Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
On the Jetpack app, it give suggestions for blog post. One was about a favorite childhood book. I had several favorites. One of them was Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. I also loved the Curious George books and a large Richard Scary book. Later I like Encyclopedia Brown & Beverly Cleary’s books. I decided that I had to write about one book that may have inspired this novel.
The book is a Golden shape book entitled BATMAN & ROBIN: From Alfred to Zowie.
This book was first publish in 1966 at the height of Batmania. Written by Ruthanna Thomas and illustrated by Tom Gill, this book captures the feel of the 1966 TV series.
As I have mentioned on this webpage before, I listen to the music of the point in time that this novel takes place. Part of the novel revolves around Mykel becoming an intern at the popular Top 40 radio station, K-I-L-L.
I have made several playlist for my iPod and Spotify of the hits of that era. I love this music. This was the music I was introduced to as a youngster through my older sister’s record collection, radio shows like Dick Bartley’s Solid Gold Saturday Night and Live From the 60s (hosted first by Gary Owens & later The Real Don Steele), and endless “golden oldie” record commercials that permeated afternoon reruns. I developed a deep love for it.
I have done extensive research for this novel and the playlist to go along with it by looking at old chart listings from Cashbox, Radio & Records, and Billboard, as well as weekly charts given away local radio station. This way I get both the good and bad of that year.
Now, as I said, I enjoy listening to many of these songs. However, there is one I don’t like because it has to be the most depressing song of that year. It is called “What Now My Love” by Sonny & Cher. The song was originally a French song “Et maintenant” (translation “And now my love”) by Gilbert Becaud and Pierre Delanoe. As a personal aside, I find that most songs written by French male song writers are depressing (Charles Aznavour’s “Yesterday When I Was Young” & Jacques Brel’s “Seasons In the Sun”). The exception is “Je T’Amie…Moi Non Plus” by Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin (I love hearing Jane Birkin’s moaning and heavy breathing).
The first hit version was by Shirley Bassey, before she hit big internationally with the theme from Goldfinger, in Britain. There were also versions in 1966 by Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Jim Nabors.
Sonny & Cher had the first Top 40 hit version in January and February. The reason it is so depressing is the lyrics are about a despair so strong that the lyrics mention contemplating suicide. Here is Sonny & Cher’s hit version.
I’m not slamming Sonny & Cher. Unlike Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, I could listen to “I Got You Babe” over and over. I also like “Baby Don’t Go” & “But You’re Mine.” This is also a great recording and they do an outstanding job. The problem is the lyrics.
A few months after their version peaked at Number 14 on Billboard, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass released an upbeat instrumental version. This version is heard more often than the Sonny & Cher version. I prefer this version. Around the same time, the Ramsey Lewis Trio released a similar upbeat instrumental version that is pretty good.
I should point out that Mitch Ryder had a version hit the charts the next year, but I had a hard time finding a version of it on iTunes. It is not on any of his greatest hits compilations.
Many have said the best version was the one by Elvis during his Aloha From Hawaii TV special. Personally, I only like the Herb Alpert and Ramsey Lewis versions because I don’t have to listen to those depressing lyrics.
This post is about a hit love song and a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, but it is not about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
I wanted to post this closer to Valentine’s Day, but I was busy at work (media people rarely get to rest). I was listening to some of the songs that I mention in the chapter, where Mykel and Cint escort Sherry and Kathy to their sorority’s Valentine’s Day dance.
One of the songs I mention that Mykel and Sherry dance to is a song called “Today” by the New Christy Minstrels.
The song was actually from two years before the novel takes place. It peaked on the Billboard Top-40 chart on May 16, 1964, at number 17. It was from a Civil War comedy (?) movie, Advance to the Rear.
This may have been the song that was playing when Mykel tells Sherry he could hold her for “eternity.” She tells him she doesn’t want him to because she drunk too much of the (spiked) punch and she needs to go to the Lady’s Room.
I may have heard the song on an oldies radio station or on an oldies show like Dick Bartley’s Solid Gold Saturday Night or Live From The Sixties with the Real Don Steele, but it never made an impact on me until I went to work at K-T-X-R in Springfield, Missouri in 2000. We were a light A-C radio station and it played on the station often.
Our morning show host, at that time, was a really nice guy and a former Kansas City Chief name Curt “Mother” Merz. Merz HATED that song. He has since passed away, but I wonder if he, in the great beyond, met up with his old gridiron rival Dick Butkis and told him “Getting tackled by you didn’t hurt all that bad, but being forced to hear that song ‘Today’ by New Christy Minstrels – THAT REALLY HURT!”
I have my e-mail on the site, in case a literary agent wants to contact me. Instead, I received an anonymous e-mail, through this site, critical of my writing. They want me to change everything. Granted, these are both rough drafts and not the finished product. My thinking has been that I might take a few suggestions from readers.
Now, I had a problem when I posted some early chapters on Facebook. A former co-work told me not to post anymore of it, because “nobody wanted to read about arrogant radio people” and “geeky references to music and comics.”
This anonymous e-mail really hacked me off. The email address was a Yahoo account with the name LibertyWarrior. I should have known this person was going to be a pain.
Now, if you are an inspiring writer like me, you probably have watched videos by Jenna Moreci & Abbie Emmons. They frequently talk about tropes and cliches. They talk about both good tropes and bad tropes. They also point out there are people who will defend the bad tropes and cliches to the bitter end.
Now let me add another device or theme to be discussed: talking points.
The person who posted this comment wants me to totally overhaul my story to add “talking points” to my novel, so my novel would appeal to “a better class of readers.” Note: the writer of this email DID NOT use the phrase “talking points” but that is what they are.
First off, and not to offend anyone, the writer of this comment started off with, “Greetings and may God bless you and your family.” Now, I should preface this by saying that I was raised and still attend the Church of Christ, but I have found that you should always be suspicious of people who start post or e-mail like this, because usually they either want you to invest in Bitcoin, receive money from a Nigerian prince, or subscribe to their OnlyFans page. I tend to think this might have been sent by some sort of spambot or a troll from another country.
The person said they had read the first chapter and said that Mykel should not be a college professor and work for N-P-R. I should change him to be a nationally syndicated talk radio host. According to the writer of these e-mails, “People don’t like N-P-R. Normal people prefer to listen to talk radio. Mykel would be more likable if he is a talk radio host.”
First off, I feel N-P-R is the one of the gold standards of broadcasting and nobody has a right to argue with me over this because I have a Bachelor of Science in Mass Media. I got my start in radio working at the N-P-R affiliate in Springfield, Missouri (K-S-M-U).
I also would like to teach broadcast history or a media class at a college or university, as Mykel does.
Let me also say this, from the experience of having worked at a talk radio station (against my will) for 25 years, talk radio show hosts are some of the most unlikable people you will ever meet. I’m not kidding they are hard to deal with and all they talk about is the same garbage they talk about on their radio shows. Since I haven’t enjoyed being around some of the talk radio hosts I have been forced to work with, I can’t imagine the sheer torture of being forced to be around Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, Joe Pags, Jimmy Failla, or Buck Sexton & Clay Travis. It would be a hellish nightmare, to say the least.
Lastly, on this subject, “normal people” don’t listen to talk radio. They are all crazy as the proverbial outhouse rat.
The next suggestion this person made was, “Clint should survive and come home where he is spit on by hippies.” This has long been a “talking point” with the talk radio crowd and, when our radio station had a telethon for Honor Flight of the Ozarks, some of the veterans mentioned being spat on. However, this suggestion is not going to be used for one main reason: it defeats the purpose of the plot. Clint’s nephew contacts Mykel because he wanted to know about Clint and Mykel’s exploits as Batman and Robin in Springville, since he has been called the ‘Springville’s Batman.’ If Clint is still living he would have probably already told Dustin about this, so there would be no reason to contact Mykel.
The person also suggested that “Mykel could have Clint on his national radio show and raise awareness of the situation of the veterans of the Vietnam War. This would be a great idea for a story.” It would be good idea for a story, but it is not anything unusual. Even before the boom of talk radio in the 90s, talk radio has been championing the cause of Vietnam vets. As I mentioned, the radio station cluster I work for has been raising money for Honor Flight of the Ozarks for the past four years.
The next suggestion was the beginning of my irritation with this person. “The idea that white kids were friends with black kids in the Sixties is unrealistic. I think you are just putting black people in this story to be woke. Most people would rather read a story about white people only.”
This person lost any credibility with this paragraph (especially when they used the word “woke”). First of all, Clint played on the basketball team with Slick. This was also after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act. I wanted to address this even if it upsets some people, because I think it is an important part of American history.
Speaking of not being aware of American history, another comment from this writer was, “Another bit of woke stupidity is the introduction of an Iranian girlfriend for the geek character. It is absurd to have this character have a girlfriend. They usually don’t have friends, much less a girlfriend, but then you make her from Iran, one of Americas’ enemies.”
Obviously, this person doesn’t realize that at the time this novel takes place Iran was an ally of the United States. The Shah of Iran was frequently a guest at the White House, until he was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic Revolution. From that point on, Iran was not on good terms with the U-S-A. Also, the Shah encouraged women to obtain a college education abroad, whereas after the Islamic Revolution, women were forbidden to attend college, especially in America.
The author of this e-mail did make a complaint that I have heard several times. I may change or alter this in the story. He criticized my use of ALL CAPS for the DJ banter on the radio. This has been a complaint with several readers of my sample chapters, however when I explain it to most people they understand why I am writing it that way. I’m trying to approximate the high energy, brassy, in-your-face sound of Top 40 radio in the 1960’s. I wanted to pay tribute to the great Top-40 radio personalities of that era, such as Wolfman Jack, the Real Don Steele, Dan Ingram, Cousin Brucie Morrow, and Casey Kasem.
Also, “I don’t like the deejay character Mykel works for at his first job. He seems to have big ego. He also mistreeted the lady from the John Birch Society when she came to the radio station. He should not have treated a guest at the radio station they way he did.” Lovable Lance is what I wanted to be as a program director. He does not cave anybody, much less the Birch Society.
Another complaint of the author was the way the kids partied in the dorm. “I can’t believe these kids just drink and eat pizza. Kids in the Sixties took a lot of drugs.” Says who? I know many people who grew up in the 60s who didn’t take drugs. Remember this novel takes place in Southwest Missouri. Drugs did become a major epidemic here until the late 90s, when people learned to make meth at home. When I was in college in the late 80s, you know what we did? Eat pizza and get drunk. I also have, as part of my research, a collection of ads from Katz, Cranks, and Brown Derby for the accurate price of booze in Springfield, Missouri, in 1966, because among college kids, that was the drug of choice.
One thing stuck out to me as I read this: the author of this e-mail has a very low opinion of women. “These girls are too happy and cheerful to be college girls. I understand girls, who attend college are impossible to get along with.” I hate to break it to the author of this e-mail, but I got along better with the girls I attended Missouri State University (then known as S-M-S-U) with than the girls I attended Lebanon High School with. This fallacy has been spread by many of the popular talk radio show hosts over the years. Let me also point out that these talk radio guys all flunked out of college (I can tell from working with talk radio people, who don’t have college degrees, they have an insane hatred of anyone with a college education).
The worst suggestion this person made was this, “I don’t like the cutesy, happy ending involving the college girlfriend becoming a successful businesswoman after working in the television industry. Most women who were in the entertainment industry in the Sixties committed suicide or died by drug and alcohol misadventure. You should kill off the character of Sherry the same way. Mykel should say that he was better off without her and say that if she had been a good girl she would have married Chip and stayed in Knob Noster rather that attending college. Besides nobody like women who are successful. Look at Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris. Nobody likes them.”
This really made me mad! First off, Sherry is based on a college friend whose friendship was very special to me in college. Yes, she is, like Sherry, in the entertainment industry (however she didn’t event hand sanitizer). I could go into more detail about the Sherry character, but I’m just going to point out where this e-mail’s author came up with this dumb ass idea. You can blame this “kill off Sherry” suggestion from a guy whose last name rhymes with “DUMP.” Don’t worry, it’s not who you are thinking of.
It’s a fictional character played by Tom Hanks. I believe the e-mail’s author is part of that weird, little group of people, who are obsessed with the 1994 film Forrest Gump, and in particular have a psychotic hatred for the character of Jenny.
It think this nonsense began with either Rush Limbaugh or Paul Harvey reviewing this movie and saying that Jenny deserved to die at the end. So now, you can find on YouTube and all over social media these nitwits who come up with all of these “theories” on what killed Jenny. I’ve also read some post from these people who believe “God saved Lt. Dan’s life.” This is probably why the email’s writer wants Clint to come home from Vietnam. I think these people are reading too much into this movie.
I decided I would send an email back and ask this person for permission to put the email on the website to address their concerns. Guess what? The emails bounced back. The only response I got was from MAILER-DAEMON.
My theory is this was either:
A former Lebanon High School classmate too cowardly to give their real name.
A former co-worker to cowardly to give their real name.
A troll from a foreign country (It seemed like the author did not speak English).
This was written with A-I by a spambot.
The point is that while unlike tropes and clichés, forcing talking points into a novel, that is almost finished or, at least plotted out, wouldn’t work and would make my novel really depressing.
Julie sat silently, looking at Mykel. She noticed there was a tear in his eye.
“Mykel, in all the years we’ve been married, you’ve never told me about this part of your life. This was quite a little adventure. You stopped a kidnapping, dated a pretty blonde girl and was on a radio station that all the kids listened to, but I can see it is making you pretty emotional. Do you want to stop talking about it?’
“No, since you haven’t heard about this, I’ll keep going,” Mykel answered Julie. “This part of the story is where it gets to be a real downer.”
Julie paused, then said, “What happened after Sherry graduated?”
“Everything happened at once. Mr. Ketner died of a heart attack, then I found out I was behind on my credits to graduate and then, I got the postcards and letters I had sent Sherry back. They were stamped ‘Occupants No Longer Reside at This Address.’ I found the phone number of her house in Knob Noster and called to find it had been disconnected. I wound up calling the Knob Noster Police Department, to see if they knew how I could find Sherry or her family. I knew as small as Knob Noster was, someone had to know where they were. The lady who answered the phone said they moved to California. She thought her father had taken a position with a company that made equipment for hospitals. The lady didn’t know what the name of the company.”
“This sent me into a downward spiral. People didn’t talk about it much in those days, but I guess I had severe depression. I probably wasn’t much fun to be around. Lance never told me whether it hurt the show or not, but for about a month after that I played the Vanilla Fudge version of ‘She’s Not There’ and ‘Andmoreagain’ by Love about every night on my show, along with ‘Nights in White Satin’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’ I could probably talk about all the cliched stuff about what was happening in the rest of the country and the world that year: assassinations, riots, Vietnam, and the election.
“I remember Zela felt sorry for me and set me up on a blind date with a girl from her church. The girl would barely talk to me. Then she asked who I was going to vote for in the election, Richard Nixon or Hubert Humprey. When I told her Hubert Humprey, she threw her coffee in my face. She then told me she was voting for George Wallace. She stomped out to her car and burned rubber out of the parking lot.
“Then there was a girl named Lisa. We had been in a class together at Show-Me State and she worked at Chubby Boy Drive-In. We hit it off because she liked music, and I worked at a radio station. She had great taste in music. She liked the heavy stuff: Cream, Iron Butterfly, Traffic, Steppenwolf, MC-5, Bob Seger System. and Jimi Hendrix. She drove a bright, red, A-M-C Javelin that she and her roommate had painted the words “Peace & Love” on the side in pink letters.
“We started seeing each other the night of the moon landing. The only problem with Lisa was she was being stalked by a truck driver named McGuire. His friends called him Big Mack, which was ironic that a guy named Big Mack was interested in a girl that worked at Chubby Boy. Maybe he just preferred local burger joints,” Mykel paused while Julie laughed at the silly, ‘dad joke’ nature of that statement.
“So, one Saturday night, she came over to my apartment after she got off work. We had got pizza, a six pack of Falstaff, and started to watch Dr. Cadaverine, but he was showing Bowery After Midnight for the umpteenth time, so we decided to put on some music and make-out. She picked out Wheels of Fire by Cream.
“I can’t remember if it was during ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ or ‘Those Were the Days,’ that someone began pounding on the door. I asked who it was, and it was that Big Mack guy. He saw Lisa’s car in the parking lot and decided he was going to “rescue her” from an evil, hippie, radio DJ. She was screaming and clinging to me, telling me not to let him in when he kicked the door open. He was built like King Kong, but in his late 50s or early 60s.
“Lisa was screaming for him to leave her alone. I told him to leave, or I would call the police. He said, ‘I ain’t leaving until she comes with me!’
“Now, I had brought a 22 rife of my grandfathers with me. We had been killing squirrels and moles that were tearing up him and grandma’s garden at his house. I guess after getting Sherry’s cards and letter’s back in the mail, I began taking out my frustrations on those garden critters and getting a little enthusiastic with my killing. Grandpa was worried about me saying had seen men under his command act the same way…especially after another soldier got killed.
“I can’t remember if it was the same day that Grandpa told me I wasn’t really 4-F. You can’t be declared 4-F until you go for an induction. As a general, he pulled strings early on to get me a deferment. I had so many health problems as a kid and because Mom was a widow, he felt I needed to be “the man of the house’ in case something happened to him and Grandma…but back to Lisa’s truck driver friend.
“I grabbed the rifle, which was unfortunately, or maybe fortunately a single shot. First, I smacked him in the head with the stock. That gave me enough time to load a shell. He came toward me, and I shot him…in the foot. He screamed, I reloaded, while he was bent over in pain grabbing his wounded foot. I fired again, this time hitting him in the butt. He was yelling and saying I was crazy. He ran down the hall holding his ass. Lucky for me, he never went to the police, and nobody called the police that night. Me and Lisa didn’t see each other after a few more dates. Like Sherry, she disappeared, and I never saw her again.
“You’ve never told me that you shot some guy!” Julie said.
“Let’s face, my shooting skills were not on the level of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.”
“It sounds more like you learned your shooting skills from the Little Rascals,” Julie began laughing. “Are there any more violent acts that I didn’t know about?”
“I was arrested for assault and battery.”
“Well, tell me about that one,” Julie’s interest peaked.
“One day, our owner, Cal Biggsley, came to town and broke the news to me and Lance that he was putting the radio station up for sale. He was buying another radio station, and the FCC said he had to sell off one of his radio stations. He decided it would be K-I-L-L since he lived in Oklahoma, and we were the only station he had in Missouri. It became a matter of waiting for the shoe to drop.
“One day in 71, we found out that we had been bought by a group of local investors. It was strange, we never were told exactly who they were…no names of who the buyers were, just a company name: Wholesome Radio Incorporated. I knew with a name like that the programming was going to suck.
“A few weeks later, I was doing my show, which I was now calling “The House of Cosmic Debris,” I had just finished playing ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ by the Who, off their new album, and I announced ‘War Pigs’ by Black Sabbath. I had just started it, when I got a call on the private line. The only people who would call on that phone line were Lovable Lance or Mr. Ketner, and I knew it couldn’t be Mr. Ketner. He was dead.
“It was Lovable Lance. He said “Guess what? I just got fired! They also fired T.R, Melinda, Lymon, and Zela. They are probably coming to fire you too. They kept Wally and rehired Bud and Howard. Get this, to take my place they rehired Dick Grimm, the guy that Biggsley punched out when he bought the place. If you want, come over to the Lost City of the Amazon. Me and T.R are getting plastered.”
“I had barely hung up the phone, when I heard a commotion in the lobby. I looked out the glass door of the studio and saw Grimm, Wally, Howard Lowry, and Bud Smith, coming down the hallway toward the studio like those torch wielding villagers coming after the monster in a Frankenstein movie. Being young and slightly stupid, I decided I was not going to put up with any of their nonsense. I would go quietly, if they were reasonable and respectful. Of course, they weren’t.
“Grimm threw open the door of the studio so hard he almost broke the glass out of it. “Turn that noise off!”
“No,” I answered. This was as close to a protest as I got, but I was still ‘defying the Man.’ “During my show, we do not interrupt Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, the Who, or Joe Cocker, and I’ve just added Black Sabbath to that list. Go soak your head until you cool off, old man!”
Grimm tried to take the needle off the record and ended dragging the tone arm across the Paranoid album right about the time Ozzy Osbourne was singing about bodies burning on the battlefield. He then grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and jerked me out of the air chair.
“I’m in charge here now, smart-ass, and you just got yourself fired!”
“So, I did the same thing Cal Biggsley had done to Dick Grimm when he took over the radio station in 1962, I punched him in the face. I didn’t knock him the ground like Cal did, but at least I bloodied his nose. He screamed like baby.
“That is for little, Mary Sue Biggsley!” I said, then I took the record off the turntable, grabbed the other records, and I walked out to my desk in bullpen and got my things out of my desk. The main thing I made sure to get were the photos of Sherry. That was one thing I needed at that moment was to keep the memories of her. Also glad I got those records. All promo copies and one was the Damnation of Adam Blessing LP with ‘Back to the River’ on it, and Sticky Fingers by the Stones, with that real zipper on the cover. The monitor was silent while I got my stuff.
“Then, I heard Wally open the mic and say, “This your old friend, Farm-boy Wally, with a look back at what the weather was like on this day in 1957.” He was reading from that stupid notebook he kept in the studio filled with all of the teletype weather forecast that he had saved since he had been working in radio. If Howard and Bud thought they couldn’t sell rock and roll, they certainly weren’t going to make any sales with Wally reading fourteen-year-old weather forecast.
“I met Lance and T.R in the bar at the Lost City and I had just finished my second Sweet Leilani, when two of Springville’s finest walked in.
“Wonder if they are looking for someone?” T. R said, as he dusted his cigar in the ashtray.
“Mykel, you don’t think they are looking for you, do you?” Lance asked me.
“They might be,” I replied as the officers walked over to where we were sitting at the bar. They were there to handcuff me and take me to headquarters to be questioned. Lance and T. R went to headquarters in case they were needed to bail me out.
They took me into an interrogation room. I was surprised to see Police Chief Carpenter enter the room. I began to think ‘This is serious. I’m going to prison.’ He was carrying a file in his hand. I thought, ‘Oh no! That is that permanent record the teachers in Lemming always told me they were putting all of my infractions in.’
“So, you are the famous Marvelous Mike Daring,” the chief said. “I read your file and discovered you were one of the boys who foiled the kidnapping of Mayor Thomason’s son and future daughter-in-law. You were the one dressed as Robin. Where is Batman?”
“He joined the service. I assume he is in Vietnam.”
“You decided to stay here in Springville and fight,” the chief chuckled, then said, “Tell me your version of what happened at the radio station tonight.”
I told him my version of how they came into the studio and ordered me to turn off the Black Sabbath record. I told how he grabbed my collar, and I punched him.
“Do have any regrets about this?” Chief Carpenter asked.
“Just some kid had requested ‘Woodstock’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and I didn’t get to play it for him. Smacking Dick Grimm in the nose was pretty cool! That guy was even worse than I had been told he was.”
“You are really dedicated to your listeners,” the police chief said with a grin. “Now, back to Grimm. I’m going to tell you what I think of that guy. My first time dealing with Dick Grimm was my first week on the force in 1954. We were called to a neighborhood on the north side of Springville for a report of a black kid being shot by a white man. It was Grimm. He said the kid had picked a persimmon from a tree in his yard. The kids said Grimm frequently yelled racial slurs at them and that day he chose to shoot into the kids as they walked home from school. We arrested Grimm, but he got bailed out. I thought sure it was open and shut case of guilt, but the judge ruled in his favor, saying Grimm feared for his life, from a group of black kids around twelve and thirteen years of age.”
“From then on, I would unfortunately see Grimm’s ugly mug once or twice a year, getting into fights with neighbors and store clerks. We even had to be called to an altercation he was involved in at a Baptist church softball game he was coaching. Worst was that incident with that brick wall, that he and that Schattenkirk guy, that was in on that kidnapping you boys foiled, built that collapsed on those folks. McGillicuddy always laughed that the radio station’s former owner punched him too. Grimm is a proverbial bad penny, yet somehow never does anything drastic enough to get put behind bars for good.”
“By the way, I told the new owners that pressing charges would not be a good idea, because it would be bad publicity for a new radio station. They agreed. You are free to go. I saw Lance Powers out in the lobby. He said was going to post bail, but we aren’t going to hold you. Matter of fact, I think punching Dick Grimm is a good thing.”
Lance took me, from police headquarters, back to the Lost City to get my car. He told me that he would write up a good reference letter for me to give to another radio station for a job. I noticed that the radio wasn’t on in the car.
“Have you heard what they are doing right now?” I asked.
“I’d rather not know,” Lance answered, before reaching for the knob on the radio. “Do we dare?”
“Why not. I’m sure they haven’t got that much music to play.”
“When I followed the cops taking you to the police station, Wally read a weather forecast from 1962 between Sousa’s ‘Liberty Bell March’ and ‘An Open Letter to My Teenage Son’.
“Didn’t you break that one?” I asked Lance.
“Yeah, but I’m sure they found a copy somewhere and brought it in.”
Lance turned on the radio to K-I-L-L to hear Red Skelton explaining the meaning of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance.’ When he finished, Wally opened the mic and basically patted himself on the back for playing that record. He then gave the weather forecast for the next week, then played ‘The Fighting Side of Me’ by Merle Haggard. I reached over and turned the radio off.
“Mykel, we just heard the death of a once great radio station,” Lance said.
I thought he was going to cry.
“So, what happened after that,” Julie asked.
“I was off work for about a month, most of which I spent listening to those LPs I took from K-I-L-L. Especially that ‘Back to the River’ song and ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ by Neil Young.
“Then one day, Dan Cavill called and asked if I would come work for him. I worked at K-R-C-A for Dan Cavill for about a year or so. It wasn’t bad, that Chappel guy was gone, but so was that cute girl named Abby. I was Program Director and moved them away from the warmed-over Big Band stuff and instrumentals and modernized it with some Bread, the Carpenters, and Chicago. The only thing I really hated about that job was when that song ‘We’ll Sing in the Sunshine’ would play. It reminded me of Sherry, and I could hear her, whispering the words of that song, in my ear.
“What happened with K-I-L-L?” Julie asked.
“That format was so unsuccessful that they had to file for bankruptcy,” Mykel explained. “The new owners changed it back to Top 40. By then, I had left Springville, I was fed up with that town. Today K-I-L-L is just another stupid right-wing, talk radio station, like so many of the great Top 40 radio station of the 60s.”
“Where did you go after K-R-C-A?”
“Lovable Lance had landed in Kansas City, and he called me to work for him at the radio station that he was programming. That was around the time of Watergate, so he had me doing my imitation of Nixon on the morning show. People love it.
“A new owner came in and Lovable Lance left. I was there for at least another year, before I got fired.
“I was on the beach about 1978, and Lovable Lance and Cal Biggsley hired me for a radio station in Oklahoma City. It was a low rated country and Western station; I changed it to rock format, and we shot into the Top 10 in the Arbitron ratings.”
“A few years later, we had a radio convention at a big hotel in Oklahoma City. There were always these companies giving you flyers about their products. Back in those days, the company’s booths frequently had girls in bikinis. I remember Oppo Digital Headphones had some cute girls in their booth. One of them had light, brown hair, a nice tan, and friendly, sweet smile.” Mykel recalled the girl in the bright red bikini, who was now the plump, grey-haired, schoolteacher, wearing bifocals, sitting next to him on the couch and blushing as he talked about her.
“Really, what was her name?” Julie said. “As if I didn’t know.”
“Her name was Julie.”
Julie looked over at the man with solid, white hair, combed over a bald spot, but a boyish, twinkle in his brown eyes, smiling at her, as she remembered, “There was a nice guy…he was older than me, but he had thick, wavy, brown hair, and a mustache. He came to the booth, and I showed him some of our headphones. Unfortunately, that jerk kept interrupting my presentation.”
“Jerk is an understatement,” Mykel grumbled. “He kept saying ‘These are too expense…why would you need digital headphones anyway.’ Everything is digital now. Lovable Lance was part of the planning committee and suggested I take part in a seminar on music programming. The first one ran smoothly. That guy showed up for the second one and made an ass of himself. He kept interrupting me and the other three program directors with all of this garbage about how we were, in his words, ‘a bunch of stupid old hippies’ and didn’t know anything. I was just in my early thirties.
“He kept saying, ‘You stupid, old, hippies want to go around telling us what songs to play on our radio stations and you have no idea what good songs are. It’s always you guys that fire me for playing good stuff like Ted Nugent, Lynard Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Point Blank, Ironhorse, Tarney-Spencer Band, Mahogony Rush, and Douchette, but you want me to play shit like Van Halen and Kiss, which is as bad as playing the Bay City Rollers and the Monkees…or you want me to play the Ramones and the Police or the Knack, like that college graduate that fired me in Ohio. We need to Nuke the Knack! I was fired at another radio station in Colorado, because I refused to play the Bee Gees, Michael Jackson and Donna Summer. Disco sucks! The only people who listen to disco are niggers and fagots. I got fired at another station for playing ‘The Ballad of Curtis Lowe’ by Lynard Skynyrd. That is the greatest song ever recorded, after ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ and I got fired for playing it by one of you hippie types. Another dumbass fired me for playing ‘Country Boy Can Survive’ by Hank Junior after ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC. He said I wasn’t supposed to play country music on an A-O-R station. I told the moron that everybody knows people play Hank Junior after AC/DC at parties. Of course, you stupid hippie types want everyone to sit around holding hands and singing ‘Kumbia’ and ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ while smoking marijuana and listening to wimpy bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd. My generation doesn’t smoke pot. We get our kicks in better ways. You can’t fly if you are high. Just say no.”
“I said, ‘Are you finished, little man!’ Everyone laughed at him, and he stomped out mad with these three other guys.”
“Later, I was walking down the hallway and noticed the door to the hospitality room was half-closed. I heard a girl scream from inside and I forced the door open. That guy and his three buddies were holding a girl down and they had her bikini bottom pulled down. They were putting lines of cocaine on her butt. It told them to let her go. There was a scuffle, and I slugged that guy in the mouth and lead the girl out of the room.”
Julie was tearing up, but grinning. “You ask where my room was and told me to take a shower immediately. When we got to my room you told me and my roommate what they were doing me, which made me feel even more scared.”
“What I remember was your roommate’s take on it was ‘Not only would they have snorted cocaine off of your skin, but they would also have been smelling your butt and we had Mexican food last night.’ That made me laugh.”
Julie laughed too and remembered, “Shannon was a sweet girl, but she was a blonde through and through. She continued modeling. I just did it while I was in college.”
“If it wasn’t that it would be an embarrassment to you, I would love to tell that story since that guy is now a bigshot, syndicated, talk radio show host with a show on one of the cable news networks,” Mykel said.
“Well, I retire at the end of this year, so I wouldn’t have to explain to the school board about why a famous, talk radio show host was trying to snort cocaine off of my butt,” Julie said with a smile, then she became reflective on the incident. “You know many girls dream of a knight in shining armor to rescue them from a dragon, but I had a knight with a moustache, in blue Jordache jeans and Foster Grant sunglasses, rescue me from a room of cokeheads. I’m certainly blessed that it happened. You took me to dinner that night. I started back to school, and Shannon said, ‘You need to call that cool radio DJ and ask him if he would want to go out again.”
“And the rest is history,” Mykel said.
“And we are still together,” Julie said with a tear in her eye. “But I have to ask, did you ever find out what happened to Sherry? You found out what happened to Clint when you found that his name was on the Vietnam memorial. I just wonder if you had any idea what happened to her.”
“When I was working in Kansas City, I went to a drive-in movie with a girl to see a double feature of What’s Up Doc? and Play It Again Sam. As they always do at the movies, they showed the previews of upcoming movies. There was a horror film, I think it was called Satanic Bloodbath of the Vampires. Midway through this movie trailer, they showed this beautiful blonde girl, screaming her head off. It was Sherry, or at least, I was pretty sure it was her.
“About a month later, Grandma was in the hospital in Springville. Mom wanted me to come see her since she hadn’t been given a very good prognosis. I was in the waiting room, while the technicians were hooking Grandma up to more monitors and apparatuses. They had a large TV in the waiting room, and it was tuned to one of the daytime soap operas. I wasn’t paying attention to it, but I noticed the story was taking place in a hospital too.
“Suddenly, I heard a very familiar, sweet, angelic voice coming from the television, saying, ‘Doctor Peters, here are those X-rays you asked for on the patient in 213. Doctor Horton says he only has two weeks to live.’ It was Sherry playing a nurse. The ironic thing was the guy playing the doctor was played by the actor who played Chad on Laredo. I wonder if she told him that she had his picture on her dorm room wall and did she run her fingers through his hair, like she did mine, when she talked about him. I watched until the end of the show and the credits said, NURSE – SHERRY RIDENHOUR, in yellow, chyron letters scrolling over a picture of an hourglass.’
“The only thing I saw Sherry in after that was a commercial for a feminine hygiene product. She was telling another girl that they no longer had to wear a ‘contraption.’
“However, as time has passed, especially after the COVID pandemic, I have thought about how we laughed and teased Sherry about how she would carry those little bottles that she filled with witch hazel and peroxide, and how she was always rubbing it on her hands, because she thought it would keep germs off of her hands. In a way that was sort of like how people now use hand sanitizer. So, I wonder if Sherry Ridenhour is the inventor of hand sanitizer and now worth millions.”
“And I hope that if she is a millionaire, I hope she calls that jerk Chip Hallwell and his wife, Alice the Goon, every day, preferably at 2 or 3 in the morning, as says, “Hello, this Sherry Ridenhour, your former girlfriend, who invented hand sanitizer. Is that what you were talking about when you talked about liquid assets? Just called to remind you of that. Good-bye!”
NOTE: I am nowhere near finished with The Dynamic Duo of the Ozarks. However, I thought of a great ending, so I thought I would write it and share it with you. No major spoilers here. After all, in the first chapter, we learned that Clint was killed in Vietnam & Mykel is married to a woman named Julie. I believe Sherry is only referred to, by Clarence, as “the little blonde chick.”
Mykel jotted down some notes and even some questions for Clint’s nephew. There was one question he was going to ask and it was possible that he wouldn’t know the answer. Mykel dialed the number in the letter.
“Yes, who is this?”
“My name is Mykel Daring,” His voice began to quiver. “I was your Uncle Clint’s roommate at Show-Me State College back in 1966. You sent me a letter wanting to know about our escapade dressed as Batman and Robin.”
“Oh wow! I’m glad you gave me a holler, Professor Daring!” As Dustin spoke, Mykel noticed how much he sounded and talked like Clint. “I talked to someone who said to tell you hello.”
“Surely nobody in Springville remembers me.”
“She’s doesn’t live in Springville,” Dustin continued. “You see S-M-S-U has a medical arts department and I’m working toward a degree in pediatric critical care medicine. I applied for a scholarship that is sponsored by this lady, who is an S-M-S alumni. She and her father founded this company, Ridenhour Company, that makes a lot of medical equipment and sterilization products. Supposedly, this woman invented hand-sanitizer, when she was a student at S-M-S. You have to write a letter about why you think you deserve the scholarship and I told them about my visits to the pediatric ward dressed as Batman. I mentioned that my mom told me about Uncle Clint and you dressing as Batman and Robin. I was awarded the scholarship to continue my education.
“When I was given the scholarship, I met this lady, who sponsored the scholarship, Miss Ridenhour. She said told me that she knew Uncle Clint and she dated his roommate. She told me ‘His name was Michael, but spelled with a ‘Y-K.’ He was studying broadcasting and that fascinated me.’ I told her that I had wrote you a letter to ask about when you and Uncle Clint dressed up as Batman and Robin. She said if I talked to you, tell you that Sherry said hello.’
Mykel got a lump in his throat as he listened to Dustin.
“I guess her father was a country doctor in Knob Noster before worked at a big hospital for a few years, then he and Miss Ridenhour bought this little company and made it a leading supplier to the medical industry,” Dustin paused. “And do you know what she was doing before she and her father took over that company?”
“She was playing a nurse on Days of Our Lives.”
“How did you know that?”
“I saw her on there once,” Mykel said. “You know I have seen soap dispensers in public restrooms and hospitals with the name Ridenhour on them, but I never made the connection. I remember we thought Sherry rubbing stuff on her hands to kill germs was odd, but at least it made her rich. I’m happy for her.”
Mykel still hoped she called Chip and Alice and woke them up at 3 AM every morning. Now, Mykel decided to address the elephant in the room and ask the question that was at the front of his mind.
“Dustin, do you mind if I ask…not sure if you know…how did your Uncle Clint die?”
“Mom always told me his company was being fired upon by some Viet Cong. He was trying to shield another solider from being hit with gunfire and he set off a land mine. The presented my Grandpa and Grandma with medals and a flag. My Grandpa after that kept saying, ‘My son finally did something I’m proud of. He died for his country trying to save a fellow soldier. Grandpa died not long after Uncle Clint’s funeral.”
Mykel was choked up. As much as he had hated Clint’s father for the way he treated him, he could help but feel sad for a man losing a son he did really get to know, and maybe realizing he wasn’t ‘a lazy boy that just want to play ball.’
“So, what happened when you and Uncle Clint was running around Springville dressed as the Dynamic Duo of the Ozarks?”
“Well, Dustin, make yourself comfortable and I will tell you the story,” Mykel began laughing. “As your Uncle Clint would say, it’s a real doozy.”
I mention the John Birch Society in The Dynamic Duo of The Ozarks. Some have questioned me on whether such a group existed. Here is an article from N-P-R about the group.
In Chapter 5, the girls in Room 420 have a party. One wall is covered with photos. They have a section of celebrity “crushes.” Clint asked which girl put up pictures of “the guys from Laredo.”
Sherry says she did because she liked Chad, played by actor Peter Brown, because he has “a sarcastic sense of humor and nice, thick hair.”
SPOILER ALERT: Mykel loses touch with Sherry after college. He later sees her on a TV soap opera playing a nurse. The doctor in the soap opera is played by Peter Brown. Brown played a doctor on Days of Our Lives in the 70s. Mykel wonders if she told him she had a photo of him on her wall in college.
This photo was on the Iconic Cool Facebook page. It is from a 50s Western called The Lawman. The difference between the character he played on The Lawman and the character he played on Laredo would be like the difference between Neil Patrick Harris as Dougie Houser MD and Barney on How I Met Your Mother.
Lovable Lance’s arch rival at K-B-U-B is Cousin Clyde. He claims to be an expert on fishing and how to make America a better place. He also complains about teenagers & kids on his radio show. This is a picture of a book he wrote.
NOTE: This is a later chapter. Mykel is asked to help with a remote at a boat show. They needed a girl to model a swimsuit and Sherry volunteers. As with many radio remotes, things go wrong. We meet Lovable Lance’s rival from country radio station K-B-U-B, Cousin Clyde. Also pay close attention to the little boy. Comment if you pick up anything about him.
Saturday was the day of the Springville Boating, Sports and Recreation Show at the fairgrounds pavilion. A wonderful diversion for the community that had been buried under snow and ice. Something to give them hope was that summer was on the way.
Mykel had been told that this would be the first remote broadcast that he would experience with some of the radio station staff. There was supposed to be a high school girl that Bud Smith knew, that was going to model a swimsuit from Lehrs Department Store. At some point, Bud said the girl’s parents didn’t want her to do the modeling, although everyone thought that they probably did want their daughter hanging out with Bud.
Mykel had been talking about the dilemma that the radio station faced, and Sherry immediately accepted the challenge. Mykel told Lance and Zella, who handled the Lehrs account, that Sherry was volunteering to wear the swimsuit at the boat show on Saturday. The one odd condition was that, due to some strange, prudish city ordinance in Springville, women involved in a public performance, or public exhibition must not “show bare legs.” Zella and Lehrs had Sherry wear a pair of Glen Raven seamless, coffee-colored, pantyhose, with the blue, Jantzen, one-piece swimsuit. The great thing was Sherry got to keep the swimsuit and pantyhose as a form of payment.
Lehrs had also donated the big giveaway item. The radio station was having a drawing for a Zenith, 25 inch, early American console, color television with a remote control ($900 value). They were also giving away free bottles of Pepsi and Mountain Dew, small bags of Kitty Clover potato chips, K-I-L-L bumper stickers, and the Killer Hit Countdown sheets for that week. Zella had draped the cloth K-I-L-L banner over the long table provided by fairground administrators. Lovable Lance, of course, had on his sunglasses and his K-I-L-L red blazer. He told Mykel to wear sunglasses too, because “You should always greet your public in your shades.”
Zella gushed when Sherry walked up to the booth in the swimsuit, “Oh honey, you just look so gay and summery!” She then turned to Lance and informed him, “Melinda and Mr. K are coming over. They have a surprise promotional item for us…and the popcorn machine.”
Lovable Lance groaned. “That thing smokes and burns the popcorn most of the time.”
“He thinks he fixed something that caused it to smoke, and Melinda is going to help him with it,” Zella reassured Lance. “Besides, we are already running low on the potato chips.”
Across the way, K-R-C-A was set up with a modest, but brightly colored banner with picture of Nipper and his record machine on one side and the peacock and “snakes” on the other. It was some salesmen giving away K-R-C-A fountain pens, pocket calendars, rubber jar openers and potholders “for the ladies.” They were offering a chance to win an electric carving knife or a cemetery monument. Surprisingly they had no monitor tuned to their radio station.
On a row behind K-I-L-L was K-B-U-B, or as Lovable Lance, T. R and Matt liked to call them “Kay Boob.” They had several of the “K-B-U-B Cowpokes” running around in their blue, denim, Western shirts and their red, straw, children’s cowboy hats. They had a large sign with their familiar logo, which was their call letters spelled out in red, barn wood. They also had a speaker blasting their radio station playing latest Johnny Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, and Buck Owens songs, interspersed with a smattering of songs about driving trucks and how much fun it will be to go fight in Vietnam. They were giving away ash trays and hand fans with their logo on them. The main attraction at the K-B-U-B booth was Cousin Clyde, who was their version of Lovable Lance. Lovable Lance could not stand Cousin Clyde.
“He is the most arrogant jackass on the planet,” Lovable Lance told Mykel and Sherry. “He acts like he is the greatest radio program director in the world. He is big on not playing stuff that would ‘upset the fine folks of Springville.’ His GM, Chuck Green, says he is planning on taking all the Roger Miller and Eddy Arnold songs out of rotation, because he says they aren’t making ‘real country music records anymore.’ You know, his real name is Francis Bullingame VI, and the rest of the men in his old, wealthy family are lawyers and law professors in Georgia…all William and Mary grads. He was practicing family law and apparently got in trouble for cheating a widow and her kids out of their inheritance, so he wound up working at a country radio station in Valdosta. When K-B-U-B put out the word that they were going ‘all Country and Western,’ Cousin Clyde sent them an aircheck tape…low and behold they hired him to work in Springville.”
Lovable Lance took a drag from his L & M Short and then blew smoke out of his mouth, across his goatee, like a rocket blasting off at Cape Canaveral. “The Ivy League, Southern lawyer, traded his suit and briefcase for a Stetson cowboy hat and bib overalls, so he can play music for the hillbillies of the Ozarks, while lecturing us on how good things were in the good ole days and how everyone under thirty is stupid.” He took another drag off his L & M Short and continued, “If he isn’t saying stuff like that, it’s that stupid slogan of his ‘Two things I love are fishing and being an American.’ Like he has cornered the market on being an American. Ugh! I think he may be who is circulating the rumor that I sleep in a casket. The bad part is Wally was a carbon copy of him before we changed formats.” He looked at his watch and said, “Speaking of which, his shift is wrapping up, so it is about time for me to begin broadcasting from this dog and pony show.”
He then reached under the table, and pulled out a round, imitation leather case. He unsnapped the shiny brass clasp and opened the case to produce a helmet with a microphone attached.
“This is a new toy that Mr. Ketner thinks is going to help us do great remotes,” Lance said.
“That looks like the Buck Rogers helmet I had when I was eight years old,” Mykel remarked.
“That makes sense. This is supposedly the future of radio broadcasting,” Lance joked as he slid the helmet on his head. Sherry and Mykel burst into laughter. Zella threw her head back and laughed so loud that most of the people in the pavilion heard her.
“Oh Lance, that just becomes you!” she laughed.
“I can’t hear you very good Matt, but it is air-time so play the ‘Out and About’ jingle and put me on,” Lance told Matt, who was running the board back at the radio station.
The ‘Out and About’ jingle played, and Lovable Lance began talking, “HEY, HEY, EVERYBODY THIS IS LOVABLE LANCE OF K-I-DOUBLE-L…” Then, the fairground pavilion was engulfed in an ear piercing, electronic scream of feedback, which caused everyone in the pavilion to wince, gnash their teeth, and look daggers at the K-I-L-L booth. It disappeared and the monitor began bouncing with ‘Take Five’ by The Spotnicks.
“Matt, I’m going to the back up. I was afraid this thing wouldn’t work,” Lovable Lance said. “Everyone in this building hates us right now.” Lance put the strange looking helmet back in the leather case and got out of a metal case a standard microphone and headphones, plugged it into the phone box. He then said to Mathew, “Matt, can you hear me now?”
“Loud and clear now,” Mathew answered. “I’ll put you on after the song ends.”
The song ended and Lovable Lance went on, “HEY HEY, EVERYBODY THIS IS LOVABLE LANCE OF THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED K-I-DOUBLE-L AND I AM OUT AT THE SPRINGVILLE BOAT, SPORTS, AND RECREATION SHOW AT THE FAIRGROUND PAVILION. WE WANT YOU TO TALK YOUR FOLKS INTO COMING TO VISIT US OUT HERE. WE HAVE FREE PEPSI AND FREE SAMPLES OF THE NEW STUFF, MOUNTAIN DEW. WE ALSO HAVE KITTY CLOVER TATER CHIPS, K-I-DOUBLE-L BUMPER STICKERS, AND KEYCHAINS. WE WILL ALSO HAVE HOT BUTTERED POPCORN AND A SURPRISE GIVE AWAY, PLUS YOU CAN REGISTER TO WIN A COLOR TV FROM LEHRS DEPARTMENT STORE ON THE SQUARE. WE ALSO HAVE A PRETTY, BLONDE GIRL AT OUR BOOTH WEARING SWIMSUIT FROM LEHRS. COME BY AND GET A GOOD LOOK AT HER! OF COURSE, YOU CAN MEET ME, LOVABLE LANCE POWERS IN PERSON! RIGHT NOW, IT IS TIME FOR THE NEW SONG BY THE BEACH BOYS APPROPRIATELY ABOUT A BOAT! IT’S CALLED ‘SLOOP JOHN B’ ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
“Okay Mathew, next let’s play ‘Sea Cruise’ by Hondells next.” When the Beach Boys record ended, Matt fired a liner and then started the Hondells record, which kept with the boating theme.
A young woman, probably in her early twenties, walked over to the booth with a little boy around five years old. Her hair was in a mountainous beehive that was the color of stove blacking, white lipstick, and blue eye shadow with thick, black eyeliner that made her look like a raccoon. She had a Pall Mall Long in the corner of her mouth. She held the little boy’s right wrist rather tight. The little boy was chewing on the left cuff of his Batman sweatshirt.
The little boy was a handsome lad with sandy, brown hair, and eyes to match, dressed in a St. Louis Cardinals ball cap, a Batman sweatshirt, blue jeans, and P-F Flyers.
“You’uns givin any free stuff?” the woman asked. Lovable Lance was annoyed by this question since he had just told the listeners and people within earshot of the speakers what they were giving away.
“We have cold Pepsi and Mountain Dew,” Zella explained to the woman. “We also have Kitty Clover Potato Chips. We also have bumper stickers.”
“What kinda chips ya want? I ain’t gittin ya somethin to drink cause you will spill it,” the young woman said to the boy.
“I’d like bar-b-que,” the little boy said.
Zella looked in the box that held the small bags of chips. She perused every bag in the box. “Honey, I’m afraid we’re out of the bar-b-cue chips. We have plain or green onion.”
“No! I want the bar-b-cue chips!” The little boy became upset.
“They’re outta bar-b-cue. You’ll hafta eat plain or onion,” the woman yelled at the kid.
“I want bar-b-cue chips!” the child yelled back and began shaking uncontrollably.
“If yer gonna throw one of them hissy fits of yers, I’m just gonna leave ya here!” the gal yelled at the little, upset boy. “Yer daddy can come git ya, if he wants ya!” The gal stormed off through the crowd. The little boy collapsed on the floor, in front of the K-I-L-L booth, screaming and crying at the top of his lungs. He started hitting his head on the pavilion floor, over and over.
“Honey, don’t hit your head on the floor, you might hurt yourself,” Zella said to the little boy. Mykel and Sherry didn’t know what to do, other than continue handing out bumper stickers, the remaining potato chip bags, and bottles of soda to the people stopping by. Lance was getting peeved about the situation. The child bellowed out like Tarzan calling all the jungle animals to aid him in an adventure. People began staring in the direction of the K-I-L-L booth again.
“Zella, you’ve had kids, can’t you do something?” Lovable Lance asked. “I’ve got to go on-the-air live after this song.”
“Frank and I had little girls,” Zella explained. “I don’t know what to do with little boys. Melinda has a little boy. She and Mr. Ketner are supposed to be here soon. Maybe she will know what to do.”
The Hondells record ended, and Matt played the “Out and About” jingle, which meant Lovable Lance was going to have to go on and try to talk over the screaming child.
“HEY HEY, EVERYBODY THIS IS LOVABLE LANCE OF THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED K-I-DOUBLE-L AND I AM OUT AT THE SPRINGVILLE BOATS AND RECREATION SHOW AT THE FAIRGROUND PAVILION! YOU NEED TO COME OUT HERE AND SEE ALL THE GREAT STUFF ON DISPLAY! WE’VE GOT BOATS, ANPHIBICARS, MOTORCYCLES, MINIBIKES, CAMPERS, AND MOTORHOMES…MATTER OF FACT, YOU HEAR THIS?” Lovable Lance held the microphone near this little, crying boy, then told listeners, “THAT IS A GUY WHOSE WIFE WOULDN’T LET HIM GET A WINNIBAGO. WE ALSO HAVE SOME CARS AND PICKUP TRUCKS. WE ALSO HAVE FISHING, CAMPING AND HUNTING GEAR! WE ARE GIVING AWAY K-I-DOUBLE-L BUMPER STICKERS, KEYCHAINS, FREE PEPSI AND MOUNTAIN DEW, KITTY CLOVER CHIPS, AND VERY SOON WE WILL HAVE HOT BUTTERED POPCORN. WE ALSO HAVE A LOVELY MODEL NAMED SANDY IN A SWIMSUIT FROM LEHR’S DEPARTMENT STORE.”
“My name is Sherry,” Sherry said, although Lovable Lance couldn’t hear her with his headphones on and the little boy, still, crying loudly.
“YOU CAN ALSO REGISTER FOR A DRAWING TO WIN A 25 INCH COLOR TELEVISION FROM LEHR’S. SO COME ON OUT TO THE SPRINGVILLE BOAT, SPORTS, AND RECREATION SHOW AT THE FAIRGROUND PAVILION! I’M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS AND I WANTED TO GET CRAZY WITH THE SONICS AND ‘PSYCHO’ ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
The song began will a heavy drum roll followed by the lead singer letting out the first of many blood curdling screams in the song. The little boy squealed out, as if in pain. Through his tears he yelled, “I don’t like screaming!”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Lovable Lance mumbled as he lit up an L & M short. Lance then spoke over the box phone to Matt. “Hey Matt, a minor change here. As you can hear, we have an unhappy child, who was abandoned at the booth, so play that newest Bob Dylan record or a cut off one of his LPs. Maybe his family will come back and claim him…Thanks!”
Mykel said to Lance, “Uh, Lance, my friend’s name is Sherry. You called her Sandy.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I did that,” Lovable Lance said. “I’ll get it right next time.”
A K-I-L-L jingle played and then, Matt chose “Tombstone Blues” by Bob Dylan to play until the problem of the crying boy was rectified.
As if the crying, abandoned boy wasn’t enough of a problem, the booth was getting an unwanted visit from the competition’s star, Cousin Clyde. Cousin Clyde was a big, red-faced man, with a toothbrush mustache, that made him look like Oliver Hardy. He was wearing a pair of black, square-framed, brow line glasses. On his head was a brown, pinch front Stetson cowboy, rather than the small, red ‘kiddie’ cowboy hats that his co-workers were wearing. He was dressed in overalls, that looked like the over-sized overalls that were usually hanging from the ceiling in clothing stores, and they were kind of tight on him. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that was so thin, you could see his sleeveless, undershirt beneath it. Over his right breast was a button reading, “Vote Monty Derpy for Springville Mayor.” Many adults were running up and shaking hands with Cousin Clyde as he walked toward the K-I-L-L booth.
“Look at these people…fawning over him like he is the president of the United States!” Lovable Lance grumbled.
“I don’t think the people in Springville would be as excited to see L-B-J,” Zella remarked.
Cousin Clyde waddled up to the booth, almost stepping on the little, crying boy, who was lying in front of the booth. “I always thought your listeners were probably a bunch of bratty kids,” Cousin Clyde snarked. “This proves it.”
“He got upset because we were out of the Bar-B-Que Kitty Clover Potato Chips and his mother just left him here,” Zella explained. “We are hoping she or his father comes back to take him home.”
“You know, we have gallant boys going to fight, to protect our freedoms, in Vietnam and this stupid, little kid is bawlin because he didn’t get the flavor of tater chips he wanted. If he was my kid, I’d give him something to cry about. I ought to put him in a box and send him to Vietnam. See what Ho Chi Minn will do with him.”
The little boy screamed louder, as if he knew what Cousin Clyde was implying, and crawled under the cloth banner, laid on his back and continued to cry at top volume.
Cousin Clyde then decided to use Mykle and Sherry as his next target. “So, what is the deal, Lance? You have a young girl that is half-nekkid, and another young girl dressed like you.”
“Excuse me, Mister, but I’m a boy!” Mykel snapped back.
“I hope the rest of the boys in Springville don’t start wearing their hair like girls, they won’t be able to tell which is which and the boys will start dating other boys,” Cousin Clyde said, before launching into a tirade about young people.
“I worry about the future of this great nation when I see kids like this so-called boy and half nekkid girl…and that bawling brat under your table. Kids used to work on farms and in factories from sunup to sundown. Now their brains are being turned mush by that noise your radio station calls music and the garbage they watch on television like The Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, Peyton Place, Man from UNCLE and Batman. I blame all this on parents getting advice on how to raise their kids from that Dr. Spock, instead of beating some common sense into them with a leather belt the way my Pappy did. It won’t be long until the Communist can walk right in and take over because we will have a generation of worthless people running the country.”
“And your radio station is providing a great service to our nation by playing songs about getting drunk and cheating on your spouse? Then there are the big, new, trends in music on your station, patriotic songs, and truck driving songs. I’m waiting for you guys to start playing a song, probably by Dave Dudley, called ‘I’m Driving My Peterbilt to Saigon.’ While I’m think of it, is it you or some of the K-B-U-B salesmen going around town telling people that I sleep in a coffin? When I find out who it is, I’m going to ring their cowpoke neck and break all of their Ernest Tubb records!”
Two teenage girls walked up to the booth. “I’ll bet you fine, young ladies are just here for free stuff,” Cousin Clyde said to the girls. “You probably prefer to listen to the wholesome country music played on K-B-U-B.”
“What is K-B-U-B?” one girl asked with a confused look on her face.
“I’ve never heard of that radio station,” the other girl answered. “Is that a radio station here in Springville?”
“We listen to K-I-L-L, unless we are with our parents and then we are forced to listen to K-R-C-A,” the girl, who had asked what K-B-U-B was, explained before asking Mykel, “Is that man Lovable Lance?”
“Yes, I am!” Lance answered since he had heard the girl.
“Could you autograph my Killer Countdown list?” the girl asked.
“I would be happy to do that for you and I’ll autograph a photo of myself for you!” Lance answered, giving a smug look to Cousin Clyde. Two boys walked up to the booth and grabbed a Killer Countdown list, while ogling Sherry in the swimsuit. Zella gave them both a bottle of Pepsi. The two girls took their autographed Killer Countdowns and walked away.
“If you girls go to the K-B-U-B booth, you can get a photo of me with my slogan, ‘I love fishing and being an American’ on it and a nice K-B-U-B ash tray for your parents.” Cousin Clyde then tried to talk to the boys. “I bet you boys probably prefer to listen to K-B-U-B,” Cousin Clyde tried again to find a teenager that liked his radio station more than K-I-L-L.
“No. Your radio station doesn’t play the Rolling Stones,” the one boy answered.
“We also have been to your station’s booth, and you didn’t have a hot chick in a swimsuit, so we came over here,” the other boy joked before taking a drink of Pepsi. “Too bad we don’t have a camera, we would take a picture of you.” Sherry blushed and giggled.
Then the other boy asked Cousin Clyde, “Is K-B-U-B the radio station with the big, red, neon sign on that hill south of town?”
Cousin Clyde began to puff up with pride, “Yes indeed, son! That is our sign!”
“That is where most of the kids from my school go to make out,” he laughed before he deflated Cousin Clyde’s pride by bragging, “I popped a girl’s cherry under that sign last night.”
Mykel, Sherry, Zella, and Lance began to snicker and giggle, as Cousin Clyde began to turn red and boil with anger.
“Cool! Who was it?” the other boys asked his friend.
“You know Vanny Strueker in Algebra class? She is as loose as a goose,” the boy told his friend and everyone in earshot before walking away.
Cousin Clyde growled under his breath, “I hope those punks get sent to Vietnam next week.”
“Clyde, don’t you think it is time you took a hike?” Lovable Lance said. “I’ve got to go on live.”
Cousin Clyde stomped off through the crowd of people at the pavilion until his big cowboy hat could no longer be seen by those at the K-I-L-L. Everyone was laughing, except the little boy who was still crying, but not as loud. Apparently, Matt felt the things were still a little dicey at the remote, so he played a K-I-L-L jingle.
“Mykel, Sally, that is what it looks like when a man walks away with his tail between his leg,” Lovable Lance remarked with joy to the group at the booth.
“Sir, my name is Sherry.”
After the jingle, the record Matt played was ‘Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy’ by the Kinks. Lovable Lance began laughing at Matt’s choice of music. He then picked up receiver for the phone box and said, “Matt, you stinker! I’m sorry, we had another problem out here.” Matt stopped laughing and asked Lance what the other problem was, “We had an unwelcome visit from our competitor, Cousin Clyde. Some boys embarrassed him by telling him what goes on under K-B-U-B’s big neon sign on the weekends.” Matt laughed and said something. “Oh, you know about this? Oh yeah, you would know about that since you are Matt Midnight, who plays all of the make-out music on the radio…Okay, I’m ready.”
Lance put down the receiver and put on his headphones and picked up the microphone, right as Matt played the “out-and-about” jingle, and when it ended Lance went on.
“HEY HEY, LOVABLE LANCE FROM THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-double-L AND I’M OUT AT THE SPRINGVILLE BOAT AND RECREATION SHOW WHERE WE ARE HAVING A GREAT TIME OUT HERE AT THE PAVILION AT THE FAIR GROUNDS! YOU CAN COME BY OUR BOOTH AND SIGN UP FOR A DRAWING FOR A ZEINITH COLOR TELEVISION FROM LEHR’S DEPARTMENT STORE. LEHR’S ALSO PROVIDED A SWIMSUIT, WHICH IS BEING MODELED BY A YOUNG LADY NAMED SHELLY…”
“My name is Sherry,” she frowned and grumbled to Mykel.
“WE HAVE THIS WEEK’S KILLER HIT COUNTDOWN, WHICH I WILL AUTOGRAPH FOR YOU. WE ALSO HAVE KEYCHAINS, BUMPER STICKERS, AND I’M TOLD WE WILL HAVE ANOTHER FREE ITEM VERY SOON. ALSO, WE HAVE FREE SNACKS SUCH AS PEPSI AND MOUNTAIN DEW, KITTY CLOVER POTATO CHIPS, AND SOON WE WILL HAVE SOME HOT BUTTERED POPCORN. SO COME BY AND SEE ME, LOVABLE LANCE POWERS, HERE AT THE SPRINGVILLE BOAT SHOW. HOW ABOUT WE PLAY A LITTLE SONNY AND CHER FOR YOU… ‘BABY DON’T GO’…ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED K-I-double-L!”
Mykel noticed that Zella was watching an exit with double doors off to the side of the where the booths were set up. She then said to him, “Mykel, Melinda is back at that door with a dolly with some boxes on it, would you go help her with it.”
Mykel went back to where Melinda was with the dolly, but first he held the door open so Mr. Ketner could bring the popcorn machine wagon through the double doors. Once it was inside, he wheeled the dolly, loaded with three boxes marked Amalgamated Promotions, to the booth.
“Well, we are here,” Melinda said to Zella, after thanking Mykel for helping her.
“Mr. Ketner has brought ‘ole smokey’ too,” Zella laughed.
“I think he and Matt got that problem fixed. They put a new motor in it. We have the proper oil to use in it,” Melinda explained. “Unlike Wally, who didn’t bring it with him to that remote at the grand opening of the car wash and called his wife to bring some cooking oil and instead she brought bacon grease, which clogged it up, cause the motor to smoke.”
Zella’s mouth dropped open, “Bacon grease? To make popcorn? I think that would make the popcorn taste horrible.”
“It caused it to burn a tad,” Melinda then lowered her voice. “That is also why Mr. K had Matt work on that. Mr. Ketner wouldn’t touch it until the bacon grease was cleaned out. I helped Matt on the cleaning of the oil bin, and it was disgusting.”
Mr. Ketner wheeled the Gold Medal Popcorn Machine in and set it up at the back of the booth. He then walked over to where Melinda and Zella were talking.
“Looks like there is a big crowd here,” Mr. Ketner observed the people walking by the booth and picking up the various tchotchkes that K-I-L-L was giving away. “We seem to be getting good foot traffic.”
“Well, Howard Lowery said that the attendance was poor and very few people were coming to our booth, so he got one of his bad headaches and had to go home,” Zella reported to Mr. Ketner and Melinda. “I was glad he went home! He was pacing back and forth, and dabbing sweat off that bald head of his with a hankey.”
Lance chimed in, “He said nobody was here and I ask him how come I had a hard time finding a parking place.”
“And Bud was only here a half an hour and went to talk to Browne County Beverage Packaging and Distributing never came back,” Zella griped. “They must have been giving free samples. Probably ashamed that he screwed up getting his friend’s daughter to model for us.”
“Looks like we have a fine-looking model,” Mr. Ketner commented on Sherry.
“Oh, I’m apologize for not introducing you all,” Zella said. “This is Mykel’s friend, Shirley.”
“I’m Sol Ketner, general manager of K-I-double-L, and this our office manager, Melinda Monroe. You just look like a movie star in that swimsuit, Shirley.”
“Actually, my name is Sherry…Sherry Ridenhour.”
“Nice to meet you,” Melinda said. “I’m glad you are here, or I would have had to wear that bathing suit.” Melinda looked down and saw the little boy under the table. She tapped Mr. Ketner’s arm and then pointed to the sobbing child under the table.
“We have a shaifeleh lying under the table,” Mr. Ketner observed. “Is he alright? Does he have parents?”
“Some young woman left him here,” Zella explained. “He was upset because we ran out of Kitty Clover Bar-B-Que Potato Chips and began crying, so she just ran off. He has cried and cried.”
“And then to make things worse, Cousin Clyde paid us a visit, with his insults and sermonizing,” Lovable Lance reported to Mr. Ketner. “Looks like Chuck Green would keep him on a short leash. He must not be here.”
“Now, Lance, why would Chuck Green come to a boat show,” Mr. Ketner laughed. “He has the biggest yacht at Lake Taneycomo. He probably has his sales manager here and he probably has no control over what Cousin Clyde does.” Mr. Ketner then began opening one of the boxes with a small pin knife. “Next break Lance, I want you to tell the listeners to come by the booth and get a ‘Little Killer’ doll.”
“A what?” Lance asked.
Mr. Ketner then pulled out of the box a pink-haired, troll doll adorned in a little, nightshirt that read “I Listen to K-I-L-L The Big 1300 kHz.” At that moment, on the radio monitor, a jingle with the call letters and frequency played, followed by “Good Lovin” by the Young Rascals.
“Oh, a Wish-nik doll!” Sherry said with delight. “How cute!”
“Actually, we can’t call them Wish-nik or Damn-its or Trolls because those names are trademarked,” Mr. Ketner explained. “These are cheepy promotional items made in Tokyo or Tijuana. That’s why I thought we would call them ‘Little Killers’ because the call letters are K-I-L-L, and we have the Killer Countdown, so why not call them Little Killers to get our name out to the community.”
Zella pulled one of the ‘Little Killer’ dolls from the box and handed it to Sherry, “Cindy…”
“My name is Sherry, Mame,” she said politely.
“I’m sorry…Sherry, see if the little boy would want one of these dolls to play with,” Remember, Mr. Ketner said we should call them ‘Little Killer’ dolls.”
“Yes, Mame, because Damnitt and Troll doll are trademarked names.”
Sherry eased around the front of the booth to where the little boy was still pounding the pavilion floor with fist. She leaned over and gave the boy her big sparkling smile.
“Hi, my name is Sherry. Would you like one of our Little Killer dolls? Watch what you can do with it? You smooth the hair down, like when you comb your hair, then you…” Sherry made silly face and a goofy noise to go with it, “Wer, wer wer!” She shook the ‘Little Killer” doll violently causing its blue, crepe hair to stand up. “Oh my, look what I did to his hair after I combed it!” The little boy smiled and laughed. “Would you like to try it?” She handed the ‘Little Killer’ doll to the boy, who tried the hair trick with the doll. His smile grew as he discovered that he could mess up the doll’s hair just like Sherry did.
Mr. Ketner walked over to where the little boy was, bent down to talk to him, “I bet a growing boy like you would like some hot, buttered popcorn!” The boy looked up, smiled, and nodded his head yes. “If you will come out from under the table, I will show you how this magic machine makes popcorn.”
The little boy crawled out from under the table and walked over to where Mr. Ketner was by the popcorn machine. Mr. Ketner showed him how he poured in the oil and popcorn. He then lifted the little boy up so he could watch the heating lamp pop the corn in the rotating kettle.
“Watch closely, popcorn will be coming out of that big pan under the bright light.”
The popcorn began popping and filling the glass chamber. The little boy smiled as he watched the white kernels dance behind the glass. Mr. Ketner put the little boy back down.
“Now, we let me get you a sack of this delicious treat to munch on,” Mr. Ketner hyped the popcorn up to the now calm child, who smiled in anticipation. He scooped it out into one of the skinny, white, bags and then went to add the salt from a tin shaker and butter from pumper on a jar of liquid butter. “We will give it a dash of salt and a pump of butter…”
“Two butters!” the little boy said with excitement.
“Fine. Two pumps of butter. More butter on popcorn is always good,” Mr. Ketner went right along with the boy’s wishes. Then, he handed him the boy the bag. “Zella, Melinda, Mykel, would one of you get this young man a cold drink?”
Zella said, “You know, I don’t think you got a drink earlier. What do you want, honey, Pepsi, or Mountain Dew?”
“The green one,” the boy answered pointing to the bottle. Zella opened the bottle and gave it to the boy.
Mr. Ketner grabbed a folding chair from a dolly and brought it over for the boy to sit in. “Here is a seat for you to see all the people and boats here until we find who you belong to.”
“Mr. Ketner! Mr. Ketner!” over the rumble of the crown and the Young Rascals came the tweety-voice of Lymon Brush.
“Lymon, you are here early. I thought you were going to help me after Zella and Melinda left, when we announce the winner of the television?”
“I came to scout out prospects and I have found us six new advertisers,” Lymon bubbled with excitement. Melinda and Zella congratulated him, and golf clapped for him. Mr. Ketner praised him. Then he said, “If you have some contracts with you, I’ll go get them to sign them today…”
“Lymon! Do you think I or Melinda brought contracts to a boat show?” Mr. Ketner asked him. “You can take them to the businesses Monday.”
The boy had settled in and was quiet, except for when the boy mimicked the sound of a trumpet, along with the Tijuana Brass’s “Lollipops and Roses.”
“You’re good at that,” Lovable Lance complemented the boy. “Herb Alpert should take you on the road with his band.” The little boy shot Lovable Lance a skunk eye, like he didn’t want Lance calling attention to his musical talent.
Sherry said to Mykel, “Don’t they use this song on that game show that is on at night?”
“Yeah, when they introduce the contestants,” Mykel said before launching into an impromptu routine. “Our first contestant is a beautiful blonde girl from Knob Noster, Missouri, she likes old movies, kissing and heavy petting…please welcome SHIRLEY Ridenhour!”
Sherry began laughing and swatted Mykel’s on the shoulder. “You are a very naughty boy!”
The monitor played another jingle before segueing into “Surfin Bird” by the Trashmen. The little boy jumped out of the chair and began a frenzied style of dancing.
As Mykel and Sherry continued handling out keychains, bumper stickers, sodas, popcorn, and Little Killer dolls, they noticed a young man, dressed casually, looking at the various booths and through the crowd very pensive look on his face. It was as if he was pretending to look at the displays but was hiding that was frantic to find something precious that was lost. He looked at the K-I-L-L booth and began smiling with relief.
“There you are, Sport!” the young man shouted as he approached the K-I-L-L booth. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I’ve looked through all of the boats and campers, even some tents. Are you ready to go home?”
“Look what I got! Look what I got!” the boy said to his father showing him the Little Killer doll.
“Hey, that’s nice!” the man said to the boy. He then asked Lovable Lance, “Has he been here long?”
“Probably around a half an hour,” Lance answered. “He got really upset because we were out of Bar-B-Que potato chips and your wife just left him here.”
“That wasn’t his mother. His mother died of an aneurysm when he was two years old,” the man explained further. “That is my co-worker’s sister. She fixed me up with her. After today, I’m not going see her anymore. If she can’t handle Sport, she doesn’t deserve me. As a matter of fact, she got mad when I said I needed to find him and went to sit in the car. She said she left him at a radio station’s booth. I asked two men at the K-R-C-A booth, and they said there wasn’t a little boy at their booth. A fat guy in a cowboy hat at the K-B-U-B booth told me to go see you because you cater to brats…and then he handed me this ashtray with his picture on it,” the man showed Lovable Lance the ashtray with the red, wood call-letters on the side with a cartoon drawing of Cousin Clyde with that slogan about being a fishing American.
Mr. Ketner stepped over to where Lance and the man was talking.
“I just want to say that you have a nice little boy here.”
“My name isn’t Sport. It’s Kevin. Daddy just calls me Sport.”
“We’re in the radio business, Sonny. We all go by another name,” Mr. Ketner chuckled. “While you are here, sign up for the color television we are giving away.”
“Looking at your shirt, Kevin, I’ll ask you, what is Batman’s real name?” Mykel asked the little boy.
“Millionaire Bruce Wayne,” Kevin confidently answered.
“You are correct,” Mykel said. He handed the boy a bumper sticker. “You win a bumper sticker.”
Kevin smiled and then put his hands, half covered with his sleeves, over his mouth and chin.
“Well thank you and I’m sorry you had to watch him while you worked,” the man said, then asked Mykel, “Could I have a bumper sticker too? We listen to your station at work.” Mykel said “sure,” handed him one, and the man and boy walked away.
“I can put this to good use,” Lovable Lance said. He pulled the L & M Short from his mouth and ground the cigarette out on the cartoon picture of Cousin Clyde, saying ‘I love fishing and being an American’ in the bottom of the ashtray.
I realized my contact information was out of date. The number was a landline phone in my old apartment. If you want to contact me, my number is 417-880-7557. My email is jboggs6987@gmail.com. I apologize for any inconvenience.
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 