Broken Down Old Warhorse

2006-02-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

Kettle Chips and Shuffleboard

Wednesday night I was invited to take part in the Kettle Chip "taste-o-rama". My friends Alan and Nancy invited friends to sample and vote on proposed new flavors for our favorite chips.

As the appointed hour neared I was at home, tired from work, not feeling all that great, thinking of reasons not to go. I could come up with nary a one. It's not like I was going to watch the lame Grammy Award show.

I arrived at our local "Irish Pub" and was able to park just outside the front door. Let the chip crunching and beer swilling begin!

Not being much of a beer drinker, I chose a bottle of Rolling Rock rather than a more, shall we say, "robust" beer that most of the other "chipsters" had chosen. We all sampled the chips, had dinner and just enjoyed the evening. Being the guys that we are, Alan, Larry and myself felt the pool and shuffleboard tables beckoning as the White Whale beckoned to Ahab!

I hadn't chalked a cue stick in many-a-year to say nothing of playing shuffleboard! I found that my pool skills still remain much greater than my shuffleboard talents.

I had all but forgotten what fun it is just to get together for no reason other than to be together. Most enjoyable!

I actually wrote this in response to the post by Bacon Loving Heathen. I felt it was worthy of comment because he and I have talked so many times about what a great town Beloit is and how it is only getting better. I lived in a much larger town for many years and never really warmed-up to the city or the people. I jumped at the chance to return to Beloit. For as Alan Jackson sang some years ago... "It's alright to be little bitty, a little home town or a big ol' city". My sentiments precisely.

2005-12-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

"HIM WHO SHALL HAVE BORNE THE BATTLE"

After my mom died this spring I began going through her belongings and came upon a box of old photos. I started to look at them and discovered that I had not seen most of them. There were pictures of family members who had long since passed away. Some I knew, some I didn't have a clue as to their identity. Then I found myself holding two yellowed photos I had never seen. One was of my mom and dad, in their twenties, looking bright-faced and full of promise and hope. The next one was of dad in his uniform. I assume this was taken upon his return from the war. There he was, looking very much like a movie star. His service cap tilted at a jaunty angle, his A-2 leather flight jacket looking a bit worn, his Captains bars gleaming. It was these two photos that compelled me to write this....
My mom and dad were married in August of 1941. Like so many couples, the news of impending war was on their minds. My dad was a city bus driver in Wausau at the time. When the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor came over the radio he was at home with my mom at their apartment. They both new that it was just a matter of time before he and many of their friends would be called upon to serve. A few short weeks later he was off to the Army along with hundreds of other guys of draft-age from the area.
Dad was hoping to get into the tank corps but was instead trained as a radio operator. He must have done an outstanding job on the exams because he was picked to attend Officers Candidate School. So, off he went to that august Ivy League bastion of higher education, Yale University. I guess during those early days of the war officers were trained at many colleges and universities throughout the country. While there, he and his classmates had the opportunity to march to the Glenn Miller Band! I can only imagine what that must've been like, marching to the Glenn Miller Band playing the St. Louis Blues March. I say I can only imagine because my dad and I never talked about it.
After training, dad was commissioned a 2nd Lt. Just what the Army Air Corps needed, another "butter bar', "2nd Looey", "90 day wonder"! Soon after graduation he was sent out west to train with a B-24, heavy bombardment group before being sent overseas. My mom was lucky enough to be able to visit him in New Mexico before he shipped out. When I say shipped out, that is precisely what they did. The troops were all loaded onto hastily constructed ships called "Liberty Ships" for the long voyage to Italy.
Upon arriving in Italy, which was still partially held by German and Italian forces, he was assigned to the 15th Air Force, 756 Bombardment Group (heavy), 459th Bombardment Squadron(heavy), at Foggia, Bari and Giulia Field Italy. The squadron consisted of the mighty B-24 Liberators, which many pilots considered to be the best aircraft ever to be used in WWII. Dad didn't fly too much. He was quickly promoted to 1st Lt. and then to Captain and became Squadron Communications Officer. That particular area was bombed and strafed almost daily by the Luftwaffe due to the high concentration of airfields in such close proximity. Life on the ground was no picnic either.....
During his tour of duty his unit took part in many bombing raids and suffered high casualties. The Air Corps was still using daylight, low-level bombing as the primary means to strike Germany, France, Italy and the Balkans. Hard and costly lessons learned....
When the war in Europe ended dad spent a few more months in Italy and just before he got his orders for the Pacific, and promotion to Major, "the bomb" was dropped ending the war with Japan. Whew!
Dad was "mustered out" at Camp McCoy and returned to Wausau, to the wife he hadn't seen in over two years, and the daughter he'd never seen. Captain Lee then went back to driving bus, and I, being the true baby boomer that I am, was born in 1946.
We moved to Beloit in 1950 because my dad had taken a job as a petroleum inspector for the State of Wisconsin. He worked for the state until his retirement in the mid-70's.
Like so many of the men returning from war, he stayed in the Reserves like our next-door neighbor Jack. Jack had been in the infantry and earned a battlefield commission (and many decorations) during the Battle of the Bulge. When the Korean War broke out Jack was called upon to serve and Captain Lee, thankfully, was not. After Korea Jack returned once again and wasted no time in getting out or the Army Reserve!
When I became old enough to know what war is (so I thought) I started to ask my Dad about the war. After all, I'd seen John Wayne movies, I knew what war was like. What could be more fun than going off to war and shootin' guys up and dropping bombs and marching in parades when the war was over? This is the attitude my generation clung to until quite a different war broke out in the early 60's. I never understood why he wouldn't, or couldn't talk about the war. He could talk about it with Jack.... Why not with me? It was not until many years later, after "my war" that I understood..... And more's the pity.
It's ironic... Both Dad and I were trained as radio operators and ended up in aviation units yet we never talked about it. Even when Dad passed away in 1998, his minister was a former Army chaplain who was also in an aviation unit in Viet Nam.
So Captain Lee, Dad, to borrow a phrase from your generation... "Keep 'em flying". Maybe someday we'll be able to tell war stories together......

Note: The title was taken from Lincoln's second inaugural address. "To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan" became the motto of the Veteran's Administration.

2005-11-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Pop House

The Pop House was started by George Stankewitz around the end of WWW II. As I recall, it started as a place for the Beloit College students to gather. In the 50's and 60's the high school students from Beloit Memorial and Beloit Catholic had all but taken it over. It was located at the corner of Fifth street and Portland.

The Pop House was precisely that. A place for teens to go, get a bite to eat, listen to all of the latest music and have a pop. Not a soda like my rich, snooty, private school attending, convertible driving cousins from Milwaukee said. It was POP in these here parts!

I was in 9th grade at Lincoln Junior High and my sister, who is two years older, would come home and tall me all about what went on at the "House" that night. Who was there with whom, what the music was like. I couldn't get enough.

I wanted to get to high school for a number of reasons. One was to be a sophomore instead of a NINTH GRADER! Another was to get to wear on of those cool BMHS letter jackets. The most compelling reason for this matriculation was to finally get my Pop House membership card. When I was officially a student at BMHS my sister took me to the House and I obtained the sacred object. MY CARD.

During those years you had the Beloit west siders (of which I ws a proud member), the Beloit east siders, the Beloit Memorial crowd, and the Beloit Catholic crowd. At the House we soon learned that the west siders weren't trash, the east siders weren't rich and aloof and the Catholic High kids were pretty much like us.

It was everything I knew it would be. When you walked in there was a counter with well worn stools. When you got to the end of the counter there was another room with booths, tables and chairs, the juke box and the ever-present cigarette machine. I think smokes were a quarter a pack at that time. Behind the counter was the grill where such gourmet items like the "Snead" and the "Hollywood" were prepared. You walked past the grill and into a large room with a stage and a dance floor. This is where the famous "jams"(we assumed this was short for jam session) were held. During the school year record jams were held on Friday nights after the games. Live jams were held on Saturday nights. Many of us learned to dance (or not) here. George managed to get some pretty big name entertainment for some of the jams. The Kingsmen (of Louie Louie fame), Conway Twitty (before he became a country legend), Bobbi Vinton, and as I recall, Gene Pitney(Mrs. BLH will love this). I always preferred the record jams. That way I could hear Shep and the Limelighters doing Daddy's Home, Dion singing The Wanderer, Joey Dee and the Starlighters rockin' the Peppermint Twist, and Gene Pitney crooning Town Without Pity. The live jams were always hot, crowded and the sound wasn't that good. Not only that but you had to pay to get in. Sheesh. When the surfing craze (ptooey) hit it was the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Dick Dale and the Deltones et. al.

Atheletes ruled at the Pop House. First on the totem pole were the football players, then basketball, then baseball. Track, wrestling, golf and tennis sort of got lumped together as if they were not really sports at all. George was a huge fan and booster and I think he knew the schedules better than we did.

Many relationships started and ended at the House. Many of my still married friends met at the Pop House. On jam nights girls by the carload would arrive and meet up with carloads of boys who had arrived earlier. I'm sure all of them had told their parents they were going to a movie or something. Sooner or later, whether you had a date or not, you always seemed to end up at the Pop House.

My senior year subtle changes were taking place. The "British Invasion" had taken over the juke box. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Dave Clark Five now dominated. Some of the "older guys" started showing up in uniform. Some Marines, some Army and some walking with canes. They all had beer on their breath. This is something that was just not done. If George smelled beer on your breath you were given the bums rush. But George, being a decorated WW II vet, never seemed to notice these guys. Who knew that a few years later I would become a beer breath myself. I came in wearing my Army uniform and the only people I knew were George and my buddy Denny behind the grill. The kids looked at the badges and ribbons and just looked ill-at-ease. That was in 1968 and I never went back. I wasn't upset, I guess I just figured it was time to move on.

I don't recall when the House served its last Snead or crowned its final Chili Queen or sponsored its last softball team but it must've been in the late 70's.

The Pop House is very much a part of the history of Beloit, indeed, of my generation. I think about those days quite often. Much more so as I get older. Why is that?

2005-11-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

After much encouragement from my friends I've finally decided to sit down and start blogging.
I will try to keep the pomposity and pontification down to the bare minimum. I hope that the readers will enjoy my ramblings. I think we'll have fun!

Spudnuts And Sputnik

Some time ago I had a discussion with friends about Spudnuts. They had not heard of these delicious, potato flour raised doughnuts.

When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's there used to be a Spudnut shop on the corner of 4th St. and Liberty Ave. in Beloit. It was about two blocks from my high school. We used to be able to get, like, three doughnuts for less than a buck. If you've ever tasted a Spudnut you'll understand how lame other doughnuts are. People remember the taste of a spudnut for decades!

The shop wasn't much... A corner building with apartments above. Quite typical of the time. A lunch counter, warped floorboards and dirty windows are what I remember. Somehow though, as greasy as the air was inside the shop, the "spuds" never tasted greasy.

I did a small amount of research and found that the Spudnut franchise is still around today and, based upon the comments of customers, the "spuds" are still as great as ever.

On October 4th, 1957, (about the same time as my introduction to spudnuts) another round object changed the world forever. On that date the Russians launched Sputnik, a satellite ("What the hell is a satellite"? I recall my father saying) which was orbiting the earth every 98 minutes. I was ten years old at the time and I can remember standing in back of Cunningham School trying to get a glimpse of this 183 lb., basketball shaped wonder of technology. I never did see it!

The Russians were insisting the launch of Sputnik was to coincide with the National Geophysical Year which was taking place from July 1957 to December 1958. We all knew better though... They had put that thing up there to spy on us and take pictures. How prophetic! Thus began the preposterous "Space Race" which took place for the next three decades.