Most of the characters that inhabit Mykel’s life in the radio business were either modeled after someone I worked with or are a composite of people I have worked with in the radio industry. The two exceptions would be Saul Ketner, Mykel’s boss, who had been an actor during the Golden Age of Radio. He is sort of the “ideal” radio boss mixed with a prominent Lebanon, Missouri business man, who my father worked for, they he admired greatly. Then, there in Mathew Gilstrap a.k.a Matt Moonlight.
Matt Moonlight is a mixture of three nationally know DJs of the past. First is Frankie Crocker, a New York DJ. He is credited with coming up with the phrase “Urban Contemporary.” People of my generation will recognize him as the host of NBC’s Friday Night Videos. He is also rumored to be the inspiration for Venus Flytrap on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Frankie Crocker passed away in 2000. You can hear Frankie Crocker on WMCA in New York here.
Another famous DJ that inspired Matt Moonlight’s on-air delivery and the promotion of him as a “mystery man” was Alan Almond. Like Matt Moonlight, Alan Almond only issued a blank silhouette for publicity (seen above). It is said that he had a succession of bad publicity photos, so he told the radio stations to only use a silhouette to represent him in station publicity. Alan Almond worked in Detroit doing a nighttime show called Pillow Talk, playing love songs with a smooth, low voice, romantic patter that included segments called “Make a Wish on a Star” & his “Hello to the New Babies.” For a while, his show was syndicated to compete with Love Songs with Delilah. The radio station I worked for had been a Delilah affiliate, but lost it when Clear Channel (which owned her show) bought one of our rivals in town. We tried to replace Delilah with Alan Almond’s Pillow Talk. I liked Alan Almond’s show, because he played better music & he had a hip, sexy patter. He also had this closing routine that he did, where proclaimed it to be ‘the Witching Hour,” then he rattled off “I Love You” in several different languages, while “Summer Madness” by Kool & the Gang played in the background. I always found Delilah annoying & preachy. Of course, Ozarkers like preachy people & hate hip people. Listeners complained that Almond sounded like “an obscene phone caller” & they were “creeped out” not knowing what he looked like. Radio listeners in Springfield & the Ozarks are whiners. So, our radio station quit running Pillow Talk. Alan Almond passed away in 2015 (one website used a photo of British radio personality Alan Partridge with his obit). You can hear Alan Almond on WNIC in Detroit.
Last but not least, part of Matt Moonlight’s mystery man persona was modeled after the one & only Wolfman Jack. In the early days, Wolfman Jack played up a persona of a mystery man. It wasn’t until the 1970’s, when he hosted NBC’s Midnight Special & appeared in George Lucas’ American Graffiti, that people really knew what he looked like. A rumor went around that he was an African-American. There are many stories about people who were contacted by a clean cut, well dressed, radio salesman, from radio station XERB, named Robert W. Smith, who introduced himself as “the Wolfman’s representative.” The salesman, with a nasal & squeaky voice, would sell them time on the Wolfman’s show, always saying that the Wolfman was “too busy to meet them in person.” Smith would then promise to get the copy to the Wolfman & get the ads on his show. He would shake hands with the client. When the client, turn to walk away, they would hear a familiar voice say, “Oh by the way, THE WOLFMAN LOVES, BABY! Ah-WWWOOOOOOO!” The client would turn around. Neither Wolfman Jack nor Robert W. Smith (which, was Wolfman Jack’s real name) was no where to be seen. George Lucas had a variation of these stories in American Graffiti, where Richard Dryfuss meets a popsicle eating fellow at the radio station, who turns out to be the Wolfman. Wolfman Jack passed away in 1995. The scene from American Graffiti can be found here.
NEW NOTE: I’m happy to report that this sneak peak chapter has received several hits, according to the stats provided by WordPress and Jetpack. I noticed that in my haste to post this in time for Valentine’s Day three years ago, I had some typos, as well as I have since changed the name of the college and the town the novel is set. I have changed those and even some of the music titles mentioned. ENJOY!
NOTE: This is a sneak peak at an upcoming chapter. I thought I would post it today since it involves Valentine’s Day. Enjoy!
Mykel managed to stay awake during American Lit with Dr. Gladys Wisencoff, as the class discussed Winesburg, Ohio, and how close it was to Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology. As far as answering questions about any character other than young, idealistic newspaper reporter George Willard, Mykel wasn’t real interested. Dr. Wisencoff asked Mykel if he thought the character of Wing Biddlebaum was a pedophile.
“I don’t know,” Mykel answered with a cocky smirk on his face. “It never noticed it saying that he was a bicycle collector.” Dr. Wisencoff tried to hold in a laugh, given a half smile at Mykel before moving on to one of the more serious students. Kathy and Grace snickered and giggled at his answer. Finally class ended, mercifully, and everyone made their way out of the classroom.
Kathy instructed Mykel, “You and Clint try to be dressed in something nice about 7 p.m., for the Alpha Sigma Alpha Valentine Date Dash Dance.”
Mykel then confided in Kathy and Grace, “I got a Valentine card and present for Sherry. Just a box of candy. I’ll give it too her after classes this afternoon.”
“We have an appointment to have our hair done at Campus Beauty Shop at 2 p.m., but I’m sure you can give it to her before we go to our appointment,” Kathy said.
“She might not want it and will give it to somebody else,” Mykel fretted. “I gave candy to a girl in Lemming Pond and she gave it to a bunch of guys on the football team. It was those chocolate covered cherries and they used rubber bands to shoot them at me in class.”
“Mykel, Sherry would never do something like that!” Grace said.
“No, Sherry likes you,” Kathy tried to reassure Mykel. “She also appreciates the attention you give her, because she didn’t get any attention from her former boyfriend.”
“I hope so,” Mykel said with trepidation.
“We know so,” Kathy reassured him.
Mykel went to American History and sat down. Sherry came bouncing into the room a few minutes later with a smile on her face. Her hair was pulled back in a knot.
“Good morning! Are you excited about tonight?” Sherry asked, as she took her coat off, with a crackle of static, as it came off of her ski sweater.
“What is tonight?” Mykel tried to act like he wasn’t to anxious about going to the dance with Sherry.
“The Valentine’s Day Date Dash! You’re not really supposed to know about it, but it is best if you’re dressed kind of nice, since it is Valentine’s Day,” Sherry beamed with excitement.
“Yeah, I’ll be ready” Mykel was feeling more comfortable about the dance, so he decided to ask her about this afternoon. “Can we get together for a few minutes this afternoon, when you are finished with class?”
“Well, me and Kathy are going to get our hair fixed for the dance, so we can’t get into the shenanigans that we have been after class,” Sherry giggled. “But yeah, we can get together for a few minutes and hang out.”
Mykel relaxed, slightly, but became more excited that the experience might be more positive than his horrible experiences with girls in Lemming Pond. He got little out of Professor Plowright’s lecture why Charles Guiteau assassinated President Garfield.
Mykel rushed back to his dorm room. He needed to be ready for when Sherry got out of class. As usual, the first thing he did when he got into the room was turn on the radio.
He took the Valentine card, that he bought at Katz, out of the sack, which showed a boy and girl drinking soda with the words, “Just thought I’d POP the question – Will you be my Valentine?,” and signed his name on the inside. It was kind of corny, but Mykel still wasn’t sure how he was going to take it. He had told Bethany Duckworth that he was in love with her and she said she felt “disgusted” that he was in love with her. Mykel was trying to be cautious, but at the same time he had bought Sherry a heart-shaped box of Whitman Chocolates for four dollars. Maybe these won’t end up as projectiles aimed at him.
On the radio, T. R was telling about a private plane crash landing on the water at the Lake of the Ozarks, a soldier being stabbed at Fort Leonard Wood and budget talks in Jefferson City. When he was finished, the Four Tops began singing “Wake Me, Shake Me.”
Mykel decided to ring the girl’s suite to see if Sherry was back from class. His finger’s trembled as he dial ‘420’ on the phone. No answer. He hung up and waited about ten seconds and dialed again. No answer. It didn’t help that the Four Tops song included the lines “She don’t love you, she don’t love you.” Mykel waited a minute this time and dialed the phone. Debbie answered and he asked if Sherry was there.
“No, she is back from class yet,” Debbie said. “I’ll have her call you when she gets here.”
“THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L WITH THE FOUR TOPS AND WAKE ME, SHAKE ME, THROW COLD WATER ON ME! I’M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS AND HERE IS A SONG THAT WE ARE HAVING A TON OF REQUEST FOR TODAY. IT’S A VERY MUSHY ROMANTIC SONG FOR VALENTINE’S DAY. IT’S STAFF SARGENT BARRY SADLER AND THE BALLAD OF THE GREEN BERET ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
Mykel decided to call the girl’s room again to see if Sherry was back from class. Debbie answered again. “No, Mykel, she isn’t here yet. I’ll tell her to call you, when she gets in.” Mykel sat down on the bed and watched the minute had on the clock make it’s revolution around the face of the alarm clock. So, he got up and dialed the phone. “No, Mykel!” Debbie snapped. “Sherry isn’t here yet! I will have her call you when she comes in! You will just have to wait for her to call you!” Mykel hung up. He decided that he probably should wait for Sherry to call, rather than call the room again.
Finally, the phone rang and Sherry told him to come down to 420. Mykel picked up the envelope, with the Valentine inside, and the heart-shaped box of Whitman’s Chocolates, and made his way to see Sherry, stopping off in the stairwell to buy a bottle of Pepsi for her and himself. Mykel was going all out for this girl, in hopes that she was maybe THE girl.
The door was open and she walked out the bathroom, rubbing that concoction, of Witch Hazel and peroxide, on her hands. “Hey, I understand you have been trying to call me,” she laughed.
“Is Debbie mad at me?”
“No, she just thought it was funny that you were calling that much,” Sherry said. “You must really want to see me.”
“Yeah, can we sit down?” Mykel’s voice croaked with nervousness.
“How about we sit on…” Sherry pointed to the settee and said in a pretend sexy voice, “the Love Seat.” She then burst in to laughter. Mykel sat down and Sherry sat down next to him, after she turned on the radio on the counter, playing “Hungry For Love” by the San Remo Golden Strings. “What all have you got in your hands?”
“I got us a Pepsi and this other stuff is for you,” Mykel was shaking as he handed the gifts to Sherry. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”
“Chocolates! You shouldn’t have!” Sherry took the envelope with the card and opened it. She looked at the cutesy drawing on the card and then, read the inside. Her bottom lip began to quiver and tears began running down her face. “Oh Mykel!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll leave now and…”
“No! No! Your not going to believe this, but this is the first Valentine’s card that I have received since elementary school,” Sherry sobbed. “It is so nice to have a boy treat me special on Valentine’s Day for once!”
“You mean Mr. Knob Noster didn’t give you a Valentine?” Mykel asked.
“No, and we went together two years I got nothing from him,” Sherry then threw her arms around Mykel and gave him a tight hug. “Oh Mykel, thank you!” Then, she said, “Let’s eat the chocolates!” They unwrapped the red foil on the box and each took one out and bit into it.
Sherry chewed the chocolate candy rather furiously, then asked Mykel, “What was in your? Mine was filled with maple syrup – taffy – stuff.”
“Some kind of stuff that taste like orange juice, after you brushed your teeth, with a mystery nut in it,” Mykel grumbled. Sherry giggled about Mykel deduction of what was inside the chocolate he had just ingested. “That was one of those strange ones, that I don’t like to get a hold of when eating chocolates.”
“There is a key on the inside of the box lid,” Sherry exclaimed, as she looked at the lid. She held it up and scanned it for the flavor of chocolate Mykel had eaten. “That was a peppermint and fruit cream. I don’t like the cherry cordials myself.”
“I bought a box of those cherry cordials for a girl I liked in Lemming Pond and she gave them to some guys on the football team. They put them in rubber bands and shot them at me. They would hit me and break open, so the filling would run down the side of my face. I was all sticky by the end of the day.”
“That’s awful, Mykel! If she didn’t like the candy, she could have least shared it with you, not let a bunch of brutes pelt you with it.” The story made Sherry feel sorry for Mykel, but she decided to rectify the wrong afflicted on him in Lemming Pond. She found the cherry cordial in the box and held it up to Mykel’s face, to feed it to him. He was taking a drink of Pepsi at that moment. “Here you can eat my cherry!” Mykel nearly choked on his Pepsi and Sherry, quickly realized how awkward and inappropriate that her offer of the chocolate candy sounded, she began laughing. They were both laughing and she placed her head on his shoulder. “That didn’t sound very good, did it!” Once they stopped laughing. They looked into each others eyes and she placed the cherry chocolate candy in his mouth. Mykel bit down on the chocolate and realized that he could probably develop a taste for cherry cordials. Sherry then leaned in and gave Mykel a kiss on the lips.
“THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L! I’M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS WITH THE SAN REMO GOLDEN STRINGS AND HUNGRY FOR LOVE! I’M CRAVING PIZZA MYSELF. IT VALENTINE’S DAY, ALSO KNOWN A SINGLE PEOPLES AWARENESS DAY.” Lovable Lance played a recorded drum rim shot. “IF YOU GIVE YOUR GIRL A DIAMOND RING TODAY, I HOPE SHE DOESN’T GIVE IT BACK. IT’S GARY LEWIS AND THE PLAYBOYS ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!” Lovable Lance introduced “This Diamond Ring” to the listeners.
Kathy walked into the dorm suite, “Well, you two are celebrating Valentine’s Day the right way.”
“Mykel got me chocolates and a Valentine card,” Sherry boasted to Kathy.
“They are talking naughty too!” Debbie yelled from the bedroom. Sherry and Mykel chuckled about the faux pas Sherry had made about the cherry cordial.
“That was nice of him! Can I have one?” Kathy reached for a piece of candy out of the red foil, heart-shaped box and Sherry, playfully, swatted her hand.
“Get you own box!” Sherry laughed, but some stray tears welled up in her eyes, as she explained, “These are the first box of chocolates I ever got from a boy and I’m not sharing.”
“Well!” Kathy said with fake indignation. “You’re sassy now that you have a nice boy that gives you attention.”
“Now Kathy, you know some people think I’m queer because I have a Beatle hair cut and make jokes. Also, my family never put the knob in Knob Noster,” Mykel making fun of Alice, which made Sherry and Kathy laugh. “By the way, will Alice grace us with her presence at the dance tonight?”
“No, she isn’t in our sorority,” Sherry answered. “Thank God!”
“That’s good! I was afraid that while we are dancing tonight, she would be following us around telling you how you need to go back to that jerk Chip,” Mykel said. “I can see her doing that and staring at me with that creepy eye of hers.” Sherry and Kathy laughed at Mykel’s comment, which he augmented with a futile attempt to imitate Alice’s exotropia strabismus by crossing his eyes.
“Not trying to rush you off, but we need to be going to our beauty appointment,” Kathy informed Mykel.
“It’s 1:45 now!” Sherry exclaimed with a slight panic. She put the candy box in the refrigerator and Mykel walked with Sherry and Kathy out to Kathy’s Packard Clipper in the parking lot.
After they came back from eating in the cafeteria, Mykel and Clint got dressed up for the Alpha Sigma Alpha Valentine’s Day Date Dash, which they were supposed to act like they didn’t know about it. Clint put on a white dress shirt and Mykel put on a sweater. They turned on Mykel’s television and watched the news until Batman came on.
“Shouldn’t we put on ties?” Clint asked Mykel, before taking a drink of Dr. Pepper.
“It would be nice, but we are supposed to act like we didn’t know the girls were coming to get us,” Mykel explained. “I think we are already over dressed as it is.”
“Did Sherry like the candy you got her?” Clint asked.
“She liked it so much she cried,” Mykel replied. “She had never been given a gift on Valentine’s Day. If I ever meet up with that Chip Hallwell, I’m going to punch his lights out for treating her like her did. I don’t care if his family did –” Mykel quickly slipped into a crude imitation of Alice’s voice. “Put the knob in Knob Noster.”
Clint chuckled at Mykel’s imitation of Alice, then said, “You know, I’d to take a dip of chew, but I don’t think I should before a date with a girl, because there might be some kissing later on and girl don’t like to kiss a guy that has been chewing tobacco.”
Someone banged on the door of the boy’s dorm room. “Are those are dates that we are not supposed to know about?” Clint laughed.
Mykel got off of the bed, walked down the corridor to the door and opened it, to find Sherry and Kathy were standing outside, dressed in their best dresses, with white gloves and their hair and makeup to perfection. Kathy’s hair was curled and Sherry had her hair bleached to an almost silvery white. “Surprise! We are here for the Alpha Sigma Alpha Valentine’s Day Date Dash!”
Mykel milked his attempt to act like he didn’t know they were coming to the point of absurdity. He turned and said, to Clint, who was walking up the corridor to the door, in a dry, slow, mock unexcited tone, “Oh my, there are two sorority girls here, wanting us to go to a dance with them. I was not expecting this tonight. Were you, Clint?”
“Nope. I forgot it was Valentine’s Day,” Clint answered. The girls laughed at the boys acting like they didn’t know about the dance, even they were ready and waiting for the girls. The boys got their coats and Mykel turned off the TV. “Why don’t we take my Mustang since it is a special occasion?” Clint suggested.
“The Alpha Sigma Alpha house is just across the street. We were just going to walk,” Kathy said. “But it will be cool to ride in a Mustang! Besides it is cold outside.”
When they arrived at the Alpha Sigma House, the boys opened the doors of the Mustang for the girls and helped them out. “We should have got the girls roses or corsages,” Clint observed.
“Remember, we weren’t supposed to know about this,” Mykel reminded him, as they walked the girls up the steps to the Alpha Sigma house, which was decorated the red, white and pink crepe paper streamers and big, scarlet hearts. There was a pretty good crowd of students, dancing in the large room, in the center of the house. In the corner, a fellow was playing records on two record players with a hi-fi speaker. At the moment they walked in, he was playing “More and More Amor” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
“Hello, girls! You look lovely!” a white haired lady, with silver framed glasses, walked over and began talking to Kathy and Sherry.
“Hello, Miss Emojean!” Kathy greeted the lady.
“Miss Emojean, I want to introduce you to my friend, Mykel Daring,” Sherry gushed. “Mykel, this is the sorority house mother, Miss Emojean.” The boys told her that it was nice to meet her.
“Sherry, this boy is a different boy than was here at the Christmas party, isn’t he?” Miss Emojean asked. “Wasn’t he a taller boy with blonde hair in a brush cut?”
“Yes, mam! But since he never liked to celebrate Valentine’s Day, he is probably spending it alone in Knob Noster tonight,” Sherry acknowledged that she was not with Chip anymore.
Miss Emojean placed her fore fingers over her lips and snickered, “Oh my! Well, Mykel, were you surprised when Sherry came to get you for the Date Dash Dance?”
“Mam, I was never more surprised in my life,” Mykel told Miss Emojean, imitating Red Skelton doing Clem Kadiddlehopper character. He then went back to his own voice and told her, “This is the first time a girl asked me to go to a dance with her. I’m pretty happy right now!”
“You certainly have more personality than her former boyfriend,” Miss Emojean complimented Mykel, then turned to Clint and Kathy. “Kathy, what is your friend’s name?”
“This is Clint Grogan. He is on the Wolves Basketball team.”
“I thought he must be a basketball player as tall as he is,” Miss Emojean observed. “Where are you from, young man?”
“Hermes, Missouri.”
“That is near the Iowa line, isn’t it?”
Clint smiled and said, “Yes, it is near Iowa, near Nebraska and near Kansas.”
“Well, it is nice to meet you boys,” Miss Emojean said. “I’ll take your coats, girls. We have punch and cookies, over at the kitchen bar. Have a good time!” The boys helped the girls removed their coats and Miss Emojean took them in another room to hang them up. Kathy was wear a knee-length, black, velvet party dress with white satin collar and cuffs and Sherry was wearing a knee-length, deep pink, chiffon, shift dress with vertical pleats all around.
“Shall we dance, ladies?” Clint asked, as they walked into the parlor of the old Victorian house, which had been converted into a makeshift ballroom for the evening. The instrumental ended and the DJ providing the music, began playing “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” by Mel Carter. It was then that Mykel realized that dancing with Sherry would be a tad awkward since he stood only five foot one and she was five foot five.
“I know how to fix this!” Sherry said, as she reached down and took off her shoes, to make her closer to the right height for Mykel to dance with. He still had to look up to look into Sherry’s blue eyes, but the fact that he was standing close enough to do so was an wonderful experience alone. They put their arms around each other and began slow dancing to the soulful love song. Her body felt warm pressed up against his. It was warmer than it usually was when they were heavy petting in his dorm room, but he figured it was because of Valentine’s Day excitement.
“That was nice of you to do that,” Mykel thanked Sherry. “The girls in Lemming Pond wouldn’t dance with me, because they said my eyes and nose would be right between their boobs.”
Sherry laughed and gave Mykel a flirty wink, “What would be wrong with that?” Then, she said, “I find it ironic that none of the girls in Lemming Pond wanted to have anything to do with a sweet, considerate and loving person like you, Mykel, and yet, in Knob Noster, I was the envy of Alice, and all the other girls, because I was going with Chip Hallwell, who was inconsiderate, uncaring and downright boring.”
“I noticed Miss Emojean wasn’t very impressed with Chip,” Mykel said with a smirk.
“Once you get away from Knob Noster,” Sherry explained. “Nobody is impressed with Chip.”
“You know what we should do tonight that would make this evening more fun?” Mykel asked with a sarcastic tone in his voice.
“What?” Sherry looked Mykel in the face with an inquisitive look.
“If we didn’t talk about Chip anymore tonight,” Mykel answered, right about the time Eddy Arnold began singing “Make The World Go Away” on the Hi-Fi speaker.
Sherry smiled, “That’s a good idea, although I was hoping you would say we should get drunk. Maybe when Miss Emojean isn’t looking, someone will spike the punch. They usually do.”
Mykel felt he really didn’t need a drink, he was inebriated just holding Sherry close to him and swaying back and forth with the music. “I like your perfume,” Mykel said to her. “What’s that called?”
“Ambush,” Sherry whispered the answer to him. “Someone didn’t like me to wear perfume, but you just told me not to bring him up.”
“Well, I like perfume on a woman, even though it sometimes triggers my asthma,” Mykel’s complimented her awkwardly.
“Thanks! I put it on my both sides of my neck, both of my wrist…” then Sherry whispered to Mykel. “I also put it on my derriere and my underwear.” She winked at Mykel and continued, “I’d lift my skirt and let you smell, but…” she began giggling to a point that she could hardly talk, “Miss Emojean would frown on me doing that.”
Mykel tried to continue dancing, although his mouth was hanging open to his belt after Sherry passed on that bit of candid, provocative information to him. She was still smiling and laughing at his reaction. She placed her hand on the back of his head and pushed it forward into her hairspray stiffened blonde hair, which kind of scratched his face, which was draped on her shoulder. The DJ switched from playing a smooth, Nashville, reconciliation ballad to the sinister, spooky, Philly soul song “Who Do You Love (I Want To Know)” by the Sapphires. “Let’s just keep dancing,” Sherry said. “We can do that sometime, when I’m in your room.”
So Mykel and Sherry continued to dance to the slow songs, holding each other close, occasionally stopping to kiss each others cheek and smile at each other. It was during the big dramatic finish of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by B. J Thomas, that Sherry made an acute observation, “Mykel, have you noticed how all of the songs that are so good to slow dance to are very sad. They all seem to be about losing your love to another person or someone couple breaking up. I wonder why that is?” As Sherry commented with wisdom of a person, who knew the sadness that comes with love, the DJ began playing “What Now My Love”.
“And this song is about the most depressing song in the world,” Mykel odd continued the discussion. “Why Sonny and Cher, would want to sing this is beyond me. They’re a happy couple and will probably be like my both grandparents and celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary some day.” Mykel then said, “Where are Clint and Kathy?” He and Sherry looked around until they spied them at the refreshments.
“They are having cookies and punch,” Sherry noticed their location at the party. “Kathy is probably telling Clint the proper way to make sugar cookies.”
“Do you and Kathy not get along?” Mykel asked.
“Oh no! I like Kathy!” Sherry clarified what she meant. “But she always is in charge and organizing everything. She likes to tell you how to do everything. Kathy is a born leader.”
Mykel and Sherry made their way over to where the refreshments were being served through a serving window with a Formica covered bar. There was a platter of heart-shaped sugar cookies, iced in pink and red, with little sprinkles on them. The punch was being served in little plastic flutes, like for champagne.
“Taste the punch!” Kathy commanded Sherry and Mykel with a big smile.
“Did somebody…?” Sherry started to ask.
“Oh yes and it is rather strong too,” Clint added. “Pretty sure they put vodka in it.”
Mykel and Sherry both got a cup of punch from one of the senior Alpha Sigma Alpha girls, then walked back over to where Clint and Kathy were sitting. They took a drink and both made a funny face. Mykel strangled a little and coughed.
“Now that is what I call punch,” Mykel joked. The fellow playing the records followed “What Now My Love” with “I Can’t Grow Peaches On an Apple Tree” by Just Us and Mykel thought of Sherry’s rather poignant comment to him, before they paused for refreshments. He excused himself and walked over to where the DJ had his hi-fi system set up.
“Hey pal, can I have a word with you?” Mykel asked the guy.
“Yeah, sure. Do you have a special song you want to request?”
“Not one special song, per say. My date pointed out that most of the slow songs are kind of sad. Do you have any slow songs that aren’t about breaking up?” Mykel inquired. The guy pulled out a clipboard with a list of songs on them.
“Yeah, sure,” the DJ explained. “I was just playing some of these first. I have some others I can play. I got plenty of Beatles records I can play. Those are usually happy. I’m also going to play some upbeat stuff so people don’t have to slow dance all night, then the last few songs will be instrumentals.”
“By the way, how did you get started doing this?” Mykel asked.
“I used to be in radio,” the guy said.
“I’m a Broadcasting major and an intern at K-I-L-L.”
“Can I give you a word of warning? Do not work at K-M-W-H for the Meinhoffs!”
“Is that the father and son team? I have heard bad things about them.”
“They forced me to sign, what is called, a non-compete contract. Most non-competes are for a few months in the same market. The Meinhoffs non-competes are for two years for the whole state of Missouri. My wife and I are both from Spring Valley and don’t want to move to another state. So, I started this business. I make good money at these frat and sorority parties. Tell you what, kid. I’ll try to play something happier for your girlfriend.”
Mykel thanked the guy for the advice, about avoiding the bad radio station, and walked back to where Sherry, Clint and Kathy were sitting. Mykel had barely sat down, when they DJ played “Every Little Thing She Does” by The Beatles. His little talk must have worked.
Sherry’s cheerful smile was a tad wilder this time. “I think I’m going to need another cup of this punch.”
“I do too. Want me to go get us another cup?” Mykel asked and Sherry said yes. Clint asked Kathy if she wanted another cup of punch and she said yes, so both boys walked over to the refreshments were being served to get the girl’s more punch.
“Are you having fun?” Mykel asked his roommate.
“Yeah, we danced some, but we’ve enjoyed talking more…” Clint answered. “And drinking this punch, although Kathy thinks the cookies are too dry.” Mykel smiled, because Sherry had already remarked, to him, that Kathy would say something about the cookies. “She said they need more shortening or butter in them.” Then, Clint added, “I can tell you two are having good time. I don’t think either one of you have stopped smiling since you got here.”
“We’re having a good time, but we always do when we are together,” Mykel replied with a ever growing smile. He glanced over at Sherry and gave her a little wave, she smiled and waved back at him.
Clint tapped Mykel on the wrist, as he started to pick up a plate, with some cookies for he and Sherry to enjoy together. Clint then motioned, with his head and eyes, toward the serving window, to a red headed girl with a towering beehive hairdo and violet dress, in the kitchen, pouring a some Smirnoff Vodka into a paper cup. When it was filled, she dumped it into the punch bowl, after making sure Miss Emojean wasn’t around. The girl was adding a can of Ruby Red Hawaiian Punch and a quart bottle of Bubble Up to the bowl, when she noticed that Clint and Mykel had saw her spiking the punch. She came out of the kitchen, with the punch bowl and placed it on the refreshment table, where the boys were standing and began chatting with them.
“Well Hello! I’m the Alpha Sigma president Betty Kay Kendall. You are two nice looking young men! I assume you are here with dates.”
“Yes, we are,” Clint answered, as “Everybody Loves Somebody” by Dean Martin began playing on the DJ’s hi-fi system. “I am here with Kathy Trautman and Mykel is with Sherry Ridenhour.”
The red haired girl looked at Mykel and smiled, “Sherry is kind of a big girl for a tiny, little boy like you.” She was joking, but Mykel didn’t appreciate her attempted humor.
“So, where are you tigers from?” Betty asked, as she sat a cup of her lethal punch down on the table behind her and lit a Tareyton 100.
“I’m from Lemming Pond, but don’t hold that against me.” Betty laughed in a slightly fake manner at Mykel’s usual comment about his hometown.
“I’m from Hermes.”
“Well well, I’m from Palmyra. We are practically neighbors,” Betty gushed.
“If you call twenty miles away being neighbors,” Clint answered in an annoyed voice. Neither Clint nor Mykel was having any of Betty’s glad-handing. Luckily, Sherry and Kathy apparently saw Betty trying to flirt with their dates and rushed over to get them away from her. Clint was sort of startled by how quick they came over, to the refreshment table, from across the room, as if to save them from being hijacked by the red haired girl with the beehive hairdo.
“And here are your dates now!” Betty gushed, trying to avoid acting like she was caught. “Are you girls enjoying the dance?”
“Yes we are, Betty! We sent the boys over here for some more punch and cookies,” Kathy hinted. “We came to check on what was keeping them.”
“I was refreshing the punch bowl, so they were probably waiting on that,” Betty apologized, but never admitted that she was flirting with Clint and Mykel. She dipped all four of them a cup of the punch and served it to them. The four took a drink and were struck by how this batch of punch was stronger than the last. The amount of vodka caused a tingling numbness, accompanied by acidic singe as it went down their throats. “Do you all like what I did with the punch?”
“It’s great!” Sherry said with a burning throat. “But Miss Emojean is going to be upset, if she finds out what you put in it.”
On the dance floor, there was more movement, thanks to the DJ playing “I Getting Sentimental Over You” by the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The Valentine couples were trying to dance the Watusi, Frug and Pony to the mariachi-influenced jazz-pop.
“The music seems to have gotten happier,” Sherry observed. “Maybe we should be out there dancing too.”
“That’s a great idea, but let me finish this cup of punch,” Mykel answered her. “It kind of makes me vibrate all over.”
Sherry winked at Mykel and giggled, “It does me too.”
They finished their cookies and punch and returned to the dance floor, just in time for the DJ to play “You’re The One” by The Vogues, which was faster than what they had been dancing to earlier. The up-tempo music mixed with the buzz from the spiked punch gave Mykel and Sherry a rush of enthusiastic dancing that others at the dance began watching with great enjoyment. They were running the gamut and trying to do the Watusi, Frug and Pony, all at once, and Sherry even threw in a little bit of the Swim, before Mykel put his arms around her waist and tried to spin Sherry, while she held her flailing arms out, like they were an Olympic ice skating duo, but the effects of the spiked punch caused them to blunder into two other couples. They began laughing, only slightly embarrassed, although one of the couples, they bumped into, was not amused. Mykel and Sherry both told the other boy and girl that they were sorry. The girl mumbled something to the boy about them being “freshmen.” Sherry gave Mykel a kiss and smiled with a twinkle in her blue eyes.
“I think you are a pretty good dancer!” Sherry complimented Mykel
“I think you have had too much of that punch,” Mykel replied, to which Sherry threw her head back and laughed louder than usual. Surprisingly, her hair never moved, thanks to the amount of hair care products that had been applied, while she and Kathy were at the beauty shop, but she was glistening with perspiration.
“Hey, you want to get another cup of punch?” Sherry asked while grabbing Mykel’s lapel and tugging on it, for no apparent reason. “I need a cold drink to cool me off.”
“I don’t think another cup of punch would hurt us,” Mykel agreed, so they walked over to the refreshments and grabbed another cup of the spiked punch.
The DJ began playing “Eight Days a Week,” by the Beatles, and Sherry smiled at Mykel. “I love this song!” She then tried singing along with John Lennon, “Hold me, love me, hold me, love me.”
Mykel was drinking another cup of punch, when he noticed, through the serving window, Miss Emojean in the kitchen, she dipped a cup of the punch, took a drink and made a horrified expression on her face. “This is punch is tainted. I’ll bet Betty did this!” She said, out loud, before she took the punch bowl and dumped the contents into the sink.
As soon as she finished her cup of punch, Sherry jumped up and said, “Let’s go dance some more!” She grabbed Mykel’s arm and almost dislocated his shoulder pulling him to the dance floor. After the earlier dancing mishap, the other couple tried to make sure they were not around Mykel and Sherry. The Beatles song ended, the DJ went back to slow dance music and played Barbara Streisand singing “The Shadow of Your Smile.” Mykel put his arms around Sherry, giving a gentle, little squeeze.
“You know what we need to do?” Sherry jabbered loudly in Mykel’s ear, even though she probably thought she was whispering. “We need to pick us a special song to be our song. How about this one?”
“This is okay to dance to on Valentine’s Day, but too middle-aged, country club couple for us,” Mykel answered, as only a radio station employee would, when speaking of popular music.
“You’re right,” Sherry said. “This is something old country club people would like and I sure don’t want to be like them. I’ve been to some country club dances and they are really, really boring! And you also dance better than Chip did. You hold me closer. I also like your aftershave, it smells so clean.”
“It’s just Aqua Velva; nothing fancy.”
The continued to sway slowly to the songs the DJ played on his hi-fi system, as they would continue to try to pick a “special song.” They considered both “Today” by the New Christy Minstrels, “Some Enchanted Evening” by Jay and the Americans, and “All I Really Want To Do” by the Byrds. They had a bit of a disagreement about “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers. Sherry liked it, but Mykel said “People twenty-five years from now probably won’t remember that song.”
Some of the other couples were starting to leave. Clint and Kathy were sitting and talking to another couple, while about three other couples continued dancing next to Mykel and Sherry.
Mykel quietly told Sherry, “You know, I could hold you and dance with you, from now until eternity.”
Sherry, after being so happy and giddy all night long, suddenly sounded morose, “No, Mykel, I’m afraid you can’t.”
Mykel was afraid, that she would eventually turn on him or let him know that she didn’t love him. He was having such a wonderful night. He knew it was too good to be true. “Why?” he asked, as he felt like he was going to cry.
Sherry looked at him, with that mischievous look of hers, where she was trying to hold in a laugh She then confided, with a little giggle in her voice, “You can’t hold me until eternity, because I drunk all of that punch and I’M DYING TO GO TO THE LADIES ROOM!”
Mykel quickly turned loose of Sherry and gave laugh of relief. He was afraid he had done something wrong and their friendship was over. Luckily, it was only the call of nature. A total of four songs passed, while Mykel waited for Sherry to return from the bathroom. To Mykel, it seemed like four years. She came tipsy toddling back to Mykel from the bathroom, still in her stocking feet, after removing them, so she and Mykel wouldn’t be so miss matched in heights while dancing. “Red Roses For a Blue Lady” by Vic Dana began playing for the remaining couples and Sherry reached out her arms for Mykel to take her again.
“I noticed, while I was on the toilet, my shoes are missing,” Sherry informed Mykel. “I may have lost them. I really, really, really liked those shoes. They were so cute.”
The next song the DJ played was a ballad called “For You” by a soul group called the Spellbinders. Mykel held Sherry’s body tight against his body, as the lead vocalist sang, “I would cross the desert sands, on my knees and hands for you, girl. For you hooo-hooo-hooo-hooo you girl.”
“Do you like this one, Sherry?”
“Yes, this is a sweet song.”
“Then this is will be our song,” Mykel told her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Sherry Ridenhour!”
Sherry teared up and began to weep with happiness, “Oh Mykel, this has been the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had! I love you too.”
“What a coincidence, this has been the best Valentine’s Day, I’ve ever had!” Mykel gently wiped her tears with the side of his hand.
The DJ announced that the next two songs would be last dances of the evening. Clint and Kathy and the couple they were chatting with, got up and danced as well to “Our Winter Love” and “Stranger On the Shore.” Miss Emojean turned the lights up and began trying to find what coats, in the den, belonged to which guest. She had actually kept track pretty well. When she brought out Sherry and Kathy’s coats, she also brought the pair of high heeled pumps, that Sherry had shed, before she began dancing with Mykel. “You will need these, Honey,” Miss Emojean smiled. “I think your new boyfriend is a keeper too.”
“He told me he loves me,” Sherry bragged with a smile. “My other boyfriend never said that to me.”
“He didn’t act like he would have the gumption to love anybody,” Miss Emojean gave her final judgment on Chip for that evening.
They walked out into the twenty degree night to Clint’s Mustang. He opened the door and again pulled the seat forward, so Mykel and Sherry could ride in the back seat, and drove back to the dorm parking lot. On the radio, Bob Dylan was finishing up singing “Love Minus Zero.” After comparing his girlfriend to a raven with a broken wing, the PAMS jingle singers came on and cooed, “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY FROM YOUR SWEETHEARTS AT K-I-DOUBLE-L!” As if Cupid had intervened in the programming at the radio station, the next song was The Spellbinders singing “For You.”
“OH MYKEL! They are playing our song on the radio!” Sherry squealed with joy. “Me and Mykel picked this to be our song tonight.” She moved closer to Mykel, put her arm around him, laid her head on his shoulder, and gave him a kiss on the lips.
“This is a good song to have as your song,” Kathy commented.
Clint parked the Mustang and Kathy made a request. “Since it is so cold outside, let’s just sit here awhile. That heater feels so good. I’ve been cold all night.”
“Fine with me,” Clint agreed, then added. “I’m glad you talked me into going to this party. I had fun. The best part of the night was when you two ladies rushed over to rescue me and Mykel from that red headed gal.” He began laughing, “She was trying to get her hooks into me and I didn’t want to tell her that I don’t find red heads attractive.”
“I like how you two girls just appeared out of thin air, when you saw her talking to us,” Mykel laughed. “You two were like Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden. I turned around and there you were. Although she was more interested in Clint than me.”
“We caught her spiking the punch,” Clint told the girls. “She was putting whole cups of vodka in the bowl.”
“I drank several cups, because I have been hot all night,” Sherry said, moving in closer to Mykel to a point that she was almost in his lap, which was beginning to make Mykel nervous. She eased up her skirt tail above her knee and then moved his hand over to her nylon covered leg. She smiled and winked.
“Betty is notorious for two things: spiking punch at our parties and trying to steal your date,” Kathy explained. “She thinks because she is the Alpha Sigma president, she can get away with taking your boyfriend away from you.”
“She never tried to steal Chip, unfortunately,” Sherry remarked.
“THIS IS MATT MOONLIGHT ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L AND THE PERFECT REQUEST FOR VALENTINE’S DAY – THE SPELLBINDERS AND “FOR YOU.” ANOTHER NICE VALENTINE’S DAY DEDICATION, FROM BOBBY TO SALLY, WHO ARE IN THE SIXTH GRADE AT JARRETT MIDDLE SCHOOL, HERE IS SPRINGVILLE. FROM HIS TRIBUTE TO NAT KING COLE LP, THIS IS MARVIN GAYE AND “TOO YOUNG.” I’M MATT MOONLIGHT AND I LOVE ALL OF YOU LISTENING TO K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
Mykel was listening to Matt’s on-air voice, that evoked an image of a handsome, white playboy with wavy hair, which was different than who he really was; a hard working, stout, Black man with a wife and two kids. He knew how to perform, as Mr. Ketner and Lovable Lance like to say, radio magic.
Sherry turned around in the back seat and laid her head in Mykel’s lap, looking up at him with a sweet, childlike expression, she raised her arm and began to tickle him under his chin. Without warning, her expression changed to one of terror and she bit her lip. “Quick! Let me out of the car!” she screamed.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Mykel asked. Before she could answer with words, she answered instead with a rumbling, rolling, demonic belch, accompanied by a scarlet deluge of regurgitated Hawaiian Punch, Bubble Up, and Smirnoff Vodka, that flowed, from her once kissable lips, to cover Mykel’s bright yellow sweater and the white, leather backseat of Clint’s Mustang.
Kathy looked around and announced to Clint, “Oh my gosh! Sherry just puked on Mykel!”
Sherry looked rather embarrassed, but before she could apologize, she vomited on Mykel again with even more force than the first volley. Sherry began to cry, not with happiness, as she had when Mykel gave her the Valentine card and candy or when he was telling her he loved her, but this was shame mixed with discomfort.
“Are you going to be okay?” Mykel asked with a worry.
“No.” Sherry whimpered and sobbed. “I threw up so hard, that I pooped a little.”
“We better take her inside! I’ll bet it is alcohol poisoning!” Kathy said.
They helped Sherry inside and into the elevator. “I just thought of something. This dress is dry clean only,” Sherry lamented. The girls got off the elevator on their floor. Mykel decided to help her walk down to Room 420.
“Mykel, you could get in trouble!” Kathy reprimanded him. “It’s after curfew and boys aren’t supposed to be on the girl’s floor or in their room.”
“I don’t care! She needs my help!” Mykel and Kathy got Sherry into the room. Her knees buckled a few times and she was as limp as a rag doll. Grace and Debbie were still awake, studying with the radio on.
“Oh my gosh! Were you guys in a car wreck?” Debbie asked at the sight of red bodily fluid on Mykel and Sherry’s clothing.
“No, Sherry got sick on Mykel,” Kathy explained. “It may be alcohol poisoning. We will need to keep her up for awhile. First, we should give her a shower. That will help and clean her up too.”
Kathy and Mykel sat Sherry down, in one of the kitchen chairs, and helped her off with her coat. Grace and Debbie watched with both worry, as Sherry was sweating buckets and seemed to be on the verge of passing out, and revulsion at the soiled front of her dress and Mykel’s soiled sweater. In the background, the science fiction, gospel choir and jazz trumpet sound of Donald Byrd’s “Christo Redentor” played behind Matt Moonlight, while he gave his famous sign off spiel over the K-I-L-L.
“OH MY LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE OZARKS, IT IS BEDTIME, SO SAY YOUR PRAYERS AND KISS YOUR TEDDY BEAR GOODNIGHT. THIS IS MATT MOONLIGHT, YOUR FRIENDLY VOICE AND GALLANT CHAMPION IN THIS SOMETIMES HARSH AND CRUEL WORLD. I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, THANK YOU BEING A FRIEND AND, MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS BEING YOU. IF YOU FEEL SAD OR ANGRY TOMORROW, I HOPE YOU WILL THINK ABOUT SOMETHING I SAID TONIGHT AND IT WILL MAKE YOU SMILE. SO I SAY TE QUIERO, TE AMO, WO AN NE, JE T’AIME, ICH LIEBE DICH AND, OF COURSE, I LOVE YOU, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, BECAUSE WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS ON PLANET EARTH. FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE LOUNGE, SAVE A DRINK FOR YOURS TRUELY. GOODNIGHT MY SWEET ANGELS! THIS HAS BEEN NIGHTCAP WITH MATT MOONLIGHT, SIGNING OFF UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN.”
When the unusual jazz piece faded out, Matt did his patriotic duty for the FCC and played the cart with Mr. Ketner signing off, with information about K-I-L-L, being 1300 kilohertz, and owned by the Mary Sue Broadcasting Company of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and then the ‘Star Spangle Banner” played, before the signal went dead and white noise prevailed. Grace reached over and turned the radio off.
“Mykel, we need to get Sherry undressed and into the shower,” Kathy informed him.
Mykel understood, but before he left, he squeezed Sherry’s hand. “Sherry, I wanted to give you a goodnight kiss, but…I don’t know…you know…and hugging would be kind of…uh…”
Sherry in a groggy voice mumbled, “I had a wonderful time and I love you, Mykel!”
“Oh wow! She told me she loved me…again!” Mykel gloated as the girls smiled at the sweetness of the scene, even though both parties involved were covered in vomit.
Mykel went to his room, took off his clothes and took a shower.
“Do you think you can get that sweater clean?” Clint asked.
“I really don’t like that sweater, so I’m not too worried about it. I’m more worried about Sherry. You know there are people, who go to sleep with alcohol poisoning and don’t wake up.”
“I don’t think she really drank enough to kill her. We will have to try and clean the backseat of my car tomorrow,” Clint said, then he chuckled. “I got to say, me and Kathy bought busted a gut laughing when you spun Sherry around and you, kind of, whacked that other couple upside the head with Sherry.”
“They didn’t think it was very funny,” Mykel fretted. “I’m kind of worried about her. People die from alcohol poisoning.”
“Surely Sherry didn’t have enough to kill her,” Clint surmised. “And she already threw up. Usually people die when they vomit in their sleep. Besides, Kathy knows everything, she probably knows what to do.”
“I hope so,” Mykel murmured.
As soon as they got out of class, Mykel and Clint took some paper towels and a bottle of 409, they got from the grocery store, across from campus, and went to work, in the chilly February weather, cleaning the back seat of Clint’s Mustang, where Sherry had vomited. When they got back inside, Clint made them each a cup of instant coffee on his hotplate. They were drinking their coffee and watching an Our Gang short, where Spanky feed the Wild Man from Borneo everything in the kitchen pantry, when there was a single “ding” from the phone.
“Grogan’s mule barn, which ass do you want to talk to?” Clint answered. “Howdy! We just cleaned up the little present you left in my car last night. You want to talk to Mykel?” He handed the phone to Mykel. “It’s Sherry.” Mykel smiled when Clint told him it was her. They talked a few moments, then Mykel got an uneasy look on his face, then he told her goodbye.
“What did she say?”
“Well, the good news is she didn’t have alcohol poisoning,” Mykel said. “The bad news is she has stomach flu and so does Kathy, Debbie and Grace. She said to tell you we would probably have it next.”
January 25, 1966, would be an important day in Mykel Daring's life. The start of a long up and down career that he would be lucky enough to continue into his seventies, when his colleagues had given up or died. At seventeen, he was just interested in getting college credit and a foot in the door.
He pulled his red, 59 Impala onto the parking lot of a large office building, just west of the Park Central Square in Spring Valley. It was easy to find as it was the only turquoise, art deco building with a AM tower on the roof in Spring Valley. The across the front of the tower were neon letters, K-I-L-L 1300. He got out, put money in the meter and walked into the building. His legs trembled a bit and he was starting to perspire, even though it was twenty-nine degrees with a sharp, chilly wind.
Inside, he took the elevator to the second floor. The elevator doors opened right in front of glass, double doors with 'K-I-L-L 1300 kHz – Mary Sue Broadcasting' painted in purple on the glass. Mykel walked inside, where an attractive, middle-aged woman, with her blonde hair in a bubble cut, was typing on a typewriter, on a small table at the side of the reception desk. On a monitor, Dean Martin was singing about 'going back to Houston' between a metallic, clinking noise, and the air smelled of artificial lilac air-freshener from an aerosol can. She turned around and looked at Mykel, “Good afternoon and welcome to K-I-double-L! May I help you?”
“My name is Mykel Daring and I have an appointment with Mr. Lance Powers.” The lady picked up a clipboard and looked at it, rather puzzled. Mykel realized, from past experience, the confusion and politely informed the receptionist, “It's spelled with a 'Y' and a 'K'.”
“Okay, here you are!” she giggled and made a check mark by his name. “I'll tell him you are here.” She then picked up the receiver of the phone, pushed a button and said, “Lance, Mykel Daring is here to see you.” She put down the receiver and smiled at Mykel, “He will be right out.”
She smiled at Mykel, “Mr. Ketner, the general manager, is big on changing names. He says for security reasons and to give us flare. I'm just the receptionist, but because take pictures of me for promotional material, he even changed my name. With a name like Michael Daring, you may not have to change yours.” She held up a little, plastic, desk plate, with an imitation wood-finish, that read MISS MELINDA MONROE - RECEPTIONIST. “Mr. Ketner decided I should be Melinda Monroe, because he thinks I look like Marilyn Monroe,” she rolled her eyes with a smile. “My real name is Irma Lou Pootkeester.”
“I see,” Mykel answered, trying not to laugh at her real name, because he didn't want to offend her right off the bat. A stout, African – American man, with a pencil thin mustache and straightened hair, walked into the lobby. He took off a brown, pork-pie hat and set it on a prong on a coat-wrack, then began taking off his overcoat.
“Good afternoon, Matt!”
“I brought you something, Melinda,” the man said.
“I hope it is a mink coat,” Melinda chirped with a smile.
“No, it's a contract to type up for Bob Curtis Volkswagen.”
“You mean Bob Curtis Studebaker – Volkswagen, don't you?” Melinda questioned.
“Not anymore. That is why he wanted to buy,” Matt explained. “He has found out that Studeys are going out of business. The company will be no more. He has to get rid of them and he wants everyone to know that he will just have the Bugs from now on.”
“My father swears the Studey is the best cars,” Melinda said. “I don't think my parents would ever by a Volkswagen.”
“Hell, I don't think I can even fit in one, much less get Dora and the kids in one.”
“Oh Matt, this young man is Mykel Daring. He is going to be our intern this semester,” Melinda introduced Mykel to Matt.
“Mathew Gilstrap, nice to meet you. I handle, what Mr. Ketner calls Ethnic Sales, and, well, I sometime get sales that our veteran salesmen can't get,” Matt chuckled with a smile, as gave Mykel a firm handshake. “I'm starting to get sales at business that wouldn't have let me in the door about a year ago.”
“Since Mykel is going to work here, you should tell him your big secret,” Melinda suggested with a wink.
“I was getting to that. I'm also on air too. Did you ever hear Nightcap with Matt Moonlight?”
“Yes,” Mykel answered with a look of epiphany. “Are you Matt Moonlight?”
Matt then began speaking in the low, soothing voice, that he used when playing mushy love songs and jazz, late at night. “Why yes I am, son. I'm here to give you sweet dreams.”
“They never have a photo of you on the Killer hit charts that you can get in the student union,” Mykel said. “It's just that silhouette.”
“Well, now you know why,” Matt laughed. “It might be a scandal if Spring Valley found out there was a Negro on the radio playing records for girls and lonely women.”
“Don't forget the babies at Dix Hospital,” Melinda added.
Matt smiled, then spoke, in his radio voice, “Hello babies! This is Matt Moonlight, welcoming you into this big, wide, wonderful world!”
A K-I-double-L jingle blared from the monitor, followed by “Ebb Tide” by the Righteous Brothers. Another man, with a wavy pompadour of jet-black hair and a circle beard, came walking down a hallway into the lobby. His cologne arrived a few seconds before he did.
“Hello, are you Mykel?” the man asked. Mykel acknowledged who he was.
“I'm Lance Powers, glad to meet you. Come back to the studio where we can talk?”
“Lance, I just got a major buy from of Bob Curtis Volkswagen,” Matt boasted. “He is announcing the end of the line for the Studey's. He says he is clearing them out.”
“Would he do trade on an Avanti?” Lance joked.
“I doubt that he would go for that,” Matt laughed. “But you might get a Beetle on trade.”
“Naw, too small for my taste,” Lance remarked. “I hate to hear that Studebaker is closing down, but, at least, there will always be Oldsmobiles and Plymouths.” Lance then motioned to Mykel, “Follow me to the studio.” They were walking down a brightly lit hallway, when they met a heavy set, middle-aged man with a walrus mustache, a cigar stub underneath, and a stack of yellow papers, walking rapidly toward them.
“Gangway! It's news time!” The man spoke in a gruff, gravely voice that Mykel recognized from the radio as T. R. McGuillcuddy of “K-I-double-L's 20-20 News.”
“That's right, it's time for news, so we can go to the bullpen,” Lance remembered. Mykel followed him, past the studio, to a larger room with several desk, with ash trays filled with white and black flakes, coffee stained paper cups, and empty pop bottles. Lance rolled a chair over to the front of a desk with a name plate that read: LANCE POWERS – PROGRAM DIRECTOR. It was flanked by a picture frame containing a photo of a gorgeous blonde and a gold miniature of a submarine with a plate underneath reading USS QUEENFISH SS-393. He pushed a button on the office phone and the on-air feed could be heard through a tiny speaker. The rest of the desk was strewn with papers, copies of Cash Box and Billboard, and rumpled packs of L & M cigarettes. Lance picked up one, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a Ronson lighter. He then picked a paper up that had written in ink “Shows promise bring him in! Sol.” Mykel then noticed it was the letter he wrote to the radio station, to obtain the internship.
“It says here you are from Binbury, Vermont, but you graduated from Lemming Pond High School in 1965. So, you are a freshman at Spring Valley State College? How is that going?”
“Pretty good. It was kind of rough last semester, but I hope things will be different this semester,” Mykel answered.
“You first semester is always rough, because you really don't know what you are doing,” Lance counseled Mykel. “You either get the hang of it or you dropout. College is hard, but if you make it through and earn a degree, you certainly deserve an award and all the spoils of the American dream.” he took a long drag of the L & M in his mouth, causing it to produce a lengthy, nasty ash. He quickly removed the cigarette and flicked the ashes into the ash tray on his desk. “So, did you work at the radio station in Lemming Pond?”
“I tried to get a job there in high school, but they old me that there was a law in Missouri against teenagers working in radio,” Mykel explained. “They said you have to be over thirty to work in radio and have a college degree.”
Lance frowned, “That is a big, fat lie! Granted, you're technically not advanced enough in your college classes to be an intern, but Mr. Ketner liked the letter you wrote to us, about how you want to work in broadcasting, and he said for me to write you and offer you an internship. He knows about what works in this industry, he has been in radio since he got out of the service. He worked in New York for one of the networks...I believe it was Mutual...and hosted one of those mystery shows. It was called Stories from the Charnel House and he was Old Ichabod the Gravedigger. Ever so often, we have him do the voice and the laugh. It's really funny!”
Lance shook his head and said, “Sounds like the Lemming Pond radio station has the same kind of management this station used to have.” He took crushed out the last of the cigarette. “When I first went to work here, about five years ago, this was owned by a company in the northern part of the state, Farmer Family Radio,” Lance rolled his eyes with disdain talking about the former owners. “And the calls were K-X-D-P. They were not making money in Spring Valley and the reason is they had been in small markets, where there was no competition. They didn't know how to compete and they would put on just about anything. I was hired from a radio station in Illinois. I didn't know what I was getting into. This station was like a bad small town radio station. We were mainly playing hillbilly and gospel music, occasionally some waltzes. When we weren't playing music, we had a show on called Garage Sale of the Airwaves and junior high sports, including junior high girl's volleyball. That stuff worked at their radio stations in Conway, Jericho Springs and Alton, but not in a college town like Spring Valley.”
“It also didn't help that the guy running this place was a real jerk! His name was Dick Grimm and the name fit him to a tee. He wasn't a real broadcasting person like Mr. Ketner. He weaseled his way into the job someway. He ran a construction outfit that went bankrupt, so the owners, for whatever reason, felt he could run a radio station. His big thing was he recorded this cart with about a two minute long speech on how he guaranteed that you would not hear rock and roll on this radio station. He made us play that six times an hour. Of course, we barely had any commercials, so any way...,” Lance spun the tale of how the radio station came to be Top 40 from the depths of broadcasting Hell. “The current owner of the radio station is a man from Oklahoma name Cal Biggsley, his family owns some radio and TV stations in Oklahoma and Arkansas. About three years ago, he and his family were vacationing a Table Rock Lake. His little daughter, Mary Sue, came down with a strange illness – fever, headache, shortness of breath. They rushed her up here to Dix Hospital. Poor kid was bad sick.”
“At some point, little Mary Sue told her parents that she would love to hear her favorite song, which was 'You're The Devil In Disguise' by Elvis Presley. Not being from Spring Valley, they didn't know anything about the radio market. Even though rock and roll had been around since 1957 or so, Spring Valley didn't have a radio station that played rock and roll full time. The other problem is they called information for the phone number of a radio station. They operators don't know the formats of the radio stations and just give you a random radio station phone number. They called here and old Grimm rips into this poor, little, sick girl, telling her that 'we would never play rock and roll.' The kid was so traumatized by that, she suffered a heart attack and died that night.”
“About two weeks later, Cal walks in here and announces he has bought the radio station,” Lance continued with the yarn to end all radio anecdotes. “He says to Grimm, 'Did you tell my little daughter, Mary Sue, that you wouldn't play an Elvis song for her?' and Grimm, had the audacity, to brag that he did and was happy he made her cry, Cal, then, told him she died that night and stupid Dick Grimm laughs in his face and says, 'Well, that's one less Elvis fan'. Cal punched his lights out and then told him he was fired.”
A K-I-double-L jingle played, followed by “On The Rebound” by Floyd Crammer. T. R. McGullicuddy walked back into the bullpen, holding his news copy, in one hand and lighting a cigar with the other. Lance continued the story, “I'm standing, watching this take place, with my mouth open, and he turns around and appoints me program director. While all of this is going on, McGullicuddy stands up from his desk and starts clapping.” Mykel noticed a sly smile on T. R.'s face when Lance told that part of the story. “That is also why the name of our company is Mary Sue Broadcasting Incorporated. Cal named the company in memory of his daughter. Mr. Ketner had ran one of Cal's television stations and moved here, because some of his cousins have a clothing store here in Spring Valley. Follow me, to the studio and we can talk, while I do my shift.”
They got up from their chairs and started to leave the bullpen. T. R spoke up, “Hold on, Lance! I need to point something out to the boy.” He walked over and pointed to three strips of duct tape, placed in the shape of a star, on the vinyl floor. “See that mark. That is where Dick Grimm landed after Cal Biggsley cold cocked him. He landed like a sack of wet corn meal!” T. R. laughed, then closed his eyes and smiled, while telling Mykel about the altercation. “Cassius Clay, or whatever he is calling himself this week, could never land a punch, on a more deserving person, than that day Cal punch out Grimm, for not just mistreating his late daughter, but mocking her after she was gone!”
Lance interrupted, “We need to hurry to the studio, this is a short song.” They walked quickly to the studio. Lance grabbed a 45 record, pulled it out of the gray cardboard sleeve, put it on the turntable, put the needle on the record with a Columbia label, then maneuvered the turntable backward. This caused the 45 record to produce an odd sound, like 'Wershp'. “Quiet! I'm going on.” He flipped a switch, on the console, and a yellow light came on. He then push another button, which started the turntable spinning. “K-I-DOUBLE-L, THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED, I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS WITH A FORMER NUMBER ONE KILLER HIT ON THE KILLER COUNTDOWN, IT'S BILLY JOE ROYAL, HE IS STUCK 'DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS' ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!” He flipped the switch the other way, the light went off and Billy Joe Royal began singing.
“Wow! I hit the post perfect on that intro!” Lance turned around to Mykel. “What was I talking about, before we came in here?”
“You were telling me why the company is called Mary Sue Broadcasting,” Mykel reminded Lance. “And how Mr. Ketner came to Spring Valley.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Ketner came to town and he thought it was time that Spring Valley had a Top 40 radio station. I agreed with him. You have two colleges in town, Spring Valley State and Wister College, plus the Baptist Seminary, and contrary to what they would tell you, they DO listen to pop music – they just won't admit it. There is also the secretarial school and the nursing school here in town, along with several high schools and middle schools, so there was no reason not to have a Top 40 station in this town. The first thing Mr. Ketner did, with Cal's blessing, was ask the FCC if we could change the call letters to something easy for the announcers and for the audience to remember. Apparently, a radio station had went bankrupt that had K-I-L-L as their call letters, and Mr. Ketner and Cal said those would be perfect. We filed the paperwork, got the new letters in August and changed to Top 40. We were now 'KILL – Home of the Killer Hits.' Unfortunately, in November, President Kennedy was shot and people began complaining about the new call letters. So, we went from saying K-I-L-L, to saying K-I-double-L, however, we still call it the Killer Countdown and say we play the Killer hits.”
“Of course, before that, the older people, who had listened to us when we were K-X-D-P, were complaining about the format change,” Lance began talking in a cranky old person voice. “They didn't want to hear teenybopper music and they didn't want to hear music by Negroes; although that's not the word they used,” Lance continued with his history of K-I-double-L. “They didn't realize that we were no longer programming the radio station for them, but they felt entitled to complain about the music. Frankly, some of the music, at that time, was too slow to me and the trend was these horrible songs about some boy's girlfriend getting run over by a train or some girl's boyfriend drowning on summer vacation.”
Lance then smiled and asked, “Did you see a picture of a beautiful, blonde woman on my desk?” Mykel nodded yes. “That is my fiance, Sharon, she is a stewardess for T-W-A, out of Kansas City. She became a real help to me with this change. I think it was in October of that year, she went to England. She and the other stewardesses had some free time, so they did some sight seeing and shopping. She called me and said that the kids were going crazy over this band of four guys, with matching suits and wear their hair in long bangs. They are called The Beatles. I told her to buy me some of their records. So, she brought them home and I would work them in during my show, because they were up beat and fun. I didn't get much response, at first,” Lance continued while cuing up the next 45.
“When President Kennedy was killed, Mr. Ketner had us play Mantovani, George Melochrino, and 101 Strings for several days. When we went back to regular programming, I made a conscious effort to play 'She Loves You' more. The response was better this time. Lo and behold, Capitol sends us a new 45 by the Beatles, 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', and that one took off immediately. After they were on Ed Sullivan, we seemed to play wall to wall Beatles. So, every time Sharon goes to London, she goes to a record store to find out what is new that the kids are crazy about. We've broke the Stones, the Kinks, Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark 5, the Yardbirds, before our competition. I'm working on promoting this new group, the Who. The kids seem to like them. We are starting to get some positive response on a group call the Hollies. Slow, but I think the kids are warming up to them.” He put on his headphones and held up his hand. “Quiet! I'm going on.”
“K-I-DOUBLE-L, THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED, I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS!” He seemed to yell into the microphone, while pushing a button that let out a shrill 'Beep.' “FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF SPRING VALLEY SAYS IT'S THREE-THIRTY AND TWENTY-FIVE DEGREES. HERE'S DICK AND DEE WITH 'THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.' I WISH SOMEONE WOULD BREAK INTO THE RADIO STATION AND STEAL THIS RECORD. YOU ARE LISTENING TO LOVABLE LANCE ON K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
Lance turned off the microphone, “I hate Dick and Dee Dee, but it was requested. You will find when you work in this business, that you will get tired off playing certain artist and songs. I also can't stand the Righteous Brothers and the Four Seasons. The good news is school is getting out right about now and the request will start pouring in for good songs.”
T. R. McGullicuddy walked into the studio with a cart and handed it to Lance. He took his cigar out of his mouth and commanded, “This cart is the next news break, I've got to run over to the Highway Patrol office and get a report from them. Run that twice if you have to.”
“Okay, T. R, this is our new intern, Mykel Daring. He is a student at Spring Valley State College and from Lemming Pond,” Lance introduced Mykel to the newsman, who put his cigar back in his mouth and shook Mykel's hand.
“Glad to meet you,” T. R. said. “I was talking with one of Lemming Pond's favorite sons this morning, Carroll Bob Catterwood.”
“What was he doing here this morning?” Lance asked.
“He and Jerry Vinton were ousted as chairman and co-chair of the Republican Party last night,” T. R. explained. “You will never guess who they were replaced with.”
“I'm not sure I want to guess, from the sound of your voice.”
“Vinton was replaced by Mason Dixon of the Confederate Colonel Fencing Company,” T. R growled with disgust. “And Carroll Bob was replaced with Laban Edward Fantt of Ozark Rental Properties.”
Lance looked over at Mykel and explained, “Mason Dixon used to be Herman Shattenkirk. He was in the construction business with Dick Grimm, that I was telling you about, until they built a concrete wall that collapsed and killed an old couple and crippled a little boy for life. So he changed his name, started a new company, began dressing in a Confederate uniform – complete with a sword, and doing these horrible commercials where he says that everyone is going to need a big fence around their house now that Jim Crow has been abolished, Dr. Spock is popular with parents and the British rock bands are coming to this country. Luckily, he doesn't advertise with us.” He looked back around at T.R. “Doesn't Fantt have those little, rundown motor court on the north side of town that...?”
“That the ladies of the evening work at, yes, that is just one of his upstanding business ventures. He is also know for rental properties with toilets that don't flush,” T. R. chuckled. “And now, we here in Spring Valley and Browne County can proudly say that the chairman of our Republican Party is named L. E. Fantt and, bad thing is, he looks exactly like his name.”
Lance burst into laughter, “Elephant! My question is why would they vote out Catterwood and Vinton for those two characters?”
“It was the John Birchers in the local party feel Catterwood and Vinton aren't tough enough on the Communist element here is Spring Valley,” T. R answered.
“What Communist element in Spring Valley?” Lance asked in jest, as he loaded a cart in each of the two cart machines.
“The college, the public schools system, the hospitals, the libraries, girly magazines, the television stations, and this radio station,” T. R joked. “We are all out to destroy America and they need to educated people to fight us with votes and carry hand guns.”
“They are all nuts! The Birch Society will be the death of us yet!” Lance said as he pushed the button that played a cart with a jingle, which featured women chirping “K-I-DOUBLE-L IN SPRING VALLEY MISSOURI! GO-GO RADIO!,” he then hit the other cart machine's button, which started a commercial for Salem Cigarettes. He quickly switched out the cart with the jingle with another cart. The whole time Mykel watched in awe, wondering if he could ever get the hang of doing what Lance was doing with such speed and grace.
“You know, I have this theory,” T. R crossed his arms and closed eyes, as he spoke. “What if the John Birch Society was really in league with the Soviet Union? They scare people with all that crazy, paranoia propaganda and make everyone hate everyone and everything in this country. Nobody will like or trust anybody. Then, they sway the election, so the wrong candidate gets elected, it demoralizes the country and the Soviets come in and take over. The Birchers tried to get Goldwater elected. Next time, they might try to get Richard Nixon or even Ronald Reagan, now that he is in politics, elected President.”
Lance fired the other cart, which was a commercial for Colonial Bread. “That is kind of far fetched, T. R. It would be a cold day in Hell before either Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan are elected President.” Lance chuckled, as he removed the Salem commercial's cart and put in another cart. “I could see Everette Dirksen or Durwood Hall getting to be president, but not Nixon or Reagan. I mean, do we really want the host of Death Valley Days to be President?”
There was a buzz from the intercom. “Lance, your presence is needed in the lobby,” Melinda's voice came over the intercom, with a slight, nervous twinge. “Muriel Krampus, of Concerned Mothers of the Ozarks, is here and she brought a reporter from the Daily News and a TV camera person from channel 4. She has a petition of some sort for you.”
Lance frowned and gritted his teeth, “It is probably like the others. Let me finish this break and start a record, then I'll be right there!” He started the other cart, which was a PSA for the Presbyterian Church, with Stan Freburg as a guy, making excuses for not going to church. He switched out the bread commercial for a cart marked jingle. Lance then pulled Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan off of the shelf and cued it, which made a 'Womp' sound.
“Usually, we try to limit how often a song gets played, but I've made an exception for 'Like a Rolling Stone.' It was a big hit all last summer and is still getting request, but the LP version is perfect if you need to go to the bathroom or, in this case, deal with a crazy Bircher woman in the lobby.”
The jingle played, with women singing “THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED - YOURS TRUELY K-I-DOUBLE-L IN SPRING VALLEY!” Lance pushed the turntable button, at the right moment, after the final trumpet blast on the jingle, the downbeat of the snare drum signaled the beginning of the Dylan record. Lance excused himself and left the studio.
“Come on, Boy! We are about to see a fight!” T. R said with a smirk, as he motioned for Mykel to follow him to the lobby to watch Lance deal with Mrs. Krampus. They followed Lance down the hall way to the lobby. Right before walking into the lobby, Lance stopped and sliped on a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses and lit another L & M, before walking into the lobby to meet with Mrs. Krampus.
Mrs. Krampus was a slightly pudgy woman with a permanent scowl on her face, which seemed to have an excessive amount of ruby lipstick on her lips. She wore a navy blue, lampshade hat with a white band and satin rose attached. Her dress suit was bright red with a white blouse and navy blue scarf underneath. She had legs like a dinning room table, stuffed into white hose and a pair of red shoes, that rivaled the shoes in the Wizard of Oz. There were two other gray headed women accompanying her. A female reporter from the newspaper and a man with a film camera from the TV station was in the lobby, as well.
“Is there a problem, Miss Monroe?” Lance asked Melinda.
“Mrs. Krampus, this is our program director, Lance Powers,” Melinda introduced Lance to the embittered woman.
“Your radio station is the problem!” Mrs. Krampus screeched at Lance like a Halloween witch. “I have a petition with one hundred names of concerned citizens, who are demanding that you stop playing rock and roll and go back to the wholesome programming your radio station was once known for broadcasting.” She handed Lance a page, covered with signatures, stapled to a missive, written by Muriel Krampus herself, about how rock and roll was going to destroy the world. “That is a mission statement from the organization I represent.”
“This is a carbon copy of the one you brought to the radio station, right before Christmas! I will tell you what I told you last time, I will not consider your demands! These signatures all look the same. You probably got these names from the headstones in the city cemetery. Also, Beatles is spelled with an A, Byrds is spelled with a Y, and, Bob Dylan's name is not spelled, D-I-L-L-O-N.” Then Lovable Lance held the two papers up in front of Muriel Krampus' face and ripped the papers down the middle. “THAT is what I think of your petition, Mrs. Krampus! Good day!” Lance turned and began walking back to the studio. He lit another L & M on his way down the hall.
“I want to speak to the manager of the radio station!” Mrs. Krampus yelled, as she began to bawl. “I may have to bring a lawsuit against this radio station!”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Ketner is at a Rotary Club meeting and will be out of the office for the rest of the day,” Melinda told Mrs. Krampus, as she continued to have a meltdown.
T. R and Mykel were following Lance back to the studio. “You do realize, you will be on the six o'clock news ripping her petition up?” T. R. asked Lance.
“Yes, that is why I did that! If the press wasn't here, I wouldn't have done it,” Lance answered with a smirk, as he pulled off his shades. “We can't play polite puppy with her. We have to be a stand up to her and her group.”
A door, at the end of the hallway, opened and a short, older gentleman wearing an overcoat, wool muffler and a fedora walked in from a stairwell. He took off his hat and exposed a partially bald head. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket, took off his round, dark rimmed glasses, which had fogged up when he came inside, and wiped them off.
“My, it is cold out there today,” he said with a New York accent, as he walked up to the threesome, standing outside the studio door. “We may get some of that blizzard that is everywhere else is getting right now.”
Lance walked briskly toward the man, trying to head him off. “Sol, don't go near the lobby. Muriel Krampus is out there, with a cameraman from channel 4, and a reporter and photographer from Daily News.”
“It's Nellie Sheraton from Daily News,” T. R added.
“Oy, that woman hates us! Why is Krampus here?”
“She brought us another petition of people wanting us to stop playing rock and roll,” Lance explained. “I tore it up. That should make a good photo for the newspaper!”
“Lance, you know we are supposed to keep all correspondence to go into the station's public file for the FCC,” the man scolded Lance, then realized the presence of a young visitor, so he introduced himself. “Hello, I'm Sol Ketner, general manager of K-I-double-L. Are you the new intern?”
“Yes sir. My name is Mykel Daring and I go to Spring Valley State College.”
“Glad to have you here. Now Lance, you shouldn't have tore that up.”
“Mr. Ketner, it was the same one she brought us last summer and last fall. The only difference is she added The Byrds and spelled their name wrong – with an I. She also spelled Sonny and Cher, S-U-N-N-Y-S-H-A-R-E. It was pretty much a carbon copy of the other ones. Why don't we go into the studio and talk with Mykel about the exciting business of radio and we can talk about Krampus later on?”
“Suit yourself, but if the FCC wants to look at the public file, it will be your funeral,” Mr. Ketner said. Mykel, Lance and Mr. Ketner walked into the studio. Lance quickly cued up another record.
“BOB DYLAN WITH 'LIKE A ROLLING STONE' ON K-I-DOUBLE-L, I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS. IT IS A FROSTY THIRTEEN DEGREES OUTSIDE ON THE SEDGWICK FURNITURE AND APPLIANCE TEMPERATURE SCALE. THE GOOD NEWS IS THERE ARE NO FLIES AND SKEETERS OUT THERE, JUST SKEETER DAVIS AND SHE'S GONNA GET ALONG WITHOUT YOU NOW ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!” Lance finished talking and turned off the microphone right before Skeeter Davis sang, “Uh-huh, Uh-hmm, gonna get along without you now.”
“Mykel, you are getting one of the best trades in the world,” Mr. Ketner began pontificating. “Broadcasting is great trade, especially for a young person like yourself. I have been in this industry since I got out of the service in 1944. Every morning, I wake up and think how lucky I am that I get to go to work in radio. I have done a little bit of everything from news, disk jockey, I was even the announcer on a mystery anthology show.”
“While I don't condone Lance ripping up the petition Mrs. Krampus brought to the radio station,” Mr. Ketner continued. “I'm not too upset, because he stood up to her. The show I was the announcer for was canceled abruptly, because of complaints from some parents and other people, who claimed one episode of our radio drama was too frightening. We had good Hooper ratings and two steady advertisers, but the network caved in to pressure. We never broke any laws in the FCC Blue Book.”
“That brings me to something else that I want to tell you. We all answer to the FCC. If an inspector from the FCC was to ever show up here and ask you what your job is, you tell him that you are to maintain the transmitter and we are running properly,” Mr. Ketner explained. “Radio can be fun. I believe you can do many great and creative things within the FCC rules, as long as you don't hurt anyone. One of our competitors is breaking an FCC rule known as the Fairness Doctrine. It says you must present two sides of a controversial topic. Our competitor runs programming like Dan Smoot and Gardner Ted Armstrong, but they also have a local insurance man buying an hours worth of time and endorsing George Lincoln Rockwell for president. Do you know who that is?”
“No, sir,” Mykel answered.
Mr. Ketner looked around the studio until he found the Daily News. He turned to page two and found a photo of Rockwell. “This guy is George Lincoln Rockwell.”
“Why is he dressed like a character from Hogan's Heroes?” Mykel asked, looking at the man in the photo with a corncob pipe, dark glasses and wearing an S-S uniform.
“He is the head of the American Nazi Party,” Mr. Ketner explained. “The rabbi at out synagogue has asked to be on-air to counter this programming. They told him he would have to pay to be on and, to top it off the quoted him a price for time that was two times what this insurance guy is paying.”
“That seems wrong,” Mykel said.
“It is wrong and a violation of the Fairness Doctrine,” Mr. Ketner stated vehemently, then changed his tone to one of frustration. “The problem is, the way the FCC has things set up, if a radio station complains about a competitor violating the FCC rules. They will not only investigate the reported radio station, but they will give a surprise inspection to the radio station that reported the radio station that broke the rules. It is to keep the radio stations honest and not just reporting people for silly reason.”
“Because we are considering being involved in reporting the other radio station, I want Lance to go over with you everything the FCC inspectors would ask during an inspection,” Mr. Ketner continued explaining. “You will need to know they FCC regulations, when you take your test to get a operator's license. Do you have any questions?”
Mykel was overwhelmed, at that point, but didn't want to admit it. “Not at the moment.” He watched Lance, over Mr. Ketner's shoulder play another jingle on a cart, before starting a 45 of “She's Just My Style” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys on an orange, felt covered turntable, mounted on a marble table.
“I read the introduction letter you wrote and I chose you over some other students, because you seemed to have a drive and ambition. You mentioned things like creativity, aesthetics, and innovation being important. I like that. Radio is supposed to be the theater of the mind. We have a problem in this part of the country, in the smaller markets, of people buying radio stations for tax shelters. They don't put any money or effort into creating good radio station. Cheap equipment and wiring which cause the station to sound awful, then they have underpaid talent or business people paying to be on, for what I call a 'dollar per holler.” In the end, they don't make a profit, so they write it off as a loss at tax time. That broadcasting philosophy will be the death radio.”
Then Mr. Ketner smiled and shook hands with Mykel, “Enough of the boring business talk. I want to welcome you to K-I-double-L and Mary Sue Broadcasting. I hope you enjoy your internship here and learn plenty from Lance, T. R and the others here. Some of the things you will do, as an intern is assist Melinda with the K-I-double-L Teen Club and also help her create the Killer Hit Countdown sheets.” He reached over and picked up a Countdown sheet and handed it to Mykel. “Are you familiar with these?”
“Yes, I get them at the student union,” Mykel answered, as he looked this weeks chart over and was pleased to see there wasn't anything he didn't like this week.
“Good. It is important that you keep up with both our charts and the Cash Box and Billboard charts,” Mr. Ketner said. “Well, I hope to see you around, Mykel!” He walked out of the studio.
“Is he a good boss?” Mykel asked Lance.
“Yes, he is. He is a stickler about the FCC and FTC stuff. He also goes into some flights of fancy about the image and 'the theater of the mind,' but you're lucky you are not working for Dick Grimm. He was a monster,” Lance explained to Mykel. “Speaking of monsters, if we are lucky, Mr. Ketner will do both the voice of Old Ichabod the Gravedigger and the sound of the monster that got that show canceled.”
Lovable Lance reached over to the shelf, where he had the 33 1/3 albums, stored and he pulled out the black and orange Getz/Gilberto LP. “I go this long with out speaking, but I need to instruct you on your duties. Besides the Bob Dylan stuff, if you need a bathroom break, you can use “The Girl From Ipanema” by Stan Getz. I'll play another jingle, since the vocal starts immediately, then I'll have Melinda explain some of the stuff you will be helping her with.” Lance played a jingle off of a cart, with singers cheering about “K-I-DOUBLE-L PLAYS THE HITS YOU LIKE! YIPPEE!” His pushed the lever on the turntable and Joao Gilberto softly sang in Portuguese intro to the song. “Follow me,” Lance said as he lead Mykel out of the studio and down the hall to the lobby, where Melinda sat at the front desk.
“Melinda, could you show Mykel what how you make the Killer Hit Countdown sheets?” Lance asked the receptionist.
“I would be happy too,” Melinda obliged. “Let me get the paste up and show him.”
Mykel sat down in a chair and waited patiently for Melinda to find whatever she was supposed to show him. Lance walked over to a coffee urn and drew a cup of coffee. Mathew and T. R. were getting coffee as well. They were talking about the account that Mathew had secured and T. R began telling Mathew everything he knew about the Studebakers. With a cup of coffee in one hand and a smoldering Dutch Master in the other hand, T. R closed his eyes, like he was bringing up the information from a secluded file cabinet in his brain.
“They started off, around the turn of the century, producing electric cars that ran on batteries, before they made gasoline powered cars,” T. R regaled Mathew with a quick bit of obscure information about the soon-to-be-defunct motor company.
“I didn't know we ever had electric cars on the road, especially not back that far,” Mathew said. “I don't think we will ever have electric cars again. I thought the company was in trouble, a few years back, when they went into business with the Packard Company.”
T. R agreed and then walked back into the bullpen. He met Melinda, who was carrying a large piece of cardboard with writing and pictures on pasted on it.
“Mykel, I type up the countdown chart. We paste it on the boards with rubber cement. We do the same with the coupons and the ads,” Melinda explained to the wide-eyed young man. “Those are on separate sheets, we get from the advertisers. I also type up the biographies of the Teenagers of the Week. You will also help me with the K-I-DOUBLE-L Teen Club. Those are a group of kids, who help us decide what music we play and other events to sponsor. We get pizza and snacks for them. We do that once a month.”
Mykel listened intently to what Melinda was explaining about the things he would be doing, but he could not help but notice a man, in his early sixties with an extremely red face and bad toupee, staggering through the radio station's glass doors. He took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack in the corner in a rather sloppy manner. He also noticed that Melinda was anxious by the man's presence and Mathew gave the man a disapproving look. As he approached the receptionist's desk, Mykel to detect the smell of alcohol on this man.
“Good afternoon, Bud!” Melinda greeted him. “Do you have any contracts for me to type up?”
“Are you kidding? Who wants to buy time on a radio station that plays those stupid Beatles and the announcers scream? The only people that listen are teenyboppers and probably retarded people,” Bud slurred, as he inched himself closer to Melinda. He then leaned over her and began patting her chest. “How's the boys today?”
“I'm trying to show our new intern, Mykel, how we put together the Killer Hit Countdown,” Melinda retorted with a perturbed look on her face, which caused Bud to back away.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Bud belched, as he insulted Mykel to his face.
“I'm a boy!” Mykel asserted.
“Pay no attention to him,” Melinda whispered.
“If this place is so hard to sell, how come I landed a major account today,” Mathew asked the inebriated salesman.
“Who would buy time on this station and from you?” Bud snarled.
“Bob Curtis Volkswagen.”
“Shows how much you know, boy! Bob Curtis sells Studebakers and he won't advertise with us,” Bud claimed in the condescending voice of a older, white male, who had spent most of the day drinking.
“That is why he bought ads. He wants to get the word out that he is going to sell Volkswagens from now on, because Studebaker is going out of business,” Mathew proclaimed with pride. “He also is a big fan of my show, The Nightcap with Matt Moonlight. He also said that I was the FIRST salesman from this radio station to come and talk to him.”
“So does getting that big account make you a ty-coon or nigger rich?” Bud howled in laughter at his bad attempt at humor. “I got go to the men's room and drain the main vain now.”
“If you say so, Bud,” Mathew growled as Bud walked down the hall. Mathew noticed Mykel looking kind of stunned by the incident. Melinda was shaking her head in disgust. “Son, don't be a jackass like Bud when you grow up,” Mathew advised Mykel as he lit up a Salem.
“I won't,” Mykel promised. “Is he always like that?”
“Drunk and vulgar...yes, he is always like that,” Melinda said.
Another man came through the glass doors in a hurry. This guy was not as old as the offensive Bud, but he was the about the same height as Mykel, only chubby and had a mustache.
“Melinda, is Mr. K in his office? I need to talk to him!” the short, plump fellow with the mustache asked in a high pitched voice. “The good Lord has blessed me with three contracts and a fourth one is pending, but it needs his approval.”
“I believe he is, Lymon. I'll buzz his office.” Melinda handed the paste up board to Mykel to peruse, while she called Mr. Ketner's office on the intercom.
On the monitor, Lovable Lance was back at the microphone after the somewhat lengthy song. “THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L I'm LOVABLE LANCE POWERS WITH SOMETHING TO WARM YOU UP ON A COLD DAY IN SPRING VALLEY. THAT WAS 'THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA' BY STAN GETZ AND HIS BRAZILIAN FRIENDS. IT IS STILL THIRTEEN DEGREES OUTSIDE ON THE SEDGWICK FURNITURE AND APPLIANCE TEMPERATURE SCALE (Beep-Beep). I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS AND HERE IS LEN BARRY WHO IS GOING TO COUNT FOR US 1-2-3 ON THE BIG THIRTEEN-HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!!!
Bud staggered back from the men's room and went to get a cup of coffee from the urn.
Mathew saw an opportunity to get Bud's goat. “That's interesting Lymon, because Bud here was just telling us how hard it is to sell time on this radio station, yet I sold time to Bob Curtis Volkswagen and you sold to...”
“Dinky Donuts, Lad and Lassie Children's Clothes and Montgomery Ward. They want us to run a co-op ad for a sale on color TVs,” Lymon explained. “Winkler Farm and Home wants to do a remote, where Lance or Wally rides a lawn mower.”
“See there, Bud! You can sell this radio station, when you don't spend all of your time with Jack Daniels,” Mathew joked.
“Why are they promoting lawn mowers,” Bud slurred. “There is a blizzard on the East Coast and we are supposed to get a snow storm by the end of the week.”
“But Spring is just around the corner,” Lymon chirped. “It will be here before we know it.” Mykel was beginning to like Lymon, because he talked like a commercial. “By the way, how did you snag Bob Curtis.”
“He listens to Matt Moonlight, so I gave his a sample...” Mathew slipped into his Matt Moonlight voice. “Of your guide through the ether toward the stars. It shocks people every time I do that because they think Matt Moonlight is a white, beatnik guy.”
“How are you, young man?” Lymon asked Mykel.
“I'm fine,” Mykel answered.
“I should introduce you two,” Melinda said. “Mykel Daring this is Lymon Brush, he is our top salesman. Mykel is our new college intern.”
Lymon shook Mykel's hand. “Nice to meet you, Son. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Kinda...”
Lymon laughed, “How about a roommate?”
“Yes, he is on the Wolves basketball team.”
“Then I'm going to give you something,” Lymon told Mykel. “I'm sure Mr. Ketner won't mind too much...” He pulled out some coupons. “There is a new restaurant in Spring Valley called Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Lymon gave Mykel two of the coupons. “These are both for two free Kentucky Fried Chicken box dinners. You and your roommate or your 'kinda girlfriend' can have dinner on me.”
“Wow! Thanks!” Mykel said.
He left the radio station. Later, he and Clint went and each got a box of chicken and ate it in their dorm room while watching TV.
“Do you think you are ready for that test?” Slick asked Clint as they ate breakfast in the cafeteria Monday morning.
“I'm never ready for a test, but I have to take it,” Clint answered.
“I drilled you enough in study hall yesterday, you should be able to pass it,” Slick tried to boost his friend's confidence to no avail.
“Should...but I probably won't remember a thing I studied,” Clint lamented while picking at his scrambled eggs and bacon. He looked up at Mykel and asked his roommate. “What did you do after lunch, while I was at study hall?”
Mykel got a cocky smile on his face and boasted, “I'm glad you asked. I spent Sunday afternoon with three, not one, but three girls watching TV and eating popcorn from Katz!”
“Well, well, well! You're social status is improving!” Clint said. “I'll bet good money that one of those girls was that Sherry girl from 420.”
Slick pointed at Mykel with his butter knife, “If one of them was that battleaxe with the bad eye, I'm going to stab you with this!”
“Oh no, Alice was going to Howard Johnson's for lunch with some of her sorority sisters,” Mykel explained in a snarky voice. “Sherry turned her down to hang out with me. The other girls were Grace and Debbie.”
“And you were in our room with those girls?” Clint inquired for more dirt.
“And those big popcorn sacks from Katz,” Slick added. “No telling what other sins were committed in that room.”
“No, no! We were in the TV room in the basement, watching some one of those Sons of Hercules movies on the big color television.”
Owen interjected, “That was a cool movie! I watched it at my parents house. I love those movies.”
“But Owen, you didn't have girls and popcorn, while you watched the movie,” Slick chuckled. “I hope you bought those ladies some Pepsi, Coke or something to drink with those big sacks of popcorn.”
“Actually, I drove them to Katz to get the popcorn and king size bottles soda,” Mykel explained. “I'm glad Katz is open on Sunday and they allow you to buy soda and popcorn.”
“I wasn't there, but I'll bet good money that Grace spilled or knocked over something,” Clint said with a smile. Slick, Henry and Owen laughed.
“She spilled a cup of ice, but nothing too messy,” Mykel acknowledged Clint.
Mykel came back to his dorm room after his classes. He turned on the radio on the desk for some music to keep him company. As usual, it was on K-I-L-L. In twenty-four hours, Mykel would be going to work for that radio station. He was excited about it. It was appropriate that, at that moment, K-I-L-L was playing Roger Miller's ode to TV kiddie show host, “Kansas City Star.” Mykel hoped maybe he could become the “Spring Valley Star,” even if it wasn't a clever play on the name of a famous newspaper.
The room had gotten hot while he and Clint were at class, so he walked down the corridor and propped the door open, then turned the heat down. Mykel sat down on his bed and pulled out his copy of Winesburg, Ohio to read for class. He was getting to the point in the first chapter where Sherwood Anderson tells the reader that Wing Biddlebaum, may or may not, touched a young boy inappropriately and was fired from his teaching job, when there was a knock at the door, followed by a cheerful voice, almost singing, “Knock knock!”
Mykel jumped up from the bed and raced down the corridor to see Sherry coming toward him. “I thought we would study for history class. Do you mind?”
“Oh Hell no! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have cursed in front of you,” Mykel blurted out aghast that Sherry just showed up with the intent of studying with him. She laughed at his reaction.
“I'm not offended. I kind of thought it was funny,” Sherry assured Mykel. “Mind if I sit on your bed?”
“No, be my guest,” Mykel answered as he was wondered when the alarm was going to ring and he would wake up from this dream. He walked over a sat down in the chair at his desk.
“No, come over here and sit by me,” Sherry scolded him with a slightly perturbed expression on her face. “We can't study very well with you sitting over there.” Mykel got up and cautiously sat next to Sherry on the bed.
In the background, Roger Miller said, “Stay turned, gonna have a Popeye cartoon in a minute.” Followed by a jingle, “THE MOST POPULAR RADIO STATION IN THE GALAXY! THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L IN SPRING VALLEY MIZZ-OO-REE!” Mykel hoped the next song would be a rocking garage band, British Invasion band or soul song. Maybe they would play another funny song like “Little Annie Fanny” or “Surfin Bird.” Unfortunately, they let Mykel down and played “Green Peppers” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Not just a romantic sounding song, but a sexy, romantic song. The radio station let him down. This was going to be nerve wracking. Mykel was going to be sitting on a bed with a pretty girl while sexy music played. He was afraid this could get ugly.
Sherry opened her text book to the first chapter and took out a mimeographed study guide. “Do you know what carpetbaggers are?” she asked Mykel.
“Guys who sold carpet remnants by the bag,” Mykel quipped. Sherry smiled and giggled slightly.
“No, but that was a pretty funny answer,” Sherry admonished his attempt at humor. “They were people from the North, who Southerners felt were moving into the South to take advantage of them. They were called that because they carried luggage made from the same material as carpets.”
“THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L WITH HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS WITH 'GREEN PEPPERS.' I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS AND HERE IS THE LATEST FROM MERRY OLE ENGLAND. IT'S DAVID JOHN AND THE MOOD AND THEY ARE 'DIGGING FOR GOLD' ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!,” the radio reminded them that it was still in the room. Thumping drums, a clinking pickax sound and echoing voices began singing, “Gold, gold! We're digging for gold! Gold, gold! We're digging for gold!” after the DJ's intro. Mykel relaxed because, while this was a cool song, it was not mushy and romantic.
Sherry continued with pointing out the important things they had to remember for the upcoming test. Mykel understood that he was going to be tested over this material, but he really wasn't interested in the Reconstruction or the Civil War. He was more interested in Sherry, but he wanted to keep that under wraps, until the time was right. So, he thought the best thing he could do was continue to be silly. Sherry's text book was open to a page that featured a photo of Thaddeus Stevens.
“Have you noticed the pictures of the people in this chapter?” Mykel observed. “Everyone back in those days was ugly.” Sherry snickered at the comment.
“Especially that guy,” Sherry laughed. “He is really ugly. If you think about it, President Lincoln wasn't what you would call good looking either.” Sherry sat her text book and notes down on the bed and politely asked Mykel, “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”
Mykel answered, “Sure.” Then as he watched her walk down the corridor to the bathroom, he had a thought that maybe he shouldn't have allowed her to use their bathroom. What if his underwear was in the floor? She is so clean, what if it isn't clean enough for her? What if the bathroom smelled bad? The anxiety began to race through his mind about the same time David John, on the radio, was singing “I'm going out of my mind – going out of my mind – yeah yeah -going out of my mind!”
“BOY, THAT DUDE WANTS THAT GOLD! I HOPE HE SHARES IT WITH ME. I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L. YOUR FIRST NATIONAL BANK TIME AND TEMPERATURE (beep-beep) SAYS IT IS TWENTY-NINE DEGREES IN SPRING VALLEY AT ONE FORTY-FIVE ON MONDAY. HERE'S GLORIA JONES AND 'TAINTED LOVE' ON THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED – K-I-DOUBLE-L!”
The toilet flushed and Sherry returned grinning at Mykel. She reached into her purse and retrieved one of those little bottles, she carried, with the concoction of witch hazel and peroxide. She dabbed it on her hands and rubbed them together so frantically they might have caught fire.
“Does that really keep germs off of your hands?” Mykel asked.
“I'm not sure how effective it is,” Sherry explained. “But it can't hurt. My dad says there are germs on everything you touch.”
“That is a happy thought,” Mykel quipped.
“It's scary how something so small can cause so many problems,” Sherry mused about germs, then turned her attention to the weather. “Did they say what the temperature is outside?”
“Twenty-nine, I believe,” Mykle answered. “At least we aren't having snow like the rest of the country. That is one thing I like about Missouri is there is not as much snow. It's also not bitter cold from November until April. I hated wearing big, heavy coats, scarfs and mittens – Oh how I hated wearing mittens!”
“Did you have to wear fur clothes like those people in that movie we watched yesterday?” Sherry laughed. “We were telling Kathy about their fur clothes – especially the furry boots – last night, when she got back from the Catholic youth center. Can you imagine women walking around in big furry boots like that? Your feet would get so hot in those things.” She paused and then smiled at Mykel. “Speaking of which, would you mind if I slipped my shoes off. My feet are kind of hurting in these shoes.”
Mykel said, “No, go ahead, if it makes you more comfortable.”
“Thanks!” Sherry said, reaching down to pull of her brown loafer and dropped it on the floor. She slipped the other one off and just let it hang off of her foot, as she swung her legs off the bed, back and forth. “Ooooh! That feels so much better! I should have known better than to wear these shoes to walk across campus.” She pointed her foot downward and the loafer slipped off her foot, hitting the ground with a thump. Mykel watched as she wiggled her toes inside her nylon hosiery. “I guess it could be worse, I could be wearing those big, furry boots those women were wearing in that movie we watched yesterday. Can you imagine women wearing big, furry boots to the supermarket or church? Boots, like that, would never become fashionable. I bought those go-go boots, that I have been wearing, and they get to be hot on my feet. I would have to think what heavy fur boots would be like.”
“I guess if you were a nomad, crossing the frozen tundra, you might be glad to wear those big furry boots,” Mykel replied, as if this was a serious intellectual discussion.
“Was that movie supposed to be taking place during the Ice Age?” Sherry asked, stilling swinging her legs back and forth off of the side of Mykel's bed. He was beginning to think she was doing this to hypnotize him.
“I'm never sure about those movies. That certainly looked like the Ice Age, but the main character was called the son of Hercules and Hercules lived in Ancient Greece, which was long after the Ice Age,” Mykel tried to speak with some authority to impress Sherry, although he really had no clue about ancient history. He decided to speak on a subject he knew more about, which was media production. “Those movies are made in Italy and they add to dialogue in this country. I think they kind of change the story and character names, when they translate it into English. Matter of fact, it seemed like every time the main character said his name, a different voice came out of his mouth. It was like they changed his name, at the last minute, and had to have another person read those lines.”
“I noticed that too. What exactly was the name of that movie?” Sherry asked.
“I think it was The Fire Monster Against the Son of Hercules,” Mykel answered. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought that for my scrap book of memories, I would write 'On Sunday, January 23, 1966, I spent the afternoon watching The Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules on a color TV, eating popcorn and drinking Pepsi with a cute boy'...or something like that,” she explained, while rubbing Mykel's back and smiling at him. A K-I-L-L jingle blared from the radio, followed “Red Roses For a Blue Lady” by Vic Dana. A romantic song! That was the last thing Mykel needed. She moved her hand from rubbing his back and ran her fingers through his hair. “Who also has the nicest hair of any boy I ever seen.” He grabbed his text book, Building a Democracy, and opened it across his lap, because Sherry's behavior was causing him to develop an erection. He couldn't let her see the effect she was having on him.
“Wh-where were we in our studying?” Mykel nervously asked Sherry.
“Have we discussed Wade-Davis yet?” Sherry said, as she removed her hand from Mykel's hair and placed it on his shoulder.
“Who was he?” Mykel wanted to get back on track, but he was having trouble concentrating.
“It wasn't a man, it was a law named after two men,” Sherry explained. “Do you know what it did?”
“That was to stop Confederate politicians from voting or holding office and required Southerners to take a loyalty oath,” Mykel answered.
“They also had to abolish slavery and renounce the secession,” Sherry added to Mykel's answer. Her hand was still planted on Mykel's shoulder. “I don't know how much of that we will need to know.” She looked at her notes and then asked Mykel, “What did the Fourteenth Amendment do?”
“The federal government granted civil and legal rights to Negroes, slaves and people born in the Untied States,” Mykel answered, as Sherry moved closer and laid her head on his shoulder. “But they didn't get to vote until last year.” Mykel was getting nervous and beginning to perspire. He was thinking 'Why is she doing this?'
“Shame that it took that long,” Sherry observed. “But they also wouldn't let women vote back then either.”
“We can't vote for another three or four years,” Mykel reminded her. “Probably LBJ will get re-elected in 68.”
“Speaking of which,” Sherry observed. “The President during the Reconstruction was named Johnson and he took over from President Lincoln, who was assassinated, just like President Kennedy was followed by a man named Johnson.”
“Yeah, that is kind of weird,” Mykel said.
Sherry looked at her notes and then asked Mykel, “What did they call white Southerners, loyal to the the Union during the Civil War?”
“Scalawags!” Mykel said in a Robert Newton-ish pirate voice, which made Sherry laugh.
“That's a fun word to say...scalawag!” Sherry laughed and then, placed her hand on Mykel's knee, then slid it up on his thigh, giggling the whole time. Mykel felt himself coming unraveled. He was shaking like a dish of Jello. There was only one part of his body that had any firmness and he was still trying to keep that hidden with his text book, but he was afraid it was about to knock his book into the floor at any moment.
The radio seemed to want to interrupt Sherry's overly tactile behavior, but it wasn't working. “THE BIG THIRTEEN HUNDRED K-I-DOUBLE-L! VIC DANA WITH 'RED ROSES FOR A BLUE LADY' WHO SHOULDN'T WEAR WHITE AT HER WEDDING! I'M LOVABLE LANCE POWERS AND I SHOULDN”T TALK ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT ON THE RADIO. I SHOULD BE QUIET AND LISTEN TO 'THE SOUND OF SILENCE' WITH SIMON AND GARFUNKLE ON THE BIG THIRTEEEN HUNDRED K-I-DOUBLE-L!!!”
Sherry smiled and looked Mykel in the face and asked, “Mykel, can ask you something and I want the truth...”
The Twilight Zone inspired guitar chords played as Art and Paul quietly sung, “Hello, Darkness, my old friend...” in the background.
“Do you like me?” Sherry asked Mykel. Point blank she hit him with it right between the eyes and she had her hand on his leg so he couldn't get away. “I wanted to ask you that, because I really, really like spending time with you, but if you don't like me, I won't bother you anymore. I already know what it is like to be with a boy who doesn't want me around.”
“Are you kidding? I'm happy you are wanting to hang out with me! I've wanted a girl to pay attention to me since I've moved to Missouri! I really like you, Sherry Ridenhour!”
“Could you prove it? Would you give me a little kiss?” she asked with a smile.
“You bet I will!” Mykel shouted. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
Sherry leaned forward and closed her eyes, “Now kiss me on this lips.” Mykel was surprised with that request but he complied. As they kisses, Sherry's hand slipped, knocking his text book off of his lap and into the floor. She then opened her eyes and began giggling after her hand touch a tell tale bump in his lap.
“Well, you really are happy to be with me, aren't you Mykel?” she giggled at the awkward discovery. “For someone who hasn't kissed a girl, you did a good job. Let's practice some more.” She put her arms around Mykel and they disregarded the need to study for the test over the Reconstruction of the South for the rest of the afternoon, preferring to master the skills of love making.
Later, Mykel and Sherry walked over to the Campus Union to the cafeteria to eat supper. That sat with Kathy, Grace and Debbie.
“Thanks for taking us to Katz to get popcorn and soda pop, Mykel,” Grace said.
“We need to watch a movie in the TV lounge together next Sunday,” Debbie said.
“I guess we can, at least until baseball season starts,” Mykel agreed to the girl's suggestion.
“What movie did you guys watch?” Kathy asked.
“The Fire Monsters Against The Son of Hercules,” Sherry answered before taking a drink from her iced tea.
“Oh my! Was that one of those movies, made in a foreign country, where the actors mouths don't move in sync with their voices?” Kathy asked. “Those are fun to watch.”
“Everyone was wearing fur clothes, except the main character,” Sherry added. “He looked like he was just wearing his underwear. He wore his hair like Elvis, which I don't think was historically accurate. At least the movie was in color.”
Clint and Slick sat down with their food trays and began to eat their evening meal. They complained about the basketball practice they had just finished, while they ate. The girls finished their supper and went back to the dorm. Sherry gave Mykel a kiss on his cheek before leaving. Mykel noticed that Slick was staring at him.
“Mykel, do you have razor burn on your neck?” Slick ask.
“No, I don't think so,” Mykel answered.
“It looks like a rash,” Clint said. “Or pimples.”
“Where at?” Mykel was getting worried.
“The left side of your neck,” Slick informed him.
“Looks like it is under your chin too,” Clint pointed out.
Mykel touched his neck. “I don't feel any bumps or anything.” He then looked at his hand and noticed it was streaked with bright, red lipstick. He then turned his head toward Clint and Slick. “Is it on my cheek?”
Clint and Slick began laughing when they realized that Sherry had tagged Mykel all over with her lipstick. There was a lip print on his cheek, where she had just kissed him and some just under his bangs. “It's on your forehead too.”
Slick laughed, “We have proof now. That girl likes you, Mykel!”
In The Dynamic Duo of the Ozarks, there are several references to a discount variety store called Katz Discount City or Katz Drug Store. This was a real chain of stores in the Midwest. There was one in Springfield, Missouri, which was the model for Springville, the settings of the story.
Katz began as a chain of drug stores in Kansas City, Missouri. They were usually located on a corner in art deco building. One mainstay of Katz from the beginning was the smiling, anthromorphic, black cat, dressed to the nines. Often the cat was winking.
By the early Sixties, Katz were branching out of K. C to other cities with large discount stores, which sold liquor, clothes, tools, appliances & records. They also had a snack bar & lunch counter. These stores were in large Googie architecture buildings.
Katz went out in the early Seventies in Springfield. It was replaced by Scaggs Drug & Discount Store. Then, in the Eighties & Nineties, the building was Osco Drug. Then, it was a CVS in recent years. Now, sadly, the great Googie building sits empty.
I want to thank my colleague, Wayne Glenn, the Old Record Collector, for providing some of the Springfield Katz pictures. You can find Wayne on Facebook, for more Ozarks & music history here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044347753253
On this day, in 1966, the television show, Batman, debuted on ABC, staring Adam West & Burt Ward.
However, it was not seen in Springfield, Missouri & the Ozarks until a week later, because there wasn’t a full time ABC affiliate in the Ozarks. It was shown a week later on the NBC affiliate, KYTV. I use this descripency as part of my novel.
If it hadn’t have been for the TV series, there wouldn’t have been a story about two college boys running around Springfield dressed as Batman & Robin, that inspired the novel I’m writing.
Clint had informed Mykel that he attended the Ecumenical Center Chapel Service, on Sunday mornings, at the Campus Union auditorium, which Mykel had no qualms with that. He was raised going to church every Sunday morning. Of course, Mykel was used to going with his mother in her Buick Electra to church. This morning, he and Clint walked across campus to the Campus Union in chilly, twelve degree weather. No sun what so ever, just thick, dark, blue clouds.
The boys had only been seated a few minutes, when Sherry, Debbie and Grace came in. Sherry sat next to Mykel. She was wearing a navy blue skirt and jacket with a pink silk shirt and a pillbox hat and white gloves. Just about every girl in the auditorium was wearing a pillbox hat and white gloves.
“Is Kathy not with you?” Clint asked.
“No, she and our R. A, Phyllis, go to early Mass,” Sherry answered. “They are Catholic.”
“Look look nice,” Mykel complimented Sherry, which made her smile.
“Thank you,” she said softly, but Mykel still could hear it above the anonymous, female, music major playing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” on the pipe organ at the front of the auditorium.
Slick and Henry came in and sat next to Clint. “The girls didn’t offer to take you to Silvy’s aunt’s church?” Clint inquired of Slick.
“I thought I would come here today,” Slick answered. “It’s easier.”
“They weren’t having a basket lunch, were they?” Clint asked with a chuckle.
“Nope, this isn’t the Sunday for the dinner after service,” Slick laughed, as a young man, in a white robe, walked to the podium, at the front of the auditorium. The girl ceased playing the organ.
“Let us bow our heads for the invocation,” the young man spoke to the crowd, then gave the opening prayer for the service. When he was finished, a young lady came forward and sang ‘He’, accompanied by the organist.
Mykel was listening to the girl sing the sacred song, when he felt Sherry take hold of his hand, that was at his side, and she moved it over to her knee. She then looked at him with wink and a grin. He removed his hand from her knee, but held the palm of his hand open and she placed her hand in his for him to hold. Mykel felt this was a good compromise. They could still touch each other in a loving way by holding hands, where as his hand on her knee, during a church service, was probably punching him a ticket to Hell.
The young lady finished and walked off to take a seat with a choral group, sitting at the side of the auditorium. A middle aged man with white hair, to match his white robe, walked to the podium.
“Good morning! Welcome to the first ecumenical service of the spring semester, although it certainly doesn’t feel like spring outside today. For those of you attending for the first time, I’m Reverend Belmont, the chaplain at Spring Valley State College. I often worry that my sermons may not be on a topic that would be of interest to college students. During the Thanksgiving break, I first heard a song on the radio, I believe the local station that says they play the “Killer hits,” with very familiar lyrics.” The auditorium chuckled at the reference to K-I-L-L, which had Mykel wondering if what the minister heard was positive or negative.
Reverend Belmont had an overhead projector next to the podium. He turned it on and projected the third chapter of Ecclesiastes upon a screen behind him. “Take a look at these words, written by King Solomon, around 450 B.C. I’m sure many of you recognize these words, if you are interested in the current pop music scene. I asked my daughter about the song I heard, that use these words as it’s lyrics, and she said it was by a group called the Byrds, who spell their name with a ‘Y’ rather than the proper spelling of b-i-r-d-s. We went to Katz Discount City and I bought a copy of this recording, on a little forty-five RPM record, for both I and my daughter to enjoy. The chorus of the song is very simple, they group sings the words ‘turn-turn-turn,’ between each of the verses, written by King Solomon. That is also the title of the song. This makes perfect sense, because Solomon was talking about the cycle of life and nature.”
Mykel was happy that this was not going to be one of those “if-you-like-rock-and-roll- music-you-will-burn-in-Hell” sermons that he heard quite often in Lemming Pond.
The minister continued on, “What King Solomon is telling us is that God has set up a pattern for life on planet Earth…be it human, animal or vegetation…that we are born and then die. Solomon says this happens to both good people and bad people, poor people and rich people. Everyone has a time to be born and a time to die. Life is a cycle or a wheel, and as the song says, it turn-turn-turns. Solomon says God made us from dust and, in end, we are just dust in the wind. A depressing thought. That sentiment will probably never be turned into a hit record.” The crowd chuckle at his comment.
Revered Belmont switched off the overhead projector, but continued explaining the Book of Ecclesiastes to the college students. “One of the things that Solomon says throughout Ecclesiastes is we cannot know or control what will happen when we are no longer among the living, or even what the next day will bring. No matter what we do in life, we walk on a high wire of uncertainty. We could die in a car accident after this service ends, maybe come down with a fatal case of the flu or, heaven forbid, we could all die because the Soviet Union decides to bury us, as Mr. Khrushchev told us they would do, with missiles.”
When Reverend Belmont mentioned Soviet missiles, Sherry squeezed Mykel’s hand tight. Something about missiles set off an alarm in her. She was biting her lip too.
“We don’t know what tomorrow could bring. Some of you, young men, in the audience may be sent this war that is going on in Southeast Asia at the moment. I notice that at the end of the song, when the group sings the line from King Solomon about a time for peace, they add that it’s not too late for peace. That little extra supplement to King Solomon’s words of long ago, is probably why this song has been the number one song in the country, as well as locally on our ‘killer hits.’ It would be good if you could finish your schooling here at Spring Valley State, because the other thing King Solomon says throughout is that wisdom is better than folly and wisdom is better than strength. Wisdom is what Solomon is known for. When I was a boy, I read comic books about Captain Marvel. He was really a little boy, who would say a magic word, ‘Shazam,’ to change into Captain Marvel. On the front page, it would show that Shazam was acronym made up of names of legends, who exemplified certain good traits and virtues. The ‘s’ stood for Solomon, who gave Captain Marvel…” Reverend Belmont paused dramatically, then smiled and said, “Wisdom.”
“Before we have a song from the chorale, I want to mention the last piece of wisdom that King Solomon gives the Old Testament readers. He says to enjoy the little things in your life. The little joys and accomplishments in your youth, because one day you will be old with infirmities and not be able to enjoy your life. As I said earlier in my sermon, Solomon says we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so enjoy the little things. Worrying about trying to achieve the impossible is folly. Now, the chorale will sing a song called ‘This is My Father’s World’ and then we will close with Richard leading us in the Lord’s Prayer. I thank you for your time and may God bless you all in the coming semester.”
After the service, the students began to file out through an exit, at the side of the auditorium, where Reverend Belmont shook hands with them, thank them for coming and telling them to have a blessed day. As people made their way out the door, they saw other friends and classmates, who had attended the service and began chatting with them. Clint and Slick saw their other basketball teammates, who were all in a good mood after winning a road game Friday night.
Mykel felt a chill at his back and his skin crawl, like something evil was closing in on him. Then he heard a voice, “Good morning, Sherry. Where were you sitting?” It was Alice Schnatsky. Mykel thought, to himself, that there was something, in folklore, about witches couldn’t attend church services, but apparently Alice got around that rule.
“I was sitting in the fifth row by Mykel,” Sherry answered in a joyful tone of voice.
“Oh!” Alice sneered, as if Sherry had said she was sitting in the snake house at the zoo.
“Looks like you sobered up since last night,” Sherry teased Alice with a devilish smile. Debbie and Grace try to hide their snickering, since they had seen Alice wasted Saturday night at a party.
“I wasn’t that drunk,” Alice retorted.
“Oh yes you were!” Sherry replied with a smile. Grace and Debbie giggled and Alice fumed.
“Maybe a little,” Alice sniffed the air, with hint regret in her reply. A young lady, in a pink boucle ensemble, approached Alice from behind and tapped her on her shoulder.
“Alice, good to see you this morning! Would you like to go with me and the other girls to Howard Johnson’s for lunch?” the young lady asked.
“I would love to, Arlene,” Alice gushed. “Sherry, you could go with us, if you would like.”
“Well, I guess we…” Sherry started a sentence, glancing at Mykel, but Alice cut her off.
“Just you!”
“No thanks,” Sherry answered. “I’ll just go have lunch at the cafeteria with my friends.”
“Suit yourself,” Alice snapped.
Grace and Debbie overheard the discussion and smiled at her, in thanks for standing up for them, rather than going off with Alice and her friends. Sherry reached over and tapped Mykel on the shoulder.
“Are you guys going to the cafeteria for lunch?” she asked with a smile. “We are.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing that we will go in there to eat,” Mykel answered. “I hate to think about going back outside in that cold air and I’m from Vermont.”
After they left the auditorium, the group of freshmen went to the cafeteria for lunch, which offered a choice between baked chicken or meatloaf. More important was it was it provided warmth from the cold weather.
Music is important in the Dynamic Duo of the Ozarks. While I write, I listen to the music of that era. Even though I work in radio, I doubt I will ever meet many of these artist, in the playlist in my Ipod and Itunes, while I’m writing. I know that I defiantly will never get to meet Dean Martin, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon and George Harrison, Leslie Gore, and many others. However, there is one major artist of that era, that I had the pleasure to meet before he passed away. That was Roger Miller.
Roger Miller was considered a country music singer, but he was a crossover star, hitting the pop chart with several hits between 1964 – 1966. Part of his success came from mixing country music with a bit of a jazz influence (especially scat singing) and a off-the-wall humor not heard in country music at that time.
When I was an intern with KOLR-TV in Springfield, Missouri, Roger Miller performed at the Ozark Empire Fair. I accompanied the anchor, Steve Loracco, and a camera woman named Liz (can’t remember her last name), to Roger’s trailer, to interview him after his show.
Before we went in, Steve turned to me and asked, “What can I ask him? I know his big hit was “King of the Road,” but I can’t think of any of his other hits?”
I said, “Ask him if “Chug-A-Lug” was based something that actually happened to him.”
We went in. Roger was not only nice, but he was a funny guy off stage too. The big story in the news that summer was the arrest of Pee Wee Herman in an adult movie theater. Roger made jokes about that incident. His jokes were good too. Not derogatory or insulting of Pee Wee, but good double entrees. “Poor Pee Wee. He just let his career slip through his finger tips. But you also got to feel bad for the cops that arrested him, because I’m sure that was a sticky situation.”
The camera went on a Steve began the interview. He eventually asked Roger the question I had suggested. “You know, I forgot to sing that one tonight. That is the only song I ever wrote that was about something that happened to me.” He then showed us with his hands the size of the jar. “I can still see that stuff in that jar. The jar was about this big and that stuff was a dark purple…kind of looked like motor oil. I can’t believe I drank that stuff, but you do a lot of stupid stuff when you are a kid.”
Sadly, Roger didn’t live very long after that interview. He did the next year of cancer.
So, when “King of the Road,” “Chug-A-Lug,” “Dang Me,” “Kansas City Star,” “You Can’t Roller Skate In a Buffalo Herd,” or even Roger’s “serious” hit “”Husbands & Wives” come up in my Ipod, I remember meeting Roger in person.
NOTE: This has nothing to do with my novel, THE DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS. I thought I would post this story I wrote last fall, because it takes place at Christmas time. What if all the characters from the famous “story songs” were all together in one large room? A young mother looses control of her car during a snow storm and finds herself in this place. But where is her baby?
IN THE STORY SONG REALM by Jeff Boggs
“Where am I? Where is my baby? Is he okay?” the young woman screamed and began crying after she gained consciousness. She noticed everyone was staring at her with worried looks. In front of her was a nurse, in a traditional white nurses uniform with a royal blue, half cape with red trim.
“What is wrong with her, Carrie?” ask a teenage girl, dressed in a long dress, from a bygone era.
“I’m not sure, Suzy,” the nurse answered the girl. “She just appeared out of nowhere. I wonder if she is one of us.”
The young woman looked around the room at the menagerie crowded around gawking at her. Sitting on the couch next to her was an adorable little blue-eyed girl, in a fancy dress and bow in her blonde hair. Beside the little girl was a waif of a boy. His left eye was blackened and bruised, his lip was swollen, and he had cigarette burns on his malnourished arms.
There was a tall, strapping man in coveralls and a hard hat with a lantern mounted on it. His face was smeared with coal dust and he held a pick ax in his large hands. She assumed he was a coal miner.
An old African-American man in farm clothes with a mule was standing by the coal miner. At a small table, sat an elderly lady, whose face was caked with make up, wearing a slinky, satin dress, that showed more of her senior citizen body than a person needed to see, and in her white hair were the same faded, purple feathers that were in the boa around her neck. She was drinking a martini and smoking, like a factory, at a table with an old man in a fedora and brown suit, who looked like had been doing time in prison.
Behind the old couple, there was a pool table, where two unsavory looking characters were engaged in game.
On a park bench across the room, sat a disheveled, homeless man with a long, dirty beard, a nose running green mucus and a tubercular cough, starring at her with bad intent. Next to him, sat a middle-aged woman in mismatched outfit with a dead rose pined to her coat, clutching a large suitcase. A young man in a Yankee uniform from the Civil War standing at attention. A large, armored android was in a chair in a corner, like a kindergartner being punished for acting up.
“Carrie, when you finish giving aid to that hysterical woman, we need to go over these maps that you brought to the Four Winds Bar,” spoke an icy, Satanic voice, like a cross between Vincent Price and Barnabas Collins, with a dash of Roddy McDowell. The young woman became frightened at the strange figure, who had spoken. He wore a long, black cape adorned with pentagrams and half moons. His face was covered with a strange black and white mask. “I’m anxious to take over the world.”
“Hold on, Desdinova! This may take awhile!”
“Yer shtoopid, Desdinova,” snarled a guy sitting a on wet tarp, wearing a t-shirt with a Confederate flag on it, reading ‘If they can ware there X, I’m gonna ware mine.’ Oh his head “W-04” trucker’s cap. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a white Styrofoam cup, full of tobacco spit, in the other. He also had tobacco spit on his shirt and running from his mouth. “Ya ain’t never gonna rule the world. Folks ain’t gonna vote fur ya.”
“Any more of your bubbles and squeaks, Earl, and I will render you mute!” the strange figure snapped.
“Could you two stop bickering for a few moments?” said a young man in a denim jacket with his hair in a pompadour and scars on his face, like he had being fighting most of his life.
“Where’s my baby? Where is little Billy?” the young woman screamed and cried.
A short, pudgy, middle-aged man walked over to her. “Yes, what can I do for you?”
The young mother looked bewildered. “Who are you?”
“Everyone calls me Little Billy,” the chubby fellow explained in a soft British accent. “I run a special foster home. I’m raising the children of all my friends, who died of lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. I don’t mind.”
The Union soldier ran over, “My name is Billy! Do you need me to do something like deliver a message to another brigade?”
A teenage boy sauntered over. “My name is Billy too,” he announced in a thick Mississippi accent.
“You don’t understand!” the young mother screamed. “Billy is my baby! He was in the backseat, when my car skidded off the highway on the ice! He may still be in the car…out in the cold!”
“I would be happy to go search for your baby in the cold and snow!” the Union soldier said. “I want to be a hero, even if it means being a fool with my life.”
Little Billy whispered to Miss Carrie, the nurse, “Do you think she has passed away?”
“I don’t think so. She may be here temporary, like an out of body experience,” Miss Carrie nurse replied. “But you might have the life transition councilors come over an talk to her.”
As Little Billy walked away, Earl lit up a cigarette. “Hey Fatso, look what I’m doing.” He then blew cloud of second-hand smoke in Little Billy’s direction. “Ima smokin and ya ain’t gonna stop me.”
“You are a pathetic monster, Earl,” Little Billy denounced Earl in his soft British voice.
The tough, young man in denim shot Earl an angry look. “Why don’t you leave folks alone, Earl? Maybe people would start liking you. Little Billy may be a big man on the outside, be he is an even bigger man on the inside.”
“I ain’t listening to you. You got a girly name,” Earl sneered, the let out a Goofy-like chuckle. “Huh Huh Huh.”
“You bring that up again and I’ll bust your head like an Arkansas watermelon,” the young man warned Earl.
“Would you like a drink of water or coffee?” Miss Carrie nurse asked the young mother.
“Water would be fine,” the young mother replied. “But I need to find my baby Billy to see if he is alright!”
“I’ll go get the waitress from the Ya’ll Come Back Saloon,” said the miner.
“Thanks Big John,” Miss Carrie nurse admonished the gigantic man as he walked toward a bar area. A creepy character wearing a straight-jacket came over to Miss Carrie’s friend, Suzy, which caused Suzy to be startled.
“Is your name Suzy?” the mental patient asked with a deranged twinkle in his eye and almost perverted smile on his face.
“Yes, why do you ask?’ Suzy answered with a quiver in her voice.
“I just think it is a coincidence that I took a girl name Suzy to the junior prom,” the mental patient told the frightened girl. “Then I raped her and killed her and build a little cage with her bones. They said I was an excitable boy.”
“You need to go back to your room and leave us alone! Can’t you talk to your roommate?” Carrie scolded the mental patient, as she tried to lead him away from Suzy, who was shaking with fear.
“He’s no fun. All he wants to do is dance with that headless mannequin that he calls Glendora,” the mental patient huffed.
“Miss Carrie Nurse, I’ll walk him back to his room. You care for that young lady, that was in the car wreck,” the tough, young man said as he grabbed the ‘excitable boy’ by the collar of his straight-jacket to escort him back to his room.
“Why don’t ya tell him what yer name is!” Earl shouted in a mocking tone before spitting tobacco into his spit cup in his hand.
“You know, I think I will,” the tough boy answered Earl. He then began to explain to the mental patient, as he dragged him back to his room, “You talk about a coincidence, guess what my name is?”
Suzy was shaken by her interaction with the creep in the straight-jacket. “That was scary!”
“He is really a bad case,” Miss Carrie the nurse explained. “He also has hallucinations of werewolves.”
“Are they attacking him?” Suzy asked.
“No,” Miss Carrie replied in a puzzled voice. “He says the werewolves are drinking Pina coladas and eating beef chow mien.”
An attractive young woman in hot pants and a cropped t-shirt, carrying a tray walked up. Around her neck was an expensive looking braided, silver chain with a locket attached at the end.
“Hello, I’m Brandy, I’ll be your waitress. Our featured drink is the Funky Cold Medina. We also have a special on strawberry wine in long tall glasses, filled up to there. They are free, if you can dance like Fred Astaire.”
“I need to find my baby and my car!” the young mother screamed frantically. Brandy looked at Miss Carrie Nurse and Suzy with concern.
“Bring us two bottles of water,” Carrie Nurse told Brandy. “We think she needs to re-hydrate.”
Brandy began walking away, when the old lady in the slinky dress and feather boa waved her over to the table she was sharing with the aging gangster.
“Brandy, could you bring me and Uncle Sonny another martini. We’re celebrating his release from prison. He can give you that twenty dollar bill, in his hat band, as a tip.”
“I’m saving that for cab fare,” Uncle Sonny explained to Brandy. “I’m planing on going to Central Park later on.”
“Then put the martinis on my tab and bring each of us two more,” the old lady instructed Brandy, who put the empty glasses, from the table, on her tray.
“Lola, you are drinking yourself half blind!” Brandy scolded the elderly lady.
“I might as well,” Lola confessed in her booze soaked voice. “The man I loved is dead, the place I loved to work is now disco and nobody wants to see a ninety year old woman dance. What kind of music is in the bar tonight?”
“It’s the guitar jam with Clayton Delaney and Johnny B. Goode. Tomorrow night, there is a retro/paisley underground band from the 80s, with a girl lead singer,” Brandy explained.
“Is she the one that wears electric boots and a mohair suit?” Lola asked, as she lit another cigarette.
“No, this girl has hair like Jean Shrimpton did in 1965,” Brandy said. “You’re thinking of that girl named Bennie. She fronts a glam band called the Jets” Brandy walked into the bar and came back with the bottled water for the young mother.
“Is the bar going to have that obnoxious kid from Georgia that plays the violin again?” Desdinova asked Brandy as she walked past him.
“I don’t think so,” Brandy answered.
“Good! I detest little snot! He beat a good friend of mine out of his priced golden violin in a so-called fiddle contest, and then, to add insult to injury, called my friend’s mother the ‘b-word.”
“I relay your complaint to Joe the manager,” Brandy affirmed. “He would understand since he is a musician. He plays a mean piano.”
“I know him,” Desdinova smiled. “He has a black mustache and wears a red bandanna and purple sash. I believe he used to run a honky-tonk down in Mexico.”
“Yes he did,” Brandy explained. “He also had a cantina in El Paso, but there was a guy got shot there.”
“Tragic. So many tragic things have happened to people here. Let me add, that I would love to marry you. You’re a fine girl and would make a good wife,” Desdinova took Brandy’s hand and kissed it. She blushed and a tear came to her eye.
“She wouldn’t wanna marry you, Desdinova! You call yerself an Alka-Seltzer,” Earl blurted out and chased with a loud belch.
“I’m an alchemist, not an Alka-Seltzer, you idiotic redneck!” Desdinova screamed back.
Two young women walked over to Carrie Nurse and Suzy. One was dressed like a housewife of the late Sixties and the other was dressed like a housewife of the early Seventies.
“Little Billy said you may need a Passage of Life councilor for a woman, who had been in an auto accident,” the Sixties housewife said with a pleasant voice.
“We don’t know all of her situation yet. She says she lost control of her car on the ice and snow. She may just be in a momentary state of limbo. She is worried about her infant son, who was in the back seat asleep. You might try to be careful what you say to her.” Carrie Nurse explained to the two ladies. They both agreed to be delicate as possible. They walked over to the couch, where the young mother was sitting.
“Could you children move so we can talk to this lady?” the Sixties housewife asked the little blonde girl.
“I don’t want to go sit on that park bench,” the little blonde girl explained. “That old guy is over there. He has snot running out his nose and makes a sound like a deep sea diver, when he breathes. He also ask to see my panties.”
“And that lady with the suitcase is crazy,” the little boy piped up. “She says thinks a man is coming to take her to a mansion in the sky. You know, she is forty-one and her daddy still calls her baby.”
“You could sit in the floor, if you like,” the Sixties housewife said. “But we need to talk to this lady.” The children agreed to sit in the floor.
“What are your names?” the Seventies housewife asked the children.
The little blonde girl smiled and announced, “My name is Jennifer.”
“That is pretty dress and bow in your hair,” the Sixties housewife gushed. “Did your grandma buy that for you?”
“No, my pet rabbit bought it for me, when he went to town in an old streetcar, with a turtle and kangaroo and a bunch of monkey from the city zoo,” the little girl explained.
The little boy reluctantly told they Passage of Life councilors in a soft voice, “My name is Luka and I live upstairs on the second floor. You’ve probably seen me before. I guess I’m clumsy. I walked into the door again. It’s none of your business anyway.”
Jennifer got a smile on her face and told Luka, “Hey, we could go look at that android that was used to fight wars in time and space!”
“I don’t know if would be safe for you children to bother the Iron Man,” the Seventies housewife warned the children.
“He’s harmless, he just stares at the wall.” Jennifer said before they scampered away.
The Seventies housewife added, “Okay, but stay away from the pool table. Leroy Brown and Jim Walker are shooting pool over there and cussing up a storm.” The children went on there way.
Brandy came back with the two bottles of water for the young mother, after dropping off the martinis for the elderly twosome. “Here you go! This is from the well of Desert Pete.”
The young mother took the bottles of water and thanked Brandy, then said, “Can I ask you a question? Who is the old lady you drinking all those martinis?”
“That’s Lola, she was a showgirl at the Copacabana,” answered Brandy. “She kind of lost her mind after her boyfriend was killed many years ago. She is like me, she loves a man, who is no longer around.” Brandy then walked back to the Ya’ll Come Back Saloon.
The Sixties housewife took the young mother’s hand, “Hi, my name is Honey and I’m a Passage of Life councilor here in the Story Song Realm. Just so you know, I’m training this new girl to help me.” The Seventies housewife gave the young mother a sympathetic grin. “I had to fire my last assistant councilor, because she kept calling people ‘country bumpkin.’ We think you’re here because you may have passed away. Now, there is nothing to be ashamed about being deceased. Many of us here are dead. There is a girl here, who lived on Yellow Mountain, that died in a blizzard looking for her lost pony named Wildfire, and another girl, who walks through the moors, calling for a boy named Johnny to remember her. There is also a girl, who was run over by a train, while trying to retrieve her boyfriend’s class ring from their car, that was stalled on the railroad tracks. In the late 50s, several teenagers came here after they passed away. There is also a young race car driver here, name Tommy, that keeps wanting people to tell a girl name Laura that he loves her.”
“And that leader of a motorcycle gang, called the Pack, that got hit by a truck.” the Seventies housewife added. “Oh and don’t forget those one hundred Chicago policemen that died in that gun battle, on the old East Side, with Al Capone’s men.”
The Sixties housewife nodded in agreement, “That man with the mule, Old Rivers, died after years of plowing fields and planting crops, and Big John died when a mine caved in on him.”
“Oh yeah, Earl’s wife and her best friend poisoned him and threw his body in a lake,” the Seventies housewife added. “But he had it coming and you know, nobody missed him at all.”
“I can kind of understand that,” the young mother asked. “What about that Desdinova character?”
“No, he is immortal. They say he started World War One,” the Sixties housewife clarified. “We’re are both dead. I should ask at this point, do you have a husband?”
“I did, but we are going through an ugly divorce,” the young mother began to explain. “I found out he cheating on me with a red headed woman name Jolene. I went and begged her not to take him away from me. It didn’t work, so while they were at a bar, one night, I broke out the headlights on his pickup truck, with a baseball bat, and scratched the doors with my car keys.”
“We have some very understanding judges here in the Story Song Realm,” the Seventies housewife assured her. She then pointed to an attractive young woman. “See that girl there…she killed the Fortune Telling Queen of New Orleans and her boyfriend, when she caught them together. The judge let her off, because of her rough childhood. You see, she was born in the wagon of a traveling show and her mother had to dance for the money men would throw.”
“It is probably good that we don’t have a husband to deal with,” Honey told the young mother. “My doctor called one morning and told me I had a brain tumor, but I chose not to tell my husband. There was nothing he could do, so why cause him to worry. He would come home from work early and I would be crying about it, but I still kept it a secret. I just died one day while he was at work. He took it kind of hard, but…”
The Seventies housewife interrupted Honey, “I know I shouldn’t say anything since I’m being trained, but I feel you should have told him you were going to die. My husband was with me when the doctor gave me the test results. I leaned on my husband, Rocky, for strength. I told him, ‘I’ve never had to die before, I don’t know if I can do it.’ Even though I’m gone, I still give him little pep talks in my own sweet voice.”
The two councilors began bickering about how they handled their demise, when Desdinova walked over to the young mother with a large mirror and held it up to her.
“You cast a reflection, as does Carrie Nurse and Suzy Dear,” he explained before turning the mirror to others in the room. Those ladies don’t. That kid from Mississippi doesn’t, so he is obviously dead. Old Rivers and Big John don’t. Brandy, Lola and Uncle Sonny do have a reflection.” He then looked around. “Where are those two children?”
Brandy spoke up, as she dropped off another round of drinks for Lola and Uncle Sonny, “Jennifer and Luka are playing with Annie, that little orphan girl, who froze to death while making artificial flowers.”
Desdinova spun back around to where the young mother was, with his cape swirling around him, “Those two children would have a reflection, but the other child wouldn’t.” He turned the mirror again. “Our tough, young friend and Little Billy cast reflections, but Earl doesn’t…which we can all be glad of. My point is, the people who do not cast reflections are deceased. The ones with a reflection are still living and you, my dear, are still living. I believe we should get you back to your car and your child, if we can find where you went off the road.”
“We were on our way to my parents house in Cincinnati,” the young mother explained. “A blizzard came up and it was hard to see. I lost control of the car on the ice. I’m not really sure where I was at, because I couldn’t see.”
“If that car is in a ditch,” Old Rivers said. “I’m sure my mule could pull it out.”
“I can give it a mighty shove,” Big John added. “Pushing a car out of a ditch or snowbank would be no problem.”
“Wait a minute,” the tough, young man spoke up. “Don’t we know an astronaut that is stranded out in space? If we could contact him, maybe he could see it from space and tell us where it is.”
“I’ll bet that little, crippled, boy with all that radio equipment could contact him,” Old Rivers said. Big John, Billy the Union soldier and the tough boy went and carried the boy and his equipment out of his room, to where everyone was. The tough guy plugged in the radio equipment and the little boy turned on the mike.
“Ground control to Major Tom. Ground control to Major Tom. Major Tom, are you there? Please talk to little Teddy Bear,” the boy spoke into the microphone on the old Motorola radio set.
“This is Major Tom to ground control,” came a voice through the static on the radio’s speaker.
“We need your help finding a car that ran off the road, in a snow storm, on the way to Cincinnati,” the little boy asked. “There is a baby inside named Billy.” The radio crackle with white noise.
“This is Major Tom and I’m stepping through door,” the voice said. “I see a Ford Fiesta in a snowbank along State Highway 27. On closer examination there is a baby in a car seat, sleeping soundly in the back. Not sure if his name is Billy or not. Tell my wife I love her very much…I think she knows.”
The static became louder and the voice fell silent. “Ground control to Major Tom, something is wrong! Can you hear me Major Tom? If you can hear me, say something to little Teddy Bear,” the boy cried as he frantically operated the squelch knob on the radio set.
“I know where Highway 27 in Ohio is! I’ll lead the way! I can be a hero!” Bill the Union soldier exclaimed.
“I can ride Midnight out there,” Rivers said. “How about you Big John?”
“I’ll meet you guys outside,” Big John explained. “I’m going to the barn to saddle up that horse that doesn’t have a name.”
Desdinova walked over to Rivers with small, mahogany box with strange carvings on the side. “Rivers, take these with you, they might come in handy. These are galvanic keys made of copper, zinc and other metals. They may help you start the car, if the battery is dead. Just attach these to the terminals and then start the motor. The silver ones can open the doors, if they are locked. No incantations needed.”
“You know something, Mr. Desdinova, you’re are a right decent fellow, for a crazy, alchemist, who wants to rule the world,” Rivers admonished. “I’ll bring these back to you. I hate when someone borrows a man’s tools and doesn’t give them back.” Old Rivers climbed up on his mule, Midnight, and rode out the door.
“Nice of you to loan those tools out like that, Desdinova,” said the young fighter. “I hope they don’t loose them out in the snow.”
“Don’t worry, young man. Those are simple tools that anyone can make. They are insignificant to my grand plans,” Desdinova explained. “What I would love to have are the four wands, created by the American alchemist, Osiris Bulicroix, known as the Mad Cajun of South. He is said to have created a set of four wands that could control the weather, control minds and turn dirt into gold.”
The teenage boy, with the Southern accent, sauntered over to where Desdinova, “Mr. Desdinova, sir, my name is Billy Joe MacAllister. Did I hear you call the name Osiris Bulicroix? He was my mama’s great uncle!”
“Really? Do you know what happened to his earthly possessions after he died?” Desdinova asked with intense interest.
“They are all still in his old house place, up on Choctaw Ridge,” Billy Joe explained to the interested, megalomaniac alchemist. “Me and this girl, that I’ve been friends with all my life, Roberta Streeter, we used to play in the old house when we was kids. There were just all sorts of neat stuff in his house. All kinds of candles, leather bound books, swords, axes, skulls, and down in the root cellar was a laboratory filled with bottles of weird chemicals and potions.”
Desdinova produced a leather bound book, flipped to an illustration of the wands and showed Billy Joe, “I’ll show you what I would like from his collection. These things. Do you know if they are still there?”
Billy Joe looked at the picture in the book with sheepish expression and said with slight embarrassment, “Oh, them things. Last time me and my friend, Roberta was at Uncle Osiris’ house, we kind of threw them away.”
“In the trash?”
“No, we threw them off the Tallahatchie Bridge,” Billy Joe confessed. “They did make a big splash when they hit the water, though.”
“You know, that water in the Tallahatchie River is awful muddy,” the young fighter spoke up. “I’ll bet those wands are still under the water. Desdinova, with all your magic, you could probably find a way to get them out of the river.”
“It says in the book that they will glow in the dark beneath a full moon!” Desdinova exclaimed with delight. “I could probably retrieve them from the murky depths of that Southern tributary and with them, I, Desdinova, would rule the world.” He then laughed a loud maniacal laughter.
“I want to warn you,” Billy Joe cautioned. “Not only is that water muddy, but it is rather cold. I know, because a week after me and Roberta threw those things off the bridge, I was walking home from Choctaw Ridge and there was this woman in a long, black dress, walking toward me from the other end. She looked young and pretty, until she got up to me and, then she aged, right before my eyes to about a hundred years old and turned a gray corpse color. She must have been a haint of some sort. Then, she shoved me off the bridge and I drowned.”
“Somebody told me you jumped off the bridge?,” the young, tough, fighter asked.
“Why would I do something stupid like that?”
“I think I will go to Mississippi and get Bulicroix’s wands out of the Tallahatchie River!” Desdinova exclaimed.
“I hope you drowned in that thar river or some good ole boys hang ya and then throw yer body in the river,” Earl smarted off.
“He’s right, Earl!” the young, tough, fighter chided the redneck. “You can’t talk. Your wife, and her best friend, fed you poisoned black-eyed peas.”
“Oh yeah,” Earl snapped. “At least I ain’t got a woman’s name.” He then stood up and hollered to everyone in ear shot and pointed to the tough guy. “Hey yall, this ole boy here is named Sue! Ya here me, his name is Sue! That’s a gal’s name!”
“That does it! You asked for it!” and with that Sue knocked Earl to the ground, with the whiskey bottle and tobacco spit cup spilling everywhere.
Old Rivers rode back into the room on his mule, holding Desdinova’s box, with some snow in his white hair and on his shoulders. Big John was right behind him.
“Old Rivers and me got your car out of the ditch and started it, Miss,” Big John said.
“Your baby is fine,” Old Rivers reassured her. “Sleeping like a log.”
“That Yankee soldier, Billy, said he wanted to standing guard until you got back to your car,” Big John chuckled. “He wants to be a hero, whether or no.”
“Somebody call the lady a cab, so she can get back to her baby and get back on the road,” Old Rivers said. “There is two taxis here, which one is available?”
“I’ll get the Nashville cab that the boyfriend of that country singer Kay drives,” answered Sue. “I don’t trust that taxi driver from San Francisco. He likes to get stoned and pretend he is flying in his taxi.”
Carrie Nurse and Suzy helped the young mother up from the sofa and began walking her to the door. “Good luck, you shouldn’t have any more bad weather on your way to Cincinnati.”
“How do you know?” the young mother asked.
“I read it on the map I found, behind the clock, at the Four Winds Bar,” Carrie Nurse explained.
“Remember, I will need that map in my quest to take over the world,” Desdinova reminded Carrie Nurse.
“Ya cain’t take over the world with no maps and wands, like some sorta fairy,” Earl started shooting his mouth off again. “Ya need guns and pickup trucks if ya wanna take over the guberment.”
Suzy handed the young mother an envelope with a Christmas card inside and Carrie Nurse slipped in a small stack of one hundred dollar bills before closing it. “We signed a Christmas card for you and are giving you some money,” Suzy told the young mother.
“You didn’t need to take up a collection for me,” the young mother said.
“We didn’t,” Carrie Nurse explained. “It is a gift from the newlyweds from Saginaw, Michigan. He became rich when he sold his father-in-law a worthless gold claim in the Klondike.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your help. Goodbye.” the young mother said, as the large room and everyone seemed to dissolve into the darkness. She heard the windshield wipers whipping back and forth on the windshield. The heater was blowing full blast. She looked in the back seat and Billy was sound asleep. She was in the car again or maybe she had never left. It must have been a dream, she thought. It had to be a dream, because it was too crazy to have really happened. That was a strange gathering of people that would never be together in the same place.
She pulled her car back onto State Highway 27 and had an uneventful drive the rest of the way to her parent’s house. She heard Billy shake his rattle, gurgling and babbling, so he was awake. When she parked her car in her parent’s driveway, she looked down and saw on the seat beside her a Christmas card in an envelope. Before she went to bed, she opened the envelope and pulled out the card. Not only was there a card, but there was one thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills in the envelope too. She opened the card and it was signed by almost everyone she had met, except for the Iron Man and Earl.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE RESIDENTS OF THE STORY SONG REALM! Miss Carrie Nurse, Suzy Dear, Desdinova the Eternal Light, the Boy Named Sue, Big Bad John, Old Rivers, Honey & Mrs. Jay “Rocky” Stevens the Passage of Life Counselors, Brandy, Lola the Showgirl, Big Jim Walker, Leroy Brown, Uncle Sonny, the Excitable Boy (BTW you have great bone structure), Jennifer and her brown and white rabbit, Luka, Delta Dawn, Aqualung, Little Billy of the Home for the Orphans of the Victims of Lung Cancer, Billy the Yankee hero, Billie Joe MacAllister, Teddy Bear and Kay’s boyfriend the taxi driver.”
Then only time I got to see the Batman TV show, as a child was my parents would travel to Oklahoma to visit my sister. One of the TV stations in Oklahoma City ran reruns on Saturday morning. However, on Thanksgiving. WTBS in Atlanta, which later became TBS, would show the Batman movie. I looked forward to seeing it since I lived in southwest Missouri, where we only received TV stations from Springfield, Missouri, which never aired the syndicated reruns of the TV show.
This lead to my obsession with the 1966 TV show and has now lead me to writing this novel. It was digging through old Springfield newspapers in the Greene County library that i discovered the story of the two college students, who upset local authorities in Springfield by dressing up as Batman & Robin.
So, I always associate Thanksgiving with the 1966 Batman movie. How many other people do? Pass the stuffing and hand me down the Shark Repellant Bat – Spray.
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 