Passing It On

Life lessons learned from a paper route

I learned a lot from my first job, as a newspaper carrier, namely:

1. Aluminum storm doors make an ungodly racket when struck by a well-folded brick of newsprint.
2. A person can eat just so many chocolate covered cherries.
3. Some adults “earn” their beer money by stiffing the paper kid.
4. Some minister’s wives would feel right at home on a burlesque stage.
5. That postman’s creed about delivering in rain, snow, darkness, etc., goes double for paper boys.

Oh sure, there were grand lessons of responsibility and financial independence, but the real nitty gritty came from the wildly unpredictable personal interactions and financial dealings with adults outside my family.

I was 13 when I assumed control of Route 60a of the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, about 75 subscribers over an eight-block area on the blue collar west side of town for which I would earn 11 cents per customer for delivering their paper seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, except for Christmas Day.

The Nonpareil was an afternoon paper six days a week, but shifted to mornings on Sundays. Those were the days I had to trudge nearly a mile in the predawn darkness, stuff preprinted sections and ads into the main paper and trudge back to start my deliveries. Obviously, this could be a brutal winter experience in Iowa.

Good service was the key to tips, which usually came a nickel at a time with the paper priced at 45 cents a week – except for Christmas, when roughly every other customer added a box of chocolate covered cherries to your booty. Good service meant not banging those aluminum doors. It was much wiser to slip the paper between the front doors, especially on days when lousy weather was expected.

Whatever the weather, customers expected timely, dry delivery of their paper. That made it doubly frustrating when customers just scratched their heads come collection day, usually on Friday night. It didn’t take long to realize who the deadbeats were, but the paper had a policy of not cancelling anyone less than four weeks in arrears and the carrier usually ended up eating the loss.

That sting was assuaged a bit by the kindly grandmotherly types who were generous with their praise and pocketbooks and the occasional floor show by a particular minister’s wife, whose collection-night attire (as filtered through the eyes of a 13-year-old) could best be described as “flimsy negligee.”

Being a paper carrier was hard, but rewarding, work. Having control of a few dollars a week at that time of my life was good training for the years ahead. I was able to start a savings plan for college, had a steady resource stream for my new hobby of coin collecting and learned plenty about dealing with adults I only knew on a business basis.

But, after a few years, it was time to move on. Next time, I’ll tell you about my working days at Twin City Bowl.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of ratigger76.

Time to dig out those high school yearbooks

Do you like class reunions? I thoroughly enjoy mine, although it took me over two decades before I went to one.

The first reunion I attended wasn’t even mine. It was my wife’s, 20 years after she graduated from Omaha’s Bishop Ryan High School. I had such a good time, I couldn’t wait for the next one, the 25th anniversary of Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson’s class of 1963. We’ve been regulars ever since.

My class gets together again this month and I’ve been given the honor of speaking to the group about my work as a personal historian. My classmates and I are at that age of self-reflection where we look back on our lives, consider what we’ve accomplished and how it will matter to future generations.

High school reunions give us a chance to reconnect with an important part of our past, those who were at our sides during those formative years before we struck out into the unknown of the real world, to take our places among honest-to-goodness adults where our thoughts and actions truly meant something.

Stories are at the heart of every reunion. Stories of dreams fulfilled and promise unrealized, joy and heartbreak, life and death. Every story we hear or tell at a reunion matters to us. They are threads woven deeply in our life’s tapestry.

One point I hope to make to my classmates is that our family stories matter, too. Even if our kids and grandkids don’t care about them today, they will someday. It’s our job to make them available when they’re ready, even if that’s after we’re gone.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Thomas Jefferson High School logo courtesy of neoarcana1.

Think that vault is safe? Think again

Safety is a relative thing, for sure.

One of the primary goals of a personal historian is to save family stories before they’re lost. Many of those precious family treasures are too often lost before they can be captured. Once claimed, however, these priceless snippets of family legacy are generally handled with reverence and respect. Whether in print or in electronic form, we take all sorts of precautions to ensure that they’ll be available for future generations.

One of the most secure methods of doing this is the safe-deposit box at a banking institution. I use this method to preserve other personal and business records as well, figuring that locking items in a bank vault keeps them safe from fire, theft, tornadoes and just about any imaginable calamity.

But not floods, apparently.

We’ve been hard hit by flooding in Iowa this year and banks in a flood plain are just as vulnerable as anyone else. That’s a bitter lesson for the folks who had items in the safe-deposit vault at Guaranty Bank & Trust in downtown Cedar Rapids, where water seeped in through utility outlets to soak priceless artifacts.

A restoration company is trying to salvage important documents at a rate of $200 per inch-thick stack.

So, add this to your criteria when you’re seeking a safe place to store your stuff: Stay out of a flood plain, even if it’s in a bank vault.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of Patricia Mc.

Bring me popcorn: It’s family history movie time!

I’m a big fan of family movies. Family history movies, that is.

For me it goes back to “Citizen Kane,” the Orson Welles epic about the life of a newspaper mogul told in a retrospective style as investigators try to solve the one lingering mystery of The Great Man’s final cryptic words: Who (or what) was Rosebud?

As I wrote before, I think the Tim Burton film, “Big Fish,” is the ultimate father-son movie. Although I try to watch this film every June, somehow it eluded me this year.

Now come a couple new must-sees in this genre: “Young at Heart” and “Google Me: The Movie.”

“Young at Heart” has been playing locally recently as fellow blogger Jann Freed notes. This story about a singing group of some thirty 80-somethings who cover everyone from The Clash to Coldplay, will be available on DVD in mid-September. I find it perfectly natural that music transcends the ages. It was a 20-something Paul Simon, after all, who wrote the memorable line “How terribly strange to be 70” in his poetic tribute to senior citizens, “Old Friends,” on Simon & Garfunkel’s classic “Bookends” album.

“Google Me” is a quirky extension of the practice of Googling one’s own name. Come on, everybody does it – a quick check of one’s cyberspace status. When Jim Killeen did it, he found 24 other Jim Killeens scattered around the planet. He tracked down as many as he could and six of them participated in this documentary, which is now available on DVD.

The best family movies, of course, are those of your own family. Now would be a good time to dig them out of their hiding place and give them a proper viewing. If you’re a generation or two behind the technology (film or videotape, for example), you might want to bring them up to date before the equipment necessary to play them disappears forever.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of    Firstposter.com Movie Posters Wall.

My Dad an old man? No way

Age is a relative thing.

I was reminded of this at a family reunion near Underwood, Iowa, this past weekend. Besides the grand potluck, homemade strawberry ice cream, cherry picking, balloon toss and clumsy volleyball games there was the opportunity to share family stories and catch up with the wide range of relatives, many of them unfamiliar, that make up the family tree begun in 1920 when Jens and Ellen Andersen left Denmark to start a new life in America.

Prizes were awarded to those who came the farthest (my Uncle Harold, from Florida) and the oldest (my Dad, Jack, 87). That’s when it hit me. My Dad will never be the oldest in my family, at least not in my mind.

Though he’s lived longer than his own father by more than 20 years and my other grandfather, Jens, by a few years, he’ll always seem younger to me than either of them. For whatever reason, I see my grandfathers as old men, probably because they carried the unofficial titles of family patriarchs for all the years I knew them. My earliest memories of my Dad, however, go back to when he was a relatively young pup in his 30s.

I suspect this skewed view of the aging process is common when evaluating people we’re familiar with. For instance, my view of former president Ronald Reagan is one of a senior statesman while I see John F. Kennedy as a robust, energetic young leader. But they were pretty much contemporaries, having been born just six years apart. My view of them is doubtless tempered by the fact that JFK was just 46 when he was assassinated while Reagan was nearly 70 when he first took office as president. Consider, too, that Martin Luther King was nearly 12 years younger than Kennedy and never reached his 39th birthday.

Do you see your family tree in a similar way?

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Photo: Jack, Elsie and Liz Lehmer at Andersen family reunion on July 5, 2008. Courtesy of lwlehmer.

History Detectives back on the case

One of my favorite television shows returned to the air this week, just in time to offer a respite from one of the soggiest Junes I can remember.

The History Detectives began its 2008 public television season by reuniting a family with a long-lost journal compiled in the year before the writer’s death in a World War II bombing raid, taking a stab at identifying the author of a once-popular book about the Mormon religion and trying to substantiate a family legend regarding fabled sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

Anyone with an interest in family history will find something of interest in this show, just one of many informative offerings that make PBS the channel of choice in our household. On Sunday, our local PBS station aired another fascinating program, “Traces of the Trade,” a documentary examining the slave trade from the perspective of a Rhode Island family that bought and sold more than 10,000 Africans.

Researching family history, which trails only gardening as America’s No. 1 pastime, has been much in the news lately, especially in the flood-soaked Midwest where sad tales of lost family artifacts have dominated headlines for weeks. The CBS newsmagazine, “60 Minutes,” reran a piece on Sunday about the growing popularity of using DNA in genealogical research and the limitations of that science.

The common thread running through all this media exposure is that no amount of science and wishful thinking can replace the deliberate thought and effort that is necessary to preserve our connections to our family’s legacies. The sooner the better

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Photo of two early television performers with a 1933 Bush/Baird mirror drum Televisor courtesy of TVteam.

Been married long? How about 83 years?

Long marriages run in my family. My parents have been married for 65 years and my wife and I have celebrated at several relatives’ Golden Anniversaries.

But I was still blown away when blogger Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings reported the end of a marriage in Minnesota that had lasted 83 years when Clarence Vail, 101, died recently. He is survived by his 100-year-old wife, Mayme, and four generations of offspring.

Clarence and Mayme’s 1925 union was so enduring that even their grandchildren had grandchildren at the time of Clarence’s death. To put their married life into a broader context, consider that these events occurred in the first five years of their life together as a married couple:

Babe Ruth had his famous 60-home run season for the New York Yankees
Charles Lindbergh became the first aviator to solo nonstop across the Atlantic
The stock market collapsed on “Black Thursday” in 1929
Movies were silent and only in black and white at the time of their marriage and Mickey Mouse didn’t appear until 1928

Randy raised the question of who had the longest marriage in history. The folks at Wikipedia have taken a stab with this list that has Clarence and Mayme at No. 7.

What are the longest-lasting marriages in your family history?

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of RozzieM.

Personal, institutional history takes beating from Mother Nature

While most Iowans relish our time in the spotlight in the months (or years!) prior to our quadrennial political caucuses that help steer the course of national presidential politics, we’re not as fond of what’s been happening lately.

Tornadoes and floods have been the forces behind our most recent notoriety, which most of us in the heartland would gladly trade for a few dry days of peace and quiet. The news is full of people telling tales of loss. For those who have been fortunate enough to survive the recent calamities without death or serious injury to their loved ones, the anguish is focused on the irreplaceable – the photos and other items that once linked them to their past but are now gone forever.

Besides the personal loss, flooding also creates institutional loss. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for example, the Linn County Courthouse, the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library and the Cedar Rapids Public Library were overrun by river water. Newspaper Archive.com, a site used heavily by genealogists, was forced to shut down.

I find it particularly interesting that these Iowa institutional losses have been reported on by a California blogger named Craig Manson, whose GeneaBlogie site has done an excellent job of framing the Iowa disasters in genealogical terms.

Of course, floods and tornadoes aren’t the only threats to our family histories. This story about a fire in Peabody, Mass., carries comments from a family historian lamenting the loss of priceless items from her family.

Sometimes nature just sneaks up on us before we can adequately prepare, but there are some steps we can take to disaster-proof our own family heirlooms and histories. You can learn more from California conservator and preservationist Scott Haskins here.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Photo of flooded Czech Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, courtesy of excaliburdj.

Father’s Day is more about family than cheap gifts

Gaudy ties. Cheap aftershave. Singing fish plaques. Golf tees in the form of a woman’s torso.

These are the stereotypical prizes claimed by stereotypical American dads on Father’s Day every June. Dads are bumbling louts who deserve some sort of begrudging recognition once a year, whether earned or not, goes one stereotype perpetuated by a sizable segment of the ubiquitous greeting card industry.

If your family is like mine, dads are difficult to shop for. My own father conceded as much in a recent conversation when he acknowledged that he really doesn’t have room for anything new and doesn’t actually need a thing that he doesn’t have. When I pointed out that I’m just as grateful when my own kids acknowledge me with their presence or a phone call on Father’s Day, he nodded in agreement.

So, I’m eagerly awaiting our family gathering on Sunday when my brothers and I gather at our parents’ house to treat Dad and Mom with our presence, assorted versions of various family stories and, of course, plenty of picnic/party food. With both of our parents well into their 80s, each such gathering is precious.

Father’s Day 2008 coincides with three family history offerings that will set you back a grand total of one cent, if you take advantage of them before they expire in a week. Check these out:

• Ancestry.com recently doubled the size of its historical newspaper collection - adding a billion names and 20 million images. You can check out Ancestry’s entire newspaper collection for free through June 19. Check it out here.
• You can order as many books at you want at genealogical.com and have them shipped to you via parcel post for one cent if ordered before midnight EDT on June 18. Check this offer out here.
• Do you use the Firefox browser? Even if you don’t, now might be a good time to switch. Although it’s always free, if you download the new Version 3 on its launch day on June 17, you might be part of a world-record effort. Sign up here.

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 -- is available at Amazon.

Photo: My Dad, Jack Lehmer, is flanked by his sisters Agnes and Phyllis with younger brother Calvin cutting up in front of them in this 1939 photo from the collection of lwlehmer.

Changes in nature alter our family history, too

   

See that critter to the right? It’s a turtle; an Iowa turtle.

Turtles may not be that rare in your part of the world, but they’ve been popping up like crazy in our little suburban community. This guy was discovered on a soccer field near our public library. On my morning walk today, I spotted another whose shell measured at least 12 inches. That’s huge for these parts.

We’re stuck in a wild, soggy weather pattern that’s put some of our wildlife on the move. Last week we spotted a muskrat near our back yard, something we hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Deer in our neighborhood are so common that they no longer run when seeing a human. Current deer populations consider themselves suburbanites, too, I suppose.

Times are definitely changing. Old-timers in Iowa still tell stories about what a thrill it was to catch a glimpse of a deer in their youth, a time when whitetails were rare in these parts. While deer and wild turkeys have enjoyed a comeback in Iowa over the years, other species have not. We’re in danger of losing a couple of species of turtles and several species of mammals, fish and birds, including the common barn owl.

I’m pretty much a city boy, though I’ve had several relatives who have lived on farms. Although contemporary life often pushes us further away from our connections with nature, I think it’s valuable to re-establish those connections whenever possible. Take a hike, go camping, hop on a bike. Check out nature from a fresh vantage point. This planet functioned quite nicely before we arrived and will do quite well after we’re gone.

In the meantime, our descendants will want to know how nature worked for the generations that preceded them. It’s possible that the pace of natural change is accelerating. It’s our duty to document those changes and their effects on our own family’s lives.

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 -- is available at Amazon..

Turtle photo courtesy of lwlehmer.