Silver Bay Christmas - 1960

House on Banks Blvd.  Fourth Grade.

My white blouse is initialed with "N" for my child nickname, Narta.  Later, in the spring, I get a "Ben Casey" blouse - named for one of the two popular TV doctors.  The other famous TV doctor is my favorite, Dr. Kildare. 

Not sure, but I may be gazing at a new Silvertone transistor radio, still in its plastic wrapper. 

On the floor is my new chemistry set, chosen from the Wish Book, also known as the Sears Christmas catalog.  It includes a microscope!  Through its lens I look at strands of my hair and leaves from Mom's African violet.

I've never been that interested in science, but my teacher Mrs. Munson read us a book about Madame Curie and her work with radium.  And thanks to the Campton Library I've read Landmark biographies about Alexander Graham Bell, Luther Burbank and George Washington Carver.  Science is interesting again.

It's the Cold War.  President Kennedy, just elected, wants our country to have more scientists in the future.  Maybe I can be one of them...  

SILVER BAY, 1958-1959, Second Grade

I am in second grade.  My teacher is Mrs. Sarf.  She's big and tall. Sometimes she scares me.

I'm learning to spell.  Some days we stand around the room in single file.  Mrs. Sarf says a word and when it's our turn we have to spell it out loud.  Sometimes two words sound the same but mean different things and are not spelled the same.  Did you know a slice of pie is spelled "piece" of pie?  But at Christmas  when you hear "peace on earth, good will to men" it's not spelled like piece of pie?

At the beginning of the year Daddy and I walk to the public library.  It's really close to our house.  It's in a green building.  The police office is in the same building.  The library is on the end near Banks Blvd.  Daddy gets a library card.  I look at all the books in the children's section. There are a lot of books to read.

One day I find a book on the library shelf that is the same book we have in our desk at school!   It's for when we do science.  But we don't take the book out of our desk much.  I have Daddy check it out for me. I read the whole thing.  It's easy because it's mostly pictures of birds and stuff. 

I can't wait until the day when we have "show and tell."  I have something to talk about.  The girl in my class who knew how to spell piece and peace reads a lot and is smart.  She might want to know about the public library in the green building.  For "show" I bring the science book from the library.

My teacher doesn't like my "show and tell." I want to sink through the floor when she is mad at me in front of my friends.  She calls my house.  I should not take out any of my school books from the public library. I will be bored at school if I read those books at home. That's what she tells my mom.   I thought my mom would be scared of my teacher, too.  But she's not.  Mom tells my teacher it's my teacher's job to make sure I'm not bored at school.  And it's good thing I like books.

Although we rarely used our science book, one spring day we take a "science field trip."  We walk to our teacher's house.  Her husband trapped a beaver.  The beaver's skin is stretched out on a board.  The little feet are in a small cardboard box on the lawn.

Science wasn't just pictures of pretty birds and animals. I learned more about that later in high school -  when we dissected fetal pigs in biology class. Oh, the smell of formaldehyde...

HUMOR ABUSE AT THE MARK TAPER FORUM

LORENZO PISONI’s HUMOR ABUSE AT THE MARK TAPER FORUM

 In past years the word clown is often used as an insult – to describe a few people who make life miserable for the many.

 
However, I say it’s time to support and cheer the true clown!  True clowns make us laugh until we cry… in a healing way.  I witnessed such a clown at the Mark Taper Forum last week in the one-clown show HUMOR ABUSE.

Lorenzo Pisoni made the audience laugh, taught us about clownery, and shared stories about his father, their relationship and the days when, as a child, he was his father’s clown partner... As with many father/son stories, these times together are not always fun.  So, yes, the evening was sad, too. 

 
BUT, much of the evening was belly laugh time when you feel the surge of naturally-occurring chemicals in your own mind and body lift your spirit.  
 
I was upset when the Taper delayed WHAT THE BUTLER SAW to next season. I’d looked forward to seeing it because I’d played Geraldine in summer stock.  It’s a great farce with lots of laughs.  BUT the replacement show seemed like a dream come true for me… it was the medicine I needed to keep me working on my stories about clown dog Pebbles.  Last December I published A CLOWN DOG’S CHRISTMAS, the first of what I hope to be three books about Clown Dog Pebbles, Master Clown Beppo and their friends. There's nothing like a good play to ignite my creative self.

What the world needs now are clowns are more clowns.  I’m talking about those special ones who, with good hearts and comic talent, create pure joy.

 

Cheers and thanks to the wonderful LORENZO PISONI.

HUMOR ABUSE plays until Nov. 3 at the Taper in Los Angeles.

If it comes to your area, see it. 

Children's Theatre in the Campton Gym

Oh, how I wish I had a photo or program from the first play I ever saw.  It was in the Campton Gym where, even before the dance recital on its stage (written about in a previous blog), I experienced a production of PINOCCHIO.  For me, a life-changing event.

During that school year, 1956-57, most students beyond 6^th grade attended classes in houses on Bell Circle.  Seniors (and perhaps juniors also?) rode the bus to the high school in Two Harbors. Kelley High was not yet finished.  And yet, in the midst of what must have been a challenging teaching experience, someone began a drama club and produced a children’s play. I don’t know how or where PINOCCHIO was advertised.  I don’t remember hearing anything about it in class.  Just that one afternoon Daddy drove me to Campton School to “see a play about Pinocchio.”

We sat down on steel folding chairs set in rows on the polished, wood floor facing the stage—on the end of the gym nearest the kindergarten classroom.  I think music played on a phonograph to one side of the gym.  After a few minutes, the lights in the audience faded.  The gold pleated drapes were still shining as they parted in the center and moved slowly to each side.  Geppetto’s workshop stood there before me.

Perhaps there weren’t any boys interested in the Drama Club. A girl named Francine Williams played Pinocchio’s creator and father, Geppetto. The following Sunday I was thrilled to recognize the actress when I was leaving my church after Sunday school.  She was walking toward the church for the morning service.  She was with her mother, later my high school Home Ec teacher.  I stared at Francine as we passed each other on the cement walkway.  I wish I dared say something about her wonderful performance.

Last month I was in London for vacation, with a two-day side-trip to Stratford-upon-Avon.  Walking down Stratford’s Chapel Street I passed a group of uniformed boys— probably students of the old, prestigious King Edward VI grammar school which is right in the middle of town.  Seeing these boys I couldn’t help but think how different it would be to attend school in a village with all that history about you.  A quick check on the internet tells me that the original charter of Stratford-upon-Avon dates from 1196.  What a different perspective it must be to grow up in a village with all those Shakespearean reminders around than in a brand new town like Silver Bay.

In Stratford we saw two plays. One was a new children’s play titled ROBIN HOOD'S HEART with Marion as a funny, swashbuckling heroine.  Parents and grandparents in the audience probably all worried that the production might occasionally be too gruesome for young people.  I know I did.  But the children in the audience laughed at the slapstick, cheered the hero and heroine, and booed enthusiastically at dastardly King John and the evil Nottingham sheriff. Some girls that looked about twelve wept at the end when Robin and Marion, on trapeze, gazed at each other with rapt fairy tale true love.  And I remember how I also cried in the gym of Campton School in Silver Bay as Pinocchio and Geppetto were reunited, and Pinocchio became a real boy.  A life-changing event.  My journey to Shakespeare’s home town began that day, when Daddy took me to see that play about Pinocchio.

One Reason I Love the Beatles

In early January, 1964, someone tapped on Mr. Zinter's math classroom door to deliver a message from the school office.  My mother had called the school to ask if I could be excused early.  My eighty-three-years-old grandfather was in the hospital.  

Mom and I packed the car and we picked up Daddy at the gate of Reserve Mining when he got off work at three that afternoon.  We drove down to Minneapolis, stopping only for gas. During most of the trip I was squeezed in the front seat of our 1962 Chevy Bel Air between my parents, but I couldn’t seem to get warm.

Between my grandparents’ house and Deaconess Hospital Mom pulled into the parking lot of a Minneapolis Red Owl Supermarket.  There was a payphone on the pavement just outside the store.  I stayed in the car while Mom and Daddy tried to contact one of Mom’s sisters, my grandma or the hospital.
It was a cold winter night. The key was left in the ignition so the heater would stay on.
I turned on the radio and fiddled with the knob for a clear signal.  The station I found was playing a song that I had never heard before.  I stared at the radio.  What was this music? The deejay answered my question as the soon as the final chord ended.  He said it was I Want to Hold Your Hand.  He said it was by a British band, the Beatles.

Grandpa died in his room at Deaconess Hospital the afternoon after we arrived.  His funeral was several days later.

I never saw my Grandma, a stoic Dane, cry at the hospital, at her home, or at the mortuary.  At Deaconess Hospital A nurse whispered to my Aunt Florence that Grandma’s poise and self-control made her “just like Jackie Kennedy.” President Kennedy's assassination had occurred less than two months earlier.  

At Grandma’s house, when I was by myself, I would switch on my celery-green Sears Silvertone transistor radio, aching until I heard the Beatles sing that song again.

"Let's Twist Again" - Silver Bay's Malt Shop, 1961-63

Until the Malt Shop moved in, the brick, split-level Norshor building was home to professionals. As I recall it, the credit union took up the greater part of its square footage.  The town’s lawyer and optometrist had offices in the Norshor.  Also my dentist. Occasionally, the building boasted a beauty parlor.

No need for these small business persons to worry that non-client young people were going to clog their hallways.  Instead of going in the main entrance that faced Outer Drive, a sign directed all Malt Shoppers to a side door. From that entry we walked down a half-flight of stairs to the partly underground, lower floor of the building.

A wall divided the Malt Shop into two halves.  Both rooms were floored, as was the rest of the building, in twelve-inch vinyl in swirled toffee and white. First you entered the room that had the soda fountain and a long counter with stools that were against the wall that bisected the space. There were also tables and chairs in the room, but Denise and I usually sat at the counter as we’d done at the Carmel House (in previous blog)

Denise and I, fifth-graders, gave up our Carmel House sundaes when the malt shop opened. On our first visit Denise recommended a strawberry phosphate — flavored syrup with charged water, and that became my usual.  If we heard one of our songs coming through the doorway of the other adjoining room, we downed our fizzy concoctions like thirsty fishermen with a cooler of cold ones.     

A quarter in the juke box bought three songs.  If I still had a quarter after buying my phosphate, I would pick Dion’s “The Wanderer, “Travelin’ Man” by Ricky Nelson and something with twist or twistin’ in the title. 

The teens on the dance floor had more change in their pockets than those of us still in grade school. They kept the music going. Before long one of them would  select Chubby Checker’s “Limbo Rock.”   Two kids would pick up a broom that was always nearby and hold it horizontally, ever lower, above the floor.  Kelley High students didn’t even object when Campton kids joined the limbo line and took our turn bending underneath. “How low can you go…?”  In my case not too low, and was quickly eliminated.  I preferred to “…twist again like we did last summer.”

The Malt Shop in the Norshor Building closed about two years after it had opened.  A second malt shop on Outer Drive, newly-constructed, one-room affair was built next to the outdoor skating rink mostly as a hang-out for people to warm up and order a bowl of chili or a cup of cocoa.

I rarely visited this new place. With its windows overlooking the rink, it was bright on a sunny day.  On gloomy days, or at night, it was lit-up by overhead fluorescent. There wasn’t a whit of danger – not like the dim dance floor of the Norshor basement.

Something about the Silver Bay Carmel House

Denise Manzer and I were great friends during fifth grade, both in Mrs. Jauhola's class at Campton.

Denise Manzer

Mrs. Jauhola's Fifth Grade, Campton School

I mostly remember cleaning out the sink in the back of the room, near the lockers. Seems we had a lot of messy art projects in Mrs. J's class.  Most of her students would probably remember a long, long project involving papier mache and dinosaurs.

But, on to the Carmel House.... Sometimes on Saturdays, after watching SKY KING and ROY ROGERS, I'd go down to Denise Manzer's house on Charles Circle. (Across Banks and only a few houses away since I was on Banks near the corner of Charles.)  Denise and I would walk uptown and mosey into the Carmel House.  We'd sit at the counter. When the waitress came, one of us would say, “A hot fudge sundae, please."  The other girl would say, “I’ll have the same.  With a glass of water, please.” Then, first girl, "I'll have a glass of water, too."  Our ice cream would come in stemmed tulip-shaped, parfait glasses with  whipped cream (Reddi-whip?) and a maraschino cherry on top. Denise and I would plop down a whole quarter - each - to pay for the treats.  I'm guessing this ritual lasted for maybe five or six Saturdays.  And then… the Silver Bay Malt Shop opened!  And I'm talking 'bout the first one, in the Norshor Building... "I'll have a strawberry phosphate, please."

My Journey from Frail Girl to Lady Golfer

Writing brings awareness - I'm not the first person to think, say or write this.  However... after dealing with my girlish fear of the trampoline in a previous post, I now realize that too often I still see myself as that weak little girl being teased by boys on the playground and in gym class.

Before the Dance

The photo above was taken a few years earlier than the trampoline horrors. I'm standing in a hallway at Campton Elementary prior to a dance recital in the gym - same gymnasium that would provide great cultural experiences but frightful phy ed classes.

Now this is how I prefer to think of myself - hitting one of my best tee shots ever.  Photo was taken by my nephew Erik at a course at Camarillo, CA, towards the coast, about 50 minutes away from our house in Hollywood. 

 

It's only when it comes to my athletic abilities, or lack thereof, that I wish that I had brothers and/or gone to school after 1972's Title IX.    Golf was the first sport I ever tried except for a few months of tennis one summer in high school.  To take up your first sport in your forties has been a challenge - physically, yes, but the mental image of becoming an athlete may be the greatest hurdle.

 

The Campton Gym and the Virginia Reel

So in my previous blog I admitted my horror at seeing the trampoline set up in the Campton Gymnasium.  And I admitted my ineptitude and looking like a fool.  However... the boys also faced days of fear and loathing in gym class.  For making fun of poor little men on the trampoline, they met their nemesis and it was called the Virginia Reel.

Oh, what sad male faces I witnessed those days when we walked into the gym to discover the record player plugged into an electrical socket and the boys learned we weren't going to be running around the perimeter of the gym with Chicken Fat on the turntable.  Oh, no.  We were about to tackle the basics of folk dancing.   On those days the boys, forced to touch and maybe even hold hands with girls, were miserable indeed.  Ah, for me, who loved dancing, revenge was sweet.

The Campton Gym and Phy Ed Class

This morning's paper prompted my returning to that micro universe of my young life - the Campton Gym.  In the past I've chatted about events in that gym: a dance recital, seeing the movie Hemo the Magnificent, a shot clinic.  Today today I'll actually talk about the gym as a place for physical education classes.

In today's Los Angeles Times, page 7, I read this headline: "American just keeps getting fatter, new study says."

This is not a new concern.  In the 1950s President Eisenhower established the President's Council on American Fitness. The next president, John Kennedy, also a veteran, was a big supporter of this council. For those of you in gym class in the early 60s, you may remember a song with the lyrics, "Go Chicken Go."  Sometimes Mr. Gere our teacher would plop the Chicken Fat Song onto the turntable in the Campton Gym.  This song was written as part of the presidential program to get kids moving. Kennedy believed it American children should compete with the Soviets in physical strength as well as science.  

Above is from the cover of a booklet providing guidance for fitness. I found the picture on a website for JFK's Presidential Library.


I hope to write more about gym class in the future - the good, the bad and the ugly.  But for now, I'll leave you with lyrics from Meredith Willson's song, "Push ups, every morning.  Ten times.  Not just, now and then...  Go you chicken fat, go..."

My Poor, Lonely Violin

Last blog was about music and I'll stay with that subject today.

In fourth grade I began violin lessons.  Ah, here my memory fails.  I can't remember my string teacher's name.  But I was in Mrs. Mattson's class.  Here's a photo I posted in a previous blog.

(That's me in the middle of the first row, between Terry Skog and Harold Varney. )

My first string recital was another Campton Gym experience.  The old Campton Gym -  I realize now that in my childlife the Campton Gymnasium was a universe unto itself. There on one end of the gym was the raised stage where I saw my first play, PINOCCHIO.    And there I danced with other little girls who were students of Mrs. Baum (a topic of previous blog entry). For this string recital of beginning players I believe we joined with string students of Mary MacDonald.   I still possess music from the recital - hand-written and then run off a ditto machine.  So faded that I can't scan, still readable although about 50 years old.  The music on this sheet music includes Aunt Julida's Polka and the Merry Widow Waltz. 

My first violin was a small one, a 3/4 size.  Before long I was ready for a full-sized violin.
And here it is, my second violin, newly stringed, but lonely indeed.

I played violin from 4th grade until the final week of senior year.  That was it.  I stopped. Now I long to play it again.  Playing again, even minimally, will require time, practice, dedication, probably lessons and also enormous patience.   In short, it will be a challenge, and one I'm sure to write about another day.

Music Matters

I suspect this is the first of many essays about music experiences in Silver Bay. 


First of all, I'll start with the music classes we had in elementary school because the other day I found myself singing Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot while doing dishes.  No idea why that popped into my head.  But I do know when and where it came from - classes with Miss Godich (or Goddich?) at Campton Elementary School.  How lucky that we had vocal music classes in elementary school - maybe 2 or 3 sessions a week. And music books.  Besides a handful of old spirituals like Chariot I recall learning folk songs about the Erie Canal and that sweet gal Betsy from Pike.


But one of the first songs I remember learning from Miss Godich was "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical CAROUSEL.  "When you walk through a storm hold your head up high..."  Do you think we realized we were singing about more than a winter blizzard?  Maybe we did.  Miss G. was an awfully good teacher. About that same time she taught us a three-part round with three simple words - in Latin.  Dona Nobis Pacem. 

Until next time... give us peace.

A Bit about Julie London

So when the alarm rang a few mornings ago at 6:30A - the alarm being an I-pod set to shuffle - we woke to Holly Cole singing "Don't Smoke in Bed" from her album of the same title.  Ms. Cole is a Canadian chanteuse - kind of jazzy a times, sings with a small combo, a song stylist.

Anyway, what does Holly Cole have to do with Julie London?  Both are singers let's start with that.  Some people may only know Julie London as Dixie McCall on the TV series EMERGENCY, 1972-76.  I didn't see many episodes of that show.  As far as TV,  I remember her television commercials for cigarettes. Thanks to my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. F., I gleaned that the lady had, let us say, sex appeal!

In 1964-65, eighth grade for me, cigarettes were still advertised on TV.  Memory failure here - I recall Miss London wearing a long, satin gown and standing by a piano.  Internet research tells me she was wearing a tight sweater and standing by beside a warm, inviting fireplace.  Anyway, she was a curvaceous beauty with an ample bust line.  In a low, breathy voice she pitched the glamour of Marlboro (quite a contrast to the Marlboro man).

Now to my eighth grade English teacher.  Mr. F. was an ex-marine (a veteran of Korean war maybe?), a football coach and a very big man.  On occasion he'd reveal his softer side.  He'd perch on the front edge of his teacher's desk and, propping his feet on the seat of a chair which he'd pulled there for that reason, share anecdotes.  He was relaxed and chatted as if talking to his buddies.  Sometimes the stories were about his days as a Marine. Occasionally these stories led to him murmuring... "Julie London..." as we students of English sat there rapt and engaged.  A vibration filtered through the classroom.  "Julie London...," he'd repeat and then draw imaginary smoke into his lungs from a cigarette I could almost believe was in his hand.  "Julie London... what a babe."

At some point we had a music cassette of one of her albums.  And on it was "Don't Smoke in Bed" which always evoked the memory of Mr. F.  Alas, the cassette melted in a glove compartment.  But I learned today that the song is available for download on her album Around Midnight and feel compelled to buy it.  The song was written by Willard Robison and has been recorded by many a songstress including KD Lang, Peggy Lee, Liza Minelli and Nina Simone.

Other trivia I gleaned from internet search: 
Miss London's work included 32 albums.
She died in 2000 in Encino, northern part of Los Angeles, and is buried in Forest Lawn next to her musician husband Bobby Troup (he wrote the fabulous and famous song Route 66).  Ms. London and Troup were both cast members on EMERGENCY!  The show was produced by Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame), Julie London's first husband.

Oh, and don't smoke in bed.  Don't smoke at all!

HEMO THE MAGNIFICENT

Awhile ago I wrote about my hometown not having a movie theatre and that sometimes we watched old movies at the Kelley High auditorium on weekends - sponsored by the Letterman's club, the Science Club, Future Teachers, etc. to raise money.

Today I'll write a few words about  Hemo the Magnificent.   After a too-large meal, or when I'm over-tired by too much exercise (a rare experience), or when I'm just trying to do to many things at one time - I flash on the picture of a frantic telephone switchboard operator in my brain.  The image comes from Hemo.  Each year - 4th, 5th and 6th grades (early 1960s) we sat on the polished floor of the Campton Gym to view this movie.  For those who haven't seen it, it's a funny and educational film about the working of the human body - particularly the heart.  It's a combination of live action and animation - I would say a film way ahead of its time. 

A few years ago I put the title into the Amazon search site.  I learned it was released on videotape in 1991.   Reading some of the reviews that had been posted on the site, I  learned that  Campton was not alone in showing this movie so often - that baby boomers across the country viewed Hemo the Magnificent at their schools multiple times - and loved it.  


 

Another Vacation in Minnesota

In the last blog I wrote about Brainerd and its park devoted to lumberjack Paul Bunyan. I wish I had a photo of my mom during our visit to Brainerd.  She probably wore a dress.  I think the picture below was taken on a vacation only a few years earlier.

We were at a gift shop - a Trading Post - somewhere near Aitken or Deerwood.  I would guess my youngest sister snapped the photo which would date it in the spring or summer of 1959, before or just after Karen graduated and moved to Minneapolis.

I think this was the place where Mom suddenly caught sight of a ceramic ashtray souvenir - it was shaped like a coiled rattlesnake.  Like Indiana Jones, Mom has phobia when it comes to snakes (ophidiophobia).   Seeing this "snake" Mom let out a scream.  Karen and I were in another aisle of the gift shop at the time. Leaving Mom in the care of my dad, we aimed straight for the door and went outside, pretending not to know that crazy lady.


Now back to the dress.  It wasn't just June Cleaver.  Moms wore dresses back then.  A photo in an earlier blog shows my mom on our Harris Farm, in a dress while wrangling some goats.

Paul Bunyan, a Ghost of Minnesota Travels Past

Weather's in the 80s this week.  The tomatoes are planted in our little patch.  So I decided to take a memory trip to  summers past.

I do believe the old Paul Bunyan Amusement park has come and gone.  Relocated elsewhere in or near Brainerd, I believe.  Can it be as wonderful as the park I remember?  I don't know how he did it, but Paul B. actually knew me by name!! And me with such an unusual name, too.  But then, he was the hero of tall tales.

Here I am on a statue of Mr. Bunyan's dog.  The dog obviously got in the way of some tree felling and was unluckily sewn together by someone who needed to pay more attention in Home Ec class.

I would guess the photo was taken in the summer of 1960 or 61.

Besides Paul's hearty welcome, my strongest memory regards a talented chicken.  It shared its cage with a tiny piano. If you put a nickel in a slot, corn was released through a shoot into the pen.  The chicken, now paid, would play for you.  Nothing fancy, of course.  The hen's repertoire, no doubt, was small.

By the way, can anyone tell me the name of Paul's doggie???

A Bit of History - 1966

Looking through my scrapbook and box of memorabilia for a blog topic I came across a photo torn from an issue of the Silver Bay News.  What I found interesting, though, was not the picture. (It was a photo of my United Protestant youth group).  Because of all the attention on Medicare this year, what caught  my attention was the news article on the reverse side of the paper.

I folded the paper to include a scan of date but it's hard to read.  It's March 16, 1966.  Basically it's an article to inform people over 65 that they can sign up for the new Medicare program in Two Harbors, at the Iron Dock Hall.  The official beginning of Medicare: July 1, 1966.

The Class of 1969 was in 9th grade.  My classmates will remember that few people in Silver Bay at that time who were over 65.  My dad was older than many fathers in our class, 40 when I was born, and only 54 in 1966.

After a few minutes of historical research I can offer you a few other 1966 tidbits:

Oscar for Best Picture:  SOUND OF MUSIC

Grammy for Best Record:  A TASTE OF HONEY/Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

First Episode of STAR TREK: September 8
(This same year CBS decided to pull a broadcast of Hitchcock's film PSYCHO because of excessive violence)

Boston defeated the LA Lakers. (I rarely watch basketball but I do live in L.A. and it's NBA playoff time. The Lakers won last night.  I saw some of the second half of the fourth quarter.)

All for today.  Next time: articles from another newspaper, the SILVER SCROLL.

Something about the Silver Bay Laundromat

I realized yesterday that I had this photo saved in my cell phone memory.

Yes, it's an old vending machine.  I saw it at Famous Dave's in St. Paul, not far from the airport.  Bill and I were stopping by last summer for food to take to my mom's.   I am almost sure it's the same candy machine that was in the S.B. laundromat.  In seventh grade, when I lived on Banks Blvd., I was two doors away from Sue Elam. The two of us would walk together most days, up to Kelley and back. After school we often strolled into Malmo's Drug to buy penny candy (2 pieces of licorice for 1 cent).  For a nickel that spring of 1964 we could buy bubble gum that had a Beatles card inside the wrapper (still have those cards).

But, occasionally, Susie and Narta would go to the laundromat instead of Malmo's.  The candy vending machine there sometimes had Forever Yours as one of the selections - a candy bar only available at Malmo's or grocery stores in the 6-bar variety pack (with Snickers and Milky Way?).  But more exciting were those afternoon visits to the laundromat when, in one of the little windows of that vending machine, we saw a piece of paper with a hand-written note that said:  "TAKE A CHANCE."  Some days, willing to live with risk, one of us would drop a whole dime into the machine and take that chance.  And, with luck, we'd get a stack of Rollos!

Update:  Sue has reminded me of our other favorite "take a chance" candy bar, ZERO.  Read her comment below.

Fall 1968 - Kelley High School's Cross Country Champs

In previous blog I wrote that I have in my possession a scrapbook of senior year, 1968-1969.  Here's a scan from a Duluth newspaper article I saved dated Sunday, Sept. 22, 1968.

From left toe right:  Ron Rude, Mike Hanson, Randy Rolando, Larry Sornberger, Jim Koehler, Bob Fedderly and Steve Whittaker.

More about Movies at Kelley

I wish I could include a visual aid here.  In my senior scrapbook (yes, I kept and still have a senior scrapbook) I possess a piece of paper that advertises the showing of "Forbidden Planet" on Saturday, April 19, 8PM in the Kelley auditorium.  The ad was printed by hand except for a paragraph at the bottom which was photocopied from the film catalog.  The single sheet was then copied on a ditto machine. Ah, the fresh ditto paper.  I can almost smell it.  Anyway, the print is so light purple now I can't do a readable scan.  The film's stars are Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen.

The question is why would I keep such an item?  On the top I have handwritten a message to myself:  "Have this... WHY?"  No idea when I might have penciled this note. I would guess at least 3 decades ago. Haven't looked at this scrapbook in at least that long.

I have a dim memory of seeing "Forbidden Planet" at Kelley. Here are some other films I remember seeing there:

THE TIME MACHINE (Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimeux. Must have been popular.  Seems like I saw it at least 3 times at Kelley.)

WHERE THE BOYS ARE (A favorite. Also with Ms. Mimeux, I think. It's still not available on Netflix and I don't think copies are available.  I wonder why. Summer break in Florida.  Some funny stuff and also very serious.  Paulette Prentiss is in it.  I loved her.  The lead actress later gave up Hollywood and became a nun.)

BUTTERFIELD 8 (with Elizabeth Taylor. Mentioned that in previous post)

FLUFFY (Comedy with Tony Randall before the Odd Couple.  He has a pet lion that scares everybody.)


OPERATION PETTICOAT (I still like this Cary Grant movie.  All those bras being stuffed into torpedoes, remember?)

To my fellow S.B. graduates:  if you remember seeing any other movies, please leave a comment!  I do realize we weren't always there to watch the movies. When you're a teenager there's nothing like a dark theater... even if it is the school auditorium.