A buzzing hand and a pervert's eyeglasses

Back in the early 1960s, there was never a shortage of literature in my family’s home -- back about the time LBJ promised the nation was not about to “send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” We had publications of every genre.

The old man preferred the gut-busting tales of saloon-soaked cowboys ending their last cattle drives and the desperadoes who met their fates on the streets of Laredo. The Mom preferred True Romance, whose characters often were lusty lasses making bad choices and wives at crossroads in their marriages, and Reader’s Digest condensed volumes.

My library consisted mainly of Childcraft books, dog-eared back issues of Mad magazine and stacks of comics, ranging from Superman and Batman, to Archie Andrews and his classmates at Riverdale High. Virtually ever issue of any comic book worth its salt in those days reserved the inside back cover with content capable of making any pre-adolescent boy dream big. The page always kicked off with a screaming header like “Look Here Kids!!!!”

Does the image of growing your own “sea monkeys” at home ring a bell? Maybe not. But that slick page offered a world of adventure and promise. But the catch, as it always has been in advertising, is to persuade a reader to ante up with their hard-earned bucks. You could run the table on the universe, at least among your friends, for fun and your personal amusement. I often fantasized what I could do if I possessed a few measly dollars. 

Consider a few of the possibilities I once yearned for:

Joy Buzzer. This nifty little device fit in the palm of your hand attached to a fake ring on your hand. Wind it up and shake hands with another and get a laugh from giving the victim a “shocking sensation.” In truth, there was no electrical jolt; just a slight, noisy vibration. Cost: 50 cents.

A horseshoe for Danny Webber

Last week was just like any other here in Indianapolis. The predictable homicide victims, usually by gunfire. Firefighters risking their lives put out flames on abandoned homes torched by cheap-jack gangbangers or meth-heads. Undocumented Asian massage parlor gals busted while their “managers” and patrons escaped arrest. Tech geeks hanging out to get wrist bands to purchase the latest iPhone model and discovering its new mapping system might locate their home address somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. 

The screed of political candidates waging their war of truth against their opponents. And the endless road work around town and Interstates 465, 65, 70, 74 and 69 – numerals which truly explain why our city is dubbed the “Crossroads of America.”

But near the end of the week a story appeared in the Indianapolis Star, written by sports writer Phil Wilson who covers the hoof-beats of our beloved Colts. It was a simple feature/sidebar he wrote about this fellow from Knightstown, Indiana, who has been tam fan long before the late Bob Irsay high-jacked Mayflower trucks under the cover of darkness to bring the team to our city. It would take years and a few guys named Peyton, Dungy, Pollian and Jimmy to turn things around. But those are wonderful anecdotes.

Let’s talk about Danny Webber of Knightstown. In the old days, he had attended games in the former Hoosier-then-RCA Dome, a massive structure whose top resembled a festering blister on our city’s mid-skyline. In fact, Danny’s support goes back to the Baltimore Days when QB Johnny Unitas was making his bones for the horse.

Danny has been battling cancer for a number of years and has won a few of the battles. But now he’s the underdog and freely admits that the war is all but lost.Among his final desires was to witness his first and perhaps final game in the relatively new and stately Lucas Oil Stadium.

Barn-burning birds, Dillinger and a man with ink in his blood

Media of all types is rife with images and stories of folks who like to live life on the proverbial edge. The extreme sport enthusiasts who thrust themselves from cliffs and pop their chutes moments before they touch down. Snowboarders and skateboard freaks who defy physics and all sanity with their stunts. Rednecks and dipsticks of every ilk who attempt the most incredibly stupid and dangerous stuff and YouTube for the entire world to see.

Let me tell you about another who pushed the edge. My maternal grandfather, Norman Alister 

Henry. Not long after the turn of the 20^th century, moved from St. Louis to Crittenden County, Kentucky, with the great expectation he would join the family business, the lucrative Henry and Henry Monuments. At that time the business was – and apparently continues to be – a lucrative enterprise, literally having the final word about their clients.

But names and dates carved into grave markers and monuments didn’t have much appeal to Norman. He wanted a format where words could expand into full sentences, paragraphs and stories. He further desired to learn a trade to set type by hand (a long lost art) and to combine those stories with half-truths, rumors and salacious innuendoes. All the same things that pretty well make up with what we get today from the news media.

So he went into newspapering.  And he did quite well earning stature and influence in the community and turning a profit, as did one of my favorite uncles, Buddy Walker, would do years later in central Indiana.

In his off time, he had a playful if not offbeat nature. The story goes that one occasion he and some of his friends thought it would be interesting to see how captured birds would fare in flight carrying small, fuse-lit dynamite sticks tied to them. Most would discard the cargo after takeoff and go on their way. However, there was one occasion when one sortie flew into a nearby barn, dropped the stick and soared off moments before the blast. The barn exploded and burned to the ground. And according to the story in Norman’s newspaper, police had no clues to the arsonist’s identity.

The greed and goodness of a girl

Never underestimate the depth of greed and full understanding of a person’s capacity to take advantage of a situation of their fellow human being when given the opportunity. Ethnicity, socio-economic standing, political sway, religious faith and age have nothing to do with it. It’s not wired into our unique genetic blueprints necessarily, but it is a common characteristic we all possess.

In October 1964 such a person came into my family. Nearly eight years after me and my equally quirky older brother came ranting into the world, we suddenly had a new sibling. It was a she – a nearly perfect biological and well-behaved specimen whose presence never spooked our parents with episodes of dangerous sleepwalking, accidentally busting out windows with baseballs; losing baby alligators purchased from F.W. Woolworth’s to roam the house; faking drowning at the neighborhood pool; and heartlessly turning anthills into smoldering ruins from the laser-like beams from magnifying glasses reflecting a blazing hot, Hoosier summer sun.

Her trademark was an ever-present smile or grin. In sunshine and in shadow.

May these two great forces be with us

A very dear and long-time friend of mine – a person who probably knows me better than I know myself in so many ways – called me on the phone nearly two years ago to tell me she had passed an important milestone in her life. She revealed that she had woken up that morning and, surprisingly, had miraculously shed an anger and disgust over another person who had rattled her bones and soul over the hurting of another close to her.

I woke up and felt this amazing peace and sense of forgiveness. Don’t know why and can’t exactly explain it all, but I suspect it was God’s way of just saying’ let it go’!  she said with a bit of giddiness and relief in her voice. So I have, and that’s the end of it. I just wanted to share that with you and I feel good about it!

I can misquote and misinterpret Hebrew and Greek scriptures with the best of them, but this proclamation came as close to any I ever have heard in explaining the tenets of Judeo- Christian beliefs. This declaration truly was an old and new testament of what it means to move faith forward.

Solid science teaches us there are fundamental forces guiding the universe: There are always strong and weak electromagnetic and atomic forces constantly at work which can create, alter or destroy life. Gravity always wins. And the vast expanse of time and universes, seen and unseen are far beyond our observation and our comprehension.

There are two less-scientific but more powerful forces at work which are far more difficult to grasp, at least for me. Love and forgiveness. The one I follow boiled the first one down to its purest form: Love the one who made you with all your heart and soul and mind. And by the way – love everyone else as you should love yourself.  There you go folks – Cliff Notes for understanding the literature of the Author of us all.

The shutter that still bugs me

I have been blessed throughout my many careers to have worked for a variety of bosses. Been under the tutelage of many good coaches as editors, advisors, fellow journalists and writers. More important, good leaders and cheerleaders, who have patiently suffered my myriad idiosyncrasies and encouraged me greatly. And who have taken a chance on me with the expectation that I had something to contribute.  

There  was this editor who took a chance on me long ago when I was hired a reporter the Mount Vernon Democrat, a small, aggressive daily due east of Evansville by about some 16 miles or so. He was looking for some eager would-be wordsmith willing to work for wages comparable to a salt mine worker and long, weird hours that would stagger a team of “manifest destiny” oxen. 

So, I joined a cadre of three other full-time general news reporters;  a “Family Living” editor; an intellectual well-read chap who headed up the newspaper’s Toy Department (sports); and a free-lance cartoonist.  I was thrown in head first to cover the city council, police beat and courts (we were a small river town with more violent crime than you might expect), the occasional murder, county council and commissioners, the Alcohol Beverage Commission hearings (we actually had an active Women’s Christian Temperance Union attending and opposing every liquor license application), zoning and school boards, business and so forth.

We also had community “stringers” whose homespund screed covered everything from funeral dinners, family homecomings, neighbors recovering after having gall bladders yanked, recipes and golden anniversaries. They worked for free and were rewarded by having their byline in boldface. One of the first hard lessons I learned is that you don’t edit little, old ladies’ copy; that adherence to the Associated Press Stylebook means nothing to feisty, blue-haired contributing columnists who considered their gossip sheets right up there with the Holy Scriptures and the Declaration of Independence,

Such was community journalism – sadly and sorely missed in much of today’s increasingly diminished newsprint and content. But alas, in this modern era we get our news from blogs, Twitter and and other nifty whirly-gigs zooming out there in that vast universe called cyberspace.

Even though we had a full-time part time photographer, we were expected to do our own shooting. We were expected to carry our carry our cameras on every assignment. Just in case “Photo Boy” was unavailable. More often than not, we souped our own film back at the newsroom and got it ready for half-tone reproduction. The sour smell of Dektol in the cramped darkroom. Negative strips hanging from a wire like tobacco in a barn.  “Dodging” and “burning” images as they were projected onto photo paper. 

One afternoon in our tobacco-stained newsroom, the police scanner seemed to go haywire. A story in the making loomed up Ind. 69, a rolling stretch of roadway connecting Mount Vernon with historic New Harmony – site of one of America’s first experiments in search of Utopia. The squawking on the scanner intensified. An ugly multiple vehicle accident needing ambulances, more cops, fire/rescue crews. And by the way, somebody better go over to the high school and let the social studies teacher/county coroner know about it. 

I immediately followed the red-light caravan to the scene with my trusty 35 millimeter in tow. In fact, I got there before many of the responders. I loaded my Cannon and prepared to shoot the scene. I fired off many frames until I got to one of the vehicles involved in the wreck. 

I was front and center of the sedan and saw the driver, a middle-aged woman mashed face-first against the windshield. Blood streaming from her brow to the dashboard. Alive, alert, and thank God, not seriously hurt. As I raised the camera we locked eyes for only a second or two. Her look clearly pleaded:  Please don’t!

But my right index finger wasn’t listening.

Click!

The perfect moment. The perfect shot.

Then I quickly went about interviewing the cops and others at the scene, jotting that scrawl of information into my nifty reporter’s notebook. Then I hurled my beat-up jalopy back to the newsroom to deliver my film and file the story.

I briefed my editor on the basics and immediately began to write the story. Gritty yet accurate details all. Our part-time shooter pitched in by processing the Tri-X film.

The verdict was swift. My perfect shot was blurry. Not artsy “soft focus.” The image was as distorted as an interpretation of the Affordable Care Act. Obviously not Pulitzer images on that black-and-white strip. So, a less-dramatic pic was chosen.

To this day, I harbor some slight regret about squeezing off that single frame. Not because it didn’t make it into the newspaper. Not because it was poorly executed and that its quality sucked more than a Rod McKuen anthology. Rather -- because I refused an honest plea from a victim and a small, still voice to balance my personal and professional instincts.

Had I been a better photographer, I suspect my regrets would have been even deeper. Today, thank God, I have a cell phone to take and edit my photos.

The Tennessean: A place for democracy in dining

I hate hearing, much less using, that cliché “back in the day,” but I had one of those thoughts the other evening while needlessly burning $4 dollar-a-gallon fossil fuel in a long drive-though line at one of the mega fast-food chains near my home on Indianapolis’ south side. I anticipated a neatly arranged, sculpted and reasonably warm burger clone, the exact kind you can find anywhere between Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Outer Mongolia. Those guys have it down to a sad, predictable science.

I found myself drifting back to Central High School, circa 1970, in downtown Evansville, Indiana. Opened in 1854, it was and remains to this day to be the oldest continuously operating high school in the nation west of the Allegheny Mountains. I was in the last freshmen class as the school would move to a new location on the city’s north side. The school and its gym across the street were stately and reasonably maintained, but the classrooms smelled like a nursing home that has avoided inspection for years.

Then there was the cafeteria, which some dubbed the “Choke and Puke.”  It wasn’t that the food was that terribly bad – your standard, limited and bland menu – it was the setting which drove many of us to pocket our lunch money or use it to buy cigarettes. It wasn’t uncommon to have a piece of ceiling plaster plop into your plate or see something dark oozing up from between the cracks in the floor tiles.

But there were a few options available to a kid willing to sneak off campus to grab a bite. Many of us chose the Tennessean, located a few blocks away from Central. It was a squat, small facility, and frequented by an eclectic clientele.  Where else could a zit-faced “greenie” freshman sit at a counter stool with the likes of cops, clergy, rheumy-eyed winos, working stiffs, well-groomed businessmen, GIs, perfumed bouffant lady shoppers, and occasionally the mayor? If you eavesdropped, you’d hear off-color jokes, pointless and sometimes pitiful stories, rumors and outright lies. The Tennessean was a true democracy in dining.

An ugly dog day afternoon

We all have our quirks, don’t we? They may not always surface and make witnesses gasp yet they exist. And sometimes they rarely manifest; spontaneous occurrences which might cause a physical reaction to something observed in others. Before I reveal what brings me to my knees let me give you some background.

I am a veteran Army military police officer. While most of my work involved highly detailed “intelligence security guard” work, it occasionally drifted into responding to physical violence at its guttural level. Separating drunken GIs, while taking an occasional swing with a fist or nightstick. Perhaps dragging a combative, busted John Wayne who somehow managed to fall “up” a half-flight of stairs on his way to booking. Only drew my “trust rusty” 1920 .45 automatic once that I can recall, but fortunately did not have to fire it.

Later on, I became a daily newspaper reporter. In the small river-town I worked in, there were infrequent violent assaults, gruesome highway accidents and fatalities and the occasional murder, farm death or drowning to be on the scene to cover. A few suicides involving ropes or a shotgun. In fact, I was asked to help out on a few occasions – freelance mind you – to assist with autopsy photography with the local sheriff’s department.  

Several years later, I was in northern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait City to cover the aftermath of Desert Storm. I won’t share what few scenes I happened upon.

Love's labor never lost

Come daybreak, they rustled out of their bed. And it didn’t matter whether rain, sun, moaning wind or dumpy snowfall was outside. The morning coffee started brewing; the man hopped into the bathtub to loudly hum stentorian Ernest Tubb tunes and the woman would make his mush or fried eggs.

The newspaper always would thump against the door and they digest the “morning assignment” and musings of columnist Joe Aaron; snicker at the latest goofy government decisions; or to grumble about the rare act of violence or theft under investigation by the city police department.

A few minutes before he fired up the family car, the Dad would give a gold-toothed smile to his three kids and remind them to be good and learn a little something at school. The Mom would remind him to pick up his lunch pail of bologna-and-cheese sandwiches and snacks as he headed for the door. Then he kissed his wife goodbye for the next several hours.

Then it was on to the kids’ turn to kick in the jambs as they roused from their sleep. Eat the cereal – Oh geez not this oatmeal stuff again! – and get ready because that damned yellow bus didn’t wait for anyone who wasn’t standing in line in at the stop. If you missed the ride, you took Shank’s Mare.

A few years would pass into the mid-1960s and the family needs grew. The nurturing wife convinced a begrudging husband how to improve the family income. The need. More housewives were entering the workforce to improve their lot. So why not help them out with the best possible care, unconditional acceptance, and offer an affordable rate? In the end, it wasn’t entirely about economic gain; rather, a chance to provide stability in a growing world of two-income households and fractured marriages.