My dad died at Hartford Hospital on Tuesday, September 13, 2011. At the time he had been living in Connecticut for almost six years. That period has been described in some detail here. After his death it fell to me to make all of the arrangements for his funeral, disposition of his estate, and other such tasks.
My wife Sue definitely helped, and my dad made it easy for me by making a lot of preparations. He had written a carefully worded will, and he made me its executor. He had also added me as a signatory on his bank accounts and beneficiary of his investments.
The first thing that I did was to call my sister Jamie and notify her that he had died. I asked her to attend the funeral and told her that there was enough money in his accounts to pay for her and her five children to come to the funeral that I planned to schedule in Leawood, KS, where my dad had spent the bulk of his adult life. This was the first time that I had talked with Jamie for several years, as explained here. She thanked me for taking care of him, but she would not consider coming to the funeral. She said that he would have hated her being there, which I am quite certain was not true. None of her five children attended either. I don’t have any evidence that she had anything to do with their decisions, but …
Monsignor McGlinn.
My dad and mom had been active members of Curé of Ars church. I called the pastor, Monsignor Charles McGlinn1, to arrange the funeral mass. Somehow the subject of Boy Scouts came up. I told him that shortly after my family moved to Leawood back in 1962 I had joined Troop 395 and was the troop’s first Eagle Scout. I had spent most of my scouting days in Troop 295 at Queen of the Holy Rosary. He had also been the pastor there, but well after my time.
He remembered my dad and mom, and he scheduled the funeral mass for 10AM on Friday, September 23. I told him that my dad wished to be cremated. He said that that would be fine. In fact, it was the usual practice for deaths in distant locations. This surprised me quite a bit. I had been taught that the resurrection of the bodies would occur on Judgment Day. I supposed that if you believed that, you could imagine some way that the body could be reconstituted from ashes.
I had been composing dad’s obituary in my head while he had been in palliative care at the hospital. Since newspapers charged by the word for obituaries, dad would have appreciated that I kept it short and to the point. I sent this to the Kansas City Star.
James E. Wavada, 87, died on September 13, 2011, in Hartford, CT. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Curé of Ars Church, 9401 Mission Rd., Leawood. Jim grew up in Rosedale, matriculated at Maur Hill, and served in the Army in WWII. He worked at BMA for almost four decades, starting in the mail room and ending as a vice-president of public relations. He had a great love of words, except for “I,” which he almost never used. His astounding memory could produce an apt literary quote for any occasion. After he retired, he wrote Yup the Organization, a tongue-in-cheek guide to climbing the corporate ladder. The best day of Jim’s life was when he married Dolores Cernech. The worst was when she died more than 50 years later. Jim is survived by his son, Mike, daughter, Jamie, five grandchildren, and innumerable friends and admirers.
Four decades? Where did I get that? Well, as usual, nobody checked my work. I was very proud of this little essay at the time, but given another chance I would at least remove the commas after “son” and “daughter”.
I am sure that there was some sort of reception. I think that my dad’s friends had set up something in the vestibule, and there was a reception line there before mass. I don’t remember going to a funeral home there.
I don’t remember calling anyone else about the funeral. Sue might have called the Raffertys. They probably notified their friends and others who knew dad. Two of my cousins lived in KC. One of them probably saw the obituary and notified the others. Charlie, Vic, and Cathy were certainly there. I am not so sure about Margaret Anne.
Somehow dad’s old army buddy, Jake Jacobson2, heard about it and came down by himself from Milwaukee. I think that he might have called me to say that he was coming.
I was thrilled that he was able to make the trip. I knew that he was five years older than my dad, but he seemed to be quite vigorous. However, he confessed to me that whenever he changed locations, he made sure that he knew where the nearest bathroom was located.
The other surprise was Joan Dobel3, the mother of Pat Dobel, my friend and classmate at Rockhurst High School and my very first debate partner. I had never met her, but evidently she had been A friend of my parents.
Sue and I made arrangements with Leete-Stephens Funeral Home in Enfield. We decided not to hold any gatherings in Enfield. The people at L-S took care of the cremation privately. They gave me an urn containing the ashes. I was shocked to learn that I was required to carry them on the airplane as carry-on luggage.
Sue and I flew to KCI a day or two before the day of the funeral. We certainly rented a car from Avis.
I am pretty sure that we stayed at the Hampton Inn that was near I-435 in Overland Park. We may have made arrangements for Jake to stay there, too.
I have a vague recollection that Sue and I picked up Jake at the airport, but I am not positive. If I did not, I have trouble imagining how he got around. I don’t remember him taking taxis.
The funeral mass itself was well attended. My parents had a lot of friends in the area. One of the ladies that had worked closely with him at BMA was also there. Dad sometimes talked about her when I was still living in Leawood many years earlier, but I cannot remember her name.
I did not take an active roll in the ceremony. I don’t think that anyone spoke about my dad, but I could be wrong. This was a marked contrast with my mom’s funeral as posted here.
I remember that Sue and I rode in one of the funeral home’s cars out to the cemetery. It seemed like a long drive. We were in the same care as Monsignor McGlinn. I felt uncomfortable, but he did nothing to cause me to feel that way.
By far the highlight of the entire trip was supper at RC’s in the Martin City neighborhood of KC MO. My dad and I frequented this restaurant on my visits to KC (documented here). All my cousins and some of their kids joined Sue, me, and Jake. Cathy’s future husband, Patrick Wisor, was also there. My dad’s estate picked up the tab.
I don’t know what about the atmosphere at RC’s4 made this such an enjoyable evening for me. I don’t remember any of the details of the conversation, but I do recall that everyone seemed relaxed and having a good time. It helped to cement some relationships between me and my cousins. We had known each other for decades, but we had spent very little time together.
Disposition of the estate: This was a surprisingly easy job. My dad left his financial records in remarkably good condition. He had previously added my name to his accounts, and his will was straightforward. I was the executor. The will left everything to me, but in private conversations he told me that he also wanted to take care of Jamie’s children.
I made one or two visits to the office of Richard Tatoian, a probate attorney in Enfield. I told him that I was worried that my sister might give me some trouble about the will. He advised me that my dad made his intentions very clear, and he did not think that anyone could contest it. The total estate was worth about $180,000. I sent checks for $9,000 each to Cadie and Kelly Mapes and Gina, Anne, and Joey Lisella. After the first of the year I sent a second check for the same amount to each of them.
After Sue and I had taken the few things that we wanted (electronic equipment and mementos) from dad’s apartment Sue contacted Golden Gavel Auctions in East Windsor to pick up all of the rest of dad’s stuff at Bigelow Commons. They were able to sell some of it, but it barely covered the cost of carting away the rest of it.
Dealing with Bigelow Commons was a pleasure. They waived the right to the rent for the rest of the term of dad’s lease. They also told me how much they enjoyed having my dad as a tenant.
They didn’t even call it the Super Bow!
Many years later I discovered in my dad’s papers two very interesting tickets: one for Super Bowl III (the Joe Namath game) and one for the 1970 Rose Bowl, Bo Schembechler’s first.
1. Monsignor McGlinn was the pastor of Curé of Ars from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Before that he had been the pastor at Queen of the Holy Rosary, our parish for eight years. He died in 2020 at the age of 78. His very revealing obituary has been posted here.
2. Jake died in 2023 at the age of 103 and a half! His truly fabulous obituary is posted here. It is by far the best that I have ever seen. The obituary contains a story written by his son Paul (introduced here). It mentioned, among many other things, that Jake was in counter-intelligence in Europe in WW II. This surprised me greatly. My dad was in the infantry in the Pacific. I wondered how the two of them met and managed to develop a relationship that lasted for so long. I could not figure out a way to contact Paul to see if he knew the answer.
3. Joan died in 2013. Her obituary has been posted here.
4. RC’s changed hands in 2023. Its history is documented here.
Jamie: The biggest event, by far, of my years in grade school was the birth of my sister Jamie on January 4, 1956. Since I had been hoping for a younger brother whom I could shape in my own image, I was bitterly disappointed at the news. I was seven years and four and a half months old, in the middle of second grade in the weird split class taught by Sr. Lucy.
I remember little about those first few years. She quickly became a very cute little girl with blonde hair and dark eyes. Both of my parents had very dark hair and brown eyes. I inherited their hair, and she got their eyes. Her hair got darker as she got older. My eyes constantly changed color but never turned completely brown. I can’t remember Jamie having any serious health issues while we were in Prairie Village.
We would often watch Romper Room (with Miss Virginia) or Captain Kangaroo while I waited for my school bus to arrive. Our favorite parts were the Tom Terrific cartoons, especially Might Manfred the Wonder Dog. Jamie called me “buzzer”, and when the Bluebird arrived, she happily announced “Bus school!”
War! The player on the bottom wins all ten cards in the middle.
When she was older we sometimes played cards seated on the floor in the living room. Her favorite game was war, which she almost always won. I have never been known to take losing very graciously. On one occasion, after a few defeats at war, I was frustrated enough to suggest that we play a different game called sevens and fives. I invented rules as we went along, always with some reference to seven or five, for example, “Oh, you got a deuce, 7-5=2, so you must give me five cards.” She never caught on, and I was finally victorious.
My parents sometimes joined us in the Game of Life. I did not cheat.
My dad worked in advertising and public relations. His company, Business Mens Assurance (BMA) required him to travel a few times every year. My mom also usually attended the annual meeting, which was held at some resort location like Sun Valley, ID, or Banff in Canada. On those occasions we had a babysitter. I think that my grandmother Clara took care of us once or twice, but usually the sitter was hired. Jamie and I did not like this. The ladies were nice enough, but we were used to delicious and nutritious meals every night. None of the sitters came close to reaching this standard.
On the other hand, if my dad went on a trip by himself, our meals actually improved. There were a few really tasty dishes that my dad banned from the table. There were several of these, but the most memorable one was chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and chipped beef, covered with mushrooms, and baked in cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. She served it over rice, which my dad detested.1
Jamie went to kindergarten at Tomahawk School when I was in the eighth grade at QHRS. I paid scant attention at the time. However, much later she told me that she had to walk to school, and on one occasion some older kids had assaulted her in some way, verbally or physically or both. That is all that I know; I have no recollection of this at all.
Jamie liked to go to Fairyland, a small amusement park on the Missouri side. Our parents took us a few times. I did not enjoy it much. Rides have never been my thing.
Medical/Physical: My health was generally good. My mom had to take me to Dr. Batty’s office to get stitched up a few times. Other than that I was pretty healthy; I probably got the flu once or twice, but I remember that I had close to perfect attendance nearly every year. I never even broke any bones.
I got the left side but never the right.
Like everyone who was around when the polio vaccine effectively removed one gigantic worry, my mother definitely believed in inoculations. Since I hated needles, this was a problem for me, especially since my smallpox inoculation never “took”. I had to go back every year or two to try again. Several times my mother sat me down and emphasized that if there was ever an outbreak of smallpox, I must try to get inoculated.
My dental health was essentially perfect after the water got fluoridated. I had hyperdontia, an extra tooth between my upper incisors and the left canine. The dentist checked it every time that I visited his office. Finally he decided to pull it, and all of the other teeth just adjusted themselves in my gums. I never needed braces.
I got my first pair of glasses in 1959, and until the end of high school every time that I went to the optometrist I needed a stronger prescription. After I reached forty I needed reading glasses, but a decade or so later, my need for both types of lenses decreased.
I have hypermobility in the joints of my hands. In grade school I could painlessly touch every finger and my thumb on my left hand back to my wrist. My right hand was only a little less flexible. I could also slip any finger in and out of the lowest joint. I could still touch my left thumb all the way back a few years ago, but it hurt. Now my fingers sometimes painfully slip into the wrong joint by themselves, and I have to force them back.
TV can be educational.
I entertained the guys and grossed out the girls with these tricks. I also liked to show how I could wiggle my nostrils and my ears. I learned the former from a pet rabbit and the latter (both at once or one at a time) from Howdy Doody’s goofy friend, Dilly Dally.
Pets: I have a dim recollection of a pet rabbit that got away and got caught by a dog a few houses down the street. That did not end well.
I know that I also had parakeets at least twice. One was named Mickey, and one was named Nicky. I taught them both to talk.
One day a black and tan dachshund showed up in our back yard. He would not leave, and he came inside as soon as we opened the door. My dad wanted nothing to do with him, but my mom, after placing notices in all the proper places, gave him food and water. I named him Sam.
After a couple of months, when everyone but my dad had fallen in love with him, some people from a few blocks away claimed Sam. We let them have him back, of course, but the three of us were pretty upset about it.
At the time my grandmom Hazel also kept in her apartment in KC MO a slightly chubbier dachshund with the same coloring named Tippy. At some point after Sam’s departure she gave Tippy, whose real name was Donnys Perry von Kirsch, to us. He was a little more difficult to love, but, once again, three of us came around.
The problem with Tippy was that he liked to bite ankles. He had a wonderfully intuitive sense of where every creature’s Achilles’ tendon was located, and he had strong jaws. There were a few small incidents, but we learned to control him.
Tippy liked to sleep with me in my bed, and, after we had moved to Leawood, he loved to play ball with me in the living room. I would throw a handball against the brick base of the fireplace. He would chase it when it bounced back. Then we would fight over the ball, and he would growl with pleasure.
I remember that on one Easter Sunday my mother had baked a rather large ham in the morning. I don’t know why, but while we were at mass she left it on the kitchen table. Tippy somehow got up on the table and devoured about half of it. Needless to say, my mom was upset, but there was instant karma. Tippy was miserable with an upset stomach for several days.
Sports: My parents occasionally visited their friends, Boots and Fay Hedrick2, to play poker. They had a son, John, who was my age. He had a deluxe Erector Set, and a basketball hoop was in their driveway.
For some reason, I spent the afternoon at his house once, and we watched the Celtics on TV. Ever since then I have been a Celtics fan. I have never seen an NBA game in person except for one exhibition game to which Tom Corcoran invited me in the nineties.
I played football and basketball at QHRS. Separate posts document my heroics on the gridiron and (posted here and here) the hardwood (posted here).
I was an avid but not fanatical baseball card collector. I also read all of the box scores for every Major League game every day. Since there were only sixteen teams at first, this was not that burdensome.
I played 3&2 baseball. My travails and glory on the diamond are detailed here.
There was not a lot of space around our house. I was therefore very excited to discover the Wiffle Ball shortly after its commercial introduction. It allowed baseball games in confined areas. I saved up my allowance money and rode my bike to the Prairie Village shopping center to buy the original set, which consisted of a skinny wooden bat and a hollow plastic ball with holes on one side to facilitate curves.
The holes provide wind resistance. Thus, a Wiffle Ball will go nearly as fast as a hardball when it is thrown or hit, but it will slow down much more rapidly. To make the ball curve, the holes must stay on the same side of the ball throughout flight. Any spin added by the fingers or wrist is counterproductive.
The best pitch, in my opinion is thrown perfectly sidearm with the holes down. This causes the ball to sink, and, since the harder part of the ball is on top, it normally produces hard grounders or soft fly balls, both of which are usually easy outs. The spectacular pitches are straight overhand with the holes on one side or the other. Whereas a major league curve ball might break two or three feet, a Wiffle Ball will often break twice that much (over a much shorter distance), and the right curve and left curve are thrown with exactly the same motion. It is also possible to throw a sidearm riser, but the hard side is on the bottom, and so fly balls carry pretty well.
The balls did not last long. They tended to crack and tear because the bat had no “give”. Seldom did a ball last a week. A few years later a 32″ yellow plastic bat greatly improved the durability of the balls. My training with throwing and catching a Wiffle Ball did not greatly improve my performance in hardball, but i put it to good use in our pickup games at Sandia Base in 1971.
I also collected football cards and played with them in the hallway. I remember being astounded by the Charlie Ana card because his weight was listed at 300 pounds. This is a vivid memory, but it must be wrong. There is no trace of him on google.
My dad and I watched NFL games together. He liked the Chicago Bears. My favorite team was the upstart Cleveland Browns. My favorite players were Otto Graham, Lou “The Toe” Groza, and, a few years later, Jim Brown.
I went bowling at Overland Bowl a few times. They charged ten cents a line and had human pinsetters. I was not very good. I could not get the ball to curve on demand, perhaps because of my super-flexible wrists. My best game was 180, a record that stood until I rolled a 190 when I was in my fifties. That was the last game that I ever bowled.
I also remember that my grandmother Clara took me and my cousins Johnny, Terry, and Ricky bowling at least once in Leavenworth. That establishment also employed someone to set the pins. I remember this as a great time. I am pretty sure that my grandmother also treated us to some ice cream.
I never took bowling as seriously as other sports. I did not have a ball, and I had to rent shoes. I remember, however, that my parents bought Jamie and me an indoor bowling game that had vinyl pins and a hollow plastic ball. We set it up in the hallway of the house on Maple St. It was the perfect width.
King Louie was the big name in bowling allies in KC. They had automatic pinsetting machines and projectors that displayed the scores above each lane. They charged a lot more than a dime. Some of their buildings seemed like palaces to me.
My dad could not swim. My mother insisted that I take swimming lessons in the morning at the Prairie Village Pool. I think that I did this for two years, but I don’t remember the details.
I did not enjoy this activity. It usually seemed chilly to me before entering the water, and I was so cold after I got out that I could not stop my teeth from chattering. Another annoying factor was that I was a below-average swimmer. It was obvious that no matter how much I practiced, I would never be very good.
I often rode my bike to swimming lessons. One morning a German shepherd came sprinting toward me from the left. I have never been afraid of animals, but this one jumped up and bit me on the left thigh. I don’t remember what happened next, but the dog’s owners had to keep him chained up for a month to make sure that he was not rabid. My wound was not serious; I don’t even think that I needed stitches.
One great benefit of the swimming lessons was that I was able to earn the Swimming Merit Badge without much difficulty. I also took a Red Cross class that rewarded me with the Lifesaving Merit Badge, at that time the biggest impediment for most guys to attaining the rank of eagle.
No skiing or skating.
Fads: I could make the hula hoop spin for a few minutes, but I was not great at it.
In 1959 or 1960 trampoline parks started popping up like dandelions in Johnson County. I never went to one. Suddenly they all closed down, presumably because of lawsuits from people who broke an arm or leg.
The only songs on the radio that I really liked through my years in grade school were novelty songs like “Beep Beep” or the ones that featured a guy imitating Walter Winchell.
Scouting: I spent a lot of time in the Boy Scouts. I became a Cub Scout as soon as I was eligible, and I went right up all the ranks—Wolf, Bear, Lion, Webelo. My mother was a den mother for a while. We wore our uniforms to school if we had a meeting afterwards. I remember that “A cub scout follows Akela,” but I never had any idea what it meant.
I was also in Boy Scouts. At the end of the summer after eighth grade, I had achieved the rank of Life, and I only needed one merit badge for Eagle.
Getting lost in KC is almost unheard of.
My favorite merit badge was for hiking. It required three or four hikes of a few miles and one longer hike. I took the long hike with Gary Garrison and maybe one other guy. There were no adults. We walked out to Swope Park, had a picnic lunch, spent at least an hour or two at the zoo, and returned. We did not solve any of the world’s problems, but we at least defined the crucial issues concerning our friends, our families, and our school. It was tiring, but we had a great time.
I almost always enjoyed extended periods of time spent with friends. I loved going on camping trips. I never missed one. Our troop usually camped out in a field, which still abounded in the KC area, at least once per summer. On one of these outings I first tried coffee. I could tolerate the bitter taste if I added quite a bit of milk and sugar. I never drank coffee regularly until I started working on computer programs ten or more hours per day in the eighties.
I attended all the Camporees, held on one weekend every year. We had to put up our own tents and sleep on air mattresses or whatever we brought. Patrols competed against one another in various events. The one that I remember is knot-tying. I also remember frying steaks in Italian dressing. It was an accident, but they were absolutely delicious.
The most memorable one was when the clouds exploded one night, and I awoke to find myself afloat on my air mattress outside of the tent. We packed up and abandoned the field on which we were camping at dawn. It was great fun!
I absolutely loved going to Camp Naish for a week every year. We slept in permanent tents with raised wooden floors. We used straw mattresses. They supplied the straw and bed frames; we supplied the ticks and sleeping bags.
We sang interesting songs at meals, and there were huge bonfires most nights. We did all kinds of stufff—orienteering, capture the flag, many varieties of games with pocket knives such as stretch, mumbley-peg, and chicken. I cannot remember any medical emergencies, but I have trouble imagining how they could have been avoided.
I have many other memories, too, but I think that I will keep them to myself. I will just say that you grow up a little bit each year at scout camp.
I was never homesick. I have absolutely no negative memories of summer camp. My only negative memory of any camping trip was that Camporee night in which the field in which we were camping transmuted into a shallow lake.
One year Boy Scout Troop 295 (or maybe Cub Scout Pack 205) must have needed money. We were all asked to sell upscale candy bars to our neighbors. The person who sold the most won a new bicycle. I knocked on a lot of doors, and I did sell a lot of candy. However, Mike Kirk sold more and won the bike. I won the second prize, twenty silver dollars, which are still resting comfortably in an envelope in my sock drawer as I write these words. I suspect that they are worth a lot more today than Mike Kirk’s bicycle.
I read Boys’ Life from cover to cover every month. I especially enjoyed the fiction, which for several months involved the adventures of an alien being.
Me wearing last year’s pants sitting on my saxophone case with QHRS’s best lunch between my feet. I was probably waiting for the school bus. The shoes puzzle me. I could swear that I never wore loafers.
Music: I did not have much interest in recorded music until the eighth grade. However, QHRS did have a band of sorts. My parents agreed to purchase an instrument for me. My inability to pucker eliminated the brass instruments. I ended up selecting the saxophone. The cheapest available model was an E-flat alto, which is what I got. If I had it to do over, I would pick a piano or a string instrument, which would have forced me to learn more about chords and keys.
The band director was Rocco DeMart. My mom would drive me to lessons with him in the basement of Jenkins Music Store in Prairie Village. The band put on at least one concert, and Mr. DeMart also held recitals. I played in at least two of them.
I did not really enjoy playing the saxophone much. My mother had to nag me to practice. My only clear recollection from those days was Mr. DeMart’s pleasure when I unexpectedly played “Was that the human thing to do?” in double-time. He thought that the way that I played it sounded better than the way that it was written.
The saxophone mysteriously disappeared when I was in the Army.
Reading: I read a very large number of books. I can’t tell you why, but I read David Copperfield twice. I really enjoyed Robert Louis Stevenson and anything that had sports or adventure.
Movies: I remember going to a few films. I am pretty sure that I saw Gone with the Wind in the theater with my mother and some other people. I slept through most of it.
The movies that I saw with friends were mostly westerns or war movies. I remember standing with some friends in a very long line at the Overland Theater to see Sink the Bismarck. We got all the way to the front of the line. However, rather than sell us a ticket, they told us that it was sold out. We all had to ride our bikes home, but we saw it later. It was not worth all of that effort.
Birthday Party: One year my parents said that I could have a birthday party. I got to invite two guests. I chose Joe Fox and either Kent Reynolds3 or Rick Ahrendt. I don’t remember any other details. Hardly ever did any of my friends come to our house.
I also threw myself a party for my thirtieth birthday in 1978. Other than that, none.
Visits: My dad would occasionally bring home one of his company’s agents or sales managers for supper. These were basically non-events for me. After supper I would retreat to my room to read, work on model airplanes, or play with my baseball cards.
I am not sure of this, but I think that occasionally my mom would host three ladies in the afternoon to play bridge. I might have watched a few hands. I know that by the time that I was in high school I had a reasonably good idea of how to play. It seems plausible that I might have learned something by watching. I think that we had a copy of one of Charles Goren’s books. If so, I undoubtedly read it. I read all the books that my parents had.
My dad’s army buddy, Jake Jacobson, visited us at least once. I am not sure of the year, but I clearly remember several things. It was warm out, and Jake drove us around in his convertible. In those days he was portly enough that he could use his stomach for steering if he needed both hands for something else.
We drove out to Swope Park in KC MO for a picnic. Mom was there, but I don’t think Jamie was around yet. Jake and dad drank beers and threw the empty cans into trash cans from long range. Such antics were new to me. When I got rambunctious, Jake would say “Michael, decorum!” My dad really liked that phrase.
If my dad and Jake ever talked about the army days, it was in solemn tones.
Work: I mowed our lawn. My dad must have mowed it when we first moved to Prairie Village. I cannot remember that ever happening, but I don’t think that he would have hired someone. Maybe my mom did it. She could do anything. By the time that I was ten or so, regular lawn-mowing was part of my chores. My recollection is that my allowance was a quarter per week.
I have no clear recollection of mowing any of the neighbors’ lawns when we lived on Maple St. in Prairie Village, but I might have.
Somehow I got involved with selling Christmas cards every year. I don’t remember the details, but I showed samples to a lot of people. I also took orders and delivered the cards when they arrived. My mom definitely helped.
1. I think that his prejudice was largely due to his experiences in World War II. He associated rice with the Japanese, and he had no use for them. I purloined this recipe and have prepared it to enthusiastic receptions dozens of times. I omit the chipped beef because it is too expensive and the dish has plenty of flavor without it.
2. Fay Hedrick lived to be 100. She outlived Boots by thirty-four years. Her obituary is posted here.
My dad very seldom took a day off from work. He saved up his vacation time for big trips that were always in the summer. We took several family vacations while I was in grade school. I think that our first big vacation probably occurred in 1955. I don’t remember my mom being pregnant. So, either I have the year wrong, I was oblivious of her condition, or we left Jamie with a babysitter or grandparents.
Our destination was the Colorado Springs area. Although Colorado is immediately west of Kansas,1 Colorado Springs is over 600 miles from KC. My dad drove our ’54 Ford. Mom was navigator, an easy job in Kansas. The back seat was my domain. Of course we counted cows, right side of the road vs. left side. However, for much of the trip I stood up and practiced clapping as loudly as I could. It must have driven my parents crazy.
The Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs.
I remember that they let me fish at a trout farm. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, which I thought was great fun. We drove up Pike’s Peak. We visited the Garden of the Gods and a place where we had a chuckwagon buffet, which I really enjoyed. We also went to a bar/restaurant owned by a relative of (I think) Grandmom Hazel. His name was Louis Something. He served me a Roy Rogers with a tiny umbrella in it. I thought that it was fantastic.
We also went to a race track. I found it fascinating that people discarded their losing tickets on the ground. I gathered up a bunch of them in hopes of finding a winner. No luck.
Before writing this, it never occurred to me that this trip introduced me to both bars and gambling.
I am pretty sure that I only played one card.
My most vivid memory of the trip was when we went to a huge bingo hall. I called out “bingo’ at the same time as one of the other players. There was some controversy. I don’t remember the details, but they ended up awarding the prize to the other person. I was upset about this. I may have even made a scene.
Somehow I came into possession of a Pinocchio doll that was as large as I was. Maybe it was a prize; maybe my parents bought it for me to shut me up. I don’t think that I liked it. I punched it in the nose quite often during the return trip.
All in all I had a very good time. I have always loved to travel.
Our biggest vacation was, I am pretty sure, in 1959. I would have been nearly eleven, and Jamie three and a half. My dad drove all four of us all the way to New England in our ’57 Ford Fairlane and then down the East Coast to Washington, DC. I sat in the back seat with Jamie. On the way there we took the northern route through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. I kept track of our progress on a map. I don’t remember what Jamie was doing.
The first day was an unqualified disaster for me. My mom had prepared a picnic lunch for us. Our first stop was was at a park with picnic tables in Mexico, MO. After lunch we drove east for an hour or so, at which point I realized that I did not have my billfold. I only had a few dollars, but that was a big loss to me. Each dollar bill could purchase 110 baseball cards, if one bought the packs enclosed in cellophane that held eleven cards and cost a dime,2 as I always did. Besides, I had never left anything of value behind before, and I felt stupid and irresponsible.
Dad yes, Mike no.
I felt even more stupid when we stopped for supper. My dad ordered a steak, and so did I. I was later told that we could not afford the vacation if I ordered a steak every night. I didn’t much care what I ate; my tastes have always been pretty eclectic. I just wanted to know what was expected of me before I made more mistakes.
Most of the rest of the trip was delightful. My dad did almost all of the driving. The Interstate Highway System was only three years old. Therefor, large portions of our drive was on two-lane roads that served as Main Street in town after town. We started looking for motels without “No Vacancy” signs when my dad announced that he was getting tired. Since this was the peak season for automobile travel, the rest of us found this somewhat stressful.
Our first major stop was in Albany, NY, the home of my dad’s army buddy, Jake Jacobson. We spent one or two nights at his house. We got to meet his wife Ruth and his son Paul, who was a year older than I was. Jake took us out to eat at a restaurant that served something that I had never before encountered, antipasto. I remarked that it sounded like Andy Pafko, who played his last season in 1959 for the Milwaukee Braves. Jake liked my little joke, which in turn made me like him. Afterwards he showed some home movies. All that I remember about them was that they showed off Ruth’s legs.
The next day I got to play hardball with Paul and some of his friends on a field with fences and everything. I was very happy that I got a hit or two, and my team won.
We then drove up to Maine and traveled through each of the six New England states before we ended up at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. I think that we stayed overnight in a motel in Maine or New Hampshire. I remember that I slept through the entire state of Rhode Island.
The Jacobsons joined us in New York to watch a the A’s at Yankee Stadium. We sat near the right field line. We had a very good view of the “Pennant Porch”. Joe DeMaestri, of all people,3 hit a home run for the visiting A’s. The four Wavadas were the only people who cheered. It did not feel like it at the time, but this was the best of all the teams in the thirteen-year history of the A’s in KC.
All of us took the elevator to the observation floor of the Empire State Building, and Paul and I climbed the stairs to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The most memorable event, however, occurred in our car. My dad got confused somewhere in the Bronx and ran a red light. A policeman pulled us over. When he saw on my dad’s driver’s license that we were from Prairie Village, KS, he could hardly contain his mirth. He let us proceed after lecturing my dad on the differences between driving in Gotham and on the prairie. For example, there are fewer buffaloes in NYC.
Our next stop was the Chalfonte Hotel in Atlantic City, which at that time was a thriving tourist town not yet overrun by casinos. We spent our time there on or near the boardwalk, but we did take the opportunity to watch the high-diving horse on the Steel Pier.
Stopping in Atlantic City was a good idea. New York City and Washington, DC, are intense places. I hate to drive in both of them. Atlantic City was fun and relaxing.
Our final major destination was the nation’s capital. We stayed at the Mayflower Hotel. We saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the reflecting pool, the congressional buildings, and the White House. The most memorable aspect of this part of the trip was very puzzling. Somehow my mom and dad were unable to find the Smithsonian Institution. The Metro was not opened until seventeen years later. So, we couldn’t just get off at the Smithsonian stop. Still, …
In the above map the White House is at the upper left, and the congressional buildings are at the lower right. The teardrop shapes are Smithsonian buildings. Admittedly some of them did not exist in 1959 or were not part of the Institution, but it astounds me that we were unable to locate any of them, and we looked for hours.
Couldn’t find them? The Natural History Museum, which is the one that I really wanted to visit, was only 1.5 miles from our hotel, and we were much closer to our purported objective than that several times. I was very frustrated, and I may have shown it. Jamie tried to console me. To this day I cannot explain this experience (or lack thereof).
Our return trip home was not very eventful. We were all ready for home. My recollection is that because my dad had never been in South Carolina, we selected a route that allowed us to “dip a toe” there. Then we just headed west toward God’s country.
1. Kansas borders four states: Colorado on the west, Nebraska on the north, Missouri on the east, and Oklahoma on the south.
2. Bruce Smith Drugs in Prairie Village provided two options for buying baseball cards. For a nickel you could get five cards and a piece of gum in an opaque paper wrapper. For a dime you could get eleven cards but no gum. However, you could see both the top card and the bottom card. This could help you avoid the disastrous possibility of buying five cards that you already had. Nobody liked the gum anyway.
