I found an album with my dad’s name engraved in gold on the inside front cover. It contained thirty-five snapshots of celebrations at my dad’s employer, Business Men’s Assurance (BMA), an insurance company based in Kansas City1. This brought to … Continue reading →
I found an album with my dad’s name engraved in gold on the inside front cover. It contained thirty-five snapshots of celebrations at my dad’s employer, Business Men’s Assurance (BMA), an insurance company based in Kansas City1. This brought to mind the fact that I had written very little about my dad’s business career.
The original BMA Building was across the street from Union Station.
At some point in 1982 I received a very surprising telephone call from my dad. He had decided to retire—at the age of 58! His employer for over thirty years1 was downsizing by offering attractive severance packages to its employees. He helped to design the program, and when the president of the company learned that he was on the list of people taking early retirement, he protested, “But Jim, this wasn’t designed for people like you.”
My dad told me that he replied, “True, but it didn’t exclude me either.”
In March of 1951 my dad presented a birthday greeting to the president of the company.
When did my dad start working at BMA? I remember thinking at the time of his death in 2011 that his life was perfectly divisible into three units of twenty-nine years each. However, that would mean that he started work in 1953. That cannot be true. I have recently discovered proof that he was employed there in 1950. Furthermore, I know that I spent a lot of the time in the hospital in my first year of life. If he had not had a good insurance policy—and BMA employees had excellent policies—I doubt that my parents could have afforded the hospital bills. Finally, I doubt that John Cernech would have allowed his only daughter to marry a guy without a job. So, I think that Jim probably started working at BMA before September of 1947.
What did you do for a year and a half, Sergeant Wavada?
I have no idea what he did between the time of his discharge from the army as a sergeant in the 300th Infantry Regiment on February 18, 1946, and his wedding on December 1, 1947. He hinted to me once that my mom and her mom, Clara Cernech, saved him from going down a really bad path during this period.
What did my dad do at BMA? I have never been too certain. He probably started at the bottom. He finished high school in 1942, but, despite the fact that he certainly qualified for veterans’ benefits, to my knowledge he never took a college course.
In 1951 he was the president of the KEO (“Know Each Other”) Club at BMA. A photo of him presenting a birthday greeting to the president of the company appeared in the company’s newspaper in March. I think that he also told me that he played for one summer on the company’s baseball or soccer team. He had a first baseman’s mitt that he picked up somewhere.
In 1963 the company moved to the BMA Tower. No, it was never known as Grant’s Tomb.
Maybe he joined BMA’s Sales Department in 1953, and he told me that he had spent 29 years there. That would make more sense. The Sales Department managed the company’s salesmen. I think that what my dad mostly did was write materials used by the company. I know that at one time his title was Vice-president of Public Relations. I also know that during the last few years he spent most of his time writing speeches for the president of the company, Bill Grant. He hated this assignment. Mr. Grant often spoke against Medicare, and my dad understood what a good program it was.
I remember the quite a few names mentioned by my dad. Some of these people I probably met once or twice, but I have seen none of them since high school. Here is the list: John Saylor (his boss) and his son Bill, Bernie Johnson, C.R. Moreland, Lyle Hopkins, Kenny Higdon, Bill Purinton, Roy Uto. I remember that dad’s secretary—or at least one of his secretaries—was named Jeanette. I also remember a woman who attended his wake in 2011 and appeared in some of the photos below. I think that her name was Mary Jean or something like that. If I ever knew her last name, I have forgotten it.2
Here are the photos in the same order that they were in the album. There are two sets of photos. The first fifteen were taken at a banquet at a huge round table at BMA Tower. The second set of twenty were evidently shot on a different occasion in and around my dad’s office. I have added captions when I knew anything about them.
My mom is in white. My dad is to her right. His vision was almost as bad as mine, but he almost never wore glasses except to read and drive. He considered them effeminate. The woman seated at the window came to Jim’s wake. The only other person whom I recognize is my dad in the foreground. No sign of his bald spot yet, and not a single grey hair. Bill Grant, the company’s president collected art depicting western scenes. My mother was either convulsed in laughter or she spotted a huge spider on the ceiling. The man shown in profile is Bill Saylor. I think that this was either Bill Grant of John Saylor. No idea.
I think that this was either Bill Grant of John Saylor.
Bill Saylor.Note the tie bar. By the time that I spent much time with him as an adult both of my dad’s eyebrows were white, but he still had no trace of grey hair. I was the opposite. He stopped smoking in the late eighties. My mom would be upset that this photo showed the very slight bump on her nose. This was the lady who came to the wake, Mary Jean.Kenny Higdon?I was surprised to see my dad reaching with his right hand. He was left-handed. The only thing that he did right-handed was playing golf. Maybe he had a cigarette in his left hand. This is the last photo of the first set. This is the first photo of the second set. The gag gift of the white paint might be a reference to a project that I worked on the summer before I went into the army. I was supposed to paint the house, but I did not finish. It is possible that they never got anyone else to finish it. I think that this cake was for my dad’s retirement. If the golfer was meant to be my dad, his aim was to the right of the hole (with the red flag in it) because he was playing the horrendous slice that accompanied each of his swings. He learned to play golf (and smoke) in high school at Maur Hill. There were no left-handed clubs available. No idea.I think that my dad is holding some golf balls. I think that it is totally unfair that I had more grey hairs before I started working at TSI than he had when he retired from BMA.No idea.One wood and one iron?I think that the big guy in the back with the plaid jacket might be John Bolin. I knew his son in the Boy Scouts. My dad and Mary Jean.A black guy?Mom and somebody.“So, a priest, a rabbi, and an insurance guy go into a bar …”
1. The insurance operations of BMA (the A originally stood for Accident Insurance), which included my dad’s pension and health insurance, was sold to Assicurazioni Generali in 1990. AG sold it to the Royal Bank of Canada in 2009;
2. I spent several hours on the Internet trying to discover what became of the people on this list, but I was unsuccessful.
The U-M team in 1975-1976 was, of course, a little different from the previous year’s. Don Goldman and I still comprised the coaching staff. The team lost two debaters. Mike Kelly had graduated, and Tim Beyer had decided not to debate after his freshman year. So, Wayne Miller debated with Mitch Chyette all year, and Don Huprich debated with Stewart Mandel. Two freshmen joined the team, Dean Relkin and Bob “Basketball” Jones.1 Bob knew Don Huprich; I am not sure how Dean found out about the team.
The financial situation was even worse than in the previous year. The travel budget remained the same, but Paul Caghan was no longer around. Even if he had been, I doubt that I would again have requested a stipend for his girlfriend. Also, I had high hopes that in March Wayne and Mitch would qualify for the National Debate Tournament in Boston. We would need to find financing for that somewhere.
Prisons use lots of land. Have you ever been to Leavenworth?
The debate topic for the year was “Resolved: That the federal government should adopt a comprehensive program to control land use in the United States.” Wayne and Mitch ran an affirmative case about the Army Corps of Engineers. Don and Stewart’s case was about coal pollution and solar heating/cooling. I liked the latter a lot more than the former.
In 1974-75 I had worked with Tim and Stewart Mandel primarily on strategy and the construction of individual arguments because their presentation skills had already been pretty well honed in high school. In 1975, on the other hand, I needed to devote more time with Bob and Dean to fundamentals.
Dean Relkin’s word rate per minute was without a doubt the lowest of anyone that I ever heard in an intercollegiate debate. There was never any doubt that Bob had to be the second affirmative. Almost everyone in college typed up the first affirmative constructive speech, which was then delivered word-for-word. Generally, the only exceptions were to add a joke or two that might be appreciated by the judge. The speech would ordinarily be delivered at a conversational pace—considerably slower than the other seven speeches.
The first affirmative speech that was designed for Dean could be read aloud by any of the other guys in seven or eight minutes. So, their affirmative case contained, by necessity, fewer arguments than anyone else’s. This was not necessarily a significant disadvantage. Sometimes debaters present more arguments than they can defend.
This is Tom Rollins. I could not find a photo of Dean Relkin.
Dean had a skill that considerably helped offset his shortcoming in the speed department. He had exceptionally good word economy—the ability to state an argument in the most compact manner. In fact, the only debater whom I have ever heard with better word economy was the legendary Tom Rollins2 of Georgetown, who won the top speaker award at NDT in 1975 and then again in 1978. He was runner-up in 1976.
To address the speed problem in the other three speeches we decided that it would be best for Dean to give the first affirmative rebuttal and both second negative speeches. Most speakers giving the 1AR, a five-minute speech that follows fifteen minutes of arguments from the negative, spoke at a very rapid rate. Dean could not match them, but his phrasing was so good that he almost always was able to answer all of the 2NC arguments and also do a pretty good job of dealing with the most important points in the 1NR.
The second negative posed a different set of problems. Most of Dean’s constructive speech could be written out ahead of time, and he was fully capable of coming up with new arguments. The problem was that the 1AR might present so many answers that Dean could not get through them all in his rebuttal. So, he needed to learn how to select one or two of his best arguments against the affirmative plan and strive to win the important points supporting those points. He also needed Bob to select an argument or two that he (i.e., Bob) had presented in 1NC and defended in 1NR for Dean to “pull through” in his rebuttal. They had to practice this quite a bit, but eventually they got it down.
Bob also had a problem that was difficult to deal with. I noticed in practice debates that he would sometimes skip an argument. In a debate this is tantamount to conceding it. Doing this even once could easily turn a victory into a defeat.
All debaters took2 careful notes when the opponents were speaking on a “flow sheet” with several columns. In one column were the opponents’ arguments. In the next column were written the planned responses in shorthand. That column served as the outline for the speech.
I decided to ask Bob Jones to participate in a mini-debate. Someone would read a first affirmative speech. Bob would take notes and prepare a first negative constructive for me to listen to. Ordinarily I would also take notes on my flow sheet, but in this case I just watched Bob while the other participant read the case.
After about a minute or two I called a halt to the exercise. I noticed that Bob was holding his pen between his middle two fingers. His thumb was barely involved at all. This might be a good grip for a bear, but there are many better ways for a creatures with opposable thumbs to write. Bob’s approach forced him to lift his hand after every few characters to see what he wrote, which, considering that none of his fingertips were in contact with the pen, could be just about anything. Try it yourself!
I was flabbergasted. Aside from hiring a first-grade teacher to come to the Frieze Building to teach him how to write, I could think of no practical advice for him. I occasionally awoke in the middle of the night fretting over this problem.
I did have one unexpected visitor in the Frieze Building that year, my cousin John Cernech, Terry’s older brother. He may have called before he arrived. If not, I do not know how he found the debate office.
He told me that he was a dean at Quincy College (Quincy University since 1993) in Illinois. It was a Catholic school of a little over one thousand students. I had no idea what being a dean entailed—Animal House was not released until 1978—and did not press him about it. That he was administering a college surprised me a little. He was two or three years ahead of me in high school, and academics was not his specialty.
John is the man on the left in this photo taken in 2012. He has a PhD and was a VP at Creighton University at the time.
He might have told me about Terry. Somehow I learned that he was managing a pizza restaurant.
He was very cordial as he asked me about what I had been up to. I told him about my classes and the debate team. I may have told him about living in Plymouth and Sue; I don’t remember. It probably would have been courteous to invite him to lunch or dinner, but I didn’t. I naturally assumed that he had come to spy on me for someone in my family. I may have been mistaken.
As a present Sue had a replica made for me of the original shirt. The only thing missing is the C. I still wear this to bridge tournaments.
I think that this was the year that the blue Michigan Debate tee shirts appeared on the circuit. The guys still dressed nicely for the preliminary rounds, but they broke out the tee shirts for elimination rounds. “Michigan Debate” was imprinted on the front in maize; the debater’s name was on the back.
They got one made for me, too. The front of mine had a “C” to denote my status on the team. The back said “Prof. Wavada”. This was in honor of the mythical Professor Wavada (wuh VAH duh) who was often announced as a judge for elimination rounds. Of course I was not a professor. I had never even taught a class in anything anywhere.
The guys were not receptive to my idea for much snazzier uniforms. I envisioned the debaters wearing maize (the color, not the plant) shirts with blue ties arrayed with maize wolverines; these ties were on sale in Ann Arbor. Over these shirts we would wear blue blazers with the school seal emblazoned on the breast pocket. The debater could add his own name on the back in maize letters. The trousers would be a tasteful maize and blue plaid. The footwear would include maize socks and white bucks with a bold block M in blue on the toe of each shoe.
I remember changing into my tee shirt whenever I was chosen to judge an elimination round. During the very first time that I wore it the room became uncomfortably chilly. I shivered so much that it became difficult too take good notes. Nevertheless, I never covered up the school colors with a jacket.
Don Goldman escorted Bob and Dean to several nearby tournaments. I remember taking the pair to two. The first was a varsity tournament at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The guys did a terrific job. They actually qualified for the elimination rounds. I was really proud of them.
I had learned from Dr. Colburn that Juddi and Jimmie Trent were both professors in the speech department at Miami. I looked them up. I was disappointed that I did not get to talk with Jimmie, but I did spend a little time catching up with Juddi. She did not seem to have changed much. I certainly had, at least in appearance. I wonder what she thought of the bearded cowboy with glasses that I had become.
I also drove Bob and Dean to Novice Nationals at Northwestern. Three things stand out in my memory from that tournament. At the beginning of the event David Zarefsky was master of ceremonies at an assembly. He started by directing our attention to the “continental breakfast, which you all know is a euphemism for coffee and donuts.” A few people laughed.
He then presented the tournament’s staff. One of the Northwestern coaches was female, and she was very hot. I don’t remember her name. When Zarefsky introduced her he mentioned that “she had served in every conceivable position.” I guffawed, but no one else had even the slightest reaction. It was a little embarrassing.
A unique feature of the Novice Nationals was the way that the schedule for the preliminary rounds was determined. All eight rounds were set before the tournament began. They divided the country into four geographical sections. Each team met two teams from each section. I really liked this format.
Northwestern drew the line through Ypsi.
At the assembly one of Northwestern’s many coaches announced that the staff was having a contest. I don’t remember what the prize was, but they challenged the attendees to deduce the determinants of the sections. I spent a little time on this and submitted my list of teams in each section. At the final assembly they announced that there had only been one entry in the contest. They awarded me the prize and announced that I had only made one mistake. I think that I had Central Michigan and the University of Detroit in the wrong groups. The dividing line between the eastern group and the east-central group went through Ypsilanti MI.
After seven rounds Bob and Dean still had a chance to qualify for the elimination rounds. Unfortunately in the last round they faced a very good team from the University of Kentucky. Bob and Dean were on the negative. I had judged UK’s case several times, and we had plenty of time to prepare for this round.
I suggested to the guys that they should use the Emory switch in this round. That is, Dean would give his plan attacks in the first negative. Bob would analyze the advantages claimed by the affirmative in the second negative. In addition, Bob might be able to answer part of the second affirmative’s refutation of Dean’s disadvantages. Dean would have the entire five-minute 1NR to resuscitate his plan attacks. Bob would give the 2NR and pick the best arguments to sell. He had never done this speech before, but he had a lot of experience with this speech, and the mindset is similar.
The guys agreed to try it. Kentucky still won the debate, but both Bob and Dean thought that the switch gave them an enormous tactical advantage. They both thought that they would have been embarrassed if they had used their standard approach.
One of the Kentucky debaters later talked with me about the switch. She complained that the Michigan team only did that because they knew that they could not win with the usual strategy. This was, of course, true. She did not claim that the switch was illegal or unethical. She did not even argue that it was inappropriate for a novice tournament. When I asked her if Bob and Dean should have just rolled over and conceded, she just walked away.
It just occurred to me that this might have been Bob and Dean’s final debate. I wonder.
The first tournament for the four varsity debaters was again at Western Illinois. Wayne, Mitch, Don, and Stewart piled in Greenie and I drove them to Macomb. I don’t remember the details of this trip, but Wayne Miller has assured me that he and Mitch made it to the final round.
On Saturday at this tournament I must have had a round off from judging. I remember walking by myself over to Hanson Field where I watched part of a varsity football game through the chainlink fence. I don’t remember whom the Leathernecks played that day or what the score was. It wasn’t Michigan Stadium, but it was real football, and I enjoyed it.
The highlight of this tournament for Wayne Miller was not the trophy that he fondled through most of the grueling return trip. It was learning the saga of Herm the Sperm, which I related somewhere in the middle of the Land of Lincoln.
Herm was an extremely industrious sperm. He started every morning with his Daily Dozen, a set of exercises design to maximize his strength, stamina, and—above all—speed. The afternoons he spent in the pool working on his strokes. His goal was to be not just the best sperm, but the best in every stroke—butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle.
Herm had nothing but contempt for the other sperm. “Go ahead,” he told them. “Just sit there lounging around smoking cigarettes. One day, when the lights flash and the alarms sound, you’ll regret it. That’s when it will be every sperm for himself, and you just know that the first one to reach and penetrate the egg will be none other than yours truly, Herm the Sperm.”
A few of the sperm tried to emulate his devotion and energy, but they soon gave up. Herm had set the bar too high.
Then one day the lights did flash and the alarms did blare. Sure enough, Herm sped past the tens of millions of his brethren. They knew they could never pass him, but they still pressed forward. That is just what they were designed to do.
Then, to their amazement they saw Herm attempting the hopeless task of swimming against the stream. “Get back!” he cried at the top of his lungs. “Get back! It’s a blow job!”
My recollection of the rest of the tournament schedule is very spotty. Wayne and Mitch usually qualified for the elimination rounds, but they did not win any tournaments. Some of the specific recollections that I have don’t concern debating or coaching.
I remember standing with Mitch at the back of the auditorium at Emory University in Atlanta. The debate director was a formidable woman with a powerful voice, Melissa Maxcy4. Mitch could not help himself. He turned to me and whispered, “Thunder Woman!”
The Georgetown tournament was memorable for a couple of reasons. Stewart asked me to point out some of the more famous debaters. Our guys had on suits or at least sports jackets. One pair that Stewart was interested in was Ringer and Mooney, the guys from Catholic University whose affirmative case legalized marijuana. I said, “See that guy over there playing the air guitar and the tall skinny guy in the flannel shirt and the worn-out jeans. They are Ringer and Mooney.”
Bill Davey stopped in at the tournament to work the room laying on his inestimable charm. At the time he was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. He already knew Wayne and Mitch. I introduced him to Don and Stewart.
All the guys on the U-M team were much more comfortable debating affirmative. I told them about how successful Bill and I had been on the negative with the Emory switch. Wayne was not interested, but Mitch was rather eager to try it. As much as anything, I think that he just wanted to start his 1NC with “Flip your flows; here come the P.O.’s.”5
The most popular case that year called for the termination of nuclear power plants. Wayne found an article in which the author stated that leaving the uranium in the ground would cost thousands of lives because of the radiation from some element, radium I think. He thought that this evidence absolutely destroyed the “nukes” cases.
I was always skeptical about claims that appear in only one article. I pointed out to Wayne that the article did not specify over how many years these deaths would occur. It turned out that the half-life of radium was over sixteen hundred years!
Mitch and Wayne were at one point were experiencing difficulties with their Army Corps case when Mitch was asked in the first cross-x period, “How much is a human life worth?” No matter what Mitch responded, the negative had a clear path to a worrisome plan attack. I suggested that Mitch respond with a question:”Do you mean under the plan?” When they answered yes, he would then say that it would be “exactly the same as under the current system.” This seemed to work.
I could be wrong, but I think that only three of us went on the “Eastern swing” trip to Boston. I got angry at Mitch when he reported that he could not find a critical piece of evidence in a recently concluded round. I flung my legal pad across Harvard Yard in disgust.
My philosophy was, “If you can’t find it, you ain’t got it.” I did not think that anyone whom I coached spent enough time keeping his/her evidence orderly. One of my major frustrations in coaching was that I could never convince any debaters to implement my policy of numbering every divider section and putting that number on every card in that section.
I did a fair amount of research on prisons. I was convinced that a really strong case could be made for prison reform. Don and Stewart added it to their solar power case for a while, but they usually emphasized the solar case in rebuttals.
Debaters in those days wrote their names on the blackboard. Wayne and Mitch liked to goof around a little if they thought that the judge would appreciate it. They would sometimes call themselves “Mitch Egan” and “Wolva Reenes”. For Carl Flaningam of Butler they called themselves the Schidt Brothers, Sacco and Peesa.
As I mentioned, the top two debaters from Catholic University, Ringer and Mooney, ran an affirmative case that legalized marijuana. It was exceptionally difficult to attack. Their plan included a federal board to oversee the plan; they would sometimes even specify that the judge for the round would be a member of the board. However, all of the advantages came from legalizing cannabis, not regulating it. I suggested that we run a counterplan that was basically their plan without the board. We used it when we faced them, but we never defeated them.
I was conscientious about turning in my expense reports promptly after tournaments, but I don’t think that I earned any Brownie points with the department’s administration.
My most embarrassing moment in the seven years that I spent at U-M came during the high school debate tournament. It fell to me to announce the results at the final assembly. I made a serious error in scoring the speaker points, and, needless to say, no one checked my work. Some of the people to whom I awarded trophies did not deserve them. I had to purchase duplicate trophies for the real winners and send to all the schools that attended letters that acknowledged and apologized for the mistake.
Don Goldman and I went out for a drink after we found this out. It was the only time in my entire life that I really felt compelled to drown my sorrows.
In each octafinal pairing the sum of the seeds should be 17. If favored teams win, the sum of their seeds should be 9, 5, and 3 in subsequent round.
At some point I noticed that the tournament brackets that Dr. Colburn had provided in an appendix to his book on debate were wrong. At first he denied it, but in the end he admitted that I was right. I guess that no one checked his work either.
For the district tournament Wayne and Mitch decided to use Don Huprich’s case on solar heating and cooling. I am not sure whether this was my idea or theirs, but I definitely supported it. Don helped them a lot to prepare.
Augustana and Northwestern again received first round bids to the National Debate Tournament, and again no other team from District 5 received one.
Wayne and Mitch went 6-2 at districts and qualified comfortably. So, we finally got to go to the NDT, which was sponsored by Boston College, but held at a hotel in downtown Boston.
I don’t remember who paid for the trip. We definitely took Greenie across Canada again. Wayne and Mitch finished in the middle of the pack.
The weather was good, and the ladies of the evening were out in the Combat Zone.
I have only two strong memories. One was from the evening on which we accidentally wandered into Boston’s Combat Zone, which was only a few blocks from the hotel. This was a completely new experience for a Catholic lad from Kansas.
I also recall the evening that we spent exchanging evidence and ideas in the room of one of the debaters from, I think, Eastern Illinois. They had no idea what to say against Catholic’s marijuana case. We told them about our counterplan. They were intrigued enough to write it down. Mitch pontificated the opening sentence for them: “Once upon a time, when men were men and giants roamed the earth …”
Once again the only teams from District 5 that made it to the elimination rounds were the two pairs that received first-round bids, Northwestern and Augustana. The tournament was won by Robin Rowland7 and Frank Cross8 from KU, the two guys for whom I voted in the first elimination round that I ever judged at the tournament in Kentucky in 1974.
The drive back was long but by no means onerous.
Later we learned that the team’s budget had been cut drastically for 1975-76. For most purposes the program had been eliminated. Dr. Colburn’s title was still Director of Forensics, but the budget was not sufficient to attract anyone who was serious about debate. I still had a class or two to take, but I would not be the coach of that team. Don Goldman had finished his masters. I don’t know what he did next.
1. “Basketball Jones featuring Tyrone Shoelaces” was a popular song released in 1973 by Cheech and Chong. They somehow convinced an unbelievable assortment of people to help them. The song’s Wikipedia page is here.
Bob Jones contacted me in 2018 or 2019 about finding a bridge club in southeast Connecticut. He is a Diamond Life Master, a very high rank. In 2021 he lives in Marietta he lives in Marietta, GA.
2. Tom Rollins has had a fascinating career. You can read about some of it on his LinkedIn page. Among other things he founded The Teaching Company. I purchased several of its courses. I enjoyed listening to them on my Walkman while jogging.
3. In the twenty-first century laptops have replaced paper in nearly every area of debate, including note-taking.
4. In 2021 Melissa (Maxcy) Wade is the Executive Director Emeritus of the Barkley Forum at Emory University. To read about her career click on her picture on this webpage.
5. P.O. is short for plan objection. This includes disadvantages and arguments that the plan will not accomplish what the affirmative team claims.
6. Carl Flaningam practices law in Skokie, IL. His LinkedIn page is here.
7. Robin Rowland has taken to wearing bow ties at KU. His Wikipedia page is here.
8. Frank Cross died in 2019. His obituary is here.
Could a relationship between a preppy lad from Kansas and a country lass from Connecticut last? Continue reading →
For the few weeks that I worked in the Variable Annuity area of the Life Actuarial Department at the Hartford, my desk was behind Sue Comparetto’s, and we shared a phone. She was the head clerk in Bob Riley’s section. This meant that she was the only person there entrusted with an electronic calculator. Those silent marvels would soon replace the gigantic noisy Fridens, but they still required an AC connection and cost about $1,000.
I am pretty sure that Sue’s first impression of me was negative. Our only noteworthy interaction was when I was called upon to talk with someone on the phone. My desk had no phone; I had to use hers. I never called anyone, and most of the calls that I received were nerve-wracking; I perspired all over the receiver. I wiped it off before I gave it back, but it was still rather gross.
I did not know Sue well, but what I heard about her was somewhat disconcerting. She lived in East Hampton, CT, with Diane DeFreitas and, I think, another young woman. She did not have a car. A “Cuban plumber” sometimes gave her a ride part of the way to the Hartford. She hitchhiked the rest of the way. She had picked up a black Labrador puppy at a flea market and named him Siddhartha. At some point she must have realized that this situation was not sustainable, and she took the dog to the pound. Someone else may have catalyzed the decision.
I remember that one day both she and Diane decided to dress slutty for work. Sue did not like dress codes. She told me that she had been suspended from high school for vigorously protesting the dress code. Her parents were not amused by this behavior.
Oh, yeah. One other thing—Sue smoked. My dad smoked, but hardly anyone else with whom I had ever spent much time did. John Sigler also spoke, but he hardly ever lit up in my presence.
The Shoreham has been gone for decades.
After I was assigned to the Individual Pensions area I only saw Sue in passing and at the Friday evening gatherings at the Shoreham Hotel’s bar, situated very conveniently between the Aetna and the Hartford. At some point one of the most important events of my life occurred, and yet I have no clear memory of the details. For some reason Tom Herget set me up with Sue for some event. I don’t remember when it was or even what we did. I have a vague recollection of the Aetna Diner (Sue liked their moussaka) on Farmington Avenue, but maybe that was on a different occasion. I am pretty sure that Sue told me on that occasion that I reminded her of her husband, and she was astonished to learn that my middle name was Dennis. She explained that her husband’s name was Dennis, and his middle name was Michael.
I don’t think that I previously knew that she had been married. This explained why she did not look even vaguely Italian. I certainly did not know that she was still legally married. I had to make a snap judgment whether being with her was a mortal sin or a venial sin. It was a tough call, but I was pretty sure that any further contact would move the needle over the line. For twelve years I had attended Catholic schools, and I had never missed going to mass on Sunday. Not once. I probably confessed more impure thoughts than I actually had. You have to confess something.
I somehow quieted my conscience and had a good time that night, and Sue and I started “seeing each other.” By this time she had moved to Rockville and rented a room in the basement of a house owned by a female employee of the Hartford named Jackie. She also had somehow persuaded a bank to finance her purchase of a 1972 Dodge Colt.
During this period Sue was also, at least in theory, studying for Part 1 of the actuarial exams. She was at a huge disadvantage compared with others taking the test in Hartford. Most of them got study time and took classes in the subject. She did not pass.
It must have been on an evening in October that Sue offered to fix a steak supper for John Sigler and me. Jackie must have let Sue use the kitchen; Sue’s apartment barely had room for a bed and a couple of chairs. We all sat around after dinner drinking Mateus, talking, and listening to Leonard Cohen records. Finally John departed. I spent the night with Sue on her small waterbed, a totally new experience for me.
Over the next few months Sue and I went to numerous places together. A bunch of us walked down to Constitution Plaza together to attend a noontime rally for George McGovern. 1972 was the first time that I was allowed to vote in a national election. In 1968 the voting age was twenty-one, and I was only twenty. Sue, who was born in 1951, was barely old enough to vote this time. I really hated Nixon. I suspected (correctly, as it was later revealed) that he had deliberately scuttled the peace talks in Paris about Vietnam. Never mind his secret war in Laos and his part in the overthrow of the democratic government in Chile. I never had to serve in Vietnam, but I blamed Nixon for stealing two years from me when I was in my prime.
Sue and I both voted for McGovern. I even put a McGovern-Shriver1 sticker on Greenie’s bumper. I felt as if I had gotten McGovern one more vote than he would have otherwise received. Of course, it made no difference. Most Americans believed Tricky Dick really had a “secret plan” to end the war, they were afraid of the godless communist menace, and for some reason they did not like McGovern.
Sue and I attended a couple of movies in theaters. I seem to remember that there was a theater in West Hartford that showed older movies. I am pretty sure that we saw Blow-up together and at least one Marx Brothers movie.
We ate at a few restaurants in Rockville. I am certain that we shared a ham and olive pizza a small restaurant on Main St. near Route 83. It must have been part of a chain. It had a number after its name. Sue liked to go to Friendly’s. At the time their menu consisted of overpriced hamburger, overpriced cheeseburgers, overpriced “Friendly Franks”, and ice cream. Sue focused on the ice cream.
Gone forever?
I cooked a few meals for us in my apartment. For example, I fixed a sirloin beef roast using McCormick’s Meat Marinade2, a trick that I learned from my mother. Sue was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. She said that she had never liked beef roasts. She explained that when her mother cooked them she left them in the oven until they were grey, dried out, flavorless, and chewy. I tried to fry a chicken, but it did not work out too well. I had to put it in the oven before serving because some parts were not done. Microwave ovens existed, but I did not have one. After that we stuck to extra-crispy chicken from the colonel. However, I bought at least three cookbooks, and I developed a few very tasty specialties.
I took Christmas very seriously in 1972. It was only the second holiday season that I had spent away from my family, and this time I was really on my own. The feeling was much different from any previous Christmas. I spent a lot of time shopping for little gifts and writing personalized Christmas cards for my friends. Sue and I attended the Carol Sing at the Hartford Times Building in downtown Hartford. The Times3 published a half-page photo of the huge crowd that was assembled. My off-white cowboy hat and fleece-lined suede coat made it easy to spot us in the photo. We showed the clipping to all of our friends.
My first New Years in Connecticut was also memorable. I decided to roast Cornish game hens for supper, and we invited Tom Corcoran and Patti Lewonczyk to join us. The four of us were also invited by Tom Garabedian and Gail Mertan to a party at Tom’s house in East Hartford. The meal was a big success. I think that Sue cooked some kind of vegetables, maybe her famous carrots Lyonaise. Of course, we also served wine.
We all probably ate too much. No one felt like going to a party. However, it was less than a mile to the Garabedian house. So, we all piled into one of the cars and drove there.
The only two people in the house when we arrived were Tom and Gail. Evidently Tom had persuaded his parents to make themselves scarce. Tom and Gail had laid out a cornucopia of food and beverages—enough for several dozen people. No one else ever came. It was not much of a party, but if we had submitted to the lethargy induced by the supper, it would have been a disaster.
Over the holidays I got to meet some of Sue’s family. Her parents, Art and Effy Slanetz, and siblings all lived in a farm house on North Maple St. in Enfield. Sue was the oldest child; she had two sisters, Karen and Betty. They were nothing alike. She also had a brother Don. I met Effy’s dog, Queenie, and a bevy of Sue’s uncles, aunts, and cousins, all of whom lived within a few miles of the Slanetz’s house4. Many of them seemed to make a living by driving trucks in one way or another. Their favorite sport was NASCAR. I did not contribute much to the banter.
Behind the house was a fairly large field that was actively farmed by the Polek family that lived in the house that was between the Slanetz’s house and a warehouse in which Art stored all kinds of old mechanical junk. Sue told me that that the field was their family’s land at one time. When she was little they raised potatoes.
The winters in the seventies were brutal. Early in 1973 (I think) I was driving Greenie, and Sue was riding shotgun after a snowfall of a couple of inches. We were headed south on I-91 through Hartford. I was driving at a very reasonable speed in the right lane, and, thank God, there were no cars nearby. All of a sudden my car’s rear wheels began moving to the left, but the front wheels did not. The car performed a spin of about 315°, and my left front bumper whipped into the guardrail on the left, which brought us to a halt.. Neither of us was injured. We were both wearing seat belts—I never let anyone ride in my car without a seat belt. It was amazing that my car suffered only a negligibly small bump, and the vehicle was positioned so that I could quickly steer back onto the highway. This scary event made me realize that I had to be very careful with this car in dicey road conditions.
Sue had a very large number of friends. My favorites were Bob and Susan Thompson. Bob worked in a small factory. He complained about the smell of the chemicals there. His job might have had something to do with linoleum. I think that Susan was a teacher. They had a house in Coventry and an extremely amorous dachshund. Once he gained purchase on a pants leg he was difficult to detach. Bob owned a Plymouth that saw its best days in the Eisenhower administration, or maybe earlier. In snowy weather he liked to take it into an empty parking lot and make it spin donuts.
When we had not seen Bob and Susan for a few months, I asked Sue why. She said that she had loaned them some money, and she was pretty sure that they were avoiding her because they could not afford to repay her.
On Valentine’s Day 2013 I bought Sue a present and a card. She had forgotten about it, and therefore she did not reciprocate. I took it a little hard.
Eventually I learned that Sue and time just did not get along. She regularly forgot holidays, birthdays, and appointments. She also could not gauge the passage of time. She might think that events occurred a week ago actually happened two months earlier. If she said that something would take fifteen minutes, it usually took an hour or more. If any food (e.g., beef or lamb) needed to be cooked for a specific amount of time, I had to do it. In retrospect I marvel that she had chosen to grill steaks for John Sigler and me. I cannot remember how they turned out. I was not paying too much attention to the food that night.
Sue was always late. I adopted the habit of carrying a book around with me for the inevitable waiting periods.
The fridge that we moved wasn’t wrapped.
I recall that in February of 1973 Sue and I helped one of her many friends move to a new place. The woman who was moving might have been one of Sue’s roommates in East Hampton. I remember that I was one of the people assigned to get an old refrigerator up the staircase. We succeeded, but I could not describe what technique was employed beyond brute force. At one point the woman who was moving asked what day it was. I said that it was Saturday the 24th (or whatever it actually was). She said “No. I mean, what month?”
I decided that Sue’s twenty-second birthday on March 2 should be Sue Comparetto Day. I offered to buy her anything that she wanted. She wanted to shop for a camera. We drove to a camera shop of her choosing, and she selected a thirty-five-millimeter camera with a leather case. I would have inserted a photo of it here if I knew where it was. I guarantee that it is in the house somewhere. Sue would never have thrown it out. I did find the case, which still had one of her combs in it.
We went to two concerts together in March. The first was at the Bushnell Auditorium in Hartford on Tuesday March 6. The headliners were Loggins and Messina, whose only real hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance” was very popular at the time. Sue and I must have attended in hopes of seeing the advertised opening act, Jim Croce. Neither Sue nor I can remember him appearing. Apparently he canceled for some reason. Almost everyone in the audience was at least five years younger than we were, and they enjoyed the L&M performance a lot more than we did. By the end of the show we really felt like old fogeys.
The other concert was at the Palace Theater in Waterbury. Pink Floyd had just released “Dark Side of the Moon”, which is widely considered their masterpiece. There were huge speakers blasting out sound from all four corners of the theater, and there was an abundance of strobe lights and other dramatic flashes. The crowd went crazy, but I was definitely ready to leave after fifteen minutes. You can listen to the whole two-hour concert here.
On April 1, 1973, Sue’s husband Dennis committed suicide. Sue went to the funeral. He had attempted suicide at least once in the fall. Sue had visited him in the hospital on that occasion.
When the weather got warmer Sue and I enjoyed a very pleasant trip to Gillette Castle, a bizarre structure that overlooks the Connecticut River. It was built of local fieldstone by the actor William Gillette. He is most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes more than 1,300 times on the stage, once in a silent film feature, and twice on radio programs. The estate is now a state park. I found it to be a very interesting place. The grounds were very relaxing. There was even a small train that had been used by Gillette himself. We had a very nice picnic.
We also spent some time in the interior5 of the castle. The extremely ornate inside was at least as fabulous as the grounds and the view. This was one of my favorite days in my first trip to Connecticut.
At some point Sue decided to quit her job at the Hartford. She found a new line of work at Travelers Equity Sales. She had to take a test to become a registered rep. She passed on the first try and worked there through the spring and most of the summer. While she worked at the Travelers she became a close friend of Diane Robinson, who originally came from Passumpsic VT, and Karen Peterson.
Around the same time that she changed jobs Sue moved to an apartment on Jefferson St. (or maybe Washington St.) in Hartford. I don’t remember much about it. My only clear recollection is of the only time in my life that I ever ran out of gas. I was about two blocks from her house and perhaps one hundred feet from a gas station. Even though it was slightly uphill I was able to push Greenie up to the pump all by myself. I was only a little stronger then; Greenie was very light and easy to push.
During her time at T.E.S. Sue and I started to grow apart. She was a whirlwind of activity, and I often felt left out. She had a gazillion friends of both genders, and sometimes I became jealous. She probably started to think of me as too clingy.
This one is 18.9′ long.
When I met Sue, she already had a boa constrictor named Puca, but he was barely six feet long and skinny. She did not feed him much, and when she did, all that he got was a dead mouse heated over a light bulb to fool his heat-detecting senses. One evening we visited her friends Stan and Pat Slatt in Marlborough. They had a ten-foot boa constrictor that Stan fed live rats and a thirteen-foot python that regularly ate a full-grown rabbit. I had no fear of Puca, but these two monsters gave me pause.
In the summer of 1973 Sue moved to an apartment complex on Wales Rd. in Andover. Her apartment was right across the street from the one that Scott and Cindy Otermat lived with their huge dog Cinders. I saw her only a few times before her big trip.
Sue, Diane, and Karen decided to quit their jobs and drive to Alaska. I am not sure that their plans were any more specific than that. I don’t know what they used for money. Maybe they knocked over a bunch of banks in those states along the Canadian border, or they might have found a big nugget of gold in the Klondike. They did not take Sue’s car. She left it at her apartment, which she “sublet” to a guy who worked on roofs for a living. I am pretty sure that they were “involved” before she left. He also was supposed to take care of Puca, but the reptile escaped from his cage either just before Sue left or just after.
This was the greatest adventure in Sue’s young life, but I was absolutely miserable. I felt sorry for myself. It was hard for me to face all my friends. I took a lot of long walks.
During the trip the three ladies all hooked up with Air Force guys stationed in Alaska. Diane ended up marrying Phil Graziose. They lived in a trailer park in northern Vermont for a number of years and then bought an old house in St. Johnsbury with a storefront in which Phil ran a locksmithing business.
On the trip Sue became seriously involved with an Air Force guy name Randy, who came from, of all places, my home town of Kansas City. I refused to listen to the stories of her adventures, but I could not help overhearing that there was one incident in which someone nearly drowned.
This matchbook cover is the only trace of Fast Eddie’s that I could find on the Internet.
Meanwhile, back in the lower forty-eight Friday, August 17, 1973, was a memorable day. Since it was my twenty-fifth birthday, I invited everyone to help me celebrate. At least eight or ten of us went to Fast Eddie’s bar on the Berlin Turnpike. I had never been drunk in my life, and I had no intention of overindulging that evening. The problem was that we were drinking beer by the pitcher, and people kept refilling my glass without asking me. I never asked for a second glass. My mother had drilled into us that if there was food on our plate or beverage in our glass, we were expected to consume it. If there was a possibility that we might not want it later, we were not to put it on the plate. Once it was there, however, …
At any rate, this was the only time in my life that I have driven a car when I definitely should not have done so. Fortunately, Greenie pretty well knew the way back to my apartment, and there were no incidents. The next day I awoke with my first hangover and played my epic tennis match with Jim Kreidler. It is described here.
Tom Corcoran and Tom Herget had been living in a large old house at 345 Hartford Avenue in Wethersfield. The third housemate had been a guy named Monty. Herget had furnished the house from items he picked up at second-hand stores on Park St. in Hartford. In August of 1973 Monty had to leave for some reason. They asked me if I wanted to take Monty’s place. It was a no-brainer. The rent was less, and life would surely be more interesting. In addition, I would be rid of a lot of scenery that connected with memories that now seemed bitter to me.
In August of 1973 I bought and read the popular book I’m OK—You’re OK by Thomas Anthony Harris. It described the research on hemispheric separation in the brain that showed that under certain circumstances people clearly have two (or more) relatively independent decision-making mechanisms. We identify with only one of them, the one that can read and talk. When something happens that this portion of the brain did not order, we are likely to say “I don’t know why I did that.” Understanding that the first “I” and the second “I” in that sentence are largely independent agents really helped me to understand people, including myself, better.
During this period I was being paid to study for Part 5 of the actuarial exams. The subject matter was indescribably boring. Can you think of anything more tedious than studying the history of mortality tables? I liked my work, and I had made some great friends in Connecticut, but there was one aspect that I really missed—debate tournaments and the thrill of competing at the highest level. I began to think about going back to college to coach debate. I wrote to Bill Colburn at the University of Michigan to inquire if that was feasible. He replied that I needed to apply to graduate school. He thought that he could arrange for financial assistance for me. I also did a little bit of research on my veterans’ benefits.
I heard that Sue had come back from Alaska, but I did not see her for quite some time. Finally she came over to the “345 Club” one evening. For some reason I was up in my bedroom. I think that the two Toms tried to talk her out of it, but she came up to see me. I don’t exactly remember what happened, but she ended up staying the night with me.
The Little Aetna’s building on Elm St.
I learned that Sue had landed a new job at the “Little Aetna” section of Connecticut General. When she returned from Alaska she discovered that the roofer had not been paying the rent. My recollection is that her car was also repossessed. She eventually found Puca—alive—between two towels in a linen closet.
So, Sue and I began what I think of as the “toll bridge” section of our relationship. In those days the Charter Oak Bridge and the Bissell Bridge had toll booths in both directions. The fastest way from the 345 Club to Sue’s apartment was via the Charter Oak Bridge and I-846. One could save a little money by buying a book of prepaid tickets, and that is what both Sue and I did.
The worst ice storm that I have ever seen hit central Connecticut on December 16-17. More details are provided here. The storm affected Wethersfield much worse than it did Andover. So, like my housemates, I abandoned the 345 Club, brought some clothes to Sue’s apartment, and stayed there for a while.
One morning during that winter—I don’t remember if it was before or after Christmas—I was driving from Andover to Hartford. Greenie was headed westbound on the portion of I-84 between Manchester and Bolton. It was early in the morning; the sun had just come up. The road conditions did not seem too bad, and I was going a moderate speed in the right lane. This time my rear wheels decided to go to the right. My car did a 180° spin before coming to a stop in the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway. I waited for traffic to clear and then, taking advantage of Greenie’s extremely small turning radius, executed a tight U-turn. I then continued on my journey. My mantra was the same as that of every male in his twenties: “No harm; no foul.”
I had decided to fly to Kansas City at Christmas to visit my family. Sue was somewhat shocked when I asked her whether she wanted to come with me, but she said yes7. We were only there for a few days, but she got to meet a lot of my family, including Fr. Joe and my grandfather, John Cernech, who by then had become very nearly deaf. She must have slept on the roller bed in Jamie’s room. My recollection is that Jamie had a date on most of the evenings while we were staying there.
Mad Murphy’s was in this building on Union St.
Another event that I remember clearly during the subsequent few months was the night that Sue and I and a group of friends grabbed a table at Mad Murphy’s, a bar near the train station in Hartford. We came there to listen to Sue’s neighbor, Carl Shillo, and his band. We stayed until the closing time, and we had a great time. The highlight was when they played “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” just before closing. Everyone marched around in a long conga line and sang along.
Passumpsic is an unincorporated village in the town of Barnet. The community is located 3 miles south of St. Johnsbury, the last civilized outpost on I-91.
By April or May I had arranged to coach debate at U-M. I asked Sue if she would come with me. She, who was in those days always ready for an adventure, agreed.
Sue and I drove up to Passumpsic to see Diane and her many siblings at least once. I don’t remember when. Tom Herget came with us. I don’t think that Phil had arrived yet. The Robinsons held a barn dance, which I cannot say that I enjoyed much; dancing is definitely not my thing. My favorite memory of this trip was when Diane’s father claimed that he had always wondered why he and his wife had so many more offspring than the other couples until someone explained to him what caused it.
I am pretty sure that Sue made other trips without me. She considered the three-hour drive an easy one, and she was enthralled by the simple lifestyle of Diane’s family.
In 1972 the Hartford recruited three single guys named Tom. The next year two married actuarial students named Jim were hired—Jim Cochran and Jim Hawke. Their wives were Ann and Lesley respectively. The Cochrans were from Wisconsin. The Hawkes were from Texas, although Jim had a bachelor’s degree in math from UConn. I don’t know how they ended up in the Land of Steady Habits.
I remember at least one evening spent at each of their houses, although I cannot say when either event happened. The Hawkes lived in a house in Manchester and a son named Ethan8. Sue and I had supper with the Hawkes and spent most of the evening enjoying Jim’s renditions of rags by Scott Joplin.
A short time after that Jim and Ethan joined Sue and me on an excursion to her property on “Bunyan Mountain”9 in Monson, MA. We parked well below Sue’s property and climbed up. I think that we had some sandwiches and toasted marshmallows.
Sue took photos of this occasion. If she can locate any of them, I will post something here.
Ann Cochran.
Jim and Ann Cochran lived in a house in Glastonbury. They invited us over to play the state card game of Wisconsin, Sheepshead. Neither Sue nor I had ever heard of it. I don’t think that anyone outside of the state of Wisconsin has ever played it more than once. Jim and Ann patiently explained all of the rules to us. Then on the first hand something—I don’t remember what—occurred. As a result both Jim and Ann triumphantly yelled out “It’s a leaster!” They then introduced a whole new set of rules as to how this particular hand would be played.
A brief glance at the Wikipedia page for this game lists some of the “variants” to the rules and hints at many others. Even though tournaments of games are allegedly held in Wisconsin, I suspect that the real purpose of this game is to lure unsuspecting non-cheeseheads into playing the game under a small subset of the rules. The Wisconsinites can then introduce new rules often enough to make the foreigners so confused and frustrated that they leave. Then the Wisconsonites can enjoy their fondue in peace.
Sue’s family played a trick-taking game called Setback or Auction Pitch, which has the benefit of far fewer rules. I played a few times, but there did not seem to be much to it. When someone in Sue’s family asked if anyone wanted to play cards, they meant Setback.
In June of 1974 I broke the patella (kneecap) on my right leg playing pickup basketball. The event itself is described here. I had to miss a few days of work, and I was unable to drive at least until the cast was removed. I decided to move in with Sue in Andover. This also seemed like the best time to tell my parents about that she would be taking care of me in her apartment. They were not thrilled by the idea, but at least they did not commandeer a plane and come to rescue me from her clutches. They weren’t too surprised when I told them that she was going to accompany me to Ann Arbor in a few months.
The rest of the summer was rather blissful for me. I could not play softball or golf, but I attended all of the Mean Reserves games and all the other get-togethers. I cannot remember any unpleasant occasions.
1. Senator Tom Eagleton was nominated for Vice President at the 1972 Democratic Convention. Shortly thereafter he resigned from the ticket when it was discovered that he received psychiatric treatment for chronic depression. The Republican Veep candidate, Spiro Agnew, was a crook, but his crimes did not come to light until after the election.
2. Sue and I returned to the castle in the summer of 2020, but because of the pandemic the interior was not open. We had another nice picnic, and I took some spectacular snapshots of the river beneath the castle.
3. For some reason McCormick’s discontinued this wonderful product in 2019 or 2020. Someone has started a “Bring Back McCormick’s Meat Marinade” Facebook page.
4. The Hartford Times was a moderately liberal paper owned by Gannett and published in the afternoon. In 1972, however, it endorsed Nixon. I wrote a letter to the editor in protest. They published one or two of the hundreds that they received about the endorsement, but not mine. The paper was sold in 1973. In 1976 it accepted the fate of most PM papers and ceased publication.
5. I did not realize at the time that I had only met the Lockes, Effy’s side of the family. The Slanetzes were not homebodies at all. They were widely dispersed. Only one Locke had moved away, Sue’s Uncle Bob, whose family lived in western Michigan.
6. Prior to 1984 the interstate highway that runs from Hartford to the Mass Pike just north of Sturbridge was called I-84 from Hartford to Manchester and I-86 east of Manchester. The never completed road that led from Manchester toward Providence was called I-84. Since 1984 the former highway has been called I-84, and the latter I-384.
7. Sue helped with the production of her high school’s musical Oklahoma. She strongly identified with the character of Ado Annie, the “girl who can’t say no”. I hereby affirm that I have hardly ever heard her turn down an invitation to do something, although she will sometimes cancel later when she realizes that it would be impossible for her to be in two places at once. This may be the biggest difference between Sue and me. I have almost never committed to anything unless I was certain that I was willing and able to do it.
Ethan Hawke and his daughter Maya.
8. The youngster grew up to be Ethan Hawke, the famous actor.
9. Evidently this “mountain” is actually part of Chicopee Mountain. Sue obtained this property as part of an agreement with her father-in-law, Chick Comparetto. There is a nice view of the valley from one spot that is either on or near her land.
My mother’s parents were John and Clara Cernech. I know very little about John’s antecedents. I was told that his father was a Croat. His mother’s name was Rose Duffy. Clara’s maiden name was Keuchel (rhymes with “cycle”), which is pretty clearly German. Her mother’s maiden name was Bartolak, which is, I think, Polish. Somebody on her side was certainly Polish. She considered herself Polish. Of course, being German was not popular in the forties.
I am pretty sure that all four of my maternal great-grandparents were already dead when I was born. In any case, I never met any of them.
My mom was born on October 2, 1925. She died in March of 1998. My grandparents were born near the end of the nineteenth century, and they died in the eighties. I found their grave marker online. She died in 1980; he died in 1985.
My mom had only one sibling, an older brother whose name was Clarence. Everyone called him Dean. I called him Uncle Dean. I don’t know why. He became an Osteopath. Many of his friends called him “Doc”. He died in 1999.
Uncle Dean’s wife was named Dorothy. They had three sons, John (who was sometimes called Johnny Carl to distinguish him from his grandfather), Terry, and Rick. Terry was my age. In fact, although we lived twenty miles apart, we were in the same class of about thirty-five boys at Rockhurst High School. John, who also attended Rockhurst, was two or three years older than Terry and me; Rick, whom we called Ricky at the time, was two or three years younger.
We visited Uncle Dean’s family pretty often, but not when we were still living in KC KS. Since we did not have a car, and they lived in Sugar Creek, on the far eastern edge of the KC metropolitan area, it would have been difficult. It might have been possible to take a bus with several transfers, but I have no memory of doing so. Besides, I was often in the hospital or recovering from the last operation.
I had the gun, holster, and hat, but not the rest of the get-up.
When we did visit them, I was very impressed. I really liked hanging out with Terry. He was only five months older than I was, but he was much more mature, and he had an older brother. I remember that I always wore my toy pistols and holster when we went there in the mid-fifties. There was a play room downstairs. The cushions from the couch would go on the floor, and we had competitions over who could execute the most spectacular death by gunfire. We also had quick draw practice. Terry had developed a move in which he rolled on the ground while drawing his pistol. In those days television was dominated by Westerns. Nearly all boys had guns. I wore mine everywhere.
Also, the Cerneches always seemed to have those highly desirable toys that were on the back covers of magazines. I remember that they had a fort with both soldiers and Indians—all plastic. I coveted it greatly.
They also had one of the first color televisions. I remember being awe while viewing “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” And get this, they actually flew (flew!) out to California as a family and spent a day at Disneyland. They got to see the hippopotamus sneak up on their boat in person! I was so envious.
Once Uncle Dean took us rabbit hunting. Their dog Buster, a German Shepherd, ran around a field scaring up the bunnies. Uncle Dean (and maybe John, but certainly not the rest of us) shot at them with a pistol. At least one was killed. I remember that he showed us how to clean it.
I remember two other occasions rather vividly. In the first one Aunt Dorothy drove me, Terry, and Rick to a theater to see a Roy Rogers movie. Afterwards, while we were waiting for her to pick us up, a fight broke out among some older kids in the parking lot. I was excited, but a little scared. Terry knew some of the people involved. Nothing came of it.
The other incident must have occurred in 1961. Terry had a 45 of Roy Orbison singing “Running Scared”. I absolutely loved it. It got me interested in pop music. A few years later I became rather obsessive about rock and roll. I knew who recorded every song. This is not an exaggeration.
I am not sure that my cousins ever came to our house in Prairie Village. We did not have a lot of room. It would have been cramped.
Even though they owned the house, I don’t think that my grandparents lived with us in KC KS. If they did, they moved before I knew what was going on. They lived in Grand Island, NE, and then in Leavenworth, KS. My granddad worked for the Boss Glove Company. I don’t know what his job was.
I have a vague memory that we visited them once in Grand Island, but I have no recollection of how we could have traveled there. I remember that their next-door neighbors were Japanese, which seemed very exotic to me. My grandmother liked them, but I did not know what to think. Japanese people were NEVER on television except as the hated enemy in war movies.
We definitely visited my grandparents in Leavenworth. The big tourist attractions there were the high-security federal penitentiary and the the high-security military prison. Residents of Leavenworth always kept their radios on listening for news of prison breaks from either federal prison or from the high-security state prison in nearby Lansing, the last town through which we passed en route to their house on Kickapoo St. The escapees from Lansing were considered more dangerous. Most violent criminals were locked up in state prisons.
Povitica: the c is pronounced ts.
The Wavadas visited Leavenworth on many Easters and Thanksgivings. Uncle Dean brought his brood, too. There were two specialties of the house, czarnina (duck’s blood soup) and povitica (rolled nut bread). Uncle Dean was crazy about the former, which I refused to try after they told me what it was. Everyone loved the latter. No matter how much my grandmother made, we ate it up.
At least once I and a subset of the cousins (Terry and Ricky?) were allowed to stay overnight at my grandparents. This was the highlight of my youth. In the afternoon my grandmother took us bowling. After supper we had delicious root beer floats. There were no extra beds, and so my grandmother lay some cushions on the floor for us to sleep on. Best of all, we got to stay up and watch television as late as we wanted to. We watched an Abbott and Costello movie on the late show (10:30 central time). I assume that we fell asleep in the middle, and the test pattern was on all night.
On one of our last trips to Leavenworth I was exploring either the basement or the garage by myself. I came across a men’s magazine called Argosy. I read one or two scandalous stories. I still remember one line: “She wore a fishnet bra; but it did not contain fish.” I certainly never told anyone about this, which was probably the naughtiest thing that I did as a kid.
I have vague recollections of going to a lot of weddings and funerals involving my mother’s relatives. These were memorable occasions for me because my cousins were always there. I only remember two details: running around at full speed in dress clothes and occasionally being called on to translate for Terry and Ricky, who were less easy for grownups to understand. It’s possible that they just wanted to hear how well the young harelip could talk.
Most of the relatives at these gatherings were vague to me. Two were very clear: Uncle Joe and Aunt Josephine. Joe was a mild mannered and friendly guy. Josephine was, to be kind, portly. But then … a polka would be heard, and the two of them would fly around the room. Everyone always cleared the floor for them and loudly applauded when the song was over.
Everyone in my immediate family really liked my Aunt Dorothy, but she and Uncle Dean eventually got divorced. To my knowledge this was an unprecedented event for that side of the family, which was 100 percent Catholic. Uncle Dean married his medical technician, Mildred, shortly thereafter at Unity Village, a huge Unitarian complex in KC. I don’t remember if my grandparents attended or not. We did.
Dean and Mildred had a son Paul, whom everyone called Paul Stacy. I don’t think that I ever met him. I might have said hello at my high school graduation or somewhere.
My parents told me that it was over 100° when I was born in St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas City, MO, on the afternoon of August 17, 1948. I was two days overdue. I have always claimed that I stayed inside until it was warmer outside. My recollection is that my parents told me that I weighed seven pounds and eleven ounces. In most respects I was quite healthy. My eyes were what people call hazel—brown in places, green in places, some other colors, and changeable. My hair, when it arrived, was a very dark color that matched that of both of my parents.
I lived the first twenty-two years of my life in the KC area, but on the west side of the Missouri River and State Line Road, i.e, in Kansas, the Sunflower State. I have almost no memories at all of my first four years. Since I spent those years in and out of hospitals, it might be a blessing. I was born with a cleft lip, which the doctors fixed with a series of operations that in those days were quite novel. I will spare you pictures of what people with this condition look like.
Fortunately for the family, my dad worked for an insurance company that provided health insurance for all its employees. I am certain that my parents and grandparents would have done anything that they could for me anyway, but it would definitely have entailed some hardships. When I was little, we did not have much money.
I have retained only two memories of being in the hospital during that period. I recall a plastic toy tank that someone gave me. A rubber dart could be mounted on its gun barrel. There was also a round semi-spherical rubber piece on the top of the tank. When you pressed on it the dart went flying. I loved it.
The other memory is shorter but less pleasant. I vaguely remember being strapped down in my bed. Somehow I had become dehydrated. The family legend relates that my grandmother, Hazel Wavada, could see that something was wrong with me, and she raised hell until the hospital staff addressed the problem by pumping me full of something. To this day the only phobia from which I suffer has to do with needles. If you see me with a tattoo or a piercing, you will know that aliens have taken control over my mind.
I think that our house used to be white. The Milgrams’ house is on the right.
We lived in a house owned by my maternal grandparents, John and Clara Cernech. I don’t remember them ever living with us, but they might have when I was an infant. A man whom I called Uncle Richard did live with us. His last name was Keuchel (rhymes with cycle), which indicates that he was related to Clara. He might have been her brother—Clara had lots of brothers and sisters. He might have been a cousin.
I am pretty sure that, as my dad would say, we didn’t have two nickles to rub together. We did not have a car or modern appliances, but I certainly never felt deprived.
I can easily visualize parts of the house. I had my own bedroom. My most precious possession was a green cowboy blanket, which I dragged around with me. I kept one of the corners between my right forefinger and middle finger. Those areas were all worn out. I named the four corners after political figures. My favorite was Adlai Stevenson, my dad’s political hero.
The basement was a spooky place. There was a coal chute. I have no idea how the coal got into the heater. I can hardly imagine my dad shoveling it. Maybe we no longer used coal. I also remember a washtub with a wringer. Later my dad and Joey Keuchel built a rather elaborate train set on two or more ping-pong sized tables. This was supposedly mine, but they messed with it more than I did.
The kitchen was a very wholesome place. My mother painted an apple tree on one of the walls, and she did a very good job. I have no absolutely no artistic taste, but everyone said so.
I sometimes went to the store with my mother. There was a monetary currency that I have nowhere else encountered, plastic coins called “mills”. My recollection is that the green ones were worth one tenth of a cent, and the red ones were worth half a cent. I might have this backwards. They were used for sales tax.
I have a few other vivid memories of those years. I had two friends, Larry Boatman and David Milgram. They were both about my age, but I do not remember going to kindergarten with them. I think that David might have been visiting his grandparents, who lived next door. There was a third kid whose birthday was the same as mine. Beyond our back yard was a alley, and he lived in the house directly across the alley from ours.
There were no girls in my age group in our neighborhood. At least I have no memory of any. It is quite possible that I just ignored them.
I was called Mickey, probably after Mickey Mantle, who played for the Kansas City Blues before the Yankees called him up. My dad told me that he saw him hit two homers in one game—one right-handed and one left-handed.
One day I announced that I would no longer be called Mickey. The other kids had been taunting me: “Mickey Mickey Mickey Mouse; when he grows up he’ll be a rat.” Thus was born Mike Wavada.
We had a black and white dog named Trixie. I think that she was a terrier. I don’t remember much about her except that she could really jump. She might have been my mom’s dog. She must have died before we moved to the suburbs.
Before I was old enough for school my parents enrolled me in speech lessons. Despite my rather severe birth defect, I can never remember anyone having trouble understanding my speech. I am not sure that I needed the speech classes. At any rate I aced them. I got a sticker of a hippopotamus for reciting my assignment well. Because “hippopotamus” was considered a difficult word to pronounce, the hippo sticker was considered a valued prize.
Who was going through the front door and who would sneak around to the back?
I cannot remember much of the pre-television years. A family legend persisted for years about the occasion on which my parents and I were all attending mass at St. Peter’s cathedral. At some point I got bored and started complaining vociferously about the fact that I was missing the Lone Ranger.
Despite the presence of so many heathens there, my parents sent me to Prescott School for kindergarten. St. Peter’s, our parish, had a grade school, but no kindergarten. I do not remember my kindergarten teacher’s name. I think that I walked to school. It must not have been far. (The school does not exist any more. I tried to determine where it was, but I failed.) Maybe a few of us walked together, or maybe my mother walked with me.
I don’t remember learning much in kindergarten except when to keep my mouth shut. I fondly recall that we each had a towel or blanket that we used at nap time. This instilled a napping habit that has served me very well for my entire life. I also remember making an imprint of my hand in clay, which someone painted dark green. It was on display in our house for quite a while.
One kid in our class was BAD. In addition to other high crimes and misdemeanors, he threw rocks at the other kids at recess. Did we even have recess? Maybe it was after school or before.
The boys, of course, would never report him because of the sacred obligation of omertà that males feel instinctively. The girls may have reported him to the teachers; I don’t know. All I know that he was still at large.
Believe it or not, I was the biggest kid in kindergarten. One day I had had enough of the rock-thrower. After school I hid behind a bush that I knew that he had to walk past. When he approached, I sprung out and punched his lights out. Actually, I don’t remember the details. I may have only hit him once, and then he may have run away. The next day my teacher took me aside and told me that I must never do that again. I nodded agreement.
My recollection is that the teacher did not promote the other kid at the end of the year. He actually flunked kindergarten.
I passed with flying colors.The other kids were learning their letters at school, but I was learning to read and write at home. My mother took me with her on the streetcar to the library where I got to pick out a book or two from the children’s section. I favored the ones about cowboys. By the time that I started first grade, I could read pretty well.
All my relatives are Catholics. There was never any question that I would go to St. Peter’s School for first grade. I walked there, too, but I think that a group of us walked together. I remember a candy store near the school. I seriously doubt that I often had any money for candy, but it is possible that Uncle Richard occasionally gave me a nickle or a dime once in a while.
This is St. Peter’s Cathedral. I think that the school building that I attended may no longer exist.
My teacher was a nun; I don’t remember her name either. She was not as nice as my kindergarten teacher. Also, there were no daily naps, and the classes were at once boring and frustrating. We probably did some craft things that I don’t remember. I have always been terrible at anything vaguely artistic. The activity that I do remember involved slates and boxes.
The boxes contained little light green cardboard letters. The other kids’ boxes contained a reasonable number, but mine had between four and five million. The teacher would write a word or a phrase on the blackboard. Each student’s job was to find the letters in their own personal box and to place them on their personal “slate”, which was actually a paper and cardboard arrangement the size of a standard sheet of paper with rows in which the letters could be mounted.
It was kind of like Scrabble, but the letters were smaller and in boxes. The problem was that the letters in my box would hide from me. This shortcoming has dogged me all of my life. If you asked me to get a bottle of Worcestershire sauce from the fridge, I probably would not be able to find it even if you told me what shelf it was on. Other bottles would conspire to conceal it, or maybe the target bottle would don a disguise.
At any rate Sister Whatever concluded that I was dumb, and she informed my parents of this at the parent-teacher conference. I can almost hear my mother saying, “But sister, I know that he can read and write already. He does both all the time at home.”
It does not look familiar, but it is a 1954 Ford.
This episode occurred in 1954. It was perhaps the only bad thing that happened that year. My dad must have gotten a promotion because he bought a blue and white Ford. We had our own car!
From KC KS to PV.
The other big news in 1954 was that the hapless Philadelphia Athletics were moving to Kansas City. We were going to be a major league city!
My travails at St. Peter’s school were short-lived. Early in 1955, while I was still in first grade, we moved south to Prairie Village. For the rest of the year I attended (or at least was enrolled at) Queen of the Holy Rosary School. My teacher was Sister Mildred, and she taught her students to read and write, not to extract nonexistent letters from a cardboard box.
Note: in my day problem students were not diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Instead they were considered “dumb” or “bad”.
