Kansas
Part Two
March-December 1964
Slip Sliding Away
We’d been in Kansas now about five months and we loved it. Even though our two-story apartment was small, it was on the end of the six apartment unit, so we enjoyed having only one neighbor.
Because Gardner was small, and mostly a farming community, we did most of our shopping in Olathe. The bonus was that Kansas City was about a thirty-minute drive north on the newly constructed Interstate 35. Great restaurants (not that we could afford them), shopping, and some very happening jazz clubs.
The people were probably the area’s biggest asset, very friendly, open and extremely accepting of the diverse military community. Our neighbors in the apartment next door were a newly married couple—Samuel, a black Army sergeant, and his wife Hilda, a white German woman. They’d met and married during his previous assignment in Germany, and being that it was the early sixties, it was unusual to see a mixed-race married couple.
They were still childless, and during our first “get acquainted” conversation, initiated when they greeted us enthusiastically as we were bringing groceries into the apartment from the car, they told us that they wanted to wait to have children until after his upcoming discharge and their subsequent move back to his home in New Jersey. Throughout our chat Hilda seemed to be taken with our boys and couldn’t keep her eyes and hands off of them.
A few days later, while I was at work, Hilda came over and invited Sharon over to her apartment for coffee and strudel. I was surprised that Sharon accepted, but as I later found out, Hilda just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
During that visit, she absolutely fell in love with Ricky and little Frank—and afterwards would make any excuse to drop in as often as she could when her husband was at work just to visit and spend time with Sharon and the boys. For Sharon it was a blessing in disguise, as she could pretty much time her errands to coincide with Hilda’s visits—comfortably leaving the boys in Hilda’s loving care. Hilda didn’t seem to mind; in fact, often suggesting that if Sharon had something she needed to do in Olathe she would be thrilled to watch the boys.
I was now working evenings at the Quality Oil gas station and putting in long hours, but the extra money was beginning to chip away at our furniture debt. And being able to fill our car’s gas tank for free allowed us to be able to eat out a bit more on weekends. But all that time apart from each other was beginning to have a detrimental effect on us, and without realizing what was happening we slowly but surely began to drift apart.
Being gone from seven in the morning and not getting home until almost midnight five to six nights a week—except for the forty-five minutes that I had when I got home from the naval air station and changed clothes—was the norm. On weekends I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was stay home and practice on my guitar or tinker with the car. Sharon, bored nearly out of her mind after having spent the week looking after the boys and dealing with household issues by herself, yearned to get out of the house and go shopping, eat out, or maybe go watch a movie. But of course, there was that money problem.
Because the boys were still so young, for us to go out alone would mean having to hire a babysitter. And although Hilda would’ve been more than willing to watch them for free, we felt that with her husband home on weekends it just wouldn’t be right to ask her to spend more time with our kids.
Because our neighborhood consisted mostly of younger servicemen and their wives, the available babysitters usually came from suburban families in Olathe; and then at a premium. We quickly found that their normal hourly babysitting charge was well above what we could normally afford for an evening out, so more often than not we ended up staying home on weekends—and after a while found ourselves increasingly getting on each other’s nerves.
I guess because we were too close to our situation we just couldn’t see what was happening to our marriage. For having been away from each other for so long the previous year, one would think that we would’ve completely savored our time together. Instead, we filled our time together grousing at each other, finding faults in one another, and arguing on how better to use the precious little money we had left over after paying our bills. To use a hackneyed and well-worn phrase, “We just couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
So assuming that most of our troubles seemed to stem from our lack of money, I reasoned that what was needed was for me to get another job.
***
One afternoon, while taking a break between intercept missions at work, I found myself having a cup of coffee with one of our crew chiefs—a Technical Sergeant named John. Our conversation eventually got around to the subject of music and we began to discuss our mutual attraction to folk music and rock and roll.
He mentioned that he’d studied piano when he was young and still played whenever he got the chance. Although he preferred playing jazz, he enjoyed some of the latest rock and roll songs because of their simplicity. I told him I played guitar and tended to lean towards the rock and folk song genres. As our conversation progressed he brought up the fact that he knew a couple of sailors on the base that would occasionally join him at his house to “jam”. One played the bass guitar and the other, the drums. He asked if I’d like to join them the next time they got together.
I told him that it sounded like fun, but with my part-time job I had very little time. Also, because I spent so much time away from home, my wife preferred that we do stuff together whenever I wasn’t working.
“Bring the wife!” He said, “My old lady usually just stays in the kitchen or goes out shopping while we rock out while drinking a couple of beers in the den. She tells me she likes the music, but our repertoire needs a little work.”
I explained that we had a couple of little ones, but that I’d check with Sharon to see what her plans were. He gave me his address and home phone number and assured me that our kids would be no problem. John had one daughter and she had just left for her first year of college, “…so the wife can’t stand the thought of not having a kid around the house anymore. She’d probably just spend the time spoiling yours!” He said gleefully.
A couple of Saturdays later, after asking for and getting the evening off at the gas station, my slightly injured Gibson guitar and I headed for John’s house. I had repeatedly asked Sharon to come along, but she’d declined saying that bringing the boys along would be too much trouble. In truth, I knew that she detested meeting new people—particularly other military wives. And although I assured her that no one would be judging us, she always felt very fearful and tended to avoid making new acquaintances. She felt that she just never had the right clothes to wear and that she was just not sophisticated enough. That shy thing again. Hilda was the only person she felt comfortable with.
After arriving at John’s house I was introduced to the other two guys: Brian, the drummer, and Craig, the bassist. They were both young, just a few years older than me, but still in their first enlistment.
After the introductions, during which John’s wife expressed her sincere disappointment when she found out that Sharon hadn’t come, we retired to their spacious den. John and his wife didn’t live in military housing. Because he was close to retirement and they loved the area, they’d decided to make the Olathe area their permanent home after his tour of duty was completed. They’d used their savings and purchased their nice four-bedroom ranch home in a tree-lined subdivision; and topping at around twenty-six-hundred feet, not counting the basement, qualified it in those days as a veritable mansion.
Because Brian still lived in bachelor quarters he’d asked to leave his drum set at John’s house because the transport, set-up and take-down of the large set was such a hassle.
I broke out my Gibson and tuned it up to John’s piano—an old brown upright that was still in remarkably good condition. Afterwards it was Craig’s turn to tune up his Fender American. Because my guitar wasn’t amplified, John set up a small microphone with the receiver pointed at the sound hole and plugged it into Craig’s small amplifier.
“OK,” John said, “now that everyone’s tuned up what’dya say we crank something up?”
We all looked around at each other.
“Right!” John said, “Do we all know ‘Walk, Don’t Run’?”
It was one of the simpler instrumental songs that called for a rhythm guitar to play the base chords: Starting with a rousing drum solo setting the tone, the rhythm guitar would punch out a repetitive downward progression in four/four time of Am, G, F and E chords throughout, and a slide into a hardy C-F chord change in the bridge. Then, after four bars a lead guitar would came in and play the melody. I could do the rhythm chords but could not do the lead.
“Well,” I said to John, “I can do the intro and the background rhythm, but I can’t do the lead.”
“Hey, no sweat! That’s what I’m here for. I’ll do the lead on the piano while you and Craig do the bass and the rhythm.”
“Oh, OK.” That sounded simple enough.
“Alright then…on one, two, one, two, three, four…”
We played the song through once, then we discussed some sound levels. After playing it over several times, John suggested that we move onto something else.
“Oh Frank. I forgot to ask, can you do vocals? Because none of us can sing worth a shit.”
“Well, I guess.” I said. “All the music I play I do vocals and accompany myself with the guitar. Now, don’t ask me how good I am, but I can carry a tune.”
“Super! Do you know “King of the Road” by Roger Miller?”
I did!
We all seemed to hit it off really well, so we began to meet regularly on whichever weekend day I wasn’t working—and a few times I was even able to sneak in a few evenings. After a while we’d built up a repertoire of over thirty songs.
That was the beginning of our little four-man band we ended up naming, “The Goldtones.”
Meanwhile, Sharon was spending more and more time alone with the boys.
***
Our first paid gig as the Goldtones was at a little bar/club in south Olathe called “The Anchor Inn.” I guess originally it had been a small motel, but its bar had achieved a whole lot more success (and some notoriety) than the twenty, or so rooms that were attached to the main building. In time, the rooms were closed and bulldozed, making room for a larger parking lot.
John’s wife had sewn us up a set of gold lamé and sequined vests to be worn over tuxedo shirts and black dress pants. Since John was older we asked him to negotiate a deal with the owner, a burly and heavily-tattooed ex-navy chief called Bubba. After insisting that we doing a ten-song audition for him one afternoon, he contracted the Goldtones to play for the next two months on Friday and Saturday evenings, from 8PM until midnight. The contract stipulated a lump sum of $240, plus tips (and heavily discounted drinks), for each weekend played.
I remember thinking that with the extra $60 a week, Sharon and I would be able to get out of debt in practically no time. I was so elated when I got back into the car that I couldn’t wait to go home to give her the good news. Much to my disappointment, she was less than thrilled.
“So what are you gonna do about your shifts at the station?” She asked, her eyes glaring at me through her slightly askew cats-eye frames.
“Oh, I talked to Billy about that, and he said I could work the day shifts on the weekends to make up for the lost time.”
“Well, who’s gonna work the evening shifts then?”
“He said he was gonna hire another guy…had been planning to do so anyway, so he can spend more time at home with his wife and kids.”
At this, her face screwed up into a mask of almost complete rage. “Well, at least he’s thinking of his wife! And what the hell am I supposed to be doing while you’re off playing at night clubs? Huh? As it is, I’m here alone most of the time, and so now you’ve arranged it so I’m here by myself even more? What are you thinking?”
My one-track simple mind could not fathom the reason for her displeasure. Here I was trying to earn more money for us and she was complaining about being home. Hell, I thought, I would sure love to be able to stay home every day and do the little shit that she does.
“Hey, I’m trying as hard as I can to make ends meet and to give you and the boys a better life, and this is how you show your appreciation? Shit! What the fuck are you complaining about? I get up early every day and work my ass off until almost midnight while you sit around and watch TV and take care of the boys. If you think I’m leading such a glamorous fucking life, I’d love to trade responsibilities!”
With that, her eyes filled with tears and she ripped her glasses off. “You know what?” She said in a blubbery sob, “You can just go ahead and do whatever you want to do! And while you’re at it you can go straight to hell! You have no idea what I go through every day! You think what I do is so simple? I swear I had it easier when you were in Alaska! The boys are older now and their needs are much more complex! But how would you fucking know? You see them about an hour a week and think that makes you a father!”
She pushed by me, knocking the coffee table askew, and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. The door slammed and after a few minutes I heard her crying bitterly.
The boys, sitting on the floor were at first mesmerized by the animated conversation that the big folks were having. Suddenly they realized that their mommy had left the room, and then both of them burst out in a tandem bout of panicky bawling.
Try as I might I couldn’t soothe them down. When I tried to pick them up they pushed their little hands into my chest, and kicked wildly, trying to get down and away from me. Their little heads spun around eagerly looking to find where their mother may have gone. It was totally lost on me that they looked to her for their main support and comfort, and that I was just an occasional visitor in their lives.
This event, at the time annoying and infuriating to me, would be quickly forgotten. However, it would at a later date return from its hiding place in my memory and cause me considerable regret, guilt, and bitter remorse.
Suspicion, The Goldtones, & Ricky Renames His Brother
The biting heat of the summer of 1964 had passed and during the waning days of September a soft and subtle coolness had descended on the browning plains of Kansas. The trees began to turn beautiful shades of rust and gold, and the days grew shorter—with the evening sun taking on a soft buttery hue before slowly sinking into a fading, reddish-purple horizon.
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela had been sentenced to life in prison, presumably never to see the light of day again; and an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin where the North Vietnamese Navy had fired upon American intelligence vessels had angered the newly sworn-in President Johnson. After conferring with his aides, he decided on launching immediate air attacks on North Vietnam in retaliation, then went to Congress asking for and receiving a mandate for future military action. This ensured our deep and painful immersion in the quagmire that would come to be known as the Vietnam War.
For me, the daily simulated bombing missions at the Air Force detachment had increased exponentially in direct response to the exploding events in Indo-China, and I found myself working radar intercepts six to seven hours out of my nine-hour day. The rest of the time was spent debriefing each mission, and receiving almost hourly security briefings on the possibility of China sending waves of troops and war machines into the growing conflict as they had done during the Korean War.
Because I was now averaging three to four hours of sleep at night during the week after working at the station, I found myself dozing off occasionally during some radar intercept runs; then frightened back into consciousness when the interceptor pilot’s voice boomed in my headset calling to reaffirm his speed while heading to the target aircraft. Sometimes between missions, I would excuse myself from some of the briefings to go to the bathroom to sit on the commode and catch a quick nap. A couple of times I fell into such a deep and sudden slumber that I actually slipped off the pot, my head and shoulder slamming into the metal wall of the stall.
On Fridays I would work at the station until seven-thirty when I would be relieved by Billy’s new hire, so I could clean up and get to the Anchor Inn for my gig. His name was Randall, and from the get-go he made it known that he was not military. But my instant dislike for him didn’t stem from him not being in the service; I just thought he was arrogant and somewhat of an asshole. It was obvious that he didn’t like the service or servicemen, often making comments about how much nicer Olathe would be if only the ‘fucking dickheads at the naval air station’ would disappear overnight.
“I can’t seem to meet any decent fucking women because for some reason the bitches are too fascinated with the boys from the base wearing their ‘play-war’ uniforms. Shit, they even go for the fucking niggers!” He said to me one day.
Irritated, I asked him if he had a problem with me being in the service, because if he did maybe we should just take care of it behind the station some evening. He quickly backed off saying that I was one of the exceptions because I was married already, “…to a pretty decent-looking chick too…” I didn’t think to ask him how he knew what she looked like.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, I and the other Goldtones would play our gig at the little club in South Olathe. And although we were supposed to quit at midnight, more often than not Bubba would ask us to play another set because “they’re drinking like fish and hanging out because the chicks are loving your music.” He would usually give us ten bucks each for our trouble. Plus, the tip jar at the end of the stage would usually give up an additional twenty to thirty dollars at the end of the night.
I would get home sometime around 2AM, then get up at six to get to the station to open it by seven. My only rest night was Sunday evening, and all I wanted to do after I got home at five or six in the evening was to take a long hot bath and collapse on the bed completely exhausted.
After the argument we’d gotten into when I told her I was going to start playing at the Anchor Inn, Sharon had been oddly quiet. At first I welcomed it, but as time went on I started to worry a bit because I slowly realized that we were hardly communicating. When I did try to initiate a conversation, she would watch me intently without saying a word. When I asked her for an opinion on something, her response began increasingly to be, “…whatever you think…”
One Sunday evening after my bath, I decided to engage her and try to get a conversation going. Instead of my usual flopping into bed and instantly falling into a deep but short slumber, I walked softly downstairs. As I hit the bottom landing, I saw that she was sitting on the couch with her back to me talking very softly on the telephone.
She must’ve sensed that I was there because she quickly turned her head and put her hand on the phone’s receiver.
“Oh! Hi!” She said with a tone of surprise in her voice. “I thought you were in bed!”
“Who’s on the phone?” I asked, curious to know since I knew that she didn’t know anyone well enough to be carrying a phone conversation that late at night.
“Oh, just…just a friend!” she said, with a little tremble in her voice. “Hey!” she now said hurriedly into the receiver, “I gotta go now, thanks for calling.” And she quickly hung up.
I walked slowly into the living room, and for the first time noticed that Ricky was sleeping deeply on the couch while little Frank was entertaining himself on the floor with a stuffed panda.
“Why aren’t the kids in bed?” I asked.
“Oh, I usually wait until you’re sleeping before I put them down. That’s so they don’t wake you up.”
She seemed very nervous, constantly pushing her glasses high up on her nose and crossing and re-crossing her legs. She was wearing a tight little smile that I never recalled seeing on her face.
I took a seat on the living room chair across the room from her and just stared at her for a while.
It was tense and very uncomfortable…then Ricky stretched and woke up. He let out a couple of whimpers and Sharon hurriedly picked him up.
“Guess I’ll go ahead and put the boys to bed now. They’ve already had their bath…I always give them a bath before you come home so you can have the tub to yourself.”
“Thoughtful…”
She quickly gathered Ricky up and scooped up little Frank by the hand. In a flurry of motion, she was up the stairs and out of sight.
I stared at the phone and wondered if she’d been talking to Hilda. But if so, why didn’t she just say so. I made up my mind to continue this as soon as she came back down. After what seemed like a very long time to be putting the boys to bed, I decided to walk up and see how things were going.
The door to the boys’ bedroom was closed to its usual inch-wide crack, allowing us to peek in on them if we needed to. Then I noticed that our bedroom door was fully closed. I slowly opened the door and saw that the light was out and all I could see of Sharon was under a bundle of covers.
I went down to the lower level and shut off all the lights. Moving slowly in the dark I slid in next to her and under the covers.
“You awake?” I asked, but there was no response.
“Hey,” I said, a bit louder and with a tone of annoyance in my voice. “Wake up, we need to talk!”
The covers flew off her side of the bed and she sat up quickly—reaching for her glasses next to the clock on the nightstand. She stared at me and leaned back—crossing her arms.
“OK, what?” She said, slamming out the “T” on the word ‘what’ rather loudly.
Rather than stoke her apparent irritation, I decided to drop the matter, but that incident stayed with me and I replayed it over and over in my mind until one day, not so far into the future, when it finally came to a head.
***
On the other hand, our little rock-a-billy band was going strong. When our contract was almost up at the Anchor Inn, we were contacted by representatives of the local VFW, American Legion, and the SPO (Senior Petty Officers) Club at the Olathe Naval Air Station, for possible gigs.
Word had apparently spread around the area that we played pretty good, but better yet—pretty cheap. The only requirement we had was that a piano be made available for John, as the electronic keyboard, if available then, would’ve been astronomically expensive.
With my first payday from the band, I invested in a small portable amplifier and a snap-on electronic pickup kit for my acoustic guitar. Now I wouldn’t have to share the microphone with my rhythm guitar so that it could be heard above the vocals and the other instruments.
But as with everything else in my life during this period, there was a dark side to my participation in the band. We started to acquire a group of, well, mostly female, groupies. As we played our weekend gigs at the various clubs, the same group of girls would show up to cheer us on. In addition to boosting our morale, it was a bit of a godsend for the single guys in the audience. While there were a lot of couples in attendance, there were more single guys—especially at the Anchor Inn and the veterans’ clubs. The SPO club had a restriction on civilian guests—that is, they were required to have a sponsor to enter, so only a small number of our groupies were allowed in…and only after we guaranteed that they would behave.
After a while, when our gigs were over, some of the girls began to invite us to continue partying. Sometimes the parties were at someone’s apartment, but most times we were invited to some of the more prominent jazz clubs in Kansas City. A couple of the girls had friends or relatives in management at those clubs, so we were usually catered to quite well. Free drinks, access backstage to meet some of the instrumentalists and singers, and of course lots of offers for a variety of drugs. Apparently I retained at least one grain of common sense, and consistently refused to take even one drag off a joint, but readily accepted any offer of free drinks.
Of the four of us, John was the only one who had any real common sense about this whole groupie situation. Married for over twenty years, he flatly told us that he was not about to sacrifice his marriage, home, or his retirement on a bunch of barely post-teenaged adolescents. After our gigs, his wife, having either been in the audience or having driven their car to the club when our gigs were up, would be there to escort him home. Lucky him.
Doug and Craig were single, so they found themselves in literal heaven. As history has noted, this was the beginning of the era of ‘free sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll’. And boy, was it ever!
At first I resisted the temptation to join the group after we packed up our instruments—telling everyone that I really needed to get home. But once home, I began to find that Sharon always seemed to be edgy and angry at me. Time after time, after taking a shower and getting into bed I would often be rebuffed and pushed away—sometimes being told that I ‘stunk’ of alcohol, or it was too late, or that she was just too tired. I also began to get angry, and worse, started feeling sorry for myself.
Well, hindsight being twenty-twenty, I can now certainly understand why she felt the way she did. But at the time, none of that indulgence and/or empathy had even the slightest chance of forming in my immature and selfish mind. All I could think was that what I was doing by working three jobs was for the good of my wife and my kids. If I stopped doing all my extracurricular activities, how in the hell could we survive financially? My Air Force pay just barely took care of our rent and utilities, and the rest of our expenses were being carried by my gas station and band income. Why couldn’t she just understand that?
So one night around midnight, after a gig at the VFW, and while packing my instrument and amplifier away in the trunk of my car, I finally accepted the group’s offer of riding along with them to Kansas City. Although it was the first time, it certainly wouldn’t be the last—and the consequences that those late night jaunts to the various jazz clubs and all-night joints in Kansas City would have on my marriage would turn out to be nothing less than devastating.
***
For as long as I can remember, Ricky and Frank have always been at odds with each other— some would call it ‘sibling rivalry’; I call it open warfare. One of the stories Sharon related to me on the long drive from Texas to Kansas regarding this issue was about the first time that Ricky got a good look at his new brother.
She said that ever since returning from the hospital with his brother, Ricky had shown a great curiosity towards the new arrival. Although he was still too small to be able to peer into Frank’s bassinette, he had made several attempts to do so by trying to pull himself up and peek over the top. A couple of times he came close to tipping the bassinette over before Sharon was able to intercede. Finally, to satisfy his intense curiosity one day, she picked Ricky up and held him over Frank for a quick look-see. She watched as Frank tried to focus on this brother, who was suspended in his mother’s arms over him. Suddenly and very quickly, he reached up and snatched a handful of Ricky’s hair.
Try as she might, she could not pry open Frank’s fist and still keep her balance while holding Ricky over Frank’s little bed. Of course, Ricky was now throwing the mother of all screaming fits and squirming like crazy trying to pull himself away from the little cretin who was intent on ripping out a chunk of his scalp.
Finally, Sharon had to call my mother into the room for assistance. Once they disengaged the two, Ricky sat on the floor bawling loudly and rubbing his head for a few minutes. Frank, on the other hand, (no pun intended), lay contentedly in his bed staring intently at his little fist in which a few strands of Ricky’s hair were still stuck.
A few months later, Sharon had placed Frank on the floor in his carrier while she wiped down and changed the sheets and blanket in his bassinette. Ricky, now walking most of the time, ambled up to Frank and stood over him as he watched him suck contentedly on his pacifier. Without warning, Ricky let loose a right-cross haymaker, smacking Frank right on the side of the head. The punch landed with enough force to tip Frank’s carrier over and spill him onto the floor.
Probably realizing that he was about to receive a good yelling from his mother, Ricky promptly staged a preemptive crying attack—dramatically dropping to his butt and squeezing his eyes tightly while screaming at the top of his lungs. Frank, having been unceremoniously dumped on the floor with his carrier now on top of him, seemed unfazed by the whole incident. In fact, Sharon recalled, he seemed more interested in flailing about the floor in search of the pacifier that had been knocked out of his mouth and had landed a few feet away from him.
In spite of the occasional flare-up between them, there were many other times when they genuinely showed their affection for each other. One such time that would end up affecting them and us to this very day, occurred just after Thanksgiving. I was spending a very rare Sunday at home, having asked Randall to work my day and evening shift at the gas station, watching my two boys playing on the floor. Frank was sitting on his blanket carefully observing Ricky playing with a toy truck. Frank, trying to keep Ricky in view as he spun the truck behind him, lost his balance and fell over on his back.
As was Frank’s style, he hardly seemed concerned by his falling over, as usual showing more interest in trying to find his pacifier.
Sharon and I got up to help Frank back into his carrier, and when Ricky saw that he was not going to be held responsible for his brother’s loss of balance, instantly stopped crying and crawled over to see how he could help.
Seeing this, Sharon called to Ricky: “You want to help your baby brother get up?” she asked in a sing-song voice.
Ricky stopped in mid-crawl and gave his mother a curious look. “Bee-bee?” He said, tentatively.
“Yes,” Sharon answered, “You want to help your baby brother?”
“Bee-bee?” Ricky repeated.
“No.” Sharon corrected. “Your baby brother! Not, bee-bee.”
“Bee-bee!” Ricky now said with enthusiasm, assuming that his mother had affirmed his pronunciation.
“No! Baby!”
“Bee-bee!”
“Baby!”
“Bee-bee!”
And so it went for a few minutes between them while ‘Bee-bee’ crawled about. still trying to locate his pacifier.
From that moment on, Frank became ‘Bee-bee’ to Ricky, and after a while we gave up trying to correct him and we both began to call him ‘Bee-bee’ also. As time went on, ‘Bee-bee’ morphed into ‘Beebe’, and for close family and friends that became Frank’s official nickname.
Growing up, he never liked nor did he really accept the nickname, but tolerated it because he knew that the more he fought it the more we all would use it. One of my proudest moments occurred when Beebe was a senior at Texas A&M University and had been promoted to squadron commander within the university’s Corps of Cadets. It was on a Parents’ Day when I was allowed to enter the cadets’ barracks to observe the commanders putting the plebes (called ‘fish’ at A&M) through their paces.
Beebe was looking extremely sharp in his tightly-tailored green fatigues, gleaming high-top black combat boots, and drill instructor’s cap, as he yelled instructions to the freshmen while strutting about carrying a short baton under his arm.
When he turned his back to me, I saw that instead of having the name, ‘DE LEON’ printed on the back of his shirt, he was proudly displaying the name, “BEEBE”.
Seeing that caused a little moisture to seep into my eyes, and it was then that I realized that after all these years he’d finally accepted his unique nickname.
Goodbye Chevy, Hello Trouble
In late October, Bob, with whom I’d been carpooling with for several months, told me that he was planning on buying a used car from a “private” dealer in Missouri.
“I got a great deal from this guy, so I have to take my Kansas plates back so I can put them on my new car.”
“Oh,” I said, a bit surprised. “What am I supposed to do now? I don’t have valid Texas plates and if I try to get my Kansas plates now I’ll have to pay a hefty penalty.”
“Hey, I figured that since you’re making all this money with your band you can probably afford to get all that done.”
“Well, I can probably afford that now, but Christmas is coming up and I need to save money to get gifts for Sharon and the boys.”
“Why don’t you just renew your Texas plates? I did some checking and the cops here won’t ticket you for out-of-state plates as long as you’re in the service.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I’m up here in Kansas.”
“Oh, just give them a long distance call. I’m sure the DMV down there will renew them for you. Just tell them you’re up here in Kansas on temporary duty. They don’t care.”
And, he was right on both counts. After I did some checking of my own, I confirmed that Kansas was very lenient on servicemen not registering their cars in Kansas. Most of the Navy personnel were here on TDY (temporary duty) training assignments anyway, so there was a proliferation of out-of-state plates all over the area. It would be difficult for law enforcement to stop everyone with non-Kansas plates to ascertain whether or not they were assigned here temporarily or permanently.
After making a call to the DMV in Texas, I discovered that all I had to do was to send them a copy of my title, a money order for the small registration fee, and provide them with a Texas address. The next day I sent the title and the money order, and used my parents’ address as my permanent residence. In two weeks I had my renewed plates, and breathing a sigh of relief, I bolted them on to the Chevy.
A few days later Bob drove over to my housing unit to show me his new car. It was a beautiful black 1962 Ford XL Victoria hardtop coupe. It was less than two years old with 12,000 miles on the odometer, and it cost him less than two thousand dollars.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “This is beautiful! And it looks brand new.”
“Yeah, this guy, Lou, has some really great deals! This one cost over thirty-five hundred dollars new a couple of years ago, and I got it for eighteen hundred!”
“How can he do that?” I asked.
“He’s a private dealer! There’s no middle-man. He buys them at auction and just adds a hundred or so for his mark-up. You oughta go check this guy out.”
“Oh, I don’t have that kind of money to pay upfront.”
“Don’t need to! He has a friend who’s vice president at Empire State Bank in Kansas City and he finances the purchase. Man, I got really low payments with no down either!”
“That does sound pretty good.”
“Sure! Here, this is his number. Give him a call if you think you’re interested, or at least drive over to his place and check his inventory out. He deals out of his house and he keeps the cars out in his yard, so that way there’s also no overhead! He doesn’t have to lease a lot or pay city taxes because his place is out in the country. Check it out!”
Well, I was very interested. Not that there was anything wrong with the Chevy—it was running great, but it was fourteen years old. Whenever I drove it to my music gigs I would inevitably get razzed on driving an “antique”. So never having really owned a “real” car, and especially with my lack of car buying experience, I naively thought that having a two-year-old car would really be cool.
That evening while I was working at the station I did some quick calculations. A few weeks ago Sharon and I had decided that I would have to re-enlist in the Air Force for another four years as we had nothing to fall back on if I got discharged in December. We had no money, no job prospects, and we were still loaded up with furniture and TV debt. With the re-enlistment bonus that I assumed was going to be at least a thousand dollars, and my gas station and band income, we would be able to swing a small car payment for a newer car.
When I presented the figures to Sharon she seemed as excited as I was about getting a newer car. Again, looking back at it now, it was a bad decision that we would end up paying for dearly for the next several years. It was ridiculous for us to think that adding a new payment to our existing debt would somehow ease us out of our burgeoning monthly liabilities, but we were young and completely unexperienced in financial matters. Regrettably, the next day I called Mr. Werner and made an appointment to drive out to see him.
The following week, we loaded up the Chevy with the boys and paid a trip to Mr. Lou Werner, of Kearney, Missouri.
His home was a luxurious spread-out ranch-style home built on what seemed to be about five acres of lush wooded rolling hills. The house was set back about fifty yards from the winding farm road we had driven on for a few miles before finding the place. Several cars were parked on the lawn between the front of the house and the road.
When we rang the doorbell, a glitzy blonde, complete with a penciled-in beauty mark on her left cheek and shiny ruby-red lipstick, greeted us graciously at the door. She was dressed in a white silk blouse, and her hair was golden and flawlessly piled up in the latest beehive style. She was very tall, and her long legs, poured into aqua colored Capri pants, sat atop outrageously elevated stiletto heels.
“Ah…” She oozed. “You must be the De Leóns. So nice to meet you, I’m sure. Come on in and make yourself at home.”
Her voice was low and raspy and her accent sounded like the one that I’d heard from a couple of guys I’d known in Alaska who had been born and raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
“Thanks.” I said, as I took and gently shook the two extended highly-manicured fingers she daintily offered. She turned, and we followed her pendulum-like walk into the house’s sumptuous living room.
“Have a seat anywhere and I’ll go see if Lou is available.” And with that, she disappeared through a large oak-framed portal.
There were several overstuffed sofas, chairs of all sizes and colors, and a huge crystal chandelier hanging precariously from the low ceiling. I had to take care walking around it so as not to run into the lower row of sparkling glass finials.
After spreading ourselves out on a purplish velvet couch, we waited for a few minutes before Low made his entrance.
He was balding, with a rather badly executed comb-over, and a complexion that looked dry and colorless. He was top-heavy, reminding me of a spinning top with arms, and appeared to be at least thirty years older than Mrs. Werner. A large damp unlit cigar butt hung from his thin pallid lips, clamped tightly by a set of crooked, yellowing teeth.
“Hiya, Mr. and Mrs. De León!” He said loudly, as he entered the room. Instead of walking, he appeared to glide across the gleaming dark hardwood floor, reminding me of a male ballet dancer—his teeny feet and gait belying his wide upper girth.
I stood quickly and reached out to shake his girlish-like hand and was almost repulsed when his limp, moist and baby-smooth palm met mine.
“So nice of you folks to drive all the way out here,” he said, sounding like an extremely effeminate version of Truman Capote. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find you something that’ll meet your budget.”
“Thanks.” I said, trying to keep the revulsion out of my voice.
He spun on a dime and teetered out toward the front door. It was then I noticed that he was wearing bright red suspenders over a skintight yellow Polo, holding up his gaudy yellow plaid golfing style slacks. Apparently to ensure that everything stayed in place, he was also wearing a tan lizard-skin belt around his ample belly.
We stepped outside and he took me directly to what he described as his “favorite”—a 1962 dark blue four-door Dodge Dart. It was a small car, but it had the largest tires that I’d ever seen. Not only wide, but they seemed to fill the fender well to the maximum.
“Now this baby here is what I just know you’re looking for. It’s got a 413 cubic-inch V-8, four-barrel carb, with a three-quarter racing cam. It’s a killer highway car, and I’ve got it on sale for eighteen hundred dollars! What’dya think?”
Other than the price, I had no idea what he’d just said. Although my dad was a master mechanic and auto painter, he’d always shielded me from learning anything about cars—particularly when he was working on one at home. “You don’t need to know anything about this!” he would caution. “You don’t wanna end up being a grease monkey like me. You wanna to grow up having other people work on your cars.”
So I just stared when Lou pulled the hood up on the Dart and motioned me over.
“There she is! Ain’t she a beaut?”
“Uh…yeah. She sure is.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be admiring, but the large air filter sitting on top of the carburetor and covering most of the engine looked pretty impressive.
“Let me start her up for you!”
He opened the driver’s side door and squeezed his bulk into the front seat. A couple of seconds later, the engine fired up and the noise pretty much scared the crap out of me. As he gunned the engine, the entire car leaned one way, then another—depending on whether the motor was spooling up or winding down. Mercifully, he finally shut it off.
“There!” he said, putting the hood down and stroking it with his tiny hands like a proud owner would his prize Labrador retriever. “Get the wife and kids and take her out for a spin. But be careful, she’ll try to get away from you. She’s hot to trot, she is!”
Sharon had already come out of the house, probably because she thought something had blown up outside, and carrying Beebe, walked slowly toward us. Ricky was tagging along, maintaining a tight hold of her skirt and a look that said he wasn’t too sure he wanted to get any closer.
We took the car for a spin and it was like we’d jumped into a rocket. The car was crazy fast—a slight nudge on the accelerator would elicit an angry growl from under the hood and the rear wheels would literally spin out of control.
Oddly, it had an automatic transmission, and the driving modes were selected by pushing the appropriate button on the left side of the dashboard. Although I’d driven cars with automatic transmissions before, none had ever had the get-up-and-go that this one possessed. I was impressed.
When we returned from our little test drive, Lou waved us into the house.
“OK, what did you think? Is she a hot one or is she a hot one?” And he burst out into a wheezing laugh.
Sharon and I looked at each other and smiled.
Lou repeated that he was asking eighteen-hundred dollars, but since we were such a nice-looking family he’d sacrifice by dropping a hundred bucks; and on top of that he would give us five hundred for our Chevy—leaving twelve hundred to pay for the Dart. “Plus,” he said, “no money down on this deal. See, I got a pal who works at the Empire State Bank down in KC, and he’ll finance the whole deal for us. All you need to do is fill out a few forms and they’ll mail you a payment book in a couple of weeks. First payment will be due in about a month. How’s that sound?”
I looked to Sharon for some help in deciding, but all she did was shrug. I think she was still rattled from the test drive.
“Well,” I asked tentatively, “when can we pick up the car?”
“Hells bells, son.” He said, boisterously, “You can take her with you now!”
“Oh, but what about the financing? And how much will the payments be?”
“Aw, no worries on the financing. That’s a done deal.” He turned and walked over to a small writing desk in the living room. “Let’s see. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of glasses and a sheet of paper. Taking a pen out of his shirt pocket he scribbled a few numbers down. “Well, looks like sixty dollars a month for…let’s see…twenty months! That includes all interest and everything!”
“OK, but what about plates? I didn’t see any on the car. Do I get temporary tags?”
“Naw! That shit…oh, pardon my French…that stuff just gives the state more money. What we’ll do is take the Texas tags off your Chevy and slap’em on the Dart. That way you won’t have to get new Kansas tags until your Texas ones expire. By then you’ll have the Dart’s title and all.”
“Well, I didn’t bring the title for the Chevy.”
“No sweat! Just sign it and mail it to me. I’ll take care of transferring it and everything. See, my wife’s a Notary Public, see…” and he moved close to me so as to whisper, “…so she’ll witness it and take care of everything. Deal?”
I couldn’t see anything wrong with the deal and everything had moved so fast. But the car was great and the sixty bucks a month would be easy to make now that I was working three jobs. I said it was OK and he quickly went out to put my plates on the Dart.
Once the plates were secured, he shook my hand again and handed me the keys. As we pulled out I gave my Chevy one last look. With Lou standing next to it madly waving like a child, the car looked a bit old but proud. It had carried us many miles since I’d rebuilt it almost from nothing, and now its era was over.
***
On Wednesday, December 16th, 1964, I took the oath of reenlistment in the U.S. Air Force, and by doing so, I committed to serve for another four years. As I walked out of the office on my way to the finance division to collect my reenlistment bonus, I buttoned up to protect my face from the cold clear air driving down from the north. Although it was chilly, the freshness of the breeze was reinvigorating, and I thought that Kansas would be a great place for us to spend our next four years.
My cheerful mood was shattered when I was told that my reenlistment bonus came to a total of six hundred dollars. Sharon and I had planned on over a thousand, and had put a lot of clothing and stuff on layaway for the boys.
As I got into the Dart and started the rumbling engine, I thought that as long as we stayed together and in one place everything should work out. I vowed to work very hard to finally get us out of debt within the next year.
But first, it was time to pay off the layaways and take a trip into Kansas City with Sharon and the boys for more Christmas shopping.
Christmas 1964
This would be the first Christmas that I would be able to celebrate with my wife and boys since I’d left for Alaska. This year Christmas fell on a Friday, and the Air Force squadron shut down operations on Tuesday, December 22nd, giving us a few days off before the Christmas weekend. Billy took the whole week off at the station, letting Randall run the day shifts, with me coming in to work the nights until the 24th, when the station would be closed until Saturday.
I heard from John that the SPO club had made an emergency appeal to have the Goldtones play both Christmas Eve and Christmas night when most of the single petty officers (and some who had families without kids or family in the area) wanted to have a place to hang out and be entertained. At first, I objected, because I had been so looking forward to spending the holiday at home with Sharon and the boys and watching them open the many gifts that we’d gone into hock for. But when John mentioned that the club was so desperate that they were willing to double our nightly fee for both nights, I found it hard to turn down.
Of course, my thinking was that with the extra money and my reenlistment bonus we would be in really good financial shape entering 1965. All I had to do now was break the news to Sharon. I figured she’d be a bit upset, but I had confidence that I’d be able to bring her around to my way of thinking, especially when I surprised her with my plans to drive into Kansas City for a giant Christmas buying spree. I was also going to tell her that she could clothing shop for herself to her heart’s content. She was always so embarrassed that she didn’t have nice clothes—as most of our money went to clothe the boys.
As expected, she did not take the news that our band was booked very well. But her initial anger and disappointment soon faded away as we got closer to our planned shopping spree.
On December 23rd, 1964, we got up early, fed and bathed the boys, and piled into the Dart for our giant shopping spree in Kansas City. The day before, I had gone to the NAS Credit Union and withdrawn seven hundred dollars to get our stuff out of layaway, and to fund any new purchases we made that day. I gave Sharon three hundred and fifty dollars in crisp bills for her to put into her purse. She looked at the money and made a cute little giggling sound as she stuffed the bills into her little wallet. She reached out and pulled me towards her, giving me an uncharacteristically hard and amorous hug.
“I love you, honey.” She whispered into me ear and she gave me a peck on the cheek.
I hugged her back and told her I loved her too.
It was a beautifully clear and cold day, and our excitement was at its peak as we drove onto Interstate 35 North heading for the big city. We’d planned to have lunch somewhere in Kansas City after our shopping, and then maybe even take in a matinee movie before we headed back to Gardner.
About ten o’clock, while looking for a parking lot to leave our car, we pulled up to a red light at the corner of 11th and Grand Avenue. As the light turned green and I began to carefully accelerate through the intersection, the car made a low grinding noise and stopped its forward movement. The engine raced as if the transmission had shifted into neutral, and we coasted to a slow stop. Traffic behind me began to impatiently pass me by, a few drivers tapping their horns in their frustration.
No amount of gear shifting would make the engine engage, and soon I smelled the greasy odor of burning oil. Because we were going up a slight incline in the street, as soon as I released the brake we would begin to roll backward. Finally, I just let the car’s inertia roll us slowly backward and I pulled into a parallel parking spot on the curb.
After I shut off the engine, I got out and popped open the hood. I didn’t have a clue what to look for so I just stared at the giant air cleaner and wondered what had happened. I looked to my right and I saw an Amoco gas station on the corner with a sign that read, “Auto Towing & Repair”.
Gesturing to Sharon to stay in the car I sprinted across the intersection and walked into the station. The attendant, who just so happened to be the owner, said he had been watching me and asked if I’d run out of gas.
After explaining to him what had happened, he agreed to tow my car to his station for only $25, and then diagnose my problem. I objected to the price, pointing out that he would be towing my car across just one street—a total of about fifty feet. He crossed his arms, almost covering his embroidered name tag that said “Roy”.
He asked me if I had any other ideas. Admitting that I didn’t, I agreed to his outrageous offer and went back to the car while he pulled his big white tow truck out of the garage and across the street.
After sitting uncomfortably in the chilly gas station for over an hour, Roy came back in with his diagnosis.
“Looks like you blew the transmission.”
“Transmission?” I asked, a bit confused. “How could that be, the car only has twenty-five thousand miles. It’s practically brand new.”
“Don’t know about that son, but I’m telling you your transmission is shot.”
“Well, can you fix it?”
“Nope! Can’t be fixed. It’ll have to be replaced.”
“What?”
“Yup, the whole thing.”
“What’s that gonna cost?”
“Oh, I figure I can get you a rebuilt for…um…two or three hundred dollars, depending on what model you’re running. Then about a hundred for the installation labor.”
“Four hundred dollars?”
“More or less, yeah. But I won’t know for sure until I run the serial number on your transmission to see what model it is. Then, I’ll have to check to see if anyone in town has one of those in stock.”
I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. Four hundred dollars? That was practically all the money we had!
“So, what do you say? Want me to start calling around?”
I looked at Sharon and she had the saddest look on her face that I’d ever seen. “What do you think, honey?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know Frank. I just don’t know.”
In the end I agreed, and told Roy to start the search.
After about thirty minutes he walked back into the little station office.
“Well, it’s worse than I thought. But I do have some good news.”
“Really?” I said, dejectedly.
“Yup. That transmission is what they call a ‘Police Interceptor’ model…and it ain’t cheap. The good news is that I managed to locate one…found it in Overland Park, and I can get it delivered here in about an hour, or so. The bad news is that it’ll cost you quite a bit more; given that it’s rare and a bit more complicated to install than a stock transmission.”
“How much more?”
“Oh, I think an even six-hundred will cover everything. That’ll include the tow and the transmission delivery charge.”
My heart sank, and I just wanted to cry. Six hundred dollars! The exact amount of my reenlistment bonus that I had just received about six days ago. I dared not look at Sharon, but I could feel the tension in the room.
“Well…I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I finally said.
“Not if you want drive that car you don’t.”
So, I reluctantly told him to go ahead and proceed with the repairs.
As he was walking out the side door into the garage, he stopped.
“Did you say that car only had about twenty-five thousand miles on it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I doubt that. Police cars aren’t taken out of service until they have well over a hundred thousand miles on ‘em.”
“Police car? What do you mean? I didn’t buy the car from the police department. I got it from Lou Werner!”
“Who?”
“Lou Werner! He’s a private dealer who lives in Kearney!”
“Well son, pardon my saying so, but that old boy sold you a bill of goods. That car is…was some type of police car; maybe highway patrol or something. Didn’t you notice the paint discoloration on the car’s top? That’s where the red police light was mounted. Whoever took it off tried to refinish the area to hide where the light was, but didn’t do too good of a job. Plus, the over-sized tires, the huge engine…what did you think you were buying?”
“I don’t know…”
“So how many stock Dodge Darts do you know of that have 300 horsepower engines in them?”
“I…I don’t know…”
“Oh,” he finally said, just before he turned away to walk back into the garage, “The car’s odometer does read twenty-five thousand miles, all right. But, that’s because it’s on its second time around. That car most likely has a hundred and twenty-five-thousand miles on it. I’d bet my life on that! Plus, sorry to tell you this, but that whole car ain’t worth more’n five hundred dollars…new transmission or not.”
To be continued…