Flying in a helicopter

Flying in a helicopter

Butch

For a couple of years before I started working for the Department of Planning and Redevelopment at the City of Cedar Rapids in 1972, I had been developing a keen interest in photography. So shortly after I began work there I learned that one of the other employees in the department, Dick Kvach, had just earned his pilot’s license and I asked him to take me up flying with him so I could do some aerial photography. He was trying to build up hours of flight time and one noon hour he said, “Grab you camera, let’s go for a ride.” He had just been promoted to the Zoning division of the department. His idea was that he would fly around the places that were up for rezoning and I would take pictures of the locations so the Zoning Commission would have a better idea of what was in the neighborhood. I would also take pictures of the future land use map, ground level photography and any other pictures that would be helpful in determining whether to grant a zoning change. The pictures were such a success that the commission voted to outfit me, through the department, with a complete camera setup. I continued taking aerial photos for the rest of the time I worked for the City.

Not long after I started taking the zoning pictures there got to be some question about whether the flying that Dick was doing would be considered “commercial” aviation and if he needed a more advanced license to be allowed to continue. Also, I think there was a problem with paying for the flight time. Don Salyer, the Director of Planning, called me into his office one day and asked if it would be ok if I flew in the City’s helicopters instead of with Dick. I said yes in a heartbeat.

Robert Thorpe and John Saddler

Not only was it a lot more fun flying in the helicopters, they could do things that a light plane just could not do. Light planes have to stay at least 1000 feet above ground level, oftentimes requiring telephoto lenses. Taking photos with a telephoto lens in a plane is not the best because of the excess camera jiggle. Helicopters can fly as low as they want. This can make for much more dramatic and detailed images.

Helicopters do have some drawbacks though. The fuselage is often made of bubble shaped perspex. This contributes to distortion in the photos from shooting through curved plastic. The answer to this problem is easy to solve, take the door off. That’s fine till Winter comes and you are flying at an altitude where the temperature is well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. I had to get a snowmobile outfit and heavy gloves which could be problems themselves. All sorts of people offered to take the pictures for me to get a ride in the helicopters. I told them that would be great but they had to start the next February and I would keep the summer months for myself. Volunteer offers fell of dramatically.

The first flight I did, I had to drive out to the airport to catch my ride. We, John Sadler and I, flew into the city at about 300 feet above ground level. This was an amazing flight. As we flew over the corn fields on the way in, I could see birds perching on the fence wires and mice running down the corn rows. You were close enough to talk to people but the roar of the engine made it impossible to hear anything, and besides you had a headset on anyway. As the city’s cartographer I knew where just about everything in the city was anyway but before we left for the photo shoot I would mark the locations where we were going on a pocket sized map of my own development. This not only helped with finding what we were looking for, but with flying between locations in the most efficient manner.

I started out flying from the airport, but we soon figured out that since most of my work was in town, it made more sense for John just to land on the island, in front of City Hall. That cut out four needless trips to the airport or back. That went very well at first, but before long the Parks Commissioner, Stan Reinis, noticed there was a brown spot beginning to show on the grass where we landed. The exhaust from the engine pointed straight down. A quick fix was building a small paved area and it incorporated a place to set up the City’s Christmas tree in the winter. When we took off, we flew up or down the river over the water so if we ran into any mechanical problem we would have a soft landing in the water. We never had a problem. When we reached sufficient altitude we turned left or right and started taking pictures.

During the early days of the Aviation program lots of things were tried to see what would be most effective. The first picture of me shows one of the helicopters with pontoons which could be used for water landings. I never personally landed on the water though. Before long the pontoons went away and were not used again as far as I know. I flew in three different types of helicopters; Hillers, Hughes, and the gigantic Huey renowned from its Viet Nam War days.

Flying without a door was a scary business at best. The only thing between you and the ground was the seat belt that held you in. Luckily, ours were military models with wide, thick straps and heavy duty hardware. It was a four point system; one strap from the left, one from the right, one over the left shoulder and one over the right shoulder. All the clamps came  together right below your belly button. It was standard procedure to clamp the belt, then double check it to make sure it was fastened. The most frightening flight I ever had was once, right after take off. We were gaining altitude and John was just starting to turn right. That made the helicopter roll to the right (my side). The door was off of course. I looked down and my seat belt was unbuckled. I didn’t want to show any alarm because that could cause John to try and over-correct and maybe make me fall to my death. Trusting to centrifugal force to keep me in the seat, I slowly gathered up the ends of the belts and clipped them back together. There we go, all strapped in again, safe and secure.

The Standard Shot

After taking many pictures of the downtown, we learned that there was one view that most people liked the best. We called it the “Standard shot”. It centered on Mays Island, where the government buildings were located and was from straight south and at about 500’ altitude. We were directly above Diagonal Drive where Interstate 380 crosses over it. I have taken this shot over 100 times. John would head west, aiming for that intersection. I would be lining my shot up, and when he was in just the right spot, he would say, “Now!” I would take the picture and there would be one more version for the record.

John Saddler

Sadly, after I left working for the City, John was riding down the highway on his motorcycle when a mattress blew out of the back of a pickup truck he was following and killed him.

Quaker Oats
I-380 heading north
Our house at 941 21st Ave SW in Cedar Rapids

From time to time I flew by a place that I had lived. I would take a picture if I could.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

Posted in Autobiography, Daily life, StoryWorth | 1 Comment

What are your favorite memories of your children growing up?

What are your favorite memories of your children growing up?

Butch

I have two memories of my kids that are particular favorites of mine. With Lance it was the time we spent in the Boy Scout movement. With Wendy it was her first day of school.

Lance as a Cub Scout

When I was a kid I was active in Scouting. I started as a Cub Scout, moved on to being a Boy Scout, and ended up as a Sea Scout. I was anxious that Lance would also follow in those foot steps. After participating as a boy I continued as a leader. When Lance joined Cubs, I volunteered to be on the Pack Committee. Later, when he went into Boy Scouts, I volunteered to be the Assistant Scoutmaster and held that position until he received his Eagle rank. I went up and down in my own career in Scouts. Advancing through the ranks was important to me. But at every step something happened to keep me from getting some of the things I wanted.

When I was getting out of Cubs I visited a Boy Scout troop as part of earning my Webelos rank. The Scoutmaster talked me into joining the troop right there on the spot. As a result I never did get the Webelos. In Boy Scouts I earned my way up to Life Scout but I was having difficulty with my Scoutmaster giving me my awards. I quit Boy Scouts to join Sea Scouts. I could have continued earning my Eagle award, but Sea Scouts had its own set of ranks and I decided to give them a try. Unfortunately, there was not enough time left before I turned 18, so I missed out on getting the top award there too. My folks were proud of my accomplishments I’m sure, but they didn’t take an active part in keeping me on track. A little more encouragement might have helped me get more things done. I was determined that I would help keep Lance on task, but hopefully not to run it into the ground for him. I think that approach worked because he earned his Eagle. It was one of the best moments of my life. And, we had great times camping and canoeing with the other scouts.

With Wendy one of my favorite memories was when I took her to her first day of school. Both Karen and I worked and Karen had to leave early because she was a teacher. I started a little later in the morning so I had time to drop her off before I had to be at work. We got her all ready and set off. I had a motorcycle at the time and she would sit in front of me on the front of the seat and hold onto a bar on my handlebars. It worked great. When we arrived, I took a couple of photos of her big day. Unfortunately, she had to face the sun for me to get the picture. This was something that she didn’t care for and from time to time, not only did she squint but it could even make her sneeze. I think she avoided that on this special occasion.

Wendy on the first day of school

Karen

Lance

We were very young when Lance was born. I was 19 and Butch was 20. I knew nothing about taking care of a baby or about being a mom. Even though it was scary, I felt this amazing rush of love and responsibility for taking care of this little person. We were thrilled with everything he did, every tiny milestone in his life. We were very lucky to live in the basement of Butch’s parents’ house because we had immediate support for every question or doubt that came up. We also had a built-in extended family to lavish love on our baby. Sometimes we would just lay him on a blanket in the middle of the table and everyone would just sit around the table admiring him and delighting in every move he made. The same was true of my family. We could go to my parents’ house any time and have the same love-in over there. Every child should be loved in such a way.

Lance was an adventurous kid growing up. We always lived in neighborhoods that were like the ones we grew up in. By the time a kid was old enough to ride a bike, they had the freedom to explore in a range of distance from the house determined by their age and how busy the nearby streets were. Lance traveled around exploring and making friends. Once, he came home to tell us that a guy down the street had a big alligator in his yard. He was very excited and said the guy wanted us to give him permission to look at it. We were skeptical about the details and actually how big this alligator could be. Butch and I went down the street with him and sure enough, the guy had an alligator that was maybe 5 feet long from nose to tail! He said his son ordered it from a comic book ad years ago and unlike many families they kept it. The thing looked vicious and definitely unfriendly. It hissed at us in a really scary way. The owner told Lance never to come into his yard or near the pen by himself. We firmly reinforced this warning ourselves! Overall, I think that kind of freedom and opportunity for kids to explore and ultimately make decisions and solve problems on their own is a good thing. Today’s kids have more organized play and activities.

 Baby Alligators by mail

We had very little money when we were first married so one thing we could do as a family for fun was camping. Butch had been a Boy Scout and had lots of outdoor camping skills. I had virtually none so camping was an adventure for me too. We got a tent and various camping equipment for ourselves or as gifts from our families. We took the kids camping when they were still babies and continued camping experiences through their teen years. Camping was an opportunity to explore woods, river banks, lakes, campfires, and various Iowa parks. The kids played in the dirt and mud and learned an appreciation of nature’s plants, animals, and vistas. We loved camp cooking and of course s’mores. Lance loved camping and continued to camp throughout his life. I believe a relationship with nature is essential for happiness and mental health, Often, at bedtime when he was a little boy, he would try to delay sleeping by asking us to talk for a little while before lights out. When we would ask what he wanted to talk about, he would often say, “Let’s talk about camping.”

One of the delights of being a parent is the relationships they developed with their friends. These usually reach their peak in the junior high and high school years. Personalities are well developed by then and though teens can be monumentally trying at times, they are also funny, charming, and full of life. Lance had a posse of friends that changed over time but there was a core of good friends that hung out at our house, Doug Beach, Bob Ross, John Abraham, Tim Martinec, Anthony Molden and others who shifted in and out of the group. Often, I was the driver who ferried kids to and from school and scout activities. Once, I was driving a group of guys all crowded into the back seat of the car. At those times it was like I wasn’t there and the guys talked as if no adult was listening…a good way to learn about your kids and their friends. Someone, out of the blue asked, “What’s your favorite torture?” I was amazed that they each had one! Each described his favorite with more gruesome details trying to top the others. Certainly a conversation a carload of girls would never have!

 Lance Thorpe and Jon Abraham

Wendy

When I got pregnant a second time, I really wanted a girl. I wanted a daughter who I could be a girl with. Of course I would have loved another son but having one of each was the ideal. Wendy was our sunny girly-girl from the start. She was a happy baby and was the center of attention just as Lance was. She was also surrounded by a bunch of aunts who loved to spoil her. She loved dolls and played baby. I sewed cute clothes for her and also made doll clothes for her dolls. I loved to be the mother of a girl as much as a boy. Best of all though, Wendy shared my love of books. At first, of course, there were read alouds, good night stories, and just snuggle up stories. But the best was when she learned to read for herself. She loved Little House books just like me! She loved collecting and owning books, talking about books, and rereading favorites. We still have a loaded bookcase in the grandkids’ room from her girlhood. To this day, I share my favorite titles with her and love getting her recommendations. As she was growing up she often said she wanted to be an author when she grew up. And now she is, with two published books, Everyday Bento and Fresh Bento.

 Wendy with “Everyday Bento”

One way Wendy was distinctly different from me was her courage in stepping up. I was always very shy but Wendy loved being in plays and performing in front of an audience. In grade school she was a flower and book characters among other parts and in high school performed in a leading role and even sang a solo! I was so in awe of someone who could not only act on stage with a substantial part but actually sing out loud in front of everyone! She also went out for the girl’s track team in High School. She was not particularly athletic as a young child though always actively played outside with friends. I suppose that she chose track because of friends too. She stuck with it and went to every meet.

We loved having Wendy’s friends around just like Lance’s. We had lots of sleep overs and gatherings after games, after plays and other activities. Nancy Beach, Gretchen Hokinson, Jane Peterson, Kim Johnson, Kathy Molitor, and Melissa Sherwood hung around at different times. A favorite memory with friends was Wendy’s sixteenth birthday. We asked her how she would like to celebrate and she said she wanted to have a dinner for a bunch of her friends. I can’t remember exactly how many she invited but It was a mix of boys and girls who all hung out together. By then Butch and I had begun to experiment with ethnic foods and fancy cooking. She decided she wanted to have a Chinese dinner theme. We made egg rolls, crab Rangoon, and several Chinese main dishes that she liked. We made fancy drinks (non-alcoholic of course) with little paper umbrellas in them. We also decorated the table with a Chinese theme. Then Butch and I served while trying to make ourselves a bit scarce to not make everyone nervous. I think it was a big success and fun for us too. Long after high school graduation I ran into her friend, Kathy Molitor who told me that it was the best meal she’d ever had. I’m sure she’s had better since but it was a a nice complement anyway!

Wendy and her friends
Gretchen Hokanson and Wendy Thorpe

Wendy left home to go to college in California. It was very hard to have her so far away and I missed her desperately. She could only come home once during the school year for Christmas because we couldn’t afford the travel expense. There was email at the time but mostly phone calls. It was long before cell phones so even those calls were few and far between. Just writing this makes me feel how much I missed her. Once she graduated she stayed in California to work. On one trip home she and I decided to drive to Minneapolis to go to The Mall of America on a shopping trip. We always had a fun time shopping together though we never bought much. But on this trip, on the way home, we listened to a tape of songs in the car by folk singer Stan Rogers. He sang a song called, “First Christmas Away From Home” about a girl away from home and family for her job. The song brought to mind the possibility that Wendy might have to be away from home at Christmas some time in the future. The thought was overwhelming to both of us. Tears were streaming down both of our faces and I had to pull off the road so we could get ourselves under control. It wasn’t exactly a favorite memory but was a strong one and is a sign of the beautiful bond we have as mother and daughter. We have had many Christmases to celebrate together but it is still hard when we are apart.

 Stan Rogers – First Christmas Away From Home

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

Posted in Autobiography, Daily life, StoryWorth | 3 Comments

How did you celebrate your 30th birthday?

How did you celebrate your 30th birthday?

Butch

I don’t recall doing anything in particular on my 30th birthday. We may have gone out for dinner or something but I don’t remember doing it. I checked my yearly calendars to see if something out of the ordinary happened around September 12, 1978. Nothing, so it probably didn’t have much of an impact on me.

I do recall two small things, however. According to Jack Weinberg, an activist in the 1960’s, don’t trust anyone over 30. I was a little worried that my younger friends would think just that and somehow I had crossed over to the dark side. Starwars had just come out the year before.
The other thing was the women I worked with had decorated up the print shop with birthday signs. I was less than thrilled with this and may have been a little disagreeable. These 40 years later I can see how nice they were and I feel a little sheepish about how self-centered I was. They have all died now and I don’t have any way I can let them know how nice it was for them to do that for me.

Print shop employees: Jan Burgess, Merry Frame, Mary Panek and RJ Thorpe

Karen

When you turn 30, it is a true milestone. You must say goodbye to youth and admit to yourself that you are indeed an adult and should resign yourself to it. When I turned 30, I was in my third year of teaching at Prairie View Elementary. I worked with a close knit group of young teachers who were great fun. Our building was an open-space school without real walls between each room. We watched each other teach and helped each other out. We socialized outside of school time and became good friends. I still see a few of these friends from back then when we get together for lunch from time to time in our retirement.

Prairie View Staff

On the year I turned 30 , my friends all chipped in to rent a limo so that we could all celebrate together. At the end of the school day, they called me to the office on the intercom. When I got there, I was met by the limo driver who was dressed in a brown tuxedo. He was wearing a white shirt with brown ruffles. Behind him, I could see a brown limousine parked outside at the curb. My first horrifying thought was that he was some kind of stripper but of course, not even my wild friends would have arranged something like that!

After much laughing and ribbing we all piled into the limo and took off. My friends had brought along Champagne and other drinks to enjoy along the way. The driver wanted to know where he should go and apparently no one had really thought that through, so after some discussion it was determined that we should drive downtown so we could surprise Butch at City Hall. At the time, he was working in the Graphic Services Department whose office was located there. We had a great time riding there and waving and honking at people that we passed along the way.

When we got there, I’m not sure how we let Butch know we were there. That was a time before cell phones so someone had to go down to his floor or something. Anyway, I think he was a bit embarrassed to come out and get his picture taken with us. We were parked in a no parking zone and at one point the mayor came out with someone and gave us some skeptical looks. We determined that it was time to move on. At that point the driver realized that the limo had a flat tire and he didn’t have what he needed to change it. He had to call someone in his company to come and get everything sorted out! It is all a bit fuzzy about how it ended up but he must have eventually driven us back to Prairie View to get our cars. It was a memorable way to celebrate!

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

Posted in Autobiography, Daily life, StoryWorth | 1 Comment

Describe your personal fashion style.

Describe your personal fashion style.

Butch

I was not going to answer this topic but my daughter Wendy wanted me to write about it and even named one memory that she particularly wanted to hear about, my homemade bell bottom trousers. More on that in a minute.

Big Cuffs

The earliest thing I remember about wanting to look a certain way came in elementary school when we first went back in the Fall. Trousers in those days didn’t come in many leg lengths. Usually you just got a pair of long legged trousers and your mother hemmed them or you rolled up the cuffs to make them the proper length. More often than not, you rolled them up. Later in the school year you may need the extra length if you had a growth spurt. Since I was always a shorty, I had more pant leg to roll up to make them just right. The cool way to do this was to just roll the cuff once. That left it about six inches long. The picture gives you an idea of what it looked like, but my cuffs were usually much longer.

Crew Cut

Another aspect of these times was haircuts. For some reason Mom liked really short hair. There were three ways you could go to make this happen. Despite my nickname being Butch, my mom would never allow this style, too short I suppose. Next up was a crew cut which was just a Butch with a greased up longer bit of hair in the front. The third style was a flat top. This was a longer variation of the crew cut but required a lot more styling by the barber. Usually my hair was somewhere between a crew cut and a flat top.

Red Blazer

Around the time we went to England in 1960 Mom’s next big idea was to dress my brother and me in bright red blazer jackets, the kind with a crest on the front pocket. I thought the blazers were a little twinky looking but I didn’t mind them too much. By the time I’d had two of them I liked the idea of wearing them. No one at school had anything like that.

In late 1963 the Beatles hit. I was taking a wait-and-see attitude about whether I liked them. Up to that point I pretty much liked comedy songs; Beep Beep, the Witch Doctor, Purple People Eater, that sort of thing. Then Hard Day’s Night came out and it blew me away. I became a teenager in spirit and not just in age that day. I started combing my hair in a Beatles cut. I got shirts with high, buttoned down collars. This was a mistake of course because I had a short, stubby little neck that didn’t do the high collars justice. The pants I got had some sort of elastic in the material so they were very tight.

Leather Fringe Jacket

The next fashion craze came in college. After the Summer of Love people started wearing hippie style clothes. I did too. Fringed jackets, vests, and bell bottom trousers. The bell bottoms were not particularly easy to come by. A trick to overcome their scarcity was to make them yourself. You would split the seams of the legs from the cuff of your jeans up to the knee and put a triangular piece of material in that would make the bottom of the cuffs much bigger. My friend Mike Shahan’s mother ran a dress shop and gave me a nice piece of material for the purpose. It was bright orange velvet. I asked Mom to sew the triangles in for me but she flat-out refused. I got out the manual to her sewing machine and taught myself to sew. By the end of the day I had the most stylish bells in town.

I asked my cousin Susan who lives near London if she could go up to get me some flash bell bottoms, which she did. She got 4 pairs; a brown wool pair with a fine hound’s tooth pattern to the material, a bright golden velvet pair, and two regular pairs, one green and one blue with vertical pin stripes about every inch or so. The brown and gold ones fit perfectly, but the others were too small for me. It worked out ok because they fit Karen perfectly and they became hers after we were married.

Wedding Shirt

By the time Karen and I got married in 1969 I had made myself a couple of simple, pull-over shirts. One of which was golden paisley that I used for my wedding shirt. I accompanied that with the golden velvet bell bottoms from Carnaby Street and a pair of cowboy boots. No matter how many times I tell my brother Bunny that I wore the gold bell bottoms, he still thinks I wore the ones with the orange inserts.

Later on, when I graduated from college, Mom bought me a nice suit. Though her heart was in the right place, it was a disaster from start to finish. I have a body that is about eight standard deviations away from the mean. I have a large chest and a big stomach but I was substantially shorter than the average guy. This forced me to get a custom made suit that was called a short-portly style. No one stocked anything like that so it had to be hand made, sort of. No matter that they took extensive measurements to make the suit right, it is based almost entirely on the jacket. That is the only part of it that turned out ok. Because I have a large torso, the suit manufacturer assumed a needed large trousers as well. The measurements they took should have told them that the pants that were the standard size for that suit were going to be too big and that they should have made a smaller pair. But when you order one of these suits they send it to you like they want. The standard pants are what you get. Alterations on the suit came with the cost of it so they reasoned it was going to be all right. Well the waist of the trousers was about eight inches too big. In order to make them fit they cut that eight inches out by the back seem, leaving the back pockets wrapped around my butt and only an inch apart. To top it off, the matching vest was so small that I could never button it, making it useless.

In some of the jobs that I held, I had to wear a jacket to work. Luckily, if I bought a sport coat I could get by with only having the sleeves shortened. Being around dangerous manufacturing equipment allowed me to forego a neck tie that could otherwise be pulled into a spinning lathe or printing press. I was never sorry about that small blessing.

The rest of my life the most dangerous thing I had to be around was a drafting table and later, a desktop computer. This has allowed me to wear a pullover shirt and a pair of jeans. Just what I like the best.

Karen

Homemade Dotted Swiss Dress

When I was a little girl, my mom made little dresses for me. I remember pictures of me in fabrics like dotted Swiss. When I was school-aged, the style was for girls to wear dresses with full gathered skirts with starched taffeta petticoats underneath. I remember a beautiful 3-tiered gathered skirt I had in 3rd grade that was made with a light cotton print with small orange butterflies all over it. I felt absolutely beautiful in it. We always got new clothes in the fall before school started and of course new shoes. Shopping at J.C. Penney’s for a pair of Buster Brown shoes was very exciting.

When I was in high school, I learned to sew for myself and made pretty much all my own clothes. Girls had to wear skirts and dresses to school so I made many wool skirts, jumpers, dresses, and blouses. I got a job when I turned sixteen so I also bought most of the fabrics I used and also my leisure type clothes. Mostly, I wore jeans to school activities like sports events and such. The coolest jeans were called wheat jeans because of the light creamy buff color of the denim. The style was to wear tight wheat jeans and madras plaid shirts. Madras plaid allegedly came from India and the colors ran and blurred a bit when they were washed. My dad told me once as I was leaving the house, “Those pants are so tight you could crack a louse on them!” He may not have liked them but never said I couldn’t wear them!

Hippy Blouse

At first, when I went off to the University of Iowa, my style was a continuation of high school clothes but soon the influences of the “Hippy” movement began to creep into my wardrobe along with hip hugger bell bottom jeans, psychedelic colors and patterns, and cowboy boots. Also skirts were “mini” during that time and hems only reached to mid-thigh. Butch and I were married in 1969 and my wardrobe continued to be modestly hippie-ish with Indian prints, short skirts, and mod patterns. This was my all-time favorite era of clothing, partly because I liked the style but also because it was the time of my life when I felt most attractive in the clothes I was wearing. At the same time, I grew my hair long and often wore it in long braids or a braid crown.

When I graduated from college and got my first teaching job I transitioned into more teacher-like outfits. They were kind of frumpy and mom-ish and often were chosen because they would stand up well to working with young children. I could sit on small chairs, work with messy art materials, and get on the floor to work with kids without worrying about ruining anything. As I moved to a more administrative role, I started to wear suits and more professional type clothes.

Now that I am retired, comfort is the most important factor in clothing choices. I spend most of my time in jeans, knit shirts, and comfy shoes. Most of my clothes are very casual and I only have one or two outfits that I can wear if I need to dress up a bit.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

Posted in Autobiography, Daily life, StoryWorth | 1 Comment

Which astrological sign are you? Does it suit you?

Which astrological sign are you?
Does it suit you?

Butch

 Being born on September 12 makes me a Virgo. I see astrological signs as meaningless drivel. They are a little fun to fool around with however.

Virgos are often looked on as follows:

Positive Virgo Traits:

Hard-Working, Creative, Reliable, Patient, Kind.

Negative Virgo Traits:

Critical, Stubborn, Overthinking, Picky, Uptight.

Virgo Traits in Relationships:

Romantic, Platonic, Professional.

I think most people generally associate a Virgo’s negative traits with what they are like. At least that’s how they apply them to me. My sister-in-law, Jeanne Spicer, shares the same birthday with me. We seem to have totally different outlooks on life, but when I point that out to people, they laugh and say, “Peas in a pod”. So interpretation can go either way.

Karen

 My astrological sign is Scorpio. I rarely read my horoscope and don’t set a lot of store in it but it is fun and interesting to think about these traits from time to time. More fun to think about positive traits than negative for sure!

Positive traits for Scorpio:

Determined-I think I am a determined person and do go after what I want to accomplish. I see this in my career pursuits. I rose in my profession because I wanted to learn and took on many different roles and was convinced that I would succeed.

Brave: I do not see myself as brave. I am physically very timid and worry about dangers.

Loyal: I am loyal to the people I love and stick with them. I was also loyal to people in my profession even when I disagreed with them.

Honest: I do value honesty for myself and can’t bring myself to lie. I may, however hide the truth from others by not saying anything.

Ambitious: I was ambitious in my career. I was eager to learn, try new things, and lead others. I like to be doing things and accomplishing things I am proud of. I like making things like fused glass, embroidery, home improvements/ organization, etc.

Negative traits for Scorpios: These are hard to take

Lay in wait to strike: This seems a little scheming and mean to me. I don’t see this in myself.

Jealous: I can see this in myself as a product of feeling doubtful of my own abilities, talents,etc.

Secretive: I often keep feelings to myself, though, unfortunately not my opinions.

Controlling: I do have a tendency to try to be in control and barrel ahead either discounting others or just assuming they agree with me. I also hate being manipulated and controlled by others, but who doesn’t?

Resentful: It is very hard for me to forgive someone who has deliberately tried to hurt me or those I love.

Stubborn: OK, I admit it!

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in that category.

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What are your favorite songs?

What are your favorite songs?

Butch

 Leo Rowesome

There are just too many rock and roll songs for this to be a category to comment on. Also, technically I think that a tune must have lyrics to be considered a song. I’ve always considered instrumentals to be songs too and overall, I like them better. I’m inclined to like folk songs. More often their lyrics are meaningful and pleasant. I also like Irish dance music. Jockey to the Fair, the Gold Ring and Colonel Fraser are three of the best examples. Leo Rowesome played tunes like these on the Uilleann pipes.

Three English folk songs by one of my favorite folk artists, Martin Carthy, stand out; Three Jolly Sneaksmen, King Knapperty, and Three Cripples. All are humorous.

Martin Carthy

Karen

I talked about my favorite musicians in another section and listed some of my favorite songs from my youth there. I don’t really sing much because I don’t have a nice singing voice but one song that has been woven in and out of my whole life is “You Are My Sunshine.” I don’t really remember my mom singing that song to me but I do remember her singing it to my younger sister when she was a baby and to every baby I ever saw her her cuddle and rock. So I will assume she sang it to me too. That song stands for pure love in my life.

When my children were born I sang it to them while I fed them, at bedtime, when they were sick, or anytime we had a cuddle. When our grandchildren were born, I sang the same song to them for the same reasons and in the same situations. I think I only sang to Wyatt and Augie when they were tiny infants because I wasn’t close enough to take care of them for long stretches at a time. The funny thing was that I only knew the words to one of the verses and the chorus which I just sang over and over again. I was never curious about the other verses and never bothered to learn them. Probably Lance, Wendy, Rachel and Ben think that is all of the words to the song!

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

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What skill or area of expertise do you have that most people would find unusual?

What skill or area of expertise do you have that most people would find unusual?

Butch

I decorate birthday cakes. I started when my kids were little. The first one I remember doing was for Lance in 1971. I come by this ability honestly. For a time my mother worked at our neighbor’s bakery. When they found out she could decorate cakes, that became one of her jobs. It was Grandma Paddy that did Lance’s first birthday cake and Wendy’s first birthday cake too. Joyce Carpenter, Rachel’s other grandma did her first birthday cake. I think I did all the rest of them. A few of the cakes deserve special attention. Ben’s 9th and 10th birthday cakes were made from rice crispy treats and were very 3-dimensional. His 9th was a chunk of TNT from the game Minecraft. His 10th was a cake of their camper. For his 12th birthday I did a string of lights from the TV show “Stranger Things.” Various lights were marked out with red dots to spell out a secret message. I asked him if he could figure out what it said. He said, “well, B. Then E, then N. Hey, that spells Ben.” I asked him about the numbers. He said, “1 and 2, that’s 12, That’s how old I am.” It was just my good luck that all the letters happened to fall in the right order. Around the time I was doing Rachel’s 13th birthday cake, Lance said he would still like to have one, even at 44. Bazinga refers to what Sheldon, one of the characters on the “Big Bang Theory” TV show says frequently.

Assorted birthday cakes

Karen

I can’t claim I have anything close to expertise in this area but over the years I have developed an interest in the historical period of World War I. I am an avid reader and particularly like mysteries that are set in unique locations or historical times of the past. I have read several historical series that are set during the years leading up to WWI and the years following leading up to WWII.

I don’t claim that this has led to deep understanding of all of the politics related to the causes of the war, or an encyclopedic memory of the important battles, weapons, or strategies of warfare in the period. However, because I read ePub books almost exclusively, I have internet access at my fingertips as I read. If I don’t quite understand the terrain of a particular location, the details of historical figures, or the timeline of specific events… I look them up as I read. With this strategy I have studied battle maps, news accounts written during the period, and even tried to understand the complex treaties and alliances that caused seemingly isolated events to escalate into world-wide war.

Battle of Verdun

Also, because I am reading novels, there is an added sense of the personal costs of the war to both soldiers and those at home. Since I read authors who are good at what they do, I feel that what I read is as accurate and authentic as they can make it.

The horrors of WWI were probably not the worst in all of history but new weapons like gas, machine guns, and tanks were introduced and led to much suffering in terms of disfiguring and horrendous wounds. By organizing soldiers into groups from cities, neighborhoods, and villages, sometimes a whole generation of comrades and families were wiped out at once. Those who survived lived to relive the horrors of fighting in trenches and mud on top of the bodies of the fallen. Like most wars, it didn’t seem worth the sorrow and those that survived had to watch their own sons and daughters face another world war in their lifetime.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page select the Storyworth catagory.

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Describe the homes you lived in as a child.

Describe the homes you lived in as a child.

Butch

454 ½ Second, Webster City, Iowa. (Birth -1949)

We lived in an apartment above my grandfather’s auto parts store. My grandparents also had an apartment there as did my Uncle Jack and his wife Sally. This is the house I was brought home to when I was born.

Raymond, Robert, Teddy, and Paddy Thorpe

Johnston, Iowa. (1949-1950)

My father was attending Iowa State College’s Camp Dodge Campus in Johnston. We lived with “Grandma and Grandpa” Fisher. Judy was born while we were living here.

3117 Merle Hay Road, Des Moines, Iowa (1950-1958)

    This is the first address that I have any real memories of. My first friends were made here. Some of them were: Craig Strain (best friend) and his little brother Allen, Billy and Diana Jo Lefler, Georgie Braden and siblings Patty, Diana, Jeannie, and Jimmy, Cheryl Rae McCoy, Dean Sage, Ricky and Randy Phillips, Troy Leason, Gene Crosby, and Rod Atha. Bunny and Lisa were born while we lived here. A bungalow, this house has since been torn down because of termite damage.

4111 52nd Street, Des Moines, Iowa. (1958-1960)

This was our new house, The American Dream. It was on the edge of town, the city limits were at the bottom of the hill, a half block away. Beyond that, there was only farmland northwards. My best friend here was Bob Lohr. Other good friends were: George Vignovich, and Mike Giventer. George Vignovich is my only childhood friend who has remained an active friend into my adult life. A year of so after we moved to this house, my father got laid off from Lennox and went to Cedar Rapids to find work. He lived in a boarding house and we lived in Des Moines. He would come home on weekends and usually brought us donuts or other pastries as a treat. This must have been a horrible life for my folks and before long we moved to Cedar Rapids.

4111 52nd St

George Vignovich, Mike Giventer, Robert Thorpe, Bob Lohr

809 15th Avenue SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1960)

Our first home in Cedar Rapids. We did not live here long, we were only renting. Most of my junior high friendships were made when we lived here: Steve Vosatka and Keith Andrews. Unknown to us, the owners of this house had it up for sale when we were renting it and sold it while we were there. Rather than tell us that, they had a police woman come to the house and evict us.

3023 Schaeffer Drive SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1961)

This was a much nicer house than 809. We rented it too. It was owned by the next door neighbor, Clem Philipp, who had moved out of it after building a bigger house in which to house his five kids. His brother’s family lived on the other side of us. There were 13 children in their family. They were Catholic. My folks had started plans to build a new house in Cedar Rapids. There was a vacant lot just two lots away to the north that the plans were created for. However, the Philipp’s with the 13 kids used this lot for a play ground (it was not theirs). When they found out we were going to buy it they made life miserable for us. They were mean to us kids and dumped their wash water on their patio, which flowed immediately into our yard. We decided to move. Our neighbors across the street were the Sheriffs and figured prominently in many anecdotes.

398 28th Avenue SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1962)

I didn’t like this house as much. It was an old farm house and had been moved to this location. We rented from a man named Harry O’Dean. He raced stock cars in the Cedar Rapids area and had a fairly successful record. About this time I made friends with Jim Cada. He was to be my best friend all the rest of junior high and through high school. Eventually, he was the best man at our wedding. He has been married twice and he and his second wife had a baby, Olivia (his first, her second) when he was over 40. Lord help him. We didn’t stay long in this house either, work was being done on our new house.

3020 Southland Street SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1962?-1966)

The Thorpe Family’s second shot at the American Dream. This house was designed by Dad for the lot on Schaeffer Drive but after being run out by the Philipps we had no desire to live next door to them. Besides, there was another lot directly behind where we lived on Schaeffer and it cost less than half and was bigger. My dad merely had the blueprints printed reversed. The slope of the land was identical but it was a little hard to read the reversed lettering on the plans. Dad contracted the whole project himself as well as designing the house. This home more than any other was the family homestead. My mother lived there till she died in 2015 and left the house to my sister Lisa. Lisa sold it to her son Seth who lives there now (2021).

On Southland Street I had a room of my own for the first time. In order to get it, I had to agree to have my room in the basement but all in all it was worth it. I still officially lived there when I went to college and I kept possession of my room even after Karen and I got married.

Beyer House, Friley Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (1966-1967)

John Hawn and Robert Thorpe

I had three different rooms in Beyer House. I thought it would be more fun to switch rooms every quarter and have a new roommate. My first room was a three-man room and my roommates were Stan McAninch from Indianola and Nyle Hodges from Panora. Winter quarter I had a new roommate and even though I lived with him for three months I can’t for the life of me remember his name. He came from Princeton, Illinois. Spring quarter I moved again. This time my roommate was John Hawn from Ankeny, Iowa. John is a good and close friend of mine to this very day. Many of the people who lived in Beyer House were from Indianola. My roommate Stan, a guy called Leroy (but who’s real name was something else), Parker Westlake Swan who taught me the rudiments of musical chord structure, and a couple of other people. Because of them, one of their friends from another dorm used to hang around, Jeff Kragskow and he brought along one of his friends, John Teufel. The summer after my freshman year I was living at home in Cedar Rapids and got injured playing soccer. I couldn’t get back to college in the fall and worked that quarter. I returned for winter quarter.

2526-1/2 Lincolnway, Apt. #2, Ames, Iowa (1967)

When I got back to school I took up residence with Jeff Kragskow in an apartment above Wally’s Pipe Shop. Teufel, who lasted one semester into his sophomore year had been living with Jeff and had just dropped out of college. This was Jeff’s apartment and I just lived there. I had three old davenport cushions and a fitted sheet that made them into a mattress. I didn’t feel like the place was my own and I always felt like I was a bit of a guest so in the spring I moved out.

410 Welch, Ames, Iowa (1968)

This was my first apartment by myself. It was in a basement in the furnace room and there was only a bamboo curtain between me and the furnace itself. It was pretty Spartan. I rented it from a religious guy who wouldn’t allow any women in the place. That wasn’t a problem since I wasn’t dating or any thing but it was kind of ballsy of him to have such a rule. Nobody obeyed it anyway. Upstairs there was a guy who had a python or boa that was named Stretch. My two basement housemates were a couple of Nigerians who kept the kitchen reeking of African concoctions made primarily from chicken necks and Contadina Tomato Paste. They were the blackest people I have ever seen, as black as coal and the whites of their eyes were brownish tinged, the pupils so dark brown that they looked black. They had ceremonial scars on their cheeks. They were quite frightening to see but of course, they were always as friendly as could be. I was living here when I dropped out of college due to goofing off too much.

On the road (1968)

When I dropped out of college, I didn’t have any real reason to stay in Ames. I had friends there, but I had friends in Iowa City, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. I took to hitchhiking around and I spent no more than two or three days in any one of the four places mentioned above. I would visit my friend George Vignovich in Des Moines. He was married by now. I hadn’t known his wife Kay before they were married but she and George are still good friends. In Iowa City I stayed with Mike Shahan or Mike Kohler and Ned Kohl. In Cedar Rapids I’d drop in at home every now and then to get fed or do my laundry and off I’d go again. In the late spring or early summer I needed money so I got a job as a chauffeur. I travelled all over Iowa, Missouri and eastern Kansas. I stayed in a motel in Springfield, Mo. for a while when the car broke down. My boss, Sherman Kamens, stayed with his girlfriend/business partner and I was alone. When we were in Kansas City I got the notice for my pre-induction draft physical and flew back to Cedar Rapids. I passed and was looking forward to being drafted anytime. It took a long time, six months or so. In the fall I was hitchhiking a bit and was paying rent with my friends Teufel and Greg James on an apartment on Heyward in Ames. I was hardly ever there though. I needed money again and one time while I was in Iowa City I got a job painting signs. I decided to wait for my draft notice in Iowa City.

310 South Capitol, Iowa City, Iowa (1968)

I only lived here a couple of weeks and by rights this address could be attributed to my “On the road” section. But it is noteworthy. 310 was the undisputed hippy flop house of Iowa City. It was urban renewed long ago but is notorious just the same. The owner, Max Yocum, was a classic slum lord. He was run out of Iowa City at one time or another. He had cobbled three or four old houses into one huge slum apartment complex. The rent was cheap and the neighbors were of like minds and it was an exciting place to live. I moved only because I got a better deal.

327 South Dubuque Street, Iowa City, Iowa (1968)

This apartment was the converted attic of my boss’s house. His name was Jim Gaeta and he lived on the first floor with his wife and jillion kids. I worked as a sign painter in his sign shop that was a lean-to shack on the side of the house. He had two apartments on the second floor and mine was upstairs from them on the third floor. Hardly any photos of this house exist. The photo above is a composite of what showed of the house when the two adjoining houses were photographed for urban renewal. My apartment window shows on the left side at the top. The rent was low, something like $35 a month and I only had to walk downstairs to go to work. My boss hardly ever paid me so he always owed me enough that I didn’t have to pay rent. I lived here when Karen and I started getting serious but the rest of my life was in disarray and I got out of Iowa City at the beginning of 1969. Like 310 S Capitol, this house has been torn down in the name of progress.

3020 Southland Street SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1969-1970)

I moved back home and in March I got a job at Collins Radio in preparation for our upcoming wedding. When we were first married, I, now along with Karen, continued to live at 3020. Besides my room, the rest of the basement was given over to us for an independent apartment. This is the home we brought our baby Lance to. We lived here till we could rent a house of our own.

Karen

720 7th Street SW

When I was born, my family lived at 720 7th Street SW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The house was on the corner of the street and the large backyard was along 8th Avenue. I don’t have any memories about living there because my family moved next door when I was still an infant. I lived in that house at 714 7th Street for the rest of my childhood until I left for college.

714 7th Street SW

I have many warm memories about the house at 714. It was built in 1918 and was a large, square, two-story house with a living room, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor. The bedrooms and bathroom were on the second story. The basement was dominated by a huge octopus furnace in the center. My dad had a small workshop down there and it also had a big area for laundry which included a shower that we only used in the summer. I hated going down there in the dark because I always imagined a monster was on the other side of the furnace from me and just waiting to get me.

Spicer kids in the living room

Our house was just a half block from Taylor Elementary that had a big playground and a flooded skating rink in the winter so my childhood included lots of roller skating on the sidewalks, playing in our yard or the yards of neighbors, ice skating, bike riding, or playing on the school playground.

Karen and cousin Peggy

I shared a big bedroom with my sisters. Before Linda was born, Sue and I slept together in a double bed and Diane had a single bed to herself. Later, when Dick left for college, Diane moved into his small room and Sue had the single bed and Linda and I shared. At first the room was decorated with yellow wallpaper that I thought was just beautiful. Later the wallpaper was taken down and the room was painted pale blue. It had a small closet with a step at the back that was probably covering some plumbing or something. I often would crawl in there with a flashlight and a book and hide away for a while. When I was a teenager my parents gave me my own princess style phone to have in my room. I felt very grown up.

The house also had a large screened in porch on the front. We would sit out there in the summer to stay cool. Sometimes we were allowed to sleep on the daybed out there on a hot summer night. I know I had at least one slumber party there with 8 girls laughing, talking, snacking, and sleeping on the floor.

My house was not far from Kingston Stadium where HS football games were played. My friends would meet up at our house before the game, and walk to the stadium together. Afterwards, we would walk back and make a Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza from a box mix. Pizza was a new thing in Cedar Rapids in the early 60’s. By today’s standards the mix would have been terrible but back then we all loved it. We’d take over the kitchen for the rest of the evening. My parents were always great about us having friends over. I had many sleepovers, game nights, and just friends hanging out over the years.

I had a very family oriented life. We all ate meals together, had family game nights, watched TV together, and had visits from aunts, uncles, and cousins. I met boyfriends there when I went on dates, got ready for homecoming dances and proms, and had my wedding reception there.

Jim Cada, Robert, Karen and Judy Thorpe

Carrie Stanley dorm

The only other place I lived before I got married was the Carrie Stanley dorm on the University of Iowa campus. It was the newest dorm at the time. I lived in a three person room with two other girls from Iowa. Lori, from Des Moines, was beautiful and very sophisticated. She smoked and went to lots of parties at fraternity houses. Linda, from Elkader, was pretty irritating and was a member of The Highlander bagpipe band that played at football games. We got along pretty well all considered. Overall, I thought it was fun living in the dorm because it was my first taste of independence. There were hall activities and lots of socializing. There were a lot of rules though, and girls had curfew hours. The doors to the dorm were locked at midnight on weekends so you had to ring a doorbell to get in if you were late. There was some penalty for it. I forget what it was because the only time I was late, I had my date take me to my sister’s apartment where I spent the night.

Karen at Carrie Stanley dorm

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

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Sign Painting

Sign Painting

Magic Car Wash

In 1965 my grandparents, Arch and Grace Bellamy, traveled from their home in Peterborough, England, to visit my folks in Cedar Rapids. As part of their vacation my folks planned a little road trip for them. While they were seeing the sights, I was shipped off to visit my friend, Bob Lohr, in Des Moines for a week. Both he and another friend from the time we lived in Des Moines, George Vignovich, worked at the Magic Car Wash. When they were at work I had to hang around till the end of their shift. George had a racy car so I would draw pictures of it. I usually drew it as seen from the front with the car doing a wheelie, smoke pouring from the rear wheels, and driven by some floppy tongued monster with a stick shift lever sticking out of the sun roof. The owner of the car wash was impressed by my drawings and asked if I thought I could paint a sign for him. I told him I thought I could so off we went to a nearby Sherwin Williams paint store. He bought a variety of paint brushes for me, none of which did I have the slightest idea if they were right for the job or not. But the sales clerk at the store must have steered me right because after the first sign, I spent the rest of the week painting any number of other signs around the car wash that the owner felt needed painting.

The first sign was a hanging sign that he put out on the parking to let passersby know they were open for business. He insisted that it say, “Opin”. I pointed out that it should be “Open” but he said more people would notice it if it were misspelled. Whatever he wanted was ok by me.
Once, while I was waiting, a man drove up in his Studebaker Avanti. My dad had Studebakers, so when they came out with the Avanti I was delighted. You could get one with a supercharger straight from the factory. The Avanti was moving down the washing line and I asked the foreman if I could drive it to the drying room then out onto the apron. What a treat. My sign painting days had begun.

Bob Martin Signs

In the summer after my freshman year in college, I thought I might be able to pick up a part time job doing signs locally. There was a sign painter, Bob Martin, who only lived a few blocks away. I dropped in to see him one day. I told him about my work in Des Moines and he asked me to show him what I could do. He put some newspapers up on his sign painting board, but turned them so the columns were left and right not up and down. This made perfect guide lines for painting letters. He thought I was ok, not good, and advised me to build myself a sign board and practice my letters on old newspapers. I tried it, but my heart wasn’t in it. He must have changed his mind and I think he was going to take me on as an apprentice. At any rate he called me and asked if I would like to help him with a job putting up a large sign. I helped him all afternoon and after I got off work I went to soccer practice. At the practice I got injured as I have described in several other stories. That was the end of that portion of my sign painting career.

Arrow Sign Co.

    A couple of years later after I dropped out of college, due in part to the soccer injury I had received, I was living in Iowa City and I ran into an old friend, Steve Heimann, who was working as a booking agent for a guy who managed rock and roll bands. I told him I was out of work and he suggested that I try to get a job with his boss, Jim Gaeta. Jim ran his booking agency out of a little sign shop tacked onto the side of his house. He liked to hire college students who had some talent, show them some tricks of the trade, then turn them loose on the sign painting jobs that came in the door. He wanted them to be around so they would be ready to turn around any job that came in. He insisted that they hang around the shop. There were long stretches of down time but he really wanted the students to stay there. Because the workload was low, he hardly had any money to pay his workers with. I found out he had an apartment on the top floor of his house so I suggested he might pay me by letting me live there for so much a month. Even then, I got very little money, but I did have a place to stay so all I really needed money for was for something to eat. Every now and then Jim would complain that he showed the students how to be sign painters only to have them quit and become his competition. Since most of them were students, they left town in just a few years so were not an ongoing problem for him. Their competition was not so surprising when you considered how little he gave them. He showed up at my apartment one time and told me he was going to need some rent money. I said the guy I worked for wasn’t paying me and that till he did, I wouldn’t be able to give him anything. I think he just about always owed me a couple of hundred dollars. One time Led Zeppelin was in town on their premier tour and I asked him if he could pay me the cost of admission, $15 I think it was. He said he just didn’t have the money to give me. I missed what would have been one of the best concerts of my life. There are many interesting but not so important stories from my time at Arrow Signs, but hardly any of them have anything to do with sign painting.

Cedar Rapids Herbs

    A few years later I was married to my wife Karen and our son Lance had been born. I had real jobs by then, but I still painted the odd sign or two for a little extra money. One of those signs was for Cedar Rapids Herbs. The owner was Doreen Edmundson and I was referred to her by my friend, Tom Krejci. He had a small music store in that area called 4th Street Music and I had painted his sign earlier. There were several small shops along the railroad tracks. Tom’s was one and the herb store was another. There was a hippy, head shop, The Folks and Uncle Leonard run by Jim and Elaine Ball. An army and navy surplus store was there. Also, there was a sign painter, Joe Kacere. I often wondered why he didn’t do the job for the herb store. When I was painting the sign, he came out of his shop and chatted with me. We got to be kind of friendly. Another time another fellow came up to me and chatted. I think he ran the Cedar Rapids Art Center which later became the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. He liked the herb store sign and wondered if I would paint a shop he owned. Off to Mount Vernon…

Mount Vernon General

    Mount Vernon General was one of my favorite signs. I’m not sure exactly what they sold. I think it was a general merchandise store. After I painted it the business was eventually sold and I thought that would be the end of it. The new owner liked the sign so much he kept the name Mount Vernon General just so he could keep the sign. I thought that was kind of an honor. Several years went by and someone threw a brick and broke one of the two windows the sign was painted on. They called me back and I repainted the broken half. A third owner also kept the name and expanded the store to a delicatessen and tavern. I was back for a third time to add that below the original part. During one of the store’s incarnations the owners had someone paint a big mural of a farm auction along one wall. I never got a picture of it so if someone who reads this has a picture, please leave me a comment.

Bushnell’s Turtle

    Another Mount Vernon connection, a friend of mine from junior high and high school, Sandy Feiereisen, along with her husband Stoney Harman, and his family started Bushnell’s Turtle, a submarine sandwich shop in Iowa City. This was in 1972 and it was in an old building where the Old Capitol Mall now stands. I painted the name of the shop way up on the building when it was really hot out. I had to stand on a ladder and the back of my calves got terribly sunburned. It was the first time I painted a sign directly onto brick and it was a real pain dabbing the paint into the mortar between the bricks. I was happy with the results however. I also painted a picture of Bushnell’s Turtle, the first submarine in the front window and I did a wooden, Colonial looking Inn type sign that they hung on the wall inside.
When Iowa City cleared out the old buildings for the mall, the shop had to relocate. They moved to some temporary buildings that were erected in the middle of Clinton Street. Stoney called me desperately saying they were going to dedicate the temporary buildings the next day. The ceremony was going to be in front of their shop and they didn’t have a sign. Could I get one done and put up in time for the ceremony? He said he wanted it to say, “Good Eats” with a finger pointing to the entrance of the shop. I got it done and installed in time. All was well. But that night someone sneaked back to the shop and stole the sign so they could have it for their own.

Years and years later, my son who was only about 5 years old when I painted the original signs was at his job and ran across the the original wooden sign. As I write this, he is over 50. It was in a barn or something and was badly faded and otherwise deteriorated. He showed me a picture he took and I showed him the picture I took.

Other

In the lower left hand corner of the picture of me painting the Mount Vernon General sign you will notice a wooden paint box that I used for storing and transporting my paint and brushes. After Karen and I were married, her dad, Les Spicer, gave that box to me. When he worked on the railroad in the 1920’s that box belonged to the company’s sign painter who lettered the names of the Pullman cars on their sides. I feel quite honored to own it.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the Storyworth catagory to see all the entries in the series.

Posted in Autobiography, Family, StoryWorth | 1 Comment

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you might die?

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you might die?

Butch

I have had a couple of incidents where I thought I might die. One was when I got injured playing soccer and the other was when I was in an automobile accident.

Soccer Injury

After my freshman year in college at Iowa State University I was home for the summer. Our family friend Ray Scuffham had just started a new soccer team, the Comets. I tried out for the goalie’s position and to my surprise, got it. We practiced at Roosevelt Junior High. There were quite a few foreign kids on the team and they had a tremendous advantage over the rest of us because they had been playing all their lives. The Americans were basically just starting to learn the game. One was a Danish kid who had great control over the ball. On one occasion he came dancing down the field acting like he was going to kick the ball into the right side of the net, but at the last minute he gently tapped the ball to the left. That was the kind of trick that usually allowed him to score a point on me. This time however I was more onto his tactics so when he kicked the ball to the left, I dove for it and flicked it out of the way with my fingertips. But in order to reach the ball I had to throw myself horizontally, completely stretched out. I did save the ball, but I landed hard, flat on my stomach.

After the game my friend, Keith Andrews, and I were walking home and stopped at the Dairy Queen. By this time I was having difficulty walking and my abdomen was really starting to hurt. Keith’s dad, Lennie, just happened to be making a delivery to the ice cream stand and gave me a ride home. The next morning I could hardly get out of bed. Mom took me to the doctor who discovered that I was bleeding internally and had me admitted to the hospital. The next morning I went under the knife.

As they were wheeling me down to the operating room I was quite scared, thinking I might die during the operation. But I realized that if I did, I would be unconscious and if I woke up, I probably wasn’t going to die. A great calm came over me.

That injury had a huge effect on me. I couldn’t work while I recovered, so I couldn’t earn the money to go back to school. This was the time of the draft and I would almost certainly be sent to die in Vietnam. That part turned out OK eventually and I never did get drafted.

The Auto Accident

The next spring I found myself back at school. I would often hitchhike home on weekends to do laundry and other odd activities. Sometimes I would try to get someone to give me a lift out to the highway but on this occasion I just walked down to the corner of the block where my apartment was. I lived on Lincolnway in Ames, which was highway 30. No sooner had I put my thumb out than a Volkswagen beetle pulled over. The driver was in the Air Force and had a 3 day pass. He was trying to get home to Indianapolis from Colorado Springs and back in those 3 days. As we got close to Cedar Rapids, where I lived, his car blew its right front tire. It started to veer left and right as the guy tried to control the wheel. We screeched left and right across the highway and back. Luckily there were no oncoming cars. As the tire got flatter the car got harder to handle and at one point the right front tire got onto the soft shoulder and pulled us into the ditch. When the bumper hit the ground we started to roll and eventually ended up, right-side-up next to the fence.

As we rolled, my head hit the ceiling of the car, then back into the seat as it revolved another 180 degrees. Three times. I didn’t get seriously hurt. As I sat there I noticed that the driver’s door was open and all I could think of was that I was going to have to get out and look at the squashed remains of the unfortunate air cadet. I heard a groan and turned to look in the back seat where the kid was ass-over-tea-kettle. He got a bunch more scratches than I did. Otherwise, he was OK too.

By then, all sorts of cars had pulled over to offer assistance. A guy came up and helped us into his car and took us on into Cedar Rapids. He dropped us at the Highway Patrol office that was just at the west edge of town. I never saw the cadet again. They let me call my folks who came and picked me up. That was pretty much the end of the story.

Except, years later we were at a bar with some friends who had some other friend there too. We were talking about auto accidents by some coincidence. Our friend’s friend said she had seen a car wreck one time and went on to describe our accident exactly. It turns out she was a little girl at the time of the accident and it was her father that gave us the ride into town.

Karen

The worst problem I ever had health-wise was a perforation in my intestine. I am generally a very healthy person and rarely get sick with even a cold as a rule. This was the sickest I had ever been and was the most seriously dangerous thing that ever happened to me.

The day started out with me waking up and feeling a bit out of sorts. I was not in any pain but just did not feel well in a general way. Our microwave had stopped working and we had decided we would go shopping for a new one that day. I really wanted to get this taken care of so even though I was feeling crummy we went to an appliance store. After only a few minutes of walking around, I started feeling worse and asked Butch to take me home. I went to bed and immediately fell asleep. By the time I woke up I felt really terrible and decided to go to an urgent care center to see a doctor since it was after regular office hours.

In the past I had had bladder infections that really made me sick and feverish and I suspected that might be the problem in this case. I had pain, felt hot, and was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. The urgent care center had a lot of patients in the waiting room and the longer I waited the worse I felt. By the time I was called into an examination room I was feeling very bad and had started to vomit. The doctor examined me and rather quickly made his diagnosis. He called Butch into the room with us and told him to take me directly to the hospital and to tell them that he suspected an intestinal perforation and to give me a CAT scan as soon as possible. He told us not to go home first but to go directly there.

Karen in the hospital

When we got to the emergency room, it was a madhouse! I had to wait again. There was a big ruckus with a handcuffed guy and several policemen as well as a full waiting room of sick people. It seemed like it took forever for them to call my name but after that things went pretty quickly. They examined me, heard my story, and got me ready for the CAT scan. I remember them showing us the scan and a small pinhole allowing fluids to escape into my body. They admitted me right away so they could start administering antibiotics to heal the perforation. I ended up hospitalized for almost a full week. I was given antibiotics, pain medication, and fluids intravenously for that whole time. I was not allowed to have anything by mouth for the length of my stay. The doctors made it very clear that the perforation, though small, was very serious and could have led to infection and other bad consequences. Before I left the hospital I met with my family doctor and a surgeon who recommended a bowel resection to remove the section of my intestine that had perforated.

Karen on a hike

The surgery was scheduled for six weeks from then to make sure I was well healed. By this time I felt fine but they assured me it would be best to go ahead. On the surgery day, I was not so worried even though I knew it was the most serious health problem I had ever had. Poor Butch was the one who worried now. Apparently the surgery took much longer than expected and Butch had to wait it out while I was unconscious and didn’t even know. They told me I would have to stay another week in the hospital but I ended up doing very well and going home after only three days.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the “StoryWorth” category to see the rest of the entries.

Posted in Autobiography, Family, StoryWorth | 1 Comment