Life In the Slow Lane

Examining my peculiar relationship with guns

I have a peculiar relationship with guns.

To clarify, it's my experience with firearms that I'm really writing about. I know that, technically. rifles and pistols are not guns in an historic sense, despite the way they are usually described. I learned the difference on the rifle range in basic training for the United States Air Force. My training instructor pointed out that the M-16 we would be firing that day was a rifle. A gun, he explained, was a large-caliber, ranged weapon, such as a cannon. To make his point, he used a cute little poetic device.

"This is my rifle," he said, holding out his M-16. "This is my gun," he said, grabbing his crotch. "This is for killing," he said, referring again to the M-16, "and this is for fun." (crotch, again).

Truth is, I'd enlisted for four years in the Air Force instead of taking just two years in the Army to get as far away from that killing part as I could. In one of the great ironies, I went from basic training straight into security police training (not my choice), where my weapon training went well beyond that M-16. Even though I was spared actual duty as a security policeman by being chosen for Officer Candidate School, I had qualified with four different weapons by the time I left the service. In fact, it turns out I was a pretty good shot with that M-16,  earning a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon.

That was surprising, considering my background. As a kid, I owned a BB gun. My brothers and I generally shot at a target in our basement, but the BB gun found its way into our bedroom at least once, as the hole in our dresser mirror proved. My brothers both went on to become hunters but on my sole pheasant hunting trip as a 12-year-old, I learned the hard way that if you don't press a 12-gauge firmly into your shoulder when firing, the recoil will sting for weeks.

I have nothing against guns. They've just never been a big part of my life. Fortunately, I've not been exposed to the gun violence that seems so prevalent in so many places. So, it was surprising to me that when I looked back on my life, I've known at least four people who saw their lives cut short by firearms. There are probably more, but here are the four I remember.

David Ives. Dave, who was a year behind me in high school was a close friend for a couple of years. We were the youngest members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church choir, and we acted like it. We were cut-ups and I honestly can't tell you if Dave could sing or not, but he was sure fun to be around. It was with great sadness that I learned of his death in Vietnam, less than three years after he graduated from high school.

Dave was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965 and was engaged to be married when his service time was up in the fall of 1967. He received orders to Vietnam early in 1967. An infantry radio operator, Corporal Ives arrived in Vietnam on March 4, 1967, and was the youngest member of a six-man long-range reconnaissance patrol. After a few weeks of in-country training, the patrol went out on its first mission -- to find and take down the Vietcong mortar and rocket crews that were targeting Camp Radcliff near An Khe in Vietnam's central highlands.

Dave's radio and batteries weighed 65 pounds yet had limited range in the mountainous area, limiting communications to just a couple of short updates a day. The nearest Army support was 15 kilometers away. On April 23, the second day of their mission, the patrol came under attack. A grenade exploded near Dave. Mortally wounded, he managed to get the radio operating before taking a fatal bullet. His five patrol mates survived, though three were wounded in the assault.

Paul Nields. I knew Paul from my first "grown-up" job, as a mail handler for Union Pacific Railroad. We worked roughly the same hours at Omaha Union Station in the summer of 1963, but that was about the only thing we had in common. Those hours for me were 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., on weekends. They were irregular, too, since I only got called in to work when regular employees were unable to work and they couldn't get someone who was looking for a regular job to fill in. Paul wasn't a mail handler; he was a red cap. While I was tossing about canvas bags full of mail, Paul was loading passengers' luggage onto hand carts while making small talk and pocketing tips. Paul was personable, good-looking and dressed up nice. Even though he hung around with my scruffy crowd between trains, it was obvious Paul was going places.

Where he went after high school was the U.S. Army. He joined the Omaha Police Department in 1969 and spent four years as a patrolman before earning a spot as a plain clothes narcotics investigator. On June 5, 1974, Nields left his wife and two small children for his overnight shift. Just minutes into his shift, he and his partner responded to a call for assistance in North Omaha.

It was a bizarre scene. A sniper had been moving through the neighborhood, shooting out tires on police cars and terrorizing citizens. He had been cornered in a house and was firing shots from an upstairs window. A crowd gathered and cheered every shot from the sniper. An ice cream vendor showed up and sold treats to the crowd. When Nields and his partner arrived, a decision was made to storm the house. While the officers put on gas masks, Nields started firing tear gas canisters into the building. One of the department's two flak jackets was dispatched to the scene to help with the assault.

As the officers gathered on the porch to begin their entry, Nields dashed around his flak-jacketed comrade and entered the doorway, where he was met with a blast from a 12-gauge shotgun. He was pronounced dead at Omaha Lutheran Hospital 30 minutes later.

Over 700 people crammed into St. Philip Neri Church for his funeral and his widow was presented with $11,600, a full year's salary. Within 30 days, the Omaha Police Department spent $50,000 on portable radios and bullet-resistant vests for its officers.

Jill Garlock. The first time I saw Jill she was wearing a white, waist-length, light winter coat. And she was running away from me.

It was at Lake Manawa near Council Bluffs during one of the many late-1970s road runs I participated in that went around the lake. It was my first try at that distance (about six miles) and I had no idea how to pace myself. Early in the run, I spotted a woman in a white coat a hundred yards or so in front of me. I locked onto her pace thinking I'd eventually catch her, giving me a better idea of how I might manage my maiden trip around the lake. That woman, I later learned, was Jill Garlock. I never caught her, but I did finish.

Little did I know that Garlock was a three-sport standout at Kearney State College and the first woman to be inducted into their sports hall of fame. She was an outstanding triathlete and was a teacher and coach at Omaha Burke High School. Our paths would cross at area road races many times and I never finished ahead of her.

She also had a boyfriend, Ted Parsons, an Air Force officer she met when he was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha. For several years they lived together until Parsons was transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. On April 9, 1986, Garlock informed Parsons over the phone that the relationship was over. Hoping to change her mind, Parsons drove overnight to Garlock's home, knowing she'd be teaching at school. He came and went from the home several times during the day, parking his car out of view.

He was upstairs when Garlock returned home late that night and woke her after she fell asleep on a downstairs couch. An argument followed. Garlock reiterated that it was over and she was tired. They went to separate bedrooms. She fell asleep; he retrieved his .357 magnum, went to her room and shot her in the head as she slept. He was later sentenced to life in prison.

Tom Snyder. I first heard about Tom when my boss popped into the sports department at the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil to offer a tip. "That girls' basketball team at A.L. is pretty lousy," he said. "How about covering the jayvee team instead? They've got a helluva coach and they're winning games." That coach was Tom Snyder and the JVs were, indeed, winning games. They went 15-2 that year, further enhancing Snyder's reputation as an up-and-comer. He was already making progress as the new girls' track coach at Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln and would soon be assigned girls' cross country duties as well, a job he would never actually fill.

Snyder was super confident (some would call him cocky). He was a standout marathoner of some repute when he arrived in Council Bluffs from Lincoln, Neb. As a 26-year-old, he qualified for the 1968 Olympic marathon trials, where he finished 40th. He started the Council Bluffs Track Club in the late 1970s and teamed with fellow A.L. coach Mick Freeman to host regular runs around Lake Manawa.

Snyder was a regular sight in my Lincoln Avenue neighborhood, tooling along at a good clip in his short, hiked-up marathoner shorts with a distinctive, almost clumsy, gait. He married around the time he landed the A.L. cross country job and everything seemed headed in the right direction. But something changed.

The last time I saw him, he was shuffling along in shorts more akin to my cutoffs than those of a national-caliber marathoner. He told me he was trying to work off an injury, something he wasn't used to. He seemed depressed. Freeman, one of Snyder's closest associates, said he'd heard that Snyder's wife tried to hide the guns in their house. It didn't work. One day Snyder found a shotgun and shot himself. Freeman, who had lobbied for Snyder to take the girls' cross country team off his plate, found himself coaching the team after all.

Four people in a lifetime may not seem all that significant, but each of these people left a mark on me. I'd like to think that even if the number were 10, 50 or 100, I'd feel the same, but I know that at some point numbness would probably set in and the law of diminishing returns would take over. And that's a damned shame.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

An important life lesson learned while just trying to scrape up money for college tuition

The summer of 1964, as it turns out, was a pretty important time in my life.

I had a year's worth of college experience by that summer and my Dad made sure I had a good job with the railroad. I didn't have a car but my good friend, Gene Springer, had regular access to his family's Ford Fairlane so there were ample opportunities to date or cruise Broadway in our home town listening to the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean or the Four Seasons. The English Invasion was in full swing with the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers and Peter & Gordon and Motown was just hitting its stride. Yeah, it was a pretty grand time.

My job that summer was as a mail handler for the Union Pacific. Handling mail was a very big deal in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at that time. We were a hub for parcels and bulk mail, with a blocks-long sorting area linked to several stub tracks of mail cars by am intricate series of chutes and belts. And that was just the railroad portion. The U.S. Mail had an equally impressive adjacent facility.

As with most railroad jobs in those days, I got mine through nepotism. My Dad, a car foreman at Omaha's Union Station at the time, knew the Council Bluffs's mail superintendent and, well, you can guess the rest.

I spent the summer learning how to become a railroad man. I had already spent a few months doing sporadic mail handler work at Union Station. That amounted to loading and unloading mail cars on the Streamliners that passed through Omaha overnight. There was never enough work to keep a crew busy, unless you count trying to stay awake between 3 and 6 a.m. while sitting around a table with other people trying to stay awake as work. But Council Bluffs ... that was the big leagues.

I worked the second shift -- from 4 p.m. to midnight. The money was good, over $2 an hour, more than twice what I made while working at a bowling alley in high school. I soon learned that I was paid so well because of the Railway Clerks Union. I met my first union steward that summer and by the end of the summer carried my own union card, showing that I was a member in good standing.

Every railroad job I had (there were more) had its own cast of characters. On the mail handling job, there was a bible verse-spouting sorter, another handler who was fond of eating raw onions and potatoes on the job and the skillful sorter who could tell a bag of Sears catalogues from a sack of Playboy magazines by a quick glance. You can probably guess which was opened for a quick. non-authorized inspection every month.

I learned to smoke that summer -- menthols at first, Marlboros by the end. I also met Ed Baburek, a South Omahan who lived in the shadow of Rosenblatt Stadium, had a bushel of retrieved baseballs and, two years later, introduced me to the woman who would later become my wife.

As I mentioned, I didn't have a car that summer so I generally walked the nearly two miles between home and work. Sometimes, I ran part of the way home, a bit unusual for the times.

On one such occasion, I was startled to find myself in a spotlight from behind. "Stop!" a voice rang out from a loudspeaker behind the light.

Shielding my eyes from the light, I could see it was a police cruiser. Relieved, I gave them a wave, said something like, "It's OK. I'm just going home from work," and turned to resume my run.

A siren soon joined the light, the cruiser sped up past me, cut me off, and a policeman jumped from the car. "I told you to stop!" he insisted.

I stopped.

I'm pretty sure no weapons were drawn and I'm pretty sure I had my lunch pail in my hand. Somehow I ended up in the back seat of the cruiser, explaining my curious habit of jogging home in the dark, while receiving a lecture about how, when a policeman tells you to stop, you'd better stop.

It was kind of a big deal to me at the time, but I never felt I was in serious danger. In retrospect, maybe I was just lucky.

What if they had mistaken my lunch pail for a weapon, like a pistol? What if I matched the description of someone who had just pulled off a heinous crime in that area? What if one of the policemen who pulled me over had some sort of bias against lanky smoking railroad union men who liked to run in the dark? What if one of them was just having a bad day?

Bottom line: I didn't get roughed up, arrested or killed. Instead, I got a ride home and a lesson learned.

It could have been worse. Much worse.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

Paying attention to the wonder around us

Remember how big and wonderful the world was when you were a kid? How you'd go bonkers over something you'd just discovered while the grown-ups around you just reacted with amusement, barely containing their worldly smugness?

That's what happens to kids: adults just drain the wonder from their young souls.

I thought about that recently as I turned on the faucet for my shower. Within seconds, I was enveloped in a steamy fog. I lathered up, rinsed and toweled off. The whole exercise probably took less than 5 or 6 minutes. Then I thought how my Dad took baths when he was a kid. They had a pump in the house so they didn't have to go outside for water like some of his neighbors in Lewis Township outside of Council Bluffs, Iowa, but they had to heat the water on the stove before dumping it in the tub. I'm pretty sure they didn't take a bath every day and I'm equally certain they didn't squander a tub of warm water on just one person. Even that doesn't sound like much of a hardship compared to the ordeal refugees in war-torn lands face just trying to find water safe enough to drink.

When you consider that the water that is available in my house is sucked up from a distant river chock full of bacteria from dead and rotting animals and chemicals running off Iowa farm fields, then is cleaned up and pumped to my home 10 miles away where I can access it merely by turning a tap, it's something of a modern miracle. A kid would probably see it that way; an adult just takes it for granted.

Truth is, there's wonder all around us but few of us even notice.

When I was a kid, I was amazed that you could place a needle into the groove of a spinning piece of plastic and get music out of it. Then we started getting our music by running ribbons of plastic coated in rust over magnets. I can't begin to explain how compact discs work but I continue to be amazed that my iPod -- which is smaller than a deck of cards -- contains my entire music library of more than 28,000 songs and that I can play it just about anywhere, even in my car.

I was more familiar with RBI and ERA than DNA when I was a kid, but you hear about DNA all over the place today. It's one of the building blocks or threads of human existence along with things like genomes. That previous sentence may be scientifically imprecise but consider this: There exists something known by the acronym CRISPR that allows scientists to reach into what Mother Nature gave us and change it. That's pretty amazing, right? And a bit scary.

We humans are pretty smart, all right. At least most of the time. Wondrous things done by our species are all around us, if we take time to notice. But let's put things in perspective.

Modern humans have only been on the planet for 200,000 of Earth's 4.6 billion year existence. We're still a work in progress by evolutionary measures. Our recorded history only goes back about 5,000 years.

Which brings me to galaxy NGC 4845. It is located 65 million light years away, meaning that we are seeing it as it was 65 million years ago, right around the time the T-rex dinosaur went extinct. When you think that there are roughly 6 trillion miles in a light year and the observable universe is about 93 billion light years in diameter, it kind of makes you feel small.

Consider, too, that fish and birds have been on Earth far, far longer than humans and that 99 percent of all species that have ever lived on our planet no longer exist.

Now think of all that humans have accomplished in our eye-blink of time on this planet. Are we going to be more like the fish and birds or will we join the 99 percent club? It's something worth thinking about.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

 

One man's memories of watching and meeting Hammerin' Hank Aaron, the epitome of cool

Hank Aaron sauntered to home plate and took a couple of practice swings.

It was the 1958 World Series between Aaron's Milwaukee Braves and the New York Yankees. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, as amiable a character that ever squatted behind a plate, chatted up the young Braves outfielder, trying to rattle his concentration.

"You know," said Yogi, "if you turn the label on your bat to where you can read it, you probably won't break it."

Aaron, cool as a fall breeze, dismissed the advice as soon as it was offered.

"I came up here to hit, not read," he replied.

And that's why Hank Aaron was my favorite baseball player. He was the epitome of cool. No bombast. No kicking of dirt on umpires. Laid back in the best sense. His quiet, confident demeanor is a big reason why my wife and I named our first-born after him. I saw him play once and our paths crossed one more time in my role as a sports journalist. When I decided I wanted to write a blog post about him following his death, I went in search of a quote about him that I remembered from my youth.

The quote, which I believe was from Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Robin Roberts, went something like this: "Hank Aaron is so relaxed at the plate, he can take a nap between pitches."

To date, I haven't found the quote so I may be totally off base about it. I did, however, find dozens of other quotes by and about Aaron, including the story that leads this post. The closest quote to the one I sought was: "Trying to throw a fastball by Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster." That quote has been attributed to Phillies pitcher Curt Simmons and Aaron's teammate, Joe Adcock, so its origin is suspect though its meaning is apt.

###

"I don't want people to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron."

--Hank Aaron

###

You may have noticed the nondescript, generic photo of a baseball stadium at the beginning of this post. It's not much of a photo, to be sure, but it's the only photographic evidence of that day in 1971 when my wife and I drove from our home in Vacaville, California, to Candlestick Park south of San Francisco to catch a glimpse of Aaron and his Braves teammates who were completing a series with a doubleheader against the Giants.

The view is from our $2 seats in the left field bleachers. It was a rowdy group around us. Despite the fact that a beer cost just 50 cents, many around us brought in their own (yes, coolers were allowed in those days.) The date was May 9 and Linda was five months pregnant with our child that would eventually become Henry Aaron's namesake. Nine eventual Hall of Famers were on the field that day: Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Willie McCovey and Willie Mays for the Giants; Phil Niekro, Hoyt Wilhelm, Orlando Cepeda, Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews (coach) for the Braves.

According to my scorekeeping, (which ended in the sixth inning of game one, apparently), offense was the order of the day with Cepeda and McCovey each recording a grand slam in the first four innings, McCovey's chasing starter Niekro.

(Foodies will note that a hot pastrami on rye sandwich was at the top end of the menu for $1, hot dogs were 40 cents and a slice of pie could be had for 30 cents. A cigar could be bought for as low as 20 cents, though prices varied.)

###

"Making the majors is not as hard as staying there, staying interested day after day. It's like being married. The hardest part is to stay married."

--Hank Aaron

###

My second encounter with Aaron was more personal. I was sports editor at the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil when Aaron was making a promotional tour on behalf of television manufacturer Magnavox. This was sometime after the 1974 baseball season when my son, Aaron Guthrie (he's also named after Woody Guthrie), was three years old. I was at a news conference in Omaha where Aaron was to speak briefly and answer a few questions. My intention was to tape the news conference for information to use in my column and then to take Aaron aside and ask him to record some sort of greeting to my son.

Taping a personal greeting at a news event with a public figure seemed a bit unprofessional to me, but I figured this would be my only chance so I vowed to give it a shot, albeit discreetly. After Aaron's presentation, though, he was mobbed by TV and radio people, making my intentions moot. I needed a Plan B.

###

"It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. It took one afternoon on the golf course."

--Hank Aaron

###

Aaron's Magnavox deal was a good one. He would get $1 million over five years for his promotional duties, roughly equal to his $200,000 a year baseball salary. As part of that deal, he would be greeting the public for an hour or so at Omaha's downtown Brandeis department store, site of Plan B.

My son, Aaron, of course had no idea who Hank Aaron was. I spent a good part of the night before our Brandeis trip filling him in. He is a baseball player, I said. He can hit a baseball a long ways. All the way from our house to the stop sign at the end of the block. Young Aaron seemed impressed. He repeated what I told him. He laughed. He was his normal loquacious self. This will be great, I thought.

Linda and mother-in-law Rose joined Aaron and I in a long queue to complete our mission. I, of course, carried my tape recorder to preserve the big moment. When we reached the front of the line, I believe I turned the taping duties over to Linda as I swept young Aaron up into my arms for his first encounter with a living legend. The whole event took less than 20 seconds:

Me: Henry, I wonder if you could say hi to my boy here ...

Henry: Sure can

Me: ... this is Aaron Lehmer. He's named after you.

Henry (to young Aaron): Aaron. How are you?

Rose: He's named after you ...

Henry: Is that right?

Rose: ... believe me.

Me: He was just telling me how you hit the ball to the stop sign.

Henry: (laughs)

Rose (to young Aaron): Say something.

Me (to young Aaron): Say something, kid.

That was it.

###

"Can I smoke now without someone taking my picture?"

--Hank Aaron

###

To be honest, I came away with a different impression of Henry Aaron after that press conference. My biggest recollection from that day was that Aaron said flat out that none of the managers he played for during his career made him a better player. For a player of his remarkable skills, I suspect that was true but I expected more graciousness from a man I idolized. Truth is, he was under incredible pressure during the last few years of his career, something I didn't fully appreciate at the time. That is my failing, not his.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

The sad, bright line between who got a seat in the press box and who swept the press box

Maury White and Allen Ashby had a lot in common.

Both were Iowa high school football stars and big names in their communities. Their love of sports led each to jobs as sportswriters and both men landed jobs at Iowa's greatest newspaper, The Des Moines Register.

But, while White built a lengthy career while sharing press boxes with esteemed national writers like Jim Murray, Sid Hartman, Blackie Sherrod and Furman Bisher, Ashby spent his Register career emptying ashtrays from copy desks and sweeping floors around the feet of Register luminaries like Bert McGrane, Buck Turnbull, Ron Maly, Bill Bryson, Chuck Burdick and, yes, White.

Good-paying white-collar jobs were mostly off-limits to Black men like Ashby during his lifetime. After a stellar football, basketball and wrestling career at Des Moines East High School in the early 1920s, Ashby moved on to Grinnell College where he played football for two seasons before leaving school after his father died. While jobs like his janitorial duties at The Register helped pay the bills, sports played a big part of Ashby's life.

In 1929, dismayed at the lack of competitive opportunities for Black tennis players, Ashby organized the Hilltop Tennis Tournament, a Des Moines tournament for Black players.

“Not many white tournaments wanted Black players,” he said. For years he directed the tournament, which was integrated two decades after its founding. Ashby, who also conducted tennis classes for Black youngsters at Good Park, became the first Black inductee of the Iowa Tennis Association Hall of Fame in 1979.

As the clipping at the top of this post shows, Ashby left Des Moines at least briefly to coach basketball at Arkansas A.M. and N. in Pine Bluff. Ashby's 1935-36 team went 20-3, including a narrow 34-28 loss to Fordyce College, the national Negro champions that year.

When he wasn't playing or coaching sports, Ashby was writing about them. For a half century he wrote a sports column for the Iowa Bystander, the premier Black newspaper in Iowa for the 121 years of its existence. He was also a contributor to the national Associated Negro Press. From his earliest years, Ashby dispelled the notion of the "dumb jock." As a high schooler, he was sports editor of East's school newspaper, The Quill, and was a member of East's extempore speaking team, giving five-minute speeches on topics he was first introduced to less than an hour earlier.

"He had a quick mind," said former Register managing editor Dave Witke, who befriended Ashby shortly after arriving in Des Moines in the 1960s.

Although Ashby never wrote for The Register, his name occasionally appeared within its pages. There was a 1945 photo of him with a line of Black youngsters at one of his Good Park tennis classes. When a former teammate, Negro League baseball star Chet Brewer, was inducted into the Register's Sports Hall of Fame in 1984, reporter Ron Maly contacted Ashby for comments about his old buddy.

In his 21 years of sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms at The Register, it's doubtful that sports editor Leighton Housh ever considered adding Ashby to his all-star staff, but Ashby did play a role in placing what was likely the first Black person on The Register's sports staff in the 1960s.

Dartanyan Brown was sports editor of the North High School Oracle when his work caught Ashby's eye. He was soon writing occasional articles for the Bystander, under Ashby's tutleage. Capitalizing on his limited experience, young Brown boldly approached Housh in The Register's fourth-floor newsroom at 715 Locust Street and asked for a job. He was soon answering phones as a Register sports part-timer.

"When I was hired as a coffee boy, sports phone desk person and copy runner, I was the only African American on The Register editorial staff," Brown later wrote for Rootstalk: A Prairie Journal of Cultural, Science and the Arts. Brown's Register career was relatively brief as he soon embarked on a successful musical career that eventually led him to a spot in the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame.

Twenty years after Ashby left the Register -- six years after his death -- Register tennis beat reporter Aly Ashe had an opportunity to acknowledge Ashby's Des Moines sports legacy when she wrote a story about the Hilltop Tennis Tournament, an event she had participated in as a young girl.

Reflecting on the man who spent much of his life bringing tennis out of the country club and onto the city's public courts, Ashe noted, " I remember him as quite a character."

Ashby also appears to be a man of grace. Dave Witke remembers him as a "very nice guy" and a "hard worker who never complained no matter what he was asked to do."

In his senior year of high school, Ashby took first place in the annual Iowa High School Press Association competition for an editorial in which he compares a coal delivery man's efforts to get out of debt by delivering an extra load of coal every day to the struggles of everyday life:

"Every bit of work we do over the minimum required amount is the bit that will make us better able to repay society when we get out in the world. ... [What] are you doing? Are you making that 'extra load' or are you satisfied with merely 'paying expenses'? ... How long will it take you to get out of debt?"

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

 

 

The song may be about Willie Mays, but I'm thinking about my old friend Harold Webster

Funny how the mind works. When the song "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" came up on my computer while I was wasting time, my mind immediately went to Harold Webster. And, of course, Mays' rookie baseball card. In my mind, the two are inseparable.

Harold was one of my earliest friends. We grew up about a block apart on the west side of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and met as mere toddlers in the 1950s. From the start, we shared a love of baseball. And baseball cards. We weren't huge collectors like Don Schultz and Phil Turner, but we could hold our own with the mid-range guys. Somewhere along the line, Harold acquired Mays' rookie card, 1953 Topps No. 244. That was a high number, which means it was released late in the baseball season and not as many were sold as lower numbers. Over the years, as Mays showed his Hall of Fame credentials, that made the card quite valuable.

If I ever knew Harold had that card, I'd certainly forgotten about it when I got back in the card-collecting hobby in the late 1970s and casually mentioned to him that I was part of a group that met occasionally in Omaha. "Hey," he said. "I've got a Willie Mays rookie card. I wonder what it's worth? Can I go with you to the next meeting?"

So, we trundled off to an apartment in Bellevue where a handful of grown men fairly drooled over a quarter-century-old, half-tone, paperboard lithograph.

Where'd you get THAT? What do you want for it? That is so cool. Man, that artwork is something.

Yes, Harold stole the show. He was downright giddy as we drove home.

"They really liked it," he said. "I think I'll hang onto it."

That may have been the last time I saw Harold. He was a big supporter of the College World Series, which was played in Omaha every June, and my sports editor duties meant our paths would sometimes cross in connection with CWS events, but any conversations we had then didn't amount to much. I left for the Des Moines Register in 1981 and didn't see Harold after that.

I mentioned him in the introduction to my book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens and made sure he knew about that. On one trip to Council Bluffs, I tried to connect with him at Dillard's, where he worked, but was told he no longer worked there. Heart trouble, they said. Mutual friends told me he had moved into his sister's home. It was there that he died in 2012, one day before my brother, Ron, died.

At Harold's visitation, I chatted a bit with Harold's sister and we shared condolences. And there, on a table with other important artifacts from Harold's life, sat a well-worn small piece of cardboard showing a brown-eyed handsome man gently cradling a baseball.

I couldn't help but smile.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

 

Here's a newspaper even an ink-stained ragamuffin (or My Neighbor Walt) might enjoy

 

Wow! A newspaper. A really good newspaper.

It's been a long time since I felt that way about a newspaper, even though I started my own newspaper career way back in 1968. It was sometime in the mid- to late-1970s, though, before I truly fell in love with a newspaper. That paper was The Des Moines Register.

Our courtship wasn't a lengthy one. The Register was king in most of Iowa, but its influence wasn't that strong in my hometown of Council Bluffs, tucked along the Missouri River in Southwest Iowa. The papers of record in our area were the hometown Daily Nonpareil and that behemoth from across the river, the Omaha World-Herald. It was at the Nonpareil where I got my first professional byline, thanks to the urging of a high school classmate and fellow Nonpareil sports staffer, Randy Witke.

My journalism career was interrupted by duty in the United States Air Force and, by the time I got out, Randy had moved on to Des Moines and the Register. I was offered a tryout on the Register sports desk in late 1972, but didn't feel my six months of sports writing experience from four years earlier was enough to earn me a slot at the Register, so I took a reporting position at the Burlington Hawk-Eye, then led by Pulitzer Prize winning editor John McCormally, to try to beef up my bona fides. I soon found myself back at the Nonpareil and was working as sports editor when the Register once again called.

This time, though, it was a Register staffer, Val Monson, who did the calling. "I see you guys won an award from the Iowa Daily Press Association for investigative reporting," Val said. "How did you do it?"

We had, indeed, won an award for looking into the finances of the sports programs at Council Bluffs' high schools but I was most impressed that a newspaper of the Register's stature would even notice. Up to that point, I was focused on competing with the World-Herald, the big dog in our Southwest Iowa circulation area, and the Omaha television stations. I decided to check the Register out.

Fortunately, there was a newsstand on the corner of Bayliss Park, across the street from our Nonpareil newsroom, where I could grab a Sunday Register. Thus began a Sunday morning ritual that lasted the rest of my Nonpareil years. It was an eye-opening and jaw-dropping experience.

The Register truly had a statewide presence in those days and the Sunday paper was a cornucopia of Iowa buzz. From politics to agriculture to business to sports to smalltown Iowa life, the Sunday Register offered a generous view of everything Iowa had to offer. I was particularly drawn to Donald Kaul's musings and a series of quirky features by Robert Hullihan about Iowans who purported to be experts in one thing or another. It took more than one day to absorb everything the Sunday Register offered.

Fast forward a few years and I was honored to be offered a position at The Register, nearly a decade after I was first offered a tryout. In those days, The Register's editorial roster was heavily tilted to journalists with roots at other Iowa papers, doubtless incurring the wrath of managing editors statewide. There was a decent blend of young reporters, too, largely from Iowa universities or through a robust (and highly competitive) internship program. The Register was still a family-owned newspaper at the time, but serious change began not long after my arrival. Our sister paper, the afternoon Des Moines Tribune, was shut down and the Cowles family sold The Register to a national mega-media corporation.

Thus, The Register began a slow (at first) transition from being a mandatory read for hundreds of thousands of Iowans to what it is today, a daily newspaper struggling to fulfill its journalistic responsibilities with ever dwindling resources while funneling profits to its out-of-state hedge fund owners. This hardly makes The Register unique. Daily newspapers all across the United States face similar challenges. I applaud the dedicated Register reporters and editors who have done their best to do their jobs under such trying circumstances, but there simply aren't enough of them and they don't have the experience (or benefit of mentoring by newspaper veterans) to consistently serve their readers well.

So, I was pleasantly surprised earlier this year when a friend told me how much she enjoyed another Sunday newspaper. It was during a handoff of a family history project to Sherry Borzo that she told me it took her and her husband, David, all week to read their Sunday New York Times because it had so much interesting content. When I learned that home delivery was an option at my home, I jumped on board. Not only do we get the Times for half price for our first year, we also get THREE online subscriptions that also include the daily paper. There's much more, including access to the substantial Times archives, staff-produced documentaries, podcasts and much more. They even throw in an occasional special section at no cost (the Register charges $3 apiece, whether you want them or not.)

Like Sherry and David, it takes a week for Linda and I to get through the entire paper. I don't finish the main news section until Tuesday or Wednesday. The New York Times has reminded me what a great newspaper can be. They have the obvious benefit of being located in America's cultural center. Much of their coverage is Big Apple-centric, which gives it an added voyeuristic appeal for these Midwest-grounded readers. As hip as we are in Des Moines, we may as well be from another planet in many ways, but good  reporting is appreciated wherever it is found. Just fill a building with a few hundred gifted reporters, back it up with a solid editing staff, intelligent leadership and a business plan that values journalistic excellence above all else and then it's just a matter of getting things rolling.

Unfortunately, that's not how things work at most newspapers today. It's sad to see what's happened to the business I loved and worked in for so many years. If you're lucky enough to have a local newspaper that's working hard to serve you, by all means, support it. Despite its shortcomings, I continue to be a Register subscriber and cling to the slim hope that a white knight will eventually turn things around. As good as the New York Times is, it doesn't have much of a feel for what's going on in our community. But, for everything else, the Times gets a big thumbs up from us.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

 

 

 

High school flashback: Class prophecy for Council Bluffs TJHS, Class of 1963

CLASS PROPHECY FOR THE CLASS OF '63
Thomas Jefferson High School

Date:   June, 1983
Place:  Space Needle
            Seattle, Washington
Time:  You name it.

It has been twenty years since the best class Tee Jay ever had performed its graduation exercises. Today, we find most of these grads heading for a reunion at the famous Space Needle in Seattle, Washington.

As the elevator of the Needle climbs closer to its destination, each passenger looks forward to seeing old friends and finding out what has happened to them.

Who do we find at the door to greet each arrival? None other than Mrs. Clara Strickland dressed in blue jeans and an orange sweater (she was afraid we wouldn't recognize her in anything else). Standing hear the "Way-Out Vision" Machine are Mr. Jack Hanson an Mr. Glen Gotshall. They are using their mechanical minds to get the machine in proper working order but they seem to be having trouble. Mr. Hanson says it can't possibly work because the tubes are not shaped like footballs, and Mr. Gotshall is having a hard time convincing him it will work anyway.

After hand-shakes and lots of food, everyone sits down to hear each tell what he is doing now in 1983. Mrs. Strickland will call roll so no one will be left out. Those who aren't present will be tuned in on the "Way-Out Vision". If you aren't there, we'll be seeing you anyway. Everyone is waiting patiently as Mrs. Strickland begins calling roll.

First on the list is ...

The one and only Nancy Lefgren, outstanding artist in her many fields (including pinching Math and Eng. grades) has finally achieved equal right for the weaker sex and is presently Lady General at West Point where she is still being pursued by all the ?? males.

"Miss Personality Plus" herself, formerly known as Barb Morris has gained success with all her attempts in life. She's participated in 4 Olympic meets, achieved her Masters, and is one of the funniest comedians to hit the stage! The Stigy-Wigy Dog Biscuit Company is behind her all the way.

Jim Butler couldn't decide between his main interests and so now we find him in New York, pitching for the Yankees, sketching each path each ball will take, and then teeing up at bat.

And finally, last but not least we find that our well-rounded, class president, Bob Schlegel, is still getting scholarships? wherever he goes. Recently he was offered $1,000 for causing confusion in high school class rooms. He can be in one room and talk to people in other rooms across the hall using theemanual alphabet. The $1,000 was to be used to get out of town.

Added May 16, 2020:

Janice Heaps can be seen inn the new Heaps appliance truck with the whole gang! It seems that Judy Johnston and Janice have roomed together now for many years. Their "Starr", Linda that is, had to leave them long ago because of complaints of too much 'laughing' and Dripping. What a nut. Good luck girls....

Sally Beckner now owns her own bank and is always racking in the money... By the way, she is still on D.O. She takes off every afternoon to go home.

The celebrated scientists: Doug Johnson and Doug Ives, latest experiment was that of putting a firecracker in a frog and then lighting it.........Results....Frog has nobody.

That part-time job that Sheri Dempster has checking for Super Value still seems to be paying off and not in money! Don't worry we'll never tell what in.

Myrtle Cary's art ability is now nationally known. She is redecorating the White House.

Connie Points got married and has a housewife's career. She has ten children and their names all end with "Meyers" Coincidence??

Lonnie Graybill is being entertained in another way. He moved to India and has a harem of 17 wives.

Edwin "Skeet" Griffith is still quite the singing casanova. But girls -- watch out -- he seems to have his style from soft music in your ears. He's now singing opera at the Metropolitan Opera House.

After escaping Glenwood, Rod O'Connor is becoming an astronaut in hopes of getting away from this maddening world of insincere people.

Bill Fraley, after being selected the most likely to succeed by the senior girls is now reigning as DeMolay's everlasting "Sweetheart."

Kenny Conaway now runs a finance agency and gives special consideration to those young boys who just can't seem to get their car payments and eat the following week.

Added May 23, 2020:

Richard DenHerder, after graduating from college and analyzing his problem, holds the world's record for carrying the largest toboggan possible on a tiny VW but he certainly had lots of practice in the winter of 62-63.

The late Dennis Jeppeson was accidentally shot by riflemate Pat Daeges. Pat's famous words in court will be "I didn't know the gun was loaded and I'm so sorry my friend!"

Weldon Heitman, presently owner of Heitman's Hardware has taken up karate for self-defense against AL-players when he referees TJ-AL basketball games in his spare evenings..

The serene, shy and quiet Lorraine Wray has broken the sound barrier! Believe it or not, she is one of the world's top 3 women debaters.

Smyzer (John) Wilson is busy taking care of the billiards hall. He has become a part owner of the place on Dodge Street after many years of faithful service.

Bob Madison now is the richest man in the universe and lives in his many luxuries, but he still squeeks when he walks.

Our Mr. Leader, John Moats, is a leader once again. He has the lead of all the members of the honors math class to the altar. This of course means, steak dinners for all! Isn';t that right, John ????

Larry Lehmer, writer for MAD Magazine, is now a member of the Boston Celtics. He gets to carry the basketballs. Don't give up hope, you'll make it some day.

Linda (Fou Young) Lee is operating a small Chinese restaurant in ole' C.B. Seems as if it's the only restaurant in the world that writes your prophecy 'while-you-wait'. Her motto is: Lee Food, Very Good, Have Some Really Should. Better is my prophecy, I'll tell what you will be.

Randy Witke is now Editor-in Chief of our own "Daily Mistake" - - The Nonpareil. The newspaper bus9iness pays off doesn't it Randy?

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

Lessons learned from an early morning train station conversation with a transient

In an earlier post, I wrote how I spent many early morning hours of my college years in Omaha's Burlington Station, usually writing bad poetry or short stories in a succession of stenographer's notebooks. I also had many interesting conversations with the kind of colorful characters you'd expect to meet in a train station at 3 a.m. To the best of my knowledge, I only kept a record of one of those exchanges. Here it is, my notes about a conversation I had with a fellow Earth traveler in the wee hours of June 12, 1967, in Omaha's Burlington train station:

"Transient approached me and sat beside me. Mooched a cigarette then told me that watching T.V. dements minds. I told him it depended on what the person watched. He agreed to a point but said that black and purple lights radiate from the screen and cause ulra-violet rays to damage the brain. He said that few people realized this supernatural phenomena. I asked him if that was why he wore shades and he replied yes. He was at the Y.M. the other night and couldn't take the black and purple rays from the T.V.

"He then told me about the many bruises incurred at the Douglas County jail. He said the wounds were inflicted by fellow inmates. He said that since he got out of jail at 8:18 AM yesterday, he's walked 17 miles. He also said he walked by O.U. [Omaha University, my school],

"He then went into a discussion of metaphysics and told me he was a reincarnated Christ. Said he has been reincarnated several times and said that this depot is 4,800 years old. Of course, I was skeptical.

"He then told me he used to work for a guy in Des Moines who had some weird ideas and was cremated after he died. He pointed out that guys like him were prejudiced against because of their beliefs. This guy (he said) died of lateral sclerosis but he (the bum) was saved by some secret mints which kept him from the disease. He also said that 71 percent of all 27-year-olds in Korea during the war died of sclerosis. Therefore, he said, we lost the war.

More and more ,,,"

As I typed this in from my notes, I realized how many of these type of conversations I've had in my lifetime. Not just from transients in rail stations, either. Many of my co-workers in my railroad jobs in the 1960s, for instance, spent their formative years coping with the Great Depression, World War II or Korea. Many of them didn't make it through high school. Indeed, many of them didn't make it into high school. But, man, did they have stories to share. Some may have even been true.

I think learning from these great storytellers helped transform me from a geeky math major in college into journalism, the absolute best profession for anyone who enjoys sharing meaningful stories with others. So, a tip of the fedora to all those black-and-purple-ray dodgers who took the time to talk to me. Thank you.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

Surf monument dedication is historic meeting of relatives of 'The Day the Music Died' victims

10:30 a.m., Saturday, June 18, 1988

It looks like it's going to be a scorcher. Although summer doesn't arrive for a few days yet, it's already 80 degrees on the shores of Clear Lake, Iowa, as a curious assortment of floats, marching bands and classic cars tumbles into single file before beginning its formal procession through this North Iowa town of 8,000. It's a bitter irony that townspeople and visitors have largely opted to wear t-shirts and shorts to an event to memorialize four people who were killed in a plane crash north of town in weather better suited to snow boots, parkas and heavy mittens.

Today marks the first time that relatives of the four people -- Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Roger Peterson -- are in the same place at the same time. The occasion is a monument dedication outside the Surf Ballroom, where Holly, the Big Bopper and Valens made their final appearance on Feb. 2, 1959, before boarding a small plane piloted by Peterson.

Parade organizers managed to find a small fleet of classic convertibles to carry the relatives. Red seems to be the color of the day. For Maria Elena Holly, it's a red-and-white Ford Fairlane. Ritchie Valens' sisters -- Connie Alvarez and Irma Padilla -- get a red Mustang. Jay Perry Richardson, the Big Bopper's son, gets the most vintage of them all, a 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air. Roger Peterson's widow, DeAnn Johnson, takes her seat in a red corvette. Peterson's parents, Art and Pearl Peterson, buck the crimson trend, with a powder blue Ford LTD.

The Valens siblings hold up the start of the parade, first talking with Peterson's widow and sister, then with Art and Pearl Peterson. Pearl Peterson, looking splendid in her clasp pearl earrings, dabbs at her eyes as she weight of the moment appears to take hold.

The monument to be dedicated was not without controversy. First proposed for the three singers, Surf manager Darrell Hein suggested the pilot's name be included. Facing some opposition, Hein decided to fund the entire project himself, ensuring the monument would be honoring all four victims of the crash. Hein and Bob Hale, who emceed the Feb. 2, 1959, dance were emcees for the monument ceremony outside the ballroom.

Following an invocation, Hein introduced the special guests and read a letter from Bill Griggs, founder of the Buddy Holly Memorial Society, who reiterated his support of the decision to include Roger Peterson in the monument's design. Clear Lake Mayor Pro-Tem Dick Hughes then read a proclamation naming the street next to the Surf "Buddy Holly Place." Hale then presented a watch worn by the Big Bopper at his last show and later found at the crash site to the Bopper's son.

Hein then called the families around the shrouded monument before making the dedication and removing the shroud. Maria Holly embraced Pearl Peterson and Irma Padilla collapsed on the back of the monument, sobbing. The crowd pressed for photos as a band brought the occasion to a close by playing "God Bless America."

The families then gathered on the ballroom floor for a closed luncheon with local dignitaries and the media. Pearl Peterson told me she thought the day was going well. She said that she had dinner Friday night with Jan Fredrickson, Roger's high school coach, and was leaving after lunch to spend a week at Leech Lake, Minn. Emmett Johnson, DeAnn's husband, made the trip with Art and Pearl from their home in Alta. "All the way down here she was asking: 'Am I doing the right thing?'," Emmett said.

Pearl said she really warmed up to the Valens sisters, posing for dozens of photos with them. As we talked, Connie Alvarez came up and put her arms around Art and Pearl. "I love everybody here," she said, "but I love these people the best."

TV camera crews, including one from Entertainment Tonight, were scurrying among the tables, pulling family members aside for brief interviews while the cameras rolled. One was getting close to the Peterson's table. "I hope they don't stop here," Pearl said. They didn't.

The Surf opened to the public that afternoon as Don Larson set up his slide show about the tour that deposited Holly and the others in North Iowa in the dead of winter. There was another dance Saturday night, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as Friday's. Michael Montgomery was still working on his movie script, telling people that his Big Bopper movie will be a real love story.

I took just one note on Saturday night: "It was nice to see the band play 'Tequila"'and not see everybody doing 'the Pee Wee.'"

Note: Click here to go to the first post about the monument dedication weekend, my report on Friday night's dance.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.