. I remember a couple of walking home to lunch incidents that were adventuresome. When my family lived on Manistique Avenue, we had to walk down Oak Street and down the hill to get home. We kids had to walk past old lady Heron's house everyday. She was cranky. On day, she yelled, “You kids stay off my lawn!” Then she picked up some dog turds and threw them at us. We told our parents what had happened. It wasn't long after that we heard that old lady Herr on was vacationing at the Newberry Funny Farm.

My family moved to Arbutus Avenue, so I went home to lunch another way. One day, Pat Boynton showed me his middle finger and asked, “Do you know what this means?” I answered in the negative. He said, “It Means, 'Suck the Bag'!”. I filed this information away for possible future use.

Bill was a late comer to Lakeside School. On Bill's first day, Ron explained to Bill who was King of the Playground. To reinforce that assertion, Ron said that he would explain it further on the way home to lunch. I said, “Bill, I know a short cut. We sneaked through Curley's back yard from Oak Street to Manistique Avenue, then through Cowman's back yard to Michigan Avenue – Bill's house. After all of that sneaking, Ron was waiting for us at Bill's house. Bill acknowledged who was King of the Playground. Bill and Ron became life-long friends at that point.

Lunches at junior high and high school provided many options. Lunch hour was 11:30 to 12:45, so we could hike the mile to home, eat lunch, and hike the mile back to school. (This is the part where my boys would say, “...and it was uphill both ways, right Dad?”). The first option was when Bill and I rode our bikes to school. I had to cook my own lunch, which amounted to rotating a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli, a can of Beanie Weenies, of a can of roast beef hash. After consuming these culinary delights, Bill and I would rush off to school, trying to get there early enough for a little pool hall time.

Another good option was to eat lunch at the drug store. Inez Coffee would fix me an egg salad sandwich with lettuce. Super good. I, then, would read all of the comics that the drug store offered. I loved Inez when she told me that I looked, “intellectual,” when I wore my glasses. I even ate hot lunch with Cerona and Larry sometimes. I remember being bored in college prep English, when we could clearly hear the garbage truck outside. We softly said, “Hot lunch is being delivered.”

One of the best options for lunch, was to take a bag lunch. This might consist of a big bologna sandwich with lettuce, (really wilted by lunchtime,) and mayo. Liver sausage was another favorite, but the go to lunch was peanut butter and jelly. These were accompanied by a fruit of some kind. We would consume our lunches on the bleachers in the old gym, then Dick Berger would break out the basketballs. These pickup games were rough. The country kids didn't understand about fouls, so, when anyone went up for a shot, he might have two opposing players hanging on him. It was good practice for us in a real game. I have to say, at this point, that the master of making a bucket with two people hanging on him was Phil Carlson. Phil was bleeding profusely, when he scored a bucket against Munising.

The long lunch period provided an ample opportunity to catch up on things at the pool hall. I didn't smoke at that time, as I was playing sport, but there was plenty of second hand smoke to go around. As we got older, we graduated to the other side of LaFoilles, so we could talk to the girls.

The Road to Powers

by John B. Anderson

The forties, fifties and sixties brought many miracles in the field of medicine. When I attended Lakeside School, we received smallpox vaccines. (I don't know whether or not the parents had to sign waivers.) Dr. T. from Ti-County Public Health lined us up and shot us. Most of us didn't experience a reaction to the inoculations, except for one of the La Vance girls, who had to wear a protective plastic cup on her arm for awhile to allow the spot to heal.

Junior High brought the polio vaccines. The teachers would parade us to the old gym, line us up, and the nurses would shoot us. A couple of the kids didn't cotton to needles, and they passed out. Some of the kids were brave, and watched as the needles were driven home – not me. I never have liked needles.

When we got to high school, the t.b. Inoculations changed the lives of the Anderson family forever. Sandy and I both tested positive for the tuberculosis germ. The positive test didn't mean that a person had t.b., it meant that we had been exposed to someone who had t.b., and that we had develop antibodies against it. People who test positive with the skin test will always test positive with the test, so we are relegated to getting a chest x-ray every couple of years. All of our family went to the clinic, initially, to get our chest x-rays. Dad was suspect. He went to Powers Sanatorium for a gastric test, which turned out positive.

Our lives were turned upside down. Dad went to stay at the Powers San., isolating him from the general public. We weren't even allowed to see him for the first couple of weeks. At that point in Dad's treatment, we were allowed to see him on the weekends. We made the trek from Manistique to Powers every Sunday, 180 miles, for two and one half years. Mom did all of the driving, until Sandy and I got our licenses, but, even then, it was mostly Mom. I learned the names of every named creek and river between Manistique and Powers. I could also tell you every curve and turn in the road.

Sandy and I sometimes walked around Powers while Mom stayed with Dad. We visited Ann Nelson, who worked at the Dairy Cream. We sometimes got a cheeseburger at, “The Hut,” a quanset hut restaurant. We would take bets as to whether the owner was a man or a woman. We could never decide, even with Mom's input. We even walked to the Old Cedar swimming hole. One Sunday, Joyce Ann joined us on the Powers trip. Mom allowed the girls to join some boys from Spaulding to go swimming there. The boys invited the girls to the Spaulding Theater that evening, thus making our trip home much later than usual.

Some times the drive home at night was eventful. One night the sky around Big Bay-De-Noc were filled with bay flies. The car wipers couldn't clear them fast enough from the windshield to see, and the pavement was so slippery, that the car went down US-2 sideways. On another night, the highway, just west of Cooks Corner, the road was filled with deer. I don't know how Mom did all of that driving for all of those Sundays.

After the first year, Dad was granted off-site privileges. We drove to Powers, picked up Dad, and drove to neighboring towns. We visited Hermansville, where Dad had previously worked for the Earle family, in their lumber yard. (The Earles went on to buy and create Blaney Park.) On other Sundays, we visited Iron Mountain, Escanaba, Menominee, Stephenson, Norway, (where we saw the giant Aslen milk bottle office), and other towns. My restaurant choice at that time was a good cheeseburger. My two winning restaurants in that regard were The Stone House in Escanaba and a little pink house restaurant in the village of Daggett.

Things at home were a challenge. Thank goodness we lived in Manistique, for all of the support that we received from other folks. Mom went back to teaching at Cooks. She even became superintendent after a year. (The wages weren't much, and she got a raise by eventually going back to teach fifth grade at Fairview in the Manistique system.) Fred Hahn at First National gave us a loan, to be paid back when my father returned. Johnny Vaughan said that we could charge groceries at his market until my dad returned. Our neighbor, Gus, brought us buckets of smelt. Our relatives helped out, as well. When my mom got pneumonia, Aunt Hildur took us in until my mom got home from the hospital. I worked at The Surf, Sandy worked at Denny's and Sunny Shores, and we pitched in to keep us going.

A miracle drug! The new drug would gather the t.b., and transport it into a lesion in the lung. A lot of patients had the lesion removed, if it were small enough. My Dad's lesion was too large, so he was sent home with a promise to limit his activity, so not to break the lesion. We were a family once again. Dad was as fast as he was previously, but he was with us.

Manistique Mind Musings

by John B. Anderson

(Dick Graphos said that I'd better get busy, and write another story about Manistique, so here's some musings.)

One winter's day in Manistique it snowed like crazy. Then it snowed all night and into the next day. By the time it was done, we had at least four feet of snow on the ground! Dan, Art, (a kid who lived above Liz Orr), and I walked over to Crow's Cliff. Crow's Cliff was about 15 feet high, and it was located across from the hospital. During the summer months, it was a rock climber's challenge to climb up the face of the cliff to reach the cedar trees at the top. The cedar trees provided us another place to pee, as we had many of those places around town. On this particular day, however, the cliff provided us with an opportunity to do the unthinkable, jump into the snow beneath the cliff. After we boosted our courage, we ran off the top of the cliff, and landed in the four foot banks of snow below. That's when we faced our next problem, how to dig ourselves out of the snow. Dan and Art finally were able to free themselves, but I could not. They threatened to leave me there, stuck in the snowbank. That motivated me to try harder. I finally dug myself out.

Crow's Cliff became passe' when Dr. Wehner built his huge house on the property. That was about the same time that he bought his new Corvette. Dr. Wehner told my dad once, that one of his goals in life was to be a million dollars in debt. The Corvette put him over the top. My sister babysat for the Wehner's upon occasion. When she had a conflict, I had to fill in. It was good duty. The kids were in bed by the time that I arrived, and they never uttered a peep after that. The Wehner's had a beautiful stereo, and mny records, so I could amuse myself until they returned. Also, the Wehners paid 50 cents an hour for babysitting, as opposed to the usual 25 cents paid by other parents. When Doc and Mrs. got home one evening, Doc asked me if I had ever driven a Corvette. I said, “No. I'm only 15, so I haven't driven anything.”

Dr. Wehner gave me the keys, and said, “Here, you drive us to your house.” It was a foggy night; I couln't see very well. We made it all the way to my house without incident. That was the last time that I drove a Corvette.

Doc figured that his car was the fastest car in Manistique. One day he was making a house call out of town, down U.S.2. A black '57 Chevy passed Doc, which, in Doc's eyes, never should have happened. Doc floored it, and burried the needle at 120 mph. He couldn't catch the Chevy. I think that the owner of the black Chevy was George MacNamara(?). We found out later that George had never been beaten. He had gone through three clutches, before the Chevy garage installed a truck clutch.

There were a lot of fast cars in town. My parents had a '53 Pontiac, straight eight. It was really a pig. Bill's parents had a Chevy Yeoman station wagon. Bill discovered that, if he would back up across the Copenhagen Bridge, slam it into first, floor the accellerator, he could squeel the tires all across the bridge. Neither Bill nor I won any races. When my folks traded for a stick-shift '58 Pontiac, I won a beer from Mike Harbin. I had a heck of a time finding second gear, but when I did, Mike was in the dust. Ray Roussin sometimes drove his step-dad's new Plymouth. The Plymouth had a push-button transmission. We were out on the Tannery Road, when Ray said, “Watch this!” Ray pushed reverse, backed up fast, pushed the drive button, and hit the gas. The car went, “Clunk,” and didn't move. Ray said, “Oh, s**t! Willard's going to be mad!”

Don Lindroth securred a stick-shift Pontiac Bonneville from his dad's dealership, at that became the fastest car in Manistique for a little while. One evening, a young man from Milwaukee showed up at the pool hall with a 1936 Ford truck. The young man asked for the fastest car in town, and we all told him about Don's Bonneville. The challenge was issued, and the race was on. Don was no match for the young man and his truck. When they returned to the pool hall, the young man revealed the engine. The engine was hard to look at, as it was all polished chrome. A real beauty!

Joe Brown got into a discussion with Jimmy Stewart one night, about the relative speeds of Jimmy's Dodge versus Joe's Lincoln. The race was down Range Street. When we got to the stop sign at Arbutus Avenue, Joe hit the breaks, and fish-tailed to the stop sign. Jimmy, disregarding his life, sailed through the intesection. I was glad that Joe didn't have a death wish that evening.

Church Groups

We Methodists didn't really get anything going, as far as the Wesley Youth Groups were concerned, so we tended to flow to the other church groups in town The First Babtists had an active group and the Presbyterians were active as well. The Lutherans had Luther League and the Catholics had C.Y.O. I hung out with the Lutherans for awhile, as they had a lot of fun projects, and because a lot of my friends were part of the Luther League. They had ice cream socials and pancake suppers, all geared to finance a trip for the youth to a rally in Texas. At on pancake supper, a pudgy man for Riverside showed up for his unlimited pancakes. This particular gentleman always wore a three-piece suit with breakfast drippings still on his vest. I volunteered to wait on him, as everyone else said, “I'm not waiting on him.” The man kept me running with more pancakes half the evening, and I left with maple syrup joining the breakfast assortment on his vest.

Later on, I really liked C.Y.O. This group held dances. Lots of fun. One dance was held with the C.Y.O. Group in Newberry. Again, lots of my friends went to C.Y. O.

Elementary School Abuse

I don't know who got abused more, the teacher or the student. One day, Mrs Cookson had had enough for Jenks Jensen. She called him to the front of the room and asked him to put out his hands. He did, and she smacked them with a ruler. Rather than cry in front of his classmates, Jenks picked up a book, smacked Mrs. Cookson on the ass, and ran out the door. The room was quiet and tense. I think that Mrs. Jensen home-schooled Jenks from then on.

John Herlik met a similar fate at St. Francis. One day, Sister Anthony called John to the front of the room for discipline. She hit John with a ruler, and John smacked her across the butt with a book. That was John's last day at St. Francis. His mom enrolled him in public school after that.

Elementary Sex

by John B. Anderson

Girls, apparently, mature faster than boys. That became clear in the sixth grade, when we shot baskets during recess at Lakeside School. Mary and Joanie started hanging out by the basketball court, trying to engage us boys in conversation. That made it hard to concentrate on shooting, and it was actually irritating.

Finally, Dan couldn't take it any more, so he asked Mary, “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you pregnant?” That worked! Mary and Joanie left, and we were able to continue shooting without a disturbance from the girls.

The only trouble was, Mary went home and told her mother. Her mother called Mrs. Cookson, our teacher and principal, and asked Mrs. Cookson to do something about it.

The next day, all of the fifth and sixth boys were summoned to the auditorium to meet with Mrs. Cookson. We were all pretty nervous. She started out my saying, “You all understand that there is a connection between the male and the female to make a baby.” (That kind of shot holes in Lloyd's theory that babies came from pills, as he had heard from his sister, the nurse, but we were past that anyway.) “...But, I don't know where you got this word, 'Pregnant'. You boys can't be talking that way at school, or there will be consequences.”

To wrap up the meeting, she added, “If you boys have any questions about sex, you may ask them now, or at any time.” Every head was bowed. All of us thought, if anyone raises his hand, we'll beat the crap out of him after school. No one spoke.

All the fifth and sixth grade boys were called to the auditorium by Mrs. Cookson one other time. It seems as if Rodney and Jerry had been caught by Mr. Krause, the janitor, trying to urinate on the ceiling of the boy's bathroom. At that discussion, we learned about the do's and don'ts of bathroom etiquette. Almost all of us learned that to be careful when Mr. Krause was around.

After school, we walked outside behind Rodney and Jerry. Jerry said to Rodney, “Ill bet Muriel couldn't piss on the ceiling.”